(San Francisco)

The huge public pushback against Apple’s revelation that it intentionally slowed older iPhone speeds to keep them from crashing is now turning into an ugly, and possibly legal, scandal. The US Department of Justice and the SEC are now launching probes into Apple’s handling of the situation. While the DOJ probe will likely look broadly at behavior, the SEC is looking into whether Apple violated securities laws with regard to its disclosures about software updates.

FINSUM: We have a feeling there is a big fine on the horizon for Apple. The bigger question is whether this hurts their public image and could spark the beginning of the end of the Age of Apple.

(New York)

If you need some more information to understand why the big wirehouses are trying to pull out of the broker protocol, this is it. In 2017, independent broker-dealers snagged 118 wirehouse teams and took almost $28 bn in AUM, up 23% from 2016. The success comes as independents have closed the technology and product gaps with larger rivals, and IPO allotments have become scarce at wirehouses.

FINSUM: Wirehouses are generally growing fearful and are trying to throw up hurdles that keep brokers from breaking away. Hence the pullout from the broker protocol.

(Seattle)

Amazon as a company has been nothing but an unmitigated success. But while the business on the whole has been stellar, there have been missteps, such as the venture into smartphones. But where will Amazon’s next big shot in the arm come from? Bloomberg says it is going to be in healthcare. The company is teaming up with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway to make healthcare more affordable for their employees, and eventually all Americans. Bloomberg summarizes Amazon’s potential to transform healthcare best, saying “Amazon’s e-commerce operation could be used to send medication direct to patient’s homes, saving them trips to a pharmacy. Its cloud-computing division can store patient health-care records so they can be easily accessed by doctors anywhere. And its payments system could be used to automate payments with health-care providers.”

FINSUM: Say what you want from a returns perspective, but from a consumer perspective the US healthcare system is decidedly broken. Hopefully, this sort of initiative will eventually turn it around.

(New York)

Any financial advisor will tell you that most of their clients love muni bonds. The asset class has been very popular for many years among the wealthy because of the bonds’ tax exempt status. Therefore, advisors need to pay attention, as there is a little discussed, but very real ticking time bomb in the asset class. That big time bomb is unfunded pension liabilities. The projections made fifteen years ago may have been plausible, but with a financial crisis and then years of rock bottom rates, many think state and local pensions have reached a point of no return which will lead to major defaults. Barclays’ munis team recently noted “We are increasingly wary of high pension exposure, especially among state and local credits”, continuing that “short-term investment gains won’t be sufficient to plug liability gaps”.

FINSUM: There is bound to be a big wave of defaults in the muni space. This is a big and slow-moving crisis that nobody, especially the federal government, wants to deal with.

(New York)

Well it finally happened yesterday. The big selloff in bonds finally managed to legitimately spook the equity market. Stocks in the US were down big as the yield on ten-years jumped mightily. The ten-year yield is now 2.73%, the highest in three years, which was a significant mental threshold. Investors are worried that with the world economy doing so well, inflation may again rear its head, causing central banks to raise rates quickly. The S&P 500 fell 0.7% on Monday.

FINSUM: Okay here is the big question we have—why would the world economy doing well and higher rates be negative for stocks? If anything, equities are a good inflation hedge.