Apple Negativity Starts Early And Takeovers Galore

Apple negativity is picking up steam as we end the quarter and before earnings towards the end of next month.

Just a sampling of the headlines today are as follows:

• Mizuho survey says that the Apple Watch will not move the needle anytime soon.
• Technicians are all over Apple saying that it is going to $105 like a magnet
• Cell phone inventor says that iPhone is "boring"
• "If you can short Apple, do it by all means"

I could go on and on but you get the picture.

Apple just announced that their iBooks, iTunes and Apple Music is now available in China. Folks are not giving the company enough credit given the fact that China is the biggest market for the company's app store and I expect within a few quarters, so will iTunes, iBooks and Apple Music. China is notorious for very lax piracy laws which could prove a slight risk going forward.

Having said that, at current levels, Apple makes more sense long rather than short and the majority of the risk in a long only Apple trade is the possibility of a continued hammering of our markets either because the Fed officials won't shut up or China PMI data tonight come out weaker than expected. I am acting accordingly with my Apple position.

In other news, Sandisk is flying this morning as M&A activity in chip and tech land picks up. I made a couple of moves in Sandisk and others yesterday which I noted in this post yesterday. Hopefully you were able to catch the move with me.

EZ Chip gets a take-over offer of $811 million from Mellanox, a premium of 17% to yesterday's closing price. Pretty hefty premium if you ask me.

In addition, Bloomberg said that Synaptics has rejected a $110/share offer from a Chine company. Why management would reject that high offer is beyond me but that is for another article. More than likely management thinks that the company is worth more given the fact that the shares were trading at $102/share just over 3 months ago. If the offer is legit, management is daft to turn it down, in my opinion.

Finally, I am hearing chatter that Google is looking at a strategic investment in GoPro. Shares of GoPro not reacting much but that's the chatter making the rounds of trading desks.

I am also hearing persistent chatter that Netflix has reached an agreement with Chinese conglomerate, Wanda Group. Chatter is that it's a strategic partnership of sorts. No confirm yet from either companies. Non-actionable in my opinion.

(please note I am long apple shares, long and short apple options, long SNDK puts, long gopro, long google, long and short google options, long netflix shares and calls)