Diamonds and Dogs

5/12/16

Today's diamond is keeping things growing along with their share price. Monsanto (MON) is jumping 8% on rumors of a possible bid from German company, Bayer AG for $40 billion. Monsanto, known as the company that revolutionized the soy bean to grow almost anywhere thanks to genetic modification, would be an attractive takeover target for Bayer. If the merger comes to fruition, the deal would be the third blockbuster agrichemical and seeds deal in the last six months after DuPont announced a merger with Dow Chemical and Syngenta was taken over by ChemChina. Looks like things are heating up in the ag business and space.

How the mighty have fallen. After a string of blockbuster products one after another, Apple ( AAPL) could do no wrong for years.  But slowing demand and the law of large numbers may have finally caught up to Apple. Today the stock dropped just 2%, but the decline was enough to make a 52 week low and on top of that, Apple lost their market cap title to Google today. In the short term, Apple has faced a string of bad news with rumors of slower demand and slowing production of their iphones ahead of the new iphone7 coming out this fall. On top of that, Apple bull, Carl Ichan told CNBC recently that he sold out of Apple completely after previously boasting the stock would go to $200 a share or higher. Long term, Apple has over $200 billion of cash and plenty of ideas to get sales back on track.