Googling margins, revenue and cycling . . .

Many thanks to Mike, Chris and the team at Atelier de Velo for finally fixing my stem. I took the FSA OS99 CSI to them this morning and had it fitted.

Stem partly obscured by Garmin 800 mount.

A quick and relatively easy ride up and around Centennial Park here in Sydney told me it was a job well done. During the setup there were a few dodgy moments with the fork and cap as for some reason there was some sticking of components. I know if I'd been trying to do it myself I'd probably sending an order right now to Cannondale for a new front end.

Google me this? What happens when a market darling falls on hard times? As we know Google is a crowded trade that even I haven't challenged up until now. Look at the volume on the lower chart because it tells you a lot about this market:

Google's net income fell to $3.01 billion, from $3.18 billion in the year-ago quarter, though revenue increased 51 percent to $11.33 billion from $7.51 billion a year ago. A lot of this has to do with the Motorola Mobility business that they paid 12bn for, but leaving that aside I think that the cost-per-click declining 15% is what is most significant. I can't tell whether this is a plan to dominate and crush the opposition or whether it's the opposition themselves that are putting the pressure on Google. Either way it shocked a tech long market that had coalesced around the Google/Apple pair for most of the year.

With about a third of the S&P 500has reported so far, 65% have beaten profit expectations but only 42% have have beaten revenue expectations. This is something I've been warning of for quite a while and in my view shows the active shrinkage of the consumers personal balance sheets as they look to deleverage.

I'm trying to get the term sheet for the mega Italian bond sale yesterday. Italy raised €18bn via 4year inflation-linked bonds that had fixed a minimum coupon of 2.55% for the bond, which will pay a return linked to the index measuring Italian consumer price inflation net of tobacco, with a premium for those who hold the bond to maturity. Now my first question is how much was the zero inflation yield; given these seem to be premium redemption bonds then I assume it's more than the coupon.  It's an interesting bet for the retail investors that bought the line that the ECB was there to backstop them. Anyone out there have a termsheet? . . . I'd take the Italian version.

Ciao!