On Monday, The Washington Post’smedia reporter Paul Farhi contacted me to say that he had spoken with numerous editors and journalists at The Intercept, who voiced to him a wide range of personal and professional accusations about me. This was all in response to criticisms I had expressed about two recent Intercept stories. On Friday morning, The Postpublished Farhi's article about their attacks on me.
Among other things, that Post article features The Intercept's ongoing attempt to depict me as mentally unwell in order to delegitmize my criticisms of their shabby journalism. It quotes the site's editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed, as saying I have “lost [my] moral compass and grip on reality,” echoing The Intercept’s prior claim that mounting anger at their organization is being fueled not by widespread revulsion over their increasingly unethical and politicized journalism but rather by my “unbalanced tweets.” The Post also quotes Reed as claiming that I have “done a good job of torching [my] journalistic reputation": liberal journalists, who only speak to and for one another, always believe that the primary if not sole metric of journalistic credibility is how popular one is among other liberal journalists. "He's a huge bully,” she added.
Depicting critics of liberal orthodoxies as mentally ill, a rage-driven bully, and a shadow of their former selves is a long-time tactic of guardians of establishment liberalism to expel dissidents from their in-group circles. A lengthy 2003 New Yorker smear job on Noam Chomsky headlined "The Devil's Accountant” — at the time when he was a rare and vocal critic of post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy — described how Chomsky was once a credible voice but, sadly, has now "become increasingly alienated from the mainstream” because he "has no ideas to offer.” Chomsky's "thinking has grown simplistic and rigid,” the author wrote. She quoted Christopher Hitchens as saying that while he once admired Chomsky's stable ideology and noble commitment to principle, he is now going basically insane, describing his views of the war in Afghanistan as "the gleam of utter lunacy piercing through.”
The article also claimed that while Chomsky's criticisms of Israel has alienated his liberal following, it has caused him to become popular in far-right anti-Semitic circles. That article also described Chomsky as an angry bully, prone to outbursts of rage against female colleagues to the point of making them cry, being humorless, and in general just plagued by mental pathologies which accounts for his unwillingness to accept liberal pieties. Sound familiar?
In 2018, I compiled many of those personality-driven and mental health smears that had been weaponized back then against Chomsky because, at the time, other liberal outlets — such as The New Yorker and New York Magazine— were already using the same mental health and personality-based themes to expel me from the precincts of liberal decency due to my rejection of their Russiagate conspiracy theories, which had turned into a virtual religion, including at The Intercept. Both of those long profiles were devoted to a central theme: I refused to accept what everyone who is sane and mentally healthy could see — that Trump had colluded with Russia and Putin exercised some sort of clandestine control over Trump — because I had rage-based trauma from childhood that I never resolved.
In 2012 and in the years after I frequently described how the same mental health themes were weaponized by liberal establishmentarians against Julian Assange: an incessant focus on the WikiLeaks founder's personality and alleged mental health pathologies to discredit his pioneering work. I've often noted that the reason the Nixon administration ordered a break-in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychoanalyst as a response to his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers was because depicting someone as psychologically unwell is the preferred method of power centers to distract attention away from valid critiques and expelling dissidents from their salons. The script which The Intercept and their liberal allies are using against me is an old, stale, and trite one.
All of this, quite obviously, is an attempt to distract attention away from The Intercept’s serious journalistic sins. It is also designed to personalize the anger which their behavior validly provoked onto me, to conceal the fact that numerous journalists across the political spectrum — not just me — reacted with disgust at what they did and what they are still doing.
One of the Intercept stories to which I (and many others) objected involved a fund-raising email sent by The Intercept to the public on May 4, in which they proudly boasted that they had obtained the full archive of private data on all users of the social media platform Gab. The Intercept vowed that they would use the data archive to target ordinary citizens, including Q Anon conspiracy theorists and those who believe that the election was defrauded. Based on that promise, the email solicited donations from the public (why an outlet lavishly funded by the world's 73rd richest billionaire and which provides their largely unread writers and editors enormous, above-market salaries has to beg for donations from the public in the middle of a pandemic and joblessness crisis is, as I understand it, the subject of an imminent investigative exposé on their finances). Because I am not on their email list, I became aware of that Gab email only when a former senior Intercept editor forwarded it to me, furious that The Intercept was now doing the work of the NSA and FBI by infringing privacy rights rather than protecting them: a core mission of the organization's founding.
This is repulsive. The Intercept was founded during the Snowden story to defend privacy rights & oppose the security state. Now, the liberal DNC hacks who "edit" it are boasting they got personal data from Gab users & are sorting through it, doing FBI's work to find "extremists." pic.twitter.com/GHpJRosvod
The other Intercept story I criticized was an expensive, highly produced 20-minute video, narrated by former New York Times live-blogging reporter Robert Mackey, designed to vilify numerous journalists with small right-leaning news outlets who do the work that The Intercept would never get near: namely, they report on what actually happens at Antifa protests. Why would a news outlet that has a $15 million/year budget, which works from a $3 million/year penthouse office on the 18th floor of a Park Avenue tower offering panoramic views of Manhattan, and which pays their senior employees annual salaries between $350,000 and $450,000, devote their vast resources to villainizing obscure, poorly paid video journalists who — unlike most Intercept reporters — do actually dangerous, on-the-ground reporting? Who is the "bully” in this situation?
The primary grievance which The Intercept is voicing in response to my criticisms of their work is the same one which liberal outlets now constantly try to weaponize in order to place themselves off-limits from criticism: namely, that by criticizing Intercept writers, I have “endangered” them — a dangerous and shabby standard which, like their liberal media brethren, they obviously do not apply to themselves. Why can The Intercept use a billionaire’s money to expose ordinary people’s Gab activities and produce a video smearing multiple journalists such as Townhall’s Julio Rosas and The Daily Caller's Jorge Ventura, but I and others cannot criticize them? Numerous other journalists and commentators, including Matt Taibbi and Jimmy Dore along with Fox News and the other news outlets whose journalists were smeared by The Intercept, along with the targeted journalists themselves, voiced the same criticisms I did.
Despite the widespread criticism The Intercept has been receiving, I was contacted on Wednesday by The Daily Beast’s media reporter Lloyd Grove, who asked me to respond to a long list of accusations, smears and other attacks furnished to him by various Intercept reporters and editors — in order, again, to pretend that I was their only critic, driven by mental problems. These accusations conveyed by Grove were similar to the ones they fed to The Post. Now that The Post article is published, and knowing that one’s own views are never fully represented in articles written by other journalists, I’m posting below the full written exchange I had with Grove: his questions based on TheIntercept’s accusations, followed by my answers.
I do so not only to ensure that the full context of my answers are known, but also because this double standard which liberal outlets like The Intercept are trying to impose — they can attack, expose, smear or vilify anyone they want, but you can never criticize them without being accused of “endangering” their journalists — is an unsustainable and unethical double standard that is now pervasive in liberal journalism culture:
At some point, journalists are going to need consistent, universally applicable standards that answer this:
Why is it OK to use a billionaire's money to produce a video attacking reporters @Julio_Rosas11 & @VenturaReport, but it's immoral to criticize NYT & Intercept writers?
As I told Grove, much of what is motivating The Intercept's rage is their institutional failures. They lost an enormous chunk of their membership base when I resigned last October, which they have not come close to replacing. They have repeatedly sent out emails pleading for donations on the ground that their fund-raising efforts are falling woefully short. And despite their enormous budget and exorbitant salaries, virtually nobody reads that site outside of a couple of writers:
The Intercept’s audience size is humiliatingly small. I’ll bet any amount of money that the Intercept spends more dollars per reader than any media outlet in the west. Outside of my articles and those of a couple others, their traffic is and always has been vanishingly small. They think they do such great journalism but nobody reads it, because it’s nothing more than the same partisan tripe one finds at the New York Times, Vox, MSNBC or any other liberal/DNC-loyal /AOC-loving outlet. . . .
The Intercept Brasil, which I founded in 2016, has 1/9 the budget that the Intercept US does and ⅛ the size of its staff, yet for many months, the Intercept Brasil produces more in raw traffic numbers than the entire Intercept US in raw numbers. That’s how few people read their work. It’s embarrassing.
Just to provide one illustrative example, the extremely expensive video they produced that attacked and endangered two working-class journalists of color who do the dangerous work of covering Antifa protests was one of their most-discussed pieces of journalism of the year, mostly due to how many people found it repellent. And yet even with that, the YouTube video — which has as many people who disliked it as liked it — did not even attract 10,000 views. Most unpaid random YouTubers have a larger audience than that:
In sum, The Intercept is an outlet that is as lavishly funded as it is widely ignored. But their journalistic breaches still matter because of how much billionaire funding they receive and, more so, because the tactics they are using to render it inherently illegitimate to criticize them — lest you be accused of “endangering” them — have become commonplace among other liberal outlets. That is the tactic that merits the most attention.
Questions from The Daily Beast’s media reporter Lloyd Grove and my answers (links and tweets have been added):
People at the Intercept are especially upset about your attacks on Micah Lee, which they say have resulted in doxxing and death threats on him and his wife. Here’s a quote from Micah: “Glenn and I have always disagreed on some things, but at least he used to have consistent principles and respect for basic facts. It’s disappointing and tragic that he’s gone so far off the deep end, from what seemed to be an honest and fearless journalist into a conspiracy-peddling pundit that spends all his time misleading people.”
Precisely because of my long work relationship and friendship with Micah -- which includes my reporting on the NSA archives, the Brazil archive and our work at the Freedom of the Press Foundation -- I would never have criticized him personally or even by name under any circumstances. When I co-founded the Intercept back in 2013, Micah was one of the first if not the first people we hired. That’s why I was so disappointed when he decided to start publicly criticizing me by name. After having chosen to do that to great applause from his liberal following, he -- like the Intercept generally -- wants to play the victim and whine about how he’s being persecuted for something that he himself did.
Why did you target Micah, who by most accounts has been essential in your journalistic success, especially your reporting on Snowden and Brazil corruption?
See the answer above. I will also add that my original criticisms about the Intercept’s abuse of the Gab archive to target private citizens was based on the Intercept’s own description of how they intended to use the archive, set forth in a fund-raising email they sent to their entire email list. Because I’m not on their email list, I did not see that email until a former highly respected Intercept editor forwarded it to me, indignant that the Intercept was doing the work of the NSA/FBI and infringing rather than protecting the digital privacy rights of ordinary people: one of our original missions.
Since the Intercept is *still* whining about how journalists objected to their abuse of a huge archive of private data on Gab users they got -- claiming we (and me) "lied" -- here's their own description, when begging for donations, of their intentions to target private people: pic.twitter.com/k7O7BZgZ13
I adopt in full Matt Taibbi’s critique of their work on this Gab archive -- which you should read. Taibbi’s article includes statements from at least one, perhaps two, former senior Intercept journalists harshly criticizing their work.
The Intercept keeps trying to personalize these criticisms, pretending that I’m the only one voicing them so they can blame me for whatever repercussions come from it and delegitimize the criticisms as just my embittered feud with them. They’re lying. Many, many journalists and others across the political spectrum have voiced these same criticisms of the Intercept, including people -- like Taibbi and Jimmy Dore -- with platforms and audiences far larger than what the Intercept has.
When I first criticized the work the Intercept said in their fund-raising email that they wanted to do on the Gab archive -- namely that they would use it to go after Q Anon conspiracy believers and those who believe the 2020 election was stolen -- several people at the Intercept tried to tell me privately that that email did not accurately reflect their intentions. I did not believe that: I know from experience that those fundraising emails originate in the newsroom and then pass through the hands of multiple editors, including its Editor in Chief Betsy Reed, before going out. But if that’s true -- if that fundraising email inaccurately portrayed their intended uses of that Gab archive as they tried privately to convince me -- why have they never said that publicly?
People say you must have known that it would prompt some of your social media fans to threaten him and make his family’s life difficult, including having to change phone numbers and hire security.
This reveals the abject hypocrisy of the Intercept. They produced a 20-minute video targeting two journalists who -- unlike virtually everyone at the Intercept -- do dangerous on-the-ground reporting. But then they turn around and claim that you cannot criticize Intercept journalists because doing so subjects them to harassment campaigns.
This is the question the Intercept (along with so many similar liberal media outlets) can never answer: why is it morally fine for the Intercept to use a billionaire’s money to produce a video targeting and attacking two journalists -- Julio Rosas and Jorge Ventura -- but it’s immoral and reckless to criticize Intercept writers such as Micah Lee and Robert Mackey? Why can the New York Times out Scott Alexander, but then turn around and insist that nobody can criticize their front-page reporter Taylor Lorenz because doing so subjects her to dangers?
Liberal outlets like the Intercept are trying to create a blatant double standard where they can smear anyone’s reputation they want and attack anyone they want, while demanding a shield of immunity from criticism by threatening to accuse anyone who criticizes them of “endangering” them.
I get harassment and threats every time the Intercept and its staff lies about me -- which is frequent -- but I don’t go around whining about it because I’m someone who sought out a public platform and who does journalism, so I know I’m fair game for criticisms. The Intercept should grow up, stop whining, and apply the same standards to themselves that they apply to others.
This liberal effort to delegitimize criticisms by pointing to what random people do in response is so dishonest and dangerous. If someone threatened one of their reporters, how do they know it’s someone inspired by me instead of countless other critics they have such as Taibbi, Dore, Fox New or Aaron Mate?
Moreover, why aren’t these standards applied equally: if Rosas or Ventura are physically assaulted the next time they go to report on an Antifa protest, will The Intercept be to blame? The Intercept recklessly implied that Daily Caller reporter Ritchie McGinnis filmed the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting but criminally erased the video and lied about it to the U.S. Government -- a disgusting lie based on nothing more than the “speculation” of a random Twitter user with 70 followers.
@RobertMackey states that there was "speculation" online that I was recording at the time of the shooting and was withholding evidence of a nationally prominent homicide
The "speculation" that he links to is an absurd theory floated by a self-described satirist with 75 followers pic.twitter.com/6igU1UmL0g
— Richie????McG???? (@RichieMcGinniss) May 13, 2021
If McGinnis is threatened or physically assaulted, will this be the fault of The Intercept for inciting hatred against him? The deranged individual who tried to murder Rep. Steve Scalise was an avid fan of Bernie Sanders and Rachel Maddow, from whom he constantly heard that Republican are traitors and criminals (claims he repeated often on his Facebook page). Are Sanders and Maddow responsible for the bullets that almost killed Rep. Scalise because of their very harsh attacks on House Republicans?
The standard liberal outlets like The Intercept want to impose -- you can’t criticize journalists because you might endanger us -- is itself dangerous, because it renders all criticisms off-limits. But what makes it so much worse is that they do not subject themselves to their own standards: as their attacks on me to you show -- and as their video attacking those reporters shows -- they feel perfectly free to criticize whoever they want without any regard for the consequences of those criticisms.
Some of your former colleagues believe that you have traveled increasingly rightward , perhaps motivated in part by your dislike of the liberal establishment, and that their hatred for Trump has prompted you to defend him and, according to some of your ex-colleagues and ex-friends, embrace something akin to fascism. Your response?
Unlike the Intercept, I don’t think of myself as a soldier fighting for an ideological faction or political party -- instead, I’m an independent journalist -- so this label debate is irrelevant. But to the extent they want to have it, it’s The Intercept that has moved to the authoritarian right. They still have some good reporters whose work I respect, but they are largely a dumping ground for CIA and FBI talking points. They led the way publishing the CIA’s pre-election lies that the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.” They brought on two former New York Times reporters -- Mackey and Jim Risen -- who ratified every last CIA/FBI claim about Russiagate and Trump. Anyone who launders CIA lies and does the work of the FBI -- such as helping the FBI find “domestic extremists” by trolling through their personal data -- has no business accusing others of having “moved to the right.”
Several people there, including Peter Maass and Roger Hodge, tell me you’re attacking them, including ad hominem attacks on Hodge and Betsy Reed, in order to draw attention to your Substack project and gain subscribers. Here’s a quote from Hodge: “He needs subscribers and he’s giving people what they want, which is hatred and rage. He’s tapped into the rage machine. He understands that there’s no engagement like rage engagement—in the same way that Facebook understands this.” Your response?
This criticism is literally laughable. Unlike essentially everyone at The Intercept with maybe one or two exceptions -- certainly excluding Roger Hodge and Peter Maas -- I’ve always had a large and loyal readership that follows my work wherever it’s published. I don’t need to incite anger to attract subscriptions; in fact, I have so many paid subscribers that I’ve basically been able to hire a full-scale media outlet including editors, fact-checkers, a video team and now a freelance program that pays writers more than the stingy billionaire-funded Intercept freelance program provides. I did not even write about my criticisms of the Intercept on my Substack because I presumed that my readers don’t care enough about them to even want to read about them.
The Intercept’s audience size is humiliatingly small. I’ll bet any amount of money that the Intercept spends more dollars per reader than any media outlet in the west. Outside of my articles and those of a couple others, their traffic is and always has been vanishingly small. They think they do such great journalism but nobody reads it, because it’s nothing more than the same partisan tripe one finds at the New York Times, Vox, MSNBC or any other liberal/DNC-loyal /AOC-loving outlet. Journalism that nobody reads cannot create any societal impact or political change, which in turn means that, by definition, it cannot be good journalism. It’s not art or poetry: the value of journalism is a direct function of how much impact it produces, which in turn requires finding ways to make the public care about what you are writing. The Intercept does not know how to attract readers and -- because they have infinite funding from a billionaire -- they do not even try. I do know how to do that. Contrary to their belief, having a large audience and having your journalism actually make an impact is a testament to one’s impact as a journalist, not a source of shame.
The Intercept Brasil, which I founded in 2016, has 1/9 the budget that the Intercept US does and ⅛ the size of its staff, yet for many months, the Intercept Brasil produces more in raw traffic numbers than the entire Intercept US in raw numbers. That’s how few people read their work. It’s embarrassing.
The idea that I or anyone would try to generate subscriptions by criticizing The Intercept -- an outlet very few people read or care about -- is genuinely hilarious: as if the public is craving some kind of content about the charismatic and fascinating giants of journalism called Betsy Reed and Roger Hodge.
Nothing I’m doing now is different than what I did for seven years at The Intercept: not in tone, content or style. How come none of these people had the courage to voice these criticisms when I was there?
I’m told that when several of your colleagues objected to your frequent appearances on Fox News, Betsy defended them as your 1st Amendment right?
I wasn’t privy to those conversations because other than in the context of a private friendship with Jeremy Scahill -- who is not really involved in the Intercept’s management -- nobody at the Intercept ever voiced those objections about going on Fox to me. In response to anonymous sniping to other media outlets, I did make explicitly clear to Betsy at least once and probably more than once that I would speak to whatever media outlets I wanted and would never be told where I could and could not be interviewed. She never said I couldn’t. I don’t doubt that Betsy defended my right to go on Fox when others complained, but I just don’t know for a fact that she did so.
How is the Intercept doxxing the two “working class” Hispanic videographers, dragging them unwillingly into the spotlight, when they place themselves in public-facing roles, including in at least one case going on Laura Ingraham’s show?
This is the question for you to ask the Intercept. How am I endangering Micah Lee or Robert Mackey by criticizing them when they are not hiding but boasting about the work they are doing on the Gab archive and on these right-wing reporters? Both Mackey and Micah’s names and faces are on the articles and the Intercept website. Using this standard you just invoked, how is it rational to claim that I endangered them by criticizing their work?
Here again we have this same double standard of liberal media outlets generally: they think it’s fine for them to attack and malign two journalists who actually do dangerous on-the-ground reporting, but nobody is allowed to criticize Intercept writers without being accused of “endangering” them.
I don’t think that Julio Rosas and Jorge Ventura should be off-limits from criticism. But unlike the people the New York Times and The Intercept are constantly claiming are “endangered” because of criticisms -- people like Robert Mackey and Taylor Lorenz -- Rosas and Ventura actually do dangerous reporting on the ground. I do think the Intercept’s well-financed attacks on them and others who do that work endanger them even while I think the Intercept has the right to use its billionaire-provided budget to focus on two relatively obscure video journalists at poorly funded websites.
You criticize your ex colleagues for being disconnected from working class concerns like looting and rioting—because they earn high salaries and live in posh Brooklyn neighborhoods. But didn’t you earn more than $500K a year at the Intercept?
Unlike many of the people who work at the Intercept -- who went to $60,000/year prep schools and who come from some of the richest families on the planet -- I grew up in a working-class neighborhood raised by a single mother who worked hourly-wage jobs as a McDonald’s cashier and a defensive driving instructor. I went to public schools and only could go to college and law school because of a full-time scholarship from the debate team and student loans. That said -- despite the work I do with Brazilian homeless people and the background of my husband’s family -- I don’t pretend that my life is some avatar of working class values. I do, though, think that’s true of Julio and Jorge.
And that’s why I find it so repellent to watch a bunch of coddled, highly paid editors and journalists using a billionaire’s money from their $3 million/year office on the 18th floor of a Park Avenue tower to target actual working class journalists doing dangerous reporting about a violent group (Antifa) with which the Intercept ideologically identifies.
On a recent episode of the Jimmy Dore Show, you claimed that the Huffington Post was doing police work for the FBI, which is pursuing and arresting the Jan. 6 folks for “thought crimes.” Aren’t they being prosecuted for violently breaching the Capitol Building, damaging parts of the building and injuring police officers?
Many protesters from Black Lives Matter and Antifa also used property damage, violence and intimidation to advance their political goals. I personally know journalists who were assaulted or threatened by Antifa while reporting on them. Why isn’t the Huffington Post helping the police catch them? It’s obviously because most Huffington Post editors approve ideologically of those protesters but not those at the January 6 Capitol. I think it’s the work of the FBI and law enforcement agencies to hunt down suspected criminals, not the work of journalists.
It was Jan. 11, 2024 when software giant Microsoft (MSFT) briefly passed Apple (AAPL) as the most valuable company in the world.
Microsoft's stock closed 0.5% higher, giving it a market valuation of $2.859 trillion.
It rose as much as 2% during the session and the company was briefly worth $2.903 trillion. Apple closed 0.3% lower, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.886 trillion.
"It was inevitable that Microsoft would overtake Apple since Microsoft is growing faster and has more to benefit from the generative AI revolution," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said at the time, according to Reuters.
The two tech titans have jostled for top spot over the years and Microsoft was ahead at last check, with a market cap of $3.085 trillion, compared with Apple's value of $2.684 trillion.
Analysts noted that Apple had been dealing with weakening demand, including for the iPhone, the company’s main source of revenue.
Demand in China, a major market, has slumped as the country's economy makes a slow recovery from the pandemic and competition from Huawei.
Sales in China of Apple's iPhone fell by 24% in the first six weeks of 2024 compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Counterpoint, as the company contended with stiff competition from a resurgent Huawei "while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi," said senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.
“Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," he said.
A man scrolling through Netflix on an Apple iPad Pro. Photo by Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images.
Counterpoint said that the first six weeks of 2023 saw abnormally high numbers with significant unit sales being deferred from December 2022 due to production issues.
Apple is planning to open its eighth store in Shanghai – and its 47th across China – on March 21.
The company also plans to expand its research centre in Shanghai to support all of its product lines and open a new lab in southern tech hub Shenzhen later this year, according to the South China Morning Post.
Meanwhile, over in Europe, Apple announced changes to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect last week, Reuters reported on March 12.
Beginning this spring, software developers operating in Europe will be able to distribute apps to EU customers directly from their own websites instead of through the App Store.
"To reflect the DMA’s changes, users in the EU can install apps from alternative app marketplaces in iOS 17.4 and later," Apple said on its website, referring to the software platform that runs iPhones and iPads.
"Users will be able to download an alternative marketplace app from the marketplace developer’s website," the company said.
Apple has also said it will appeal a $2 billion EU antitrust fine for thwarting competition from Spotify (SPOT) and other music streaming rivals via restrictions on the App Store.
The company's shares have suffered amid all this upheaval, but some analysts still see good things in Apple's future.
Bank of America Securities confirmed its positive stance on Apple, maintaining a buy rating with a steady price target of $225, according to Investing.com.
The firm's analysis highlighted Apple's pricing strategy evolution since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, with initial prices set at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model.
BofA said that Apple has consistently launched new iPhone models, including the Pro/Pro Max versions, to target the premium market.
Analyst says Apple selloff 'overdone'
Concurrently, prices for previous models are typically reduced by about $100 with each new release.
This strategy, coupled with installment plans from Apple and carriers, has contributed to the iPhone's installed base reaching a record 1.2 billion in 2023, the firm said.
Apple has effectively shifted its sales mix toward higher-value units despite experiencing slower unit sales, BofA said.
This trend is expected to persist and could help mitigate potential unit sales weaknesses, particularly in China.
BofA also noted Apple's dominance in the high-end market, maintaining a market share of over 90% in the $1,000 and above price band for the past three years.
The firm also cited the anticipation of a multi-year iPhone cycle propelled by next-generation AI technology, robust services growth, and the potential for margin expansion.
On Monday, Evercore ISI analysts said they believed that the sell-off in the iPhone maker’s shares may be “overdone.”
The firm said that investors' growing preference for AI-focused stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) has led to a reallocation of funds away from Apple.
In addition, Evercore said concerns over weakening demand in China, where Apple may be losing market share in the smartphone segment, have affected investor sentiment.
And then ongoing regulatory issues continue to have an impact on investor confidence in the world's second-biggest company.
“We think the sell-off is rather overdone, while we suspect there is strong valuation support at current levels to down 10%, there are three distinct drivers that could unlock upside on the stock from here – a) Cap allocation, b) AI inferencing, and c) Risk-off/defensive shift," the firm said in a research note.
Major typhoid fever surveillance study in sub-Saharan Africa indicates need for the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high…
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Credit: IVI
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
The findings from this 4-year study, the Severe Typhoid in Africa (SETA) program, offers new typhoid fever burden estimates from six countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria, with four countries recording more than 100 cases for every 100,000 person-years of observation, which is considered a high burden. The highest incidence of typhoid was found in DRC with 315 cases per 100,000 people while children between 2-14 years of age were shown to be at highest risk across all 25 study sites.
There are an estimated 12.5 to 16.3 million cases of typhoid every year with 140,000 deaths. However, with generic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and abdominal pain, and the need for blood culture sampling to make a definitive diagnosis, it is difficult for governments to capture the true burden of typhoid in their countries.
“Our goal through SETA was to address these gaps in typhoid disease burden data,” said lead author Dr. Florian Marks, Deputy Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). “Our estimates indicate that introduction of TCV in endemic settings would go to lengths in protecting communities, especially school-aged children, against this potentially deadly—but preventable—disease.”
In addition to disease incidence, this study also showed that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, has led to more reliance beyond the traditional first line of antibiotic treatment. If left untreated, severe cases of the disease can lead to intestinal perforation and even death. This suggests that prevention through vaccination may play a critical role in not only protecting against typhoid fever but reducing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.
There are two TCVs prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In February 2024, IVI and SK bioscience announced that a third TCV, SKYTyphoid™, also achieved WHO PQ, paving the way for public procurement and increasing the global supply.
Alongside the SETA disease burden study, IVI has been working with colleagues in three African countries to show the real-world impact of TCV vaccination. These studies include a cluster-randomized trial in Agogo, Ghana and two effectiveness studies following mass vaccination in Kisantu, DRC and Imerintsiatosika, Madagascar.
Dr. Birkneh Tilahun Tadesse, Associate Director General at IVI and Head of the Real-World Evidence Department, explains, “Through these vaccine effectiveness studies, we aim to show the full public health value of TCV in settings that are directly impacted by a high burden of typhoid fever.” He adds, “Our final objective of course is to eliminate typhoid or to at least reduce the burden to low incidence levels, and that’s what we are attempting in Fiji with an island-wide vaccination campaign.”
As more countries in typhoid endemic countries, namely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, consider TCV in national immunization programs, these data will help inform evidence-based policy decisions around typhoid prevention and control.
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About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.
IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is recently pre-qualified by WHO.
IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, a Country Office in Austria, and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.
Incidence of typhoid fever in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria (the Severe Typhoid in Africa programme): a population-based study
We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.
Maybe it will never matter. Maybe MMT is real. Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.
I have no idea. Only time will tell. But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.
He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."
According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.
The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...
... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.
The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.
And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.
But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).
... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.
We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...
.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:
The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.
Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.
That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.
No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.
Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.
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