Good afternoon, folks. I'll go ahead and warn you right now we've got another rant for you today. This time our hot button is Sprint Corp (S) - the wireless telecom outfit that inexplicably seems to do whatever it can to dig itself into a deeper hole, while shareholders stand by and let it happen. It's just become stunning at this point. We'll get to that rant and its corresponding eye-opening chart in a moment. We've got something else even more eye-opening to get to first. 10% Have you ever gone back and performed a statistical analysis of your trading? You should. It's usually quite informative, though not always in a comfortable way. It's always helpful, however, to see if something's working the way you thought it would. I do them on occasion. I also do this kinds of analysis for different trading strategies and different sources of trading ideas. Yes, this includes the ideas I get from my subscription to the Elite Opportunity newsletter. In fact, I just recently did a performance-check of the EO's short-term suggestions John and his team have delivered over the past twelve months (since April of last year), and while I wasn't surprised at the number, I was still plenty excited about it. The number? All the trades that the short-term Elite Opportunity portfolio has issued since the beginning of April of 2015 - including all the wins, losses, and draws - have averaged about a 10% gain. For the record, that's 74 trades, with an average win of 10% each. Nine of those 74 are still open positions, so the average result could be higher or lower when they're finally closed out. It's not going to change that much though. Folks, those are the kinds of results most hedge funds only dream of. Sure, while the market as a whole averages a again of just under 10% per year, we're talking about 74 trades within one year, 65 of which were opened and close in less than twelve months. Most of those positions were only on the table for a few weeks, if that. That's some serious efficiency. I'd like to be able to give you a bottom line, total-portfolio-return result, but it doesn't work like that because you may or may not allocate each of your portfolio's positions the way I would. Ask yourself though... what kind of performance would you have achieved in your portfolio if you had just made your typical trade-allocation to those 74 short-term picks? Never even mind the results of the EO's long-term trading ideas. Obviously past performance is no guarantee of future results. On the other hand, these kinds of results aren't unusual for the Elite Opportunity newsletter. Here's how you can tap into the power of the EO newsletter going forward. Or, cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/ Seriously, Sprint? Seriously? You may or may not have seen the news, but if not, I'll catch you up - struggling mobile phone company Sprint needs some cash to stay afloat, and to garner it, the company has essentially sold some of its equipment and property, and is now planning on leasing those facilities and equipment back from the buyers. OK. It's not ideal, but whatever. Sometimes you have to do things you'd rather not have to do in order to get through tough times and back to viability. And, if there was any reason to trust that Sprint would be able to use this cash injection and become viable again, it wouldn't even be worth mentioning. There's absolutely no reason to trust this will be the case though. For too long now, Sprint has been throwing away good money after bad, and this sale-leaseback deal has more to do with refinancing existing debt coming due soon than it has to do with garnering some capital to invest in growth. The deal's details: Sprint is essentially selling $3.0 billion (book value) worth of cell phone towers to a newly-created entity called Network LeaseCo for the sum of $2.2 billion. It will then rent those cell towers at an interest rate reportedly in the single-digits ("When closed, the transaction will immediately improve the company's liquidity position at an attractive cost of capital in the mid-single digits.") until it has repaid the $2.2 billion by early 2018. An $800 million difference between the book value and the proceeds? Hmmmm. Okaaayyyy. But, the real eye-roller is the "attractive cost of capital," as if interest rates aren't rock-bottom right now. 30-year mortgage loans now sport a rate of 3.7%. 30-year treasury bonds are paying 2.6%. Meanwhile, two-year CDs are paying 1.51%, while two-year government paper is paying 0.7%. Of course any reasonable interest cost is going to be in the mid single digits. That's not impressive, and Sprint shouldn't be patting itself on the back for it. Be that as it may, the part of this news that should really frustrate current and would-be S owners is the distinct likelihood that this cash won't do anything to stop the bleeding. It'll just add to the mountain of liabilities, only displacing some of the $2.0 billion in debt Sprint's got coming due in December. After that, about $2.5 billion more comes due every year for the next few years. The chart of tepid revenue and income side-by-side with its losses and and rising interest expenses paints the picture CEO Marcelo Claure just doesn't want to look at. (Click on the image for the full-sized look.) OK, revenue is projected to be slightly better (and I have my doubts about that), but even with modestly improving revenue, neither net profits nor positive free cash flow are projected anytime soon. Interest expenses are also expected to keep rising. Sprint simply can't afford its debt, now or in the future. More cash now and more debt later doesn't solve anything. What's interesting about this is the fact that Claure has been at the helm since August of 2014. Much of that time he's vowed to cut expenses. It hasn't happened yet. Debt hasn't been whittled down one iota either. Losses have become the norm. Yet, nobody seems to care. My take? The company can move things around on the income statement all they want. It won't matter. Until Sprint starts selling more services to more customers and turning more of that revenue into a profit, deals like today's deal just buys time until an ugly end. In fact, today's deal chipped away at some of the company's value, and didn't do one actual thing to make the company's service any more profitable. It's a good thing Softbank is on the hook for most of this fiscal nonsense. OK, let's at least talk a little bit about the market before we close things out for the day. Well, That's a Problem We're only going to look at one chart today - the daily chart - and we're going to zoom in real close to get a good look at it. That's all we need to do to make the point. And that point is, with today's 1.2% tumble, the S&P 500 has now closed back under its 20-day moving average line at 2045. That's the lowest close in a week and a half. We also made the lowest low we've seen in a week and a half. I almost wouldn't care, but the VIX seems to be carving its way higher now as well. There's still a massive amount of support forming all around 2000, where a few of the biggest and most important technical lines are about to converge. In some ways this lull may be a good thing in that it lets an overheated rally cool off and regroup before starting the next bullish leg. I hope that's all this is. I fear, though, it may be more than just a mere calm-before-the-bullish-storm thing unfurling here. This is how bad things start out... as small things. Just keep sitting tight. The market's going to have to commit to one side or the other soon enough.