I May Be Wrong About January

I had time, while freezing my ass off this weekend (I am warm and rich now), to think about market psychology. After all, that’s what short term moves are all about.

Then I saw someone throw a couple of shoes at President Bush and it dawned on me: holy shit, people are going to celebrate like it’s 1929 when he gets kicked out of the White House.

Last January was different. We were at very high levels and people were still in denial. Today, people know everything sucks, but yearn for better times.

Basically, we could be heading into a period when the market melts up, for no good reason, causing bears to shoot howitzer shells into their faces. Without a doubt, EVENTUALLY, all of the bad news will crush the spirits of the true believers. However, in the interim, Obama lovers, coupled with New Years fools, might gun this fucker another 10-15%.

One of my new strategies for 2009 is to avoid 2x and 3x etf’s. They have proven to be mathematical absurdities. In their place, “The Fly” will get back to good ol’ fashioned stock picking.

At the moment, I have a very large cash position. Upon executing my “Don’t Let the Door Hit Bush on the Way Out” strategy, I might buy the following:

INTC, RIO, AMKR (dice roll), UN, AYE, LNN, CMP and APOL.

NOTE: In the event the market just dives off a cliff, sometime very soon, I will shelf the thoughts written above, indefinitely.

Too many people on the internet have stolen my writing style. Because of this, “The Fly” will be changing up his style, over the coming weeks, in order to separate himself from the fucking mindless drones/asshole/cocksucking/leaches, who attempt to suck out my gray matter, on a daily basis.

In case you were all worried and shit (I’ve received zero emails, fuck you), “The Fly” and family live in an ice box, thanks to a broken gas valve in his furnace. Naturally, “The Fly” is willing to overpay, for this slight inconvenience, to have it (my fucking furnace) fixed in a timely manner. But, it seems the local technicians are too fucking busy getting ready for Sunday foolsball, than to help out a few icicles, who greatly desire a little HEAT. Cocksuckers!

Should this son of a bitch of a furnace remain unfixed, “The Fly” and Co. will be living large, at the local hotel, ordering all types of over-salted fare.

Aside from that, life is phenomenal. To date, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of money on Christmas and there is still much to do, such as find a new private beach club or buy another car.

Mind you, managing money for a living is an idiotic lifestyle/living. I sleep 3-4 hours per day, not by choice, but necessity. And, I fucking hate people. Maybe I should just run for local office and become some sort of Congressman. This way, I can fuck with all of the people I hate, in a very legal/scary sort of way.

Doing this blog thing is sort of inane too. However, because of it, I get to meet all sorts of cool people, like Howard, and make them pay for my pizza slices.

At the end of the day, I just want to punch a few furnace technicians in the trachea and jump kick a few truckloads of stock brokers into the freezing Atlantic.

UPDATE: “Frank the furnace technician” came to my house and replaced the gas valve on my furnace. Apparently, “this one ain’t workin’ so good.” Upon Frank leaving, I chased after him and said “hey Frank, I still smell gas. Get back in here and fix it.”

Frank replied: “that’s impossible. Nuttin’ is wrong with it. Call National Grid and have them checks its.”

So, after “Fuck Face Frank” left, I called National Grid and requested a gas leak inspection. Naturally, after the Nat Grid guy arrived and tested my furnace, THERE WAS A FUCKING GAS LEAK.

Much to my amazement, the brand new gas valve is faulty. Shit like this only happens to me. He had to turn off the gas to my furnace again.

Back to freezing.

At any rate, “Fuck Face Frank” is back on his way here to re-change the valve. I threatened those fuckers will stop payment and all sorts of other unkind actions.

UPDATE: Frank informed me that “he won’t have that same valve until tomorrows.” Fucking faggot.

UPDATE: In what can only be described as a “Christmas miracle,” Fuck Face Frank found a valve!
Santa Frank is on his way now, ovah here.

UPDATE: Fuck Face Frank came with his lighter this time, trying to ignite the “alleged leak” around my furnace. Apparently, he believes I am doing this for fun. He changed the valve again. And, much to my chagrin, I still smell gas. WTF!!!

I will be forced to blow the fuck up, since I can’t deal with this shit anymore.

Story over.

12/13/2008

8am- Woke up early this morning, in order to drape the house with Christmas lights—which, incidentally, I have been putting off. Mrs. Fly is not too happy about the lights not being on the house, nor on the front lawn..  I will be getting the ladder, ample supplies of coffee and the “blue radio,” which I found hidden in the garage. Wish me luck.

11am- Boy was it cold outside. I finished putting the fucking lights on the house and nearby killed myself doing so. I saw my neighbor Steve. He does not appear to be doing too well. The recession has him down, literally.

12pm- I searched the internet and people are still stupid. All is well. I will be heading out for some Christmas shopping today, somewhere in Northern New Jersey.

1pm- I Just got a call from a buddy at Morgan Stanley. He’s been shitcanned and needs to find alternative employment. I suggested he become a cab driver and to move from his house in Scarsdale, for a run down studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.

2pm- I started “live blogging” the recession of 2008. After this post, I will head out into the cold, grim world of retail.

12/14/2008

12am- After bathing and putting the kids into bed, after a long day of shopping, much to my chagrin, I found gas leak in my heating unit. While I sit here, waiting for National Grid to arrive, I can tell you the New Jersey shopping scene is quite brisk. Men are walking around, dressed in white robes, smoking pipes and making their servants fetch 100 inch flat screen televisions.

The women are fat as hell, buying themselves Christmas presents and getting the kids stuff too. All in all, I saw vultures at Walmart and Emperors at the local mall. Wagons were bumper to bumper and parking was nonexistent.

Without a doubt, the pending depression that everyone talk about is nowhere to be scene, in these egregious neck of the woods. I tell Mrs. Fly all the time: “No one has money. It’s all credit card purchases.”

She never believes me. Her theory: people in the tri-state area are all rich and never in need of surplus currency.

My guess, people went on mugging sprees, just prior to entering the mall. Or, many of the people at Walmart just hit the lotto, or some shit.

However, I will say, at my local mall, everything inside of Macy’s was 50-70% off. The cashiers told me things were okay, nothing to rave over.

All in all, the shopping at Walmart was frenetic, while the mall scene was your standard holiday “get me the fuck out of here, it’s too busy” type of venue.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skV5N4hN2qo 450 300]

Fuck this shit. I sold 50% of my FAS, for a quick $1.50 profit. I’ve been blogging like the wind, mind you, all for naught.

Here I am, dressed in an unprecedented “Golden Robe,” matched with cast iron slippers, expecting some sort of monumental day—considering the GM/Maddoff crap—and I get nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Blah.

Ecuador just defaulted on their debt. Venezuela and Argentina are next. Yet, here we are up a smidge, going into a glorious weekend. Aside from the stupidity of it all, this is very bullish behavior.

Any analyst worth his water must downgrade XOM and companies like her. Goldman and Merrill both are suggesting crude will trade down to $30, yet XOM has 6 strong buys and 4 buys. Aside from what you think will happen to the price of crude, the analysts think it goes lower. With that logic, they MUST downgrade XOM to conform with their new bearish position.

ERY and DUG will benefit from such egregious actions.

The whole auto bailout business is nonsensical. If GM, F, HMC and TM are cutting back on production, don’t you think that will hurt their suppliers? The brains of our elected officials are very small, much to my chagrin.

At the end of the day, I came out a champ, amidst The Maddoff Jerkoff. I even made money on my dice roll: CBL!

Bottom line: we should trade a lot lower from today’s closing levels, wherever that may be. Time is working against those who are long and I intend to kill these people in the weeks and months ahead.

Wish me luck!!

UPDATE: Nibbling at SRS down here, sub $81.

Place your bets, riverboat gamblers.

I bought 3,000 SMN, a touch under $68.

Disclaimer: If you buy SMN because of this post, you will become addicted to the stock market and develop a minor case of hypertension. And, you may lose money.

No use fighting this fuckery. It’s hard to ignore intraday reversals like this.

As a result, I bulked up on more FAS and will trade no more.

Oils are reversing here and following the banks higher. Who the fuck knows why? All I know, the market is batshit crazy and I’ll be damned if I let it torch me.

Thank God I sold SRS. However, if that fucker gets in the 70’s again, I shall and will back up the truck. All in all, I’ve lost my patience trying to make sense of this market. I’m much better off trading in and out like a fucking dodo bird with a laptop, than trying to stick with a theme.

How is GM up? The Congressman said their would be “pain” for equity holders, in the form of dilution. This makes no sense.

Off to eat a sandwich.

There is some serious margin compression taking place in the oil sector, especially in the refiners. With oil wounded like a sick dog, down at these levels, I want to increase my short exposure to the space.

I know the whole dollar argument and the possibility that inflation may reemerge its ugly head. To hedge inflation, I am shorting treasuries, via TBT. However, I feel extremely comfortable shorting the like of XOM, CVX and COP, up at these levels.

When you narrow it down to marginal players, like HK or GMXR, one can make an argument for a total loss in those names, eventually. I mean, if financing is unavailable and margins are squeezed to the bone, what do you have left?

I’ll tell you what you have:

XOM buying your capped wells in bankruptcy.

At any rate, like I said earlier, I reduced my downside exposure this morning. But, at the present, I am 100% balls to the wall short crude/gas stocks, via DUG and ERY.

Fuck them.

Okay, I am done shuffling shit around. You should see me trading. I’m like Bernie Maddoff, minus all the lying and fraud and shit.

I accomplished a variety of things, such as:

Selling the rest of my TNA position.

Taking profits on SRS.

Taking profits on some FAZ bought in the 30’s.

Hedging the remainder of the FAZ position, which is still sizable, with FAS.

Selling some ERY, for a quick trade.

Buying back some of the ERY, that I sold for a quick trade.

Selling out of some losers longs, like BDK.

Adding to dice rolls, like CBL.

Essentially, the short term direction of the market is anyone’s guess. Who knows what kind of bullshit bailout news might print this afternoon, or Sunday evening. The smart thing to do is play it safe, with a bias to the downside, in my opinion.

The retail season will be a woeful one, with retailers set to close stores in droves. It is estimated, following the Christmas season, up to 125,000 store fronts will be closed. Can you imagine the impact that will have on commercial RE? Without a doubt, at some point, SRS is a keeper.

On the long side, you want to be careful here too. By no means are we out of the water and the indices may fuck you hard, towards the end of the day. I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of dealing with the daily grind.

It may be that time of year to just shut it down, celebrate a fantastic year, amidst the rubble, and start to enjoy the holiday’s.

UPDATE: I bought 5,000 TBT, just north of $44.