Mass Evacuations Underway as Second Nuke Plant Fails in Japan

Via the IAEI, the cooling systems at a second nuke plant, Fukushima unit #3, are not working. Thus far, over 140,000 people have been or ordered to have been evacuated.

It’s also being reported that at least 9 people at Fukushima have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

[YouTube:ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4uogOEUrU&feature=youtube_gdata_player 515 400]

Residents near plant advised to avoid tap water and to cover faces with wet towels. Evacuations are underway for a 20 kilometer radius near Fukushima.

Related: death toll in quake/tsunami aftermath reportedly at 1,600.

This is getting real grim too fast.

The Kyodo newswire is very slow to respond, due to the overwhelming amount of traffic they are receiving. However, from what I can gather, it looks like the situation at Fukushima Daiichi power plant’s Unit 1 is deteriorating. It’s being reported that part of the core may be “melting down.” I loathe people who ring alarms for the sake of garnering attention. However, logic dictates the Japanese officials would not be making statements like this, unless they felt a melt-down was a real possibility.

In the event of a meltdown, the affected area would be at least 5 kilometers.

Here is a helpful twitter feed to keep up to date with developments as they progress.

Due to the quake, the power outage caused a domino effect that disabled the cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As a result, it’s being reported that radiation levels around the plant are 8x normal, suggesting some sort of dangerous leak has occurred. Evacuations are underway.

Update: Front page of Drudge reporting radiation levels at 1000x now.

Tokyo Electric Power Co operates said plant.

Six of Japan’s refineries, representing 31% of output, have ceased operations, due to the quake. Fires have been raging in the Cosmo Oil and JX Nippon Oil & Energy refineries. Japan has a total of 28 refineries and is the third largest consumer of crude in the world.

As of now, the following refineries have been shut down:

JX Nippon Oil & Energy
Sendai
Negishi
Kashima Oil
Kawasaki
Chiba

As a result, refinery stocks in the U.S. surged ahead today, led by gains in CVI, ALJ, TSO, WNR and FTO

I had a mixed day with losses in ARO/BORN and gains in OPEN, WNR, APC and MAS. It’s pretty heart wrenching to see the developments in Japan. I just read that radiation levels are 8x normal near one of their nuke plants. That has to suck.

It looks like The PPT nailed the ZSL trade again, as silver bottomed this morning, then took prisoners for the rest of the day. With mid-east tensions at a feverish pitch, Japan dealing with a natural disaster and chinese burrito stocks halting indefinitely, my appetite for risk waned throughout the day. I am content with my new position in WNR. However, I didn’t feel enthusiastic about today’s move. It felt like a bounce, nothing more.

Nevertheless, going into the weekend, I’m up about 10% for the year, with a cash position of around 5%.

Data provided by The PPT

(stock, percentage of float sold short, daily % gain)

1 SHZ 54 18.98
2 ANN 23.8 11.54
3 JAZZ 21 5.61
4 AUXL 30.9 4.23
5 OREX 47.9 4.04
6 MMYT39.7 4.03
7 OSG 20.1 3.72
8 CIEN 32.8 3.68
9 BPI 49 3.6
10 TZOO 31.1 3.57

Hurry up, run out and get one. If you do not have money to buy one, no problemo: just put that fucker on your credit card. It’s worth noting, “The Fly” will be buying another one today, as Mrs. Fly thinks the white version looks “awesome and amazing.”

Apple is up less than 1% aka a non-event.

I kicked out my ARO loser of a position and threw said realized losses down an elevator shaft. You should try it sometime. With the proceeds, AND MORE, I loaded up on WNR, making it a 10% position. There are methods and reasoning behind my madness. For example, aside from refining capacity loss in Japan, U.S. refiners always do well in March. Well, not always, but 64% of the time for an average return of 4.95%. As we head into the “driving season,” refinery plays will be front and center.

On top of that, should we start exporting refined crude to Japan: watch out above, for those stocks will break the fuck out. I chose WNR because of its stupid short position, a tad more than 16%. If I was short WNR right now, I’d be in church, praying to magical creators and such, hoping for some sort of miracle to make me whole again.

By the way, there is a small water company, ticker symbol PRMW, that just purchased a single server soda player in Canada. This will compete versus SODA. I am very interested and will research over the weekend.

Finally, my day is going as planned, some up, some down. I am pleased that OPEN has decided to castrate said short sellers. And, I am very delighted to see APC up, despite crude in the tank.

NOTE: Pardon my repetitiveness on the matter, but you must sign up for Twitter and follow iBC Financial News. It’s my new pet project and would please me a great deal if you helped me decapitate my competition.

Regards in a non-cordial manner,

Le Fly

I backed up the truck on WNR, buying busloads of it from $14.85-15.05.

Disclaimer: If you buy WNR because of this post, Al Gore will succeed in eliminating the combustion engine, ushering in a new age of miniature electric cars. And, you may lose money.