iBankCoin
18 years in Wall Street, left after finding out it was all horseshit. Founder/ Master and Commander: iBankCoin, finance news and commentary from the future.
Joined Nov 10, 2007
22,794 Blog Posts

Welcome to the Stupidest Job on Earth

***Housing starts rise 4.4% v est. of 1.4%***

Mortgage refis are on pace for +60% year over year and new home sales continue to show strength, despite the fact that housing related stocks have recently been skinned and char-broiled. As the laws of the land would have it, my burgeoning TPH position only started to knife lower, in an ultra violent way, after I started to brag about how great a position the housing market was in. A rather fresh and inviting +10% profit quickly morphed into a nuanced loser of sorts, leaving me, Le Fly, in shambles about the rocks and the dirt.

I’ve been trying to figure this market out my entire life. Sometimes I get it just right and make so much money, my arms involuntarily start punching people in the face. I toss money around, like the world is my strip club, and chalk up the wanton excesses to “what goes around comes around.” This, of course, is a recipe for idiocy, largess; but its never stopped me in the past. I’ll be damned if its gonna stop me now.

The older I get, the more ridiculous the market appears to me. I consider it to be a living entity, who is literally trying to murder me, via hook or crook. The moment I escape its wrath and celebrate a transient victory, I am presented with a Byzantine endgame, whereby I become pre-occupied with a myriad of puzzles and death-traps by which I have X amount of hours to see my way through to safety.

A man of my talents can pursue this unrequited passion for so long. From the moment I entered this business in the late 90’s, I’ve been met with rolling market catastrophes, on a regular and continuous basis. For the love of God, shortly after I got on my own, after a period of vagrant cold calling, the market halted for trade, shut the fuck down, and went straight down the toilet. Out of the class of 100 or so young men who entered the training program at the firm I was employed at, only a handful of us are still in the business.

This is a business, for better or for worse, of attrition. It wears you down until you have nothing left. Only then, when you are faced with a decision and a path, will you learn if this business is for you. I’ve been faced with this reality numerous times over the past 17 years and have always chose to bear down and make it work. Only through ox-headed perseverance will you succeed at being a trader, money manager, operator of coin, in this god forsaken avenue of employment.

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30 comments

  1. vat

    Buy and hold longer than 2 minutes is dead.

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  2. duckkell

    UWTI here?

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  3. zuul

    Draghi just rocket-launched bears into the Dead Sea.

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  4. C. Montgomery Burns
    C. Montgomery Burns

    $SHAK next week.

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  5. dragun

    I played housing via XHB, had 8% gain in the matter of a week or so, only to get poleaxed. After all this sitting flat on the mth for XHB and down 42bps on the model mtd.

    Never would I have thought this business would hinge on the words of CBs.

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  6. j

    Fly

    If you feel really bad this market, shut down all trading positions until you feel confident enough to roll back in.

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  7. matt_bear

    my cynical bear-like nature has me wondering if housing is such a slam dunk winner that they’re trying to create all this bullshit as a way for the big players to accumulate enough to profit handsomely.

    how else do you explain these stats? housing starts, refis, epic oil price collapse….it all says home builders are set to rally. Most of them are still around their multi-year lows. for them to knife lower makes no sense and is so abso-fucking-lutely stupid that it makes perfect sense.

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    • thomasjefferson

      I have been trying to figure out a potential explanation. The best I can come up with is that people are expecting these companies just started a ton of new homes that no one is going to want to buy. I like your explanation better, and am going to be digging into a few of the companies I like for potential long term investments at this point.

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  8. rangersfan

    Back in $FRO

    Bought $TPH $KBH

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  9. J Adabese (your pen pal)
    J Adabese (your pen pal)

    1.1 Trilly Euros.

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  10. jersey whale

    The Fly is on fire with quality posts

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  11. carolina

    Josh Brown giving you some lovin’

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  12. jdf

    You could always ditch this gig and do something that actually provides a useful service to society? Just spit balling….

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  13. J Adabese (your pen pal)
    J Adabese (your pen pal)

    Lions in the Savanna don’t experience optimal conditions year round, but the Lion prevails !!! History is driven by the Lion. You Lord Fly, are a Lion and you will prevail, indeud.

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  14. J Adabese (your pen pal)
    J Adabese (your pen pal)

    What of NNA? What of the poor NNA?

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  15. og

    Can somebody tell me not to look at FXCM?

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  16. alf44

    .

    Fly, how bout a Habit franchise ?

    You will need a minimum of $1M in liquid assets and $3M of net worth depending on the size of the development territory.

    You will also need an initial franchise fee of $35,000. Habit will receive a continuing royalty fee of 5% of gross sales and a brand marketing fee up to 2% of gross sales.

    The initial investment to build a restaurant starts from $751,000. This is inclusive of the initial Franchise Fee, real estate rent, security deposits, construction, furniture, fixtures, and equipment, signage, opening inventory and supplies, grand opening advertising, training expenses, and other miscellaneous opening costs.

    Interested ???

    .

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  17. gerryr

    Fly,
    What are you doing today to prepare for the zombie apocalypse of tomorrow?

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