Fed Minutes Reveal a Rate Hike is Coming

Their willingness to destroy the U.S. economy is impressive. A plus for persaverance.

“Members emphasized that this change was intended to convey the sense that, while no decision had been made, it may well become appropriate to initiate the normalization process at the next meeting,” said minutes of the FOMC’s Oct. 27-28 meeting, released Wednesday in Washington.

A majority of Fed officials have signaled they expect to raise interest rates this year for the first time since 2006. That message was underscored when policy makers inserted a reference to the “next meeting” on Dec. 15-16 in their October statement, in connection with their assessment on when to act.

A “couple” of voting policy makers had qualms that the wording change “could be misinterpreted as signaling too strongly the expectation” for December liftoff, according to the report.

Participants in the meeting “generally agreed,” the minutes said, “that it would probably be appropriate to remove policy accommodation gradually.”

“It was noted that the beginning of the normalization process relatively soon would make it more likely that the policy trajectory after liftoff could be shallow,” the minutes said.

The market is responding positively to the minutes. Hell, if space aliens destroyed Moscow today, stocks would continue higher on hopes that a new Moscow would bolster worldwide growth. It’s just one of this runaway train type of days.

Enjoy.

Fed’s Mester says the economy can handle a 25 bps hike; Fed’s Lockhart says he is confident the Fed is ready for normalization; Fed’s Dudley says he looks forward to the day when the Fed can raise rates

This is all I read these days, Fed comments sucking the varnish off that Federal Reserve rate hiking lever. Sometimes I ask myself “but why?” Then I remember that they just want to bankrupt CHK.

All of this rate hike talk is absurd. But who am I to player hate? If the Fed thinks it’s a good idea to literally crash the economy, I think it’s a good idea too!

Today at 2pm est, the Fed minutes will be released. We get to eavesdrop on the head nerd, J. Yellen, and her band of bumbling idiots, discuss the virtues of the U.S. economy–as retail stocks plunge by 35% off weaker than expected sales, oil and gas stocks careen lower on a never ending decline in crude, as copper stocks flirt with disaster, and as tech bellweathers plunge to multi-year lows due to an onerous business environment.

I need more SHAK in my life like I need a hole in my head. Since I’m fatalistic, I added to my position, which has dropped by 20% since the day I menaced short sellers that their day of reckoning had come. The earnings were so good, I was besides myself with joy, glee, and all of the idiot emotions that cause humans to behave badly.

In my defense, I didn’t put my balls where my mouth was, instead opting to wait until today to add to an already large and down position.

It’s important to note that the weakness in SHAK isn’t an isolated event. Aside from the fucking assholes at MCD, the restaurant sector is in the shitter now. It’s as if everyone has collectively lost their minds, sold out from all of the good restaurant stocks in favor of MCD.

I can’t even talk about it.

What am I looking for with SHAK, going forward?

Greatness, on an extreme scale. My downside is $28, with a long term upside of $125. The company intends to build out to 400 eateries, from the 90 or so they have now. This is a fast growing company with great brand awareness. I love buying great companies after they’ve been cast aside for the animals to pick away at.

Even still, the stock has been a huge, flaming, bag of shit on my front door.

It’s that time of year again, ladies and gents. It’s a time when we sloth about the house, preparing for national festival. Our great lands were settled by maniacal pilgrims many yeara ago. Before they murdered all of the Indians, who lazily lived on these lands in grass huts, they befriended them and shared a large wooden dinner table with them, to feast upon corn and cranned berries, turkey, and mashed potatoes with gravy.

In a little more than a week, most of you will be sitting around the fire, watching football, smoking your pipe, asking your wives to fetch you another lager. Your bellies will imitate a waterbed in its movement, as you swashbuckle around the house eating delicacies.

The stock market doesn’t trade down during national festival, the day we broke bread with the savage, just before killing them.

THE TURKEY GODS ARE UPON YOU, granting wishes and monetary gifts through the exchanges. Bears are completely outmatched this time of year. They hate Thanksgiving and wished it never happened. As we celebrate and drink and carelessly buy stocks, they eat gruel and become meaner and they toil away late into the night to bring about the destruction of the United Steaks of America.

2015 has been a hard year for you. Now is the time to unwind, take free money, and prepare for gluttony on an industrial scale.

I’m all for crazy. But this morning’s Goldman Apple rationale steals the show. They’re projecting Apple will switch into a services company, ditch the whole growth model, and focus on monetizing their business.

Why does Goldman think this?

Umm, just because.

Theoretically, Apple could transition other products to installment plans as well, and charge customers a monthly bill that also includes its other services such as Apple TV and Music. We think a potential live TV service from Apple would be a key enabler of this transition to an “Apple-as-a-Service” business model.

They even took the time to lay out their fantasy island projections, suggesting that revenue per customer could jump from $41 to $153 (LOLz).

What does it all mean, man? It means revenues (takes pull on marijuana filled blunt) can jump to $553 billion by 2017, from the current $233 billion.

Their price target is $163.

The consumer is dead for those who domicile themselves inside of shopping mallls. For those outside of them (ULTA, COST, TGT, HD, LOW) things are ok.

Target, the fourth-largest U.S. retailer, also raised the lower end of its earnings forecast for its fiscal year. It said it expected earnings of $4.65 to $4.75 per share, excluding special items, against its previous outlook of $4.60 to $4.75.
The Minneapolis-based retailer’s shares were up 2.8 percent at $74.36 in premarket trading. At Tuesday’s close, they had fallen nearly 4 percent this year.
Excluding special items, earnings came to 86 cents per share in the third quarter ended on Nov. 1, compared with 79 cents a year earlier.
Net sales rose 2.1 percent to 17.6 billion.
Analysts on average expected profit of 85.9 cents per share on sales of $17.57 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Target said sales at stores open at least a year rose 1.9 percent, beating the market consensus of 1.7 percent, according to research firm Consensus Metrix.

I find the retail landscape to be interesting now, with the very large box stores dominating the smaller players. Very soon, we will all shop from one store and buy things in an orderly fashion, like robots.

As an aside, Square prices its IPO today. So exciting (Colonel Landa voice).

Note I kept that exclamatory statement in check with just 3 exclamation marks. Anything more is indicative of acute mental illness.

If you’re down more than 10% this year, you’re either underdiversified, leveraged, or retarded (no offense to the mentally addled).

Running analytics in Exodus this evening, I compiled overall sector returns, YTD, and for all 4,335 stocks in the system, producing median returns for best representation.

As you can see by the chart above, all sectors are lower this year, which makes my 15% returns that much more impressive.

Is “The Fly” a genius? Categorically so.

Does this year’s outperformance grant him clemency for his abysmal 2014 showing? Definitively not.

I am aware there are losses much greater than 6.7% out there, especially amongst traders who live and die by the sword. If you happen to be one of them, sad saps about the school grounds drowining yourselves in styrofoam cups of beer, just know that you’re wholly unqualified to manage assets and should immediately recuse yourselves from the field, else open yourselves to heinuous karmic reprisals.

For all of the noise and tumult thrusted upon the markets in 2015, Le Fly stands supreme, imperially dominant amongst throgs of losers and catamites.

DEVELOPING…

We had a nice rally; but then it burned and turned to ash. Luckily, my book is smartly positioned to avoid murder holes. I am up 0.4% right now and happier than a pig in vomit. Sure, I’d like to be up more. Then again, I’d like to be up period. ‘Tis a time to reduce expectations. Do not anticipate to eat every day. One must forage about the plains and the woods for one’s meal. Out there, in the dark wilderness, are bears who rape and vultures who eat. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather remain indoors and avoid the whole ordeal altogether.

This market will harden you, make you dislike animals and children. It will cause you to dislike holiday’s and have a penchant for cynicism.

My top 3 positions are COST, CNC and PAH. Truth be told, COST is now more than twice the size of CNC. I am merely writing this blog to entertain you, as you teeter on the brink of absolute destruction.

“The Fly” has omnipresent skills and a sixth sense about these sort of things.

Expect nothing, from here until year end. Pagan holiday’s will be canceled and the New Year will come and go like any other day. The start of 2016 will mark the end of this facade of a bull market, castrating the anointed few who’ve blessed us with their bull market ways in the year of our Lord 2015.

NOTE: The Marlboro Man died of lung cancer. Actually, 4 Marlboro men died of smoking related ailments. As you were.

CHK is the poster child for excess gone awry in the oil and gas space. It was the darling of the industry, until natural gas collapsed, leaving Aubrey McClellan’s acquisition strategy in tatters. The company was managed like a holding company, leveraging up the balance sheet to accumulate assets.

Unfortunately, the tide has turned in the commodity space and CHK’s late entry into the oil space has likely marked it for death.

I’ve always felt this stock would eventually go to zero. The bond market is suggesting there is something to worry about, with prices ranging in the 50’s to 70’s.

Quarterly reports are met with endless mark downs and losses.

And finally, its share price has collapsed to new lows, pushing debt/eq levels near 3–leaving the company fully exposed to the markets.

Should oil and gas remain at these levels or lower, I don’t see how CHK pulls through this in one piece.

Trading is fun. But sometimes people go about it without thinking. Just know, before you pull the trigger on that kick ass oil stock with the nice looking chart, something truly fucked up might be just beneath the surface, in the fundamentals.

Smart people look at all of the evidence, before making a determination. Don’t pigeon hole yourself as a chart guy, or a fundy guy, just because it’s in your comfort zone.