Happy 4th of July Weekend; Now Get on the Ark or Inside of the Gold Mine

I have a bearish bet going in Exodus now, my first since shorting oil a few months ago. God willing, this will work out better than that wreck, which cost me over 600 basis points.

Hem and haw all you want about stocks and how you’re making money, trading like some sort of jackass without a clue. Let’s talk about what’s working. I mean, let’s talk about what’s really, really working, ok?

Three things.

1. The ark, via TLT
2. Gold, via GLD or miners
3. Utilities, REITs and other dividend payers

At this time, I am not long REITs. If I was, I’d buy VNQ, capture the 3.2% yield and sit back to watch all of you clowns drown, whilst drinking dirty martinis.

I wish all of you a great 4th of Jooh-lie and hope that you refrain from blowing your fingers off with those chinese firecrackers. Eat plentiful hot dogs and hamburgers, and be sure to drink some swill Budweiser to celebrate the vainglorious nation of US of A. While our politicians are of the reprehensible type, our people are the best. American made, sans cars, stand for quality these days, something that escaped our culture just a decade or so ago. There is a profound movement in this country to support American owned businesses, who employ American workers, and I think it’s great. It’s not XENOPHOBIC to love your country. Sadly, it’s only the people, the silent majority, who seem to care about what happens to the country anymore. Hopefully, this will all change soon.

In spite of being an atheist, God Bless.

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I think that equates to 1% of staff for every 8% move lower in VRX this year. Don’t worry, none of the gurus at Pershing have been let ago, ahead of national festivities, just the underlings–investors services, IT and other lowly staff. All of the men who helped destroy Pershing are, reportedly, still dutifully employed at the fund.

Source: WSJ

Mr. Ackman told his staff this week that the moves have nothing to do with the poor performance of the hedge fund, the people said. Instead, he said, the firm has gotten better in technology and automating tasks like filling out new-investor forms, reducing the need for employees. He added that he doesn’t anticipate any other big cuts, the people said.

Fired, due to technology. Move on.

GOOD NEWS: Pershing Square is moving into a brand new building, one that they own. See, they do know how to hedge, the good with the bad.

Congrats to Bill Ackman for successfully reducing overhead and on the new office space.

The upside, JNUG is +614% this year.

The downside, JDST is down 97% for the year.

Without question, more people lose money on these products than anything else available to retail investors, aside from weekly options. But, at least in the case of options, there is another layer of oversight, as prospective option traders need approval before being able to invest. These fucking things, like cigarettes, kill scores of people and should be banned from the playing field. I am not a libertarian when it comes to stocks. Some of the shit out there should be exiled away from the public, in order to save them from themselves. While that might sound elitist, the fact remains, the only one really making money on these triple lindy asshole Direxion ETFs are Direxion itself.

The FTSE is up nearly 10% over the past 4 days, leading all markets higher. Most figured the specter of BREXIT would equate to the end of civilization as we know it. We now know, the referendum is non-binding, the politicians are trying to jimmyrig it to keep the status quo, and central banks are here to save the day–as always.

If in fact the UK breaks away from the EU and the pound gets taken down a notch, this will serve as a boon for British industry who make a living exporting.

It’s worth noting, this man speaks in the most incorrigible tones I’ve ever heard. He’s almost intolerable.

On this genteel Friday morning, ahead of an insane weekend of Americans blowing off their faces with Chinese firecrackers, in celebration of our independence away from the wig wearing assholes in England, I offer you RICKARD SANTELLI, destroyer of central banks, arc antagonist of the elite, worldwide.

The yellow metal, as some idiots call it, has been surging all year long, even more so since BREXIT. Year to date, GLD is higher by 26%. The gold stocks tracked in Exodus are higher by 145% on a median basis–FOR THE YEAR. That’s not a typo.

Even the biggest capped stocks are ripping. ABX has a cap of $24 billion and is higher by 198% for the year.

All of this is because central banks have gone literally infuckingsane, with their perverted distortions of reality, endless bailouts and a means to destroy every currency on the planet. Granted, the money being created is being sequestered in a very small area of the market, which only benefits the ultra elite. Maybe that’s why inflation for the very rich is running upwards of a 10% clip, while everyone else is staggered in the deflationary vortex?

Just a thought.

Seasonally speaking, July is a weak month for gold, down 55% of the time for an average loss of 1.854%. Next to October, this is the worst time to buy gold, which is why I like it.

In an Alice in Wonderland world where up is down and down is up, I like my chances long this ancient currency into what many expect to be a runaway market rally.

On a valuation basis, the median p/s ratio for the gold miners is 2.97x, almost triple that of 2014. However, if we look towards the high end of the range, set back in 2006-2009, stocks can run another 100% before they’re considered expensive again, on a price to sales basis.

Again, data provided by the indomitable Exodus.

In Exodus, there is a seasonality engine that spits out all sorts of interesting facts, like TQQQ (triple upside NASDAQ) has never traded down during the month of July.

Also, out of 31 years being publicly traded, AMGN has a 77.42% win rate during the month of July, for an average return of +6.82%. Both UA and BIDU sport 11%+ returns in July and China seems to bode well, up 9 out of the last 11 years.

On the downside, both CI and AMD are cursed during July, lower in more than 75% of the time–spanning 33 and 34 years, respectively. If you’re long CI, you’ve done well. If you’ve avoided holding CI during July, you’ve done better.

Some stocks have never gone up in July, such as ADXS, ANGI, HHC, JIVE and of course SQQQ. It’s also a dreadful time to bet against REITs, with DRV sporting a -10.65% return in July.

All in all, July is a respite, in an otherwise unremarkable time for stocks.

It goes without saying, all of these things could fail to occur this month, during this year. That’s how averages are built. But the probabilities point towards a somewhat sanguine market.

Europe intends to liberalize their QE program to switch from buying bonds in the largest economy to the most indebted. This would switch much of the $90 bill or so in monthly appropriations to Italy and Spain and away from Germany.

The second quarter ended. But we’re getting more of the same, large swaths of money chasing yield. I equate these people to zombies, because there’s no rationale behind buying a 1% Spanish or Italian bond, let along a negative yielding Japanese or German. Out of all the western nations, America has the highest yielding government bonds, which is why I am long TLT in size.

These are all record low yields, all due to the creation of money, out of thin air, which is then tossed into the bond market like zombies running after people for their brains.

In case some of you are new to this investing game, let me describe QE in simple terms. Europe has a lot of expenses, so they issue bonds to people, offering a yield to lure them into the fold, sort of like when you took out a mortgage for your home. But instead of waiting for someone to buy their bonds, they create money, out of thin air, and buy the bonds themselves. Yes, they’re literally financing their own debt. This intervention in the bond market is the reason why yields keep plunging, as ordinary investors front run scheduled monthly purchases of debt by central banks.

This is the definition of perversion of economics, a Frankenstonian experiment destined to blow up in our faces.

Hao Zhou was talking extra greasy tonight about the great walled nation of China. He better be careful, otherwise a mobile execution van might accidentally visit him while visiting family, or holiday in Beijing. Zhou is woefully disappointed in private investment in China, which is virtually non-existent. I gather from the words streaming out of his mouth, he’d like China to take a more western approach to fixing ailing economies, such as creating money out of thin air and then taking said dollars and tossing them at the bond and stock markets.

This is the way of the future, the way of the future (extra Howard Hughes).

Mr. Rosenstein, the guru at Jana Partners, got smoked the fuck out in June, down 1.2%–extending his miserable year to -5.8%.

He’s been doing all sorts of stupid shit the past two years, buying and selling, trying to be an activist, and it has done nothing for him–losing 5.4% for all of 2015.

If Barry keeps this nonsense up, he might need to sell some his modern art to maintain the upkeep at his $150 million villa in the Hamptons. His behavior, hitherto and quite frankly, has been unbecoming of a man of his size and stature.

Redemptions loom, Barry! Don’t pick up the phone.