Markets Soft During the Last Day in May

The NASDAQIRI is bucking the trend, higher by 0.1%. Both the SPY and Dow are off, with the Dow feeling the brunt of the sell off–down 90. Breadth is strong at around 56%. Gains are to be had in precious metals, biotech, energy stocks and tankers. Most of the weakness is in banks and a sundry of risk off related names, which bodes well for the risk on crowd.

With stocks like CLF shooting higher and the biotech sector rife with speculation, one could only surmise that this pullback is nothing more than a waystation for higher prices.

All in all, with crude hugging recent highs, natural gas soaring by 6%, and an overall bullish sentiment to the tape, I wouldn’t put much credence into this decline, unless of course it was paired with a sharp reversal in crude.

A business partner and friend of the future President of the United Steak of America weighs in on ‘The Donald’, offering insight into the man behind the elaborate hair style design.

Will the real Barack please stand up? (sorry, I had to)

It’s a grueling process, one that I’d eschew like the plague. There are those who do and others who plan to do. The CFA exam candidates, although an accomplishment unto itself, falls firmly in the latter of people who’d rather study than dial for dollars. But that’s just one jaded person’s opinion.

Upwards of 170,000 people plan to sit for the exams, which comes in three levels–sort of like a video game. After you beat the first monster, the 2nd and the 3rd level monsters get progressively more difficult. The pass rate varies between 40-50%, depending on the genetic make up and socio-economic backgrounds of the applicants.

It’s funny to see so many people race towards becoming a CFA, considering that investment banks no longer require their services.

Who named him Harambe anyway? I’m sure he’d disagree with that name. If you’re unfamiliar with the news, a monstrous gorilla was seen dragging a 3 year old child around in the water the other day, like at 100mph–much to 3 year old boy’s chagrin. Employees of the Cincinnati zoo, who happen to be most familiar with the temperament of this Harambe character, opted to kill the gorilla in order to save the boy’s life.

Activists charge ‘HARAMBE’ was merely playing with the boy and was more attentive to him than his parents, who permitted the boy to be dropped into the gorilla exhibit. They feel, in a sense, that perhaps the young boy deserved what was coming to him and should’ve thought about the consequences of his actions BEFORE falling into the gorilla den.

In response to these charges, the 3 year old boy said ‘goo goo, ga ga. BIG gorilla, ROAAAAAR’.

Post Harambe’s death, lunatics who live on the edges of sanity have taken to social media to voice their disdain. Moreover, they’re planning vigils and protests too, because #GORILLASLIVESMATTER and all that jazz.

Rumor has it that Harambe was very much interested in undergoing a sex change operation and actively cross dressed at the zoo, prancing about the cage with high heels and a skirt, which might’ve been the motive to kill him by one of the scurrilous zoo keepers.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this before. I also doubt it will be upheld or honored. A Delaware judge ruled in favor of investors holding more than 30 million shares of DELL, who opposed the deal because it was too low.

Well, good news has befallen these craven lunatics this morning, as a Delaware judge has set the price $3.87 higher for the true value of DELL, paving the way for more legal action to order DELL to pay them MOAR.

Bleak house.

Carl Icahn has to be insane to keep this dog and pony show going at his age. Why the fuck does Carl have a Twitter account anyway? He’s 80, worth more than $20 billion, and the media would spread any press release statement from his office, regardless of his social media savvy.

At any rate, Carl just tweeted he took down a large position in AGN. The shares are mildly higher. Here’s his statement.

It looks like the rumors were true. MKTO is going private, by Vista Partners, in an all cash deal valued at $35.25. It’s a mild premium of just 10%. But the stock is much higher for the year and has been one of the best performers in the software sector for 2016.

Here are the best performers in the application software sector this year.

The Case-Shiller home index rose by 5.4% for the month of March, spearheaded by gains in the northwest and also a seemingly lack of supply for quality locales.

If you traversed the mid section of these great states, you’ll find wanton homes for sale, mostly undesirable to coast hugging elites. The shorelines have been bought up and now these choice locations are simply running away in value.

“The economy is supporting the price increases with improving labor markets, falling unemployment rates and extremely low mortgage rates,” David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement.

Limited supply of homes on the market is also supporting price gains, he said.

The biggest gains continue to be found in the Pacific Northwest and West, where some of the largest declines in urban unemployment have been seen, Blitzer noted.

The pace of home price appreciation ticked up from February in Portland, Oregon, which saw prices rise 12.3 percent year over year. Seattle and Denver took second and third place after Portland with 10.8 percent and 10 percent increases, respectively.

For the life of me, I can’t think of a single thing that could go wrong.

Twice per year I update a portfolio in Exodus, that is designed for longer term investors. Its credo is to find growth at a reasonable price (GARP). Moreover, I take it very seriously and truly put great effort into selecting the 15 stocks that comprise the portfolio.

Excluding dividends, the first half portfolio had a median return of almost 2%. This is a long only portfolio and it will not protect you from the many horrors that are to come. But I’ve built it to have some staying power, populated by somewhat conservative names, but also mixed in with some of a degenerate varietal.

FREE TRIALS have been suspended, indefinitely. So if you want to become privy to my calculator brain, you’ll just have to subscribe.

Good news everyone. The Chinese have done so many awesome things over the past few months, the gurus at Goldman have upped the chances of China being added to the MSCI index from 50 to 70%. There are still some lingering items left on the agenda that might need to be addressed before inclusion, such as onerous repatriation limits, anti-competitive clauses and a sundry of wanton corruption not seen since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Chinese regulators are pressing hard to get their $5.6 trillion house of smoke and mirrors added into the index, likely to get liquid on a fresh group of unsuspecting speculators.

It’s also worth noting that 311 stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzen indexes are still halted since March, representing 10% of the stocks listed there.

On this news, Chinese stocks are soaring this evening, higher by 2.2%. This percent gain might vacillate into the closing minutes of trade, as Chinese regulators pull levers and suspend trading for any companies that get in the way of a good rally.