One Hundred Percent of My Account is in This Stock

What a fucking shilled title to this post. But it’s true, I’ve lost my god damned mind and have decided to play blackjack with my brokerage account.

The stock that I dumped my entire trading account in the other day is $WLK. This is a chemical company with a lot of ancillary ties to construction and infrastructure.

All of my investment ideas tie into a singular theme surrounded by industrial might reasserting itself.

Based purely by the numbers, WLK should appreciate by 50% from current levels. Their PE has remained somewhat of a constant for the past several years and I expect their business is about to enjoy a material upside surprise.

To buy WLK in size, essentially, means two things.

1. Global growth will strengthen.
2. Crude prices will rise.

Westlake is a major producer of ethane, which is used to produce ethylene — used to produce a sundry of plastics used in every day life and building materials. Ethane is natural gas based, whereas its chief competitor, naphtha, used primarily in Europe and Asia, is oil based.

Thanks to our abundance of natural gas, Westlake enjoys a massive advantage by cracking ethane and that arb gets increasingly bigger as the price of crude rises.

Here are some info graphics that can better describe what they do.

And here is last quarter’s conference call.

My play here may not be long term. I might just trade the damned thing and move on, since I do get bored from time to time. But every way I look at this thing, there is big upside — especially with natty depressed and oil rising. Should WTI collapse again, this stock will quickly become an anathema, so be wary of that.

The stock is trending up, pushing my YTD gains to 10%. If it doesn’t get acquired by another company, it should crest above recent highs sometime this year, and more.

Growing up in a dominant Italian household, with pasta served every god damned night, I never bonded with my Irish side. My Father had died when I was 4, so I never got to know him or his side of the family. It was only when I got older did I begin to embrace my Irish side — especially on St. Paddy’s Day — a day designated for everyone to embrace the Irish culture. It might bemuse you to learn that I regale myself in all of the traditional accouterments — a full blown leprechaun trotting around in green garb, with dastardly designs at becoming as drunk as humanly possible.

Over the years, I’ve had many memorable St. Paddy’s days, none of which included the fag parade. Typically, upon waking up, I toss the corned beef in a pot brimming with water, beer, and mustard seeds. After several hours of boiling the bastard, I always open up another beer (maybe 2) and pour it into the pot. Spending my time wisely, I drink a half dozen beers in record time — write a bunch of shit on the internet, trade a few stocks, then I peel a bunch of potatoes and dice up some cabbage.

Making sure the beef is progressing according to schedule, I open the pot and poke at it — as if I know what the hell I’m doing. Then I simply drop all of the potatoes and cabbage into the pot, cover it, and then forget it ever existed for the next two hours or so.

Dinner is well on its way.

My house is usually filled with guests, all wanting to eat boiled food and drink lots of strong beer, so we make more than one pot of corned beef. Sometimes I crock pot one — or as my good friend likes to say, when pretending to be a world class chef, ‘slow cook’ it.

Soon enough, the company begins to pile in — most clad in green garments or off-white cable knit sweaters — looking like old seamen just back from a month at sea. “How was the catch?”, I ask them. “Pretty good lad — now get me a fargin’ beer, would ya?”

“Aye.”

We’re playing the songs from the old country, naturally. Here are a few crowd pleasers.

After we’ve been properly inebriated, the fatty meat, potatoes, and cabbage are served, liberally. People usually bring their own corned beef — so there’s plenty to go around. The music is blasting and the beers are being consumed at an industrial rate. Not before long, whiskey and single barrelled scotch are being passed around like bubble gum in a little league baseball dugout. The men venture outside to smoke a pipe or cigar, any sort of tobacco, and the rest of the night becomes a slow motion blur — intermingled between laughter, comical moments, and juvenile foolishness.

Alas, by the end of the night, we’re all Irish — outraged, mind you, by the treatment of ‘our people’ by those fucking Brits.

We wait one year hence and then do it all over again.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day.

Costco has to be the single best retail business in the world. A new Costco just opened in area and I signed up for their ‘executive’ membership card, which is something that I feel wholly ridiculous — but I did so nevertheless.

In order to attain the privilege of shopping there, customers must pay an annual fee. In an era where every retailer is tripping over themselves to attract customers, this concept isn’t dually brilliant and absurd.

Their private brand, Kirkland’s, has also attained legendary status — viewed by many as representative of value and quality. A new engine of growth for Costco is now enjoyed in wine, beer, and spirits.

Last year, alcohol brought in $3.8b, half coming from bullshit wine. This business has grown by 46% over the past 5 years, outpacing food and sundries.

“Private label continues to grow as a dominant strategy in retail — especially when it migrates from being a ‘label’ to more of a ‘brand,’ which Kirkland has done,” said David Bassuk, managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners in New York. “Now it’s a well-known name and gives the consumer a perception of value and a good deal.”

The reason for their success lies in the perceived value. The company only marks up prices by 10-14% compared to industry norms of 25-40%.

“They’re doing the opposite of looking to cut corners,” he said. “They’re looking for maximum quality and minimum markup to drive value for the member.”

Other retailers like Whole Foods, Walmart, and Target have entered the private label business for booze too and have enjoyed success, thanks to America’s proclivity to drink themselves into stupors. Even still, Costco is widely regarded as the winner in this high growth space — clawhammering local liquor stores into a thousand pieces wherever they encounter them.

Both the stock and revenue/earnings trends have been steady eddy, in spite of an overall lackluster retail environment.

Ancillary beneficiaries are $STZ, $DEO and BF-b.

Happy pre St. Paddy’s day.

The last housing bubble was enjoyable. Housing stocks like $TOL and $HOV moved like internet stocks and the local real estate was rife with speculation — causing even homeless men to ‘play the market’ and become true players in the housing extravaganza.

You didn’t need any documentation back then and loans were given out freely, without a care in the world. I took out a mortgage with a home equity loan attached to it. I could do as I liked with the money — no strings attached — so I bought some Google calls with it and saw it expire worthless inside of a month. Losing the money was a minor set back. I didn’t care about money then as I do now. I viewed it as transitory, small little pieces of paper that could easily be reproduced at my desk by doing a few trades.

Commissions were gauche and I didn’t have an issue making as much as I wanted. It all was dependent upon the amount of time I wanted to work. If I wanted to make, for example, $40,000 for the month, I’d have to work part time. If I was in a particularly fond mood of making money, feeling competitive and entrepreneurial, I’d work full time and make over $100,000.

The housing bubble only fueled this carnivale like atmosphere. Some of my clients would take their money out to spend on beach homes they were flipping — always angling for the next score. Truth be told, I was too busy reproducing cash at my desk than worrying about real estate. Many of my friends were active players in the bubbling hot Brooklyn market and ended up making permanent wealth as a result.

So when I see the housing sector up by 3% for the day and $XHB ripping higher, I am reminded of the halcyon days of 2003-2007 when life was absurd and the economy was roaring ahead atop of a gigantic bubble.

I want those days back. I don’t give a shit about moral hazard and the fact that bubbles eventually lead to dark endings.

All endings are dark, friendo. Let’s get this fucking party started.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday shot back at Sen. John McCain after the Arizona Republican accused Paul of working for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I think he makes a really, really strong case for term limits,” Paul said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think maybe he’s past his prime, I think maybe he’s gotten a little bit unhinged.”

McCain made the claims Wednesday from the Senate floor.

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“He has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians,” McCain said.
“The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”

The comments came after McCain asked for unanimous consent to set up a vote on a treaty on Montenegro joining NATO, but Paul objected.

Under Senate rules, any one senator can object to a unanimous consent request. McCain warned before asking for consent that any senator who objected was “carrying out the desires and ambitions of Putin.”

Paul said the U.S. military is already stretched thin.

On Thursday, the Kentucky Republican said there can be a “rational discussion” about the pros and cons of expanding NATO.
“We currently have … combat troops, in about six nations. We have troops actively just stationed in probably a couple dozen others,” he said.

“We have a $20 trillion debt.”

Paul said McCain’s foreign policy would “greatly endanger” the country and “greatly overextend us.”

“And there has to be the thought whether or not it’s in our national interest to pledge to get involved with a war if Montenegro has an altercation with anyone,” he said.

“Another argument is that, when you ask the people of Montenegro, only about 40 percent or slightly less are actually in favor of this,” he said, adding there are a lot of considerations.

“But to call someone somehow an enemy of the state or a traitor might be considered by most reasonable people to be a little over the top.”

The amount of grief taking place across the left side of America is intense. Their mental ailments have been laid bare and now they’re lashing out like savage animals because they didn’t get a second place trophy.

Last night Trump’s proposed a sundry of budget cuts, most of which hit liberal institutions that have become political and really shouldn’t be funded by the government. One of those organizations is PBS — home of Ernie and Bert.

Whether the proposed cuts will stick is immaterial at this point. Part of negotiating any deal is to first aim high and try to meet in the middle. Being that The Donald is a savant in crafting deals, I’m certain he’ll bend a little, especially when it comes to some of the cultural institutions that rich folk hold so dear.

Then earlier on today, the Twitter account for $MCD went rogue and attacked Trump. I do not believe it was hacked, even though Twitter said it was compromised. I think it was some malevolently by some retard managing the account.

On a related note, democrats are now threatening to defund the government by not raising debt ceiling — in an effort to stop Trump’s Wall from being built. Good thing the Mexicans are paying for it.

The past 6 months have been surreal. The Trump show continues to spin off hit after hit, weaving intrigue and endless amounts of entertainment for those paying attention to the details. The left have lost often and in hilarious fashion. Trump has been under attack from the moment he announced his candidacy and his thinned skin demeanor all but guarantees he’ll continue to give his enemies hell — even when they don’t deserve it.

There are innumerable benefits to this, especially from an investment standpoint — the first being he’s made the Fed almost meaningless. You know as well as I that if Trump wasn’t around creating all sorts of shit storms, we’d be hanging on every word coming out of the Fed heads. Do you remember when we’d know the schedules of each Fed head, even the non voting one’s, just so we could parse every word to get a better idea what they were up to? Now we don’t give a shit. If they all died in fires today, we might be sad, but we really wouldn’t give a shit.

All that matters now is the plans Trump has set forth: taxes, healthcare, regulations, budget and infrastructure. Life is simple again. The fuckers at the Fed have the cover they need to slowly sabotage the market and we can trade again — without having to worry about market crashes, induced by a Fed governor burp.

Demotards and republitards should both be grateful for Trump for being the lightening rod, the bigger than life super hero/villain (depending how you look at him), for us little guys trying to cobble together a few million in investment gains in order to finance modest lives in zero crime, golf course rich, suburban neighborhoods with pastoral views.

Kathleen Hayes from Bloomberg called out Yellen for the state of the economy being in the tank — juxtaposed against nonsensical Fed Reserve tightening. Clearly, she hasn’t a legitimate reason to hike rates, other than to draw down the economy and cause a crisis.

Yellen said ‘policy remains accommodative’ yet she’s fucking hiking. That’s like me punching you in the face, whilst saying ‘I’m here to help.’

When Hayes asked if the Fed would continue to tighten should the economy continued to wallow in the doldrums, Yellen gave herself some wiggle room, saying ‘policy wasn’t set in stone.’

Well, look, our policy is not set in stone. It is data- dependent and we’re — we’re not locked into any particular policy path. Our — you know, as you said, the data have not notably strengthened. I — there’s noise always in the data from quarter to quarter. But we haven’t changed our view of the outlook. We think we’re on the same path, not — we haven’t boosted the outlook, projected faster growth. We think we’re moving along the same course we’ve been on, but it is one that involves gradual tightening in the labor market.

I would describe some measures of wage growth as having moved up some. Some measures haven’t moved up, but there’s is also suggestive of a strengthening labor market. And we expect policy to remain accommodative now for some time. So we’re talking about a gradual path of removing policy accommodation as the economy makes progress moving toward neutral. But we’re continuing to provide accommodation to the economy that’s allowing it to grow at an above-trend pace that’s consistent with further improvement in the labor market.

ONE DOES NOT HIKE INTEREST RATES WHEN THE ECONOMY IS GROWING UNDER 1%.

We truly dodged a bullet when Obama kicked old man McCain down a flight of electoral stairs in 2008.

In an effort to further his saber rattling against Putin and Russia, McCain is leading the charge to get Montenegro added to NATO. Libertarian Rand Paul, a man consistently against foreign intervention that costs the lives of millions, objected to it and walked out of the room — which then triggered McCain to make the following remarks.

“I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken. That is really remarkable — that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number, perhaps 98 at least of his colleagues, would come to the floor and object and walk away…The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no argument to be made.

He has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians. So, I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”

We’re in full blown red scare mode in establishment s h i l l America.

How long can we permit them to keep getting away with this sort of stuff? There will come a day when the right wing goon squads will have no choice but to place these people into large shipping containers, and then sink them to the bottom of the ocean.

Meanwhile, right wing tards continue to get beat down — across the nation.

Last night conservative talk show host, Michael Savage, was attacked by a 6’5 man outside a restaurant after eating dinner — who also kicked Savage’s dog — because liberalism is a mental disorder.

Michael’s attorney said they’ll be pursuing felony charges.

“We’re going to seek felony charges against the man and we’re going to investigate this as a Hate Crime because of Michael’s political views.”

Here is Savage’s account of the assault.

“I was leaving Servino’s restaurant when a total stranger followed me out of the restaurant and confronted me. He said, ‘Are you Michael Weiner?’ I turned to him and sid, ‘Go away, I don’t know who you are. I turned to leave and he pushed me and I fell down. He moved toward me to pushed me down and he shoved my 10-pound poodle out of the way to get to me. He has lied and said I pushed him. That is absurd. Both of my hands were holding onto things!”

Savage and his dog are okay. Some websites said Savage incurred a bloody nose, but that has yet to be confirmed.