THE MARKET IS PRICING IN TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT TODAY, AMIDST SESSIONS ‘REVELATIONS’

The main stream media is in full spin cycle today, whirling a dizzying tale of deceit and treason, in light of new revelations that AG Sessions, in fact, met with a Russian Ambassador and didn’t mention it to Sen. Frankenstein during his confirmation hearings.

The Sessions camp says it’s complete horseshit, that the Senator had met with the Russian ambassador under his role as a member of the armed services committee, not for Trump.

Here’s the scoop.

Sen. Schumer is calling for an immediate investigation into the Trump administration for ‘Russian ties’ and says he must recuse himself from any investigation into Trump.

"The Justice Department must immediately appoint a special prosecutor," Schumer says https://t.co/T5uqoA85rO pic.twitter.com/RDmw8KuYKy

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 2, 2017

MOMENTS AGO: Sen. Schumer says “it would be of ‘Alice and Wonderland’ quality” if Trump admin allows Sessions to investigate himself pic.twitter.com/HkhXOiBnyL

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 2, 2017

RARE PROTESTS are underway at the DOJ, with people chanting ‘lock him up’, an obvious ode to republican cat calls ‘lock her up’ — referring to two time failed Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

There's a protest going on in front of the DOJ. #lockhimup #sessions pic.twitter.com/xBLVKCgnR8

— SeriouslyUS? (@USseriously) March 2, 2017

The republican response has been mostly uniform, equating it to a witch hunt, replete with ‘smoke and mirrors.’

.@SenatorLankford on AG Sessions: "This is all smoke and mirrors… Let's deal with facts rather than just random accusations." pic.twitter.com/9AVMR6TFuZ

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) March 2, 2017

Here’s Paul Ryan telling the media the democrats are ‘lighting their hair on fire’ to get you (the cucked media) to cover it.

“I think Democrats are lighting their hair on fire to get you to cover this story,” Ryan says https://t.co/T5uqoA85rO pic.twitter.com/cNkOeg0I1p

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 2, 2017

As a result of this uncertainty, stocks are tumbling, especially Trump trade ones that rely on infrastructure spending. On the upside are retail stocks, perhaps pricing in the death of Trump’s border tax — as this new crisis envelopes the White House with scandal not seen since the Nixon days.

Retail focused $XRT is higher by more than 1%, while the metals and mining ETF, $XME, is crushed lower by nearly 4% — partly thanks to CAT’s offices being raided today.

Here is our ‘friends’ at Business Insider, gracefully reminding us how the impeachment process works.

This is how the presidential impeachment process works pic.twitter.com/r7MslT9eXu

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) March 2, 2017

Brace yourselves lads, the Russians are coming.

Look at $MNST fly, up more than 13% off an earnings crush. Personally, I prefer Monster White can over all other energy beverages. I used to drink them all the time, hopped up on caffeine, punching holes through my wall. But those days are behind me now. I’m a kindler, gentler, more distinguished Fly — who’s only penchant is for large quantities of coffee and a desire to one day barrel towards and fulfill a life long dream of wanton alcoholism. Being of Irish heritage, it is my birthright.

Recent scan data had suggested weak sales trends for Monster. Those reports proved to be bullshit, now a major cause of pain and grief for anyone who shorted ahead of earnings.

Stifel raises their price target to $57 from $55, reiterates Buy. They note that Monster Beverage Corp. reported a meaningful sales and EPS beat in 4Q16 and also provided a solid month of January gross sales update on its earnings call. They believe the result is far better than feared given concerns that decelerating growth in U.S. scanner data indicated weakening end-demand. International legacy sales increased approximately 55% y/y, more than 2x the full-year growth rate, benefiting from accelerating brand awareness and the transition to Coke distribution in the majority of international geographies. Additionally, operating margin expanded 360bps y/y to 39.5% (or about 200bps normalizing for a benefit from lower promotional expenses in 4Q16), reflecting solid leverage on heightened expenses and likely helping to alleviate concerns about Monster’s ability to manage incremental investment. Monster also announced a new $500mm share repurchase authorization given continued strong free cash flow generation.

RBC notes that MNST shares rallied +11% after-hours (bringing the stock into green territory from a year ago) on strong 4Q16 and January ’17 sales growth (relative to expectations). Ahead of the print, investors were downbeat on Monster due to soft scanner data, but as they have written before, they think investors are under-appreciating Monster’s long-term growth opportunity in non-tracked channels and international. Reiterates Outperform, $61 tgt.

Which is your favorite energy soda?

UPDATE: Snap opened up higher by +50%, a comical situation for all parties involved. Enjoy losing money in SNAP for the next two years.

When will someone put an end to this already? If you buy $SNAP today, you deserve to lose all of your money. At 25x sales, it will be the most expensive social media stock of all time. As a point in fact, at 25x sales, sporting a market cap of $24b, it will be the highest valuation large cap stock in America.

Social media peers

So how did we get to this retarded place where cool companies come public very late in their growth stage at absurd valuations?

VENTURE CAPITALISTS.

What is a venture capitalist?

They are professional pyramid schemers who finance the best private companies to the tune of billions — keeping them private for extended periods of time until their growth phase peaks and then IPOs them only when they want to cash out.

That is literally what they do.

The net result is an IPO system which is totally broken. It doesn’t serve as a viable investable genre any longer — as it is replete with unicorns and other fanciful companies who’ve been brought public at such extreme valuations, it’s almost impossible for after market participants to make money on them anymore.

Sure, sometimes these IPOs squeeze higher and make people money for short periods of time, like $GPRO, $SHAK, $TWLO and $FEYE — but they always crash and burn.

The investment banks did a good job at marketing this piece of shit, $SNAP. Without question, the company is growing fast and is a relevant part of idiot youngsters pathetic lives. But rest assured, if you purchase SNAP today, you will lose money in it over the next year. The stock, thanks to its extreme valuation, will be dead money for at least a year, if not longer.

How does it feel to know that you literally elected a Russian spy? Think about all of the hard work President Obama did over the past 8 years, toiling away — forging true lasting relationships with The House of Saud and China — while designing new schemes to cause anguish and tumult, both here and abroad, and now all of that ‘intel’ is going directly into the brain of Vlad Putin. UN-fucking-believable.

The Washington Post is out with a story right now that then Senator Sessions met with the Russian ambassador, as well as 24 other foreign ambassadors, while on the ‘influential’ armed services committee. While this might look like ‘literally nothing’ to the layman, just know that of the 26 members on the armed services committee, 19 reported back to the Washington Post that they DID NOT meet with any Russians, let alone think about them. Quite frankly, honorable men of distinguished cloth do not meet with enemies — they annihilate them.

In summary, would be Madame President Clinton was Mcrobbed by Russians — after revealing John Podesta’s pizzagate infested email box to be of the lewd and insidious nature, rich with DNC schemes and main stream media chicanery. That alone was enough to sway the American people in the rusted belt to vote for Trump in large numbers. Bear in mind, Hillary won the popular vote, yet now finds herself indelibly unemployed and her foundation in rack and ruin.

Now this: our Attorney General met with a fucking Russian to discuss who knows what? I bet they even had a cold and disgusting bowl of borscht, while Sessions promised the Russians unlimited dick suckings in DC, in addition to vassal states in Eastern Europe and unfettered access to bombing out the terrorists in Syria.

You’ve been Mchad Trumpsters. Read it and weep. No take backs. OWN THIS.

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.
When Sessions spoke with Kislyak in July and September, the senator was a senior member of the influential Armed Services Committee as well as one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisers. Sessions played a prominent role supporting Trump on the stump after formally joining the campaign in February 2016.

In January, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) asked Sessions for answers to written questions. “Several of the President-elect’s nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?” Leahy wrote.

Sessions responded with one word: “No.”

Justice officials said Sessions met with Kislyak on Sept. 8 in his capacity as a member of the armed services panel rather than in his role as a Trump campaign surrogate.

“He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee,” Flores said.

She added that Sessions last year had more than 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, including the British, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Indian, Chinese, Canadian, Australian and German ambassadors, in addition to Kislyak.

In the case of the September meeting, one department official who came to the defense of the attorney general said, “There’s just not strong recollection of what was said.”

The Russian ambassador did not respond to requests for comment about his contacts with Sessions.

The Washington Post contacted all 26 members of the 2016 Senate Armed Services Committee to see if any lawmakers besides Sessions met with Kislyak in 2016. Of the 19 lawmakers who responded, every senator, including chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), said they did not meet with the Russian ambassador last year. The other lawmakers on the panel did not respond as of Wednesday evening.

When asked to comment on Sessions’s contacts with Kislyak, Franken said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday: “If it’s true that Attorney General Sessions met with the Russian ambassador in the midst of the campaign, then I am very troubled that his response to my questioning during his confirmation hearing was, at best, misleading.

Franken added: “It is now clearer than ever that the attorney general cannot, in good faith, oversee an investigation at the Department of Justice and the FBI of the Trump-Russia connection, and he must recuse himself immediately.”

AL FRANKEN WINS AGAIN.

With so many Russian hackers out there wreaking havoc, you’d think there would be demand for these piece of shit software companies who take advantage of weak minded morons running IT budgets for fortune 500 companies. I can recall a conversation that I had with an executive at Bofa/Merrill, who was in charge of a $500m per annum IT budget, who declared the cyber security sector ‘a fucking scam’ — bitching about prices being artificially and predatorily high.

When he took the role, he canceled all contracts and was working on crafting new ones — at much lower prices. That was two years ago.

Since then, $FEYE is down 75%, $VDSI -48%, $CUDA -37%, $QLYS -24% and today’s leader to the downside, $PANW -18%.

PANW just warned and guides lower. The party is, inexorably, fucking over for them.

Source: UBS

UBS downgrades PANW to Neutral from Buy and raises their tgt to $160 from $130. Amid a tough set-up, an across the board weak F2Q marked PANW’s 3rd set of inconsistent results in the LTM, ascribed to broad-based, go-to-market issues, aggravated by unforeseen purchasing pauses consequent to PANW’s recent slate of new product releases. While lower sales productivity and poor pipeline conversion were specific culprits cited, firm thinks investors are increasingly unlikely to dismiss competitive factors (CSCO’s security growth has been stable and respectable in mid/high-teens; peers CHKP, FTNT capped off strong CY16s) from here on. What has now emerged as a pattern of inconsistent execution and stark decel optics, firm sees PANW’s heretofore premium valuation as likely impaired, with a re-rating contingent on multiple Qs of growth reacceleration and “clean” results. As such, they are moving to the sidelines as they see the stock range-bound until the execution uncertainty clears.

Staying the course, George Bushing this market has proven to be eventful for me, during 2017. While many out there hem and haw, blowing themselves up in errant bets — based off stupid ideas, Le Fly rides in his 1980s style stretch limo — accumulating Trump trades.

The trade is simple, as it is ideological. There is going to be a great build out in America over the next 4 years. Infrastructure spending and less regulatory hurdles will greatly cause demand for steel to soar. In order to galvanize steel, zinc is required — a far less abundantly supplied metal than steel.

Prices will rise, fortunes will be made.

As of several weeks ago, I was and am presently 160% long in the following names.

For the most part, it’s an equal weighted portfolio — with a little emphasis on $UEC and $CLF. For the session, my gains are upwards of 5% — all but negating my recent drawdown — placing my year to date returns at +13%.

All in a days work.

Those are my charts. Now go fuck yourselves.

This is a savage assault upon Merkel, delivered with fierce Marine Le Pen — who called Germany a ‘servant to America.’ I’ve never seen anything quite like it, frankly. It bordered on sabre rattling before a declaration of war.

Le Pen emphatically rejected the subjugation and ‘vassilisation’ of Europe by Germany — declaring her intentions to break off from it — representative of an ‘intelligent protectionism’, individual liberties and defense of safety and identity.

French Presidential elections start on 4/23/17 and end on 5/7/17.

Markets are forward looking indicators. Over the past 8 years, the market kept pricing in central bank rigging, rightly so. From the BOJ to the ECB to our Fed, central banks showed a keen willingness to boost asset prices since the financial crisis in 2008 — helping reflate equities and keep Humpty Dumpty together. What Trump is talking about is totally different — a return to American greatness, something that resonates with just about all Americans — because everyone loves a fairytale.

Whether he can pull it off or not is immaterial as of today. All people care about now is the future and how bright it looks. Gone are the dreary days of being beholden to Fed speeches, listening to ugly people in bad clothes discuss our future. These new plans that Trump has outlined paints a colorful picture of an American renaissance — high paying jobs for all, affordable healthcare, strong military, strong borders — peace.

At some point in life, you start figuring out mostly everything you knew was bullshit, smoke and mirrors, parlour tricks, a delightful game of three card monte until the end. People want to believe. Trump is a superb salesman, probably the best you’ve ever seen — because you don’t see him coming. At times he sounds off the cuff, petulant, and unrehearsed — drawing jeers from professional losers. That’s likely done with purpose. You don’t see him coming, a yet here he is worth $10b and President of the United States.

The market is the sum total of hope, the expectations of the masses, an endless parry betwixt by fear and greed.

The bond market is getting destroyed today, thanks to the Fed. The 10yr bond is up 10bps to 2.45% — moving in the opposite direction of stocks — which are gloriously higher by nearly 250.

The run higher in basic materials can best be represented by the ETF $XME. If you’ve missed out on this run and are afraid to buy into a furious rally, hold tight and buy later. But, there isn’t a strong likelihood that equities will correct from now until May. There is a sea change taking place. It’s important that you understand the difference between a Fed induced rally and one on the merits of real economic growth.

This is political. Trump’s policies are the opposite of what Obama envisioned, which is an economy stifled and burdened by heavy taxes, regulations, currying favor to mercenary capitalists — literally helping them move jobs abroad to lower costs. There is an ideology behind that way of thinking of course: safe the earth fom humans, uplift the living standards of people abroad, help all of humanity via organized and command economic structures coupled with philanthropic organizations etc.

This is all bullshit, the machinations of deluded people, failures.

You cannot help others while sick. The President’s job should be to advocate for his citizens first, everyone else second.

Enough of the fucking ranting. Go enjoy the cocaine rally.

The market is ripping higher out from the gates this morning, enjoying the aura of last night’s Presidential address to congress — starring Donald John Trump. In it, he proposed many things, most of which has been dicusssd in these hallowed halls. The one thing he didn’t do, which was hoped for by many on the left, was chimp out and cast aspersions, talk greasy about one of his many enemies.

That’s all the market needed to see, a consensus opinion that is strong and bold around the President’s proposed policies.

On that news, basic material stocks are exploding to the upside, as predicted, by Exodus.

Simultaneously, the devils at the Fed are looking to hike again in March. The chances of a March hike are now nearing 70%.

Who the fuck do they think they are? Clearly, it’s antithetical to the views of the President, and the tenets of economics, to hike rates into a weak economy. Yeah, I know, America is great again; but we need to finance these proposals first in order to stoke growth. What the Fed is doing, essentially, is treasonous — purposely attempting to derail the real recovery before it even happens.

Explain to me why we should hike rates after seeing horrendous retail sales from just about every mall operator, including $TGT? GDP is still sub 2% and zero of Trump’s stimulative policies have been enacted.

ARREST JANET YELLEN NOW. We cannot afford her shenanigans any longer.