‘Tis the Night Before Bootcamp

The 2nd quarter iBC Bootcamp is here and The Option Addict intends to bring his A game. With the recent pullback in the market, coupled with uncertainties abound heading into summer, this is the perfect time and venue to discuss the opportunities that lie ahead.

Like a fucking magician, OA always seems to figure it out. Trust me when I sell you, this will be the best $200 spent on investment education.

Be prepared for 5 days of intensive explanation and instruction from the best trader I’ve ever seen.

Former CIA Director under Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, is ‘stunned’ that former FBI Directors, James Comey leaked notes of private conversations with the President of the United States to his friend and then the press.

The CNN host, Fareed Zakaria, attempted to advocate on Comey’s behalf, suggesting that since Comey was a ‘private citizen’ he had the right to leak his notes. Woolsey was having none of that horseshit and said it was ‘stunning’ that ‘he would give up the secrecy of a conversation with the President of the United States.’

In the land of snitches, everyone is a leaker.

It’s over Trumpsters, yet again.

The President had to do it, jinx the market by tethering his presidency to its gains. In a move that’s incomprehensible to me, Trump bragged that the Dow was +16% and NASDAQ +19.5% since election night — which will undoubtedly prompt the stock Gods to severely punish traders with harrowing losses, both of the calamitous and unforgiving nature.

…way up. Regulations way down. 600,000+ new jobs added. Unemployment down to 4.3%. Business and economic enthusiasm way up- record levels!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2017

The cold truth about the market under Trump is more of the same under Obama. All of the gains have been registered in mega-cap tech names (FB, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, NFLX) with moderate outperformance in certain healthcare stocks. Other than that, market participation has been dreadful and the sectors he’s talked about helping, namely basic resources, construction, have traded lower.

Here are the returns of some struggling sectors under Trump, over the past 6 months.

Department stores -46%
Oil & Gas Drillers -37%
Pollution and Treatment Controls -25%
Steel & Iron -17%
Auto parts stores -16%
Heavy Construction -11%

And here are the true Trump sectors, the ones that have actually made investors money.

Home Healthcare +36%
Semiconductor Equipment +32%
Multimedia and Graphics +31%
3D Printing +26%
Health Care plans +22%
General Entertainment +20%

Here’s the reality of the situation.

Over the past 6 months, US Steel is -39% and Google is +20%. The new boss is the same as the old boss.

It appears the lack of momentum in removing the Orange God from the Oval office is beginning to take its toll on the left. As reality sinks in and the hard facts of life with Trump become apparent, the left are eating themselves.

CNN’s Van Jones shreds the Hillary campaign to pieces, only like a social justice warrior can.

“The Hillary Clinton campaign did not spend their money on white workers, and they did not spend it on people of color. They spent it on themselves,” Jones told a packed house at McCormick Place in Chicago. “They spent it on themselves, let’s be honest.”

“Let’s be honest,” Jones continued. “They took a billion dollars, a billion dollars, a billion dollars, and set it on fire, and called it a campaign!”

“That wasn’t a campaign. That’s not a campaign.”

Jones continued, attacking the Clinton campaign’s reliance on consultants and polling data that proved to be wrong.

“A billion dollars for consultants. A billion dollars for pollsters. A billion dollars for a data operation, that was run by data dummies who couldn’t figure out that maybe people in Michigan needed to be organized.”

“And now they want us to fight about whether black folks or white workers or Latinos or any other group should get the money,” Jones said. “First of all, you need to give the money back to the people, period.”

“Quit getting rich off people’s struggles,” Jones finished.

Van Jones has been redpilled to the divide and conquer politics of DC.

Donald Trump took away James Comey’s job, now his son will take away any semblance of dignity he has left. In an interview with Judge Jeanine, Trump Jr. laced into Comey, mocking the former FBI head and flat out calling him ‘dishonest’ and of ‘bad character.’

“He has proven himself to be a dishonest man of bad character,” Trump Jr. told Jeanine Pirro on Fox News. “They spent 10 months chasing a rabbit down a hole with the sole purpose of taking down my father.

“We were vindicated.”

“Of all the things that were leaked, the only thing that wasn’t leaked was that Trump was never under investigation,” he said. “Because there is nothing there.

“How come that’s not leaked?

Trump Jr. hit Comey with a verbal gravity hammer, saying “I think his divisiveness, the way he handled things, everything that leads up to this that we’ve seen over the last few months, and now that we know how he handled the Loretta Lynch thing, explains perfectly why he totally should’ve been fired.”

Judge Jeanine posited the idea, in light of the revelation that Comey had leaked to the NY Times, the possibility that he had leaked to the media in the past.

Trump Jr. concurred, “I think almost without question. He said he’s a leaker. You know, if he did it this time, how many time did he do it? I wish there was a follow up for that.

He added, “If the head of the FBI is saying ‘well if I was a stronger individual, I may…’, give me a break. You’re the head of the FBI. You’re not some baby, pretending, like, does anyone believe this? And if he is, he’s that guy? He’s not strong enough to say something that he believes is right that he goes and writes a memo and then leaks it to the NY Times? I mean, I can’t imagine anyone actually believing that that happened.”

Back in 2014, I underwent my worst drawdown of my life. It was a pivotal moment for me. I didn’t know it at the time, naturally, since I was dealing with the realization that I had made ruinous choices with my money. Heading into 2014, I had a chest full of pride and sack filled with courage. By April of 2014, I had nothing but BALs (BIG ASS LOSSES). Here’s a blog I had written then, lamenting over my situation.

The majority of my holdings are in 4 stocks: WDAY, FEYE, SPLK and YELP. I bought them because they were growing their revenues (LOL) and were winners, led by fantastic management teams. All of that means absolutely nothing today, as this basket of hell, death and aids netted me losses in excess of 10% (that’s right, 10%…for the day). I am beyond words. This is more than what I signed up for and ponder to myself the very meaning of life.

As a general rule, I sell after 10% losses. This time around, I rode these stocks straight down the toilet bowl and now swim with them in the raw sewage, with the rats and alligators.

I sold out of some small positions today, CLIR, FLXN and ANGI. But the money raised from those sales do nothing for me, as I am completely decimated amidst a crowd of geeks laughing at me for being so stupid.

With today’s sales, I could average down in these stocks again; but the life has been drawn out of me and I am giving up. I won’t sell. However, I intend to drift away on a small piece of wood, into the sunset, without any paddles or provisions. It was just meant to be, a fantastic blow up, broadcasted live in a public forum for all to scrutinize. Please do not let my newly found tone of pathetic contrition stop you from poking fun at my state of affairs, as I would not grant you safe quarter if the scenario were reversed.

The reality is the market eats its young and spits out the old men from windows. It’s never personal and just because you suck now and lost a bunch of money, that doesn’t mean you can’t regroup and rise again from the ashes. Greed is a wonderful emotion, but it cuts both ways. You get to make all of that money during the good times, but suffer, abhorrently, during the bad.

Bottom line: Assess the damage and stay in the game. For me, the market crashed today, and funnily enough, it’s barely down 1% for the year. Fuck me running sideways with a pineapple.

Looking back on that post reminds me of the perils of hubris and how success can, in fact, defeat you.

On Friday tech stocks, led by Semiconductor – Broadline, crushed traders. The decline was steeped in retribution — cast upon fast trading monkeys by old money bastards. I know for a fact, ‘they’ don’t want you to success. The market is a casino and the house prefers to win.

I’ve read comments by people jumping into the decline, hoping for a bounce. Here is what the Exodus oscillator is saying.

Based on what I’m seeing above, the sector looks somewhat oversold. But that’s under normal conditions. Those oscillators are useless in a six sigma event.

For those who forgot, let me show you the severity of the drawdown during the tech wreck of 2014.

I recall doing a post, highlighting the losses of early 2014 — which displayed a sundry of popular tech stocks down by 30-60% inside of a few short months. The point here is to expect the unexpected during times of duress. Is this the beginning of an extended pullback in tech?

Maybe.

From a market cap standpoint, tech now represents more than 25% of all stocks, or $10 trillion. I cannot recall the weighting being so high — so you should expect a reversion to the mean in the not-too-distant future.

Here I documented corrections from 1998-2000.

A case study of SCMR during the dot com crash.

God I love this timeline, if only for the distraction from the other horrible stuff — such as $2k per month health insurance. In his first press conference since the Comey testimony, Trump laid into the press, again calling them ‘fake news’, called Comey a ‘leaker’ and felt he was totally vindication from the suggestion of collusion or obstruction — and also hinted that the existence of tape recordings of his conversations with Comey could be real.

In the event they are and prove Comey to be a liar, will the press apologize? Will you shills apologize and genuflect to the orange God?

Here are some of the more classic varietal Trump moments and full clip below.

Trump calling out FAKE NEWS to press pool. It doesn't get old. "Such a nice man.' pic.twitter.com/qxWKbhovk7

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 9, 2017

Trump calling out FAKE NEWS to press pool. It doesn't get old. "Such a nice man.' pic.twitter.com/qxWKbhovk7

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 9, 2017

Get in here shills. It’s time for your daily lesson on the sacred documents of the U.S. Constitution. Following up on his emphatic belief that the President can, essentially, do whatever the hell he wants with the FBI head — the famed Harvard Law professor called the former director a ‘coward’ for leaking his notes to the press, saying “I thought it shows a lot of cowardice. The head of the FBI (audible laughter), the guy is supposed to be a strong and powerful guy and he’s afraid of a couple seagulls (referring to Comey’s depiction of the press outside his home to seagulls).”

He added, “He should have had the courage to get on television and release the memos and talk about it or not talk about it. But to have some friend become his surrogate was absurd.”

Dershowitz then reiterated his thoughts about the non-existent obstruction case against the President.

“We should just stop talking about obstruction of justice, there’s no plausible case there.”

You know things are bad when the head of the FBI is called a coward by Alan Dershowitz — for fucks sake.

Semiconductors are leading the charge sharply lower for tech, led by NVDA, AMD, UCTT and a few dozen others — with bone crushing declines. These stocks deserve to be murdered or buried alive. The oscillator in Exodus, powered by predictive algorithms, is not close to oversold yet.

Amazingly, there’s a flipside to this debacle, an alternative universe where the rotation is as clear as the day is long. The banks are being bought with extreme vigor.

On May 31st, 2017, Exodus‘ mean reversion intelligence flagged oversold for FAS. It’s important to note, for the sake of posterity, it was correct — yet again.

Our track record is 13 wins zero losses over the past year. No one knows mean reversion better than me.

The regional banks are enjoying the tech wreck the most — with 3%+ gains in dozens of names. Candidly, this all feels too mechanized, not very spontaneous. This organized and orchestrated rotation does not feel main streetish. My best guess, Goldman is making a killing today, while Joe Blow is getting his brains shot out in his tech heavy margin account.

The house always wins. Get an edge.

Cramer just got owned here.

Jesus Christ NVDA is overvalued. The stock is up 50% over the past month. It is up 225% over the past year. God damn it, it’s up 1,269% over the past 5 years. Truth be told, the gains are well deserved. Look at the batshit earnings and revenue growth — nothing short of stellar.

With a PE in the ballpark of 50 and p/s of 9, this stock is fucking stupid. Professional bearshitter from Citron made the call today, strongly suggesting the stock was heading back to $130. Lucky for Left, the market decided to dump out today, making him an instant winner. Perhaps the Gods are on his side, or maybe he has complete control over the market — rendering free will to be idle nonsense. Either way, he got long term bull of NVDA, Jim Cramer, to agree with him that the stock was heading for a correction and could see $130 in short order.