Morning Poppers (My Book Has Launched Edition)

Good morning lads,

My god damned book is here. Be sure to toast it and leave a 5 star review into the Amazon ecosystem. I am exploring options to create a paperback and leatherbound version for those with rich libraries. In the meantime, the Kindle version will have to suffice.

Spain is down more than 1%. Chaos theory says Catalonions will break away from them, causing a civil war, at which time the EU will send shock troops in to restore order.

Gold is strong again, higher by 0.7% and WTI is +1%. Bitcoin is 4,800. I think I made a bet with someone that I’d cut off my genitalia should it go to 5,000. I don’t know why I always use my testicles in bets. There is really no upside to this way of thinking.

Nasdaq futures are +13. You can’t stop the fire.

Here are some notable movers in the pre-market, per Briefing.

UAL +4.3%, (provides Q3 investor update; raised its Q3 pre-tax margin guidance and updated other metrics)
WMT +2.3%, (reaffirms FY18 guidance; sees FY19 EPS +5% with sales up at or above 3%; adds to share buyback)
REVG +1.1%

USEG +25.8% (sale of certain non-operated Williston Basin assets; received $2.0 million in cash)
PFE +1% (reviewing strategic alternatives for its Consumer Healthcare business)
HON +0.7% (announces planned comprehensive portfolio review)

KALV +75.4% (enters collaboration agreement with Merck (MRK); Merck to pay $37 mln upfront payment, additionally take 9.9% stake through private placement at $8.50/share)
ANAB +57.1% (announces positive proof-of-concept data for ANB020)
PSDV +12.3% (enters strategic collaboration agreement with Nicox to develop sustained release drug to lower intraocular pressure in patients with glaucoma)
REPH +10.6% (presents clinical efficacy data from its Phase III study evaluating intravenous (IV) meloxicam 30mg)
OVID +8.2% (receives orphan drug designation from the U.S. FDA for OV101)
ICHR +5.9% (entered into ‘substantial’ agreement to produce liquid delivery systems for one of its key customers)
NVDA +4.2% (announces new Drive PX Pegasus AI hardware that enables fully autonomous (level 5) driving – TechCrunch)
ATRS +4% (enters into a definitive asset purchase agreement to sell the worldwide rights, including certain fixed assets, for the ZOMAJET )
ALDX +2.6% (announces new clinical data for ADX-102 from recently completed Phase 2 clinical trials of dry eye disease and allergic conjunctivitis), CLVS +1.8% ( submitted sNDA to the FDA for rucaparib as maintenance treatment of patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in a complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy)
DXC +1.2% (to acquire Logicalis SMC)
REVG +1.1% (announces an underwritten public offering of 10,000,000 shares of common stock by certain selling stockholders)
AGN +1% (FDA has accepted the NDA for ulipristal acetate)

ABEO +4% (initiated with a Buy at Citigroup)
PANW +2.8% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley)
RBS +2.5% (upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse; upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Citigroup)
RIG +1.6% (initiated with Buy ratings at Deutsche Bank)
TSM +1.5% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan)
DVN +1.4% (upgraded to Buy at Jefferies)
DO +1.3% (upgraded to Neutral from Sell at FBR & Co)
TSLA +1.2% (target raised to $379 from $317 at Morgan Stanley)
LYG +0.8% (upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse)
CXO +0.8% (upgraded to Buy at Jefferies)
CAT +0.7% (target raised to $158 at Goldman – new street high)
CLB +0.7% (initiated with Buy ratings at Deutsche Bank)
HAL +0.5% (initiated with Buy ratings at Deutsche Bank)

How about them semis?

UPDATE: It’s here. Enjoy.

It took me about a month to complete this story, roughly 15,500 words, or 60 pages long. It is easily my best writing to date, as I placed a lot of effort into it. I let a few people review it and they liked it, especially good olde Chuck, who actually bore witness to a lot of the debauchery in real life.

The setting is in 1997, me starting out as a young stockbroker at an unnamed brokerage firm on Wall Street. The dot coms were mired in a dreadful market, cleaning out many in the business who couldn’t take the drawdowns. I was very close to quitting and doing something else for a living, at the lows in 1998. But I held firm, put my head down, and as a result, made a god damned killing.

This is a living document. All of the things I mention in this book happened, no matter how absurd they sound. I intentionally made it short — because I do not have experience with this type of format and didn’t want to commit to a large novel and it turned out to be shit. If you like it, I will continue the story with “BUST.” And then after that, we can do 2003-2007, right before the website really took a hold of me. I might even do one about the site someday, which I am sure you’d be interested in.

The Kindle people are reviewing the Ebook now and I hope to have a print version out too.

After it comes out and you’ve read it and given me 5 stars, whether you loved it or not, we can do an open Q&A and I can give you the ins and outs, small details to fill you in on some of the backstories at play in the story.

When the electricity grids shuts down and you’re unable to withdraw money from your ATMs, cash will be scarce and you’ll starve to death, unless someone parachutes food and supplies into your shithole neighborhood.

The entire island of Puerto Rico is dealing with this now, as 90% of the island remain bereft of electricity and half without clean water. There is an endless supply of filthy water, however.

Enter the NY Fed and their plane filled with cash, via Bloomberg.

William Dudley, the New York Fed president, put the word out within minutes, and ultimately a jet loaded with an undisclosed amount of cash landed on the stricken island, according to Richard Carrion, the Popular Inc. executive chairman who made the call. He and Chief Executive Officer Ignacio Alvarez reflected on the chaotic early days of the crisis in an interview Friday at their office in San Juan’s Hato Rey financial district.

“We thought the cash was going to be a problem,” said Carrion, 64, whose bank is the biggest in Puerto Rico by deposits. “The magnitude of this is something we haven’t experienced.” Suzanne Elio, a New York Fed spokeswoman, declined to comment on the money shipment.

Apparently, corporations needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet payroll, none of which was available in Puerto Rico’s shitty banks, especially Banco Popular. One day after the storm, the Fed was ferrying large amounts of cash to the island, in an effort to avoid a deflationary vortex.

How bad was the storm? It’s estimated that over 100,000 buildings were leveled, completely destroyed. The banks are now gearing up for a construction renaissance, rebuilding the island to be one of extreme grandeur. Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans continue to flee the island, resettling in the mainland. There are more Puerto Ricans in mainland American than in Puerto Rico. They do not need a visa to travel here. All they need is a plane ticket and a place to call home.

Expect many of the 3.4 million Puerto Ricans to jettison the island for good, perhaps changing the demographics for Florida, tipping the advantage to democrats.

I’m into buying falling knives. Are you?

So what? XXII is doing a secondary. The bottom has been reached and ‘modified risk cigarettes’ are the way of the future, the way of the future.

Also, I bought some HIIQ. Seeing the ENTIRE healthcare industry in ruins today, thanks to Trump’s new plan to destroy Obamacare, I figured this little guy could really get going tomorrow, after the allocators figure out they stand to win from this move.

Anyone playing HMNY for their Moviepass stake?

Over the weekend it was announced that President Trump was going to ditch restrictions that banned people from buying health instance across state lines. For the love of God, he’s going to allow competition and not force you to buy from your state monopoly. While this might sound wonderful, it will expedite the death of Obamacare — which is probably the gameplay here.

Trump can’t get his way, so he’s gonna burrrrn the whole kit and caboodle down.

Source: Washington Examiner

The plans offered by associations would be less expensive because they wouldn’t have the same requirements as Obamacare coverage. For instance, they wouldn’t be required to cover customers with pre-existing illnesses and could either deny coverage or charge these customers more. They also would not be required to provide coverage for a range of medical care, from addiction to maternity services. Insurers would be likely to sell coverage from a state with the fewest restrictions, which is why its supporters bill it as a move that would allow a long-stated conservative goal to sell health insurance across state lines.

Association health plans used to be more common before Obamacare, which placed restrictions on their use.

Lifting these protections would offer less comprehensive coverage, but would also make health plans less expensive. Critics worry that they set people up for “junk insurance” and would further destabilize the Obamacare exchanges, which already are plagued with mass exits by insurers and double-digit premium hikes. The move, critics say, could result in an even sicker population on the exchanges while healthier customers are picked off into the association health plans.

Still, the proposal is popular with conservatives. Middle class customers who don’t receive subsidies under Obamacare are facing the prospect of buying more expensive coverage in 2018 through Obamacare’s exchanges, and could avail themselves of the option. Through a short-term health insurance option, they face similar coverage as those sold on association health plans.

The increases these customers face come as a result of lack of profitability in the markets as well as vast uncertainty over what the Republican-controlled Congress and the Trump administration would do about the law as they sought for months to repeal or overhaul portions of it.

A backdoor way of totally destroying Obamacare and there is nothing anyone can do about it — chaos theory.

Healthcarefags, BTFO.

ESRX -5%, ABC -3%, CYH -6%, THC -5%, LPNT -3%, CVS -3%, DVA -8.5%, AAC -5.5%, ACHC -4%.

The only outlier: HIIQ.

Health Insurance Innovations: Trump rollback benefits HIIQ — Canaccord Genuity (18.05 +1.15)

Canaccord notes that in light of WSJ reports that President Trump intends to roll back certain health insurance regulations concerning short-term medical insurance, which should have a direct benefit to Tampa-based Health Insurance Innovations (HIIQ), firm feels, “This should be positive for HIIQ: Even though 2Q’17 was still a strong quarter, we believe results would have been even better (specifically at Agile) if the Obama policy did not go into effect; thus, we believe the reversal of the three-month limitation rule will be positive for growth at Agile in addition to providing a greater sense of legitimacy for STM insurance, especially in light of the recent negative sentiment generated by the various short reports. Furthermore, we would point out that a main driver of the stock’s performance since Trump won the election was the potential for him to de-regulate the insurance industry and reverse the three-month limitation; thus, it is encouraging to see this play out.”

Markets are thin today, not doing much, thanks to Columbus Day. I suppose all of the flat earthers around the globe are taking the day off to contemplate how it all went wrong. Meanwhile, the piece of shit stock that I bought for myself, XXII, “moderated risk” cigarettes, are getting smoked the fuck out like a homeless man under an overpass.

They announced a stock offering, so the stock traded down as a result.

There’s a parable tucked away somewhere. Here I am, trying to profit from a cigarette stock, now getting clubbed out and knifed away in an open setting — on a holiday to boot. Where is the dignity in all of that?

I could buy more and make a go at it, but I get the sense that throwing good money after bad might not be the clever thing to do. I need to think about it a little more.

Ironically, the best performing sector today is tobacco. This is God’s way of “moderating” my ego, taking me down a notch in order so that I can learn the ways of the third estate.

Healthcare stocks are very weak too. Not sure what’s going on there — but I’m gonna have to check it out.

Here’s what I found on healthcare so far — Trump related.

Canaccord notes that in light of WSJ reports that President Trump intends to roll back certain health insurance regulations concerning short-term medical insurance, which should have a direct benefit to Tampa-based Health Insurance Innovations (HIIQ), firm feels, “This should be positive for HIIQ: Even though 2Q’17 was still a strong quarter, we believe results would have been even better (specifically at Agile) if the Obama policy did not go into effect; thus, we believe the reversal of the three-month limitation rule will be positive for growth at Agile in addition to providing a greater sense of legitimacy for STM insurance, especially in light of the recent negative sentiment generated by the various short reports. Furthermore, we would point out that a main driver of the stock’s performance since Trump won the election was the potential for him to de-regulate the insurance industry and reverse the three-month limitation; thus, it is encouraging to see this play out.”

Courtesy of one of iBC’s loyal readers, the cover for my book/story is ready. Have a look.

Good morning lads.

I ventured off to Six Flags’ Fright Fest last night with my kids and their friends, with me being the official chauffeur for everyone. It was an enjoyable experience, especially seeing how scared the kids became when confronted by zombies.

Lots of stuff happening. Hurricane Nate swept thru New Orleans last night.

#StormSurge coming into lobby of Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi #HurricaneNate pic.twitter.com/sYeHT1aMzI

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) October 8, 2017

I read there is ~$4b in damages. Not much at all. Just get Yellen to print up some more money and lend it to the govt at a competitive interest rate.

Here are the top 10 stocks in Exodus as of Friday, ranked by Hybrid score — which is a combo of technicals and fundamentals.

I
CMA
VSH
AEL
GM
RJF
DAL
OTEX
ITT
DOV

If we strip out fundamentals, the top 5 ranked by technicals are:

XXII
KNDI
SGMS
I
HMNY

What the fuck did he mean by this?

Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

…hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

Like a man possessed by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I spilled out a stream of consciousness last night, amounting to 7,000 words, and completed my story. It still needs some polishing, which might take me a week or so to complete. In all, it’s about 55 pages, ~15,000 words long.

I tried to tone down the mechanized and boring narratives woven when discussing numbers. After a while, talking about stocks gets boring. There’s a lot of dialogue in it, conversations that I had during the very best of times — with some very interesting and colorful people.

I hope you enjoy it. If so, I’ll continue the story.

Here’s another snippet of a story that will be titled: “In a Car Made of Dynamite Sticks, Racing For the Sun”

New fucking highs for HLF, placing Bill ‘Montauk’ Ackman’s face down on a panini press. Grim, dark, days ahead for Mr. Bill. Perhaps he should get himself a frozen custard.

EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE INSIDE PERSHING SQUARE TODAY $HLF pic.twitter.com/aNp6HcIWKU

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) October 6, 2017

Enjoy the last vestiges of splendid weather, Northeastfags.

Off to get my car washed.

Ladies and gents, loser with method Newport’s in your mouths,

The time has come for you to toss away those Marlboros and grab a hold of some RED SUN or SPECTRUM GOVERNMENT RESEARCH CIGARETTES. Yes, indeud, they are quite literally making these ‘MODIFIED RISK’ cancer sticks for the government.

BEHOLD.

When you have ample time on your hands, perhaps whilst sipping on some strong brandy, peruse the website and behold the grandeur of their ‘research.’

Meanwhile, the stock is taking the fuck off. I told you I’d buy a piece of shit. I’ve found it, one that preys off the weak and the infirmed — those of you addicted to tobacco barreling towards a fastidious and painful death. Do not worry any longer lads. With the help of the US Govt, XXII will make and distribute MODIFIED RISK cigarettes to mollify the masses.

We’re just getting started here.