DOLLAR SUFFERS WORST DROP IN 7 YEARS

I am about to sound as if I’m raining on your little parade now. There is nothing redeemable about today’s tape, unless of course you believe wild gyrations in crude and currencies is your thing.

Today’s drop in the dollar is the worst since the Fed announced QE, 7 years ago.

“The currencies market has been at odds with the rates market, and now the rates market is winning,” said Peter Gorra, head of foreign-exchange trading in New York at BNP Paribas SA. “There’s a disconnect where the Fed says it’s four hikes while the market says it’s like 0.7 hike this year — someone is wrong.”

“Presumably investors are betting that lingering risk-off will stay Fed’s hand when it comes to further tightening,” said Valentin Marinov, head of Group-of-10 currency strategist at Credit Agricole SA’s corporate and investment banking unit in London. “It would take disappointing U.S. data today and Friday to see the dollar coming under sustained selling pressure.”

Stocks are rally, sort of. At the moment, just 60% of stocks are higher and the Nasdaq is down more than 0.6%. This is not the type of rally you want when putting in a bottom. This is the sort of rally that offers glimmers of false hope, then snatches it away before settlement date–thrusting a whole wide world of suckers into the black emptiness of a destructive bear market.

The real winners today are gold and silver stocks.

How wonderful. Prepare to be disappointed.

The insane 6% spike in crude slapped the shit out of short sellers and made them run home, crying to their mothers–complaining about not being able to crash the markets every day.

Crude started running after the EIA released inventory data at 10:30, showing a lunatic amount of crude in storage. Nevertheless, oil has been firming since then and has affected the overall sentiment of stocks.

What we need to see now is people getting off the ark, selling TLT, and diving headlong into the concrete walls of high finance: stocks.

If we can get the Nasdaq to turn green, today could shape up to be a pivotal day that might allow for stocks to rally at least through settlement date.

This could not have happened at a worse time for the company. In less than 1 week before the super bowl, a time and place in American society that men consume beer and chicken wings on an industrial scale, ten people at a Kansas BWLD were stricken with a stomach ailment, prompting concerns about the integrity of Buffalo Wild Wing’s food.

Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. shares tumbled as much as 7.8 percent after Kansas health officials said they were investigating reports of a gastrointestinal illness that sickened at least 10 customers.

The Johnson County Department of Health and Environment began receiving the reports on Jan. 29, including some from students at the local school district in Overland Park, Kansas, where the restaurant was located. The agency, which is working with the state’s health and agriculture departments and the city of Overland Park, said on Wednesday that it was waiting on lab results.

Buffalo Wild Wings closed the restaurant in question and sent in a third-party vendor for a “thorough cleaning,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. It reopened on Wednesday after a consultation with the health department.

“Although there is no conclusive link to our restaurant being the source of the illness, we voluntarily took these actions out of an abundance of caution,” the company said.

As you could imagine, the stock is getting smoked on the bad publicity.

It’s a classic defensive play: buy boring utilities when the world burns. I’ve seen this play out a thousand times.

Gold has been behaving well too. But I don’t trust the people who trade gold. There’s much less risk in the utes.

Here are some visualizations of what’s working today, aside from crude which is soaring now–based on greater than expected crude inventory levels. The fuck?

Over in Europe, the refugee lovers in Germant are getting their sausages chopped off again. For the year, the DAX is off nearly 11%.

I did warn you about this occurence. Don’t ever say “The Fly doesn’t do anything for me” ever again.

As currently situated:

ZERO equity exposure as of yesterday 9:35am.

Presently, I am Captain of an Ark setting sail for parts unknown, long 25% of my assets in TLT.

The market is unraveling. The floods are here. Brace yourselves for a most horrific experience.

A whole host of high valuation stocks are selling off again, a trend that has been persistent for almost two years. In recent weeks, we’ve seen this theme accelerate, hitting some of the old favorite especially hard–like Netflix, Saleforce, Amazon and any number of biotech stocks.

Amazon has been under significant distribution since they missed earnings.

Netflix is now trading with an 8 handle.

Biotech stocks are the worst performers in 2016, with a median return for the industry nearing -30%.

I’ll wrap it up with a picture of my beautiful ‘Bubble Basket’, which is domiciled inside Exodus. This is an index of stocks of ‘high valuation’, derived from all of the traditional methods, that is my single best barometer of risk. It is down 24% for 2016.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, that chart is worth billions.

Related: The NASDAQ has reversed early gains and is in full ‘getting hammered’ mode.

It’s also worth mentioning, financials are getting smoked daily.

Maybe she’s on mountain time, or perhaps vacationing in Hawaii? This interview could be shown to people with sleep depravation issues and they’d be cured. Who needs ambien when you could watch this snooze-fest?

I had to edit out the first 6 minutes of it. She was literally half asleep while talking to Faber, who was perplexed about her claim that Yahoo was coming from a position of strength.

When asked about sum of parts valuation of YHOO or potential sale of the company, Mayer offered nothing but low energy, boilerplate, corporate talking notes 101, horseshit.

The stock edged lower during the interview, down almost 3% in early trading.

Cramer is starting to get really animated these days. The persistent sell off is making Jim into a ball of anger of a biblical nature. This morning he lashed out at those who say we’re in a crisis similar to 2008 or 2011.

For the sake of posterity, I wanted to document this clip.

Facebook’s shares have gained over 50% the past year, making it the 4th largest company in America. Several years ago, the stock was a fraction of what’s its worth now, trading under $20 per share. So who are the new up and comers? Are there any, in this market of death, famine, and destruction?

There are a few choice names that have been gaining ground, edging their way towards the magical $100 billion market cap mark.

(stock, mkt cap, 1 yr return)

HON $77 bill, +3%
SBUX $89 bill, +39%
RAI $70 bill, +47%
COST $65 bill, +6%
LOW $65 bill, +6%
MDLZ $66 bill, +19%
ACN $65 bill, +23%
TWC $51 bill, +35%

Which is your favorite?

You know the old saying, “as the price of oil goes, so does western finance.”

Futures are spiking as oil creeps higher. There are overnight reversals in everything, from crude, to futures, to a miraculous turn in Europe.

Considering yesterday’s bloodbath, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a modestly strong market, providing crude can stay above $30.