Introducing: iBankCoin’s February Boot Camp

This is going to be a live, interactive, event, spanning 5 days. Guest hosts will include Jeff Macke, The Option Addict and Raul, who will dive into Exodus.

I strongly encourage you to give this a hard look, as it is designed to tackle the complexities of investing in a tape like this. Demand providing, I will be making these bootcamps regular features for iBC, at least once per quarter.

Sign up now and BEHOLD the greatness and grandeur of an iBankCoin hosted investor conference.

You didn’t think we could have a market panic without the european banks having a go at your emotions, did you? Out of nowhere, the PIGS are back on the charcuterie table- with Portuguese/German bonds spreads widening, Italian, Greek banks plummeted. And, of course, the ECB is interested in making matters infinitely more complicated by throwing a bunch of red tape around the issue.

An ECB spokesman said on Sunday a number of banks would be asked about high levels of non-performing loans. The burden of such loans, particularly in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, is curbing the euro zone’s economic recovery by limiting banks’ ability to lend.

“The uncertainty in the market, be it in Europe or wherever else, is causing these banks to suffer,” Mark Foulds, sales trader at ETX Capital, said, adding that the sector was also under pressure from recent volatility linked to China.

“When the markets fall like they have done, everyone feels on edge. The market is dire, and there’s not the liquidity that there used to be, which can mean the market gets oversold.”

Truth be told, I have a headache and don’t have the patience to dive into this right now. Let’s just assume everything is horrible in Europe and the Nazis will make life exceedingly difficult for the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain). I am certain this new crisis will escalate on a cartoonish scale until the irresponsible half-men in europe decide to end it by bailing everyone out again.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Ibc is hosting a February investors boot camp, online, with Jeff Macke, The Option Addict and Raul giving a thorough review of Exodus. It’s a one week live video event that will help you get a better read on this tape.

THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Move along. The economy is doing fantastic. We’re all super rich and the Fed should hike interest rates 20 times this year.

Everyone should have a shopping list of great companies to buy when markets get smashed to pieces. In the event you were too slothful to partake in a little research yourself, Le Fly is here to save the day–once again–to provide you with the ammunition you need to prosper, whenever the hell the market decides to tick higher.

For the sake of organization (Le Fly is a stickler for organization), I’ve broken down my favorite stocks per sector, with ytd returns next to it.

(FYI: For Exodus members: this list is derived from the FCF portfolio inside the Grid)

Basic Materials: VLP (-13%)

Consumer Goods: MNST (-5%), DEO (-6%)

Financial: V (-7%)

Healthcare: JAZZ (-11%)

Industrials: TDG (-4.5%)

Services: AMCX (-2%)

Tech: GOOGL (-9%), AVGO (-17%)

Utilities: WEC (+2.8%)

I know this list is conservative and it lacks the brand of degeneracy that many of you exhibit each and every day of your lives. But, given the level of misery being doled out by the markets, I had to dial back my aggressive ax swinging Viking side of me, in favor for a more genteel approach to finance. These are hard, dark, insidious days. The type of days that will snuff out your portfolios and leave you on the side of the street, stranded, without clothing. Rip yourselves away from the goggle-box and sort out your finances. Play the bounce like a gentleman and then remove yourselves, if I might be so bold, like a cavernous Cro-Magnon as soon as the rally has exhausted itself.

The epic drop in the dry bulk index is starting to get some love. Instead of ignoring it as the useless “boat crap” index that it is, Deutsche Bank’s chief economist of Asia, Mr. Baig, posits “there is an over-capacity of dry goods and lack of demand.”

How wonderful.

By dry goods, essentially, he means iron ore, steel, tungsten, things of that nature. No one needs that shit anymore. We’re all building homes out of adobe and straw, chimneys made from wood, just like they did it in New Amsterdam, circa 1640.

The BDI is now, clownishly, quoted at 373.

A laughable display of #fuckery over the past month

1 yr chart of BDI in all of its squalor

Chinese markets are green. The initial flush out of crude, down 4%, has all but erased the losses. And Nasdaq futures are higher by 24.

The involuntary castrations have halted. The bulls have seized control of the ancient relic inside of the city square and are now rolling it towards the the meeting house where the bear are domiciled.

Rumor has it, this relic will be used to expedite punishment, to both shock and amaze all of the townspeople and law breakers to stop fucking with the stock market.

DEVLOPING…

The one percent haven’t had it this good since the ancient roman days when they’d get to flog women and children in the streets for looking at them sideways, seizing men and forcing them to battle to the death in gladiator pits, to “please the mob.”

These days the elite cruise around in their boats, or drink cherry soda pops while bailing out Goldman Sachs from their fucking bath tubs.

Oxfam also calculated that 62 individuals had the same wealth as 3.5 billion people, the bottom half of the global population, compared with 388 individuals five years earlier. The wealth of the most affluent rose 44 percent since 2010 to $1.76 trillion, while the wealth of the bottom half fell 41 percent or just over $1 trillion.

The charity used the statistics to argue that growing inequality poses a threat to economic expansion and social cohesion. Those risks have already been noted in countries from the U.S. to Spain, where voters are increasingly backing populist political candidates, while it’s sown tensions on the streets of Latin America and the Middle East.

“It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world’s population owns no more than a few dozen super-rich people who could fit onto one bus,” said Winnie Byanima, executive director of Oxfam International. “World leaders’ concern about the escalating inequality crisis has so far not translated into concrete action.”

The alarming part of this dichotomy is that it always ends badly for the 62 guys with all of the boats and cherry sodas.

This is a major success for the PBOC, avoiding the ordinary 3-5% decline in favor for a rip roaring market, down just 0.58%. The Samurai in Japan aren’t as lucky. Their markets are being walked down by almost 2%. And oil has recovered most of its losses, down just 1.75%.

Down a little is the new up.

In other news, Chinese regulators are wiping egg drop soup off their faces, trying to explain the recent spate of monumental and epic failures. To remedy this issue, they will likely commit wanton acts of piracy against American institutions to learn about how civilized people regulate criminals trading in the market.

Brent is off by 4%, increasing the spread v WTI to almost $1. This is massively important to our refiners, who might just choose to import that cheap Brent in favor of the crap coming out from Texas.

With the spread inversion, the bastards are no longer to rob and steal from the layman American gasoline guzzler.

In the past, they’d purchase crude at WTI prices and then resell it at Brent prices, locking in an instant profit.

Since the oil sector is in ashes, I suppose it’s only right that the House of Saud finish us off by targeting our refiners.

This should mean serious downside action in WNR, HFC, DK and ALJ.

I’ve been real busy trying to crush the hopes and dreams of VC backed finance sites with iBankCoin. During the past two weeks, I’ve been intently focused on providing up to the minute news and commentary, working 20 hours days to separate Ibc from the nonsense and rabble that perpetrate financial relevancy thru their bullshit and useless websites filled with complete shit.

Hopefully, you’ve took precautions entering 2016. I’ve been a buyer of SPY over the past week, while holding a large position in TLT. Having sold out from 30+ positions the last week of 2015, anticipating the hard times to come, I’d like to consider myself to be an unbelievable prophet, a predictor of doom, amidst a sea of pretenders, catamites and the sort.

To be clear, I’ve consumed anywhere from 5-15 dirty martinis, so pardon me if I offend you with amateurish dialogue or grammar.

I believe the market will rise over the next two weeks, which will explain my 200% long SPY position into death. I do not belive, however, that now is a good time to buy individual stocks- hoping to hit pay dirt.

These are dark days and losses should be taken swiftly. Over the next week, whether I like it or not, I’ll be selling out from my SPY positions, while also keeping my TLT. I have zero desire to own individual stocks, at all, something I’ve never done since managing money, professionally, since 1997.

If you have any questions about the market or your bullshit portfolios, leave them in the comments section before I get into Sunday evening news mode– waiting for Asian markets to open.