Let’s Not Stand on Ceremony

Trading is hard. It’s not hard because it’s hard to make money. It’s hard because you are sometimes forced to watch the stuff you just sold scream higher. There is nothing better than a stock cratering by 50% AFTER you just sold it. But when that stocks soars and tries to lure you back in at higher prices, the very feeling of death strikes you.

Just the other day I sold out of my chinese burrito stocks, all but one. I kept LITB, which is down 10% since. I sold CMGE, DSKY, VNET, XNET, ZPIN and QIHU. Go take a peek at the first two, going all mortal kombat on the market here. I replaced those stocks with some biotech and one retail store, none of which have performed as admirabbly as my former chinese burritos.

What’s a man to do under such onerous circumstances?

The way I see it, there are two options.

1. Get a piece of rope and kill yourself. The world doesn’t need more stupid people. We have an overabundance.

2. Man up and remember what you’re here for. You are not here to vote at annual meetings or micro-analyze the companies. You are going to rip and run. Do not apologize for your abrasive actions to the pedestrians, for the people outside of the colosseum will never understand what it’s like.

I fully intend to profit from my current holdings, one way or another. If they underperform, I will sell them and move on. But you and I both know Señor Tropicana is on extreme fire right now, a 5 alarm blaze ripping through your bullshit housing project.

Everything you thought you knew about life two weeks ago is now null and void. You thought you had it all figured out. Vladimir Putin, your hero, was going to sweep across The Ukraine– like the relic that he is– and occupy the entire country. You, in your infinite wisdom, were going to mint a fortune from your stupid TZA position inside of your pathetic excuse for an office environment.

Now everything has changed. Peace is reigning in the slavic region of The Ukraine and Vlad is as docile as an old dog. He’s probably making Faberge eggs somewhere with his grandchildren.

I warned you people to ‘see to your sins’ in order to get right with this world. The amount of bad karma you’re throwing off is incredible. Some of you are the very worst people in the world, regular Pol Pots. But I am not going to get into that now.

See, what I am going to do now is eat lunch. Do you know why I can eat lunch at 10:46 in the morning, without checking in with some jackass supervisor: because I am my own man and I don’t answer to anyone, except my wife, aka “The Battle Ax”, of course. But who doesn’t?

Seriously, is there a better job than managing money or being a trader, during times like this? If you’re not in the business of actively prospecting, getting hung up on by 100 year old men in wheeled chairs, this is as good as it gets. You get to come to work and write your own meal tickets. If money is tight, no problem, simply invest more money and make more money.

What could go wrong?

If you’re a corporate hack, beholden to the iron grip of some middle management position, getting whipped upon by Xerxes, I feel sorry for you. You get to punch a clock and fetch coffee for the C-level execs, making bullshit money along the way. As investors, managers of other people’s money, the world is our oyster.

S&P futures are higher this morning, ahead of Janet Yellen’s Jackson Hole speech. It’s in her best interest to keep the status quo going, letting guys like me have their way with the US economy, so that the bills get paid.

You suckers went short again, didn’t you?

By the way, I’d like you to take note of LITB and understand what transpired today. Let this be a lesson to publicly traded executives.

TAKE SPEECH CLASSES. Learn to communicate in the language of your shareholders, for they are your future.

LITB was +10% before the conference call, based on the numbers and forward guidance. As soon as the conference call started, the shares started to trade down because of the poor audio quality, nonsensical cadence put forward by the executives and lastly a crying baby was heard on the call. A friend of mine, Chuck Bennet, who is a regular frequenter of China says it’s fairly common to walk into a bar around 11:30 pm and see babies loitering about, as their parents get drunk on rice wine.

Bottom line: I sold ZU and bought SODA, ICPT and ECOM today.

NOTE: On 9/1, the generous folks over at iBankCoin will conduct a live drawing of sorts to reward one of the annual members of either The PPT, 12631 or After Hours with Option Addict. The first prize winner will receive $1,000. Second prize is $500. to learn your raffle number, please login to one of the services and look at thew top of the page. It is there. If it’s not there, email [email protected].

With the $ZU proceeds, I bought a dog, newly minted IPO loser: ECOM

This zulu thing isn’t working out for me. I stopped out at -2.5%.

There is nothing better than a large bottle of carbonated sugar popping off into your face, first thing in the morning. It’s invigorating.

When I was a young lad, growing up in Brooklyn, I’d drink soda all day long. I even poured it into my cereal. My grandfather and I “invented” a drink that called for 1/2 milk, 1/2 soda. When mixed with orange soda, it tasted like a cremesicle (sp?). Back in those days, I’d drink large vats of the stuff, from Shasta to Dr. Pepper to Mountain Dew, back to the traditional Coke/Pepsi hegemony. By 2004, my weight reached an all-time high of about 195, up from 155 a few years earlier. I attributed it to fast food and delicious soda pop.

There was never any need to drink water. Water was a tasteless and disgusting beverage, preferably used to drown plants.

However, I didn’t want to become a barrel-ass, so I stopped drinking the acid and lost weight ever since. Right now, I am in the best shape of my life. I can easily break your jaw, if given the chance, with just one punch (I practice this at home…on a dummy).

What is my point?

My point is that we all need some SODA in our lives, just not mines. This country was built on lard and I envision Sodastream adorning the kitchen countertops of millions of homes in the coming years. Both KO and PEP are desperate losers now, a far cry from their glory years of the 1990’s. They will buy growth and do so in dishonorable fashion.

I am long SODA because I am short humanity. I also placed the balance of my cash into ICPT.

As you were.

I think I might’ve shot myself in the foot with the last LITB post, considering the fact that I own the damned stock. I couldn’t help myself. I had to discuss the important matter of crying babies being present on the conference call. Having said that, I like the stock here and might even buy it. When I was talking crap about it, the stock was up 5%. Now that it’s down 5%, with $2 in net cash and the company beating estimates, trading about 1x sales, LITB is an interesting long term proposition, providing they can keep babies out of their conference calls.

I own HAIN too, as part of my 31 stock purchase a few weeks back.

All in all, today is another sleepy bullish day, ahead of Jackson Hole. The Fed is dovish, albeit antiquated and retarded with their choice of chief. And the market is now basking in post earnings fantasy, where tall tales can be told and people can readily get ahead of themselves.

I’ll be putting some money to work shortly.

So I woke up to better-than-expected results from LITB, springing to action, hoping to start my day off profitably. I tune into the conference call and listen carefully, as management does its best to ruin my mood. During the call, a recurring theme is the audible crying of a fucking baby. Yes, an actual baby could be heard crying on the conference call. Don’t get me wrong: I love babies. I’ve created 3 of them.

BUT NOT ON A DAMN CONFERENCE CALL.

Here in America, we do things differently. We run our corporations from large office buildings, where babies are not permitted. They are at home with their mothers or at a day care centre. Perhaps it was “take a baby to work” day in China? One thing is for certain: whoever thought it was a good idea to conduct a conference call with a baby in the background is an idiot, of the first order.

Considering the fact that LITB does 60%+ of their sales in Europe and another 20% in America, they have no excuse to be operating their stupid website from the confines of the orient. I am so pissed off right now, over this baby (lolz), I feel like selling the stock.

Before the call, after looking at the numbers, I considered tripling my position.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUahRAwIK8k 603 500]