Fighting My Inner Pessimism

I am sitting here in awe of the decline in my portfolio and asking myself (literally talking to myself) “why am I still in these stocks?”

Pardon the negative tone that is about to embrace this blog, but this is exactly how I felt in 2000, when the market collapsed–HEADLONG–speared by tech stocks. But even then, during the very worst period in stock market history, stocks went up for month’s at a time. This rout is unique in its “elevator pattern”, whereby all of the gains from last year are stricken from the record within weeks.

Looking at my four horsemen of financial misery (SPLK, YELP, FEYE, WDAY), you’d think all of them missed earnings today. You’d look at these stocks and say “HOLY COW, they’ must’ve guided down for the next decade.” Sadly, it’s just another day at the office.

I realize that my pessimism, which is my natural state, is something that can be deemed to be “a contrary indicator of grande capitulation.” However, you’d be remiss to start buying stocks now, as I’ve dedicated my life (my actual life) on seeing this through. I don’t know why I’ve been so stubborn, as to risk everything for something so small. But it just doesn’t make sense to me.

All of the IPOs coming out make me sick and also feeds into my inner-bear, one that believes this is a sign of panic, on the part of private equity and investment banks. They are throwing too many new issues on the table, in too short a time frame, which leads me to believe they are keen on the market going lower.

Playing devil’s advocate here, there is really nothing to hang your hat on. The price/sales ratios are still high, after 40% drops. Nothing is baked in and I am not really in the mood to go through a tortuous earnings season, following this rout.

So I am listening to this short seller (Fichtorn, the loser who owns IMMR, on their board, crushed in gold stocks, etc.) on the teevee and he is declaring stocks have 80% downside from current levels. He’s shorting everything, of course, especially since he NAILED the dot com crash (his words, not mine). With the NASDAQ off by a hundo, it’s the perfect time to declare everything to be rotten to the core, cause a panic, then bathe in your returns.

Do you remember when I sold IMMR? Well, I sold it because that guy, Fichtorn, was on the board and his hedge fund was getting crushed, long stupid positions and short everything that soared. He is one of the very worst investors in the world, yet CNBC feels it necessary to give him a platform to spew his ignorance on a day when the NASDAQ is off 100. This guy even threw mashed potatoes at my WDAY position, which is having a fine day, might I add.

I have nothing else to add other than the fact that all of my stocks are down between 5-9%, putting me back to the lows.

After yesterday’s rally, I was worried that my dear friend, pain, would be gone. It’s so good to see that it decided to cancel its trip and stay with me a little longer.

The Dow Jones is up around 3, but the NASDAQ has been afflicted by late stage aids, and is off by 37.

Most of my stocks are down 4 points. It’s quite nice, actually, all uniformed and very disciplined in their synchronization.

Whatever good will that was built by yesterday’s rally has been completely and utterly destroyed within the first hour of trade here, so it’s back to the drawing board, where I will try to figure out ways to blow myself up, while making it look interesting. See, if I simply go down, that’s no fun at all. However, if I can make it look like a fair fight, see me ebb and flow, kick and punch, well, that’s a spectacle.

Prognosis: more pain, immediately.

I tend to get excited very quickly. Just at the sight of a 3% gain (today’s take), I started getting violent, threatening to kill people for offering opposing points of view. Deep down, I am a true dictator, controller of others, a magnanimous leader with a horrendeous temper. But as the day carried on and the IMPV “earnings warning” (that was a God damn clown show), aka BANKRUPTCY REPORT, the feeling of pain started to crawl back into my stomach–the twisting knife inside of my guts, spinning and spinning until I bleed out and die.

So, as the market recovers and your charlatan positions edge higher, I want you to remember the pain. Look at stocks like GIMO and IMPV and understand that nothing is baked in. These stocks have sandbags attached to them and at the slightest hint of weakness, they will take you and your portfolios to the bottom of the ocean to be eaten by octopi.

Aside from all that, I intend to chuck African spears at people tomorrow, abusing short sellers with small brokerage accounts with great energy and vigor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFBRJFN3p8

Oh, by the way, The PPT nailed the tradeable bottom to the exact day, again.

With the IPO of Alibaba, Yahoo will net, post taxes, anywhere from 10 to 15 billion dollars.

What do you think they will do with that money?

I added to my YELP position.

Indeud.

The PPT wins again.

Yellen wore a beard and threw a kilo at the market.

Fed minutes were exceedingly dovish.

As you were.

UPDATE: I bought AFOP, BLOX and MA.

You overstayed your welcome, young prince. You got gluttonous when you should have covered your shorts. All of the mouths on the television were moving rapidly a few days ago, screaming atop of roofs begging for you to get out of stocks. These are small men with even smaller balls.

Always remember that crashes are low probability bets. If you are playing for one, you might as well take up a career at professional lottery player too, because you’re destined for failure.

Nothing to brag about here, as I have my face and ribs mashed in real good–battered from these bastard “big data cloud” plays.

According to my bullish game plan, this continues throughout the day, closing near the highs. We might get a final flush out tomorrow or the day after, just to make it a little interesting. Once earnings come out (look at CTCT), showing how incredibly crazy people were for selling growth stocks, we’ll be removing the private parts from the bears again in no time at all.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mEHXYW1W6A 603 515]

This is from several years back and still applies now.

I just got done reading some of my posts from Sept-Oct of 2011, just to see where my head was at. If you recall, that was the Euro-crisis era, when the markets were collapsing and Zerohedge was feeling his oats. I lost a considerable amount of money during that correction, broadsided by WNR dropping from $17-11. I believe it was a 30% weighted position.

Some of the things I learned when reading those blogs is this:

I was and I guess still am an arrogant prick. I can’t believe the sort of behavior demonstrated in those missives. I promise you, The Real Fly isn’t nearly as obtuse and obnoxious in real life. Something happens to me when I get behind the keyboard. I transform into a demon and a stream of consciousness spills onto the internets. I can write a 1,000 word blog in under 5 minutes. I never edit them and rarely think twice about what I write. That’s why, every so often, a complete jackass appears on the site before you.

Secondly, after getting smashed about in longs, I restructured around WNR and GSVC (protect the head strategy) and opened a series of short positions, as well as raising a large cash position. That’s exactly what I might do here, but only after a bounce.

I love me some four horsemen of financial death (WDAY, SPLK, FEYE and YELP); however, I am in this game to win and my losses of 23% is clearly a steep wall to climb. Keep in mind, total drawdown over the past month stands at around 37%, patently absurd.

The only way I get back in this game is to trade with agility, do it perfectly, and hopefully get lucky. Luck certainly plays a role when investing. It’s important to put yourself in a position to get lucky, however.

Futures are exactly flat, which probably means a catastrophic opening on the opening tick.

If I was short stocks now, I’d be laughing at you pathetic bulls trying to avoid margin calls with this piece of crap, milquetoast “rally”, if today even qualifies as being one. Sure chinese stocks went up, riding on this new found optimism for “emerging markets”, another reason to escape the dreadful brain cancer that is USA.

I know for a fact, several large funds got hit with redemption requests in the billions of dollars. These losers now have to sell, no matter what, because their fund of fund or fickle client doesn’t like BETA. Well, EXCUSE ME, but investing is all about BETA. Most of these clowns don’t invest or take risk. They buy 10 companies with market caps over $20 billion and pray for the best, hoping they will outperform the SPY. If they do, their fund raises big money and they end up making $300 million, for themselves, the following year. It’s obscene.

Today was an L, you pathetic effeminate men, running away from your passion, unable to hold. Tomorrow you will get what you deserve, the full monty, all out rout.

I hope you die.