Lots of Moving Parts

I had a mixed day with losses in ARO/BORN and gains in OPEN, WNR, APC and MAS. It’s pretty heart wrenching to see the developments in Japan. I just read that radiation levels are 8x normal near one of their nuke plants. That has to suck.

It looks like The PPT nailed the ZSL trade again, as silver bottomed this morning, then took prisoners for the rest of the day. With mid-east tensions at a feverish pitch, Japan dealing with a natural disaster and chinese burrito stocks halting indefinitely, my appetite for risk waned throughout the day. I am content with my new position in WNR. However, I didn’t feel enthusiastic about today’s move. It felt like a bounce, nothing more.

Nevertheless, going into the weekend, I’m up about 10% for the year, with a cash position of around 5%.

Data provided by The PPT

(stock, percentage of float sold short, daily % gain)

1 SHZ 54 18.98
2 ANN 23.8 11.54
3 JAZZ 21 5.61
4 AUXL 30.9 4.23
5 OREX 47.9 4.04
6 MMYT39.7 4.03
7 OSG 20.1 3.72
8 CIEN 32.8 3.68
9 BPI 49 3.6
10 TZOO 31.1 3.57

Hurry up, run out and get one. If you do not have money to buy one, no problemo: just put that fucker on your credit card. It’s worth noting, “The Fly” will be buying another one today, as Mrs. Fly thinks the white version looks “awesome and amazing.”

Apple is up less than 1% aka a non-event.

I kicked out my ARO loser of a position and threw said realized losses down an elevator shaft. You should try it sometime. With the proceeds, AND MORE, I loaded up on WNR, making it a 10% position. There are methods and reasoning behind my madness. For example, aside from refining capacity loss in Japan, U.S. refiners always do well in March. Well, not always, but 64% of the time for an average return of 4.95%. As we head into the “driving season,” refinery plays will be front and center.

On top of that, should we start exporting refined crude to Japan: watch out above, for those stocks will break the fuck out. I chose WNR because of its stupid short position, a tad more than 16%. If I was short WNR right now, I’d be in church, praying to magical creators and such, hoping for some sort of miracle to make me whole again.

By the way, there is a small water company, ticker symbol PRMW, that just purchased a single server soda player in Canada. This will compete versus SODA. I am very interested and will research over the weekend.

Finally, my day is going as planned, some up, some down. I am pleased that OPEN has decided to castrate said short sellers. And, I am very delighted to see APC up, despite crude in the tank.

NOTE: Pardon my repetitiveness on the matter, but you must sign up for Twitter and follow iBC Financial News. It’s my new pet project and would please me a great deal if you helped me decapitate my competition.

Regards in a non-cordial manner,

Le Fly

I backed up the truck on WNR, buying busloads of it from $14.85-15.05.

Disclaimer: If you buy WNR because of this post, Al Gore will succeed in eliminating the combustion engine, ushering in a new age of miniature electric cars. And, you may lose money.

On the news that Japan was forced to shut down oil refineries, due to the earthquake/tsunami disaster, shares of U.S. based refiners are surging, led by gains in ALJ (9%), WNR (5.5), VLO (5%) and TSO (5%). Speculation suggests that Japan will need to fulfill demand somehow and may need to import vast amounts of refined crude, until their refiners are back online.

Partly attributed to the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, European market gains for the year have been eliminated, led by losses in insurers. Swiss Re, Munich Re are down 5% intra-day, due to exposure to Japan. However, it’s worth noting, more often than not natural disasters have a way of benefiting insurers in the long term, due to increased premiums.

As of this morning, the recent correction in Europe is about 5% deep.

UPDATE: Jefferies is out with a note suggesting a $10 billion hit to insurers.

So the dinosaurs and soon to be deposed lemon suckers over at OPEC raised output. As a result, crude is lower, creating a conundrum for your truly. My large position in APC is on the threshold of being down 10%, now down 7.7%. This is especially disheartening (it makes me cry) since APC, usually, does very well in March. Either I double down at 10% or I sell it out: it’s that simple.

The easy trade is to admit defeat and sell it, then take the proceeds and time my next buy with honor and integrity. However, there is a distinct possibility that crude will trade higher next week, as the unwashed feed their leaders to the Kraken!

Other positions trading lower, such as BORN, FORM and BZ will not be sold, mainly because their respective earnings reports were better than expected. However, I will be selling out of ARO today. They just blew it.

As for new buys: I don’t see any reason to rush trades here. At the moment, my time is better served napping and/or fixating on destroying the great many enemies that plague me.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for Japan, an earthquake of biblical proportions, 8.9 magnitude, has hit its northern coast and has resulted in a 7 meter long tsunami. This is the biggest earthquake to hit Japan in more than 300 years.

Unrelated, futures are in the tank and the Heng Seng is down more than 450 points.

Update: multiple countries (over50) in Asia, even South America, are issuing tsunami warnings.

MSNBC has live coverage

Although unchanged from February, Chinese inflation exceeded analysts expectations—coming in at 4.9%. The tea lovers were expecting something less dramatic, like 4.7%. If you didn’t know, China has a real inflation issue, which may lead to the unwashed rioting in the streets, tossing around petrol bombs and eating the livers of their local magistrates.