Got Caught Leaning Long — Markets in Turmoil Again

This action isn’t up my alley — too orderly for my taste. We just moved up 20%, so naturally a small dip is in order. But is this it — or is there more? These types of questions cannot be answered on a Friday and if I’m not careful — I’ll end up leaning one way for too long and get absolutely raped.

It’s likely the path of most pain is nowhere. Most are looking for wide swings. What if we trade small and range bound after this?

I had some position from yesterday and two failed day trades today, all closed out. The results.

(TXT -3.5%)
(GTLS -7%)
(SYF -9.2%)
(AAP -2.7%)
(TPC -5.8%)
AVB +2.6%
(MITT -5.2%)
(NRZ -5.2%)

In all, those losses amount to about 185bps for me, since my trades are typically 5% of my portfolio a piece. When I get a 50% winner, like I did yesterday ( I had two of them), those aren’t life changing for me either — maybe 2.5% for my overall portfolio a piece. The point here and the reason why I am telling you this is because I KNOW YOU AREN’T ADHERING TO POSITIONS SIZES and figure on making it big on just a few trades. How can you ever get good without practice? You need at least 10,000 hours of fucking up before excellence. Trade small and try to up your winning percentage. Only on rare occasions will I average down. I actually did so today and am up 12% from my second basis.

I’m not special and neither are you. Just because I crushed the market the past 3 months doesn’t mean everything I touch turns to profit. I am bound by the laws of mathematics and eventually I too will have a losing streak. The way I stay in the game is by humbling myself, taking losses quickly and not letting past successes get into my head — thinking I’m impervious to loss.

I’m not, and neither are you. If anything, you fuckers ought to just go to cash and wait for warmer climes.

It’s one of those things that Wall Street loves to do — the olde retesting of the lows to make sure everything is swell. The cat calls for this to happen will begin to echo as we drop lower again. The closer we get the louder these calls will become until it’s inevitable. This is important to remember, since most if not all of you are now heavily long, caught leaning.

While I myself find myself long too, I also possess lots of cash and I am long several CMBS related names — which seem to be immune this morning.

Dow futs are -700 and Boris Johnson has CORONAVIRUS. The world as we know it is crumbling into pieces and toilet paper is now a luxury item. Don’t step to me with high multiple breakout names at a time when I can’t find papered towels and toilet paper at the store.

FUCK OFF.

‘Montauk’ Bill Ackman has a rich history of using media to propel his profits. While his actions are undoubtedly amoral, I find myself conflicted, purely from a traders point of view, if in fact he is the goat or just an asshole.

I was first alerted to Bill’s nefarious dealings in 2008, when he went on CNBC like a patron saint, pleading for Fannie Mae to be bankrupted, in order to save it. Truly hilarious.

Let’s not forget about his public spats with Icahn and Herbal Life, a battle he ended getting BOGGED down in and publicly humiliated for — at the hands of Carl ‘give me three seats on your board’ Icahn.

On the 18th of March, 2020, we all saw Bill warn America of impending doom — declaring Hilton would trade to zero — if the country wasn’t shut down foe 30 days. He went on a long diatribe about how fucked we all were, and reminded viewers that he was in fact long, very long, and only wanted the best for America.

“America will end as we know it. I’m sorry to say so, unless we take this option,” he told CNBC on March 18, five days before ending his bet against the market. “We need to shut it down now. … This is the only answer.”

But that wasn’t exactly true.

In fact, at the time when that aired on television, Bill was short via options. His strongly worded opinions were so grave, it literally caused circuit breakers to halt markets — sending markets down 7%. Just a few days later, on the 23rd, Bill closed out his notional bets and netted $2.6 billion in profits — a 100x trade.

Tucker Carlson took him to task tonight, but he got the trade wrong. Tucker thought Ackman made $2.6b via buying stocks cheaply, when in fact he was heavily SHORT at the time of his panic induced CNBC diatribes.

Your thoughts?

I started off the day selling my losers from the day before, letting my winners move. By mid-morning, I took extreme profits and felt really good. Then I got greedy and tried to dip back into the well and ended up stopping out of several of the stocks I thought would move.

The results.

(JWN -7.9%)
(SPG -7.3%)
(MAC -7.3%)
(VER -4.8%)
—
STWD +40%
PEB +13%
MTG +14%
IVR +53%
NYMT +30%
CMO +11.7%
EPR +8.3%
ABR +10%
—
(SKT -4.4%)
(WMC -15%)
(ARI -10%)
TRTX – wash
(BXMT -8.6%)

Net net, a big day for me and I still have some stocks up on my books. It could’ve been better, but that’s how it works. Going back to the well is never a good thing. Towards the end of the day I went long some infrastructure plays and auto-parts. I also own mortgage plays, because CMBS is being purchased by the Fed now with infinite cash hacks. Closing out the day, 45% cash with a bias towards going higher. It seems unbelievable, but you’re gonna hear people talking about ‘normalization’ of prices, which means high prices for just about anything. I might fade the opening rip tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Yesterday I transfixed myself from the gold mine into a man of means and property. I went long a slew of REITs and mortgage related names. I took profits on many of them today, also culled the ones that didn’t work, and am left with a 70% cash position.

Here were the results.

(JWN -7.9%)
(SPG -7.3%)
(MAC -7.3%)
(VER -4.8%)

STWD +40%
PEB +13%
MTG +14% (day trade)
IVR +53%
NYMT +30% (day trade)
CMO +11.7% (day trade)

EPR +8.3%

What else can I say? Join us in Exodus and see for yourselves.

It’s a tall tall wall and only men of property sleep well knowing that their are beasts on the other side of it trying to step on your freshly placed sod. Jobless claims soared past 3 million and yet stocks are up. Why?

BECAUSE THEY CAN.

Think of the market as a meat grinder. It’s only interested in making chopped meat out of investors, leaving no steak behind. Last week the bulls were ground up and now the bears. Everyone gets a turn and no one leaves unscathed.

WTI is down 4%, yet the Dow is +400. I do not think for a second the crisis has ended, but I do think there are too many people short, who will now learn what it feels like to lose their minds — as stocks swim higher in spite of a very obvious sharp economic downturn.

It’s worth noting, the $2t bailout aka stimulus package excludes those RICH FOLK making more than $99k per annum. It’s also worth noting, govt doesn’t give a shit about you and checks will be in the mail for poor people in THREE WEEKS. By then I expect cannibailism to take hold inside of your city square.

I am long mortgage stocks and REITs. Have a looksy at the sector.

Wall street up huge on main street misery! Record unemployment! Huge!! Best Ever! pic.twitter.com/MXQfVrfbY4

— Joe Roxbury (@9toejoe) March 26, 2020

I am not doing this post for attention or to ridicule Pres. As a matter of fact, I’m a big fan of his pizza reviews and love how genuine he is about his business. But he’s going to BLOW THE FUCK UP in the market. I’ve seen people like him come and go in this business for decades and they never ever make it.

The unique part about his situation is that he’s incredibly rich, trading his $3m+ E-trade account with FULL TRANSPARENCY throughout the day. It leaves him prey to bored hedge funders who might just take the other side of his trade for sport. He has negative knowledge about economics and really doesn’t even know how to place an order online. He takes ABSURD sized positions, like wistfully tossing HALF his account in GRUB the other day and then attempting to buy 50,000 shares of NKE today, and soon finding out he didn’t have enough finds to execute the trade. He’s even trading with DELAYED quotes, so when he places an order he’s basing it on prices of 15 mins ago and never gets filled.

Or how about when he sold 945 shares of LULU but pondered over it because he didn’t own any LULU.

I have no idea how insane he is with his sports gambling, but this shit is destined to end badly for him. Only by the grace of God will Portnoy survive the coming fires and it’d be a shame to have to watch him squander $3m in a live stream, just for the sake of needing to produce content.

You can watch his livestream on Barstools throughout the trading day or via their Youtube channel.

It was a tumultuous day, one of extreme volatility, as investors sashayed between fear and greed. It ended poorly, with the Nasdaq ABSCONDING with its gains into the close — ending down 33. HOWEVER, I get the sense this set up is designed to reduce the morale of men like DAVEY TRADER PORTNOY in favor of men with property.

Le Fly partook in a bit of a gambit today, delving into the unprofitable world of REITs today. I sojourned into it with my eyes wide open, but have hopes of massive amounts of greed taking place soon.

Here were my closed out trades for the day.

(SOXS -7.3%)
(JETS -6.6%)
(M -9.8%)
SBSW +24.5%
GRPN +20.5%
BIDU +4.7%
LK +11.1%
RGLD +23%
GOLD +14.7%
AG +9%
SAND +16%

I am presently 60% long, 40% cash. My longs are EXTREME gambles in mortgage and REITs and one retailer. I am doing this because I believe there is more bounce to come. If I am wrong, I will quickly stop out and shut the fuck up.

As a man of property, I expect all of you to pay rent or be evicted. Furthermore, I expect new laws to be enacted forbidding those without land and title the right to vote.

You rotten sons a bitches. I stepped out for 2 hrs and markets RIPPED +1,000 points of DOW. The JETS AND M sales were done in error, as hindsight is now my guide. But that’s only part of the narrative. Le Fly had other IRONS IN THE FIRES that he has since relinquished, shifting, rather shift-fully, into a 90% cash position.

HERE WERE THE RESULTS

SBSW +24.5%
GRPN +20.5%
BIDU +4.7%
LK +11.1%
RGLD +23%
GOLD +14.7%
AG +9%
SAND +16%

See pal, that’s who I am and you’re nothing. Good Father? FUCK YOU GO HOME AND PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS.

It’s funny, really, you sitting there judgmentally looking to fuck with me and then I post these GAINS, all verified and legitimized by the thousand trader army I have inside Exodus. That’s really all there is to it. Is there anything else to say?

For my next trick, a BIG BALL’D approach to bear market rallies.

Into the bell yesterday I bought some SOXS — because I was in the zone and knew what I was doing. Futures flubbed hard last night and I felt supreme. Then Dr. Benjamin Bernanke ruined everything this morning and made me FOMO — forcing my hand to sell SOXS and then make HEINOUS sins and buy a variety of SHIT stocks. These purchases were immediately reviled inside Exodus — with my enemies poking fun at me and having a jolly good time at my expense.

This bullying made me concrete in my desires to flay them alive and also win on these longs. I was, in fact, one of the cool kids now and I wanted the lambos and the other shit that HODLers get for waiting around for shit to happen. Instead I got a HARD FORK to the fucking face.

Today’s results, thus far.

(SOXS -7.3%)
(JETS -6.6%)
(M -9.8%)

This all happened in a matter of minutes, as I quite literally timed the top. I corrected my error and although I was tempted to SELL SHORT and see it all burn down, I flagged myself for FUCKERY — 2hr time out to go fuck myself for being an asshat. I find that when I disjoint from the markets, it’s best to not compound errors and do nothing instead. I had been on a great run, it’d be a shame if I ruined it all by flubbing the volatility fueled tick-tock.