18 years in Wall Street, left after finding out it was all horseshit. Founder/ Master and Commander: iBankCoin, finance news and commentary from the future.
Millennials are making ‘World War 3’ trend on Twitter and they need to fuck off about it. The only thing Iran is capable of doing is receiving our bombs. There isn’t a presence in the world that could threaten US interests, so the idea of a ‘world war’ is somewhat laughable and a farce.
The good thing about this sell off it is dropping yields, down 5bps to 1.81% on the 10yr. The only cause for my concern heading into 2020 were yields going over 2%. Markets are off this morning, but nothing too exaggerated and the buyers have already stepped in and the sellers given up and gone home. However, the day is young and I seriously doubt we’ve seen the end to the ‘volatility’, which is more Wall Street gibberish for ‘down stocks.’
The Fear-Greed index is entirely at the greedy side and you’re all chocolate eating Hansel and Gretals waiting to be destroyed. You deserve it and you shall have it soon. I hope the old witch snatches you up and cooks you inside of her oven and then eats you.
In response to being alive and in the way, America is striking back hard — killing all sorts of people tonight in ritual blood sacrifice. The winner in tonight’s Elysium lottery is Qasem Soleimani.
MAJOR ESCALATION – U.S. airstrike in Baghdad – Targeted 2 vehicles near airport – Qasem Soleimani killed – Was head of Iran's Quds force – Senior PMF leader Al-Muhandis also killed – Follows U.S. embassy attack and rocket attack on Kirkuk airbase, which the U.S. blamed Iran for
Click the link on Qasem’s name to learn about who he was and you’ll understand this has more to do with Syria than anything else. There must be vast alien treasures buried in Damascus somewhere. Leadership has a serious hard-on for them and those pesky Russians and fucking Iranians keep meddling and stopping us from colonizing them. With this advancement in the beef between American and Iran, one could expect some fireworks. Or maybe not. Who really wants to war with us? We’re fucking crazy lunatics who bomb the shit out of cities for looking at us sideways.
Got a terrorist in your city? Good, now 20,000 people will die because of him. This is how we roll, or dare I say “they” roll. I’m just here for the laughs and the tears. I am of course numb to death by now, having endured 19 years of constant war news. It goes into one ear out the other. Although I will not go as far as comparing America to the Nazis, I can see how Germany got cucked by their military rulers into their wars.
Oil is up 1% and futures are more or less unchanged. Keep an eye out for an Iranian response. I doubt they have the balls. But if they do muster the courage, futures are gonna fucking tank.
Semis have been strong for years, but Chinese burritos have sucked forever. Every so often, investors brave the easterly winds and allocate into indecorous Chinese names and make small oriental fortunes. Such an occasion on such a day is today.
Chinese Burritos
Semis
Such a wild eyed day to being the year. Even I am surprised. I still have two 3x inverse ETFs on my books, one up sharply, the other lower. I will hold both for at least another day. If anything drops 10% from basis, I sell no matter what. Often times I sell much quicker. The point is, there is a line in the sand worth obeying. Remember, you only need to blow up once to ruin your entire fucking life.
I trust your New Year’s festivities went well? But now it’s time to get back to work. No more horseplay or malarkey. I don’t want to see you near the water cooler fetching a fucking snack from the vending machines. If I do, and I happen to see you in the act, I will run up to you and punch your jaw loose. You hear me you fucking faggot?
If you’re coming to iBankCoin for daily financial commentary from me, I expect two things from you.
Adhere to our strict dress code.
No more dress down Tuesday here pal. It’s suits all the time, even on the weekends. Not feeling good? A bit under the weather? Got a case of bronchitis? You either put on a suit and don’t log onto the computer. You see those cameras on your computer? We’ve hacked all of them and are watching you.
The second thing is for you to work hard.
No more joking around with Ted or discussing geo-political events with Todd. This is a god damned finance site of the first caliber. There will be none of that going on here. You fucking come and you learn and then you go work.
Now to the market.
Blasting off for 2020 and I happened to be long TVIX. I just took a sharp blow to the cock on this one, which is why you see that I am a bit perturbed. I started off the year with an 11.9% loss in this fucker and another -3.8% ding in some fucking biotech. Stuff like this really gets me pissed, but now I will work twice as hard to make it back. If that’s not enough, I will type so fucking fast into the computer, looking for winning trades, my fingers will bleed and then fall off. I don’t give a shit.
My Quant fund ended 2019 +20%, an abysmal showing in comparison to the SPY. There is a reason for this, and I have made an attempt to fix it. It was too conservative, so I kicked it up a notch. BAM!
Did you just read me say “BAM!”?
Damned right you did.
BAM BAM BAM BAM. Throw some olive oil and bourbon on that. BAM!
I just rebalanced my portfolios, positioned in a new Quant for January, sold two fuckers, bought three, and now I have to eat some fucking lunch — if that’s ok with you?
For the first time since I was probably 15, I spent the New Year’s completely sober. I made drinks for people and cooked and laughed and did all of the things one would expect to do on New Year’s eve, sans the booze. The idea of doing this, had I heard about it last year, would’ve been blasphemous. Alcohol was an integral part of my life, truthfully. I never abused it — but had a beer here, martini there. When I went out to dinner, a bottle of wine, etc. The booze never got in the way of work or family, but at times would produce mornings of dread — hangovers and thoughts of “did I drink too much last night?” squirreling through my brain. A few years back, I even started to forget the events of the previous night, semi-black outs if you will.
The past 2 or 3 years I studied booze and learned how to craft great cocktails — and took serious note to the ingredients and would spend hours making them at home instead of from the store. And for what? The net result was dreadful mornings and unnecessary calories and a wanton contribution to hasted demise. Believe me, I am not one of those folks who abstains from things in order to live longer. As a matter of fact, I am not all that interested in living long, which has been a curse in my family’s bloodline for two generations. Nevertheless, I must admit that I feel good waking up on New Year’s Day or Xmas Day or the day after Thanksgiving without a hangover. Really good.
Morning breakfast included smoked salmon on toast with lime, sour cream, horseradish and some herbs. Coffee is without sugar and a little half and half to reduce temp and improve upon flavor. I am at the gym daily, although suffering from a calf pull now, and generally interested in making my body “feel” better — because I know when my body feels better so does my mind. I am plagued by my mind, as I think too much. I analyze everything and can’t keep my eyes away from exploring new things. At times I wish I could just be a dumb southerner and rest out the balance of my days inside of a moonshine tank. Alas, I am a Northern Man of Viking descent and my brain is constantly ginning up new ways of living and improving my mode of being.
To be slothful is to be a fucking moron. The year is now 2020 — a brand new decade of fuckery awaits you.
I can’t believe the year is going to be 2020. I remember thinking about living in the 2020’s when I was a boy in the 80s. It felt like a lifetime away — and it was. And here we are, embarking on a new decade with lots of new adventures to come. I cannot control lots of things around me, but I am pretty good at controlling my investments and what they reap. All of my darkest hours in my investment life occurred when I risked to much, got too greedy, and tried to win big in a trade. It has taken me a long time to come to grips with the fact that gunning for a grand slam is not only a low probability trade — but also abjectly the moronic one too. Trust me when I tell you, you’ll be happier and richer while focusing on compounding returns over the next 30 years.
That being said, at some point the bull market will end and then you will need your wits about you. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Plans for the evening entail Coque Qu Vain, but with a Turkey. I also made a brown sauce the past two days. The way you make a brown sauce is by first making stock — which I made by boiling the bones of a chicken, some herbs, a little tomato paste and a little white wine. Then yesterday I took a package of chicken wings and browned them with some onions and then ladled in the stock little by little. After it reduced by 90%, I poured it into a jar and kept repeating that process until I got a half jar’s worth of brown sauce. This is now a cooking blog.
With that brown sauce, I am going to punch you in the face with it. Any more questions?
See pal, that’s who I am and you’re nothing.
For the balance of the day, MORE ERRANDS. House Fly must not rest, even while domiciled in the lazy and sloppy south. Also, no BOOZE because I swore it off until summer. I literally bought a bottle of sparkling cider and will pop it like a champagne bottom come midnight.
We’re very ritualistic around New Year’s and I take this renewal period seriously. I am not the best person to offer life advice, especially since I am still managing through my own demons. But I can tell you that being the person you admire, the person you want to be, is a valid and honorable goal. Think of all the qualities in people that you admire and then aspire to be that person. It helps when trying to define yourself, which is an issue that most people grapple with their entire lives.
Thank you for reading through 2019. I have lightened up the blogging efforts the past year in exchange for more banter inside Exodus. During 2020, we will be launching Stocklabs (sign up for BETA trial), so look forward to that and possibly a new design for the main site — something we’ve left alone for about 5 years.
Cheers and be well and please do not drink and drive.
You shiny faced fuckers don’t have the slighted clue of what is behind the bend. You cannot see it because it’s beyond your peripheral vision; but I can see it and it’s odious and disgusting and it’s going to cut your dicks off.
Lots of excess in this tape lads. Let’s be honest with one another right now. The SPY is +30% for the year because financial engineering, actual rigging of balance sheet. No one in their right God damned mind should wear a pair of CROX outside the house or beach. There is a heaving mess about to spill over and I suspect this latest gorilla run with cock in tow in biotech is the tip of the fucking ice’d berg.
The sickness will soon leave the quarantined camp and infect the populous, causing the casino to seize up and collapse. You will be grateful for my warnings, as the prophecy of my markets warnings bears delicious fruit.
I can honestly say I’ve been purposely ignorant on stocks that past 6 months or so, turning a blind eye to the ruins around me. But the time is now and the year is old, tired, and fat. In early 2020, I intend to slay the fat beast and devour its remains.
Other than that, I am having a joyous occasion and am delighted by the summer climes here in Cary, NC.
I am presently 40% cash, heavily positioned in 3x ETFs of ill repute.
It’s a legit question since the beginning of 2020 is bound to start with a bang. The true nature of a market is often disguised at the end of year and revealed for its monstrous visage in hiding during the first week of the New Year called “The January Effect.”
If forced to make a call, I’d say SHARPLY LOWER. But and this is a BIG BUT, should the 10yr yield get above 2.00%, there is a better than average chance markets will begin to worry about rising yields, which unravels everything.
Being 100% long might be a bit aggressive. Perhaps dial it back to 75% and enjoy the holidays. It’s 74 degrees here, some of the best weather I’ve ever enjoyed during winter. I have some more errands to run, but I’ll be back later.
Forward looking people don’t need to look back upon his mistakes and successes. That shit is for sentimental people who have time to waste praising themselves, or worse: feeling sorry about themselves.
Today I took the coyote to the dog park, whereupon she challenged a pitbull mix to a savage match of growing and pawing each others face off. Had the pitbull decided to kill my dog, it would’ve been sad and I probably would had had to take out my blade and kill the pitbull on the spot. Which leads me to my next question: aside from criminals, who in their right fucking mind brings a pitbull into the house? They are the dumbest fucking dogs on the planet, alpha predators, and are a menace to society. You might as well keep a pet tiger in your house too, if you think pitbulls could be domesticated.
Fuck off pit owners. I can sense you’re getting triggered reading this now.
So we have two days left of the year and it’s important to note tax loss selling is an actual thing. Expect losers to come under pressure the next two days. The forced selling might create some easy trades in 2020, so be ready for that.
NOT a fan of gold here.
Still a fan of biotech.
Mixed feelings on tech.
We’re overdue for a pullback and biotech is getting all the juice because of the black box theory. To rehash, people buy companies without revenues on the promise of something grande. The proverbial black box. It could be great, or catastrophe. But since it is pre-revenues, there isn’t a metric to suggest the stock of overpriced. Why, their new drug could be a fucking blockbuster — shattering the market to pieces. They could be then next Celgene. It’s the sort of shit we have to deal with in hot markets every so often, more now than ever before. This too will end and these stocks will get lit the fuck up — destroying a brand new cadre of millennial fagLORDS back into their Coinbase accounts.
BIG gains for 2019 — no complaints here. We’re all entering the 20s roaring already — the very best of times monetarily. Underneath the shiny veneer is of course depravity and a bottomless sadness that will have to be resolved at some point in the future. Look to Japan and China as canaries in that coal mine. For now, the good times are rolling. Position yourselves to profit and compound your returns, but never cease to forget this empire is built on a pyramid of lies.
I’ve been at the gym for 2hrs per day, every day, after taking a 9 mo sojourn away from personal fitness. By the time I was ready to move out of Princeton, I felt like death was knocking at my door. Although markets rose and I made money, I didn’t enjoy 2019 at all. As a matter of fact, at times, I felt fairly miserable about it — which of course is often reflected in my blogs. I don’t want to be cantankerous; but I just can’t help it. Ideally, I’d like to live without turmoil or conflict — going about my way without disruption.
I’ve found cooking to be a great escape, even more than reading and watching cinema. I’ve given up all booze until at least summer and it’s a good thing because I make it a rule to never imbibe whilst in a bad mood. Being that I’m often in a bad mood, perhaps it’s best I shelve the gimlets for a later date.
Solid progress is being reported for Exodus 2.0 and I’m happy about that. If what I want to the letter gets built, well then, I can honestly say that I created something beautiful.
On the matter of going back to the gym, I haven’t gained much weight, maybe 3 pounds the past year — but my strength has diminished. I used to bench 225lb and now I struggle with two plates. Muscle memory is starting to kick in and my nutrition is improving. The downside to my cooking escape has been ingesting all of those fucking calories.
For dinner tonight is roasted chicken, carrots, and a potatoes. I will likely only eat a few potatoes in order to minimize carb intake. I know there are a lot of people who walk the black dog and too many of those people do nothing and waste away. Trust me, it’s best to be active, even if it means forcing yourself into a routine.
Some of my goals for 2020.
Launch Exodus 2.0 god damn it
Re-design iBankCoin
Visit attractions down south
Get in top shape
Master the safety razor (Not quite there yet)
Show my daughter more movie classics
Communicate better
Take a long extended summer vacation
Help others
I think those are all attainable and healthy. Off to eat.
