If You’re Short Now — Prepare to Lose MOAR

Listen to me as if I was screaming into your face.

You have no basis to be short here. Markets have all but told you it’s going higher, even after today’s big cocked move to the upside. As a point in fact, often times larger runs occur in esoteric names after massive melt ups. Today advertises to the normies that money is being made and they’ll follow in like lemmings tomorrow.

I told you earlier, big ass cash positions await on the sidelines. I’d like to highlight some of my ideas, but feel increasingly restricted due to my Capstone obligations. Nevertheless, I can readily advise you to be long and in stocks that correlate with the market.

It’s worth noting, FUCKTARDS are still on Twitter talking about topping out and those people will have their faces punched off soon, and strongly. It’s one thing to be a bear, a whole other thing to walk down your portfolio.

My largest position are still gold and it’s not participating today, which is fine. The melt up in stocks is causing defensive positions to be liquidated; but the bull case in gold has never been stronger, literally — when taking into account the record level of wage growth in the country now and the idea that inflation might, finally, be something to worry about.

Regrettably, I sold PYX yesterday, ahead of earnings — because I had no edge. The stock is up 30% today and sometimes that’s how it goes. That stock, in my opinion, will continue higher, at least until tomorrow, as momo traders try to catch a glimpse of greatness and sojourn into profit.

Anyone over the age of 35 remembers the market crashes of yesteryear — the malevolent crashes of a comical nature that ruined so many people and their households. Kids getting tossed out of their lambos — because they’ve been repossessed. Wives being told her Hermes collection needed to be sold on Ebay, in order to pay for the boat. Husbands being told the boat had to go in order to pay for the mortgage. The bank telling everyone to GTFO because the house was being foreclosed and they intended to sell it.

It was bad.

The recent downturn forced many people my age and older to cash up. Now, according to Bank of America, those same people are assed out.

source: CNBC

Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch’s latest fund manager survey, which gauges where global pros are positioning, showed the biggest net overweight position in cash since January 2009, just two months before the market bottomed and set up the longest bull run in Wall Street history.

Sentiment moving to extremes has been a reliable contrarian indicator for market historically. The January stock market rally coincided with a cash allocation of 4.8 percent, which is above the 4.5 percent threshold that Bank of America considers a bullish sign.

Markets are spinning higher and nothing can stop it. Oil is up. Junk bonds are up. Industrials are leading the way, optimistic about a China deal.

I have no warnings for you and only happy tidings. Go correlate with the market and make some money.

It appears the morons in Congress have agreed to not do much for Trump’s great big beautiful wall — only lending the President a morsel of money from which to play with. Instead of the pittance $5.7b he requested, which would pay for about 15 feet of wall, Congress might permit $1.4b to escape from their clutches.

Trump, naturally, will agree to these terms — because building a wall now is a stupid thing to do. He’d much rather drag it out for the 2020 campaigns, using it as a lightening rod to stoke up fanaticism in the trailer park neighborhoods of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional negotiators announced an agreement late Monday to prevent a government shutdown and finance construction of new barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, overcoming a late-stage hang-up over immigration enforcement issues that had threatened to scuttle the talks.

Republicans were desperate to avoid another bruising shutdown. They tentatively agreed to far less money for President Donald Trump’s border wall than the White House’s $5.7 billion wish list, settling for a figure of about $1.4 billion, according to a senior congressional aide.

“We reached an agreement in principle between us on all the homeland security and the other six bills,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

On this news, Nasdaq futures are +24.

Good news for those of you keeping track.

Over at Casa Del Fly — the house is now brimming with the hottest and the best water money could buy. The coldest water can be found here — freely flowing from the disgusting Mercer County reservoir, which is laden heavily with lead and other toxic materials. As a point in fact, the Mercer County water is so bad — it’s poisonous. More than that, it destroys all of the copper pipes in the walls, causing floods throughout the county. The plumbers love the water — because it keeps them busy. I hate the water — because it causes a sundry of problems and also because it’s poisonous.

The house is now screaming with the tunes of Stan Getz, arguably the best jazz musician of all time.

I didn’t do much today, other than sell PYX for breakeven. I’m going thru a spate of bad trades again, mostly small and non-eventful — but that’s the point — uneventful. In the big scheme of things, unless you’re turning over your portfolio on a constant basis, expect to make little whilst the market consolidates and trades sideways.

It’s my belief markets will remain held down thru March. In the meantime, gold is in the bull market and poised to break higher. Today was a down day — but those down days, at least recently, have proven to be excellent entry points.

UPDATE: Smartphone foundry — AMRK warned.

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.12 per share, $0.04 better than the S&P Capital IQ Consensus of $0.08; revenues fell 5.8% year/year to $1.08 bln vs the $1.06 bln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.
Reports gross margin of 16.9%.

Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of ($0.27)-($0.07) vs. $0.03 S&P Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q1 revs of $840-$920 mln vs. $1.02 bln two analyst estimate. Sees gross margin of 9-13%.

Commentary: “Our first quarter revenue guidance reflects the inventory correction currently underway in the smartphone market.”

Day 3 at Cade de Fly and still no water to speak of. Well, technically speaking, I can enjoy the comforts of only cold water — but then I need to go downstairs into the grim cellar and fish the water out of the run off pan. I do this with a white plastic cup into a red bucket, and then dump it into the sink. The new water heater has been delivered and very soon the plumber will sashay into the house, fantastically, and pull out his wrench and tighten all of the bolts, fasten all of the wires, and connect all of the pipes to provide House Fly with an endless flow of contaminated water, heavy with minerals and lead — because the Trenton Water Works board is heavy with cromagnons who don’t know the first thing about managing a water supply.

As I wait, the sounds of Glen Gray echo throughout the house and my fucking dogs bark, intermittently at random objects seen in the distance. Nothing today has encouraged me to make changes, so I’m sitting pat — on my hands, waiting for gold to bust loose higher — cracking jaws and spines clean off the bodies of bears.

This is a very simple thing to understand — even a moron can do it.

Markets are subservient to WTI. Presently, WTI is going lower, now down by 2%. This has caused slight weakness in the junk bond markets and of course stocks. Conversely, gold is firming. One cannot take a solid gold bar punch to the face and say it didn’t hurt.

Everything is too small for it to count. This is like taking the opinions of children, or millennials, seriously. The markets are flat. Basing an opinion off a flat bland nothing is more than stupid; bog standard it is cravenous!

As my trading account does nothing, my Quant is +35bps. How and why is it outperforming? Because it’s programmed to do so. Join Exodus you rotten louses and I will teach you.

For the first time in my son’s entire life — he took an interest in the stock market — texting me about some new free game that EA launched, dubbed Apex Legends. He said it was becoming more popular than Fortnite. He said, the stock might want to ‘barrel’ higher, even.

According to nerds, Apex is now at the top of Twitch viewing channels. For those unfamiliar, this is where nerds pay to see other nerds play video games and donate money to them to boot. Some of these nerds make millions of dollars via Twitch — an Amazon company.

Since its announcement and release on February 4, Apex Legends has consistently been on top of the Twitch viewing chart, drawing in numbers that have been way higher than Fortnite’s over that same time span.

Despite having over 600,000 less total hours streamed than Fortnite in the past seven days, Apex Legends incredibly has had almost 11 million more total hours watched.

Apex had an average viewership of 183,089 over that time, nearly 70,000 more than the 115,947 average viewer count of Fortnite.

As of three days ago, Apex had over 10 million downloads for the free game. This is significant because it smashed Fortnite’s record to pieces, accomplishing the feat in just 3 days — where it took the very now unpopular Fortnite two whole weeks to achieve.

Apex Legends, a game from Respawn Entertainment, is a free-to-play game, similar to Fortnite, the popular game that has rocked the traditional gaming industry this quarter.

Apex Legends’ quick traction shows some traditional players are beginning to catch up to the free-to-play, battle royale genre of gaming popularized by Fortnite.

A note from KeyBanc Capital Markets published Friday said it took Fortnite two weeks to gain 10 million players, though it said, “It’s unfair to compare the two, because the market for battle royale was clearly very different 12-18 months ago, but regardless,10M players is quite an accomplishment.”

Shares of EA are higher by 3.1% in the pre-market.

Important to note, I’m still without any water. We rented a hotel room last night just to shower warmly and were summarily rejected upon entering said shower — as the hotel water was initially cold. Upon receiving our most venomous complaints, the Hilton branded hotel fixed the issue and we all bathed warmly and with some fleeting dignity. I am here now, at home, eagerly awaiting a plumber to relieve me of my thirst and reinstate flowing water throughout the house.

Futures are sharply higher, +95, and gold is down. Not only is gold down, but so is oil.

It’s important to highlight what gold is doing now, for several reasons. The first and most important — we are tracing the top end of a 6 year resistance barrier.

The other is the demand coming out of foreign Central Banks for gold — record levels, dating back to 1967.

Governments added 651.5 tonnes (metric) of gold to their foreign exchange reserves in 2018, a 74 percent increase from the previous yea

This is a narrative I will be watching closely throughout 2019. In the meantime, stocks should break higher again this morning — but keep a close eye on oil. If oil starts downhill, the rally might wilt and wither away.

Last night I was entreated to a most unusual event. During my life, I’ve been plagued, harangued even, with the specter of gloomy forecasts. I once fell from a tree and broke nothing but all of my bones. This cloud has followed me for my entire life — an affliction that is almost offset by the winship enjoyed in the market. I say “almost” — because the emotional toil and tumult endured during these episodes have shaven decades off my life expectancy. My private actuary is now forecasting my graveyard arrival in exactly 3 years hence. In order to best describe what happened last night, I will attempt to re-create the dialogue.

Late at night at House Fly, the dominus of the estate was in his living room, partaking in a little entertainment via the television — creating variations of the world famous cocked-tail — The Manhattan. Much to his chagrin, an in-law who was staying at the manor alerted him of a most grave and ghastly circumstance afflicting the building.

His mother in law — Victoria, spelled out downstairs, thru the palm trees and the crystal chandeliers, through the Persian rugs and deep library of leather-bound books, “Sir Fly — there isn’t any hot water. I’ve just showered in bone shattering water. What sort of house is this?”

Alerted by this emergency announcement at such an odd hour of the night, Sir Fly put down his Creme de Cacao version of the world famous cocked-tail, The Manhattan, and raced downstairs, into the cellar, where his thousand bottle wine collection resides — alongside his make-shift gym, and entertainment center — fixed with games for the plebs — such as darts and foolsball machines.

Upon entering the water heater room — he stepped into a soggy part of the rug and heard a thunderous, yet calming, flow of water emanating from the room. He opened the door: “HOLY FUCKING SHIT — COCK-SUCKING FAGGOTS!”

He yelled up and his voice bellowed throughout the darkened house: “Honey — the entire basement is under siege. It appears the black cloud found me again and the water heater has busted loose and out again.”

Jackie replied, “What did you say? Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Fly, now recoiled in shock and a bit of horror, decided to reclaim his cocked-tail — then yelled out: “get me some damned towels — AT ONCE. Need to protect the foolsball table stat — else the idiots won’t have anything to do when they visit us next.”

Jackie, “What?” The lady of the manor was now annoyed by the flippant sounds coming from downstairs.

“Listen to me, damn it, and listen to me good. The house is done for. Grab the kids and head on over to the summer home in Newport. I’ll hold off this deluge as long as I can — but I promise you nothing but my sincerest efforts.”

Jackie, now curious about the raucous behavior of the dominus — raced downstairs to bear witness to Le Fly sitting on a comfortable chair — overseeing the water heater flow wonderfully and energetically throughout the basement.

“What the hell are you doing?”, said Jackie.

“Having a night-cap, enjoying this variation of the Manhattan and the view. It’s quite wonderful.”

“But why aren’t you turning off the water and saving the house?”

“We’ve been sacked — Jackie. A man should know when he’s conquered. It’s clear to me that the black cloud needs its pound of flesh out of me. I figured it’d be nice to see this play out and flood the whole damned house away.”

“Cut it out — Fly. Damn it. Where is the cut off valve?”

Fly got up, almost heroically, as if called upon to save the earth, “I’ll see to it.”

Quickly, Fly raced to the cut off valve, placed the cocked-tail down again, and completely shut the water main off. In an instant, the water stopped flowing — leaving a deadening and most awkward echo of silence in the cellar, amidst wet bottles of aged Bordeaux and soggy boxes of toilet paper.

“What the hell, Fly!”

“Well, now we might need to sop this up and prevent the rugs from getting damaged, eh?”

“You think, Fly. YOU THINK!”

“Pfffffff.”

“How wonderful”, exclaimed Fly. “Now we won’t have any water for several days. Should I grab a bucket and ask the neighbors for some water”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Didn’t you and Dave just fix this damned thing during the summer?”

“Yeah — we fixed it all right. We fixed it to explode in the middle of the winter — leaving a house of 7 without hot or cold water.”

“Let’s just clean this mess up and call someone in the morning to fix it.”

Fly gallantly got up again, placed his cocked-tail down, and went upstairs — grabbed 10 towels, a large red bucket, and then scurried back down into the crevices of the basement to sop up the iced cold water off the basement floor — for the duration of the night. His only solace was knowing, such an affliction, such a hardship — could only lead to a grande and eloquent upsurge in his share prices.

“Hey Jackie.”

“Yes, Fly?”

Kneeling down in a grey puddle of frosty water in a dimly lit boiler room of the manor — Fly looked up at Jackie and said sincerely with an expressionless candor “well, at least my fucking stocks are going to barrel higher soon, eh?”

“Why do you always say ‘barrel’? Your stocks aren’t barreling anywhere. Just clean up this mess.”

“Whatever. Salty AF. You’ll see.”

I wanted to annoy some of you with a blog about gold — insects invading Wall Street with tales of doom and the dollar going to zero. This time is different, after all. Have you taken a view of wage growth recently and real inflation for the wealthy?

Let’s be honest with one another, if only for a brief moment in time. How important is the middle and lower classes? Sure, they’re people and they have feelings too, dreams, and they can be kind, overly kind sometimes — compensation for their own lives being cruel and daunting. More or less, the middle and lower classes do not mean much to the economy anymore — lest you’re investing in 99 cent stores of Five Below.

This from the Seattle Times this morning.

Those 400 Americans own more of the country’s riches than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60 percent of the wealth distribution, who saw their share of the nation’s wealth fall from 5.7 percent in 1987 to 2.1 percent in 2014, according to the World Inequality Database maintained by Zucman and others.

Overall, Zucman finds that “U.S. wealth concentration seems to have returned to levels last seen during the Roaring Twenties.” That shift is eroding security from families in the lower and middle classes, who rely on their small stores of wealth to finance their retirement and to smooth over economic shocks like the loss of a job. And it’s consolidating power in the hands of the nation’s billionaires, who are increasingly using their riches to purchase political influence.

What of the zebra — the poor zebra — kicking and braying — staining the earth with their cheap blood?

As fate would have it, being that we’re creatures of habit — the last time wealth has been so unevenly distributed was in the roaring 20s, precisely 100 years ago. You can count on America repeating the follies of the 20s, as we enter an era of unchecked decadence and a ghastly exhibition of debauch hedonism. Everything you’ve read about, in the papers and the books, will enliven before your eyes. Markets will climb to new heights — and everyone will drink champagne and enjoy themselves, comfortably ensconced in the safety they created — buttressed by their money and their tightly knit world. Then it will end in a fantastic crash, dust bowls swooning over the country, a blight against humanity — and then everyone will starve.

The malnourished poor will protest and bray — but the police will club them back into their housing tenements and the markets will strip away all of the excess income and security enjoyed by the Nouveau riche — who would rather jump off the spires of buildings than go back to the housing tenements — and they will. This process will repeat itself for all-time, different characters, and different demographics — but the story is the same — the evergreen struggle between greed and fear, miserably displayed for all to see on Wall Street and on Main Street, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.