New Short Story Topics — Yes or No?

I have an itch to write something lengthy. If you didn’t know, I wrote and published two stories last year.

I started writing about the first firm I was employed by, which was a spin off of Stratton Oakmont. It was a bucket shop and no I never did business there. I was merely enslaved for 9 months on its plantation and bore witness to insane things, much of which should make for good prose.

Here is a sample.

My second idea is continuing the story from Journey into Fear. But to be honest, I don’t feel like going through it now. My alternative idea is completely fictional, a novel about an Irish farmer swashbuckling his way towards stock market success in the most obscene of ways. I have in my mind how it might play it — but admittedly it might be a challenge for me since I’ve never written anything like that. That’s not to say I can’t do it. For the love of Christ, if I wanted to, I can talk about Joe Hamburger , who is plagued by sudden heart attack syndromes attempting to make his way in the construction business in NYC, constantly dying on his customers and workers, only to be paddled back to life in the midst of the job site.

“GET BACK TO WORK YOU BASTARDS. WHERE’S MY CIGAR?”

The market was supposed to jog on lower, but instead catapulted up. During the lows of the session, I got my weave drawn into the market thru 3x inverse ETFs — and fucked as a consequence.

The bear set up hasn’t been demolished. And, as a matter of fact, the bulls really need to press their rights soon, otherwise their initiative will be lost. Having said that, it pains me to undergo delay. I do not like to wait for the things that I am entitled to.

By the vestiges of all that is good and sanctimonious in this world, I call upon the ancient devils who watch over me and ensure that I preside over a black and hardened future, one chosen through free will and thru estimable effort, to be gone from my person and sanctioned back to hell.

Le Fly chooses to live a happy and joyous life, one filled with ribald men pestering me for advice and stock markets crashing lower without any hope of respite.

Here’s to tomorrow and the future and the prospects of aspirational thinking around the idea that stocks can and will plummet lower — enabling me to profit from their eventual and cataclysmic demise.

The whip-saw action continues. We reversed a huge open and plummeted, led by oil. As prescribed, I acted upon it and allocated 15% of my assets into three 3x ETFs. The subsequent results since then, a few hours ago, is disappointment, as markets have stopped going lower and now moving sharply higher.

I was not trading for intra-day, instead looking for a 2-3 day hold. However, given the move lower yesterday, coupled with a potential large upside move today — you get a whole lot of circle jerk and indecision. I suppose the best option is to sit it out. But it’s my belief that if we get a follow thru day on the downside today, we would have entered a new leg lower in the bear market that had begun three months ago.

For now, I am patiently watching the markets for a firm direction and will likely do nothing until 3:45pm.

Is this the reason why we reversed today’s gains and sunk lower? Maybe.

One thing is for certain, this is not 1/4/18. Yesterday’s black candle has led to an anti-climatic rout during today’s session. This could be the beginning of an extended downturn.

As such, I bought SQQQ, SOXS, and DRIP.

Bet against me, lose your house.

I had a feeling today would poleax shorts into the ground and bust their jaws loose. My cynicism of all things obvious caused me to refrain from taking on hedges. Rolling into today, all I am long in my trading account is PG, CANG, and ZUO. Fuck you very much.

There are rumors and rumors of rumors swirling; but you only need to know one thing — stocks are rigged to go higher. During periods of dissipation, stocks are fixing to be rigged higher. On a long enough timeline, stocks trade much much higher. That’s the fucking truth and you can spray paint it on your neighbors’ walls for all I care.

Here’s what’s important to note.

I sold most of my longs yesterday in a trading account that represented 25% of my overall investable assets. The other 75% is tucked away, neatly, in a Quantitative strategy that is participating in this rally. Had I been trading all of my money, I’d be making zero right now. The cash that I have in my trading account may or may not be allocated today. But here’s the point: it is an avocation to trade. I enjoy doing it, but it’s not how I intend to build wealth. Ultimately, stocks trade higher, at least 75% of the time, on an annual basis. If we’re entering a horrible bear market, I expect to lose money in my long term account — but hopefully smart enough and agile enough to limit those losses thru keen trading in my discretionary account.

As for this rally, watch crude. It’ barely up and might mess with the mood by noon.

I’ve been drinking more whiskey these days. I used to despise the taste, but have now become quite fond of it. I think it has something to do with me getting closer to death and preferring bolder flavors, eschewing the delicate and intricate ones as not enough.

I’ve also been reading a great deal, whenever I get the opportune. Right now I am finishing up Tender is the Night by F. Scott (my favorite author), East of Eden by Steinbeck (an unreal book), and How to Be Rich by Getty. I read about 3-4 books per month, mostly consumed before bed.

I’ve also been cooking a lot, the most in my life. I’m very interested in the process and creating great tasting food. To that end, I’ve also been quasi-obsessed with being a bootleg bartender.

Life is too short to sit around, taking up space, and not compiling skills.

As for the markets, since this is a finance blog, the best position is cash. Futures are higher this evening, but that means very little. The true character of the market will be revealed by 11am.

As an aside, and this makes me look a bit old and dated, but I only recently discovered Spotify and holy shit am I happy that I did. For $15 bucks per month, I have access to every single song every recorded, on demand. How is that stock not higher?

In the mechanical sense, stocks are rigged. The economy is also rigged, or propped up, but that’s another story. Bear witness to the market struggling and the White House responding immediately with talking faces on CNBC. This is Trump, being a keen viewer of financial news channels, trying to stem the tide. Keep this in mind whilst formulating short positions.

For me, I moved to cash, in an effort to start fresh. I have an 85% cash position.

As for the overall market — not that big of a deal.

What to look for tomorrow?

A resumption of the bear market and new leg lower or redux of 1/4/18. If we trade lower tomorrow, I will definitely open some shorts. If we trade up, I’ll get some longs. The tenuous part about this level is we’ve run into resistance, which was the former support levels that I crudely termed ‘FAGbox’ about a month ago. I suspect we could move 2-4% higher from here. But I’m also of the mindset that February will bring gifts of disaster.

The average time to recovery in all bear markets since 1945 is 39 months. Don’t get it twisted, fucked face, we’ve only begun the volatility and everything you’ve seen up until now will be child’s play should Apple warn in Q2.

BONUS: John McAfee is on the run again.

The McAfee 2020 Campaign is, as of this day, in exile. I am being charged with using Crypto Cuttencies in criminal acts against the U. S. Government. More videos coming shortly. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/C75zcbnKTD

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) January 22, 2019

I ate multiple bowls of oatmeal and avoided any semblance of sugar or milk too. I just ate the oats, like a fucking horse — because I am austere and conservative and I do not use fouled language or make fun of people for going on ski trips and cavorting inside decorative ski lifts.

For that, I got the following:

-14% in ATTU
-9.6% in SOXL
-2% in CLF
-5.5% in NIO
wash in SMAR (double sized position)
wash in SHOP

That was 35% of assets. Total loss was around ~1.5% on those fuckers.

On the plus side was the following.

MDB +4.1%
GWRE +2.6%
NTNX +5.6%
NEWR +4.2%
TDOC +0.4%

That was 25% of assets. Total gain was ~0.80%.

I have a few positions left, but not much. I am 85% cash, only represented in the market by my long term Quant portfolio, which is higher by 3.8% for the month. Net net, my trading account resulted in a circle jerk — not much happening after a lot of shuffling of the decks. The reason why I decided to clean house is multi-layered, but it had a lot to do with the exogenous losses in SOXL and ATTU. Both those stocks truly pressed the ram against the wall for me, so I decided to clean house and start fresh — an effort to take control of my money and not permit the gains that I still had whither away and fall into loss.

The bear narrative is well defined and I think it will eventually come back into play. My only trepidation is shorting too early, as was the case on January 3rd, before the melt up.

See that red candle on the 3rd and major white candle on the 4th? That was a paradigm shift for markets and the reason why I went long. It was a fine trade to go short on the 3rd, but stupid to have held it on the 4th and going forward. Today’s red candle is a significant red flag, even more so now than on the 3rd, since we bellied up so much since then. However, the prudent trade would be to wait until tomorrow to get clarity and confirmation — that’s what an austere man, such as myself would do. That’s what a conservative pipe smoking book toller, like myself, must do. Sit and watch, become a voyer of stocks in the interim, culminating to a tipping point — at which point, I dive all in and savagely brutalize my enemies.

The Nasdaq is +12% over the past month. Pardon me if I got fetch a gigantic bowl of oatmeal, earl gray tea, and watch markets for the first 3-4 hours of trade before deciding to do anything about lower prices. We should expect a pullback and we don’t need an excuse to trade lower. People take profits and if you bought late, expect to lose some money.

Are we topping out?

Keep an eye on WTI, treasuries, and be on the lookout for long black candles.

My gut tells me this dip will be bought. Crude is barely down and bears are still salty AF, refreshing ZH and trying to scare people on twitter with tales from the crypt.

Chill out and wait before deciding a bias.

This is something that 90% of you need to understand and accept. Trading for a living is not an ideal way to earn money, and it also is, simultaneously, a sublime way to ruin your life and embed yourselves into a permanent state of frantic misery.

Accept the notion that to trade for a living requires a certain fortitude. If you haven’t demonstrated these qualities by the age of 35, give or take a few years, you’re better off focusing on long term capital appreciation. Even if you’re a talented and skilled trader, you should still opt for long term capital appreciation, for the sake of your own sanity and quality of life.

Case in point, the best trader to have ever walked the earth, Jesse Livermore, killed himself after going broke for the thousandth time.

In the end, greed wins and the house capsizes your flotilla.

Consider the following.

Over the past century, markets have traded higher, on an annual basis, 75% of the time.

Let’s say you invested $100k and added an additional $1,000 per month to that account for the next 30 years. Let’s assume you could achieve a very reasonable 10% return over said timeframe. By the time you’re ready to retire, you will have ~$3.7m in your account.

You won’t hear or read many stock gurus telling you this, because it works against their marketing schemes. The truth is, and I’ve always believed in this, the older you get the more serious you should become with your money — leaning towards preservation of wealth. Even if you’re 40 years old, this investment stratagem should apply to you. As a matter of act, 50 years olds can do it too, planning out a 20 year strategy.

The death-knell to long term capital growth is, of course, drawdowns. To avoid them, you must not trade with emotion and you must be diversified. In Exodus, I outline how I do it in my Quant portfolio — which is left untouched and only managed once per month.

Keep exposure to all sectors. Model your portfolios against the S&P. Ensure that you’re growing with America and taking advantage of recent trends by assessing your portfolio on a regular basis. Avoid the pitfalls of concentration and be sure to harvest gains to balance out weightings.

When I talk about this shit in Capstone to some of you, I hear nothing but agreement and firm noddings of the head — but then you go out and fuck it all up by trading in dastardly 3x ETFs and ignore all of the things I try to teach you to do. Your worst enemy is yourself and it’s because you’re addicted to winning and greed. Extricate yourselves from the process and live a happier life.