As Markets Hit Record Highs, Dr. Doom Calls for a 50% Drop

File this one under “LOL”.

I mean, seriously, has Marc ever seen a market he didn’t want to short, or at least drop by 50%?

Erdogan wants his arch enemy, who happens to live in Pennsylvania. To get him, the United States must extradite him. It would be very nice for Mr. Gulen to volunteer to travel back to Turkey. However, being that Erdogan wants him dead, it’s not likely to occur.

Turkey has demanded we hand over Gulen, or else…

“There is a serious anti-American feeling in Turkey, and this is turning into hatred,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said in an interview with state-run Anadolu Agency, broadcast live on Turkish television channels. “It is in the hands of the United States to stop this anti-American feeling leading to hatred.”

“Whether the U.S. extradites Gulen or not this will be a political decision,” Bozdag said. “If he is not extradited, Turkey will have been sacrificed for a terrorist.”

“That terrorist leader will come to Turkey and pay for what he did. We will hold him accountable for the blood of our martyrs and veterans,” Yildirim told a meeting of his ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party in parliament.

“That religious, impudent, lying, bloody murdering nothing will be surely held accountable.”

Hate away, fuckers.

I promised not to do politics, but this is too much. Explain to me how this is smart politics for #TeamHillary? Are they this crazy to seat the Father of the terrorist who committed the Orlando nightclub killings directly behind their candidate at an Orlando rally, who then later held up a pro Hillary, gun control, sign?

Why, I believe they are.

This shit makes no sense.

Gun control.

It’s worth noting, this piece of human refuse supports the Taliban and believes God will punish gays.

But…

It’s a Democratic party so everybody can enjoy,” he said, when asked why he decided to attend the rally. “Why should they be surprised, I love the United States.”

Party, party.

What exactly is the motivation behind subjecting people to settling for less? I understand the concept of profits and can appreciate most business models like the next man. But this new trend in hotels which includes ‘micro rooms’ seems a bit dreary, almost Orwellian, to me.

A few assholes, who operate hotels under the Tommie brand, want you to pay $199 to $350 (maybe more) for rooms that barely fit a bed in it.

The partners are squeezing 575 rooms, each no more than 165 square feet (15 square meters), into the two buildings in an effort to maximize profits in a market where high land costs and a surge in room supply are eroding operators’ pricing power and eating into developers’ returns. This year through June, average nightly room rates in New York City fell 3.3 percent from the same period in 2015 to $237.93, and revenue per available room — a performance metric used by the hotel industry — dropped 3.2 percent, according to lodging-data firm STR.

The only reason why anyone in their right mind would do this, pack humans into a building like sardines or living batteries like in the Matrix, is because of greed. Why build 250 normal sized rooms when you can build 575 pods and charge the same price?

Fuck these guys. I recoil from this.

This stock is so bad it’s good. Anything better than the CEO resorting to panhandling at Penn Station to meet the quarter gets the stock going higher again. Lo and behold, the company reported an earnings miss (only by 8 cents) and the stock is ripping higher because of it.

Why?

Free cash flow is up and guidance was in line.

For the love of God, the company is guiding estimates towards $7 in earnings for the year, putting VRX in the value camp at just 3x earnings.

Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $1.40 per share, $0.08 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.48; revenues fell 11.4% year/year to $2.42 bln vs the $2.45 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
Business update:

We have taken steps to streamline our portfolio in the second quarter. We have sold, or agreed to sell, the brodalumab EU rights, Synergetics USA OEM business, and Ruconest for a total combined upfront payment of $181 million and additional consideration up to $329 million for achieving specific approval and sales milestones.

Specific to Ruconest, today the Company entered into a definitive agreement to divest all North American commercialization rights to Ruconest (recombinant human C1 esterase inhibitor) to Pharming Group N.V. Under the terms of the agreement, Pharming will pay Valeant aggregate consideration of up to $125 million, including an upfront fee of $60 million payable upon closing and certain sales-based milestone payments of up to $65 million. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, in addition to Pharming obtaining certain financing. Ruconest was classified as held for sale as of June 30, 2016 and an impairment loss of $199 million was recorded in the second quarter of 2016.

Cash flow from operations was $448 million in the second quarter of 2016 as compared to $411 million in the second quarter of 2015, an increase of 9% over the same period in 2015.

“We continue to make progress towards stabilizing the organization,” said Joseph C. Papa, chairman and chief executive officer. “We are also announcing a new strategic direction for Valeant today, which, at its heart has a mission to improve patients’ lives, and will involve reorganizing our company and reporting segments. I am continuously encouraged by the commitment of our employees who work hard daily, rebuilding our relationships with prescribers, patients and payors, and regaining the trust of our debt holders and shareholders.

Although it will take time to implement and execute our turnaround plan, I am confident that we will show progress in the coming quarters.”

Co reaffirms guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $6.60-7.00 vs. $6.52 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $9.9-10.1 bln vs. $9.98 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; continues to see Adj-EBITDA of $4.8-4.95 bln

If this stock traded at just 10x earnings, the price would be $70.

I wonder why investors are pulling funds out of the hedgies? Don’t they enjoy their brand of underperformance and the access to financial stars who regularly frequent CNBC and who are called ‘asshole greed goblins’ at iBankCoin?

Amidst a sundry of reports of pension funds opting out of hedge funds, it should come as no surprise that the number of funds in business is scheduled to decline, rightfully so.

Research firm Hedge Fund Research (HFR), in a monthly report released on Friday, counted a total of 10,007 hedge funds worldwide in July.

“Based on recent HF (hedge fund) performance and the increased challenges to launching an HF (hedge fund), we estimate that there would be a net decrease in the number of funds by YE (year end) 2016,” the Barclays report said.

Barclays’ calculations were based on a survey this year of 340 investors who had allocated $900 billion to hedge funds, making up roughly 30 percent of the industry.

From 2010 to 2015, the number of funds grew 2 to 3 percent each year. But Barclays found that 61 percent of those surveyed felt hedge funds did not meet their expectations.

Investors overwhelmingly blamed the industry’s large size for current tepid returns, with 74 percent of those surveyed saying too many managers were chasing a limited number of ideas.

No word on whether or not Bill ‘Montauk’ Ackman will be on the list, finally moving over to a family office structure.

My urinal shadows strongly suggest that I become a more sociable person, reach out to others in an effort to lessen the rage that exists in my metaphysical being. As such, I’ve taken liberties to rewrite some of the titles of some of the stuff that I’m reading on the web this evening.

Zerohedge: Morgan Stanley says BOARD THE FUCKING ARK

Daily Reckoning: The Jobs Numbers Were Bullshit and Alan Greenspan is the Devil

Reformed Broker: Degenerate Small Cappers to Outperform

Reformed Broker’s Evil Twin: The Ark Might Sink; $DB Might Float (lolz)

Calculated Risk: The Life and Death Matter of Heavy Truck Sales

Irrelevant Investor: Hey Assholes, Quit Moving the Fucking Goalposts

Mish: Russia is About to Invade the Ukraine Again

Dollar Collapse: NEGATIVE RATES WILL BLOW UP THE EARTH, Plus U.S. Treasuries Are a Fucking Illusion

Wolf Street: Spain is So Fucked

Howard Lindzon: The Case for Donald Trump and Why Hillary Clinton is an Evil Bitch

Business Insider: Hillary Mocks Trump’s Steves; Why Aren’t Any Female Steves on Trumps Economic Advisory Panel?

Marketwatch: Citi Makes the Case for Even MOAR Gains

ReCode: Walmart Bid Against Themselves Like Stupid Fucking Morons for Jet.com

The Verge: Meaningless iPhone 7 Rumors

Good news Union Square Venture lovers: it appears the President and CEO of woefully managed, world ending disaster in the making and example of how NOT to manage a financial institution, Fannie Mae, will be added to the Lending Club board of morons. Hopefully, he will guide this company directly into the abyss.

Bear in mind, this is an easy to follow trend in tech. Find any company who was financed by a venture capital fund, like Union Square (hello Uncle Fred!) and sell it down short, until it dies. The delicious paradigm we’re in today is bereft of opportunity, because of all the private money floating around in search for the next Groupon. When I started the business in the late 90’s, this wasn’t the case. You could buy companies before they were priced out of their fucking minds. All of the really good companies are private, from Uber to Airbnb. The only way this ends is for the venture capital world of baby blood drinking, bizarre fucking vampires, to blow up in a giant cloud of thermo-nuclear ash–created by the detonation of a financial tsar bomba.

Unfortunately, I don’t see any tsar bombas on the horizon. In the meantime, you will have to endure.

• Reports Q2 (Jun) loss of $0.09 per share, $0.07 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.02); revenues rose 6.5% year/year to $102.39 mln vs the $100.42 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
• Loan originations in the second quarter of 2016 were $1.96 billion, compared to $1.91 billion in the same period last year, an increase of 2% year-over-year. The Lending Club platform has now facilitated loans totaling nearly $21 billion since inception.
  • Quarter developments:
    • In light of lower loan volumes in the second quarter and recognizing that the full scale return of investors may take time, in June 2016, the company eliminated 179 positions in the organization
    • Lending Club ended the quarter with strong liquidity including $832 million in cash, equivalents and available for sale securities, and $120 million of undrawn credit facility
    • Jefferies successfully executed a three times oversubscribed near prime securitization in August 2016 for $134 million of unsecured Lending Club personal loans
• Co issues downside guidance for Q3, sees Q3 revs of $95-105 mln vs. $108.45 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Adj-EBITDA of ($30-15 mln)
• Lending Club announced that Carrie Dolan resigned from her role as CFO to pursue a new opportunity. In response, Lending Club has appointed Bradley Coleman to Principal Accounting Officer and Interim CFO. Mr. Coleman has served as Lending Club’s corporate controller since 2013 and will continue in that role while fulfilling his new duties. The company has retained a global executive search firm to manage the recruitment of a new CFO and expects to name a successor in due course.
• Timothy J. Mayopoulos, President and CEO of Fannie Mae, has been appointed to the Lending Club Board as an independent Director. In addition, the company has successfully hired a Head of Institutional Investors, which will be formally announced soon.

Lending Club, the wonderful innovator of the FINtech world, is down 65% over the past year and -5% in the after hours.

If you’ve been shorting stocks for the past 6 months, you must feel like a homeless hobo after getting beaten by a tire iron (ban all tire irons). It’s important that we recognize the point of short sellers as the evil counterbalance they are, the constant and persistent check on prosperity that promises to drag us all into the dark ages. Having time away from the professional management of money, and hating on the markets, I can tell you with supreme confidence that selling short is a job designated for trolls, men beneath the stairs who grabs your ankles at night and who steals pieces of molded bread for his breakfast treat.

Herb Greenberg, long time denizen of the crevasse under the stairs, chimes in.

Year to date, some of the most heavily shorted stocks have been the biggest winners.

The essence behind buying  stocks, which is heavily shorted, is to pressure the short sellers into bankruptcy. Once the marshall repossesses their computers and they’re unable to hold onto their shorts, a forced buy occurs, which then adds to the tinder in a market that is completely rigged (extra Trump) to trade higher–at which point you make mountains of cash and receive first rights to urinate on the headstones of the shorts you just killed.

Energy stocks have exploded to the upside today, thanks to the 2.7% leap in WTI. While markets languish, crude stocks are enjoying splendor on a grandiose scale.

Observe.

Now you might be feeling your oats today, long these idiot stocks into a melt up. However, just know, whatever gains that you expect to ‘enjoy’ in the coming weeks ahead should be extremely limited. For the better part of the past 3 months, energy stocks have been wanton losers. Guess what? That’s exactly what the seasonality Gods forecasted for them.

Have a look.

Do these trends look familiar? They should, since they repeat themselves almost every year without a hiccup.

In spite of the +10% gains over the past two weeks, energy stocks are still down over the past month.

Based on these trends, we get a respite in October and then a fucking collapse in November,  just in time for Thanksgiving. After that, we should see an investable bottom.

All of this data, for both sectors and individual stocks, is available inside Exodus.