Giant Whale Trader Menacing Turkish Markets

This is the funniest story I’ve read in 2016. I could see it now, the average savage going about his day in the stock market and an elusive Gekko type character steps into the fray to completely fuck all participants. Apparently, this “dude” is so big, he bends the market to his will. Participants are going apeshit trying to find him, but cannot.

“Nobody knows anything for sure,” Ozaner said in his office in a picturesque neighborhood on the shores of the Bosporus. “And this is Turkey, where usually we all know what’s going on.”

“Herif,” or “the dude,” has helped lift the average daily trading volume on the Borsa Istanbul almost 8 percent this year, compared with a 15 percent decline on the main exchange in Warsaw and a 27 percent plunge in Moscow, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Borsa Istanbul 100 Index has advanced 13 percent in the period, outpacing Russia’s Micex and Poland’s WIG20.

Closely held Yatirim Finansman, which handled less than 2 percent of all trades two years ago, now accounts for the majority on some days.

On Feb. 22, for example, the brokerage placed buy orders for 486 million liras ($167 million) of shares, about 15 times more than Merrill Lynch, the second-biggest dealer that day, according to official data. And in the 16 trading days to March 8, it registered almost 1 billion liras of buy orders for Turkey’s six largest banks and Turkish Airlines — helping push the Borsa index to consecutive three-month highs.

In all of January and February, Yatirim Finansman bought a net 1.23 billion liras of stock, almost 70 percent more than the next largest buyer, UBS Menkul Degerler AS. This is why Istanbul Portfolio’s Ozaner said the secretive buyer is now “making the market.”

“There’s a giant bull in the china shop,” said Kerem Baykal, a fund manager who oversees about $610 million at Ak Portfoy. “He’s got deeper pockets than anyone else in the game and can move the market in any direction.”

“The Dude” is straight up fucking with Turkey, a menace of the first magnitude. I hope he fucking destroys the exchange and makes it crumble into pieces.

Stone Energy has drawn down the entirety of its credit facility, amounting to $500 million total, which will now summarily burn in a giant flaming barrel of garbage.

Stone Energy Corporation (NYSE: SGY) today announced that it has borrowed $385 million under Stone’s Bank Credit Facility, which represents substantially all of the remaining undrawn amount that was available under the Credit Facility. These funds are intended to be used for general corporate purposes. As of March 10, 2016, following the funding of this borrowing, the aggregate principal amount of borrowings under the Credit Facility was $477 million. This is in addition to approximately $19 million of outstanding letters of credit. The bank borrowings will initially bear an interest rate of approximately 5 percent. On March 10, 2016, the banks provided notice to Stone under the Credit Facility of a request for a borrowing base redetermination. Stone expects that the borrowing base will be reduced to an amount below the current borrowings.

Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer David Welch stated, “We felt it important to increase our liquidity in the current low price commodity environment to ensure we have adequate financial flexibility. We will continue to explore various options to strengthen our balance sheet, including alternatives to address our debt position.”

This, undoubtedly, is going to tighten credit at the banks, as oil and gas companies draw down on their credit facilities in record fashion. It’s like a giant run on the banks, all at once.

The bank group includes Bank of America, N.A. as administrative agent; BNP Paribas, Natixis, and the Bank of Nova Scotia as syndication agents; Capital One, N.A. and Toronto Dominion LLC as documentation agents; and Allied Irish Banks p.l.c., Barclays Bank PLC, Regions Bank, U.S. Bank, Whitney National Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as participating banks.

Fucked.

Aside from secondaries, expect to see a lot of this. These oil companies set up rich and cheap credit facilities with banks when times were good. Now that they’re all out of money and bleeding out, banks are ruing the day when they decide to tap them.

That day was just thrusted upon BNP Paribas today, by Bonanza Creek.

Co elected to draw down $209 million on its credit facility, and currently has an aggregate of $300 million of borrowings, including a $12 million letter of credit, under the facility. As of March 9, 2016, the Company had $235 million of cash on its balance sheet after taking the recent draw into account.
‘Our recent election to draw down $209 million on our revolver was a risk management decision structured to mitigate exposure to capital market externalities in 2016.’

This is the part of the story when the risk to the balance sheets of the banks expands, exponentially.

It was smoke and mirrors and you know it. Stocks staged a miraculous index rally, fooling all of the regular Joe’s into thinking their fortunes were about to change. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Market breadth closed at 28%, meaning 72% of the stocks in your portfolio closed with losses.

Today was the biggest, broad based, trick placed upon the Third Estate in a long time. Distribution was rampant and the only sectors that thrived were utilities, precious metals and steel.

You’ve been dispatched, without regard for decorum.

Healthcare stocks led the way lower, as Karl Marx and Dr. Hillary Clinton hone in on profitable American medicine as a conduit to fund their politically charged pet projects.

The barbarians are at the gates.

Trade accordingly.

Get the fuck out of here with this shit.

“Every other time I’ve ever gone on a diet, I’ve gone on a diet and then gone off the diet, because I had gotten to the weight I’d wanted to be,” Winfrey said in a private call with Weight Watchers members in January. “The difference is, I’ve made the shift and this is the way I’m going to live for the rest of my life.”

Weight management is simply a case of input vs output. The morons who subscribe to Weight Watchers are weak creatures, unable to stop stuffing their greedy fat faces with bread. Nevertheless, the power of Oprah persists.

WTW is higher by 3% on this idiotic news.

I know you’re all jumping into the pool headlong now. Just know, the water that you see, it’s an illusion.

Breadth stands at an abysmal 26%. According to the laws of mathematics, a reversal cannot happen today. It’s like pushing a fucking grand piano uphill with sponge bob arms.

All sectors, save gold and steel, are being ravaged today.

The market might rally tomorrow. But I’d bet both my nuts, this fucker isn’t rallying today.

For the first time since American revolutionary war traitors fled to Canada to escape the wrath of General Knox, Washington and others, they’ve become a dignified creditor to the United States.

Canada’s net asset position with the U.S. was C$82.2 billion ($61.6 billion) in the fourth quarter, the first ever positive figure for the country. Canada had a net liability position of C$39.9 billion in the third quarter. The average since 1990 has been a net liability of C$248 billion.

There’s a sundry of reasons why this is the case, mostly to do with a lot of petrol dollars not having investable options at home. Ever since the Blackberry collapse and subsequent melt down of a once promising tech industry in Canada, investors have had very few places to invest, domestically. So, like all smart people around the world, they come here to invest in the future.

This just about sums it up.

On the other hand, the data also suggest a reluctance to acquire Canadian assets, even with a weaker Canadian dollar. Direct investments from the U.S. into Canada have fallen over the past year, while portfolio investments have been little changed.

Nortel.

Gold is up 1.3% today, sending the sector up by another 4%. Aside from markets trading lower, the dollar is getting crushed by a staggering 1.8% v the euro, reversing an early 1.5% rise. This deleterious reversal is reverberating around wall street, sending stocks into full retreat mode, now sharply lower by 50 NASDAQS.

Without question, the store of 2016 is one that could be found in the gold sector. Astonishing gains are being doled out in an industry that was derided and laughed at for the better part of the past 5 years.

HMY is up 260% for the year.

DRD is up 150% for the year.

Large cap miner, ABX, is higher by 90% for 2016, in a year where the raw commodity is up merely 19%.

Things to look at: only DB.

With all of the chatter of Europe losing control of the narrative and how the world has lost faith in the ECB, it would be supremely important for these rumors to be proven false by supporting the share price of Deutsche Bank. Make no mistake, nothing is more important than the European banks now. Within the banks, when it comes to risk and how it needs to be managed, no big bank is more frowned upon than Deutsche Bank.

My suspicions of this rally being tenuous have turned out to be fortuitous. Idiots are crumbling before the surge in the euro. This surge is pressuring bonds, as the dollar descends into anarchy.

The main beneficiary is gold, which is higher by 0.8%.

Look at the euro run, fucking millions of traders who thought otherwise.

The NASDAQ has been weakening for an hour. I waited to post this until I was sure the reversal was real.

Crude oil, well deservedly, is trading lower.

Now go watch the Obama press conference discussing the dangers and plights of melting icebergs and global warming. Meanwhile, markets are undergoing classic blow off top reversals.

My own experiences with advertising through the Twitter network was a miserable one. I’ve outlined my dramatic battle with the Twitter corporation back on December the 15th. The magnitude of Twitter’s incompetence with my small, yet eager budget, was startling and it seems I am not the only one who thinks so.

In a CNBC interview, an RBC analyst said there is significant momentum by advertisers away from Twitter. It is very likely, large buyers of internet ads had a similar experience to the one that I endured. As such, the stock is plunging again.

I think it’s clear: Jack Dorsey should be forthwith removed from the C level suites at Twitter. The monetization of such a valuable asset should be something easy to do. News organizations should be forced to subscribe to a premium account for a nominal fee. There should be a greater outreach effort to users, using surveys, to assist users extract maximum value from the platform, customized to their interests. Quite frankly, the Twitter juggernaught has never been and never will be as big as Facebook. But there should be a path by which management could effect redeemable change and to forge a path towards profitability.

This much is clear: the current management team are wholly incompetent and should be replaced. Even monkies could do better.