Facing New Realities

I am enjoying the global warmed winter. We nearly had a hurricane here last night. The trees in the yard were menacing my house, as wind gusts knocked out the power, disrupting my movie watching excursions. Truth be told, my power returned within a few hours–but it was still an inconvenience.

I do not miss the winter. It’s been several years since the winter showed itself in the tri-state area. The new climes are wonderful for people who loathe shoveling snow, but dreadful for retailers.

I’d avoid any and all retailers because their highest margin products are winter garments. I don’t care what Sam Poser says, DECK is a sell.

On the other hand, this warm weather is a boon for restaurants. Places of gluttony, like PNRA and CMG, should continue to do well. I hate fast food restaurants. But upscale casual dining is a sweet spot that should engender plenty of shareholder satisfaction.

Also, with warmer climes comes the unfortunate side effect of storm activity. As power outages persist, sales of generators will soar. I am having a permanent, natural gas, generator installed, made by GNRC.

FB is selling off hard. My position is so small, I don’t care what happens to the stock. There were some impressive earnings last night, especially from CTXS, QCOM and SWKS. Last quarter was dreadful and was reflected in the number of earnings short falls, as well as negative GDP. Look at the bright side: the markets are near new highs, even though the economy contracted last quarter. Should we grow by 1.5% this quarter, the market should rip higher, based upon some pretty decent quarter over quarter growth.

The only way this market gets derailed is by government interference. Until April 15th, any dips should be viewed as an opportunity to gather some free money for the lean summer months that will follow.

As you know, iBankCoin upholds the strictest dress code on the internets, consisting of tuxedo, white tie, proper dinner jacket, white gloves, top hat and cane. This dress code remains a constant throughout the site, except when reading Rhino’s blog–who asked permission and was granted to wear army fatigues and blackened face when working on the site. Just a reminder, women must adhere to these codes as well.

We are not gender friendly at iBC. Consider this to be sausage fest, without all of the vulgarity and depravity that swirls through your small brains. We are gentlemen here who are interested in banking coin. That is all.

Effective immediately, black ties will be permitted in these halls, but only on dress down Friday. Here are some images to clarify my edict.

PERMITTED

NOT PERMITTED (no scarves allowed)

PERMITTED (only on Rhino’s blog)

PERMITTED (female attire)

NOT PERMITTED (nice try sneaking in a filthy animal, but the disguise has been detected and the canine will be escorted off the premises)

NOT PERMITTED (if you come here looking like that, the police will be called)

PERMITTED (“hello good Sir, did you come with a topped hat?” “Why of course, I gave it to the footman when I arrived.” “Very Well.”)

PERMITTED (“Why hello good Sir, may I offer you a cocked tail? “Ruff, ruff.” Very well Sir”)

Whenever the market rips and I lose money, the very next day I lose a lot more. Yesterday I noted how the 70 point melt up was exclusive to a select few, considering my pastiche of holdings lost me money. Today, me and my 100% long only portfolio got shipped to the woodshed to be chained like an animal and whipped with junkyard chains.

Five minutes to the bell and I am off by 1.69%, a very stern drawback for Le Fly.

Nevertheless, I’d be lying to you if I claimed to be scared. Nothing scares me, not even all of my stocks going to zero in unison. I have faith that the plan that I put into motion will deliver extreme winship. It’s only a matter of time before these things materialize, small plebs.

Do not panic and never let them see you with pie on your face. Gentlemen never eat pie, only cake.

It’s earnings season, so anything can happen. But if we are to base our assumptions on history, we are going UP till the tax man comes.

We are all well aware that the SEC wants nothing to do with investigating Muddy Waters or Citron Research. It’s too hard. They’d prefer to go after some penny stock promoters or levy fines against bozo hedge fund managers. When it comes to protecting retail, it’s every man for himself.

Check this out. Some clown created a fake Citron Research Twitter account (which has since been deleted), then proceeded to bash SRPT.

Dollars to donuts says someone made a bundle of money long puts.

Look at what happened to the share price following the fraudulent tweets.

That blip wasn’t a flash crash, but a real one.

How many people got stopped out due to this jerk on Twitter? Also, how many Citron bag holders shorted SRPT three points lower, thinking the firm took a bearish stance on the company?

I realize it’s hard to manage social media and the SEC can’t go after everyone. As much as we like to complain about this sort of thing, you know it isn’t going away. The internet is the wild west of stock ideas and Sheriff Fly is here to regulate.

So I was in my car, flipping through the AM channels, as most people with intelligence quotients north of 125 do, and I heard Rush Limbaugh offering some rather unsavory financial advice. Naturally, “he went in” on the negative GDP numbers, declaring the economy to be in a tailspin, down more than 3% since September. But then he switched gears from incompetent financial analyst to bizarro–a personal favourite of mine.

He declared AMZN to be a liberal plot of sorts, begging the question as to why the share price kept climbing, even though “the company doesn’t care about making money.” He cried foul that everyone hated Apple and all of the analysts were telling people to sell it, declaring “Apple is over.”

Rush Limbaugh doesn’t like when people sell Apple and buy Amazon. It makes him rather upset, see. He topped off his rant, saying “the liberals support their own.” That is, they support their own folly.

Ha, ha!

Amazon is a loser company, uninterested in making coin, more interested in space exploration and other vile liberal agendas.

I’ve been studying the laws of science and can happily report to you this morning’s negative 0.1% GDP number to be nothing more than a parlour trick, a ruse of sorts to admonish short sellers with stupendous “surprise sex” rallies. The fourth quarter was a very big one for Obama indeud. He had to contend with sheer hatred of his reelection, fiscal cliffs and the specter of another debt ceiling debacle.

The very rich in this country are enjoying double digit inflation rates and very high growth. I cannot say how fast the higher end of the economy is growing, as those figures are not available to me at the moment. But just know and rest assured, the caprices of the blue collared class in Detroit is becoming ever so more irrelevant in this country. The amount of spending being done at the high end makes it easy to ignore the poor.

So, before you call your brokers and ask them to reserve a seat for you inside the FAZmobile, remember that today’s numbers were meaningless, “priced in” if you will (remember the marker went down for a day or two last month?). Plus, markets don’t go up and down based upon domestic macro-trends anymore. If you’re looking at domestic GDP and wondering why AMZN is at $300 or how FLS can be so frigging expensive, look outside of your borderless country and realize there are Africans out there who desire one click shopping and sewer pipes.

Before you cast aspersions, go listen to the DHI conference call embedded below.

You know that I am biased, favouring names like BZH, HOV, FBHS and USG. But there are at least 25 names that will rise as the housing market recovers. It’s simply a matter of mathematics, as America’s population increases, the need for more homes increases. We should build over 1 million homes in 2013, up from 750k in 2012. However, to get to a normalized market, we need to get up to 1.5 million.

Do you have any idea how high USG’s stock price will be if we get to 1.5 million new builds?

Ask Warren Buffett, the second largest shareholder of the company.

Here is a list of 16 names that fit a specific criteria, from my ‘Housing Resurgence’ screen inside of The PPT.

I searched for companies with positive earnings growth, 15%+ quarterly revenue growth, alongside 6 month and YTD share price performance stats.

It’s worth noting, ELLI, has become a battleground stock, despite their fantastic numbers. I suspect the stock will remain under pressure until earnings are reported in mid-February.

BTW: Your best possible trade here is to buy actual property, due to leverage.

PART 1

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 2

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PART 3

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PART 4

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PART 5

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 6

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 7

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 8

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 9

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 10

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 11

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

PART 12

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I’d like to salsa dance on your graves right now to the tunes of Frankie Ruiz. However, I am down for the day and know that I am not alone, despite the 70 point melt up in the Dow.

Here is a look at the internals, as tracked by The PPT‘s industry page, sorted by breadth.

I’m down just 0.15% for the day; but I am down nonetheless. Moreover, I eagerly await in the shadows with a handful of cocaine–readying to throw it into your eyes. Lastly, I give you Frankie Ruiz, the song that I will be play whilst dancing inside of your mausoleum.

I’ve been moving parts around like a homeless man with a shopping cart. Being that my gains are superior to yours, yet again, I felt it was incumbent upon me to disclose my top 10 positions, by size. This is unprecedented for the mezzo cito, so pay attention and take notes.

1. VHC
2. USG
3. HMC
4. FBHS
5. WNC
6. WETF
7. ELLI
8. GS
9. NIHD
10. KMB

Slowly but surely, my portfolio will reflect core themes: housing and Japan. Both are reflating and will appreciate in price. With Japan, I’ve opted to buy the asset management company of popular ETF, DXJ, in favor of traditional names like CAJ or NMR. The biggest loser on that list is ELLI. I am patient with it because it’s a small position and because the fundamentals point to high growth, low valuations. If they miss earnings, I will likely sell and cut my losses.