My Legacy Positions Are Almost Gone

I sold out of EXK, effectively winding down all of my old, legacy positions sans VHC, FB and a few olde manned positions. The month of December was a very dark period for me and I am glad to move past it. I’m not proud to keep booking losses, but it’s better to get done with them instead of letting them fester.

As of right now, my #1 thesis trade is long Japan. Of course I am looking for new ideas and have missed out on plenty of superb ideas that have run past me, such as the recent cocaine gorilla run in casinos.

It appears Mr. Loeb took down a 9% stake in HLF, despite Bill Ackman’s 300 page report–panning it as a ponzi scheme. I am sure we will all find great entertainment in watching two spoiled rotten billionaires battle it out over a nefariously run multi-level marketing company.

Homebuilders are running higher and I’m pissed off for booking a quick gain in BZH. I am reexamining my options in the space.

I’ve thought long and hard about this and have concluded that I need to eliminate yet another industry from my investment menu: precious metals. Perhaps it’s coincidence, or not, but ever since the gold/silver trade has withered away, Jakegint has been scarce. I do believe Jakegint was sent to this site from space aliens to promote the purchase of gold/silver, since that’s what aliens do, apparently. My sources have informed me that he and his clan have mined all they could and returned to their planet, which would explain his absence.

It’s time to let go of the idea that American inflation is something to protect against. We’ve seen the Fed’s balance sheet triple over the years, yet oil and everything else hasn’t budged.

I will be selling out of EXK today and moving on.

What is investable?

That’s the trillion dollar question of course. We can’t buy dollar stores, like Dollar General, since the poor people don’t have enough money to buy vending machine toys anymore. The only venue left for real, sustainable, investment is technology. Innovation will not be limited to our borders and wayward economy. If something is good, it will sell on a global scale.

Domestically, I like housing and construction materials, but would prefer to buy a dip rather than chase up here.

Banking analysts are banging their African drums, while dancing around in their dashikis, praising the fundamentals of Citibank. I must be in some sort of parallel universe where this is actually true. I cannot get myself to invest in banks. It doesn’t appeal to me.

Semiconductors have become a perverted joke. They are nothing more than trading vehicles with zero leverage and pricing power for the long term. Companies like AAPL squeeze them. Biotech is gambling, unless of course you know some Doctors who are participating in trials who can offer you free advice in the form of data. That data can be used to guesstimate if the FDA will grant approval for their prospective drugs.

Restaurant stocks? Should I buy DIN because fatties love panned cakes or SONC because they just expanded their menu? Frankly, the only fast food joints worth anything are PNRA and CMG. Maybe retail names have a future, considering the wealthy have an insatiable demand for luxury. I am sure KORS is a terrific long term hold.

Decisions need to be made. I haven’t figured out where I want to put money now, but I know where I want to divest– and that is, good sir, to sell the shares of EXK and write it off along with the grace and presence of Jakegint.

Since 2006, I’ve been telling the internets to fuck itself, for a variety of reasons. For one, I was young, belligerent, and wanted to get a few points across. It is a fact when one uses profanity to deliver a message, it gets amplified. People pay attention to the message when it is outlandish and I used this to my advantage.

Also, my children were young and not really into the world of internet connectivity. My wife, as I’ve stated here numerous times, hardly knows the persona “The Fly” exists. I don’t believe she’s ever bothered to read the site, as she’s too busy dealing with keeping up with the fashions of the day.

But I’m afraid all good and bad things must come to an end. This will be my final profanity laden post. Frankly, I don’t care to use words of the profane nature in the real world, so why use them here? While it’s true, I do partake in the profane when jostling with friends: I never use this sort of verbose at home, especially around the kids.

My vocabulary is much greater than yours and I do not need the application of the profane to have my message understood and amplified. I’m a bit older now and definitely more mature. I’m no longer hopped up on Monster Energy beverages and I certainly do not drink coffee. Most importantly, my kids are getting older and I’d hate to become a source of ridicule for them sometime down the road.

Since this is my final profanity laden post, I’d like to offer a special “fuck you” to a number of people who’ve supported the site throughout the years, helping Le Fly (as he’s popularly known in France) become a household name, a great topic of debate at dinner tables across the continents of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Antarctica (fuck Africa).

The following people can fuck themselves:

The iBankCoin Staff
The iBankCoin IT Department, spearheaded by the Chevalier of Duluth, Vincenzo Illuminati
All Former iBankCoin Staff
Chuck Bennett
The Devil
All Readers and active participants of iBankCoin
All of the miscreants who I’ve banned throughout the years, all 2,000+
Howard Lindzon and his lovely sidekick Mr. Pearlman
Reformed Broker
CNBC
All fucktards who follow me on Twitter
All of the homeless men who I’ve had the pleasure and honour of kicking down stairs and idle manholes
Old fuckers in wheeled chairs
The assholes who swore to God the SBUX-TEA deal would fall apart
TIM (both of them)
Karl “Blue Blazer Special” Denninger
Abnormal Returns
The Kirk Report
Andy Swan and his stronger brother Landon
Dealbook
CNN Money
The Homosexuals over at SeekingAlpha
Jefferson Krull
The Yahoo Finance Message boards and all of its trolls
Market Troll
Chart swing trader
MarketSci
DinosaurTrader
Option addict
The Globe and Mail (faggots)
The Daily Crux
The retarded folks over at Stock.ly
Pattern Profits
Todds Trade
That asshole from New Zealand who may never be named
Business insider and their robot Joe Weisenthal
Zerohedge
UpsideTrader
Alphatrends
Dennis Kneele
Beccy Meehan
Brent Rose, actor extraordinaire who did “The Fly Show”
Investing Channel for selling ads on such a profane dwelling, supporting the 2nd amendment rights of our employee Woodshedder by allowing him to purchase assault weapons

Last but not least, I’d like to give a special “fuck off” to the assholes at WordPress who’ve made this blogging experiment run seamlessly throughout the years.

It’s the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. May the next era be filled with topped hatted gentlemen– strolling about these halls wearing white gloves armed with black canes, beating their pet monkeys about the cranium for shitting on the Persian rugs that we hold so dear.

UPDATE: Regrettably, in my haste, I forgot to offer a final “fuck you” to StockTwits founder and world class yachting racer, Soren Macbeth. Soren and I go back to the early 1980’s, when I’d blow up his tree houses with jelly jars filled with gunpowder. Today, Soren spends his time studying botany, in an effort to find a cure for homosexuality. It’s rumored that his beta cure is being used as we speak at the StockTwits HQ in sunny Coronado.

Today’s pullback is an early test for the bulls. We all know how important it is to get off to a good start. We came out of the gates running. But now we’re just lying around eating jam sandwiches, watching prices drop. Small cap stocks are still surging, which of course is a bad omen for the overall market. The other day we were so overbought, I honestly felt there was a chance the market could go on a tear. Sometimes I get sentimental and wish for things that aren’t possible or realistic.

You want to know what’s sad?

It’s sad to see gold/silver higher and the miners lower. I feel bad for Jakegint. I honestly do. These stocks are plain awful. I’ve been invested in EXK for months now, to no avail. Why in the world should I hold it when it goes lower everyday? Again, I yearn for normality and predictability. However, it seems the more money the Fed prints, the less inflation there is, partly due to the Fed’s ingenious decision to pay interest on reserves. Banks are parking money at the Fed, instead of lending it, because why bother taking risk if there’s a sure thing at home?

My Japanese stocks are down and the Yen has rallied. My holding period for these names is no less than 3 months. I know, The Fly is not known for holding onto stocks for so long, especially when they’re up–which they are not. But that isn’t true. You see, I am up 12% on VHC and haven’t sold a share. I hate the stock, love the idea, and hate the short sellers even more.

Bottom line: I’ve invested a lot of my money into this market and have bet on it going up, as have most of you. AAPL is up and the market is being tested early on. Let’s see if people have the stones to buy ahead of earnings season.

A long time ago, in a different era when “The Fly” reported for duty at a brokerage firm, beholden to the caprices of drug addled fiends, I used to go to work late, by design. Certainly the prim and proper managers disagreed, as it was customary to report for duty by 8am. Which reminds me, the first firm I worked at would fine their brokers $1,000 for coming in late, past 8am. There would be a morning meeting, hosted by the most influential person who I’ve ever met, who would absolutely destroy anyone that had the audacity to walk in late–as he delivered his morning sermon. This same firm had employed 100 cold callers with just 90 seats. If you were one of the unlucky 10 to come in late and not have a seat, you were sent home.

Back to the topic at hand.

The reason why I’d report to work late was because I wanted to avoid the urge to trade before 10am. The first half hour of trade is reserved for amateurs, young and small plebs who enjoy losing money in the markets. I do believe, as a matter of fact, that some plebs lose money on purpose, as some sort of sick, twisted perversion of capitalism.

That being said, it’s only 9:43am and stocks are moderately lower. But don’t think for a second that is means anything at all.

Remember what I just told you.

NOTE: I will be announcing a revolutionary change to iBankCoin later on today.

Everyone I talk to loves the story.

Apparently, UNXL has a new touchscreen technology that doesn’t require rare earths and is flexible, awesome and is going to change the world. The only problem that I have with the company is the fact that the stock is going to drop by 75% inside of 12 months. The same bozos who were pushing MVIS years ago are pushing UNXL today: MDB Capital.

It’s not that MDB is a bad company or thrusting frauds onto the public. It’s just that any honorable company worth its salt doesn’t hire them for investment banking. I can run through a list of names that have shot up, under the auspices of the MDB pump machine, only to come crashing down later in a flurry of punitive secondary offerings.

Remember, the goal of a company like MDB is to raise capital for their clients. They are concerned with fees first, shareholder value second.

Avoid.

My old favorite WNR is selling off hard today. I do not care what the news is because I know where the stock will eventually trade– and that is much higher. HFC, PSX, MPC, DK and ALJ  are all buys on the dips, based upon the premise that US domestic oil production will continue to increase, as well as demand for distillates, contrasted by a lack of pipeline infrastructure.

Being an experienced investor in this space for many years, I can tell you first hand, the sell offs are brutal. I recall riding a massive position down from $18 to $11, only to sell it later north of $24. Keep an eye on these stocks and look to get in, for WTI-Brent spreads are $18 and 321cracks are north of $23.

Today’s sell off was a walk in the park. If I’m right about the bull trend, we run higher tomorrow and fast. I added to my NAV position because that’s what I’m required to do–buy stocks when they are cheap and sell them higher.

Top picks: VHC, NAV

I added to my NAV position.

Disclaimer: If you buy NAV because of this post, the next time you visit the zoo, you will fall into the lion’s dens and be eaten alive. And, you may lose money.

The ipo market has been dead in the water ever since Facebook mugged investors. Last year’s $112 billion raised in the ipo market is the worst since 2008, 30% of 2011’s output. On one hand, it’s a good thing to have less deals, leaving limited choices for capital flow. But what does it say about the economy?

There’s no excitement in the market right now. For every resurgence in Facebook, I offer you a death in Apple.

The trading ranges will persist and hopefully we can break out to new levels. I’m not concerned about today’s pullback. It may be bought by the day’s end. But for the market to reenter real bull market status, we need the ipo market to liven up again. We need excitement, something to lure the naive retail investor back.

We need another Facebook, this time sans the criminality.

I’ve been unfortunate as of late, on the receiving end of several bad ideas that turned into money losing ventures. I like to remind myself, as well as people around me, that the business of speculating is nothing more than a game of peaks and valleys. It’s important to moderate the valleys, while maximizing the peaks of course. I’d be perfectly content with booking 10 losing trades in a row, if I could nail just 2.

Most of the time my losses are small, anywhere from 3-10%. At times, due to the complexities of the market, ideas run aground and minor setbacks become impediments. Throughout my career, especially early on, I recall feeling a distinct sense of doom following large losses.  I felt as if I could never make the money back. The hole was too big and nothing that I could see at the time could “bail” me out. Lo and behold, with a little patience and plenty of smarts, I dug myself out and buried my enemies where they stood.

There’s an old saying, famous around these parts: “The Fly wins all the time, even when he is losing.”

To clarify,  losing is nothing more than a waystation, a temporary set back of sorts, to greatness. Some of you scratch your heads in amazement how someone could be so bold, yet distinguished. I only talk to you this way because it is my right to do so. Once you’ve gone through the motions, the investment life of Le Fly, you will learn to never bet against a person, such as myself.

You come to this blog and witness lots of people are reading it. Naturally, this is true. I never tried to become a world famous blogger in the arts of finance. It was my natural born right to do so, no different than it is the right of your neighbor to throw trash on your lawn or be a pervert.

The point I am trying to make, and did so quite effectively if I might say so, is that we’re all on a path, all unique but deliberate. The foundations of these paths were etched out many years ago, through the toils of hard work and ingenuity. Hubris has a way of muddying the waters, giving those who do not possess talent to feel a sense of entitlement. This is false hope and misdirected energy.

At the end of the day, it’s important to take a step back and realize who you are, limitations and all, with regards to the game of speculation.

Whenever a young chap comes up to me and talks with me about his investment career, I always ask “what was the first stock that you lost a million dollars in?” No one likes to talk about their losers because most cannot deal with adversity. They feel it makes them look weak. Quite the contrary. I wear my losses on my arm like a badge of honour. They are my battle scars, reminders to enjoy the moments when I am peaking.