iBankCoin
18 years in Wall Street, left after finding out it was all horseshit. Founder/ Master and Commander: iBankCoin, finance news and commentary from the future.
Joined Nov 10, 2007
23,436 Blog Posts

Proper Decorum is Not Only Expected, But Mandatory

Today I was tempted to drift off the plantation of prudence into the hookers den of chinese burrito stocks. There are so many that look so good, infecting my brain with visions of outsized gains in short periods of time. In my head, I saw myself doing 125mph on the FDR, while texting my trader to sell 500,000 shares of some devils stock for a two day 35% profit. The reality is, as documented by my accountant, chinese stocks represented 35% of my losses last year. Let me say it again: chinese stocks represented 35% of my losses last year, spearheaded by the animals who run BORN into the ground.

My Grandfather used to say “son, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s a fucking god damned lie.”

RBCN was a legacy holding, as well as LULU, DECK and all of the other shit on my books now–sans FOSL and MTW. I am now within 5% of my all-time highs. When I hit it, I intend to sloooow down and get real methodical about my buys and sells. This means I will be tossing bowling balls at your heads from my limousine, instead of my chopper.

On the subject of decorum and how to behave while on iBC: some of you are not welcomed here anymore. Let me remind you–yet again–2012 is a charitable year for iBC. I intend to give you money, via contests, and the bannings will be held to a minimum. In the past I’d look at names and simply dislike them for their spelling or get pissed off at a particular state, like MN, and ban everyone in sight. Not in 2012.

If you have an issue with Capitan Fly, take it up with him in the comments and get eviscerated in a public fashion. I am up for it and will keep a stiff win-rate of 100%–trust in that.

However, I will not tolerate trouble makers in my house. Many of you are poorly bred and do not know how to behave amongst gentlemen. For the love of Rick Ross’s big fat face, respect your fellow pleb and keep the hate speech down to a minimum. iBC is a beacon of truth in a sea of lies. This is the Constantinople of finance and the barbarians are firing catapults at our gates. I will not tolerate ignorance and will exact the harshest measures against trespassers, such as melting your fucking hard drive to the ground.

I have a dozen hackers–with nothing to do–willing to send your PC back to Staples.

Enough of the unpleasantness: rejoice in this most honorable melt up and remember to take profits.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R949xREakk 603 500]

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GROW A PAIR

The market trades up and then it goes down. Just because the market is going straight up in 2012 doesn’t give you the right to shit on everyones parade. When others do well and show it through a smile and a new Porsche Cayenne Turbo, don’t let your lower class reveal through envious actions. There isn’t a need for your to talk down stocks or better yet explain to me why we’re going lower. I’m a big boy, bigger than you think, and know exactly where we’re going and when.

I took 5% of my cash and bought FOSL today with every intention of buying more lower. I added to my MTW position because China is gonna ease and attempt to kill their poor via runaway inflation.

Hypothetically, if the market went down 200 today and stole 1.5% from my assets, I’d accept such treachery with a gaze then a smirk. I am due for a thrashing, and so are you. It’s the manner in which you take said beatings and how prepared you are to endure it that makes the difference.

We have an interesting situation right now, where stocks are dropping–but GS is holding. It’s gonna be real hard to take stocks down with the financials rallying like this. With my money, I remain long, heavy cash, and a small TZA position 9% in the hole.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_10tfbfO94 603 500]

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MULTITUDINOUS REVELRY

Who would have known LULU would up their guidance and send the stock forklifting higher by 6 points this morning? The good men over at Goldman, who upgraded LULU the other day, must be besides themselves with pure joy. Unfortunate to my position, I am without shares of LULU this morning (sad face). However, I am blithe nonetheless.

Like I’ve said to you before, stocks are not personal with me. They are simply a means to an end. In my case, that end is the completion of a Space Orbital Cannon (SOC), whereby I will be able to singularly destroy whole city blocks with one button. To you, the stock market might pay for cheese or bread. We all come here to play the game and to win. Some of us win more than others and that is simply a side effect of a greater story to be told. But we will not sour the mood with DNA comparisons on this joyous morning.

Back to LULU. The excitement in the shares today will spill over into other beaten down retailers, such as FOSL and DECK–just to name two. But the revelry, if I might use that word liberally, is not to be contained to just LULU and other haggard retailers. There is a greater theme at play here, being purposefully executed by the world’s finest men, undoubtedly wearing top hats and white gloves. It is the NFLX squeeze on a grande scale. This is a very simple trade for you to understand, even a young man from 0hio can figure out its meaning.

I want you to research heavily shorted stocks that are down more than 20% over the past six months, whose shares are now climbing–threatening to seize the bears by the heart and squeeze it like a Grand Noir de la Calmette.

Once again, I will seemingly bail you out and provide you with a list to choose from. I do not wish to be thanked in advance, just remembered for eternity.

NFLX, OPEN, FSLR, KBH, TSL, WNR, TWI, CIEN, GMCR, VECO, SFLY, CRM, JEF, BGC, FSL, CREE, STP and WHR.

Being half in/half out of the market, I am in a good position to buy one of the aforementioned names, maybe even two. But that all depends on the price action of the market and if it looks strong enough to continue after today. This may very well be the last day of the spectacular 2012 rally. Or, maybe it is something that can be extended through sorcery. Either way, we will figure it out and profit from the demise of those willing to oppose us.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjoW4Nt-9Mk 603 500]

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HALF OUT

I blew out of RBCN, turning a 15% loser into a 17% winner through patience and averaging in. It was one of my larger positions, aside from DECK and LULU–which was sold on Friday. Now I am just stuck with DECK, MTW, WNR, GSVC and a little GMXR–with a side course of TZA laser beam soup.

My cash position stands at exactly 50% and my year to date gains at 6%.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS8E14sRDo8 601 500]

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Enter the Vise

Shorts are getting obliterated. The indices are not telling the whole story, NFLX is. Heavily shorted names are being targeted by long only funds for the explicit purposes of exacting punishment. There is a lull in news flow and longs are pressing shorts into their vises, then squeezing them ever so slowly.

Several of my longs are catapulting diseased corpses into bear HQ’s, namely RBCN and DECK.

Other heavily shorted names running include: BONT, REE, OPEN, SFUN, HUSA, VVUS, OSG, ITMN, DNDN, HOV, NFLX and IOC.

Heavily shorted stocks with potential to begin squeezing higher, in my opinion, are: SKUL, FSLR, OCZ, CIEN, WNR, ACOM and SFLY–just to name a few.

Let me be the first to tell you: I am not particularly bullish here, as I believe we are overdue a pullback. However, there is price momentum and that can get irrational, especially in a market as rigged as this one. For now, my preferred course of action is to keep cash above 30%, have zero shorts aside from my program purchases of TZA, and stay long names that are heavily shorted.

I bought MTW today because the Stern Agee analyst covering it is on fire and says it’s worth $18.5. Plus, it fits into the whole “global reflation” trade, just in case economic nirvana returns to China–the land of the crane.

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Fly Buy: MTW, DECK

I initiated a new position in MTW and bought more DECK.

Disclaimer: If you buy the above stocks because of this post you will lose your car keys and wallet. And, you may lose money.

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The Party Continues

Clearly, the market doesn’t want to go lower. I am trying to understand how everything changed, all of a sudden. It feels like it was just yesterday when Europe was getting its jaw broken for it and now everyone is elated with the prospects of asinine levels of Italian debt coming due.

Now I could fall victim to my caprices and short everything in sight, like a rabid Chanos. Or, I can simply wait–like a gentleman– for my price to reallocate my 35% cash reserves. I need you to understand something, rather immediately. There is nothing that is going to stop me from banging my African jungle drums this year. I shall have a recourd [sic] year and I will savagely destroy my enemies.

I am stalking a stock, like a homeless man loitering well to do buildings in the upper east side. I am waiting for an opportunity to step in and buy size.

Aside from that, the stock Gods are blessing shares of RBCN, one of my larger positions. I warned you on Friday, the shorts live inside of RBCN. If anyone is interested in assaulting the bears, own RBCN. The pain is going to be abhorrent for them–pardon my first rate usage of the English language–I realize the majority of you barely know how to speak it.

In closing, “The Fly” is moving up and everyone is moving down, by comparison. I am eating a crumpet, with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and washing it down with some loose leaf Earl Grey from TEAvana, light and with a bit of honey.

Good day to you.

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The Important Matter of Cold Callers

It was January of 2001 and my business was spiraling lower, post dot com bust. At the time, I had two cold callers, one partner and the very worst sales assistant money could buy (more on that at a later time). One of my cold callers aka Brandon was a childhood friend. He entered the business with dreams of getting rich. After all, when we were younger we’d throw wooden chinese stars at each other and threaten strangers with our wooden swords, all made with our own hands. If I could make a million in 2000, so he could he, no?

During his New Year’s eve party he met a man named “Gordy.” Gordy was a Russian immigrant, who was at Brandon’s house because Gordy had a mistress and she was there, the mother of one of my better childhood friends. It was a typical Brooklyn New Year’s, with all sorts of degenerate shit going on.

Brandon was being trained to procure clientele for my Titanicesque of a business, where millions of dollars were being shaved off my moneyline on a monthly basis. It was rather sublimely absurd, if I might say so. Anyway, Brandon got Gordy as a client on that fateful January eve of vagrancy. Shortly thereafter, he told me the news that some “big guy” Gordy wanted to invest $100k. At that point in my life, I didn’t give a shit about piker new accounts, but was glad Brandon was making contacts. After talking to Gordy I knew he was going to be a pain in the ass, so I gingerly gave the account to my partner to handle and manage.

The account was opened and running. My partner made a few solid trades for Gordy and the account surged ahead by 10%. Then February of 2001 came. If you are unfamiliar, February of 2001 was God’s way of punishing stock brokers and anyone else remotely related to the market. We’d just sit there, in a stupor, watching stocks fall to laughable levels, then we’d go get drunk during lunch and resume watching tragic comedy unfold into the bell.

Well, it just so happened, during February of 2001, Gordy was loaded the fuck up with a lot of tech stocks. Apparently, he liked that shit. His account fell from 110k to 75k like an anchor in water. All of a sudden, Gordy became frazzled and began to call my partner 20 times per day. If there was one thing my partner was bad at it was customer service. He was the antithesis of good service, opting to “fucking fire” clients rather than make them feel good. After a few weeks of pestering, my partner snapped and told him to “take his fucking account out of here.” Alarmed by this situation, stemming from the fact that Gordy was cheating on his wife with one of my childhood friends mother, I stepped in and offered to assuage the situation. Gordy wanted to meet for lunch, so we did.

He came to the office dressed like a fucking gypsy, an older man of about 55 years old, clad in an all black sweat suit with gold trims. I took him and Brandon to a deli down the block and we all ordered the pastrami. During lunch, Gordy told me “Fly, you can do better” and started to wink his eyes at me, as if to imply he knew that I was in total control of the stock market, but had lost him money because I was punishing him. I told him “the fucking NASDAQ just fell 30% for the month, what did you expect?” The conversation went into his previous investment experience, where he personally lost $700k trading in and out of Janus mutual funds. I asked him to be patient and I promised him I’d take over the account from my irate partner.

Brandon and I left lunch feeling victorious. Gordy seemed happy, albeit delusional, and he promised to send in more money when things turned around.

I told my partner “let me handle this jackass from now on.” He just nodded.

The next day the market fucking cratered and Gordy’s account was getting punched in the cock hard. I told Brandon to “call him and give him the good news,” as I was busy dealing with 500 other clients who hated me and wanted to skin me alive. Brandon told me “don’t worry about it bro. He is cool.” I said “okay” and then proceeded to write a personal check to cover a margin call. The margin call clerk was literally hovering over me as I signed it.

Two days later Gordy called my manager and alleged Brandon and I were taking money out of his account. Anyone in the business knows this is a serious implication and can easily get you a starring role on American Greed. He told my manager that we’d been siphoning money out of the account, obviously, for there could be no other explanation as to why the account value was $66k. Remember, Gordy thought Fly was all powerful Master and Commander of the stock market, able to control it with his magic wand. The idea of seeing the account down 30% made no sense to Gordy, despite the fact that the Nasdaq itself had gone down 30% in 20 days.

Immediately, the account was liquidated and all activity frozen. I told my manager to “take this nutjob off my hands” and he did, much to his chagrin. Our Chief compliance officer looked into the matter and called us in for a preliminary interview. Just so you know, all compliance officers are douchebags, always hating on brokers because they made 10x their salary.

While in his office he offered a multitude of platitudes to my partner, Brandon and me. He then strayed off the plantation and started to accuse us of “improperly managing the account.” That’s when my partner snapped and told him “to go fuck yourself.” He barged out of the office and I explained to the Chief that “this guy is just an asshole. Look into the matter and you will see we did nothing wrong.”

The next day we were vindicated from stealing from Gordy. The guy had gone off his rocker and was calling my manager every 10 minutes for stock quotes. It was especially amusing to watch my staid, boring, manager deal with the superfluities of Gordy, declining his requests to “trade a little bit here or there.” That’s the way Gordy spoke.

After six months, Brandon quit working for me, after my partner had the head of IT replace his computer screen with a sticky, with quotes written on them. Apparently, my partner thought Brandon spent too much time watching the market, too little getting new accounts. A letter was delivered to the firm, introducing a lawsuit from Gordy, only addressed to me. I was dumbd-founded. After all, I never managed the fuckers account and certainly didn’t open it. I found out later on that Gordy thought I was the boss and felt his odds of “getting back a little bit of money” were higher by targeting me, as opposed to Brandon and my partner.

This was my first lawsuit ever and the other brokers came around to congratulate me, saying idiot shit like “now you popped your cherry” or “you can’t work in the mine without getting dirty.” I just scowled at them and said “thanks.” Coincidentally, our firm was being sold and the Chief counsel was trying to get all lawsuits off the books. The firm was getting sued about 30 times per month and the shit was out of control. To mitigate costs, they were settling all suits, no matter how frivolous the claim was. The attorney assigned to me said “this is nothing. Let’s just settle and make it go away.” At first I was against settlement because it meant this suit would be pasted onto my record for the world to see, effectively branding me a criminal. After a few months of sheer distraught over the market, my business and life in general, I told the attorney “if you guys pick up 100% of the cost, go ahead and settle it.”

They ended up giving Gordy $20k. I heard he lost it all in the market, shortly thereafter. Two years later he died, most likely due to the pangs of anguish– accusing an innocent man of egregious crimes.

To this day, that fucking mark is on my license and I have to explain it to people who question me about it. The accusations were absurd, something one might see on American Greed. I deeply regret settling that suit and if I could do it again I’d spend a gagillion dollars defending my innocence.

At the end of the day, however, Gordy is dead and I’m typing this shit from my space rocket. Karma works in grandiose ways, indeud.

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