GREETINGS FROM MILAN!

Suffice to say, it was a harrowing trip from Paris — but I made it here and immediately directed my party of 6 to the best restaurant in Milan, as a walk in, without reservations. I just walked in there dressed in a t shirt and pants and demanded to be seated. The hostess despised me but luckily there was a vacancy!

So I got to eat and laugh and drink wine, in spite of her seething. Same shit happened to me in Paris. I just strolled into a two Michelin star rated bistro like I owned the place, didn’t bother to finish my food, and walked out like I had just eaten McDonald’s.

Grandma Fly was furious at me today because I made her toss out her gelato as we went into the restaurant. She claimed it was the best she’s ever had and I told her that I was “yo soy MUY terible.” She was equally mortified by my meal, which consisted of TWO PASTA dishes and a main course of pork, accompanied by a bottle of wine. I was berated heavily for being a “boracho” and also a “puerco” for piggishly devouring all of my food and drink.

My opinion of Milan was pure hatred up until I chanced upon the Duomo, which was festooned by party goers and drunkards dancing to EDM music in from of high end fashion shoppes. I could see myself at 25 or even 35 thinking this is possibly the best place in the world. But then I remembered I was a week away from 47 and hated it again.

Tomorrow we depart for Florence by train and I fully expect a flurry of complaints and demands from my companions, such as cabs coming too slow, a fully curated itinerary not maximized enough for joy and leisure, and also general complaints for starvation and thirst.

I saw there was a big day in markets today and I lost money since my phone was dead and I was stuck with just DRIP. I’m 100% sure that if I wasn’t getting ripped off at a Parisian wine bar with a dead phone, I would’ve crushed the market. Alas, I’m cornered by Grandma Fly and ANTIFA Fly both hating on the Louvre because they’ve both seen paintings before and the walking was just too much to bear.

I realize now and have realized this for a long time that I’ve made many mistakes in my life and most of them are IRREVERSIBLE. You don’t see these mistakes when young because you enjoy believing in lies. You only see the fruits of your labors later and then come to see, if you’re honest enough, that much of what you tried to achieve flopped.

I only mention this because failure is something I’ve come to not only accept but appreciate. Look at my positions today, totally fooled and a loser because the day prior I was super bearish. All of that logic went right out the window, as usual.

It’s good to be coarse and hard on oneself to keep the edges sharp and not let life break you and make you soft. You’ll never catch me slipping, lest you find me inside of a fucking Parisian wine bar with Frenchies double charging me for their middling Burgundy.

Tomorrow I depart for Milan and I’m sure this DRIP nonsense will lose me even more money tomorrow. I’ve been on a news and market blackout, opting to traverse Europe with very heavy luggage in an effort to find truth and enjoy the splendor of an insane people.

Greetings from Paris

I’m in a very urban area with “real Parisians”, lots of Africans and Moroccans. They attempt to sell me roasted chestnuts in the street but I kindly ask them to fuck off and go about my day fielding complaints from Mrs Fly. She actually loves Paris and I suppose you can say I like it too. I do prefer a fine English town over this foreign language varietal. I will cede the food is much better and the buildings are prettier. But on a whole, the French people are an inferior lot and you can see why the Germans bested them so easily.

Grandma Fly is doing quite well, angrier than ever. She was just commenting about how “fea” one of the lamps was in this Airbnb. Earlier today I went out like and bought some wine and cheese. I’ve been collecting booze my entire trip but do not dare to drink any — since it will confirm Grandma Fly’s long suspicions that I am a “borracho.”

Also, I’m not in a great mood either, since the whole House Fly goes to Europe trip is folly upon folly. I’ve been designated as the official tour guide of the country by Mrs Fly and whenever I veer down the wrong block and I immediately reprimanded of my errors. Normally I might toss her down a sewer pipe and go about my day; but with the kids and Grandma around it makes it very hard.

As for the market, I gained 17bps so far long semis. I will close high cash and net short via FAZ and DRIP. There isn’t a quant this week so fuck off.

Very soon, we head out for dinner, which will be uncomfortable, awkward, generally unpleasant, and expensive.

As for Versailles: very gauche and middling, completely uninspired.

BONJOUR!

Good day chaps

House Fly arrived in Paris today and almost immediately I accidentally ordered snails to eat, so I did. I’m with my very religious and extremely old and fragile mother in law who at each sip of wine called me “BORACHO”, which means alcoholic in Spanish. Also, upon each fork of food she reminded my wife and I that excess might indeed lead to becoming “MUY GORDO”, which amused me greatly. I cannot take offense to her staid behavior because it appeals to me. However, Mrs Fly was and is greatly chagrined by the ordeal. Grandma Fly had “ONLY SOPA” for dinner, skipping over the delicious snails and other French delicacies, which were not for her. I did remind her that I intended to become “QUITE ROTUND” by the time we’ve reached Italy and had every intent to each massive amounts of food and drink.

As for the snails: quite chewy, but good.

As for markets: lovely. I made 35bps today in extremely light trading. I suspended the quant for the week and will be CAVORTING at Versailles tomorrow with Grandma Fly in tow, driving her madly inside the rented golf cart.

We fled Scotland for London today, which I immediately felt that I hated. The whites are subjugated to taxis and fish n chip shoppes whilst the based Arabs run rampant amongst the high end stores throughout the city sopping up all over the overpriced nonsense because their oil daddies said it was possible.

On Friday I traded myself back to breakeven but generally hated the market. I wasn’t near the market or watched it for most of last week, but felt it was wrong and off, so naturally I hated it.

Truth is, I’ve always hated the market since it blew me to smithereens back in 2000. For a while I got over it during the aughts and then 2008 came around and solidified my hatred for it. We then had the Greek crisis, non stop Fed rigging, Trump cheerleading bullshit, COVID lockdowns and the last year’s inflation panic.

It’s all bullshit.

Tomorrow we venture off for the fucking castle but the railmen are striking, which is bound to piss off a lot of middle eastern nepotism babies. I’ll likely get myself an Uber and spend $200 for someone to drive me around as I update my twitter feed en route to seeing an all important castle to marvel at the splendor of the ruling class in all of their gauche grandeur.

I’m in Edinburgh today eating haggis, buying up all of the cheap scotch sold here at absurdly cheap values. Much to my chagrin, I got my face punched off in the market today, losing 1.2% mostly thanks to an errant position in BFLY, which was blown out.

I expected as much and should warn anyone mirroring me inside Stocklabs to cease at once until I get back in the states. I closed with a 20% hedge against longs in TZA and a RUM position, based off some whims.

As for the city of Edinburgh, I fit right in. I look and act just like these people and should probably live here. I’ll be here for another day and then off to London, where I fully expect to get into knife fights with “Londoners”.

Should my plane blow up en route to Europe, just know that I never liked any of you and feel happy to have hated you all of these years. I’ve spent a good portion of my entire life fending off animals in these halls, blocking and banning — always fighting with malcontents — who thankfully have mostly gone away since Twitter took over and Stocklabs Pelican Room dominates the discussion.

Nevertheless, I remain obstinate in the belief that I am the very best trader in the world and will continue to believe that until my last dying breath.

On that notion, I am DOWN 50BPS in what could be my last trading session — thanks to quantitative chicanery and a market filled with tricks and follies. Everyone piled in this morning after the CPI data and were soon dispatched with losses — because we already know all of that shit. The only thing that matters, dare I say, is whether or not THE CHARLES SCHWAB CORPORATION is bankrupted or not. I have a liberal piece of shit customer inside Stocklabs who used to be a bank analyst and thinks I am crazy for even suggesting it. In between his UNICEF and DNC galas, this person has concluded there is no banking crisis and it’s all made up by right wing nut jobs attempting to dissuade the American people from supporting LGBTQI and Ukrainian rights in Kiev.

I can only hope and pray to my God that he is wrong and his Satanic belief in banks dispatched seaward. I remain steadfast in my belief that, for example, it’s all a scam. This paranoia helps fuel my cogent investment stratagems of 150% leveraged and hedged net SHORT because fuck you — that’s why.

I have another friend who I named “The Devil” because he looks like what I imagine the devil would look like. He’s also very bullish and attends NATO gatherings whenever they throw soirees in NYC. He’s a big believer in virtually anything the government does and says — and has received in excess of 5 BOOSTER shots to date — because why the fuck not? If it’s good for Pfizer it’s good for him. After all, trusting the science and men like Dr. Fauci is what life is all about. At any rate, he’s bullish, like I said, but deep down — not so much. He only pretends because of the fun nature when pretending and his LONG ONLY hedge fund demands it.

Lastly, I have a Polish customer inside Stocklabs who is very much like me — but with a little more hair and less grit. He likes to CAVORT around Chicago in stretched limousines and listen to gangster rap music — whilst perusing looters in his neighborhood shop. He’s also very bearish, like me, and has a very good knack for trading ranges. If I should perish during my trip, I’d strongly suggest heeding his trading advice and dietary recommendations. However, I do suggest you strongly ignore his opinions on cigars, wine, art, and anything of cultural value — as he was born and raised in a country that feeds its people cold cabbage for breakfast and doesn’t really have worthwhile contributions to consider it to be a first rate power.

Ciao and good day!

Fly

I’ll probably squeeze in another blog before departing tomorrow evening. I am fairly certain my trip will include some sort of global financial meltdown — because my narcissism demands it.

I had a fine day, +75bps in precision trading — taking a little here and a little there. I closed with a 15% hedge via TZA against a 100% long book but a book filled with low beta stocks — barely anything I’d consider high risk.

Since it’s earnings season, make sure to keep track of the earnings calendar in order to avoid unintentional rapes. You’d be surprised how horribly some misses can treat a stock. Remember to keep those position sizes down to around 5% and stops tight and the #1 rule above all others is to never blow up. We all trade like shit at times and some tapes are just too difficult to navigate — making it important to get small and real humble when you begin to struggle. Me being the seasoned veteran and all prefer to trade aggressively when slumping. But understand something, I am an elite status trader, with over 40,000 hours of experience doing this shit. You’d beclown yourself attempting to behave as I do in markets as difficult as this one.

That being said, eventually everything goes up. When I say “everything”, I am specifically referring to very big companies with market caps of $50b and up. If you believe your micro cap stock is the next Amazon, you’re an idiot. If you believe your $1b market cap stock will 10x, you’re an idiot.

If you really really want the secret to accumulating wealth, look no further than compounded returns over 30 years and know that your task isn’t to make 1,000% per annum, but instead adding to your accounts every month and earning a return greater than 20% per annum for the next 3 decades. If you can do that, I promise you your rotten spoiled brat kids will be very pleased about their inheritance once you drop dead.

Today is a fine day for the Pacwest Bancorp, higher by more than 7% for the session. But what exactly do the price declines of recent portend? Is it, dare I say, a forbidding a near term doom or perhaps an adjustment of book value based on the new realities of the business?

I can say with certainty that it is RARE to see banks re-price and just prod on as if nothing ever happened. Bond holders will at some point DEMAND a merger.

So what banks are in danger right now? This is an easy thing to assess, even an idiot, such as yourself, can make this determination by simply looking at price to book ratios. In layman’s terms, the PB is what analysts use to study banks — not price to sales or price to earnings as you would say Apple.

Here are the banks that I’ve found lacking in the P/B department, courtesy of Stocklabs.

NOTE: ANYTHING LESS THAN 1 IS CONSIDERED CHEAP. LESS THAN 0.5 IS IMPAIRED, AND LESS THAN 0.25 IS PRICING IN COLLAPSE.

stock/pb
PACW 0.19
FFWM 0.22
FRBK 0.26
CUBI 0.39
EGBN 0.48
BKU 0.52
WAL 0.56
ALLY 0.57
TFC 0.61
KEY 0.64
FHN 0.64
COLB 0.69
ZION 0.7
EBC 0.76
LNC 0.79
CMA 0.81

What does it all mean? Nothing, really — other than the fact that Wall Street thinks the above banks are shit. It’s your call now to determine whether there is value now or this is a precursor to something much bigger.

I shall not jump on thee banded wagon and regale the “heroes” who venture out into the market wilderness for profit. Those rapscallions are being lured into an indelible trap, from which they may not escape. I had immense hedges at the open but covered them promptly and just a short while ago I initiated them again — against the backdrop of a 100% long only book. You have to understand, I am fighting my inner demons here to go full Mumm’rah and 100% short the market until it breaks in half.

Nevertheless, I am pleasantly +80bps in otherwise sanguine trading.

I do believe we are hours, if not days, away from a full frontal attack by the bears on any number of financial institutions. If you haven’t gazed out into the battlefield recently, it is strewn with bank investors and executives of “cool” banks. Soon, the bears will be on the initiative again — forcing more defensive actions by the Fed.

Who is on offense here and who is playing D?

Small caps are still under pressure and I intend to bulk up on my TZA position into the close. I depart tomorrow evening and may trade a little tomorrow — due to my being a degenerate stock market addict.