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I Got Somethin’ for Ya, Pal

guido

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Here’s a stock I’ve purchased quite a bit of in the last week, pal.  North American Palladium (PAL) caught my eye because it showed a bit of a sea change on the long term chart, and this past week, it’s established itself up above that long term trend line. Check this out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can it get to $3 bucks from here?  Pal, I wish I could tell ya for sure.  Alls (sic) I know is that’s a lot of buying in 2013 (black volume sticks), and the trend has changed.  I’m holding onto my stack until at least June, so let’s see.

I also like AUY right now, and of course, you should be accumulating RGLD at these ridiculous prices, and SLW on every opportunity.

Best to youze guys.

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Crackberry Alert: SuperBowl 3rd Quarter

crack

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Just a head’s up to you American football fans.  My brother, sometimes seen here as “#6” has produced a commerical running this Superbowl, for the new Crackberry Q10 product.  If there are any subsequent spikes in the stock price, we take all credit here.  It goes without saying that we disavow any subsequent tankage, to the point of denying ancillary patrimony.

Please feel free to place all reviews here.  If there are any other commercials you favor, you may comment about them as well.

For you non-American football fans, please repair to your usual quiche and Belgian ale consumption.

Best to you.

PS — 49ers 24, Ravens 13.

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Breaking Away

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1jzs6dk4bs 450 300]

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Breaking away for a second to remind you to pay attention here.  We are headed into Santa Claus territory, and I don’t think it will be coincidental when we see the gold and silver elves coming out for their annual drunken bacchanal.

I am hoping that on Friday I will have moved a large amount of money from “here” unto “there,” and then will have some time to sport about with you, old time style, half-inebriated and full of fun.  Until then, GDX, GDXJ, and yes, even NUGT will be attractive in the Christmas season.  On the silver side, those of you who have cursed and gnashed your teeth about EXK can consider this the time to “make your bones,” or whatever other ethnic cliche you’d like to use.   AG is still my favorite silver dog, and SLW and SIL my core recommendations for the noobs.  That said, PAAS and MVG can be berry berry good to those of a speculative bent.

More speculative than any of those, however, is AAU and TC.  If you have 2% of your portfolio that you reserve for dice throwing at 3 AM in a dirty alley laden with crack whores and vein poppers, then those are your available plays.  Do not cry to me if you are blackjacked, but please remit 15% to the Salvation Army if you do bank coin.

Best to all of you, and hoping to spend many days of merry and bright with you in the latter part of this month…

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Demigods and Demagogues

Pappy 4

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I sit here and sip my newly distributed Pappy Van Winkle 15-year (rocks, a couple), and reflect on the consequences of today’s market shaking Presidential press conference.  Despite the obsequiousness of the White House Press Corps, some important truths were uncovered, many of them centering around basic math and fundamental civics.

For one thing, the President is either being extremely forgetful, or dishonest about the makeup of our current deficits.  As some of you may recall, Mr. Obama is quite fond of blaming our current fiscal deficit situation on either the “two wars” of Afghanistan and Iraq that he “inherited,” or “the Bush tax cuts” of 2003.  Let’s leave aside the fact that federal revenues have risen considerably—as a result of tax cut driven growth– since the days prior to the Bush tax cuts.  Let us also confirm (by Mr. Obama’s own declaration) that the war in Iraq is “over,” at least for now.  That means that the “causes” Mr.Obama loves to blame for spiraling deficits are, save for a war in Afghanistan that he has escalated according to his own plan (see below), are not really material to the gargantuan deficits we are facing right now.   So what is, then?

Well, some of you may recall the “emergency stimulus” that was signed into law in 2009.  A great bill totaling $831 billion in hand-outs via allocated spending (most of which was distributed to states to keep their own governments running) and “targeted tax cuts” which usually took the form of some sort of credit for jumping through some gov’t preferred hoop.

Any “stimulus” spending is arguably a problem because it’s top-down gov’t allocated spending, considered mostly “one size fits all” for the citizenry, and by that standard alone grossly inefficient.   The even greater problem with regard to such programs is that they raise the baseline spending in these categories permanently, unless specific cuts are made in those areas where spending was increased that first time.   This is what is causing our budget deficits to balloon far past what we had seen in the allegedly horrible “Bush Years.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the problem clearly is not revenue, and it’s not even overseas spending (although Mr. Obama has seen fit to increase that spending too).   The problem is domestic levels of spending that show few signs of abatement any time soon.

Today, the President suggested that an additional $1.6 trillion dollars in tax increases – levied wholly on the heads of the investing and producing citizens of the economy  (otherwise known as “the evil rich”) – will help solve this crisis.   But even allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse will only produce another $75 billion a year.  How is that going to help attack the deficit?  Answer, it won’t at all, and what ’s more will likely become counterproductive as capital hides in inefficient and economically non-beneficial havens.

Fly’s tax attorney and others like him will be grinning wolfishly if this benighted “plan” comes to fruition, but only those spinners’ children will eat better, while the rest of us will have to contend with cold salt pork and beans as we continue to endure The Obama Winter.

The only answer is restructuring my friends, and that will entail some significant spending reductions and – yes! – entitlement reform.  Barack Obama still has an opportunity here to salvage his legacy.  If he can play “Nixon Goes To China” and pull off the hard work of entitlement reform, he will be forever after revered as a Sainted President.   If he’d rather continue down the path to perdition and Obamacare folly, well….

At least Mr. Cain Thaler will be grinning.

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Many Bollinger Band Crash Trades were triggered in the PM segments this afternoon, and I believe I may partake in some rebound shooters (perhaps in GDX and GDXJ) to reap the reflexive bounce back due those names.  I think SLW and SIL are also prime candidates and if I see a “wash and bounce” tomorrow, I may even grab some NUGT and or AGQ.   We should be very close to done with this pain, however, so hang on at least, even if you don’t feel like trading.

Best to you all

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Shut up and Get in the Unimog

Arnold Unimog
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The amount of whining I’ve seen on this site recently is only rivaled by that of ESPN’s Steve Young and Trent Dilfer after last night’s hilarious game.
Suck it up, Trebeck, it’s a bull market!   Benjamin Bernanke has decreed that all asset markets should rise in honor of Grand Marshall Obama and, well, you know what they used to say to Yul Brynner in pajama pants, right? “So it is written, so it shall be done.”  And that’s it.

So get in the Unimog.  We’re gonna let Arnold drive, and roll over some bears even as the world collapses.  And don’t worry about Romney.  He’ll be fine, especially after the debates when he shows President Empty Suit what an economics degree looks like.  Maybe some of you fanboi’s might take notice as well, though I’m not holding my breath.

What do you know? One of my favorite “grandmama” stocks has broken out — Urstadt Biddle Properties (NYSE: UBA).  Why? Because they own scarce retail real estate in one of the richest areas on this earth outside of never-fail-land, Washington, D.C.  That would be Westchester, Fairfield and Putnam counties, otherwise known as the fully developed northern suburbs of New York City.  It never fails — when scare resources are chased by too many dollars, their value rises.  Just like gold, just like silver.  I love the management as well.  The eponymous octogenarian CEO and majority owner, Charles Urstadt, is an old school Dartmouth athlete, who still swims around the island of Manhattan in his spare time.  He is a pisser around the bourbon bar as well.  Go up to Greenwich and see him, why don’t you?  Buy and hold forever.

Almost all my gold and silver favorites are approaching buy levels again, and these will hold til Santa day, minimum.  I really like AUY here on the gold side.  For silver, I like AG.  A lot.

If you are going to cry about something, don’t let it be for stocks or a stupid replacement ref.  Let it be for some light that has passed from the earth.  Like the bright light of Luciano Pavarotti, the angelus.  I saw Puccini’s  Tosca last weekend and it was sublime, but the first opera I ever saw (only some six years back) was another Puccini masterwork… Turandot.  Check out this famous aria from that classic, as sung by Luciano… give it a second and you will recognize it I have no doubt.  Does it not transcend all boundaries, all tastes?

It is a blessing, there’s just no other description:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW1w1ryYQDw 450 300]

Best to you all.

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An Evening in Detroit

Detroit
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In the end, “Robocop” was too kind. 

Forgive your loyal, unpaid servant, but not only was I trying to send out a hastily assembled marketing book for one of the finest companies I’ve ever had the privilege of introducing s, but I also had a long scheduled string of appointments in Michigan this week as well.  Nothing like starting in beautiful, well capitalized, conservative Western Michigan on Monday and then working one’s way across the state, only to end up in moribund, corrupt and ultimately failing Detroit in Eastern Michigan.  It’s not overly exaggerating to compare the two sides of the state to West and East Germany… they are that different in their economic viability.

Detroit is a wreck, and it’s a damn shame. There are hundreds of thousands of very smart people populating that Southeast Michigan region– engineers, technicians, deeply skilled manufacturing personnel, etc., etc.  What hope have they, however, arrayed against the institutional, long embedded machine politics-corruption that destroys the rule of law and therefore any hope that a level playing field might be established for investment capital?  Let’s face it, you’d have to be nuts to try to start a business in Detroit.  There’s more atmosphere on the moon.

That said, I had a great time meeting the private equity personnel operating in that region.  And the Tigers game was fun too.  But nothing was as important– or moving– as my meeting with the esteemed, venerable Detroit Patriarch, Mr. Cain Thaler.  It took a number of phone calls with his “people” to arrange a meeting, but let me tell you it was worth it. It’s not often you get to meet one of the guys who hung with Edsel Ford and the Dodge Brothers “back in the day.”

I had to wait outside the Marriott Motor Access area for half an hour as Cain’s preliminary security ran through their checks.  They were nice guys, but pretty obviously ex-Special Forces, so I kept the chat to a minimum.  When Mr. Thaler himself rolled up in his stretch Cadillac (of course) limousine, I was on pins and needles. When the door was opened by his personal bodyguard (a flat-faced Mongolian giant, six-ten, and about half that wide), rich, sweet and thick Havana-based smoke billowed from the back seat for what seemed like ten minutes but was probably more like 30 seconds.  Finally, a gnarled, liver-spotted hand clutching an ivory headed cane (hint hint?) pushed out from the back seat.  It was the man himself, the Legend.

Our discussion will remain between us, but let me tell you that he imparted generational value to me… business advice that I will cherish and pass to my own children, God willing.  Thanks you sir, for your good will and your patience.  I wish I could impart some of your wisdom to this crowd, but I will hold off, affording you the discretion you’ve earned.

I look forward to the next time we might share some bourbon whiskey, and some tales of the good days, when Detroit was America’s engine.  My best to you.

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I actually bought a farkakta load of SLV Leaps today.  2014’s and 15’s.  A humbug schitload.  I think silver is going to go berserk here, but the ride will be violent.  SLW, EXK, AG and maybe SVM if you’re bold, SIL if you are not.  God bless we are in trouble, but I take heart that there are still men like Cain Thaler — who remember that commie asshat Roosevelt — to help guide us back to the righteous path.

Best to you all.

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