[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vinI2Dqj9hc 450 300]

(Comedy gold, and Bowie is a conservative, btw)

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Naaaaw, really?

Say no more, no?

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Silver looks to be giving us another opportunity here. The miners are not taking too much of a hit here, so you may want to give the stronger stories more of a look, or you may want to take advantage of the actual pullback in fizzical silver itself by jumping on SLV right now in the form of long term options, the farther the better.  Let’s say January 2014 or 2015’s LEAPs which have pulled back nicely here for my benefit and yours.  Accumulate slowly here, because eventually you will wish you had been quicker.

Things are going well, and I appreciate my market meandering here a bit.

Best to you all.

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After tonight’s “debate,” I offer a brain re-set.  You’re welcome:

 

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpZhZAr1cQU&feature=related 450 300]

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Look you, I don’t want to hear any shit.  Do you know what it’s like to have every client you’ve worked with over the last 36 months wanting to get out the door by Christmas? No, of course you don’t, because we’ve never had a bizarre set of economic circumstances like this before, where the difference between getting a deal done in this tax year and the next are approaching 30% of the value of a transaction.

Let me explain…  A lot of people don’t understand that, Fiscal Cliff aside, there’s already an additional 4% Obamacare tax  that’s going to be added to capital gains on any deal that has the misfortune of closing in 2013 instead of 2012.  Then there’s the possibility of the Bush-era tax cuts lapsing, and you add another nickel, minimum.  That’s nine percent more than what you’d be paying on this side of 2012, or a 60% increase in your gains tax burden.  And most of my clients are people who have close to zero basis, since they tend to be folks who started their companies, or took them over from pop at some pocket change transfer price.  So if we are talking about a $100 million dollar sale price, that’s $9 million extra you have to pay Uncle Barack next year if things stay where they are right now.

I don’t care how freaking rich you are, a nine million dollar delta is a ball sweat inducing bill that you’d want to avoid.  And that’s been the consensus of everyone I’m talking to right now.

The other problem with rising capital gains rates is they depress valuations by cutting into after tax returns on capital.  That means not only does one’s purchase price get taxed at an increasing rate, but the multiple paid on a business will be lower also.  Can you say “double whammy?”  (That’s why the public markets will get rocked if Obama wins as well. )

As a result, my life has been a nightmare as of late.  If I’m not on the road doing management meetings (with dinners, lunches, breakfasts, etc) , I’m doing back-to-back-to-back conference calls.   I’m just hoping I can get some of these guys through the funnel.  I already know they all can’t fit.  Such is life.

So I’m sick of apologizing, but please do know I’m keeping an eye on the market enough to signal to you when I think it might be time to get in or out.  Despite the fluctuations and the newest Romney Ryan positivity, I don’t think it’s time to get back into the precious in a giant way.  I think there’s gonna be a nice scare here before Turkey Day to shake some folks out, and then it’ll be time to pounce for the Santa Claus Cokefest and a Smile.

I liked TC’s move today, as I have twelve boatloads of that radioactive shit, having ingested a tonne when it dropped to the $2 level (averaging down, don’t cha know?).  I remain solid in my thinking that miner will become trade bait for some large, cash-rich insitution.  Also, RGLD just did a 5 million share offering with Goldman at $91.  I think this will knock the price down over the next couple of days, maybe even below $90.  If so, that is a huge gift, of which you should take full  advantage…

Best to you all.

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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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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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I guess my jaw is just going to drop every day right into November 6th  of this year.  Yesterday, I stood agog as the U.S. National  Media did not merely let slip their masques of “Objectivity” but tore them off completely in defense of their Dear Leader, The Obama.  It was like we were back in the days of “Soviet Union,” when Pravda and Tass would not only mouth whatever “truths” the Soviet leadership would set them to, but also pro-actively attack dissidents of the regime in order to discredit them. 

When our embassies in Egypt and Libya were attacked “coincidentally” on 9/11, and our Executive Branch Administration decided to respond with an apology instead of condemnation, I guess I wasn’t completely shocked when the MSM house organs (NY Times, Boston Globe, LA Times) buried the story well into their papers to clear room for important Romney/Ryan high school reportage.  What was a shock, however, was watching the press go after Mitt Romney for — very appropriately, IMHO — condemning the wrong-headedness not only of the rioting Islamacists, but of the Obama Administration that was feeling their pain.  Incredulously, I watched as the biggest media firms  in the country went after Romney in a (now confirmed) coordinated attack like he was the guy who murdered our ambassador in Libya instead of being the only Presidential candidate to take time out of his day to remark upon it.

No, what was important to the press was that Romney was condemning the Obama Administration, and everyone knows that the Main Stream Media’s number one job is to advocate for the Democrat President, right?

Right?

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Meanwhile, on day four of “Jaw Dropper Week,” we hear from yet another  uncompensated (well, sorta) member of the Committee Re-elect the President Again (CREEPA) — Mr. Ben Bernanke.   Not two weeks after Mitt Romney all but said that Fed Chair Bernanke was likely selling pencils come this January, the Bearded Bandit decided to show just how far he’d go to keep his job.

In a scene that seemed cut from the classic Mike Judge movie, Idiocracy, Mr. Chairman has decided to cut loose with your sovereign currency in such a way that soon we will be purchasing extra-wide checks to accomodate the extra zeroes we’ll have to write.  And he’s not doing it in any kind of secretive “QE4” way, either.  No, he’s just going to purchase — with fake money! — US mortgage bonds, at $85 billion a month til the end of the year, and then $40 bn a month, apparently until morale improves!

It’s fucking mind-boggling, if you’ll excuse my French.  Just stutteringly mad.

We are spitting in the face of people who hold our dollars world wide.  We are saying, “See this? This hundred dollar bill?  I wipe my arse with it!  Have some!” 

“Oh, yeah… and vote Barry so I can keep my job, eh?  Thanks much.”

Anyone got a line on a wheel barrow factory I can invest in?

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As might be expected, gold (+2.11) and silver (+4.33) are screaming.  More analysis of the traditionals tonight, but the ETFs are your best bet at the moment (GDX, GDXJ, SIL, GLD, SLV, even AGQ and NUGT).  Go nuts, mind as well.

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A lot of the junior golds are looking good here and particularly appetizing on a pullback.  GDXJ should be your default if you cannot pick out a couple of nice names, and it looks good on a pullback to just above $22.00.  Put your buy in a dime plus or minus above that line and you should get something on what I believe will be a relatively imminent pullback.  These boys have moved but I think its  time to take a nap maybe for a day or two.

If you want to roll the dice a little, I like AAU here — the basketball league stock!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the chart, its already run us quite a chase, from $1.55 a share in early August to over $2.80 today. We are late in the run and are due a pullback, probably in that $2.95 region marked above.  Good news is you can choose any of those pullback entries marked above,  or buy 33% at each interval to keep things smooth.  My plan would be to purchase that one third either at the break of $2.95 or at the point of the first pullback.  If we bounce from there, you can buy your second third at a break of $2.95.  If it continues to break down you can accumulate all the way to the last buy point (approximately $2.45 or so).

In any case, remember this is a Mad Money type of investment, and not one to be throwing anything more than 5% of your portfolio at.   This is the time these stocks run, however, so if you want to experiment, now is the time.

Best to you all, fellow youth basketball summer league players….

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