I like the idea, so I’m leeching off his hard work. In for $5.39.

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I made some adds to HCLP in November; on the sixth I bought a batch of shares for $30.80. I sold that batch today for $32.83, +6.6%

Love the name, but I have more than enough. I little profitable trading around the core position never hurt anyone.

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I made a small spread today, with AEC, BAS, and MAA up and everything else down.

MAA hiked their dividend yesterday but a couple tenths of a percent.

We are well into the banal month, so I don’t know why I’m bothering to write. I suppose I want to give the shadows something to read. The 9th floor is deserted, but my work somehow remains busy.

The healthcare situation is a fiasco. Little shits on the internet, working for pasty ThinkProgress-type blogs, are heralding the triumphant relaunch of the HealthCare.gov website. Meanwhile, we’re still basically 7 million people shy of where we thought the enrollment process would be right now. And there are <28 (27 now??) days now on the clock.

I want to make this very clear to you right now – this is not some technical difficulty. This is a big fucking deal.

Suppose you got kicked off your plan. You go to the website and can't enroll. At this point, you don't have health insurance any more.

"But Cain, they can just enroll with the insurance companies directly now."

Except they can't, no, not really. The HealthCare.gov website is the primary mechanism for pushing the subsidies that are supposed to help make this law affordable. Those subsidies come in two flavors: benefits enhancements and cost reductions. And without the fancy linking that's supposed to occur through the website, you are left looking at the non-subsidized cost of coverage.

That means signing up through any place other than the website will be very expensive relative to what you were paying before. How many people do you know that will be able to readily absorb a several hundred dollar a month hit to their budgets? I'm guessing not many. The other option is to slash your coverage away to nil. Which isn't much of a choice if you're sick.

Of course, lots of schmucks are trying to say the subsidy issue isn't an issue, by pushing subsidy calculators from secondary sources and suggesting the uninsured just roll with it. Just how bad are these secondary sources? I know of one instance already with a six figure income showing subsidy eligibility.

So I'm gonna say pretty damn bad…

And that's not even talking about the garbled nonsense being reported getting delivered to carriers. Let me just lay out a few very real situations that are likely to crop up over the next six to twelve months.

There will be people who cannot sign up in time.

There will be people who think they've signed up only to discover (God willing not in a life threatening situation, but yes, probably) that they were never processed.

There will be people who sign up for coverage that has become unaffordable to them, only to be forced insolvent.

There will be people who took benefits reductions to keep their premium in line, to avoid insolvency, only to become sick, be unable to meet the higher cost sharing, and become insolvent anyway.

There will be people who think they know what they're paying, only to have subsidy restatements issued that render them with unaffordable, unchangeable insurance coverage.

There will be people with terminal illness who learn after the fact that their network no longer includes their providers.

There will be insurance companies that experience major system failures, dropping God knows what, where. (Rumors are a quarter of Blue Cross of Michigan's system already crashed in October)

You are in for a year of horror stories slowly seeping to the surface, like a tar pond.

And of course, there will be winners. There will be people who make out like bandits because of this law. There will be people who are so much better off, while it slowly dawns on the 80%+ of Americans that were just fine with their healthcare that the reason their neighbors are being raked across the coals is to provide those winners with better coverage than any of them could buy in the same circumstance.

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If you missed it, the Wall Street Journal came out today with a centerpiece on fracking sand. This is great exposure to the space.

If you’ve been paying attention, I took a position in the partnership HCLP this summer for $24-26, with some adds and trading around the position since then. They sell exactly this sand to well services companies.

A few recent big developments with HCLP include a settlement with Baker Hughes and inclusive six year supply agreement that helped send it to the $32 price it’s at today. Other developments include an almost million share issuance from a parent/sibling company (non-dilutive).

The share price has come under downward pressure (from the million share issuance); however, this exposure is exactly what’s needed to get more money flowing into the position. The partnership is expensive and small, but I love the positioning and think it’s in exactly the right place for major growth over the next decade.

Another position similar to HCLP (and Chuck Bennett honorable mention) is SLCA. They specialize in a similar alternative to the fracking sand HCLP offers.

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(Business Insider) The German Federal Motor Transport Authority, Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) has concluded an investigation into three recent Tesla Model S fires and found “no manufacturer-related defects,” Tesla said today.

In a press release, Tesla said it provided the KBA with relevant data on the accidents, and received a letter saying “no further measures under the German Product Safety Act [Produktsicherheitsgesetz (ProdSG)] are deemed necessary.”

In November, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into the three fires. Tesla said it has “requested” the process, but NHTSA Administrator told a House panel that was untrue, according to The Detroit News.

That investigation is ongoing, but at least the Germans have been placated.

If you woke up this morning and read this, as I did, upon seeing TSLA up 6% before the open and my puts reversing lower on this “news”, you could be forgiven if your first impression was, “when the hell did Germany open an investigation?”

You see, I remember being told about the investigation being conducted by the NHTSA, the US based auto safety agency. I remember they opened an investigation following three fires, two of which occurred in the US, and the remaining one in Mexico. Barely a few weeks ago…

But it’s funny, as I don’t recall there ever being an announcement of a German investigation. It must have got lost under the Blankenship resignation announcement.

In fact, swinging over to Tesla’s Investor Press Releases – it’s astounding – but it seems completely devoid of any bad news at all. Not even a mention of the US based investigation, much less a German one, or a peep about the VP of sales leaving the company.

Meanwhile, in the real world, real men and women are throwing their money into this company, shaking off oversold conditions on a hard bounce. And class action lawsuits are raining from the sky. I’ve mostly been thinking those lawsuits were warrantless before now, but if this is how Tesla handles communications, I’m not so sure.

This isn’t a game, people.

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BAS swung around today, down more than 8%. I just adore 10% price swings up and down, like a buzz saw for the knees of the weak. It’s insanity, there is no reason for this sort of price action. Even when it’s making me rich, I kind of hate it.

The positions I had that were offsetting the losses softened into the close, with HCLP and CCJ coming in neutral. My biggest gainer today isn’t a full position, by a long shot, and is thus not much worth talking about. UEC was up 10% today, but it’s just a few percent – an ancillary position to CCJ.

The biggest real gain I had today was probably silver. You can understand why I’m not leaping around for joy.

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