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BAS Just Saved My Day

If not for Basic Energy Services turning on a dime and sprinting away from the rest of the trash that comprises this trading session, I would be having a pretty bad day.

UEC is down over 50% since I bought it. Mind you, as I have stated repeatedly, it is a small position. At its peak, it was under 5% of my account. So I’m not panicked here. But damn it, that was my 5%.

Give me my money back.

The trouble with the uranium miners (and the reason I’ve been very adamant up until now to just keep it simple and avoid the smaller businesses) is pretty forwardly summed up in UEC’s latest filing. They sold $0.00 in revenue in the first three months of 2014.

That’s $0.00.

The 2014 YEAR OF URANIUM BLISS (or whatever the hell I called it) …has been cancelled. Uranium spot just nosedived this week and, even though I suspect this flash crash is nearer the end of the turmoil, that kind of godless price action can only portend one thing.

Somebody is about to get liquidated.

I just pray it isn’t UEC.

CCJ is treading water daily. It’s all she can do to hold the line, but one false move and it’s a quick list to the side and down she goes.

The rest of my positions are holding up fairly well, actually. The multifamily theme remains tantalizing, particularly now that the primary argument against them – a resurgence in homeownership rates and a drop in occupancy for rentals – is such obvious bunk. AEC and MAA should continue to perform.

NRP has held up decent enough, following the 25% washout it took this year. That’s probably been my worst idea so far in 2014. But they are getting things under control, I have a hunch coal may be a terrific investment here, and I get to collect 8% annually while I wait.

I’m definitely not +10% for the year anymore, but there’s another 8 months to make something happen yet. My fear isn’t my positions, it’s what consequence an entire index of investors getting their combined comeuppance will have on me.

The NASDAQ traders got stupid. Real stupid. Will that spill over to me? It’s looking likely.

Like it or not, the stock market tends to take on a real flare of the vineyard effect. You pop up five vineyards next to each other, they all do well. Plenty of room to visit each, for the patrons. In fact, it draws in more business.

But if one of those bastards let’s an infestation go unattended; suddenly you have nothing but tears and reek wine.

Tesla earnings are out after the bell. Let’s see what happens there.

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The Market Sure Looks Terrible

We open our week where once beloved technology companies continue their unfolding tragedy, sinking otherwise well to do enterprises and frustrating the market at large.

I shouldn’t even have to deal with this crap, do to a longstanding decision to shun big multiples tech firms and keep that trash out of my portfolio. Sadly, thanks to a wanting of such self restraint on the part of co-shareholders in the positions that I do have, I get to participate in the selling right alongside the rest of you; as if I owned a start up tech IPO that was knee-capped to the tune of 50% out the gate, anyway.

BAS was given a relief rally of about 4% today, which of course cratered into lunch. That led TheStreet to confidently assert that BAS is merely “dead cat bouncing”. Of course, TheStreet has been equally confident that BAS was dead money from $14, so my personal opinion of their articles related to BAS should be easy enough to guess.

The only positions I own that aren’t dragging me lower seem to be the multifamily themes – AEC and MAA (and technically speaking my hedging…but only because the losses on my PGJ and TSLA puts have already been had).

In summary, the 9th floor is smarting today and I find myself fearing a bloodbath, derived solely from a selloff in positions I would never own anyway.

Huzzah…

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Well That Ended Anticlimactically

Here I was thinking CCJ would go on an epic run, and instead it decided to reverse 4.6% on a lazy Friday afternoon.

On the plus side, it and my other main positions (BAS, AEC, HCLP) all seem to be resting just above the higher moving averages. I’m going to pretend like I care about TA for a minute and assume that means paved glory in my future, next week.

China sucks and I’m sitting around just praying PGJ gets assaulted. The BRIC thing is just really a load of garbage. They’ve been shoveling this shit to private retail money for twenty continuous years now; meanwhile, to this day, three of the above four letters in said acronym don’t even have primitive shareholder legal protections in place worth a damn.

Pathetic.

Putin is bringing down US drones and generally showing off now, as if the inability to feed and cloth his own people (or other such humiliating realities of that Russian Exceptionalism lifetstyle) were somehow forgettable next to the nostalgic grandeur of a grey haired, 62 year old man suffocating on his own bullshit.

Suffice to say, if Bush were still in office, Putin wouldn’t have the balls to be trying any of this. I know you Obama apologists will be leaping around like faggots now, whining at me for being “unfair”. What’s unfair is us living in this day and age and still needing to explain how incentives and behavior work to you stupid assholes. Choke on some humility coming off the trio of failures that are Obamacare, Foreign Policy, and the DOJ before you open your mouths in my comments section. Unless I’m mistaken, outcomes still matter more than pathetic excuses and “intent”.

The only one of the BRIC’s I would even look at is Brazil. Even there though, no need to get tangled up in the state owned populism. I’m content to just sit back, crack a beer, and watch Venezuela and Argentina burn to cinders.

I’m 25% cash, a little less cocky from this week, and certainly not up 14.5% anymore (though doing quite well).

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At The End Of Today, I Was Up 10% YTD

Here’s a quick review of where things stand. I took a cash position of around 30% towards the beginning of February. In spite of that, it really hasn’t affected my performance noticeably; actually, it’s down to a 27% cash position just from watching the rest of my asset values take off.

BAS is leading the charge higher, no contest. The natural gas cycle is back underway.

02-25-14 BAS 3 Months

Of course, where would well servicing be without the frac sand that makes it all possible? HCLP continues its uninterrupted run, refusing to touch the short range moving averages for more than a few hours before blessing her stakeholders with further gains.

02-25-14 HCLP 3 Months

The multifamily space has been a source of strong performance for years. You wouldn’t know it if you looked at a long time frame. Analysts love to hate on these companies, because they lack vision. But I love them.

02-25-14 AEC 3 Months

I sold this next one out entirely on February 10, while I raised cash. I’ve missed the last stretch there, but still made out handsomely, especially because my shares were favorably converted from CLP last year in a corporate buyout. I’ll look to get back in down the road.

02-25-14 MAA 3 Months

Today’s windfall profits were brought to us by CCJ; it took the reigns and sprinted higher by 8%. UEC (not depicted) was also up 9%.

In case you missed it, this move was led by a report out of Japan confirming nuclear energy’s importance to the economy and intent of Japan to restart their reactors.

The Kyodo News writes:

The government on Tuesday unveiled a draft energy policy that characterizes atomic power as an important electricity source, although the draft waters down some wording in an earlier version that was seen as strongly pro-nuclear in tone.

In the draft, the government said nuclear energy is an “important base-load power source” that usually supplies electricity continuously through the day, while vowing to push for the restart of reactors that have satisfied new safety requirements introduced after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi complex disaster.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, who is responsible for compiling the draft of the so-called Basic Energy Plan, told a press conference that the direction of the policy has “not changed in principle” despite the revisions.

The draft is expected to become official with Cabinet approval in March, after consultations with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition ally, the New Komeito party.

The cost to Japan for trying to navigate away from nuclear power is enormous. The UK’s Andrew McKillop, former Chief Policy Analyst of the European Commission, in The Market Oracle is estimating the total cost of decommissioning Japan’s nuclear fleet at $500 billion…before power production replacement.

Outside of Japan, the effects of nuclear fuel shortfalls are beginning to be felt. The end of the Megatons for Megawatts program with Russia is beginning to sink in.

Meanwhile, very much not in accordance with the wishes of anti-nuclear activists, Kazakhstan is busy setting itself up as the global trading desk of nuclear power, by creating a low-enrichment fuel bank in cooperation with the IAEA.

Tengri News reports:

The negotiations on Kazakhstan’s bid to host the international bank of low-enriched uranium are nearing their final stage, Tengrinews reports citing the press-service of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Kazakhstan.

“Kazakhstan is going to be hosting the International bank of low-enriched uranium of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the negotiations of the Country Agreement on the bank’s placement are nearing their end. We believe that development of a comprehensive approach to nuclear fuel, including creation of guaranteed reserves of nuclear fuel, will contribute to promotion of peaceful use of nuclear energy,” says the Ministry’s message timed to the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan joining to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Kazakhstan plans to take an active part in the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), to be held in Hague on March 24-25, 2014. Kazakhstan supports the idea of starting the negotiation process and soonest development of the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty that will become an important step towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

The goal here, of course, is to disarm the arguments against broad adoption of nuclear power, world wide, over the concerns of rogue nations enriching their own fuel to the point of producing a bomb. It’s also designed to make it possible for countries that lack the sophistication to enrich uranium to gain access to nuclear power.

If the IAEA’s new bank approach is broadly adopted, nuclear reactors will for the first time be a possible solution in many places that would never have had the luxury to consider it before now.

02-25-14 CCJ 3 Months

Silver’s rebound brings up the rear. The metal is back above $20 an ounce, and looks good, following a black year and a 33% price drop.

02-25-14 SLV 3 Months

Here’s my only bad investment so far this year – NRP’s 21% drop has cost me 2%.

02-25-14 NRP 3 Months

I also have small (and increasingly smaller) positions in TSLA puts and PGJ puts. The TSLA puts have had no effect on my YTD performance as they blacked out last year – they expire in January of 2015. The PGJ puts were 1-2% of my account and are currently down 50% of where I bought them.

Their purpose is simply to provide absurd gains in the event of the unpredictable. But with a limited downside, neither is big enough to hurt me.

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PGJ Holds The Secret

Alright, the emerging market concerns caught me off guard. I confess, I have not been paying close attention for crises. It doesn’t completely matter as I was intent on raising cash early in 2014 anyway. But, I am grateful to others, especially The Fly for his solid piece yesterday. It shook me awake – I was unaware borrowing costs for the rest of the world were spiking like that.

My problem is that I do not want to sell much. I own what I do because I believe in it. I have a 35% cash position, and can raise that back to 50% easily. But any more than that risks me missing out on the exposure; some of which I’ve held for years. It defies the entire purpose of making these investments.

I do have some downside exposure already – TSLA will be obliterated if emerging markets make it to “Contagion Talk” proportions. I still hold what of those puts didn’t expire in January (2/3rds remain of what I initially bought).

My plan is to transition another 1-2% of my account into PGJ puts with a short maturity date, beginning now. That’s a China specific ETF which took a major shock last week. This thing doesn’t turn into a crisis without talk of China; nowhere else is big enough or critical enough to trigger that kind of fear. And you don’t have talk of China without PGJ getting annihilated.

If this turns into a panic, just looking at the Eurozone blowout in ’11 for guidance, it will probably happen within about 6 months from whence the chatter begins (now-ish). Maybe I’m safer with longer execution dates but that costs extra and I can always add in three months if we’re still bobbing.

In the back of my mind, I actually expect the Fed to rush in and save the day somehow. But this will give me a good bit of cover just in case. And these products still look cheap right now.

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