iBankCoin
Home / Uncategorized (page 16)

Uncategorized

What Will You Do?

What will happen, on October 1, when the US government stays open for business?

What will you do, when your month of bellyaching rolls over and dies, quietly and with little fanfare? How will you comport yourself, when the corpse of your fear is dismissively shoveled into the weeds to rot?

There will be no government shutdown, as that would be stupid. The freshmen (still not sophomore) Congressmen of the House have long since marked themselves weak. They had their chance to shutdown the government in 2011, after winning a landslide referendum of this very subject. The country put them in power, knowing they would shut down government. Because they said, “we’re going to shut down government.”

And what did they do?

Not a damn thing…

We’ve come too far for this nonsense. People no longer are willing to cede these freshmen the power to close up shop. They can cut the crap right now, because they blew it. They traded a mandate to shutdown government for a few cheap bills and an equal number of seats on a committee no one paid any attention to.

Now they can shut up. The Tea Party has no ability here. Boehner will be replaced by Pelosi; no other. So they can put the gun in their mouths if they want to. Lord knows, they seem to like that sort of thing. But what they will not be doing is accomplishing anything. They were too feeble to shut down the government when over half the country was cheering them on. Now three quarters of it are denouncing them.

Comments »

Still Going

Sorry, but I’ve checked out mentally from the market. Life is absolute hell right now, as grinding fires and tectonic forces crush me from all sides at work. You deserve everything that’s coming to you (I hope your employers fling you into dead end healthcare exchanges).

But I don’t need to be present in the markets to make money. In fact, the 9th floor pulls better numbers than most people that allegedly do this for a living, without attempt.

At present, I am back up +20% gains for the year, screaming my way towards 30%.

One of my newest full size positions is on fire – HCLP

If you are unaware, HCLP is an LMLP that controls sand deposits of a unique quality critical for hydraulic fracture. No special sand, no frack.

At the moment, my performance is merely better than the indices. But all of that is set to change, with the tides of fortune. One of these carefully selected companies will pan out. Maybe it will be uranium, maybe multifamily shows its true value, maybe natural gas. They are all destined for greatness, but it only takes one catching on this year to give me a solid +40% finish.

Those of you that lost the faith in Papa Ben should be ashamed.

Comments »

Get Me My Coke Straw

I’m sorry that I couldn’t be here for you on Fed Day. The celebrations couldn’t be fit into my tight schedule.

All you need to know is as follows:

The Fed will never taper again. In fact, they are in negotiations with Merriam-Webster to abolish the word.

The real goal here was to push interest rates higher so that the Fed could buy up yield. They want to have their cake and eat it to, and will do just that, on the backs of anyone who trades news cycles. Trade with your emotions, add your pound of flesh to the masonry.

The Fed created a few months of economic headwind; so what? It was all worth it if they bought enough bonds. Each round of purchases at high yields gives them more control back over the monetary supply (for when inflation does matter), and now yields can fall back nice and low again.

Precious metals will be a big winner here. Commodities as well. In fact, just think of this as 2010 again.

Janet Yellen is coming, and her blunt is bigger.

Comments »

Big Push Near The End Keeps Me Afloat

Hah, I nearly lost money in equities today, but explosive moves higher in RMCF, HCLP and AEC kept me near the surface. Then silver had to come along and ruin the fun.

The silver market is churning hard, dumping out today. When this happens, a big move is always just around the corner. Which sadly probably means silver bleeds out. The cult following it once had is being ground up on a daily basis. Only a few of us have the heart to weather the the storm, I feel.

Really, I refuse to raise any more cash. I’m double digits and not quite fully invested. But something just seems out of place for a big selloff. I don’t know, maybe I’m asking for a beat down. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Comments »

Friday Afternoon Run Through Of Thoughts

It’s a Friday, and my heart isn’t in this right now. Rather, my imagination keeps running away outside to whatever’s left of Summer slipping away. This is most inopportune, since work is a runaway train.

So, here’s a brief list of things going through my mind right now.

1) War is overrated and oil is begging to get taken down a notch. Tell me when these geopolitical type scares have actually panned out? The last time was under what, Carter? The oil market is well supplied; a few oil traders are just gaming the system to make their year’s. Meanwhile, a US energy revolution is sweeping accross America.

2) Multifamily REITs selling off alongside broader REITs is as careless an act as I can think of. These companies are all 95% plus occupied with rising rates and numerous projects in the pipeline. Tell me who was forecasting that two years ago, other than myself and a handful of others? Yields are only a problem on a case by case basis. Sellers slamming the whole space here are irresponsible.

3) Coal prices and associated companies are unnecessarily low. Natural gas prices have come back nicely from the death throes they were convulsing in last year. The EPA can only do so much to legitimate, legal owners of coal producing assets. There’s this power grid we have that demands base load, after all. And even the most eco-friendly of Californian millionaires will not tolerate their precious Tesla batteries running dry. Even with natural gas transitioning taking place, there’s a price point where coal comes back online Everyone hates coal, making it pretty attractive right now.

4) I still fear for the wellbeing of Tesla longs, but I can only care so much. On a different note, there was a Seeking Alpha article about battery supply problems that made no sense. It was trying to argue that batteries will constrain Tesla production, but it pointed out that Tesla’s primary competitors are transitioning away from using the kinds of batteries that make up Tesla’s product. At most, I could see competition for batteries pushing up Tesla’s costs, keeping their vision of an affordable mainstream electric vehicle at bay (for longer than longs could survive, I might add). But at some point, Tesla forcing helping to force battery prices higher causes the electronics manufacturers to convert to the newer battery options, freeing up capacity. Besides 100,000 vehicles a year for Tesla isn’t exactly a plague of rats.

5) The natural gas and fracking boom will run further than any of you can possibly fathom. There is no reason not to buy into this. The go to corporations are the specialists who make the backbone of the extraction process (like BAS) and coporations or partnerships supplying the materials that make it all possible (I like HCLP). Risks that the frackers will saturate the market with so much gas and oil that it will collapse profits have blown over. Chesapeake energy was last year. Aubrey McClendon’s ass has been fired.

6) I’m not sure I can like this DRI position if prices for commodities keep pushing higher. But there was plenty of opportunity for the resturant business to line up cheap access to the raw foodstuffs they need for any number of months into the future. So I’m going to hope for the unexpected. Meanwhile, the job market is humming along. Now go eat at Red Lobster tonight.

7) The uranium market disgusts me. I knew it would blow out again. So far CCJ is taking the damage in stride. There’s a major fuel supply issue looming, but reactors just use up fuel so slowly, it takes forever for it all to wind its way through the system. It would be nice if the Japanese could get off their culturally slow-as-shit asses and maybe do something expediently for once in their lives. No, no, please, by all means continue to import oil and coal to your resource depleted island for sky high prices. Who needs an economy, especially with the egregious demographics problems of a nation like Japan?

8) I would rather lick an ant hill than let the sequal to the Catholic Church circa 12th century France come back to power – whether it’s crosses painted on the walls or crescents. To hell with both sides of the Syria civil war. If we’re going to let loose the arsenal, we should at least do it indiscriminately.

9) We are going higher.

Comments »

Checking Out Now For The Weekend

I can’t explain why I’ve suddenly changed up and gotten a little more optimistic. All the concerns I stated earlier are mostly there. The big checklist of 2014 problems coming together in a perfect storm is still mostly in effect.

But, for some reason, I’m getting bolder. Maybe it’s a trick my mind is playing on me. Perhaps I am simply a dog, responding to training from the last few years.

The market has done very well in the winter months. I don’t believe the Fed is about to let us sell off. Even though there is much concern, and many problems, our society has gone on an obsessive kick, triple checking every corner of the economy for trouble.

It’s just going to be very hard to get tricked when everyone is on guard like this. Major sell offs require a certain element of apathy that just hasn’t been there.

So for the moment, I find myself comfortable. The market is having a minor correction, but I do not fear it.

So this is probably when the big hit comes…

Comments »