Alright Time To Turn Around

I am going to lay 2014 bare, fairly and without playing pretty. 2014 was an enormous lost opportunity and, indeed, and calamity of masterful proportions. I do this to put it behind me, log it, and prepare to rise above it.

2014, I ended down 33%.

2014 started out as one for the history books. After pacing 28% in 2013, my book exploded to the upside (and by no means was that an exaggeration, if you were following my positions). I had such a hot hand, with names like BAS and HCLP doubling in a matter of months.

I sat out the tech sector carnage in the spring, unaffected by it. I made money even as others languished.

And what may come as a surprise, I actually called the selloff in both oil and the underlying stocks. In August, penning a self-reflecting piece on how disconnected I was from the real world, up 25% for the year while others were holding on for dear life, I deduced that I should sell out of much of my holdings, if only to reorganize and one up fate.

Then, what may be equally surprising – no, the next sentence is not “why didn’t I listen to myself!?” or equally stupid nonsense – I did sell out of half of my oil and energy positions.

That’s what makes this story so strange. I liquidated BAS from a 25% holding down to 10%. I dropped HCLP from almost 30% to 15%. I trimmed everything. I had 50% cash riding into this bloodbath.

And it still didn’t help.

Yes, I was buying the drop at intervals, but that only accounts for a fraction of the total damage. Maybe somewhere between 5-10%. The other 20-25% mutilation was from 10-15% positions dropping 50%-90% in the span of 90 days or less…

To quote the late J. Ogden Armour, whom I ominously wrote about just before it all happened, “I lost money so fast, I didn’t think it was possible.”

That is it; it’s all on the table. 2014, the year that should have been. Where I let a 25% gain turn into a 33% loss, and more or less had my balls cut off in public.

Good riddance 2014! I hope Venezuela at least collapses totally, as some sort of fucked up consolation prize.

I know very well that if you were unfortunate enough to not have liquidated 100% out of energy names back in August, you are already aware of this. But for those of you who weren’t playing the insanely popular and theretofore profitable positions in the shale boom, let me let you in on a little secret.

This is a bear market and everything is going to go lower.

The EURUSD is now below 1.20. This is worse than at the height of the 2011 Eurocrisis. Indeed, the Eurocrisis never really ended. It was buried in a series of complex trade balance mechanisms, attempting to absorb the blow from the forward month expirations of the European bond markets. That staved off judgment day until…right the fuck now.

As I said long ago, the euro and the dollar are destined for parity. Europe is a rotting corpse, and they’re going to stain us once the bloat pops.

Until proven otherwise, this is a no-buy market. I am 75% cash and probably will sell the slim pickings I grabbed anyway.

I would appreciate if any reference to the oil market as being manipulated would stall. For you see, oil is not collapsing because of some insane gambit by religious fanatics.

It’s collapsing because we’re about to have another recession.

The report is out and available for purchase, for prices that work out as low as $3 per analysis. I guarantee you, you will not be able to replicate my work for less than that out of your own resources.

I was surprised; when first writing it, I swear it felt like everything I saw was a pass, not to be purchased. As I started crafting the studies and running the stats, I was more or less positive I’d be left with recommendations not to buy anything.

But when the smoke cleared and I got a good look at what we had done, there were plenty of quality names I thought worthy of some time and money.

Purchase the report here.

The next issue of the Income Investment Report is available tomorrow.

In this issue, we have identified some truly great opportunities for an investor to grab some above average yield. We’ve also flagged some terrible traps you should keep your money out of at all costs.

Available for paying members.

Want to subscribe to the iBC Income Investment Report? Click here to get started.

If you’ve been interested in trying out this new service of iBankCoin free of charge, then tomorrow is your last chance to do so. I highly recommend you take those precious hours – before what I presume is a New Year’s Eve of unspeakable debauchery and hedonism – to read through this work of art.

After that the trap door springs shut and you will be most lucky if I ever let you set gaze upon it freely again.

To those who have already subscribed, I thank you for your patronage. The next issue of the Income Investment Report is nearing final completion, as my cohorts work busily in the sub-9th floors below.

What I am seeing is disconcerting. As the second issue of the Income Investment Report prepares to launch and the stocks that fill its pages are added, I am seeing only the occasional position that I want to own.

Much of what is cropping up consists of companies that have gotten beaten down spectacularly and are preparing for hard times. The problem here is that, outside of a basic initial cut (looking at companies with dividends greater than 5%), I do not check the yield after that. Everything else is based on a combination of fundamentals disconnected from yield.

And what is creeping to the surface is still offal.

But what is more interesting is the number of well connected financial companies (insurance, investment, etcetera) which are raising as much cash as they can.

This is not the rosy type of behavior I hope for after an entire industry gets taken at the knees, down 20-30% in 90 days. This looks like preparing for more hurt.