Sun May 15, 2016 12:28pm ESTComments Off on Gird (up) Your Loins
Prepare and strengthen yourself for what is about to come.
This upcoming week is shaping up, by the numbers, to be fast. Look for manufactured price action to send you into the pits of hell, deep red, effectively expiring your short dated call options before ripping the market higher.
You will be challenged, some will perish, and the bold will thrive.
I intend to return to the United States and buy the stock market. Likely Wednesday.
Members of Exodus, the latest Strategy Session has been published. Be sure to check it out. This is the most important report since early January.
I just booked 1/3 of my $JOY long, a position trade taken after performing a live top-down analysis on iBankCoin YouTube back on 3-25-16. Here’s a link if you want to watch it:
This was also my first stock trade of the year. I turned a cold shoulder to individual stock trading [positions held less than 1.5 years] after reviewing my 2015 performance and being disgusted.
Since then I focused on trading NASDAQ futures, which was very good to me–especially in January-February. But the action abated, right around the time globex behavior normalized.
Like any opportunist, when one well runs dry I seek another. I don’t want to go back down the dark road of stock trading–building a position book with 15 longs only to wake up to my teeth getting kicked clean in. But, I will manage one position trade at a time.
The key will be to not get sloppy as the success comes. That’s what typically happens. JOY was perfect–3 months of sector analysis, nice short float, and a classic flagging chart after a trend/conviction day. Very high quality. If I continue to only strike when conditions are ideal, I can hopefully boost my win rate and average return without chasing every hot trade idea in town. It’s a real slippery slope, success, if you’re always chasing new heights. The crash is always lurking around the next bend.
Even with all the cards stacked in my favor, some trades will still be wrong. I will go with a -10% or 10-day stop loss for risk management. I don’t have time for anything complicated anymore–it distracts my futures trading.
I would normally press this entire JOY position into tomorrow then book when it continues higher in the morning, but I will be on the road tomorrow AM, so I took 1/3 off and raised stop aka I can’t lose.
Happy Easter lads, check out the cresting wave formation on the Dow Jones:
According to my theory [FD: it’s an odd one, based on sorcery] the lurch up-and-out of the wedge was your best short entry opportunity since the beginning of the year.
How quickly we can cast aside the murderous ways of our fiendish stock market and warmly embrace its elegant allure.
The rally that began in mid February has gone far and fast by any stretch of the imagination. Nay to he who says the action is ‘too’ anything; far, fast, mere perceptions of the mind they are. These claims are akin to the perverse word ‘should’ …a verb that reveals your intent, your attempt to impose your will upon the market.
The thing is, the market has been around since long before your existence, and it will continue to exist long after you are gone. It owes you nothing and shalt not bend to your will.
Anyhow, my model is registering its highest scores ever, again, trumping last week’s all time-high scores. These are unprecedented times for my model, but what scant information we have suggests a high score lends itself to bullishness.
So we’re bullish despite the rally seeming a bit mature.
There are few waves in southern California as legendary and ruthless as The Wedge, which occasionally kicks up in Newport beach.
The wave is a result of man made barriers on both sides of the beach which serve to collide sets of incoming waves. The result is a wave face that rises up like a skyscraper and instantly crashes down with the force of two massive walls of water.
The behavior of that wave is a great natural example of how I expect the wedge currently forming on the Dow Jones Industrial Average to behave.
Traditional technical analysis considers an ascending wedge a bearish pattern, which is all the more reason for it to surprise investors with a massive blast up-and-out of it. Sort of like this:
I have no intention of playing the blast up. However, the rip higher is what I intend to catch, on the short side, and ride like the legendary boogie boarders of Newport beach.
With the right timing and a little bit of luck, I might just get the ride of the season.
Fri Feb 12, 2016 3:47pm ESTComments Off on Choose Style And Sophistication This Weekend
Much like basketball, finance is a sport dominated by the United States. This week we celebrated our stock market by keeping it open while the Chinese guzzled cheap whiskey. Next week our markets will be closed Monday to celebrate dead presidents aka money. The three day weekend is a perfect time to get up to speed with the stock market.
We know this, which is why we are hosting an open house tour of Exodus Market Intelligence. Join us as we scour the subtle nuances of over 5000 traded financial instruments. See the ballet of fine-tuned algorithms measuring and generating probabilistic predictions about the future.
Remember: each-and-every Sunday I put my entirety of my brain power, the full RAM capacity of Mothership, and a small wisp of soul into producing the Exodus Strategy Session. At iBankCoin we abhor the newsletter, that’s why my research is openly published for all Exodus members. All past reports are archived if you want to poach them via copy/paste, and just for stopping by you can read my report on the upcoming week. Not bad right?
Here’s the sign up link. REMEMBER, this link will die at midnight so go now:
I have been maiming bears today inside the NASDAQ, and I’ve had enough. I am blood soaked and while this may seem like a ‘late-update’ on the situation, I had strong feeling early that today was the day.
A few things happened. First, and I will name names because why the hell not? Mr. @allstarcharts was so smug early this morning I almost had to vom. In the past, I would get all worked up and throw a kanipshin on the Twitters and be no better off because of it. Instead I would look like a jerk and be too busy to make money. Today I just let it marinate, how arrogant he was about his stupid head and shoulders pattern, and I went to work.
Next was the velocity downward. Finally some real speed! My man RaginCajun was all over it. Even his comments featured some folks throwing shade on the market. Sentiment was real nasty this morning. I even got some random, one word texts from friends, “Scheisse!” …he’s in Germany.
Then, for the second time this year, we had one of those bursts off the lows that says, “MASH THE RISK ON BUTTON.” I even said so on Twitter. Again, more negativity commenced.
Finally, some big, and I mean huge, ticks started rolling through the New York Stock Exchange. Audio alerts I haven’t heard since the summer were going off, “PUNCH THE LOAD” “ALTITUDE” …the mothership is a wonderful creation.
So yes, I might be sticking my dick through an uncertain glory hole, but I think this one can stick for a day or two. I KNOW, CRAZY TALK.
If this post offends you, you might want to consider the fact that none of this matters. Soon your reactions will blow away, like a dried up leaf. However I am a stone, 10 tons in weight, fortified by logic, patience, and love for the game.
Growing up, David Bowie was a mythical creature to me. Raised in a fortified shelter of parochial schools and church, my exposure to his music was limited. Instead I knew him as Jareth the Goblin King who liked to steal babies and break into song from the confines of his Labyrinth. Eventually his music caught my attention due to its galactic sound and direction. But what needs to be logged forever into the hallowed halls of iBankCoin was his success in finance. David Bowie executed one of most successful leveraged buyouts of [his own] intellectual property in the history of music.
He wanted to own 100% of his music but could not afford to buy out his former manager, the 50% co-owner of his songs. He turned to the bond market and in the process pioneered the use of intellectual property as collateral. ‘Bowie Bonds’ were backed by the current and future revenues of the 25 albums he recorded before 1990, in his more heady years. A portion of the proceeds were used to buy back rights to his content. A leveraged buy out of his own work, a boss power move.
The bonds performed flawlessly. They were bought for US$55 million by Prudential Insurance. The debt was issued with an A3 rating (the 7th highest rating) at an interest rate of 7.9%. His royalties succeeded in paying back the debt and the interest entirely. His vast library of early work (287 songs) and the rights to the income from the songs reverted back to the spaceman/fashion/film/music legend.
We lost a rock god, but we’re also saying goodbye to an innovative businessman who possessed incredible foresight and confidence. RIP Jareth, ruler of the Goblins, your legacy will never fade from my world.
Mon Jan 4, 2016 8:17pm ESTComments Off on Attention Newbie Gym People: You Are Amazingly Interesting
At first I was dreading the annual stampede of new members into the gym. I am a local, and as a local the idea of the crowd seemed a bit off putting–swiping my machine and what have you. Yesterday I caught a slow pocket via the local football club being on the telé, as the kids say. Today I voluntarily dropped in at peak 5pm rush, and was beyond entertained by how strange people are.
Every bench and training chair was occupied. The already narrow pathways were filled with group training sessions. Lungers were lunging down corridors that are vacant the rest of the year. Other locals are freaking the fuck out, arguing with their lifting mates in full bro idiocy, “These new year, new you people took all the rope grips dude. I want to kick someones ASS right now!”
The new folk, bless their hearts, are being super impatient and/or overly patient. A boy watched me do 6 full sets of cable flies, saying nothing, poking away at his phone until I left. Others are rage lifting way more poundage then they can handle, at breakneck speeds which assures maximum risk is achieved. The burnouts, they happen all the time. The burn rate is way too high. It cannot be sustained.
Locals are way off their game. The disruption to their mundane routine is having devastating effects on their psyche. They lose focus, lift with bad form and risk injury. So worried about everyone else. Some start acting like apes, claiming large swaths of territory and defending it by flinging feces and snorting.
Yours truly was in a zen-like state and at times wholly absorbed in my own workout. They say a good pump is like taking adderall and valium, I believe the mystics call it clairvoyance. I realized it is in the best interest of society that all these people were present to witness greatness. I ran my shiny muscles through the gamut with precise form. If people would just take the time to learn the fundamentals. Then be patient. Finally, toss the ego and start with the little girl weights (and stick with them for a while). Only then can they have longevity in this game.
What I realized, net-net, is this sort of thing happens everywhere. You are all interesting people and sometimes you act funny, sometimes more than others. And right now with everyone running around flaunting their clean slates, feeling their oats, is one of those times when foolishness is running hot. If you want to separate yourself from the competition, realize the real competition is with yourself. Get better at what you already do best. And if you want to pump iron, always squeeze those weights until your knuckles turn white.
This is how the market likes to behave heading into Christmas. The famed ‘Santa Claus rally’ with all its jolly vigor does not officially kickoff until tomorrow, you know that right? It runs through Monday. Like greedy children staring day-after-day at a pile of presents under a pagan tree (a sign of fertility) the tendency of man is to want their stocked market gifts early. They pine and beg and sneak around doing anything to coerce mother [market] into bestowing a gift early. Look at you, rolling around in today’s gains like swine. But, I commend you for your efforts because the holidays are all about gains.
You waste should expand no less than two inches. Hopefully you’ve taken the time to build that jolly saint Nick dad bod for all the ladies to enjoy. If not, go to your nearest food dispensary and procure a jug of whole milk (not that pansy skimmed diet milk) and a large tin of cookies. Eat them all in one sitting whilst watching creepy cartoons from the 60’s.
Get long stocks. You need a sleigh full of risky assets. I like TNA, UA, LOCO, PYPL, SCTY, TWTR (love Twitter, its my 2016 SOTY **mark it @RC**). These vessels (extra Hook) will provide your swing book gains while you make moves on all the little elves.
Pump lots of iron. After all you are packing your body with calories and dollars. Now is no time to abandon lifting heavy objects. Make it to the gym, even if it means neglecting your family and friends.
This is the most wonderful time of the year, savor it, all of it. Kick the xmas tunes loud and late, buy the liter-sized whisky, and celebrate surviving crap 2015 because 2016 is going to be epic. Note: 2016 is divisible by 3, very important!
