Apple announced their intention to add 1,000 new jobs to their operations in Ireland (per Reuters).  Earlier in the year they announced plans to build an $850-million-euro data center in the land of stout beer and rain.

It appears this expansion of Irish operations is at least in part because of an upcoming tax ruling from the European Union.  Apple claims most of their overseas profits at the sweet rate of 2.5% and if they do not demonstrate a substantial footprint in the region, the whole scheme looks real shell-like.  And if it is only a tax shelter (which it more or less appears to be) then authorities are going to bust them for back taxes.

If the European Commission were to recover Euros from Apple, I imagine the money would be spent frivolously  supporting the Greeks.  Let’s hope Apple can appease the authorities through their good-faith hiring and infrastructure build.

This is like what, the ninth televised debate?  These things are awesome and networks are making tons of money off the political theater.

There was a brief moment in the late-days of the Roman republic where they attempted to ban bribery and favors from the election process.  The people went apeshit and demanded the system return to its nefarious ways because restaurant owners and merchants lost tons of business.  Also, people felt less connected to the the popular pastime of watching the electoral games.

It has always been a power game to a few and entertainment for the rest.  That was literally 58 B.C.  History does not repeat but it often rhymes.

Anyhow let’s see if republican white guilt continues to propel herb dealer Ben Carson to the front.  My hat (literally, I bought his hat) is with Don T.

I woke up rested, had a proper breakfast, saw to my morning preparations, lit my ritualistic death to biotech candle, but still managed to make some errors during the session.

Sometimes you do everything right but still make mistakes—for now I am still human. A few things tripped me up:

• Gaps into a new week often get faded
• TRIN had abnormal readings which call the first move of the day into question.

The problem with the above two events is they have no data behind them. I never ran a study to quantify the validity of these observations. Slippery footing gives way fast when you get out of sync with the market flow.

As a result, despite coming into the week with a short bias, I was trying to fade the market by 11am. Try is the key word because it felt forced. I managed to escape break even the first time but the second fade try took a drop dead stop—something I have not done in over a month.

Meanwhile, biotech was bulletproof. The industry even shrugged off another Citron attack. I am still short via BIS, but I feel like I am standing blindfolded in front of a firing squad.

When the market gives me a good spine twist I like to make sure my mental game is still centered. I am off to find my inner voice and listen to it until it stops talking o_0

I am also looking forward to hearing The Option Addict run through the investor conference content again.  Expert commentary is always useful when assessing your own strategy and approach.

Merger news out of  China this morning as Alibaba acquires Youku Toudu for $27.60/share.

Youku Toudu is China’s version of You Tube.  You see the resemblance, yes?  This deal united two of their big internet components, but who are we kidding?  It is all owned by the governement.

YOKU shares up trading just below $27/share as we head into Nonfarm payroll.

Until the conditions can improve underneath the surface of index prices, the model is going to keep generating a short bias.

This is the fourth consecutive week where the bias model is calling for the short. Unbelievable, that’s pretty much the entire month of October. The NASDAQ composite is up 6.88% over the period, it’s best run of the year, and the model is flat out on the wrong side of the tape.

It makes me have a few thoughts—the first is that we are undergoing a shift in the marketplace which is causing my spread to stay pinned to the high side. The second thought is only a few stocks are doing the lifting which is pressuring the hybrid score.

Nevertheless, I would be remiss to ignore the bias. I will be working the short side of the tape this week. I may even initiate BIS again as I eagerly await the ultimate biotech comeuppance—an event so horrific and gruesome that minces biotech investors into little cubes of meat to be served on skewers.

Thanks again to everyone who made it out to NYC this weekend.  I had a blast catching up with you guys–especially the trading conversations.  A sincere hat tip to you.

This is my first time in the city during the fall.  Back home this is my favorite time of year, a seasonal crescendo featuring harvests and natural colors.  Here in the city it means a cool clime and hopefully lots of mysterious looking goons and goblins.

I already witnessed a women on the subway with demonic eyeballs.  Hopefully an effect achieved through theatric contact lense, but how can I be sure?  Night comes earlier here not only because of the towering cityscape but also because it’s a few 100 miles deeper into the eastern time zone.  Hopefully its arrival brings forth the real freaks.

It certainly smells better today then the thick summer air.

Overall the mood is positive.  I made it to the (undisclosed location) from the Laguardia flea marketfor about $3 via bus and rail.  I’m excited to see the crew and all the conference attendees tomorrow.  But tonight I see the city.  Shoot me at DM @imdexmodel if you’ll be around the East Villiage tonight.  Something tells me I’ll end up there.

As for the markets: had I not held on to on some high risk weekly LNKD calls while flying east The market would have blown my head off because both LULU and FEYE were DECIMATED.  What a cruel rally.

These are battles I will resume next week after Option Addict and the finance triumvirate meet in the war room and hash out a  year end plan.

The artist formerly known as Google just reported an earnings beat, and Amazon is making profit–effectively disintegration short sellers into piles of soot.

The tech rally was saved today when Facebook negated the failed auction.  This permitted best-in-breed tech to be pressed with reckless abandon.

This is the great NASDAQ rally the tea leaves inside Exodus foretold.  Another devastating win for the software.

Look for more NASDAQS tomorrow.  Tech is officially on FIRE.

My book is undergoing a blitzkrieg this morning after my largest investment, Twitter, was downgraded by Morgan Stanley. Issuing the decree was a man by the name of Brian Nowak who sees fit to single handedly take on Steve Ballmer and Prince Alwaleed in the high stakes game of valuing a social media company.

Nowak spouted off big words about mobile advertising. He obfuscated the matter with acronyms. He sounded, for all intents and purposes, really fancy and better than us.

With Twitter scheduled to report earnings October 27^th it won’t be long until we can see if he is right.

Twitter has been a problem child all year. There were management issues, for a while they had no CEO, and the platform is criticized for being too esoteric for the common plebeian to use. I know, eventually, it will see adoption, but then again I am optimist who thinks highly of his fellow citizen.

I am still watching Facebook today. If that stock starts moving fast to the downside my concern levels will elevate rather quickly. In the meantime I got back into BISe early on for the #TeamHillary trade.

Final note, I think Brian is the most reprehensible name in the English catalog.  It looks like brain and I’d like to punch it with my fist like a cave man.

Nothing moves a stock quite like a rumor, especially a believable one.

The reason an Apple for GoPro rumor is so compelling is because it makes sense. Apple has more dollars (doll hairs) on their books then most developing nations combined. They also recently bought Beats by Dre—another piece of ‘wearable’ technology.

The valuation Apple gave Beats was the basis of my successful GoPro swing trade when it IPO’d. Simple napkin math puts the value of GPRO stock at $72. I think GoPro investors (bag holders) would be happy with a $59.95 buyout at this point. I would too.

GPRO is the lagging anchor on an otherwise dominant GARP portfolio since the June adjustment. It can propel the passive growth portfolio to greatness. TBD.

Speed is gone. I haven’t traded a single futures contract today. A slow tape is the perfect climate for trading errors, especially one this slow.

And after two consecutive weeks of devastating YOLO wins (GOOGL then NFLX) I knew better than to push my luck for a third week. Instead I bought myself some time to think, and went out to December with some Fireeye. I love me some Fireeye down here but I am in no hurry nor do I see the need to have a perfect, weekly call, position to micromanage. I have bigger battles to wage.

Watch your emotions here if you are day trading futures. This is where boredom can lead to compounding errors. Stay cool.  Be glad you don’t have Trey Songz stuck in your head.