Just in case you are listening to bearish bores, who incessantly flood the market with misinformation, these are the facts:
The banks are not good investments, mainly because they are impaired. Some of them do better than others. However, for the most part, in recent months, they have been a waste of time. With that being said, thanks to a variety of reasons, there is a distinct chance they will explode to the upside shortly, fueled by people who are leaning the wrong way.
Commodity related stocks are trending higher for two reasons: real growth in Asia and dollar weakness. At some point, the dollar will stop going lower, which will kneecap the price of gold. However, if growth continues to strengthen, industrial commodities will continue to be bought in size.
Technology stocks have led the way higher, during this recent bull stampede. In total, corporations have more than $800 billion in cash, which can be used for mergers and acquisitions, dividends, buybacks or rainy day accounts. It is my belief, at the moment, we will see m&a activity explode into mid 2010, offering a new catalyst for higher stocks.
Frankly, you need to understand, what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Basing your investment philosophy around the dollar is stupid. Granted, it has been an effective indicator, especially over the last 6 months or so. However, over time, stocks decouple from currencies and trade on fundamentals.
If you are wondering what will drive stocks higher over the next two weeks, I will tell you: Santa Claus/end of year window dressing. If you are curious about what can drive equities higher over the next three months, I will tell you: m&a activity, share buybacks and continued improvement in the economy, including employment. If you want a 6-12 mo prediction, go visit a fucking psychic; because that shit is all guess work.
Fun Fact, courtesy of JPM: Out of the last 19 bull markets lasting 9 months or more, 95% of them continued to trade higher over the next 12 months.
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By the way, betting against banks here, with multi-decade high 2’s and 10’s spread is fucking lunacy.
agree 100% FLY
Improvement in employment??? WTF are you smoking?
BTW… has anybody seen the LG Phone commercial where they show scenes from AVATAR through the phone’ s laser projector?
Mark my words: employment starts will go positive in Q1 of 2010. If not, I will eat a gold bar.
Do you feel ag stocks/commodities will underperform industrials? Is GMCR and coffee the lone bright spot in the food world?
GMCR is really an electronic play. People love to gift with gadgets. I bought 4 Keurig’s this Xmas for family members.
As you may know, I like HBAN. Do you?
As you may know, I like HBAN. And I know that you don’t care whether or not I like HBAN. But I would like to know if you like HBAN. Do you?
Le Fly and the patrons of iBC,
Enjoy the following present over the holidays – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0023RSZKU/ref=oss_T15_product
If you enjoy iBC, you are bound to enjoy this …
I wouldn’t be surprised if Fly wrote this …
Jobs ??
From where ???
Asshat.
Look at the secondary education universities that have been recruiting well, like Devry, University of Phoenix, etc. The jobs are in the supply chain right now, getting packaged and shit. Check out the projections from BLS for top growing fields 2008 through 2018. I agree with Fly that it is asinine to project that far in the future, but I do agree with the immediate conclusions they draw.
“The 30 detailed occupations with the largest gains in employment are expected to
account for nearly half of all new jobs, and 17 of these occupations are profes-
sional and related occupations and service occupations. The detailed occupation
projected to add the most jobs is registered nurses (582,000), followed by home
health aides (461,000) and customer service representatives (400,000). All but 3
of the top 30 fastest-growing detailed occupations are found within professional
and related occupations and service occupations.”
There’s been hundreds of articles on Seeking Alpha asking the same stupid question about where jobs will come from. Not quite as many as the asinine ‘the market will go down to new lows tomorrow’ ones but pretty close.
Everyone one of those fuckers has lost or not made a penny on this rally and yet they keep writing the same useless bullshit. The only thing worse is that countless fools listened and had the same result.
Jobs from everywhere, even banks.
Fly you need to get out of NYC for a few days. Go talk to some Mom and Pops about the new normal.
Who is going to hire while this shmageggy is in the White House?
Great posting of late…..I guess its just what you does. If I had your mailing address I would send you some egregious wine and cheese. Please tell a funny story….we need an Important Matters of the K-Cup or how your Grandfather alav ha-shalom would react to this new coffee maker!
V.KING CAN BENCHPRESS IBC 20 TIMES!!!
Grandpa fly would not like the keurig, to say the least. Unlike you rubes, I talk to business owners and Corp consultants all day. My infrmation is empiracle, while yours is simply anectodal.
LOL.
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It’s 8:04.
Here’s your watch back, thanks for letting me borrow it.
broken watch … right twice a day kinda thing?
I was riffing on Fly’s “business consultant” comment. You know, borrow your watch to tell you the time.
Wasn’t a good riff, I guess.
Just me Moobs …. a couple of rye & gingers after the mandatory three hour shopping spree.
Went to lunch today with an old man who had one of those old fashioned gold watches you dont’ even see anymore. Where the weight is palpable, like a chunk of soldered 24k gold.
Ugly, but impressive from a physical standpoint alone, considering his age.
I craved it for my smelter.
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I bought a fake Rolex Yachtmaster on Canal St this summer during vaca.
Went to a party with muckedy-mucks last Friday. Wife of one said muck says, “what a beautiful watch.” “Thanks. It’s a fake. I love it. $70 bucks from a Sudanese guy in NYC. It was a momento from a great vaca in NYC.”
I look at hubby’s watch. Yep. Same one. His was real. Could barely tell the difference.
I’m gonna buy a nice watch in 2010. Haven’t had a decent timepiece in years.
I bought a fake Brietling in Kuala Lumpur 6 years ago. Like your Rolecks, you cannot tell the difference between it and the real thing. I’ve changed the battery in it once and it keeps absolutely perfect time. Keeps time better than the real Tag that I own.
Fake watches rule.
That’s why they call you the Po Pimp!
Poser.
My sisters tried to buy a Keurig for my dad on his birthday. He told ‘them not to waste any money and bake him a cake or something. make something. he hates that crap (his word, not mine). but my dad is 65 and always get a smile went i take my iphone to take a call or google something or use it as a GPS.
I agree with Dr Le Fly, Keurig is definitely more of an “electronic” then a “food” device.
My father-in-law (who’s in his early 60s) was mighty impressed when I used the autolocator and the maps in my Blackberry to find an address when we were lost in the middle of nowhere in northern Ontario. He asked for a GPS for next Christmas…
I sure as fuck haven’t been reading any uplifting stories about the re-employed finding jobs at or above their previous pay. Maybe New York is it’s own little microcosm like D.C.
nah.. it’s the rest of the US of A that’s its own microcosm. (macro-microcosm?) Recession’s mostly over in Canada. and it’s never really registered in many countries like China, India, Brazil, etc…
my theory is the destruction of manufacturing industry has been the main cause of this crap o rain. but i’m still working on this idea… . anyway.. I believe US’ manufacturing will eventually stage the biggest come back eva. true story… working on it…
meanwhile, mind you it’s going from shit to worst in places like japan… but that’s another story…
US Manufacturing never went away. We are still the largest in the world, by far.
We just don’t employ as many people doing it. Odd, no?
Jeremy Grantham had a quote… I want to say it was about two years back, before the shist hit the fan.
“We’ve gone through the hard period — that last six million or so manufacturing jobs down from 14 million ten years back (and over 50 million in 1958) to about 8 million “core” (ie, “irreplaceable”) today. It’s the Asians that are up next. They are in for the pain now.”
(Note, I am paraphrasing from memory, but it was close to that… a Barron’s interview I think).
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I told my boss 2 years ago that in my lifetime I will read about the Chinese complaining about losing their jobs to low cost labor in Africa. I don’t have time to look for the link but Bloomberg or some other news outlet recently ran a story about how China is starting to invest in Africa.
fid
Dave
Wait for it. All of the early indicators are present. It’s not about what you see now, but what is coming.
I can see the optimistic headlines already.
New business license applications soar!
So and so reports new business license applications, sole proprieterships and LLC filings are at record highs for 2011.
Joe Brokeforever is one the latest in the new self-employment phenomenon.
“I was unemployed for 3 years and my Armageddon Emergency Unemployment money ran out.
I knew I wouldn’t ever find another real job again so I’m taking advantage of this new Federal Employ Yourself money and putting it to work. I bought myself two electric lawn mowers and an electric golf cart.
It didn’t cost me thing since they are funded under the Work Green program. I can almost work as cheap as the Mexicans now since they’ve been reduced to sling blades and rakes.
If I work hard for a few years, I can move my family out of the camper at the KOA site and get something really nice like a 1 bedroom apartment.”
Good times…………..
The recession is over. Employment lags. Its not that complicated if you’ve ever read about this thing called the business cycle. Some bald headed basketball coach/economics teacher told me about it in high school.
Based on what? 3 months of barely positve LEI numbers? A G(as in Government)DP number that is fundamentally flawed?
Please clue me in as to where demand will be coming from and the risk associated with a double dip recession.
I don’t follow your thinking. Do you assume we are to go straight to hell, without a pit stop?
Come now. Quit looking for black swan events. They are supposed to happen when you least expect them to, not according to schedule.
If you eat a gold bar you must do it on That’s Incredible t.v show……take the time machine back to the 80’s and we can watch it on youtube…..
Notice the operative words in JPM’s fun fact is bull market…….
Fran Tarkentons daughter hangs out at the same bar I do. She’s hot.
instead of making me “visit a fucking psychic”, why don’t you just jump in your time machine sam, or is it broken………
So now you have started trusting facts put out by investment banks?! A fact can be ugly or beautiful, it depends who presented it. If I didn’t use the value investing approach alongside fundamentals and technical analysis, I’d say that this market would continue this run for another 12 months too. We know what happens every time things are overvalued… Elevator down, escalator up. What are your thoughts on using the Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett style of value investing to pick out stocks dramatically overvalued and then apply chart addicts technical approach to find the worst technically speaking, and of those pick out the ones that are least fundamentally sound and proceed to short the fuck out of those which meet all the previous criteria which have had the biggest runs lately?
Sold my GMCR today. Right after I heard about the first Toxic plastic death involving the Kuerig .
In fact rumor has it that the Kuerig is responsible for H1N1 .
You heard it here first .
Toxic plastic is good for you. Ask Heinz.
Here’s the new AT&T phone with snap on pico projector.
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=27621
Fly,
Aside from the majors do you recommend 2nd or third tier banks like STI or PBCT?
>> Anton Schutz wants to own banks awash in capital. While that has mostly meant avoiding banks in Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona, one of those he has snapped up is CenterState Bank (CSFL), based in Davenport, Fla. “They have retained a tremendous amount of capital,” Schutz says…. Another cash-rich bank is 1st United Bancorp (FUBC), a Boca Raton, Fla.-based lender that raised $70 million in capital in late September: “That is capital that is offensive in nature; they will be using it to buy wounded, sick institutions and that will create value for investors. <<
I’ve been looking at CVBF and BPFH as well …
Avoid or keep digging?
BB&T.
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Good pick with a 7 PE … USB, FFCH & PACW also sporting PE’s in the 6-7 area.
CVBF looks to be breaking out of a triangle but is an LA bank with a ton of debt and some res’l & comm’l exposure though they claim to have adequately reserved.
http://www.thestreet.com/content/image/54589.include
Yeah, BBT is probably the best super regional. Cullen Frost is good too, but much smaller.
Congrats, Let Fly.
You’ve proved to be the master. I can’t even recall you putting one foot wrong this entire year.
Jake has also done fabulously too.
Great work fellas.
I’ve been watching these guys for awhile too.
They’re good, which is why Mrs. Five 0 is getting me the PPT for Christmas.
Didn’t we just break the “Fly Swears-Off Swearing till the Dow hits 10,500” mark?
S&p will earn $90 in 2011
is that a GS estimate or your own?
JPM.
Does any agency, or even the IB’s themselves for that matter, ever do a report card type analysis of IB predictions from the year prior to gauge their predictive power? For all I know they could be swinging yo-yos around their cocks and counting the rings.
Le Fly, seems like one very short term negative for IBs right now would be if they follow the GS pattern. Jon Markman noted that how GS kept sliding down in the last three weeks or so and then declared the new bonus/stocks vesting program for execs. This gave GS execs a lower entry point for vesting purposes. Of course its not a conspiracy theory although it sounds like it but that is a clear observation from pricing action. Similarly it is expected that other IBs would follow suit in announcing curbed bonus or prolonged stocks vesting rules. If so, wouldn’t it be possible that likes of JPM and MS may also slide down in the short run to give the execs a better entry point?
Thanks for all the info this year Fly, it has been very helpful.
Sincerely,
Home-school Robbie
GMCR hit a 100 DMA ceiling
F break out