The Dow is never going to hit 20,000. It’ll be one of those forbidden fruits that will menace you for as long as you live. You’ll reflect on these days as ‘the good times’, when the Dow was near 20,000 and assholes on the NYSE wore hats that read ‘Almost 20,000.’
Consumer spending for the month of November were absolutely dreadful.
Do you know why consumer spending was weak, all the while markets hit new record highs? BECAUSE 70% MOST AMERICAN’S ARE FLAT BROKE.
As a result, retail stocks are meeting their maker — off by horrendous figures, plainly crushing the hopes and dreams of millions.
Here are some lowlights today, notable stocks off by more than 5%.
It’s rather fitting that a scam trade crushed all others in 2016. It makes total sense, when considering Bitcoin is supported by many VCs and former gold bugs who lost faith in the yellow metal, saddened by the lack of progress in finally getting to audit Fort Knox.
I didn’t even look at the news, but Bitcoins are soaring today, higher by 4%. Maybe the Vinklevoss twins launched another Bitcoin project?
As far as I know, there is one way to play this in the ETF world and that’s through $GBTC.
Like it or not, Bitcoins outperformed all asset classes in 2016 and stands on a pedestal of its own making — built off the backs of each and every one of its buyers — like a pyramid scheme, only much worse.
In theory, Bitcoin is completely retarded. It’s also a bad idea in real life, storing money on a hard drive that can be hacked away and rendered worthless. No thanks.
Santa Fly is bestowing the gift of knowledge on your dumbassss this holiday season. Put down the eggnog and immerse yourselves in the grandeur of Exodus.
FREE TRIALS are running through the 23rd. I might even let it run through XMAS day, depending on my mood.
AeroVironment’s survellience drones were so bad, the government of Ukraine wanted to just give them back to the United States, after being harangued by mischievous Russian hackers, which rendered the toys r us grade drones utterly useless.
Kiev purchased 72 piece of shit Raven RQ-11b (they named it to sound official, but it’s really a fucking useless toy) from AeroVironment, ticker symbol $AVAV, and regret ever doing so. That’ll teach them for buying low quality crap from our B grade defense contractors. Had they purchased via $LMT, they’d be crushing helmets right now.
“From the beginning, it was the wrong decision to use these drones in our (conflict),” Chazin, an advisor to the chief of the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, told Reuters.
The hand-launched Ravens were one of the recent highlights of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, aiming to give Kiev’s military portable, light-weight, unarmed surveillance drones that were small enough to be used widely in the field. They are made by AeroVironment.
The Air Force command of Ukraine’s armed forces acknowledged to Reuters that the Ravens supplied by the United States had a fundamental drawback: Russia and the separatist forces it supports can intercept and jam their video feeds and data.
“The complex is analog, therefore command channels and data are not protected from interception and suppression by modern means of electronic warfare,” it said. Chazin said they were largely in storage and called them a vulnerability, allowing the enemy to see Ukrainian military positions and, when it wanted, easily take them down. They had short battery life and were unable to reliably fulfill the key mission of gaining intelligence on artillery positions, he said.
“(Analog) basically puts you back in the stone age of the UAVs,” said James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, using an acronym for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones.
“I’m not being critical of the Raven. I love the Raven … But it’s a cheap, disposable UAV. And for more intense conflict, that may not cut the ice anymore.”
What a piece of shit. The people at AeroVironment should be ashamed of themselves for selling such trash, making America look like stone aged fools. I guess we’re so accustomed to fighting rock throwers in the Middle East, we’ve become lazy and complacent when it comes to dealing with true defense threats.
According to our government of whiners, Russia is just having a ball taking down our drones, using them against our Ukraine allies, and also hacking the DNC and John ‘I don’t need pizza right now’ Podesta’s email box for both fun and leisure.
Shares of $AVAV were down a bit yesterday. If Trump is paying attention to this embarrassment, they’ll be getting axed during the next round of contracts.
I haven’t discussed my trades or positions all that much this year, mainly because I don’t manage money professionally anymore, having only a minor portion of my net worth in stocks — keenly focused on making America great again and fighting the scourge of fake news. However, had I been managing money this year, judging by the performance of my ‘picks’, I’d be committing suicide now — taking the old swan dive off the nearest bridge.
Let’s review my stupidity.
Back in August I went long Gold and miners. Truly, how fucking stupid was that?
I went long $GLD, $AU, $ABX and $AUY. My losses on those 4 stocks are nothing short of staggering — with both AU and AUY leading the pack with 40% dents to my skull.
Also, I never covered my $FCX short, which was up nicely when it delved into the 8s. I am short from $12.60 and have watched my own face getting ripped off by a buzz-saw of epic proportions since then.
Moving on.
I went short $DB — because the Germans are cucks. This short resulted in me getting the Anne Frank treatment. Those nazi bastards really know how to ruin a good party. I merely requested to preside over the death of Europe’s largest bank. This didn’t happen. But what did happen is me getting lined up and gunned down by a firing squad.
DB was part of my ‘FIST OF DEATH’ basket of stocks that literally punched my jaw loose — short DB, $ULTA, $FCX, $LFC and $CAT — one stock per broken finger of mine. It was, quite literally, one of the dumbest trades of my entire life. I know this might sound foreign to some of you serious types, but these jackassed losses are very humorous to me, as I thrive off gallows humor. The irony of me betting against ‘the system’, hoping for its demise, but instead being killed for my efforts, is deliciously rich with lessons of moral hazard.
Last but not least is my $TLT carnivale show, starring Le Fly via his Twitter account, warning of grave dangers and posting pictures of the SS Titanic.
I warned of impending storms and pasted tornado gif’s on the site, hoping to kill people to death by way of fear. This trade was of an epic varietal, shooting the fuck higher out of the gates — long $TLT from $117 and seeing it run past $140 — only to watch it come right the fuck down, leaving me stranded here with my dick in my hands, juggling my balls, with a giant question mark over my head.
The poetic nature of my trading mishaps is accentuated by a factor of 10,000 by the indelible fact that losses were mostly absorbed AFTER Trump got elected. I had been shilling for Trump all year and thought his victory would cause some sort of glitch in the matrix — where cadavers would fall out of their pods, scaring the shit out of people to the point of sheer panic. In my study, I envisioned dark times with assholes getting hit in the head with cadaver cocks — all the while I’d be laughing at everyone suffering from the pangs of anguish — donning a Make America Great Again t-shirt.
Unfortunately, none of that stuff happened in real life — but I still have hopes and dreams.
I can write an entire book about this ordeal, one that I’d write with my own blood.
I’m not all that pessimistic of a guy, sans my penchant for fatalism. I enjoy listening to music, reading good books, drinking wine, martinis and eating quality foods. Life is enjoyable. After 20 years of investing and trading in stocks, I took the year off and engulfed myself in other things.
A great man once said “when you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s fatal, Mr. Moore.”
I’ll do much better in 2017, especially since I can’t do much worse.
All positions will be cleaned out this week and a clean slate will be had and enjoyed, followed by a redeployment of said assets of the non-retarded nature.
How fucking stupid are the hipster losers at MTV? In response to MTV taking down their racist video against white men, PJW smelled blood and then went on to castrate the infantile morons who created the video.
Since 2012, the fear index known as the VIX has enjoyed record levels of complacency. This level of hubris has paired nicely with central bank intervention and record low rates across western economies.
The perversion of finance has reduced the once predictive indicator into a laughing stock on Wall Street. Once revered for its ability in predicting bottoms and tops, the VIX index is nothing more than a series of lines on a meaningless chart — thanks to the machine like consistency of the grind higher.
Whenever markets get tested and losses mount, central banks step in to save the day.
This is, without question, a Frankenstonian nightmare waiting to unravel and wreak havoc acrosss multiple asset classes. But until then, we march merrily higher, effervescent and without a care in the world.
If you thought the recent rally was awesome, you haven’t seen anything yet — according to BofA/Merrill analyst Stephen Suttmeier.
Stephen doesn’t concern himself with the fact that the United States and its trading partners are now beguiled by trillions in debt and productivity losses not seen since the early 1980s. Instead, he fashions this to be equal to the golden age of economic prosperity, last enjoyed post world war 2 — stretching until 1971.
WE HAVE FUCKING DECADES OF GAINS AHEAD.
“We actually think the Dow will surpass 20,000 and go much, much higher than that,” said Stephen Suttmeier, his firm’s chief equity technical strategist. “We do believe that we are in a secular bull trend [that was] signaled on the April 2013 breakout in the S&P 500.”
Suttmeier points out that much like today, rising bond yields also corresponded to a surge in equities in the 1950s. By the time bond yields moved to 5 or 6 percent in the 1960s, the S&P 500 had rallied about 460 percent over the decade or so.
“That bull run into the mid-1960s was actually an S&P secular bull trend that was associated with a low and rising interest rate environment,” Suttmeier said. “That is how we’re set up right here. “
In other words, Suttmeier believes that “there is at least a decade or more to run here on the S&P 500 and other U.S. equity averages.”
It’s the same god damned set up as the 1950s and 60s. Rates are going to skyrocket to 6%, choking out America with crazy debt servicing fees — all the while stocks sparkle like a pack of jumping jacks on a dark and balmy July 4th night.
Spanish banks are lower today after Brussels decided Spanish banks must repay customers $4.2b — in relation to a mortgage clause.
I’m sure the good bankers in Spain did plenty to receive this slap on the wrist. But the headline of this story cannot be ignored, which is a panel of aristocrats in Brussels just passed judgement on Spain, a ruling that came as a surprise and is final and binding, meaning it cannot be appealed.
And then they wonder why the people want out of the EU.
source: Reuters
Banks will have to compensate customers for what they lost even before May 2013, when Spain’s Supreme Court declared the mortgages invalid if they had not been presented clearly. The home loans had an interest rate that could not fall below a benchmark, meaning customers lost out on the lower mortgage cost when rates dropped beneath this level.
New charges resulting from Wednesday’s European Court of Justice ruling could eat into bank earnings, which have already been eroded by record low interest rates and fierce competition for a shrunken loan pool, and encourage more mergers.
Banco Popular, the sector’s weak link and seen as a potential takeover target, faces about 330 million euros in new charges. Its shares led losses among Spanish banks and were down 6.6 percent by 1300 GMT.
The ruling also knocked shares in Banco Sabadell, Caixabank, BBVA and Liberbank — the banks most exposed to the “floor clauses,” which were introduced as a safety net during the financial crisis.
BBVA and Caixabank have said it could cost them 1.2 billion euros and 750 million euros respectively.
Most Spanish banks have removed the clauses from their mortgage products since the 2013 Spanish court ruling and already set aside money to cover compensation of around 5 billion euros that the court ruled had been incorrectly charged.
A Bank of Spain source said this could have an additional impact of “slightly more” than 4 billion euros on the country’s banks, in line with analysts’ predictions. Analysts expect an average hit of around 30 basis points on capital ratios.
The ruling, which was widely unexpected by the banks, is final and cannot be appealed, an EU court spokeswoman said.
The case first arose after several Spaniards said that banks had hidden the floor clauses in their mortgage contracts. The ECJ ruling could now open the door to 2 million others seeking repayment from banks, consumer lobby group Adicae said.
In response to the ruling, the Spanish banking association said banks were open to renegotiating with clients but they wanted more details to know how to apply the decision under Spanish law. Spain’s Socialist party called for measures so that people could recover their money as quickly as possible.
It is still unclear, however, how the banks will go about repaying customers.
Banco Sabadell, which said its mortgages were still valid as they had been presented clearly, could be liable for new charges worth 490 million euros, according to Deutsche Bank analysts.
BBVA, Spain’s second largest bank, said the ruling would knock its full-year earnings for 2016 by 404 million euros. BBVA shares were down 1.9 percent by 1300 GMT, while next largest lender Caixabank’s were down 2.5 percent smaller lender Liberbank, which in relation to its size is the most affected, is liable for 259 million euros. Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, was among the least impacted as it did not use mortgage floors.
I don’t expect this or the Italian banking crisis to have any last effects on stocks, not while the ECB is printing $80b per mo for QE.
There are very few companies that play a central role in people’s lives. Personally, I don’t use $NFLX all that much. I’ve been using Comcast aka Xfinity on demand for movies, Amazon prime for music — cutting out monthly iTunes purchases entirely. I used to buy about a 500 new songs per annum via Apple. Now I buy zero. In the car, I use Sirius and also have thier mobile version too.
For the site, we use google, Facebook, rackspace, Intuit, some internet telephony subscription, Alexa (owned by Amazon), PayPal, stripe, Citrix and a sundry of other small software services.
Most people that I know use Netflix. Stifel has upped the price target for the shares this morning, citing easy yoy compares and international expansion as a catalyst for the shares.
Netflix target raised to $150 at Stifel — International to take the crown in 2017 – expect sub add acceleration & crossover point
Stifel raises their NFLX tgt to $150 from $140. Netflix will enter 2017 with a dramatically deeper catalog of original content and the company faces easier y/y subscriber growth comparisons due to one-time impacts related to the co’s price un-grandfathering during 2016. Some investors are modeling Netflix’s overall net subscriber additions to be lower in 2017 than 2016, which they think is an overreaction to temporary issues the company faced during 2016. They are raising their 2017 net subscriber addition forecast by ~1.1mm and expect Netflix to add slightly more subscribers than it did during 2016, which we think is conservative given the company’s compelling content slate in 2017 and the fact that Netflix now has a full year of experience in its youngest markets
