The Big Dogs Are Heavily Short the Market — What Does it Mean For You?

A few headlines for you.

The reported wager placed by Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates would pay off for the firm if either the S&P 500 or the Euro Stoxx 50 (or both) decline.

The Wall Street Journal report says the bet uses put options assembled over months by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

“We have no positions that are intended to either hedge or bet on any potential political developments in the U.S.,” Bridgewater tells CNBC.

Activist investor Carl Icahn, likely the largest short seller of mall debt, stands to gain $400 million or more if mall owners can’t pay or service their debt, traders told The Wall Street Journal.

In 2019, more than 9,100 stores have closed across the country, according to Bank of America, which believes this year’s number is the highest of any single year.

Mall closures alone have reached 4,087 this year, a 140% increase year over year from the 1,696 closures in 2018, according to Bank of America.

If interest rates have bottomed and are heading back up, this could exacerbate things for mall owners, further helping Icahn’s trade.

I recall back in 2014 when I got smashed in SAAS stocks — Einhorn started a ‘Bubble Basket’ to bet against high valuation stocks. During that year, I believe at the SALT conference, David Tepper came out cautious on stocks and on that news — stocks got rocked. Since then the QQQ is +100% and Einhorn’s fund is in shambles. You should know the mindset of a billionaire — one of craven and indecorous narcissist, mostly unable to be amenable with society — stuck in the bubbles of their own making surrounded by sycophantic yes men who only serve to further delude their idealism and cast their minds further out into a sea of rabble. These people have noodles for brains, soft and weak from years of being coddled and no longer possess the qualities that made them billionaires in the first place.

They’re like the gangster rapper you loved during his first album, but lost that energy in the subsequent albums because he was no longer poor and couldn’t speak to your soul like he did before. Fuck billionaires (Extra Bernie Sanders).

Markets are soft because it’s a Friday and the government is Andrew Johnson’ing Trump. Plus anyway, we’ve risen quite a lot this year.

I sold the following stocks this morning.

CDLX +1.3%
NET +2.3%
GRUB +1.92%

The CDLX is especially fulfilling because it was a large loss that I doubled down on yesterday. It bounced immediately after I bought it and it continued higher today — making the trade a winner. There are few things as satisfying as turning a bad trade good.