In the midst of unprecedented chicanery and global chaos, markets climbed the ladder and over the wall of worry, registering its best monthly return in decades — posting +15%. Words cannot express how dumbfounding those numbers are — but it doesn’t matter.
The market is a casino and it’s rigged.
However, heading into May, I suspect we are faced with a brand new set of challenges: reality. Gone are the whispers of REOPENING the economy and FLATTENING of the fucking death curve. We will be faced with DISASTROUS consumer behavior that will light the faces of bulls on fire.
That being said, I am open to suggestion. But heading into May, I an overtly short, and with vigor.
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Go away but bring your mask.
Don’t need no mask if you roll like Pence.
he has the blood of Jesus.
Only Catholics have the blood of Jesus. Protestanst just get watered-down wine.
I think born-again evangelicals like Pence get straight moonshine, judging from their actions.
Actions like letting the druggies spread AIDS on purpose. (Just like how Reagan did to the gays.)
Very Christ-like him.
relax… nobody has the blood of Jesus.
The Jewish bible is full of passages prohibiting the consumption of blood.
i’ll bet you your foreskin when we all die Jesus pukes when he finds out about all that.
the irony. my favorite part is the stations of the cross in every church where its very fucking clear who killed the guy.
BUT the Jews did it. because they are constantly killing their own all the time.
OK… now crucify me.
the jewish bible? is that the Old Testament?
Richard wants your penis in his guillotine.
It all tastes like MD 20/20
“Anybody want to try and guess how much profit AMZN is actually making ***delivering groceries***? ”
https://ibankcoin.com/flyblog/2020/03/31/drinking-kool-aid-tastes-like-hope/#comment-569225
“AMZN is a question mark. Undoubtedly, Revenue will do well, income could go either way (marginsa re low), but my gut tells me that guidance will be below expectations.”
https://ibankcoin.com/flyblog/2020/04/30/consumer-spend-worst-60-years-stocks-rally/#comment-571839
“Net sales of $75.5 billion were up 26% over last year. However, net income of $2.5 billion, or $5.01 per share, fell 30% compared to the $3.6 billion, or $7.09 per share, reported in the first quarter of 2019….Those costs could contribute to an operating loss of up to $1.5 billion in the second quarter,”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-1q-2020-earnings-results-152725949.html
AAPL is a more intersting story: sales in China down 10% from last year, but they gave no forecast for Q2 when other eceonmies would be hard hit.
Overall, sales and profit were a tick higher than last year. Which explains why the stock is up 50% in the last 12 months and up 100% since 1/1/2019
AAPL: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-reports-higher-sales-china-203000512.html
1. Replace 99% of the employees with robots/drones
2. ???
3. Profit
SUMMER OF PAIN. And I have a suggestion for you Herr Fly. Why don’t you suck me off and give some actual AWESOME 4 Horseman shit good calls in May? Pls
It is funny how penis obsessed The Fly is. Linked to porn site BBC twice in the Ibankcoin Reads section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aJFSpkxjtY
Imagine if the FBI at Waco in 93 just grabbed richard, gave him 2 e-pills and sent him through the front door wearing nothing but a silk bathrobe.
We could have safely evacuated that building in 3 minutes with zero casualties.
Everyone has a purpose in this society.
I have an observtion:
1. The government et al is trying to support the markets.
2. Shorts are still covering.
3. Pikers have a bad case of FOMO.
4. The Machines are running in unison generally, and for technical reasons are buying. It’s also possible that there are other reasons of nefarious or political intent.
5. The economy is badly hurt and will continue to deteriorate.
6. It’s unlikely that wealth is being created faster than it will be destroyed.
7. Everything is different about the basic behavior of people. Economic upheaval is unavoidable.
8. SPX 3000 is retarded.
If I am right this market will come down hard. Make sure you’re solvent when the blessed event occurs.
Don’t worry. You’re not right.
Worried? I made money yesterday and today with basically the same mix.
I am ahead of where I was pre crash. I will be ahead no matter which way things go.
But the R/W, and common sense, tells me that YOU are soon going to be on an exit ramp with a cardboard sign.
“Will work for margin settlement”
It’s also possible to be right about points 1-8, and still be wrong about the markets, depednign on your time frame, especailly since points 1-4 are bullish.
Unsurprisingly, I’m bearish, particualarly in the summer months, because I don’t expect a V-shaped recovery and I think reality will be setting in by that point when buisnesses open but the customers still don’t show up. It easy to deny the future than the past or the present.
I don’t mind bouts of drifts lower a la December 2008 to March 2009.
The Great COVID Panic of March 2020 was fun, but things like that don’t last long.
Exactly. That’s why the comment on being solvent…
It’s possible Alti and me will both make money, although Alti should lose everything by year’s end.
My puts are September expiry. I can roll them if necessary.
Excellent post.
FWIW, algos been long-scalping hard since 6PM.
Worth a swing-trade on the long side if it goes below 2850 before European open.
The cash market is all I can stand.
I need time for trading insults, too…got to have a social life.
Something will give. Those algos can’t levitate forever. Long scalps you say? I wonder why the quick trades?
Something’s up, Alti. I hope you’re maxed out.
The algos have been a little on-going “Manhattan Project” since my grad school days. They are meant to behave like some sort of semi-automatic machines that produce batches of small profits when a number of conditions are met. (Remember the Livermore quote I brung up last night about looking at the market from different angles? There’s a lot of things that can be done with tick data–i.e., the tape is immensely more useful. Consider it as looking at the tape/market from an entirely different POV.)
The size of those batches has been growing over the years. That afforded me the freedom to be semi-retired.
The biggest difference for me is that I once used the tape to get a read on psychology, now I try to figure out what kind of game is being played. It’s still pattern recognition but nothing is honest anymore.
Oh, okay. I used to read Dr. Brett often about market psychology.
He wrote some interesting stuff, especially about his first blowing up in 1982 staying short for too long.
what do you semi do? engineering?
Yeah, I was interested in aeronautics very early on since my family has quite a bit of history with the USAF and the Marines.
On top of that, there’s a pretty good engineering college in my town that used to run outreach programs to teach the youngins about dope shit like robots and computers back in the pre-internet days.
i had a full scholarship for stonybrook engineering school and decided i needed to throw it out the window so i could eat acid and play guitar. eventually got an econ degree, (finance all over the family…) worked in structured finance looking at garbage investments and convincing good decent american businessmen they should ruin their lives and buy this crap.
i quit 3 years ago and got a job in IT. im a network engineer now but im no math guy.
im always opening your links and feeling retarded 5 minutes later…
what should i read.
it looks like T/A with human brains unassisted by computers only works with soybeans and cryptocoins these days…
where do i get started trying to even understand what you are talking about?
I run alot of little scalps. If I make $100 on a $25,000 trade I’m happy.
I got that idea from a book on casinos. “The pro goes in with 10,000 and looks to make a couple hundred. The amateur goes in with a couple hundred and thinks he’s going to walk out with 10000”
T/A used to work really well.
now the robots know T/A
Yep. They constantly mess with traditional ta.
So you look for tricks they’re playing. Short term only…like 5 minutes.
And forget about the sub-2850 swing trade. 2854 to 2870 would have been it, even though the risk/reward wasn’t good enough for me to make the trade.
See y’all in May.
Somebody remind Trump China doesn’t pay the import tariffs.
Technicality.
Tariffs net costs are born by corporations with foreign manufacturing and by white-collar consumers (in the form of higher prices), and their net benefits are reaped by domestic workers (or workers in other countires where the tariffs don’t apply) in the form of higher net income.
The price could be borne throughout the supply chain.
To the Chinese keeping a billion peeps happy and fed means more than the money! Especially since they mostly finance our purchases through treasury buying. Nothing is going to stop those products short of a ban.
Just thought I’d throw that in. Trump is too stupid to get any of it.
WING, PZZA, VEEV, CTLT, MPWR, DXCM
. I agree with Fly that May likely will be a boomerang to the groin. Short everything but Hamptons real estate. Except for software which refuses to abide by the Laws of Gravity.
LOL. Once the boomerang is thrown, don’t take your eyes off of it. Buy and hold hurts these days…it ain’t 1965.
I was leading for the month of April, was up each of the last 4 days. For now, I’m short of ideas, will follow the resident talent and The Doctor Fly.
“Gone are the whispers of REOPENING the economy and FLATTENING of the fucking death curve. We will be faced with DISASTROUS consumer behavior that will light the faces of bulls on fire.”
Thanks.
I doubt we visit the lows reached in March, might give up 50% of rally. Will see a rotation out of tech into energy, and airlines. Crude is up again tonight. This is a rich man’s and fat bankers market, four banks are in charge.
And the fangs. Short IWM, IMO.
Agreed. Money is going from the poor hand to the wealthy hand. Wealthy hand better stay far away from the the poor hand. When the poor hand gets hungry, the healthy hand is a fine meal.
The capitalistists have abused the system, their power, and their privileges.
Most of the right wing is against them.
Capitalism has to be regulated by an electorate smart enough to regulate it or it doesn’t work.
Change will now happen. Will we vote smarter than we have voted lately?
LOLOL. NO!
GL…better yet, go short.
Let’s make money first, plan an escape later.
Got a vaca house on wooded acres bordered by national forest.Adequate cash. Escape plan- check.
Make more money- why not?
Money comes from FED, flows through rich& poor hands, and ends up in capital markets. I got a stimulus check for $222 last week. Just received a letter from Health Resources&Service Admin that $30 Billion of relief funds is on its way to my bank acc ( a minuscule amt any way).
Fed money goes to the rich primarily, which is eventually returned to the Fed.
Unless monetization occurs. Then it’s a can o’ worms.
Rotation into energy? Your 4 weeks late on that. XOP is at levels before Russia dumped Sauid Arabia at the altar.
Oil is up, but when you go negative, there really isn’t any other direction left. Shell cut their dividend for the first time in 80 years.
XOM is down 5% as I’m writing this, and it is still hours before they release thier eanrings. I sense another historic dividend cut.
When folks lament about lack of leadership, I recall the politician of old (what’s his name?) who said, “there are so many dogs in the public who need representation”.
https://gfycat.com/deadlybasiceuropeanfiresalamander
Fuck Hotels
Fuck Small Caps
Fuck every MF whos been buying shit in May.
When the selling starts in May the red will be like nothing seen before. Every out of work gambling degenerate is in the market with their extra 600 trying to be Davey Daytrader(DDTG!). There has been nothing else to bet on, no sports nothing to do except buy SPY and Q’s.
Sure the Feds liquidity policy has buying on, but in 2008 it made sense since they initiated QE when the market was extremely low priced. This time they blew their load way to soon with monetary policy effectively making the big money buy the market at only 30% down. At the end of the day they are buying over priced risk assets with zero forward earnings and 30M out of work.
I’ve been wondering how much this has played a part in the rally. All the newly minted unemployed with their 900 a week stimulus checks, which for some of them was double what they were making before. Nothing to buy. Nowhere to go. So they download the Robin Hood app and buy shares of TSLA. Purely conjecture on my part. Maybe they’re paying off bills and saving the money responsibly in these uncertain times.
I think a large part of this rally comes from hedge funds having to join the FOMO. They don’t have a choice like retail investors do. If a fund gets hit by a downturn with the rest of the market, clients will be upset but understanding. If a fund misses out on a rally though, clients will start cancelling.
Sure, but its reverse. HF are telling their clients we sell off with the Fed jump and initiate shorts. No one could foresee Covid drop. The financial collapse had the rumblings which unfolded slowly…Big money needed a month to unload their shit to the FOMO crowd.
Foreseeing COVID-19 and foreseeing the drop are two different things. No one could foresee COVID-19, but the drop was goign to happen anyway. Just look at the sheer panic in 2018 when the FED decided that after a 10 years run, maybe we should raise rates just a smidge.
Stocks are going up next week – buy the dip.