NOTHING CAN STOP THE RALLY

It’s worth noting the SMH is +15.5% MTD, which represents the biggest return for January since 2001. For those of you who recall January of 2001, it was a gallant era — the height of the AUGHTS — just prior to its demise. We all basked in the not so distant past of being dot com pioneers — dreaming about the day when Amazon dot com finally overtook Barnes and Noble as the chief distributor of books online. Our Lycos browsers were on auto-refresh — and we gleaned ideas from Mr. Pink Esq inside the Yahoo message boards.

Then February came ’round and reminded us of our sins. The degenerate behavior of 1999-2000 revisited in January was revoked in Feb — with the SMH tumbling an electric 29%. I recall the time, quite vividly actually — since my brokerage firm had just moved into brand new offices and remembered my cold callers getting hung up on more than usual. It was the beginning of the end — which was later topped off with a CRASHING OF THE WORLD TRADE TOWERS in September of that year.

Perhaps we too might enjoy some kinetic energy of that sort, perhaps even, if I might suggest, a major war that causes congress to reinstate the draft.

Markets are quite boring. I am +295bps and 105% long. Today is the first day of the NEW Stocklabs WEEKLY QUANT, which I refresh as needed from time to time. The point of the weekly quant is, frankly, to force me to be long. If it weren’t for this discipline, me being the horrible bearshitter that I am, I’d miss out on all rallies. When I see a bear salient forming, I simply apply margin and sell short to hedge.