The Dollar is Backed by Power

All of these dollar skeptics are chasing windmills, truly. They decry the “dollar will be worthless one day”, all due to monetary policy and the absence of gold in treasury vaults.

What is gold? Just because some mining company enslaved a few thousand workers to procure something from a cave or ground, I am supposed to have faith in that?

I don’t think so.

You know what I have faith in? Drones.

I have faith in M1A1 tanks putting craters in your capitol. I have faith in a F-35B Lighting II fighter jet taking out your mint.

Money, as you like to call it, “fiat”, is backed by power. Power is supported by military might, which is fueled by ingenuity, productivity and of course hard work.

See the dollar is backed by something.

Now what is a bitcoin backed by? I see the price has “dipped” a bit from yesterday’s highs of $265, now trading at $65. Last I checked, the dollar has never declined by 75% in a single day.

Backers of the internet currency might argue that the bitcoin was trading at $40 last month and $2 a year ago. Therefore, today’s “volatility” is nothing more than a speed bump.

But I thought the bitcoin is an alternative currency, not speculative investment?

How is wealth created?

Believe it or not, wealth is primarily created through productivity, my grandfather busting his ass refinishing furniture for 12 hours and delivering it up 10 flights of stairs in a building without an elevator. The money he made was placed into a bank account, where he hoped it would retain its value.

A currency should store value, not create it.

Having said that, the dollar has been devalued over the years, which has fueled the “dollar is finished” cult. Look, the dollar is down because they want it to be down. We are currency reserve, a GDP sporting $16 trillion, bank accounts worth in excess of $50 trillion. That’s wealth, not some two bit internet currency being used as an “Occupy Wall Street” movement, only dumber.

The Bank of Japan is the most prolific manipulators of asset prices in the world, which was forecasted here long ago and the reason why the NIKKEI was my top pick for 2013.

HIG just guided up, partly tanks to its Japanese exposure.

Taking a quick glance at Japanese stocks traded here, most are in the green and making new highs. The NIKKEI is +55% since November.

Outperformers include TM, KUB, NMR, IX and MTU. Two stocks that haven’t moved yet that should benefit from the sinking yen are HMC and CAJ. After a market decline, it’s worth a shot.

The big story of 2013 is the move up in mega cap dividend payers. Long term investors need yield. There is a select group of stocks, with caps over $10 billion, that are quietly minting coin for their investors.

Here are some notable outperformers.

BX, XRX, WAG, KMB, CPB, BMY, BLK, CNP, PAA, BDX, CSX and EXC.

Truth is, I have more than 200 names with market caps over 10 billion, yielding more than 2%, that are +10% year to date. It’s incredible and of course absurd.

This market is begging for a beat down. It’s real hard to bet against liquidity because “they” have an infinite amount of money. Nevertheless, even they know markets need the illusion of normalcy. Periods of distress can only embolden public opinion in their favour.

Therefore, you should expect markets to behave as they have in the past, because they’re too lazy to deviate from the blueprint.

May will be down and those losses will redouble in June. By July, the media will be clamoring for more QE. Hence, Bernanke’s job will be supported by a vocal Wall Street, helping him manage the US economy with impunity.

If this plays out the way I just explained it, volatility will be a supreme buy towards the end of April and taking a net short position will be extremely profitable by June. However, be mindful that it’s an extremely difficult task, this business of timing tops. You might be better served taking my approach via a very large cash position and the patience of an elephant.

Our good friend Rhino resigned from his position of interim tabbed blogger last night, due to an array of issues. This isn’t the first time a blogger resigned from iBC and it won’t be the last.

It’s a selfless business, one that occupies a great deal of time for little to no reward. There is, however, opportunity, but only after a significant amount of time and effort. The truth of the matter is, I don’t pay for content.

Best of luck to Rhino with his future endeavors.

What to do when you are in cash, waiting for the market to correct?

This question reminds me of when I was a young broker, training to speak to affluent people without making myself look/sound like an idiot. My mentor would always tell me “never think with your own pocket.”

What does that mean?

It means, just because you’re a piker and can’t afford to spend 200k on a kitchen renovation, that doesn’t mean that everyone else is a piker. Never talk with your own pocket, no matter how big of a shot you think you are. There is always someone bigger. On the other hand, try to avoid exaggerating your position in life to the point people think you’re hallucinating. A good, young, manager of other people’s money is humble and listens to what is being said to him. He will filter the message and try to tackle the issue.

Now a good finance blogger will not call a roaring bull market boring, just because it’s dull for him. Just because you’re in cash doesn’t mean your readers are in cash. Moreover, if you’re bearish, don’t alienate 90% of the people who read you by ignoring them.

Another topic worth discussing is humor and how to use it.

Comedy is not for everyone. Some of us can spin a story and make it funny, others bring disaster to their names by feebly delivering hard to understand jokes. If you’re not funny in real life, odds are, you’re not funny on the interwebs.

Lastly, I want to discuss the matter of being abrasively cocky and how it pertains to being childish.

When blogging, try to avoid torching your readers with napalm. Ninety-nine percent of you will be unable to chastise your readers correctly, because you were spun from inferior silk. The texture of your outer-garments are of the burlap variety. Do not write in such a manner that you are abrasively cocky because that, my friends, is childish. No one listens to a child. They have no authority.

The best form of humor is the self-deprecating kind, mixed in with a little insanity. I find myself at home on iBC when the halls are polished, floors waxed and the population in a state of catatonic shock.

Class dismissed.

Max Keiser must be losing his strudels. It appears his preferred currency is undergoing a bit of volatility, as evidenced by its daily range.

Low: $105

High: $266

Last: $139

Internet news man, Max Keiser, has been very outspoken in his support for the BitCoin. He’s even went so far as to tell people to convert their fiat currencies into it, despite the fact that it has been a vehicle for speculation and not a store of value.

Let’s see what Max has been up to on Twitter.

Here are his top 7 reasons to not panic about today’s 45% decline in the bitcoin.

Incidentally, a few hours before the crash, lil’ ole Max was recommending the bitcoin, with two fists pumped into thr sky. His price target was…well see for yourself.

Normally I’d refrain from calling someone out on bad calls; but this one was painfully obvious. It had all of the hallmarks of a classic bubble, on the cusp of popping. It’s one thing to hold onto legacy positions that enjoy a large profit cushion. It’s entirely different telling people to buy into the pyramid scheme at the very top of the pyramid.

Bitcoin was $40 last month. I think it’s fair to assume $265 was the top of the pyramid.

Enjoy the other side of the mountain, Mr. Keiser.

UPDATE: BitCoin bulls are blaming today’s crash on a DDOS attack on one of the pristine exchanges. Pray tell me, isn’t that a pillar of the inherent risk of owning an internet currency?

UPDATE II: The internet people under the stairs, who’ve been long Bitcoin, share their misery.

Sequestration means nothing.

Weak employment data means nothing.

North Korea nuclear threats mean nothing.

I could be right about calling a top here, out of sheer luck. Calling tops is like playing a really high level of whack-a-mole. The trend is up. The fix is in and if you have some skin in the game, played smartly, you can improve your social position in this country.

Being a skeptic based upon facts will get you nowhere.

Welcome to the new, new normal.

I’m not surprised to learn that the Fed inadvertently leaked information to small amount of people yesterday, effectively helping them participate in the ‘grande finale.’ If the Fed is all beginning and the end of markets, the reason behind new all time highs, why do you assume they would play such a game fairly?

All of the small-mad-cappers are screaming today. The OTB guy is in full force today, playing the ponies, procuring enough money to upgrade to a 1989 oldsmobile.

Just know, it doesn’t get much better than this.

The tax paying citizenry, which is a very small part of the US economy, shouldn’t have an issues paying their tax bills this year.

Thanks to Ben.

Original thinkers do not care what other people think. They have a plan, with goals affixed, and try to accomplish them. They aren’t swayed by public opinion and they don’t do something just to be original.

Sometimes being original means to do what the herd is doing, other times the opposite. That’s the point of being an independent thinker.

Are you buying/selling XYZ only because a famous hedge fund manager is buying or shorting it?

Are you shorting XYZ because it’s the fashionable thing to do?

Do you find yourself selling too quickly, because you lack conviction?

Conviction is a hard thing to manage. It’s not as easy as some people think. Most people believe being stubborn or ignorant is conviction; but that’s simply not the case. To have conviction in a name, one must be fully educated about the facts supporting the reason to be long or short. When a person is stubborn/ignorant, he’s simply being lazy, leaving fate to be decided by time and luck.

It’s burdensome to be original because it means being responsible for actions, words and thoughts. Going throughout life emulating people is a short cut, preferred by many, practiced by most. There’s nothing worse than an unoriginal moron. It’s boring and tedious to watch.

That being said, I’m not here to lecture you. I swear on a stack of King James bibles that wasn’t my intention when I started to write this blog. I don’t plan these posts; they just flow as I am typing. Like now, I can literally talk about anything, since this is non-scripted. Would you like to discuss NASA’s statement about “never putting a man on the moon in our lifetime again” and how the Russians are planning to put a robot on the moon, 44 years after America put men on it?

Doesn’t seem odd to you that we’ve never been there since? Moreover, doesn’t seem odd that we’ve never sent men outside the Van Allen belt since the early 1970’s?

Perhaps it’s because Stanley Kubrick directed the lunar landing in Hollywood. Or, perhaps we got bored of the moon because it was unoriginal, boring, moribund to its last stupid moon-rock.

There aren’t any legs to be swept here. As fate would have it, the guy who is calling the market top is getting lured back into the market, slowly but surely, at the degenerate level. Instead of buying mega-cap safe havens, I’ve opted for two companies that should be floating around in a giant homeless man’s pickle jar, instead of my portfolio.

It’s the momentum, the perversion of greed and envy, that will crush you like a mandolin in the hands of a mad ape– every single time.

It’s time for Le Fly to refrain from late inning grand slams, in favour of beer runs and midnight earl gray sessions (honey and a splash of milk). I’ve been here before, many times, over 1,000 years, and it never ends well. I end up having yo clean up my own mess for a solid 6 months, toiling amongst the working class during the hottest of days, sweating like a beast in the jungle, trying to make back what was rightfully mines.

I spit on the stock exchange and shall not waiver in my belief that most of you are going to suffer from outrageous, firm breaking, margin calls.

Good day.

GTAT is now a 20% position of mine. I am pressing the envelope on this one for several reasons.

1. FSLR’s numbers were so good, I feel the stock is worth $80. If FSLR is going to $80, this is the 4th inning of the solar melt up.

2. GTAT has exposure to Sapphire, which is a lotto ticket on the smartphone craze.

3. The Gods smile upon me, especially the old ones.

4. My cash position is 45%, which allows me the flexibility to trade like a lunatic, given my 22% returns.