Heavily Shorted Stocks Showing Twice the Gains Today

It’s a misnomer to believe heavily shorted stocks always outperform during bull runs. Often times, FANG like stocks, hedge fund hotels, do better. Many of the heavily shorted stocks are filled with weak shareholders and assholes plaguing them with pervasive short sales.

Not today.

Stocks with more than 15% of their float sold short are crushing the favorites today, by more than a 2 to 1 factor.

Some of these stocks are on fanatical runs, especially in the commodity space. Let this serve as yet another reminder to you.

To quote Victor Hugo: “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

I’d like to add a little fly flare to it and say, when said sun rises, its flames will seek out and incinerate those who relished in the dark, offering them largess doses of melanoma and other such niceties.

You should know that I’ve been fully invested in SPY since last week. You should also know that I am not to be trifled with and have a positive pnl for the year, unlike so many of my so called competitors.

At the start of the new year, the Exodus level by which an oversold reading would register was around 2.44. Due to the severity of the decline and the unprecedented nature of the fall, the algorithms had a hard time nailing the bottom.

I explained to members that the algos would intuitively learn the new levels, as that’s how we built it, leading to greater success throughout 2016.

Very shortly afterwards, markets began to plunge and the overall hybrid score, which is a master reading of both fundamental and technical factors for all stocks in the system, was below the previous threshold that triggered an oversold signal in the beginning of the new year. But because the system had adjusted to a highly stressed market, it did not register an oversold signal right away. Instead, it waited for even greater declines and then promptly alerted members of the new oversold condition, with alacrity.

My basis for three individual purchases of SPY is $185. These are 10 days holds from the purchase date, win, lose or draw.

As predicted, risk assets, readily defined by TWDFM (these will definitely fuck me: TWTR, WYNN, DB, FCX, M) are soaring again. If you want risk and are unsure as to which stocks to own, look no further than TWDFM. However, just know, when the rally ends, they will fuck you.

In short, we are in extreme rally mode. Le Fly is up for the year. The ark is docked (for now). And Exodus wins again.

And here I was thinking a caramel macchiato was just as healthy as a basket of broccoli. There’s a group in the UK who really hate sugar and they go out of their ways to make people feel really bad about going to Starbucks and other places who use sugar.

A can of Coke has about 8 teaspoons of evil sugar. One of Starbucks’ mulled chai drinks has 25.

Diabetes anyone?

The report said Starbucks’ hot mulled fruit grape with chai, orange and cinnamon was the “worst offender,” with 25 teaspoons of sugar.

Two other popular Starbucks choices — vanilla latte and caramel macchiato — contain more than eight teaspoons of sugar each, according to the company’s U.S. website.

Starbucks said it has committed to reduce added sugar in its “indulgent drinks” by 25% by the end of 2020. “We also offer a wide variety of lighter options, sugar-free syrups and sugar-free natural sweetener and we display all nutritional information in-store and online,” a Starbucks spokesperson said.

A medium Dunkin’ Donuts (DNKN) vanilla chai has over 11 teaspoons of sugar, while a hot macchiato includes 7 teaspoons. KFC’s mocha contains 15 teaspoons of sugar. A large mocha at McDonald’s (MCD) has 11 teaspoons, and a chai latte massimo at the British chain Costa Coffee includes 20 teaspoons.

“These hot flavored drinks should be an occasional treat, not an ‘everyday’ drink. They are laden with an unbelievable amount (of) sugar and calories and are often accompanied by a high sugar and fat snack,” said Kawther Hashem, a researcher for Action on Sugar.

You’d be pleased to know that Starbucks is planning to tackle this problem, by reducing sugar content by 25%, no sooner than the end of 2020.

I remember it like it was yesterday. The world felt like it was ending. The old and stuttering Treasury secretary Paulson did little to assuage investor sentiment for months. Then one morning, this guy, Neel Kashkari, with his crazy fucking eyes, came onto the teevee, straight out of Goldman Sachs to run the TARP program. It was almost a joke, Goldman sending a guy to run the TARP for the government.

Nevertheless, it was a wild success and Neel was instrumental in saving western finance. I heard he later on went into seclusion and lived in the woods with the animals and grew a beard. After that, he tried to get elected governor of California. That took balls. Now he’s a non voting member of the FOMC, who wants to break up the banks–because they’re too big and they pose systemic risk to the US economy.

Aside from that, he sounds dovish.

“If we keep making sure we have accommodative monetary policy, we can keep bringing people off the sidelines, bring them back into the labor force, bring inflation up to our two percent target,” Kashkari said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Talk about group think. If VRX ends up being a fraud, it will catch some of the brightest minds in the investment community naked, without pants, holding their testes in the wind.

A plethora of hedge funds have reported new stakes in VRX. For the quarter that just passed, Coatue, Jana, Laurion Capital, Okumus Capital, Paulson & Co, Viking Global, Brave Warrior (the fuck?) and Hound Capital have either initiated a new position or added to an existing one.

Other large holders include Pershing Square and Valueact, with the latter holding two seats on the board.

Shares of VRX are down 10% in 2016, so far.

Despite the fact that the deleterious side effects of the Zika virus are likely caused by Monsanto chemicals in the tap water, the biotech industry is working ’round the clock for a cure.

$INO just released some positive data…in mice.

Inovio said in a statement that mice given its vaccine showed the development of antibodies and generated a response from T-cells, which play an important role in immunizing the body.
“We will next test the vaccine in non-human primates and initiate clinical product manufacturing. We plan to initiate Phase I human testing of our Zika vaccine before the end of 2016,” Inovio Chief Executive Joseph Kim said.

By the time these fuckers get a drug out for usuage, we’ll all be dead and/or zombies.

Nevertheless, shares of INO are soaring, as human primates gobble up the stock.

The backdoor is closed for the Federal government, said Tim Cook (no homo).

The FBI wants to access the iPhone of one of the San Berndino terrorists, but cannot, since it’s encrypted. Apple’s phones are not to be fucked with and the gov’t hates not being able to pry into citizen privacy. In this case, the terrorist phones should be accessed, for security purposes.

But Tim Cook doesn’t want to establish a precedent here and is resisting.

Judge Sheri Pym of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said on Tuesday that Apple must provide “reasonable technical assistance” to investigators seeking to unlock data on an iPhone 5C that had been owned by Syed Rizwan Farook.
In a letter to Apple’s customers, Cook said the FBI had asked the company to build “a backdoor to the iPhone.”
“The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals,” he said.
“We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack.”

The French bank is surging like a bat out of hell, higher by 15%, on plans to “put an end to this unbearable paradox.”

Banks are widely higher in Europe.

Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA) outlined plans to simplify its much-criticized ownership structure on Wednesday, with a promise of stable investor returns and a solid capital base lifting shares in the French bank.

Credit Agricole Chief Executive Philippe Brassac said the plan would end criticism from analysts, shareholders and regulators that the cross-shareholding between its listed entity and its cooperative parent banks was a drain on capital.

“We want to put an end to this unbearable paradox that we are a big, well-capitalized bank while doubts linger over the fragility of the listed structure’s capital,” Brassac said.

The reform, aimed at reducing its complexity, would focus Credit Agricole mainly on asset management, insurance and investment banking activities, while reducing the share of retail banking operations in its underlying net income to 20 percent from 36 percent, based on 2015 results.

Just last week banks were the bane of society. Now they’re coveted vehicles of profit. That’s the market, insane and without decorum.

Crude oil is appreciably higher this morning, providing markets with the jolt it needs to get going, like a strong cup of coffee served in a hot mug.

European markets have trebled their gains since the open.

S&P futures are indicating a resumption of the party shall continue today.

To fade the rally before it had the chance to become absurd is to be a coward. “The Fly” is not that. I shall see it through, patiently waiting for higher prices, entrusting Exodus with the burden of timing my adventures, wholly and fully, until adequate gains have been made and my future secured.

Free trials have ended, with it your miserly ways.

A glorious morning of stocked market gains awaits you. Get to work.

The Iranian OPEC envoy must’ve been watching reruns of Star Trek all week. When asked to fall in line with the Saudi led production freeze, Mehdi Asali gave zero fucks, saying the Iranian government would keep jacking up production until it hit pre-sanction levels. This statement, and the mere presence of Iran, most likely infuriated the Saudis to no end. I bet they went to sleep tonight without even visiting the harem.

But Iran’s Mr Asali said to Shargh: “Asking Iran to freeze its oil production level is illogical… when Iran was under sanctions, some countries raised their output and they caused the drop in oil prices.

“How can they expect Iran to co-operate now and pay the price?”

It aims to raise its crude production and exports to one million barrels a day over the next six months.
Two non-Iranian sources close to the Opec discussions told Reuters that Iran could be offered special terms as part of the output freeze deal.

WTI crude is basically flat, at $28.95.