This Morning’s Movers and Shakers

Higher

M&A news: CCG +19.7% (acquired by Harrison Street Real Estate Capital for $7.03/share, or ~$1.9 bln), PMCS +13.3% (MSCC proposes to acquire PMCS for $11.50/share, or ~$2.4 bln; says $SWKS bid sucks balls and theirs is the shit), DBD +3.3% (whatever).

WTW +58.9% (Fat lady named Oprah bought 10% and has option to buy another 5), CPXX +9.6% (FDA shit), ZFGN +9.1% (dead cat bounce), PLX +7.8% (positive data), OCN +7.5% (paying down a little debt; big fucking deal, right?), PLUG +5.6% (no one gives a shit), TSYS +2.6% (blah, blah, blah), DB +2.5% (German bullshit), NAT +2.5% (CRAMER PUMP), TKC +1.7% (mystery!).

Lower:

In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance: MS -4.5% (fucked), VRX -2.3% (raises guidance; fucked nonetheless).

GNCA -32.2% (phase 2 fails; fucked), GLDD -15.6% (withdraws guidance; in other words, fucked), SDRL -5.8% (whatever), PBR -3.7% (they suck), ZINC -2.8% (miners fucked), FCX -2.4% (fucked), SUNE -2.2% (mystery;fucked)

Analyst comments: UBNT 3.3% (downgraded to shit at JMP Securities), ORCL -1.4% (downgraded to fucked at Pacific Crest), TEF -1.3% (downgraded to horrible from fucked at Credit Suisse), STX -1.1% (downgraded to blah from tits at Susquehanna).

Larry does it again.

It’s all bullshit anyway.

Chinese GDP came in at 6.9% v 6.8% expectations. Services now makes up more than 51%, which bodes well for our companies who sell crap to Chinese people. Chinese retail sales rose by 10.9% last month. On the other hand, Chinese industrials continue to struggle, which is why commodities have been stuck in a bear market. .

Copper, gold and oil haven’t moved on this data, nor have US futures.

In my opinion, these numbers are good enough to keep the Chinese boogeyman out from US closets, trying to scare the shit out of us while we’re trying to sleep.

That was fucking good. Admit it.

This is the week we rally. Bears will be humiliated again, stuffed into ‘fag boxes‘, then summarily kicked into outer space, never to be heard from again. “The Fly” is a champion of a bull’d up market, casting aside worried and panics as if they were childish theatre.

Everything is set for a fanatical run to the upside. Rates are low. Oil is firming. Biotech is bouncing. Shorts are feeling pressure to cover.

This is how I will play it, very simply (SPY is +4 since Exodus‘ oversold signal on Wednesday, by the way).

Being that I am 95% long, with very little in the way of fucks given, here are my top 5 positions.

BIDU

GILD

TWTR

SLCA

SHAK

Notice how I am not partaking in grave depravity, attempting to hit grand slams with no one on base. Being +15% for the year, I am merely looking for another 10% of upside, at which point I will then retire in the mountains of Romania, running amongst the goats and the rams–naked and feely without inhibitions.

Fred and his ilk enjoy to deposit companies that lose grotesque amounts of money, trading for 30x sales, on the public markets. The reason why the VCs do this is the same reason why you and I trade the stock market: for money. Like a boiler room stocked broker or a manager of an elaborate ponzi scheme, for the most part, the venture capital business is one giant scheme.

With that being said, here is the scheme leaderboard, the Crunchbase Unicorn Leaderboard of fuckery list. The grande total valuation is a touch over $524 billion, with over $77 billion raised.

Here they are, the mothefuckers that are gonna IPO through Morgan and Goldman at high as fuck valuations. You’re gonna get a hard on to buy them, due to all of the publicity. Then you’ll buy some in the after market, because you’re too much of a piker to get an allocation, and you’re gonna get Zynga’d. Your whole face is gonna get blown off in one of these things. They’re like dynamite sticks inside of a hornet’s nest, disguised as a harem with chocolate cake and lots of free money.

Fuck the unicorns.

(valuations over $2.5b)

Company
Post Money Value
Valuation Change
Total Equity Funding
Known Lead Investors
Country
Market

Uber
TechCrunch Coverage
$51B
Sep 2015 +24% $6.6B
First Round (Angel)
Benchmark (Series A)
Menlo Ventures (Series B)
Google Ventures (Series C)
Fidelity Investments (Series D)
Baidu (Private Equity)
USA Consumer Internet

Xiaomi
TechCrunch Coverage
$45B
Apr 2015 – $1.1B
IDG Capital Partners (Series A)
Morningside Group (Series A)
Morningside Group (Series B)
Morningside Group (Series C)
Ratan Tata ()
CHN Hardware

Airbnb
TechCrunch Coverage
$25.5B
Jun 2015 +143% $2.3B
Sequoia Capital (Seed)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series B)
Founders Fund (Series C)
General Atlantic (Private Equity)
Hillhouse Capital Group (Private Equity)
Tiger Global Management (Private Equity)
USA Consumer Internet

Palantir Technologies
TechCrunch Coverage
$20B
Jul 2015 +6% $1.6B
Founders Fund (Series D)
USA Software

Didi Kuaidi
TechCrunch Coverage
$17.4B
Sep 2015 – $4.4B
GSR Ventures (Series A)
Tencent Industry Win-Win Fund (Series B)
Temasek Holdings (Series D)
SoftBank (Venture)
CHN Consumer Internet

Snapchat
TechCrunch Coverage
$15.34B
May 2015 +45% $1.19B
Lightspeed Venture Partners (Seed)
Benchmark (Series A)
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) (Series B)
Coatue Management (Series C)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Series D)
Alibaba (Series E)
USA Consumer Internet

Flipkart
TechCrunch Coverage
$15B
Jul 2015 +34% $3.2B
Accel (Series A)
Tiger Global Management (Series C)
Naspers (Series D)
DST Global (Series F)
Tiger Global Management (Series G)
Naspers (Series G)
IND E-Commerce

Space Exploration Technologies
TechCrunch Coverage
$12B
Jan 2015 – $1.25B
Founders Fund (Series A)
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) (Series D)
USA Aerospace and Defense

Pinterest
TechCrunch Coverage
$11.2B
May 2015 +113% $1.32B
Bessemer Venture Partners (Series A)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series B)
Rakuten (Series C)
Valiant Capital Partners (Series D)
Fidelity Investments (Series E)
SV Angel (Series F)
USA Consumer Internet

Dropbox
TechCrunch Coverage
$10.35B
Jan 2014 +144% $600M
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
Index Ventures (Series B)
BlackRock (Series C)
USA Software

WeWork
TechCrunch Coverage
$10B
Jun 2015 +100% $1B
Goldman Sachs (Series D)
T. Rowe Price (Series D)
Wellington Management (Series D)
USA Real Estate

Lufax
$9.69B
Apr 2015 – $485M
BlackPine Private Equity Partners (Venture)
CHN Financial Services

Theranos
TechCrunch Coverage
$9B
Jun 2014 – $92M – USA Healthcare

Spotify
TechCrunch Coverage
$8.53B
Jun 2015 – $1.06B
Founders Fund (Series C)
Goldman Sachs (Series E)
Technology Crossover Ventures (Series F)
SWE Consumer Internet

ZhongAn
$8B
Jun 2015 – $931M – CHN Financial Services

DJI
TechCrunch Coverage
$8B
May 2015 +391% $105M
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
Accel (Series B)
CHN Hardware

Meituan.com
TechCrunch Coverage
$7B
Jan 2015 – $1.07B
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
Alibaba (Series B)
General Atlantic (Series C)
CHN E-Commerce

Square
TechCrunch Coverage
$6B
Apr 2015 +74% $591M
Sequoia Capital (Series B)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Series C)
GIC (Series E)
USA Financial Services

Ola
TechCrunch Coverage
$5B
Sep 2015 +107% $902M
Tiger Global Management (Series A)
Sequoia Capital (Series C)
Steadview Capital (Series C)
SoftBank Capital (Series D)
DST Global (Series E)
Falcon Edge Capital (Series F)
IND Consumer Internet

Coupang
TechCrunch Coverage
$5B
Jun 2015 +100% $1.4B
Sequoia Capital (Venture)
BlackRock Private Equity Partners (Private Equity)
SoftBank (Private Equity)
KOR E-Commerce

Stem CentRx
$5B
Sep 2015 – $474M
Fidelity Investments (Series G)
USA Healthcare

Stripe
TechCrunch Coverage
$5B
Jul 2015 – $190M
Y Combinator (Seed)
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
General Catalyst Partners (Series B)
Founders Fund (Series C)
Thrive Capital (Series C)
USA Financial Services

Snapdeal
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.8B
Aug 2015 +83% $1.6B
Nexus Venture Partners (Series A)
Kalaari Capital (Series A)
Bessemer Venture Partners (Series B)
eBay (Series C)
Recruit Holdings (Series C)
SoftBank Capital (Venture)
eBay (Series D)
Ratan Tata (Venture)
SoftBank Internet and Media (SIMI) (Private Equity)
Foxconn Technology Group (Private Equity)
SoftBank (Private Equity)
Alibaba (Private Equity)
IND E-Commerce

Zenefits
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.5B
May 2015 – $584M
Maverick Capital (Seed)
Venrock (Seed)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series A)
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) (Series B)
Fidelity Investments (Series C)
TPG (Series C)
USA Software

Cloudera
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.1B
Sep 2014 – $1.04B
Accel (Series A)
Meritech Capital Partners (Series C)
Ignition Partners (Series D)
Accel (Series E)
T. Rowe Price (Series F)
USA Software

Dianping
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.05B
Mar 2015 – $1.04B – CHN Consumer Internet

Credit Karma
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.5B
Jun 2015 +250% $368M
QED Investors (Series A)
Susquehanna Growth Equity (Series B)
Ribbit Capital (Series B)
Google Capital (Series C)
USA Financial Services

Global Fashion Group
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.45B
Jul 2015 +12% $167M
Rocket Internet (Venture)
Investment AB Kinnevik (Venture)
LUX E-Commerce

Atlassian
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.3B
Apr 2014 – $210M
Accel (Secondary Market)
T. Rowe Price (Secondary Market)
AUS Software

Meizu
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.3B
Feb 2015 – $890M
Alibaba (Private Equity)
CHN Hardware

Fanatics
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.17B
Aug 2015 – $395M
Insight Venture Partners (Private Equity)
Silver Lake Partners (Private Equity)
USA E-Commerce

Delivery Hero
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.11B
Jun 2015 +41% $1.39B
Kite Ventures (Series C)
Kite Ventures (Series D)
Phenomen Ventures (Series D)
Insight Venture Partners (Series E)
Luxor Capital Group (Series F)
Insight Venture Partners (Series G)
Kite Ventures (Series G)
Rocket Internet (Venture)
DEU Consumer Internet

Legendary Entertainment
$3B
Oct 2014 – $1.01B
SoftBank Capital (Private Equity)
USA Entertainment

SoFi
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Sep 2015 – $1.42B
Baseline Ventures (Series B)
Discovery Capital (Series C)
Third Point Ventures (Series D)
SoftBank (Series E)
USA Financial Services

VANCL
$3B
Feb 2014 – $570M
Lei Jun (Venture)
CHN E-Commerce

Jawbone
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Apr 2015 +0% $726M
BlackRock (Private Equity)
USA Hardware

Wish
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Jun 2015 – $579M
Formation 8 (Series B)
GGV Capital (Series B)
Founders Fund (Series C)
USA E-Commerce

Ele.me
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Aug 2015 – $1.1B
Sequoia Capital (Series C)
Tencent Holdings (Series E)
Hualian (Series F)
CITIC Capital Holdings (Series F)
CHN Consumer Internet

HelloFresh
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Sep 2015 – $278.5M
Phenomen Ventures (Series C)
Insight Venture Partners (Series D)
Rocket Internet (Series E)
Baillie Gifford (Series F)
DEU Consumer Internet

DocuSign
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
May 2015 – $508M
Scale Venture Partners (Series C)
Brookside Capital (Series F)
Bain Capital Ventures (Series F)
USA Software

Moderna Therapeutics
$2.95B
Jan 2015 – $675M
Flagship Ventures (Venture)
Alexion Pharmaceuticals (Venture)
USA Healthcare

Bloom Energy
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.83B
Jan 2015 -1% $1.11B – USA Energy

Slack
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.8B
Apr 2015 +126% $340M
SV Angel (Seed)
Accel (Series A)
Social Capital (Series C)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Series D)
Google Ventures (Series D)
Social Capital (Series E)
USA Software

Powa Technologies
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.78B
Nov 2014 – $177M
Wellington Management (Series A)
Wellington Management (Series C)
GBR Financial Services

Vice Media
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.55B
Sep 2014 – $570M – USA Consumer Internet

Lyft
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.5B
May 2015 +12% $1.01B
fbFund (Seed)
K9 Ventures (Seed)
FLOODGATE (Seed)
Mayfield Fund (Series A)
Founders Fund (Series B)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series C)
Coatue Management (Series D)
Rakuten (Series E)
Icahn Enterprises (Series E)
USA Consumer Internet

Classic thriller with a line that will stick with you until the end of days: “I see dead people.”

This being the month of Halloween and all, I tried to think of my favorite thriller. This one definitely fills the bill.

Bruce Willis and that little strange boy make a great duo, with an ending that is sure to suprise you.

In Exodus, we have robust seasonality functionality, whereby the distinguished member can search for a particular month, then cross reference up to date performance data and find a high variance from the mean.

In layman’s terms, we are looking for XYZ that normally trades up 20% for October that is only up 5%, giving us a high variance of 15%.

Here is the list. Given that we are in a free trial for Exodus and all, I figured this could help some of you n00bs how to take full advantage of our tools. For those of you who are in a free trial (enjoy it with my compliments), don’t be shy about requesting a live demo. The software was built for people like you and we can only improve upon it with your feedback.

I imagine it’s real hard to continuously bet against central banks. Some things are very hard to win at, one of them is placing a bet against the house and expecting to win. On occasion, your audacity might be rewarded. But, rest assured, if you sit at that table long enough, you’ll lose it all: house, cars, kids, wife.

As for me, I simply go with the over-arching trends, one that was written on two motherfucking granite tablets, etched by the lightening of God, in the darkest days of 2009.

Sometimes bad bets pay off, like House Rothschild (Bauer) receiving 20 million from England for 17,000 Hessians, to be slaughtered and humiliated, by the colonial army. Use your proceeds that were ill gotten during the recent slide and use them for good.

For the month of October, thus far, 250 NASDAQS have been recovered, placed inside the National Treasury. “The Fly” knows the truth because he is the embodiment of the market, cross section, from street corner to penthouse; I can feel the vibes of this market when I sleep.

It wants higher.

FREE trials for Exodus expire on sunday. Contact [email protected] for details. Also, and I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, attendance is REQUIRED for my readers in the tri-state area for the iBC Conference. If you’re broke and in the streets, email me and I’ll set you up with a tinned cup. You’re gonna want to be there.

You bears are all birds.

This is truly delightful. I love when the markets do things that aren’t supposed to happen, like crush oil stocks when oil is rallying hard. It reconfirms my theory that everyone is subject to total wipeout and nothing is held sacred.

My commodity exposure was recently increased, with purchases of SLCA, CNX and FCX, so today’s drubbing does not go unnoticed. Lukcily for me, I am also long SHAK, GILD and TWTR in decent size.

Imagine yourself to be one of the little monsters in a game of whack-a-mole and some 5 yr old is presiding over you with a hammer. You pop up every three seconds or so, trying to outwit the child. He’s slow and uncoordinated, so it takes in awhile to get you. But when he does get you, your head will be cracked in half.

Aside from that, everything is peachy. How are you on this fine Friday afternoon? Still buying stocks?

Some of these biotechs are meeting their maker today.

More later.

This is a pretty damning article.

Elizabeth Holmes has been praised as the female Steve Jobs of medicine. She dropped out of Stanford at 19; decided to start her own company. Because she was deathly afraid of needles, she tried to figure out an easier way. She hired some guy who had the idea; leveraged up via VC seed money to an mind boggling $10 billion valuation. A few years ago the guy committed suicide, amidst rumors that their pin prick technology was fucking nonsense.

And now this:

On Theranos Inc.’s website, company founder Elizabeth Holmes holds up a tiny vial to show how the startup’s “breakthrough advancements have made it possible to quickly process the full range of laboratory tests from a few drops of blood.”

The company offers more than 240 tests, ranging from cholesterol to cancer. It claims its technology can work with just a finger prick. Investors have poured more than $400 million into Theranos, valuing it at $9 billion and her majority stake at more than half that. The 31-year-old Ms. Holmes’s bold talk and black turtlenecks draw comparisons to Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Jobs.

But Theranos has struggled behind the scenes to turn the excitement over its technology into reality. At the end of 2014, the lab instrument developed as the linchpin of its strategy handled just a small fraction of the tests then sold to consumers, according to four former employees.

Theranos also hasn’t disclosed publicly that it does the vast majority of its tests with traditional machines bought from companies like Siemens AG.

WTF! Come again?

But Theranos’s outside lawyer, David Boies, acknowledges that the company isn’t yet using the device for all the tests Theranos offers. The transition to doing every test with the device is “a journey,” he says.

A fucking journey?

During the Journal’s reporting, Theranos deleted a sentence on its website that said: “Many of our tests require only a few drops of blood.” It also dropped a reference to collecting “usually only three tiny micro-vials” per sample, “instead of the usual six or more large ones.” Heather King, the company’s general counsel, says the changes were made for “marketing accuracy.”

If it smells like bullshit…

Ms. Holmes, Theranos’s chairman and chief executive, declined interview requests from the Journal for more than five months. Last week, the company said she would be available to comment, but her schedule didn’t allow it before publication of this article.

Shots fired!

It looks like this lauded privately held VC darling is setting up for the much feared “down round.”

Oh, it’s also worth noting, Miss Holmes board of directors average age is 80, including such dignitaries such as Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Bill Frist and 7 other political figures, none of which have a medical background, save Frist.