Saturday Cinema with Le Fly: Annie Hall

So many of Wood Allen’s movies are great. For an actor, it is considered a great honor to be chosen for one of his films. Kevin Spacey has been trying to get into a Woody film for decades, to no avail. He even sent Woody a Netflix subscription so that he could view his work in House of Cards.

While filming, Woody is very hands off. However, if he doesn’t like the way the movie is coming out, he will fire an actor/actress without provocation. Because of this reputation, many A list actors/actresses have admitted to being scared of being fired during filming.

Now for my favorite Woody film of all-time: Annie Hall.

To watch this movie, you really need to set aside your conservative ideals and simply accept the fact that sexuality is something that Allen is both mature and liberal about. This movie is a masterpiece, one that speaks to the insecurities and intensity of relationships. We’ve all been in relationships and have experienced something great turn into pain or hatred. Just watch the movie and thank me later.

Other great Allen films of note include: Manhattan Murder Mystery (great!), Hannah and her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Broadway Danny Rose, To Rome with Love, Whatever Works (Larry David, hilarious), Bullets over Broadway, Small Time Crooks, Anything Else, Melinda and Melinda, Sweet and Lowdown (Sean Pean, great!), Mighty Aphrodite.

Look, I really haven’t see an Allen film that didn’t have some redeeming qualities. All of them are witty and done with a distinct voice, something sorely missing in Hollywood today.

This concludes Woody Allen. I’ll start Hitchcock next week.

I sold JUNO into the bell. It was a 5% weighted position. I left the proceeds in cash, considering my two day underperformance. I ended the day down 0.5%, almost negating yesterday’s gains. I am not complaining, as I am up 25% for the year.

I am on guard, however, for a sentiment shift and will not permit any top holding to fall below the -10% threshold. I have zero regard for paper losses and will realize them immediately. Trust in this, your biggest enemy when trying to make money in the market will be your own hubris. Stocks are stocks, stupid letters and numbers on a screen. Unless you have an edge, pare losses quickly and move on, like a swarm of locusts (my favorite insect).

Heading into the warmer climes, seeing my software (Exodus) off to a great start and my year to date gains resplendent above all others, I will be celebrating this weekend over a pipe and some very good wine. I’ve been partaking in a lot of bad wine consumption as of late, mainly for the laughs. I do enjoy a horrible wine and marvel at its inadequacies, especially “disgraceful tannins.” If you didn’t know, I review most of my wine consumption on some little app called “Delectable”.

At any rate, thanks for reading this week. Be sure to tune in tomorrow– as I wrap up Woody Allen. I will try to mention all of my favorite Woody films. There are so many that I enjoyed, it will be hard to fit them all in.

(tips hat)

Utilities are running higher today and banks are down big. Do you know why? Of course you don’t.

These industries are very sensitive to rates. Now that bonds are rallying and rates are dropping, banks are down due to flattening yield curve and utilities are up because they are attracting yield hungry investors.

Very simple coward trade here: If you believe rates are heading lower again, fade the shit out of oil–because the dollar will likely strengthen. Also, get long bonds via TLT and your utility of choice. One of my favorites is ETR.

Historically speaking, utilities hold their butter during the arduous summer months, unlike many high growth sectors.

Naturally, I think this is a stupid trade. However, if you were heading out to summer in europe or somewhere exotic, unable to get to a telephone pole in order to connect to the internets, buying utilities here is not a bad idea. You could do a lot worse.

As for me, I’ve decided to raise a little cash, heading into the close. I am not interested in being beholden to any one stock, no matter the appeal.

My top positions are all down and I am losing money today, almost 1%! Clearly, there must be some misunderstanding. I am Senior Tropicana and I have reservations for 1 hedonistic dinner. These losses mounting in N, FEYE, JUNO and SBNY merely take me down a notch for the day. Most of those positions are still in the black for me. But I must admit to feeling somewhat apprehensive following yesterday’s vast underperformance, up merely 0.6% in a market that DEEBO’d bears.

Perhaps this is it? The great run of Le Fly has ended and I am now to be subjected to a depression in my portfolio values and subsequent exile into the reader class hobo camp, where bees will sting me in the face and snakes will chase me about the sewers.

Back in the early 2000’s my partner and I would blast The Cure in our office on Fridays. Other brokers, in adjacent offices, would go ape; but we didn’t give a shit. My partner would also walk around the office without a shirt, fully naked, in protest of the “unacceptable working conditions” due to the heat. Believe it or not, “The Fly” was, by far, the more diplomatic out of the both of us. I’d cringe during luncheons and dinners when he’d send back the food or that one time he took a glass of water and spilled it on the restaurant floor in front of the waiter, while proclaiming “this water is pink.” Or how he’d refer to everyone as “young man”, even though they were twenty years his senior.

One time a cold caller of ours was box watching too much, so during lunch my partner took his computer screen away and replaced it with a sticky, with hand-scribbled quotes on it. Needless to say, said cold caller was not happy and eventually quit on us. I will have you know, the moment he quit on us began his downward spiral towards mediocrity. Last I heard, he wasn’t doing too well these days.

If there is one good character trait that I have, which can be used to your advantage, is that I never give up, ever. I will fight until my hands are broken and cannot fight anymore. On occasion the market will trick me and I will make some bad calls. But I will always bounce back, as I am destined for extreme winship, almost at all times.

Times are good now. They won’t always be this way.

Who else was screaming from the rooftops, begging you to stay long? What top hatted gent told you to “stay in May”, declaring the beginning of an era of unbridled decadence and magnanimosity was upon us?

Did anyone else slap you in the face with a plumbers wrench, kindly asking for you to buy banks, 10% lower?

I gifted you with Exodus oversold signals in AGIO, AAPL and many others, all leading to hedonistic returns. And all I got from you clown-shoe cobblers is 100% horseshit rubbish.

Why don’t you try to tell me how my algo was wrong on NUGT for half of today?

You people, miscreants of the first order, have no idea how fortunate you are to have access to “The Fly” and his minions. When it’s all said and done, the reader class sort can never be trusted. Once again, you’ve all proven yourselves to be unworthy quill pushers.

Off to partake in post winship festivities.

Alas, the ancient spirits I called upon struck down those trying to plague me with demons (extra Ed Dowd). Despite underperforming for the day, “The Fly” is aggressively expanding his sphere of influence–fully funded by capital markets.

Nearing +26% for the year, it is safe to say that I am outstripping you again, yes? If you were to lose a home run hitting contest against Babe Ruth or a boxing exhibition against Clubber Lang, you wouldn’t be ashamed, would you? Of course not. You’d chalk it up to the old college try and accept the fact that you lost to the very best in the respective fields. The same rules apply here, mates. Whether it be at a game of capital markets or blog writing contest, Señor Tropicana will always win, in the end.

I like the way this day is shaping up. Bears are getting fucking DEEBO’d and my gains are plastic manning into the final hours of trade.

As I stare at my pnl, I am up 5k for the day. To you, that’s like a 50% return. For me, that’s a grain of sand in the Sahara desert.

Naturally, I’ve called upon “ancient spirits” to right this wrong. It’s rather ironic, isn’t it? On the grandest of grand days, to have Le Fly sidelined, stuck in the amber of mediocrity, one could consider this to be a criminal event. As I type this, AGIO just jumped and my bounty increased by many thousands.

ADRO is now in the process of eliminating doubt. Once that is gone, you will see this stock go on a banana run towards $50.

Some of you bed-wetters are very perturbed by my short NUGT suggestion. I stand by that call, as if my entire penis depended on it. There isn’t any place for gold bricks in the story of man. Be gone with your backward ways and craven, stark raving mad, catamite tongues. If possible, I’d lash you myself, from crown to foot.

When AGIO turns green for the day, and all that has been denied to me these past 2 hours taken back, I will make up for it by punching off the eyebrows and mustaches of everyone on this site.

All is certainly NOT well in Flyville today, as I scowl at the Comcast technical support guy in my house–trying to make my phones work. I am reminded of an olde adage Grandpa Fly used to say: “never order the fish in a steakhouse.” I should’ve kept Verizon for phones and Comcast for my teevee. This idea of a “triple package”, although alluring and somewhat economical, is the devil himself.

Markets are up triple digits; but I am down. All of my doctor stocks are getting their faces punched off, starting with AGIO. Then, catamite in chief of CSCO, talked shit about FEYE last night, suggesting his idiot company wasn’t interested in buying them. So, here I am, all ready to make money and shit, standing here at the prom without a date–nuts in hand.

What is the solution to said misery? Surely I cannot be destined for wanton mediocrity whilst the bears get their arms ripped off by frag grenades.

I wish I had answers for you, lads. I am as upset as you are. Considering how wildly you all root for my achievements, you deserve to see me do well and often.

Clearly I have many other “irons in the fire”, as they like to say. ADRO, YELP, HCA, GILD, SLCA, STZ, PANW and AAPL are all making me some money today. But if I am going to succeed on a very high level, mates, I’m gonna need those fucking doctor stocks to start ratcheting up a few notches.

I’m out of the raw pizza business, sold–the fuck–out of FRSH for an idiotic loss. Moving on, I’m bulking up on cancer related biotech stocks, ahead of ASCO, ahead of them trading– the fuck– higher.

I mugged so many people today. “The Fly” roamed Wall Street and aggressively snatched chains and pistol whipped so many pikers: my hands are tired.

Listen to me: today’s gains were brought to you by my balls atop the kitchen counter, whilst speed chopping carrots, fully long and betting on perpetual melt-up.

Chalk up another W in my corner, up 0.9% for the day. By the grace of Zeus, I’ll be hitting +26% by tomorrow.

Top picks: AGIO, JUNO, ADRO, N and FEYE