Take the Money

We’ve enjoyed estimable gains these past few weeks. To indulge oneself in the felicity of his dreams is to be long the stock market during times like this. Sadly enough, my TEDU reversed off its $12 high, but still stands at a robust +30% from my basis in little more than a week.

All of the David Einhorn bubble basket stocks are through the roof today, led by FEYE and SPLK. It’s an important distinction because not much else is working. It’s suggestive of the sort of chicanery one would expect in a tape that is readying to rip heads and peni off. If I was a little short seller, discussing the bold characteristics of Wall Street 2.0, I’d cease to exist at once. There isn’t any hope for a bear in this tape.

Might I suggest an alternative?

Despite it being 90 degrees outside, go make yourself a fire and pull up a chair close by. Drink some of your finest brandy and toast to better days. After you’ve completed your brandy, wrap yourself in a thick burlap blanket and toss yourself into the fire. The Lord of Light will appreciate this sacrifice and look after your loved ones when you’ve been reduced to a small piece of heart muscle.

As for me, I am up about 0.5% for the day, lowering my losses to manageable levels. Very soon I shall up the ante and make larger bets.

UPDATE: I sold 25% of TEDU position and bought PRTA.

The epic run in TEDU continues.

My winshippery continues.

COV is being acquired by MDT.
SNDK is buying the company of Steve Jobs’ retarded old partner, FIO.
LVLT is buying TWTC.
LLNW has received a bid from a “questionable source.”

The hits keep on coming. We’re no longer beholden to childish things, such as earnings. Therefore, the market is free to run like naked people on the beach. Granted, the Iraq situation is somewhat troubling, to say the least. Being the #2 country in OPEC, Iraq stands to make a lot of oil men plenty of money and soon. God willing, that dirt filled nation will descend into anarchy, as large swaths of armed “George Washingtons” make their way around Baghdad shooting at government officials. The price of oil will skyrocket to $150 per barrel, sending the prices of your favorite oil stocks through the roof.

We’re all super capitalist now, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?

With oil going higher, I expect solar to do even better. It’s trading like a leveraged play on energy and has always correlated nicely with an up market. I like TSL until $15.

There’s all sorts of crazy things happening this morning, like BLUE up on astounding clinical data and IMAX approving a large share buyback. The world is awash with liquidity. Are you man enough to take it?

I’d like to wish my favourite father, Dr. Benjamin Bernanke, pleasant tidings on this fine day. Being the father of modern economics and the savior of mankind, I think it’s only appropriate that we keep him in our thoughts today and hope that his vision for the future can be continued by our new mother, Janet Yellen.

And also with you.

Do not let your short position in OPEN get you down, seeing it ripped out from your chest cavity and placed on the tabernacle. The saintly shares of YELP and ANGI shall follow suit.

NOTE: PCLN is acquiring OPEN for $103 per share. Expect to see those short YELP and ANGI perish today.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Amen.

I can’t get mad at Obama for abandoning Iraq. It’s like getting mad at crazy Dicky for leaving Vietnam. The Iraq war was bullshit to begin with. Just because 5,000 soldiers died and our treasury was fleeced by contractors to the tune of $1 trillion during “the war years” doesn’t mean we should defend those bastards indefinitely. I find it abhorrent to read the statements of our chicken hawk politicians who want war, perpetually.

Is one American solider worth a grain of Iraqi soil? I say no and to hell with them.

As an aside, I find it suspiciously convenient that oil prices are jacking higher because of the conflict. Did they go lower when we liberated Iraq? Has the price of oil budged, at all, since the 2008 crisis? It is a tax people. The price of oil is funding a lot of politics. They will keep the price above $100 for as long as possible. They know US production is on the rise and current prices are unsustainable because of it. I’m gonna stop right here because I hate getting into conspiracies.

Stocks traded down. Airlines took a few line drives to the scrotum, setting up for a buy the dip opportunity. And, Le Fly shed 0.2% on the day. I had been up more than 1% at the highs of the day.

We’ll get em’ tomorrow.

All of the ‘good news’ coming out from Iraq is lending a hand to the rout in stocks today, which is also helping out all of the doom and gloomers in bloomers long GLD. Nonetheless, there’s a choice to be made here.

Do you remain long, weathering the storm and hoping we’ll be back to business as usual again?

Or, is it time to shift away from tech, biotech and overweight energy/gold?

Or, would you be chasing the energy/gold trade here, sort of a sell on the news scenario?

One thing is for certain: the gold and silver trade has been the best trade of 2014, thus far. It’s amusing since it was the worst trade of 2013. That goes to show you, just because a sector or a stock is down and everyone hates it, that doesn’t mean it’s not a solid contrarian bet.

Here are the biggest losers in the gold space over the past year. Perhaps they have the biggest upside potential now.

NAK
DRD
ANV
GORO
BVN
GFI
TGD
TRX
RIC

The biggest silver losers.

CDE
AG
HL

Industrial minerals

AAU
AXU

Conversely, do you buy the airlines here, down more than 5%, off this move in oil?

I sold out of GIMO for less than a 2% loss (I have zero patience for underperformance these days) and swapped those dollars in the retarded shares of TSL.

Is anyone surprised that LULU is getting its big, fat, Canadian face bashed in this morning? Who buys that crap, anyhow? I remember when I used to buy my wife exercise clothes there and walk out feeling like a god damned idiot for spending $250 on three articles of clothing, some of their shit having seaweed in it. Like that’s a reason to spend $100 for tights.

PFfffff.

But the big, overarching, trend for retail is really death and destruction. It’s in a virtuous spiral of deflationary angst, whereby they keep throwing chinese stars at one another, begging for market share gains. When you go to the mall, it’s one sale after the next. Very rarely do I pay up for stuff anymore. Thank God my wife isn’t a vacuous hell hound who needs $2,000 shoes and $10,000 dresses. I actually have to tell her to spend some money for quality at times. Her typical response is “a dog will look like a dog, whether in a $2,000 dress or a $20 dress.” Amen to that.

S&P futures are slightly lower. The US consumer is looking for deals and the super rich, the ones who’ve been holding up retail for the past 15 years, are definitely spending less. I once read some data that suggested the top 5% of the wealthiest people in America make up for 70%+ of retail sales. What an absurd predicament to be in, if you’re running a sweat shop like LULU.

At the end of the day, Canada loses, all the time. Always remember that.

Out of all of the liquid Chinese stocks on the market, TEDU is the cheapest, sporting gross margins in excess of 70%, price to sales under 1.2 and a growth rate in excess of 60%.

I am holding until $15.

Sifting through the trash, I also like LEJU and KNDI.