Welcome to the 100% Debt to GDP Club!

I know the negativity is taxing, especially for those of you who think I am dead serious. Lighten up. I am simply stirring the cauldron, while practicing black magic.

Here are some interesting debt/GDP stats.

United Steaks: 101%

Jamaica: 145%

Italy: 127%

Ireland: 117%

Belgium: 98% (almost!, getting there!)

Greece: 156%

Portugal: 124%

Japan: 212%

Lebanon: 139%

Singapore: 98% (close call!)

In addition to the growing mountains of debt, about a dozen countries have seen their currencies drop double digits versus the dollar, as well as see their sovereign yields shoot higher, appreciably.  What does it all mean? ARMAGEDDON?!!

Not quite. It means that the primary goal of central banks will be to keep rates down, no matter the cost. If it means throwing the stock market into the garbage, in order to scare money into bonds, so be it. In order to sustain our lifestyle of grandiose entitlements, it’s important that we borrow money, cheaply, and spend as much as we like. Theoretically, this should be a race to the bottom, causing massive inflation, bullish for gold and bit coins–but NOT maxcoins. However, since 2011, the only asset that has been appreciating is stocks, worldwide.

Gold, silver, oil, natty, coal, wheat, cotton, sugar, corn, uranium: ALL BEARISH.

Let’s be frank with one another, shall we? Without the world central banks flooding the markets with liquidity, we’re all toast. But they are flooding the markets with liquidity and there isn’t a better place to make money, other than stocks. There are pitfalls, especially when looking at some of these earnings debacles. But, ultimately, the only game in town is stocks and the only balls on the table, strong arm, guarantee is that central banks will smash your equity holdings to pieces–in order to preserve this wonderful status quo.

What did you expect? I’m retired after all.

I’ll leave the cat and rat game to the lot of you, scrounging around for marijuana money. We’ve had the biggest rally in 13 months, yet all of the stocks that I sold, mind you, are BELOW where I sold them. How do you like that? However, there have been many, many, stocks that I should’ve bought and profited from, as this rally presented itself.

People are now obsessed with Yellen’s heavy Brooklyn drawl. They’re also pointing towards the shape of her face, jaw line and curvature of her mouth, for reasons that escape me at the moment. Let me add, there is nothing more blissful than missing out on an epic rally and not caring one bit about it. I don’t need the money, after all. See, I’ve made my money when the cards were down, when men were men and the lot of you were scrawling graffiti grawlix on the walls of your housing tenements.

I’ve given you plenty of stocks to play over the past week, have I not? Do not concern yourselves with me, as I’ve been waltzing to a different tune ever since I’ve been capable of killing a man. There is nothing you could say, or do for that matter, that will somehow get me to thinking the way you do, drones–pre-programmed– to think with the collective.

You’re not men, but babies playing with toys.

As for me, I will choose the battlefield of my liking when I am good and ready. I’ve come to the conclusion that all of this worrisome concern by the lot of you is nothing more than hatred, spewed out from the depths of your black, cavernous, murderous hearts.

71% of stocks are higher today, led by gold and silver.

Let me repeat that last point again. The market is being led by gold and silver. Year to date, gold and silver stocks are up around 35%. Now, knowing what you know about how awful gold and silver truly is, do you think it’s wise to chase them here? As good as they look now, God knows they are 1-2 days removed from 5-10% declines.

Moving on, scouring the market, many high beta names are down, like YELP, FEYE and SFUN.

Copper, steel and coal are doing good too. It’s like the market hopped into a time machine and went all the way back to 2009. I am very sorry to tell you, but I still don’t feel like buying anything. Maybe I’m the one who’s insane!?

Meh, I am sort of used to being retired now, an old cranky spectator, waiving his cane at the whipper-snappers buying the market–predicting doom and throwing mashed potatoes at the television.

I am going to walk away now, especially since I have no business here.

It appears all of the worries about Asia, the credit crisis in China and disaster in Turkey, were imaginary–like friends. The market tends to scare people into giving up their wares, like stick up men, but without the guns.

Janet Yellen’s speech  was written by Ben Bernanke, at least that’s what I like to believe. The idiots in Congress will not be able to frazzle her, as her IQ is at least 100 points higher than theirs. Therefore, one should expect markets to continue to trade up forever, without pause, and without any semblance of apprehension.

My reservations about the market have been proven to be wrong, in the immediate term. And I have to hold myself accountable for my haphazard actions.

I am watching Yellen and paying attention to her tone and cadence. If people sell stocks because of her Brooklyn accent, I can only surmise that we should buy that dip.

DEVELOPING…

The biggest form of collateral for the average Joe is his jewelry. When a person in distress goes to a pawn shop, he pawns his  gold ring/watch/necklace for a loan. When gold was ripping to the upside, the pawn dealers, like  EZPW, DLLR and CSH soared–because loan volume went through the roof. In many cases, they (the publicly traded pawn shops) sold off the pawned jewelry  or scrapped it for big profits. However, ever since gold has collapsed, the other side of the blade has victimized the shares of your locally publicly traded pawn shop.

“The Fly” is all about making a bit of coin off of the backs and struggles of the Obama proletariat.

This is what is going to happen to EZPW.

They just started selling wares on AMZN and other third party sites. Very soon, they will launch their own website, which will be “bonus money” for the company, helping to alleviate inventory builds. Year over year gold write-downs will wind down by the end of 2014, setting up for brand new growth in 2015. Ever since gold dropped, the size of their average loan has declined by 2/3rds, since everything else of value is inside of a never-ending deflationary vortex. I am talking about electronics, to be specific.

As you can see, gold is doing well this year. The pawn shops have already taken out any semblance of growth due to their gold collateral from their models, so any appreciable upside is gravy at this point. In other words, these are great retailers, tailor made for a society in flux, like ours. Once they get the gold situation fixed, I suspect share prices will explode–especially EZPW due to their online strategy.

Twelve months from now I expect to see EZPW trading in the mid-20’s and would be shocked to see it under $18.

Fun fact: Janet Yellen presides from my olde dwellings in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge Brooklyn, NY. She even went to the local high school, Fort Hamilton, which later on became a cesspool for the vagrants traveling from untoward parts of Sunset Park. Had I known she was from Brooklyn, I might have changed my mind about going to “extreme cash,” since people from Brooklyn are rather liberal. However, sometimes, every so often, they can stab you about the neck and chest for a pair of sneakers or even corduroys.

Hell, I recall being on the platform of the N/R train, in Bensonhurst, bearing witness to a pack of savages from FDR High School toss fellow children into the tracks, striking them with hammers, whilst singing “I’ve been working on the railroad.” True story.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I should begin buying stocks tomorrow, no matter what. I have 5 solid stocks, some distressed, others momo, that need to be purchased, regardless of whether Yellen stabs us in the neck of not.

Investing is for the living and cash feels like death.

I wanted to buy EZPW because their stores got hit post gold crash. With gold trading higher, it is the perfect way to play the yellow metal, indirectly. With ICPT trading higher, I wanted to buy GALT on Friday. And, as I’ve mentioned here on the blog, I deem SALE to be in the same league as YELP, perhaps a double from here. Oh, let’s not mention the 20% move in IFON, featured here last night.

Thus far, for me, 2014 is about missed opportunity. But I told you I’d hold 90% cash until after Yellen speaks tomorrow. After all, I am a man of my word.

TXTR, DLLR, CSH and ANGI are also of interest to me. And, with RPTP and GALT trading higher off the ICPT jump, CNAT may follow through. That’s all I have for you today.

So I made it this far without offing myself because of missed opportunities. I might as well wait another whole day to see what our new Chief of the Fed will say. My best guess is more of the same. There isn’t a reason for her to bend to the caprices of the market into a rally. As new Fed head, she needs to show the market who’s boss. Ben did it when he got the nod and the market hated him for it. We longed for the days of Super Nerd Allan Greenspan. However, that affection soon morphed into uncontrollable rage, as citizens of the proletariat blamed him for the entirety of the financial crisis, via his insane rate hikes.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record; but it’s entirely possible that Yellen, for lack of a better phrase, is insane.

Something to chew on as you buy chinese burrito accounting suprises.

This is a very bittersweet moment for me. On a plus side, I am genuinely happy to see the good folks at YELP do well. I live by their service and believe they are making the world a better place. Are you?

The bitter side of me laments YELP hitting $100 without me. Valuation borders of the obscene absurd. For the home gamers out there, that’s like a lot of craziness out there, so crazy it’s beyond reproach. But who am I to judge, as I am a simple-mere servant and slave to the markets? YELP is going higher because investors see the forest through the trees. They realize the business is worth many, many, many billions of dollars. As a matter of fact, it’s probably worth more than $10 billion– eventually.

I was long YELP since $14. I last sold it in the $60’s after promising not to. I broke my promise and that’s why I am stuck holding my testicles today.

There are many other YELP’s, by the way.

ANGI is so cheap; they can miss earnings and still go up. Another one to keep on your radar, for a long time, is SALE. They are to coupons what YELP is to reviews. They are killing it.

Lastly, I want to discuss diamond wire saws and why a certain stock is a buy because of it. But not just yet.

I was gonna buy it; but why bother? The market cap is so small, I’ll end up burying myself in a sea of illiquidity if this should seize up.

BEHOLD:

The VERYKOOL [sic] smartphone, made by IFON.

Here’s what I know:

Their suite of phones are entirely retarded, yet they seem to be selling quite a few in Latin American countries. Their market cap is a paltry $42 million and sales are ramping. According to their last earnings release:

 

“We shipped 477,000 handsets this quarter, a 166% increase compared to unit shipments in the particularly soft third quarter last year.  Sales to customers in South America more than doubled, and sales in Central America increased by 59%.  Our efforts to realign our cost structure reduced total operating expenses by 23% compared to the prior year period and produced a profitable quarter.  We continued to refresh our product portfolio by expanding our Xtreme line of ruggedized handsets with the verykool®RS90 “Vortex” smartphone and introduced the verykool®s470 “Black Pearl,” a powerful smartphone with a quad-core processor, Android 4.2 and a 4.7″ HD screen.”

InfoSonics reported net sales for the third quarter of 2013 of $9.9 million, which represented a $4.5 million, or 84%, increase from $5.4 million for the third quarter of 2012.  As noted above, net sales to carrier customers in South America doubled and sales to customers in Central America grew 59%.  Sales were also strong to U.S. based distributors selling to customers in Latin America and Mexico.

Gross profit for the third quarter of 2013 was $1.8 million, a 60% increase from $1.1 million in the 2012 third quarter, reflecting the significantly higher level of net sales.  Gross margin as a percent of net sales in the 2013 third quarter was 18.5% compared to 21.2% in the 2012 third quarter.  The lower gross margin this year reflects the sale of slow moving inventory at reduced prices and margins, as well as a decrease of private label sales to customers in EMEA and APAC.

Operating expenses in the third quarter of 2013 of $1.8 million declined 23% compared to $2.3 million in the 2012 third quarter.  Reduced spending in a number of areas resulted in a 13% decrease in selling, general and administrative expenses.  R&D expenses fell by 58%, reflecting savings associated with the consolidation of our China development team earlier in the year into one location in Shenzhen.

Net income for the third quarter of 2013 was $34,000, or $0.00 per share, compared to a net loss of $1.2 million, or $0.08 per share, in the third quarter of 2012.

At September 30, 2013, the Company had $15.8 million in working capital, including $1.9 million in cash and restricted cash, and no outstanding indebtedness.  Cash and restricted cash balances declined by $4.5 million compared to the June 30, 2013 balances primarily as a result of increased accounts receivable incident to the increased sales level.

If this trend continues, there’s no reason to believe it cannot trade at 1.5x sales, which is 50% higher than current levels, not to mention a much higher multiple can be affixed when extrapolating its recent growth rate. The truth is, I know very little about this name and just started exploring its potential. The market cap makes it too small for me to play in any significant way. But that shouldn’t preclude the pikers out there reading, who tend to experiment in the world of high finance, playing Gordon Gekko, with their 4 figure Zeeco accounts.