The Interim Tabbed Blogger Spot Might Come and Go

Elections are supposed to be held for two interim blogger spots tomorrow. However, due to the condition of the markets, a general malaise dominates the financial blogosphere. This has always been the case and any blogger worth his/her salt can tell you that crisis drives traffic. Without it, people read gossip rags and sports.

No one really want to read about stocks, unless of course you are a professional–wanting to hone your trade. Even so, the nature of the business has everyone believing that they are gurus, more apt to ignore the wisdom of others than heed it.

Back to the subject at hand.

Blogging is a ridiculously unrewarding task. I’ve spent thousands of hours on this site, ignoring my core business, for what? To this date, I am unsure.

At first there was an idea that we could get real big, real fast, and somehow make a fortune. But that was stupid talk, as I was surrounded by yam eating procrastinators. I soon realized that the only way to operate a website like iBC was through profitability. We have a few flagship products and overhead is low. We’ve never taken venture capital money because I never wanted a boss.

I am always on the lookout for professionals, blogging and investing. There might be a person out there reading who is a natural writer, talented in the literary arts, who will be able to drive traffic. That’s valuable to me.

Also, there might be a person out there who is a superb investor/trader and can help  assist the army of retards who read this site. That’s even more valuable to me.

If you can do both, you’re hired.

Those of you who want a chance at earning a permanent spot amongst the iBankCoin staff writers need to declare so in the blogger network tonight or tomorrow. If the response is muted, I’ll just wait until the markets enter crisis mode again, as many of you will be ever-so-interested to read about stocks then.

I really wanted to buy two stocks today, but couldn’t pull  the trigger for a variety of reasons. I will give you one of them: KWK. Natural gas stocks caught fire today and this stock has been abused. I’m not done doing research on it, but have warmed to the idea that equity holders sold the stock down too far. The bonds are behaving nicely, with senior unsecured paper trading ABOVE par. Compare that to the JRCC paper and you have a night and day difference.

This is a distressed stock and anything can happen. The company needs to recapitalize and raise funds through asset sales, just like CWEI. The eye opening divergence between the bonds and the stock is noteworthy.

The other stock is still on hold until I can do more research.

For the day, I edged up by 0.5%, fully retarded leveraged to the upside. I have a bunch of positions up double digits, old man stocks that I’ve been holding for awhile. Names like PEP, CHD, WM, RS, and KMB have served me well.

I was thinking about shorting more AG and JCP today. But my liquidity was too low to make a meaningful contribution. Frankly, I don’t feel like selling any of my positions just yet. And, at the same time, have become slightly alarmed by the low quality nature of this rally. The very worst stocks in the world are rallying, always a prerequisite for a calamitous drop.

Nevertheless, I insist we will drift higher until 4/15, at which time “The Fly” will liquidate the lion share of this positions to protect his bountiful gains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFBRJFN3p8

I added to my WNC position.

I am up 16% for the year and the idea flow keeps coming. I have people from all over offering up ideas, reminding me to be careful. That being said, I have 110% long exposure here, which would be 140% if not for my shorts in CCL, AG and JCP. Essentially, I’ve run out of money and can’t do anything, unless I shuffle the deck.

Even after today’s moves, I am up double digits in both my JCP and AG shorts. If given the chance, I might short CMG here, after hearing rumors that comps went negative. But then again, I am skeptical of anyone offering up such information as to what the motives might be, considering the stock is up so much.

I have another idea, this one delivered at my door from the Devil himself. However, I cannot relinquish it to you just yet. It’s for closers only.

I got my Carl Icahn (HLF) going up and everything else seems to be falling into place, rather methodically, without any semblance of volatility. It’s a serene feeling of calmness, as $1,000 bills whistfully falls onto the meadow, bestowed and reserved only for the very brightest and the best wall street has to offer.

Draghi and the rest of his european friends will get to enjoy -0.1% “growth” this year, paving the way for a HUGE rally in the markets. Look at the euro, up more than 0.7% 0.9%. I do not lie.

A great man once said “The worse off the people, the better off stocks and good quality cigars.”

In other news, Rand Paul quit his filibuster after just 13 hours. I’d expect a man interested in preserving the constitution to go at least 14. Apparently he takes issue with Obama’s insistence on killing Americans at home, in their sleep or in front of the old teevee, with drones. As a matter of fact, I see nothing wrong with this and feel our founding fathers would agree with Obama on this very important matter of national security.

Americans are the greatest threat to America. They eat all of the food, get sick, and commit acts of crime. Eventually someone is going to have to regulate them, vis a vis killing them with high-tech military equipment.

Lucky for me, my house is fitted with a titanium roof, alien technology to fend off any superfluous drone attacks upon my residence.

It looks like markets will trade up again. Enjoy the ride until tax day.

I was always an ardent supporter of the precious metal trade. It made sense, especially when central banks across the globe printed money with reckless abandon. However, let’s be clear about a few things.

1. There isn’t any inflation, only asset reflation.

2. Central banks are able to control the price of gold and have demonstrated such prowess for hundreds of years.

Thirdly, the bastard Tea Party lost the election and are now getting the business from the demented lunatics on the leftside of wacky. All that aside, even if gold went straight up, how safe are those mines in Africa? Are you telling me they won’t be nationalized?

Here’s what I know to be true: a dog is a dog. I am going to show you two sets of stocks, one set is priced for perfection, the other hardly priced at all.

All of the above stocks are rip roaring winners. Some of you want to short them. That’s a god damned mistake. The market is at new highs and we’re going higher. Why try to time tops by shorting the very best Wall Street has to offer? Sure, some of those stocks might drop a lot after an earnings miss. Call me crazy, I’d rather beat down the guy in the wheeled chair and toss him into frenzied oncoming traffic, than take on John Rambo in the jungle with nothing more than an army swiss knife.

Here is the second set of stocks.

Now that’s a group of wheeled chairs seniors waiting for the light to turn green at the corner of 42nd street and Lexington.

These stocks suck. No one cares about them and analysts don’t even bother talking about them anymore. Who is BIDU? I thought China banned the internet. Good luck with a stupid Chinese search engine.

But let’s not ignore the dominant theme of that list; it’s gold–stupid.

Both gold and silver surged today, much to the delight of dreadfully underwater fanatics. These people aren’t investors or traders, but psychopathic ideologues.

The rally in precious metals will be sold and the beat downs will continue until you are dead.

Fair warning.

The 2017 bonds closed at 86.6 x 90.81–sporting a yield to worst of 12.23%. There are only sellers in the bonds. The only ones that are firm are the 2015’s. But even those are being offered 4 points under par. Considering they are only two years out and $200 million deep, I find it interesting that they are being bid for at $93.

Why am I harping on JCP?

Well, this is one of those moments in market history that you are going to remember, the absolute and total destruction of a big box retailer–spearheaded by just one man–who arrived with a legacy and will leave in shame.

As the stock price drops, pressure will mount to raise capital. They aren’t going to sell more bonds, so it has to be stock. Just like the banks, circa 2008, prepare for a massively dilutive secondary, as management tries to shore up the balance sheet.

Until then, I will remain short. Even more, I will add to my short position on any spike.

I closed the day out down 0.15%, led by a lift in AG (I am short) and small declines in USG, WNC and BX. BZH curbed my losses.

Loser stocks are getting their time in the sun today, moving higher as everything else trades flat. Top sectors include: silver, coal, gold, aluminum, solar and minerals.

The very worst stocks are today’s flavour, a temporary phenomenon no doubt.

JRCC, ANR, PBR, VGZ, MUX, EXM, PAY, AMBA, PVG etc.

It’s like someone took the most down list and bought them all, as a sick joke of sorts and it panned out. Always keep your perversions discreet and never act upon base instincts.

None of these stocks are buys. Both CLF and AKS have horrific balance sheets. Did anything change from yesterday?

Yes and no.

The equity valuation is up sharply, but the underlying business is still impaired.

I am a seller, twice over, on these lifts. I will add to my AG short if it goes up another point. These garbage stock runs can last awhile, some even more than a week. But they fade, like all of the other garbage stock runs in the past.

Speaking of which, JCP can’t catch a bid. The lower the stock goes, the greater the pressure is for management to raise capital. Once the equity is eroded, there will be a panic to raise cash. They need to file a secondary offering right away. Get it over with, so that the company can exist for more than a year.

Any financing will be extremely dilutive to current shareholders. However, it will most likely save the company from bankruptcy, which is the current path–no doubt.

I added to my HLF position.

JCP debt starts to get scary in 2017, with $285 million due and no way to pay it, according to recent trends. Based on the current burn rate, ALL of JCPs cash will be gone in 2013, which will force them to tap their credit facility. The market will be sure to freak out if that happens. As you can see, the holders of JCP debt are already hitting the exits, with the 2017’s now @11.39%, yield to worst.

As for JCP CDS, they are now above 1,000.

As for the stock: I expect funds like Glenview Capital to liquidate their positions, since they were most likely copy catting Pershing Square anyway and retail doesn’t seem to be central to their funds theme.

The restructuring isn’t working and Ron Johnson needs to go. The best thing the board can do now is to fire Johnson, get a lift in the stock, and issue a massively dilutive secondary to help finance this train wreck through 2015.