18 years in Wall Street, left after finding out it was all horseshit. Founder/ Master and Commander: iBankCoin, finance news and commentary from the future.
ADP reported a net gain of just 117k jobs, way off of the fucking forecast of 170k+, which had already been revised lower from 200k+. But the Dow is at 4 year highs and PCLN is going to a $1,000 p/s. I’m fucking confused; what’s going on here?
Rest assured, with the elections around the corner, liquidity awaits in the balance, courtesy of the Federal Reserve.
Hey, PEP just upped their dividend to 4%. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather keep my cash in PEP than some fucking “savings” account yielding less than 0.5%.
European markets are now nosediving after opening strong as fuck. Blame it on a plethora of weak PMI’s. Look, I get it; Europe is fucked and we’re just scheming our way to prosperity. Regardless, I still like PEP and its 4% divvy.
Bottom line: we’re likely to give up yesterday’s gains–not a big deal in the BIG scheme of things. Go eat a sandwich.
If you are reading this post late at night, you are looking for answers, clues if you will, regarding the stock exchange. Mysteriously, AAPL has transformed from an autobot to portfolio decepticon, ripping through pension funds across the planet in a BIG CAP way. At the same time, earnings have become something to be shunned, because of the onerous nature of the misses. If you do well, TRIP is your fate. If by chance the quarter is less than stellar, you might find yourself OPEN to some capital losses.
I don’t want to talk about my oversized position in YELP because it wasn’t supposed to play out like this. I was overweight and the stock spring-boarded higher by 50% in 3 days. For whatever reason, I never took profits and bought more as it went lower. The biggest fuck up about this strategy is the share volume seized up, effectively shutting the door for me to make an honorable exit. If I were to pare my position, it would certainly hit the stock.
On top of that, I now find myself in the untenable position of having close to 30% of my assets in a single name that is about to report earnings for the first time as a publicly traded entity.
I hope you appreciate the gravity of the situation that I find myself in.
Although I love YELP, as a product, I have no way to gauge it as a business, just yet. My favorite social media companies are TRIP and YELP. TRIP reported a stellar number this evening, let’s hope YELP does the same. Again, I have no edge going into this report, totally exposed from the superfluities of their fucking CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, who reminds me of a nerdier Einhorn- if at all possible.
My options are limited: delve into the options market and buy illiquid put contracts, pare down my position tomorrow or ride and/or die.
This is why I opted to bulk up on old man stocks, paying big dividends, in order to offset the insanity of my YELP position. Just so you know, the month of May is a particularly onerous one for the markets, one that favours the stability of conservative/defensive stocks. In The PPT, I just posted the seasonality report for May. Go check it out.
One way or another, the market is set to make a big move in May.
Just in case you were wondering, in the month of April, the S&P traded down 0.64% (the first down month of 2012), while the nasdaq traded down more than 1%. In 2011, the nasdaq traded down 1.2% in May and in 2010 -7.5%.
The Dow hit new highs today, but most of my stocks were lower. They weren’t down enough to alert me to danger. They were down just enough to depress me into second guessing my bullish stance.
Stocks reversed sharply off their highs, with stocks like AAPL vomiting it all up into the bell. My “big winners” were WM and PEP–truly a sad state of affairs.
After being up more than 1% this morning, slowly but surely, I gave it all up and closed at the absolute lows of the day, off by 0.5%. The big winners were commodities, a sector I have been avoiding.
While it’s true, we are in a bull market. It’s also true, this is one hell of a stock pickers tape. It is not easy.
It’s May Day and that means something to the homosexuals in Europe. Here in the states, vagrants roam the streets of Wall, trying to “occupy” something. The west is dead. It’s only a matter of time before barbarians from the east conquer our lands and force us to work in FOXCONN slave factories, making Ipods for TIM COOK.
I sense complacency in this tape. In other words, a do nothing day deserves a nap. Fuck this shit, I’ve slept about 10 hours over the past 10 days. I’m gonna head out now to sleep like a fucking crocodile on the couch. Should any of you bother me, I will bit your fucking hands off.
As long as AAPL is rebounding today, the world is okay.
Finally, VLO had great numbers; but the stock is circle jerking. I like ABV based upon the laws of mathematics, and other shit that I am not privy to mention in these hallowed halls.
As your host here on iBankCoin, I felt it was my duty to describe what I do here, exactly. Compare and contrast the ongoings here– to other financial websites– and you will find the other sites are penned by pussies, lacking grit, also without top hat and smoking jacket. I hope you understand the significance of the statement.
I was placed in a pot of hot boiling water since young, dealing with adversity, widowed mother, impoverished and without snacks. Hard times.
It wasn’t chance that Le Fly was plucked out of his high school class by a mutual fund manager from Seligman, after reading an article written by a young space alien magician. Shortly thereafter, Plutonium Petey was opening mail for one of the biggest mutual fund managers in the country, clad in chinese delivery man shirts, extraordinarily rough around the edges.
The dominos were set in motion from that point; but it was only the beginning.
During the Asian contagion crisis, penniless and dejected, Senor Tropicana was left with just one client. He was a southern gentleman of extreme importance, with a proclivity to gamble. He had no business entrusting me with his money, since I was out of my league. But he gave me a shot.
As the crisis deepened, my wife and 1 year old son waited for me at home, basement apartment, owned by a fucking moron. About $35k in credit card debt soon ballooned to $50k, as my income remained nil for a period of 4 months, without abatement.
No one to rely upon but myself.
I capitulated, opting for the idea of a “salaried job” at one of the discount houses. I could make $50k in a good year, modern day union job, without the fucking union. But I was so depressed, my interview performances were abhorrent. No one wanted to hire someone who was moping around in chinese delivery man shirts, like a fucking loser, inverse of boss.
There is nothing dramatic about what I am about to tell you: there was no option but success from that point. I hit bottom, which coincided with the bottom of the market, in the gloomy months of 1998.
My southern gentleman client had just $20k with me. That was the entirety of my assets under management. I went to work.
Inside of 6 months, his account appreciated to $200k. My roster of clients expanded quickly through referral, as I went on a 15 for 15–dick hanging long– winning streak of leveraged excellence.
I was making $50k per month.
Since then there have been several peaks and valleys, namely 2001, when I wiped out my brokerage account– margin call style. But I had already learned the lesson, which was nothing was able to stop me, if I played the game with energy and better than the dork next to me.
Stay tuned for iBankCoin’s redesign launch. I think you will like it.
Those bozos were down 1.6% today; and we barely down-ticked.
Life is good as an American, unless your name is Andrew Breitbart or the coroner who investigated his cause of death. Things here have a certain way about them, always to the good, for the benefit of, nothing to do with you.
Municipalities need to support their pension funds and large corporations have under-funded pensions in the billions. Because of these two factors, we all get a free ride, with regards to government intervention in markets. Google “executive order 12631.”
Apple got the shit kicked out of it today, down sharply since earnings. More specifically, down sharply since I went long. No worries, as it constitutes less than 1% of my assets. Apple could go to zero and I’d still stir the milk into my tea the same fucking way.
You know me, heavily long YELP into earnings, playing with my WNR ahead of a big quarter. The rest of my assets are lodged in high dividend payers. Companies like GIS, KMB and WM. At the present, I have a curious blend of aggressive/conservative investments. Naturally I believe it will result in my betterment.
Bottom line: today’s sell off was bullshit. Prepare the horses for a journey, towing the COCAINE CHUCK WAGON to the edge of the cliff, AND MORE.
I sold out of my EXK position for a 10% win, booked on just a one week hold. My right hand man, ChessnWine, was buying MNST last week and had members of 12631 get in. Yeah, fuck with us.
At any rate, I am continuing the path set forth a week ago, embedding myself in “grandpa stocks,” as it is my custom to do so. Through habit and good form, I’ve always felt it was my right to trail-blaze a path for the less cerebrally fortunate. As such, I am here to tell you the money you are looking for is in fact hidden in catacombs, guarded by men in wheeled chairs.
These people know me very well and welcome me into their world. After selling my EXK position, I got a tip from a 120 year old man, who said, and I quote “ABV is paying a nice little dividend and everyone in Europe is drunk and stupid.” He then started beating his orderly with his oak cane. But let’s not get into that right now. So I bought a little ABV, on this dip right here.
Just like my EXK purchase, solely based upon the OVERSOLD readings in The PPT; ABV is being flagged as OS in our 3 mo algo.
Look, I am facing a rather large battle this week, one that can make or break my year: YELP earnings. I have 30% of my assets locked away in YELP, fully exposed to the caprices of their eccentric, but sharp, CEO: STOPPELMAN.
Energy Transfer Partners is buying SUN for over $50 per share. Let me explain to you how this works.
SUN is the biggest piece of shit company on the planet. However, due to the lack of refineries in this once proud nation, their assets are worth more than $5 billion to Energy Transfer Partners. Because you have the brains of small children/dogs, I will walk you through the process of making money in this sector. As you know by now, Carl “give me three seats on your fucking board” Icahn is trying to acquire CVI. God only knows what Carl will do with CVI if they actually sell to him. At this stage, I believe Carl suffers from dementia. However, there are other players involved in CVI.
THE WAGONS ARE CIRCLING AROUND THE REFINERS.
As you recall, even DAL was interested in buying some refineries to offset the insane price of jet fuel.
THIS ALL LEADS BACK TO THE WNR.
Sure, there are other well managed refiners, like HFC and DK. But none of them offer the allure of a leveraged bet on crack spreads like WNR. With SAC capital and Appaloosa involved in the name, I like to believe there is ample support, a bid if you will, for the shares of WNR. Now the company is slated to report earnings this week, so don’t get all overzealous and shit with any buys. But this is where the money in the oil sector is being made. Fuck all of your wells and equipment companies. I am taking money directly out of the pockets of joy riding Americans and placing it into my coffers, via WNR.
As an aside, the MSFT deal with BKS will serve to teach short sellers a variety of life lessons today. With futures soft and Europe down, look for modest profit taking this morning. Nonetheless, defensive stocks should offer safe haven.
There has been a lot of debate about whether housing has bottomed or not. From first hand experience, shopping for homes in NJ, I can tell you, emphatically, that prime real estate is in feverish demand. Literally, quality homes are being sold within 2 weeks of listing, if that long. For the house that I purchased, I actually paid at a premium, setting a new benchmark for the area.
About a month ago, USG announced their price hikes for sheet rock was accepted and absorbed by customers, sending the shares soaring. Then the market softened and housing stocks traded down. But in the big scheme of things, they have been greatly outperforming the SPY for more than a year.
Here is proof.
Using The PPT‘s correlation tool, still in BETA, here is the raw data for residential construction and the spread versus SPY, over a number of time frames.
As you can see, residential construction stocks have outperformed during ALL timeframes.
Here are the stocks that populate the homie index.
I recently got shaken out of cabinet maker MAS. But there are other plays still worth exploring, aside from the obvious listed above.
Lumber stocks, like LL and LPX, are interesting. USG and other material plays like VMC, RPM, BECN, MLM, EXP, TREX, CX and PATK have my interest. And, there are a variety of retail oriented stocks on my radar, particularly BBBY, PIR, FBHS, BLDR, ETH and VAL.
If indeed housing truly makes a comeback, I could see internet related names, like RATE, Z and ANGI, ripping tits to the upside. For the most part, the data isn’t there to support these moves. However, sometimes the market knows the future.
This is my final post for the day. I want you to stop attributing this run to end of month mark ups. You are being childish. Small pleb, the market is straight up for 6 months, with very little deviation from the primary trend.
There are drawdowns and not every sector is lighting faces aflame. Generally speaking, we’re in a fucking bull market and you’re gonna have to deal with that reality sooner or later.
The news is so bad, so disastrous, investors are Constanza trading with blinders on just to make themselves feel normal about life again. It’s hard to accept the fact that Spain is in the deeper depression than Kansas, circa 1930. Nevertheless, companies are banking extreme coin, leeching off slave labor camps in Asia, namely FOXCONN.
Labor is cheap. Natural gas energy is free and liquidity is plentiful.
Ninety percent of Americans have a job. But that doesn’t mean shit. The wealth in this country has been consolidated, readily found in the coffers of people, such as myself, for the benefit of society as a whole. We (1%er’s) are better stewards of American currency, than the factory union hack in 0hio.
It’s time to embrace the newest economy.
Everything is connected through Twitter/Facebook/Tripadvisor/Yelp/Pinterest, on a global scale. These venues will drive commerce like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Gone are the days when “The Fly” relegated his dining choices to some homo-hammer at Zagat. These days my choices are done local, via GPS, right on my fucking phone, provided by real people (no homo-hammer).YELP MOTHERFUCKERS! Twitter lets me know the news before the news knows the news. And Facebook gives me updates on the pathetic lives of some of my old friends, who are now fucktards, living the slow life, blue collared up like a janitor’s ass.
ANGI is interesting to me because contractors are scum bags. Angie’s List provides detailed reviews from real people who pay for membership. The fee is super cheap, like $20 per year, so it’s not punitive. But it keeps the riff-raff out and ensures the reviews are legit. It’s the Costco of home improvement review sites. Should housing gain traction, ANGI will double in share price, maybe more.
Finally, TRIP is running hard based off its parent co EXPE smashing estimates. Maybe OWW is worth a look? Unsure. But I do know TRIP is a long term hold, a future grandpa stock. NXPI smashed numbers last night, being a key provider to the iPhone and future enabler of the “digital wallet.” Learn up, son.
