You think the market is doing great, no? Guess again.
Up until recently, everything was cruising along just fine for tech. Then we were blessed with misses out of AKAM, NVDA, CTV, SYMC, X, just to name a few. Other names like MRVL, TEVA, NFLX, ERIC, WDC, STX, and a slew of gold stocks, have been picked off. Large cap names like GOOG, RIG, MT, BP, AA, BLK, MON, PBR, NOK, GILD, ADBE are all down more than 20% year to date.
So what’s working?
It’s a fucking chop-fest. It really is a mixed bag. Aside from the casinos, which are all up big, there is no definitive theme this year. Maybe cloud computing plays can be considered a “theme”; but that’s a fucking stretch. As cool as VMW and CRM are now; they are tomorrow’s lunch. Mark my words.
Care for a burrito led rally, via CMG? Pathetic.
CMI has been a big winner, as the trucking industry stabilizes. And WFMI has soared, likely due to the egregious spending habits of Mrs. Fly. But I cannot put my finger on any particular sector and say “I got to own it.” I have been in and out of 4g, Foreign and Commodity names. Heck, I even built indexes in The PPT to display my favorites. But, more often than not, staying too long in any basket of stocks has led to disappointment.
Chemical and Ag names are very volatile and 100% unpredictable. Every other week POT and MOS are swinging double digit losses or gains, while the chems boom and bust every month. Because of all of this, I’ve been pigeon holed into trading in and out, more than usual. My year to date gains are fantastic and I am in a good position to profit, in the event the market declines. But, what I really want to do, more than anything else, is pick a basket of names and buy them for months, without having to worry about 15% drops in the general indices.
Going into the final month of the summer, I am extremely apprehensive about the prospects of this market. I can see us sticking around these levels, inside of a 1-5% range. However, I cannot think of a scenario where this market survives the seasonal Fall “fuck you clown fucker, you’re dead” trading environment. All of the chickens will be coming home to roost soon. States need money and Republicans need seats. It’s not gonna be pretty and the consumer is floundering, as evidenced by the multiple contraction of many retailers.
Tomorrow is just another trading day. I will not put too much credence into the GDP numbers, mainly because it’s all bullshit. The name of the game is jobs. You can tell the jobs market is fucked up badly, simply by looking at the earnings of MWW: dreadful. And, let’s not forget, TLT is still hovering around $100 and the Yen goes up daily.
In short: get small or get raped.
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