The Market Is Not FAANG — Doubled Down on Previous Purchases

This is it boys — what separates the men from the catamites. Markets are in plunge mode and everyone is running around with their cocks on fire. I believe this is a fine occasion to buy the blood. I cannot think of a worse case scenario than this pin action.

The core of the issue are FAANG stocks, tanking lower by more than 3%. This is spooking investors and providing reasons to sell or avoid buying dips.

Markets are -550 from this morning’s highs. I suspect to see a cascade of selling soon; but hopeful that pessimism will provide smart money with a clean avenue to position into seemingly attractive valuations.

Stocks are all technicals, up until the point they tank — then fundamentals matter.

I bought the following, now all 10% positions. Cash is now 25%.

FIVN, HUBS, ZEN, UPLD, ZUO, DATA, NTNX

My stops on these positions will be tight, but I want to see the action tomorrow before making a final determination.

Life is a series of gambles — this is one of them.

We’re in the process of bottoming out now. Do you want to know how I know this? I don’t mean to be glib or provide you with an obnoxious form of candor, but the last of the bulls are now squealing and social media is abuzz with doomsday callers, all lining up to be executed by the market.

I don’t know this for sure, naturally — which is why I am 60% cash. But I am feeling bullish and I do like the market reversal today, as it sends the last bull to the gallows of misery hoping for an expeditious hanging.

My game plan is as follows.

Buy more. After those stocks dip further, buy again, and then wait. If the market turns against me, I’ll be out of these positions by Wednesday. But timing a bottom is hard, especially one wrought with fear. It’s a delicate process that requires a surgeons hand, steady and firm, yet skilled.

I am a Doctor, after all.

Morning lads

I just got done cooking a second breakfast, this time some eggs with a béchamel sauce — with a side order of more prosciutto. Markets have clung to the highs and I made a bunch of purchases this morning, most of which are now lower. But I knew that heading into the market. Timing bottoms is a very hard thing to do, especially when markets dislocate and plunge. If you’re buying into a bad tape, it’s a religious experience. You’ve got to have father in what you’re doing and you can’t second guess yourself, unless your stops get hit.

Now if the market reverses today, it’s true, I’ll both feel and look like a complete jackass. But that’s the price one has to pay when speculating in this tape. Let me remind you once again, 75% of my assets are invested in a quant account that is 100% long. I do not look at it intra-month. It is rebalanced the first of each month.

Back to the present tape.

Breadth is 78%, about the same in tech, and all you fucking catamites can talk about is AMZN. Hello, no one gives a flying fuck about Amazon. We’ve got BIG BLUE in the house, ripping out bullshit third tier cloud companies at 63% premiums.

If the market is going to be fine, it will bounce this week. There are no two ways about it. Either buy now and hold your breath, or stay short, betting on an end of days scenario to play out.

Which do you think is the higher probability play?

There’s nothing worse than being short like a fucking idiot when the market turns and bottoms. I’ve endured this humiliation before and it always begins with days like this — piss poor rallies that look like they’ll fade. Fuckers in bear costumes pile back in, hoping for the kill, only to be unceremoniously EXECUTED later on in the day.

I sold all of my inverse ETFs, and my upside bond ETF, because I am done betting on the downside. Yeah, I know, markets can still truck lower. But we’re already down huge and this open might be a prelude of things to come, a fucking strong as shit rally attempting to bust loose and cave in your faces for betting against it.

It’s hard to make money as a trader. Don’t let anyone lie to you or say otherwise. Feel free to hit them hard in the face. But this shit is an easy decision. Booked gains in the inverses, more than 12% in DRIP. Fine by me.

Now I’m in cash, 95% cash, waiting for the next move.

In recent weeks, I haven’t given a damn in hell about my health. I suppose it has something to do with my schedule, being too busy to play with the barbells at the gym. Now that I’ve stopped obsession over health and fitness, I’ve gone the other way and have began eating like a true barrel ass.

This morning I made myself some black coffee and instead of drinking it black, I drank it with half and half. I also took some of that half and half, cracked a fucking egg in it, a little vanilla and copious amounts of cinnamon, and made myself a French toast with some leftover brioche bread. Believe me, there had to be at least 10,000 calories in it. Because my son accidentally ordered 2 lbs of prosciutto at Whole Foods this weekend, I took some of that shit and fried it up real nice. After the fat had rendered, I took some maple syrup and fucking deglazed the pan with it (hahahahahaha) — and then dumped it onto the buttery French toast and prosciutto.

What an unhealthy breakfast! And you know what? I don’t give a shit.

This morning’s big news is the knuckle dragging apes from IBM paid a 63% premium to acquire RHT. Wall Street is getting real excited about that merger — mainly because we’re desperate to bounce.

Nasdaq futures are +100. Let’s not assert our bias unto the market just yet. Let her breathe and absorb the fuckery of the margin liquidations first, in order to see if she can deal with the elements before taking action.

I live for this sort of shit. I get to see a tragic economic collapse from afar, totally not affecting me in the smallest of ways. I think about this and then I say to myself “what the fuck is wrong with me, I must be an evil man or some shit.” But then I start to think about how charitable I am here on the blog, offering ideas and stratagems for free — helping those who are mentally retarded make a living in stocks, and then I feel good about myself again.

Truth is, I don’t want to see China go away, or suffer too severely. It’s just en entertaining thing to watch, from a market perspective. Am I right?

If you agreed, you’re an evil bastard.

Early indicators suggest a great weakening is occurring in China.

“The early indicators show that economic conditions continue to weaken both on the domestic and external fronts,” Bloomberg Chief Asia Economist Chang Shu said. “Economic sentiment is very poor, particularly among small private firms. We expect policy support for the economy to continue to broaden to all aspects of growth — exports, consumption and investment.”

And the WSJ is out with a fucking Tommy Gun hit piece on Chinese PE, pointing to lack of unicorn growth because investors think the whole bag of flaming shit is about to get stomped the fuck out.

The tide is suddenly turning against some of China’s most valuable technology startups.

After months of surging valuations among dozens of private companies in the world’s most populous nation, investors are growing cautious about businesses that are burning through cash rapidly or that are encountering hiccups in their growth strategies.

In recent weeks, several Chinese tech unicorns—private companies valued at more than $1 billion—have struggled to meet fundraising targets, according to bankers and investors. A few have delayed plans for initial public offerings, while some investors have lowered their estimates of the worth of one of China’s top startups.

“Pessimism is spreading,” said Shen Meng, director at Chanson & Co., a Beijing-based investment bank. Sharp declines in the stocks of both major and recently listed Chinese tech companies alike are also stoking investors’ skepticism toward unicorn valuations, he added.

It’s all over ChinaFAGS. The end of days is here, now.

Chinese shares are down 1.4%, up from an earlier 3.2% deficit.

IBM is going to acquire those edgy rebels at RHT, for $190 per share or $34 billion. As such, Nasdaq futures are +75 and everyone is jerking off to the idea that IBM is going to save the country from harrowing stock market losses.

This could, perhaps, be the only way to save us from crashing lower.

Good old IBM will keep on buying companies for massive premiums in order to keep the rally going. The good times must continue and IBM is just the company we need, at this time, to bail out fledgling companies with asinine business models — such as RHT.

Cheers!

The South China Post is owned by Ali Baba and Ali Baba is controlled by the communist party. Fucking everything is controlled by the communist party in China, so anything published there is most likely a direct message to the world, from China.

Here’s China thanking President Trump for crushing their hopes and dreams, trying to set back the country 100 years to a landscape filled with garbage and rice farmers.

Source: South China Post

Now it is time Chinese leaders took effective action to remove the dark cloud of uncertainty and anxiety from the minds of the Chinese people about the country’s direction. So much has been written about how US President Donald Trump’s hostile stance, including his trade war against China, would adversely affect the Chinese economy.

Chinese leaders have also repeatedly warned that complex external factors have contributed to the slowing economy.

But, come to think of it, this is not about Trump and his intention to contain the rise of China, through a trade war or otherwise.

As repeatedly argued in this space, in many ways, the Chinese should truly thank Trump for what he is doing towards the country. Without his actions, the Chinese government would not have scaled down its over-the-top propaganda drive about how amazing China has become, nor would it have been forced to reflect on its own limits and pitfalls. Nor, more pertinently for Chinese consumers, would China have been so forthright in lowering or even removing tariffs on imports including consumer goods and drugs, which it has done three times in the past year or so.

This is all about China itself, which direction it will take, and what China should do to counter the headwinds it faces.

China calling out China for market rigging propaganda. Rich.

In a bid to shore up confidence in the country’s slowing economy and faltering stock markets amid escalating trade tensions with the US, Liu played down the impact of the trade war, promised that the government would channel more funds into the stock markets, and urged investors to calm down and believe in a better tomorrow. But he failed to outline specific measures.

This was a typical ploy by the Chinese government to talk up the markets whenever they were in the doldrums, but the trick seemed briefly to work. The stocks rose strongly the following day but continued to weaken afterwards. Indeed, the official rhetoric about reform and opening up sounded all too familiar, but the leaders’ actions have indicated otherwise. Understandably, people inside and outside China remain confused about the government’s mixed signals.

And finally China tells China to do something about, quit talking cheap, and focus on internal issues.

While the government vows to take the high road in the trade war and portray itself as a global champion of trade, it has started to preach “self-reliance” to build up its own technologies so as to reduce its dependence on the US.

That pitch may seem fitting as the US has indicated it will try to curb China’s technological advances, but the attempt to highlight its self-reliance has reminded many of a bygone era in which the country was closed to the outside and self-reliance was the only option.

Chinese leaders have long preached that in face of complex external pressures, the government should decline to dance to the tunes of others and instead focus upon doing its own work right and well.

As the saying goes, talk is cheap – show me action. ?

These people are fucking lunatics. If you read between the lines, they’re priming people for harder times — by implying things aren’t going back to the way they were — and how the government should instead focus on internal demand aka consumerism.

Enough is enough. The bears had their fun and the trade wars aren’t easy and pleasant anymore. I’ve been analyzing the data very closely and we’re very close to having a nervous breakdown. About 20% of stocks are off by 20% the past month, with a very large percentage of stocks just behind the threshold.

What’s important to note, as the market dropped, both bonds and gold were defensive. This is exactly how a bear market might play out, or something akin to a poor tape. Bear in mind, sometimes these squalls last awhile, and could persist for another 6 months before heading back up. I don’t have enough information yet to make that assertion. After all, the economy seems to be doing fine. Although I did not like the Beige Book data and what that mean for the consumer. There is an economic slowdown being priced in now.

Interestingly, the SAAS sector has been hit the hardest, mainly because it was the hottest sector. This is why we have stop losses people. Had I held onto these stocks, I’d be dead right now, blogging from beyond the grave.

I am going to show you a chart of the QQQs next and I do not want you to look at it with trend lines or support/resistance levels in mind. Look at it and think of ownership and how people obsess over their cost basis and how it might effect overall investor psychology.

A house of pain has been built upon a very weak foundation. If we continue to travel lower at this rate of speed, I’m afraid it could portend a truly brutal dislocation in markets that would make you regret the day you opened up a brokerage account. Lots of accounts are underwater now and we’re at a point in this narrative where the buyers must assert themselves, else risk losing longer term investors who have stops at or slightly above their cost basis.

Should we rally, just know and understand, it will not be a V shaped recovery. There’s too much technical damage. It looks like a giant head and shoulders there, which means that shoulder might run into a buzz saw of sellers and we might just barrel back down and retest the lows.

I’m assuming we bottom soon and we get to retest that shoulder. If a different narrative plays out, a complete breakdown into the danger zone, we’ll likely form a new shoulder upon bouncing at a lower level, which would only serve to complicate matters more, and build another layer of uncertainty into the market.

Did I confuse you?

Bottom line: we must bounce next week.

What a day. All dicks aside, I feel sorry for anyone trying to figure out near term direction of this tape, myself included. I have so much god damned experience and an innate sixth sense that helps me navigate these tapes, I can only image how ordinary folk are feeling now.

I can tell you this with absolute certainty.

This isn’t an ordinary sell off and the market is trying to communicate something.

What is it trying to tell us? No way of knowing now, until after the fact.

I will say, we’re oversold and people really want stocks to recover. The President wants stocks to recover. The Fed doesn’t give a shit.

In the big scheme of things, this is a significant move in standard deviation in the broader indices, perhaps the most since 2011.

With regards to my inverse ETFs, I’ll hold them another day or two. Best case scenario, we fucking crash thru the floor boards on Monday and I’m able to walk away like a true boss with immense profits in tow. But life doesn’t always work out so smoothly.

In case you missed it, we’re launching a new white glove service at iBC, one that includes me telling you what’s going on in markets, via live calls, one on one. Frankly, boot camps with large groups isn’t good enough — because it doesn’t specify specific needs. Read about it here, and please take the survey.