iBankCoin
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.
Joined Nov 10, 2007
23,431 Blog Posts

Ham-N-Eggers

I’ve been here, dominating the financial blogosphere, for more than two years. I can tell you, with utmost certainty, you (the internet leech) are always wrong. Through ups and downs, the one consistent indicator has been your inadequacy.

Just four short weeks ago, these message boards were filled with predictions of mushroom clouds detonating over Los Angeles and bombs disguised as flowers being dropped out of rainbow colored blimps, over NYC. Now you’re all foam mouthed bullish—like rabid dogs or squirrels— gnawing away at dead bank carcasses and shit.

Much to my delight, the rainbow/blimp/flower/bomb scenario never panned out. However, I am still hopeful that some errant nuke might find its way west of Nevada.

“The Fly” has been busy with a lot of tedious shit, as of late. Every weekend, Mrs. Fly makes sure that “Mr. Fly” has no more than 5 seconds of idle time available to himself. After all, it’s spring time; there is much work to be done.

Look you, I’m selling banks, like a fur coated pimp in the South Bronx, into earnings. Unemployment is on the rise, especially in the Carolinas.

Here are some recent stats:

Employment Data – South

Unemployment (%)

Change

Feb-08

Jan-09

Feb-09*

Y/Y

M/M

North Carolina

5.2

9.7

10.7

5.5

1.0

Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord

5.2

10.5

11.7

6.5

1.2

Greensboro-High Point

5.4

10.6

11.6

6.2

1.0

Raleigh-Cary

4.1

7.9

8.8

4.7

0.9

Winston-Salem

5.0

9.2

10.4

5.4

1.2

South Carolina

5.7

10.3

11.0

5.3

0.7

Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville

4.6

8.6

9.1

4.5

0.5

Columbia

4.8

8.4

8.8

4.0

0.4

Greenville-Mauldin-Easley

4.8

9.2

9.8

5.0

0.6

Myrtle Beach-North Myrtle Beach-Conway

6.7

14.3

14.3

7.6

0.0

Based upon the BBQ sauce lovin’ hillbillies from the south goin’ broke, I want to sell short BBT. However, at the same time, due to government liars and cheats, I will pair that trade with a little STI; pardon me for suggesting such a thing on a Sunday evening—my apologies.

In short, get ready for some real good ol’ fashioned anti-climatic earnings, starting with the losers at AA, followed by a fresh round of government fuckery via uptick ruling.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-E63NXKavM 450 300]

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Conflicts of Interest?

You decide.

The upgrade of Kimco’s share price, by one of their lead underwriters (Merill), immediately following a shockingly dilutive secondary offering and reduction of their dividend, should raise an eyebrow or two at the SEC, providing they actually gave a fuck about these sort of things. I am sure they are quite busy now, trying to figure out who the short sellers are and how to effectively redecorate their offices.

At any rate, the God fearing folks over at Zero Hedge raise the subject of conflict of interest, with regards to the underwriter/publicly traded company relationship. Back in the go-go days of the late 90’s, it was standard operating procedure for the winning underwriter, of a much coveted deal, to return favor by upgrading the stock of their new client. In this case, believe you me, investment bankers are starving. A $700 million dollar raise is worth collusion, as evidenced by the fast fire upgrade and pump of KIM‘s share price.

Apparently the days of “pay to play” are back.

NOTE: Back in March, CS downgraded KIM, citing the company needed to raise $1bill, in order to get back in line with acceptable leverage ratios. With that in mind, even after this recent $700 mill raise, Kimco still needs to raise more capital.


CS_KIMFree Legal Forms

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Late Night Thoughts

No way the market has bottomed.

No way the economy is getting better.

No way Obama gets reelected if he allows the banks to bid up eachothers toxic assets with tax payer dollars.

No way Q1 earnings will buoy the market higher.

A little dose of reality is in order.

Indeud.

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THE DEATH OF HORATIO CLAWHAMMER

It’s all over folks. HORATIO CLAWHAMMER has been pummeled to a pulp and tossed into a toxic lake, just south of Asshatville. Let me just say, I’ve been through a lot of short squeezes. Most of the time I skirt them with hedges or quick fire covers. However, this fucking melt up in commercial real estate caught me off guard. I did not see it coming.

I can accept being off on my [[FAZ]] purchases, since banks will be banks. Those dastardly bastards! But this annihilation of SRS, in such short, graceful order, is very, very disconcerting.

My only other short, FXP, hardly moved.

As for my longs: TQNT, WRI, CIEN, GU, ISIL, STAR, TLAB, ERX (sold), DE and EZCH— they did great.

Bravo. Bravo for the man who bought chips and won, then got mugged on the way home, by a gang of big booted clowns.

Off to eat hotdogs, without the bun, and a hot mug of beer (I don’t deserve cold).

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CRE-mated

Boy did I get SRS wrong. Here I am, like a fucking jackass, betting against CRE, while the Fed is giving money away. The short squeeze taking place in commercial real estate is on an epic level. Now I know the longs are wrong and will be proven so in the long term. However, as of right now, it’s like watching a knife twist inside my eyeball.

To comfort myself, in erroneous fashion, I bought some WRI. I fucking hate WRI; so therefore it must be a terrific buy.

My other shorts in FAZ and FXP suck, but nothing like in CRE.

My longs are all headed in the right direction— thank the space invaders for that. But, I am fucking irate to the point of my head popping off, with this fucking bastard SRS eating dirt on a daily basis. On a very personal level, I should have sold it at $60 on Monday. Noooooo. I had to get greedy and hold on—for “one more day.”

To make matters worse, the losers at the SEC will vote next Wednesday to reinstate the uptick rule. By then, no doubt, my little SRS will be like $5 and I will blogging from the discomfort of my local mental health institution.

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End Game

You will know Bernanke and Co. are successful when oil is trading at $400 per barrel and it costs you $500 to fill up your tank. You will know Obama’s financial planning programs are successful when an apple costs $50 and you need to put your name on the waiting list for a bag of rice.

I am not a big believer in inflation yet, mainly because it is my belief lack of employment and assets gone wild will offset any and all inflationary measures taken by the Fed. However, if and when the economy does turn, your dollar will be worth less than grocery store jewelry.

As for this tape: tech is leading the way, big time. I like the story behind STAR, who make mobile core routers, providing bandwidth for smartphones—think blackberry, think Apple. The downside: by far VZ is their biggest client and 90% of their business derives from just 5 clients. However, they are trying to nail down Asian and European deals. If successful, the stock will double. As of now, they have 80% market share of the CDMA market, an awfully good bullet point for prospective European/Asian telecoms.

Also, across the board, chips are on fire. There, I like ISIL, EZCH, TQNT and AMKR. Within networkers, I like CIEN and TLAB. Finally, I bought some GU on a breakout and a little DE, just for the fuck of it all.

At the present, I am left with 15% cash, 40% long, 45% short.

UPDATE
: I bought more SRS @ $41.80.

UPDATE II
: I bought 10,000 WRI @ $10.60

UPDATE III: I bought more SRS @ $40.50.

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Fly Buys: GU, DE

I bought 10,000 GU @ $2.10. And, I bought 2,000 DE @ $36.75

Disclaimer: If you buy GU because of this post, Obama will ask you to step down from your position. And, you may lose money.

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Fade the Jubilation

I am eliminating my fucking cash position, since it is not the behavior of a distinguished gentleman to have large pools of cash, just lying around doing nothing.

My dilemma: it’s stupid to go “all in” after the fact. If I conducted myself in such a manner, to hell and with bollocks, I’d run out of savings inside of 3 months time.

Instead, I’ve decided on a hybrid model, which is: bet against the Cramer circle jerkers, via long FXP/SRS/FAZ, while at the same time long some pretty gnarly (garbagio) tech stocks, just in case the “Cramer clan” decided it’s 1999 again.

As an aside, the action in KIM, following a 70 million share offering, is impressive. However, with regards to REITS, I’m afraid if you are not long KIM, MAC or SLG today, you’re getting punched in the throat.

As for the banks:euro trash banks are still running. I can offer zero reasons to buy the insolvent AIB, yet here we are and the stock is up 25%. In addition, RBS, LYG, BCS and UBS are green. For the most part, U.S. bank bulls have had their fill and are running for the cold part of the volcano, away from the hot hot magma.

Finally, I like my chances here, whatever the fuck it is that I think I am doing. I haven’t quite figured out exactly what my agenda is just yet. Just know, whatever it is, I shall win. After I am finished winning, I shall win again.

The process just keeps on repeating itself. I swear, no lies.

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Fly Buys: ISIL, TQNT, EZCH, FXP, FAZ, SRS, CIEN, ERX, STAR

I am putting a shitload of money to work.

I bought ISIL @ $12.61, TQNT @ $3.00, EZCH @ $13.10, CIEN @ $8.68, STAR @ $14.77, ERX @ $27.65, FXP @ $22.55, FAZ @ $18.05 and SRS @ $46.80.

I am creating “Le Arte.”

UPDATE: I am buying FAZ/SRS/FXP into this weakness.

UPDATE II: Not feeling “earl” here. Sold out of ERX @ $27.60

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