This Tape Encapsulated in One Chart

*** iBC’s MERCH STORE IS OPEN NOW ***

Lots of ALL TIME RECORD HIGHS here today. We’ve got trillions of freshly minted dollars FLOODING into the fucking tape now and nothing can stop it. Oil is zero and BEYOND — fuck the fuck off. APA is up 93% the past month. Hell, the whole energy complex is up 35%. WE DO NOT NEED OIL TO POSSESS A VALUE IN ORDER FOR OIL STOCKS TO RACE HIGHER.

That is all.

Heavily in cash, one short, three longs. Ciao.

Just beneath the veneer of this market is something ugly. We’re apparently running higher because WTI is at $14. That alone is stupid. But if you compound that by the extravagance of the restaurant sector — well, one can make an argument for a bubble being created. This is not hyperbole. WING is +100% the past month to a NEW RECORD HIGH. The stock was struggling before the crisis. How does the closure of their stores cause the shares to hit a record high?

You tell me.

JACK is higher by 140% — because EVERYONE is apparently eating out. Or not.

The restaurant index is +50% the past month.

Today’s tape is being led by them, gold, and healthcare. But on the downside is just about every other important industry that faces the consumer. We have SHARPLY lower prices in apparel, airlines, REITs — you name it. I have a Corona Fears Basket in Exodus and have been tracking it all day. It was up 2% at the open, then 1.1%, then 0.6%, and now it’s not up at all but unchanged.

The Nasdaq is up 2.7%, but the smaller caps are up just 1.5%. This could be another one of the markets elaborate ruses, which is why I am 90% cash now. But I think now could be a good time to apply some shorts, especially into the final hour of trade. Should we get a fade in crude, we’ll tank. This is a LOW CONFIDENCE trade — but there is extraordinary weakness in stocks like MAC, LB, AEO, and all of the airlines today. I suppose we can run without them and the WING can go up another 50 points from here. Heck, anything is possible — but not likely.

I knew something was afoot yesterday. Oil had been so bearish, I viewed it as beyond bearish so severely — IT WAS BULLISH! If that makes any sense to you. In other words, stocks were supposed to be down a lot more — but hadn’t. Ergo, whether my mind could reconcile it or not, prices wanted higher. So I took out an arb trade and bought PE, TECL (3x tech) and FAZ. The net result was as follows.

(FAZ -3.8%)
PE +12.9%
TECL +3.6%

There isn’t a god damned day that goes by without a major win for Señor Tropicana. Now that everything is flying off the handle, with WTI +27% to the lofty price of $14, I’ve opted the fuck out of this mess. It is of course VERY tempting to go long here, gold, oil, tech, and have a grande olde time about it. But no, fuck that. NOT INTERESTED. I am 95% cash, waiting a little bit to see if it’s a trap.

I know, you have FOMO. You need to get in and play this — but you shouldn’t. Oil is, after all, at $14 and markets are very strong and the global economy is still shut. There will be plenty of time to be a champion. Now is the time to sit back and wait patiently, while binge watching your favorite show, reading a book, or perhaps chatting with total strangers and talking shit inside of Exodus.

Oil hit an intra day low of $6, off 70% for the day and Exxon traded up. High yield barely moved and leveraged loans were calm. In the face of this inextricable agony, oil climbed 100% off the lows to close above $13. My brain could not process what it was bearing witness to, so I sold out of everything instead of an old man stock and also 3x short SPX. Towards the end of the session, I sold it for +1.6%, bought an oil stock, went long 3x tech and hedged it with FAZ.

Basically, all cash, one old man stock, one oil stock, and an arb between banks going lower and tech going higher. This is an extremely pussified approach to the market. But to be honest I do not know what to expect next. This is one of those rare circumstances when asset prices do not make sense to me, so I am better off opting out.

I went into today heavily short and ended up closing those positions because of the stubbornness of market. WE SHOULD’VE BEEN DOWN 3,000+ points today, but instead went down garden variety.

In the real world, things look bleak. The finance world is fantasy island, a place where dreams comes true and the Fed sucks your dick.

In my heart, I want it all to end and collapse and people’s faces lit on fire. But then I think about the children and how they like to eat clammed chowder by the sea and how it isn’t their fault fuckhead BOOMERS ruined everything. I am a torn man and do not know what to do. I’ll figure it out soon enough. Until then, tune in for the next episode of Fly vs the world, live at Exodus.

Crude hit a low of $6 a short while ago and is now 50% higher from there — trading at $9. This is the June contract. The May contract went to NEGATIVE $37 yesterday, all the while markets remain very quiet and gingerly calm.

XOM is only down 1.5%.

If this shocks you it’s because it should.

High yield is barely down too — because the Fed is buying the debt. My question to them is, who will pay the interest on the debt, now that crude is worthless? How can they justify buying the debt of oil companies with the commodity in single digits? It’s going to be fun watching this play out. All I know is markets are not going down the way they should — which means something is being rigged. Who the fuck know, at this point?

Perhaps oil bottomed and now trades to $20 and we all fuck each other happily ever after. One thing is for certain, anything can happen now.

GET YOUR iBANKCOIN COLLAPSE Ts NOW!

Mizhuo says oil can go to NEGATIVE $100.

Sankey–Mizuho’s oil and gas analyst–was among the first to warn us last month that crude could go negative. (In case you missed it, oil settled at roughly -$37 a barrel yesterday. Full headlines below.) Now, unlike Goldman’s Jeff Currie, who said he thinks the oil market could transition into deficit (which is bullish for oil) as soon as June, Sankey says the oil market will get even worse next month. “Will we hit -$100 a barrel next month? Quite possibly,” he warns. “If you had a stinking barrel of oil in your back yard, would you pay someone $100 to take it away? Yes, and you would probably be relieved you were not charged $300. That is the situation we are in.”

Oil is $13, down 35% for the day and Exxon is down only 1%. Crazy world we live in where reality is impossible to determine from fantasy, an ephemeral world filled with wizards and monetary gurus who work tirelessly to create a fiction to sustain the facade we live in today.

All things must end, I’m just not sure we have it in us to do it now. It takes courage to admit to something horrible. It’s a lot easier to be a coward, look into the camera lens and say “buy the dip.”

This whole system is based off a series of lies, one stacked on top of another. The scheme is so grande, it’s believable because of its size. Nothing this big could be fraudulent. Why didn’t anyone say anything before?

Because we’re only down 600 and not 3,000, I am having a difficult time reconciling the price action and so I sold almost everything.

The results.

JNUG – wash
(AG -4%)
EURN +3%
SWN +6.3%
DRV +8.1%
FAZ +6.6%
TZA +4.3%
VIR – wash
(NET -4.6%)
(TWLO -5.4%)
(ARWR -0.7%)
(ESPR -1.4%)
(AHPI -12%)

I am 90% cash now, one long and one inverse ETF. My sense is for sharply lower prices, should reality seep thru. But I am BEARISH on reality and believe something is afoot here — because oil at $13 should spell doom for the $1 trillion+ in petrol debt. But HYG is up — because the Fed is buying it. The Fed is buying everything to make sure bond holders are protected and to avoid mark to market at banks and to insure swap holders do not get paid. This is the world we live in — lies on top of lies to keep the party going. I should be rooting for more party, but my soul isn’t black enough to support it.

At the end of the day, more harm than good comes from propping up a lie. More people get sucked in and the longer is last — the more resounding the ramifications.

You cannot stop the selling in crude. The June contract for crude is down so much, the fucking oil sector is in shock to the point where they’re not even down that much. We’re down so much, it’s comical.

What’s a lot?

HOW ABOUT DOWN 30% FOR THE FUCKING SESSION? HOW DO YA LIKE DAT?

WTI has a $14 handle and Brent is now at $19 and change.

Shockingly, markets aren’t even down that much — probably because BRRRRRRR — everyone is waiting for the Fed to suck their dicks. The Dow is off by 550, Nasdaq by 160. But how about that copper — off by 6.66% — super-duper evil.

Markets just jumped and now we’re lower by 430. At this rate, oil will be NEGATIVE $500 and the Dow will be higher, all by day’s end. I will not offer you a strong opinion because the prices on your screen aren’t tethered to reality. I have a sundry of inverse ETFs and enough hedge to consider myself a winner today. Going forward, the question is, naturally, do we play for a bounce or a continuation to the downside. Asset prices aside, this is disastrous for the real world economy.

In other news, Trump is pledging support for the oil industry in America. Does it really matter?

We will never let the great U.S. Oil & Gas Industry down. I have instructed the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Treasury to formulate a plan which will make funds available so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020

It’s happening.

Breaking: The US is monitoring intelligence that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s health is in grave danger following a surgery, a US official with direct knowledge tells me.

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 21, 2020

And this.

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020

And this.

## U.S. Travel Group Sees Lost Sales Of $520 Billion by Year-End ##

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) April 21, 2020

Futures have taken a turn lower, off by 200. The KOSPI is down by 2.5%. My spidey senses predict the Return of the Bear is here. Get your affairs in order.

UPDATE: N. KOREAN LEADER IS IN FACT BRAIN DEAD — NBC

UPDATE: Apparently, NBC is full of shit. Kim Jong Un is healthier than ever!

The front month contract for crude closed at NEGATIVE $37 because of financial rigging and all sort of chicanery. I took the opportune to re-balance my portfolio and get long natty, gold, a little tech, AND SHORT THE SHIT out of the indices. I am now positioned for WANTON GLORY and shall not cede this position to the bulls who have something dreadful coming their way.

GET YOUR “LIMIT DOWN” SHIRTS NOW AT THE IBC MERCH STORE.

Markets closed down nearly 600 and we have another day left of that dastardly May contract for WTI. I am hoping it can trade down to NEGATIVE $666 tomorrow, fucking all of the banks on the other side of that hedge.

Look, I’m taking a shot on goal here. We’re up 27% over the past month and it’s childish and stupid.

This isn’t anything new. In January of 2009, right before the final crash to SPY 666, the markets behaved in the same manner.

For those of you new to the Fed rigging game, I wrote his in between market crashes in early 2009 — 11 years ago.https://t.co/ZMdbu6lOK6 pic.twitter.com/3oeFtofrqe

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) April 20, 2020

STEEL YOURSELVES lads, another fire is coming.

*** BUY OUR FUCKING SHIT. iBC MERCH STORE IS NOW OPEN, IN REPLACE OF OUR FUCKING ADS — WHICH HAVE BEEN PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM SITE ***

It’s just one of those things that make you scratch your head in amazement. Oil is down 11% on the June contract and -70% on the meaningless May contract, which is getting a fuck load of exposure in media. Because of this, shorts are piling the fuck in and as a result getting SQUEEZED the fuck out. The XLE is off by just 1% today, but many oil stocks are in fact higher, incredibly so.

I’ve take this mornings trade to reshuffle my positions a bit. I made two successful day trades and now have a bias towards gold and biotech.

Here are my closed out trades for today.

SAGE +12%
(IVR -14%)
PAA +10.4%
TRGP +2.86%
NVAX +6.2%
(LB -9%)
INO +5.6%
PLCE +1.7%

See pal, that’s who I am and you’re nothing. You want to play in this game — you best to fucking win. If not you’re gonna be shining my shoes.

I started out the day with 15 losers and 1 up stock and have since turned shit around. People do not give me enough credit around here, as I conduct acts of fucking MAGIC in broad day light, no sleight of hand — nothing. I have a hankering for winship and god damn it — I’m gonna have it.

UPDATE: THE CME SAID THEY WOULD ALLOW MAY WTI TO TRADE NEGATIVE. THE CONTRACT HIT $1.70, DOWN MORE THAN 90% FOR THE SESSION. IN OTHER NEWS, LEVERAGED UPSIDE OIL STOCKS GUSH IS +4%.

UPDATE: THE MAY CONTRACT IS AT ZERO

UPDATE: The May contract is now NEGATIVE.

UPDATE: JUNE CRUDE -15%

UPDATE: MAY CONTRACT NOW NEGATIVE $13.9

UPDATE: NOW -$33