“When a Mere Ass-hat Just Won’t Do”

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Before I talk about this Disco Ball Market, I want to take a second to explain why I love this country and I love going to work every day, despite the imminent Tsar Bomba of Damocles hanging over this economy thanks to the near-brain dead or simply evil (your pick) statist government with which we’ve been collectively saddled.

You see my line of work brings me into contact with blindingly smart people every day.   And not just smart people, like your average egghead dufus at State U., but smart ambitious fellows not unlike Le Monsieur Le Docteur de Le Fly.   People who want to actually do and create things in a clever and efficient fashion that no one has considered before.

It gives me such hope, you see.   (Aside: Can I use that word, or has it been wholly discredited like the otherwise once-honorable “liberal?”)  

Anyway, it gives me hope for this benighted land, that we might still have the IP to make it “on to the next,” as Jay-Zee would say.   These are the people that are continuing to create value every day, even in the worst of market circumstances.    And here I am,  just lucky enough to stumble into them every now and then, and maybe lend them a hand along the way.

Without getting  too deep into specifics, let me proffer this example of  the young man I met  this morning…

   This guy used to be in plain vanilla big project software consulting.   Serendipitously, or unluckily depending upon your tolerance for such things, many of his clients were large state governments.   You know the drill if you’ve been exposed — this is a client base characterized by horrendously long sales cycles, diffident bureaucracy, inefficient and/or politically-driven decision making — you know the drill.   The biggest net positive to that kind of customer base is that it’s magnificently sticky, if perhaps only by dint of inertial motion (thanks Newton).  

You’re probably saying “so what? — there’s a myriad of private sector gov’t suppliers out there, and they all sell for about 5.0x cash flow and maybe 0.75 to 1.0x sales.”   Big whoop, right?

   Well, that’s where the innovation I so love comes into the picture.    This young man came to realize, via quiet hard analysis and slow revelation, that the value he could extract from his customer is so valuable to the outside world, that he can afford to pay them and himself, and still make four to five times the margins he was originally making in his original model.

Think of that for a second.   He can afford to  pay his clients to allow him to do what he does, which also happend to be a value added, money-saving service to them.   You think that’s going to drive some demand for his products, maybe?

I love my job.  God Bless America, and screw Damocles while You’re at it.

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This Disco Ball Market is turning and turning and sparkling and sparkling, and it’s even worse on my poor M. Le Fly’s brain than the chemical laser-krunk, electro-youtube sonic Ecstacy-Assist “the kids” are replacing Gloria Gaynor with these days.

Sometimes I feel like one of those “lucky ones” of the generation X+ who were too young for Viet Nam, but too old for the Gulf Wars,  but replacing those armed conflicts with the twin piers of “Disco” and “Electronica.”   Much like the tenets of war, the universal deficiencies of bad club music remain eternal.

One is driven to speculate as to whether the Spartans and Etruscans had to winnow their young from the atonal lull of the thumping lyre.  Better than warring with the Athenians, I guess…

Watch the dollar.   If it breaks down, we will continue up.   However, today’s action in gold and silver seem to be signalling, if weakly, that we’ll have a pullback here.   I may lighten on some of my calls, at least temporarily.  

In the mean time, the banks BB&T Corporation BB&T Corporation BB&T Corporation BB&T Corporation [[BBT]] , Citigroup Inc. [[C]] , KeyCorp [[KEY]] , and Pacific Capital Bancorp [[PCBC]] and my favourite (sic) L.E.D.  techs, Cree, Inc. [[CREE]] and especially Veeco Instruments Inc. [[VECO]] look very strong, telling me this is not an “about to plunge” market, no matter the sweaty-palmed Denninger-types’ trepidations. 

Please also remember to take any spare change lying around in the cushions and apply them to a short of ArvinMeritor, Inc. [[ARM]] , so I may defeat mine righteous enemee (sic), CA, and proceed to the Elite Eight.  

Thanks in advance.

Update:  The real thang, yo’ —

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I 450 300]

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He was Emo when Emo wasn’t cool.
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Stubbornly and like an ass, I sold continuously throughout  the day.    

In drips and drabs of course, but it becomes cumulative after a while.   Frankly, I don’t know how Docteur Le Fly does it.   It seems like one day he’s fully invested and then — BOOM! — He’s 60% in cash.

It doesn’t even seem to faze him.

I, on the other hand, agonize on every share sold in a rising market, even as I know deep down in my medulla oblongata (sic), it must be done.  I am at a little more than 25% cash right now and I feel as if I’ve been scourged on the wheel for a fortnight.

Perhaps I shall cut out that nasty M.O. and be shrived of my cognitive dissonance sins at last.  Who needs motor function anyway? I can always blog at you via sophisticated “eye-blink” technology, right?

Onto the shriving.   Needless to say, I bought nothing today, despite the ambulatory nature of such Ag Gems as Jacksonians The Andersons, Inc. [[ANDE]] and Monsanto Company [[MON]] , which finally broke back over the $80 barrier.    You remember the old Fly-saying, yes?  “If it gets over $80, it’s going to $120?”

We shall see.   I also like Intrepid Potash, Inc. [[IPI]] and Agria Corporation (ADR) [[GRO]] , but lower.

Sales today were across the board on the PM’s and I even took the time to sell off some odds and ends as well.

I sold some enormous Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]] today — almost 30% of my stash, 4k at $13.12.     I also sold 2k shares of the enormous performer IAMGOLD Corporation (USA) [[IAG]] , one third of my holdings in that name, for $18.85.    Sawing a hunk of my shoulder blade off would’ve been less painful.

Of my 6k shares of [[GDX]] I sold 2k outright at $50.18, and then hedged the remainder by selling March $50 calls at $5.25 a piece.

Taking a dull spoon to my eyes, I sold another 4k of Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]] , and then hedged 7k of the remaining 11 by selling 70 March $16 calls at $1.90 and $2.00.     Perhaps talking about it here will assuage my pain? 

I sold 2k of [[PAAS]] at $24.68 and another stray K of Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] at $12.16, leaving me with 4 and 10k respectively.    What will you have of me next?  My children?

Oh my, I must have been putting this one out of my mind, as I’d almost forgotten… I also sold 8k of [[EXK]] today (40%!) at $3.68.  Arthur Koestler, I know your Darkness at Noon!

Last on the precious fronts, I sold 1.5k of [[CDE]] at $21.99 and $22.03, and 4k of Rubicon Minerals Corp. (USA) [[RBY]] at $4.16.  

On the “odds and ends” front, I sold another 2k of [[BIOS]] at $7.68, leaving me with only 2k left, which I will not sell outside of Armegeddon, where I may need River Styx fare. 

I also sold 6k of Citigroup Inc. [[C]] for a rare loss (only a couple of pennies plus commish) on a complete “cautionary” basis.   I think I can buy those back cheaper, is all.    Last, I sold a stub amount (1k) of Sinovac Biotech Ltd. [[SVA]] which I’ve owned since the low $3 range, for $7.51.

Last, but not least, I booted the remainder of my [[ERX]] (1.5k) with the dividend pushout, at $38.46.

I am quite exhausted and on tenter-hooks, ovah heah, but I must trust my charts and instincts, or all is lost.   I am thinking we will see a correction at least into Turkey Week, as Tim Geithner and the Klown Kircus will be selling more yummy T-bonds into the maw of Mother Market whilst we prepare for Pilgrim Foods.

You know what that usually means by now, I expect.   If not, you have not been paying close attention, and are condemned to suffer the fate of Piglet during Swine Flu Saison (sic).    (Ostracism)

Best to you this weekend.   Off to see an Opera.

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Addenda — if you haven’t already done so, be sure to ring up your block head Senator and tell him/her that this Obamacare is a train wreck waiting to happen.     It looks like Dirty Harry Reid and the Dem Senate are taking a page out of Madame Pelosi’s book of legerdemain and are going to try to jam this through in a Saturday Night Special.   If this were a good bill, of course they’d have no need to be so serpentine.

Ciao.

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(Ain’t talkin’ ’bout love!)

Ultra Silver Pro Shares [[AGQ]]

Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]]

Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) [[AUY]]

Banro Corp. [[BAA]]

 

(My Love is rotten to the core…)

Citigroup Inc. [[C]]

 

(Ain’t talkin’ ’bout love……)

Coeur d’ Alene Mining Co. [[CDE]]

Powershares Double Silver ETN  [[DBS]]

Powershares Double Gold Long ETN [[DGP]]

Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]]

Corriente Resources Inc.  [[ETQ]]

Endeavour Silver Co. [[EXK]]

Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF [[GDX]]

 

(Just like ah told you be-foah, be-foah, be-foah!)

Gold Fields Limited (ADR) [[GFI]]

SPDR Gold Shares [[GLD]]

Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) [[GSS]]

Hecla Mining Company [[HL]]

IAMGOLD Corporation (USA) [[IAG]]

NovaGold Resources Inc. (USA) [[NG]]

New Gold Inc. (USA) [[NGD]]

 

(Hey! Hey! Hey!)

Northgate Minerals Corporation (USA) [[NXG]]

Pan American Silver Corp. [[PAAS]]

Rubicon Minerals Corp. (USA) [[RBY]]

Royal Gold, Inc. [[RGLD]]

Seabridge Gold, Inc. (USA) [[SA]]

 

(Hey! Hey! Hey!)

iShares Silver Trust  [[SLV]]

Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]]

Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) [[SSRI]]

Thompson Creek Metals Company, Inc. [[TC]]

Teck Cominco Limited (USA) [[TCK]]

 

(Ain’t talkin’ ’bout love……)

(Ain’t talkin’ ’bout love……)

(Ain’t talkin’ ’bout love!!!)

(fade out)

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOkZ2zhCx5I 450 300]

Aside — if you weren’t such a piker, you’d join The PPT and catch me pounding out these winners like freshly minted doubloons on a daily basis…. tsk! tsk!

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