_____________________________
What do you know? After trying to fake me out by blasting past my $79.80 target today, the dollar capitulated and sold off deep to about $79.25 at the lows. It’s now about $79.40.

I think earl and gold are the plays here right now, and if you are not in my two “Samurai 7” earl plays, COP and PBR, then you want to really think hard about them tomorrow. That COP is just too phat at 8x trailing earnings and a nice yield to boot.

Moreover, I think it’s safe to say that SLW was the call for today.  Unfortunately, as I recounted in the comment section of my last post,  I missed my buy stop by about ten cents.  See what happens when you try to get finicky like that?  I think I’m better off just buying at market sometimes.

In any case, the PM trade seems to be back on for now, and besides my favorite silvers like AG and EXK, I would be looking to the gold juniors, specifically GDXJ (the ETF) and AXU and BAA if you can stomach the volatility.  Otherwise, AUY, GG and RGLD are looking good here, Lucy.

Best to you all.

_____________________________________________________________

 

Comments »

 

 

 

 

The Secret To Taking Out the Patriots Next Sunday?

_____________________________

Teahouse ain’t gonna like it, but…. what’s a fellah gonna do when he finds a graphic like that out on Twitter?

But hey, let’s put these Superbowl squabbles aside for now and bask in the glow of some relatively overbought, but still promising markets.  From yesterday, some of my bigs, including ANV, RGLD and AXU just did not want to give up their marches northward even with the brief spurt of the dollar and the commensurate minor shellacking of the precious metal commodity markets.  Heck, even SLW, AG and EXK, my silver darlings, did not give up much today, despite precipitously overbought conditions.

That leaves us with a bit of a problem, however, as we don’t want to enter or even add to these great weekly stories until we get a bit more of a blowoff.   This predicament is not wholly PM-restricted either, as  I am hoping for the same pullback in my recently relentless “Stock of the Year” pick, UPS, and my Seventh Samurai servant, MON, as well.

Luckily, I have another Samurai that has been taking a bit of a rest lo these last three trading days, and coincidentally, it happens to be my best performer of the year.  Yes ladies and gents, that odd post title did stand for something… the ubiquitous PBR, which hit exactly at that $32 resistance I mentioned when I first recc’ed it, and, like a good Brasilian trophy wife, has sold back in the most delicate manor.  Note how the 20-day has now met the 200-day EMA in this nascent recovery of 2012?

 

 

 

 

      I think we may have one, and perhaps two more days of consolidation left in this girl from Ipanema, and I’m hoping for an additional pickup in the $29.25 area, perhaps tomorrow sometime.   I think earl is already starting to take up it’s part in the “liquidity wheel” along with gold and silver.  This darling will continue to benefit, as will we all.

My best to you.

______________________

 

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1I5n2-ro_Q 450 300]

______________________
Within a short number of years and certainly within the decade, we here at iBC will have created our own language from whole cloth, and the only people who will understand a word we are saying will be the slavish few who have hung on here for every nuanced phrasing and reworked 70’s-era cartoon-network pop cultural reference.

In future, iBC particpants  will not seek to purchase the equity receipts of a heavily shorted security in order to force immediate re-purchase by said short sellers, but instead one will “GO HAM” on said equity receipts and save time and exertion associated with over-verbose description for other tasks.

As well, one will never speak of aforesaid unfortunate short sellers as “portfolio damaged,” or “margin overburdened,” or even “equity depleted” participants in these volatile markets but rather as members of the investment community who, good character not withstanding, have been “GRAPED,” and left for corpse-pilfering on the side of the lonely road.

Brevity being the soul of wit, such gradual neologistic replacement will not only render these fora more humorous (sic), but also far wealthier in the end.  Hang on for the ride.

____________________________

Today was the best day of the year for me thus far, and it’s been a pretty good year thus far.  For one thing, all my precious metal positions went HAM on me today, with most breaking the 5% barrier and some flirting with 10% (like SSRI, ANV and IAG).  Moreover, my two big rare-earth metal plays, QRM and AVL were also up big at over 7% and over 10%, respectively.  Unfortunatley I wasn’t fully invested, having kept quite a bit of cash on the sideline for “opportunities,” and also having sold my AGQ and NUGT just yesterday to reduce leverage and risk.

I’m not as bent out of shape about that as you might think however.  I still returned over 4.2% today, and now I do have dry powder with which to pick off new targets.

Some of those will be additional pickups of the “Samurai Seven,” of which only two are currently precious metal picks —AG (+13.4%) and RGLD (+6.7%).  Nevertheless the full portfolio is up 11.1% since inception, and that’s despite two relative laggards in the short list portfolio.

As for the winners in the Seven, I am really enjoying this 28+% run in PBR since the start of 2012, and kicking myself for not making it my “Stock of the Year” pick.   I am also well pleased with the double digit returns of DE (+13.5%) and MON (+16.5%) since our entry.

The two Samurai I shall be gobbling tomorrow, double-ham fisted, however, are my two laggards, UPS (+3.3%)  and COP (-4.0%).  Both have nice dividends and UPS is finally creeping through that ceiling we talked about earlier in the year. getting ready for a breakout.   You cannot keep a good man down, or a good company, and these two fine specimens will do us well as the Bernakean Liquidity Parade Rustles on.

My best, and red eye ham gravy, to you all.

______________________

 

 

Comments »

______________________

While the Samurai Seven 2012 picks continue to do well, with a 7.5% annual return thus far, not all of them are rising in concert.   Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR), which has recently switched from selling shitty beer to becoming a monopoly owner of Brasilian (sic) earl assets (good choice, there), is my big winner with a 20.5% YTD return.   Ironically, my lagger, and only negative return thus far at (2.20%) down is another earl and natty producer and mover, Conoco (COP).  Much to their chagrin, they are actually forced to compete with other earl and natty gas companies in the U.S. and abroad.   I still like them, however, and their 3.7% dividend is a nice cushion here as well.

My other two strong returners of the SamSeven are in the agricultural space, John Deere (DE) and Monsanto (MON).  They are returning 12.4% and 15.2%, respectively, this year, not counting dividends.  My “stock of the year” pick, UPS, is muddling along, still trying to break that $75 ceiling and returning 2.9% before dividends thus far.

That leaves my two “precious” picks, of the SamSeven, AG and RGLD, which are treading water as well, at 3.2% and 0.6%, respectively for the year.   As you know, these two are dear to my heart, and I think, after a rough 2011, the PM’s will be ready to move out once again this year, thanks to our friends in Washington with the printing presses. 

Remember, this is an election year and the Fed’s Primary Directive, not unlike that of the StarFleet Federation is — “don’t rock the flagging boat.”  Whomever wins or loses in November, the Fed doesn’t want any of the blame to come to its door if it can help it.  They know, in the end, where their bread is buttered, and they sure don’t want to give Mr. Ron Paul any more ammo in a year when he’s got a tiny little bully pulpit.  Ironically, they can achieve that by printing like there’s no tomorrow. 

So what I’m watching for right here is the important “Line of Death” for the U.S. Dollar — at $81.50, which you may recall is where I predicted the dollar would stall and therefore set the market running.   Well, we banged up a little past that mark last week, and have since turned down.  Now we meet some important resistance at the $79.50-$80.00 level.    If the DX-Y fails there, it’ll be risk on, across the board, and I think the precious metals will be ready to take off in a much bigger way.

Until then, I’ll be wary, and doing much of nothing except perhaps trimming the sails here and there.   I hope to put up that long term monthly dollar chart this weekend,  to illustrate the importance of that “Line of Death.”

________________________

Aside — I’m not a Gingrich fan as many of you know.  However, I have to admit, I’m baffled by the turpitude of the mainstream media in pushing this transparent re-hash of his divorce just days before an important primary election.   I mean, I almost have to think this is some kind of bizarre set up to give Newt an easy foil.

Could CNN really be that dumb?  I literally felt like I was watching an outtake of Idiocracy last night when the first question that blinking fool asked in the Presidential debate was about a 20 year old divorce battle.  Seriously CNN?  You call yourself a news organization?  Then what is The National Enquirer?

Really… almost too easy for the Newtster.  Stick a fork in the MSM, they are looking a bit overdone about now.

_____________________________

 

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxGgCY9PKw 450 300]

_______________________

Petrobras (PBR), the national earl company of Brasilia, has been ripping since I picked it in my “Samurai Seven” stock picks for 2012.    As of this writing, it’s up 17.5% from the beginning of the year.   My other earl pick, Conoco Earl (COP), is down a commensurate 2.5%. 

Odd, no? 

Not really if you think about the fact that this is an election year and that liquidity will be amply provided for by the Lord Of the Printing Press, Benjamin “Cocaine Teeth” Bernake.  Earl is always a good investment when the dollar is being devalued, and what better way to really hedge against a dollar dump than buying an earl company that gets paid in a different currency than the U.S. greenback? 

Listen, I remember when Pemex (Mexico Earl) was the big bid back in the eighties and nineties.  Who doesn’t want to own a monopoly before it loses it’s pricing power?  That’s where PBR is right now, riding the crest of the great Brasilian growth wave.

Until it crashes, I’ll be there.  And $32 looks like a good short target here.

 

________________

 

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpA_5a0miWk 450 300]

Quite possibly the “Best Music/Worst Video” combination of all time

__________________________________________

At the end of the Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the famed British hero King Arthur is transported back to an enchanted island to recover from his mortal wounds after the Battle of Camman  and perhaps be frozen in time for the next time England might need it’s hero king.

Some say he did come back– as Mick Jagger, or more likely the closer kin — Welshman Tom Jones– but that’s only idle speculation.  The important bit to remember here is that enchanted isle was called “Avalon, the Island of Fortune. ”   Some of you who are on The PPT may think sometimes that all of my picks have gone to a magical island to recover from their mortal wounds.  Perhaps they too will reappear someday when Chess or Rage or le Fly are having a bit of a dry spell.

That too may be idle speculation, but in the meantime, there’s a rare earth metal stock that I’ve been accumulating as of late, now to the tune of 30 kilotons, mostly in the low to mid $2 range.  It is of course called Avalon (AVL), and may finally be revealing itself as the font of good fortune I expected after many a day of bouncing around like a malfeasant pinball.

You’ll note in the chart below, that I marked an original consolidation point upon which I thought AVL might rest for a bit after rallying off it’s lows in October, hitting resistance at the old breakdown point (about $4) in early November, and then making a higher low in late November.

As the stock rallied back above that mid-consolidation line in early December, you will recall that I expected it to base there on the consolidation line.  Well that didn’t happen, at least not for very long, and the stock actually began breaking down again.  It eventually broke down below the “higher low” area all the way to the October lows before rallying once again on strong volume.   Note all that progress in the chart below:

Now the question begs — did we just experience a double bottom in these cursed rare earth metals?  If you look at REE, your answer might surely be “hells yes!”  Checking QRM, however, and you might consider the jury still in the anteroom.

What I can see, however, from the above chart is that we have some pretty helpful guideposts available.  If what we’re seeing on the past two high volume days has been the first two legs of the three white soldier candlestick pattern, we’ll see AVL‘s price burst above that consolidation line that so effectively served as our ceiling today.   Since this is a bullish reversal pattern, it should mean continuation after a bit of consolidation, so we might venture some additional buying in that case.

If however we do not get any follow through on the last two days momentum, we know that the consolidation line is acting as resistance.  If we really do have a double bottom pattern here, then we likely will not see another low below the most recent “DB” lows, and you’ll rather have a “rest,” followed by a final break of the resistance.  Given the volume of the last two days, I think that’s the more likely bet.

As an aside… my “Magnificent 7” 2012 picks, including Pick of the Year UPS, as well as AG, COP, DE, MON, PBR and RGLD, are up 5.9% collectively so far this year, and that’s not including dividends, which on some of those can be a significant sweetner.   MON is in the lead as far as top performers, with 12.5%, followed by AG and PBR with 8.5% each.  My two laggards are UPS and COP, with 0.4% and o.1% returns, respectively, thus far this year.  This does not include either stock’s phat dividends of course.

I’m going to be in and out the rest of the week, meeting with buyers, so I may be scarce, but will endeavor to visit at least in the evenings.   My best to you all.

_______________________

 

Comments »