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Sure Let’s Default. I’m All In

Alright, it seems like the benevolent Tea Part folk have decided to share their complete inability to grasp simple concepts with the world, by forced contrition on the populace. It is time to eat our peas. Following the line of Obama’s hatred for those damn jet plane flying 1%-ers, the Tea Party have chosen to one up him, by destroying the 1% in its entirety. An unfortunate and slight side effect may be to destroy the other 99% of the country in the process, but hey…sometimes sacrifices must be born for the good of everyone. So making moves for the ill of everyone is the only logical course of action.

In an attempt to honor Argentina’s dim witted socialist president Fernández de Kirchner for her blood clot, the Tea Party have magnanimously extended a show of us revisiting that countries darkest moment, a point from which it has never recovered: elective default.

Remember that one time the global economy nearly collapsed because a single line of business for US banks bet large sums of money that non-creditworthy citizens would default at abnormally low rates in exchange for paper thin margins on those loans?

Well the entire global economy and all of finance has bet gargantuan sums of money that this non-creditworthy country will never default for no fucking margins.

By all means, how do you think this ends?

Frankly, I don’t care anymore, and am all in. Lay your neck under the axe, and taunt these pussies with all your hatred. See if they have the sack to swing.

What’s the alternative? You can turn all short doubling your money with the end of civilization, just in time to burn it to stay warm? You can barter that paper desperately for some precious metals that aren’t for sale? You can get shot by rioters and have it taken off your corpse?

Because if we actually default, it’ll be to late to go out and prepare. Just think of all the mechanisms that are tied to treasuries. There will be bank failures. And a slow, agonizing process as US spending on interest careens towards $1 trillion annually.

In the meantime, staying in our means would require we basically slash in half one of the following:

The entire defense budget OR
The entire non-defense budget

The point of the matter is that if we default, this place is going to get so screwed up anyway, what does it matter? At some point if the decision were not reversed, the man you know as Cain Hammond Thaler would simply cease to exist. His 9th floor office would be deserted; the only clue that he was ever there at all being an empty safe that used to house his silver and firearms and row upon row of cleaned out bookshelves.

I would simply take up my favorite pocket watch and walking stick, and slip away into the night…never to be heard from again.

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Setting Myself For A RGR Disappointment

Mentally, I must ready myself to see RGR miss on earnings and crater back towards $40. Statewide background checks are way down, save for the most liberal, anti-gun cities, where terrified freedom lovers accumulate weapons at an alarming rate.

Most of the energy to buy weapons was exhausted in the first three months of the year. You can only buy so many firearms.

However, I am not prepared to sell my position, exclusively because of the minute details of my personal trading and positioning.

I already made a boat load of money in RGR, first last November when I hit a rally then sold before December. Then, I repurchased around $40. And since then I’ve been buying and selling the ranges, always profitably. I’m currently sitting on just half the position size I started with (sold north of $50 I do believe), and at least a 20% unrealized profit baked into those shares…not counting all the realized gains and dividends.

So no, it doesn’t make sense for me to sell out.

RGR’s value depends a lot on where things go from here. At latest sales, RGR is cheap – but are they maintaining those levels with background checks slowing down? At 2012 levels, the stock is a little hot, but not too bad. And if sales settle somewhere in between, I’d say we’re just fine.

But if sales start going below 2012 levels, things get interesting. I’m counting on first time gun buyers getting the itch; you never stop at just one.

Still, I’m not going to be taking any form of wash on this; I’ve come way too far. I’ll sell if it gets to $44, lock in the last smattering of shares up +10%, and walk away up big on one of the most profitable 6 month runs in a single name I’ve had since APC.

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BOOOYAAAHHH RGR

When I’m willing to quote Jim Cramer in my title, the news I’m carrying can only be of such a variety, of such a lofty level, of such unrivaled immaculateness…

RGR just announced $1.20 earnings per share, when analyst estimates were at $1.01. The $1.01 number was already, what? 30% above the December original estimates. We’re now sitting 50% above the earnings trend that was already justifying $55-60 pricing before Newtown.

I know, you paid “professional” analysts are busy frenziedly scribbling your next hate piece on the firearms industry – I mean, Michael Bloomberg hates guns. Michael Bloomberg…

Do you want to see why you’re wrong? Fine, I’ll show you.

Firearm sales are not going to collapse, but rather gradually return to pre-Newtown levels (elevated even as they are) because these are the guys who actually buy guns:

4_wheeler_mudding

Does that look like a source of rational, informed consumerism? All of your logic…roll it into a ball and choke on it. I told you, mere moments after Dianne Feinstein was finished speaking in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, that the cat had been let out of the bag.

Watch the FBI background checks. While the gun debate remains in the forefront of the public sphere (Washington DC or in any of the States), the panic buying continues. And the gun debate can’t get out of the public sphere, because Barack Obama pulled a classic Obama move and opened his mouth when he should have kept it shut. Now, he can’t not push gun control, because a loss this public this early in his presidency would shatter any second term agenda narrative, rendering him a lame duck. It may even now be too late.

Maybe just delete that “gun stocks are overpriced” piece you’re working on. Do yourself a favor and quit while you’re ahead.

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GE Capital Is Digging Its Own Grave

The 9th floor office sits high set against swirling black clouds scattering snow flurries mixed with rain. And my heart is black as ice.

I’ll give the administration this – blackmailing GE was a clever move. Clipping the financing from aiding gun manufacturers is one way to attack the issue without congressional approval. One unethical, shady, probably illegal way…

Fine, if that’s the way this game will be played, let’s have it. Does Immelt think he’s immune? How many sweetheart deals has that bullshit company had to cut to keep that pathetic growth rate coming? You cannot believe that GE would even exist in its current form, if they hadn’t slipped down the Executive Office’s trousers enough times in the past.

I wonder, how long will preferred tax laws aid Immelt (those come from Congress, I believe) if he makes the NRA’s blacklist? I’m tired of GE anyway; choke it off and watch it splinter.

In the meantime, there are plenty of work arounds for RGR. Other banks are expanding their financing, and the executives of the company are sharp. GE may even help them worm through, if they haven’t completely lost the desire to make money.

Your days are numbered Immelt. I look forward to watching you squirm.

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Gun Drama Is A Distraction From Making Money

RGR prices spiked this morning back above $50, and I have to say my buy from $48 is looking good. I have made big money on every single dip, purchase, accumulation, or wild guess I have made so far in this stock, starting in December.

Then just before noon, the Senate announced cloture of the background check deal and around that time RGR began to settle back down again.

Look, I’m going to be very straight with you. This measure means nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Look where we’re at; this whole debate began with Dianne Feinstein so coked up on how many different makes and models of weapons she’d have free reign to ban, there was almost too many to decide. There was no limit to the damage to be done to gun manufacturers. Private gun ownership was in check.

Where are we now? Record sales and surging background checks later, and they’re trying to decide if they even have the ability to mandate closing loopholes that largely don’t exist on the State level; it remains to be seen whether that’s on every purchase (a measure as damn near a plurality of this country has ever supported), or just a tiny fraction of all gun sales – you know, weapons you buy between 3-6am while standing on your left foot in a gymnasium…or something

This is over. The likes of Piers Morgan are now scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperate not to look like total fools. Because they’re ultimately advocating authoritarian controls here. And the only thing worse than an authoritarian…is an ineffectual authoritarian.

I told you months ago that B. Obama would hang himself in his own eagerness. The man who began his first term parading historians in front of himself, pridefully seaking to cement his legacy for the ages, has now managed to choke off his second term before accomplishing anything. He made the cardinal error. Democrats have zero leeway to get dragged into the gun debate, because more than half the country doesn’t trust them with it.

Game. Match.

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Gun Frenzy Won’t Slow Down

The most popular (and esoteric) argument for gun stocks being overpriced seems based largely on a riddle that goes something like this:

“You tell me, what happens when gun legislation passes and the buyers realize everything will be okay?”

Which is lovely. I enjoy riddles. And word games. And the works of Nabokov. But this isn’t about playful respite; this is about making money and being right. It becomes my duty, therefore, to thrash you.

I now present three illuminating bullets (I just proofread this and realized I made a pun):

* Stocks like RGR are only trading where they were before sales went crazy
* This legislation will not be hindering gun makers – background checks are perfectly doable because they will most likely have maximum waiting periods attached (1 month or less or else all clear); that’s a minimum to get the measure through the House (if anything even can)
* And, the big shebang…RGR hasn’t raised gun prices and I’m not sure the others have either

Yeah, see that’s the big open secret here. Guns are selling out of stock, but RGR’s CEO was adamant that his company would not be raising prices because, as he phrased it, “gun buyers as a group have long collective memories.” He doesn’t want to prey off his customer base, so RGR hasn’t raised weapons prices at all.

Ergo, once this bill passes and people go “oh, wait, that’s not so bad,” there will be no price incentive for them to cancel their order (“I could sit back and wait for prices to calm down…”). That, right there, isn’t happening. The guns that have been jumping in price are private sales. So, in RGR’s case (and I suspect the other manufacturers as well), there’s no clear financial edge to back out.

There is, however, still the looming possibility that Republicans could lose more seats (remind me, what is the popularity of the GOP at the moment?)…

(I told you I like riddles too)

And so, I am afraid (I’m not actually afraid) that this robust bounty of profitability RGR and the gun market at large are seeing is very much sustainable for a duration of at least a year (possibly two). While eventually and inevitably these orders will slow down, I really couldn’t care less. You see, the stocks are not pricing in this raw influx of cash, and one solid year of the orders they’re experiencing is the equivalent of several years worth of business, all front loaded and with minimum inventory risk attached.

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