Rajaratnam trial begins

The prosecution of Rajaratnam began today, about an hour ago, with him ushering in an entourage of legal advice that would make OJ Simpson envious.

If you missed this, the man was guilty of pushing insider information, sometimes literally seconds after he found out about it.

Look, the guy is obviously guilty; I don’t think anyone in their right mind could possible defend this guy. Obviously, that statement is excused when talking about the seven lawyers who are even now attempting to do just that.

The real problem here is going to be the impact it has on the intelligence industry (and perhaps that includes the news). Having seen bits and pieces of the precursory raids up until now, it looks like the Feds are getting ready to try and charge every semblance of data sharing and intelligence gathering the hedge fund industry employs, which in my mind is not a far cry away from, “if it isn’t available on public sources, then you can’t know it.”

Perhaps this will be handled with tact and care; if this is just about crushing industry insiders who are front running their own announcements, or letting “special best friends” do the same, then so be it. But I have a hunch based on some of the hits before now, which have been including experts on hedge fund payrolls, that this is more about that rusted notion of a “level playing field.”

The US Government and supporting agencies have long had a peculiar public prejudice against hedge funds, which shows most vibrantly when the number of verdicts against hedge funds are compared alongside the number of allegations of wrongdoing. We’ll see if they can show some restraint, now that they seem to have an actual, real case to bring before the public.

The space seems to be getting ripped apart, thanks in large part to a non-convinction which has permeated the entire sector. No one wants to commit to real estate.

Yesterday, fearing that my new positions might just bleed out from a correction, I shorted AIV (the corporation whose analysis I halted midway, for it sucked so). Today, it’s up almost a percent.

However, like any decent hedge, that is alright when compared alongside the performance of CLP and AEC, in tandem (today, mainly CLP). As of right now, should we continue to break down, I’ll be shored up as AIV takes it through the roof of its mouth. However, if we should go higher, AEC and CLP are in a much better position; they are exceptional to AIV’s acceptable.

For the moment, I am non-committed, yet completely long, if such a thing is possible. I’ll crack off the hedge (and additional margin purchases) should we continue breaking highs to the upside.

I have no idea what is going to happen in this market over the next few days. Things certainly feel more morose than they did before, and I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that I’m preparing for further downside. The esteemed Woodshedder wrote a piece on the increased volatility of the marketplace, and his thoughts on said topic.

In real terms, I scaled back my MGM position to my core holdings on Friday, for $13.69 a share. Doing so brought me back within the 10% margin range.

Right now, the only reason I have any margin to speak of is because I added to positions to ensure that if we rebounded then this dip would not go completely to waste. However, while I established myself to almost 15% last week, I will be much more selective about adding to debt going forward. I won’t be coaxed into adding more unless we retrace considerably.

I apologize if I don’t offer you the consoling premonition you seek. However, if you have been following my advice, then you will do just fine without knowing the future. I don’t have an exact plan of what I’m going to buy or sell right now because, during the last three months, I took advantage of this bull-run and slowly scaled back out of my positions.

If you followed that advice, then right now you either have a cash position or you are at around even, all long, with a margin account that can be used to add on further downside.

The one place you are not is 2x-maxed out trading with money from your home equity line of credit.

If that last line applies to you then please; cordially remove yourself from my presence. If you didn’t listen before, I have no reason to believe you’ll listen now.

Or, if you are rather a first time attendee to our little conversation, desperately seeking to learn why your “hot tip” stocks, low risk strategy, or indefinite buy and hold method have set you back ten years of your life over the past few trading days, then by all means…

If there’s anything left of you in a few days, I and others on this site are more than too happy to teach you what we know.

I am most pleased to find myself up 2.2% today in equities (thanks to the added boost of a 15% margin position), with all of my stocks appreciating.  MGM, NRP, TLP, AEC, AWK, CLP and BG were all up today; which is of course more than I can say for LMLP…

Yes, it was a rather splendid day for me.  In fact, the only thing I own that was down was physical silver.  And, given the last few weeks, who gives a fuck right?

Unfortunately, I could soon find myself in a spot of trouble.  The reason is best summed up if I just show it to you:

This is Cristina Fernandez, the president of Argentina.  And she is a huge whore.

I spent a good deal of time looking through pictures of this woman (arguably more than I spent thinking about this post), but I ultimately settled on this particular photograph because it depicts her talking.

Like most asshole socialists, that is how she spends 95% of her waking moments.  It is fitting I present her as such now.

This twit and her dumbass husband turned what was once the most flourishing country in South America into a decrepit shit heap.  She managed, through her absurd demands and senseless tampering, to almost destroy Argentina’s agricultural sector once before.  And so, using amazing powers of learning, she has decided to give it another go; this time accusing the major crop growers of evading taxes.

Let’s make something clear here.  Of course they were evading taxes.  I don’t even care if they weren’t; because if I lived under Fernandez, I would be evading taxes like a son of a bitch.

But allow me to impart a small bit of wisdom for the benefit of self righteous retards to the South.  This is something that America learned a good while ago, which is why we often pay farmers asinine credits for doing nothing, just to make sure we always have more than enough to eat.

Don’t fuck with people who provide your food.

(This wisdom may also have come from the writers of the movie Waiting, but who’s counting?)

As much fun as it was watching the stupid bitch deal with rioting farmers and food shortages the last time she tried to lay down infallible edicts of social justice, tampering now would upset my stake in BG (to date one of the few large scale growing operations left in the world which hasn’t faced set backs in the previous two years).

I’d much rather she gets shut down early this time around via opposition ball point pen…

…shoved through her trachea, if need be.

I added to CLP for an average $19.03 a share.  The position was only about 5% of my portfolio going into the day, and so seeing CLP hovering below where I first purchased it, coupled with an announcement that they acquired two major renting operations, I doubled down on margin.  This makes CLP a full position, next to the rest of my holdings.

Meanwhile, I am still not sure if selling out of such a large part of my silver holdings back in December was a smart move.  On the one hand, I’ve used that money to cover my debts; having that burden removed has given me room to breathe easy.  Also, having no debt means I am in a position to buy this market correction without fear. 

On the other hand though, silver is up between 10-20% from where I sold out.

Only time will really tell, but as I still retain a full position in physical silver, I am very much enjoying this run higher, and won’t feel too terrible if the spot price should go to $40 an ounce.

Tonight and last I am busy with various organizations and such; however, the next two items on my agenda are to finish reviewing some additional companies (although I am not in a position to buy any, unless I transfer from an existing one) and to conduct a very thorough analysis on MGM’s books and why I am so stalwart about maintaining exposure to them.

Finally, friends, the 9^th floor shall issue the finalized Talir Index at the end of this month.  From thereon, the Talir shall be updated quarterly, for the purpose of illuminating the work that we are doing here.

Letting oil shipments continue from the disrupted country is a move very much in tune with global markets.  You usually don’t think of angry riots as having a collected thought line to them.  This could calm down the oil run as people conclude that the transfer of government power will not constrict global crude oil supplies.

I think it’s interesting to wonder what this series of uprisings will do to the oil space.  Keep in mind that several of the countries that are experiencing riots are also members of OPEC.  Each one that falls will necessarily give more voting power to the remaining countries.  That really means more power to the Saudi’s (as long as they can keep it together), since Saudi Arabia tends to be the black sheep of that family.

I think Woodshedder commented on this a while back, but:

It is strange to think, if enough damage is done to OPEC, while sparing the infrastructure of the countries, then oil prices may tend below $70 a barrel as the cartel unclenches its fist on reserves.