Thursday, July 17, 2008

Just Checking Up

Just what I hoped to see today, namely strength. We've now added 500 DOW points in the last two sessions. Based on after hours though tomorrow could be unfortunately weak.

More interesting was the performance of my picks from this morning (despite my purposeful lack of participation). Coal stocks got crushed. My picks were winners to the tune of about 9% each. Not bad for a day's work.

Apparently I'm morphing into some sort of stock picking mutant-wizard-demigod. Imagine that. Perhaps I'm becoming a space alien magician.

I am going to put on a clinic in the second half. You still don't think so? Just watch me.

Just for Fun

Don't think that I'll be trading today. Much more likely that I'll be laying on the couch watching the Tour de France but since I made my watchlist for today anyway here is one idea.

Short the coal stocks. All three of these coal names are sporting rather pretty head and shoulders tops. All three sitting right at the neckline.




Trying to Resist

OK. I admit it.

I set my alarm this morning and rolled my ass out of bed with the intention of doing my homework before the open. Can't help myself. What if I want to get long some DNA or short some ORCL? My fear, I suppose, is that the rally will fail and I need to be ready...or something like that. Maybe it's that I'm excited to finally see all those green candles.

Looking at the futures up big confirms that I don't need to do much of anything. Couldn't be happier. Run baby run.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Cold Hard Cash

Trading account is flat.

Vacation has officially begun.

I'm lovin' this action. Stocks are spiking all around and the shorts are getting buried. I can just imagine if I was still short I would be getting ground up into dust and returned to the earth today. Yeah fuck that. I'll keep my profits (most of them anyway), thank you very much.

Meanwhile this little bull orgy, should it continue, will set up copious opportunities upon my return. Just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Going away without my laptop will even be a good thing insofar as it will keep me from shorting into a rally that still has room to run. My best case scenario may just play out yet.

So unless I buy a small island in the Florida Keys and never return I'll be back on Wednesday, tanned a deep a shade of bronze, rested, recovered and relaxed. See you then.

Flat As a Pancake and Unofficially on Vacation

That's it. I'm sitting on one small long and one small short. Will likely be completely flat very very soon. Dow up 122 just now. To that I say: fucking awesome. Run baby run. At least for a few more days (like Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday- I should be back and caught up by Wednesday).

As long as the financials continue to rally this move up is to be respected. Hopefully the inevitable great selling opportunity will wait until I'm back to work.

So, guess that's it. As much as I want to call it a day and start my vacation, it's very difficult to walk away from the market. As long as the market doesn't straight up crash in the next four sessions I'll be cool. Odds are decidedly in my favor on that one but still, it makes me nervous to walk away. I watch so many situations waiting for just the right set-up. Wonder how many set-ups I will be missing. Could be some name I've been watching for two years waiting for just this one chance and once it happens it's gone.

Poor me. I have to go on vacation. And I need it. The last couple weeks have been tough for me. Haven't felt motivated or hungry but uninspired and distracted. Yet the trading account is up almost five percent this month after smashing the cover off the ball last month. So why be greedy?

Upon my return there will be a new account for me to grow and profit from. The opportunities will still exist. Better yet I'll be fresh and refocused.

Well Done Barry

This is one of the best rants I have seen in a long time. Amen Barry Ritholtz.

CheckItOut

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Unable to Borrow

Yesterday it was LAMR.

Today WBMD.

Both would have been winners.

Yet Hope Springs Eternal

Big reversal today. We opened with death and destruction and now everything is just peachy.

My fat gains of this morning have thus melted away. I have taken down risk again in hopes that this bounce can last. Regardless of how much I'm in love with my latest round of short sales I will cover that shit on the drop of a hat and profits will be protected. Period. My gains have been made for this month; targets have been hit. Vacation is near. Why fuck it up?

A handful of shorts remain on my book, all profitable positions. Wort case: they get covered for modest gains. Winners will not be allowed to turn into losers. Besides we may not be done with the downside. If we start knifing lower once again I'll be back on offense. Until then I sit (rooting for these weak ass bulls).

Monday, July 14, 2008

So Much For Wishful Thinking

Poof! There goes your bullshit bailout rally.

Rally got sold. So much for my wishful thinking/best case scenario. As long as stocks keep falling I'll keep shorting them. Line in the sand is 1425 on the S&P, we've bounced off it twice now.

Hmmm. I wonder if all of these bailouts are starting to lose their shine. Ominous indeed. Paulson and Bernanke are trapped and the market is starting to sense it. Gold will continue to work here.

I'd keep your crash helmet on just in case. And how far are we really from a series of bank runs? Interesting times we live in.

Best Case Scenario

Well here comes another "Bernanke/Paulson Bailout Rally". Futures up big this Monday morning.

Clearly this Fannie/Freddie bailout is an unmitigated disaster and throwing billions of dollars into these black holes is a great way to make the billions disappear.

Here is what I'm hoping for: a big frickin' rally, all this week and into next. See, I leave for vacation later this week and won't be back until Tuesday of next week. My intention was to get small and not have to worry about the market gyrations while I'm sitting in the Florida Keys drinking fruity cocktails. Besides looking at literally hundreds of charts this weekend it's obvious to me that we need a good rally to create opportunity.

I won't be buying stocks. Not looking to play this thing from the long side, aside from my gold position and maybe adding some energy names. With any luck I can get even smaller (having already done so thanks to Friday's afternoon rumors) this week without much damage and just put it on cruise control until the middle of next week. With any luck I'll be in vacation mode by this afternoon, provided this rally has some legs. Let's hope...

Friday, July 11, 2008

Not This Time Ben

God I hate Ben Bernanke. If I could string that man up by his testicles I would, without hesitation. We didn't even make through the day before he dreamt up the next bailout.

The Fed will now open the discount window to Fannie and Freddie? Wow. This man is fucking batshit insane. Plan for higher interest rates and much higher gold prices. Shit at this rate it won't be long before it will be cheaper to wipe your ass with dollar bills than with toilet paper.

You might think a gold bull like myself would enjoy these sorts of things. You'd be wrong. See I have a son and I don't especially care for Bernanke trying to bankrupt his generation before he can even form a complete sentence.

The silver lining is that this bullshit went down on a Friday. I needed to take down some risk anyway. It's better than walking into a buzzsaw on a Monday morning. So I say fuck you Bernanke! I will keep all of my profits today. Hell with it, I'm calling it a day. A sad one for America indeed.

I'm pretty fired up. You can expect that I will rain down fire on this market next week, then I'll go on vacation. I'm especially pist for having covered LEH into the pop.

Have a nice weekend comrades.

Q & A

Q: Who owns all those Fannie and Freddie bonds not sold to the Chinese?

A: Your pension fund.

Oops. You're fucked.

NOTE: Your money market fund owns them too. As a matter of fact they're everywhere.

One Day Closer to the Next Bailout

Good Morning!

What a nice day it is; the sun is out, the birds are chirping and the US financial system is crashing down around us. How pleasant.

Fannie and Freddie are inevitably zeros and wouldn't you know it- gold is going nuts. I believe I called that shit. Again.

Seriously, I've been talking about the likelihood of bloodbath for years and I can honestly say I've never seen the financial system so close to complete and utter collapse. Be afraid, be very afraid. And don't think we can't crash.

When the next big bailout comes I'm guessing gold goes nuts as the dollar craters and interest rates go higher. My question is this: once the government acts to bailout all those who have acted irresponsibly who is going to bail out the government? Hmmm. No one. This is truly too big to bail. Bernanke is just going to print money out of thin air and monetize all that bad debt. Which brings us back to why you must own gold.

Thus far I'm up about 3% on the day. I covered a few shorts this morning and bought more SLV at the open. You must own precious metals as a hedge against the crazy shit Bernanke is going to pull. Consider it an insurance policy. When your dollar no longer buys you so much as gumball you'll be able to trade your gold for a goat.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Waiting on the Silver Breakout


America Continues to Hit New Lows

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D91R4LR00&show_article=1

Congress has just eviscerated the fourth amendent. Just gives you that warm fuzzy feeling doesn't it?

NOTE: I will soon be writing this from some other fucking country.

Another Day, Another "Bottom"

My godly gains of this morning have turned to mush as the market rips higher. Up a hundy once again. Let me just say this: those who think that with the economy going to hell in a hand basket it will be safe to hide out in tech have no business managing money. Somehow tech is not GDP-sensitive? The biggest corporate buyers of tech are in the financial services industry. I think maybe that might be a problem going forward.

DELL is a good example of this moronic notion.

Just for fun I shorted some LEH. Either I get stopped out @ $20 or it goes to zero (or whatever price the Fed bails it out at- say $10).

All Is Again Right With the World

My short exposure has been increased to reasonable levels once again. Sold some DELL, PCLN, TOL and more BX. Also initiated what I like to call "the balls of steel trade" via short GOOG.

What do you know? Profits are accruing to me in short order.

To pair with all my short exposure I continue to increase my metals exposure. My current disposition is long gold, short everything else. Not unlike my previous disposition which had been long energy, short everything else.

Making money on the short side still seems almost too easy and that makes me nervous.

Oh and I'm long AEM. Which is nice. Buy the miners here. Like GG too.

The Only Fear I See in This Market...

...is fear of missing the next rally.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Random Thoughts

One. Sitting here on the sidelines of the market action I must say I enjoy watching my son's UGMA account blowing up. He's 20 months old now and up 15% on the year by shorting commercial real estate. He's a bear just like daddy.

Two. If Iran were to wipe Israel of the map I really wouldn't care. A few less lobbyists in Washington.

Fun to Watch

Well, yesterday turned out not to be a yawner after all. While I was sitting on my porch bullshitting with a buddy the market screamed higher thereby stripping me of my gains for the month. Not big gains but nonetheless I'm back to zero on the month.

Once I checked the market at about 3:30 it was full on damage control mode. Already small, now my exposure is almost nonexistent. I shoot first and ask questions later. I'm keen to the possibility of a big bounce although my hunch is that we have more downside first. It's one of those extremely rare instances where I would rather just sit on my hands and watch. I'm sure as hell not going to be buying much of anything.

Now today the bulls are getting killed again. Dow down 155 at the moment. Did you buy the latest in a series of bottoms called almost daily by CNBC? How's that working out for you? Keep in mind that every one of those yahoos telling you to buy is getting killed in this market. Just like your 401K.

At this point my next great trade may not be from the short side after all. Maybe it will be getting long more gold. I haven't taken much action but I'm starting to like how the metals are trading here. Also like the action in the mining stocks so I'm watching them closely.