Thursday, June 14, 2012

Thursday cinema & library

We're on the verge of some potentially titanic movements in the next few days. Sit tight and avoid the turbulence, or at least take a barf bag with you. Better yet, get on your bike and enjoy a fine summer evening.

Tyler Durden: Positioning for weekend: BofA's risk cheat sheet (June 15)
TraderFlorida (video): Thursday wrap (June 14)
streetmoney21 (video): Currency markets prepare for total chaos on Monday (June 14)
Le Fly: Come get it (June 14)
Charles Biderman: How to benefit from global financial mess (June 14)
Street Insider: Unusual mid-day movers (NBG) (June 14)
Barron's: Apple potential 'game changer' in mobile payments (June 13)
Reggie Middleton: As predicted last year, French and Greeks in race (June 13)


Titanic or Titillating Thursday

2:24 am (Hawaii) The Spanish 10-year is at 7%. How fricken outlandish is that? No nation can survive long with something like that. It's just ... implausible. No country was built to survive something like that. Yet there it is. Infuckingcredible.

But the world is not coming to an end. If there's one good thing about the internet, it's this: the masses share everything, good and bad ideas, at warp speed. So long as there is power, ideas and solutions spread at a rate we as a species have never seen before. So it's impossible to measure that component and believe with all certainty that we're up shit creek for good.

It just feels like it sometimes.

Here's what amuses and/or infotains this morning.

Business Insider: Initial unemployment claims MISS BIG (June 14)
Joe Weisenthal: I just got a ride to my hotel in Athens and BOY was it depressing (June 14)
Business Insider: Holy Crap: Spanish 10-year yield hit 7.0% (June 14)




Monday, June 11, 2012

No wind behind Spanish sails (updated)

7:41 am (Hawaii) The Spanish bailout had Dow futures +140 at one point last night. My guess was that AAPL would hit 590 today. So I got up a little while ago, turned on the TV to see the Dow down 30 points. Stunning. No +100 or +200 day?

AAPL nearly hit 590, hitting 588.50 intraday, but is now back at 581+, barely positive even though its annual developers conference has begun. (They've released new and improved MacAir.) The bailout lasted for the blink of an eye. FAZ, which gapped down nearly a dollar to 25.00 at the open, is now at 26.56. I'm still all cash and probably will leave this mess alone. But it's telling how any bailout is having almost no effect on the overall market.

Update 10:16 am Took a shot at FAZ at 26.92, ran to 27.04 and fell. Got out at 26.80 for a teeny loss. Got back in at 27.09. (Missed a buy at 26.93 on the way back up.) Sold at 27.34 before the closing bell. Net positive for the day, basically break even. Had I held from 26.92, would've been a small, but decent paper profit. The after-hours puppeteers have FAZ at 27.39.

Almost impossible to hold anything overnight unless you have a major cushion, like say AAPL since 95. But even AAPL took a couple of roundhouse blasts to the face, falling to 571+ before the bell after being up nicely early in the day. Dow -142 (-1.1%), Nas -48 (-1.7%), S&P -16 (-1.3%). Surely another bailout coming this week, likely for Italy, which means another gap higher for the indices. I'd rather wait for the pop and fade that. Or just watch from the top row with my binoculars.


Thursday, June 7, 2012

Status quo

On the road again and it's nice to be out of the traffic mess and snarl, the craziness of people in tight quarters. No, out here it's quiet, less traffic and even with a job to do, I can relax almost instantly. Catching up with today's price action. China cut interest rate, but Bernanke was predictably stoic after a huge two-day run-up in the market. Don't forget the bullish comments coming out of Fed bankers recently, and Bernanke had to stay quiet, ie douse the flames with a sprinkling of cold water.

Would've been profitable to short financials after the open today via FAZ, but I was asleep at 3:30 am and later was on the road. It's looking more and more like a dead-cat bounce, though this one is completely attached by umbilical cord to monetary easing (or not) and Eurozone politics. That's what makes it difficult to hold FAZ overnight. Had I tried this yesterday, I would've started today's session down an full buck. Not worth the risk.

Looks like a lot of jibber-jabber on the way from people like Fed bankers, and that'll make for a lot of useless running in place between now and those key Eurozone elections in about 10 days. Just enough time to really take a deep breath and enjoy the view.


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Wednesday cinema & library (updated)



Abigail Doolittle: Runaway day likely to fail (June 6)
Keiser Report: Paper money collapse (June 5)
David Fry: Big Wednesday short squeeze (June 7)
The Guardian: Spain calls for new tax pact to save euro (June 6)
Wall Street Journal: Lockhart says Fed must stand ready to provide more support (June 6)
Le Fly: 'We are going the fuck higher' (June 6)
Turd Ferguson: 'DO NOT be surprised by a dip/profit-taking' in metals (June 6)
Financial Post: Gartman admits he made bad call on gold (June 6)
Jim Rogers: 'Please get worried' (June 4)

Idling and parking (updated)

8:26 am (Hawaii) Some long, fun days for me with summer here, which means I've slept through the past two sessions for the most part. Even though I knew futures were up more than 100 points last night. The Dow is +203 with about 90 minutes left. AAPL is hovering around 570, off its intraday high of 573.85. AGQ is up 5.1% to 43.86, one of the most obvious signs that sentiment is with the bulls, i.e. euro printing is about to crank into full madness.

DGP is barely green today, however. Also note that volume is a pittance, so this move could pop any moment. It's a three-legged chair. It's a lack of sellers more than an onslaught of buyers. Even social media are up: FB +0.9%, YELP +4.3%. Even GRPN +7.4%.

Finnies are rallying again. JPM is +2.6% and FAS is +6.66 percent (not making that up). VXX is down 4.8% and TVIX is -8.9%.

I have some work to do, in and out this morning (yes, it's still morning here in the middle of the Pacific), and I'm not convinced about this move higher. I may dip into DGP or even NUGT with a tight stop, but that's it. This arena is half empty, and if the balloon pops in Europe, the tankage will resume. My gut tells me they have to print, though. It's a conundrum.

Update 10:04 am In and out of FAS for a quick little profit. Got in at 77.70 a few minutes before the closing bell. Swung lower to about 77.45 before it closed strong. A few minutes after the bell, sold at 78.45. They'll puppeteer this thing back to 77.70 or so at some point today, I'm guessing.

Of course, now that I'm out, it will go to 80, then 85, then 90. They must print euros. Simple as that. So why am I not in gold and/or silver? Both have made big runs recently. I'll wait until things cool off a little more before walking into that. Because any whiff of bad news regarding the ECB, eurozone, Germany ... and FAS goes back to 68. And lower.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Weekend cinema & library (updated)

Bokor Mountain Church, Cambodia

Le Fly/iBankCoin: Germany's third World War (June 3)
Scott Bleier/iBankCoin: Growth at any cost? (June 3)
Business Insider: Soros reveals exact moment Merkel started Euro collapse (June 2)
Business Insider: Former hedge funder presents terrifying version of end game (June 2)
Bloomberg: Merkel rejects debt sharing (June 2)
Reuters: Funds pull out of commodities, most bearish since end-2011 (June 1)
Zero Hedge: 'The End Game' (June 1)
Zero Hedge: The deer is back (June 1)
Zero Hedge: Santelli and Kaminsky on broken rules, unpredictability, deleveraging (June 1)
Zero Hedge: Sorry folks, QE3 ain't coming, even the Fed doves admit it (June 1)


News trumps all

7:50 am (Hawaii) I've been disgusted with myself all week, which is no way to prepare for the market. Heck, in that mindset, it would've been best to leave home for awhile, get outside and get some clarity, which I did a few times. It's not the amount in trading losses that bothered me; it was relatively fractional. It was the whipsaw nature of price action and my inability — or unwillingness — to respect the lack of direction.

But I was all cash most of the week after the close, and that game plan was best. Though I wasn't long FAZ overnight, I wasn't long the market either and this -247 point move in the Dow comes on the back end of these negative PMI numbers across the world in the past 36 hours. It's tempting to go short (via FAZ or TVIX), but the risk here is that with all the bad news absorbed, and Obama done speaking (the indices dove again as he began), the market is done puking for the time being.

DJ -2%
Nasdaq -2.6%
S&P -2.3%

Overnight futures were at -110 before I hit the sack, so getting up to see this isn't a major shock. But gold is UP. DGP is +8.2%. AAPL is down 2.5% ($14) to 563. Even some of the stocks that had been resilient, like JACK, are down more than 4%.

The strange thing is, volume is SO LOW. In some cases, it is miniscule. So is this a true capitulation move even without volume? Maybe there are simply no sellers left and this really is the bottom. But I'm not willing to go long here. Not yet.


Update 8:13 am In FAZ at 29.75.

Update 8:20 am Out FAZ 29.62. It was up to 29.83 and topped out. Should've protected myself and stopped out (manual) for break-even. Tiny loss, but it's the principle. During that intraday top by FAZ, AAPL bottomed at 560.52. AAPL now 562.50, FAZ at 29.50. Anything with a gain over 10% like FAZ is due to sell off, no surprise.