Waiting at Winkies

Everyone in Hedgistan is waiting around, doing almost nothing.  It's like we're all at that crappy diner Winkies in Mulholland Drive.  What will bonuses be like this year?  Which funds will close up because they haven't gone above their high-water marks?  Which ones will see that grisly, terrifying homeless man behind the restaurant near the dumpster?

Read more

The Perfect Movie: Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive is the haunting, puzzling, frenetic, saturated color valentine to Hollywood by the auteur David Lynch.

Read more

China Syndrome

China stocks are so hot that smidiots in Hedgistan are really pumping me for ideas.  These guys think because I speak and write passable Mandarin and visit China often that somehow I can help them pick stocks.  I figure I only know enough to be dangerous, and usually keep my stock investments close at home.  My biggest china investments have been in Macau casinos, which you know if you read this blog often or my newly minted newsletter.

Read more

The Real Heroes

Almost 8 years ago, heroic Army pilot Major Curt Feistner died in a Chinook crash during overseas operations with 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR).  You’ve never heard of him, because you’ve never heard of the countless young men that have quietly made sacrifices like these.  As I sit in my comfortable office chair in Midtown Manhattan, the only sacrifice I’ll make today is going to be the irritation of the noise of drums from the Veterans Day Parade that will

Read more

Is it the future or is it the past?

 Sometimes when I'm in Hedgistan a meeting talking to Smidiots, I feel like Agent Cooper talking to the Man from Another Place.  These guys speak in weird inverse stupid talk just like that weird little midget in the Crimson room.  I look around and ask myself- are these guys from the same universe as me?  Yet I don't wake up from the dream and find myself in Twin Peaks.  The way they talk about stocks just amazes me.

Read more

The Bull Lumbers On...

“Experts” and market strategists almost universally agree that the market cannot rally further, and rallies will fizzle.  Even WSJ says P/E of 19x is too high, compared to 1983 era when it was 10x.

Read more

Wow- Mutual Fund Investors Are Scared

I’m tracking mutual fund flows just out of interest – I put the numbers in a chart. This amazing chart tells some stories.

First, everyone panicked and bailed out of stocks early in Q109, in time to miss the biggest run in stocks in decades.

The staggering gush of money into bonds when they pay the lowest yields in our lifetimes astounds me – every John Q Public that is complaining about the devaluation of the dollar due to profligate spending is complicit as seen by the massive inflows into bond funds in the chart.

Read more

Sell-side Silliness

 Would you follow the recommendation of an analist that cut his price target for a stock from $100 to $50 overnight, with no event, earnings call, or fundamental change in the stock?  Would you follow what an analist told you to do after he spent months studying a stock, initiating coverage with a $60 target, then cutting price target a week later to $50 because the stock dropped?  I wouldn't either.

Read more

Spooky Week for Smidiots

Last week equity investors acted more scared than an 8 year-old being forced to watch the entire "Saw" franchise.  It was particularly charming to watch the "broken clock shorts" come back out again.  Their victory laps on twitter warmed my heart, because I use them as a contrarian indicator.  Especially wonderful was tweets like "DIIIIIE!"  But they are not THE Contrarian Indicator, which is my proprietary index of Smidiot Sentiment in Hedgistan.

Read more

Smartphone Wars: The Carriers

The three major US cell phone carriers have all reported earnings.  I follow these companies very closely and track a number of metrics.  This is a lot of work, but it gives me a lot of insight into the Smartphone market, which has been a theme in my fund for the last three years.  To back up some of what Davian is explaining on his vlog, here are some hard numbers for you.  

Read more