Merry Christmas Everyone!

Assholes

Can someone explain to me why at 3:30 today assholes stepped into this market and started buying? Slow grind all day and then wham off to the races for 30 minutes.

Welcome to Amateur Hour. The system is fucked...

And We Grind Away

Been out most of the day and will be leaving again as soon as I finish this post. Slow boring grind - probably what we'll see for the rest of the week. My shorts SRS, FAZ and BGZ are working my longs FAS, UYM and C are lower. Not concerned about my longs, been in C since 4 and FAS, UYM are just hedges as my bias is to the downside.

Crossroads

It feels like we are getting closer to the crossroads, sooner or later this market is going to have to pick a direction. Some are saying this week we will know which way we are heading. Could be but i'm not so sure. We very well could get some big moves this week but remember its Christmas and volume should be pretty light. Personally absent a move that can't be ignored i'll be waiting for early next year for my confirmation of which way we are headed.

Some Sunday night fun:

Weekend Reading

Some light weekend reading. Mostly events of the past week. Enjoy.


Detroit Handout Approved

Those bastards at Goldman strike again

Conditionson the next part of TARP - Who gives a shit, such a waste in these people's hands.

Madoff - Ripping people off Since 1970 - Kinda catchy, should have used it as his corporate motto.

Bush on Bush

Blagojevich - I'm not guilty - Can't they come up with something more colorful these days? Or for once just say yeah you caught me.

Divorce Billionaire style

More late downgrades

For Sale: 2 Cars and your own shop

Busted

Hat Tip: UpsideTrader

I Fear the Future

The United States has a national debt of 11 billion give or take, 41 states are currently running on budget deficits(illegal for most of them mind you). The Federal Reserve has rates at 0 and has pumped trillions into the economy. Hank Paulson and company has raped and pillaged the taxpayer and is going back for seconds. Obama is planning at least a trillion dollars in new spending just for "stimulus" that doesn't include any of his main "socialist" programs. I have to think Pelosi and company wont be happy sitting on the sidelines and will be lining up to pass out some more money.

If, and it is still an if but if this works to stimulate and reflate the economy what are the costs to ourselves or our children in the future? Do today's results justify tomorrows bill?

Oh and back to pillaging Paulson the TARP money seems to just be doing absolutely nothing for lending. Why? GS is paying bonus' with it, PNC buys NCC with their share. Others are doing similiar things or just hoarding it.

Will we ever be able to scrape our way out of this massive hole? Not without raising interest rates to attract investment.

Pick off of this idea. Somewhere TBT is going to make a shit load of money for people. I don't think we are there yet but keep it on your radar.

Madoff Madness

We're a few days into this shit storm and we still have only Bernie as the bad guy? I know there is no possible way that he pulled this off alone. No one could. They say he was running at least 3 or 4 sets of books. Plus out on the town raising new capital. Sorry absolutely unbelievable. Did the sons know? Was it preplanned to let them turn on him so they walk away? Why hasn't he ran yet?

And who in their right mind gave this guy money? Where were they on the DD. They say they are going to go after teh money already returned to investors.... Fuck you is what I would say to them. You weren't involved in the scheme why should you be penalized for having enough sense to get out, for whatever reason.

I was going to post some madoff links but there is just too damn many of them and your probably sick of reading it all anyway. So I will just leave you with this:







Update: The AP seems to be asking the same questions now.

Commercial Real Estate

I have a minute so I thought I would put up a quick post. I can't believe that there are people still out there who believe commercial real estate is not going to be hit let alone hit as hard as I think it will be. We have Circuit City, Linens N things, KB Toys and I am sure many others going out of business. How will these mall operators continue to operate? Most have taken on a heavy debt load to finance expansion and other activities through the boom years. Soon the piper will need paid and its looking like payment will be do at the absolute worst time. The play I see setting up here is definately SRS, if you don't like the leveraged ETF's(They are satan spawns) then shorting the IYR seems to be the way to go. 2 or 3 months from now those plays should really play out.

Word of caution SRS was 300 not too long ago and is now trading in the 60's up from the 50's. i told you the leveraged ETF's were evil.

Test

I will begin posting shortly. Maybe even later tonight. I just need to get the hang of things first. I hope to include some investment ideas, useful/interesting links and a breakdown of some of my trades.