April 2008

On Happy Hour for weeks, we've been all over the rice hoarding and food riots. News that Sam's Wholesale is limiting sales of rice is either a perfect top indicator in a mis-perceived "shortage" of food that's actually just a figment of all you momentum traders and commodity bulls (most of whom are just mindless speculators chasing the latest trend on Wall Street). Or this really is the start ... read more

And then there's the pro sports subsidy scams. Yeah, let's not overlook another direct redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich in the form of tax-games, subsidizations and what not. We take billions of tax-dollars to subsidize the building of stadiums and other professional sports welfare programs. What a crock. You realize today that the Seattle Seahawks, that bedrock of the ... read more

As rationing has become the best case scenario in the food markets (rioting being the worst case scenario), we have to wonder if there really is starting to be a shortage of food in the world. And if so, why? I think we're seeing food shortages for these reasons: 1.  The food markets are totally manipulated and controlled by the developed world's governments and their cronies. The UN and ... read more

I sure didn't win any popularity contests today when I went and shot my mouth off calling a top in oil today, did I? People LOVE their peak oil theses! We pretty much got a consensus of disagreement with me about there being any chance of a top in oil ever in our lifetimes. Think about that. I'm not even exaggerating that the consensus seems to think that. "EVER". At some point, this ... read more

I've long been a bear on oil and energy as an investment thesis -- Simply put, the end product of all energy is totally commoditized and every player in the business is totally beholden to the vagaries of the market to set the price of that end product. Intel gets to choose how much to price their processors for. And they've kept gross margins far above 50, 60% regardless of the cycles playing ... read more

Okay, so I stayed home tonight wanting to get some rest. And instead I've ended up insomniac-ally playing with FireFox extensions all night. There's some great blogging extensions that make it easier than ever to link blog posts to articles I'm reading as I'm reading them. But there's a problem with every single one of the extensions as I try to log in on them, of course. And after reading ... read more

Okay, let's follow up on this Google trade.   Let's say you acted on the ideas I wrote about yesterday and over the last few weeks as I'd been literally jumping up and down screaming to buy Google below $500 and now you've got a good-sized common stock position and a decent chunk of what were slightly-in-the-money, but are now deep-in-the-money calls. In other words, you're feeling like a king ... read more

Trading into any company's earnings report is always a tricky beast at best. Let's say you have a good sense of what the company's going to deliver fundamentally-speaking since you've been doing lots of homework and staying on top of its trends and newsflow (and perhaps even spoken to company soldiers on the ground for some anecdotal takes on how biz has been). Even if you nail the fundamental ... read more

It was quite a rush being treated so nicely with an entourage and outpouring of support as soon as I'd landed in Albuquerque last Thursday.  I spoke in front of students during a lunch break in the Anderson School of Management and then even jumped headfirst and gave my "Flip It' lessons from whatever the students in a micro-economics and a commercial banking class were currently working on.  (I ... read more

Intel's report was shockingly good, if only because we all expected so much bad.  I certainly, even as bullish as I am for the near term, didn't expect that Intel would talk up demand trends.  I mean, you mean business is GOOD?! Remind me again why we've taken hundreds of billions of your tax dollars and given to the richest people on the planet who are simply worried that the market's going ... read more