The ~whole~ market looks like this.

Pick any stock really, and you can see where Trump unleashed the crakin'. I chose a non fad stock that probably isn't tainted by the reddit bros. I didn't want to talk about this last year for obvious reasons. But now we are here and this is the most dangerous market I have ever seen. I guess the bright side is that I don't think Biden will be able to get much done. Everyone will be too poor.

Now we get to see how much demand was pulled forward.

Pending Home Sales Drop For 4th Straight Month In December, Led By MidWest.

I love the smell of margin calls in the morning. I bet by Monday we see a short selling ban. 

So very 2008.

I see today everyone is freaking out about Robinhood banning sales in certain stocks. While I don't agree with this - I'd say everything is playing out very 2008. I'd bet very soon we will have another mass ban. 

Pretty much every day now I run across a chart that looks exactly like FIZZ. Hit the one year button. This stock is up 100 percent THIS YEAR! 200% YOY. 

Pro tip, the market didn't stop falling until Feb 09. Some 5 months later.

Shackling Short Sellers: 

"The 2008 Shorting Ban "In September 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) temporarily banned most short sales in nearly 1,000 financial stocks. In our paper, Shackling Short Sellers: The 2008 Shorting Ban, forthcoming in the Review of Financial Studies, we examine the ban’s effect on market quality, shorting activity, the aggressiveness of short sellers, and stock prices. For the most part, financial economists consider short sellers to be the “good guys,” unearthing overvalued companies and contributing to efficient stock prices. Even as late as the summer of 2007, regulators in the United States seemed to share this view, as they made life easier for short sellers by repealing the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE’s) uptick rule and other short-sale price tests that had impeded shorting activity since the Great Depression (see Boehmer, Jones, and Zhang (2009) for an analysis of this event). However, short sellers are often the scapegoats when share prices fall sharply, and regulators in the United States did a sharp U-turn in 2008, imposing tight new restrictions on short sellers as the financial crisis worsened. In September 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) surprised the investment community by adopting an emergency order that temporarily banned most short sales in nearly 1,000 financial stocks. In this paper, we study changes in various liquidity measures, the rate of short sales, the aggressiveness of short sellers, and in stock prices before, during, and after the shorting ban. We compare banned stocks to a control group of nonbanned stocks to identify these effects.

We find that during the shorting ban, shorting activity in large-cap stocks subject to the ban drops by about 77%. All but the smallest stocks subject to the ban (those in the smallest size quartile) suffer a severe degradation in market quality, as measured by spreads, price impacts, and intraday volatility. In contrast, the smallest-quartile stocks see little impact from the shorting ban. Stock price effects are difficult to discern, as there is substantial contemporaneous, confounding news about the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other government programs to assist the financial sector. When we look at firms that are added later to the ban list (for these firms, confounding contemporaneous events are less of a problem), we do not find a price bump at all. In fact, these stocks consistently underperform during the whole period the ban is in effect. This suggests that the shorting ban did not provide an artificial boost in prices."

Emphasis mine.

I'd say we are close to the end.

I have been through a few super bad markets. And every time the name Citron pops up - the end is near. As much as a hate to say it - if the shorts are on a stock, that stock is in trouble. As fun as it is to watch a Gamestop, it sends a shiver down my spine.

When stocks like EXPR are going from ONE DOLLAR to almost 10 bucks a share in a week - you better find a chair. 

This is some 2008 shit right there. 

I don't even know what to talk about anymore.

"About 18% renters in America, or around 10 million people, were behind in their rent payments as of the beginning of the month.

It is far more than the approximately 7 million homeowners who lost their properties to foreclosure during the subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing Great Recession. And that happened over a five-year period. " Source.

Isn't another way to say this is "About 18% landlords in America, or around 10 million people, were behind in their rent payments as of the beginning of the month. "

I know the ratio isn't 1-1 as some people own their rentals, and some landlords have many renters. But this doesn't even account for Airbnb's. I think people don't truly appreciate how dangerous this market is.

So I've been trying to daydream it away. 

She was a tough pony to break.

I grew up with mental illness. My mom was bi-polar. Sometimes she would be fine, others not so much. So, when people start acting crazy I have a particular allergic reaction to it. I feel the best thing to do is to just step back and let them be destructive. People are their own worst enemies.

So when my neighbor started acting crazy, in my head I was like - I see you.

Now I'm gonna bring you up to date with those trees. After she realized they weren't getting enough water, she brought someone out to increase the flow resulting in her sending water over my property. Not a whiney amount like whaaaa she's sprinkling my yard. I actually had to cut two paths to drain water off my property like a ducks back.

As it turns out, her property is higher than mine so all of her water drains onto my side. I quickly realized that she could never keep enough water there to keep them alive. So I just sat back. I figure this is a self resolving problem. Water is expensive.

First she starts watering in 12 hour clips. Every couple of days I regrade parts of my yard so water doesn't pool anywhere and runs right to the street. I'm happy to spend her money. For a while she was watering everything on my side in 10x20 foot area.

The trees weren't responding so then she started doing 20 HOUR clips. She was so happy about those trees she brought someone out to install uplights! She was going to pown me even at night!

She did about a month of that, and the lights have never come back on. I initially thought she'd only loose two or three trees, but she's losing ALL of them. It's super helpful we are in forever summer and now a millionty inches behind in rain. But no one not stupid rolls up in California with FIVE 20foot  trees.  That takes a lot of water. Her little instagram life got ahead of her.

The whole thing has actually turned to much better than I expected. Fortune really shined on me. I would have been happy if she just kept them trimmed off my side. But now I get my view back. And it's the funniest effing thing because sometimes revenge is best when self inflicted.  She spent all that money for nothing.

Oh, and P.S. she taught me a new way to kill trees. With water.

Interesting article on how the virus might be mutating.

Normally I don't quote so much of an article, but I know most people don't click through. But this is a very interesting article on how immunocompromised individuals might be mutating and spreading a stronger version of the virus. Also read the official case study.

U.K. variant puts spotlight on immunocompromised patients’ role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In June, Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, heard about a cancer patient who had come into a local hospital the month before with COVID-19 and was still shedding virus. The patient was being treated for a lymphoma that had relapsed and had been given rituximab, a drug that depletes antibody-producing B cells. That made it hard for him to shake the infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Gupta, who studies how resistance to HIV drugs arises, became interested in the case and helped treat the patient, who died in August, 101 days after his COVID-19 diagnosis, despite being given the antiviral drug remdesivir and two rounds of plasma from recovered patients, which contained antibodies against the virus. When Gupta studied genome sequences from the coronavirus that infected the patient, he discovered that SARS-CoV-2 had acquired several mutations that might have allowed it to elude the antibodies.

Now, his analysis, reported in a preprint on medRxiv earlier this month, has become a crucial puzzle piece for researchers trying to understand the importance of B.1.1.7, the new SARS-CoV-2 variant first found in the United Kingdom. That strain, which appears to spread faster than others, contains one of the mutations that Gupta found, and researchers believe B.1.1.7, too, may have originated in an immunocompromised patient who had a long-running infection. “It’s a perfectly logical and rational hypothesis,” says infectious disease scientist Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust.

Scientists are still trying to figure out the effects of the mutations in B.1.1.7, whose emergence led the U.K. government to tighten coronavirus control measures and other countries in Europe to impose U.K. travel bans. But the new variant, along with research by Gupta and others, has also drawn attention to the potential role in COVID-19 of people with weakened immune systems. If they provide the virus with an opportunity to evolve lineages that spread faster, are more pathogenic, or elude vaccines, these chronic infections are not just dangerous for the patients, but might have the potential to alter the course of the pandemic. "

LOL

"The Biden agenda is expected to result in a faster-growing economy, a stronger stock market and higher interest rates in its first year."

I sort of enjoy seeing people be poor winners right now. For they don't know what they have done to themselves. Laugh it up now. 

Zero stimulus will get to people like they think. It will all go to bail out the banks. Like the Obama. I mean, how long can no pay-  OK - last? Trump must have shoved a hot poker up the butts of bankers because pretty much no one lost their house under Trump. Layoffs have been relatively subdued. And the stock market is at an all time high and DELIRIOUSLY OVERVALUED. 

That will all change this year.

Everyone thinks the vaccine is going to come in and make things get back to normal. But I'm telling you that if the economy opened up tomorrow, we would encounter a deflationary environment so quickly it would make your head spin. The ONLY reason it looks like inflation is stirring at ALL is because of all the extra costs businesses have to endure right now. If the vaccine is successful, they don't need to spend that money anymore. Those businesses are drowning in debt.

Not to mention everybody is on an extremely reduced schedule. It's going to take me three months to get an oven. And it's not even a fancy one. I'm moving. People are completely delusional if they think inflation is going to run hot. It's not. There will be too much money chasing too few products, but we've been through that before and we can still get "disinflation".

And lastly, some of us are still watching to see how all those virus variants are behaving. Right now all of our numbers seem to be going down, but people are mostly adhering to lockdown pretty strongly. I am watching to see if things are more like Manaus, or.... one of the other countries that seem to have immunity escape variants. Which could really change everything.

Today I was running errands and ran into a guy I used to know. I say "used to know", because I hadn't seen him in a few years.  You get pretty used to people moving away around here. He used to work in the town next to me behind a counter.

It was at a new business in my town. I was making small talk with him as I was buying something and he says - I have helped you before. Which completely took me off guard. It was only the second time I'd been into the place.  And I didn't recognize him due to the masks.  I tilted my head in the way I do trying to place him.

Not to mention, I'm always a little surprised when people remember me. I try to be like the wind. Maybe you aren't  sure I was ever really there at all.

I said to him, maybe it was "this place". Because they are similar businesses. And he was like, yes!  I ask - is this your place? And he said yes.

We talked a few times about him wanting to open his own place. But, everyone has dreams. They are often just that. It's so incredibly hard to make those dreams come true. Everything is stacked against you.

I sort of can't believe the joy I have for him. He made it. He's living the dream. It's been so long since I've had that feeling for anything. I love the underdog. Silicon Valley used to be ALL underdogs. Now it's just filled with conmen. But maybe the magic is still here.

It feels strange to feel so happy for someone starting a business right as the pandemic is taking out so many, but he managed the magic intersection between skill and luck. Which is a very beautiful thing to watch. 

Never happening.

Fed’s Bostic sees possible interest rate hike as soon as the second half of next year.

Exhibit A:

Metro Denver housing market running out of gas, economists tell agents.

"Eisenberg compared the Denver-area housing market to a driver who was going 65 mph heading into the pandemic, slammed the brakes and slowed down to 25 mph during the lockdown and then accelerated hard, reaching 90 mph until the engine couldn’t go any faster."

Currently, this describes all areas. Trump threw absolutely everything at this market. There is nothing left to throw. 

I posted a chart a few days ago showing how much demand was pulled forward. Now we get to see how that plays out. I'm guessing it's going to look like a cliff. But I hope to be wrong.

Far away Future is back.

No bubbles to be seen anywhere....Said in the most sarcastic way. But it's always nice to get a chance to use my nickname for them.

EV Startup Faraday Said in SPAC Merger Talks to Go Public.

Republicans find a way to screw up everything.

Today I think today I am going to clear the air. Because I think Republicans lost the election for Trump and I'm kinda mad about it.  

For months I've been asking Mr S. if the Never Trumpers were behind this anti mask movement. The people I saw amplifying that message in the loudest way, were never Trumpers. Bill Mitchell. Chris Christy. I mean, a few days ago I asked Mr S. why we were listening to Paul Ryan all of a sudden. That guy is a tool! Also a never Trumper. Right?

I'm not exactly sure how we went from Trump doesn't need to wear a mask - to EVERYONE doesn't need to wear a mask. To be honest - our party looks effing insane right now. They have become what we claimed to hate. To go into stores the way they did and act a fool when everyone is just trying to get by. There are no words for that. It's embarrassing honestly.

Last night as the death toll hit more than 700 A DAY in my State I asked Mr S. how many does it take before people believe it's real. He turned to me and says - ONE. The one person you love. And yes, I do know a person who has gotten it. They recovered, but that person knew people that had a much worse result.

People take a dim view of someone saying your family member doesn't matter. Not to mention Nurses Union is a big fucking voting block. The way people are treating them.... would you vote for a Republican? They are caved with work with no end in sight and no appreciation. If you are on the line, you are going to vote for the party that doesn't make your life miserable. WE NEEDED EVERY VOTE.

The past year has been a chaotic mess. And Republicans didn't help that at all. They ruined time he could have used to talk about Biden sending so many Black people to jail. Or the amount of regulation he cut. But the whole year was spent on this bullshit.

Now, do I believe there was voter fraud. Yes. A million times.  But this country is split right down the middle when it comes to issues. Pretty much 50/50 with the margin of error on one side of the line or the other. Yet Republicans were acting like they didn't have a care in the world. AND! They made this whole virus thing a talking point when it didn't need to be!

And even worse, their behavior became obnoxious. People were becoming hostile with me just because I believe the virus is real, and I'm an OG Trump supporter! I have the receipts. Honestly I'm a little bitter about it. It was pretty amusing (at first) watching these people become super fervent to people on their side. Eventually you get a little "fuck you" about it.

You don't win elections by treating people they way they did. Our party needs some huge self reflection because I don't even understand what those never Trumpers hope to achieve. The Mitt Romney Republicans. They are complete spineless losers, but I'm pretty sure they are behind the effort to make Trump look bad. 

WE DONT NEED DEMOCRATS to make our party look bad. We have ourselves.

Additionally, the Never Trumpers are the reason we got Trump. From at least Bush on, any time the Democrats would say anything the Republicans would just roll over like a whipped dog. Many of us voted for Trump because he fought back.

Lastly, I don't think Trump ever intended to run again. It's more likely one of his sons will. So all this impeachment crap, I think - doesn't matter. He's more valuable out now. But wow am I mad about how things turned out.

Normally all of Silicon Valley would be in Vegas right now. So, we are all going to be super crabby this year. 

Even though I have access, I am not amplifying anything from CES this year. I rarely amplify things I haven't seen with my own eyes. Even when you do see these things in real life, half the time they are vaporware. I'm super not amplifying that.

Wake it up!

 

Today I wanted to blog about a company called reMarkable. They've made a digital pad that I think is honestly the best of mimicking real paper. It's about the size of a paper pad. It is weighted roughly the same. Strangely it gives you that same "feeling" of holding a pad of paper. Unlike the kindle which doesn't really give you the same "feel" as holding a book.  I was pretty surprised. 

I am not the end user fo this product. Mr S. is. I don't draw, and those of you who religiously read my blog know I'm practically illiterate. So, you are getting the CES style review from me.

You will have to re-train your hands to write. All of us computer people now have stubby dinosaur hands. I can barely write a check these days without having to redo it a couple of times because -  me no write no more.

But this little device is not bad though. The latency is very low. You can mark up PDF's and send them to yourself in email. Apparently it gives you the right "feel" when you are drawing.

I just thought it was interesting. And I love that epaper is still trying to hang on. The iPad pretty much killed that wave.

 

It's laughable really,

Biden Promises More Money For Black, Brown Businesses; Says Americans "Entitled" To $15 Min Wage.

Biden is stuck in the 70s'. He is going to try all the retreads and I believe he is going to brutalize this economy. The above headline is the perfect example.

Add this burden to the restaurant industry right now?! Yeah... lets go with that.

I can't even believe I'm having this conversation, but if people can't even be bothered to get up off their asses to go vote in person... what are you going to do? And yes. I did vote in person last year. I waited for about an hour. There were limited voting places open. But they were open.

I'm debating shooting mostly in black and white this year. It feels like a depression era photography sort of year.

One of the biggest lessons of the housing crisis.

Fed's Vice Chair Sees No Tapering Until 2022, Is "Not Concerned" With Surging 10Y Yields.

The banks ALWAYS tried to front run the Fed and got slapped down every single time.

You see.... the banks can't control themselves - so every time things started to look good, interest rates spiked. Which ~always~ resulted in the Fed not being able to raise rates because of the pulse from the banks. That went on for a solid ten years.

The banks always start raising before the Fed does.

Trump unfortunately has pulled demand forward in the biggest way. All of these headlines about inflation and the 10 year are just theater. And I'm in the market to refi. Even I am still waiting. 

Everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room.

 

Update - I guess I just noticed the housing market did, in one year, what it took more than five years to do before the housing crisis. You can see for yourself in a bigger chart here. You have to hit the 25 yr chart button.

The stock market hit an all time high today. And yesterday. And maybe tomorrow.  I guess the market only goes up. Said in the most sarcastic way. So..... it's quite hard to put words to anything right now. I mean, Elon is our new richest man over Jeff Bezos who sends me LITERALLY anything I effing want. ANYTHING.

For some reason people believe that the economy is kinda okay when in reality we are floating on the biggest air pocket in history. No one seems concerned at all of this activity is predicated by a FIREHOSE of Fed liquidity.  Trump literally saved EVERYONE. Including prisoners. People are not even paying attention honestly. Stocks going up 100% in a year or 200%. Or more. This effing INSANE activity in houses in the above chart. I am the biggest housing bull on the face of the planet, and no one can deny this is a bubble. Yet interest rates are at an all time low. Riddle me that Batman.

People are so delusional they are actually talking about inflation again. Which makes me believe they learned nothing from the housing crisis. ALL of this money printing is going to go into DEBT service. People are FLOATING in debt. People seem to think that inflation is going to get dicey. IT's NOT.

Almost anything you need repaired is taking roughly six weeks. I had a window spontaneously crack, and it took me 6 weeks to get a repair. And it wasn't a big window. I bought an oven a month ago, and I still have no ETA. If you need ANYTHING, it's going to take at least a month. Hell... I was even at the mall, and another lady was wanting to try things on, and they have all of their dressing rooms closed. If you are not buying off the rack, you aren't buying. These things are causing a massive distortion. So, there might be inflation right now - but it's VERY transitory.

And finally, when Trump leaves....... that means the pumper in Chief leaves too. He was masterful in pumping up the market and enthusiasm. Even I thought the Trump bump would evaporate after a year in office, but it never did.

I believe this year is going to leave a mark like no other. And I've been through at least one solid ass woop'in.

I just thought I would give you this chart of when Trump tried to reduce the balance sheet. I was pretty happy at the first two arrows. but I believe he or the Fed made policy error and tried to reduce to quickly and then had to restart it to almost previous levels. Then came the pandemic.

So, no matter what the new Fed says they are going to do, they will not reduce the balance sheet ANY time soon. If ever.

George Bush definitely ruined capitalism.