Friday, January 29, 2021
The ~whole~ market looks like this.
Thursday, January 28, 2021
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.
"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."
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
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.
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
I don't even know what to talk about anymore.
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.
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
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.
"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
Sunday, January 17, 2021
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.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Monday, January 11, 2021
Never happening.
Far away Future is back.
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.
Friday, January 08, 2021
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.