Tautology of the Skeptical Sinner

In other news, Bernanke also believes that the Bigfoot body was not a hoax.

Personally, I’d listen to Buffet more than the Fed chairman. This is nothing but another straw for the bulls to grasp at, boys and girls, nothing but a self-delusional bear market rally.

Next week will be a little up and down, but when we push past September, its going to be a Dark October.

It’s a great time to be short on financials.

(I’m short on Bank of America corp at the time of writing)

First off, let me open by saying “I told you so“.

Financial whizz, Kenneth Rogoff, stated in an interview today that he anticipates “The worst is yet to come in the U.S.,” (source) He expects a major bank to go bust in the next few months.

As we’ve seen (July 15th, anyone?) any time even a small bank goes pop, financials get hammered.

“The degree and depth of what’s happening in the financial industry is beyond anything we’ve seen in decades and it takes time to get your arms around the severity of what’s happening and what the long-term and short-term ramifications are,” - said John Merrill, chief investment officer at Tanglewood Wealth Management. (source)

Never mind Freddie and Fannie getting hit hard by the potential government bailout… there’s more to come…

If anyone is still under the illusion that we aren’t in a bear market at this point, move along, you’re not going to be any further convinced here. But for those of you who realize that important factoid can appreciate the short rallies we see are really false ones and that there is going to be a big drop coming, no matter which bank gets hit with bad news.

As a result, I’m holding aggressive shorts on Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) - the one bank thats trying to convince us that everythings okay. The one bank that kept its dividend the same. And the one bank that happened to buy Countrywide earlier this year.

Yes, I know, I know… they’re saying that all of CWD bonds and liabilities are contractually excluded from affecting them because of the way the buyout was engineered, but you can’t buy a lemon without ending up smelling a little citrusy. My money’s on investors finding out the hard way that they’re not as protected as they’re saying they are.

I’m counting on a strike price of $17.50 sometime between now and November 22nd, and with a put position of  $22.50 currently at $1.72 that’s going to yield an almost 300% return. (I got in at $1.15 during a nice little delusional rally).

Given the drop BAC took during the failure of IndyMac.. (Down to $18.44) I don’t consider this unrealistic.

If you’re still hoping the Fed may magic up engineer a miracle rally and want a little more time to save your position, go for a Jan 09 short position.

As always, remember, any option trading can be considered a high risk position, so be sure to allow for that risk to be part of a balanced trading strategy unless you want to end up like the financials are now.

While I’m thankful that confidence is surging again, I’m too plugged in to the economy to think that this is anything but a short term Bear Market Rally.

Don’t people read? Can’t they hear the desperation in the Real Estate and Automotive sectors? Don’t they understand that the tangled mess of the Subprime CDOs is still ready to bite?

I’m short on Citi and Bank of America, and I expect them to both drop substantially by the end of the year.

I don’t mind if I lose money on these options, because if I do - it will mean that the financials did manage to get their sh*t back together and that the economy won’t be in the deep freeze for much longer.

I’m going with a blend of Puts (Options) with Citi and Bank of America, Jan 09 date on the expectation that the value of these options will rise.

.CMC - 15.00 Strike Price (Meaning a 25% drop or worse, in the stock price of Citi between now and Jan 09) - Currently trading at $0.93 - I imagine any seriously bad news (Which I’m expecting) will put the value of this option up to $1.50 or more for a 50% + gain.

.BACME is another one I want to get in on, but the price right now is a little more than I would like. Its a strike price of $25.00, and trading at $2.04 today, meaning that Bank of America shares need to fall $8 - I would expect these to go as high as $4.00 if Bank of America gets more bad subprime fallout. My target price is around $1.80 before I buy these puts.

If you’re not familiar with Options, please keep in mind that it is essentially gambling. Never work options if you are unfamiliar with the risks.

If you’re looking for a long hold investment, I’m liking ACI - they’re coal, and if you don’t think that the Green Revolution is going to fly all the way, they’re definitely a sound long term aquisition as an exporter of coal. A Strong dollar, or Agressive Eco-legislation will push the price down further, but ultimately, Energy is a long term growth product, and there are tons of coal burning power plants around the world.

I like to keep track of the blogs and sites I run across, this way I won’t forget later which site was useful/funny etc. etc. Occasionally I remember to share them.

Hair of the blog on the values of entering into discourse with service industry employees http://smellmyfinger.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/listen-i-heard-you/

I failed a geek test spectacularly over at the Taoist biker
http://taoistbiker.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/quick-dork-test/

The Generation Gap regenerates for Gen 2k over at A Tale Told by an Idiot
http://ianheath653.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/and-so-the-generation-gap-regenerates/

(And I potentially identify another one of Her Royal Majesty’s exports to The Colonies)

The “I Can’t believe it got through the Filter at Work” site of the week.
(And close contender for the most amount of smut and/or profanity in the smallest space - well done!)
http://emergingontheotherside.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/sugasm-139/trackback/

I found the above looking for the aforementioned ex-pats, not surfing for smut at work (I do that purely at home, thank you very much) on this search I also located:

http://calvininjax.wordpress.com/about/ Who I was obliged to type back a reply in a deep northern accent (Typing in accents is always a challenge)

and

http://bardsworld.wordpress.com/ Who reminded me of an old TV Show I hadn’t thought of in years called “The Crystal Maze“

I think it would be neat to have a little Ex-pat blogroll on the page, and through the magic of Wordpress. BING! Look Down and to the right… for my next trick…

Reuters are reporting the New York Post has sources that state Jeffrey Immelt, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Multinational super conglomerate conglamarate conglamorous Corporation General Electric (NYSE:GE) has 6 months to shape up or ship out.

Jeff’s come under a lot of heat for two major reasons. One: GE’s stock has been flat since Immelt took over from infamous CEO Jack “Neutron Jack” Welch and Two: Slipping up on an earnings estimate that was “in the bag”.

How does Jeff attempt to redeem himself? 1st: Spin off or Sell the GE Appliance Unit, a division that has consistently provided profit for the corporate coffers and also provides the most visible exposure of the GE Meatball Logo. (Which I pointed out in an earlier post, is the perfect size to advertise on the moon) and 2nd: Buy the Weather Channel, obviously a sound business move, because, let’s face it, there will always be weather.

Life can be rough on a CEO, and despite him earning $14m last year, I do sympathize with the guy - after all, he bought a big chunk of GE stock himself. Right before it had its biggest one day slump in 20 years (the 1987 crash being the previous)

Sometimes you just can’t please Wall Street.

What wacky, job-saving idea will Jeff come up with next? General Motors is priced to sell, why not buy them? Make electric cars. General Electric Motors - has a nice ring. Either that or rename the brand from General Electric to Specific Electric - that way it won’t readily identify as a cross industry super corporation.

Needless to say, the next six months are going to be tough on Jeff.

Found this over at De-conversion the original survey is here http://religions.pewforum.org/reports and coverage by  The Dallas Morning News

This is not a puzzling survey result.

As we all know, Atheists tend to be smart asses(Go on deny, dare ya). And Survey takers tend to not give a crap, especially about the little things like… thinking etc.

Question 1: “Sir what is your religious Affiliation?”
Atheist A: “I’m an Atheist”

Question 2: “Sir, would you say you believe in a personal god?”
Atheist A: “… Yeah… definitely…”

Question 3: “Sir, What do you call your personal god?”
Atheist A: “I pray exclusively to the flying spaghetti monster”

So the question begs, are they lumping Pastafarians into the Atheist camp? If so, those BASTARDS need to issue a retraction. I say we storm embassies and hold large chanting get-togethers (we could make smores) - on second thoughts, lets not… we don’t want to be copycats.

… or maybe they outsourced the survey takers to India.

The Political Inquirer sat down an Atheist and a Theist and asked them to debate this question:

“Is Atheism beneficial or dangerous to society?” and similarly, “Is Theism beneficial or dangerous to society?”

You can read the full article here http://politicalinquirer.com/2008/06/26/god-in-society-an-atheism-theism-debate/

Having read the preliminaries, I’m still a greater fan of Kyle Williams debating with a book. (Warning Long ass post). But both personalities involved in the debate seem measured and not too vitriolic. http://www.atheismisdead.blogspot.com/ represents the theist position and Leo Pardus of DE-CONVERSION the atheist. Personally, I’d have hoped someone from exchristian.net would have been invited, but it still promises to be an interesting discussion.

What, as always, has me amused is the comments.

Looking at GE (NYSE:GE) today… down over 5% from an already savaged low.

What’s going on with the US’s oldest stock?

Well… for one, the sale of its $30 bn private label credit cards is currently under scrutiny, with JP Morgan Chase apparently dropping out.

That and the … strategic decision… to part ways with its appliance division are hammering this traditional bellweather stock.

Does CEO Jeff Immelt really know what he’s doing. Given that he recently bought $3 million worth of shares, you’d think he has an insider edge, but Wall Street don’t echo that confidence.

2.5 million shares were dumped as the stock hit $26.24.

Despite the rally yesterday, it appears that shareholders don’t feel that GE is a bargain at this price, so where’s the next resistance point? $25? $20???

I imagine the board at this point are putting tons of pressure on the erstwhile CEO. After all 14.5 BILLION dollars were written off the company’s market cap today from yesterdays close. (That’s what you get for having almost 10 billion shares outstanding)

GE’s units still continue to make profits, and their sales teams continue to secure long term deals.

Does the CEO know what he’s doing? Wall Street says no. But don’t worry about our Jeff, I’m sure his Golden Parachute will save him.

Soon to be followed by .duh

According to CNN http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/06/25/domain.names/index.html

Apparently the most sought after domain name in this new land grab is going to be “dot.sex”
The least popular? I’m not sure, but my prediction: “ionlyhave.sex”

First I thought I was ambivalent about this decision, but then I was in two minds about that initial thought as well. It may help the adult industry find more available domain names, but more than likely all of the speculators looking to turn a buck will be camping the Registrars like only an ex-everquest player could do and buy chunks of domains that relate to the major players in the adult world.

If they’re smart, instead of doing a first come first served virtual land grab, they should auction the domains themselves a la ebay (ooo ebay.sex! - lawsuit waiting to happen!), themselves.

Since the government cracked down on online gambling, there’s been a huge market that is untapped. As we all know, as soon as you ban something, it doesn’t go away, it just goes underground.

Efforts are being made to fight the legislation, but in the meantime, a creative mind has come up with a different approach.

Enter Centsports.

Now, the government define online gambling as anything that offers prize, chance and consideration. Which is why Centsports is just going to give you money to gamble with. That’s right. They’re going to let you gamble with their money. That way, you’re not risking anything, therefore… not gambling.

Now, they’re only giving you 10 cents at a time, but you can wager that on any line currently offered in Vegas. Once you’ve accumulated $20 you can cash out. Of course, there are lots of restrictions, but even so, if you want to have a little flutter, while it’s not going to let you retire, this is a painless way to get some excitement.

The site of course has advertisers, they have to pay for it somehow, but… if you’ll give it a shot, I think you’ll find the site to be a lot of fun. Stop by and check it out!