2021-11-30
A Down December?
Long the Dollar, Short the Euro and Yen
Watts Up With That: “Slow Disaster Playing Out” As Germany Moves To Shut Down 8.5 GW Of Baseload Nuclear Capacity
Insanity.Shorting Strength Worked
Return to Pattern
Amarillo Spinco for $4 million
Update: I should add, another risk is there's no info about a U.S. listing. It would be risky to buy on OTCBB if it takes a long time for a listing, or one never comes. I think one would follow at some point, but it's another thing to consider.
Inflation is Bad For Stocks
Oh BABA
Chirping Birds
WSJ: Biden Joins the Lumber Trade Wars
Yahhoo: Biden restarting Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy
The Hill: Biden reignites debate over travel bans
President Trump was pilloried in the press as a racist xenophobe destroying the global economy for having the same policies. Many people look at the hypocrisy and double-standard in the media, but the deeper truth is that racism and xenophobia aren't problems in the USA. The propaganda works because people believe in the words. Once you accept that the words are empty, it stops working.
It's also true that Trump and Biden implemented the same policies. There's no substantial argument against these policies in the mainstream other than name calling. There isn't any credible institutinoal opposition to most policies because the left and right have atrophied into name-calling kabuki. Trump cut through the opposition because no one is in charge. No one has the support of the people. The first person who takes charge will find there is no real opposition. Popular support will be his. Trump succumbed to the attacks because he needs to be liked. The eventual "great" leader who will assume power is the one who doesn't care what the ruling class and media think of him. If he is comptetent, he will be unstoppable. The current regime will turn into a flock of chirping birds. Sometimes you stop to listen to the birds, but most of the time you go about your business without having single thought about them.
Omicron Fears Reignite Overnight
Stéphane Bancel said the high number of Omicron mutations on the spike protein, which the virus uses to infect human cells, and the rapid spread of the variant in South Africa, suggested the current crop of vaccines may need to be modified next year.See the first two links in this post to get a worse-case scenario: ADE. There's speculation that the omicron variant uses the antibodies made by the vaccine to evade the immune system. Nt worst case because so far cases are mild, but it could panic markets and the nervous nellies to find out the vaccinated are more at risk of infection and the vaccines don't work at all. a sane, ratinal person would look at mild cases and end everything immediately, but we have insane, paranoid neurotic ppower-mad cowards in charge. Who knows what the poolicy response will be, but odds are the policies will range from bad to worse.“There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level . . . we had with Delta,” Bancel told the Financial Times in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He added: “I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to . . . are like ‘this is not going to be good’.”
The Moderna chief executive’s comments come as other public health experts and politicians have tried to strike a more upbeat tone about the ability of existing vaccines to confer protection against Omicron.
There's about 100 points for NQ to slide before a challenge of the Friday lows comes into the conversation. Powell testifies tomorrow and Wednesday. He probably will say something dovish, but who knows how the markets take it. As I've discussed before, if the Fed does hint at easing, are investors going to panic this time, or will they front-run the inflatin? Gold is currently up a bit...
2021-11-29
Charts of All My Current Option Positions
I'm going to start off with one that I want to re-enter, SMH. Popped today, but I see about 10 percent downside to the gap. I would not short this one now if I didn't expect a resumption of selling soon.
Here are three long positions (calls). A new low on GDX will get it kicked out. ditto for AEM if it loses support. My largest position thanks to today's return. XLY is my largest notional position. A modest drop will make it the largest again. The rest.