No replies needed on this thread.  I just wanted to say thanks for all the kind words on the last thread.  Also, “The Gunners Memorial Library for Advanced Egregious Studies” is an honor. 

I’ll be around. 

I regret very much to announce that effective immediately, I will step down as an elite of the elite, a tabbed blogger at iBankCoin.com.  As everyone knows, iBankCoin.com is the only first tier stock blog on the internet.  Having a tab on this site is no joke, it is a highly desired privilege.  I was awarded a tab via a ducati blow up.  We had a slight disagreement that led to a ducati resignation.  The Fly believes in symmetry, and awarded me his place.

I was hesitant to accept the tab at first, given that my main base of knowledge is in Commercial Real Estate, and I’ve only been trading stocks for about one year.  Once I got past the idea that I’m a greenhorn, I embraced the blog and in my humble opinion, did a pretty good job.  Sure, I don’t have the technical analysis skills of Woodshedder, Ragin Cajun, and Danny, and I don’t exactly have the premier status, or the eloquence and level of humor as The Fly.  But besides some valuable insight into Commercial Real Estate, what I think that I’ve been able to give is some confidence to the normal part time trader/investor.  (And my music choices are WAAAAY better than the other guys on this site)

I have literally only traded for a year.  I took my portfolio up 48% in one quarter.  I have squandered a lot of it, but I haven’t hidden anything.  I know the mistakes I’ve made.  I’ve posted about it, and I’ve posted the lessons I’ve learned.  Anyone can post on a blog and mention their winners, hide their losers, and be disrespected.  Just like the quote I posted recently, “The problem with most of us, is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”  I have been really spreading that quote around lately.  It means a lot.  I hope that, even though I haven’t given all of you a string of massive winning stock picks, my blog has been enjoyable to read, you’ve learned something, and you can respect the work that I put into it.

Anyway, the reason I’m resigning is because I’m losing focus at my real job.  I’m spending too much time on the internet, thinking about what to post, and thinking about what trades to make.  It is causing me to underperform at both my real job and my trading.  Although I enjoy it very much, and I think it’s a dumb move to give up my tab at this website, it would be a disservice to my career to keep it up.  There is no chance that I’m going to start trading like a genius and have it take over my real estate career.  Since there is no chance for that, the only thing I’m doing by blogging and taking up a lot of my day trading is hurting my progress in my actual work.  I’m in an amazing industry, and it is one that I will spend the rest of my life in.  But right now, as I’ve blogged about, it is very very tough out there.  I need to give 100% effort to my company, and more importantly my clients.  I’ve never been one to get stressed out, ever.  I can’t remember a time when I was too stressed.  But recently, I’ve been ignoring work that needs to be done, stressing about stock tickers.  I can blame a lot of it on the status of the market that I’m in, and the fact that I’m on a string of losing stock picks.  But I’m not going to do that.  I just need to rebalance, and my blog is the variable. 

I want to thank our fearless leader, The Fly, as well as Jeremy (the behind the scenes fuel of iBankCoin).  Woodshedder, Ragin Cajun, Danny, and Adam: it has fun being your partners.  I’m not going to disappear, I will continue to read and comment on all of your blogs, because they are all great in their own ways and they flat out help me make money.  I will rejoin the constituent of readers, which really makes this site what it is.  Without the readers, it’d be nothing. 

But remember readers, the next time you decide to tell The Fly or anyone else that they suck and don’t know what their doing, that you’re the one that is taking the time to read it and comment on it, which takes no effort.  It is not easy for these guys to keep up a blog that has this much traffic and opens themselves up to this much criticism.  I do have to thank you though.  There have been some great readers: boca, JakeGint, Dpeezy, alphadawgg, buylo, calvino, all the Peanut Gallery crew, and I think many others.  Dinosaur Trader and Ducati even have read it from time to time. 

I hope this isn’t coming out as being too sappy and lame.  But the truth is, a very cool community has been established on this site.  In some cases it also extends to the sites that we choose to link in our blogrolls, even if they all only carry third tier status.   I deeply regret doing this, seriously.  It just has to be done.  It is also going to open up the opportunity for someone to step up and take my place.  The Fly will be announcing this sometime soon.  Whoever steps in, make sure you are in a better position to do a long term quality job than I was.

Ok, I’m sure I can come up with more to say, but I might as well end it.  Until the next time I post in the Peanut Gallery, farewell, it has been a great time and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. 

The Pair Trades from this post seem slightly popular…

A commenter, aptly named “pairtrader” supplied [[V]][[AG]][[IN]][[A]]

I give you:

[[B]][[O]][[NG]][[HIT]] (that’s for Green Writer)

[[IBA]][[N]][[K]][[COIN]].[[C]][[O]][[M]]

[[SU]][[C]][[K]][[IT]]

[[R]][[AG]][[IN]][[CAJ]][[UN]]

[[O]][[DD]],[[N]][[O]]?

The only remaining shorts I have, at the moment, are long [[FXP]] and [[SRS]], short [[DECK]].  I am 40% cash.  In case anyone was considering following my trading, I give you this reminder, courtesy of www.someecards.com:

and here’s another one that “The Fly” could use:

Heeding to current iBC code, here is today’s news:

• People are getting jobs all over the place, just look at the initial jobless claims.  Unemployment is 0%. 
• Shanghai is up 9%.  As you know, everything that happens in China translates into 5x around the world.  Expect the US and every other market to rip up 45%, today. 
• Sam’s Club will only allow you 80 lbs of rice a day.  Is this really limiting sales?  No, it isn’t.  Who the fuck goes to Sam’s Club and buys 80 lbs of rice?  No one has ever done that.  Now, after the news release that tells people they are only allowed 80 lbs, everyone is going to rush to Sam’s Club and buy 80 lbs of rice for the first time ever.  This is a marketing scheme.  By the way, the restriction does not apply in New Mexico and Idaho.  I’m moving to Boise. 
• [[ABK]] is up 8% in the premarket.  Why?  Because they are AAA rated.  Buy some.
• [[F]] made $100 million!  They cut 4,200 jobs to do this, but why worry?  Those 4,200 people have found jobs already, due to jobs being handed out at every corner.  Consult this video if you have any questions.

Have fun, get drunk, buy cheap stocks like [[F]], [[ABK]], [[TMA]], [[CORS]], [[XFML]], [[MOT]], [[SIRI]], [[TRMP]].

Look into Pair Trades that have funny names, like: [[POT]][[CAKE]].  or [[HOT]][[RACK]].  or [[CU]][[NT]].  or my favorite, [[SE]][[X]][[Y]][[MON]][[KEY]].

• [[ABK]] reports -$6.21 EPS!  Have a good ride to zero.
• [[FXP]] is gapping down huge, much to my chagrin (but not to Juice’s)
• Worried about rice?  Go here and brush up on your vocab and donate rice for free.
• I’m sick of the damn Spurs
• [[MVIS]] released some worthless news today. 
• It is looking like the markets want to go up today, I may go long [[SPY]] calls for a day trade.

Besides those worthless thoughts, I don’t have much to say.  Check this hilarious vid out:

Video Removed because it was fucking up the page.  You can find it here

Sold half my [[SMN]] @ $30.50.  Moving on…

Bought some puts on [[DECK]].  Down with ugly boots. 

[[SLG]] is running hard on their positive earnings report yesterday.  This should be good news for the other NYC heavy REITS, [[VNO]] [[BXP]] and [[BPO]]. 

UPDATE: Bought [[FXP]] @ $74.75

Things are looking brighter in CMBS.  Market sentiment improved last week on the Lehman Brothers/UBS securitization.  The top AAAs traded at Swaps + 190 bps, 35 bps inside of Citigroup’s recent deal.  This could be a sign of sustained improvement, or it could be people going long to cover their short positions on the CMBX market.  However, with the short squeezes that have already happened in the CMBX market, it would be hard to believe that the buying of the Lehman/UBS deal was all short covering.  This deal had higher quality loans in it, as [[LEH]] and [[UBS]] have written down or sold their shitty stuff at a discount. 

[[JPM]] has a securitization that will price this week, and should give us an indication of where things are headed.  A lot of these wall street lenders have cleared most of their balance sheets via loan sales, writedowns, and the few securitizations that have happened so far.  There is still a lot of backed up floating rate (LIBOR based) stuck on the books.  There is not a market for floating rate securitizations, which are generally short term deals, that are going to struggle to be refinanced.  This is the immediate threat to the CRE industry.  Anyone with short term debt is still in trouble.  However, if it is true that the wall street lenders have cleared their fixed rate balance sheets, and CMBS continues to trade as the most recent deal has (or better), then there will be a lot more liquidity in the lending markets come the second half of the year.

The lending standards going forward are much much much more strict than they have been over the last few years, which translates directly into a decrease in property value.  That cannot be ignored.  However, I’m not sure whether or not value decreases have been priced into these REITs.  As you know, they took their biggest hits from November - January.  And unlike a lot of sectors that have cut and dry sales and earnings, REITs have a more murky value based on their property holdings.  The market doesn’t always track CRE accurately, as I’ve seen recently and have been told by my elders.  The most desparate months I’ve seen in commercial real estate (February to now) happened at the same time of a significant REIT rally.  I’ve tried to fade the rally continuously, and I may have been wrong about it. 

This bullishness in the CMBS market cannot be ignored, and it is causing me to be concerned about my downside plays.  The outcry against the CMBX market of about a month ago may prove to be the bottom of the CMBS market.  As I’ve said since I started blogging, wait for the CMBS market to come back, and start legging into some severely hit quality REITs in July.  This might be the way to go.  [[SLG]] has always been my favorite, they just beat estimates today and raised some guidance.  The healthcare REITs are also a great way to go, [[HCP]] and [[VTR]] are great choices.  Be wary of the real estate managers and brokers like [[CBG]] for a while, because they will have very poor earnings for the first quarter and probably for the second quarter, due to lack of transactional volume.  But with CMBS returning, transactions will pick up, and [[CBG]] will be great at that time. 

Anyway, it is my plan in the near future to go to majority cash.  I’m sick of the downside trade.  Instead of parking my money in a bunch of shady inverse ETFs, I’d rather be neutral and play the upside the best I can.  My decision on when to get out of the short side will be determined over the course of this week, I believe.  Also, having cash will allow me much more flexibility, naturally.  Right now I’m just stuck waiting for my inverse ETFs to work, which is tiring.  I could have been riding the Ragin Cajun wagon the last few weeks instead. 

Disclaimer:  I reserve the right to continue being a bear, should that “next leg drop” really be in commercial real estate.  But now that everyone seemed to want to call it lately, they are probably all wrong.  Just like LEH was the next BSC, then MER was the next BSC.  Neither of those happened, yet. 

A lot of the info I have on here plays both sides of the tale a little bit.  Feel free to add your inclinations in the comments section to open up the discussion and help all the readers (me included) make up their minds. 

Pros:

• CMBS market is more liquid, buyers of all types of rated tranches are coming back
• CMBS Spreads are coming in
• Fixed Rate balance sheets are clearing
• REITs and other CRE names already made a huge drop from November - January, has this all been priced in?
   

Cons:

• Floating rate balance sheets are clogged
• Floating rate deals are usually shorter term
• Underwriting standards have tighetened so much that things cannot be refinanced
• Tighter lending means lower values
• Although spreads have come in, they are still significantly wider than they were last year
• Transactional volume is way down
• The ultimate CON of the unexpected disaster (natural, credit-wise, or whatever)

NOTE: [[CRDC]], my speculative medical play, had decent news today and a good jump in stock price.

I sold all my [[DUG]] today.  I’m done with that game.

I made some “Ragin Cajun special” call trades on [[AMZN]] and [[MELI]], for some real nice intraday gains.  I had no meetings today and was able to focus on the trades. 

I’m just plain sick of being a bear.  So I’m going to gradually move to an even keel, instead of being heavily weighted on the downside.  I probably should have done this earlier, but ah well.  I am still up for the year, just nothing like my 48% gains from QTR 1. 

I like to see The Fly sticking it out though, with a big [[SKF]] purchase today.  I still have [[SKF]] [[SRS]] [[FXP]] and everyone’s bitch of an ETF, [[SMN]].  I also still have [[LEH]] puts, [[MER]] puts, and [[DECK]] puts.  I may sell half of all of them on the next down day.  I want to have plenty of cash to make trades and build back some gains.  I only have a couple DECK puts, as my order was only partially filled before the price moved drastically.  But seriously, those shoes are ugly.  I feel good about having puts going into their earnings.  They could easily drop 20 points in a day, ala Crox of shit. 

Ok, it’s Friday, and I don’t care what the rest of the day brings in the market.  I’m going to take off work early, because it is 80 degrees in Manhattan.  Bring on the afternoon hotties in Central Park. 

Have a good weekend!