Beat the Bank in a Day: Pokemon, Easiest Column This Year

For a writer – even an alleged one like me – Life doesn’t get much better than this morning.  There are enough press releases that I can simply cut and paste this morning’s report out of official news and information release sites.  How hard is that?

It’s actually a good thing, though, because I was up late last night continuing with my Happy Dance about how the markets are going exactly where I expected them to go:  Up.

As you know, I don’t post any of my personal trade in advance because that might be construed as offering financial advice.  All that I ever offer is my personal opinion and take on things.

That said, I selected the triple levered bull ETF SPXL to be my trade of the week.  I’m working on this theory that if you can make one to three percent per week, especially after commission, by the time the end of the year rolls around, the compounding effects will be nice. 

To show you how this works – at least in theory – at 07/11/16 | 03:11 PM ET, I took a small bite of SPXL at $93.61.  As of the close on 7/14 it was $96.35 at the close. 

While this doesn’t sound like much, I have been honing my money-management skills at every casino I can find – as time allows.

The way casinos work, anyone can walk in, often hit a “hot machine” if you’re playing slots…and get 10-30% ahead of the house.  In statistics this is actually an expected event.

What separates the “winners” from the “losers” is that a winner will see there is a “streak” going – will ride it until they are up the 10-30%, and will then cash the hell out and on to another machine.

I’ve been tinkering with the same approach when comes to stocks.  Except it is actually easier to play stocks when the data lines up correctly.

If you have a method to guessing where the market is going next (we do) and then if you have a couple of technical indicators like the MACD trying to bottom, the prospects for the future is OK, and projections put a point or two as likely to occur, I just buy a small number of shares (50-500 depending on price) and exit the trade when my price target is met or if the MACD begins to look sketchy and any of my trend channels have been broken.

This is not to say it is easy. but it’s also not terribly hard.  It does require having a method to your madness and never falling in love with a particular position – long or short, bullish or bearish.  The idea is to play whichever slot is likely to pay off a little bit and then move on before you give all your money back to the House or Market.

Granted, 3% scalping trades don’t sound particularly exciting.  It’s like buy a one dollar pull tab and getting $1.03 back.

But it’s here the magic of compounding kicks things up a notch.

Let’s say you can make 3% per week and you begin the year with $5,000.

13 weeks into the year, you’d be at #7,128.80m if you can manage it.

At the 26 week mark, you’d be at $10,468.89.

Then comes the end of September and you will be around $15,373.92 and beginning to think you are a genius.

If you could pull this off perfectly, by the end of the year, week 52 presents you with $22,57.12…which ain’t a bad year in the market in anyone’s book.

Naturally, this will NEVER happen.  You will have weeks, sometimes two or three in a row where you will lose.  But can a doubling be made?  Oh sure.  Especially if you roll with cash when you’re not very confident you have the market dialed in and in your sights.

What totally astounds me is that more people don’t spend their time studying all there is to learn about the markets. 

Instead, people stay home, watch utter bullshit on television, and waste their precious time on this rock which could be used for adventures and great relationships, and instead poke in monkey-like fashion at buttons on video games.

Me?  I’m an old geezer of simple pleasures, one of which is spending a hell of a lot of time playing and not worrying too much about life.

Still, everyone gets to do what turns ‘em on.  Which is why most mean would rather stare and listen intently to Kim Kardashian that listen intently to Warren Buffett.

And that, dear reader, is why America is full of economy cars and fast food joint.

We are a country of phenomenally slow-learners.  And I would point to the political polls as proof positive, should you doubt me.

Awe, shucks.  Enough about means and methods of making a buck.  Let’s roll with some press releases so you don’t miss ET or GoT.

Pokey on Pokemon Go?

Just remember when you see people forking over good money for Pokemon Go:  Not one in a thousand knows the stock symbol (NTDOY for the US ADR).  And only perhaps one in 10-thousand knows that an ADR is an American Depository Receipt providing for easy trading in the USA of a Japanese company.

An information search reveals that the Pokemon Go rally at Nintendo may be getting long in the tooth, or not, but it’s a fine lesson teaching us that ever since the Legend of Zelda about the fine difference between being an investor or being an idiot.

Ure call.

Press Release Festival

Here we go.

First up is Consumer Prices:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 1.0 percent before seasonal adjustment. For the second consecutive month, increases in the indexes for energy and all items less food and energy more than offset a decline in the food index to result in the seasonally adjusted all items increase.

The food index fell 0.1 percent, with the food at home index declining 0.3 percent. The energy index rose 1.3 percent, due mainly to a 3.3-percent increase in the gasoline index; the indexes for natural gas and electricity declined. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2 percent in June.

The shelter index rose 0.3 percent, and a broad array of indexes also increased, including medical care, education, airline fares, motor vehicle insurance, and recreation. In contrast, the indexes for used cars and trucks, apparel, communication, and household furnishings and operations all declined in June.

The all items index rose 1.0 percent for the 12 months ending June. This is the same increase as for the 12 months ending May, but smaller than the 1.7 percent average annual increase over the past 10 years.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 2.3 percent for the 12 months ending June, a larger increase than the 2.2 percent rise for the 12 months ending May, and above the average annual rate of 1.9 percent over the past 10 years.

Next we tee up Retail Sales data

“The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $457.0 billion, an increase of 0.6 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month, and 2.7 percent (±0.7%) above June 2015.

Total sales for the April 2016 through June 2016 period were up 2.6 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago.

The April 2016 to May 2016 percent change was revised  from up 0.5 percent (±0.5%)* to up 0.2 percent (±0.1%).  Retail trade sales were up 0.7 percent (±0.5%) from May 2016, and up 2.4 percent (±0.5%) from last year.

Nonstore retailers were up 14.2 percent (±1.2%) from June 2015, while Health and Personal Care Stores were up 8.4 percent (±2.1%) from last year.

Not enough?  How about a side order of  Empire State Manufacturing Report?

“ The July 2016 Empire State Manufacturing  Survey indicates that business activity flattened out for New York manufacturers. The headline general business conditions index fell five points to 0.6. The new orders index and the shipments index both fell to levels not far from zero—a sign that orders and shipments were little changed. Labor market indicators pointed to a small decline in employment levels and hours worked,

If you need a little dessert for breakfast – like this isn’t enough to fill that area between the ears – flip over to www.federalreserve.gov at 9:15 Eastern for the Fed Industrial Production and Utilization report.

How to Play the GOP Convention?

The Republican Convention kicks off on Monday.  Being a total investing coward, it will be a time when Ures truly may be in cash.  Although there is perhaps no credence to stories like this one last month that go to the idea of a planned BLM insurgency to disrupt things and keep Obama in power beyond the normal pull date, what does matter is how skitterish others may be…because that is the other side of a trade. 

In many ways, investing is like poker:  You need to judge just how crazy the other party is…and you need to really hone that to a sharp edge.  On the GOP convention, we have no idea how crazy the paid agitators and media-twisters will be.  Besides, any trouble and it will maybe make for a buying opportunity. I mean think of it, we have just had new all time highs and guys like Soros who were talking their “short” book gotta be hurting…

Market futures are down a hair.  But is Ure worried?  Nope.  But I may exit on a decent rally.  He who trades and runs away lives to trade…

It Will Be Trump

BTW:  The crooks in the Republican Party have failed to sabotage the popular vote winner, Donald Trump.

In case you haven’t noticed: a lot of self-professed republicans aren’t really.  They rubber-stamp Obama budget bloat, don’t impeach when there is a good case, don’t push back on immigration, and then they weasel around trying to overturn the will of the people as expressed in the primaries.

They are quintessential antidemocratic forces.

Unfortunately, it is a disease endemic not to republicans, but to the power trippers of both parties, which is why the surest way not to get my vote is to be listed on any election ballot as Incumbent.

Like stale inventory, it’s time for some turnover.

Dear President Useless

Please read a paper or go look at the latest carnage in France caused by what?  A radical Islamic jihadist.  84 dead according to this report.

They are here and more are coming.

What does this have to do with You Mr. President?

You invited them.  I mean WTF?

You have sanctioned and ordered thousands upon thousands of Syrian and other Islamic refugees into these United States who have not been properly  nor thoroughly better.  You anointed follow-on plans even more.

Out here in “fly-over country” that seems to constitute a violations of you sworn promise to protect and defend the US from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The way it looks from here, if you won’t defend from the foreign you may be one of the domestic.

I appreciate that lying to a kafir is not a lie to some of your kin.

A real opposition party that hadn’t sold out would quite possibly have already started hearings into your conduct on this. 

I know I shouldn’t be quite so critical:  We know that because Social Security has been robbed blind and excessive national debt rung up, we need new entry level pay workers.  But enough is too much!

While we’re on it, a check for Zika would be nice, too.  And how about TB testing?

The real open question today is whether Anonymous and their “day of rage” crap means they have thrown in with the racist/black supremacists of BLM you’ve been hosting.  They do bar whites from their meetings.

Want to tell a curious Nation how that works to heal America?  I just don’t follow.

Is discrimination is OK for some but not others?  Are you running under a different Constitution than the one published?

Ures quite seriously….