Bulls, Bears, and Tennis Balls

Well it looks like all the Tabacco Bros are having very busy Fridays, so as JT’s intern, I (Brandon) will give my best shot at informing/entertaining the masses today.

An Endless Volley
Yesterday John Isner and Nicolas Mahut completed their 11 hour, 5 minute tennis match, the longest match in tennis history. It was a battle of endurance and finesse, a physical and mental tug of war...

The funny thing of it all, while it was record-breaking, I think the match was mediocre at best. Neither competitor would concede to the other, and the match even had to be suspended at dusk, after over 10 hours. I’m sure you know the details, unless you’ve been living under a rock.

The bulls and the bears are in their own record-breaking match. We’re not in one of “the greatest recessions ever,” but we are in a long, emotionless pullback. The bulls attempt to skew data to make an uptrend look like a possibility, then unadjusted numbers will come out making things look even worse by comparison. Volumes are low, the match play isn’t exciting. After the flash crash, they’ll now be suspending the match if stocks take a too-quick decline. The market and the economy are going to sit in a stale state of volleying until some major event can turn give us a clear-cut winner. The bears are feeling stronger, and the government has no ideas that they’re out there cheering on the bears with various regulations and policy (Think they’re spending enough? National Debt went up $1.7 Billion during the course of the 665 minute match). Another bailout, in an attempt to boost the morale of the bulls, will effectively win the match for the bears. Granted, just as Wimbledon comes around once a year, neither the bears nor the bulls will be crowned the winner for eternity. Someone will come out of this champion, and the prize for being on the winning side could be the difference between sitting in the box seats and being the towel boy.

Maybe you get the best deal just sitting in the grandstands and watching for a little while. If you had a $30 pass to Wimbledon, you paid only 25 cents a game. That’s a hell of a lot better deal than having placed a sizeable bet on Mahut on a whim. Sitting in the stands enjoying a hot dog will be much more satisfying than giving your money to the bulls just because you’re an optimistic person. They might have some up days while their serving game is hot, but it doesn’t mean they’re gonna last this one out.

Hot Shorts
If you’re rooting for the bears, here’s some stocks to look at. We’ve seen a .58% average daily gain since this blog started (about 5 weeks), and yesterday’s hot shorts pulled you in a cool 1.84% return. The bulls can keep serving, but our returns are sick. It’s Hot Shorts, so you know we’ve got Kournikova on our team.

They’re names you’ve seen here before, but the bears are still feasting on these overvalued tickers:

DRYS IOC JOE IYR XLF

Keep it real, and happy trading.

BLong