Well I had to do something to celebrate my birthday. My choices were A. Going to Vegas or B. Going to D.C. Since I went to Sin City in August I decided to hang out with my buddy & his family in Northern Virginia. I left on Thursday after I hooked up with a friend of mine for dinner on Wednesday.

I arrive around dinner and then proceed to chipotle for dinner before my college buddy and I head over to a meeting of his investment club. It was a bit interesting to see how older guys think about the market. Observing their meeting and stock pick was a pretty entertaining evening for myself. The best part is one of the members who did also go to Niagara had 2 extra tickets for the Browns/Redskins game. So we took him up on his offer.

Friday I ended up going to Richmond for the day since I didn't want to hang out at his home while him and his wife were working. If I wanted to watch CNBC I could have do it here. So I explored a city of which I wanted to visit and had a good time. Especially since they still have an independent record store, Plan 9 I ended up sticking around until late evening as I meet up and hit Carytown with a friend of mine. I then went back to go out locally with my buddy in Northern Virginia.
This pic is just to piss off (e:jason) as PBR is placed between Sam's and Stella


my catfish lunch

Just places around Carytown






Plan 9's basement


Friday Night we ended up going to the Capitals/Devils game. He scored tickets off of Cragislist for $25 less than face value. The best part was they were Center Ice 7 rows up! Sadly even their face value of $105 is cheaper than what the Sabres are asking for these days.

Here are some pics @ the Verizon Center






























Then I went to my 3rd current or 4th all time NFL Stadium. After learning that Redskins tickets are hard to come by I felt really good about grabbing them. Our Alumnist friend as a guy that originally lived in North Tonawanda as his tailgate buddy. You can just tell by his setup that he is from Buffalo & serious about his food.





























There is a guy in the tree playing a Sax for tips! He said that he thought the attention would get him more $




This is the police carrying some guy that ran out on the field away.






The sporting events. All I can say is that we didn't plan going to one game let alone making it a double header weekend.

So in honor of my birthday I'm taking off for a long weekend in D.C./NoVa. My original plan was to pass through Pittsburgh just to have lunch at my favorite hamburger stand Fatburger. Well I was unable to verify if the two locations are still open at this time. There was a blurb on their website that the parent company bought back the franchises but nothing if they were open or not, especially since they were not listed on the website or calling the corporate office :-( I did find out that they did have some locations around Cleveland. So the next time I feel like some good grease I may just drive out the Cleveland, especially since they also have my other favorite Waffle House. It's just that I may not find a "Yankee" Waffle House authentic enough for my taste.

So I'm off to take whatever route the GPS takes me on.

I wonder if anyone reads this blog anymore due to being sick of reading the same old, same old?

Short Selling is back in full effect, if you didn't notice today!
Hooray for the return to free markets kinda...

I say enjoy it while it lasts. The guys on Fast Money think it will come to the government closing the markets. Here is some of their toughts: [box]Dylan Ratigan hosted CNBC's "Fast Money" Thursday night. He started the show with a discussion of the stock market crash today. He mentioned that over the last ten days the Dow has gone from 11,000 to below 9,000. Ratigan says there's a total crisis of confidence in the U.S. financial system. He says the debate now is when U.S. banks will be able to start lending in a rational way. Joe Terranova says the U.S. government needs to step in and be a buyer of futures. Tim Seymour says the plunge protection team is already buying futures.

Jon Najarian says he would love to trade against the government and he hopes they do it. "I don't think it's a good idea because they can't manage anything," he said. Zachary Karabell said this is a run on the equity markets. "This is the only liquid place to go globally for money on a daily basis," he said.

Ratigan asked the traders what a rational investor in the U.S. stock market should do now. Karabell says a ration investors in this environment shouldn't liquid all of their holdings. "If you don't' need the money tomorrow you don't need to run to your bank or computer and sell," he said. Terranova says we need the market to find stability and we need a convicted buyer in the market. Seymour said unless you have to sell you shouldn't be selling here. He explained the big sellers are hedge funds with redemptions and big mutual funds. Najarian said investors don't trust the market right now.

Terranova says we are in the process right now of deleveraging and it will stop at some point. "I guarantee you three years from now we will be higher than we are now," he added. Seymour said the market doesn't trust the regulators. He says hedge funds have thrown their playbooks out the window because of things like the short-sale ban.

Ratigan pointed out that General Motors' trading action today was the center piece of the American stock market story. Karabell said the S&P downgraded of GM's debt was backward looking. He says new economy companies like Apple and Research In Motion did well today and that's a sign that this market isn't completely indiscriminate.

CNBC's Hampton Pearson joined the crew to discuss the government's possible plan to take a direct equity investment in the banking sector. He said the government is looking at taking stakes in banks to help free up the credit markets. Karabell says the government needs to get involved here. Terranova said they will have to let some banks fail as part of this process.

CNBC's Mary Thompson joined the traders to discuss the latest developments between Citigroup and Wells FargoWachoviaEXCHANGE="NYSE" PRIMARY="NO"/>. She said Citigroup is now saying they will not be able to reach a mutual agreement with Wachovia. However, she pointed out that Citigroup says it remains willing to complete its first offer of $2.2 billion for Wachovia's banking operations. She also reported that Citigroup says it has strong legal claims against both Wells Fargo and Wachovia. Terranova says at the end of this Citigroup will get a settlement. Najarian says Citigroup should walk away and "shut-up" because the American tax payer will win with the Wells Fargo deal.

Jeffrey Harte, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill joined the traders to discuss the latest news on Wachovia and Citigroup. He said Citigroup will fight the deal. "The best result would have been if they had come to quick terms and raised capital right away," he added. Harte said at the end of the day it's very hard to do a financial takeover. He says the likely outcome will be a merger between Wachovia and Wells Fargo while Citigroup will get a settlement. He says the government is going to do whatever it can to prevent major players like Wachovia or Morgan Stanley from going under.

Strategic investor Dennis Gartman joined the traders to discuss the action in the stock market today. Gartman says it's probably not a bad idea to have the government come in and start buying U.S. stock futures. "My friends who are libertarians will be throwing things at me when I go home, but this has to be done," he said. Terranova says the removal of the specialists has exasperated the momentum trade. Gartman agreed and pointed to the action in General Motors today as an example. Gartman suggested the government should close the market for a few days.

Trades For A Bear

Ratigan asked the traders for some bear market strategies. Najarian says you can play consumer staples like Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive. He also mentioned he bought Wells Fargo, Wachovia and Bank of America today. Terranova said he wants to see the stock market plunge so we can get it over with. Seymour says a cash rich company like Exxon Mobil looks very interesting here. Terranova said he likes MasterCard, Research In Motion and Potash for plays on forced selling from hedge funds.

Short King

Noted short seller Bill Fleckenstein Capital joined the traders to discuss the plunging stock market. He says this is the consequence of having a credit and real estate bubble without any regulation followed. He said the situation got out-of-hand because the financial statements in America are so useless. "The government can't stop the market from going where it's going to go. And prior interventions didn't work," he added. Fleckenstein says he wouldn't go short the market right here because he doesn't want to get caught in the turn that will come.
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What I agree with is this "run on the equity markets" is going to just cripple the raising of Capital for any business. Nothing is more liquid than the stock market. Without it the effect will just be devastating on any business.

It just seems that in 2 weeks or so we will just wake up to the Government owning every corporation,buying out everyone's mortgage and paying off everyone's bills. Ok, that doesn't seem likely but at this point anything seems possible.

The part of the suggestion that the Government close the markets only brings me to the thought that someone by the end of the year everyone's bank account will be frozen in a "Bank Holiday" like the did back in the 1930's. So if you can take out $1,000 or so just to be able to feed yourself just in case you can't use your debit card for a week or so when they, "Try to bring liquidity back to the banks."

From my read on what is going on GM is going to go belly up.http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081009/business_us_gm_shares.html The signs are all there, it's setting up like any other corporate failure over the last 8 years. You know that they're done when theie headquarters The Renaissance Center is up for sale. My question is who in their right mind would buy commercial real estate in downtown Detroit? I suppose someone else could remodel it as another casino with all suites for rooms.

On another local though I was thinking what all of this economic bloodbath means for Buffalo? First with GM going bankrupt, that is going to trigger more blood on the st with all of the credit default swaps that will be exposed once someone has to pay. It's basically like a parlay card with every NFL game for the week, you may take bets from people @ $5 a pop or so and you always keep the money since it is a very extremely almost impossible thing do do. Months and seasons go by without anyone hitting, you went and bought a Benz and use the weekly procedes for your payments. Well some guy did actually hit all 15 games one week. Now you're scrambling. That's where we are going to be if an S&P 500 company actually ends up in court. The scary part is that EVERYTHING will come out and part of me thinks that some of the reason why the government has been so quick to "save" the company of the week that faces difficulties is that they do not want what really is going on to come out.

OK, enough of credit default swaps. GM has a plant and thousands of retirees living here making good money in their golden years. With a GM Bankruptcy, they will no longer be making 50K in retirement with other perks. The effect on local commerce would be brutal.

The only bright side I see is that Buffalo NY is the Wall St of Collection agencies.

"The supply of delinquent debt is growing exponentially," said Mr. Siegel of Franklin Credit Solutions. "It's the tip of the iceberg and it's going to create a lot of jobs."

So I guess not all is lost for us I suppose...

It was at least comforting to see the stock market "Green" for the first time in a very long time today. Also closing out my "Put" option on Friday was even better. That was one of the best days of my life, until that dog took a chunk out of my calf :-/

So as I write this currently given the S&P is up 20+ points in overnight trading I would have lost $5000 today if I didn't call up my broker and have him. If anyone needs a commodity/futures broker let me know. Although it was funny that I never heard from them since I had to sweat through the "Bankruptcy" that at happened at the time when my account was handled through REFCO. Especially since there is no FDIC or SPIC for commodity futures accounts.

I wish I was long as I almost pulled the trigger on buying 200 shares or so of the DIAmonds. Who knows how long this rally will last, but it does look like it does have some legs. The thing is we may climb up even past 10K but in no way are we going to get back to where we were even 1 years ago. So you can forget about getting back to 14K anytime soon.

Thinking that I would avoid any problems with the world, I though that it would be a good idea to go over to a house of a friend of mine. He has a wife & a 6 month old child so they definitely do not get out much. I did warm him that I was coming down with something but he basically said that it was OK since hid kid was sleeping. It was pretty much a pretty chill night as our mutual friend also came over with his Eastern European "Friend." We just basically watched TV a movie on IFC and game 1 of the ALCS. Then as it was time for me to head home I go back in the living room to grab some tissue for my runny noise. As I dropped the box 1 or 2 times I grab what I need, blow my nose and put it back. As I turned around to head to the kitchen, their Brittany dog does this to me


Yea so on top of feeling like crap because there is stuff dripping out of my nose I have this to contend with. Hopefully I will manage to 1. Feel better and shake off this cold/sinus infection and 2. Have my calf heal up so it's not as sore. This is so my b-day on Wednesday isn't a downer. With only that day being the reason why I have not filled a prescription for some antibiotics since I don't want to be hindered in celebrating.