Back in February 2009, with the markets plunging relentlessly day after day, after day…  I still recall how many traders were waiting in anticipation for some sort of crazy, panicky, high volume day to mark a capitulation bottom.  This latest market downswing took the DOW down nearly 30% in just over two months from 9,088 to a low of 6,470 on March 6^th, 2009.

Many traders whose market analysis and insights I respect seemed to be waiting for some massive “fireworks”-type event that would all but shout “THE LOW IS HERE”;   a sign that all the weak hands have most likely thrown in the towel, and that it was now time to BUY BUY BUY hand over fist.

Of course, Mr. Market will never make it quite that easy, even for its smartest participants to figure out what its current “jig” will be.  The DOW closed below 6,700 for several days before breaking out higher and closing above 6,900 on March 10^th, 2009 on a bit higher average volume.  It also marked the first day since this leg of selling began in early February that the DOW was able to close above its downward-sloping trend-line.  However, that super-charged high volume capitulation day we were all looking for and expecting to occur never materialized.  While in September and October 2008 the VIX volatility index hit highs just over 80, in February and March 2009 the VIX topped out in the low 50’s.  This peak was 35% lower than its earlier spikes, even though the market was now trading at lower price levels.

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The powers that be trying to kick things up another notch… more hype and B.S. to panic us world full of lemmings over the edge… Already A MILLION infected, and a whopping 189 dead, translating to a whopping 0.0189% of those infected (so far at least)…  To whatever extent this is real, so far it sounds like another great way to “persuade” us all to get a dozen pricey flu shot vaccines that will likely make us much more ill than just taking our chances with the flu strains themselves…

Michelle Obama's magical Lanvin Sneakers that cost nearly $600 a pop (including sales tax).

Michelle Obama’s shiny metallic sneakers must have high-tech, top-secret and marvelously magical powers. You know, superpowers like walking on water, turning water into wine, lowering the national unemployment rate, helping to revive a crappy economy, reversing government overspending, lowering taxes and all that other really nifty hocus-pocus. Barack’s book sales must still be doing splendidly well to afford such unnecessary luxuries. With two White House blunders this week, the Obama administration certainly couldn’t afford this tacky and thoughtless third.

Although, I have to say, it is refreshing to see the First Lady looking so June Cleaver-esque, doing her charity work at a D.C. food bank along with Joe Biden’s wife (whatever her name is) marking their first 100 days in Washington. Since the Presidential Inauguration, Mrs. Obama has become the “it” woman for the mindless, fashionable set. Really, only a MINDLESS NIMWIT would shell out nearly $600 ($565 at Barneys.com – almost six Benjamins when you add D.C.’s 5.575% sales tax – presuming they were bou ght in the District) for a pair of freakin’ SNEAKERS.

Every “lady” knows that there is a certain time and place when it’s sociably acceptable to wear expensive attire. While meeting with heads of state, it would be more reasonable for Mrs. Obama to wear $550+ designer dress shoes. However, when “spreading the wealth” with handouts to the poor it’s not a fine time to flash pricy designer Lanvin sneakers! Maybe I’m totally off and it was a gift from the design house or a hand-me-down courtesy of the Tin Man. Either way, Mrs. Obama, you’re the First Lady of this country, prove to us that your family is fiscally and socially responsible with YOUR OWN MONEY AS WELL AS WITH OURS.

It wasn’t too long ago that many ridiculed damned Sarah Palin for the $150k spent on a new wardrobe for her and her family while on the campaign trail. Or the $520 loafers purchased for Senator John McCain. Sure, $150k from donations on a wardrobe is seemingly above and beyond. And $520 on a pair of dress loafers, in my opinion, isn’t all that bad. I’ve never met a man that owns more than five pair of shoes. So, it’s probably sufficed to say old Johnny’s probably put those puppies to good use. Fortunately for the Obamas, they’ve secured their place as the First Family and no longer need to win the crowd with fancy SNEAKERS. This administration’s inaugural celebration was the MOST EXPENSIVE yet, and with outlandish delicacies like $100 per serving wagyu steaks at cocktail parties this latest faux pas is just another one to add to taxpayers’ shit list.

It would be advisable that the First Lady fire her stylist a.s.a.p. and use good old common sense during these economic downtimes to aid her in her wardrobe choices. And I must say, our Second Lady, Joe Biden’s wife (whatever her name is) looked fetching in comfy silver Tory Burch ballet flats priced at a much SMARTER $195 dollars. As for me, my feet are happy and free in my twelve-buck turquoise blue rubber Havaianas flip-flops.

Three midget Mexican migrant workers are exposed to the Swine Flu virus while riding New York City's subway system.

Vice President Joe Biden went on the Today Show with Matt Lauer this Thursday morning convinced that the Swine Flu is surely going to KILL YOU. Mr. Vice President wants Americans to be smart and avoid confined public places like subway trains, buses and commercial planes that can be breeding grounds for Swine Influenza.

Also noteworthy during this televised interview, Joe Biden renamed Matt Lauer and gave him the highly esteemed and more respectable forename of “Sam”. After all, what middle-aged punk still uses the name “Matt”?

From Mr. Biden’s sage words of advice we’ve surmised our own list of Pig AIDS Swine Flu DO’s and DONT’s.

If You DO NOT YET Have the Deadly Swine Flu

DO avoid the vestibules on planes and the cars on trains as these cramped areas are the perfect breeding grounds for Swine Influenza.

DON’T carpool during the Swine Flu Pandemic, as this is poor for the fragile U.S. economy. Be patriotic and fill your tank full at the pumps to help support your country and the big oil companies.

If You’re CROAKING from Swine Flu

DO your fellow Americans well and keep your filthy germs to yourself.

Again, it’s suggested for the dying to stay at home but if you DO venture out into public it’s advisable to wear a medical mask AND a burqa. If you DO ride the subway ONLY sneeze and cough on the illegal Mexican migrant and restaurant workers. This epidemic is most likely their fault, and as a loyal American it’s your duty to fight biological warfare.

DON’T go to work and infect your co-workers. If you have to go to work before you kick the bucket DO refrain yourself from licking all telephone receivers in your office environment. For some, this may be especially difficult. After licking receivers DO make sure to wash your hands followed by a lemon-sized dollop of hand sanitizer.

For the other hundreds of millions of Americans who have contracted the Pig Plague, again if able, DO stay at home in your own private, restricted space. Closet spaces are ideally confined and you’ll protect your healthy loved ones while you securely rot away your last days. Think of it as your own personal sanctuary prior to the mortuary.

Readers, please feel free to add your Swine Flu DO’s and DON’Ts in the comment section below. After all, it’s the patriotic thing to DO!

Translation: Bartender, another beer please! Oink, oink! Photo art by Michelle.

As I was standing in a ridiculously long, “fast” check-out line at the grocery store yesterday evening, an impatient gentleman shouted out to everyone waiting, “We can’t have a line like this! After all, it’s the Swine Flu Pandemic!”.

Perhaps in this man’s mind he thought his plea would be a ploy to speed up the line (Wait time a total of seven minutes, not that bad and you only have three items in your basket sir, some stockpile. And Mister, the cashiers making ten bucks an hour don’t give a flying **** what you shout!). Or sadly, this man is a fine example of what happens to someone who buys into the mainstream media’s “panic-demic” proportioned pandemonium. They become oafish Lemmings.

Seriously, is it just me or doesn’t it seem like there’s a new designer, potentially pandemic virus or disease that becomes a hot topic in the news every couple of years? Let’s revisit JUST the early 2000′s briefly, shall we? Off the top of my head… hmmm…SARS rings a bell, and there was that post(al) 9/11 Anthrax scare, for us East Coasters West Nile Virus was a bitch, ughh….with those nasty spray trucks spritzing all of Manhattan….what else, what else….oh, an Ebola outbreak in 2004 and something about a flesh-eating virus if I recall correctly. I’m sure I’m leaving something out…ah, the Avian flu!

And now we can add the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009 to that list! However, this isn’t the first swine influenza outbreak, add the Spanish flu of 1918, and the swine influenza of 1976 to that list. The 1918 – 1919 flu pandemic may have resulted from swine to humans (like what we have now) or the reverse. The evidence available at that time was unable to substantiate the matter. The Spanish influenza infected approximately one third of the world’s populace, killing about fifty million people. It sucked big time.

The 1976 U.S. outbreak claimed only one death from the flu and forty million U.S. citizens vaccinated. Conversely, the immunizations may have been the cause of 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome claiming 25 deaths from severe pulmonary complications.

The 2009 swine flu is a new strain of H1N1 swine influenza that can adapt to humans and “spread more efficiently than previously known swine flu strains”. Latest reports say that it has infected 2,770 people globally resulting with 152 dead in Mexico and possible two here in the States. This new strain may be able to spread faster, however, according to this article & the CDC, about 36,000 people die EVERY year in the U.S from influenza. Other stats claim a higher number of 56,000 (quite a discrepancy, right?).

So to put this whole swine flu hysteria in perspective, it’s the flu and will most likely target the elderly, young children or people who are chronically ill. People, please use some freakin’ common sense AND manners. Don’t sneeze or cough on others, wash your hands regularly (like you always should!), clean busy surface areas in your home with chlorinated bleach (diluted please, and don’t drink it, duh) and keep bottled water on hand in case of an emergency.

Like everyone else I have no idea (pay attention, this is my disclaimer) what the future may bring, and this may become a pandemic. But unlike 1918, we have advanced medical and communications advantages. It pisses me off when you come across an article like this beauty that paints the swine flu like it’s the coming of the next black plague!

With Mexico’s tourism already hit hard by drug wars and the Atlantic Hurricane season just around the corner, it may be a fine time to start looking for cheap Mexican travel deals after this outbreak (and maybe a hurricane or two) blows over. Or even better yet – cheaper beachfront real estate!

For giggles I had to include this from Yahoo! Answers.  It’s always helpful when twelve-year-olds give their perspectives.  Not that mine’s much better.  Anyway here’s the question:

Should I cancel my Mexico vacation?

My famliy is going on vacation to Mexico in a month. How serious is the swine flu outbreak? Should I cancel my vacation to Mexico (Cancun) and go somewhere else. What would you do?

Thanx

Favorite Reply:

No, you can always bring masks and wash your hands very often.

It’s gonna spread to America, anyways, so why not have some fun before you die?

Here’s to another great oversight job by the SEC and the NASD. For anyone who caught any of the trading in Dendreon today (NASD:DNDN), this is exactly the type of situation that can be the death of you as a trader. Once you see it unfolding, the best thing you can do is STAY THE HELL AWAY. For those of you who missed all the “fun”, basically DNDN tanked nearly 70% in a bit over two minutes from 1:25pm to 1:27pm down to around $7.75 and was halted a few minutes later. Trading did not resume until 6:15pm when the stock reopened at about $24 per share and traded as high as $27.65 within minutes before pulling back a bit.  You think maybe a few people got caught in the early fun and games that took place by some market-manipulating private trading elite?  I’d bet on it…

The Nasdaq Stock Market said it was investigating two minutes worth of transactions in Dendreon Corp because they may have resulted from a brokerage error.  Transactions executed between 1:25pm and 1:27pm were under review, the New York-based exchange said in an e-mailed statement.  Anyone who made any trades in DNDN during that time were now panicking due to the trading halt, since they have no clue what their position would be by the time it’s all over (as the stock may gap huge and/or the trades may be broken). In such a case, if it was really some massive broker error or some other strange sheistery, the proper way to handle it would have been to BREAK EVERY TRANSACTION right up to the time just before the debacle began.  But, that would of course mean that those politically-connected friends of the NASD who made a fortune from this mess (you know, like Bernie Madoff until he went just a wee bit too far) would have to give it all back, and that’s just NOT PLAYING FAIR!

So, the Nasdaq Stock Market announced that it would let stand those hairy two minutes worth of transactions in Dendreon that it initially suspected were the result of a brokerage error!  Nasdaq announced its decision in an e-mailed statement at 3:06pm.  The statement also asserted that the ruling “cannot be appealed”.  Of course not… then their pals couldn’t have booked their 100%+ of porkified profits once DNDN reopened for trading later in the day!

Getting caught in something like this is a trader’s worst nightmare, and my heart goes out to any trader who may have been sideswiped and reamed in the rear by the elite powers that be.

What can be learned from this? Trading is war, and you’re on your own. Your only protection is that you’re always in control of your position size. Remember the importance of discipline, and always consider worst-case scenarios when managing risk.  Speaking of which, anyone else notice some of the “Swine Flu” stocks may be attempting to build new higher bases today (ie. NVAX, BCRX)?

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Another year, and another pandemic-potential flu virus outbreak. This year’s hoopla is over the swine influenza (H1N1) virus (swine flu) outbreaks in pigs which has also traversed to humans. Granted, this is frightening stuff. Perhaps what’s more frightening about this outbreak than other recent avian flu outbreaks is that not only are these closer to home, but that there have already been confirmed cases in humans from California to New York City. The outbreak seems to have spread from Mexico outward, as eight students at a New York Catholic high school that contracted swine flu had been to Mexico over spring break just two weeks ago.

Grounding ourselves back to reality, with so many protective measures now being taken, it’s likely that this outbreak will eventually fizzle out like those in previous years. Already many of the students are recovering, and with the heightening level of awareness people will be extra cautious. For those who want extra protection, I’ve heard that Sambucol (black elderberry extract) may be helpful in warding off flu virus attacks.

In the meantime, with all the hype around this outbreak (#swineflu is the top tweeted phrase on Twitter today!) is there some way to Pass Me The Pork on this crazy PIG FLU?!

Already Friday, several of the top flu vaccine “penny stocks” began moving sharply higher, and there’s likely more potential opportunity for greater moves higher on Monday. The current leader is NASD:NVAX (Novavax, Inc.), already up 75% on Friday alone. Scientists at Novavax have successfully developed the first multi-strain flu vaccine, though it may not be FDA approved in time to help with the current flu outbreak. As these stocks will already likely gap even higher pre-market Monday morning, you better watch the price action closely, don’t chase, and consider scaling in as higher bases form. If it’s too wild, stay away and wait until they calm down.

Some of these stocks may also turn out to be great shorts later this week. For disclosure purposes, I already managed to pick up some shares in a few of these stocks on Friday so I already have a nice little cushion, and will watch closely Monday for the opportunity to add more (or begin unloading if one of these stocks just goes completely berserk).  But remember… Don’t stick around too long, hit and run baby! Well, enough rambling…

Here’s the list of stocks to consider (NVAX – Novavax, BCRX – Biocryst, GNBT – Generex, SVA – Sinovax, and MYL – Mylan/Roche/Tamiflu/oseltamivir). From the charts and data below, you’ll also notice a few of them have built up a significant short interest for some seriously whopping short-squeeze potential. Do your due diligence, don’t blink, and you just may be able to turn these pigs into some of your own PORK!

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