6/7/10 Midafternoon Report: Hold on to your shorts as market continues on wild ride down

The market was chugging along today, taking a brief respite to lick its wounds after Friday's jobs report gave even the most virulent Bull a bad case of Foot in the Mouth disease, until it dropped precipitously in the last half hour like Helen Thomas' reputation at a B'nai B'rith fundraiser.   With Europe's ongoing debt problems and the US' stagnant at best job growth, investing long in the market remains more perilous than fighting a land war in Russia in the deepest of winters (though not as deep as Money McBags would go in Ophelie Winter) or challenging Anamika Veeramani to a spelling bee (or just challening Anamika Veeramani to spell her name).  The US news that had the most effect on the markets early today was that Goldman Sachs was issued a subpoena from the FCIC, also known as the "too little, too late" commission.  Money McBags eagerly awaits the FCIC's findings in several years, after no doubt much excrutiatingly toilsome research and much tax payer money has been spent, where they will 100% determine that we are fucked (of course we could save the time and money and just look for the reset button, but that would be too easy).  Seriously, that we need a 10 member commisson to figure this out makes as much sense as firing an employee because she is too hot (reason #989 why C is going to $0.  And as an aside, if Money McBags owned a bank, he would hire Ms. Lorenzana to manage his branch deposits anyday).  Anyway, the subpeona was issued as Goldman refused to submit documents the commission requested and when reached for comment, a Goldman spokesman said they just wanted to see if FCIC Commissioner Heather H. Murren would deliver the subpoena in person.  All along, Goldman Sachs has maintained that the suit is “unfounded in law and fact” and if one can't believe what a company that has manipulated the market while bringing in absorbitant profits and destroying value for average citizens thanks to their buddy-buddy taint tickling relationship with the federal government says, then whom can one trust?  As Money McBags has maintained all along, Goldman and every other Wall Street bank were complicit in the destruction of the US financial system and it would be easier to find incriminating evidence on them than it is to find rolls of back fat on a topless, sunbathing Kathy Bates, you just need to find someone with the stomach to do that dirty job.  So it's good that the FCIC is trying to grow a sac and go after them, but until they actually make some charges, this is all still lip service (though if the lip service is coming from the aforementioned Heather Murren, perhaps it's not all that bad).

Internationally, German factory orders apparently grew faster than the cells of Henrietta Lacks as they surged due to the weaker Euro, increased private sector investment, and the uptick in demand for industrial strength floor buffers to help clean up the sets of Germany's growing scat film industry.  Orders were up 2.9% in April from the 5% they were up in March which for the first time ever makes Germany Europe's shining example.  Also, Hungary is still in the news as investors continue to try to find it on a map and wonder if to solve their financial crisis they should just gobble up Turkey.  Hungary's financial crisis is the biggest turd to hit the country since the famous Diet of Turda in 1558 which established the freedom to practice Catholicism, Lutheranism, or by the name, apparently coprophagia.  Finally, fears are starting up again that China is increasing prices which will cause world wide inflation as they raise the minimum wage by 20%, though it will still leave workers wanting more half an hour after they receive their paychecks.  However, if China unpegs their difficult to spell renminbi from the dollar and allows their currency to appreciate while the their own product prices increase, foreign exports could become more competitve than Alan Greenspan at a bubble blowing contest.

In stock news, BP is showing their first signs of progress in stopping the oil leak which is destroying the Gulf and causing the slogan "drill baby drill" to be returned to Peter North where it rightfully belongs.  At this rate, the oil leak will be stopped and cleaned up somewhere around the time Paris Hilton finds some dignity.  Also, Money McBags favorite Dick "don't call me Richard, or Rich, or Rick, or Rightaboutanything" Bove (and again, Bove rhymes with "Oy vey") lowered his price target on BAC yet maintained his buy rating, mimicking his brilliant market call of Lehman right before they collpased.  Bove cited increased regulation, foreign exposure, and his lack of understanding of the financial markets for the price target cut.  Finally, BMY shares are taking off today as they announced that their experimental drug for skin cancer was found to extend the lives of patients with incurable melanoma by 4 months.  Patients were ecstatic, until they were told that four months that were being extended were Winter.

In small cap news today ISLE is falling back to where it was pre-earnings and after earnings Money McBags said the jump up was likely a quick short squeeze as the stock wasn't cheap and the company is debt-ridden, and features bleaker properties than the Detroit version of Monopoly.  Not only is ISLE falling but WGO is finally ticking down under $11 on its way to $7.50.  The price of this stock makes less sense than the 11 dimensions of M theory or any song by the Black Eyed Peas.  And look out tomorrow for MLNK earnings.  Money McBags has written about this company many times as it is cheaper than a kissing booth being manned by Gabourey Sidibe after she downed a gallon of extra spicy garlic fries and 2 liter of Dr. Pepper.  It is trading at 3x a run rate EV/EBITDA with 50% of their market cap in cash.  They key to tomorrow's release will be their cash flow statement to see if they were able to avoid burning cash as their business will likely have another sluggish quarter (according to them, though Money McBags doesn't quite understand why, since their biggest customer HP had a good Q,  but perhaps tomorrow they'll make it more clear).  So look for the release because when the markets get better (which is sometime between 2015 and the next Galactic Empire), this stock should have some nice upside with its current limited downside (again, barring a huge cash burn this quarter).

5/21/10 Midafternoon Report: Market rebounds, now it needs to stop missing shots

The market was up today as apparently it has been corrected like Stevie Wonder's vision or Larry Craig's family values.  With Europe now fixed, unemployment shrinking, and monkeys flying out Money McBags butt, it should be back to lobster tails and BJs in no time.  The good news is that nothing has really changed between today and yesterday, while the bad news is that nothing has really changed between today and yesterday.  Money McBags remains more fearful of the markets than he is of supply side economics, Sylvester Stallone's face, and girls with bacne so he is just trying to ride today out until the next correction begins.

In US news, the Senate passed a financial reform bill, despite the protestations of Senator Maria Cantwell who won the Huffington Post's sexiest Senator competition, narrowly edging out Senators Barbara Mikulski (who shocked the judges with a daring hail mary by sporting a thong in the swimsuit competion) and the delightful Mary Landrieu (who tittillated the judges in the talent competition with her pig hunting calls. Soowee indeed.).  In the bill, financials will have to go back to their room and think about how they have made the market feel.  The legislation includes restrictions on predatory lending (which is bad news for cougars like Kelly Madison who are among the fiercest predators in the animal kingdom), a way to liquidate failed banks without bail outs (like um, doing fucking nothing), and restrictions on derivatives trading (like maybe making sure they all have underlying assets, and Money McBags would love to lie under Lisa Ann's assets).  It also creates a “financial stability oversight council” which will exist until it fucks up by watching too much trannie porn like the SEC and a new council is created in ten years to clean up this mess.  This council reads like a who's who of economic red tape and includes the Treasury secretary, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the comptroller of the currency, The "Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase, the director of the new consumer financial protection bureau, the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Scrooge McDuck, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, an independent appointee of the president, and Malachi Constant so it goes.  Wow.  It's like a mental masturbation all-star team where the head of every shitty bureaucracy in the US can get together to form a super bureaucracy and fight off the Legion of Boom.  One troubling sign for the markets is that LIBOR rose to a ten month high as risk aversion is back like herpes, since it will never really go away.

In Europe, Germany's lower house (the Bundestag) voted to contribute to Europe's bail out followed by their upper house (the Bundesrat) agreeing as well which made Chancellor Angela Merkel (the Bundeshag) unpopular among the German people.  Causing concern in Europe today was that the Markit composite purchasing managers’ index fell in May to 56.2 from 57.3 a month earlier.  It was the sharpest fall since February 2009 when managers' subscriptions to Nuts magazine were taken out of the index.

In stock news, DELL beat earnings and revenue guesses but gross margin disappointed like William Henry Harrison's almost neverending inaugural address (I mean I know there was no televsion or movies or Spankwire to get home to, but really Will, couldn't you have skipped all of that Roman history crap and just gone with some war stories and then got the fuck out of there?  You know it was fucking snowing, right?) or the Pam Anderson-Tommy Lee sex tape (and calling it a sex tape is phonier advertising than the Ed Asner workout video).  Dell not only missed on margins, but they tempered investor expectations by pointing out that the iPad is really fucking cool.  In other stock news both Ann Taylor and the GAP put up good quarters and gave solid guidance as mediocre fasion is the new style.

As for small caps,  TSYS continues to get hammered and Money McBags will investigate next week.  This company should be growing as they offer mobile location based software and text message licenses so it is curious that their performance seems to be more stagnant than Mitt Romney's political career.  Money McBags has had a busy day so he apologizes for the lack of new research, next week he will get back to analyzing companies and trying to make money in a market that is rigged against retail investors.  He remains very concerned about a big market drop next week but until then, he hopes you have a good weekend and tell a few thousand friends about When Genius Prevailed.

5/19/10 Midafternoon Report: VIX shoots up, claims it doesn't have a problem, just wants to try to take its mind off global recession

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5/18/10 Midafternoon Report: If you want to short in Germany, you now have to wear pants

The markets fell again today as US macro news was mediocre at best, fears in China have risen from red alert to Kung Pao levels, and Germany has banned naked short selling of stocks and CDS (though you are still encouraged to get long Salzgitter and Money McBags' "salzgitter" would get very long for Sonya Kraus and he would certainly let her take the other side of his Siemens trade).  With the ban on naked short selling in Germany, the markets floundered as traders sought to unwind positions and find alternative ways, or countries, to continue with the same bets they have been making.  This market reeks of dislocation worse than Ronnie Brown's lisfranc.

Not helping matters was that US macro data was more mixed than a can of nuts (and please, write your own punchline).  Home building rose in April with new home starts up 5.8%, the most since October 2008 as home builders prove to be more optimistic than Brooklyn Decker's bikini waxer.  However, construction plans fell to their lowest level this year as the tax credit ran out and people remain unfucking employed.  Building permits were down 11.5% and economists had guessed that they would be moderately up which once again proves that a broken clock is wrong 86,498 times a day.  In other macro news, seasonally adjusted PPI was down .1% last month due to more people keeping their eyelids shut as a result of allergies (and yes Money McBags has used the PPI pun before, but it is still horribly funny).  Core PPI, which excludes the essentials such as food, energy, and oxygen, was up .2%.  Money McBags always loves that economists apparently don't care about food and energy prices as a gauge of inflation which is as rational as a pareto inefficient nash equilibrium like the prisoner's dilemma (and if Money McBags were ever a prisoner, he would have no dilemma because he simply wouldn't pick up the soap).  Interestingly, energy prices actually slumped by .8% thanks to natural gas prices retreating from booming to silent but deadly and food prices declined by .2% despite meat rising 5.1% and thus beating meat price rises going back seven years.  The good news though is that inflation appears to be tamer than a Dane Cook stand up routine. 

Internationally, in addition to Germany banning naked shorting (and Money McBags hopes they don't ban naked cavorting), the EU sent 14.5B euro to Greece today and told them to keep the tip.  With that 14.5B, the EU hopes to stave off Greek defaults, restore order to the European financial system, and receive a free two-liter of coke with their souvlaki since their order exceeded $20.  Also, the ZEW Center for European Economic Research (ZEW of course standing for zero economic worth) said its indicator of German economic sentiment fell in May to 46 from 53.  The good news is that the indicator’s historical average is 27, the bad news is that the 46 was below the consensus guess of 47, and the even worse news is that Lucy Pinder has never been in my kitchen.  But it's not just Europe that is going in to the crapper like last night's bean burrito washed down with an extra large cup of metamucil and healthy dollop of "we're fucked," but also China as Chinese investors are also starting to get more nervous than Jackie Chan trying to roll his "r"s.  The stock market in China remains lackluster, down 21% for the year despite being sprinkled with MSG to keep investors coming back for more.  Driving the sell off has been expectations of rising interest rates,  fear of tighter bank lending to help rein in inflation and quiet soaring property prices, and fortune cookies throughout the region reading "You're going down" (in bed.  Booooyah!!).  The markets remain more jittery than Sarah Palin in a spelling bee, so remain careful.

In stock news, Walmart put up a good quarter beating analyst guesses of $.85 eps by $.03.  The world's largest seller of cheap crap had sales of $99B which were up 6% despite a 1.4% drop in same store sales.  Guidance was generally inline though management said sales are shifting away from entertainment and apparel and into do-it yourself auto repairs, pharmacy, and tight fitting tops.  Home Depot announced a good quarter and raised their outlook, yet the stock traded down as analysts think the outlook to be too rosy after Lowe's took a giant dump on Q2 forecasts yesterday.  Finally, financials fell again as potential new credit card regulations hit card issuers and fear of Europe imploding hit banks.  In all, it is uglier out there than Minnie Driver's face and tomorrow could get much much worse as fear has seeped back in to the market.

In small cap stocks, everything sucked.  KITD got hit with another big block trade around midday despite both Merriman Curhan Ford and Roth Capital's analysts raising price targets after yesterday's Q.  Money McBags promised he would listen to or watch their quarterly call today but he has been too busy to follow through on that, so his analysis from yesterday still stands.  The fact is it is a weird little company, exposed to many different currencies, and highly acquisitve in a market that may soon like none of those three things.  So the market may trade this down on technicals and fears, but fundamentally, if you don't mind some pain for awhile, it is worth holding on to like a drowning straight man would hold on to Christina Hendricks' life preservers.

3/25/10 Midafternoon Report: Bailouts, stimulus, and earnings. Oh My!

The rally is on again as Germany says they will back Greece, earnings are crushing estimates, and Bernanke is going to continue to stimulate the economy like he's the delightful young actress Jessica Pare (moderately safe for work) and the economy is Money McBags.  Bernanke spoke to the House Financial Services Committee today and he tried his best to use small words so the elected officials could understand him.  Bernanke reiterated that "The economy continues to require the support of accommodative monetary policies" and cited the high unemployment numbers, the weak housing market, and the decline of Paul Reubens' career.  He did say that the Fed has a plan to tighten monetary policy and he will do so at the appropriate time even if it causes Alan Greenspan to roll over in his grave.  More importantly, new claims for unemployment fell by 14k to 442k which was 8k below economists' forecasts (forecasts called for it to be overcast with a chance for showers and instead it was sunny and thus caused the showers to be golden to the delight of urolagniacs everywhere).  11.1MM people are still claming unemployment which is only slightly fewer than the number of people in Ohio or the number of pornstars claiming to have seen Tiger's wood, so it is still a big fucking number.  Economists think that if the new claims for unmeployment can drop to 425k, that could signal job growth, of course most of these same economists also thought that home prices could go up forever, that steady state unemployment could be achieved, and that Adam Smith actually had an invisible hand, so be careful to whom you listen (and as an aside, if Money McBags had an invisible hand it would be firmly attached to Bar Refaeli at all times).

In international news, Germany's Chancelor Angela Merkel told the EU and Greece that Germany would support aid to Greece if the IMF were to be involved and if the Greeks finally cleaned up the Parthenon (I mean seriously, it's been around for 2,500 years.  Can someone in Greece do like 1 days work and just dust around the edges a bit?).  France is backing the German plan which marks the first time these two countries have worked together since their ill-fated Broadway run in the musical Les Miserables Time We Had On Das Boot: A Love Story.  Not only did Greece get positive news, but Dubai is putting up to $9.5B in to Dubai World and it's failing real estate business to make sure that the illusion of grandeur can continue.  Dubai World creditors will be paid back in 5 to 8 years or just in time for the next bubble.

The big news of the day has been in the US stock markets where earnings have continued to impress like Beethoven on "Take your kid to work day" or Salma Hayek at a treasure chest convention.  Best Buy easily beat their numbers posting a profit of $1.82 per share vs. analyst guesses of $1.79.  They also gave full year guidance of $3.45 to $3.60 per share which is well above the $3.36 consensus analyst guess.  Same store sales rose by 7% after the company cut prices on flat panel TVs and started offering free taint massages for any purchases over $2,500.  Best Buy also announced further international expansion, continued stock buybacks, and Olivia Munn to be in charge of the Geek Squad's free "modem adujstment" promotion.  In other stock news Qualcomm is off to the races after they raised their expectations for the second time.  They now think Q2 earnings will be between $.56 and $.58 per share which is higher than analyst guesses of $.53 and higher than previous guidance of $.49 to $.53.  They cited better licensing revenues and the addition of crack cocaine directly into their Snapdragon chipset.  Both QCOM and BBY are up 7%+ on the day as investors run to chase good news like Alabamans chase leprechauns.

In small cap news, Money McBags ditched his RICK shares and it really hurt him to do so.  The easy money had been made, though in positive news for those still holding RICK, Money McBags will be putting a portion of his >50% profits back in to Rick's business through the purchase of many Jack and Cokes without the Coke while watching the fine classically trained dancers.  In other small cap news, you might be able to make a momentum trade on CRTX.  Money McBags wrote about CRTX after their Q in the first week of March and they seem to have picked up some steam since then.  They are up 7% today on no news and slightly higher than average volume, but they have been steadily rising for the past couple of weeks.  The company still has a ton of risk as their top selling drugs are in decline, they gave away controlling interest of the company to Italian pharma company Chiesi last year in order to help their balance sheet and acquire new drugs, and their operating record is thinner than Keira Knightley.  If you believe their projections though, they are trading at only ~1.5x sales and that is way too low for a real company to be valued (of course this may not be a real company like, Nohjay Nimpson may not be a real name, oh wait, scratch that).  So if you're feeling lucky, this is a total momentum trade with absolutely no news behind it other than valuation seems relatively cheap and thus your downside should be limited (that is if the company's proections are accurate).

3/19/10 Midafternoon Report: When Greenspan talks, people shouldn't listen

Money McBags is busy today so just a few quick shout outs as the market goes through a bit of a sell off due to concerns over increased taxes in the health care bill, Germany backing out of bailing out Greece, and the officiating in the Robert Morris-Villanova basketball game yesterday which was so bad that investors are questioning the integrity of all markets (though it surely left Nova alum Tim Donaghy very proud).

The big news of the day is that Alan Greenspan is out with a begrudging mea culpa in the form of a paper titled "The Crisis or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bubble."  He's presenting this paper to the Brookings Institute and when he's done, the institute will likely use it to replace their dwindling toilet paper reserves.  In the paper, he says about letting banks get bigger than Kirstie Allie's tuchus after a week long Sizzler binge:“Regrettably, we did little to address the problem.”  Wow, you think Captain Obvious?  I hear Joseph Hazelwood also regrets doing little to avoid crashing into Bligh Reef and Lady Gaga regrets doing little contain this country's noise pollution problem.  About creating the housing bubble, Greenspan said "We had been lulled into a sense of complacency."  Awesome, really just awesome.  The market had its biggest crash in 80 years because the guy in charge of trying to regulate it was lulled into inaction like a John after a post-coitis taint massage (of course that kind of inaction just leads to your wallet getting stolen while Greenspan's inaction led to 10% unemployment).  But Greenspan still refuses to take full responsibility and to quote the NYTimes article (notice how Money McBags sources his material, even when it is from the NYTimes so probably all made up anyway) he believes the housing bubble was caused by "a sharp drop in long-term interest rates from 2000 to 2005, brought about by export-oriented growth in developing economies, especially China, after the end of the cold war."  He then went on to blame the Chinese for stealing WMDs from Iraq before the US invaded, for any movie starring Adam Sandler, and for putting way too much pee pee in his coke.  But to further drive home his innocence (upcoming bolding from Money McBags), he said "it was long term mortgage rates that galvanized prices, not the overnight rates of central banks, as has become the seeming conventional wisdom."  He then further decried conventional wisdom by saying it is ok to run with scissors, to swim fewer than 20 minutes after eating, and to say "Beetlejuice" 3 times quickly.  He did lay out some ways to help curb another financial meltdown and those included higher capital requirements and liquidity ratios (which wouldn't have mattered since there were no capital requirements on CDS), having debt convert to equity when capital levels fall to a certain level, and never to hire him to make policy decisions.  He ended by placing the blame solely on the shoulders of capitalism: "Unless there is a societal choice to abandon dynamic markets and leverage for some form of central planning, I fear that preventing bubbles will in the end turn out to be infeasible.. Assuaging their aftermath seems the best we can hope for.”  Ok, look, first of all Money McBags was not an English major and he admits he only read his copy of Strunk and White for the pictures (though he is still a bit scarred from the centerfold featuring the longest dangling particple he has ever seen) but Mr. Greenspan, you can't end a sentence with a fucking preposition.  "Assuaging their aftermath seems the best for which we can hope” fixes that problem, I mean for fucksake you have proofreaders, right?  But diction aside (and Money McBags would love to serve Hayley Atwell a side of his diction), Greenspan gets all human nature on us by basically saying as long as people are greedy, bad shit is going to happen.  And you know what?  That is one thing about which this guy is right.  No matter what regulations are put in to place, people will always find ways around them so it is up to the regulators to be pro-fucking-active to try to quell this rather than being lolled in to complacency by their Wall Street tickle friends like Senior Greenspan was during his reign of error.  And if the Fed can't do it, Money McBags would be happy to bring Warren G. in to regulate shit because Wall Street bankers aren't going to fuck with the LBC.

In international news, Germany conjured up their second most famous citizen in history, Sargeant Shultz, by telling Greece, "I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I know nothing" and therefore, "you get nothing."  Germany basically called Greece out in their game of chicken and told them they won't support a bail out and to take their problems to the IMF.  It is embarrassing for Greece to be shunned by daddy like this but they shouldn't have spent their whole allowance on ouzo and a night with Julia Alexandratou while still ordering those CDs from Columbia House (and if you're going to order CDs from Columbia House, at least use a fake name like Richard Hertz from Holden, MA).  France disagrees with this move citing the desire for the EU to remain united and reminding people what happened the last time everyone followed the Germans.  In other international news, India surprisingly raised their interest rates today by 25bps to try to curb inflation brought on by their continued growth.  Money McBags has no jokes for this, sometimes one just has to report the news.

In small stock news, PALM once again put up a quarter so bad that even Bernie Madoff questioned their integrity.  They lost $.61 per share which was much worse than analyst estimates of a $.42 loss per share and gave revenue guidance for next Q of $150MM which is less than half of estimates.  Wow.  This has driven the stock down 20%+ and caused several analysts to question the company as an ongoing concern.  Canaccord Adams' analyst dropped his stock price to $0 and said "Palm's troubles will only accelerate as carriers and suppliers increasingly question the company's solvency and withdraw their support."  That is just awesome.  Money McBags fully supports any analyst who comes out with a $0 price target for anything.  Also, Money McBags unloaded his shares of WILC today.  He made a small profit and believes the company has huge upside if you can believe anything management says.  The problem is, their actions go against everything they say (which Money McBags broke down for you last week) so why bother fighting this one when there are easier ways to make money?

Enjoy the weekend.

12/18/09 Midday Report: Earnings surprises abound as RIMM jobs naysayers and naysayers begrudgingly admit they kind of liked it

The big news moving the market up today is that several tech companies beat earnings.  Leading the way was RIMM who destroyed analyst forecasts of $1.04 by dropping $1.23 to their damp bottom line and growing topline by 49%.  They also raised guidance, margin forecasts, and the ire of PALM who once again fell short of expectations like all of Jaimee Grubbs' parent's hopes and dreams.  Apparently people still like buying Blackberries even if they don't always work as the Curve is now the number one selling smart phone, so suck on that Apple and your beautiful, fully functional iPhone which is so awesometastic it will actually wipe and bidet you for no extra charge.

In other tech news, ORCL easily beat forecasts as more companies are buying the fuck out of whatever ORCL software does and that can only be positive, unless Oracle software is responsible for promoting Paris Hilton's album, the intelligent design theory, or trickle-down economics.


In macro news, German business confidence rose as the Business Climate Index predicted the climate is getting so much better that all rain showers will now be golden.  The index managed to rise to a whopping 94.7, beating out expectations of 94.5 and we all know how great a .2 beat is of a number with no context, right?  Actually, the number comes from a survey of 7,000 German firms across their biggest industries including manufacturing, construction, wholesaling, retailing, and scat film shooting.  The longterm average is 96 so I guess everything in Europe is almost back to normal, just don't tell the Greeks.

And finally Money McBags favorite RICK met expectations and didn't give guidance but said the current $.19 quarterly eps is a decent range though the first two quarters this year should be stronger than that with the NBA all-star game in Dallas and the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl in Miami (no seriously, they said that). Unfortunately, no one on the call asked how revenues during the Super Bowl will be effected by Chris Henry's absence and Pac Man Jones' unemployment.

If you read the transcript from their call, which I highly recommend even though it's no Tolstoy (but it is an asshair better than any of that Dan Brown crap), you can even learn of RICK's successful recent Toys for Tots event in their NYC club and no, Money McBags is not making that up but yes he is pissed his parents never got him those kind of toys when he was a tot.  The point is, this company is easily going to earn $.76 next year and is likely going to earn over $1.00 (where analyst estimates currently are).  They are trading at ~10x a worse case scenario and 6x-7x a more reasonable estimate.  The problem is that RICK's is always one hummer in the champagne room away from being screwed (pun intended) so Money McBags recommends you go long RICK and buy some long dated out of the money puts to cover your ass should that happen (though he also recommends that RICK employees do everything but cover their asses).

Enjoy the weekend.