Insomniac Hedge Fund Guy

The Fed Gives a White XMAS to Seniors Noteworthy Insider Buys 12-23-22

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After years, decades even of financial repression, investors are able to earn something from their risk-free savings. It could not have come at a better time for the nation’s seniors. According to the  2022 U.S. Census Bureau, more than 56 million adults ages 65 and older live in the United States, accounting for about 16.9% of the nation’s population. It’s time for them to step down off the roller coaster ride of the equity markets.  One of the cardinal rules of financial planning is that you get more risk-averse as you age. Now you can actually earn a return of … Read more

Insider Buying Week 12-16-22 CRONOS Up in Smoke?

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The Biden administration may be the savviest market timer on or off Wall Street this year.  The widely scoffed-at and criticized announcement on March 31 stated that the administration would start selling oil from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves.  It sounded like a cheap trick to influence voters upset about high prices at the pump for the Midterm elections. At the time, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude hovered around  $98 per barrel and has gotten as high as $110.  Friday’s close of $74.50 represents a short seller’s return of over 35% in less than nine … Read more

‘s Blockbuster Short Sale Trade

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The Biden administration may be the savviest market timer on or off Wall Street this year.  The widely scoffed-at and criticized announcement on March 31 stated that the administration would start selling oil from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves.  It sounded like a cheap trick to influence voters upset about high prices at the pump for the Midterm elections. At the time, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude hovered around  $95 per barrel and has gotten as high as $110.  Friday’s close of $79.73 represents a short seller’s return of over 30% in less than nine … Read more

Something for Everyone Insider Buying Week 12-2-22

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Learn How You Can Become an Insider Too – Click Here For the first time in over a decade, fixed-income investors are enjoying reasonable returns.  The Fed seems intent on keeping rates high for longer than stock market participants might like, but it hasn’t yet done great damage to the hopes and fortunes of equity owners. What I mean by this is to look at the 10-year Treasury, the benchmark index which stock market returns are said to compete with.  The long-run average annual return of the stock market average is 7%-9% per annum. That still provides a measure of … Read more

Insider Buying Week 11-25-22 Cronos Group up in Smoke

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Learn How You Can Become an Insider Too – Click Here This is the best time of year to be invested, statistically speaking. Why that is, no one really knows for sure.  Perhaps it has something to do with animal spirits, people feeling good about themselves, others, who knows?  Animal spirits can’t be overrated.  People are more likely to bet on the future when they feel good about the present. This statistical stock market tailwind isn’t as strong in bear markets, though. The future for most people is just the day after tomorrow and doesn’t look that different than today.  … Read more

Massimo and Apple Showdown coming soon to a screen near you-other notable Insider Buys

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Learn How You Can Become an Insider Too – Click Here   The reality of significantly richer returns on risk-free assets like U.S. Treasuries has taken hold of investors’ psyches. The marginal excess returns that the stock market is likely to provide over the 10 Year Treasury are still mildly attractive. Considering the historic return of the stock market is 7.5%-8%, is the 3.7% to 4.18% risk premium above yesterday’s 3.82% 10 Year Treasury Yield worth it?  For some retired investors losing sleep over the market’s gut-wrenching volatility- the answer is clearly no.  Years of financial repression are over for … Read more

A Few Good Calls- Not Many More Prescient than Our April 21, 2022 post on Coinbase IPO

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We’ve had a few good calls and timely posts, but few more prescient than the April 21, 2021 If Bitcoin is a house of cards, then Coinbase is the clarion bell on the top of the house about to crumble post https://insomniachedge.com/2021/04/coinbase-if-bitcoin-is-a-house-of-cards-then-coin-is-the-clarion-bell-on-top-of-the-house-about-to-crumble/ Insider selling is not as good a predictor of future stock performance as insider buying, but when the selling comes in droves, I call it “rats leaving the ship.” That’s precisely what the Coinbase IPO was, rats leaving the ship What amazes me is that crypto enthusiasts clamor for regulation as the panacea for their woes. I think … Read more

Insider Buying Week 11-11-22 Inflation is Dead- The War is Over- The Dems hold the Line

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This week’s Insider Report marks the end of an experiment with a paid subscription service. From here on out the Insiders Report is free and I am relieved of my weekend chores. I’ll still continue to blog on insider buying and selling as my time permits. I’ve written numerous times that all bear markets in the last 20 years have ended with a crescendo of insider buying.  The number of insiders buying picked up dramatically last week some with household names like Boeing and CME Group.  There are finally some reasons to be hopeful that this miserable year of investing … Read more

‘s Really Quite Simple Buy Guns and Gas-Insider Buying Week 11-5-22

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A miserable week, down 3.46% for the bulls ended on a positive note on Friday. The narrative that the bottom was in now seems shaky as stalwarts AMZN, APPLE, MICROSOFT, ALPHABET, and  FACEBOOk all plumb new lows. One thing for certain, the hurdle rate for stocks and all things investment-related is much higher. The 10 Year Treasury yield of nearly 4.5% and the Prime rate of 7% are the new realities. We ain’t going back anytime soon to the halcyon days of near-zero interest rates. I keep repeating my mantra- All bear markets in the last 20 years have ended … Read more

”s Driving the Market Higher-Insider Buying Week 10-28-22

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The Dow had its’ best run in over 40 years. Major stock indexes extended a stunning October rally on Friday after tech giants Apple and Intel broke a streak of dismal third-quarter earnings reports. The Federal Reserve’s ongoing tightening campaign threatens to slow the economy down through at least next year. This may be a historic rally, but it is notably absent of insider buying.  The few buys that there were produced some handsome gains, notably from the issuance of the stub Biohaven and its spot secondary that closed the week, 46% higher. All bear markets in the last 20 … Read more

Strange Days Insiders Abandon the Market Week 10-21-22

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“Strange days have found usStrange days have tracked us downThey’re going to destroyOur casual joysWe shall go on playing or find a new town”- the Doors 1967   We had some technical difficulties with The Insiders Report in getting our payment module to work.  So until we can figure out where the theme and the payment module collide, The Insiders Report is free. Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of insider activity to write about, but that’s not stopping the market from lifting. The Dow soared 748 points, and the S&P rose 2.37% on Friday ending one of the … Read more

No Bottom in Sight Insider Buying Week 10-14-22

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Curious about how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself It’s been over nine months since the bear market began.  That is about the average time most bear markets end, but there is nothing average about this bear market.  There are just too many unsettling things for the investor’s animal spirits to soar.  Years of interest rates held at artificially low levels near zero and the Fed on an unpredictable and reckless path of rapid interest rates hikes. The dividend yield of the S&P 500 is 1.79% versus Friday’s 4% Treasury … Read more

‘s almost a certainty the U.S. intelligence agencies knew who blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline

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First of all, this occurred in relatively shallow waters, 80-110 meters in depth, completely dominated by Nato vessels. If the CIA and Howard Hughes could raise a Russian sub from ultra-deep waters in the Pacific thousands of miles from shore, do you think it’s credible that the U.S intelligence agencies don’t know who set off explosives in an area where Nato was recently conducting massive naval exercises? It was just in June that fourteen NATO allies along with two NATO partner nations, Finland and Sweden, were participating in the exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS 22) with over 45 ships, more than … Read more

Insider Buying Week 10-7-22 Biohaven $BHVN WOW!

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Curious about how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself Before we dive deep into reading the tea leaves of insider buying, I want you to read this missive all the way to the end for our thoughts on Biovhaven BHVN. All I can say is Wow, wow, wow! It’s up a whopping 43.58% this last week. If you were paying attention, the modest Insider Report subscription fee paid for itself for a lifetime with the August 26th report. We are now deep into the quarterly earnings blackout, and most insiders … Read more

Insider Buying Week 9-30-22

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself September secured its reputation as the cruelest month in the market with a bone-crushing loss S&P 500 loss of 9%. It also set a 52-week low to cap off its worst month since March 2020.  We are deep into the quarterly earnings blackout, and most insiders are restricted from buying their company’s stock for two more weeks, at least until the middle of October.  All bear markets in the last 20 years have ended with a crescendo of insider buying.  As you … Read more

Now it Should Get Interesting- The Fed has Finally Broken the Glass

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We’ve been railing frequently about the misguided efforts by the Fed to rein in inflation. After priming the pump way too long with zero interest rates, they have finally had their come to Jesus moment and now are furiously raising interest rates.  I believe this is very misguided, akin to economic criminal neglect if there were such a thing. Inflation is a complicated animal and certainly, some of the causes of this most current bout are based on things that the Fed has no control over.  For example: 1. We’ve been importing deflation for decades due to offshoring manufacturing in … Read more

Insider Buying Week 9-23-22 Look Out Below

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself The market declined every day last week, but on Wednesday last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell opened the gates of hell for equity investors when he pronounced that not only would the FED  hike rates into the 4%-5% or higher ranges but they were determined to keep them there for the foreseeable future until inflation was clearly on a path to their 2% per annum target.` I often say that making money in the market is all about people with conviction taking … Read more

Miserable Week for the Bulls 9-16-22

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself The market declined 5% last week, capping off a victory for the bears. The vaunted 3900 resistance line on the S&P 500 was penetrated adding to the conviction of the chartists that there is more room below. Insider buying was anemic as expected as the earnings blackout period for the 3rd quarter is well underway.  The few insiders buying fared relatively better only losing on average.07%. There are always a lot of things to worry about, but the chief culprit is the rising … Read more

Insider Buying Week 9-7-22 The Seesaw was Heavy on the Short Side

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself Last week, the market reversed its sour mood with a thunderous rally propelling the S&P 500 by 3.52%. Our insider buys did even better, notching an average of 5.73% returns. Heavily shorted stock, no matter how poor their prospects doubled that. It was the classic case of everybody on the same side of the seesaw.  In keeping with the old adage, the market will figure out how to screw most people most of the time.   Name: Robert J Mylod Jr Position: … Read more

The Bear enters the Blackout Period in the Cruelest Month of the Year Insider Buying Week 9-2-22

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the blog posts and see for yourself A few insiders stepped up and bought shares in their companies stock. We try to figure out why when just about anything you buy goes down.  With war raging in Europe, Russia weaponizing energy, the Fed on an aggressive tightening path, and the uncertainty of upcoming midterm elections, what’s there not to like? U.S. equities fell again on Friday, marking six continuous days of sell-offs, aided by the fears that the Federal Reserve would keep aggressively hiking interest rates to fight inflation, … Read more

Insider Buying Week 8-26-22 Jerome Powell Debuts at Jackson Hole as “Chucky “

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. Friday was a blood bath. The Dow dropped 1000 points. Jerome Powell played Chucky, the criminally insane doll that came to life.  With stunning, chameleon-like performance, he morphed into Paul Volcker, warning the investment community about the pernicious destructive nature of inflation.  Volcker is the Fed Chairman that was famous for crushing the inflation of the 1970s by running interest rates into the high teen percentage points. I personally think it was the most boneheaded policy I’ve lived through. the economic equivalent … Read more

First Carvana now Cassava Short Sellers get Mauled Insider Buying Week 8-19-22

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“All good things come to an end,” so the saying goes. They don’t all come to an end bumping up against the 200-day moving average, though. The historic run in the market began to look just like a bear market rally with Friday’s across-the-board sell-off. The market notched its first losing week in the last five. This week had something very everyone. Short sellers got slaughtered betting against Carvana and Cassava but got their reprieve with the news that Ryan Cohen dumped his Bed Bath and Beyond.  BBBY cratered 40%, meme stocks like AMC and GameStop got crushed, and Bitcon … Read more

Insider Buying Week 8-12-22 Full on Stampede to Buy Stocks

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The S&P 500  has been on a tear.  It tacked on another 3% on top of last week’s, 4% gain. There was almost nothing that went down. Last Friday it was hard to find something that was not green on your screen. Check out Finviz’s Map of the Market below. It was a full-on stampede to buy stocks. Apple is approaching its all-time high. The money on the sidelines is pouring in. Slightly better CPI prints were the trigger, but inflation is not so easily tamed. For starters, don’t expect much help from lower energy prices. I just attended Denver … Read more

Thoughts on Denver EnerCom 2022-Let the Good Times Roll

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I’ve been attending an annual oil and gas conference in Denver for several years and 2022 was unlike any event I’ve been to. I’m sure it was unlike any event EnerCom has seen in its 37 years as well. You have to remember that under the Trump administration the U.S. oil and gas industry got a flood of private and public capital thrown at it. It was overproducing, even when they were losing money on it.  When you’re losing money drilling for oil, the only solution was to drill for more of it.  The lower the price got, the more … Read more

Insider Buying Week 8-5-22 CARVANA NIRVANA

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? The Insider Report hit the ball out of the park Friday, August 5th. We hope you were in the stands with us to watch Carvana CVNA soar out of the stadium, up 40%. We have blogged about it several times in the Insiders Report. Numerous short sellers were saying that CVNA was going to go bust, and it reportedly had a short ratio of 40%, one of the largest out there. That means 40% of the holders of Carvana were betting it would go down, not up. Today they felt a … Read more

”’re Working this Good

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I’ve bemoaned many a time in recent days about the dearth of insider buying. It’s a clear unambiguous end to any bear market of consequence when insiders back up the truck to buy their own company’s shares.  But that so rarely happens. It happened in the Fall of 2008-2009 and in March-May 2020, but most of the time, it’s not that way. No clear signals, just noise and maybe some good guessing from the chatter. Going back and rereading these blog posts about why I thought an insider was buying and how their transactions actually played out makes great stock … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-29-22

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. It’s nice being right. It’s better to make money at it. We did both last week. Over the last two weeks, I’ve mentioned the market seemed to be discounting bad news as many stocks stopped going down on lackluster earnings. Well, last week, it broke out into a full bull on rampage. The S&P 500 rose 4.08% on the week, and on Wednesday, when the Fed announced a 3/4/% interest rate hike, the NASDAQ  spiked up 4.1%, its biggest move since 2020. … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-22-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. I sound like a broken record. The market seems like it’s stabilizing, up over 2% last week.  Behind the scenes, the war in Europe is the 800-pound gorilla. Is the grain deal Turkey brokered in negotiation with Russia and Ukraine the beginning of the end? Interest rates have stopped rising despite all the tough talk from the Fed. We’ll see this week if they have the stomach for a full point increase in the  Fed’s funds rate or will they wimp … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-15-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The market seems like it’s stabilizing, although, behind the scenes, the war in Europe is the 800-pound gorilla threatening to take a turn for the worse. Interest rates have stopped rising in spite of all the tough talk from the Fed. At least the long part of the yield curve is stable, although many economists and market pundits say that’s because the curve is inverting, sending classic recessionary signals. There’s no question that consumers are slowing down their spending binge but … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-8-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The market retraced some of last months loss, the S&P 500 rallying a little over 2.6% in front of the wave of upcoming quarterly earnings reports. The Fed minutes from last month were released and the long end of the yield lost some of its recent rally. I still believe we’ve seen the bottom in long term bonds for the Summer as the specter of recession gets worse with plunging consumer confidence.  West Texas crude made an attempt at stabilizing around … Read more