Long or Short Capital

Submitted by reader “girl”

In response to the original The Attractiveness Scale which broke down all man to woman (M2W) relationtships, reader “girl” (of Market Clearing Attractivness fame) has countered by also reducing all woman to man (W2M) relationships into a simple easy-to-follow chart with a distinct NY bias. We endorse all attempts to simplify all complicated human interactions into charts and numbers. Especially when they are dead on accurate.*

*Except of course, with respect to our staff. We are not reduceable to simple easy-to-follow charts. We’re deep and complex, but also sensitive, but also still masculine and would make great fathers in addition to great providers. And we would never frequent high price hookers, except for special occasions like “Saturdays”.

Submitted by the Unrepentant Gunner

I need to alert you to the fact that emails in Outlook marked as high priority are not high priority at all. In fact, there is a negative correlation between a sender’s importance in the corporate food chain and the likelihood of their making emails HIGH PRIORITY! Here are some actual subjects from HIGH PRIORITY(!) emails I have received this year:

• REFRIGERATOR CLEANING FRIDAY, MARCH 30TH (sent over 48 hours in advance from some admin assistant)
• Canceled: Giordano’s B-Day “meeting” tonight !!!
• FW: Boy Scouts
• Canceled: Update Timesheets
• (no subject) (and trust me, the content of the actual mail was almost as vapid)
• St. Louis Dinner: Monday, June 4th

Now arguably, the last topic was worthy of high priority, because everyone has to be excited about dinner. That seems to be the exception, rather than the rule. From the dozen or so emails from my MDs, there is not one that is marked high priority. That says it all.

Recommendation: The obvious play is to short HIGH priority emails and their senders whole hand. There is a contrarian and value-oriented play in taking a long position on the under-utilized “Low-Priority” blue down arrow button. While this commodity has been hit hard and may well be under valued, we have a real fear of being too early here, especially after a weekend romantic encounter resulted in disastrous consequences for the same exact reason.

Submitted by LoS reader Charlie

As a college student ten years ago, I fell in love with the Wall Street Journal (NYSE: DJ). A black-and-white broadsheet sans frivolity, it was the keeper of reporting and editorial standards that put all others to shame.

Alas, times have changed.

On a flight out of New Mexico on Friday, I had a chance to read my colorful, downsized copy front to back—and learn afresh what a turd this paper has become. On the banner atop the front page: “Record Home? A $125 Million Listing in L.A. W1.” Hmmm…that story was actually on W8.

In the lead article, we get the inside scoop on the fall of Don Imus. “The reaction moved at warp speed as the Internet circulated his racist words to millions of PC screens,” the authors tell us.

And regarding the press conference featuring the Rutgers basketball players: “Without a hint of professional polish, their remarks came across as heartfelt.”

Racist? Heartfelt? Is the front page still for news, or did the trio of female reporters (dare I say dunder-headed ho’s) somehow hijack it for their editorial purposes? Tell you what: you folks stick to the facts, and let us decide what’s racist and what’s heartfelt.

Later in the article, we learn what “a American Express spokeswoman says.” Well what did the copy-editor say? Was it the same guy who edited the story on the departure of Monster’s CEO? (“Mr. Pastore’s couldn’t be reached for comment.”) Or the Naomi Schaefer Riley column on the Taste page? (“The problem is not their own dependency but their willingness to let other depend on them.”)

I once adored you, you mangled beast. Short this stinker.

Submitted by LoS reader Winston Wolfe

In our never ending search of good buy-side targets, we stumbled across Bessemer Venture Partners and their “Anti-Portfolio”. Said portfolio chronicles the venture opportunities that this all-knowing venture capital firm has passed on during the last 15 years. Opportunities include, but are not limited to, Apple, eBay, Federal Express (seven times), Google, Intel, and PayPal. Although publicly flaunting your failures might to most seem like a bad idea, we see this as an opportunity to explore a totally new growth area, what we call the “Anti-Space.” Accordingly, we are having our analysts flush out a plethora of new ideas including the:

Anti-Girls-I’ve-Slept-With Portfolio – Girls we had the chance with when they were ugly, and now won’t call us back (Links may not be SFW).

• RGX Body Spray Girl
• Kiele Sanchez
• Alessandra Ambrosio

Anti-Comments Portfolio – Those opportunities we had to lay someone out with a cutting remark, but didn’t pull the trigger.

• HR says: “I think we may need to spice up the office with some new plants.”

  Anti-Comment: “You moronic mouth breathing land-monster.”

• Managing Director says: “Did you finish that DCF?”

  Anti-Comment: “That’s what she said”

• IT says: “Maybe after I fix this printer we can grab a drink.”

  Anti-Comment: “Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.”

Recommendation: In line with our Anti-Investment Strategy, but we see significant hedging opportunities in investing in things you didn’t invest in and not investing in things you did invest in.

Submitted by LoS readers “Anonymous”

Anyone with a boy between the ages of one and five will be familiar with both Bob the Builder and The Sodor Railway – home of Thomas the Tank Engine. Both entities are owned by Hit Entertainment, an entity taken private off the London Stock Exchange by 2005, but apart from that they represent vastly different investment options.

Bob The Builder and his team have built an ethical, environmentally-sensitive construction business based in the booming Sunflower Valley. A family business, the culture of the operation is rooted in the values handed down from his father. They offer great value to their clients by staying under budget while building attractive, energy-efficient structures. Sites are always organized and clean, and safety is clearly a priority. The company also provides exemplary solutions to the problems that arise when new development encroaches on wildlife.

Bob’s team is a textbook example of emotional intelligence driving value. The team is smoothly integrated in a number of important ways – among races, among species, among all the mammals and several machines with extraordinary artificial intelligence – all of which pays off in superb performance. Bob is an efficient manager and consensus builder; this commitment is reinforced every day in song. This focus on employee satisfaction allows Bob to achieve industry leading productivity levels while keep wages below the industry median.

By contrast, the Sodor Railway (home to Thomas the Tank Engine) is fraught with managerial, operational, infrastructural and safety issues. The island is subject to an assortment of unrelated but frequent natural disasters which soak up governmental funds. This, in conjunction with mismanagement, has prevented Sodor from adequately investing in effective infrastructure which will attract new businesses and their tax revenue. Key bridges and stretches of track routinely fail, resulting in delayed deliveries and damaged stock. Abandoned mines and other Superfund sites are left open resulting, creating a looming environmental hazard.

The CEO, Sir Topham Hatt has overseen a comprehensive decline of the railroad and has neglected critical infrastructure. Hatt engages in wanton appropriation of company assets for personal use, frequently damaging them in the process. On one notorious afternoon, he commandeered an entire train, a truck and a steamroller to get to his wife’s decadent Kozlowski-type birthday party which may or may not have have had midgets serving cocktails.

The Sodor Railway team has devolved into two ethnic factions – steam engines & diesel engines – tended by humans suffering from severe ADD. The engines’ internecine struggle not only routinely disrupts operations but also distracts management from planning for the future, further burdening a proven incompetent management.

Recommendation: Long Bob the Builder, Short the Sodor Railway. We see a compelling pair trade between the two, and recommend a 1:2 long to short ratio.

Submitted by LoS reader “Charles”

In many roles that have been traditionally dominated by men, the underlying structure of a given profession is often personified as a woman. The best example I can think of is that of a sea captain: both the ship and the ocean are almost always described as a woman. Mother Earth yields crops to farmers; look to Greek mythology to find the goddesses of Spring and the Harvest. A rejoinder to this observation is the stock market. I have never heard a trader or an equity analyst (during my employment at a sell-side firm) refer to the market as a woman. Indeed the stock market is almost always given the genderless pronoun “it” in both common and academic conversation.

I, however, firmly believe that the market is a woman, and I believe the most recent sell-off gives support to my argument. On February 27th, the market behaved exactly as a woman would in a similar situation. In bed.

Over the trailing trading sessions, the market was getting nailed – in a good way – and she was really enjoying it. Point by point, rising closer and closer to double digit returns. Coherent thought was miles away as she slipped deeper into a state of upward momentum. Rising. Higher. Higher. It seemed like the pure joy would never end. But was there risk? Globalization and transparent markets had mitigated all need for protection, so on she went. Closer and closer to the peak of 52-week highs.

Then, as if fate itself called down to her, she realized she had forgotten to take her birth control and she was not “this kind of girl”. She was overexposed to sub-prime debt. The market went from legs-wide-open to frigidity in less time than it takes a fixed income trader to eat his Atkins lunch. And when the market closed, investors had to go to bed pissed off and feeling like they got kicked in the nuts.

Don’t worry, though. She’ll be back.

Submitted by LoS Reader “Matthias”

This weekend, per decree of our government, we all have “sprung forward” into “Daylight Savings Time”. One hour was taken from our schedule, that could have been spent on any sort of profitable or enjoyable activity. What did we get in return? A government IOU; a promise that this hour will be returned in six months time. Without interest.

Clearly, Congress is trying to push the American public into a ridiculous bargain. We could die in the coming six months, never to receive that hour back, or we could be getting the cold next fall, which would make the hour that much more un-enjoyable. And even if we subscribe to the notion of a risk-free government obligation, the time we are fronting the government should at least bear interest at the appropriate 6-month treasury rate. For the conspiracy theorists: Does anyone know, what the government does with the 300 million hours, that are being temproarily extracted from the lives of the American public? Is it the chronological fuel supply used to keep Dick Cheney’s cyborg heart running and provide him immortality?

Recommendation: With the entire country being in a short position of 1 hour per person, I went the other way. I set my watch not forward, but BACK. I have tentatively set my watch back 23 hours, which intuitively balances risk and reward, but I am not certain of the appropriate hedge ratio.

Lastly, how much of the run-up in Phoenix’ real estate market do you attribute to Arizona’s exemption from the national Daylight Savings tax? The regulatory risk of Arizona joining the rest of the country at some point must be properly discounted.