Long or Short Capital

The WSJ had an article which referenced several “Pink Dollar” products aimed at woman drivers such as pleasingly scented lavender tires and no-slip brake pedals for driving in hooker heels. The list neglected several other “Pink Dollar” products which are at least in a preliminary stage of development and should come to market within 5 years.

• Special steering wheels equipped with speakers, a wireless connection and a gossip feed so women can stay up to date with what matters most. MSRP $150.
• Pink car bows, for prettying up the car, making it “cute” and shit. MSRP $300.
• Token love interest for the car to keep the woman interested in it even though it doesn’t fit in the plot at all. MSRP $Unicorn.
• “How to Drive with only 33% of the Brain of a Man”* MSRP $18.99.
• A man to do the driving for you. MSRP $Free, but subscription costs 4 BJs per month

  *It’s science.

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.

The New York Observer recently ran a great article where they asked the terrible people who frequent Bungalow 8 to comment on the Iraq war. I highly recommend it.

“I live this debauched life of partying and fun,” he added, “but you have to think about Darfur, you have to think about Iraq, you have to think about the pressing danger of Iran. I think people should enjoy themselves—which I’m not going to stop doing—but at the same time, there should be a level of guilt.”

He looked around Bungalow 8. “Do you think the Iraqis, little villagers in Kandahar, are doing this?” he said. “None of them are. And that’s the sad, awful truth.”

Recommendation: As you know, I often start businesses based on whims, run them until I bore, and then sell them for a huge profit. Well, this d-bag actually has a point. There are no high-end, exclusive clubs where the douchebags of Iraq can go to escape the plebes and pay thousands of Iraqi Dinar for the same bottle of liquor that retails for 49 drachma in the local store. This is clearly a stellar opportunity. Open Bunker 8, the hottest club Bagdhad has ever seen, and you will be rewarded down the line.

We broke it, we fixed it, we are you go to source for breaking and fixing. Submit your research to us here.

Widsom comes from suffering and error and when the passions die down and the observations begin.

-David Brooks in a March 8th, 2007 Op-Ed

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

We have noticed that there is a tremendous of talent lurking in the comments and around the periphery of our site. “You” is an asset that Long or Short Capital would like to exploit. We encourage you to try out our new Submit feature and submit to us hilarious financial articles and that, funny permitting, we can publish for all your anonymous peers to see. Let’s see what shakes out.

Submit Now and often.

Short: American Express Red Card
Long:: American Express Black Card

One has the veneer of charity. One is for winners.

vs

Also Short: Bono, Scarlet Letters

Just months after the first live giant squid was captured on film, New Zealand fisherman caught the largest squid ever, a 990lb colossal squid which measures 46 feet long in length. The next largest squid ever was 660lbs. The increasing frequency of giant and colossal squid sightings continues to point to only one logical conclusion — squids are scouting out the surface world for conquest and real estate development for when global warming fully empowers them to master the human race.

Some background on the colossal squid:

This squid has one of the largest beaks known of any squid and also has unique swivelling hooks on the clubs at the ends of its tentacles.

This combination allows it to attack fish as large as the Patagonian toothfish and probably to also attempt to maul sperm whales.

“When this animal was alive, it really has to be one of the most frightening predators out there. It’s without parallel in the oceans,” said Dr. O’Shea.

Source: BBC

Global warming ensures that the oceans will rise and cover more of the Earth, causing polar bears to drown left and right and man to be subject to dominance by squid. In a world filled with ocean, we recommend having a position in the being which is “without parallel in the oceans” and which is three times the size of a bus.

At a recent meeting of internet gurus, I heard one particularly guru-ish fellow remark that his company “collected anonymous user information at the cookie level.” A brilliant strategy! Companies have, for years, been investing up and down the OSI model stack, targeting the application, presentation, session, transport, network, data link, and physical layers. That’s a lot of layers (and internet dork talk). And yet no one — other than this one guru — has been targeting the sweetest, crumbliest, tastiest layer of all: the cookie level.

If you have been a diligent reader, you will know that finding a hot (and, in this case, sweet) sector is Step 1 in the Pure Play model of investing. Have at it.

Paraphrasing from NPR this morning on the circling of Daimler Chrysler (NYSE: DCX by private equity vultures:

Daimler Chrysler is reported to be exploring selling its Chrysler division. According to our sources, private qquity firm Cerberus has made several awfuls…offers for the unit.

The core competency of Cerberus is presenting firms with “awfuls”.

The press is bad enough when asked to handle simple things like NFL contracts with non-guaranteed money which consist almost entirely of hugely underwater option years or the compensation of retiring Exxon Mobil CEOs. But conflating geological based wealth and sports seems to lead to a whole ‘nother level of stupidity as evidenced by this sensationalist headline Dodger could be first billionaire player.

The player, Matt White, is a marginal one who owned property in Western Mass that happened to be situated on 24mm tons of goshen rock, which is used in landscaping and is sold for $100 / ton. So $100 times 24mm equals $2.4bn in value to the AP. Simple. Obvious. Right?

Wait…you are saying it actually might….cost something to pull that goshen rock out of the ground? Hmmm. And permitting for mining may be an issue? But he could still be the first billionaire ballplayer right? No? Then how does this help the article? You and your facts, factman! I hope the AP will just ignore the reality and continue to write almost all of their news ex anum.

I will say this unequivocally, there is no chance he makes a billion off this. There is no chance he makes $100mm off this. It is unlikely, in my relatively uninformed estimation, that he makes as much from his goshen rock as even the average earnings of a baseball player who squeaks out a 10 year MLB career.

Recommendation: Short the press. Long brains.

“Casual commitments invite casual reversal, exposing portfolio managers to the damaging whipsaw of buying high and selling low. Only with the confidence created by a strong decision-making process can investors sell speculative excess and buy despair-driven value.” [Ed: our emphasis]
-David Swensen, Pioneering Portfolio Management

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

It has come to out attention that Mother Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) blocks our site which amazed us. That’s some serious net-nannying to block a site that lacks anything but incredible research and commentary which has been scientifically proven to generate amazing investment returns.

Do any of your firms block us? Feel free to leave a comment or email us (misterjuggles@gmail.com”) if your firm blocks us. This is just to tickle our curiousity. Anonymity will be preserved and respected as always, especially if you give us some material non-public information to Hold based on.

During my commute, I am frequently left to wonder about why it is that fellow travelers are talking to themselves. Are they crazy, maybe burdened with schizophrenia or with the tourettes? Or are they simply business professionals affecting the trappings of insanity by talking to the open air in front of them with the vehemence, volume and animation reserved for discussions with the voices within their head?

Hence Crazy Person or Bluetooth Headset.

This morning I was treated to two such travelers, allowing for two rounds of CPBH.

Round 1:

Man in his early 30’s, nattily dressed but in a casual fashion. Dark curly hair a little bit unkempt but not overly so. He sat on the train having this conversation with open space: “Father, you are up. It’s good to hear that [laughing a little crazily].” He continued but was cut-off by a cloud of people and background noise. Was he crazy or just bluetooth equipped?

Crazy person!

Round 2:

Asian man on the street, in a normal looking coat, mid-40’s gesticulating wildly while screaming things in Chinese or whatever. But his hair gave him away. Too well-coiffed to be a crazy person.

Bluetooth Headset!

In business flight terminals, you can play the sister game Bluetooth Headset and/or Total D-Bag.