Screwball

In no particular order; Blues Brothers Up in Smoke American Pie Just about anything from Abbot and Costello.

Found this interesting while looking at data from the Port of LA. Goes back quite a ways and I notice the trend upward around the mid-ninety's.

This is a known problem for this model as shown by the date on top. Highlighted in yellow is; Condition - temperature gauge fluctuates at idle or driving. Cause - condition deemed normal by engineering at this time. Normal my ass. They don't know how to fix it and it's been to two different dealerships.

A little search will tell us the Thrilla in Manila in 1975 was an HBO first television network to broadcast a continuous signal via satellite. I remember that fight.

I think so. I remember going to a bowling alley (had to look it up) in 1990 to watch George Foreman and Gerry Cooney. They some somehow got the feed. They were packed.

I'm old, but back when I grew up boxing was quite the sport. I remember sitting in the living room on Saturday night watching a black and white TV using an antenna to watch "fights of the century" with my dad who was a gold glove boxer. Example; Greatest Fights of the Century - "Louis vs. Marciano, October 1951" (1953)

Those guys don't have a punch like a Jack Dempsey or Ali, but they will smack the snot out of you before you even knew what hit you. I have a funny boxing story. Back in 1977 I was working in a local factory in the welding department. They hired a new guy. He was a small black guy, who looked to be in his 30s or 40s. Looked very muscular and fit, but not very big, maybe 150 lbs. He lived in his van in the parking lot. On the spare tire cover on the back of his van it said "there goes so-and-so" from some town in PA, can't remember which one. He was quiet, did his job, didn't bother anyone, and seemed like a drifter going through town. They picked on this guy mercifully, day after day. It wasn't pretty, but he never said anything and went about his business. One day we were alone on the break room and I said "hey, man, these guys are really dicking with you, why don't you haul off and cold cock one of them. That would probably put a stop to it." He just smiled and said, don't worry, I'll be fine. OK, I said. A few days later I was in there again with him alone. He said, "hey, look at this." I walked over and he pulls some pictures out of his lunchbox and shows me a half dozen pictures of him in a boxing ring fighting various people. I said, "wow, what's that all about?" As it turned out, 10 or so years before, he was a professional boxer, or wanted to be. At one time he was the 6th ranked welterweight in the country. He told me he got to spar with the champion and found out he could never beat him, so he chose to do something else, and left the sport. Impressive, nonetheless. The rest of the story; not long after, one of our local company badasses started in on him again. This time it got uglier then normal. Finally the badass took a swipe at him. Of course he missed, and got his nose bloodied after being hit about 4 times before he knew what happened. That was the end of that - he wanted no more - and for good reason. This dude could have kicked the snot out of anyone there - no matter how big. Nobody screwed with the guy after that, and he just went about his business. Quit after 6 months or so and went on to somewhere else. Always wondered what happened to the guy. Probably dead now. But that little incident was funny as hell - and the badass wasn't as bad.

Our automobiles are a design nightmare for various reasons. What idiot decided it was a good idea to put a fuel pump inside a gas tank? Or a starter underneath an intake manifold? And then when they don't know how to fix their poorly designed POS they give you this bunch of hot BS like this;

I should have added; I have Treasury Direct account hooked to my bank account. I buy whatever I want through TD and it just shows debits and credits to my bank. They have nothing to do with it. TD is a really neat deal.

I did my taxes today. Always do them late so I don't give the city my money any earlier than possible. I always owe them because I don't work in town and pay the difference because we pay higher taxes than the other town because we suck more. As far as investments. Had an interest 1099 (doesn't count toward city) to turn in. Made almost 5% doing nothing more than playing short term bond ladders all year. This was money from my bank account that pays .01% if I let it sit in the bank and do nothing. I can't imagine why my personal banker didn't tell me about that? Especially since they tell me they want to insure I get the most out of my banking experience, while never telling me how, or fix any problems they have ****ed up. What a world...

It doesn't matter who the Fed chair will be.

Never gonna happen. We ain't in the big club. This is why they hate Trump. He is too stupid to STFU and puts the swindle on full display. The quiet part out loud as they say. Sweet talking con-men are much better, and America eats it up.

Don't know. Looks funny to me. Who knows what the pigmen are up to. I find it more interesting to see that huge candle yesterday that closed the gap. No more worry about gaps, you are free to fall. Just what it did today. Yet, it looked kind of ugly until around 12:30, then recovered a bit. Volatility is off the charts. Expect bank trading profits to be good next earnings report. Giggle. Probably not a popular statement, but this **** has went on since forever. Leaks, frontrunning, and whatever other crooked **** these pricks come up with. We get fleeced. Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel"

Nikkei down around 4 1/2. S&P futures down less than a percent. Might be a good time to buy crude for the SPR. Weekly U.S. Ending Stocks of Crude Oil in SPR

Fun stuff. The surge they talked about wasn't 1%, a little less (to nit pick), but close, but the rip later was quite impressive. S&P chart porn daily by the minute. The index went from 5013.84 at 1:19 to 5381.55 at 1:35. That's a 7+ percent rip in about 15-17 minutes. Quite impressive. I'm guessing some shorts got their face ripped off. Looking at the bigger picture, what does this do to the longer term market? Going back to the start of the year daily chart. All the gaps are now filled. Interesting... The above chart porn Del posted didn't have volume, which matters. Looking at the e-mini during the day gives us some clues. Big volume at 1:02. Somebody knew. Somebody always knows. Then the rip. But what's up with the huge spike in volume at close?

I documented this a few days ago. As usual, the pigmen win again. We are the chumps. You didn't even get kissed. How's it feel?

Today was fun to watch. Incoming chart porn; The chart above showed the 4953.56 level to look for in the S&P chart for today. It opened at 4953.79 which made for a huge gap down (which was filled by 11 minutes after 10 or 41 minutes into the trading day). Chart from December going back far enough to see the S/R levels. Also notice in the above chart the range of that candle. High of 5246.57 (around 10:15) and a low of 4835.04, which was at 9:44. That's a spread of 411.53 points on the S&P - in about a half hour. And the gap is also closed. Once it recovered early it got above the 4953 area and stayed above that for the rest of the day while producing some wild volatility, especially in the morning, then banged off some resistance around 2:00 a couple of times. Fun to watch. As I type this the S&P futures are up slightly.

I spent a month one week in Salt Lake City. What I remember most was the street naming convention they used. Once you figured it out, it was kinda neat. Until then I was lost all the time.

500 billion is nothing in the big picture, but this is kind of funny anyway

The Nikkei didn't open well. Down about 6%. E-mini futures have erased half their overnight loss. S&P chart going back to the beginning of 24. Watch the $4953.56 level if this keeps going down. The same chart also shows the carnage of the last few trading days - so it's due for a "dead cat bounce."

Futures markets opened at 6. E-mini (S&P futures) down close to a couple of hundred. You can find it if you look, but Jim Cramer said this could be Black Monday version 2. Gap down open but not doing much after that. If Cramer said that, and I"m not going waste a millisecond on that idiot to find out, the S&P will probably be 1000 points in the green tomorrow.

Wild stuff, no? The market takes a **** and all of a sudden the economy is the market. I'm sure the 40% of our population who don't have $1000 gives one good **** the DOW dropped 2200+ points. But I digress... Let's look at a few charts - because I love charts - and charts give us a visual history. As we all know, the last few days have not been pretty. First chart is today with a one minute candle. Gap down open, drifted up and down all day, but mostly down, then tanked in the last half hour. It was close to hitting the circuit breakers but didn't and after 3:30 they are shut off. Let's put this in a little more context. This is one day. Let's look back 20 years. This little "correction" doesn't look so bad in this context - or does it? Let's take a longer look. Going back to before the Dot-Com bubble of 2000. Where do we go next? Here's a two year of the S&P. The huge gap down and then blowing through some potential support makes one think the 4950 level is in play. Not much underneath until you go back to late 21 and the 4800 level. Then there is NVDA. I posted some chart porn a while back on them and thought a $97ish number might be a buy point... Maybe not. $90 might be in play, and that gap will eventually fill. Do the math. And a look at INTC. If you had the balls and played the volatility in this one you could have made a killing. They were green yesterday but got jackhammerd today. The price swings are wild - and you could trade that and make a killing. I should have drawn the red box way back in November. 19 to 25 ish... Then to get some more funny into the massive chaos we are living in. I used to watch Bubblevision years ago. Some of the same people are still there. Two of the most entertaining people were Steve Liesman and Rick Santelli of Tea Party fame. Especially when they fought like cats and dogs Today was another example. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/04/03/liesman_vs_santelli_trump_tariffs_confronting_the_dark_side_of_everyday_k-mart_low_prices.html Wild stuff that exchange. It took years to export our jobs all over the world to take advantage of wage and environmental arbitrage along with the skills it took to be the manufacturing leader of the world. But it's all good, we replaced it with easy and cheap credit instead of a skill. Cheap isn't always good. Neither is credit. It's all ****ed up. Where is it all going to go? How are you positioned? Are Trump and his tariffs the pin to blow this prick all to hell? Looks like a bubble waiting for a pin (charts would agree) - and it has to happen under someones watch - why not him? The most hated guy in the world. Blame this asshole. The 40 percent of our population who don't have 1000 bucks probably won't notice or care. He don't give a ****, he's in on the scam. Just like the rest of these worthless ****s. They are laughing at us, and should be. We ain't too smart. Cheap and easy money isn't the answer unless you get it first like the people in the big club do. We learned nothing from 2008/2009. Voluntary abandonment requires a plan - not rapid unscheduled disassembly. Giddy up!

Note to the **** for brains that run this country; crude got hammered today too (down to 66 and change), so now might be a good time to start refilling the SPR. We probably won't see that at the pump.

INTC was one of the few stocks up today. Not much other green. Giggle. This is why I hate the market, and myself. All this was well known a week or so ago, and what did I do - nothing. Could have bought a VIX ETF about a week ago and got a 50% rip in a week. Pull the rip cord, laugh, and thank you very much. The everything bubble has been looking for a pin since the swine bankers blew up the world in 2008/2009 and now we have one. Trump = pin. It will be interesting to see how far this goes. They are laughing at us. Wait till we bail out the banks - again. Long toilet paper. JNJ? They were green today too.

No, I used a computer and excel. 😉