Dryships Run Aground

Greetings from New York, where if less is more, I've been busier than a one-armed paper hanger all day.

Conversely, if less is actually less, I've done nothing all day. Specifically, I sold half my SDS ETF short. I'm fully aware I both trade and discuss that somewhat shady, levered vehicle somewhat obsessively. It's a dangerous name fully capable of Snappering your P&L into oblivion. But it's been working for me at a decent success rate; it's an easy way to get a reasonably accurate inverse correlation to the S&P 500; and it pacifies the anxiety I feel whenever I try to hold still.

Levered ETFs are the trading equivalent of dating a stripper; it's going to end horribly but for now we're all having a good time, and hey, how many times do you get to think of $20 beers and Poison songs while looking for trades? When I opened the SDS position this morning I actually thought I caught a faint wisp of baby powder.

When not looking for pacifiers and pacing the room, here's what else I'm doing:
 

• Nintendo (NTDOY) warned last night, or last week, or 3 weeks from Sunday or whenever it is in Japan's time zone. With the warning came the official demise of the 2006-2008 video game console war. As usual, the past king was unseated as Electronic Arts (ERTS) was unable to do anything more imaginative than update its unimaginably lucrative and tired sports catalogue. Microsoft (MSFT) had okay numbers with its Xbox 360, but nothing so great as to offset the fumbling of its other divisions.
  
  Sony (SNE)... well, let's just say it's been a very, very long time since the Walkman and the Playstation2. The stock winner was Activision (ATVI) which gave me a stock double, carpal tunnel syndrome and the humiliation of a defeat at the ax of Todd-O. That last one hurt more than the Carpal Tunnel.
  
  
• Speaking of beatings, DryShips (DRYS) is down 20% today after announcing further capex reductions and failing to take delivery on yet another previously announced acquisition of a dry-bulk carrier. On the brightside, yesterday's canceled deal was with a third party, as opposed to the cancellation on December 10 of a deal to purchase a carrier from a company fully owned by DryShips' CEO. Shockingly [insert smirk here], DRYS was able to buy its way out of the unrelated party deal at much more attractive terms than it paid its own CEO.
  
  For the global economy, the move is yet more support for the Massive Slowdown camp. From a strictly personal perspective, the 20% drop led to my very first complimentary letter regarding my long-held contempt for the stock. Ozzie Minyan Mike, thanks for the white light. The score is now: Pro - Avoiding questionable Greek Shippers: 1; Macke is ignorant and resembles talking private parts: 1,452.
  
  
• While I'm unintentionally picking fights, after one week of Apple (AAPL) iPhone ownership, I pretty much stand by my original assessment. It's an awesome toy and a lousy phone. That said, if I were still on Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry, I couldn't be typing this while jamming to an Adami-inspired mid-70s to mid-80s rock mix on my phone. Guy has an encyclopedic knowledge of every rock album released from mid-70's to Dire Straits' 1985 "Brother in Arms." One decade of Rain
  Man-esque brilliance and total ignorance for anything released before or after the period. For what it's worth, Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" has been the soundtrack for the last 2 bullet points and, contrary to an e-mail from an otherwise beloved Aussie Minyan, Guy denies mentioning the Australian dollar ever.
  
  
• Gannett (GCI) is down big after announcing soft ad revenues. I can understand trying a long spec on newspapers. What I can't understand is dumping it down big because of weak ad revs. It simply seems impossible to do so little research in a newspaper company that you didn't expect weak ad revenues. More optimistically -- from where I'm sitting anyway -- the New York Times (NYT), with its palatial, and levered, new midtown digs and front-page contempt for Wall Street bonuses, is down in sympathy. My standing offer for the naming rights to Times Square has officially been dropped to $45, American cash. It's the best offer you're going to get, Lefties.
  
  
• For the record, this weekend I'm rooting for Punxsutawny Phil to see his shadow and for Kurt Warner -- who seems perfect in every way save for Mrs. JM's admiration of him -- to suffer a mildly humiliating defeat.

With that I'm off to celebrate my day off from Fast Money (do the gals from The View rotate every 4 days?) by taking the lovely Mrs. Jeffmacke to Slumdog Millionaire. Have a safe close and weekend, Minyans. If you made it through January on the happy side of the plus/loss column, or at least alive and having learned something, you're a winner. Be proud, but don't get cocky; there's a lotta 2009 left.