Fare Thee Well, Wells Fargo

Greetings from New York, where I’m spending my morning pining for the days when Howard, Dandy Don and Giff would spend their Monday nights enjoying a drinking binge to which all of America was invited. Al Michaels, if you’re reading this and looking for a brief return to the devil-may-care days of yore this fall, I know a bald Irishman and a feisty Armenian who would be more than happy to trade you some portfolio review for the chance to call some plays and kick it in the booth. One of us even knows football (don’t worry, Al, I’m used to carrying Najarian).

We’ll get to the retail round-up later. Here’s some non-retail stock moves I’m making as I encourage Pete to refrain from hitting people unless they have the ball, or are in any way irritating me.

• If parting was sweet sorrow during the Bard’s pre-income tax days during this administration, it feels like an invitation to be on a receiving end of financial primae noctis. I’m keeping a stiff upper lip, thinking of the Queen ("Bohemian Rhapsody," to be specific) and reminding myself it’s better to book gains than take write-offs. With that, I bid a deeply fond fare-thee-well to Wells Fargo (WFC).
  
  
• Is Wells a short? Not with the misguided cat in minute 15’s money. I still dig the stagecoach, I just think the easy money is gone now that the shorts have spent the last 30 days getting dragged over the continental divide.
  
  
• What am I doing with the Wells gains? Two things: one for me, one as an investment. The first (and I’ll be the first to admit it falls somewhere short of “rational” let alone humble), I’m having my head gilded. It’s a mother’s day present for Mrs. Jeffmacke simply because, hey, what’s the fun of buying her something she actually wants? Second, I’m trying, yet again, a long position on my glitter and baby-powder-covered heartbreaking 2x S&P 500 short, the SDS ETF. Tight stops on the latter; I’m out if it moves $3 the wrong way or the club runs out of songs by Poison, whichever comes first. In contrast, the gilding is forever.
  
  
• They didn’t ask me (no one ever does), but here’s a free rule of thumb for folks trying to design stress tests to assuage financial markets: 1) make it comprehensible and 2) either set a date to announce the results, then stick to it, or never announce the results at all. Leaking them one at a time? Nice for CNBC ratings; lousy for anyone actually interested in knowing whether or not their bank is going to fail.
  
  
• And, yes, I’m still long Goldman Sachs (GS). I’ve got big gains and a Purple Crayon line running a meaty 8 points below the current quote. Oh yeah - Goldman also secretly controls the financial operations of the entire world. That’s a lot to like about a single stock.