May 1, 2012 Grey May Day

BAGAKOAA; 1 May 2012 Grey May Day

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May/2012

It was a grey day today in Croninland. Not because anything bad happened. Well, I did start out the day with a big bowl of Cheerios to discover we had no milk. I do not understand how hard it is for my wife to keep milk in the house. What is up with that? Ok she had knee surgery and I have been doing all the grocery shopping for the last week. That does not make it my fault that we are out of milk.

But that was not why it was a grey day at Croninland. Yeah, I had to head out early this morning and nearly stepped in gunkers as I was hunting doggie dumps, but that is SOP at Chateau Cronin.

Then it was a morning of meetings, but that is not what made it a grey day in Croninland. It was the weather. It was very Celtic this morning. Drizzly, damp, cold and grey. I love it.

After the meetings I met my wife at home to discover she was out and about buying 23 bags of groceries. Now my plan was to grab a quick lunch and head back to the office, but there she was with her knee brace and walking stick and 23 bags of groceries. I was weighing the amount of bad karma and physical abuse (so far she has hit me once with the crutches. It does hurt.) I would get if I left her with 23 bags of groceries, and decided I should help. So I helped unload (Did I mention there was 23 bags) the groceries and was rewarded with a tray of fresh sushi.

Then it was too the office, driving through the cold and grey Celtic weather to plough through 200+ e-mails.

Here is one I want to share. One of my buddies and coworkers son (Casey) is in a band and will be playing at one of my watering holes this Saturday. The band is called "Tremor" and the event will be at Friends near the gates of Dove Canyon at 6:00 Saturday Night. Please join Devin and I as our guests for drinks and dinner if you are within driving range of Friends. It will be a fun early evening and it would be great to support their band. That is right, drinks and food are on us.

I also wanted to remind you about an opportunity I gave you all about three weeks ago. Kristen Scannell server extraordinaire at Hanna's is raising money to help build playgrounds in Africa. She only has a little ways to go to be fully funded. PLEASE take a moment and visit this site to help her get the job done. Most if not all of you can swing a couple of bucks to make this happen. If you haven't done so, please do. She is a charming young lady trying to do something cool.

I had the privilege of picking up young man Jack at the end of his school and football practice. He was ripe from football practice and I asked the normal annoying questions, "How as school? How as practice? Do you have much homework?" To which I received various teenage caveman grunts. Then he told me that he was recognized by his team for most improved something or other that had to do with conditioning and lifting. I probed a bit, but just knew he had done something good and I congratulated him.

As we were finishing dinner, I received a call on my cell phone from Coach Harry Welch, head football coach for the State Champion Santa Margarita Eagles. I knew it was Harry because he is one of the few photo ids on my iPhone. So I saw his smiling congenial face as the phone was ringing. Now Devin and I support the team as best we can so it is not too unusual to hear from Harry, but he is a busy guy and it is always a pleasure.

Coach asked me if I had spoken to Jack yet tonight and answered affirmatively. He asked me what I had heard about his recognition and I admitted I knew something but was a little light on details. He went on to tell me that Jack had shown the most improvement of all 60 some players currently in the football program as measure by what they do at conditioning and weight lifting. Coach explained he had kids who could lift more and do more sit ups and even a couple who could lift Bradley Armored Personnel carriers, but over all improvement as measured in all categories went to William John "Jack" Cronin. He was applauded by the entire coaching team as well as all the players. Coach even said he was surprised at the ovation Jack received when his name was announced. Way cool. That's my boy.

That was a great way to wrap up a Grey Day. I have really long day tomorrow so let me get to some stock house cleaning before it gets too late.

May Day

Now we all know what May Day is. From it Celtic history and the pagan Beltane Festival, it was one of the few pagan holidays that did not merge or get merged with Christian Holidays. Yule time holidays (Yes even the big one Christmas) have their chronological roots in pagan festivities. So today we go out and burn buildings down and protest economic injustice. Yeah.

Well we don't do that instead we pulled up our performance. Take a look:

+4.70%

20.37%

+4.20%

+2.99%

+29.24%

+20.11%

-2.54%

+5.41%

+0.78%

-2.35%

-1.90%

+2.81%

+1.53%

+13.85%

+7.18%

-2.72

-3.17%

-0.21%

+0.14%

-8.82%

+0.59%

+17.63%

+11.15%

-3.78%

+5.03%

+0.39%

-1.22%

-4.12%

-3.98%

+0.19%

-13.44%

+7.60%

-14.50%

-3.66%

-3.17%

Would you like to take a guess as to what those numbers are? Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do (That is the Jeapardy Theme, really sing it, there ya go) Ok those are the returns for the 20 accounts I directly and or indirectly manage as part of the Salve Lucrum Family. The first set of numbers is for the month of April which using the S&P 500 as our index of choice showed a -.8% for the month. As you can see, we out did the market in most accounts.

The second set of numbers is our year to date performance which is not pretty compared to the index average of just about 12%. Now I know why you people don't read this section of the blog, you are smart. Don't feel bad for the Salve Lucrum players as I personally guarantee their principal plus 5% every year before fees and taxes. As you know I call it my reverse ponzi scheme.

Today was an important day as the S&P 500 and the Dow hit levels unseen since April of 2008. This is a really rally. We are confident that we will improve the realized gains in these accounts before the end of the year, We do need a few of our hedging bets to materialize. We need the expected unexpected event to happen to pop the VIX so we can cash on a greatly expanded VIX call option strategy. We have averaged down so low that if Merkel gets a bad headache we should break even.

Speaking of options, we mentioned a few the other night. CHK reported as expected, guided as expected, but to our surprise the announcement of a new Chairman actually brought the stock up and we took a 37% loss on a set of call options we sold. We gat all the date right, BUT apparently the old Chairman was so corrupt that news of new one helped the stock so it went up. (Not what you want a stock to do if you are selling a call option.)

We are looking pretty good on the call options we bought on V and BRCM. We will cash those in at the opening first thing.

The ISM survey made our May Day today. That news looks to be carrying us through to another positive opening in the AM. Any wobblies in Asia or Europe could disrupt that plan, but we think not.

You have all been so patient, I will leave you with a little art tonight. Our President made an unannounced visit to Kabul earlier today. That guy must have a great travel agent. Fortunately his arrival and speech happened to be timed so it could be picked up here in the states. Someone caught a picture of President Obama in a thoughtful moment at Kabul International:

"Man I know it was an unannounced visit, but I really thought there would be more people here to greet me."

Salve Lucrum

Since 4/26/2012

BAGAKOAA;

I am not a professional investment advisor. Anybody reading my blog and investing accordingly must be out of their minds. I have made more money than I have lost. There are many more qualified people than I to actually tell you how to invest your money.

BAGAKOAA=Boys And Girls And Kids Of All Ages

Salve Lucrum=Latin for Hurrah for Profit.

2012 Year Ending

Dow 13,073

S&P 500 1,358

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