I hate Christmas

Yesterdays P&L: GBP98
Yesterdays Booze: 500cl Green Mark Vodka, 2 litres Irish cider, 750cl Spanish Cava

Why do I hate Christmas? It is not because of all the good cheer and ho, ho, ho. In fact in my earlier days I was the life and soul of a party, (despite my dipso melancholy), and I have always enjoyed a good ho! The reason I hate the Christmas /New Year holidays, (I am Scottish and New Year is far more important for us), is that business seems to shut down - completely. The bone-idle, overpaid bastards that now populate London and Wall Street have little or no interest in trading which makes markets very thin and very volatile, bad news for a day trader on his uppers such as myself. Still I persevere and every dodgy trade inspires me to more sad music and to reach for my bottle. I am currently enjoying a reasonably good vodka called Green Mark - it isn't bad and helps me eek out my supplies of Danzka, which is a seriously cool Danish vodka. Danzka is premium, smooth stuff but seems to be available only in Denmark and in Spain. I have no idea why as it is so good, with mixers or neat and it comes in cool aluminium flasks. Ideal for recycling, (enviromentaly-friendly Dipso), or the basis for a good Molitov pipe-bomb come the revolution. You see, being an alcoholic isn't all supermarket vodka and vomit stains on your suit, you can enjoy the finer things as well.

Today I am concerned about the absurdity of the markets, US chop-shop Bear Stearns announced appalling losses related to it's sub-prime and CDO exposure and the market decided to give it a break. Why? well because they feel it is good that financial institutions are revealing how much money they have lost rather than letting investors continue to guess. That makes sense, I mean the fact that these companies claimed firstly that exposure was limited, then announced huge 3rd quarter losses to "draw a line" under the problem and are now reporting 4th quarter losses way in excess of original estimations surely means they wouldn't lie to us again - doesn't it? I remember when a company would be punished by the market for proving itself incapable of doing its core business. The repurcussions of this are huge, these banks and investment companies are going hat in hand to the Middle East and Asia for new capital and paying through the nose to get it. When Citibank has to pay 11% plus to get funding how much do you think they are going to start charging thieir customers? Forget my Scrooge like mood folks, enjoy Christmas and The New Year because I suspect that bad times are coming.