Karl Denninger goes off

This rant by Karl Denninger is good. Karl has been on the Armegeddon watch for a long time and I just hope he's not right that everything is a house of cards, but I do like reading his perspective. Warning, this will likely scare your pants off.

The catalyst at present is that Greek default begins the process that brings the whole system down and that govts are so weak now they can't prevent it. His thesis that the bankers and over-leveraged financial hucksters have scammed and skimmed for so long that they've killed the beast that they make a living from - and it's our own fault for not stopping them and letting them get away with it.

Portfolio update

It's been a long time since I've updated my investing info on here. Early in the year I raised cash levels and have been running at a high cash level most of the year. I've been moving in and out of positions, but overall had not real strong convictions.

Here's my holdings right now from largest to smallest.

AAPL - Apple
INTC - Intel
NEU - Newmarket Corp (petroleum additives and products)
TEO - Telecom Argentina (telecom)
CHL - China Mobile (wireless)
MFB - Maidenform Brands (apparel)
ASML - ASML Holding (semiconductor equipment)
MDF - Metropolitan Health Networks (healthcare provider)
GPS - The Gap (retail)
MED - Medifast (diet/health foods)

One big move I made recently was to exit a large position in Ebix. I'd just reached max pain with the losses on that one and with so much else on the market cheap I felt like I'd move that money into something else for the time being. Ebix seems very inexpensive to me, but there's very big money on the short side of that one pushing that stock around in a big way.

All-in-all I'm still about 50% cash as it's not clear there's much upside to things right now, although there do appear to be alot of inexpensive stocks.

I've been adding to TEO and INTC several times of the past few months, and gotten yanked around by market moves in AAPL, but I'm liking alot of valuations I see. Some I'm looking to add to in near future include those I hold plus MSFT. I'm really wanting to get MSFT a point or two lower from where it's now. Things move on and off of my radar but for the most part I remain confused by how much value the big techs seem to have in them - especially AAPL, INTC, MSFT, and others. There's alot of other very interesting stuff out there - including more semi-equips AMAT KLIC LRCX, some retailers GES ROST, some basic material companies CF CLF FCX, healthcare AGP LHCG AFAM, other telecoms AMX, oil CVX XOM CEO.... lots of value - but I'm just trying to be deliberate with buys and maybe sell some rallies.