Maybe A Little More?

The decline from yesterday's highs looks impressive now that it has continued into the overnight session.  Impressive and possibly impulsive, too.  But there is a lot of ground to cover before it proves itself.  1393.82 is the first spot to test on the cash S&P, and the ES futures haven't quite gotten to the equivalent spot.  I could even see a test of the 1387 area and a blast to another new high to form a larger (bearish) contracting triangle.  But below 1354.65, and it's probably lights out.

I will again look to play from both sides.  Now that I have made a good put trade with yesterday's SPY 140s (see Twitter), I will look for a spot to buy some 139 or 140 SPY calls as a hedge.  As always, the name of the game is defined risk and using hedges to pay for speculative positions, with the eventual goal of removing risk completely.

There is little news that catches my interest, and that's fine.  Good to have a break.  I did see something a few days ago that made me roll my eyes, though.  A new start up with a hot babe CEO who dates a movie star and has some all-star investors backing the venture. 

Yet for me, it is just one more example of the proliferation of non-idea ideas, meaning businesses built on lackluster business models masquerading as The Next Big Thing, a la 1999.

Posterous, Pinterest, Instagram . . . these are fun to use, but extremely overvalued arts & crafts sites.  It looks like there will soon be one more.  Try to guess what they're selling besides hype.

Our CEO was formerly at Gilt Groupe and Art.sy, with an MBA from Harvard Business School. Our CTO is MIT-bred and has been building products at top Valley companies like VMware and Symantec for a decade.

Sounds amazing.  It can't miss with jockeys of this caliber.

And here's their unique selling proposition, their Big Idea:

We carefully curate our offering of quality activities, display them beautifully, and make them easily bookable via computer, tablet or mobile phone.

That's the most breakthrough idea I've heard in ages!  Or at least since the Zuckerberg bought Instagram for $1 billion so he could show antiqued pics on the Facebook.

Obviously these smart folks agree as well.

We're backed by some of the most experienced investors in the Valley, including SV Angel, Khosla Ventures, Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, Jack Dorsey, David Bonderman and Owen Van Natta. 

New "companies" like this look best on paper.  This one certainly does.  It looks great on the web, too.  Nice site, pretty photos, lots of PR hits.  I just doubt it will look great on the bottom line.

What's it do?  It's a brand new take on a travel company.  Evidently thousands or perhaps even millions of people can't find quality activities for their trips, nor can they manage to book them using their phone or email, so there had to be a better way.

Silicon Valley to the rescue.