Featured Trade: (UPDATED 2013 STRATEGY LUNCHEON SCHEDULE), (WHY JIM CHANOS IS WRONG ON CHINA), (FXI), (CYB) (DRINKS WITH ROBERT REICH), (BECOME MY FACEBOOK FRIEND)
iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund (FXI)
WisdomTree Chinese Yuan (CYB)
Come join me for lunch for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Updates, which I will be conducting throughout Europe during the summer of 2013. A three-course lunch will be followed by a PowerPoint presentation and an extended question and answer period.
I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, currencies commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I?ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research. To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please go to my online store at http://madhedgefundradio.com/ and click on ?STRATEGY LUNCHEONS?.
New York City -July 2
London, England - July 8
Amsterdam, Netherlands - July 12
Berlin, Germany - July 16
Frankfurt, Germany - July 19
Portofino, Italy - July 25
Mykonos, Greece -August 1
Zermatt, Switzerland - August 9
Hedge fund titan, Jim Chanos, is well known for his extremely bearish views on China. He says that the cracks are spreading on the fa?ade, real estate sales are falling, and that the economic engine is starting to sputter.
This will be bad news for the rest of us, as China imports 50%-80% of the world?s commodities. Commodity exporting countries will be especially hard hit, like Canada, Australia, and parts of the US. Modern China has only seen a bull market, and he doubts their ability to manage a true crisis.
There is a widespread misperception that the government will step in and provide any bailouts that will be needed. The domestic Chinese banking system has in fact already been bailed out two times. The harsh reality is that while Chinese companies are selling billions of dollars? worth of new stock issues in the US through IPO?s, a privileged elite is getting their money out of the country as rapidly as they can. Jim says that he already has short positions in the Middle Kingdom that are profitable. There is no way that even a wrinkle in a market of this size is without global implications, and on that point Jim is right.
However, I think that Jim, who confesses to having never visited China, is missing the broader long-term picture here. China has literally been building a Rome a day, the ancient kind, and the modern size every two weeks. In a year, it builds the equivalent of the entire housing stock of Spain, and in 15 years the equivalent for all of Europe.
While a lot of apartment buildings have been constructed, the country is rapidly creating the middle class to fill them. Even allowing for a pull back from its past blistering 11% per annum GDP growth rate to only 7.7%, urban disposable income per person is expected to grow by 2.5 times to $7,500 by 2020.
Over the same time frame, some 160 million are expected to move from the hinterlands to urban areas. Rising standard of livings mean that residential floor space per person will jump from 270 square feet to 369 square feet, still tiny by Western standards. That is a lot of housing demand.
China has already taken steps to head off a housing crisis, unlike the US. The People?s Bank of China has raised bank reserve requirements five times, taking them to among the most stringent levels in the world. That is almost Canadian in its conservatism. Many banks are now demanding cash deposits of 40%, well over the official requirement of 30%. The government is in effect forcing the banks to deleverage before hard times hit. Too bad they didn?t think of that here.
I think China still has several good years ahead of it, and I am going to pile into the stock ETF (FXI) and the Yuan ETF (CYB) as soon as the current bout of malaise selling exhausts itself. The Country?s real challenge arises when its demographic pyramid starts to invert in about five years, the result of a then 35 year old ?one child? policy, when too many single children have to start supporting two retiring parents.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/China.jpg316474Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-31 08:23:202013-05-31 08:23:20Why Jim Chanos is Wrong on China
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Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-31 08:16:472013-05-31 08:16:47Become My Facebook Friend
?The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary,? said Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Mouse-Cuffs.jpg282428Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-31 08:14:432013-05-31 08:14:43May 31, 2013 - Quote of the Day
Featured Trade: (JULY 8 LONDON STRATEGY LUNCHEON), (THE BOTTOM IS IN FOR THE AGS), (CORN), (WEAT), (SOYB), (DBA) (THE ONE ECONOMIC INDICATOR YOU CAN RELY ON) (AN EVENING WITH MALCOLM GLADWELL)
Come join me for lunch for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in London on Monday, July 8, 2013. A three-course lunch will be followed by a PowerPoint presentation and an extended question and answer period.
I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, currencies commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I?ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $249.
I?ll be arriving an hour early and leaving late in case anyone wants to have a one on one discussion, or just sit around and chew the fat about the financial markets.
The lunch will be held at a private club on St. James Street, the details of which will be emailed to you with your purchase confirmation.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research. To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please go to my online store.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Big_Ben_8583a-e1429708732816.jpg388400Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-30 08:00:062013-05-30 08:00:06July 8 London Strategy Luncheon
Take a look at the drought monitor below, and you?ll see that it looks exactly like the one we saw a year ago. Yes, that?s the one right before we saw prices double for corn (CORN) and most other agricultural products.
The global warming trade may be about to return with a vengeance. If the weather so far this year is any indication, the trading pits in Chicago could break out in riots at any time. This winter, hurricane Sandy ravaged the east coast, tornadoes decimated Kansas, and California suffered its driest winter in 20 years. Water rationing on the west coast is now almost a certainty. Extreme weather is breaking out everywhere.
Regular readers are well aware of my predictions of major global food shortages in the years ahead (click here for ?Is Food the New Distressed Asset??).
The basic problem is that the world is making people faster than the food to feed them. Rising emerging market standards of living are increasing their food consumption at the expense of poorer countries.? If everyone in China eats one extra egg a day, the entire continent of Africa has to starve.
The global population is expected to rise from 7 billion to 9 billion over the next 40 years, and half of that increase will occur in countries that can?t feed themselves today, largely in the Middle East.
Global fresh water supplies are shrinking fast. Throw global warming into the mix, and a crisis will unfold sooner than later. These are all arguments to use a major dips in the food ETF?s, (CORN), (SOYB), (DBA), and (WEAT), to pick up long positions. And we have just witnessed a nine month long sell off in the sector. In addition, my technical trading pro, Jim Parker, The Mad Day Trader, loves the charts. It?s time to go shopping in the cereal section of your local stock exchange.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Popcorn.jpg339352Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-30 07:57:442013-05-30 07:57:44The Bottom is in for the Ags
There is no end to which I am willing to go to understand the future direction of the world economy. So when I learned that the price of Brazilian bikini waxes was going through the roof, I had to sit up and take note. Last month, the price of the popular beauty treatment soared by 16.6% to 35 Reals, about $22.
This is no joke. The Brazilian government includes the removal of unsightly body hair in the most strategic of places in a basket of consumer services that it uses in calculating the country?s inflation rate, now estimated at 6.49%. An economist in Rio de Janeiro assured me that this has nothing to do with the opposite sex. It is one of the few measures they track, which can?t be clouded through the surreptitious altering of its quantity or quality. You either get it, or you don?t.
The big picture here is that inflation is worsening, not only in Brazil, but other emerging markets, like China, India, and Vietnam. This is why the yields on one year Brazilian debt are sky-high, a hedge fund favorite.
What can I say? An economic indicator in the hand is worth two in the bush? And I won?t even get into the implications of ?Stealth? inflation. This certainly gives new meaning to the term ?market bottom.?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Girls-at-beach.jpg262350Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-30 07:52:212013-05-30 07:52:21The One Economic Indicator You Can Rely On
I spent an evening with the New Yorker magazine columnist, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, and probably the most prolific publisher of original, consensus challenging ideas today.
Half English and half Jamaican, the preeminent challenger of clich?s and stereotypes was himself a clich? and a stereotype. He wore the standard issue New York intellectual?s blazer, pressed shirt, blue jeans, and loafers, to compliment his gaunt face and conspicuous afro.
His latest book challenges the myth of meritocracy, that luck is a bigger factor in success than privilege or education, and that, in fact, all meritocracies are rigged. Bill Gates built Microsoft not by being brilliant, but by having the good fortune to be raised by a family who could send him to one of the few Seattle high schools that then had a computer program. The Beatles made it only because they practiced more than any other group in history.
The falling crime rate since the seventies was not the result of a series of new, tough anti-crime laws, but the removal of lead from gasoline in 1973, which literally drove young inner city dwellers violently insane. Successful hockey players are almost exclusively born during the first three months of the year, enabling them to beat the crap out of younger, smaller competitors in their junior years.
It is cheaper to deal with the homeless than ignore them, because of the massive drain they create on the public health system. He cited the infamous example of the drunk, ?Million dollar Murray,? who single handedly drained the budgets of Reno, Nevada?s emergency rooms. Gladwell?s arguments may not be accurate, or even right, but he certainly forced you to look at problems from a new perspective. This I value highly.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Malcolm-Gladwell.jpg338330Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-05-30 07:50:152013-05-30 07:50:15An Evening With Malcolm Gladwell
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