If demographics is destiny, then America’s future looks bleak. At least, that is the inevitable conclusion if demographics is your only consideration.
Suddenly, Biden’s decision to allow 100,000 Ukrainian refugees into the US makes all the sense in the world.
I have long been a fan of demographic investing, which creates opportunities for traders to execute on what I call “intergenerational arbitrage”.
When the numbers of the middle-aged are falling, risk markets plunge. Front run this data by two years, and you have a great predictor of stock market tops and bottoms that outperforms most investment industry strategists.
You can distill this even further by calculating the percentage of the population that is in the 45-49 age bracket, according to my friend, demographics guru Harry S. Dent.
The reasons for this are quite simple. The last five years of child-rearing are the most expensive. Think of all that pricey sports equipment, tutoring, braces, first cars, first car wrecks, and the higher insurance rates that go with it. I can vouch for this idea as I have been through it five times.
Older kids need more running room, which demands larger houses with more amenities. No wonder it seems that dad is writing a check or whipping out a credit card every five seconds. I know because I have five kids of my own. As long as dad is in spending mode, stock and real estate prices rise handsomely, as do most other asset classes. Dad, you’re basically one giant ATM.
As soon as kids flee the nest, this spending grinds to a juddering halt. Adults entering their fifties cut back spending dramatically and become prolific savers, seeing retirement on the horizon.
Empty nesters also start downsizing their housing requirements, unwilling to pay for those empty bedrooms, which in effect, become expensive storage facilities.
This is highly deflationary and causes a substantial slowdown in GDP growth. That is why the stock and real estate markets began their slide in 2007, while it was off to the races for the Treasury bond market.
The data for the US is not looking so hot right now. Americans aged 45-49 peaked in 2009 at 23% of the population. According to US census data, this group then began a 13-year decline to only 19% by 2022. This was a major reason why I ran huge shorts across all “RISK ON” assets in 2008, which proved highly profitable.
You can take this strategy and apply it globally with terrific results. Not only do these spending patterns apply globally, they also back test with a high degree of accuracy. Simply determine when the 45-49 age bracket is peaking for every country and you can develop a highly reliable timetable for when and where to invest.
The numbers explain a lot of what is going on in the world today. I have reproduced it below. From it, I have drawn the following conclusions:
* The US (SPY) peaked in 2001 when our first “lost decade” began.
*Japan (EWJ) peaked in 1990, heralding 30 years of falling asset prices, giving you a nice back test.
*Much of developed Europe, including Switzerland (EWL), the UK (EWU), and Germany (EWG), followed in the late 2,000’s and the current sovereign debt debacle started shortly thereafter.
*South Korea (EWY), an important G-20 “emerged” market with the world’s lowest birth rate peaked in 2010.
*China (FXI) topped in 2011, explaining why we have seen three years of dreadful stock market performance despite torrid economic growth. It has been our consumers driving their GDP, not theirs.
*The “PIIGS” countries of Portugal, Ireland (EIRL), Greece (GREK), and Spain (EWP) didn’t peak until the end of the last decade. That means you could see some ballistic stock market performances if the Ukraine debacle is dealt with in the near future.
*The outlook for other emerging markets, like Russia (RSX), Indonesia (IDX), Poland (EPOL), Turkey (TUR), Brazil (EWZ), and India (PIN) is quite good, with spending by the middle age not peaking for 7-25 years.
*Which country will have the biggest demographic push for the next 38 years? Israel (EIS), which will not see consumer spending max out until 2050. Better start stocking up on things Israelis buy.
Like all models, this one is not perfect, as its predictions can get derailed by a number of extraneous factors. Rapidly lengthening life spans could redefine “middle age”. Personally, I’m hoping 70 is the new 40.
Immigration could starve some countries of young workers (like Japan), while adding them to others (like Australia). Foreign capital flows in a globalized world can accelerate or slow down demographic trends. The new “RISK ON/RISK OFF” cycle can also have a clouding effect.
So why am I so bullish now? Because demographics is just one tool in the cabinet. Dozens of other economic, social, and political factors drive the financial market's long-term.
To buy Harry Dent’s insightful tome at discount Amazon pricing, please click here.
In the meantime, I’m going to be checking out the shares of the matzo manufacturer down the street.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Matzos.jpg327321Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2022-04-05 11:02:512022-04-05 17:49:42Demographics as Destiny
I recently found the chart below showing world tax rates as a percentage of GDP for the past 40 years. Sweden suffers the world's heaviest tax burden at 51%, compared to only 27% in the US.
The US has among the world's lowest tax burdens in terms of actual taxes paid which has been falling for the last 15 years.
Listening to TV pundits, you would think we had the world's highest tax rates. They are dead wrong.
Germany, home to some of the world's best-run and most profitable companies which make the Fatherland a major exporter, has one of the lowest tax bills.
Iceland sits at the bottom and recently went bankrupt, thanks to an overdose of free-market deregulatory philosophy.
Americans historically have had a very strong resistance to taxation which you can trace back to the libertarian foundations of the country.
The Revolutionary War in which 17 of my known ancestors fought was primarily about taxes.
The top end of the distribution is packed with European nations but you never hear them complain about high tax rates.
Most believe the cost of the social safety net is worth it. Those that don't move to the US, Monte Carlo, Lichtenstein, or the British Virgin Islands.
Of course, having once been a part-owner in a fashion model agency in Stockholm, I can certainly vouch for the advantages of living in the world's most taxed domicile. Hedge fund profits go a long way there.
Suffice to say, you spend a lot of time indoors in the home of the Vikings, especially in the winter.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/pretty-lady.png354422Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2021-10-05 10:02:502021-10-05 10:26:45Thank Goodness I Don't Live in Sweden!
All indications are that we have a total nightmare of a Christmas coming up this year. Santa Claus and his elves can’t get any parts, and the reindeer are short of hay.
There are now a record 70 large container ships from China parked off the coast of Long Beach, CA and nobody to unload them. If they could be unloaded, there are no trucks to move the cargo or drivers to drive them. It turns out that stores don’t have enough staff to sell the products either.
You see this in share prices that are traditionally strong going into the holidays which have lately taken a pasting, like UPS (UPS) and FedEx (FDX).
Perhaps the US economy is losing up to a third of its total output due to parts and labor shortages. This will take at least a year to sort out.
Then there is the issue of 10 million missing workers. Are they afraid of dying of Covid? Or have they decided it’s time for a career change and that working for a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is no longer worth it? This may take a decade to sort out.
Covid could be masking fundamental changes to the American economy and society which won’t become obvious until well into the 2030s.
Those of us who analyze these things can’t wait for the outcome. The global economy has just undergone more change than at any time since WWII. But what exactly happened we may not know for years.
Better to complete your Christmas shopping early this year or you may end up with a piece of coal in your stocking (where do I find coal in California?). And don’t forget to do some shopping for your retirement portfolio as well. Valuations are the best they have been in a year and this bull market in stocks has another nine years to run.
In the meantime, after dumping all of my technology stocks, I’ll be betting my entire persona net worth buying financial ones. These should lead the markets for the next six months, or until bond yields hit 2.0%, whichever comes first. Bonds now yield 1.46%.
With interest rates rising sharply, economic growth continuing at record levels, and default rates plunging, we are just entering a new golden age of banking.
Powell sees Inflation lasting higher for longer. It was enough to kill off a nascent rally in the bond market. The Dollar Store is about to become the $2 Store. Shortages from China are the reason.
Treasury Yields hit a three-month high. You can blame the coming taper, deal on a deficit-financed infrastructure bill, and drained Fed accounts against a coming massive supply of bonds. I’m already running a massive bond short. Keep selling rallies in the (TLT), or buy (TBT).
China bans Crypto, triggering a 7% plunge in Bitcoin. Financial systems the government can’t control are forbidden in the Forbidden City. It’s all part of a flight out of a restricted Yuan into unrestricted crypto by wealthy Chinese. China used to account for 99% of all Bitcoin mining and now it is at zero. The business will flock to the US, Canada, and any other country with cheap electricity. It’s a short-term negative for crypto but a long-term positive. Buy Bitcoin and Ethereum on the dip.
Case Shiller shatters all records, rising an astronomical 18.7% in June, a new record. Home prices are now 41% higher than the last peak in 2006. Phoenix was up an eye-popping 29.3%, San Diego by 27.1%, and Seattle by 25.0%. What are they putting in the water in these cities? My belief is that the structural shortfall of housing continues for another decade.
New Home Sales jump by 1.5% in August to a seasonally adjusted 740,000 units. The south saw the biggest gains at 6.0%. Median New Home Prices jumped an amazing 20.1% to 390,000 YOY. The exodus from the city to the burbs continues unabated. Inventory is at 6.1 months.
Pending Home Sales rocket, in August by 8.1% on a signed contract basis compared to only 1.2% expected. That’s a seven-month high. The Midwest led the charge with a 10.4% gain. Rising inventories and continued low interest rates were a big help. The bidding wars are abating.
China Energy Shortage causes Apple and Tesla cutback and they are buying 70% of America’s coal production to meet the shortfall. Several key chip packaging and testing service providers supplying Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm also received notices to suspend production at their facilities in Jiangsu for several days. It’s Another Black Swan from the Middle Kingdom.
The First Trust Skybridge Crypto Industry & Digital Economy ETF (CRPT) launched on September 23. It will be kicked off by my longtime friend and Mad Hedge Summit speaker Anthony Scaramucci. Get on the crypto train before it leaves the station.
Ford (F) announced massive $11.4 Billion in US EV factories in Kentucky and Tennessee in partnership with South Korea’s SK Innovations, creating 11,000 jobs. It is one of the largest US industrial investments in recent memory. It is all part of a plan to completely reposition the company and invest $30 billion in EVs by 2025. A smart move, (F) finally read the writing on the wall. My Ten-Year View
When we come out the other side of pandemic, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates still at zero, oil cheap, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The American coming out the other side of the pandemic will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 240,000 here we come!
My Mad Hedge Global Trading Dispatch saw a modest +1.03% gain in September. That’s against a Dow Average that was down -5.65% for the month. My 2021 year-to-date performance soared to 80.30%. The Dow Average was up 12.18% so far in 2021.
Figuring that we are either at or close to a market bottom, and being a man of my convictions, I am 80% invested in financial stocks. Those include (MS), (GS), (JPM), (BLK), (BRKB), and (C). In for a penny, in for a pound. I am also 10% invested in the (SPY) and 10% long bonds (TLT).
I quick trip by the Volatility Index (VIX) to $29 and a rapid 45 basis point leap in ten-year US Treasury bond yields gave us the entry point for all of these positions.
That brings my 12-year total return to 502.85%, some 2.00 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period. My 12-year average annualized return now stands at an unbelievable 42.49%, easily the highest in the industry.
My trailing one-year return popped back to positively eye-popping 112.44%. I truly have to pinch myself when I see numbers like this. I bet many of you are making the biggest money of your long lives.
We need to keep an eye on the number of US Coronavirus cases at 44 million and rising quickly and deaths topping 701,000, which you can find here.
The coming week will be slow on the data front.
On Monday, October 4 at 10:00 AM, US Factory Orders for August are out.
On Tuesday, October 5 at 8:30 AM, the US Balance of Trade for August is announced. On Wednesday, October 6 at 8:15 AM, we get the Challenger Private Jobs Report for September.
On Thursday, October 7 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.
On Friday, October 8 at 8:30 AM, we learn the September Nonfarm Payroll Report. At 2:00 PM, the Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count are disclosed.
As for me, in my many travels around the world, I never hesitate to visit places of historical interest. The London grave of Carl Marx, the Paris grave of Jim Morrison, the bridge of the cruiser of the USS San Francisco, which took a direct hit from an 18-inch Japanese shell, you name it.
After attending one of my global strategy luncheons in Charleston, South Carolina, where the Civil War began with the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter in 1861, I looked for something to do. Fort Sumter was a full day trip and there wasn’t much to see anyway.
So I pulled out my trusty iPhone to get some ideas. It only took me a second to decide. I attended Sunday church services at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where 15 people were gunned down by a deranged white nationalist in 2014.
The church was built in 1891 by freed slaves and their children. The congregation dates back earlier to 1791. It has every bit a handmade touch with fine Victorian stained-glass windows.
The ushers stopped me at the door for 20 minutes where they suspiciously eyed me. Then they invited me in and sat me down next to the only other white person there, a Jewish woman from New York.
It was a working-class congregation and polyester suites and print dresses were the order of the day. Everyone was polite, if not respectful, and I sang the hymns with the air of a book in the pew in front of me.
The gospel singing was incredible, if not angelic. When I left, an usher thanked me for supporting their cause. Very moving. I praised them for their strength and tossed a $100 bill into the basket.
Charleston is a big wedding destination now, with young couples pouring in from all over the South to tie the knot. Saturday night on Market Street saw at least a dozen bachelor and hen parties going bar to bar and getting wasted, the women falling off their platform shoes.
The United States still has a lot of healing to go to recover from the recent years of turmoil. I thought this was one small step.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/methodist.png426560Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2021-10-04 12:02:552021-10-04 12:54:19The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or It’s Shopping Time
I am usually hiking at Lake Tahoe this time of year, doing the deep research, hiking ten miles a day, and the stripping down to jump into the lake at the end.
This year, climate change had other ideas.
So I am visiting a childhood haunt in Newport Beach, CA, where my late uncle used to live. Remember him? He was the former CFO of Penn Central Railroad in 1970 who made a fortune buying puts just before the company went bankrupt. I guess that was allowed back then.
He lived next door to John Wayne, and we kids used to wave at him, astonished at his bald head. I still miss The Duke.
I am still typing one finger at a time, my left wrist in a brace and elbow in a huge bandage. I told the doctor I couldn’t get to Reno for him to take the stitches out because of the wildfires, so I would do it myself with a pocketknife with Jack Daniels as a sterilizer. He said, “Knock yourself out.”
Traders are so frustrated waiting for the normal summer correction they are starting to call “The Endless Bid Market.” That has left them underweight, trying to catch up, which is why we didn’t get a drop of more than 4% this summer.
Of course, they are also getting rich with what they already have, but they all want to get richer. Greed is trouncing fear big time. Forget about investing.
You can’t buy the dip anymore because there are no dips. You simply use new cash flows to add to your winners, the more they have gone up, the better.
That’s why large-cap tech stocks have been on an absolute tear, hitting new all-time highs. Of course, I am just as guilty as the rest, with a retirement fund loaded with big tech. Google (GOOG) is now my largest position, not through savvy stock selection but purely because of price appreciation.
Of course, it helps that the higher stocks go, the cheaper they get.
Earnings are melting up maintaining the same price-earnings multiple and stock prices are simply following suit. There is nothing overheated about it.
Company profit margins are soaring to record highs as companies make enormous productivity investments to deal with chronic labor shortages. If you live here in Silicon Valley, you see this happening around you every day.
If you don’t, stock valuations are fantasies coming from a faraway land, therefore the surprise at market strength.
Haven’t you noticed how hard it is to get a human on the phone outside of the Philippines, where workers feel rich when they are making $300 a month?
If anything, the market is still undervaluing stocks rather than overvaluing relative to their upside earnings potential.
An S&P 500 target of $500 is now my easy target for 2022. Any credit crunch that could trigger a recession is years off, and one Fed governor away. A delta variant that won’t quit, or the upcoming Mu variant is another worry.
Consensus forecasts constantly lagging the market has the effect of leaving institutions and individuals under-invested and trying to get in, hence no real dips for almost a year.
Afghanistan proves the market could care less about any geopolitical surprise.
You heard it from me first. If the market can’t selloff over the next two weeks when poor seasonals start to fade away, the they wont for all of 2021.
Nonfarm Payroll Report bombs, coming in at only 235,000 versus an expected 720,000, a huge miss. The headline Unemployment Rate fell 0.2% to 5.2% a new post-pandemic low. Mysteriously, both stocks and bonds hated it. Manufacturing was up 37,000, while Leisure & Hospitality was zero and Retail at -28,000. Education LOST -25,000 during the back-to-school season. Average Hourly Earnings rose an astonishing 0.6% MOM, or 4.3% YOY. The U6 long term unemployment rate fell to 8.8%. Goodbye taper. A shortage of workers was to blame, but the economic data has been worsening for a while now. Delta is taking a bigger bite than we thought. Stocks hit new August highs the most in history, surpassing the 1929 record of 11 times. The only negative three-month period seen since 1929 are August, September, and October. Remember what happened in 1929? If that doesn’t scare the living daylights out of you, then nothing will. So, it seems we are in for some kind of correction, even if it’s just the 5% kind. Looks like the month end will be hot. Bitcoin leads crypto, but Ethereum is catching up. Cardano has doubled in a month making it the number three crypto and Avalanche has tripled. Newly minted online broker Robinhood (HOOD) says 60% of its option trading is now in crypto. MicroStrategy’s (MSTR) Michael J. Saylor sees a 50-fold increase in Bitcoin to a total market value of $100 trillion. That is five times the US M3 money supply of $20 trillion. It’s become a financial system of "get crypto or go home." Oil jumps on Hurricane IDA, with a sharp 8.9% rally. Some 91% of Gulf Production shut in, or 1.65 million barrels a day. Don’t expect it to continue. Sell into the rally on this future buggy whip industry. SEC is cracking down on Market Gaming by multiple apps aimed at Millennials. It’s shopping for a new set of market rules aimed at regulating those who foster runaway volatility in single stocks like (AMC). PayPal to enter stock trading, sending the stock up a ballistic $15 in two days. If they pull it off, it will open a huge new profit stream for them, possibly becoming another Robinhood (HOOD), cashing in on the retail trading boom. Earning: regulation costs a lot. Buy (PYPL) on dips.
S&P Case Shiller soars to new highs in June, the National Home Price Index jumping 18.6% YOY, breaking all records. Prices are now 41% higher than the bubble top in 2006. This is the sharpest gain in the 34-year history of the index. Prices in Phoenix leaped 29.6%, followed by San Diego at 27.1% and Seattle by 25.0%. Supply and demand will be seriously out of whack for years. Pending Home Sales drop for the second straight month on a signed contract basis, down 1.8% in July. Summer slowdown, delta slowdown, or market top? However, supply and demand are still far out of balance. Your next Apple purchase may be a satellite phone, bypassing local cell phone networks. A Chinese analyst made this prediction for the iPhone 13 out in 2022. The report says that the iPhone 13 includes a Qualcomm X60 baseband modem chip, which includes LEO satellite comms capabilities. If accurate, this means that the upcoming iPhone will have the hardware capability to act as a satellite phone. It certainly would upend the rush to build private satellite networks, like Viasat and Tesla’s Starlink. Enough investors believed the story to send the stock to a new all-time high. Buy (AAPL) on dips. Air Travel is falling off, with airport security screening dropping to only 1.35 million, the lowest since May 11. Delta is taking its toll, but back to school is a factor as well. Bond king Bill Gross says treasuries are trash. He sees ten-year yields hitting 2.00% sometime in 2022. The 77-year-old drove bond prices for a decade and also made a fortune collecting stamps. Sometimes Bill is early, but he is always right. One billion Asians to join middle class by 2030 on top of the existing 3.75 billion today. That will create a vastly larger market for all online services, which the stock market seems to be telling us today. Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are expected to see the largest increases. There is a lot of “hope” in this number, i.e., no more covid, no ward, and no depressions. The next market correction won’t come until the Fed makes a mistake and that might be years off, says Wharton finance professor and long-term bull Jeremy Siegel. That will be when the Fed finds itself behind the inflation curve. Until then, the slow grind up continues. Stocks are the best defense against inflation. My Ten-Year View
When we come out the other side of pandemic, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates still at zero, oil cheap, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The American coming out the other side of the pandemic will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 240,000 here we come!
My Mad Hedge Global Trading Dispatch saw a robust +9.31% gain in August. My 2021 year-to-date performance soared to 78.57%. The Dow Average was up 15.82% so far in 2021.
That leaves me 80% in cash at 20% in short (TLT) and long (SPY). Although we have maxed out the profits with these two positions, I’ll keep them as there is nothing else to do. I’m keeping positions small as long as we are at extreme overbought conditions. The “endless bid” market is not giving anyone entry points as long as the Volatility Index (VIX) remains at $16.
That brings my 12-year total return to 501.12%, some 2.00 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period. My 12-year average annualized return now stands at an unbelievable 42.48%, easily the highest in the industry.
My trailing one-year return popped back to positively eye-popping 120.48%. I truly have to pinch myself when I see numbers like this. I bet many of you are making the biggest money of your long lives.
We need to keep an eye on the number of US Coronavirus cases at 40 million and rising quickly and deaths topping 645,000, which you can find here.
The coming week will be slow on the data front.
On Monday, September 6 markets are closed for the US Labor Day. On Tuesday, September 7, there are no special data releases. Everyone will be recovering from hurricanes in the south and east, wildfires in the west, and Covid everywhere.
On Wednesday, September 8 at 9:30 AM, we get API crude oil stocks.
On Thursday, September 9 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.
On Friday, September 10 at 8:30 AM, we learn the Producers Price Index for August. At 2:00 PM, the Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count is disclosed.
As for me, a few years ago, I was visited in London by an old friend who had once served on the British Army staff of General Bernard Law Montgomery, the hero of Alamein, who was known to his friend as “Monty” (he had no friends).
I asked if there was anything I could do for him and he said, “Actually, I haven’t had a dish of moules mariniere (steamed mussels in white wine sauce) on the Grand Square in Brussels for a while. I said, “No problem, let’s go.”
We drove my Mercedes 6.0 to an old Battle of Britain hanger (one-inch-thick bombproof steel doors) on the outskirts of London where I kept a twin-engine Cessna 340 with turbocharged engines with a maximum speed of 225 kts. We landed in Brussels in an hour.
We savored the mussels on the square, as good as ever, the national dish of Belgium. The autumn air was brisk, tourists gawked, we drank, and everyone had a good time.
I left my fried there talking to some Belgian beauty for an early return to England. I wanted to park my plane at the grass airfield in Salisbury in Wiltshire, home of the tallest cathedral in England, which I nearly took out several time. The problem was that the runway had no lights.
Unfortunately, I ran into an Atlantic headwind and was running late, so I skipped a refueling stop at Ostend. When My instruments showed I was right over the airfield, I saw nothing but black.
I did, however, remember the radio frequency of the pub at the end of the field which constantly kept a speaker on. I radioed the pub, “if anyone will roll up some newspapers set them on fire and line the runway, I will buy them a pint of beer.”
The entire pub emptied out and within secondss I had a perfectly lighted runway on both sides. Landing was a piece of cake.
When I taxied up to the pub, the starboard engine ran out of gas. I walked in and made good on my promise, even buying a second round for my rescuers. I then crawled back into my airplane and went to sleep, waking up the next day with the worst hangover ever.
My flying these days is much more sedentary. The FAA requires me to do three take offs and landings every three months to keep my license current, and I usually bring along my kids for this chore. On the last landing, I always shut off my engine and glide in.
I warn the kids and they always say, “No dad, don’t,” but I do it anyway. I tell them it’s the only way to practice engine failures.
As I said before, I crash better than anyone I know.
I think I’ll watch the John Wayne classic “The Searchers” one more time tonight.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/US-corporate-profits-1.png466864Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2021-09-07 09:02:342021-09-07 10:27:05The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or the “Endless Bid” Market
I feel obliged to reveal one corner of this bubbling market that might actually make sense.
By 2050, the population of California will soar from 39 million to 50 million, and that of the US from 330 million to 400 million, according to data released by the US Census Bureau and the CIA Fact Book (check out the two population pyramids below).
That means enormous demand for the low end of the housing market, apartments in multi-family dwellings.
Many of our new citizens will be cash-short immigrants. They will be joined by generational demand for limited rental housing by 65 million Gen Xers and 85 million Millennials enduring a lower standard of living than their parents and grandparents.
These people aren't going to be living in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses.
If you have any millennial kids of your own (I have three!), you may have noticed that they are far less acquisitive and materialistic than earlier generations.
They would rather save their money for a new iPhone than a mortgage payment. Car ownership is plunging, as the “sharing” economy takes over.
This explains why the number of first-time homebuyers, only 32% of the current market now, is near the lowest on record.
It’s not like they could buy if they wanted to.
Remember that this generation is almost the most indebted in history, with $1.6 trillion in student loans outstanding.
They don’t care. Coming of age since the financial crisis, to them, homeownership means falling prices, default, and bankruptcy. Bring on the “renter” generation!
The trend towards apartments also fits neatly with the downsizing needs of 85 million retiring Baby Boomers.
As they age, boomers are moving from an average home size of 2,500 sq. ft. down to 1,000 sq ft condos and eventually 100 sq. ft. rooms in assisted living facilities.
The cumulative shrinkage in demand for housing amounts to about 4 billion sq. ft. a year, the equivalent of a city the size of San Francisco.
In the aftermath of the economic collapse, rents are now rising dramatically, and vacancies rates are shrinking, boosting cash flows for apartment building owners.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Financing is still abundantly available at the lowest interest rates on record. Institutions combing the landscape for low volatility cash flows and limited risk are starting to pour money in.
Run the numbers on the multi-dwelling investment opportunities in your town. You’ll find that the net after-tax yields beat almost anything available in the financial markets.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2050-population.png389781Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2021-07-01 09:02:542021-07-01 11:01:25A Very Bright Spot in Real Estate
Landing my 1932 de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane can be dicey.
For a start, it has no brakes. That means I can only land on grass fields and hope my tail skid catches before I run out of landing strip. If it doesn’t, the plane will hit the end, nose over, and dump a fractured gas tank on top of me. Bathing in 30 gallons of 100 octane gasoline with sparks flying is definitely NOT a good long term health plan.
The stock market is starting to remind me of landing that Tiger Moth. On Friday, all four main stock indexes closed at all-time highs for the first time since pre-pandemic January. A record $115 billion poured into equity mutual funds in November. This has all been the result of multiple expansion, not newfound earnings.
Yet, stocks seem hell-bent on closing out 2020 at the highs.
And there is a major factor that the market is completely ignoring. What if the Democrats win the Senate in Georgia?
If so, Biden will have the weaponry to go bold. The economy goes from zero stimulus to maybe $6 trillion raining down upon it over the next six months. That will go crazy, possibly picking up another 10%, or 3,000 Dow points on top of the post-election 4,000 points we have seen so far.
That is definitely NOT in the market.
The other big decade-long trend that is only just starting is the weak US dollar. Lower interest rates for longer were reaffirmed by the appointment of my former economics professor Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary.
A feeble dollar brings us a fading bond market, as half the buyers are foreigners. A sickened greenback also provides the launching pad for all non-dollar assets to take off like a rocket, including commodities (FCX), precious metals (GLD), (SLV), Bitcoin, and the currencies (UUP), (FXE), (FXA), (FXB), (FXY), and emerging stock markets like China (FXI), Brazil (EWZ), Thailand (THD), and Peru (EPU).
All of this is happening in the face of a US economy that is clearly falling apart. Weekly jobless claims for November came in at 245,000, compared to a robust 638,000 in October, taking the headline unemployment rate down to 6.9%. The real U6 unemployment rate stands at an eye-popping 12.0%, or 20 million.
Some 10.7 million remain jobless, 900,000 higher than in February. Transportation and Warehousing were up 140,000, Professional & Business Services by 60,000, and Health Care 46,000. Retail was down 35,000 as stores shut down at a record pace.
OPEC cuts a deal, adding 500,000 barrels a day to the global supply. The hopes are that a synchronized global recovery can take additional supply. Texas tea finally busts through a month's long $44 cap, the highest since March. Avoid energy. I’d rather buy more Tesla, the anti-energy.
Black Friday was a disaster, with in-store shopping down 52%. Long lines and 25% capacity restrictions kept the crowds at bay. If you don’t have an online presence, you’re dead. In the meantime, online spending surged by 26%.
Amazon (AMZN) hires 437,000 in 2020, probably the greatest hiring binge since WWII, and is continuing at the incredible rate of 3,000 a week. That takes its global workforce to 1.2 million. Most are $12 an hour warehouse and delivery positions. The company has been far and away the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic as the world rushed to online commerce.
Tesla’s (TSLA) full self-driving software may be out in two weeks, instead of the earlier indicated two years. The current version only works on freeways. The full street to street version could be worth $8,000 a car in upgrades. Another reason to go gaga over Tesla stock.
Goldman Sachs raised Tesla target to $780, the Musk increased market share to a growing market. No threat from General Motors yet, just talk. Volkswagen is on the distant horizon. In the meantime, Tesla super bear Jim Chanos announced he is finally cutting back his position. He finally came to the stunning conclusion that Tesla is not being valued as a car company. Go figure. Short interest in Tesla has plunged from a peak of 35% in March to 6% today. It’s learning the hard way.
The U.S. manufacturing sector pauses, activity in the U.S. manufacturing sector barely ticked up in November as production and new orders cratered, data from a survey compiled by the Institute for Supply Management showed on Tuesday. The ISM Manufacturing Report on Business PMI for November stood at 57.5, slipping from 59.3 in October.
Salesforce (CRM) overpays for workplace app Slack, knocking its stock down 9%. This is worth a buy the dip trade in the short-term and this is still a great tech company which is why the Mad Hedge Tech Letter sent out a tech alert on Salesforce on the dip.
Weekly Jobless Claims dive, with Americans applying for unemployment benefits falling last week to 712,000 down from 787,000 the week before. The weakness is unsurprising as we head into seasonal Christmas hiring.
The end of the tunnel for Boeing (BA) as they bring to an end an awful 2020. Irish-based airline Ryanair Holdings placed a large order for a set of brand new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, giving the plane maker a shot in the arm as the single-aisle jet comes off an unprecedented 20-month grounding.
Ryanair, Europe’s low-cost carrier, has 135 Boeing 737 MAX jets on order and options to bring the total to 200 or more. Hopefully, they won’t crash this time around. My fingers are crossed.
Dollar Hits 2-1/2 Year Low. With global economies recovering, the next big-money move will be out of the greenback and into the Euro (FXE), the Aussie (FXA), the Looney (FXC), the Japanese yen (FXY), the British pound (FXB), and Bitcoin. Keeping interest rates lower for longer will accelerate the downtrend.
When we come out the other side of this pandemic, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates still at zero, oil cheap, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 400% to 120,000 or more in the coming decade. The American coming out the other side of the pandemic will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 120,000 here we come!
My Global Trading Dispatch catapulted to another new all-time high. December is up 5.34%, taking my 2020 year-to-date up to a new high of 61.78%.
That brings my eleven-year total return to 417.69% or double the S&P 500 over the same period. My 11-year average annualized return now stands at a nosebleed new high of 38.00%. My trailing one-year return exploded to 64.56%. I’m running out of superlatives, so there!
I managed to catch the 50%, two-week Tesla melt-up with a 5X long position, which is always nice for performance.
The coming week will be a slow one on the data front. We also need to keep an eye on the number of US Coronavirus cases at 14.5 million and deaths at 285,000, which you can find here.
When the market starts to focus on this, we may have a problem.
On Monday, December 7 at 4:00 PM EST, US Consumer Credit is out.
On Tuesday, December 8 at 11:00 AM, the NFIB Business Optimism Index is published.
On Wednesday, December 9 at 8:00 AM, MBA Mortgage Applications for the previous week are released.
On Thursday, December 10 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are published. At 9:30 AM, US Core Inflation is printed.
On Friday, November 11, at 9:30 AM EST, the US Producer Price Index is announced. At 2:00 PM, we learn the Baker-Hughes Rig Count.
As for me, at least there is one positive outcome from the pandemic. Boy Scout Christmas tree sales are absolutely through the roof! We took delivery of 1,300 trees from Oregon for our annual fundraiser expected to sell them in two weeks. We cleared out our entire inventory in a mere six days!
We sold trees as fast as we could load them. With the scouts tying the knots, only one fell onto the freeway on the way home. An “all hands on deck” call has gone out to shift the inventory.
It turns out that tree sales are booming nationally. The $2 billion a year market places 21 million trees annually at an average price of $8 and are important fundraisers for many non-profit organizations. It seems that people just want something to feel good about this year.
Governor Gavin Newsome’s order to go into a one-month lockdown Sunday night inspired the greatest sales effort I have ever seen, and I worked on a Morgan Stanley sales desk! We shifted the last tree hours before the deadline, which was full of mud with broken branches and had clearly been run over by a truck at a well-deserved 50% discount.
I can’t wait until next year!
Stay healthy.
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/john-thomas-chainsaw-e1607348125295.png500328Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2020-12-07 09:02:522020-12-07 09:18:03The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or a Dicey Landing
For those who missed the June 4 Mad Hedge Traders & Investors Summit, I have posted all 9:15 hours of recordings of every speaker. To find it, please click here.
This is a collection of some of the best traders and investors I have stumbled across over the past five decades. They include:
8:45 Meet John Thomas, the Mad Hedge Fund Trader- Summit Welcome and Opening Comments
9:00 Andrew Pancholi - Market Timing Report
“Learn How Markets Repeat with Absolute Precision”
10:00 - Fausto Pugliese – Cyber Trading University
“The Most important Tape Reading Tactics Every Trader Should Know”
11:00 - Adam Mesh - Adam Mesh Trading
“Options Made Easy”
12:00 - Hubert Senters - Trade Thirsty
"Investors Miss 95% of Tech Stock Gains -- Here's How You Can Get Them"
1:00 - Charles Hughes – Hughes’ Optioneering -
“Simple, Shockingly Successful PowerTrend® Spread Strategy to be Revealed”
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/john-switchboard-connect.jpg395360Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2020-09-15 09:04:232020-09-15 10:02:03The Mad Hedge June 4 Traders & Investors Summit Recording is Up
Followers of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader alert service have the good fortune to own a deep in-the-money options positions that expire on Friday, June 19, and I just want to explain to the newbies how to best maximize their profits.
This involves the:
the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) June 2020 $175-$180 in-the-money vertical Bear Put spread
the S&P 500 (SPY) June 2020 $235-$245 in-the-money vertical BULL CALL spread
Provided that we don’t have another 3,000-point move down in the market by next week, these positions should expire at their maximum profit points.
So far, so good.
I’ll do the math for you on our oldest iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) position. Your profit can be calculated as follows:
Profit: $5.00 expiration value - $4.10 cost = $0.90 net profit
(24 contracts X 100 contracts per option X $0.90 profit per options)
= $2,160 or 21.95% in 34 trading days.
Many of you have already emailed me asking what to do with these winning positions.
The answer is very simple. You take your left hand, grab your right wrist, pull it behind your neck, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
You don’t have to do anything.
Your broker (are they still called that?) will automatically use your long position to cover your short position, canceling out the total holdings.
The entire profit will be credited to your account on Monday morning June 22 and the margin freed up.
Some firms charge you a modest $10 or $15 fee for performing this service.
If you don’t see the cash show up in your account on Monday, get on the blower immediately and find it.
Although the expiration process is now supposed to be fully automated, occasionally machines do make mistakes. Better to sort out any confusion before losses ensue.
If you want to wimp out and close the position before the expiration, it may be expensive to do so. You can probably unload them pennies below their maximum expiration value.
Keep in mind that the liquidity in the options market understandably disappears, and the spreads substantially widen, when a security has only hours, or minutes until expiration on Friday. So, if you plan to exit, do so well before the final expiration at the Friday market close.
This is known in the trade as the “expiration risk.”
One way or the other, I’m sure you’ll do OK, as long as I am looking over your shoulder, as I will be, always. Think of me as your trading guardian angel.
I am going to hang back and wait for good entry points before jumping back in. It’s all about keeping that “Buy low, sell high” thing going.
I’m looking to cherry-pick my new positions going into the next quarter-end.
Take your winnings and go out and buy yourself a well-earned dinner. Just make sure it’s take-out. I want you to stick around.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/john-and-girls.png322345Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2020-06-10 08:02:082020-09-28 12:12:21How to Handle the Friday June 19 Options Expiration
Jay Powell really showed his hand today with the press conference following his 25-basis point interest rate cut.
The Fed’s medium-term target rate is now zero. Take a 1.75% inflation rate, subtract a 1.75% overnight rate and you end up with a real interest rate of zero. The fact that we have real economic growth also at zero (1.75% GDP – 1.75% inflation) makes this easier to understand.
That means there will be no more interest rate cuts by the Fed for at least six more months. All interest rate risks are to the downside. There is no chance whatsoever of the Fed raising rates in the foreseeable future with a growth rate of 1.75%. It will also take a substantial fall in the inflation rate to get rates any lower than here.
That may happen if the economy keeps sliding slowly into recession. Net net, this is a positive for all risk assets, but not by much.
I regard every Fed day as a free economics lesson from a renown professor. Over the decades, I have learned to read through the code words, hints, and winks of the eye. It appears that the thickness of the briefcase no longer matters as it did during Greenspan. No one carries around paper anymore during the digital age.
I then have to weed through the hours of commentary that follows by former Fed governors, analysts, and talking heads and figure out who is right or wrong.
In the meantime, the “Curse of the Fed” is not dead yet. The ferocious selloffs that followed the last two Fed rate cuts didn’t start until the day or two after. That’s what the bond market certainly thinks, which rallied hard, a full two points, after the announcement.
All of this provides a road map for traders for the coming months.
The Santa Claus rally will start after the next dip sometime in November. Buy the dip and ride it until yearend. The Mad Hedge Market Timing Index at 75, the bond market (TLT), the Volatility Index (VIX) and the prices of gold (GLD), silver (SLV), and the Japanese yen (FXY) are all shouting this should happen sometime soon.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/jay-powell.png352672Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2019-10-31 08:04:572019-12-09 13:11:58Welcome to the Land of Zeros
I have a pretty good view from my home on a mountaintop in San Francisco.
To the west, I can see through the Golden Gate Bridge all the way out to the Farallon Islands 20 miles off the coast. To the south, there is Stanford’s Hoover Tower and all of Silicon Valley. In the winter I can look east and see the snow-covered High Sierras 200 miles away.
However, during last year’s wildfires, I couldn’t see a thing. Visibility ended at 100 yards, the cars parked outside were covered in ash, and I could barely breathe. We were all confined indoors.
I kind of feel that’s the way the stock market is right now. You can’t see a thing, so it’s better to stay indoors.
Not only are market gyrations subject to unpredictable and random, out-of-the-blue influences. The old playbook about cross market correlations and how asset classes respond at different points of the economic cycle doesn’t work either.
The good news is that August is over, the second worth trading month of the year. The bad news? September is the WORST trading month of the year!
So, what does a trader do on the first day of the worst investment month of the year?
Research.
That's what I’ll be doing, waiting for the next cataclysmic collapse to buy or the next euphoric bubble to sell short. Until then, I’ll be sitting tight. Just running my existing long/short trading book, I’ll be up 3.4% by the September 20 option expiration date in 15 trading days.
There is one BIG positive for the economy that no one is talking about. The home ATM is open for business, and open like it’s never been open before.
The thirty-year fixed rate mortgage rate is now at 3.56%, 10 basis points over a decade low and 20 basis points above an all-time low (see the chart below). There are currently $9.4 trillion of outstanding home mortgages in the US. Some $5 trillion is in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conforming loans, some 90% of which have interest rates higher than the current market.
If just ten million of these mortgages refinance obtaining an average of $4,560 in annual savings each, that will amount to a de facto tax cut of $456 billion per year, not an inconsequential amount. And Goldman Sachs thinks we could be in for as much as 37 million refis. It could be enough to offset the negative impact of the trade war.
As for the past week, it seemed like a disaster a day.
Trump ordered all US companies out of China. Like you can reverse 40 years’ worth of trillions of dollars of investment with a Tweet. If they did, an iPhone would cost $10,000 and your low-end laptop $15,000. An escalation of the trade war is the last thing your 401k wanted to hear. Kiss that early retirement goodbye.
Oilcrashed (USO) on trade war escalation, with the industry now seeing a recession as a sure thing. Russian cheating on quotas is pouring the fat on the fire creating a massive supply glut in the face of shrinking demand. Take a long nap before considering any energy investment (XLE). The long-term charts show they are all going to zero.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson suspended Parliament, prompting a free fall in the pound. It’s to keep Parliament from blocking his hard Brexit, where it would certainly loose by a landslide. It’s all up to the Queen now, the monarch, not the rock group.
The yield inversion is deepening, with the US Treasury selling two-year notes today at a 1.56% yield, with ten-year yield closing at 1.45%. And that’s with the Treasury selling a total of a gob smacking $113 billion worth of bonds last week, which should have driven rates UP! US ten-year TIPS now showing negative interest rates.
Company stock buybacks are fading. That's a big deal as corporations retiring their own shares have been the biggest buyers in the market for the past two years. As if you needed another reason for downside risk.
US 15% tariffs hit on Sunday, and the Chinese paused in retaliation. Christmas is about to get more expensive. Many large retailers won’t make it until the new year. Keep selling short Macy’s (M) on rallies.
Bond yields hit new lows, at 1.44% for ten-year US Treasury bonds. The next stop is zero. Fixed income markets are saying that a recession is imminent. “Inversion” will be the world of the year for 2019. Go refi that home if you can get a banker on the phone!
There is no way out of the next recession, says hedge fund titan Ray Dalio. With global rates below zero, you can’t cut to stimulate business. You can’t do any more quantitative easing either, as the world is already glutted with paper. This is the trap Japan has been caught in for the last 30 years. It is all sobering food for thought.
US growth slowed with the second reading of the Q2 GDP marked down from 2.1% to 2.0%. The downturn has continued since the economy peaked 18 months ago. Q3 will be much worse when the trade war and earnings downgrades hit big time. And then there’s the soaring deficit. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
US Consumer Sentiment took a dive from 98.4 to 89.8 in August. Has the spending boom just peaked? If so, we’re all toast. The "tariff cliff" is already taking its toll.
The Mad Hedge Trader Alert Service has posted its best month in two years. Some 22 or the last 23 round trips, or 95.6%, have been profitable, generating one of the biggest performance jumps in our 12-year history.
My Global Trading Dispatch has hit a new all-time high of 334.48% and my year-to-date shot up to +34.35%. My ten-year average annualized profit bobbed up to +34.30%.
I raked in an envious 16.01% in August. All of you people who just subscribed in June and July are looking like geniuses. My staff and I have been working to the point of exhaustion, but it’s worth it if I can print these kinds of numbers.
As long as the Volatility Index (VIX) stays above $20, deep in-the-money options spreads are offering free money. I am now 60% invested, 40% long big tech and 20% short Walmart (WMT) and the Russell 2000, with 20% in cash. It rarely gets this easy.
The coming week will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs.
Monday, September 2, markets were closed for the US Labor Day.
Today, Tuesday, September 3 at 10:00 AM, the August ISM Purchasing Manager’s Index is out.
On Wednesday, September 4, at 2:00 PM, the Fed Beige Book for July is published.
On Thursday, September 5 at 8:30 AM EST, the Weekly Jobless Claims are printed. At 10:30, we learn the ADP Report for private hiring.
On Friday, September 6 at 8:30 AM, the August Nonfarm Payroll Report is printed.
The Baker Hughes Rig Count follows at 2:00 PM.
As for me, I’ll be filling out the paperwork for my own home refi. JP Morgan Chase Bank (JPM) is offering the best deals, in my case a 30-year fixed rate no-cash-out jumbo loan for only 3.4%. Now where did I put that tax return?
Good luck and good trading.
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
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