Global Market Comments
March 2, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(FRIDAY, APRIL 3 HONOLULU, HAWAII STRATEGY LUNCHEON)
(THE FED GIVES THE GREEN LIGHT TO STOCKS),
(AND MY PREDICTION IS...),
(TESTIMONIAL)
The best is yet to come with regards to the US economy, says the Federal Reserve.
The oncoming onslaught of positive economic data means that the bull market in stocks will have years to run.
The full impact of the Fed?s aggressive five year, $4.5 trillion program of monetary easing will only start to be felt in 2015. Everything up until now has just been a warm up. Inflationary effects won?t be felt until 2016.
That is the opinion of no less an authority than Stanley Fischer. He should know. He is the new vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The implications for the stock market are massive.
Of course, all of this comes at a price in the form of pernicious inflation somewhere down the road. Personally, I don?t think that dramatic price rises will kick in until we are well into the 2020?s, when my ?Golden Age? scenario unfolds.
This is all part of the elaborate Kabuki play that Fed officials are orchestrating in the run up to the first rise in US interest rates in a decade. The consensus for such a bump is now that it will take place at the June meeting.
I don?t think we will see it until 2016, and then only in infinitesimal increments, as in well spaced quarters of a percent. I look for this view to my friend and mentor, former Berkeley professor and current Fed governor, Janet Yellen. Her attitude is clearly that rates won?t go up until she sees the white?s of inflation?s eyes.
With wages still stagnant nationally, it could be a long wait. But even Janet says she ?feels good about the economic outlook.?
Still, she would rather err on the side of being late than early, since the effects of deflation are now so widespread. I need look no further than the confines of my own sheltered life.
PG&E has cut the cost of overnight charging of My Tesla so substantially that I have put my solar panel installation on hold, as prices will surely drop further. The recent collapse of oil prices only adds fuel to that fire. I am sure that you readers could come up with a thousand similar examples of your own.
Adding to Fed caution will be last week?s downward revision of Q4 GDP growth, from 2.6% to 2.2%. This is clearly not an economy that is threatening any inflationary pressures whatsoever, at least according to the numbers. That is less than half the 5% print we saw in Q3.
However, this is not to say that we should go pedal to the metal, and dump our last sou into the stock market at these levels. The inner trader in me calls for caution.
You may notice that the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s model portfolio is keeping its cards very close to the vest these days, running a 20% ?RISK ON? holding against a 10% ?RISK OFF? position.
That is kilometers away from the 100% ?RISK ON? stance I boldly strapped on at the October market bottom.
This is one of those rare instances where it is best to trade like everyone else. Don?t chase stocks. Just wait for the next 4% correction, and then dive back in. It?s worked for the past 3-? years, except for a single instance.
Try to make 3%-4% a month, and you?ll be OK. Reach for 10%, and you?ll make nothing, or worse, lose 10%.
With corporate earnings robust, and productivity expanding, why shouldn?t it continue?
In the meantime, practice dancing the Charleston, and invest in manufacturers of ?flapper? dresses.
You?ll need them.
A French Sou
Flappers Dancing the Charleston
Take those predictions, forecasts, and prognostications with so many grains of salt. They have a notorious track record for being completely wrong, even when made by the leading experts in their fields. In preparing for my autumn lecture series, I came across the following nuggets and thought I?d share them with you. There are some real howlers.
1876? "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
--Western Union internal memo.
1895? "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
--Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society.
1927? "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
--H.M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers.
1943 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
--Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM.
1962 "We don't like their sound, and guitar music ?is on the way out."
--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
1981 "640 kilobytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody."
--Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.
Global Market Comments
February 27, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARCH 4 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR),
(RIGHT SIZING YOUR TRADING),
(?THE OPENING BELL WITH JIM PARKER?)
The Opening Bell with Jim Parker
Well, you asked for it, and now it is here.
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The service will be presented through a daily morning video and will be posted generally before 9:30 AM EST market opening on our website, www.madhedgefundtrader.com. You can find it under the Mad Day Trader tab ?The Opening Bell?.
In it Jim will give you the ticker symbols of targeted stocks, along with charts and key support and resistance levels determined by his own proprietary analysis.
The Opening Bell with Jim Parker will offer crucial insights for those with a short-term orientation to their trading. It will also be valuable for longer-term investors who like to start their day with a quick snapshot of the market and want to better time their own orders.
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This value added service, if sold as separately, would be worth a fortune. However, it is free if you subscribe to the Mad Day Trader service, or the Mad Hedge Fund Trader PRO service.
Enjoy!
Global Market Comments
February 26, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW HIGH IS HIGH?),
(SPY), (QQQ), (IWM), (USO), (TLT), (VIX),
(ORDER EXECUTION 101)
SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)
PowerShares QQQ Trust, Series 1 (QQQ)
iShares Russell 2000 (IWM)
United States Oil ETF (USO)
iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
VOLATILITY S&P 500 (^VIX)
Those who read my New Year predictions already know that my target for the S&P 500 at the end of 2015 is a range of 2,288-2,392, or up 10%-15%.
When I made that forecast, I was heaped with abuse, derision and scorn, as usual. Perma bears and market haters never miss an opportunity to loose their slings and arrows against those who have been bullish (read accurate), impatiently awaiting their ever-receding vindication.
I love this bunch because it is they who are creating the ?wall of worry? that keeps investors on the sidelines, perennially in fear of an instant playback of the 2008-09 stock market crash.
It is all a perfect prescription for higher share prices.
For a while in January, it looked like the bears might at last be having their day in the sun. Volatility (VIX) spiked to 23%, ten-year bond yields (TLT) crashed to 1.62%, and crude oil (USO) plumbed the depths of $43 a barrel.
February has brought us a horse of a different color. The S&P 500 has sprinted up from a January 2 print of 2,080 to 2,123, a gain of 43 points, or 2%. That is right on schedule as far as I am concerned.
Maybe my outlook is not so ?Mad? after all.
And the best is yet to come.
For those who missed my all asset class calls for 2015, it?s not too late to take advantage of my insights. Please click here for my ?2015 Annual Asset Class Review?.
My friends at Stockcharts.com produced some cogent analysis yesterday that lent more credibility to my high side targets. It outlines the entire technical argument in favor of a continuation of the bull market. I guess great minds think alike.
Check out the chart below and you?ll see they are expecting a 2,240 target for the first half of this year, up another 5.5% from today?s level.
They see an unfolding repetition of the huge 10% leg up that began last October, and was followed by a two month period of digestion. They expect that the technology driven NASDAQ will do even better.
The reason, quite simply, is that it?s different this time. The last time NASDAQ was poking around the 5,000 level the world was unrecognizable from today. In fact, it might as well have been the Pleistocene Age.
There were only 361 million people connected to the Internet in 2000. Today the figure is 3 billion, an 8-fold increase.
Some 2 billion consumers now use smart phones, compared to a few hundred thousand 15 years ago.
There has also been a 1,635% increase in e-commerce during the same period. No small part of that has come from sales of the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader.
Internet companies are now hugely profitable. Look no further than the blowout numbers announced by Salesforce.com today. At the new millennium, Internet purveyors only had ?eyeballs? to boast of.
Speaking to my own followers on a daily basis, I can tell that the greatest misconception about the stock market is that prices are rising because of quantitative easing. That aggressive policy of monetary easing started here in the US first, and then spread to Japan and Europe like an Ebola Virus.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Stock prices are rising for the old fashioned reasons. They are making more money. Rising earnings are driving asset prices, not QE. While the stock indexes have tripled in six years, earnings multiples have risen only 70% off the bottom, from 10 to 17.
This yawning disparity can only be explained by the massive profits that American companies are making, both here and abroad. This has happened in the face of the most rapid improvement in corporate balance sheets in history.
And while QE in the US has been dead for six months, the earnings explosion is only just getting started.
What happens after European and Japanese economic collapses? European and Japanese economic recoveries, now that they have adopted our monetary policy. This is what the stock market was screaming at us by going up almost every day this month.
This is the fundamental basis for my positive outlook for US equities, which could keep rising in value until well into the 2020?s. What?s driving those equity prices? Hyper accelerating technology and productivity improvements. Those are speeding up, not slowing down.
US companies are becoming so efficient that they don?t need us pesky humans anymore.
Perhaps I am so bullish because I see all this stuff playing out before my eyes on my front doorstep here in Silicon Valley. Not a day goes by when I don?t receive a pitch soliciting a new venture capital investment.
I was eating dinner at San Francisco?s posh Boulevard restaurant last week, feasting on my first foie gras since last summer (it was only decriminalized in California last month). Google founder Sergei Brin was sitting at the next table.
After polishing off a bottle of fabulous Screaming Eagle cabernet, I headed to the men?s room. I swear, while I was there standing at the urinal, some fresh faced kid made a pitch to me.
It was something about an app that was a takeoff on Match.com, where cell phones would mutually ping or vibrate when compatible partners came within range. I passed. They had clearly never heard of Heisenberg?s Uncertainty Principle. Besides, it?s already been done in Japan.
Someone approaching me in the men?s room! Now that is a sign of an overheated market!
An App That Does What?
Global Market Comments
February 25, 2015
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(WHY SOLAR STOCKS ARE CATCHING ON FIRE),
(FSLR), (SPWR), (SCTY),
(INDIA IS CATCHING UP WITH CHINA),
(TESTIMONIAL)
First Solar, Inc. (FSLR)
SunPower Corporation (SPWR)
SolarCity Corporation (SCTY)
Long time solar observers were stunned by the news that First Solar (FSLR) and Sunpower (SPWR) were teaming up to create a joint venture.
The stock market certainly got the message. Sunpower rocketed by 18%, while First Solar soared by 17%.
Imagine Macy?s merging with Gimbels, Coke tying up with Pepsi or the Los Angeles Dodgers teaming up with the San Francisco Giants?
It?s a little more complicated than that.
The move further convinces me that solar is one of the few industries that could offer investors a ten-bagger over the coming decade. Revenues are soaring, costs are plunging.
Throwing the fat on the fire are generous government subsidies that create a massive incentive for consumers to go solar by the end of next year.
The entity that (FSLR) and (SPWR) are forming is known as a ?yieldco.?
A yieldco is a publicly traded company that is formed to own operating assets that produce a predictable cash flow. Separating volatile activities (like research and development and construction) from stable and less volatile cash flows of operating assets can lower the cost of capital.
Yieldcos are expected to pay a major portion of their earnings in dividends, which may be a valuable source of funding for parent companies which own a sizeable stake. They are commonly used in the energy industry, particularly in renewable energy to protect investors against regulatory changes.
Yieldcos are in effect first cousins to other high yielding securities like Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Yieldcos give investors a chance to participate in renewable energy without many of the associated risks.
The announcement came on the heels of blowout earnings announced by the two companies. SunPower said it expects to install another 215 megawatts of generation in 2015 and that its project pipeline now totals more than 4,000 megawatts.
First Solar became the first solar photovoltaic (PV) maker to install 10,000 megawatts of capacity last month. Its project pipeline exceeds a monstrous 2,600 megawatts.
A 30% tax credit on any alternative energy investment is set to expire at the end of 2016. I think this will trigger the mother of all stampedes by consumers to buy solar systems while they can still get the government to pick up one third of the tab.
The entire solar industry looks attractive here. Collapsing oil prices has had a leveraged effect on solar shares, dropping them a heart stopping 40% in only three months.
Heaven knows investors are starved for cheap stocks these days.
There is one cautionary note to add here. The government subsidies that help float the company expire in 2017, making the entire proposition financially less attractive. That is, unless they get renewed.
Think President Hillary.
The only things that would save them are dramatically higher conventional energy costs. However, right now energy costs are heading the opposite direction, thanks to fracking and a well-publicized war for market share at OPEC.
I bought Theravance Inc. (THRX) call options at 20 cents and sold them for 95 cents. Thank Jim Parker for the lotto win.
James
Sydney, Australia
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