Traders and investors can be excused for being confused, befuddled, and clueless about the future direction of all asset classes after the trading violence of the first six weeks of 2016.
$500 points down!
$400 points up!
Ten year Treasury bond yields at 1.55%!
Negative interest rates in Japan!
Oil hits $26!
HELP!
Professional Investment Advisors have seen their phones ring off their hooks, with no clear answers to give nervous clients.
As for me, the future direction of every asset class for the balance of 2016 is as clear as the view from my mountaintop aerie today. I can even see both the distant Farallon Islands and the snow covered High Sierras without a telescope from where I sit.
I?ve seen all this before.
Every decade or so, we get a year like this one.
In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis promised to bring us nuclear Armageddon.
I remember 1968 like it was yesterday. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and we were losing 2,000 men a month. My turn was coming up.
Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, and Robert Kennedy was shot the night he won the California Democratic presidential primary.
1974 gave us Watergate, the US government cut its last ties with the gold standard, and the barbarous relic soared.
That led to free floating exchange rates, the money-making opportunity of the century. We all became experts in anything foreign very quickly.
Then came 1979.
We were subjected to the prolonged torture of the Iran Hostage Crisis, when more than 60 staff from our Tehran embassy were held for 444 days. The US economy was in a deep, long-term funk. The world thought we had become weak.? Post Vietnam American military strength reached a nadir.
No one in the industry will forget the 1987 crash. Note: after a one-day 20% fall, stocks resumed a bull market that lasted 13 more years. Take that as a hint for the future.
I?ll never forget 1998, when Russia defaulted on its debt, and Long Term Capital Management went bust. The Volatility Index (VIX) rocketed to $42, and stayed there forever. The first funds shorting technology stocks started going under.
I don?t need to remind you of 2008, as most of you were around. My readers and I made a fortune then on the short side. But for most traders and investors the scars still run deep.
And now it is 2016!
You already know what has happened so far since the stork brought in the New Year. So I?ll focus on an asset class by asset class breakdown of what?s coming next.
Stocks: We have just defined the trading range for the next six months. After breaking down from $202, we plunged to the $1,812 Overture low on February 11. I remember sitting in my Incline Village home watching my screens thinking ?This is the low for the year.?
From here we will see a succession of lower highs and higher lows, creating a giant triangle formation on the charts. Watch out for false breakouts and breakdowns along the way engineered by high frequency traders.
Then institutional investors will return from their summer vacations, realize that stocks boast a PE multiple of 15 times and pay a 2%-3% dividend in a NIRP (negative interest rate policy) world. They put on their buying boots and break the market out to a new all time high by year end, but not by much.
Buy the sectors that will lead, especially banks (BAC), technology (AAPL), and biotech (GILD).
Bonds: The double top is in, as is screamingly obvious from the long term chart below. Japan?s move to NIRP, and the negative yield on the ten year there gave us our final capitulation top in prices and low in yields at 1.55%.
Double digit yielding junk bonds (HYG), energy MLP?s (AMLP), and emerging market bonds (ELD) offer the best value in a decade. Buy the (TBT).
Foreign Exchange: Without any further Fed interest rate rises this year, the dollar will roll over and fall asleep. It won?t crash, it will just go dormant. Currencies will gain (FXE), (FXA), (FXC), but not by much. Hedge fund dreams of a collapse in the Chinese Yuan (CYB) will be shattered. It will be a low volatility year for currencies from here.
Energy: The bottom is in for oil, but expect multiple tests of the $26 a barrel level before anyone believes it. High frequency traders may even give us a momentary false breakdown to $24.
That means there is a potential 70% move up in the cards to my $44 target. Volatility will reign supreme. Now that the Saudis, Russians, and Iranians are talking, it could still take years for demand to catch up with supply.
Think China.
Commodities: The bottom is close, if not behind us. Copper is obviously putting in a head and shoulders bottom on the charts, as are iron ore, zinc, and even some grains. When it?s cheaper to buy commodities on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than in mines and pits, it is time to buy their shares.
Precious Metals: The bottom is in here too. Assets emerging from five-year bear markets don?t have much downside risk, a newly popular concept. Gold also does tremendously well in a NIRP world, as there is no opportunity cost for holding the yellow metal.
Agriculture: Avoid. Not even El Nino can help this despised asset class. After all, they grow like weeds. Avoid.
Real Estate: The last bull market lives, thanks to interest rates lower than anyone imagined possible. The 30-year fixed rate conventional mortgage at 3.50%? And now a two decade long demographic tailwind is about to kick in.
Calling all Millennials! Go forth and multiply!
There, I?ve made it easy for you. Thank you for your support.
Adjust your portfolios accordingly.
