It is the end of the school year at the University of California at Berkeley and the unenviable task of moving my son, a senior, out of his hovel for the holidays fell to me.

When I arrived, I was stunned to find nothing less than a war zone. Both sides of every street were lined with mountains of trash, the unwanted flotsam and jetsam cast aside by departing students.

Computer desk, stained mattresses, broken lava lamps, and an assortment of heavily worn Ikea furniture were there for the taking. Newly arriving students were sifting through the piles looking for that reusable gem.

Diminutive Chinese teenagers were seen pushing massive suitcases on wheels down the sidewalk on their way back to Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. The university attempted to bring order to the chaos by strategically placing dumpsters on every block, but they were rapidly filled to overflowing.

It was all worth it because of the insight it gave me into one of my favorite, least known leading economic indicators. When I picked up the truck at U-HAUL, the lot was absolutely packed with returned vehicles, and there were more parked on both sides of the streets.

The booking agent told me there is a massive influx of people moving into California from the Midwest and the Northwest with the result that lots all over the San Francisco Bay Area are filled to capacity.

I love this company because, in addition to providing a great service, they get the first indication of any changes to the migratory habits of Americans. The last time I saw this happen was after the dotcom bust when thousands of tech-savvy newly unemployed pulled up stakes in the foggy city and moved to Lake Tahoe to work in “the cloud.”

Bottom line: California is enjoying a resurgence of hiring and new economic growth. This is what the stock market is seeing that you and I can’t.

 

 

Want a Great Deal on a Used Lava Lamp?

You are in safe hands now with your trading portfolios up nearly 23% on the year if you had followed every one of my Trade Alerts to the letter.

I know a lot of you made much more.

I would have delivered a much higher return in 2018 if I had taken off a week earlier and missed the worst December since 1931. Nothing like closing out the year with a swift kick in the pants.

All I can say is thank goodness for stop losses.

I will be making a beeline for my beachfront estate at Incline Village on the pristine shores of Lake Tahoe and work from there for the next two weeks.  That is if I can battle my way through the nightmarish Sacramento holiday traffic.

My new Tesla Model X is packed to the gills with Christmas presents, ski equipment, snowshoes, board games (yes, “Qi” is a word in Scrabble), my expedition backpack, and food for 12 guests for two weeks. This will be the first time that I make it up to Lake Tahoe on a single charge. Thank you P100D!

For proof that after working 12 hours a day, six days a week to make you wealthier and wiser, please read my last research piece of the year below written tongue-in-cheek with a certain Hollywood classic in mind.

And what a year it has been. Over 26 trips and 40 speaking engagements in 20 countries, I managed to log 75,000 flight miles, a distance of roughly three times around the world.

Some 250,000 miles were posted to my various frequent flier accounts. Whenever I board Virgin Atlantic, the crew lines up at attention and snaps off a brisk salute. Needless to say, first class, for me, is the Land of Milk and Honey.

The research I gathered was enough for me to publish 260 daily letters totaling 350,000 words. That is about half the length of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but them Tolstoy had to pen his time with a quill and ink, not Word for Windows.

I also managed to pump out over 200 trade alerts with a success ratio of 90%.

According to the email traffic, many of you did extremely well. If you are into triple digits, please send me an email. I would love to get a testimonial from you. I know that many of you have run out and purchased the new Tesla Model X gull wing P100D with the “ludicrous mode” on my recommendation.

You know that when they are advertising power tools and Pajamagrams on CNBC, it is time to get out of Dodge. I’ll take the hint.

There, I will consume a suitcase full of research and, after much cogitation and contemplation, write my 2019 Annual Asset Review which I will publish on Wednesday, January 8.

I will also be rethinking my business model, so if any of you have suggestions on how I can improve this service, send me an email at madhedgefundtrader@yahoo.com.

Just put “suggestions” in the subject line. My intention is to never stop improving the product to under promise and over deliver.

It’s a nostrum of Silicon Valley that whenever you think you're finished, you’re finished.

Please forgive me in advance if I take a few hours catching some “big air” off of Squaw Valley’s treacherous double X black runs.

If you have any trading questions, please seek me out on the northern section Tahoe Rim Trail around 11,000 feet where I will be snowshoeing my way around the lake in subzero temperatures.

I will probably be the only guy up there so you can just follow the first set of tracks you find. That is if hungry mountain lions don’t get you first.

I’ll have my Bowie knife and an industrial sized can of bear spray so I’ll be fine. As for you, I’m not so sure. This is what I do during my winter leisure time.

During my absence, I will be posting some of my favorite pieces from the last year which give insights on how markets will play out over the coming decades and a lot of basic educational pieces.

I have thousands of new subscribers who will be reading these for the first time, and many legacy readers may have missed them the first time around or forgotten the data because they are older than me.

I hope you find them as another useful step towards your education on the global financial markets. Charts and data have been updated to make them relevant.

Finally, I want to thank you all for an incredible year. I crossed the Atlantic in luxury in the owner's suite of Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 (my uncle took the  Queen Mary 1 in 1943 in somewhat more cramped conditions).

I rode the Orient Express from London to Venice. I lived in the lap of luxury at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice and at the Raffles in Singapore.

And I managed to haggle the merchants in Tangier’s historic bazaar down in price of the most elegant handmade carpets.

I had the opportunity to meet heads of state, CEOs, top money managers, our nation’s military leaders, and even a Maori chieftain.

I had the pleasure of flying the length of the Grand Canyon at low altitude as a pilot, weaving my way along the Colorado River. And, oh yes, I made it to the top of the Matterhorn one more time.

I really did get to rub shoulders with the high and mighty who run the world and harvest their pearls of wisdom which I passed on to you.

I logged 200 hours as a pilot flying to such diverse locations as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and Honda’s loading docks in San Francisco.

I never minded the horrendous jet lag, the well-deserved hangovers, or the traffic jams in China. Your subscriptions to my products, your support of my research, and your endless compliments made it all worth it.

I always tell people that I am not in this for the money, and it’s true.

Not a day goes by when I don’t receive an email from a grateful reader who claims that I have paid off their mortgage, a kid’s college education, a parent’s uninsured operation, or a child’s chemotherapy.

They tell me that I am teaching them to fish; thus, sparing them from the frozen tasteless kind they sell at Safeway which they must wait in line to pay inflated prices. You can’t buy that kind of appreciation, not with all the money in the world.

It certainly beats the hell out of spending my retirement scoring a 98 on the local golf course. And I’ll never beat Tiger Woods, no matter how many blonds I date.

To leave you all in the Christmas spirit, I have posted a video and pictures of the Polar Express in Portland, Oregon.

Taking my family for a ride has become an annual event, and it is a thrill for my younger kids as well. To watch a short video of one of the largest steam engines in the world, please click here. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!

Good Trading in 2019!

John Thomas
The Mad Hedge Fund Trader

You Have to Know the Right People to Call This Market Correctly