Global Market Comments
March 18, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARCH 20 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR),
(HAS APPLE BOTTOMED?), (AAPL),
(TESTIMONIAL),
(SOVEREIGN DEBT WAS A GREAT PLACE TO HIDE),
?(PCY), (LQD)
Apple Inc. (AAPL)
PowerShares Emerging Mkts Sovereign Debt (PCY)
iShares iBoxx $ Invest Grade Corp Bond (LQD)
No one has suffered more than I from my slavish devotion to Apple?s products, its performance, and, oops?. it?s stock. A long position in Steve Jobs? creation remains my only losing position of 2013 (remember the January $525-$575 call spread?).
Without the hit I took on that, my Trade Alert Service would be up 33.3% so far this year, instead of only 31%. By comparison, the average hedge fund is up a pitiful 4.5% in 2013. I can hear the pink slips flying already.
However, there seems to be a growing consensus that the long suffering stock is close to hitting bottom, and that we soon need to flip from selling rallies to buying dips. Word on the street is that some of the biggest value players are already starting to scale back in.
There is no doubt that the stock has gotten cheap, possibly becoming the least expensive issue in the entire market. Have you noticed how the number of analyst upgrades has suddenly started to keep pace with the downgrades?
The $137 billion the company carries in cash on its balance sheet is more than the entire market capitalization of rival Samsung. The market is currently putting the enterprise value of Apple at less than that of supermarket chain Safeway (SWY). What kind of crazy world is this?
As with all great trades gone awry, the reasons for Apple?s demise are screamingly obvious with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. It was owned by just too many damn people! I should have seen the writing on the wall when my cleaning lady, Cecelia, asked me if she should buy more in the day Apple became the largest company in history.
Not only that, the stock has a long history of peaking around new product launches, as it did with the iPhone 5 in September. Compressing several product launches into a short period last fall led to a new product drought in the winter, which unjustly shined a spotlight on Samsung, and sent Apple?s shares tumbling. Blackberry?s (RIM) return from the grave was another contributing factor.
As I told my readers in my ?throw in the towel? piece in January, a different type of physics seems to apply to companies that exceed $500 billion in market capitalization. And even after being in the business for 45 years (50 years if you count the one share of IBM I bought with my paper route savings), I still make the same mistakes as a first year, wet behind the ears intern.
Using the product cycle argument again, now could be the time to buy. Apple will shortly begin gearing up for the late summer launch of its iPhone 5s. There will be other products on the way, as the company seeks to move down the value chain and exploit the market for prepaid, no contract phones, which accounts for about 70% of the global subscriber base. There is also Apple TV, which will probably deliver more hype than earnings, but will be good for the share price anyway.
Then there is the issue of what to do about that cash mountain. A partial return to shareholders could take the form of a higher dividend, a share buyback, or a surprise acquisition. Action on this could be imminent and could deliver an immediate 10% boost to the stock price.
Of course, timing is everything. Propitious may be the one year anniversary of the announcement of Apple?s first ever dividend, which is in the coming week. The last dip could come when the June guidance is doled out in April, which is expected to be horrible. That may give us our final flush. On the other hand, action on the cash surplus could be imminent cancelling out the final capitulation.
Here?s a real curve ball for you. What if a generalized market sell off in the late spring starts driving money into laggard Apple because it can?t go down any further. Could Apple become the new safety trade, the ?RISK OFF? trade? We shall see.
I am constantly asked where to find safe places to park cash by investors understandably unhappy with the risk/reward currently offered by the markets. Any reach for yield now carries substantial principal risk, the kind we saw, oh say, in the summer of 2007.
I have had great luck steering people into the Invesco PowerShares Emerging Market Sovereign Debt ETF (PCY) for the last few years, which is invested primarily in the debt of Asian and Latin American government entities, and sports a generous 4.75% % yield. This beats the daylights out of the one basis point you could earn for cash, the 2.0% yield available on 10 year Treasuries, and still exceeded the 3.84% yield on the iShares Investment Grade Bond ETN (LQD), which buys predominantly single ?BBB?, or better, US corporates.
The big difference here is that (PCY) has a much rosier future of credit upgrades to look forward to than other alternatives. It turns out that many emerging markets have little or no debt, because until recently, investors thought their credit quality was too poor. No doubt a history of defaults in the region going back to 1820 is in the backs of their minds.
You would think that a sovereign debt fund would be the last place to safely park your money in the middle of a debt crisis, but you?d be wrong. (PCY) has minimal holdings in the Land of Sophocles and Plato, and very little in the other European PIIGS. In fact, the crisis has accelerated the differentiation of credit qualities, separating the wheat from the chaff, and sending bonds issues by financially responsible countries to decent premiums, while punishing the bad boys with huge discounts.? It seems this fund has a decent set of managers at the helm.
With US government bond issuance going through the roof, the shoe is now on the other foot. Even my cleaning lady, Cecelia, knows that US Treasury issuance is rocketing to unsustainable levels (she reads my letter to practice her English).
Since my initial recommendation, my total return on (PCY) has been 50%, not bad for an insurance policy. Money has poured into (PCY), the net assets under management increasing nearly tenfold. If we get a sudden sell off in Treasury bonds, a scenario that may have already started, I think it will take the rest of the fixed income universe along with it. I therefore want to take the money and run.
I lived through the Latin American debt crisis of the seventies. You know, the one that almost took Citibank down? Never in my wildest, Jack Daniels fueled dreams did I think that I?d see the day when Brazilian debt ratings might surpass American ones. Who knew I?d be trading in Marilyn Monroe for Carmen Miranda? Given the advanced age of this bond bubble, I?m now thinking of swearing off women altogether.
Global Market Comments
March 15, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TAKING PROFITS ON STOCKS), (SPY),
(TAKING A BITE OUT OF STEALTH INFLATION),
(TESTIMONIAL)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
With the (SPY) approaching an all time high, there are just a few pennies to go, I am going to take the money and run on my position in the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) April, 2013 $145-$150 deep in-the-money bull call spread. At $4.97, there is only 3 cents left in potential profit, and I would have to run the position for another month to get it. We have already captured 93% of the potential profit in this position. The risk/reward here is no longer attractive.
The market is now up ten days in a row, the most since 1996, and has gained every day in March. Will it shoot for 11? It looks like it. By freeing up cash here we gain some dry powder to use on any market dips. That is, if they haven?t made selling stocks illegal, which the market apparently thinks they have. It also means you don?t have to rush out and change your underwear every five minutes if one of my predicted black swans comes in for a landing.
There is also the matter of being up 31% so far this year, I have outperformed virtually everyone in the hedge fund industry, except for maybe David Tepper (Thanks for the heads up, David!). With this trade, I have closed out 15 consecutive profitable trades. I have another six moneymakers still on the books, taking my own hot streak up to 21. The only trade I have lost money on during 2013 is with Apple (AAPL).
That means I no longer need to swing for the fences to make my year. Instead, I can settle back into the sort of ultra cautious, scaredy cat, type of trades typical for an investor of my advanced age. That is, unless, we get a 5% dip in the market, in which case, it will be pedal to the metal once again.
When I visited the local Safeway over the weekend, I was snared by some uniformed pre-teens, backed by beaming mothers behind a card table selling Girl Scout cookies. I was a pushover. I walked away with a bag of Thin Mints, Lemon Chalet Creams, Do-Si-Dos, and Tagalongs.
I have to confess a lifetime addiction to Girl Scout cookies. During the early eighties, one of the managing directors at Morgan Stanley's equity trading desk had a daughter in this ubiquitous youth organization. One day, she pitched to all 200 traders on the floor, going from desk to desk with sheets of paper taking orders. I used to buy two of everything she offered, as some clients preferred a few boxes of these delectable treats over lunch at the Four Seasons any day. Other's ordered hundreds. I later heard that the girl was the top performing scout in the greater New York area two years running.
But this year, when I got home and opened the boxes I was shocked. While the price was the same, the number of cookies had shrunk considerably. I knew it was not my waist line the scouts were concerned about. I was seeing the dastardly hand of 'stealth inflation' at work. In this deflationary environment, companies loathe to raise prices. Food companies are especially hard hit, with many commodities like wheat, corn, sugar, soybeans, and coffee up 50%-300% in a year. Any attempt to pass these costs on to consumers is punished severely. So companies cut costs, quantity, and quality, instead, by shrinking the size.
I think you are seeing stealth inflation breaking out everywhere. It is not just in food. Many products seem to be undergoing a miniaturization process while prices remain unchanged. It also extends to services, where a dollar buys you less and less. This is how the consumer prices index is staying in low single digits, despite anecdotal evidence everywhere to the contrary.
Global Market Comments
March 14, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(2013 STRATEGY LUNCHEON SCHEDULE),
(THE ELTON JOHN MARKET), (SPY),
(RAMPANT WAGE INFLATION STRIKES CHINA), (FXI), (CYB)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund (FXI)
WisdomTree Chinese Yuan (CYB)
Come join me for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Luncheons, which I will be conducting throughout the US and Europe over the next five months. An excellent meal will be followed by a wide-ranging discussion 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. Tickets will vary according to each city, depending on local costs, but will be around $200 per person.
I?ll be arriving at 11:00 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. You never know who is going t show up for these events, and I always manage to learn something new. I find the discussions and debate with my guests incredibly productive.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research. You find the current schedule below. To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please go to my online store.
April 12 San Francisco
April 19 Chicago
July 2 New York
July 8 London, England
July 12 Amsterdam, Neth.
July 16 Berlin, Germany
July 18 Frankfurt, Germany
July 25 Portofino, Italy
August 1 Mykonos, Greece
August 9 Zermatt, Switzerland
I remember 1997 like it was yesterday. Bill Clinton was president, the US government was running a balanced budget, and the Dotcom IPO bubble parties in Silicon Valley were happening almost every day.
The Florida Marlins beat the Cleveland Indians in a seven game World Series, where the last game went to a heart stopping 11 innings. Elton John scored the top hit of the year with ?A Candle in the Wind.?
1997 was also the last time that the Dow average closed up for nine consecutive days. Sure, the market only managed to eke out a 5.22 point gain. But hey, up is up.
The market was on its way to losing its winning streak until hedge fund legend, my old buddy David Tepper, spoke to the press. He mentioned that the Dow could end up 20% in 2013. That means we still have another 9.5% to go, potentially taking the Dow as high as 16,000. Warning: David has a long history of being right, with his own long-term average annualized return nearly matching my own at 38%.
One could easily imagine a course of events that gets us there. The Republicans and Democrats kiss and make up and produce a budget acceptable to both sides that cuts our deficit over the long haul. The sequester ends. China stops double dipping. Europe gets its act together, with ECB president, Mario Draghi, finally cutting euro interest rates. Oil prices collapse.
There is another big factor that could keep driving share prices higher. Ben Bernanke could keep the pedal to the metal and maintain the present rate of monetary easing. March is turning into one of the most fascinating months in the history of the bond markets. For the first time ever, The Fed is buying more bonds that the Treasury is issuing, with the excess demand getting soaked up in the marketplace.
Without a doubt, the most underestimated, misunderstood development of the year was when the esteemed Fed chairman told us that they may never sell their $3 billion plus stash of Treasury bond holdings, but hold them until maturity instead.
This is huge. It means that the Armageddon predicted by everyone when the Fed unwound its massive bond position is never going to happen. Instead, we will see a slow grind higher in yields and lower in prices. I have been expecting this all along, warning readers in my own forecasts that we may never get the bond market crash they had been hoping for, and that they should avoid high cost of carry short bond plays, like the (TBT).
As a mathematician, I have to assume that Chaos Theory is going to kick in here pretty soon and force the indexes to revert back to the mean. This is another way of saying the longer the market moves in a single direction, the greater the probability that it will reverse.
Not to do so will really tempt fate. That is why I picked up a modest short position in stocks today, selling some short dated, deep out-of-the-money, calls on the S&P 500 (SPY). I am also deliberately dragging my feet in adding any new longs to the Trade Alert Service model-trading portfolio.
Even if Tepper is right and we blow through the top end of the most wildly bullish forecasts for 2013, we need to have a pullback first. Yes, it has been a long wait. But nothing goes up forever, trees don?t grow to the sky, yada, yada, yada.
When the hiatus begins, there should be room to make some money through the type of short position which I tacked on today. David did not say he expects the market to rise to 16,000 by the end of this quarter, which is already on track to deliver the best stock market performance in history.
If the Dow closes up again for a 10th day in a row, it will be the longest string of wins since 1996. What was the number one hit that year? The ?Macarena?? Can you hum a few bars for me?
I rely on hundreds of 'moles' around the world whose job it is to watch a single, but important indicator for the world economy. One of them checks for me the want ads in the manufacturing mega city of Shenzhen, China, and what he told me last week was alarming.
Wage demands by Chinese workers have been skyrocketing this year. The biggest increases have been at the low end of the spectrum, where migrant workers from the provinces are earning up to 40% more than a year ago. Wage settlements of 20% or more for trained workers are common. One factory that gave staff only a 10% increase saw many of them fail to return after the recent Chinese lunar New Year.
Of course China's blistering 8% GDP growth is to cause, which has pushed inflation well beyond the government's 4% target. So the cost of living in the Middle Kingdom is rising dramatically. The problem has been particularly severe with imported commodities, such as in food. Hence, the increased demands.
This is important for the rest of us because low wages have been the cornerstone of the Chinese economic miracle. In just the last decade, average monthly Chinese wages have climbed from the bottom rung to the middle tier. That seriously erodes the country's cost advantage, which has gained such enormous shares in foreign markets, like the US. Take away the country's price advantages, and demand will wither, slowing growth globally.
What will they be demanding next? Collective bargaining rights? In the meantime, keep checking those Craig's List entries for Shanghai.
Average Monthly Salary
$3,099 Yokohama, Japan
$1,220 Seoul, South Korea
$888 Taipei, Taiwan
$235 Shenzhen, China
$148 Jakarta, Indonesia
$100 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
$47 Dhaka, Bangla Desh
