Featured Trade: (LAST CHANCE TO ATTEND THE JULY 18 BARCELONA, SPAIN STRATEGY LUNCHEON) ?(AN EVENING WITH TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY), ?(LNG), (UNG), (TSLA)
Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)
United States Natural Gas (UNG)
Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA)
Last Thursday,?Trade Alert?followers saw?Mad Day Trader?Jim Parker and I both jump into Apple (AAPL) on the long side, once again. When two old critters with a combined 85 years of trading experience, such as ourselves, agree on something, it is usually a pretty good idea.
We were both responding to a rare $3, or 3.1% dip in the share price of Apple in response to the financial crisis du jour emanating from Europe?thanks to Portugal?s Banco Espiritu Santo.
Of course, Apple has nothing to do with the Portuguese financial system, except to the extent that they have to recycle all the profits from the many iPhones they sell in the country. It didn?t take traders long to figure this out, running (AAPL) shares right back up to unchanged on the day.
Jim already has issued a second?Trade Alert?to take profits?such is the short-term nature of his strategy. I, however, am looking to hold on longer, possibly as far out as September.
That is when the next generation iPhone 6 will almost certainly make its debut. A similar launch two years ago marked a multiyear high in the stock.
Rumors about Apple products have grown into a full-scale cottage industry of its own over the decades. Sometimes these speculations come true, and with the shares in play, it is worthwhile to explore a few of these.
The big one is that some hedge funds and/or business publications have bribed underpaid workers at China?s Foxconn, the principal manufacturers of the world?s most popular smart phone, to reveal that they have an order to supply a stunning 68 million units by the end of the year.
This is more than double the initial order for the iPhone 5s. Foxconn, a company famed for working its people to death, is hiring a stunning 100,000 new workers to meet the gargantuan order. Confirmation has been found all the way down the supply line among OEM parts manufacturers.
One possible explanation for the massive ramp up in numbers is that Apple may offer two versions of the iPhone 6, one with a 4.7-inch screen, and a second premium model with a much more generous 5.5-inch screen. The company did much the same last year, when it brought out both the iPhone 5s and the 5c. Higher prices and profit margins are predicted for both products.
The move is in no doubt in response to the emerging ?phablet? market, or the convergence of the smart phone and the tablet. Google?s Android and Samsung?s Galaxy are already well down the road on this front.
This is in response to the runaway growth of Apple?s market share in China, where larger screens are needed to read Chinese characters. It also may be an attempt to capture more of the baby boomer market here in the US, where aging (but big spending) eyes require larger letters and images.
As for me, I can only use my iPhone 5s with reading glasses.
All of this explains why Apple has been on an absolute tear for the past year, rising some 78%. It is the world?s largest company once again, with a market capitalization at an eye popping $574 billion. Exxon (XOM), eat your heart out.
Brokers upgrades of the company are now nearly a daily occurrence. It has also been a major component of NASDAQ?s recent blistering gains, which account for more than 20% of the tech heavy index.
Unfortunately, I have seen this movie before, in 2012, when the iPhone 5 first came out. Which is why I?m only hanging on until September.
I was never one of the many Apple naysayers. I think CEO Tim Cook has done a great job transitioning the firm from the sway of the late founder, Steve Jobs. I think the shares will one day see $150, if not $200.
But given the history, when shares plunged 45% after the last major product launch, and the temptation to take sizeable profits in an otherwise morose market, caution is called for.
Reweighting of investment funds with major Apple holdings, which will have to unload stock to avoid going too overweight in their annual report, will be a further drag on the stock going into yearend.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Apple-Trucking.jpg239321Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-07-15 01:04:212014-07-15 01:04:21Jumping Back Into Apple
Featured Trade: (MAD DAY TRADER JIM PARKER?S Q3 VIEWS), (SPX), ($NDX), (QQQ), (TLT), (TBT), (FXA), (FXE), (FXY), (GLD), (GDX), (SLV), (USO), (UNG), (LNG), (CORN), (WEAT), (SOYB), (DBA)
SPX Corporation (SPW)
Nasdaq 100 Index ($NDX)
PowerShares QQQ (QQQ)
iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT)
CurrencyShares Australian Dollar ETF (FXA)
CurrencyShares Euro ETF (FXE)
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen ETF (FXY)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX)
iShares Silver Trust (SLV)
United States Oil (USO)
United States Natural Gas (UNG)
Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)
Teucrium Corn ETF (CORN)
Teucrium Wheat ETF (WEAT)
Teucrium Soybean ETF (SOYB)
PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA)
The stock markets are on the verge of a small correction, perhaps less than 5%, which should unfold over the next six weeks.
There is just not enough juice in a mini crisis triggered by one lousy Portuguese bank, the Banco Espiritu Santo, to take us any further.Bonds globally should put in their highs for the year during this period.
After that, it will be off to the races with a major year-end rally that could take us up another 10%. Both old tech and new tech, plus biotech and social media will be the front runners in this next leg of the bull market. Fixed income products will suffer across the board.
These were the results of the exhaustive research Jim undertakes every quarter using his proprietary analytical system. His goal is to define the best long and short opportunities across all asset classes.
Ignore him at your peril. Last year Jim?s system delivered a gob smacking trading return of over 300%.
Jim, a 40-year veteran of the trading pits in Chicago, would tell you all this himself. But as he is a product of the Windy City?s lamentable school district, the task of translating his pivot points, swing counts, and support and resistance levels into simple ?BUYS? and ?SELLS? falls to me.
What else can I say?
By the way, a pivot point is a number Jim?s system serves up once a quarter dictating the tone of the market for individual securities. Trade above the pivot, and we are in ?RISK ON? mode. Trade below it, and we need to take a decidedly ?RISK OFF? posture.
Swing counts then project the distance a security should travel once the directional call has been determined. Think of it as your own private inertial navigation system for your trading approach.
Equities
With that said,Jim?s pivot for the S&P 500 for Q3 is 1,970. As we are well below that now, you can expect some further work to be done on the downside, possibly as low at the 1,875-1,895 range over the next six weeks.?That would then be a sweet spot to initiate new longs.
The NASDAQ 100 has a pivot of 3,811 for Q3, a few percent above here. Jump back into the technology arena with a tight stop in the 3,700-3,725 neighborhood, or down some 5%, which works out to around $90 for ETF (QQQ) players.
Among foreign markets, Jim likes Japan?s Nikkei (DXJ), is wary of the German DAX, and is neutral on Australia (EWA).
Point a gun to his head, and Jim will opt for the Wisdom Tree Europe Hedged Equity Fund (HEDJ), a customized long European equity/short Euro ETF that effectively prices these stocks in US dollars. Think of it as a (DXJ) with a French accent.
?Bonds
Jim sees a rare, generational opportunity, to sell bonds setting up for August. They could grind up until then off the back of today?s news from Europe, but not by much. Use $137.00 as the pivot point for the 30-year bonds futures.
The market?s Focus will remain on the SPX/Bond spread, as it has all year. When the Equity Indices go into profit taking mode, bonds are the only place to park money, taking prices northward.
Long term, he favors the short side of the bond market, when conditions allow.?His game plan remains to sell bonds at these levels, with tight stops, until proven wrong.
My own strategy of buying out of the money (TLT) put spreads on a monthly basis also works perfectly in this scenario. Use every three-point rally as an opportunity to get in.
We are on the threshold of a more normalized interest rate environment, with a long awaited reversion to the mean in rates imminent. Jim says that the entire bond world is about to roll over.
Foreign Currencies
Jim isn?t getting too excited about foreign currencies these days, which appear to have fallen into a bottomless volatility trap. He doesn?t see any big moves unless a serious risk off trend develops in the equity markets, which is unlikely.
Use the Australian dollar (FXA) as your lead currency with which to make directional calls for the entire asset class. The pivot there is $94.60 in the cash market. As we are now at $93.68, stand aside.
The Japanese yen (FXY) has done its best impression of a Kansas horizon this year of any financial asset. It will continue to flat line as long as the jury is out on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe?s ?third arrow? economic and reform strategy. The yen will eventually weaken against the greenback, but it could be a long wait. Until then, use 101.33 as a pivot.
If you have to hate a currency in 2014, make it the Euro (FXE), with a pivot of $139.50. Sell every rally against this figure until the cows come home. The fundamentals for a weaker continental currency are building by the day. But we won?t see real fireworks until we close below $135.50. Then we?ll be targeting $127.50.
Commodities
Jim likes the precious metals (GLD), (SLV) and thinks the recent bottom will last for some time. This is further confirmed by the miners (GDX), which appear to have staged a major turnaround.
Bond market rallies have been highly correlated to metals rallies this year, at least for over the short term. So follow the sparkly stuff along with a bond rally into August. Lower rates will be price positive the metals. Use $1,265-$1,275 as your pivot for gold going forward. For silver use $19.70.
Copper (CU) is a bit of a conundrum, as it is stuck, in the middle of one-year range, so don?t chase recent rally. Use $2.95 as the pivot there. It?s not going anywhere until China decides what to do with its economy.
Don?t buy into the upside breakout school of thought for oil (USO) until we close over 104.70-105.30 (last qtr's high). That?s where you can count on the buy stops to kick in. At the current $102, we are firmly in bear territory. Talk to Jim when oil breaks this quarter?s resistance and upside momentum level at 107.50.
Infrastructures plays are still the best way to participate in any move in the natural gas (UNG) market. At the top of the list is Mad Hedge Fund Trader long time favorite, Cheniere Energy (LNG), up from $6 to $74.??(LNG) should be on your shopping list on any big equity index sell-off.?This week may see a low, and then a substantial rally when July futures expire.
The Ags
Agricultural commodities (CORN), (SOYB), (WEAT), (DBA) have been the major disaster area of 2014, thanks to the best growing conditions in history. Not only has the weather been perfect, the US Department of Agriculture keeps ?finding? new stockpiles. Conditions have been improving in major export markets abroad, as well.
Farmers may get a break this week when multiple futures contracts expire. At the very least, we should get a dead cat bounce. After that, it?s up to Mother Nature.
By the way, Jim Parker?s Mad Day Trader service has attracted a substantial following over the past year. If you are not already getting Jim?s dynamite short term ?BUY? and ?SELL? calls, please get yourself the unfair advantage you deserve.
Just email Nancy in customer support at support@madhedgefundtrader.com and ask for the $1,500 a year upgrade from your existing Global Trading Dispatch service to Mad Hedge Fund Trader PRO. The service includes Jim?s timely Trade Alerts, a running daily market commentary, and the daily morning webinar, TheOpening Bell with Jim Parker.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/HEDJ-7-10-14.jpg469603Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-07-14 01:03:572014-07-14 01:03:57Mad Day Trader Jim Parker?s Q3 Views
Featured Trade:
(THURSDAY, JULY 17 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR FROM BARCELONA, SPAIN),
(JULY 24 ZERMATT, SWITZERLAND GLOBAL STRATEGY SEMINAR),
(WILL SYNBIO SAVE OR DESTROY THE WORLD?)
Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV)
Monsanto Company (MON)
SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI)
SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF (XPH)
Come join me for afternoon tea for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Seminar, which I will be conducting high in the Alps in Zermatt, Switzerland at 2:00 PM on Thursday, July 24, 2014.
A PowerPoint presentation will be followed by an open discussion on the crucial issues facing investors today. Coffee, tea, and schnapps will be made available, along with light snacks.
You are welcome to attend in your mountain climbing gear, but you will have to leave your boots at the door. Socks only are welcome, and if it?s cold, we will throw some extra wood on the fire. Last year, someone came down from the Matterhorn summit straight to the seminar, sunburned and tired, but elated. He even gave me a valued pebble from the summit.
I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I?ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $195.
I?ll be arriving early and leaving late in case anyone wants to have a one on one discussion, or just sit around and chew the fat about the financial markets.
The event will be held at a central Zermatt hotel with a great Matterhorn view, operated by one of the village?s oldest families and long time friends of mine. The hotel is just down the street from the town?s beautiful 17th century church.
The details will be emailed directly to you with your confirmation.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research. To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please go to my online store.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/matterhorn-Copy2-1.jpg300400Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-07-11 01:04:172014-07-11 01:04:17July 24 Zermatt, Switzerland Global Strategy Seminar
Featured Trade: (WHY IS THE S&P 500 BEATING THE DOW), (SPY), (BAC), (HPQ), (AA), (GS), (V), (NKE), (AAPL), (GE), ($NIKK), (CAT), (DIS), (INTC), (AN EVENING WITH BILL GATES, SR.) (TESTIMONIAL)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
Bank of America Corporation (BAC)
Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ)
Alcoa Inc. (AA)
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS)
Visa Inc. (V)
Nike, Inc. (NKE)
Apple Inc. (AAPL)
General Electric Company (GE)
Tokyo Nikkei Average (EOD) INDX ($NIKK)
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT)
The Walt Disney Company (DIS)
Intel Corporation (INTC)
I often see one stock index outperform another, as different segments of the economy speed up, slow down, or go nowhere. Sometimes the reasons for this are fundamental, technical, or completely arbitrary.
Many analysts have been scratching their heads this year over why the S&P 500 has been moving from strength to strength for the past year, while the Dow Average has gone virtually nowhere. Since January, the (SPX) has tacked on a reasonable 7.9%, while the Dow has managed only a paltry 3.4% increase.
What gives?
The problem is particularly vexing for hedge fund managers, who have to choose carefully which index they use to hedge other positions. Do you use the broad based measure of 500 large caps or a much more narrow and stodgy 30?
What?s a poor risk analyst to do?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was first calculated by founder Charles Dow in 1896, later of Dow Jones & Company, which also publishes the Wall Street Journal. When Dow died in 1902, the firm was taken over by Clarence Barron and stayed within family control for 105 years.
In 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, it was sold to News Corporation for $5 billion. News Corp. is owned by my former boss, Rupert Murdoch, once an Australian, and now a naturalized US citizen. News then spun off its index business to the CME Corp., formerly the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, in 2010.
Much of the recent divergence can be traced to a reconstitution of the Dow Average on September 20, 2013, when it underwent some major plastic surgery.
It took three near-do-wells out, Bank of America (BAC), Hewlett Packard, (HPQ), and Alcoa (AA). In their place were added three more robust and virile companies, Goldman Sachs (GS), Visa (V), and Nike (NKE).
Call it a nose job, a neck lift, and a tummy tuck all combined into one (Not that I?ve been looking for myself!).
And therein lies the problem. Like many attempts at cosmetic surgery, the procedure rendered the subject uglier than it was before.
Since these changes, the new names have been boring and listless, while the old ones have gone off to the races. Hence, the differing performance.
This is not a new problem. Dow Jones has been terrible at making market calls over its century and a half existence. As a result, these rebalancings have probably subtracted several thousand points over the life of the Dow.
They are, in effect, selling lows and buying highs, much like individual retail investors do. It is almost by definition the perfect anti-performance index. When in doubt, always measure your own performance against the Dow.
Dow Jones takes companies out of its index for many reasons. Some companies go bankrupt, whereas others suffer precipitous declines in prices and trading volumes. (BAC) was removed because, at one point, its shares took a 95% hit from its highs and no longer accurately reflected a relevant weighting of its industry. Citigroup (C) suffered the same fate a few years ago.
Look at the Dow Average of 1900 and you wouldn?t recognize it today. In fact, there is only one firm that has stayed in the index since then, Thomas Edison?s General Electric (GE). Buying a Dow stock is almost a guarantee that it will eventually do poorly.
This is why most hedge funds rely on the (SPX) as a hedging vehicle and how its futures contracts, options and ETF?s, like the (SPY), get the lion?s share of the volume.
Mind you, the (SPX) has its own problems. Apple (AAPL) has far and away the largest weighting there and is also subject to regular rebalancings, wreaking its own havoc.
Because of this, an entire sub industry of hedge fund managers has sprung up over the decades to play this game. Their goal is to buy likely new additions to the index and sell short the outgoing ones.
Get your picks right and you are certain to make money. Every rebalancing generates massive buying and selling in single names by the country?s largest institutional investors, which in reality are just closet indexers, despite the hefty fees they charge you.
Given their gargantuan size these days, there is little else they can do. Rebalancings also give brokerage salesmen talking points on otherwise slow days and generate new and much needed market turnover.
What has made 2014 challenging for so many managers is that so much of the action in the Dow has been concentrated in just a handful of stocks.
Caterpillar (CAT), the happy subject of one of my recent Trade Alerts, accounts for 35.3% of the Index gain this year. Walt Disney (DIS) speaks for 24.2% and Intel (INTC) 23.4%.
Miss these three and you are probably trolling for a new job on Craig?s? List by now, if you?re not already driving a taxi for Uber.
It truly is a stock picker?s market; a market of stocks and not a stock market.
Believe it or not, there are people that are far worse at this game than Dow Jones. The best example I can think of are the folks over at Nihon Keizai Shimbun in Tokyo (or Japan Economic Daily for most of you), who manage the calculation of the 225 stocks in the Nikkei Average (once known as the Nikkei Dow).
In May, 2000, out of the blue, they announced a rebalancing of 50% of the constituent names in their index. Their goal was to make the index more like the American NASDAQ, the flavor of the day. So they dumped a lot of old, traditional industrial names and replaced them with technology highfliers.
Unfortunately, they did this literally weeks after the US Dotcom bubble busted. The move turbocharged the collapse of the Nikkei, probably causing it to fall an extra 8,000 points or more than it should have.
Without such a brilliant move as this, the Nikkei bear market would have bottomed at 15,000 instead of the 7,000 we eventually got. The additional loss of stock collateral and capital probably cost Japan an extra lost decade of economic growth.
So for those of you who bemoan the Dow rebalancings, you should really be giving thanks for small graces.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mickey-Mouse.jpg352339Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-07-10 01:05:012014-07-10 01:05:01Why is the S&P 500 Beating the Dow?
Featured Trade: (LAST CHANCE TO ATTEND THE JULY 11 SARDINIA, ITALY STRATEGY LUNCHEON), (DON?T BE SHORT CHINA HERE), ($SSEC), (FXI), (CYB), (CHL), (BIDU), (CATCHING UP WITH ECONOMIST DAVID HALE), (EEM), (GREK), (IWW), (EWJ), (NGE), (FXY), (YCS)
Shanghai Stock Exchange Index ($SSEC)
iShares China Large-Cap (FXI)
WisdomTree Chinese Yuan Strategy ETF (CYB)
China Mobile Limited (CHL)
Baidu, Inc. (BIDU)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM)
Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (GREK)
iShares Russell 3000 Value (IWW)
iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ)
Global X Nigeria Index ETF (NGE)
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY)
ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS)
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-07-09 01:06:172014-07-09 01:06:17July 9, 2014
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