Mad Hedge Technology Letter
March 3, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(PALANTIR IS ONE TO LOOK AT)
(PLTR), (AI)
Posts
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
February 12, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(WHEN THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD)
(PHD), (FED), (AI), (MAG 7)
It’s funny that the Fed ever thought they could initiate an interest rate cut cycle with gold bullion at $3,000 per ounce and bitcoin at $100,000 per coin.
Whatever they are smoking – please pass some of it over here.
These indicators show that there is too much paper out there following too few good and services.
This is why eggs are about to become 4 bucks per dozen.
The Federal Reserve employs 100,000 PhDs to botch the only job they have (decide what to do with interest rates) by refusing to deploy common sense.
Apparently, PhDs don’t deliver much these days either, which is why nobody goes to college anymore.
The consequence is that the bond market has dictated to the Fed what to do, and we have seen that over the past few years.
The US 10-year interest rate lurching closer to 5% means that tech stocks will have a tough grind and small tech companies get disproportionally penalized in this whipsaw environment.
On cue, Magnificent 7 are going strong because it put to use a strong balance sheet that many other tech firms don’t have.
It is funny to think about that once upon a time, these Mag 7 tech companies were the scrappy upstarts.
They have turned into total corporate monoliths like a titanic unable to steer.
New inflation data out Wednesday showed headline consumer prices rose more than forecast in January as core prices reversed last month's easing with the Federal Reserve's path forward in focus.
Seasonal factors contribute to higher inflation, like higher fuel costs and continued stickiness in food inflation, which kept the headline figures elevated. Notably, the index for eggs increased 15.2%, the largest increase since June 2015. It accounted for about two-thirds of the total monthly food at home increase.
Core inflation has remained stubbornly elevated due to sticky costs for shelter and services like insurance and medical care. Shelter did, however, show some signs of easing last month, rising 4.4% on an annual basis, the smallest 12-month increase in three years.
On Monday, President Trump announced global 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which will take effect on March 12. 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada are set to come next month, while 10% duties on China have already been implemented.
The unpredictable volatility of interest rates will mean a choppy trading environment for tech stocks.
The Deepseek AI fiasco for OpenAI will also mean that tech companies will need to show investors soon if AI will profit or not.
This sets the stage for a polarizing short-term trading environment.
I will issue tech trade alert on big dips and ride them for defined time frames.
This is the best way to go about tech equities.
Readers need to understand that the time of just sitting and holding tech stocks to infinity is over.
This is when the rubber meets the road, and big drawdowns are susceptible when prices are this high and the system is creaky with institutions of centuries destined to bite dust.
At the very best, institutions like the Fed are ineffective.
Tech stocks will need to prove their worth in 2025 or else expect discounts across the board.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
October 28, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE FUTURE OF TECH STOCKS)
(AI), (NVDA), (XLU), (XLE), (AAPL), (GOOGL), (AMZN), (META), (MSFT)
Through the vast whole spectrum of public markets, the U.S. stock market, and specifically technology stocks, are dominating versus their peers from other countries.
Heck, even Apple, just one company from a small suburb in California, is valued at a price that is greater than the entire German economy.
Does that speak to how bad the German economy is, or does it speak to the potency of public tech companies in America?
The truth is probably a bit of both.
Then, take a second and try to absorb the fact that Apple hasn’t even integrated AI into its own products yet.
The future is bright for many tech stocks, and the rally will broaden out to non-Magnificent 7 stocks.
More granularly, the US will continue to lead by market cap share as artificial intelligence benefits expand beyond a few large tech names that have dominated the market rally over the past year to companies in various industries.
Revenue production and margin improvement will be the critical levers of expansion.
The first will come from the money pouring into AI benefiting companies outside of Big Tech. This plays out as tech companies buy AI chips from the likes of Nvidia (NVDA), and as they need more power, these AI operators are forced to spend with companies in the Utilities (XLU) and Energy (XLE) sectors.
As AI makes companies more efficient and eliminates the simplest work, eventually cutting down costs, US corporates should get a boost to profit margins.
Global equity markets, including retirement allocations to equities, are basically leveraged to Nvidia.
A non-US tech company will rise over the next decade and unseat the large tech companies currently driving the US market share, like Apple (AAPL), Nvidia, Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META) are almost zero.
When we look at the revenue possibilities and understand that AI will directly cut expenses by creating efficiencies, it’s hard to see tech stocks do anything but go higher in the long term.
Even then, there will be some dips, and they should absolutely be characterized as buying opportunities.
Just look at a 3-month chart of Apple, and each month has presented a dip buying opportunity on August 6th, September 16th, and October 7th.
Apple stock is up 7.5% in the past 3 months.
When everyone complains that tech stocks are too expensive, well, they will get more expensive.
As long as leverage is able to be tapped, institutions will tap it and look for that asymmetric trade to the upside.
Tesla has also proved how hard it is to bet against tech and Elon Musk.
It usually is a terrible idea.
The setup to Tesla’s earnings meant a very low bar, and Musk jumped over it to the tune of a 22% pop in Tesla stock.
Tech is clearly in a secular bull trend, and trying to get artsy to squeeze in a microdip on the short side usually has meant a loss-taking event.
Why even try?
It’s my job to tell readers to bet on tech going to the upside, especially the quality companies that accelerate revenue by harnessing the superpowers of AI.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
October 25, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(EXPENSIVE ENERGY A BIG WORRY FOR THE FUTURE OF AI)
(AI)
One of the forgotten risks of AI is the energy capacity situation in the United States.
Many people forget that AI will require immense energy with a hoard of energy-guzzling data centers to facilitate the next tech revolution.
Many consumers have come to realize how the cost of energy has skyrocketed lately with no breaks in sight.
There is an increasingly real chance that Silicon Valley might not be able to afford AI simply because the costs of energy will deem the AI concept unworthy.
Green energy hasn’t developed as fast as many experts once thought, and the United States is still very much dependent on fossil fuels to facilitate tech and business in general.
A pressing question that is popping up is whether the United States can deliver the energy capacity that AI chips demand.
The question is hard to dissect because the situation is always changing.
Numbers need to make sense, just like how builders build when they think they can sell houses and apartments for a profit to the end buyer.
The military conflict in Eastern Europe has forced German manufacturing to deindustrialize because producing without that cheap Russian energy is loss-worthy. AI could follow a similar pattern.
The data grid will become strained, but by how much is the next most important matter?
A ChatGPT query, on average, requires almost 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search does.
The rise of generative AI coincides with a heightening of other factors increasing energy demand, from the electrification of transportation and infrastructure to the on-shoring of US manufacturing. Adding yet another acute demand: AI systems need power all the time.
Critics of AI fanaticism point to potential wastefulness, and this could end up morphing into a government regulatory quagmire like so many industries that are overburdened by government agency overreach.
If, in the case, the energy demands spiral out of control with everyone going the AI route with every country building AI data centers, the exploding costs will mean that tech won’t be able to profit from AI as quick as it wants.
Many analysts are already raising the flag as to whether all these billions poured into AI investments will really pan out or not. AI isn’t free to produce, but shares of it are priced as such.
Much of this hot money is migrating into companies that haven’t proven anything or never even turned a profit. Look at OpenAI, it started out as a non-profit.
The issue I have is that generative AI is priced to have zero pushback of its revenue trajectory, and I do believe that is wrong.
When there is a pullback, it will be deep and sharp, even if not long.
I believe that would be a healthy event for AI because the stock shares of AI have gone parabolic.
In short, ride up the momentum until the wave crashes, but watch out for the canary in the coal mine, which will foreshadow a deep dip in AI shares.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
September 9, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(IS C3.AI WORTH AN INVESTMENT)
(AI)
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
September 6, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(BROADCOM A LONG-TERM WINNER)
(AI), (NVDA), (AVGO),
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
September 4, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(FEDS KNOCK THE WIND OUT OF TECH)
(AI), (NVDA), (MSFT), (META)
