Global Market Comments
January 12, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JANUARY 10 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A)
(SPY), (UNG), (NVDA), (UUP), (FXA), (GOOG), (GOOGL), (GLD), (GOLD), (WPM), (BYDDY), (F), (GM), (TSLA)
Posts
Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the January 10 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar, broadcast from Silicon Valley, CA.
Q: Would you sell Nvidia (NVDA) covered calls?
A: No, I would not. Nvidia could double at any time, or at least go up 50%. That is not a covered call writing situation, that is a long call situation, or at the very least a long call spread situation. Do not bet against Nvidia on pain of death—one of the seven-stop losses I had last year was a short in Nvidia.
Q: Do you recommend any brokers for executing my trades?
A: Yes, I recommend Tastytrade (click here) because I know the owner of the company, and they have the lightest code in the entire industry. It’s written to go very fast; that gives you a price advantage over other platforms. Plus they have very competitive margin rates and commissions. They only charge commissions on openings, not on closings.
Q: Why are you adding positions when the market timing index is so high? Aren't you supposed to be avoiding risk here?
A: The market timing index in the PowerPoint is for the S&P 500 only. If you look at the individual stocks that I've added in the last two days, they've all had 10-20% corrections. So you don't want to touch the main market up here. If anything it's a short, and I am looking at an S&P 500 (SPY) short, by the way, to hedge our other longs. Individual stocks have already corrected, and I've already started to add positions in the leaders for the year. Big tech is moving up; it’s leading the rally so that is what's happening there.
Q: Is it time to buy Tesla (TSLA)? It's a 200-day moving average.
A: I don't want to touch Tesla until the price war is over. Obviously, it's still continuing and Tesla itself is leading the charge on the price war, so I would hold off on that while the other tech stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) are so hot.
Q: I bought the UNG (United States Natural Gas Fund) LEAPS you put out over the Christmas vacation. They have since doubled in value in two weeks. Should I take profits?
A: Yes. Always take a profit in any option play when you get an immediate return because they have the tendency to give up those returns very quickly. They do call natural gas the “widow maker” in the commodities market because of the extreme volatility. So when you get a 50% move in natural gas or any commodity, take the money and run. Go to Las Vegas for a weekend, take your wife to Hawaii, pay off your kid's student loans, or buy yourself a new Rolex watch! Take the quick profit. You always get a chance to buy again on a dip, and there’s nothing like starting off 2024 with a double on a LEAP. For me, it's a matter of professional pride, not about the money. So way to go, John Thomas.
Q: Has crude oil reached the bottom?
A: $70 per barrel has been holding for a long time, but it's not acting like a bottom. I have to tell you, it's not getting any big dead cat bounces you see at real bottoms. So my guess is we have to move into the 60s, maybe all the way down to $62 before we get a turnaround. We need to see a turnaround in the global economy before we get a turnaround in the price of oil, and especially a turnaround in China, which is the world's largest importer of oil—and there is no sign of that happening anytime soon. So there is your answer; watch China.
Q: Will any Bitcoin ETFs be approved in the US?
A: Probably yes, but that also could mark a top of the market. Remember the insiders, the miners, have a huge trading advantage over us. Which is one reason why I'm avoiding this asset class this time around. I have a feeling we'll peak lower than the last high, and then we go back down into lows again. So avoid Bitcoin. There are too many other better things to buy now like Nvidia. During the last Bitcoin peak, all the techs were insanely expensive, and now they're not. We have better alternatives to crypto than we did two years ago.
Q: With China not improving, do you still like the US dollar to drop and the Australian dollar to increase?
A: I do expect the US dollar (UUP) to fall. I think it's peaked out and already dropped 10%, and I expect the Aussie (FXA) to rise. It's already risen by about 7%, but not because of China. It's happening because the US will cut interest rates anywhere from 3 to 6 times this year. And it could be either; it could be 3 quarter-point rate cuts, or it could be 6. I'm kind of leaning towards 6 myself. Which leads to the next question...
Q: Do you still like bonds?
A: Absolutely, yes. (TLT) is trading around $97 today. I'm looking for it to hit $110 to $120 by the end of the year, plus the interest payments. So the total return on (TLT) bonds will be between 18% and 28% on the year. Most people will take that.
Q: Do you still like uranium?
A: Yes. In fact, just last week, France announced it was building 14 new nuclear power plants. These are the big 1 to 4-megawatt old-style plants on top of their additional programs. So that creates more demand for yellow cake fuel and more demand for uranium, and it is getting a lot of push these days as a green fuel. Which it is—it is non-carbon producing. By the way, look at NuScale (SMR) if you're interested in uranium because they have the newest design that solves all the old nuclear problems. And the stock just had a big selloff because they lost a customer.
Q: Do you still like the banks?
A: Well, all four of the financial LEAPS that I recommended at the bottom of the banking crisis in March are all expiring this month at max profits anywhere over a hundred percent. So yes, I love the banks, but I don't especially like them right here, not on top of 30-35% gains. So wait for a pullback. These would be great candidates for any sell-off going into March; that's when we take another look at these. Oh, and if another bank goes bankrupt so much the better, that creates much better entry points.
Q: What's the best way to trade long-term dollar shorts (UUP)?
A: The answer is through futures contracts through banks, is the cheapest way to do it. You get a leverage of 10 to 100 times depending on the contract. You can do long or short. The dealing expenses are the cheapest, and that's how professionals trade for their own account, is through futures contracts through banks. It's not really an equity play. There are a number of short-dollar ETFs out there, but dealing with expenses wide, tracking errors is big so it is not an efficient way to do it. So, that would be my recommendation on long-term dollar shorts. The other way is to buy the Australian dollar, the (FXA).
Q: How are your stem cell knee injections working, John?
A: Fantastic. It completely cured my arthritis with my stem cell injections in my knees and lower back. And after I got shot in the hip in Ukraine, I had a Stem cell injection there too, and that worked. So the pain is completely gone from that bullet wound I got from the Russians in October. Yes, I'm one of the lucky people where everything stem cell-related seems to work, so I do all of them. Go ahead and try it, it’ll only cost you a thousand dollars or two per injection.
Q: When trading Google, do you use the (GOOGL) or just the (GOOG)?
A: One is the holding company, and one is the operating company for the search business. It's really six of one and half a dozen of the other. Both are liquid. The tracking between the two is almost nil, so I don't bother.
Q: Do you expect a recession or high unemployment this year?
A: No, you never get recessions or high unemployment in election years. And much of the spending that the administration obtained years ago has yet to be spent. You know, the lag time on government spending is in the years and it magically tends to happen the most in election years. Go figure. So after a slowdown in the first quarter, I'm expecting to speed up going into the rest of the year.
Q: How much can gold (GLD) go up this year?
A: At least 20 to 30%. Which means the Barrick Gold (GOLD) and Newmont Mining (NEM) could easily double this year. And what about silver? It should go up even more. Which means a Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) leap at this level should go up 400%. Yes, you've heard it here first, 400% with fairly low risk. And if you want to know how to do that, just search for LEAPS on my website or become a concierge member and you can call me and I'll tell you how to do it. I'll guide your hand on how to do the trade.
Q: Is BYD in China a threat to Tesla (TSLA)?
A: No. BYD Motors (BYDDY) is taking over the low end of the market. Read the least profitable end of the market in China where they actually sell more cars than Tesla including hybrids, but Tesla still leads in EVs, and it's the question of would you rather own a Rolls Royce or a Volkswagen. That is the choice. In China, people buy EVs to show off their wealth, and a BYD car shows off your humility or at least your stinginess. So in some emerging markets where cost is the issue, BYD may take over the market, but they won't make very much money at it. And in other markets where quality is the issue like the US, like China, Tesla will dominate and you may end up with a situation like you have with Apple (APPL). Apple has only a 6% market share in the global cell phone business, but they account for 91% of global profits in the cell phone business, and Tesla could do the same. They could end up making all the money with a lesser market share ceding the bottom end or the money-losing end of the market to BYD, Ford (F), General Motors (GM), or anybody else down there.
Q: What do you think of a (TLT) February $90-$93 vertical bull call debit spread for February?
A: I like it. It’s a little close to the money—I usually try to go out $5 points on the TLT strikes when I'm setting these up. So that's a little aggressive, but you'll end up making more money. My bet is you could make 20% on this call spread right here. So many people are still trying to get into the bond market. They got left out, the move up was so fast since October. The institutional investors that dominate that market are not used to the idea of speed. So yes, I think we're looking at a sideways move before the next leg up.
To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log in to www.madhedgefundtrader.com, go to MY ACCOUNT, click on GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, TECHNOLOGY LETTER, or JACQUIE'S POST, then WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last 12 years are there in all their glory.
Good Luck and Stay Healthy,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Global Market Comments
January 8, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or HERE IS THE TRADE OF THE YEAR),
(TLT), (TSLA), (BYDDY), (FCX), (TLT) (F), (GLD), (X)
During 2023, the market spent the entire year climbing the proverbial wall of worry. The question is how much we have to give back from deferred tax selling from the profitable 2023 trades before 2024 can start anew.
It could be weeks. It could be months.
Last year was the Year of the Magnificent Seven. So far this year, it is looking like the Year of the Magnificent 493, when everything else goes up.
Which brings me to the most important topic of the day.
The best trade out there this year may be the most boring one of all, the ten-year US Treasury notes, now yielding 4.10%.
Let’s say the Federal Reserve delivers on its promise to cut interest rates three times in 2024 from 5.5% taking the overnight rate down to 4.75%. The futures markets are giving us a 70% probability this will start in March, but I think that Jay Powell will want to torture us for a few extra months until June to make sure inflation is well and truly dead.
In that case, bond prices (TLT) should rise at least from $96 to $110 by the end of the year, taking the yield down from 4.10% today to 3.60% Add in the current 4.10% yield and that should give you a very low-risk total return for the year of 18% or better.
But what if the 2024 yearend liquidity surge discounts the 3 additional interest rate cuts to take place in 2025? That could add another $10 to this trade, taking the total return for the year up to 28%. Most investors will take an annual return of 28% all day long.
There is in fact a better way to do this.
Don’t buy the (TLT), which has high management and administration costs and wide dealing spreads that probably top 2% a year. Bypass all of that through buying the ten-year US Treasury note directly from your broker. That’s easy to do, has minimal commissions and the bonds trade like water.
After all, the US government has a unique talent for issuing bonds and there are already trillions of dollars’ worth outstanding. That shifts the 2% take of the (TLT) from Wall Street into your pocket.
It gets better.
What are the chances that another pandemic will occur in the next decade? I’d say about 50/50. After all, with a global population of 8 billion and rising, international travel and trade reaccelerating, pandemic risks are rising once again.
If you don’t believe me, just try and get an Airbnb (ABNB) in Florence, Italy, the epicenter of the last breakout in Europe. There are hardly any Italians left in Florence because they can’t compete with tourists on housing costs and can’t afford to live there anymore. So it is now more important to hedge your portfolio from pandemic risks.
It just so happens that there is a way you can do this: buy ten-year US Treasury notes. What happened with the last pandemic (see chart below)? The (TLT) doubled in value from $80 to $165, taking yields from 5.0% all the way down to 0.32%. Back then, investors were worried about return OF capital, not return ON capital, for which the US government has a perfect record.
It turns out that bonds will not only hedge all of your stocks from pandemic risks, but ALL INVESTMENTS OF EVERY KIND, including commodities, the dollar, precious metals, energy, and even your own home.
And with a 4.1% yield, bonds offer an insurance policy that pays you to own it.
Ten-year US Treasury notes are also the perfect position to have during times of inflation. Falling inflation enables more Fed rate cuts, which automatically increase the value of the notes….by a lot.
How do I know inflation is falling? Because I went bowling last week in Incline Village, Nevada. The establishment is under new ownership. They gutted the place, fired all the staff, and remodeled it in a cool sixties motif. Then they hired two people to run the place.
All payments have to take place online, even for video games, where you also now have to reserve your lanes. As a result, instead of casually walking in to take a lane, you have to book them two weeks in advance. The place is always full.
Cut costs, and soaring revenues, you want to own this bowling alley, as you do for the Magnificent 493. This is going on across the entire US economy, like it or not. This is highly deflationary.
Hedge funds are piling into the ten-year US Treasury note trade in record numbers because you only see a low-risk, high-return setup like this once every decade or so.
My bet is that there are maybe four points of downside risk in this trade against a potential gain of 28 points. That’s a risk/reward ratio of 7:1.
I Like it!
I just thought you’d like to know.
So far in January, we are up 0% since I have done no trades and have a 100% cash position. My 2024 year-to-date performance is also at 0%. The S&P 500 (SPY) is down -2.51% so far in 2024. My trailing one-year return reached +73.94% versus +34.46% for the S&P 500.
My 15-year total return is +676.63% and my average annualized return is +54.05%.
Some 63 of my 70 trades last year were profitable in 2023.
Did We Just See Another 2009 Bottom? If so, we could be looking at rising stocks for another 13 years, making my own Dow 120,000 forecast look conservative. Certainly, the fundamentals are there, as long as we don’t get another pandemic or 100 other things go wrong.
The Nonfarm Payroll Report Sizzles, at 216,000, better than expected. The headline Unemployment Rate maintained a near 50-year low at 3.7%. December’s payroll gains were driven by three categories: Education/health, leisure/hospitality, and government. The overall level of leisure/hospitality jobs remains below the pre-pandemic high, showing that some parts of the job market are still normalizing after the COVID-19 shock.
JOLTS Falls in December, nudging lower to 8.79 million, about in line with the Dow Jones estimate for 8.8 million and the lowest level since March 2021. The ratio of job openings to available workers fell to 1.4 to 1, still elevated but down sharply from the 2 to 1 level that had been prevalent in 2022.
Weekly Jobless Claims Dropped to 202,000, a two-month low. pointing to underlying labor market strength even as demand for workers is easing. With the report from the Labor Department on Thursday also showing the number of people on unemployment rolls remained elevated towards the end of December, financial markets continued to anticipate that the Federal Reserve would start cutting interest rates in March.
Tesla (TSLA) is Still the World’s Largest EV Maker. BYD (BYDDY) delivered 1.57 million EVs in 2023 compared to 1.8 million for Tesla (TSLA). BYD, which I visited in China 12 years ago when Warren Buffet bought a stake in it, is building factories in Europe, Latin America, and across Asia as part of a broader effort to expand sales across these continents, and its cars and buses are popping up in cities all over the world. They could never meet quality standards in the US. They offer a cheaper, lower margin, lesser quality product, but that is all that is needed in many emerging markets.
Copper (FCX) to Rise 75% in 2024, say industry analysts. Copper is headed for a price spurt over the next two years, as mining supply disruptions coincide with higher demand for the metal. Rising demand driven by the green energy transition and a decline in the U.S. dollar strength come the second half of 2024 will fuel support for copper prices. I’m going to keep telling you this until you buy more copper.
The Auto Business is Booming, at 15.6 million units delivered in 2023, a four-year high. Ford (F) saw a 7.6% increase in sales. Also a sign of a strong economy. The company’s F series pickup trucks remain the best-selling vehicle in America.
Pending Home Sales were Unchanged in November, despite record 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 8.0%. The underlying real estate is far stronger than people realize. Mortgage rates are now solidly in the mid-6% range, but the supply of homes for sale is still very low. REMAX CEO Nick Baily says the market is short 4.5 to 5 million homes which will take a decade to build.
Gold (GLD) to Hit New High in 2024, with fundamentals of a dovish pivot in U.S. interest rates, continued geopolitical risk, and central bank buying is expected to support the market after a volatile 2023. Spot gold posted a 13% annual rise in 2023, its best year since 2020, trading around $2,060 per ounce.
Nippon Steel Buys US Steel (X) for $55 a Share, or $14.9 billion. That is double the next competing offer from Cleveland Cliffs (CLF). In clearly what is a trophy purchase, the buyer will honor all existing union deals. That certainly puts my December 2025 $20-$23 LEAPS issued last June at its maximum profit of 132%. Sell now if you still have it. There is only downside risk from here.
Home Prices Hit New All-Time Highs, according to S&P Case Shiller, up 0.6% in October and 4.8% YOY. That is nine consecutive months of gains. A 30-year fixed rate mortgage down to 6.7% is a help. Detroit had the biggest increase at 8.1%, followed by San Diego with 7.2% and New York with 7.1%. Portland, Oregon, was the only one of the 20 cities where prices fell year over year. A decade-long bull market has begun.
Core PCE Dives to a 3.2% YOY Rate. Headline Personal Consumption Expectation fell to only 2.6%, closing in on the Fed’s 2.0% target. It’s no longer a question of if the Fed will cut interest rates, but how much and how fast.
My Ten-Year View
When we come out the other side of the recession, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age or the next Roaring Twenties. The economy decarbonizing and technology hyper accelerating, creating enormous investment opportunities. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The new America will be far more efficient and profitable than the old.
Dow 240,000 here we come!
On Monday, January 8, at 8:30 AM EST, the Consumer Inflation Expectations are out, one of the Fed’s favorite inflation reads.
On Tuesday, January 9 at 8:30 AM, the NFIB Business Optimism Index will be released.
On Wednesday, January 10 at 2:00 PM, the MBA Mortgage Applications will be published.
On Thursday, January 11 at 8:30 AM the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. We also get the Consumer Price Index for December.
On Friday, January 12 at 2:30 PM, the December Producer Price Index is published. At 2:00 PM the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, when I drove up to visit my pharmacist in Incline Village, Nevada, I warned him in advance that I had a question he never had heard before: How good is 80-year-old morphine?
He stood back and eyed me suspiciously. Then I explained in detail.
Two years ago, I led an expedition to the South Pacific Solomon Island of Guadalcanal for the US Marine Corps Historical Division (click here for the link). My mission was to recover physical remains and dog tags from the missing in action there from the epic 1942 battle.
Between 1942 and 1944, nearly four hundred Marines vanished in the jungles, seas, and skies of Guadalcanal. They were the victims of enemy ambushes and friendly fire, hard fighting, malaria, dysentery, and poor planning.
They were buried in field graves, in cemeteries as unknowns, if not at all left out in the open where they fell. They were classified as “missing,” “not recovered,” and “presumed dead.”
I managed to accomplish this by hiring an army of kids who knew where the most productive battlefields were, offering a reward of $10 a dog tag, a king's ransom in one of the poorest countries in the world. I recovered about 30 rusted, barely legible oval steel tags.
They also brought me unexploded Japanese hand grenades (please don’t drop), live mortar shells, lots of US 50 caliber and Japanese 7.7 mm Arisaka ammo, and the odd human jawbone, nationality undetermined.
I also chased down a lot of rumors.
There was said to be a fully intact Japanese zero fighter in flying condition hidden in a container at the port for sale to the highest bidder. No luck there.
There was also a just discovered intact B-17 Flying Fortress bomber that crash-landed on a mountain peak with a crew of 11. But that required a four-hour mosquito-infested jungle climb and I figured it wasn’t worth the malaria.
Then, one kid said he knew the location of a Japanese hospital. He led me down a steep, crumbling coral ravine, up a canyon, and into a dark cave. And there it was, a Japanese field hospital untouched since the day it was abandoned in 1943.
The skeletons of Japanese soldiers in decayed but full uniform lay in cots where they died. There was a pile of skeletons in the back of the cave. Rusted bottles of Japanese drugs were strewn about, and yellowed glass sachets of morphine were scattered everywhere. I slowly backed out, fearing a cave-in.
It was creepy.
I sent my finds to the Marine Corps at Quantico, Virginia, who traced and returned them to the families. Often the survivors were the children, or even grandchildren of the MIA’s. What came back were stories of pain and loss that had finally reached closure after eight decades.
Wandering about the island, I often ran into Japanese groups with the same goals as mine. My Japanese is still fluent enough to carry on a decent friendly conversation with the grandchildren of their veterans. It turned out I knew far more about their loved ones than they did. After all, it was our side that wrote the history. They were very grateful.
How many MIAs were they looking for? 30,000! Every year they found hundreds of skeletons and cremated them in a ceremony, one of which I was invited to. The ashes were returned to giant bronze urns at Yasakuni Ginja in Tokyo, the final resting place of hundreds of thousands of their own.
My pharmacist friend thought the morphine I discovered had lost half of its potency. Would he take it himself? No way!
As for me, I was a lucky one. My dad made it back from Guadalcanal, although the malaria and post-traumatic stress bothered him for years. And you never wanted to get in a fight with him….ever.
I can work here and make money in the stock market all day long. But my efforts on Guadalcanal were infinitely more rewarding. I’ll return as soon as I get the chance, now that I know where to look.
True MIA’s, the Ultimate Sacrifice
My Collection of Dog Tags and Morphine
My Army of Scavengers
Dad on Guadalcanal (lower right)
Good Luck and Good Trading,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
November 1, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(BYD IS HERE TO STAY)
(BYDDY), (TSLA), (EV)
Tesla’s (TSLA) recent underperformance is a canary in the coal mine of what could become of the global EV industry.
EV makers better watch out because the race to zero is coming for all of them.
It could be yet another tech industry captured by the Chinese. The Chinese are quickly rising up the food chain of technological capabilities and these new developments are sure to rattle the White House.
I remember years ago when the Chinese tried their best at smartphones, they were terrible, but fast forward to today, and now they compare close to the iPhone with much better pricing.
Now, the Chinese are coming after electric cars and I also remember touring EVs in China in 2007 and they again were pretty terrible.
However, fast forward to today, and yet again they have achieved major inroads in terms of quality and reach. BYD Company Limited (BYDDY) even produces something comparable to Tesla which is no small feat.
Tesla’s disappointing third-quarter deliveries highlight the panic state side where the first mover advantage has served CEO Elon Musk well but eroded lately.
Tesla sold 435,000 electric cars last quarter, while BYD sold 431,000 battery-powered electric cars over the same period.
Expect BYD to surge past Tesla in delivered electric cars soon because they have access to a vastly bigger market while the Chinese communist party is doing everything to ruin American corporate business in the Middle Kingdom.
BYD is already far ahead when it comes to total sales. Including hybrids, BYD sold over 800,000 cars last quarter, almost twice as much as Tesla.
The Chinese company sold 1.8 million cars last year, over 911,000 of which were BEVs. Tesla, which only sells BEVs, sold 1.3 million cars.
Musk had previously warned that planned upgrades to manufacturing plants around the world may lead to lower deliveries for the rest of the year.
Tesla is also facing sluggish demand, forcing it to launch aggressive price wars in both China and the U.S.
BYD has surged ahead of its competitors in China by selling more affordable electric vehicles, unlike the premium models sold by Tesla and other EV companies like Nio and XPeng. BYD recently unseated Volkswagen as China’s top-selling car brand.
The company is expanding outside of China and is now the top-selling EV brand in markets like Thailand, Israel, and Singapore. It’s even expanding into more developed markets like Japan and Europe.
Watch out for China’s BYD to hijack Western markets moving forward including Europe, Canada, the United States, and the UK.
It’s finally time to stop ignoring that China does a good job producing EVs and other hard-to-manufacture technology.
My guess is that China will also surpass the United States in semiconductor chip technology, although that will take longer to achieve.
The Pentagon has sounded the alarm bells after noticing huge improvements in chip know-how by the Chinese.
Competition is finally here for Musk after so many years of taking a free ride in the US and it’s about time. Now the rubber finally meets the road.
Readers with a high threshold of risk tolerance should look at BYD’s ADR (BYD) if shares experience a big dip then allocating a small portion of a portfolio to this equity makes sense.
Don’t forget there is now a high probability of Tesla losing its Shanghai factory in China once China seizes American businesses on the mainland. It doesn’t matter how much Musk kowtows to the communist party because this issue is far bigger than him or the EV business.
That threat has gone from almost 0 just recently to becoming somewhat plausible although still quite low. The tech world is accelerating at warp speed in 2023.
