Global Market Comments
April 9, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TECH SHARES RECOVER ON MACRO NEWS)
(FXI), ($COMPQ)
Posts
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
March 17, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(WE HAVE CROSSED THE RUBICON IN THE SHORT-TERM)
(META), ($COMPQ), (NVDA)
The pain trade for tech stocks just recently was up and that has now been broken.
It has been a tough fall and the Nasdaq ($COMPQ) has gone from up handsomely for the year to down 8%.
The tough point in this was that it was hard to go bearish until we finally crossed the Rubicon.
That moment is here and I think we are in a clear “sell the tech rally” mode for the short-term.
I don’t believe that investors are willing to bid up tech stocks in the short-term considering there is nothing coming down the pipeline from the business models that suggest we are in for some outsized growth.
I do believe that surprises will be to the downsides with many tech companies rerating their stocks negatively.
Then there is the issue that the American consumer is tapped out, and the ex-America rich countries are doing even worse.
For right now, I don’t believe traders should aggressively buy the dips.
My META (META) trade went horribly wrong and that shows that even the best of class got clobbered by the market.
Our bellwether barometer Nvidia (NVDA) is also demonstrably down from its highs of $150 per share and I don’t believe it will reach that level for the rest of the foreseeable future.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we can stage a bear market rally just from the very fact that we are in extremely oversold conditions.
It’s also clear that the problem in American politics is now rearing its ugly head and stocks will need to stomach a lot of headline risk in the short-term.
When countries’ politics devolve into 3rd world level type of politics then markets will tell investors to get ready to bear risk and America is no exception.
In response, investors have retreated from risk assets and taken profits on their holdings of the tech giants, which have been the biggest winners, by far, during the bull market in US stocks that began in October 2022.
Over the past decade, investors have been taught time and time again that it pays off handsomely to buy Big Tech stocks when they are down. Even prolonged slumps like the one that sent the Nasdaq 100 down 33% in 2022 proved to be a great buying opportunity as beaten-down stocks like Meta soared to new heights in the two years that followed.
There’s the near-universal belief that tech giants are still the highest quality companies in the world, thanks to their market dominance, immense profitability, and balance sheets loaded with cash. The question is whether these advantages are already baked into the share prices, and may now be under threat if the economy slows and big bets on artificial intelligence don’t pay off as expected.
Since closing at a record high 17 trading sessions ago, the Nasdaq 100 has bounced back on six days. But so far, none of the advances have lasted long.
Instead of catching a falling knife, traders should wait to get confirmation that we have support.
It is easier said than done, but the headline risk has shot to the forefront as the biggest risk to tech stocks when we wake up.
It is also clear that the federal government wants the market to digest as much political risk as possible at the beginning of the new term to smoothen its policy targets for the rest of the 4 years.
Whether it will work is up to debate and I don’t believe tech stocks are able to just shrug off these imminent risks as of yet.
It could be until the summer or fall when tech stocks start to become immune to belligerent politics and until then, we will most likely to see lower lows.
The market has rolled over and we have to shake and bake with it.
Global Market Comments
February 3, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD or THE TRADE WAR BEGINS)
(SPY), ($COMPQ), (TSLA), (VST), (MSFT), (ADBE), (DELL), (NVDA)
As I write this, tariffs are coming into force and confusion reigns supreme at the borders. The worst-case scenario has arrived.
In the Marine Corp., they say that a missing 50-cent part can ground a $50 million dollar airplane. It turns out that many of the 50-cent parts are made in Canada and Mexico, which are now in trucks stuck in massive traffic jams at the border. The border is in no way set up for any change in the tariff regime.
Think of it as a mini Covid shock to the supply chain. The parts will eventually show up but will be more expensive.
This is not what traders wanted to hear. That great whooshing sound was the stock market giving up hard-fought gains for the day. Nervousness is running rampant.
With mass firing on the way throughout the government, it’s just a matter of time before the passport renewal process extends from weeks to years. I am telling friends and family to renew now before the process clogs up and shuts down. At the very least, fees are about to go up a lot, now at $130.
When I opened up my laptop on Sunday night and saw the NASDAQ ($COMPQ) down 900 points, I thought that a new war had broken out somewhere or another 9/11 event had taken place. That recovered to down only 400 by the New York opening. This is exactly the set up I had been waiting for since mid-December. I started piling in on longs in big tech stocks, turning my January performance from lackluster to robust in a matter of days.
And that’s the way it’s going to be in 2025. Maintain iron discipline and hold out for these rare sweet spots, then pile in. Never chase, that was last year’s game. We could be range trading for quite some time. Index players might be lucky to make anything by year-end, and might be better off parking their money in 90-Treasury bills, now yielding 4.2%.
By the end of the week, most of the losses were recovered, except for the big AI providers like (NVDA) and (AMD), which have had their own problems for the last seven months. The net is that it is potentially bad news for AI providers and great news for AI users, which is almost everybody.
I have heard from several clients that they spent the week trying to trip up the DeepSeek program and have come up with hilariously inaccurate answers. For example, DeepSeek didn’t know that my former USC classmate OJ Simpson died last year and thought he was a current NFL football player. And don’t ask who Winston was in 1984. Other examples about.
In the meantime, the big tech companies are all tinkering with DeepSeek, making changes and improvements. It is definitely a clever programming improvement, but it’s not going to destroy the world.
Whatever happened to Cold Fusion?
Remember that 1990’s meme that set stocks on fire? It was supposed to give us free electricity forever. Except that here I am 35 years later, and cold fusion is still 20-40 years into the future. It’s always 40 years in the future. The same thing happened with the 3D printing craze and the fax mania before that.
That’s what came to mind last December when I first heard that the Chinese app DeepSeek had delivered a revolutionary new AI program that was supposed to cut the need for high-end chips by 99%. I ignored it just like all of the other Chinese apps that come out on a daily basis.
Which leads me to the quandary of the day. Why the heck is Europe suddenly doing so well? The German stock market has outperformed the S&P 500 (SPY) by a large margin in recent months. Whenever I mention putting a dollar into any European country, my continental friends say I’m out of my mind and that they only want more American investment ideas. Is there something going on here?
My only thought is that the markets may be discounting an end to the Ukraine War this year. If so, some 10 million barrels a day of oil would be unleashed on the market, taking prices down to $30 a barrel. Ukraine would reclaim its position as the world’s largest agriculture exporter, collapsing prices for wheat and sunflower oil. And Europe will be able to pare back its recently increased defense spending.
You heard it here first.
By the way, the 9/11 reference brings to mind one of the most notorious short sales of all time. The day before the attack, a Swiss bank acting on behalf of an anonymous client bought several thousand short-dated put options on American Airlines (AA). After two American planes were deliberately crashed in a suicide attack, the trade made $200 million. The FBI set a trap to arrest those who came to collect. But they never showed. Eventually, the trades were unwound by the exchange. It’s all true.
We managed to attain a respectable +5.80% return in January. That is close to my average monthly return for all of 2024. The magic is still there.
That takes us to a year-to-date profit of +5.80% so far in 2025. My trailing one-year return stands at +85.34% as a bad trade a year ago fell off the one-year record. That takes my average annualized return to +49.96% and my performance since inception to +757.69%.
I used the Monday meltdown to start filing in positions in Nvidia (NVDA) and Vistra (VST). That is on top of my existing short strangle in Tesla (TSLA). The Mad Hedge Technology added a slew of long on Microsoft (MSFT), Adobe (ADBE), Dell (DELL), and (NVDA).
Some 63 of my 70 round trips, or 90%, were profitable in 2023. Some 74 of 94 trades have been profitable in 2024, and several of those losses were really break-even. That is a success rate of +78.72%.
Try beating that anywhere.
Technology Stocks Destroyed on News of China’s DeepSeek, an AI program that takes them a great leap forward. U.S. technology firms like Nvidia plunged, as Chinese startup DeepSeek sparked concerns over competitiveness in AI and America’s lead in the sector, triggering a global sell-off. DeepSeek launched a free, open-source large language model in late December, claiming it was developed in just two months at a cost of under $6 million. These developments have bolstered questions about the large amounts of money big tech companies have been investing in artificial intelligence models and data centers.
US Home Sales Hit 30-Year Low in 2024, the second year in a row of weak sales. High costs related to homeownership sapped sales again. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage has hovered between 6% and 8% since late 2022. Avoid interest rate plays.
Nvidia Drops $600 Billion in Market Capitalization, the largest in stock market history. CEO Jensen Huang’s net worth dropped below $100 billion, while CEOs of the Mangiest Seven plunged by $67 Billion. I told you it was coming. Buy when the washout finishes. The bubble didn’t burst.
The Cruise Business is Rocketing, with Royal Caribbean (RCL) just running up its best five-week sales period in history. There is a two-year wait to order the enormous new ships, the biggest, 264,000-tonne Icon of the Seas, carries a mind-blowing 7,400 passengers. Buy (RCL) and (CCL)on dips.
US Consumer Confidence Dives amid renewed concerns about the labor market and inflation. The Conference Board said on Tuesday its consumer confidence index fell to 104.1 this month from an upwardly revised 109.5 in December. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index rising to 105.6 from the previously reported 104.7.
Fed Leaves Interest Rates Unchanged at 4.25%, tanking stocks. All interest rate plays will remain dead in the water. Will the pause be for six months or a year, or will the next Fed be a rate rise? Jay Powell is waiting for the impact of new government policies like all the rest of us. Buy financials on dips. The Fed's balance sheet continues to shrink and is down to $6.8 trillion, withdrawing liquidity from the system. All references to “progress” on inflation were dropped.
Coffee Prices Hit a New All-Time High at $3.60/pound for Arabica. Brazil, by far the world's largest producer, has few beans left to sell, and worries over its upcoming harvest persist. Dealers said 70%-80% of Brazil's current arabica harvest has been sold and new trades are slow. Brazil produces nearly half the world's arabica beans, a high-end variety typically used in roast and ground blends. This is yet another climate change play.
Waymo Self-Driving Taxis Expanding to Ten New Cities. After testing the Waymo Driver in multiple cities, the company says the technology is adapting successfully to new environments, leading to the expansion. In addition to ongoing trips to Truckee, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Upstate New York, and Tokyo, the expansion includes testing in San Diego and Las Vegas, with more cities yet to be announced.
Tesla Bombs in 2024, with earnings at $25.5 billion last year versus $27.2 billion, or down 5.5%. Even a presidential friendship can’t boost earnings. Despite missing on every metric, the shares were only down $3 today. Tesla is more about belief in the future and today’s facts. But full self-driving will launch in the US in June after being stalled by the previous administration. No guidance for sales in 2025. Energy storage was the big grower last year and will do well this year. Not the rose bed I was promised. My short position is looking good, but I’m maintaining my long-term target of $1,000.
US GDP Finishes 2024 at 2.3%, less than expected but still the strongest in the world. Household spending grew at a 4.2% pace, most since early 2023. Equipment spending fell at a 7.8% rate on the Boeing strike impact. What happens next is anyone’s guess.
Microsoft Blows Up on Cloud Guidance, on huge earnings disappointment, taking the stock down 6%. The company beat estimates on the top and bottom lines but fell short on estimates for its Intelligent Cloud business. Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud segment revenue, which includes cloud services sales, saw revenue of $40 billion, a 21% year-over-year increase but shy of Wall Street expectations of $41.1 billion. Microsoft's intelligent cloud business, which includes its Azure platform, saw revenue of $25.5 billion. Wall Street was expecting $25.8 billion. I’m buying the dip.
Weekly Jobless Claims Fall 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 207,000 for the week ended Jan. 25, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 220,000 claims for the latest week.
Consumer Inflation Expectations Comes in Soft. The personal consumption expenditures price index increased 2.6% on a year-over-year basis in December, while core PCE was at 2.8%, both in line with expectations but well ahead of the Fed’s 2% target. Personal income climbed 0.4% as forecast, while spending rose 0.7%. Markets liked the number.
Apple is Catching a Bid on the assumption that diplomat Tim Cook can somehow avoid import duties from China. Even at a 100% tariff, it would probably add only $100 to the cost of an iPhone, which is made in China.
My Ten-Year View – A Reassessment
When have to substantially downsize our expectations of equity returns in view of the election outcome. My new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties is now looking at a headwind. The economy will completely stop decarbonizing. Technology innovation will slow. Trade wars will exact a high price. Inflation will return. The Dow Average will rise by 600% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The new America will be far more efficient and profitable than the old.
My Dow 240,000 target has been pushed back to 2035.
On Monday, February 3 at 8:30 AM EST, the ISM Manufacturing Index PMI is out.
On Tuesday, February 4 at 8:30 AM, the JOLTS Job Openings is released.
On Wednesday, February 5 at 8:30 AM, the ISM Survives PMI is printed.
On Thursday, February 6 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are disclosed.
On Friday, February 7 at 8:30 AM, Nonfarm Payroll Report for January is announced. At 2:00 PM the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, the University of Southern California has a student jobs board that is positively legendary. It is where the actor John Wayne picked up a gig working as a stagehand for John Ford which eventually made him a movie star.
As a beneficiary of a federal work/study program in 1970, I was entitled to pick any job I wanted for the princely sum of $1.00 an hour, then the minimum wage. I noticed that the Biology Department was looking for a lab assistant to identify and sort Arctic plankton.
I thought, “What the heck is Arctic plankton?” I decided to apply to find out.
I was hired by a Japanese woman professor whose name I long ago forgot. She had figured out that Russians were far ahead of the US in Arctic plankton research, thus creating a “plankton gap.” “Gaps” were a big deal during the Cold War, so that made her a layup to obtain a generous grant from the Defense Department to close the “plankton gap.”
It turns out that I was the only one who applied for the job, as postwar anti-Japanese sentiment then was still high on the West Coast. I was given my own lab bench and a microscope and told to get to work.
It turns out that there is a vast ecosystem of plankton under 20 feet of ice in the Arctic consisting of thousands of animal and plant varieties. The whole system is powered by sunlight that filters through the ice. The thinner the ice, such as at the edge of the Arctic ice sheet, the more plankton. In no time, I became adept at identifying copepods, euphasia, and calanus hyperboreaus, which all feed on diatoms.
We discovered that there was enough plankton in the Arctic to feed the entire human race if a food shortage ever arose, then a major concern. There was plenty of plant material and protein there. Just add a little flavoring and you have an endless food supply.
The high point of the job came when my professor traveled to the North Pole, the first woman ever to do so. She was a guest of the US Navy, which was overseeing the collection hole in the ice. We were thinking the hole might be a foot wide. When she got there, she discovered it was in fact 50 feet wide. I thought this might be to keep it from freezing over, but thought nothing of it.
My freshman year passed. The following year, the USC jobs board delivered up a far more interesting job, picking up dead bodies for the Los Angeles Counter Coroner, Thomas Noguchi, the “Coroner to the Stars.” This was not long after Charles Manson was locked up, and his bodies were everywhere. The pay was better too, and I got to know the LA freeway system like the back of my hand.
It wasn’t until years later, when I had obtained a high security clearance from the Defense Department that I learned of the true military interest in plankton by both the US and the Soviet Union.
It turns out that the hole was not really for collecting plankton. Plankton was just the cover. It was there so a US submarine could surface, fire nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union, and then submarine again under the protection of the ice.
So, not only have you been reading the work of a stock market wizard these many years, you have also been in touch with one of the world’s leading experts on Artic plankton.
Live and learn.
1981 on Peleliu Island in the South Pacific
Stay Healthy,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
December 16, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(OVERCOMING UNCERTAINTY IN 2025)
($COMPQ), (SOFTBANK)
There have been many prognosticators concerned that next year is trouble for tech stocks, but I am here to dispel that notion.
The uncertainty has permeated into global investment fund management with some even calling for a mild pullback in tech valuations ($COMPQ).
Concerns are concerns and that doesn’t mean we will get a wild selloff or a crash.
There are still too many drivers that tech can pull to bail itself out of any hole they or others might dig for them.
I do agree with the notion that the era of super growth for the current tech business model is over and we are really trying hard to eke over the bar every quarter now.
One trend that could go into overdrive next year is the acceleration of AI investment from funds waiting on the sidelines.
I’ve mentioned to people off the record the staggering amount of capital that has poured into the US after the election.
The surprising part of this is that a meaningful amount of these funds are foreign.
Remember that in places like China and Europe, economics are going in the wrong direction and investment funds have nowhere to place their capital.
Europe has overregulated itself to death more interested in protecting the old money and destroying anything closely relating a start-up.
I argue to clients that Europe is the last place on earth I would ever start a tech company.
China has reached the end of its current growth phase and now has a system that won’t change just to protect the incumbents.
Inherently, Chinese tech could turn into the next Japan.
The end results are a terrible foreign tech scene in most places not named the United States.
Japan, for a matter of fact, has produced people like Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son who try to scrape as many billions together to throw into US tech.
Part of the foreign capital I talk about comes from him, but also other massive funds such as Norway’s sovereign fund valued at over $2 trillion now.
More than 40% of that portfolio is in US tech stocks giving them ammunition for an even bigger step up next year.
President-elect Donald Trump, with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at his side, announced that SoftBank would invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years in what would be a boost to the U.S. economy.
Trump said in his joint appearance with Son that the investment would create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and related infrastructure, with the money to be deployed before the end of Trump's term.
Son has been a strong proponent of the potential for AI and has been pushing to expand SoftBank's exposure to the sector, taking a stake in OpenAI and acquiring chip startup Graphcore.
The uncertainty is warranted, because we will replace a U.S. administration with a vastly different view of the economy and tech scene.
I do believe we missed a bullet. If Harris won, she would of choked off the vitality of Silicon Valley and placed power and control in the hands of a few.
I say that even though tech stocks performed greatly the past 4 years.
I don’t believe that tech stocks are about to lose steam and the case for the new administration turbo charging the economy is definitely realistic.
Trump wants to cut U.S. corporate tax to 15% and that 6% drop for U.S. tech firm would represent a gargantuan windfall to the bottom line.
If Silicon Valley is the beneficiary pro-corporate legislation, the sky is the limit for tech stocks next year even if they don’t create anything game changing.
Playing with house money is fun and we could be in a situation next year where U.S. tech firms can shoot for the stars.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
December 9, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(CHINA AND NVIDIA AT LOGGERHEADS)
($COMPQ), (NVDA)
Claiming Nvidia (NVDA) is stunting competition is just the beginning of the end as the tech war between China and the United States heats up again as we get prepared for a new administration to take over the White House.
This appears like a strategic shot across the bow and instead of just talking tough, China is throwing up a pre-emptive attack to counter whatever is in store for them past 2024.
Technology has been a national issue for some time and the follow through has been quite robust as China has bulldozed their way to corner the EV market with national champion BYD.
China is doing well in tech, but understands their tech sector cannot co-exist with Silicon Valley in the long term.
The probe is aimed at Nvidia's practices regarding possible anti-monopoly violations. It is also set to examine its 2020 acquisition of Mellanox, a purchase that was approved by China's State Administration for Market Regulation under the condition that the chipmaker would avoid discriminating against Chinese companies.
According to a Chinese media report, the government believes Nvidia’s $7 billion purchase of the Israeli computer networking equipment maker may have violated Beijing's anti-monopoly rules.
The U.S. has amped up restrictions on chip sales to China in recent years, barring Nvidia and other key semiconductor manufacturers from selling their most-advanced artificial intelligence chips in an effort to limit China from strengthening its military. The company has worked to create new products to sell in China that abide by the U.S. regulations.
I remember the golden years in China where growth was unwavering and every recent American college graduate would jump at the chance to make a career in China.
China, along with many other rich Western countries, have hit a wall with growth models that are delivering diminishing returns.
Asia is struggling and there is no other way to describe it.
The United States continues to power through with the top income bracket and enterprise money propping up the rest of the market and minting millionaires through higher tech stocks.
Nvidia is the jewel of America’s recent success and they promise to bolster Americas claim as the flag bearer of the AI movement. The loser would be zero sum and that loser would be China.
Threatening the best in show of American tech is a bold move by China and it smells of desperation.
There have been whispers of a major currency devaluation to the Chinese yuan in the pipeline which would hurt the economy similar to how the Japanese yen crash has crippled the Japanese.
Then, over the weekend, Syria being overthrown and Russia being able to pull back resources indicates that Russia plans to wind down its operation in Eastern Europe and America could set the stage for conflict in China.
Pulling military resources in Eastern Europe and allocating it further east to China would make sense since the upcoming administration views China as a bigger threat than Russia.
China’s political move to name Nvidia as anti-competitive could be the new beginning of a nasty pernicious relationship for the next 4 years between the 2 governments.
What does that mean for tech stocks?
Buy the dip in Nvidia on news like this.
Stepping back and looking at the Nasdaq ($COMPQ), this won’t take down the index.
Nvidia shares grew around 200% in 2024 and although I don’t expect a repeat performance in 2025, capital is pouring in from the sidelines from abroad and at home.
One thing I can tell you is that money from nowhere is pouring into China, especially the foreign type, because the hostile government means investing there is impossible and idiotic for outsiders.
I am bearish China’s economy and optimistic that U.S. tech stocks can muscle through the China headwinds.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
November 25, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TECH STOCKS COULD ENTER A RENAISSANCE)
(NVDA), (TSLA), ($COMPQ)
