Global Market Comments
December 3, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(WHY WATER WILL SOON BE WORTH MORE THAN OIL),
(CGW), (PHO), (FIW), (VE), (TTEK), (PNR), (BYND),
(WHY WARREN BUFFETT HATES GOLD),
(GLD), (GDX), (ABX), (GOLD),
Posts
Global Market Comments
December 2, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or 2020 IS ALREADY HAPPENING),
(TSLA), (X), (GE), (FCX), (SLB), (GOOGL), (MSFT), (GLD)
Global Market Comments
October 31, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(WELCOME TO THE LAND OF ZEROS),
(TLT), (VIX), (GLD), (SLV), (FXY),
(A NOTE ON OPTIONS CALLED AWAY), (BA)
(TESTIMONIAL)
Jay Powell really showed his hand today with the press conference following his 25-basis point interest rate cut.
The Fed’s medium-term target rate is now zero. Take a 1.75% inflation rate, subtract a 1.75% overnight rate and you end up with a real interest rate of zero. The fact that we have real economic growth also at zero (1.75% GDP – 1.75% inflation) makes this easier to understand.
That means there will be no more interest rate cuts by the Fed for at least six more months. All interest rate risks are to the downside. There is no chance whatsoever of the Fed raising rates in the foreseeable future with a growth rate of 1.75%. It will also take a substantial fall in the inflation rate to get rates any lower than here.
That may happen if the economy keeps sliding slowly into recession. Net net, this is a positive for all risk assets, but not by much.
I regard every Fed day as a free economics lesson from a renown professor. Over the decades, I have learned to read through the code words, hints, and winks of the eye. It appears that the thickness of the briefcase no longer matters as it did during Greenspan. No one carries around paper anymore during the digital age.
I then have to weed through the hours of commentary that follows by former Fed governors, analysts, and talking heads and figure out who is right or wrong.
In the meantime, the “Curse of the Fed” is not dead yet. The ferocious selloffs that followed the last two Fed rate cuts didn’t start until the day or two after. That’s what the bond market certainly thinks, which rallied hard, a full two points, after the announcement.
All of this provides a road map for traders for the coming months.
The Santa Claus rally will start after the next dip sometime in November. Buy the dip and ride it until yearend. The Mad Hedge Market Timing Index at 75, the bond market (TLT), the Volatility Index (VIX) and the prices of gold (GLD), silver (SLV), and the Japanese yen (FXY) are all shouting this should happen sometime soon.
I hope this helps.
John Thomas
Global Market Comments
October 18, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(OCTOBER 16 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
(SPX), (C), (GM), (IWM), ($RUT), (FB),
(INTC), (AA), (BBY), (M), (RTN), (FCX), GLD)
Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader October 16 Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from Silicon Valley, CA with my guest and co-host Bill Davis of the Mad Day Trader. Keep those questions coming!
Q: How do you think the S&P 500 (SPX) will behave with the China trade negotiations going on?
A: Nobody really knows; no one has any advantage here and logic or rationality doesn’t seem to apply anymore. It suffices to say it will continue to be up and down, depending on the trade headline of the day. It’s what I call a “close your eyes and trade” market. If it’s down, buy it; if it’s, upsell it.
Q: How long can Trump keep kicking the can down the road?
A: Indefinitely, unless he wants to fold completely. It looks like he was bested in the latest round of negotiations because the Chinese agreed to buy $50 billion worth of food they were going to buy anyway in exchange for a tariff freeze. Of course, you really don’t get a trade deal unless you get a tariff roll back to where they were two years ago.
Q: Did I miss the update on the Citigroup (C) trade?
A: Yes, we came out of Citigroup a week ago for a small profit or a break-even. You should always check our website where we post our trading position sheet every day as a backstop to any trade alerts you’re getting by email. Occasionally emails just go completely missing, swallowed up by the ether. To find it go to www.madhedgefundtrader.com , log in, go to My Account, Global Trading Dispatch, then Current Positions. You can also find my newly updated long-term portfolio here.
Q: How much pain will General Motors (GM) incur from this standoff, and will they ever reach a compromise?
A: Yes, the union somewhat blew it in striking GM when they had incredibly high inventories which the company is desperate to get rid of ahead of a recession. If you wonder where all those great car deals are coming from, that's the reason. All of the car companies want to go into a recession with as little inventory as possible. It's not just GM, it’s everybody with the same problem.
Q: When does the New Daily Position Sheet get posted?
A: About every hour after the close each day. We need time to process our trades, update all the position sheets before getting it posted.
Q: What do you think about Bitcoin?
A: We hate it and don’t want to touch it. It’s unanalyzable, and only the insiders are making money.
Q: Are you predicting a repeat of Fall 2018 going into the end of this year to close at the lows?
A: No, I’m not. A year ago, we were looking at four interest rate increases to come. This year we’re looking at 1 or 2 more interest rate cuts. It’s nowhere near the situation we saw a year ago. The most we’re going to get is a 7% selloff rather than a 20% selloff and if anything, stocks will rise into the yearend then fall.
Q: Why are we trading the Russell 200 (IWM) instead of the ($RUT) Small Cap Index? We pay less commissions to brokers.
A: There's more liquidity in the (IWM). You have to remember that the combined buying power of the trade alert service is about $1 billion. And that’s harder to do with smaller illiquid ETFs like the ($RUT), especially the options.
Q: If this is a “Don’t fight the Fed” rally for investors, where else is there to go but stocks?
A: Nowhere. But it’s happening in the face of an oncoming recession, so it’s not exactly a great investment opportunity, just a trading one. 2009 was a great time not to fight the Fed.
Q: Do you want to buy Facebook (FB) even though there are so many threats of government scrutiny and antitrust breakups?
A: The anti-trust breakups are never going to happen; the government can't even define what Facebook does. There may be more requirements on disclosures, which means nothing because nobody really cares about disclosures—they just click the box and agree to anything. I was actually looking at this as a buy when we had the big selloff at the end of September and instead, I bought four other Tech stocks and (FB) had moved too far when we got around to it. I think there’s upside potential for Facebook, especially if we can move out of this current range.
Q: Would you sell short European banks? It seems like they’re cutting jobs right and left.
A: I always get this question after big market meltdowns. European banks have been underpricing risks for decades and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Some of these things are down 80-90% so it’s too late to sell short. The next financial crisis is going to be in Europe, not here.
Q: Is it time to short Best Buy (BBY) due to the China deal?
A: No, like Macys (M), Best Buy is heavily dependent on imports from China, and the stock has gotten so low it’s hard to short. And the problem for the whole market in general is all the best sectors to short are already destroyed, down 80-90%. There really is nothing left to short, now that all the bad sectors have been going down for nearly two years. There has been a massive bear market in large chunks of the market which no one has really noticed. So, that might be another reason the market is going up—that we’ve run out of things to short.
Q: Do you like Intel (INTC)?
A: Yes, for the long term. Short term it still could face some headwinds from the China negotiations, where they have a huge business.
Q: Would you buy American Airlines (AA) on the return of Boeing 737 MAX to the fleet?
A: Absolutely, yes. The big American buyers of those planes are really suffering from a shortage of planes. A return of the 737 MAX to the assembly line is great news for the entire industry.
Q: Do you like Raytheon (RTN)?
A: No, Trump has been the defense industry’s best friend. If he exits in the picture, defense will get slaughtered—it will be the first on the chopping block under a future democratic administration. And, if you’re doing nothing but retreating from your allies, you don't need weapons anyway.
Q: Will Freeport McMoRan (FCX) benefit from a trade war resolution?
A: Yes, the fact that it isn't moving now is an indication that a trade war resolution has not been reached. (FCX) has huge exposure to traditional metal bashing industries like they still have in China.
Q: Would you go long or short gold (GLD) here?
A: No, I'm waiting for a bigger dip. If you can get in close to the 200-day moving average at $129.50, that would be the sweet spot. Longer term I still like gold and it is a great recession hedge.
Good Luck and Good Trading!
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Yes, I Still Like Gold
Global Market Comments
October 17, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(UPDATING THE MAD HEDGE LONG TERM MODEL PORTFOLIO),
(USO), (XLV), (CI), (CELG), (BIIB), (AMGN), (CRSP), (IBM), (PYPL), (SQ), (JPM), (BAC), (EEM), (DXJ), (FCX), (GLD)
Global Market Comments
August 29, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW THE MARKETS WILL PLAY OUT FOR THE REST OF 2019),
(SPY), ($INDU), (USO), (TLT), (UUP), (COPX), (GLD),
(HOW THE MAD HEDGE MARKET TIMING ALGORITHM WORKS)
We are currently caught between a rock and a hard place.
The whims of one man will dictate whether after a brutal summer, markets recover to new all-time highs, or plunge into the depths of despair in a bear market and recession.
My bet is that the S&P 500 (SPY) will trade between the 50-day moving average at $294 and the 200-day moving average at $278. Right now, we are dead in the middle of that range.
Then on September 18, the Federal Open Market Committee convenes to deliver a decision on interest rates. I believe that no matter what the decision is, whether they cut rates or leave them unchanged, you will see another sharp selloff in stocks, possibly as much as another 2,000 Dow points. That will bring us a December 2018 repeat.
So why does falling interest rates bring cratering stock prices? For a start, you can take your traditional playbook on how markets are supposed to work and throw it in the trash. Low rates USED to bring high stock prices, but no more.
What is driving markets now is not the absolute level of interest rates today, no matter how low they may be historically. It is how many interest rate cuts are left until we get to zero. So an August 1 25-basis point rate cut meant there are fewer rate cuts in the future so a heart-stopping 2,000-point plunge in the Dow average ensued.
The same twisted logic will apply on September 18, only 16 trading days away. By the way, I plan to be 100% in cash by September 18.
Long term, the outlook gets more complicated.
If the trade war ends in September, then the stock market could rocket up to new all-time highs, surpassing 3,200 by the end of the year, up 14.2% from present levels.
If the trade war drags on, a recession is a sure thing in 12-24 months. That means a bear market in stocks is a sure thing in 6-15 months. And that assumes we are not already in a bear market. After all, the major indexes have been unable to top new highs made in January 2018.
The next bear market will likely take the indexes ($INDU) down 40%. They are, after all, the most overvalued assets in the world.
Oil (USO) will plunge to $25 a barrel. Ten-year US Treasury bond yield (TLT) will collapse to 0%, as I have long been advertising. The US dollar (UUP) leaps, deepening the recession. Commodity prices collapse (COPX) and gold (GLD) soars. We might even get into a shooting war in the South China Sea, as there will be nothing for the Beijing leadership to lose.
Again, it all depends on the whim of one man, one who has never done business in China, and who is constantly surprised by Chinese reactions to his own moves. There is no Trump Hotel in Beijing, nor one planned.
Good luck with that.
Just thought you’d like to know.
Getting Ready for Hard Times
Global Market Comments
August 12, 2019
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or
(CYB), (FXE), (TLT), (FXY), (COPX), (USO),
(GLD), (VIX), (FXB), (IWM0, (DIS), (CRB), (FB)
(A COW BASED ECONOMICS LESSON)
