Mad Hedge Technology Letter
June 28, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(REGULATION HEATS UP)
(AMZN), (MSFT), (GOOGL), (NVDA)
Posts
Silicon Valley has gone from the least regulated industry to trending the other way. On a global scale, draconian regulations are rearing their ugly head to really stymy places like China and artificial intelligence.
The European Union just rolled out a slew of proposed regulations on AI that could hamper its ability to embed itself in many tech companies.
The net result is highly bullish for Silicon Valley companies minus the chip companies that are experiencing revenue cuts.
When rules tighten, the entrenched benefit disproportionately and this could trigger a continuation of the tech rally that has been blistering hot this year.
Inversely, it will become even more difficult for start-ups to become unicorns, because they suffer more at smaller sizes to digest the higher amount of regulation that mature tech companies never faced.
Much of this is occurring at the highest level as the White House is considering new restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence chips to China, potentially adding to a list of banned semiconductor technology from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and other US companies.
The U.S. Department of Commerce could prohibit shipments of chips from Nvidia and others to customers in China as soon as early next month.
Nvidia, which produces graphics chips that drive the technology behind OpenAI Inc’s ChatGPT and Alphabet Inc’s Bard chatbots, is one of those chip companies that could see a slide in revenue in the short term.
Across the pond where governments are specialists at regulation, the European Parliament has approved draft legislation to regulate AI-powered technology.
The Act applies to anyone who creates and disseminates AI systems in the EU, including foreign companies such as Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.
As outlined in the Act, EU lawmakers seek to limit or prohibit AI technology they classify as unacceptable or high risk.
It’s a little vague who will be deemed high risk but in the crosshairs are technologies such as predictive policing systems and real-time, and remote biometric identification systems.
Silicon Valley cash cows can function without these intrusive elements.
The AI Act would give the European government the authority to levy heavy fines on AI companies that do not abide by its rules.
Financial penalties may be steeper than GDPR penalties, amounting to €40 million or an amount equal to up to 7% of a company’s worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.
Beyond the government’s power to enforce the Act, European citizens would have the power to file complaints against AI providers they believe are in breach of the Act.
European officials expect to reach a final agreement on the rules by the end of 2023 after spending years developing the legislation. Such swift and consistent momentum to regulate technology in Europe stands in stark contrast to the United States, where lawmakers are still grappling with initial regulatory steps.
If passed, the Act is expected to become law by 2025 at the earliest.
It’s a lot easier for tech firms to operate in the Wild West when there are no rules, but if there are rules, it’s better than American tech has already built cash cows to keep the party moving right along.
It’s true there won’t be much competition and possibly an oligarchy, but it will translate into much higher share prices for the likes of Apple, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
June 26, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(AMAZON JOINS THE PARTY)
(AMZN), (MSFT), (GOOGL), (NVDA)
Keeping up with the Joneses – that’s what Amazon is doing with its foray into generative artificial intelligence.
Its cloud division AWS is building a $100 million AI center to go toe to toe with increasing competition in cloud infrastructure services
The upcoming AWS Generative AI Innovation Center will become the heart and soul of Amazon experts in AI and machine learning.
This is a seismic strategic move for Amazon whom we have heard very little about in the generative AI sphere so far.
However, most people in the know understand that Amazon wouldn’t let this get away from them and use time wisely to concoct something worthy enough to show they have some skin in the game.
Unsurprisingly, AMZN shares were up relative to other big tech companies in a down week last week on the Nasdaq.
AMZN shares haven’t had quite the mojo that stocks like Tesla or Microsoft have had this year and this call to action is an aggressive step towards the vanguard of technological development.
I highly applaud the management at AMZN for this chess move.
In generative AI, algorithms are used to create new content, such as audio, code, images, texts, simulations, and videos.
Amazon said Highspot, Twilio, Ryanair, and Lonely Planet will be among the first users of the innovation center. With the new center, the company expects to hijack additional cloud services amidst increasing competition in the cloud infrastructure market.
Enterprise spending on cloud solutions reached $63 billion worldwide in the first quarter of 2023, up 20% from the same quarter last year.
Microsoft and Google had the strongest year-over-year growth rates, gaining 23% and 10% in worldwide market share, respectively. Amazon, the leader in cloud infrastructure, kept its 32% market share in Q1.
Amazon recently debuted Bedrock, an AI solution that allows customers to build out their own ChatGPT-like models.
The company also announced the upcoming Titan, which includes two new foundational models developed by Amazon Machine Learning.
Tech is largely downsizing staff and firing diversity officers and other woke positions, but the one area that is pushing for greater numbers is artificial intelligence data scientists and a bevy of LinkedIn posts show they are on the lookout to poach talent.
Amazon, who crushed Microsoft and Google in the business of renting out servers and data storage to companies and other organizations, enjoys a commanding lead in the cloud infrastructure market.
However, those rivals are early into generative AI, even though Amazon has drawn broadly on AI for years to show shopping recommendations and operate its Alexa voice assistant.
Amazon also failed to create the first popular large language model that can enable a chatbot or a tool for summarizing documents.
One challenge Amazon currently faces is in meeting the demand for AI chips. The company chose to start building chips to supplement graphics processing units from Nvidia (NVDA), the leader in the space. Both companies are racing to get more supply on the market.
At a technical level, Amazon shares and the rest of tech shares are quite overbought in the short term.
Last week was a modest pullback between 1-2% in the Nasdaq and I view that as highly bullish because of its orderly nature and lack of volume.
No panic selling is what we want for the markets to optimize the next bullish entry point.
After the modest price action digests fully, I do expect another dip-buying shopping spree for tech shares.
Stay patient and stay hungry.
Global Market Comments
June 26, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trades:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or IS THERE A COUP UNDERWAY IN RUSSIA?),
(AAPL), (GOOGL), (MSFT), (GE), (MU), (AMZN)
CLICK HERE to download today's position sheet.
I just received a call from the Marine Corps to go on emergency standby. This is not something the Corps does lightly.
The word is that there may be a coup d'etat underway in Russia and the entire US military has gone to a heightened alert status.
The Wagner group is Marching on Moscow with the intent of overthrowing the government, or at least the military. Putin took off in a plane which then disappeared radar, meaning he has either been shot down, or is flying low level to keep his destination secret.
This thing could go nuclear very easily, but only in Russia. It also could mean the end of the Ukraine War. There is nothing to do here as intelligence pours in over the weekend. We have ample satellites overhead and human intel on the ground.
Expect market volatility today. The markets are ripe for a black swan-inducted selloff, which a Mad Hedge Market Timing Index at 82 was screaming at us.
I will be monitoring the situation closely.
My view that the markets were topping was vindicated last week. The “Magnificent Seven” which gained a record 25% in market capitalization in only eight weeks led the downturn, as they always do. But the AI surge that prompted the fastest equity creation in history is only just getting started.
This is against a backdrop of savage cost-cutting by Big Tech, which has had the effect of boosting earnings by an impressive 7% in only three months. My cleaning lady, gardener, dry cleaner, and shoe shine boy have started giving me stock tips yet, as they did in 2000, 2008, and 2020….but they are thinking about it.
While attention is focused elsewhere, one should not underestimate the importance of India Prime Minister Modi’s meeting with Joe Biden in Washington.
It signifies a major geopolitical shift out of the Russian orbit into the US one. Decades ago, India obtained all its weapon systems and nuclear power plants from Russia and was a major trading partner.
Now partnering up with Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and General Electric (GE) is a much more attractive option. It is gaining a $2.7 billion factory from Micron Technology (MU) and presents a major market for its products. Amazon (AMZN) is investing $13 billion in cloud infrastructure there. The subcontinent graduates some 2.5 million STEM graduates a year and they need to be put to work in the global economy. It shows how limited Russia’s future really is. It’s a major win for the US.
So far in June, we are up +0.47%. My 2023 year-to-date performance is still at an eye-popping +62.52%. The S&P 500 (SPY) is up only a respectable +14.00% so far in 2023. My trailing one-year return reached +96.63% versus +21.52% for the S&P 500.
That brings my 15-year total return to +659.71%. My average annualized return has blasted up to +48.56%, another new high, some 2.59 times the S&P 500 over the same period.
Some 42 of my 46 trades this year have been profitable. Only 23 of my last 24 consecutive trade alerts have been profitable.
The Mad Hedge December 6-8 Summit Replays are Up. Listen to all 28 speakers opine on the best strategies, tactics, and instruments to use in these volatile markets. It is a true smorgasbord of investment strategies. Find the best one to suit your own goals. The product discounts offered last week are still valid. Start, stop, and pause the videos at your leisure. Best of all, access to the videos is FREE. Access them all by clicking here and then choosing the speaker of your choice. We look forward to working with you.The next summit is scheduled for September 12-14.
$2 Billion Fled Stock Market Last Week, according to a Bank of America survey, in what it calls a “Baby Bubble.” The markets are showing all the signs of an interim top, with either a 10% correction or a three-month flat line ahead of us. Time to strap on those Buy Writes for long-term shareholders.
Short Bets on US stocks Hit $1 trillion, the highest since April 2022. Shorts have so far lost $101 billion in 2023, with much of this hedged. The market is way overdue for a correction so these guys may finally be right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Germany Signs Massive US Natural Gas Contract, in a major move to end reliance on Russian natural gas. Venture Global LNG will supply EnBW with 1.5 million tons a year of LNG starting in 2026. The 20-year sales and purchase agreement is Germany’s first binding deal with a US developer since the government announced ambitious plans to begin importing the super-chilled fuel. The move does a lot to eliminate the glut of gas in the US currently plaguing producers. Buy (UNG) LEAPS on dips. When China comes back on line, watch out!
Volatility Index ($VIX) Hits the $12 Handle, in a new multiyear low. At the high for the year in the S&P 500, complacency is running rampant. Time to add some downside hedges.
Copper Should be a “Critical Metal”, says billionaire Robert Friedland. A looming structural shortage is the reason, with the world going to an all-electric auto fleet and doubling of the electrical grid to accommodate it. Buy more (FCX) LEAPS on dips.
Leading Economic Indicators Down 0.7% for the 15th consecutive negative month. We are approaching the bottom of the trough in this cycle. I’ll focus on the half of the economy that is growing.
Distressed Commercial Property Debt is Exploding, up 10% to Q1 to $64 billion. Another $155 billion is waiting in the wings. This will go away when interest rates start to drop in six months.
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, June 26 at 8:30 AM EST, the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index is out.
On Tuesday, June 27 at 6:00 PM, S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index is published.
On Wednesday, June 28 at 7:30 AM, the Fed Governor Jay Powell speaks.
On Thursday, June 29 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. The Final Report for Q1 US GDP is printed.
On Friday, June 30 at 8:30 AM, Personal Income and Spending is announced.
As for me, when I first met Andrew Knight, the editor of The Economist magazine in London 45 years ago, he almost fell off his feet. Andrew was well known in the financial community because his father was a famous WWII Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot from New Zealand.
At 34, he had just been appointed the second youngest editor in the magazine’s 150-year history. I had been reporting from Tokyo for years, filing two stories a week about Japanese banking, finance, and politics.
The Economist shared an office in Tokyo with the Financial Times, and to pay the rent I had to file an additional two stories a week for them as well. That’s where I saw my first fax machine, which then was as large as a washing machine even though the actual electronics would fit in a notebook. It cost $5,000.
The Economist was the greatest calling card to the establishment one could ever have. Any president, prime minister, CEO, central banker, or war criminal was suddenly available for a one-hour chart about the important affairs of the world.
Some of my biggest catches? Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, China’s Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, terrorist Yasir Arafat, and Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the first woman to smoke cigarettes in the White House in 1905.
Andrew thought that the quality of my posts was so good that I had to be a retired banker at least 55 years old. We didn’t meet in person until I was invited to work the summer out of the magazine’s St. James Street office tower, just down the street from the palace of then Prince Charles.
When he was introduced to a gangly 25-year-old instead, he thought it was a practical joke, which The Economist was famous for. As for me, I was impressed with Andrew’s ironed and creased blue jeans, an unheard-of concept in the Wild West where I came from.
The first unusual thing I noticed working in the office was that we were each handed a bottle of whisky, gin, and wine every Friday. That was to keep us in the office working and out of the pub next door, the former embassy of the Republic of Texas from pre-1845. There is still a big white star on the front door.
Andrew told me I had just saved the magazine.
After the first oil shock in 1973, a global recession ensued, and all magazine advertising was cancelled. But because of the shock, it was assumed that heavily oil-dependent Japan would go bankrupt. As a result, the country’s banks were forced to pay a ruinous 2% premium on all international borrowing. These were known as “Japan rates.”
To restore Japan’s reputation and credit rating, the government and the banks launched an advertising campaign unprecedented in modern times. At one point, Japan accounted for 80% of all business advertising worldwide. To attract these ads the global media was screaming for more Japanese banking stories, and I was the only person in the world writing them.
Not only did I bail out The Economist, I ended up writing for over 50 business and finance publications around the world in every English-speaking country. I was knocking out 60 stories a month, or about two a day. By 26, I became the highest paid journalist in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan and a familiar figure in every bank head office in Tokyo.
The Economist was notorious for running practical jokes as real news every April Fool’s Day. In the late 1970s, an April 1 issue once did a full-page survey on a country off the west coast of India called San Serif.
It warned that if the West coast kept eroding, and the East coast continued silting up, the country would eventually run into India, creating serious geopolitical problems.
It wasn’t until someone figured out that the country, the prime minister, and every town on the map were named after a type font that the hoax was uncovered.
This was way back, in the pre-Microsoft Word era, when no one outside the London Typesetter’s Union knew what Times Roman, Calibri, or Mangal meant.
Andrew is now 84 and I haven’t seen him in yonks. My business editor, the brilliant Peter Martin, died of cancer in 2002 at a very young 54, and the magazine still awards an annual journalism scholarship in his name.
My boss at The Economist Intelligence Unit, which was modeled on Britain’s MI5 spy service, was Marjorie Deane, who was one of the first women to work in business journalism. She passed away in 2008 at 94. Today, her foundation awards an annual internship at the magazine.
When I stopped by the London office a few years ago I asked if they still handed out the free alcohol on Fridays. A young writer ruefully told me, “No, they don’t do that anymore.”
Sometimes, change is for the worse, not the better.
Good Luck and Good Trading
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Global Market Comments
May 31, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trades:
(WHAT AI CAN AND CAN’T DO)
(AAPL), (GOOGL), (AMZN), (AMZN), (TSLA), (NVDA), (MU)
CLICK HERE to download today's position sheet.
The future has arrived!
Over the last few weeks, I picked up some astonishing developments in artificial intelligence.
*Mainframes at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley were given a direct connection to speak freely with each other. Within 30 minutes they dumped English as a means of communication because it was too inefficient and developed their own language which no human could understand. They then began exchanging immense amounts of data. Fearful of what was going on, the schools unplugged the machines after only eight hours.
*All of the soccer videos ever recorded were downloaded into two robots, but they were not taught how to play the game or given any rules. Not only did figure out how to play the game, it developed plays and maneuvers no one in the sport has ever thought of in its 150-year history.
*It normally takes a PhD candidate five years to 3D map a protein. An AI app 3D mapped all 200 million known proteins in seven weeks, shortcutting one billion years of PhD level research with existing technology. These new maps have already been used to design a malaria vaccine and enzymes that eat plastic. They will soon cure all human diseases.
*A developer asked an AI program a half dozen questions in Bengali, not an easy language. Within an hour, it spoke the language fluently, without any instructions to do so.
By now, word has gotten out about the incredible opportunities AI presents. Our only limitation is our own imagination on how to use it. AI will instantly triple the value of any company that uses it.
What has changed is that we now have millions of computers powerful enough and an Internet fast enough to realize its full potential.
It all vindicates my own long-term vision, unique in the investing community, that in the coming decade, immense technology profits will more than replace the trillions of dollars worth of Fed liquidity we feasted on during the 2010s. Extended QE is proving just a bridge to a much more prosperous future.
The Internet has created about $10 trillion in value since its inception. AI will create double that in half the time. That’s what will take the Dow from 33,000 to 240,000.
No surprise then that the top ten AI companies have delivered 120% of the stock market gains so far in 2023. The other 490 companies in the S&P 500 have either gone nowhere to down.
However, there are many things that AI can’t do. Here is the list.
1) AI Can’t Predict large anomalous events, otherwise known as Black Swans. AI takes past trends and extrapolates them into the future. It in no way could have seen 9/11, the 2008 crash or the pandemic coming, although I warned my hedge fund clients for years that we were overdue. All of the AI stock trading apps I have seen so far, including my own, max out at 90% accuracy. The other 10% is accounted for by black swans: earnings shocks, foreign crises, sudden FDA stage three denials, surprise legal judgments, foreign invasions, or the murder of a key man in a tech company, as recently happened in San Francisco.
2) AI Lies and Lies Often. AI was asked to write a scientific paper on a specific subject. It came back with an elegant and well-researched piece. The problem was that all of the books it made reference to didn’t exist. AI learned early to tell humans what they want to hear.
3) AI Requires Exponential Computing Capacity. Only five companies have the muscle to pursue true AI. No surprise that these, including (AAPL), (GOOGL), (AMZN), and (TSLA), account for the bulk of stock market performance this year. This won’t always be the case. Some 30 years ago, it required thousands of mainframes to contain all human knowledge. Today, that task can be accomplished with a cheap $1,000 laptop.
4) Internet Capacity Will Be a Limiting Factor for AI for Years. To accommodate the traffic that is taking place right now, the Internet will have to grow 500% practically overnight, and that is with five main players. What happens when we have 5 million? That’s why NVIDIA (NVDA) has gone nuts.
5) AI Hallucinates, as anyone who drives a Tesla will tell you. If a car makes a left turn in Florida, the 4 million vehicles in the world’s largest neural network learn from it. The problem is that sometimes the data from that Florida car is placed directly in front of a California one, prompting it to brake abruptly, causing accidents. This is known as “ghost braking.” I have explained to Elon Musk that his database has grown so large, eight video feeds per 4 million cars going back many years and billions of miles, that he may be going behind the limits of known physics.
6) While the Growth Opportunities for AI are Unlimited, the ability of humans and society to absorb it isn’t. All jobs will be affected by AI and millions destroyed, starting with low-level programmers and call centers, and millions more will be created. People are talking about regulating AI but have no idea where to start. Maybe with (AAPL), (GOOGL), (AMZN), and (TSLA)?
7) The Terminator Issue. Can AI be controlled? Or have we started a chain reaction that is unstoppable, as with an atomic bomb? AI researchers have noticed a disturbing issue where AI programs are learning skills on their own, without our instructions. This is referred to as “emergent properties.” If AI is using humans as its example, we can’t exactly count on it to be benign.
Needless to say, AI will be at the core of your investment approach, probably for the rest of your life.
2014 at Micron Technology
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
May 26, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(RIDE THE ELEVATOR UP WITH GENERATIVE AI)
(NVIDA), (FOMO), (APPL), (MSFT), (META), (GOOGL), (AMZN)
Part of these artificial intelligence executives going on record to sound out the problems with AI is mostly to protect themselves if this weird digital experiment goes disastrously wrong.
They have mostly said that AI going rogue is a real possibility and could end mankind.
Obviously, we hope that doesn’t happen.
Much of the tech market gains this year have been because of the technology surrounding AI.
Strip that out and the gains will look paltry.
A good example is Nvidia (NVDA) offering legendary guidance to the demand of their chips because of the need to install them in AI-based technology.
The AI narrative truly has legs – it will be the theme that defines 2023 in technology stocks.
The Big 7 tech stocks will possess explosive qualities to their stock precisely because of this thesis.
Then there is the fear of missing out (FOMO).
Every financial advisor is pitching AI as an investment of a lifetime – something that cannot be missed by their clients.
Therefore, I do expect meteoric legs up in shares of Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Amazon, Facebook, and Google in 2023.
These 7 stocks dominate the tech market and the generative AI gains will mostly manifest themselves in these 7 tech firms.
Yet there are dangerous concerns that AI could also destroy these companies and the internet which we interface with, because the changes could erode the trust in platforms by populating fake photos like deep fakes.
In Washington speech, Brad Smith calls for steps to ensure people know when a photo or video is generated by AI.
Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, has said that his biggest concern around artificial intelligence was deep fakes, realistic-looking but false content.
Smith called for steps to ensure that people know when a photo or video is real and when it is generated by AI, potentially for harmful purposes.
For weeks, lawmakers in Washington have struggled with what laws to pass to control AI even as companies large and small have raced to bring increasingly versatile AI to market.
Last week, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, told a Senate panel in his first appearance before Congress that the use of AI interferes with election integrity is a “significant area of concern,” adding that it needs regulation.
Lawmakers need to ensure that safety brakes be put on AI used to control the electric grid, water supply and other critical infrastructure so that humans remain in control.
It’s hard to know what is fake and real these days. Fake photos of politicians getting attacked or fake videos of tigers roaming around freely in Times Square New York look weirdly authentic.
AI is getting so good that nobody knows what is real anymore.
I’m sure some of you saw the recent Tom Cruise deep fake where the fake Tom Cruise is telling the audience that he does a lot of “industrial clean up” along with his own stunts. Honestly, I could not tell it was fake, and most people wouldn’t. It caught me – hook, line, and sinker.
As it stands, ride this generative AI to riches in the short-term, but be aware that this technology could blow up the internet or make the internet unusable because of security and trust reasons.
DEEPFAKES LOOK AND SOUND TOTALLY REAL IN 2023