Global Market Comments
March 27, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
Global Market Comments
March 27, 2025
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
One of the most fascinating things I learned when I first joined the equity trading desk at Morgan Stanley during the early 1980s was how to parallel trade.
A customer order would come in to buy a million shares of General Motors (GM), and what did the in-house proprietary trading book do immediately?
It loaded the boat with the shares of Ford Motors (F).
When I asked about this tactic, I was taken away to a quiet corner of the office and read the riot act.
“This is how you legally front-run a customer,” I was told.
Buy (GM) in front of a customer order, and you will find yourself in Sing Sing shortly.
Ford (F), Toyota (TM), Nissan (NSANY), Daimler Benz (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), and Volkswagen (VWAPY), were all fair game.
The logic here was very simple.
Perhaps the client completed an exhaustive piece of research concluding that (GM) earnings were about to rise.
Or maybe a client's old boy network picked up some valuable insider information.
(GM) doesn’t do business in isolation. It has thousands of parts suppliers for a start. While whatever is good for (GM) is good for America, it is GREAT for the auto industry.
So through buying (F) on the back of a (GM) might not only match the (GM) share performance, it might even exceed it.
This is known as a Primary Parallel Trade.
This understanding led me on a lifelong quest to understand Cross Asset Class Correlations, which continues to this day.
Whenever you buy one thing, you buy another related thing as well, which might do considerably better.
I eventually made friends with a senior trader at Salomon Brothers while they were attempting to recruit me to run their Japanese desk.
I asked if this kind of legal front-running happened on their desk.
“Absolutely,” he responded. But he then took Cross Asset Class Correlations to a whole new level for me.
Not only did Salomon’s buy (F) in that situation, they also bought palladium (PALL).
I was puzzled. Why palladium?
Because palladium is the principal metal used in catalytic converters, it removes toxic emissions from car exhaust and has been required for every U.S.-manufactured car since 1975.
Lots of car sales, which the (GM) buying implied, ALSO meant lots of palladium buying.
And here’s the sweetener.
Palladium trading is relatively illiquid.
So, if you catch a surge in the price of this white metal, you would earn a multiple of what you would make on your boring old parallel (F) trade.
This is known in the trade as a Secondary Parallel Trade.
A few months later, Morgan Stanley sent me to an investment conference to represent the firm.
I was having lunch with a trader at Goldman Sachs (GS) who would later become a famous hedge fund manager, and asked him about the (GM)-(F)-(PALL) trade.
He said I would be an IDIOT not to take advantage of such correlations. Then he one-upped me.
You can do a Tertiary Parallel Trade here by buying mining equipment companies such as Caterpillar (CAT), Cummins (CMI), and Komatsu (KMTUY).
Since this guy was one of the smartest traders I ever ran into, I asked him if there was such a thing as a Quaternary Parallel Trade.
He answered “Abso******lutely,” as was his way.
But the first thing he always did when searching for Quaternary Parallel Trades would be to buy the country ETF for the world’s largest supplier of the commodity in question.
In the case of palladium, that would be South Africa (EZA).
Since then, I have discovered hundreds of what I call Parallel Trading Chains and have been actively making money off of them. So have you, you just haven’t realized it yet.
I could go on and on.
If you ever become puzzled or confused about a trade alert I am sending out (Why on earth is he doing THAT?), there is often a parallel trade in play.
Do this for decades as I have and you learn that some parallel trades break down and die. The cross relationships no longer function.
The best example I can think of is the photography/silver connection. When the photography business was booming, silver prices rose smartly.
Digital photography wiped out this trade, and silver-based film development is still only used by a handful of professionals and hobbyists.
Oh, and Eastman Kodak (KODK) went bankrupt in 2012.
However, it seems that whenever one Parallel Trading Chain disappears, many more replace it.
You could build chains a mile long simply based on how well Apple (AAPL) or NVIDIA (NVDA) is doing.
And guess what? There is a new parallel trade in silver developing. Whenever someone builds a solar panel anywhere in the world, they use a small amount of silver for the wiring. Build several tens of millions of solar panels and that can add up to quite a lot of silver.
What goes around comes around.
Suffice it to say that parallel trading is an incredibly useful trading strategy.
Ignore it at your peril.
Global Market Comments
February 22, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
Global Market Comments
November 24, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MY UPDATED PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDICATOR),
(HMC), (NSANY), (GM), (F), (TSLA)
(HERE IS YOUR TOP PERFORMING INVESTMENT FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS),
(ITB), (PHM), (KBH), (DHI)
(TESTIMONIAL)
There is no limit to my desire to get an early and accurate read on the US economy, which at the end of the day is what dictates the future of all of our trades and investments.
I flew over one of my favorite leading economic indicators only last weekend at the controls of a vintage Cessna 172.
Honda (HMC) and Nissan (NSANY) import millions of cars each year through their Benicia, California facilities, where they are loaded onto thousands of rail cars for shipment to points inland as far as Chicago.
In 2009, when the US car market shrank to an annualized 8.5 million units, I flew over the site and it was choked with thousands of cars parked bumper to bumper, rusting in the blazing sun, bereft of buyers.
Then, “cash for clunkers” hit (remember that?).
The lots were emptied in a matter of weeks, with mile-long trains lumbering inland, only stopping to add extra engines to get over the High Sierras at Donner Pass.
The stock market took off like a rocket, with the auto companies leading.
I flew over the site last weekend, and guess what?
The lots are empty.
U.S. new vehicle sales, including retail and non-retail transactions, are estimated to reach 1,354,600 units in August, a 15.4% jump from a year earlier, according to the joint report by J.D. Power and GlobalData. Consumers are estimated to spend $47.8 billion on new vehicles, the highest on record for the month of August, and 10.5% higher than last year, the report said.
Japanese cars are suddenly selling so fast that vehicles are being sold even before they land on the dock.
It is all further evidence that my increasingly optimistic view on the US economy is correct, that multiple crises this year are fully discounted, and that the stock market is poised for new highs.
The conventional auto industry should lead to the upside, as it has already done, led by General Motors (GM) and Ford (F). But the move may not happen until the second half of 2024 when the market’s love affair with big tech stocks reaches the point of temporary exhaustion.
As for Tesla (TSLA), better to buy the car than the stock at these depressed prices. Once the EV price wars end, the stock should double again to new all-time highs.
This is a big deal because the auto industry directly and indirectly accounts for about 10% of the total US economy.
It is also the largest manufacturing employer, with the legacy Big Three accounting for 6 million jobs, 4.87% of the 124 million US total.
Not only do you have to include the big four automakers, but you also must include the vast number of parts suppliers, advertisers, and the national dealer networks.
Since so many car purchases are financed with loans, it turns out that the industry is a great play on falling interest rates.
There are $1.6 trillion in subprime auto loans on lenders’ books now.
If you don’t believe me, check out the resale market price of your wheels at Kelly Blue Book (click here for the site)
You will see they have recently risen steadily in value.
It is all further evidence of the hard data/soft data conundrum, which I have written about extensively in the past.
Look no further than Consumer Sentiment, which has held up remarkably well for the past three consecutive months.
Sorry the photo below is a little crooked, but it's tough holding a camera in one hand and a plane's stick with the other, while flying through the never-ending turbulence of the San Francisco Bay’s Carquinez Straight.
Air traffic control at nearby Travis Air Force Base usually has a heart attack when I conduct my research in this way, with a few joyriding C-130s having more than one near miss in recent years.
Global Market Comments
August 10, 2023
Fiat Lux
Featured Trades:
(WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2023 SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON)
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
CLICK HERE to download today's position sheet.
One of the most fascinating things I learned when I first joined the equity trading desk at Morgan Stanley during the early 1980s was how to parallel trade.
A customer order would come in to buy a million shares of General Motors (GM) and what did the in-house proprietary trading book do immediately?
It loaded the boat with the shares of Ford Motors (F).
When I asked about this tactic, I was taken away to a quiet corner of the office and read the riot act.
“This is how you legally front-run a customer,” I was told.
Buy (GM) in front of a customer order, and you will find yourself in Sing Sing shortly.
Ford (F), Toyota (TM), Nissan (NSANY), Daimler Benz (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), or Volkswagen (VWAPY), are no problem.
The logic here was very simple.
Perhaps the client completed an exhaustive piece of research concluding that (GM) earnings were about to rise.
Or maybe a client's old boy network picked up some valuable insider information.
(GM) doesn’t do business in isolation. It has tens of thousands of parts suppliers for a start. While whatever is good for (GM) is good for America, it is GREAT for the auto industry.
So through buying (F) on the back of a (GM) might not only match the (GM) share performance, it might even exceed it.
This is known as a Primary Parallel Trade.
This understanding led me on a lifelong quest to understand Cross Asset Class Correlations, which continue to this day.
Whenever you buy one thing, you buy another related thing as well, which might do considerably better.
I eventually made friends with a senior trader at Salomon Brothers while they were attempting to recruit me to run their Japanese desk.
I asked if this kind of legal front running happened on their desk.
“Absolutely,” he responded. But he then took Cross Asset Class Correlations to a whole new level for me.
Not only did Salomon’s buy (F) in that situation, they also bought palladium (PALL).
I was puzzled. Why palladium?
Because palladium is the principal metal used in catalytic converters, which remove toxic emissions from car exhaust, and has been required for every U.S. manufactured car since 1975.
Lots of car sales, which the (GM) buying implied, ALSO meant lots of palladium buying.
And here’s the sweetener.
Palladium trading is relatively illiquid.
So, if you catch a surge in the price of this white metal, you would earn a multiple of what you would make on your boring old parallel (F) trade.
This is known in the trade as a Secondary Parallel Trade.
A few months later, Morgan Stanley sent me to an investment conference to represent the firm.
I was having lunch with a trader at Goldman Sachs (GS) who would later become a famous hedge fund manager and asked him about the (GM)-(F)-(PALL) trade.
He said I would be an IDIOT not to take advantage of such correlations. Then he one-upped me.
You can do a Tertiary Parallel Trade here through buying mining equipment companies such as Caterpillar (CAT), Cummins (CMI), and Komatsu (KMTUY).
Since this guy was one of the smartest traders I ever ran into, I asked him if there was such a thing as a Quaternary Parallel Trade.
He answered “Abso******lutely,” as was his way.
But the first thing he always did when searching for Quaternary Parallel Trades would be to buy the country ETF for the world’s largest supplier of the commodity in question.
In the case of palladium, that would be South Africa (EZA), the world's largest non-sanctioned producer, which together accounts for 74% with Russia of the world’s total production.
Since then, I have discovered hundreds of what I can Parallel Trading Chains, and have been actively making money off of them. So have you, you just haven’t realized it yet.
I could go on and on.
If you ever become puzzled or confused about a trade alert I am sending out (Why on earth is he doing THAT?), there is often a parallel trade in play.
Do this for decades as I have and you learn that some parallel trades break down and die. The cross relationships no longer function.
The best example I can think of is the photography/silver connection. When the photography business was booming, silver prices rose smartly.
Digital photography wiped out this trade, and silver-based film development is still only used by a handful of professionals and hobbyists.
Oh, and Eastman Kodak (KODK) went bankrupt in 2012.
However, it seems that whenever one Parallel Trading Chain disappears, many more replace it.
You could build chains a mile long simply based on how well Apple (AAPL) is doing.
And guess what? There is a new parallel trade in silver developing. For whenever someone builds a solar panel anywhere in the world, they are using a small amount of silver for the wiring. Build several tens of millions of solar panels and that can add up to quite a lot of silver.
What goes around comes around.
Suffice it to say that parallel trading is an incredibly useful trading strategy.
Ignore it at your peril.
Sometimes Markets are Hard to Figure Out
Global Market Comments
July 27, 2022
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
Global Market Comments
July 29, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TESTIMONIAL),
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (RSX), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
Global Market Comments
October 16, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE WITH PARALLEL TRADING),
(GM), (F), (TM), (NSANY), (DDAIF), BMW (BMWYY), (VWAPY),
(PALL), (GS), (RSX), (EZA), (CAT), (CMI), (KMTUY),
(KODK), (SLV), (AAPL)
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