Global Market Comments
April 2, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE DEATH OF PASSIVE INVESTING)
(SPY), (SPX), (INDU)
(NOTICE TO MILITARY SUBSCRIBERS)
Posts
Global Market Comments
March 24, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TEN SIGNS THE MARKET IS BOTTOMING),
(FXI), (BRK/A), (BA), (DAL), (SPX),
(INDU), (UUP), (VIX), (VXX), (AAPL)
I spent the morning calling some big hedge fund friends asking what they are looking for to indicate the market may be bottoming. I’ll give you a warning right now. None of the traditional fundamental or technical measures have any validity in this market.
Markets will need to see at least one, and maybe all of these before they launch into a sustainable recovery. The good news is that several have already happened and are flashing green.
1) Watch New Corona Cases in China
The pandemic started in China and it will end in China (FXI). The president of China, Xi Jinping, has already announced that the epidemic is over and that the country is returning to normal. The country is donating thousands of respirators and millions of masks to Europe and poor countries all over the world. China was able to enforce a quarantine far more severe than possible in the West, such as using the army to surround 60 million people for a month. So, the results in the Middle Kingdom may not be immediately transferable to the US.
If we do get an actual fall in the number of cases in China, that could indicate the end is near. To keep track, click here.
2) Watch Corona Cases in Italy
Italy quarantined two weeks before California so we should get an earlier answer there. The numbers are reliable, but we don’t know the true extent of their quarantine. After all, this is Italy. Also, Italy has a much older population than the US (that Mediterranean diet keeps Italians alive forever), so they will naturally suffer a higher death rate. However, a decline in cases there will be proof that a western-style shelter-in-place order will work. To keep track, click here.
3) Watch Corona Cases in California
The Golden State was the first to quarantine ten days ago, so it will be the first American state to see cases top out. On Monday, we were at 1,733 cases and 27 deaths, or one in 1.5 million. However, it is a partial quarantine at best, with maybe half of the 20 million workforce staying home. When our cases top out, which should be the week of April 13, it could be an indication that the epidemic is flagging. To keep track, click here.
4) Watch Washington
Passage of a Corona Economic Recovery Bill could take place as early as Friday and could be worth $2 trillion. Add in the massive stimulus provided by the Federal Reserve, a large multiple of the 2008-2009 efforts, and $10 trillion is about to hit the economy. Warning: don’t be short an economy that is about to be hit with $10 trillion worth of stimulus.
5) Watch the Technicals.
Yes, technicals may be worthless now but someday in the future, they won’t be. The stock market has traded 20% below the 200-day moving average only four times in the last century. The Dow Average (INDU) was 32% below the 200-day moving average at the Monday low. The next rip-your-face off short-covering rally is imminent and may initially target that down 20% level at $21,496, or 18% above the Monday low.
6) Watch for the Big Buy
Value players are back in the market for the first time in six years, the last time the S&P 500 (SPX) traded at a discount to its historical 15.5X earnings multiple and are circling targets like hungry sharks. Watch for Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A) to buy a large part of a trophy property, like a major bank or airline. He’s already stepped up his ownership in Delta Airlines (DAL). I’m sure he’s going over the books of Boeing (BA). Warren might even buy back his own stock at a discount to net asset value, down 31.4% in a month. Any move by Warren will signal confidence to the rest of the markets.
7) Watch the US Dollar
With US overnight interest rates having crashed by 1.5% in recent weeks, the US dollar (UUP) should be the weakest currency in the world. The greenback overnight became a zero-yielding currency. Instead, it has been the strongest, rocketing on a gigantic global flight to safety bid. When the foreign exchange rates return to rationality, the buck should weaken, as it has already started to do after last week’s super spike. A weak dollar will be good for American companies and their stocks.
8) Watch the (VIX)
We now know that the Volatility Index (VIX), (VXX) was artificially boosted last week by hundreds of short players covering positions with gigantic losses and going bust. Now that this is washed out, I expect volatility to decline for the rest of 2020. It has already fallen from $80 to $49 in days. This is a precursor to a strong stock market.
9) Watch the Absolute Value of the Market
There could be a magic number beyond which prices can’t fall anymore. That could be yesterday’s 18,000, 17,000, or 15,000. Some 80% of all US stocks are owned by long term holders who never sell, like pension funds, corporate crossholdings, or individuals who have owned them for decades and don’t want to pay the capital gains tax. When the ownership of that 20% is shifted to the 80%, the market runs out of sellers and stocks can’t fall anymore. That may have already happened. Similarly, a final capitulation selloff of market leaders, like Apple (AAPL) may also be a sign that the bear market is ending. (AAPL) is off 34.40% since February.
10) Watch John Thomas
I am watching all of the above 24/7. So rather than chase down all these data points every day, just watch for my next trade alert. I am confined to my home office for the duration, probably for months, so I have nothing else to do. No trips to Switzerland, the Taj Mahal, or the Great Pyramids of Egypt for me this year. It will just be nose to the grindstone.
Stay Healthy and we’ll back a killing on the back nine.
John Thomas
I just drove from Carmel, California to San Francisco on scenic Highway 1. I was virtually the only one on the road.
The parking lot at Sam’s Chowder House was empty for the first time in its history. The Pie Ranch had a big sign in front saying “Shut”. The Roadhouse saw lights out. It was like the end of the world.
The panic is on.
The economy has ground to a juddering halt. Most US schools are closed, sports activities banned, and travel of any kind cancelled. All ski resorts in the US are shut down as are all restaurants, bars, and clubs in California. Virtually all public events of any kind have been barred for the next two months. Apple (AAPL) and Nike (NIKE) have closed all their US stores.
The moment I returned from my trip, I learned that the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by a mind-boggling 1.00% on the heels of last week’s 0.50% haircut. This is unprecedented in history. S&P Futures responded immediately by going limit down for the third time in a week.
The most pessimistic worst-case scenario I outlined a week ago came true in days. The (SPX) is now trading at 2,500. Goldman Sachs just put out a downside target at 2,000, off 41% in three weeks.
That takes the market multiple down from 20X three weeks ago to 14X, and the 2020 earnings forecast to crater from $165 to $143. These are numbers considered unimaginable only a week ago.
You can blame it all on the Coronavirus. Global cases shot above 160,000 yesterday, while deaths exceeded 5,800. In the US, we are above 3,000 cases with 60 deaths. The pandemic is growing by at least 10% a day. All international borders are effectively closed.
The stock market has effectively impeached Donald Trump, unwinding all stock market gains since his election. At the Thursday lows, the Dow Average ticked below 20,000, less than when he was elected. Economic growth may be about to do the same, wiping out the 7% in economic growth that has taken place during the same time.
Leadership from the top has gone missing in action. The president has told us that the pandemic “amounts to nothing”, is “no big deal”, and a Democratic “hoax.” There is no Fed effort to build a website to operate as a central clearing house for Corona information. In the meantime, the number of American deaths has been doubling every three days.
There have only been 13,500 tests completed in the US so far and they are completely unavailable in my area. The bold action to stem the virus has come from governors of the states of all political parties.
The good news is that all this extreme action will work. If you shut down the economy growth, the virus will do the same. In two weeks, all carriers will become obvious. Then you simply quarantine them. Any dilution of the self-quarantine strategy simply stitches out the process and the market decline.
The hope now is that the recession, which we certainly are now in, will be sharp but short. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is certainly in control now.
When we come out the other side of this, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates at zero, oil at $25 a barrel, and many stocks down by half, there will be no reason not to.
Oil (USO) crashed, taking Texas tea down an incredible $22 overnight. OPEC collapsed as Saudi Arabia took on Russia in a price war, flooding the market. All American fracking companies with substantial debt have just been rendered worthless. I told you to stay away from MLPs! It’s amazing to see how the effect of one million new electric cars can have on the oil market. Blame it all on Elon Musk.
The oil crash is all about the US. American fracking has added 4 million barrels a day of supply over the last five years and 8 million b/d during the last ten. Saudi Arabia and Russia would love to wipe out the entire US industry.
Even if they do, the private equity boys are lining up to buy assets at ten cents on the dollar and bring in a new generation of equity investors. The wells may not even stop pumping. How do you say “Creative Destruction” in Arabic and Russian? We do it better than anyone else.
Gold (GLD) soared above $1,700, on a massive flight to safety bid bringing the old $1,927 high within easy reach.
Bond yields (TLT) plunged to 0.31% as recession fears exploded. Looks like we are headed to 0% interest rates in this cycle. Corona cases top 4,000 in the US and fatalities are rising sharply. Malls, parking lots, and restaurants are all empty.
Trump triggered a market crash, with a totally nonsensical Corona plan. Banning foreigners from the US will NOT stop the epidemic but WILL cause an instant recession, which the stock market is now hurriedly discounting. This is an American virus now, not a foreign one or a Chinese one. The market has totally lost faith in the president, who did everything he could to duck responsibility. The US is short 100,000 ICU beds to deal with the coming surge in cases. No one has any test kits at the local level. We could already have 1 million cases and not know it.
The US could lose two million people, according to forecasts by some scientists. At 100 million cases with a 5% fatality rate, get you there in three months. That could cause this bear market to take a 50% hit. The US is now following the Italian model, doing too little too late, where bodies are piling up at hospitals faster than they can be buried.
Stocks are back to their January 2017 lows, down 1,000 (SPX) points and 9,500 Dow points (INDU) in three weeks. Yikes! Unfortunately, I lived long enough to see this. We’ve seen 14 consecutive days of 1,000-point moves. The speed of the decline is unprecedented in financial history.
The Recession is on. Look for a short, sharp recession of only two quarters. JP Morgan is calling for a 2% GDP loss in Q2 and a 3% hit in Q3. The good news is that the stock market has already almost fully discounted this. The only way to beat Corona is to close down the economy for weeks.
A two-week national holiday is being discussed, or the grounding of all US commercial aircraft. Warren Buffet has cancelled Berkshire Hathaway’s legendary annual meeting. All San Francisco schools are closed, events and meetings cancelled. The acceleration to the new online-only economy is happening at light speed.
Municipal bonds crashed, down ten points in three days to a one-year low. If you thought that you parked your money in a safe place, think again. Municipalities are seeing tax and fee incomes collapse in the face of the Coronavirus. Brokers are in panic dumping inventories to meet margin calls. There is truly no place to hide in this crisis but cash, which is ALWAYS the best hedge. I would start buying (MUB) around here.
Bitcoin collapsed 50% in two days, to an eye-popping $4,000. So much for the protective value of crypto currencies. I told you to stay away. No Fed help here.
My Global Trading Dispatch performance has gone through a meat grinder, pulling back by -10.36% in March, taking my 2020 YTD return down to -13.28%. That compares to an incredible loss for the Dow Average of -32% at the Friday low. My trailing one-year return was pared back to 35.31%. My ten-year average annualized profit shrank to +33.84%.
I have been fighting a battle for the ages on a daily basis to limit my losses. My goal here is to make it back big time when the market comes roaring back in the second half.
My short volatility positions have been hammering me. I shorted the (VXX) when the Volatility Index (VIX) was at $35. It then went to an unbelievable $76. I was saved by only trading in very long maturity, very deep out-of-the-money (VXX) put options where time value will maintain a lot of their value. These will all come good well before their one-year expiration.
I also took profits in four short position at the market lows in Apple (AAPL) and the three short positions in Corona-related stocks, (CCL), (WYNN), and (UAL), which cratered, picking up an 8% profit there.
At the slightest sign of a break in the pandemic, the economy and shares should come roaring back. As things stand, I can handle a 3,000 point in the Dow Average from here and still have all of my existing positions expire at their maximum profit point with the Friday options expiration.
On Monday, March 16 at 7:30 AM, the New York Empire State Manufacturing Index is out.
On Tuesday, March 17 at 5:00 AM, the Retail Sales for February is released.
On Wednesday, March 18, at 7:30 AM, the Housing Starts for February is printed.
On Thursday, March 19 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.
On Friday, March 20 at 9:00 AM, the February Existing Home Sales is published. The Baker Hughes Rig Count follows at 2:00 PM.
As for me, I went down to Carmel, California to hole up in a hotel near the most perfect beach in the state and do some serious writing. This is the city where beachfront homes go for $10 million and up, mostly owned by foreign investors and tech billionaires from San Francisco. Locals decamped from here ages ago because it became too expensive to live in.
This is also where my parents honeymooned in 1949, borrowing my grandfather’s 1947 Ford.
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader March 11 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: What is the worst-case scenario for this bear market?
A: The average earnings loss for a recession is 13%. Last year, we earned $165 a share for the S&P 500. So, a recession would take us down to $143 a share. Multiply that by the 15.5X hundred-year average earnings multiple, where we are now, and that would take the (SPX) down to 2,200. However, if we get 100 million cases and 5 million deaths, as some scientists are predicting, we could get a 2008 repeat and a 50% crash in the (SPX) to 1,700. With the administration asleep at the switch, that is clearly a possibility. Nice knowing you all.
Q: Do you think we’re still setting up for another roaring 20s?
A: Yes, absolutely. We could not have a roaring 20s unless we got a major selloff and clearing out of old positions like we're getting now. That flushes out all the old capital and positions and paves the way for people to set up brand new positions at really bargain prices. If you missed the 2009 bottom, here's another chance.
Q: Will the fiscal stimulus help defeat the coronavirus?
A: No, viruses are immune to money. They don’t take PayPal or American Express (AXP). The president has been able to buy his way out of all his other problems until now; there’s no way to buy his way out of this one.
Q: Is JP Morgan’s (JPM) Jamie Dimon getting a heart attack related to the financial crisis?
A: Probably, yes. In a normal time, the pressure of a CEO in these big banks is enormous. All of a sudden half of your small customers are looking at bankruptcy—the pressure has to be immense. You've got customers screaming for short term loan facilities, you’ve got risk managers asking for margin extensions. And you certainly don't want to buy the banks here. I think this may be the final selloff with legacy banks, from which they never recover. The banks will disappear and come back online.
Q: What would you do with a $45,000-dollar portfolio right now? I don’t do options.
A: Look at my story on Ten Leaps to Buy at Market Bottom. Use those names—Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), NVIDIA (NVDA), etc.—and just buy the stocks. Buy half now and a half in a month. This is a time to dollar cost average. And you’re looking at doubles at a minimum 3 years down the road—at the end of this year if you’re lucky. Once the virus burns out, it will only take a couple months to do that. Then it will be off to the races once again.
Q: Since the 2018 low was never tested, what do you think of 2400/2450?
A: I think that’s great. And you can get a half dozen different analyses that all come up with numbers around 2400, 2500, 2600. That’s where the final low will be—where you get a convergence of multiple support lines and opinions.
Q: Will buybacks come back or are they over for now?
A: They will come back once markets bottom. Companies aren’t stupid; they don’t like buying their own stocks at all-time highs, but they certainly will come in with major amounts of buying when they see their stocks down 20% or 30%. That's certainly what Apple is going to do.
Q: Will luxury retail shares get killed in the current market?
A: Yes, especially stocks like (LVMH), the old Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey. They’re already down 37% this year. When it becomes clear that we are in an actual recession, these luxury names across the board will get completely abandoned. By the way, I worked with the son of the founder of this company when I was at Morgan Stanley. We called him “Bubbles.”
Q: Are there any similarities to 2008?
A: Yes; it’s worse because the market is dropping much faster than it ever has before. The 52% selloff in 2008 was spread out over the course of 18 months. Here, it’s taken only 14 trading days to see half of the damage done back then. It’s truly unbelievable.
Q: What do you think about gold (GLD)?
A: Even though gold is going up, gold miners (GDX) are doing terribly because they are stocks. They get tarred with the same brush blackening all other stocks. This is exactly what happened during the 2008-2009 crash. Fundamentals go out the window in these kinds of trading conditions, but they always come back.
Q: Is Europe in recession?
A: Absolutely, yes. I saw an interview with the Adidas CEO (ADDYY) this morning on TV and they said sales are off 90% on a month-on-month basis. Their stock is down 49% this year. You can bet that every other consumer company in Europe is suffering similar declines.
Q: What will real estate do in the next 3 months?
A: It's impossible to price real estate so finely because it's so illiquid. However, I expect it to hold up here because of super low interest rates, and then keep rising over the long term. We’re not going to get anything like the crashes we saw in 2008-2009 because all the excess leverage is not in the real estate market now, it’s in the stock market, where we are getting a much-deserved crash. If anything, I’d be buying rental properties here in low cost cities.
Q: What if the Dow Average (INDU) reaches the 300-day moving average?
A: It’s a nice theory, but technicals are meaningless in the face of panic selling. You don't want to get too fancy looking at these charts. When you have a billion shares to go at market, the 200 or 300 day moving average means nothing.
Good Luck and Good Trading. And stay healthy.
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Global Market Comments
January 6, 2019
Fiat Lux
2020 Annual Asset Class Review
A Global Vision
FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Featured Trades:
(SPX), (QQQQ), (XLF), (XLE), (XLY),
(TLT), (TBT), (JNK), (PHB), (HYG), (PCY), (MUB), (HCP)
(FXE), (EUO), (FXC), (FXA), (YCS), (FXY), (CYB)
(FCX), (VALE), (AMLP), (USO), (UNG),
(GLD), (GDX), (SLV), (ITB), (LEN), (KBH), (PHM)
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
There is a method to my madness, although I understand that some new subscribers may need some convincing.
Whenever I change my positions, the market makes a major move or reaches a key crossroads, I look to stress test my portfolio by inflicting various extreme scenarios upon it and analyzing the outcome.
This is second nature for most hedge fund managers. In fact, the larger ones will use top of the line mainframes powered by $100 million worth of in-house custom programming to produce a real-time snapshot of their thousands of positions in all imaginable scenarios at all times.
If you want to invest with these guys feel free to do so. They require a $10-$25 million initial slug of capital, a one year lock up, charge a fixed management fee of 2% and a performance bonus of 20% or more.
You have to show minimum liquid assets of $2 million and sign 50 pages of disclosure documents. If you have ever sued a previous manager, forget it. The door slams shut. And, oh yes, the best performing funds are closed and have a ten-year waiting list to get in. Unless you are a major pension fund, they don’t want to hear from you.
Individual investors are not so sophisticated, and it clearly shows in their performance, which usually mirrors the indexes less a large haircut. So, I am going to let you in on my own, vastly simplified, dumbed down, seat of the pants, down and dirty style of risk management, scenario analysis, and stress testing that replicates 95% of the results of my vastly more expensive competitors.
There is no management fee, performance bonus, disclosure document, lock up, or upfront cash requirement. There’s just my token $3,000 a year subscription fee and that’s it. And I’m not choosy. I’ll take anyone whose credit card doesn’t get declined.
To make this even easier, you can perform your own analysis in the excel spreadsheet I post every day in the paid-up members section of Global Trading Dispatch. You can just download it and play around with it whenever you want, constructing your own best case and worst-case scenarios. To make this easy, I have posted this spreadsheet on my website for you to download by clicking here.
Since this is a “for dummies” explanation, I’ll keep this as simple as possible. No offense, we all started out as dummies, even me.
I’ll take Mad Hedge Model Trading Portfolio at the close of October 29, the date that the stock market bottomed and when I ramped up to a very aggressive 75% long with no hedges. This was the day when the Dow Average saw a 1,000 point intraday range, margin clerks were running rampant, and brokers were jumping out of windows.
I projected my portfolio returns in three possible scenarios: (1) The market collapses an additional 5% by the November 16 option expiration, some 15 trading days away, falling from $260 to $247, (2) the S&P 500 (SPY) rises 5% from $260 to $273 by November 16, and (3) the S&P 500 trades in a narrow range and remains around the then current level of $260.
Scenario 1 – The S&P 500 Falls 5%
A 5% loss and an average of a 5% decline in all stocks would take the (SPY) down to $247, well below the February $250 low, and off an astonishing 15.70% in one month. Such a cataclysmic move would have taken our year to date down to +11.03%. The (SPY) $150-$160 and (AMZN) $1,550-$1,600 call spreads would be total losses but are partly offset by maximum gains on all remaining positions, including the S&P 500 (SPY), Salesforce (CRM), and the United States US Treasury Bond Fund (TLT). My Puts on the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN (VXX) would become worthless.
However, with real interest rates at zero (3.1% ten-year US Treasury yield minis 3.1% inflation rate), the geopolitical front quiet, and my Mad Hedge Market Timing Index at a 30 year low of only 4, I thought there was less than a 1% chance of this happening.
Scenario 2 – S&P 500 rises 5%
The impact of a 5% rise in the market is easy to calculate. All positions expire at their maximum profit point, taking our model trading portfolio up 37.03% for 2018. It would be a monster home run. I would make back a little bit on the (VXX) but not much because of time decay.
Scenario 3 – S&P 500 Remains Unchanged
Again, we do OK, given the circumstances. The year-to-date stands at a still respectable 22.03%. Only the (AMZN) $1,550-$1,600 call spread is a total loss. The (VXX) puts would become nearly a total loss.
As it turned out, Scenario 2 played out and was the way to go. I stopped out of the losing (AMZN) $1,550-$1,600 call spread two days later for only a 1.73% loss, instead of -12.23% in the worst-case scenario. It was a case of $12.23 worth of risk control that only cost me $1.73. I’ll do that all day long, even though it cost me money. When running hedge funds, you are judged on how you manage your losses, not your gains, which are easy.
I took profit on the rest of my positions when they reached 88%-95% of their maximum potential profits and thus cut my risk to zero during these uncertain times. October finished with a gain of +1.24. By the time I liquidated my last position and went 95% cash, I was up 32.95% so far in 2018, against a Dow average that is up 2% on the year. It was a performance for the ages.
Keep in mind that these are only estimates, not guarantees, nor are they set in stone. Future levels of securities, like index ETFs, are easy to estimate. For other positions, it is more of an educated guess. This analysis is only as good as its assumptions. As we used to say in the computer world, garbage in equals garbage out.
Professionals who may want to take this out a few iterations can make further assumptions about market volatility, options implied volatility or the future course of interest rates. And let’s face it, politics was a major influence this year.
Keep the number of positions small to keep your workload under control. Imagine being Goldman Sachs and doing this for several thousand positions a day across all asset classes.
Once you get the hang of this, you can start projecting the effect on your portfolio of all kinds of outlying events. What if a major world leader is assassinated? Piece of cake. How about another 9/11? No problem. Oil at $150 a barrel? That’s a gimme.
What if there is an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities? That might take you all of two minutes to figure out. The Federal Reserve launches a surprise QE5 out of the blue? I think you already know the answer.
Now that you know how to make money in the options market, thanks to my Trade Alert service, I am going to teach you how to hang on to it.
There is no point in being clever and executing profitable trades only to lose your profits through some simple, careless mistakes.
So I have posted a training video on Risk Management. Note: you have to be logged in to the www.madhedgefundtrader.com website to view it.
The first goal of risk control is to preserve whatever capital you have. I tell people that I am too old to lose all my money and start over again as a junior trader at Morgan Stanley. Therefore, I am pretty careful when it comes to risk control.
The other goal of risk control is the art of managing your portfolio to make sure it is profitable no matter what happens in the marketplace. Ideally, you want to be a winner whether the market moves up, down, or sideways. I do this on a regular basis.
Remember, we are not trying to beat an index here. Our goal is to make absolute returns, or real dollars, at all times, no matter what the market does. You can’t eat relative performance, nor can you use it to pay your bills.
So the second goal of every portfolio manager is to make it bomb proof. You never know when a flock of black swans is going to come out of nowhere, or another geopolitical shock occurs, causing the market crash.
I’ll also show you how to use my Trade Alert service to squeeze every dollar out of your trading.
So, let’s get on with it!
To watch the Introduction to Risk Management, please click here.
Mad Hedge Market Timing Index
Global Market Comments
January 9, 2019
Fiat Lux
2019 Annual Asset Class Review
A Global Vision
FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Featured Trades:
(SPX), (QQQQ), (XLF), (XLE), (XLI), (XLY),
(TLT), (TBT), (JNK), (PHB), (HYG), (PCY), (MUB), (HCP)
(FXE), (EUO), (FXC), (FXA), (YCS), (FXY), (CYB)
(FCX), (VALE),
(DIG), (RIG), (USO), (UNG), (USO), (OXY),
(GLD), (GDX), (SLV),
(ITB), (LEN), (KBH), (PHM)
