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The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, Is the Bull Market Back?

During the Christmas Eve Massacre, a close friend sent me a research report he had just received entitled “30 Reasons Equities Will Fall in 2019.” It was laughable in its extreme negativity.

I thought this is it. This is the bottom. ALL of the bad news was there in the market. Stocks could only go up from here.

If I’d had WIFI at 12,000 feet on the ski slopes and if I’d thought you would be there to read them, I would have started shooting out Trade Alerts to followers right then and there. As it turned out, I had to wait a couple of days.

Two weeks later, and here I am basking in the glow of the hottest start to a new year in a decade, up 6.45%. So far in 2019, I am running a success rate of 100% ON MY TRADE ALERTS!

Don’t expect that to continue, but it is nice while it lasts.

I can clearly see how the year is going to play out from here. First of all, my Five Surprises of 2019 will play out during the first half of the year. In case you missed them, here they are.

*The government shutdown ends quickly

*The Chinese trade war ends

*The House makes no moves to impeach the president, focusing on domestic issues instead

*Britain votes to rejoin Europe

*The Mueller investigation concludes that Trump has an unpaid parking ticket in Queens from 1974 and that’s it.

*All of the above are HUGELY risk-positive and will trigger a MONSTER STOCK RALLY.

After that, the Fed will regain its confidence, raise interest rates two more times, and trigger a crash even worse than the one we just saw. We end up down on the year.

My long-held forecast that the bear market will start on May 10, 2019 at 4:00 PM EST is looking better than ever. However, I might be off by an hour. Those last hour algo-driven selloffs can be pretty vicious.

I make all of these predictions firmly with the knowledge that the biggest factors affecting stock prices and the economy are totally unpredictable, random, and could change at any time.

It was certainly an eventful week.

Fed governor Jay Powell essentially flipped from hawk to dove in a heartbeat, prompting a frenetic rally that spilled over into last week.

On the same day, China cut bank reserve requirements, instantly injecting $200 billion worth of stimulus into the economy. That’s the equivalent of spending $400 billion in the US. The last time they did this we saw a huge rally in stocks. It turns out that the Middle Kingdom has a far healthier balance sheet than the US.

Saudi Arabia chopped oil production by 500,000 barrels a day, sending prices soaring. It's not too late to get into what could be a 40% bottom to top rally to $62 (USO).

Macy's (M) disappointed, crushing all of retail with it, and taking down an overbought main market as well. It highlights an accelerating shift from brick and mortar to online, from analog to digital, and from old to new. Online sales in December grew 20% YOY. Will Amazon sponsor those wonderful Thanksgiving Day parades?

Home mortgage rates hit a nine-month low with the conventional 30-year fixed rate loan now wholesaling at an eye-popping 4.4%. Will it be enough to reignite the real estate market? It is actually a pretty decent time to start picking up investment properties with a long view.

My 2019 year to date return recovered to +6.45%, boosting my trailing one-year return back up to 31.68%. 2018 closed out at a respectable +23.67%.

My nine-year return nudged up to +307.35, just short of a new all-time high. The average annualized return revived to +33.90.

I analyzed my Q4 performance on the chart below. While the (SPY) cratered -19.5% in three short months, my Trade Alert Service hung in with only a -4.9% loss. The quarter was all about defense, defense, defense. It was the hardest quarter I ever worked.

While everything failed last year, everything has proven a success this year. I came back from vacation a week early to pile everyone into big tech longs in Salesforce (CRM), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN). I doubled up my short position in the bond market.

I even added a long position in the Euro (FXE) for the first time in years. If Britain votes to stay in Europe, it is going to go ballistic.

I also top ticketed a near-record rally by laying out a few short positions in Apple (AAPL) and the S&P 500 (SPY). I am now neutral, with “RISK ON” positions “RISK OFF” ones.

The upcoming week is very iffy on the data front because of the government shutdown. Some data may be delayed and other completely missing. All of the data will be completely skewed for at least the next three months. You can count on the shutdown to dominate all media until it is over.

On Monday, January 14 Citigroup (C) announces earnings.

On Tuesday, January 15, 8:30 AM EST, the December Producer Price Index is out. Delta Airlines (DAL), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), and Wells Fargo (WFC) announce earnings.

On Wednesday, January 16 at 8:30 AM EST, we learn December Retail Sales. Alcoa (AA) and Goldman Sachs (GS) announce earnings.

At 10:30 AM EST the Energy Information Administration announces oil inventory figures with its Petroleum Status Report.

Thursday, January 17 at 8:30 AM EST, we get the usual Weekly Jobless Claims. At the same time, December Housing Starts are published. Netflix (NFLX) announces earnings.

On Friday, January 18, at 9:15 AM EST, December Industrial Production is out. The Baker-Hughes Rig Count follows at 1:00 PM. Schlumberger (SLB) announces earnings.

As for me, my girls have joined the Boy Scouts which has been renamed “Scouts.” Their goal is to become the first female Eagle Scouts.

So, I will retrieve my worn and dog-eared 1962 Boy Scout Manual and refresh myself with the ins and outs of square knots, taut line hitches, sheepshanks, and bowlines. Some pages are missing as they were used to start fires 55 years ago. I am already signed up to lead a 50-mile hike at Philmont in New Mexico next summer.

As for the Girl Scouts, they are suing the Boy Scouts to get the girls back, claiming that the BSA is infringing on its trademark, engaging in unfair competition, and causing “an extraordinary level of confusion among the public.”

Is there a merit badge for “Frivolous Lawsuits”?

Good luck and good trading.

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

January 14, 2019/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

January 11, 2019

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
January 11, 2019
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(WHY THE MARKET CRASHED IN DECEMBER),
(SPY), ($INDU), (VIX)
(THE GOVERNMENT’S WAR ON MONEY),

(TESTIMONIAL)

January 11, 2019/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Why the Market Crashed in December

Diary, Newsletter

Were you horrified by the market action in December? The next one could get much worse.

We are all used to market corrections. Live long enough and you will endure hundreds of them.

But December? That was a real first class crash, a four times a century event. And to see this occur in the face of solid economic data made it totally unexpected by all. The only analysts predicting a collapse like this one are the ones who have been expecting it daily for the past decade.

To see a 20% decline in NASDAQ and a 50% plunge in market leaders in the face of a 3.2% GDP growth rate and a 3.9% unemployment rate is a first. It makes no sense.

This wasn’t a correction. This was an instance where the market ceased to function and was effectively closed. In fact, it took a conspiracy of several independent forces to get the meltdown we got.

The bottom line here is that this is not your father’s stock market.

The low hanging fruit here is to blame in the high-frequency algorithms. But that is the cheap shot. Algos don’t care which way markets go. They take volatility up sharply, but they take it down as well, as any long-suffering vol player will tell you.

Over time, their market impact is neutral. And algo traders go home 100% in cash every night. That doesn’t explain opening meltdowns of 500 points a day or more. No, there was something much more structural at work.

Human emotions are easy to predict. Take the humans out of the equation and markets can only be read by mainframe computers, at least on a short-term basis. That’s why so many of these market traditions, like “Sell in May and go away,” and the “Santa Claus rally” have quit working.

Only about 10% of today’s daily traders are the breathing kind. The rest are all made of silicon. Even I have come to rely heavily on my own personal algorithms in the Mad Hedge Market Timing Index. It has been worth its weight in gold and saved my bacon many times.

There is no doubt that pure quant strategies have blood on their hands. These funds strictly adhere to rules that have identified the long-term relationships between different asset classes and act accordingly.

For example, when bonds go up, you sell them and buy more stock, but sell more foreign currencies as well, and perhaps pick up some copper as well. All of this is adjusted for risk and volatility. There is thought to be about $1.5 trillion committed to this kind of strategy.

Among these, you can include “risk parity traders” of the kind pioneered by my friend Ray Dalio in the 1990s. (Ray will tell you how he did it in his fascinating book, Principals, out last year). Ray, by the way, is one of the top performing money managers over the last 30 years.

Trend followers pour more gasoline on the fire. If you sell, they will sell more, creating these massive 100 handle days in the S&P 500 (SPY).

Heightening fears was a never-ending torrent of bad news out of Washington. Two out of three key cabinet positions were emptied by presidential firings and remain unoccupied. Trade talks with China came to an impasse. It was not what investors wanted to hear.

All of this set up the perfect storm for December.

Equity mutual fund redemptions hit a record $53 billion in early December. Market liquidity dramatically shrank as players took off for the holidays, as seen on the chart below. Liquidity during the second half of December was thinner than the worst days of the 2008 financial crisis.

A two-decade-long flight of capital from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange was also a factor. The inevitable result was for the Volatility Index (VIX) to take a run at its highs for the year.

If you wanted to sell anything in size, it could only take place at throwaway prices. It all culminated in the notorious Christmas Eve Massacre which saw a 1,000-point range day in the Dow Average in a holiday-shortened trading day. If it had been a full day it might have been down 2,000 points.

Don’t expect any respite from these strategies any time soon. In fact, we could see worse moves ahead. The current administration believes in a free market, non-interventionist approach to securities markets. That means no new regulation.

The same thing happened in the run-up to the 2008 crash when Christopher Cox (brother of my old boss at Morgan Stanley, Archie Cox) was basically told to go play golf instead of regulate.

Welcome to the new age of investing. The bottom line for all of us traders and investors is that we are going to have to pedal a lot harder to earn our crust of bread….or become a computer.

Did you Say “Buy” or “Sell”

January 11, 2019/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

January 10, 2019

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
January 10, 2019
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(JANUARY 9 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
(SPY), (UUP), (FXE), (FXY), (FXA), (AAPL), (GLD), (SLV), (FCX), (SOYB), (USO), (MU), (NVDA), (AMD), (TLT), (TBT), (BIIB), (TSLA)
(TESTIMONIAL)

January 10, 2019/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

January 9 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter

Due to technical problems, I was unable to read your questions. However, I was able to get a print out after the fact.

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader January 9 Global Strategy Webinar with my guest and co-host Bill Davis of the Mad Day Trader.

Q: Is the bottom in for stocks?

A: It is for six months to a year. A price earnings multiple at 14X seems to be the line in the sand. The Christmas Eve massacre, which took us down to a (SPY) of $230, was the final capitulation bottom of the entire down move. We may try a few more retests of the lows on bad tweets or data points. But from here on, you’re trying to buy the dip. That’s why I cut my vacation short a week and issued eight emergency trade alerts, five for Global Trading Dispatch and three for the tech letter. By the way, I hope you appreciate those trade alerts because I had to call back staff from vacations in four different countries to get them done. But it was worth it. We’ve had the strongest start to a New Year in a decade, up 5.75%. We made back all our Q4 losses in two days!

Q: Is the strong dollar play (UUP) over? Is it time to start buying Euro (FXE) and Yen (FXE)?

A: Yes, it is. The Fed flipping from hawk to dove sounds the death knell for the dollar. With the expansion of the yield spread between the buck and other currencies stopped dead in its tracks, a massive short covering rally will drive the currencies higher. That’s why I bought the Euro on Monday for the first time in more than a year (FXE). The Japanese yen where the biggest shorts has already moved too far, up 8%. That’s where hedge fund typically finance positions because yen yields have been at zero forever.

Q: How about the Aussie (FXA)? Do we have a shot now?

A: I think so. But the bigger driver with Aussie is the trade war with China. That said, I believe that will get resolved soon too unless Trump wants to run for reelection during a recession. The Aussie also has relatively high-interest rates so it should soar.

Q: Is the government shutdown starting to hurt the economy?

A: Yes, it is. Estimates on the damage the shutdown is doing range from 0.5% to 1% a week. That means at a minimum of 20-week shut down cuts 2019 GDP growth by 1%. If your assumption for growth this year is only 2%, that brings us perilously close to a recession. However, with the big stock market rally of the past week investors clearly believe the shutdown will be over in a week. Buy “Wall” stocks.

Q: What’s the biggest risk to the market now?

A: Companies announced great earnings in October and the stocks promptly collapsed. Q4 earnings start in a few weeks, except this time, the earnings will be smaller. The big one, Apple (AAPL) is reporting on January 29 and will be especially exciting since they already announced a major disappointment. If we get a repeat, you could get another meltdown in February just like we saw last year.

Q: Do you still like gold (GLD)?

A: I did in Q4 as a hedge for a collapsing stock market. Now that stocks are on fire again, I think gold and silver (SLV) will take a rest. You’re not going to get a serious move in gold until we see higher inflation and that is a while off.

Q: Is the bear market in commodities over?

A: I think so, with a flattening interest rate picture and a weakening dollar, the entire commodity complex is looking better. That includes copper (FCX), energy (USO), and the ags (SOYB). What do you buy in an expensive market? Cheap stuff, and all of these are at seven-year lows. I think people are ready to give paper assets a rest. All we need now for these to work is inflation. My cleaning lady just asked for a raise so there’s hope.

Q: The semiconductors have just had a good move. Is it time to get in?

A: You want to buy the semis, like Micron Technology (MU), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) when they’ve just had a BAD move. Market conditions have improved, but not to the extent you want to buy the most volatile stocks in the market. That said, if we get another crushing move in February you might dip your toe in with some semis on capitulation day. If you want to buy semis in this environment, you might have a gambling addiction.

Q: If the Fed has stopped raising rates, are you still bearish on the (TLT) and bullish on the (TBT)?

A: I think what governor Jay Powell’s dovish comments will do is put bonds in a six-month range, say 2.45%-3.0% in yield. All of my future bond alerts will trade around those levels. In the option world, we will be setting up a short strangle, betting that interest rates don’t move out of this range for a while. In that case, our two bond positions will be OK, with the nearest money one expiring in only seven trading days.

Q: Is it too late to get into biotech (BIIB)?

A: No, along with technology, biotech will be one of the two leading sectors in the entire market for the next ten years. However, me being an eternal cheapskate, I want to get in again on a decent dip. This is the industry that will cure cancer over the next decade and that will be worth a trillion dollars in profits.

Q: You’ve kept us out of Tesla (TSLA) for a couple of years. Is it time to go back in?

A: I think I would. If production can ramp up from 7,000 to 10,000 a week, the stock should do the same. The ten-year view for this stock is that it goes from today’s $330 to $2,500. That said, this is a notorious trading stock so it is very important to buy it on a dip. Wait for the next tweet from Elon Musk.

Q: If we enter a bear market in May 2019, what would be the appropriate long-term investments at that time?

A: Nothing beats cash, especially now that you are actually getting paid something decent. You can find cash equivalents now yielding all the way up to 4%. In a bear market, stocks either go down a lot, or a whole lot, so there is nothing worth keeping. The only reason to stay in is to avoid a monster tax bill (my cost on Apple is 25 cents) or you still work for the company.

January 10, 2019/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

December 20, 2018

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
December 20, 2018
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(THE GLASS HALF EMPTY MARKET)
($INDU), (SPY)
(HOW TO EXECUTE A VERTICAL BULL CALL SPREAD),
(AAPL)

December 20, 2018/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

December 17, 2018

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
December 17, 2018
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(THE MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or THERE’S NO SANTA CLAUS IN CHINA)
($INDU), (SPY), (TLT), (AAPL), (AMZN), (NVDA), (PYPL), (NFLX)

December 17, 2018/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

December 12, 2018

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
December 12, 2018
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(STANDBY FOR THE COMING GOLDEN AGE OF INVESTMENT),
(SPY), (INDU), (FXE), (FXY), (UNG), (EEM), (USO),
(TLT), (NSANY), (TSLA)

December 12, 2018/by Mad Hedge Fund Trader

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or The Year EVERYTHING Went Down

Diary, Newsletter

Last week saw the sharpest move up in stock prices in seven years. Why doesn’t it feel like it? Maybe it’s because we are all recovering losses instead of posting new profits. The mind has a funny way of working like that.

In fact, 2018 may go down as the year that EVERYTHING went down. Stocks (SPY), bonds (TLT), commodities (COPX), precious metals (GLD), foreign currencies (FXE), emerging markets (EEM), oil (USO), real estate (IYR), vintage cars, fine art, and even my neighbor’s beanie baby collection were all posting negative numbers as of a week ago.

In fact, Deutsche Bank tracks 100 global indexes and 88 of them were posting losses on the year. The normal average in any one year is 27. This is why hedge fund are having their worst year in history (except for this one). When your longs AND your shorts plunge in unison, there is nary a dime to be had. Even gold, the ultimate flight to safety asset has failed to perform.

Theoretically, this is supposed to be impossible. When stocks go down, bonds are supposed to go up and visa versa. So are emerging markets and all other hard assets.

This only happens in one set of circumstances and that is when global liquidity is shrinking. There is just not enough free cash around to support everything. So, the price of everything goes down.

The reason most of you don’t recognize this is that last time this happened was in 1980 when most of you were still a gleam in your father’s eye.

If you don’t believe me check, out the chart below from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It shows that after peaking in July 2014, the Adjusted Monetary Base has been going nowhere and recently started to decline precipitously.

This was exactly three months before the Federal Reserve ended the aggressive, expansionary monetary policy known as quantitative easing.

The rot started in commodities and spread to precious metals, agricultural prices, bonds, and real estate. In October, it spread to global equities as well. Beanie babies were the last to go.

Want some bad news? Shrinking global liquidity, which is now accelerating, is a major reason why I have been calling for a recession and bear market in 2019 all year.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Perhaps that is why 2019 recession calls are lately multiplying like rabbits. Nothing like closing the barn door after the horses have bolted. I wish you told me this in September.

Disturbing economic data is everywhere if only people looked. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index rate of price rise hit an 18-month low at 5.5%. With housing in free fall nationally further serious price declines are to come. With mortgage rates up a full point in a year and affordability at a decade low, who’s surprised?

General Motors (GM) closed 3 plants and laid off 15,000 workers, as trade wars wreak havoc on old-line industries. It looks like Millennials would rather ride their scooters than buy new cars.

Weekly Jobless Claims soared 10,000, to 234,000, a new five-month high. Not what stock owners want to hear. THE JOBS MIRACLE IS FADING!

October New Home Sales were a complete disaster, down a stunning 8.9% and off 12% YOY. These are the worst numbers since the 2009 housing crash. I told you not to buy homebuilders! They can’t give them away now!

Oil plunged again, off 20% in November alone. Is this punishment for Saudi Arabia chopping up a journalist or is the world headed into recession?

It seems we don’t have quiet weeks anymore. Normally, sedentary Jay Powell ripped it up with a few choice words at the New York Economic Club.

By saying that we are close to a neutral rate, the Fed Governor implied that there will be one more rate rise in December and then NO MORE. Happy president. But the historical neutral range is 3.5%-4.5%, meaning there is room for 2-6 X 25 basis point rate hikes to keep the bond vigilantes at pay. Such a card! Thread that needle!

Cyber Monday sales hit a new all-time high, up to $7.3 billion, with Amazon (AMZN) taking far and away the largest share. The stock is now up $300 from its November $1,400 low.

Salesforce, a Mad Hedge favorite, announced blockbuster earnings and was rewarded with a ballistic move upwards in the shorts. Fortunately, the Mad Hedge Technology Letter was long.

The Mad Hedge Alert Service managed to pull victory from the jaws of defeat in November with a last-minute comeback. Add October and November together and we limited out losses to 0.59% for the entire crash.

This was a period when NASDAQ fell a heart-stopping 17% and lead stocks fell as much as 60%. Most investors will take that all day long. I bet you will too. Down markets is when you define the quality of a trader, not up ones, when anyone can make a buck.

My year to date return recovered to +27.80%, boosting my trailing one-year return back up to 31.56%. November finished at a near-miraculous -1.83%. That second leg down in the NASDAQ really hurt and was a once in 18-year event. And this is against a Dow Average that is up a pitiful +2.9% so far in 2018.

My nine-year return recovered to +304.27. The average annualized return revived to +33.80.

The upcoming week is all about jobs reports, and on Friday with the big one.

Monday, December 3 at 10:00 EST, the November ISM Manufacturing Index is published. All hell will break loose at the opening as the market discounts the outcome of the Buenos Aires G-20 Summit.

On Tuesday, December 4, November Auto Vehicle Sales are released.

On Wednesday, December 5 at 8:15 AM EST, the November ADP Private Employment Report is out.

At 10:30 AM EST the Energy Information Administration announces oil inventory figures with its Petroleum Status Report.

Thursday, December 6 at 8:30 AM EST, we get the usual Weekly Jobless Claims. At 10:00 AM we learned the November ISM Nonmanufacturing Index.

On Friday, December 7, at 8:30 AM EST, the November Nonfarm Payroll Report is printed.

The Baker-Hughes Rig Count follows at 1:00 PM. At some point, we will get an announcement from the G-20 Summit of advanced industrial nations.

As for me, I’ll be driving my brand new Tesla Model X P100D which I picked up from the factory yesterday. I’ll be zooming up and down the hills and dales of the mountains around San Francisco this weekend.

I’ll also be putting to test the “ludicrous mode” to see if it really can go from zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds and give passengers motion sickness. I will go well equipped with air sickness bags which I lifted off of my latest Virgin Atlantic flight.

Talley Ho!
Good luck and good trading.

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

December 3, 2018/by MHFTF

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