2012 Archive - Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Payroll Bombshell Give Market Technicians Heart Attack

I am sitting here on Easter weekend sifting through pages and pages from the various technical programs I follow warning that the roof is about to cave in on the stock market. Friday?s nonfarm payroll bombshell was dropped right at a key, make or break level for the S&P 500 and the Dow Average. Hold here, and we grind to a marginal new high in weeks. Fail, and it is all over this year but for the crying.

The action in the futures market immediately after the release of the dismal numbers showed that the outcome of this contest has already been decided. S&P 500 futures gapped down from plus 4 points to down 15 points in minutes. The Dow saw a net swing of a gut churning 170 points. Ten year Treasury yields gapped down from 2.22% to 2.08%. The safe haven dollar soared against the euro. It was all, yet again, another harsh lesson on why you don?t take big positions before monthly nonfarm payroll figures, and why you should never listen to the ?experts?.

I couldn?t be more amused watching analysts? reactions to the figures on TV, who had been forecast as high as 250,000 and noticeably blanched when the flash hit the screen. In fact, this is one of the biggest head fakes that I have seen in sometime. The Thursday weekly jobless claims hit a four year low only the day before, pointing followers to the exact opposite direction. So did Canadian job gains, which hit a 30 year high for the month. Extrapolate that to the US and we should have seen of blistering gain of 750,000, not the feeble 120,000 we got.

A closer examination of the numbers offered little solace. The headline unemployment rate fell from 8.3% to 8.2%, but only because there are fewer job seekers. Manufacturing showed the biggest gain, +37,000, followed by food and drinking services, +37,000, professional and business services +31,000, and health care, +26,000. The big hit was taken by retail, -34,000. There are 12.7 million total unemployed, and the broader U-6 unemployment rate dropped from 14.9% to 14.5%.

It looks like the good winter weather bump we saw in February disappeared after possibly pulling as many as 50,000 jobs forward from the spring, generating the great payroll number for the previous month. That explains why the February correction in the market I had been expected never showed.

These unwelcome developments call into question the survival of the entire 35% bull move. It will be very interesting to see how many traders flip to sell every rally mode this week after spending the last six months buying every dip. Watch Apple. It will be key. So will the raft of data releases about the Chinese economy, which will be tricking out every night this week.

I was hoping for a healthy payroll number on Friday to give us a nice two day rally which I could use to reestablish my short positions. At least I covered my yen short, which is also bouncing hard. Now I have to decide if I want to sell into the dip. Welcome to show business.

The Payroll Figures Did Not Come in as Expected

Cross Asset Class Analysis Warned ?RISK OFF? Was Coming

Newsletter

Last week saw a dramatic deterioration in the economic data that has been the foundation of the Great Bull Market of 2012.

First, we read minutes from a Federal Reserve meeting suggesting that QE3 has been put on a back burner. Then the Department of Labor?s Friday nonfarm payroll report poured gasoline on the fire, coming in at 120,000, versus an expected 210,000. Until this week, the best you could say about the data flow was that it was mixed. Now it is decidedly negative.

Whenever we see sea change events like this bunch up over a short time period, I like to show readers my cross asset class review, which I conduct on a daily basis. This discipline is great at showing which securities are trading in line with the rest of the world, and which ones aren?t. And guess what is looking outrageously expensive right now?

The charts show that trouble has in fact brewing for a few months. Asset classes have been rolling over like a line of dominoes. This is the way bull markets always end, and this time should be no different.

The Australian dollar (FXA) saw the weakness coming first, which peaked on April 6.

The Australian stock market (EWA) followed, peaking on February 28.

Copper (CU) warned that trouble was coming, peaking on February 12.

Then Gold (GLD) faded on April 12.

And Silver (SLV) on February 28.

Bonds never bought the ?RISK ON? on scenario. The ten year Treasury ETF (IEF) is down less than three points from its 2011 peak, instead of the 15 points we should have gotten if the economy had truly entered a sustainable stage in the recovery.

Only equities (SPX) didn?t see ?RISK OFF? coming

Because it was all about Apple (AAPL), which added $225 billion in new market capitalization this year. That amounts to creating the third largest company from scratch, right after Exxon (XOM).

The final message of all of these charts is that equities alone have been powering up for months while every other asset class in the world has been dying a slow death. Experience shows that this only ends in tears for equity holders. I?ll let you adjust your own positions accordingly.

Trolling for Short Sale Candidates at Market Tops

Diary

Fear of law suits prevents most analysts from publishing lists of short selling targets. But the GMI Ratings, Inc., a forensic accounting firm, regularly posts lists of public companies they believe may go bankrupt (see http://www.auditintegrity.com ).

Many of their picks reflect the accelerating shift from the old economy to the new economy. With offices in New York and Los Angeles, they look at leverage, market position, debt, and their own proprietary indicators. Another red flag are the legal shenanigans that companies resort to when coming out of a recession, like writing off large amounts of good will.

In the media space, CBS (CBS), Sirius XM Radio (SIRI), and Hertz Global (HTZ) are at risk. In the consumer field, Rite Aid (RAD), Macy?s (M), and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) made the list. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is the largest tech company to warrant scrutiny.

Airlines are always a favorite of bankruptcy mavens. The company correctly pegged American Airlines (AMR) as seriously at risk two years ago. Continental (CAL) dodged the executioner by merging with United Airlines. Sprint Nextel (S) tops the list of telecom companies. Better take that portfolio out and give it a good scrubbing.

Looks Like I Hooked a Whopper

April 9, 2012 - Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

?A statistical model built around a normal distribution when applied to markets can be a very dangerous thing,? said David Kelly of JP Morgan.

Has Gold Had It?

Newsletter

With the Federal Reserve signaling yesterday that QE3 is off the table, many traders are now betting that the barbarous relic is about to take a prolonged vacation.

Without a dividend or an interest yield in a world desperate for cash flow, the yellow metal suddenly doesn?t have so much to offer. Take away the fear of inflation that our deflationary reality assures, and gold is suddenly left wanting, along with all other hard assets. Uncle Buck becomes the big man on campus.

For the first time in many years, gold is ranking high on the list of preferred hedge fund shorts. The US Treasury?s sale of America eagle one ounce gold coins is down 70% from last year and is now plumbing a four year low. Open interest in the gold futures market has hit a 2 ? year low, indicating that capital is fleeing the market. This is usually what happens before prices die.

Physical markets in Asia, long a bulwark in the gold bull case, are suffering from declining volumes. India, long the world?s largest buyer of physical gold, just doubled import taxes, causing widespread strikes among jewelers.

Industry experts have been warning me for some time that the scrapage rate was soaring, thanks to retail gold buying shops popping up on almost every other street corner, and it was just a matter of time before this would have a major dampening effect on prices.? Remember those stories about gold coin vending machines popping up around the world? You don?t hear those anymore.

Indeed, the gold miners have been signaling for some time that the gold bugs were about to suffer a healthy dose of insecticide. Look no further than the chart for Barrack Gold (ABX), the world largest producer of the yellow metal, and a woeful underperformer compared to its benchmark product. Other miners have fared far worse.

Take speculation about future gold price appreciation away, and all of a sudden miners don?t have such a great business model. The problem is that they are not making gold anymore. Companies are having to dig deeper in more dangerous and inaccessible parts of the world, and pay bigger bribes to get there. (ABX) isn?t opening a new mines at 15,000 feet in the Andes because their like the fresh air and the scenery. Freezing water, and essential ingredient in the mining process, has become a major problem.

There is the added dilemma that the inventory sitting in the back of the shop is now falling in value instead of increasing. Barrack has made a big deal about abandoning its gold hedging strategy. That worked great for the past three years, but may not do as well going forward.

Cost inflation suffered by mining companies is the highest in the industrial world, and is now running at about a 20% annual rate, be it for labor, heavy equipment, infrastructure development, royalty fees, and so on. The tires for those giant trucks used in mining now cost $100,000 each and have a three year waiting list. The secondary market for them is booming.

It doesn?t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the technical picture for gold has been rapidly deteriorating. Gold has suffered an 8% sell off since the end of February, and is now up only 6% in 2012, underperforming most other asset classes. Look at the chart below, and the most charitable thing you can say is that with are approaching the bottom end of a $1,500-$1,925 range. But look at the longer term charts and it is clear that we have just witnessed a head and shoulders formation that has dramatically failed.

The chip shot on the downside for gold here is $1,500. More aggressive traders may want to reach for $1,450. Bring a double dip scare for the economy into the picture, which I expect to see this summer, and $1,100 is a possibility. If you get a real stock market crash in 2013, as many analysts are predicting, and you?ll get another chance to buy at $750.

Use the periodic short term bursts of buying, that are increasingly being seen by the trading community as a contrarian trade, as a great chance to leg into short dated puts on the SPDR Gold Trust Shares ETF (GLD).

Long term, I still like gold and expect it to hit the old inflation adjusted high of $2,300 during the next hard asset buying binge. But remember also that long term, we are all dead.

Watch Out for Gold?s Fatal Attraction

Beating the Market With Demographics

Diary

Regular readers of this letter know that I rely on long term demographic trends to predict the direction of global financial markets. Let me approach this topic from a different angle, measuring the number of retirees a population must support versus the anticipated burden in 20 years, and its implications.

I start with the basket cases. Japan?s problems on this front are well known, with a retiree population of 30% today growing to 56% by 2030. That means every worker will be saddled with the costs of maintaining a senior citizen. Italy is worse, with the retiree load soaring from 30% to 60%. The rest of developed Europe is posting similar numbers. This is why you rarely hear me issuing ?BUY? recommendations on European companies, especially in the retail sector.

The US is stuck in the middle. Some 21% of our 310 million souls are retired today, and that is growing to 48% in 20 years. If you think our social security funding problems are bad now, just wait. On our current trajectory, bankruptcy is assured. Our saving grace is the large number of young immigrants who are continuously entering the country, legal and otherwise.

China is in a unique situation because of its ?one child? policy, which has reduced population growth by 400 million over the last 30 years. This guarantees that the country will undergoing a slow ?Japanization? that raises its ratio of retirees from 14% today to 42% by 2020. You can count on the Chinese economic miracle to hit a wall in about five years as a vast share of resources have to be redirected to supporting long lived senior citizens, who live on a healthier diet than your or I.

Other emerging markets are in a far healthier position. Only 8% of India?s 1.2 billion are retirees today, and that will only reach 20% in 20 years. Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Malaysia are looking at the same numbers. One of the reasons that these countries don?t have to suffer the crushing expense of western style social safety nets is that they don?t need them. This is the basis for my constant table pounding that this is where you need to be overweighting your equity exposure.

I?ll be going into this subject in more depth next week, when I explain why demographics is so important. Until then your homework assignment is to read the excellent book, Boom, Bust, and Echo by David K. Foot, which you can buy by click here.

The bottom line message here is to be nice to your cleaning lady. She may be supporting you someday.

The ?Japanization? of China

They?re Not Making Italians Anymore

This is Where You Want to Put Your Money

Apple Joins the Establishment

Diary

I was more than amused when technology analyst superstar, Piper Jaffray?s Gene Munster, put out his own forecast that Apple (AAPL) would reach $1,001. Munster made the call after conducting a survey that showed that 40% of students plan on buying an iPhone in the next 6 months, while 19% of non-tablet owners plan on purchasing a tablet in the next 6 months.The shares responded by immediately running up to a new all-time high of $632.

For my own prediction of this target, you have to reach back 18 months, when it first breached $300 (click here for the piece). With the establishment now jumping on the bandwagon, is this an indicator of a short term trading top in the sought after stock? Those deep out of the money short dated Apple puts are starting to look more interesting by the day.