As a potentially profitable opportunity presents itself, John will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what should be bought, when to buy it, and at what price. This is your chance to ?look over? John Thomas? shoulder as he gives you unparalleled insight on major world financial trends BEFORE they happen. Read more
Global Market Comments
January 24, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(SPX 1,600, HERE WE COME!),
(SPX), (SPY), ($INDU), (TLT), (VIX), (USO)
(WHY THE YEN WILL NEVER RECOVER), (FXY), (YCS)
Take a look at the chart below for the S&P 500, and it is clear that we are gunning for an all time high between 1,550 and 1,600. With the debt ceiling crisis now cancelled, you really have to look hard to find any near term reasons to sell stocks, so we could hit those lofty numbers as early as March.
A perusal of the short-term charts certainly demands one to conclude that we are overbought. The Relative Strength Indicator has just hit 70%, normally a signal that we are reaching an interim top. However, the RSI can stay elevated for an extended period of time and trade as high as 80 before the downside risks show their ugly face. That could be months off.
In the meantime, we could see some sort of correction. But it is more likely to be a time correction, not a price one. That has the market moving sideways in an agonizing, tortuous, narrowing range on declining volume for a while before launching on another leg up.
This year?s rally occurred so quickly that a lot of money was left on the sidelines, especially with the largest managers. That is why we have seen no meaningful corrections so far. This condition could remain all the way out until April.
It is likely that traders are going to keep ramping up this market until the January month end book closing. That sets up a quiet February. The deep-in-the-money options that I have been recommending to readers are ideally suited for this falling volatility environment. They reach their maximum point of profitability, whether the market goes up, sideways, or down small.
You see confirmation of this analysis everywhere you look. Treasury bonds (TLT) can?t catch a bid, and are clearly threatening to break out above the 1.90% yield band that has prevailed for the past year. The Volatility Index (VIX) hit another new five year low today at $12.40. Oil (USO) just hit a multi month high. It all points to stock prices that will remain on an upward path for the foreseeable future.
I think I?ll buy more stocks and then go drive my new Tesla around the mountain.
If anyone is expecting the Japanese yen to take back the losses it has suffered over the last two months, you can forget about it happening anytime soon, eventually, or in your lifetime.
Naysayers have been pointing to this week?s policy meeting at the Bank of Japan as proof that the yen has stumbled in the international race to the bottom, and that it is running up the white flag of surrender in the currency wars. They point to the rise in the beleaguered currency from a ?90.16 to the dollar Friday low, back to ?88.4 in the cash market, and a gain in the (FXY) from $108.20 to $110.70. The inverse ETF (YCS) has backed off from $55 to $52.60.
There were several reasons for the pause. BOJ governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, said he would delay any substantial monetary easing until 2014. Hold the presses! Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated that if the yen fall became too severe, it might have to be slowed. The US government started carping that the weak yen was giving Japan?s car exports an unfair advantage.
That all-electric Nissan Leaf that cost $38,000 in November can now be sold for $31,000, once the recent currency depreciation is factored in. That is a big difference, and was a cause of frequent trade wars in decades past. How do you think we ended up with a Corolla factory in Fremont, California?
There is something much more fundamental afoot. Japan has been far and away the world?s largest international direct investor for the last 20 years. Trillions of dollars have poured out of the country, snapping up energy resources, commodities, manufacturing facilities, commercial real estate, and yes, lots of golf courses.
When the interest and dividends thrown off by these holdings were brought back to Japan, dollars were sold and yen bought, some $100 billion worth a year. On top of this, you can add $40 billion in interest payments earned on $800 billion in US Treasury bonds held by the Japanese government. Total it all up, and it is not only enough to support the yen, but to send it to new highs continuously for the past two decades, no matter how dire the worsening fundamentals of the domestic Japanese economy.
So what happens next? Think of the Nissan Leaf trade in reverse. That American factory that cost $1 billion in 2012 will now set a Japanese investor back $1.2 billion. Ditto for the government?s purchase of US Treasuries. The Japanese won?t stop their foreign investment completely, but they are now being priced out of the market in many transactions, and it will slow appreciably. So does that repatriated interest and dividends. This will feed into a weaker yen over the long term.
Given more time, Japan?s other awful fundamentals will start to kick in as well. Those include a deplorable demographic outlook, a debt/GDP ratio of 240%, the hollowing out of Japanese industry as it decamped for China, and the new cold war with the Middle Kingdom.
I?ll tell you how recent developments will end. Prime Minister Abe will fire the BOJ governor Shirakawa or he will wait a couple of months for him to retire. That will be consistent with his pedal to the metal strategy for reviving the Japanese economy. Then, the aggressive monetary easing he campaigned and won the election on, will get moved from 2014 back up to 2013--early 2013. Like, tomorrow. Then it will be back to free-fall for the yen.
Use this temporary and long overdue weakness to add short positions in the Japanese yen. You can also pick up more of the short yen ETF here, the (YCS).
Take Away the Meatball and What Are You Left With?
As a potentially profitable opportunity presents itself, John will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what should be bought, when to buy it, and at what price. This is your chance to ?look over? John Thomas? shoulder as he gives you unparalleled insight on major world financial trends BEFORE they happen. Read more
Global Market Comments
January 23, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TRADE ALERT SERVICE BLASTS TO NEW ALL TIME HIGH),
(SPY), (IWM), (FCX), (AIG), (FXY), (YCS), (TLT)
(CATCHING UP WITH DOWNTON ABBEY)
The Trade Alert Service of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader posted a new all time high today, pushing its two-year return up to 66%. The Dow average booked a miniscule 12% gain during the same time period. The industry beating record was achieved on the back of a spectacular January, which so far had earned readers a mind blowing 10.92% profit.
Right after the January 2 opening, I shot out Trade Alerts urging readers to take maximum long positions in the S&P 500 (SPY) and the Russell 2000 small cap index (IWM). Later, I piled on longs in copper producer Freeport McMoRan (FCX) and American Insurance Group (AIG). I balanced these out with aggressive short positions in the Treasury bond market (TLT), and the Japanese yen (FXY), (YCS). Only my position in Apple (AAPL) has cost me money this year.
After grinding around just short of the previous top for four tedious and painful months, the breakout was certainly welcome news for many. Once I wracked up an unprecedented 25 consecutive profitable trades over the summer, things went wobbly. The Fed unleashed an early, surprise, pre election QE3. Then inventors stopped drinking the Apple (AAPL) Kool Aide en masse. The extent of the tax loss selling after the Obama win was also a bit of a shocker. Maybe I should take longer vacations.
Then the ?aha? moment came. I concluded at the end of November that the multiple political crises facing us were nothing more than hot air. This meant the risk markets were poised to launch multi month bull runs to new all time highs, and I positioned myself, and my followers, accordingly. In the end, that is exactly what we got.
Global Trading Dispatch, my highly innovative and successful trade-mentoring program, earned a net return for readers of 40.17% in 2011 and 14.87% in 2012. The service includes my Trade Alert Service, daily newsletter, real-time trading portfolio, an enormous trading idea database, and live biweekly strategy webinars. To subscribe, please go to my website at www.madhedgefundtrader.com, find the ?Global Trading Dispatch? box on the right, and click on the lime green ?SUBSCRIBE NOW? button.
I decided to flee the madness in London for a day and visit some old friends in the countryside, the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. The late 7th Earl was an early investor in my first hedge fund and I have kept in touch with the family ever since.
His grandfather, the 5th Earl gained fame and fortune from his co-discovery of King Tut?s tomb in Egypt?s Valley of the Kings in 1922. His early death, shortly thereafter, was the origin of ?The Mummy?s Curse? of depression era horror film fame. Many of his discoveries today make up the bulk of the Egyptian collection in New York?s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which the family sold to pay estate taxes.
Recently, the family has been renting out their 350 year old home, a 15-minute taxi ride south of Newbury, the spectacular Highclere Castle, for use as a film set. The period drama series that resulted, ?Downtown Abbey,? unexpectedly became a blockbuster in the US where viewers stupefied by endless low budget reality shows were starved for quality, thoughtful content and adult writing.
It also sent 100,000 visitors a year their way, as well as $25 million in ticket fees. This windfall enables them to maintain the house and the magnificent gardens in immaculate condition. The cash flow also allows them to ramp up the other family business, breeding racehorses for the queen. Portraits of past winners adorned almost every room.
After tea with my hosts and a personal tour of the estate, I picked up some tea towels for friends at home who are into this kind of thing. I also saw a display of some spectacular early Egyptian relics, which the family found bricked up behind a wall 60 years after the Met sale.
The series? third season has just begun and I can tell you now how I think it will play out. The politically incorrect and ultra liberal American mother-in-law, played by Shirley MacLain, has made an unannounced visit, and was about as welcome as a bull in a china shop. Matthew Crawley has bought a new car, so we can expect him to flirt with death in a crash in the near future. The current earl, Robert Crawley, appears to be better at hosting dinners than managing the estate, we we can count on another financial crisis.
There seems to be some sort of gay lovers triangle developing among the footmen. The former head footman, John Bates, now in prison for murder, will be exonerated, but killed in a jailhouse riot just before his release. Lady Edith Crawly is left standing at the altar, so she goes into politics to champion the suffragette movement, much to the horror of her family. The Irish son-in-law and former driver dies in the 1922 Irish rebellion.
Given the huge reception by the viewing public, we can count on this drama to extend to at least five seasons, when it will then be syndicated for the rest of our lives. That works fine for the real life Carnarvons, who can now reinvest in even more thoroughbreds. Who needs hedge funds?
Global Market Comments
January 22, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trades:
(THE DEBT CEILING CRISIS IS CANCELLED),
(SPY), (IWM), (FCX), (AIG), (FXY), (YCS),(AAPL), (VIX)
(JANUARY 23 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR)
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