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. Read more
While the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader focuses on investment over a one week to six-month time frame, Mad Day Trader, provided by Jim Parker, will exploit money-making opportunities over a brief ten minute to three day window. It is ideally suited for day traders, but can also be used by long-term investors to improve market timing for entry and exit points. Read more
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
July 2, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JULY 16 BERLIN STRATEGY LUNCHEON),
(DIAMONDS ARE STILL AN INVESTOR?S BEST FRIEND),
(SO YOU THINK THEY?RE NOT WATCHING YOUR PC?)
Come join John Thomas for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in Berlin, Germany, at 12:00 noon on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. A three-course lunch will be followed by a PowerPoint presentation and an extended question and answer period.
I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I?ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $219.
The lunch will be held at a downtown Berlin hotel within sight of the Brandenburg Gate, the details of which will be emailed with your purchase confirmation.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research. To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please go to my online store.
If you forgot to buy your loved one a birthday present and spent a week sleeping on the sofa, eating canned food, and cleaning out the cat box, you now have a chance to redeem yourself.
A revolutionary new website exists called Mazal Diamond, which promises to turn the online jewelry business upside down. I went to the privately held company?s website at http://www.mazaldiamond.com and found an entertaining assortment of free tools. You can design your own jewelry, and even order a custom cut, which Mazal will supply out of their massive 100,000 stone inventory. You can also figure out if the jeweler down the street is trying to rip you off.
Just for fun, I appraised the diamond I bought for my late wife, which I bought from a Hasidic Jew in an alley off of Manhattan?s West 47th street. He kept his inventory hidden in an envelope in his sock. How times have changed! The two carat, VVS1, round cut, yellow diamond that I paid $3,000 for in 1977, would fetch $39,800 today. Great trade!
Mazal Diamond?s game changing advantage is that they cut, design, and manufacture their own jewelry, enabling them to undercut prices offered by established industry leaders. In fact, the $30 billion a year diamond industry is undergoing radical change by moving online, much the same way as the book, music, and travel industry have gone. Your local neighborhood jewelry store is about to get wiped out, or become a quaint relic.
Blue Nile (NILE) pioneered the way, and instantly became the 800-pound gorilla. The company cut costs by keeping inventories low, relying instead on a secretive web of anonymous suppliers. Now, second generation entrants are snapping at its heels and eating its lunch with polished websites, better service, and lower prices, seducing potential customers with free diamond blogs. Mazal Diamond even offers a year of free insurance.
They are getting a boost from a 30% price gain, a woman?s best friend has seen since the March, 2009 stock market bottom, taking them back to pre crash levels. The US accounts for about half the world market, so the new frugality will be a challenge. That will be offset by flight to safety purchases by inflation wary Americans, and new demand from the emerging market middle class.
Investment grade diamonds have been steady earners, gaining an average 5% a year over the last three decades. To avoid another week on the sofa, you might even think about buying next year?s Valentine?s surprise early.
Hey! You there, staring at this monitor. This is your PC talking to you. No, not you over there standing in the background. I?m talking to the guy sitting in front of me poking at my keys. Ouch! That one hurt!
So you thought no one was watching, did you? Let me set you straight. About a month ago you clicked on a certain website, and I installed myself as a cookie on your computer, which is an innocuous little text file that you can?t see. Since then, I have been tracking your every move, recording websites you clicked on, the pages you visited, and the stuff you ordered. I then used this handy little algorithm to build a profile of exactly who you are. I now know you better than your own mother. In fact, I know you better than you know yourself.
For example, I am aware that you make more than $250,000 a year, live in a posh zip code in San Francisco, belong to a fancy country club, and drive a Mercedes. You donate to Republican political causes, send your kids to a prestigious private school, and bill it all to an American Express Platinum Card. Did I leave anything out?
Because I know every detail of your life, down to your inside leg measurement, I am able to harness the power of this machine to more precisely service your every need. That includes directing advertising to you, which you have a high probability of clicking on. The more you click on my ads, the higher prices I can realize for those ads. The ad campaigns you now see are unique to your own personal computer because they are tied to your IP address. My program, called ?behavioral targeting? is the next ?big thing? in online advertising. It?s all part of the brave new world.
I see you have been shopping for a new car. Check out the new Hyundai at http://www.hyundaiusa.com/, which offers the same quality as your existing ride, at half the price. Your clicks this morning suggest you?re taking your ?significant other? out to dinner tonight. Might I suggest Gary Danko?s on Bay Street at http://www.garydanko.com/site/bio.html ? The rack of lamb is to die for there.
Your visits to Travelocity and Expedia tell me you?re planning a vacation. I bet you didn?t know you can find incredible deals in Las Vegas at http://www.visitlasvegas.com/vegas/index.jsp . Thinking about buying a condo there? They?ll even pay for the trip if you promise to check one out while you?re there.
Since we?re chatting here mano a mano, I noticed that that last pair of jeans you ordered from http://us.levi.com/home/index.jsp had a 42-inch waist, up from the 40?s in your last order. Better lay off those cheeseburgers. Pretty soon, they?ll be calling you ?tubby? or ?fatso?. Better visit http://www.weightwatchers.com/Index.aspx soon, or the legs on that chair might buckle out from under you.
Worried about privacy? Privacy, shmivacy. There hasn?t been privacy in this country since the first social security number was handed out in 1936. And don?t expect any relief from Congress. I doubt half those dummies even know how to turn on their own PC?s.
Don?t even think about trying to delete me. I?m a ?flash cookie?, an insidious little piece of code that reinstalls every time you try that. Think of me as a toenail fungus. Once you catch me, I?m almost impossible to get rid of.
I hope you don?t mind, but I?ve been passing your personal details around to some of my buddies at other websites. That?s why when you clicked on http://www.nfl.com/ you got deluged with product offers from your local team, the San Francisco 49ers. I?ve got friends at Google, Facebook, MySpace, and pretty much everywhere. Can I help it if I?m a popular guy? I bet the view from those 50-yard seats is great, isn?t it?
I noticed that your spending habits don?t exactly match with the income you reported on your last tax return. Do you think the IRS would like to know about that? I bet you didn?t know the agency offers a 10% reward for turning in tax cheats.
How about those triple XXX DVD?s you bought last week? Whoa! Hot, hot, hot! I hope your employer never finds out about those. It might not go down too well at your next performance review.
I thought it was lovely that you bought your spouse a two carat, yellow, vvs1, round cut diamond ring for $26,000 from http://www.bluenile.com/ for your 30th wedding anniversary. But who is Lolita, the Argentine firecracker, in Miami Beach? Does the old wifey know you sent her a $2,000 pair of diamond stud earrings? What?s it worth to you for me to keep mum on this? Maybe you should take a quick peak at? 3StepDivorce.com at http://www.3stepdivorce.com? and see what you?re in for?
Naw, I?m just pulling your leg. This is all just between friends, right? Think of it as a doctor/patient relationship. I?ll tell you what. See that leaderboard ad at the top of the page? Just click on that and we?ll call it even. Oooh that felt good! Click it again. Oh, baby! Not too many times. You?ll trigger my anti click fraud program.
Now you see that wide skyscraper add over on the right? Click on that too. Oh baby! Click it again! And there?s a little button ad at the bottom of the page. No, not that one. A little lower. What was that little cutie?s name in Miami again? Aaaaah.
?We are still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. I would have to put the likelihood of a double dip recession now up to 50%,? said my old UC Berkeley economics professor, Robert Reich.
While the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader focuses on investment over a one week to six-month time frame, Mad Day Trader, provided by Jim Parker, will exploit money-making opportunities over a brief ten minute to three day window. It is ideally suited for day traders, but can also be used by long-term investors to improve market timing for entry and exit points. Read more
While the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader focuses on investment over a one week to six-month time frame, Mad Day Trader, provided by Jim Parker, will exploit money-making opportunities over a brief ten minute to three day window. It is ideally suited for day traders, but can also be used by long-term investors to improve market timing for entry and exit points. Read more