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 Bill Davis, 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
Global Market Comments
January 19, 2016
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JANUARY 20 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR),
(THE GAME CHANGER FOR SOLAR),
(FSLR), (SPWR), (SCTY), (TAN),
(TESTIMONIAL),
(BREAKFAST WITH MOHAMED EL-ERIAN)
First Solar, Inc. (FSLR)
SunPower Corporation (SPWR)
SolarCity Corporation (SCTY)
Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN)
With great fanfare, congress passed a blockbuster $1.8 trillion spending bill in December. President Obama hastily signed the bill into law the next day.
Barley noticed was a measure included in the bill, which extends the 30% investment tax credit for alternative energy investments by five more years, until the end of 2021.
Barely, that is, unless you owned solar stocks.
Since the intention to include this pet democratic program started leaking out in November, shares of the entire industry doubled in value.
Solar City (SCTY) rocketed by 136%. First Solar (FSLR) soared by 81%. Even the normally quiescent Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN) gained an impressive 28%.
Since then, these shares have given up a big chunk of their gains, thanks to the ongoing stock market correction. Better look hard at this group. They could become one of the top performers this year.
In exchange for the solar extension, the president agreed to permit oil exports for the first time in 40 years. The fact that the country has run out of storage and already has 50 filled takers sitting offshore in the Gulf of Mexico makes this an easy move.
House Minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, my local congressperson, told me the republicans were willing to ?Give away the store? to get the export measure through.
It seems that the Koch Brothers, the republican party?s largest donors and funders of global warming deniers, wanted to use the oil export measure as the means to offshore the entire US petrochemical industry.
It is headed for emerging nations, where labor is cheaper, taxes are lower, and regulation nil. That means the loss of tens of thousands of US jobs, many in California, over which Pelosi complained.
Pelosi complaining about the loss of petrochemical jobs? It?s proof that if you live long enough, you see everything.
Whatever jobs the Golden State loses here, it will make back with solar, big time. Industry analysts estimate that the five-year extension is worth a STAGGERING $125 BILLION IN ADDITIONAL SALES!
That is a multiple of the entire solar industry?s current total annual sales.
What?s more, this is five years during which the solar industry can dramatically improve panel output efficiencies, inverters, designs, and cut costs (remember that the cost of labor and regulation, about half the cost of a solar installation, is still rising).
Solar is already close to grid parity on costs now. It is even competitive in Texas. It will be substantially cheaper in five years.
During the same time, the cost of grid power will keep rising continuously, thanks to rising capital cost of replacing aging infrastructure.
I?m not saying you should rush out and buy solar today. But when the bull market resumes later this year, this group should be at the top of your list.
As for me, I am already getting estimates for a doubling of my existing solar roof system to accommodate the charging of my second Tesla, the Model X.
To learn all the ins and outs of buying and installing a solar roof system for you self, please read ?How to Buy a Solar System? by clicking here.
Better Bring Some More Panels
Thank you for talking with me on the phone right before Christmas.? I enjoyed our conversation and look forward to meeting you at your Incline Village Global Strategy Luncheon in the spring.?
I will also look forward to the hike up to 12,000 ft. after our lunch, (are you sure you want to spot me by carrying a 60 lbs pack?). I usually stop running at 12,000 just saying. LOL.?
Hope you are having a great day! I renewed today!
Greg B.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Winter Hiking at 12,000 Feet in the High Sierras
Passing through Los Angeles for a day, I thought I would take a walk down Nostalgia Lane and have breakfast at the historic Langham Huntington Hotel, the venue for my 1970 senior prom.
I was half way through my eggs Benedict in the Terrace Room when, who sits at the next table, but bond giant PIMCO?s brilliant former CEO and co-CIO, Mohamed El-Erian.
That?s the last time he makes that mistake. I proceeded to grill him on the long-term prospects for the global economy, in the politest way possible.
Mohamed anticipates ?a bumpy journey to a new normal.? Developed countries will see sluggish economic growth, high structural unemployment, increased regulation, and constant pressure for private sector deleveraging.
Emerging economies will maintain the breakout stage of their development phase. They will deliver high economic growth, strong currencies, and increasingly close the income gap with the developed world.
Policymakers have embraced initiatives designed to boost asset prices, divorcing them from economic fundamentals. The impact on Main Street has fallen well short of expectations. Interest rates have been repressed.
Mohamed thinks we will see an uneven and faltering economic recovery over the next five years. He is sticking with his long-term growth rate for the US of 2%. Investors face a particularly devilish challenge in that much of our past returns have already been borrowed from the future.
Inflation will return eventually. Commodity prices will rise. Yield curves will steepen. High dividend stocks will prosper. Many emerging market currencies will appreciate.
El-Erian has one of the best 90,000-foot views out there. A US citizen with an Egyptian father, he started out life at the old Salomon Smith Barney in London and went on to spend 15 years at the International Monetary Fund.
He joined PIMCO in 1999, and then moved on to manage the Harvard endowment fund. His last book, When Markets Collide, was voted by The Economist magazine as the best business book of 2008. He regularly makes the list of the world?s top thinkers. A lightweight Mohamed is not.
His final piece of advice? Engage in ?constructive paranoia? and structure your portfolio to take advantage of these changes, rather than fall victim to them.
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
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
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
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
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 Bill Davis, 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