Come join me in the grand appointments of the Cunard Line's flagship, the elegant and spacious Queen Mary 2, on an eastbound transatlantic cruise.
The ship departs New York at 10:00 AM on July 6, 2018 and arrives at Southampton on July 13. There I will be conducting the Mad Hedge Fund Trader's Strategy Update, a three-hour discussion on the global financial markets.
I'll be giving you my up-to-date view on stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, precious metals, energy, and real estate. I'll highlight the best long and short opportunities.
And to keep you in suspense, I'll be tossing 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 $300 for the seminar only.
Attendees will be responsible for booking their own cabin through Cunard. They offer everything from an inside stateroom from $999 per person to $26,780 for a Q1 deluxe two-bedroom apartment with its own gym.
Just visit the Cunard website or call them directly at 800-728-6273 to make your own arrangements.
The weather this time of year can range from balmy to tempestuous, depending on our luck. A brisk walk three times around the boat deck adds up to a mile. Full Internet access will be available, for a price, to follow the markets.
Every dinner during the voyage will be black tie, so you might want to stop at Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to get fitted for a second and third tux. Don't forget to bring your Dramamine and sea legs, although the 151,400 ton, 1,132-foot-long $900 million ship is so big I doubt you'll need them. The Queen Mary 2 just completed a major refit in Germany, so everything is brand new.
The event will be held at a luxurious penthouse suite on the ship's highest deck, the details of which will be emailed to you with your purchase confirmation. To instill us all with a proper sense of humility, I will conduct the seminar as we sail over the wreck of the Titanic. The ship will give a blast of its horn three times as a salute as we pass the site.
I look forward to meeting you and thank you for supporting my research.
To purchase tickets for the seminar alone, CLICK HERE.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Queen-Mary-2-story-1-image-1-e1527003260984.jpg166400MHFTRhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMHFTR2018-05-21 01:07:502018-05-21 01:07:50Join Me on the Queen Mary 2 for the Mad Hedge July 11, 2018 Seminar at Sea
Not only did we get no net movement; the range was an infinitesimal 200 Dow points. It was hardly enough to make a dog's breakfast.
Of course, the big news was the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond (TLT), which rose to 3.12%, a seven-year high. You might have expected this to prompt a complete stock market rout. It didn't. Maybe that is next week's business.
It is rare that the bullish and bearish arguments reach a perfect balance, but that is what we got. In the meantime, trading volume is shrinking, never a good sign. Will the last one to leave please shut out the lights?
Which is all an indication of what I have been warning you about for months. This is setting up to be a dreadful summer. If you've already made your year, with a 19.88% gain like I have, you're better off taking a long cruise than trying to outsmart the algorithms.
I managed to squeeze off only one trade so far this month. I sold short the S&P 500 (SPY) right at the high of the week. However, when the downside momentum failed, and a Volatility Index (VIX) spike failed to confirm, I bailed for a small profit. Pickings are indeed thin.
Whenever my trading slows down, I get the inevitable customer complaints. My answer is always the same. Reach for the marginal trade and you will get your fingers bit off. Don't be in such a hurry to lose money. As my wise Latin professor used to say, "Festina lente," or "make haste slowly."
My May return is +0.53%, my year-to-date return stands at a robust 19.83%, my trailing one-year return has risen to 56.25%, and my eight-year profit sits at a 296.30% apex.
And remember, the market is making this move in the face of rising oil prices and interest rates, always bull market killers.
To mix a few metaphors, when the sun, moon, and stars line up once again I'll go pedal to the metal with the TradeAlerts once again.
If you held a gun to my head and ordered me to tell you how the markets will play out for the rest of the year, try this.
We remain is this narrowing trading range for months, ending with a final decisive break of the 200-day moving average to the downside, now at 23,909. But we find a new low only 1,000 points, or 4% below that.
Then we launch into the post midterm election year-end rally, which could take stocks up 15% to 20% from the 23,000 low. This is why I have been saying that the best trades of 2018 are ahead of us.
So, renew that subscription!
To witness how cruel and stock specific the current market is, look no further than hapless Campbell Soup (CPB), the first ticker symbol I have had to look up this year. There is probably not a reader alive who was not nursed back to health by its iconic red canned chicken noodle soup.
A surprise earnings loss triggered a hellacious 14% one-day plunge. It is the first big victim of the new steel tariffs. Although it amounts to only a few pennies a can, that can be disastrous in this hyper-competitive world. It also turns out that Millennials prefer eating fresh food rather that the canned stuff.
Give thanks for small mercies. With three daughters I am at ultimate risk for a tab for three weddings. The nuptials for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are thought to cost $45 million, most of it on security. Hopefully I will not someday become the father-in-law of a prince.
This coming week has a plethora of Fed speakers, some key housing numbers, and that's about it.
On Monday, May 21, at 8:30 AM, we get April Chicago Fed National Activity Index.
On Tuesday, May 22, nothing of note is announced.
On Wednesday, May 23, at 10:00 AM, the April New Home Sales.
Thursday, May 24, leads with the Weekly Jobless Claims at 8:30 AM EST, which saw a rise of 11,000 last week from a 43-year low. At 10:00 AM, we get April ExistingHome Sales.
On Friday, May 25, at 8:30 AM EST, we get April Durable Goods Orders.
We wrap up with the Baker Hughes Rig Count at 1:00 PM EST.
As for me, I will be spending the weekend putting the finishing touches on my 2018 Mad Hedge European Tour.
Thanks to rising U.S. interest rates and a strong dollar, the price of a continental trip has dropped about 10% since the beginning of the year. Got to love that Swiss franc at 1:1 parity with the greenback. Maybe I can afford an extra cheese fondue.
Good Luck and Good Trading.
Yes, It All Looks Like Magic
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Trailing-one-year-story-2-image-1-1-e1526680186775.jpg369580MHFTRhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMHFTR2018-05-21 01:06:132018-05-21 01:06:13Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or No Trade
Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi will enter the cloud and use the force.
Not the Jedi of the famous George Lucas films, but JEDI - Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure commissioned by the Department of Defense.
This large contract is up for grabs.
Rumor has it that Amazon is in the driver's seat to become the government's right-hand man.
The purpose of this broad-based upgrade is to enhance communication channels among military branches by loading up operations into the cloud.
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning will be integrated as well.
One task slated for modernization includes the heaps of documents waiting to be translated from Arabic, Farsi, Chinese and other foreign languages into English.
A.I. will organize which documents have priority over others as well as aiding in raw translation. This will save the Department of Defense's overworked linguists thousands of hours in brute translation work.
As it stands, the government is grappling with an overlapping fractious system with legacy software up to 20 years old.
These legacy systems of yore are poor at keeping out the cyber criminals looking for a smash-and-data grab.
One instance where massive inefficiencies rear its ugly head is in the Department of Agriculture.
This department has 22 chief information officers that require seven more personal assistants inflating the IT budget.
The government could become the best turnaround story in the tech industry in years.
This turnaround could eventually become bigger than Microsoft and Cisco, which are the poster children for extreme cosmetic surgery in Silicon Valley.
The government burns $90 billion per year servicing IT operations, and JEDI is slated to offer an attractive sum of $100 billion over 10 years to a private company.
Not only will the Department of Defense modernize, but every part of the government will adopt new technologies.
Security is a priority for this administration after its legitimacy was questioned due to alleged nefarious Russian involvement.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has buckled down rejecting a myriad of attempted foreign takeovers of cutting-edge tech companies stressing the need to properly harness local tech companies' ingenuity to the benefit of the country.
These new opportunities do not affect the already $1 billion per quarter that Alphabet (GOOGL) takes in from government servicing.
The $1 billion contract was given to Alphabet to develop the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team industrially working on Project Maven.
Project Maven is the Department of Defense's attempt to integrate A.I. and machine learning into motion detector technology applied to surveillance drones using the Google cloud.
Project Maven received an additional boost to its objectives with an additional $100 million cash injection recently underlining the government's efforts to make warfare more efficient and less expensive.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has also carved out a nice $5 billion per quarter business thanks to the power brokers in Washington.
Another side deal consummated recently has thrust Microsoft into the frame as well.
Microsoft (MSFT) agreed with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to service 17 intelligence agencies with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
The deal was reported to be valued at "hundreds of million" of dollars.
Another separate deal agreed by both parties has Microsoft migrating another 3.4 million users and 4 million devices from the Department of Defense into the cloud.
All told, Microsoft has pulled in more than $1.3 billion of orders from the government in the past five years.
Bill Gates's old company was rewarded certification to supply the government with computers, operating systems, Microsoft Office, and the cloud services bolstering their credentials to potentially extract more government business.
The administration has adopted a winner takes all approach to the JEDI contract preferring one cloud provider to maintain the infrastructure.
Companies are scratching and clawing to get within a shout of winning this valuable revenue stream that could extrapolate down the road.
JEDI accounts for just 20% of the cloud possibilities for the tech companies in the government system.
The further 80% of digitization will happen down the road.
Firms are up in arms about the single platform solution and believe branching out to multiple platforms will come in use if part of the operation goes down.
Hybrid solutions are the norm for 80% of Fortune 500 companies.
As it is, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Oracle (ORCL), Alphabet, Amazon (AMZN), and Microsoft have been adamant that they are the best candidates for the job.
Amazon has been on a one-man mission mobilizing its all-star team of lobbyists to gain an edge.
Amazon has been part of the government's purse strings for quite some time.
It was awarded a $600 million contract in 2013.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis spoke about the relationship with Amazon in glowing terms characterizing Amazon's performance as "impressive" in terms of securing data and functionality.
The positive Amazon feedback has given AWS a head start. It hopes to capitalize on the biggest transfer of data to the cloud in modern history.
Once completed, departments will at last be able to access files from different branches on the same platform. This process is currently done manually.
Quickening the pace of modernization is a prerogative for the new administration.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to spur on the process of getting rid of the decaying system.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner has also been an advocate of the agonizing overhaul.
This bold initiative ties in well with enhancing cybersecurity inside Washington at a time when hackers have penetrated legacy systems with ease.
Getting the White House up and running will improve the operation of the government. From an investor's point of view, it will add materially to the bottom line of companies that start to win more contracts.
This underscores the reliance of our government and economy on the large cap tech companies that are single-handedly propping up the current bull market.
The White House will wake up one day and understand that technology innovation is more powerful than ever, and even the mayhem inside the White House can't stop the digitization of politics.
Going forward Amazon and Microsoft should get a healthy boost to their overflowing coffers. Legacy companies such as IBM and Oracle could be punished by the government as well as investors for being legacy companies, which could lead the government to pass over IBM and Oracle.
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." - said Michael Dell in 1997, the founder of Dell Technologies, when asked what he would do if he was in charge of Apple.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Trump-and-people-image-4-e1526679142910.jpg272580MHFTRhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMHFTR2018-05-21 01:05:542018-05-21 01:05:54Here's the Biggest Technology Contract in History
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
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2018-05-18 09:41:012018-05-18 09:41:01May 18, 2018 - MDT Pro Tips A.M.
Come join me for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader's Global Strategy Updates, which I will be conducting in and around the U.S. during the week of June 11-15, 2018. For exact dates, please look at the listing calendar below.
Each luncheon will include an excellent meal followed by a wide-ranging discussion and an extended question-and-answer period.
I'll be giving you my up-to-date view on stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I'll be throwing a few surprises out there, too.
I'll be arriving at 11:30 AM, and leaving late in case anyone wants to have a one-on-one discussion, or just sit around and chew the fat about the financial markets.
Each lunch will be held at an exclusive downtown private club. The precise location 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, click on our online store.
LUNCHEONS:
MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2018, FORT WORTH, TX, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2018, NEW ORLEANS, LA, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2018, PHILADELPHIA, PA, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON
THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2018, NEW YORK, NY, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2018, DENVER, CO, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/John-Thomas-story-2-image-e1525989069793.jpg377250MHFTRhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMHFTR2018-05-18 01:05:372018-05-18 01:05:37Come Meet John Thomas at His Global Strategy Luncheons
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
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2018-05-17 09:32:552018-05-17 09:32:55May 17, 2018 - MDT Pro Tips A.M.
There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading. Past results are not indicative of future returns. MadHedgeFundTrader.com and all individuals affiliated with this site assume no responsibilities for your trading and investment results. The indicators, strategies, columns, articles and all other features are for educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Information for futures trading observations are obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but we do not warrant its completeness or accuracy, or warrant any results from the use of the information. Your use of the trading observations is entirely at your own risk and it is your sole responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of the information. You must assess the risk of any trade with your broker and make your own independent decisions regarding any securities mentioned herein. Affiliates of MadHedgeFundTrader.com may have a position or effect transactions in the securities described herein (or options thereon) and/or otherwise employ trading strategies that may be consistent or inconsistent with the provided strategies.
