I think it’s time for me to go out on strike. I’m downing my tools, tearing up my punch card, and manning a picket line.

I get up at 5:00 AM every morning, well before the sun rises here on the west coast, looking for great low-risk high return trades. But for the last several weeks, there have been none, nada, bupkiss.

I have gotten spoiled over the last few years. The financial crisis, pandemic, recovery, and banking crisis provided me with an endless cornucopia of trading opportunities which doubled my average annualized return from 24% to a nosebleed 48.94%.

Part of the problem is that with a success rate of 90%, so much of the market is now copying my trades so that they are getting harder to execute. That wasn’t a problem when markets were booming. It is when trading volumes have shrunk dramatically, as they have done this year.

At The Economist magazine in London whenever plagiarism was discovered,  they used to say that “Imitation is the sincerest former of flattery.”

There is no doubt that the economy is weakening, as the data has definitively shown over the last two weeks. It appears that after 500 basis points in interest rate rises in a year, the Fed’s harsh medicine is finally starting to work. The debt ceiling crisis, and regional banking crisis are scaring more investors further to the sidelines.

Notice how every stock market rally has become increasingly short-lived? Which all raises a heightened risk of recession.

Economies are like families. All are happy for the same reasons but are unhappy in myriad different ways.

In fact, they provide a generous helping of alphabet soup. If you look very closely, you can find some bay leaves, oregano, black pepper, and lots of V’s, W’s, U’s, and L’s.

Now, let’s play a game and see who can pick the letter that most accurately portrays the current economic outlook.

Here is a code key:

V – The very sharp collapse we saw in 2008 and again in 2020 is followed by an equally sharp recovery. I think it is safe to say we can now toss that one out the window. With technology hyper-accelerating, it is safe to write off the “V” recovery scenario.

W – The sharp recovery that began in October 2022 fails and we see a double dip back to those lows.

U – The economy stays at the bottom for a long time before it finally recovers.

L – The economy collapses and never recovers.

The question is, in which of these forecasts should we invest our hard-earned cash?

For a start, you can throw out the “L”. Every recession flushes out a lot  of financial Cassandras who predict the economy will never recover. They are always wrong. Usually, they know more about marketing newsletters than economics.

I believe what we are seeing play out right now is the “W” scenario. This is the best possible scenario for traders, as it calls for a summer correction in the stock market when we can load the boat a second time. If you missed the October low you will get a second bite of the Apple (AAPL), both literally and figuratively.

If I’m wrong, we will get a “U”, a longer recovery. This cannot be dismissed lightly as the unemployment rate is clearly about to rise.

If I limited the outlook to only four possible scenarios, I’d be kidding you. The truth is far more complicated.

Each industry gets its own letter of the alphabet. Technology, some 27% of total stock market capitalization, gets no letter at all because it is thriving, thanks to the explosion of AI applications. That explains the single-minded pursuit of big tech by investors since January.

Someone asked me last week how long I would continue trading and I cited the example of Warren Buffett, who at 92 is 21 years older than me.

I have since found a better example.

Former Secretary of State under Nixon, Henry Kissinger, turns 100 this week, the only man in the world who President Biden, Vladimir Putin, and President Xi Jinping would immediately take a call from.

During the shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Egypt in 1974, I rode with the Secretary on Air Force One, then an antiquated Boeing 727, which is now in a museum in Seattle. For the rest of that story see below.

He gave me “Henry” privileges, while everyone else had to address him as “Mr. Secretary” because my knowledge of history exceeded that of anyone else then in the White House Press Corps, even those who had degrees in the subject.

It also helped that at that point I had already had six years of experience on the ground in the Middle East. It was all heady stuff for a journalist who at 22 was just starting out.

So, that sets the bar higher for me. The good news for you is that I’ll be sending out my wit, wisdom, and trade alerts for at least another 29 years.

So far in May, I have managed a modest +1.70% profit. My 2023 year-to-date performance is now at an eye-popping +63.45%. The S&P 500 (SPY) is up only a miniscule +8.15% so far in 2023. My trailing one-year return reached a 15-year high at +122.11% versus +6.70% for the S&P 500.

That brings my 15-year total return to +660.64%. My average annualized return has blasted up to +48.94%, another new high, some 2.80 times the S&P 500 over the same period.

Some 41 of my 44 trades this year have been profitable. My last 21 consecutive trade alerts have been profitable.

I initiated only one new trade last week, a long in Tesla (TSLA). That leaves me with my two remaining positions. Those include longs in Tesla and the bond market (TLT), which expires this coming Friday. I now have a very rare 80% cash position due to the lack of high-return, low-risk trades.

Treasury Secretary Yellen Warns of Economic Catastrophe, if the debt ceiling is not raised. Congress has voted 98 times to raise the debt ceiling to $31 trillion over 106 years to pay for money already spent. One-third of this was under the previous president who back then warned that he would default. It’s a grasp for power the House just doesn’t have. There really isn’t such a thing as a debt ceiling which has gained an importance far beyond its original housekeeping intention.

Boeing Lands Blockbuster 300 Plane Order, from Ireland’s Ryan Air worth $40 billion. Europe’s Top budget air carrier is loading up on the once troubled 737 MAX. Keeping buying (BA) on dips, now the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer.

CPI Hits 4.9% YOY, after the 0.40% report for April. It’s still headed in the right direction as far as the Fed is concerned and puts a September cut on the table. Eggs were the leader, up 21.4%, while fuel oil is the laggard, down 20.2%. My own 4% inflation rate forecast by yearend is starting to look conservative. Perish the thought!

The Oil Collapse is Signaling a Recession, as is weakness in all other commodities, even lithium. Texas tea has plunged 22% I three weeks to a new two year low at $62. It’s one of the worst performing asset classes of 2023. Widespread EV adoption is finally making a big dent, as are the price wars there. OPEC Plus production cuts were unable to stem the decline. Buy (USO) on dips as an economic recovery play.

Is a Bank Short Selling Ban Coming? The Feds could bar hedge funds from launching raids on small regional bank shares with the aim of taking them to zero. Such a ban was enforced for all banks in 2008.

Elon Musk Appoints New Twitter CEO, removing a major management distraction. Linda Yaccarino is the new CEO of Twitter, poached from her from online advertising at NBC. This is a positive for Tesla, as it frees up the heavy burden of turning around Twitter from Musk, allowing him to devote more time to Tesla. It also reduced the risk that Musk will sell more Tesla shares to finance said turnaround. Guess who just got the worst job in the world? Buy (TSLA) on dips.

Weekly Jobless Claims jump to 264,000, a new 18 month high, providing another recession indicator.

US Budget Deficit Shrinks to $1.5 Trillion, down from a $3 trillion peak during the previous administration. Government Bond selling will drop by a similar amount. That’s still up $130 billion from 2022. Increased tax revenues from a recovering economy is the reason. Buy (TLT) on every dip.

Google Ramps Up AI Effort, launching a new suite of AI tools at its annual developer conference. With a 93% market share in online search (GOOGL) has a lot to defend. The stock popped 4% on the news.

FANGS to Rise 50% by Yearend, says Fundstrat’s ultra-bull Tom Lee. I think he’s right, once the debt ceiling debacle gets out of the way. The contribution of AI is being vastly underestimated.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B) Earnings Soar, with operating earnings up 12.6% in Q1, but Warren Buffet expects business to slow. Many companies now have to unwind big pandemic inventories with aggressive sales, crimping inflation. That’s why Berkshire owns $130 billion in cash and Treasury bills.

My Ten Year View

On Monday, May 15 at 7:30 AM EST the NY Emore State Manufacturing Index is out.

On Tuesday, May 16 at 6:00 AM, Retail Sales are announced.

On Wednesday, May 17 at 11:00 AM the US Building Permits are printed.

On Thursday, May 18 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. We also get the Producer.

On Friday, May 19 at 2:00 PM the University of Baker Hughes Rig Count is released.  

As for me, Egypt and I have a long history together. However, when I first visited there in 1974, they tried to kill me.

I was accompanying US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Air Force One as part of his “shuttle diplomacy” between Tel Aviv and Cairo. Every Arab terrorist organization had vowed to shoot our plane down.

When we hit the runway in Cairo, I looked out the window and saw a dozen armored personnel carriers chasing us just down the runway. All on board suddenly got that queasy, gut-churning feeling, except for Henry.

When the plane stopped, they surrounded us, then turned around, pointing their guns outward. They were there to protect us.

The sighs of relief were audible. In a lifetime of heart-rending landings, this was certainly one of the most interesting ones. Those State Department people are such wimps! Henry was nonplussed, as usual.

As a result of the talks Israel eventually handed back Sinai in return for an American guarantee of peace which has held to this day. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated by his own bodyguard for his efforts shortly afterwards.

Israel was so opposed to the talks that when I traveled to Tel Aviv, El Al Airline security made sure my luggage got lost. So the Israeli airline gave me $25 to buy replacement clothes until my suitcase was delivered. On that budget, all I could afford were the surplus Israeli army fatigues at the Jerusalem flea market.

A week later, my clothes still had not caught up with me when I boarded the plane with Henry. That meant walking the streets of Cairo in my Israeli army uniform. It would be an understatement to say that I attracted a lot of attention.

I was besieged with offers to buy my clothes. Egypt had lost four wars against Israel in the previous 30 years, and war souvenirs were definitely in short supply.

By the time I left the country, I was stripped bare of all Israeli artifacts, down to my towels from the Tel Aviv Hilton, and boarded the British Airways flight to London wearing a cheap pair of Russian blue jeans I had taken in trade.

Levi Strauss never had a thing to worry about.

The bewitching North African country today is still a prisoner of a medieval religion that has left its people stranded in the Middle Ages. While its GDP has doubled in the last 70 years, so has its population, to 110 million, meaning there has been no improvement per capital income at all in a half century. That is a staggering number for a country that is mostly desert.

In 2019, I took my two teenaged daughters to Egypt to visit the pyramids and ride camels as part of an impromptu trip around the world. My logic then was that at the current rate of climate change, this trip might not be possible in five years.

As it turns out, it was not possible in six months when the pandemic started.

We were immediately picked up by Egyptian Intelligence right at the gate who remembered exactly who I was. It seems they never throw anything out in Egypt.

After a brief interrogation where I disclosed my innocent intentions, they released us. No, I wasn’t working for The Economist anymore. Yes, I was just a retired old man with his children. They even gave us a free ride to the Nile Hilton where I spent my first honeymoon in 1977.

Some people will believe anything! And I never did get that suitcase back.Good luck and good trading!

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

2019 Over Sinai