Global Market Comments
January 30, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE HARD TRUTH BEHIND BUYING IN NOVEMBER),
(NOTICE TO MILITARY SUBSCRIBERS)
Long-time Mad Hedge followers who watched the market take off like a rocket on October 26 weren’t surprised.
That’s because I am a big fan of buying straw hats in the dead of winter and umbrellas in the sizzling heat of the summer. I even load up on Christmas ornaments every January when they go on sale for ten cents on the dollar.
There IS a method to my madness.
If I had a nickel for every time that I heard the term “Sell in May and go away,” I could retire. The flip side of that is just as valuable, “Buy in November and stand pat.”
Oops, I already am retired!
In any case, I thought that I would dig out the hard numbers and see how true this old trading adage is.
It turns out that it is far more powerful than I imagined. According to the data in the Stock Trader’s Almanac, $10,000 invested at the beginning of May and sold at the end of October every year since 1950 would be showing a loss today.
Amazingly, $10,000 invested every November 1 and sold at the end of April would today be worth $702,000, giving you a compound annual return of 7.10%!
This is despite the fact that the Dow Average rocketed from $409 to $38,000 during the same time period, a gain of a staggering 92.90 times!
My friends at the research house, NASDAQ Dorsey, Wright, who run a pretty powerful technical service of their own, (click here for their site) have parsed the data even further.
Since 2000, the Dow has managed a feeble annual return of only 5%, while the long winter/short summer strategy generated a stunning 64%.
Of the 72 years under study, the market was down in 25 May-October periods, but negative in only 13 of the November-April periods, and down only three times in the last 24 years!
There have been just three times when the "good 6 months" have lost more than 10% (1969, 1973, and 2008), but with the "bad six-month" time period, there have been 11 losing efforts of 10% or more.
Being a long-time student of the American, and indeed, the global economy, I have long had a theory behind the regularity of this cycle.
It’s enough to base a pagan religion around, like the once-practicing Druids at Stonehenge.
Up until the 1920s, we had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. Farmers were always at maximum financial distress in the fall, when their outlays for seed, fertilizer, and labor were the greatest, but they had yet to earn any income from the sale of their crops.
So they had to borrow all at once, placing a large cash call on the financial system as a whole. This is why we have seen so many stock market crashes in October. Once the system swallows this lump, it’s nothing but green lights for six months.
After the cycle was set and easily identifiable by low-end computer algorithms, the trend became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, it may be disturbing to learn that we ardent stock market practitioners might in fact be the high priests of a strange set of beliefs. But hey, some people will do anything to outperform the market.
It is important to remember that this cyclicality is not 100% accurate, and you know the one time you bet the ranch, it won’t work. But you really have to wonder what investors expect when buying stocks at these elevated levels, over $488 in the S&P 500 (SPY).
Will company earnings multiples further expand from 18 to 19 or 20? Will the GDP suddenly reaccelerate from a 2% rate to the 4% expected by share prices when the daily sentiment indicators are pointing in the opposite direction?
I can’t wait to see how this one plays out.
My Sources for Stock Tips is Interstellar
"The time to worry about the Fed is not when they go from accommodative to neutral, it is when they go from neutral to tight," said Bill Miller, the legendary former chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason Capital Management.
(MSFT), (IBM), (SAP), (GOOGL)
Let's take a whirlwind tour of the AI landscape, but with a twist – we're looking at it through the lens of global economics.
Imagine two worlds: one, where countries like the U.S. and Denmark are throwing a swanky party for AI, rolling out the red carpet and popping champagne.
Then there's the other world, the one that's not on the guest list. We're talking about low-income countries, where introducing AI feels more like hiking uphill with a backpack full of bricks.
Here's a number that blew my mind: according to the World Bank, 3.7 billion people are still not online. This isn't just a gap; it's like the Grand Canyon of the digital world, and it's putting a major damper on the whole AI fiesta.
But don't lose hope yet. We've got some big players stepping up to the plate, ready to knock this digital divide out of the park. Initiatives like Artificial Intelligence for Development (AI4D) are cropping up, aiming to sprinkle a bit of AI magic in neighborhoods that need it most.
Take Microsoft (MSFT), for example. They're not just dipping their toes in; they're diving in headfirst with their AI for Good projects.
Think Project Red, using AI to protect wildlife and map diseases – it's like giving Mother Nature her own superhero suit. They're covering a whopping 800,000 square kilometers of wildlife habitat in Africa. And that's just the beginning.
Then there's the m-Tulip project, helping Kenyan farmers bump up their maize yields by a nifty 20% with AI-driven weather forecasts. Who knew AI could be a farmer's new best friend?
Let's not forget about AI for Climate Action. These guys are on a mission to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 5 billion tons by 2030. That's like taking a billion cars off the road.
Microsoft's also pouring $44 million into 31 projects across Africa with the 4Africa Initiative and offering discounted Azure services to over 85,000 nonprofits and academic institutions globally through Cloud for Good.
And get this: they're aiming to bring internet access to 25 million people in Africa by 2025 with the Airband Initiative.
But it's not just Microsoft in this AI-for-good crusade. IBM (IBM) is also throwing their hat in the ring with projects like Watson for Development and AI for Climate.
These aren't just small-time projects; they're helping manage water resources in over 15 countries and boosting agricultural yields for 120,000 farmers in India by 30%. Talk about AI being a game-changer for the green thumbs.
IBM's also got some cool stuff like Project Air-Locate, sniffing out methane emissions with AI and satellite data, and the One Planet AI Network, rallying the troops for climate action AI solutions. Their Environmental Intelligence Suite is also handing out AI tools to businesses to be more resource-savvy and environmentally friendly.
Now, let's pivot to SAP SE (SAP). They're rolling out AI-powered solutions for agriculture and disaster management in developing countries – showing that AI can indeed be a force for good.
Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Google's parent company, is making waves with a $1 billion investment in Africa. This is big – like nearly 1% of their 2023 market cap big. They're betting big on Africa's digital future, spread across five years.
Google isn't just throwing money around; they're building bridges. By providing affordable access and developing localized tools, they're eyeing an extra $180 billion for the African internet economy by 2025. That's like finding a treasure chest at the end of a rainbow.
Alphabet's cloud services are set to be a game-changer for African businesses, ramping up their productivity and competitiveness. This isn't just a business move; it's a strategic play to be at the forefront of Africa's digital revolution.
The upcoming Google Cloud region in South Africa? It's more than just a new office. It's a commitment to the continent, expected to add $2.1 billion to South Africa's GDP and create over 40,000 jobs by 2030.
And here's the cherry on top: supporting nonprofits using AI for healthcare, education, and agriculture isn't just for good PR; it's genuinely making a difference in people's lives.
So, while some might see the AI race as a solo sprint, for developing countries, it's turning into a relay race, with these tech giants passing the baton.
It's a win-win: the countries get a digital leg up, and the companies expand their global footprint. Now that's what I call playing the AI game with style on the global stage.
For all you investors and AI enthusiasts out there, here's the deal: the future of AI isn't just in the tech hubs; it's happening in fields, classrooms, and communities worldwide. This is an invitation to be part of this transformation, to invest not just in technology, but in a vision of a more connected, empowered world. Let's not just be spectators; let's jump into the game and make a difference.
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
January 29, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE DATA CENTER STOCK READERS SHOULD LOOK AT)
(EQIX)
Equinix (EQIX) is a tech company from Redwood City, California that specializes in building data centers.
That corner of technology is definitely where the growth is.
Everybody and anybody has heard a few things about this ongoing AI boom and remembers this secular trend hinges on the explosion of data and its incredible volume of it.
The processing of data requires data centers much like the processing of driver's licenses requires the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
It’s not a surprise that the intense demand for data has meant a monumental need to supply new data centers and EQIX exists to deliver that new supply.
EQIX has performed admirably recently with solid revenue growth, a strong forward pipeline, and continued optimism about a differentiated ability to deliver compelling value to shareholders.
In the last quarter, they consummated 4,200 deals across more than 3,100 customers, including record numbers from high-value targeted customers.
EQIX was also able to upsell these companies on data center services, and digital services offerings, all coming together to address the evolving demands.
On the AI front, EQIX continues to cultivate and win significant opportunities across its existing customer base and with AI-specific prospects.
A recent Gartner poll found that 55% of organizations are in pilot or production mode with generative AI.
This is manifesting in accelerated interest from both enterprise customers and from emerging service providers looking to service this demand.
I am witnessing strong similarities between the evolving AI demand and the multi-tiered architectures that have characterized cloud build-out for the past eight years.
I think EQIX is perfectly positioned to capture high-value opportunities across the AI value chain along various key vectors.
First, in the retail business, EQIX will aggressively pursue magnetic AI service provider deployments to support on-ramps and smaller-scale training needs.
EQIX is well positioned here with nearly 40% market share of the on-ramps to the major cloud service providers, key players in the AI ecosystem.
Second, EQIX will meaningfully augment its advanced portfolio of specific data centers, including in North America to pursue strategic large-scale AI training deployments with the top hyperscalers and other key AI ecosystem players, including the potential to serve highly targeted enterprise demand.
I expect a build-out of data centers in retail campuses like the newly announced Silicon Valley 12x asset while other builds will be larger-scale campuses in locations with access to significant power capacity.
I also anticipate a dramatic acceleration in workloads and see Equinix as well positioned to deliver performance and economic benefits derived from network density and cloud adjacency.
While still early, I am seeing broad-based demand for private AI from digital leaders with specific wins in the transportation, education, public sector, and healthcare verticals, including Harrison.ai, a clinician-led healthcare artificial intelligence company that is dedicated to addressing the inequality and capacity limitations in the US healthcare system, by developing AI-powered tools in radiology and pathology.
Recurring revenues from customers deployed in more than one region stepped up 1% quarter over quarter to 77% as customers continued to move to more distributed architectures.
The brilliance of EQIX is that revenue is not a one-off event and companies will return with new data center needs.
If a company is not incorporating the processing of additional data, it most likely means they are not growing revenue.
This gives EQIX the chance to partner with high-quality companies that are at the heart of the digital transformation.
EQIX’s stock speaks volumes about where the company is as the stock has doubled in the past 5 years. They also deliver a 2.10% dividend to shareholders. I believe readers need to buy big dips and hold long-term in EQIX.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Said Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs
(A WEALTH OF NEWS WILL HIT WALL STREET THIS WEEK)
January 29, 2024
Hello everyone,
Welcome to the last few days of January 2024. Hope you are all doing well.
Calendar for the week ahead
ET Times
Monday, Jan 29.
10:30 a.m. Dallas Fed Index
Japan Unemployment Rate
Previous: 2.5%
Time: 6:30 pm ET
Earnings: Whirlpool
Tuesday, Jan 30
9:00 a.m. FHFA Home Price Index (November)
9:00 a.m. S&P/Case Shiller comp. 20 HPI (November)
10:00 a.m. Consumer Confidence (January)
10:00 a.m. JOLTS Job Openings (December)
Australia Inflation Rate
Previous: 5.4%
Time: 7:30 pm ET
Earnings: Marathon Petroleum, United Parcel Service, General Motors, Pfizer, Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Starbucks, Microsoft.
Wednesday, Jan 31
8:15 a.m. ADP Employment Survey (January)
8:30 a.m. ECI Civilian Workers (Q4)
9:45 a.m. Chicago PMI (January)
2:00 p.m. FOMC Meeting: Previous 5.5%
2:00 p.m. Fed Funds Target Upper Bound
Earnings: Boeing, Mastercard, Qualcomm
Thursday, Feb 1
8:30 a.m. Continuing Jobless Claims (1/20)
8:30 a.m. Initial Claims (1/27)
8:30 a.m. Unit Labour Costs preliminary (Q4)
8:30 a.m. Productivity preliminary (Q4)
9:45 a.m. Markit PMI Manufacturing final (January)
10:00 a.m. Construction Spending (December)
10:00 a.m. ISM Manufacturing (January)
UK Interest Rate Decision
Previous: 5.25%
Time: 7:00 am ET
Earnings: Meta Platforms, Amazon, Apple, Royal Caribbean, Clorox.
Friday, Feb 2
8:30 a.m. Jobs report (January) Previous: 216k.
10:00 a.m. Durable Orders (December)
10:00 a.m. Factory Orders (December)
10:00 a.m. Michigan Sentiment final (January)
Earnings: Chevron, Exxon Mobil
All eyes will be on Wall Street this week.
Earnings season is well and truly upon us and most of the so-called Magnificent Seven are reporting this week. (Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft)
The latest Federal Reserve monetary policy decision is heard on Wednesday. Investors believe the Fed will keep rates on hold, and there now seems to be an expectation that any rate cut won’t be delivered until June. By that time, we are likely to have softer inflation numbers and even more softening in the labor market. The data is continuing to confirm the downside trend in inflation.
Jobs Report on Friday. This will clue us all in on whether the labor market is continuing to cool, and Friday’s report is expected to confirm this. The unemployment rate is expected to have ticked up to 3.8%, from 3.7% previously.
Investors are seeking signs of a broadening rally this year, and there seems to be some palpable concern. What if the broader market doesn’t catch up to the mega-cap stocks? Is this an indication that the rally won’t last? Have the mega-caps run too hard too fast on artificial intelligence dreams? Let’s patiently wait for the reports. I am still confident in the bull market – long-term.
All eyes on the earnings picture.
Earnings aside for a moment.
We all know the Magnificent 7 has been all the rage lately. But there are other technology stocks worthy of our attention. The Invesco NASDAQ Next Gen 100 ETF (QQQJ) tracks the next biggest 100 Nasdaq stocks after the Nasdaq 100 – Nasdaq stocks Nos: 101 to 200. This ETF shows a good technical setup.
If stocks are to track higher from here, the areas that haven’t broken out yet could very well play catch up. I’m talking about areas within technology, but also other sectors as well.
Let’s look at the (QQQJ) holdings and see how it compares to the Nasdaq 100 (NDX)
The QQQJ and the NDX (Nasdaq 100) are similar in a few ways.
# Technology is their biggest weight for both.
# The top five sectors represent 90% of both.
But as you can see from the chart here the NDX is very top-heavy and the QQQJ is not.
Six stocks in the NDX have weightings of at least 4%, while the biggest weight in QQQJ is MPWR at 2.2%. The top 10 NDX stocks represent nearly 46% of the entire index. The top 10 within QQQJ are just 16%. So, we could easily argue that QQQJ gives investors a more balanced exposure to its holdings than QQQ does.
OK, I imagine some of you might not know what the QQQJ ticker symbols stand for, so here is a quick brief.
MPWR Monolithic Power Systems
TSCO Tractor Supply Co.
SMCI Super Micro Computer Inc.
ULTA Ulta Beauty Inc. (largest beauty retailer in the U.S.)
ALNY Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.
ICLR ICON PLC. (Irish headquartered Nasdaq listed multinational healthcare intelligence and clinical research organization that provides consulting, clinical development, and commercialization services for the pharmaceutical industry.)
JBHT J.B. Hunt Transport Services
EBAY eBay Inc.
PTC PTC Inc. (helps companies achieve their digital transformation goals)
VRSN Verisign Inc. (based in Virginia U.S. & operates a diverse array of network infrastructure & is a provider of domain name registry services.
So, now we have a bit of background, let’s talk about the chart patterns – the technical setup.
The QQQJ is looking very attractive here and could be close to a breakout through a multi-year trading range. This pattern – which represents a bullish cup and handle – dates all the way back to the spring of 2022 (blue). Because of the range being so extended, another bullish formation has taken shape within it: a second cup and handle pattern that started at the July ’23 high (green). On the chart here the upside targets are near 33 and 32, respectively. Buy a small parcel of the ETF and hold for an upside breakout.
A Mackay patrolled beach.
A Coolangatta (Gold Coast) patrolled beach
Cheers,
Jacquie
“Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” - Jim Rohn
Global Market Comments
January 29, 2024
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?)
(SPY), (TLT), ($VIX), (MSFT), (META), (GOOGL),
(AMZN), (NVDA), (V), (PANW), (CCJ)
There can be too much of a good thing.
Inflation is dramatically falling, with Core PCE down to an amazing 2.6% YOY rate in December. At the same time, GDP growth came in at an incredible 3.3% in Q4 and 2.5% for all of 2023. The long-term average is 3.0%. It’s about as close to a Goldilocks scenario as we’ll ever get.
The problem arises when the economy gets TOO healthy right when the Fed is considering its first interest rate CUTS in four years. That could lead our nation’s central bank to postpone cuts or not to announce them at all.
That would suddenly put the three-month-old bull market on ice, perhaps indefinitely, which has given us one of the worst whipsaw markets I have ever seen. Sector leadership has changed three times so far in 2024. First, there was the AI 5, (MSFT), (META), (GOOGL), (AMZN), and (NVDA). Next came stocks that benefit the most from falling interest rates, financials, precious metals, base metals, industrials, bonds, and foreign currencies.
To say this would be a tough market to trade would be an understatement, evidenced by my multiple stop losses this month. The remedy for this is to shrink your portfolio, sit back, and wait for the market to tell you what to do. I have to say that with the Volatility Index ($VIX) camped out at the $12 handle, options are not offering a lot for you to chew on either.
If you are looking for any further proof that technology is accelerating far faster than we can understand, I shall recall for your edification my last weekend.
After my youngest went off to college, I had to get her headboard refinished because she spent two years in bed looking at her computer while enrolled in high school during COVID-19. She had completely worn the finish off but got all A’s.
So I went to Yelp to look for a furniture restoration business. I clicked on one restorer who had good reviews and lots of pictures, described the job, and included pictures. Within 60 seconds, I received not one bid for the job but four, as Yelp had put the job out for bid across its entire network. One offered to do the job the next day for $100.
Learning how easy it is to refinish furniture, I put a second job out for bid, a small beat-up desk which I picked up at an estate sale for $20. I learned that this was a 100-year-old Craftsman desk highly sought after by collectors worth $2,500. Absolutely, yes, it was worth the $750 cost of a total stripped-down restoration.
I’m thinking “poor furniture restorers”, but what they are losing in the price, they make up in volume. Their craft is in fact a dying one and they can charge whatever they want.
And now you know why I go to estate sales.
What kind of homework is my daughter getting these days? As a Computer Science major at the University of California, she was handed a box of calculators smashed with a hammer. Over a weekend, she was required to invent a tool that identified the good chips from the bad, write code to reprogram the chips, and then glue the good calculators back together.
By Sunday afternoon she had a box full of working but somewhat ugly calculators, thanks to my donation of Gorilla Glue. And this for a sophomore! Needless to say, I didn’t see much of my daughter last weekend, except when she came downstairs to do her laundry.
Next week, they have to fix cell phones.
Gulp! I doubt I could even get into the UC today, even though I graduated Magna Cum Laude 50 years ago. Such is life with college students.
Watch out! The future is happening fast!
So far in January, we are down -4.33%. My 2024 year-to-date performance is also at -4.33%. The S&P 500 (SPY) is up +1.14% so far in 2024. My trailing one-year return reached +54.54% versus +21.14% for the S&P 500.
That brings my 15-year total return to +672.30%. My average annualized return has retreated to +51.06%.
Some 63 of my 70 trades last year were profitable in 2023.
I am maintaining longs in (MSFT), (AMZN), (V), (PANW), and (CCJ).
US GDP Rocketed by 2.5% in 2023, cementing its position as the strongest major economy in the world. Q4 came in at a hot 3.3%. We’re going from soft landing to no landing at all. Unfortunately, the report also put our bond trade to sleep.
Inflation Falls, with the Core PCE index easing to 2.9% last month, the lowest since 2021. That’s in the face of consumer spending posting the biggest back-to-back increase in nearly a year. This is very positive for bond bulls. Buy (TLT) LEAPS on dips.
The Roaring Twenties are Back, says investment guru and old friend Ed Yardeni. He draws parallels with the runaway stock prices that followed the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed millions. Of course, you had a 10:1 margin during the twenties which made speculation much easier. Are same-day options any worse?
New Homes Sales Recover, on a falling interest rate push, up 8.0% to 664,000. Sales, however, can be volatile on a month-to-month basis. Sales increased 4.4% on a year-on-year basis in December.
Netflix Soars on Big Subscriber Beat, up 8.6% on an add of 13 million new subscribers. It moved solidly into more sports content with the World Wrestling Entertainment deal. Buy (NFLX) on dips, which clearly won the streaming wars. I can’t get enough of The Rock, who is a genuinely nice guy.
Microsoft Tops $3 Trillion Valuation, cementing its hold on the AI lead. (MSFT) has been a top Mad hedge holding for years which we are currently long. Buy (MSFT) on dips which may have another $100 in it this year.
Freeport McMoRan Kills it, with an earnings upside blowout, taking the stock up 5%. CEO Richard Adkerson, a long-time Mad Hedge subscriber, says any problems are short-term. Political problems in Chile and Peru are an issue, which generates 40% of the world’s copper. Electrification of the US economy will continue to be a driving theme.
Mortgage Rates Plunge to 8-Month Low. The average fixed-rate 30-year mortgage fell to 6.60% as of Thursday from 6.66% the week prior, Freddie Mac said in its weekly report on home loan borrowing costs. The next Golden Age of Housing is here.
China Markets Dive, on news that the central bank was forced into the currency markets to support the yuan. Stock markets didn’t like it a bit, down 2.7% on the day. Overseas funds have sold roughly $1.6 billion in Chinese equities so far this year, with investor confidence bruised by signs of a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. Offshore yuan tomorrow-next forwards jumped to a more than two-month high of 4.25 points late on Monday, reflecting signs of tighter liquidity conditions. Avoid China (FXI) like some stale egg foo young.
“Oppenheimer” Sweeps the Oscars, with a record 13 nominations. It’s a movie where I knew half the characters in real life from my work at the Nuclear Test site in Nevada. It was another opportunity to discuss advanced nuclear physics over dinner with my kids. Click here for the full list. The winners will be announced on March 10.
My Ten-Year View
When we come out the other side of the recession, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age or the next Roaring Twenties. The economy decarbonizing and technology hyper accelerating, creating enormous investment opportunities. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The new America will be far more efficient and profitable than the old.
Dow 240,000 here we come!
On Monday, January 29, the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index was announced.
On Tuesday, January 30 at 8:30 AM EST, the S&P Case Shiller National Home Price Index is released. We also get the JOLTS Job Openings Report.
On Wednesday, January 31 at 2:00 PM, the ADP Private Jobs Opening Report is published. The Federal Reserve announces its interest rate decision.
On Thursday, February 1 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.
On Friday, February 2 at 2:30 PM, the December Nonfarm Payroll Report and Unemployment Rate is published. At 2:00 PM the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, I received calls from six readers last week saying I remind them of Ernest Hemingway. This, no doubt, was the result of Ken Burns’ excellent documentary about the Nobel prize-winning writer on PBS last week.
It is no accident.
My grandfather drove for the Italian Red Cross on the Alpine front during WWI, where Hemingway got his start, so we had a connection right there.
Since I read Hemingway’s books in my mid-teens I decided I wanted to be him and became a war correspondent. In those days, you traveled by ship a lot, leaving ample time to finish off his complete work.
I visited his homes in Key West, Florida, and Ketchum, Idaho. His Cuban residence is high on my list, now that Castro is gone. His home in Cuba is on the menu.
I used to stay in the Hemingway Suite at the Ritz Hotel on Place Vendome in Paris where he lived during WWII. I had drinks at the Hemingway Bar downstairs where war correspondent Ernest shot a German colonel in the face at point-blank range. I still have the ashtrays.
Harry’s Bar in Venice, a Hemingway favorite, was a regular stopping-off point for me. I have those ashtrays too.
I even dated his granddaughter from his first wife, Hadley, the movie star Mariel Hemingway, before she got married, and when she was still being pursued by Robert de Niro and Woody Allen. Some genes skip generations and she was a dead ringer for her grandfather. She was the only Playboy centerfold I ever went out with. We still keep in touch.
So, I’ll spend the weekend watching Farewell to Arms….again, after I finish my writing.
Oh, and if you visit the Ritz Hotel today, you’ll find the ashtrays are now glued to the tables.
As for last summer, stayed in the Hemingway suite at the Hotel Post in Cortina d’Ampezzo Italy where he stayed in the 1950s to finish a book. Maybe some inspiration will rub off on me.
Good Luck and Good Trading,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader