"There's a 70% chance the whole thing will fail," said Jeff Bezos when pitching his parents for a $100,000 investment in his start-up, Amazon (AMZN) in 1994.

"There's a 70% chance the whole thing will fail," said Jeff Bezos when pitching his parents for a $100,000 investment in his start-up, Amazon (AMZN) in 1994.

Global Market Comments
May 10, 2018
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TUESDAY, JUNE 12, NEW ORLEANS, LA, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON),
(THE END OF THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL AND YOUR PORTFOLIO),
(USO), (XOM), (OXY), (CVX), (DAL), (XLP),
(UPGRADING OUR CUSTOMER SUPPORT)
My first contact with Iran was during the horrific 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. I was a war correspondent for The Economist magazine living in the Kuwait Hilton.
Early every morning, hotel staff hurried down to the beach to clean up the remains of shark-eaten bodies that had washed up from the pitched battles overnight. It was essentially a replay of WWI. More than 1 million died, and poison gas was a regular feature of the conflict.
You are either getting killed yourself, or are having a fabulous day today because of the end of the U.S. participation in the Iran Nuclear Deal, depending on your sector exposure.
If you own energy producers, like the oil majors we have been bullish on for several months, including ExxonMobil (XOM), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), and Chevron (CVX), you are sitting pretty.
If you own energy consumers, such as Delta Airlines (DAL), and Consumer Staples (XLP), which we have been dissing to the nth degree, you are taking it in the shorts.
But what happens beyond today?
For the short term, you can expect nothing to result from the American abrogation of the treaty, which even the administration's own Secretary of Defense, Marine Corps General James Mattis, strongly advised against.
Three years into the agreement, very little trade between Iran and the U.S. actually took place. The big Boeing (BA) aircraft order never showed. American oil companies were gearing up to bid on the reconstruction of Iran's oil infrastructure. But so far it has been all talk and no do.
If you were looking forward to getting a great deal on a new Persian carpet you're out of luck. But there is an ample supply of used ones on the market.
At the end of the day, the Iranians would rather do business with Europe, treaty, or not. It is the natural trading partner, is close, and most of the Iranian leadership was educated at continental universities.
The European Economic Community (EEC) offers far larger export subsidies than the U.S. ever would. Remember, Iran was once a quasi-British colony. And let's face it, Iran never trusted the U.S., given our coddling of the previous Shah.
It is most likely Europe, Russia, and China; the other signatories will continue with the treaty in its current form. China will take all the oil Iran can produce, no questions asked. Russian interests are the same as Iran's, higher oil prices.
Yes, the U.S. has threatened to blacklist any bank financing trade with Iran going forward. There is absolutely no way this will work, unless the U.S. wants to ban American trade with Europe, its largest foreign customer.
If they try it, Fortune 500 companies will land on Washington like a ton of bricks, which earns up to 70% of their earnings from foreign sales. In the end all this will do is cut the U.S. out of the global economy.
Longer term, geopolitical risks will undoubtably rise. Iran will almost certainly ramp up its attempts to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, still the largest single source of American oil imports. It also has no cost of continuing mischief in Yemen and Syria. Iran already has a dominant influence in Shiite Iraq, which we fought a war to hand over to them.
Of course, the big winner in all of this is Russia, as it has been with almost everything else recently. Moscow loves higher oil prices, enabling Putin to deliver the higher standard of living he promised in last month's presidential election. It also gives him another opportunity to stick a thumb in America's eye, which he apparently loves to do.
Trump can threaten war all he wants, but the Iranians know this is nothing but a bluff. After 17 years of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. his little appetite for another one. Even though we are officially out of Iraq, it is still a massive drain on the U.S. budget. And we still haven't paid for the last one, unless the Chinese want to lend us more money.
In the end it will depend on how long oil will stay this high. The end of the treaty is worth at least $20 in higher oil prices. If oil continues to appreciate then it brings forward the next recession, possibly by years. Energy is a major component in the inflation calculation, which should now speed up smartly and crush the bond market, bringing higher interest rates.
Rising oil prices, inflation, and interest rates with a flagging global economy? Not good, not good.
While U.S. fracking production is rising, it can't increase fast enough to head off the current oil price spike. Production can't be ramped up faster because the U.S., with production now more than 10 million barrels a day, is oil infrastructure constrained, and much of the new infrastructure that has been added is aimed at increased oil exports, not domestic consumption. It makes a big difference.
And why are we focusing on the country that has zero nuclear weapons, primitive technology, and an economy in free fall, while ignoring the one that has more than 7,000 (Russia)? Will someone please explain that to me? Remember, Iran is a country that still relies on camels and donkeys as a major mode of transportation.
So you can take your nuclear treaty and toss it in the ash can of history. The problem is that it may cost you and your portfolio a lot more than you think.
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"$43 billion is not enough," said Charlie Munger regretfully about Berkshire Hathaway's ownership of Apple (AAPL). It's now worth $45 billion.
Global Market Comments
May 9, 2018
Fiat Lux
SPECIAL REIT ISSUE
Featured Trade:
(MONDAY, JUNE 11, FORT WORTH, TEXAS, GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON),
(THE DEATH OF THE MALL),
(SPG), (MAC), (TCO)
Global Market Comments
May 8, 2018
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(DON'T MISS THE MAY 9 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR),
(REMINDING YOU WHY YOU SHOULD BE SELLING IN MAY),
(QUANTITATIVE EASING EXPLAINED TO A 12-YEAR-OLD)
My next global strategy webinar will be held live from Silicon Valley on Wednesday, May 9, at 12:00 PM EST.
Co-hosting the show will be Mad Day Trader Bill Davis.
I'll be giving you my updated outlook on stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, precious metals, and real estate.
The goal is to find the cheapest assets in the world to buy, the most expensive to sell short, and the appropriate securities with which to take these positions.
I will also be opining on recent political events around the world and the investment implications therein.
I usually include some charts to highlight the most interesting new developments in the capital markets. There will be a live chat window with which you can pose your own questions.
The webinar will last 45 minutes to an hour. International readers who are unable to participate in the webinar live will find it posted on my website within a few hours.
I look forward to hearing from you.
To log into the webinar, please click on the link we emailed you entitled, "Next Bi-Weekly Webinar - May 9, 2018" or click here.
Followers of my Trade Alert service have watched me shrink my book, reduce risk, and cut positions to a rare 100% cash position.
No, I am not having a nervous breakdown, a midlife crisis, nor have I just received a dementia diagnosis.
It'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 10 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.
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 on 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 $26,500 during the same time period, a gain of 64.79 times!
Since 2000, the seasonal Dow has managed a feeble return of only 4%, while the long winter/short summer strategy generated a stunning 64%.
Of the 68 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 past 20 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 are expecting when they buy stocks at these elevated levels, over $205 in the S&P 500 (SPY).
Will company earnings multiples further expand from 19X to 20X or 21X?
Will the GDP suddenly reaccelerate from a 2% rate to the 4% promised by the new administration, when the daily sentiment indicators are pointing the opposite direction?
I can't wait to see how this one plays out.
It's May!
Global Market Comments
May 7, 2018
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or WHERE?S THE RECOVERY?)
(AAPL), (BAC), (AXP), (XLP), (CAT), (X),
(POPULATION BOMB ECHOES),
(DBA), (CORN), (SOYB), (WEAT), (MOS),
(TESTIMONIAL)
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