Global Market Comments September 15, 2016 Fiat Lux
Featured Trade: (OCTOBER 7TH INCLINE VILLAGE, NV GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON), (DON?T TOUCH THE COAL BUBBLE), (KOL), (BHP), (TCK), (TEN TIPS FOR SURVIVING A DAY OFF WITH ME)
What has been the top performing asset class so far in 2016?
Is it gold (GLD), oil (USO), or collectable French postage stamps?
If you said ?coal,? you win the kewpie doll. In fact, the 19th century energy source is the best performing commodity of the year by a large margin.
Indeed, the Van Eck Coal ETF (KOL) has picked up an eye popping 130% since it printed its $5 low in the first week of? January.
As a result, I have recently been deluged by readers asking if it is time to buy this prehistoric energy source.
My answer is no, not ever, and not even with Donald Trump?s money.
However, my answer relies more on basic market dynamics, rather than any environmental sympathies I might have.
It all has to do with China.
The Beijing government is manipulating its domestic coal industry to prevent it from defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans to local banks.
So it has cut back the number of days the industry can operate from 330 to 276 days a year.
Then the Chinese economy started to improve.
What happens when you restrict supply and increase demand? Prices go through the roof, as they have done smartly.
It gets better.
In August, the Middle Kingdom was hit with rainstorms of biblical proportions, flooding many mines and forcing them to close. The sushi hit the fan.
That forced major consumers, the big steel producers and electric power plants, to resort to the international spot market, or the ?seaborne market? to cover shortages to avoid shutting down themselves.
Who is the world?s largest supplier to the seaborne market?
That would be BHP Billiton (BHP), the largest capitalized company in Australia, which has seen its shares appreciate by 65% since January.
I have been following coal for 45 years, ever since I was the coal correspondent for the Australian Financial Review (AFR) during the 1970s.
I had to write a mind-numbing five pieces a week on coal (the AFR was a daily). So it?s safe to say that I know which end of a lump of coal to hold upward.
For a start, you never want to invest in an asset that is dependent on government fiat for rising prices. They can change their minds at any time. The loans in question could get paid off.
And you can count on the world market to suddenly find new supplies whenever of commodity price doubles.
Remember the Rare Earths' bubble, where we were active players? After a hyperbolic bubble, prices fell by 90%. Rare earths turned out to be not so rare. Only the cheap labor to extract them was exempt from environmental regulation.
So you can count on the current coal bubble to deflate fairly quickly. The perfect storm is about to run in reverse.
That leaves us with the long term fundamentals of coal which are bleak, to say the least.
China is far and away the world?s largest coal consumer at 49%, followed by the US at 11%.
China is making every effort to reduce reliance on this cheapest form of energy, thanks to the blinding, choking smog alerts besetting its largest cities.
It is only still using coal because with an economy growing at 6% a year plus, it has to rely on every energy form just to keep the lights only. Power brownouts can lead to political instability.
Coal consumption in the US has been in a death spiral for years, falling from 50% to 33% of electric power generation over the past decade. That led to the bankruptcy of several of its largest players such as Arch Coal (ACI) and Peabody Energy (BTU).
The collapse of natural gas prices to $2/btu made a cleaner burning alternative cost competitive. And gas lacks the nitrous and sulfur oxides and particulate pollution prevalent in coal.
Read the prospectus of any electric power company and you will find them besieged by lawsuits from consumers claiming that the coal they burned caused their cancers. Utility companies would love to be rid of it.
Any reluctance by US companies to dispense with coal were blown away last year when the Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide as toxic waste. That put a big fat bulls eye on the remaining coal companies.
If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, you can expect restrictions to worsen. She hates coal and makes no bones about it. She has told me so personally.
And then there?s solar energy. This week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the nation?s toughest climate legislation mandating a cut in the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
While ambitious, the target is viewed as doable. Solar energy, which now accounts for 5% of the state?s power output, will do the heavy lifting.
Many other states are expected to follow suit. No coal here.
The United Kingdom has already taken this path. It says a lot that a country that ran a coal-based economy for 300 years announced the closing of its last mine which it did a few months ago. It will replace the power output with alternatives.
Having lived in England during the violent miner?s strikes during the early 1980?s, it was quite a revelation.
So the writing is on the wall. Another major producer, Anglo American (NGLB.BE), is now in contract to sell two major mines in Australia.
Coal is an energy source whose time has clearly come and gone. So will the price of coal.
Global Market Comments September 14, 2016 Fiat Lux
Featured Trade: (LAST CHANCE TO ATTEND THE SEPTEMBER 16TH PORTLAND, OR GLOBAL STRATEGY LUNCHEON), (10 REASONS WHY JANET YELLEN WON?T RAISE RATES), (UUP), (LAUNCHING ?TRADING OPTIONS FOR BEGINNERS?)
Come join me for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in Portland, OR at 12:00 PM on Friday, September 16, 2016.
A three-course lunch will be followed by 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.
Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $208.
I?ll be arriving early 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. I expect a small group, so there will be plenty of opportunities to exchange ideas.
The lunch will be held at five star downtown Portland hotel, the exact location of which will be emailed to you with your confirmation.?
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research.
To purchase tickets for the luncheon, pleaseclick here.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Portland-OR-e1440680974469.jpg400313DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2016-09-14 01:08:252016-09-14 01:08:25Last Chance to Attend the September 16th Portland, OR Global Strategy Luncheon
That is my read on the likelihood of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at next week?s Open Market Committee meeting.
The evidence against it is overwhelming. Here are ten reasons why:
1) Chairwoman Janet Yellen has told me on many occasions that she will not raise interest rates until she sees ?the whites of inflation?s eyes? to paraphrase a Battle of Bunker Hill metaphor (we lost that one).
There is no inflation of any kind anywhere in the world. Deflation is still rampant. A US CPI of 0.8% YOY is not what rate hikes are made of.
2) The US economic data has recently slowed. Central banks are supposed to raise rates to prevent economies from getting overheated.
Overheated?
August Nonfarm Payroll came in at a lowly 151,000. The August ISM Manufacturing Index plunged from 52.6 to 49.9, a six year low. To a data dependent Fed, these numbers are shouting ?STOP?.
Need I say more?
3) Remember that election? The Fed is loathe to take any action before November 8. If the economy were in free fall, as in 2008, or going to the moon, like we saw in 1999 that would be a different story. But it?s not.
4) Even the hint, the rumor, or even a scintilla of a rate rise is keeping the US dollar at its high for the year. That is wreaking havoc with US multinationals which are seeing their products priced out of the international markets. This alone is a significant drag on the economy.
5) Watch the Fed fund futures. It is showing a 20% probability of a rate rise on September 20, or a one in five chance. Always follow the people who are putting their money where their mouths are, not the talking heads or dime newsletters that flood the Internet.
6) By the way, the same Fed funds futures are showing only a 48% chance of a December rate rise, which means there is a better than even chance that there will be NO rate rise in 2016. Did I mention that has been my view all year? ? 7) After watching the Fed for 45 years I can tell you that when in doubt, the fed always does nothing (remember the magisterial Arthur F. Burns?). It NEVER makes 50/50 calls.
8) Remember that black long chain carbon molecule, oil. Its price is in free fall again. That is delivering another deathblow to the oil patch, which accounts for 6% of US GDP (formerly 10%). I?m sure the new Dallas Fed governor has views on this situation.
9) Thanks to a gale force deflationary headwind, the Fed will be limited to only eight quarter point rate rises in this business cycle, and it has already used one. Why waste a rate hike now, when dry powder in the future is more valuable.
10) While the longest economic recovery in history is slow, but steady, it has also been uneven at best.
Growth has primarily been focused on the coasts, while those left behind by globalization in the Midwest and South are still suffering.
For many of these unfortunate people, the 2008 recession never ended. A rate rise just might push them over the edge.
To sum it all up, inertia is always a huge influence at the Fed.
Yes, we are already in a rate raising cycle in the wake of the December, 2015 25 basis point snugging. The Fed will raise again, it?s just a question of when.
And while there has been an abundance of Fed speakers over the past week, in the end, only one view counts.
That would be the one of my former UC Berkeley economics professor, Janet Yellen, possibly the most dovish Fed chairperson in history.
Global Market Comments September 13, 2016 Fiat Lux
Featured Trade: (STOCKS TO BUY FOR A TRUMP WIN IN NOVEMBER), (CVX), (XOM), (COP), (BP), (RIG), (DO), (BTUUUQ), (CCJ), (CHK), (DVN), (NOC), (GD), (ZMH), (UNH), (HUM), (PFE), (AAPL), (UNP), (BAC), (SEPTEMBER 14TH GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR), (ARE YOU IN THE 1%?), (SNE), (HMC)
Chevron Corporation (CVX) Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) ConocoPhillips (COP) BP p.l.c. (BP) Transocean Ltd. (RIG) Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (DO) Peabody Energy Corporation (BTU) Cameco Corporation (CCJ) Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK) Devon Energy Corporation (DVN) Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) General Dynamics Corporation (GD) Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. (ZMH) UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) Humana Inc. (HUM) Pfizer Inc. (PFE) Apple Inc. (AAPL) Union Pacific Corporation (UNP) Bank of America Corporation (BAC) Sony Corporation (SNE) Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC)
Given Hillary's stumble last weekend, both literally and figuratively, we have to consider the unimaginable, a Trump win in November.
For a start, let's discount the obvious. Volatility will absolutely go through the roof and live there for the next four years. The old 90 handle high hit in the fall of 2008 will be a chip shot and may even print the day after the election.
Vol traders will think they've died and gone to heaven.
What would a Trump win in November mean for your portfolio?
I had a lot of fun with this one.
I spoke to more than a dozen investors, all Republicans, and the responses I received were as varied as they were interesting.
Of course, the knee jerk reaction was to recommend concrete stocks, as Trump has promised to build a 2,000 mile, 20 foot high wall along the Mexican border.
That won?t work because Trump is going to get the Mexicans to pay for the wall. So that means the business will go to Mexican cement companies, if there is such a thing.
How about airlines to transport 11 million deportees back to their home countries? Nope. These would all be one-way trips, and the planes would have to return empty. What kind of business model is that?
A Trump win in November is not impossible. He could motivate tens of millions of angry, underemployed, gun toting blue-collar workers, while preventing traditional loyal moderate Republicans from staying home. Add that to a low Democratic turn out, and he just might pull it off.
This is an easy call to make. Expect a dramatic roll back of the leftward policies the country has adopted over the last seven years, and a sudden, drastic lurch to the right. The lists of winners and losers are huge.
In fact, if you look at the charts below, many of the stocks I am suggesting have already started to discount a conservative win.
It is hard to imagine big oil companies not being the biggest winners from a Trump win. American oil imports from the Middle East will accelerate, where the industry earns 80% of its profits.
You want a war to get oil prices up? No problem! Donald will give you more wars than you imagine possible.
That will take oil over $100/barrel quickly, and eventually to $150 or $200. Restrictions on both onshore and offshore drilling will get rolled back to their Bush era laissez faire levels, cutting costs and boosting profitability.
You want to own Chevron (CVX), ExxonMobil (XOM), Conoco Phillips (COP), and of course, BP (BP). The drilling and service companies, like Transocean (RIG) and Diamond Offshore (DO), should come roaring back from the graveyard.
Coal will benefit immensely from relaxed environmental regulation, paving the way for more exports to China. You want to own the few companies that have yet to go bankrupt, like Peabody Energy (BTU). The railroads will love this too because 70% of their profits are earned hauling coal, especially Union Pacific (UNP) with its East-West routes.
Nuclear Energy is a big beneficiary here, which should drive you into Shaw Group (SHAW) and top uranium producer Cameco (CCJ).
Forget about natural gas companies, like Chesapeake Energy (CHK) and Devon Energy (DVN). Relaxed environmental controls will give the green flag to the new fracking technology that is unleashing huge supplies on the market, driving prices for CH4 into the basement.
After all, it?s about free enterprise now!
The Trump portfolio should also have a heavy weighting in defense companies, as an expanded war against terrorism means we will be fighting more wars in more places for longer.
Any shopping list should include Northrop Grumman (NOC) and General Dynamics (GD). Also prospering mightily will be the makers of prosthetic limbs for the military, like Zimmer Holdings (ZMH).
Health care is easy. A Republican win in the House would wipe out Obamacare so fast it would make your head spin.
Health care companies like United Health (UNH), Humana (HUM), and Pfizer (PFE) will rocket, no longer facing the imminent prospect of price controls. The Hillary Tweet will be sent to the dustbin of history.
Major tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners costing $700 billion over ten years and more loopholes for corporations pared with increased defense spending promise to send government deficits through the roof.
Short positions? You want short positions? The Donald promises to deliver fabulous short side trading opportunities up the wazoo. Jim Chanos! Trump is your man!
The mere possibility that Trump will reverse 50 years of globalization is worth at least an immediate 20% market correction because of the enormous uncertainty it will bring. If he actually goes through with it, make that 50%.
This is why the Republican establishment is fighting Trump tooth and nail. They know the party will never survive causing two Great Recessions within a single decade.
You can start with the entire technology industry, which earns over 60% of its profits from abroad. Bring an end to international trade, which Trump is threatening to at least seriously impair, and you can kiss those earnings goodbye.
It also reduces to scrap metal value the hundreds of billions in overseas manufacturing facilities that corporate America has built in Europe and Asia over the last half century.
Apple (AAPL), the most widely owned company in America (and one of the cheapest), would be especially hard hit.? Trump has already singled it out for special abuse.
You can count on subsidies for alternative energy to get axed as unaffordable luxuries even though this industry has created 500,000 jobs in California alone in the past five years.
After all, global warming is nothing more than a leftist hoax, right?
The good news is that the higher oil prices (USO) Republican policies are guaranteed to bring means that green companies of every stripe will be forced to become profitable in their own right, making subsidies unnecessary. Many are already close to accomplishing that.
Remember, Bush policies took crude from $20 to $150/barrel, topping up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the absolute top. What better incentive is there to go green than that?
A recession would force Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen to take the one 25 basis point interest rate hike off the table post haste. That is when the Fed has to start entertaining the negative interest rates already endemic in Europe and Japan.
Needless to say, banks stocks get absolutely demolished in this scenario as their interest rate margins disappear up their own exhaust pipes. Bank of America (BAC) shares, $5 here we come, which was the 2009 crash low.
As the two parties are diametrically and violently opposed to each other on virtually every issue, the impact of a regime change on the economy and the markets promises to be huge. I could write on this subject for days, so these are just the high points.
If elected, Trump may take his file full of draconian proposals and lose it behind a radiator somewhere in
the White House. If he does that, he may find those radiators already stuffed with folders left there by previous presidents.
It wouldn?t be the first time that a president didn?t deliver what he promised on the campaign trail. When markets figure this out, they will rally hard.
You rarely get to choose between diametrically opposed worlds in an election.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/TRUMP1.jpg354296DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2016-09-13 01:08:162016-09-13 01:08:16Stocks to Buy for a Trump Win in November
When asked about the urban legend that the vaults at Fort Knox are empty, and that the Fed has no gold, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke responded, ?I?ve been to the basement of the New York Fed. The gold is there. I?ve seen it.?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Gold-Bars-e1445180085267.jpg264400Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2016-09-13 01:05:532016-09-13 01:05:53September 13, 2016 - Quote of the Day
Global Market Comments September 12, 2016 Fiat Lux
Featured Trade: (MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE COMING WEEK), (SPY), (VIX), (SPG), (T), (ELD), (JNK), (THE UNMISTAKABLE FINGERPRINTS OF THE RISK PARITY TRADERS!), (VIX), (SPY), (TLT), (TESTIMONIAL)
SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) VOLATILITY S&P 500 (^VIX) Simon Property Group Inc. (SPG) AT&T, Inc. (T) WisdomTree Emerging Markets Lcl Dbt ETF (ELD) SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK) iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
All of a sudden, two months worth of trendless, sideway-moving markets showed its hand, and it was a definite thumbs down.
At the lows, the Dow Average was off 400 points, the first time it moved more than 1% since early July. The Volatility Index (VIX) exploded from 12 to 17.
It was as if all of the volatility of the past two months bunched up into a single day.
It was a selloff that had many fathers. Point to the North Korean nuclear test, the prospect of a Fed rate rise next week (they?re not), the ECB?s pass on a QE increase, Jeffrey Gundlach?s umpteenth prediction that bonds will fall, Trump?s bump in the polls, or the massive new scandal at Wells Fargo.
None of these events would individually have been market moving. But pile them up together, and you get a long overdue meltdown.
Or you could simply point to the calendar. The big players are finally back from their summer vacation, and the decision has been made to lighten up ahead of the presidential election.
The entire high yield space was taken out to the woodshed and beaten like the proverbial red headed stepchild (with apologies to red heads everywhere).
That would include REIT?s (SPG), junk bonds (JNK), utility stocks (T), and emerging market debt (ELD).
I have been warning readers about the risk in these sectors for over a month, and now the chickens are finally coming home to roost.
Every attempt by investors to offset low returns with greater leverage always ends in tears.
Of course, everyone is going to be holding their breath to see if the selloff has follow through on Monday or whether we bottom out here.
My view is that we are still in a long-term bull market, and this is no more than a 5% correction on the path to new all time highs. There are still mountains of cash on the sidelines, and the economy is modestly improving.
On Monday, September 12 we get no less than three Fed speakers amid a flurry of Treasury bill auctions, ramping up the drumbeat going into the September 20 FederalOpen Market Committee meeting.
On Tuesday, September 13 at 8:55 AM EST we receive NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, which should continue a modest uptrend.
On Wednesday, September 14 at 10:00 AM we see the MBA Mortgage Applications which should continue strong in the face of ultra low interest rates.
On Thursday, September 15 we get a cornucopia of data releases. At 8:30 AM EST the Weekly Jobless Claims should confirm that employment remains at decade highs. August Retail Sales and the Empire State Manufacturing Index are also out then. August Industrial Production follows at 9:15 AM
Friday, September 16 is quadruple witching in the options market. We have taken profits on all of our September positions, so we?ll be sitting on our hands.
We wind up with the Baker HughesRig Count on Friday at 1:00 PM EST. Worryingly, the trend has been up for the past two months, driving oil prices lower.
I conclude with the chart below showing Speculative Net Hedge Fund Long Positions at a three year high. Given that hedge funds are the new ?stupid money? you have to be concerned.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/John-Thomas1-e1421097493926.jpg355400DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2016-09-12 01:08:212016-09-12 01:08:21Market Outlook for the Coming Week
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