Diary Archives

My Briefing from the Joint Chiefs of Staff

I have always considered the US military to have one of the world?s greatest research organizations. The frustrating thing is that their ?clients? only consist of the President and a handful of three and four star generals. So I thought that I would review my notes from a dinner I had with General James E. Cartwright, the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and known as ?Hoss? to his close subordinates.

Meeting the tip of the spear in person was fascinating. The four star Marine pilot was the second highest ranking officer in the US armed forces, and showed up in his drab green alpha suit, his naval aviator wings matching my own, and spit and polished shoes. As he spoke, I was ticking off the stock, ETF, and futures plays that would best capitalize on the long term trends he was outlining.

The cycle of warfare is now driven by Moore?s Law more than anything else (XLK), (CSCO), and (GOOG). Peer nation states, like Russia, are no longer the main concern. Budgeting for military expenditures is a challenge in the midst of the worst economic environment since the Great Depression.

Historically, inertia has limited changes in defense budgets to 5%-10% a year, but in 2010 defense secretary Robert Gates pulled off 30% realignment, thanks to a major management shakeup. We can only afford to spend on winning current conflicts, not potential future wars. No more exercises in the Fulda Gap.

The war on terrorism will continue for at least 4-8 more years. Afghanistan is a long haul that will depend more on cooperation from neighboring Iran and Pakistan. ?We?re not going to be able to kill our way or buy our way to success in Afghanistan,? said the general. However, the 30,000-man surge there brought a dramatic improvement on the ground situation.

Iran is a big concern, and the strategy there is to interfere with outside suppliers of nuclear technology in order to stretch out their weapons development until a regime change cancels the whole program.

Water (PHO), (CGW) is going to become a big defense issue, as the countries running out the fastest, like Pakistan and the Sahel, happen to be the least politically stable.

Cyber warfare is another weak point, as excellent protection of .mil sites cannot legally be extended to .gov and .com sites. We may have to lose a few private institutions in an attack to get congress to change the law and accept the legal concept of ?voluntarism.? General Cartwright said ?Anyone in business will tell you that they?re losing intellectual capital on a daily basis.?

The START negotiations have become complicated by the fact that for demographic reasons, Russia (RSX) will never be able to field a million man army again, so they need more tactical nukes to defend against the Chinese (FXI). The Russians are trying to cut the cost of defending against the US, so they can spend more on defense against a far larger force from China.

I left the dinner with dozens of more ideas percolating through my mind, which I will write about in future letters.

Only Buy Companies You Hate

Diary, Newsletter

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams argues that you should invest in companies you hate because only the most unprincipled and rapacious firms make the greatest profits.

Moral bankruptcy is a great leading indicator of success, and the best ones can get you to balance your wallet on the end of your nose and bark like a seal, as you buy products that you utterly despise. Companies with the work ethic of a serial killer, like British Petroleum (BP) come to mind, but you can also add other firms to the list, like Goldman Sachs (GS), Citicorp (C), Pfizer (PFE), and Altria (MO).

Adams initially started investing in companies he loved, like Enron, WorldCom, and Webvan, and absolutely lost his shirt. Adams? advice to BP is not to waste money on artificially sincere ad campaigns apologizing, but get us to hate them more. Bring on more dead bird pictures!

Who is Adams about to hate next? Apple (AAPL), because he irrationally craves their products, resents their emotional control over his entire family, can?t get ITunes to work, and is appalled by those aloof black turtlenecks that Steve Jobs used to wear.

July 3, 2013

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
July 3, 2013
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:
(JULY 12 AMSTERDAM STRATEGY LUNCHEON),
(IRAN SHOULD FOLD ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAM, OR ELSE),
(PETER F. DRUCKER ON MANAGEMENT)

July 12 Amsterdam Strategy Luncheon

Diary, Lunch, Newsletter

Come join John Thomas for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on Friday, July 12, 2013. A three-course lunch will be followed by a PowerPoint presentation and an extended question and answer period.

I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, foreign 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 $229.

The lunch will be held at a downtown Amsterdam hotel near Nieumarkt that 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, please go to my online store.

Iran Should Fold Its Nuclear Program, Or Else

Diary, Newsletter

?We have 3,500 nuclear weapons left over from the cold war we don?t need, they take 20 seconds to re-aim, we?re not afraid to use them. And by the way, they?re already aimed at you.?

That is the approach James Baker III thinks America should take with Iran, Ronald Reagan?s Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Treasury, and George H.W. Bush?s Secretary of State.

At the same time, we should be talking to the regime in Tehran, while doing everything we can to support the reformers, tighten sanctions, and enlist Europe?s help. Baker does not see a military solution in Iran, even though their potential to create instability in the region is enormous.

This was one of dozens of amazing insights I gained spending an evening chatting with the wily Texas lawyer during an evening in San Francisco. Baker is happy to take on the ?America Bashers,? pointing out that the US still plays a dominant role in the UN, NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank. It still accounts for 25% of GDP, and its military is unmatched. The US spread globalization, and the spectacular growth of China and India is largely the result of open American trade policies, raising standards of living around the world.

But the US can?t take its leadership role for granted. The biggest threats to American dominance are the runaway borrowing and entitlements. US debt to GDP is now over 100%, the highest level since WWII. This is unsustainable, is certain to bring a return of inflation, and unless dealt with, will lead to a long term American decline on the world stage. Massive trade and capital flow imbalances also have to be addressed.

The 80-year-old ex-Marine, who confesses to being the only Treasury Secretary in history who never took an economics class, believes that the advantageous rates that the government now borrows at are not set in stone. Baker is the man who engineered an end to the cold war with a whimper, and not a bang. He thinks that ?even our power has its limits,? and that ?there is a risk of strategic overreach.?

Baker feels that while conditions in the Middle East still look dicey, there is a good chance that we can pull out all our troops, and still leave a stable region. With the US politically evenly divided, Congress has degenerated from debating teams into execution squads, and consensus is impossible. The media are partly to blame, especially bloggers who propagate wild conspiracy theories, as confrontation sells better than accommodation. Regarding the financial crisis, we need to end ?too big to fail? and embark on re-regulation, not strangulation.

All in all, it was a fascinating few hours spent with a piece of living history who still maintains his excellent contacts in the diplomatic and intelligence communities.

How Do You Say ?Bullseye? in Texan?

Peter F. Drucker on Management

Diary, Newsletter

If you have been living in a cave for the last 71 years and missed the work of management guru, Peter F. Drucker, here is your chance to catch up. I just finished reading The Essential Drucker, a weighty tome of 368 pages which summarized the high points and pearls of wisdom of the author?s 38 books published since 1939.

A self described ?social ecologist?, Drucker was a journalist who moved to Germany because job prospects in his native Austria-Hungary were so poor following its defeat in WWI. He became a close friend of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who popularized the term ?creative destruction,? and attended lectures by John Maynard Keynes. He fled to the US in 1934 after his writings were burned by the Nazis.

For most of human history, armies were the predominant management model, and most corporations today show the military influence. Management only emerged as a science during the 1920?s, and Drucker was one of the founding fathers. Early adopters, like Coca Cola, DuPont, IBM, and General Electric, went on to prosper mightily.

He observed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt set up the most productive administration in history. Even a single step was so painful for him that he, and all those who worked around him, had to organize the government with the maximum efficiency possible. This was a key element in America?s victory in WWII.

Drucker writes at length on the risks and opportunities of entrepreneurship, and argues that all companies must innovate, or die, no matter how pedestrian their product. He predicted many of the trends that came to dominate the late 20^th and early 21^st century, such as privatization, decentralization, globalization, and the rise of the knowledge worker. He had a huge following when I was in Japan during the seventies, and his mark can be seen in today?s global presence of the major Japanese Keiretsu.

While most people define a company in terms of producing products and making a profit, Drucker sees its mission as ?creating a customer.? He presents a rigorous process for decision making. He lauds non profits as the best run organizations in the country because they have to be. Groups like the Girl Scouts, the Red Cross, and United Way maintain an effective global presence without paying their people any money. He makes the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness; doing things well, versus doing the right thing.

Anyone who manages any business of whatever size, from a Fortune 500 company to a single individual banging away on a PC at home, will benefit from reading this book. It forces you to take a look at your own operation with a fresh set of eyes. It even advises on how to manage one?s own time, from dispensing with unnecessary meetings to minimizing paperwork and bureaucracy.

Drucker moved to California during the seventies, where he set up one of the early MBA programs for Claremont College. He died in 2005 at the age of 96. To obtain preferential pricing from Amazon for this insightful book, please click here.

July 2, 2013

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
July 2, 2013
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:
(JULY 16 BERLIN STRATEGY LUNCHEON),
(DIAMONDS ARE STILL AN INVESTOR?S BEST FRIEND),
(SO YOU THINK THEY?RE NOT WATCHING YOUR PC?)

July 16 Berlin Strategy Luncheon

Diary, Lunch, Newsletter

Come join John Thomas for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in Berlin, Germany, at 12:00 noon on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. A three-course lunch will be followed by a PowerPoint presentation and an extended question and answer period.

I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, foreign 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 $219.

The lunch will be held at a downtown Berlin hotel within sight of the Brandenburg Gate, the details of which 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, please go to my online store.

Diamonds Are Still an Investor?s Best Friend

Diary, Newsletter

If you forgot to buy your loved one a birthday present and spent a week sleeping on the sofa, eating canned food, and cleaning out the cat box, you now have a chance to redeem yourself.

A revolutionary new website exists called Mazal Diamond, which promises to turn the online jewelry business upside down. I went to the privately held company?s website at http://www.mazaldiamond.com and found an entertaining assortment of free tools. You can design your own jewelry, and even order a custom cut, which Mazal will supply out of their massive 100,000 stone inventory. You can also figure out if the jeweler down the street is trying to rip you off.

Just for fun, I appraised the diamond I bought for my late wife, which I bought from a Hasidic Jew in an alley off of Manhattan?s West 47^th street. He kept his inventory hidden in an envelope in his sock. How times have changed! The two carat, VVS1, round cut, yellow diamond that I paid $3,000 for in 1977, would fetch $39,800 today. Great trade!

Mazal Diamond?s game changing advantage is that they cut, design, and manufacture their own jewelry, enabling them to undercut prices offered by established industry leaders. In fact, the $30 billion a year diamond industry is undergoing radical change by moving online, much the same way as the book, music, and travel industry have gone. Your local neighborhood jewelry store is about to get wiped out, or become a quaint relic.

Blue Nile (NILE) pioneered the way, and instantly became the 800-pound gorilla. The company cut costs by keeping inventories low, relying instead on a secretive web of anonymous suppliers. Now, second generation entrants are snapping at its heels and eating its lunch with polished websites, better service, and lower prices, seducing potential customers with free diamond blogs. Mazal Diamond even offers a year of free insurance.

They are getting a boost from a 30% price gain, a woman?s best friend has seen since the March, 2009 stock market bottom, taking them back to pre crash levels. The US accounts for about half the world market, so the new frugality will be a challenge. That will be offset by flight to safety purchases by inflation wary Americans, and new demand from the emerging market middle class.

Investment grade diamonds have been steady earners, gaining an average 5% a year over the last three decades. To avoid another week on the sofa, you might even think about buying next year?s Valentine?s surprise early.

So You Think They?re Not Watching Your PC?

Diary, Newsletter

Hey! You there, staring at this monitor. This is your PC talking to you. No, not you over there standing in the background. I?m talking to the guy sitting in front of me poking at my keys. Ouch! That one hurt!

So you thought no one was watching, did you? Let me set you straight. About a month ago you clicked on a certain website, and I installed myself as a cookie on your computer, which is an innocuous little text file that you can?t see. Since then, I have been tracking your every move, recording websites you clicked on, the pages you visited, and the stuff you ordered. I then used this handy little algorithm to build a profile of exactly who you are. I now know you better than your own mother. In fact, I know you better than you know yourself.

For example, I am aware that you make more than $250,000 a year, live in a posh zip code in San Francisco, belong to a fancy country club, and drive a Mercedes. You donate to Republican political causes, send your kids to a prestigious private school, and bill it all to an American Express Platinum Card. Did I leave anything out?

Because I know every detail of your life, down to your inside leg measurement, I am able to harness the power of this machine to more precisely service your every need. That includes directing advertising to you, which you have a high probability of clicking on. The more you click on my ads, the higher prices I can realize for those ads. The ad campaigns you now see are unique to your own personal computer because they are tied to your IP address. My program, called ?behavioral targeting? is the next ?big thing? in online advertising. It?s all part of the brave new world.

I see you have been shopping for a new car. Check out the new Hyundai at http://www.hyundaiusa.com/, which offers the same quality as your existing ride, at half the price. Your clicks this morning suggest you?re taking your ?significant other? out to dinner tonight. Might I suggest Gary Danko?s on Bay Street at http://www.garydanko.com/site/bio.html ? The rack of lamb is to die for there.

Your visits to Travelocity and Expedia tell me you?re planning a vacation. I bet you didn?t know you can find incredible deals in Las Vegas at http://www.visitlasvegas.com/vegas/index.jsp . Thinking about buying a condo there? They?ll even pay for the trip if you promise to check one out while you?re there.

Since we?re chatting here mano a mano, I noticed that that last pair of jeans you ordered from http://us.levi.com/home/index.jsp had a 42-inch waist, up from the 40?s in your last order. Better lay off those cheeseburgers. Pretty soon, they?ll be calling you ?tubby? or ?fatso?. Better visit http://www.weightwatchers.com/Index.aspx soon, or the legs on that chair might buckle out from under you.

Worried about privacy? Privacy, shmivacy. There hasn?t been privacy in this country since the first social security number was handed out in 1936. And don?t expect any relief from Congress. I doubt half those dummies even know how to turn on their own PC?s.

Don?t even think about trying to delete me. I?m a ?flash cookie?, an insidious little piece of code that reinstalls every time you try that. Think of me as a toenail fungus. Once you catch me, I?m almost impossible to get rid of.

I hope you don?t mind, but I?ve been passing your personal details around to some of my buddies at other websites. That?s why when you clicked on http://www.nfl.com/ you got deluged with product offers from your local team, the San Francisco 49ers. I?ve got friends at Google, Facebook, MySpace, and pretty much everywhere. Can I help it if I?m a popular guy? I bet the view from those 50-yard seats is great, isn?t it?

I noticed that your spending habits don?t exactly match with the income you reported on your last tax return. Do you think the IRS would like to know about that? I bet you didn?t know the agency offers a 10% reward for turning in tax cheats.

How about those triple XXX DVD?s you bought last week? Whoa! Hot, hot, hot! I hope your employer never finds out about those. It might not go down too well at your next performance review.

I thought it was lovely that you bought your spouse a two carat, yellow, vvs1, round cut diamond ring for $26,000 from http://www.bluenile.com/ for your 30^th wedding anniversary. But who is Lolita, the Argentine firecracker, in Miami Beach? Does the old wifey know you sent her a $2,000 pair of diamond stud earrings? What?s it worth to you for me to keep mum on this? Maybe you should take a quick peak at? 3StepDivorce.com at http://www.3stepdivorce.com? and see what you?re in for?

Naw, I?m just pulling your leg. This is all just between friends, right? Think of it as a doctor/patient relationship. I?ll tell you what. See that leaderboard ad at the top of the page? Just click on that and we?ll call it even. Oooh that felt good! Click it again. Oh, baby! Not too many times. You?ll trigger my anti click fraud program.

Now you see that wide skyscraper add over on the right? Click on that too. Oh baby! Click it again! And there?s a little button ad at the bottom of the page. No, not that one. A little lower. What was that little cutie?s name in Miami again? Aaaaah.