The October nonfarm payroll came in at a pedestrian 80,000, compared to 158,000 in September, a rate that is somewhat less than what matches population growth. But it is the numbers behind the numbers that will deliver the big market impact. The headline unemployment rate came in at a nosebleed 9.0%.
August and September were revised up a whopping 102,000. This is final proof that the recession that the market was discounting over September and early October was never there, a point which I have been arguing about vociferously. The recession was only in the stock market.
What was particularly fascinating was the massive decline in the long term unemployed, by 366,000, the largest since records began in 1948. This took the expanded U-6 unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those whose benefits have expired, from 16.5% down to 16.2 %. I have never seen anything like this, and have no idea what caused it. But the overall message about the economy has to be good.
October saw a pop of 104,000 in hiring by the private sector, partially offset by a loss of 24,000 government jobs, a continuation of what will be a decade long trend. Gains were seen by business and professional services (32,000), leisure and hospitality (22,000), and health care (12,000). Further losses of 20,000 were seen in construction. Since the beginning of 2010, an impressive 3 million jobs have been created by the private sector.
Another sobering statistic buried in the raft of figures was that, of the 80,000 hired, a shocking 42,000 were of people who were taking on second full time jobs! This is additional evidence that the only way that minimum wage workers can support families is by working 16 hours a day at two jobs. Even still, that only gets you earnings of $33,280 a year, pretax, and will certainly be more ammunition for the ?Occupy Wall Street? crowd.
Taken together with a sudden decline in weekly jobless claims to 397,000, and improvement in other employment data, an improving jobs market emerges out of the mist. They suggest an employment picture that has stopped deteriorating, is stabilizing, and beginning a modest upturn. These are economic conditions far better than the financial markets are currently discounting, and are consistent with the 2.0%-2.5% GDP growth rate that I have been sticking to all year.
At the beginning of the year I have been asserting that the economy was growing at a 2% rate, not 4%. Now I have to convince people that it is growing at 2%, not zero. This difference equates to about 300 points in the S&P 500.
Take this data, and throw it in with fading turmoil in Europe and a budget Supercommittee surprise, and you will have a springboard for the S&P 500 to break through upside resistance at the 200 day moving average.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/20111102008-sc.png507620DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-11-06 20:08:402011-11-06 20:08:40October Nonfarm Payroll Surprise Points to Market Upside
?Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists?, said noted Harvard economics professor, John Kenneth Galbraith.
00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-11-03 01:54:052011-11-03 01:54:05November 3, 2011 - Quote of the Day
I am taking my profit in the Euro (FXE) December $140 puts this morning, nailing the high of the day at $5.70, and clocking a stunning three day profit of 107%. This adds 5.63% to the year-to-date return for Macro Millionaire, taking us up to 46%. Non option players who bought the short Euro ETF (EUO) made 9.5%.
My net profit on the trade was $2.95. For the model $100,000 portfolio this works out to $5,310 ($2.95 X 100 X 18). And we made this return while keeping 76% of our money in cash, out of harm?s way.
This was a perfect trade in so many ways:
*For a start, I got a great entry point on top of a 10 cent rally in the Euro.
*The position was a great indirect ?RISK OFF? hedge for my sole remaining ?RISK ON? position in the (TBT). For every $1 I lost in the (TBT) since the Thursday high at $23.00, I made $2 on the Euro short.
*We got an assist in the bankruptcy of MF Global, which resulted in the liquidation of their entire $6.5 billion portfolio of Euro bonds, which put additional pressure on the European currency.
*We got a second assist from my friends at the Bank of Japan, who rushed to deflate the yen with a massive $130 billion round of intervention.
*I resisted the temptation to take a quickie 30% profit yesterday, believing that the trading community was caught badly off balance in their positioning, and that there was enough juice to take the Euro to my secondary target of $1.36.
*My friends at the People?s Bank of China told me they would take my advice and take down a big slug of any bond issue resulting from the European sovereign debt resolution. However, they said they would also take my advice and hedge out their Euro risk, making the trade currency neutral.
*I initially put on the trade expecting European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi, to cut interest rates tomorrow. With the Euro at $1.3630, I now don?t care if Mario has pasta al dente for lunch, a canole for desert, and sings O Solo Mio tomorrow. I can take my money and run at let the rest of the market run the overnight event risk. If Mario then fails to act tomorrow, I will simply resell the Euro higher up.
*We caught one of the sharpest moves in the history of the foreign exchange markets, some 5 cents in the Euro, in three trading days. You shouldn?t need to be told twice to cash in.
*No one ever got fired for taking a three day profit of 107%. Possession of the cash is 9/10ths of the law.
I know that some of you made more money on this trade than I did, because the $140 puts traded all the way down to $2.47 after the initial opening alert. No whining about not being able to get in this time. As they say down under ?Good on You!?
If you missed this trade for whatever reason, don?t chase it here. Another opportunity will come along. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/gold.jpg219343DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-11-03 01:53:312011-11-03 01:53:31Why I Covered My Euro Short
Yesterday, I wrote about the Nevadan wrinkle in the housing crisis where distressed homeowners are letting their horses go wild to make their mortgage payment. Now neighboring California is facing a Chihuahua glut, where evicted homeowners are handing over their pets to animal shelters. The diminutive Mexican canine enjoyed a boom in popularity in recent years, thanks to movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Legally Blonde.? Celebrities, like Paris Hilton, have also helped promote the breed, flaunting one in front of the paparazzi. Animal shelters in the Land of Fruits and Nuts have been so overwhelmed they have had to ship the ultra-cute, but utterly useless animals to pounds as far away as Toronto. Will the unintended consequences of Greenspan?s low interest policy never end? Give the poor Chihuahua?s a break!
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/paris.png433310DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-11-03 01:53:202011-11-03 01:53:20Watch Out for the Chihuahua Glut
Thanks to the thousands of new subscribers that have poured into this service in recent months, I have been able to complete a major upgrade of my website at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . Now that the daily traffic is reaching astronomical proportions, it is time to join the big league of online financial services with an industrial strength website.
The new site offers vastly improved layout, design, and functionality. And according to my Dallas based designer, it is just plain purttier. Among the enhanced services are:
*There will be two levels of password access for paid subscribers.
*Current paid subscribers will have real time access to the online version of the entire newsletter for the first time. They will still be emailed the full daily letter to their personal addresses.
*Paid subscribers will also get access to a confidential page offering private news alerts.
*Subscriptions to my market beating Trade Alert Service will be available for the first time for $1,997 a year.
*The entire archives of Hedge Fund Radio are available for download.
*A new ?Luncheons? section offers tickets for sale with auto confirms.
*The subscription and renewal process has been fully automated.
*The public will still have free access to the less market sensitive research pieces.
My apologies to regular viewers, who have been faced with a website that has been going up and down like a yoyo during the past week. Paid subscribers should be receiving the new passwords by email in coming days.
I have put together this website with spit and bailing wire over the past four years, at it at long last time to bring in professional help. This involves migrating a dozen non-compatible databases to the new site, which I can tell you is a headache and a half. Thank you for your support and I hope you like the new site.
Your Loyal Servant,
John Thomas.
00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-11-03 01:53:082011-11-03 01:53:08Meet the New Website
4:30 PM Sunday- Looks like my Monday is going to start early this week. The head of the foreign exchange desk at one of Japan?s largest banks called and told me that the Bank of Japan was hitting all bids for the yen in any size at the Monday morning opening in Tokyo, heralding the beginning of a major intervention effort. I turn on my screens. The yen gaps down from ?75.30 to ?77.50 on the first trade. Looks like tomorrow is going to be a ?RISK OFF? day. Treasuries nosedive in the overnight market.
6:30 PM Sunday-Take kids to see the animated blockbuster, Puss & Boots, with voiceovers by Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz, and Selma Hayek. Notice how the kid movies are better than the adult movies these days. There are ample double entendres to keep the grownups entertained.
9:00 PM-Call from a friend at the People?s Bank of China in Beijing. He wants to know if they have missed the top of the Treasury bond market, and if they should start unloading their $1 trillion worth of holdings. I said don?t worry. While I expect the year ?RISK ON? trade to take the ten year yield up to 2.60% by year end, they will nosedive to 1%, and possibly go under Japanese ten year yields, if a recession hits next year. Plus, you will get a double kicker with a strong dollar. But please don?t try and sell ahead of a three day weekend, like you did last time. And thanks for the Peking Duck dinner in Shenzhen last week.
9:30 PM- Hit the sack and try and catch some shut eye before the next call.
2:00 AM-One of my former staff members at Morgan Stanley calls me from a Private Bank in Geneva to tell me that outgoing European Central Bank President, Jean Claude Trichet, said that he is not responsible for maintaining financial stability. What a moron! The Euro nosedives, break support at $1.40, and is already threatening $1.39. Sweet. My big Euro short against the dollar is looking good. I?m going to catch a hickey from my (TBT) position, but my profits from my short Euros should more than cover it.
3:00 AM- Call from one of the top New York trading houses. There are rumors that MF Global, once the world?s largest futures broker, will file for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy as soon as the court opens in 30 minutes. The firm?s risk managers are going apoplectic. Dow futures are down 200. The ?RISK OFF? day just got a turbocharger. I stagger back to bed and try to catch another hour of sleep.
5:00 AM-Woken up by an earthquake that sounds like a truck just hit the house. I turn on the TV and learn that I am directly above the epicenter. It?s the third one since Wednesday.
6:00 AM-My website administrator calls me in a panic. The store is down. A hacker attack prompted PayPal to suspend my account. Since I am one of their largest customers, I call my account rep and get it reopened.
6:30 AM- It?s official. MF files for Chapter 11. Sad to see them go. The Dow opens down 125. I have had a small account there for 20 years which I will have to close. I don?t bother calling because I know they will be flooded with inquiries by panicky customers. I?ll just wait for the check to come in the mail.
6:45 AM-I get flooded with 30 emails from Macro Millionaires asking if they should take the overnight 40% profit on their Euro short. I ignore them. Don?t bother me with the small change.
7:00 AM- Another call from my website administrator. The website is down. The Euro crash has brought a traffic spike that is causing the servers to melt. I am burning up the Internet.
7:30 AM- Conference call with support team. We agree to build in new infrastructure to accommodate a tenfold increase in new business. Couldn?t I be wrong just once to the growth down to a more manageable level? Pass.
8:00 AM- I get a call from a leading hedge fund in London?s Mayfair district. Europe is closing. Should we run the Euro short overnight? You betcha!
9:00 AM-Call from a large family office in Chicago. Should we use today?s strength in gold to lay out more hedges against core longs? Absolutely. Grab the brass ring. The barbaric relic is going to $1,500 before the fat lady sings, and will go lower if the recession next year is bad.
10:00 AM-Better get to work on today?s letter. I?m already behind the eight ball. I?ve gotta lead with the Macro Millionaire performance, which just hit a new high of 46%.
12:00-Break for lunch. Isn?t it great the way enchiladas always taste better after they have been reheated for a third day?
1:00-PM- Market close on their lows. Looks like another day of ?RISK OFF? for Tuesday.
1:15 PM-My friend, JR, a senior exec at an oil major, calls from Houston. What the hell was going on with the price of oil? Three weeks ago, it was at $75, then he blinked, and it was $95. I told him that the oil companies lost control of the price of Texas tea last year and the high frequency traders were now in the saddle. Better get used to the new frontier. It would help if he started following my trade alerts for crude. He said thanks, and next time I was in town he would buy me a 24 ounce chicken fried steak at Billy Bob?s that spilled over both sides of the plate. I can?t wait.
2:00 PM-Still haven?t started on the letter yet. I have been answering 200 email requests for information about Macro Millionaire. This always happens whenever I have a hot trade on. The watchers want to become players.
2:30 PM- I unplug the phones and close the curtains to do a one our live show on the recent market volatility for as a guest on a local radio station.
4:45 PM- Well, I got the letter done, but I?m too late. The web editor has gone trick or treating in Manhattan. This year, she is a vampire.
4:30 PM-The traffic stats for the site have gone down. I called the webmaster, but she has gone trick or treating too, in Dallas, dressed as a giant Taco.
5:00 PM-Ooops. Forgot to take the trash out.? My garbage man must wonder what goes on here. Every week, I recycle a giant bin of newspapers, magazines, and assorted broker research, but only throw out a tiny bag of actual trash. Am I green, or what?
6:30 PM-Time for trick or treat duty with a princess and the lion from The Wizard of Oz. Last year, I went as a hedge fund manager, but that went over like a lead balloon. So this year, I am a cowboy. I have these cool Justin cowboy boots which I bought in Fort Worth, Texas during my wildcatting days, but I can?t believe how much they have shrunk. I don my Stetson and I am out the door.
Those of us who live in the mountains in California pour out to the flat lands to trick or treat, looking for well-lit streets with lots of cul de sacs. As a result, these neighborhoods get flooded with thousands of kids. Up to 25 zombies, ninjas, mutant ninja turtles, skeletons, witches, Spidermen, and Buzz Lightyears mob the front doors, hands out for candy. Get a bunch of small kids together and they turn feral.
Some homeowners really get into it and build haunted houses. One house had this cool ?56 Chevy crashed into a tree with dead bodies hanging out the windows. I can?t believe how many adults dress up for this. The mom wearing the naughty school girl outfit was most appreciated.
9:00 PM - Back to my screens. The Euro has broken $1.39. Looking good. Down 3 cents on the day. Why didn?t I short the Russell 2000 (IWM) again? Was I asleep, distracted, or just not paying attention? Can?t catch them all.
10:00 PM-Time to call it a night and break out a bottle of Duckhorn merlot. How many wine clubs do I belong to now? 12? As of now I am committed to buy more wine this year than I can possibly drink or give away.
12:00 AM- Time to do some early Christmas shopping. Bonham?s in London is holding their fine jewelry auction today, and lot no. 62 is a 5 carat diamond solitaire that is a real beut.
12:10 AM-Damn! Outbid by the Chinese again, who are running up the price of luxury goods absolutely everywhere to insane levels. Time to get some sleep. Maybe next time.
3:00 AM-An old friend at the Bank of England calls me. Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, says he will hold a referendum of the bailout package. What a cretin! The Euro goes into free fall. The Dow futures are down 200, gold is off $75, and Treasuries have vaporized. Better get some sleep. It looks like tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Does anybody want my job?
Note to Greece: Please Quit Waking Me Up in the Middle of the Night!
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/man.jpg197249DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-11-02 01:11:572011-11-02 01:11:57A Day in the Life of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader
?It is not my job to guarantee financial stability,? said outgoing European Central Bank President, Jean Claude Trichet.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ws.jpg228318DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-10-31 21:43:012011-10-31 21:43:01November 1 : Quote of the Day
I certainly made a splash during my recent visit to China, where the local press covered me like a visiting rock star. I guess personally knowing the founders of the modern People?s Republic and being one of the few westerners to survive the Cultural Revolution 40 years ago, didn?t hurt.
To read the full page coverage in the South China Morning Post detailing my current market views across all asset classes, Hong Kong?s leading daily, please click here. Of course you, as regular paid up and card carrying subscribers, were emailed these views weeks and months ago and have already made a ton of money from them. And Bono, eat your heart out!
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/blog.png535930DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-10-31 21:42:522011-10-31 21:42:52Making Waves In China
?How to dress for a riot?? was the question I found myself facing as I prepared to depart for an ?Occupy San Francisco? demonstration and march in San Francisco on Saturday morning. I settled for Levis, Nike?s, a black T-shirt, a black and orange San Francisco Giants baseball cap, and a great big handkerchief in my back pocket for the tear gas. In other words, I looked like an undercover cop. Maybe at least the riot police would think twice before beating my brains out, like they were doing across the bay in Oakland.
The march marshaled at Justin Herman Plaza in front of the Ferry Building, and it was d?j? vu for me all over again. This was exactly where I joined a 100,000 strong anti-Vietnam War demonstration 40 years ago. At 2,000, today?s group was more modest in size, but just as devoted to the cause, and just as angry.
Of course, whenever you organize a march of any kind in San Francisco, at least 20 other groups from every political description will automatically join the party. These include gay rights, Lincoln Log Republicans, transvestites, traditional unions, 1930?s Bolsheviks and Trotkyites, died in the wool socialists, animal rights activists, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and Save the Whales.
Some defied descriptions as members of the human race. To make the day even more bizarre, many demonstrators were dressed as zombies and vampires because Deadmaus was hosting a Halloween party at the Bill Graham Auditorium afterwards. Maybe they were emulating our zombie banks? The City by the Bay is nothing, if not diverse.
So it took some work to separate out the broad strands of the real movement. I walked with and spoke to about 30 of the participants. I was expecting to hear a lot of ludicrous leftist conspiracy theories and crackpot economic theories one often finds on the Internet. I was completely wrong.
I gave everyone an impromptu quiz, attempting to ascertain their level of understanding of financial issues. For the suspicious few who thought I might be an undercover policeman, I flashed my membership card from The Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong, telling them I was a journalist, and they opened right up.
I found the group amazingly well informed, with a majority holding undergraduate and graduate degrees. Almost everyone could accurately describe the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which separates investment and commercial banking functions, and was repealed in 1999 after a billion dollar lobbying effort by the industry. This was the reregulation that handed the banks a pistol to commit suicide while holding your money.
I heard a lot about too-big-to-fail, bail outs for the banks, huge pay packages for the executives of failing firms, and a bull market on Wall Street that never made it to Main Street. Many talked about privatizing profits and socializing losses.
The rich were a natural target, soaking up most of the new wealth that has accrued in the United States over the last 30 years with minimal tax rates, either through stock options or inheritances, while the fortunes of the middle class have declined. And now, congress wants to raise the tax burden for working people. You can argue all day about whether it is right or wrong, but you can?t deny the absolute numbers. Many described this as our own Arab Spring. Indeed, I found that quite a few of their data and arguments could have been lifted out of my own newsletter.
Surprisingly, many were angry with President Obama for selling out to Wall Street and special interests. In fact, about 80% of their complaints mirror those that I have heard at Tea Party rallies. Their only real difference is on the moral issues of gay marriage and the right to life.
Students of history will tell you that every time too much wealth has accumulated at the top of a society, a revolution has resulted. This led to the fall of the Roman Empire, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and even as recently as the Arab Spring and the Libyan Civil War. At the rate that local budgets and benefits were being chopped, which I have been writing extensively about for the last three years, I knew that large scale civil unrest was just a matter of time. The surprise is that it took this long to explode. Who knew it would go global, thanks to Facebook.
The political implications of all this are interesting. If it survives the winter and snowballs into the spring, it could become a major factor in the 2012 presidential election, like the Tea Party was in 2010. And let?s face it, this is definitely not a pro-Republican Party movement. It all reminds me of another revolution that faced the test of a long winter ordeal in order to survive, the one that started in Boston in 1776.
There were about 100 of San Francisco?s finest escorting the parade, blocking off the streets from traffic as we made our way across town. I spotted one obvious former jarhead and spoke to him in the familiar jargon unique to the Marine Corps, asking what his orders were. He opened up like a cheap bag of coffee beans from Costco.
Keep the peace, and only get involved if there was a destruction of private property. No one was in riot gear. We were in the middle of a mayoral election in San Francisco, and if the incumbent wins, the current chief of police, a local guy admired by the officers on the beat, will get reappointed. It is so true that all politics is local. My handkerchief would stay in its pocket.
On my way back to City Hall, where I parked to get a free electric charge for my new Nissan Leaf, I dropped in at Neiman Marcus to see if they had any Brioni suits in a size 48 long, a copy of The Socialist Workers Party prominently sticking out of my back pocket. I was sadly informed that there was only one of that elephantine size in the country, in Virginia.
What a long and winding road it has been.
00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-10-31 21:42:312011-10-31 21:42:31My Take on the ?Occupy Wall Street? Movement
Macro Millionaires made an instant killing on the collapse of the Euro today, scoring a one day gain of 58% from the Friday close. Those who bought the double leveraged short Euro ETF, the (EUO), scored an immediate 6.5% profit. Thanks to these red hot trades, Macro Millionaires are now up nearly 44% in their virtual hedge funds year to date. The Month of October came in at a healthy 4%, following a blistering 17.19% in September.
Traders are betting that the new European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi, will make the institution?s first intelligent move of the year on Wednesday by slashing interest rates. If Draghi has the cajones to make such a bold move, it will lead to an immediate tidal wave of selling of the European currency.
We also got an assist from my old friends at the Bank of Japan, which finally, decisively intervened with a massive sale of $130 billion in the foreign exchange market, knocking their own ridiculously overvalued currency down an impressive ?4 to ?79 and change. Suddenly, central bank action to weaken your own currency has become respectable.
I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I had the trade alert written to short the yen on Friday, but didn?t have the time to send it out. Regular listeners to my biweekly webinars are well aware of my antipathy towards the yen, it was only a matter of time before it took its dive. You can?t catch them all.
This marks the 20th consecutive profitable trade for Macro Millionaires. For those who wish to participate in Macro Millionaire, my highly innovative and successful trade mentoring program, please email John Thomas directly at madhedgefundtrader@yahoo.com . Please put ?Macro Millionaire? in the subject line, as we are getting buried in emails. Hurry up, because our software limits the number of subscribers, and we are running out of places.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-10-31 21:42:112011-10-31 21:42:11Macro Millionaires Make Instant Killing on Euro Short
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