Come join me for lunch for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Seminar, which I will be conducting in New York, NY on Tuesday, July 2, 2013. An excellent three course lunch will be provided. A PowerPoint presentation will be followed by 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 $209.
The formal luncheon will run from 12:00 to 2:00 PM. I?ll be arriving an hour 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.
The event will be held at a prestigious private club on Central Park South, the details of which will be emailed to you 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.
If you want to impress your friends with your vast knowledge of financial matters, then here are the Latin translations of the script on the backside of a US dollar bill.
?ANNUIT COEPTIS? means ?God has favored our undertaking.? ?NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM? translates into ?A new order has begun.? The Roman numerals at the base of the pyramid are ?1776.? The better known ?E PLURIBUS UNUM? is ?One nation from many people.?
The basic design for the cotton and linen currency with red and blue silk fibers, which has been in circulation since 1957, carries enough symbolism to drive conspiracy theorists to distraction. An all seeing eye? The darkened Western face of the pyramid? And of course, the number ?13? abounds.
Thank Freemason Benjamin Franklin for these cryptic symbols, and watch Nicholas Cage?s historical adventure movie ?National Treasure.? The balanced scales in the seal are certainly wishful thinking and a bit quaint if they refer to the Federal budget. Study the buck closely, because there are soon going to be a lot more of them around.
What Did You Really Mean, Ben?
Having trouble raising capital for your new hedge fund? Just list Warren Buffet as your ?Honorary Chairman.? That?s what California prison guard, Ottoniel Medrano, did. To help his marketing efforts, he also claimed that he had $4.8 billion in assets under management as well as massive real estate holdings in Asia.
With this scam, Medrano?s International Realty Holdings managed to raise $700,000 from individuals, which he promptly shipped to offshore bank accounts, before the Feds shut him down.
When you think you?ve heard everything, something like this pops up. Unbelievable. You would think that people have heard of ?due diligence? by now. It all brings back unpleasant memories of Bernie Madoff, now a permanent resident at the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.
Global Market Comments
June 17, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JULY 12 AMSTERDAM STRATEGY LUNCHEON)
(AN ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS TAKE ON THE MARKETS),
(DBA), (MOO), (PHO), (FIW).
(BUSINESS IS BOOMING AT THE MONEY PRINTERS),
(ON EXECUTING TRADE ALERTS)
PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA)
Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO)
PowerShares Water Resources (PHO)
First Trust ISE Water Idx (FIW)
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.
I spent an evening with Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute and a winner of the coveted MacArthur Prize, for some long-term thinking about the environment and its investment implications.
Global warming is causing the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, glaciers in the Himalayas, and the Sierra snowpack. Water tables are falling and fossil aquifers are depleting. In the coming decades this will cause severe shortages of fresh water that could lead to crop failures in India and China, where one billion people depend on mountain runoff to irrigate crops, and even California, which delivers 80% of America?s vegetables.
The fresh water inputs in one person?s food and materials consumption works out to some 2,000 liters a day. That is no typo. As a result, all food prices will rise. To head off the greatest threat to the global food supply in human history, we need to cut carbon emissions by 80% before 2020, not 2050, as is being discussed in Copenhagen.
This can only be accomplished by redefining food and the environment as national security issue and launching a wartime mobilization. These difficult goals are achievable. Enough sunlight hits the earth in a day to power the global economy for a year. Texas alone has more than 20 gigawatts of wind power operating, under construction, or planned, enough to take 5% of our 250 coal fired power plants offline. Electricity demand could be cut by 90% purely through greater efficiencies, like switching from incandescent bulbs to LED?s.
Europe could get its entire 300 gigawatt power supply from solar plants in North Africa at current market prices. Cars powered by wind generated electricity would bring fuel costs down to an equivalent 75 cents a gallon, as electric motors are three times more efficient than internal combustion engines.
While Brown?s predictions are a little extreme for many, they mesh perfectly with my long term bullish cases for food and water plays. Take another look at the food sector ETF?s, (DBA) and (MOO), and the water space ETF?s (PHO) and (FIW).
All of the high-grade paper used by the US Treasury to print money is bought by one firm, Crane & Co., which has been in the same family for seven generations.
Last year, the Feds printed 38 million banknotes worth $639 million. Although they have seen the recession cause the velocity of money to decline, recent reflationary efforts have spurred a big increase in demand for paper for $100 dollar bills. The US first issued paper money in 1861 to finance the Civil War, and Crane has been supplying them since 1879.
The average life of a dollar bill is 21 months. Who said no one was doing well in this economic slowdown? M1, or notes and coins in circulation, is already exploding. Is this a warning of an imminent jump in inflation? In the meantime, check out the new 3D $100 bill. It includes the latest anti-counterfeiting techniques, like a new blue security strip, tiny liberty bells that morph into the number 100, and ?United States of America? micro printed on Franklin?s jacket collar. The new bills should start entering circulation in September.
It?s ironic that the balanced scales, a symbolic reference to the founding fathers? commitment to maintaining a balanced budget, are still on the new Benjamin. Old Ben must be turning over in his grave.
Out With the Old
In With the New
Global Market Comments
June 14, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(UPDATED 2013 SUMMER STRATEGY LUNCHEON SCHEDULE),
(THE YEN CARRY TRADE BLOW UP),
(FXY), (YCS), (DXJ), (SNE), (HMC), (TM),
(THE SERVICE JOB IN YOUR FUTURE), (MCD)
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY)
ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS)
WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity (DXJ)
Sony Corporation (SNE)
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HMC)
Toyota Motor Corporation (TM)
McDonald's Corp. (MCD)
Come join me for lunch for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Updates, which I will be conducting throughout Europe during the summer of 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, 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.
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 at http://madhedgefundradio.com/ and click on ?STRATEGY LUNCHEONS?.
New York City - July 2
London, England - July 8
Amsterdam, Netherlands - July 12
Berlin, Germany - July 16
Frankfurt, Germany - July 19
Portofino, Italy - July 25
Mykonos, Greece - August 1
Zermatt, Switzerland - August 9
Anyone wondering about the long term future of the US economy should take a look at the chart below. It shows the unrelenting growth of services? share of American GDP growing from 25% to 45% over the last sixty years.
Far and away the fastest growth area has been in health care, and with the first Obamacare programs starting in September, that growth is set to accelerate. Financial services have also been a serious growth creator, for better or for worse. You can turn the chart upside down and the shrinkage in our manufacturing base is equally illustrated.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Would you rather be mining coal or designing a website? These statistics make us the envy of the world, as services are where the future lies. By creating so many key technologies, our country has been the most successful in climbing up the global value chain.
Services largely comprise pure intellectual content, require no raw materials, and the end product can be transmitted over the Internet. There is a reason why nearly a million foreign students have flocked to the US for an education. Emerging nations like China and South Korea, which only see services generating 10%-15% of their GDP, are wracking their brains trying to figure out how to play catch up.
