What the Federal Reserve gave us on Wednesday with the release of their July minutes was decisive waffle.

On the one hand, steadily rising employment means an interest rate rise is close. On the other, the strong dollar, China, emerging markets, and the oil and commodity collapse is scaring the daylights out of them.

You can bet that every central banker in the world is calling up Janet Yellen begging her not to raise rates this year to save their own skins.

While the US economy is posting great numbers, especially in housing, autos, consumer spending, and anything that consumes energy, the rest of the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

The melt down in emerging markets (EM) is especially egregious, with many currencies hitting all time lows against the greenback.

The markets responded in kind. The probability of a September rate hike has therefore gone from 80/20 to 50/50.

In other words, it?s a coin toss.

I?m not in the coin toss business. I?ll leave that to my competitors. That is, unless the coin is heavily weighted in my favor and has me come up a winner 95% of the time. That has been the recent success rate of my Trade Alert service.

So I am going to cut my long dollar position by half, selling my Currency Shares Euro Trust (FXE) September, 2015 $112-$115 in-the-money vertical bear put spread at $2.68.

Sure, it?s a small profit. But it is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. This gives me the dry powder to resell the beleaguered Europe currency higher up if the current rally continues.

Don?t worry. I have not suddenly fallen in love with the Euro. This is just a tactical move. The long-term bull market for the US dollar is alive and well.

In any case, we amply squeezed the juice from the short Euro trade during the first half when it was in free fall with multiple Trade Alerts. Since then, its volatility has been muted.

As for the Japanese yen (FXY), (YCS), I am going to continue to run my short position there. The fundamentals there are so dire, and the quantitative easing so aggressive, that it pays to keep one finger in the pie.

I?m afraid that the Fed?s indecisiveness is going to pee on the parade for the entire rising interest play for the rest of the year. That includes long positions in financials (GS), (BAC) and shorts in the Treasury bond market (TLT), (TBT). Believers may have to wait until 2016.

The present trading conditions for all markets are among the worst I?ve ever seen. Not taking a quick profit is the same as leaving your wallet in the middle of New York?s Times Square at rush hour and expecting to find it there the next day.

There are a ton of other interesting things to do here. Oil (USO), commodities, and copper (FCX) are reaching multi decade lows.

Gold (GLD) looks like it may be awakening from a long slumber. A friend of mine bought $360 million worth of the barbarous relic just the other day, and he didn?t earn that much money by being a rotten market timer.

As a former student of the US Marine Corps Sniper School at Camp Pendleton, I can assure you that it is far better to lie back and take the careful, measured, precise shot than to engage in hand-to-hand combat with one hand tied behind your back.

I Think I have Spotted a Great Trade

I am back at my mountain top aerie near the city of San Francisco.

Drifting smoke from the enormous forest fires up north have turned the skies a pale rust brown, taking visibility down to a few hundred yards. Some 100 square miles have burned up near here in the past month, the inevitable result of our four-year drought.

El Nino! Where are you?

I tried going on a hike last night, but found myself coughing and wheezing within an hour. It was like trying to breathe in the smog choked Los Angeles of the 1950?s.

To top it all, as I was writing my Trade Alert to sell short the Euro (FXE) on Monday, I was thrown out of my chair by a 4.1 magnitude earthquake. I was a half-mile from the epicenter, and it sounded like a truck hit a parked car outside at 80 miles per hour.

I knew my Trade Alerts were earth shaking, but not literally so.

Fortunately for followers of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Trade Alert service, a blaze of a different kind has been taking place with their trading and investment performance.

Since returning from my African and European sojourn, every single Trade Alert I issued has been profitable.

I sensed in April that a long rolling top would ensue in the stock markets that would take as long as six months to resolve. Since then that view has been paying off in spades.

I have been using every short-term rally to strap on short positions in the S&P 500 (SPY) through risk limiting vertical bear put option spreads. Those who couldn?t trade options bought the ProShares Ultra Short S&P 500 (SDS) instead.

I have completed five round trips using this approach so far, and just opened a sixth. I am going to continue until we hit a traditional period of equity strength that starts in the fall, after Chairman Janet makes her call.

The really exciting thing about the rest of 2015 is that we have a new batch of leaders to milk. Those include housing (LEN), (HD), (LOW), the banks (JPM), (BA), (C), and consumer discretionary (DIS).

That?s not all I have been doing.

I have scored wins on the long side in Apple (AAPL), Goldman Sachs (GS), and the Volatility Index (UVXY). I came out ahead with short positions in the Japanese yen (FXY), (YCS), and the Euro (FXE), (EUO).

In July, I grew even bolder, selling short the Treasury bond market (TBT), (TLT). I?m sorry, but I just don?t see a humongous bond rally going into the first Federal Reserve interest rate rise in nine years.

The fruit of these labors was to take the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s performance for 2015 up to a new all time high at 38.37%. August so far has been as hot at the Sahara Desert that I recently escaped, up 5.24%.

This brings my performance since inception four years and eight months ago to 191.18%. That annualizes out to 40.96% per year, not bad in this upside down world.

It seems like only a Madman can prosper in these hopeless trading conditions.

Some 21 of the last 22 consecutive Trade Alerts I issued since April 29 have been profitable. Followers have found themselves in the green during every month of 2015, and quite substantially so.

It has been a near perfect year.

I started out 2015 with the goal of earning 25% for my readers during the first half, and another 25% in the second half. This latest batch of trades puts me right on track for reaching my yearend goal.

Given the weird dynamic of this market, the shares of best quality names have had the biggest falls. That means the pickings will be especially ripe when I return to single name picks at the next market bottom.

I should take these extended research trips more often! My back office tells me that subscriptions have been falling off in North Korea, Mali has been weak of late, and that a strategy luncheon in Bhutan would be welcome any time.

Under promise and over deliver; it has always been a winning business strategy for me.

This is against a backdrop of major market indexes that are nearly unchanged so far this year, despite sudden bursts of volatility and long, Sahara like stretches of boredom.

The complete collapse of oil, commodities, and precious metals has made the markets even more challenging.

The key to winning this year have been to put the pedal to the mettle during those brief, but hair raising selloffs, and then take quick profits. They don?t call me ?Mad? for nothing.

When the market is dead, you sit on your hands.

After all, you are trying to pay for your own yacht, not your broker?s.

When the market pays you to stay away, you stay away in droves.

Those who have made the effort to wake up early every morning and read my witty and incisive prose have an impressive row of notches on their bedpost to show for their effort.

My groundbreaking trade mentoring service was first launched in 2010. Thousands of followers now earn a full time living solely from my Trade Alerts, a development of which I am immensely proud.

Some 50% of my clients are over 50 and managing their own retirement funds fleeing the shoddy but expensive services provided by Wall Street. The balance is institutional investors, hedge funds, and professional financial advisors.

The Mad Hedge Fund Trader seeks to level the playing field for the average Joe. Looking at the testimonials that come in every day, I?d say we?ve accomplished that goal.

It has all been a vindication of the trading and investment strategy that I have been preaching to followers for the past eight years.

Quite a few followers were able to move fast enough to cash in on my trading recommendations. To read the plaudits yourself, please go to my testimonials page by.
Our business is booming, so I am plowing profits back in to enhance our added value for you.

Global Trading Dispatch, my highly innovative and successful trade-mentoring program, earned a net return for readers of 40.17% in 2011, 14.87% in 2012, 67.45% in 2013, and 30.3% in 2014.

Our flagship product, Mad Hedge Fund Trader Pro, costs $4,500 a year. It includes Global Trading Dispatch (my trade alert service and daily newsletter).

You get a real-time trading portfolio, an enormous research database, and live biweekly strategy webinars. You also get Bill Davis?s Mad Day Trader service, which provides great intra day market color.

To subscribe, please go to my website at?www.madhedgefundtrader.com, click on the ?Memberships? located on the second row of tabs.

And now for the rest of the year.

I can?t wait!

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the surprise five point spike up in the bond market last week is entirely due to the shocking devaluation of the Chinese Yuan.

Prior to that, fixed income markets were discounting the inevitable rise in US interest rates and fall in the bond market. It is really irrelevant whether Janet makes her move in September, December, or sometime in 2016. The writing is on the wall.

Bonds should start feeling the heat about now.

Yesterday, the Beijing government reduced support for the Yuan for a third time, and then swore on a stack of Chairman Mao?s Little Red Books that this was the last one.

I take them at their word, even though my Mandarin is sparse, to say the least, and I am not inclined to believe anyone.

To continue devaluating would risk importing substantial inflation into the Middle Kingdom. They can get away with this now because the price of their largest import, oil, is in free fall.

It would risk a real currency war with the United States, which is unhappy about seeing all of the past year?s Yuan appreciation undone in a heartbeat.

If China pushes any further, they may see the trading sanctions and anti dumping duties rain down upon them, like a summer typhoon. If you thought the kerfuffle over solar panels, tires, and chicken feet were bad, wait until you see the next batch.

They would also see what little credibility they still have in international markets fall into tatters. No one ever said building a domestic financial system was going to be easy.

In any case, the Yuan drop we have seen so far is still small bear compared to the much more dramatic declines of other major currencies over the past year, most notably again the Euro (-18%) and the yen (-21%) (see chart below).

Better to keep it that way.

Keeping all this in mind, I am more than happy to take on a new short position in the Treasury bond market through buying the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) September, 2015 $128-$131 in-the-money vertical bear put spread.

You can pay up to $2.70 for the spread and still make a decent profit. If you can?t do options, then buy the ProShares Ultra Short 20+ Year Treasury 2X ETF (TBT) outright.

We can take four more points of upside heat if we have to, which would take ten year Treasury yields below 2.00%. I?m happy to bet that is not going to happen.

If the Yuan is truly bottoming out here, it also makes sense to renew my short position in the Euro.

That?s what I did on Monday, buying the Currency Shares Euro Trust (FXE) September, 2015 $112-$115 in-the-money vertical bear put spread at $2.55 or best. You should have gotten the text alert at the opening.

For more depth on the Chinese currency crisis, please click here for ?China?s Firecracker Surprise?.

Chairman Janet is Coming for You