Global Market Comments
December 4, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(ARE YOU READY FOR PRESIDENT HILLARY?),
(TESTIMONIAL)
Yes, I know that the presidential election of 2016 is three years off. But if you already know the outcome of that contest you can use it to your advantage trading the markets today.
You don?t want to get caught out like many conservatives did in 2012, who were forced to dump stock in a hurry to beat a surprise jump in capital gains taxes after an unexpected Obama win, triggering a 10% market correction.
If you have any doubt that Hillary Clinton will be the slam-dunk winner in 2016, take a look at the table below. According to a poll just conducted by Quinnpiac University in New Haven, Connecticut, the former Secretary of State beats every Republican front-runner in the key battleground states of Florida and Ohio, often by huge margins.
Notice that the more conservative the candidate, the bigger the losing margin. I have always believed that the United States is a fundamentally moderate, middle of the road country. Whenever either party leans towards extremes, they are sent to the woodshed, where they are punished severely by the voters. At the end of the day, most Americans just wish that the government would go away.
In another poll I saw Clinton is leading by 60%-40% with Republican women. Democrats are counting on many to cross party lines to vote for the first woman president, as they did for the first black one in 2008. Most other leading polls are reaching the same conclusion.
You can forget about Senator Ted Cruz from Texas because he was born in Canada, with a Canadian father. After carping about Obama being from Kenya for eight years, the last thing the Republicans will do is run a Canadian for president.
So what will President Hillary mean for the market? There?s no point in asking her. Officially, she is not even running yet. But I have been in touch with some of her recent and past staff people, and the answer seems to be not much.
With our Middle Eastern wars done, Al Qaida a distant memory, the economy going great guns, unemployment down, and the US energy independent, Clinton should inherit a country that is in pretty good shape.
With the economy reaccelerating back to a 3%-4% growth rate, and no new wars, the budget should be close to balancing. The dollar will be endemically strong.
We should be at the threshold of a Pax Americana. In these goldilocks conditions stocks should rise by 10% a year, and 13% with dividends, and inflation will stay under control. Bonds will slowly grind down, and interest rates up. That works for me.
So, social issues will be the top legislative priority. You can expect to hear a lot about gun control. Assault rifles, especially military ones like the AR-15, and high capacity magazines will become history. You can also count on federal restrictions on the resale of firearms and closer tracking of convicted criminals.
Immigration will be another hot button item. Expect measures to permit the 10 million illegals currently in the country to gain access to citizenship, subject to strict conditions.
Clinton will also make an effort to roll back restrictions on voter?s rights now rampant in red states. Ten-hour lines to vote in black neighborhoods in Miami should become a thing of the past. The same will hold true for state restrictions on abortion, such as mandatory ultrasounds.
President Obama did the heavy lifting with financial regulation through Dodd-Frank, and health care with the Affordable Care Act. It will be up to Hillary to implement and enforce existing law, a far easier task.
The same will be true with tax reform. We took the big hit when the federal income tax rate jumped from 35% to 39.50%. Clinton will probably only nibble at the edges. It will be hands off for the middle class. Target number one: the ?carried interest? treatment that assures that most hedge fund managers, like me, pay no more than a 15% annual rate. Capital gains could also see another 5% move.
Big earnings to see their favorite deductions whittled back as well. Home mortgage interest deductibility will get capped at mortgage values of? $250,000-$500,000. Limits will be placed on tax-free charitable donations. Company provided health insurance will become fully taxable as regular income.
The really big impact President Clinton will have on the future of the country will be with her Supreme Court appointments. It is likely that at least one conservative justice will retire or die before the end of her second term in 2024.
That will enable her to shift the 5-4 convective majority to a liberal one for the first time in 40 years. That assures a liberal bent for the country until 2064. After that, I will be long dead, or 112, so I don?t care what happens.
A rapid succession of legal challenges will follow that will eventually bring to an end of gerrymandering of congressional elections and anonymous corporate campaign donations. That will turn Texas, Arizona, and several other states into blue ones. Gay rights will reach full equality, if it hasn?t already happened by then.
Who will Hillary bring into her cabinet? I suggest former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, as the next Secretary of Health and Social Services. He is the only person who has ever gotten government provided health care to work in the US, with his highly successful Massachusetts program. I think it will take ten years to fully implement Obamacare and for it to become actuarially sound. That makes it just the job for an experienced private equity guy.
So who will be Hillary?s first appointment to the Supreme Court? President Obama will be only 55 when his second term ends, and is a constitutional law professor with a proven track record. The kids are already placed in local schools. The only thing he will need is a new residence. What else is an ex president supposed to do?
The bigger question will be what to do about Bill.
Looking for a Replay
Are You Ready for President Hillary?
Global Market Comments
December 3, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THAT OTHER ?GREAT REALLOCATION? OUT OF THE YEN),
(FXY), (YCS), ($NIKK), (DXJ), (TLT),
(BUY FLOOD INSRANCE WITH THE VIX), (VIX), (VXX),
(TESTIMONIAL)
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY)
ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS)
Tokyo Nikkei Average Indx ($NIKK)
WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity (DXJ)
iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
VOLATILITY S&P 500 (^VIX)
iPath S&P 500 VIX (VXX)
The big talk in the financial markets this year was of the ?Great Reallocation? out of bonds and into stocks.? The problem is that it was just that: talk. While redemptions of retail bond mutual funds have topped $147 billion since June, the big money has yet to move in size.
However, there is a great reallocation that is already well under way. In fact, it already completed its first leg earlier this year, and has just begun the second. That is the ?Great Reallocation? out of yen (FXY), (YCS) and into the dollar. It is being executed not only by Japanese institutional investors, but foreign ones as well.
Take a look at the chart below, and you will see that the beleaguered Japanese currency broke to a new four year low this morning. Nothing like a jolt of fresh (FXY) to wake you up first thing in the day, and clear out those cobwebs.
This freefall was on the heels of my doubling up of my yen short positions for my model-trading portfolio with my Trade Alert on Black Friday. The (FXY), now trading at $94.80, is clearly targeting the $90 low set in 2008 for the short term, and after that, the $81 low last seen in 2007.
To understand why this is happening, take a look at this from the point of view of the Japanese money manager, who is running the world?s second largest pool of investable assets, after the US. After a 23-year performance drought, you have just had one of your best years in history.
The Nikkei rocketed by 48%. Better yet, the yen has fallen by 16% against the dollar, which directly translates into an equivalent increase on your foreign investments.
Why not visit the well a second time? Why wait until 2014, when everyone else is going to do the same thing again? In fact, why not drink twice as much this time, as the water is so sweet? What is the conclusion of all of this? Sell more yen, and lots of them. That was what I clearly saw unfolding a month ago. This is why you are making so much money now.
This explains why I have been running big shorts in the yen for almost all of the last two years, doubling up, taking profits, and then doubling up again. I have no doubt that when I total up my numbers for 2014, the yen will pop out as my most profitable trade. Domo Arigato Abe-san!
For readers who need to bone up on the fundamental case against the Land of the Rising Sun, and the trigger for the latest collapse, please click here for ?Selling the Yen, Again? , ?Doubling Up On My Yen Shorts?, and ?The Party is Just Getting Started With the Japanese Yen?.
As for the original ?Great Reallocation? from bonds to stocks, take a look at the chart of Treasury bond futures below lifted from the Gartman Report, reproduced from my friend, Dennis Gartman. Veteran traders will immediately recognize the ?head and shoulders top? that is unfolding in the US Treasury bond market. This is the chart that promises of great things to come in the bond market in 2014?.on the downside.
Look Out Below for the (TLT)
New Lows for the Yen
Global Market Comments
December 2, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MAD DAY TRADER BRINGS IN 292% RETURN IN 2013),
(GOOG), (IBM), (SOYB), (AAPL), (TLT),
?(TBT), (FXY), (YCS), (FXE), (EUO),
(BEWARE THE COMING EQUITY FAMINE),
(TESTIMONIAL)
Google Inc. (GOOG)
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Teucrium Soybean (SOYB)
Apple Inc. (AAPL)
iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT)
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY)
ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS)
CurrencyShares Euro Trust (FXE)
ProShares UltraShort Euro (EUO)
When Mad Day Trader, Jim Parker, told me he was up 292% over the past seven months, I didn?t believe him.
The value of a nominal $1,000 investment would have to have increased to $3,124. ?It?s too good to be true,? I thought. Nobody will believe it. Even my own customer support people said it was a crazy number.
But after carefully analyzing Jim?s trade history, I saw that he was right on the money. So to confirm that the proof was in the pudding, I checked with a specialist to verify the numbers from Stonegate International Administration LLC of Chicago.
Sure enough, Stonegate came in bang on the 292% number. To review the full report, which I have posted on our website, please click ??Mad Day Trader All Trades Report?.
The report shows that Jim?s best month was in May, when he earned an eye popping 88% profit. He piled on longs in IBM (IBM), Google (GOOG), soybeans (SOYB), and Brazil (EWZ). He went aggressively short the Japanese yen (FXY), (YCS) and the Euro (FXE), (EUO). He also took advantage of the volatility in the Treasury bond market (TLT), (TBT), playing it from both the long and short side.
Hmmmm. Looks like Jim has been reading my research.
I realize that many of you are not inclined to attempt day trading, where most individuals lose money, and justifiably so. But Jim?s Mad Day Trader Service offers an incredibly valuable tool for medium and long-term investors as well.
I can?t tell you how many times I have been tormented over whether to pull the trigger on a Trade Alert, and then Jim comes along with the little morsel of information that tips me over to one side or the other. His intelligence can be worth millions. These he picks up from his four-decade accumulation of relationships in the Chicago pits, big hedge fund clients, and his own proprietary models and native instincts.
You may have noticed that since we started offering the Mad Day Trader service, my own performance has rocketed from 37% to nearly 60% for 2013, in no small part due to Jim?s assistance. I basically had one great year going into June, worked in Europe for two months, and then piled on a second great year after I returned in August. Subscribers of both our services are laughing all the way to the bank.
While the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader and Global Trading Dispatch focus on investment over a one week to six-month time frame, Mad Day Trader will exploit moneymaking opportunities over a ten minute to three-day window. It is ideally suited for day traders, but can also be used by long-term investors to improve market timing for entry and exit points. During normal trading conditions, you should receive two to five market updates and Trade Alerts a day.
As with our existing service, you will receive ticker symbols, entry and exit points, targets, stop losses, and regular real time updates. At the end of each day, a separate short-term model portfolio will be posted on the website.
Jim is a 40-year veteran of the financial markets and has long made a living as an independent trader in the pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He has worked his way up from a junior floor runner, to advisor to some of the world?s largest hedge funds. We are lucky to have him on our team and gain access to his experience, knowledge, and expertise.
I have been following his alerts for the past five years, and his market timing has become an important part of the ?unfair advantage? that I provide readers.
A trading service with this degree of success and sophistication normally costs $20,000 a year. As a client of The Mad Hedge Fund Trader, you can purchase Mad Day Trader alone for $699 a quarter, or $2,000 a year. Or you can buy it as a package together with Global Trading Dispatch, which we call Mad Hedge Fund Trader PRO, for $4,000 a year, a 20% discount to the full retail price...
To learn more about The Mad Day Trader, please visit my website at http://madhedgefundradio.com/mad-day-trader-service/. To subscribe, please click here at http://madhedgefundradio.com/subscribe-to-mad-day-trader-service/ .
If you want to get a pro rata upgrade from your existing Newsletter or Global Trading Dispatch subscription to Mad Hedge Fund Trader PRO, which includes Mad Day Trader, just email Nancy in customer support at nmilne@madhedgefundtrader.com, or call her at 888-716-1115.
Global Market Comments
November 29, 2013
Fiat Lux
SPECIAL THANKSGIVING ISSUE
Featured Trade:
(DECEMBER 4 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR),
(SURVIVING THANKSGIVING)
Global Market Comments
November 27, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(DEMOGRAPHICS AS DESTINY),
(SPY), (EWJ), (EWL), (EWU), (EWG), (EWY), (FXI), (EIRL), (GREK), (EWP), (RSX), (IDX), (EPOL), (TUR), (EWZ), (PIN), (EIS),
(TESTIMONIAL)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ)
iShares MSCI Switzerland Capped Index (EWL)
iShares MSCI United Kingdom (EWU)
iShareiShares MSCI Germany (EWG)
iShares MSCI South Korea Capped (EWY)
iShares China Large-Cap (FXI)
iShares MSCI Ireland Capped (EIRL)
Global Market Comments
November 26, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HERE COMES THE NEXT PEACE DIVIDEND),
(SPY), (XLI), (XLF), (XLK), (C), (UUP), (USO),
(TAKING PROFITS ON THE YEN?.AGAIN!),
(FXY), (YCS), (DXJ)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
Industrial Select Sector SPDR (XLI)
Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF)
Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK)
Citigroup, Inc. (C)
PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish (UUP)
United States Oil (USO)
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY)
ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS)
WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity (DXJ)
I was amazed to see the Dow Average open up only 60 points this morning, and oil to fall a mere $1.50, given the enormous long term implications of a real nuclear deal with Iran. Over the decades, I have noticed that Wall Street isn?t very good at analyzing international political matters and the implications for their own markets. This appears to be one of those cases.
The news over the weekend about a freeze on Iran?s nuclear enrichment program in exchange for international inspections and the unfreezing of $4 billion of their assets is unbelievably positive for all asset classes, except energy. It came much sooner than expected. It proves that the administration?s preference for economic sanctions over military action has been wildly successful.
The US is now in a tremendously powerful negotiating position. If Iran dumps their nuclear program to our satisfaction it can get the carrot. It will rejoin the world economy, unfreeze the rest of its assets, and recover $100 billion a year in trade. Its oil exports (USO) can recover from 750,000 barrels a day back to the pre crisis level of 3 million barrels. If it doesn?t then it gets the stick again in six months, resuming their economic freefall.
The geopolitical implications for the U.S. are enormous.? Iran is the last major rogue state hostile to the U.S. in the Middle East, and it is teetering. The final domino of the Arab spring falls squarely at the gates of Tehran. A friendly, or at least a non-hostile Iran, means we really don?t care what happens in Syria.
Remember that the first real revolution in the region was Iran?s Green Revolution in 2009. That revolt was successfully suppressed with an iron fist by fanatical and pitiless Revolutionary Guards. The true death toll will never be known, but is thought to be in the thousands. The antigovernment sentiments that provided the spark never went away and they continue to percolate just under the surface.
At the end of the day, the majority of the Persian population wants to join the tide of globalization. They want to buy iPods and blue jeans, communicate freely through their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and have the jobs to pay for it all. Since 1979, when the Shah was deposed, a succession of extremist, ultraconservative governments ruled by a religious minority, have abjectly failed to cater to these desires
If Iran doesn?t do a deal on nukes soon, it?s economy with sink deeper into the morass in which they currently find themselves. The Iranian ?street? will figure out that if they spill enough of their own blood that regime change is possible and the revolution there will reignite. The Obama administration is now pulling out all the stops to accelerate the process.
The oil embargo former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, organized is steadily tightening the noose, with heating oil and gasoline becoming hard to obtain. Yes, Russia and China are doing what they can to slow the process, but conducting international trade through the back door is expensive, and prices are rocketing. The unemployment rate is 40%.? The Iranian Rial has collapsed by 50%. Iranian banks were kicked out of the SWIFT international settlements system, a deathblow to their trade.
Let?s see how docile these people remain when the air conditioning quits running this summer because of power shortages. Iran is a rotten piece of fruit ready to fall of its own accord and go splat. The US is doing everything she can to shake the tree. No military action of any kind is required on America?s part. No shot has been fired. That?s a big deal when the shots cost $10,000 apiece.
The geopolitical payoff of such an event for the U.S. would be almost incalculable. A successful revolution will almost certainly produce a secular, pro-Western regime whose first priority will be to rejoin the international community and use its oil wealth to rebuild an economy now in tatters.
Oil will lose its risk premium, now believed by the oil industry to be $30 a barrel. A looming supply could cause prices to drop to as low as $30 a barrel. This would amount to a gigantic $1.66 trillion tax cut for not just the U.S., but the entire global economy as well (87 million barrels a day X 365 days a year X $100 dollars a barrel X 50%). Almost all funding of terrorist organizations will immediately dry up. I might point out here that this has always been the oil industry?s worst nightmare. Hezbollah is a short.
At that point, the US will be without enemies, save for North Korea, and even the Hermit Kingdom could change with a new leader in place. A long Pax Americana will settle over the planet.
The implications for the financial markets will be enormous. The U.S. will reap a peace dividend as large, or larger, than the one we enjoyed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. As you may recall, that black swan caused the Dow Average to soar from 2,000 to 10,000 in less than eight years, also partly fueled by the technology boom.
A collapse in oil imports will cause the U.S. dollar (UUP) to rocket.? An immediate halving of our defense spending to $400 billion or less and burgeoning new tax revenues would cause the budget deficit to collapse. With the U.S. government gone as a major new borrower, interest rates across the yield curve will fall further.
A peace dividend will also cause U.S. GDP growth to reaccelerate from 2% to 4%. Risk assets of every description will soar to multiples of their current levels, including stocks, junk bonds, commodities, precious metals, and food. The Dow will soar to 30,000 and the S&P 500 (SPY) to 3,500, the Euro collapses to parity, gold rockets to $2,300 an ounce, silver flies to $100 an ounce, copper leaps to $6 a pound, and corn recovers $8 a bushel. The 60-year bull market in bonds ends.
Some 1 million of the armed forces will get dumped on the job market as our manpower requirements shrink to peacetime levels. But a strong economy should be able to soak these well-trained and motivated people right up. We will enter a new Golden Age, not just at home, but for civilization as a whole.
Wait, you ask, what if Iran develops an atomic bomb and holds the U.S. at bay? Don?t worry. There is no Iranian nuclear device. There is no real Iranian nuclear program. The entire concept is an invention of Israeli and American intelligence agencies as a means to put pressure on the regime. According to them, Iran has been within a month or producing a tactical nuclear weapon for the last 30 years.
The head of the miniscule effort they have was assassinated by Israeli intelligence two years ago (a magnetic bomb, placed on a moving car, by a team on a motorcycle, nice!).
If Iran had anything substantial in the works, the Israeli planes would have taken off a long time ago. There is no plan to close the Straits of Hormuz, either. The training exercises in small rubber boats we have seen are done for CNN?s benefit, and comprise no credible threat.
I am a firm believer in the wisdom of markets, and that the marketplace becomes aware of major history changing events well before we mere individual mortals do. The Dow began a 25-year bull market the day after American forces defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Midway in May of 1942, even though the true outcome of that confrontation was kept top secret for years.
If the advent of a new, docile Iran were going to lead to a global multi-decade economic boom and the end of history, how would the stock markets behave now? They would rise virtually every day, led by the technology sector (XLK), industrials (XLI), and the banks (XLF) (C), offering no substantial pullbacks for latecomers to get in.
That is exactly what they have been doing since August. The markets are telling us that a treaty of real substance is a done deal.
Aim This One at the Bears
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