Featured Trade: (THE BOND CRASH HAS ONLY JUST STARTED), ($TNX), (TLT), (TBT), (INDIA VS CHINA), (FXI), (PIN), (INP), (TTM)
10-Year Treasury Note ($TNX)
iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treas Bond (TLT)
ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT)
iShares China Large-Cap (FXI)
PowerShares India (PIN)
iPath MSCI India Index ETN (INP)
Tata Motors Limited (TTM)
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When I first visited Calcutta in 1976, more than 800,000 people were sleeping on the sidewalks, I was hauled everywhere by a very lean, barefoot rickshaw driver, and drinking the water out of a tap was tantamount to committing suicide. Some 36 years later, and the subcontinent is poised to overtake China's white hot growth rate.
My friends at the International Monetary Fund just put out a report predicting that India will grow by 8.5% this year. While the country's total GDP is only a quarter of China's $5 trillion, its growth could exceed that in the Middle Kingdom as early as 2014.
Many hedge funds believe that India will be the top growing major emerging market for the next 25 years, and are positioning themselves accordingly. Investors are now taking a harder look at the country ETF?s, including India (INP) and China (FXI), which have recently suffered gut churning selloffs.
India certainly has a lot of catching up to do. According to the World Bank, its per capita income is $3,275, compared to $6,800 in China and $46,400 in the US. This is with the two populations close in size, at 1.3 billion for China and 1.2 billion for India.
But India has a number of advantages that China lacks. To paraphrase hockey great, Wayne Gretzky, you want to aim not where the puck is, but where it's going to be. The massive infrastructure projects that have powered much of Chinese growth for the past three decades, such as the Three Gorges Dam, are missing in India. But financing and construction for huge transportation, power generation, water, and pollution control projects are underway.
A large network of private schools is boosting education levels, enabling the country to capitalize on its English language advantage. When planning the expansion of my own business, I was presented with the choice of hiring a website designer here for $60,000 a year, or in India for $5,000. That's why booking a ticket on United Airlines or calling technical support at Dell Computer gets you someone in Bangalore.
India is also a huge winner on the demographic front, with one of the lowest ratios of social service demanding retirees in the world. China's 30 year old 'one child' policy is going to drive it into a wall in ten years, when the number of retirees starts to outnumber their children.
There is one more issue out there that few are talking about. The reform of the Chinese electoral process at the next People's Congress in 2013 could lead to posturing and political instability which the markets could find unsettling. India is the world's largest democracy, and much of its current prosperity can be traced to wide ranging deregulation and modernization than took place 20 years ago.
I have been a big fan of India for a long time, and not just because they constantly help me fix my computers. In the past, I recommended Tata Motors (TTM), which has since doubled, making it one of my best, all-time single stock picks (click here for ?Take Tata Motors Out for a Spin?). On the next decent dip take a look at the Indian ETF?s (INP), (PIN), and (EPI).
Better to Own This Pyramid
Than This Pyramid
Taxi! Taxi!
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Featured Trade: (THE POPULATION BOOM), (WHY WATER WILL SOON BE WORTH MORE THAN OIL), (CGW), (PHO), (FIW), (VE), (TTEK), (PNR), (WHO EXPENSIVE OIL HURTS THE MOST), (USO), (TESTIMONIAL)
Guggenheim S&P Global Water Index (CGW)
PowerShares Water Resources (PHO)
First Trust ISE Water Idx (FIW)
Veolia Environnement S.A. (VE)
Tetra Tech Inc. (TTEK)
Pentair Ltd. (PNR)
United States Oil (USO)
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In their century long coverage of exotic places, cultures, and practices, National GeographicMagazine inadvertently sheds light on broad global trends that deeply affect the rest of us. Plus, the pictures are great. A recent issue celebrated the approach of the world's population to 7 billion, and the implications therein.
Long time readers of this letter know that demographic issues will be one of the most important drivers of all asset prices for the rest of our lives. The magazine expects that our planet?s population will reach 9 billion by 2045, the earliest date that I have seen so far. Can it take the strain? Early religious leaders often cast Armageddon and Revelations in terms of an exploding population exhausting all resources, leaving the living to envy the dead. They may not be far wrong.
A number of developments have postponed the final day of reckoning, including the development of antibiotics, the green revolution, DDT, and birth control pills. Since 1952, life expectancy in India has expanded from 38 years to 64. In China, it has ratcheted up from 41 years to 73. These miracles of modern science explain how our population has soared from 3 billion in a mere 40 years.
The education of the masses may be our only salvation. Leave a married woman at home, and she has eight kids, as our great grandparents did, half of which died. Educate her, and she goes out and gets a job to raise her family's standard of living, limiting her child bearing to one or two. This is known as the ?demographic transition.?
While it occurred over four generations in the developed world, it is happening today in a single generation in much of Asia and Latin America. As a result, fertility around the world is crashing. The US is hovering at just below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family, thanks to immigration. But China has plummeted to 1.5, Europe is at 1.4, and South Korea has plunged as low as 1.15.
Population pressures are expected to lead to increasing civil strife and resource wars. Some attribute the genocide in Rwanda in 1999, which killed 800,000, as the bloody result of overpopulation.
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If you think that an energy shortage is bad, it will pale in comparison to the next water crisis. So investment in fresh water infrastructure is going to be a great recurring long-term investment theme. One theory about the endless wars in the Middle East since 1918 is that they have really been over water rights.
Although Earth is often referred to as the water planet, only 2.5% is fresh, and three quarters of that is locked up in ice at the North and South poles. In places like China, with a quarter of the world's population, up to 90% of the fresh water is already polluted, some irretrievably so. Some 18% of the world population lacks access to potable water, and demand is expected to rise by 40% in the next 20 years.
Aquifers in the US, which took nature a millennia to create, are approaching exhaustion. While membrane osmosis technologies exist to convert seawater into fresh, they use ten times more energy than current treatment processes, a real problem if you don't have any, and will easily double the end cost of water to consumers. While it may take 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef, it takes a staggering 2,416 gallons of water to do the same. Beef exports are really a way of shipping water abroad in concentrated form.
The UN says that $11 billion a year is needed for water infrastructure investment, and $15 billion of the 2008 US stimulus package was similarly spent. It says a lot that when I went to the University of California at Berkeley School of Engineering to research this piece, most of the experts in the field had already been retained by major hedge funds!
At the top of the shopping list to participate here should be the Claymore S&P Global Water Index ETF (CGW), which has appreciated by 14% since the October low. You can also visit the PowerShares Water Resource Portfolio (PHO), the First Trust ISE Water Index Fund (FIW), or the individual stocks Veolia Environment (VE), Tetra-Tech (TTEK), and Pentair (PNR). Who has the world's greatest per capita water resources? Siberia, which could become a major exporter of H2O to China in the decades to come.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Water-Fall.jpg249365Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-12-05 08:37:502013-12-05 08:37:50Why Water Will Soon Become More Valuable Than Oil
Every time the price of oil spikes, we learn vast amounts of information about the global reach of this indispensable commodity. It's like taking a non-core elective in geology at college. So I was fascinated when I found the chart of relative sector winners and losers below.
No surprise that energy does best from sky-high crude prices. It is followed by telecommunications and health care. You would also expect consumer discretionary stocks to take it on the nose, as high energy prices almost always lead to a cyclical downturn in the economy.
Who is the worst performer of all? Europe, which makes the recent weakness even more understandable.
Europe Will be the Biggest Loser from High Oil Prices
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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-$500,000. Limits will be placed on tax-free charitable donations. Company provided health insurance will become fully taxable as regular income.
The really big impact President Clinton will have on the future of the country will be with her Supreme Court appointments. It is likely that at least one conservative justice will retire or die before the end of her second term in 2024.
That will enable her to shift the 5-4 convective majority to a liberal one for the first time in 40 years. That assures a liberal bent for the country until 2064. After that, I will be long dead, or 112, so I don?t care what happens.
A rapid succession of legal challenges will follow that will eventually bring to an end of gerrymandering of congressional elections and anonymous corporate campaign donations. That will turn Texas, Arizona, and several other states into blue ones. Gay rights will reach full equality, if it hasn?t already happened by then.
Who will Hillary bring into her cabinet? I suggest former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, as the next Secretary of Health and Social Services. He is the only person who has ever gotten government provided health care to work in the US, with his highly successful Massachusetts program. I think it will take ten years to fully implement Obamacare and for it to become actuarially sound. That makes it just the job for an experienced private equity guy.
So who will be Hillary?s first appointment to the Supreme Court? President Obama will be only 55 when his second term ends, and is a constitutional law professor with a proven track record. The kids are already placed in local schools. The only thing he will need is a new residence. What else is an ex president supposed to do?
The bigger question will be what to do about Bill.
Looking for a Replay
Are You Ready for President Hillary?
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Featured Trade: (THAT OTHER ?GREAT REALLOCATION? OUT OF THE YEN), (FXY), (YCS), ($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)
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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!
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
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