The stock of the day last Friday was, no doubt, JC Penny (JCP), one of the most heavily shorted stocks in the market, which announced Q2, 2012 earnings. Despite a huge miss, the stock soared by 20% because the losses were not as bad as many expected. This leads to the question of whether traders should double up or bail on the existing short positions.
As the dispassionate analyst that I am, who only looks at numbers in the cold, harsh light of reality, the figures could not have been more disappointing. Q2 EPS showed a loss of $0.37/shares versus an expected loss of $0.25. Revenues came in at $3 billion compared to an estimate of $3.2 billion.
Worst of all, same store sales cratered by -21.7% YOY while traffic was off -12%. This is despite offering kids free haircuts. Gross margins shrank and Internet sales were off 30%. To top it all, the company announced that it would no longer provide future guidance. Moody?s immediately followed with a downgrade of the company?s debt from Ba1 to Ba3.
The new CEO, Ron Johnson, has no retail experience and says he needs 4 years for a turnaround. In the meantime, competitor Macys is making good money and selling at 11X earnings with the best CEO in business. Well established luxury brand Coach (COH) sells for a 14X multiple. If you fall in love with retail and absolutely have to be in this sector, there are far better fish to fry. Personally, I would rather lie down and take a long nap.
The hedgies still in this name are clearing gunning for a chapter 11. So a chance to sell again 20% higher than yesterday in the face of bad news has to be attractive. But with such a huge share of the company?s outstanding shares already sold short, the risk reward here is not great. I would have ridden the stock down from $40 to $20 and then said, ?Thank you very much?, rather than chase the last few dollars just to prove I?m right.
The company only has to get a little right to trigger a bigger short squeeze. Technicians were clearly focused on a potential multiyear double bottom on the charts. Besides, I was never one for sloppy seconds, and don?t need a haircut.
Looking for a better stock to sell short at the top of the recent range with dire fundamentals? I?d rather short Morgan Stanley on an up day.
JC Penny: Better Fish to Fry
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.pngDougD2012-08-12 23:03:432012-08-12 23:03:43Double Up or Bail on Your JC Penny Short?
Welcome to the ?Heads I win, tails you lose? market. The prospect of imminent quantitative easing by the US, Europe, China, and even Japan is supporting asset prices globally. The worse the economic data reports, the greater the likelihood of such action, and the higher prices can rise. In this topsy turvey world, bad becomes good, and worse is even better.
The only reason for the central banks not to act is if the economy starts to reaccelerate on its own without outside intervention. So the choices presented to investors are really quite limited: you either buy, or you buy. This is the twisted logic that has allowed traders to run the markets up to within 2% of the four year highs on incredibly small volume.
There is only one problem with this approach to the market. It requires mental gymnastics that would earn a gold medal at the London Olympics.
The harsh reality is that this impressive gain in the market has occurred in the face of decidedly deteriorating fundamentals. American companies managed to eke out a 5% gain in earnings in Q2, down from a 15% increase a year ago. Adjust for inflation and this growth rate approaches zero in real terms.
What is particularly disturbing is that they achieved these scanty results in the face of falling revenues. They did this by cutting costs, primarily through the firing of workers. This is why the unemployment rate remains at a stubbornly high 8.3%, despite some of the most impressive stimulus measures in history. Companies are burning the candle at both ends to gin up extremely modest positive results. They are literally eating their seed corn.
Needless to say, this does not support any kind of thesis for long term investment. All it does is move us from the bottom to the top of a six month range. I can?t imagine that you are going to see many aggressive buyers higher than here. Edge up from here, and you might witness the disgusting sight of traders throwing up on their shoes as they rush to cover premature shorts.
That is when you want to hold your nose and establish your shorts. Even the most bullish forecasts have the S&P 500 going up only 5% from here to 1,475, before it heads back down again.
This is not the first time that the market action has divorced itself from the fundamentals. I watched the Japanese stock market go from strength to strength for ten years before it knocked itself out crashing into the ceiling at ?39,000. Last night it closed at ?8,978, some 22 years later. Those analysts at Morgan Stanley obsessed with fundamentals only during the 1980?s saw their offices moved next to the elevator, then the men?s bathroom, the one with the big punching bag hanging from the ceiling, and finally, out of the building completely.
At this point you have to ask how much of QE3 is already priced into the market. If the Federal Reserve instituted this aggressive monetary expansion policy two months ago, they might have been able to engineer a 200 point move in the (SPX) or 2,000 points in the Dow. If they do it today, they might get only 50 (SPX) points, 500 Dow points, and perhaps none at all, followed by a sharp drop.
Lighten up your book, take short-term profits, sell short-dated-out-of- the-money calls, and meaningfully reduce your risk. Find something else to trade besides stocks. That is unless you have the luxury of staying out completely. The traders who don?t remember to sit down when the music stops playing will get burned badly.
Don?t Ask Me How I Got Here
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.pngDougD2012-08-09 23:04:212012-08-09 23:04:21When Bad Becomes Good and Worse is Even Better
As I expected, the wildly optimistic expectations for further quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve at yesterday?s Open Market Committee meeting were not matched with substance. All we got was a continuation of existing modest programs and some minor tweaking of language.
Bernanke only managed to say that, ?further stimulus will be provided as needed.? The Fed left unchanged its statement that economic conditions would likely warrant holding the benchmark Fed funds rate near zero ?at least through late 2014.? It also said it would continue swapping $667 billion of short-term debt with longer-term securities to lengthen the average maturity of its holdings, an action intended to lower long-term interest rates known as Operation Twist.
Apparently, the slowdown in GDP growth from 2% in Q1 to 1.5% in Q2 was not enough to spur the Fed to action. Nor was a slowdown in jobs growth from an average 226,000 jobs per month to 75,000. The earliest the Fed can now take further accommodative action is at their next meeting on September 12-13, just seven weeks before the presidential election.
The dollar rose smartly against the yen and the Euro. Equities closed at their lows for the day. They could have fallen dramatically further. But I think that traders are holding fire until their learn the results of the ECB meeting on Thursday. If we get more rhetoric instead of action, and the Friday nonfarm payroll continues weak, then we will have a hat trick of disappointments that could trigger a more gut wrench plunge in the indexes going into next week.
At the very least, we should challenge the bottom the of recent upward channel, taking us down 50 points from here. That should double the value of my existing position in the (SPY) puts.
Ben, Where Were You?
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.pngDougD2012-08-02 13:15:502012-08-02 13:15:50The Fed Says No QE3
A couple of alleged Tweets, a few rumored phone calls, and what have we got? $2 trillion in new global stock market capitalization in hours. That was the bottom line after the purported communication between the staffs of Germany?s Angela Merkel, France?s Jean Francois Hollande, and ECB president Mario Draghi. But is the creation of this immense new wealth, which would alone rank as 10th in terms of GDP after France, justified?
If the intention was to punish hedge funds, the goal was certainly accomplished. The plaintive bleatings in email and text messages I received from hedge fund friends back home has been overwhelming. It was clear from the price action, straight line moves with no pullbacks, that the pain trade was definitely on. Pre-Thursday, the consensus wisdom was that market would crash into the August doldrums in the face of global economic data that was deteriorating by the day. Such is the price of betting against central banks that I highlighted in my recent trope ?Why Ben Bernanke Hates Me? (click here at http://madhedgefundradio.com).
Leading research houses seemed to be in an arms race with government institutions to see who could cut growth forecasts the fastest. They were all egged on by US Q2 corporate earnings reports, that were highly fudged and indifferent at best, with the most honest wisdom provided by the shocker from Apple (AAPL).
However, in the financial markets that are more often driven by emotion than information, politics trump fundamentals every day. With the street heavily positioned on the short side, the conditions for a snap back rally were ripe. This is why I had no positions at all for 10 days, and no equity holdings for over a month. Rather than chase the market on the downside, I waited for it to come to me, which is usually the best thing to do.
I have always believed that Europe has the ability and the resources to solve its problems at any time. To read my advice to the German government in detail, please refer to my report from Frankfurt, which I will write in the next couple of days, when I get some time.
All that is required is for Europe to make some unpleasant admissions of truths, and adopt some policies and institutions that have already been proven to work in the US. These are hard things to do politically, but that can be done. Make the politicians earn their pay for a change, I say. This is what makes the short game in Europe so risky, and why I have recently been so wimpy on my short Euro (FXE), (EUO) recommendations (in the reports, but without trade alerts).
Words are cheap, and their true value will become apparent when it comes time for Mario Draghi to deliver. If he does so quickly, we could see a ?RISK ON?, rally that could last until the end of the year and possibly take the S&P 500 up to 1,500. If he doesn?t, the August crash scenario down to 1,200 is back on the table, but no more. That table loses another leg if Ben Bernanke fails to deliver QE3 on Wednesday.
If all of this leaves you confused and befuddled, then welcome to the club. There are times when markets are just not forecastable, when the number of large variables and unknowns are too great to even make an intelligent guess at outcomes, and this is one of them. That?s why I am still 70% in cash, limiting my ?RISK ON? exposure to small, profitable positions in short Treasury and short yen call spreads. That?s down from 100% I had just last Wednesday.
I think I?ll go climb that Alp over there.
The Pain Trade is on for Hedge Funds
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.pngDougD2012-07-30 22:46:492012-07-30 22:46:49Mr. Mario?s Big Bluff
I don?t just think he hates me. He truly despises me. In fact, he does everything he can to put me out of business.
Take next week, for example, when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meets, and he will attempt to give my views and me a complete thrashing. I doubt he?ll launch a QE3 because he needs to keep some dry powder as a last resort. But he probably will announce some minor back door easings, like expanding his ?operation twist? to include mortgage backed securities for the first time, or ceasing interest rate payments on deposits from private banks. Just the mere prospect of this is forcing me to stay entirely in cash, preventing me from making more money than I already am.
It?s not that I am not an all right guy. I am kind to children and small animals. I donate generously to many charities. I send my mother cards on her birthday (happy birthday mom!), even though she is 84 and not expected to last much longer. I even occasionally escort little old ladies across the street, although this is a holdover from my days as an Eagle Scout.
It?s just that Ben Bernanke and I don?t see eye-to-eye on a lot of important issues. He wants stocks to go up. As a hedge fund manager who plays from the short side more often than not when the economy is growing at a paltry 1.5% rate, I want them to go down. He wants bonds to go up too, as he clearly elicited with his ?twist policy? last year when he bought long term Treasury bonds and shorted overnight paper against it. I, on the other hand, want bonds to sell off because I know that when the bill comes due for all of this monetary easing, the crash will be momentous.
These are not the only matters we differ on. He wants to create jobs. He can wish this until the cows come home but he?s not going to get them because of the gale force demographic headwinds the country is now facing and the massive deleveraging by the public and private sector. The 25 million jobs we exported to China are never coming back.
However, all he has to do is make a mere mention of his desires, or even just mention the letter ?Q?, and asset prices go through the roof, forcing me to stop out of my shorts at losses. This is why I was in such a foul, acrimonious, and detestable mood during the first quarter, when stocks went up almost every day.
My problem is that Ben Bernanke isn?t the only person who dislikes me. President Obama doesn?t think much of me either. He talks about jobs too. He frequently speaks about the need to improve our education system, even though I know he is poised to slash the budget for the Department of Education as part of some deal with the Republicans. Ditto for Social Security.
Fortunately for me, I wrote off any prospect of getting a retirement check a long time ago and have made other arrangements, like becoming a hedge fund manager. Either the payments will be too small to live on, or they will be made in Zimbabwean dollars and will be effectively worthless.
I get along with Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, OK, which keeps me on his ?must see? list whenever he stops in San Francisco on his way to Beijing to ask to borrow more money. But we go way back. There are only four people in US history who can discuss Japanese monetary policy of the 1920?s in depth, and do it in Japanese just for laughs (it was clearly too easy). Two of them, Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana and Harvard professor, John K. Fairbank, died ages ago. So he is kind of limited on choices. Besides, there are not a lot of people out there who can give him a 40 year view on the global economy, and I am one of them.
There are plenty of others who don?t think I am so hot, too. Try making a fortune in a market crash when everyone else is losing their shirt. While others in the locker room at my country club are slamming doors, tearing their hair out, and breaking golf clubs in half when they see the price feed on CNBC, I am chirping happily away about selling short at the top. I might as well be letting out a loud fart in Sunday church service. This explains why I stopped getting invitations to dinners ages ago.
It?s not that my relationship with Ben Bernanke is totally hopeless. When the demographic picture turns from a headwind to a tailwind and individuals and corporations cease deleveraging and return to releveraging, we?ll probably be reading from the same page of music. But according to the US Census Bureau, the earliest this can happen is 2022. By then, he probably won?t be the Fed governor anymore and I won?t care if he likes me or not.
Besides, I may be able to make a new friend or two in the meantime. If Mitt Romney wins the presidential election he says he?ll fire Ben Bernanke on his first day in office. He can?t really do that, but Ben?s term does expire a year later. His two most widely rumored picks to fill the post are president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Richard Fisher, and Stanford University professor, John Taylor.
These two are not in the least bit interested in all this quantitative easing malarkey. They are much more similar in philosophy to Herbert Hoover?s Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, who popularized the ?let the chips fall where they may? approach to economic policy. Kick the props out from under this market and all of a sudden Dow 3,000 is on the table, as argued by Global strategist and demographics maven, Harry Dent.
They might even go as far as unwinding the Fed?s hefty $2.7 trillion balance sheet. That would give the Chinese, who hold $1 trillion of these bonds, a heart attack. But who cares? It would create the mother of all trading windfalls for me. Hell, they might not even care if I torture small animals, beat children with a switch, and leave little old ladies in the middle of onrushing traffic. I think we would get along just great.
Screw Social Security, and Ben Bernanke too.
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.pngDougD2012-07-26 23:03:382012-07-26 23:03:38Why Ben Bernanke Hates Me
Steve Jobs? creation dropped a real bombshell on the market Tuesday when it announced Q2, 2012 earnings that were rotten to the core. The timing could not have been worse for a market that was on the verge of complete nervous breakdown. Of the 53 brokers who provided research coverage of the Mountain View, California firm, 27 rated it a ?buy?, 21 ?outperform?, and precisely zero ?underperform?. And you wonder why retail has bailed on Wall Street.
The numbers made grim reading. Sales, which had been targeted at $37 billion came in at only $35 billion. Profits amount to $8.82 billion, taking earnings per share to $9.32, well down from the $10.37 expected. Estimates for iPhone sales had run as high as the low 30 millions. The actual figure was 26 million. In overnight trading, the shares opened down a gob smacking $40, instantly vaporizing $37 billion in market capitalization.
Apple is suffering from the mother of all delayed consumption headaches. Consumers love their products so much they have gone on strike until the vastly upgraded and better performing iPhone 5 is launched in the fall, yours truly included. So the dip in profits will reappear as a spike in profits in the next one or two quarters. This means that if you missed the 50% run up since the beginning of the year, you may have a chance to take another bite at, well, the apple.
Apple is not just an iPhone story. The mini iPad is expected out soon. Apple TV is expected to be huge next year. Apple has only just scratched China?s market of 600 million cell phone users. Its six stores are regularly the scene of long lines, and occasional riots by consumers desperate to buy their products. Droves are crossing the border by train from Shensen to Hong Kong, where Apple products are more easily available.
In the spring I lead readers into the August $400-$450 call spread which became one of our most profitable trades of the year. I took them out a month ago because we had already squeezed out most of the profit, and because I thought that exactly this kind of disappointment might occur.
The intelligent thing to do here is to wait for the current shock to work its way through the system. You also want the present melt down in the broader market to exhaust itself. That could take us well into August. The best-case scenario here is that you get back in when the stock falls all the way down to its June low at $525. If it then drops below $500, double up. This would be a once in a lifetime gift.
If you are cautious, you will then want to put the $400-$450 (AAPL) call spread back on with a January 2013 expiration. The more aggressive could roll up to the $450-$500 call spread. Or you could just buy the stock outright for longer-term accounts. All of the arguments that I made two years ago that the shares were headed for $1,000 are still valid (click here for the link).
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.pngDougD2012-07-25 12:13:462012-07-25 12:13:46Apple Just Gave You a Gift
Remember the $2 trillion US corporate cash mountain that you have heard so much about? Well, it is finally starting to shrink. Have they started reinvesting profits in America? Are they hiring more people? Did they finally get those tax breaks they were begging for? Have they dramatically increased dividends and share buy backs or returned to acquisitions to boost earnings?
Well, not exactly. The cash mountain is shrinking, but for all the wrong reasons. They are just not earning as much money as they used to. According to data released by S&P Capital IQ, US corporate cash flow turned negative in Q1, 2012 for the first time since 2008. It almost certainly worsened in Q2.
The harsh truth is that earnings are falling because of collapsing revenues, which at the rate reported so far in this season look to come in at about 1% YOY. Adjust for inflation, and these figures turn negative. This means that the 5.4% YOY earnings growth we are seeing, which I predicted all the way back in my January annual asset revue, are being achieved through aggressive cost cutting.
Managers aren?t hiring more, they?re firing more, which explains our stubbornly high headline 8.2% unemployment rate. This can?t last. You can only eat your seed corn for so long before you go hungry.
This deterioration, which has been under reported and unappreciated, has economists slashing their forecasts for US GDP growth. It is clear that consumers are returning to their bomb shelters. I recently chopped my own forecast from 2% to 1.5%, and even that could start to look high in a matter of weeks. All of this sets up the scenario which I have been pounding the table about in my strategy seminars in Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Zermatt, which I have entitled ?The Crash of 2013?.
None of this makes a convincing case for buying equities right now. It makes the current 14 multiple for the S&P 500 look positively pricey. If there was ever a case for selling rips in the indexes it is now. Keep your fastest finger on your mouse ready to buy puts on the (SPX), (IWM), and (QQQ), and the bear ETF (SDS), and (SH).
US Companies are Eating Their Seed Corn ?
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.pngDougD2012-07-24 23:03:052012-07-24 23:03:05US Earnings Are Headed Down the Drain
Over the last two months, I have witnessed one of the least convincing rallies in the US stock market in recent memory. Looking at the chart for the S&P 500 below you can clearly see a modest, low conviction, declining volume rally in an ever-narrowing channel. This is further confirmed by the chart of the NYSE advance/decline ratio that is failing at the March support level, which has now become resistance.
Look at any other asset class and it is flashing warning lights. Ten year Treasury bonds are within a hair?s breadth of blasting through to an all time low yield below 1.42%. We all know from hard earned experience that stocks and bonds never go up together for more than short periods, and that it is almost always the debt markets that get the longer-term trend right.
That flight to safety currency, the Japanese yen, is also screaming at us that trouble is just around the corner. It made it to the ? 77 handle, or over $125.00 in the (FXY) in recent days. People are certainly not buying the Japanese currency because they like Japan?s long-term fundamentals and demographics, which are the worst in the world. Nor are they buying for the yield, which is zero.
It appears that stocks have rallied because traders believe that the Federal Reserve will launch QE3 at its upcoming August 1 meeting. Bonds have been rallying because they think it won?t. Only one of these markets is right. That means the Fed won?t be able to take further easing action until early next year, well after the presidential election. By then, it will have every reason in the world to launch QE3, with the ?fiscal cliff? at the top of the list. That?s why Ben Bernanke is not inclined to waste ammo now.
In the meantime, The US, China, and Japan are all slowing and Europe is falling off a cliff. I was speaking to a hedge fund friend of mine this morning who told me the German paper he read said that they were abandoning Greece. I replied, ?That?s funny, the German paper I read said that they were abandoning Spain.? What ECB rescue funds that are in place are being challenged in the German Supreme Court, creating further uncertainty.
Travel around European main streets, as I have done for the last 10 days, and the ?FOR SALE? signs are everywhere. These are not a signal that I should rush out and buy equities right now, no matter how high the dividends are. They will be higher still, later.
All of this is setting up for an August that could be grizzly. A Fed disappointment will lead to a rapid unwind of the recent stock market rally, and could take us down to the 2012 low at 1,266 pronto, or more. A pop to a 1.25% yield in the ten-year Treasury is a chip shot.
Sign of the August to Come?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sc72.jpg201267DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-07-23 23:04:572012-07-23 23:04:57How the Fed Will Trigger the Next Crash
They are really rocking the market today, with the Dow up nearly 200 points off the back of a non-disastrous Chinese GDP growth figure of 7.7%. However, there is a serious disconnect going on in our markets which suggests to me that our own party may be about to end.
Yesterday?s blockbuster weekly jobless claim took applications for unemployment benefits down to a four-year low of 350,000. But if you ignore this, you have an unending series of data reports that shows an economy clearly decelerating to a growth rate of 1% per annum or less. That is one-seventh China?s rate.
And yet, you have an S&P 500 with a top end range that is a mere 3% within the high for the year. You don?t need a PhD in math from MIT to understand that rising stock prices and falling growth are an anomaly that can?t last and can only end in tears.
I think this is happening for a couple of reasons. Many traders are awaiting Q2, 2012 earnings reports and are willing to give companies the benefit of the doubt until they are out. Stocks are at the historic low end of valuation ranges. Many institutions are still underweight, and willing to use dips to pick up some bargains. This is why this summer has been a short seller?s nightmare, volatility has fallen through the floor, and many hedge funds have bailed for the duration.
I also think that many institutions are waiting for the Federal Reserve to announce QE III at their end of July meeting, thus powering the market to new yearly highs. I?m betting that they will be sorely disappointed. Ben Bernanke has so few bullets left to protect the economy that he will wait until the Indians are circling the wagons and unleashing a barrage of arrows, before he takes action. Quantitative easing is meant to be a safety net, not a stepladder from which to boost ever-higher asset prices. The Fed?s failure to deliver could give us the trigger we need to break to new lows in August.
Take a look at the charts below to see how clearly defined the recent channels and ranges are. Next time the SPX approaches 1,370, I might think about going short, taking out some downside insurance, selling out of the money calls, and generally getting yourself into a risk off posture. If you don?t, your summer could turn into a giant rainstorm.
This Party is Nearly Over
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.pngDougD2012-07-16 23:04:502012-07-16 23:04:50This Party is About to End
Back in March, oil broke the $110/barrel level and gasoline was rapidly approaching the $5/gallon level, threatening to derail Obama?s reelection campaign. The administration enlisted Europe to join it in a boycott of Iranian oil in an effort to get the Islamic republic to retreat from is program to develop a nuclear weapon. Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, responded by threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, thus blocking exports to the west. It all had the makings of a first class crises that could have taken oil up to $125 or higher.
There was no way that the president was going to let Texas Tea to pee on his parade, so he took quick action to cut the knees out from under it. He threatened to release supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Louisiana, which was chocked full. He browbeat the CFTC into substantially raising margin requirements for oil and other commodities with his attack on ?speculators?.
He then convinced Saudi Arabia to ramp up its production to the max, over 12 million barrels a day, to head off any ill-timed price spikes. The Saudis, believing it was time to discipline recalcitrant minor producing OPEC members, like Iran, with the threat of lower prices, happily complied.
Crude gave back $5 in the bat of an eyelash, and then launched a $33 downslide that had oil trading at the $77 handle on Monday. What Obama didn?t expect was an assist in his strategy to cripple oil prices from a flock of ?black swans?.
The next chapter in the European sovereign debt debacle pushed the continent into a more severe recession, cooling energy demand there. Libya has been bringing production on line faster than expected. Every downtick in China?s anticipated GDP growth rate shaves a few more dollars off oil. A shortage of pipeline capacity is causing oil to pile up at the massive storage facilities Cushing, Oklahoma, slowing export deliveries. It all adds up to a rare perfect storm for oil. To Obama?s delight, gasoline may be selling for the high $2 range in much of the country by the November election.
As I regularly harangue readers and attendees at my strategy luncheons, imminent America energy independence is the least understood but most important factor that will impact financial markets in the years ahead. Over the last two years, domestic production has soared from 8.5 million barrels a day to 10.5 million, thanks to the miracle of fracking technology, which I helped pioneer a decade ago. That?s more that we buy from Saudi Arabia annually.
North Dakota has just replaced Alaska as the second largest oil producing state. The boom there has been so rapid that massive RV camps of itinerate roustabouts now litter the Northern plains. In the meantime, imports have plummeted from 13 million barrels a day to only 9 million.
But I think the current crash in oil will be a temporary one. For a start, the Seaway pipeline reverses next week, breaking the Cushing bottleneck, enabling North Dakota oil to reach the Gulf ports. The current $78 oil price is already below the cost of the most important sources of supply, such as Canadian oil sands and deep offshore wells.
I think that financial markets will enjoy a ?RISK ON? rally starting from this summer as they start to discount the conclusion of the presidential election, the next European LTRO quantitative easing, and possibly a QE3 from the Federal Reserve. This could all pave the way for a rebound in oil to $90 or more.
So there is an attractive trade setting up here. You can buy the oil major ETF (DIG). Interesting single stock plays at these levels include ExxonMobile (XOM), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), and Cabot Oil & Gas (COG). You can also buy call spreads in the oil ETF (USO). A more cautious strategy might be to sell short out of the money puts on the (USO). Sure, the tracking error on this horrible ETF is huge, thanks to the contango, but at least you can take in the time premium.
My long term view on oil is that we spike one more time to $150-$200. Having spent 45 years studying the industry closely and knowing principals like Armand Hammer and Boone Pickens, I can tell you the one simple rule of thumb to observe with this industry. Doing anything costs extraordinary amounts of money and takes a really long time. The calloused men who run the oil majors don?t hesitate to spending tens of billions of dollars to finance projects in the most inhospitable parts of the world with 40 year payouts. No matter what we do today, it will be impossible to head off another severe oil shortage.
After that, we will fall to $10 as oil is removed from the global economy and is only used as a petrochemical feedstock for plastics, pharmaceuticals, asphalt, and jet fuel. This will happen because of the rise of cheap natural gas, alternative energy sources, more efficient building designs, a better power grid, the advent of low end nuclear power plants, and cars that get 100 miles per gallon or use no gasoline at all.
Of course the CEO?s of the oil majors laugh when I tell them this. I?m sure that the hay industry similarly laughed in 1900 if you told them about the coming demise of the horse as a mode of transportation. But it may take 40 year for us to get there. I hope I live to see it.
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