?Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!?
? John C. Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group
As a potentially profitable opportunity presents itself, John will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what should be bought, when to buy it, and at what price. This is your chance to ?look over? John Thomas? shoulder as he gives you unparalleled insight on major world financial trends BEFORE they happen.
Further Update to: Trade Alert -(SFTBY) - Double Up
Buy Softbank Shares (SFTBY) at $43.78 or best
Opening Trade
12-12-2013
Portfolio weighting: 10%
Number of Shares = 228 shares
I have always been a big fan of buying a dollar for 30 cents. That appears to be the opportunity now presented by the Japanese software giant, Softbank (SFTBY).
This gorilla of the Internet space was founded and run by my old friend, Masayoshi Son, who many refer to as a combination of the Jeff Bezos and the Bill Gates of Japan. I have known Mas, as his friends call him, for 30 years, meeting him, of all places, at a University of California Alumni Association meeting. Mas received his BA in economics from Berkeley in 1980.
In three decades, Mas has turned an obscure, hard copy Japanese computer hobbyist magazine into today?s massive online empire. You may know him as the organizer of the huge Comdex conferences in Las Vegas every January, the Woodstock of technology gatherings. Today, Mas has an estimated personal net worth $9 billion, not bad for a kid who wore the same pair of ragged Levis to his economics classes every day.
The really interesting thing about Softbank right now is not what Mas is doing, but what he owns. That includes a 37% stake in the Chinese Internet giant, Alibaba, which boasts an overwhelming 80% market share in the Middle Kingdom.
The Hangzhou based Alibaba is actually a group of Internet-based e-commerce businesses including business-to-business online web portals, online retail and payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. Think of it as Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY), Google (GOOG), and Oracle (ORCL) all wrapped into one.
In 2012, two of Alibaba?s portals together handled 1.1 trillion Yuan ($170 billion) in sales, more than competitors eBay and Amazon.com combined.
Its sales account for no less than 3% of China?s total GDP. Yikes! To learn more about their website please: http://news.alibaba.com/specials/aboutalibaba/aligroup/index.html.
Online commerce in China is now growing faster than in any other place on the planet, including the US. Some 5% of retail transactions in the People?s Republic take place on the Internet, and that is expected to grow to 25% over the next three years. By comparison, it took online business in America 15 years to reach that market share.
What is happening in China now is truly fascinating. They are leapfrogging traditional brick and mortar stores, going straight from barter to online purchases, completely skipping the Wal-Mart stage of the retail evolution. I saw the same thing happen during the early nineties, when eastern Europeans jumped straight from having no phones to mobile ones, bypassing decades of unreliable and indifferent landline service.
The value of Alibaba is anyone?s guess as the company is still private. However, my former employers at The Economist magazine estimate that it is worth anywhere from $55-$120 billion. What this means is that you can buy Softbank now purely for the value of its Alibaba ownership, and get everything else the company does in the online universe for free.
But wait! It gets better. Softbank also owns major stakes in Yahoo, whose shares are up a gob smacking 157% since last year (Thank you Marissa Meyer!). It owns a major chunk of Sprint (S), which has gained a mind blowing 325% since 2012. Can Mas pick them, or what? Softbank also owns pieces of Japan Cellular and many other companies.
Add it all up together, and you get a Softbank that is worth at least $250 billion, almost triple its current $97 billion market capitalization. In other words, it?s a steal at this price.
Yes, you may say, this all sounds great. But how do I buy shares in Japan in yen? Easy. Softbank trades on the pink sheets in the US (hence the five letter ticker symbol) and is denominated in US dollars. Normally this means nothing, as liquidity in the pink sheets is notoriously poor.
Not so for (SFTBY), which saw 1.6 million shares worth $67 million trade around $42 a share on a slow Friday with a reasonably narrow spread. You may not be able to margin these, but at least you can get them. You also have some yen exposure here, as these shares are tied to the domestic shares in Japan. As for the big hedge funds, they have to go to Tokyo to get the size they want, and then hedge out their yen risk.
OK, OK, you say. Great story. But the road to perdition is paved with fabulous value plays that were never realized in the marketplace. This thing could stay cheap forever, like Apple (AAPL).
Aha! I got you! Alibaba is about to go public in the US, with Goldman Sachs now polling major institutional investors about potential interest. Given the chance to buy an Amazon clone at ten year ago prices, this IPO will be a blockbuster, making the recent Twitter (TWTR) float pale by comparison.
Did I mention that my buddy, Dan Loeb of hedge fund giant Third Point Partners, totally agrees with me, and has bought $1 billion worth of Softbank shares already? In fact, many believe that Alibaba could be the Apple of this decade, about to deliver a tenfold increase in its share price.
That seems to be the right thing to do this year.
Here is the specific trades you need to execute this position:
Buy 228 shares of (SFTBY) at????.$43.78
![Masayoshi Son]()
Hitch Your Wagon to Mas
As a potentially profitable opportunity presents itself, John will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what should be bought, when to buy it, and at what price. This is your chance to ?look over? John Thomas? shoulder as he gives you unparalleled insight on major world financial trends BEFORE they happen. Read more
As a potentially profitable opportunity presents itself, John will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what should be bought, when to buy it, and at what price. Read more
While the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader focuses on investment over a one week to six-month time frame, Mad Day Trader, provided by Jim Parker, will exploit money-making opportunities over a brief ten minute to three day window. It is ideally suited for day traders, but can also be used by long-term investors to improve market timing for entry and exit points.
Global Market Comments
December 12, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(IS THIS THE BIG TRADE OF 2014?),
(GLD), (SLV), ($SSEC), (EEM), (FXI),
(JJC), (DBA), (CORN), (CU), (USO), (KOL),
(A CHRISTMAS DONATION FOR THE WORTHIEST OF CAUSES)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
iShares Silver Trust (SLV)
Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index ($SSEC)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM)
iShares China Large-Cap (FXI)
iPath DJ-UBS Copper TR Sub-Idx ETN (JJC)
PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA)
Teucrium Corn (CORN)
First Trust ISE Global Copper Index (CU)
United States Oil (USO)
Market Vectors Coal ETF (KOL)
I follow a broad range of unconventional, but highly useful leading economic indicators that gives me a decisive edge when predicting the future direction of global financial markets. One of them has started flashing a warning sign.
I fund an orphanage in remote Zhanjiang, in China?s southern Guangdong province, near Hainan Island called The Zhanjiang Kids Organization that catches the kids who missed out on China?s economic miracle.
Lacking America?s social safety net, child abandonment in the Middle Kingdom usually leads to a cruel death through malnutrition or disease at the few primitive public institutions that exist. With China?s one child policy now 30 years old, most families prefer their sole heir to be a boy, which means that girls account for the vast majority of orphan children.
Recently, there has been an upsurge of children dropped off at the orphanage and a sudden increase in the age of the kids. Twelve-year-old boys are being dumped because they cannot be fed.
For a Chinese family to give up a boy this close to working age is truly an act of desperation. As a trader, this is all proof to me that the Chinese economy is slowing faster than people realize, and that the global economy will take a deeper dip this summer.
I usually avoid organized charities like the plague. The great majority are scams where 95% of the funds raised go to ?administrative costs? that usually end up in someone?s personal bank account. As we all know, the corruption in China is rampant.
The Zhanjiang Kids Organization is a rare exception. I know the organizers personally, who originally got involved by adopting a couple of girls there, and they are saints. They carefully oversee the spending of every single dollar, assuring that it gets spent for its intended purposes.
Instead of doling out cash to local organizations, which often gets lost, as other organizations do, they undertake physical delivery of desperately needed food, books, and medical supplies. They also organize trips for volunteer pediatricians, educators, and administrators from the US.
As a result of my spring fund raising effort, I am told that the administrators were able to pay for a pediatrician and a dentist to fly in from the US. Kids were also given new toys. Initially, some didn?t know what to do with these, as they had never seen toys before. We take things like blocks, puzzles, and picture books for granted. Imagine what goes through a five year olds mind when he or she sees one for the first time.
Yes, I know that I am a hardened old ex-Marine combat veteran and am driven by the harsh reality of numbers, and not emotion. But when I hear stories like these, I melt. I know a lot of you have made a bundle following my advice this year, with some up as much as 500%.
If you made $1 million, please donate $1,000. If you clocked $100,000, that should be worth a $100 gift. This is a rare example where $1 worth of generosity creates $1,000 worth of good. Talk about bang per buck!
To learn more about The Zhanjiang Kids Organization, please visit their website http://www.zhanjiangkids.org/. There, you can contribute directly through your PayPal account or credit card. If you have any further questions about this fine organization, please contact director Susan Doshier directly at susandoshier@gmail.com .
Checks should be made payable to the ?Zhanjiang Kids Organization? and sent to Zhanjiang Kids Organization, c/o Susan Doshier, 2 Abbey Woods Lane, Dallas TX 75248, USA. Print out a hard copy of your receipt. This organization is set up as a US 501 (3) (c), so all contributions are fully deductible on the 2012 Form 1040, schedule ?A?. There is no reason why Uncle Sam shouldn?t pick up one third of the tab.
Act in your own self-interest. You may be working for one of these orphans someday. If you don?t, your kids will.
?We are one budget deal away from being the hot spot of the world. Europe is in the toilet, China?s growth has fallen down, and the Middle East is going backwards. We have a lot of potential for fracking and innovation. If we can prove our nation is governable, we will be the golden spot in the world,? said David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times.
As a potentially profitable opportunity presents itself, John will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what should be bought, when to buy it, and at what price. This is your chance to ?look over? John Thomas? shoulder as he gives you unparalleled insight on major world financial trends BEFORE they happen. Read more
Global Market Comments
December 11, 2013
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE BIPOLAR ECONOMY),
(SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR FAVORITE TEACHER),
(RAILROADS ARE BREAKING OUT ALL OVER),
(UNP), (CSX), (NSC), (CP), (ACI)
Union Pacific Corporation (UNP)
CSX Corp. (CSX)
Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC)
Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP)
Arch Coal Inc. (ACI)