Tech Recession is Coming

The Nasdaq index isn’t pricing in a recession, but it absolutely should, as economic data streaming in shows cracks beneath the surface.

The Federal government finally went on record to admit the historically epic blunder they committed by categorizing inflation as “transitory,” with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledging that she was “wrong.”

It's about time.

The colossal mismanagement of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve has had an extraordinary whiplash on tech shares and many have gotten burnt.

What we are experiencing now is high volatility that used to never exist in the stock market as an overleveraged system flooded by cheap money is now deleveraging.

Strong tech names like Google (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) have experienced 3% up or down days on just normal trading days with growth stocks like Tesla (TSLA) up or down 10% in just a day.

Retail traders are in over their head if they go at this alone and this is why the Mad Hedge Technology Letter is guiding you to safety.

Taking profits on the spikes and valleys is what we do best.

After months of strong consumer spending and supply-chain improvements, some of the country’s most outspoken corporate leaders have started to freak out.

Tech growth bellwether Tesla (TSLA) and their CEO Elon Musk just announced a 10% staff layoff, and that move could be the canary in the coal mine for the tech economy.

Musk clearly feels something isn’t right, and we could be approaching an economic cliff.

If that wasn’t the canary, then Microsoft's downgraded revenue expectations for next quarter’s earnings has to be as the strongest tech companies downgrade forecasts.

The probability of a recession has lurched higher, to around 50%, and this is all while the government preaches about how great the American consumer is doing.

Like many things about the US Federal government, don’t take what they say at face value because usually, the inverse is true.

The sense of doom has been especially evident in the banking sector, where Dimon told investors this week that they should be preparing for an economic “hurricane.”

State side is getting a little crusty, so then the international picture is a little rosier, right?

Wrong.

Apple is shifting its iPad production to Vietnam from China after China’s dystopian zero covid policy has effectively shut down the supply chain there.

The iPhone maker already produces some of its AirPods in Vietnam. The shift to move some iPad production to Vietnam may help it boost iPad revenue.

Ironically enough, as bad as the United States is doing now, the situation abroad is a lot worse.

Europe has completely capitulated to the military conflict and the German Producer Pricing Index has accelerated to 30%.

To make matters even worse, the European Central Bank still is maintaining a 0% net interest rate policy meaning there are Central Bank’s out there doing a lot worse job than the United States Federal Reserve.

Quite hard to believe this level of policy failure.

In short, this inflation problem hasn’t been solved at all and although it could come down a tick year-over-year, it still does nothing material to change the picture.

Even worse, a tech CEO has to be a complete fool to invest in growing capacity right now unless they have $10 billion of extra cash laying around which few companies have unless you’re Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Tesla.

At the smaller and ground level, small tech and their balance sheets have been getting slaughtered and so has the American consumer.

Just because the American consumer goes from eating premium beef to chicken, doesn’t mean the consumer is strong.

Sooner or later, they will run out of things to substitute down from.

Same goes for smartphones, software programs, semiconductor chips, and cloud enterprise contracts.

We are in a substitute down phase and that doesn’t shout economic bullishness to me.

Maybe the American consumer can substitute driving a gas-powered car for riding a leg-powered bicycle, I wouldn’t put it past the current government to recommend this to the country.

In Europe, people have already been fed with the drive slower and dress warmer B.S. to cover up government mistakes.

Next, Europeans will need to endure the “eat less” policy come this summer and fall.