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Short Selling School 101

With the stock market falling for the next few weeks, or even months, it?s time to rehash how to profit from falling markets one more time.

There is nothing worse than closing the barn door after the horses have bolted.

No doubt, you will receive a wealth of short selling and hedging ideas from your other research sources and the media at the next market bottom. That is always how it seems to play out.

So I am going to get you out ahead of the curve, putting you through a refresher course on how to best trade falling markets now, while stock markets are still only 3% short of an all time high, and unchanged on the year.

Market?s could be down 10% by the time this is all over.

THAT IS MY LINE IN THE SAND!

There is nothing worse than fumbling around in the dark looking for the matches after a storm has knocked the power out.

I?m not saying that you should sell short the market right here. But there will come a time when you will need to do so. Watch my Trade Alerts for the best market timing. So here are the best ways to profit from declining stock prices, broken down by security type:

Bear ETFs

Of course the granddaddy of them all is the ProShares Short S&P 500 Fund (SH), a non leveraged bear ETF that is supposed to match the fall in the S&P 500 point for point on the downside. Hence, a 10% decline in the (SPY) is supposed to generate a 10% gain the in the (SH).

In actual practice, it doesn?t work out like that. The ETF has to pay management operating fees and expenses, which can be substantial. After all, nobody works for free.

There is also the ?cost of carry,? whereby owners have to pay the price for borrowing and selling short shares. They are also liable for paying the quarterly dividends for the shares they have borrowed, around 2% a year. And then you have to pay the commissions and spread for buying the ETF.

Still individuals can protect themselves from downside exposure in their core portfolios through buying the (SH) against it (click here for the prospectus: http://www.proshares.com/funds/sh.html). Short selling is not cheap. But it?s better than watching your gains of the last seven years go up in smoke.

Virtually all equity indexes now have bear ETF?s. Some of the favorites include the (PSQ), a short Play on the NASDAQ (click here for the prospectus: http://www.proshares.com/funds/psq.html), and the (DOG), which profits from a plunging Dow Average (click here for the prospectus: http://www.proshares.com/funds/dog_index.html).

My favorite is the (RWM) a short play on the Russell 2000, which falls 1.5X faster than the big cap indexes in bear markets (click here for the prospectus: http://www.proshares.com/funds/rwm.html).

Leveraged Bear ETFs

My favorite is the ProShares Ultra Short S&P 500 (SDS), a 2X leveraged ETF (click here for the? prospectus: http://www.proshares.com/funds/sds.html). A 10% decline in the (SPY) generates a 20% profit, maybe.

Keep in mind that by shorting double the market, you are liable for double the cost of shorting, which can total 5% a year or more. This shows up over time in the tracking error against the underlying index. Therefore, you should date, not marry, this ETF or you might be disappointed.

3X Leveraged Bear ETFs

The 3X bear ETFs, like the UltraPro Short S&P 500 (SPXU), are to be avoided like the plague (click here for the prospectus: http://www.proshares.com/funds/spxu.html).

First, you have to be pretty good to cover the 8% cost of carry embedded in this fund. They also reset the amount of index they are short at the end of each day, creating an enormous tracking error.

Eventually, they all go to zero, and have to be periodically redenominated to keep from doing so. Dealing spreads can be very wide, further added to costs.

Yes, I know the charts can be tempting. Leave these for the professional hedge fund intra day traders they are meant for.

Buying Put Options

For a small amount of capital, you can buy a ton of downside protection. For example, the April (SPY) $182 puts I bought for $4,872 allowed me to sell short $145,600 worth of large cap stocks at $182 (8 X 100 X $6.09).

Go for distant maturities out several months to minimize time decay and damp down daily price volatility. Your market timing better be good with these, because when the market goes against you, put options can go poof, and disappear pretty quickly.

That?s why you read this newsletter.

Selling Call Options

One of the lowest risk ways to coin it in a market heading south is to engage in ?buy writes?. This involves selling short call options against stock you already own, but may not want to sell for tax or other reasons.

If the market goes sideways, or falls, and the options expire worthless, then the average cost of your shares is effectively lowered. If the shares rise substantially they get called away, but at a higher price, so you make more money. Then you just buy them back on the next dip. It is a win-win-win.

I?ll give you a concrete example. Let?s say you own 100 shares of Apple (AAPL), which closed on Friday at $95.13, worth $9,513. If you sell short 1 July, 2016 $100 call at $1.30 against them, you take in $130 in premium income ($1.30 X 100 because one call option contract is exercisable into 100 shares).

If Apple close2 below $100 on the July 15, 2016 expiration date, the options expire worthless and you keep your stock and the premium. You are then free to repeat the strategy for the following month. If (AAPL) closes anywhere above $100 and your shares get called away, you still make money on the trade.

Selling Futures

This is what the pros do, as futures contracts trade on countless exchanges around the world for every conceivable stock index or commodity. It is easy to hedge out all of the risk for an entire portfolio of shares by simply selling short futures contracts for a stock index.

For example, let?s say you have a portfolio of predominantly large cap stocks worth $100,000. If you sell short 1 June, 2016 contract for the S&P 500 against it, you will eliminate most of the potential losses for your portfolio in a falling market.

The margin requirement for one contract is only $5,000. However if you are short the futures and the market rises, then you have a big problem, and the losses can prove ruinous.

But most individuals are not set up to trade futures. The educational, financial, and disclosure requirements are beyond mom and pop investing for their retirement fund.

Most 401ks and IRAs don?t permit the inclusion of futures contracts. Only 25% of the readers of this letter trade the futures market. Regulators do whatever they can to keep the uninitiated and untrained away from this instrument.

That said, get the futures markets right, and it is the quickest way to make a fortune, if your market direc
tion is correct.

Buying Volatility

Volatility (VIX) is a mathematical construct derived from how much the S&P 500 moves over the next 30 days. You can gain exposure to it through buying the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN (VXX), or buying call and put options on the (VIX) itself.

If markets fall, volatility rises, and if markets rise, then volatility falls. You can therefore protect a stock portfolio from losses through buying the (VIX).

I have written endlessly about the (VIX) and its implications over the years. For my latest in-depth piece with all the bells and whistles, please read ?Buy Flood Insurance With the (VXX)? by clicking here.

Selling Short IPO?s

Another way to make money in a down market is to sell short recent initial public offerings. These tend to go down much faster than the main market. That?s because many are held by hot hands, known as ?flippers,? and don?t have a broad institutional shareholder base.

Many of the recent ones don?t make money and are based on an, as yet, unproven business model. These are the ones that take the biggest hits.

Individual IPO stocks can be tough to follow to sell short. But one ETF has done the heavy lifting for you. This is the Renaissance IPO ETF (click here for the prospectus: http://www.renaissancecapital.com/ipoinvesting/ipoetf/ipoetf.aspx).

Buying Momentum

This is another mathematical creation based on the number of rising days over falling days. Rising markets bring increasing momentum, while falling markets produce falling momentum.

So selling short momentum produces additional protection during the early stages of a bear market. Blackrock has issued a tailor made ETF to capture just this kind of move through its iShares MSCI Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM). To learn more, please read the prospectus by clicking here: https://www.ishares.com/us/products/251614/MTUM.

Buying Beta

Beta, or the magnitude of share price movements, also declines in down markets. So selling short beta provides yet another form of indirect insurance. The PowerShares S&P 500 High Beta Portfolio ETF (SPHB) is another niche product that captures this relationship.

The Index is compiled, maintained and calculated by Standard & Poor's and consists of the 100 stocks from the (SPX) with the highest sensitivity to market movements, or beta, over the past 12 months.

The Fund and the Index are?rebalanced and reconstituted quarterly in?February, May, August and November. To learn more, read the prospectus by clicking here:? https://www.invesco.com/portal/site/us/financial-professional/etfs/product-detail?productId=SPHB.

Buying Bearish Hedge Funds

Another subsector that does well in plunging markets are publicly listed bearish hedge funds. There are a couple of these that are publicly listed and have already started to move.

One is the Advisor Shares Active Bear ETF (HDGE) (click here for the prospectus: http://www.advisorshares.com/fund/hdge). Keep in mind that this is an actively managed fund, not an index or mathematical relationship, so the volatility could be large.

Oops, Forgot to Hedge

A Chat With Berkshire Hathaway?s Warren Buffett

Diary, Newsletter

Sometime in the early 1970?s, a friend of mine said I should take a look at a stock named Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) run by a young stud named Warren Buffett.

I thought, ?Why the hell should I invest in a company that makes sheets??

After all, the American textile industry was in the middle of a long trek toward extinction that began in the 1920?s, and was only briefly interrupted by the hyper prosperity of WWII. The industry?s travails were simply an outcome of ever rising US standards of living, which pushed wages, and therefore costs, up.

It turns out that Warren Buffett made a lot more than sheets. However, he is not a young stud anymore, just an old one, like me.

Since then, Warren?s annual letter to investors has been an absolute ?must read? for me when it is published every spring.

It has been edited for the past half century by my friend, Carol Loomis, who just retired after a 60-year career with Fortune magazine. (I never wrote for them because their freelance rates were lousy).

Witty, insightful, and downright funny, I view it as a cross between a Harvard Business School seminar and a Berkeley anti establishment demonstration. You will find me lifting from it my ?Quotes of the Day? for the daily newsletter over the next several issues. There are some real zingers.

And what a year it has been!

Berkshire?s gain in net worth was $18.3 billion, which increased the share value by 8.3%, and today, the market capitalization stands at an impressive $343.4 billion. (Sorry Warren, but I clocked 30% last year, eat your heart out).

The shares are not for small timers, as one now costs $214,801, and no, they don?t sell half shares. This compares to a 1965 per share market value of $23.80, and is why the media are always going gaga over Warren Buffett.

If you?re lazy and don?t want to do the math, that works out to a compound annualized return of an eye popping 21.6%. This is why guessing what Warren is going to do next has become a major cottage industry (Progressive Insurance anyone?).

Warren brought in these numbers despite the fact that its largest non-insurance subsidiary, the old Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) suffered an awful year.

Extensive upgrades under construction and terrible winter weather disrupted service, causing the railroad to lose market share to rival Union Pacific (UNP).

I was kind of pissed when Warren bought BNSF in 2009 for a blockbuster $44 billion, as it was long my favorite trading vehicles for the sector. Since then, its book value has doubled. Typical Warren.

Buffett plans to fix the railroad?s current problems with $6 billion in new capital investment this year, one of the largest single capital investments in American history. Warren isn?t doing anything small these days.

Buffett also got a hickey from his investment in UK supermarket chain Tesco, which ran up a $444 million loss for Berkshire in 2014. Warren admits he was too slow in getting out of the shares, a rare move for the Oracle of Omaha, who rarely sells anything (which avoids capital gains taxes).

Warren increased his investment in all of his ?Big Four? holdings, American Express (AXP), Coca-Cola (KO), IBM (IBM), and Wells Fargo (WFC).

In addition, Berkshire owns options on Bank of America (BAC) stock, which have a current exercise value of $12.5 billion (purchased the day after the Mad Hedge Fund Trader issued a Trade Alert on said stock for an instant 300% gain on the options).

The secret to understanding Buffett picks over the years is that cash flow is king.

This means that he has never participated in the many technology booms over the decades, or fads of any other description, for that matter.

He says this is because he will never buy a business he doesn?t intrinsically understand, and they didn?t offer computer programming as an elective in high school during the Great Depression.

No doubt this has lowered his potential returns, but with the benefit of much lower volatility.

That makes his position in (IBM) a bit of a mystery, the worst performing Dow stock of the past two years. I would much rather own Apple (AAPL) myself, which also boasts great cash flow, and even a dividend these days (with a 1.50% yield).

Warren will be the first to admit that even he makes mistakes, sometimes, disastrous ones. He cites his worst one ever as a perfect example, his purchase of Dexter Shoes for $433 million in 1993. This was right before China entered the shoe business as a major competitor.

Not only did the company quickly go under, he exponentially compounded the error through buying the firm with an exchange of Berkshire Hathaway stock, which is now worth a staggering $5.7 billion.

Ouch, and ouch again!

Warren has also been mostly missing in action on the international front, believing that the mother load of investment opportunities runs through the US, and that its best days lie ahead. I believe the same.

Still, he has dipped his toe in foreign waters from time to time, and I was sometimes quick to jump on his coattails. A favorite of mine was his purchase of 10% of Chinese electric car factory BYD (BYDDF) in 2009, where I have captured a few doubles over the years.

Buffett expounds at great length the attractions of the insurance industry, which today remains the core of his business. For payment of a premium up front, the buyers of insurance policies receive a mere promise to perform in the future, sometimes as much as a half century off.

In the meantime, Warren can invest the money any way he wants. The model has been a real printing press for Buffett since he took over his first insurer in 1951, GEICO.

Much of the letter promotes the upcoming shareholders annual meeting, known as the ?Woodstock of Capitalism?.

There, the conglomerate?s many products will be for sale, including, Justin Boots (I have a pair), the gecko from GEICO (which insures my Tesla S-1), and See?s Candies (a Christmas addiction, love the peanut brittle!).

There, visitors can try their hand at Ping-Pong against Ariel Hsing, a 2012 American Olympic Team member, after Bill Gates and Buffett wear her down first.

They can try their hand against a national bridge champion (don?t play for money). And then there is the newspaper-throwing contest (Buffett?s first gainful employment).

Some 40,000 descend on remote Omaha for the firm?s annual event. All flights to the city are booked well in advance, with fares up to triple normal rates.

Hotels sell out too, and many now charge three-day minimums (after Warren, what is there to do in Omaha for two more days other than to visit PayPal?s technical support?). Buffett recommends Airbnb as a low budget option (for the single shareholders?).

I was amazed to learn that Berkshire files a wrist breaking 24,100-page Federal tax return (and I thought mine was bad!). Add to this a mind numbing 3,400 separate state tax returns.

Overall, Berkshire holdings account for more than 3% of the total US gross domestic product, but a far lesser share of the government?s total tax revenues, thanks to careful planning.

Buffett ends his letter by advertising for new acquisitions and listing his criteria. They include:

(1) ?Large purchases (at least $75 million of pre-tax earnings unless the business will fit into one of our existing units),

(2) ?Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of no interest to us, nor are ?turnaround? situations),

(3) ?Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,

(4) Managemen
t in place (we can?t supply it),

(5) Simple businesses (if there?s lots of technology, we won?t understand it),

(6) An offering price (we don?t want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

Let me know if you have any offers.

To read the entire history of Warren Buffett?s prescient letters, please click here: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.htm.

What To Do About Apple

Diary, Newsletter, Research

It is the world?s largest company.

It is the planet?s most widely owned stock.

Of the 200 million Americans who possess financial assets, probably all of them own Apple (AAPL), either directly through a trading account, or indirectly though an ETF (it is a massive 11.67% of the PowerShares QQQ), public or private pension fund.

So to say that traders are on pins and needles ahead of the upcoming quarterly earnings report would be an understatement.

A year ago, Apple issued one of the most perfect reports in the history of capitalism.

It blew away even the most optimistic forecasts, announcing earnings per share of $2.33, versus a consensus expectation of $2.16, and $1.75 last quarter.

The firm earned $13.6 billion in profits on $58 billion in gross profits, the largest quarterly profit in world history.

The company sold a staggering 61.2 million iPhones during the three-month period, 4 million more than expected. Insignificant iPad sales dropped from 13.9 to 12.6 million units. MacBooks were in line at 4.6 million units.

No mention was made whatsoever of problems with a strong dollar.? The company now sits on an unbelievable $194 billion in cash, the equivalent of the GDP of a medium sized country.

Most importantly, Apple expanded its share buy back program to $200 billion. The big question now is, will Apple buy another company, or a whole country?

Wow!

Since then the stock has been grinding sideways in the most tedious manner imaginable. It was a classic ?Buy the rumor, sell the news? set up.

Which leads many shareholders to ask if, now that the stock is owned by every taxi driver, elevator operator , and shoe shine boy in the country (now I?m showing my age!), are we headed for another 45% selloff, much like the last time the stock peaked out in 2012?

Certainly, the grounds for concern are out there.

There are now no new blockbuster products coming out until we see the iPhone 7 in September 2016.

There are supply chain worries, as the global manufacturing network is now absolutely mammoth.

Some analysts are nervous about quality control, especially regarding new products like the Apple watch, which should sell an eye popping 30 million units this year.

However, I think this time it?s different.

While you weren?t looking, Apple has turned into a China play. No, they aren?t suddenly eating dim sum with chopsticks at corporate headquarters in Cupertino.

The Middle Kingdom, in short order, has become the firm?s largest grower of its earnings. This is a good thing. Last year saw an 80% growth of sales there. China is expected to become the largest market for Apple products this year.

What?s more, the ballistic growth there is expected to continue. Walk down the street in Shanghai these days, and you are amazed by how many people are speaking or texting into their iPhones, real and fake ones alike.

In fact, they have become the primary means through which people access the Internet there.

No doubt, this is due to Apple?s special relationship there with China Mobile (CHL), which now offers iPhone owners a great deal for their cell phone service. Did I mention that (CHL) has a staggering 750 million customers?

The iWatch is now viewed as the gateway for the sales of as many as 1.2 million future third party developed apps, the number iTunes offers now.

Apple Pay looks to replace Visa and Master Card at some point in the future. Apple TV is still lurking out there in the background.

We?ll learn more about all of this at the next developers conference in San Francisco in June.

All of this leads me to believe that there is far more fundamental support in terms of new products and business lines for the company than we saw during the last cycle.

There is also more distance in the rear view mirror since the passing of Steve Jobs. Successor Tim Cook has since proved himself as a world-class leader.

It turned out the timing for the company to transition from a founder-tyrant to a cutting edge administrator-manager was perfect. You don?t need to hold your breath anymore.

At least the stock market thinks so.

Therefore, I expect to see a $1 trillion market capitalization for Apple sometime in 2018, well up from today?s $602 billion. I think that means you need to use the current dip to load up on the stock.

What Happened When Apple Entered the Dow?

Diary, Free Research, Newsletter

Apple holders (AAPL) were ecstatic and even apoplectic when they heard that their beloved company would be joining the Dow Average last year.

The move required thousands of portfolio managers to add Apple to their portfolios, like the $32 billion worth of Dow index managers, whether they wanted to or not. From then on it would be illegal for them not to own Apple.

At the very least it put the fear of Jobs into moneymen everywhere, especially if the Dow is the benchmark they are measured against.

The world?s now second largest listed company replaced tired and flagging AT&T (T), one of my perennial favorite short positions.

The symbolism couldn?t be more evident. A former monopoly with a literally rusting infrastructure is getting booted for iPhones, iPads, iTunes, Apps and the Cloud. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

AT&T was one of the oldest Dow stocks, joining the closely followed index in 1916. The new listing then had a symbolic move of its own, taking place the year after the first-ever transcontinental telephone call was placed.

Who made that call? Alexander Graham Bell in New York telephoned his former assistant, Thomas Watson, in San Francisco in a replay of the first phone call in history 50 years earlier in 1876, from room to room at their lab. ?Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you,? the first words ever uttered on a phone line, were repeated once more.

AT&T, or ?Ma Bell? as it was known, lost its listing in 2004 after it merged with SBC Communications. It was reinstated a year later when the new firm?s name was changed back to AT&T.

However, Apple shareholders should be careful what they wish for.

There is not exactly a great track record for share price performance after a company joins the Dow, especially a technology stock.

In 1999, Microsoft (MSFT) fell 43% after becoming a Dow 30 stock, while Intel (INTC) shed 52%. Cisco Systems (CSCO) lost 16% after joining the club in 2009.

The problem is that Apple entered the index after a meteoric 18 month, 130% run up. So the Dow, having missed the rise in Apple on the upside, fully participated on the downside in the stock meltdown that followed.

Apple is the second largest component in the Dow, with a hefty $575 billion market capitalization. This means that future Dow corrections will be bigger and more ferocious than they would have been without Apple and with boring AT&T.

The volatility of the lead index has just gone up, a lot.

I remember too well that the Japanese made a similar blunder in 2000. The government wanted to have a national stock index that reflected the economy of the future, not of the past.

They had watched with great envy America?s NASDAQ hog the global spotlight, soaring from 1,000 to 5,000 in just a couple of years.

So what did these geniuses do? They reconstituted the Nikkei Average from a 90% boring industrial, 10% technology index to a 50/50 weighting. And they did this mere weeks after NASDAQ peaked!

As a result, the Nikkei Average got the stuffing knocked out of it in the dotcom collapse. It fell a stunning 15% in the week just after the reconstitution announcement. It cratered from 21,000 to eventually bottom at 7,200. Without the reconstitution, it would have sold out at 10,000.

Having missed the dotcom boom on the upside, the Nikkei fully participated on the downside. Apple shareholders please take note.

Apple?s rise was amply chronicled by a steady series of Trade Alerts in this newsletter.

You can go back to my 2012 prediction that Apple would soar from $485 to $1,000 (click here). On a split adjusted basis we? already reached $931.

I followed that up with ?Apple is Ready to Explode? in October, 2013 (click here), when the post split share price was back at $70.

Indeed, I have issued more Trade Alerts to buy Apple over the seven-year life of this newsletter than any other single name.

It looks like I will be issuing a lot more Apple Trade Alerts in the near future as well.

Guess When the Index Reconstitution Took Place?

The Bipolar Economy

Diary, Newsletter

Corporate earnings are up big! Great!

Buy!

No wait!

The economy is going down the toilet!

Sell! Buy! Sell! Buy! Sell!

Help!

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the stock market has become bipolar.

According to the Commerce Department?s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the answer is that corporate profits accounts for only a small part of the economy.

Using the income method of calculating GDP, corporate profits account for only 15% of the reported GDP figure. The remaining components are doing poorly, or are too small to have much of an impact.

Wages and salaries are in a three decade long decline. Interest and investment income is falling, because of the ultra low level of interest rates. Farm incomes are up, but are a tiny proportion of the total. Income from non-farm unincorporated business, mostly small business, is unimpressive.

It gets more complicated than that.

A disproportionate share of corporate profits is being earned overseas. So multinationals with a big foreign presence, like Apple (AAPL), Intel (INTC), Oracle (ORCL), Caterpillar (CAT), and IBM (IBM), have the most rapidly growing profits and pay the least amount in taxes.

They really get to have their cake, and eat it too. Many of their business activities are contributing to foreign GDP?s, like China?s, more than they are here. Those with large domestic businesses, like retailers, earn less, but pay more in tax, as they lack the offshore entities in which to park them.

The message here is to not put all your faith in the headlines, but to look at the numbers behind the numbers. Those who bought in anticipation of good corporate profits last month, got those earnings, and then got slaughtered in the marketplace.

Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

What?s In the S&P 500?

Has the Market Become Bipolar?

Carl Icahn Is At It Again

Diary, Newsletter

Many ascribe Monday?s 312 point plunge in the Dow Average to an informational webinar posted by legendary corporate raider and hedge fund manager, Carl Icahn.

I have known Carl for 30 years, and I once owned and apartment in his building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near Sutton Place (which I later sold for a quick double).

Even then, he was opinionated, cantankerous, and never hesitated to make the bold move. Wall Street hated him.

At 79, he is nothing less than a force of nature. Whenever I see Carl, I say I want to be like him when I grow up.

I just watched the controversial video, entitled ?Danger Ahead ? A Message From Carl Icahn?, which has ruffled more than a few feathers in the establishment. But that has always been Carl?s strong suite.

Here are the high-points:

1) We should end the ?carried interest? treatment of hedge fund profits, which lets billionaire managers get off scot-free, while sticking a big tax bill with the little guy.

2) Foreign profits of US multinationals, some $2.2 trillion, should be brought home, taxed, and put to work.

3) Corporate inversions, whereby American companies reincorporate overseas to beat taxes, should be banned.

4) Corporate share buybacks, which amount to 4.5% of the outstanding float per year, are a short-term fix for company share prices only at the long-term price of a weaker balance sheets.

5) Some $4.5 trillion in borrowing by the Federal Reserve has crowded out the little guy. On this one, I disagree with Carl. With overnight rates at zero and ten year Treasury bonds yielding 2.06%, nobody is getting crowded out from anything.

6) Artificially low interest rates are fueling an unwarranted takeover boom and encouraging risky financial engineering.

7) Junk bonds (HYG), (JNK) are a bubble begging to pop. They are the result of a runaway Wall Street selling machine that saw big firms selling short their own issues to unwary customers.

Carl sums up by saying that while the Fed saved the US economy during 2008-09, they created the problem in the first place with Greenspan?s excessive easing in 2002-03.

He believes that the candidacy of outsider Donald Trump is a natural reaction to peoples? dissatisfaction with Washington and Wall Street.

I have to admit that Carl has brought up some serious points here. I agree with all, except the above-mentioned ?crowding out? issue. Combined, they are a detrimental tax on the long-term economic health of America.

Could this be an attempt by Carl to throw his hat into the political ring? Treasury Secretary in a future Trump administration was mentioned in later media interviews.

But at his age, even for Carl, that would be a reach.

While Icahn has been ringing the alarm bell on the stock market and junk bonds all year, he has been aggressively acquiring major stakes in in the energy and commodities sectors all year, while they are trading at generational lows.

He has zeroed in on two of my own favorite trades, Freeport McMoRan (FCX) and Cheniere Energy (LNG).

Carl is also holding a major position in Apple (AAPL), which he acquired two years ago just after I jumped in at $395. He believes the shares are absurdly cheap.

To watch the 15 minute video in full, please click: http://carlicahn.com.

Good for you, Carl Icahn!

The Solar Road Revisited

Diary, Newsletter

?The Solar Road Revisited?. Somehow this modernized version of Bob Dylan?s epic folk album doesn?t quite ring true when couched in terms of our hyper accelerating 21^st century technology. Perhaps a Millennial bard will improve on this in the future on iTunes, Pandora, and Beats, of course?

Yet, such a futuristic invention has already been created, is raising money through crowdfunding, and even landed a small Federal Highway Administration grant.

We live in an age of exploding technologies. So, when I find some that are especially interesting, offer a potential long term impact on the global economy, or present immediate investment opportunities, I am going to update you in this newsletter.

One common complaint I hear during my road shows is that we are moving into the future so fast, that it is getting increasingly hard to keep up. That is, unless you live within sight of Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Twitter (TWTR), and Facebook (FB) headquarters, which I do. These companies all have venture capital arms, which fund many of these things.

Sandpoint, Idaho based engineers Julie and Scott Brusaw are the founders of Solar Roadways, a tiny engineering company that seeks to convert the American highway system from old fashioned asphalt and concrete to tempered glass and LED?s.

They have raised $2 million through the crowdsourcing website Indiegogo, which saw its amazing videos on the project go viral and attract 15 million views (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways ).

Caution: conservatives may want to avert their eyes during all of the global warming, anti gasoline, and tree hugging references. But this stuff raises big bucks in California.

What can solar roads do? Obviously, the green hexagonal panels they are made of convert sunlight into electricity, heating roads so they can remain free of ice and snow all year. I could really use that up at Lake Tahoe.

Surplus power can be sold to local utilities to pay for it. Electric cars, like my Tesla Model S-1 (TSLA), can recharge their batteries just by parking on it, as my toothbrush already does in my bathroom.

You can program the LED?s to embed changeable road signs, borders, parking lots, and crosswalks. They can highlight crossing animals (200 deaths a year now in the US), or impending road obstructions.

They can even display layouts for every kind of sport (basketball, tennis, etc). The glass can be cast to give it a better grip than contemporary roads. Highway deaths would plunge, as would insurance costs.

Driving trucks on glass? The material is so strong that it can support the heaviest, or some 62 tons. My question, can handle steel caterpillar tractor treads used in road repair equipment?

Of course, it always comes down to cost with these new technologies, many of which remain pie in the sky forever. Estimates are that these roads cost 50%-300% more than existing ones. Large-scale construction would bring that down through economies of scale via mass production. The design is really quite simple.

The vision is big. It would probably cost over $1 trillion just to pave over the existing 48,000 miles of the interstate highway system. Tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs would be created. It all sounds like a massive public works project would be required, of Rooseveltian, CCC magnitude.

This just gives you a flavor of the incredibly interesting things going on here in the San Francisco Bay area, which I learn about on a daily basis. Check out the site, if only to see the future of start up funding.

You can contribute $5, or just buy a tote bag.

Somehow, It?s Just Not the Same

How the Markets Will Play Out This Quarter

Diary, Newsletter, Research

I think I have figured out the course of the global financial markets over the next few months.

We are currently transitioning from an economic data flow from Q1 that was very weak, to the second quarter, which will almost certainly deliver us a robust set of numbers. This is on the heels of a white hot Q1, 2014.

Hot, cold, hot; this is a trader?s dream come true, as it gives us the volatility we need to make a fortune, as we skillfully weave in and out of these gyrations.

That is, if you read the Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader.

This is not a new thing. A weak Q1 has been a recurring event over the last 30 years. The anomaly has been so reliable that not a few traders have been able to earn a living from it. :) Heaven help us if the government ever tries to fix it.

To further complicate matters, some markets see this, while others have yet to open their eyes.

The stock market (SPY), (QQQ), (IWM) agree with my view, probing new all time highs, while companies announce diabolical Q1 earnings (Twitter (TWTR)? Yikes!). So do commodities, like oil (USO) and copper (FCX), whose recent strength suggests we are on the doorstep of a great economic Golden Age.

However, the foreign exchange market (FXE), (FXY) doesn?t see it this way. They can only comprehend the last data point that just crossed the tape.

If it is weak, they assume the Federal Reserve won?t even think about raising interest rates until well into 2016. If it is healthy, they bet the Fed will jack up rates tomorrow.

You might assume this is ridiculous, and you?d be right. However, forex traders live in a world where interest rate differentials are the principal, and to many the only driver of foreign exchange rates.

One market is right, and one is wrong. Did I mention that this is also a license for we nimble traders to print money?

Of course, you can play both side of the fence, as I do. That?s how I was able to coin it with a long position in the euro (a weak economy trade) the same day my long US equity portfolio (a strong economy trade) was going through the roof.

Let me give you another iteration of these scenarios. Inside the dollar correction we are seeing a pronounced sector rotation among US stocks.

Traders are moving out of small caps (IWM) that sheltered then from a strong dollar into large caps (SPY). They are also taking profits in biotech and rolling it into financials (GS), cyber security (PANW) and solar (TAN).

Goldman Sachs (GS) gave us more rocket fuel for the bull case for of American stocks this morning. The sage investment bank, in which my Trade Alert Service currently maintains a profitable long position, says that corporations will return a mind blowing $1 trillion to investors in 2015.

Share buy back from companies should rise by 18%, while dividends should pop by 7%. It is all a continuation of a six-year trend.

Apple (AAPL) certainly kicked off this quarter?s cavalcade of higher payouts on Monday, when it added $50 billion to its own stock repurchase program and jacked up its dividend by 11%.

Markets could get even more interesting after next week, when some 80% of S&P 500 companies will have existed the ?black out? period when they are not allowed by SEC regulations to buy their own stock.

I say ?tally ho,? and ?tally ho? again.

It?s Tally Ho for the Stock Market

Ten Reasons Why Stocks Are Still Going Up

Diary, Newsletter, Research

While driving back from Lake Tahoe last weekend, I received a call from a dear friend who was in a very foul mood. He had bailed on all his equity holdings at the end of last year, fully expecting a market crash in the New Year.

Despite market volatility doubling, multinationals getting crushed by the weak euro and the Federal Reserve now signaling its first interest rate rise in a decade, here we are with the major stock indexes sitting at all time highs.

Why the hell are stocks still going up?

I paused for a moment as a kid driving a souped up Honda weaved into my lane of Interstate 80, cutting me off. Then I gave him my response, which I summarize below:

1) There is nothing else to buy. Complain all you want, but US equities are now one of the world?s highest yielding securities, with a lofty 2% dividend. That compares to one third of European debt offering negative rates and US Treasuries at 1.90%.

2) Oil prices have yet to bottom and the windfall cost savings are only just being felt around the world.

3) While the weak euro is definitely eating into large multinational earnings, we are probably approaching the end of the move. The cure for a weak euro is a weak euro. The worst may be behind for US exporters.

4) What follows a collapse in European economic growth? A European recovery, powered by a weak currency. This is why China has been on fire, which exports more to Europe than anywhere else.

5) What follows a Japanese economic collapse? A recovery there too, as hyper accelerating QE feeds into the main economy. Japanese stocks are now among the worlds cheapest. This is why the Nikkei Average hit a new 15-year high over the weekend, giving me yet another winning Trade Alert.

6) While the next move in interest rates will certainly be up, it is not going to move the needle on corporate P&L?s for a long time. We might see a ?% hike and then done, and that probably won?t happen until 2016. In a deflationary world, there is no room for more. At least, that?s what Janet tells me.

This will make absolutely no difference to the large number of corporates, like Apple (AAPL), that don?t borrow at all.

7) Technology everywhere is accelerating at an immeasurable pace, causing profits to do likewise. You see this in biotech, where blockbuster new drugs are being announced almost weekly.

See the new Alzheimer?s cure announced last week? It involves extracting the cells from the brains of alert 95 year olds, cloning them and then injecting them into early stage Alzheimer?s patients. The success rate has been 70%. That one alone could be worth $5 billion.

8) US companies are still massive buyers of their own stock, over $170 billion worth in 2014. This has created a free put option for investors for the most aggressive companies, like Apple (AAPL), IBM (IBM), Exxon (XOM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Intel (INTC), the top five repurchasers. They have nothing else to buy either.

They are jacking up dividend payouts at a frenetic pace as well and are expected to return more than $430 billion in payouts this year (see chart below).

9) Oil will bottom in the coming quarter, if it hasn?t done so already. This will make the entire energy sector the ?BUY? of the century, dragging the indexes up as well. Have you noticed that Conoco Phillips (COP), Warren Buffets favorite oil company, now sports a stunning 4.70% dividend?

10) Ditto for the banks, which were dragged down by falling interest for most of 2015. Reverse that trade this year, and you have another major impetus to drive stock indexes higher.

My friend was somewhat set back, dazzled, and non-plussed by my long-term overt bullishness. He asked me if I could think on anything that might trigger a new bear market, or at least a major correction.

I told him to forget anything international. There is no foreign development that could damage the US economy in any meaningful way. No one cares.

On he other hand, I could think of a lot of possible scenarios that could be hugely beneficial for US stocks, like a peace deal with Iran, which would chop oil prices by another half.

The traditional causes of recessions, oil price and interest rate spikes, are nowhere on the horizon. In fact, the prices for these two commodities, energy and money, are headed lower and not higher, another deflationary symptom.

Then something occurred to me. Share prices have been going up for too long and need some kind of rest, weeks or possibly months. At a 17 multiple American stocks are not the bargain they were 6 years ago when they sold for 10X earnings. Those were the only thing I could think of.

But then those are the arguments for shifting money out of the US and into Europe, Japan, and China, which is what the entire world seems to be doing right now.

I have joined them as well, which is why my Trade Alert followers are long the Wisdom Tree Japan Hedged Equity ETF (DXJ) (click here for ?The Bull Case for Japanese Stocks?).

With that, I told my friend I had to hang up, as another kid driving a souped up Shelby Cobra GT 500, obviously stolen, was weaving back an forth in front of me requiring my attention.

Whatever happened to driver?s ed?

Why There is No Bubble in Stocks

Diary, Newsletter, Research

One couldn?t help but notice the outbreak of recollection, reminiscing and schadenfreude that took place yesterday when the NASDAQ briefly tipped over 5,000.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I am still amazed by the frenzy that took place, witnessing the kind of bubble one only sees twice a century. And I was right in the thick of it, living in nearby Silicon Valley.

Business school students were raising $50 million with a one-page business plan. An analyst predicted that Amazon (AMZN) shares would double to $400 in a year. It happened in only four weeks.

All of my attorneys quit, taking up prestige jobs as chief legal counsels at new start ups, taking stock in lieu of pay, dollar bills dancing in front of their eyes. They were replaced by the ?B? team. Other law firms started accepting stock as payment of legal fees.

I knew more than one office secretary who took pay cuts to $15,000 a year in exchange for stock, which they later sold for $2 million.

When I tried to expand my company, I couldn?t find a larger office to rent. San Francisco had run out of office space. So I bought a house for $7 million instead and worked from there. That was no problem, as everyone had $7 million then.

But what I remember most fondly were the parties. The beneficiaries of every IPO sought to celebrate with the biggest party in Bay Area history, each one eclipsing the last. An entire industry of creative party organizers sprung up, seeking to outdo every competitor.

I remember most fondly the Vodka luge carved out of a giant block of ice, where a pretty hostage poured 100 proof super cooled rocket fuel straight down your throat. By midnight, the passed out bodies started piling up on the periphery.

Those were the days!

Which brings us to today, when handwringing is breaking out all over. Investors are afraid that we are just now putting in the double top of the century in NASDAQ, with a very neat 15 years taking place between peaks.
Is it time to sell?

I think not.

Today, we see a completely different world from the one we knew in 2000. Global GDP then was a mere $32 trillion. Today it is 2.5 times higher at $78 trillion. Using this simplistic measure, the GDP adjusted value of NASDAQ should be 12,187.

The high tech index peaked at a price earnings multiple of 100 times earnings. Today it is 30 times. That means the multiple adjusted high for NASDAQ today would be 16,650.

Technology stocks then didn?t pay dividends. Today, look at Apple (AAPL), which pays a 1.50% dividend worth $11.25 billion in annual payouts. This revenue stream provides enormous support under the market, and almost makes Apple shares perform more like bonds than stocks.

Which brings me to a new investment thesis.

What if the stocks that peaked in 2000 are only now just breaking out and starting long bull runs? I am thinking of quality technology names that have completed long, sideways, basing moves. Ebay (EBAY), Broadcom (BRCM), and Cisco (CSCO) leap to the fore.

The possibilities boggle the mind.

I think that in order to get NASDAQ to really get the bit between its teeth, one thing has to happen. Apple has to stop going up.

You really only had to make one stock call in 2014. You had to be overweight Apple. If you did, you were a star. If you didn?t, then you are still probably looking for a new job on Craig?s List.

Managers are behaving as if the past were a prologue, loading the boat with Apple with their eyes firmly fixed on the rear view mirror. That explains the blowout 13% jump in Steve Jobs? creation so far in 2015, some $90 billion in market capitalization.

All you need is for investors to stop buying Apple for 15 minutes and rotate into other big tech names. That was my logic behind my Trade Alert to buy Cisco two weeks ago. If that occurs, it will be off to the races for NASDAQ once again.

Remember that old saw in technical analysis land, ?the longer the base, the bigger the air above it.?

A vodka martini, anyone?