Global Market Comments
April 9, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TEN LONG TERM LEAPS TO BUY AT THE BOTTOM)
(MSFT), (AAPL), (GOOGL), (QCOM), (AMZN),
(V), (AXP), (NVDA), (DIS), (TGT)
Tag Archive for: (AAPL)
I am often asked how professional hedge fund traders invest their personal money. They all do the exact same thing. They wait for a market crash like we are seeing now, and buy the longest-term LEAPS (Long Term Equity Participation Securities) possible for their favorite names.
The reasons are very simple. The risk on LEAPS is limited. You can’t lose any more than you put in. At the same time, they permit enormous amounts of leverage.
Two years out, the longest maturity available for most LEAPS, allows plenty of time for the world and the markets to get back on an even keel. Recessions, pandemics, hurricanes, oil shocks, interest rate spikes, and political instability all go away within two years and pave the way for dramatic stock market recoveries.
You just put them away and forget about them. Wake me up when it is 2022.
I put together this portfolio using the following parameters. I set the strike prices just short of the all-time highs set two weeks ago. I went for the maximum maturity. I used today’s prices. And of course, I picked the names that have the best long-term outlooks.
You should only buy LEAPS of the best quality companies with the rosiest growth prospects and rock-solid balance sheets to be certain they will still be around in two years. I’m talking about picking up Cadillacs, Rolls Royces, and even Ferraris at fire sale prices. Don’t waste your money on speculative low-quality stocks that may never come back.
If you buy LEAPS at these prices and the stocks all go to new highs, then you should earn an average 131.8% profit from an average stock price increase of only 17.6%.
That is a staggering return 7.7 times greater than the underlying stock gain. And let’s face it. None of the companies below are going to zero, ever. Now you know why hedge fund traders only employ this strategy.
There is a smarter way to execute this portfolio. Put in throw-away crash bids at levels so low they will only get executed on the next cataclysmic 1,000-point down day in the Dow Average.
You can play around with the strike prices all you want. Going farther out of the money increases your returns, but raises your risk as well. Going closer to the money reduces risk and returns, but the gains are still a multiple of the underlying stock.
Buying when everyone else is throwing up on their shoes is always the best policy. That way, your return will rise to ten times the move in the underlying stock.
If you are unable or unwilling to trade options, then you will do well buying the underlying shares outright. I expect the list below to rise by 50% or more over the next two years.
Enjoy.
Microsoft (MSFT) - March 18 2022 $180-$190 bull call spread at $2.67 delivers a 274% gain with the stock at $190, up 16% from the current level. As the global move online vastly accelerates the world is clamoring for more computers and laptops, 90% of which run Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The company’s new cloud present with Azure will also be a big beneficiary.
Apple (AAPL) – June 17 2022 $210-$220 bull call spread at $6.47 delivers a 55% gain with the stock at $226, up 14% from the current level. With most of the world’s Apple stores now closed, sales are cratering. That will translate into an explosion of new sales in the second half when they reopen. The company’s online services business is also exploding.
Alphabet (GOOGL) – January 21 2022 $1,500-$1,520 bull call spread at $7.80 delivers a 28% gain with the stock at $226, up 14% from the current level. Global online searches are up 30% to 300%, depending on the country. While advertising revenues are flagging now, they will come roaring back
QUALCOMM (QCOM) – January 21 2022 $90-$95 bull call spread at $1.55 delivers a 222% gain with the stock at $95, up 23% from the current level. We are on the cusp of a global 5G rollout and almost every cell phone in the world is going to have to use one of QUALCOMM’s proprietary chips.
Amazon (AMZN) – January 21 2022 $2,100-$2,150 bull call spread at $17.92 delivers a 179% gain with the stock at $2,150, up 15% from the current level. If you thought Amazon was taking over the world before, they have just been given a turbocharger. Much of the new online business is never going back to brick and mortar.
Visa (V) – June 17 2022 $205-$215 bull call spread at $3.75 delivers a 166% gain with the stock at $215, up 16% from the current level. Sales are down for the short term but will benefit enormously from the mass online migration of new business only. They are one of a monopoly of three.
American Express (AXP) – June 17 2022 $130-$135 bull call spread at $1.87 delivers a 167% gain with the stock at $135, up 28% from the current level. This is another one of the three credit card processors in the monopoly, except they get to charge much higher fees.
NVIDIA (NVDA) – September 16 2022 $290-$310 bull call spread at $6.90 delivers a 189% gain with the stock at $310, up 19% from the current level. They are the world’s leader in graphics card design and manufacturing used on high-end PCs, artificial intelligence, and gaining. They befit from the soaring demand for new computers and the coming shortage of chips everywhere.
Walt Disney (DIS) – January 21 2022 $140-$150 bull call spread at $2.55 delivers a 55% gain with the stock at $116, up 31% from the current level. How would you like to be in the theme park, hotel, and cruise line business right now? It’s in the price. Its growing Disney Plus streaming service will make (DIS) the next Netflix.
Target (TGT) – June 17 2022 $125-$130 bull call spread at $1.40 delivers a 257% gain with the stock at $130, up 16% from the current level. Some store sales are up 50% month on month and lines are running around the block. Their recent online growth is also saving their bacon.
Looks Like a “BUY” signal to Me
Global Market Comments
April 3, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE CODER BOOM)
(HOW TO EXECUTE A VERTICAL BULL CALL SPREAD)
(AAPL)
Global Market Comments
March 24, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(TEN SIGNS THE MARKET IS BOTTOMING),
(FXI), (BRK/A), (BA), (DAL), (SPX),
(INDU), (UUP), (VIX), (VXX), (AAPL)
I spent the morning calling some big hedge fund friends asking what they are looking for to indicate the market may be bottoming. I’ll give you a warning right now. None of the traditional fundamental or technical measures have any validity in this market.
Markets will need to see at least one, and maybe all of these before they launch into a sustainable recovery. The good news is that several have already happened and are flashing green.
1) Watch New Corona Cases in China
The pandemic started in China and it will end in China (FXI). The president of China, Xi Jinping, has already announced that the epidemic is over and that the country is returning to normal. The country is donating thousands of respirators and millions of masks to Europe and poor countries all over the world. China was able to enforce a quarantine far more severe than possible in the West, such as using the army to surround 60 million people for a month. So, the results in the Middle Kingdom may not be immediately transferable to the US.
If we do get an actual fall in the number of cases in China, that could indicate the end is near. To keep track, click here.
2) Watch Corona Cases in Italy
Italy quarantined two weeks before California so we should get an earlier answer there. The numbers are reliable, but we don’t know the true extent of their quarantine. After all, this is Italy. Also, Italy has a much older population than the US (that Mediterranean diet keeps Italians alive forever), so they will naturally suffer a higher death rate. However, a decline in cases there will be proof that a western-style shelter-in-place order will work. To keep track, click here.
3) Watch Corona Cases in California
The Golden State was the first to quarantine ten days ago, so it will be the first American state to see cases top out. On Monday, we were at 1,733 cases and 27 deaths, or one in 1.5 million. However, it is a partial quarantine at best, with maybe half of the 20 million workforce staying home. When our cases top out, which should be the week of April 13, it could be an indication that the epidemic is flagging. To keep track, click here.
4) Watch Washington
Passage of a Corona Economic Recovery Bill could take place as early as Friday and could be worth $2 trillion. Add in the massive stimulus provided by the Federal Reserve, a large multiple of the 2008-2009 efforts, and $10 trillion is about to hit the economy. Warning: don’t be short an economy that is about to be hit with $10 trillion worth of stimulus.
5) Watch the Technicals.
Yes, technicals may be worthless now but someday in the future, they won’t be. The stock market has traded 20% below the 200-day moving average only four times in the last century. The Dow Average (INDU) was 32% below the 200-day moving average at the Monday low. The next rip-your-face off short-covering rally is imminent and may initially target that down 20% level at $21,496, or 18% above the Monday low.
6) Watch for the Big Buy
Value players are back in the market for the first time in six years, the last time the S&P 500 (SPX) traded at a discount to its historical 15.5X earnings multiple and are circling targets like hungry sharks. Watch for Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A) to buy a large part of a trophy property, like a major bank or airline. He’s already stepped up his ownership in Delta Airlines (DAL). I’m sure he’s going over the books of Boeing (BA). Warren might even buy back his own stock at a discount to net asset value, down 31.4% in a month. Any move by Warren will signal confidence to the rest of the markets.
7) Watch the US Dollar
With US overnight interest rates having crashed by 1.5% in recent weeks, the US dollar (UUP) should be the weakest currency in the world. The greenback overnight became a zero-yielding currency. Instead, it has been the strongest, rocketing on a gigantic global flight to safety bid. When the foreign exchange rates return to rationality, the buck should weaken, as it has already started to do after last week’s super spike. A weak dollar will be good for American companies and their stocks.
8) Watch the (VIX)
We now know that the Volatility Index (VIX), (VXX) was artificially boosted last week by hundreds of short players covering positions with gigantic losses and going bust. Now that this is washed out, I expect volatility to decline for the rest of 2020. It has already fallen from $80 to $49 in days. This is a precursor to a strong stock market.
9) Watch the Absolute Value of the Market
There could be a magic number beyond which prices can’t fall anymore. That could be yesterday’s 18,000, 17,000, or 15,000. Some 80% of all US stocks are owned by long term holders who never sell, like pension funds, corporate crossholdings, or individuals who have owned them for decades and don’t want to pay the capital gains tax. When the ownership of that 20% is shifted to the 80%, the market runs out of sellers and stocks can’t fall anymore. That may have already happened. Similarly, a final capitulation selloff of market leaders, like Apple (AAPL) may also be a sign that the bear market is ending. (AAPL) is off 34.40% since February.
10) Watch John Thomas
I am watching all of the above 24/7. So rather than chase down all these data points every day, just watch for my next trade alert. I am confined to my home office for the duration, probably for months, so I have nothing else to do. No trips to Switzerland, the Taj Mahal, or the Great Pyramids of Egypt for me this year. It will just be nose to the grindstone.
Stay Healthy and we’ll back a killing on the back nine.
John Thomas
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
March 23, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade: (THE CORONA DRAG ON 5G)
(VZ), (T), (AAPL), (NFLX), (NVDA), (XLNX), (QRVO), (QCOM)
It will be inevitable – the 5G shift in 2020 will be delayed.
Last year, 5G was available on only about 1% of phones sold in 2019 and demand has cratered this year because of exogenous variables.
Up to just recently, Apple (AAPL) was the bellwether of the success of tech with wildly appreciating shares due to the expected ramp-up to a new 5G phone later this year.
Well, things are more complicated now.
I will be the first one to say it - the new Apple 5G iPhone will be delayed until 2021 – the project has been thrown into doubt because of a demand drop off and headaches with the supply chain in China.
The phenomenon of 5G cannot blossom until consumers can upgrade to 5G devices.
Concerning all the media print of China Inc. going back to work, don’t believe a word of it.
People of the Middle Kingdom are sitting at home just like you and me by navigating around top-down government edicts.
Instead of the perilous commute in a country of 1.4 billion people, Chinese workers are fabricating attendance figures per my sources.
Overall data is grim - global smartphone shipments dropped 38% year-over-year during February from 99.2 million devices to 61.8 million - the largest fall ever in the history of the smartphone market and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The new data point underscores the magnitude of how the coronavirus is sucking the vitality out of the tech ecosystem in China and thus the end market for global consumer electronics.
The statistic also foreshadows imminent trouble in the smartphone market as other regions have now shut down not only in China but the manufacturing hubs of South East Asia.
The outbreak squeezes both supply and demand.
Factories in Asia are unable to manufacture phones as usual because of obligatory government shutdowns and complexities securing critical components from the supply chain.
5G has been hyped up as the great leap forward for wireless technology that will usher in unprecedented new use cases supercharging global GDP — from driverless transport to robotic automation to smart football stadiums.
And coronavirus is just that Godzilla destroying 5G momentum down.
Mass quarantines, social distancing, remote work, and schooling have been instituted in American cities, meaning that the current network carriers are swamped and overloaded with a surge in data usage.
The Verizon’s (VZ) and the AT&T (T) Broadbands of America are currently focused on maintaining their current core customers, adding extra broadband to handle the increased load, and making sure the health of the network stays intact.
This is a poor climate to upsell products to beleaguered Americans who have just lost income and possibly their house because they cannot pay mortgages.
Services such as YouTube and Netflix (NFLX) have even decreased the quality of streaming on their platforms to handle the dramatic spike in extra usage in Europe with the whole continent locked down.
The Chinese consumer was the Darkhorse catalyst to ramp up the global economic expansion during the last economic crisis, picking up world spending in 2009.
On the contrary, this group of super spenders is less inclined to save the global economy this time around because they are saddled with domestic debt.
Just as unhelpful to Silicon Valley revenues, the technology relationship at the top of the governments are poised to worsen because of the health scare.
The U.S. administration has already banned the use of Chinese components in the U.S. 5G network amid suspicions the devices would be used for espionage.
Back stateside, I believe the U.S. telecoms will explicitly detail a sudden slowdown in the 5G network rollout during their next earnings report.
The telecom companies have been able to successfully handle the extra incremental load, but it has had to allocate resources to service the extra volume.
In the meantime, companies will shift to doing infrastructure and site preparation in anticipation of the re-build up to 5G, but that could be next to be put on ice if crisis management moves to the forefront.
Considering every 5G base station is being manufactured in Asia, one must be naïve in believing all is well and they will probably need to do what the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will shortly do – postpone it.
It’s not business as usual anymore.
This time it’s different.
The world just isn’t ready to digest such a shift in global business as 5G until the fallout of the coronavirus is in the rear-view mirror.
The 5G phenomenon underlying effect is to supercharge globalization into smaller networks of interconnectivity and that is not possible during a black swan event like the coronavirus which is the antithesis of globalization and interconnected business.
Just take the situation across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe, UBS Group AG, and Credit Suisse Group AG required clients to post additional collateral, and money managers in New York are preparing term sheets for ultra-rich Americans to urgently meet margin calls.
Many people are scurrying back to their doomsday’s shelter and that does not scream global business.
If you thought gold was the safe haven – wrong again – it experienced back-to-back weekly losses as margin pressures force fire sales of gold to raise cash.
Another glaring example are the assets of Eldorado Resorts Inc., controlled by the founding Carano family, which burned $28.7 million of stock in the casino entity to meet a margin call to satisfy a bank loan.
Things are that bad now!
Sure, telecom players might argue that a sudden influx of workers from home necessitates more investment in 5G, but if they have no income, all bets are off.
The capacity of 4G home broadband has proved it is good enough for today’s demands and it means the last stage of 4G will be a high data consumption longer phase before business lethargically pivots to 5G in 2021.
Verizon’s CEO Hans Vestberg said last year that half the U.S. will have access to 5G by the end of 2020, and I will say that is now impossible.
This sets up a generational buy in the Silicon Valley chip names involved in 5G after coronavirus troubles peak such as Nvdia (NVDA), Xilinx (XLNX), Qorvo (QRVO), and QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM).
Global Market Comments
March 17, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(LONG TERM ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE CORONAVIRUS),
(ZM), (LOGM), (AMZN)
(HOW TO HANDLE THE FRIDAY, MARCH 20 OPTIONS EXPIRATION),
(AAPL), (AMZN), (MSFT)
Followers of the Global Trading Dispatch have the good fortune to own a deep in-the-money options position that expires on Friday, and I just want to explain to the newbies how to best maximize their profits on that March 20 expiration.
This involves the:
Apple (AAPL) March 2020 $220-$230 in-the-money vertical BULL CALL spread
Microsoft (MSFT) March 2020 $120-$125 in-the-money vertical BULL CALL spread
Amazon (AMZN) March 2020 $1,350-$1,400 in-the-money vertical BULL CALL spread
Provided that we don’t have another 3,000 point move down in the market this week, these positions should expire at their maximum profit points. So far, so good.
I’ll do the math for you on the Apple (AAPL) position. Your profit can be calculated as follows:
Profit: $10.00 - $8.80 = $1.20
(11 contracts X 100 contracts per option X $1.20 profit per options)
= $1,320 or 13.63% in 7 trading days.
Many of you have already emailed me asking what to do with these winning positions.
The answer is very simple. You take your left hand, grab your right wrist, pull it behind your neck, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
You don’t have to do anything.
Your broker (are they still called that?) will automatically use your long position to cover your short position, canceling out the total holdings.
The entire profit will be credited to your account on Monday morning March 23 and the margin freed up.
Some firms charge you a modest $10 or $15 fee for performing this service.
If you don’t see the cash show up in your account on Monday, get on the blower immediately and find it.
Although the expiration process is now supposed to be fully automated, occasionally mistakes do occur. Better to sort out any confusion before losses ensue.
If you want to wimp out and close the options position before the March 20 expiration, it may be expensive to do so. You can probably unload them pennies below their maximum expiration value.
Keep in mind that the liquidity in the options market disappears and the spreads substantially widen when a security has only hours, or minutes until expiration on Friday. So, if you plan to exit, do so well before the final expiration at the Friday market close.
This is known in the trade as the “expiration risk.”
One way or the other, I’m sure you’ll do OK, as long as I am looking over your shoulder, as I will be, always. Think of me as your trading guardian angel.
I am going to hang back and wait for good entry points before jumping back in. It’s all about keeping that “Buy low, sell high” thing going.
I’m looking to cherry-pick my new positions going into the next quarter end.
Take your winnings and go out and buy yourself a well-earned dinner. Or use it to put a down payment on a long cruise.
Well done and on to the next trade.
This Market Can Be Very Tricky
Global Market Comments
March 16, 2020
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or THE PANIC IS ON),
(INDU), (SPX), (VIX), (VXX), (GLD), (USO), (TLT), (AAPL), (WYNN), (CCL), (UAL)