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October 23 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Below, please find subscribers’ Q&A for the October 23 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar, broadcast from Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Q: What the heck is happening with the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT)? It keeps dropping even though interest rates are dropping. It seems to be an anomaly.

A: It is. What’s happening is that bonds are discounting a Trump win, and Trump has promised economic policies that will increase the national debt by anywhere from $10 to $15 trillion. Bonds don’t like that—you borrow more money through bonds, and the price goes up. Interest rates could go as high as 10% if we run deficits that high (at least the bond market may go that low.) On the other hand, stocks are discounting a Harris win. Stocks went up 60% over the last four years. I did roughly double that. And a Harris win would mean basically four more years of the same. So stocks have been trading at new all-time highs almost every day until this week when the election got so close that the cautious money is running to the sidelines. So what happens if there's a Harris win? Bonds make back the entire 10 points they lost since the Fed cut interest rates. And what happens if Trump wins? Bonds lose another 10 points on top of the 10 points they've already lost. Someone with a proven history of default doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the bond market. So that is what's going on in the bond market.

Q: Will the US dollar continue its run into year-end?

A: No, I have a feeling it’s going to completely reverse in two weeks and, give up all of its gains, and resume a decade-long trend to new lows. So, I think everything reverses after election day. Stocks, bonds, commodities, precious metals—the only thing that doesn't is energy, and that keeps going down because of global oversupply that even a Middle Eastern war can’t support.

Q: Are you expecting a major correction in 2025?

A: I am, actually. We basically postponed all corrections into 2025 and pulled forward all performance in 2024. So, I think we could get at least a 10% correction sometime next year, and that is normal. Usually, we get a couple of them. This year, we only got the one in July/August. So, back to normal next year, which means smaller returns from the stock market. In fact, smaller returns from everything except maybe gold and silver. This is why they're going up so much now.

Q: Are you discounting a huge increase in the deficit under Biden-Harris?

A: No, the huge increase in the deficit is behind us because we had all the pandemic programs to pay for, and if anything, technology inflation should go down because of accelerating technology. We're already seeing that in many industries now, so I don't think there'll be any policy changes under Harris, except for little tweaks here and there. All the big policies will remain the same.

Q: What is a dip?

A: A dip is different for every stock and every asset class. It depends on the recent volatility of the underlying instrument. You know, a dip in something like McDonald's (MCD) or Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B) might be 5%, and a dip in Nvidia (NVDA) might be 15 or 20%. So, it really depends on the volatility of the underlying stock, and no two volatilities are alike.

Q: What are your top picks on nuclear?

A: Well, we've been in Cameco (CCJ), the Canadian uranium company, since the beginning of the year, and it has doubled. Vistra Corp (VST) is another one, and there are many more names after that.

Q: What are your thoughts on Toyota (TM)?

A: I love Toyota for the long term. The fact that they were late into EVs is now a positive since the EV business is losing money like crazy. They're the ones who really pioneered the hybrid business, and I’ve toured many of their factories in Japan over the years. Great company, but right now, they're being held back by the slow growth of the Japanese economy.

Q: Market timing index says get out. We're heading into the seasonally bullish time of the year. Should we be in or out over the next two months?

A: I would be in as long as you can handle some volatility around the stock market. When the market timing index is at 70, that means any new trades that you initiate have a 30% chance of making money. Now, they can sit at highs sometimes for months, and it actually did that earlier this year. Markets can get overbought and stay overbought for months, and that is a really difficult time to trade. If you're a long-term investor, you just ignore all of this and just stay in all the time.

Q: Silver has broken out; what's next?

A: Silver had had a massive run since the beginning of September—some 30%. We're up to about $31/oz. The obvious target for silver is the last all-time high, which I think we did 40 years ago, and that was at $50/oz. So there's another easy 60% of upside in silver. That's why I put out a LEAPS on the 2x long silver play (AGQ), and people are already making tons of money on that one. I think Silver will be your big performer going forward.

Q: Too late to invest in Chinese stocks?

A: No, it's selling off again. IT Could retest the lows, especially if the government sits on its hands for too long with more stimulus packages.

Q: Is big tech still a good bargain buy?

A: I would take “bargain” out of that. The rule on tech investing is you're always buying expensive stuff because the future always has a spectacular outlook. So, tech investing is all about buying something expensive that gets more expensive. This is exactly what tech stocks have been doing for the last 50 years, so it's not exactly a new concept. I know tons of people who never touched Nvidia (NVDA) or Tesla (TSLA) because it was too expensive. (NVDA) was too expensive when it was $2, and now it's even more expensive at $140 or, in Tesla's case, $260.

Q: Will Tesla (TSLA) go up or down tonight?

A: I have no idea. Anybody else who says they have an idea is lying. You go to timeframes that short, and you are subjecting yourself to random chance; even the weather could affect your position by tomorrow.

Q: How uncomfortable is the stem cell extraction?

A: Extremely uncomfortable. If they say it won't hurt a bit, don't believe them for a second. They take this giant needle hammer it into your backbone to get your spinal fluid (and I count the hammer blows.) Last time, I think I got up to 50 before I couldn't take the pain anymore, and they extracted the spinal fluid to get the stem cells. So, for those who don't tolerate pain very well, this is absolutely not for you.

Q: Why is Intel (INTC) stock doing so badly this year?

A: Low-end products, no new products, poor manager. Whenever a salesman takes over a technology company, you want to run a mile. That's what happened at Intel because they have no idea how the technology works.

Q: Should I sell my Philip Morris (PM) stock? It's just had a huge run-up.

A: No. For dividend holders, this is the dream come true. They pay a 4.1% dividend. This was a pure dividend play ever since the tobacco settlement was done 40 years ago. Then they bought a Swedish company that has these things called tobacco pouches, and that has been a runaway bestseller. So, all of a sudden, the earnings at Philip Morris are exploding. The dividend is safe. I think Philip could go a lot higher, so buy PM on dips. And I will dig into this story and try to get some more information out of it. I love high growth high dividend plays.

Q: What's the best play for silver?

A: I'm doing the ProShares Ultra Silver (AGQ), which is a 2x long silver and has gone from $30 to $50 since the beginning of September. If you want to sleep at night (of course, I don't need to), then you just buy the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which is a 1x long silver play and that owns physical silver. I think it's held in a bank vault in London.

Q: Time to sell Copper (FCX)?

A: Short term, yes, as China weakens. Long-term, hang on because we are coming into a global copper shortage, and that'll take the price of copper up to $100 or (FCX) up to $100. So yes, love (FCX) for the long term. Short term, it has a China drag.

Q: Will inflation come back in 2025?

A: No, it won't. Technology is accelerating so fast, and AI is accelerating so fast it's going to cut costs at a tremendous rate. And that's why you're seeing these big tech companies laying off people hundreds at a time; it's because the low-end jobs have already been replaced by AI. There is a lot more of that to come. I'm not worried about inflation at all.

Q: Do you disagree with Tudor Jones on inflation?

A: Yes, I disagree with him heartily. Tudor Jones is talking his own book, which means he doesn't want to get a tax increase with a Harris administration. So he's doing everything he can to talk up Trump, and that isn't helping me with my investment strategy whatsoever. By the way, Tudor Jones is often wrong, you know; he made most of his money 30 years ago. And before that, it was when he was working for George Soros. So, yes, I agree with the man from Memphis. He’s in the asset protection business. You’re in the wealth creation business, a completely different kettle of fish.

Q: Do you hold the ProShares Ultra Silver (AGQ) overnight?

A: I've been holding my (AG for four months, and the cost of carry-on that is actually quite low because silver doesn't pay any dividend or interest. There really isn't much of a contango in the precious metals anyway—it's not like oil or natural gas. It’s a 3X plays that you really shouldn’t hold overnight.

Q: Where is biotech headed?

A: Up for the long term, sideways for the short term. That's because, after the election, risk on will go crazy. We could have a melt-up in stocks, and when that happens, people don't want to buy “flight to safety” sectors like Biotechs and healthcare; they want to buy more Nvidia. Basically, that's what happens. More Nvidia (NVDA), more Meta (META), and more Apple (APPL). They want to buy all the Mag7 winners. Well, let's call them the Mag7 survivors, which are still going up after a ballistic year.

Q: Any suggestions on where to park cash for five to six years?

A: 90-day T-Bills are yielding 4.75%. That would be a safe place to put it. And you might even peel off a little bit of that—maybe 10% — and put that into a junk fund, which is yielding 6%. You're still getting a lot of money for cash—but not for much longer. The golden age of the 90-day T-bill is about to end.

Q: BlackRock (BLK) keeps growing, trillions after trillions. Why is the stock so great at building value?

A: Because you get a hockey stick effect on the earnings. As the stock market goes up, which it always does over time, their fees go up. Plus, their own marketing brings in new money. So, you have multiple sources of income rising at a rapid pace. I'm kicking myself for not buying the stock earlier this year.

Q: How does any antitrust action by the government affect stock prices?

A: Short-term, it caps them. Long term, it doubles them because when you break up these big companies, the individual pieces are always worth a lot more than the whole. We saw that with AT&T (T), where you're able to sell the individual seven pieces for really high premiums. So, that's why I'm never worried about antitrust.

Q: Do dividend stocks provide little upward appreciation since they're paying investors already?

A: To some extent, that's true because low-growth companies like formerly Philip Morris (PM) and Altria (MO) had to pay high dividends to get people to buy their stock because the industries were not growing. AT&T is another classic example of that—high dividend, no growth. But that does set you up for when a no-growth company can become a high-growth company, and then the stocks double practically overnight. And that's what's happening with Philip Morris.

Q: Are you buying physical gold (GLD) and silver (SLV)?

A: I bought some in the 1970s when it was $34/oz for gold, and the US went off the gold standard, and I still have them. It's sitting in a safe deposit box in a bank I will not mention. The trouble with physical gold is high transaction costs—it costs you about 10% or more to buy and sell. It can be easily stolen—people who keep them hidden at home or have safes at home regularly get robbed. And what if the house burns down? You really can't insure gold holdings accept with very high premiums. So, I've always been happy buying the gold ETFs. The tracking error is very small unless you get into the two Xs and three Xs. Gold coins are good for giving kids as graduation presents—stuff like that. I still have my gold coins for my graduation a million years ago (and that was a really great investment! $34 up to, you know, $2,700.)

To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log in to www.madhedgefundtrader.com , go to MY ACCOUNT, click on GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, then WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last 12 years are there in all their glory.

Good Luck and Good Trading

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

2015 in Italy

November 17, 2023

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
November 17, 2023
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:
(NOVEMBER 15 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
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November 15 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the November 15 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar, broadcast from Incline Village, NV.

Q: I was a little surprised that you closed the (TLT) $79-$82 vertical bull call spread so early. Why not wait longer?

A: I took an 84% profit in only four trading days and skipped the last 16% which I would have had to wait another month to get. I was much better off putting on another position and making another 100%. In this kind of market, you want to take quick profits and then roll them into new positions as fast as you can. That’s where you make the big money, and that's what we’ve been doing. You have to strike when the iron is hot.

Q: November’s results are phenomenal!

A: Yes they are, 55 years of practice makes it easy.

Q: Thoughts on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)?

A: It’s going higher. I think the whole semiconductor sector is the leading sector in the market; we have seen that with these gigantic 30-40% moves in the semis. That will continue, and then it will spread out to the rest of big tech (which it’s already done), and eventually, we get to the industrials and commodities in the second half of 2024 when the big economic growth returns. So that is the script for the coming year.

Q: Will the upcoming Fed interest rate cuts crash the dollar, and which emerging currency should I buy?

A: Yes and yes. It will crush the dollar–we could be entering a new decade of a falling U.S. dollar. The number one currency to buy is the Australian dollar (FXA). It has the most leverage for a global economic recovery. And you can see when we get to the currency section of today’s webinar that the currencies are already starting to move. Whatever currency has falling interest rates is always the weakest, and the U.S. dollar is about to become just that.

Q: What’s the deal with casino stocks lately like Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and MGM Resorts International (MGM)?

A: These companies took on massive amounts of debt during the pandemic to stay in business, so they are now highly sensitive to interest rates. If you look at the collapse of these stocks in the last four months, it is almost perfectly in sync with rising interest rates, and that’s why the stocks performed so poorly. By the way, the same is true for all the cruise companies like Royal Caribbean (RCL), and Carnival (CCL). The flip side of that is when interest rates start to go down these stocks do great, and they are falling interest rate plays, so you probably should be buying the casinos, the cruise lines, and the hotel stocks here because they are all suffering from massive debt loads, the cost of which is about to decline sharply.

Q: Should we roll up the expiration of LEAPS to 2026?

A: Probably not a bad idea, because we may get weakness in commodities for the next several months before we enter a massive new bull market. If you have the 2025, you’ll probably make money on that, but to be ultra-safe you could roll it forward to 2026. We know there’s a global copper shortage developing because of EVs, but right now EV sales are slow, so you don’t want to be piling onto the leverage plays on that too soon. That’s also why I am not in Tesla (TSLA) for the Moment.

Q: What will happen if the Fed cuts interest rates and there’s no recession? Won’t prices of everything from houses to butter go wild?

A: They won’t go wild, but they will go up at a 2% inflation rate, which is what the Fed wants. And house prices, which have been flat for the last year, will rise. And they may rise greater than the inflation rate of 2%; they may rise more like 5%. Falling interest rates mean falling mortgages; we’ve already seen mortgage rates drop from 8 to 7.4%. It's one of the sharpest drops in history, and more drops bring more first-time home buyers into the market. And don’t forget that the Fed could also raise interest rates down the road. If the economy gets too hot again, they may raise again, but I think we’ll see a lot of cuts first.

Q: Do you think financial stocks will go up or fall with potential rate decreases?

A: Banks always go up during falling interest rates because their cost of funds goes down and the default rate on their loans also goes down, so they get a hockey stick effect on earnings; that’s why you’re seeing such monster moves in stocks like JP Morgan (JPM) and the brokers (SCHW) as well as the money managers like BlackRock (BLK).

Q: Does the bull market keep going since unemployment still hasn’t made a dent, meaning consumers are fueling the rise in stocks?

A: Yes, consumer spending is still doing well. People seem to be getting the money from somewhere and it seems to be rising wages. But I expect wage gains to drop by half; people will still get wage increases, but not the peak levels that the UAW got in their deal with Detroit. Is a Goldilocks economy that is setting up, and the economy keeps growing We never do get a recession, and all risk assets rise as a result. That is the outlook!

Q: Bullish on Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B)?

A: I completely agree, it’s one of the best-run companies in the world. 93-year-old Warren Buffet and 99-year-old Charlie Munger have delivered double the performance of the S&P 500 over the last three years.

Q: When does the IPO market come back to life, and which industries will benefit the most?

A: AI and Technology will benefit the most. There are several AI companies in the wings waiting to go public, and they will be the first out the door with the highest multiples, and then the IPO business will broaden out from there.

Q: Will a worsening Chinese property market blow up the U.S. Stock rally or is it just a fake risk I shouldn’t worry about?

A: The Chinese (FXI) real estate market is detached from the global economy. There is no international implication, and it’s also typical of emerging markets to overbuild and then have a financial collapse. Nobody I know has suffered anything in China in a long time, and if anything, they’re liquidating what little they have left. It doesn’t affect us at all. It’s interesting reading about it in the newspapers, and that’s about it.

Q: What are some stocks we should consider day trading these days?

A: None. Most people who try day trading lose money doing it; some people pull it off but they have many years of experience. Algorithms from big brokers have essentially taken over the day trading business with high-frequency trading. You do better on a one-month view, which I do on my front-month options. Most 2023 Stock Gains Happened in only eight days, up some 14% since January 1, and only seven stocks accounted for most of the increase. If you are a day trader, you most likely missed all of this because most of the moves were on gap openings.

Q: Home builders (XHB) have just had a great run, is this an area too short?

A: “Short” is a term you need to remove from your language! You don’t want to short a big bull move like this. If anything, wait until May when the summer seasonals start to favor short positions, and it depends on how high the market runs up until then. Don’t ever think about shorting the very beginning of a new bull market in stocks–not for housing, not for anything! And the outlook for housing over the long term looks fantastic; there’s still an overwhelming supply and demand in favor of the home builders. Some 85 million new Millennials need to buy first-time homes.

To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log in to www.madhedgefundtrader.com, go to MY ACCOUNT, select your subscription (GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, TECHNOLOGY LETTER, or Jacquie's Post), then click on WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last 12 years are there in all their glory.

Good Luck and Stay Healthy,

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

2023 Kherson Ukraine – Ha Ha Missed Me! It was a dud.

November 14, 2023

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Global Market Comments
November 14, 2023
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(WHY YOU WILL LOSE YOU JOB IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT),
(INTU), (AMZN), (GOOGL), (TSLA), (BLK), (HRB)

Why You Will Lose Your Job in the Next Five Years, and What to do About it

Diary, Newsletter, Research

Yes, it’s happening.

And if you lose your job to AI in five years you will be one of the lucky ones.

It’s possible that your job is already gone, they just haven’t told you yet.

The shocking conclusion I am getting from dozens of research fronts is that artificial intelligence and automation are accelerating far faster than anyone realizes.

It is all extraordinarily disruptive.

This will cause corporate profits to rocket and share prices to soar but at the price of higher nationwide political instability.

A big leap took place at the beginning of the year when suddenly it appeared that everything got a lot smarter.

My local Safeway has started using self-checkout scanners to enable customers to avoid the long lines still operated by humans.

I hate them because I can never get them to scan pineapples correctly.

Soon, Amazon (AMZN) opened a supermarket in Seattle where there is no checkout stand at all. You simply just pick up whatever products you want, and it will scan them all on the way out to the parking lot.

Once the software is perfected (it is self-learning), and the consumers are educated, 5 million checkout clerks will be joining the unemployment lines.

Uber has been testing self-driving taxis in Phoenix, AZ, with sometimes humorous results. It seems that other human-driven cars like crashing into them. There has been one fatality so far when the human safety driver was caught texting.

When they figure this out, probably in two years, 180,000 taxi drivers and 600,000 Uber and Lyft drivers will have to hit the road.

Some 3 million truck drivers will be right behind them.

Notice that I am only a couple of paragraphs into this peace and already 8,780,000 jobs are about to imminently disappear out of a total of 150 million in the US.

Two decades from now, only vintage car collectors or the very poor will be driving their cars if Tesla (TSLA) has anything to do with it.

I let my Model X drive me around most of the time. It has reaction time, night vision, and a 360-degree radar system that are far better than my 71-year-old senses.

However, all new Teslas now come equipped with the hardware to use it. They are all only one surprise overnight software upgrade away from the future.

And it's not just the low-end high school dropout jobs that are being thrown in the dustbin of history.

Automation is now rapidly moving up the value chain.

A rising share of online news is machine-generated and is targeting you based on your browsing history. You just didn’t know it.

It was a major influence in the last election.

Blackrock (BLK), the largest fund manager in the country, has announced that it is laying off dozens of stock analysts and turning to algorithms to manage its vast $8.6 trillion in assets under management.

As the April 15 tax deadline relentlessly approaches, you are probably totally unaware that an algorithm prepared your return, particularly if you use a low-end service like H & R Block (HRB) or Intuit’s (INTU) TurboTax.

Because of the simultaneous convergence of multiple technologies, half of all current jobs will likely disappear over the next 20 years.

If this sounds alarming, don’t worry.

We’ve been through all of this before.

From 1900 to 1950 farmers fell from 40% to 2% of the labor force. The food output of that 2% has tripled over the last 60 years, thanks to improved seed varieties and farming methods.

The remaining 38% didn’t starve.

They retrained for the emerging growth industries of the day, automobiles, aircraft, and radio.

But there had to be a lot of pain along the way.

More recently, some 30% of all job descriptions listed on the Department of Labor website today didn’t exist 20 years ago.

Yes, disruption happens fast.

And here’s where it gets personal.

Since I implemented an AI-driven, self-learning Mad Hedge Market Timing algorithm to assist me in my own Trade Alert service six months ago, MY PERFORMANCE HAS ROCKETED, FROM A 21% ANNUAL RATE TO 51%!

As a result, YOU have been crying all the way to the bank!

The proof is all in the numbers (see chart below).

Those trading without the tailwind of algorithms today suddenly find the world a very surprising and confusing place.

They lose money too.

The investment implications of all of this are nothing less than mind-boggling.

Wages are almost always the largest cost for any business, especially the labor-intensive ones like retailing, fast food, and restaurants.

Reduce your largest expense by 90% or more, and the drop through to the bottom line will be enormous.

Stock markets have already noticed.

Maybe this is why price-earnings multiples are trading at a multi-decade high of 19.5X.

Perhaps, the markets know something that we mere humans don’t?

It also is the largest budgetary item in any government-supplied service.

I bet that half of the country’s 7 million teaching jobs will be gone in a decade, taken over by much cheaper online programs.

Today, my kids do their homework on their iPhones, complete class projects on Google Docs, and get a report card that is updated and emailed to me daily.

They’re probably to last generation to ever go to a physical school.

(That’s life. Just as the cost of driving them to school every day becomes free, they don’t have to go anymore).

You can always adopt a “King Canute” strategy and order the tide not to rise.

Or, you can rapidly adapt, as I did.

The choice is yours.

November 4, 2022

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Global Market Comments
November 4, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(NOVEMBER 2 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
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November 2 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the November 2 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from Silicon Valley in California.

Q: The country is running out of diesel fuel this month. Should I be stocking up on food?

A: No, any shortages of any fuel type are all deliberately engineered by the refiners to get higher fuel prices and will go away soon. I think there was a major effort to get energy prices up before the election. If that's the case, then look for a major decline after the election. The US has an energy glut. We are a net energy exporter. We’re supplying enormous amounts of natural gas to Europe right now, and natural gas is close to a one-year low. Shortages are not the problem, intentions are. And this is the problem with the whole energy industry, and the reason I'm not investing in it. Any moves up are short-term. And the industry's goal is to keep prices as high as possible for the next few years while demand goes to zero for their biggest selling products, like gasoline. I would be very wary about doing anything in the energy industry here, as you could get gigantic moves one way or the other with no warning.

Q Is the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) put spread, correct?

A: Yes, we had the November $400-$410 vertical bear put spread, which we just sold for a nice profit.

Q: I missed the LEAPS on J.P. Morgan (JPM) which has already doubled in value since last month, will we get another shot to buy?

A: Well you will get another shot to buy especially if another major selloff develops, but we’re not going down to the old October lows in the financial sector. I believe that a major long-term bull move has started in financials and other sectors, like healthcare. You won’t get the October lows, but you might get close to them.

Q: I’m waiting for a dip to get into Eli Lilly (LLY), but there are no dips.

A: Buy a little bit every day and you’ll get a nice average in a rising market. By the way, I just added Eli Lilly to my Mad Hedge long-term model portfolio, which you received on Thursday.

Q: Any thoughts about the conclusion of the Twitter deal and how it will affect tech and social media?

A: So far all of the indications are terrible. Advertisers have been canceling left and right, hate speech is up 500%, and Elon Musk personally responded to the Pelosi assassination attempt by trotting out a bunch of conspiracy theories for the sole purpose of raising traffic and not bringing light to the issue. All indications are bad, but I've been with Elon Musk on several startups in the last 25 years and they always look like they’re going bust in the beginning. It’s not even a public stock anymore and it shouldn’t be affecting Tesla (TSLA) prices either, which is still growing 50% a year, but it is.

Q: In terms of food commodities for 2023, where are prices headed?

A: Up. Not only do you have the war in Ukraine boosting wheat, soybean, and sunflower prices, but every year, global warming is going to take an increasing toll on the food supply. I know last summer when it hit 121 degrees in the Central Valley, huge amounts of crops were lost due to heat. They were literally cooked on the vine. We now have a tomato shortage and people can’t make pasta sauce because the tomatoes were all destroyed by the heat. That’s going to become an increasingly common issue in the future as temperatures rise as fast as they have been.

Q: Do I trade options in Alphabet (GOOG) or Alphabet (GOOGL)?

A: The one with the L is the holding company, the one without the L is the advertising company and the stock movements are really identical over the long term, so there really isn’t much differentiation there.

Q: Why can’t inflation be brought down by increasing the supply of all goods?

A: Because the companies won’t make them. The companies these days very carefully manage output to keep prices as high as possible. It’s not only the energy industry that does that but also all industries. So those in the manufacturing sector don’t have an interest in lowering their prices—they want high prices. If they see the prices fall, they will cut back supply.

Q: What do you think about growth plays?

A: As long as interest rates are rising, growth will lag and value will lead, and that has been clear as day for the last month. This is why we have an overwhelming value tilt to our model portfolio and our recent trade alerts. They’ve all been banks—JP Morgan (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), plus Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) and Visa (V) and virtually nothing in tech.

Q: I don’t know how to execute spread trades in options so how do I take advantage of your service?

A: Every trade alert we send out has a link to a video that shows you exactly how to do the trade. I have to admit, I’m not as young as I was when I made the videos, but they’re still valid.

Q: Is the US housing market about to crash?

A: There is a shortage of 10 million houses in the US, with the Millennials trying to buy them. If you sell your house now, you may not be able to buy another one without your mortgage going from 2.75% to 7.75%—that tends to dissuade a lot of potential selling. We also have this massive demographic wave of 85 million millennials trying to buy homes from 65 million gen x-ers. That creates a shortage of 20 million right there. That's why rents are going up at a tremendous rate, and that's why house prices have barely fallen despite the highest interest rates in 20 years.

Q: If we get good news from the Fed, should we invest in 3X ETFs such as the ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ)?

A: No, I never invest in 3X ETFs, because they are structured to screw the investor for the benefit of the issuer. These reset at the close every day, so do 2 Xs and not more. If you're not making enough money on the 2Xs, maybe you should consider another line of business.

Q: Do you think BlackRock Corporate High Yield Fund (HYT) will show the pain of slights because of their green positioning?

A: No I don’t, if anything green investing is going to accelerate as the entire economy goes green. And you’ll notice even the oil companies in their advertising are trying to paint themselves as green. They are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. They’ll never be green, but they’ll pretend to be green to cover up the fact that they just doubled the cost of gasoline.

Q: Where do you find the yield on Blackrock?

A: Just go to Yahoo Finance, type in (BLK), and it will show the yield right there under the product description. That’s recalculated by algorithms constantly, depending on the price.

Q: Do you like Cameco (CCJ)?

A: Yes, for the long term. Nuclear reactors have been given an extra five years of life worldwide thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even Japan is opening theirs.

Q: Should I short the US dollar (UUP) here?

A: The answer is definitely maybe. I would look for the dollar to try to take one more run at the highs. If that fails, we could be beginning a 10-year bear market in the dollar, and bull market in the Japanese yen, Australian dollar, British pound, and euro. This could be the next big trade.

Q: What is your outlook on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) now?

A: I think it looks great. REITs are now commonly yielding 10%. The worst-case scenario on interest rates has been priced in—buying a REIT is essentially the same thing as buying a treasury bond, but with twice the leverage, because they have commercial credits and not government credits. We’ll be doing a lot more work on REITS. We also have tons of research on REITS from 12 years ago, the last time interest rates spiked. I'll go in and see who’s still around, and I'll be putting out some research on it.

Q: How do you see the price development of gold (GLD)?

A: Lower—the charts are saying overwhelmingly lower. Gold has no place in a rising interest rate world. At least silver (SLV) has solar panel demand.

Q: Do you have any fear of Korea going into IT?

A: Yes, they will always occupy the low end of mass manufacturing, and you can see that in the cellphone area; Samsung actually sells more phones than Apple, but they’re cheaper phones with lower-end lagging technology, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. They make practically no money on these.

Q: When can we get some more trade alerts?

A: We are dead in the middle of my market timing index, so it says do nothing. I’m looking for either a big move down or big move up to get back into the market. This is a terrible environment to chase trades when you're trading, so I'm going to wait for the market to come to me.

Q: What about water as an investment? The Invesco Water Resources ETF (PHO)?

A: Long term I like it. There’s a chronic shortage of fresh water developing all over the world, and we, by the way, need major upgrades of a lot of water systems in the US, as we saw in Jackson, MS, and Flint, MI.

Q: Will REITs perform as well as buying rental properties over the next 10 to 20 years?

A: Yes, rental properties should do very well, as long as you’re not buying any city that has rent control. I have some rental properties in SF and dealing with rent control is a total nightmare, you’re basically waiting for your tenants to die before you raise the rent. I don’t think they have that in Nevada. But in Las Vegas, you have the other issue that is water. I think the shortage of water will start to drag on real estate prices in Las Vegas.

To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log on to www.madhedgefundtrader.com go to MY ACCOUNT, click on GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, then WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last 12 years are there in all their glory.

Good Luck and Stay Healthy,

John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

It’s Been a Tough Market

August 11, 2022

Bitcoin Letter

Mad Hedge Bitcoin Letter
August 11, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(FINK AT IT AGAIN)
(BLK), ($BTCUSD), (GME), (AMC)

Fink At It Again

Bitcoin Letter

BlackRock (BLK) investment fund was the first asset manager to surpass $10 trillion in assets held as the US Central Bank fueled the largest asset bubble created in human civilization.

That was a great achievement.

This is also why the CEO of BLK Larry Fink, as of April 2022, is worth an estimated US$1 billion according to Forbes Magazine.

Not too shabby.

Fast forward to the end of 2^nd quarter of 2022, BLK was the first to lose $1.7 trillion in assets in the first half of 2022 when the tech market nosedived.

The monumental loss has resulted in some unique unintended consequences that have now manifested in BlackRock migrating into crypto by teaming up with Coinbase on a product designed to help institutional investors trade bitcoin.

The propensity for BlackRock to entertain asset inflow by sliding them into passive funds is great on the way up, but volatility has really twisted the fork into that strategy as the deleveraging in the capital markets has made it harder to achieve alpha.

How will BLKs new partnership work?

The world’s largest asset manager will allow clients to use its Aladdin investment management system to buy, sell and monitor their cryptocurrency holdings via Coinbase’s exchange, the biggest in the US.

BlackRock said the partnership will be focused on bitcoin – at least “initially”.

The move is the latest sign that some of the biggest players in traditional finance – known as TradFi in crypto circles – are confident in the long-term prospects for cryptocurrencies.

This major nod of approval to crypto was a glimmer of good news among the bad as Coinbase, which has been mired in multiple investigations from the Federal government, is handcuffed in regulatory limbo.

The major crypto exchanges have also slashed jobs at a dizzying pace with 1,100 jobs in recent months, after admitting that it hired too quickly during the crypto bull run of 2021.

Institutions made up about three-quarters of Coinbase's $309 billion in trading volumes in the first quarter, the company said in May. Among others, its clients include asset managers, large corporate treasuries, and asset managers.

I believe this is BLK's buy-low approach to the crypto industry as many critical pieces to the crypto infrastructure have flamed out in bankruptcy lately.

BLK wants to cover its bases by being able to take part in the next crypto resurgence if and when that happens.

This also gives them a low-cost exit strategy if the sushi hits the fan.

As investors believe rate cuts will occur next June, that obviously brightens the prospects for crypto prices.

This by no means translates into BLK exposing clients to major crypto investments.

I hear that they are advising high net worth clients into an asset allocation of 1-3%.

I highly doubt there will be a comingling of assets like crypto and equities into one branded ETF.

BLK most likely will silo the crypto business and see if it takes off all while taking a measured approach to its prospects.

The BLK management are already smoothing over the normal talking points like paying lip service to the superior technology of blockchain and how it can be “incredibly innovation and disruptive.”

Buzz words are nice on the ear but usually short on substance.

The truth is that crypto has been an absolute failure since November 2021 and its latest rally has evolved from the backdrop of an expectation of sooner interest rate cuts.

Unfortunately, the crypto industry was one of the few industries in America that got hit by the deleveraging bubble because it is the most speculative.

One might also throw in meme stocks like Gamestop (GME) and AMC (AMC) as secondary losers to the central bank tightening.

Even zombie corporate companies are alive and kicking as the tightening cycle hasn’t been that tight.

We are setting up for a positive 2023 and crypto could really take off when interest rate cuts become the new normal.

April 12, 2022

Bitcoin Letter

Mad Hedge Bitcoin Letter
April 12, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(PETER THIEL STICKS IT TO THE INSTITUTIONS)
(BTC), (PYPL), (BLK), (BRK-B)

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