Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader August 22 Global Strategy Webinar with my guest and co-host Bill Davis of the Mad Day Trader.

As usual, every asset class long and short was covered. You are certainly an inquisitive lot, and keep those questions coming!

Q: How do you think the trade talks will resolve?

A: There will be no resolution this next round of trade talks. China has sent only their most hawkish negotiators who believe that China has done nothing wrong, so don’t expect results any time soon.

Also, because of the arrests in Washington, China is more inclined to just wait out Donald Trump, whether that’s 6 months or 6 1/2 years. They believe they have the upper hand now, sensing weakness in Washington, and in any case, many of the American requests are ridiculous.

Trade talks will likely overhang the market for the rest of this year and you don’t want to go running back into those China Tech plays, like Alibaba (BABA) and Baidu (BIDU) too soon. However, they are offering fantastic value at these levels.

Q: Will the Washington political storm bring down the market?

A: No, it won’t. Even in the case of impeachment, all that will happen is the market will stall and go sideways for a while until it’s over. The market went straight up during the Clinton impeachment, but that was during the tail end of the Dotcom Boom.

Q: Is Alibaba oversold here at 177?

A: Absolutely, it is a great buy. There is a double in this stock over the long term. But, be prepared for more volatility until the trade wars end, especially with China, which could be quite some time.

Q: What would you do with the Volatility Index (VIX) now?

A: Buy at 11 and buy more at 10. It’s a great hedge against your existing long portfolio. It’s at $12 right now.

Q: Are the emerging markets (EEM) a place to be again right now or do you see more carnage?

A: I see more carnage. As long as the dollar is strong, U.S. interest rates are rising, and we have trade wars, the worst victims of all of that are emerging markets as you can see in the charts. Anything emerging market, whether you’re looking at the stocks, bonds or currency, has been a disaster.

Q: Is it time to go short or neutral in the S&P 500 (SPY)?

A: Keep a minimal long just so you have some participation if the slow-motion melt-up continues, but that is it. I’m keeping risks to a minimum now. I only really have one position to prove that I’m not dead or retired. If it were up to me I’d be 100% cash right now.

Q: Would you buy Bitcoin here around $6,500?

A: No, I would not. There still is a 50/50 chance that Bitcoin goes to zero. It’s looking more and more like a Ponzi scheme every day. If we do break the $6,000 level again, look for $4,000 very quickly. Overall, there are too many better fish to fry.

Q: Is it time to buy gold (GLD) and gold miners (GDX)?

A: No, as long as the U.S. is raising interest rates, you don’t want to go anywhere near the precious metals. No yield plays do well in the current environment, and gold is part of that.

Q: What do you think about Lithium?

A: Lithium has been dragged down all year, just like the rest of the commodities. You would think that with rising electric car production around the world, and with Tesla building a second Gigafactory in Nevada, there would be a high demand for Lithium.

But, it turns out Lithium is not that rare; it’s actually one of the most common elements in the world. What is rare is cheap labor and the lack of environmental controls in the processing.

However, it’s not a terrible idea to buy a position in Sociedad Química y Minera (SQM), the major Chilean Lithium producer, but only if you have a nice long-term view, like well into next year. (SQM) was an old favorite of mine during the last commodity boom, when we caught a few doubles. (Check our research data base).

Q: How can the U.S. debt be resolved? Or can we continue on indefinitely with this level of debt?

A: Actually, we can go on indefinitely with this level of debt; what we can’t do is keep adding a trillion dollars a year, which the current federal budget is guaranteed to deliver. At some point the government will crowd out private borrowers, including you and me, out of the market, which will eventually cause the next recession.

Q: Time to rotate out of stocks?

A: Not yet; all we have to do is rotate out of one kind of stock into another, i.e. out of technology and into consumer staple and value stocks. We will still get that performance, but remember we are 9.5 years into what is probably a 10-year bull market.

So, keep the positions small, rotate when the sector changes, and you’ll still make money. But, let's face it the S&P 500 isn’t 600 anymore, it’s 2,800 and the pickings are going to get a lot slimmer from here on out. Watch the movie but stay close to the exit to escape the coming flash fire.

Q: What kind of time frame does Amazon (AMZN) double?

A: The only question is whether it happens now or on the other side of the next recession. We can assume five years for sure.

Q: More upside to Home Depot (HD)?

A: Absolutely, yes. The high home prices lead to increases in home remodeling, and now that Orchard Hardware has gone out of business, all that business has gone to Home Depot. Home Depot just went over $204 a couple days ago.

Q: Do you still like India (PIN)?

A: If you want to pick an emerging market to enter, that’s the one. It’s a Hedge Fund favorite and has the largest potential for growth.

Q: What about oil stocks (USO)?

A: You don’t want to touch them at all; they look terrible. Wait for Texas tea to fall to $60 at the very least.

Q: What would you do with Netflix (NFLX)?

A: I would probably start scaling into buy right here. If you held a gun to my head, the one trade I would do now would be a deep in the money call spread in Netflix, now that they’ve had their $100 drop. And I can’t wait to see how the final season of House of Cards ends!

Q: If yields are going up, why are utilities doing so well?

A: Yields are going down right now, for the short term. We’ve backed off from 3.05% all the way to 2.81%; that’s why you’re getting this rally in the yield plays, but I think it will be a very short-lived event.

Q: Do you see retail stocks remaining strong from now through Christmas?

A: I don’t see this as part of the Christmas move going on right now; I think it’s a rotation into laggard plays, and it’s also very stock specific. Stocks like Nordstrom (JWN) and Target (TGT) are doing well, for instance, while others are getting slaughtered. I would be careful with which stocks you get into.

Good luck and good trading
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader