(GOOGL) Archives

The Cloud

Dealing with the Cloud works and for every relevant tech company, this division serves as the pipeline to the CEO position.

If that’s not the case, then there’s something egregiously wrong!

Take Andy Jassy, the mastermind behind Amazon’s lucrative cloud computing division, and is the man who will succeed company founder Jeff Bezos.

He’s been rewarded this important business based on his performance in the cloud and faces a daunting proposition of following Bezos as CEO.

Bezos incorporated Amazon exactly 27 years ago.

Jassy developed a highly profitable and market-leading business, Amazon Web Services, that runs data centers serving a wide range of corporate computing needs.

Can you believe that Amazon's stock started out at $1.50 per share when adjusting for future equity splits?

It now trades at more than $3,500 per share and is worth over $1.8 trillion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Amazon's annual profit almost doubled in 2020 to $21.3 billion stoked by the pandemic that forced people to stay home and use Amazon services.

Consumers had no choice but to shop online, helping the company grow revenue 38% to $386.1 billion.

What exactly is the cloud that Amazon created?

Cloud 101

If you've been living under a rock the past few years, the cloud phenomenon hasn't passed you by and you still have time to cash in.

You want to hitch your wagon to cloud-based investments in any way, shape, or form.

Amazon leads the cloud industry it created.

It still maintains more than 30% of the cloud market. Microsoft would need to gain a lot of ground to even come close to this jewel of a business.

Amazon (AMZN) relies on AWS to underpin the rest of its businesses and that is why AWS contributes most of Amazon's total operating income.

Total revenue for just the AWS division would operate as a healthy stand-alone tech company if need be.

The future is about the cloud.

These days, the average investor probably hears about the cloud a dozen times a day.

If you work in Silicon Valley, you can quadruple that figure.

So, before we get deep into the weeds with this letter on cloud services, cloud fundamentals, cloud plays, and cloud Trade Alerts, let's get into the basics of what the cloud actually is.

Think of this as a cloud primer.

It's important to understand the cloud, both its strengths and limitations.

Giant companies that have it figured out, such as Salesforce (CRM) and Zscaler (ZS), are some of the fastest-growing companies in the world.

Understand the cloud and you will readily identify its bottlenecks and bulges that can lead to extreme investment opportunities. And that is where I come in.

Cloud storage refers to the online space where you can store data. It resides across multiple remote servers housed inside massive data centers all over the country, some as large as football fields, often in rural areas where land, labor, and electricity are cheap.

They are built using virtualization technology, which means that storage space spans across many different servers and multiple locations. If this sounds crazy, remember that the original Department of Defense packet-switching design was intended to make the system atomic bomb-proof.

As a user, you can access any single server at any one time anywhere in the world. These servers are owned, maintained, and operated by giant third-party companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet (GOOGL), which may or may not charge a fee for using them.

The most important features of cloud storage are:

1) It is a service provided by an external provider.

2) All data is stored outside your computer residing inside an in-house network.

3) A simple Internet connection will allow you to access your data at any time from anywhere.

4) Because of all these features, sharing data with others is vastly easier, and you can even work with multiple people online at the same time, making it the perfect, collaborative vehicle for our globalized world.

Once you start using the cloud to store a company's data, the benefits are many.

No Maintenance

Many companies, regardless of their size, prefer to store data inside in-house servers and data centers.

However, these require constant 24-hour-a-day maintenance, so the company has to employ a large in-house IT staff to manage them - a costly proposition.

Thanks to cloud storage, businesses can save costs on maintenance since their servers are now the headache of third-party providers.

Instead, they can focus resources on the core aspects of their business where they can add the most value, without worrying about managing IT staff of prima donnas.

Greater Flexibility

Today's employees want to have a better work/life balance and this goal can be best achieved by letting them working remotely which effectively happened because of the public health situation. Increasingly, workers are bending their jobs to fit their lifestyles, and that is certainly the case here at Mad Hedge Fund Trader.

How else can I send off a Trade Alert while hanging from the face of a Swiss Alp?

Cloud storage services, such as Google Drive, offer exactly this kind of flexibility for employees.

With data stored online, it's easy for employees to log into a cloud portal, work on the data they need to, and then log off when they're done. This way a single project can be worked on by a global team, the work handed off from time zone to time zone until it's done.

It also makes them work more efficiently, saving money for penny-pinching entrepreneurs.

Better Collaboration and Communication

In today's business environment, it's common practice for employees to collaborate and communicate with co-workers located around the world.

For example, they may have to work on the same client proposal together or provide feedback on training documents. Cloud-based tools from DocuSign, Dropbox, and Google Drive make collaboration and document management a piece of cake.

These products, which all offer free entry-level versions, allow users to access the latest versions of any document so they can stay on top of real-time changes which can help businesses to better manage workflow, regardless of geographical location.

Data Protection

Another important reason to move to the cloud is for better protection of your data, especially in the event of a natural disaster. Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on local data centers in New York City, forcing many websites to shut down their operations for days.

And we haven’t talked about the recent ransomware attacks by Eastern Europeans on energy company Colonial Pipeline and meat producer JBS Foods.

The cloud simply routes traffic around problem areas as if, yes, they have just been destroyed by a nuclear attack.

It's best to move data to the cloud, to avoid such disruptions because there your data will be stored in multiple locations.

This redundancy makes it so that even if one area is affected, your operations don't have to capitulate, and data remains accessible no matter what happens. It's a system called deduplication.

Lower Overhead

The cloud can save businesses a lot of money.

By outsourcing data storage to cloud providers, businesses save on capital and maintenance costs, money that in turn can be used to expand the business. Setting up an in-house data center requires tens of thousands of dollars in investment, and that's not to mention the maintenance costs it carries.

Plus, considering the security, reduced lag, up-time and controlled environments that providers such as Amazon's AWS have, creating an in-house data center seems about as contemporary as a buggy whip, a corset, or a Model T.

Now you might digest somewhat how Amazon built their share price from $1.50 in 1997 to over $3,500 today.

Thanks to the cloud.

July 12, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
July 12, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(RIDE THE MOMENTUM)
(SHOP), (NFLX), (FB), (AMZN), (GOOGL), (NFLX), (AAPL), (MSFT)

Ride the Momentum

Tech Letter

Just as millions of people in the United States are sensing that life has returned to something that resembles normalcy, the Coronavirus’ delta variant has emerged as American technology stocks biggest upcoming inflection point.

This certainly ups the ante in the struggle to grapple with the pandemic and has wide-reaching consequences for your technology portfolio.

Fresh data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than half of all new cases in the U.S. were attributed to the delta variant, which is believed to be easily transmissible.

About 50% of Americans are fully unvaccinated meaning 50% are not, which could lead to hellacious autumn for the 175 million who are not.

The tech market has sniffed this out.

Data suggesting this variant is three times as infectious as the original coronavirus strain is the catalyst for a massive rotation into premium big tech who boast glamorous balance sheets.

It is still unclear if this virus is actually deadlier or leads to more severe illness, but the health of Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon aren’t reliant on the outcome of the delta variant or at least relative to companies that have physical storefronts.

I believe the momentum in these names will continue in the short term as more countries prepare to carve up new movement restrictions and quasi lockdowns to combat the new variant.

The recent tech rotation has been inconspicuous but powerful and the who’s who of big tech are enjoying a stellar run in the past month with FB up 6%, GOOGL up 4.5%, AAPL up 13%, MSFT up 8%, and AMZN up 11%.

These premium tech stocks are acting almost like U.S. treasuries and are increasingly defined as a perceived flight to safety because of

the net high quality of the assets.

Whether there is another virus that kills another 4 million globally again, investors are confident that these prioritized tech stocks are immune to any meaningful weaknesses.

On a granular level, pullbacks are becoming highly rare and mini pullbacks are becoming the only practical entry points into these stocks.

Readers waiting for a 5% drop are still waiting.

Reading waiting for 10% drops risk never getting in when the going is good.

Fresh news of Japan banning spectators for the upcoming and badly organized Tokyo Olympics took down GOOGL and FB 2% intraday only for shares to make up half the losses in one afternoon.

The delta variant has strengthened the “buy the dip” philosophy that is deeply entrenched in these 5 tech names.

The strength of tech can be seen further down the totem pole in inferior names.

Shopify (SHOP), Canada’s ecommerce crown jewel, is another winner with shares up 19% in the past 30 days.

If this rotation continues, I can realistically expect dips or sideways price action in Uber (UBER), Lyft (LYFT), and Airbnb (ABNB) because their investment case weakens relative to the big 5 in a delta variant world.

Netflix (NFLX) is another one that will harvest the low-hanging fruit with strong near-term action resulting in a 9% gain in the past 30 days.

It’s highly likely that in more than several regions around the world, the delta variant will re-silo consumers and hamstring businesses.

Crushing any green shoots that the reopening is supposed to deliver isn’t an ideal runway to growth.

Epidemiologists are starting to come out of the woodwork with Hungarian virologist Ferenc Jakab saying Hungary will be lucky to “get away with August” when referring to a possible 4^th wave.

This hasn’t been fully priced into the U.S. tech market and tech will enjoy a full-scale rotation if the 4^th wave arrives in full force.

However, I don’t believe we are on the cusp of another $12+ trillion bailout for the delta like last time go around, which does cap momentum to the upside.

There will also be a lack of meme stock profit-taking and bitcoin profit-taking that can be rolled into the big tech safety trade.

Sensibly, this could be a short-term boost for emerging growth tech as well with the likes of DocuSign (DOCU), Zoom Video (ZM), and Teladoc (TDOC) benefiting from investors dusting off the 2020 playbook again.

I forgot to mention that U.S. treasuries falling to $1.36% is the primary reason why at the balance sheet level, growth tech will also get the benefit of the doubt in the short term.

This won’t just be a big 5 momentum encore, others will enjoy the fruits of labor.

Loss-making tech is inordinately reliant on rates being low to subsidize losses and as the 10-year rate has gone from 1.72% to 1.36%, it’s no surprise that growth tech looks like eye candy now too.

Big tech is certainly more durable and has the capacity to navigate around rising rates which is the deal-clincher for me.

I am inclined to get back into the market with any delta scare that cheapens tech before the next leg up.

The embarrassing loss in the judicial system against FB by the Feds is the cherry on top.

I am bullish tech in the short term.

July 9, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
July 9, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(BUYER BEWARE)
(DIDI), (PGJ), (FB), (AMZN), (GOOGL), (NFLX), (AAPL)

Buyer Beware

Tech Letter

Chinese regulators announced on our Independence Day that they were banning downloads of Uber’s China DiDi in the app stores in the country because it poses cybersecurity risks and broke privacy laws.

This was after DiDi raised $4.4 billion by listing its shares in New York.

However, unnamed sources leaked that China's cybersecurity watchdog suggested to DiDi that it delay its IPO before it happened.

Delaying a wealth generating event like the IPO is controversial.

At this point, DIDI, the Uber of China, is worth a speculative trade at $1 and that’s if the Chinese tech firm doesn’t delist before that.

No — scratch that — it’s not even worth your time at $1 if you hold currency denominated in USD or anything even half as credible.

But if you’re from somewhere like Venezuela wielding infamous bolivars then take a wild stab around $1 or double up at $0.50 for a trade.

There is a reason that I have never in the history of the Mad Hedge Technology Letter recommended buying a Chinese technology stock.

The astronomical risk isn’t justified.

The evidence is now out in public with Chinese big tech and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) airing their dirty laundry.

Most sensitive business dealings are usually dealt with in-house in the land of pan-fried dumplings and Beijing roasted duck, so things must be spiraling out of control on the inside.

No doubt that inflation spikes are causing chaos everywhere, but China is particularly vulnerable because of the high volume of Chinese living in poverty.

It’s unrelated to this IPO, but another valid reason why Chinese “growth” is weakening fast.

Stateside, cashing out is normal for tech growth companies who want to reward earlier seed investors, their own management teams, and in this case the early-stage investors were Japanese Softbank (21.5%), Silicon Valley’s Uber (12.8%), and China’s Tencent (6.8%).

This was pretty much a big middle finger to these three along with the other Chinese investors which were about to profit big.

This is on the heels of the CCP nixing the Jack Ma Alipay IPO.

Chinese big tech has gone from darlings to pariahs in a short time proving that in the U.S., you get too big to fail, but in China, you get too big to exist.

Silicon Valley tech princelings are also validated for leaving China such as Facebook (FB), Google (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX).

If local Chinese tech can’t flourish in China, then forget about foreign tech in China.

It’s a non-starter.

Apple (AAPL) is the only exception because they are grandfathered in when China had no smartphone and now they provide too many local jobs to be kicked out.

There is definitely a plausible case that U.S. retail investors who were part of that $4.4 billion holdings should be refunded their capital because DiDi didn’t truthfully disclose the risk of potential Chinese regulations properly.

There is also the logic that Chinese companies should never be able to list in New York in the first place which would be sensible.

As it stands, Chinese companies don’t need to follow U.S. GAAP accounting standards and cannot be prosecuted by the U.S. legal system if they commit fraud, embezzlement, or any other financial crime and decline to leave Chinese soil.

This incentivizes Chinese companies listed in the U.S. to cheat U.S. investors with fraudulent accounting and deceitful behavior because they aren’t accountable at the end of the day.

The Invesco Golden Dragon China ETF (PGJ), which tracks the performance of US-listed Chinese stocks, has lost more than one-third of its value since February.

I can tell you from close friends who call themselves frontier investors that investing in China is not worth your time and the fear of missing out (FOMO) rationale is all marketing chutzpah and nothing much else.

China’s economy hasn’t had any positive growth in the past 10 years according to Chinese insiders off record.

This FOMO narrative is often peddled by Wall Street “professionals” who are making exorbitant fees for selling retail investors Chinese junk stocks masquerading as real companies.

Out of many financial pros I have talked to, China leads in terms of horror stories from foreign investors.

The Chinese financial system is a hoax created to lure foreign capital in and for it to never leave often viewed as a free lunch for the local recipients.

And I am not only talking about Chinese tech, but this phenomenon also extends to every reach of the financial system there.

At the end of the day, China’s tech aristocracy wished they originated in the United States which is why they went public here because our markets work and theirs don’t.

They got to New York in the first place by marketing false numbers to U.S. investors and concealing regulatory issues, and U.S. investors must not fall for this trap.

If you look at the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index ($SSEC), it’s gone nowhere in the past year and rightly so.

Even Chinese investors don’t buy Chinese stocks because there is no trust in their financial system. They buy property instead or buy U.S. tech stocks.

Don’t be the next sucker.

June 30, 2021

Tech Letter

Mad Hedge Technology Letter
June 30, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(BIG TECH WINS IN THE COURTROOM)
(AAPL), (AMZN), (GOOGL), (FB), (MSFT)

Big Tech Wins in the Courtroom

Tech Letter

Federal court dismissed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 states seek to pin on the digital ad company.

This isn’t only a feather in the cap for FB, but it’s great news for Google, Snapchat, Twitter and the who’s who of selling digital ads and any tech company that might be perceived as “dominant.”

Many would have been led to believe that big tech and these ad giants were on the cusp of being controlled by legislation, only for the federal court to not even bother with advancing the case.

It means that the law is firmly on the side of big tech and it will be almost impossible to pin charges against big tech unless the law is changed to accommodate a situation that is more conducive to proving that American tech companies abuse their positions in the US economy.

Personally, I do believe they have a monopolistic position against its competitors, but to prove that in court is a different animal with arguments needing to hold up against the test of time.

There is no doubt that the company has a dominant share of the market in the “personal social networking” industry, but market dominance just means they are incredibly good at what they do which is serving ads to targeted audience.

Nothing they do is explicitly illegal and that is the tough part and they do provide “free” services.

Not only that, but Facebook users can also simply not use social media and its various platform as a choice because they can drop it altogether or use a different platform entirely.

The court also dismissed a supplementary complaint by the FTC with the judge ruling that the states had taken too long to take issue with Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, which were acquired in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

The ruling made the government’s FTC look bad and tardy.

They also are late to the game, unable to understand the tech of our time and enforce borderline fringe behavior.

This is why anti-trust, which many believe is big tech’s largest existential risk, is not really a risk when politicians fail so miserably at even understanding what they do until 9 years later.

Most tech companies are happy to know they have 9 years to skirt the law and aggressively push their business models until the FTC move their finger an inch.

Might as well bet the ranch, right?

Certainly, there will be another wave of amended filed complaints against Facebook within 30 days, which the court will re-review.

But after some convicting loss, prospects look poor for the FTC.

The way in which the law is worded today means that Facebook has to be on the radar of investors as a premier buy the dip trade now that one of the bigger risks is off the table.

Facebook's valuation has more than doubled since the onset of the pandemic as more people use its diversified network of apps to stay in touch with friends and family in a socially distant world.

The social network had over 2.85 billion monthly active users in Q1 2021 and join other tech firms over $1 trillion such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet.

I would execute a bullish position in Facebook after a retracement from the 4% pop on the good news.

Tech is expensive and has had another resurgence over the past few weeks.

It continues to be an industry you cannot bet against and that is why you have to be patient for entry points to come to you.

June 28, 2021

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
June 28, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(BACK FROM MY 50-MILE HIKE)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or Don’t Get Fooled Again

Diary, Newsletter, Research

I received an email from a reader last week that I really had no idea what the stock market was going to do and that I was just guessing.

I answered that I couldn’t agree more. These are unprecedented times for the American economy. There is no playbook for what is going on, we’re just making it up.

“I’m guessing, Jay Powell is guessing, we’re all guessing.” I threw in an afterthought: “guessing and hoping.”

That is why the hottest inflation rate in 13 years sends interest rates into freefall when they should be soaring.

I have been one of the most bullish strategists in the market since the March 2009 low and have been richly rewarded as a result. (Even though being bearish sells more newsletters). You have been too.

I thought the market was overdue for a 7.8% correction. So, even I was flabbergasted when the latest market selloff amounted to only a meager 4.3%. There is still so much money trying to get into the market it is unable to go any lower.

Don’t get fooled again, to quote that eminent market guru, Peter Townsend.

Which raises an issue for investors. That 7.8% correction I thought was overdue is still ahead of us. That demands caution and prudence for shorter term investors. Long term investors can work on their golf swings or take that dreamed of round the world cruise.

What was especially encouraging last week was the leadership maintain by the big five tech stocks. I ran some numbers last week to see if there was more than meets the eye and came up with some eye-popping results.

The rocket fuel last week was provided by progress by an infrastructure bill that could unleash another $579 billion. That could be enough stimulus to keep the recovery on steroids powering well into 2022.

Big tech stocks saw this a month ago when they started discounting robust 2023 earnings reports much farther in advance than usual.

The top five big tech companies, Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), and Microsoft (MSFT), earned a staggering $88 billion in profits in Q1, or an annualized $332 billion.

That amounts to an average 40% YOY growth rate. Some 16.7% of total US profits of $1,984 billion was generated by only 2% of the workforce. These are positively ballistic numbers. Tech was never going to be down for long. That’s why most went to new all-time highs last week.

Don’t get fooled again.

The Infrastructure Deal is done, at $579 billion in new spending, will provide a further boost to the economy. The climate had to be cut to get Republican support. Transportation is the big winner at $312 billion. Grid and broadband upgrades received major funding. I don’t think that Biden expected to get his whole $2 trillion. It was just a negotiating strategy. Still, something is better than nothing. Look for Infrastructure 2.0 after the 2022 midterms with lots of climate spending.

NASDAQ Hit New High. Prime day has catapulted Amazon (AMZN). Microsoft (MSFT) became the second $2 trillion company and Alphabet (GOOGL) will probably be next. Apple (AAPL) is bringing up the rear but could hit new highs in the coming months. The big question is whether this is a one-night stand or a long-term relationship with the bull. Me, being the stable guy that I am, vote for the latter.

Poof, Inflation is Gone! Almost all commodity prices have given up their 2021 gains after traumatic selloffs over the past weeks. Bad boy lumber has dropped by half, and bitcoin has been slaughtered. That puts interest rate hikes on hold. In the meantime, Tesla (TSLA) and the Ark stocks are recovering. Load the boat with big tech, we are going to new all-time highs across the board. Turns out the Fed was right after all.

Weekly Jobless Claims drop to 411,000, down from the pandemic peak of 900,000 in January. We’re headed to 100,000 by yearend.

$1.2 Trillion Poured into Equities in H1, more than double the previous 2007 record. Corporate share buybacks are also approaching new highs. That means the 150-day moving average for the (SPY) should hold well into 2022. As high as we are, equities are still the best game in town.

Bitcoin battles at $30,000, for the fourth time in two months, at one point falling to a $24,000 low. China miners, about 70% of the total, are facing a total ban. Many loaded their servers on planes over the weekend and moved to unregulated Maryland or Virginia. The charts are pointing towards a $20,000 bottom. The ultra bulls are targeting $100,000 by yearend.

Existing Home Sales down for the fourth month, down 0.9% to an annualized 5.8 million in May. Shortage of supply remains the big problem with inventories at an incredible 2.5 months. Some 89% of the homes sold were on the market for less than a month. Conditions will get a lot worse before they get better.

New Home Sales dive 5.9%, thanks to shortage of supply and high prices. Labor, land, and lumber are through the roof. The median price of a home sold in May is $374,400, up a staggering 18% YOY. Supplies rose to 5.1 months. The cure for high prices is high prices. This trend should last a decade.

Amazon Prime Day Sales top $11 billion, including the Havaheart 0754 single door humane rabbit trap I bought for only $27. That made Monday and Tuesday the biggest online sales days of the year. Use the recent profit-taking to load up on (AMZN) shares and LEAPS. It’s headed to $5,000. Oh, and I’ve caught three rabbits so far.

Intel to build huge German chip factory,to address the global shortage. Germany’s largest auto industry makes it a natural location. Buy (INTC) on dips.

NVIDIA is going ballistic, with Raymond James raising its target to $900 as the best-positioned chip company over the long term. I was early at $1,000. The explosion in crypto has been a big plus. A new generation of high-end gaming is coming where (NVDA) has a complete monopoly and supplies are short. I have bought six of their GeForce and RTX graphics cards in the past month. But artificial intelligence is the big grower over the long term, which is exploding everywhere, and their $5,000 Tesla M10 GPU is dominant. Buy (NVDA) now.

We may lose Christmas, as lack of containers and ships makes transport from China problematic. Home Depot (HD) has chartered its own ship to make up for the shortfall, and Target (TGT) is considering the same. Conditions are so bad there is also a fireworks shortage for the Fourth of July where China is a major supplier (they invented them).

My Ten Year View

When we come out the other side of pandemic, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates still at zero, oil cheap, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 400% to 120,000 or more in the coming decade. The American coming out the other side of the pandemic will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 120,000 here we come!

My Mad Hedge Global Trading Dispatch profit reached 0.71% gain so far in June on the heels of a spectacular 8.13% profit in May. That leaves me 100% in cash.

My 2021 year-to-date performance appreciated to 68.60%. The Dow Average is up 12.62% so far in 2021.

I spent the week sitting in 100% cash, waiting for a better entry point on the long side. Up this much this year, there is no reason to reach for the marginal trade, the maybe instead of the certainty. I’ll leave that for the Millennials.

That brings my 11-year total return to 491.15%, some 2.00 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period. My 11-year average annualized return now stands at an unbelievable 42.70%, easily the highest in the industry.

My trailing one-year return exploded to positively eye-popping 123.54%. I truly have to pinch myself when I see numbers like this. I bet many of you are making the biggest money of your long lives.

We need to keep an eye on the number of US Coronavirus cases at 33.1 million and deaths topping 600,000, which you can find here. Some 33.1 million Americans have contracted Covid-19.

The coming week will be a weak one on the data front.

On Monday, June 28 at 10:30 AM, the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index for June is out.

On Tuesday, June 29 at 9:00 AM, the S&P Case Shiller National Home Price Index is published.

On Wednesday, June 30 at 8:15 AM, the ADP Private Employment Report is released.

On Thursday, July 1 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are published.

On Friday, July 2 at 8:30 AM, the all-important June Nonfarm Payroll Report is announced. At 2:00 PM, we learn the Baker-Hughes Rig Count.

As for me, I’m in Los Angeles this week visiting old friends, and I am reminded of one of the weirdest chapters of my life.

There were not a lot of jobs in the summer of 1971, but Thomas Noguchi, the LA County Coroner, was hiring. The famed USC student jobs board had delivered! Better yet, the job included free housing at the coroner's department.

I got the graveyard shift, from midnight to 8:00 AM. All I had to do was buy a black suit from Robert Halls for $25.

Noguchi was known as the “coroner to the stars” having famously done the autopsies on Marlin Mansfield and Jane Mansfield. He did not disappoint.

For three months, whenever there was a death from unnatural causes, I was there to pick up the bodies. If there was a suicide, gangland shooting, or horrific car accident, I was your man.

Charles Manson had recently been arrested and I was tasked with digging up the victims. One, cowboy stuntman Shorty Shay, had his head cut off and neatly placed in between his ankles.

The first time I ever saw a full set of women’s underclothing, a girdle and pantyhose, was when I excavated a desert roadside grave that the coyotes had dug up. She was pretty far gone.

Once, I and another driver were sent to pick up a teenaged boy who had committed suicide in Beverly Hills. The father came out and asked us to take the mattress as well. I regretted that we were not allowed to do favors on city time. He then said, “Can you take it for $200”, then an astronomical sum.

A few minutes later found a hearse driving down the Santa Monica freeway on the way to the dump with a double mattress expertly tied on the roof with Boy Scout knots with a giant blood spot in the middle.

Once, I was sent to a cheap motel where a drug deal gone bad had produced several shootings. I found $10,000 in a brown paper bag under the bed. The other driver found another ten grand and a bag of drugs and kept them. He went to jail. Eventually, I figured out that handling dead bodies could be hazardous to your health, so I asked for rubber gloves. I was fired.

Still, I ended up with some of the best summer job stories ever.

Stay healthy.

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