Her red Tesla is parked in the driveway, her potted plants are back on the balcony, and the closet is once again filled with designer shoes.
Goldilocks is back!
It?s not like she was ever going to be gone for long. Once a woman of a certain maturity gets accustomed to the lifestyle of the rich and famous, it?s hard to give up the better things in life.
However, there were some doubts.
When the Dow Average opened down 400 points on October 15, a gigantic capitulation move saw $70 billion worth of stock sold at market at the absolute low of 15,850, and a spectacular 315 million shares of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) were unloaded.
One might have thought that Goldilocks had changed her name and moved into a nunnery for good.
It was not to be.
The rally that ensued off of that print was one of the most ferocious in history. After having cleaned out hedge fund trader longs on the downside, the market then ripped their faces off on the upside.
It has not been a good year for hedge funds. It has been a fantastic year for high frequency traders, with September the most profitable month in the history of this arcane, computer trading strategy.
As for me, I never had any doubt that Goldilocks was coming back. As I miraculously pound into my followers on a daily basis, it?s all about the numbers. It?s always about the numbers.
The strength of the economy is such that the sudden 10% swoon we witnessed was in no way justified. All that was really required was that an extreme overbought condition in stocks we say six weeks ago be remedied. Now that is done, it is up, up, and away.
Corporate earnings obliged, with an eye-popping 80% delivering upside surprises. Corporate earnings are now growing at a robust year on year 11% annual rate.
Instead of focusing in on Ebola, Russia and ISIS, traders are now looking at improving Purchasing Managers Indexes in both Europe and China. The Middle East has gone quiet. There were even rumors, later quashed, of an extended quantitative easing for the US.
The European Central Bank announced the results of its bank stress test, and guess what? Almost everyone passed! Only 12 banks need to raise $12 billion in new capital.
Of course, this was never more than a window dressing exercise designed to make us all feel warm and fuzzy about the beleaguered continent.
It worked!
Capital spending also remains robust for the first time in eight years. But I think most analysts are missing the reason why this is happening. It is too late for companies to add capacity for this economic cycle.
They are instead building factories now to accommodate demand for the next economic and financial boom in the early 2020?s, when the stiff demographic headwind created by the baby boomers flips to a brisk tailwind provided by the Gen Xer?s.
The true 800-pound gorilla on the trading landscape these days is the price of oil, which broke the $80 handle yesterday morning. As with every move by every financial instrument everywhere, the more it goes down, the more dire the forecasts become. The savings in energy costs at this level amount to $12,000 per family per year. Do the math.
$10 a barrel? Really?
I think it is safe to say, like interest rates, energy prices will stay lower for longer than anyone imagines possible. So add another 1% to US GDP growth this year, next year and the one after that.
When the stock market figures this out, new highs will follow, probably before year end.
Has Goldilocks Moved Back in For Good?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Goldilocks.jpg337131Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-10-28 09:12:302014-10-28 09:12:30Goldilocks is Back!
I don?t double up short positions very often. I am too old to lose all my money and go back to work as an entry-level analyst at Morgan Stanley. Besides, they probably wouldn?t have me back anyway. It is a different company than it was 30 years ago, a lot different.
However, the dead cat, short covering bounce we got off this morning?s Hong Kong dump does allow me to get back into the short side of the (SPY) one more time.
We managed to gain 20 (SPX) points, or 2 entire (SPY) handles from the Monday morning capitulation, puke on your shoes low. Except this time, we are a weekend closer to expiration, only 14 trading days until October 15.
And waiting all the way until Friday for the September nonfarm payroll buys us a free week.
Does anyone really care what?s going on in Hong Kong, China, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter? Not really. It appears only day traders do, and those of us who have family members there, like me.
The beginning of October is usually the scariest two weeks of the year. So a bet that the (SPY) doesn?t blast up to new all time highs during this period looks like a pretty good idea.
Buying the S&P 500 (SPY) October, 2014 $202-$205 vertical in-the-money bear put spread with the volatility index (VIX) just short of the $17 handle, the highest print in six months, is also getting us the best short term spread prices this year. It?s almost like the good old days.
If the prospect of executing this trade causes the hair on the back of your neck to stand up, take a look at the charts below.
The Russell 2000 (IWM) broke through to a new low this morning, proving that a solid, three-month downtrend in the small caps is still alive and well.
The chart looks even worse for the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG), which has become a very important lead security for traders to keep a laser like focus on.
NASDAQ (QQQ) and the Dow Jones Average ($INDU) are sitting bang on crucial support lines. Alibaba is still sucking all the oxygen out of the technology sector, with major institutions selling everything else to take instant 5% stakes in the new issue. This is great news for the sector for the long term, but not so great for the short term.
Finally, I asked my ace Mad Day Trader, Jim Parker, his thoughtful take here. He believes that short term, markets are oversold and due for a rallyette. He wouldn?t be shorting stocks here with My money! But is the (SPY) going to a new all time high in 14 trading days? Absolutely no way!
There is another factor to consider here. We have recently clocked substantial profits with our short positions in the Euro (FXE) and the Russell 2000 (IWM).
So we can afford the luxury of getting aggressive here when everyone else is running and hiding. We are essentially now playing with the house?s money. The only question is whether we will next post a larger gain, or a smaller one. That is a position of strength, and a great place to trade from.
So I think the net net of all of this is that best case, the risk markets all keep trending downward, worse case, they flat line sideways, at least for the next 14 trading days. Either way, it is a win-win for me. That makes the S&P 500 (SPY) October, 2014 $202-$205 in-the-money bear put spread a winner in my book.
You can buy this spread anywhere in a $2.60-$2.75 range and have a reasonable expectation of making money on this trade.
This is a rare instance where there is no outright stock or ETF equivalent to this trade. If you sell short the stock market here, such as through purchasing the ProShares Ultra Short S&P 500 ETF (SDS), we could rally all the way up to, but just short of the all time high, and you would get your head handed to you.
If this happens with the S&P 500 (SPY) October, 2014 $202-$205 in-the-money bear put spread, you make your maximum profit of 1.30% of your total portfolio. This is why I play in the options market. So non options players are better to stand aside on this trade and just watch it for educational purposes.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Market-Floor-e1411743381455.jpg265400Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-09-30 01:04:502014-09-30 01:04:50Why I?m Doubling Up My Shorts
Many commentators are warning of a top, a bubble and Armageddon to come in the stock market. There has not been a 10% correction in the indexes since the debt ceiling crisis three years ago.
But I think that we are just getting started.
Share prices have the rocket fuel for the Dow average to make it to 18,000 by the end of 2014, and possibly 100,000 by 2025. To understand why, you have to focus on major long-term structural changes occurring in the global economy which at this point only a handful for strategists can see, and then, only faintly.
The evidence couldn?t be more undeniable. The major stock indexes have repeatedly broken out to new all time highs in 2014. The more volatile and economically sensitive Russell 2000 small cap index has left it in the big caps dust.
Inflows to equity mutual funds have been the most prolific since 2008. It all paints a picture of a run up (SPX) to and of 2,100 by year-end, which by the way, has been my own forecast all year. Perma bears be damned!
Betting on the Federal Reserve?s fears of a replay of 1937, when premature tightening tipped the US economy into the second leg of the Great Depression, has been a huge winner for me for years now. It means that it is willing to err on the side of over stimulation, by a lot.
With wages growth stagnant for decades, and many commodity prices and precious metals down 30% or more year to date, the Fed certainly has a free pass on the inflation front to do so. Corporate earnings are also helping, consistently surprising to the upside.
However, I think the market is trying to tell us infinitely more than what appeared in yesterday?s headlines, or what flew by in the last tweet or text. There is something deeper going on here beyond the noise of the daily data releases. Asset prices are acting like there is a major structural change underway in the world economy, which so far has remained invisible to all except the market.
Yes, there are a few professionals out there who can see imminent momentous change within their own narrow industries. But no one has yet aggregated all these changes together, so I?ll take a whack at it.
Here are ten theories for you to contemplate.
1) There is more Peace Dividend to Pay - Is it possible that the markets have not yet fully discounted America?s victory in the Cold War? That the payout was interrupted by the dotcom and housing crashes, and that it is now resuming?
Yes, we priced in a chunk with the run up in the Dow average from 2,500 to 11,000 during the 1990?s. But could there be more to go? After all, 22 years since the fall of the Soviet Union and the US still faces no industrial strength enemy, and there are none on the horizon either.
At the very least, this reality should be enough to chop our current defense spending by half, and eliminate most of our budget deficit. Much of the defense establishment agrees with me. They?d rather be spending money on inexpensive, high value, targeted programs, like cyber warfare and drones, rather than the costly, politically inspired, heavy metal weapons systems of old.
2) Obama Care Works ? With the House of Representatives voting to repeal the President?s health care plan for the 50th time, and closing down the government for 16 days in protest, conservative antipathy towards Obamacare couldn?t be more clear. But what if, instead of doubling health care costs as the right has claimed, it drops them by half? What if the plan does add 0.5% to annual GDP and creates 2 million jobs?
This, after all, was the original plan. Health care is expensive in the US because of the lack of competition, and Obamacare delivers that in spades for the first time. Of course there were going to be teething problems. After all, the government is trying to create 50 Amazons overnight at once. It took 20 years for my former Morgan Stanley colleague, Jeff Bezos, to create just one.
The early evidence shows that the competitive health insurance exchanges the plan sets up are delivering price reductions of 30% to 50% in New York and California. I walked into Costco the other day and was offered a plan for $235 a month with an $8,000 deductable, just so I could avoid the penalties for the uninsured. The best offer I previously received from Blue Cross of California was $3,500 a month, typical for an elderly white male like myself.
If this, in turn, solves the health care and Social Security crisis, it will do a lot to wipe out that ?uncertainty? you hear so much about. The predictions of the eventual insolvency of the United States, a perennial Internet conspiracy favorite, also go down the drain.
3) Another Technology Revolution ? Are we on the verge of another great technology breakthrough like the one we saw during the dotcom boom, when PC?s, the Internet, and the World Wide Web simultaneously came together to supercharge corporate earnings for a decade? What if the cost of treating cancer drops from $100,000 to $200, as my friend, Dr. Michio Kaku, believes. What if new Apples and Googles (GOOG) continue to appear out of nowhere?
If you lived in San Francisco and were barraged by venture capital pitches on a daily basis, as I am, you would think this new Golden Age is going to start any minute. There are a thousand innovations percolating out there.
The only question is whether the lead industry will be communications, health care, energy, or all three. Ride your bike south of Market Street someday and see how much research capacity is being built now, the size of a small city. It is awe-inspiring.
4) The Real Cost of Energy Collapses ? We all know about the new 100-year supply of natural gas discovered under our feet that will turn us into Saudi America. But there are 100 additional ways that energy supply is improving and demand is falling.
Conservation will be huge, as will grid and utility modernization. What if Tesla?s (TSLA) Elon Musk is able to deliver a $40,000 electric car with a 300-mile range in three years, as he has promised? This will be a game changer. His track record so far is pretty good.
This is the man so brimming with confidence that he just bought James Bond?s submarine car for $1 million (see the cool modified Lotus in The Spy Who Loved Me). Falling energy costs mean that the profitability of virtually every listed company goes through the roof.
It is likely that if Iran ever does make good on its threat to close the Straights of Hormuz, no one will care. Some 80% of that oil, and soon to be 100%, goes to China, and that will be their problem, not ours.
5) Productivity Accelerates ? By relentlessly introducing new technologies and cutting costs, corporate profitability has soared for the past 30 years. Pessimists now say things can?t get any better. But what if they do?
As I tell guests at my strategy luncheons, this is not a mean reverting data series. Having invested in the machine that took your labor force from 1,000 to 100, what if the next one brings it to 10? Guess which country is about to lose millions of jobs from offshoring and new technology? China. Just talk to any European CEO about their new ?American Strategy.?
6) Interest Rates Stay Low for Another Decade ? If wages stay in check, oil prices fall, and commodity places stay low, then the Fed has absolutely no reason to substantially raise interest rates for another ten years, no matter what the economy does. The next demographic push that creates a worker shortage and higher wages doesn?t start until the early 2020?s.
Sure, the Fed will probably normalize overnight rates back to 2% by next year, as the safety net for the economy is no longer needed. But rates could remain historically very low for quite a long time. This savings immediately drops to the bottom line of any borrower, be they individual, corporate, or government.
In fact, looking at the main causes of the recessions for the last 50 years?a spike in interest rates or a sudden cut off in oil supplies, and absolutely none are visible on the horizon, for now.
7) Shinzo Abe Saves Japan ? The conventional wisdom is that the new government in Japan is resorting to a last desperate act to save their economy that will fail, and that a complete collapse of their over leveraged financial system will result.
But what if Abe gets his necessary reforms through and the country regains its powerhouse status. If Japan?s $6 trillion economy, the world?s third largest, bounces back from a 1% to a 4% GDP growth rate, there will be positive implications for all of us.
8) Europe Gets Its Act Together ? It seems that all we ever hear about from the continent is debt crisis and stagnation and a political system so fragmented that no one can do anything about it. But what if new leadership emerges and takes the initiative to coalesce and solidify Europe?
That would involve creating a single Ministry of Finance, issuing pan Euro bonds, and a European Central Bank with teeth and courage. Their economic problems would disappear and growth would double. As part of my consulting arrangements with governments there, I have been recommending these measures for years, and everyone agrees. All that is missing is the political will to carry them out.
9) The Dollar Stays Strong ? With America?s debt to GDP now over 100% and rising, many analysts believe it is just a matter of time before we see a major crash in the dollar. This is only the continuation of a 220-year-old trend.
What if it goes up instead? Energy independence means we will no longer ship $250 billion a year to the Middle East to pay for oil imports. CEO?s in Europe and Asia are stumbling over each other to find ways to get capital into the US to take advantage of a stronger economy. Higher growth rates mean the feared American deficits start shrinking on their own, with no action from congress whatsoever. This is all long-term dollar positive.
10) Multiples Keep Expanding ? Most strategists believe that the S&P 500 is fairly valued at 1,983 with a price earnings multiple of 15 times, dead in the middle of its historic 9-22 range. But if any of my theories above unfold, then much higher multiples are justified. If they all unfold, then investors wouldn?t hesitate to pay a 25 multiple for American stocks, as their future outlook is so unremittingly positive.
You may say this sounds crazy, and you?d be right. But remember, twice in the last 25 years we have seen market multiples skyrocket to 100. Japanese share valuations reached that nosebleed summit in 1989, and American Dotcom stocks did so in 2000. And they reached those numbers with fundamentals far less substantial than we are facing now. Just take multiples on today?s market up from 15X to 20X, and the Dow should be worth 26,000.
Sure, all of the above represents a pie in the sky best-case scenario. Some, or none, of them may actually play out in the real world. But the ones that do occur will have a super-leveraged effect on each other. The net impact will be US GDP growth easily leaps back from today?s feeble 2% to the virile 4% or more that we grew comfortable with during the fifties, sixties, and eighties.
That growth rate will solve America?s Social Security, Medicare, and deficit problems in fairly short order, without any action by the government.
Needless to say, all of the above is hugely positive for the stock market. It brings forecasts for a Dow 18,000 by the end of 2014, and 100,000 by 2025 out of the realm of fantasy. It kind of makes today?s stock prices look dirt-cheap.
Maybe that?s what the market is trying to tell us, if we only had the patience and the foresight to listen.
This doesn?t mean that you need to rush out and buy more stocks today. Some of these trends will take a decade or more to play out. Better entry points will no doubt present themselves. But the writing is on the wall for higher equity prices, not just in the US, but globally.
I can tell you from the vast expanse of my own 45 years in the prediction business, I have learned one thing. All that is forecast never happens, and all that happens was never forecast.
I?m still waiting for my flying car, although the Tesla S-1 comes close.
My Tesla S-1
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/JT-with-Tesla-e1427723768460.jpg227400Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-08-21 01:03:432014-08-21 01:03:43Why US Stocks Are Dirt Cheap
I often see one stock index outperform another, as different segments of the economy speed up, slow down, or go nowhere. Sometimes the reasons for this are fundamental, technical, or completely arbitrary.
Many analysts have been scratching their heads this year over why the S&P 500 has been moving from strength to strength for the past year, while the Dow Average has gone virtually nowhere. Since January, the (SPX) has tacked on a reasonable 7.9%, while the Dow has managed only a paltry 3.4% increase.
What gives?
The problem is particularly vexing for hedge fund managers, who have to choose carefully which index they use to hedge other positions. Do you use the broad based measure of 500 large caps or a much more narrow and stodgy 30?
What?s a poor risk analyst to do?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was first calculated by founder Charles Dow in 1896, later of Dow Jones & Company, which also publishes the Wall Street Journal. When Dow died in 1902, the firm was taken over by Clarence Barron and stayed within family control for 105 years.
In 2007, on the eve of the financial crisis, it was sold to News Corporation for $5 billion. News Corp. is owned by my former boss, Rupert Murdoch, once an Australian, and now a naturalized US citizen. News then spun off its index business to the CME Corp., formerly the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, in 2010.
Much of the recent divergence can be traced to a reconstitution of the Dow Average on September 20, 2013, when it underwent some major plastic surgery.
It took three near-do-wells out, Bank of America (BAC), Hewlett Packard, (HPQ), and Alcoa (AA). In their place were added three more robust and virile companies, Goldman Sachs (GS), Visa (V), and Nike (NKE).
Call it a nose job, a neck lift, and a tummy tuck all combined into one (Not that I?ve been looking for myself!).
And therein lies the problem. Like many attempts at cosmetic surgery, the procedure rendered the subject uglier than it was before.
Since these changes, the new names have been boring and listless, while the old ones have gone off to the races. Hence, the differing performance.
This is not a new problem. Dow Jones has been terrible at making market calls over its century and a half existence. As a result, these rebalancings have probably subtracted several thousand points over the life of the Dow.
They are, in effect, selling lows and buying highs, much like individual retail investors do. It is almost by definition the perfect anti-performance index. When in doubt, always measure your own performance against the Dow.
Dow Jones takes companies out of its index for many reasons. Some companies go bankrupt, whereas others suffer precipitous declines in prices and trading volumes. (BAC) was removed because, at one point, its shares took a 95% hit from its highs and no longer accurately reflected a relevant weighting of its industry. Citigroup (C) suffered the same fate a few years ago.
Look at the Dow Average of 1900 and you wouldn?t recognize it today. In fact, there is only one firm that has stayed in the index since then, Thomas Edison?s General Electric (GE). Buying a Dow stock is almost a guarantee that it will eventually do poorly.
This is why most hedge funds rely on the (SPX) as a hedging vehicle and how its futures contracts, options and ETF?s, like the (SPY), get the lion?s share of the volume.
Mind you, the (SPX) has its own problems. Apple (AAPL) has far and away the largest weighting there and is also subject to regular rebalancings, wreaking its own havoc.
Because of this, an entire sub industry of hedge fund managers has sprung up over the decades to play this game. Their goal is to buy likely new additions to the index and sell short the outgoing ones.
Get your picks right and you are certain to make money. Every rebalancing generates massive buying and selling in single names by the country?s largest institutional investors, which in reality are just closet indexers, despite the hefty fees they charge you.
Given their gargantuan size these days, there is little else they can do. Rebalancings also give brokerage salesmen talking points on otherwise slow days and generate new and much needed market turnover.
What has made 2014 challenging for so many managers is that so much of the action in the Dow has been concentrated in just a handful of stocks.
Caterpillar (CAT), the happy subject of one of my recent Trade Alerts, accounts for 35.3% of the Index gain this year. Walt Disney (DIS) speaks for 24.2% and Intel (INTC) 23.4%.
Miss these three and you are probably trolling for a new job on Craig?s? List by now, if you?re not already driving a taxi for Uber.
It truly is a stock picker?s market; a market of stocks and not a stock market.
Believe it or not, there are people that are far worse at this game than Dow Jones. The best example I can think of are the folks over at Nihon Keizai Shimbun in Tokyo (or Japan Economic Daily for most of you), who manage the calculation of the 225 stocks in the Nikkei Average (once known as the Nikkei Dow).
In May, 2000, out of the blue, they announced a rebalancing of 50% of the constituent names in their index. Their goal was to make the index more like the American NASDAQ, the flavor of the day. So they dumped a lot of old, traditional industrial names and replaced them with technology highfliers.
Unfortunately, they did this literally weeks after the US Dotcom bubble busted. The move turbocharged the collapse of the Nikkei, probably causing it to fall an extra 8,000 points or more than it should have.
Without such a brilliant move as this, the Nikkei bear market would have bottomed at 15,000 instead of the 7,000 we eventually got. The additional loss of stock collateral and capital probably cost Japan an extra lost decade of economic growth.
So for those of you who bemoan the Dow rebalancings, you should really be giving thanks for small graces.
Rebalancing? Yikes!
Miss This One, And You?re Toast
It Truly is a Stock Picker?s Market
The Key to Your 2014 Performance
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mickey-Mouse.jpg352339Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-07-10 01:05:012014-07-10 01:05:01Why is the S&P 500 Beating the Dow?
This is a bet that the S&P 500 does not rocket to a new all time high by the May 16, 2014 expiration.
The news flow this morning is giving us an opportunity to re enter the short positions that I covered on Friday. Half of the opening 80-point pop in the Dow came from Citibank (C), which surprised to the upside with its Q1 earnings report.
We also got March retail sales +1.1%, better than expected.
We are down only 4.1% in this pullback, not even matching the 6% January dump, and we have clearly not suffered enough for our IPO sins. An eroding quantitative easing from Janet Yellen?s Federal Reserve is clearly taking a toll.
This rally could continue for a day or two more. But it has been so difficult to get short positions off in this correction that I don?t mind erring on the side of being a little early. The reversals ambush you at openings you can?t trade, and take no prisoners. We will probably get our reward on Friday in the next weekend flight to safety.
It is only because implied volatilities are so elevated that I can get this position so far out of the money off so richly, with only 23 trading days left until the May 16 expiration. The spring swoon has sent put prices through the roof, as panicking institutions rush to buy downside insurance a little too late.
Charts and technical analysis are far more useful and important in falling markets than rising one, as the downside crowd is far more dependent on this dismal science.
The fact that these charts are breaking down across markets on increasing volume is terrible news.
A sector rotation out of aggressive technology (XLK), financial (XLF), and discretionary stocks (XLY) into defensive consumer staples (XLP) and utilities (XLU) is a further complicating factor that is making matters worse.
During economic slowdowns, consumers postpone purchases of new iPhones and cars. They don?t for toilet paper and electricity.
Ten year Treasury yields approaching a five-month low is another nail in the coffin. Banks are falling because of the rocketing bond market, which is flattening the yield curve to the topography of Kansas, hurting profits.
All that is needed is a match to ignite a broader, more vicious selloff and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has a whole box of them!
1,760 in the S&P 500, here we come, the 200-day moving average!
Keep in mind that fast markets, such as the one we have, I can get you only ballpark prices at best. It?s every man for himself. Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Burning-Building-e1430840521423.jpg308400Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-04-15 01:03:202014-04-15 01:03:20Piling on the Shorts Again
There is absolutely no doubt that both risk and volatility are rising in the financial markets. The higher the indexes rise, the sharper the intraday breaks. That is never a healthy sign for a bull market that has thrived for more than two years without a 10% correction.
The Crimean referendum should have been a yawn, not worthy of the 400 point swan dive that the Dow Average delivered last week. When the markets over react to the downside, and then rally back only on small volume, that is another excuse to pare back risk.
Some 45 years in the markets have taught me that whenever I have a great run, they will then suddenly reverse and bite me back. And let?s face it, the last two years have been spectacular, the Trade Alert Service nearly doubling the assets of loyal followers. It?s time to learn some humility, before the markets impose it upon you.
All of the recent US economic data has been good. But this isn?t about the data. It is all about market sentiment. And the current rumblings in Crimea are definitely not market friendly, pro global growth, pro risk ones.
If serious economic sanctions are imposed on Russia by Europe and the US, the impact on global growth will be negative, even if it is small. Traders are all about the next incremental change, not necessarily the magnitude.
So I am inclined to take small profits when they arise. No more hanging on for the last dollar. That was a 2013 play. Look for a market that grinds for days, and then concentrates all of the volatility for the week in a single day, like today.
Take the money and run, while it?s there.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Strategy-Change.jpg324413Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-03-18 01:05:072014-03-18 01:05:07It?s Time for a Strategy Change
After one of the wildest rides in recent memory, the stock market has ground to a complete halt. So have virtually all other asset classes as well.
You can see this in the activity of my Trade Alert service as well. After sending out Alerts as fast as I could write them for the past three months, some three or four a day, the action has slowed to a snails pace. What gives?
I think that the sudden, universal optimism we saw break out all over in November and December ended up pulling performance out of 2014 back into 2013. Traders were picking up positions not only for the yearend rally, but the January one as well.
As a result, there is nothing for us to do in January. Our New Year asset reallocation rally happened last month. The net result has been one of the most boring starts to a new year in history, with trading confined to tortuous, frustrating low volume ranges.
What have been the best performing assets so far in 2014? Gold (GLD), gold miners (GDX), (ABX), and bonds (TLT), (TBT), the worst performing ones of 2013. Don?t get your hopes up. These are only dead cat bounces prompted by short covering with broader, longer term bear markets.
In the meantime, the stars of last year have become the dogs of this year, like consumer cyclicals and banks. Suddenly, it has become an upside-down world, with the good becoming bad, and the bad good. Don?t expect this to last. It never does.
It gets worse. What if we didn?t pull forward only in January and the end of last year, but February and March as well? We could be sitting back on our haunches for quite a long time. Sounds like a good time to catch up on those old back issues of Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader that we didn?t have time to read because trading was too frenetic.
As for me, I am getting an early start on my tax returns this year so I can figure out how much my Obamacare is going to cost me. Thanks to my spectacular, once in a lifetime performance in 2013, Uncle Sam and I have quite a lot to talk about. What? You mean a $2,000 bottle of wine purchased in Portofino on the Italian Riviera (the seaside resort featured in The Wolf of Wall Street) is not deductible? If it is for Morgan Stanley, why not me?
Another reason for the sudden silence is that investors have suddenly become very cautious. We have just had a run for the ages. From my June 14 low I made a staggering 41.15% profit for my followers. My last 14 consecutive Trade Alerts have been profitable, as has every one so far in 2014. Those are serious numbers. While almost no one else matched these numbers, quite a few traders did well too.
Suddenly protecting performance has become far more important than catching that next marginal trade. When everyone else is in the same boat, markets go very quiet, until the boat tips over.
Things aren?t going to remain this dead forever. It reminds me of a witticism voiced by President Nixon?s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Herbert Stein: ?If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.?
When the Trade Alert traffic dies down, I get barraged by daily complaints from readers that I?ve gotten lazy, I?ve gotten too rich to focus on this anymore, and that I ought to be doing more. Can you blame them? With an 85% success rate with my Alerts, who wouldn?t want more?
One of the reasons that my success rate is one of the highest in the industry is that I know when to quit trading. Some 45 years trading the markets has taught me one thing. If you chase a trade that?s not there it?s a perfect formula for losing money. There is no law stating that you always must have a position. That?s what brokers want you to do, a mug?s game at best.
My advice to you? Go out and spend some of the hard earned money you made last year from my Trade Alert Service. I understand there are great deals to be had on large screen HD TV?s at Best Buy. Unfortunately, my hometown San Francisco 49ers blew a playoff game in the last 22 seconds, depriving me from a trip to New York for Super Bowl XLVIII. But if you?re from Seattle or Denver, you definitely have something better to do for the week leading up to February 2.
Out With the Old?
And In With The New...
There Goes My Super Bowl Trip
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Football-49er-Seahawks.jpg400388Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2014-01-24 01:04:402014-01-24 01:04:40A few Thoughts on Trading Strategy
Ben Bernanke finally did the deed. He tapered his quantitative easing program, from $85 to $75 billion a month. I thought he would wait until next month for incoming Fed governor Janet Yellen to take the helm, and the responsibility. It was not to be.
The good news for followers of my Trade Alert Service was that it didn?t matter. $85 or $75 billion is really six of one and half dozen of another, almost. As we used to say on the trading desk at Morgan Stanley, just take the difference out of my next paycheck. It is a win-win, which I had expected.
The one certainty today was that the Fed would make a decision. Now that it?s out of the way, stocks can only go up.
Market?s reacted as if there had been no taper at all. Stocks and the dollar rocketed, led by financials, technology, health care, and industrials. Softbank gapped up and is approaching a new high for the year. Bonds, gold, volatility, and the yen collapsed. My model trading portfolio is almost a perfect reflection of what you should be doing with your money.
Big Ben?s incredibly dovish talk we received during the press conference that followed was fantastic news for risk assets everywhere. It means that interest rates will remain lower for longer than most expected. ?Highly accommodative money monetary policy remains appropriate? is still ringing in my ears. This will remain the case until unemployment falls ?well below 6.5%? and inflation returns to 2%. ?The Fed balance sheet will continue to expand.?
What all this does is deliver a ?goldilocks? scenario for the foreseeable future. The potential disasters for January, a Fed taper and a Washington shut down have suddenly gone missing.
Ben?s Christmas present to us all is a printing press to print money in the markets for the next three months.
That?s Ben! That?s Just What I Wanted!
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Money-Printing.jpg339536Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-12-19 01:05:242013-12-19 01:05:24I was Wrong...But it Didn?t Matter
Exactly 84 years ago from yesterday, the Great 1929 stock market crash occurred. The Dow Average plunged a stunning 30 points to 230, a one-day decline of 12%. The ticker tape lagged the market by two hours, and the newly bankrupt were jumping out of downtown windows. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Well not really.
But a number of friends over the decades lived through that fateful day, and relived it for me, men like Sir John Templeton and Tubby Burnham. My grandfather prided himself on never buying a stock in his life, and was deluged by entreaties from reckless and freshly busted relatives to move into his Bay Ridge, Brooklyn basement.
The S&P 500 came just eight points short of my 2013 target of 1,780 yesterday. By the time you read this, it may already be there.
When I made this prediction in January, abuse was hurled upon me. Clearly, the sequester, debt ceiling crisis, taper, sluggish economic growth, a China crash, and a government shutdown were going to collapse the market, taking the (SPX) as low as 300. Gold was the safe place to be, I was told. The only way I could conclude that stocks were headed northward was if I was smoking one of California?s largest agricultural products.
It turns out they were right, but only if you hold your charts upside down.
So it was with some amusement that I listened to the comments of Dr. Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School of Business. He has been one of the most unremittingly bullish commentators all year, to the point of becoming a Wall Street laughing stock. There is only one catch: he has been dead right. And when people are that right, I sit up and take notice.
Dr. Siegel?s view on the economy mirrors my own. The absence of further spending cuts and tax increases should enable US GDP growth to spring from 2% to 3.5%. At that robust rate the Federal Reserve could completely eliminate quantitative easing with no serious market impact. All surprises will be to the upside. Only a ten year Treasury yield falling to 2% would signal that this scenario has run off the rails.
The Federal Reserve will keep interest rates ultra low for longer than most expect because of its mortal fear of deflation. Endemic and structurally falling prices have the effect of increasing the real debts of individuals and corporations. The central bank clearly wants debt loads to move in the other direction.
While major entitlement reform poses some risk, the likelihood is that the committee convened to make recommendations will simply kick the can down the road, well past the 2014-midterm elections. That?s because both parties believe they can then gain the upper hand. Only one of them can be right.
Dr. Siegel observes that November and December have the calendar working for them as historically positive months. There will be an extra tailwind coming from highly favorable Q4 YOY earnings comparisons. Dividends are up a healthy 10%-15% YOY, and will continue to improve. This action should spill into the first half of 2014.
There is no doubt that the taper has been delayed. In fact, there are no major uncertainties of any kind until well into next year. Periodically, premature fears of tightening will trigger market setbacks. But they will be of the smaller kind, typically 4%-7%.
Welcome to the Goldilocks market.
The only development that could bring this parade to an end would be a second and more prolonged government shutdown, possibly as early as January. But the Republicans have been severely chastised for their behavior in the opinion polls, so it is highly unlikely we will see a repeat, unless we are about to become a one party state.
Welcome to the Goldilocks market.
Welcome to the Goldilocks Market
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Goldilocks.jpg348156Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-10-30 08:53:582013-10-30 08:53:58When Great Minds Think Alike
When Japanese central bank governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, announced the most aggressive monetary stimulus program in history last week, he no doubt expected Tokyo share prices to head for the moon. In that, he has succeeded admirably, the yen hedged Japanese equity ETF (DXJ) soaring by 13.4% in the five trading days since he lobbed his bombshell.
What the bespectacled bureaucrat did not anticipate was that his action would send American shares through the roof as well. Both the Dow average and the S&P 500 surged to new all time highs today, much of the move powered by new Japanese cash. Just when American traders were wringing their hands over the potential loss of quantitative easing, they instead were handed a second campaign of ultra monetary easing.
Until last week, the Fed was pumping $85 billion a month into the financial system. From this week, the Fed plus the BOJ monthly total doubles to $170 billion. I don?t have to draw pictures for you to explain what this means for stock prices.
Indeed, the BOJ?s fingerprints could be found daily on securities of almost every imaginable description. What they have been buying is size exchange traded funds of equities (ETF?s) and bonds of every maturity. Imagine the Fed coming in one morning, calling all the major brokers, and placing orders for a billion dollars each of the (SPX) and the (IWM). That is what?s happening in Japan now.
The problem is that domestic investors in Japan have been unloading positions they have been lugging for years to the central bank, and then reinvesting the cash into better quality, higher yielding US stocks. Notice how well the big cap dividend yielders have been trading, favorite targets of foreign investors. Notice, also, that technology appears to be staging a turnaround on the back of the international money, with recent pariah, Apple (AAPL) actually showing signs of life.
It?s easy to see why this is happening. If you were a Japanese investor, would you want to buy a low growth, low yielding stock in a depreciating currency? Or buy a share in a faster growing company with a much higher dividend an appreciating currency. I rest my case. God bless America!
Needless to say, beyond the sunset made a complete hash of my few remaining short positions in the S&P 500, which only had seven days left to run into expiration. Thank you, Mr. Market for my biggest loss of the year.
Fortunately, that hickey was more than generously offset by profits on shorts I harvested last week, in addition to remaining longs in Bank of America (BAC), Apple (AAPL), and hefty shorts in the yen. As of this writing, I am up a breathtaking 37% so far in 2013.
Where does this party end? Now that we have two QE?s, instead of just one, I think it is safe to say that risk assets everywhere are going much higher. How high is anyone?s guess. It also means that the ?RISK OFF? assets of gold (GLD), silver (SLV), and Treasury bonds (TLT) are headed lower. That?s why I added a long in the leverage short Treasury bond ETF (TBT) this week for the first time in years. The punch bowl just got topped up again, and I don?t have to be asked twice to refill my glass.
The Punch Bowl Has Just Been Refilled
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Punch-Bowl.jpg288353Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2013-04-11 09:30:212013-04-11 09:30:21Japanese Cash Tsunami Hits US
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