Global Market Comments
November 1, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or LET THE GAMES BEGIN!)
(MS), (GS), (BLK), (JPM), (BAC), (TLT), (TSLA), (AAPL), (MSFT), (GOOGL), (AMZN), (ROM)
Global Market Comments
November 1, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or LET THE GAMES BEGIN!)
(MS), (GS), (BLK), (JPM), (BAC), (TLT), (TSLA), (AAPL), (MSFT), (GOOGL), (AMZN), (ROM)
MongoDB’s latest earnings’ results validate the concept open source software as a rival to the opposed closed-source software grid.
A keen rival of MongoDB’s RedHat was also acquired by IBM (IBM) a few years ago showing the vitality of the sub-sector.
Don’t sleep on these companies as another one Cloudera (CLDR) were taken private by private equity firms KKR and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.
These are highly valuable assets and I’m not the only one shouting from the rooftops.
How did this all first start?
The first open-source projects were not really businesses, they were counter attacks against the unfair profits that closed-source software companies were reaping.
Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), to name a few, were enforcing monopoly-like “rents” for software that were substandard in quality.
The latest evolution of open source came when developers evolved the projects with two important elements.
The first is that the open-source software is now developed largely within the confines of businesses.
Often, more than 90% of the lines of code in these projects are written by the employees of the company that commercialized the software.
Second, these businesses offer their own software as a cloud service from inception.
In a sense, these are Open Core / Cloud service hybrid businesses that can obtain multiple pathways to monetize their product and that is exactly what MongoDB did.
By offering the products as SaaS, these businesses can interweave open-source software with commercial software so customers no longer have to worry about which license they should be taking.
MongoDB Atlas is a great example of this evolution and can become the dominant business model for software infrastructure.
This is their hottest product which is a fully-managed cloud database and Atlas handles all the complexity of deploying, managing, and healing deployments on the cloud service provider of your choice like Amazon or Google.
MongoDB changed how open-source software is licensed, and they introduced the new cloud service that required them and partners to compete with the largest cloud providers.
Looking quickly at second-quarter financial results, they generated revenue of $199 million, a 44% year-over-year increase and above the high-end of guidance. They grew subscription revenue 44% year over year.
Mongo Atlas revenue grew 83% year over year and now represents 56% of revenue, and they had another strong quarter of customer growth, ending the quarter with over 29,000 customers.
Businesses that can develop software faster are able to ultimately outgrow their competition.
MongoDB’s results are a clear indication that customers view MongoDB as a critical platform to accelerate their digital innovation agenda.
Customers of all types are choosing MongoDB because they can develop so much faster using this platform to build new applications and replatform legacy applications across a broad range of use cases to drive business forward.
Even though MongoDB open-source software is lower cost per unit, it makes up the total market size by leveraging the elasticity in the market. When something is cheaper, more people buy it. That’s why open-source companies have such massive and rapid adoption when they achieve product-market fit.
The model now is that companies are venturing as far as actually open sourcing all their software but applying a commercial license to parts of the software base. The premise being that real enterprise customers would pay whether the software is open or closed, and they are more incentivized to use commercial software if they can actually read the code.
Observing how airline JetBlue deployed MongoDB is how these new approaches and improved products manifest themselves in the topline revenue.
JetBlue came to the decision to overhaul their core e-commerce app, and JetBlue chose the MongoDB application data platform.
MongoDB's flexible data model allowed JetBlue to build a dynamic customer experience with modern ticketing applications, as well as predictive analytics in real-time.
An avalanche of firms is leveraging the tools of MongoDB tools to up their digital game.
Management has steered the narrative to include the ease of use and expanding the capabilities of the MongoDB platform to make it more compelling for customers to standardize on MongoDB.
For example, a serverless, customer can get started with MongoDB without having to pick a specific machine type or size. The application connects to Atlas, and they handle the elastic scaling of compute and storage seamlessly, whether an application scales fast or becomes popular. Customers no longer must do capacity planning or manual intervention to adjust the size of the deployment.
The verdict is in and deploying MongoDB to harness in-house developers to build unique commercial applications has been a winning formula.
Not only are they sheltered from rigid closed-source software, but customers can even integrate the code first, then pay later when it is deployed, and this licensing model has been extremely beneficial for developers who need to test out whether certain code is valuable or not.
Atlas is now the cash cow for MongoDB and forecasts predict acceleration in top-line growth.
Yes, this company is still small procuring revenue of just $166 million in 2018, but 2023 will see annual revenue surpass $1 billion which is why everyone wants to hop on MondoDB’s train.
I would consider any dips to deploy capital in MongoDB, I would call it a rising star of the software world, and a gem in the developers’ world.
Global Market Comments
August 5, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE NEW AI BOOK THAT INVESTORS ARE SCRAMBLING FOR),
(GOOG), (FB), (AMZN), MSFT), (BABA), (BIDU),
(TENCENT), (TSLA), (NVDA), (AMD), (MU), (LRCX)
Global Market Comments
August 2, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or TAKING A BREAK)
(AAPL), (AMZN), (FB), (MSFT), (TSLA), (JPM), (TLT), (SPY)
Global Market Comments
July 23, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(INDUSTRIES YOU WILL NEVER HEAR FROM ME ABOUT)
(AMZN), (DIS), (FB), (MSFT), (VIX)
Global Market Comments
July 22, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(HOW DID THOSE TECH LEAPS WORK OUT?)
(AAPL), (AMZN), (MSFT)
A month ago, I sent you a research piece about the merits of long-term LEAPS in the major technology stocks (click here for the link).
They included:
Amazon (AMZN) January 2022 $3,200-$3,400 vertical bull call spread
Microsoft (MSFT) January 2022 $240-$270 vertical bull call spread
Apple (AAPL) January 2022 $120-$130 vertical bull call spread
So, how did those work out? Here is the stock performance and the LEAPS performance for each position:
Amazon (AMZN) stock +11.40% LEAPS +26.79%
Microsoft (MSFT) stock +7.69% LEAPS +35.38%
Apple (AAPL) stock +13.38% LEAPS +30.92%
In other words, the LEAPS outperformed the stock to the upside by anywhere from 2.5X to 5X. All three positions are now deep-in-the-money. As long as the stocks close at or above the upper strike prices by the January 16, 20222 option expiration day, they will all produce profits of 100% or more in only seven months!
It goes to confirm the strategy that I have been vociferously arguing in recent months, that LEAPS offer far and away the best risk/reward of any investment in current market conditions. Whenever I have a payday, I pour the money straight into my retirement funds and into the most attractive LEAPS.
The liquidity for long-dated options is not that great. That is why entering limit orders in LEAPS only, as opposed to market orders, is crucial.
These are really for your buy-and-forget investment portfolio, defined benefit plan, 401k, or IRA.
Like all options contracts, LEAPS give its owner the right to exercise the option to buy or sell 100 shares of stock at a set price for a given time.
LEAPS have been around since 1990, and trade on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).
To participate, you need an options account with a brokerage house, an easy process that mainly involves acknowledging the risk disclosures that no one ever reads.
If LEAPS expire "out-of-the-money" on expiration day, you can lose all the money you spent on the premium to buy it. There's no toughing it out waiting for a recovery, as with actual shares of stock. Poof, and your money is gone.
Note that a LEAPS owner does not vote proxies or receive dividends because the underlying stock is owned by the seller, or "writer," of the LEAPS contract until the LEAPS owner exercises.
Despite the Wild West image of options, LEAPS are actually ideal for the right type of conservative investor.
They offer vastly more margin and more efficient use of capital than traditional broker margin accounts. And you don’t have to pay the usurious interest rates that margin accounts usually charge.
And for a moderate increase in risk, they present hugely outsized profit opportunities.
For the right investor, they are the ideal instrument.
So, let’s get on with my specific math for the (AMZN) LEAPS to discover its inner beauty.
By now, you should all know what vertical bull call spreads are. If you don’t, then please click this link for my quickie video tutorial (you must be logged in to your account). Warning: I have aged since I made this video.
A month ago, Amazon closed at $3,346.83.
The cautious investor should have bought the (AMZN) January 2022 $3,200-$3,400 vertical bull call debit spread for $102. One contract gets you a $10,000 exposure. This is a bet that (AMZN) shares will close at $3,400 or higher by the January 22, 2022, option expiration, some 1.6% higher.
Sounds like a total no-brainer, doesn’t it?
Here are the specific trades you needed to execute this position:
expiration date: January 21, 2022
Portfolio weighting: 10%
Number of Contracts = 1 contract
Buy 1 January 2022 (AMZN) $3,200 call at………..….……$374.00
Sell short 1 January 2022 (AMZN) $3,400 call at…………$272.00
Net Cost:………………………….………..………….............….....$102.00
Potential Profit: $200.00 - $102.00 = $98.00
(1 X 100 X $98.00) = $9,800 or 96.07% in six months.
In other words, your $10,200 investment turned into $19,800 with an almost sure bet giving you a profit of 96.07%.
Why do a vertical bull call debit spread instead of just buying the January 2022 (AMZN) $3,400 calls outright?
You need a much bigger upside move to make money on this trade. (AMZN) would have to rise all the way to $3,674 to break even on the calls, and all the way up to $3,772 to match the profit of the call spread.
While I think it is possible that (AMZN) could rise that much by January, it is vastly more probable that (AMZN) will be over $3,400 by then. That is what hedge funds do all day long, and that is to find the most probable trade out there and then leverage up like crazy.
Remember, one call option gives you the right to buy 100 shares. That means over $3,400 your call spread that cost $10,200 will enable you to control 100 shares of Amazon worth $340,000. The potential upside leverage over $3,400 is 33.33X!
By paying only $102 for the spread instead of $274.00 for an outright call-only position, you can increase your size by 2.68 times, from 1 to 3 contracts for the same $10,200 commitment. That triples your upside leverage on the most probable move in (AMZN), the one above $3,400. That increases the upside leverage over $3,400 to an impressive 100X compared to the outright call buy.
How could this trade go wrong?
There is only one thing. We get a new variant on Covid-19 that overcomes the existing vaccines and brings a fourth wave in the pandemic.
In this case, (AMZN) doesn’t rise above $3,400 but crashes down to the $1,700 low we saw during the 2020 pandemic. We go back into recession. Both of the above positions go to zero. But if we get a fourth wave, you are going to have much bigger problems than your options positions.
So there it is. You pay your money and take your chances. That's why the potential returns on these simple trades are so incredibly high.
If you are interested in getting a more dedicated LEAPS service from the Mad Hedge Fund Trader, you might consider our Concierge service, which costs $10,000 a year and is by application only. If interested, please email support@madhedgefundtrader.com and put Concierge candidate in the subject line.
Enjoy.
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
Tech LEAPS are the Way to Go
Global Market Comments
July 19, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or THE DELTA CORRECTION IS HERE)
(AMZN), (AAPL), (FB), (MSFT), (TAN), (FSLR)
Global Market Comments
July 7, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(JUNE 30 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
(QQQ), (BRKB), (GOOG), (NVDA), (FB), (TSLA), (JPM), (BAC), (C), (GS), (MS), (NASD), ((X), (FCX), (AMZN), (MSFT), (AAPL), (FCX)
Global Market Comments
July 6, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or ALL EYES ON THE FANGS)
(FB), (AAPL), (AMZN), (MSFT), (NFLX), (NVDA), (AMD), (MU)
Legal Disclaimer
There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading. Past results are not indicative of future returns. MadHedgeFundTrader.com and all individuals affiliated with this site assume no responsibilities for your trading and investment results. The indicators, strategies, columns, articles and all other features are for educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Information for futures trading observations are obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but we do not warrant its completeness or accuracy, or warrant any results from the use of the information. Your use of the trading observations is entirely at your own risk and it is your sole responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of the information. You must assess the risk of any trade with your broker and make your own independent decisions regarding any securities mentioned herein. Affiliates of MadHedgeFundTrader.com may have a position or effect transactions in the securities described herein (or options thereon) and/or otherwise employ trading strategies that may be consistent or inconsistent with the provided strategies.
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