While scouring the markets looking for great ways to participate in the current slide in the equity indexes, I discovered a real gem. The Advisor Shares Active Bear ETF (HDGE) offers a rifle shot at the true garbage in the market, low dividend companies with deteriorating fundamentals. Run by former Bass Brothers associate Brad Lehmansdorf, it includes such well known losers as Goodyear (GT), Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR), and Open Table (OPEN). Think of it as garbage distilled.
The fund addresses many of the shortcomings in other short index ETF?s like (SH) and the 2X (SDS).While they get the direction right in a down market, they also throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sure, you are happy to sell short a lot of stocks with bleak futures. But you are also shorting Apple (AAPL), IBM (IBM), Intel, and Cisco (CSCO), not something you necessarily ever want to do on pain of death.
It has been working like a charm since the April 2 peak in the markets. (HDGE) delivered an awesome +15.2% gain, against a much more modest +6.6% for the 1X ProShares Short S&P 500 fund (SH) and a fall of only -5.8% in the S&P 500 (SPX). (HDGE) is in effect delivering a downside outperformance compared to the (SH) of more than 2:1, which makes a long (HDGE)/short (SH) strategy look kind of interesting. What is particularly impressive is that it does this without leverage, qualifying it for investment in many plain vanilla IRA?s and 401k?s, and posting it on the menu for many individual investment advisors.
Of course, quality comes at a price, as I am always at pains to point out to my own readers. Management fees are a hefty 3.39%, although that comes down to a reasonable 1.5% when manager rebates are factored in. The dealing spreads on these esoteric ETF?s can be quite wide, so it is wise to place a limit day order in the middle market to avoid being taken to the cleaners. If we get a brief short covering rally in the market you might find me in this one with a trade alert. To learn more about this enticing exchange traded fund, please visit their website at http://advisorshares.com/ .
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-05-09 23:03:072012-05-09 23:03:07Check Out (HDGE) to Limit Downside Exposure
A few years ago on the Old Square in Brussels, a delicious luncheon of moules marini?res paired with an excellent white burgundy with some European Central Bank officials ran far longer than expected. They were attempting to convince me of the long term viability of the Euro, to no avail.
That seriously delayed my departure from Belgium to Salisbury in the English countryside to visit some clients resident at Highclere Castle, which is now the subject of a major TV series. I raced my twin engine Cessna at full power into the sunset, across the English Channel, past the white cliffs of Dover, because my destination airfield had no lights. By the time I arrived it was too dark to land, my alternate airport at Southampton had suddenly closed because of a crash, and I only had 15 minutes of fuel left.
I knew that the pub at the end of the grass runway kept a radio with the tower frequency always tuned in. So circling at 1,500 feet overhead in the pitch black darkness I called in and ordered a full bottle of Ron Rico rum. I told the bartender to pour out 16 shot classes and line then up on the bar. I then broadcast my predicament and said that anyone who would take a rolled up newspaper and dip it in the rum, set it on fire, then line up to light the runway would get a free pint if I landed successfully. I said that if I didn?t get help immediately, I might take out nearby Stonehenge, or perhaps Salisbury Cathedral, in the imminent crash.
Within seconds, I could see the flaming torches dispersing along the field, some in a somewhat drunken fashion. I landed right between the two ragged lines of my improvised landing lights, which lit up the field as clear as day. It was the first time that I landed on a runway that was living, breathing, and even staggering.
As I taxied to my parking space, the starboard engine ran out of fuel and shuddered to a halt. So I just abandoned the plane there to retrieve the next morning. Needless to say, I bought rounds for the house that night until no one was left standing.
Watching the Euro shatter its four month support line this morning at $1.2950, I felt exactly as I did all those years ago in the dark skies over the Wiltshire countryside. The concern was that my put options would run out of fuel before the currency made its big break, forcing me to crash and burn, as I almost did over England. The move sent my short position in the beleaguered currency soaring, and rendered the calls that I sold short only yesterday into dust. It was a good P&L day for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s model portfolio.
I am now seriously thinking of becoming a card carrying member of the Greek Communist Party, for it is their young leader, a Mr. Alexis Tsipras, who provided the final straw that broke the camel?s back. Its leaders threatened to challenge the legality of the recent bailout in court. Is Greek rescue package number three now in the cards? The development threatens to undo all of the hard won progress made this year towards resolution of the continent?s sovereign debt crisis. Did anyone expect that asking people to vote for their own austerity and starvation was going to work?
Long term currency watchers had been mystified as to why the Euro had held up so well in the face of such obviously collapsing fundamentals. The markets were rife with rumors of European Central Bank support at $1.30 to prevent a widespread panic that would ignite wholesale Euro dumping. My own theory was that the trade became so obvious and one sided that hedge fund short covering prevented it from falling further. Today, the fundamentals turned so dire that massive selling finally? cleared out? those positions, which is how these things always end.
All I can say is that when it rains, it pours. The profusion of the market developments that I have been predicting all year have suddenly come true in the last few days; the awful April nonfarm payroll, a global synchronized recession that is accelerating to the downside, and the end of the grotesque overpricing of the US stock markets. Also coming home to roost are the contagion effects on all ?RISK ON? assets, including equities (IWM), commodities (CU), oil (USO), the Euro (FXE) (EU), gold (GLD), silver (SLV), and a huge flight to safety bid for the dollar (UUP) and Treasury bonds (TBT).
I thought this summer might be boring. Perhaps I could be wrong. And you wanted me to manage your money? Anyone for a return flight to Brussels to finish that bottle of wine?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/dtabbey.jpg240360DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-05-08 23:03:462012-05-08 23:03:46Euro Crash Warns of More to Come
If I had a nickel for every time that I heard the term ?Sell in May and go away? this year, I could retire. Oops, I already am retired! In any case, I thought that I would dig out the hard numbers and see how true this old trading adage is.
It turns out that it is far more powerful than I imagined. According to the data in the Stock Trader?s Almanac, $10,000 invested at the beginning of May and sold at the end of October every year since 1950 would be showing a loss today. Amazingly, $10,000 invested on every November 1 and sold at the end of April would today be worth $702,000, giving you a compound annual return of 7.10% .
My friends at the research house, Dorsey, Wright & Associates, (click here for their site at http://www.dorseywright.com/ ) have parsed the data even further. Since 2000, the Dow has managed a feeble return of only 4%, while the long winter/short summer strategy generated a stunning 64%.
Of the 62 years under study, the market was down in 25 May-October periods, but negative in only 13 of the November-April periods, and down only three times in the last 20 years! There have been just three times when the "good 6 months" have lost more than 10% (1969, 1973 and 2008), but with the "bad six month" time period there have been 11 losing efforts of 10% or more.
Being a long time student of the American, and indeed, the global economy, I have long had a theory behind the regularity of this cycle. It?s enough to base a pagan religion around, like the once practicing Druids at Stonehenge.
Up until the 1920?s, we had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. Farmers were always at maximum financial distress in the fall, when their outlays for seed, fertilizer, and labor were at a maximum, but they had yet to earn any income from the sale of their crops. So they had to borrow all at once, placing a large cash call on the financial system as a whole. This is why we have seen so many stock market crashes in October. Once the system swallows this lump, it?s nothing but green lights for six months.
After the cycle was set and easily identifiable by low end computer algorithms, the trend became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Yes, it may be disturbing to learn that we ardent stock market practitioners might in fact be the high priests of a strange set of beliefs. But hey, some people will do anything to outperform the market.
It is important to remember that this cyclicality is not 100%, and you know the one time you bet the ranch, it won?t work. But you really have to wonder what investors are expecting when they buy stocks at these elevated levels, over 1,400 in the S&P 500.
Will company earnings multiples further expand from 14 to 15 or 16? Will the GDP suddenly reaccelerate from a 2% rate to the 4% expected by share prices when the daily data flow is pointing the opposite direction?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/sunbathing.jpg320320DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-05-01 23:02:272012-05-01 23:02:27The Hard Numbers Behind Selling in May.
Last week saw a dramatic deterioration in the economic data that has been the foundation of the Great Bull Market of 2012.
First, we read minutes from a Federal Reserve meeting suggesting that QE3 has been put on a back burner. Then the Department of Labor?s Friday nonfarm payroll report poured gasoline on the fire, coming in at 120,000, versus an expected 210,000. Until this week, the best you could say about the data flow was that it was mixed. Now it is decidedly negative.
Whenever we see sea change events like this bunch up over a short time period, I like to show readers my cross asset class review, which I conduct on a daily basis. This discipline is great at showing which securities are trading in line with the rest of the world, and which ones aren?t. And guess what is looking outrageously expensive right now?
The charts show that trouble has in fact brewing for a few months. Asset classes have been rolling over like a line of dominoes. This is the way bull markets always end, and this time should be no different.
The Australian dollar (FXA) saw the weakness coming first, which peaked on April 6.
The Australian stock market (EWA) followed, peaking on February 28.
Copper (CU) warned that trouble was coming, peaking on February 12.
Then Gold (GLD) faded on April 12.
And Silver (SLV) on February 28.
Bonds never bought the ?RISK ON? on scenario. The ten year Treasury ETF (IEF) is down less than three points from its 2011 peak, instead of the 15 points we should have gotten if the economy had truly entered a sustainable stage in the recovery.
Only equities (SPX) didn?t see ?RISK OFF? coming
Because it was all about Apple (AAPL), which added $225 billion in new market capitalization this year. That amounts to creating the third largest company from scratch, right after Exxon (XOM).
The final message of all of these charts is that equities alone have been powering up for months while every other asset class in the world has been dying a slow death. Experience shows that this only ends in tears for equity holders. I?ll let you adjust your own positions accordingly.
That is the conundrum facing traders, investors, and individuals as we enter the new quarter. For some hedge fund managers, Q1, 2012 was clearly the quarter from hell.
I have been in the market for four decades, long enough to collect an encyclopedia worth of words of wisdom. One of my favorites has always been ?Sell in May and Go? away. On close inspection you?ll find there is more than a modicum of truth is this time worn expression.
Refer to your handy Stock Traders Almanac and you?ll find that for the last 50 years the index yielded a paltry 1% return from May to October. From November to April it brought in a far healthier 7% return.
This explains why you find me with my shoulder to the grindstone from during the winter, and jetting about from Baden Baden to Monte Carlo and Zermatt in the summers. Take away the holidays and this is really a four month a year job.
My friends at StockCharts.com put together the data from the last ten years, and the conclusions on the chart below are pretty undeniable. They have marked every May with a red arrow and Novembers with green arrows.
What is unusual this year is that we are going into the traditional May peak on top of a prodigious 12 % gain in the S&P 500, one of the sturdiest moves in history. History also shows that the bigger the move going into the April peak, the more savage the correction that follows. What do they say in golf? Fore?
Being a long time student of the American, and indeed, the world economy, I have long had a theory behind the regularity of this cycle. It?s enough to base a pagan religion around, like the once practicing Druids at Stonehenge.
Up until the 1920?s, we had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. Farmers were always at maximum financial distress in the fall, when their outlays for seed, fertilizer, and labor were at a maximum, but they had yet to earn any income from the sale of their crops. So they had to all borrow at once, placing a large call on the financial system as a whole. This is why we have seen so many stock market crashes in October. Once the system swallows this lump, its nothing but green lights for six months.
Once the cycle was set and easily identifiable by low end computer algorithms, the trend became a self fulfilling prophesy. Yes, it may be disturbing to learn that we ardent stock market practitioners may in fact be the high priests of a strange set of beliefs. But hey, some people will do anything to outperform the market.
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/bull-2.jpg300400DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-04-02 23:03:182012-04-02 23:03:18If You Sell in May and Go Away, What to do in April?
This time I am going to start with the fundamental argument first, then follow up with the Trade Alert.
We are getting perilously close to a substantial pull back in global risk assets. While this has already started in commodities, the ags, oil, copper, and precious metals, we have yet to see the whites of their eyes in equities. I believe at these levels stocks are the planet?s most overvalued assets, at least on a short term trading basis. So I have begun more aggressively searching for plays that would benefit from substantial moves southward.
My personal preference is to gain downside exposure on small capitalization stocks. You can achieve this through buying put options on the Russell 2000 iShares ETF (IWM).
You have several things going for you in falling markets with this ETF. Small stocks are illiquid and therefore suffer the biggest pullback during market corrections. If Heaven forbid, double dip fears return this summer, small caps will fall the farthest and the fastest. They are most dependent on outside financing which rapidly dries up during times of economic distress.
You can see this clearly during last year?s summer swoon. The last time we thought the world was going to end, the (SPX) fell by 20% while the (IWM) plunged by 29.5%. This means that small cap stocks are likely to deliver 150% of the downside compared to big cap stocks. Making money then with shorts in the (IWM) was like shooting fish in a barrel.
You see this on the upside as well. Since the October, 2011 lows, the (SPX) leapt by 30% compared to a much more virile 38% move by (IWM). The (IWM) really does present the scenario where the smaller (or higher) they are, the harder they fall.
If you go into the options market you get this extra volatility at a discount. June at-the-money puts for the (SPY) carry an implied volatility of 15%, compared to 20% for the (IWM) puts. That means you get 50% more anticipated movement in the index for a premium of only 33%.
For those who wish to avoid options, you can buy the inverse ETF on the sector, the (RWM). But the liquidity for this instrument is a mere shadow of its upside cousin, the (IWM). You are better off shorting the (IWM) than buying the (RWM).
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/497909.jpg961735DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-04-01 23:03:222012-04-01 23:03:22Where to Play From the Short Side
It is already January 24, and the S&P 500 has seen a grand total of two down days so far in 2012. Are we on the eve of one of the great bull markets of all time? Is it off to the races once again?
I follow dozens of fundamental and trading research services and the number that are flashing warning lights right now is close to an all-time high. For example, the AAII sentiment survey now shows that 46% of investors believe that the stock market will be high in six months, well above the 39% historic average. It has only been higher than this 11% of the time since 1990. The put/call ratio has collapsed, indicating that traders no longer see the need for expensive downside protection. It has not been this low since 1998.
A number of surprises have conspired to create this warm and fuzzy feeling. The ECB has engineered a stealth quantitative easing that is helping support asset prices worldwide, as the Federal Reserve did a year ago. The recent spate of European bond auctions has gone well. China surprised many (but not me) with a Q4 GDP of 8.9%.
It is not unusual to see a strong January, which is the most bullish month of the year by a large margin. Since 1928, the average January gain has been 1.69%, compared to 0.51% for all other months. As of this writing, we are up 4.8% month to date and it is definitely appearing overcooked. With the (SPX) up 22.8% in less than four months, it is normal to see data as sizzling as these. The last time traders were this positive was back in April, just ahead of a 25% swoon.
I think we are seeing the same ?benefit of the doubt? market that we saw 12 months ago. Many of the most conservatively run institutions, like pension funds, only change asset allocations once a year, usually in January. With the ten year Treasury bond yielding a pitiful 1.80% at the end of 2011, it forced a natural one time only reweighting out of bonds and into stocks. Much of that new money for stocks gets spent in January.
In additional, with S&P multiples at 12.3, close to a historic lows, many institutions are willing to raise market weightings from underweight to neutral. If the economy improves they will add to positions. If it doesn?t, they will dump what they just bought. I am betting on the latter.
I am looking to see how I could be wrong in this assertion and I am hard pressed to find out how. This morning, the International Monetary Fund predicted that a Europe falling into recession could chop as much as 2% off of world economic growth this year. Is there any way they can avoid a recession? Not with long term interest rates at 6%-14%, the ECB engineering a slow motion decline in short term rates, and the interbank lending rates in a catatonic state. And that is ignoring Greek bond rates at 35%.
Will China?s economy suddenly rebound to double digit growth rates once again? Not if Beijing has anything to say about it, which has been pouring cold water on the economy to extinguish the inflationary fires.
Calling the top in these speculative mini bubbles is always an impossible exercise. But it is safe to say that we are far closer to the top of this move than the bottom, and the next trade alert is far more likely to be a sell than a buy. If you don?t believe me, then take a look at the Elliot wave analysis by my friends at stockcharts.com. It predicts an (SPX) top on this move of 1345 to be followed by a sell off to the trendline at 1,280 at the least, to a complete breakdown of the move at the worst.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2012-01-24 23:03:262012-01-24 23:03:26The Benefit of the Doubt Market
Traders were taken aback this morning when the Department of Labor announced a 50,000 drop in weekly jobless claims to 352,000. The street had been expecting a decline of only 19,000. It was the lowest report in almost three years, and the sharpest weekly decline in seven years.
I tell people that, if stranded on a desert island, this is the one weekly report I would want to call the direction of the economy. So I am up every Thursday morning at 5:30 am PST like an eager beaver awaiting the announcement with baited breath.
The impact will not be as great as the headline number suggests. Nearly half of the figure represents a take back of the 24,000 increase in claims for the previous week. But there is no doubt that it represents an upside surprise for the economy. And you have to put this in the context of a long steady stream of modestly positive economic data that has been printing since the summer.
The release was only able to elicit a small double digit response from the stock market. That?s because we are now up nine out of eleven days, taking the S&P 500 up 4.5% on the year, a far more blistering performance than many expected. That takes us right up to the level of 1,312, which many analysts predicted would be the high for the year.
Break this on substantial volume, and we could reach my own upside limit of 1,370. If you believe that we are trading to the top of a 300 point range from 1,070 to 1,370, as I do, then there is not a lot you want to do here when you are 81% into that move, unless you want to day trade.
At this point, I would like to refer you to my October 30, 2011 piece, ?The Stock Market?s Dream Scenario? by clicking here. Since then, two of my three predicted ?black swans? have occurred, progress on the European sovereign debt problem and the first interest rate cut by the People?s Bank of China in three years. The third, a multi trillion dollars budget and tax compromise in Washington, was dead on arrival. But hey, calling two out of three black swans is not bad!
When climbing peaks in the Alps, the High Sierras, or the Himalayas, you know you?re getting close to the top when the air becomes thin, it is difficult to breathe, and your nose suddenly starts to bleed. I remember trying to smoke a cigarette at 20,000 feet on Mount Everest. If you didn?t keep puffing it went out immediately because of the lack of oxygen.
I am starting to suffer from a similar woozy feeling from the US stock markets. I have long since quit smoking, but the higher the indexes go, the more light headed I feel.
Take a look at the chart below produced last Friday by my friends at StockCharts.com. It shows the NYSE advance-decline ratio smoothed by a five day moving average. We have since blasted through to a new high for the year. The last time we were this high in July, the S&P 500 commenced a 23% swan dive down to 1068.
If you failed to protect yourself from this gut churning plunge, there is a good chance your clients fired you at the end of last year and you are now trolling through Craigslist looking for new employment opportunities. If you did follow the advice of this letter at the time, you sold short the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, gold, the Euro, and the Swiss franc. That enabled you to make a bundle, and your clients are now showering new money upon you.
I was hoping a sweet spot would set up that would allow me to pick up some meaty short positions, like the leveraged short (SDS) and put options, once a squeeze took us up to 1,350 in the S&P 500. Looking at the slow, low volume grind we are getting, I may not get my wish. Instead, we may get a choppy, rolling type top at a lower level that frustrates the hell out of everyone. We could top out as low as 1,312 instead. Every hedge fund trader I know is just sitting on his hands waiting for a decent entry point to present itself.
Aggressive traders may start scaling in short positions from here in small pieces. Until then, discretion is the better part of valor. Only buy here if your clients have a long term view, a very long term view.
Today was a real head scratcher for long time market observers, including myself. Cross market correlations that have served me so well this year are breaking down, and their predictive power has suddenly gone blind. I blame this on the liquidity drought that has plagued the market since the beginning of the month that has confined markets to frustratingly narrow ranges.
There are many reasons for the sudden opacity. The usual seasonal flight to the sidelines seems more pronounced than in years past, as many managers attempt to put a dreadful year behind them. There is still $500 million in trading capital missing from traders who used MF Global as a prime broker. This is especially felt in the energy and metals markets where MF had such a large presence.
High frequency traders have also decamped for more fertile climes in the oil and foreign exchange markets. And we all know that the big hedge funds are getting redemptions, cutting them off at the knees until January.
I?ll give you a few examples. Falling stock markets almost always produce a rising volatility index. But today it fell as low as 23%, a five month low, and closed at only 25.4% even with the Dow off 66 points. The correlation between stocks and gold has been almost perfect since the summer. But the barbarous relic has been in free fall since yesterday with the S&P 500 essentially unchanged. Ditto with the Euro, which managed a two cent plunge today.
The larger question for traders is whether this is a onetime only breakdown in cross market linkages that will end in January, or is it the beginning of a more permanent continental drift. We will find out next month when the ?A? Team managers return to the market and volume recovers.
Let me toss an alternative theory out there. It appears that the year to date returns for all asset classes are rapidly converging on zero. That?s why assets like gold and silver with the great 12 month returns are having the biggest falls this week. The S&P 500 is now down 2.2% on the year, and the Euro is up a miniscule 1.1%. Gold is still hanging on to a 17% gain, while silver is up only 12%, both rapidly headed towards single digits
Is this the inevitable result of a ?no return? world? Sounds like I better stay out of the market in this performance sapping environment, lest my own profits go up in a puff of smoke.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00DougDhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDougD2011-12-13 22:12:022011-12-13 22:12:02Cross Market Correlations Are Breaking Down
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