($SPX) Archives

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or The Bear Market Rally is Over

The Bear market rally is over, or at least that’s what Asian stock futures are screaming at us, and the shorts are piling back on….again.

For the first time in 16 years, I did not have to get up at 6:00 AM to hide Easter eggs. It’s not because my kids don’t believe in the Easter Bunny anymore. They’ll believe in anything that delivers them a free chocolate bunny. It’s because I couldn’t get any eggs. Much of the country’s egg production is being diverted into vaccine production for testing, of which, along with antivirals, there are more than 300 worldwide.

Enough of the happy talk.

It was a classic bear market rally we saw over the past two weeks in every way, retracing 50% of the loss this year. Junk stocks, like hotels, airlines, and cruise lines led, while quality big tech lagged. That’s the exact opposite of what you want to see for a new bull market.

At the Friday high, the Dow (IND) was down only 17% from the February all-time high at a two-decade 20X valuation high.

The US is now losing 2,000 citizens a day to the Coronavirus. That’s how many we lost at the peak of the Vietnam War in a month. We are suffering another 9/11 every day of the week.

More than 16.8 million have lost jobs in three weeks, more than all those gained in six years. Of all American companies with fewer than 500 employees, 54% have closed! JP Morgan (JPM) has just cut its forecast for Q2 GDP from a 25% loss to an end of world 40% decline on an annualized bases.

New York is losing 800 people a day and is burying many of them in mass graves. Bread lines have formed in countless major cities. And you think 17% is enough for a discount for stocks, given that a near-total shutdown will continue for another five weeks?

Are you out of your freaking mind?

Which leads me to believe that another retest in the lows is in the work, no matter how much government money is headed our way.

For a start, it will be three months before the Fed handouts show any meaningful impact on the economy. Second, we are due for a second wave of the virus in the fall, once the initial shelter-in-place ends. Markets will likely behave the same.

In the meantime, long term analysts of the global economic structure are going dizzy with possible permanent changes. I am in the process of writing a couple of pieces on this if I can only get away from the market long enough to do so.

It seems like half the country has lost their jobs, while the other half are now working double time without pay, like myself.

The market was stunned by 6.1 million in Weekly Jobless Claims, taking the implied Unemployment Rate to over 14%, more than seen during the 2008-2009 Great Recession. One out of four Americans will lose their jobs or suffer a serious pay cut in the next two months. At this rate, we will top the Great Depression peak of 25 million in two weeks.

The Fed launched a second $2.3 trillion rescue program, this time lending to states, local municipalities, and buying oil industry junk bonds. More money was made available to small businesses. Jay Powell is redefining what it means to be a central bank, but no one is complaining. It was worth one 500-point rally in the Dow Average, which we have already given back. At this point, almost the entire country is living on welfare.

Stocks soared firefly on falling death rates. Chinese cases are falling after the border closed, Italy and Madrid are going flat, and San Francisco is looking good. There is still a massive, but extremely nervous bid under the market. I’m selling into this rally. We will continue to chop in a (SPX) $2180-$2800 range for the foreseeable future.

Trump says there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but he doesn’t tell you that the light is an oncoming express train. At the very least, the number of deaths will rise at least tenfold from here. That’s how many we lost in the Korean War. It hasn’t even hit the unsheltered states in the Midwest yet.

Gold (GLD) is making a run another all-time highs, topping $1,700. Expect everyone’s favorite hedge to go ballistic. QE infinity and zero interest rates will eventually bring hyperinflation and render the US dollar worthless. Gold production is falling due to the virus. Anything else you need to know?

Mortgage defaults are up 18-fold. People can’t even get through to their banks to tell them they are not going to pay. This is the next financial crisis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to go broke….again.

Can the US government spend money fast enough, given that it has been shrinking for three years? I’m not getting my check until September. It’s not easy to spend $2 trillion in a hurry. I can’t even spend a billion in a hurry. It’s darn hard and I’ve tried. It suggests any recovery will be slower and lasts longer.

Here’s the bearish view on the economy, with Barclay’s Bank looking for an “L” shaped recovery, which means no recovery at all. I’m looking more for a square root type recovery, which means a sharp bounce back to a lower rate of growth. And there may be two “square roots” back to back.

Bond giant PIMCO predicts 30% GDP loss in Q2 on an annualized basis. Everyone staying home doing jigsaw puzzles isn’t doing much for our economic growth. This may end up becoming the most positive forecast out there.

When we come out on the other side of this, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates at zero, oil at $20 a barrel, and many stocks down by three quarters, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 400% or more in the coming decade.

My Global Trading Dispatch performance had a tough week, destroying my performance back to positive numbers for the year. That is thanks to my piling on the shorts in a steadily rising market. This brings short term pain, but medium-term ecstasy.

We are now down -3.99% in April, taking my 2020 YTD return down to -12.41%. That compares to an incredible loss for the Dow Average of -17% from the February top. My trailing one-year return sank to 30.02%. My ten-year average annualized profit was pared back to +33.51%.

My short volatility positions (VXX) were hammered even in a rising market, which means no one believes the rally, including me.

I took nice profits on two very deep in-the-money, very short dated call spreads in Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT), the two safest companies in the entire market, betting that we don’t go to new lows in the next nine trading days. As the market rose, I continued to add to my short position with the 2X ProShares Ultra Short S&P 500 (SDS).

This week, we get the first look at Q1 earnings. All economic data points will be out of date and utterly meaningless this week. The only numbers that count for the market are the number of US Coronavirus cases and deaths, which you can find here.

On Monday, April 13 Citigroup (C) and JP Morgan (JPM) report earnings.

On Tuesday, April 14 at 11:30 AM, the API Crude Oil Stocks are announced.

On Wednesday, April 15, at 2:00 PM, the New York State Manufacturing Index is released.

On Thursday, April 16 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. The number could top 6,000,000 again. At 7:30 AM, US Housing Starts for March are published.

On Friday, April 17 at 7:30 AM, the Baker Hughes Rig Count is released at 2:00 PM. Expect these figures to crash as well.

As for me, before the market carnage of the coming week ensues, I shall be sitting down with my kids and touring the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Many art museums have now opened up their collections online, for free. There is a special exhibition of “Degas at the Opera.” Please enjoy by clicking here.

Next to come will be the Louvre in Paris (click here), and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, VA (click here). I have them tracing the dog tags I brought back from Guadalcanal. I bet some of my old weapons are in there.

Stay healthy.

John Thomas

CEO & Publisher

The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Still Sheltering in Place

April 2, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
April 2, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(THE DEATH OF PASSIVE INVESTING)
(SPY), (SPX), (INDU)
(NOTICE TO MILITARY SUBSCRIBERS)

March 24, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
March 24, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(TEN SIGNS THE MARKET IS BOTTOMING),
(FXI), (BRK/A), (BA), (DAL), (SPX),
(INDU), (UUP), (VIX), (VXX), (AAPL)

Ten Signs the Market is Bottoming

Diary, Newsletter

I spent the morning calling some big hedge fund friends asking what they are looking for to indicate the market may be bottoming. I’ll give you a warning right now. None of the traditional fundamental or technical measures have any validity in this market.

Markets will need to see at least one, and maybe all of these before they launch into a sustainable recovery. The good news is that several have already happened and are flashing green.

1) Watch New Corona Cases in China

The pandemic started in China and it will end in China (FXI). The president of China, Xi Jinping, has already announced that the epidemic is over and that the country is returning to normal. The country is donating thousands of respirators and millions of masks to Europe and poor countries all over the world. China was able to enforce a quarantine far more severe than possible in the West, such as using the army to surround 60 million people for a month. So, the results in the Middle Kingdom may not be immediately transferable to the US.

If we do get an actual fall in the number of cases in China, that could indicate the end is near. To keep track, click here.

2) Watch Corona Cases in Italy

Italy quarantined two weeks before California so we should get an earlier answer there. The numbers are reliable, but we don’t know the true extent of their quarantine. After all, this is Italy. Also, Italy has a much older population than the US (that Mediterranean diet keeps Italians alive forever), so they will naturally suffer a higher death rate. However, a decline in cases there will be proof that a western-style shelter-in-place order will work. To keep track, click here.

3) Watch Corona Cases in California

The Golden State was the first to quarantine ten days ago, so it will be the first American state to see cases top out. On Monday, we were at 1,733 cases and 27 deaths, or one in 1.5 million. However, it is a partial quarantine at best, with maybe half of the 20 million workforce staying home. When our cases top out, which should be the week of April 13, it could be an indication that the epidemic is flagging. To keep track, click here.

4) Watch Washington

Passage of a Corona Economic Recovery Bill could take place as early as Friday and could be worth $2 trillion. Add in the massive stimulus provided by the Federal Reserve, a large multiple of the 2008-2009 efforts, and $10 trillion is about to hit the economy. Warning: don’t be short an economy that is about to be hit with $10 trillion worth of stimulus.

5) Watch the Technicals.

Yes, technicals may be worthless now but someday in the future, they won’t be. The stock market has traded 20% below the 200-day moving average only four times in the last century. The Dow Average (INDU) was 32% below the 200-day moving average at the Monday low. The next rip-your-face off short-covering rally is imminent and may initially target that down 20% level at $21,496, or 18% above the Monday low.

6) Watch for the Big Buy

Value players are back in the market for the first time in six years, the last time the S&P 500 (SPX) traded at a discount to its historical 15.5X earnings multiple and are circling targets like hungry sharks. Watch for Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A) to buy a large part of a trophy property, like a major bank or airline. He’s already stepped up his ownership in Delta Airlines (DAL). I’m sure he’s going over the books of Boeing (BA). Warren might even buy back his own stock at a discount to net asset value, down 31.4% in a month. Any move by Warren will signal confidence to the rest of the markets.

7) Watch the US Dollar

With US overnight interest rates having crashed by 1.5% in recent weeks, the US dollar (UUP) should be the weakest currency in the world. The greenback overnight became a zero-yielding currency. Instead, it has been the strongest, rocketing on a gigantic global flight to safety bid. When the foreign exchange rates return to rationality, the buck should weaken, as it has already started to do after last week’s super spike. A weak dollar will be good for American companies and their stocks.

8) Watch the (VIX)

We now know that the Volatility Index (VIX), (VXX) was artificially boosted last week by hundreds of short players covering positions with gigantic losses and going bust. Now that this is washed out, I expect volatility to decline for the rest of 2020. It has already fallen from $80 to $49 in days. This is a precursor to a strong stock market.

9) Watch the Absolute Value of the Market

There could be a magic number beyond which prices can’t fall anymore. That could be yesterday’s 18,000, 17,000, or 15,000. Some 80% of all US stocks are owned by long term holders who never sell, like pension funds, corporate crossholdings, or individuals who have owned them for decades and don’t want to pay the capital gains tax. When the ownership of that 20% is shifted to the 80%, the market runs out of sellers and stocks can’t fall anymore. That may have already happened. Similarly, a final capitulation selloff of market leaders, like Apple (AAPL) may also be a sign that the bear market is ending. (AAPL) is off 34.40% since February.

10) Watch John Thomas

I am watching all of the above 24/7. So rather than chase down all these data points every day, just watch for my next trade alert. I am confined to my home office for the duration, probably for months, so I have nothing else to do. No trips to Switzerland, the Taj Mahal, or the Great Pyramids of Egypt for me this year. It will just be nose to the grindstone.

Stay Healthy and we’ll back a killing on the back nine.

John Thomas

March 16, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
March 16, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or THE PANIC IS ON),
(INDU), (SPX), (VIX), (VXX), (GLD), (USO), (TLT), (AAPL), (WYNN), (CCL), (UAL)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or The Panic is On

Diary, Newsletter

I just drove from Carmel, California to San Francisco on scenic Highway 1. I was virtually the only one on the road.

The parking lot at Sam’s Chowder House was empty for the first time in its history. The Pie Ranch had a big sign in front saying “Shut”. The Roadhouse saw lights out. It was like the end of the world.

The panic is on.

The economy has ground to a juddering halt. Most US schools are closed, sports activities banned, and travel of any kind cancelled. All ski resorts in the US are shut down as are all restaurants, bars, and clubs in California. Virtually all public events of any kind have been barred for the next two months. Apple (AAPL) and Nike (NIKE) have closed all their US stores.

The moment I returned from my trip, I learned that the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by a mind-boggling 1.00% on the heels of last week’s 0.50% haircut. This is unprecedented in history. S&P Futures responded immediately by going limit down for the third time in a week.

The most pessimistic worst-case scenario I outlined a week ago came true in days. The (SPX) is now trading at 2,500. Goldman Sachs just put out a downside target at 2,000, off 41% in three weeks.

That takes the market multiple down from 20X three weeks ago to 14X, and the 2020 earnings forecast to crater from $165 to $143. These are numbers considered unimaginable only a week ago.

You can blame it all on the Coronavirus. Global cases shot above 160,000 yesterday, while deaths exceeded 5,800. In the US, we are above 3,000 cases with 60 deaths. The pandemic is growing by at least 10% a day. All international borders are effectively closed.

The stock market has effectively impeached Donald Trump, unwinding all stock market gains since his election. At the Thursday lows, the Dow Average ticked below 20,000, less than when he was elected. Economic growth may be about to do the same, wiping out the 7% in economic growth that has taken place during the same time.

Leadership from the top has gone missing in action. The president has told us that the pandemic “amounts to nothing”, is “no big deal”, and a Democratic “hoax.” There is no Fed effort to build a website to operate as a central clearing house for Corona information. In the meantime, the number of American deaths has been doubling every three days.

There have only been 13,500 tests completed in the US so far and they are completely unavailable in my area. The bold action to stem the virus has come from governors of the states of all political parties.

The good news is that all this extreme action will work. If you shut down the economy growth, the virus will do the same. In two weeks, all carriers will become obvious. Then you simply quarantine them. Any dilution of the self-quarantine strategy simply stitches out the process and the market decline.

The hope now is that the recession, which we certainly are now in, will be sharp but short. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is certainly in control now.

When we come out the other side of this, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates at zero, oil at $25 a barrel, and many stocks down by half, there will be no reason not to.

Oil (USO) crashed, taking Texas tea down an incredible $22 overnight. OPEC collapsed as Saudi Arabia took on Russia in a price war, flooding the market. All American fracking companies with substantial debt have just been rendered worthless. I told you to stay away from MLPs! It’s amazing to see how the effect of one million new electric cars can have on the oil market. Blame it all on Elon Musk.

The oil crash is all about the US. American fracking has added 4 million barrels a day of supply over the last five years and 8 million b/d during the last ten. Saudi Arabia and Russia would love to wipe out the entire US industry.

Even if they do, the private equity boys are lining up to buy assets at ten cents on the dollar and bring in a new generation of equity investors. The wells may not even stop pumping. How do you say “Creative Destruction” in Arabic and Russian? We do it better than anyone else.

Gold (GLD) soared above $1,700, on a massive flight to safety bid bringing the old $1,927 high within easy reach.

Bond yields (TLT) plunged to 0.31% as recession fears exploded. Looks like we are headed to 0% interest rates in this cycle. Corona cases top 4,000 in the US and fatalities are rising sharply. Malls, parking lots, and restaurants are all empty.

Trump triggered a market crash, with a totally nonsensical Corona plan. Banning foreigners from the US will NOT stop the epidemic but WILL cause an instant recession, which the stock market is now hurriedly discounting. This is an American virus now, not a foreign one or a Chinese one. The market has totally lost faith in the president, who did everything he could to duck responsibility. The US is short 100,000 ICU beds to deal with the coming surge in cases. No one has any test kits at the local level. We could already have 1 million cases and not know it.

The US could lose two million people, according to forecasts by some scientists. At 100 million cases with a 5% fatality rate, get you there in three months. That could cause this bear market to take a 50% hit. The US is now following the Italian model, doing too little too late, where bodies are piling up at hospitals faster than they can be buried.

Stocks are back to their January 2017 lows, down 1,000 (SPX) points and 9,500 Dow points (INDU) in three weeks. Yikes! Unfortunately, I lived long enough to see this. We’ve seen 14 consecutive days of 1,000-point moves. The speed of the decline is unprecedented in financial history.

The Recession is on. Look for a short, sharp recession of only two quarters. JP Morgan is calling for a 2% GDP loss in Q2 and a 3% hit in Q3. The good news is that the stock market has already almost fully discounted this. The only way to beat Corona is to close down the economy for weeks.

A two-week national holiday is being discussed, or the grounding of all US commercial aircraft. Warren Buffet has cancelled Berkshire Hathaway’s legendary annual meeting. All San Francisco schools are closed, events and meetings cancelled. The acceleration to the new online-only economy is happening at light speed.

Municipal bonds crashed, down ten points in three days to a one-year low. If you thought that you parked your money in a safe place, think again. Municipalities are seeing tax and fee incomes collapse in the face of the Coronavirus. Brokers are in panic dumping inventories to meet margin calls. There is truly no place to hide in this crisis but cash, which is ALWAYS the best hedge. I would start buying (MUB) around here.

Bitcoin collapsed 50% in two days, to an eye-popping $4,000. So much for the protective value of crypto currencies. I told you to stay away. No Fed help here.

My Global Trading Dispatch performance has gone through a meat grinder, pulling back by -10.36% in March, taking my 2020 YTD return down to -13.28%. That compares to an incredible loss for the Dow Average of -32% at the Friday low. My trailing one-year return was pared back to 35.31%. My ten-year average annualized profit shrank to +33.84%.

I have been fighting a battle for the ages on a daily basis to limit my losses. My goal here is to make it back big time when the market comes roaring back in the second half.

My short volatility positions have been hammering me. I shorted the (VXX) when the Volatility Index (VIX) was at $35. It then went to an unbelievable $76. I was saved by only trading in very long maturity, very deep out-of-the-money (VXX) put options where time value will maintain a lot of their value. These will all come good well before their one-year expiration.

I also took profits in four short position at the market lows in Apple (AAPL) and the three short positions in Corona-related stocks, (CCL), (WYNN), and (UAL), which cratered, picking up an 8% profit there.

At the slightest sign of a break in the pandemic, the economy and shares should come roaring back. As things stand, I can handle a 3,000 point in the Dow Average from here and still have all of my existing positions expire at their maximum profit point with the Friday options expiration.

On Monday, March 16 at 7:30 AM, the New York Empire State Manufacturing Index is out.

On Tuesday, March 17 at 5:00 AM, the Retail Sales for February is released.

On Wednesday, March 18, at 7:30 AM, the Housing Starts for February is printed.

On Thursday, March 19 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.

On Friday, March 20 at 9:00 AM, the February Existing Home Sales is published. The Baker Hughes Rig Count follows at 2:00 PM.

As for me, I went down to Carmel, California to hole up in a hotel near the most perfect beach in the state and do some serious writing. This is the city where beachfront homes go for $10 million and up, mostly owned by foreign investors and tech billionaires from San Francisco. Locals decamped from here ages ago because it became too expensive to live in.

This is also where my parents honeymooned in 1949, borrowing my grandfather’s 1947 Ford.

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

March 13, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
March 13, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARCH 11 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
(INDU), (SPX), (LVMH), (CCL), (WYNN), (AXP), (JPM), (MSFT), (AAPL), (NVDA)

March 11, 2020 - Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader March 11 Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from Silicon Valley, CA with my guest and co-host Bill Davis of the Mad Day Trader. Keep those questions coming!

Q: What is the worst-case scenario for this bear market?

A: The average earnings loss for a recession is 13%. Last year, we earned $165 a share for the S&P 500. So, a recession would take us down to $143 a share. Multiply that by the 15.5X hundred-year average earnings multiple, where we are now, and that would take the (SPX) down to 2,200. However, if we get 100 million cases and 5 million deaths, as some scientists are predicting, we could get a 2008 repeat and a 50% crash in the (SPX) to 1,700. With the administration asleep at the switch, that is clearly a possibility. Nice knowing you all.

Q: Do you think we’re still setting up for another roaring 20s?

A: Yes, absolutely. We could not have a roaring 20s unless we got a major selloff and clearing out of old positions like we're getting now. That flushes out all the old capital and positions and paves the way for people to set up brand new positions at really bargain prices. If you missed the 2009 bottom, here's another chance.

Q: Will the fiscal stimulus help defeat the coronavirus?

A: No, viruses are immune to money. They don’t take PayPal or American Express (AXP). The president has been able to buy his way out of all his other problems until now; there’s no way to buy his way out of this one.

Q: Is JP Morgan’s (JPM) Jamie Dimon getting a heart attack related to the financial crisis?

A: Probably, yes. In a normal time, the pressure of a CEO in these big banks is enormous. All of a sudden half of your small customers are looking at bankruptcy—the pressure has to be immense. You've got customers screaming for short term loan facilities, you’ve got risk managers asking for margin extensions. And you certainly don't want to buy the banks here. I think this may be the final selloff with legacy banks, from which they never recover. The banks will disappear and come back online.

Q: What would you do with a $45,000-dollar portfolio right now? I don’t do options.

A: Look at my story on Ten Leaps to Buy at Market Bottom. Use those names—Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), NVIDIA (NVDA), etc.—and just buy the stocks. Buy half now and a half in a month. This is a time to dollar cost average. And you’re looking at doubles at a minimum 3 years down the road—at the end of this year if you’re lucky. Once the virus burns out, it will only take a couple months to do that. Then it will be off to the races once again.

Q: Since the 2018 low was never tested, what do you think of 2400/2450?

A: I think that’s great. And you can get a half dozen different analyses that all come up with numbers around 2400, 2500, 2600. That’s where the final low will be—where you get a convergence of multiple support lines and opinions.

Q: Will buybacks come back or are they over for now?

A: They will come back once markets bottom. Companies aren’t stupid; they don’t like buying their own stocks at all-time highs, but they certainly will come in with major amounts of buying when they see their stocks down 20% or 30%. That's certainly what Apple is going to do.

Q: Will luxury retail shares get killed in the current market?

A: Yes, especially stocks like (LVMH), the old Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey. They’re already down 37% this year. When it becomes clear that we are in an actual recession, these luxury names across the board will get completely abandoned. By the way, I worked with the son of the founder of this company when I was at Morgan Stanley. We called him “Bubbles.”

Q: Are there any similarities to 2008?

A: Yes; it’s worse because the market is dropping much faster than it ever has before. The 52% selloff in 2008 was spread out over the course of 18 months. Here, it’s taken only 14 trading days to see half of the damage done back then. It’s truly unbelievable.

Q: What do you think about gold (GLD)?

A: Even though gold is going up, gold miners (GDX) are doing terribly because they are stocks. They get tarred with the same brush blackening all other stocks. This is exactly what happened during the 2008-2009 crash. Fundamentals go out the window in these kinds of trading conditions, but they always come back.

Q: Is Europe in recession?

A: Absolutely, yes. I saw an interview with the Adidas CEO (ADDYY) this morning on TV and they said sales are off 90% on a month-on-month basis. Their stock is down 49% this year. You can bet that every other consumer company in Europe is suffering similar declines.

Q: What will real estate do in the next 3 months?

A: It's impossible to price real estate so finely because it's so illiquid. However, I expect it to hold up here because of super low interest rates, and then keep rising over the long term. We’re not going to get anything like the crashes we saw in 2008-2009 because all the excess leverage is not in the real estate market now, it’s in the stock market, where we are getting a much-deserved crash. If anything, I’d be buying rental properties here in low cost cities.

Q: What if the Dow Average (INDU) reaches the 300-day moving average?

A: It’s a nice theory, but technicals are meaningless in the face of panic selling. You don't want to get too fancy looking at these charts. When you have a billion shares to go at market, the 200 or 300 day moving average means nothing.

Good Luck and Good Trading. And stay healthy.

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

March 9, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
March 9, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or SEARCHING FOR A BOTTOM),
(SPX), (VIX), (VXX), (CCL), (UAL), (WYNN)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or Searching for a Bottom

Diary, Newsletter

OK, I’ll give it to you straight.

If the American Coronavirus epidemic stabilizes at current levels of infection, the double bottom in the S&P 500 (SPX) at 2,850 will hold, down 16% from the all-time high two weeks ago.

If it gets worse, it won’t, possibly taking the index down another 8.8% to 2,600, the 2018 low. Not only have we lost the 2019 stock market performance, we may be about to lose 2018 as well.

Of course, the problem is testing kits, which the government has utterly failed to provide in adequate numbers. The president is relying on disease figures provided by Fox News and ignoring those of his own experts at the CDC. And the president told us that the governor of Washington state, the site of the first US Corona hot spot, is a “snake,” and that the outbreak on the Diamond Princess is not his fault.

It’s not the kind of leadership the stock market is looking for at the moment. It amounts to an economic and biological “Pearl Harbor” where the government slept while the disease ran rampant. Until we get the true figures, markets will assume the worst. The real number of untested cases could be in the hundreds of thousands or millions, not the 350 reported. And stock prices will react accordingly.

There is an interesting experiment going on at the Grand Princess 100 miles off the coast of San Francisco right now which will certainly affect your health. Of the 39 showing Corona symptoms, 21 were found to have the disease and 19 of these were crew.

That means ALL of the passengers who took the last ten cruises were exposed, about 30,000 people, 90% of whom are back ashore. The Grand Princess may turn out to be the “Typhoid Mary” of our age.

You can see these fears expressed in the volatility index, which hit a decade high on Friday at $55, although it closed at $42. We live in a world now were all economic data is useless, earnings forecasts are wildly out of date, and technical analysis is ephemeral at best. Airlines, restaurants, and public events are emptying out everywhere and the deleterious effects on the economy will be extreme.

That is kind of hard to trade.

The good news is that this won’t last more than a couple of months. By June, the epidemic will be fading, or we’ll all be dead. All of the buying you see now is of the “look through” kind where investors are picking up once in a decade bargains in the highest quality companies in expectation of ballistic moves upward out the other side of the epidemic.

Enormous fortunes will be made, but at the cost of a few sleepless nights over the next few weeks. The bear market will end when everyone who needs tests get them and we obtain the results.

The Fed cut interest rates by 50 basis points taking the overnight rate down to 1.25%. They may cut again in two weeks. Traders were looking for some kind of global stimulus to head off a global recession. Markets are in “show me” mode and were down 300 prior to the announcement.

Quantitative Easing has become the cure for all problems. So, if it doesn’t work, try, try again? The Fed has now used up all its dry powder levitating the stocks, with the market already at a 1.00% yield for ten-year money. We need a vaccine, not a rate cut. New York schools close on virus fears.

The Beige Book says Corona is a worry, in their minutes from the last Fed meeting six weeks ago, mentioning it 48 times in yesterday’s report. No kidding? Travel and leisure are the hardest hit, and international trade is in free fall. The presidential election is also arising as a risk to the economy. Worst of all, the new James Bond movie has been postponed until November. The report only applies to data collected before February 24.

The next recession just got longer and deeper, as the Fed gives away the last of its dry powder. It’s the first time the central bank was used to fight a virus. It only creates more short selling and volatility opportunities for me down the line. Thanks Jay!

Gold ETF assets hit all-time high, both through capital appreciation and massive customer inflows. Fund values have exceeded the 2012 high, when gold futures reached $1,927. They saw 84 metric tonnes added to inventory in February. The barbarous relic is a great place to hide out for the virus. I expect a new all-time high this year and a possible run to $3,000.

Biotech & healthcare are back! Bernie’s thrashing last week in ten states takes nationalization of health care off the table for good. Biden should sweep most of the remaining states. There’s nothing left for Bernie but Michigan and Florida. Buy Health Care and Biotech on the dip!

The Nonfarm Payroll was up 273,000 in February, much higher than expectations. At least we HAD a good economy. The headline unemployment rate was 3.5%%. As if anyone cares. The only number right now that counts is new Corona infections. This may be the last good report for a while, possibly for years.

Private Payrolls were up 183,000, says the February ADP Report. No Corona virus here. Do you think companies believe this is a short-term ephemeral thing? What if they gave a pandemic and nobody came?

Mortgage Applications were up 26%, week on week, as free money keeps the housing market on fire. Don’t expect too much from the banks though. Mine offered a jumbo loan at 3.6%. Banks are not lining up to sell at the bottom.

The OPEC Meeting was desperate to stabilize prices and they failed utterly. But if they fail to deliver at least 1 million barrels a day in production slowdowns at their Friday Vienna meeting, Texas tea could reach the $30 a barrel handle in days.

The airline industry will lose $113 billion from the virus, says IATA, the International Air Transport Association. All events everywhere have been cancelled, even my Boy Scout awards dinner for Sunday night and my flight to a wedding in April. Lufthansa just cancelled half of all it flights worldwide. Who knows where the bottom is for this industry? I bet you didn’t know that airline ticket sales account for 8% of all credit card purchases. Keeping my short in United Airlines (UAL).

My Global Trading Dispatch performance took a shellacking, pulling back by -4.41% in March, taking my 2020 YTD return down to -7.33%. That compares to a return for the Dow Average of -16% at the Friday low. My trailing one-year return is stable at 48.44%. My ten-year average annualized profit ground back up to +34.00%.

I took my hit of the year on Friday, losing 4.4% on my bond short. A 9-point gap move has never happened in the long history of the bond market. Fortunately, my losses were mitigated by a five-point dip I was able to use to get out, a hedge within my bond position, and three short positions in Corona related-stocks, (CCL), (WYNN), and (UAL), which cratered.

All eyes will be focused on the Coronavirus still, with deaths over 3,000. The weekly economic data are virtually irrelevant now. This is usually the weakest week of the month on the data front.

On Monday, March 9 at 10:00 AM, the Consumer Inflation Expectations is out.

On Tuesday, March 10 at 5:00 AM, the NFIB Business Optimism Index is released.

On Wednesday, March 11, at 7:30 AM, the Core Inflation Rate for February is printed.

On Thursday, March 12 at 8:30 AM, Initial Jobless Claims are announced. Core Producer Price Index for February is also out.

On Friday, March 13 at 9:00 AM, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is published. The Baker Hughes Rig Count follows at 2:00 PM.

As for me, I’ll be shopping for a cruise this summer. I am getting offered incredible deals on cruises all over the world. Suddenly, every cruise line in the world is having sales of the century.

Shall it be a Panama Canal cruise for $99, a trip around the Persian Gulf for $199, or a voyage retracing the route of the HMS Bounty across the Pacific for $299. Of course, the downside is that I may be subject to a two-week quarantine on a plague ship on my return.

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

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