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November 2 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the November 2 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from Silicon Valley in California.

Q: The country is running out of diesel fuel this month. Should I be stocking up on food?

A: No, any shortages of any fuel type are all deliberately engineered by the refiners to get higher fuel prices and will go away soon. I think there was a major effort to get energy prices up before the election. If that's the case, then look for a major decline after the election. The US has an energy glut. We are a net energy exporter. We’re supplying enormous amounts of natural gas to Europe right now, and natural gas is close to a one-year low. Shortages are not the problem, intentions are. And this is the problem with the whole energy industry, and the reason I'm not investing in it. Any moves up are short-term. And the industry's goal is to keep prices as high as possible for the next few years while demand goes to zero for their biggest selling products, like gasoline. I would be very wary about doing anything in the energy industry here, as you could get gigantic moves one way or the other with no warning.

Q Is the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) put spread, correct?

A: Yes, we had the November $400-$410 vertical bear put spread, which we just sold for a nice profit.

Q: I missed the LEAPS on J.P. Morgan (JPM) which has already doubled in value since last month, will we get another shot to buy?

A: Well you will get another shot to buy especially if another major selloff develops, but we’re not going down to the old October lows in the financial sector. I believe that a major long-term bull move has started in financials and other sectors, like healthcare. You won’t get the October lows, but you might get close to them.

Q: I’m waiting for a dip to get into Eli Lilly (LLY), but there are no dips.

A: Buy a little bit every day and you’ll get a nice average in a rising market. By the way, I just added Eli Lilly to my Mad Hedge long-term model portfolio, which you received on Thursday.

Q: Any thoughts about the conclusion of the Twitter deal and how it will affect tech and social media?

A: So far all of the indications are terrible. Advertisers have been canceling left and right, hate speech is up 500%, and Elon Musk personally responded to the Pelosi assassination attempt by trotting out a bunch of conspiracy theories for the sole purpose of raising traffic and not bringing light to the issue. All indications are bad, but I've been with Elon Musk on several startups in the last 25 years and they always look like they’re going bust in the beginning. It’s not even a public stock anymore and it shouldn’t be affecting Tesla (TSLA) prices either, which is still growing 50% a year, but it is.

Q: In terms of food commodities for 2023, where are prices headed?

A: Up. Not only do you have the war in Ukraine boosting wheat, soybean, and sunflower prices, but every year, global warming is going to take an increasing toll on the food supply. I know last summer when it hit 121 degrees in the Central Valley, huge amounts of crops were lost due to heat. They were literally cooked on the vine. We now have a tomato shortage and people can’t make pasta sauce because the tomatoes were all destroyed by the heat. That’s going to become an increasingly common issue in the future as temperatures rise as fast as they have been.

Q: Do I trade options in Alphabet (GOOG) or Alphabet (GOOGL)?

A: The one with the L is the holding company, the one without the L is the advertising company and the stock movements are really identical over the long term, so there really isn’t much differentiation there.

Q: Why can’t inflation be brought down by increasing the supply of all goods?

A: Because the companies won’t make them. The companies these days very carefully manage output to keep prices as high as possible. It’s not only the energy industry that does that but also all industries. So those in the manufacturing sector don’t have an interest in lowering their prices—they want high prices. If they see the prices fall, they will cut back supply.

Q: What do you think about growth plays?

A: As long as interest rates are rising, growth will lag and value will lead, and that has been clear as day for the last month. This is why we have an overwhelming value tilt to our model portfolio and our recent trade alerts. They’ve all been banks—JP Morgan (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), plus Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) and Visa (V) and virtually nothing in tech.

Q: I don’t know how to execute spread trades in options so how do I take advantage of your service?

A: Every trade alert we send out has a link to a video that shows you exactly how to do the trade. I have to admit, I’m not as young as I was when I made the videos, but they’re still valid.

Q: Is the US housing market about to crash?

A: There is a shortage of 10 million houses in the US, with the Millennials trying to buy them. If you sell your house now, you may not be able to buy another one without your mortgage going from 2.75% to 7.75%—that tends to dissuade a lot of potential selling. We also have this massive demographic wave of 85 million millennials trying to buy homes from 65 million gen x-ers. That creates a shortage of 20 million right there. That's why rents are going up at a tremendous rate, and that's why house prices have barely fallen despite the highest interest rates in 20 years.

Q: If we get good news from the Fed, should we invest in 3X ETFs such as the ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ)?

A: No, I never invest in 3X ETFs, because they are structured to screw the investor for the benefit of the issuer. These reset at the close every day, so do 2 Xs and not more. If you're not making enough money on the 2Xs, maybe you should consider another line of business.

Q: Do you think BlackRock Corporate High Yield Fund (HYT) will show the pain of slights because of their green positioning?

A: No I don’t, if anything green investing is going to accelerate as the entire economy goes green. And you’ll notice even the oil companies in their advertising are trying to paint themselves as green. They are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. They’ll never be green, but they’ll pretend to be green to cover up the fact that they just doubled the cost of gasoline.

Q: Where do you find the yield on Blackrock?

A: Just go to Yahoo Finance, type in (BLK), and it will show the yield right there under the product description. That’s recalculated by algorithms constantly, depending on the price.

Q: Do you like Cameco (CCJ)?

A: Yes, for the long term. Nuclear reactors have been given an extra five years of life worldwide thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even Japan is opening theirs.

Q: Should I short the US dollar (UUP) here?

A: The answer is definitely maybe. I would look for the dollar to try to take one more run at the highs. If that fails, we could be beginning a 10-year bear market in the dollar, and bull market in the Japanese yen, Australian dollar, British pound, and euro. This could be the next big trade.

Q: What is your outlook on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) now?

A: I think it looks great. REITs are now commonly yielding 10%. The worst-case scenario on interest rates has been priced in—buying a REIT is essentially the same thing as buying a treasury bond, but with twice the leverage, because they have commercial credits and not government credits. We’ll be doing a lot more work on REITS. We also have tons of research on REITS from 12 years ago, the last time interest rates spiked. I'll go in and see who’s still around, and I'll be putting out some research on it.

Q: How do you see the price development of gold (GLD)?

A: Lower—the charts are saying overwhelmingly lower. Gold has no place in a rising interest rate world. At least silver (SLV) has solar panel demand.

Q: Do you have any fear of Korea going into IT?

A: Yes, they will always occupy the low end of mass manufacturing, and you can see that in the cellphone area; Samsung actually sells more phones than Apple, but they’re cheaper phones with lower-end lagging technology, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. They make practically no money on these.

Q: When can we get some more trade alerts?

A: We are dead in the middle of my market timing index, so it says do nothing. I’m looking for either a big move down or big move up to get back into the market. This is a terrible environment to chase trades when you're trading, so I'm going to wait for the market to come to me.

Q: What about water as an investment? The Invesco Water Resources ETF (PHO)?

A: Long term I like it. There’s a chronic shortage of fresh water developing all over the world, and we, by the way, need major upgrades of a lot of water systems in the US, as we saw in Jackson, MS, and Flint, MI.

Q: Will REITs perform as well as buying rental properties over the next 10 to 20 years?

A: Yes, rental properties should do very well, as long as you’re not buying any city that has rent control. I have some rental properties in SF and dealing with rent control is a total nightmare, you’re basically waiting for your tenants to die before you raise the rent. I don’t think they have that in Nevada. But in Las Vegas, you have the other issue that is water. I think the shortage of water will start to drag on real estate prices in Las Vegas.

To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log on to www.madhedgefundtrader.com go to MY ACCOUNT, click on GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, then WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last 12 years are there in all their glory.

Good Luck and Stay Healthy,

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

It’s Been a Tough Market

October 31, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
October 31, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or WAS THAT THE POST-ELECTION RALLY?)
(SPY), (TLT), (VIX), (V), (MA), (AXP)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or Was that the Post-Election Rally?

Diary, Newsletter

I have been through 11 bear markets in my lifetime, and I can tell you that the most ferocious rallies always take place in bear markets. This one is no exception. Short sellers always have a limited ability to take pain.

This rally took the Dow Average up 14.4% during the month of October, the biggest such monthly gain since 1976 (hmmm, just out of college and working for The Economist magazine in Tokyo, and dodging bullets in Cambodia).

The Dow outperformed NASDAQ by 9% in October, the most in 20 years. That is a pretty rare event. During the pandemic, the was a tremendous “pull forward” of technology stocks, as only commerce was possible. Now it is time for their earnings to catch up with pandemic valuations, which may take another year.

But first, let me tell you about my performance.

With some of the greatest market volatility in market history, my October month-to-date performance ballooned to +4.87%.

That leaves me with only one short in the (SPY) and 90% cash.

My 2022 year-to-date performance ballooned to +74.55%, a new high. The Dow Average is down -9.47% so far in 2022.

It is the greatest outperformance on an index since Mad Hedge Fund Trader started 14 years ago. My trailing one-year return maintains a sky-high +77.95%.

That brings my 14-year total return to +587.88%, some 2.86 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period and a new all-time high. My average annualized return has ratcheted up to +45.60%, easily the highest in the industry.

And of course, there is no better indicator of the market strength than the Mad Hedge Market Timing Index, which broke above 50 for the first time in six months, all the way to 61.

It's no surprise that investors sold what was expensive (tech) and what was bought that was cheap (banks). It’s basic investing 101. Tech is still trading at a big premium to the market and double the price earnings of banks

The prospect of an end to Fed tightening has ignited a weaker dollar, prompting a stronger stock market that generated the rocket fuel for this month’s move.

All the negatives have gone, the seasonals, earnings reports, a strong dollar, and in 8 days, the election. Don’t forget that the (SPX) has delivered an eye-popping 16.3% return for every midterm election since 1961, all 15 of them.

The put/call spread is the biggest in history, about 1:4, showing that investors are piling in, or at least covering shorts, as fast as they can. Individual stock call options are trading at the biggest premiums ever.

Suffice it to say that I expected all of this, told you about it daily, and we are both mightily prospering as a result.

Much of the selling this year hasn’t been of individual stocks but of S&P 500 Index plays to hedge existing institutional portfolios. The exception is with tax loss selling to harvest losses to offset other gains. That means indiscriminate index selling begets throwing babies out with the bathwater on an industrial scale. And here is your advantage as an individual investor.

A classic example is Visa (V) which I’m’ liking more than ever right now, which I aggressively bought on the last two market downturns. The company has ample cash flow, carries no net debt, and with high inflation, is a guaranteed double-digit sales and earnings compounder.

It clears a staggering $10 trillion worth of transactions a year. With $29.3 billion in revenues in 2022 and $16 billion in net income, it has a technology-like 55% profit margin. Visa is also an aggressive buyer of its own shares, about 3% a year. That’s because it trades at a discount to other credit card processors, like Master Car (MA) and American Express (AXP).

The only negative for Visa is that it gets 55% of its earnings from aboard, which have been shrunken by the strong dollar. That is about to reverse.

It turns out that digital finance never made a dent in Visa’s prospects, as the dreadful performance of PayPal (PYPL) and Square (SQ) shares amply demonstrate.

Remember, however, that the Fed is raising interest rates by 0.75% to a 3.75%-4.00% range on Wednesday, November 2, and may do so again in December. It has been the fastest rate rise of my long and illustrious career, and also the best telegraphed.

That may give us one more dip in the stock market that will enable us to buy in on the coming Roaring Twenties.

We’ll see.

My Ten-Year View

When we come out the other side of the recession, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With the economy decarbonizing and technology hyper-accelerating, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The America coming out the other side will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 240,000 here we come!

On Monday, October 31 at 6.45 AM, the Chicago PMI for October is released.

On Tuesday, November 1 at 7:00 AM, the JOLTS job opening report for September is out.

On Wednesday, November 2 at 8:30 AM, ADP Private Employment Report for October is published. The Fed raises interest rates at 11:00 AM and follows with a press conference at 11:30.

On Thursday, November 3 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.

On Friday, November 4 at 8:30 AM the Nonfarm Payroll Report for October is printed. At 2:00, the Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count is out.

As for me, during the late 1980s, the demand for Japanese bonds with attached equity warrants was absolutely exploding.

Japan was Number One, the engine of technological innovation. Everyone in the world owned a Sony Walkman. They were trouncing the United States with 45% of its car market.

The most conservative estimate for the Nikkei Average for the end of 1990 was 50,000, or up 27%. The high end was at 100,000. Why not? After all, the Nikkei had just risen tenfold in ten years and the Japanese yen had tripled in value.

In 1989, my last full year at Morgan Stanley, the Japanese warrant trading desk accounted for 80% of the firm’s total equity division profits.

The deals were coming hot and heavy. Since Morgan Stanley had the largest Japanese warrant trading operation in London, a creation of my own, we were invited to join so many deals that the firm ran out of staff to attend the signings.

Since I was the head of trading, I thought it odd that the head of investment banking wanted to speak to me. It turned out that Morgan Stanley was co-managing two monster $3 billion bond deals on the same day. Could I handle the second one? Our commission for the underwritings was $10 million for each deal!

I thought, why not, better to see how the other half lived. So, I said “yes.”

The attorneys showed up minutes later. I was given a power of attorney to sign on behalf of the entire firm and commit our capital to the underwriting $3 billion five-year bond issue for the Industrial Bank of Japan. The deal was especially attractive as the bonds carried attached put options on the Nikkei which institutional investors could buy to hedge their Japanese stock portfolios.

Since the Industrial Bank of Japan thought the stock market would never see a substantial fall, they happily sold short the put options. Only the Industrial Bank of Japan could have pulled this off as it was one of the largest and highest-rated banks in Japan. I knew the CEO well.

It turned out that there was a lot more to a deal signing than I thought, as it was done in the traditional British style. We met at the lead manager’s office in the City of London in an elegant wood-paneled private dining room filled with classic 18^th century furniture.

First, there was a strong gin and tonic which you could have lit with a match. A five-course meal accompanied with a 1977 deep Pouilly Fuse white and a 1952 Bordeaux red with authority. I had my choice of elegant desserts. Sherry and a 50-year-old port followed, along with Cuban cigars, which was a problem since I had just quit smoking (my wife recently bore twins).

The British were used to these practices. Any American banker would have been left staggering, as drinking during business hours back then was illegal in New York.

Then out came the paperwork. I signed with my usual flourish and the rest of the managers followed. The Industrial Bank of Japan provided the Dom Perignon as they were about to receive $3 billion in cash the following week.

Then an unpleasant thought arose in the back of my mind. Morgan Stanley assumed the complete liability for their share of the deal. But did I just incur a massive personal liability as well?

Then I thought, naw, why pee on someone’s parade. Morgan Stanley’s been doing this for 50 years. Certainly, they knew what they were doing.

Besides, the Japanese stock market is going up forever, right? No harm, no foul. In any case, I left Morgan Stanley to start my own hedge fund a few months later.

Some seven months later, one of the greatest stock market crashes of all time began. The Nikkei fell 50% in six months and 85% in 20 years. Some 32 years later the Nikkei still hasn’t recovered its old high.

For a few years, that little voice in the back of my mind recurred. The bonds issued by the Industrial Bank of Japan fell by half in months on rocketing credit concerns. The IBJ’s naked short position in the Nikkei puts completely blew up, costing the bank $10 billion. The Bank almost went bankrupt. It was one of the worst timed deals in the history of finance. The investors were burned bigtime.

Did I ever hear about the deal I signed on again? Did process servers show up and my front door in London with a giant lawsuit? Did Scotland Yard chase me down with an arrest warrant?

Nope, nothing, nada, bupkis. I never heard a peep from anyone. It turns out you CAN lose $12 billion worth of other people’s money and face absolutely no consequences whatsoever.

Welcome to Wall Street.

Still, when the five-year maturity of the bonds passed, I breathed a sigh of relief.

My hedge fund got involved in buying Japanese equity warrants, selling short the underlying stock, thus creating massive short positions with a risk-free 40% guaranteed return. My investors loved the 1,000% profit I eventually brought in doing this.

Unlike most managers, I insisted on physical delivery of the warrant certificates, as the creditworthiness of anyone still left in the business was highly suspect. Others who took delivery used warrants to wallpaper their bathrooms (really).

They all expired worthless, I made fortunes on the short positions, and still have them by the thousands (see below).

In September 2000, the Industrial Bank of Japan, its shares down 90%, merged with the Dai-Ichi Kangyō Bank and Fuji Bank to form the Mizuho Financial Group. It was a last-ditch effort to save the Japanese financial system after ten years of recession engineered by the government.

Morgan Stanley shut down their worldwide Japanese equity warrant trading desk, losing about $20 million and laying off 200. Some staff were outright abandoned as far away as Hong Kong. Morgan Stanley was not a good firm for running large losses, as I expected.

I learned a valuable trading lesson. The greater the certainty that people have that an investment will succeed, the more likely its failure. Think of it as Chaos Theory with a turbocharger.

But we sure had a good time while the Japanese equity warrant boom lasted.

Stay Healthy,

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

October 24, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
October 24, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or MY SECRET MARKET INDICATOR),
(SPY), (USO), (TSLA), (TBT), (NFLX), (FXY), (SNAP)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or My Secret Market Indicator

Diary, Newsletter

I have access to inside information that is worth far more than any other technical or fundamental data out there.

It is almost always right and has made fortunes for me over the year, the dreams of avarice.

If the SEC knew about it, they would lock me up and throw away the key.

Here it is. But first, let me tell you about the performance it has delivered.

With some of the greatest market volatility in market history, my October month-to-date performance ballooned to +6.55%.

I used last week’s option expiration to take profits on my longs in JP Morgan (JPM), Visa (V), and Tesla (TSLA), and my one short in the S&P 500 (SPY). That leaves me with only one short in the (SPY) and 90% cash.

My 2022 year-to-date performance ballooned to +76.23%, a new high. The Dow Average is down -14.37% so far in 2022.

It is the greatest outperformance on an index since Mad Hedge Fund Trader started 14 years ago. My trailing one-year return maintains a sky-high +76.50%.

That brings my 14-year total return to +586.79%, some 2.86 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period and a new all-time high. My average annualized return has ratcheted up to +45.72%, easily the highest in the industry.

So here is my unfair advantage:

I get to see what my own customers do, and I’m the only one who sees it.

For my own subscribers are among the most highly trained and disciplined in the market. 50% a year profits are common and every year, I learn of a couple of 1,000% profits (or 10X returns).

And here is what my customers are telling me today.

The end of the bear market is near. In fact, a “Big Turn” across all asset classes may be upon us.

Bonds are about to bottom out and yields peak. The US dollar may be double-topping. Commodities are crawling off a bottom. Price earnings multiples for stocked have just cratered from 21X to a decade low of 16X. Many stocks, like Tesla are trading at the lowest multiples in their lives.

Thus, the demand for LEAPS recommendations that offer tenfold two-year returns on far more modest equity appreciation has been skyrocketing.

I can’t blame them.

A final capitulation in the bond market is fast approaching. The United States Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) has collapsed by $88, from $180 to $92, or some 48.89%, covering the last six points in two days.

Ten-year yields have rocketed from 2.55% to 4.43% since August. The 2X short bond ETF (TBT) has spiked from $14 to $39 in a year. If you don’t cover the bond market on a daily basis, you may not know this.

It just so happens that I do.

It's an old investment nostrum that if you want to know what stocks are going to do, then take a close look at the bond market.

As Winston Churchill once said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

If you believe that the last interest rate hike in this cycle is only two months off, and we see interest rate cuts after that, then you need to be buying stocks now. You may be risking 10% of downside if you do, but miss out on 100% of upside if you don’t.

Here's another market old reliable. Markets always move more than you expect.

These may all sound like bold predictions. But then my followers are coming off of the best year for trading and investment in their entire lives. Confidence begets confidence.

If you are searching for global contagion, you don’t have far to look. The Japanese yen has cratered some 24% this year and is down by half from its last peak. That’s because the Bank of Japan, one of my old haunts, remains stubbornly insistent that ten-year JBG yields remain pegged at 0.25% while the US was raising from 0.25% to 4.43%.

You have to wonder what they are smoking in the Land of the Rising Sun. Their goal was to create a massive export boom with an ultra-cheap currency and runaway inflation with all the money printing. So far it hasn’t happened. GDP growth in Japan is stuck at snail-like 1.7%, while inflation remains a lowly 3.00%.

Go to Japan for the sushi, the public baths, and the Kurosawa samurai movies, not for inspiration on economic policy, which has been a disaster for 45 years. It’s tough to prosper against a gail-force demographic headwind.

Foreign exchange markets are easy to trade. You just follow the money and pile into the currency with the best yield advantage. Right now, that happens to be the US dollar (UUP).

Why wasn’t I selling short the Japanese yen (FXY) earlier this year? Because there were far better opportunities selling short US stocks, which I amply took advantage of.

It’s all in my numbers.

UK Government Collapses, with the resignation of prime minister Liz Truss in the shortest government in history. A new conservative leader will be elected next week. Truss took over a sinking ship. Her promised tax cuts delivered a fall in the British pound to a 40-year low. No matter what any future leader does, the UK standard will drop by half in the coming years, thanks to Brexit. THE HEAD OF LETTUCE WON!

30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Hits an Eye-popping 7.4%, in a clear Fed effort to shut down the real estate market. If this doesn’t kill the economy, nothing will. But home prices are nowhere near to 50%-70% declines seen in 20098-2011.

Existing Home Sales Plunge 23.8% YOY, in September, in the eighth straight month of sales declines. There are 1.2 million homes for sale, a six-month supply. The median home prices rose to $384,800.

Housing Starts Hit Two-Year Low, as the luxury end takes a hit. Starting families can no longer buy more houses than they can afford.

US Budget Deficit Drops by Half, after the sharpest decline in government spending in history. The red ink shrank from $2.78 trillion to only $1.38 trillion. It’s why I think the bond market may soon be bottoming out, with the (TLT) at $92 and the (TBT) at $38. A trillion here, a trillion there, and sooner or later, it adds up to a lot of money.

Ten-Year US Treasury Yields Hit 20-Year High, at 4.43%. If you’re waiting for rates to peak before buying stocks, it’s not yet. I’m looking for 4.50% before the crying is all over.

Fed Beige Book Says the Economy is Growing Modestly, an improvement from the last one. Travel & tourism is booming, auto sales are sluggish, and retail spending is flat. Manufacturing is steady, thanks to easing supply chain problems. High mortgage rates are a problem. Labor is still tight. It’s a very mixed report.

Tesla Earnings Beat Estimates for the 13^th consecutive quarter profitability, taking the shares down 5%. Revenues came in at 24 billion, while units sold hot 340,000. The strong dollar is weakening Chinese and European sales. Tesla is still a decade ahead of the competition and boasts a global footprint. Production could hit 450,000-500,000 in Q4 once Austin and Berlin go to full production. The only competition will come from China. The Cybertruck comes out in 2023 and already has a million orders.

Netflix Earnings Blow Out, taking the stock up 15%, after a massive crackdown on password sharing. Some 30 million views are still watching the streaming channel for free. Some 2.41 new subscribers joined in Q3. The shift to advertising is next. Buy (NFLX) on dips.

SNAP Dives by 25%, thanks to a horrific earnings shortfall. Advertising Demand went from overwhelming to non-existent practically overnight. Small-cap growth is still being punished severely for any disappointments. The company is cutting 20% of its staff. Avoid (SNAP).

Supply Chain Problems are Disappearing, as two years of port congestion ease. A slowing economy is helping. After a year, I finally got my sofa from Vietnam. Overorders are coming back to haunt big retailers.

My Ten-Year View

On Monday, October 24 at 8:30 AM, the S&P Global Flash PMI for September is released.

On Tuesday, October 25 at 7:00 AM, the S & P Case Shiller National Home Price Index for July is out.

On Wednesday, October 26 at 8:30 AM, New Home Sales for September are published.

On Thursday, October 27 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. US Q3 GDP is also announced.

On Friday, October 28 at 8:30 AM US Personal Income & Spending is printed. At 2:00 the Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count is out.

As for me, back in 2002, I flew to Iceland to do some research on the country’s national DNA sequencing program called deCode, which analyzed the genetic material of everyone in that tiny nation of 250,000. It was the boldest project yet in the field and had already led to several breakthrough discoveries.

Let me start by telling you the downside of visiting Iceland. In the country that has produced three Miss Universes over the last 50 years, suddenly you are the ugliest guy in the country. Because guess what? The men are beautiful as well, the decedents of Vikings who became stranded here after they cut down all the forests on the island for firewood, leaving nothing with which to build long boats. I said they were beautiful, not smart.

Still, just looking is free and highly rewarding.

While I was there, I thought it would be fun to trek across Iceland from North to South in the spirit of Shackleton, Scott, and Amundsen. I went alone because after all, how many people do you know who want to trek across Iceland? Besides, it was only 150 miles, or ten days to cross. A piece of cake really.

Near the trailhead, the scenery could have been a scene from Lord of the Rings, with undulating green hills, craggy rock formations, and miniature Icelandic ponies galloping in herds. It was nature in its most raw and pristine form. It was all breathtaking.

Most of the central part of Iceland is covered by a gigantic glacier over which a rough trail is marked by stakes planted in the snow every hundred meters. The problem arises when fog or blizzards set in, obscuring the next stake, making it too easy to get lost. Then you risk walking into a fumarole, a vent from the volcano under the ice always covered by boiling water. About ten people a year die this way.

My strategy in avoiding this cruel fate was very simple. Walk 50 meters. If I could see the next stake, I proceeded. If I couldn’t, I pitched my tent and waited until the storm passed.

It worked.

Every 10 kilometers stood a stone rescue hut with a propane stove for adventurers caught out in storms. I thought they were for wimps but always camped nearby for the company.

One of the challenges in trekking near the north Pole is getting to sleep. That because the sun never sets and its daylight all night long. The problem was easily solved with the blind fold that came with my Icelandic Air first class seat.

I was 100 miles into my trek, approached my hut for the night and opened the door to say hello to my new friends.

What I saw horrified me.

Inside was an entire German Girl Scout Troop spread out in their sleeping bags all with a particularly virulent case of the flu. In the middle was a girl lying on the floor soaking wet and shivering, who had fallen into a glacier-fed river. She was clearly dying of hypothermia.

I was pissed and instantly went into Marine Corp Captain mode, barking out orders left and right. Fortunately, my German was still pretty good then, so I instructed every girl to get out of their sleeping bags and pile them on top of the freezing scout. I then told them to strip the girl of her wet clothes and reclothe her with dry replacements. They could have their bags back when she got warm. The great thing about Germans is that they are really good at following orders.

Next, I turned the stove burners up high to generate some heat. Then I rifled through backpacks and cooked up what food I could find, force-fed it into the scouts, and emptied my bottle of aspirin. For the adult leader, a woman in her thirties who was practically unconscious, I parted with my emergency supply of Jack Daniels.

By the next morning, the frozen girl was warm, the rest were recovering, and the leader was conscious. They thanked me profusely. I told them I was an American “Adler Scout” (Eagle Scout) and was just doing my job.

One of the girls cautiously moved forward and presented me with a small doll dressed in a traditional German Dirndl which she said was her good luck charm. Since I was her good luck, I should have it. It was the girl who was freezing to death the day before.

Some 20 years later, I look back fondly on that trip and would love to do it again.

Anyone want to go to Iceland?

Stay Healthy,

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

Iceland 2001 with German Girl Scout

October 21, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
October 21, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(OCTOBER 19 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
(BAC), (USO), (SPY), (TSLA), (NFLX), (TBT), (PLTR), (SNOW)

October 19 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the October 21 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from Silicon Valley in California.

Q: Bank of America (BAC) said the US consumer is strong and lending is robust. Does this mean no recession in 2023?

A: It could, because remember that while some sectors are clearly in recession, like real estate and automakers, and have been for a while, others are absolutely booming, like the airline business, and the banking business. There may not be a recession in here, or if there is one, it’s a very slight one. Count on the market to first discount a severe recession which would take the S&P 500 down to $3,000-$3,200 or so; and that’s what markets do, always overly pessimistic at the bottom and overly euphoric at tops. You can make your living off of this.

Q: What do you think about OPEC's behavior (USO) and its influence on the price of oil?

A: Clearly, they’re trying to influence the midterm elections and get an all-republican pro-oil Congress, which will be nicer to OPEC. That’s certainly what they got with the last administration and it’s safe to say that the pro-climate administration of Biden and the Saudis get along like oil and water. But long term, OPEC knows it’s going to zero, and in fact, Saudi Arabia has plans to turn their entire oil supply into hydrogen which can be exported and burned cleanly. I know the team here at UC Berkeley that’s working on that with the Saudi government. Cheap hydrogen also means airships come back, how about that? Hindenburg anyone?

Q: Will draining the Strategic Petroleum Oil Reserve (SPR) backfire, meaning deflation for the US economy and administration?

A: No, the SPR outlived its usefulness maybe 30 years ago—it’s essentially a government subsidy for Texas and Louisiana, and for the oil industry, that has taken on a life of its own. When we started the SPR in 1975, the US got more than half of its oil from the Middle East. Now, it’s almost zero. It goes to China instead. If we are a net energy producer and we have been for over 5 years, why do we even need a petroleum reserve? So no, I think we should shut it down and sell all the oil that’s in there. And it becomes even less relevant as more of the US economy turns over to alternatives.

Q: How do we operate our military with no oil?

A: The pentagon is working on a no-oil future, developing alternative fuels for all kinds of things that you wouldn’t imagine are possible. For example, instead of using diesel, jet fuel, or gasoline for our vehicles, you outfit them with electric batteries, and when the batteries go dead you just air drop new fully charged ones. It’s much better than trying to transport gasoline across the desert in a giant fuel bladder, which can be taken out by a single bullet and is what they do now. Take the pilots out of fighters and they become so light they can operate on battery power. So yes, the pentagon has actually been in the forefront of using every alternative technology they can get their hands on from the early days. Better they get them first before an enemy does.

Q: We will almost always need petroleum; far too many products use it as an ingredient.

A: That is absolutely right. Some will probably never be replaced, like asphalt, feedstock, or plastic. However, those represent less than 10% of the current oil demand. So yes, there always will be an oil industry, it just might be a heck of a lot smaller than it is now. You eliminate cars from the picture, and that’s half of all oil demand in the United States right there. And in most places in the United States, it will be illegal to sell a car that uses gasoline in 12 years. And do you make 30-year investments based on demand for your product dropping by half in 12 years? No, you don’t, which is why the oil companies themselves won’t invest in their own industries anymore. They’re only paying out profits as dividends and buying back shares, which they never used to do.

Q: Do you think the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) $3,500 was the bottom?

A: No, we actually did get a little bit lower than that. We will be in a bottoming process over the next several months, but the pattern will be the same. Tiny marginal new bottoms, maybe 100 points lower than the last, and then these gigantic rallies. If we do make bottoms they will only be for seconds, so the way to deal with that is to only put in really low-limit orders to buy stuff, assuming 1,000 points down, and just keep entering the order every day. Eventually, you’ll get one of these throw-away fills when the algorithms panic and a bunch of market orders hit the market. That's the way to deal with that.

Q: I would say that Biden is trying to influence the elections by releasing oil reserves.

A: Absolutely he is, but then so is the oil industry, taking half of the refineries off stream 2 months before the elections, and spiking oil prices. So it’s a battle of the oil price going on here. No love lost between the oil industry and Biden, and US consumers for that matter. I don’t care if gasoline is $7 a barrel because I never buy it; I am all electric. But for a lot of working people, that’s definitely a lot of money.

Q: How concerned are you about the US going to a cashless currency?

A: I’m not worried because I pay my taxes and I don’t break any laws. If you don’t pay taxes and do break laws, like engaging in drug dealing or bribery, you should be extremely worried, as that would be the eventual goal of a cashless economy. That and the fact that the government has to spend $300 million a year printing paper money, which they’d love to get rid of. And of course, it’s cheaper for businesses to use digital currencies. Most countries in Europe don’t use physical currency anymore—it’s credit cards only.

Q: Do you expect Tesla (TSLA) to pop after earnings?

A: I have no idea; it depends on what the report says but suffice it to say that Tesla is historically cheap. It has the lowest PE multiple now than it has in the entire 13-year history of the company. Scale in on the LEAPS with Tesla—that’s what I’d be doing down here.

Q: Could the US debt situation spiral into something that gets out of hand?

A: No, because the purchasing power of debt is now deflating at an 8.4% annual rate, which means that it goes to zero in about 8.57 years. This is how the government always wins when issuing debt. It’s been going on since the French first issued government debt 300 years ago. Who pays for that? Bond investors. Anybody who owns bonds now has seen their purchasing power go up in smoke. That’s why it’s been a one-way zero bid market for two and a half years—they’ve been dumping like crazy.

Q: Should I buy debt here or sell it?

A: We’re actually getting close to a bottom in the junk debt market, which means you’re going to be yielding around 10%. That means the value of your holding doubles in 6 years, and the default rates never reach the high levels predicted by analysts in junk bonds. That has always been the key to junk bonds in the whole 50 years that I've been following this market. My neighbor up in Tahoe, Mike Milliken, made billions off that assumption.

Q: What do you think about Netflix (NFLX)?

A: Well, my advice was to buy it, to a lot of people. They’re clearly changing their business model for the better—they’re going to start picking up ad revenues, they’re cracking down on password sharing, and they delivered a 20% return in stocks. Plus their share price has just dropped down from $700 to $165. Great LEAP candidate here.

Q: What kind of position is best if a recession hits?

A: Cash. Cash is now yielding 4.4%. The best cash alternative is 90-day T-bills issued by the US Treasury. Execution costs almost zero, and liquidity is essentially infinite; but, remember also that bull markets start 6 to 9 months before recessions end. You just have to watch your timing. Which means that if the recession ends in say July, you have to be buying stocks today. Just keep that in mind, ladies and gentleman.

Q: How do you see the futures of semis?

A: Anything you buy here now will triple in three years, but it becomes a question of how much pain you want to take in the meantime. Everyone in the investment management industry thinks the same, and it really is a classic “catch-a-falling-knife” situation— knowing that the payoff down the road is enormous. Virtually all companies are designing new semis into their products at an exponential rate.

Q: Are LEAPS part of the service?

A: Yes, they are. I will send you one tomorrow. But concierge customers get first priority because that’s what they’re paying for.

Q: How far out should we go?

A: On LEAPS, always take the maximum maturity, which is usually 2 years and 4 months. And the reason is that the second year is almost free—they charge you almost nothing for going out to maximum maturity. And if we have a recession that does last longer than people think, that extra year of maturity will be worth its weight in gold. It’ll be the difference between a zero return and a 10x return.

Q: Can we go back into the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT)?

A: No, it would be a horrible idea to buy the (TBT) here after it just moved from $14 to $36. That’s what you buy before it goes from $14 to $36. We’re topping out in all of these short bond plays, so avoid them like the plague.

Q: How much is the Concierge Service?

A: It’s $12,000 a year—and a bargain price at that! Almost everybody ends up covering that on their first trade, and you get an entire portfolio of LEAPS and a dedicated LEAPS website with the service. You also get my personal cell phone number so you can call me while I'm either on the beach in Hawaii or on the ski slopes of Lake Tahoe. If anyone has questions about the concierge service, contact customer support at support@madhedgefundtrader.com.

Q: What are your thoughts on data analytics companies Snowflake (SNOW) and Palantir (PLTR)?

A: Love Snowflake, hate Palantir because the CEO isn’t interested in promoting a share price. With (SNOW), you have Warren Buffet as a major holder, so that’s all you need to know there. (SNOW) also has a 75% fall behind it.

Q: Thoughts on the Ukraine/Russia war?

A: It’ll drag on well into next year, and obviously the Iranian drones are the new factor here. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were suddenly an accident at a certain factory in Iran; that’s what happens when these things play out.

Q: Is Snowflake (SNOW) a buy right now?

A: It’s like all the rest of tech. High volatility, could have lower lows, but long-term gains are at least a triple from here. You know how much risk you can take.

To watch a replay of this webinar with all the charts, bells, whistles, and classic rock music, just log in to www.madhedgefundtrader.com, go to MY ACCOUNT, click on GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, then WEBINARS, and all the webinars from the last 12 years are there in all their glory.

Good Luck and Stay Healthy,

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

Dungeon in Montreux Castle on Lake Geneva in Switzerland

October 10, 2022

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
October 10, 2022
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or EATING YOUR SEED CORN),
(SPY), (TLT), (PANW), BRKB), (JPM), (MS), (V),
(USO), (MU), (RIVN), (TWTR), (TSLA)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or Eating Your Seed Corn

Diary, Newsletter

You know that 10% downside risk I talked about? In other words, you may have to eat a handful of your seed corn.

We may have to eat into some of that 10% this week. With the September Consumer Price Index out on Thursday, and the big bank earnings are out Friday, there is more than a little concern about the coming trading week.

That’s why all my remaining positions are structured to handle a 10% correction or more and still expire at their maximum profit point in nine trading days.

Even in the worst-case Armageddon scenario, which we are unlikely to get, the S&P 500 is likely to fall below 3,000, or 627.90 points or 17.25% from here.

That’s what you pay me for and that’s what you are getting.

I shot out of the gate with an impressive +3.25% gain so far in October. My 2022 year-to-date performance ballooned to +72.93%, a new high. The Dow Average is down -19.3% so far in 2022 or a gob-smacking -7,000 points. It is the greatest outperformance on an index since Mad Hedge Fund Trader started 14 years ago. My trailing one-year return maintains a sky-high +81.35%.

That brings my 14-year total return to +585.49%, some 3.03 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period and a new all-time high. My average annualized return has ratcheted up to +45.62%, easily the highest in the industry.

It is the greatest outperformance on an index since Mad Hedge Fund Trader started 14 years ago.

I used last week’s extreme volatility to rearrange positions, adding longs in Morgan Stanley (MS), JP Morgan (JPM), and Visa (V). That takes me to 80% long, 20% short, and 0% cash. I wisely rolled down the strikes on my Tesla position from $230-$240 to $200-$210. I covered one short in the S&P 500 (SPY). All of my options positions expire in only nine trading days.

I know that you’re probably getting boatloads of advice the sell all your stocks now, sell your house, and head for those generous 5% short term interest rates, and 8% in junk. Even I went 100% cash….in December last year. The problem is that these other gurus are giving you advice that is only a year late with perfect 20/20 hindsight.

To bail now, you risk giving up on the 100% gains in years to come. If I’m wrong, you lose 10%, if I’m right, you get a double or more. Sounds like a pretty good bet to me.

People always want to know how I pick market bottoms, something I have been doing since the Dow Average was at a miniscule $753.

The lower the market is, the less aggressive the Fed is going to be

Every single input into the Consumer Price Index is now turning down sharply, especially rents and housing costs, meaning we can expect a blockbuster decline when the next report comes out on October 13

We now have two outsiders doing the Fed’s job for it, the British economy, which is clearly collapsing, and a strong US dollar that is rapidly shrinking the foreign revenues of our multinationals, like big tech.

Capitulation indicators, occasionally spotted here and there, are now coming in volleys, the Volatility Index at $35, the (VIX) curve inversion, the RSI below 30, the ten-year US Treasury yield hit 4.0% and then instantly backed off, the British pound plunged to $1.03, and we saw absolutely massive retail selling in September.

The froth is now out of all tech stocks.

All of this brings forward the last Fed hike in interest rates and the next bull market in stocks. If the last Fed rate hike is two months away on December 14, then the reasons to sell stocks are disappearing like the last sands in an hourglass.

In my mere half century in the market, every time the CPI starts to fall, stock market “V” bottoms and begins classic “rip your face off’ rallies as the shorts panic to cover. It happened in 1970, 1974, 1980, 1990, and 2009. It will happen again in 2022. The market will smell that inflation is done, the Fed is done, and volatility becomes a distant memory.

And I hate to be so obvious, but if you sell in May, what do you do in October? You buy with both hands. Just do it on the right day. That could get you a 10% to 20% move by yearend. The S&P 500 earnings multiple has collapsed by eight points in nine months and that is too far, too fast.

How do midterm years perform? October is the best month of the year followed by November. Of the entire 16-month presidential election cycle, the coming first quarter of 2023 is the best of the entire lot.

Nonfarm Payroll Falls Short at 263.000 in September. The headline unemployment rate matched a 2022 low at 3.5%. The long-term unemployment rate, the U-6 also matched this year’s low at 6.7%. The report keeps the Fed on its current interest raising schedule. Stocks, bonds, and gold sold off 500-points.

JOLTS Drops Sharply, from an expected 11.0 million to only 10.05 million. This is the job openings report from the Department of Labor. It’s one of the sharpest declines in history. The jobs market is finally starting to deteriorate, which is just what the Fed wanted. Factory Orders for August were unchanged.

OPEC+ Cuts Quotas by 2 million, and production by 1 million, in one of the largest reductions in history. It’s an effort to maintain oil prices at current prices in the face of falling demand from a global recession. The Arabs are not your friends. It’s also a slap in the face of the anti-oil posture, pro-climate posture of the Biden administration, which responded with a further release of 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Energy stocks soar across the board. Don’t get caught standing when the music stops playing. Avoid (USO).

Why Did Russia Blow Up Their Own Pipeline? International analysts are puzzled by Putin’s latest hostile move. Is this a prelude to limited nuclear war in Ukraine? My view is that Putin expects to be deposed soon and wants to make it difficult for the next government to resume relations with Europe. Others argue that the true motivation is to enable Nordstream to file a $10 billion insurance claim. Good luck collecting on that one.

Advanced Micro Devices Bombs on weak PC sales and supply chain problems, taking the stock down 5% aftermarket. Profit margins were cut. The news could take the stock down to new lows, which didn’t really participate in this week’s monster rally. The rest of the tech sector sold off in sympathy.

Tesla Breaks Production Records in Q3, manufacturing 365,000 EVs and delivering 365,000, a record high. Sales prices have risen three times this year, while commodity costs have fallen dramatically, widening profit margins. This is the most volatile stock in the market, with one 52% correction so far this year, and another 23% correction in recent weeks. It’s the reason we just saw a “buy the rumor, sell the news” type correction that took us to the bottom of a three-month range.

Another factor is that now that big tech is rallying again, people are rotating out of Tesla, which held up well in Q3. Below here, long term Tesla bulls like my friend Ron Baron, Cathie Wood, and I start adding to big positions. With OPEC+ threatening a million barrel a day production cut, taking crude up 6%, oil alternative Tesla should be rising.

Elon Musk Pays Full Price for Twitter at $54.20 a share, completely caving on pending litigation. Wall Street consensus is that the company is worth $15 a share. It may be years before we learn what’s really going on here, leaving many scratching their heads, including me. Tesla (TSLA) plunged $15 on the news, killing off a nascent rally. The distraction of management time will be huge. Avoid (TWTR).

Rivian Raises 2025 Production Goal, from 20,000 to 25,000, after a better-than-expected 7,363 third quarter. Mass production is reaching the sweet spot for the next Tesla. The company is planning a $5 billion investment in non-union Georgia. Buy (RIVN) on dips, sell short puts and buy LEAPS.

Micron Technology to Invest $100 Billion in New York Plant. It’s all part of a retreat from China and paring war risk in Taiwan. Massive government subsidies from the Chips Act helped. Biden also expanded restrictions on the export of key semiconductor manufacturing equipment, America’s crown jewels. It means more expensive buy safer supplied chips for US industry. Buy (MU) on dips.

Hurricane Ian to Cost Insurers $63 Billion, and deaths, and the federal government may be on the hook for more. The storm double-dipped, cutting a wide swath across Florida and the Carolinas. Some 95% of the costs are carried by foreign insurers through the reinsurance market. There are too many billionaire mansions on the beach which are fully insured. This paves the way for major rate increases by insurance companies, which is why Warren Buffet loves the insurance business. Many thanks to the many foreign Mad Hedge subscribers who expressed sympathy over the storm losses.

My Ten-Year View

When we come out the other side of pandemic and the recession, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With oil in a sharp downtrend and technology hyper-accelerating, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The America coming out the other side will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 240,000 here we come!

On Monday, October 10, no data of note is released.

On Tuesday, October 11 at 7:00 AM, the 6:00 AM, the NFIB Business Optimism Index for September is released.

On Wednesday, October 12 at 8:30 AM, Producer Price Index for September is published. At 11:00 AM, the FOMC minutes from the last Fed meeting is released.

On Thursday, October 13 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. We also get the blockbuster Consumer Price Index.

On Friday, October 14 at 8.30 AM, US Retail Sales for September is disclosed. At 2:00 the Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count is out.

As for me, with the 35^th anniversary of the October 19, 1987 crash coming up, when shares dove 22.6% in one day, I thought I’d part with a few memories.

I was in Paris visiting Morgan Stanley’s top banking clients, who then were making a major splash in Japanese equity warrants, my particular area of expertise.

When we walked into our last appointment, I casually asked how the market was doing (Paris is six hours ahead of New York). We were told the Dow Average was down a record 300 points.

Stunned, I immediately asked for a private conference room so I could call the equity trading desk in New York to buy some stock.

A woman answered the phone, and when I said I wanted to buy, she burst into tears and threw the handset down on the floor. Redialing found all Transatlantic lines jammed.

I never bought my stock, nor found out who picked up the phone. I grabbed a taxi to Charles de Gaulle airport and flew my twin Cessna as fast as the turbocharged engines could take me back to London, breaking every known air traffic control rule.

By the time I got back, the Dow had closed down a staggering 512 points, taking the Dow average down to $1,738.74. Then I learned that George Soros asked us to bid on a $250 million blind portfolio of US stocks after the close. He said he had also solicited bids from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, and Solomon Brothers, and would call us back if we won.

We bid 10% below the final closing prices for the lot. Ten minutes later he called us back and told us we won the auction. How much did the others bid? He told us that we were the only ones who bid at all!

Then you heard that great sucking sound. Oops!

What has never been disclosed to the public is that after the close, Morgan Stanley received a margin call from the exchange for $100 million, as volatility had gone through the roof, as did every firm on Wall Street.

We ordered JP Morgan to send the money from our account immediately. Then they lost it! After some harsh words at the top, it was found. That’s when I discovered the wonderful world of Fed wire numbers.

The next morning, the Dow continued its plunge, but after an hour managed a U-turn, and launched on a monster rally that lasted for the rest of the year. We made $75 million on that one trade from Soros.

It was the worst investment decision I have seen in the markets in 53 years, executed by its most brilliant player. Go figure. Maybe it was George’s risk control discipline kicking in?

At the end of the month, we then took a $75 million hit on our share of the British Petroleum privatization, because Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to postpone the issue, believing that the banks had already made too much money.

That gave Morgan Stanley’s equity division a break-even P&L for the month of October 1987, the worst in market history. Even now, I refuse to gas up at a BP station on the very rare occasions I am driving an internal combustion engine.

Good Luck and Good Trading,

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