Tech (QQQ) earnings turned out to produce some positive performances.
Dominant companies can produce dominant earnings even in troubled times.
So what is the problem?
The sales outlook underwhelmed as the American consumer and business keep getting stretched to the limit.
I believe that traders shouldn’t expect a quick turnaround of sales projections for 2024 unless there are some material structural improvements in the business and consumer environment.
No savior is coming for 2024.
All signs point to more uncertainty and not less and rightly so as high inflation has only been replaced by a decrease in the rate of inflation.
Things are still expensive and that means less opportunity for tech to build a growth story.
Apple, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla all gave investors reason to rub smiles off faces.
From Apple’s unimpressive holiday outlook to Alphabet’s tepid cloud computing sales results, a recurring theme for the group was weakness.
Meta warned that the year ahead is looking less predictable, while Tesla raised concerns that demand for electric cars is starting to weaken.
Despite Tesla's missing earnings, the group is poised to surpass the 36% increase estimates called for before earnings season began.
The tech sector in the S&P 500 still carries a nearly 36% premium to the index on a forward price-to-earnings basis, per data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
There’s a lot of AI hype, but not every company is market-ready.
Everything can change in a heartbeat if there is economic or geopolitical upheaval, which would directly impact stocks.
The market is still pricing in no spreading of military activity as it looks through it as a self-contained area.
Therefore, the pendulum has swung the completely opposite direction as the U.S. 10-year treasury yield has dropped from 5% to 4.6%.
The strength in treasuries could be short-lived, because several have told me that traders are jumping back into the short-term trade which would signal higher for longer.
The Fed Futures show that the first 25 basis rate is forecasted for May 2024 with 2 more consecutive .25% rate cuts following the first.
The American consumer just might have enough juice for one more splurge that would then push back rate cuts from May to somewhere closer to July or August.
Therefore, it’s easy for me to see how this 6.5% surge has a little longer follow through only to soon clash with a “higher for longer” narrative.
The true tailwind for tech stocks here is that much of the bad news has been priced in and any violent surge in treasury yields seems like a low probability for the last 7 weeks of the year, unless another global conflict breaks out.
Seasonal buying could mean that November is more positive than negative for tech stocks and any big draw down should be bought in a quality tech name. December could be a harder slog for tech.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2023-11-06 14:02:192023-11-06 15:09:35Higher For Longer Is Not Off The Table
Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the November 1 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar, broadcast from Boca Raton.
Q:Earlier you said that the bull market should start from here—are you sticking to that argument?
A: Yes, there are all kinds of momentum and cash flow indicators that are flashing “buy right now.” The market timing index got down to 24—couldn’t break below 20. Hedge fund shorts: all-time highs. Quant shorts: all the time highs, creating a huge amount of buying power for the market. And, of course, the seasonals have turned positive. So yes, all of that is positive and if bonds can hold in here, then it’s off to the races.
Q: Do you have a year-end target for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B)?
A: Up. They have a lot of exposure to the falling interest rate trade such as its very heavy weighting in banks; and if interest rates go down, Berkshire goes up—it’s really very simple. You can’t come up with specific targets for individual stocks for year-end because of the news, and things can happen anytime. I love Berkshire; it's a very strong buy here.
Q: Tesla (TSLA) is not doing well; what's the update here?
A: It always moves more than you think, both on the upside and the downside. Last year, we thought it would drop 50%, it dropped 80%. Suffice it to say that, with the price war continuing and Tesla determined to wipe out the 200 other new entrants to the EV space, they’ll keep price cutting until they basically own that market. While that’s great for market share, it’s not great for short-term profits. Yes, Tesla could be going down more, but from here on, if you’re a long-term investor in Tesla, as you should be, you should be looking to add positions, not sell what you have and average down. Also, we’re getting close to Tesla LEAPS territory. Those have been huge winners over the years for us and I’ll be watching those closely.
Q: Any trade on the Japanese yen?
A: We broke 150 on the yen—that was like the make-or-break level. I’m looking at a final capitulation selloff on the yen, and then a decade-long BUY. The Bank of Japan is finally ending its “easy money” zero-interest-rate policy, which it’s had for 30 years, and that will give us a stronger yen when it happens, but not until then. So watch the yen carefully, it could double from here over the long term, especially if it’s the same time the US starts cutting its interest rates.
Q: What do you think about Eli Lilly (LLY)?
A: We love Eli Lilly; they’re making an absolute fortune on their weight loss drug, and they have other drugs in the pipeline being created by AI. This is really the golden age for biotech because you have AI finding cures for diseases, and then AI designing molecules to cure the diseases. It’s shortened the pipeline for new drugs from 5-10 years to 5-10 weeks. If you’re old and sick like me, this is all a godsend.
Q: Do you like Snowflake (SNOW)?
A: Absolutely, yes—killer company. Warren Buffet loves it too and has a big position; I’d be looking to buy SNOW on any dip.
Q: Would you do LEAPS on Netflix (NFLX)?
A: I would, but I would go out two years, and I would go at the money, not out of the money, Even then you’ll get a 100-200% return. You’ll get a lot even on just a 6-month call spread. These tech stocks with high volatility have enormous payoff 3-6 months out.
Q: Projection for iShares 20 Plus Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) in the next 6 months?
A: It’s up. We could hit $110, that would be my high, or up $25 points or so from here.
Q: Would you buy biotech here through the ProShares Ultra Nasdaq Biotechnology (BIB)?
A: Probably, yes. The long-term story is overwhelming, but it’s not a sector you want to own when the sentiment is terrible like it is now. I guess “buy the bad news” is the answer there.
Q: What did you learn from your dinner with General Mattis?
A: Quite a lot, but much of it is classified. When you get to my age, you can’t remember which parts are classified and which aren't. However, his grasp of the global scene is just incredible. There are very few people in the world I can go one on one with in geopolitics. Of course, I could fill in stuff he didn’t know, and he could fill in stuff for me, like: what is the current condition of our space weaponry? If I told you, you would be amazed, but then I would get arrested the next day, so I’ll say nothing. He really was one of the most aggressive generals in American history, was tremendously underrated by every administration, was fired by both Obama and Trump, and recently is doing the speaker circuit which is a lot of fun because there’s no question he doesn’t know the answer to! We actually agreed to do some joint speaking events sometime in the future.
Q: I have some two-year LEAPS now but I’m worried about adding too much. Could we get a final selloff in 2024?
A: The only way we could get another leg down in the market is number one if the Fed raises interest rates (right now, we’re positioned for a flat line and then a cut) or number two, another pandemic. You could also get some election-related chaos next year, but that usually doesn’t affect the market. But for those who are prone to being nervous, there are certainly a lot of reasons to be nervous next year.
Q: What iShares 20 Plus Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) level would we see with a 5.2% yield?
A: How about $79? That’s exactly why I picked that strike price. The $76-$79 vertical bill call spread in the (TLT) is a bet that we don’t go above 5.20% yield, and we only have 10 days to do it, so things are looking better and then we’ll see what’s available in the market once our current positions all expire at max profit.
Q: The first new nuclear power plant of 30 years went online in Georgia. Do you see more being built in the future?
A: It’s actually been 40 years since they’ve built a new plant, and it wasn’t a new plant, it was just an addition to an existing plant with another reactor added with an old design. I think there will be a lot more nuclear power plants built in the future, but they will be the new modular design, which is much safer, and doesn’t use uranium, by the way, but other radioactive elements. If you want to know more about this, look up NuScale (SMR). They have a bunch of videos on how their new designs work. That could be an interesting company going forward. The nuclear renaissance continues, and of course, China’s continuing to build 100 of the old-fashioned type nuclear power reactors, and that is driving global uranium demand.
Q: Would you hold Cameco Corp (CCJ) or sell?
A: I would keep it, I think it’s going up.
Q: How to trade the collapse of the dollar?
A: (FXA), (FXB), (FXE), and (EEM). Those are the quick and easy ways to do it. Also, you buy precious metals—gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) do really well on a weak dollar.
Q: Conclusion on the Ukraine war?
A: It will go on for years—it’s a war of attrition. About half of the entire Russian army has been destroyed as they’re working with inferior weapons. However, it’s going to be a matter of gaining yards or miles at best, over a long period of time. So, they will keep fighting as long as we keep supplying them with weapons, and that is overwhelmingly in our national interest. Plus, we’re getting a twofer; if we stop Russia from taking over Ukraine, we also stop China from invading Taiwan because they don’t want to be in for the same medicine.
Q: If more oil is released from the strategic petroleum reserve, what is our effect on security?
A: Zero because the US is a net energy producer. If our supplies were at risk, all we’d have to do is cut off our exports to China and tell them to find their oil elsewhere—and they’re obviously already trying to do that with the invasion of the South China Sea and all the little rocks out there. So, I am not worried. And also remember, every year as the US moves to more EVs and more alternatives, it is less and less reliant on oil. I would advise the administration to get rid of all of it next time we go above $100 a barrel. If you’re going to sell your oil, you might as well get a good price for it. If you look at the US economy over the last 30 years, the reliance of GDP on oil has been steadily falling.
Q: Are US exports of Cheniere Energy (LNG) helping to drive up prices here?
A: I would say yes, it’s got to have an impact on prices. We’re basically supplying Germany with all of its natural gas right now. We did that starting from scratch at the outset of the Ukraine war, and it’s been wildly successful. That avoided a Great Depression in Europe. Europe, by the way, is the largest customer for our exports. That was one of the arguments for us going into the United States Natural Gas (UNG) LEAPS in the first place.
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, select your subscription (GLOBAL TRADING DISPATCH, TECHNOLOGY LETTER, or Jacquie's Post), then click on 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
Circulating among the country’s top global strategists this year, visiting their corner offices, camping out in their vacation villas, or cruising on their yachts, I am increasingly hearing about a new investment theme that will lead markets for the next 20 years:
The Second American Industrial Revolution.
It goes something like this.
You remember the first Industrial Revolution, don’t you? I remember it like it was yesterday.
It started in 1775 when a Scottish instrument maker named James Watt invented the modern steam engine. Originally employed for pumping water out of a deep Shropshire coalmine, within 32 years it was powering Robert Fulton’s first commercially successful steamship, the Clermont, up the Hudson River.
The first Industrial Revolution enabled a massive increase in standards of living, kept inflation near zero for a century, and allowed the planet’s population to soar from 1 billion to 7 billion. We are still reaping its immeasurable benefits.
The Second Industrial Revolution is centered on my own neighborhood of San Francisco. It seems like almost every garage in the city is now devoted to a start-up.
The cars have been flushed out onto the streets, making urban parking here a total nightmare. These are turbocharging the rate of technological advancement.
Successes go public rapidly and rake in billions of dollars for the founders overnight. Thirty-year-old billionaires wearing hoodies are becoming commonplace.
However, unlike with past winners, these newly minted titans of industry don’t lock their wealth up in mega mansions, private jets, or the Treasury bond market. They buy a Tesla Plaid for $150,000 with a great sound system and full street-to-street auto-pilot (TSLA), and then reinvest the rest of their windfall in a dozen other startups, seeking to repeat a winning formula.
Many do it.
Thus, the amount of capital available for new ideas is growing by leaps and bounds. As a result, the economy will benefit from the creation of more new technology in the next ten years than it has seen in the past 200.
Computing power is doubling every year. That means your iPhone will have a billion times more computing power in a decade. 3D printing is jumping from the hobby world into large-scale manufacturing. In fact, Elon Musk’s Space X is already making rocket engine parts on such machines.
Drones came out of nowhere and are now popping up everywhere.
It is not just new things that are being invented. Fantastic new ways to analyze and store data, known as “big data” are being created.
Unheard new means of social organization are appearing at breakneck, leading to a sharing economy. Much of the new economy is not about invention, but organization.
The Uber ride-sharing service created $50 billion in market capitalization in only five years and is poised to replace UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service with “same hour” intracity deliveries. Now they are offering “Uber Eats” in my neighborhood, which will deliver you anything you want to eat, hot, in ten minutes!
Airbnb is arranging accommodation for 1 million guests a month. They even had 189 German guests staying with Brazilians during the World Cup there. I bet those were interesting living rooms on the final day! (Germany won).
And you are going to spend a lot of Saturday nights at home, alone if you haven’t heard of Match.com, eHarmony.com, or Badoo.com.
“WOW” is becoming the most spoken word in the English language. I hear myself saying I every day.
Biotechnology (IBB), an also-ran for the past half-century, is sprinting to make up for lost time. The field has grown from a dozen scientists in my day 40 years ago, to several hundred thousand today.
The payoff will be the cure for every major disease, like cancer, Parkinson’s, heart disease, AIDS, and diabetes, within ten years. Some of the harder cases, such as arthritis, may take a little longer. Soon, we will be able to manipulate our own DNA, turning genes on and off at will. The weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic promise to eliminate 75% of all self-inflicted illnesses.
The upshot will be the creation of a massive global market for these cures, generating immense profits. American firms will dominate this area, as well.
Energy is the third leg of the innovation powerhouse. Into this basket, you can throw in solar, wind, batteries, biodiesel, and even “new” nuclear (see NuScale (SMR)).The new Tesla Powerwall will be a game changer. Visionary, Elon Musk, is ramping up to make tens of millions of these things.
Use of existing carbon-based fuel sources, such as oil and natural gas, will become vastly more efficient. Fracking is unleashing unlimited new domestic supplies.
Welcome to “Saudi America.”
The government has ordered Detroit to boost vehicle mileage to an average of 55 miles per gallon by 2030. The big firms have all told me they plan to beat that deadline, not litigate it, a complete reversal of philosophy.
Coal will be burned in impoverished emerging markets only, before it disappears completely. Energy costs will drop to a fraction of today’s levels, further boosting corporate profits.
Coal will die, not because of some environmental panacea, but because it is too expensive to rip out of the ground and transport around the world, once you fully account for all its costs.
Years ago, I used to get two pitches for venture capital investments a quarter, if any. Now, I am getting two a day. I can understand only half of them (those that deal with energy and biotech, and some tech).
My friends at Google Venture Capital are getting inundated with 20 a day each! How they keep all of these stories straight is beyond me. I guess that’s why they work for Google (GOOGL).
The rate of change for technology, our economy, and for the financial markets will accelerate to more than exponential. It took32 years to make the leap from steam engine-powered pumps to ships and was a result of a chance transatlantic trip by Robert Fulton to England, where he stumbled across a huffing and puffing steam engine.
Such a generational change is likely to occur in 32 minutes in today’s hyper-connected world, and much shorter if you work on antivirus software (or write the viruses themselves!). And don’t get me started on AI!
The demographic outlook is about to dramatically improve, flipping from a headwind to a tailwind in 2022. That’s when the population starts producing more big spending Gen Xers and fewer over-saving and underproducing baby boomers. This alone should be at least 1% a year to GDP growth.
China is disappearing as a drag on the US economy. During the nineties and the naughts, they probably sucked 25 million jobs out of the US.
With an “onshoring” trend now in full swing, the jobs ledger has swung in America’s favor. This is one reason that unemployment is steadily falling. Joblessness is becoming China’s problem, not ours.
The consequences for the financial markets will be nothing less than mind-boggling. The short answer is higher for everything. Skyrocketing earnings take equity markets to the moon. Multiples blast off through the top end of historic ranges. The US returns to a steady 5% a year GDP growth, which it clocked in the recent quarter.
What am I bid for the Dow Average (INDU), (SPY), (QQQ) in ten years? Did I hear 240,000, a seven-fold pop from today’s level? Or more?
Don’t think I have been smoking the local agricultural products from California in arriving at these numbers. That is only half the gain that I saw from 1982 to 2000, when the stock average also appreciated 17-fold, from 600 to 10,000.
They’re playing the same movie all over again. Except this time, it’s on triple fast forward.
There will also be commodities (DBA) and real estate booms. Even gold (GLD) gets bid up by emerging central banks bent in increasing their holdings to Western levels as well as falling interest rates.
I tell my kids to save their money, not to fritter it away day trading now because anything they buy in 2020 will increase in value tenfold by 2033. They’ll all look like geniuses like I did during the eighties.
What are my strategist friends doing about this forecast? They are throwing money into US stocks with both bands, especially in technology (XLK), biotech (IBB), and bonds (JNK).
This could go on for decades.
Just thought you’d like to know.
It’s Amazing What You Pick Up on These Things!
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/john-thomas-yatch.png404504Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2023-11-02 09:04:452023-11-02 12:14:52The Second American Industrial Revolution
Tesla’s (TSLA) recent underperformance is a canary in the coal mine of what could become of the global EV industry.
EV makers better watch out because the race to zero is coming for all of them.
It could be yet another tech industry captured by the Chinese. The Chinese are quickly rising up the food chain of technological capabilities and these new developments are sure to rattle the White House.
I remember years ago when the Chinese tried their best at smartphones, they were terrible, but fast forward to today, and now they compare close to the iPhone with much better pricing.
Now, the Chinese are coming after electric cars and I also remember touring EVs in China in 2007 and they again were pretty terrible.
However, fast forward to today, and yet again they have achieved major inroads in terms of quality and reach. BYD Company Limited (BYDDY) even produces something comparable to Tesla which is no small feat.
Tesla’s disappointing third-quarter deliveries highlight the panic state side where the first mover advantage has served CEO Elon Musk well but eroded lately.
Tesla sold 435,000 electric cars last quarter, while BYD sold 431,000 battery-powered electric cars over the same period.
Expect BYD to surge past Tesla in delivered electric cars soon because they have access to a vastly bigger market while the Chinese communist party is doing everything to ruin American corporate business in the Middle Kingdom.
BYD is already far ahead when it comes to total sales. Including hybrids, BYD sold over 800,000 cars last quarter, almost twice as much as Tesla.
The Chinese company sold 1.8 million cars last year, over 911,000 of which were BEVs. Tesla, which only sells BEVs, sold 1.3 million cars.
Musk had previously warned that planned upgrades to manufacturing plants around the world may lead to lower deliveries for the rest of the year.
Tesla is also facing sluggish demand, forcing it to launch aggressive price wars in both China and the U.S.
BYD has surged ahead of its competitors in China by selling more affordable electric vehicles, unlike the premium models sold by Tesla and other EV companies like Nio and XPeng. BYD recently unseated Volkswagen as China’s top-selling car brand.
The company is expanding outside of China and is now the top-selling EV brand in markets like Thailand, Israel, and Singapore. It’s even expanding into more developed markets like Japan and Europe.
Watch out for China’s BYD to hijack Western markets moving forward including Europe, Canada, the United States, and the UK.
It’s finally time to stop ignoring that China does a good job producing EVs and other hard-to-manufacture technology.
My guess is that China will also surpass the United States in semiconductor chip technology, although that will take longer to achieve.
The Pentagon has sounded the alarm bells after noticing huge improvements in chip know-how by the Chinese.
Competition is finally here for Musk after so many years of taking a free ride in the US and it’s about time. Now the rubber finally meets the road.
Readers with a high threshold of risk tolerance should look at BYD’s ADR (BYD) if shares experience a big dip then allocating a small portion of a portfolio to this equity makes sense.
Don’t forget there is now a high probability of Tesla losing its Shanghai factory in China once China seizes American businesses on the mainland. It doesn’t matter how much Musk kowtows to the communist party because this issue is far bigger than him or the EV business.
That threat has gone from almost 0 just recently to becoming somewhat plausible although still quite low. The tech world is accelerating at warp speed in 2023.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2023-11-01 15:02:492023-11-01 16:38:15BYD is Here to Stay
At least that way I would know which direction the fire was coming from, the east. Back here in the US markets, the fire seemed to be coming from every direction all at once.
Good news was bad news and bad news even worse. An S&P 500 down 2.5% certainly left a bruise. The geopolitical outlook in the idle East is getting worse by the day.
But where others find nothing but despair, I see opportunity. Despite all the doom and gloom, all the elements of a yearend rally are setting up nicely. And it could be a sharp one as the time for it to play out is ever shrinking.
Hedge fund quantitative, momentum, and systemic shorts are at all-time highs, creating lots of buying power. AI has gone silent. Key earnings events will be done with the Apple announcement on Thursday, November 2. Ten-year bonds have repeatedly tried but failed to break the 5.00% yield.
Major tech stocks like (TSLA), (NVDA), (GOOGL), and (AMZN) have seen 20% corrections. The Mad Hedge AI Market Timing Index is unable to close below $20 and has been chopping a lot of wood under $30. If a new House speaker cuts a deal to avoid a government shutdown before November 17, it could be off to the races.
The smart thing to do here is to build up a list of stocks higher leverage to falling interest rates. All stocks benefit from falling rates but some much more than others.
One of my favorites is Annaly Capital Management (NLY), one of the largest mortgage real estate investment trusts (REITS). The company borrows money, primarily via short-term repurchase agreements, and reinvests the proceeds in asset-backed securities.
The company’s shares are unusually sensitive to rising overnight interest rates, and its shares are down 50% in a year. A monster rally in the stock is brewing. Oh, and it has a 17% dividend, which will likely get cut but still remain extremely high.
Finally, I want to bid a sad farewell to my old friend and fellow iconoclast Byron Wien. Byron was late of Blackstone and much earlier from Morgan Stanley.
Byron was famed for his “Ten Surprises” which he published each New Year and with which I used to assist him in the early years. This was a list of possible developments which, if they occurred, would have a disproportionate effect on the market.
Byron was 90 and will be missed. One of his favorite pieces of advice was to never retire and Byron was working right up until last week.
Hmmmm. Sounds like good advice to me.
So far in October, we are up +3.56%. My 2023 year-to-date performance is still at an eye-popping +64.36%.The S&P 500 (SPY) is up +7.89%so far in 2023. My trailing one-year return reached +74.44% versus +8.09% for the S&P 500.
That brings my 15-year total return to +661.55%. My average annualized return has fallen back to +47.89%, some 2.81 times the S&P 500over the same period.
Some 44 of my 49 trades this year have been profitable.
Car Payment Delinquencies Hit Record Rate, with repossessions rising. With interest rate hikes making newer loans more expensive, millions of car owners are struggling to afford their payments. It’s a clear indication of distress at a time when the economy is sending mixed signals, particularly about the health of consumer spending. Usually, a recession indicator but not this time.
US Government Wraps up Fiscal 2023 with a $1.7 Trillion Deficit, up 23% from the previous year, which ended on October 31. It’s a major reason why bonds have been under such pressure since July. But the purchasing power of the total US national debt of $32 trillion fell by $260 billion last year, thanks to the torrid 8.1% inflation rate.
US Core PCE Jumps 0.3% in September, the most in four months. It’s the Fed’s favorite inflation indicator. Drugs, travel, and used cars saw the big price increases. Resilient household demand paired with a pickup in inflation underscores momentum heading into the fourth quarter
Ukraine War has Become a Big Generator at US Defense Companies. Companies such as Lockheed Martin (LMT), General Dynamics (GD), and others expect that existing orders for hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, hundreds of Patriot missile interceptors, and a surge in orders for armored vehicles expected in the months ahead will underpin their results in coming quarters. Buy the sector on dips
Don’t Expect a Real Estate Crash Anytime Soon, with supplies at 40-year lows. Yes, 8% mortgages are a buzz kill, but 95% of homeowners with mortgages date back to the 3.0% era. No one wants to give up their free lunch. If you’re a mortgage originator, it’s another story.
Existing Home Sales Hit 13-Year Low at 1.13 million, down 8% YOY. The Median Home Price was up 2.8% to $394,300. This is 17% of the peak rate we saw in 2021 when overnight rates were still zero.
Pending Home Sales Rise 1.1% in September to 72.6, but are down 13% YOY. On a signed contract basis. But the absolute level is the lowest in two years. High mortgage rates are the buzz kill. Affordability is at a record low.
Adjustable Rate Mortgages Make a Big Comeback, with 5/1 ARMS costing only 6.99% compared to 8.0% for the conventional 30-year fixed, a 23-year high. Mortgage originations are now down 22% YOY.
US Economy Red Hot at 4.9% Growth Rate, the highest in two years. Unfortunately, the stock market sees a major slowdown in the current quarter. Consumer spending was the big driver.
Tech Selloff has Taken NVIDIA down to a 25 Times Earnings Multiple, the same as Walmart and Target, despite 50% earnings growth for the foreseeable future. This is just at the start of an AI super cycle. Get ready to start loading the boat.
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. The economy decarbonizing and technology hyper accelerating, creating enormous investment opportunities. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The new America will be far more efficient and profitable than the old.
Dow 240,000 here we come!
On Monday, October 30 at 8:30 AM EST, the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index is out.
On Tuesday, October 31 at 2:30 PM,the S&P Case Shiller National Home Price Index is released.
On Wednesday, November 1 at 8:30 AM, the JOLTS Job Openings Report is published.
On Thursday, November 2 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced.
On Friday, November 3 at 2:30 PM, the October Nonfarm Payroll Report is published. At 2:00 PM the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, one of the benefits of being married to a British Airways stewardess in the 1970s was unlimited free travel around the world. Ceylon, the Seychelles, and Kenya were no problem.
Usually, you rode in first class, which was half empty, as the British Empire was then rapidly fading. Or you could fly in the cockpit where, on long flights, the pilot usually put the plane on autopilot and went to sleep on the floor, asking me to watch the controls.
That’s how I got to fly a range of larger commercial aircraft, from a Vickers Viscount VC-10 to a Boeing 747. Nothing beats flying a jumbo jet over the North Pole on a clear day, where the unlimited view ahead is nothing less than stunning.
When gold peaked in 1979 at $900 an ounce, up from $34, The Economist magazine asked me to fly from Japan to South Africa and write about the barbarous relic. That I did with great enthusiasm, bringing along my new wife, Kyoko.
Sure enough, as soon as I arrived, I noticed long lines of South Africans cashing in their Krugerands, which they had been saving up for years in the event of a black takeover.
There was only one problem. My wife was Japanese.
While under the complicated apartheid system, the Chinese were relegated to second class status along with Indians, Japanese were treated as “honorary whites” as Japan did an immense amount of trade with the country.
The confusion came when nobody could tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese, not even me. As a result, we were treated as outcasts everywhere he went. There was only one hotel in the country that would take us, the Carlton in Johannesburg, where John and Yoko Lennon stayed earlier that year.
That meant we could only take day trips from Joberg. We traveled up to Pretoria, the national capital, to take in the sights there. For lunch, we went to the best restaurant in town. Not knowing what to do, they placed us in an empty corner and ignored us for 45 minutes. Finally, we were brought some menus.
The Economist asked me to check out the townships where blacks were confined behind high barbed wire fences in communities of 50,000. I was given a contact in the African National Conference, then a terrorist organization. Its leader, Nelson Mandela, had spent decades rotting away in an island prison.
My contact agreed to smuggle us in. While blacks were allowed to leave the townships for work, whites were not permitted in under any circumstances.
So, we were somewhat nonplussed Kyoko and I were asked to climb into the trunk of an old Mercedes. Really? We made it through the gates and into the center of the compound. On getting out of the trunk, we both burst into nervous laughter.
Some honeymoon!
After meeting the leadership, we were assigned no less than 11 bodyguards as whites in the townships were killed on sight. The favored method was to take a bicycle spoke and sever your spinal cord.
We drove the compound inspecting plywood shanties with corrugated iron roofs, brightly painted and packed shoulder to shoulder. The earth was dry and dusty. People were friendly, waving as we drove past. I interviewed several. Then we were smuggled out the same way we came in and hastily dropped on a corner in the city.
Apartheid ended in 1990 when the ANC took control of the country, electing Nelson Mandela as president. A massive white flight ensued which brought people like Elon Musk’s family to Canada and then to Silicon Valley.
Everyone feared the blacks would rise up and slaughter the white population.
It never happened.
Today, South Africa offers one of the more interesting investment opportunities on the continent. The end of apartheid took a great weight off the shoulders of the country’s economy. Check out the (EZA), which nearly tripled off of the 2020 bottom.
Kyoko passed away in 2002 at age 50.
Stay Healthy,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
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