(V) Archives - Page 6 of 9 - Mad Hedge Fund Trader

2 Fintech Bets to Jump On

I cannot overstate the importance of digital financial innovation to the success of PayPal (PYPL) and Synchrony Financial (SYF).

Consumers are rapidly adopting technologies that enable contactless commerce and expect engagement along their digital purchase journeys.

These fintech firms are leveraging robust digital assets and continuously investing to ensure their partners are well-positioned in this rapidly evolving dynamic.

These investments include the capabilities to empower SaaS and seamless integration with partners' digital assets, enable customer choice at the point of sale, enhance contactless experiences, facilitate a seamless and easy application process, bring the in-store experience to a customer's digital devices for applications and payment, and integrate financing office throughout the entire digital shopping experience.

They also continue to make headway in digital penetration of all aspects of the customer journey.

Lockdown requirements and 14-day quarantine are forcing consumers to resort to online transactions for payment networks, online lending, money transfers, business-to-business payments, personal finance, banking, and more.

The key factor driving the growth of the fintech market is high investments in technology-based solutions by banks and other financial institutions. In addition, infrastructure-based technology and APIs (application programming interface) are reshaping the future of fintech.

The behavioral changes induced by the pandemic, such as online shopping and cashless payments, are here to stay and will continue to propel fintech’s growth this year and beyond.

PYPL is one of the most entrenched digital payment operating technology platforms that enables digital and mobile payments on behalf of consumers and merchants worldwide.

It has more than 361 million active users globally and is available in more than 200 markets around the world, enabling consumers and merchants to receive money in more than 100 currencies.

The overperformance of late is not a fluke, in just the last quarter, PYPL added more than 15.2 million new accounts. Its top-line has increased 25% year-over-year to $5.46 billion.

The company is now doing total payment volume (TPV) of $247 billion, growing 38% from the year-ago quarter.

Profitability is another check off the list with EPS for the third quarter coming in at $0.86, rising 121% year-over-year.

The company has been propelled by a spike in e-commerce sales and is one of the preeminent fintech stocks in the U.S.

A less entrenched name but worth a speculative look is Synchrony Financial (SYF).

SYF delivers a wide range of specialized financing programs as well as innovative digital banking products across key industries including retail, home, auto, travel, and pet care.

They have a private labeled credit card business with around 60% of SYF applications done digitally during the fourth quarter and grew 18% in mobile channel applications. In Retail Card, 51% of total sales occurred online. Finally, approximately 65% of payments were made digitally.

Synchrony is the 10th-largest credit card issuer in the U.S., with a roughly 2% market share.

But unlike other issuers, Synchrony primarily issues store credit cards, which offer users rewards and benefits.

Synchrony offers more than 100 of these store cards, including the Amazon.com Store Card, which can only be used for Amazon purchases, as well as cards from Lowe's, Banana Republic, Ashley Furniture, and Sam's Club.

Synchrony also offers about 30 store-branded cards that can be used on the broader Mastercard (MA) or Visa (V) network. Among them are the Nissan Visa card and the PayPal Cashback Mastercard.

Synchrony saw earnings plummet to $286 million in the first quarter, down from $731 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Then, earnings dropped to a low of $46 million in the second quarter before climbing back up to $313 million in the third quarter.

But they rebounded in the fourth quarter of 2020 with earnings surging to $738 million signifying an expansion from pre-pandemic performances.

The Venmo card is also a huge growth opportunity and the possibility of linking up with other fintech groups to create attractive products.

Synchrony added 25 new relationships in 2020, including two major deals that should drive growth in 2021 and beyond.

One was with PayPal to launch the Venmo credit card fueled by Visa.

Venmo is PayPalʻs hugely popular mobile app to send and receive money.

The Venmo credit card, which can be used virtually, provides Venmo users with cashback on purchases and comes with a QR code that allows contactless payments.

Synchrony also signed two other major credit card deals with Walgreens and Verizon.

The Walgreens relationship gets Synchrony into the health space, which allows people to pay for health and wellness expenses at some 225,000 different healthcare providers.

The company also acquired Allegro Credit, a provider of point-of-sale consumer financing for audiology products and dental services, to be part of the growing CareCredit network.

The other big move last year was launching the Verizon Visa card, which offers benefits and discounts for Verizon customers.

Synchrony and PayPal are dynamic fintech companies with savory futures.

PayPal is the bigger and safer bet of the two, but Synchrony will benefit more if their risks turn out well because the law of large numbers isn’t counting against them yet.

February 12, 2021

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
February 12, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(TEN STOCKS TO BUY BEFORE YOU DIE)
(MSFT), (AAPL), (GOOGL), (QCOM), (AMZN),
(V), (AXP), (NVDA), (DIS), (TGT)

Ten Stocks to Buy Before You Die

Diary, Newsletter

A better headline for this piece might have been “Ten stocks to Buy at the Bottom”, except that you have to redefine the word “bottom.”

The rules of the greatest liquidity-driven market of all time demand a different explanation of The NEW bottom, and that is something that hasn’t gone up lately.

And that would be big tech, which appears ready to blast out to the upside from a six-month long sideways “time” correction.

It would be a perfectly rational thing to see in these highly irrational markets. After all, these names just announced blockbuster earnings presaging greater things to come. And these companies actually HAVE earnings, compared to recent market frontrunners, which have none at all.

Coming in here and betting the ranch is now a no-lose trade. If I’m right, the pandemic ends in three months, stocks will soar. If I’m wrong and the global epidemic explodes from here, you’ll be dead anyway and won’t care that the stock market crashed further.

Needless to say, I have a heavy tech orientation with this list, far and away the source of the bulk of earnings growth for the US economy for the foreseeable future. If anything, the coronavirus will accelerate the move away from shopping malls and towards online commerce as consumers seek to shy away from direct contact with the virus.

What would I be avoiding here? Directly corona-related stocks like those in airlines, hotels, casinos, and cruise lines. Avoid human contact at all cost! There is no way of knowing when or where these stocks will bottom. Only the virus knows for sure.

Microsoft (MSFT) – still has a near-monopoly on operating systems for personal computers and a huge cash balance. Their inroads with the Azure cloud services have been impressive.

Apple (AAPL) – Even with the Coronavirus, Apple still has a cash balance of $225 billion. Its 5G iPhone launches in the fall, unleashing enormous pent-up demand. Apple’s rapid move away from a dependence on hardware to services continues.

Alphabet (GOOGL) – Has a massive 92% market share in search and remains the dominant advertising company on the planet.

QUALCOMM (QCOM) – Has a near-monopoly in chips needed for 5G phones. It also won a lawsuit against Apple over proprietary chip design. In the very near future, you won’t be able to do ANYTHING without 5G. It’s also not a bad idea to own a chip stock during the worst global chip shortage in history.

Amazon (AMZN) – The world’s preeminent retailer is growing by leaps and bounds. Dragged down by its association with the world’s worst industry, (AMZN) is a bargain relative to other FANGs.

Visa (V) – The world’s largest credit company is a call on the growth of the internet. We still need credit cards to buy things. And guess what? Coronavirus will accelerate the move of commerce out of malls where you can get sick to online where you can’t.

American Express (AXP) – Ditto above, except it charges higher fees and has snob appeal (read higher margins). Its stock has lagged Visa and MasterCard in recent years.

NVIDIA (NVDA) – The leading graphics card maker that is essential for artificial intelligence, gaming, and bitcoin mining. Another great chip play that has flatlined for half a year.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) – Stands to benefit enormously from the chip shortage created by the coming 5G and the explosion of the cloud.

Target (TGT) – The one retailer that has figured it out, both in their stores and online. It can’t be ALL tech.

Good Luck and Good Trading
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Looks Like a “BUY” Signal to Me

January 12, 2021

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
January 12, 2021
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MAD HEDGE 2020 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS),
(SPY), (TLT), (TBT), (TSLA), (GLD),
(SLV), (V), (AAPL), (VIX), (VXX)
(TESTIMONIAL)

Mad Hedge 2020 Performance Analysis

Diary, Newsletter

When a Marine combat pilot returns from a mission, he gets debriefed by an intelligence officer to glean whatever information can be obtained and lessons learned.

I know. I used to be one.

Big hedge funds do the same.

I know, I used to run one.

Even the best managers will follow home runs with some real clangors. Every loss is a learning experience. If it isn’t, investors will flee and you won’t last long in this business. McDonald’s beckons.

By subscribing to the Mad Hedge Fund Trader, you get to learn from my own half-century of mistakes, misplaced hubris, arrogance, overconfidence, and sheer stupidity.

So, let’s take a look at 2020.

It really was a perfect year for me during the most adverse conditions imaginable, a pandemic, Great Depression, and presidential election. I made good money in January, went net short when the pandemic hit in February, and played the big bounce in technology stocks that followed.

Right at the March crash bottom, I sent out lists of 25 two-year option LEAPS (Long Term Equity Participation Securities). Many of these were up ten times in months. I then used a Biden election win as a springboard for a big run with domestic recovery stocks and financials.

One client turned $3 million into $40 million last year. He owes me a dinner and my choice on the wine list. (Hmmmmm. Lafitte Rothschild 1952 Cabernet Sauvignon with a shot of Old Rip Van Winkle bourbon as a chaser?). I usually get a few of these every year.

See, that’s all you have to do to bring in a big year. Piece of cake. It’s like falling off a log. But then I’ve been practicing for 50 years.

In the end, I managed to bring in a net return of 66.5% for all of 2020. That compares to a net return for the Dow Average of 5.7%.

My equity trading in general brought in 71.94% in profits, with 216 trade alerts, and were far and away my top performing asset class. This was the best year for trading equities since the 1999 Dotcom bubble top.

Of course, the best single trade of the year was with Tesla (TSLA), with 18 trades bringing in a 10.55%. I dipped in and out during the 10-fold increase from the March low to yearend.

Readers were virtually buried with an onslaught of inside research about the disruptive electric car company. It’s still true if you buy the stock, you get the car for free, as I have done three times.

Some 26 trades in Apple (AAPL) brought in a net 5.94%. It did get stopped out a few times, hence the lower return.

The second most profitable asset class of the year was in the bond market, with 58 trades producing a 31.16% profit. Virtually all of these trades were on the short side.

I sold short the United States Treasury Bond Fund from $180 all the way down to $154. I called it my “rich uncle” trade of the year, writing me a check every month and sometimes several a month. This is the trade that keeps on giving in 2021. Eventually, I see the (TLT) falling all the way to $80.

I did OK with gold (GLD), making 4.88% with eight trades in the SPDR Gold Shares ETF. Gold rose steadily until August and then fell for the rest of the year. I picked up another 1.77% on two silver trades (SLV).

It was not all a bed of roses.

Easily my worst asset class of the year was with volatility, selling short the iPath Series B S&P 500 VIX Short Term Volatility ETN (VXX). I was dead right with the direction of the move, with the (VIX) falling from $80 to $20. But my timing was off, with time decay eating me up. I lost 7.29% on six trades.

Two trades in credit card processor Visa (V) cost me 4.37%. I had a nice profit in hand. Then right before expiration, rumors of antitrust action from the administration emerged, a spate of bad economic data was printed, and an expensive acquisition took place.

I call this getting snakebit when unpredictable events come out of the blue to force you out of positions. Visa shares later rose by an impressive 22% in two months.

I lost another 0.99% on my one oil trade of the year with the United States Oil Fund (USO), buying when Texas tea was at negative -$5.00 and stopping out at negative $15.00. Oil eventually fell to negative -$37.00.

Go figure.

I didn’t offer any foreign exchange trades in 2020. I got the collapse of the US dollar absolutely right, but the moves were so small and so slow they could compete with what was going on in equities and bonds.

However, I played the weak dollar in other ways, with bullish calls in commodities and bearish ones in bonds. It always works.

Anyway, it’s a New Year and we work in the “You’re only as good as your last trade” business. 2021 looks better than ever, with a 5% profit straight out of the gate during the first five trading days.

It really is the perfect storm for equities, with $10 trillion about to hit the US economy, most of which will initially go into the stock market.

Good luck and good trading.

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

October 30, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
October 30, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(OCTOBER 28 BIWEEKLY STRATEGY WEBINAR Q&A),
(INDU), (VIX), (AMZN), (TSLA), (FEYE), (HACK), (PANW), (V), (TLT), (FXA), (FXC), (ZM), (DOCU), (RTX), (LMT), (NOC), (GD)

October 28 Biweekly Strategy Webinar Q&A

Diary, Newsletter, Research

Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the October 28 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar broadcast from Silicon Valley, CA with my guest and co-host Bill Davis of the Mad Day Trader. Keep those questions coming!

Q: Do you think if Trump contests the election, it will be bad for stocks?

A: Yes, count on that knocking another 10% off of stocks. The market has spent the last six months pricing in a Biden win. Take that away and you have to price that back out again, about 6,000 Dow Average points (INDU). We’ve already dropped 2,500 points so that leaves another 3,500 points of downside t0 go in the event of a Trump win.

Q: Will that result in a crash?

A: Yes. At least 1,000 points in the overnight session following.

Q: Do you think it’s going to happen?

A: No. According to the polls, Trump will lose by at least 15 million votes. While the polls missed the Electoral College result last time, they were dead on with the popular vote, with Hillary Clinton winning by 3 million votes. If the margin were only a few hundred or thousand votes in a single battleground state, Trump might win a court fight. But he can’t win if the margin is in ten states and tens of millions of votes. That is too much to fudge. That is how markets react: they hate surprises, and a second Trump win would be the surprise of the century.

Q: With all of the earnings positive, do you think markets will stay positive?

A: Earnings aren’t important right now. Everyone knew earnings would be great because we were coming off of hundred-year lows caused by the pandemic. So yes, we knew they’d be up 50%, 100%, 150%; that's not the surprise. The bigger issue is what the pandemic is going to do, and of course, only biochemists know that—most stock traders have no idea, which is reflected in these gigantic swings we’re seeing in the market both on the upside and the downside. As a biochemist, I can tell you that this is our final wave that's coming up and it could last several months. After that, we get a vaccine or herd immunity. When it's done, you have the bull market of a lifetime—up 400% in ten years from these levels. Dow 120,000 here we come!

Q: Do you see a tax selloff if Biden gets in? Should we get short?

A: Definitely; there will be a tax selloff. Past ones have only lasted a week or two and those were the last two weeks of December, so it really won’t be that bad. It’s not like it’s a surprise that Biden is ahead in the polls, because he has been for 6 months. Nor is it a surprise that he is going to raise taxes on the wealthy. I wouldn’t get short though. The short play was last week and the week before; and I did manage to get out three shorts but didn't want to get too big in front of an election. So those all worked. I'm out of all of them now, and now we’re looking only at long plays. And with the Volatility Index (VIX) over $40, you can go 20% or 30% in-the-money on these call spreads and still look to make 10%-20% profit on the position in a month.

Q: Isn’t the pandemic great for Amazon (AMZN)?

A: Yes, Amazon was taking over the world anyway, and forcing everyone to an online-only economy which couldn’t be better for them. A lot of this shifting is permanent and won’t be going back to the way it was before the pandemic with brick and mortar shops and malls. So yes, we love Amazon and I would buy on the dips. There’s a double from here.

Q: Do you have long term names I can buy to sit on?

A: Yes, we actually do have a long-term portfolio posted on the website. It would be listed under your subscription area once you log in—we rebalance that twice a year. And of course, we had a 10% holding in Tesla (TSLA) which went up ten times, so the performance of the long-term portfolio is through the roof. To find the long-term portfolio, please click here.

Q: Do you record this webinar?

A: Yes, we post it on the www.madhedgefundtrader.com site in two hours.

Q: Do you still like the Internet security stocks like FireEye (FEYE)?

A: Yes. Hacking is growing faster than the Internet itself. You should also look at Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and the ETF (HACK).

Q: Should we hold on to the Visa (V) spread hoping it will come back after the election drop?

A: Hope is not an investment strategy. I always stop out of positions when they hit a 2% loss. The only time I have 4% losses is when we get these gigantic gap moves overnight, which tend to happen once every one or two years. In this case, Visa got hit with a surprise antitrust suit from the Department of Justice that knocked $10 off of the stock. So no, I will not hold on to it in the hope that it does better; I will try to minimize my losses, get out, and get into the next winning position. Hope is what turns a 4% loss into a complete 10% write off.

Q: What’s your view on the Canadian dollar (FXC)?

A: I like it, but it’s not as good as the Australian dollar (FXA) because Canada has a major oil exposure, and actually the worst kind of oil exposure—tar sands in northern Alberta. The outlook for oil is poor and that will be a drag on the currency in the form of fewer exports. Buy the (FXA). No oil troubles here. Kangaroos are another story.

Q: Will you be looking to sell short on the United States Treasury Bond Fund (TLT)?

A: Yes, if we can just get a little bit higher. We’re looking at an economic recovery next year, so we’d expect the (TLT) to be lower by at least $20 points in 2021.

Q: Do you think the San Francisco and New York housing markets will return to what they were before with so many people are moving out of the city?

A: Yes, they will come back, I’ve been through many of these cycles in San Francisco over the past 50 years; it always comes back. Once the pandemic is over, people will say, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you can get a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco for only $2 million.” That's probably another year or two off after a vaccine is in widespread distribution.

Q: Is real estate in a bubble?

A: Absolutely, but real estate bubbles can go on for a long time, like ten years. The bubble in Australia has been going on for 30 years. Ultimately, real estate prices are driven by the earnings power of the local economy which, in the case of San Francisco, is huge. This time around, we have a record large millennial generation looking for real estate. There are 85 million millennia buyers with only 65 million Gen X-er’s selling homes. So, we have to make up a shortfall of 20 million houses at some point. That’s why building permits are through the roof every month.

Q: Zoom (ZM) and DocuSign (DOCU) are the darling stocks of COVID 2020—what do you think about them at these high prices?

A: Very high risk. If you bought these a year ago when we first started covering them, good for you as they're up ten times. However, there are better fish to fry than chasing these big pandemic winners at all-time highs.

Q: If Biden wins, what happens to defense stocks like Raytheon Technology (RTX)?

A: They go down. It turns out a lot of the defense business is in very long term contracts that can’t be broken. They have to supply so many planes a year to the government for a decade or more. However, the sentiment on these sectors sours under democratic administrations because they are not initiating new weapons systems where the big money is made. Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), and General Dynamics (GD) all have the same problem. I grew up with these companies. They were the FANGs of their day.

Q: How does a Biden win affect Tesla (TSLA)?

A: Then $2,500 a share for Tesla looks cheap (it’s now at $410). Biden will do everything he can to slow climate change and accelerate alternative energy. Tesla is front and center on that. Under current law, car manufacturers are limited on the number of units they can sell to get the $7,500 tax break per vehicle. Tesla used up all their subsidies five years ago. My bet is that the limits will be eliminated and that leads to a huge surge in Tesla sales in the U.S., which is why the stock has gone up 10 times in the last year. Tesla has promised to drop their car price to $25,000 in three years. If you throw in $10,000 in federal and state tax subsidies you get the car for free. Then you can write off General Motors (GM) and Ford (F).

Good Luck and Stay Healthy.

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

Bear Sighting

October 19, 2020

Diary, Newsletter, Summary

Global Market Comments
October 19, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD,
OR WHY THE NEXT TWO WEEKS ARE A WRITE-OFF)
(V), (SPY)

The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or Why the Next Two Weeks are a Write-Off

Diary, Newsletter, Research

You can pretty much write off trading for the next two weeks.

The election has been decided. It’s going to be a scandal a day in the media, but everyone has already made up their minds. All attention will be devoted to politics at the expense of trading, investment, and research. In the end, the president will lose by more than 15 million votes. All that is left but the imprimatur of the Electoral College.

Yet the Democrats are not declaring victory, with the memory of the 2016 debacle too fresh, when overconfidence and complacency ruled.

The few who are trading are jockeying around to position for the 2021 market. That means keeping big tech and adding to positions in domestic recovery and industrial stocks, like banks, couriers, railroads, and drug companies.

Tech will keep rising because of the catapult into the future provided by the pandemic yet to be reflected by share prices. Domestic industrials will see a recovery that is normal when coming out of a tradition recession, or Great Depression.

But they are doing so hesitantly, with little conviction.

After all, there are national elections in two weeks.

As for me, I have limited myself to the cautious two positions, one long in Visa (V) and one short in the S&P 500 (SPY), both of which are making money.

So, it is a good time to do your research, build your short lists of stocks to buy, and gird your loins. The main event begins after November 3.

Markets jumped on stimulus hopes. Investors don’t really care if stimulus happens before or after a Biden win. They’re buying now. And Biden will almost certainly double up spending later in the year. No dips for latecomers. The post-election market melt-up has begun and new highs beckon. Fears of election disruption have vaporized.

Markets just entered the strongest six months of the year. It’s the inverse of sell in May and go away. October to May portfolios have yielded 64% annually for the past 20 years, while May to October investments yield exactly 4%. It traces back to America’s agricultural cycle of a century ago. Take every tailwind you can find.

The IMF predicted negative 4.4% growth for 2020, the worst since the Great Depression. Believe it or not, this is an upgrade from more dismal numbers. By comparison, the 2008-09 Great Recession brought only a 0.1% drawdown. If the US passes another stimulus package, it will recover its 2019 GDP in 2021 instead of 2022.

The new 5G iPhone is out! After a year of speculation, we get a better screen, improved camera, and magnetic charging for $999. The stock dumped on a classic “buy the rumor, sell the news.” Also out is a new mini iPhone for $699. Your neighborhood won’t have 5G for a year. Buy Apple (AAPL) on dips.

The US PC market saw best quarter in a decade, with millions of new home offices joining the fray. Some 71.4 million computers were shipped in Q3, up 3.6% YOY. Think enormous demand for new chips. Buy (AMD), (MU), and (NVDA) on dips.

Used car prices are soaring, jumping the most since 1969, and lifted the Consumer Price Index by 0.2% in September. It’s the fourth straight month of increasing inflation.

Ships are backed up in Los Angeles waiting to unload. America’s import boom and soaring trade deficit with China leaves no available dock space on the west coast. It’s another sign of a recovering economy.

US Producer Prices pop in September bringing the first YOY gain since March. They were up 0.4% following a 0.3% gain in August. Another sign of a recovering economy.

Weekly Jobless Claims ballooned to 898,000, now that California is reporting again. Not what you want to see going into an election. A slowing economy and spreading virus don’t help either. Some 25.5 million Americans are out of work.

When we come out the other side of this, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age, or the next Roaring Twenties. With interest rates still at zero, oil cheap, there will be no reason not to. The Dow Average will rise by 400% or more in the coming decade. The American coming out the other side of the pandemic will be far more efficient and profitable than the old. Dow 120,000 here we come!

My Global Trading Dispatch hit a new all-time high last week by staying 100% in cash. I was just as grateful for having no positions on the up 600-point days as I was on the down 600-point days. Safe to say that I will be an increasingly more aggressive buyer on ever smaller dips and a seller on bigger rallies. October has now reached to a welcome 1.61% profit.

That keeps our 2020 year-to-date performance at a blistering +36.11%, versus a gain of 0.3% for the Dow Average. That takes my eleven-year average annualized performance back to +36.13%. My 11-year total return stood at a new all-time high at +392.02%. My trailing one-year return appreciated to +42.67%.

The coming week will be a dull one on the data front. The only numbers that really count for the market are the number of US Coronavirus cases and deaths, now at 219,679, which you can find here.

On Monday, October 19 at 8:30 AM EST, the IMF/World Bank virtual annual meeting starts, so we can expect Fed speakers every day. (IBM) reports earnings.

On Tuesday, October 20 at 8:30 AM EST, Housing Starts for September are announced. Netflix (NFLX) reports earnings.

On Wednesday, October 21 at 10:30 AM EST, the EIA Cushing Crude Oil Stocks are out. At 2:00 PM EST, the Fed Beige Book is published, a transcript of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting from six weeks ago. Tesla (TSLA) reports earnings.
change.

On Thursday, October 22 at 8:30 AM EST, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. At 10:00 AM EST Existing Home Sales for September are out. AT&T (T) reports.

On Friday, October 23, at 2:00 PM, we learn the Baker-Hughes Rig Count. American Express (AXP) reports earnings.

As for me, I saw a curious thing driving back from Lake Tahoe this weekend. Usually, I see a never-ending parade of out of state license plates moving to the Golden State.

This time, I saw telephone poles coming in by the truckloads, hundreds of them. These are to replace the many burned down in the horrific wildfires that incinerated an area the size of Connecticut. Apparently, California has run out of telephone poles.

Is there a public stock for a company that sells telephone poles?

Stay healthy.

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