I recently heard an amazing piece of information from a subscriber.
Fidelity recently conducted a study to identify their best-performing clients.
They neatly fell into two groups: people who forgot they had an account at Fidelity and dead people.
It all underlines the futility of trading the markets without true professional guidance such as you get here at Mad Hedge Fund Trader, something many aspire to, but few actually accomplish.
Of the many thousands of online newsletters and trade mentoring services, I only know of three that actually make money for clients.
Those would be mine and two others, and I’m not taking about who the other two are.
It is an industry filled with professional marketers, charlatans, and conmen. I recently figured out that industries that employ a lot of specific jargon attract conmen because it is so easy to convince people of your expertise. Those are the health supplement and financial industries.
Let me point out a few harsh lessons learned from this most recent meltdown.
We are now transitioning from a “Sell in May” to a “Buy in November” posture.
The next six months are ones of historical seasonal market strength (click here for the misty origins of this trend at “If You Sell in May, What To Do in April?”).
The big lesson learned this summer was the utter uselessness of technical analyses. Usually, these guys are right only 50% of the time. This year, they missed the boat entirely.
When the S&P 500 (SPY) was meandering in a narrow nine-point range, and the Volatility Index (VIX) hugged the $12 neighborhood, they said this would continue for the rest of the year.
It didn’t.
This is why technical analysis is utterly useless as an investment strategy. How many hedge funds use a pure technical strategy on a stand-alone basis?
Absolutely none, as it doesn’t make any money.
At best, it is just one of 100 tools you need to trade the market effectively. The shorter the time frame, the more accurate it becomes.
On an intraday basis, technical analysis is actually quite useful. But I doubt few of you engage in this hopeless persuasion. Most senior investors would rather spend their time on a golf course than be glued to a screen.
Leave it for the kids.
This is why I advise portfolio managers and financial advisors to use technical analysis as a means of timing order executions, and nothing more.
Most professionals agree with me. That’s why so much volume bunches up at the opening and the close every day, to get a nice average.
Technical analysis derives from humans’ preference for looking at pictures instead of engaging in abstract mental processes. A picture is worth 1,000 words, and probably a lot more.
This is why technical analysis appeals to so many young people entering the market for the first time.
Buy a book for $5 on Amazon, and you can become a Master of the Universe.
Who can resist that?
The problem is that high frequency traders also bought that same book from Amazon a long time ago and have designed algorithms to frustrate every move of the technical analyst.
Sorry to be the buzz kill, but that is my take on technical analysis.
I have a much better solution than forgetting you have a trading account or dying.
Take Cunard’s round-the-world cruise (click here for the link).
I have been sailing with Cunard since the 1970’s when the original Queen Elizabeth was still afloat.
I’ve lost count of how many Transatlantic voyages I have taken across the pond.
For a mere $19,999 you can spend 122 days circumnavigating the globe with Cunard from Southampton, England in their cheapest inside cabin.
That includes all the food you can eat for four months.
On the way you can visit such exotic destinations as Bora Bora, The Seychelles, Reunion, and Moorea.
Not a bad deal.
By the time you get home, you will probably earn enough in your investment account to pay for the entire trip.
Hope you enjoyed your cruise.
Correction? What Correction?
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/map-e1510537233179.jpg255580Arthur Henryhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngArthur Henry2024-11-06 09:04:402024-11-06 16:28:23Why Technical Analysis is a Disaster
Below please find subscribers’ Q&A for the October 9 Mad Hedge Fund Trader Global Strategy Webinar, broadcast from Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Q: Is the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) a buy here?
A: I think we are testing the 200-day moving average, which is at 92.75. Let’s see if that holds, and if it does, we want to do at-the-money LEAPS one year out because the Fed has basically said it’s going to keep lowering interest rates until June, and bonds can’t lose on that. That would also be a nine-point pullback from the recent high.
Q: I found a YouTube video about your Uncle Mitchell Paige, who won the first Medal of Honor in WWII.
A: Yes, there’s a ton of stuff on the internet about Uncle Mitch, even though he passed away 22 years ago. There’s even a Mattel G.I Joe version of Uncle Mitch that you can buy, which he gave me. I also inherited his samurai swords.
Q: When will small caps turn around?
A: That’s the iShares Russell 2000 (IWM). Small caps are joined at the hips with interest rates, so when interest rates go up, and bond prices go down, small caps also go down. That is because small caps are much more dependent on borrowed money than any other section of the market, 60% lose money, 40% are regional banks, and they have much weaker credit ratings. They are a leverage play on everything going great—when interest rates are rising, they aren’t great. I would hold off on the (IWM). Even when interest rates start going back down again, which I expect they will do going into the next Fed meeting, (IWM) will be about number ten on the list of interesting things to do.
Q: The hiring numbers were great with the nonfarm payroll on Friday, so will the recession be pushed back to 2026?
A: I don’t think we’re going to have a recession. I think we have a growth scare, a growth slowdown, and then we reaccelerate again as more companies start booking AI profits to their bottom lines. Also, the recovery of China would be nice, recovery of Europe would be nice—so there are many other factors at play here. The fact is the United States has the world’s strongest economy, and we are going from strength to strength. That’s why everybody in the world is sending their money over here.
Q: Do you expect heightened volatility going into the year-end?
A: I expect heightened volatility going into the election; after that, it may collapse. Right now, the Volatility Index ($VIX) is in the low $20s, which is the high end of the recent range. I expect that to fall, and then we get a ballistic market after the election once all the uncertainty is gone.
Q: Should I buy utilities and industrials now?
A: Yes, these are two of the most interest-sensitive sectors in the market—especially utilities, which are very heavy borrowers. They’ve already had tremendous runs—things like Duke Energy (DUK) and NextEra (NEE). However, I think I’m going up more if we’re going to get interest rates down to 3%. Even if we get them down to 3.5 or 4%, the rallies in all the interest-sensitive sectors will continue.
Q: If the global economy recovers, would that lead to increased inflation and an increase in interest rates?
A: In an old-fashioned economy—one driven by, for instance, the car industry—yes, that would be happening. Back then, wage settlements with the United Auto Workers had the biggest impact on your portfolio. In the modern economy, technology is dropping prices so fast that even during periods of high growth, prices are still falling. The example I give is: the cheapest PC you could get in 1990 cost $5,000, which was a Compact. Now you could get the same computer for $300. You can bet going forward that eliminating all port workers will also be highly disinflationary; we won’t have to pay those $200,000 salaries for port workers, so that goes to zero. You can cite literally hundreds of examples in the economy where technology is collapsing prices.
Q: Should I go with a safe strategy now or increase my risk?
A: I think if we don’t sell off in the next two weeks, you have to buy the hell out of the market because we have had every excuse to sell off, and the market just won’t do it. Middle Eastern war, uncertainty in the election, gigantic hurricanes which will definitely shrink economic growth this year, the port strike and the Boeing strike, which will take a month out of GDP growth on the coast—and it still won’t go down. So, if you throw bad news on a market and it still won’t go down, you buy the heck out of it. The last chance for this to go down is literally this month. After that, the seasonals turn strongly positive. What’s the opposite of “sell in May, and go away”? It’s “buy in October and ring the cash register.”
Q: Will gold (GLD) go to 3,000/oz soon?
A: Yes. That’ll happen on the next Fed interest rate cuts as we go into the end of the year. We'll probably get two more cuts of 25 basis point cuts. Gold loves that. And guess what? Chinese have nowhere else to save their money except gold. So, yes, I'm looking for $3,000 and then $4,500 after that. You definitely want to own gold.
Q: Should I dump Chinese (FXI) stocks after this short-term spike?
A: Yes, for the short term, but not for the long term. Some kind of recovery will come, because if this Chinese stimulus package fails, they'll bring another one, and you'll get another one of those monster rallies. So, if you're a long-term holder, then I would stay in. The blue-chip stocks are incredibly cheap. But I still believe the best China plays are in the US, in oil (USO), copper (FCX), iron ore (BHP), and gold (GLD).
Q: Is oil headed down after the Israel and Lebanon war?
A: That really isn’t the main factor in the oil market. These people have been fighting for a century, literally, and any geopolitical influence has not had any sustainable impact on the price of oil. Really, the sole driver for oil prices now is China. You get China back in the game, oil goes back to $95 a barrel. If China remains in recession, then oil stays low and goes back to the $60s. It’s purely a China play. The US economy will continue to grow, but most of our oil consumption is domestic now—we are the world’s largest oil producer at 13.5 million barrels a day. We do not need any Middle Eastern oil anymore, really, we’re just running out our existing contracts.
Q: Do you think cryptocurrencies will have a bull market with the stock market?
A: No, I don’t. Cryptocurrencies did well when we had a liquidity surplus and an asset shortage. Now, we have the opposite; we have a liquidity shortage and an asset surplus, and the theft problem is still rampant with the cryptocurrencies keeping most institutional and individual investors out of that market.
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 Good Trading,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
One of my Concierge clients holds a weekly staff meeting. Each employee is told his family is being held hostage and can only be rescued if they recommend the top-performing stock for the coming week. Then everyone throws in their two cents worth.
Last week, for the first time in the company’s history, no one could come up with a single name, even if it meant sacrificing their family (nobody was really sacrificed).
That speaks volumes.
In fact, until last week, every asset class in the market was discounting an imminent recession: Commodities(COPX), energy (USO), real estate (ARE), and the US dollar (UUP). Reliable recession hideouts like bonds (TLT), fixed income (JNK), and gold (GLD) caught an endless bid. Only the stock market (SPY), (NASD) wasn’t reading from the same music sheet.
Well, stocks finally got the memo, delivering the worst week in 2 ½ years. Suddenly, the glass has gone from half full to half empty. Permabears have suddenly morphed from complete idiots to maybe having something to say. Here it is only September 9 and the Month from Hell is already living up to its awful reputation. Is the stock market the slow learner in the bunch?
I came back from Europe in August rested, refreshed, invigorated, and in a near state of panic. The last 11% rally in the (SPY) made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Either the September jobs data would come in hot, canceling the Fed’s expected interest rate cut. Or, the data would come in cold, proving that the Fed waited too long to cut rates and inviting a recession, causing stocks to tank.
It would have been one of the worst self-inflicted wounds and own goals of all time.
What was especially dangerous was that we were going into the worth trading month of the year, September, with the (SPY) showing a crystal-clear double top on the charts.
It was a perfect lose/lose situation.
Seasonals are important, especially this month. This is because most mutual funds run an annual year that ends on September 30. To window dress their books and those glossy marketing brochures, they sell all their losers (think energy) in September and use the cash to buy more of their winners in October. (NVDA) yes, (XOM) not so much. This creates a swing in the indexes every year of 10%-20%.
To learn more about the seasonals, read tomorrow’s letter in detail, IF YOU SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY, WHAT TO DO IN SEPTEMBER?
So I did what I usually do when the market refuses to give me marching orders. I let all my positions expire with the August 16 options expiration, took back the cash, and then sat on my hands. Suddenly, a 100% cash position was looking like a stroke of genius. It cleared the cobwebs, moved the fog away from my eyes, and took the monkey off my back all in one fell swoop.
And you know what? After surveying my big hedge fund clients, I learned they were doing exactly the same thing.
Let me pass on another piece of interesting intel. All of the many algorithms the hedge fund industry follows are bunching up around two specific bottoms for the stock market in coming months: September 18, the Fed rate cut day, and October 22, two weeks before the presidential election.
With any luck, other classic “BUY” signals will kick in at the same time with the Mad Hedge Market Timing Index below 20 by then and the Volatility Index ($VIX) over $30. It could be the best entry point of the year.
What has been fascinating is how much money has been pouring into the interest rate plays I have been banging the table about for the last six months. When was the last time the stock market has been led by AT&T (T), Altria (MO), and Crown Castle International (CCI)? You might have to look behind the radiator to find some old, dusty research on these names.
So far in September, we are down by -1.21%.My 2024 year-to-date performance is at +33.49%.The S&P 500 (SPY) is up +13%so far in 2024. My trailing one-year return reached +51.89. That brings my 16-year total return to +710.12.My average annualized return has recovered to +51.63%.
I executed only one trade last week, covering a short in Tesla at cost. I am now maintaining a 100% cash position. I’ll text you next time I see a bargain in any market. Now there is none. There is no law dictating that you have to have a position every day of the year. Only your broker wants you to trade every day.
Some 63 of my 70 round trips, or 90%, were profitable in 2023. Some 47 of 66 trades have been profitable so far in 2024, and several of those losses were really break-even. That is a success rate of +72.24%.
Try beating that anywhere.
Nonfarm Payroll Report Fades at 142,000, but the Headline Unemployment Rate stays at 4.2%. More shocking is that the previous two months saw substantial downward revisions. The BLS cut July’s total by 25,000, while June fell to 118,000, a downward revision of 61,000. If the Fed doesn’t cut by 0.50% on September 18, the stock market will crash. Broadcom Beats and Stock Tanks driven by strong sales of its AI products and VMware software. But management’s guidance for the current quarter disappointed investors, sending shares of the chipmaker down nearly 7% in the after-market. This is too harsh of a reaction to an otherwise solid print. Buy (AVGO) on dips. ADP Employment Change Report Hits 3 ½-Year Low, up only 99,000 in August. Economists polled had forecast private employment would advance by 145,000 positions after a previously reported gain of 122,000.
Biden Blocks Nippon Steel Takeover of US Steel, no doubt to save the jobs these deals usually destroy. Good thing we got out of the (X) LEAPS a year ago at max profit. (X) dropped 20% on the news. Not a good time to concentrate on industry.
No Subpoenas Here Says NVIDIA, refuting rumors that it was the target of an antitrust action. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. The Yield Curve has De-Inverted, meaning that short-term interest rates have fallen below long-term ones. Two-year interest rates at 3.72% are now 0.03% lower than ten-year ones at 3.75%. It’s a clear signal to the Fed that rates must be cut soon. Weekly Jobless Claims Drop 5,000 to 227,000. The weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department on Thursday, the most timely data on the economy's health, also showed unemployment rolls shrinking to levels last seen in mid-June. It reduces the urgency for the Federal Reserve to deliver a 50-basis points interest rate cut this month.
US Oil Production Hits All-Time High. In August 2024, U.S. oil production hit a record 13.4 million barrels per day according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Big Oil has become more productive as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which is also known as fracking, have seen technological breakthroughs. The fossil fuel industry benefits from tax incentives, such as the intangible drilling costs tax credit, that are built into the tax code. The intangible drilling costs tax break is expected to benefit oil and gas companies by $1.7 billion in 2025 and $9.7 billion through 2034
Crude Oil Now Down on the Year, after a precipitous weekend selloff. Blame a weak China, lost OPEC discipline, and overproduction by Iraq. The bearish Goldman Sachs commodities report was also a factor. Avoid the worst-performing asset class in the market. Eli Lilly is now a trillion-dollar stock, the first Biotech to do so. The drug giant is riding the wave of Mounjaro and Zepbound, its blockbuster injectable GLP-1 medications for weight loss. The drugs are also used to treat diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Eli Lilly’s shares have soared 65% this year.
Goldman Goes Big on Gold. Central banks in emerging market countries are continuing to buy gold — with purchases tripling since the middle of 2022 amid fears of U.S. financial sanctions and a mountain of sovereign debt. Goldman is taking a more selective approach to commodity investing as soft demand in China weighs on crude oil and copper prices. The investment bank has slashed its Brent oil outlook by $5 to a range of $70 to $85 per barrel and delayed its copper target of $12,000 per metric ton until after 2025.
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 600% 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, September 9 at 3:00 PM EST, Consumer Inflation Expectations are out On Tuesday, September 10 at 6:00 AM, the NFIB Business Optimism Index is released.
On Wednesday, September 11 at 7:30 AM, the Core CPI is printed.
On Thursday, September 12 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. We also get the Producer Price Index.
On Friday, September 13 at 8:30 AM, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment. At 2:00 PM the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, I was having lunch at the Paris France casino in Las Vegas at Mon Ami Gabi, one of the top ten-grossing restaurants in the United States. My usual waiter, Pierre from Bordeaux, took care of me with his typical ebullient way, graciously letting me practice my rusty French.
As I finished an excellent, but calorie packed breakfast (eggs Benedict, caramelized bacon, hash browns, and a café au lait), I noticed an elderly couple sitting at the table next to me. Easily in their 80s, they were dressed to the nines and out on the town.
I told them I wanted to be like them when I grew up.
Then I asked when they first went to Paris, expecting a date sometime after WWII. The gentleman responded, “Seven years ago.”
And what brought them to France?
“My father is buried there. He’s at the American Military Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer along with 9,386 other Americans. He died on Omaha Beach on D-Day. I went for the D-Day 70th anniversary.” He also mentioned that he never met his dad, as he was killed in action weeks after he was born.
I reeled with the possibilities. First, I mentioned that I participated in the 40-year D-Day anniversary with my uncle, Medal of Honor winner Mitchell Paige, and met with President Ronald Reagan.
We joined the RAF fly-past in my own private plane and flew low over the invasion beaches at 200 feet, spotting the remaining bunkers and the rusted-out remains of the once floating pier. Pont du Hoc is a sight to behold from above, pockmarked with shell craters like the moon. When we landed at a nearby airport, I taxied over railroad tracks that were the launch site for the German V1 “buzzbomb” rockets.
D-Day was a close-run thing and was nearly lost. Only the determination of individual American soldiers saved the day. The US Navy helped too, bringing destroyers right to the shoreline to pummel the German defenses with their five-inch guns. Eventually, battleships working in concert with very lightweight Stinson L5 spotter planes made sure that anything the Germans brought to within 20 miles of the coast was destroyed.
Then the gentleman noticed the gold Marine Corps pin on my lapel and volunteered that he had been with the Third Marine Division in Vietnam. I replied that my father had been with the Third Marine Division during WWII at Bougainville and Guadalcanal and that I had been with the Third Marine Air Wing during Desert Storm.
I also informed him that I had led an expedition to Guadalcanal two years ago looking for some of the 400 Marines still missing in action. We found 30 dog tags and sent them to the Marine Historical Division at Quantico, Virginia for tracing. I proudly showed them my pictures.
When the stories came back it, turned out that many survivors were children now in their 80s who had never met their fathers because they were killed in action on Guadalcanal.
Small world.
I didn’t want to infringe any further on their fine morning out, so I excused myself. He said Semper Fi, the Marine Corps motto, thanked me for my service, and gave me a fist pump and a smile. I responded in kind and made my way home.
Oh and say “Hi” when you visit Mon Ami Gabi. Tell Pierre that John Thomas sent you and give him a big tip. It’s not easy for a Frenchman to cater to all these loud Americans.
Third Marine Air Wing
The D-Day Couple
The American Military Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer
Stay Healthy,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/d-day-couple.png8201096april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-09-09 09:02:592024-09-09 11:16:00The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or September Lives Up to its Reputation
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD or THE ROUND TRIP TO NOWHERE), plus (A VISIT TO TRINITY),
(ROM), (TQQQ), ($VIX), (TLT), (SLRN), (CAT), (AMZN), and (BRK/B). (NVDA), (TSLA), (AAPL), and (META), ($INDU), (TSLA), (DHI), (DE), (AAPL), (JPM), (DE), (GLD), (DHI)
I am writing this to you from the airport in Vilnius, Lithuania, which is under construction. The airport is packed because people are flying all planes to Paris to catch the closing ceremony of the 2024 Olympics. There is also the inflow of disappointed Taylor Swift fans returning from three concerts in Vienna, Austria that had been canceled due to terrorist threats. Some 150,000 tickets had to be refunded.
It is hard to focus on my writing because every 30 seconds, a beautiful woman walks by.
And I am told at my age I am not supposed to learn. I should know better.
Well, that was some week!
If you had taken a ten-day cruise to Alaska, you would wonder what all the fuss was about, for last week the stock market was basically unchanged. The worst day in two years, down 3%, followed by the best, up 2 ½% amounts to a big fat nothing burger.
It all reminds me of one of those advanced aerobatics classes I used to take. I was busier than a one-armed paper hanger, sending out some 13 trade alerts in all.
And while the volatility is certainly not over, it is probably at least two-thirds over, meaning that we can step out for a cup of coffee and NOT expect a 1,000 move in the Dow Average by the time we get back.
Is the Bottom IN?
I don’t think so. The valuation disparity between big tech and value is still miles wide. Uncertainty reaches a maximum just before the US presidential election. A bottom for the year is coming, but not quite yet. When it does, it will be the buying opportunity of the year. Watch this space! And watch (ROM) and (TQQQ) too.
The average drawdown per year since 2020 stands at 15%, so with our 10% haircut, the worst is over. What will remain in high volatility? After staying stuck at $12 for most of 2024 and then spiking to $65 in two days, the $20 handle should remain for the foreseeable future.
That is a dream come true and a license to print money for options traders because the higher options prices effectively double the profit per trade. So, expect a lot of trade alerts from the Mad Hedge Fund Trader going forward. That is, until the ($VIX) returns to $36, then the potential profit triples.
Up until July, I had been concerned that the market might not sell off enough to make a yearend rally worth buying into. There was still $8 trillion in cash sitting under the market buying even the smallest dips.
The Japanese took care of that in a heartbeat with a good old-fashioned financial crisis. In hours trillions of dollars’ worth of yen carry trades unwound, creating an unprecedented 14% move UP in the Japanese currency and a 26% move DOWN in the Japanese stock market.
Suddenly, the world was ending. Or at least the financial media thought it was.
Some hundreds of hedge funds probably went under as their leverage is so great at 10X-20X. But we probably won’t know who until the redemption notices go out at yearend.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.
Don’t expect the Fed to take any emergency action, such as a surprise 50 basis point rate cut, to help us out. Things are just not bad enough. The headline Unemployment Rate is still a low 4.3%. Corporate profits are at all-time highs. We are nowhere near a credit crisis or any other threats to the financial system. The US still has the strongest major economy in the world.
Of course, if you followed my advice and went heavy into falling interest rate plays, as I have been begging you to do for months, last week was your best of the year. The United States US Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) rocketed to a year high at $100. Junk bonds (JNK), REITS (CCI), BB-rated loan ETFs (SLRN), and high-yield stocks (MO) went up even more.
It's still not too late to pile into yield plays because the Fed hasn’t actually cut interest rates YET. Volatility Index ($VIX) Hits Four-Year High at $65, the most since the 2020 pandemic. That implies a 2% move in the S&P 500 (SPX) every day for the next 30 days, which is $103.42 (SPX) points or $774 Dow ($INDU) points. No doubt, massive short covering played a big role with traders covering shorts they sold in size at $12. Spikes like this are usually great long-term “BUY” signals. $150 Billion in Volatility Plays were Dumped on Monday. Volatility-linked strategies, including volatility funds and equities trend-following commodity trading advisers (CTAs), are systematic investment strategies that typically buy equities when markets are calm and sell when they grow turbulent. They became heavy sellers of stocks over the last few weeks, exacerbating a market rout brought on by economic worries and the unwind of a massive global carry trade.
Weekly Jobless Claims Drop to 233,000, sparking a 500-point rally in the market. It’s a meaningless report, but traders are now examining every piece of jobs data with a magnifying glass.
Commercial Real Estate Has Bottomed, which will be great news for regional banks. Visitations are up big in Manhattan, with Class “A” properties gaining the most attention. New leasing is now exceeding vacations.
Warren Buffet Now Owns More T-Bills than the Federal Reserve. The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate held $234.6 billion in short-term investments in Treasury bills at the end of the second quarter. That compared with $195.3 billion in T-bills that the Fed owned as of July 31. The Oracle of Omaha wisely unloaded $84 billion worth of Apple at the market top.
No Recession Here says shipping giant Maersk. U.S. inventories are not at a level that is worrisome says CEO Vincent Clerc, as fears of a recession in the world’s largest economy mount. Chinese exports have helped drive overall container demand in the most recent quarter reported a decline in year-on-year underlying profit to $623 million from $1.346 billion in the second quarter and a dip in revenue to $12.77 billion from $12.99 billion.
A Refi Boom is About to Begin. Mortgage rates in the high fives are now on offer. Over 40% of existing mortgages have rates of over 6%. It’s all driven by the monster rally in the bond market this week which took the (TLT) to $100 and ten-year US Treasury yields down to 3.65%.
Google (GOOG) Gets Hit with an Antitrust Suit, a Federal judge ruling that the company has a monopoly in search, with a 92% market share. The smoking gun was the $20 billion a year (GOOG) paid Apple (AAPL) to remain their exclusive search engine. Apple is the big loser here, which I just sold short.
In July we ended up a stratospheric +10.92%. So far in August, we are up by +2.51% My 2024 year-to-date performance is at +33.45%.The S&P 500 (SPY) is up +7.34%so far in 2024. My trailing one-year return reached +51.92. That brings my 16-year total return to +710.08.My average annualized return has recovered to +51.94%.
I used the market crash to stop out of three STOP LOSS positions in (CAT), (AMZN), and (BRK/B). When the ($VIX) hit $65 I then made all the losses back when I piled on four new technology longs in (NVDA), (TSLA), (AAPL), and (META). After the Dow Average ($INDU) rallied 2,000 points and volatility was still high I then pumped out short positions in (TSLA), (DHI), (DE), (AAPL), and (JPM). I stopped out of my position in (DE) at breakeven.
This is in addition to existing longs in (GLD) and (DHI), which I will likely run into the August 16 option expiration.
Some 63 of my 70 round trips, or 90%, were profitable in 2023. Some 48 of 66 trades have been profitable so far in 2024, and several of those losses were really break-even. That is a success rate of 72.73%.
If you were wondering why I was sending out so many trade alerts out last week it is because we were getting months’ worth of market action compressed into five days. Make hay while the sun shines and strike while the iron is hot!
Try beating that anywhere.
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 600% 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, August 12 at 8:30 AM EST, the Consumer Inflation Expectations is out. On Tuesday, August 13 at 9:30 AM, the Producer Price Index ispublished.
On Wednesday, August 14 at 8:30 AM, the new Core Inflation Rate is printed.
On Thursday, August 15 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. Retail Sales are also printed.
On Friday, August 16 at 8:30 AM, Building Permits are disclosed. We also get the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment. At 2:00 PM, the Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, with the overwhelming success of the Oppenheimer movie, I thought I’d review my long and fruitful connection with America’s nuclear program.
When the Cold War ended in 1992, the United States judiciously stepped in and bought the collapsing Soviet Union’s entire uranium and plutonium supply.
For good measure, my client George Soros provided a $50 million grant to hire every Soviet nuclear engineer. The fear then was that starving scientists would go to work for Libya, North Korea, or Pakistan, which all had active nuclear programs. They ended up here instead.
That provided the fuel to run all US nuclear power plants and warships for 20 years. That fuel has now run out and chances of a resupply from Russia are zero. The Department of Defense attempted to reopen our last plutonium factory in Amarillo, Texas, a legacy of the Johnson administration.
But the facilities were deemed too old and out of date, and it is cheaper to build a new factory from scratch anyway. What better place to do so than Los Alamos, which has the greatest concentration of nuclear expertise in the world?
Los Alamos is a funny sort of place. It sits at 7,320 feet on a mesa on the edge of an ancient volcano so if things go wrong, they won’t blow up the rest of the state. The homes are mid-century modern built when defense budgets were essentially unlimited. As a prime target in a nuclear war, there are said to be miles of secret underground tunnels hacked out of solid rock.
You need to bring a Geiger counter to garage sales because sometimes interesting items are work castaways. A friend almost bought a cool coffee table which turned out to be part of an old cyclotron. And for a town designing the instruments to bring on the possible end of the world, it seems to have an abnormal number of churches. They’re everywhere.
I have hundreds of stories from the old nuclear days passed down from those who worked for J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves, who ran the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s. They were young mathematicians, physicists, and engineers at the time, in their 20’s and 30’s, who later became my university professors. The A-bomb was the most important event of their lives.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t relay this precious unwritten history to anyone without a security clearance. So, it stayed buried with me for a half century, until now.
Some 1,200 engineers will be hired for the first phase of the new plutonium plant, which I got a chance to see. That will create challenges for a town of 13,000 where existing housing shortages already force interns and graduate students to live in tents. It gets cold at night and dropped to 13 degrees F when I was there.
I was allowed to visit the Trinity site at the White Sands Missile Test Range, the first visitor to do so in many years. This is where the first atomic bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945. The 20-kiloton explosion set off burglar alarms for 200 miles and was double to ten times the expected yield.
Enormous targets hundreds of yards away were thrown about like toys (they are still there). Half the scientists thought the bomb might ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world but they went ahead anyway because so much money had been spent, 3% of US GDP for four years. Of the original 100-foot tower, only a tiny stump of concrete is left (picture below).
With the other visitors, there was a carnival atmosphere as people worked so hard to get there. My Army escort never left me out of their sight. Some 78 years after the explosion, the background radiation was ten times normal, so I couldn’t stay more than an hour.
Needless to say, that makes uranium plays like Cameco (CCJ), NextGen Energy (NXE), Uranium Energy (UEC), and Energy Fuels (UUUU) great long-term plays, as prices will almost certainly rise and all of which look cheap. US government demand for uranium and yellow cake, its commercial byproduct, is going to be huge. Uranium is also being touted as a carbon-free energy source needed to replace oil.
At Ground Zero in 1945
What’s Left of a Trinity Target 200 Yards Out
Playing With My Geiger Counter
Atomic Bomb No.3 Which was Never Used on Tokyo
What’s Left from the Original Test
Good Luck and Good Trading,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
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