Global Macro Trading Journal

Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

So, the Global Macro ET crowd are all long up the gills? Any shorts here?

I'm short airlines. Could be a massive bounce soon, but I'll use that as an opportunity to add to my position.
 
Missed a bit of the action, what caused the market to shoot higher like this?Was it the confirmation of the ban on shorting by CNBC?
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:
So, the Global Macro ET crowd are all long up the gills? Any shorts here?
I am flat and will go long a bit lower than here (talking about equities).
Quote from Daal:
Missed a bit of the action, what caused the market to shoot higher like this?Was it the confirmation of the ban on shorting by CNBC?
I think it's all the SNB. People selling CHF and buying equities. Spooz are the new safe haven!
 
Quote from m22au:

Your thesis makes sense if there is a "muddle through" period of low economic growth or a shallow recession. But if there is a deep recession (especially in light of fiscal austerity) or depression, then this could become 1932.

Also (brent) oil remains stubbornly high, and the ES:brent ratio is still below 11. If it remains below that level it will hurt those companies that cannot pass on increases in input costs to customers.
(Do you have a view on peak oil?)

Well, this is a trading call, not an economic forecast. Deep recessions don't happen in 1-2 months, which is the longest the elevated fear is likely to last before a rebound (which even the slightest bit of bullish news will trigger). More likely, it diminishes in a few days or weeks.

But to address the economics side, why would this become 1932, if 2008 didn't? This is a crisis in Europe, not the USA. And why would a recession occur at all? External economic collapses have never caused a serious US recession, and are unlikely to - only a small amount of US GDP is external trade, the rest is domestic. Worst case is Europe has a deep recession, not that the USA has one. US banking system and industry is fine, earnings are beating expectations significantly. I doubt we'll see even a technical recession.

Treasuries are currently priced for Depression anyway - 2.2% yield, 3.6% on the 30 year. The only way those values make sense is if we see negative inflation for the next 10 years and zero for the next 30. When an asset is so expensive that even the bull case says it's overvalued, it's probably time to sell.
 
Been buying shares in WMT, MSFT, TUP, XOM over the past days, also adding to long time holding of NLY

Others to look at:

ADP
RDS.A
SCHW
BA (BAE systems in london, not boeing)
CVX

All of these guys yield well over Treasuries, highly profitable, are either buying back stock, or have the cash flow to initiate as such.

MSFT would jump 50% in a day if the board stopped acting Japanese and committed to shareholder value.

WMT is buying back so much, it won't even have a stock float in 15 years and will be worth hundreds of billions.

It's time to buy now and get rich.
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

We are now seeing the death of the 'safe havens' a.k.a. absurdly overvalued gambling chips for leveraged momentum traders. First the Swiss Franc - destroyed in a mere 36 hours, down over 8%. Next will be T-bonds - expect a 10 handle down week soon. Yen is also risky, so is gold for the short-term. All the 'safe havens' have this huge fear bid, which will dissipate within a short period, and cause price collapse when it does.

Forget building a stock portfolio - if you aren't long up to your maximum risk tolerance in your investment portfolio, then what are you waiting for, the next coming of 1932? Maximum long (whether that is 60%, 75%, or 100% for you personally) in attractively valued stocks is the only position that makes sense. Being long Treasuries when they yield less than solid blue chips is an indefensible investment position.

Things will look different than 1932 even if we get a replay because the dollar had a gold peg back then.

What "value stocks" are you looking at?

In my view the best way to play this climate is having longs and shorts to smooth out the bumpiness. When the daily swings in the indexes aren't > 2% every single day, then cover the short book and keep the longs. When the short bans go into effect, then guys like me have to dump long positions also.
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

Well, this is a trading call, not an economic forecast. Deep recessions don't happen in 1-2 months, which is the longest the elevated fear is likely to last before a rebound (which even the slightest bit of bullish news will trigger). More likely, it diminishes in a few days or weeks.

But to address the economics side, why would this become 1932, if 2008 didn't? This is a crisis in Europe, not the USA. And why would a recession occur at all? External economic collapses have never caused a serious US recession, and are unlikely to - only a small amount of US GDP is external trade, the rest is domestic. Worst case is Europe has a deep recession, not that the USA has one. US banking system and industry is fine, earnings are beating expectations significantly. I doubt we'll see even a technical recession.

Treasuries are currently priced for Depression anyway - 2.2% yield, 3.6% on the 30 year. The only way those values make sense is if we see negative inflation for the next 10 years and zero for the next 30. When an asset is so expensive that even the bull case says it's overvalued, it's probably time to sell.

Thanks for your detailed answer.

I'm probably a bit more pessimistic on the US economy than you are. But I could be wrong.
 
Question for the options jockeys.

I'm still short a bunch of August 29.5 FCX puts. Even though the stock has just barely above a 0 chance of hitting that, the market-makers are trying to rape me by asking $0.05 to buy them back. Can I just let them expire at what I assume will be zero?
 
Quote from Debaser82:

Good call on the CHF guys I hope that one guy didnt listen to me...:p

If you are referring to me, yes I managed to eek out a profit from that one. Cheers
 
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