Global Macro Trading Journal
- Thread starter Daal
- Start date
There's a big difference between 1) reading about "performance" and 2) digesting a well-articulated set of nuanced ideas and observations, set forth by someone successful, as to how the market works, how a trading style works, useful things they have discovered and so on.
A great trading book is like a great conversation: It gives you fresh ideas (or fresh perspectives) and makes you think.
At the beginning of the year I was bearish on everything, anticipating that the recession warnings from Europe indicated an imminent global slowdown (there was lots of ancillary supporting data on this point as well). Technically that the October lower highs in SPX would hold or be broken only marginally before a next wave down, taking other risk assets with it.
Obviously this was wrong across the board, I didn't anticipate that the 'LTRO effect' would be a carbon copy of the 'QE effect' (plowing through everything regardless of valuation, sentiment, technicals, etc.) and certainly the economic data has been consistently good for months [though as I type this the ISM comes out weak and ES drops 5pts]. But then, earnings have been weak and it's unclear why the 'decoupling' thesis should suddenly be correct now, after having been wrong for so many years. So like I said, I find the macro picture at the moment pretty unclear. I did take some losses of around 2% finding all this out.
I guess looking years ahead I'd say that overvalued markets eventually mean revert, you cannot print forever without consequence and government liabilities will have to be resolved - so I don't hold much stock but do try to hold lots of inflation hedges.
For positioning I'm about 12-15% in PMs, 30% RE, 10% with a few mutf managers (mostly fixed income) and the rest in cash - though the cash isn't strictly idle as I do other non-macro trading.
No, I have no direct association w/Barclays or any other IB.
And no, when I said I am not an IBanker, I meant that I am not employed by a bank, rather than the other meaning.
Of course you don't follow my argument if somehow you construe what I wrote as meaning Amazon is "going somewhere." The company is still a great one that will be around for a long time (and get a lot of my business). My argument has to do with the stock price. At 120X earnings (or whatever it is), the slightest stumble could see the price whacked 50% or more. More and more purchases are being done through the OS - where Apple, Google, now MSFT get a piece of the action - rather than over the web/AMZN (where Amazon would get a piece). There's a sea change going on here. It doesn't mean AMZN will cease to exist, just that they've got issues which they will have to adapt to.
BTW, Google is going to have issues as well. Where do you think some of those billions in Facebook revenue are coming from? I would not be an owner of GOOG anywhere near these levels.