One crucial task of the agile trader is keeping up with market-moving news. One little event anywhere in the world can throw gasoline on the hottest bullish fire OR send it plunging like a barrel over Niagara. In fact, in this ever-more-connected world, hot news- good or bad- may be the biggest catalyst for short-term gains or losses- bigger than traditional fuel like earnings reports, new product announcements and perhaps even FED decisions. Every day I’m consuming headlines like most people consume air. It’s a relentless global hunt for new, short-term profit opportunities that (sometimes distant) world events are presenting to stock & options traders.
To these well-seasoned, “been there and done that” eyes, the pile of evidence in support of the forecasts I’ve been sharing with you keeps building. And note: I work d*mn hard to keep subjectivity & bias out of such reviews, striving very hard to avoid the terrible amateur trap of seeing only what I want to see. I know compromising one’s objectivity is a massive killer of any good trading discipline, so I probably look for counterpoint harder than I look for point.
Nevertheless, I see it unfolding more & more… like the old tv shows & movie prop crystal balls going from smoky & foggy to an ever-clearer picture. Markets are predictable. Markets repeat events again and again and are driven by the same catalysts again and again. The trick to convert market smoke & fog to clarity or even near-certainty is knowing where to look, recognizing the patterns of the past and weaving that with the group sentiment of the present. Big volatility is coming… probably more than we’ve ever seen before. It’s going to be a wildly exciting ride to my medium-term forecast target of DOW 30K. Knowing when to profit on the big bull plays AND, perhaps more importantly, when to profit (not run & hide) on the big bear slides and you can make a fortune… FAST.
Haven’t we seen this movie before?
Yes! Yes we have. During the 1980s, we saw a similar boom in stock values with investors getting hyped up on the apparent record growth rally in the markets. And it was welcomed news after a dismal environment of stagflation with mortgage interest rates in the stratosphere.
But what happened toward the end of that movie? We experienced one of the worst stock market corrections in our nation’s history, second only to the crash that preceded the Great Depression. We remember that day as Black Monday when the Dow Jones dropped nearly 25% in a single day. That crash was precipitated by some market trends that are eerily similar to what we’re seeing today. You might be thinking, “Such as?..”
The Dow’s explosive growth had risen to over 2,700 that summer (remember when DOW 2,700 was a sky high measure of market success?), having closed at its height to a gain of 44% over the previous year. Similarly, we saw the crash presiged by unrest in OPEC with a bust in the oil markets of 50% the previous year. And of course there was unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere, which made market prices highly volatile.
Looking back at those events today, it’s a classic version needing to see the (catalyst) news in all of the right places… and separating noise from the news that would make- or shake- the markets. Does any of that sound familiar? It should because we have much the same conditions setting up here- in late 2017. And that’s why I perked up to the headline that trumpeted David Stockman’s criticism of President Trump’s new tax reform package.
Stockman was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under the Reagan administration. So he knows what a Black Monday scenario looks like… because HE WAS THERE. And he’s doing the craziest of crazy things in modern politics: he’s calling a spade a spade. That’s something almost no other public figure dares to do: say what he REALLY foresees instead of spinning some almost canned PR message hoping the herd will keep right on ignoring reality. Just ignore that spade. Just keep throwing your money into the same pot. Just keep kicking that can a little further down the road. Oh boy! Haven’t we all seen this movie too many times before?
In a recent CNBC piece, Stockman is quoted with a prediction of as much as a 70% drop in stock prices. SEVENTY PERCENT! If that actually plays out, the DOW would be much closer to that record back in 1987 than the record in 2017. Take a moment and do the math yourself. Where is the DOW today? Multiple that by 0.3. Look at that result. Think about that result. Impossible? Where was it just about 10 years ago when we had the last market meltdown? Is the result and that reality really so far apart one could see it as an impossibility now?
Stockman explained that the economy sees a major correction around every eight years, give or take. It’s been more than that since the Great Recession. He detailed, “There is a correction every seven to eight years, and they tend to be anywhere from 40 to 70 percent. If you have to work for a living, get out of the casino because it’s a dangerous place.”
In the interview he explained the factors that might be creating an inevitable drop in the market. He goes on, “This is a bubble created by the Fed. We’re heading for higher yields. We are heading for a huge reset of pricing in the risk markets that’s been based on ultra-cheap yields that the central banks of the world created that are now going to go away because they’re telling you that they’re done.”
Perhaps worse than that is this other somewhat quiet discussion about unwinding the FED balance sheet. While that could mean a lot of things, I suspect a massive big buyer- perhaps the default buyer that has thrown much of the money at this market to drive it up to these incredible records is now wanting to STOP BUYING and start selling. What happens to any market when enthusiastic buyers become sellers? Only one thing happens there. You can count on it.
If that sounds familiar, it should. It’s essentially what I’ve been saying for months now. The prices of major stocks are hitting records every week which is creating artificial paper wealth that isn’t backed up by anything tangible. I really don’t think it’s the traditional buyers doing all this buying to push the markets higher & higher. I increasingly think it’s mostly ONE buyer- a holy mother of all buyers if you will- and even “she” has now formally communicated that “she” wants to wind down “her” purchasing and flip into selling off some of “her” holdings. Where does that go? Where is the only place that can go?
Yet market records are being realized almost on a weekly basis… and touted hard in every way they can be heard. The herd doesn’t (maybe can’t) listen that attentively… or doesn’t remember the past or recognize how the past repeats again and again… until… in hindsight, the “shoulda, coulda, wish I hads” are flying near the tail end of a swift crunch… or crash. The herd may hear a little bit of such warnings before the event… but fall prey to the much louder allure of “another record day…” perhaps throwing even more money into the pot to try to capitalize on the endless record days that are certainly going to come after this one. How often has ANY stock market gone up and up and up indefinitely? Exactly. “But it’s different this time.” Watch out!
Many people may discount this warning as just another conspiracy theory. Others will freak out and start pulling their investment dollars from the market. But the smart money sees such scenarios as opportunities. Agile investors will make the most of bull & bear by taking advantage of the tools that make money on BOTH. A great tool is also a dirt-cheap one: options. A call option buyer is making a relatively cheap, leveraged bet on a rising stock or market. A put option buyer is making a comparably cheap, leveraged bet on a falling stock or market. A shrewd & agile investor will buy & close call & put options interchangeably… like one is just as good as the other (and it is when used at the right time and in the right way).
Most investors & traders only see the markets through a singular (always bullish) lens. In other words, the only way they see to make money is on the rising side: buy a stock, stock moves bullishly, sell the stock & book a profit. There’s almost a dependency on a perpetual bull market for most people. However, the few that make the MOST money investing & trading work the other side too. They are not OUT doing nothing when the bull cedes the stage. A roaring bear is just as lucrative- often even more in many cases- when one is positioned to make money on such a move.
Do you know how? Do you have a good feel for vehicles like call & put options and how to use them to make money as this market rises AND when it’s falling too? Maybe you think you know a little but are not confident you know enough to actually put such knowledge to good- and profitable- use? If any of that resonates for you, speak up… right now. Email me at [email protected]. My team & I are hard at work developing some major new goodies to help individual investors just like you take full advantage of the wild volatility rapidly approaching all of us. Email me letting me know you want to learn and you’ll be the first I alert when our work is ready to be utilized. Don’t be a “shoulda, coulda, wish I had” ever again. My team & I are here to help. Let us.
