Intersting thoughts

[Bozzie]

Crazy how ENPH has dropped. I got in initially at $54 and sold at $165. I'll wait before I try that name again.

Hey Bill
TWST too rode it to 200.00 now 105.00..I'll get back in for sure.


MH

Global Market Comments March 8, 2021 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or WHAT’S UP WITH TECH?), (MSFT), (TSLA), (AAPL), (QQQ), (NVDA), (MU), (AMD), (BRKB), (ARRK), (ROM), (VIX), (FCX), (TLT), (BRKB), (TSLA), (JPM), (SPY), (QQQ), (SPX)

​ The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or What’s Up with Tech?That great wellspring of personal wealth, technology stocks, has suddenly run dry. The leading stock market sector for the past decade took some major hits last week. More stable stocks like Microsoft (MSFT) only shed 8%. Some of the highest beta stocks, like Tesla (TSLA), took a heart-palpitating 39% haircut in a mere two months. Have tech stocks had it for good? Has the greatest investment miracle of all times ground to a halt? Is it time to panic and sell everything? Fortunately, I have seen this happen many times before. Technology is a sector that is prone to extremes. Most of the time it is a hero, but occasionally it is a goat. When too many short-term traders sit in one end of the canoe, we all end up in the drink. This is one of those times. Technology stocks undeniably need a periodic shaking out. You need to get rid of the day traders, the hot money, the excessively leveraged, and find out who has been swimming without a swimsuit. The sector rotates between being ridiculously cheap to wildly overvalued. We are currently suffering the latter. During the past 12 years, Apple’s (AAPL) price earnings multiple has traded from 9X to 36X. It was a value play for the longest time, all the way up to 2016. Nobody believed in it. It is currently at a 33X multiple. While the stock has gone nowhere since August, its earnings have increased by more than 10%, and better is yet to come. After trading tech stocks for more than 50 years, I can tell you one thing with certainty. They always come back. And this time, they are in position to come back sooner, faster, and bigger than ever before. Remember the Great Dotcom Bust of 2000-2003? It lasted two years and nine months and saw NASDAQ (QQQ) crater by 82%, from 5,000 to 1,000. This time, it’s only dropped by 13%, by 1,850 from 14,250 to 12,400. I don’t see the selloff lasting much longer or lower, no more than another 5%-10% until September. For these are not your father’s technology stocks. There are only three numbers you need to know. Technology now accounts for a mere 2% of the US workforce, but a massive 27% of stock market capitalization and 37% of total us company earnings. A sector with such an impressive earnings output won’t fall for very long, or very far. The pandemic accelerated technological innovation tenfold. Companies now have mountains of cash with which to bring forward their futures. This is no more true than for biotech stocks. The technologies used to create Covid-19 vaccines can be applied to cure all human diseases. And they now have mountains of cash to implement this. So, I’ll be taking my time with tech stocks. But they are setting up the best long side entry point since the March 20, 2020 pandemic low. The biggest call remaining for 2021 is when to take profits and sell domestic recovery value stocks and rotate back into tech. But if you are running the barbell strategy I have been harping about since the presidential election, the work is already being done for you. Nonfarm Payroll comes in at a blockbuster 379,000 in February, far better than expected. It a preview of explosive numbers to comes as the US economy crawls out of the pandemic. That’s with a huge drag from terrible winter weather. The headline Unemployment rate is 6.2%. The U-6“discouraged worker” rate is still a sky-high 11%, those who have been jobless more than six months. Leisure & Hospitality were up an incredible 355,000 and Retail was up 41,000. Government lost 86,000 jobs. We are still 12 million jobs short of the year-ago trend. See what employers are willing to do when they see $20 trillion about to hit the economy? Will US GDP Growth hit 10% this year? That is the sky-high number that is being mooted by the Atlanta Fed for the first three months of 2021. The vaccine is working! They do tend to be high in the home of Gone with the Wind. This Yankee would be happy at 7.5% growth. Manufacturing just hit a three-year high as companies try to front-run imminent explosive growth. The only weak spot is employment, which is still at recessionary highs. Herd Immunity is here or says the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University. New cases have plunged from 250,000 to 46,000 in a month, the fastest disease rollback in human history. We may be seeing new science at work here, where mass vaccinations combine with mass infections to obliterate the pandemic practically overnight. If true, the Dow has another 8,000 points in it….this year. Buy everything on dips. The economic data is about to get superheated. Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway blows it away, buying back a staggering $25 billion worth of his own stock in 2020, including $9 billion in the most recent quarter. It’s what I’m always looking for, buying quality at a discount. Warren pulled in $5 billion in profits during the last quarter of 2020, up 13.6% over a year earlier. Net earnings were up 23%. If Buffet, a long time Mad Hedge reader, is buying his stock, you should too. Buy (BRKB) on dips. It's also a great LEAP candidate as the best domestic recovery play out there. Rising rates have yet to hurt Real Estate, as the structural shortage of housing is so severe. Historically speaking, interest rates are still very low, even though the ten-year yield has soared by 82% in two months. Cash is still pouring into REITs coming off the bottom. Home prices always see their fastest moves up at the beginning of a new rate cycle as everyone rushes to beat unaffordable mortgages. The Chip Shortage worsens, with Tesla shutting down its Fremont factory for two days. The Texas deep freeze made matters much worse, where many US fabs are located, like Samsung, NXP Semiconductors, and Infineon Technologies. Buy (NVDA), (MU), and (AMD) on dips. Jay Powell lays an egg at a Wall Street Journal conference. He said it would take some time to return to a normal economy. The speed of the interest rate rise was “notable.” We are unlikely to return to maximum employment in a year. We couldn’t have heard of more dovish speech. But all that traders heard was that inflation was set to return, but will be “temporary.” That was worth a 600-point dive in the stock market and a 5-basis point pop in bond yields. My 10% correction is finally here! Here today, gone tomorrow. Cathie Wood was far and away the best fund manager of 2020. She, value investor Ron Baron, and I, were alone in the darkness four years ago saying that Tesla (TSLA) could rise 100-fold. Cathie’s flagship fund The Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) rose a staggering 433% off the March 2020 bottom. Alas, it has since given up a gut-punching 30% since the February high, exactly when ten-year US Treasury bonds started to crash. Watch (ARKK) carefully. This is the one you want to own when rates stabilize. It’s like another (ROM). When we come out the other side of pandemic, 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% to 120,000 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! It’s amazing how well selling tops and buying bottoms can help your performance. My Mad Hedge Global Trading Dispatch reached a super-hot 11.61% during the first five days in March on the heels of a spectacular 13.28% profit in February. The Dow Average is up a miniscule 4.00% so far in 2021. It was a week of frenetic trading, with the Volatility Index (VIX) all over the map. I took profits in Freeport McMoRan (FCX) and my short in US Treasury bonds (TLT) and buying Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), Tesla (TSLA), JP Morgan (JPM). I opened new shorts in the S&P 500 (SPY) and the NASDAQ (QQQ). This is my fifth double digit month in a row. My 2021 year-to-date performance soared to 35.10%. That brings my 11-year total return to 457.65%, some 2.12 times the S&P 500 (SPX) over the same period. My 11-year average annualized return now stands at an unbelievable 40.68%. My trailing one-year return exploded to 110.25%, the highest in the 13-year history of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader. We need to keep an eye on the number of US Coronavirus cases at 29 million and deaths topping 525,000, which you can find here. The coming week will be a boring one on the data front. On Monday, March 8, at 11:00 AM EST, Consumer Inflation Expectations for February are out. On Tuesday, March 9, at 7:00 AM, The NFIB Business Optimism Indexfor February is published. On Wednesday, March 10 at 8:30 AM, the US Inflation Rate for February is printed. On Thursday, March 11 at 8:30 AM, Weekly Jobless Claims are out. On Friday, March 12 at 8:30 AM, the Producer Price Index for February is disclosed. At 2:00 PM, we learn the Baker-Hughes Rig Count. As for me, it was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of my old friend, Sheikh Zaki Yamani, the great Saudi Oil Minister. Yamani was a true genius, a self-taught attorney, and one of the most brilliant men of his generation. It was Yamani who triggered the first oil crisis in 1973, raising the price from $3 to $12 a barrel in a matter of weeks. Until then, cheap Saudi oil had been powering the global economy for decades. During the crisis, I relentlessly pestered the Saudi embassy in London for an interview for The Economist magazine. Then, out of the blue, I received a call and was told to report to a nearby Royal Air Force base….and to bring my passport. There on the tarmac was a brand-new Boeing 747 with “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” emblazoned on the side in bold green lettering. Yamani was the sole passenger, and I was the other. He then gave me an interview that lasted the entire seven-hour flight to Riyadh. We covered every conceivable economic, business, and political subject. It led to me capturing one of the blockbuster scoops of the decade for The Economist. When Yamani debarked from the plane, I asked him “why me.” He said he saw a lot of me in himself and wanted to give me a good push along my career. The plane then turned around and flew me back to London. I was the only passenger on the plane. When the pilot heard I’d recently been flying Pilatus Porters for Air America, he even let me fly it for a few minutes while he slept on the cockpit floor. Yamani later became the head of OPEC. At one point, he was kidnapped by Carlos the Jackal and held for ransom, which the king readily paid. And if you wonder where I acquired my deep knowledge of the oil and energy markets, this is where it started. Today, the Saudis are among the biggest investors in alternative energy in California. We stayed in touch ever since. Stay healthy. John Thomas CEO & Publisher The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

Quote of the Day“When a business manufactures and distributes a non-essential consumer product, the customer is the boss,” said Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffet.

​

 

[Bozzie]

​

WKHS May be watching ..With the SEC looking into DeJoy,Oshkosh and some insider stock dealing @54 million dollars...I have the feeling WKHS will end up with part of the postal vehicle contract.

I bought a bit this AM as a flyer.

 

[Bozzie]

Pretty interesting set up IMO.

https://timryan.house.gov/media/pre...tigate-54-million-oshkosh-stock-purchase-usps

 

[Bozzie]

C Wood ARK

 

[Bozzie]

View in browser|nytimes.com March 9, 2021 Good morning. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.) “Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind,” Bill Gates noted.Yuri Gripas/Reuters [h=2]‘It’s not a great climate thing’[/h] Bitcoin is continuing to climb — its price is now above $54,000, giving it a market cap of more than $1 trillion — and draw more fans in corporate America. But skeptics are increasingly asking whether it’s worth the huge environmental cost, Andrew writes in his latest column. “Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind,” Bill Gates told Andrew, adding, “It’s not a great climate thing.” Studies note that the annual carbon emissions from the electricity generated to mine and process the cryptocurrency equal the amount emitted by New Zealand or Argentina. (There are disagreements over how big the industry’s carbon footprint is, but no one disputes that it’s big.) And given the way Bitcoin works, the more popular it becomes, the larger its carbon footprint grows. That is creating a tension within the business community: Companies are increasingly adopting Bitcoin, whether by allowing customers to conduct transactions on their platforms using the cryptocurrency or by investing in it directly. But companies and investors are also focusing more and more on climate change. And just as shareholders are pushing companies to reduce their carbon footprints and exposure to fossil-fuel companies, they might raise similar concerns about Bitcoin. That conflict is readily apparent in BlackRock, which has started to “dabble” in Bitcoin investing, but has also become a leading advocate for companies reducing carbon emissions. The pressure is on to make Bitcoin greener. Jack Dorsey, whose Square is a high-profile adopter, has pledged $10 million to invest in cleaner Bitcoin mining technologies. And companies like Seetee plan to focus on building Bitcoin mining operations using renewable energy. Mr. Gates left open the door to having his mind changed. He told Andrew, “If it’s green electricity and it’s not crowding out other uses, eventually, you know, maybe that’s OK.” [h=3]HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING[/h] The C.D.C. blesses unmasked gatherings (if you’re vaccinated). The agency said that inoculated people in America could meet in small groupswithout face masks or social distancing. In other reopening news: Millions of students in England returned to school yesterday, and New York City will reopen its 488 public schools on March 22. A potential Biden banking regulator nominee is ruled out. Michael Barr, who had been seen as the likely pick to lead the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, is now out of the running, Bloomberg reports. He was opposed by progressives who see him as too moderate and are wary of his work for cryptocurrency companies. Georgia’s state Senate approves voting restrictions. The Republican majority passed a bill repealing measures like no-excuse absentee voting, paving the way for the legislation to be approved by the House. We noted yesterday that there’s pressure on companies headquartered in Georgia to speak out against such moves. (More on that below) The legal team investigating Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York is set.Attorney General Letitia James named Joon Kim, a former acting head of the Southern District of New York, and Anne Clark, an employment lawyer, to lead the inquiry into accusations of sexual harassment against Mr. Cuomo. A big audience for Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan. About 17 million people tuned into the two-hour broadcast on Sunday, double the size of viewership for a prime-time ratings winner in a given week. Britain’s tabloids remain riveted by the interview and its bombshell accusations. [h=2]The tech rotation continues[/h] The fall in stock markets yesterday told a tale of two kinds of businesses: the tech giants that have soared during the pandemic, only to fall in recent days, and the other kinds of companies that are poised to recover along with the broader economy. The Nasdaq officially entered correction territory, having declined more than 10 percent from its Feb. 12 peak. Once-highflying stocks were among the worst performers, with Apple falling 4 percent and Tesla nearly 6 percent. (The electric carmaker is now down more than 20 percent for the year to date.) That has also battered celebrated stock pickers like ARK Investment Management’s Cathie Wood, who has drawn a following on internet trading forums for her bets on so-called disruptive companies like … Apple and Tesla. Her flagship exchange-traded fund is down 31 percent since Feb. 16. An accelerating economic revival is a big factor, market watchers say. As the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill nears approval by Congress, investors are betting on a return to pre-pandemic conditions, including consumer spending levels. That may mean higher inflation, pushing up bond yields and giving investors wider options than just tech stocks. Then there’s the wild card: meme stocks. Shares in GameStop and other companies beloved by internet traders rallied yesterday, though your guess as to why is as good as ours. (Separately, GameStop said its board would form a committee to study strategies to take advantage of the run-up in its stock.) [h=2]The Chamber’s less-than-total ban on political giving[/h] The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s biggest business trade group, has clarified its policy on giving to political action committees in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol — and it’s not as tough as the organization once suggested. “We do not believe it is appropriate” to judge lawmakers “solely based on their votes on the electoral certification,” the group said last week, though the storming of the Capitol was prompted by congressional votes to certify the 2020 presidential election. The Chamber will instead consider other actions, like whether lawmakers promoted baseless voter fraud conspiracies, in deciding whether to support them. The group had left the door open to something short of wholly disavowing some lawmakers. Its chief policy director, Neil Bradley, declared days after the insurrection that some lawmakers had “forfeited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s support. Period, full stop.” But he never called out specific politicians. He also said that the chamber would “consider the totality” of what elected officials subsequently said and did. The Chamber is taking a stance that might cause blowback for member companies, which are more vulnerable to backlash than trade groups, with employees and brand reputation to consider. Some of its board members have urged tougher actions: Dow said it would suspend all PAC contributions “to any member of Congress who voted to object to the certification of the presidential election,” while IBM, which has no PAC, has called for broader policy changes. But the group’s position maintains relationships with congressional Republicans as it lobbies on key issues like corporate taxes. (The Chamber noted that it had held discussions with “over 100” of its members about its decision.) UPS, which itself has suspended all giving to PACs, called the Chamber’s position thoughtful. Debate over election issues as a business concern isn’t going away.Georgia lawmakers have approved voting restrictions that opponents say threaten democracy. Activists have called on the corporate community to speak out against the legislation, though some major players — including Delta, a Chamber board member — have not done so. [h=2]The dashing of an anti-Trump money machine[/h] During the 2020 presidential election, the Lincoln Project, the political advocacy group founded by a group of disaffected Republican operatives, became a huge success. But its creators had their eyes on even more lucrative new projects — until scandal brought the venture’s future into question, The Times’s Danny Hakim, Maggie Astor and Jo Becker report. The Lincoln Project moved to create a media arm last fall, having been courted by TV studios, book publishers and more. But tensions flared as its four main founders sought to reap the biggest share of such profits. The four had already collected big paydays, our colleagues report: About $27 million, or almost a third of the group’s total fund-raising, went to a consulting firm from which the four men were paid. The group splintered after the emergence of accusations of sexual misconduct against a founder. Reports that John Weaver had harassed young men over the years eventually set off a battle for control of the Lincoln Project, with threats of lawsuits and the founding of rival organizations erupting. Two other founders, George Conway and Mike Murphy, have called to shut the group down. A faction aligned with another founder, Steve Schmidt, plans to keep building out the Lincoln Project. But it’s unclear whether donor support will hold up amid the scandals and the receding of President Donald Trump from the national stage. Thank you for your support. Want to share The New York Times? Friends and family can enjoy unlimited digital access to our journalism with this special offer. [h=3]THE SPEED READ[/h] Deals American Airlines plans to borrow $7.5 billion against its frequent-flier program to repay a federal rescue loan that it took out during the pandemic. (WSJ) Frontier Airlines, the low-cost carrier, revived plans to go public via an I.P.O., after calling off a previous effort in 2017. (CNBC) Domestic M.&A. in China surged to $77.5 billion this year, the busiest start on record, as the country’s economy recovers from the pandemic. (FT) Politics and policy The Biden administration reimposed sanctions on the Israeli mining billionaire Dan Gertler that were lifted days before President Donald Trump left office. (NYT) Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri said he wouldn’t seek re-election, adding to the list of retirements of Republicans seen as bipartisan deal makers. (NYT) Watchdog groups called for an investigation into Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, over accusations that he failed to disclose at least $671,000 worth of stock trades. (Insider) The Biden administration is reportedly close to picking the Big Tech critic Lina Kahn as a nominee for the F.T.C. (Politico) Tech The C.E.O. of Zoom, Eric Yuan, transferred about 40 percent of his stake in the videoconferencing company to undisclosed recipients, raising questions about who now holds that voting power. (WSJ) Twitter sued Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, accusing him of retaliation for barring President Donald Trump from its platform. (Axios) A California labor regulator fined Amazon and one of its contractors $6.4 million for stealing wages from delivery drivers. (Insider) Best of the rest Oil giants are increasingly asserting that their future lies in putting carbon back into the ground, not extracting fossil fuels. (NYT) Deregulated electricity markets cost consumers billions more on average than traditionally regulated counterparts, a new analysis finds. (WSJ) An ode to … Microsoft Excel, which is potentially “the most influential software ever built.” (Not Boring) Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

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[CoachCB]

I need APPL to make a run soon!

The ARK funds have taken a beating the last couple of weeks, but made a nice comeback today.

I need to buy more Berkshire/B for a long hold.

I sold off my 6 shares of TSLA today for a small profit. Also sold Lowes & CVS. Trying to clear out some cash. I'm considering selling off some of my long hold mutual funds as well.

 

[Bozzie]

Man it's been a weird few days...I think tech will fall back into favor after this little Blue rally.

I'm getting a little too busy to keep this going, I'll be posting but maybe not as often.

Read in Browser​ ​ LISTEN TO TODAY'S PODCAST AVAILABLE AT 8AM ON: ​ ​ ​ Top News The American Rescue Plan​ ​ ​ Shutterstock​ ​ Congress is set to give the final green light to President Biden's $1.9T economic stimulus plan today, clearing the way for one of the largest relief packages in U.S. history. It's being hailed as a centerpiece of Biden's first 100 days, and includes $1,400 payments for most Americans, expanded unemployment insurance, funding for schools and public health, and state and local government aid. The legislation also includes a per-child cash payment of at least $3,000 for one year, an expansion of "Obamacare" subsidies for two years, as well as aid for restaurants, agriculture and small businesses. Thought bubble: The consensus among economists is that the stimulus will boost the economy and supercharge the recovery. A forecast from Moody's says the plan can add up to 7M American jobs - which is important given the levels of unemployment - while the OECD said Tuesday that the program highly enhances the economic outlook even outside the U.S. But there are also those that have raised concerns that the sheer scale of the spending could lead to a spike in inflation, as well as deficit hawks who have expressed worries about additional borrowing and what that might mean for the national debt. That conversation is also playing out in the political sphere, where Democrats have dubbed it the "largest anti-poverty measure in a generation" or what White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the "most progressive piece of legislation in history." On the other side of the fence, GOP members have said the package goes too far in its expansion of public assistance, pointing to the only $75B (7% of the $1.9T price tag) which is directed at COVID testing, contact tracing and vaccine distribution. Statistics: A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday found that 70% of U.S. adults favor the $1.9T coronavirus relief bill, including 41% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 94% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. In assessing the proposed spending in the aid package, 41% of Americans view it as about right, while another 25% say it spends too little, and only a third of Americans say the legislation spends too much money. ​ Stocks Where are the stimulus checks going?​ ​ Back in January, we reported on the usages of stimulus checks, which have provided a financial lifeline to millions of Americans, though for others, they represented an opportunity to boost their savings. That was thanks to the $2.3T CARES Act enacted in March 2020 and the $908B stimulus bill passed in December, which provided $1200 and $600 to all Americans making under $75,000 - regardless of their employment and financial situation. Backdrop: Securities trading was among the most common uses - across nearly every income bracket - for the checks issued in April, according to software and data aggregation company Envestnet Yodlee. For many consumers, trading was the second or third most common use for the funds, behind only increasing savings and cash withdrawals. In fact, Americans that earned between $35,000 and $75,000 annually traded stocks about 90% more than the week prior to receiving their stimulus check. Things aren't likely to change this time around. "I do think that you will find a lot of that stimulus money will end up in the market, and I think if anything it's a bullish catalyst," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab. A Deutsche Bank survey of 430 retail investors last month also found that on average they plan to put 37% of any stimulus checks directly into equities. Go deeper: Goldman Sachs even recently raised its 2021 net equity demand estimate from households from $100B to $350B, reflecting "faster economic growth and higher interest rates than we had assumed previously, additional stimulus payments to individuals, and increased retail activity in early 2021." "We expect households will be the largest source of equity demand this year," wrote strategists from the firm. JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, has a similar forecast. "You have really started to see an interest from the individual investor in a way that we have never seen before," he added. ​ Sponsored By E*TRADE The Complete Trading Package​ ​ ​ Ready to take on the markets, or just looking for new trading opportunities? With intuitive trading platforms and specialized support, E*TRADE offers powerful, easy-to-use tools for traders looking to track the markets and seize opportunities. You’ll also enjoy $0 commissions for online US-listed stock trades, and as low as 50¢ per options contract and $1.50 per futures contract. Learn more about E*TRADE’s comprehensive trading options and start trading today. *Paid Advertisement​ On The Move Direction after relief rally?​ ​ Tech made a huge comeback on Tuesday, reversing a recent downtrend over the past few weeks as U.S. 10-year Treasury yields appeared to stabilize. The Nasdaq ended the day up 3.7%, notching its best day since November, with big gains seen for Tesla (+20%), Nvidia (+8%) and Twitter (+6.4%), as well as popular names Riot Blockchain (+34%), GameStop (+27%) and FuelCell Energy (+21%). A day earlier, the index slid into correction territory, leading investors to bargain-hunt for some beaten-down shares. The Dow also ended in the green, while the index's futures climbed 0.3% overnight, though contracts tied to the S&P 500 flatlined and the Nasdaq slipped 0.3%. That could suggest the broader "reflation" trend - favoring higher rates and cyclical industries - likely remains intact, though volatility could remain. Concerns center around whether additional stimulus from Congress will lead to greater inflation or if high-growth stocks remain expensive. Investors will be watching today's 10-year auction for clues as to where yields may be headed, as well as the latest Consumer Price Index data. Value bulls: "I think the outperformers are going to be basically non-tech over the next six to 12 months," Wharton School finance professor Jeremy Siegel declared. "The so-called value stocks are going to be sought out for their yield because I think interest rates are still going to be headed much higher here on the long bond. I don't think we're done with this rise in these long-term interest rates." Growth bulls: "We see the rollover in the Nasdaq to be actually an opportunity to add to positions," said John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer Asset Management. "We think going forward the ubiquitous nature of technology, and the fact that it is deeply embedded in lives of consumers and business with the reopening of the economy, stands in the path of opportunity." ​ Trending Roblox goes public​ ​ Roblox (RBLX) is set to begin trading today on the NYSE via a direct listing process, rather than a traditional route to an initial public offering. Yesterday evening, the exchange set a reference price of $45/share, which is in line with a recent Series H funding round that resulted in a valuation of $29.5B (up 7x its last round in February 2020). The company previously delayed a traditional IPO planned for December and also postponed a direct listing it sought in February. Backdrop: Roblox is a social gaming platform that allows users to play, create games and hang out with their friends - all in one place. More than half of the kids in America currently play on the platform, which has been a huge beneficiary of the COVID-19 pandemic. Daily active users jumped 85% in 2020 to 32.6M, while the number of hours that players spent on the app more than doubled to 30.6B. CEO Dave Baszucki's ultimate vision for the company is an online world where users can work, play and entertain themselves (a.k.a. the "Metaverse"). In its latest update to its prospectus, Roblux said it paid developers $328.7M in 2020, up almost 200% from 2019. That heavily surpassed the company's sales growth of 82% last year, when it booked $923.9M in total revenue. In addition, more than 1,250 developers earned at least $10K in the digital currency Robux, which can be exchanged for real money. Over 300 earned $100K or more, while the company plans to spend additional cash on incentivizing higher-quality content and funding bigger teams of engineers and designers. Outlook: Atlantic Equities expects great things, rating it Overweight with a price target of $60. The firm points to plans for international expansion and attempts to "age up" the demographics, along with diversified platform use cases and solid monetization. Seeking Alpha contributor Donovan Jones also notes that the company has seen sales and marketing expenses decline as a percentage of total revenue, even as sales have risen. ​ Sponsored By E*TRADE ​ Media Disney + 100​ ​ Disney Plus (DIS) has crested the 100M subscriber mark just 16 months after its launch, becoming the most successful emerging streamer trying to chip away at Netflix's (NFLX) dominance. The service is still on track to meet the company’s projection of 260M subscribers by 2024, powered by fan favorites like The Mandalorian and WandaVision. Contrast that with the 203.7M subscribers of Netflix, which topped 100M subs in 2017, a decade after it introduced streaming and upended the industry. Quote: "The enormous success has inspired us to be even more ambitious, and to significantly increase our investment in the development of high-quality content," CEO Bob Chapek said at the company's virtual annual meeting. "In fact, we set a target of 100+ new titles per year, and this includes Disney Animation, Disney Live Action, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Our direct-to-consumer business is the company's top priority, and our robust pipeline of content will continue to fuel its growth." Comments from the competition: "It's super impressive what Disney has done," Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings said during an earnings call in January. "It's incredible execution for an incumbent to pivot to take on the insurgent. It shows members are willing and interested to pay for more content because they're hungry for great stories. And Disney does have great stories." Disney even temporarily halted its dividend last year following calls from Dan Loeb to permanently end the $3B annual shareholder payment. While the activist investor urged Disney to plunge that cash into original content, as it centers its operations around streaming, it also hasn't forgotten about theme parks. The company is opening Disneyland in late April, while its Florida parks are operating at 35% capacity. ​ What else is happening... Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation (NYSEARCA:ARKK) surges on record performance. Biden expected to name Big Tech critic Lina Khan to FTC. Hackers breach Verkada surveillance cameras at Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA). Russia throttles Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) over failure to remove banned content. Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE:AJRD) shareholders clear Lockheed (NYSE:LMT) takeover deal. U.S. crude supply rose 12.8M barrels last week - API. Curaleaf (OTCPK:CURLF) announces EMMAC acquisition as revenue growth slows. Conagra (CAG) in talks to sell Hebrew National brand to JBS. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) could have capacity for 3B COVID-19 vaccines in 2022. ​ ​ Today's Markets In Asia, Japan flat. Hong Kong +0.5%. China -0.1%. India +0.5%. In Europe, at midday, London -0.3%. Paris +0.4%. Frankfurt +0.2%. Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.3%. S&P flat. Nasdaq -0.3%. Crude +0.2% to $64.11. Gold -0.6% at $1706.70. Bitcoin +1.2% to $54972. Ten-year Treasury Yield +2 bps to 1.6% ​ Today's Economic Calendar MBA Mortgage Applications 8:30 Consumer Price Index 10:00 Atlanta Fed's Business Inflation Expectations 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories 1:00 PM Results of $38B, 10-Year Note Auction 2:00 PM Treasury Budget ​

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[Bozzie]

Yesterdays MH

Global Market Comments March 9, 2021 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (THE CODER BOOM) (HOW TO EXECUTE A VERTICAL BULL CALL SPREAD) (AAPL)

​ The Coder Boom There is a new boom going on in Northern California.It is not another gold rush, even though this winter’s heavy rains have flushed out a new supply of the yellow metal in High Sierra rivers and streams. And I am not referring to the marijuana boom triggered by the recent legalization of the evil weed in the November election. No, I am talking about the coder boom, the stampede by young job seekers to cash in on the overwhelming demand for computer programmers. I’m hearing about this everywhere. Kids are quitting their jobs driving trucks, running farms, or working as baristas at Starbucks. They blow their entire life savings on a three-month crash course at a coding school. The schools then promise them dream jobs on graduation. Schools like this are popping up like mushrooms on the green California hills in winter, charging up to $20,000 per course. Don’t think you’ll just walk into these places either. All of these schools have waiting lists and only the most qualified and ambitious get in. They’re almost as hard to get into as my….tennis club. It’s worth it because it sets you up to move into a six-figure job almost immediately. At least, it’s supposed to. There is no doubt that there is an absolutely mammoth demand for computer programmers right now. There is NO part of the US economy that isn’t attempting to grow its online presence as rapidly as possible. Salaries are through the roof as can be seen by the interactive map of current programming jobs around the country published by Cyber Coders, please click here. Headhunter Robert Half (click here) wants to charge you 30% of a first year’s salary for their service in finding developers. Ouch!! Click here for a map from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on where all the developer jobs are going at. The problem is that as soon as a coder gets good, they go freelance, charging up to $200 an hour. Who can blame them? Raking the money in while working anywhere, anytime sounds like a great gig to me. Hiring a developer can be the most challenging task for a small rapidly growing business. Stories are rife of dummy developers wiping out business overnight because of incompetent coding. And heaven help you if you thought you could save money and outsource this job to India. Marquee names like Google and Apple soak up the few out there with actual college degrees in computer science, leaving the rest of use to hire hobbyists who went full time. Sounds familiar. Coder Camp (www.codercamp.com) invites you to “Reprogram your Career” with a series of immersive camps on Java, JavaScript, and Ruby on Rails for $14,200 each. Udemy (www.udemy.com) offers dozens of courses ranging from $49 on up for online tutorials on every programming topic under the sun. They boast 20,000 online instructors and 10 million hungry students in 190 countries. Learning Tree International (https://www.learningtree.com), the veteran in the space has a four-course training passport for $6,790. Dev Bootcamp (http://devbootcamp.com/) pioneered the short-term immersive “web development boot camp,” a model that transforms beginners into full-stack web developers. Their 19-week $13,900 program offers three-year low-interest financing. Hack Reactor (http://www.hackreactor.com) is the high-end Cadillac operation and promises a 99% job placement rate with a $105,000 initial salary. I hear that production-grade iPhone apps are the hot skill to learn. And if you are able to learn anything about cybersecurity you can write your own ticket. As is so often the case with these Internet schemes, the hype may exceed actual results (mine excluded). Developer friends tell me that it takes a year of full-time study before you can land an actual regular job. It really takes as much time to learn coding as it does to speak a new foreign language fluently. Many new coders start with limited part-time assignments and work their way up from there as their skills build. If you are good at math, you have a definite advantage as much of good coding involves problem-solving of a mathematical nature. Still, you can’t argue with people abandoning old economy jobs and training for new economy ones, whatever the cost. I’m told there has been a recent influx of new students freshly laid off in the oil patch. If you still have a Millennial living in the basement awaiting their calling, this is a big chance to turf them out. All you need is a cheap computer, broadband, and motivation. Oh, and by the way, the Mad Hedge Fund Trader is looking to hire a developer with a specialty in API and Infusionsoft, click here for their link. Thanks to last year’s blowout double-digit performance numbers, my firm has entered hyper-growth mode, and everyone is working pedal to the metal. Please send your resume to support@madhedgefundtrader.com and specify “DEVELOPER” in the subject line. So What is This "DEL" Key For Anyway? ​ ​

​ How to Execute a Vertical Bull Call Spread on AppleFor those readers looking to improve their trading results and create the unfair advantage they deserve, I have posted a training video on How to Execute a Vertical Bull Call Spread. This is a matched pair of positions in the options market that will be profitable when the underlying security goes up, sideways, or down a small amount in price over a defined limited period of time. It is the perfect position to have onboard during markets that have declining or low volatility, much like we experienced in 2014, and will almost certainly see again. I have strapped on quite a few of these across many asset classes this year, and they are a major reason why I am showing positive performance numbers for 2016. To understand this trade, I will use the example of an Apple trade, which I executed on July 10, 2014. I then felt very strongly that Apple shares would rally into the release of its new iPhone 6 on September 9, 2014. The same play has just started to kick in for the iPhone 7 released September of that year. So followers of my Trade Alert service received text messages and emails to add the following position: Buy the Apple (AAPL) August 2014 $85-$90 in-the-money bull call spread at $4.00 or best To accomplish this, they had to execute the following trades: Buy 25 August 2014 (AAPL) $85 calls at...............$9.60 Sell short 25 August 2014 (AAPL) $90 calls at......$5.60 Net Cost:...................................................................$4.00 This gets traders into the position at $4.00, which cost them $10,000 ($4.00 per option X 100 shares per option contract X 25 contracts). The vertical part of the description of this trade refers to the fact that both options have the same underlying security (AAPL), the same expiration date (August 15, 2014) and only different strike prices ($85 and $90). The breakeven point can be calculated as follows: $85.00 - Lower strike price +$4.00 - Price paid for the vertical call spread $89.00 - Break even Apple share price Another way of explaining this is that the call spread you bought for $4.00 is worth $5.00 at expiration on August 15, giving you a total return of 25% in 26 trading days. Not bad! The great thing about these positions is that your risk is defined. You can't lose any more than the amount of capital you put up, in this case, $10,000. If Apple goes bankrupt, we get a flash crash, or suffer another 9/11 type event, you will never get a margin call from your broker in the middle of the night asking for more money. This is why hedge funds like spreads so much. As long as Apple traded at or above $89 on the August 14 expiration date, you would have made a profit on this trade. As it turns out, my read on Apple shares proved dead-on, and the shares closed at $97.98 on expiration day or a healthy $8.98 above my breakeven point. The total profit on the trade came to: ($1.00 profit X 100 shares X 25 contracts) = $2,500 This means that the position earned a 25% profit on your $10,000 investment in a little more than a month. Now you know why I like Vertical Bull Call Spreads so much. So do my followers. Occasionally, these things don't work and wheels fall off. As hard as it may be to believe, I am not infallible. So, if I'm wrong and I tell you to buy a vertical bull call spread, and the shares fall not a little, but a lot, you will lose money. On those rare occasions when that happens, I'll shoot out a Trade Alert to you with stop-loss instructions before the damage gets out of control. That stop loss is usually at the lower strike price when there is still a lot of time to run to expiration, as the position still has a lot of time value remaining, and the upper strike price when there are only a few days left until expiration. To watch the video edition of How to Execute a Vertical Bull Call Spread, complete with more detailed instructions on how to execute the position with your own online platform, please click here. ​ [h=2] [/h][h=2]Vertical Bull Call Spreads Are the Way to Go in a Crazily Oversold Market[/h]​ ​

Quote of the Day“If Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) can raise $4 billion in the debt markets, why can’t American (AA) or United (UAL) do the same? Why stick it to the taxpayer?” asked my old friend, famed short-seller Jim Chanos.

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[Bozzie]

Todays MH

Global Market Comments March 10, 2021 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (WHY GLOBALIZATION WORKS)

​ Why Globalization WorksI am writing this to you from the Amtrak California Zephyr. Having got my Pfizer Covid-19 shots, it is now finally safe to ride public transport. I am riding the rails in a first class sleeping compartment from Oakland, CA to Truckee, CA to reposition a car from my Lake Tahoe lakefront estate now that winter is over. Pulling out of the station, I couldn’t help but notice the gigantic cargo ships from China and South Korea unloading containers by the tens of thousands. Mountains of these containers dot the horizon. The cranes that used to automatically unload them were the models for George Lucas’s AT walkers in Star Wars. I tell my kids that this year’s Christmas presents are in there somewhere. Having been a vociferous supporter of globalization since its dawn a half century ago, first during a decade spent as a reporter for The Economistmagazine, and then as an investor, I will explain how our international trading system works, and especially why it works for us. There was a polyglot of travelers from all over the world on my train. Large groups of Chinese were led by flag-bearing guides. Italian Millennials mobbed the bar. A retired English couple strolled the observation car. There was even the occasional American student backpacker repeating my own adventure from the 1960s. And you know what? This disparate international group shared many things in common. Most of them spent much of the day glued to iPhones or Androids run by US-designed apps. Many were staying in accommodation organized by Airbnb. Like me, they may have made the trip from to the train station in an Uber cab. They wore Levi Strauss blue jeans. American pop music pulsed through their earbuds. Probably half of them arrived in America on a Boeing jet financed by the US Export Import Bank. In short, they were all sending enormous amounts of money to US companies and shareholders in more ways than they could possibly count, without realizing it. You never used to see tourists from most countries, like Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, or Ireland. They were too poor. Rapidly rising standards of living created by globalization changed all of that, creating an enormous new market for American products, especially technology ones. You can see some of this impact in international balance of trade statistics. In 2018, the US ran a trade deficit with the world of $891.3 billion, an all-time high, with consumer electronics, oil, clothes, and cars our largest imports. There is a more elegant way to describe this trade. We are in fact running a massive goods surplus, where foreigners send us $891.3 billion worth of stuff and we give them paper in return, US dollars, which has been steadily depreciating in value for the past 50 years. Who is the big winner here? The US consumer, i.e. you and I. Sounds like a good deal to me. Without this inflow of cheap goods the US, inflation rate would be at least double or triple what it is now. Subtract our $402.8 billion surplus in services, which includes, financial services, education, patents, and other intellectual property, and that brings our current account deficit down by more than half to only $488.5 billion. Some 78.6% of private sector US GDP is now accounted for by services. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Trade data completely miss the enormous number of products and services that are now given away FOR FREE in exchange for the chance of earning some uncertain revenue at some future date. In a pre-Internet, pre-globalized world, a service like the Diary of a Mad hedge Fund Trader covering so many asset classes and individual stocks real time might have cost $100,000, if not $1 million. And you know what? It would have been worth it! Multiply this effect on a global scale and you see what I am talking about. Give up your name, email address, and phone number and you can obtain almost any kind of online service for nothing. And as far as I know, no government agency has any measurement of this whatsoever. Needless to say, the United States is far and away the leader in this immeasurable field. By the way, this might also be the reason why the published productivity data has been so poor, despite the fact that US GDP has grown by 20% since 2009. Everywhere I look, productivity is skyrocketing, including my own. It also might be the reason why Amazon continuously sports a nosebleed valuation. Much of what they provide is FREE, and therefore immeasurable. Of course, globalization wrought havoc on your life if you went into it with the wrong job in the wrong industry and an inadequate skill set. Blue collar workers tied to textiles, shoes, toys, and other low value added manufacturing were toast, as their jobs fled offshore. If you didn’t retrain or adapt, you became an angry, mostly white man. As my friend, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, likes to say, “Average doesn’t cut it anymore.” However, while the jobs are gone, the bulk of the profits stayed here in the US. American companies offshored the $2 an hour jobs (mass assembly), but kept the $150 an hour ones (design and marketing). As my friends in the Chinese government never fail to point out, if they build the iPhone for $100 and we sell it $1,000, we are the big winners, not them. They believe we are perpetuating 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century colonialism by making wage slaves of their workers. They are correct. Globalization enables the US dollar to continue as the world’s reserve currency, as almost all international trade is conducted in the buck. That is one of the greatest free lunches of all time. It enables the US government to indirectly control the global economy through its own monetary policy. Some half of all of the $22 trillion in US government debt is owned by foreigners. When sanctions forced Iran to drop out of the international trading system what did they get? A Great Depression that cut their GDP by 25%. You can’t run a country of 80 million with oil barter deals, gold, and bitcoins alone. There are also the huge defense benefits that globalization brings us. Back in the early days, the main reason to steer a country into capitalism was to prevent it from going communist, and therefore becoming an enemy. Grow your allies and shrink your enemies, and your defense costs shrink dramatically, raising our friends’ standards of living. That is what has happened on a massive scale. Increased trade also boosted foreign standards of living, therefore creating a growing market for American goods and services. This was the whole point of the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Humans rarely bite the hands that feed them. They are also highly unlikely to set fire to their paycheck or bomb the sources of income. Make a foreigner a millionaire, and you turn him into a pacifist. I have seen this unfold time and again over the past half century, be it in China, Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and most recently in Iran. Create an embedded base of businessmen in any country who are getting rich off of you, and international relations invariably improve. Any system based on greed is guaranteed to succeed. A side benefit of all of this is that stock markets for up forever. Since globalization started in earnest in 1951, the Dow Average has risen from $239 to $21,800, a prodigious gain of some 92-fold. And you wondered why? Globalization is the mechanism through which America is paid the dividend for all of the good deeds it has done and inventions it has created for the past century. I am thinking about the construction of the Panama Canal, Lend Lease, and the Marshall Plan, as well as the transistor, memory chip, microprocessor, personal computer, Windows, the Internet, online commerce, the iPhone, and social media. That is why globalization is a win-win-win for everyone. There are really only two true communist countries left in the world, Cuba and North Korea, which never joined the international trading community. They also happen to have the planet’s lowest standard of living. And Cuba will become totally capitalist within two years. Just give them a million iPhones, get them talking, and see what happens. Castro will become just another neighborhood in South San Francisco. So why end a trading system from which America and its people have profited so mightily? That is a very good question, one that someone might the former president. ​ [h=2]AT-AT Walkers from Star Wars[/h]​ ​

Quote of the Day“Consumers are going to do best and that is consume,” said Brian Jacobsen of Wells Fargo.

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[Bozzie]

AVDL up 14 % today on a super positive earnings report and FDA update.

https://investors.avadel.com/news-r...uticals-provides-corporate-update-and-reports

HC Wainwright & Co. Maintains Buy on Avadel Pharmaceuticals, Raises Price Target to $17 From $15

 

[Bozzie]

Todays MH

Global Market Comments March 11, 2021 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (HOW TO FIND A GREAT OPTIONS TRADE)

​ How to Find a Great Options TradeI know that many of you don’t trade in the options market and we will be customizing our trade alerts for you to specifically accommodate your needs. I’ll wait for the next “sweet spot” to get you in the market. For those who do, the information below is incredibly valuable. You’ve spent vast amounts of time, money, and effort to become an options trading expert. You know the difference between bids and offers, puts and calls, exercise prices, and expiration days. And you still can’t make any money. Now what? Where do you apply your newfound expertise? How do you maximize your reward while minimizing your risk? It is all very simple. Stick to five basic disciplines and you will suddenly find that the number of your new trades that are winners takes a quantum leap, and money will start pouring into your trading account. It’s really not all that hard to do. So here we go! 1) Know the Macro Picture If you have a handle on whether the economy is growing or shrinking, you have a major advantage in the options market. In a growing economy, you only want to employ bullish strategies, like calls, call spreads, and short volatility plays. In a shrinking economy, you want to execute bearish plays, like puts, put spreads, and long volatility plays. Remember, the only thing that is useful for your options trading is a view on what the economy is going to do NEXT. The government only publishes historical economic data, which is for the most part useless in predicting what is going to happen in the future. The options market is all about discounting what is going to happen next. And how do you find that out? Well, you could hire your own in-house staff economist. Or you could rely on economic research from the largest brokerage houses. Even the Federal Reserve puts out its own forecasts for economic growth prospects. However, all of these sources have notoriously poor track records. Listening to them and placing bets on their advice CAN get you into a world of trouble. For the best possible read on the future of the US and the global economy, there is no better place to go than Global Trading Dispatch, published by me, John Thomas, the Mad Hedge Fund Trader. This is where the largest hedge funds and brokers go to find out what really is going to happen to the economy. Do you want to give yourself another valuable edge? There are over 100 different industries listed on US stock markets. However, only about 5 or 10 are really growing decisively at any particular time. The rest are either going nowhere or are shrinking. In fact, you can find a handful of sectors that are booming, while others are in outright recession. If you are a major hedge fund, institution, or government, you may want to cover all 100 of those industries. Good luck with that. If you are a small hedge fund, or an individual working from home, you will want to conserve your time and resources, skip most of US industry, and only focus on a handful. Some traders take this a step further and only concentrate on a single high growing, volatile industry, like technology or biotech, or even a single name, like Netflix (NFLX), Tesla (TSLA), or Amazon (AMZN). How do you decide which industry to trade? Brokerage houses pump out more free research than you could ever read in a lifetime. Government reports tend to be stodgy, boring, and out of date. Big hedge funds keep their in-house research confidential (although some of it leaks out to me). The Mad Hedge Fund Trader solves this problem for you by limiting its scope to a small number of benchmark, pathfinder industries, like technology, banks, energy, consumer cyclical, biotech, and cybersecurity. In this way, we gain a handle on what is happening in the economy as a whole, while lining up rifle shots on the best options trades out there. We want to direct you where the action is, and where we have a good handle on future earnings prospects. It doesn’t hurt that we live on the edge of Silicon Valley and get invited to test out many new technologies before they are made public. My Tesla Model S1 is a perfect example. That encourages me to recommend Tesla stock at $16 before it began its historic run to $295. It was the best short squeeze ever. 2) The Micro Picture is Ideal Once you have a handle on the economy and the best industries, it’s time to zero in on the best company to trade in, or the “MICRO” selection. It’s always great to find a good target to trade in because positions in single companies can deliver double or even triple the returns compared to stock indexes. That's because the market will pay a far higher implied volatility for a single company than a large basket of companies. Remember also that you are taking greater risks in trading individual companies. The options market will pay you for that extra risk. If the earnings come through as expected, everything is hunky-dory. If they don’t, the shares can drop by half in a heartbeat. Large indexes buffer this effect, which is why they have far lower volatility. Of course, there are gobs of market research about individual companies out there from brokers. Some of it is right, some of it is wrong, but all of it is conflicted. Recommendations are either “BUY” or “HOLD”. Brokers are loath to issue a “SELL” recommendation for a stock because it will eliminate any chance of that firm obtaining new issue business. Who wants to hire a broker to sell new stock when their analyst has already dissed the company? And brokerage firms don’t make their bread and butter on those piddling little discount commissions you have been paying them. They make it on highly lucrative new issues business. In fact, a new issue can earn as much as $100 million for one firm. I know because I’ve done it. I have been following about 100 companies in the leading market sectors for nearly half a century. Some of the management of these firms have become close friends over the decades. So, I get some really first-class information. When markets rotate to sectors and companies that I already know, I have a huge advantage. Needless to say, this gives me a massive head start when selecting individual names for options Trade Alerts. 3) The Technicals Line Up I have never been a huge fan of technical analysis. Most technical advice boils down to “if it’s gone up, it will go up more” or “If it’s gone down, it will go down more.” Over time, the recommendations are accurate 50% of the time or is about equal with a coin toss. However, the shorter the time frame, the more useful technical analysis becomes. If you analyze intraday trading, almost all very short-term movements can be explained in technical terms. This is entirely how day traders make their livings. It’s a classic case of if enough people believe something, it becomes true, no matter how dubious the underling facts may be. So it does behoove us to pay some attention to the charts when executing your trades. Talk to old time investors and you will fund that they use fundamentals for long term stock selection and technicals for short-term order execution. Talk to them some more and you find the best fundamentalists sound like technicians, while savvy technicians refer to underlying fundamentals. Get the technicals right, and you can provide one additional reason for you trade to work. 4) The Calendar is Favorable There is one more means of assuring your trades turn into winners. I am a big fan of buying straw hats in the dead of winter and umbrellas in the sizzling heat of the summer. There IS a method to my madness. Have you heard of “Sell in May and go away?” According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, $10,000 invested at the beginning of May and sold at the end of October every year since 1950 would be showing a loss today. This is despite the fact that the Dow Average rocketed from $409 to $18,300 during the same time period, a gain of 44.74 times! Amazingly, $10,000 invested every November and sold at the end of April would today be worth $702,000, giving you a compound annual return of 7.10%. It gets better. Of the 62 years under study, the market was down in 25 of the May to October periods, but negative in only 13 of the November to April periods. What’s more, the market has been down only three times during the November to April in the last 20 years! There have been just three times when the "good 6 months" have lost more than 10% (1969, 1973, and 2008), but with the "bad six months" time period, there have been 11 losing losses of 10% or more. So it’s clear that trading according to the calendar can have a significant impact on your profitability. Being a long-time student of the American, and indeed, the global economy, I have long had a theory behind the regularity of this cycle. It’s enough to base a pagan religion around, like the ones practicing Druids at Stonehenge. Up until the 1920s, we had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. Farmers were always at maximum financial distress in the fall when their outlays for seed, fertilizer, and labor were the greatest, but they had yet to earn any income from the sale of their crops. So they had to borrow all at once, placing a large cash call on the financial system as a whole. This is why we have seen so many stock market crashes in October. Once the system swallows this lump, it’s nothing but green lights for six months. After the cycle was set and was easily identifiable by computer algorithms, the trend became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, it may be disturbing to learn that we ardent stock market practitioners might in fact be the high priests of a strange set of beliefs. But hey, some people will do anything to outperform the market. It is important to remember that this cyclicality is not 100% accurate, and you know the one time you bet the ranch, it won’t work. Benefits of the Tailwinds So there we have it. Adopt these five simple disciplines and you will find your success rate on trades jumps from a mere coin toss to 70%, 80%, or even 90%. In other words, you convert your trading from an endless series of frustrations to a reliable source of income. If a potential trade meets only four of these five criteria, please do it with your money and not mine. Your chances of making money have just declined. And I bet a lot of you poor souls execute trades all the time that meet NONE of these criteria. No wonder you’re losing money hand over fist! Get the tailwinds of the economy, your industrial call, your company pick, the market technicals, and the calendar working for you, and all of a sudden you’re a trading genius. It only took me half a century to pull all this together. Hopefully, you can learn a little bit faster than me. I hope it all works for you. ​ [h=2]Your Guide to Winning Trades[/h]​ ​

Quote of the Day“In a social democracy with a fiat currency, all roads lead to inflation,” said legendary hedge fund manager Bill Fleckenstein.

This is not a solicitation to buy or sell securities The Mad Hedge Fund Trader is not an Investment advisor For full disclosures click here at: http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/disclosures The "Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader"(TM) and the "Mad Hedge Fund Trader" (TM) are protected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office The "Diary of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader" (C) is protected by the United States Copyright Office Futures trading involves a high degree of risk and may not be suitable for everyone.[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

[Bozzie]

March 12, 2021

Good morning. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

Is the Fed making inequality worse?Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

[h=2]Engine of division[/h]

As stock markets set new highs, Karen Petrou is mad about monetary policy. Ms. Petrou, co-founder and managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a Washington-based consultancy, got so angry that she wrote a book about it, “Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America.” In it, she draws a direct connection between the Federal Reserve’s decisions and the rich getting richer, with others struggling to get by.

“My book shows monetary policy makes the mess and can clean it up,” Ms. Petrou told DealBook. “The Fed makes markets bulletproof and sets rates so low that the only way to make money is in stocks.” In 2020, it doubled down on that approach in response to the pandemic downturn, “so the financial system got more bulletproof,” she said. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans own more than half of all stocks, she noted, so a rich few grew even wealthierthis past year. As she described it in the book:

When financial rates of return are above that of broader economic growth, inequality speeds up in a cumulative way, just like a gassed-up engine driven by someone with a heavy foot on the pedal.

Monetary policymakers have traditionally denied any role in driving inequality, Ms. Petrou said. But in 2016, she presented her thesis to central bankers and was surprised to find heads nodding. Evidence of the growing wealth divide, accelerated by policies meant to stabilize the economy after the 2008 financial crisis, seemed to make officials more inclined to listen. But her theory has been bolstered, again, by a year of market ebullience fueled by Fed policy, she said. (That has also prompted the Fed to think more expansively about its mission.) The stimulus was intended to stabilize the economy in a time of crisis, but has benefited the wealthiest most of all, widening the divide.

Continue reading the main story

[h=3]ADVERTISEMENT[/h]

“If the Fed takes the punch bowl away, slowly and carefully, there will be a small cost to the markets,” Ms. Petrou said, capturing the debate many investors are having about how long the central bank can — or should — keep the gas pedal down. Since inequality undermines economic growth, and markets have had a long bullish run, “shared turbulence” is worth it for shared prosperity, she said. Improvements in education policy may manifest in broader wealth gains over 10 years, Ms. Petrou suggested, but monetary policy takes effect rapidly — as the pandemic has shown — so “changes will not just be constructive, but significant and fast.”

[h=3]HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING[/h]

President Biden says all adult Americans should be eligible for Covid vaccines by May 1. He delivered the news in his first prime-time address, hours after he signed the $1.9 trillion relief bill into law. Lawmakers are already discussing another big spending bill, on infrastructure, which could come this summer.

Airlines and other hard-hit businesses got $65 billion from the stimulus bill. As a result, American Airlines and United told 27,000 employees that they could ignore the furlough notices they had received.

A renewed rally pushes stocks to record highs. The S&P 500 set a new record, as investors stopped worrying about inflation and focused on a brighter economic outlook. Tech stocks pared some of their recent losses, but the bullishness is centered on old-economy stocks that could benefit most from a post-pandemic reopening.

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The New York State Assembly is opening an impeachment inquiry into Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The lawmakers will investigate sexual harassment claims and the handling of virus-related deaths at nursing homes. And the Albany Police Department said yesterday that it was notified about an alleged groping incident involving Mr. Cuomo and a female aide that may have risen “to the level of a crime.”

Christie’s auctioned off a digital image for $69 million, with a crypto twist. The price for the piece by the artist known as Beeple set a record for digital artand came with a nonfungible token, or NFT, to give proof of authenticity and ownership using blockchain technology.

[h=2]Why Vista’s investors shrugged[/h]

Robert F. Smith, the billionaire founder of Vista Equity Partners, paid $139 million in October to settle one of the biggest tax evasion cases in American history. In response, “his investors barely blinked,” The Times’s Matthew Goldstein reports in an account with new details of the situation.

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The episode highlights a reality of the financial world: returns matter most. A recent Vista marketing document reviewed by The Times showed the firm generated an annual rate of return of 31 percent, higher than most private equity benchmarks — to say nothing of the low-yielding bonds where pensions and endowments park most of their cash.

Vista was quick to alert investors. Mr. Smith learned that he was a subject of a criminal tax investigation in the summer of 2016, and a few months later Vista began providing updates to investors on the federal inquiry, The Times has learned. Although the full scope of Mr. Smith’s actions weren’t clear until later, the disclosures and insistence that it was a “personal tax matter” seemed to keep Vista’s investors on side. (That approach contrasts with the more severe fallout at Apollo from co-founder Leon Black’s dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.)

That said, Vista was less forthcoming with potential new investors. When the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board was negotiating a $100 million investment a year ago, the tax investigation never came up. The pension fund canceled its plans a few months later when news broke that Mr. Smith could face serious charges.

The institutions that have benefited from Mr. Smith’s philanthropy are also standing by him. These include Carnegie Hall, where he is chairman, and Morehouse College, where Mr. Smith paid off the student loan debt of the 2019 graduating class. (As part of his settlement, Mr. Smith agreed to forgo claims he made on his tax returns for $182 million in charitable deductions.)

A month after his settlement, Mr. Smith appeared on a panel at a DealBook event and addressed the case (here’s the video clip). “I made right with the government,” he said. “I’m absolutely committed to continuing my important work, my philanthropy, returns to all the stakeholders.”

[h=2]“My experience with Roblox is that one time I looked at my Apple receipt and saw that my 9-year-old had made over $1,000 in purchases in Roblox. She hadn’t realized it was real money.”[/h]

— Mehrsa Baradaran, a UC Irvine law professor (and likely nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of Currency), on the day of the video-game company’s I.P.O.

[h=2]In the papers[/h]

Some of the academic research that caught our eye this week, summarized in one sentence:

The bad things about mining Bitcoin — like emissions from vast energy consumption — get worse when the cryptocurrency’s price rises. (Alex de Vries) How “a relatively simple algorithm” could automate antitrust screening, making it easier for regulators to spot wrongdoing. (Giovanna Massarotto and Ashwin Ittoo) The greater the share of a C.E.O.’s political donations to Republicans, the lower the share of women in that company’s executive suite. (Alma Cohen, Moshe Hazan and David Weiss)

[h=2]Slack adds to its criminal justice initiative[/h]

In 2018, Slack launched a six-month apprenticeship program to help formerly incarcerated people find skilled jobs and address the shortage of engineers in the U.S. Today, seven new companies are joining the initiative.

The program now has 11 corporate partners. The new companies include Affirm, Checkr, GoodRx, American Family Insurance and Lob. They join others like Dropbox, Zoom and Square. This year, 21 apprentices will start the program, receiving financial support, mentorship and services to help them re-enter society. (It will operate remotely during the pandemic.) Last year’s apprentices at Slack and Zoom are all now full-time employees.

Slack’s program is one of a growing number of criminal justice initiatives in corporate America, as DealBook recently reported.

[h=2]All about Coupang, the ‘Amazon of South Korea’[/h]

Coupang made its market debut on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, raising $4.6 billion in a monster I.P.O. that was the largest haul for an Asian company in the U.S. since Alibaba in 2014. Its shares closed the day up 40 percent, giving it a market cap of about $85 billion. DealBook spoke with Bom Suk Kim, who founded Coupang in 2010, about its path to profitability, potential acquisitions and why he said no to SPACs.

“We’re unique, not only in Korea, but globally,” Mr. Kim said. The company claims that 70 percent of South Koreans live within seven miles of one of its distribution centers. Customers who belong to its membership program can return a product by leaving it outside their door, without a box or return label. Coupang has also launched a meal-delivery service and a video-streaming app. Sales almost doubled last year to $12 billion, but the company still loses money. Mr. Kim declined to say when it might make a profit, but said the company is “self-funding” and would be “aggressive with reinvestments.”

Coupang is “laser-focused” on South Korea, said Mr. Kim, with no short-term plans to grow outside the country. It will consider acquisitions, though Mr. Kim said it has no specific plans in the works. (Some analysts have speculated that Coupang might buy eBay’s e-commerce subsidiaries in South Korea.) “We’re not in the business of just acquiring to build volume,” he said.

Coupang opted against going public by merging with a SPAC. “There were a number of people that spoke with us, but we really felt strongly that this was the right path for us,” Mr. Kim said. When asked why, Mr. Kim noted that a traditional I.P.O. brought Coupang “some amazing long-term investors.”

[h=3]THE SPEED READ[/h]

Deals

Grab, the ride-hailing app popular in Southeast Asia, is reportedly in talks to go public by merging with a SPAC in a deal that could value it at $40 billion. (WSJ) Verizon raised $25 billion in bonds, its second entry in the 10 largest corporate issues on record. (MarketWatch)

Politics and policy

President Biden announced four senior hires at the Treasury Department. (NYT) The S.E.C. warned investors to be wary of celebrity-endorsed SPACs. (S.E.C.) “Germany’s Main Opposition Became an Anti-Lockdown Party. It Didn’t Work.” (Times Opinion)

Tech

Netflix is testing a new feature to crack down on password sharing. (CNN)

Qualcomm is reportedly struggling to meet demand for smartphone chips. (Reuters)

Best of the rest

Jeffrey Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion sold for $51 million, which will go to a fund for the disgraced financier’s sexual abuse victims. (NYT) Despite scarce public appearances in recent months, the logs for Jack Ma’s private jet show that the Alibaba chief has been crisscrossing China. (FT) Will people play as much golf and tennis after the pandemic is over? (NYT)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

Thank you for your support. Want to share The New York Times? Friends and family can enjoy unlimited digital access to our journalism with this special offer.

Continue reading the main story

 

[Bozzie]

Hey Bill
TWST too rode it to 200.00 now 105.00..I'll get back in for sure.

AVDL near 10.00
TWST pops back to 144.00.. I missed jumping back in.
Spent the weekend in a crawl space under our place sistering in rotten floor joists beneath a bathroom..Good fun

March 15, 2021

Good morning. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

Allison Herren Lee, the S.E.C.’s acting chairwoman, will say that corporate disclosures on E.S.G. issues are a high priority.Erin Scott/Reuters

[h=2]Exclusive: The S.E.C.’s evolution on E.S.G.[/h]

Allison Herren Lee was named acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission in January, and since then she has been active, especially when it comes to environmental, social and governance, or E.S.G., issues. The agency has issued a flurry of notices that such disclosures will be priorities this year. Today, Ms. Lee, who was appointed as a commissioner by President Donald Trump in 2019, is speaking at the Center for American Progress, where she will call for input on additional E.S.G. transparency, according to prepared remarks seen by DealBook.

The supposed distinction between what’s good and what’s profitable is diminishing, Ms. Lee will argue in the speech, saying that “acting in pursuit of the public interest and acting to maximize the bottom line” are complementary. The S.E.C.’s job is to meet investor demand for data on a range of corporate activities, and Ms. Lee’s planned remarks suggest that greater transparency on E.S.G. issues won’t be optional for much longer. “That demand is not being met by the current voluntary framework,” she will say. “Human capital, human rights, climate change — these issues are fundamental to our markets, and investors want to and can help drive sustainable solutions on these issues.”

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Ms. Lee will also argue that “political spending disclosure is inextricably linked to E.S.G. issues,” based on research showing that many companies have made climate pledges while donating to candidates with contradictory voting records. The same goes for racial justice initiatives, she will say.

This is not an interim priority. Ms. Lee is acting chief, but based on recent statements by Gary Gensler, President Biden’s choice to lead the S.E.C., she’s laying the groundwork for more action rather than throwing down the gauntlet. In his confirmation hearing this month, Mr. Gensler said that investors increasingly wanted companies to disclose risks associated with climate change, diversity, political spending and other E.S.G. issues.

Not everyone at the S.E.C. is on board. Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman, fellow commissioners also appointed by Mr. Trump, recently protested the “steady flow” of climate and E.S.G. notices. They issued a public statement, asking, “Do these announcements represent a change from current commission practices or a continuation of the status quo with a new public relations twist?”

Further reading:

How Hurricane Harvey led Hewlett Packard Enterprise to explain climate-related risks to investors in more detail. Accounting standards should be clearer on how to measure the financial impact of carbon emissions. John Kerry, the White House’s climate envoy, is urging Wall Street to commit to environmentally friendly finance initiatives.

[h=3]HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING[/h]

More prominent Democrats abandon Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Lawmakers like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested, to varying degrees, that the governor of New York consider resigning over allegations of sexual harassment. He has rejected those calls and is considering running for a fourth term.

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The U.S. is considering new ways to protect itself against cyberattacks. Efforts by China and Russia to breach government and corporate computer networks — and the failure of American intelligence to detect them — have spurred discussions about ways to organize U.S. cyberdefenses, including more partnerships with private companies.

Credit Suisse is accused of continuing to help Americans evade taxes. The Swiss bank aided clients in hiding assets, seven years after it promised U.S. federal prosecutors that it would stop doing so, according to a whistle-blower report. That puts the firm at risk of a fresh investigation and more financial penalties. The bank said it was cooperating with the authorities.

A veteran Democratic official is poised to join the Biden administration. Gene Sperling, an economic wonk who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, is likely to oversee the implementation of the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, Politico reports.

Stripe is now Silicon Valley’s most valuable start-up. The payments processor has raised funding from investors like Sequoia and Fidelity at a $95 billion valuation. Stripe plans to use the money to expand in Europe, including in its founders’ home country, Ireland.

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[h=2]Blockchain for the underbanked[/h]

Brian Brooks, the former acting chief of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is really into blockchain. He was, after all, the chief counsel of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase before joining the O.C.C. But his enthusiasm isn’t based on Bitcoin’s success as much as on his personal struggles, he told DealBook.

Mr. Brooks borrowed his way out of an ailing town. He grew up in Pueblo, Colo., a steel center that lost its purpose in the 1980s. His father took his own life when Mr. Brooks was 14, and he and his mother had little. In high school, he waited tables and took out loans for school, for a car and eventually for a home. Now, he’s betting that blockchain can help the underbanked do the same more easily.

“Unlocking credit availability allows people to move up the ladder,” Mr. Brooks said. Nearly 50 million Americans don’t have credit scores, but many are creditworthy. Traditional rating systems aren’t equipped for nuanced assessments that might include things like rent, Netflix bills or income from gig work. For many, the inability to borrow limits opportunities to achieve financial security.

At the O.C.C., Mr. Brooks started Project Reach, a financial inclusion initiative. His first move since resigning from the agency in January is to join the board of the fintech firm Spring Labs as an independent director, DealBook is the first to report. Among other things, the company is developing richer data environments for credit scoring using blockchain tech.

Finding solutions to financial inclusion that are immune to politics is key, noted Mr. Brooks, a Trump administration appointee. Credit, he argues, lets people bet on themselves regardless of which party is making policy, and the current system excludes many worthy borrowers. “Let’s let more people climb ladders,” Mr. Brooks said.

[h=2]“It’s just a pent-up cycle where the money has nowhere to go, so it’s doing stupid things.”[/h]

— Howard Lindzon, an investor, entrepreneur and market commentator, speaking to The Times’s Erin Griffith on the booms (or bubbles) in everything from trading cards to Bitcoin, SPACs and so-called meme stocks.

[h=2]Big Pharma’s Covid booster[/h]

The pharmaceutical industry is popular right now, which is perhaps unsurprising considering that the end of the pandemic depends on Covid-19 vaccines. Drug makers’ rapid response to the crisis has transformed public sentiment about the industry, moving it from one of the most reviled to one of the most respected, according to new data from the Harris Poll, revealed exclusively in DealBook.

A year of living in fear created unlikely heroes. For the past year or so, the Harris Poll has monitored public sentiment in weekly surveys of more than 114,000 people. At the height of the emergency, more than half of respondents were afraid of dying from the virus and a similar share were afraid of losing their jobs. “Only in the past month, with vaccines rising and hospitalizations and deaths declining, is fear abating,” the report noted.

Business got good grades during the pandemic. Many respondents cited companies as important to solving problems, where previously they were considered the cause of social woes. (Two-thirds said that companies could do a better job coordinating the vaccine rollout than the government could.) Approval ratings rose for many industries from January last year to February this year. But the reputation of the pharma industry — stained by its role in the opioid crisis and criticized for high drug prices — benefited the most. In January 2020, only 32 percent of respondents viewed the industry positively; late last month, that had almost doubled, to 62 percent.

“The pharmaceutical industry’s ability to innovate and perform under intense pressure and in a time of crisis is the ultimate validation for any business,” said John Gerzema, the C.E.O. of the Harris Poll.

[h=2]On Big Government and Big Tech[/h]

Silicon Valley has been lauded for decades as a hotbed of ingenuity, where companies like Google were born from the brains of entrepreneurs. But in the latest episode of The Times’s Opinion podcast “Sway,” the economist Mariana Mazzucato told Kara Swisher that the traditional narrative has holes in it.

“Do you have any idea where the innovation in places like Silicon Valley came from?” asked Ms. Mazzucato, the founder of University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She ticked off technologies like the internet and GPS: “We wouldn’t have any smart product without all the smart technology, which was government-financed.”

“It’s not that the private sector is not doing anything,” she said. “It’s that the government comes in first, does the heavy lifting and invests in the most early stage, high-risk stage — which is exactly the opposite of the storytelling and the narrative.”

“We have to admit that value is collectively created,” she said. “It’s not just created in business. The public sector itself is a value.”

Listen to the conversation here.

[h=3]THE SPEED READ[/h]

Deals

The French food giant Danone ousted Emmanuel Faber as its chairman and C.E.O., under pressure from two activist investors. (FT) A Maryland hotel magnate who cut a deal to buy The Baltimore Sun from Tribune Publishing may instead challenge Alden Global Capital for all of Tribune’s newspapers. (NYT) The value of short bets against SPACs has more than tripled since the start of the year. (WSJ)

Politics and policy

Jeff Bezos declined an invitation to speak at a Senate hearing on economic inequality, which will include testimony from an Amazon employee involved in union organization efforts in Alabama. (CNN) With pandemic stimulus out of the way, President Biden is now making infrastructure spending a priority. Can it pass Congress? (FT)

Tech

Ant Group’s C.E.O., Simon Hu, resigned amid pressure on the Chinese fintech giant from Beijing to overhaul its business. (NYT) In a securities filing, Elon Musk gave himself a new title, “Technoking of Tesla,” and the company’s C.F.O. Zach Kirkhorn is “Master of Coin.” (S.E.C.) Tesla’s California factory recorded hundreds of Covid-19 cases after Mr. Musk reopened the plant last May, according to county data. (WaPo)

Best of the rest

Peter Diamandis, the founder of the X Prize, held an in-person conference that became a Covid-19 superspreader event — and then followed up with a webinar that touted questionable treatments. (MIT Technology Review) How the I.P.O. of Coupang, an e-commerce giant, signals a potential weakening of South Korea’s traditional corporate elite. (Bloomberg) Some at Goldman Sachs are reportedly frustrated by the leadership of David Solomon during the pandemic, including his criticism of working remotely — while he himself has booked numerous getaways. (Bloomberg)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

 

[CoachCB]

Boz - just got home from California. Snowboarded three days at Big Bear & Snow Summit. It snowed the first two days we were there, so had really good snow. It was crowded AF though, so that kinda made it a pain in the ass - the parking was a bitch. But it was a lot of fun. I had never been to Big Bear - my sister in law and her boyfriend bought a small cabin there last May and moved there during the early part of covid. The little town reminds me a lot of Lake Tahoe.

 

[Bozzie]

I bet, when it snows the crowds are big..LA and San Bernardino are so close..Awesome you got snow.
Big bear is a good time..summers are on that lake are a blast.
Palm Springs is close too..you can ski then play golf in 90 degree weather on the same day...So Cal is a trip.

 

[Bozzie]

March 16, 2021

Good morning. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

Union supporters outside an Amazon facility in Bessemer, Ala.Dustin Chambers/Reuters

[h=2]Amazon’s anti-unionization playbook[/h]

Amazon faces a unionization drive at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. — the largest and most viable U.S. labor challenge in years. The Times’s David Streitfeld looked into the e-commerce giant’s previous efforts to block organized labor. He found a host of tough tactics … that worked. Will they again?

Among Amazon’s steps to oppose a unionization drive in Chester, Va. five years ago, according to regulatory documents and employees:

Human resources officials were brought in, and some were accused of following workers to glean their positions on the union drive. Supporters of the effort were described as “a cancer and a disease to Amazon and the facility,” according to Bill Hough Jr., a leader of that organization effort, and a memo from the union sponsoring the effort. Mr. Hough was accused of insubordination and was told he may lose his job if he continued to have a “negative impact.”

Amazon secretly reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board, after the union behind the drive lodged a complaint. The company was required to post notices around the warehouse promising good behavior, though it did not have to admit to labor law violations or pay financial penalties.

In the end, most employees who had supported the union drive quit.

Organizers of the Alabama unionization effort say the company has tried similar tactics. Amazon, they assert, tried to surveil employees while posting notices around the Bessemer warehouse bad-mouthing the union. (One claimed workers would need to skimp on dinner to pay union dues.) Management even changed a traffic signal to hinder organizers’ efforts to approach workers.

Those accusations prompted President Biden to say that “workers in Alabama” — Amazon wasn’t specifically named — shouldn’t face “intimidation or threats by employers.” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, expressed support for Amazon workers, saying the company had “decided to wage culture war against working-class values.”

Union organizers are pessimistic. Nearly 6,000 workers at the Bessemer warehouse have until March 29 to decide whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “They will fall to threats or think, ‘I won’t have a job, Amazon will replace me,’” Mr. Hough told The Times. He added, “I’m hoping for the best.” In a statement, Amazon said it did not believe the union push in Alabama “represents the majority of our employees’ views.”

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[h=3]HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING[/h]

More European countries suspend the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine.Germany, France, Italy and Spain paused the inoculations amid reports that a handful of recipients had developed blood clots. Medical experts said there was “no evidence” linking the vaccine to increased risk of clots, but the moves could add to the problems of Europe’s vaccination initiatives.

Volkswagen outlines plans to counter Tesla’s battery dominance. The European carmaker announced efforts to cut costs and improve vehicle charging times, as well as build six battery factories. One analyst said it served as “a blueprint for what legacy carmakers need to achieve.”

Warren Buffett bucks calls for E.S.G. disclosures. In Berkshire Hathaway’s annual proxy, Mr. Buffett’s conglomerate urged shareholders to reject proposalsfor more transparency of climate-related risks and diversity and inclusion efforts. It’s a marked contrast to the increasing disclosure into environmental, social and corporate governance issues (more on that below).

The Sackler family may relinquish control of OxyContin’s maker. Purdue Pharma has released its bankruptcy restructuring plan, which includes a pledge from its founding family to pay $4.3 billion — $1.3 billion more than previously offered — to reimburse the costs of the opioid epidemic.

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Streaming giants dominate the Oscar race. Netflix collected 35 nominations— led by “Mank,” from the director David Fincher — while Amazon earned 12, as pandemic-driven theater shutdowns bolstered online video services and traditional studios shifted many contenders to next year.

[h=2]Exclusive: Shareholder relations sour at Danone[/h]

A day after the chairman and C.E.O. of Danone, Emmanuel Faber, stepped down under pressure from activist investors, other shareholders in the French food giant are turning on the activists. CtW, an adviser to union pension funds with over $250 billion in assets, sent a sharply worded letter yesterday to Artisan Partners, which led the revolt over Mr. Faber’s leadership. The twist in the letter, which was reviewed by DealBook, is that CtW owns a “substantial” number of Artisan shares — and said that the fund needs the sort of governance shake-up it pushed for Danone.

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Danone’s commitment to social and environmental objectives is at the heart of the issue. Last year, Danone, which owns Evian and several yogurt brands, was the first public company to adopt the French legal framework of “Entreprise à Mission,” which allows companies to take greater consideration of social and environmental issues in their business model. Some 99 percent of shareholders backed the move, but not Artisan Partners. Danone’s performance has recently lagged behind competitors like Nestle and Unilever, Artisan saidwhen calling for boardroom changes, including someone other than Mr. Faber becoming chairman.

For some, there are bigger concerns at stake: Namely, whether the stakeholder model can survive resistance from activist investors focused primarily on shareholder returns.

CtW says Artisan’s own policies are inconsistent with its demands at Danone. Notably, Eric Colson serves as Artisan’s chairman and C.E.O. “Artisan’s call for an independent chair at Danone while maintaining the positions of C.E.O. and chair combined on its own board is inconsistent with best governance practices,” wrote Dieter Waizenegger, CtW’s executive director. He also questioned the firm’s use of “large discretionary cash bonuses” and demanded a discussion with management by the end of the month. Artisan did not respond to a request for comment.

[h=2]“The economics of investing in bonds (and most financial assets) has become stupid.”[/h]

— Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates on the state of the markets.

[h=2]We have questions for the S.E.C.[/h]

Yesterday, we flagged an important speech by Allison Herren Lee, the acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on environmental, social and governance (E.S.G.) issues. Investors are increasingly demanding more corporate disclosure on these factors, and she suggested that voluntary regimes are not enough. “No single issue has been more pressing for me than ensuring that the S.E.C. is fully engaged in confronting the risks and opportunities that climate and E.S.G. pose for investors, our financial system and our economy,” she said.

We asked Ms. Lee a few more questions about the scope and timing of the agency’s initiatives. Her responses have been edited for clarity and length.

DealBook: Why act now?

Ms. Lee: We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of time to make up for. What I don’t want to do is just be sitting here treading water.

Can companies focus on profits and the planet? Is there some tension?

This is one of the most profoundly complex issues that we’ve seen: climate change and how business needs to deal with it. We have got to allow companies leeway in order to experiment and consider how best to do this. It needs to be an iterative process. They need to have some safety around predictions and forward looking statements. We’ve got to work with them. I certainly don’t imply that there’s some set approach that every company needs to take.

What major fault lines do you anticipate in the E.S.G. debate?

One of the biggest questions is going to be, “what is the right mix of principles and metrics?” How are we going to identify what metrics make the most sense and will apply in the broadest way to help investors choose the businesses they wish to invest in?

Political spending is also a hot topic. Can you talk about that?

We’ve got in excess of a million comment letters telling us this is material. Everything I see and read and analyze and academic papers I’ve seen on it make it pretty clear that it can be material. Maybe not in all instances. But it can be. After Jan. 6, companies were making announcements about political spending. But we had no idea what they were doing before, right? How can investors test that? How do they know? There’s no question it is an integral issue — companies themselves plainly think so based on the statements they’ve been making.

In response to Ms. Lee’s remarks, Senator Patrick Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said that an increased focus on E.S.G. “would be a total abuse of power and a politicization of S.E.C.’s disclosure standard.”

Thank you for your support. Want to share The New York Times? Friends and family can enjoy unlimited digital access to our journalism with this special offer.

[h=3]THE SPEED READ[/h]

Deals

China reportedly asked Alibaba to sell its media assets, including stakes in Weibo and The South China Morning Post, fearing its sway over public opinion. (WSJ) Canada’s Rogers Communications agreed to buy a rival, Shaw, for $16 billion, but the deal faces antitrust hurdles. (Reuters) Blackstone and Starwood Capital teamed up to buy the hotel chain Extended Stay America for $6 billion, betting on a rebound in travel. (NYT)

Politics and policy

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is coordinating with other countries on a global minimum tax on multinational companies. (WaPo) Senator Elizabeth Warren has become one of the biggest influences on the Biden administration’s financial policy, judging by appointments. (Politico) “The Financial Crisis the World Forgot” (NYT)

Tech

Facebook agreed to pay News Corp for its media content in Australia, a month after it blocked news links in the country over legislation requiring platforms to compensate publishers. (NYT) Electric-vehicle start-ups going public via SPACs are promising eye-popping revenue growth. (WSJ) Peter Thiel’s biggest political donation yet is $10 million to a super PAC supporting the “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance, who may run for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. (Recode)

Best of the rest

Hand gel, dumbbells and sweatpants: The items Britain uses to calculate inflation got a pandemic makeover. (NYT) Innovation happens in an environment where employees feel secure and safe. But women often don’t. (NYT) The New York Times Book Review turns 125 this year. Here are some highlights. (NYT)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

Continue reading the main story

 

[Bozzie]

The checks now landing in American hands should give the market’s a nice push for a few weeks. Last time it did give market prices a good boost. It’s estimated that 37% of the $$ will go into stocks. That’s a lot of $$.

Read in Browser​ ​ LISTEN TO TODAY'S PODCAST AVAILABLE AT 8AM ON: ​ ​ ​ Economy Tax hike​ ​ ​ President Biden is planning the first major federal tax hike since 1993 to help pay for a long-term economic program designed as a follow-up to the $1.9T coronavirus relief package, according to Bloomberg. The next initiative, which could come at a cost of $2T-$4T, would be paid for via increases in both the corporate tax rate and the individual rate for high earners. The goal is funding key initiatives like infrastructure and climate change, as well as expanding help for the poorest Americans. What's on the table? While the White House has rejected an outright wealth tax, as pitched by Senator Elizabeth Warren, it does target the wealthy. Proposals: Raising the income tax rate on individuals earning more than $400,000 per year, expanding the estate tax's reach and implementing a higher capital gains tax rate for individuals earning at least $1M annually. It could also raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, pare back tax preferences for so-called pass-through businesses (such as LLCs or partnerships), as well as revise laws to stop U.S. companies from shifting jobs and profits offshore. "While the next major fiscal proposal might come with a large headline number, it is likely to have a much smaller impact on growth in 2021 and 2022, as the spending will be more evenly distributed over several years and some of it will likely reflect spending that would have happened in any case," Goldman Sachs wrote in a research note. Go deeper: Helping to pay for Biden's domestic agenda, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is reportedly working with countries worldwide to forge an agreement on a "global minimum tax" for multinationals. Back in January, at her confirmation hearing, she said she wanted to work with the OECD to prevent a "race to the bottom" on corporate taxation. However, any OECD deal could be challenging because of its non-binding nature, and would likely need to be approved by Congress, which may be difficult depending on the specifics. ​ Covid Fears grow over AstraZeneca vaccine​ ​ Germany, Italy, France and Spain joined the ranks of European countries that have temporarily halted use of AstraZeneca's (AZN) COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects. The move is another blow to the continent's sluggish vaccination rollout and threatens the credibility of the jab itself. Denmark and Norway stopped giving the shot last week after reporting isolated cases of bleeding, blood clots and low platelet count. Iceland and Bulgaria followed suit, Ireland and the Netherlands announced suspensions on Sunday, while Sweden and Latvia have also jumped on the bandwagon. Quote: German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced that although the risk of blood clots was low, it could not be ruled out. "This is a professional decision, not a political one," he said, adding he was following a recommendation of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Germany's vaccine regulator. Seven cases of blood clotting were reported in Germany following the administration of 1.6M doses in the country. Others feel differently. The World Health Organization reiterated there was no proven link and people should not panic, while agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said an advisory committee meeting on AstraZeneca would be held today. The European Medicines Agency also declared there was no evidence of a link between the reported blood clots and the vaccine and recommended the use, saying the benefits outweigh possible risks. Outlook: "If the vaccine rollout is delayed in Europe and that were to mean that there were some more extensive lockdowns on the economy in Europe - then that could slow down the pace of global trade," said Steve Cochrane, chief Asia-Pacific economist for Moody’s Analytics. "It adds some modest risk to the role that Asia plays in terms of the global economic turnaround." ​ Sponsored By Northern Trust The Tax Efficient Investor​ ​ ​ Should you realize capital gains given possible tax policy changes? Learn the potential impact of higher taxes on your portfolio, and explore tax efficient strategies — including for unrealized gains — for both current and possible tax environments.​ Aviation Turning point for the airline industry?​ ​ Americans are taking to the air again as COVID-19 restrictions ease across many parts of the U.S. About 2.5M passengers went through airport checkpoints nationwide this past weekend, according to the TSA, and nearly 1.4M traveled on Friday, making it the busiest day for air travel since before the pandemic. The news sent airline stocks higher on Monday, with United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) climbing 8.3%, while shares of American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) and Delta (NYSE:DAL) rose 7.7% and 2.4%, respectively. Some optimism? United CEO Scott Kirby, who has been generally pessimistic when it comes to a return to air travel in the near term, announced that the carrier would see positive cash flow from March. It's not only about last weekend's numbers - bookings are also way up. Southwest (NYSE:LUV), JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) and Alaska Air (NYSE:ALK) also said Monday that more people were making plans to travel, helping to pare expected revenue declines this quarter. Delta CEO Ed Bastian added that daily net sales for the first couple of weeks of March were about 30% higher than the average for February, and airlines are seeing increased bookings that are more than 60 days out. "We've seen some glimmers of hope over the last year, but they've been false hope," he declared. "This seems like it's real." Outlook: While it's definitely a rosy picture, other figures still need to be accounted for. Airlines face some hefty payments from the pandemic, like paying down their debt and severance costs for employees that took buyouts. In fact, U.S. airlines carried 60% fewer passengers in 2020 than in 2019 - bringing passenger traffic to the lowest level since the 1980s - and major carriers lost about $35B. The CDC still advises against travel, while the rise of more contagious COVID variants and new testing requirements for people arriving from abroad could also have a chilling effect. ​ Data Privacy concerns​ ​ Starting in the early spring, a feature dubbed "App Tracking Transparency" will be rolled in an update for iOS 14, requiring apps that gather tracking data to ask Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) users for permission. The update was already supposed to arrive in September of last year, but it was delayed following pushback from firms including Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). The new rules also stipulate that if companies use alternatives to the identifier for advertisers, called the IDFA (somewhat analogous to an advertising cookie on the web), their app can be blocked or suspended from the App Store. Backdrop: Apple has been positioning itself as a protector of digital privacy, hoping to draw users by marketing itself as a privacy-focused company. But many have been angered by the move, like Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Facebook, whose business models greatly depend on monetizing eyeballs on every possible platform. Apple has been sparring with the companies over data collection practices, both privately and publicly, with the latter arguing that it will undermine connectivity, as well free services supported by targeted advertising. Apple may also have to justify the billions of dollars a year it receives for making Google the default search engine on Safari, which likely uses the same data gathering techniques that it has criticized. How will Apple's new feature work? The next update will create a prompt asking users if they are okay with being tracked while moving from app to app so their ads can be personalized. Experts think that about 70%-80% of people will say "No" to the tracking feature, which could spell trouble for tech companies that make big bucks on targeted advertising. Several other privacy changes will see the notification LED light up when apps are accessing the device's microphone or camera, while users will be able to share specific photos with apps instead of giving them permission to their entire camera roll. Some of China's tech giants, like TikTok owner ByteDance (BDNCE) and Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY), are testing a tool that would bypass the new rules and would be able to continue tracking iPhone users without consent. It's an area companies are interested in preserving, given the big business that it has generated over the past decade. If firms can get around the privacy prompt, they can continue to track how users take action from one app to another, aggregate the data and then target them with specific advertisements. Will Apple turn a blind eye or will the company enforce its rules? ​ Sponsored By Northern Trust ​ What else is happening... Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), News Corp. (NASDAQ:NWS) reach deal on Australia news. China reportedly asks Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) to divest media assets. CBS (NASDAQ:VIAC) sees Grammy ratings crash to all-time low. Electric stuff from Volkswagen (OTCPK:VLKAF) sends EV stocks higher. Latest SPAC deal... eToro (ETORO) may go public at $10B valuation. Maxar (NYSE:MAXR) and Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) trade lower on stock offerings. Bullish GE (NYSE:GE) analysts defend jet leasing deal. AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) in talks to sell $5B women's drugs portfolio - Reuters. New restructuring will see Nokia (NOK) cut up to 10,000 jobs. Roblox (RBLX) gets first sell-side rating: Stifel starts at Buy. ​ ​ Today's Markets In Asia, Japan +0.5%. Hong Kong +0.7%. China +0.81%. India -0.1%. In Europe, at midday, London +0.5%. Paris +0.1%. Frankfurt +0.6%. Futures at 6:20, Dow -0.2%. S&P flat. Nasdaq +0.4%. Crude -1.7% to $64.28. Gold +0.1% at $1730.20. Bitcoin -0.9% to $55635. Ten-year Treasury Yield -1 bps to 1.59% ​ Today's Economic Calendar FOMC meeting begins 8:30 Import/Export Prices 8:30 Retail Sales 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales 9:15 Industrial Production 10:00 Business Inventories 10:00 NAHB Housing Market Index 1:00 PM Results of $24B, 20-Year Bond Auction ​

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[CoachCB]

Funny that Bezo's is an ultra liberal but he's anti-union. Funny how that works....

 

[Bozzie]

Funny that Bezo's is an ultra liberal but he's anti-union. Funny how that works....

He's a weird dude..I grew up in Seattle
I had friends who went to work for him soon after graduation..At the time I was like "you're working for an online book store... Why?"
Well at least two of those guys are high ups in the company now.

Global Market Comments
March 16, 2021
Fiat LuxFeatured Trade:(WHY A US HOUSING BOOM WILL CONTINUE),
(LEN), (PHM), (KBH),
(WHY SENIORS NEVER CHANGE THEIR PASSWORDS)​

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Why a US Housing Boom Will ContinueLately, my inbox has been flooded with emails from subscribers asking if the housing market is about to crash as a result of the housing bubble and if they should sell their homes.

They have a lot to protect.

Since prices hit rock bottom in 2011 and foreclosures crested, the national real estate market has risen by 50%.

The hottest markets, like those in Seattle, San Francisco, and Reno, are up by more than 125%, and certain neighborhoods of Oakland, CA have shot up by 500%.

Looking at the recent housing statistics I can understand their concern. The data are the hottest on record across the board:

* Housing prices are still exploding to the upside with S&P Case Shiller Rising 10.4% in December, the one-month biggest spike in history

*Your Check is in the Mail, with the passage of the $1.9 trillion rescue package. A big chunk of this is going into housing upgrades

* Goldman Sachs is Forecasting a Jobs Boom, which will take the headline Unemployment Rate down to 4.1% by yearend. Employed people buy houses.

*Rising rates haven’t touched the housing market, and won’t for years.

*Workforce at home will double post-pandemic, maintaining demand for large homes

*30-year fixed-rate mortgages still a mere 3.26%, still near a historic low

*$45 billion in rental assistance is now available, thanks to Biden’s Rescue Package.

I have a much better indicator of future housing prices than the depressing numbers above. The way homebuilder stocks like Lennar (LEN), KB Homes (KBH), and Pulte Homes (PHM) are trading I’d say your home will be worth a lot more in a year, and possibly double in another five years. Many of these stocks are up nearly 200% since the March 23 bottom.

What I call “intergenerational arbitrage” will be the principal impetus. The main reason that we are just endured two “lost decades” of economic growth over the last 20 years is that 85 million baby boomers are retiring to be followed by only 65 million “Gen Xers”. When you are losing 20 million consumer economies, don’t grow very fast. For more about millennial investing habits please click here.

When the majority of the population is in retirement mode, it means that there are fewer buyers of real estate, home appliances, and “RISK ON” assets like equities, and more buyers of assisted living facilities, healthcare, and “RISK OFF” assets like bonds. That’s what got us to a 0.32% yield in the ten-year.

The net result of this is slower economic growth, higher budget deficits, a weak currency, and registered investment advisors who have distilled their practices down to only municipal bond sales.
Fast forward to the other side of the pandemic and the reverse happens. The baby boomers will be out of the economy, worried about whether their diapers get changed on time or if their favorite flavor of Ensure is in stock at the nursing home.

That is when you have 65 million Gen Xers being chased by 85 million of the “millennial” generation trying to buy their assets!
By then, we will not have built new homes in appreciable numbers for 14 years, and a severe scarcity of housing hits. Even before the pandemic, new home construction was taking place at half the 2008 peak. Residential real estate prices will naturally soar. Labor shortages will force wage hikes.

The middle-class standard of living will then reverse a 40-year decline. Annual GDP growth will return from the subdued 2% rate of the past four years to near the torrid 4% seen during the 1990s. It all leads to my “Return of the Roaring Twenties” scenario which you can learn about by clicking here.
It gets better.

It is certain that the current administration will restore tax deductions for state and local real estate taxes (SALT) lost in the 2017 tax bill. The cap on home mortgage interest rate deductions will also rise.

These two events will trigger an immediate 10% increase in the value of your home on an after-tax basis and more on the coasts.

So, if someone approaches you with a discount offer for your home, I would turn around and run a mile the other way.

You should also pile into the stocks, options, and LEAPS of housing stocks in any future market dip.

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Why Seniors Never Change Their PasswordsWINDOWS: Please enter your new password.
USER: Cabbage
WINDOWS: Sorry, the password must be more than 8 characters
USER: Boiled cabbage
WINDOWS: Sorry, the password must contain 1 numerical character.
USER: 1 boiled cabbage
WINDOWS: Sorry, the password cannot have blank spaces
USER: 50damnboiledcabbages
WINDOWS: Sorry, the password must contain at least one upper case character
USER: 50DAMNboiledcabbages
WINDOWS: Sorry the password cannot use more than one upper case character consecutively.
USER: ‘50damnBoiledCabbagesShovedUpYourAssIfYouDon'tGiveMeAccessNow!
WINDOWS: Sorry, the password cannot contain punctuation.
USER: ReallyPissedOff50DamnBoiledCabbagesShovedUpYourAssIfYouDontGiveMeAccessNow
WINDOWS: Sorry, that password is already in use.

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Quote of the Day“The radio elected Hitler, the television elected Kennedy, and Facebook elected Obama and Trump. That’s the way it works with technology,” said Ben Horowitz, founder of the top performing venture capitalist Andreeson Horowitz

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[Bozzie]

Correct. I live just outside of Toronto (GTA). Housing prices have doubled every 10 years for the last 50 years. I keep hearing about this bubble blah blah blah.
Bought my place for 235 in 2003. House next door sold for $1,035,000. And it needs work lol.
There hasn't been a bubble in Toronto....ever. Small 10-15% corrections at most.

I couldn't afford to live here if I bought now.

wow..unreal

The Housing Boom That Never Ends Already Wiped Out All the Short-Sellers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-ends-already-wiped-out-all-the-short-sellers