Quick Update, Some Links/News

Quick Update: Market Madness

The US indexes were mostly rangebound in the past month after Trump euphoria faded, while value stocks had their longest losing streak.  My portfolio steadily lost ground.  Then Wednesday had a shock 3% fall on rates disappointment:

I think its a one off drop.  The VIX is back in the teens, and international markets didn't sell off. 

During the panic, I sold off:

• XOM before the big fall.  It should be working but wasn't.
• And Gold (GLD) after it.  Expecting higher growth in the future, gold fares badly.

Last night, replaced them with Argentina (ARGT), XLF and some crypto.   These are trades - they may get held a long time, but no convictions.

The blue items are trades, the black ones investments.  My portfolio is down about 8% from its all time highs after Trump.

Some Ideas:

For future investigation:

• Europe is cheap and hated.  Poland may recover if we get a Ukraine ceasefire.  I've not looked at any stocks there.  Maybe GPW.
• South America, as they follow Milei's path.  Probably ETFs, these markets are inaccessible to retail.
• Expect Trump to pressure countries with large bilateral trade surpluses ro revalue their currencies.  Especially those that rely on the US for defence.  Japanese consumer stocks ($).

Some Links/News:

• Several days lack-of-wind in Germany leads to sky-high power prices in Sweden.  Swedish minister says they are in a "shit situation" because Germany does not have reliable baseload energy.

• (Nov 29th) Saudi Arabia calls off major Defence Treaty with US, and can no longer normalise  Israel relations.  Makes it harder for Trump to bargain with them for lower oil prices.

• Goehring & Rozencwajg's 3Q Commentary mentions that shale gas production peaked in November 2023, "and has since slipped by 1%, or 1 billion cubic feet per day".   Need to watch this, its a long term threat to my gas pipeline stocks.

Updates:

• 24th Dec: Sold ETH, 1% profit.  Still a bit uncomfortable with crypto.
• 2nd Jan: Sold Bitcoin, negligible loss.
• 3rd Jan:  Sold XLF, 0.5% loss.  Sold the Argentina company, 3% profit.  The market is probably bullish, but its gone up ver the ast few days, but today weaker than ARGT, so sell it.

Sold my Bitcoin

I've been trading a small 1-2% bitcoin position, buying low and selling high.  I'm trying my hand at active trading.  By buying and selling based on Hedgeye's risk ranges I've made more and lowered my stress level.  I'm not a natural trader, so I'm quite happy with myself, even with only a few thousand dollars profit over two months.  If it was a lower volatility asset, or if it had just broken out of a multi year bear market, then I could buy and hold.  But for something with high volatility thats been going up so long that everybody is excited about it, active trading is safer.

Finally sold it tonight.  There's too many signs of exuberance:

• Youtuber beats the world record for the longest time sitting on the toilet.  He's sitting there till his shitcoin hits 50m.
• Meme coins like MOODENG coin.   At least she's cute.

• Hawk Tuah coin, rug pull.  She's cute too.  She can spit on my thang.

The crypto market might shoot higher for a few months, but this is fucking crazy.  I'm out.  We all know how this ends.