Quick Updates (May to Mid-June)

Small additions in last week's correction:

• Bought more gold, some GDX and GDXJ.  Would like to buy more but no money.  I'm also late to the party - everyone knows about gold's new highs - so keep it small.
• Shorted TLT

Other news:

• AEM (SGX) dives 15% after delivering a bad 1Q24 update.   Need to wait longer for the upturn.  Cyclicals are tough.
• Portfolio is up 1% last week.  

Its a very "risk on" portfolio.  My gut feeling is that the correction will continue, maybe triggered by Thursday night's inflation numbers.  Possible a falling SPY and rising VIX will drag down my portfolio, even though they are commodities and value which should benefit from inflation. Vol spikes, everything tumbles.

No plans to do anything, even if this happens.  Just pay off debt.  I'll only sell the short term holdings when the Hedgeye signals change.  If all goes well I won't be making any changes for a long time.

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Update 8th May 2024:

• Shorted another 1% TLT
• Portfolio has gone up another 1 or 2% again.

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Update 23rd May: Last night, commodities were hammered on talks of inflation concerns leading to possible higher rates.  My portfolio down 2%.

Tech (Nasdaq, BTC) were up, maybe because Nvdia beat expectations.

SPX is only down very slightly (-0.27%) and VIX is stable at 12ish.

I think this is a small correction, the commodities trade became too visible and was way overbought.  Need to shake out the speculators.

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Update 3rd June: Bought 2% Bitcoin last week.  Its consolidating.

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Update 10th June:

• Hedgeye's trend for oil turned bearish last week, I sold my weakest oil stock Acker BP.  Look to buy something else when it turns.
• Commodities hit hard last week, my portfolio down 1-2%.              

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Update 15th June: The correction continues.  Hedgeye now shows more sectors breaking down (eg: Europe, Financials).  Think the market is starting to price in stagflation instead of growth:

• Portfolio down another 0.5%.  Everything grinding down.
• Sold NIKL at a small loss as it broke trend
• Bought some more bitcoin as it was oversold.
• My trading positions are still bullish trend (FCX, SILV, Bitcoin, Gold miners).  Copper just barely.  In theory, industrial metals like copper and silver should not do well during stagflation.
• I'm holding my other positions throughout the cycle as they are either 1) companies that generate free cashflow and pay dividends even at low commodity prices, 2) too illiquid to buy-and-sell (Philippines Stock Exchange and Malaysia Smelting Corp), or 3) stock price should be more affected by fundamentals than the wider market (AEM:SGX and SPUT).

Quick Update - scary correction

After rising 1%  *per week* for several months due to rising inflation, my portfolio dived 1.5% last night.   Think its just the inevitable shakeout as the inflation trade became too crowded.  Last night, correlations went to one:

Sold all my bitcoin early last night as it was breaking Hedgeye trend.  I made decent money on bitcoin, over 25% in ten weeks on a 5% position.  For me BTC is purely for trading, not to HODL.

I bought some gold positions in past few days.  4% Gold, 1% Sandstorm and 1% GDX.  The stocks got crushed a couple of percent last night along with everything else.  Want to use the correction to buy more gold miners.  Keep positions small as I'm late to the party.

Short term, a lot depends on what Powell does tmr at 2pm.  Its his last chance to do anything before the Nov election.

Quick Update

Small changes around the margins:

• Sold bitcoin down to a 2% position.  Mixed signals.  I may buy it back, leave it, or sell it all.
• Cut platinum from 2% to 1%, not working compared to copper, silver and gold.
• Bought 0.5% position in Nickel Miners ETF (NIKL).  May buy some more.
• Bought 2% gold.  Would like to buy gold miners.

Long inflation.  Hedgeye predicts 9 months of rising yoy inflation.  I want to own a basket of commodities that perform well in inflation:

Source: Exhibit 9, The Best Strategies for Inflationary Times

Primarily Energy, but don't overdo it cause theres only a small sample size (8 cases above), and every time can be different.  So added precious and industrials.  Tough to own ags/softs/livestock or their producers, though I have United Plantations (palm oil).  I expect energy to perform well regardless of growth.  Gold to do better in stagflation.  And industrials to do better with inflationary-growth.  

And if I was really brave, I'd be shorting long term bonds to fund it all (see Exhibit 8).

Portfolio Update

An eventful month.

Bitcoin

Sold half my Bitcoin on Thurs night.  It *was* weakening, along with Tech.  And other Crypto like ETH were already trending down.  Bitcoin could be the "last man standing".

I am trading Bitcoin based on Hedgeye's trend signals.  I believe in Bitcoin as a stable, distributed network and an alternative to fiat.  But I don't have the balls to buy-and-hold something that can drop 70% in a cycle while generating no cashflow or dividends.  Hedgeye's signals keep you in for most of the uptrend and out of the downside.  Here is an old chart:

I may sell the rest of it or buy it back.  Depends on the signal. 

Market Correction

Market has corrected the past week, while VIX spiked to the high-teens:

I still think this is a short term correction.  But may be a long-term rotation out of tech.  Last night Nvidia was down 10% on no news.  My portfolio was somehow up last night, down 5% from its peak.

Copper and silver were both up last night, both are risk-on commodities.  Bitcoin - the ultimate risk-on commodity - was also up, despite Nvidia's fall.  Signals for higher inflation ahead?

Precious-Industrials

Bought 2% Platinum (2%) and 1% Silver (now holding 2% at my buy price).

Platinum fundamentals are covered nicely by the Modern Investing Substack.  Not buying any producers (eg: Sibayne-Stillwater) because:

• The metal itself is volatile enough, comparable to silver.  They correlated strongly, until silver took off in April, while platinum hasn't followed:

• They're in South Africa, which can't keep the lights on.  A collapse in South Africa would collapse the stocks and drive platinum metal prices higher.
• Don't buy equities when the equities market is correcting.

Tin

Tin spiked 20% since the start of this month:

Malaysia Smelting Corp (MSC) is up 40% since I bought.  Plan to hold as I think we're still in the start of the industrial production up-cycle.  And there are real supply issues.  MSC generates cashflows and pays dividends, so its not something I need to trade in-and-out of.

Bloomberg reports this price spike is due to a single trader's futures positions (click on the tweet's picture, then register with Bloomberg to read for free), causing a short squeeze.  The article is mostly positive tin, but they report high speculative long positions, meaning its due for a short term correction. 

Oil

Added 1% more Var Energi, now that oil has dipped after resolving the fake war between Iran and Israel.

Positions

Still positioned for inflation.  Think the correction will be over in days or weeks:

Position Update

Small changes:

• Bought 1% Silver on the Wednesday night.  Thats my full position, silver is really volatile.
• Copper shot up.  Southern Copper (SCCO) up 20% in a week.
• Cash now at -6%.

The portfolio value usually creeps up, night-by-night.  This is the sweet spot, where it goes up softly, regularly...but not so much that you think about selling.

Probably doing nothing for a while, just paying down debt.

Gold Miners look worth investigating, but I don't have any money now.

Bought AEM:SGX

AEM is a semicon supplier making test platforms for Intel, which should benefit from Intel's new Foundry business.  They made a loss in 2023 due to the biggest-ever covid-"stay-at-home"-semicon-bubble deflating, and the stock is down 35%.  I got this idea from the Value Investing Substack (part1) (part2) (paid links).

Its both a growth stock and a cyclical:

I think the 2H23 results were a cyclical drop, they should recover with the semiconductor cycle. And they have a structural tailwind behind them with the US trying to construct semiconductor fabs outside Taiwan and Intel re-establishing its manufacturing capability.

The key question for this company is: how much of its revenue is cyclical/non-cyclical, and recurring/non-recurring?  I am not sure yet, but it would affect wether its a trade or a buy-and-hold:

Source: 2023 Results Presentation (slide 11)

Its trading at around 10X peak earnings, not as cheap as I'd like but OK for a fast grower.  I bought a 5% position.

Risks:

• I don't have good knowledge of the semicon industry, hard for me to keep track of this niche (Suppliers of systems level testing equipment to Intel).

• In January an inventory shortfall was discovered, company said it was due to a manual mistake.  I believe theres no high-level fraud.

• The chart looks like shit and I may lose some fingers catching a falling knife.

• Or dead-SGX-stocks remain moribund, while Q's and crypto rocket in a new liquidity bubble.

I'm in a negative cash position now, so won't be buying anything else.  Will take a few months to pay off from my dividends/salary:

This blog will probably be quiet for a while.

Quick Updates: Risk On.

Bullish.  Now 99% invested:

• Bought more bitcoin 2 weeks ago, up to 5% allocation (buy price).  Bitcoin shot up after that.  This is a trade, follow the Hedgeye trend signals.  I am not willing to hold thru the cycle.

• Added small 1% position in Oil Tankers.  There is an upcoming shortage of VLCCs (22:00 to 28:40).  Its only a 1% position so I can average down later.  Risks are that 1) We may have a recession, 2025 onwards.  2) Rates are now artificially high from Red Sea Houthi Attacks, these will probably be resolved this year, so rates may drop.  3) From the chart, its not at the bottom now.

These don't invalidate the thesis but delay it, so I may get a better price later. 

Need to remind myself that this is cyclical, not a dividend play.  Don't hold forever.

• Copper turned bullish in Hedgeye's trend signal last week.  I added 1% FCX as the highest beta copper play. Want to add another 1%.  Copper is a risk-on inflation hedge.  But FCX is a trade, won't hold it through the cycle.

Long term I expect a decade of inflation.  Every position (except Delfi) reflects this.  Medium term it may alternate between growth-inflation (risk-on) and stagflation (risk-off).

Can't shake the feeling that we passed over a recession that we should have had, and some parts of the market are looking bubbly (middle-of-bubble in AI, and start-of-bubble in crypto).  But I think no downturn till after the election.  I am guessing that bursting the bubble would lead to unrelated stocks (like mine) selling off by 10-15% - a buying opportunity before they recover.  But I don't want to sit out the bull market because of a possible 10-15% correction in a few years.

Other notes:

• Delfi reported bad results due to higher cocoa prices, stock is down almost 10%.
• United plantations reported good results, stock up 10%.  Too bad my position was half the size of Delfi.
• Uranium needs to cool off after $100 excitement.  Fundamentally there may be a shortage of enrichment capacity that stops utilities buying.  I'll keep holding SPUT, its down almost 25% from its peak.  Gotta shake out the laser-eyed speculators.
• Hedgeye turned bullish on China, for the first time in years.  I am not buying, partially because I got no cash left.  If I did, it would be a trade.