This
Week in Barrons – 2-2-2014
The State of Which
Union?
There appears to be three unions. The one I grew up in, the one I live in, and
the one the President wants me to live in.
When I listened to our President the other evening, his version of America
and mine don't mix well. Allow me to
give two examples:
1.
In my
day, you strived to do better. There
were competitions where you'd compete against others and try to win. Then the best and brightest would be placed on
special teams and in advanced classes, knowing that the general selections would
be boring to them. But here’s something
talked about by President Obama: A popular
gifted-student program is getting the ax after officials decided it lacked
diversity. “Our classes will be heterogeneously grouped to reflect the diversity
of our student body and the community we live in. We believe that all children can learn and
achieve high standards. We also know
that we want all children to have equal access to high quality, a challenging
curriculum, and to have ample opportunities to master complex material and
build academic and personal self-confidence. We also want our classes to
reflect the diversity of our community. We believe we can have both: classrooms
characterized by rigor and diversity.”
a. Are you kidding me? In an era where ‘educationally’ the U.S. is
already losing ground to virtually every other nation – you’re taking away a
gifted student program because it didn’t conform to a particular diversity percentage
in a community.
b. Are you kidding me? We’re no long encouraging the gifted child,
but instead relegating them to the potting soil of educational mediocrity.
c. Are you kidding me? I can only hope that the same diversity net
is being applied to the football team, the tennis team, the swimming team, the
chess team and the debate club.
d. America used to work. It doesn’t anymore. I don’t hear anything about going back to the
way things were. I hear a lot about more
change, more regulations, more social engineering, more wealth distribution,
more Government oversight, and more controls. Can’t we just admit that we screwed something
up very badly, and we need to set it back?
Why is everything the ‘New Normal’?
We’ve turned rugged individualism into the social unicorn of
conformity.
2.
My second
example starts with a ‘shout out’ to S. Forbes for stimulating a discussion about
the minimum wage. In the State of the
Union Address, President Obama – by executive order – decreed that he would
raise the minimum wage by almost 40% on contractors doing work for the
government. In my opinion, the companies
affected are NOT simply going to increase the wages of the people currently
making $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour, and maintain the status quo. My thinking goes like this:
a. One ‘good’ programmer is equal to ten ‘average’
programmers, and one ‘great’ programmer is equal to a thousand ‘average’
programmers. The caveat here is that you
do NOT pay the ‘good’ and ‘great’ programmers 10 or 100 TIMES as much as the ‘average’
guy. Their abilities are greater than
their compensation. In other lines of
work a ‘good’ individual is more likely worth 2 or 3 ‘average’ individuals –
again without the commensurate levels of compensation.
b. I do not think that the current workers
earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour – are going to be the ones
getting a 40% raise to $10.10 or even $15/hr.
In my opinion, companies will find NEW $10.10 or $15/hr. employees. The $10.10 or $15/hr. worker has an improved
skill set, is more efficient (like the ‘good’ and ‘great’ programmers), and can
(therefore) do the job of 2 or 3 minimum wage, ‘average’ workers. Therefore, there will be a mass ‘firing’ of
minimum wage workers, and a hiring of better qualified $10.10 or $15/hr.
individuals – who will do the job of 2 or 3 minimum wage workers. Bottom line: I don't think that this will
hurt small business efficiency at all.
In fact, President Obama (with this regulation) could actually put more
people out of work due to the hiring of more efficient workers displacing the
existing minimum wage earners. Now
before you think that’s bad. President
Obama’s current approval rating is at an all time low. By having more people out of work, on government
welfare, food stamps, 99 weeks of unemployment system – Mr. Obama could have
secured the 2016 Democratic presidency for his party’s candidate. I think that this is a brilliant political
and tactical maneuver, but if the perception is that the $7.25/hr. guy is going
to get a raise to $10.10/hr. – nah – that’s just not going to happen!
President Obama’s view of progress
and change is fundamentally against virtually everything I cherish about the
"Old America". Of course it
wasn't all wine and roses back then. But
we were considerably freer from Government intrusion, had a middle class, people
respected each other, and there were no school shootings. Our children were encouraged to ‘compete and
win’ – and ‘conformity’ was something you ‘ran away’ from – NOT something that
you ‘strived’ for.
The Market:
So far January has been a real mess
for the bulls. Taking a walk down memory
lane, the Federal Reserve did QE1, QE2, the Twist, and QE3 – with each of these
programs pushing Billions of dollars into the system. The goals of these programs were: (a) to keep
interest rates at or near zero, and (b) to flood the insolvent banks with money. The goal was ‘never’ to make sure that the banks
did ‘the right thing’ and apply those monies to the areas that should get them.
Therefore, the banks created profits for
themselves by pushing large portions of this money into emerging markets and
stocks.
Factually we’re 5 years into Obama’s
recovery and to this day:
-
92
million Americans aren't in the work force,
-
Home
sales are lower for the 7th consecutive month,
-
Food
stamp use is soaring, and
-
Welfare
of all shapes and forms is becoming a way of life.
Stocks made it to all-time highs because
of Federal Reserve money. Now that the
Fed is taking back some of that money – the areas that the banks invested in
(emerging markets and stocks) are paying the price. This isn't a surprise. I expected we would see an earnings-run then
a stock slump, but it appears that the ‘tapering’ fear was bigger than any
earnings-run ‘hope’.
So now the question is: ‘Will the
Fed continue tapering until all $90 Billion/month is gone?’ In my view, the economy is NOT fixed, the
banks are NOT fixed, and the markets will NOT hold these high levels without
Fed money. Therefore, one of two things
will happen. First (and most probable)
is that after some more economic pain (and stock market drops) the Fed will announce
that they will be stopping their tapering operations. And if things don't improve, the Fed will come
up with a ‘new and improved’ program that will push even more money into the
system.
The Second possibility is that the
Fed realizes that the world absolutely hates the U.S. dollar (because of how we
have devalued it), and decides to defend what is left of it at all cost. The Fed knows that many countries don't want
the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. They also know that China is making deals to
not use any U.S. dollars in their transactions. If the Fed decides that maintaining our status
as the global reserve currency is the most important element of all, then they
will need to remove all stimulus and stop the printing completely. This would mean:
-
The
‘Too Big to Fail’ banks – would fail,
-
The
stock market would fall well under DOW 10k, and
-
No more
bailouts to Ponzi scheme mortgage companies.
It would be a total and complete
change of policy that would create some of the worst volatility in the modern
era. You just don't inflate the world
with bogus dollars, realize that it didn't work, and then yank them all back
out – without huge disruptions.
Because choice number two (saving
the U.S. dollar) means doing a complete reversal of everything the Fed has done
for 15 years, I find it hard to believe they would finally ‘find religion’ and
do the ‘right thing’ from here on. Therefore, what makes the most sense to me is
that after some additional ‘pain’, the Fed halts the tapering and starts to re-inflate.
But I think the pain level needs to be significantly higher than a 5% reduction
in the DOW and an emerging market currency fiasco. Potentially after the Fed’s next taper leads
to an outright currency crisis, the DOW spiraling lower, and the economic data
getting uglier – the Fed will then realize that they’ve created a monster that
they can’t reign in and will resume printing. At least that’s been the
Fed’s M.O. for the past 5 years.
In the meantime, the market action
tells us that the taper has more effect on things than the ‘experts’ have told
us. Even on Friday, the markets fought
off a 240 point DOW drop to end down 150 points. January 2013 was the worst month in a long,
long time. With any ‘new month’ comes
‘new money’, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to see the market bounce in the
beginning of February. But as the Fed
replaces their taper money, this market’s trend is probably going to be
sideways and down.
Tips:
I’m still not comfortable buying the stock indexes
at these levels. But (at the same time) I
remain shy of shorting this market.
-
I still like the
metals here as a hedge = Gold (GLD) and Silver (SLV).
-
I also like any group
of stocks that can remain positive in this market – and that group is the
Bio-Techs, including names like: GILD, INCY, CELG, REGN, and BIIB.
-
In particular I
like 3 stocks: FEYE, QIHU and TSLA.
FireEye (FEYE) and QIHU are both in the cyber-security space, while
Tesla (TSLA) is the electric carmaker that wants to move higher in the worst
way.
My
current short-term holds are:
-
FEYE – March ’14 $50 Calls – in @ $11.50
(currently $24.00)
-
TSLA – Feb ’14 $165 Calls – in @ $12.47
(currently $18.80)
-
QIHU – March ’14 $110 Calls – in @ $5.93
(currently $6.66)
-
USO
– April ’14 $37 Calls – in @ at $34.51 (currently $34.95)
-
FXY
– March ‘14 $97 Puts – in @ at $96.47 (currently $95.61)
-
SIL – in at 24.51 (currently 11.98) – no stop,
-
GLD (ETF for Gold) – in at 158.28, (currently
119.96) – no stop ($1,245 per physical ounce), AND
-
SLV (ETF for Silver) – in at 28.3 (currently 18.47)
– no stop ($19.20 per physical ounce).
To
follow me on Twitter and get my daily thoughts and trades – my handle is:
taylorpamm.
Please
be safe out there!
I'd like to recommend a website - http://www.simpleroptions.com It's an excellent
resource and 'honestly' - I've been following them for over 6 months and
they're more right than they are wrong with their predictions, and that's a
rarity in this climate. Please check
them out on my recommendation.
Disclaimer:
Expressed
thoughts proffered within the BARRONS REPORT, a Private and free weekly
economic newsletter, are those of noted entrepreneur, professor and author, R.F.
Culbertson, contributing sources and those he interviews. You can learn more and get your free
subscription by visiting: <http://rfcfinancialnews.blogspot.com> .
Please
write to Mr. Culbertson at: <rfc@culbertsons.com> to inform him of any
reproductions, including when and where copy will be reproduced. You may use in
complete form or, if quoting in brief, reference <rfcfinancialnews.blogspot.com>.
If
you'd like to view RF's actual stock trades - and see more of his thoughts -
please feel free to sign up as a Twitter follower - "taylorpamm" is the handle.
If
you'd like to see RF in action - teaching people about investing - please feel
free to view the TED talk that he gave on Fearless Investing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Z9I_6ciH0
To
unsubscribe please refer to the bottom of the email.
Views
expressed are provided for information purposes only and should not be
construed in any way as an offer, an endorsement, or inducement to invest and
is not in any way a testimony of, or associated with Mr. Culbertson's other firms
or associations. Mr.
Culbertson and related parties are not registered and licensed brokers. This message may contain information
that is confidential or privileged and is intended only for the individual or
entity named above and does not constitute an offer for or advice about any
alternative investment product. Such advice can only be made when accompanied
by a prospectus or similar offering document. Past performance is not indicative of
future performance. Please make sure to review important disclosures at the end
of each article.
Note:
Joining BARRONS REPORT is not an offering for any investment. It represents
only the opinions of RF Culbertson and Associates.
PAST
RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THERE IS RISK OF LOSS AS WELL AS
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR GAIN WHEN INVESTING IN MANAGED FUNDS. WHEN CONSIDERING
ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS (INCLUDING HEDGE FUNDS) AN INVESTOR SHOULD CONSIDER
VARIOUS RISKS INCLUDING THE FACT THAT SOME PRODUCTS AND OTHER SPECULATIVE
INVESTMENT PRACTICES MAY INCREASE RISK OF INVESTMENT LOSS; MAY NOT BE SUBJECT
TO THE SAME REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS AS MUTUAL FUNDS, OFTEN CHARGE HIGH FEES,
AND IN MANY CASES THE UNDERLYING INVESTMENTS ARE NOT TRANSPARENT AND ARE KNOWN
ONLY TO THE INVESTMENT MANAGER.
Alternative
investment performance can be volatile. An investor could lose all or a
substantial amount of his or her investment. Often, alternative investment fund
and account managers have total trading authority over their funds or accounts;
the use of a single advisor applying generally similar trading programs could
mean lack of diversification and, consequently, higher risk. There is often no
secondary market for an investor's interest in alternative investments, and
none is expected to develop.
All
material presented herein is believed to be reliable but we cannot attest to
its accuracy. Opinions expressed in these reports may change without prior
notice. Culbertson and/or the staff may or may not have investments in any
funds cited above.
Remember the Blog: <http://rfcfinancialnews.blogspot.com/>
Until next week – be safe.
R.F. Culbertson
<http://rfcfinancialnews.blogspot.com>
