I think Europe comes up with a EuroTARP prompting a mind-boggling rally in shares. I have been long EWG, EWI, EWP, EWQ since Friday afternoon. Policymakers have been idiots forever - it didn't mean gold was always in a bull market. I own cheap big caps - MSFT, WMT, TUP XOM, BP, CVX - in a long term, tax-free account, with dividend reinvestment checked off. I do not expect to sell anything in this account for at least 10 years. I still have a decent amount of cash and expect to do more buying. Trading accounts - the key is China, which has created an unsustainable boom in commodities. It led me to profitably short FCX 3 times this year by buying puts. I've been short AUD is decent enough size, though I bought back a lot during the collapse last week. I plan to get short in size again soon. I also do a lot of little trades that keep me interested and occasionally even make some money. If I break even with these over the course of the year, I'm happy. May short 30 year Treasuries at some point. May short the JPY at some point.
Just for the record - meant to say if I break even with the little trades. The bigger positions like FCX and AUD are few and far between - sometimes I do 2 or 3 a year, sometimes none - I take large bets and expect to make large profits.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...ang-sees-property-soft-landing-backs-peg.html Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang predicted a âsoft landingâ for the real estate market and said the city will keep its currency peg to the U.S. dollar, blamed for helping drive home prices up about 70 percent. âThere have been ups and downs but the peg has come through for us,â Tsang said in an interview in Chicago yesterday. As for the property market, âtransactions have fallen and prices are starting to trend down slowly,â he said. Famous last words To me the most likely scenario is a RE crash, combined with a recession/slowdown. They keep the peg but I more than makeup the cost of having that on through my short HK stocks
Not a lot of alpha there. HK stocks will go the way of the rest of the world. HK stocks aren't going down on their own. Will follow the rest of the planet. Might as well just short Europe against your HKD. http://www.google.com//finance?chdn...ne&cmpto=NYSE:VGK&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:EWH&ntsp=0
FWIW, this latest euro rescue plan which has sent markets through the roof around the world looks like a whole lot of nothing. Just a baseless leak (sent out to the gov't spokesman Liesman) combining with end-of-month, end-of-quarter mark-ups to jolt markets higher. Should provide another good opportunity to add some AUD shorts in the next few days.
It's a total unsubstantiated crock of sh1t. However, they're finally talking about the right size, so I suppose that's a (tiny) step in the right direction.
I have been thinking about something. I remember Chanos saying a Chinese collapse would lead to a decline in the Yuan. He doesn't trade currencies and it shows. I believe he is wrong, the yuan would only decline if the chinese interest rates would decline faster than inflation, GDP growth correlates very little to currency valuation(and mostly to the extend that affects inflation and CB policy) The Chinese has shown willingness to do fiscal policy in times of need, I don't think they would risk loosing monetary conditions and restarting a bubble. So if anything I believe real interest rates would rise in a recession/slowdown mostly due a decline in inflation. This would be actually supportive of the yuan
This is not to say they won't lower rates but I hardly believe they will all of the sudden try to do a ZIRP followed by QE programs and the like. They will probably just cut rates here and there, RR but the bulk of their measures will be fiscal
I closed audusd at 0.9940, few hours back. Price action of AUD today was much weaker compared to yesterday and I decided to book whatever profits market is giving me. I also bought some physical gold and some physical silver day before yesterday. Hoping to keep them for long term.