Liberation Day?

Trump has called on April 2nd to be Liberation Day. 

Basically it is when the tariffs levied by the USA on many other nations begins.

Now without going into the politics of it and my own sentiment, let’s take a look from a vesting angle where I personally feel we can be better positioned.

Short USD - tariffs will mean less countries will sell to the US, so demand for USD will decrease. USD will only increase if US interest rates go up (which they are not likely to) or if the IS produces enough to export globally that demand for USD increases

Long JPY, AUD - this then means more global trade via other global currencies. And there are many to choose from but here are my top two choices. JPY is because Japan is poised to raise interest rates, and their currency has depreciated obscenely much in the last two years. AUD is because Australia has been in the doldrums from a poor China downturn for the last two years and with China rising, Australian produce and commodities will be in demand again and AUD will naturally appreciate.

Long China - talk about a waking giant. China performance has been in such doldrums for too long and with Trump’s isolationist policies, China is poised to take on more authority in the world order and that means the rise of China. Will the US regret and start to curb their rise? Only time will tell but China is the largest world power currently capable of challenging the USA.

Long Ex-US Defence - who’s going to be able to rely on Uncle Sam for protection anymore? Everyone and their mothers are already thinking or pivoting to either their own defence more seriously, or looking at other partnerships. This likely means the largest pivot from US defence contractors to Global defence contractors that the world has seen this century.

Short US Equities, Long World Equities - this is probably one of the most predictable arbitrage trades now. The US is isolating and naturally more of the global obsession towards the US stock market for the last ten years, is about to fade. How quickly this plays out would be anyone’s guess, but my guess is that it will be soon.

Long Gold - no brainer here, the world is getting very uncertain and Gold is continuously breaking new highs. It is slated to go higher as the world situation becomes very volatile. Holding physical is even better.

Long Bitcoin - this is a little bit of an outlier, but the technical aspect of BTC being a finite store of value (even if it has no utility) is the same argument as Gold. It is just that Gold is the standard store of value in uncertain times and has been around for far longer. 

Anyway all these opinions are purely my own and do not represent any recommendations to trade. Please do your own due diligence when investing or speculating!

Let’s HUAT together!

The Reserve

 Had the chance to visit one of Singapore’s largest gold and silver storage vaults.

This was in Changi and we had a partner taking us there from office.

It was really impressive with a cool meeting and networking area followed by a tour of the actual vaults utilized by the ultra rich.

Maybe someday I’ll have a safe deposit box here in my name too ;P

That gold bar I’m holding below is worth USD1.8m!!!

 

Trump Might Be Winning

 As much as the mainstream media hates to admit this, it seems like Trump winning the coming US Elections is a very real outcome.

Bookmakers are pricing him to win.

Many Financial Institutions appear to factor the chances of him winning is higher than that of Kamala Harris.

All this while most mainstream polls show them neck and neck.

In my mind if the bookmakers are giving him shorter odds to win at almost all swing states, then I think he’s got this in the bag, short of a monumental fuckup by Trump’s team.

The problem is that this guy is so shocking that there’s not much else that can shock the markets.

Much as I hate to say it, we should position ourselves accordingly where we can control things.

Short Europe

Short China

Short Allies

Short EVs except TSLA

Short Tech

Long Authoritarian 

Long Gold

Long Crypto

Long TSLA

Long Energy

Who knows markets might take a short plunge but rally heavily again like his first term.

This is going to be a REALLY long four year for the rest of the free world if he wins the US Elections come Nov 5th.

God bless us all.

Mr Market Coming Down

Aaaaaand the market is coming down.

The NASDAQ has reached 17,000 while flirting with ATH of 18,500 just a week ago.

NVDA was done 10% to $760 last night.

TSLA is at $147 last night too.

And this night just be the start.

Even after the war in the Middle East was deescalated.

War in Ukraine still ongoing. Hope Ukraine can find a way to win and soon.

Tensions in the Taiwan Straits rising. Hope nothing happens there.

But the real reason is this.

Markets are worried inflation is too sticky (I really told you so!).

That means we might NOT even have an interest rate cut this year, when stupid market was pricing in up to six cuts this year! How misaligned is that?!

USD Treasury debt is growing uncontrollably.

At this rate all industries relying on loans will struggle. The leveraged banks. Tech. IT. Property. REITs. BDCs.

Crypto is a conundrum. No one really knows what’s gonna happen after the halving. And that is happening tonight.

Gold is flying through the roof, hitting past $2,400 yesterday.

All I can say is to keep some powder dry and have some cash in hand to seize any good opportunities. It feels like volatility is coming back in quite a big way.

Good luck and stay safe!

March Investment Updates

 PSNY continues to bleed and taking a toll on my overall portfolio.

Market feels toppish so I’ve actually reverted to a little more cash. Took profits where I could.

I have this bad habit of letting my losers run for years and that’s what I’m still doing. 

Crypto is on a tear and basically more than 2x for me already. Think I’ll need to take some profits before April’s halving.

Cash is king now and UOBOne and OCBC360 combo is super awesome. Up and coming is Trust which could be my third liquid cash pillar once I max the earlier two out.

No berserker rages yet this year! This is a really big achievement for me and hope to keep that going. All my little punts are smaller and more rational, resulting in a higher win rate even if at small amounts.

Also shorted XAUUSD to earn really good and sticky carry.

Huat ah!

December Stale Musings

 December is shaping up to be so stale in the markets.

And maybe that’s a good sign?

The investing world is trimming down its positions.

There’s a lot less volatility than many years past.

Santa rally? Haven’t seen it yet.

Only Gold is surging and I think I’ll close off my XAUUSD position.

Then I’ll be ok for the rest of the year liao.

Just cruise for the rest of this year, enjoy my holiday and don’t think about investing or trading for a whole month.

C’mon December let’s go!

Huat ah!

A Really Good Period

 This is the way.

Just chill and cash in on high interest rates.

That’s it.

Keep it simple.

Don’t gamble, don’t take unnecessary risks, don’t make foolish trades.

And watch the AUM grow.

Also Gold headed down as expected. YAY!

Crypto especially BTC is heading up. YAY!

No berserker rages since. YAY!

Huat ah!

Shorting Gold

 Initiated a short position on XAUUSD.

Some may call me crazy but hear me out.

Current XAUUSD is spot gold. 

So you are trading trading gold against the USD. 

This means there is carry trade financing involved.

So when you go short on XAUUSD, you earn the USD carry.

Which, in Saxo, pays close to the Fed rate of 5%.

Fundamentally, gold will rise when uncertainty in the world rises. And that’s what’s happening right now with wars and the markets showing signs of fear. But a lot of this has been priced in. The war in Ukraine has gone on for more than a year and a half now and gold still went down to test 1,800.

Last night’s jump was spurred more by recent events and Fed speakers saying that interest rates will not hike in Nov. This is not a cut call, and I expect interest rates in the US to stay stubbornly high next year.

Also people are also moving to cash. That’s why the USD continues to stay so strong. Why take more risk when you could just earn 5% with low risk?

That’s why it is my personal opinion that gold will go down to 1,600 - 1,700 over the course of next year.

Going Good

 October’s been a great month on the investment front. 

The market isn’t going so well and my shorts are printing brrrrrrrrr.

Sometimes I think the best thing is to just set myself up, set my SL and TP, go into the trade, then set and forget, once you know your upside and downside, STOP obsessing about your position! And maybe that’s the best advice I need to stick to right now. 

Many a times our trade hunches, when properly thought out, and correct. It’s just the anxiety of seeing losses or early profits that cause us to cut earlier than planned.

The migration from stocks to more cash also continues, so that is great. Just gonna max out OCBC360, UOBOne accounts, whack some more T Bills and SSBs. At least this part of the portfolio maintains the saneness of ultra low risk with very good returns.

PSNY as a sidekick is slowly coming back up…but very slow. As long as the business continues to prosper, then I believe the technicals will eventually catch up with the fundamentals.

IREIT is still down a lot, but as long as the guru says hold, buy or sell, I will just follow on that.

Initiated a short position on Gold. It’s not looking so good at the moment but I think it will play out over time. Hopefully I have the patience to hold it for a long time.

Eighth Berserker Rage Of 2023

 This is the worst!

Just over lunch, with BOJ announcement on the JPY Yield Control Curve that’s been causing crazy volatility in USDJPY, I went to launch a 1.5M long on the high!!!

Ended up losing SGD37K!

OMG!!!!!!

All my hard work last few weeks to keep clean and try to prevent any blowouts, invest wisely and grow my wealth, and I wipeout almost 40K of my networth.

What I dunno how I keep gambling like this man. 

Argh.

All I can think of is that I’m still alive another day.

But this is by far the biggest hurt this year I’m sure!

And just because of a moments folly during lunch hour!

OMG!!!!!!

I think I have to quit trading for 2 months at least!

USDJPY Long Again II

 The gift that currently keeps giving.

Managed to hold on to the 400K position up until now.

Sold off 350K at $145.03!

Currently holding 50K at $144.40 now. 

Let’s continue to huat!

All Squared

 So I’ve hit my 75 trades by 9th May.

It means I’m all squared liao.

Was nice as I made about 5K on USDJPY.

Took a small hit on gold.

Only my SEA Ltd sold put is still in play but that is surely going to expire worthless.

New Positions

 I’m now squared so I’ve sold some puts and calls to potentially enter new positions.

I have two USDJPY sell puts at 136.40 and 137.00 respectively which will expire today.

I have one XAUUSD sell call at 1980 which will expire in a week’s time.

I have one SEA Ltd sell put at 72 which will expire in a month’s time.

Let’s see which ones get exercised.

USDJPY & XAUUSD Squared

 Closed both my positions.

USDJPY at 136.75

XAUUSD at 1982

I should be beating myself up why I do not have the right convictions and get scared by the market movements so easily.

USDJPY if I had kept my 800K position all through till today, I would have hit my original TP at 137.50 and made 32K. Instead I got scared and ended up chopping and trimming then reopening my positions because I feared the market turned etc. and ended up with a profit only about half of what I could’ve made.

XAUUSD I just got the jitters because I overleveraged myself o. The back of adding more USDJPY positions. Again very stupid to overtrade rather than keep a non-worrying small position.

What a poor trader I am.

Have a few new potential positions which I shall detail in the next post.

USDJPY & XAUUSD Update

 I squared off 3/4 of my USDJPY position right before it flew 200pips!

Really wasted.

Now holding only 200,000 in USDJPY. 

It’s a nice profit but I could’ve had much more!

USDJPY closed the weekend at around 136.30.

Greedy me.

Gold still steady, hardly any change but yield is gonna get even better with May’s hike likely incoming.

Making money definitely feels better than losing money.

I need to hold my positions for longer periods like these two babies.

USDJPY & XAUUSD

 So it’s the weekend and both my positions have continued to survive.

USDJPY is up to 134.10.

XAUUSD is down to 1983.

Both doing well in my favour, while earning about 5%pa credited daily!

Hopefully this can help me make tons of money!

Let’s go!

Rising Interest Rate Environment

 This is the third consecutive hike of the Fed Funds Rate by 75bp, bring rates to 3% now.

Singapore will soon follow.

With the dot plot predicting the Fed Funds Rate to be around 4-4.5%, we should expect more rate hikes in the next two quarters.

Where does that leave us?

The stock market is tanking really badly, USD is so strong against everything, meaning bye bye gold and crypto.

Best bets are treasuries and fixed deposits.

Clear whatever loan you can too.

Small DCAs into equity portfolios.

Save cash next six months so that you can:

A) further pay up any loans where interest rates are going up too quickly

B) place into fixed deposits yielding >4%

C) buy equities on the cheap

The S&P 500 is testing the June 2022 lows near 3600. From its all time high in Jan 2022 of 4800, that has been a huge nine month drop. Once 3600 breaks, we could even see 2900 and below.

Will it rebound?

Not likely as the fundamentals have not changed. Interest rates are still rising, inflation is still too high, there is quantitative tightening going on, and the economy has not felt the full brunt of many of the recent measures yet.

Stay safe out there.

Ukraine

 Russian invaded Ukraine five days ago. 

It caused the markets to tank.

Now Ukraine's managed to hold out longer than expected.

Wonder how long they can hold out, yet the majority of the free world is on their side.

Hopefully they will prevail. 

Russia is severely hit by sanctions.

Oil is up.

Gold is up.

Crypto is making a slight comeback.

USD is up.

Gold ETF Luncheon With SSGA

Was invited to participate in the State Street Global Advisors' Singapore luncheon with Gold as their main focus of the lunch.

It was quite interesting because this was in tandem with the representatives from the World Gold Council.

Here were the two main slides to take away.

Should I buy gold now?

Gold (GLD)

Bought into the Gold ETF yesterday.

It does appear that the bull market is over.

Looking for Gold to break higher in the coming weeks.