Global Macro Monitor

Stunning, though not surprising, to hear the POTUS hammer Google today,

We had the big picture correct when we wrote back in April politicians would soon begin to bring the hammer and sickle down on Google,

That brings us to the Google (we are old school and can’t bring ourselves to call it Alphabet) short.

Imagine when a politician has his/her epiphany that all those porn searches they have done over the years on Google are stored somewhere and could be hacked and released to the public?  That will ignite a prairie fire of potential legislation, which will spread faster than you can say SNAP.

We would not doubt the mantra of the next presidential campaign will morph from “lock her up” to “shut them down.”

The social media economy is in deep trouble, folks  – Global Macro Monitor, April 24th

The stock is down about 1 percent today with the Nasdaq up slightly.

A Note To Readers

We are traders at heart at Global Macro Monitor, often wrong, and dependent on risk management to stay afloat.  That is cutting losses quickly and trying to let winners run.

The shorter your time horizon, the more likely most people are going to lose money getting whipped around by the markets.

Moreover, we have found it much harder to make money trading – i.e., generating a daily cash flow —  over the past few years.  It is increasingly difficult to beat the trading ‘bots.

Morphing Content 

You have probably also noticed our content has changed over the years and now focused more on global macro trends and insights (also tricky to make money in global macro these daze) and less on short-term trading.   Riding and writing about the Apple and gold trend were great fun.

Long-Term Investors

Long-term investors should do what should do:  save, diversify, rarely change allocation,  monitor valuations, rarely deviate from their plan,  and ignore much of the short-term noise, even most of the stuff we produce, except for its entertainment value and to impress or embarrass yourself at cocktail parties.

There are times, however, when LT investors should lower overall risk in the portfolio.  We think the current environment is one of those times.

Even still, we could be wrong and “this time may be different”, and we say that with great trepidation.  If investors do change their allocations, they need a plan B in the event they are wrong.  That is a price point to get back in.

Also realize that there are only two kinds of people who always sell the tops or buy the bottoms:  1) liars, and 2) big liars.

Some people boast of selling at the top of the market and buying at the bottom – I don’t believe this can be done.
Bernard Baruch 

PMs and Hedge Funds

Portfolio managers and hedgies should use us as a sounding board to stress test their market views, and look for alpha ideas.  We love living in the tails, that is looking for double σ trades, and by definition will often be wrong.