VRALetter
VRA Letter: The Worst Week for Stocks Ends. Roaring 2020’s; US Economy Remains Strong. Charts to Watch. Fear Returns. Rich Ross. Xtract One Tech.
Good Friday morning. The worst week of the year for US equity markets ends today, punctuated by this weeks FOMC meeting/statement and J Powell presser, which...once again...led to a steep sell-off in stocks…Powell’s speciality. The phase that's made the rounds, with respect to Powell and the Fed’s forecasts, is that they are guilty of “wish-casting”, […]
VRA Letter: Fed Day. VRA Approach to Potential Recession & Roaring 2020’s; Make It While You can. Xtract One, Falcon Oil & Gas. Parabolic Options #18.
Good Wednesday morning. Fed day is here. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave rates unchanged later today with the Fed announcement at 2PM EST, followed by Powell’s presser at 2:30.
VRA Letter: VRA Inflection Points; Seismic Shifts Nearing. Deep Dive into Ed Hymans “Recession” Forecast. The Latest from Rich Ross.
Good Tuesday morning. Our focus of the last month or so, outside of seasonal weakness that is clearly boring but must also be respected, has been on what we see as clear "inflection points” that are on the near term horizon. These inflection points include; the Fed (a pause followed by rate cuts in 2024), the corresponding reversal lower in interest rates for govt bond yields and mortgage rates (etc), a slowdown in the US economy (to match what’s taking place globally), and the corresponding moves in our investment markets; US dollar (lower), precious metals/miners (higher), with semis/tech leading the broad markers higher into Q4 and Q1 2024.
VRA Letter: Welcome to the Worst Week of the Year. Central Bank Overload. Oil & Energy Stocks; Extreme Overbought. Falcon Oil & Gas News.
Good Monday morning. This week has been the worst week of the year for the S&P 500 since 1950 (per Stock Traders Almanac). 2023 has featured the highest degree of “seasonality reliability” in recent memory, so we’ll see how the week plays out. With the Fed meeting this week and potential government shutdown on 9/30, not to mention ongoing geopolitical tensions and approaching “October-phobia”, there’s no shortage of things that could get the markets attention.
VRA Letter: Seasonality Points to Near-term Weakness. BAML Fund Managers Survey. Innovation (always) Creates More Job Growth.
Good Friday morning. Next week commences the worst week of the year for the S&P 500 (since 1950, per Stock Traders Almanac). 2023 has featured the highest degree of “seasonality reliability” in recent memory, so we’ll see how the week plays out. With the Fed meeting next week and potential government shutdown on 9/30, not to mention ongoing geopolitical tensions and approaching “October-phobia”, there’s no shortage of things that could get the markets attention.
VRA Letter: Outside Day in 10-Year Yields. Our “Tells” If the Highs are in for Rates. Watching Germany Closely. Oil Tops $90. Energy Stocks Must Be Owned.
Good Thursday morning. Did yesterdays trading mark the highs in 10-year yields? In the chart below we see that the 10-year yield just put in an "outside day”, an important technical event where both the highs and lows of the previous days trading are taken out. Outside days commonly mark a significant reversal event.
VRA Letter: August CPI, In-Line. Demand Destruction is Occurring. VRA Quick Hitters: No Stress in Debt Markets. American Deleveraging & the Roaring 2020’s. Big Tesla Prediction.
Good Wednesday morning. August inflation data is out and the CPI report came in essentially in-line with the estimates. August saw a CPI of 3.7% year/year inflation with core inflation rising 4.3% year/year. The headline data came from rising gas prices, which were up 10.5% in the month. Get ready for more of this from gas prices, as oil marches to $100/barrel and beyond. Equity futures are flat on the news with bond prices slightly lower and yields slightly higher.
VRA Letter: Seasonality, From Our Point of View. Still Pounding the Table on Energy; ERX, URA, Falcon. Inflation; Skate Where the Puck is Going.
Good Tuesday morning. Apologies for being a broken record but as my mentor Ted Parsons taught me (RIP Ted) “sometimes the money is made in the waiting” and with ongoing negative seasonality, “waiting” to put new money to work in our broad market VRA Portfolio ETF’s (namely NAIL, SOXL, TNA) looks to be the smart money move, for the time being.
VRA Letter: VRA Market Update: Seasonality, Semis, Transports & Housing. VRA Megatrends; Liquidity & Deleveraging; Powering the Roaring 2020’s. Latest from STA & Ross. Falcon, Tesla, X1.
Good Monday morning. Today marks 22 years from the 9/11/01 attacks. Later today we’ll issue our annual 9/11 letter, where we continue to join the more than 3000 architects and engineers in calling for a new investigation into the attacks.
VRA Letter: Out of Office
Good Friday morning. We’re out of the office this morning but please join us for our VRA Investing Podcast at the close today.
VRA Letter: Put Buying is Back. High Yield Bonds Exhibiting Remarkable Strength. Great Depression; Wayne Root on Precious Metals/Miners. Rich Ross.
Good Thursday morning. Quick hitters this AM. As Tyler covered in yesterdays VRA Investing Podcast, as seasonal weakness continues to weigh on stocks we’re already seeing a sharp rise in put/call ratios. Below we see that the total put/call ratio is nearing its high water mark of 2023. This is a tell. When the public is buying puts at these high levels Mr. Market is getting ready to pull the rug out from underneath them.
VRA Letter: Investing During Weak Seasonality. Fox Business Interview; Focus on Energy Stocks & Precious Metals/Miners. Falcon Article.
Good Wednesday morning. Late day weakness saw both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones close down .50% while Nasdaq and Semis were essentially flat, with small caps hit by 1.7%. In addition to higher bond yields, with the 10 year back to 4.26%, weak September seasonality is weighing on stocks. Now, the media is beginning to fixate on higher oil prices as a drain on economic growth. What we’re seeing is classic market action during a pause/pullback, as the talking heads look for reasons to explain the weakness. We have our positions in place and will continue to use this seasonal weakness to add to our VRA Portfolio ETF positions, while using monthly dollar cost averaging to add to our VRA 10-baggers.
VRA Letter: September/October Analysis. 4 Major Smart Money investment Themes. VRA Commodity Watch; Own Energy Stocks & Precious Metals/Miners.
Good Tuesday morning. Hope everyone in the states had a good Labor Day weekend. Heads up: I’ll be on Fox Business with the always smart money Charles Payne on “Making Money” in the 2PM EST hour. Hope you can join us! We come back to the markets with futures down slightly, as investors try and make sense of still-too-high bond yields and seasonality that’s mixed, at best. Yes, September is the worst month of the year. Has been since 1950.
VRA Letter: Jobs Report – No Rate Hike in September. The Significance of Multiple Inflection Points.
Good Friday morning. The August jobs data is in and its a win for the Fed’s hopes of a soft landing (so far…2024 may be a different story). 187,000 jobs were created (exact same as last month...the matrix may be glitching), just beating estimates, with the unemployment rate jumping to 3.8% (v 3.5% last moth) and with wage growth slowing, both m/m and y/y. The markets like this report. Dow futures +180. Nasdaq (leader) + 110 with gold, silver and miners showing solid gains. 10 year yield is flat at 4.09%.
VRA Letter: 2023; a Year of Textbook Action & Pattern Recognition. Our “Inflection Points” Have Arrived In Rates & USD. Massively Important Moves Developing.
Good Thursday morning. Textbook trading. That’s what 2023 has delivered, to date. I cannot recall a more reliably consistent year. There are 4 major investment themes and trading patterns that have produced extremely reliable and consistent action all year. If you’re into pattern recognition/repeating patterns, take note:
VRA Letter: Jobs Data, a Shot Across the Fed’s Bow. Massive Win for Bitcoin. Here Comes DOJO, Tesla’s AI Supercomputer. Falcon Oil and Gas News.
Good Wednesday morning. Stocks were sharply higher yesterday, with the best internals we’ve seen since the markets peaked in July, as July job openings data (JOLTS) added more evidence of a cooling labor market and more support for an eventual easing of interest rates by the Fed. The semis led tech, with tech leading the broad market higher. Textbook bull market action.
VRA Letter: VRA Market & System Update. Shocking Comments from the Dallas Fed. Housing Deep Dive; New All-Time Highs. NAIL. Own KWEB! Falcon Oil and Gas.
Good Tuesday morning. 30 minutes into the open US markets are solidly higher. Yesterdays solid trading also brought with it much improved internals. In addition, the semis are making another attempt to lead the markets higher. Following the Nvidia earnings drama and price spike for chip stocks, a “buy the rumor, sell the news” event kicked in. This is common. But know this; if the semis have bottomed here, so too has the market.
VRA Letter: Important Week Ahead. Ed Hyman; “The Fed Will Cut Rates 6 x in 2024”. Inflection Points; 10 Year, USD, Gold, KWEB. VRA 10-Baggers & the Innovation Revolution
Good Monday morning. In his highly anticipated speech at the annual economic confab in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday, Fed Chair J Powell argued in favor of keeping rates steady but noted that "further tightening" could be warranted if the economy does not slow enough to help cool inflation.
VRA Letter: Jackson Hole Tomorrow. NVDA Blowout Earnings and What it Means for the VRA Portfolio. SOXL, PLTR, TSLA, XTRAF, KWEB. The Roaring 2020’s.
Good Thursday morning. I’m back with you this morning, with thanks to Tyler for covering the last two days of VRA Letters and Podcasts. We may not have a Letter tomorrow morning…I’m on the road...but we’ll be watching J Powells speech at Jackson Hole (10 AM EST) and then Tyler will host the podcast tomorrow after the close.
VRA Letter: A “Uniquely Bullish” Setup for NVDA & Tech. Rich Ross latest. Innovation Equals Deflation. Housing. Bitcoin. URA. DWAC.
As we covered yesterday, expectations are high for the company as they significantly upgraded forward guidance after the company crushed Q1 earnings. Consensus estimates are now for revenue of $11.1 billion which would be a massive beat, up from $6.7 billion Y/Y. Estimates for EPS for the second quarter is $2.07, which would be a 305% increase over the second quarter of last year which came in at $.51.
VRA Update: Are the dog days almost over? All eyes on Nvidia earnings and Jackson Hole this week.
Good Tuesday morning all, Tyler here with you for this morning’s update. Futures are looking strong to start the day as our major indexes are higher across the board with tech again leading the way with the Nasdaq +.6% at the time of writing. While it has been said many times already, the summer doldrums roll on as August is notoriously an illiquid and slow-news month for the markets. That is a very dull message, but there is a significant upside to it as well.
VRA Letter: VRA Pre-Alert. Significant Inflection Points Are Nearing. Latest From Ed Yardeni. Interview with Wayne Allyn Root.
Good Monday morning. We will soon be taking action on a new position. It will be a trading position of 1-4 weeks, which we’ll walk you through each step of the way, using a leveraged ETF and/or an options trade. Look for “VRA Alert” in your subject line when we are taking action. The trading position we’ll be adding is for small caps and we’ll be using TNA (3 x R2K ETF) and IWM (R2K ETF) call options. If you do not invest using options, you will purchase TNA instead.