Is Roku’s Reign Over???

Three weeks ago, I write a post titled,

Is Roku’s Reign Over???

Roku remains one of the fastest growing leaders in video streaming technology. Roku has over 30 million active users, about 10% of U.S. TV viewers aged 18 to 34 are now on Roku and these users are consuming more than 9 billion hours on streaming content.

But wait, why is Roku down almost 40% since early Sept?

Apple announced it would be giving away a free year of its new Apple TV+ service to customers who purchase new Apple devices, Comcast Corp. said it will give out its Xfinity Flex streaming box for free to its Internet-only subscribers and Facebook Inc. launched its new Portal TV device.

Price is approaching the monthly demand at $95. The chart suggests to go long once price penetrates the monthly demand.

Ken Griffin is the founder and CEO of Citadel.  If you know anything about Wall Street, then you have heard of hedge fund, Citadel.  The hedge fund manages close to $30 billion in assets and is the one of the largest hedge funds in the world.  

Image result for ken griffin

The guy is doing well for himself.  This past January, Ken bought a New York City apartment for $238 million.  But he felt he didn’t have enough space, so he also simultaneously purchased London mansion for $122 million.  Anyway back to the post as I got sidetracked by his wealth.  

A 13G filing or Schedule 13G is an alternative SEC filing for the 13D which must be filed by anyone who acquires ownership in a public company of more than 5% of the outstanding stock.  And according to a new 13G filing from hedge fund manager Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors shows a new 5% stake in Roku Inc.

Macquarie upgraded Roku from Neutral to Outperform on Wednesday.  And on Friday RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney upgraded Roku to an Outperform from Sector Perform, boosting his price target by $48 to $155.

I can’t say it enough, so I’m going to repeat what I said in a recent post.

Smart money is capital placed in the market by institutional investors, market mavens, central banks, funds, and other financial professionals. And simple put, they do the opposite of retail investors. For the most part, retail investors buy high and sell low, it’s usually the Smart Money on the other side of the trade who are selling high and buying low.

Taskmaster4450 talked about this yesterday in his post titled, Why There Is No Need For FOMO On Steem

The investing world is full of FOMO (fear of missing out) at times. It is what often drives markets, often to the point of insanity.

Investing is a zero-sum game, so it also drives retail investor to the poor house.

Why do you think Ken took a recent stake in Roku and Roku was upgraded by Macquarie and RBC Capital Markets?  It’s because there isn’t an ounce of FOMO in their blood and because Roku now selling at a discount.  Although I thought the weekly demand would have been a better buy, price reacted to the monthly demand at $95. Thus, the chart suggests price will rise to the daily supply at $148.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Atlantis Won’t Save Ethereum Classic

ETC is a cryptocurrency that was the result of a hard fork of the Ethereum network in July 2016. A “fork” is a change to the software of the digital currency that creates two separate versions of the blockchain with a shared history.

In May 2016, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), lauched by the Ethereum community, went for a crowd token sale to fund its development. After raising $150 MM, a flaw in DAO’s code was exploited by attackers and more than $50 million was drained out of DAO’s funds. A hard fork, ETC was implemented on the Ethereum that made the hacked transaction invalid.

One of the main difference between Ethereum and ETC is the coin supply. Ethereum has a uncapped total, but fixed yearly supply. ETC is set to between 210 MM and 230 MM ETCs. Also, Ethereum is planning to move to proof of stake and ETC is not willing to make. It appears ETC doesn’t have the same size or engaged community like Ethereum based on DApps and ICO launchings. Lastly and probably most importantly, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has no intent of supporting ETC.

Atlantis was successfully implemented on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain earlier this month, bringing more compatibility with Ethereum (ETH). However, development on the ETC chain remains several months behind ETH, with very little activity over the past six months.

Source

As we all know communities are vital to the sustainability of a blockchain, but equally important, if not more important is the development taking place on a blockchain. Without development, a blockchain is sure to loss ground against other competing blockchain and is also guaranteed to loss its user base.

So where is price headed next, lets go to the charts to find out? Price as been hovering between $2 and $10 since the beginning of 2019.

However, the chart suggests price is heading down to the weekly demand at $2.00.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Unusual Options Activity In SPDR Gold Shares ETF ,GLD

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke Tuesday in Denver on “Data Dependence in an Evolving Economy.”  He reiterated and tried to assure the crowd that the economy remains strong and the Fed supports keeping the economic expansion going.

Image result for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke Tuesday in Denver

Fed Powell also addressed the repo scare from a couple of weeks ago were overnight repo lending dried up.  Taskmaster4450le spoke about this today in his post title, 

Where Are People Going To Hide?

Turning to short-term funding markets, Powell said “a range of factors” might have caused the turmoil seen last month when the cost of short-term borrowing spiked as firms scrambled to get funding.

Regardless the cause, Powell said it was now time for the Fed to increase the size of its balance sheet. He said the central bank may purchase short-term Treasury bills.

Some analysts call this a “soft” form of quantitative easing, because the Fed buys these securities from the market, but Powell bristled at this description.

“I want to emphasize that growth of our balance sheet for reserve management purposes should in no way be confused with the large-scale asset purchase program that we deployed after the financial crisis,” he said.

Source

During the Great Recession QE is injected tons of money into the economy by buying bonds and mortgage-backed securities in hopes of jump starting the economy.  And we are still feeling the effects of QE from ten years ago because money poured into the stock market which has been artificially inflated throughout the years through all the buyback programs (Apple is one of the biggest culprit).  At some point, the bubble will pop, prices will fall and money will migrate in to precious metals (and potential cryptocurrencies).

According to the World Gold Council, gold-backed ETFs bought 75 metric tons of the gold worth almost $4 billion in September.  The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), the world’s largest and most liquid gold-backed fund, bought 43 tons more bullion during the 30 days.

This is the Smart Money directly at work and they are adding leverage to their investments/trades.  Today I noticed unusual options activity in GLD.   The Smart Money bought over 6000 call options with a strike price at $149 that expire in March 2020. 

This is on top of the 7000 call options they bought yesterday. 

I can’t say I have seen call options going out this far, but this trade set-up has plenty of time of being profitable as the chart suggests the next target for GLD is the $152.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

D.R.E.A.M – Dollars Rule Everything Around Me (Intermarket Analysis)

Intermarket analysis is a powerful tool that gives traders/investors a macro predictive direction of stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies. Intermarket analysis states that all asset classes are interrelated and that you can’t definitively determine the direction of one asset class without examining the other asset classes.

There are several key relationships that bind these four markets together. These relationships include:

  • The INVERSE relationship between commodities and bonds.
  • The INVERSE relationship between bonds and stocks.
  • The POSITIVE relationship between stocks and commodities.
  • The INVERSE relationship between the US Dollar and commodities.

NOTE:

A rising Dollar puts downward pressure on commodity prices because many commodities are priced in Dollars, such as oil. Bonds benefit from a decline in commodity prices because this reduces inflationary pressures. Stocks can also benefit from a decline in commodity prices because this reduces the costs for raw materials.

Gold is sort of a commodity.  It’s a hard asset and mined like any other metal.  However, it behaves more like a monetary asset, especially against the US dollar. As a rule, when the price of the US dollar goes up, the price of gold goes down and vice versa. However, while gold typically has an inverse relationship to the dollar, it’s not always the case.

The past year has been somewhat surreal in the gold market, as we have the rare occurrence of the dollar rising in somewhat slow fashion while gold bullion has appreciated about $300 per ounce to trade near $1,500. Historically, a rising dollar and rising gold bullion haven’t gone together, but the distortions that have come with global quantitative easing policies are to blame for the breakdown in this inverse relationship.

Moreover, if the Fed is cutting the fed funds rate and the European Central Bank is accelerating QE due to the bad economic numbers from the Old Continent, the dollar will not decline, as the interest-rate differentials are still in favor of the greenback.

Still, the excess reserves in the global financial system, which are a function of QE policies by the ECB, Bank of Japan, Bank of England and the Fed, are what has given gold enthusiasts the hope that we will make fresh all-time highs in gold bullion

Source

So this US Dollar and Gold correlation may last a bit longer as both have more room to the upside before hitting monthly supply zones, which means they could fall together as well once they both reach the monthly supply zones.

US Dollar

Gold

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Forex Analysis Report – 10/6/19…More Downside Risk On USD/INR (Rupee), But First…

Last year, a deep
sell-off in emerging markets and a widening domestic fiscal deficit,
exacerbated by rising oil prices, pushed the rupee down nearly 9%.  This year, it’s the continued trade war
between the US and China that hurting the Indian economy and currency.  

India is taken a “any
means as necessary” approach in trying to help its stagnant economy.  For example, several weeks ago, India’s
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a cut to corporate tax rates for
domestic companies to 22%. The goal was to increase the profitability of Indian’s
publicly traded company and level the playing field of Indian companies competing
again companies in other countries with a similar tax structure.  However, when a country is trying to jumpstart
their economy, there is no better tool than to cut interest rates.

India’s central bank on Friday cut its benchmark repurchase rate for the fifth consecutive time this year as it continues a concerted push to reinvigorate a stuttering economy.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.15% with five members of its Monetary Policy Committee voting in favor, versus one who backed a 40 basis point cut.

The decision came against a backdrop of weaker growth, a resurgence of financial stability risks and a surprise fiscal stimulus in the form of a recent corporate tax cut.

More aggressive policy moves are expected, however, with the economy having deteriorated for five consecutive quarters, most recently hitting a six-year low of 5% in the second-quarter of 2019.

Source

Monthly Chart (Curve Time Frame) – monthly supply is 73.500 and monthly demand is 63.500.

Weekly Chart (Trend Time Frame) – the trend is sideways.

Daily Chart (Entry Time Frame) – the price has reacted to both supply zones, and has the potential to go much lower, but the chart suggests price has to close below the pivot low for confirmation first that price will go a lot lower.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Binance Still Making Money Moves, But It’s Not Reflected In The Price

Earlier this year,
Binance, the leading global cryptocurrency exchange and ecosystem, launched
Binance DEX, a decentralized exchange running on the Binance Chain. In just a
few much, Binance DEX has become the world’s largest decentralized
exchange.   CEO Changpeng Zhao aka CZ
said with no central custody of funds, Binance DEX offers far more control over
your own assets.

The launch couldn’t come
any sooner because in May of this year, even the best and largest crypto
exchange in the world got hacked.  
Binance called the attack a “large-scale security breach,” in which
hackers stole 7,000 bitcoin which was about $40 million.

In an effort to boost the
selection of tokens available for trading on Binance DEX, their newest token,
the XRP-BF-2, backed by real XRP tokens was announced.

However, this isn’t about just giving XRP a Binance Chain wrapper. Ultimately, this is a necessary step to supporting XRP-backed pairs on Binance’s decentralized exchange. It’s unclear now which trading pairs will be supported given that the XRP-BF2 token is still in ‘testing.’

Binance has ported other cryptocurrencies to its chain in the past, as well. Most notably, BTCB was recently minted which represents BTC on Binance Chain. Each BTCB is backed by real BTC.

Binance claims that, by porting major cryptocurrencies onto Binance Chain, the ecosystem for its decentralized exchange (DEX) becomes that much larger. This way, you can trade BTC directly on Binance Chain rather than needing to go elsewhere.

Source

Recently the price on Binance breached the weekly demand at $16.50,

and in the process formed weekly supply at $23.00.  Thus, the chart suggest price is headed lower at least to the daily demand at $9.00.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Unusual Options Activity In iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN (VXX)

Trump loves twitting he’s
responsible for the rally’s in the equity markets, but blames Fed Powell when the
equity markets tank.  And while the equity
markets are up almost 50% since his election, due to the trade war and economic
uncertainty, the equity markets have gone nowhere in almost two years.

Although the equity markets
are near all-time highs, in the past almost 24 months, we witness almost a 20%
correction, several 10% declines, two declines of 6% in 2019 and just this week,
as an example, a 1200 point decline, followed by a 500+ rally in the DOW

 The CBOE Volatility Index, VIX aka the stock market fear gauge, is a popular measure of the stock market’s expectation of volatility implied.

Devesh Shah, an applied
mathematician and hedge fund manager who formerly worked for Goldman Sachs, was
one of the creators of the CBOE Volatility Index

The VIX is quoted in
percentage points and is the expected annualized change in the S&P 500
index over the following 30 days, with a 68% probability. VIX values greater
than 30 represent investor fear or uncertainty, while values below 20 represent
complacent in the Markets.

The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures ETN (VXX) is the largest and most liquid in the volatility ETF/ETN universe. The ETN sees average volume of more than 15 million shares per day, typically, but spikes to more than 70 million when the S&P 500 sees a significant decline and traders pile into VXX pushing it higher.

Yesterday I noticed unusual options activity in VXX. The Smart Money bought over 22,000 of the VXX November 15 call options with a strike price of $37.

I honestly think this is a hedge, against an existing equity portfolio, but I’m just speculating. The one thing I’m not speculating on is the Smart Money thinks the equity markets are going to potential drop pretty hard over the next 45 days. In addition, October has been the historically the most volatile month in the equity markets.

Source

However, in order for this trade to be profitable, the price must breach the weekly supply at $36 first. Will the Smart Money be right, stay tuned.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Lets Play US Stock Market Charades – Part 4

Three days ago, I introduced a new game called, US Stock Market Charades. In this game, there are no non-verbal (no talking) motion clues, just charts and I put a bunch of charts in order to give you clues so you could guess what direction the US Stock Market Equities were heading next.

Lets Play US Stock Market Charades

Lets Play US Stock Market Charades – Part 2

Lets Play US Stock Market Charades – Part 3

Alright, are you ready for some additional clues?

Clue 1

The ISM index is a good leading indicator of the economy and is useful in gauging turning points in the business cycle because the difference between new orders and inventories equates to future production or lack of future production.

The ISM is released monthly by the Institute for Supply Management, but based on surveys of 300 purchasing managers throughout the United States in 20 industries in the manufacturing area.

On Monday the numbers for September were released and came in at 47.8%, the lowest since June of 2009.  50% is the line in the sand, so any above 50% means expansion and anything below 50% means contraction.

Source

Clue 2

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index is an index created by the Institute for Supply Management Non-Manufacturing, using information collected from surveys from over 400 non-manufacturing companies.  Essentially, it’s an index measuring the service sector.  The numbers for September were released on Weds.

Service-oriented companies that employ the vast majority of Americans registered the weakest growth in September in three years, adding to a cacaphony of reports showing a broad slowdown in the U.S. economy.

The Institute for Supply Management’s said its non-manufacturing index fell to 52.6% last month from 56.4% in August. Economists polled by Marketwatch had forecast a 55.3% reading.

Numbers over 50% indicates businesses are growing, but the index has fallen 8 points below its post 2008 recession peak of 60.8% achieved last fall.

Source

OK, you have 60 seconds to earn one point, where is the US Equity Markets headed???

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Simon Property Group Is Getting Amazoned

Forever 21 is an American fashion retailer that sells accessories, beauty products, home goods and clothing for women, men and children, but the retailer is better known for the “wears” for teens, tweens and young adults. 

Forever 21 was founded in 1984 and during the 2000s, went hard opening up bigger and bigger store in the mall.  When it was all said and done, Forever 21 now has about 550 out of 800 stores located in malls.    But you know what with only 16% of their total sales coming from the web and mall traffic continuing to dwindle, this week Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy protection, and announced that it was ceasing operations in 40 countries and closing most of its international and 178 of its US stores last week.

Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) is a global leader in the ownership of premier shopping, dining, entertainment and mixed-use destinations and an S&P 100 company (Simon Property Group, NYSE: SPG). Their properties span across North America, Europe and Asia provide community gathering places for millions of people every day and generate billions in annual sales. 

Because Simon Property Group’s CEO David Simon fears such events like Forever 21 filing for bankruptcy, they have decided to dabble online as well. They partnering with other companies, essentially its tenants, and will take a cut of sales with the tenants responsible for fulfilling orders.

Now honesty, Simon Property should of done something like this years ago…maybe they might have had a chance.  But when Forever 21 is your seventh largest tent in terms of rent, it puts Simon Property in a bad spot. 

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2019, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $146.2 billion, an increase of 4.2 percent (±0.9%) from the first quarter of 2019. Total retail sales for the second quarter of 2019 were estimated at $1,361.8 billion, an increase of 1.8 percent (±0.2%) from the first quarter of 2019. The second quarter 2019 e-commerce estimate increased 13.3 percent (±1.6%) from the second quarter of 2018 while total retail sales increased 3.2 percent (±0.5%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the second quarter of 2019 accounted for 10.7 percent of total sales.

Source

The tide turned for Simon Property Group when price broke the long term up trendline from 2009 accompanied by negative divergence.

One of my favorite set-ups is to then wait for the pull back, in this case the short at the monthly supply at $185.

And price gave potential sellers another opportunity to short at the monthly supply at $166. Nothing changes for me, the target remains the monthly demand at $115. Based on the secular shift to online retail, I’m confident price will get there within the next 1-2 yrs.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Unusual Options Activity In Natural Gas ETF, UNG

Earlier this month I noticed natural gas hitting reaching a longer term base and reversing direction. 

Natural Gas Analysis Report 9/5/19 – A Bottom Has Been Put In

Natural gas put in a hammer, reversal candle, which usually occurs at the bottom of a down trend. On the daily chart, price formed a demand zone, on top of a demand zone.  Thus, the chart suggested to go long during a pull back to the daily demand zones with a target at the daily supply at $2.700.

Price never pull back, but did hit the daily supply and is falling now.  Because the demand zones were never hit, they are still in play.

The United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) is an exchange-traded security designed to track percentage changes in the price of natural gas delivered to Henry Hub, Louisiana, the main U.S. benchmark for natural gas.

Yesterday I noticed that the Smart Money bought over 29,000 of the Nov 15 call options with a strike price at $21. 

Because UNG follows the natural gas futures, the charts look very similar.

And based on the seasonality of natural gas price acting bullish from the Fall to the Winter from a technical standpoint, but also from a fundamental standpoint, I love the trade.  Thus, the Smart Money should have no problems being profitable on this trade. 

Source

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.