Investing Strategies

April 2021

I Don’t Usually Do This

April 2, 2021TradeSmith Editorial Staff

Rather than my usual essay, I’m sharing a rare, “no holds barred” interview I did with Dan Ferris on the Stansberry Investor Hour podcast last fall. During this wide-ranging conversation, Dan and I dove into many of my favorite Money Talks topics, including my early financial troubles and how I solved them… why I’m so passionate about investor education… how I invest my own money today… why I personally use and believe in TradeSmith tools… and much more. I hope you enjoy it as much as I

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Big Changes are Coming to TradeSmith Daily

April 1, 2021John Banks

A new day is dawning for TradeSmith Daily. Big changes are coming. If you’ve come to enjoy and appreciate the TradeSmith Daily format, the changes won’t be what you’re used to. But change can be a great thing — especially at the start of an exciting new chapter. Starting soon, all TradeSmith Daily broadcasts will be written in the Japanese haiku style. After a great deal of contemplation and experimentation, we have found that the timeless, elegant beauty of the

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March 2021

The Portnoy-Endorsed Social Media ETF is a Laughably Bad Idea

March 4, 2021TradeSmith Research Team

You can’t make this stuff up. On Feb. 23, TradeSmith Daily said the following: As we have explained repeatedly in these pages, the case for Buzz Lightyear valuations — “To infinity and beyond!” — is predicated on perpetually low interest rates. If you change that equation, the valuations are no longer sustainable. Fast forward a week or two, and what do we see: Tech stocks with nonsense valuations getting hammered by the bond market, as spiking long-end yields blow up

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A Warning From Warren Buffett: We’re a Long Way From 1981

March 2, 2021John Banks

The Berkshire Hathaway annual letter — penned, as always, by CEO Warren Buffett, now 90 years old — came out this past weekend. If you haven’t read it yet, you can do so here. Reading the Berkshire letter, and hunting for easter eggs of Buffett bon mots and insights, has become a kind of annual tradition for much of the financial world. Analysts, money managers, journalists, and investors of all stripes tend to read it the weekend it comes out,

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February 2021

Crash Risk Rising: Here’s What Could Cause a ‘Market Structure’ Meltdown Event

February 26, 2021John Banks

The sell-off at the long end of the U.S. bond market is turning into a global bond market rout. Yields are rising in countries around the world; in places where nominal long-end yields were negative, like Germany and Japan, they are flipping positive. To put it more simply, as U.S. Treasury 10-year notes and 30-year bonds plummet in value, their nominal yields spike higher. That spike is contagious, causing long-end yields everywhere to rise. There is serious danger here. The

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Inflation Alarmists are Panicking Far Too Early

February 25, 2021John Banks

Investors are starting to worry about inflation. Some are even sounding alarms of potential hyperinflation, throwing around references to Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe. This is quite a shift in stance. For quite a long time, Wall Street behaved as if inflation had been banished forever. Now there are fears, implied if not spoken aloud, that inflation is just around the corner. The latest burst of inflation fear has to do with a sell-off in global bond markets. Rates are quickly

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A Big Reason to be Wary of Big Tech

February 19, 2021John Banks

“The only reason to be bearish… is there is no reason to be bearish.” That is the view of Michael Hartnett, Bank of America’s Chief Investment Strategist, as recently expressed in a note to clients. In our view, there are reasons to be bearish. It just depends which assets one is looking at, and the nature of the bear case being applied. Take high-flying technology stocks, for example. There is a formidable bearish case for overvalued technology stocks moving forward,

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Can Shake Shack (SHAK) Deliver Huge Profits?

February 15, 2021John Banks

Editor’s Note: TradeSmith offices are closed today to observe Presidents’ Day, but we didn’t want you to go without timely and interesting commentary. Our friends at LikeFolio have stepped up, and we will be back with regular TradeSmith Daily content tomorrow. For now, enjoy! —JCL When Shake Shack reports earnings on Feb. 25, it will be different than you’re used to. Normally, when a company reports earnings, everything about the prior quarter is revealed for the first time. But in

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Gold Now Looks Bearish — and the Dollar Bullish — because of the Quantum Deficit Effect

February 10, 2021John Banks

The TradeSmith Decoder portfolio hit a new milestone this week. Our highest conviction equity position became a ten-bagger as of the Feb. 9 close, reaching the 1,000% gain mark in less than a year. The wild thing is, this company is just getting started. We wouldn’t be surprised to see it reach thirty- or forty-bagger status in the next few years. Nor is it just the one position. There are other names in the portfolio — all long-term holdings of

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Has Bitcoin (and the Entire Crypto Space) Been Boobytrapped by Tether? No.

February 5, 2021John Banks

Did you dramatically increase your net worth in 2020, and book “life changing profits” while doing so? If not, you should consider TradeSmith Decoder, because at least one of our subscribers did (and possibly many more). We recently received a wonderful testimonial that illustrates what TradeSmith Decoder is all about: Helping people build real, life-changing wealth through the trading and investing process. The reason TradeSmith Decoder makes that possible is because we provide real and powerful analysis (on a daily

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The Drop in GameStop Short Interest Could be Real — Or Deceptive Market Manipulation

February 2, 2021John Banks

Over the past few days, the level of hedge fund short interest in GameStop fell sharply. Or did it? On the evening of Monday, Feb. 1, Bloomberg reported that “GameStop Short Interest Plunges in Sign Traders Are Covering.” Two separate research firms, IHS Markit and S3 Partners, reported the drop: “Short interest in the video-game retailer plummeted to 39% of free-floating shares, from 114% in mid-January, according to IHS Markit Ltd. data. Data from S3 Partners, another market intelligence firm,

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January 2021

How a Retail Investor Army Went to Battle With a $12.5 Billion Hedge Fund — and Won

January 26, 2021John Banks

Ten or 20 years ago, the small retail investor was supposed to be afraid of hedge funds. To put it another way: In the old market ecosystem, hedge funds were the predators and retail investors were the prey. And the bigger the hedge fund — as measured by billions of dollars in assets under management — the more of a predator it was considered to be. The biggest funds were the apex predators, and retail investors were lunch. Not anymore.

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