On Monday afternoon, little Amaris really started struggling to keep her oxygen up and she is in now the hospital in Albuquerque dealing with a virus. She’s feeling better and we hope she and her mom can come home tomorrow or Friday. I’m obviously focused on my family first and foremost and I hope you guys will understand that I’m canceling this week’s Live Q&A Chat.
In the meantime, here’s the transcript from last week’s Live Q&A Chat (sorry it’s so late in coming).
I was at the MoneyShow in Orlando last week, I gave three or four talks while I was there and the vibe at the money show was greed, euphoria. And the market was down what like 10% straight line? Even the first day that I spoke there was Friday and Friday morning the market was down another 1000 points and put in at their lower. The markets darn near put in their low for this big down turn that we had and every single question I got about the market that day and the next day on Saturday was, “it’s already don’t going down right? There’s no reason for the stock market to go down. Everything’s fine right? As long as everything’s fine markets go up.” I’m afraid not.
Sure look for seven, eight years, since the bottom you know, when we bet on the trillion dollar app revolution and a coming Bubble-Blowing Bull Market and we’re here, we kept talking about it for the last seven or eight years that there are so many bubble blowing bull market dynamics in the stock market, in the economy, in the politics of this country.
And whether it was 0% interest rates in quantitative easing or target tax tricks or the latest target tax tricks and the tax cuts, most of which benefit giant corporations, like the ones we own and we’ve been invested in partly because of these bubble blowing bull market dynamics. So that stuff’s all great but that doesn’t mean that bull markets don’t end while times were good, in fact the markets will probably at some point anticipate and start their downturn, downturning.
You see it in the economy or you start to see it in the economy, like people say in 2007 when the real estate crisis was hitting and you can see the federal reserve and everyone in utter denial that there was a downturn. Now is there something like that right now?
That’s certainly not a multi-trillion dollar market with leverage built on top like the mortgage, the real estate industry was in this country 2007. Look yeah I don’t see something imminent that’s gonna cause this downturn in the economy or something that I’m freaking out about per se but what I don’t like is everybody being complacent. I don’t like the fact that my first talk at the money show was called bubbles, frauds and scams your stock market themes for 2018 and the room had maybe 100 people in it. I talked for 30 minutes about being cautious and how there are, especially in the blockchain there are so many scams, crypto currency scams. Every time you see an app for the next bitcoin you should be scared because often the guy who’s promoting that next bitcoin is being paid with those coins that he’s then promoting to you and selling to you just like a block chain penny stock that changes it’s name from long island iced tea or riot to block chain something and the stock goes up 500 or 1000% and those people are probably insiders or simply flipping those shares to you. So look there’s scams and frauds, I’m not saying long island and riot are scams, I’m not saying they’re not either do your homework, I certainly wouldn’t touch any of that stuff, penny stock block name changing stocks with a 10 foot pole. I do believe in block chain, there’s gonna be some great block chain investments and a lot of money to be made in block chain and in the block chain revolution in coming years but now’s not the time to do it and that’s the point but my talk the other day and people were like “yeah, all right, okay.”
The next day I give a talk that is called the block chain revolution and the great crypto currency crash. Standing room only, hundreds of people, can’t get in the room. I spent 45 minutes talking about why they should be really scared right now and not buying bitcoin or … I bought bitcoin at 100$, I took it as payment as 100$ each back five years ago at tradingwithcody.com and I’m selling those bitcoins now, I’ve been selling them since they were at 2000, I’m still selling them. All the way up, all the way down, I’ll sell them a little bit every week while I can, while they’re up 200 fold from where I bought them. Or they’re up 100 fold from where I bought them. I don’t think you should be on the other side of that buying them or loading up on it or something, it’s a frenzy.
You don’t have the great buying opportunities in block chain and bitcoin and crypto currency. The buying opportunities aren’t happening when companies are changing their names and going up 500%. So I finished that talk and everybody follows me out, dozens of people follow me out of the room, everybody’s talking to me, talking to me. By the way I mentioned five block chain related crypto currency stuff that I would think, I have a tiny bit of and I’m not selling all of my bitcoin, I do, I’m gonna hold a little bit of bitcoin forever. There’s four or five others I’d mess with.
Ethereum’s not a bad one, stellar is one I like recently, seeing stuff being built on it. But I just, look when it’s clear that there’s greed and a frenzy going on I just don’t think that most people should be buying bitcoins and thinking it’s gonna work out that well for themselves. So I finished that talk and as I’m trying to leave and get in an Uber or whatever a lady, a sweet old woman probably 75, 80 years old and her husband walk up, they’re dressed very nice, pearl earrings she says “Cody, I listened to your talk, I heard everything you just said but my question is, should I maybe buy one bitcoin for my grand children?” Did you listen to anything I just said?
I don’t know, the point being guys when it’s frenzy, when it’s bubbalicious, whether this is the top or not I don’t know and if you think you can get in and out, more power to you but I don’t think that’s a sustainable way for the average retail investor to build wealth, by buying crypto currencies in February 2018 blindly. So all of that, the wrap up, that whole vibe at the retail investor oriented money show was complacency, greed, or … yearning for some big gains and I just, that’s not, you know five years ago at the money shows it wasn’t like that, it was empty, this place was packed. Just be aware of the cycles and just be aware that you should probably be more cautious right now than you were two years ago, even if there’s still a bubble blowing bull market dynamics that are filling this stock market and pushing us higher. Just trim a little, put on a few hedges, don’t go load up on bitcoins.
All right, I’m gonna take some questions. I just realized Piper, you’re gonna have to invite people to get on there, see if that’ll work. Anybody on the conference call here that would like to chime in, and/or on the app I’m inviting you to chime in, I’m taking some questions. I’m sure there’s some in my chat room here, let’s get over to the chat room. I forgot to tell you guys that you could call in to the conference call number like I always do. Here we go, I want to tell everybody yes I’m alive on the app not on YouTube right now, couldn’t figure out how to get logged in, I think we were doing it, operator error. Ask me anything in here right now too.
Subscriber: Cody, you made an outstanding range call on bitcoin when you said it would go from, range from 13,000 to 5,000 several weeks ago. Many quote unquote crypto industry pros are claiming that the bottom is in even though most all coins will probably go to zero as you predicted Cody. Do you think bitcoin has been the worst of the great crypto currency crash is already done?
Cody: Yeah that’s a good question there gambler15 — which I think is funny username on Trading with Cody because we try not to gamble. Maybe you were being ironic. Irony is not dead despite the fact that Taco Bell’s former CEO is now Chipotle’s CEO. Maybe irony is dead.
No I don’t think the bottom is in bitcoin — I think that it’s still a frenzy man. It’s not like it’s gonna be, the bottom’s not gonna put it all in near term. When you have got scams and frenzies and this mania going on in bitcoin crypto currencies, when you’re getting ad after ad on Wall Street Journal market watch, Yahoo! Finance, any financial related website I’m on I’ve got an ad for someone telling me crypto genius or the next great crypto or the next bitcoin and that’s … until that stuff’s dead this bubble’s still bubbled. So as I wrote in that book the great crypto currency crash I think it’ll be a year or two. Over the next year or two, maybe 25, 30 months here you’re gonna have a lot of pain. Right now it’s still too early probably, there’s still 10s of billions of dollars being spent on scamming or promising people that this stuff is gonna work and sort of like the .com thing that I write about in that book, the parallels are there.
At some point a lot of these current iterations of crypto currencies and block chain companies are gonna go to zero even if they’re not scams.They’re built on an artificial bubble or they’re all, there’s 10s of billions of dollars being spent on conferences that are putting this stuff together and all that stuff is there right now, it’s percolating and there will be pain and losses I expect and ugliness and that’s the time, somewhere in the next year to three years I do expect you’ll have some really ugly bottom put in, in some crypto currencies.
The best way to tell when that bottom is here is I won’t be getting questions about is the bottom in. The question will be Cody are you crazy for buying crypto currencies, that’s what you want. Nobody’s telling you you’re crazy for buying crypto currencies right now. The grandmother and grandfather at the money show are asking me if they should be buying crypto currencies, they should think that’s insane. They didn’t know what a crypto currency was when I bought bitcoin at 100, now they’re asking me if they should be buying it, no man. I just, no I don’t think the bottom’s in, you gotta let the pain come and let the losses come and please people out there be careful with your money, you don’t have to be ones who get swindled. Even if you believe in block chain put a little bit in, it’s okay, put a little more the next time it’s down 20% in a day, it’ll happen a lot.
Subscriber: Cody, I gave in to my emotions and I sold all of my positions last week. What should I do now?
Cody: Oh, man. First off, don’t panic again since you panicked last week. Remember when I sent out several notes telling you guys remember what it felt like last time the market was down 10% in a straight line and you wanted to panic? If you did it is what it is so let’s address it. You panicked last week, you’re out of your stocks, even your Trading With Cody stocks that we’ve owned for five or 10 years that are up hundreds or thousands of percent. If you sold them all, you gotta just slowly start, you gotta just, pretend you’re a new subscriber, what I’ve been telling new subscribers is simply this. Start slowly, maybe buy one third, if you had $1,000,000 in the market last week and you sold all of it, maybe put 100 grand to work initially here. Buy one third of your five favorite stocks and then maybe add another one third of another five stock and then add another one third of each of those stocks that you already bought and do it in traunches and start slowly. Don’t be in a rush and don’t regret, you can’t look back, it is what it is and just deal with it.
I will tell you this that there’s always someone who’s got an even worse scenario than you. I give Trading with Cody subscriptions by the way to any active military soldier, anybody active in the military or anybody who’s a first responder, police or fire, just send an email to support@tradingwithcody.com, let us know that you’re a first responder or a soldier and that you want a free subscription, we’ll send it to you no problem forever as long as you’re active. One of those subscribers wrote me last week and he had, apparently he had been trading the TVIX and one of those VIX vehicles, two or three times levered VIX vehicles that measures, basically in that moment, trading fear on leverage. The Vic’s is sort of a fear gauge, it’s how much, measures sort of how much people who are trying to hedge their portfolios by buying puts are paying in premium and … among other things but you’re measuring fear amongst active traders really is what the VIX is. Then doing it two or three times up, you’re levering that and what a shocker that whole thing went haywire when the market crashed, even blipped three or four percent down and…
Anyway this subscriber was hit hard. A big chunk of change and my advice to him was the same thing, was just start slowly. You can’t look back, put some money in that account that you can put to work, don’t be greedy. Don’t think that you can suddenly get your positions right back or that you can, if some of our stocks have moved five, 10, 15% since you sold them well that’s okay, it’s all right, it’s not about the last 10 days, it’s not about that last five, 10 or the next five, 10, 15%. You are talking about the next 10,000 days of your life when you are investing. Always remember that, that’s 30 years, your time horizon is 30 years of maximizing the potential rewards and upside in your portfolio and minimizing the risks and downside.
Subscriber: Cody, I’ve done a little trimming today from what I bought at the panicky lows a couple weeks ago, are you adding any additional hedges here?
Cody: I’m not, I haven’t done yet, I go get trade alert as a Trading with Cody subscriber if I do put on another hedge. I did trim some solar edge today, stock that we own, it’s like I mentioned earlier up 25% today and up three or 400% since we bought it and I think cash is king right now, I’ve been bringing in some cash on some of my projects and I’m not putting that to work, I’m letting it sit on the sidelines and trading with Cody subscribers know that I’ve been trimming some and building up my cash hedge for the last couple years. No I think hedges are great and I probably will add some more puts at some point but for now I’m still mostly net long, my revolution investing stocks and not trying to gain the short term quick volatility moves in the markets. I might put a little more hedge on at some point though if we rally back towards the recent highs.
Subscriber: What sort of approach do we take now Cody? Is it time to get rid of a large amount of our stocks because investors will flee from stocks sometime soon or can we expect a rocky road for the foreseeable future, in which case we should keep playing the same game. In short are we at the precipice of a cliff or apocalypse? If you like even more drama.
Cody: Trading With Cody subscribers have some humor. Maybe not the best humor, I mean we’re not exactly on Saturday Night Live over here. Although, frankly that joke was funnier than anything I’ve seen on Saturday Night Live in a while too. That wasn’t a pro republican, pro trump comment. I am anti-republicans and anti-democrats as always and if you ever say anything about a show that is anti-Trump in this day and age everybody’s like “oh the guy must be from the liberal left …” I’m not from the liberal left. I don’t understand the left right paradigm. I don’t think people on the left are actually liberal and I don’t think people on the right are actually conservative. Trump ain’t conservative and he’s not an outsider and if you’re part of the republican democrat regime including voting for them, you’re an insider, but I digress.
Back to the question, are we on the precipice of a cliff or apocalypse? Maybe. I don’t think so but at some point there will be a crash, there will be another crisis, there will be a financial crisis. There are banks out there right now doing really stupid stuff that is going to result in hundreds of billions of dollars of losses at some point. From some currency stuff, or some levered up mortgage back security, derivative stuff or some derivatives off of crypto currencies or who the heck knows but you know it’s happening.
Again, when their government, the Federal Reserve and everybody’s gone, “We have fixed the banking sector. It’s much stronger than it ever was back in the olden days,” that’s not really how it works. They’re going to get caught off-guard. Whether that’s next month for next year or five years, different discussion. It will happen. I don’t think it’s next month. I think it could happen in the next year or two.
I’m going to have my ear on the ground and my nose to the ground and my eyes to the sky. You can really get too far along in metaphors if you’re not careful. We don’t want to shoot from half-court though the next crash. We want to have had some layups. That’s it. Forget the metaphors.
No, I don’t know that it’s the right here right now about to be a crash. Just be careful out there, kind of like a lightsaber. Please. Props. Lightsabers are always good props. We don’t have to go to the dark side right now and get short. Forget it. I’m tired of the metaphors, trying to stretch the metaphors. I quit.
Subscriber: Cody, I’ve read several news stories. I’ve read several news stories about the higher than expected inflation report today and the market shaking it off and going higher. Cody, are we back to risk on short-term?
Cody: I mean, it’s really the same as the last question. I don’t even know. I don’t think so. I think the recent near-term spike and volatility indicates that the market at best is probably sideways bound for a little while. Just because the economy’s going great, just because corporate earnings are growing, just because all of that stuff is happening doesn’t mean that the market’s bulls will just keep this steady as she goes gradual climb higher.
I happen to think that there’s more volatility ahead here. I wouldn’t think it might be time for the bulls to get scared a little bit but then the bears aren’t going to get paid either. That would just mean maybe two to 5% swings back and forth in the market for the next six months. That would be my feet-to-fire near term guess. The best way to profit off that, put your money in a savings account and chill out.
Subscriber: Hi, Cody. You haven’t already addressed this. Going forward as opposed to going backward, what are your thoughts on inflation and what rate rises and what rate … What are your thoughts on inflation and the rate raises to tamp it down? Can the market handle rates if corporate earnings continue to grow due to a favorable administration environment?
Cody: This would be a Republican asking the question, if I had to guess. I don’t know. If you’re relatively objective (which his oxymoronic) but if you’re a relatively objective Democrat, you might say, “I recognize that the Republicans are doing a lot of the same stuff that the Democrats and the Republicans have been doing for the last 20 to 30 years and they’re favorable to try in corporations.” Obamacare was not for the people, you know? Obamacare, the bill, was written by corporate lobbyists from the healthcare industry, all of whom stocks, all of whose stocks … If you’re in the healthcare industry in Obamacare, your stock went up 500% in the next five years.
You want to talk about providing healthcare to individuals. Let’s talk about, but that’s not Obamacare. At any rate, Obamacare, very friendly to protect corporations as is the current administration. At any rate the question is back about the same topic that, yes, inflation isn’t going to kill the bull market. I think it’ll be some sort of a dislocation in the stock market or in rates or in currencies or something that those banks are out there levered, making crazy security things on that will cause the next downturn, not the gradual higher, gradual higher interest rate market environment.
Most economists, when you hear them debate, are theologians. It’s like they get locked in some dogmatic philosophy. My morality dictates I should be conservative so then they end up seeing the entire world of economics through a conservative lens. Again, I don’t even know what conservative means in this day and age. I don’t know what liberal means. If you vote Republican or Democrat, you’re corporatists. You’re not Liberal. You’re not Conservative. And maybe that’s part of the problem, is you get captured in corporatist thinking as an economist in this day and age. You listen to guys on TV arguing about the Trump administration versus the Obama administration.
I honestly just get confused because you’re just sort of … If you can step out and look at just sort of the economic impact of all of the policies that I’ve seen enacted and if you even look at the morality of it, you see it being written by corporations and I don’t think …No matter whether I’m Liberal or Conservative, left or right, I don’t think on a moral basis, I don’t want my government being run and my laws being written, my tax code being written by corporate attorneys. I’m bringing all of that up because it ties into the concept of does inflation tamp down stock markets and can the stock market go up as there’s inflation?
I argued on Kudlow and company on CNBC probably 12 or 15 years ago many times for deflation as the average person in rural or inner city America who’s living paycheck to paycheck would have huge benefits, immediate benefits to the purchasing power growing every year instead of decreasing every year. Deflation would mean you can buy more soup and more grapes and more clothes and more gasoline, more computers, et cetera. Computer’s deflationary price or computers and cell phones and data, steady cellular decline throughout our lifetimes, not so for health insurance, healthcare, education, things that, by the way, guess what, the government are involved. Government always gets corrupted. Free market sometimes gets corrupted too.
Is there an easy answer in my own personal way of looking at all of this as objectively as I possibly can? Yeah, there are. It’s freedom. I guess end up somewhat being somewhat … I hate to say this, a little bit Libertarianesque in my philosophies on economics. I have confused myself and rambled on against about probably nothing valuable at this moment. Any other questions? There’s nothing else here in the chatroom.
Subscriber: Hi Cody, with interest rates on the rise what do you think about investing in a local bank ETF?
Cody: There’s another question from the same subscriber, I’m coming back to that. I don’t like ETFs in general except as hedges. Trading With Cody subscribers know to buy some IWM and spy puts on January 29th or January 30th I think is when I started buying them and I might use those for hedges. But in general if I’m going to find and invest in stock I want to find the best, in this case local bank, I wouldn’t go on a collection of local banks that someone else picked out, I want to go find a great local bank that I like, that I like the management, that’s cheap, that’s an incredible opportunity.
Jim Rogers I think is the one who said in his book that his best investment opportunities have been the times when he waited until there was a bag of gold in the room and all he had to do was pick it up and walk out with it, when the opportunity is so obvious. So again I don’t see any opportunities like that right now per se, just wild great opportunities loading up on stocks like we were maybe in 2010 or 2011 and that’s okay, we can be slow. Going back to your question I wouldn’t have a problem investing in a local bank basically probably at any point in the cycle as long as I really liked the company, really liked the management at that bank, knew the bank, knew the community, etc.
Subscriber: With GE down below $15, do you think it is a good buy?
Cody: I will tell you the same thing I answered when it was down to $18 and I had this question a month ago, no. No reason to rush it, no reason to be greedy, just be cool, be patient. GE has got so many problems and frankly it might be a good trade here but I never think it’s gonna be a revolution investment, too many cockroaches there if nothing else.
Subscriber: Cody, does Apple potentially buying chips from a Chinese manufacturer thinks long-term potential and cut into Western Digital pie?
Cody: No. Answer is no. Flash storage, storage in general, DRAM even but in this case, flash drives, data storage has gotten to be an oligopoly. This comes back to the bubble-blowing bull market dynamics that you see from the Republican-Democrat regime. When they have allowed most every industry to roll up all of its competitors to the point where most every industry is in an oligopolical state as it is, for example in data storage when there’s only three to five competitors in any given industry, margins go up.
Cyclicality decreases. Not to mention the fact that it usually just cost billions or maybe a few hundred million dollars to go build some data storage chip stuff factories and several billion dollars now. That’s one of the reasons I own Western Digital, a recent purchase at Trading with Cody subscriber. Go to tradingwithcody.com. See all of my traders selling latest positions, long and short.
Subscriber: Cody, what do you think about IMPINJ, PI, the stocks and like its current level? Is there still a growth story behind the name?
Cody: Look, PI is an RFID, radio frequency identification company, little tags that you can track inventory of things on. I’ve moved on. I lost faith in the management of PI and when that happens, I typically just move right along.
Subscriber: Cody, do you think CRM Salesforce looks attractive as a takeover target for corporations wanting to toe up in the cloud?
CRM, let’s see what the market cap is at this point. 80. 8-0 billion dollars. Now, let’s talk about how the companies on the planet could possibly buy CRM. You’re going to have to pay 50% premium minimum. $80 billion. The P/E ratio according to Google is 15,000. It’s wrong because their earnings are higher than that but look, guys. $80 billion means we’re going to have to pay $120 billion if you wanted to buy that company. How many companies on the planet could pay $120 billion? Not a lot. So no, I don’t think CRM is a M&A target in any way, shape, or form. The short answer to your question is no I don’t think CRM is an acquisition target.
Subscriber: Question about cyber security stocks and best ways to play that sector.
Cody: I’ll tell you right now, my favorite pure play in the cyber security world is Palo Alto Networks. It is a stock that has not moved much in the last year so, and frankly I think it might be pent up. Without a doubt cyber security and protecting networks, especially inside of giant corporations is paramount right now, so if you can find a company like Palo Alto that is a great, great huge margins, fast growing, maybe the defacto standard. It’s sort of, you can’t go wrong with big blue back in the 50’s and 60’s you can’t go wrong with Palo Alto right now.
Subscriber: Cody what do you think of Shopify?
Cody: Shop stock here, look it’s another one that’s a huge grower, the valuation has been stretched for a long time, I’ve never been comfortable with the management and or the way they get people in to the system and if you recall Jeffrey Citron, whatever the guys name is, Citron capital, Jeffrey Luck? I don’t remember, anyway he’s written about that and I don’t know if he’s still short it right now. But I’m not a fan of Shopify enough that I would buy the stock, I wouldn’t short it either but I don’t own it or use it.
Google: Do you want to activate Google Voice?
Cody: I just accidentally hit the microphone button on Google search on my chrome browser. I’m like, wait, you guys are already listening to enough. Alexa, Stop listening. Oh, does that actually work? Alexa, are you there?
Alexa: Yes, I’m here. I listen once I hear the wake word.
Cody: Liar. How do you hear the wake word without listening? I call BS, Alexa. That is nonsense. You cannot start listening when you hear the wake word unless you’re listening to hear the wake word.
I’m hungry and getting tired now. I’ve been talking for 45 minutes. I hope I made a lot of sense. I, in the last week, have been in Dallas, Orlando, New York City, LA, Albuquerque, Ruidoso. I will leave you with this thought. Nobody is scared and I’m not one to take a lot of advice from Warren Buffett because after all, he’s a guy who used to come on my show and send his son to come on to my show on Fox begging for bailout back 2008 because he wasn’t fearful when others were greedy. They would tell you to be fearful when others are greedy and there’s probably some wisdom in that thought.
I just don’t think there’s very much fear out there. Maybe we should be greedy the next time there’s fear but to start with, we need to be fearful while others are greedy. Can we relatively, objectively … relatively objective, was it? Can we relatively, objectively come to some sort of an agreement that we all 100% buy into? This is contradicting. I should talk about stocks. That’s what we do, right? We contradict ourselves. It could go up and it could go down. Near term, lots of positives. Long-terms, you should be scared. Short-term, buy but just a little, that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody’s got the magic potion. Nobody’s got … There’s no easy money except buying cryptocurrency at $100 five years ago, which was not easy. It’s never easy.
With that, I’m going to wrap it up. All right, that’s it. I’m going to go eat some lunch. Taco time. Peace.
