Trade Alert: More longs and shorts + Market analysis

What a time to launch a new hedge fund! Markets getting pounded and I’ve been putting a little more money to work both long and short today. I do apologize for not writing with more details right now, but between the launch and my daughter being in the hospital and taking care of my family and then having the markets go nuts and opening up opportunities to slowly build positions…I’m doing the best I can with the writing. I assure you I’ll be back writing more details and analysis and outlining strategies when things settle down a bit. I know you long time subscribers know that already.

So with Apple’s warning that China sales have imploded yesterday taking the stock market down in a jittery sell-off coming on top of the 20%+ decline the Nasdaq and the 30%+ decline in Apple, believe it or not, I’m continuing to get a bit more bullish here. To be sure, if the next year is full of outright earnings declines (and not just a slowing of earnings growth) then there’s probably more downside to the markets. On the other hand, if everything works out as analysts are currently expecting — that there’s a slowing of earnings growth and not an outright decline in earnings in 2019 — there’s going to be some big upside in a lot of names out there that are being sold off hard right now.

Feet-to-fire guess for the stock market for January is that the markets actually rally here, led by tech? Yeah, I put a question mark there because I wouldn’t go crazy betting on a big rally just yet. There’s also the fact that valuations aren’t exactly screaming cheap yet too.

So here are most of the trades I’ve made today for the hedge fund (and to clarify, yesterday’s Trade Alert was for the hedge fund trades I made yesterday —  I haven’t traded my personal portfolio since the hedge fund launched). I’ve put the trades in alphabetical order with the longs on top and the shorts on bottom.

I bought some AAPL common and some Apple call options with strike prices 10-15% above the current quote dated out into July.

I bought some AMZN common.

I bought some INTC common.

I bought some NVDA common.

I bought some SNAP common stock and added to the Snap call options I’d bought yesterday, which are 10-15% above the current quote dated out to July.

I shorted some AVGO and bought AVGO put options with strike prices 10-15% below the current quote dated out into January 2020.

I shorted some IWM common.

I shorted some JD common.

I shorted a little more MTN common.

I shorted some TME common.

I’m still mostly in cash obviously but am putting money to work selectively here and will not be in any rush to swing for the fences. As always, let’s see what pitches the market throws at us and not just blindly swing the bat.