Last week produced a list of “Bullish” news so extensive, I don’t recall seeing anything quite like it in many years. I’m writing a list to organize my thoughts with the goal of revisiting everything later on. Perhaps there is something to be learned here. Only time will tell.
To me, it looks like sentiment is completely euphoric and speculation is rampant. While this kind of excess can sometimes keep going and get even more extreme, one thing is clear: we’ve come a long way from the dark days of December.
- Major Wall Street banks are “telling clients to be ready for a sudden rip higher in the market.” The banks “highlighted the possibility of a rapid, surprise jump in the stock market known as a ‘melt-up,’ driven by investors looking to get in on a positive momentum shift.” (CNBC, May 1). The banks recommend playing the melt-up with call options, “the best risk-adjusted way to add beta”.
- Several Wall Street strategists increased their S&P target prices simultaneously this week. The most stunning move was a strategist who had the second lowest target, jumped overnight to having the second highest target.
- Tech “Unicorns” are flooding the market with a huge number of IPOs. The unicorns have incinerated billions of Dollars of private equity money over the last decade, operating in low barrier-to-entry markets with little chance of ever making money. Many unicorns even say this in their prospectus, telling investors they may never turn a profit.
- Beyond Meat, a company that makes plant-based meat substitutes started trading this week, its stock rose +163% on the first day of trading, making it the best-performing IPO since the financial crisis.
- The SoftBank Vision Fund, perhaps the biggest private equity fee-generating bagholder scheme of all time, is “considering audacious fundraising plans, including a public offering of its $100 billion investment fund and the launch of a second fund of at least that size, as it looks to seize on an exploding startup scene”. Audacious may not be the best word to describe this plot.
- Louis Dreyfus, a family-controlled company that has been private for 168 years, is suddenly holding talks with potential investors to sell equity stakes.
- Almost every major financial media source/website published a “DON’T Sell in May” article this week.
- Berkshire Hathaway revealed it has finally bought stock in Amazon. Warren Buffett himself regretted publicly years ago that he “missed” the opportunity to buy shares early in the company’s history. All of a sudden the most traditional, disciplined value investor in history has capitulated and bought into the most consensus growth story of this investment era. The decision was likely influenced by his lieutenants, who have been moving towards tech investing in recent years.
- On May 6 (today) the CME will launch Micro E-Mini futures for the S&P, Nasdaq, Dow and Russell indexes, offering a product for small retail traders to access index futures. Historically, the launch of new futures products have coincided with some major turning points in markets. The most recent case was Bitcoin futures, which started trading December 2017 just five days before the cryptocurrency topped and fell -84%. Other examples include Uranium futures in May 2007, almost the exact day of the top, after which prices fell -88%. Gold futures debuted December 1974 less than 0.80% from the final top, after which Gold fell -44% over the next 2 years.
- Businessweek magazine just put Microsoft’s CEO on the cover, displayed as a heavenly figure surrounded by clouds, captioned “The Miracle of Microsoft” and proclaiming “The greatest tech company of the 1990s is back!”. Previously, the last stock featured on the cover of BW was Boeing on February 19 2018 (“Up. Way Up. How Boeing seized the sky”), after which the stock spent ten months plunging five different times.
Macro Charts 