AM Brew, May 23rd 2022

Biden comments on potentially reversing Trump China tariffs have bouyed markets: equity futures, oil, precious metals and Bitcoin are up 1% across the board in AM pre-markets.

Biden actually had a lot to say: he also said that the US would defend Taiwan if military action was taken but he also voiced support for Chinese sovereignty - we suspect that has probably told the US government "WE ARE GOING TO TAIWAN SOON", and that the US Government is privately urging the Chinese to buy Taiwan, not invade. Given that approximately 40% of Taiwanese are already in favor of combining with the mainland, a 5-year zero tax holiday should do the trick. We are staying away from all Taiwanese securities, but this scenario could be bullish as it would remove a lot of uncertainty if it were to happen.

The Euro caught a well-needed bid after LaGarde said that the ECB will start raising rates. VMWare was up as Broadcom is rumored to buy VMWare.

Bloomberg is using DeMark analysis to echo our sentiments from last week that the markets are awaiting confirmation of a reversal:

Risk markets "feel" a bit safer to us, after weeks of severe pain:

• Bitcoin has support around $30,000

• Sentiment and market-polls are quite negative & almost nobody is positive

• Option expiration and negative gamma issues are in the rear-view-mirror

• A lot of stocks are reasonable to buy, and a few of our "kidna-cheap" mentions from last week are doing well after positive news: FL & DECK. Thus market tone seems ok. Tone would be bad if everything was dropping.

• Oil not breaking above $115 is positive in the short term - two months of flat oil prices is good.

• There seem to be 2 markets now: Tech and everything else. Tech looks like its in the 7th inning of a slaughter. Other sectors like Banks, Homebuilders, Consumer Staples look ok, some even cheap ( banks, homebuilders but not staples ).

• Large cap tech names are near the bottom, although its possible they could slide another 15%. Either way, they are near the bottom and they will grow revenues and profits 15% quickly enough to reverse any near-term stock pain.

• Now is a good time to sell put premium on your favorite names, as prices are down and vol is high.

• We are now seeing deflation in used car prices, and we should start seeing that in home prices too. Food prices should continue to rise, but energy is possibly topping here, which would be a god-send if energy has topped. Apartment rents continue to rise unreasonably in the spring real estate season. These tiny green shoots of deflation are slightly bullish.

• Our contacts are telling us that supply chain issues will take years to fix and that its different this time. Usually supply chain issues are fixed in 12 to 18 months. That said, the supply chain is not worsening, which is bullish.

We don't know whether we are in the 5th inning of this bear market or the 8th, but its increasingly appearing that we could have a nice 5% bounce upward from these levels. Any trading bounce should be seen as a chance to take profits - the world is not good yet.

In Friday's post, re-testing the lows, we did a good job of commenting at a critical level (i.e. the lows), but we completely missed what was ultimately a good short-term long entry.

Crude is probably the most crucial input to today's economy. Crude is trading at the top of its range, but has failed to break out on the upside. Rangebound crude would be moderately bullish, a fall in crude would be significantly bullish, and a break above the $115 range would be quite bearish: