Taking a moment to look back

A casual writing piece before my baby is delivered

My Journey Of Trading SO FAR:

-I still remember buying my first stock. I was second year of school for a B.S. in Finance. You want to know what I did?? I bought a 12% dividend stock after researching dividend stocks on finviz.com.

MY thesis was that I would buy something that paid me significantly!

What did I learn? I learned about the risk involved with yield. 1-3% very safe, 3-7 % conservative, and 7-12% was considered very risky….anything above 12% is predator finance.

-My brother bought bitcoin at $300 and sold at near $20,000 (ATH at the time) in 2017. Every few weeks, he would tell me it was higher, I had no idea what it was. (age 20, yes I am 26) I later found out that my childhood friend had bought it prior of 2015 because his grandma gave him 1,000 to invest at 16-17 years old. I ended up buying the top of bitcoin around 17k and lost a few grand later on it.

I learned that I had no idea what I was doing.

I got a taste of trading!

FX trading

-I came upon FX trading. I ended up trading the EURUSD and JPY. I put on a carry trade for a while, taking a huge unrealized loss, but making $ on the carry.

A year or so later, I sold for a realized profit.

Stock trading

-I bought AAPL 0.00%↑ in February of 2019 42$ now) with 100k by accessing margin in TDA.

No I did not hold, I sold it for a scalp(Yes, I would have done very well to hold it and would have had very little drawdown)

Bonds

-In 2020, I learned about TLT 0.00%↑ . I went long TLT 0.00%↑ and short SPY 0.00%↑ right before the covid crash.

I made some very good $ by front-running the flight to safe-haven assets like Bonds.

Bitcoin

-I managed to raise $ and start a fund. We started buying bitcoin around $13,000 in late 2020. We soon added on Ethereum and some altcoins.

What a first year of professional money management!

Real Estate

-I analyzed the purchases of 5 major investment deals the past 4 years (8-9 figs.) I learned about the lender process(term sheets), appraisals, paperwork, maturities, rates, and price/cap rate/rents.

Easy right?

Treasuries

-In 2023, we began taking retained earnings and putting into a range of T-bills, mostly 1 year (Jan 2024)

This is to be determined if we bought the lows (highest yields)

There is always something to buy very couple years

What will happen going forward?

Back in 2017-2018, It was all about Powell, QT, and rates. We went on a pause, and we moved up 2019, followed by a crash in 2020. Money came falling from the sky, and the market/economy was supported from Covid/Lockdowns excuse to print money.

Inflation set it, they started raising rates, bitcoin/crypto, stocks sold, and treasuries sold.

With the rise in rates and QT in 2022, over-leveraged players got booted, Federal Reserve Banks got squeezed on unrealized losses, and Reverse Repo setting records.

Now there is Fed intervention with BFTP and swap lines for liquidity, yet they still raised rates by 25bps.

Is it enough? they are pulling two levers with neutral outcomes?

If the Federal Reserve Central bank unrealized losses of 2022 was about $600B, What about commercial/other banks? Is BFTP and swap lines enough to stem a liquidity crisis and crash?

My brave speculation:

What do I think? With these levers being pulled both ways, I project to see stagflation.

Stagflation is economically lower growth and elevated expenses relative to prior period of history. Something like 2019, Risk-on…

Keep in mind that Hedge Funds are record short and Bitcoin is in the midst of a short squeeze around $30,000…

Cheers,

traderhc

Disclaimer: This newsletter is not trading or investment advice, but for general educational purposes only. This newsletter represents my personal opinions which I am sharing publicly as my personal blog. Futures, stocks, bonds trading of any kind involves risk. I guarantee no profit, You assume the entire cost and risk of any trading you choose to undertake. You are solely responsible for making your own investment decisions. Owners of this newsletter, its representatives, its principals, its moderators, and its members, are NOT registered as securities broker-dealers or investment advisors either with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or with any other securities/regulatory authority. Consult with a registered investment advisor, broker-dealer, and/or financial advisor. Reading and using this newsletter or any of my publications, you are agreeing to these terms.