“Nobody cares, work harder.”
-Cameron Hanes
My “vacay” ended yesterday. For me, vacation rarely means what many would consider an “ideal” or super cool and “relaxing vacay”… you know, completely “unplugging”… “sleeping in”… and waiving at boats while sipping from a coconut, or whatever.
On my family “vacay” I rarely sleep past 515AM. My mind wakes up earlier than that. So I get up when my family is sleeping and I work. Why? I love working (and most golf courses won’t let me tee-off until 7AM!).
The aforementioned quote comes from one of the worlds hardest grinders. David Goggins calls him the hardest working man on earth and in the Foreword to his book that I read on “vacay”: Endure – How To Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering, Joe Rogan praises Cameron Hanes like no other for his “insane dedication to fitness and his maniacal pursuit of perfection.”
How hard do you work? How much harder can you work? Are you “maniacal” or “perfect”?
I’m definitely far from perfect and many have argued that I have more than a few screws loose. #Agreed, but I will not apologize for either who I am or any mistake that I make playing The Game out loud in front of you. Win or lose, I will grind, grind, and grind.
Back to the Global Macro Grind…
Hopefully you all got the summary of my morning “vacay” grind yesterday. I told my teammates to send you my Top 3 Things in order to proactively prepare you for what I thought could be a big US stock market up day. Fortunately, it was.
Today, like most days in The Game, the table’s players are reset and the cards are re-shuffled. The Setup is ever-changing and this is what I just sent out to our Institutional Subscribers as the refreshed setup (which coincides with Refreshed Risk Ranges):
The Setup was there for a big bear market +1.4% bounce day in SPY, and we got it – now, not so much…
- FED – gotta love an America that depends on some dude saying whatever from Jackson Hole (not) – but it is what it is and The Setup (in rates and expected hikes pricing) is still for hawkish commentary with expected hikes at +5.21x (that’s 1.01x more hikes than post the last rate hike and the short-end, i.e. The Fed, is back towards Cycle Highs at 3.39% on 2s)
- OIL – the problem, of course, with any perceived “dovishness” from hawkish bond yield levels is that it doesn’t just reflate stocks to lower-highs, it reflates Commodities and Inflation! WTI is still Bearish @Hedgeye TREND in my model with TREND resistance around $99, but the immediate-term TRADE breakout level = $93.99, so I’m watching that closely
- SPY – The Setup for stocks yesterday was 3:1 upside vs. downside in my Risk Range with an implied vol PREMIUM – post a +1.4% ramp day, that setup is close to a fair fight on immediate-term upside/downside and a more capitulatory (short covering) implied vol DISCOUNT is back, albeit only at -1%, so whatever the “news” is perceived to be, I’m back to selling on green as I do
Don’t like how quickly I change my positioning? “Nobody cares…”
I’m serious too. The best part about my “vacay” is that I take VERY long run/walks and I think about how I can be both a better father/husband and CEO/Coach.
Hanes, Goggins, and Rogan all inspired me to care even less about what people think about what I am doing, how I am doing it, etc… and keep caring more and more about the results associated with what I am doing.
If my results suck, that’s the outcome – and I’ll be accountable to that. If I make money positioning net LONG for a few days while remaining more “bearish” on how this all ends than anyone you read, cool – I did my job.
“Vacay” is over. Inspired by Cameron Hanes, I’m just going to #KeepHammering.
Immediate-term Risk Range™ Signal with @Hedgeye TREND signal in brackets
UST 30yr Yield 3.04-3.35% (bullish)
UST 10yr Yield 2.72-3.17% (neutral)
UST 2yr Yield 3.17-3.41% (bullish)
High Yield (HYG) 75.35-78.51 (bearish)
SPX 4083-4287 (bearish)
NASDAQ 12,138-12,999 (bearish)
RUT 1 (bearish)
Tech (XLK) 140-151 (bearish)
Utilities (XLU) 74.73-78.44 (bullish)
Healthcare (PINK) 25.35-26.68 (bullish) `
Shanghai Comp 3 (bearish)
Nikkei 28,142-29,361 (bullish)
DAX 12,965-13,899 (bearish)
VIX 19.02-24.89 (bullish)
USD 105.54-109.75 (bullish)
EUR/USD 0.986-1.015 (bearish)
Oil (WTI) 85.47-95.71 (bearish)
Nat Gas 8.57-9.93 (bullish)
Gold 1 (bullish)
Copper 3.53-3.75 (bearish)
Bitcoin 20,103-23,713 (bearish)
Best of luck out there today,
KM
Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer
