“He is able who thinks he is able.”
-Buddha
After taking a much needed week off, I’m back in the saddle this morning and ready to manage some risk. So let’s get at it - here’s where the Hedgeye Asset Allocation Model stands:
- Cash = 52% (down 6% week-over-week from 58%)
- Fixed Income = 33% (Long-term Treasuries and US Treasury Flattener – TLT and FLAT)
- International Equities = 9% (China and Germany – CAF and EWG)
- US Equities = 6% (Healthcare – XLV)
- International Currencies = 0%
- Commodities = 0%
Have we been able to change our exposures in order to reflect our Macro Themes? In some cases, yes. In others, not yet. There is a big difference between Risk Management and Research – it’s called timing.
A lot of people say you can’t time markets. We agree – by the looks of Q2 performance numbers out there, a lot of people can’t. But what if you could? Would you change?
In June we went 21 for 22 on closed positions in the Hedgeye Portfolio. That’s better than a swift kick in the Canadian bacon. That also lends credibility to the concept that timing markets within a band of probabilities is possible.
Did I get crushed on the first day of July? Big time. Do I plan on getting crushed every day this month? You tell me. Being Able To Change is critical to the Risk Management Process. Crush or be crushed.
So let’s get back to positioning…
Growth Slowing and Deflating The Inflation have been 2 big Research calls we’ve made in the last 6 months. In the Hedgeye Asset Allocation Model, that’s why I have such a large allocation to Fixed Income. Slowing growth and slowing inflation is good for bonds – and from some prices… in some countries… bad for stocks.
I’ll get back to stocks in a minute…
Fixed Income
- Fixed Income Exposure – on last week’s bond bombings, I took our allocation to its highest for 2011 YTD.
- Long-term Treasuries (TLT) – was a really good position to hold on the long side in Q2 2011. It was contrarian and it was right. To a degree, when 2-year US Treasury yields hit 0.34% during the thralls of June (and 10-year yields were trading consistently below 3%), being bullish on bonds because growth was slowing as inflation deflated was being priced in. For now, we’ll stay long TLT provided that our intermediate-term TREND line of support for 10 and 30 year yields don’t breakout above 3.24% and 4.38%, sustainably.
- US Treasury Flattener (FLAT) – another rock solid position for us in Q2 and we expect it to continue to be, provided that La Bernank cannot find a way to suspend gravity with another Fiat Fool Experiment to take the short end of the curve beyond the zero-bound. The all-time wide in 10s minus 2s = +293 basis points wide. The Q1 2011 average was +276 basis points wide. And this morning 10-year minus 2-year yields = +270 basis points wide. We’re looking for further compression in the 10s/2s spread over the intermediate-term TREND.
Now back to everyone’s favorite storytelling vehicle – stocks.
- Equities Exposure – for Hedgeye, a 15% asset allocation to Global Equities is actually relatively high for 2011! We’ve cut this exposure to a Japanese style ZERO percent more than a few times in 2011, but I doubt we’ll do it again. Why? China.
- China (CAF) – in the face of some borderline heated debates with the buy-side on the road for the last 6 weeks of Q2, we bought Chinese Equities on June 16th, 2011. We’re already up +9.86% on that position and while we fundamentally respect that bottoms are processes and not points, we think we may have bottom-ticked this major country market for the intermediate-term. We think Chinese Growth Fears are beyond exaggerated and that Chinese Inflation Slows in Q3/Q4 of 2011.
- Germany (EWG) – since the beginning of 2010, we have preferred long DAX versus long the SP500 and that’s been as right as the sun rising in the East. Like it did in 2010, the DAX continues to outperform the money honey loved SP500 (up +7.8% YTD in 2011). As it should - Germany, like most countries, has plenty of political baggage – but it isn’t long US Congress.
In terms of US Equities, people who think in boxes like to try to put Hedgeye in one. But guess what – we’re going to pop out of that box early every morning and annoy those people.
- Equities Exposure – having a ZERO percent asset allocation for parts of May and June was good. Why change the process if you don’t have to own something when it goes down for 7 of 8 weeks? Today, we’re at 6% and we can buy more. Yes We Can.
- Healthcare (XLV) – on January 3rd, 2011 when we introduced our “call” for the start of the year, we called out Healthcare and Energy as our 2 favorite S&P 500 Sectors. Those sectors are #1 and #2 for the YTD at +14.2% and +11.4%, respectively. So we do have it in us to pick the right ponies every once in a while on the long side – again, no boxes for Big Alberta please. He wears Lulu Lemon.
- SP500 (SPY) – obviously being short SPY isn’t an asset allocation call in our model, but people are going to hold me accountable to being short it right here and now – and they should. I was dead wrong with this position last week, and I’ll just thank my lucky Northern Lights that I covered all of our S&P Sector ETF shorts (Basic Materials, Energy, etc) a lot lower. What was intermediate-term TREND resistance in the SP500 (1314) is now support, and I have this short position on a very short leash.
From a Commodities and International Currency exposure perspective, we’ve sold everything (including Gold), so there’s nothing incremental to say about that other than to re-state the why. Our Global Macro Theme of Deflating The Inflation means there is no reason to be long The Commodity Inflation (or the currencies that back Commodity heavy countries) until we see our theme fully priced in.
Being Able To Change isn’t easy. Every day I challenge myself to consider being the change we all want to see in this profession. My immediate-term support and resistance ranges for Oil, the Shanghai Composite Index, and the SP500 are now $90.56-97.05, 2, and 1, respectively.
Best of luck out there this week,
KM
Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer
