How To Short Trump The Wrecking Ball

If you believe as I do that our President is still bad news for stocks, go short a bunch of bad acting growthies that already stand beat up and bleeding profusely. Some properties are already down hundreds of points from their highs of a year ago but nobody cares. 

Yes! There are a few sturdy performers like Coca-Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Caterpillar Tractor, Costco and J. P. Morgan, but look at the damage surrounding them. Tesla has shed 150 points past 12 months. Microsoft has dropped nearly $200 from its high and Home Depot lost around 100. American Express is shabby and Boeing acts like dirt. 

Don’t ask about IBM. Remember when IBM was termed a safe family growthie, but those days are gone, best forgotten. Its dive doesn’t get much mention for what was once nearly a religious long holding. 

Traditional investment portfolios run by banks and other polite investors remain at a 60/40 percent ratio of stocks to bonds. I’m talking decades so it's unlikely to change overnight even though challengeable today. I’m 35% long in anti Trump stocks like Amazon, Goldman Sachs and even Apple. But, there is no such thing as a safe growth stock any longer. Properties like Microsoft, Tesla and Meta stand at least 100 points below their highs of a year ago.

I expect to stick under-invested, until Trump, the wrecking ball, takes his hands off the power button. One night I dreamed of a beautiful vegetable farm, fully illustrated on my huge, bedside TV screen. 

This bucolic scene actually terrorized me. Why is a 94-year-old stock market operator dreaming of a vegetable farm? I’m a financial man, not a farmer watering his produce in full bloom. I deal in numbers not blooms. I crave tech stories, not peach trees. 

So I kept my fingers crossed and added to my Apple, Goldman Sachs and Amazon positions. I own rich man’s stocks that sell in the hundreds. Let Buffett deal in Coca-Cola. I added to my high growth construct. Let somebody else worry about sky high energy quotes. But was my vegetable garden dream telling me there are fertile fields elsewhere? Maybe yes, but to hell with such vegetable matter. 

I’m a buyer of stocks, not carrots and peas. So I started to screen big capitalization stock lists for good-acting stocks. Then, to my surprise, I found plenty of good acting paper right under my nose. Not the small companies, but big capitalization properties that hardly get any mention in the financial press although they’ve been big winners throughout Trump’s craziness. 

Lemme start with Costco, ticking near $1,000 up from its 52-week low of $844 and just 6% below its recent high. You woulda slept well with Costco which gets scant mention as a growth retailer of consumer staples and trades near its high as does Pepsico. All the major banks, JPM, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley trade near their highs with scant mention. Amazon is one of the best acting growth stocks but no active mentioning. Moving into industrials, Deere trades nearly 200 points above its 12-month low.  

Dow trades near its high, a double off its 12-month low. Hardly anyone mentions Caterpillar more than a 12-month double trading near its high. 

With the exception of Boeing, the machinery stocks are real silent winners, Caterpillar ahead 500 points. Yes! Some 500. Consider, Tesla rests 150 points below its 12-month high, trades 70 million shares daily and goes nowhere. Microsoft still ticks nearly 200 points off high ground. 

Oil futures, trading near par, doubled while Exxon Mobil went ahead just 50 percent. IBM is a trading mess, also 100 points off its 12-month peak. Nobody cares to hold Home Depot, also 100 points below peak.

But, if you substitute Caterpillar and Costco for IBM and Microsoft you’d attain genius caliber. I got high tech right.  I’m not a farm boy. Don’t do Caterpillar and Deere which were great acting stocks. As for Costco, ticking around $1,000, what else did you have to know except the non-durables sector of the market holds up when recessionary forces are in play, likely to endure.