Flash sells out...and buys in... yet again

Will he ever learn?

Very nasty trading indeed but Flash is dropping in a few long equity positions.

He bought some BA at 115, some Game Group at 150, some Firstgroup at 490, some Royal Bank of Scotland at 100, and some more Kingfisher at 130. He also picked up some BT at 142. All, with the exception of RBS, showing a bit of a profit.

And yesterday evening, and again this morning he sold some gold and reinstated a EUR/USD short from around the 1.37 mark.

So far so good. Not trading the indices yet - he wants to see a more sustained rally before he burns any more cash there.

And, pasted below - here are his current thoughts on gold and USD as posted to the paddypowertrader blog (with acknowledgements to people in the know who have helped him think this through).

"Long term, broadly speaking, I’m still very bullish on USD, for the reason that a lot of emerging market economies have expanded on the basis of buying up cheap USD-denominated assets and using cheap dollars as a source of funds to expand lending. Now that liquidity/credit is tightening, and growth is rapidly slowing, they are selling off dollar denominated assets and scambling to call in lending- USD foreign exchange reserves held by overseas governments are falling. PLus EM currencies are tumbling all over the shop - partly because commodity prices are falling, demand for exports is slowing, and so their economies can’t make so much cash in real terms, so the prospects look really dire for them.

In this environment, and especially with a shrinking US trade deficit, my reading is that the dollar becomes stronger - remember that US weakness is RELATIVE to weakness everywhere else, and in my view, the weakness pretty well everywhere else (partly as a result of sub-prime etc in the US) is set to get worse. In the US however, taxpayer bailouts notwithstanding (and interestingly, everywhere else is now going down this road, so we;re all in the brown stuff) there are the beginnings in place for some sort of recovery, especially as inflation is going to go almost to zero in the next 12 months, because of recession/demand destruction/contraction in output.

So that then leads to gold. It’s hard to see how gold can go up, other than with short term panic bursts of trading like we’ve seen over the last week, when the rest of the commodity environment is so disinflationary. PLus if the dollar strengthens I agree that gold will become more expensive here relative to the dollar (and I expect sterling and euro to tank even more in the next few months as recession really bites), but that doesn’t mean that the PRICE of gold, denominated in USD will go up. In fact I’m expecting it to fall. A lot. So my view remains resolutely long USD, short gold, and then trickling in a bit of long equity over the next few weeks and months.

But of course I could be wrong…….

THe opposing view says that the bailouts are deeply inflationary. I’m not quite sure I buy that argument - I think the rate cuts signal a shift away from a single-track focus on inflation towards looking at the downside risks of outright recession. And I think that the downshift in house prices, commodity prices and even - likely real terms wages as the labour market becomes tighter and more competititve- should stave off some of the inflationary pressure. Demand is more than muted, it’s almost utterly destroyed. Of course the flipside of currency devauation against USD for EUR, GBP, and even more worrying places like Iceland and Russia will be deeply inflationary - but that in a way will just strengthen demand for ‘hard’ currency like the dollar. Hence dollars retain their value. And remember, if we take a historical view, gold is still trading near its recent mega highs and the dollar is not that far off some of its lows. I’m still gunning for EUR/USD parity, especially if the slowdown in Europe (especially southern and eastern europe) turns into something even nastier, which seems entirely possible to me.

And I can see that in an environment of outright bust gold would have an appeal - but I expect a slow, painful bottoming out rather than outright bust.

So this morning I sold some gold and reinstated a EUR/USD short. I wonder if I’ll be able to hold it through the volatility…"