Hi again,
March was a rocky month for the market but our portfolio gained (net) 7.24% in
March. Over the past 3 months, our portfolio had a net gain of over 28%. Look at
our scorecard.
Did you hear about the Silicon Valley Bank failure? If not, you were living under a
rock. I always have a small percentage of my portfolio in options; some as a hedge
and some to take advantage of a special situation that might arise in the future. I
never get in to short term options. Prior to March 2023, all Wall Street “pundits”
were saying that it is safe to invest in bank stocks. I did not expect bank failures but
I expected heavy loan losses for regional banks. On 4/21/22 I bought 2 put option
contracts on the Regional Bank ETF known as KRE and then again on 10/18/22, I
bought 2 more put options on KRE to short sell Regional Banks through KRE.
These options expire in 2024 and 2025. I did not expect to see loan losses till the
end of 2023; the latest. In fact, a week prior to the Silicon Valley Bank failure, I had
a paper loss of about 75% on my “short sell” put options. I expected that. Then
came the Silicon Valley Bank failure and KRE dropped from $60 to $42 in about 10
days! On Friday, 3/10/23, I had an average “paper gain” of about 50% but I did not
sell any of my put options. Next Monday, 3/13/23, panic grew, and I sold one of my
put options with a gain of 150%! I still hold the other 3 options. The gain I got from
the option I sold is enough to cover the cost of all 4 options. As CNBC Jim Cramer
likes to say “ I am now playing with the casino’s money”. On the other hand, I do
not believe that we are done with the “after-shocks” but I do not expect to see that
for many months/years. I also have some put options on the S&P500 (SPY) at all
times as a hedge against a big correction or crash. On 3/9/23 (with an expiry date of
Sept 2023) was at $2.15 (or $215 per contract of 100 shares). On 3/13/23, it was at
$4.30 – 100% gain in 4 days! Also, this crisis is going to lead to tightening of credit
at regional banks. That is going to make the recession worse. Recently we had
massive layoffs of highly paid white-collar workers who will now get about $450
per week in unemployment benefits. Also, regional banks losing their deposits to
the big banks will worsen the upcoming recession as most small businesses (who
employ more than 80% of the US labor force) depend on regional banks for their
banking needs. On 3/24/23, CNBC reported that we had the “biggest rush to cash”
since the 2020 covid crisis as people moved $145 Billion to cash and other assets
such as gold from the time Silicon Valley Bank failed. Federal Reserve also
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reported that big bank deposits increased by $300 Billion and regional bank
deposits fell by $300 Billion since the Silicon Valley Bank failure. Decades ago, it
was very beneficial to get in to pre IPO stocks as almost all IPOs had tremendous
gains when they went public. Then when some companies went public, they got
‘hair cuts” so they remained private with unrealistic prices. On 3/16/23, Jim Cramer
reported on CNBC that Silicon Valley Bank was (1) the biggest inflation creator (2)
allowing the private equity firms in Silicon Valley borrow against their over valued
stocks and buy real estate which were already bloated. On 3/15/23, the “Big Short”
movie guy (excellent movie about the 2007/2008 banking crisis) stated “Don’t’ be
a hero”; meaning do not buy bank stocks at this time. On 3/13/23, CNBC
mentioned that 25% or $45 Billion of Silicon Valley Bank deposits were withdrawn
over a 48 hour period! Due to this crisis, I watched the movie “Big Short” again.
In that movie they showed 2 guys who got information that we are headed for a
banking crisis so they were able to turn $100,000 in to $30 Million in “shorts”! In
that movie, those 2 guys stated, “ People think positive so they under estimate the
negative things that could happen” So true! According to Wall Street experts, all
depositors, borrowers and mangers of the Silicon Valley Bank were in high school
or college during the 2007/2008 banking crisis. As I mentioned in my newsletter
many months ago, when bitcoin was at $60,000, “young people” had 75% of their
assets in Bitcoins and Cryptos! Then Bitcoin fell to $15,000! Live and learn!
Since 1993, I have been working in Credit Risk. Around 2006 I had a friend who
had a problem managing his personal finances and on a monthly basis he had to
borrow from family to make ends meet. He always paid his bills on time to keep his
FICO score at 800. He told me that with a perfect FICO score, with no income and
with no downpayment, he can buy a house. Not only that! His real estate agent
made a deal with the seller and “others” to inflate the sale price of the house by
$50,000 and split it between all parties! I was confused as that goes against all
principles of credit. The argument was that housing prices never go down. Simply
absurd! I did not expect a bankimg crisis and a severe recession but I should have
shorted bank stocks etc.! There will be plenty of opportunities in the future. As we
all know “history repeats itself”.
On 3/14/23, Josh Brown (“Market Guru”) stated that the next crisis will be in
commercial real estate. Most people work to work remotely. We have an over
abundance of commercial real estate. Some are getting converted to residential real
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estate but with the coming recession and bloated prices, that shoe too will drop
soon.
Stay tuned!