D&D Note (6.15.2018) ~ Trade War Resumes ~ #StockMarket #TradeWar

D&D Note (6.15.2018) ~ Trade War Resumes ~

It has been a busy week in the markets with the North Korea Summit earlier in the week, the AT&T and Time Warner deal getting approved, Comcast now bidding for FOX assets to rival Disney, the FED rising rates and signaling 4 hikes this year, the ECB holding rates and signaling the end of QE in December, and now at the end of the week US imposed tariffs on China followed be retaliatory tariffs on the US by China.

Markets fell quite a bit this morning on the back of the renewed China v USA trade war, but rallied in the afternoon to cut most of the losses on the day.

Today was also a quadruple witching day (when index futures, index options, stock futures, and stock options all expire on the same day which happens 4 times per year) that helped drive higher volumes on the session.

Trades this week included a new position in Home Depot (HD), and increases in holdings of; IMLFF, RDS.A, and Apple. With todays trade in AAPL the holding is now our 2nd largest by weight.

D&D is now 99% invested in the market. We are close to taking profits in some Cannabis Stocks in CGC and APHQF. The portfolio is closely tracking Netflix, Twitter, and Square. Proceeds from profit taking ww will look to redeploy into those three equities if we see a pullback in any of them to create a decent entry point. All of those Equities have been on a tear and have moved into extreme overbought on RSI.

To put our weighted holdings into perspective D&D’s top 5 positions (CGC, AAPL, APHQF, AMZN, TSM) equal 37% of the total portfolio.

Can markets continue to shrug off Trade War tensions? Will we see a drifting up in asset prices leading into the next earning season? Lots of questions but so far the bulls continue to climb the wall of worry.

D&D movers:

– CNTTF up 1.84%

– CGC up 1.29%

– APHQF up 0.68%

– WNS up 0.63%

– MEDFF down -2.99%

– RDS.A down -2.79%

– IMLFF down -2.42%

– PKG down -1.45%

Indexes

– DOW down -0.34%

– NASDAQ down -0.19%

– S&P down -0.11%

Sector Movers:

– Consumer Staples up 1.32%

– Telecom up 1.17%

– Utilities up 0.69%

– Energy down -2.11%

– Materials -0.63%

– Technology down -0.45%

Notes

– US 2-YR 2.553% (down -0.021)

– US 10-YR 2.926% (down -0.02)

– US 30-YR 3.048% (down -0.018)

Volatility

– VIX 12.05 (down -0.58%)

Crypto (1:00 PST)

– BTC $6,552.33

– ETH $496.48

– BCH $868.99

– LTC $98.18

Metals

– Gold $1,282.80 down -1.95%

– Silver $16.60 down -3.84%

– Copper $3.141 down -2.51%

Energy

– Oil $64.72 down -3.24%

– Brent $73.32 down -3.45%

– Nat Gas $3.028 up 2.12%