Bookkeeping: Buying some Global Growth Names

Submitted By Trader Mark
It appears our call for an imminent recovery in commodities late last week was prescient [Time for Commodities?] Looks like HAL 9000 and his quant hedge funds have now deemed the global growth story back on as oil is up - therefore lemmings of all varieties now move in and we can buy safely. I think. But we had a lot of charts break through resistance yesterday and today looks like a confirmation day. That said it can all reverse on us tomorrow if oil drops a few bucks because that will mean the global growth story is once again dead and "demand destruction" will be squealed all over financial TV. But today is "demand construction day".

The reality is hedge funds were destroyed in the long commodities/short financials trade for 6 weeks and the purge seems over. So some sort of reality can once again return to these stories. That's my story anyhow, and I'm sticking to it.

I am making incremental purchases into many of the usual suspects (these are not super large buys and I refuse to make anything a 5-6% position in this market where things can reverse on you in 24 hours) - but again these names are now like banks from 3 months ago, the computers treat them no differently. An oversold group, that had broken charts about a week ago but finally refusing to go down - so the algorithms say "buy". They will buy as long as their microchips say it's time to buy - and then they'll liquidate and hurt people who use common sense or fundamentals and things like P/E ratios. So I don't know how long this move lasts - it might be over in an hour for all I know. But this is a jab "in and out" type of market so we'll throw a jab in, try to make some money, and then pull back on first sign of weakness.

I've added exposure across: Potash (POT), Mosaic (MOS), CF Industries (CF), Walter Industries (WLT), Flowserve (FLS), Fluor (FLR)

The latter 2 are not "commodities" but might as well be in this computer age of "everything within 6 degrees of oil *IS* oil". They had 2 of the best earnings reports out of my entire watch list and yet were hammered.

I don't like the overall market since it looks destined for lower price points so I'd like to see how these stocks react in the next few days before adding more. But so far so good - like I said last week this is the market of buying beaten down product. This was the most beaten down group... meanwhile the sexy sectors of the past 2 months - financials, airlines, healthcare, consumer discretionary are being sold off.

It's almost like there is not enough money out there to support multiple sectors at once. As I said, sustained breakouts are failing all over the place nowadays. No move seems to last more than 45 days. I'd like to see a cathartic selloff which punishes all groups at one time to feel confidant about any sort of intermediate bottom. But for now we play the rotation games, following in the computers (virtual) footsteps. At least these type of stocks we actually like the fundamentals...

I have a very easy principal from this point; regardless of fundamentals or sector if stocks begin to break back below support levels they get pruned back fast and hard. Regardless of PE multiples, growth rates or any of that other jazz that used to be pertinent. Since we've made that change about a week and a half ago, it's been working for us.

Long all names mentioned in fund; long Mosaic, CF Industries, Walter Industries in personal account

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