Now, who's hot, who's not?
I was singing that line on Wednesday along with legendary hip-hop track "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" for two reasons.
First, I saw a brilliant meme on LinkedIn which had Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen and Co. dancing around in shiny suits like the ones worn by Notorious BIG, Puff Daddy and Ma$e in the original video. Genius.
Second, yesterday marked the end of the first quarter of existence of my HOAX portfolio. It's hard to make a throat-clearing noise via the Internet, but, ahem! Since inception, which is the close of trading on Dec. 23, 2021, the performance has been as follows:
HOAX +39.45%
ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) -33.71%
So, The Stagger, as I have humbly named it, sits at 73.16% after one quarter of existence. I'm hot. Cathie Wood's not.
As I now manage real-life HOAX portfolios for real (happy) people, I must be a little careful. The Google Sheets version HERE will always be the definitive measure of HOAX's performance, if not a "real" one.
But real is the key word. Never in a million years would I have imagined such a beatdown in three months' time. ARKK's biggest holding, Tesla (TSLA) , has had a positive move this week on Elon's trip to Germany. Watching YouTube clips is so much more fun than actually analyzing fundamentals, which I did on Tesla amid its slowing European sales momentum in my latest for OHM Research in Sao Paulo.
Elon is a formidable opponent in terms of market perception, I am aware. But if Tesla has recovered (although still down 5.5% year to date) of late, what can say about the rest of the holdings in ARKK. They must be complete, unadulterated pieces of crap? Hahaha. I amuse myself.
But, for real, none of the ARKK names pay a dividend and every single one of the HOAX names sides. Real-life portfolios obviously see that cash in real-time, but for the HOAX master file I will do a one-time update tomorrow to reflect all payments from January to March. Hey, that's another 2%!
Yeah, HOAX is yielding at a minimum 8% per annum. I am expecting dividend increases in the next few quarters from nine of the 10 HOAX names, with only Tsakos Energy Navigation preferred (TNP-PRF) being a fixed payment. That is a huge addition to The Stagger. I have been managing client portfolios long enough to know that yield can be a key cushion in the lean times. And in the non-lean times? It's like rocket fuel. Just absolute booster juice.
My next decision is how to reinvest those dividends, a process that has begun for real-life clients. For the model portfolio, I have decided to reinvest in Antero Midstream (AM) , surely the safest of the nine equity names in HOAX and slightly sexier than the Tsakos preferred.
Natural gas prices are jumping at the Henry Hub in the last week, and, as I have noted in prior columns, have gone absolutely nuts in Europe and Asia In the past three months, which helps Cheniere Energy (LNG) and Flex LNG (FLNG) . But I will stick with Antero and add a little safety to HOAX. Safety, because energy prices are so volatile and so outrè that Cathie memorably tweeted her prediction of oil at $12 a barrel. She was only off by $100 a barrel.
But that's the big picture. In the small picture, Putin is still a lunatic, Powell is incompetent and the Earth, based on my personal experience of crisscrossing it seemingly nonstop (I am in Northeast England now) is not melting.
Inserting the dollar sign in his name made my fellow New Yorker Ma$e the coolest rapper ever. So, here are the 10 constituents of HO$AX. If you think their run is finished, you should go buy yourself some whale oil.
Suburban Propane Partners (SPH)
Peabody Energy (BTU)
Cheniere Energy
Flex LNG
Arch Resources (ARCH)
Exxon Mobil (XOM)
Chevron (CVX)
Petrobras (PBR)
Antero Midstream
Tsakos Energy Navigation