Trading notes from Nell Sloane of Capital Trading Group: the need for alternative strategies, forget buy the failed dip, bitcoin’s tie to equities, Zuckerberg on the Congressional carpet and Trump vs. Amazon.

We begin our notes with our reaffirmation of the growing need for alternative strategies.

We would like to think that our alternative view on markets is consistent with our preference for alternative risk and alpha driven strategies.

Alternatives offer the investor a unique opportunity at non-correlated returns and overall risk diversification.

We believe combining traditional strategies with an alternative solution gives an investor a well-rounded approach to managing their long-term portfolio.

Bloomberg: Stocks sink most in two months on Trump trade jabs Friday.

With the growing concentration of risk involved in passive index funds, with newly created artificial intelligence led investing and overall market illiquidity in times of market stress, alternatives can offset some of these risks.

Nell Sloane: Is it just us, or did the Q! seem to fly by?

***

BTFD? We continue to believe the #BTFD (buy the failed dip) is over and that real managers are going to have to adjust their free money buy-only algorithms.


Get Trading Insights, MoneyShow’s free trading newsletter »


We expect many a manager to show their true colors and not be able to handle the coming changes. Far too many have been lulled to sleep.

***

Jeff Gundlach on bitcoin: Something that we touched recently: Jeff Gundlach of Doubleline was on the wires this week again, saying how bitcoin (BTCUSD) may be leading the movements in the equity markets. “It’s all tied together, obviously,” Gundlach said. (Reuters) .

We took a lot of flak months ago when we even suggested this correlation, so we are glad an astute and formidable player as Mr. G, feels the same way, that’s why we respect him so much. He isn’t afraid to swim against the current.

***

Zuckerberg to answer: The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (FB) to appear at an April 10 hearing on data privacy. Facebook has been in the hot seat for the last few weeks as it was revealed that it sold tens of millions of users’ data to Cambridge Analytica.

Now we all know the numbers are much larger and the abuses far more reaching, the scary thing is nobody really seems to care.

Bloomberg: Facebook's data crackdown has two winners: Facebook and Google.

***

Trump vs. Amazon: President Trump’s tweet targets last week included in its sights once again Amazon (AMZN). It has been known POTUS has been an outspoken advocate against Amazon’s role in everyday life.

He has been especially brazen, as to the government’s role in assisting Amazon deliver packages, as well as the limited amount of taxation the company seems to ultimately pay.

We expect this rhetoric to continue, especially given the trajectory of the U.S. debt pile that someone will have to finance.

Subscribe to the Capital Trading Group newsletter here