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Newsletter 112315 Final Volume 1 Issue 22
- 1. Copyright © 2015 EQS Capital Management LLC, See important disclosure on last page
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SIGNALS
Wikipedia calls a Unicorn “A Legendary
beast with a large, pointed, spiraling horn
projected from its forehead.” Basically a
Unicorn is the magical pony of every school
girls’ daydream. Recently though Unicorns
have taken on a whole new fantasy, those of
investors. You cannot read a business jour-
nal, newspaper, or tune into business TV or
radio without mention of unicorn valuations,
startups, and rich 20-something tech entre-
preneurs that are on the verge of taking
their companies public.
So for investors that are not small school
aged girls, unicorns are private companies
that have a $1 billion or higher valuation
based on fundraising.
The term was coined by
Aileen Lee of Cowboy
Ventures in 2013. Ven-
ture Capital (VC) is a
very unique business
model, one of which
invests in many busi-
nesses and knows that
they will strike-out many
times, with the goal of
hitting a towering home-
run to make up for all
the misses (and then
some). Some Venture
Capitalists are great,
and some are not. It is
a bit of skill, a bit of
luck, but it at the end of
the day it is a giant game of unicorn hunting.
Silicon Valley has become breeding ground for tech-
nology company startups and has become the big
game hunting land of choice for VC hunters. Every
VC hunter wants to land the next Apple and that lead
to a big boom in the 1990s. VC lead private equity
invests in thousands of start-ups and the 1990’s
boom went from investments of 0.058% of GDP in
1994 and grew almost 1,900% to peak out at
1.089% of GDP in 2000. The dot.com bust in the
early 2000s was equally spectacular as the compa-
nies that were taken pubic peaked the Nasdaq at
5,046 in March of 2000 before losing 78% of value
and falling to 1,114 by 2002. The
dot.com bubble burst sent VC run-
ning to hide in the woods, but did
not cause tech extinction in the
magical forest that is Silicon Valley.
The bust caused private equity to
review the strategy of taking invest-
ments public as soon as possible
and since the bust VC has made
larger investments, held compa-
nies longer, and sponsored more
late stage funding which has al-
lowed today’s investments (still
mostly technology driven, and
many “social media” type invest-
ments) to surpass the $1 billion
valuation point prior to going pub-
lic. (continued on Page 2)
UNICORN HUNTING
Current EQS Short Recom-
mendations have gained an
average of 11%!
**You can achieve these
results with discipline and
by following the EQS daily
trade recommendations and
using the daily EQS Stop
Loss guidance
I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :
Unicorns Continued 2
Oil and Products 3
Natural Gas 4
About EQS 5
Terms and Disclosures 6
EQS TR A D E RE C O M M E N DA T I O N S
THE S OUR C E
F OR C OM M OD ITY
TR AD ING SIGN ALS
Volume 1, Issue 22 November 23, 2015
A Weekly Publication on the Commodity Markets
©
- 2. Copyright © 2015 EQS Capital Management LLC, See important disclosure on last page
All rights reserved. 2 www.eqstrading.com
So what? You are not an aspiring tech entrepreneur, an investor of private companies, or a speculator in IPOs, so unicorns don’t matter to
you, right? Wrong! This is simply not true, unicorns are a big deal, and this is why should you care.
Unicorns spark the imagination of investments and markets. A healthy unicorn market is a healthy market. The late 1990s were boom
times for just about all markets, from retail, to automotive, to commodities, to manufacturing, to homebuilding, to tech.
One of Alan Greenspan’s legacies will be his analogy of the FED controlling the market by using the punch to get the party going, and then
taking away the punch bowl before the party got out of hand. Though the FED does not, and cannot control IPO and tech valuations, it
would seem like IPO and tech valuations have largely set the tone for market parties since World War II. Think about it, the birth of corpo-
rate efficiency gains after the war, the birth of the PC market, the birth of the internet, advances in science and medicine, and today’s mo-
bile technology and social media boom have all lead major market rallies, not the FED.
We live in a very dynamic economy where real goods and services, exchanging hands at real locations, fueled by real inputs and people fuel
our world. The “real world” that has been the bright spot since the Great Recession, but it is the technology and unicorns that have given
investors’ hopes and saved millions of people’s retirement funds. It has not been traditional brick and mortar businesses; it has been Face-
book, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google and other technology plays that have rallied the stock market from collapse. For the most part it
has not been weak demand that has driven down oil and natural gas prices, it has been supply efficiency gains that were spurred by what?,
Technology!
Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world, and the 3rd largest employer in the world. Wal-Mart made $3.93 billion last quarter, which is
$43,667,000 a day! Wal-Mart makes a “unicorn” worth of profit about every 3 weeks, yet when Wal-Mart hits earnings it is business as
usual, and when they miss things get ugly for a few days and may cause their stock to drift down (which it has this year) but it does not set
the market tone and cause panic, it should, but it doesn’t. Now look at Amazon. Amazon is publically traded so it is a “former” unicorn, but
it is the FUTURE growth that is driving Amazon past the market value of Wal-Mart and captivating the imagination of investors.
Amazon has averaged $16,500,000 in earnings over 2013 and 2014, and only in the last few quarters has it even returned to profitably, or
in terms of “unicorns” at profitability of the last two years it would take Amazon 60.61 years to make the same $1 billion unicorn worth of
profits that Wal-Mart makes in 3 weeks. Amazon’s 3rd Quarter earnings announcement of $0.17 per $564 share at the time jumped the
stock $55 on the announcement. Based on an EPS of $0.17 Amazon was priced at 3,317 times earnings before the news, and on the
news they added a staggering additional 323 times earnings!
The argument is not that Amazon and other technology firms may be overvalued, the argument is that as private equity holds companies
longer, invests in companies to grow them over the $1 billion unicorn level, there is hope that the current herd of unicorns can fuel, and can
continue to fuel the imagination of investors and keep growth alive across many different markets even as other sectors lag.
A soft stock market has shelved many recent public offerings, but the recent IPO of Square has put unicorns back in the spotlight. All eyes
will be on Square, as it is not only important to VC firms, and tech entrepreneurs, but important to all markets as unicorns are the brick and
mortar future of our economy and will be setting the tone for where our markets go no matter what the FED does.
UNICORNS…(CONTINUED)
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All rights reserved. 3 www.eqstrading.com
U.S. oil prices dipped below $40 a barrel several times this past week as heavy stockpiles contin-
ued to push crude lower. Light, sweet crude for December delivery fell as low as $39.89 a barrel
on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest intraday level since August, before it settled
down 21 cents, or 0.5%, at $40.54 a barrel, only to again claw back under $40 and test the Au-
gust lows again at the end of the
week.
Inventories have seen strong
growth at Cushing, Oklahoma, the
delivery point for the benchmark
U.S. futures contract, as the recent
pattern of pushing out the bulls
after the release of the weekly EIA
storage data. Inventory rose 2.1
million barrels in the week ended
Tuesday, with 1.8 million of those
barrels coming since Friday, ac-
cording to the data. The addition
comes on top of data from Wednes-
day showing nationwide crude sup-
plies increased by 300,000 barrels
last week, according to the U.S.
Energy Information Administration.
The build in the EIA report was less than analysts expected but it was counter to a draw reported
by the American Petroleum Institute, which had bulls excited prior to the EIA report. The inventory
report showed resilience in U.S. shale oil
production, which at 9.182 million barrels
a day last week was only 3,000 barrels a
day fewer than the previous week.
The data continues to put pressure on
Saudi Arabia to agree to a compromise
with other producers in the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries, as
other OPEC producers hope they can drive
prices up by getting the Kingdome to slow
its rampant production. OPEC plans to
meet Dec. 4, but most analysts’ say Saudi
Arabia will not back down from its efforts
to keep customers by pumping more and
undercutting competition.
A likely U.S. interest rate rise in December has contin-
ued to strengthen the dollar, which has also been
increasing pressure on global oil prices, which are
denominated in dollars. With stockpiles nearing his-
toric highs, a mild winter and limited heating demand
common during the continuing weather phenomenon
El Nio could push oil toward $20 a barrel, analysts at
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in their note on com-
modities that was sent to reporters on Thursday.
Other industry experts still see prices rising to the
$60s and $70s over the next 12 to 18 months, but for
now it looks like as we approach Thanksgiving prices
will be camped out around $40 as the turkey gets
carved and the Christmas decorations go up.
OIL COOKS BULL’S “TURKEY”
Oil and Refined Products
A likely U.S.
interest rate rise
in December has
continued to
strengthen the
dollar, which has
also been
increasing
pressure on
global oil prices.
Bearish
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Natural gas futures tumbled this past week,
sharply retreating following the release of U.S.
Energy Information Administration storage data
that offered an atypical injection for the week that
ended Nov. 13 and delivered a fresh record high
total gas supply. The latest addition was above
both the 9-Bcf injection seen in the corresponding
week in 2014 and the 12-Bcf five-year average
addition, and left total stocks 404 Bcf higher than
last year at this time and 207 Bcf above the five-
year average of 3,793 Bcf.
The EIA released its first storage report under a
new five-region breakout that outlined a net 15
Bcf injected into natural gas inventories in the
Lower 48 during the week ended Nov. 13. As the
result of the switch to the five-region structure,
along with rounding, the EIA revised its storage
figure for the week to Nov. 6 from a build of 49
Bcf to a 54-Bcf injection, which combined with
this week's injection brought total U.S. working
gas supply to a new record high of 4.0 Tcf.
NATURAL GAS: SWIMMING IN IT!
Bearish
Natural Gas
Despite the storage miss against expectations
the uncharacteristic build for the review week,
amid lackluster demand and ongoing strong
production heaped renewed pressure on the
market that has been struggling to find a bot-
tom, with recent short-covering rallies that lack
the fundamental support to be sustained. Fun-
damentals remain weak as weather forecasts
call for mild conditions in key heating markets
through early December as contracting natural
gas production remains above the prior-year
level.
US Natural gas storage saw a second refill dur-
ing the traditional “withdrawal season” as tem-
peratures remained above normal and produc-
tion is about 2 Bcf/ a day higher year-over-year.
Mild weather in the Northeast and Midwest
during the current week is expected to have
driven another small injection into natural gas
supply when the EIA releases its next report
Nov. 25, a day earlier than usual due to the
upcoming Thanksgiving Day holiday. Early pro-
jections for the forthcoming inventory report
span a range of builds from 7 Bcf to as much as
30 Bcf for the week ended Nov. 20.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini-
stration sees above-average temperatures
spanning across the Northeast, portions of the
Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, central U.S., Southeast,
Gulf and portions of the Southwest. Average
temperatures are expected in areas of the Mid-
Atlantic, Southeast, Gulf, central U.S. and
Southwest, while below-average temperatures
will dominate the Northwest and grip portions of
the west-north central U.S.
For the eight- to 14-day period,
below-average temperatures
expand to grip nearly the entire
western two thirds of the U.S.,
while a band of average tem-
peratures span from a small
portion of the central U.S. into
Louisiana and across South
Texas, separating above-
average temperatures that
dominate the eastern third of
the country. So for all you bulls
out there you need to start your
gas ovens now to cook the tur-
key in hopes that you can burn
off some of the storage glut.
EIA revised its storage
figure for the week to
Nov. 6 from a build of
49 Bcf to a 54-Bcf
injection, which
combined with this
week's injection brought
total U.S. working gas
supply to a new record
high of 4.0 Tcf.
- 5. Copyright © 2015 EQS Capital Management LLC, See important disclosure on last page
All rights reserved. 5 www.eqstrading.com
Why You Need EQS
From technicals to fundamentals to macroeconomics, analyzing com-
modity markets can be a daunting task. Let EQS do the work for you.
Through its subscription service, EQS Trading provides traders and
hedgers easy to follow trading signals for major commodity futures mar-
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The subscription service includes both daily trading signals and the
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EQS Capital Management also offers a commodity hedge fund (EQS
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Commod-
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(energy, metals, and agriculture) and actively managing stop loss limits.
What is EQS?
Economic Quantitative Strategy (aka EQS) is an investment and trading
strategy that translates economic data and technical indicators into price
direction for
commodi-
ties. Be-
cause of its
quantitative
nature,
EQS has
been rigor-
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About Us
Who is EQS?
Richard C. Rhodes
Mr. Richard C. Rhodes is the President and Founder of EQS Capital
Management LLC. Richard has a Bachelor of Science with honors in
Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA
from Duke University. He brings almost 25 years of diverse energy
experience, covering all phases of the oil and natural gas value chain
from producer to end-user. Richard is a li-
censed Series 3 CTA (Commodity Trading
Advisor) with the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission and a member of the National
Futures Association.
Richard began his professional career on a
drilling rig in West Texas with Conoco Explo-
ration and Production. Richard continued his
oil and gas career with Koch Industries
(ranked as one of the largest privately-owned companies in the U.S.)
where he worked in midstream, refining, pipeline, and distribution
operations. During his eight years with Koch Industries, Richard be-
gan as an operations engineer and later found his true passion in
trading, which leveraged his professional interests in mathematics
and economics. Richard joined Duke Energy in 2002, where he spent
ten years working in the energy trading department and earned The
Pinnacle Award, the company’s highest honor. Richard then left Duke
Energy to launch EQS Capital Management in 2012.
Jonathan M. Lamb
Mr. Jonathan M. Lamb is the Director of Business Development at
EQS Trading. As a four year varsity hurdler
on the track team at Ball State University,
Jonathan earned Bachelor of Science de-
grees in Risk Management, Insurance, and
Economics, and started working on his PhD
in Economics at North Carolina State Uni-
versity before focusing on business and
trading.
As part of the first wave of Millennials to
join the work force, Jonathan started his
professional career almost 15 year ago,
joining ACES Power Marketing as an Operations Specialist, providing
demand side economics for Co-Op Power Providers before becoming
a Real-Time Electricity Power Trader. He continued his career trading
power for seven years with Progress Energy (now Duke Energy, the
largest utility in the nation) as a Senior Real Time Trader. Jonathan
then opted to become an entrepreneur and started a consulting firm
specializing in finance and economics, owning and running seven
different small businesses before joining EQS in 2015.
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All rights reserved. 6 www.eqstrading.com
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THE SOUR C E
F OR C OM M OD ITY
TR AD ING SIGN ALS
TERMS and DISCLOSURES