Bill Baruch, Founder, Blue Line CapitalInvesco QQQ Trust Series 1QQQTRADEAug 21, 2024

S&P is about 45-50% in technology and communications, which is pretty much what the QQQ is. It also has some biotech and consumer discretionary. Has done very well. Be cautious as to how much tech exposure you have.

Buy this before tech earnings report. She expects strong earnings.

Yes, he is a stock picker. But when the mega-cap tech names are all pretty close in ranking, he puts pragmatism above all else. Sometimes owning the index is an efficient way to own the sector. You also get names other than the Mag 7.

Tech complex is just fine here, growing beautifully, most visibility at the best value. Trading at almost market multiple. Least impacted by higher interest rates or a weaker economy. Valuations have sobered up, PEG ratio is close to one. Really, they're "utilities" to our way of life and the new economy. Resilient earnings picture.

For US money only. Don't covert your CAD to buy. If you only have CAD, instead by the XQQ or ZQQ.

Pretty crowded trade. They are good companies, but everybody owns them. Much better risk/reward coming from some other sectors. Multiple's not cheap. 

Write calls at 1-2-week maturities, short. Shares are near all-time highs.

Basically the NASDAQ 100. Acts as a benchmark for a lot of people like himself. Extremely liquid. Trade, rather than invest. Top was around $550, and he thinks it will probably take out those highs before the end of the year. 

Based on the look of the chart, he'd write calls against it with a strike of around $530-540. This way, you collect some premiums. If you don't want to get taken out, just keep rolling the strike price up. 

He is seeing growth being the biggest draw down in the market. There are tailwinds for tech so you can look to add if you have a long time frame.

Likes that strategy a lot, makes a lot of sense. It would keep the tech exposure, but de-emphasize the weight of the market cap.

In the US, there are some ETFs in the Innovator line. Gives you upside exposure, but contains buffers that protect on the downside for you.

He's a stock-picker, so he wouldn't buy an ETF. However, companies in either of these are the place to be for the next 10 years.

He uses the QQQ in 2 ways -- for trading and for hedging. The SQQQ is a short on the QQQ -- useful for Canadian platforms that don't allow you to get into futures and options on futures.

For a tech innovation theme. Well diversified, mega-cap or large-cap positions. Listed in the US, but also available in Canada from many different providers in many different flavours and hedged/unhedged.

To protect his downside, he bought 450 puts with a Nov.15 expiration. If the market rolls over, he'll be protected. It's unheard of to recover from the recent volatility so cleanly upward. It's likely there will be some sort of backward move.

It's close to overbought. Earnings have supported the rise in megatech stocks lately, but this is due for a small pullback in coming weeks.

NASDAQ is primarily tech companies, and you pay up for that. Growth rate for a lot of those companies is strong. But he sees the market broadening out to other sectors. As the economy and the monetary environment improve, we'll see industrials and financials improve. We might even see some rotation.

The US version of a US-stock ETF will always be cheaper. For QQQ, you're paying 20 bps; XQQ is 39 bps, almost double. XQQ is hedged, which hasn't helped you, might help you going forward but doesn't see CAD having a big push against the USD. He'd prefer QQQ, but be cautious on tech at this point.