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October
16
2017

Gold, the stock market and the yield curve
Steven Saville

The yield curve is a remarkably useful leading indicator of major economic and financial-market events. For example, its long-term trend can be relied on to shift from flattening to steepening ahead of economic recessions and equity bear markets. Also, usually it will remain in a flattening trend while a monetary-inflation-fueled boom is in progress. That’s why I consider the yield curve’s trend to be one of the true fundamental drivers of both the stock market and the gold market. Not surprisingly, when the yield curve’s trend is bullish for the stock market it is bearish for the gold market, and vice versa.

A major steepening of the yield curve will have one of two causes. If the steepening is primarily the result of rising long-term interest rates then the root cause will be rising inflation expectations, whereas if the steepening is primarily the result of falling short-term interest rates then the root cause will be increasing risk aversion linked to declining confidence in the economy and/or financial system. The latter invariably begins to occur during the transition from boom to bust.

A major flattening of the yield curve will have the opposite causes, meaning that it could be the result of either falling inflation expectations or a general increase in economic confidence and the willingness to take risk.

On a related matter, the conventional wisdom is that a steepening yield curve is bullish for the banking system because it results in the expansion of banks’ profit margins. While superficially correct, this ‘wisdom’ ignores the reality that one of the two main reasons for a major steepening of the yield curve is widespread, life-threatening problems within the banking system. For example, the following chart shows that over the past three decades the US yield curve experienced three major steepening trends: the late-1980s to early-1990s, the early-2000s and 2007-2011. All three of these trends were associated with economic recessions, while the first and third got underway when balance-sheet problems started to appear within the banking system and accelerated when it became apparent that most of the large banks were effectively bankrupt.

Here’s an analogy that hopefully helps explain the relationship (under the current monetary system) between major yield-curve trends and the economic/financial backdrop: Saying that a steepening of the yield curve is bullish because it eventually leads to a stronger economy and generally-higher bank profitability is like saying that bear markets are bullish because they eventually lead to bull markets; and saying that a flattening of the yield curve is bearish because it eventually — after many years — is followed by a period of severe economic weakness is like saying that bull markets are bearish because they always precede bear markets.

Both rising inflation expectations and increasing risk aversion tend to boost the general desire to own gold, whereas gold ownership becomes less desirable when inflation expectations are falling or economic/financial-system confidence is on the rise. Consequently, a steepening yield curve is bullish for gold and a flattening yield curve is bearish for gold.

The US yield curve’s trend has not yet reversed from flattening to steepening, meaning that its present situation is bullish for the stock market and bearish for the gold market. However, the yield curve is just one of seven fundamentals that factor into my gold model and one of five fundamentals that factor into my stock market model.

I have been a fulltime professional speculator since 1998 and the owner of a subscription-based web site about the financial markets since 2000. The web site is called “The Speculative Investor”, or “TSI” for short.

In an average week, TSI subscribers receive two reports: a Weekly Market Update on Sunday and an Interim Update on Thursday morning (NYT). The Weekly Update typically has 3000-4500 words and 10-15 charts, while the average Interim Update is about half that size. As well as containing information about the gold, currency, stock, bond and commodity markets, these reports regularly include discussions about macro-economics. The economics-related discussions are from an “Austrian” perspective, because I’ve found that the Austrian School is the only school of economics that is consistently logical and explains how the world really works.

TSI subscribers also get access to a list of stock selections. The TSI stock selections have provided very good long-term returns; however, due to the highly speculative nature of the stocks I tend to focus on, my year-to-year returns have been ‘lumpy’, to put it mildly. For example, since 2000 my own equity portfolio, which comprises many of the stocks covered at TSI, has had six triple-digit years (years when the portfolio was up by at least 100%, without using any debt-based leverage and maintaining a cash reserve of at least 20%) and two years of 50%+ losses. The year-to-year ‘lumpiness’ of the performance that goes hand-in-hand with my focus on relatively risky (by traditional standards) equities will make the TSI stock selections unsuitable for many people.

The price of a TSI subscription is US$240/year or US$25/month.

The TSI Blog was created in 2014, mostly for fun, but also to promote the TSI subscription service and to be a venue for me to make public comments that for one reason or another aren’t suited to the subscription service.

 

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