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09.24.18- What Comes Next
All things have a beginning, a middle and and end. And now, more than 3,480 days into the current bull market, the longest in history, we can say with high confidence we are very close to its end. Why? For manifold reasons that are multiplying fast. So many, in fact, that each of the key speakers at the recent Peak Prosperity/Contra Corner Summit in New York City had difficulty finding enough time to enumerate them all during the six-hour event. Read More |
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09.22.18- Hong Kong and the road to recovery
There is increasing awareness that another financial crisis is in the offing, and, of course, everyone has an opinion as to what will trigger it and what form it will take. But there is broad agreement that since the Lehman crisis ten years ago, instead of resolving the problems that led to that crisis, governments and their monetary authorities have allowed the underlying position to deteriorate. Read More |
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09.21.18- Stock Prices Are Surging Because Corporations Are Spending More Money On Stock Buybacks Than Anything Else
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09.20.18- This time is different
As we’ve discussed countless times over the past few years, there are consequences from the fact that central bankers have conjured trillions of dollars out of thin air and pushed down interest rates to zero. Stock, bonds and real estate are at or near record highs. Bankrupt countries are issuing trillions of dollars of debt with negative yields (not to mention, serial defaulter Argentina was able to issue 100-year bonds…) Read More |
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09.19.18- How Politics Poisoned the Earth
Politicians and public servants no longer retire to their hamlets and farms once their tour of duty is over. Instead, they sign up for a post-career money-grab as consultants and lobbyists… scheming with the feds to get favors for their clients. But how come? Aren’t the insiders always eager to take advantage of the outsiders? What’s new? Read More |
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09.18.18- The Next Financial Crisis
Financial assets have been goosed to record highs in the everything bubble.Buy the dip has worked in stocks, bonds and real estate — what’s not to like? Beneath the surface, the frantic goosing has planted seeds of financial crisis which have sprouted and are about to blossom with devastating effect. There are two related systems-level concepts which illuminate the coming crisis: the S-Curve and non-linear effects. Read More |
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09.17.18- Ten years after the crisis… they’re doing the same thing and expecting different results
It was Sunday, September 14, 2008. Exactly 10 years ago to the day. My friend Jeff called me and told me to turn on the television—where I saw dozens of people on the streets of Manhattan filing out of a skyscraper carrying boxes full of their office junk. They were all employees of Lehman Brothers, one of the largest investment banks in the world. Lehman was hours away from filing bankruptcy in what would go down as THE biggest bankruptcy in US history. Read More |
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09.15.18- Ten Years After the Crash,
Ten years ago, on Saturday, September 13th, 2008, the world was about to end. The New York Federal Reserve was a zoo. Imagine NASA headquarters on the day a giant asteroid careens into the atmosphere. That was the New York Fed: all hands on deck, peak human panic. Read More |
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First, let’s take a look at the bubble within a bubble. This Market Has FAANGs. Read More |
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09.13.18- Look out for Emerging-Market
A recent Reuters article notes that, “President Donald Trump’s relentless “America First” trade push is hurting confidence in many countries, rising U.S. interest rates are putting strains on emerging economies and currency problems have hit crisis levels in Argentina and Turkey.” When considering the markets over the last few weeks and seeing how the Turkish lira in particular has fallen 40% against the dollar since the start of the year, I'm thinking back to my first job on Wall Street. Read More |
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09.12.18- From Buenos Aires To Nashville: The Emerging Market Crisis Spreads
Let’s start with the choices facing an American or European investor who needs a decent return, but who finds that interest rates have fallen to the point where traditionally safe things like bonds and bank accounts no longer yield enough. Read More |
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09.11.18- The Next Recession:
The nearly decade-long U.S. economic expansion may look a little long in the tooth, but it is not about to end due to old age. Economic expansions need a catalyst that triggers a downward spiral of consumer and business retrenchment. The most common recession catalyst for the United States has been the collision of rising interest rates with heavy debt loads, corporate valuations that appear to have run ahead of free-cash-flow generation, or both. Add trade tensions and geo-political uncertainties, which may work to slow global growth, and it seems like the current situation has the potential to trigger a recession. Read More |
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09.10.18- New Trade War “Shockwave” Has FAANG Companies Bracing for Impact
New trade tensions stem from POTUS supporting new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports. An already weary market is starting to show increased concern. That new concern is coming in the form of increased volatility according to a recent Forbes report (emphasis ours): Read More |
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09.07.18- Apocalypse, Or Not?
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09.06.18- Wall Street Veteran Warns of Big Near-Term Market Correction
In fact, he criticized Wall Street last year on “the quality spread between junk bonds and corporate debt.” In a CNBC report from February, later confirmed by the S&P slowing down in March of this year, he continued: That’s showing a signal from a very liquid, very smart bond market keying off of some concern about relatively higher default risk as the economy slows. This happens every time we have a slowdown, and it’s corroborating what we picked up in our leading indexes… Read More |
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09.05.18- America’s Finances Seem Fishy
The sun has cooled. The days are shorter; the nights are still and clear. The leaves turn yellow and drift to the ground, a few at first… and then, many. Stirred to life by the occasional breeze, they gather in corners and cover the drains. And over everything hangs an air of languid grace… like a beautiful corpse an undertaker. Read More |
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09.04.18- The Whole System Is Rigged
As the dog days of summer wind down, it’s hard not to notice how the climate is suffering brutally right now across many areas of the globe. Crop failures have hit hard across Europe. Australia is under an intense drought. Warm water representing ‘archived heat’ has penetrated deep into the arctic. Coral reefs are dying through mass bleachings. The stocks of ocean fisheries are in deep trouble. Insect and bird populations remain in a state of collapse. It couldn't be any more clear that our society's demands for ever-more "growth" are taking an increasingly dangerous toll. "Growth" is now the enemy of life on the planet; yet there are precious few leaders willing to admit as much. Read More |
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09.03.18- 27 Ways to Make Money
Though small farmers believe their lives are far from ideal, I can't think of any farmer who would switch to a life in the city. So how do you get the best of both worlds? How can you maximize profit from your land, small farm or homestead? You don't have to stop at growing crops. Read More |
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09.01.18- Corporate Debt Steering U.S. Straight Into Economic Iceberg
Companies in the U.S. have taken on a record $6.3 trillion in debt. This is more corporate debt than 2007, just before the last major recession. And according to S&P’s analysis, which looked at 2017 year-end balance sheets for non-financial corporations, the riskiest borrowers are more leveraged than they were even during the financial crisis. Read More |
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08.31.18- Debt Is Destroying The Economy, And Washington Is Desperate To Distract You
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08.30.18- Homebuilder Shares Dramatically Underperforming: Consumer Confidence
The Wall Street Journal reports Home-Builder Shares Miss Out on Stock Rally
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08.29.18- The Greatest Fake Bull Ever
Indeed, in today's fraught environment it can be well and truly said that the chartmonkeys have become deaf, dumb and blind to everything happening on Planet Earth external to the gaming tables where they slosh around in their cups. After all, to use the latest evidence, what could be more indicative of a political system fixing to implode than this weekend's utterly phony and disgustingly undeserved deification of the late Senator John McCain? Read More |
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08.28.18- 10 Numbers That Prove That America’s Current Financial Condition Is A Horror Show
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08.27.18- To Understand America's Neofeudal Economy, Start with Extortion
Let's spin the time machine back to the late Middle Ages, at the height of feudalism, and imagine we're trying to get a boatload of goods to the nearest city to sell. As we drift down the river, we're constantly being stopped and charged a fee for transiting one small fiefdom after another. When we finally reach the city, there's an entry fee for bringing our goods to market. Read More |
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08.25.18- Some thoughts on the
This means that the US stock market has been generally rising for nearly a decade straight… or even more specifically, that the market has gone 3,453 days without a 20% correction. That’s a pretty big milestone. And there’s no end in sight. So it’s possible this market continues marching higher for the foreseeable future. But if you step back and really look at the big picture, there are a lot of things that might make a rational person scratch his/her head. Read More |
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08.23.18- MOPE Has Failed And The World Is About To IMPLODE Economically – TIME NOW!
MOPE has failed and the world is about to implode economically and socially because of it. Your question to all of us has been when will all this happen. The answer is now. The means to this occurrence is accelerating uncontrollable volatility in the world fiat currency markets. The rise in the dollar here and now is due to Richard Russell’s thesis of the synthetic dollar short. This can be easily understood by remembering that the currency you borrow will fluctuate. If that movement is up, then you are at a loss considering where it was trading when your borrowed it. Read More |
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08.23.18- More Evidence The Economy Is Deteriorating
The economy may seem like it’s doing well if you are part of the upper 10% demographic. Though, in reality, for most of the upper 10%, doing “well” has been a function of having easy access to credit. NASA Federal Credit Union is offering 0% down, 0% mortgage insurance for mortgages up to $2.5 million. Read More |
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08.22.18- Currency Woes
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08.21.18- If You Read Between The Lines, Global Economic Leaders Are Telling Us
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08.20.18- What Truckers & Railroads Just Said about the US Economy
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08.18.18- Weekend Rant: The Anatomy of a Crisis: A Strong Dollar and Disappearing Liquidity
But the bigger problem is what lies ahead. And that’s a global dollar shortage – which the mainstream continues to ignore. . . I’ve touched on this a couple months back. Wondering when the mainstream would start to realize that the stronger the dollar gets – the more pressure global economies will feel. Read More |
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08.17.18- “Asia Will Be the Next Source of Downside Systemic Risk for Financial Markets”
Sovereign credit ratings – such as those issued by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch – of the emerging market countries have dropped sharply since late 2016. Read More |
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08.16.18- You Should Fear the Emerging Market Debt Bubble
A lot of the increase in global debt has come from emerging market (EM) economies, especially China. In fact, a record amount of EM debt has accumulated during the past decade, mostly in dollars. A large portion of that debt is therefore denominated in U.S. dollars. That’s why I’ve long argued that the first shoe to drop in the next crisis would likely be EM debt. Borrowing is not a problem when dollars are cheap. Low interest rates mean the cost of servicing that debt is low. Read More |
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08.15.18- Keep Your Eye on China
Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura Intl. in Hong Kong, said, for example, “The Chinese economy will get worse before getting better. It takes several months to turn around. Beijing will step up credit easing and fiscal measures to deliver a recovery and prevent financial troubles such as a rise of bond defaults.” But with a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 250%, China is already well into the danger zone. How much debt-financed stimulus can it take? Read More |
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08.14.18- The Heroic Assumptions Behind Today’s Unprecedented Equity Valuations
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08.13.18- How 3D Printing is
The housing crash left houses empty and people homeless. Some neighborhoods are still littered with empty and decaying homes, some having stood empty going on 10 years now. By this point, a lot of these homes aren’t even worth repairing. Since the crash, there has been a lot of conversation, and demand, for more housing options. And why not? Engineers have discovered cheaper, more eco-friendly and sustainable housing options. Why not use them? Read More |
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08.11.18- Facebook’s crash is everybody’s problem
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08.10.18- Contagion has Not Been
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08.09.18- In 2008, America Stopped Believing in the American Dream
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08.08.18- Mathematical Adjustments
“Where did a bulk of the change come from? A change in the calculation of “real” GDP from using 2009 dollars to 2012 dollars which boosted growth strictly from a lower rate of inflation. As noted by the BEA: “For 2012-2017, the average rate of change in the prices paid by U.S. residents, as measured by the gross domestic purchasers’ price index,was 1.2 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than in the previously published estimates.” Read More |
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08.07.18- Why the Boomers Are Going Broke
What were they so sore about? we wondered. Son of Satan Of course, we are frequently wrong about a great number of things. When connecting the dots, we are bound to draw a few stray lines. And we will no doubt be proven wrong in many of our opinions and predictions. Read More |
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Worse, Morgan Stanley cautioned that a liquidation in tech/growth "could very well have a greater negative impact on the average portfolio if it's centered on Tech, Consumer Discretionary and small caps" due to the disproportional ownership of this group of stocks by professional and retail investors. Read More |
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08.04.18- It’s More Than Just FANG Stocks Investors Should Be Worried About
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08.03.18- Icarus Flies, but FAANGs Fall from the Gaping Maw of US Stock Market –
In a statement that agrees with me on the January-February stock market plunge being the first leg of a downward journey that is taking its second leg down now, Morgan Stanley rings the warning bell, saying you need to “prepare for the biggest stock market sell-off in months.” Read More |
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08.02.18- According To The “Buffett Indicator”, The Stock Market Is More Primed For A Crash Than It Has Ever Been Before
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08.01.18- Fabulously Fake Facts – “G” in GDP Stands for “Gullibility”
Quite simply, I think stock investors looked at the surfacing of real problems in their favorite FAANG stocks and, so, failed this time to find any fun in the frivolous fiction of government factoids. GDP reportage has been fake for years, and it is no less fake under Trump than under any other president. Fake is where you find it. You can find it as much on Fox as on CNN. Read More |
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07.31.18- This ‘prophet of doom’ predicts stock market will plunge more than 50%
John Hussman, president of Hussman Investment Trust, describes himself as an economist, a philanthropist, and a “realist optimist often viewed as a prophet of doom” on his Twitter profile. That last bit may be the one investors care about on Monday as the stock market shows signs of unraveling on the back of the tech sector’s stumble. Hussman’s claim to fame includes forecasting the market collapses of 2000 and 2007-2008. Since then, however, he’s also become known as a permabear for his repeated calls for sharp stock market declines and his oft-repeated mantra of “overbought, overvalued, overbullish” as the bull market continues into its ninth year by some measures. Read More |
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07.30.18- Is Cryptocurrency ‘The Mother of all Bubbles’? This Visualization Puts Things in Perspective
Earlier this year the total U.S. stock market cap surpassed $30 trillion. It then lost more than $1 trillion in a single month. Apple might very well become the first company worth over $1 trillion in the modern era. The U.S. national debt surpassed $21 trillion, and the deficit for next year is expected to add another $1 trillion. But just how big are these numbers? Can we get some perspective? Read More |
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07.28.18- Big Housing Market Bubble “Pop” Imminent – Already Happening in Key Markets
Well strap in, because housing sales in key markets are all signaling the imminent deflation of a massive housing bubble. And the dangerous thing about this kind of bubble popping is that the effects can last for decades. The U.S. just went through a long period of low interest rates that fueled demand for housing and inflated housing prices. Read More |
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07.27.18- Big Stocks Rock NASDAQ as Two FAANGs Bite the Dust
Overnight, Facebook lost $150 billion in value, which was a drop of over 20%, putting the stock, at opening, in its own bear market. By the end of the today’s actual trading (Thursday) the stock had settle at down $119 billion (-19%), which still set a record as the worst corporate crash in the history of the US stock market. Read More |
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07.26.18- U.S. Trade Wars Enter
Here are some revelations about this trade war (so far), specific to China:
In spite of these revelations and a host of others, the Trump Administration still insists on pursuing these protectionist measures. But that insistence may now be harboring new consequences. Read More |
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07.25.18- Will The Impending US Economic Collapse Usher In Socialism?
We have very few people left worldwide who actually lived through the Great Depression. While I have been told many stories by my grandparents of what it was like to live through the 1930’s and 1940’s, I clearly do not have first-hand experience. Yet, I would assume that I still have a better understanding of that time period than most of the people reading my words today. Read More |
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07.24.18- All Hell Will Break Loose
In closing, EvG says, “. . . At some point, all hell will break loose. There is no question about it. It could be something very serious coming this autumn. The whole political system is fighting against Trump, and that is going to be tough, very tough. . . . The markets are giving me the signal that things are going to turn in the autumn, and you can easily find a number of catalysts for this to happen.” Read More |
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07.23.18- The Economy is Cracking Up. Are You?
I had, as readers here know, predicted the same for last summer but revised my timing to this summer after Trump was elected and the hope for tax cuts lit on fire one of the world’s greatest stock rallies. Those tax cuts are also creating another rapidly rising gap between government revenue and government spending. Read More |
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07.21.18- The Returning Specter of “Stagflation” is Haunting the U.S. Economy
We currently have, or are nearing, all three of these criteria. And the U.S. has been here before, with stagflation dominating the economy from 1973 to (at least) 1979. But this time, the underlying circumstances are different. Let’s start with growth… Read More |
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07.20.18- Weekend Rant: Will Politics Decide The Future of The Financial Markets?
Unfortunately today’s markets have evolved to the point where the latest political decree can significantly impact what happens. And along those lines, there’s been ample speculation that the powers that be may be planning a financial reset. With many feeling that gold and silver will be reset higher, while perhaps much of the global debt is somehow cancelled out (keep in mind U.S. president Donald Trump does have extensive experience with the bankruptcy code). Read More |
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07.19.18- Pay Attention Moment- Time to wake up from your Summer Slumber
It’s time to sit up and pay attention to what Mr. Market is trying to tell us. Read More |
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07.18.18- We Need A Law,
Kudlow once again ran the same crap he ran during the Reagan years about "supply-side" tax cuts, admitting that they boosted deficits (duh) but trying to argue they were akin to a business investment and would be recovered through higher growth. Read More |
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07.17.18- Introducing Mike Maloney's Market Fragility Index: What It’s Saying Now
Mike’s refusal to settle for “good enough” culminated in his own metric: the Market Fragility Index. Here’s your peek into this brand new economic indicator, found in Part II of his 5-part Early Warning Report… Read More |
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07.16.18- 15 Flashpoints That Could Produce A "Perfect Storm" In H2 2018
Other than the continual drama surrounding the Trump presidency, things have been quite calm for the past couple of years. We have been enjoying a time of peace, safety and relative economic prosperity that a lot of Americans have begun to take for granted. But great trouble has been brewing under the surface, and many are wondering if we are about to reach a major turning point. Our planet is being shaken physically, emotionally and financially, and it isn’t going to take much to push us over the edge. Read More |
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07.14.18- “I Don’t Know About You,
“Investors on Monday continued shrugging off fears that President Trump’s escalation of trade hostilities will put a dent in share prices.” We almost pity the poor fellow — all that egg he had scrape from his face. The Dow Jones tumbled 219 trade-warring points yesterday — and once again turned negative on the year. Read More |
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07.13.18- The Market Gods Are Laughing
The Chinese say they will retaliate. Phony Wars Last month, we opined that the trade war wouldn’t go any better than Vietnam… or Iraq… or any of the feds’ other phony wars – against drugs, poverty, or terrorists.Read More |
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07.12.18- Mass Stupidity Plagues Zombie Markets and Zombie Journalists
So the majority of investors in Asia (and in the US) see the latest COMPLETELY MEDIOCRE AT BEST jobs report as assurance that trade wars are not going to impact the US economy. Really? Read More |
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07.11.18- Here’s Where the Next Crisis Starts
The mother of all credit crises is coming to China with over a quarter-trillion dollars owed by insolvent banks and state-owned enterprises, not to mention off-the-books liabilities of provincial governments, wealth management products and developers of white elephant infrastructure projects. Then there’s the emerging-markets credit crisis, with Turkey and Argentina leading a parade of potentially bankrupt borrowers vulnerable to hot money capital outflows and a slowdown of growth in developing economies. Read More |
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07.10.18- The Great Reset
After the collapse, the population fell to about 8,000 people. Some fled and arrived at safe places, but surely most perished. Read More |
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07.09.18- Experts Warn Of Chaos For The U.S. Economy As China Declares That “The Biggest Trade War In Economic History” Has Begun
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07.07.18- 70% Stock Market Crash
For example, former budget director for the Reagan White House, David Stockman recently raised a red flag when he declared an economic collapse is imminent. He went on to say: “There surely is a doozy just around the bend.” Scott Minerd, Chairman of Investments and Global Chief Investment Officer of Guggenheim Partners, warns: “The markets are potentially on a collision course for disaster … once we reach a peak we’ll probably see a 40% retracement in equities.” Read More |
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07.06.18- Inflation Rearing Its Ugly Head
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07.05.18- We Are Witnessing Unusual Stock Market Behavior That Is Unlike Anything That We Have Seen Since 2008
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07.04.18- Holiday Rant: The Fourth of July Has Nothing to Do with the Military
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07.03.18- The Perfect Double Cross
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07.02.18- Emerging Market Crisis Spreads To The Core, Central Banks Face Catch-22
In the US the thing most people think of as inflation is the consumer price index, or CPI, which is now running comfortably above the Fed’s target. But the Fed prefers the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, which tends to paint a less inflationary picture. And within the PCE universe, core PCE, which strips out energy and food, is the data series that actually motivates Fed action. Read More |
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06.30.16- Epocalypse Ahead on Highway to Hell for Global Economy and US Stock Market
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06.29.18- The stock market is days away from setting a bearish record
The U.S. stock market is a few days from hitting a notable milestone, but it isn’t one that investors will feel particularly good about. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.93% and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.64% have been mired in correction territory for months, ever since Feb. 8, when concerns that inflation was returning to the economy sparked a selloff that led to their dropping 10% from record levels hit earlier in the year. Read More |
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06.28.18- What’s the Yield Curve?
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06.27.18- The battle lines are being drawn between gold and fiat as the new global
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06.26.18- REVEALED: A Shocking S&P Prediction
The “Great Expansion” from November 1990–March 2000 holds the current, jeopardized record. But how much longer can the show run? And how much higher can the S&P rise before the black curtain falls? Today we go crystal-gazing… steal a forbidden glimpse of the future… and report a bizarre vision. Read More |
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06.25.18- The End Of the (Monetary)
To understand the significance of this event and the potential scale of its consequences, a little monetary history is in order. For at least 5000 years, gold and silver have been considered intrinsically valuable, and therefore have been used as a store of wealth and as money. Governments and societies throughout time have used actual silver or gold as their coined currencies. Read More |
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06.23.18- Ike Was Right!
The Dow is still more than 1,000 points below its high; so we presume the primary trend is down. Treasury yields – on the 10-year note – are near 3%… twice what they were two years ago. So we presume the primary trend for bonds is down, too. If we’re right, we are at the beginning of a long slide… down, down, down… into chaos, destitution, and destruction. Our working hypothesis is that General Eisenhower was right. Read More |
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06.22.18- Sane People Absolutely Know Better!
We trust sane individuals also understand the following.
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06.21.18- Markets Confront Shocking Paradox
Claudio Borio, head of the Bank for International Settlements’ Monetary and Economic Department, here poses a thumping question. The Federal Reserve bumped interest rates 0.25% one week ago today — its seventh rate hike since 2015. The Fed is also hard at the business of quantitative tightening. It has unloaded $112 billion of maturing bonds since it began last October. Read More |
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06.20.19- Bullish, at All Costs: Why Wall St. Bankers Lie to You All the Time
Aiding and abetting each other and the publicly traded companies they do business with is a big part of the job. It is requisite that they pretend to always be bullish on the market, to always maintain the public line that it is a great time to invest, to put more money at risk. Read More |
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Surprised? I didn’t think so. But still, fun to get some scientific confirmation. Read More |
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06.18.18- "The Global Bond Curve Just Inverted": Why JPM Thinks A Market Crash May Be Imminent
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06.16.18- The West Line Is Telling Us
We are not the first nation to find ourselves in this position. Those nations that came before us had to deal with a slower, smaller economy following the westward shift of the line. We must now do so as well. Read More |
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06.15.18- All US Homes Are Overvalued
Well, CoreLogic is way off. All American homes are overvalued. How can we tell? It’s easy. It’s so easy it’s perhaps no wonder that people overlook the reasons why. But we all know them: The Fed has pushed some $20 trillion down the throats of the financial system. It has also lowered interest rates to near zero Kelvin. Read More |
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06.14.18- What's Wrong with the Economy: 9 Toxic Dynamics
1. The financialization of the economy, which transformed services, credit, risk and labor into commodities that could be traded globally. Financialization generates enormously asymmetric returns: those with access to low-cost credit, global markets and expertise in finance collect the lion's share of gains in income and wealth. Read More |
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06.13.18- "If You Ever Needed Proof That Central Banks Have Crushed These Markets,
This was billed as the most important week of the year for global markets. And we made it almost through Monday before “exhausted” traders were being advised to shuffle back to their safe rooms to get lost in watching the upcoming soccer matches. Boo hoo. Read More |
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06.12.18- The Volcano of Debt
Earlier this week, the Boards of Trustees for both U.S. Social Security and Medicare released their latest updates on the "solvency" of the programs. The advisories can be read here:https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/index.html Though it's common knowledge that these programs are vastly underfunded, the degree to which the pending crisis is accelerating should come as a shock to all Americans. Read More |
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06.11.18- Consumer Spending Contraction: Two Charts That Horrify Keynesians
The propaganda is always laid on the heaviest just ahead of The Fall. The employment report showing sub-4%, with nearly 96 million working age people not considered part of the labor Force, is possibly the penultimate fabrication. Read More |
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06.09.18- The US Government Will Destroy the Dollar, Because It’s the Only Option Left
If you’re doing well right now, what else really matters? The stock market seems to be on a bizarro perpetual escalator to neverending prosperity, despite rafts of economic fundamentals that paint a portrait of debt-bloated, weak economy, oceans of free debt have been available for years on end to fund lifestyles well beyond earned means, and so long as one has sufficient exposure to risk assets, why bother worrying about big-picture insolvencies that are still years away? Read More |
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As usual, the numbers are pretty gruesome... and the reports plainly stated what we’ve been talking about for years: the trust funds for both Social Security and Medicare are going to run out of money. Soon. In the case of Medicare, the Trustees project that its largest trust fund will be fully depleted in 2026, just eight years away. In the context of retirement, that’s right around the corner. Read More |
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06.07.18- The Three Crises That Will Synchronize a Global Meltdown by 2025
To understand the synchronized global meltdown that is on tap for the 2021-2025 period, we must first stipulate the relationship of “money” to energy: “money” is nothing more than a claim on future energy. If there’s no energy available to fuel the global economy, “money” will have little value. The conventional economists assure us that energy is now a small part of the overall economy, so fluctuations in energy prices will have a limited effect on global prosperity. But what’s left of global prosperity when energy is unable to meet current demand at any price that consumers can afford? Read More |
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06.06.18- The Dead Cat Bounce in the US Dollar is OVER
Any time the $USD begins to rally, even a little bit, the deflationists come out in full force proclaiming that it’s the start of some major bull market that will blow up the financial system. Take this latest bounce in the $USD. Having staged one of the worst annual returns in years in 2017 (down over 14%), the $USD was BEYOND oversold. Throw in the fact that traders were RECORD short the $USD and record long the Euro, and the stage was set for a $USD bounce. Read More |
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06.05.18- Three critical lessons from Europe’s recent mini-meltdown
There simply is no good starting point. You can’t talk about the decline of Rome without a lengthy discussion of how destructive Diocletian’s Edict on Wages and Prices was in the early 4th century. But you’d have to go further back than that and discuss all the lunatic emperors preceding him, all the way back to Caligula. Read More |
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06.04.18- The Reality and Consequences of the U.S. Economic Blind Spot
Our first stop is Iran. Recent trade sanctions against Iran might be the last straw for other countries who’ve tolerated U.S. protectionist policies that maintain the dollar’s dominance as central reserve currency. Secretary of State (and former CIA director) Mike Pompeo has already stated the U.S. intends to “crush Iran” with trade sanctions. Read More |
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06.02.18- History Is Clear, Central Banks Fail To Assure Economic Stability
Yet, to listen to some prominent and respected writers on these matters, government has been the stabilizer and free markets have been the disturber of economic order. A recent instance of this line of reasoning is a short article by Robert Skidelsky on “Why Reinvent the Monetary Wheel?” Read More |
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06.01.18- A Nervous Market Gets Skittish in Its Prelude to Downside Stampede
First, you get a general sense of restlessness in the herd. The cattle snort, get jumpy, sway their heads…they’re nervous, and none of them are really sure why, except the rest of them seem to be nervous too. Which makes them all more nervous. Which makes them more agitated. Then little pockets of cattle will start to lurch, move quickly, but not much, in one direction. They all get skittish, trying to figure out if this is really going to happen or not. The noise increases. You can almost feel the heat rise as the stress levels rise. Read More |
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05.31.18- The Threat of Contagion
This means that the larger size of the system implies a future global liquidity crisis and market panic far larger than the Panic of 2008. Today, systemic risk is more dangerous than ever. Too-big-to-fail banks are bigger than ever, have a larger percentage of the total assets of the banking system and have much larger derivatives books. Read More |
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05.30.18- Death of the Great Recovery Part 3: Housing Collapse 2.0 Has Begun
Rising mortgage rates will certainly cause housing sales to fall. Prices will follow for those houses that have to sell because, as mortgage interest rises, people won’t qualify for as large a mortgage as they do now. It’s all part of the developing Epocalypse in which multiple industries collapse into the final depths of the Great Recession as the fake recovery fades out of existence like a mirage. Read More |
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05.29.18- A Spiking Dollar =
This might be one of those times, as instability in the Middle East, Europe, and parts of Latin America sends worried capital pouring into the US, pushing the dollar up from its recent lows: Read More |
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05.28.18- Record Mortgage Refinancing –
Believe it or not, cash-out refis now represent a whopping 36% of total mortgage applications. And borrowers are not refinancing to get a “lower rate,” but instead to get cash out from the equity in their home to pay for living expenses and to pay down higher interest consumer debt. Read More |
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05.26.18- This Is The End Of The Euro
Sometimes it takes a little uproar to reveal the reality behind the curtain. Read More |
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05.25.18- The Relevance Of Hayek’s Triangle Today
Virtually no one in the central banks, government treasury departments, or independent analysts see the real inflationary danger. Read More |
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05.24.18- Economic Collapse Isn’t Coming To America – It’s Already Here
You know all those reports about how lots of Americans can’t afford a $1000 surprise expense like a medical bill or a car repair? Well, forget additional expenses. It turns out that nearly half of the families in America are struggling to pay for food and rent. And that means that the economic collapse isn’t just “coming.” It’s HERE. United Way has done a study on a group of Americans they call ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The study found that this group does not make the money needed “to survive in the modern economy.” Read More |
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05.23.18- 77 Million Square Feet Of Retail Space And Counting – America’s Retail Apocalypse Is Spiraling Out Of Control In 2018
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05.22.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: When Things Fall Apart: A Graduation Message for a Dark Age
Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people. They will find themselves overtaxed, burdened with excessive college debt, and struggling to find worthwhile employment in a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion. Read More |
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05.21.18- The Global Economic Tide is
One can sense the effects of this tidal change in how we have moved from enthusiastic talk of “synchronized global growth” at the start of the year to clear realization everywhere that such growth ended as quickly as it began. January turned out to be peak high tide on all the shores of the world. Read More |
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05.19.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Beyond Hegemony And A Liberal International Order
This moment is not just about leaving the Iran nuclear agreement, or even the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate agreement. It is not simply attributable to the unpredictable, childish impulses of the current president. Nor is it the result of Obama’s failure to enforce a red line in Syria, or “leading from behind” in Libya. It is not even about Bush’s invasion of Iraq with the goal of regime change, setting in motion the destruction of what political stability existed in the Middle East. Read More |
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05.18.18- New Trade Friction May Disrupt U.S. Dollar’s Dominance in Global Markets
It seems like the U.S. assumes foreign countries will just keep storing the bulk of their forex reserves in the greenback. And as a result, the country keeps running deficits and borrowing cheap money year after year. But now, as the U.S. invokes different measures of protectionism, and tensions build while the U.S threatens to pull out of NAFTA completely, it may be time to put that assumption to rest. Read More |
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05.17.18- It gets worse: Tesla now has to compete with $50,000 electric BMWs going for $54/month
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05.16.18- What Happens If Other Investors Start Thinking Like “Bond King” Jeffrey Gundlach?
Perhaps the real surprise is that it has taken as long as it has. Because while there has been demand on a sovereign level, especially from nations like China, India, and Russia, the general Wall Street opinion of the precious metals sector has not been favorable in recent years. Read More |
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05.15.18- Even the Official, Heavily Massaged Inflation Measure is Now at 2.5%
If you want any evidence that the Powers That Be are doing everything they can to mask the real rate of inflation, you don’t need to look any further than the CPI data released on Thursday. While energy, housing, healthcare, and numerous other prices are exploding higher, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) somehow managed to claim that inflation only rose a measly 0.2% in April. They were able to do this because used car prices and airfares dropped.Yes, those two issues somehow eclipsed the rise in healthcare expenses, energy prices, housing prices, and even food prices. Read More |
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05.14.18- Behold The Sudden Stop. Risk of Emerging Markets Collapse
It could be the arrival of a “sudden stop”. As I explain in Escape from the Central Bank Trap (BEP, 2017), a sudden stop happens when the extraordinary and excessive flow of cheap US dollars into emerging markets suddenly reverses and funds return to the U.S. looking for safer assets. The central bank “carry trade” of low interest rates and abundant liquidity was used to buy “growth” and “inflation-linked” assets in emerging markets. Read More |
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05.12.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Time To Choose
There’s a vast revolution underway. And it’s time to pick sides. Your choice couldn't be more critically important. Quite possibly, the entire fate of the human species hangs in the balance. It's time to decide: Will you be an agent of depletion or regeneration? For many centuries, humans have consumed the natural resources around them at a rate far faster than the planet can replenish. Until recently this didn't pose an existential problem, as fresh deposits could be tapped through the discovery of new continents or development of new technologies. Read More |
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05.11.18- Meet America’s next pension casualty: the inventor of chocolate sprinkles
His name was Samuel Bernstein. And if you enjoy chocolate sprinkles or the hard, chocolate coating around ice cream bars, you can thank Bernstein– he invented them. Nearly 100 years later, the company is still a family-owned business, producing some well-known brands like Peeps and Hot Tamales. But business conditions in the Land of the Free have changed quite dramatically since Samuel Bernstein founded the company in 1923. Read More |
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05.10.18- The Donald's Fabulous Fiscal Folly And Wall Street's Wile E. Coyote Moment
In any event, fixing to borrow upwards of $1.2 trillion in FY 2019, Simple Steve apparently didn't get the memo about the Fed's unfolding QT campaign and the fact that it will be draining cash from the bond pits at a $600 billion annual rate by October. After all, no one who can do third-grade math would expect that the bond market can "easily handle" what will in effect be $1.8 trillion of homeless USTs: Read More |
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05.09.18- The World's Biggest Hedge Fund Derisks Massively, Goes Short Stocks
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05.08.18- The Dreaded "S-word" Threatens a Return
Dormant for decades, many considered it permanently licked. But some have picked up its grisly scent… and discovered its approaching footprints. What is this fee-fi-fo-fum? And why its possible return? Today we investigate the reports… weigh the evidence… and hazard a judgment. Read More |
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05.07.18- Stocks Perfectly Poised to Plummet Past Point of No Return
It was just three months ago that stock-market investors were being swept up by a euphoria pinned to the idea of economic expansion taking hold harmoniously across the globe—a dynamic that hadn’t occurred since the 1980s, and one that was expected to extend into 2018. Read More |
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05.05.18- You can now use Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin to buy and sell Gold and Silver
Many BullionStar customers are already be familiar with using Bitcoin when buying and selling gold, silver and platinum bars and coins, as BullionStar has been accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment since May 2014. BullionStar was one of the first bullion dealers worldwide to offer customers the ability to buy and sell physical precious metals using Bitcoin. Now with the addition of Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, BullionStar is again one of the first bullion dealers in the world to offer customers the ability to transact in these other leading cryptocurrencies for both buy and sell orders.Read More |
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05.04.18- Capitalism has new rules. And they’re seriously messed up.
And on Wednesday afternoon, Tesla held its first corporate earnings call since then. You’d think that Elon would have been gracious and professional, anxious to demonstrate that the shareholders’ trust in him has been well-placed. Instead the call was filled with contempt and disrespect, with Elon outright refusing to answer questions that he deemed ‘boring’. Read More |
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05.03.18- One Of Two Things Is About To Happen Now That We’ve Reached ‘Debt Saturation’
I have tried to explain this concept many times before but never had a chart to do it with. Please note the start date of the chart is 1971, this is not by any coincidence as that was the year the U.S. dollar became fully fiat and backed by nothing but “faith”. Before getting started, it is important to understand what August 15, 1971 really meant and why Nixon took us off the gold standard. The obvious is because with France and other nations demanding conversion of dollars into our gold, it would have only been a few short years before our stockpile was completely depleted. Read More |
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05.02.18- What Lies Beyond Capitalism And Socialism?
As longtime readers know, my work aims to 1) explain why the status quo -- the socio-economic-political system we inhabit -- is unsustainable, divisive, and doomed to collapse under its own weight and 2) sketch out an alternative Mode of Production/way of living that is sustainable, consumes far less resources while providing for the needs of the human populace -- not just for our material daily bread but for positive social roles, purpose, hope, meaning and opportunity, needs that are by and large ignored or marginalized in the current system. Read More |
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05.01.18- Here's The Largest Export of Every State in the U.S. for 2017
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04.30.18- Entertain a Clown and You Become Part of the Circus
Without a doubt, divide and conquer would be my means and one world under me would be my objective. Read More |
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04.28.18- Bitcoin vs The Old World Order
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04.27.18- Marijuana Kills
Not people, obviously. There’s never been a single recorded marijuana overdose death ever. Not one. I’m talking about the competitors. But just who are marijuana’s competitors? Well, that’s a tricky question. You see, marijuana doesn’t just get people high. It’s also medicine. And it has industrial uses. But for today’s essay, I’ll stick to the other so-called vices: tobacco and alcohol. Today, I’ll show you why marijuana is a huge, direct threat to Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol. But let me first tell you why you should listen to me…Read More |
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04.26.18- Where Have All the Dip Buys Gone?
The Dow Jones plunged another 423 points yesterday… its fifth consecutive losing day. The S&P slipped 35 points, the Nasdaq a hellacious 121. Stocks have endured more daily losses of at least 1% this year… than the past two years combined. And it is only April. Read More |
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04.25.18- Stocks Finally Wake Up to Higher Inflation. It Isn't Pretty
As we have noted previously, inflation is WELL above the Fed’s so-called target of 2%. Indeed, two of the Fed’s own in-house measures of inflation (the NY Fed UIG and Atlanta Fed Sticky Inflation measures) are clocking in at 3.14% and 2.5%, respectively. That, in of itself, is a REAL problem for the debt-based financial system. Since 2008, the US has added over $9 trillion in public debt along with another $3 trillion in corporate debt, and $1.2 trillion in consumer debt. ALL OF THIS was based on the assumption that interest rates would stay low. Read More |
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04.24.18- From Fake Boom to Real Bust
More is revealed with each passing day. You can count on it. But what exactly the ‘more is of’ requires careful discrimination. Is the ‘more’ merely more noise? Or is it something of actual substance? Today we endeavor to pass judgment, on your behalf. Normally, judgment would be passed on a Thursday, but we are making an exception. [PT] For example, here in the land of fruits and nuts, things are whacky, things are zany. Last month, State Senator, Dick Pan, introduced Senate Bill (SB) 1424, which would require California based websites to utilize fact checkers to verify news stories prior to publishing them. Read More |
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04.23.18- A Dollar Collapse – And Gold Revaluation – Is Inevitable
…The pricing of financial assets, and today’s extraordinarily low interest rates indicate that a flight from the dollar is the last thing expected in financial markets. If they were still alive, de Gaulle and his economic advisor, Jacques Rueff, would be instructing the ECB, as successor to the Bank of France.” Read More |
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04.21.18- “The System Will Have To Collapse”
Every public pension fund in the country is catastrophically underfunded, especially if strict mark-to-market of the illiquid assets were applied. Illinois has been playing funding games for a few years to keep its pension fund solvent. In Kentucky, where the public pension fund is on the verge of collapse, teachers are demanding a State bailout. Read More |
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04.20.18- Things Work Until They Don’t
Trade wars are usually bad for all parties in the end but between the beginning and the end there can be some surprising developments. Human actions and delusions on the part of the public can produce strange results at times. All of our systems are based on trust. When that trust is lost, everything will come crashing down. Until then, things will go on. Read More |
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04.19.18- Why Half of the Country’s Banks Could Disappear
Regular readers aren’t used to hearing that, and for good reason. You see, bank stocks aren’t Casey Research’s bread and butter. Our specialty is in natural resource stocks and making bets on assets that other investors want nothing to do with. With that said, bank stocks obviously don’t fall in the commodity basket. But they could be one of today’s top contrarian plays. At least, that’s what Strategic Investor editor E.B. Tucker thinks. I know this because I heard E.B. give a speech on the topic last week in Miami, Florida. It was one of the best presentations I heard all week. Read More |
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04.18.18- Criminal Referral Issued For Comey, Clinton, Lynch And McCabe;
Recall that Sessions paired special prosecutor John Huber with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz - falling short of a second Special Counsel, but empowering Horowitz to fully investigate allegations of FBI FISA abuse with subpoena power and other methods he was formerly unable to utilize. Read More |
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04.17.18- Why We May Be Headed For Another ‘Minsky Moment’
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04.16.18- Russia’s Real Endgame
In Syria, Russia has the warm water port of Tartus — which is important when you consider that most Russian ports are ice-bound for months of the year. It is strategic depth — the capacity to suffer massive invasions and still survive due to an ability to retreat to a core position and stretch enemy supply lines — that enabled Russia to defeat both Napoleon and Hitler. Putin also wants the modicum of respect that would normally accompany that geostrategic goal. Read More |
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04.14.18- This Really Is The Everything Bubble: Even Subprime Mortgage Bonds Are Back
All that’s missing is subprime mortgages and we’d have every bubble base covered. Oh wait, those are back too, just under a different name: Subprime mortgages make a comeback—with a new name and soaring demandThey were blamed for the biggest financial disaster in a century. Subprime mortgages – home loans to borrowers with sketchy credit who put little to no skin in the game. Read More |
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04.13.18- Russia Has "Irrefutable Evidence" UK Staged Syrian Chemical Attack
“We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved in this staged event,” he said during a press conference according to AFP. Read More |
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04.12.18- SPX Resistance May Prompt a Massive Short Squeeze
Today, we are calling the potential for a massive upside breakout move on what we believe is a massive Short Squeeze position just above resistance in the SPX. Take a look at these charts. Read More |
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04.11.18- Nobody Is Prepared for the Long-Term Pain That’s Coming
Peter Schiff has been saying for weeks this is a bear market. Well, now even Pres. Trump has said investors may see some short-term pain in the stock market. But the president says it will all be worth it because we will get long-term gain, referring to the benefits we’ll reap when we win the trade war. In his most recent podcast, Peter said that’s not how it’s going to play out. Read More |
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Recent geopolitical developments have led me to raise my probabilities of trade and other types of wars, such as capital wars, cyber wars (and possibly even shooting wars). To be clear, I’m not saying they’re probable, and I’m not sure that my assessment is right. I’m just saying that it seems to me that the odds have increased relative to where they were, and I am just sharing the thinking that leads me to that conclusion. Read More |
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04.09.18- The Roller Coaster to Nowhere
Each of the four factors has its own internal contradictions, in effect a binary outcome for each. This means there are 16 possible paths the market might follow (24 = 16). No wonder the market acts confused. With regard to growth, the bulls expect a boost from the Trump tax cuts. They are also anticipating inflation due to strong job creation, rising labor force participation and a low unemployment rate. They expect interest rates to rise but consider this more a sign of economic strength than a cause for concern. Read More |
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04.07.18- Why A Dollar Collapse Is Inevitable
We have been here before – twice. The first time was in the late 1920s, which led to the dollar’s devaluation in 1934. And the second was 1966-68, which led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods System. Read More |
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04.06.18- The world’s most powerful banker sees chance of “market panic”
Behind Warren Buffett's annual missive, Dimon’s letter is probably the most read and deliberated executive report out there. For one, Dimon is one of the most connected and respected men in finance. And given his bank’s massive size (it earned $24.4 billion on $103.6 billion in revenue last year) and reach (it’s a giant in consumer/commercial banking, investment banking and wealth management), Dimon has incredible visibility and intel on what’s going on around the world. Read More |
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04.05.18- Elon Musk Jokes About Tesla’s Debt – But the Joke Could Be on the U.S.
Corporate (and consumer) debt. We’ll get to how corporate and consumer debt is helping to strangle the economy in just a minute (on top of everything else). But first, let’s take a peek at one example of the complacent attitude that currently fuels a big part of the U.S. corporate economy… Read More |
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04.04.18- The Era Of The Fed "Put" Is Over
To all those investors expecting the Fed to step in to backstop the recent weakness seen in the stock market, Wolf Richter warns: The cavalry isn't coming. After years of force-feeding too much liquidity into world markets, the central banking cartel is now aware of the Franken-markets it has created. And now with a new head at the US Federal Reserve, and soon at the ECB, central bankers have shifted their priority from supporting asset prices to now actively engineering lower prices. They just don't want prices to drop too far too fast. Read More |
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04.03.18- Wyoming Is Challenging The Fed, Can It Become America's "Crypto Valley"?
Earlier this month, the Wyoming legislature became the latest state to modify their state laws to challenge the Federal Reserve's monopoly on money. As Mike Maharrey wrote for the Tenth Amendment Center:
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04.01.18- The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
This marks our our 10th year of doing this. And by “this”, we mean using data, logic and reason to support the very basic conclusion that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. Surprisingly, this simple, rational idea -- despite its huge and fast-growing pile of corroborating evidence -- still encounters tremendous pushback from society. Why? Because it runs afoul of most people's deep-seated belief systems. Read More |
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03.31.18- Surviving The Next Great Depression
Very few Americans have any significant savings today. Most live on credit and those with savings have it stored in financial instruments that will be wiped out as the bankers collapse the system to hide the theft they have been involved in for decades. Those who think they will retire with their IRA, pensions or social security will find them all gone never to return leaving them with no means to care for themselves. Read More |
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03.30.18- Why Markets Should Continue to Rise This Year
No one really had the time to go through it, and that’s on purpose. The fact that no one really knew what was in it — besides the drafting committees and the lobbyists who crammed it full of pork — speaks volumes about how the people’s business is conducted in our democracy. Theoretically, we still live in a republic, but the question is: Who exactly represents whom in Washington? Read More |
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03.29.18- Trader: Four Reasons Why "The Worst For Markets Is Yet To Come"
His full Macro View is below: Read More |
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03.28.18- America's State Wreck Gathers Steam: The Donald's War Cabinet
To wit, Trump has now essentially formed a War Cabinet and signed a Horribus spending bill that is a warrant for fiscal meltdown. Indeed, the two essentially comprise a self-fueling doom loop which means Washington’s descent into fiscal catastrophe is well-nigh unstoppable; it’s all over except for the screaming in the bond pits. Read More |
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03.27.18- "Tesla, without any doubt,
Let’s put this figure in perspective: at $5 billion per year, Musk would make more than every single CEO in the S&P 500. COMBINED. In other words, if you add up the salaries of all the CEOs of the 500 largest companies in America, it would still be less than the $5 billion per year that Mr. Musk stands to earn. Read More |
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03.26.18- Now It Begins - America's State Wreck
But this time it didn't work. The market had been retreating for days and then tumbled 724 Dow points yesterday allegedly on the Donald's $50 billion tariff assault on the China trade. Not surprisingly, the overnight follow-through in Asia was downright bloody with Shanghai down 3.4%,the Nikkei lower by 4.5% and China's NASDAQ equivalent off by more than 5%. Read More |
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03.24.18- Trump Will Use the
Trump will soon receive a report under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. That report has been almost a year in preparation and will reveal that China has stolen over $1 trillion in U.S. intellectual property. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 is the “nuclear option” when it comes to trade wars. Read More |
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03.23.18- Hyperinflation Speculation
Hyperinflation myths:
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03.22.18- Recession: When You See It,
This is heard almost daily from the media mainstream pablum. The problem with a majority of the “analysis” done today is that it is primarily short-sighted and lazy, produced more for driving views and selling advertising rather than actually helping investors. For example: “The economy is currently growing at more than 2% annualized with current estimates near 2% as well.” Read More |
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03.21.18- US Stock Market – The Flight to Fantasy
The chart formation built in the course of the early February sell-off and subsequent rebound continues to look ominous, so we are closely watching the proceedings. There are now numerous new divergences in place that clearly represent a major warning signal for the stock market. For example, here is a chart comparing the SPX to the NDX (Nasdaq 100 Index) and the broad-based NYA (NYSE Composite Index). Read More |
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03.20.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Head of Secret Pentagon Program Says UFOs Can “Warp Space-Time” - What??
In an interview with the UK Daily Star (2/8), Elizondo made the following boggling comments:
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03.19.18- Nobody Thinks It Would Happen Again
Myriad changes to the financial structure have seemingly safeguarded the financial system from another 2008-style crisis. The big Wall Street financial institutions are these days better capitalized than a decade ago. There are "living wills," along with various regulatory constraints that have limited the most egregious lending and leveraging mistakes that brought down Bear Stearns, Lehman and others. There are central bank swap lines and such, the type of financial structures that breed optimism. Read More |
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03.17.18- Just How Long Is This Fuse Anyway? The Countdown to Fiat Armageddon
Anytime you hear someone say ‘But this time is different’, take your physical silver and gold and run. Fiat currency dilution always, always, always ends in systemic collapse. Don’t be one of the majority who will be left wondering how they didn’t understand it was nothing more than ink on paper all along. Read More |
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03.16.18- Derivatives - A Recipe For Disaster & Systemic Collapse
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03.15.18- How New Tariffs and A Trade War Could Affect You
It’s been a few years since the U.S. had any significant tariffs in place. What could be the potential impacts of this new move? Tariffs on steel and aluminum will cause increased costs for products made with those imported materials such as cars and cans. Read More |
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03.14.18- Are The Bears About To Fumble?
Week after week I think analysts say something so stupid that I just want to scream. As I have pointed out so many times over the years, I keep hoping that some form of sanity will grip pundits one day. I keep hoping that they may wake up and recognize the error of their ways. But, alas, I continue to long for that day. So, whenever the market moves, everyone goes through the exact same thinking process: “Hey, look. The market just saw a big move. Let’s go see what news caused this move.” Read More |
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03.13.18- Is The Dot.Com Bubble Back?
While history certainly does “rhyme,” they are never the same. This is especially the case when it comes to the financial markets. Chart patterns may align from time to time, but such is more a function of pattern-fitting than anything else. However, when it comes to fundamentals, standard-deviations, extensions, etc., it is a different story. A recent article by Ryan Vlastelica brought this to mind. Read More |
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03.12.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Why a “Media Blockade”
For instance, preventing global nuclear war matters. But you cannot control it. You can control what color car you drive. But this doesn’t really matter. But eating healthy matters, and you can control it. Read More |
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03.10.18- Dow 12,000, Then Bitcoin $30,000
You read that right. How? The writing is on the proverbial wall and the panic is setting in on Wall Street. And in markets around the world, for that matter. Don’t think for a minute that the one- or two-day rallies we’re seeing are a sign of things to come for the stock markets… Because they aren’t. Read More |
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03.10.18- One Of History’s Most Accurate Indicators Of Financial Crisis Is Literally
On April 15, 1185, over eight centuries ago, a powerful earthquake struck the East Midlands region of England near the town of Lincoln. Modern scientists estimate the magnitude of the earthquake at 5.0 on today’s Richter scale… which was a pretty big deal back then. Medieval England didn’t have any earthquake-proof construction methods, and much of the region was leveled to the ground. Read More |
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03.08.17- The Truth About Inflation and Gold
Together, these three depressing facts mean a vast majority of Americans have seen their wealth and income crushed by inflation. Your wealth needs to have grown 220% over the last 30 years to have outpaced inflation. Read More |
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03.07.18- China’s Coming Financial Meltdown
At least it was until the Friday before last. That’s when Anbang was taken over by the Communist Chinese government. You can call that takeover, “a bailout with Chinese characteristics.” Read More |
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03.06.18- The Arithmetic of Risk
A month ago, I noted that prevailing valuation extremes implied negative total returns for the S&P 500 on 10-12 year horizon, and losses on the order of two-thirds of the market’s value over the completion of the current market cycle. With our measures of market internals constructive, on balance, we had maintained a rather neutral near-term outlook for months, despite the most extreme “overvalued, overbought, overbullish” syndromes in U.S. history. Read More |
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03.05.18- Make Your Choice:
Most experienced investors know the four most dangerous words are: This time is different. It never is. And yet one of my key predictions here at Peak Prosperity is that The next twenty years will be completely unlike the last twenty years. So am I saying that things really will be different this time? Read More |
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03.03.18- The warning shots of 2007
Assuming that the decline from the January-2018 peak is a short-term correction that will run its course before the end March (my assumption since the correction’s beginning in late-January), the recent price action probably is akin to what happened in February-March of 2007. In late-February of 2007 the SPX had been grinding its way upward in relentless fashion for many months. Read More |
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03.02.18- The Albatross Of Debt: The Stock Market's $67 Trillion Nightmare, Part 2
Needless to say, we have reached the mane. What drove the US economy for the past three decades was debt expansion----private and public--- at rates far faster than GDP growth. But that entailed a steady ratcheting up of the national leverage ratio until we hit what amounts to the top of the tiger's back---that is, Peak Debt at 3.5X national income. Read More |
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03.01.18- The Albatross Of Debt: The Stock Market's $67 Trillion Nightmare, Part 1
Mind you, while that number wasn't exactly diminutive, it had taken all of 188 years to accumulate. That is to say, Uncle Sam had borrowed an average of $28,000 per week during the 9,776 weeks since George Washington was sworn in as the nation's first president. Read More |
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02.28.18- The Secret Force Behind
This week, new Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be giving his first congressional testimony, and you can be sure that markets are waiting on his words with bated breath. Before his testimony, the Fed will be releasing its Monetary Policy Report, which will also give an indication to the direction of Fed policy. Because these will be his first official comments as Fed chair, Powell will want to both make a personal mark and make sure markets don’t panic over his remarks. Read More |
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02.27.18- 2018: The Year Of The Margin Call
This is money borrowed by (usually individual or “retail”) investors against their existing stocks to buy more stocks. Investors tend to do this when markets are rising and using leverage seems like an effortless way turbocharge their gains. But eventually the market turns down, leaving stock portfolios insufficient to cover related margin debt and generating “margin calls” in which brokers demand more money and/or start liquidating customer portfolios. This sends the market down sharply and indiscriminately, as fairly-valued babies are dumped along with overvalued bathwater. The result: a quick, brutal bear market. Read More |
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02.26.18- Big DOW Drop Only the Appetizer, “Main Course” Still Coming
But in this case, it might only be a hint of a much bigger market crash to come later this year. Analysts at Morgan Stanley said it best…
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02.24.18- Why The Most Recent Market Sell-Off Was Just The Beginning
On October 19, 1987, the Dow experienced its biggest one-day percentage loss in history – plunging 22.6%. It was “Black Monday.” The selloff was so fast and so severe, nothing else even comes close. The second worst percentage loss for the Dow was October 28, 1929 (also Black Monday) when the exchange fell 12.82%. It fell another 11.73% the next day (you guessed it… “Black Tuesday”). Then the Great Depression hit. Read More |
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02.23.18- Because Now is Not Forever; Deficits Will (Really, Really) Matter
The current narrative from Wall Street and the media is that higher wages, better economic growth and a weaker dollar are stoking inflation. These forces are producing higher interest rates, which negatively affects corporate earnings and economic growth and thus causes concern for equity investors. We think there is a thick irony that, in our over-leveraged economy, economic growth is harming economic growth. Read More |
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02.22.18- Calm Before The Inflationary Storm
The Fed is keeping a close eye on these developments, and that could fuel the inflation fears. The fear of rising prices includes most economic sectors, from gasoline, housing, food, healthcare, to clothing. Predictably, the market reacted immediately to the CPI rise with a 100-point loss after opening, even though the decline was quickly reversed. Investors are anticipating that the Federal Reserve could raise their interest rates three or more times by year-end. Read More |
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02.21.18- When Budget Deficits Will Really Go Vertical Mnuchin Gets It
United States Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin has a sweet gig. He writes rubber checks to pay the nation’s bills. Yet, somehow, the rubber checks don’t bounce. Instead, like magic, they clear. How this all works, considering the nation’s technically insolvent, we don’t quite understand. But Mnuchin gets it. He knows exactly how full faith and credit works – and he knows plenty more. Read More |
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02.20.18- Financial mega-battle to escalate in late February, early March
In the biggest move, the gauntlet has been cast by the Chinese as they challenge the U.S. petrodollar, with the formal announcement of a March 26th start for gold-backed-yuan oil futures trading. Asian secret society sources say the Year of the Dog, which is just starting, usually brings volatility (in this case presumably in the financial markets) before things settle down into a new normal as the year progresses. Read More |
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02.19.18- Special Edition - A Must-Read Crypto Alert
It may sound foolish or dangerous to say this, but hear me out. If you look at the myriad attacks on crypto over the last month, the return to November 2017 pricing and the recent settling and smoothing of the market, I can understand your skepticism. Look, I get it. Recently, there have been a lot of negative forces beating down the crypto market: Read More |
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02.17.18- According to Deutsche Bank,
Bellow are his key points. Read More |
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02.16.18- XIV Implosion & the Implications for Gold
First, think "implosion" is too strong of a word? What is VIX, and what is being “Short VIX”? Read More |
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02.15.18- Gold, U.S. Dollar, And Inflation
Those who ply the trade for a living (i.e. advisors, investors, traders, writers) all seem to be on the same page. Even fundamentalists and technical analysts are teammates. Sort of. The U.S. dollar is in the headlines, so naturally, most of the explanations and expectations for gold’s ‘big move’ center on U.S. dollar weakness. And they should. But some additional explanation is necessary. Read More |
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02.14.18- What Just Changed?
Has anything actually changed in the past two weeks? The conventional bullish answer is no, nothing's changed; the global economy is growing virtually everywhere, inflation is near-zero, credit is abundant, commodities will remain cheap for the foreseeable future, assets are not in bubbles, and the global financial system is in a state of sustainable wonderfulness. As for that spot of bother, the recent 10% decline in stocks: ho-hum, nothing to see here, just a typical "healthy correction" in a never-ending bull market, the result of flawed volatility instruments and too many punters picking up dimes in front of the steamroller. Read More |
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02.13.18- The PPT is the Only Thing Stopping an Outright Crash
Last year, 2017, was a not a normal year for stocks. Stocks as an asset class are not meant to go straight up without even a 1% pullback. But that is precisely what happened for nearly an entire year. Now that massive market rig is over. And anyone who continues to invest as though it’s 2017 is going to get annihilated in the coming weeks. The only thing that stop an all out crash in stocks was clear and obvious intervention in the markets by Central Banks. Read More |
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02.12.18- Billionaire Investor Warns of Impending Stock Market “Earthquake”
Icahn thinks the stock market is getting dangerous for the average person. His reasoning? Over-leveraged ETFs (exchange traded funds). This past week, that danger manifested, with the DOW dropping 1000+ points on Monday and then again on Thursday. It looks like the stock market “casino” will be calling your bets in 2018. In fact, Mr. Icahn says this is just the beginning, and the market equivalent of an earthquake is looming right around the corner… Read More |
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02.10.18- When will the next credit crisis occur?
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02.09.18- End of Fake Recovery
Those who are critical of my belief that the US stock market would crash by January 2018, may try to dodge the significance of these tumbling days by saying that eleven-hundred-plus points aint what it used to be. Read More |
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02.08.18- Here’s the big secret to know about the stock market’s next move
And then I stumbled on Dalio and Wilson predicting what the market will do next, and I have to confess, I started writing and could not stop. (I apologize ahead of time for the rantiness of this message.) Read More |
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02.07.18- Is The 9-Year-Long Dead-Cat-Bounce Finally Ending?
The term dead cat bounce is market lingo for a "recovery" after markets decline due to fundamental reversals. Markets tend to bounce back after sharp declines as participants (human and digital) who have been trained to "buy the dips" once again buy the decline, and the financial media rushes to reassure everyone that nothing has actually changed, everything is still peachy-keen wonderfulness. I submit that the past 9 years of market "recovery" is nothing but an oversized dead cat bounce that is finally ending. Here is a chart that depicts the final blow-off top phase of the dead cat bounce: Read More |
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02.06.18- Corporate Bond Market in Worst Denial Since 2007
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02.05.18- ECONOMIC CRASH LIKELY? Stock Market Insanity & Risk Reaching Nose-Bleed Levels
Regardless, the 665 point decline is just the beginning. Oh sure, we could see a continued selloff and then a move towards 27,000 or even higher. But, for the stock market to move up to 27,000 or 30,000 means absolutely nothing. Well, maybe it provided investors with a brief feeling of higher wealth until the markets really crashed. Read More |
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02.03.18- ‘THIS IS IT!’: Gold & Silver Are Telling Us The MEGA Stock Market Bubble Is Bursting
Gregory Mannarino provides a timely update as the stock market may be finally bursting. This is because of the hard sell-off in the bond market. Gregory says if the bond market sell-off continues, this is it for the stock market. If the debt bubble is in fact bursting, Gregory says we’re in a lot of trouble. Gregory says “this is the third and final bubble”. This is it. The bubble of all bubbles. Read More |
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02.02.18- SocGen's Edwards: Get Ready for Negative 10-Year Interest Rates
Edwards previously forecast that US 10-year yields will fall below zero but told Investment Week these could go as low as -1% in "the depth of the next recession" as they converge "totally" with Japan and Germany. "Sound ridiculous? German 10-year yields were -0.2% last July," he added. Read More |
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02.01.18- Misleading with Numbers: It's Worse When the Government Does It
One of today’s most obvious misleading number games is grade inflation. Teachers have accommodated student desires for higher grades to the point that the median GPA of graduating college seniors has risen around a full grade point since it was about 2.2 in 1965. Read More |
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01.31.18- Panic Grips U.S. Financial Markets As The Dow Falls 362 Points –
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01.30.18- What Will End the Bull Market?
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01.29.18- Peter Schiff: "We're Near The Endgame... And Trump's Gonna Be The Fall Guy"
Not even a full minute into an interview with Alex Jones of Info Wars, Schiff says “it’s not a good thing” that the economy is going to crash and burn. “Unfortunately, that’s what Trump has inherited from Obama. But it’s not even really just Obama, it’s the federal reserve. It’s the monetary policy that has been passed like a baton from Clinton to Bush to Obama and now to Trump. And we’re near the end of the game and unfortunately, Trump’s gonna be the fall guy. This thing is all gonna collapse while he’s president.” Read More |
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01.27.18- Russia and China Are Dead Serious About Ditching the Dollar  The Russian government has recently announced it will issue nearly $1 billion equivalent in state bonds, but denominated not in US dollars as is mostly the case. Rather it will be the first sale of Russian bonds in China’s yuan.
While $1 billion may not sound like much when compared with the Peoples’ Bank of China total holdings of US Government debt of more than $1 trillion or to the US Federal debt today of over $20 trillion, it’s significance lies beyond the nominal amount. It’s a test run by both governments of the potential for state financing of infrastructure and other projects independent of dollar risk from such events as US Treasury financial sanctions. Read More |
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01.26.18- Why the Next Downturn “Will Not Look Like 2008”
There are always cycles. The current cycle started at the bottom of the Great Recession and will last “until central banks put on the brakes,” said Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’re in a perfect situation, inflation is not a problem, growth is good, but we have to keep in mind the part of the cycle we’re in.” We’re “in the late stage of the cycle, a period that might last two years,” he said without specifying how far we’re already into that late stage. We do know that the Fed is gingerly taking the foot off the gas though it hasn’t yet slammed on the brakes. Read More |
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01.25.18- January 25th: Today’s
But don’t give me all the credit. Because I’m stealing this directly from an investing legend. His name is Joel Greenblatt. And in his classic 1997 book, You Too Can Be A Stock Market Genius, he made one thing perfectly clear… “The facts are overwhelming… stocks of spinoff companies significantly and consistently outperform the market averages. Read More |
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01.24.18- The Bubble That Could Break the World
Based on data going back to the 1929 crash, this current bubble looks like a particular kind that can produce large, sudden losses for investors. The market right now is especially susceptible to a sharp correction, or worse. Before diving into the best way to play the current bubble dynamics to your advantage, let’s look at the evidence for whether a bubble exists in the first place…Read More |
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01.23.18- According To These 3 Measures The Stock Market Is Now Literally Off The Charts
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01.22.18- America Is Bankrupt And Washington Doesn't Care
The United States is effectively bankrupt, but that doesn’t matter to the GOP. Once evangelists of fiscal responsibility and scourges of deficit spending, Republicans today glory in spilling red ink. The national debt is now $20.6 trillion, greater than the annual GDP of about $19.5 trillion. Alas, with Republicans at the helm, deficits are set to continue racing upwards, apparently without end. Read More |
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01.20.18- “Trump Bump” Not Enough to Salvage U.S. Dollar
The dollar is trading at the lowest level in 3 years, and that follows a whopping 10% decline in 2017. Additionally, a heightened amount of turmoil that has recently surrounded Trump has contributed to what seems like a cloudy future for the dollar. But political turmoil is just the beginning of what has been ailing the dollar… Read More |
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01.19.18- 7 Reasons To Avoid The S&P 500 In 2018
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01.18.18- New York Fed President Predicts
Though inflation is low, Dudley warned the economy is growing at an “above-trend pace” while the labor market is tightening, and will be boosted further by the recently enacted tax legislation. All this is happening despite the Fed hiking rates by 125 basis points over the last two years, which suggests the three further planned hikes for this year may not make much of a difference either. Read More |
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01.17.18- Is It True? Do Low Rates Justify High Valuations
A related mainstream truth is rising rates will cause high stock market valuations to fall. In fact, recently, both Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach have commented on the level of 10-year Treasury rates and why they are destined to go higher. Gundlach even went further, suggesting that if 10-year rates were to rise above 2.63% (currently 2.55%), stock prices would begin to fall. Read More |
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01.16.18- The Great Reset
I suspect it began with the top in Bitcon and the other 1300-1400 related pseudo currencies back in December. I did an interview in the first week of December where I said Bitcon was in a bubble. I believed it would do the same thing every other bubble in history did. It was going to crash and take all the money of most of the investors. The piece was posted on the 10 th of December. When I did the interview, Bitcon had been going virtually straight up for months and was about $16,858, a new high. Read More |
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01.15.18- More Colliding Ships...
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01.13.18- My Financial Road Map for 2018
Central banks may tweak a few rates here and there, announce some tapering due to “economic growth”, or deflect attention to fiscal policy, but the entire financial and capital markets system rests on the strategies, co-dependencies and cheap money policies of central banks. The bond markets will feel the heat of any tightening shift or fears of one, while the stock market will continue to rush ahead on the reality of cheap money supply until debt problems tug at the equity markets and take them down.Read More |
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01.12.18- Nasty Dark Clouds Are Forming On The Financial Horizon
Now, you don’t have to take my word for it that the market only focuses on the assets, this comes straight from the top echelons of the financial world. According to Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2017, total global wealth increased to a new record of $280 trillion in 2017. Here is Credit Suisse’s summary of the Global Wealth 2017: Read More |
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91.11.18- 2018: The Year of Living Dangerously
That description might seem odd to lot of observers. Major U.S. stock indexes keep hitting new all-time highs. 2017 went down as the first calendar year in which the Dow Jones industrial average was up for all 12 months. Even in strong bull market years there are usually one or two down months as stocks take a breather on the way higher. Not last year. There’s been no rest for the bull; it’s up, up and away. Read More |
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01.10.18- Bitcoin Isn’t the Bubble - The Global Financial System Is
It’s important to me that I don’t just preach to the choir when it comes to my unconventional views, and I hope this will help me reach a wider and more mainstream audience. Below are a couple brief excerpts from the piece, published in full at The Hill: Read More |
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01.09.18- If Everyone Knows Pensions Are Screwed,
The average pension fund assumes it can achieve a 7.6% rate of return on its assets in the future. As noted in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, the majority of these assets are invested in the stock market. The rest are invested in bonds, real estate and alternatives. An aggregate bond index fund yields 2.5% today. Real estate investment trusts, as a group, yield nearly 4%. Read More |
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01.08.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Russiagate Turns On Its Originators
As the presstitutes are aligned with the military/security complex, Hillary and the DNC, and the liberal/progressive/left, the Russiagate orchestration is a powerful conspiracy against the president of the United States and the “deplorables” who elected him. Nevertheless, the Russiagate Conspiracy has fallen apart and has now been turned against its originators. Read More |
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01.06.18- The Value Of Bitcoin
None of them cared to learn what it actually is. Or how it works. They just wanted to understand why suddenly so many folks they know are trying to buy Bitcoin hand over fist. And, of course, should they buy in now, too? If you (or people you care about) have similar questions, this report is for you. Read More |
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01.05.18- Leveraged Economy Blows Up In 2018
Before I get into my analysis and the reasons we are heading towards the Seneca Cliff, I wanted to share the following information. I haven’t posted much material over the past week because I decided to spend a bit of quality time with family. Furthermore, a good friend of mine past away which put me in a state of reflection. This close friend was also very knowledgeable about our current economic predicament and was a big believer in owning gold and silver. So, it was a quite a shame to lose someone close by who I could chat with about these issues. Read More |
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01.04.18- A Return to Financial Sanity?
The DOW, S&P500, NASDAQ and other markets sell at all-time highs. However, many imbalances exist within our financial world. This is not new – things have been crazy before, are now, and will be again. But to regain financial sanity we need: |
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01.03.18- How the Fake Boom Ends
U.S. household assets stand at $97 trillion. All over the world, “wealth” is surging, too… with the value of global stocks near a record high of $100 trillion. But there’s a hitch: We allege that this wealth was built on fake money. If we’re right, is the wealth fake, too? Cometh the Grim Reaper The Fed’s ultra-low interest rates over the past eight years have created the biggest pile of debt in history. Read More |
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01.02.18- The Inescapable Reason Why the Financial System Will Fail
Modern finance has many complex moving parts, and this complexity masks its inner simplicity. Let’s break down the core dynamics of the current financial system. The Core Dynamic of the “Recovery” and Asset Bubbles: Credit Read More |
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01.01.18- A Bedtime Story
His mother tries to get him to go to bed at 9 p.m. But the little boy’s internal clock is still on Baltimore time; it tells him it is much too early to go to sleep. Grandpa takes over, drawing out the monetary system like a general spreading a map on a field table. “Here is the enemy,” he says gravely. “They have us completely surrounded. We’re doomed.” James grumbles. He squirms. He has a sunny, optimistic temperament. But we think our explanations are sinking in. He seems to understand… Read More |
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12.30.17- Ron Paul: ‘We Are On The Verge Of Something Like What Happened In ’89 When The Soviet System Just Collapsed’
The godfather of the Tea Party movement and perhaps the most prominent right-leaning libertarian in America, Ron Paul, believes the economic boom the United States experienced under President Trump could be a “bit of an illusion.” Mr. Paul sees inequality, inflation, and debt as real threats that could potentially cause a turmoil. Read More |
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12.29.17- Investment prospects for 2018
Economists’ forecasts today, with very few exceptions, are a waste of time and downright misleading. In 2016, we saw this spectacularly illustrated with Brexit, when the IMF, OECD, the Bank of England and the UK Treasury all forecast a slump in the British economy in the event the referendum voted to leave the EU. While there are reasonable suspicions there was an element of disinformation in the forecasts, the fact they were so wrong is the important point. Yet, we still persist in paying economists to fail us. Read More |
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12.28.17- The True Consequence of Ending the Gold Standard (In One Chart)
In simple terms, the above chart reveals that once the US abandoned the Gold Standard completely in 1971, the amount of debt in the US financial system skyrocketed relative to the real economy. As a result of this, by the time the mid-1990s rolled around, debt levels in the US financial system had become a systemic risk: with this much leverage in the system, even a brief bout of debt deflation (when debt markets deflate) would induce a systemic crisis. Read More |
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12.27.17- Would This Have Happened Under President Hillary? Holiday Retail Sales Soar Compare To Last Year
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12.26.17- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: "Why I'm Hopeful" Readers often ask me to post something hopeful, and I understand why: doom-and-gloom gets tiresome. Human beings need hope just as they need oxygen, and the destruction of the Status Quo via over-reach and internal contradictions doesn't leave much to be happy about. The most hopeful thing in my mind is that the Status Quo is devolving from its internal contradictions and excesses. It is a perverse, intensely destructive system with horrific incentives for predation, exploitation, fraud and complicity and few disincentives. Read More |
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12.25.17- Epic Stimulus Overload
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12.23.17- What the Falling Dollar Means for Gold Prices in 2018
As the year comes to an end, it’s down more than 7% compared to other key currencies. Weak inflation and doubts over Trump’s ability to deliver on his legislative promises have contributed to the greenbacks’ decline. This, together with strong economic growth and strict monetary policies in the global economy, have played a pivotal role in the dollar’s weakness. Read More |
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12.22.17- 7 Reasons Why The US Cannabis Industry Is About To Be "Rocked"
So, to address any pent up investor questions, Colas has put together a list of 7 major points about the rollout in terms of regulations, taxes, revenue estimates, potential banking solutions, and employment consequences. Read More |
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12.21.17- The Silver Bullet:
Ten long years after the crisis, volatility and fear seem to have disappeared from financial markets. A synchronous global expansion coupled with persistently loose monetary policy has produced a goldilocks environment for all assets. Will it work for another year? Read More |
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12.20.17- Gold, The Economy, Cryptocurrencies And Irrational Exuberance
John Hussman wrote a must-read essay titled: “Three Delusions: Paper Wealth, A Booming Economy and Bitcoin (link).” The crypto/blockchain delusion has exceeded the absurdity of the dot.com and housing bubble eras. I was shorting fraud stocks happily in both eras. I’m short a company now called Riot Blockchain. If you look at its description in Yahoo Finance, it bills itself as a developer of technologies applied to animal (“non-human”) medicine. It recently changed its name to Riot Blockchain from Bioptix Inc. Prior to calling itself Bioptic Inc, it called itself Venaxis. Read More |
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12.19.17- “Dark Money” Runs the World
For the last 40 years, most people believed the stock market always goes up. Simply buy and hold long enough, the theory went, and you could sit back and watch the money accumulate in your account. No thought or hard work needed. It was a nifty strategy — until the idea burned most investors in 2008. Almost a decade later, the scar tissue is still fresh for many investors. Even today, after the U.S. stock market has rallied by 271% since the bottom on March 6, 2009 — nearly tripling investors’ money — only about half of Americans are invested in the stock market, according to NPR. That’s down from two-thirds compared to a decade ago.Read More |
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12.18.17- From Bitcoin to Hashgraph: The Crypto Revolution - Hidden Secrets of Money Ep. 8
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12.16.17- Stop Treating Bitcoin Like A Stock
I get it. It looks like a really volatile stock ripe for quick profit or financial demise at the roll of some dice, and if we keep treating it this way, that’s exactly how it will remain. Investing in stock drives the production of better goods and services, but currency isn’t a commodity which will depreciate due to the nature of its own decay. It’s not a service which could lose its public appeal in a few years. Intellectual property is a closer metaphor, but a dollar will still never hold intrinsic value, ironically, unless it is one day viewed as an antique. Read More |
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12.15.17- Inflation Can Return Much Faster
But there has been inflation. It’s just been in assets like stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. How about bitcoin? Bitcoin increased about $2,000 yesterday alone! It’s trading at about $16,000 as I write. We’ve never seen anything like it. The bottom line is, we’ve seen asset price inflation, and lots of it, too. Read More |
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12.14.17- Have Stocks Reached A Permanently Rigged Plateau?
The problem with calling for an end to the good times is that there has been so many false contrarian signals in recent years it is as if the very idea of “risk/reward” has been temporarily laid to waste. To use a quick example, in early 2016 alarm bells were ringing as junk bonds were imploding, confidence was sliding, and technical market levels were being struck. At the time it looked like the bull was done. Read More |
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12.13.17- A Question for Every Investor
Questions like Ron’s that suggest the decay of capitalism and free markets should raise concerns for anyone’s market thesis, bullish, bearish or agnostic. What stops a central bank from manipulating asset prices? When do they cross a line from marginal manipulation to absolute price control? Unfortunately, there are no concrete answers to these questions, but there are clues. Read More |
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Each quarter, Credit Bubble Bulletin’s Doug Noland posts a “flow of funds” report that analyzes the debt and securities markets data released by the Fed in its Z.1 Report. It’s always shocking to see the numbers we’re dealing with, but even more so lately as history’s biggest financial bubble starts to dwarf its predecessors. Here’s some of the scarier data in chart form, with Noland’s commentary: Read More |
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12.11.17- Investment Potpourri
Economists prior to Keynes viewed “modeled” as well as “real time” economies as self-balancing, but subject to imbalances from external shocks like oil prices. Rarely did theory incorporate finance and credit as one of those potential earthquakes. Read More |
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12.09.17- Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 4
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12.08.17- Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 3
The result is banks and their attending insiders are a de facto Committee of Central Planners in the great Soviet style. What is fashionable and exciting to them can happen, and what they dislike or disapprove of for any reason can never happen. And once on a completely fiat system, this is how capital is allocated through our entire system: badly. Read More |
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12.07.17- Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 2
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12.06.17- Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 1
Now, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t throw in my own two Satoshis: Dr. D claims that “..everyone has an equal opportunity to solve the next calculation..”, but while that may perhaps have been sort of true at the very start, it isn’t now. It’s not true for the computerless or computer-illiterate, for those too poor to afford the electricity required by bitcoin mining, and for various other -very large- groups of people. Read More |
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12.05.17- It’s Not Really About Bitcoin Price Surging, It’s Fiat Currencies In Free Fall
Molyneux says:
The decline of fiat currencies For many decades, governments have had absolute control over the global finance sector and monetary policy through the fiat currency system. Read More |
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12.04.17- Plunder Capitalism
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12.02.17- Carmageddon for Tesla
Today was the monthly moment of truth for automakers in the US. They reported the number of new vehicles that their dealers delivered to their customers and that the automakers delivered directly to large fleet customers. These are unit sales, not dollar sales, and they’re religiously followed by the industry. Total sales in November rose 0.9% from a year ago to 1,393,010 new vehicles, according to Autodata, which tracks these sales as they’re reported by the automakers. Sales of cars dropped 8.2%. Sales of trucks – which include SUVs, crossovers, pickups, and vans – rose 6.6%. Strong replacement demand from the hurricane-affected areas in Texas papered over weaknesses elsewhere. As always, there were winners and losers. Read More |
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12.01.17- Bitcoin Soars After CFTC Approves Futures Trading: First Trade To Take Place Dec.18
The CFTC announced that through a process known as "self-certification," CME and Cboe stated that their contracts comply with U.S. law and CFTC regulations. The US commodity regulator also said that the it held “rigorous discussions” with the exchanges that resulted in improvements to the contracts’ designs and settlement. Read More |
Yesterday, I discussed the 
While glowing presidential proclamations about US GDP growth last week did nothing to prevent the stock market from rushing headlong over the cusps of a FAANG stock ledge, the market is taking a breather today. So, let’s take a breather and go back and look at why that GDP report had no bite. 
Hussman sees Nasdaq sinking 57%, Dow tumbling 69%
The sheer magnitude of how much money there is in the world can be quite staggering—and hard to understand. What if you could visualize every market in the world as a bubble?
The world has been plagued with periodic bouts of the economic rollercoaster of booms and busts, inflations and recessions, especially during the last one hundred years. The main culprits responsible for these destabilizing and disruptive episodes have been governments and their central banks. They have monopolized the control of their respective nation’s monetary and banking systems, and mismanaged them. There is really nowhere else to point other than in their direction.
If you’ve never seen an out-and-out cattle stampede in person, it’s difficult to convey the power and the dynamics that drive it. But I’ll try.
Each crisis is bigger than the one before. In complex dynamic systems such as capital markets, risk is an exponential function of system scale. Increasing market scale correlates with exponentially larger market collapses.
It’s simple math — an equal and opposite reaction. After a long spell of QE took mortgage interest down to the lowest it has ever been, a long spell of QT (quantitative tightening) is going to take it back up again. That’s why I forecasted another housing collapse with confidence last year:
The dollar collapse thesis – which ends with all fiat currencies achieving their intrinsic value of zero — doesn’t preclude some thrills and chills along the way, in which some currencies fall faster than others and wreak havoc on various parts of the global economy.
With average incomes in the U.S. generally remaining flat, simple math says when mortgage rates get high enough, the market will have to correct.
The Spanish government is about to fall after the Ciudadanos party decided to join PSOE (socialist) and Podemos in a non-confidence vote against PM Rajoy. Hmm, what would that mean for the Catalan politicians Rajoy is persecuting? The Spanish political crisis is inextricably linked to the Italian one, not even because they are so much alike, but because both combine to create huge financial uncertainty in the eurozone.
Most of us are aware of the inflationary pressures in the major economies, that so far are proving somewhat latent in the non-financial sector. But some central banks are on the alert as well, notably the Federal Reserve Board, which has taken the lead in trying to normalise interest rates. Others, such as the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England are yet to be convinced that price inflation is a potential problem.
America’s place in the world is experiencing an historic turning point. All the mumbo-jumbo about being the “exceptional” and “indispensable” nation, the natural “leader” of something called the “West,” the guarantor of some kind of international system of “rules” is finally being cast into the dustbin of history.
Sometimes it feels like the U.S. drinks a little bit too much of their own “dollar domination Kool-Aid.”
As the blame game over the alleged chemical attack in Syria escalates ahead of what is expected to be an imminent, if contained, air strike campaign by the US, UK and/or France against Syria, on Friday morning, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow had “irrefutable evidence” that the attack – which allegedly killed more than 40 people in an April 7 chemical weapons strike on the former rebel outpost of Douma -was staged with the help of a foreign secret service.
Our analysis continues today with this research of a potential Short Squeeze in the SPX and other broader markets. As you are probably well aware, we have been nailing the markets with our detailed analysis for quite a while. Our Advanced Analytical tools have called nearly every move. Nearly two weeks ago we called a massive market bottom to form in the US markets – well before just about anyone else even saw a bottom formation. In fact, we have already banked 10% profit on the first half of our best-cherry-picked setup for subscribers and it’s continuing to rally more.
Analysts disagree about which indicator is best for calling market tops, but the easiest to understand — and the most tragic — is probably margin debt.
The DOW suffered a net-drop of 
“The market doesn’t know what to do with negative inputs today… much less some really bad news.”
The Federal Reserve (Fed) has increased the Fed Funds rate by 125 basis points or 1.25% since 2015, which had little effect on bonds until recently. Of late, however, yields on longer-maturity bonds have begun to rise, contributing to anxiety in the equity markets.
The economy has been showing great gains, and that positive trend is fueling fears of a surge in inflation. The Consumer Price Index, the key predictor of inflationary trends, rose 
The secret battle for the planet earth is entering a critical phase over the coming weeks, especially in the realm of finance, where an epic three-way battle is raging, multiple sources agree. In this battle, cryptocurrencies and the Chinese yuan are fighting each other, as well as fighting to replace the current privately-owned Western central bank petrodollar, Euro, and Japanese yen-based system.
I’m liking what I see from the crypto markets lately.
There are 
This week we saw the beginning of the implosion of one of the most crowded trades in the world. We’re talking, of course, about the short VIX trade. I say “the beginning” because the short VIX trade is multi-faceted and has deep roots in the business cycle that we’re in. Like most stories in the market, you need to back up from the tree-line in order to get a view of the forest rather than the trees. 
Gold is all the rage right now. And some apparently think that if you aren’t outright ‘bullish’ you are unaware or unintelligent.
The illusion that risk can be limited delivered three asset bubbles in less than 20 years.
The markets have changed and many are going to get “taken to the cleaners.”
We’ve been using the market like a casino. Except, “this casino is on steroids” according to billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
The timing of any credit crisis is set by the rate at which the credit cycle progresses. People don’t think in terms of the credit cycle, wrongly believing it is a business cycle. The distinction is important, because a business cycle by its name suggests it emanates from business. In other words, the cycle of growth and recessions is due to instability in the private sector and this is generally believed by state planners and central bankers.
It took sixteen months to build the exceptionally steep Trump Rally, and just one week to eliminate a quarter of it. While I wouldn’t call that jolting reversal a stock-market crash in the ordinary sense, the largest one-day point fall in the history of the market (by far) certainly marks a massive change in market conditions. From this point forward, it won’t be the same market it was.
I’ve been asked to comment on the most recent market decline. My initial reaction was, markets go up and they go down. America is a great country but the US Constitution doesn’t guarantee always-rising markets. I sat down and I wanted to write a reassuring message. I wanted to express my empathy. Somehow, I found that my reservoir of empathy was empty: After recent decline the market is still up twenty-something percent from the beginning of 2017.
With the Dow Jones Index falling 665 points today, the risk of a large market correction has just increased significantly. Ironically, I discussed the very indicators that were setting up for a huge market correction in my newest video which I recorded on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the video posted on my Youtube channel on Friday morning and now on my website until late in the evening.
Société Générale's bearish strategist Albert Edwards has told Investment Week he believes US 10-year Treasury yields will fall to as low as -1%, as he warned of "double bubble trouble" in US markets. 
Major international comparisons have long concluded that Americans’ ability to effectively utilize mathematics is inadequate. Such conclusions divide students, parents, teachers and administrators into camps that share little more than blaming others for the problems. However, it is unclear whether all the finger-pointing indicates a real desire to overcome our innumeracy. In fact, we systematically misuse numbers to distort reality because we want to fool ourselves, making our ineptitude no surprise.
It isn’t going to be a surprise when U.S. stock prices fall 50, 60 or 70 percent from where they are today. The only real surprise is that it took this long for it to happen. Even after falling 362 points on Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average is still ridiculously high. In fact, the only two times in our entire history when stocks have been this overvalued were right before the stock market crash of 1929 and right before the dotcom bubble burst. Not even before the financial crisis of 2008 were stock valuations as absurd as they are right now. 
One of the most commonly asked questions among market participants and non-participants alike is, “What will cause the stock market to stop rising?” Normally, investors would be thrilled at the prospect of a perpetual rise in equity prices. Yet, with so few direct participants nowadays compared to former years, there is a growing desire among many for a major decline which will allow non-participants to buy stocks at a much lower price. As we’ll discuss in this commentary, that scenario will likely remain a pipe dream for an extended period before it ever becomes a reality. 
Peter Schiff isn’t known for mincing words or sugarcoating the evidence. The financial broker and economist said in an interview “the economy is going to blow up like a bomb,” and when that happens, Donald Trump will take all of the blame. 
Today, I want to give you the single best place to invest in the stock market.
The key to bubble analysis is to look at what’s causing the bubble. If you get the hidden dynamics right, your ability to collect huge profits or avoid losses is greatly improved.
The first chart comes from my friend, 
These poseurs of fiscal responsibility are about to drive up debt to its highest levels since World War II.
The “Trump bump” seems to be turning into a light tap for the U.S. Dollar. It has lost all of its post-election gain, and is starting 2018 off on the wrong foot.
We are barely out of the gates in 2018 and the S&P 500 is up over 4%. From just looking around me it is clear entrepreneurs and consumers are optimistic about the future. For much of the last decade the general public wouldn't touch equities with a ten foot pole. Now people are taking on debt to buy as much cryptoassets as possible. I don't share this optimism and primarily look for investments outside of the U.S. and in special situations and investments that may have low or negative correlation to the general direction of the market. Seven reasons why I want to be very careful going into 2018: 
In a recent 
When the financial media continuously repeat an opinion as fact, it spawns a mainstream narrative, which produces a powerful effect on investor psychology. One mainstream narrative, repeated with certainty, is low interest rates cause high stock market valuations, which is supported by the public statements of investment luminaries such as Warren Buffett.
The 
In my News and Views from the Nefarium last Thursday (Jan 11th), I prefaced my remarks about the Franco-Chinese summit by pointing out that these past two weeks have seen some strange stories, stories suggesting that while the war between the great powers for hegemony may not have gone hot, it's at least much warmer than before. For example, in the space of a few days, we've seen (1) the US launch, and as quickly lose, a classified space satellite; (2) ships colliding in the Aegean Sea and in the Persian Gulf, and (3) Russia shoot down over a dozen drones which it claims "Syrian militants" shot at Russian bases. 
In last 
I’m calling 2018 “The Year of Living Dangerously.”
Last week, I was offered an opportunity to write an opinion piece for The Hill. I took advantage of the offer and put something together addressing the whole “is Bitcoin a bubble” debate, and I’m pleased to say it was published earlier this morning.
The brewing pension crisis has been well-documented by a number of platforms and pundits over the past few years. But there are two charts that put it into perspective for investors who find themselves in the same boat as pension managers looking for returns in a world nearly devoid of them.
Russiagate originated in a conspiracy between the military/security complex, the Clinton-controlled Democratic National Committee, and the liberal/progressive/left. The goal of the military/security complex is to protect its out-sized budget and power by preventing President Trump from normalizing relations with Russia. Hillary and the DNC want to explain away their election loss by blaming a Trump/Putin conspiracy to steal the election. The liberal/progressive/left want Trump driven from office. 
So... in the past week, I’ve been asked for advice on Bitcoin by my brother-in-law, my local realtor, and close friends from as far away as Texas.
Financial sanity and stability may not return, but we can protect our assets and learn from the discussion.
A more human world lies just beyond the edge of the Status Quo.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt so compelled to drink in my life than the past week watching Bitcoin. It’s like watching apaper airplane bounce in the wind that could either nosedive any moment or catch another swift gust upward.
I deplore the tax cut that has passed Congress. It is not an economic policy tax cut, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with supply-side economics. The entire purpose is to raise equity prices by providing equity owners with more capital gains and dividends. In other words, it is legislation that makes equity owners richer, thus further polarizing society into a vast arena of poverty and near-poverty and the One Percent, or more precisely a fraction of the One Percent wallowing in billions of dollars. Unless our rulers can continue to control the explanations, the tax cut edges us closer to revolution resulting from complete distrust of government. 
