05.18.19- Tariffs Terror: Stocks Crash And Gold Price Soars
Stewart Thomson

The short seasonal rally for gold that typically follows India’s Akha Teej holiday (May 7 this year) is in play but this time it is being “juiced” by a major US stock market meltdown!

In a game with nine innings, the US business cycle is probably in the eighth or ninth inning.

Stock market welfare programs provided by central banks (QE and intense rate cuts) have extended the bull market in stocks. QE is a vile form of corporate socialism. Horrifically, QE is maniacally embraced by governments around the world. Read More

05.17.19- Enjoy the Bounce... What Comes Next Won't be Pretty
Graham Summers

As I outlined yesterday, the markets are currently staging a relief bounce from the initial drop that began in early May.

From a metaphoric perspective, I call this bounce the “bargaining” phase for the markets… as they work through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) related to the US/ China trade deal.

This stage will likely last a few weeks into the end of May/ early June. The S&P 500 has broken its downtrend (red lines) and retained support (blue lines). Read More

05.16.19- April Retail Sales Soiled The Bed Sheets
Dave Kranzler

Perhaps the perma-bullish Wall Street analysts should contribute to retail sales by stocking up on Depends – like the Merrill Lynch analyst who forecast retail sales to climb 0.7% ex-autos. Retail sales, preliminarily, were said to have declined 0.2% from March.   The “core” retail sales group – retail sales not including autos and gasoline – were flat. Wall Street’s finest expected a consensus 0.4% gain.

I say “preliminarily” above because, if you scan the Census Bureau’s report you’ll note “asterisks” in several major line items. Read More

05.15.19- China Calls For "People's War" Against The US, Vows To "Fight For A New World"
Brandon Smith

While market mood has shifted diametrically from yesterday, with stocks sharply higher on Tuesday following what has widely been interpreted as conciliatory comments from both president Trump and various members of China's ruling elite, one would be hard pressed to find any de-escalation amid the Chinese press commentaries written in the aftermath of the latest escalation in trade war between the US and China.

In a series of editorials and op-ed articles published Monday and Tuesday, Chinese state media slammed what it labeled the Trump administration's "greed and arrogance", called for a "people's war" targeting the US "with precision" as China begins a "fight for a new world."  Read More

05.14.19- Tales From The Casino, Part 1: Funds That Bet On Volatility Might SPIKE Volatility, Crashing The Markets
Rystad Energy

It’s a measure of modern financial markets’ absurdity that bets on bets on bets have come to seem normal. Maybe acronyms like CLO and CDO make them sound scientific. Or maybe it’s ty.

But in reality, the casino is just adding new kinds of roulette wheels and slot machines, from which society derives exactly zero net benefit. Read More

05.13.19- The IMF has not given up on trying to steal your money
Jim Rickards

You’ve heard a lot in recent years about ‘negative interest rates’.

The idea is simple.

Instead of the bank paying you interest on money you have in the bank, you pay the bank for holding your money.

Normally, if you put $100,000 in the bank and it has a 2% interest rate, then at the end of one year, you have $102,000 in your account. Read More

05.11.19- A Food Crisis Is Here: Trouble For Farmers In The Corn Belt
Mac Slavo

Trouble is brewing for farmers in the United States located in the “corn belt.”  Corn is fed to the animals much of the country consumes, so without it, we are staring a food crisis right in the face

Corn planting is already behind on schedule. The weather in the United States has made farming difficult as of late, while bankruptcies soar and flooding continues. As the weather in four of the top six states for corn production couples with the skyrocketing number of bankruptcies of American farmers, we could be on the precipice of a food crisis. Read More

05.10.19- China Has Propped Up Global Markets Since December - Is This About To End?
Brandon Smith

Global stock markets and some treasury markets have become a rather spectacular farce over the past ten years, so much so that there are many people in the investment world that actually believe the long running bull market rally will “never end”. My view of stock markets has always been the same – they are an economic placebo; a psychological crutch that is exploited by central banks and governments to dupe the public into thinking our financial system is stable, even while the rest of the economy is in steep decline. Read More

05.09.19- The Bond Market Just Sent
a Disturbing Message
Robert Burgess

A crummy Treasury auction leads market commentary. Plus, trade bets, oil advances and more.

Global markets got a glimpse of the unthinkable Wednesday when the U.S. held a key bond auction. The $27 billion sale of 10-year notes – the world’s benchmark securities  – didn’t go well at all. It wasn’t a failure; that would have triggered no less than an Armageddon-type event on par with the financial crisis. But the poor demand sure sparked a lot of questions, including whether this was a sign that investors finally had enough of the government’s profligate spending and borrowing. Read More

05.08.19- Is Turkey The Snowflake That Unleashes
The European Banking System Avalanche?
Claudio Grass

Turkey’s debt problem, coupled with the plummeting lira, is arguably the most important risk factor for the nation’s economy.

To make matters worse, far from it posing a threat just to Turkey itself, it also has the potential to inflict significant damage elsewhere too, starting with key economies in the Eurozone.

At first glance, the situation in Turkey might resemble many past similar scenarios of a heavily indebted nation with a plummeting currency that descends into a severe recession and eventually gets bailed out, like Greece. Read More

05.07.19- America Needs A Debt Jubilee
Paul Craig Roberts

As school children my friends and I were very interested in archaeology and ancient civilizations. We read all the available books. My best friend intended to become an archaeologist and to explore ancient ruins about which we imagined more than we actually knew.  

As far as I can discern these days no one in the general population has any thoughts of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Ur.  For the American young the 1940s, not 2,500 BC, is the ancient past. Read More

05.06.19- The Company Store Leaves
almost nothing to live on
Chris Martenson

In the song Sixteen Tons by Merle Travis (and made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford), the idea of the ‘company store’ referred to a system of debt bondage that effectively trapped workers within an unfair system designed to harvest all of their labor at very low cost.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
Sixteen Tons – Merle Travis Read More

05.04.19- The Crash In US Economic Fundamentals Is Accelerating
Brandon Smith

When looking at the health of an economic system it is impossible to gauge growth or stability by only taking two or three indicators into account. The problem is, this is exactly what central banks and governments tend to do. In fact, governments and central banks wildly and deliberately promote certain indicators as the signals everyone should care about while ignoring a whole host of other fundamentals that do not fit their “recovery” narrative. When these few chosen indicators don't read well either, they rig the numbers in their favor.  Read More

05.03.19- I Dare You To Tell Me The Economy Is “Booming” After Reading This List Of 19 Facts About Our Current Economic Performance
Michael Snyder

After taking an honest look at the facts, I don’t know how anyone can possibly claim that the U.S. economy is “booming”.  I really don’t.  We hear this sort of rhetoric from the mainstream media all the time, but it doesn’t make any sense.  As I discussed yesterday, nobody should be using the term “booming” to describe the state of the U.S. economy until we have a full year when GDP growth is 3 percent or better, and at this point we haven’t had that since the middle of the Bush administration.  And as you will see below, the latest numbers are clearly telling us that the U.S. economy is not even moving in the right direction.  Economic conditions are getting worse, and they weren’t that great to begin with. Read More

05.02.19- Copper and Bond Yields Are Warning That Growth is Gone
Graham Summers

One investor has a history of timing major market turns like no other.

He called the 2011 growth peak before anyone else. He nailed the 2016 bottom in risk assets. And he even timed the December bottom perfectly.

His name is Dr. Copper.

Because of its countless industrial uses, copper is more sensitive to economic growth or stagnation than any other asset class on the planet. Which is why investment legends (among them Stanley Druckenmiller, who is arguably the greatest investor of the last 30 years) watch Copper like a hawk. Read More

05.01.19- Legal Hemp Will Make This Sector Soar… Let’s Profit
Nick Giambruno

In today’s essay, I’m going to show you another major milestone on the road to full cannabis legalization in the U.S.

It centers on one of America’s forgotten cash crops…

The applications for this crop greatly exceed those of regular cannabis. And the potential upside is almost impossible to calculate.

I’m talking about hemp, which is now legal for the first time in over 70 years after the government legalized it last year.

I’ll explain all the details about this big opportunity in a moment. But first, let me back up and explain what hemp is. Read More

04.30.19- Michael Pento: Here’s How You Know The Market Is Overvalued
John Rubino

To put into perspective how overvalued and dangerous the US market has become; I often cite the figure of total market cap to GDP—currently 145% of the economy. How high is 145% of GDP? It is a full 30% higher than it was before the start of the Great Recession. The twin sister to this metric is the Household Net Worth to GDP Ratio. Household net worth as a percent of GDP is calculated by dividing the current bubbles in home prices and equities by the underlying economy, which has been artificially inflated by interest rates that have been pushed into the sub-basement of history. This metric is now an incredible 535% of GDP, which is a record high and 19% higher than the NASDAQ bubble of 2000. To put that figure in perspective, the good folks at Daily Reckoning have calculated that the historical average is 384%. Read More

04.29.19- GDP: Fake News
Jim Rickards

The first-quarter GDP number was released this morning. And at 3.2%, it came in far above estimates. Consensus was about 2.3%. It was also the highest Q1 GDP print since 2015.

But there’s probably less here than meets the eye.

About half the GDP gain came from a surge in inventories and a sharp reduction in the trade deficit, neither of which is sustainable. They are likely one-time boosts. Read More

04.27.19- The Financialization
of the American Economy
Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – The sea is moody. We are in a hotel room overlooking Ardmore Bay.

It is like a cruise ship, beached on the shore. We see the sea, with its changing tempers, but we are not part of it.

One day it is angry, with white-capped waves slapping against the rocks. Another day, it is bright and chipper, deep blue, and sparkling with sunlight.

And today, it is gloomy… with no waves, at all. And even the clouds overhead seem to hang low, sulking… Read More

04.26.19- Dust-Biting All Around: "All The Market's Juice Has Been Squeezed Out"
Michael Every

Climate change, deforestation and desertification have their financial analogy. After all, the financial landscape surely looks like a desert these days – as all juice has been squeezed out. German 10y Bund yields are back below zero, equity indices close to record highs and volatility measures (be that of FX, equities or fixed income) close to record lows. So, when in the desert, make sure you have enough water on you.

Talking of deserts, we have already seen quite some dust biting this week... Read More

04.25.19- Bannon And Bass: "China Is Most Significant Existential Threat
The US Has Ever Faced"
Tyler Durden

Perhaps out of concern that his former boss might be pushing Robert Lighthizer and Steve Mnuchin to cave on enforcement, technology transfers and market access for the sake of securing a deal with Beijing, former White House Chief strategist Steve Bannon appeared alongside hedge fund manager Kyle Bass, Wall Street's most visible China bear, to try and explain why Washington needs to stick to its guns and make sure Beijing is held to account for its decades of trade abuses. Read More

04.24.19- If "Getting Ahead" Depends On Asset Bubbles, It's Not "Getting Ahead," It's Gambling
Charles Hugh Smith

Given that the economy is now totally and completely dependent on inflating asset bubbles, it makes no sense to invest for the long-term.

Beneath the endlessly hyped expansion in gross domestic product (GDP) of the past two decades, the economy has changed dramatically. The American Dream boils down to social and economic mobility, a.k.a. getting ahead through hard work, merit and wise investments in oneself and one's family. Read More

04.23.19- “It’s Not God’s Fault. It’s Man.”
Bill Bonner 

And it is a holy thing, and it is a precious time

And it is the only way

Forget-me-nots among the snow, it’s always been and so it goes.

– Jimmy MacCarthy, “The Bright Blue Rose”

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – The priest in St. James’ Church, Mallow, gave a good sermon for Easter Sunday. Read More

04.22.19- I Am the Egg Man
Ken Grant

“Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog’s eye”-- John Winston Ono Lennon

With my 59 ½ birthday now a scant two weeks away, it’s time to face up to the following, mixed-blessing reality: I am indeed the Egg Man. I suppose there’s nothing to be ashamed about in this regard. After all, there is more than one Egg Man out there, and though JL doesn’t specify the quantity, I suspect there are in fact a great number of us. Besides, it’s Easter, and therefore the point in the calendar when the Ova community rises highest in the esteem of Christendom. It also bears mention that All God’s ambulatory Creatures: mankind, other mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and even insects, began their existences as eggs. Read More

04.20.19- China’s Fake Numbers And The Risk They Pose For The Rest Of The World
John Rubino

Not so long ago, London Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was one of the handful of must-read financial journalists. He probably still is, but since he disappeared behind the Telegraph’s pay wall his work is invisible to non-subscribers, only emerging when a free outlet runs one of his stories.

That happened this morning when the Sydney Morning Herald carried his analysis of the financial Ponzi scheme that is China. Read More

04.19.19- The Next Financial Crisis Won't Be Caused by Fraud: This Time Will Be Different
Charles Hugh Smith

Extreme levels of debt and overvaluation characterize the entire global economy, and are not limited to any one nation or sector. 

Financial crises come in two flavors: fraud and credit-valuation over-reach. Fraud-based financial crises may differ in particulars, but they share many traits: perverse incentives are institutionalized; the perverse incentives reward figuring out how to evade oversight via fraud, embezzlement, masking risk, etc. which are soon commoditized; regulations are gutted by insider-funded lobbying; regulators fail to do their job in hopes of getting lucrative positions in the industry they're supposed to be regulating; reports of systemic, commoditized fraud are ignored because everyone's getting rich, and so on. Read More

04.18.19- It's Only April, And U.S. Retailers Have Already Shuttered More Stores Than They Did
All Of Last Year
Michael Snyder

If the U.S. economy is in good shape, why have retailers already shuttered more stores than they did in all of 2018?  Not only that, we are also on pace to absolutely shatter the all-time record for store closures in a single year by more than 50 percent.  Yes, Internet commerce is growing, but the Internet has been around for several decades now.  It isn’t as if this threat just suddenly materialized.  As Internet commerce continues to slowly expand, we would expect to see a steady drip of brick and mortar stores close, but instead what we are witnessing is an avalanche.  If the U.S. economy really was “booming”, this wouldn’t be happening.  But if the U.S. economy was heading into a recession, this is precisely what we would expect to see. Read More

04.17.19- The Smart Way to Play the Next Mad Rush Into Cannabis
Nick Giambruno

Justin’s note: Today we’re catching up with Crisis Investing chief analyst Nick Giambruno for an update on the legal cannabis market and what he sees ahead for the U.S. stock market as a whole.

As you’ll see, he recently closed some of his positions… but he says this was a tactical move in light of what he sees on the horizon.

Read on to see why he’s as bullish as ever on cannabis… his advice on how to position yourself… and how to avoid being suckered in by the bad players that pop up during a mania… Read More

04.16.19- China’s “weight”
Bill Holter

A couple of topics for you today that are connected, obvious, yet not understood or even contemplated at this point. First, have you ever wondered why the names of many fiat currencies refer to “weight”? Such as the Peso, Peseta, Lira, or Pound amongst many others? This is similar to the names of various roads, like “Saw Mill Rd.”. It was named that because years ago there was actually a sawmill down the lane. These fiat currencies with “weighty” names started out as receipts for either gold or silver. They were convertible into a specific amount of metal when presented at a bank. Read More

04.15.19- Gundlach Slams MMT, Sees Stocks Slumping, Fears "Violence, Riots" During 2020 Election
Christopher Gisiger

"No One Has Any Idea What Will Happen..."

Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of the investment firm DoubleLine, warns that the stock market is ripe for another correction. He spots significant risks in the rapid growth of debt, the unpredictability of monetary policy and potential chaos in the 2020 presidential elections. An interview with the «Bond King».

When Jeffrey Gundlach speaks, investors around the world listen carefully. It’s hard to find anyone with a better sense for the global financial markets than the renowned CEO of the Los Angeles based investment firm DoubleLine. He also doesn't shy away from expressing his unfiltered opinion when it comes to the general state of the economy and the political landscape. Read More

04.13.19- What Ballooning Corporate Debt Means for Investors
Frank Holmes

Few people know the risks in today’s economy and marketplace as much as David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Canadian wealth management firm Gluskin Sheff & Associates. For years he’s educated investors with his popular “Breakfast with Dave” newsletter, which you can subscribe to here. He’s also a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail and the Financial Post.

Considered by many to be a Wall Street permabear, Rosenberg successfully predicted the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Read More

04.12.18- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Day America Died
Raul Ilargi Meijer

47 years ago in American Pie, Don McLean talked about The Day The Music Died. Or of course the music didn’t really die, but at the same time it did. “The three mean I admired most, the father, son and the holy ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.”

Back then you could still have claimed the country merely lost its innocence. And you could have said the same in 1861 or 1914 or 1941. Today, not to take anything away from music, or the song, something much bigger died. America itself died, not just its music or innocence. America didn’t just lose its innocence, it pled guilty. Read More

04.11.19- Globalists Are Bringing Their One World Currency Plans Out Into The Open
Brandon Smith

People often ask me when they should begin to worry about the agenda for the “global economic reset” and the controlled demolition of the economy? If economic collapse is a process rather than an event, at what point in the process will we start to feel direct consequences? While crash conditions in economic fundamentals have indeed already started in the final quarter of 2018, culminating in faltering housing and retail numbers as well as an inverted yield curve, the average person is only affected so far in a minor way. It's true – even during the greatest of financial depressions, only a part of the population suffers while the rest live somewhat normally. Read More

04.10.19- The Divergence Between Stocks And Reality Is Insane
Dave Kranzler

“They may try to run this poor thing straight up and over a cliff. Recall the 2000 top was in March but they briefly ran it back in Sep 00. Ditto in Oct 07. When warning signs are ignored, the endings are abrupt. Maintain safety nets, but don’t assume stupidity has limits.” – John Hussman

This is the nastiest bear market rally that I have seen in my over 34 years of experience as a  financial markets professional. It would be a mistake to make the assumption that there has  not been some official intervention to help the stock market recover from the December sell-off. Read More

04.09.19- Four ways that Uncle Sam will respond to its $75 trillion insolvency
Simon Black

Last week I told you that the US government recently reported a negative net worth of MINUS $75 TRILLION.

That’s not a type-o. According to the Treasury Department’s annual financial report for Fiscal Year 2018 (which they just published last week), the US government is hopelessly bankrupt.

Now, I’m not talking about this trying to stoke fear and panic.

Quite the opposite– I’m hoping that this conversation results in calm optimism. But the point is that it’s an important conversation to have… because a number as large as $75 trillion has consequences. Read More

04.08.19- As the Madness Turns
MN Gordon

The first quarter of 2019 is over and done.  But before we say good riddance.  Some reflection is in order.  To this we offer two discrete metrics.  Gross domestic product and government debt.

GDP for the quarter, as estimated by the March 29 update to the New York Fed’s GDP Nowcast, grew at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent.  For perspective, annualized GDP growth of 1.3 percent is akin to getting a 1.3 percent annual raise.  Ask any working stiff, and they’ll tell you…a 1.3 percent raise is effectively nothing.

By comparison, the U.S. budget deficit for fiscal year 2019 is estimated to hit roughly $1.1 trillion.  This amounts to an approximate 5 percent increase of the current $22.2 trillionnational debt.  In other words, government debt is increasing about 3.85 times faster than nominal GDP, which is about $21 trillion. Read More

04.06.19- Where some see a monopoly,
others see an opportunity
Joe Jarvis

The 1970s was the heyday for rural America according to a third generation hog farmer.

But as farms became more and more consolidated by Big Agriculture, profits dropped. The margins on food got smaller so it became harder to compete.

And by 2001, he went bankrupt.

Now he’s back on his feet because he is a raising a different kind of hog–a specialty kind that fetches twice the price. Read More

04.05.19- Why An Inverted Yield Curve Is Important
Erik Conley

Summary

The yield curve recently inverted, and market pundits are running around like their hair is on fire.

In this article, I'll offer some possible explanations for this upside-down interest rate environment.

On average, it only takes 8 months for the market to top out after an inversion, and this is the big takeaway for investors. Read More

04.04.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Dufferent: Testimony of This Former Senior VP at HSBC Bank Could Put Away Half of the Deep State
Dave Hodges

In one of the most important interviews in the history of The Common Sense Show, I recently interviewed John Cruz, a former Senior Vice-President at HSBC Bank.

After being honorably discharged from the military, John Cruz had obtained what he thought was his dream position as the Senior VP at HSBC Bank only to realize that this job would become the greatest nightmare of his life and with each passing day his life remains in jeopardy. Read More

04.03.19- Dear Stock Market:
You Can't Have It Both Ways
Charles Hugh Smith

Eventually reality will intrude in this pleasant madness. Here's one way to visualize this moment in history: global financial markets are in the eye of a very large hurricane:

OK, let me see if I have this right: the stock market is soaring because the economy is softening, so the Federal Reserve panicked and went from raising rates to considering cutting rates. Read More

04.02.19- A Glimpse Into The Economic And Market Future Of The United States
Brian Maher

If the economy pegs along until July, it will be crowned the longest expansion in US history. But the signs of age are creeping in, like rust on a chassis…

Any simpleton can recognize an unfolding calamity…

The two trains about to collide, the twister racing for the schoolhouse, the betrayed lover with a finger on the trigger.

But you require a wider vision to perceive the chains of disaster coming together… link by fateful link… Read More

04.01.19- Apple's Rotten Core
Charles Hugh Smith

Entering commoditized, fiercely competitive low-margin services cannot substitute for the high-margin profits that will be lost as global recession and saturation erode iPhone sales.

Apple has always been equally an enterprise and a secular religion. The Apple Faithful do not tolerate heretics or critics, and non-believers “just don’t get it.”

So the first thing any critic must do is establish their credentials as a Believer:My first Mac model 0001 was the 21,447th made in week 32 of 1984 in Fremont, California. Now that we’ve established that, we can move on to my profound sense of anguished abandonment that Apple ceased producing the iPhone SE, the only one that works for me.Read More

03.30.19- You’re A Sucker For Not Believing That The System Is Rigged
Kurt Schlichter

Imagine you spent two years completely screwing up at your job, I mean not merely getting every single thing wrong but loudly, proudly getting in everyone else’s face about how right you are. You’d get fired, terminated, 86’d, and Schiff-canned. But not the mainstream media. The media hacks failed for two years-plus, nonstop and without equivocation, but are they ever going to be held to account? No, they’re just going to gather in a big circle and Pulitzer each other. Read More

03.29.19- When This Insane Monetary Experiment Ends You Will Have Zero Chance To Exit
Bill Blain

This is the day the UK isn’t exiting Europe. Surprised? Not really.

Think I’ll try something different this morning - a review of the week touching on some of the key themes we should be thinking about. Let me know what you think.

But firstly let me apologise for the lack of porridge this week. On Wednesday it was being unable to find anywhere to sit with a computer in London City Airport. Yesterday it was courtesy of Flybe from Edinburgh - I’d like to thank them for leaving us standing in a cold bus while they tried to rustle up a crew. The BA flight took off on time, although I wonder if it went to Duesseldorf? Read More

03.28.19- A Glimpse of the Future
Brian Maher

Any simpleton can recognize an unfolding calamity…

The two trains about to collide, the twister racing for the schoolhouse, the betrayed lover with a finger on the trigger.

But you require a wider vision to perceive the chains of disaster coming together… link by fateful link…

When a conductor gets his signals crossed, when the winds take a fatal shift, when someone takes the first bite of forbidden fruit. Read More

03.27.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Self-Destruction...
Cheerleading the Process
Gary Christenson

The sun will rise. Destruction is not inevitable.

Self-destructive behaviors affect individuals, cities and nations. They include opioid addictions, alcohol abuse, excessive debt, corruption, negative interest rates, chemically poisoned food, wealth taxes, insolvent pension plans, insane spending, and hundreds more.

Narrow the focus to fiscal and monetary behaviors. The self-destructive list remains long. Many policies and behaviors on the list will result in tears. Read More

03.26.19- Wall Street Red Flag: A Bond Market Indicator That Has Predicted Every Recession In The Last 50 Years Just Got Triggered
Michael Snyder

If the bond market is correct, the U.S. economy is definitely heading into a recession.  Over the past 50 years, there have been six previous occasions when the yield on three-month Treasury bonds has risen above the yield on ten-year Treasury bonds, and in each of those instances a recession has followed.  Now it has happened again, and this comes at a time when a whole host of other economic indicators are screaming that a recession is coming.  Of course we have seen recession indicators triggered at other times in recent years, and the Federal Reserve was able to intervene and successfully extend this cycle on multiple occasions.  But now that the global economy is clearly the weakest it has been since the last recession, have we finally reached a breaking point? Read More

03.25.19- And Now, for Something Entrely Different: The Electoral College Still Makes Sense Because We’re Not A Democracy
Donna Carol

What appears to deprive the populace of its power to decide a president is the very mechanism that preserves its power. The Electoral College works that way because the United States isn’t a pure democracy

There was a lot more to it, but the punchline is that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Bush the winner because he won the electoral vote. It’s a tribute to the American national character that we weathered that cataclysm without civil war, but it left a bad taste in the electorate’s mouth.

During the 2016 Republican primary, when it looked as if Donald Trump would win the popular vote but still not reach the delegate threshold for nomination, that bad taste turned sour. Riding high on populism and “throw the bums out,” Trump complained that the election was rigged because the people wanted him, and whomever the people wanted, they should get. Read More

03.23.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The One True Thing...
Chris Martenson

Until you understand it, it will rule your life

Until you see clearly how the rules of society work, you will be trapped within a system of control.

What you mistake for reality is instead a fabricated simulation, designed to keep you trapped right where the system wants you. Read More

03.22.19- The U.S. Economy Is In Big Trouble
Dave Kranzler

“You’ve really seen the limits of monetary and fiscal policy in its ability to extend out a long boom period.” – Josh Friedman, Co-Chairman of Canyon Partners (a “deep value,” credit-driven hedge fund)

The Fed’s abrupt policy reversal says it all. No more rate hikes (yes, one is “scheduled” for 2020 but that’s fake news) and the balance sheet run-off is being “tapered” but will stop in September. Do not be surprised if it ends sooner. Listening to Powell explain the decision or reading the statement released is a waste of time. The truth is reflected in the deed. The motive is an attempt to prevent the onset economic and financial chaos. It’s really as simple as that. See Occam’s Razor if you need an explanation. Read More

03.21.19- E-Commerce is Wiping Out Mall Retailers One by One. Here’s the Data
Wolf Richter

Department store sales hit a new record low in the data going back to 1992.

E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter soared 12.1% from a year ago to a new record of $132.8 billion (seasonally adjusted), the Commerce Department reported this morning. For the whole year 2018, e-commerce sales blew through the $500-billion level for the first time, reaching $513.6 billion, up 14.2% or $64 billion from a year ago. Read More

03.20.19- Buy Gold, Sell Stocks Is the ‘Trade of Century’ Says One Hedge Fund
Sarah Ponczek

One of last year’s best-performing hedge funds says the “trade of the century” is to buy gold and sell stocks as risk assets are due for another meltdown.

It’s only a matter of time until the bearish bet pays off big, according to Crescat Capital LLC. While the Denver-based firm has only about $50 million under management, it has a history of outperforming the S&P 500 Index -- with its Global Macro Fund returning 41 percent last year alone. Now the investment company says it’s ready to capitalize on an end of the economic cycle as indicators warn that a recession is imminent in the coming quarters. Read More

03.19.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Doug Casey on What Happens
After the Next 9/11
Doug Casey

Is a police state in the U.S. possible? Absolutely.

That’s because people are essentially the same the world over, regardless of their culture, religion, race, or what-have-you. A certain percentage of them are sociopaths.

There is a standard distribution of sociopaths across time and space. It’s a function of Pareto’s Law, better known as the 80-20 rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Another 20% are responsible for 80% of the crime. 20% of the population always winds up with 80% of the wealth. And so forth, through all areas of human endeavor. This observation can be represented by a bell-shaped curve, a “standard distribution”, with a small minority at each extreme, but the large majority in the middle. Read More

03.18.19- How Asset Inflation Will End - This Time
Brendan Brown

Life after death for asset inflation: this is what happens when “speculative fever” remains high even after monetary inflation has paused. This may well have been the situation in global markets during 2019 so far. But history and principle suggest that life after death in this monetary sense is short.

Readers may find it odd to be talking about a pause in monetary inflation at a time when the Fed has cancelled programmed rate rises and the ECB has embarked (March 7) on yet further “radical” policy moves. Moreover, the “core” US inflation rate (as measured by PCE) is still at virtually 2 per cent year-on-year. Read More

03.16.19- Hair-Trigger Markets
Adam Taggart

Bull market liftoff? Or bear rally rollover?

Stocks are at an inflection point.

After a bruising end to 2018, the major indices caught fire at the turn of the New Year as the world's central banking cartel leapt into action. Here's how the US Federal Reserve reacted:  Read More

03.15.17- Harvard Trained Economist: The Worst Weather Is Yet To Come To This Economic Winter
Harry Dent

Harry Dent says the US economy’s going out with a bang, including a 20% drop in GDP, an 89% stock market crash, and 15% unemployment. Here’s more…

Last Friday I talked about how we have been in a muted Economic Winter Season. We may have had the greatest stock market bubble ever, but our economic “recovery” has been the weakest on record, despite the strongest, globally-concerted stimulus ever. Read More

03.14.19- It’s not stagflation, but inflationary impoverishment
Alasdair Macleod

It is a matter of personal interest that it was my uncle, Iain Macleod, who invented the term stagflation shortly before he was appointed shadow chancellor in 1965i. It is no longer used in its original context. From Hansard (the official record of parliamentary debates) 17 November that year:

We now have the worst of both worlds —not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of "stagflation" situation and history in modern terms is indeed being made.ii  Read More

03.13.19- “Now Is the Time of Monsters”
Jeff Thomas

In ancient Rome, interregnum was the term given to the period between stable governments when anything untoward might occur, and sometimes did – civil unrest, warfare between warlords, power vacuums and, finally, succession wars.

But eventually the dust would settle and the victors, whoever they might be, would at some point restabilise the empire, often with a new map, showing the latest lines of geographic possession. Read More

03.12.19- Consequences of
Lost Global Reserve Status
Jim Willie

The Gold suppression game appears finally to be coming to an end. A Perfect Storm is hitting the Gold market, with an internal factor (QE), an external factor (SGE), and a systemic factor (Basel). All three forces are positive in releasing Gold from the corrupt clutches of the Anglo-American banker organization. They have been willing to destroy the global financial structure and many national economies, in order not just to maintain the political power, but also to continue the privilege of granting themselves $trillion free loans. In the last ten years since the Lehman Brothers failure, all systems have undergone the same reckless treatment that the mortgage bonds endured. They saw corrupted underwriting, corrupted title database, rigged market pricing, and corrupted demand functions. Slowly the realization is coming to the fore, stated by a few astute analysts. Read More

03.11.19- 3 Market Myths Debunked
Nilus Mattive

This weekend, the stock market bull turned 10 years old, handing investors more than 17% in annualized total returns along the way. 

According to my old S&P coworker, Howard Silverblatt, that performance is more than three times better than the annualized return from the end of 1999 (5.43%) and almost twice as good as the return since 1989 (9.64%). 

Of course, plenty of people stayed on the sidelines and lots of experts encouraged them to do so. Read More

03.09.19- This Is the First Serious Threat
to the iPhone…
Jeff Brown

Last month, the GSMA Mobile World Congress was held in Barcelona.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is one of the biggest technology events of the year.

It’s the place where companies gather to showcase their latest and greatest products. The notable exception is Apple, which always hosts its own product reveal events.

The mobile phones that are showcased here typically go up for sale later in the year. Read More

03.08.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Moral Bankruptcy of
the Western World?
Paul Craig Roberts

The Persecution of Julian Assange Is the Persecution of Truth

“The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of us all: of our independence, our self respect, our intellect, our compassion, our politics, our culture.” — John Pilger

The next time an American, Britisher, or Australian goes on about the freedom, democracy, and humanitarianism of his country, show them this:  Read More

03.07.19- The Worst Economy Ever?
Brian Maher

Like an army that has outdistanced its supply lines, the stock market runs far ahead of logistical support.

Total market capitalization of U.S. stocks presently ranges to $40 trillion — or twice GDP.

This 2-1 ratio is the highest in history… we might mention.

Analyst John Hussman reminds us the ratio previously topped at 1.9 in 2000. Read More

03.06.19- An Honest Look At Recession Risk - A Simple Model Tells You How Close We Are
Eric Basmajian

As the global slowdown in economic growth continues and starts to bleed into many US economic data points, not many analysts dismiss the idea that the US economy is slowing anymore.

There is a healthy debate around the severity of the slowdown and whether a move from 3% growth to 2% growth is something to worry about, but the idea that growth in the US is softening is settled and empirically observable in a wide array of data points, including housing, auto sales, retail sales, and more. Read More

03.05.19- Corporate Share Buybacks Rise
at Alarming Rate
Peter Reagan

Corporations have been using buybacks to “rob Peter to pay Paul” since the Reagan administration created laws that allow it.

According to a Goldman Sachs chart that you can see here, 2018 was a record year for buybacks, which neared $800 billion for S&P 500 companies alone.

Even though these companies bought back shares, which should have spurred investment in more companies, that didn’t keep the S&P from dropping 6 percent by the end of 2018. But corporations are still getting a benefit… Read More

03.04.19- Ground Rules of Existence
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

There are those who are persuaded that some new price-enhancing circumstance is in control, and they expect the market to stay up and go up, perhaps indefinitely. Then there are those, superficially more astute and generally fewer in number, who perceive or believe themselves to perceive the speculative mood of the moment. They are in to ride the upward wave; their particular genius, they are convinced, will allow them to get out before the speculation runs its course. They will get the maximum reward from the increase as it continues; they will be out before the eventual fall. For built into this situation is the eventual and inevitable fall. Built in also is the circumstance that it cannot come gently or gradually. When it comes, it bears the grim face of disaster. That is because both of the groups of participants in the speculative situation are programmed for sudden efforts at escape. Read More

03.02.19- Best 5 States to Avoid
High Property Taxes
 Joe Jarvis

Property taxes negate private property. It’s not yours if you have to pay the government every year to keep it.

I’m sure the Socialists would claim you owe society for using a piece of land. But ironically, having to pay taxes just to live on a chunk of land keeps people working for the man…

Without property taxes, Socialists could already set up their own mini-utopias… on private property.

Instead, property taxes force us all into the profit system.  Read More

03.01.19- 18 Really Big Numbers That Show That The U.S. Economy Is Starting
To Fall Apart Very Rapidly
Michael Snyder

Virtually every piece of hard economic data is telling us that the U.S. economy is slowing down dramatically.  Many of the pundits have been warning that we could officially enter recession territory later this year or next year, but these numbers seem to indicate that it could happen a whole lot sooner than that.  But the stock market has been surging over the last two months, and at this point stocks are off to their best start to a year since 1987, and as long as stock prices are rising a lot of people are simply not going to pay much attention to the economic alarm bells that are ringing.  But everyone should be paying attention, because things are really starting to get bad out there.  The following are 18 really big numbers that show that the U.S. economy is starting to fall apart very rapidly… Read More

02.28.19- Remember Negative Interest Rates? Yeah, that’s still a thing.
Simon Black

It’s not enough to hand over your money to the government anymore.

Now you have to pay them for the privilege to do so.

That’s the basic premise behind negative interest rates: investors around the world are crazy enough to buy government bonds whose yields are actually below zero.

In technical terms, this GUARANTEES that anyone who holds the bonds to maturity will lose money. It’s genius!  Read More

02.27.19- How Individuals Can Reset The Financial System
Tom Chatham

We have often heard the predictions that the currency system will be reset at some point when the bankers can no longer keep the current ponzi scheme going. The current scheme involves the ability of the bankers to convince the population that pieces of paper rolling off a machine or digits created on a computer screen are real wealth. The education system has been successful in that regard. 

Very few people actually understand what real wealth is or anything about economics. They have been led to believe that these things are too complicated for them to understand and it should be left to the experts. These same experts get richer as everyone else gets poorer. That is the way they have rigged the system.  Read More

02.16.19- Why the Barrick deal could mean the mega melt up is here for gold
Simon Black

In 1986, Peter Munk bought a gold mine in northeastern Nevada for $62 million.

The mine was only producing 40,000 ounces of gold a year back then (around $16 million annually) … and the sellers believed the land held 600,000 ounces easily minable gold.

But those estimates were woefully short. 

By 1992, the mine yielded 1.1 million ounces of gold. Today, the mine, known as Goldstrike, is the richest mine in North America – producing over two million ounces per year. And it has reserves of over 21 million ounces of gold. Read More

02.25.19- Highway to the Danger Zone
Northman Trader

On Thursday markets nearly broke their uptrend from the December lows, but once again a magic Friday overnight gap up driven by renewed hopes for an imminent China-US trade deal and supported by 9 Fed speakers trampling all over themselves to out dove each other alongside a flood of buyback money accelerated markets to a new weekly closing high. I say again because markets have become as boring as predictable: 9 weeks of consecutive gains, 9 risk free Fridays associated with a persistent crush of volatility and a virtual non existence of 2 way price discovery.

It is the trifecta of dovish central banks, hopes for a China trade deal, and a massive acceleration in buybacks that keep pushing markets higher on an ever narrowing highway to the danger zone and investors are throwing caution to the wind despite a continued deterioration in the global macro economic data. Read More

02.23.19- Trade War “Chess” Leaves U.S. and Global Economy with Uncertainty
Birch Gold Group

Trade wars are like a cutthroat game of chess. With each move, trade tensions build even further. But the “winner” is usually no one.

The U.S.-China trade war started reaching the boiling point last year, with “tit for tat” exchanges between the two countries adding tension to an already uncertain economic outlook in both countries.

But now it appears the trade war is reaching a fever pitch, and it’s expanding to include areas with much smaller economies like Venezuela and Africa. According to Forbes (emphasis ours): Read More

02.22.19- Market at the Crossroads
Joseph Y. Calhoun

A lot of people know the song Crossroad Blues, although I imagine most people don’t know it as a Robert Johnson song. It was originally recorded in 1936 in San Antonio for ARC records along with some other Johnson songs that aren’t known as Robert Johnson songs, including Sweet Home Chicago and Terraplane Blues. It was later recorded by Elmore James in the 1950s and again by Eric Clapton (with Stevie Winwood on vocals) when he was part of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. God Clapton recorded it again when he formed Cream with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce in the late 1960s. But my favorite version of the song is by Ry Cooder, an underappreciated guitarist probably best known, especially here in Miami, for his association with the Buena Vista Social Club. Read More

02.21.19- Downturns and Financial Crises – Sequence
Gary Christianson

Bond Market Turned Down & Interest Rates Up – Check!

• Two-Year yield bottomed September 2011
• Five-Year yield bottomed July 2012
• Ten-Year yield bottomed July 2016
• The 30+ year bond bull market is done.

Housing Market Turned Down – Check!

• Mortgage rates bottomed in July 2016.
• Mortgage applications have fallen hard.
• London, Vancouver B.C. and Australian prices are down.
• New York, San Francisco, and Dallas prices are down.
• Housing Bubble 2.0 is correcting. Read More

02.20.19- What Trucking & Freight Just Said About the Goods-Based Economy in the US
Wolf Richter

Something has to give.

Starting to be a fascinating phenomenon: Rates charged by trucking companies and other transportation providers continue to surge on a year-over-year basis even as the volume of shipments has dropped below where it had been a year ago, while the “capacity squeeze” of 2018 has disappeared, and as the price of fuel is down year-over-year.

Freight shipment volume across all modes of transportation – truck, rail, air, and barge – in January ticked down (-0.3%) from January last year, according to the Cass Freight Index, the second year-over-year decline in a row. Those two declines are the first since the transportation recession of 2015 and 2016. The extraordinary plunge since the extraordinary peak in shipments last summer indicates that the transportation boom with its double-digit year-over-year increases has fizzled. This chart shows how freight volume changed from the same month a year earlier: Read More

02.19.19- Currencies threatened by a credit crisis
Alasdair Macleod

In this article I draw attention to the similarities between the current economic situation and that of 1929, and the threat to today’s unbacked currencies. There is the coincidence of trade protectionism with the top of the credit cycle, and there are the inflationary events that preceded it. The principal difference today is in modern macroeconomic delusions, which hold that regulating inflation of money and credit is the solution to all ills. I conclude that economic salvation can only come from ditching today’s macroeconomic theories and by returning to monetary stability through credible gold exchange standards. Read More

02.18.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: As the Games Begin... The One about the Jews, the Baby, & the Bathwater
Douglas "Uncola" Lynn

This blogger has posted over 120 original essays since the fall of 2016. With topics ranging from politics to philosophy, I’ve strived to be truefor the most part; and, at the very least, accurate.  In so doing, I would attempt to find three separate ways to vet source material – and, in my mind at least, I’ve built some trust with the readers and believe my essays, so far, have stood the test of time.  But if I ever wrote anything blatantly false, everything written henceforth by me, as well as my past articles, should be viewed with greater suspicion by the readers; and for good reason. Read More

02.16.19- This Retailer Bankruptcy Will Lead to the Largest Liquidation by Store Count in the US. Liquidation Sales to Start Next Week
Wolf Richter

By store count, this is likely the largest retailer liquidation in the US: Payless ShoeSource is planning to file for bankruptcy again later in this month – just 18 months after having emerged from its first bankruptcy. And this time, it will shutter all its remaining 2,300 or so stores in the US and Puerto Rico, let everyone go at those stores, and be done with it in the US.

Its stores in Canada and Latin America will be unaffected by the bankruptcy filing and liquidation, according to people familiar with the situation, cited by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. Read More

02.15.19- “Biggest Drop In More Than Nine Years”: America’s Retail Apocalypse Is Greatly Accelerating In The Early Stages Of 2019
Michael Snyder

All over America retailers are going bankrupt and closing stores.  Of course this has been happening for years, but as you will see below the numbers have dramatically escalated during the early portion of 2019.  Our landscape is already littered with countless numbers of hollowed out stores and abandoned malls, and it is about to get a whole lot worse.  Retailers were hoping that a strong holiday season would turn things around, but that didn’t happen.  In fact, we just learned that retail sales in the United States suffered “their biggest drop in more than nine years” during the month of December… Read More

02.14.19- Why Many Of Todays Most Owned Stocks Are Ponzi Schemes
Adam Taggart

Too much phantom wealth vs cash flow

Stocks provide a return to today's investors via two mechanisms: dividends and capital gains.

Dividends provide and income stream which can be quantiatively values. Capital gains result from speculation -- an expectation that future dividends will be higher than the market currently expects.

But what's the value of a company that continuously pays no dividends and does not appear as if it ever will in the foreseeable future? Read More

02.13.19- Weimar Berlin - Lawlessness, Inequality, Extremism, Divisiveness and Crime
Jesse's Café Américain

"Stocks were on a tear today on the hopes for a better turn of events with the government budgetary squabbles, optimism on a China trade deal, and the results of the Senate GOP finding no evidence of 'collusion' with Russia by the Trump Administration to influence the results of the presidential election..

This last item is not surprising, because this entire Russian collusion meme seems as though it is an hysterical reaction to the spin put out by the Clinton political faction and their neoliberal enablers after their shocking loss in the 2016 Presidential election. Read More

02.12.19- Kyle Bass Warns Trump: Don't Take The Easy Way Out With China
Kyle Bass and Daniel Babich

China’s pernicious debt load and rapidly weakening economy mean the U.S. has more leverage in trade talks now than it ever had before...

When it comes to the trade talks with China, President Donald Trump and his negotiators have more leverage than any U.S. administration has ever had. Chinese policy makers are desperate for a trade truce with the U.S. in order to avoid more damage to China’s economy by further pressuring its trade surplus and export industries. Read More

02.11.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The End of Agriculture As We Know It
Stephen Davies

Farming has been around for thousands of years and has arguably done more to shape human history and society than almost any other activity. Nonetheless, within the lifetimes of most people now alive and possibly within the next two decades, agriculture as we know it will cease to be. This is a transformation that is creeping up on people and will take many by surprise, but we should all welcome it. 

Most people, if asked which human activity has the greatest environmental impact, would say industry or manufacturing. Some might mention mining, while many would choose travel. Read More

02.09.19- Next Stop: Recession!
Chris Martenson

We've arrived at the end of the line...

We've enjoyed years of "recovery" since the Great Financial Crisis by literally papering over our problems with newly-printed money, instead of addressing their root causes.

But we've now arrived at the awkward part of the story; when all of our prior mistakes finally catch up with us, and the plot heads in a much darker direction.

Despite more than a decade of an "all-hands-on-deck" propping up of the financial markets, all the central bankers have to show for it is the widest wealth gap in history. Read More

02.08.19- Expect the Buyback Wave
to Continue This Year
Nomi Prins

A crucial theme from last year is continuing into this year — stock buybacks. Last year was a banner year for companies buying back their own shares. A month into 2019, it appears that Wall Street is set to continue that trend.

Last year, U.S. companies announced a whopping $1.1 trillion worth of buyback plans. Armed with extra cash from favorable corporate tax policy enacted in 2017, they enthusiastically bought back their own shares.

But as of mid-December, only about $800 billion of those buybacks had actually occurred. That means there could be another $300 billion of the total 2018 target still waiting to hit the market. Read More

02.06.19- The Most Depressing Stat Of The Month: The U.S. National Debt Is About To Pass The
$22 Trillion Mark
Michael Snyder

The U.S. national debt is wildly out of control, and nobody in Washington seems to care.  According to the U.S. Treasury, the federal government is currently $21,933,491,166,604.77 in debt.  In just a few days, that figure will cross the 22 trillion dollar mark.  Over the last 10 years, we have added more than 11 trillion dollars to the national debt, and that means that it has been growing at a pace of more than a trillion dollars a year.  To call this a major national crisis would be a massive understatement, and yet there is absolutely no urgency in Washington address this absolutely critical issue. Read More

02.05.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Robert Mueller Is A Coward And A Liar
Raul Ilargi Meijer

That statement is going to make me real popular, right? Any criticism of Robert Mueller for many people equals support for President Trump. But it doesn’t, and Mueller really is a coward and a liar, and it’s not hard to make that case, it’s even easier than how he makes his cases, because we can actually prove ours. We also don’t have to pervert the law, but he does.

Robert Mueller is a coward because he again, in his indictment of Roger Stone last week, makes claims against people who can’t defend themselves, and who moreover have in at least one case, that of Julian Assange, previously and repeatedly denied those claims. And Robert Mueller’s a liar because many of his claims are evidently not true; but though he will never be able to prove them, and he knows it, he still makes his ‘case’ based on them. Read More

02.04.19- The Coming Global Financial Crisis:
Debt Exhaustion
Charles Hugh Smith

The global economy is way past the point of maximum debt saturation, and so the next stop is debt exhaustion

Just as generals fight the last war, central banks always fight the last financial crisis. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008-09 was primarily one of liquidity as markets froze up as a result of the collapse of the highly leveraged subprime mortgage sector that had commoditized fraud (hat tip to Manoj S.) via liar loans and designed-to-implode mortgage backed securities. Read More

02.02.19- Recession Lessons Not Learned as Leveraged Loan Risk Soars Again
Birch Gold Group

There are lessons from the 2008-09 recession that the banking industry should have taken note of to prevent egregious lending errors from happening again.

But it looks like those lessons were ignored, and history may naively repeat itself.

This time, the alarms are sounding because of $1 trillion in the corporate leverage loan market, according to Tiana Lowe at Washington Examiner:

Cov-lite loans, which eviscerate most of those standards, now comprise 77 percent of the corporate loan market, which in turn is valued at $1 trillion. That’s more than 5 percent of our GDP. Read More

02.01.19- Exhumed remains of Karl Marx to run for US President
Simon Black

Earlier this morning, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker became the latest socialist to throw his hat in the ring for the US Presidency…

He announced his candidacy with a new website and two-minute video full of the usual collective hoopla.

Bear in mind that Booker raised taxes by 20% while serving as mayor of the City of Newark, and as Senator he has been vocally in favor of everything from nationalized healthcare to so-called ‘baby bonds’ where the US Treasury manages savings accounts for new-born babies. Booker joins an unparalleled group of socialists that are all coming for your wealth…Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Kristen Gillibrand.Read More

01.31.19- Economic Mood Darkens: iPhone Sales Plunge & Consumer Confidence Falls (Again)
Michael Snyder

Apple iPhone sales are never supposed to go down.  For nearly two decades, Apple has been an unbeatable economic miracle, but now it appears that times have changed.  Global sales for the iPhone were disastrous during the holiday quarter, and this is yet another indication that the global economic slowdown is accelerating.  Here in the United States, auto sales have been abysmal, retail bankruptcies have been surging and home sales have been seriously declining, but the big tech giants were supposed to be an economic bright spot that we could always rely on. Read More

01.30.19- Three Concerns Hanging Over
the Davos Elite
Nomi Prins

This week, the global elite descended private jets to their version of winter ski-camp – the lifestyles of the rich and powerful version.  The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) five-day annual networking extravaganza kicked off in the upscale ski resort town of Davos, Switzerland.

Every year, the powers-that-be join the WEF, select a theme, uniting some 3000 participants ranging from public office holders to private company executives to the few organizations that truly do help fix the world that they mess up.  This year’s theme is “Globalization 4.0”, or the digital revolution. The idea being, the potential tech take-over of jobs, and what wealthier countries are doing to lesser developed ones. Read More

01.29.19- Mexico is starting to look like Venezuela
Simon Black

Mexico is in the midst of a crisis again.

And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with the border wall that caused the US government to be hopelessly deadlocked for more than a month.

Or the economy. Or murders and violence. Or drug trafficking. Or bird flu.

Nope. Mexico is battling an enormous problem with its oil pipelines.

In a way that almost sounds ridiculous.

But oil thieves have been drilling holes in Mexico’s extensive network of oil and gas piplelines across the country to steal fuel and sell it on the black market. Read More

01.28.19- Brace for Impact: Global Financial Crisis May be Just Around the Corner
Jean Périer

The cyclical nature of the world economy, when every single decade ends in a major meltdown of the world financial results in a number of experts predicting a global crisis to take place in 2019.

Everyone remembers the crisis of 2008, from which the West hasn’t fully recovered as production levels across the Western states still remain below the level shown in 2007. For the point of view of an impartial bystander, it’s rather hard not to point out that most countries would be borrowing cheap money at breathtaking rates in a bid to stimulate consumer spending. The problem of a wealthy lifestyle some still enjoy these days on borrowed funds is that it doesn’t solve any issues, it just delays the inevitable. In the end, all the printed money will flow back down to the stock market and the bubble starts to deflate. And where do we go from here? The only thing the West is still producing these days are shale hydrocarbons and even those are hardly profitable. Read More

01.26.19- Collapse Is Already Here
Chris Martenson

Many people are expecting some degree of approaching collapse -- be it economic, environmental and/or societal -- thinking that they’ll recognize the danger signs in time. 

As if it will be completely obvious, like a Hollywood blockbuster. Complete with clear warnings from scientists, politicians and the media.  And everyone can then get busy either panicking or becoming the plucky heroes. 

That's not how collapse works. Collapse is a process, not an event.

And it's already underway, all around us. Read More

01.25.19- Copper Industry Carnage:
The Worst Is Yet To Come
Steve St Angelo

The second largest copper mining company in the world saw its stock price plummet by nearly 15% today due to poor earnings.  Freeport-McMoRan’s fourth-quarter net income fell nearly 90% compared to the same period last year.

The large decline in net income was attributed to falling production, due to scheduled maintenance, and lower copper prices.

Freeport-McMoRan’s stock price (FCX) started trading in premarket after releasing its dismal earnings at $12.30 a share, and by the time the closing bell rang, the stock fell to $10.70.  FCX lost a $1.86 in one day: Read More

01.24.19- A Trained Monkey Could Do Better
Jim Rickards

The first time I appeared on live financial television was August 15, 2007. It was a guest appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box program at the early stages of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Of course, none of us knew at that time exactly how and when things would play out, but it was clear to me that a meltdown was coming; the same meltdown I had been warning the government and academics about since 2003.

I’ve done 1,000 live TV interviews since then, but that first one remains memorable. Carl Quintanilla conducted the interview with some participation from Becky Quick, both of whom could not have been more welcoming. Read More

01.23.19- World’s “Elite” Just Sent a Chilling Warning… But There’s a Silver Lining
Zach Scheidt

It may look like a peaceful winter wonderland. But if you visit the Davos ski resort in Switzerland this week, you’ll hear some forecasts that will chill your nerves as an investor.

Fortunately, there’s a silver lining. One that will set you up for luxurious gains on your 2019 brokerage statement. But to lock in these profits, you’ll have to be brave!

Let’s jump in and see what’s happening in this winter summit. Read More

01.22.19- This Is What Scares Ray Dalio The Most
Tyler Durden

Exactly one year ago, a bulled up Ray Dalio, head of the world's largest hedge fund made a prediction he would probably rather forget: "We are in this Goldilocks period right now. Inflation isn't a problem. Growth is good, everything is pretty good with a big jolt of stimulation coming from changes in tax laws," Ray Dalio told CNBC in January 2018 during last year's Davos event.

But the soundbite that Dalio was most memorable for, was the following: "There is a lot of cash on the sidelines. ... We're going to be inundated with cash," he said. "If you're holding cash, you're going to feel pretty stupid." Read More

01.21.19- The Arrival Of The Credit Crisis
Alasdair MacLeod

Those of us who closely follow the credit cycle should not be surprised by the current slide in equity markets. It was going to happen anyway. The timing had recently become apparent as well, and in early August I was able to write the following:

“The timing for the onset of the credit crisis looks like being any time from during the last quarter of 2018, only a few months away, to no later than mid-2019.” Read More

01.19.19- Rising Credit-Card Use Shows Consumers Are Strapped
Danielle DiMartino Booth

Even though evidence is mounting that the U.S. economy may be soon heading into a recession, there are plenty of analysts who say that the surge in credit card borrowing is a sign of strong confidence among households. That’s hardly the case. In fact, households’ confidence in the future growth of their incomes has been cooling since late last summer, which means borrowers will only reach for what’s in their wallet to compensate for what their paychecks will not cover.

Many working adults have no recollection of credit card borrowing not being a mainstay among their financing options. But then, few would be able to identify a Diners Club card, which was a popular brand during the 1980s “yuppie” era when Americans first began to embrace credit card spending in earnest. These days, consumers are not keen to lean on credit cards, due to a cultural and financial shift in the industry. Read More

01.18.19- Stock Market Volatility Reflects Systemic Instability
Dave Kranzler

The post-Christmas stock rally extended through Wednesday as the small-cap and tech stocks led the way, with the Russell 2000 up 14.3% and the Nasdaq up 12.5%. The SPX and Dow are up 10.4% and 10.1% respectively. During the stretch between December 26th and January 17th, the Russell 2000 index experienced only two down days.

Make no mistake, this is primarily a vicious short-covering and hedge fund algo momentum-chasing rally. It’s a classic bear market move with the most risky and most heavily shorted stocks experiencing the greatest percentage gains. But the rally has also been accompanied by declining volume. When abrupt rallies or sell-offs occur with declining volume, it’s a trait that conveys lack of buyer/seller-conviction. It also indicates a high probability that the move will soon reverse direction. Read More

01.17.19- Something Wicked This Way Comes
John Mauldin

For a couple of years now, the economic narrative has shown a comparatively strong US against weakness in Europe and some of Asia (NOT China). The US, we are told, will stay on top. I agree with that, as far as it goes... but I’m not convinced the “top” will be so great.

Americans like to think we are insulated from the world. We have big oceans on either side of us. Geopolitically, they serve as buffers. But economically they connect us to other important markets that are critical to many US businesses. Problems in those markets are ultimately problems for the US, too. Read More

01.16.19- The Worst Possible Environment For Stock Market Investors
Jesse Felder

“For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments.” -Warren Buffett

“My greatest discovery was that a man must study general conditions, to size them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities.” -Jesse Livermore

It’s popular these days to note that valuation is not a good timing tool. While it may be helpful in understanding the prospects for long run returns it just has little utility for those focused on the near term. At the same time, technical analysis, or more precisely trend analysis, can be helpful in understanding the short-term dynamics in the markets but has little value for those trying to understand the likely trajectory and velocity of stocks over a longer period of time. Read More

01.15.19- The Decline And Fall Of The European Union
Charles Hugh Smith

This exhaustion of the neocolonial-neofeudal model was inevitable, and as a result, so too is the decline and fall of the European integration/exploitation project.

That a single currency, the euro, would fracture rather than unite Europe was understood long before the euro's introduction as legal tender on January 1, 2002. The euro, the currency of 19 of the 28 member states of the European Union, is only one of the various institutions tying the member nations of the European union together, but it is the linchpin of the financial integration touted as one of the primary benefits of EU membership. Read More

01.14.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The War Against America’s Only
Anti-War Candidate
Gordon Duff

Born in American Samoa, Representative (Major) Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a Democrat and, far more than Trump, someone who stands against hypocrisy and fakery of every kind, is now running for President of the United States. Unlike Trump or Clinton or Obama or Romney or so many, Tulsi is military, a decorated combat veteran.

Unlike all of them, she is openly against war as a basis for American “diplomacy.” Read More

01.12.19- Apple Takes Hit in Projected Revenue – Blames Trade War With China
Birch Gold

In September 2018, we showed how FAANG companies were “bracing for impact” because of trade war tensions between the U.S. and China.

Now it appears we have our first trade war “casualty” in the form of a major hit to projected Q1 sales for Apple. CNBC has the scoop:

Apple lowered revenue guidance to $84 billion, down from the $89 billion to $93 billion it had previously projected. The company lowered gross margin to about 38 percent from between 38 percent and 38.5 percent. Read More

01.11.19- The scenarios of the collapse
Tuomas Malinen

2019 has started more calmly after a very volatile year-end in the markets. Focus has been on the trade deal between China and the US and the words of the central bankers, most notably those of Jay Powell. However, this is all just a distraction, a side-show. The market volatility was only the first sign of an approaching global economic crisis, as we warned in December 2017.

As the recent PMI figures across the globe show, a global downturn has started and the world is utterly unprepared for it. The global imbalances that have been growing for years cannot lead to anything else than a global crisis . However, there are different paths the crisis could take. Read More

01.10.19- The Year of Living Dangerously
John Mauldin

Remember when it was a January ritual to fill in the new year on your blank checks? If you’re under 50, probably not. That we can now avoid that chore is one of life’s unsung little pleasures. But this time of year still comes, and by popular demand I must tell you what I think 2019 will bring.

In a nutshell, I expect to spend this year Living Dangerously. Yes, I’m thinking of the 1982 film starring a very youthful Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, based on an earlier Christopher Koch novel. It has an Asian setting and features corrupt politics, neophyte journalists, international intrigue plus a gender-bending Chinese dwarf. If you aren’t sure how all those fit together, then welcome to 2019. We are all stuck in this craziness and can only make the best of it.Read More

01.09.19- 2019 Headwinds Are Getting Stronger
Jim Rickards

In 2017, every prominent economic forecasting entity was shouting from the rooftops about “synchronized global growth.” This was a reference to the fact that not only were certain economies growing, but they were all growing at the same time.

Chinese GDP growth had come down but was still substantial at 6.85%. U.S. GDP growth was posting solid gains of 3.0% in the second quarter of 2017 and 2.8% in the third quarter. Japan and Europe were not growing as quickly as the U.S. and China, but growth was still accelerating from a low level.

Synchronization was a big part of the story. Growth was not isolated and episodic. Growth was fueling more growth in what seemed to be a sustainable way. The world economy was firing on all cylinders. Read More

01.08.19- Monetization & Markets (Or Why Fundamentals Don't Matter, Liquidity Does)
Chris Hamilton

Being I'm not an economist nor associated with any financial or investment institutions nor do I have anything for you (dear reader) to buy or sell, I have total freedom to say what I please and freedom to share what I see.

In that spirit, I round back on the Federal Reserves balance sheet versus the curious case of excess reserves of the mega-banks.  Last week I detailed that every time the Fed has ceased adding to its balance sheet or outright reduced, the outcome has been decidedly negative for asset prices (HERE).  However, like everything, there is a little more to the story. Read More

01.07.19- 5 Things Ocasio-Cortez Doesn't Want You To Know About Her "Green New Deal"
Justin Hawkins

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, the self-described democratic socialist who has become a media sensation, is pushing for enactment of a radical plan called the Green New Deal that would ban the use of all fossil fuels from U.S. electricity generation, agriculture and manufacturing by 2030.

The Green New Deal would dramatically reshape the U.S. economy and add tens of trillions of dollars to the national debt. Read More

01.05.19- Trump Is A Pied Piper For
The New World Order Agenda
Brandon Smith

In my last article, 'The Fed Is A Suicide Bomber With A Deeper Agenda', I explored and dismantled recent propaganda surrounding the Federal Reserve's tightening actions, including the propaganda that Jerome Powell is some kind of rogue central banker who is rebalancing the system for the good of the nation.  To summarize the points made in that article:

The Fed deliberately created the "Everything Bubble" so that it could be deliberately imploded at the proper time - in other words, the crash we have been witnessing so far during the final quarter of 2018 and continuing into 2019 is a controlled demolition of the economy.  Jerome Powell is not some "rebel" going against the easy money dictates of the Fed.  Jerome Powell is playing the role that has been given to him.  Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen's job was to inflate the bubble.  Jerome Powell's job is to crash the bubble. Read More

01.04.19- The “Stock Market Crash Of 2018” Is Rapidly Transforming Into
“The Financial Crisis Of 2019”
Michael Snyder

Stock markets are crashing all over the world, we are seeing extremely violent “flash crashes” in the forex marketplace, economic conditions are slowing down all over the globe, and fear is causing many investors to become extremely trigger happy.  The stock market crash of 2018 wiped out approximately 12 trillion dollarsin global stock market wealth, but things were supposed to calm down once we got into 2019.  But clearly that is not happening.  After Apple announced that their sales during the first quarter are going to be much, much lower than previously anticipated, Apple’s stock price started shooting down like a rocket and by the end of the session on Wednesday the company had lost 75 billion dollars in market capitalization.  Meanwhile, “flash crashes” caused some of the most violent swings that we have ever seen in the foreign exchange markets… Read More

01.03.19- Last Week Was Your Last Chance to Get Ready For What's Coming
Graham Summers

Last week’s rally was the result of multiple interventions. 

“Someone” took advantage of the extremely light holiday volume to ramp markets higher via indiscriminant buying. The media is trying to portray this action as the result of “investors” or “value seekers” but neither of those groups was involved. 

This was a clear and obvious buying program made by “someone” who didn’t want stocks to officially enter a bear market by falling 20%. One of the key “tells” that this was manipulation is that underperformers like banks and homebuilders didn’t lead the rally. Read More

01.02.19- 2019 Market Meltdown: What
The New Year Brings
Steve St Angelo

If history is our guide, we are on track for a severe market meltdown in 2019.  While the U.S. broader indexes remained in record territory for most of 2018, December turned out to be a complete disaster for stocks.  So, even though the markets have reversed higher from their Christmas Eve lows, this is nothing more than a bear market rally.

It’s really that simple.  Thus, all the hype about “Fed Market Rigging” to push the markets up a record 1,000 points following the Christmas Eve massacre, becomes white noise as markets always correct higher after a massive selloff, with or without the Plunge Protection Team (PPT).  Furthermore, the notion put forth by members of the Alt-Media suggesting that the Fed rate hikes will cause another market crash, and wealth transfer makes no sense in an EROI Collapse (Energy Returned On Investment). Read More

01.01.19- 2019, Ding! Ding! Margin Call USA
James Howard Kunstler

Welcome to the American hall of mirrors... and mind the broken glass all over the floor. That’s Nature’s way of saying the country has run out room to punk itself. 2018 was the consolidation of bad faith in everything we do: politics, the news media, economics & finance, show biz, regular biz, jurisprudence, medicine, education, and relations between men and women — the year of peak dishonesty and self-deception. Of course, the trouble with dishonesty is that it doesn’t comport with Reality, and Reality being Mother Nature’s husband, bats in the cleanup position. Entering 2019, the bases are loaded with delusions, misdirections, and turpitudes. I shall get right to it without further throat-clearing. Read More