HotStockMarket › Groups › stonerangers forum › Discussions › General Stock Markets Trends

General Stock Markets Trends - Page 3

post #41 of 266

The Fallacy of a Strong Dollar

June 8, 2012
 

After a shocking upset in Greece’s parliamentary elections, the US dollar surged dramatically. Soaring 5.4% in May alone, the world’s reserve currency won legions of fans among traders. “King Dollar” was universally lauded, with everyone jumping on the strong-dollar bandwagon. But this dazzling strength was merely a short-term phenomenon. Zoom out a little, and today’s “strong dollar” is a fallacy.

Perspective is everything in the markets. Attaining it is challenging and takes a lot of effort, but the fruits are well worth the toil. We humans naturally tend to extrapolate the present and very recent past out into infinity, expecting short-term situations to continue indefinitely. So when prices surge rapidly like the US dollar has, traders get greedy and assume the move will persist for a long time to come.

But greed, and its antithesis fear after prices have fallen sharply, are the mortal enemies of successful investment and speculation. Having perspective, keeping recent price moves firmly rooted in longer-term context, combats these dangerous emotions. While the dollar’s advance over the past month alone was amazing, how does it look in the context of recent years’ action? Truly not very impressive at all.

As always, the benchmark of choice for tracking the dollar’s fortunes is the venerable US Dollar Index (USDX). Born many decades ago in 1973, it measures the progress of the dollar against a basket of a half-dozen major foreign currencies. Dominating these is the euro, at 57.6% of this index’s weight. Next are the Japanese yen, British pound, and Canadian dollar at 13.6%, 11.9%, and 9.1% respectively.

It is this heavy euro weighting that has helped fuel the strong-dollar fallacy. Before the euro was launched in 1999, the USDX had ten components with no one commanding a dominant weighting. But when the euro replaced the German mark, French franc, Italian lira, Dutch guilder, and Belgian franc, there was no choice but to change each of these USDX components to the euro.

So the past decade’s euro-centric USDX is an accident of fate. In the early 1970s Europe was the US’s major trading partner, today’s massive Asian economies had barely even started rising to prominence. Thus the most popular metric traders use to measure the dollar is effectively largely its exchange rate versus the euro. And man, fears of the 17-nation euro zone fracturing have been ubiquitous recently.

Every time something bad happens in Europe, which is pretty much every few days lately, the euro takes a hit as scared traders exit the world’s second-most-important currency. And when the euro falls, naturally the euro-dominated USDX has to rise. May’s incredible spike in the dollar was actually a precipitous plunge in the euro. The dollar wasn’t loved, it was merely the lesser of two fiat-paper evils.

If you look at the past month’s USDX chart, the dollar certainly looks like a rock star. But zoom out to gain that critical perspective, and things aren’t so rosy. This first chart extends back to 2008, before that year’s epic stock panic. And by these recent years’ standards, the dollar not only isn’t particularly high but its May rally wasn’t particularly impressive. The so-called strong dollar really isn’t so strong after all.

While traders have largely forgotten now, the USDX was suffering in a massive secular bear between mid-2001 and early 2008. I’ll discuss that secular perspective a little later. But the net result of years’ worth of dollar supply growth (inflation) outpacing world demand growth had forced the USDX to all-time lows by April 2008. The thriving young euro was the market darling while the dollar was a laughingstock.

But soon after, that year’s once-in-a-century stock panic came along and changed everything. With the flagship S&P 500 stock index plummeting a nauseating 30.0% in a single month, everyone panicked and rushed for the exits. But traders around the world had to park this flight capital somewhere, so they collectively chose the US dollar and US Treasuries. This epic demand for cash was unprecedented.

It catapulted the USDX from just above its all-time lows to 22.6% higher in just 4.2 months, its biggest and fastest rally ever over such a short span. But it’s critical to remember that this dollar buying wasn’t because traders were excited about the dollar’s fundamentals. They simply had nowhere else to hide. The very day the stock markets finally bottomed, the USDX peaked before reversing sharply.

To understand the dollar action today, you really need to see how the stock markets and US dollar interacted during and immediately after that panic. They moved in lockstep opposition, nearly a perfect negative correlation. This inverse link burrowed itself so deeply in traders’ minds that ever since they have equated a rising dollar with falling stock markets and vice versa.

May 2012’s sharp dollar surge was mostly driven by the old Europe fears of Greece leaving the euro. After a left anti-bailout party nearly won Greece’s early-May parliamentary elections, this suddenly became a very real possibility. But we can’t discount the fact that the US stock markets were also exceptionally weak in May, weathering a sharp pullback. This also contributed to the dollar’s spike.

After the stock panic, the dollar topped in March 2009 the very day the stock markets bottomed. Then it sold off sharply as the stock markets surged in a dramatic post-panic recovery. Early in this move, the USDX plummeted 2.9% in its largest down day ever when the Fed announced quantitative easing. This is a happy euphemism for monetizing debt, or creating new dollars out of thin air to buy Treasuries.

By late 2009 this currency was simply oversold, so a normal bear-market rally was due. But just as that healthy countertrend move was getting toppy, the first serious Greece fears emerged. To join the EU, countries had to agree by treaty to keep their budget deficits under 3% of GDP. Greece was reporting 6%, already a big problem. But the Greek politicians had been outright lying, in reality it was nearly 13%.

So traders started to get nervous about the euro, pushing the already-mature bear rally in the dollar higher. Soon after these fears exploded, Europe approved a massive €110b bailout package in May 2010. Couple this with a major stock-market correction, and the USDX rocketed back up to panic highs. But just like during the panic, as soon as the stock markets bottomed flight capital left the dollar so it quickly collapsed.

Interestingly the dollar surged again in late 2010 when the Fed’s second round of quantitative easing was announced. This is counterintuitive, as more inflation is very bearish for any currency. But a couple factors came into play. First, QE2 was only about half the size of QE1 ($900b versus $1750b), so traders were relieved the new inflation wasn’t worse. Second, the record Democratic losses in the US elections (the day before QE2 was announced) led to hopes Obama’s spending would be reined in.

But that hope was short-lived, by spring 2011 the USDX was once again nearing all-time lows. This dollar weakness persisted for the better part of two quarters, until last autumn. If the US dollar is such a great currency as its bulls proclaim today, then why couldn’t it catch a bid without Europe scares or stock-market selloffs to drive temporary safe-haven demand? Those conditions are the only times the dollar has rallied meaningfully since the stock panic.

Late last summer the Greek fears began to flare again as rumors swirled that its initial bailout wouldn’t be enough, that the Greek politicians refused to quit spending vastly more than they were taking in. So the dollar rallied briefly. Then later in November and December it surged again on a European sovereign-debt scare. Yields in troubled European countries far larger and more important than Greece were being driven up towards dangerous 7% levels as investors fled.

But like every other Europe scare in the past few years, that one too soon passed. So the resulting euro selling climaxed in mid-January, leading the USDX to peak at the same time. But that interim high was still pretty low by post-panic standards. This benchmark US dollar index remained way below its panic peak, roughly halfway up into its entire post-panic trading range. The strong dollar was merely a short-term illusion.

And then it started drifting sideways to lower again in 2012, even when the Europeans capitulated and agreed to a second massive Greece bailout of €130b. Still the dollar didn’t go anywhere for a couple more months until early May, when recession-weary Greeks voted big for an extreme anti-bailout party. Exacerbating this was the sharp pullback in the stock markets, driving serious safe-haven demand.

While May’s spike was certainly impressive in isolation, it was truly no big deal within this longer-term context. Not only was the USDX not very high in its post-panic trading range, its spike was much more anemic than what we’ve seen since 2008. Between its mid-January and late-May interim highs, the best the USDX could muster was merely a 2.0% gain. This is nothing to write home about over a 4.5-month span.

Think about this a second. While Greece fears festered in the background since early 2010, it wasn’t until the past few months the odds of Greece leaving the euro zone mushroomed from remote to possible or even probable. The fears of Europe (and maybe the euro) fracturing have never been more intense than in the last few months, especially in May after that Greek vote. You couldn’t ask for a better psychological backdrop for the US dollar, with its only real competition seemingly doomed.

Yet what did it do? Not a whole heck of a lot. It remained far below its panic highs and not much above where the recent European sovereign-debt scare took it. If the strong-dollar crowd was right, if the dollar’s fundamentals were really bullish, the USDX should have been trading well into the 90s by now instead of the low 80s. The dollar’s recent strength is merely a temporary flight-capital phenomenon, not a bullish breakout.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the embattled euro, which has been driven to deeply oversold levels by all these Greece fears. It is due to surge, as it is one of the most popular and overcrowded shorts in the world. When the euro inevitably reverses, the USDX is going to get crushed. And if the dollar couldn’t forge new post-panic highs with euro-fracturing fears climaxing, when will it ever be able to?

This next chart zooms out one more time, to the US dollar’s secular bear. While today’s strong-dollar thesis is wrong even from the post-panic perspective, it is a total joke from a secular perspective. Despite huge spikes on periodic flight-capital demand, the world’s reserve currency continues to languish way down near the bottom of its secular trading range. Calling this “strength” is absurd, it is a total fallacy.

Thanks to the Fed’s endless creation of new paper dollars at rates far exceeding global demand, the US dollar has been crushed over the past decade or so. Just before the stock panic in early 2008, the USDX had fallen 41.0% lower in just under seven years. Typically when secular bears end, strong bull markets begin. But for the four years since, the dollar has only been able to rally periodically on safe-haven buying.

As soon as whatever happens to be scaring traders into hiding out in cash inevitably passes, so does any dollar buying. The net result is despite some awesome bear-market rallies in recent years, the dollar has simply drifted sideways not far above secular lows. The area of the first chart is shaded in blue here, and seen within secular context this post-panic action looks even poorer since the USDX remains so low.

After having to deal with all the market fallout in recent years from Europe refusing to live within its means, like the majority of traders I am tired of Europe. Some days I curse the whole idea of a united Europe and its single currency. But despite this universal Europe fear, Europe fatigue, Europe contempt, the best the USDX could manage was a meager 13.9% rally over 13.1 months. This isn’t particularly large even by its own secular-bear standards.

If the dollar can’t catch a meaningful bid on a secular scale even with this dire euro backdrop, it is probably going to get slaughtered when this latest round of Europe fears passes and the euro reverses. It is really amazing, and ominous, to see the dollar still drifting low in its secular range with countless traders extremely worried about the end of the euro as we know it. The strong dollar is a fallacy.

Why is the dollar so weak despite having everything going for it psychologically? Probably because of the Fed’s endless monetary inflation, which has accelerated to double-digit rates in recent years. The price of the dollar in world markets, like everything else, is determined by supply and demand. The Fed is ramping dollar supplies like crazy, like there is no tomorrow. Yet at the same time global demand is slowing.

Investors around the world, including central banks, are increasingly disgusted with Washington’s gross mismanagement of its currency, government spending, and debt levels. This whole Greece mess started because its politicians ran 13%-of-GDP deficits to finance extravagant social programs to bribe voters. In recent years Obama has been running US deficits in the 8% to 10% range. The US is a mess.

In addition, central banks around the world are still radically overinvested in US dollars even after the ravages of its long secular bear. They need diversification, and buying the euro is the way to get it. There is also a revolt among countries, companies, and investors over the increasingly draconian and heavy-handed controls and regulations on currency movements and banking coming from Washington.

As long as the dollar’s supply growth exceeds its demand growth, it is going to remain mired deep in its long secular bear. And as sad as it makes me as an American, I can’t see this changing anytime soon. Washington will keep spending like the Greeks, far beyond its means. The Fed will keep printing new money to buy up the resulting debt. And the world’s respect for the US dollar will continue to wane.

The strong-dollar fallacy has hit one asset class particularly hard, commodities. Futures traders are quick to sell on any dollar strength, so commodities have just been trashed. They even decoupled from the stock markets’ latest upleg, which is unprecedented. They and the stocks of their producers are trading at incredibly oversold levels, so they will be the primary beneficiaries of the US dollar’s next slide lower.

And of course no commodity is more responsive to the US dollar’s fortunes than gold. The sharp dollar surge in May drove a full-blown capitulation in gold stocks and to a lesser extent in the metal itself. Capital is already returning after that rare selling-exhaustion event, laying the groundwork for a major new upleg. So when the euro starts recovering from irrational fears and weighs on the dollar, gold and its miners ought to soar.

At Zeal we’ve been watching the dollar to help time our commodities-stock trading for over a decade now. I called this dollar secular bear way back in August 2001, when it was a hardcore contrarian position. Over the years since we’ve bought commodities stocks cheap when the dollar was higher, watched them rally as the dollar slid, and then sold them high when the dollar was lower. It has been very profitable.

Recently we’ve been buying back into cheap gold stocks, because their potential is so great. You can see our trades, analysis, and outlook in our famed weekly and monthly newsletters. In them I draw on our vast experience, knowledge, wisdom, and ongoing research to explain what the markets are doing, why, where they are likely heading, and how to trade them with specific stock trades as opportunities arise. Subscribe today and prepare to ride the coming dollar reversal!

The bottom line is contrary to popular belief the US dollar really isn’t strong today. Despite a perfect backdrop of extreme Europe pessimism, the USDX remains low in post-panic terms and very low from a secular perspective. May was a great month, no doubt. But within the context of longer-term trends crucial for short-circuiting dangerous greed and fear, the US dollar’s recent strength is minor at best.

Couple this with an oversold euro battered down to its major post-panic support, and a sharp dollar reversal lower is likely imminent. Given the endless bearish newsflow out of Europe, sooner or later something positive will happen. Like Greeks voting to stay in the euro next week. Whatever the euro-buying catalyst is, it will crush all the new dollar longs and light a fire under oversold commodities.

Adam Hamilton, CPA   June 8, 2012

post #42 of 266
Thread Starter 

Buying Opportunity or Full-Blown Bear Market?

post #43 of 266

BIS warns global lending contracting at fastest pace since 2008 Lehman crisis

International lending is contracting at the fastest pace since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008 as Europe's banks scramble to meet tougher rules.

Staff counting Euro notes at the American Express branch, in Haymarket, London
The IMF said banks will have to slash their balance sheets by $2 trillion by the end of next year even in a 'best-case scenario' Photo: PA
 
{C}

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said cross-border loans fell by $799bn (£520bn) in the fourth quarter of 2011, led by a broad retreat from Italy, Spain and the eurozone periphery.

Lending to banks in the eurozone fell $364bn or 5.9pc, with drastic reductions of 9.8pc in Italy and 8.7pc in Spain.

The BIS's quarterly report said the decline in lending was "largely driven by banks headquatered in the euro area facing pressures to reduce their leverage".

Banks must raise their core tier one capital ratios to 9pc by the end of this month or face the risk of partial nationalisation. The global Basel III rules are also pressuring banks to retrench.

The International Monetary Fund said banks will have to slash their balance sheets by $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) by the end of next year even in a "best-case scenario".

This could reach €3.8 trillion if Europe mishandles the debt crisis.

Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research said regulators were making a grave mistake by forcing banks to cut lending during a slump.

"What they are doing is frightening. If banks shrink their balance sheets, it destroys money. It causes a credit crunch and intensifies the recession. This is why we are facing a global slowdown," he said.

Alastair Clark, a member of the Bank of England's interim Financial Policy Committee, said last month that regulatory pressure may have gone too far, "inadvertantly" causing banks to restrict credit.

The BIS said French banks slashed their cross border assets by $197bn, and German banks cut by $181bn. The figures mostly predate the effects of the European Central Bank's liquidity blitz over the winter, which has had the effect of "Balkanizing" Europe's banking system. Analysts say the pace of withdrawal has since quickened.

Separately, the BIS said reserve accumulation by Asian central banks has jumped from $1.1 trillion to $6.4 trillion over the past decade, reaching levels that threaten to set off inflation and destabilise their economies.

The reserves – mostly in dollar and euro bonds – top 100pc of GDP in Hong Kong and Singapore, and 50pc in China, Malaysia and Thailand.

The effect is to distort the whole credit structure, promote the growth of "shadow banking", and store up all kinds of problems. "The expansion of the central banks' balance sheets has created dangers that require attention," the BIS said.

 
 
 
 
139
 
246
 
 
post #44 of 266
Thread Starter 

Pullback Maybe Not Over

By: SigmaTradingOscillator
 Wednesday, June 13, 2012
 

We had to change our view on the market during the session because the market was unable to break the 1326 level.

This level represents 50% retracement of the down move from Monday. So, there is a lot of chance that the consolidation from the up move from 1266 to 1349 is probably not over (yet).

 

We could go lower, in order to retest 1305 or maybe 1295 before going higher.

On top of that, it is important to notice that there is a negative divergence between price and RSI:

 

SPX

 

 

When we understood that the pullback was probably not over, we decided to cut half of our long position at 1324.28 (16.51 pts gain). Then we placed a stop order at 1319. It was executed later in the day at 1318.81 (11.04 pts gain).

 

 

The Breadth index is already in negative territory(red line):

Market Breadth

Conclusion:

Even if we believe the market should go to 1350 - 1360 in the near future, there are some contradictions in our scenario (unable to break 1326, STI at '0' and breadth index in negative).

In this context, we consider that we don't have an attractive risk/return now, and we prefer to stay on the sideline, waiting for a better opportunity.

 

Current position: no position

Have a nice day,

post #45 of 266
Thread Starter 

Jesse's Café Américain

 

14 June 2012

 Rough Waters Ahead

 
 

"All this wiggle-waggle of the gold price below or around $1600 is simply the result of official efforts to delay the appearance of $2,000+ gold.

That is the big event ahead, whose appearance will have deep psychological impact on markets, because the establishment of $2000+ gold will reinforce the idea that gold has still much higher to go."

Hugo Salinas-Price



Central Banks Stand Ready to Combat Greek Market Storm

And to provide advance notice of what is coming to their banking friends?


Tomorrow is stock option expiration, an important quad witch expiry as well.

The FOMC meets next week, and the Greek people have an important election on Sunday that may have some impact on their stance towards an austerity deal.

Today Egan-Jones downgraded France to BBB+ with outlook negative.

There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the Anglo-American banking cartel is deeply interested in acquiring key European assets on the cheap. This will not stop until the means of executing their trading gambits are removed.

This is a new and more brutal phase of the currency war.

Find something you can believe in and feel comfortable with within reason, and then stick with it until you succeed or are proven wrong. And if wrong, then do not be afraid or ashamed to change.

The only certainty we have is that 'this too shall pass.' But there are some things that remain when all other things pass away, and it is good to be mindful of them in our every day lives, conducted quietly while the greater events of the world unfold and then pass by. Sometimes it seems confusing in all the hysteria and 'fog of war,' but we have a guide to which our eyes can always turn, the pillar and the cloud that leads our way through the wilderness.

"Whatever is right, whatever is wrong, in this perplexing world, we must be right in doing justly, in loving mercy, in walking humbly with our God, in denying our wills, in ruling our tongues, in softening and sweetening our tempers, in mortifying our lusts; in learning patience, meekness, purity, forgiveness of injuries, and continuance in well-doing."

J. H. Newman

"The more I think about the human suffering in our world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of helplessness and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims."

Henri J. M. Nouwen

"Please, Lord, teach us to laugh again; but, God, don't ever let us forget that we have cried."

Bill Wilson

post #46 of 266
Thread Starter 
Comstock Partners, Inc.

Special Deflation Report

June 15, 2012
Deflation is a much more likely outcome than major inflation


We have long maintained that a debt bubble followed by a credit crisis leads to a deflationary recession or depression and a major secular bear market. Nevertheless, a lot of smart analysts who agree with us on the existence of a secular bear market argue that actions taken by the monetary and fiscal authorities lead to severe inflation rather than deflation. While their case is logical and well-reasoned, we disagree as we will explain in this report. We emphasize, however, that, in either case, the result is a major lengthy bear market.

 

When a debt bubble bursts, the need to pare down the debt to more normal levels (deleveraging) can be accomplished through either inflating the way out or paying it down. A third alternative----declaring bankruptcy and writing the debt off---- are so drastic that it would happen only if and when the first two alternatives were to fail.

 

Inflating the way out of excessive debt is a logical argument made by many people who we respect. We already know that Fed Chairman Bernanke will go to great lengths to try to avoid the dread of deflation. As a leading academic economist, Bernanke made a specialty out of studying the Great Depression, and ended up agreeing with Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz that the Fed didn't do enough, and allowed the money supply to shrink and turn a standard recession into a major depression. At Milton Friedman's ninetieth birthday party Bernanke said "I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."


Bernanke's now-famous 2002 "helicopter" speech was entitled "Deflation: Making Sure 'It' Doesn't Happen Here". In that speech, made when he was a Fed governor, but not Chairman, he outlined his blueprint for what the Fed could do if deflation became a serious threat.

He first pointed out why he felt that deflation had to be avoided. He defined deflation as a general decline in prices caused by a collapse in aggregate demand so severe that producers must cut prices to find buyers. The effects of a deflationary episode are recession, rising unemployment and financial stress, resulting in nominal interest rates of close to zero. At that point, since the nominal rate cannot go below zero, the "real" rate becomes the expected rate of deflation. Therefore the real costs of borrowing becomes high enough to discourage spending, worsening the downturn. All of this puts stress on the nation's financial system, increasing defaults, bankruptcies and bank failures.

 

Bernanke maintains, however, that when interest rates reach zero, and deflation still threatens, the Fed has still not run out of ammunition. Under a fiat system "the U.S. government has a printing press.that allows it to provide as many dollars as it wishes" Therefore, he states that under a paper money system the Fed can "always" generate higher spending and positive inflation.

 

The Chairman then proceeds to list the actions that the Fed could take. It could expand the scale of asset purchases and the menu of assets that it could buy; make low-interest loans to banks; buy government bonds with longer maturities; or set specific rate ceilings and buy unlimited amounts at prices consistent with the targeted yields. It could also operate in the markets for agency securities. Even if all of that doesn't work, Bernanke adds that the Fed can offer fixed-term loans to banks at low or zero rates with a wide range of assets put up for collateral.

 

Bernanke also added that fiscal policy could help through broad-based tax cuts and increased government spending. He said, "A money-financed tax-cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money." The government could also issue debt to purchase private assets. If "the Fed then purchases an equal amount of Treasury debt with newly created money, the whole operation would be the economic equivalent of direct open-market operations in private assets".

 

As Chairman, Bernanke now has the power (subject to voting on the FOMC) to carry out the list of remedies that he proposed, and has already implemented many of them. This is precisely what is scaring those who believe in an inflationary outcome. They believe that central bankers, not only in the U.S., but around the world, will attempt to prevent the destruction of debt and will continue to bail out every debt- troubled entity until debt is inflated down.

Although we understand and respect the view of those believing in an inflationary outcome, we disagree for the following reasons. Both private and government debt are far too high and must be deleveraged. Federal debt soared from 32% of GDP in 1982 to 101% on March 31 of this year. (Please see chart.) It was about 60% as late as 2000, as has since taken off. Although the level of federal debt has received most of the media and Wall Street attention, the level of household debt, which is equally or even more relevant, bore greater responsibility for the credit crisis. Household debt climbed from about 30% of GDP in 1955 to 98% in 2008, and has since fallen back to 84% as of March 31. (Please see chart.) The 60-year average was 55%, and was at 66% as late as 2000.

 

The problem is that GDP growth is dependent on a reasonable, although not excessive, amount of debt growth. For the last few decades it has taken more and more debt growth to achieve a given amount of GDP growth. Now debt must be reduced, and deleveraging is strongly deflationary. In order for governments and households to reduce debts they have to lower spending, and less spending means declining aggregate demand that causes producers to cut prices as Bernanke indicated above. Left alone, this leads to a negative feedback cycle resulting in less pricing power, competitive currency devaluations, protectionism and tariffs, plant closings and debt defaults. (Please see chart titled "Cycle of Deflation-authored by Comstock Partners).

 

The question facing us is whether a combination of monetary and fiscal policy can stop the negative feedback from happening and actually lead to severe inflation, as many think. Although we cannot be dogmatic about it, our answer is: probably not. Despite TARP, the early 2009 fiscal stimulus, near-zero interest rates, QE1, QE2, "Operation Twist" (the Treasury bond purchasing program) and a myriad of other actions taken by the Fed, Congress and the administration, the recovery has been extremely sluggish and now seems to be turning down once again. Once again the Street is abuzz with talk of more Fed easing. However, the easiest and most reliable measures have already been taken and any remaining weapons are unorthodox, untried and subject to unknown negative side effects.

 

The problem is that the Fed can take their horse to water, but they can't make him drink. Since 2008 they have already tripled the monetary base, the item they control most directly, without a commensurate increase in money supply. The money supply divided by the base is called is called the money multiplier. Since 2008 the money (M2) multiplier has dropped from slightly under 9 to 3.7. (Please see chart.) The pattern is similar whether one uses M1 or MZM. Simply put, the huge increase in the base has induced a relatively small increase in the money supply. In turn, the increased money supply has not resulted in commensurate increase in GDP. The GDP divided by the money supply is called the velocity of money. Velocity has also dropped sharply in the last few years. (Please see chart.) Therefore, when taken together, all of the government efforts to stimulate the economy since late 2008 have resulted only in a tepid recovery that is showing signs of petering out.

 

In our view, it is the overwhelming force of the debt deleveraging that has overcome government efforts to inflate. We have pointed out that household debt has dropped to 84% of GDP from its peak of 98% in 2008. After rising for 284 consecutive quarters from the end of WW II to mid-2008, household debt has now declined for the last 16 quarters. This is an astounding number, indicating a great change in the economy. It still has a long way to go in order to reach the 66% level of 2000, let alone the 60-year average of 55%. Households, therefore, have to continue to increase savings and reduce spending for, perhaps, years to come to get their balance sheets in order. Since this reduces the demand for goods and services, businesses have little reason to hire new workers or increase capital expenditures. Since household spending accounts for 70% of the GDP, the negative effects are felt throughout the economy.

Under these circumstances, we believe that inflation cannot take hold in the real world. Businesses feel minimal pressure from rising wages and have no compelling need to raise prices. Even if they tried, consumers would not have enough income to pay the higher prices and would resist, forcing producers to rescind whatever price increases they try to put through.

 

Even now, there are straws in the wind indicating that the world may be headed for deflation. The economy is once again slowing down from a growth rate that was already mediocre. Recently we have seen lower-than-expected results or actual declines in GDP, job growth, retail sales, income growth, core capital goods orders, vehicle sales and initial unemployment claims. There is uncertainty on tax rates, a dysfunctional congress, a contentious election and the so-called "fiscal cliff". Treasury bond rates are the lowest since at least the Eisenhower administration and in some cases on record. Globally, we are witnessing a recession and sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the increasing possibility of a hard landing in China, and weakness in Japan, India, Brazil and a number of other emerging nations.

 

In sum, we think that the global forces behind deleveraging have more firepower than the all of the world's central banks and governments together, and that deflation is a much more likely outcome than major inflation. At the same time we recognize that a lot of smart people make a logical case for inflation. In either case, however, the outlook for the market is exceedingly bearish.

 

 

post #47 of 266

The physical gold and silver prices are still taking their lead from the paper gold and silver prices.  For as long as this chicanery continues, these two monetary commodities will be mis-priced / undervalued.

 

Perhaps I should start an exchange that deals exclusively in original Mona Lisa's.  Seats on the exchange will be restricted to two.  I shall control both of them.  After trading millions of Mona Lisa's back and forth, the price for a Mona Lisa may decline to about US$50.00.  At that point, I will contact the Louvre and make them an offer for the Mona Lisa which is in their custody.  They will likely claim that their Mona Lisa is the one and only original and should therefore trade at a premium over the $50 market price.  ("Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa")?  I would expect nothing less.  They are free to allege whatever they want, but the markets will have spoken.  ("Mystic smile").

 

The $50 market price is an offer they can refuse.  ("Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep.  They just lie there, and they die there").

 

My apologies to Nat "King" Cole.

post #48 of 266
Thread Starter 

Update from Peter Grandich

 

Posted: 15 Jun 2012 04:49 AM PDT

 

This Sunday’s Greek elections should be center stage for most markets. Keep in mind that it’s not uncommon that whatever the initial reactions are to the news end up reversing not soon after.


U.S. Stock Market – Torn between poor overall fundamentals (and of course Europe) and the belief another FED QE is a sure-fire major plus, the market is (and should remain for a while) quite volatile.


U.S. Bonds – After a very long wait, I finally established a short position in Treasuries in my “Tracking List”. Because another QE is still quite possible and the economy is in the crapper yet again, I didn’t take leverage short positions. I most likely will if and when QE is enacted and we make new lows in yields (around 1.25% on the 10-yr T-Bond).


U.S. Dollar – We know there’s a record short Euro position for many weeks now. The news has only been bad and could be perceived horrific come Monday morning. Yet, the Euro has found major support around 1.25 to the U.S Dollar. If whatever takes place in Greece doesn’t cause a sell off towards $1.20, we could see a dramatic short squeeze. Longer term the U.S. dollar is toast.


Gold – Hello boatload of bears? Whatever happened to your sell-off? Despite almost daily bear raids in the paper market, the gold price is moving higher, not lower. Hmm…. Two closes above $1,700 and its curtains for the bears – again!


Oil and Natural Gas – Eying getting long oil but holding out to see if $75 can be tested. Natural gas remains an avoid.


Junior Resource Stocks – Sucks! Any questions? The only good news the sucking may finally be getting behind us.

post #49 of 266
Thread Starter 

I don't belive in 'waves'..Elliott or Kondratieff..but if you are so inclined...

 

 

Elliott Wave Forecast for the Dow

 

By: Joseph Russo | Sunday, June 17, 2012
 
 

Given the heightened sense of both fear and euphoria respectively associated with the outcome of Greek elections and the cartel of global central bankers pledging if need be, to do all that is necessary to further distort the price mechanism, we thought it appropriate to publically share our forecast for the Dow.

In our view, there is no better means by which to observe the rapidly changing state of global economic conditions than to grasp and interpret the clear inferences attained in accurately reading the price mechanism at work in real time.

Before we render our general forecast based on such, we will first explain the charts mark-ups, which slowly walk you through how we have arrived at our current conclusions.

 

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

 

Following last year's rollercoaster ride in response to similar concerns amid the Euro-zone along with the debt ceiling issues in the US, with the promise of QE3, and the further price mechanism distortions of several European bailout measures, the Dow embarked upon a rally that ultimately exceeded the highs rendered back in May of 2011.

 

From left to right, the light-blue rising dashed trendline trajectory marked a clear boundary for this major advance in price. Nearly one year later in late May early April 2012, the Dow reached its peak and began its initial fall from grace.

 

Leading up to this crest, we had set a horizontal line in the sand at the previous price high, which is marked and illustrated in light red. The first light yellow vertical line was laying in wait from November 2011, and marked a timeframe for a high probability turn pivot in price. In this instance, it is clear to observe that our waiting vertical time line marked a near perfect timeframe for the end of the rally.

 

NOTE: To avoid scrolling back up to the chart for reference, we will intermittently replace the image as needed for your convenience.

We left off at the first vertical yellow turn-pivot crest in price, and observed thereafter what at first appeared just like any of the other recent moves to the downside.

 

Prior to its occurrence, we observed an initial distinction with this particular decline when it breached that dashed blue trendline trajectory we mentioned, which as you recall, had been providing a clear boundary for the long-running uptrend in price from the previous year's print lows.

From the previous year low, we had been patiently following the classic tenets of Elliott Wave Theory in counting four fractal degrees of subdividing wave structures.

Based largely upon human action or praxeology, Elliott Wave theory represents what one might consider a praxeological result of the inclination toward achieving forward progress by the means of enduring two steps back amid the overall successful achievement of progress in three steps forward.

In a progressing and growing stable economy is logical that the price mechanism adjusts in some form of this pattern, which telegraphs normal errors and adjustments made by economic agents as they try to best interpret the prevailing market conditions in order to make rational business decisions, which involves taking measured levels of risk.


The Elliott Wave price patterns generally appear as follows:

Elliott Wave Patterns

The top line illustrates three steps forward (waves 1, 3, and 5) to the crest wave labeled -5-, which is comprised of five total waves of general progress that contain two corrective waves down (waves 2, and 4) to break the forward progress from one continuous stretch of perfect success.

 

The middle price pattern illustrates the fractal nature in which the price mechanism observes progress that typically evolves within a given time or business cycle regardless of its duration. Once five waves of non-overlapping progressive waves are complete, three corrective and overlapping waves typically follow. This observes the regressive or downward adjustment amid a corrective phase as agents readjust their perceptions of changing market conditions via the price mechanism.

 

The bottom line illustrates the fractal compounding nature of subdivisions within the nine degrees of trend lent by the theory, which in this graph shows 21 total progressive waves followed by 13 total corrective waves replicating to create the longer-term cycles that are illustrated in the two lines above.

With that brief tutorial out of the way, we can now get back to our study of the price mechanism via our chart of the Dow Jones Industrial average.

 

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

Continuing from left to right, from the point at which the Dow first breached its telling trendline boundary at the first small blue circle, we had in place two additional boundaries drawn from which to anticipate an attempt at bouncing back from corrective decline and returning to forward progress.

The first area of natural support was the 12876 level, which as you recall, was the high achieved from the prior year. The second area of support was not quite as obvious though it was resting in wait just the same.

Moving out of left-to-right sequence just for a moment, we draw your attention to the lower right hand corner of the chart where you will notice a thick blue line sloping in an upward trajectory pointing just north of the 11,600 mark on the price axis.

 

This line is far more critical than the thin dashed trendline the Dow breached following its peak in May/April of 2012. For this line, represents a critical support boundary, which defines the entire bailout rally from the depths of the bear market lows registered back in 2008.

Okay, back to our left-to-right sequence, relative to this critical boundary line of progress just noted, is a mid-channel boundary, which naturally has a large upper boundary to match even though it is not within visible range on this particular data series.

This mid-channel, which we note as the Larger Mid Channel, is from left to right identified near the pivot low in price that registered in early April 2012. As you can see at the second slightly larger blue circle, price dipped briefly beneath this standing mid channel then rapidly recovered and the price level again began to rise.

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

We suspect thus far that you would be inclined to agree that these forecasting tools are indeed a reliable means by which to accurately observe, confirm, or negate the level of success in which economic agents are succeeding or failing in their natural quest to correctly interpret and act upon the broader price mechanisms occurring throughout the economy.

If you do not yet think so, be patient and by the end of this dissertation, I trust you will be convinced of the value and utility in imparts in observing human action responding to the price mechanism in real time.

Where did we leave off? Ah yes, we left off at the attempted recovery from the initial pivot low. Take note that we labeled that low with the -a- tag, which is a corrective label suggesting that a more serious impulsive decline had not taken place.

 

This was an immediate and HUGE piece of valuable information, which suggested that a recovery rebound had better than fair odds of retesting or besting the standing chart high registered in early April 2012.

Still moving from left to right, take notice of the full recovery made by the Dow and the nature in which it did so as it crested once again in early May 2012. Again, the manner in which the Dow recovered to this secondary high was HUGE in its implication.

Why, because from the rise off the initial pivot low in the early part of April, the retest, or level of confidence reflected in the actions of economic agents as manifest in the corrective upward price action in route to the retest, suggested a distinct degree of uncertainty.

As you see in the very small grey tags, we labeled and interpreted that retest as a corrective, overlapping a-b-c advance. This allowed us to set into place the larger fractal labeled with the also small (but slightly larger) blue -b- tag, which naturally follows our initial and correct interpretation and labeling of the initial decline to the blue wave -a- located to the right of the mid channel notation.

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

To further validate the efficacy of these tools, note how the very small intervening -b- wave tagged in grey found solid support at the precise confluence of the 12876 horizontal support level, and the gently rising Mid-Channel boundary tightly dotted in dark blue.

I trust you are still with me because I am using painstaking patience in attempt to illustrate with the utmost in clarity what the majority of people fail to see or understand just what it is they should be looking for and what it implies when presented with the challenge of evaluating a price chart.

For those more attuned to these insights, please accept my apologies for taking much more care than would otherwise be necessary to share them effectually.

Okay, so now we have a secondary crest in place and the real fun is about to begin. With all of our trendline trajectories rooted in place for months on end, we observe the Dow resuming its descent.

 

In no time flat, the price level is once again flirting with breaching our two most recent trajectories of support. Again, from left to right, this is taking place in real time right around May 4 / May 9 on the time axis.

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

Upon careful observation of this secondary decline, we took immediate notice that upon price stabilizing somewhat following a breach of the larger Mid-Channel line and an attempt to bounce and reclaim trade back above the 12876 horizontal trajectory, that a five wave impulsive decline appeared to have comprised this breach.

Again, this is another HUGE piece of information. It describes the nature in which economic agents are reacting to the real-time decline in progress.

Those untagged downward waves containing no elements of corrective overlap suggest a regressive impulse, which implies that an even larger downturn is likely to manifest. Following the attempt to reclaim trade above 12876 around May 15, we immediately tagged that downward impulse with the small grey -1- tag, which allowed us to forecast a reasonable level of probability that waves 3, 4, and 5, would follow to produce a larger downturn reflecting error and the need for correcting economic agents' miscalculations.

 

We did something else, which was outside the purview of the Elliott Wave theory at the very same time. We drew a brand new trend line trajectory from the base of the initial wave -a- base, to the corresponding base of the newly implied wave -1-.

At the time, this new trendline trajectory was more than HUGE, for it allowed us to measure the approximate level to which the price level was likely to fall should it fail in its attempt to reclaim trade back above it.

Initially, all that we had noted relative to that line was placing a warning notation of "580-pts" directly above it. At the same time, we spelled out "BATTLEGROUND FOR THE NEXT 580-PTS," and placed a blue oval shade atop this text. Without further ado, the attempt to reclaim trade back above the 12876 level failed and the Dow reversed lower and breached this freshly draw 580-pt. sell trigger trajectory.

The next day when subscribers received their updates, we were then able to identify a specific price downside price-target of 12172. As evidenced by the price action below, thereafter, the Dow continued to decline.

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

Though it took a couple of weeks, in early June 2012, as projected in advance via the tools described, the Dow marginally exceeded our downside price, then in one session, suddenly shot up like a rocket from nowhere.

The day following the first powerful triple digit rally, you can see how we had labeled the preceding smallest of 5-waves down in grey, which according to our accounting of the Elliott Wave theory as we had been interpreting it, terminated a larger fractal blue -c- wave of a yet larger a/or 1 wave at the recent low. Which of the two (a or 1) is still arguably open to interpretation.

 

Dow Jones Industrial Average 60-minute chart

 

The initial rocket launch off the a/1 wave low in early June inferred that economic agents had become too averse to risk in overstating their fears relative to the price mechanism, and realized that perhaps a more lasting opportunity might be just around the corner. This resumption in such bold a confidence was manifesting despite the legitimate macro fears buzzing about a slowdown in China and the severe banking and credit problems in the Euro-zone.

Perhaps economic agents have been conditioned for such an instant resumption of bravado in light of the fact that for more than a century, and certainly in recent months, years, and decades, their associated cartel of central bankers are always close by to tilt the table in their favor just when they need it most.

Sadly, instead of rational human reaction to a free market price mechanism, it is painfully clear that economic agents have resigned themselves to the level of Pavlov's dogs as they are rewarded to respond almost exclusively to their guiding masters of statist command and control interventionism - the central bankers.

 

Well, that's just about it. We trust that you now realize the full value of various technical tools and their real time efficacy in observing and forecasting price levels despite the presence of statist intervention.

 

post #50 of 266
Thread Starter 

Eerie comparisons to the crash of 2008

Commentary: Aden Forecast is really worried

By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch

June 18, 2012, 7:25 a.m. EDT

 

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — When a top letter says “The similarities to 2008 are becoming almost eerie,” you just have to pay attention.

First the good news, sort of. Last Thursday night, the Aden Forecast commented:

“The stock market bounced up today and it could rise further in the short-term. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI:DJIA) , for instance, reached a four week high today, and it could rebound up to 12850, along with the S&P 500 Index (SNC:SPX) probably to about 1350. Nevertheless, the market is vulnerable and it’s still quick to react to the news of the day. So continue to stand aside.”

Mary Anne Aden (L) and Pamela Aden write the Aden Forecast

Unfortunately, this is nothing that the Aden Forecast did not allow for in its apocalyptical monthly issue published the previous Tuesday. It wrote:

“Aside from short-term ups and downs, which are normal, it looks like stocks are headed lower, as well as the currencies. Bonds and the U.S. dollar are the safe havens, and along with gold, they’ll all likely rise further. This tells us the world economy is in trouble. Since many of these markets lead the economy, they’re signaling a recession is probably coming unless the Fed takes strong action to stimulate the economy...very soon. A financial shock has also become more probable.

“Increasingly, the similarities to 2008 are becoming almost eerie. We may be wrong, but the markets are poised for this and while we don’t know what the trigger will be, it could be almost anything. “

The Aden Forecast’s editors, sisters Pamela and Mary Anne Aden, added: 

 

“Currently, our gut feel is that if an accident is coming, it’ll likely happen this year. Again, it could be a wild card. One example is the explosion of the derivatives markets…The popularity of derivatives has skyrocketed within the financial industry. In the past 12 years, derivatives have grown 10 times faster than world GDP to the tune of $200 trillion for U.S. banks, which is three times the world’s GDP! This is a reckless accident waiting to happen and J.P. Morgan’s $2 billion loss this month may have been the tip of the iceberg.”

 

They concluded:

“Highly probable is the likelihood that the crisis in 2007-08 remains in process. It never ended.

“Oh sure, it was temporarily postponed by all of the Fed’s stimulus but now it’s continuing on its way as the major trend exerts itself.”

I named the Aden Forecast as Letter of the Year in 210. Adens are real professionals, combining a powerful long-term apocalyptical analysis with an intense determination to profit from short-term eddies, and the great respect for the (temporary) power of the official sector typical of gold bugs who survived the yellow metal’s post-1980 bear market.

 

 

That’s why the Adens’s new bearishness is significant. Although their tactical aggression caused them to lose money in the crash of 2008, their adroitness saved them from the terrible damage suffered by other gold bugs. And they were quick to sense that the crisis had passed.

 

The Adens acknowledge:

“An upcoming QE3 program could temporarily save the day and if it does, we’ll then change our position. But for now, we’ll let the market do the talking and it’s saying to stay out.”

Perhaps ominously in view of the Greek election, they added:

“The markets are primarily focused on Europe. And as long as that’s the case the U.S. is the safe haven.”

The Adens currently recommend asset allocations of 20% cash, 40% precious metal vehicles, 40% long term US government bonds

 
post #51 of 266

'Germany is a Credit Risk' Says Bill Gross

By: Mike Shedlock | Mon, Jun 18, 2012
 
 

Germany Exiting Eurozone is One of Very Few Scenarios in Which German Bonds Do Well

Bill Gross echoes my statements that Germany is poised for a big hit either by a piecemeal breakup of the eurozone, by Germany indefinitely ponying up more money to keep the eurozone intact, or by Germany saying it has had enough and goes back to the deutsche mark.

On Bloomberg TV's "Market Makers" Bill Gross of PIMCO spoke to Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle today and said, "I would be leery of German bunds simply because there are only a few scenarios in which they can do well...Germany for me is a credit risk. It's not an attractive market."

 

 

 

 

Partial Transcript

Gross on what he sees happening in Europe:

"I would be leery of German bunds simply because there are a few scenarios in which they can do well. If they will do well, if Germany leaves the zone and some way or another move back to the deutsche mark opposed to the euro and pay off obligations in euros and benefit because of it. Otherwise, increasingly, as we have seen over the weekend in terms of Greece, this kick the can environment adds liabilities to the German balance sheet day after day. They have what they call it a target 2 type of liability where they assume constant liabilities from Spain, Italy, and others as they move to the German Bundesbank. Increasingly, as the months move on, Germany becomes more and more liable for the euro balance sheet despite the possibility that Greece departs. Germany to me is a credit risk and certainly in terms of its tight shirt and shrinking shirt at the sleeves, is not an attractive market."

 

On countries like Germany and Japan:

"We were making a point in internal discussions that these clean dirty shirts have to fit. To the extent that these have been shrunk at the dry cleaners and the sleeves are up to the elbows in terms of low yields then perhaps you do not want to wear that shirt either. That is the case in Germany, not necessarily the case in Japan. In Germany, we have seen a bubble of some proportions as money is moving from Greece and other peripherals into the heart and the core of euro land. Would I buy a two-year German Schatz at close to 0% yield? Probably not. It is not only the dirt on the shirt, but the fit in terms of the yield that is important as well."

 

On Subprime and Distressed Credit:

"We want yield, but we want what we call safe yield. We want to invest in the cleanest dirty shirts, which appear to be the United States and perhaps the United Kingdom. To that extent, we're looking at mortgages, non-agency mortgages, not subprimes, but agency mortgages which provide a 1.5%-2% yield. These are instruments which because they prepay so rapidly at 25-30% a year, really present a two to three year maturity like the portfolio that Jamie Dimon was mentioning and they yield 1.5%-2%. These are not the heydays of bond investing, those were back in 1981, but to the extent you can beat a two-year treasury at 27 basis points with a mortgage that resembles that at 1.5 to 2 is what we are doing."

 

On whether Germany has the ability to rescue Spain:

"I think the ECB as representative of euro land as a core has the ability. The question is do they have the will. Any central bank has the potential to increase their money supply to buy obligations and to write checks if they are willing to suffer the currency depreciation that comes from that. Up until this point, the euro has gone down in value. Will the ECB be willing to permit a 10-15-20% decline from this point forward? It's not very German-alike in terms of their attitude. It's not very Austrian in terms of their monetary policy, but increasingly the market expects them to at least move closer to the margin in that regard."

 

On whether Spanish bonds will ever become attractive to PIMCO:

"Of course. If a bond manager says there is no price, then he is not thinking straight. I think at these levels with these types of market technicals, probably not. What euro land, the EU, and the ECB want, they want the PIMCOs of the world, the Chinese and their associated agencies to come back in the water. PIMCO and others basically sense a lot of sharks in the surface. A lot of fins protruding from the surface. It's not a safe environment as long as the EU and the global economy is delevering, which it continues to do."

On whether there's a point where intervention has to happen in Spain because they won't be able to rescue themselves:

"They say 7%, but that is a fictional number. No one really knows. What's important to me and to PIMCO going forward is to look at the entire zone and not the falling dominoes in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and perhaps Spain, but to look at the core. Imagine a financing rate for the core if you used Italy and France together, not Germany because they are a little on the too-high quality side and too low yield, but together Italy and France yield about 4% of the total. That's still too high a rate relative to nominal growth. What the EU wants is nominal GDP growth. They want to reflate. They want some inflation as well. 4%-types of financing is still above that 1%-2% nominal GDP growth that they are experiencing. Rates in Spain, Ireland and Greece another matter, but rates at the core are still too high and they need the private market to come back in."


Leery of German Bonds

I concur with Bill Gross. I suppose yields could go negative in a capital flight scenario, but otherwise where are German bonds headed?

Are Germany Two-Year Bonds attractive at .025%?

German 2-Year Bonds

I do not think .025% is an attractive rate for 2-year bonds. Nor is 1.41% an attractive rate for 10-year bonds.

A bet on long-term German bonds is a bet that Germany is not affected by eurozone fallout and/or returns to the deutsche mark.

One reader commented this is not about return-on-investment but rather return-of-investment. Perhaps so. However, return-of-investment may not hold up if German bonds yields soar due to credit risk.

While I think Germany should exit the eurozone, a piecemeal breakup that has a nasty spillover into Germany is as likely.

 


post #52 of 266
Thread Starter 

The two paragraphs below are courtesy of Gary Dorsch, editor of Global Money Trends magazine.

 

"US-retail investors were fleeing stock mutual funds for 14 straight weeks. They have yanked $46-billion out of the market since the start of the year. Just 53% of US households owned any stocks in April, the lowest since 1998. As such, the average daily trading volume in US stocks on all exchanges has shrunk to $6.5 billion in April, compared with $12.1 billion at its peak in 2008. Those left are high-speed trading firms, which now account for as much as two-thirds of all the volume on the stock markets. Yet high frequency traders are mostly scalpers, seeking to pocket a few pennies or $1 per share during the day. The rest of the players are money managers for high net worth individuals, hedge fund traders, mutual funds, and agents of the 'Plunge Protection Team.' In thinly traded markets, the actions of a few big players can have bigger impacts on the market’s increasingly strange behavior." "There is growing suspicion that the 'President’s Working Group,' otherwise known as the 'Plunge Protection Team,' is covertly intervening in stock index derivatives, on a daily basis, in order to place a safety net under the market, when risky bets go sour. For the past 15 years, traders have relied on the 'Greenspan and Bernanke Put' to bail them out of tough situations. The Fed has a long history of springing into action to inject liquidity into the money markets, or 'Jawboning' timely messages to the financial media, aiming to prevent the emergence of steep corrections on Wall Street that, if left unchecked, could snowball into an outright bear market, and plunge the US economy into a nasty recession".

post #53 of 266

Yes

 

 

And I have been one of them. One looks around the World today and while there are always problems, there is just a BOAT-LOAD of uncertainty.

Whether the Middle East, Europe, China, India,...pick your Country. The biggest concern of mine is that ALL eyes are on Central Banks of the World.

Fundamentals always come home to roost at some point. And anyone with half a wit is looking for the next shoe to drop.

 

Yuck

post #54 of 266

A Brief Primer on the European Crisis

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
All rights reserved and actively enforced.

Reprint Policy

 

With Greek elections resulting in a fairly benign outcome that promises to hold the euro together in the near-term, the market may enjoy some amount of relief. The extent and duration of that relief will be informative. Based on broader factors, we don't expect that relief to survive very long, but we are willing to respond more constructively if our own return/risk measures become more favorable.

 

Our estimate of the prospective return/risk tradeoff in the stock market remains in the most negative 0.5% of historical instances. That said - and this is important - if market internals improve meaningfully over the next few weeks (measured across individual stocks, industries, sectors and security types), our estimate of the market's prospective return/risk profile would improve, despite what we view as rich valuations and a new recession. Very roughly speaking, this would require a solid rebound in market internals over a period of 2 or 3 weeks. That sort of outcome might accompany a Fed easing or other event, but our focus is on the measurable condition of market internals, not on Fed policy or other news per se. A positive shift in our measures of market action would likely be enough to ease back from our tightly hedged investment stance to a slightly constructive position. For now, we don't have the evidence to take anything but a very defensive stance, but we'll take changes in the evidence as they arrive.

 

It's fair to say that we don't foresee any development that would encourage us to remove a major portion of our hedges at present, and my personal expectation is that conditions are likely to deteriorate sharply rather than improve, but as always, I want shareholders to know where my attention is focused. Our measures of market action - and any meaningful improvement over the next few weeks - will be important in determining the whether we maintain a tightly defensive stance or shift to a slightly constructive one.

 

Investors have a large number of trees to occupy their focus - Greek austerity, Spanish banks, Italian yields, U.S. economic data, Fed policy, earnings preannouncements (just ahead) and so forth. On a day-to-day basis, developments on any one of these fronts may bring fresh concern or relief. The larger issue is that we suspect that the forest has already caught fire.

 

The global economy remains in a deleveraging phase - the difficult portion of what is known as the "financial cycle" - in the aftermath of a long period of excessive debt expansion and credit growth. Meanwhile, by our analysis, the U.S. has also now entered a recession in the business cycle (particularly based on what we infer from unobserved components methods, and also evidenced by observable factors such as weak growth in consumption and income, a dropoff in new orders and industrial production, an acceleration of negative surprises on short-leading indicators such as Fed surveys, and now even softness in short-lagging data such as new unemployment claims).

 

As researchers at the Bank for International Settlements have pointed out (h/t Cam Hui), "the financial cycle is much longer than the traditional business cycle. Business cycle recessions are much deeper when they coincide with the contraction phase of the financial cycle. We also draw attention to the 'unfinished recession' phenomenon: policy responses that fail to take into account the length of the financial cycle may help contain recessions in the short run but at the expense of larger recessions down the road."

 

To a large extent, the repeated monetary interventions of the past two years have been an attempt to contain the unfinished effect of the 2008-2009 downturn. Since we never restructured debt burdens, we never saw a sustained resumption of demand, so aside from short-lived bursts of activity on the heels of QE2, the Twist, and LTRO interventions, important leading economic indicators have hovered close to territory traditionally associated with recessions. Bill Hester notes that if we cluster broad economic data into two bell curves, one for recessions and one for expansions, the data of the past two years has generally resided in the very left tail of the expansion bell, and in the overlapping right tail of recession data. The softness in mid-2011 - and even more in late-2012 - fit the profile of an economy transitioning from expansion to recession, but large interventions pulled the economy from the brink. At present, the joint deterioration in the economic data is significantly worse than either of those instances. I doubt that a fresh Fed intervention will be sufficient to pull the economy from the brink this time, but we'll take our evidence as it comes.

 

With regard to the Federal Reserve, we do expect further monetary interventions, but doubt that further intervention will substantially stabilize, much less reverse, the Goat Rodeo of challenges that the economy faces. Specific options, in order of likelihood, are a) re-opening dollar swap lines to increase the ability of European banks to access liquidity in the form of U.S. dollars; b) extending the length of the "Twist" program (whereby the Fed has sold much of its short duration holdings and replaced them with longer maturity Treasuries) by 3-6 months; c) "sterilized" QE3, whereby the Fed would purchase long-term Treasury securities, but require the proceeds to be held as reserve balances on deposit with the Fed. At close to 18 cents of base money per dollar of nominal GDP, and core inflation still running well above 2%, there is not much likelihood of massive, unsterilized quantitative easing. But I doubt that anything short of that will be satisfying to investors.

 

The upshot is that we continue to view market conditions as being among the most negative 0.5% of historical instances. Our analysis suggests that the U.S. has entered a new recession. Still, there is a significant prospect of further monetary interventions, and while we don't expect much of durable benefit from that, our focus is squarely on our own measures of market action. To the extent that we see material improvements in those measures, we would be inclined to ease our presently defensive position. My impression is that further Fed easing will be relatively weak and surprisingly poorly received by the market, but in the event our own metrics improve materially, we would respond with a more constructive stance. For now, we remain tightly defensive, and believe that the headwinds remain unusually strong.

post #55 of 266
Thread Starter 

Follow the Charts, Not the News

post #56 of 266
Thread Starter 

Economic Indicators Continue to Slide

By: Guy Lerner | Tuesday, June 19, 2012
 

Several of the economic indicators that go into our real time recession indicator are starting to point to recession. However, as we have discussed recently, signs of recession over the recent past have not led to recessions and weakness in the equity markets, but rather weakness in the economic indicators have been a sign of Federal Reserve intervention. Of course, this week we all wait for the Fed's latest scheme to bolster asset prices.

Figure 1 shows a weekly chart of the SP500. The red labeled bars are those times when the Economic Cycle Research Institute's Weekly Leading Index (WLI) is below a value of -2.4. When the WLI is below this level, there is a high degree of correlation with a recession. The current value of the WLI is -3. As you can see, WLI has been timely about regarding recession warnings, but over the past 2 years it has done a "stellar" job at identifying the next quantitative easing operation. See this article on distorted market signals.

 

Figure 1. SP500/ weekly
SP500/ weekly
safehaven_larger_image.pngLarger Image

 

Figure 2 shows a weekly chart of the SP500, and the red labeled bars are those times when the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti (ADS) business conditions index is signaling recession. The ADS indicator is designed to track real business conditions at high frequency. This recently turned negative on the economy.

Figure 2. SP500/ weekly
SP500/ weekly
safehaven_larger_image.pngLarger Image

 

So what does all this mean? High frequency and leading indicators are beginning to detect weakness in the economy. At present, there are 6 components that make up my real time recession indicator (RTRI). The ECRI's Leading Index and Leading Index (growth) are showing economic weakness, and the Philly Fed's ADS index is showing weakness. The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index will weigh in next week. The other two components of my RTRI are SP500 price based models, and with the recent 3 week bounce, these models are far from rolling over. In any case, the RTRI uses a consensus approach, and we would require at least 4 components to be negative before expecting a recession.

 

For now, several independent models are suggesting economic weakness. Whether this leads to a recession will likely be determined around 2:15 pm on Wednesday afternoon following the announcement by the Federal Open Market Committee.

post #57 of 266
Thread Starter 

The Pain Trade: Market Sees 70% Chance Of More Fed Easing

 

Think the Fed will pump more today? You are not alone: an implicit 7 out of 10 market participants do so too (and have for the past 70 or so S&P points, urged by nothing more than hopes of more easing as economic data after economic data has come in worse than expected). Which naturally means the pain trade today will be one of disappointment. But fear not: everyone will be able to sell ahead of everyone else if and when the Fed disappoints. Or so the thinking goes. Others like Citi, Deutsche and now SocGen, believe that a real policy intervention will come in only following a market crash. Bottom line: nobody knows anything. Correction - we know one thing. Absent central bank intervention everyone now agrees that the economy would be a complete disaster, so at least we can stop pretending that the word "recovery" makes any sense.

 

Sentment: Hoping And Praying Bernanke Sees His Shadow And Six More Months Of NEW QE

 

 

Everything today is all about the Fed, which at 12:30 pm will release its standard statement. The publication of Fed officials' forecasts and Chairman Bernanke's press conference will follow at 14:00 and 14:15, respectively. Some, like Goldman are convinced the Fed will announce new easing measures, which could take the form of a new LSAP, more Twist as well as a lengthening of short-term rate guidance beyond 2014, potentially going as far as announcing a Flow-based form of QE, while others such as BofA are fairly certain nothing will happen. Then at 2:00 pm the Fed will release its new economic projections, in which it is roundly expected that the Fed will revise its GDP forecasts for 2012 and 2013 lower, and unemployment - higher. Finally at 2:15 pm Bernanke will address Steve Liesman and a few other members of the fawning captured media. By then the market will be either much higher or much lower, although with about 5% of the recent market move driven entirely by pricing in of more QE, the risk is to the downside. In other words the hopium phase is over. It is now make or break for the Fed.

post #58 of 266
Thread Starter 

Stock market’s June jump has unlikely supporter

 

By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch

June 21, 2012, 1:29 a.m. EDT

 

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The stock market’s June jump has an unlikely supporter.

I named Dennis Slothower’s Stealth Stocks Daily as Letter of the Year for 2011 because of its brave bearishness, which had served it quite well through the year and at that time still seemed capable of turning into a triumph.

Slothower’s bearishness could not be brushed off. He was one of the very few editors to avoid the crash of 2008.  In that terrible year, Stealth Stocks Daily actually gained 5.3% versus a loss of negative 37.3% for the dividend-reinvested Wilshire 5000 Total Stock Market Index.

 

 

Fed Extends Twist, Signals Concerns

Fed officials signaled heightened worries on the economy, extended a program shifting their holdings toward longer-term securities through the end of the year.

Slothower shares a fairly apocalyptic outlook with the Aden Forecast. Editors Pamela and Mary Anne Aden wrote in their last monthly issue: “The similarities to 2008 are becoming almost eerie.” 

So shouldn’t Slothower agree?

 

Well, he doesn’t, at least tactically. Currently, Stealth Stocks Daily is 30% invested, which is a lot for him.

It’s not that Slothower isn’t apocalyptical. In fact, he’s both apocalyptical and conspiratorial. He wrote last night:

“The Fed did NOT deliver a massive QE program as some had rumored but did extend another “operation twist” through the end of the year, providing another $267 billion by swapping out short-term Treasuries for longer-term Treasuries.

 

“This is another punt. The Fed wants to kick the can to keep the stock market from crashing right before the elections….

“But it should be obvious. This market can’t stand alone and now it can’t even go a month without some financial prop. So does this mean we now have to be on constant life support 24/7 or we collapse? Apparently so—this is what we are dealing with.”

Slothower, however, has great respect for the official sector’s powers. He continued:

“Of the nearly 10,000 stocks that I track only about 9% of stocks are currently on a “buy” — but that number was only 5% a few days ago.

“This is a reflection of a very weak economy but this extra liquidity the Fed is adding could improve market breadth where the rally could be sustained beyond just the first 12 trading days of June.

 

“Yes, we have the euro zone failing at an accelerating rate and yes, the oil embargo is about to begin in a couple of weeks and then who knows what could happen — but as far as strategy is concerned as long as we see market breadth improving with new highs now starting to lead new lows and the McClellan Summation Index [a popular breadth indicator] getting better, I expect to see buy signals being produced soon...”

Slothower has actually been bullish (by his standards) most of the year.

Over the past 12 months, Stealth Stocks Daily is up 3.31% versus negative 1.75% for the dividend-reinvested Wilshire 5000.

Of course, the letter’s skepticism towards the post-2008 bounce has hurt it. Over the past three years, it’s up 2.79% annualized versus 15.29% annualized for the total return Wilshire 5000.

 

But over the past five years, which includes the crash of 2008, Stealth Stocks Daily is up 4.34% annualized versus negative 0.66% annualized for the total return Wilshire 5000.

Currently, Stealth Stocks is holding three stocks equally:

 

MModal Inc. (NASDAQ:MODL) (Stop at $11.45);

Monster Beverage Corp. (NASDAQ:MNST) (Stop at $70);

American Vanguard Corp. (NYSE:AVD) (Stop at $22.50)

 
post #59 of 266
Thread Starter 

S&P Channel In Danger Of Downward Breach

 
Tyler Durden's picture




Having lost its post-Spanish-bailout open high and Pre-Greek-Election closing high, S&P 500 e-mini futures look set to lose the QE-Hope-driven upward-sloping channel...

 

20120621_ES_channel_0.png

 

and as a reminder, Gold (and Oil) and Treasuries have all lost the QE Hope already...

20120621_QEHope_0.png

post #60 of 266
EU business shrinks; US, China output slows London: 1 hour and 27 minutes ago Image: BartlomiejMagierowski / Shutterstock.comBusiness activity across the euro zone shrank for a fifth straight month in June and Chinese manufacturing contracted, while weaker overseas demand slowed US factory growth, surveys showed on Thursday. The data darkened the outlook for the world economy, adding to fears that Europe's debt crisis and slower growth in the United States and Asia would cause downturns around the globe. On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve extended a stimulus program to help boost growth and said it was ready to do more if Europe's debt crisis were to worsen. According to financial information firm Markit, the 17-country euro zone's private sector shrank in June at its fastest pace in three years. Activity declined across the euro zone, including in its largest economy Germany and in France. Analysts said that should raise pressure for the European Central Bank to follow the Fed's lead and take further action to support the economy. 'We are at the point where the economy is increasingly losing traction and it's hard at this stage to see what will give us a lift. The ECB will do more, that will probably involve a rate cut - which is symbolic - but is action,' said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank. Markit's euro zone Flash Composite Purchasing Manager's Index for June, which comprises the service and manufacturing sectors, fell to 46.0. It has contracted for nine of the last 10 months. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. 'The only remotely positive spin that can be put on the dismal euro zone (PMI) is that there was no further deepening in the overall rate of contraction. Hardly a cause for celebration,' said Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight. The data pointed towards a second quarter contraction of around 0.6 percent, Markit said. Germany's factory sector contracted at its fastest pace since June 2009 and its services sector barely expanded, while in France, activity in both sectors declined. The danger of Greece exiting the euro zone eased after pro-bailout parties won weekend elections, but risks are mounting that Spain, the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, will need a full-blown international rescue. Europe's sluggish growth also affected US manufacturing, which Markit said grew at its slowest pace in 11 months in June. Hiring also slowed, with firms adding employees at the slowest pace in eight months. 'The impact of weak sales on employment is a key concern,' said Markit chief economist Chris Williamson. 'The close fit of the survey data with non-farm payroll number suggests that the official (employment) data for June will show a further weakening of the labor market.' Job growth in the US slowed sharply for a third consecutive month in May and the unemployment rate rose for the first time in nearly a year. Slower growth in China and other large emerging market economies also hit demand for US goods, Markit said. The company's US Flash Manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index fell to 52.9 in June from 54.0 in May. A separate report showed that factory activity in the US. Mid-Atlantic region contracted for a second straight month as new orders tumbled. Manufacturing has been a bright spot in an otherwise fragile US recovery, but recent data suggests things may be changing. 'It's a pretty horrendous result. We had thought we would have a pay back from last month's drop,' said Jeremy Lawson, senior economist at BNP Paribas. 'This suggests the weakness is genuine.' China's factory sector shrank for an eighth straight month in June as export orders sentiment hit its weakest level since early 2009. Economists said that suggested a broad slowdown in the economy may extend into the third quarter. The HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index, the earliest monthly indicator of China's industrial activity, fell to a seven-month low of 48.1 in June from 48.4 in May. That marked the eighth consecutive month that the HSBC PMI has been below 50, matching a similar streak during the much deeper slowdown during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Economic growth in the world's most populous nation is widely expected to have slid for the sixth straight quarter in April through June as the country feels the impact of the euro area debt crisis and as property controls hurt domestic demand. Connie Tse, an economist at Forecast Ltd in Singapore, said she sees an 'increasing chance' that second-quarter annual growth will edge close to 7 percent, which would be the weakest pace of expansion since early 2009 but way ahead of its European counterparts. As recently as May, a Reuters poll had a median forecast of 7.9 percent for the second quarter. 'Conditions of China's manufacturing sector, especially the small and medium sized factories, continued to slip. We see little probability of this series moving back into the expansion zone in the next two months,' said Yao Wei at Societe Generale. - Reuters
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: stonerangers forum
HotStockMarket › Groups › stonerangers forum › Discussions › General Stock Markets Trends