Less than 24 hours after beating the apparently wimpiest case of covid-19 ever, Donald Trump decided that his subjects’ lives aren’t exciting enough. So he called off Congressional talks on the latest stimulus bill.
Never a dull moment in pre-apocalypse America.
We can all be very confident that there will be no change to monetary policy for a very, very long time. But there is a fiscal cliff coming—and indeed has already begun.
It is clear that Mr. Powell is all-in on his unlimited QE and ZIRP. And, that he is “not even thinking about thinking about raising interest rates.” Therefore, the stock market does not have to worry about a contraction in the rate of money printing any time soon. However, equities could soon plunge due to the crash in the amount of fiscal support offered to the economy.
The coronavirus pandemic inflicted a “swift and massive shock” that has caused the broadest collapse of the global economy since 1870 despite unprecedented government support, the World Bank said.…
“This is a deeply sobering outlook, with the crisis likely to leave long-lasting scars and pose major global challenges,” said World Bank Group Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Ceyla Pazarbasioglu….
The depth of the crisis will drive 70 to 100 million people into extreme poverty.
I’ve missed a few predictions along the way, but usually only in part. When I missed, it was because I took the bad too far. The bad has almost always happened exactly when I said it would but hasn’t always been as bad as I said it would be. Now, it has all arrived and is turning out to be fully as bad as I said it would be.
It took the kick of a virus to set everything in place, but all the parts are now falling where I said they would once the next recession began.
With the stock markets near a critical juncture during the most-extreme economic dislocations of our lifetimes, big US stocks’ fundamentals have never been more important. After plummeting in a brutal stock panic on the catastrophic economic damage caused by governments’ draconian lockdowns to fight COVID-19, stocks have skyrocketed in a monster rally. Are these gains righteous or doomed to fail?
Mid-February feels lifetimes ago, when the flagship US S&P 500 stock index (SPX) surged to a series of new all-time-record highs. The last one at 3386.2 capped an epic secular bull that powered 400.5% higher over 11.0 years. That proved the second-largest and first-longest in all of US stock-market history, freakishly huge. Then COVID-19 viciously slammed the markets like a sledgehammer to the skull.
By David Middleton – Re-Blogged From WUWT
The ChiCom-19 hostage crisis certainly makes strange bedfellows. Over the past few weeks I have been agreeing with Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price on the need to end the hostage crisis now. In the 35 years, Mr. Price has served as a county commissioner, I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with him before. Matt Egan, lead writer for CNN Business, actually wrote an article about the oil industry that made sense. His work is usually so awful, that it doesn’t even have ridicule value… But, like a “blind squirrel occasionally getting the nut”…
How negative oil prices could set the stage for the next price boom
By Matt Egan, CNN Business
Have you read Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged? The main theme of the book is that – overwhelmed by growing statism – entrepreneurs at one point say finally “basta!” and announce a strike. They disappear, leaving their businesses to their fate. The symbolic Atlas who carries the world, shrugs. As a result, the economy collapses, plunging the world into chaos.
This what we are observing right now. The workers do not go to work. Shopping malls are closed. Restaurateurs shut down their premises. Theatres, cinemas, gyms, swimming pools – they all are out of service. Other companies reduce their activities or even go dormant. The global economy freezes. The only difference from the Rand’s novel that it is not because of the strike but because of a self-defense effort. People want to protect themselves and others against a contagious pathogen. But the result is the same. The collapse of the economy.
By Associated Press – Re-Blogged From Headline Wealth
When Rebeka McBride and her husband put their home in Washington state on the market in early March, the coronavirus outbreak was just taking hold in the United States. They managed to hold two open houses and a smattering of private viewings before accepting an offer.
But with the U.S. economy now collapsing, the family is less confident about their move to a Minneapolis suburb, where McBride sees brighter job prospects in her field of medical device research. She had worried that their buyer would pull out before closing, but they finalized the sale Thursday. And for her own new home, she’s using virtual tours but isn’t inclined to make an offer without seeing a home in person. Worse, McBride is suddenly worried about job prospects amid mass layoffs, forcing a reassessment of what she and her husband can afford.
By Associated Press – Re-Blogged From Headline Wealth
Nearly 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week — almost five times the previous record set in 1982 — amid a widespread economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus.
The surge in weekly applications was a stunning reflection of the damage the viral outbreak is inflicting on the economy. Filings for unemployment aid generally reflect the pace of layoffs.
Layoffs are sure to accelerate as the U.S. economy sinks into a recession. Revenue has collapsed at restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, gyms and airlines. Auto sales are plummeting, and car makers have closed factories. Most such employers face loan payments and other fixed costs, so they’re cutting jobs to save money.
It can’t come as any surprise that the stock market’s lofty balloon ride during the past couple of months fell because of a few words this week. It only rode up on sweet tweets by Trump about trade, which created a thermocline for it to ride. So, of course, the market plummeted this week in the unexpected downdraft of Trump’s out-of-the-blue statement that his trade deal may be a year away … even for phase one.
I don’t know if ignorant traders drive these vain accessions and declensions or just ignorant machines that have no ability to discern truth, so blindly they take all presidential headlines at face value.
Who could be surprised that stocks got off to their worst December start since the beginning of the Great Recession when Trump said a trade deal might best be shelved until after the 2020 elections? It was, however, apparently a fleeting horror to those who had actually believed Trump about a phase-one deal being imminent this month. One could only watch the surprised reactions with amusement, given there was no reason there should have been any surprise at all.
What Silence?
Have you heard loud warnings from Mainstream Media or from official government sources about the following huge problems? No! Official sources and the media are largely silent. They can’t/won’t discuss our serious problems and prefer the hopium strategy.
Gold and Debt: Asia has accumulated thousands of tons of gold. The U.S. has created over $22 trillion in federal government debt and $72 trillion in total debt per the St. Louis Federal Reserve. What happens when they devalue the dollar further, and gold prices go sky high?
Answer: Consumer prices for Americans will climb much higher. Gold will protect purchasing power, but few will own it. Asian economies will flourish, and the west will drown in debt.
President Trump wants negative interest rates, but they would be disastrous for the U.S. economy, and his objectives can be better achieved by other means.
The dollar strengthened against the euro in August, merely in anticipation of the European Central Bank slashing its key interest rate further into negative territory. Investors were fleeing into the dollar, prompting President Trump to tweet on Aug. 30:
The Euro is dropping against the Dollar “like crazy,” giving them a big export and manufacturing advantage… And the Fed does NOTHING!
Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome back Michael Pento, President and Founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies. Michael is one of our very favorite market commentators that we have on the podcast and is a well-known money manager, and author of the book The Coming Bond Market Collapse: How to Survive the Demise of the U.S. Debt Market. He’s been a regular guest right here with us over the past few years, and we always love getting his wonderful insights. Well, Michael, I’d like to start out with a question about the repo markets and I’m hoping you can make sense of all this for us. Now the Fed is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into these markets in ongoing overnight operations. We’re being told that this is just a matter of routine.
The markets certainly don’t seem too bothered, perhaps because Fed officials are out front assuring people that there is nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, that may be a signal that the opposite is true. Our central bankers are notorious for not telling the whole story and for being wrong, if not outright dishonest. So, if these operations are not extraordinary, one has to wonder why we don’t see the Fed doing this on a regular basis.
As global interest plummets to historically negative levels—and as the U.S. bond market reveals a deeply inverted yield curve—it’s time again to assess what all of this means for the precious metals investor.
Just yesterday, a fellow on CNBC remarked that “no one had seen this coming”. By “this”, he meant a sharp rally in both gold and bonds. Oh really? We write these articles for Sprott Money each and every week.
The inversion of the yield curve is of crucial importance as it has historically been one of the most reliable recessionary gauges. Consequently, we invite you to read our today’s article about the history of the yield curve inversions and find out whether the recession is coming, and what does it mean for the gold market.
We keep our promises. In the previous edition of the Market Overview, we promised our Readers to “dig even deeper into the predictive power of the yield curve”. As a refresher, please take a look at the chart below. It shows the U.S. Treasury yield curve, or actually not the whole curve, but the spread between 10-year and 3-month government bonds. As one can see, that difference is still negative (as of July 19). It means that the yield curve remains inverted (on a daily basis) since May 2019 (we abstract from the short-lived dip in March 2019).
The Q2 earnings season is upon us and the risks to the rally that started after the worst December on record at the close of last year is in serious jeopardy. We received a glimpse of this with some of the current companies that have reported. For example, to understand how dangerous this earnings reporting season can be, take a look at what one of the largest US multinational firms had to say recently after it reported earnings. The Minnesota-based Fastenal, which is the largest fastener distributor in North America, reported worse-than-expected second-quarter earnings and revenue. Shares of Fastenal promptly tanked more than 4%. But what the management said about the quarter was very interesting. The company said in its press release that its strategy to raise prices to offset tariffs placed to date on products sourced from China were not sufficient to also counter general inflation in the marketplace.
You should completely understand that the market is dangerously overvalued and that global economic growth has slowed to a crawl along with S&P 500 earnings. However, you must also be wondering when the massive overhang of unprecedented debt levels, artificial market manipulations, and the anemic economy will finally shock Wall Street to a brutal reality.
Artificially-low bond yields are prolonging the life of this terminally-ill market. In fact, record-low borrowing costs have been the lynchpin for perpetuating the illusion. Therefore, what will finally pull the plug on this market’s life support system is spiking corporate bond yields, which will manifest from the bursting of the $5.4 trillion BBB, Junk bond and leveraged loan markets. And, for that to occur, you will first need an outright US recession and/or a bonafide inflation scare.
How likely is a recession in the United States? Predicting a recession is difficult, but one can make some nice money with a good forecast. So let’s focus on the most important recessionary models developed by the Fed.
The first model is the smoothed recession probabilities for the United States developed by Marcelle Chauvet and Jeremy Piger based on the research published in the International Economic Review and Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. The odds are obtained from a dynamic-factor markov-switching model applied to four monthly coincident variables: non-farm payment enrollment, the index of industrial production, real personal income excluding transfer payments, and real manufacturing and trade sales.
Stocks surged last Friday following a U.S. jobs report that, to put it mildly, fell far below expectations. At first this might seem counterintuitive. Shouldn’t signs of a slowing economy act as a wet blanket on Wall Street?
Not necessarily. Investors, it’s believed, are responding to the expectation that the Federal Reserve will have no other choice than to lower interest rates this year in an attempt to keep the economic expansion going. Earlier this month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself commented that he was prepared to act “as appropriate” should the global trade war risk further harm. President Donald Trump has also renewed his attacks on Fed policy, calling last December’s rate hike a “big mistake.”
So a rate cut looks more and more likely in 2019, perhaps as soon as this summer. And investors rejoice.
We can face reality by swallowing the “red pill” (from the movie “The Matrix). This choice is uncomfortable because it opposes the propaganda from mainstream media, government statisticians, and Wall Street cheerleaders.
The “red pill” road is difficult and sometimes lonely. Gold is a “red pill” choice.
The “blue pill” path is easier and reassuring. Other “blue pill” advocates will applaud your choices. The herd approves this delusional path. Think debt-based fiat currencies.
The “blue pill” is best swallowed with a healthy slug of whisky, anti-depressant drugs, a few hits from now-legal “weed,” and platitudes from the evening news.
The buy and hold mantra from Wall Street Carnival Barkers should have died decades ago. After all, just buying stocks has gotten you absolutely crushed in China for more than a decade. And in Japan, you have been buried under an avalanche of losses for the last three decades. And even in the good old USA, you wouldn’t want to just own stocks if the economy was about to enter another deflationary recession/depression like 2008. Likewise, you wouldn’t want to own any bonds at all in a high-inflation environment as we had during the ’70s.
The truth is that the mainstream financial media is, for the most part, clueless and our Fed is blatantly feckless.
The Fed has gone from claiming in late 2018 that it would hike rates another four times, to now saying that it is open to actually start cutting rates very soon.
My friend John Rubino who runs the show at DollarCollapse.com recently noted: “bad debts are everywhere, from emerging market dollar-denominated bonds to Italian sovereign debt, Chinese shadow banks, US subprime auto loans, and US student loans. All are teetering on the edge.” I would add that the banking system of Europe is insolvent—look no further than Deutsche Bank with its massive derivatives book, which is the 15th largest bank in the world and 4th biggest in Europe. Its stock was trading at $150 pre-crisis, but it has now crashed to a record low $6.90 today. If this bank fails, look for it to take down multiple banks around the globe.
We are just a moment away from a significant achievement. If the current US economic expansion lasts until July 2019, it will reach 121 months, becoming the longest ever. The extended duration of the prosperity begs the question of when the next downturn will occur. Many analysts believe that its days are numbered, but we dare to disagree.
You see, we do not focus on the mere headlines, but always investigate the underlying factors behind the changes in specific data series. That’s true that the current expansion will likely be the longest on the record, but the reason for this is the softness of the recovery. The present expansion has been weaker than historical recoveries. Indeed, the real GDP has jumped just 24 percent since the end of the Great Recession. That’s a very disappointing result by historical standards: on average, the GDP rose by 33 percent during the previous three economic expansions, even though they were shorter.
The Donald was at it again in Wisconsin this weekend, reiterating his patented boast that the US economy is booming like never before.
We’re now the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world and it’s not even close,” he said on Saturday night at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“At the end of six years, you’re going to be left with the strongest country you’ve ever had,” he said.
We beg to differ, profoundly. The debt- and bubble-freighted US economy is actually running out of gas after a long, artificial cycle of tepid expansion; and so far the Donald’s Trade Wars and fiscal borrowing binge have only piled more debilitating baggage on America’s deeply impaired economy.
The recent collapse in world trade volume is the worst since the financial crisis and as dangerous as during the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, according to The Telegraph.
Data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis revealed that world trade volume dropped 1.8% in the three months to January compared to the preceding three months as a synchronized global downturn gained momentum.
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.
Now he’s predicting another recession to make landfall as soon as the second half of this year. Why? In short, the Fed has been too aggressive tightening liquidity at a time when corporate debt is at an all-time high. What’s more, the Trump administration has already enacted fiscal stimulus in the form of tax reform, which has historically been reserved for times of economic turmoil, not expansion.
By Michael Pento – Re-Blogged From Pento Portfolio Strategies
Wall Street’s absolute obsession with the soon to be announced most wonderful trade deal with China is mind-boggling. The cheerleaders that haunt main stream financial media don’t even care what kind of deal gets done. They don’t care if it hurts the already faltering condition of China’s economy or even if it does little to improve the chronically massive US trade deficits—just as long as both sides can spin it as a victory and return to the status quo all will be fine.
But let’s look at some facts that contradict this assumption. The problems with China are structural and have very little if anything to do with a trade war. To prove this let’s first look at the main stock market in China called the Shanghai Composite Index. This index peaked at over 5,100 in the summer of 2015. It began last year at 3,550. But today is trading at just 2,720. From its peak in 2015 to the day the trade war began on July 6th of 2018, the index fell by 47%. Therefore, it is silly to blame China’s issues on trade alone. The real issue with China is debt. In 2007 its debt was $7 trillion, and it has skyrocketed to $40 trillion today. It is the most unbalanced and unproductive pile of debt dung the world has ever seen, and it was built in record time by an edict from the communist state.
By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle
The major economies have slowed suddenly in the last two or three months, prompting a change of tack in the monetary policies of central banks. The same old tired, failing inflationist responses are being lined up, despite the evidence that monetary easing has never stopped a credit crisis developing. This article demonstrates why monetary policy is doomed by citing three reasons. There is the empirical evidence of money and credit continuing to grow regardless of interest rate changes, the evidence of Gibson’s paradox, and widespread ignorance in macroeconomic circles of the role of time preference.
The Fed’s rowing back on monetary tightening has rescued the world economy from the next credit crisis, or at least that’s the bullish message being churned out by brokers’ analysts and the media hacks that feed off them. It brings to mind Dr Johnson’s cynical observation about an acquaintance’s second marriage being the triumph of hope over experience.
By Dan Amerman – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle
Many people view the seven years of zero percent interest rates experienced in the United States between 2008 and 2015 as being safely in the past, with normal times having returned.
As explored in this analysis, so long as the business cycle of expansions and recessions has not been repealed – then we are highly likely to see a swift return to a potentially protracted bout of zero percent interest rates with the next major downturn in the economy.
Indeed, even the staff of the Federal Reserve itself expects more frequent episodes of zero percent interest rates in the future, and for those episodes to be on a more protracted basis.
In a surprisingly candid admission, two former Federal Reserve chairs have stated that the Federal Reserve alone is responsible for creating all recessions in the United States.
First, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said that
Expansions don’t die of old age. They get murdered.
By Michael Pento – Re-Blogged From PentoPort
It is crucial for investors to understand that the Federal Reserve has not yet turned dovish and the Fed “Put” it not yet in place. Wall Street sometimes hears what it desperately needs, but that does not make it fact. While Jerome Powell has moved incrementally towards the dovish side of the ledger in the past few weeks, the Fed is still firmly in hawkish territory. If, however, Mr. Powell was actively reducing the Fed Funds Rate (FFR) and expanding the balance sheet, then we would have a dovish Fed. However, by just indicating that the FOMC might be close to finishing its rate hiking campaign, while still selling nearly $50 billion of bonds every month from its balance sheet, the Fed is still tightening monetary policy–and in a big way.
However, “The Fed is now dovish, so it’s a good time to buy stocks” mantra from Wall Street is a dangerous one indeed. This argument is false on two fronts. First, as already mentioned, Jerome Powell is still tightening monetary policy through its reverse QE process. Second, the fact that the Fed may be cutting rates soon doesn’t mean the stock market automatically goes up. The Fed began cutting rates in September of 2007 and reached 0% by December of 2008. Was it a good time to buy stocks during that time? No, it was a very dumb idea that cost you half of your investable assets. The market actually peaked around the same time the Fed began cutting rates and didn’t bottom until March 2009, three months after interest rates hit 0%.
By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle
Until you got to this tax and spending deal a year ago, it was one of the most hated bull markets. The markets steadily climbed one wall of worry after another, and the problem was that the economic data did not confirm it.
That’s right. The market was not rising for the past ten years due to a healthy underlying economy. On the contrary, the market was rising due to the Federal Reserve pumping out stratospheric amounts of thin-air money, all of which needed somewhere to land.
By John Mauldin – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle
Someone asked recently how many times I had “crossed the pond” to Europe. I really don’t know. Certainly dozens of times. It’s been several times a year for as long as I remember.
That makes me an extremely unusual American. Most of us never visit Europe, except maybe for a rare dream vacation. And that’s okay because our own country is wonderful and has a lifetime of sights to see. But it does affect our perspective on the world.
Graphic: European Central Bank
By Gary Christenson -Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle
Peter Schiff explained “What Happens Next.” This article takes his “likely sequence of events” and expands the discussion.
His sequence:
By Mike Gleason – Re-Blogged From Money Metals
Tenuous Markets Bracing for Vindictive House Dems, Budget Crunch, plus an interview with Michael Pento.
Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.
Coming up Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies joins me for a conversation you will not want to miss. Michael weighs in on the recent words from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and why he believes the initial reaction from Wall Street about what the Fed will now be doing on interest rates is misguided, and he reveals the inside scoop on why he’s been blackballed by CNBC and others in the mainstream financial media. So, make sure you stick around for an explosive conversation with Michael Pento, coming up after this week’s market update.
By Michael Snyder – Re-Blogged From Freedom Outpost
Oil, copper and lumber are all telling us the exact same thing, and it isn’t good news for the global economy. When economic activity is booming, demand for commodities such as oil, copper and lumber goes up and that generally causes prices to rise. But when economic activity is slowing down, demand for such commodities falls and that generally causes prices to decline. In recent weeks, we have witnessed a decline in commodity prices unlike anything that we have witnessed in years, and many are concerned that this is a very clear indication that hard times are ahead for the global economy.
Let’s talk about oil first. The price of oil peaked in early October, but since that time it has fallen more than 25 percent, and the IEA is warning of “relatively weak” demand out of Asia and Europe…
The International Energy Agency said on Wednesday that while US demand for oil has been “very robust,” demand in Europe and developed Asian countries “continues to be relatively weak.” The IEA also warned of a “slowdown” in demand in developing nations such as India, Brazil and Argentina caused by high oil prices, weak currencies and deteriorating economic activity.
“The outlook for the global economy has deteriorated,” the IEA wrote.
By Craig Hemke – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle
On Wednesday, the FOMC will hike the fed funds rate again and promise three or four additional hikes in 2019. But be aware that this forecast is far from being a done deal.
Once the FOMC statement is released at 2:00 pm EDT on Wednesday—and once Chairman Powell concludes his press conference some 90 minutes later—you will be bombarded with analysis of how great things are, how the Fed may be “behind the curve” and how several more rate hikes will be forthcoming in 2019. But are these forecasts accurate, and what will be the impact on precious metal prices should the outlook change?
By Michael Pento – Re-Blogged From Pento Portfolio Strategies
China appears to have more to lose from a trade war with the US simply because the math behind surpluses and deficits renders the Bubble Blowers in Beijing at a big disadvantage. When you get right down to the nuclear option in a trade war, Trump could impose tariffs on all of the $505 billion worth of Chinese exported goods, while Premier Xi can only impose a duty on $129 billion worth of US exported goods–judging by the announcement on July 10thh of additional tariffs on $200 billion more of China’s exports to the US we are well underway towards that end. However, this doesn’t mean China completely runs out of ammunition to fight the battle once it hits that limit.
By Bob Shapiro
The Federal Reserve (FED) has raised interest rates 7 times during its latest tightening cycle, after almost 10 years of its previous rate suppression binge.
What tended to have happened in previous interest rate tightenings is that shorter term interest rates have risen somewhat faster than long rates, and at some point, short rates catch up to and pass long rates. This rare situation is referred to as an ‘Inverted Yield Curve.’
