Valuation

Transition Into Economic Night

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By Gary Christenson – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

The economic world is always changing, but the 2018-2019 period will mark an important transition. Consider credit market debt, interest rates, stock indices, individual stocks, and several ratios.

TOTAL CREDIT MARKET DEBT per the St. Louis Fed.

That measure of U.S. debt increased exponentially from 1951 to 2007 at a rate of 8.8% per year. However, the rate from 2008 to 2017 has been only 2.6% per year. A sixty-year trend changed during the 2007-08 financial crisis. As suggested by others the U.S. reached debt saturation. The economy has not recovered since the crisis. The graph of credit market debt supports that thesis.

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Beware The Young Bear!

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By Adam Hamilton – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Stock markets are forever cyclical, an endless series of alternating bulls and bears. And after one of the greatest bulls in US history, odds are a young bear is now gathering steam. It is being fueled by record Fed tightening, bubble valuations, trade wars, and mounting political turmoil. Bears are dangerous events driving catastrophic losses for buy-and-hold investors. Different strategies are necessary to thrive in them.

This major inflection shift from exceptional secular bull to likely young bear is new. By late September, the flagship US S&P 500 broad-market stock index (SPX) had soared 333.2% higher over 9.54 years in a mighty bull. That ranked as the 2nd-largest and 1st-longest in US stock-market history! At those recent all-time record highs, investors were ecstatic. They euphorically assumed that bull-run would persist for years.

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Crash Alert!

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By Bill Holter – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

People continually ask “when” will it happen? For the last 6 months we have responded “it is happening right before your very eyes”! In fact, as of this morning 52% of global markets are now down over 20% from their highs and qualifying as bear markets. Please understand the financial backdrop these weakening markets are falling into. Bluntly, the world is facing a giant margin call that cannot be met.

Liquidity had become extremely tight even as markets made their high water marks. It is this lack of liquidity which threatens to become a self-reinforcing flash crash to hell via margin calls. “Don’t worry” they say, central banks will come to the rescue. There is one fundamental problem with this line of thought, the value of the issued currencies themselves. There is zero mathematical way to service and pay off current debt with current currency values … currencies must be massively printed and thus devalued if they are to pay off the mountains of debt! Central banks created the problem, they will not be the solution. Rather, their demise will be part of the solution.

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Has This Become A “Short Everything In Sight” Market?

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

One of the strangest things about this strangest-ever expansion has been the way pretty much everything went up. Stocks, bonds, real estate, art, oil – some of which have historically negative correlations with others — all rose more-or-less in lock-step. And within asset classes, the big names behaved the same way, rising regardless of their relative valuation.

This seemingly indiscriminate buying created a paradise for index funds that simply accumulate representative assets in their chosen sectors. And it made life a nightmare for the higher-order strategies of hedge funds that get paid to beat the market.

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Weekly Market Wrap

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By Mike Gleason – Re-Blogged From Money Metals

Tenuous Markets Bracing for Vindictive House Dems, Budget Crunch, plus an interview with Michael Pento.

Listen at DOWNLOAD MP3 or read the podcast below!

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.

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Shiller: Housing Market Ready to Burst, Reminiscent of 2006 Bubble

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Re-Blogged From Newsmax

Nobel Prize-winning Yale economist Robert Shiller warns that the weakening housing market is showing the same symptoms as it did just before the subprime housing bubble burst a decade ago.

The economist, who predicted the 2007-2008 crisis, recently told Yahoo Finance that current data reflects “a sign of weakness.”

“The housing market does have a momentum component and we’re seeing a clipping of momentum at this time,” said Shiller, the co-founder of the Case-Shiller Index, which tracks home prices around the nation.

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World’s Smartest Investors Can’t Figure Out The Markets

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

Hedge fund managers sit at the top of the financial world’s food chain. They’re generally seen as the smartest money managers, and their companies have the most flexibility to pursue new opportunities. The result is supposed to be the best possible returns – for clients who can afford the high fees.

But lately things haven’t worked out that way. Hedge fund managers appear baffled by the behavior of stocks, bonds and pretty much everything else, as time-tested strategies fail and brand-name managers report terrible results, in a growing number of cases throwing in the towel, returning their investors’ money and riding off into the sunset.

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