Phoenix Capital Research's blog

Someday, and I cannot say when, Gold will catch its next leg up. When it does, we’ll finally see the market action that a $10+ trillion expansion in Central Bank balance sheets warrants.

The biggest problem facing investors today is that “the rules” of the game change almost every year. What I mean is that any basic rule investors took for granted could be thrown out the window. Indeed, in the last five years we’ve seen:

Capitalism means failure if you screw up. But under Bernanke’s watch, “capitalism” meant giving trillions in taxpayer money to those who screwed up.

All I can say with certainty is that stocks are in a dangerous position. They’ve been in one for a while now and the higher they go the more dangerous it becomes.

When most investors think about South America, they think about Brazil: the single largest South American economy.

So barring any huge negative developments, the markets should rally over the next few weeks based on historical and seasonal patterns.

There are multiple signs of a top forming. And even stock bulls are sitting on cash. What's next?

Many investors argue that Gold has no intrinsic value. I disagree with this assessment as it does not consider the nature of the financial system.

The markets are in a perilous condition today. We’ve been noting for months that the markets were displaying signs of a top.

If you want to make a killing in the markets, you need to be willing to see the world the way it really is, NOT how you THINK it is. Most investors think the VIX measures the market’s risk, but really, it’s almost the opposite: a spike in the VIX almost always picks market bottoms!

So, we have investor sentiment showing record bullishness, investors are piling into stocks at a pace not seen since 1999-2000: at the height of the Tech Bubble, earnings are generally falling, the global economy is contracting, and the Fed is already buying $85 billion worth of assets per month.

This brings me back to an earlier point, that profits and earnings are likely peaking. All of these point to a top forming.

While the US continues to engage in a delusional energy “debate” about whether we will continue to burn coal and whether natural gas is a panacea, China is struggling to acquire and deploy of energy resources to support its economic growth targets.

In May-July 2013, Bernanke, like the rest of the Fed saw in simple terms that there is no such thing as a smooth exit. The market rebelled at the mere hint of tapering at a time when the Fed is buying $85 billion per month. If the Fed were to actually go ahead and taper what would rates do?