Carry Trade

The US Dollar took down Oil, commodities, even emerging market currencies. Stocks will be next. The first REAL sign that the 2008 Crash was coming occurred when the US Dollar began to skyrocket in the summer of 2008.

If the Fed indeed raises rates in June, we're likely to begin to see periphery sovereign debt defaults

The Fed and other Central Banks are trying to maintain the illusion that they have everything in control by talking about interest rates, but the reality is that the US Dollar carry trade is ABOVE $9 trillion in size. That is almost as large as ALL of the money printing that occurred between 2009 and 2013.

The transparent truthlessness of the Fed’s basic premises go far to explain the chasm between official policy and reality - though it does not explain the appetite for plain lying of the supposedly informed minority cohort of the public, the deciders among us in business, politics, and media. Within th enext few months (between "patient" removal, token rate hikes, and reversals to QE4), the Fed will be completely out of cred. This will be the biggest disaster of all, since the loss of faith in august institutions will rage through every polity in the advanced economies. Nobody will believe any longer in anything they say or do, and especially the value of the papers (or digits) they denominate as money.

Why understanding of market cycles is crucial for investment success

There was a point in 2010 when American capitalism might have had an opportunity to heal itself and commence on a long march toward sustainable growth and real wealth gains. But the monetary politburo would have none of it - keeping the pedal to the metal until this very moment... and the rest is history. The Fed and the other central banks around the world have fomented a new and even more virulent and dangerous financial bubble.

Yellen has created a narrative about the US economy, especially the (un)employment rate, and with the narrative is now firmly in place, Yellen and her stooges can claim they have no choice but to hike In short, Janet Yellen will go down into history as the person responsible for what may be the biggest economic crash ever, or at least delivering the final punch of the way into it, a crash that will make the rich banks even much richer. And there is not one iota of coincidence in there. Yellen works for those banks. The Fed only ever held investors’ hands because that worked out well for Wall Street. And now that’s over. Y’all are on the same side of the same trade, and there’s no profit for Wall Street that way.

Bubbles arise if the price far exceeds the asset’s fundamental value, to the point that no plausible future income scenario can justify the price

Once upon a time businesses borrowed long term money - if they borrowed at all - in order to fund plant, equipment and other long-lived productive assets. Today American businesses are borrowing like never before - to fund financial engineering maneuvers such as stock buybacks, M&A and LBOs, not the acquisition of productive assets that can actually fuel future output and productivity. 

Let’s see. The Eccles Building has grown its balance sheet by 9X since the turn of the century, but real net investment in the business sector has plunged by 33%!

The stock market is totally mispricing what's coming.

What in god’s name does Janet Yellen think she is doing? Just a few weeks ago she established the ridiculous Fedspeak convention that “patient” means money market rates will not rise from the zero bound for at least two meetings. Now she has modified that message into “not exactly”.

Financial markets and investing reflect the same characteristics as my attempt at keeping fit

The last thing Janet Yellen needs to be doing right now is cheer-leading more risk taking on behalf of financial market participants!

With historically low long-term interest rates, the opportunity cost of holding gold and silver are close to zero or even negative, in other words you would “lose” money if you buy bonds (the benchmark) instead of gold and silver. When people realize that their money is not “safe” with the banks they will start withdrawing cash from their accounts and buy physical gold and silver instead. Depending on circumstances this could possibly bring down the (fractional) banking system. Why keep money in an account that gives you a negative return? Swiss banks are already witnessing stronger than normal interest for physical gold.

A couple of days ago a Café member sent me some of the latest commentary by Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics, formally of Princeton Economics International. As you will read, he continues his rant against "the gold promoters," a rant that seemed more than vaguely familiar.

What an understatement!