Dow Jones Industrial Average

Measuring the cost of anything in currency can be misleading. As we know, inflation can be gamed by authorities to appear low, and supposedly low inflation is actually high inflation if wages are declining while prices rise. Priced in gold and stocks, wheat is near multi-decade lows. That may not last. Technically the trend has reversed, suggesting much higher prices--in dollars, gold or stocks--for wheat and indeed, by extension, for all food.

Too much testosterone in the room? Heard that all before. It’s the adolescent-like traders that were battling with levels of testosterone and cortisol, pounding on their chests like Tarzan swinging through the trees in the jungle of the financial markets that brought the world down too.

We all know what will eventually unfold: another collapse, this one even worse than that of 2008. Until then, the fraud and fiction will continue. Everyone with a vested interest in stocks moving up will do everything they can to perpetuate this.

One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we've become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting. As in the story of the Emperor's new clothes, the onlooker who declares the obvious - in this case, that the stock market is rigged - shatters the consensus lie.

As if to prove all the HFT naysayers right, milliseconds before 3:30 pm - the traditional time when HFT algos come out and ramp stocks into the last half hour of the day, a massive E-mini order block slammed the tape, driven by a tremor in the USDJPY, sending the DJIA green for the year in the most unriggedly of manners.

Though many blame the Global Crash of 2015 for the loss of faith in stocks, others say the erosion dated back to at least 2014...

While it is easy to blame western sanctions for the recent tribulations at the world's largest aluminum company, Oleg Deripaska's Rusal, the reality is that the industry specific issues plaguing aluminum makers, certainly including former Dow Jones Industrial Average member Alcoa, which involve a fair share of manipulation of physical inventories at assorted global warehouses are much more responsible than some theatrical rhetoric flaring up between the West and East in the past month. Regardless of the cause, as FT reports, Rusal just announced it is on the verge of insolvency after it warned of "material uncertainty" about its future, and that it has asked its creditors to delay repayment on a maturity from its $10 billion debt pile due next month.

Does anything about 2014 remind you of 2008? The long lists of visible stress in the global financial system and the almost laughably hollow assurances that there are no bubbles, everything is under control, etc. etc. etc.  certainly remind me of the late-2007-early 2008 period when the subprime mortgage meltdown was already visible and officialdom from Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan on down were mounting the bully pulpit at every opportunity to declare that there was no bubble in housing and the system was easily able to handle little things like defaulting mortgages. The party, once again, is clearly ending and raises the question: "If asset bubbles no longer boost full-time employment or incomes across the board, what is the broad-based, “social good” justification for inflating them?"

With 40% of the portfolio in cash and having returned $4 billion to clients at year-end, Seth Klarman's Baupost Group has "drawn the line in the sand" as they reflect on the diminished opportunities in the so-called "Truman Show" market we see today. In the face of mixed economic data and at a critical inflection point in Federal Reserve policy, Klarman notes, the stock market, heading into 2014, resembles a Rorschach test - "what investors see in the inkblots says considerably more about them than it does about the market." From "born bulls" to "worry genes" and from Bitcoin to flash-mob-speculation, "there is a growing gap between the financial markets and the real economy...and the overall picture is one of growing risk and inadequate potential return almost everywhere one looks... as every 'Truman' under Bernanke’s dome knows the environment is phony."

How the volatility of the market can be seen every day! Yesterday, the London financiers were out there celebrating on their 14-year high and backing that the ‘only way was up’. Then today they woke up too late after hitting the bottle too much and now that high has dropped as China’s economy is causing greater concerns for the rest of the financial world.

Having thrown in his bearish towel in December, the self-proclaimed "last bear standing" has had a tough January. His plan, to "just be long pretty much anything" appears to have back-fired (for now) as Eclectica reports a 3.6% loss in January - the worst month since the Fund's inception. His largest loss was on a long Japan theme (leveraged) and that was somewhat offset by gains in his short emerging markets and short China themes. It appears nothing hs changed from Hendry's December perspective of the inexorable melt-up in developed markets thanks to central bank largesse (247% of NAV exposed to stocks) though he does note "renewed turmoil" which, we suppose, merely supports his thesis longer term.

Celente again warned of the economic parallels with the 1930’s and said that we are again seeing recession and depressions, currency wars, trade wars and that this would lead to actual wars. His free webinar and Q & A tomorrow will look at ways to protect yourself from these risks in 2014 and beyond.

While the only fun-durr-mentals that matter appear to be global central bank liquidity injections (and thus the level of leverage entrusted to the JPY carry trade), the crowd is swayed by truthisms and "common knowledge" memes that recovery is here, that things are improving, that earnings are 'solid', that markets are still cheap, and that historical analogs are different this time. However, with monetary policy at a turning point, we also appear (fundamentally and technically) to be at "the inflection point from self-reinforcing speculation to fragile instability."

Gold has rallied another 1.2% today and touched resistance at $1,294/oz during Yellen's first testimony to Congress. Gold is testing resistance between $1,294/oz and $1,300/oz. A close above $1,300 should see gold quickly rally to test the next level of resistance at $1,360/oz.

With silver's best week in over six months and gold testing3-month highs, Citi's FX Technicals group believes gold continues to look constructive overall with a test of $1,361 and eventually $1,433 expected. Rather ominously, from a broad perspective, they would not be surprised to see an inverse correlation between gold and equities just as was exhibited throughout the last bullion bull market in the 1970's.