India

With Emerging Market debt, equity, and FX rates coming under significant pressure once again, 48-year-old veteran EM fund manager Stephen Jen has a message for the new breed of EM fund managers, brace for more pain. As Bloomberg reports, with echoes of 1997-98's crisis at hand, Jen explains, "many [current managers] became EM specialists after the term ‘BRIC’ was coined in 2001 and don’t know any serious crisis," adding "they are about to be schooled."

I realise that it is not normal to have a bearish risk view for December through to mid-January. Normally markets tend to ramp up in December and early January before selling off later in January. But this year I do think things are different. One look at the moves in core bond markets over 2014, when almost everyone I talked to had been bearish bonds, paints a stunning picture. I would entitle this picture ‘The Victory of Deflation’, or (as many folks now talk about (but still generally dismiss)) ‘The Japanification of the World’. I may end up eating my words in 2015 if the US consumer does come through, but if he or she does not, then we may well need QE4 from the Fed to battle the incredibly strong headwinds of deflation around the world. And I will revert on this subject, but to me the coming ECB QE and more BOJ QE are woefully inadequate substitutes for USD Fed QE.

The import restrictions on gold that were imposed on Indians in August of 2013 were lifted at the end of last month. Despite the fact that the restrictions were still in place gold importation in November surged an incredible 571% relative to the same month last year at over 151.58 tonnes.

More bloodbathery. Wherever we look today, things are not going well. While we have become used to day after day of Oil Producers' FX collapsing, today we see the tumble in Emerging Market FX rates begin to accelerate in a very Taper-Tantrum-esque manner. While the Ruble at 64 is grabbing headlines, Turkish Lira is utterly collapsing along with Indonesia and India overnight.

Not a day passes without pundits on either side of the debate, eager to make their case that the acute, nearly 50% plunge in the price of crude, swear up and down their preferred economic ideology of choice that said plunge is [bullish|bearish] for the economy. The reality is that the true impact of the great oil crash of 2014 will not be revealed for at least several months, however for those who can't afford to wait, or simply lack the patience, here is perhaps the most comprehensive view of the pros and cons of what has now been dubbed a "textbook macroeconomic shock" by Deutsche Bank.

Oil is not quite as powerful a weapon against modern-day Russia as one might think.

The central banks are now out of dry powder - impaled on the zero-bound. That means any resort to a massive new round of money printing can not be disguised as an effort to “stimulate” the macro-economy by temporarily driving interest rates to “extraordinarily” low levels. They are already there. Instead, a Bernanke style balance sheet explosion like that which stopped the financial meltdown in the fall and winter of 2008-2009 will be seen for exactly what it is—-an exercise in pure monetary desperation and quackery. So duck and cover. This storm could be a monster.

Respected economic historian and author of the “Gloom, Boom and Doom Report,” Dr Marc Faber has warned about the continuing and coming decline of western economic power.

He believes that the generation of young people starting to work today will be the first in two hundred years to have a lower standard of living than their parents had. He believes dividend paying Asian stocks will grow wealth in the coming years and remains an advocate of owning physical gold.

The attention being brought to bear upon Greece highlights once again the hollow nature of the “recovery” in Greece, Europe and the western world. The crisis is far from resolved - merely to use the very true cliche - kicked down the road. Well we appear to be coming towards the end of the road in Greece and this could set the stage for the next stage of the Eurozone debt crisis.

If we're in a gold bear market, then answer these questions...

With oil prices plunging to 5-year lows, perhaps it is time to consider the cheapness of betting on the other oil black swan...

• Germans can’t get their gold reserves. Do how did the Dutch get their 122 tonnes of gold?

• Is Germany being prevented from holding gold to prevent independent foreign policy action?

• Welcome to the recovery:
  • Euro zone warning hits stocks, currency as oil plumbs depths (Reuters)
  • Japan GDP Worse Than Initially Reported (WSJ)
  • China trade data well below expectations (BBC)
  • German industrial production frustrates forecasts (FT)
• Oil Extends Retreat With European Stocks as Dollar Gains (BBG)
• California police, protesters clash again after 'chokehold' death (Reuters)
• Ruble’s Rout Is Tale of Failed Threats, Missteps (BBG), not to be confused with "Yen's Rout Is Tale Of Keynesian Success, Prosperity"
• Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after driver rape (Reuters)

You thought gold was "only" for wealth preservation? You ain't seen nothing yet.