Irrational Exuberance

Going through recent bullion bank shorting information, Adrian Douglas has stumbled across a nugget that may explain the sudden willingness of JPM to admit to the FT, via proxies as obviously the bank would never expose itself to even remote market manipulation claims, that it has collapsed its silver short. The reason: even as US bank silver (and gold) shorts by US banks have been gradually declining, those positions established by non-US bank, and thus entities not under the CFTC's control, have seen their silver shorts surge, increasing by orders of magnitude over the past several months. Is there a stealthy transfer of precious metals market manipulation taking place, one that exonerates the domestic, and therefore regulatable, suspects, while making foreign banks carry the burden of suppressing silver and gold prices? The reason: hand over the silver shorts to entities that would not be subject to the CFTC's upcoming size limit rules. Per Douglas: "The sudden and massive increase in their short positions in both
metals is conspicuous when compared with historical trading patterns.
The fact that it occurs at a time when the US banks that are mega-short
appear to be covering makes it doubly intriguing. It looks like a
strategy to shift suppression and manipulation of the market to banks
that are not under the direct supervision of the CFTC. Will these non-US
banks be expecting to receive an exemption to position limits where US
banks might not be successful?" We hope to get an answer to all these questions soon - Douglas has sent out the following letter to the only honest man at the CFTC, Bart Chilton, which explains Douglas' findings, and demands an inquiry into just who these foreign banks are that are suddenly shorting silver and gold on the margin at alarming rates.

There are 26.2 unemployed or underemployed workers in America today. And the labor participation rate (percentage of employed to total workforce) has gone backwards for the past 10 years. There are forces that continue to discourage job growth and will hinder economic growth for years. Apparently your government hates workers because it is doing everything is can to discourage job growth.

The QQQQ options table below shows what frothy, irrational exuberance in its purest form, truly looks like. The top 10 options traded currently are all calls (and yes, most on the offer side).

The QQQQ options table below shows what frothy, irrational exuberance in its purest form, truly looks like. The top 10 options traded currently are all calls (and yes, most on the offer side).

There are 26.2 unemployed or underemployed workers in America today. And the labor participation rate (percentage of employed to total workforce) has gone backwards for the past 10 years. There are forces that continue to discourage job growth and will hinder economic growth for years. Apparently your government hates workers because it is doing everything is can to discourage job growth.

We have already broadly discussed the recent euphoria in the market which especially in the Nasdaq has hit 5 year+ extremes. And as always in times of such irrational exuberance, the disconnect between perception and reality is truly astounding. David Rosenberg presents his views on the latest developments in the market's ongoing fight with manic-depressive disorder.

And for another confirmation that the Nasdaq is now at the same extreme "irrational exuberance" levels last seen during the dot com crash, we read courtesy of sentimenttrader.com that the Rydex Nasdaq 100 bull/bear ratio is now the highest it has been since just before the dot com crash. "Traders in the Rydex mutual fund family have poured into the Nasdaq 100 long fund at the expense of the inverse fund on the same index. These traders now have 34 times more money invested in the long fund vs. the inverse fund, which is the highest ratio since the bubble days of 2000 and early 2001." And what is scarier, is that unlike during the dot com, investors are using leveraged methods to express their exuberance: "The Bull / Bear Ratio for the leveraged funds isn't quite as extreme...but it's close (on a relative basis)."

As always, a must read letter (which is a compilation of many prior Howard Marks missives: "Thanks to the tendency of investors to forget lessons and repeat behavior, it sometimes seems there’s no longer a need for me to come up with new ideas for these memos. Rather, all I have to do is recycle components from previous memos, like a builder reusing elements from old houses") from the chairman of Oaktree who, prudent as always, cautions against the latest episode of Fed-funded irrational exuberance: "Investors who engaged in aggressive behavior just a few years ago experienced significant pain as a result. Perhaps the punishment was too brief, and perhaps it was reversed too soon. Thus some are acting aggressively once again. It’s possible that such behavior won’t be punished again the second time around, but prudent investors shouldn’t take the risk." On the other hand, whole countries are now at stake should the market decline. Taking on one central bank is tough... Taking on all the printers in the world may be a task that only nature can eventually tackle.

Given that interest rates are already quite depressed, Bernanke seems to be grasping at straws in justifying QE2 on the basis further slight reductions in yields. As for Bernanke's case for creating wealth effects via the stock market, one might look at this logic and conclude that while it may or may not be valid, the argument is at least the subject of reasonable debate. But that would not be true. Rather, these are undoubtedly among the most ignorant remarks ever made by a central banker. - John Hussman

“Goldman, unlike the rest of the street and practically the rest of the I banking world, is ratcheting up VIE risk!!! Is BoomBustBlog the only one inquiring as to WHY??? We have a few reasons in mind… And to think, many thought the Enronesque days of “hide the sausage” games have come to an end…”

A very well made 45 minute documentary on Goldman Sachs, derivatives, US real estate and the root causes of the Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis

Some rather scary predictions out of Paul Farrell today: "It’s inevitable: Wall Street banks control the Federal Reserve system,
it’s their personal piggy bank. They’ve already done so much damage, yet
have more control than ever.Warning: That’s a set-up. They will eventually destroy capitalism,
democracy, and the dollar’s global reserve-currency status. They will
self-destruct before 2035 … maybe as early as 2012 … most likely by
2020. Last week we cheered the Tea Party for starting the countdown to the
Second American Revolution. Our timeline is crucial to understanding the
historic implications of Taleb’s prediction that the Fed is dying, that
it’s only a matter of time before a revolution triggers class warfare
forcing America to dump capitalism, eliminate our corrupt system of
lobbying, come up with a new workable form of government, and create a
new economy without a banking system ruled by Wall Street." And just like in the Hangover, where the guy is funny because he's fat, Farrell is scary cause he is spot on correct.

My last post "Correlation of mortgage rates with real housing prices: how increasing inflation could affect housing prices", raised some questions. I didn't have the chance to respond to them. But before I do, let me go back to the original purpose of the article. I asked the question, "What could happen to real estate in the event of higher inflation?" If inflation shot up from 1% to 7%, what would happen to the real value of your home. My thesis was: you're screwed. You will lose what little equity you have and real housing prices could drop by as high as 50%. - Taylor Cottam

The year is 2002, America has just woken up with the worst post dot.com hangover ever. Paul Krugman then, just as now, writes worthless op-eds for the NYT. And then, just as now, the Keynsian acolyte recommended excess spending as the solution to all of America problems. Only this one time, at band camp, Krugman went too far. If there is one thing that everyone can agree on, is that the Housing Bubble, is arguably the worst thing to ever happen to America, bringing with it such pestilence and locusts as the credit bubble, the end of free market capitalism, and the inception of American-style crony capitalism. Those who ignored it, even though it was staring them in the face, such as Greenspan and Bernanke, now have their reputation teetering on the edge of oblivion. So what can we say of those who openly endorsed it as a solution to America's problems? Enter exhibit A: New York Times, August 2, 2002, "Dubya's Double Dip?" Name the author: "The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a typical postwar
slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates
and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the
Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a
morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this
recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household
spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as
Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing
bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." If you said Krugman, you win. Indeed, the idiocy of Keynesianism knew no bounds then, as it does now. The solution then, as now, to all problems was more bubbles, more spending, more deficits. So we have the implosion tech bubble: And what does Krugman want to create, to fix it? Why, create a housing bubble... Well, at least we know now how that advice played out.

Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, was more directly responsible for the current Global Depression than even his worst critics realize. Here is the explanation why. —Gonzalo Lira.