Real estate

If you think you're fighting the market, or the banks, or the Fed, you're dead wrong!

• Brussels on Edge as Lockdown Continues (WSJ)
• Stocks Pare Decline as Crude Oil Erases Drop on Saudi Comments (BBG)
• Italy’s Eni Plans to Pump Arctic Oil, After Others Abandon the Field (WSJ)
• Treasuries Decline as Economists Say GDP to Be Revised Higher (BBG)
• Why the Housing Rebound Hasn’t Lifted the U.S. Economy Much (WSJ)
• Argentina Fever Is Back for Investors as Kirchner Rival Triumphs (BBG)

If the government’s official statistics are to be believed the U.S. economy is moving full steam ahead. Consumer are spending, the job market is expanding, real estate has recovered, stocks are soaring and the U.S. dollar is stronger than it has been in a decade. But if you have yet to realize it, billionaire investor Eric Sprott says "it’s all a lie." The manipulation of precious metals, coupled with the supply and demand fundamentals which Sprott says will lead to shortages over the next few years as mining companies reduce output or close up shop, will leave many investors who think their gold holdings are easily convertible to physical assets with nothing more than depreciating Yellen Bucks at exactly the moment they’ll need precious metals in their possession.

With enough monetary deception anything’s possible. But, nonetheless, gravity still exists.

Spot rates for transporting containers from Asia to Northern Europe have crashed a stunning 70% in the last 3 weeks alone. This almost unprecedented divergence from seasonality has only occurred at this scale once before 2008! 

The sums in play are so staggering (an estimated $11 trillion in emerging market debts denominated in other currencies) that even the Fed won't be able to stop the meltdown.

Today’s financial world is a tough place for the average person but paradise for rich guys. As easy money raises asset prices, the owners of those assets make effortless profits. Then they buy expensive toys and trophy properties. Hence the recent boom in fine art, high-end real estate, yachts and private jets. But like all financial trends, this one has a limit, and that limit is now in sight. The 1%, it seems, is rolling over...

"The equilibrium, for now, is QE infinity – but political risk could be the breaking point"...

"We are sellers of risk SPX 2050-2100, DXY>100. Terror/geopolitics can keep ZIRP for longer, but bullish FMS indicates big EPS needed for sustained new risk highs."
- BOfA

"Japan’s experience suggests that QE has its limits, and could bring a range of side effects. These include years of tepid growth, the reduction in secondary trading liquidity, an increase in asset ownership by central banks (the BoJ now owns half of the national ETF market), potential formation of asset bubbles and social problems like inequality."

The flip side of falling interest rates is rising bond prices. Bonds are in a ferocious bull market. It's gobbling up capital like the Cookie Monster jamming tollhouses into his maw.

The institutional academic system is broken. We need less systemic, traditional education that only provides knowledge of low utility and more alternative education that provides the right high-utility knowledge to thrive during today's global currency wars.

If it looks like a recession, walks like a recession and quacks like a recession, it’s a recession.