People who assumed the Fed, along with the rest of the government, would cave the minute the financial markets got a little choppy turned out to be right. A couple of bad months and the “normalization” of both interest rates and the Fed’s balance sheet have stopped cold. Now the markets expect falling rates and […]
Ocean Shipping Rates Plunge: Just A Blip Or The End Of Globalization?
The Baltic Dry Index represents the cost of renting an ocean-going container ship to move goods from, say, Chinese factories to the Port of Los Angeles. The more stuff being made and sold, the higher the demand for such ships, and thus the higher the price to rent one. And vice versa. This is definitely […]
What Blows Up First? Part 6: “Almost Junk” Bonds
The key insight of the Austrian School of Economics (maybe the key insight of ALL economics) is that the amount you borrow matters, but so does the use to which you put the money. A case in point is US corporate debt, which has changed structurally lately in very scary ways. The short version of […]
No Longer The Luckiest Generation: Boomer Finances Start To Roll Over
We Baby Boomers timed it perfectly. We came of age during in an era of plentiful jobs and relatively high wages. Public pensions were generous. Stock, bond and home prices were low, and have since risen strongly, enriching anyone who managed to save regularly. College was (by current standards) insanely cheap, allowing us to upgrade […]
Sudden Sentiment Shift: The Mainstream Rediscovers Precious Metals
It’s amazing what a few weeks of outperformance will do for an asset class. Gold and silver, after being pretty much ignored for the past few years, are now the shiny new toys of the investment world. From just the past couple of days: Highest Central Bank Buying in 50 Years Drives Growth in Gold […]
If You Could Design A Perfect World For Gold…
Are you sick of your gold just sitting there when it was supposed to have long since made you rich? Have you been fantasizing about a world in which your gold really does make you rich? If so you’re in good – or at least numerous – company. So let’s sketch out such a world. […]
This Is New: Governments Ramp Up Borrowing IN ANTICIPATION Of A Slowdown
The business cycle has its stages, and they’re usually both predictable and logical. For example, governments tend to generate a lot of tax revenue late in an expansion as more people get jobs and start paying income taxes and rising stock prices generate big capital gains. Meanwhile, less has to be spent on social safety […]
Gold Is Up Lately. Why Does It Feel So Disappointing?
Since December gold (light blue line) has outperformed the average stock (dark blue) by a nice margin. So why does this feel like such a let-down? Because the stars were aligned for a much bigger move. The structure of the late 2018 futures market had speculators historically short – which normally portends a big price […]
With AOC, The Dems Get Their Sarah Palin
It’s easy to forget, in light of subsequent events, how terrified the Democrats once were of Sarah Palin. As an attractive Christian woman with a bunch of kids, who apparently liked to hunt moose with her hunky husband, she was an arrow aimed at the heart of a long list of liberal convictions. Watch her […]
And The Verbal Part Of The Civil War Begins
With the election of Donald Trump, the US right let its id off the leash. Now pretty much everything conservatives have thought but not said is finding its way to Facebook, Twitter, and the evening news. So it’s no surprise that the left, wildly envious of conservatives’ newfound rhetorical freedom, have decided that what’s good […]
Recession And Stocks In Free-Fall: Michael Pento’s 2019
Money manager Michael Pento has been bearish on both stocks and bonds for some time. 2019 is the year, he says, when the big crash finally arrives. Some Predictions for 2019 Bond Yields Continue to Fall in First Half of Year The bond bubble continues to build and become a dagger over the worldwide economy […]
Jay Taylor: Gold Is The Go-To Safe Haven Of 2019
2019 is looking like one of those either/or years, where growing financial instability leads to either a 2008-style financial crash or another round of asset inflation. In Jay Taylor’s latest newsletter, he concludes that both scenarios are good for gold: Which Safe Haven Markets Will Dominate in 2019? If we are, as I believe, on […]
Three Things That Will Definitely Happen In 2019
Much about 2019 is uncertain. But a few things are pretty much guaranteed, including the following: Government debt will rise at an accelerating rate Like a life-long dieter who finally gives up and decides to eat himself to death, the US is now committed to trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see. […]
Gold Mining Stocks Are Going Up Faster Than Gold
The past couple of years have been brutal for precious metals mining stocks. Gold and silver went down a little while the miners went down a lot – four times as much to be exact. That’s painful but not surprising. The miners, being in effect options on the underlying metals, tend to be a lot […]
California Is In Great Financial Shape – And Headed For An Epic Crisis
California Governor Jerry Brown inherited a $27 billion deficit from Arnold Schwarzenegger eight years ago. This month he’s leaving his successor a $13.8 billion surplus and a $14.5 billion rainy day fund balance. Pretty good right? Approximately 48 other governors would kill for those numbers. Unfortunately it’s all a mirage. California, as home to Silicon […]
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