The last few years of the Everything Bubble were driven by the ultimate dumb money: corporations borrowing to buy back their stock at record high prices. A whole generation of CEOs and CFOs were able to pad both their reputations and their year-end bonuses this way while, it seemed, blatantly screwing over their employees and […]
All (Political) Roads Lead To Massively Higher Government Spending
The past few years have seen more than the usual amount of political upheaval. But, interestingly, most regime changes have resulted in pretty much the same thing: Higher government spending and bigger deficits. Apparently the only “reforms” today’s voters will accept – which is to say the only actions that don’t get a leader kicked […]
The Yield Curve Flattens And Bank Stocks Plunge. Here’s The Connection – And The Prediction
Despite all the ominous press being devoted to the soon-to-be-inverted yield curve, it’s not always clear why such a thing matters. In other words, how, exactly does a line on a graph slipping below zero translate into a recession and equities bear market, with all the turmoil that those things imply? The answer (which is […]
Check Out This Lost Classic “Peter Schiff Was Right” Video
I thought I’d seen all the “Peter Schiff Was Right” videos, but just stumbled onto this 2006 CNBC classic pitting Schiff against a new cast of (in retrospect) clueless antagonists, including a “chief economist” with some quaintly credulous ideas. This was the peak of the subprime mortgage mania, so the Bubblevision talking heads still considered […]
The World’s Biggest Hedge Fund Is Getting Whacked, And Why “Moneyness” Matters
A few years ago the Swiss National Bank (SNB) – which traditionally held “monetary assets” like government bonds, cash and gold to back up the Swiss franc — decided to branch out into common stocks. This was a departure, but for a while a brilliant one. The SNB loaded up on Big Tech like Apple, […]
Yet Another Trillion-Dollar Unfunded Liability: WHY California Is Burning
The apocalyptic fires that hit California last month have left observers scratching their heads and wondering how destruction on that scale could be possible – and how much it will cost in the future if the causes aren’t addressed immediately. This morning’s Wall Street Journal concludes that 1) the problems aren’t being addressed and 2) […]
Why We’re Ungovernable, Part 17: In Latin America, Soaring Population + Soaring Debt = “Brutal Justice”
There are two ways of looking at the intersection of debt and population. One way says that if debt is rising population should also rise to allow future workers to pay for the retirement of today’s. More people thus make debt easier to manage. The other point of view is that debt and population soaring […]
Empty Words Are Failing. A Timeline For What Comes Next
A quick recap of the past couple of months: Stocks plunge. The politicians, bureaucrats and bankers who depend on artificially-elevated financial asset prices start to panic. The Fed announces that maybe it won’t have to raise interest rates any more, and the president announces a temporary cease-fire in the trade war with China. The markets […]
Why We’re Ungovernable, Part 16: France On Fire
Back in 2017, when some countries were handing power to populists promising variations of “drain the swamp,” France went for continuity with Emmanuel Macron, a young, moderate-sounding technocrat from the world of finance who promised to modernize the country without threatening the elites, the welfare state or the bureaucracy. Fast forward a couple of years […]
Home Sales Plunge, Trade Deficit Spikes, Fed Blinks
Looks like we just hit an inflection point. So far this morning: U.S. new home sales drop to more than 2-1/2-year low (Reuters) – Sales of new U.S. single-family homes tumbled to a more than 2-1/2-year low in October amid sharp declines in all four regions, further evidence that higher mortgage rates were hurting the […]
The Cost Of Insurance Is About To Jump
The argument over whether we’re in for global warming or global cooling and whether what’s coming is natural or human-made is fun but totally irrelevant from a financial perspective. The fact is that for whatever reason and in whatever direction, the climate is getting more aggressive. Monster snowstorms and apocalyptic fires are clearly becoming more […]
Has This Become A “Short Everything In Sight” Market?
One of the strangest things about this strangest-ever expansion has been the way pretty much everything went up. Stocks, bonds, real estate, art, oil – some of which have historically negative correlations with others — all rose more-or-less in lock-step. And within asset classes, the big names behaved the same way, rising regardless of their […]
Gold Is Setting Up For A Nice First-Half Rally
Precious metals investors don’t have much to console them these days. Just about the only bright spot is the nice, though ephemeral, pop in the gold/silver price that seems to happen every January. Sometimes it persists for six or so months, sometimes it ends before the snows do. But either way it’s more fun than […]
Corporate Share Buybacks Looking Dumber By The Day
A recent MarketWatch article notes that: GE was one of Wall Street’s major share buyback operators between 2015 and 2017; it repurchased $40 billion of shares at prices between $20 and $32. The share price is now $8.60, so the company has liquidated between $23 billion and $29 billion of its shareholders’ money on this […]
Michael Pento: Falling Corporate Earnings Will Fuel The Next Leg Of The Bear Market
If corporate earnings rise in 2019 like Wall Street analysts expect, stocks are a screaming buy at these bear-market levels. But earnings won’t rise and stocks are not a buy, says money manager Michael Pento: Earnings Recession of 2019 President Trump’s plan to stimulate the economy, known as The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, was […]
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