Hoisington Investment Management: Quarterly Review and Outlook, Second Quarter 2014

By John Mauldin

This week’s Outside the Box is from an old friend to regular readers. It’s time for our Quarterly Review & Outlook from Lacy Hunt of Hoisington Investment Management, who leads off this month with a helpful explanation of the relationship between the U.S. GDP growth rate and 30 year treasury yields. That’s an important relationship, because long term interest rates above nominal GDP growth (as they are now) tend to retard economic activity and vice versa.

The author adds that the average four quarter growth rate of real GDP during the present recovery is 1.8%, well below the 4.2% average in all of the previous post war expansions; and despite six years of federal deficits totaling $6.27 trillion and another $3.63 trillion in quantitative easing by the Fed, the growth rate of the economy continues to erode.

So what gives? We’re simply too indebted, says Lacy; and too much of the debt is nonproductive. (Total U.S. public and private debt rose to 349.3% of GDP in the first quarter, up from 343.7% in the third quarter of 2013.) And as Hyman Minsky and Charles Kindleberger showed us, higher levels of debt slow economic growth when the debt is unbalanced toward the type of borrowing that doesn’t create an income stream sufficient to repay principal and interest.

And it’s not just the US. Lacy notes that the world’s largest economies have a higher total debt to GDP ratio today than at the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, and foreign households are living farther above their means than they were six years ago.

Simply put, the developed (and much of the developing) world is fast approaching the end of a 60-year-long debt supercycle, as I (hope I) conclusively demonstrated in Endgame and reaffirmed in Code Red.
Hoisington Investment Management Company (www.Hoisingtonmgt.com) is a registered investment advisor specializing in fixed income portfolios for large institutional clients. Located in Austin, Texas, the firm has over $5 billion under management and is the sub adviser of the Wasatch-Hoisington U.S. Treasury Fund (WHOSX).

Some readers may have noticed that there was no Thoughts from the Frontline in their inboxes this weekend. As has happened only once or twice in the last 14 years, I found myself in an intellectual cul-de-sac, and there was not enough time to back out. Knowing that I was going to be involved in a fascinating conference over the weekend, I had planned to do a rather simple analysis of a new book on how GDP is constructed. But as I got deeper into thinking about the topic and doing more research, I remembered something I read 20 years ago about the misleading nature of GDP, and I realized that a simple analysis just wouldn’t cut it.

Rather than write something that would’ve been inadequate and unsatisfying, I decided to just put it off till next week. Your time and attention are quite valuable, and I try not to waste them. But there will be no excuses this weekend.

The conference I attended was organized by Great Point Partners, a hedge fund and private equity firm focusing on medical and biotechnology. I really had not seen the program until I arrived and did not realize what a powerful lineup of industry leaders would be presenting on some of the latest technologies and research. The opportunity was too good to pass up, as it is so rare that any of us get to sit down with people who are responsible for the science we all read about.

I had breakfast with a small group of 11 readers/investors one morning and learned a lot by asking them what their favorite investing passion was. Although everyone had concerns, they all had areas in which they were quite bullish. I find that everywhere I go. It was interesting, in that they all expected me to be far more negative about things than I am. I guess when you write about macroeconomics as much as I do, and there’s as much wrong with it as there is, you kind of end up being labeled as a Gloomy Gus. I am actually quite optimistic about the long-term future of humanity, but I’ll admit there will be a few bumps along the way. Given how many bumps there have already been, just in my own lifetime, and given that we seem to have gotten through them, I can’t help but be optimistic that we’ll get through the next round.

It was a fascinating weekend, made all the more so by my very gracious hosts, Jeff Jay and David Kroin, Managing Directors of Great Point. They and their staff made sure I could enjoy my time on Nantucket Island. It was my first visit to the area, and I hope it won’t be the last.

Last night I had dinner with Art Cashin, Barry Ritholtz, Jack Rivkin, and Dan Greenhaus. It was a raucous, intellectually enlivening evening, and our conversation ranged from macroeconomics to our favorite new technologies. Jack Rivkin is involved with Idealab, and one of his favorites is that he sees the eventual end of Amazon as 3-D printing becomes more available. Given how Bezos has adapted over the years, I’m not so sure. Jack and Barry will join me in Maine in a few weeks, where we will again join the debate about bull and bear markets.

Now let’s go to Lacy and think about the intersection of velocity and money supply and what it says about future growth potential. I have two full days of meetings with my partners and others here in New York before I return to Dallas, and then I get to stay home for a few weeks. There are lots of new plans in the works. And lots of reading to do between meetings. Have a great week!

Your hoping to be able to stay optimistic analyst,

John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Boxsubscribers@mauldineconomics.com

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Hoisington Investment Management – Quarterly Review and Outlook, Second Quarter 2014

Treasury Bonds Undervalued

Thirty year treasury bonds appear to be undervalued based on the tepid growth rate of the U.S. economy. The past four quarters have recorded a nominal “top line” GDP expansion of only 2.9%, while the bond yield remains close to 3.4%. Knut Wicksell (1851-1926) noted that the natural rate of interest, a level that does not tend to slow or accelerate economic activity, should approximate the growth rate of nominal GDP. Interest rates higher than the top line growth rate of the economy, which is the case today, would mean that resources from the income stream of the economy would be required to pay for the higher rate of interest, thus slowing the economy. Wicksell preferred to use, not a risk free rate of interest such as thirty year treasury bonds, but a business rate of interest such as BAA corporates.



As chart one attests, interest rates below nominal GDP growth helps to accelerate economic activity and vice versa. Currently the higher interest rates are retarding economic growth, suggesting the next move in interest rates is lower.

To put the 2.9% change in nominal GDP over the past four quarters in perspective, it is below the entry point of any post-war recession. Even adjusting for inflation the average four-quarter growth rate in real GDP for this recovery is 1.8%, well below the 4.2% average in all of the previous post war expansions.

Fisher's Equation of Exchange

 

Slow nominal growth is not surprising to those who recall the American economist Irving Fisher’s (1867-1947) equation of exchange that was formulated in 1911. Fisher stated that nominal GDP is equal to money (M) times its turnover or velocity (V), i.e., GDP=M*V. Twelve months ago money (M) was expanding about 7%, and velocity (V) was declining at about a 4% annual rate. If you assume that those trends would remain in place then nominal GDP should have expanded at about 3% over the ensuing twelve months, which is exactly what occurred. Projecting further into 2014, the evidence of a continual lackluster expansion is clear. At the end of June money was expanding at slightly above a 6% annual rate, while velocity has been declining around 3%. Thus, Fisher’s formula suggests that another twelve months of a 3% nominal growth rate is more likely than not. With inflation widely expected to rise in the 1.5% to 2.0% range, arithmetic suggests that real GDP in 2014 will expand between 1.0% and 1.5% versus the average output level of 2013. This rate of expansion will translate into a year over year growth rate of around 1% by the fourth quarter of 2014. This is akin to pre-recessionary conditions.

An Alternative View of Debt

 

The perplexing fact is that the growth rate of the economy continues to erode despite six years of cumulative deficits totaling $6.27 trillion and the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy which added net $3.63 trillion of treasury and agency securities to their portfolio. Many would assume that such stimulus would be associated with a booming economic environment, not a slowing one.

Readers of our letters are familiar with our long-standing assessment that the cause of slower growth is the overly indebted economy with too much non productive debt. Rather than repairing its balance sheet by reducing debt, the U.S. economy is starting to increase its leverage. Total debt rose to 349.3% of GDP in the first quarter, up from 343.7% in the third quarter of 2013.

It is possible to cast an increase in debt in positive terms since it suggests that banks and other financial intermediaries are now confident and are lowering credit standards for automobiles, home equity, credit cards and other types of loans. Indeed, the economy gets a temporary boost when participants become more indebted. This conclusion was the essence of the pioneering work by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (1851-1914) and Irving Fisher which stated that debt is an increase in current spending (economic expansion) followed by a decline in future spending (economic contraction).

In concert with this view, but pinpointing the negative aspect of debt, contemporary economic research has corroborated the views of Hyman Minsky (1919-1996) and Charles Kindleberger (1910-2003) that debt slows economic growth at higher levels when it is skewed toward the type of borrowing that will not create an income stream sufficient to repay principal and interest.

Scholarly studies using very sophisticated analytical procedures conducted in the U.S. and abroad document the deleterious effects of high debt ratios. However, the use of a balance sheet measure can be criticized in two ways. First, income plays a secondary role, and second, debt ratios are not an integral part of Keynesian economic theory.

We address these two objections by connecting the personal saving rate (PSR) which is at the core of Keynesian economic analysis, and the private debt to GDP ratio that emerges from non-Keynesian approaches. Our research indicates that both the “Non Keynesian” private debt to GDP ratios, as well as the “Keynesian” PSR, yield equivalent analytical conclusions.

The Personal Saving Rate (PSR) and the Private Debt Linkage

 

The PSR and the private debt to GDP ratio should be negatively correlated over time. When the PSR rises, consumer income exceeds outlays and taxes. This means that the consumer has the funds to either acquire assets or pay down debt, thus closely linking the balance sheet and income statement. When the PSR (income statement measure) rises, savings (balance sheet measure) increases unless debt (also a balance sheet measure) declines, thus the gap between the Keynesian income statement focus and the non-Keynesian debt ratio focus is bridged.



The PSR and private debt to GDP ratio are, indeed, negatively correlated (Chart 2). The correlation should not, however, be perfect since the corporate sector is included in the private debt to GDP ratio while the PSR measures just the household sector. We used the total private sector debt ratio because the household data was not available in the years leading up to the Great Depression.

The most important conceptual point concerning the divergence of these two series relates to the matter of the forgiveness of debt by the financial sector, which will lower the private debt to GDP ratio but will not raise the PSR. The private debt to GDP ratio fell sharply from the end of the recession in mid-2009 until the fourth quarter of 2013, temporarily converging with a decline in the saving rate. As such, much of the perceived improvement in the consumer sector’s financial condition occurred from the efforts of others. The private debt to GDP ratio in the first quarter of 2014 stood at 275.4%, a drop of 52.5 percentage points below the peak during the recession. The PSR in the latest month was only 1.7 percentage points higher than in the worst month of the recession. Importantly, both measures now point in the direction of higher leverage, with the PSR showing a more significant deterioration. From the recession high of 8.1%, the PSR dropped to 4.8% in April 2014.

Historical Record

 

The most recently available PSR is at low levels relative to the past 114 years and well below the long-term historical average of 8.5% (Chart 3). The PSR averaged 9.4% during the first year of all 22 recessions from 1900 to the present. However this latest reading of 4.8% is about the same as in the first year of the Great Depression and slightly below the 5% reading in the first year of the Great Recession.



In Dr. Martha Olney’s (University of California, Berkeley and author of Buy Now, Pay Later) terminology, when the PSR falls households are buying now but will need to pay later. Contrarily, if the PSR rises households are improving their future purchasing power. A review of the historical record leads to two additional empirical conclusions. First, the trend in the PSR matters. A decline in the PSR when it has been falling for a prolonged period of time is more significant than a decline after it has risen. Second, the significance of any quarterly or annual PSR should be judged in terms of its long term average.

For example, multi-year declines occurred as the economy approached both the Great Recession of 2008 and the Great Depression of 1929. In 1925 the PSR was 9.2%, but by 1929 it had declined by almost half to 4.7%. The PSR offered an equal, and possibly even better, signal as to the excesses of the 1920s than did the private debt to GDP ratio. Both the level of PSR and the trend of its direction are significant meaningful inputs.

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) correctly argued that the severity of the Great Depression was due to under-consumption or over saving. What Keynes failed to note was that the under consumption of the 1930s was due to over spending in the second half of the 1920s. In other words, once circumstances have allowed the under saving event to occur, the net result will be a long period of economic under performance.
Keynes, along with his most famous American supporter, Alvin Hansen (1887-1975), argued that the U.S. economy would face something he termed “an under-employment equilibrium.” They believed the U.S. economy would return to the Great Depression after World War II ended unless the federal government ran large budget deficits to offset weakness in consumer spending. The PSR averaged 23% from 1942 through 1946, and the excessive indebtedness of the 1920s was reversed. Consumers had accumulated savings and were in a position to fuel the post WWII boom. The economy enjoyed great prosperity even though the budget deficit was virtually eliminated. The concerns about the under employment equilibrium were entirely wrong. In Keynes’ defense, the PSR statistics cited above were not known at the time but have been painstakingly created by archival scholars since then.

Implications for 2014-2015

 

In previous letters we have shown that the largest economies in the world have a higher total debt to GDP today than at the time of the Great Recession in 2008. PSRs also indicate that foreign households are living further above their means than six years ago. According to the OECD, Japan’s PSR for 2014 will be 0.6%, virtually unchanged from 2008. The OECD figure is likely to turn out to be very optimistic as the full effects of the April 2014 VAT increase takes effect, and a negative PSR for the year should not be ruled out. In addition, Japan’s PSR is considerably below that of the U.S. The Eurozone PSR as a whole is estimated at 7.9%, down 1.5 percentage points from 2008. Thus, in aggregate, the U.S., Japan and Europe are all trying to solve an under-saving problem by creating more under-saving. History indicates this is not a viable path to recovery. [reference: Atif Mian and Amir Sufi,. House of Debt, University of Chicago Press 2014]
Japan confirms the experience in the United States because their PSR has declined from over 20% in the financial meltdown year of 1989 to today’s near zero level. Japan, unlike the U.S. in the 1940s, has moved further away from financial stability. Despite numerous monetary and fiscal policy maneuvers that were described as extremely powerful, the end result was that they have not been successful.

U.S. Yields Versus Global Bond Yields

 

Table one compares ten-year and thirty year government bond yields in the U.S. and ten major foreign economies. Higher U.S. government bond yields reflect that domestic economic growth has been considerably better than in Europe and Japan, which in turn, mirrors that the U.S. is less indebted. However, the U.S. is now taking on more leverage, indicating that our growth prospects are likely to follow the path of Europe and Japan.



With U.S. rates higher than those of major foreign markets, investors are provided with an additional reason to look favorably on increased investments in the long end of the U.S. treasury market. Additionally, with nominal growth slowing in response to low saving and higher debt we expect that over the next several years U.S. thirty year bond yields could decline into the range of 1.7% to 2.3%, which is where the thirty year yields in the Japanese and German economies, respectively, currently stand.

Van R. Hoisington
Lacy H. Hunt, Ph.D.
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The article Outside the Box: Hoisington Investment Management: Quarterly Review and Outlook, Second Quarter 2014 was originally published at Mauldin Economics

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The Monster That Is Europe

By: John Mauldin

This week, Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen of the Front National (FN) of France held a press conference in The Hague to announce that they will be cooperating in the elections for the European Parliament next spring and hope to form a new eurosceptic bloc. Their aim, as Mr. Wilders put it, is to "fight this monster called Europe," while Ms. Le Pen spoke of a system that "has enslaved our various peoples." They want to end the common currency, remove the authority of Brussels over national budgets, and undo the project of integration driven with so much idealism by two generations of European politicians. (My thought about Marine Le Pen after looking at her policies is that if Marine Le Pen is the answer for France, they are asking the wrong question.)

For now, Le Pen and Wilders are in a decided, if growing, minority (think Beppe Grillo, who got 25% in Italy in the last election). But as the graphic below suggests, the stitching that is holding the Frankenstein of Europe together seems to be getting a little frayed. And my new worry is that the real monster, one likely to pop many more of the tenuous stitches that hold things together, could be lurking in German banks. This week's letter explores a problem as "hidden" as subprime was back in 2006. Not as big, to be sure, but it might not need to be big to tug too hard the frayed threads that hold Europe together. (Note: this week's letter will print out longer than usual due to the large number of graphs and pictures.)



But first and quickly, we have finalized the dates for next year's Strategic Investment Conference. Mark your calendar for May 13-16. We are adding half a day so we can bring you a few more must-hear speakers. In addition to our always killer lineup of investment and economics thought leaders, I want to add some technology and politics. The significant difference about this conference is that there are no "B list" speakers. Everyone is a headliner. No one pays to get to speak or promote their deal. When we started the conference 11 years ago, my one rule was that we would invite speakers that I wanted to hear and create a conference that I would want to go to.

With my co-hosts Altegris Investments, we have done that and more. Attendees typically rate this conference as the best they attend. This year we have moved to San Diego, where we can have more space. We will still keep it small enough so that you can meet the speakers, as well as a room full of extremely interesting fellow attendees. You can sign up now and book your rooms by going to http://www.altegris.com/sic. Don't procrastinate. Mark down the dates and plan your time accordingly.

The Complacency of Consensus

"But where are you out of consensus?" came the question. I had just spent a few minutes outlining my view of the world to a group of serious money managers here in Geneva, highlighting some of the risks and opportunities I see. The gentleman's question made me realize that for the short-term, at least, I am all too sanguine for my personal taste. I have never thought of myself as one of those consensus guys. But when you consider that Japan is continuing down its path to starting a global currency war, with a currency that will drop at least in half from where it is now (plunging Japan into Abe-geddon); that China is launching its most serious economic overhaul in 20-30 years; that the US is still careening toward its day of reckoning with entitlement spending while dealing with the fall-out from taper tantrums in emerging markets; and that Europe is steering a course straight into deflation – the lot leaving us with Disaster A, Disaster B, or Disaster C as the consensus choice; then yes, I suppose I am a consensus guy, of sorts. But those are all worries that will come to a head later next year or the year after, not in the next few months or weeks, which is where most traders live. The trader who quizzed me wanted to know what was going to affect his book this week!

We seem to occupy a world where we are all somewhat uncomfortable. The problems are all so apparent; but somehow we are compelled to take risks anyway, hoping that the risks we take are properly managed or that we can exit at the propitious moment. The game seems to be moving along, absent another major shock to the system. It's not quite party like it's 2006, because the level of complacency is nowhere near the same; but we do seem headed down the same risk path, even though it scares us. Which means that it might take somewhat less than a subprime debacle and banking shock to trigger a crisis, since no one wants to be exposed when the next crisis happens. The majority of market players appear to believe that another crisis might materialize, but in the meantime you have to dance while the music is playing. Fifty Shades of Chuck Prince.

So, as investors and money managers, we must be on shock alert. Where will the next one come from? By definition, a shock is a surprise to the markets, something that few people recognize until it becomes too big to ignore. Ben Bernanke achieved a degree of infamy for saying that the subprime crisis would be contained, even as some of us were shouting that losses would be in the hundreds of billions (what optimists we were!). And then came the shock that created the biggest global economic crisis since the Great Depression.
But an almost desperate reach for yield and shouldering of risk are clearly in evidence. Junk bond issuance is over 2.5 times what it was in 2006 and twice as high as a percentage of total corporate bond issuance. Leveraged loans are back to all-time highs, even as credit spreads continue to fall (see graph).



Collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) are close to all-time highs after almost disappearing in 2009. And subprime auto-asset-backed paper is projected to set a new record in 2014. Party on, Garth!
But if you ask the participants in those very markets, and I do, if there is any sign that the reach for yield is easing, the answer is generally "Not yet." After 2008, everyone remains nervous; but when the analysis is done, enough buyers conclude that the future will be somewhat like the recent past. Although no one I talk to believes that in 2014 we will see another year in the stock market like the current one, still, the consensus outlook is rather sanguine. But I talk to more bulls than you might think. Last night in Geneva David Zervos was arguing (till rather late in the night, for me at least) his familiar spoos and blues with me (long S&P 500, long eurodollar). He is ready to double down on QE. Our hosts bought an excellent if outrageously expensive dinner (for the record, there is no other kind of meal in Geneva – can you believe $12 Diet Cokes?), and it was only polite to listen. And the trade has been right.

But for how long? Central banks are still going to be easy. But markets can be characterized as fully valued, at best, especially since there have been more earnings warnings this last quarter than at any time in the recent past. While the conditions are not quite the same as in 2006-07, we are getting a little frothy. So is it 2005, so that we can enjoy the ride into late 2006 and then look for an exit strategy? I would argue that the markets actually need a "shock" of some kind. And in addition to the "consensus-view" shocks mentioned above, I see one especially big, nasty lion lurking in the grass. In the form of German banks.

The Sick (German) Banks of Europe

Quick: I say "German banks," and what's the first thing that comes to your mind? The Bundesbank? Staid, no-nonsense central banking? The Bundesbank is all about maintaining the price of money – forget QE. Deutschebank? Big, German – must be stable and low-risk. The fact that southern Europeans are opening accounts left and right in DB must mean that DB is lower-risk than the local wild guys. Except that they have the largest derivatives portfolio, at $70 trillion (but don't worry because it all nets out, sort of, and of course there is no counter-party risk!), and they are the most highly leveraged bank in Europe (at 60:1 in the last tests – not a misprint), which might give you pause. Although their CEO argues that their leverage doesn't matter. And keeps a straight face. Just saying…

If something happens to DB, they are, in all likelihood, Too Big To Save, even for Germany. But Deutschebank is not my focus here today. It is their much smaller brethren, Too small to be called siblings, actually. More like first cousins twice removed. But there are a lot of them, and they all piled into some very interesting and, as it turns out, very questionable trades. And the story begins with the American consumer.
This Christmas, we will all engage, as will much of the world, in an orgy of gift giving. (I helpfully offer a few ideas of my own at the end of the letter.) The iPads and Xbox Ones and GI Joes with the Kung-Fu Grip (gratuitous esoteric movie reference) will be flying off the shelves. But the one thing that ties all those gifts together is The Box, the humble container unit, the TEU, which allows the world to transport all those items ever more cheaply. That story is resoundingly told in a book that Bill Gates featured in his Best Reads for 2013, simply entitled The Box.

You can read a great review here. It turns out that the shipping container was created in the '50s by a force-of-nature entrepreneur who fought governments and regulators (who typically tried to protect unions rather than help consumers) to bring the idea to market. It finally took off when the military decided it was the best way to ship material to the troops in Vietnam. It is one of those things that make sense and would have happened anyway, but as often happens, military spending drove the ramp-up.

The container was not without controversy. Longshoreman unions fought it aggressively, as containers meant fewer high-paying jobs. But The Box also meant far cheaper transportation of goods, and so it helped boost international trade. Now it is hard to imagine a world without containers. And even though the container business started in the US, there is not one US firm in the top 18 container shipping companies. The business is dominated by European and Asian firms.

And container ships were profitable. Oh my, fortunes were built. And they were so successful that a few German bankers looked at the easy money made by US bankers securitizing and packaging mortgages and decided they could do the same with ship financing. I know it is hard to believe, but the German government decided to create pass-through tax vehicles that gave serious tax preference to high-tax-rate investors for all sorts of things, including movies (such cinematic monuments as Terminator 3, I Robot, and the forgettable Stallone flick Get Carter were financed with German "tax shelters"); but my research has so far unearthed nothing to equal the German passion for financing ships. Seriously, would any US government entity give tax breaks to a favored industry? Would a Canadian or Australian or [insert your favorite country here] government? Such things are done by many governements, of course. Here we may apply Mauldin's Rule (stolen from someone else, I am sure): Any seriously out-of-whack financial transaction requires government involvement (generally in the form of some market-distorting law).

Cargo ships, especially container ships, were serious cash machines for long-term money. Buy the ship with some leverage, put it to work, and watch the cash roll in. The Greeks were especially good at this, but the Germans and Scandinavians caught on quick. The Germans went everyone one better and allowed small high-net-worth investors to put their money into funds that financed these ships. At one point, I am told, German banks might have been financing 50% of the world's cargo ships. (They control at least 40% of the world's container ship market today.) Anyone familiar with limited partnerships in the US in the late '70s and early '80s knows how this story ends for the investors.

I came across this story from the inside, as a business partner of mine is in the shipping business; but he owns and operates a special type of ship: massive tugboats that move ocean drilling-rig platforms, and those are still in healthy demand. But his original financing many years ago was from Germany.

It turns out that if a little leverage makes a deal look good, then a lot makes it look even better. In 2007, ships were financed at 75% leverage (on average). It looks like 2008 vintages were financed in the 90% range! (Data is from a presentation I was sent, done by Dr. Klaus Stoltenberg of NordLB.)

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Is the SP 500 Closing in on a Top?

Friday’s strong move to the upside caught a lot of traders on the wrong side of the market. Regardless of whether financial pundits refer to it as a short squeeze or simply panic level buying is largely irrelevant. Time and price are always the final arbiters of financial markets. Price on Friday was clearly telling us that too many market participants were shorting equities and the Euro.

The news coming out of the European Summit is what drove prices higher according to most media outlets. However, few traders have actually taken the time to research the fact that Germany has not technically agreed to the European Stability Mechanism legislation at this point.

The German Constitutional Court has delayed the passage of the ESM legislation on the grounds that this court needs to affirm the agreement is constitutional. Several high profile politicians in Germany have allegedly filed multiple law suits surrounding the new ESM law.

Should the German Constitutional Court determine the ESM legislation is unconstitutional a referendum will go before the German people. The last thing the Eurocratic blue bloods and their banking cartel minions want is regular people actually having a say in the outcome of the Eurozone project.

Ultimately the German people do not appear to be in favor of propping up the rest of Europe in exchange for more empty promises of austerity. Furthermore, the German people recognize that they are taking on a massive risk by loaning money to insolvent banks and other Eurozone sovereigns who have not proven to be prudent with managing their current fiscal conditions.

The decision made by the German high court could have a far-reaching impact on the price action in European financial markets as well as in U.S. domestic financial markets. The outcome of the forthcoming decision will carry far more weight than Friday’s June unemployment report. Already I am reading that should the unemployment number come in significantly weaker than expected Ben Bernanke may work to convert Operation Twist into full blown QE III at the next FOMC Meeting.

The addiction to cheap money by large institutional banks will not end until the Fed is no longer able or willing to continue to print money. Should economic data continue to weaken going into earnings season I am sure the banter regarding QE III will increase at lightning pace and bad news for the economy will be good news for stocks. Poor economic data will increase the likelihood for additional liquidity being provided through a 3rd Quantitative Easing initiative.

Leaving the macroeconomic data aside and focusing on market technicals, we find several unsettling situations in a variety of underlying assets and indicators. The warnings are largely falling on deaf ears as the equity bull parade continues. Before we talk about the S&P 500 Index directly, perhaps we should examine some of the indicators and underlying assets that are sending out bearish smoke signals.

The first chart I would draw your attention to is the McClellan Oscillator which is a widely followed and focuses on market breadth as a possible market indicator for tops and bottoms. Note the key high and low points of the Oscillator and how they correspond with the S&P 500 Index.

Read the entire article and see the charts for "Is the SP 500 Closing in on a Top?"

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Crude Oil Rallies on Euro Zone Pledge

Trading was light on the holiday that commemorates Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World, but news from the other side of the Atlantic helped crude oil start the week with a rally.

Light sweet crude oil for November delivery gained nearly three percent Monday, settling at $85.41 a barrel, after the leaders of France and Germany reported progress in developing a comprehensive plan to stabilize the euro zone's economy. The Brent contract price rose at a similar rate, ending the day at $108.95 a barrel.

Presenting a united front during a Sunday press conference in Berlin, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to unveil by month's end a complete plan to recapitalize ailing banks, bolster the euro zone's bailout fund and provide financial aid to Greece. Although the announcement was short on specifics, it prompted rallies in equity markets and helped the euro to strengthen against the U.S. dollar. Because crude oil is priced in dollars, a weaker greenback tends to be bullish for oil and other commodities.

The WTI traded within a range from $82.75 to $86.09 while the Brent fluctuated from $105.78 to $109.20.

November natural gas also finished the day higher, gaining 1.7 percent to settle at $3.54 per thousand cubic feet. Natural gas peaked at $3.56 and bottomed out just under $3.46.

Reformulated gasoline for November delivery rose by nearly two percent, settling at $2.70 a gallon after fluctuating from $2.65 to $2.72.


Posted courtesy of Rigzone.Com


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