How Low Can Crude Oil Go?

Our trading partner Mike Seery is laying out his bearish view on crude oil. How low can it go?

Crude oil futures in the November contract are down $1.50 a barrel currently trading at 89.53 right near two year lows with extreme choppiness over the last several weeks with many rallies and sell offs as I’ve been sitting on the sidelines but now the trend clearly is to the downside, however the chart structure is terrible at the current time so I am not taking a short at this time, however if you are interested in selling this market I would sell a futures contract at today’s price of 89.53 while placing my stop above $95 risking around $5,500 per contract.

The chart structure is very poor as volatility is extremely high but I am certainly not recommending anybody to buy this market as I do think prices are headed lower and if the chart structure improves in the next couple of days I will take a shot at the downside as we are awash in supplies worldwide plus the fact that the U.S dollar hit 2 year highs today as I see oil prices possibly heading down to the $80 level here in the next couple of months due to the fact of low demand and the fact that many of the commodity markets continue bearish trends as deflation is a problem not inflation.

The fact that prices are not rallying with havoc over in the mid East as oil used to rally sharply on problems in the Middle East but now the U.S is an exporter of oil so these ISIS events are not as important as they used to be so continue to sell any type of rally while placing your stop loss properly risking 2% of your account balance on any given trade.

TREND: LOWER
CHART STRUCTURE: TERRIBLE

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The End of Monetary Policy

Thoughts from the Frontline: The End of Monetary Policy

By John Mauldin

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar…

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

            –  T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. This is not to say that there will no longer be events to fill the pages of Foreign Affairs' yearly summaries of international relations, for the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as yet incomplete in the real or material world. But there are powerful reasons for believing that it is the ideal that will govern the material world in the long run.

– Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

Francis Fukuyama created all sorts of controversy when he declared “the end of history” in 1989 (and again in 1992 in the book cited above). That book won general applause, and unlike many other academics he has gone on to produce similarly thoughtful work. A review of his latest book, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy, appeared just yesterday in The Economist. It’s the second volume in a two-volume tour de force on “political order.”

I was struck by the closing paragraphs of the review:

Mr. Fukuyama argues that the political institutions that allowed the United States to become a successful modern democracy are beginning to decay. The division of powers has always created a potential for gridlock. But two big changes have turned potential into reality: political parties are polarised along ideological lines and powerful interest groups exercise a veto over policies they dislike. America has degenerated into a “vetocracy”. It is almost incapable of addressing many of its serious problems, from illegal immigration to stagnating living standards; it may even be degenerating into what Mr. Fukuyama calls a “neopatrimonial” society in which dynasties control blocks of votes and political insiders trade power for favours.

Mr. Fukuyama’s central message in this long book is as depressing as the central message in “The End of History” was inspiring. Slowly at first but then with gathering momentum political decay can take away the great advantages that political order has delivered: a stable, prosperous and harmonious society.

While I am somewhat more hopeful than Professor Fukuyama is about the future of our political process (I see the rise of a refreshing new kind of libertarianism, especially among our youth, in both conservative and liberal circles, as a potential game changer), I am concerned about what I think will be the increasing impotence of monetary policy in a world where the political class has not wisely used the time that monetary policy has bought them to correct the problems of debt and market restricting policies. They have avoided making the difficult political decisions that would set the stage for the next few decades of powerful growth.

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So while the title of this letter, “The End of Monetary Policy,” is purposely provocative, the longer and more appropriate title would be “The End of Effective and Productive Monetary Policy.” My concern is not that we will move into an era of no monetary policy, but that monetary policy will become increasingly ineffective, so that we will have to solve our social and physical problems in a much less friendly economic environment.
In today’s Thoughts from the Frontline, let’s explore the limits of monetary policy and think about the evolution and then the endgame of economic history. Not the end of monetary policy per se, but its emasculation.

The End of Monetary Policy

Asset classes all over the developed world have responded positively to lower interest rates and successive rounds of quantitative easing from the major central banks. To the current generation it all seems so easy. All we have to do is ensure permanently low rates and a continual supply of new money, and everything works like a charm. Stock and real estate prices go up; new private equity and credit deals abound; and corporations get loans at low rates with ridiculously easy terms. Subprime borrowers have access to credit for a cornucopia of products.

What was Paul Volcker really thinking by raising interest rates and punishing the economy with two successive recessions? Why didn’t he just print money and drop rates even further? Oh wait, he was dealing with the highest inflation our country had seen in the last century, and the problem is that his predecessor had been printing money, keeping rates too low, and allowing inflation to run out of control. Kind of like what we have now, except we’re missing the inflation.

Let’s Look at the Numbers

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has a marvelous website full of all sorts of useful information. Let’s start by looking at inflation around the world. This table is rather dense and is offered only to give you a taste of what’s available.



What we find out is that inflation is strikingly, almost shockingly, low. It certainly seems so to those of us who came of age in the ’60s and ’70s and who now, in the fullness of time, are watching aghast as stupendous amounts of various currencies are fabricated out of thin air. Seriously, if I had suggested to you back in 2007 that central bank balance sheets would expand by $7-8 trillion in the next half decade but that inflation would be averaging less than 2%, you would have laughed in my face.

Let’s take a quick world tour. France has inflation of 0.5%; Italy’s is -0.2% (as in deflation); the euro area on the whole has 0.4% inflation; the United Kingdom (which still includes Scotland) is at an amazingly low 1.5% for the latest month, down from 4.5% in 2011; China with its huge debt bubble has 2.2% inflation; Mexico, which has been synonymous with high inflation for decades, is only running in the 4% range. And so on. Looking at the list of the major economies of the world, including the BRICS and other large emerging markets, there is not one country with double digit inflation (with the exception of Argentina, and Argentina is always an exception – their data lies, too, because inflation is 3-4 times what they publish.) Even India, at least since Rajan assumed control of the Reserve Bank of India, has watched its inflation rate steadily drop.

Japan is the anomaly. The imposition of Abenomics has seemingly engineered an inflation rate of 3.4%, finally overcoming deflation. Or has it? What you find is that inflation magically appeared in March of this year when a 3% hike in the consumption tax was introduced. When government decrees that prices will go up 3%, then voilà, like magic, you get 3% inflation. Take out the 3% tax, and inflation is running about 1% in the midst of one of the most massive monetary expansions ever seen. And there is reason to suspect that a considerable part of that 1% is actually due to the ongoing currency devaluation. The yen closed just shy of 110 yesterday, up from less than 80 two years ago.

I should also point out that, one year from now, this 3% inflation may disappear into yesteryear’s statistics. The new tax will already be factored into all current and future prices, and inflation will go back to its normal low levels in Japan.

Inflation in the US is running less than 2% (latest month is 1.7%) as the Fed pulls the plug on QE. As I’ve been writing for … my gods, has it really been two decades?! – the overall trend is deflationary for a host of reasons. That trend will change someday, but it will be with us for a while.

Where’s my GDP?

Gross domestic product around the developed world ranges anywhere from subdued to anemic to outright recessionary:



The G-20 itself is growing at an almost respectable 3%, but when you look at the developed world’s portion of that statistic, the picture gets much worse. The European Union grew at 0.1% last year and is barely on target to beat that this year. The euro area is flat to down. The United Kingdom and the United States are at 1.7% and 2.2% respectively. Japan is in recession. France is literally at 0% for the year and is likely to enter recession by the end of the year. Italy remains mired in recession. Powerhouse Germany was in recession during the second quarter.

Let’s put those stats in context. We have seen the most massive monetary stimulation of the last 200 years in the developed world, and growth can be best described as faltering. Without the totally serendipitous shale oil revolution in the United States, growth here would be about 1%, or not much ahead of where Europe is today.

Demographics, Debt, Bond Bubbles, and Currency Wars

Look at the rest of the economic ecology. Demographics are decidedly deflationary. Every country in the developed world is getting older, and with each year there are fewer people in the working cohort to support those in retirement. Government debt is massive and rising in almost every country. In Japan and many countries of Europe it is approaching true bubble status. Anybody who thinks the current corporate junk bond market is sustainable is smoking funny smelling cigarettes. (The song from my youth “Don’t Bogart That Joint” pops to mind. But I digrass.)

We are seeing the beginnings of an outright global currency war that I expect to ensue in earnest in 2015. My co-author Jonathan Tepper and I outlined in both Endgame and Code Red what we still believe to be the future. The Japanese are clearly in the process of weakening their currency. This is just the beginning. The yen is going to be weakening 10 to 15% a year for a very long time. I truly expect to see the yen at 200 to the dollar somewhere near the end of the decade.

ECB head Mario Draghi is committed to weakening the euro. The reigning economic philosophy has it that weakening your currency will boost exports and thus growth. And Europe desperately needs growth. Absent QE4 from the Fed, the euro is going to continue to weaken against the dollar. Emerging-market countries will be alarmed at the increasing strength of the dollar and other developed world currencies against their currencies and will try to fight back by weakening their own money. This is what Greg Weldon described back in 2001 as the Competitive Devaluation Raceway, which back then described the competition among emerging markets to maintain the devaluation of their currencies against the dollar.

Today, with Europe and Japan gunning their engines, which have considerable horsepower left, it is a very competitive race indeed – and one with far reaching political implications for each country. As I have written in past letters, it is now every central banker for him or herself.

That Pesky Budget Thing

Developed governments around the world are running deficits. France will be close to a 4% deficit this year, with no improvement in sight. Germany is running a small deficit. Japan has a mind boggling 8% deficit, which they keep talking about dealing with, but nothing ever actually happens. How is this possible with a debt of 250% of GDP? Any European country with such a debt structure would be in a state of collapse. The US is at 5.8% and the United Kingdom at 5.3%, while Spain is still at 5.5%.

Let’s focus on the US. Everyone knows that the US has an entitlement driven spending problem, but very few people I talk with understand the true nature of the situation, which is actually quite dire, looming up ahead of us. In less than 10 years, at current debt projection growth rates, the third largest expenditure of the United States government will be interest expense. The other three largest categories are all entitlement programs. Discretionary spending, whether for defense or anything else, is becoming an ever smaller part of the budget. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid now command nearly two thirds of the national budget and rising. Ironically, polls suggest that 80% of Americans are concerned about the rising deficit and debt, but 69% oppose Medicare cutbacks, and 78% oppose Medicaid cutbacks.



At some point in the middle of the next decade, entitlement spending plus interest payments will be more than the total revenue of the government. The deficit that we are currently experiencing will explode. The following chart is what will happen if nothing changes. But this chart also cannot happen, because the bond market and the economy will simply implode before it does.



A Multitude of Sins

Monetary policy has been able to mask a multitude of our government’s fiscal sins. My worry for the economy is what will happen when Band-Aid monetary policy can no longer forestall the hemorrhaging of the US economy. Long before we get to 2024 we will have a crisis. In past years, I have expected the problems to come to a head sooner rather than later, but I have come to realize that the US economy can absorb a great deal of punishment. But it cannot absorb the outcomes depicted in those last two charts. Something will have to give.

And these projections assume there will be no recession within the next 10 years. How likely is that? What happens when the US has to deal with its imbalances at the same time Europe and Japan must deal with theirs? These problems are not resolvable by monetary policy.

Right now the markets move on every utterance from Janet Yellen, Mario Draghi, and their central bank friends. Central banking dominates the economic narrative. But what happens to the power of central banks to move markets when the fiscal imperative overcomes the central bank narrative?

Sometime this decade (which at my age seems to be passing mind-numbingly quickly) we are going to face a situation where monetary policy no longer works. Optimistically speaking, interest rates may be in the 2% range by the end of 2016, assuming the Fed starts to raise rates the middle of next year and raises by 25 basis points per meeting. If we were to enter a recession with rates already low, what would dropping rates to the zero bound again really do? What kind of confidence would that tactic actually inspire? And gods forbid we find ourselves in a recession or a period of slow growth prior to that time. Will the Fed under Janet Yellen raise interest rates if growth sputters at less than 2%?

An even scarier scenario is what will happen if we don’t deal with our fiscal issues. You can’t solve a yawning deficit with monetary policy.

Further, at some point the velocity of money is going to reverse, and monetary policy will have to be far more restrained. The only reason, and I mean only, that we’ve been able to get away with such a massively easy monetary policy is that the velocity of money has been dropping consistently for the last 10 years. The velocity of money is at its lowest level since the end of World War II, but it is altogether possible that it will slow further to Great Depression levels.

When the velocity of money begins to once again rise – and in the fullness of time it always does – we are going to face the nemesis of inflation. Monetary policy during periods of inflation is far more constrained. Quantitative easing will not be the order of the day.

For Keynesians, we are in the Golden Age of Monetary Policy. It can’t get any better than this: free money and low rates and no consequences (at least no consequences that can be seen by the public). This will end, as it always does…..

Not with a Bang but a Whimper

Will we see the end of monetary policy? No, policy will just be constrained. The current era of easy monetary policy will not end (in the words of T.S. Eliot) with a bang but a whimper. Janet or Mario will walk to the podium and say the same words they do today, and the markets will not respond. Central banks will lose control of the narrative, and we will have to figure out what to do in a world where profits and productivity are once again more important than quantitative easing and monetary policy.

You need to be thinking about how you will react and how you want to protect your portfolios in such a circumstance. Even if that volatility is years off, “war-gaming” how you will respond is an important exercise. Because it will happen, unless Congress and the White House decide to resolve the fiscal crisis before it happens. Calculate the odds on that happening and then decide whether you need to have a plan.

Unless you think the bond market will continue to finance the US government through endless deficits (as so far has happened in Japan), then you need to start to contemplate the end of effective monetary policy. I would note that, even in Japan, monetary policy has not been effective in restarting an economy. It is a quirk of Japan’s social structure that the Japanese have devoted almost their entire net savings to government bonds. As the savings rate there is getting ready to turn negative, we are going to see a very different economic result. Japan with the yen at 200 and an even older society will look a great deal different than the country does today.

Current market levels of volatility and complacency should be seen as temporary. Plan accordingly.

Washington DC, Chicago, Athens (Texas), and Boston

I am in Washington DC as you read this. I have a few meetings set up, as well as a speaking engagement, and then I’ll return home to meet with my business partners at Mauldin Economics later in the week. In the middle of October I will go to Chicago for a speech, fly back to a meeting with Kyle Bass and his friends at the Barefoot Ranch in Athens, Texas, and then fly out to Boston to spend the weekend with Niall Ferguson and some of his friends. I am sure I will be happily surfing mental stimulus overload that week.

Next weekend (October 4) is my 65^th birthday. I had originally thought I would do a rather low key event with family; but my staff, family, and friends have different plans. I’m not really supposed to know what’s going on and don’t really have much of an idea as I am not allowed around planning sessions, but it sounds like fun.

I am walking on legs that feel like Jell-O, as it was “legs day” yesterday, working out with The Beast. My regular workout partner couldn’t make it, so he was able to focus on exhausting me to the maximum extent possible. I’ve never been all that athletic. As a kid, for the most part I was not allowed to participate in PE due to some physical limitations (which fortunately went away as I grew older).

I became a true geek. Not that that is all bad: it has served me rather well later in life. Geeks rule. It wasn’t until I was in my mid 40s that I began to go to the gym on more than a haphazard basis. And I must confess that I was a typical male in that I focused on my upper body as opposed to my legs and abdominals. That oversight is catching up with me now. The Beast is forcing me to devote more time to my legs and core. Much better for me as I approach the latter half of my 60s, but it’s painful to realize the cost of my negligence.

In the last five or six years my travel has reduced my gym time, or at least that’s my excuse. For whatever reason, my travel has been reduced for the last two months, so I’m getting much more time in the gym, and my workouts are more well rounded. I typically try to do at least another 30 minutes of cardio after our training sessions, even if the session was based around cardio. Except on leg days. There’s nothing left for extra walking or cycling after leg days.

I share this because I want you to understand that working out is just as important as your investment strategy. I fully intend to be going strong for a very long time. But that doesn’t happen (at least as easily) if you lose your legs. As much as I hate leg days, I probably need those workouts more than any others.

It’s time to hit the send button. I hear kids and grand kids gathering in the next room. That’s something else that is just as important as investment strategy. You have a great week.

Your thinking about how to profit from the coming crisis analyst,

John Mauldin

The article Thoughts from the Frontline: The End of Monetary Policy was originally published at mauldineconomics.com.

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Is it Time to Admit That Gold Peaked in 2011?

By Jeff Clark, Senior Precious Metals Analyst

Have you seen this “real price of gold” chart that’s been making waves? Among other things, it purports to show the gold price adjusted for inflation over the past 223 years. Notice the 1980 vs. 2011 levels.

The chart makes it seem that on an inflation-adjusted basis, gold has matched its 1980 peak in 2011, or nearly so. A mainstream analyst who still thinks of gold as a “barbarous relic,” a government official who doesn’t want people to think of gold as money, or an Internet blogger looking for some attention might try to convince you that this proves that the gold bull market is over, arguing that the 2011 peak of $1,921 is the equivalent of the 1970s mania peak of $850 in January of 1980.

The logic is flawed, however; even if it were true that gold has matched its 1980 peak in inflation-adjusted prices, it would not prove that the top is in this time. This is not the 1970s, the global economy is under very different pressures, and there’s no rational basis at all for saying the top this time has to be at the same or similar level as last time.

That’s even if it were true that gold has matched its 1980 peak—but it hasn’t.

Inflation-Adjusted Gold Has NOT Matched Its 1980 Peak

 

First, if you go by official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic numbers, $850 in 1980 is equivalent to $2,320 in 2011, when gold hit its peak thus far in the current cycle. (It’s $2,403 in 2013 dollars, as is said to be used in the chart.)

We don’t know what data the authors of the chart used, nor their inflation adjustment method, so it’s hard to say what the problem is, but at the very least, we can say the chart is very misleading.

But there’s more. As you probably know, the government has made numerous changes to the way it calculates inflation—the Consumer Price Index (CPI)—since 1980. So, even the BLS number we’ve given grossly underestimates the real difference between the 2011 and 1980 peaks.

For a more apples to apples comparison, we should adjust for inflation using the government’s 1980 formula. And for that, whom better to ask than John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics (AKA Shadow Stats), the world’s leading expert on phony US government statistics?

I asked John to apply the CPI formula from January 1980 to the $1,921 gold price in 2011, to give us a more accurate inflation adjusted picture. Here’s what his data show.

Using the 1980 formula, the monthly average price of gold for January 1980 would be the equivalent of $8,598.80 today. The actual peak—$850 on January 21, 1980—isn’t shown in the chart, but it would equate to a whopping $10,823.70 today.

The Shadow Stats chart paints a completely different picture than the first chart. The current CPI formula grossly dilutes just how much inflation has occurred over the past 34 years. It’s so misleading that investment decisions based on it—like whether to buy or sell gold—could wreak havoc on a portfolio.

This could easily be the end of the discussion, but there are many more reasons to believe that the gold price has not peaked for the current bull cycle…...

Percentage Rise Has Been Much Smaller

 

Inflation adjusted numbers are not the only measure that matters. The percentage climb during the 1970s bull market was dramatically greater than what we experienced from 2001 to 2011. Here’s a comparison of the percentage gain during both periods.

From the 1970 low to the January 1980 peak, gold rose 2,346%. It climbed only 535% from the 2001 low to the September 2011 high—nowhere near mimicking that prior bull market.

Silver Scantly Participated in the 2011 Run-Up

 

After 31 years of trading, silver has yet to even reach its nominal price from 1980. It surged to $48.70 in 2011—but it hit $50 in January 1980.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, using the same data from John Williams, silver would need to hit $568 to match its 1980 equivalent.

The fact that silver has lagged this much—when its greater volatility would normally move its price by a greater percentage than gold—further shows that 2011 was not the equivalent of 1980.

No Bubble Characteristics in 2011

 

I’ll get some arguments from the mainstream on this one. “Of course gold was in a bubble in 2011—look at the chart!”

Yes, gold had a nice run-up that year. It rose 38.6% from January 1 to the September 6 peak. Anyone holding gold at that time was very happy. But that’s not a bubble. One of the major characteristics of a bubble is that prices go parabolic.

And that’s exactly what we saw in 1979-1980:

• In the 12 months leading up to its January 21, 1980 peak, gold surged an incredible 270%.

• In contrast, the year leading up to the September 6, 2011 peak, the price climbed 48%—very nice, but hardly parabolic, and less than a fifth of the 1970s runaway move.

No Global Phenomenon in 1980 (Next Time It Will Be)

 

In the 1970s, the “mania” was mostly a North American phenomenon. China and most of Asia didn’t participate. When inflation grips the world from all the money printing governments almost everywhere have engaged in, there will be a much greater demand for gold than in 1980.

When that day comes, there will be severe consequences for those who don’t have enough bullion. Not only will the price relentlessly move higher, but finding physical gold to buy may become very difficult.

Comparable Price Moves? So What?

 

The argument we started with is really the clincher. It doesn’t matter how today’s gold prices compare to those from prior bull markets; what matters are the factors likely to impact the price today. Are there reasons to own gold in the current environment—or not?

First, a comparison: Apple shares surged 112% in 2007. After such a run up, surely investors should’ve dumped it, right? Well, those who did likely regretted it, since it ended that year at $180 and trades over $590 today. In fact, even though it had already risen dramatically and in spite of it crashing with the market in 2008, there were plenty of solid reasons to buy the stock then, not the least of which was the introduction of the iPhone that year.

So should we sell gold because it rose 535% in a decade? As with the Apple example above, that’s not the right question.

There are, in fact, several more relevant questions for gold today:

• What will happen with the unprecedented amount of money that’s been printed around the world since 2008?

• Why are economies still sluggish after the biggest monetary experiment in history?

• Global debt and “unfunded mandates” are at never-before-seen levels; how can this conceivably be paid off?

• Interest rates are at historically low levels—what happens when they start to rise?

• Regardless of your political affiliation, do you trust that government leaders have the ability and willingness to do what’s necessary to restore the economy to health?

If these issues were absent, maybe we’d change our position on precious metals. But until the word “healthy” can honestly be used to describe the fiscal, monetary, and economic state of our global civilization, gold should be held as an essential wealth-protection asset.

Today’s volatile world is exactly the kind of circumstance gold is best for.

The message here is clear, my friends. Regardless of the measure, gold has not matched its 1980 peak. And the reasons to own it have not faded. Indeed, they have grown. Continue to accumulate.

Learn about the best ways to invest in gold—how and when to buy it, where to store it for maximum safety, and how to find the best gold stocks—in the free 2014 Gold Investor’s Guide.

The article Time to Admit That Gold Peaked in 2011? was originally published at Casey Research

Check out our Advanced Study on Trading the Opening Gap in Crude Oil CL

The Cost of Code Red

By John Mauldin

(It is especially important to read the opening quotes this week. They set up the theme in the proper context.)

 “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”

– Ludwig von Mises

“No very deep knowledge of economics is usually needed for grasping the immediate effects of a measure; but the task of economics is to foretell the remoter effects, and so to allow us to avoid such acts as attempt to remedy a present ill by sowing the seeds of a much greater ill for the future.”

– Ludwig von Mises

“[Central banks are at] serious risk of exhausting the policy room for manoeuver over time.”

– Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements

“The gap between the models in the world of monetary policymaking is now wider than at any time since the 1930s.”

– Benjamin Friedman, William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy, Harvard

To listen to most of the heads of the world’s central banks, things are going along swimmingly. The dogmatic majority exude a great deal of confidence in their ability to manage their economies through whatever crisis may present itself. (Raghuram Rajan, the sober minded head of the Reserve Bank of India, is a notable exception.)

However, there is reason to believe that there have been major policy mistakes made by central banks – and will be more of them – that will lead to dislocations in the markets – all types of markets. And it’s not just the usual anti-central bank curmudgeon types (among whose number I have been counted, quite justifiably) who are worried. Sources within the central bank community are worried, too, which should give thoughtful observers of the market cause for concern.

Too often we as investors (and economists) are like the generals who are always fighting the last war. We look at bank balance sheets (except those of Europe and China), corporate balance sheets, sovereign bond spreads and yields, and say it isn’t likely that we will repeat this mistakes which led to 2008. And I smile and say, “You are absolutely right; we are not going to repeat those mistakes. We learned our lessons. Now we are going to make entirely new mistakes.” And while the root cause of the problems, then and now, may be the same – central bank policy – the outcome will be somewhat different. But a crisis by any other name will still be uncomfortable.

If you look at some of the recent statements from the Bank for International Settlements, you should come away with a view much more cautious than the optimistic one that is bandied about in the media today. In fact, to listen to the former chief economist of the BIS, we should all be quite worried.

I am of course referring to Bill White, who is one of my personal intellectual heroes. I hope to get to meet him someday. We have discussed some of his other papers, written in conjunction with the Dallas Federal Reserve, in past letters. He was clearly warning about imbalances and potential bubbles in 2007 and has generally been one of the most prescient observers of the global economy. The prestigious Swiss business newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft did a far reaching interview with him a few weeks ago, and I’ve taken the liberty to excerpt pieces that I think are very important. The excerpts run a few pages, but this is really essential reading. (The article is by Mehr zum Thema, and you can read the full piece here.)

Speculative Bubbles

The headline for the interview is “I see speculative bubbles like in 2007.” As the interviewer rolls out the key questions, White warns of grave adverse effects of ultra loose monetary policy:

William White is worried. The former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements is highly skeptical of the ultra-loose monetary policy that most central banks are still pursuing. “It all feels like 2007, with equity markets overvalued and spreads in the bond markets extremely thin,” he warns.

Mr. White, all the major central banks have been running expansive monetary policies for more than five years now. Have you ever experienced anything like this?

The honest truth is no one has ever seen anything like this. Not even during the Great Depression in the Thirties has monetary policy been this loose. And if you look at the details of what these central banks are doing, it’s all very experimental. They are making it up as they go along. I am very worried about any kind of policies that have that nature.

But didn’t the extreme circumstances after the collapse of Lehman Brothers warrant these extreme measures?

Yes, absolutely. After Lehman, many markets just seized up. Central bankers rightly tried to maintain the basic functioning of the system. That was good crisis management. But in my career I have always distinguished between crisis prevention, crisis management, and crisis resolution. Today, the Fed still acts as if it was in crisis management. But we’re six years past that. They are essentially doing more than what they did right in the beginning. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. Plus, the Fed has moved to a completely different motivation. From the attempt to get the markets going again, they suddenly and explicitly started to inflate asset prices again. The aim is to make people feel richer, make them spend more, and have it all trickle down to get the economy going again. Frankly, I don’t think it works, and I think this is extremely dangerous.

So, the first quantitative easing in November 2008 was warranted?

Absolutely.

But they should have stopped these kinds of policies long ago?

Yes. But here’s the problem. When you talk about crisis resolution, it’s about attacking the fundamental problems that got you into the trouble in the first place. And the fundamental problem we are still facing is excessive debt. Not excessive public debt, mind you, but excessive debt in the private and public sectors. To resolve that, you need restructurings and write-offs. That’s government policy, not central bank policy. Central banks can’t rescue insolvent institutions. All around the western world, and I include Japan, governments have resolutely failed to see that they bear the responsibility to deal with the underlying problems. With the ultraloose monetary policy, governments have no incentive to act. But if we don’t deal with this now, we will be in worse shape than before.

But wouldn’t large-scale debt write-offs hurt the banking sector again?

Absolutely. But you see, we have a lot of zombie companies and banks out there. That’s a particular worry in Europe, where the banking sector is just a continuous story of denial, denial and denial. With interest rates so low, banks just keep ever-greening everything, pretending all the money is still there. But the more you do that, the more you keep the zombies alive, they pull down the healthy parts of the economy. When you have made bad investments, and the money is gone, it’s much better to write it off and get fifty percent than to pretend it’s still there and end up getting nothing. So yes, we need more debt reduction and more recapitalization of the banking system. This is called facing up to reality.

Where do you see the most acute negative effects of this monetary policy?

The first thing I would worry about are asset prices. Every asset price you could think of is in very odd territory. Equity prices are extremely high if you at valuation measures such as Tobin’s Q or a Shiller-type normalized P/E. Risk-free bond rates are at enormously low levels, spreads are very low, you have all these funny things like covenant-lite loans again. It all looks and feels like 2007.

And frankly, I think it’s worse than 2007, because then it was a problem of the developed economies. But in the past five years, all the emerging economies have imported our ultra low policy rates and have seen their debt levels rise. The emerging economies have morphed from being a part of the solution to being a part of the problem.

Do you see outright bubbles in financial markets?

Yes, I do. Investors try to attribute the rising stock markets to good fundamentals. But I don’t buy that. People are caught up in the momentum of all the liquidity that is provided by the central banks. This is a liquidity-driven thing, not based on fundamentals.

So are we mostly seeing what the Fed has been doing since 1987 – provide liquidity and pump markets up again?

Absolutely. We just saw the last chapter of that long history. This is the last of a whole series of bubbles that have been blown. In the past, monetary policy has always succeeded in pulling up the economy. But each time, the Fed had to act more vigorously to achieve its results. So, logically, at a certain point, it won’t work anymore. Then we’ll be in big trouble. And we will have wasted many years in which we could have been following better policies that would have maintained growth in much more sustainable ways. Now, to make you feel better, I said the same in 1998, and I was way too early.

What about the moral hazard of all this?

The fact of the matter is that if you have had 25 years of central bank and government bailout whenever there was a problem, and the bankers come to appreciate that fact, then we are back in a world where the banks get all the profits, while the government socializes all the losses. Then it just gets worse and worse. So, in terms of curbing the financial system, my own sense is that all of the stuff that has been done until now, while very useful, Basel III and all that, is not going to be sufficient to deal with the moral hazard problem. I would have liked to see a return to limited banking, a return to private ownership, a return to people going to prison when they do bad things. Moral hazard is a real issue.

Do you have any indication that the Yellen Fed will be different than the Greenspan and Bernanke Fed?

Not really. The one person in the FOMC that was kicking up a real fuss about asset bubbles was Governor Jeremy Stein. Unfortunately, he has gone back to Harvard.

The markets seem to assume that the tapering will run very smoothly, though. Volatility, as measured by the Vix index, is low.

Don’t forget that the Vix was at [a] record low in 2007. All that liquidity raises the asset prices and lowers the cost of insurance. I see at least three possible scenarios how this will all work out. One is: Maybe all this monetary stuff will work perfectly. I don’t think this is likely, but I could be wrong. I have been wrong so many times before. So if it works, the long bond rates can go up slowly and smoothly, and the financial system will adapt nicely. But even against the backdrop of strengthening growth, we could still see a disorderly reaction in financial markets, which would then feed back to destroy the economic recovery.

How?

We are such a long way away from normal long term interest rates. Normal would be perhaps around four percent. Markets have a tendency to rush to the end point immediately. They overshoot. Keynes said in late Thirties that the long bond market could fluctuate at the wrong levels for decades. If fears of inflation suddenly re-appear, this can move interest rates quickly. Plus, there are other possible accidents. What about the fact that maybe most of the collateral you need for normal trading is all tied up now? What about the fact that the big investment dealers have got inventories that are 20 percent of what they were in 2007? When things start to move, the inventory for the market makers might not be there. That’s a particular worry in fields like corporate bonds, which can be quite illiquid to begin with. I’ve met so many people who are in the markets, thinking they are absolutely brilliantly smart, thinking they can get out in the right time. The problem is, they all think that. And when everyone races for the exit at the same time, we will have big problems. I’m not saying all of this will happen, but reasonable people should think about what could go wrong, even against a backdrop of faster growth.

And what is the third scenario?

The strengthening growth might be a mirage. And if it does not materialize, all those elevated prices will be way out of line of fundamentals.

Which of the major central banks runs the highest risk of something going seriously wrong?

At the moment what I am most worried about is Japan. I know there is an expression that the Japanese bond market is called the widowmaker. People have bet against it and lost money. The reason I worry now is that they are much further down the line even than the Americans. What is Abenomics really? As far as I see it, they print the money and tell people that there will be high inflation. But I don’t think it will work. The Japanese consumer will say prices are going up, but my wages won’t. Because they haven’t for years. So I am confronted with a real wage loss, and I have to hunker down. At the same time, financial markets might suddenly not want to hold Japanese Government Bonds anymore with a perspective of 2 percent inflation. This will end up being a double whammy, and Japan will just drop back into deflation. And now happens what Professor Peter Bernholz wrote in his latest book. Now we have a stagnating Japanese economy, tax revenues dropping like a stone, the deficit already at eight percent of GDP, debt at more than 200 percent and counting. I have no difficulty in seeing this thing tipping overnight into hyperinflation. If you go back into history, a lot of hyperinflations started with deflation.

Many people have warned of inflation in the past five years, but nothing has materialized. Isn’t the fear of inflation simply overblown?

One reason we don’t see inflation is because monetary policy is not working. The signals are not getting through. Consumers and corporates are not responding to the signals. We still have a disinflationary gap. There has been a huge increase in base money, but it has not translated into an increase in broader aggregates. And in Europe, the money supply is still shrinking. My worry is that at some point, people will look at this situation and lose confidence that stability will be maintained. If they do and they do start to fear inflation, that change in expectations can have very rapid effects.

More from the BIS

The Bank for International Settlements is known as the “central bankers’ central bank.” It hosts a meeting once a month for all the major central bankers to get together for an extravagant dinner and candid conversation. Surprisingly, there has been no tell-all book about these meetings by some retiring central banker. They take the code of “omertà” (embed) seriously.

Jaime Caruana, the General Manager of the BIS, recently stated that monetary institutions (central banks) are at “serious risk of exhausting the policy room for manoeuver over time.” He followed that statement with a very serious speech at the Harvard Kennedy School two weeks ago. Here is the abstract of the speech (emphasis mine):

This speech contrasts two explanatory views of what he characterizes as “the sluggish and uneven recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008-09.” One view points to a persistent shortfall of demand and the other to the specificities of a financial cycle-induced recession – the “shortfall of demand” vs. the “balance sheet” view. The speech summarizes each diagnosis [and]… then reviews evidence bearing on the two views and contrasts the policy prescriptions to be inferred from each view. The speech concludes that the balance sheet view provides a better overarching explanation of events. In terms of policy, the implication is that there has been too much emphasis since the crisis on stimulating demand and not enough on balance sheet repair and structural reforms to boost productivity. Looking forward, policy frameworks need to ensure that policies are more symmetrical over the financial cycle, so as to avoid the risks of entrenching instability and eventually running out of policy ammunition.

Coming from the head of the BIS, the statement I have highlighted is quite remarkable. He is basically saying (along with his predecessor, William White) that quantitative easing as it is currently practiced is highly problematical. We wasted the past five years by avoiding balance sheet repair and trying to stimulate demand. His analysis perfectly mirrors the one Jonathan Tepper and I laid out in our book Code Red.

How Does the Economy Adjust to Asset Purchases?

In 2011 the Bank of England gave us a paper outlining what they expected to be the consequences of quantitative easing. Note that in the chart below they predict exactly what we have seen. Real (inflation-adjusted) asset prices rise in the initial phase. Nominal demand rises slowly, and there is a lagging effect on real GDP. But note what happens when a central bank begins to flatten out its asset purchases or what is called “broad money” in the graph: real asset prices begin to fall rather precipitously, and consumer price levels rise. I must confess that I look at the graph and scratch my head and go, “I can understand why you might want the first phase, but what in the name of the wide, wide world of sports are you going to do for policy adjustment in the second phase?” Clearly the central bankers thought this QE thing was a good idea, but from my seat in the back of the plane it seems like they are expecting a rather bumpy ride at some point in the future.



Let’s go to the quote in the BoE paper that explains this graph (emphasis mine):

The overall effect of asset purchases on the macroeconomy can be broken down into two stages: an initial ‘impact’ phase and an ‘adjustment’ phase, during which the stimulus from asset purchases works through the economy, as illustrated in Chart 1. As discussed above, in the impact phase, asset purchases change the composition of the portfolios held by the private sector, increasing holdings of broad money and decreasing those of medium and long-term gilts. But because gilts [gilts is the English term for bonds] and money are imperfect substitutes, this creates an initial imbalance. As asset portfolios are rebalanced, asset prices are bid up until equilibrium in money and asset markets is restored. This is reinforced by the signalling channel and the other effects of asset purchases already discussed, which may also act to raise asset prices. Through lower borrowing costs and higher wealth, asset prices then raise demand, which acts to push up the consumer price level.

[Quick note: I think Lacy Hunt thoroughly devastated the notion that there is a wealth effect and that rising asset prices affect demand in last week’s Outside the Box. Lacy gives us the results of numerous studies which show the theory to be wrong. Nevertheless, many economists and central bankers cling to the wealth effect like shipwrecked sailors to a piece of wood on a stormy sea. Now back to the BoE.]

In the adjustment phase, rising consumer and asset prices raise the demand for money balances and the supply of long-term assets. So the initial imbalance in money and asset markets shrinks, and real asset prices begin to fall back. The boost to demand therefore diminishes and the price level continues to increase but by smaller amounts. The whole process continues until the price level has risen sufficiently to restore real money balances, real asset prices and real output to their equilibrium levels. Thus, from a position of deficient demand, asset purchases should accelerate the return of the economy to equilibrium.

This is the theory under which central banks of the world are operating. Look at this rather cool chart prepared by my team (and specifically Worth Wray). The Fed (with a few notable exceptions on the FOMC) has been openly concerned about deflationary trends. They are purposely trying to induce a higher target inflation. The problem is, the inflation is only showing up in stock prices – and not just in large cap equity markets but in all assets around the world that price off of the supposedly “risk-free” rate of return.



I hope you get the main idea, because understanding this dynamic is absolutely critical for navigating what the Chairman of the South African Reserve Bank, Gill Marcus, is calling the next phase of the global financial crisis. Every asset price (yes, even and especially in emerging markets) that has been driven higher by unnaturally low interest rates, quantitative easing, and forward guidance must eventually fall back to earth as real interest rates eventually normalize.

Trickle-Down Monetary Policy

For all intents and purposes we have adopted a trickle-down monetary policy, one which manifestly does not work and has served only to enrich financial institutions and the already wealthy. Now I admit that I benefit from that, but it’s a false type of enrichment, since it has come at the expense of the general economy, which is where true wealth is created. I would rather have my business and investments based on something more stably productive, thank you very much.

Monetary policies implemented by central banks around the world are beginning to diverge in a major way. And don’t look now, but that sort of divergence almost always spells disaster for all or part of the global economy. Which is why Indian Central Bank Governor Rajan is pounding the table for more coordinated policies. He can see what is going to happen to cross-border capital flows and doesn’t appreciate being caught in the middle of the field of fire with hardly more than a small pistol to defend himself. And the central banks even smaller than his are bringing only a knife to the gunfight.



The Fed & BoE Are Heading for the Exits…

In the United States, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen is clearly signaling her interest – if not outright intent – to turn the Fed’s steady $10 billion “tapering” of its $55 billion/month quantitative easing program into a more formal exit strategy. The Fed is still actively expanding its balance sheet, but by a smaller amount after every FOMC meeting (so far)… and global markets are already nervously anticipating any move to sell QE-era assets or explicitly raise rates. Just like China’s slowdown (which we have written about extensively), the Fed’s eventual exit will be a global event with major implications for the rest of the world. And US rate normalization could drastically disrupt cross-border real interest rate differentials and trigger the strongest wave of emerging-market balance of payments crises since the 1930s.

In the United Kingdom, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is carefully broadcasting his intent to hike rates before selling QE-era assets. According to his view, financial markets tend to respond rather mechanically to rate hikes, but unwinding the BoE’s bloated balance sheet could trigger a series of unintended and potentially destructive consequences. Delaying those asset sales indefinitely and leaning on rate targeting once more allows him to guide the BoE toward tightening without giving up the ability to rapidly reverse course if financial markets freeze. Then again, Carney may be making a massive, credibility-cracking mistake.



While the BoJ & ECB Are Just Getting Started

In Japan, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is resisting the equity market’s call for additional asset purchases as the Abe administration implements its national sales tax increase – precisely the same mistake that triggered Japan’s 1997 recession. As I have written repeatedly, Japan is the most leveraged government in the world, with a government debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 240%. Against the backdrop of a roughly $6 trillion economy, Japan needs to inflate away something like 150% to 200% of its current debt-to-GDP… that’s roughly $9 trillion to $12 trillion in today’s dollars.

Think about that for a moment. At some point I need to do a whole letter on this, but I seriously believe the Bank of Japan will print something on the order of $8 trillion (give or take) over the next six to ten years. In relative terms, this is the equivalent of the US Federal Reserve printing $32 trillion. To think this will have no impact on the world is simply to ignore how capital flows work. Japan is a seriously large economy with a seriously powerful central bank. This is not Greece or Argentina. This is going to do some damage.

I have no idea whether Japan’s BANG! moment is just around the corner or still several years off, but rest assured that Governor Kuroda and his colleagues at the Bank of Japan will respond to economic weakness with more… and more… and more easing over the coming years.

In the euro area, European Central Bank Chairman Mario Draghi – with unexpected support from his two voting colleagues from the German Bundesbank – is finally signaling that more quantitative easing may be on the way to lower painfully high exchange rates that constrain competitiveness and to raise worryingly low inflation rates that can precipitate a debt crisis by steepening debt-growth trajectories. This QE will be disguised under the rubric of fighting inflation, and all sorts of other euphemisms will be applied to it, but at the end of the day, Europe will have joined in an outright global currency war.

I don’t expect the Japanese and Europeans to engage in modest quantitative easing. Both central banks are getting ready to hit the panic button in response to too low inflation, steepening debt trajectories, and inconveniently strong exchange rates.

While the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Swiss National Bank, Bank of England, and Bank of Japan have collectively grown their balance sheets to roughly $9 trillion today, the next wave of asset purchases could more than double that balance in relatively quick order.

This is what I mean by Code Red: frantic pounding on the central bank panic button that invites tit-for-tat retaliation around the world and especially by emerging-market central banks, leading to a DOUBLING of the assets shown in the chart below and a race to the bottom, as the “guardians” of the world’s primary currencies become their executioners.



The opportunity for a significant policy mistake from a major central bank is higher today than ever. I share Bill White’s concern about Japan. I worry about China and seriously hope they can keep their deleveraging and rebalancing under control, although I doubt that many parts of the world are ready for a China that only grows at 3 to 4% for the next five years. That will cause a serious adjustment in many business and government models.

It is time to hit the send button, but let me close with the point that was made graphically in the Bank of England’s chart back in the middle of the letter. Once central bank asset purchases cease, the BoE expects real asset prices to fall… a lot. You will notice that there is no scale on the vertical axis and no timeline along the bottom of the chart. No one really knows the timing. My friend Doug Kass has an interview (subscribers only) in Barron’s this week, talking about how to handle what he sees as a bubble.

“Sell in May and go away” might be a very good adage to remember.

Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva, San Diego, Rome, and Tuscany

I leave Tuesday night for Amsterdam to speak on Thursday afternoon for VBA Beleggingsprofessionals. There will be a debate-style format around the theme of “Are there any safe havens left in this volatile world?” I plan to write my letter from Amsterdam on Friday and then play tourist on Saturday in that delightful city full of wonderful museums. Then, if all goes well, I will rent a car and take a leisurely drive to Brussels through the countryside, something I have always wanted to do. I may try to get lost, at least for a few hours. Who knows what you might stumble on?

I will be speaking Monday night in Brussels for my good friend Geert Wellens of Econopolis Wealth Management before we fly to Geneva for another speech with his firm, and of course there will be the usual meetings with clients and friends. I find Geneva the most irrationally expensive city I travel to, and the current exchange rates don’t suggest I will find anything different this time.

I come back for a few days before heading to San Diego and my Strategic Investment Conference, cosponsored with Altegris. I have spent time with each of the speakers over the last few weeks, going over their topics, and I have to tell you, I am like a kid in a candy store, about as excited as I can get. This is going to be one incredible conference. You really want to make an effort to get there, but if you can’t, be sure to listen to the audio CDs.  You can get a discounted rate by purchasing prior to the conference.

The Dallas weather may be an analogy for the current economic environment. To look out my window is to see nothing but blue sky with puffy little clouds, and the temperature is perfect. My good friend and business partner Darrell Cain will be arriving in a little bit for a late lunch. We’ll go somewhere and sit outside and then move on to an early Dallas Mavericks game against the San Antonio Spurs. Contrary to expectations, the Mavs actually trounced the Spurs down in San Antonio last week. Of course the local fans would like to see that trend continue, but I would not encourage my readers to place any bets on the Mavericks’ winning the current playoff series.

I live only a few blocks from American Airlines Center, and so normally on such a beautiful day we would leisurely walk to the game. But the local weather aficionados are warning us that while we are at the game tornadoes and hail may appear, along with the attendant severe thunderstorms. That kind of thing can happen in Texas. Then again, it could all blow south of here. That sort of thing also happens.

So when I warn people of an impending potential central bank policy mistake, which would be the economic equivalent of tornadoes and hail storms, I also have to acknowledge that the whole thing could blow away and miss us entirely. I think someone once said that the role of economists is to make weathermen look good. Recently, 67 out of 67 economists said they expect interest rates to rise this year. We’ll review that prediction at the end of the year.

I’ve been interrupted while trying to finish this letter by daughter Tiffani, who is frantically trying to figure out how to buy tickets to get us to Italy (Tuscany) for the first part of June for a little vacation (along with a few friends who will be visiting). I am going to take advantage of being in Rome at the end of that trip, in order to spend a few days with my friend Christian Menegatti, the managing director of research for Roubini Global Economics. We will spend June 16-17  visiting with local businessmen, economists, central bankers, and politicians. Or that’s the plan. If you’d like to be part of that visit, drop me a note.

Finally I should note that my Canadian partners, Nicola Wealth Management, are opening a new office in Toronto. They will be having a special event there on May 8. If you’re in the area, you may want to check it out.

Have a great week, and make sure you take a little time to enjoy life. Avoid tornadoes.

Your hoping for a major upset analyst,

John Mauldin, Editor
Mauldin Economics

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The article Thoughts from the Frontline: The Cost of Code Red was originally published at Mauldin Economics

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Gold Forecast – This Is Going To Be Exciting

Gold Forecast: During the past year there has been very little talk about gold, silver or gold stocks in the media. Yet the year before it was all the media could talk about and they even had the price of gold streaming live all day in the corner of the TV monitor.

I am always amazed how the masses and media can be so off in their timing of the stock market and commodities in general. For example when Greece was having issues in 2012 and everyone was avoiding investments in that country like it was the plague. Looking back now, Greece is up huge and only recently investors are confident enough to put money into the Greek stock market again.

But the truth is that big move has already happend, and the US and global markets are in rotation (changing trends). Money is slowly shifting from what has been hot during the past year or two, to new investments which have a lot more room to rise in value. And this is leads us back to my gold forecast.

If you are at all familiar with Stan Weinstein’s work, then you understand the four market stages. If not, you can learn these four stages on my Stan Weinstein page. Through stage analysis we can predict the type of price action we should expected and have a rough idea just how long a move (new trend) is likely to last. It is important to know that Stan Weinstein’s stage analysis works on any time frame from a one minute chart to a monthly chart. If you do not know this then you are trading almost blind without a doubt.

Current stage analysis looks as though the US stock market may be starting to form a stage three top. There are several indicators and market behaviors which are screaming, telling us to trade with caution to the long side. But the masses do not see this or hear what is unfolding in front of their very own eyes, and that I fine. It actually reminds me of a funny old movie called “hear no evil, see no evil”.

In short, the market is showing some signs of distribution selling in stocks, and the once market leaders are now getting completely crushed with heavy selling volume like the biotech stocks, social media stocks and other momentum stocks and this is bad.

Gold on the other had has been forming a stage one basing pattern. This provides a very bullish long term gold forecast that investors could ride for several years.

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Q: Where Will Investment Capital Go During The Next Bear Market In stocks?

 

A: One of the places will be precious metals. Click here for my gold forecast which shows the main reason why

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Gold Forecast Coles Notes:

 

1. The U.S. dollar index has setup a massive stage 3 topping pattern on the weekly chart. A falling dollar will send the price of gold higher naturally.

2. Bullish gold forecasts by the media have dropped substantially, meaning everyone is bearish on gold.

3. Gold stocks are already showing signs of massive accumulation. I always use the price and volume action of gold stocks to help create and time my gold forecasts which it starting to look bullish.

Gold Forecast Conclusion:

 

Gold market traders should understand that precious metals in general are still months away from breaking out to the upside and starting a new bull market. Do not be in a rush to buy gold or gold stocks yet. There will be plenty of time folks.

See you in the markets!
Chris Vermeulen 

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Doug Casey’s Coming Super Bubble

By Louis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist

In many of my conversations with legendary speculator Doug Casey since the crash of 2008, Doug has talked about a coming super bubble.

Everything Doug has studied about human nature, history, and economics—from Roman times right up to the present—has him absolutely convinced that the global economy is headed for high inflation, with a very real potential for hyperinflation in the US.

Ben Bernanke's panicked deployment of squadrons of cash-laden choppers has been emulated around the world. The Bank of International Settlements estimates that global debt markets now exceed $100 trillion.
The laws of economics—maybe even physics—say that this inflation, whenever it arrives, must have consequences… and that those consequences cannot be avoided forever.

The easiest consequence to predict, and the one we're betting heavily on, is that the price of gold will move higher. Much higher. That move will in turn ignite a bubble in gold stocks and, as Doug likes to say, a super-bubble in junior gold stocks.

Jeff Clark, editor of our BIG GOLD newsletter, recently illustrated what such a super-bubble can look like, citing figures from several historic bull markets. I hesitate to repeat any of his figures because the right junior stocks' gains when the market goes bubbly are, frankly, hard to believe. However, it is a fact that quite a few junior stocks achieved the much vaunted 10 bagger status (1,000% gains) in previous bubbles, and some even returned 100 fold.

Here’s the essential reason why junior mining stocks are Doug's favorite speculations.

Let's start at the beginning: Doug's mantra is that one should buy gold for prudence and gold stocks for profit. These are very different kinds of asset deployment.

It's particularly important not to think of gold as an investment, but as wealth protection. It's the only highly liquid financial asset that is not simultaneously someone else's liability. Every ounce of gold you physically possess is value in solid form—there is no short to your long. Come hell or high water, it is value you can liquidate and use to secure your needs. That's why gold is for prudence.

Gold stocks are for speculation because they offer leverage to gold. This is actually true of all mining stocks and, more broadly, of stocks in commodity-related companies; they all tend to magnify the price movements in the underlying commodity. But the phenomenon is especially strong in the highly volatile precious metals.

Allow me to illustrate—and in an effort to avoid seeming overly promotional, I'll show how gold stocks' leverage works on the downside as well as the upside. Bad news first: here's a chart showing how gold retreated during October and November of 2008, the worst two months of that year's crash for mining stocks. Also shown are an index of gold juniors and our own portfolio performance. This was, of course, a terrific time to buy, resulting in spectacular gains over the next two years.




Now the good news: here's a chart showing the performance of the same three things in January and February of this year, which saw a major rally in the gold sector.

Here's one more, with a particularly telling point to make. This is the stock price of ATAC Resources (ATC.V) over the same time period as the chart above. The point I want to draw your attention to is that the company had no major news during the time period shown. It's a Yukon gold play, buried deep under the famous snows of the Great White North, so there's no exploration under way, and there won't be until the snow melts weeks or months from now.

This third chart shows in one simple yet powerful way exactly why Doug loves buying these stocks when they're on sale and selling them when they go into bubble mode. ATAC essentially did nothing and still shot up over an order of magnitude more than gold. Note that while this third chart looks like the second, the scales are quite different. (ATAC, by the way, is part of my special report, 10 Bagger List for 2014, that details nine companies I believe could show 1,000% or more returns this year. Note that the report was written before the big move upward you see in the chart above.)

It's worth emphasizing that ATAC's performance this year is just on a rebound from recent lows—imagine what a stock like this could do when Doug's super-bubble for gold stocks arrives.

But what if it doesn't? Or worse—what if we already missed it?

I remember a conversation with Doug back in 2011, when gold rose to within reach of $2,000 per ounce. Many mainstream analysts said gold was in a bubble. I told Doug I couldn't understand why anyone would listen to analysts who've called the gold trend wrong every year since the current bull cycle started. I remember Doug chuckling and saying: "Just wait and see—this is barely an overture."

I am certain Doug is right. That's not because he's the guru, nor because I'm a nutty gold bug, but because no government in history has ever multiplied its currency base without sparking serious and often fatal inflation. That's a fact, not an opinion, backed by enough data to make me extremely confident in predicting what lies ahead for the US dollar, even if I can't say exactly when we'll reach the tipping point.

Since that 2011 interim peak, as we all know painfully well, gold has backed off on par with the correction in the middle of the great 1970s gold bull market. But economic realities require that the market turn around and head for his long predicted super bubble in junior mining stocks before too long. That makes the correction the last, best time to build a substantial position in the stocks best positioned to profit from the coming bubble.

And now Doug is saying that he believes the upturn is at hand. He expects a steadily rising market for a year or two, perhaps more, but not many more, culminating in a market mania for the record books.

Our market does appear to have bottomed. It may take a while to go into its mania phase, but it's already heating up. No one is going to want to be short when this train leaves the station—and the conductor has blown the whistle.

To find out what you could be missing if you don’t invest in junior mining stocks right now, watch Casey Research’s recent video event, Upturn Millionaires—How to Play the Turning Tides in the Precious Metals Market. With resource and investment experts Doug Casey, Frank Giustra, Rick Rule, Porter Stansberry, Ross Beaty, John Mauldin, Marin Katusa, and myself. Watch it here for free, or click here to find out more about my 10 Bagger List for 2014.

The article Doug Casey’s Coming Super Bubble was originally published at Casey Research

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Learn to Trust Your Own Financial Judgment

By Dennis Miller

Keep this goal in mind as you read on: solid income and growth with minimal risk and no catastrophic losses. Just tuck it in the back of your head.


Subscriber Brian A. wrote sharing a common concern:

"I subscribe to your newsletter for the purpose of diversifying my portfolio as well as taking more responsibility for my investment future. … I look at the soaring S&P and Dow and wonder if both are appreciating from strong fundamentals, or from the Fed's easy money policy. … I listen to my broker who spouts out information of a resurgence of manufacturing coming back to US soil and (says) equities are the place to be for the near future. The other side spouts banks are insolvent, businesses are closing, (and) if it wasn't for the Fed propping things up we would be in a recession. Some say we are in a recession. I would like to see you devote an article on the subject of the 'don't worry be happy' crowd verses the 'doom and gloom' crowd."

Well, Brian, ask and ye shall receive. My recommendation, as always, is to look at the data, decide for yourself which camp you fall in—if either—and invest accordingly.

Folks who think things are turning around generally point to statistics published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). These numbers—the unemployment and inflation rates and the Consumer Price Index in particular—are used by the Federal Reserve to make or change policy. Those decisions affect the economy and the stock market.

If you swallow these numbers, you can point to a trend line going up. You may not think "happy days are here again," but you could make a case that we are headed in the right direction.

In contrast, the "gloom and doom" crowd point to data from statisticians like John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics, who make a good case against the accuracy of official government data. Williams' alternatives to the CPI, official inflation rate, and unemployment rate paint a much different picture.

Unemployment offers an easy example. When a person stops looking for work, the CBO no longer considers him unemployed. I guess that means if everyone just stopped looking, the unemployment problem would be solved.

Many in the gloom-and-doom crowd distrust the government and believe its statistics are produced for the benefit of politicians.

The gap between these two camps is wide. We recently published a special report called Bond Basics, offering safe ways to find yield in the current economy. Shortly after releasing our report, I attended a workshop with one of the top bond experts at a major brokerage firm. As I listened to his excellent presentation, I realized we agreed on many points: interest rates seem to be going up, the value of laddering and diversification, etc. We also agreed that investors (not traders) should buy bonds for one purpose: safe retirement income.

This speaker, however, recommended that baby boomers and retirees buying individual bonds only buy investment grade bonds and ladder them over an eight year period. Each year some would mature, and retirees would then replace them with other eight-year bonds. In a rising rate environment, retirees would eventually catch up he claimed. This expert mentioned inflation only once, remarking that it is "under control" and should remain low.

I went to the company's website and discovered that five year AAA bonds were paying 1.92%, and ten year bonds were paying 3.41%.

Then I went to Shadow Government Statistics. The official inflation rate as indicated by the CPI is hovering around 1.8%. However, using the same method used for calculating the CPI in 1990 (the government has changed the formula many times), the current rate comes to approximately 5.5%.
Now, it only makes sense to invest in long-term, high-quality bonds if you truly believe the government's CPI statistics. If, however, you that suspect inflation isn't quite so under control—even if you don't believe it's 5.5%—why would you invest in an eight-year bond that's virtually certain to lose to inflation?

The same logic applies to unemployment numbers. The official number is around 6.7% and coming down. Alternative calculations show a double digit unemployment rate that is rising. Should you invest heavily in stocks now? It depends again on whom you believe.

How should this affect your approach? If you hold the majority of your nest egg in cash or low-yield investments, you are losing ground to inflation. On the other hand, going all in the market if you are uncertain that the economy is improving could be equally disastrous.

A word of caution: do not let fear of getting it wrong immobilize you! It can be a very costly mistake. Keep learning and researching until you find investments you are comfortable with.

Let's look at the best- and worst-case scenarios with long term bonds. If you follow the advice of a bond salesman, you'll buy long-term corporate bonds. Ten year, AAA rated bonds currently yield around 3.41%. Assuming the bond trader is correct and inflation is not an issue, the best you could earn is 3.41%. Is that enough to get excited about when you factor in taxes and the risk of inflation?

In a recent article, I shared an example of a hypothetical investor who bought a $100,000, five-year, 6% CD on January 1, 1977. If he'd been in the 25% tax bracket, his account balance after interest would have been $124,600 at the end of five years. That's a 25.9% reduction in buying power because of high inflation during that five year period.

In that light, 3.41% does not look quite so appealing. Yes, inflation was particularly high during the Carter era, so apply a bit of common sense to the example. Nevertheless, what has caused inflation in the past? In general terms, governments spending money they don't have and printing money to make up the difference. Argentina is a timely example of this folly.

These concerns are why our research team and I paired up to produce Bond Basics. We think there are better risk and reward opportunities than long-term bonds available in today's market.

Investing in stocks is a different story. We cannot keep up with inflation and provide enough income to supplement retirement needs with bonds alone (unless you have a huge portfolio and are willing to buy higher-risk bonds). That's why our team picks stocks with surgical precision. We run them through our Five Point Balancing Test, recommend strict position limits, diversify across many sectors, and use appropriate stop losses.

Our premium publication is named Miller's Money Forever for good reason. We want to help you grow your nest egg in the safest possible manner under any market conditions. Neither the happy days nor the doomsday crowd can predict the future, so we prepare for all possibilities.

You've likely heard the refrain, "Inflation or deflation? Yes." It's a favorite of our friend John Mauldin. With that, baby boomers and retirees are forced to become kitchen-table economists and to sift through statistics that may or may not be accurate.

I haven't been shy about my opinion: I don't think the economy is improving, so retirees need to risk more than they would like in the market. That's why our Bulletproof Income strategy prepares for all market possibilities as safely as possible.

Whom should you believe? Well, is the person speaking trying to sell you something? Stockbrokers trying to garner your business tend to be optimistic about the economy. If someone is trying to sell gold or foreign currency investments, they are likely to cite a history of rising inflation and explain how their product can protect you. It doesn't mean either is wrong. And yes, the same point applies to the humble authors of investment newsletters.

At Miller's Money we share the reasoning behind every recommendation we make. We want our subscribers to know as much as we do about every pick—pros and cons. If you agree with our reasoning, act on our advice. If not, or if you have additional questions, ask us or sit tight for another pick. Never invest in something you don't understand or are uncomfortable with no matter who recommends it.

The bottom line is you have to read, learn, do your own research, and make your own judgments. Listen to all sides of any argument, and then do what you think is best.

What could be more important to baby boomers and retirees than protecting their money? Take the time necessary to teach yourself. In time you will become more comfortable trusting your own judgment. If you were savvy enough to make money, you are savvy enough to learn how to invest and protect it. Give yourself credit where it's due.


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The article Learn to Trust Your Own Financial Judgment was originally published at Millers Money.

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