Category: investing

Was THIS The Top?!

(I had to use the word was instead of is, because as I’m typing this, we’re a few days into what is considered to be a nasty selloff, by this decade’s standards.)

The Hunger Games was an entertaining movie, and Modern Family is an entertaining TV show.  But that’s no reason for Elizabeth Banks to be the face of midcap stocks.  Even more incredible, we see none of the snarky Occupy Wall Street style comments about this ridiculous advertisement, that used to makeup the landscape not that long ago.

EB

(This would normally be the part where I’d say something like, “Don’t say you weren’t warned!” but I know that’s pointless.

David Collum Makes A Strong Case For His Point Of View, While CNBC Barely Even Tries

David Collum Makes A Strong Case For His Point Of View, While CNBC Barely Even Tries

In his extensive year in review blog, Dr. Collum puts in an enormous amount of thought, effort, articulation, and…best of all…charts-

On the other end of the spectrum, we have this gem from CNBC- “A reason for hope- back-to-back down years for the stock market are rare“.  The entire argument can be found inside the title.

This, by the way, is how I became a permabear (and goldbug) in the first place.  In the earliest part of my adult life, I bought stocks, just like everybody else.  But as I read more articles from ALL points of view, the bear side just made so much more sense.  More than an entire generation of papering over one financial crisis after another has, ironically, had the effect of giving people MORE confidence in our broken system- after all, if any problem can be “solved” by sweeping it under the rug, who’s to say we can’t continue down that path indefinitely?  (Interestingly enough, this reasoning does not fly with the public when it comes to environmentalism.  Well…at least, not when it comes to discussing environmentalism- implementation is another story altogether.)

The question is, can The Powers That Be paper over the next (and apparently, impending) financial crisis?  We’ll find out soon enough…
Palladium Rhapsody (lyrics only)

Palladium Rhapsody (lyrics only)

With the success of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, and the coming apart of our financial bubble (this time, it SEEMS like the real deal, but we’ll see..), it feels like the perfect time for a song parody.  I admit to being inspired by- and also “borrowing” liberally from- the creative “Crypto Karaoke” account on YouTube.  Try this at a karaoke bar- for the 5% of the audience who get the joke, it will be worth it!  Enjoy…

Palladium Rhapsody
-Original Lyrics from Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”
-Original Parody from Crypto Karaoke’s “Blockchainian Rhapsody”

Is this the real life?
Or is it fantasy?
Caught in a stock slide,
No escape from a bankruptcy.

Open your eyes,
CNBC lies, you see…
I’m just a poor boy,
But that will change instantly, because
Bull markets come, bull markets go.
Buy gold high, buy gold low.
Anywhere its price goes,
doesn’t really matter to me…to me.

Hold on…stick with the plan.
Don’t let the FED inside your head,
Though precious medals might seem dead.
Hold on, the gold bull’s just begun.
If you sell now you will throw it all away.
Hold on, ooo-woo-ooo!
The dips will make cry,
But the price will come right back this time tomorrow.
Hold on, hold on,
Because the price now doesn’t matter.

Too late.
Nasdaq’s time is done.
For years tech stocks were all buys.
Now it’s time for them to die.

Goodbye fiat money.
I’ve got medals.
There’s no need for all the brokers who steal from you.
hold on, oo-woo-oo!  (“any way the market goes”)
The fiat system’s gonna die.
Gold’s dips are your chance to go buy some more.

(guitar solo)

“I see The Federal Reserve’s brilliant plan!”
“Where’s The Proof?
Where’s The Proof?
Are They Even A Real Bank Though?”

“Markets Are All Crashing,
Trolls Are Really Bashing Me!”
“Bartiromo! Bartiromo! Bartiromo!  Bartiromo Bartiromo let me go!  (Manifico-o-o-o….)”

“I’m Just A Poor Boy,
Don’t Have Any Gold To See…”
“He’s Just A Poor Boy,
Bought Stocks For His Family.
Now He Will Pay For This Monstrosity!”

“Easy Come, Easy Go
Will You Keep Rates Low?”
J. Powell
“No!  I will Not Keep Them Low!”
“Keep Them Low!”
J. Powell
“I will Not Keep Them Low!”
“Keep Them Low!”
J. Powell
“I Will Not Keep Them Low!”
“Keep Them Low!”
“Will Not Keep Them Low!”
“Keep Them Low!”
“Will Not Keep Them Low!”
“Keep Them Low-ow-ow!”
“No no no no no no no no!”

“Oh, my Maria
My Maria
My Maria Bartiro(mo)…

The bubble popped, now why won’t you start listening to me, to me, to meeee!”

(guitar kicks in)

“So you think you can mock me, just give it a try…
as you bought all your stocks near their all time highs!
Oh, baby, get out of your stocks, baby!
Just got to get out, just got to get out of stocks here!”

“The stock price doesn’t matter,
All of you will see
The stock price doesn’t matter…
the stock price doesn’t matter…to me.”

*outro*

(“Your money should go into gold.”)

Why write a long blog post, when a picture is worth a thousand words…

Why write a long blog post, when a picture is worth a thousand words…

…not to mention a few thousand points on the Dow??

(disclaimer- I didn’t create the image on the right, so whoever actually did is free to take the credit.  Everyone on the Internet already knows that I didn’t create the image on the left.)

With all the many topics that get debated these days- some of which are so trivial- it amazes me that one of the most important issues of our time goes untouched- Why do we allow one single person to control interest rates for the entire U.S. financial system?  (Woodrow Wilson could not be reached for comment, on account of being dead for 94 years.)

Anyway, what the so-called “permabears” have been warning about for years, even decades, seems to finally be at hand.  It’s still early, but that’s kind of the point- what happens when the wheels REALLY fall off this time?  The Fed managed to put them back on twice already in this still-young century.  Can they do it again, or has luck run out (FINALLY) for those who have put faith in this financial system’s ability to bounce back, from one Fed-induced crisis after another?  As of now, current Fed chairman Jerome Powell doesn’t even seem interested in saving the system, but he likely doesn’t realize what danger it’s in, or just how fragile his predecessors- specifically Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen- have set it up for him.

Stay tuned….

Humbled but undeterred- a reminder of the exceptionally dangerous current financial environment

Humbled but undeterred- a reminder of the exceptionally dangerous current financial environment

Since 2009, I’ve been so very, very wrong about how the markets would play out.  (I was wrong for about 6 years before THAT, until I wasn’t.  But being right didn’t last.  Anyways…)  But in the same way that we need to worry about climate change, even though many near and even intermediate term forecasts have been so off- and make no mistake, they have been- the core reasons why I jumped up and down about the markets all those years has only gotten worse, and that’s not even counting what’s going on with our current President.  Maybe it will, somehow, someway, keep going up for a while longer.  I honestly don’t know, and I came to terms with that a few years back.  But my beliefs that trouble is ahead at SOME point have never been stronger.
You don’t have to take my word for it, though, because I’m not alone.  There are still TWO of us roaming the earth!  Doug Noland is a guy I used to read regularly, back at the turn of the century.  He’s one of the few so-called “permabears” remaining.  He is an even rarer breed among those who can acknowledge that things haven’t played out the way that was expected, and yet still hold onto his beliefs.  I hadn’t read him in years, but I checked out his webpage, just to see what he had to say.  His posts are REALLY long, so I cut and pasted the most relevant part.  If you want to read the whole thing, the link is included below.

Happy trading, and check your 401K before they wreck your 401K.  Be careful out there….

“When I began posting the CBB almost twenty years ago, my focus was on “money,” Credit and the U.S. boom. I didn’t anticipate geopolitical developments would some day play a role in my analysis. But I also never contemplated a global Bubble of today’s dimensions and characteristics.

I never imagined how an explosion of government debt and central bank Credit would be used so recklessly to inflate intertwined Bubbles spanning the globe. Never did I contemplate how this new age global “system” (already highly unstable two decades ago) would be nurtured, backstopped and resuscitated into today’s monstrosity. I never could have envisioned how the U.S. would run huge Current Account Deficits for another 20 years and still maintain such command over a dollar-based global financial apparatus. Who would have believed a global financial arms race was even possible – especially amidst such escalating animosity and hostility?

This is a strange period. It’s strange here at home – in society, in politics and in the markets. It is strange globally. The unprecedented nature of what we see at home, abroad and in the markets provides a lot of leeway with interpretation and analysis. Somehow, there’s a dominant contingent that believes the U.S. is on the right course – that the economic boom will accelerate, markets will, as they always do, continue to rise. The future is bright, all the polarization and social angst notwithstanding. Markets offer unassailable confirmation.

It would be great if the optimists were right. But this was a week that corroborated a much darker interpretation of developments. A decade of unrelenting easy “money” and booming finance has masked a metastasis of festering issues – financial, economic, social and geopolitical. And we’re now only a more general bursting of the global financial Bubble away from having to simultaneously face a bevy of very serious issues. As they tend to do, developments can seem to move at glacial pace – and then, rather suddenly, they can be more akin to lava.

As I have posited repeatedly and expounded in more detail last week, the global Bubble has been pierced at the “periphery.” I also believe the backdrop is now conducive to contagion at the “periphery” (finally) gravitating toward the “core.” The Turkey-induced risk aversion that erupted this week in European equities (bank shares!) is an important escalation in “Periphery to Core Crisis Dynamics.” “Risk off” is gaining a firm foothold, and global financial conditions now tighten by the week. Market pundits expect cooler heads in Ankara and Washington to prevail over the weekend. If not, it could intensify what was already a particularly long and hot summer. ”