Category: zerohedge

After the DJIA and S&P briefly crossed the key resistance levels of 16000 and 1800, the upper bound on the markets has been looking increasingly more distant and this morning’s lack of an overnight ramp only makes it more so. Perhaps the biggest concern, however, is that with both Yellen and Bernanke on the tape yesterday, the S&P still was unable to close green. This follows on Monday’s double POMO day when the S&P once again closed… red. Not helping things was the overnight announcement by the Japanese government pension fund, the GPIF, in which the fund announced it would lower its bond allocation further however the new law to reform the GPIF could be written by spring 2015. This was hardly as exciting as the market had expected, and as a result both the USDJPY and the ES-moving EURJPY find themselves at overnight lows. Will the EURJPY engage in its usual post 8 am ramp – keep a close eye, especially since the usual morning gold and silver slam down just took place.

While there has been little overnight macro events of note, today’s US docket is heavy with October retail sales, October CPI, weekly mortgage applications and existing home sales on deck. The Fed releases its FOMC minutes in the latter half of the US trading session. The baffle with BS, good Fed cop/bad Fed cop routine continues once more as Ny Fed’s Dudley and St Louis Fed’s Bullard speak on the economy and monetary policy.

US Data Docket

• US: CPI % y/y, cons 1.0% (8:30)
• US: Retail sales advance m/m, cons 0.1% (8:30)
• US: POMO $1.25-$1.75 billion
• US: Existing home sales m/m, cons -2.7% (11:00)
• US: Fed speaker Bullard (13:10)
• US: Minutes of Oct 29-30 FOMC meeting (15:00)

Market Re-Cap

Dovish comments by Bernanke late yesterday, together with the release of comments by an advisory panel in Japan which indicated that Japan’s GPIF (pension fund) should raise its ratio of foreign assets failed to encourage sustained flow into riskier assets and instead stocks traded lower as market participants awaited the release of the FOMC minutes. Nevertheless, reports citing an advisory panel which said that Japan’s GPIF should review domestic bond-focused portfolio and that foreign asset ratio should be raised resulted in a temporary lift in equity markets, with Bunds also trending lower ever since. However, the move higher was not sustained after it became apparent that new a law to reform GPIF can be written only by spring 2015 and as such is unlikely to result in any immediate impact on global asset classes.

In other news, as expected the release of the minutes from the most recent BoE policy meeting largely echoed the details of the Quarterly Inflation Report. The minutes also noted that the rise in inflation expectations are of little significance, few signs of them affecting wage demands, expectations seen well-anchored in medium term. Going forward, market participants will get to digest the release of the latest Existing Home Sales data, as well as the weekly DoE report from the US.

Overnight bulletin digest from Bloomberg and RanSquawk

• It was reported that Japan’s GPIF should review domestic bond-focused portfolio and that the foreign asset ratio should be raised, according to the GPIF Advisory Panel.
• However, later it was revealed by the Head of the GPIF Advisory Panel Ito that a new law to reform GPIF can be written by spring 2015 and thus provided a longer-term timeline for the news than initially expected.
• BoE minutes showed a 9-0 vote to keep QE unchanged at GBP 375bln and 9-0 to keep interest rates unchanged at 0.50%. Looking ahead market participants will get to digest a host of tier 1 data from the US as well as the FOMC minutes for the October meet.
• Treasuries maturing in 7Ys and longer gain after Bernanke last night said Fed will likely hold down fed funds rate long after ending QE and possibly after unemployment rate falls below 6.5%.
• Bank of England officials voted unanimously to keep policy unchanged this month and said a record-low interest rate may be needed even after unemployment falls to the threshold set under forward guidance, minutes to Nov. 6-7 meeting showed
• Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s largest manager of retirement savings, should become more independent of the government and review its domestic bond holdings, an advisory panel said
• The yuan’s three-month forwards touched a record high after China’s central bank strengthened the daily fixing to a record and elaborated on plans to ease exchange-rate controls
• Iran and world powers hold their third round of talks in six weeks toward a nuclear deal that would break a decade-long deadlock in the face of opposition from Israel and Saudi Arabia
• Sovereign yields higher, EU peripheral spreads wider. Asian stocks excluding China, European stocks, U.S. equity-index futures lower. WTI crude, copper little changed; gold lower

Asian Headlines

Japan GPIF should review domestic bond-focused portfolio, foreign asset ratio should be raised, according to panel.

– Japan should consider investing in Reits, private equity, commodities.
– Funds should consider investing in inflation-linked JGBS and indexes other than Topix.
– Pension funds should consider using JPX-Nikkei Index 400.

Head of the GPIF Advisory Panel Ito says new law to reform GPIF can be written by spring 2015.

– To consider lowering Japan bond allocation from level now.
– Japan reform panel head: GPIF, public pension funds won’t switch overnight to new ROE index from TOPIX for passive investment.

Of note, 5Y Chinese Interest Rate Swaps have reached a record high and overnight repo rates edged higher after Communist Party economic official Fang said very big chance one or two small China banks will fail next year and China must plan for bank fail scenarios to manage risks. Separately, China PBOC Deputy Governor Hu said China LGV financing may hide problems and make size too big

EU & UK Headlines

BoE MPC voted 9-0 to keep QE unchanged at GBP 375bln and 9-0 to keep interest rates unchanged at 0.50%.

– MPC growth and inflation projections underline there could be a case for not raising bank rate immediately when 7% threshold hit.

–
Rise in inflation expectations of little significance, few signs of
them affecting wage demands, expectations seen wellanchored in medium term.

Italian Head of Debt Management says expects domestic banks to cut bond holdings due to ECB’s sector check up.

ECB’s Weidmann said that there is no easy way out of crisis, printing money definitely not the solution.

Also stated that it is not sensible to immediately embark on next round of monetary policy easing after November rate cut, but also added that the ECB technically not at the end of its options.

Credit Suisse ZEW Survey Expectations (Nov) M/M 31.6 vs Prev. 24.9

US Headlines

Of note, Bernanke stated that the Fed remains committed to maintain highly accommodative policies for as long as they are needed and rates may stay near zero for considerable time after bond buys end.

Senate Democratic negotiator Patty Murray said she sees a path toward an agreement to ease automatic spending cuts Murray, asked if there was a path forward in her talks with her counterpart, Republican Representative Paul Ryan, said: “I believe there is.”

Equities

Heading into the North American open, stocks are lower across the board in Europe, with telecommunication sector underperforming where Vodafone is trading with losses close to 2%, with the stock trading exdividend today. Even though stocks traded lower, there is little sign of distress in credit markets. On a positive note, the FT reported that US fund managers are eyeing a bank revival in the Eurozone with the belief that the regions stuttering economic recovery will soon gather steam.

FX

USD/JPY failed to benefit from the reports citing an advisory panel which said that Japan’s GPIF should review domestic bond-focused portfolio and that foreign asset ratio should be raised and instead was driven by option related flow. In particular, the 100.00 level said to mark good size option strikes. Elsewhere, GBP outperformed its major counterpart EUR this morning, supported by lower EUR/GBP cross which fell below the 10DMA and was itself driven by touted offers in
EUR/USD by US names.

Commodities

Heading into the North American open, WTI Crude in minor negative territory whilst Brent crude futures trade in minor positive territory amid relatively light news flow.

Saudi Arabia say they are unconcerned by a rising tide of US shale output which threatens to eat into OPEC’s market share according to the nations Deputy Oil Minister.

The Iranian Supreme leaders says Iran will not step back ‘one iota’ from its nuclear rights.

World copper demand is expected to grow 4.5% on year in 2014 according to the ICGS.

Moody’s says growth in Euro-area GDP and in steel demand user markets turns European steel industry outlook stable.

China September gold output at 37.64 tonnes, according to Industry Association.

 

SocGen summarizes the main macro developments

The minutes of the October FOMC meeting will help to determine if the melt-up in risk is justified and whether 2.66% is too low for the UST 10y (2.71% in swaps). The statement of the last Fomc meeting was perceived as a tad less dovish after the Fed eliminated the notion (i.e. showing less of a concern) that financial conditions had tightened. One must assume that a soft CPI number and tepid gain in retail sales before the minutes would potentially offset that bearish influence. We look for annual CPI to have slowed to 1% in October vs 1.2% last month. A further deviation from the target rate of 2.0% (corroborating with a corresponding fall in the Fed’s preferred inflation proxy, the PCE index) should give investors confidence that yields will stay in a range before the December employment report. This should help to support the flow of corporate issuance which has been very strong already over the last 48hours, resulting in 5y swap spreads tightening to below 10bp, the lowest in a year.

In the euro zone, ECB speakers are not shying away from efforts to jawbone the EUR lower but to not much avail. After chief economist Praet, vice-president Constancio joined the bandwagon yesterday but acknowledged that no detailed discussions have taken place (yet). Asmussen instead decided to highlight the option of a negative deposit rate. The OECD, forecasting 1% real GDP growth in 2014 and 1.6% in 2015, said the ECB should look at non-standard measures (i.e. QE) to bolster the economy and counter deflation risks. EUR/JPY accelerated to a new high above 135.50, supported by PBoC comments on widening the yuan band. A break of 135.82 will lift the medium-target to the October 2009 high of 138.50. Against this backdrop, the peripheral spread tightening has further to run with yield hungry investors nudging the 10y BTP yield closer to the 4% mark.

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight event summary

A dovish-sounding Bernanke has failed to lift markets this morning as we enter a second day of consolidation. There was an initial pop as the text of the speech at the National Economists Club Annual Dinner in Washington was posted online. Indeed, S&P 500 futures traded up at +0.3% and EURUSD hit a high of 1.358 (+0.3%) shortly after the speech hit the newswires. But those moves were quickly pared, and there was little further from the Q&A to excite markets. And so we are now back to trading to flat on S&P500 futures while EURUSD is +0.1% on the day (the latter shrugging off further talk of unconventional policy tools from the ECB’s Constancio and the OECD). 10yr UST yields are unchanged at 2.71% as we type.

The message from Bernanke’s speech was very much as we have come to expect from the Chairman with an emphasis on lower for longer rates and the data-dependency of QE. He agreed with Yellen’s recent testimony that the surest path to a more normal approach to monetary policy is for the Fed to do all it can today to promote a more robust recovery. There was discussion over Bernanke’s overarching goals of improving the Fed’s transparency and he repeated previous statements that unemployment thresholds for rate hikes are purely thresholds and not triggers for action. The short Q&A was a little more informative where Bernanke argued that the effect of fiscal tightening is very near term. He also talked down the implications of falling employment participation by saying that falling participation had preceded the global financial crisis. He also said that he looks forward to life after the Fed where he will be concentrating on “writing and speaking”.

So as briefly touched upon above, Asian markets this morning are trading with a heavier tone, with the initial positive sentiment at the open replaced by a more subdued atmosphere. USDJPY is holding just above 100 while the TOPIX is down 0.3%. Japanese trade data for October showed that the trade balance deteriorated to -JPY1trn on the back of surging fossil fuel imports. Partly balancing this out, exports grew 18.6% YoY which beat expectations of 16.2%. The Chinese yuan non-deliverable forward is relatively stable overnight after dropping 0.2% yesterday on comments from the PBoC that it will lessen its intervention in FX markets and commit to a wider trading band. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index remains the clear regional outperformer today (+0.8%) and is one of the only Asian bourses to trade higher today. Indeed, the H-share index is poised to close higher for its fifth consecutive day which would be its longest winning streak in three months. During the past five days the index has added about 11%, and has significantly outperformed its domestic onshore counterpart, the Shanghai Composite, which is only up 5%.

The China offshore/onshore dichotomy is something which we have highlighted in recent days, with there appearing to be more optimism offshore about Third Plenum reforms, while some onshore indicators lag. One of the issues we wrote yesterday was the tightening onshore liquidity conditions in China – despite offshore indicators such as USD Chinese corporate credit spreads and the HSCEI performing relatively well and seemingly indicating the opposite. The issue of liquidity is something which our Chinese rate strategist, Linan Liu, has highlighted as well. Linan writes that a couple of recent developments point to a potentially unsettling liquidity issue in China before the year-end. Firstly, the recent strong capital flows into China have been quite supportive but this is expected to reverse with dividend outflows expected before the year end. Secondly, liquidity supply from fiscal spending and treasury cash management auctions has been quite low. Thirdly, the PBoC has refrained from being very accommodative in the provision of liquidity. Fourthly,  investment in non-standardized assets by large financial  institutions is a near-term threat to interbank liquidity. All this leaves her bearish on rates into year end. Linan notes that 10yr CGB yields are trading at all-time highs (and they are up a further 5bp at 4.73% this morning), but that a further squeeze in money market rates may drive the 10Y CGB yield towards 5%. We would highlight this is not the first time we’ve seen a liquidity squeeze in China this year but we’re unsure if the latest bout is more a technical phenomenon or indicative of something more structural. Either way it’s something we’ll be watching over the coming weeks as the initial optimism over reform announcements passes.

Coming back to the Fed, we should remind readers that today will see the release of the FOMC’s minutes from the October meeting. As with the previous month, market participants will be keen to see where the Fed is on the timing of tapering and whether there is anything on strengthening forward guidance. DB’s Joe Lavorgna suggests that the Fed may want to strengthen such guidance alongside a potential tapering of asset purchases in order to counteract any undesired tightening of financial conditions. While we’re on the topic of the Fed, vice-chair Janet Yellen sent a letter to US senators ahead of the Senate Banking committee’s vote on her nomination this Thursday. There was no new material information contained in the letter that we hadn’t heard in last week’s dovish testimony. Yellen repeated that she saw few signs that pre-crisis imbalances had returned.

Looking to today, we have a number of important risk events occurring over the next 24 hours. In the US we have one of the more busy days this week in terms of dataflow with October retail sales, October CPI, weekly mortgage applications and existing home sales. Consensus is expecting a 0% MoM print on headline CPI and markets will be watching to see whether we get the second straight month-on-month contraction in headline retail sales. The Fed releases its FOMC minutes in the latter half of the US trading session. The NY Fed’s Dudley and St Louis Fed’s Bullard will be speaking on the economy and monetary policy. Bullard is considered a bellwether in the Fed. The Bank of England also releases its latest meeting minutes this morning.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/SHMR8C9KxC4/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Overnight repo rates are spiking once again in early trading as the typically smaller banks that are more desperate bid aggressively for whetever liquidity they can find. 5Y Chinese swap rates have also reached a record high as the Yuan reaches its highest since Feb 2005. Chinese authorities are clearly stepping up the rhetoric:

• *CHINA SHADOW-FINANCE RISKS WILL SPREAD TO BANKS, FANG SAYS
• *VERY BIG CHANCE ONE OR TWO SMALL CHINA BANKS WILL FAIL: FANG
• *SOME CHINA TRUST INVESTMENT FIRMS MAY FAIL, SELL ASSETS: FANG
• *CHINA MUST PLAN FOR BANK-FAIL SCENARIOS TO MANAGE RISKS: FANG
• *CHINA NEEDS TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO CORPORATE LEVERAGE: HU

The gambit between the PBOC’s liqudity provision and the growing dependence on their “spice” is clear – the question is, of course, will banks send a message (via the markets) to the PBOC or will they self-select (on first-mover’s advantage) eradicating the weakest.

 

5Y Chinese Interest Rate Swaps have reached a record high (implying expectations priced into the market of rising interest rates)…

 

and short-term liquidity is problematic again as overnight repo jumps to 5.00% in early trading..

 

What everyone is wondering is – with the failure of 1 or 2 banks seemingly guaranteed – how will the contagion be contained? How will the interbank market respond when no one knows who is it? We know what happened in the US in 2008…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/_27dTDfxJAc/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Overnight repo rates are spiking once again in early trading as the typically smaller banks that are more desperate bid aggressively for whetever liquidity they can find. 5Y Chinese swap rates have also reached a record high as the Yuan reaches its highest since Feb 2005. Chinese authorities are clearly stepping up the rhetoric:

• *CHINA SHADOW-FINANCE RISKS WILL SPREAD TO BANKS, FANG SAYS
• *VERY BIG CHANCE ONE OR TWO SMALL CHINA BANKS WILL FAIL: FANG
• *SOME CHINA TRUST INVESTMENT FIRMS MAY FAIL, SELL ASSETS: FANG
• *CHINA MUST PLAN FOR BANK-FAIL SCENARIOS TO MANAGE RISKS: FANG
• *CHINA NEEDS TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO CORPORATE LEVERAGE: HU

The gambit between the PBOC’s liqudity provision and the growing dependence on their “spice” is clear – the question is, of course, will banks send a message (via the markets) to the PBOC or will they self-select (on first-mover’s advantage) eradicating the weakest.

 

5Y Chinese Interest Rate Swaps have reached a record high (implying expectations priced into the market of rising interest rates)…

 

and short-term liquidity is problematic again as overnight repo jumps to 5.00% in early trading..

 

What everyone is wondering is – with the failure of 1 or 2 banks seemingly guaranteed – how will the contagion be contained? How will the interbank market respond when no one knows who is it? We know what happened in the US in 2008…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/_27dTDfxJAc/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
– Tacitus

Ever since I started writing about what is happening in the world around me, my primary theme has been that the root cancer at the core of the U.S., and indeed global economy, is cronyism and an absence of the rule of law when it comes to oligarchs. In the U.S., this cronyism is best described as an insidious relationship between large multi-national corporations and big government to funnel all of the wealth and resources of the nation to themselves at the expense of everyone else. In a genuine free market defined by heightened competition and governed by an equal application of the rule of law to all, the 0.1% does not aggregate all of a nation’s wealth. This sort of thing only happens in crony capitalism, which is basically nothing more than complete and total insider deals to aggregate newly created money into the hands of the few.

The following profile of Washington D.C.’s so-called “boom” from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pretty much tells you all you need to know. While I think the tone of the article is absurd considering this is no “economic boom,” but merely parasitic wealth extraction on a unprecedented scale, it is still quite telling. It is no coincidence that as D.C. has grown wealthier, the nation has become much, much poorer. Key excerpts below:

The avalanche of cash that made Washington rich in the last decade has transformed the culture of a once staid capital and created a new wave of well-heeled insiders.

 

The winners in the new Washington are not just the former senators, party consiglieri and four-star generals who have always profited from their connections. Now they are also the former bureaucrats, accountants and staff officers for whom unimagined riches are suddenly possible. They are the entrepreneurs attracted to the capital by its aura of prosperity and its super-educated workforce. They are the lawyers, lobbyists and executives who work for companies that barely had a presence in Washington before the boom.

 

At the same time, big companies realized that a few million spent shaping legislation could produce windfall profits. They nearly doubled the cash they poured into the capital.

Sorry these aren’t “entrepreneurs,” they are parasitic opportunists.

At Cafe Joe, a greasy spoon near the National Security Agency in suburban Maryland, software engineers with top-secret clearances merely have to look at the place mats under their fried eggs to find federal contractors trying to entice them away from their government jobs with six-figure salaries and stock options. The place-mat ads cost $250 a week. They are sold out through 2014.

 

During the past decade, the region added 21,000 households in the nation’s top 1 percent. No other metro area came close.

Two forces triggered the boom.

The share of money the government spent on weapons and other hardware shrank as service contracts nearly tripled in value. At the peak in 2010, companies based in Rep. James Moran’s congressional district in Northern Virginia reaped $43 billion in federal contracts — roughly as much as the state of Texas.

 

Back in 2000, the company spent a mere $260,000 lobbying Congress, federal records show. Its lobbyists mostly talked to lawmakers about health care: medical manufacturing issues, Medicare reimbursement rates, privacy of health records, and congressional oversight of the Food and Drug Administration.

 

By the end of the decade, the company had broadened its horizons dramatically. “Government relations” now accounted for $2.6 million — a tenfold increase. On one quarterly disclosure report from 2010, Boston Scientific listed 35 different pieces of legislation on which it was lobbying. They included proposals on patent reform, tax penalties for moving American jobs abroad, tax credits for research and development, rules for transporting lithium batteries, limits on workers’ ability to form labor unions and federal regulation of certain types of financial derivatives.

 

Government relations has become so important to the bottom line of a modern company, Becker said, that it should be a required course at business school. The numbers suggest she’s right. Companies spent about $3.5 billion annually on lobbying at the end of the last decade, a nearly 90 percent increase from 1999 after adjusting for inflation, political scientist Lee Drutman notes in a forthcoming book, “The Business of America Is Lobbying.”

And you wonder why the economy sucks?

Legal services also boomed, fueled by the growing complexities of federal business regulations. The number of lawyers in the D.C. metro area increased by a third from 2000 to 2012, nearly twice as fast as the growth rate nationwide. And those lawyers have the highest mean salaries in the country, according to George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis.

 

The more companies spend on influence, the lower their effective tax rates and the higher their stock returns compared with competitors’, according to recent research. A company called Strategas has built an index to track the stock performance of the 50 companies that lobby the most; last year, that index outperformed the rest of the market by 30 percent.

If you still are confused why the U.S. economy is completely stuck in the mud, look no further than the parasites of Washington D.C.

Full article here.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/5bYBlnFYBls/story01.htm Tyler Durden

From Jeremy Grantham of GMO

Timing Bear Markets

My personal view is that the Greenspan-Bernanke regime of excessive stimulus, now administered by Yellen, will proceed as usual, and that the path of least resistance, for the market will be up. I believe that it would take a severe economic shock to outweigh the effect of the Fed’s relentless pushing of the market. Look at the market’s continued advance despite almost universal disappointment in economic growth. Exhibit 3 shows the economic forecasts for major economic countries made a year ago by the IMF compared to what actually happened. Only Japan was a modest pleasant surprise at 0.7% ahead of forecast and the U.K. and Switzerland scraped home by the skin of their teeth. Everyone else fell short. There have been few such occasions when such broad disappointment with economic growth still allowed the U.S. and most other major economies to make material upward moves in their stock markets. It is yet another testimonial to the global reach of the Fed’s stimulus of equities (as was the very substantial decline in emerging market equities on just talk of tapering!)

In equities there are few signs yet of a traditional bubble. In the U.S. individuals are not yet consistent buyers of mutual funds. Over lunch I am still looking at Patriots’ highlights and not the CNBC talking heads recommending Pumatech or whatever they were in 1999. There are no wonderful and infl uential theories as to why the P/E structure should be much higher today as there were in Japan in 1989 or in the U.S. in 2000, with Greenspan’s theory of the internet driving away the dark clouds of ignorance and ushering in an era of permanently higher P/Es. (There is only Jeremy Siegel doing his usual, apparently inexhaustible thing of explaining why the market is actually cheap: in 2000 we tangled over the market’s P/E of 30 to 35, which, with arcane and ingenious adjustments, for him did not portend disaster. This time it is unprecedented margins, usually the most dependably mean reverting of all fi nancial series, which are apparently now normal.) By June this year, markets felt relatively quiet and under the surface there was still a considerable undertow of risk aversion in the institutions. The Russell 2000 and the GMO High Quality universe were both just level with the S&P, all up 16%. Normally we would have expected the Russell to outperform handsomely. However, since then speculation has perked up so that today, the broad U.S. market is up 20% and the Russell 2000 is a more typical six points ahead while stocks in the GMO High Quality universe are several points behind. We have also had a sharp and unexpected uptick in parts of the IPO market in the U.S., so I would think that we are probably in the slow build-up to something interesting – a badly overpriced market and bubble conditions.

My personal guess is that the U.S. market, especially the non-blue chips, will work its way higher, perhaps by 20% to 30% in the next year or, more likely, two years, with the rest of the world including emerging market equities covering even more ground in at least a partial catch-up. And then we will have the third in the series of serious market busts since 1999 and presumably Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, et al. will rest happy, for surely they must expect something like this outcome given their experience. And we the people, of course, will get what we deserve. We acclaimed the original perpetrator of this ill-fated plan – Greenspan – to be the great Maestro, in a general orgy of boot licking. His faithful acolyte, Bernanke, was reappointed by a democratic president and generally lauded for doing (I admit) a perfectly serviceable job of rallying the troops in a crash that absolutely would not have occurred without the dangerous experiments in deregulation and no regulation (of the subprime instruments, for example) of his and his predecessor’s policy. At this rate, one day we will praise Yellen (or a similar successor) for helping out adequately in the wreckage of the next utterly unnecessary financial and asset class failure. Deregulation was eventually a disappointment even to Greenspan, shocked at the bad behavior of fi nancial leaders who, incomprehensibly to him, were not even attempting to maximize long-term risk-adjusted profits. Indeed, instead of the “price discovery” so central to modern economic theory we had “greed discovery.”

(Memo: “price discovery” is the process that happens in an open and competitive and unregulated market, where the interplay of supply, demand, and cost structures determines the effi cient price. “Greed discovery” is the process by which a vastly and unnecessarily complicated fi nancial system is exploited by expert insiders. These insiders have far more knowledge than the lambs – formerly known as clients – and without adequate regulations the lambs are defleeced in a surge of “rent seeking.”)

In the meantime investors should be aware that the U.S. market is already badly overpriced – indeed, we believe it is priced to deliver negative real returns over seven years – and that most foreign markets having moved up rapidly this summer are also overpriced but less so. In our view, prudent investors should already be reducing their equity bets and their risk level in general. One of the more painful lessons in investing is that the prudent investor (or “value investor” if you prefer) almost invariably must forego plenty of fun at the top end of markets. This market is already no exception, but speculation can hurt prudence much more and probably will. Ah, that’s life. And with a Fed like ours it’s probably what we deserve.

Inconvenient Conclusion

Be prudent and you’ll probably forego gains. Be risky and you’ll probably make some more money, but you may be bushwhacked and, if you are, your excuses will look thin. Your call. We of course are making our call.

Postscript 1

What can go wrong for the market? There is a slow and for me rather sinister slowing down of economic growth, most obviously in Europe but also globally, that could at worst overwhelm even the Fed. The general lack of fiscal stimulus globally and the almost precipitous decline in the U.S. Federal deficit in particular do not help. What are the odds in the next two years? Perhaps one in four.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/0pBQ_weTHcU/story01.htm Tyler Durden

From Jeremy Grantham of GMO

Timing Bear Markets

My personal view is that the Greenspan-Bernanke regime of excessive stimulus, now administered by Yellen, will proceed as usual, and that the path of least resistance, for the market will be up. I believe that it would take a severe economic shock to outweigh the effect of the Fed’s relentless pushing of the market. Look at the market’s continued advance despite almost universal disappointment in economic growth. Exhibit 3 shows the economic forecasts for major economic countries made a year ago by the IMF compared to what actually happened. Only Japan was a modest pleasant surprise at 0.7% ahead of forecast and the U.K. and Switzerland scraped home by the skin of their teeth. Everyone else fell short. There have been few such occasions when such broad disappointment with economic growth still allowed the U.S. and most other major economies to make material upward moves in their stock markets. It is yet another testimonial to the global reach of the Fed’s stimulus of equities (as was the very substantial decline in emerging market equities on just talk of tapering!)

In equities there are few signs yet of a traditional bubble. In the U.S. individuals are not yet consistent buyers of mutual funds. Over lunch I am still looking at Patriots’ highlights and not the CNBC talking heads recommending Pumatech or whatever they were in 1999. There are no wonderful and infl uential theories as to why the P/E structure should be much higher today as there were in Japan in 1989 or in the U.S. in 2000, with Greenspan’s theory of the internet driving away the dark clouds of ignorance and ushering in an era of permanently higher P/Es. (There is only Jeremy Siegel doing his usual, apparently inexhaustible thing of explaining why the market is actually cheap: in 2000 we tangled over the market’s P/E of 30 to 35, which, with arcane and ingenious adjustments, for him did not portend disaster. This time it is unprecedented margins, usually the most dependably mean reverting of all fi nancial series, which are apparently now normal.) By June this year, markets felt relatively quiet and under the surface there was still a considerable undertow of risk aversion in the institutions. The Russell 2000 and the GMO High Quality universe were both just level with the S&P, all up 16%. Normally we would have expected the Russell to outperform handsomely. However, since then speculation has perked up so that today, the broad U.S. market is up 20% and the Russell 2000 is a more typical six points ahead while stocks in the GMO High Quality universe are several points behind. We have also had a sharp and unexpected uptick in parts of the IPO market in the U.S., so I would think that we are probably in the slow build-up to something interesting – a badly overpriced market and bubble conditions.

My personal guess is that the U.S. market, especially the non-blue chips, will work its way higher, perhaps by 20% to 30% in the next year or, more likely, two years, with the rest of the world including emerging market equities covering even more ground in at least a partial catch-up. And then we will have the third in the series of serious market busts since 1999 and presumably Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, et al. will rest happy, for surely they must expect something like this outcome given their experience. And we the people, of course, will get what we deserve. We acclaimed the original perpetrator of this ill-fated plan – Greenspan – to be the great Maestro, in a general orgy of boot licking. His faithful acolyte, Bernanke, was reappointed by a democratic president and generally lauded for doing (I admit) a perfectly serviceable job of rallying the troops in a crash that absolutely would not have occurred without the dangerous experiments in deregulation and no regulation (of the subprime instruments, for example) of his and his predecessor’s policy. At this rate, one day we will praise Yellen (or a similar successor) for helping out adequately in the wreckage of the next utterly unnecessary financial and asset class failure. Deregulation was eventually a disappointment even to Greenspan, shocked at the bad behavior of fi nancial leaders who, incomprehensibly to him, were not even attempting to maximize long-term risk-adjusted profits. Indeed, instead of the “price discovery” so central to modern economic theory we had “greed discovery.”

(Memo: “price discovery” is the process that happens in an open and competitive and unregulated market, where the interplay of supply, demand, and cost structures determines the effi cient price. “Greed discovery” is the process by which a vastly and unnecessarily complicated fi nancial system is exploited by expert insiders. These insiders have far more knowledge than the lambs – formerly known as clients – and without adequate regulations the lambs are defleeced in a surge of “rent seeking.”)

In the meantime investors should be aware that the U.S. market is already badly overpriced – indeed, we believe it is priced to deliver negative real returns over seven years – and that most foreign markets having moved up rapidly this summer are also overpriced but less so. In our view, prudent investors should already be reducing their equity bets and their risk level in general. One of the more painful lessons in investing is that the prudent investor (or “value investor” if you prefer) almost invariably must forego plenty of fun at the top end of markets. This market is already no exception, but speculation can hurt prudence much more and probably will. Ah, that’s life. And with a Fed like ours it’s probably what we deserve.

Inconvenient Conclusion

Be prudent and you’ll probably forego gains. Be risky and you’ll probably make some more money, but you may be bushwhacked and, if you are, your excuses will look thin. Your call. We of course are making our call.

Postscript 1

What can go wrong for the market? There is a slow and for me rather sinister slowing down of economic growth, most obviously in Europe but also globally, that could at worst overwhelm even the Fed. The general lack of fiscal stimulus globally and the almost precipitous decline in the U.S. Federal deficit in particular do not help. What are the odds in the next two years? Perhaps one in four.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/0pBQ_weTHcU/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Why has this doomed model of overbuilding and poaching sales become so dominant? Look no farther than the cheap-money policies of the Federal Reserve.

The rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other simulacra of "growth" are masking the real model of growth in America: overbuilding and poaching, as in poaching customers and sales from competitors.

No matter how many outlets a company has, there's always room for a few hundred more somewhere. Now that there's a Starbucks on every corner, you might think the opportunities for expansion are limited. No way–now there are Starbucks in bookstores, Safeway supermarkets, subway stations (BART), etc.

Not only is there a coffee outlet of some sort everywhere you look (hey, how about a Starbucks in every Home Depot?), Starbucks is getting into everybody else's business as well–even occasionally hawking music CDs, for example, at least until CD sales plummeted to the point it wasn't worth poaching the declining sales.

Dollar stores are proliferating at a phenomenal rate, as are drug stores in various sizes and iterations–all aimed at poaching customers from WalMart and Target. There is a certain irony in this, as WalMart and Target expanded rapidly by poaching customers from the entire spectrum of retail competitors–supermarkets, department stores, drug stores, sporting goods, and so on.

Everybody's getting into everybody else's business. If there is a profit to be made, suddenly every gas station mini-mart is stocking the line of goods, as are dollar stores and drug stores coast-to-coast.

In the department store/luxury outlet space, the scrimmage for the top 10% and "aspirational" consumers is fierce. Macys, Nordstrom, et al. successfully poached the upper-middle class and "aspirational" consumers with credit (if they could buy luxury brands with discretionary cash, they wouldn't be aspiring to look wealthy, they would bewealthy) from mid-range retailers such as Sears and J.C. Penny.

Countless catalog retailers have opened discount outlets while still poaching customers from other bricks-and-mortar retailers with blizzards of catalogs pitching "crazy low prices" to the marginalized middle class who cannot afford luxury outlets but seek brands above the WalMart level.

Look no further than the enormous success of surf-watersports brands as evidence that an "active youth" brand can sell millions of units to paunchy shark-bait couch potatoes, effectively poaching customers from other sectors on the middle-class retail spectrum.

Specialty retailers are busy poaching customers from competitors, and if that fails then they merge. Witness the absurdly overcapacity office supply space. The fleeting success of BBQ World quickly spawns BBQ Galaxy and BBQ Universe, a manic cycle of overbuilding/poaching that ends in ruination of all three retailers, which then merge and close hundreds of (mostly empty) stores.

That is the operative model of "growth" in America: rapid expansion/overbuilding in pursuit of poaching customers from existing competitors, a strategy that leads to massive overcapacity/redundancy and declining profits that then leads to mergers and shuttering hundreds of redundant outlets.

This overbuilding is especially nonsensical given that the "Brown Truck Store" delivers virtually anything you want to your doorstep: The Inevitable Decline of Retail(September 19, 2012).

Why has this doomed model of overbuilding and poaching become so dominant?Look no farther than the cheap-money policies of the Federal Reserve: Take It To The Bank (The Burning Platform):

This is another classic case of mal-investment spurred by the Federal Reserve easy money policies, zero interest rates, and QEternity. Cheap money leads to bad investments. I’m all for competition between drug store chains and banks. I have my pick of multiple stores close to my house. There are clearly too many stores competing for a dwindling number of customers, with a dwindling supply of disposable income.

If this is the engine of "growth" in America, a period of degrowth will be needed to clear the system of unprofitable deadwood and Fed-incentivized malinvestment.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ZoBSHJXRaAk/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Why has this doomed model of overbuilding and poaching sales become so dominant? Look no farther than the cheap-money policies of the Federal Reserve.

The rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other simulacra of "growth" are masking the real model of growth in America: overbuilding and poaching, as in poaching customers and sales from competitors.

No matter how many outlets a company has, there's always room for a few hundred more somewhere. Now that there's a Starbucks on every corner, you might think the opportunities for expansion are limited. No way–now there are Starbucks in bookstores, Safeway supermarkets, subway stations (BART), etc.

Not only is there a coffee outlet of some sort everywhere you look (hey, how about a Starbucks in every Home Depot?), Starbucks is getting into everybody else's business as well–even occasionally hawking music CDs, for example, at least until CD sales plummeted to the point it wasn't worth poaching the declining sales.

Dollar stores are proliferating at a phenomenal rate, as are drug stores in various sizes and iterations–all aimed at poaching customers from WalMart and Target. There is a certain irony in this, as WalMart and Target expanded rapidly by poaching customers from the entire spectrum of retail competitors–supermarkets, department stores, drug stores, sporting goods, and so on.

Everybody's getting into everybody else's business. If there is a profit to be made, suddenly every gas station mini-mart is stocking the line of goods, as are dollar stores and drug stores coast-to-coast.

In the department store/luxury outlet space, the scrimmage for the top 10% and "aspirational" consumers is fierce. Macys, Nordstrom, et al. successfully poached the upper-middle class and "aspirational" consumers with credit (if they could buy luxury brands with discretionary cash, they wouldn't be aspiring to look wealthy, they would bewealthy) from mid-range retailers such as Sears and J.C. Penny.

Countless catalog retailers have opened discount outlets while still poaching customers from other bricks-and-mortar retailers with blizzards of catalogs pitching "crazy low prices" to the marginalized middle class who cannot afford luxury outlets but seek brands above the WalMart level.

Look no further than the enormous success of surf-watersports brands as evidence that an "active youth" brand can sell millions of units to paunchy shark-bait couch potatoes, effectively poaching customers from other sectors on the middle-class retail spectrum.

Specialty retailers are busy poaching customers from competitors, and if that fails then they merge. Witness the absurdly overcapacity office supply space. The fleeting success of BBQ World quickly spawns BBQ Galaxy and BBQ Universe, a manic cycle of overbuilding/poaching that ends in ruination of all three retailers, which then merge and close hundreds of (mostly empty) stores.

That is the operative model of "growth" in America: rapid expansion/overbuilding in pursuit of poaching customers from existing competitors, a strategy that leads to massive overcapacity/redundancy and declining profits that then leads to mergers and shuttering hundreds of redundant outlets.

This overbuilding is especially nonsensical given that the "Brown Truck Store" delivers virtually anything you want to your doorstep: The Inevitable Decline of Retail(September 19, 2012).

Why has this doomed model of overbuilding and poaching become so dominant?Look no farther than the cheap-money policies of the Federal Reserve: Take It To The Bank (The Burning Platform):

This is another classic case of mal-investment spurred by the Federal Reserve easy money policies, zero interest rates, and QEternity. Cheap money leads to bad investments. I’m all for competition between drug store chains and banks. I have my pick of multiple stores close to my house. There are clearly too many stores competing for a dwindling number of customers, with a dwindling supply of disposable income.

If this is the engine of "growth" in America, a period of degrowth will be needed to clear the system of unprofitable deadwood and Fed-incentivized malinvestment.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ZoBSHJXRaAk/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Jim Rogers hope-driven wish is that the politicians were smart enough at some point to say (to the central bankers), "we've got to stop this, this is going to be bad." He adds, on the incoming QEeen, "she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn't believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good." However, Rogers warns in this excellent interview with Birch Gold, "eventually the markets will just say, "We're not going to play this game anymore", and we'll have a serious collapse." The world is blinded by central bank liquidity, and as Rogers somewhat mockingly notes "if everybody says the sky is blue, I urge you to look out the window and see if it's blue because I have found that most people won't even bother to look out the window…" Rogers concludes, "everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy," because as he ominously warns, when 'it' collapses, "there will be big change.

 

 

 

Transcript (via Birch Gold Group) 

Rachel Mills, Birch Gold Group (BGG): This is Rachel Mills for Birch Gold, and I am very pleased to be joined today by Jim Rogers, legendary investor. Thank you so much Jim for joining me.

Jim Rogers: I am delighted to be here Rachel.

BGG: So today I wanted to talk a little about stock market highs and Quantitative Easing and inflation and a little bit of Federal Reserve and when is the taper is going to happen and currency wars. But there is one question that I don’t have to ask you, which you get asked a lot, I know, and that is what your secret to being so prescient in the marketplace?

“…if everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge you to go and look out the window and see if it’s blue because I have found that most people won’t even bother to look out the window…”

JR: As far as I know, I’m not quite sure. I do know that I have learned over the years, always, when nearly everybody is thinking the same way that means somebody’s not thinking that means we got to start thinking about it and see if there’s not another way, another approach. Because if everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge you to go and look out the window and see if it’s blue because I have found that most people won’t even bother to look out the window. If they see on the television or in the newspaper or something that everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge them to look out the window. I find that most people don’t want to do their homework, that’s the first problem that many people have, is just doing simple homework.

“…no matter what we all know today, it’s not going to be true in 10 or 15 years…”

Second, I have learned that if everybody says the sky is blue and I go and look out the window and see that it is blue, I have also learned that, well wait a minute, if everybody knows the sky is blue, is that going to change? Now that everybody knows something, is it time to start thinking about “Well maybe tomorrow the sky will not be blue?” And again, most people say “Well everybody knows the sky is blue and that’s all we need to know.” No, it’s not all you need to know because another thing I have learned in my life is that no matter what we all know today, it’s not going to be true in 10 or 15 years. You pick any year in history and go back and then look to see what everybody thought was true in that year, 15 years later the world had changed enormously. Enormously. And yet in that particular year everybody was convinced that this is the way the world was. Pick 1900, 1930, 1950, any year you want to pick, and you will see that 15 years later, the world was totally, totally different from what everybody thought it was at that time.

So I have learned, for whatever reason, to know that change is coming, to know to think against the crowd, that the crowd is nearly always wrong and to try to think for myself. Now, I certainly make plenty of mistakes and have made plenty of mistakes in my life, but these are some of the things that I have learned, to try to think around the corner, try to think to the future if you want to be successful.

BGG: Yeah that’s right. And I read somewhere, tell me if this is true, that you were shorting real estate in 2006?

JR: Yes, yes, 2006, 2007, 2008. Yes, yes. I was short Fannie Mae, I was short all of the investment banks. I was short all the banks.

BGG: And I bet, were people rolling their eyes at you, were they laughing at you?

Photo: www.telegraph.co.uk

JR: Oh very much so. I went on television quite a lot in those days saying it’s crazy. And I was on CNBC and I explained that I was short Fannie Mae and had been short Fannie Mae and Fannie Mae finally started to collapse. And the lady said to me, “Well it’s your fault that Fannie Mae is going down, it’s the short sellers that are causing problems with Fannie Mae.” And I explained to her, “Listen lady, if you really think that short sellers are making Fannie Mae collapse, you better get another job, because that’s not the way the world works.” Short sellers do not make Fannie Mae go from $70 to $0, I assure you, the only thing that can make that happen is serious fundamental problems. So yes, everybody knew I was nuts back in those days!

And then, they started blaming it on me and on the short sellers, all of the problems. Nobody likes to take responsibility for their mistakes, certainly not politicians, but it was clear that first they laugh at you, then they ridicule you and say it’s your fault and blame it on you. Eventually they all say, “Oh, well we knew that. We thought of it ourselves! We knew that Fannie Mae was a fraud.” But that’s a difficult and sometimes painful process.

BGG: Sounds like they were attributing more power to you than you actually have!

JR: It’d be wonderful if all I had to do was sell something short and it would go down. Unfortunately it usually goes up when I sell it short, my timing is usually pretty wrong.

BGG: I want to talk a little bit about currencies. It seems that all the major countries in the world are in this race to the bottom to devalue their currency relative to all the others to appease their export industry. Meanwhile, workers and savers are
getting killed by the cost of living increases that this is causing. Do you have any observations or predictions about how this currency war is going to end, or can it continue somehow indefinitely? And who wins in a currency race to the bottom?

“Eventually the markets will just say, ‘We’re not going to play this game anymore’, and we’ll have a serious collapse.”

JR: Well, the first thing you need to know is that nobody ever wins a trade war, a currency war, which is just another kind of trade war. Everybody loses in the end, some may temporarily come out ahead but it’s temporary if nothing else. As you have pointed out, the cost of living of many people is going up, and it certainly is, my gosh, in Japan you have a currency that’s down 25% in a year. Well I assure you the Japanese are feeling that because everything that Japan imports has gone up fairly substantially AND even the things that they don’t import are up because the Japanese manufacturers and the Japanese producers can raise prices because they don’t have to worry about competing with the foreigners any more.

“We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”

So we’re all losing in currency wars. How long can it go on? Well, it can go on as long as politicians can continue to print money. The problem is, of course, eventually the markets will just say, “We’re not going to play this game anymore” and we’ll have a serious collapse. You and I can print money all day long, but at some point, you, I and everybody else is going to say, “Wait a minute, guys, this money is getting worse and worse and more and more worthless, so why don’t we stop playing this game?” I wish the politicians were smart enough at some point to say, “We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”

But unfortunately they never have, and probably never will. Mr. Bernanke is certainly not going to stop it, because he doesn’t want to go down in history as causing the collapse. Mrs. Yellen, when she comes in, she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn’t believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good. And she knows – I hope she’s smart enough to know – that if she stops, oh my gosh, it’s going to collapse. So she’s not going to stop. Nobody wants to go down as causing the collapse of the world. So I’m afraid this is going to go on until the market eventually says to them, “Okay, enough is enough,” we have a big collapse and then they’re all thrown out and we can start over.

“Eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever.”

BGG: Wow, that’s a painful scenario actually. Do you think there is any chance that Larry Summers would have stopped Quantitative Easing at all?

JR: Well, first of all it’s irrelevant because he’s not going to be Federal Reserve Chairman. Second, even if he started, you know, if somebody came in and said, “Okay, we’ve got a terrible problem, we’ve made horrible mistakes, now let’s change things.” And even if everybody in the world said, “You know, he’s right, we’ve got to do something” and they started, well, within a few months or a year or two, the pain would be pretty horrible and then everybody’s going to say, “Well we didn’t know the pain was going to be this bad, this is not what we signed up for.” And then the guy would either be thrown out or assassinated or who knows what!

BGG: Oh yeah, they would blame everything on whoever stopped the party.

JR: Yeah. At first they say “It’s fine, we want to do it”, but once the pain comes, the pain is going to get pretty serious. We had Mr. Volcker who came in, was told “stop the madness” back in the 1970s and he did. Well, Jimmy Carter got thrown out, because he was who had told him to do that, because the pain was so bad. Reagan of course thought it was wonderful, that pain was taking place because that got him elected. And it was help to clean up the problems. That’s what happens, you cause the pain and they throw you out.

BGG: So, you don’t think there is any way they’re gonna make good on their threats or promises to taper?

Photo: www.jimrogersinvestments.com

JR: They might, no I don’t. They might start, as I said, somewhere along the line they’re going to start doing it. But when the pain gets pretty serious, the lady or the person or whoever it is, is going to have real problems. Let’s say that in 2015, Yellen says, “We’ve got to stop this” and they start stopping it, well, at that point it’s going to be pretty serious for the parties in power and they’re going to get thrown out and the next guys will continue to taper because, as I’ve said, they got power because of the tapering and the problems, and they’ll clean up the problems.

But that’s the only way that you’re going to see it stop someday. The market is just going to say, “We don’t want to play.” That’s what happened with Jimmy Carter when he was in, everything was collapsing: bond yields were falling apart, you know, inflation was everywhere. “Thank you Mr. Carter, we don’t want to play this game anymore. It’s absurd.”

BGG: What tip-offs are you looking for for where the top of the market is and when would you start to see the collapse coming? Are there signs that you’re looking for?

JR: Well, I wish I was that smart or it was that easy. Back in the late 1970s, Mr. Volcker was told and he came in and said: “I am going to kill inflation because Mr. Carter has told me to.” And Mr. Carter was very clear that he had to stop inflation. I doubt if we’ll have that kind of scenario again but we would think, we would hope, that the Federal Reserve will announce, you know, that they publish their numbers so we can all see what’s happening. At the moment they are buying a trillion dollars a year – that’s a trillion with a “T” – of assets. Eventually we will see that they stop that if they do or slow it down.

What will probably happen is that they will slow it down at first to see what happens, and if things aren’t too bad at first – and they probably won’t be too bad at first – well what is likely to happen is they will slow it down, things will drop, and then they will rally and the Federal Reserve will say “Hey, this is not so bad, we can do it.” And they’ll cut some more. Things will drop
again and then rally, because it will take a while for people to really believe how bad it can get, or will get. And so eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever … will continue because they like it, they got the job because of the collapse and then we’ll finally start over. But it may be really painful in the meantime.

“I’ve owned gold for many years, I’ve never sold any gold and I can’t imagine I ever will sell gold in my life because it is somewhat of an insurance policy.”

BGG: Sure. And when we do begin the process of starting over, whenever that happens, it will be really good to have something substantial, something real, something other than paper in your portfolio. And that’s what Birch Gold is trying to help people figuring out how to do. So, we’ve always said that precious metals are a type of insurance for the long term. I read in your interview in Barrons that you are holding gold right now and expecting maybe a buying opportunity to come up. Do you still feel that way?

JR: Yes, I’ve owned gold for many years, I’ve never sold any gold and I can’t imagine I ever will sell gold in my life because it is somewhat of an insurance policy. I hope that my daughters own my gold someday, I mean I owned gold, I’ve never sold any gold and if gold comes down and I expect it to go down, doesn’t mean it will, I’ll buy more. I’m certainly not going to sell.

“Everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy. So if they don’t have any right now, I would urge them to go buy something.”

BGG: Right. So what advice would you give someone who as of yet has no precious metals in their portfolio right now?

JR: Well, everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy. So if they don’t have any right now, I would urge them to go buy something, buy themselves a gold coin if nothing else, and see that it’s not going to hurt. It won’t hurt you to buy the first gold coin, the first silver coin, and from that you start accumulating as your own situation dictates.

First, do your homework, don’t buy gold because you heard me say it or even because you hear you say it. But if people don’t own they should start after they have done their homework. And then they will probably, if they do their homework, most people will then realize, “Oh my gosh, I better have insurance, and gold and silver may get me through serious problems ahead.”

BGG: Yeah. How do you feel about silver? Do you favor silver over gold? How do you feel?

JR: Well, silver is historically down 60% from its all-time highs, so yes, I would prefer silver at the moment because gold is down only what, 30 or 40% from its all-time highs.

BGG: Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. I think we will leave it there. Thank you so much, Jim Rogers.

JR: Thank you Rachel, anytime. Let’s do it again.

BGG: I would love to.

JR: Bye bye.

BGG : Bye, thank you!

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/XhOgPYyvzcw/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Jim Rogers hope-driven wish is that the politicians were smart enough at some point to say (to the central bankers), "we've got to stop this, this is going to be bad." He adds, on the incoming QEeen, "she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn't believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good." However, Rogers warns in this excellent interview with Birch Gold, "eventually the markets will just say, "We're not going to play this game anymore", and we'll have a serious collapse." The world is blinded by central bank liquidity, and as Rogers somewhat mockingly notes "if everybody says the sky is blue, I urge you to look out the window and see if it's blue because I have found that most people won't even bother to look out the window…" Rogers concludes, "everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy," because as he ominously warns, when 'it' collapses, "there will be big change.

 

 

 

Transcript (via Birch Gold Group) 

Rachel Mills, Birch Gold Group (BGG): This is Rachel Mills for Birch Gold, and I am very pleased to be joined today by Jim Rogers, legendary investor. Thank you so much Jim for joining me.

Jim Rogers: I am delighted to be here Rachel.

BGG: So today I wanted to talk a little about stock market highs and Quantitative Easing and inflation and a little bit of Federal Reserve and when is the taper is going to happen and currency wars. But there is one question that I don’t have to ask you, which you get asked a lot, I know, and that is what your secret to being so prescient in the marketplace?

“…if everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge you to go and look out the window and see if it’s blue because I have found that most people won’t even bother to look out the window…”

JR: As far as I know, I’m not quite sure. I do know that I have learned over the years, always, when nearly everybody is thinking the same way that means somebody’s not thinking that means we got to start thinking about it and see if there’s not another way, another approach. Because if everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge you to go and look out the window and see if it’s blue because I have found that most people won’t even bother to look out the window. If they see on the television or in the newspaper or something that everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge them to look out the window. I find that most people don’t want to do their homework, that’s the first problem that many people have, is just doing simple homework.

“…no matter what we all know today, it’s not going to be true in 10 or 15 years…”

Second, I have learned that if everybody says the sky is blue and I go and look out the window and see that it is blue, I have also learned that, well wait a minute, if everybody knows the sky is blue, is that going to change? Now that everybody knows something, is it time to start thinking about “Well maybe tomorrow the sky will not be blue?” And again, most people say “Well everybody knows the sky is blue and that’s all we need to know.” No, it’s not all you need to know because another thing I have learned in my life is that no matter what we all know today, it’s not going to be true in 10 or 15 years. You pick any year in history and go back and then look to see what everybody thought was true in that year, 15 years later the world had changed enormously. Enormously. And yet in that particular year everybody was convinced that this is the way the world was. Pick 1900, 1930, 1950, any year you want to pick, and you will see that 15 years later, the world was totally, totally different from what everybody thought it was at that time.

So I have learned, for whatever reason, to know that change is coming, to know to think against the crowd, that the crowd is nearly always wrong and to try to think for myself. Now, I certainly make plenty of mistakes and have made plenty of mistakes in my life, but these are some of the things that I have learned, to try to think around the corner, try to think to the future if you want to be successful.

BGG: Yeah that’s right. And I read somewhere, tell me if this is true, that you were shorting real estate in 2006?

JR: Yes, yes, 2006, 2007, 2008. Yes, yes. I was short Fannie Mae, I was short all of the investment banks. I was short all the banks.

BGG: And I bet, were people rolling their eyes at you, were they laughing at you?

Photo: www.telegraph.co.uk

JR: Oh very much so. I went on television quite a lot in those days saying it’s crazy. And I was on CNBC and I explained that I was short Fannie Mae and had been short Fannie Mae and Fannie Mae finally started to collapse. And the lady said to me, “Well it’s your fault that Fannie Mae is going down, it’s the short sellers that are causing problems with Fannie Mae.” And I explained to her, “Listen lady, if you really think that short sellers are making Fannie Mae collapse, you better get another job, because that’s not the way the world works.” Short sellers do not make Fannie Mae go from $70 to $0, I assure you, the only thing that can make that happen is serious fundamental problems. So yes, everybody knew I was nuts back in those days!

And then, they started blaming it on me and on the short sellers, all of the problems. Nobody likes to take responsibility for their mistakes, certainly not politicians, but it was clear that first they laugh at you, then they ridicule you and say it’s your fault and blame it on you. Eventually they all say, “Oh, well we knew that. We thought of it ourselves! We knew that Fannie Mae was a fraud.” But that’s a difficult and sometimes painful process.

BGG: Sounds like they were attributing more power to you than you actually have!

JR: It’d be wonderful if all I had to do was sell something short and it would go down. Unfortunately it usually goes up when I sell it short, my timing is usually pretty wrong.

BGG: I want to talk a little bit about currencies. It seems that all the major countries in the world are in this race to the bottom to devalue their currency relative to all the others to appease their export industry. Meanwhile, workers and savers are getting killed by the cost of living increases that this is causing. Do you have any observations or predictions about how this currency war is going to end, or can it continue somehow indefinitely? And who wins in a currency race to the bottom?

“Eventually the markets will just say, ‘We’re not going to play this game anymore’, and we’ll have a serious collapse.”

JR: Well, the first thing you need to know is that nobody ever wins a trade war, a currency war, which is just another kind of trade war. Everybody loses in the end, some may temporarily come out ahead but it’s temporary if nothing else. As you have pointed out, the cost of living of many people is going up, and it certainly is, my gosh, in Japan you have a currency that’s down 25% in a year. Well I assure you the Japanese are feeling that because everything that Japan imports has gone up fairly substantially AND even the things that they don’t import are up because the Japanese manufacturers and the Japanese producers can raise prices because they don’t have to worry about competing with the foreigners any more.

“We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”

So we’re all losing in currency wars. How long can it go on? Well, it can go on as long as politicians can continue to print money. The problem is, of course, eventually the markets will just say, “We’re not going to play this game anymore” and we’ll have a serious collapse. You and I can print money all day long, but at some point, you, I and everybody else is going to say, “Wait a minute, guys, this money is getting worse and worse and more and more worthless, so why don’t we stop playing this game?” I wish the politicians were smart enough at some point to say, “We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”

But unfortunately they never have, and probably never will. Mr. Bernanke is certainly not going to stop it, because he doesn’t want to go down in history as causing the collapse. Mrs. Yellen, when she comes in, she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn’t believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good. And she knows – I hope she’s smart enough to know – that if she stops, oh my gosh, it’s going to collapse. So she’s not going to stop. Nobody wants to go down as causing the collapse of the world. So I’m afraid this is going to go on until the market eventually says to them, “Okay, enough is enough,” we have a big collapse and then they’re all thrown out and we can start over.

“Eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever.”

BGG: Wow, that’s a painful scenario actually. Do you think there is any chance that Larry Summers would have stopped Quantitative Easing at all?

JR: Well, first of all it’s irrelevant because he’s not going to be Federal Reserve Chairman. Second, even if he started, you know, if somebody came in and said, “Okay, we’ve got a terrible problem, we’ve made horrible mistakes, now let’s change things.” And even if everybody in the world said, “You know, he’s right, we’ve got to do something” and they started, well, within a few months or a year or two, the pain would be pretty horrible and then everybody’s going to say, “Well we didn’t know the pain was going to be this bad, this is not what we signed up for.” And then the guy would either be thrown out or assassinated or who knows what!

BGG: Oh yeah, they would blame everything on whoever stopped the party.

JR: Yeah. At first they say “It’s fine, we want to do it”, but once the pain comes, the pain is going to get pretty serious. We had Mr. Volcker who came in, was told “stop the madness” back in the 1970s and he did. Well, Jimmy Carter got thrown out, because he was who had told him to do that, because the pain was so bad. Reagan of course thought it was wonderful, that pain was taking place because that got him elected. And it was help to clean up the problems. That’s what happens, you cause the pain and they throw you out.

BGG: So, you don’t think there is any way they’re gonna make good on their threats or promises to taper?

Photo: www.jimrogersinvestments.com

JR: They might, no I don’t. They might start, as I said, somewhere along the line they’re going to start doing it. But when the pain gets pretty serious, the lady or the person or whoever it is, is going to have real problems. Let’s say that in 2015, Yellen says, “We’ve got to stop this” and they start stopping it, well, at that point it’s going to be pretty serious for the parties in power and they’re going to get thrown out and the next guys will continue to taper because, as I’ve said, they got power because of the tapering and the problems, and they’ll clean up the problems.

But that’s the only way that you’re going to see it stop someday. The market is just going to say, “We don’t want to play.” That’s what happened with Jimmy Carter when he was in, everything was collapsing: bond yields were falling apart, you know, inflation was everywhere. “Thank you Mr. Carter, we don’t want to play this game anymore. It’s absurd.”

BGG: What tip-offs are you looking for for where the top of the market is and when would you start to see the collapse coming? Are there signs that you’re looking for?

JR: Well, I wish I was that smart or it was that easy. Back in the late 1970s, Mr. Volcker was told and he came in and said: “I am going to kill inflation because Mr. Carter has told me to.” And Mr. Carter was very clear that he had to stop inflation. I doubt if we’ll have that kind of scenario again but we would think, we would hope, that the Federal Reserve will announce, you know, that they publish their numbers so we can all see what’s happening. At the moment they are buying a trillion dollars a year – that’s a trillion with a “T” – of assets. Eventually we will see that they stop that if they do or slow it down.

What will probably happen is that they will slow it down at first to see what happens, and if things aren’t too bad at first – and they probably won’t be too bad at first – well what is likely to happen is they will slow it down, things will drop, and then they will rally and the Federal Reserve will say “Hey, this is not so bad, we can do it.” And they’ll cut some more. Things will drop again and then rally, because it will take a while for people to really believe how bad it can get, or will get. And so eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever … will continue because they like it, they got the job because of the collapse and then we’ll finally start over. But it may be really painful in the meantime.

“I’ve owned gold for many years, I’ve never sold any gold and I can’t imagine I ever will sell gold in my life because it is somewhat of an insurance policy.”

BGG: Sure. And when we do begin the process of starting over, whenever that happens, it will be really good to have something substantial, something real, something other than paper in your portfolio. And that’s what Birch Gold is trying to help people figuring out how to do. So, we’ve always said that precious metals are a type of insurance for the long term. I read in your interview in Barrons that you are holding gold right now and expecting maybe a buying opportunity to come up. Do you still feel that way?

JR: Yes, I’ve owned gold for many years, I’ve never sold any gold and I can’t imagine I ever will sell gold in my life because it is somewhat of an insurance policy. I hope that my daughters own my gold someday, I mean I owned gold, I’ve never sold any gold and if gold comes down and I expect it to go down, doesn’t mean it will, I’ll buy more. I’m certainly not going to sell.

“Everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy. So if they don’t have any right now, I would urge them to go buy something.”

BGG: Right. So what advice would you give someone who as of yet has no precious metals in their portfolio right now?

JR: Well, everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy. So if they don’t have any right now, I would urge them to go buy something, buy themselves a gold coin if nothing else, and see that it’s not going to hurt. It won’t hurt you to buy the first gold coin, the first silver coin, and from that you start accumulating as your own situation dictates.

First, do your homework, don’t buy gold because you heard me say it or even because you hear you say it. But if people don’t own they should start after they have done their homework. And then they will probably, if they do their homework, most people will then realize, “Oh my gosh, I better have insurance, and gold and silver may get me through serious problems ahead.”

BGG: Yeah. How do you feel about silver? Do you favor silver over gold? How do you feel?

JR: Well, silver is historically down 60% from its all-time highs, so yes, I would prefer silver at the moment because gold is down only what, 30 or 40% from its all-time highs.

BGG: Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. I think we will leave it there. Thank you so much, Jim Rogers.

JR: Thank you Rachel, anytime. Let’s do it again.

BGG: I would love to.

JR: Bye bye.

BGG : Bye, thank you!

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/XhOgPYyvzcw/story01.htm Tyler Durden