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Confirmation: China As Brazil
Confirmation: China As Brazil
There is always some chicken and egg to any financial irregularity; as in does a crisis cause a panic or is it the panic that causes the crisis? Though the evidence of the past eight years is decidedly on the side of the irregularity, central banks continue to press as if that were not so. In no uncertain terms, central bankers persist in expressing their own confidence and, if you read or listen closely enough, great disdain for free markets they deem unworthy as if nothing more than unchained emotion. In the context of 2008, as the current FOMC tells it, the markets got all worked up over nothing much and should have instead simply enjoyed the blind faith in the Fed to have fixed it all without the fuss and bother.
As offensive as that sounds, that is exactly what is being preached. Janet Yellen in April 2014:
Fundamental to modern thinking on central banking is the idea that monetary policy is more effective when the public better understands and anticipates how the central bank will respond to evolving economic conditions. Specifically, it is important for the central bank to make clear how it will adjust its policy stance in response to unforeseen economic developments in a manner that reduces or blunts potentially harmful consequences. If the public understands and expects policymakers to behave in this systematically stabilizing manner, it will tend to respond less to such developments.
There is a fatal fallacy at the heart of this philosophy, one in which has blinded these economists as they marvel at their own assumed powers. Yellen suggests that markets should stop worrying so much about liquidity and other perhaps tangential, but no less meaningful, factors and instead only ignore them in the comfort that Yellen has those all under control. It is no less destructive conceit, one which was revealed to all amply this past decade – starting with the housing bubble itself.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Here Comes the Next Global Recession
Here Comes the Next Global Recession
It might seem peculiar to some people to talk about the ‘next’ global recession, given that it doesn’t feel like we ever really got out of the last one. Eight years on from the global financial crash we find that the global economy is still drowning in debt, and this new era of low economic growth, high unemployment and squeezed wages/conditions has somehow become normalised.
‘Secular stagnation’ is the description de jure of the global capitalist system’s inability to return to another bout of prosperity. But while our old friend Boom departed the stage some time ago, his unruly brother Bust is waiting in the wings, preparing to make an unwelcome return.
Well that’s according to some of the world’s major financial institutions which have been forecasting that 2016 will be the year of the next big global downturn. In the last fortnight the IMF reduced its global growth forecast to 3.1%, that’s a mere 0.1% over the threshold of what constitutes recession. While last month Daiwa – Japan’s second largest brokerage house – and Citibank both released reports in which they made a global financial meltdown in 2016 their baselinescenarios! Let that sink in for a minute; they’re not saying a meltdown next year is their worst case scenario, they’re saying it’s their assumed one!
So what could trigger this predicted crash? Well to echo the words of Yogi Bear, ‘It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future’. Nevertheless there is general agreement that debt was the trigger for the crash of 2008. Considering that today the global economy is even deeper in the debt mire, it requires no great leap of faith to believe that debt will be central to the coming crisis.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Wal-Mart’s Worst Stock Crash In 27 Years Is Another Sign That The Economy Is Rapidly Falling Apart
Wal-Mart’s Worst Stock Crash In 27 Years Is Another Sign That The Economy Is Rapidly Falling Apart
Now that a major global recession has begun, you would expect major retailers like Wal-Mart to run into trouble as consumer spending dries up, and that is precisely what is happening. On Wednesday, shares of Wal-Mart experienced their largest single day decline in 27 years after an extremely disappointing earnings projection was released. The stock was down about 10 percent, which represented the biggest plunge since January 1988. Over 21 billion dollars in shareholder wealth was wiped out on Wednesday, and this was just the continuation of a very bad year for Wal-Mart stockholders. Overall, shares had already declined by 22 percent so far in 2015 before we even got to Wednesday. Here is more on this stunning turn of events from Bloomberg…
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. suffered its worst stock decline in more than 27 years after predicting a drop in annual profit, underscoring the giant retailer’s struggles to reignite growth.
Earnings will decrease 6 percent to 12 percent in fiscal 2017, which ends in January of that year, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said at its investor day on Wednesday. Analysts had estimated a gain of 4 percent on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
If it was just Wal-Mart that was having trouble, that would be bad enough. But the truth is that signs that the U.S. economy has entered another major downturn are popping up all around us. Just consider the following list of economic indicators that Graham Summers recently put out…
The Fed has now kept interest rates at zero for 81 months.
This is the longest period in the history of the Fed’s existence, lasting longer than even the 1938-1942 period of ZIRP.
And the US economy is moving back into recession. Consider that…
1) Industrial production fell five months straight in the first half of 2015. This has never happened outside of a recession.
2) Merchant Wholesalers’ Sales are in recession territory.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Numbers Say That A Major Global Recession Has Already Begun
The Numbers Say That A Major Global Recession Has Already Begun
The biggest bank in the western world has just come out and declared that the global economy is “already in a recession”. According to British banking giant HSBC, global trade is down 8.4 percent so far this year, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. So those that are waiting for the next worldwide economic recession to begin can stop waiting. It is officially here. As you will see below, money is fleeing emerging markets at a blistering pace, major global banks are stuck with huge loans that will never be repaid, and it looks like a very significant worldwide credit crunch has begun. Just a few days ago, I explained that the IMF, the UN, the BIS And Citibank were all warning that a major economic crisis could be imminent. They aren’t just making this stuff up out of thin air, but most Americans still seem to believe that everything is going to be just fine. The level of blind faith in the system that most people are demonstrating right now is absolutely astounding.
The numbers say that the global economy has not been in this bad shape since the devastating recession that shook the world in 2008 and 2009. According to HSBC, “we are already in a dollar recession”…
Global trade is also declining at an alarming pace. According to the latest data available in June the year on year change is -8.4%. To find periods of equivalent declines we only really find recessionary periods. This is an interesting point. On one metric we are already in a recession. As can be seen in Chart 3 on the following page, global GDP expressed in US dollars is already negative to the tune of USD 1,37trn or -3.4%. That is, we are already in a dollar recession.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
A Global Recession Is Inevitable
A Global Recession Is Inevitable
In every market supply and demand are determining the price. Charles Biderman uses this simple logic as the foundation for his investment philosophy. The outspoken founder of the research firm TrimTabs is convinced that stock prices are a function of liquidity—the amount of shares available to buy and the amount of money available to buy them—rather than fundamental value. Therefore, he carefully tracks the announced actions of companies. In his view they are among the biggest players in the stock market and the driving force behind today’s bull market. For now, Biderman thinks that this trend will push stock prices even higher. For the medium term though, he cautions that the financial markets are poised for a severe crash. He spots the first signs of a global recession in the drop of the commodity prices and warns of the moment when people don’t trust the paper money of the central banks anymore.
Mr. Biderman, once again the economy is not doing well. Nevertheless, the stock market in the United States seems to be in record setting mood. What’s behind the rally?
What’s present in the stock market in the moment are companies, their transactions, buyers and sellers of stock. That’s all what happens in the market. So if you count the number of shares available and how much money is available you might get a sense of what’s going to happen. Since 2011, the amount of shares in the market has been declining every year. Even though individuals are taking money out of the market, companies have spent around $1.6 Trillion in cash on takeovers and stock buybacks.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What Happens to the Stock Market if the U.S. Follows the World into Recession?
What Happens to the Stock Market if the U.S. Follows the World into Recession?
History is rather unkind to blind faith in central banks, just as the rising U.S. dollar and stagnant sales are being very unkind to corporate profits.
The quasi-religious faith that central banks can push stock markets ever higher regardless of real-world realities may well be tested in 2015-2016. The global economy spiraling into recession (a.k.a. a period of slow growth–heh) raises two questions:
1. Can the U.S. economy decouple from the global economy, i.e. keep expanding production, sales, income and payrolls while the rest of the global economy falters?
2. What happens to the U.S. stock market if/when the U.S. follows the rest of the world into recession?
My colleague Dave P. at Market Daily Briefinghas posted information on a recession detector based on the work of economists Chauvet and Piger.
In essence, the model considers four data series: real personal income, nonfarm payrolls, industrial production and real final sales (as a percentage of change). If all four are rising, the probability of recession is low.
If all four roll over and decline, the probability of recession (generally defined as a decline in gross domestic product for two consecutive quarters) approaches 100%.
This makes intuitive sense: if personal income, industrial production, real final sales and payrolls are all declining, how can GDP continue expanding?
For context, let’s start with a chart I published earlier this week of new manufacturing orders–which look unambiguously recessionary:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
