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This Time IS Different, It Just Ends The Same
This Time IS Different, It Just Ends The Same
This past weekend, I was in Florida with Chris Martenson and Nomi Prins discussing the current backdrop of the markets, economic cycles, and future outcomes. A bulk of the conversations centered around the current “everything bubble” that currently exists globally. Elevated valuations in stock prices, extremely low yields between in “junk bonds,” or intense speculation around “cryptocurrencies” all suggest we have entered once again into “bubble” territory.”
Let me state this:
“Market bubbles have NOTHING to do with valuations or fundamentals.”
Hold on…don’t start screaming “heretic” and building gallows just yet. Let me explain.
Stock market bubbles are driven by speculation, greed, and emotional biases – therefore valuations and fundamentals are simply a reflection of those emotions.
In other words, bubbles can exist even at times when valuations and fundamentals might argue otherwise. Let me show you a very basic example of what I mean. The chart below is the long-term valuation of the S&P 500 going back to 1871.
First, it is important to notice that with the exception of only 1929, 2000 and 2007, every other major market crash occurred with valuations at levels LOWER than they are currently. Secondly, all of these crashes have been the result of things unrelated to valuation levels such as liquidity issues, government actions, monetary policy mistakes, recessions or inflationary spikes. However, those events were only a catalyst, or trigger, that started the “panic for the exits” by investors.
Market crashes are an “emotionally” driven imbalance in supply and demand. You will commonly hear that “for every buyer, there must be a seller.” This is absolutely true. The issue becomes at “what price.” What moves prices up and down, in a normal market environment, is the price level at which a buyer and seller complete a transaction.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Waiting Is The Hardest Part
Man, what an awful stretch of events.
When I penned last week’s article on tragedy, little did I expect something as horrible as the Las Vegas massacre would immediately follow. And nearly lost in the headlines was the untimely passing of rock legend, Tom Petty, one of my all-time favorite musicians. Sure can’t wait for this week to be over…
In memory of Tom, I’ve been listening to a lot of his and the Heartbreakers’ best hits. The lyrics to one song in particular, The Waiting, well-captures an important message today’s investors should take to heart:
The waiting is the hardest partDon’t let it kill you baby, don’t let it get to you
Those waiting for the financial markets to experience some sort (any sort!) of pullback have been waiting a long, looong time. How long?
- It has been over 100 months (more than 8.5 years) since the current bull market began in April of 2009
- It has been 15 months since the last (and very brief) drop of 5% in the S&P 500
- This past September saw record low volatility, including a stretch now claimed to be “the most peaceful days in the history of the markets”
- Since last year’s presidential election, at which point the markets were already considered dangerously overvalued, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up over 20%
- As of this article’s publishing, the Dow, the S&P and the NASDAQ are all trading at record highs
Or, to put it visually:
The stock market is now 70% higher than it was at the previous bubble peak immediately preceding the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.
Reflect for a moment how painful the crash from Oct 2008-March 2009 was. How much more painful will a crash from today’s much dizzier heights be?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Cardinal Sin Of Investing: Permanent Impairment Of Capital
Victor Moussa/Shutterstock
The Cardinal Sin Of Investing: Permanent Impairment Of Capital
The key message was: When smart analysts independently find the same patterns in the data, it’s time to take notice.
Well, many of you did, by participating in this week’s Dangerous Markets webinar, which featured Grant and Lance.
In it, both went much deeper into the structural fragility of today’s financial markets and the many reasons why economic growth will remain constrained for years to come.
The excessive build-up of debt in the system — and the absolute dependence on its continued expansion to keep the economy from imploding — is, of course, seen as the prime risk to future growth.
As Lance demonstrates here with several of his excellent charts, so much leverage has been taken on that its servicing is increasingly stealing capital that would otherwise go to savings, consumption and productive investment. Going forward, the demands of the debt service will simply result in less and less capital available left over to grow the economy:
As financial assets are (supposed to be) valued on future growth prospects, lower forecasted growth demands lower valuations. Grant calculates that, should the US see another decade of 2% average annual GDP growth (and it has averaged less than that over the past decade), stock prices should be roughly half of what they are today to be considered fairly valued:
And Lance builds further on this, explaining how this moribund growth, coupled with America’s aging demographic trend, will simply savage the nation’s (already troublesomely underfunded) pension and entitlement systems:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Weekend Reading: The “Real” Vampire Squid
Weekend Reading: The “Real” Vampire Squid
First, it was Hurricane “Harvey” and an expected $180 billion in damages to the Texas coastline. Now, “Irma” is speeding her way to the Florida coastline dragging “Jose” in her wake. Those two hurricanes, depending on where they land will send damages higher by another $100 billion or more in the weeks ahead.
The immediate funding needed for relief to Americans is what you would truly deem to be “emergency measures.”
But that is not what I am talking about today.
Nope, I am talking about Central Banks. On Thursday, Mario Draghi, of the ECB, announced their latest monetary policy stance:
“At today’s meeting, the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.40% respectively. The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of the net asset purchases.
Regarding non-standard monetary policy measures, the Governing Council confirms that the net asset purchases, at the current monthly pace of €60 billion, are intended to run until the end of December 2017, or beyond, if necessary, and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim. The net purchases are made alongside reinvestments of the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the asset purchase programme. If the outlook becomes less favourable, or if financial conditions become inconsistent with further progress towards a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation, the Governing Council stands ready to increase the programme in terms of size and/or duration.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Van Halen, M&Ms, And The Next Market Downturn
Van Halen, M&Ms, And The Next Market Downturn
The planet-sized egos of rock & roll performers are legendary.
Few things symbolize this better than the outrageous requests they often make when on tour.
These requests are referred to as “riders”, and appear in the contract a tour venue receives in advance of the artist’s arrival. These contract riders specify the physical conditions that the singer/band requires to be in place before arriving to perform. Stage lighting settings, sound equipment, furnishings, etc — that kind of stuff.
And these rider requests can get pretty funky – often extremely so — when it comes to backstage perks the performers want.
For example: A wooden pond filled with koi carp (Eminem). A driver who will not speak or make eye contact (Katy Perry). 20 white kittens and 100 doves (Mariah Carey). Seven dwarves (Iggy Pop). 50,000 bees (Slayer). A sub-machine gun (Mötley Crüe). And, yes, even a great white shark (Hank III).
The practice of making these kind of outrageous demands stems from a rider Van Halen inserted into the contract for its 1982 world tour, which insisted on a bowl of M&Ms to be provided backstage, but with all of the brown M&Ms removed.
As this image below of the actual rider shows, the band was very explicit in its seriousness about this:
Once the media got whiff of this, it had a field day roasting the band’s narcissistic chutzpah. A new high-water mark of diva capriciousness had been established, which quickly became legend. A feat of prima donna pampering that subsequent performers have been trying to top ever since.
But as crazy as it sounds, Van Halen’s “no brown M&Ms” rider had nothing to do with caprice. There was a solid rationale behind it.
In fact, it was quite brilliant.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Weekend Reading: Harvey & The Broken Window Fallacy
Weekend Reading: Harvey & The Broken Window Fallacy
As the waters recede from “Hurricane Harvey,” the rebuilding efforts begin. It will take quite some time before Houston fully recovers from the tragedy, but recover we will. Hopefully, lessons were learned by a city government that has avoided dealing with the drainage and flooding problems for far too long. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars extracted from the citizenry of Houston via a “rain tax,” the money was absorbed by the profligate spending of repeated feckless Mayors who chose to spend on “bike trails,” “green energy.” and other liberal agendas rather than resolving a critical issue that has plagued Houston for years.
We’ll see. But I won’t hold my breath as Houston continues to follow the shining examples of other fiscally responsible governments like Chicago, Detroit, and others. [sarcasm alert]
But that is a story for another day.
Currently, the mainstream story is the “economic boost” which will come from the recovery process. This is the essence of the “Broken Window Fallacy.”
“A window is destroyed, therefore the window has to be replaced which leads to economic activity throughout the economy.
However, the fallacy of the ‘broken window’ narrative is that economic activity is only changed and not increased. The dollars used to pay for the window can no longer be used for their original intended purpose.
There is no free lunch.”
To put a finer point on it:
“If natural disasters are such a good deal for the economy, why wait for Acts of God to come along? Why not nuke? https://t.co/nc5WBUVzKW
— Real Investment News (@RINonAir) August 29, 2017
She is right. Obviously, nuking cities to create economic growth is just plain silly.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Breaking Point & Death Of Keynes
The Breaking Point & Death Of Keynes
You can almost hear the announcer for the movie trailer;
“In a world stricken by financial crisis, a country plagued by spiraling deficits and cities on the verge of collapse – a war is being waged; gauntlet’s thrown down and at the heart of it all; two dead white guys battling over the fate of the economy.”
While I am not so sure it would actually make a great movie to watch – it is the ongoing saga we will continue to witness unfold over the next decade. While the video below is entertaining, it does lay out the key differences between Keynesian and Austrian economic theories.
Just last week, the Federal Reserve released a report which forms the basis of the semi-annual testimony Ms. Yellen will give to Congress this week. There was much in this report which suggests the models the Federal Reserve continues to use are at best flawed and, at worst, broken.
For decades, ivory tower economists have heaped high praise on Keynesian policies as they have encouraged Governments to drive deeper into debt with the expectation of reviving economic growth.
The problem is – it hasn’t worked.
Here’s proof. Following the financial crisis, the Government and the Federal Reserve decided it was prudent to inject more than $33 Trillion in debt-laden injections into the economy believing such would stimulate an economic resurgence. Here is a listing of all the programs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Pension Crisis In U.S. and Globally Is Unavoidable
Pension Crisis In U.S. and Globally Is Unavoidable
Pension Crisis In U.S. and Globally Is Unavoidable
There is a really big crisis coming.
Think about it this way. After 8 years and a 230% stock market advance the pension funds of Dallas, Chicago, and Houston are in severe trouble.
But it isn’t just these municipalities that are in trouble, but also most of the public and private pensions that still operate in the country today.
Currently, many pension funds, like the one in Houston, are scrambling to slightly lower return rates, issue debt, raise taxes or increase contribution limits to fill some of the gaping holes of underfunded liabilities in their plans. The hope is such measures combined with an ongoing bull market, and increased participant contributions, will heal the plans in the future.
This is not likely to be the case.
This problem is not something born of the last “financial crisis,” but rather the culmination of 20-plus years of financial mismanagement.
An April 2016 Moody’s analysis pegged the total 75-year unfunded liability for all state and local pension plans at $3.5 trillion.
That’s the amount not covered by current fund assets, future expected contributions, and investment returns at assumed rates ranging from 3.7% to 4.1%. Another calculation from the American Enterprise Institute comes up with $5.2 trillion, presuming that long-term bond yields average 2.6%.
With employee contribution requirements extremely low, averaging about 15% of payroll, the need to stretch for higher rates of return have put pensions in a precarious position and increases the underfunded status of pensions.
With pension funds already wrestling with largely underfunded liabilities, the shifting demographics are further complicating funding problems.
One of the primary problems continues to be the decline in the ratio of workers per retiree as retirees are living longer (increasing the relative number of retirees), and lower birth rates (decreasing the relative number of workers.)
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Problem With Forecasts
The Problem With Forecasts
We can’t predict the future – if it was actually possible fortune tellers would all win the lottery. They don’t, we can’t, and we aren’t going to try. However, this doesn’t stop the annual parade of Wall Street analysts from pegging 12-month price targets on the S&P 500 as if there was an actual science behind what is nothing more than a “WAG.” (Wild Ass Guess).
In reality, all we can do is analyze what has happened in the past, weed through the noise of the present and try to discern the possible outcomes of the future.
The biggest single problem with Wall Street, both today and in the past, is the consistent disregard of the possibilities for unexpected, random events. In a 2010 study, by the McKinsey Group, they found that analysts have been persistently overly optimistic for 25 years. During the 25-year time frame, Wall Street analysts pegged earnings growth at 10-12% a year when in reality earnings grew at 6% which, as we have discussed in the past, is the growth rate of the economy.
Ed Yardeni published the two following charts which shows that analysts are always overly optimistic in their estimates.
This is why using forward earnings estimates as a valuation metric is so incredibly flawed – as the estimates are always overly optimistic roughly 33% on average. Furthermore, the reason that earnings only grew at 6% over the last 25 years is because the companies that make up the stock market are a reflection of real economic growth. Stocks cannot outgrow the economy in the long term…remember that.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
3 Things: Value Of Cash, 3rd Mandate, Yellen Channels Bernanke
3 Things: Value Of Cash, 3rd Mandate, Yellen Channels Bernanke
El-Erian – The Value Of Cash
My friend, Anora Mahmudova, recently wrote for MarketWatch about Mohamed El-Erian’s discussion on the importance of “cash” for investors.
“At a breakfast meeting with reporters on Monday, the former Pacific Investment Management Company chief executive said central bank asset purchases have successfully decoupled asset prices from fundamentals and distorted traditional correlations.
‘Investors cannot rely on correlations as a risk mitigator, making cash a very valuable thing to have.
It can give your portfolio resilience during stressful times, optionality—whether you use it for tactical or strategic purposes and flexibility to deploy it when necessary.’
Central banks are finding it harder and harder to repress volatility in financial markets, and any jolts, such as currency devaluation in China or political events, such as Brexit, result in wild swings in the markets.’
El-Erian also said years of unconventional monetary policy, including asset purchases, and a lack of fiscal stimulus are making developed economies less stable.”
Whenever El-Erian makes comments about the value of holding cash, there is generally a good bit of media lash-back about relating to the impacts of inflation and the inability to successfully navigate market cycles.
El-Erian’s comments are a valuation call, driven to excess by monetary interventions, on the financial markets suggesting that having capital invested will likely yield substantially lower or negative returns in the future. This is an extremely important concept in understanding the “real value of cash.”
The chart below shows the inflation-adjusted return of $100 invested in the S&P 500 (using data provided by Dr. Robert Shiller). The chart also shows Dr. Shiller’s CAPE ratio. However, I have capped the CAPE ratio at 23x earnings which has historically been the peak of secular bull markets in the past. Lastly, I calculated a simple cash/stock switching model which buys stocks at a CAPE ratio of 6x or less and moves to cash at a ratio of 23x.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Technically Speaking: The Real Value Of Cash
Technically Speaking: The Real Value Of Cash
With the “inmates running the asylum” during a holiday-shortened trading week, the upward bias to the market is set to continue. However, as I addressed last week:
“As we progress through the last two months of the year, historical tendencies suggest a bias to the upside. This is particularly the case given the weakness this past summer which has left many mutual and hedge funds trailing their benchmarks. The need to play ‘catch-up’ will likely create a push into larger capitalization stocks as portfolios are ‘window dressed’ for year end reporting.
This traditional ‘Santa Claus’ rally, however, does not guarantee the resumption of the ongoing ‘bull market’ into 2016. The chart below lays out my expectation for the market through the end of the year.”
“With the markets currently oversold on a very short-term basis, the current probability is a rally into the ‘Thanksgiving’ holiday next week and potentially into the first week of December. As opposed to my rudimentary projections, the push higher will likely be a ‘choppy’ advance rather than a straight line.”
So far, the analysis over the last several weeks has continued to play out as expected. However, and this is crucially important, a near-term expectation of a bullish advancedue to the recent correction and seasonal tendencies is not the same as long-term bullish outlook.
As stated above, while seasonality likely holds the cards through the end of this year, projecting much beyond that window is foolishness.
The Real Value Of Cash
This brings to mind a call I had on the radio show recently discussing his advisor’s reluctance to hold cash.
The argument against holding cash goes this way:
“If you hold cash you lose value over time to inflation.”
This is a true statement if you hold cash for an EXTREMELY long period. However, holding cash as a “hedge” against market volatility during periods of elevated uncertainty is a different matter entirely.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Weekend Reading: Just A Correction, Or Something Else
Weekend Reading: Just A Correction, Or Something Else
Earlier this week I posted two pieces of analysis with respect to the recent dive in the markets. The first discussed the possibility that this is just a correction within an ongoing bull market. The second delved into the possibility that a new cyclical bear market has begun. Only time will tell which is truly the case.
However, in ALL cases, the initial decline led to a subsequent bounce and ultimately retested previous lows. As shown in the chart below, this was the case in 2010 and 2011 which were ultimately followed by Federal Reserve interventions that helped the bull market regain its footing.
The question is whether, with economic growth rates slowing and deflationary pressures building, will the Fed again intervene by postponing rate hikes and injecting liquidity? Or, is this recent correction just the beginning of something larger? Only time will tell for certain. However, there is mounting evidence that we are indeed closer to the end of this bull market cycle than the beginning.
This weekend’s reading list is a smattering of views from bulls, to bears and everything in between as to the recent correction. Is it just a correction to be followed by a resumption of the bull market? Or something else?
THE LIST
1) Panic Attack Or Start Of A Bear Market by Ed Yardeni via Dr. Ed’s Blog
There have been lots of panic attacks since the start of the bull market in early 2009. The first four of them occurred from the second through the fourth years of the current bull market, and they were full-fledged corrections. They were all triggered by worries that a recession was imminent, with anxiety focused on three major and varying concerns: a double-dip in the US, a disintegration of the Eurozone, and a hard landing in China–all having the potential to cause a global recession either individually or in combination. When those fears dissipated, relief rallies ensued.”
Read Also: Was Monday’s Plunge Capitulation, Nah! by Simon Constable via Forbes
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
