Category: Stagflation
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Sunday, January 08, 2023
Stagflation to Terrorize the US Economy in 2023 / Economics / Stagflation
Gold and silver markets got off to a strong start in the first couple days of trading this year before running into some selling pressure on Thursday – only to bounce back again on Friday morning.A superficially strong jobs report has raised expectations for further rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and boosted the U.S. dollar on foreign exchange markets. Metals futures traders reflexively responded by hitting the sell button yesterday only to turn around and buy today.
Investors often look at the first few trading days of a New Year for clues as to market trends that may develop for the rest of the year.
Financial News Report: U.S. stocks fell sharply on Thursday as fresh evidence of a tight labor market deepened fears the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates elevated for longer than expected.
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Saturday, May 07, 2022
Russian Sanctions Stagflation Driver / Economics / Stagflation
Knock out 20% of the world's gas exports and 10% of the worlds exports and how can you not expect even higher inflation. Even worse for Europe where several nations such as Germany rely on Russia for upto 40% of their gas. Whilst for the UK 4% of russian gas may not sound like much but the impact has been on gas prices that had already soared several fold before the Ukraine invasion have now doubled once more. with the risks that the sanctions blitzkrieg prompts Russia to pull the plug on EU gas that will trigger gas rationing among many nations such as Germany and Italy which means INDUSTRY will take a hit thus further disrupting supply chains and hence continuing to put upwards pressure on prices as component and finished goods supply chains are further disrupted which easily translates into EU inflation surging higher by an additional 2% and reduction in GDP of at least 0.5%.
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Wednesday, January 19, 2022
US Stagflation: The Global Risk of 2022 / Economics / Stagflation
Until recently, the US Fed ignored America’s soaring inflation. Due to its belated response, the consequent risks will penalize the ailing global recovery.In November, U.S. inflation surged to near 40-year high, at 6.8%. Only days later, the Fed indicated it would end its pandemic-era bond purchases in March, thus paving the way for interest rate hikes by the end of 2022.
It had been one of the worst inflation calls in the Fed’s history. One that will contribute to new uncertainty in the United States. Nor will it spare the rest of the world, including the world’s most dynamic region - Asia.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Biden Spending to Build Back Stagflation / Economics / Stagflation
President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill into law on Monday amid growing concerns that his administration’s policies are fueling higher inflation.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, a Democrat, is warning of an economically and politically ruinous inflation problem brewing.
He wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed that “far too much fiscal stimulus and overly easy monetary policy” will “threaten prosperity and public trust unless clearly acknowledged and addressed.”
That was an apparent swipe at the Biden administration’s pattern of denials and misdirections whenever confronted about inflation.
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Friday, May 28, 2021
Inflation Cools (For Now) Stagflation Awaits / Stock-Markets / Stagflation
To maintain the inflation, a cooling of inflation was needed
That is one of those Alice in Wonderland-like statements, like the one I’ve got tattooed on my left forearm: “Contrary-wise, what is it wouldn’t be and what it wouldn’t be it would, you see?”
To maintain inflationary policy, as per various talking Fed (egg) heads, the hysterical run up in inflationary expectations and fears had to be tamped down. And so, Google users have indeed eased their neuroses right along with a recent tamping of inflationary hysteria.
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Sunday, May 16, 2021
Inflation Going Stag / Economics / Stagflation
Stagflation in the offing, unless it’s not different this time…
As corporations continue to raise wages, market participants fear the Fed is wrong about supposedly “transitory” inflation, long-term Treasury bond yields resume the rally (bonds decline) manufacturers’ (ISM) costs keep rising, the Fed’s inflationary operation – a desperate monetary kick save if ever there was one – labors on.
The Fed has manipulated bonds and flooded the markets and the economy with funny munny created out of nowhere, as if by magic. As if by MMT (modern monetary theory) TMM (total market manipulation). So far, so good. Jerome Powell stands to be the first non-Bernanke winner of the Ben Bernanke Award for Heroism in the line of inflating a debt ridden economy.
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Tuesday, April 30, 2019
When Overvalued and Dangerous Markets Meet Stagflation / Economics / Stagflation
To put into perspective how overvalued and dangerous the US market has become; I often cite the figure of total market cap to GDP—currently 145% of the economy. How high is 145% of GDP? It is a full 30% higher than it was before the start of the Great Recession. The twin sister to this metric is the Household Net Worth to GDP Ratio. Household net worth as a percent of GDP is calculated by dividing the current bubbles in home prices and equities by the underlying economy, which has been artificially inflated by interest rates that have been pushed into the sub-basement of history. This metric is now an incredible 535% of GDP, which is a record high and 19% higher than the NASDAQ bubble of 2000. To put that figure in perspective, the good folks at Daily Reckoning have calculated that the historical average is 384%.
These valuation measurements are much more accurate than Wall Street’s favorite PE ratio valuation barometer because they cannot be easily manipulated by corporate share buybacks that have been facilitated by record-low borrowing costs. And, as hinted at already, the GDP denominator of today is much more tenuous because it has become more than ever predicated on the record amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus from the government.
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Wednesday, December 13, 2017
UK Stagflation Risk As Inflation Hits 3.1% and House Prices Fall / Economics / Stagflation
– UK inflation hits 3.1%, highest in nearly six years
– UK earnings flat – households are still suffering falling real wages
– Stagflation risk as food and drink prices jumped 4.1% in 12 months
– UK house prices fall two-months in a row, down 0.5% in October
– Real stagflation risk now, inflation high and growth slowing
– Savings continue to be eaten by inflation
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
“Secular Stagnation” Is Nonsense… Here’s the Real Reason Behind the US Downturn / Economics / Stagflation
My good friend Charles Gave recently wrote an instructive article titled “Tale of Two Countries.”
In the UK and France, structural growth rates have diverged since 1981. The rate has fallen by two-thirds in France, while in the UK it has risen.
Why?
Well, to begin with, in the UK, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979. She reduced the role of the bureaucracy in managing economic activity and dialed back government spending as a percentage of GDP.
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Monday, March 13, 2017
Is Stagflation Stalking? The Answer Is Critical To Your Financial Health! / Economics / Stagflation
It is important to anticipate whether Stagflation is stalking because the yield curve will start pricing it in which will place equity yields, earnings and PE growth multiples at risk.
We believe there are clear signs of stagflation already occurring and according to the recent Global Fund Manger Survey, many believe if we don't already have elevated Inflation and an emerging period of stagflation, we can soon expect it!
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Tuesday, August 09, 2016
Greenspan Gets One Right: Here Comes Stagflation / Economics / Stagflation
In a recent interview, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (the "Maestro") warned that the economy was experiencing, "the early signs of stagflation." This is a very rare occasion where Mr. Greenspan and I are actually in agreement. I also warned of this in my “Time to Invest for Stagflation” commentary published several months ago.
In fact, the U.S. economy—and indeed the entire developed world—is in the beginning stages of an unprecedented breakout of stagflation. The number one reason for this can be summed up in a single word…debt. Debt not only steers an economy towards low growth but it also mires the nation with inflation.
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Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Will the Fed be Blind Sided by Stagflation? / Economics / Stagflation
Most Central Bank watchers know that our Federal Reserve has a dual mandate of stable prices in the context of maximum employment. But its use of the words "stable and maximum" is somewhat misleading. For instance, one would assume that "stable" inflation would lead the Fed to pursue no change in prices and "maximum" employment would be a rate targeted at 0 percent unemployment; but this is not the case.
For some antithetical economic reason central bankers have unanimously redefined stable prices as adopting a 2 percent inflation target. The Fed has also morphed the term maximum employment rate to mean a 5-6 percent unemployment rate, clinging to the misguided belief that full employment is the progenitor of inflation, despite no supporting economic or historical evidence.
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Monday, April 11, 2016
Time to Invest for Stagflation / Stock-Markets / Stagflation
Whether you call it a 1970's style stagflation or, as we call it, a recessflation, investors need to prepare their portfolios to profit from a protracted period of rising prices in the context of zero growth. Here are some facts: Growth in the U.S. has averaged just 2% since 2010. However, Q4 2015 GDP growth grew at a 1.4% annualized rate and the Atlanta Fed model has Q1 GDP growth slowing to just 0.1%. The simple truth is that the rate of growth is slowing towards 0%, just as asset prices continue to rise to record levels due to vast intervention from central banks.
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Monday, June 30, 2014
Japan Says Konnichiwa to Economic Stagflation / Economics / Stagflation
More than twenty years after its infamous real estate and equity bubble burst, Japan has been plagued by economic malaise, an ailment most main stream economists have attributed to something they call a deflationary death spiral. As one lost decade turned into two, and now well into number three, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to remedy this deflationary flu with an enormous dose of inflation.
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Friday, May 02, 2014
Stagflation and the Credit Cycle / Economics / Stagflation
Stagflation: When the general level of prices rises due to the purchasing power of currency-money falling, instead of price inflation due to a general increase in demand.
The credit cycle that normally drives advanced economies through boom and bust is turning out to be different this time round. The boom between the Lehman bust and the one yet to come never got going, because of very high levels of existing debt. This condition will almost certainly lead to stagflation.
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Sunday, April 06, 2014
Abenomics Stagflation - It's in Shinzo Abe's (Political) Genes / Economics / Stagflation
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" goal was to end a long miserable decade and a half of deflation by kick starting the economy. This was going to happen because of massive yen creation. The fiat balloon would induce consumers to spend and corporations to reinvest profits, convinced by a rising stock market and surging exports that all is well.
The Bank of Japan pumped liquidity into the economy at a pace even faster than the U.S. Federal Reserve - $60 billion a month versus $85 billion (the U.S. economy is three times larger than Japan's).
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Friday, January 24, 2014
What Stagflation Means for Investors / Stock-Markets / Stagflation
Michael Lombardi writes: The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported that inflation in the U.S. economy increased by 0.3% in the month of December and that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the entire year of 2013 increased by only 1.5%. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 16, 2014.)
Is inflation in the U.S. economy really this low?
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Saturday, December 22, 2012
Republican Sellout Invites Stagflation / Economics / Stagflation
While it may not be a surprise that the Republicans are preparing to yield on their vow to oppose tax hikes, it should raise investor concerns the world over that an upcoming budget agreement will likely involve a Congressional surrender of its authority to set the federal debt ceiling. In exchange for this, it appears that the Republicans have simply done nothing to halt, or even curb, the dangerous federal spending trajectories or the current drift towards greater state control of the economy. President Obama has politically outmaneuvered the Republicans, even going as far as evoking the Newtown massacre as a reason for quickly concluding a deal. As a result, it is likely that the GOP will bear the blame for any breakdown in fiscal cliff negotiations. They could wear such an outcome as a badge of honor, but nothing indicates that they have the political courage to do so.
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Friday, August 19, 2011
Threat of Economic Stagflation Looms as Prices Rise Despite Bad Economy / Economics / Stagflation
David Zeiler writes: Few are willing to acknowledge the threat of stagflation, but reports showing inflation rising more quickly than expected - even as growth is slowing - indicate that this scourge of the 1970s may be stalking the U.S. economy.
Every economic report nudges the United States closer to the definition of stagflation - a condition marked by slow economic growth, high unemployment, and soaring prices.
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Thursday, August 18, 2011
How to Save Your Wealth From Stagflation / Stock-Markets / Stagflation
Sean Hyman writes: The year was 1973.
I was just a toddler, so I couldn't fully appreciate the next-generation Camaro that had just come out or the release of the new Pontiac Firebird Formula.
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