Category: Financial Markets 2022
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Fiscal and Monetary Policy Shocks / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Michael_Pento
The cornerstones in my Inflation/Deflation and Economic Cycle Model are changes made to fiscal and monetary policies. Those are the two most determinant factors in any fiat-currency and debt-based monetary system.
Monetary policies have been ratcheting up tightly since March of this year when the Fed began to move away from its zero-interest rate policy; and Quantitative Tightening ramped up to $95 billion per month in September. Rate hikes will continue throughout the first quarter of next year, just as the extreme pace of balance sheet reduction continues to roll on. The rapid increase in the Fed Funds Rate has depressed the demand for new loans. It has also led to the net percentage of banks tightening lending standards to soar from -32.4% in Q3 of 2021, to a positive 39.1% in Q4 of this year. In a debt-based monetary system, money is created when new loans are produced. To this point, what is happening now is that the amount of fed credit (base money supply) is being destroyed at a record pace, just as banks are slamming the door shut on new loans due to the eroding economy. Hence, the M2 money supply has crashed from a humongous growth rate of 26.7% in February of 2021, to a year-over-year pace that is now shrinking.
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Banzai CPI and Fed / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Monica_Kingsley
S&P 500 celebrated the „only“ 7.1% CPI YoY news, but it was really just the real assets who kept their gains while stocks fell back to where they started from in what appears the correct big picture view of being on the lookout to get short as betting it all on a strong Santa Claus rally has the appeal of picking up pennies in front of a steamroller without more USD retreat juice. I really liked the precious metals performance with miners increasingly confirming the upswing, with both metals doing increasingly well. Let alone copper and oil...
Where does that land us in stocks today? The weak follow through has me on toes, this inability to defend 4,070. I doubt we would overcome my long ago touted 4,130 obstacle later today as Powell dutifully delivers a no surprise statement. Conference is a volatility wildcard.
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Tuesday, November 22, 2022
'No Mas' to Hawkish Fed Says Precious Metals Expert / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: The_Gold_Report
In light of the controversy with FTX Corp., expert Michael Ballanger shares his opinion on current news coverage and the state of the gold market and U.S. dollar to tell you his view on the precious metals and whether he believes we are headed toward a bear market rally.
A tad over forty-two years ago, an absolute freak of a boxer named Roberto Duran lost a rematch with another fine battler named Sugar Ray Leonard when he uttered the two words “No más” and ended the bout.
As disappointed as I was to watch one of my favorite boxers (“scrapper” would be a better term) throw in the towel, I was actually appalled at the physical condition of the “Manos de Piedra” (Hands of Stone) Duran, who appeared to have ended his partying off the first bout about three days earlier.
However, the words ending the match were absolutely appropriate, and they are reminiscent of my current stance toward all this controversy and outrage surrounding FTX Corp., which is dominating the digital airwaves while swiftly becoming a major vote-getting platform for politicians. Surprise, surprise .
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Sunday, October 23, 2022
The Fed is forced to pay you to Stay Safe / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Gary_Tanashian
As the Fed fights the last war (on inflation) the result is a rare thing; a bear market haven called cash, paying increasing income
Safety Vehicles
Gold: For long-term financial security. Real gold, not ETFs, not allocated gold trusts that you can never actually possess (if you, like me, are not spectacularly wealthy) and certainly not gold mining equities.* Just gold. It’s so simple as to be overlooked by all too many, probably because it pays no income and just sits there over decades holding value.
Cash: Unlike other bear markets in equities over the last few decades when the Fed throttled savers with the likes of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) at the first signs of trouble for asset owners, today’s Fed is commanded to clean up the mess it was primary in making during the last asset market bailout (H1, 2020), in a battle against inflation’s lagging indicators (e.g. CPI) and headlines (picture the public manning its pitchforks and torches) as cash pays increasingly higher income.
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Sunday, October 16, 2022
Post-bubble Economic Contraction / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Gary_Tanashian
“Post-bubble contraction” (PBC) as coined by Bob Hoye, may finally be at hand
Bob Hoye has been talking about a coming post-bubble contraction (PBC) for many years, in my experience. Now after many false starts, it may finally be in play on the wider macro picture. Past contractions (e.g. 2008 and 2020) have proven to be little more than precursors, triggers to new asset bubble phases because the Fed’s main macro manipulation tool, bonds, were in a multi-decade long trend of disinflationary signaling.
To this point with respect to the PBC, timing has been an issue. This is not a critique of Hoye, a fine financial historian and macro fundamental analyst. In fact, it is the opposite. It is from him that I learned the proper fundamentals for gold and especially the gold mining industry. But perfectly good deflationary meltdowns (of previous inflationary operations) were foiled in both 2008 and 2020.
Why were they foiled so effectively? Because the Federal Reserve and global central banks have for decades had a lenient bond market to fall back on (the fabled ‘bond vigilantes of yore apparently rode into a small town, hit the saloon and never again emerged… until 2022, that is). I have for many years now used the 30-year yield ‘Continuum’ (monthly 30yr yield chart, below) as a nice visual to the mechanics of the Fed’s macro-manipulative wheel house, the US Treasury bond market.
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Friday, September 23, 2022
Economic Conditions, Market Performance Worsen after Fed Rate Hike / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: MoneyMetals
Precious metals markets are trying to tough this week despite another large rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
On Wednesday, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by three quarters as expected. Fed chairman Jerome Powell vowed to bring inflation down and restore price stability.
Jerome Powell: My colleagues and I are strongly committed to bringing inflation back down to our 2% goal. We have both the tools we need and the resolve that it will take to restore price stability on behalf of American families and businesses. Price stability is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve and serves as the bedrock of our economy. Without price stability, the economy does not work for anyone. We are moving our policy stance purposefully to a level that will be sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2%. The longer the current bout of high inflation continues the greater the chance that expectations of higher inflation will become entrenched.
After pursuing ultra-loose monetary policy that fomented price instability and massive inflation in the first place, Powell seems to now want to model himself after former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. In the early 1980s, Volcker jacked up interest rates to the highest on record to finally curtail the inflation surge from the late 1970s.
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Sunday, July 31, 2022
US Fed Is Battling Excess Global Capital – Which Is Creating Inflation / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The US Fed continues to bring the big guns, raising rates another 75 bp (0.75%) on July 27, 2022. Even though they stated the economy is softening, current Inflation and CPI data suggest otherwise. The US Fed may be forced into another 75~100 bp rate increase next month if the US economy continues to show strong CPI and Inflation trends. There is only one other time in recent history like the current market environment – 1998~2004.
The DOT COM Bubble was unique in the sense that excess capital flowed into technology/internet companies’ hand-over-fist. It seemed all you had to do was register a URL, come up with some crazy business plan, and go talk to investors/VC. It was not a crisis like the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis event. The DOT COM Bubble was a process of unwinding/consolidating excess capital away from a euphoric speculative phase in the markets.
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Thursday, July 21, 2022
Test drive EWI's Financial Forecast Service / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: EWI
Hi reader,
Market action this year has hurt A LOT of people. Cryptos. Meme stocks. Tech stocks. We've seen some huge percentage declines -- all against a backdrop of historic leaps in interest rates and inflation.
Lifestyles irrevocably changed, not for the better.
Economists missed it. The Fed missed it. Politicians missed it.
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Sunday, July 17, 2022
What Are The Driving Forces Behind The Shift In Global Financial Markets Risks? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Global market risks have shifted dramatically over the past 90+ days. It almost seems as though the global markets turned 180 degrees overnight, generally going from moderately soft monetary policies to very extreme monetary policies and conditions. This sudden shift caught many traders and investors off guard and resulted in -20% to -25% losses for many.
The driving forces behind this sudden shift are inflation and excess capital (M2) because of nearly a decade of near-zero US interest rates. Much of the excess capital created over the past decade has been deployed into global equities, infrastructure, and various speculative instruments (art, homes, cryptos, collectibles, and others). However, without a doubt, the recent burst of inflation is also a result of COVID restrictions. Such restrictions reduced supply capabilities and the resulting interruptions of manufacturing/supply have been felt throughout the post-COVID global recovery.
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Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Gold, Stocks, Bitcoin, and Bonds Asset Price Deflation / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Kelsey_Williams
Before we talk about asset price deflation, let’s review what happened before 2022.
Most financial assets benefited enormously from the Fed’s hugely gratuitous efforts to support, sustain and reinflate prices after the 2020 collapse and the ensuing forced economic shutdown.
From the article Gold Market Manipulation And The Federal Reserve…
“Long-side investors in all assets, including precious metals, ‘benefited’ from the manipulative efforts of the Federal Reserve twelve years ago and again just recently.
The recent recovery in prices for stocks, bonds, oil, gold, and silver has been almost unbelievable. It is literally jaw-dropping…” June 28, 2020
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022
The Fed is Incompetent - Beware the Dancing Market Puppet / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: The_Gold_Report
Expert Michael Ballanger reviews this week's market updates from Wednesday's FOMC meeting to his outlook on Getchell Gold Corp., which he maintains is a "pound-the-table Buy."
Firstly, if Wednesday’s FOMC meeting featuring Chairman Jerome (I have tools!) Powell did nothing else, it did accentuate just how incompetent they are. Powell stood in front of the cameras and told the world that the American economy was “strong” while one of his own branches, the Atlanta Fed, reported just a day earlier that growth had slowed to 0.00%, which is anything but “strong.”
“Stocks are super-unattractive when the Fed is loosening tightening and interest rates are falling rising. Don’t fight the Fed.”
— Legendary Fund Manager Marty Zweig
As the afternoon wore on, stocks moved higher thinking that the .75% rate hike to be followed by more .75% rate hikes throughout the year (targeting Fed Funds at 3.5%) should be seen as a bullish signal. Reductions in the Fed balance sheet assets and sharply rising rates are about as far from a bullish signal as one can get, so in the last hour, a 600-point Dow rally became a 300-point uptick setting the stage for today’s wake-up call, and 741-point slide.
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Saturday, June 11, 2022
Economic "Hurricane": Here's a Take on a Bank CEO's Warning / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: EWI
Here's what reached a nadir as the war in Ukraine broke out
On June 1, a CNBC headline said:
[Major bank CEO] says 'brace yourself' for an economic hurricane caused by the Fed and Ukraine war
Yes, the U.S. central bank is engaging in so-called "quantitative tightening" and the war persists in Ukraine.
Yet, those cited "causes" of a possible economic "hurricane," like a severe recession or even a depression, are results themselves. For instance, the war in Ukraine resulted from a shift in social mood -- going from positive to negative.
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Friday, June 10, 2022
Will Ignoring Fundamentals Take Revenge on Bullish Stock Traders? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: P_Radomski_CFA
While the Fed strives to tame inflation, short-term investors continue to ruin its efforts with bullish actions. Will their love of risk pay off?
With the S&P 500 enjoying a mid-day rally on Jun. 7 and the GDXJ ETF (proxy for junior gold and silver mining stocks) following suit, the bulls warmed up to the idea of a "soft landing." However, with a much higher U.S. federal funds rate needed to cool inflation, the short-term optimism should be short-lived.
To explain, I've noted on numerous occasions that risk-on sentiment often reverberates across multiple markets. Therefore, when stocks bid higher, commodities usually follow, and this increases the Fed's inflation conundrum. As a result, investors' optimism enhances the pricing pressures.
Tuesday, June 07, 2022
The Horns of Fed‘s Inflation Dilemma / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Monica_Kingsley
S&P 500 gave up Thursday‘s gains much too easily – not even the short window of opportunity gets acted upon. Medium-term trend is winning – stocks will roll over to a fresh downtrend, it‘s a question of time. Bonds aren‘t offering too much of a reprieve – the 10-year yield didn‘t even decline below 1.70% when testing below 1.50% was doable. This merely highlights the brief time window for CPI inflation to make a peak – before raising its head once again. Commodity price inflation isn‘t going to be tamed, and Friday‘s non-farm payrolls have been a last good figure before we see further deterioration. As I wrote that Q1 GDP could very well be negative, the same goes for Q2 GDP – I‘m counting with stall speed.
For now, each upcoming Fed meeting till September, has 50bp rate hike priced in. The question remains what happens after September – would the Fed pivot already? Crude oil prices could be more than easing by that time, if you know what I mean. The focus would have shifted from inflation to economic growth support – that would be the drumbeat of the day. Precious metals are to be the first to anticipate the next dovish turn (backing off tightening), and that moment could happen later in summer. The copper upswing is likely to continue, and factors beyond China and supply with stockpiles, continue to speak against a deeper downswing. It‘s a bit similar to the realization that not even the OPEC+ production increase would be enough to satisfy world demand.
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Sunday, May 29, 2022
Stock and Bond Markets Relief Rally / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Gary_Tanashian
As inflation signals cool, various markets get relief
Whether a bounce or something more extended, a bear market rally was bound to get off the ground sooner or later. It was a matter of time, with stock market sentiment this over-bearish.
Here is how the US Stock Market segment led off last weekend in NFTRH 706:
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Sunday, May 29, 2022
Global Financial Elite in Davos Lust for New Powers / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: MoneyMetals
As global elites met in Davos this week to discuss their latest plans for a Great Reset, ordinary investors are hoping for a great rebound in their portfolios.
The stock market did finally bounce after suffering several consecutive weeks of losses. Whether it’s a just a short-lived relief rally or the start of something bigger remains to be seen.
The U.S. Dollar Index may also be gearing up for a run, but to the downside. After moving higher against foreign currencies for most the year, the dollar is now declining for a second consecutive week.
Dollar weakness helped support a modest rise in gold and silver prices.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Take Advantage When Markets Succumb to Fear / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: MoneyMetals
Last Wednesday’s rate hike by the Federal Reserve failed to convince investors that the central bank can tame inflation without wrecking the economy.
Subsequent remarks by Jerome Powell insisting that the economy isn’t vulnerable to recession were also unconvincing – especially given the Fed chairman’s lousy forecasting track record (“transitory” inflation has proven to be more like intractable inflation).
The good news for gold holders is that the safe-haven metal is holding up better than conventional financial assets. Stocks are breaking down at the same time as purportedly “risk-free” Treasury bonds are collapsing in value at a rate never before seen.
Sentiment gauges are showing extreme pessimism among the public. Most say the country is headed in the wrong direction and give President Joe Biden terrible marks for his handling of the economy.
Saturday, May 07, 2022
Global Market Perspective Test-Drive - Dial In Your View of 50+ Global Markets / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: EWI
Hi,
You might agree that so far, not much about this year has been "normal."
- Normally, commodity prices don't leap to the moon
- Stocks don't sell off this hard in April
- And European countries don't engage in brutal wars
All of that to say: It's time to stop thinking "normal," and start thinking "new."
For that, you can't do better than Elliott waves. Just look at these 8 "before/after" charts from Global Market Perspective, a monthly publication by our friends at Elliott Wave International.
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Sunday, April 24, 2022
Fed Chairman Powell Spooks the Market by Signaling 50 Point Rate Hike / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: MoneyMetals
Tough talk from the Fed roiled markets this past week, with stocks as well as precious metals getting hit.
On Thursday, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank intends to pursue a more rapid pace of interest rate increases. He indicated that a 50-basis point hike in May is likely.
Jerome Powell: We really are committed to using our tools to get 2% inflation back and I think if you look at, for example, if you look at the last tightening cycle, which was a two-year string of 25 basis point hikes from 2004 to 2006, inflation was a little over 3%. So, inflation's much higher now and our policy rate is still more accommodating than it was then. So, it is appropriate, in my view, to be moving a little more quickly. And I also think there's something in the idea of front-end loading, whatever accommodation one thinks is appropriate. So, that does point in the direction of 50 basis points being on the table, certainly. We make these decisions at the meeting and we'll make them meeting by meeting, but I would say that 50 basis points will be on the table for the May meeting.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Inflation, Commodities and Interest Rates : Paradigm Shifts in Macrotrends / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: Rambus_Chartology
There are just a few times in ones investing career, depending how early you start and if you survive long enough, that you are witness to some extraordinary changes from the MACRO scale perspective. A few examples would be the beginning of the 1929 crash, the end of the secular bull market that was made in 2000 that began in 1974, the 1987 crash which is still the biggest one day percentage drop in stock market history of 23%. Then there was the banking and housing bubble that collapsed into the 2009 crash low which launched our current secular bull market in the stock markets which is now 13 years old.
Then there are more subtle changes in the macro world that are very rare which most investors or even economist don’t have the ability to recognize until they are well established. Eventually the change of trend is so great that one has to accept the fact and recognize it for what it is. In the beginning of a macro shift few believe it is really happening because the trend has been in place for so long that it seems normal and that is how markets work.
What I would like to show you today are several rare macro events that are going to change the world and in ways we may not understand right now, but changes are coming whether we like it or not. To think one person or a group of people can wave their magic wand and make everything the way it was before are in for a rude awakening. We are just now witnessing the birth of these macro trends that are going to be with us for many years into the future.
It is always hard in the beginning because most people don’t understand the changes and lash out to those in charge thinking they can make things right, but again that is wishful thinking. After a period of time has lapsed there will be an adjustment period and a new norm will be established. For those that understand the macro shifts will do well with their investments, but for those that are unwilling to adapt to the new environment will find it much harder and blame everyone and everything for their underperformance or outright failure.
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