Showing posts with label stock market crash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stock market crash. Show all posts

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Global Stock Market Crash Imminent

If you’re reading this because stock markets have crashed and the world’s economy is collapsing – it’s time for you to learn the truth.

What is happening to our economy – and to us – is not random chance and it’s not because of the many reasons you are being told on your television and radio.

Mainstream media and world (political & financial) leaders are telling you many reasons why the global economy is crashing – and none of them are true.

Hopefully, you are now asking yourself a very important question.  

What is the truth?

The truth is that the global economy has been built on a foundation of sand – and there are motives at work here – motives that do not benefit you or me. 

Yes – there are many people who can describe the many pieces of the global economy – but there are very few people who truly understand how it works, why it was created and understand that it has always been unsustainable.

You and I live in a system that has kept the world in financial bondage and is destined to fail – and fail it will.  This isn’t opinion – it’s math.  Some very simple math will tell you that the global debt based monetary system will fail. 

This is leading you to some obvious questions.

If some relatively simple math will show that the world’s economy has always been destined to fail – why wasn’t this prevented?  Why haven’t we been warned?  Who has let this happen?  Who is behind this? Why are government and financial leaders leading us astray?  More importantly - why are they lying to us?

Great questions – and you will not like the answers.

In fact, you will find many answers on this blog that explain what is happening in our world. The answers will challenge your way of thinking.

Many of the things that you have been told your entire life about religion (including Christianity), about the Lord’s prophecies, about the global financial system and about who governs the world – are simply not true. 

There is only one path to truth in this world – and I will explain it all here.

The collapse of the global economy is just one piece of the puzzle. 

This mystery cannot be solved by only searching for things or solutions in this world.

I’m sure there will be many who agree with my analysis of the global economy – but they will not want to bring God into the equation. They will see my references to Him and His prophecies – and will not want to believe what I’m telling you.

Let me be clear from the beginning.

He is the reason I understand many of His prophecies.

He is the reason I have created this blog – to give to you. 

He is the reason I do not fear the people behind this economic collapse.

He is the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the end – and He has told us what is coming.  We haven’t been listening.

Much of what is happening can be summed up by two important facts:

1.      We – as a nation – have walked away from God and His ways

2.      We have vastly underestimated our spiritual enemy

Most Christian churches do not understand what is happening because they believe incorrect interpretations of Bible prophecy.

Our enemy has created a wondrous fantasy out of the Lord’s prophecies – and most of the Christian world has taken the bait – hook, line and sinker.

A classic case of bait and switch – on a global scale.

Don’t believe it?  You will.

They will try to take everything from us – until we have nothing left.

Who are ‘they’ you ask?

While we fumble around trying to understand what is happening – the beasts of Revelation chapter 13 are gaining control of the world.  They have controlled the world’s financial system for hundreds of years and have slowly infiltrated the world’s governments and the world’s religions.

This coming stock market/economic collapse will be the ‘event’ they created to push the world to accept a new global financial system and world government.  This world government is often referred to as the ‘New World Order’.  Call it what you will – it’s all about control of the world’s population by an ‘elite’ few.

The final push for world government began with the events of September 11, 2001 – and there have been many people working in the shadows over the past 10 years to bring about what we are experiencing today.

The devil’s hands have indeed been busy.  Over the past 5 years I have watched him work to move his plans forward - and deceive the world. In case you are wondering – he doesn’t fight fair.  Never has – never will. 

For those of you involved with the New World Order – those of you who call yourselves the ‘elite’ - those of you who think you are ‘enlightened’, but swear allegiance to God’s adversary – those of you who walk in darkness and think that you have hidden your plans from God and His people - you are mere puppets on the grand stage.  You are the blind leading the blind. I would advise you to get free of this abomination and make your peace with God before it’s too late.  

Pay attention to what I’m telling you. Though you don’t believe me – I have been given a message for you.  The day draws near when you will be cast into the place prepared for those who follow God’s enemy. You stand against the Almighty – do you expect to win this battle?  I have seen your end. You’ve already lost.  You will gain authority in this fallen world for a short time – and then it will end – forever. Search for the truth now – or face the consequences for all eternity.

As for everyone else – I will say again – it’s time for you to learn the truth about the world in which you live.  A world of lies and deception - deception on a level that is almost unbelievable.

If you feel that you’ve got God and this world all figured out and you don’t want your beliefs challenged – then there is no need for you to proceed.

If you are squarely focused on yourself and what you can get in this world – and you don’t feel the need to change – then there is no need for you to proceed.

If, however, you feel lost and want to believe that there must be something more for us – then you should continue.

If you feel that there is something seriously wrong with the world and you feel that if there really is a God that loves us – He would certainly show us the way of truth – then you should continue.

If you consider yourself a Christian and you need some guidance on what is happening and why from a Biblical perspective – you should continue.

If you are simply tired of the lies and are ready for some hard truth – then you should continue.

One of the many truths you will learn is that you have been asleep – and it’s time for all of us to wake up.

You will learn – as I have learned – that the Lord will show you the door – it’s up to you to walk through it.

In the near future, when the world (Mainstream media, Obama, Bernanke, Geithner, Greenspan, Bush, etc) tells you a million lies why global stock markets are crashing and the global economy is collapsing – ask yourself how I and some other informed people knew it was coming.

If you’ve seen ‘The Matrix’ – then this is your opportunity to take the red pill and see just how far down the rabbit hole this thing goes – or take the blue pill – walk away – and believe whatever you want to believe.

Remember – all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.

If you want to begin to learn the truth about the world’s economic system and the motives behind it – the journey begins here: 

http://endtimediscussions.blogspot.com/2006/09/our-monetary-system.html

http://endtimediscussions.blogspot.com/2006/09/our-monetary-system-part-ii-market.html

jg – February 6, 2011

 

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How long can the party in stocks last?

Wednesday, February 2, 2011, 11:23 am, by cmartenson


by Chris Martenson

The headlines are screaming at the top of every financial media outlet tonight:  The Dow Closes Above 12,000 For the First Time in Two Years!

What's going on here?  Is the recovery well and truly underway?   And, if it is, why is the Fed dropping hints again that "QE3 may get discussed" at future Fed meetings, as Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig said on Feb 1st?

Given the raft of good economic news lately, one might be forgiven for wondering what the Fed has in mind here.  If everything is so economically rosy, why are they already dropping trial balloons about more Quantitative Easing?  What are they seeing that we are not seeing, that justifies more than $100 billion in thin air money each month, and why won't they just tell us what it is? 

Here's how ChrisMartenson.com member dbworld put it earlier today:
I thought I heard CNBC state the other day that there was seen an inflow into the US Equities market which hasn't been seen in a while. I didn't catch the details, but I'm hoping that Chris has a read on this and an explanation on why the US stock market is so strong.
While it's true that retail investors have only very recently begun moving more money into stock funds than they have been removing, reversing a 33-week-long outflow, this is focusing on the wrong element in the equation.  Retail investors provide only a minor amount of the rocket fuel used to elevate the stock market over the past several months.
Look at the amounts here, and also pay attention to the timeframe:

Over a 36 week period spanning from May 2010 to the end of January 2011, there was only one instance of 'investors' putting more money into stock mutual funds than they withdrew, and that one ,outlier was well under a billion dollars.  Over that 36 week period, over $100 billion was removed from the markets by investors.  Even when money started moving back in over the past two weeks, I want you to note the scale; the combined total is $6.7 billion.  Keep that figure in mind.
Instead, we should first focus on the massive injections of raw, potent, thin-air money (a.k.a. "credit easing") by the Fed into the financial system.  Sometimes this is referred to as "liquidity," which it is.  But that's too narrow a definition, because it is much more; it also happens to be high-powered base money (a.k.a. 'Wall Street rocket fuel').
Here's the stock market story over the past eight months:

Note that QE II began in early November of 2010 and that the stock market is up 20% since the end of August.
As an aside, I used to track the Fed's thin-air money programs very closely, and if you had told me as recently as three years ago that the Fed would have been running 11-figure POMO operations each and every month, I would have told you it was unthinkably impossible.  But here we are, that is exactly what is happening, and I am largely numb to the process, which worries me somewhat, as it means that my baseline has shifted.
At any rate, the point here is that from those August lows to now, retail investors have taken out far more money from the stock market than they've placed back in; a total of around minus $38 billion.
But over that same period, the Fed has placed nearly an entire order-of-magnitude more thin-air money, some $350 billion dollars, into the hands of financial institutions, some of whom consider the stock market their personal playground.

Here's a chart of the cumulative POMOs by the Fed from the end of August 2010 to now:

Should we consider the injection of more than a third of a trillion dollars and a stock market that is up by 20% to be a coincidence?  No, not in the least.  The stock market has become, if anything, a liquidity gauge first and a discounting machine second.  The fundamental that matters most is how much money is flowing into the machine.
So it is my view that the trillions of dollars of thin-air money and deficit spending are finally finding their mark (asset prices) and doing their work, just as I predicted they would.  Where some called for deflation to be the irresistible force that would drag us all down, I've consistently leaned towards the side of inflation.  Although, to be fair, I have always hedged that view somewhat, with a 70/30 split held for nearly 5 years that was recently amended to 80/20 (in 2010 shortly after QE II was announced).

On a Tear

Unfortunately for the rest of the world it's not simply the stock market that is the lucky beneficiary of all this Fed largess.  Thin-air money, once released into the wild, tends to have a mind of its own.
Commodities are now setting new records almost daily.  Where the stock markets still have some catching up to do, commodities are exploring virgin territory.

This is serious business, folks.  The future is not going to arrive 'someday.'  For the billions of people who spend a huge portion of their income on food and fuel, it has already arrived.
Looking at the above chart of the past 12 months, what we see is that everything, from metals to stocks to bonds to grains to energy, has experienced profound price increases. That pretty much covers everything you need to live on and the bulk of the paper universe.  Such a chart is a historical rarity for any one country, yet it currently happens to apply to the entire world.  You are living in historic times, which certainly belabors the obvious.

Your Lying Eyes

On the flip side, the story we are being told almost daily is that inflation is very low -- too low, even -- in a worrisome sort of way.  I am reminded here of an old Richard Prior skit where his wife walks in on him in bed with another woman.  To her increasing agitation, he denies that he has been cheating on her, finally shouting, "Who are you going to believe, woman?  Me, or your lying eyes!?"

Well, my lying eyes see something very different in that chart above from what I am being told; instead of worryingly low inflation, I see rapidly rising inflation that is very close to slipping out of control.   
I spend as much time on this subject as I do because the decisions you make based on whether you are protecting yourself from inflation vs. deflation are as different as to whether you grab an anvil or a life raft on your way out the door when facing an emergency. 
I do my best to let the data do the talking, and right now it is saying inflation.

How long will it last?

The old saying is, Don't fight the Fed.  That's good advice.  I have dutifully been following the developing story by watching what the Fed does, not what it says, and by letting prices tell me which way the wind is blowing.  It's a regrettable position to be in, because it's nearly impossible to make any long-range plans when you have no idea what the Fed is going to do next.  But here we are.

How long the stock market rally will last is therefore unknowable, but stocks and bonds and commodities will remain elevated in price for as long as the Fed continues to dump hundreds of billions of thin-air money into the markets.  The only problem is that there's no clear exit strategy for the Fed.
Putting money into the markets is a very easy thing for the Fed to do.  Letting rope let out under full sail is easy; tugging it back in is difficult.

The Fed faces a similar asymmetry.  Market participants are always eager to take fresh money hot off the press.  An infinite number of things can be done with that money almost instantly.  But coming up with money to give backto the Fed for Treasury of MBS paper?  All sorts of difficulties arise.

"Wait, we'd have to sell a lot of things to free up that kind money and what, exactly, are you proposing to hand us in return? Treasuries? Um, no thanks, not right now. Agency debt? Uh, no, that doesn't fit our portfolio needs right now either.  Perhaps next week?"

Further, when the Fed goes to get its money back from the marketplace, that action will drain liquidity, creating ripples throughout all sorts of markets, especially and including knocking the stock market down.  Very few people complain about adding thin-air money; a crowd roars its disapproval for the reverse.

Too Late

The bottom line is that by the time the Fed becomes institutionally aware that inflation is raging across the globe - and I often wonder when they'll finally awake to the threat - it will be too late.  Inflation will have the momentum, and it will take a vast overreaction on the part of the Fed to restrain it.  They'll have to drain enormous amounts of liquidity and tolerate vastly higher interest rates to be able to do that, and I doubt they have the courage for such bold action.  I think they will hesitate, equivocate, and ultimately be late.
History suggests that inflation is best tamed early, but the Fed is already late and demonstrating a remarkable callousness by doing the exact opposite of fighting inflation.  While we cannot know what it is that the Fed sees, or which demons it is fighting that provide the internal rationalization for risking a hyperinflationary outcome, we can only conclude that these threats are more spectacular than the alternatives.  
Unfortunately, these events conform to the main themes that I have been writing and advising about for the past several years.  Sadly, they are not a surprise at all; the only mystery to me so far is how they have managed to carry on as long as they have.
Events of the past few weeks - unrest in Tunisa/Egypt/Jordan, skyrocketing food prices, Dow cracking a 2-year high, dropping dollar with rising bond yields - make me even more confident in the conclusions of my recent report on How This Will All End (published January 12) in which I derive a calculated estimate of when a final fiscal deterioration will overwhelm even the best of intentions. While the money-printing-induced high we're currently on may feel fun today, the unavoidable inflationary smackdown we'll experience tomorrow most certainly will not. 

Click here to read the report on How This Will All End (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

Monday, August 23, 2010

Hindenburg Omen Creator Has Exited the Market

If anyone has money in the stock market – time to pay attention.  September and October typically see high stock market volatility – and with much of the ‘stimulus’ ending – it could get interesting. 

U.S. stock mutual funds have seen a net ($) outflow for 15 consecutive weeks (totaling almost $50 billion).

If you are unfamiliar with the ‘Hindenburg Omen’ – it is a technical indicator that has preceded all U.S. stock market crashes since 1987. 

It has now been confirmed on three separate days over the past 2 weeks.

“It is named after the Hindenburg disaster of May 6th 1937, during which the German zeppelin was destroyed in a sudden conflagration." Granted, the Hindenburg Omen is not a guarantee of a crash, and the five criteria that must be met for a Hindenburg trigger typically need to reoccur within 36 days for reconfirmation. Yet the statistics are startling: "Looking back at historical data, the probability of a move greater than 5% to the downside after a confirmed Hindenburg Omen was 77%, and usually takes place within the next forty-days." The last Hindenburg Omen occurred during the lows of 2009. Today, we just had another (unconfirmed) Hindenburg Omen. It is time to batten down the hatches - something big is coming.”

This link shows the criteria:


jg – August 23, 2010
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Hindenburg Omen Creator Has Exited the Market



  
As we reported first, last week saw the second confirmation of the Hindenburg Omen, most recently sighted for the first time on August 12. Presumably this is an indication of putting one's money where one's mouth is (and away from the market).
From the WSJ:
The latest trigger has prompted the Omen’s creator, Jim Miekka, to exit the market. “I’m taking it seriously and I’m fully out of the market now,” Miekka, a blind mathematician, said in a telephone interview from his home in Surry, Maine. “I would’ve probably stayed in until the beginning of September,” depending on how the indicators varied. “That was my basic plan, until the Hindenburg came along.”

The Omen has been behind every market crash since 1987, but significant stock-market declines have followed only 25% of the time. So there’s a high likelihood that the Omen could be nothing more than a false signal.

But that isn’t stopping Miekka from taking any chances, especially as September, typically the market’s worst-performing month, sits only one week away.

“It’s sort of like a funnel cloud,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to crash, but it’s a high probability. You don’t get a tornado without a funnel cloud.” He added he’s not currently shorting anything, although he may look to short Nasdaq stock index futures in the next few weeks, “depending on how the technicals go.”

Despite the ominous forecast, there are some glimmers of hope. Miekka doesn’t expect to sit on the sidelines for very long. In fact, Miekka, who is an avid target shooter despite being blind, is looking at put volumes and various moving averages that will offer clues of when he will start buying again.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Is a Crash Coming?

It’s rare – but occasionally you’ll see a mainstream media article that contains some truth.

This is one of those articles.

For the record – the Fed is not ‘nervous’ or ‘worried’ about these developments.  The Fed created these developments.

From the article – here’s the #1 reason things are heading south.  Remember – this is what happens when your money is created by debt.  Eventually – the math of exponential debt growth catches up to you – and runs you over.

“People still owe way too much money. Households, corporations, states, local governments and, of course, Uncle Sam. It's the debt, stupid. According to the Federal Reserve, total U.S. debt—even excluding the financial sector—is basically twice what it was 10 years ago: $35 trillion compared to $18 trillion.”

If you think this is a mystery to the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the IMF, Bernanke, Greenspan, Obama, Geithner, etc., etc. – you’re living in a fantasy.

I have a feeling that the next couple of months – which have historically seen significant stock market volatility – will be rather exciting.

jg – August 13, 2010
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August 13, 2010

Is a Crash Coming? Ten Reasons to Be Cautious

Wall St. Journal

Could Wall Street be about to crash again?
This week's bone-rattlers may be making you wonder.
I don't make predictions. That's a sucker's game. And I'm certainly not doing so now.
But way too many people are way too complacent this summer. Here are 10 reasons to watch out.
1. The market is already expensive. Stocks are about 20 times cyclically-adjusted earnings, according to data compiled by Yale University economics professor Robert Shiller. That's well above average, which, historically, has been about 16. This ratio has been a powerful predictor of long-term returns. Valuation is by far the most important issue for investors. If you're getting paid well to take risks, they may make sense. But what if you're not?
2. The Fed is getting nervous. This week it warned that the economy had weakened, and it unveiled its latest weapon in the war against deflation: using the proceeds from the sale of mortgages to buy Treasury bonds. That should drive down long-term interest rates. Great news for mortgage borrowers. But hardly something one wants to hear when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is already north of 10000.
3. Too many people are too bullish. Active money managers are expecting the market to go higher, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Active Investment Managers. So are financial advisers, reports the weekly survey by Investors Intelligence. And that's reason to be cautious. The time to buy is when everyone else is gloomy. The reverse may also be true.


Crowds panic on Wall Street on Oct. 24, 1929.

4. Deflation is already here. Consumer prices have fallen for three months in a row. And, most ominously, it's affecting wages too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, last quarter, workers earned 0.7% less in real terms per hour than they did a year ago. No wonder the Fed is worried. In deflation, wages, company revenues, and the value of your home and your investments may shrink in dollar terms. But your debts stay the same size. That makes deflation a vicious trap, especially if people owe way too much money.
5. People still owe way too much money. Households, corporations, states, local governments and, of course, Uncle Sam. It's the debt, stupid. According to the Federal Reserve, total U.S. debt—even excluding the financial sector—is basically twice what it was 10 years ago: $35 trillion compared to $18 trillion. Households have barely made a dent in their debt burden; it's fallen a mere 3% from last year's all-time peak, leaving it twice the level of a decade ago.
6. The jobs picture is much worse than they're telling you. Forget the "official" unemployment rate of 9.5%. Alternative measures? Try this: Just 61% of the adult population, age 20 or over, has any kind of job right now. That's the lowest since the early 1980s—when many women stayed at home through choice, driving the numbers down. Among men today, it's 66.9%. Back in the '50s, incidentally, that figure was around 85%, though allowances should be made for the higher number of elderly people alive today. And many of those still working right now can only find part-time work, so just 59% of men age 20 or over currently have a full-time job. This is bullish?
(Today's bonus question: If a laid-off contractor with two kids, a mortgage and a car loan is working three night shifts a week at his local gas station, how many iPads can he buy for Christmas?)
7. Housing remains a disaster. Foreclosures rose again last month. Banks took over another 93,000 homes in July, says foreclosure specialist RealtyTrac. That's a rise of 9% from June and just shy of May's record. We're heading for 1 million foreclosures this year, RealtyTrac says. And naturally the ripple effects hurt all those homeowners not in foreclosure, by driving down prices. See deflation (No. 4) above.
8. Labor Day is approaching. Ouch. It always seems to be in September-October when the wheels come off Wall Street. Think 2008. Think 1987. Think 1929. Statistically, there actually is a "September effect." The market, on average, has done worse in that month than any other. No one really knows why. Some have even blamed the psychological effect of shortening days. But it becomes self-reinforcing: People fear it, so they sell.
9. We're looking at gridlock in Washington. Election season has already begun. And the Democrats are expected to lose seats in both houses in November. (Betting at InTrade, a bookmaker in Dublin, Ireland, gives the GOP a 62% chance of taking control of the House.) As our political dialogue seems to have collapsed beyond all possible hope of repair, let's not hope for any "bipartisan" agreements on anything of substance. Do you think this is a good thing? As Davis Rosenberg at investment firm Gluskin Sheff pointed out this week, gridlock is only a good thing for investors "when nothing needs fixing." Today, he notes, we need strong leadership. Not gonna happen.
10. All sorts of other indicators are flashing amber. The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index, while still positive, weakened again in July. So did ISM's new-orders indicator. The trade deficit has widened, and second-quarter GDP growth was much lower than first thought. ECRI's Weekly Leading Index has been flashing warning lights for weeks. Europe's industrial production in June turned out considerably worse than expected. Even China's steamroller economy is slowing down. Tech bellwether Cisco Systems has signaled caution ahead. Individually, each of these might mean little. Collectively, they make me wonder. In this environment, I might be happy to buy shares if they were cheap. But not so much if they're expensive. See No. 1 above.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Global Monetary System Nearing its End - May 19 2010

Hello everyone,

This will be the final email I send out regarding what’s going on with our economy and the world’s financial system. I have a blog – and will continue to add to it – but this stuff is becoming repetitive – and I’m not sure that sending you updates at this point really benefits anyone. These things are not exactly uplifting and it’s getting worse every day.

So – here’s what you need to know. There are four – very important things you need to understand as events unfold in the coming days/months.

1. The world’s economy is collapsing – and has been collapsing for the past 3 years. It has always been unsustainable – we just happen to be alive at the end of our exponential debt/money growth curve. Exponential growth always ends with a steep incline up – then a catastrophic fall – always. Unlike our political and financial leaders – math doesn’t lie. You may not believe this now – but it will become clear to everyone very soon. Things are accelerating rapidly. At some point – you’ll begin hearing the talking heads on TV using the term ‘free fall’ quite often. If you don’t understand why everyone isn’t saying this now – ask yourself how many times (high school, college, economists, etc.) you’ve heard someone explain how our banking/monetary system works. Enough said. If you want a refresher – here are a couple of links to related blog posts:

http://endtimediscussions.blogspot.com/2006/09/our-monetary-system.html

http://endtimediscussions.blogspot.com/2006/09/our-monetary-system-part-ii-market.html

2. This global economic collapse is not an accident or random event – nor is it going to be a surprise to many of the world’s political and financial leaders. There is an agenda at work here – and it is evil. No other way to say it. The people behind this are the richest, most powerful people in the world – and they have been scheming for hundreds of years – to bring the world to the brink of the abyss. Why? They have used their financial strength to cause financial panics in the past to move their plans forward – we’re watching the same game plan play out before us on a global scale. The goal has always been a one world socialist government (very similar to the USSR or China) with the global elite running the show. If you think Obama appears to lean toward Socialism – you’d be correct – but probably not in the way you think. George W. had his role as well. Alice – this rabbit hole goes far deeper than most people know.

3. Regardless of what you’re told - all of the government stimulus plans, positive media spin and central bank ‘actions’ over the past 2 years have been done for one purpose – to give the impression that the world’s governments and world’s central banks have done everything possible to save the system. They are attempting to shift the focus (blame) for all of this to sovereign fiscal mismanagement, individual and corporate debt loads, bad mortgages, etc. What they don’t tell you is that exponential debt growth is required for the system to function. The problem today is that the global system is now saturated with debt – a direct result of the debt based monetary system itself. This is why trying to solve a debt problem with more debt (see U.S. and European bailouts) is doomed to failure. Systemic failure may happen today, tomorrow, next month – but it is coming – and there is nothing that anyone can do that will prevent this (except changing the system). Again – math doesn’t lie. At some point – even mainstream media will begin acknowledging that something is seriously wrong – you’ll know we’re at the end when this happens.

4. Don’t panic. If God could see these people and their evil plans since the foundation of the earth – and told us about them 2,000 years ago (Revelation 13, 17, & 19 are some of His references to these people) – I feel confident that He has a plan for His people to stand against them. He always has a plan for His people – and He always will. Regardless of what happens here – our focus needs to remain with Him. If this makes you uncomfortable – time to pick-up a Bible and start learning the truth. We have allowed our enemy to blind us – time to turn things around and focus on what’s important.

There are some very intelligent money managers/institutional investors/Economists/Arm-chair quarterbacks, etc. – who are now saying what I’ve been trying to tell people since 2005 – the system appears to be unsustainable – and it’s going to lead to some very unpleasant things. Read the exerpts below.

As for today – we’re seeing some massive Central Bank intervention and German efforts (ban on naked short selling) to save the Euro and keep all of the balls in the air. Other than a possible short term uplift - it won’t help. We followed the same game plan in 2008 – and the result was not good (See: Lehman Brothers bankruptcy). Asian and European stocks are tanking again today (down 2% on average) and the Dow is currently down 120 after plunging 200 points earlier. Over 80% of the stocks on the NYSE are currently declining (same story as yesterday). Expect this type of volatility to increase until we experience another ‘event’ like May 6th – then – all bets are off. Wealthy people will then find out that they have built their lives on a foundation of sand. Sound familiar? If not – again – it’s time to pick-up a Bible and start learning how to build your life on a solid foundation.

Take Care,

John – May 19, 2010
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Bears Come Roaring Forth

By Barry Ritholtz - May 19th, 2010, 9:30AM

I am on an email list that is from a group smart hedgies and strategists. The discussions range far and wide, and while I sometimes disagree with the conclusions, but I always find the conversation provocative.

Lately, they’ve been emailing a collection of warnings of various fund managers and strategists:

• Long time Dow Theorist Richard Russell set out this dire warning:

“Do your friends a favor. Tell them to “batten down the hatches” because there’s a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get out of debt and sell anything they can sell (and don’t need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won’t recognize the country. They’ll retort, “How the dickens does Russell know — who told him?” Tell them the stock market told him.”

• Reuters reported that well regarded hedge fund manager Seth Klarman “sees few bargains in the current environment and predicted on Tuesday that the stock market could suffer another lost decade without any gains.” Klarman is concerned that we could see “another 10 years of zero returns.” He has 30 percent of assets at his $22 billion Baupost Group in cash, he said. (His firm started in 1982 with $27 million and has averaged 20 percent annual gains ever since).

• Raoul Pal of Global Macro Investor got even more specific warning in his newsletter: Crash Is Coming In Two Days-To-Two Weeks. He sees as an “archetypal crash pattern — a sharp decline followed by a failed rally followed by a collapse.”

• But as Art Cashin of UBS pointed out in his morning missive, stark bear warnings are not restricted to equities. He cites Nouriel Roubini warned on the U.S. Treasury Market:

“Bond market vigilantes have already woken up in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Ireland, in Iceland, and soon enough they could wake up in the U.K., in Japan, in the United States, if we keep on running very large fiscal deficits,” Roubini said at an event at the London School of Economics yesterday. “The chances are, they are going to wake up in the United States in the next three years and say, ‘this is unsustainable.”
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Global Macro's Raoul Pal: Here's Why A Crash Is Coming In Two Days-To-Two Weeks

Joe Weisenthal
May. 18, 2010, 2:15 PM


We don't mean for it to be doom and gloom day, but Richard Russell isn't the only big name pundit to be calling for a fall.

Raoul Pal, who writes Global Macro Investor newsletter, and whose bio cites stints at GLD and Goldman Sachs, is out with a very specific crash call. In his latest note he calls for a big move down in just two days to two weeks.

That's refreshingly specific!

So what's the reason?

It's all about what he sees as an archetypal crash pattern -- a sharp decline followed by a failed rally followed by a collapse.

It looks like this:


Image: Global Macro Investors

That's an unspecific chart, but here's a more specific one, based on the current post-flash crash market.


Image: Global Macro Investors

And now, here's the kicker. It's the current market vs. 1929, which is what prompts him to see a crash as imminent.


Image: Global Macro Investors

And finally, here's the flash crash vs. 1987


Image: Global Macro Investors

Get the picture?

Saturday, September 16, 2006

The Bernanke Market

Wow. Someone who is on the right track. I think this may be the first time I’ve seen a mainstream media article that makes the correlation between our money supply and the stock market.

What will happen to our stock market when our government and the Federal Reserve ‘unwind’ all of the programs adding money to this system? If you’ve read my earlier posts on our monetary system – you know the answer.

Outstanding credit market debt continues to fall – so when the Fed removes all of the additional sources of money from the system – we’re going to watch a free-fall collapse of our stock market and our economy. We’ve been setup to fail – and it won’t take much to pull the rug out from under us.

jg – July 15, 2009
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JULY 15, 2009

The Bernanke Market

We won't get real growth until Congress and Treasury get policy right.

Wall St. Journal

By ANDY KESSLER

I remember once buying the stock of a small company and I couldn't believe my luck. Every time my fund bought more shares the stock would go up. So we bought even more and the stock kept climbing. When we finally built our full position and stopped buying the stock started dropping, ending up at a price below where we started buying it. We were the market.

Just about every policy move to right the U.S. economy after the subprime sinking of the banking system has been a bust. We saved Bear Stearns. We let Lehman Brothers go. We forced Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and Washington Mutual into the hands of others. We took control of Fannie and Freddie and AIG and even own a few car companies, pumping them with high-test transfusions. None of this really helped.

We have a zero interest-rate policy. We guaranteed bank debt. We set up the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to buy toxic mortgage assets off bank balance sheets. But when banks refused to sell at fire sale prices, we just gave them the money instead. Dumb move. So we set up the Public-Private Investment Program to get private investors to buy these same toxic assets with government leverage, and still there are few sellers. Meanwhile, the $1 trillion federal deficit is crowding out private investment and the porky $787 billion stimulus hasn't translated into growth.

At the end of the day, only one thing has worked -- flooding the market with dollars. By buying U.S. Treasuries and mortgages to increase the monetary base by $1 trillion, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't put money directly into the stock market but he didn't have to. With nowhere else to go, except maybe commodities, inflows into the stock market have been on a tear. Stock and bond funds saw net inflows of close to $150 billion since January. The dollars he cranked out didn't go into the hard economy, but instead into tradable assets. In other words, Ben Bernanke has been the market.

The good news is that Mr. Bernanke got the major banks, except for Citigroup, recapitalized and with public money. June retail sales rose 0.6%. Housing starts jumped 17% month to month in May and will likely be flat for June. Second quarter GDP may be slightly up. And he was successful in spreading a "green shoots" psychology throughout the media. But the real question is, now what? Government interventions are only meant to light a fire under the real economy and unleash what John Maynard Keynes called our "animal spirits." But government dollars can't sustain growth.

Like it or not, the stock market is bigger than the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury. The stock market anticipates only future profits and prosperity, not government-funded starter fluid. You can only fool it for so long. Unless there are real corporate profits from sustainable economic growth, the stock market is not going to play along. It's the ultimate Enforcer.

In mid-May, Mr. Bernanke's outlook seemed to change. Maybe he didn't approve of the sharp housing rebound -- like we need more houses! Maybe he saw inflation in commodity prices -- oil popping to $72 from $35. Or, more likely, he finally realized that he was the market and took his foot off the money accelerator, as evidenced in the contracting monetary base (see nearby chart). Sure enough, things rolled over -- the market dropped 7.5% from its peak, oil prices dropped almost 17%, and even gold has lost some of its luster. But in July, the Fed started buying again and the market rallied.

Can the U.S. economy stand on its own two feet without Mr. Bernanke's magic dollar dust? Eventually, but apparently not yet. Unemployment stubbornly hit 9.5% in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Housing prices are still dropping, albeit at a slower pace, and foreclosures are still rampant.

But I think what really bothers the market is that the structural problems that got us into trouble in the first place still exist. We took the easy way out and, with the help of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's loose "stress tests," swept banking problems under the carpet. We waved off mark-to-market accounting and juiced bank stock prices to help them recapitalize, but all those toxic mortgage assets on bank balance sheets are still there as anchors on lending. All the pump priming and stock market flows didn't get rid of them.

Hats off to Mr. Bernanke for getting the worst behind us. He'll be pressured politically to keep pumping out dollars, but he should resist the urge. The stock market will ignore his dollars if it doesn't believe they'll turn into real profits. Green jobs and government health-care clerks do not make a productive, sustainable economy. That can only come from innovative companies with access to growth capital. The stock market won't turn bullish until it sees that type of economy.

Again, when it's clear that you are the market you have to stop buying and begin tackling the hard stuff. By not restructuring banks, by not getting bad loans off bank balance sheets, by not standing up to the massive increases in government debt crowding out private capital, the Fed and Treasury are holding back real economic growth.

Mr. Kessler, a former hedge-fund manager, is the author of "How We Got Here" (Collins, 2005).

Federal Reserve is Driving the Stock Market

You’ve probably wondered – if there is so much negative economic data out there – why does the stock market continue to rise? With the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index up by significant percentages this year – it would seem that stock investors know something we don’t. Is this true or is something else happening?

If you invest in stocks, then you are familiar with the stock price to earnings ratio. This is a good metric to determine if a stock price is considered expensive – and therefore, a good metric to determine whether or not to buy a particular stock (P/E trends). If we take this a step further and look at the P/E ratio for the entire S&P 500 index – we can get a good idea if it’s a good time to buy into the stock market.

So - there are two, very big questions we should answer when it comes to future stock prices:

1. Is the economy rebounding to the point that company earnings will increase significantly in coming quarters?

2. Are stock prices considered high compared to corporate earnings?

As I’ve said before – I see no indication (based on good, quantitative economic data) that the economy is rebounding. As we’ve seen – the economy continues to deteriorate – continuing job losses, growing residential and commercial loan defaults, home prices continue to decline, wages and income declining, etc. Therefore, I would not bet my financial future on a quick economic turnaround that will increase corporate earnings - based on the economic data that I trust.

Also remember, companies have been able to beat recent earnings estimates due to significant cost reductions – not due to sales/revenue increases. How much more can they cut if revenues continue to decline? Bottom line – I would not expect to see a significant turnaround in corporate earnings any time soon.

This is not exactly good news considering current S&P 500 earnings. Over the past 20 months we’ve watched the biggest earnings drop in the history of the S&P 500. Again, you’re probably wondering – with such a big drop in earnings – why is the S&P 500 up approximately 35% since March? Good question. We’ll answer it after we look at the current S&P 500 P/E ratio.


With earnings plunging, we would expect to see a high P/E ratio if prices haven’t also plummeted. As I mentioned above, since S&P 500 stock prices have increased significantly since March – the S&P 500 P/E ratio is through the roof.
From Nathan’s Economic Edge (http://economicedge.blogspot.com/):
“The higher stocks go without real earnings and without clearing the debts from consumers, the higher price to earnings ratios will go. It is ultimately earnings that underpin the equity markets and the price of stocks has NEVER been so high compared to earnings.

It would take one heck of a lot of growth to pull P/E’s back into a normal historic range, and the only reason they look as “good” as they do is because the financial industry was allowed to go back and mark their assets to fantasy – otherwise the large banks are still insolvent and would not have earned a nickel.”
The answer to question #2 is – stock prices are at historic highs compared to earnings – and not by a small margin. We see the same situation with the DJIA.
Bottom line – we see no real economic turnaround and P/E ratios are at historic highs. What does this tell you? It tells you that it’s a very bad time to invest in the stock market. If you’re not in the market – stay out. If you’re in – get out. The whole house of cards could collapse at any time.
So – the final question to answer is – why are stocks increasing if the economy and earnings are plummeting? It’s not because the economy is rebounding (regardless of what the media tells us) and it’s not because stocks are cheap. As Chris Martenson shows us below – the culprit is – once again - the Federal Reserve.
If you’ve seen the movie ‘The Sting’ (1973), you have some knowledge of how a confidence (con) scheme works. In the movie, Robert Redford and Paul Newman’s characters ‘con’ a big time bad guy (the ‘mark’) out of some serious money. The ‘con’ was broken down into the following acts:
1. ‘The Set Up’ – devise a plan to deceive and then steal a significant amount of money from the ‘mark’
2. ‘The Hook’ – create a situation that ‘hooks’ your ‘mark’ – meaning that the ‘mark’ becomes very interested in what your scheme can do for him
3. ‘The Tale’ – tell a good story that the ‘mark’ believes will make him lots of money. A good tale preys upon the weaknesses of the ‘mark’.
4. ‘The Sting’ – just when the ‘mark’ thinks he’s going to make a killing – pull the rug out from under him and steal his money
What was the most important lesson from this movie? The ‘mark’ can never know that he’s been taken.
The people of the United States have been the victim of the biggest confidence scheme in the history of the world.
By creating bank panics in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the bankers behind the Federal Reserve set the stage for the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
We’ve been told a grand tale – that our current banking system is stable, reliable and benefits everyone.
We’re about to experience the ‘Sting’ – when the international bankers behind the Federal Reserve try to take everything from us. This will most likely begin in earnest with a significant stock market crash.
With high stock prices, low corporate earnings and a deteriorating economy – our stock markets have been setup for an historic fall.
It’s going to be epic.
jg – August 7, 2009

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Fed POMO activity and the Stock Market
Friday, August 7, 2009, 11:38 am, by cmartenson

Today, again, we receive news that Fed is continuing to pour more and more POMO money into the banking system, this time with a 'mere' ~$2 billion addition.
August 7 - New York Fed purchases $1.937 billion in agency coupons
As long-time readers here know, I have been tracking the Permanent Open Market Operations (or "POMO") activity of the Fed for a long time.
As I wrote in The Five Horsemen ( May 31 2009, enrollment required $):
The beginning of the end for nearly every debt-ridden country has always been the attempt to pay for past expenditures with newly-minted money. It always starts innocently enough and seems like the right thing to do, but soon the programs grow and grow, and eventually the currency of the country is destroyed.
Now the Fed is openly and actively buying dodgy debt from the government as well as from the private sector. I covered on this in May (2009) in an "In Session" posting, where I charted the amount of US Treasury debt that was being purchased by the Federal Reserve on a daily basis.

This chart reflects only the Treasury purchases. When we add in agency debt, mortgage-backed securities, and various other corporate debt programs, we find that the Federal Reserve is printing up roughly $15 to $30 billion dollars a day just to keep things limping along.
As for the opening quote by Mises, which I think most accurately reflects how things will turn out, I think it is safe to say this: Any country that is printing up to $30 billion a day just to keep things moving along is not voluntarily abandoning credit expansion.
This means that we are risking a final catastrophe of the currency system involved. Unfortunately, the currency in question also happens to be the world's reserve currency, so this has enormous, far-reaching implications.
Today I want to update that chart above and provide a little more context by placing it beneath a scaled chart of the Dow Jones index (time periods match exactly so the charts align). Again, what you are looking at is a chart of POMO activity that is being expressed as "billions of dollars per day." No effort has been made to account for weekends or holidays; this is simply taking each POMO and dividing it by the number of days that pass until the next one.

What we might wonder here are three things:
1. How would the stock markets have behaved without the massive daily additions of billions of dollars?
2. When the stock market turned around in advance of the initiation of the POMO purchases which major bank holding companies, such as GS, were effectively front-running this flood of money?
3. If the stock market is up 40%+ and green shoots are everywhere, why is the Fed continuing to pour gasoline on the fire ($16 billion this week so far)?
Part of the answer may lie in a nice piece of work posted at ZeroHedge which notes that on POMO days that stock markets exhibited some statistically unlikely upward thrusts in the final few minutes of each associated trading day.
Under this scenario POMO money is being shuffled out of the endless thin-air vaults of the Fed and into the banking system where it needs to find something to do. One of those things, it seems, is to goose the stock market, especially late in the day.
The goal, we surmise, is simply to get the stock market to move upwards. This is not an unthinkable idea to me because, frankly, it is exactly the prescription I would write for an economy as dependent on rising asset prices as is the United States'. If a rising stock market helps to get people out buying and spending again then it is a worthy goal in many a policy-makers mind, I am sure.
The only question here is "what does this mean to me?" We'll be exploring that in some detail later on…