How To Survive Today"s Bubbly Market

Authored by James Rickards via Bonner & Partners,

To paraphrase one of the great gems of Wall Street wisdom, “Nothing infuriates a man more than the sight of other people making money.”

That’s a pretty good description of what happens during the late stage of a stock market bubble. The bubble participants are making money (at least on a mark-to-market basis) every day.

Meanwhile, the more patient, prudent investor is stuck on the sidelines – allocated to cash or low-risk investments while watching everyone else have fun. This is especially true today when the bubble is not confined to the stock market but includes exotic sideshows like cryptocurrencies and Chinese real estate.

It gets even worse when investors are taunted by headlines like the one in a recent article, “Investors Can Either Buy Bubbles or Be Left Far Behind.” The article is a case study in the “Bubblicious Portfolio.” Infuriating indeed. Actually, it should not be.

On a risk-adjusted basis, the prudent investor is not missing much.

When markets go up 10%, 20%, or more in short periods, market participants think of their gains as money in the bank. Yet, that’s not true unless you sell and cash out of the market. Few do this because they’re afraid to “miss out” on continued gains.

The problem comes when the bubble bursts and losses of 30%, 40%, or more pile up quickly. Investors tell themselves they’ll be smart enough to get out in time, but that’s not true, either.

Typically, investors don’t believe the tape. They “buy the dips,” (which keep dipping lower), then they refuse to sell until they “get back to even,” which can take ten years. These are predictable behaviors of real investors caught up in real bubbles.

It’s better just to diversify, build up a cash reserve, have some gold for catastrophe insurance, and then wait out the bubble crowd. When the crash comes, which it always does, you’ll be well positioned to shop for high-quality bargains amid the rubble. Then you’ll participate in the next long upswing without today’s risks of a sudden meltdown.

OK, so I just argued that the stock market (and other markets) are in bubbles. But where’s the actual proof of this?

Actually, it’s everywhere.

The Shiller Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings (CAPE) ratio – a good indicator of how expensive stocks are – is at levels only seen at the 1929 crash that started the Great Depression and the 2000 dot-com bubble. Likewise, the market capitalization-to-GDP ratio is above the level of the 2008 panic and comparable to the 1929 crash.

The list goes on, including historically low volatility and unprecedented complacency on the part of investors.

For almost a year, one of the most profitable trading strategies has been to sell volatility. That’s about to change...

Since the election of Donald Trump, stocks have been a one-way bet. They almost always go up, and have hit record highs day after day. The strategy of selling volatility has been so profitable that promoters tout it to investors as a source of “steady, low-risk income.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, sellers of volatility have made steady profits the past year. But the strategy is extremely risky and you could lose all of your profits in a single bad day.

Think of this strategy as betting your life savings on red at a roulette table. If the wheel comes up red, you double your money. But if you keep playing, eventually, the wheel will come up black and you’ll lose everything.

That’s what it’s like to sell volatility. It feels good for a while, but eventually, a black swan appears like the black number on the roulette wheel, and the sellers get wiped out. I focus on the shocks and unexpected events that others don’t see.

In short, we have been on a volatility holiday. Volatility is historically low and has remained so for an unusually long period of time. The sellers of volatility have been collecting “steady income,” yet this is really just a winning streak at the volatility casino.

I expect the wheel of fortune to turn and luck to run out for the sellers.

But it’s time to add another warning sign to the list. Certain high-yield (or “junk bond”) indices have fallen below their 200-day moving averages. This can be indicative of a stock market correction.

Junk bonds are riskier than equity. When they get in trouble, it’s a sign that the corporate issuers are having trouble meeting their obligations. That, in turn, is indicative of reduced revenues or profits, tight financial conditions, and lower earnings.

Panics in October 1987 and December 1994 were preceded by distress in bonds about six months earlier. While there is no deterministic relationship, bonds are a good leading indicator of stocks because they are higher in the capital table and feel distress sooner. The October 1987 one-day 22% decline in stocks and the December 1994 Tequila Crisis in Mexican debt were ugly for investors. The bond market gave a six-month early warning both times.

It may be doing so again.

But what the Fed? Is it setting markets up for a fall?

It’s true that the Fed has been raising interest rates since 2015 and had engaged in tapering for two years before that. Yet these actions hardly constitute tight money. The tightness or ease of monetary policy needs to be judged relative to financial and economic conditions.

You can have “easy money” at a 10% interest rate if inflation is running at 15% (something like the conditions of the late 1970s). In that world, the real interest rate is negative 5%, (10% – 15% = -5%).

In effect, the bank pays you to borrow. That’s easy money.

By most models, including the famous Taylor Rule, rates in the U.S. today should be about 2.5% instead of 1%. We have easy money today and have had it since 2006. This comes on top of the “too low for too long” policy of Alan Greenspan from 2002–2004, which led directly to the housing bubble and collapse in 2007.

The U.S. really has not had a hard money period since the mid-1990s. That’s true of most of the developed economies also.

What’s going to happen when central banks start to normalize interest rates and balance sheets and return to a true tight money policy in preparation for the next recession?

We’re about to find out.

Central banks all over the world including the Fed, ECB, and the People’s Bank of China are in the early stages of ending their decade-long (or longer) easy money policies. This tightening trend has little to do with inflation (there isn’t any) and more to do with deflating asset bubbles and getting ready for a new downturn.

But, in following this policy, central bankers may actually pop the bubbles and cause the downturn they are getting ready to cure. This is one more reason, in addition to those described above, why the stock market bubble is about to implode.

It’s important to realize that market crashes often happen not when everyone is worried about them, but when no one is worried about them.

Complacency and overconfidence are good leading indicators of an overvalued market set for a correction or worse.

Gold: Isn’t the Whole Idea to Buy Low and Sell High?

Isn’t the Whole Idea to Buy Low and Sell High?

Authored by Adam Baratta

When it comes to the gold market, perhaps the old saying should be changed to “buy low and sell high-if ever.” That is likely the mentality behind gold investors at this point, as the yellow metal remains stuck in a trading range.

The gold market has some issues working against it currently. Higher stocks, a stronger economy and overall robust appetite for risk are all playing a role in the market’s current lack of upside follow through. In the absence of any fresh, bullish catalyst, gold could remain on the weaker side of the ledger going into the New Year.

Such a view is, however, dangerous as it does not really examine the bigger picture. If there were no significant reasons for gold to eventually start moving higher, the market would likely have sunk far below its recent lows by this point. Despite short sellers and others taking a bearish view of the metal currently, the market has held its ground. This is undeniably a sign of underlying strength.

Investors have an interesting tendency to view gold very differently from other asset classes such as stocks, for example. But in many ways, some of the same investment principles still apply. For example, if you were a long-term investor in Microsoft, would you rather buy shares at $25 per share or $30 per share? Obviously, buying the stock at $25 per share would be preferable, allowing the investor to potentially realize more gains if the price goes up while also possibly making better overall use of investment capital.

The gold market is no different in this regard. While many investors seemingly want to wait and see the market moving higher before taking action, the savvy investors realize that the old notion of buy low and sell high still applies. This is exactly why the market has not been able to really breakdown-the buyers have met and neutralized any significant selling pressure.

For the investor that is interested in value, and is taking more of a long-term view rather than a short-term view, the current range in the gold market could represent an excellent long-term buying opportunity. The market has shown time and time again that it has the ability to move sharply higher in a short period of time, and the next upside breakout could see such price action once again. Would you rather buy gold at $1250 per ounce or $5000 per ounce?

Now is the ideal time to add to a gold portfolio, and if you don’t already have an allocation in this key asset class, now is the ideal time to get started.

Adding physical gold to your holdings has never been easier than it is today, and you can get started by simply picking up the phone. Speak with an Advantage Gold account executive today about the potential benefits of gold ownership. Our associates are here to answer any questions you may have, and can even show you how to make this asset class a key part of your portfolio using an IRA account.

 Read more from Adam at Advantage Gold

Six Ways US Stocks Are The Most Overvalued In History

Submitted by Mish Shedlock

US large cap stocks are the most overvalued in history. Let"s investigate six ways.

Crescat Capital claims US large cap stocks are the most overvalued in history, higher than prior speculative mania market peaks in 1929 and 2000.

Their 25-page presentation makes a compelling case, with numerous charts. It"s worth your time to download and investigate the report.

Six Ways Socks Most Overvalued in History

1. Price to Sales


2. Price to Book


3. Enterprise Value to Sales


4. Enterprise Value to EBITDA


5. Price to Earnings


6. Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow

Here are a few snips from the report.

Bear Market Catalysts

There are many catalysts that are likely to send stocks into bear market in the near term. A likely bursting of the China credit bubble is first and foremost among them. Our data and analysis show that China today is the biggest credit bubble of any country in history. We believe its bursting will be globally contagious for equities, real estate, and credit markets. The US and China bubbles are part of a larger, global debt-to-GDP bubble, which is also historic in scale, and the product of excessive, lingering central bank easy monetary policies in the wake of the now long-passed 2008 Global Financial Crisis. 

 

These policies failed to resolve the debt-to-GDP imbalances that preceded the last crisis. Now, easy money policies have created even bigger debt-to-GDP imbalances and asset bubbles that will precipitate the next one.We are in the very late stages of a global economic and business expansion cycle with investor sentiment reflecting record optimism typical at market peaks, a sign of capitulation at the end of a bull market. Crescat is positioned to profit from the coming broad, global cyclical market and economic downturn that we foresee. We strongly believe that our global equity net short positioning in our hedge funds will be validated soon.

Cyclical PE Smoothing

It is critical to use cyclical smoothing to accurately gauge market valuations in their current and historical context when using P/E.Yale economics professor, Robert Shiller, received a Nobel Prize in 2013 for proving this fact so we hope you will believe it. 

 

The problem with just looking at trailing 12-month P/E ratios to determine valuation is that it produces sometimes-false readings due to large cyclical swings in earnings at peaks and valleys of the business cycle. For example, in the middle of the recession in 2001, P/Es looked artificially high due to a broad earnings plunge. P/Es can also look artificially low at the peak of a short-term business cycle, which can produce what is known as a “value trap”, such as in 2007 during the US housing bubble and such as we believe is the case today in China, Australia, and Canada.

 

Shiller showed a method for cyclically-adjusting P/Es using a 10-year moving average of real earnings in the denominator of the P/E. Shiller’s Cyclically-Adjusted P/E, called CAPE multiples have been better predictors of future full-business-cycle stock market returns than raw 12-month trailing P/Es. Shiller showed that markets with historically high CAPEs lead to low long-term returns for long-only index investors. Shiller CAPEs are fantastic, but they can be improved by including an adjustment for corporate profit margins which makes them even better predictors of future stock price performance and therefore even better measures of cyclically-adjusted P/E for valuation purposes. 

 

.Shiller’s CAPEs simply need an adjustment for profit margins because margins are a key element of earnings cyclicality. We can understand this by looking at median S&P 500 profit margins in the chart below. For example, even though profit margins were cyclically and historically high during the tech bubble, they are even higher today. In the same spirit of Shiller’s attempt to cyclically adjust earnings to determine a useful P/E, CAPEs need to be adjusted for cyclical swings in profit margins.

When we multiply Shiller CAPEs by a cyclical adjustment factor for profit margins (10-year trailing profit margins divided by long term profit margin), we get a margin-adjusted CAPE that is not only theoretically valid but empirically valid as it proves to be an even better predictor of future returns than Shiller’s CAPE!

 

Credit goes to John P. Hussman, Ph.D. for the idea and method to adjust Shiller CAPEs for swings in profit margins.As we can see in the Hussman chart below, margin-adjusted CAPE, shows that today’s P/E ratio for comparative historical purposes is 43, the highest ever! The 1999 peak P/E was 41 and the 1929 P/E was 40. Once again, we can see that today we have the highest valuation multiples ever for US stocks, higher than 1929 and higher than 1999 and 2000!

Margin-Adjusted CAPE

It"s easy to discard such talk, just as it was in 2000 and 2006. People readily dispute CAPE, concocting all sorts or reasons why it"s different this time. The most common reason is interest rates are low. We also hear "stocks are cheap to bonds" which is like saying moon rocks are cheap compared to oranges. I do not know when this all matters. And no one else knows either. What I am sure if is that it will matter.

How?

I don"t know when, nor am I sure "how" it happens. It could play out as a crash or stocks can decline over a period of 6-10 years with nothing worse than a 15% decline in any given year, accompanied with several sucker rallies leading people to believe the bottom is in.

History Lesson

Some might ask: If you don"t know when or how, of what use is such analysis.The answer is that history shows this is a very poor time to invest in stocks. That does not mean, they cannot go higher(and they have).

History also suggests that people who invest in bubbles, start believing in them. People believe in bubbles because they have to, in order to rationalize their investments. Others know full well it"s a bubble but they think they can get out in time. Historically, few do because they are conditioned to "buy-the-dip" philosophy, and keep doing so even after it no longer works.

Yesterday, I noted Oppenheimer Predicts PE Expansion, Most Bullish S&P Forecast Yet.So if you are looking for a reason to stay heavily invested in this market, you have one. But don"t fool yourself, this is the most expensive market in history.

 

One Of Bank of America"s "Guaranteed Bear Market" Indicators Was Just Triggered

It is undisputed that the last 2 quarters have demonstrated an impressive jump in corporate earnings growth, if mostly due to a beneficial base effect from plunging 2016 earnings which pushed them below levels reached in 2014. And naturally, this rebound has been more than priced into a market which has seen substantial multiple expansion since the Trump election to boot. But what is much more important for the market is what corporate earnings look like in the future, and it is here that Bank of America has just raised a very troubling red flag.

According to BofA"s Savita Subramanian, in November the S&P 500"s three-month earnings estimate revision ratio (ERR) fell for the fourth consecutive month to 0.99 (from 1.03), indicating that for the first time in seven months, there were more negative than positive earnings revisions, needless to say a major negative inflection point in the recent surge in profits. The bank"s more volatile one-month ERR also weakened to 0.94 (from 1.16).

A breakdown of EER by sector showed a sudden and broad-based deterioration, as the three-month ERR weakened across eight of the 11 sectors, with Materials, Health Care, and Financials seeing the biggest declines while, not surprisingly, Tech and Energy have the highest three-month ERRs, with Energy"s ERR expanding the most on the back of rallying oil prices. Meanwhile, Telecom, Real Estate, and Discretionary have the weakest ratios, and November saw a drop in the Health Care and Industrials" EER ratio below 1.0 (meaning more cuts than raises to earnings forecasts) for the first time since March. Furthermore, while two sectors have been "improving" in recent months: namely Energy and Tech whose ERRs have been rising; all other sectors have seen their ERRs roll over.

Why is this significant?

As BofA explains, the three-month S&P 500 ERR is used by the bank as one of its 19 key "bear market signposts", and with the one-month ERR falling below 1.0 for the second time in six months, this marks the trigger for the 11th bear market signpost. BofA"s ERR rule is triggered when, over a six-month window, all of the following criteria are met: 1) the one-month ERR falls from above 1.0 to below 1.0; 2) the one-month ERR is below 1.0 for two or more months; and 3) the three-month ERR falls below 1.1 for at least one month.

Incidentaqlly, the hit rate of the "ERR" bear market indicator, meaning its historical accuracy in predicting a bear market is 100%, the only question is how long it takes. The last time this trigger was set was mid-2003, and here is the punchline from Bank of America:

Since 1986, a bear market has followed each time that the ERR rule has been triggered. While individual signposts may not be useful for market timing (this one was triggered several years too early in the last two cycles), prior bear markets were preceded by a broader array of signals having been triggered.

This is shown in the chart below:

Ok so one indicator out of 19 now is flashing "bear market" dead ahead. That"s hardly bad if the rest are all green, right? Well, they aren"t.

As discussed two weeks ago, Bank of America recently compiled a list of bear market signposts that have always occurred ahead of bear markets. No single indicator is perfect, and as Subramanian wrote, "in this cycle, several will undoubtedly lag or not occur at all." And while single indicators may not be useful for market timing, they can be viewed as conservative preconditions for a bear market. In this context, the suddenly "triggered" ERR indicator is one of the bank"s 19 bear market signposts.

Here a caveat is warranted: in the last two cycles, the ERR rule was triggered several years too early (Chart 3 above), although a bear market followed each time that the ERR rule has been triggered. As for timing, the more signposts triggered, the greater the risk of an imminent bear market, in BofA"s view. And in November, the one-month ERR falling below 1.0 for the second time in six month marked the 11th trigger (out of 19). This is shown in the table below.

It also means that nearly two-thirds of Bank of America"s bear market indicators have now been triggered. As Subramanian concludes "every cycle is different, but we expect to see more signposts triggered before the eventual market peak."

Then again, this remains a "market" where even if 12 out of the 11 indicators are triggered, it may just send the S&P limit up as there is no point in selling if all that does is guarantee another central bank bailout.

This Time Is Different, It Just Ends The Same

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

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.

In a market crash, however, the number of people wanting to “sell” vastly overwhelms the number of people willing to “buy.” It is at these moments that prices drop precipitously as “sellers” drop the levels at which they are willing to dump their shares in a desperate attempt to find a “buyer.” This has nothing to do with fundamentals. It is strictly an emotional panic which is ultimately reflected by a sharp devaluation in market fundamentals.

Bob Bronson once penned:

“It can be most reasonably assumed that market are sufficient enough that every bubble is significantly different than the previous one, and even all earlier bubbles. In fact, it’s to be expected that a new bubble will always be different than the previous one(s) since investors will only bid up prices to extreme overvaluation levels if they are sure it is not repeating what led to the last, or previous bubbles. Comparing the current extreme overvaluation to the dotcom is intellectually silly.

 

I would argue that when comparisons to previous bubbles become most popular – like now – it’s a reliable timing marker of the top in a current bubble. As an analogy, no matter how thoroughly a fatal car crash is studied, there will still be other fatal car crashes in the future, even if the previous accident-causing mistakes are avoided.”

He is absolutely right. Comparing the current market bubble to any previous market bubble is rather pointless. Financial markets have already studied and adapted to the causes of the previous “fatal crashes” but this won’t prevent the next one.

I previously discussed George Soros’ theory on bubbles which is worth reviewing at this juncture:

“First, financial markets, far from accurately reflecting all the available knowledge, always provide a distorted view of reality. The degree of distortion may vary from time to time. Sometimes it’s quite insignificant, at other times it is quite pronounced. When there is a significant divergence between market prices and the underlying reality the markets are far from equilibrium conditions.

 

Every bubble has two components:

1. An underlying trend that prevails in reality, and; 


2. A misconception relating to that trend.

 

When a positive feedback develops between the trend and the misconception, a boom-bust process is set in motion. The process is liable to be tested by negative feedback along the way, and if it is strong enough to survive these tests, both the trend and the misconception will be reinforced. Eventually, market expectations become so far removed from reality that people are forced to recognize that a misconception is involved. A twilight period ensues during which doubts grow, and more people lose faith, but the prevailing trend is sustained by inertia.

 

As Chuck Prince, former head of Citigroup, said, ‘As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We are still dancing.’ Eventually, a tipping point is reached when the trend is reversed; it then becomes self-reinforcing in the opposite direction.”

Typically bubbles have an asymmetric shape. The boom is long and slow to start. It accelerates gradually until it flattens out again during the twilight period. The bust is short and steep because it involves the forced liquidation of unsound positions.

The chart below is an example of asymmetric bubbles.

The pattern of bubbles is interesting because it changes the argument from a fundamental view to a technical view. Prices reflect the psychology of the market which can create a feedback loop between the markets and fundamentals.

This pattern of bubbles can be clearly seen at every bull market peak in history. The chart below utilizes Dr. Robert Shiller’s stock market data going back to 1900 on an inflation-adjusted basis with an overlay of the asymmetrical bubble shape.

There is currently a strong belief that the financial markets are not in a bubble. The arguments supporting those beliefs are all based on comparisons to past market bubbles.

The inherent problem with much of the mainstream analysis is that it assumes everything remains status quo. However, the question becomes what can go wrong for the market?

In a word, “much.”

Economic growth remains very elusive, corporate profits appear to have peaked, and there is an overwhelming complacency with regards to risk. Those ingredients combined with an extraction of liquidity by the Federal Reserve leaves the markets more vulnerable to an exogenous event than currently believed.

It is likely that in a world where there is virtually “no fear” of a market correction, an overwhelming sense of “urgency” to be invested and a continual drone of “bullish chatter;” markets are poised for the unexpected, unanticipated and inevitable reversion.

As Chris Martenson recently penned:

“I hate to break it to you, but chances are you’re just not prepared for what’s coming.

 

These bubbles – blown by central bankers serially addicted to creating them (and then riding to the rescue to fix them) – are the largest in all of history. That means they’re going to be the most destructive in history when they finally let go.

 

Millions of households will lose trillions of dollars in net worth. Jobs will evaporate, causing the tens of millions of families living paycheck to paycheck serious harm.

 

These are the kind of painful consequences central bank follies result in. They’re particularly regrettable because they could have been completely avoided if only we’d taken our medicine during the last crisis back in 2008.  But we didn’t. We let the Federal Reserve –the institution largely responsible for creating the Great Financial Crisis — conspire with its brethren central banks to ‘paper over’ our problems.

So now we are at the apex of the most incredible nest of financial bubbles in all of human history.”

I am not trying to scare the “bejeebers” out of you, but he is right.

“All financial assets are just claims on real wealth, not actual wealth itself.  A pile of money has use and utility because you can buy stuff with it.  But real wealth is the “stuff” — food, clothes, land, oil, and so forth.  If you couldn’t buy anything with your money/stocks/bonds, their worth would revert to the value of the paper they’re printed on (if you’re lucky enough to hold an actual certificate). It’s that simple.

 

But trouble begins when the system gets seriously out of whack.

 

‘GDP’ is a measure of the number of goods and services available and financial asset prices represent the claims (it’s not a very accurate measure of real wealth, but it’s the best one we’ve got, so we’ll use it). Look at how divergent asset prices get from GDP as bubbles develop.

“What we see in the above chart is that the claims on the economy should, quite intuitively, track the economy itself.  Bubbles occurred whenever the claims on the economy, the so-called financial assets (stocks, bonds, and derivatives), get too far ahead of the economy itself.

 

This is a very important point. The claims on the economy are just that: claims.  They are not the economy itself!”

Take a step back from the media, and Wall Street commentary, for a moment and make an honest assessment of the financial markets today. If our job is to “bet” when the “odds” of winning are in our favor, then exactly how “strong” is the fundamental hand you are currently betting on?

This “time IS different” only from the standpoint that the variables are not exactly the same as they have been previously. Of course, they never are, and the result will be “…the same as it ever was.”

Francesco Filia: The World"s Twin Asset Bubbles Could Collapse Under Their Own Weight

In this week"s MacroVoices podcast, Erik Townsend interviews Francesco Filia, a fund manager at Fasanara Capital. After exchanging pleasantries, Townsend begins the interview by asking Filia, an analysts who"s widely regarded for his research about how post-crisis monetary policy has impacted distorted markets, about the different metrics he uses to determine whether a certain asset is in a bubble.

Filia begins by ticking off a laundry list of metrics that all point to the same conclusion: That today’s market is more overvalued than at any point in recent history – including the run-up to the financial crisis.

Thank you, Erik. I think the equity bubble is quite uncontroversial, is quite unambiguous. There are a lot of different valuation metrics for those that care to look into them. They’ve been valid for over a hundred years of modern financial markets. And this time is no different in that respect.

 

There are the usual metrics that the valuation guys are looking at, like financial assets to disposable income that shows that this market is way more expensive than at any point in history including the big dot com bubble and the Lehman moment in 2007-2008.

 

But there are other metrics like the Buffett Indicator (market cap on GDP), the median debt on total assets, the corporate debt to GDP, the price on sales, the price to book, enterprise value on sales, enterprise value on EBITDA – there are a number of different metrics. They all convene that this is a market bubble that has not been seen before in history.

Filia said he created his own valuation metric that is loosely based on the famous Shiller PE (or CAPE) ratio. Economist Robert Shiller, who teaches at Yale School of Management. Filia"s ratio helps filter out distortions caused by the drop off in corporate earnings caused by the crisis.

But we at Fasanara, we developed our own indicator just to try to add something to what was available already. And we started with one of the most famous of all the indicators in this respect, which is the Shiller adjusted PE ratio, or the CAPE ratio. This is the most famous of them. Professor Shiller got a Nobel Prize in 2013 for it. And for his studies on market inefficiencies and for the ability to infer future expected returns from valuation metrics such as the Shiller PE.

 

 

And, based on the Shiller PE, what it does is simply to compare current prices to not spot earnings of foreign earnings, but a more reliable measure of the average of the last ten years and adjusted for inflation. So the average of the last ten years of real earnings. And on the basis of this index, we find out that the market is as expensive and just a little bit less expensive than it was in 1929 during the Great Depression, the peak of the market before the biggest collapse in equity prices ever seen, and the year 2000. So just slightly cheaper than the year 2000.

Filia"s ratio is loosely based on the work of John Hussman of the Hussman funds, who was the first to utilize peak earnings instead of average earnings in his PE ratio calculations.

What we do is an evolution of the Hussman PE ratio (which is taken from the Shiller ratio) which is to compare – kind of putting all in the basket. So we put the peak earnings as opposed to average earnings, and for peak earnings we really mean the peak. We take the two top quarters over the last 40 quarters. So we cannot really be seen as being any more generous to the current markets, we take the two peak quarters of the last 40 quarters. And then what we do is we compare these peak earnings to potential growth, or trend growth.

 

Because the point here is that what you pay in terms of stocks, should compare, not just to the past or the earnings of proposition, but also to the overall economy generally. Because if the overall economy has a lower potential growth you should be expecting to be able to pay less in terms of multiples than otherwise. The overall economy has a big correlation to earnings and to profit margins, so you should expect the potential growth rate of the economy to be quite relevant when it comes to PE multiples.

Of course, what makes modern markets so uniquely precarious is the fact that investors are struggling with twin bubbles in bonds and equities. However, the former is often overlooked because the public doesn’t have as nuanced an understanding of the bond market. Yet historically speaking, bonds are even more closely correlated with metrics like inflation, as the chart below shows.

However, NIRP and ZIRP has created distortions in bond valuations that have left them extremely overvalued compared with history, meaning that the inevitable regression to the mean will likely take the form of a vicious selloff.

And our point is, look at bonds and look at how they compare to history and how they compare to metrics such as inflation and the GDP – to which historically they are very well correlated – and you find out what this chart on this page, which is showing that we are in totally uncharted territory at present.

 

What is this chart? This chart compares the real rate on German bunds – which are some of the most expensive government bonds on earth and in history – and takes, basically, the real rate on German bunds and compares them to the growth currently experienced by Germany. So the idea – and you see that also in the next slide – the idea is that the real rates in Germany are heavily negative at present.

 

Because what you had was, at the turn of the year, at the end of 2016, inflation started to resurface. So you had deflation and you had a pickup in inflation, which is exactly what you see on the next slide.

 

You see that inflation picked up, whereas nominal rates on German bunds continued their descent. And they continued deeper into negative territory because, obviously, of the ECB policy, of the policies of the central bank. At that point you had a gap opening up between nominal rates and inflation, which means that the real yields were becoming very, very negative. And you see here a table with the negative yields being minus 2.5 on average.

 

And the other thing that interest rates are correlated to is growth. We know that very well, that long-term interest rates, they tend to converge on nominal growth expectations for the economy. So here, in this one indicator which we call the real rate of growth ratio, we put it all together so we compare the nominal rate to inflation to growth. And we end up seeing this.

 

That these bonds have never been so expensive, because they are in deep negative territory – despite a GDP which has resurfaced. It’s not any more zero negative; it is close to 2% as far as Germany is concerned.

Having discussed the bubbles in equity and bond markets, Townsend proceeds to the next logical question. Now that we know we’re in a bubble, how can we tell if the bubble is going to burst? To his credit, Filia admitted he has no idea what the catalyst might be. Furthermore, there doesn’t necessarily need to be a catalyst for these bubbles to burst – but once their valuations have reached a kind of tipping point, they could implode on their own.

There can be a catalyst. Or there can be no catalyst. If you talk about catalysts, I could argue that can be inflation, for example. At the moment, we have seen that inflation resurfaced. We have seen some tightness in the job market. It has not translated yet into wages growth and therefore inflation. But we could just be about to see that. And, in that case, rates would rise and they would provoke as a catalyst the kind of downfall that we expect. Or the catalyst could be political. A lot of quantitative easing is being created and it is benefiting only the top 1% of the population. And it is resulting in this so-called income inequality concept.

 

 

And, so much, the central banks are pushing the wealth effect as they try to make people easier for them to spend more in the economy. But in reality what they are really triggering is income inequality. The consequence of income inequality is populism. Populism can provoke a regime change. Regime change can then affect quantitative easing if the result was not to help the real economy and the middle classes but only the top 1%.

 

So the catalyst could be political.

 

But I can also argue the catalyst could be China. China has a huge problem over indebtedness. It is said to be between 300% and 600% of GDP. GDP is $11 trillion. So it is a monumental credit bubble that could give troubles at any point. And if it gives troubles you can expect the whole world to listen carefully like it did in August of 2015 and January of 2016, and even more than that.

 

I think that it can be also no catalyst. And why is it no catalyst? Because at moments in which the market is overvalued you can never know for sure how much further the bubble can go. But at some point, it reaches a tipping point, a critical mass, where the probability is higher and higher for it to fall down.

At a certain point, swollen valuations reach a level where they no longer make sense, bids evaporate, and prices plunge. But it’s exceedingly difficult to pinpoint just when that point might be.

What We Can Expect For Gold Prices in the Wake of the Hurricane Season

The recent spate of back-to-back hurricanes in the US is expected to compound the economic damage of an already over-extended debt. As the stock market braces for a correction, traders are inclined to sell out of riskier stock markets and take refuge in safe havens like gold.

Although it will take months for the impact of the hurricane season to be apparent, investors are already losing appetite for risk and investing in secure assets as gold. This was evident from the figures leading up to the hurricane season this year. Gold watchers have seen this precious metal on a summer turnaround, spiking up to $1300 even as markets remained uncertain.

The performance of gold from 2016

An 18-month gold chart: April 2016 - September 2017

Source: NASDAQ

 

The historical 5-year volatility of gold witnessed a brief 2016 July surge in the aftermath of the surprise Brexit vote. Gold prices rose sharply driven by macroeconomic uncertainty caused by the unexpected EU referendum. Prices peaked at $1372 in August but dived 7.63% in November 2016 to finish at a record low of $1133. Presidential pro-business policies buoyed the equity markets and strengthened the US dollar driving investors away from gold. Gold prices plunged by nearly 5 % to notch a record low of $1143 in early January 2017. According to aForbes commentary, this can be “attributed to fluctuations in the investment demand for gold”. Another reason why gold prices remained under pressure was a strengthened dollar, which makes the commodity more expensive for investors.

However, the post-presidential-election unstable scenario brought back the sheen of gold. Since January this year, gold prices have been slowly rising along the $1200 mark with rates clinging to the $1260 - $1300 range. TheUS Federal Reserve’s interest rates hike of June, followed by July, resulted in the gold price dipping to a rock-bottom $1210. The end of July saw gold staying put at $1270. Since August, the sluggish trend of gold finally got over with a 4 % surge to trade at $1290. This trend continued despite hurricane warnings and the escalating US-North Korea tensions and a globally uncertain geopolitical landscape.

Source: Marketwatch

 

The significance of the gold price turnaround cannot be overlooked. It can be partly attributed to hedge investor wariness with the American and European economies, particularly the US, where debt-based assets are at an all-time high.

Usually, near-term losses to an economy are offset by a medium-term boost to growth, but with the US parliament functioning in silos and government support programs yet to kick-in amidst the political instability, private investment in rebuilding the economy has taken a beating. Safe investing in gold became the option.

What was seen prior to the hurricane weekend of Irma was an upsurge in the gold price as investors sought to take the safe route. As perInvesting, “the dollar remained under pressure amid doubts over prospects for a third Federal Reserve rate hike this year”. With the U.S. debt ceiling talks getting postponed and a rate hike doubtful, the optimism on gold has kept up

The direct impact of hurricanes Harvey and Irma

A 7-day gold chart: 8 September – 15 September

Source:NASDAQ

 

According toThe Street, “a $300 billion hit from hurricanes Harvey and Irma is likely to affect jobs, growth and inflation in the months ahead”. The U.S. dollar hovered near a two-and-a-half year low last Friday on the 8th September when the Irma touched upon Florida. The dollar index slipped to the lowest since January 2015, coupled with a two-year high jobless claims data, mostly coming from the hurricane-hit Texas.

After rising to a three-year high in August-September, gold prices took a hit on Friday. Soon after the weekend as the hurricane risk damage of Irma was downsized, gold prices fell with risks receding in the markets. As the stock market rebounded and the dollar joined the recovery, the double impact had “the gold prices reeling at this point of time” as perNASDAQ. The prices recorded a $23 drop touching $1328. This was a short-term effect. Recovery from threat perceptions of the double whammy of hurricane Irma and North Korea missile launch may have triggered the downslide of gold prices. The sudden optimism post Irma weekend and apprehensions of North Korea dwindling, helped the stock markets and the dollar to rebound and consequently the prices of gold to move lower

Gold Prices in Q4 after the hurricane season

The fall of gold prices post-hurricane weekend cannot be seen in exclusion to other situations plaguing America.  The dip during the week till 13th can be seen more as a knee-jerk reaction. This weak trend will not last long as is evident from the recovery from 14th. The hurricane season will soon be over by the end of Q3 and so will the uncertainties revolving around it. The short-term status of dipping gold prices as seen this week is already witnessing a correction which will continue through Q4. Another reason why one can expect a high demand and buying to continue is the festival season across gold consuming countries.

Notwithstanding the market expectations in the US and Europe, gold can be expected to steady and rise. Even as this goes to print, the dipping price has stabled and recovered. Safe havens such as gold will continue to be in demand, with prices of the precious metal surging to a one-year high.

Gold is considered secure from an investment point of view to hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty. The GDX, as well as the currently over-valued stock markets, may be due for a correction shortly, which will again impact gold prices, causing another surge. According to theForex Time market analysis, “Investors are likely to continue buying stocks with overstretched valuations because when compared to treasuries, they still look much more attractive”.

A three-month gold chart: July - September 2017

Source: NASDAQ

 

Presently, it appears that the gold prices will hold up during the Q4, despite unpredictability, as two constants remain – a weakening dollar and a low interest/credit position.

After the Q3 the gold prices can be expected to surge along comfortably till the end of 2017, although whether theGlobal Intergold prediction of 1,515 $ per ounce come true, it remains to be seen. The year 2017 will go down in gold history as the year ofthe breakout from the 6-year downward trend. The bottom line is that gold prices will be largely unaffected by the hurricane season in the mid and long-term.  AsHubert Moolman suggests, the current situation for gold is similar to that of May 1979, when prices of assets like gold and silver soared while bonds and stock market collapsed. An event likea stock market crashis also likely to push many banks to that point of failure With the likelihood of such major monetary events around the corner, gold is likely to spike much higher over the coming 12 months.

 

 

 

 

Bubble Dynamics and Market Crashes

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

To paraphrase one of the great gems of Wall Street wisdom, “Nothing infuriates a man more than the sight of other people making money.”

That’s a pretty good description of what happens during the late stage of a stock market bubble.

The bubble participants are making money (at least on a mark-to-market basis) every day.

Meanwhile, the more patient, prudent investor is stuck on the sidelines - allocated to cash or low-risk investments while watching everyone else have fun. This is especially true today when the bubble is not confined to the stock market but includes exotic sideshows like crypto-currencies and Chinese real estate.

It gets even worse when investors are taunted by headlines like the one in a recent article, “Investors Can Either Buy Bubbles or Be Left Far Behind.” The article is a case study in the “Bubblicious Portfolio.” Infuriating indeed. Actually it should not be.

On a risk-adjusted basis, the prudent investor is not missing much.

When markets go up 10%, 20% or more in short periods, market participants think of their gains as money in the bank. Yet, that’s not true unless you sell and cash out of the market. Few do this because they’re afraid to “miss out” on continued gains.

The problem comes when the bubble bursts and losses of 30%, 40% or more pile up quickly. Investors tell themselves they’ll be smart enough to get out in time, but that’s not true either.

Typically investors don’t believe the tape. They “buy the dips,” (which keep dipping lower), then they refuse to sell until they “get back to even,” which can take ten years. These are predictable behaviors of real investors caught up in real bubbles.

It’s better just to diversity, build up a cash reserve, have some gold for catastrophe insurance, and then wait out the bubble crowd. When the crash comes, which it always does, you’ll be well positioned to shop for high-quality bargains amid the rubble. Then you’ll participate in the next long upswing without today’s risks of a sudden meltdown.

OK, so I just argued that the stock market (and other markets) are in bubbles. But where’s the actual proof for this?

Actually, it’s everywhere.

The Shiller CAPE ratio (a good indicator of how expensive stocks are)  is at levels only seen at the 1929 crash that started the Great Depression, and the 2000 dot.com bubble. Likewise, the market capitalization-to-GDP ratio is above the level of the 2008 panic and comparable to the 1929 crash.

The list goes on, including historically low volatility and unprecedented complacency on the part of investors.

For almost a year, one of the most profitable trading strategies has been to sell volatility. That’s about to change…

Since the election of Donald Trump stocks have been a one-way bet. They almost always go up, and have hit record highs day after day. The strategy of selling volatility has been so profitable that promoters tout it to investors as a source of “steady, low-risk income.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, sellers of volatility have made steady profits the past year. But the strategy is extremely risky and you could lose all of your profits in a single bad day.

Think of this strategy as betting your life’s savings on red at a roulette table. If the wheel comes up red, you double your money. But if you keep playing eventually the wheel will come up black and you’ll lose everything.

That’s what it’s like to sell volatility. It feels good for a while, but eventually a black swan appears like the black number on the roulette wheel, and the sellers get wiped out. I focus on the shocks and unexpected events that others don’t see.

In short, we have been on a volatility holiday. Volatility is historically low and has remained so for an unusually long period of time. The sellers of volatility have been collecting “steady income,” yet this is really just a winning streak at the volatility casino.

I expect the wheel of fortune to turn and for luck to run out for the sellers.

But it’s time to add another warning sign to the list. Certain high-yield (or “junk bond”) indices have fallen below their 200-day moving average. This can be indicative of a stock market correction.

Junk bonds are riskier than equity. When they get in trouble, it’s a sign that the corporate issuers are having trouble meeting their obligations. That in turn is indicative of reduced revenues or profits, tight financial conditions, and lower earnings.

Panics in October 1987 and December 1994 were preceded by distress in bonds about six months earlier. While there is no deterministic relationship, bonds are a good leading indicator of stocks because they are higher in the capital table and feel distress sooner.  The October 1987 one-day 22% decline in stocks, and the December 1994 Tequila Crisis in Mexican debt were ugly for investors. The bond market gave a six-month early warning both times.

It may be doing so again.

But what the Fed? Is it setting markets up for a fall?

It’s true that the Fed has been raising interest rates since 2015, and had engaged in tapering for two years before that. Yet, these actions hardly constitute tight money. The tightness or ease of monetary policy needs to be judged relative to financial and economic conditions.

You can have “easy money” at a 10% interest rate if inflation is running at 15% (something like the conditions of the late 1970s). In that world, the real interest rate is negative 5.0%, (10% – 15% = -5%).

In effect, the bank pays you to borrow. That’s easy money.

By most models including the famous Taylor Rule, rates in the U.S. today should be about 2.5% instead of 1.0%. We have easy money today and have had since 2006. This comes on top of the “too low, for too long” policy of Alan Greenspan from 2002-04, which led directly to the housing bubble and collapse in 2007.

The U.S. really has not had a hard money period since the mid-1990s. That’s true of most of the developed economies also.

What’s going to happen when central banks start to normalize interest rates and balance sheets and return to a true tight money policy in preparation for the next recession?

We’re about to find out.

Central banks all over the world including the Fed, ECB, and the People’s Bank of China are in the early stages of ending their decade-long (or longer) easy money policies. This tightening trend has little to do with inflation (there isn’t any) and more to do with deflating asset bubbles and getting ready for a new downturn.

But, in following this policy, central bankers may actually pop the bubbles and cause the downturn they are getting ready to cure. This is one more reason, in addition to those described above, why the stock market bubble is about to implode.

It’s important to realize that market crashes often happen not when everyone is worried about them, but when no one is worried about them.

Complacency and overconfidence are good leading indicators of an overvalued market set for a correction or worse.

The Strange Behavior Of Gold Investors From Monday To Thursday

Authored by Dmitri Speck via Acting-Man.com,

Known and Unknown Anomalies

Readers are undoubtedly aware of one or another stock market anomaly, such as e.g. the frequently observed weakness in stock markets in the summer months, which the well-known saying “sell in May and go away” refers to. Apart from such widely known anomalies, there are many others though, which most investors have never heard of. These anomalies can be particularly interesting and profitable for investors – and there are several in the precious metals sector as well.  Today I am going to introduce one of those to you.

As Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of defense knew, there are things we know we know, things we know we don’t know, and things we don’t know we don’t know (unfortunately he neglected to consider that there are also things we think we know that just ain’t so, such as “Saddam has WMDs” – but let’s not digress). Anyway, Seasonax knows them all! [PT]

Gold investors dead asleep for days?

To this end we are going to examine the performance of gold and gold stocks broken down by days of the week.

The first chart shows the annualized performance of the gold price in USD terms since 2000 (black bar), as well as the annualized gain generated on individual days of the week (blue bars).

I have measured the returns based on closing prices, thus the performance achieved on Tuesday equals the average percentage change between the close of trading on Monday and the close on Tuesday.

Gold, performance by days of the week, 2000 to 2017.  Friday stands out markedly

 

As the chart illustrates, one day really stands out: Friday. With an annualized return of 7.50 percent it reflects almost the entire annualized gain of 8.84 percent generated by the gold price over the time period under review.

By contrast, almost nothing noteworthy happened in the gold market from Monday to Tuesday. On Tuesday prices even declined slightly on average.

The difference – which has been measured over a period of no less than 4,585 trading days – is obviously quite significant. This suggests that these patterns are not a coincidence.

Gold investors indeed appear to be mired in deep sleep from Monday to Thursday, or at the very least they are showing very little enthusiasm on these days.

 

The days of the week under the magnifying glass

What exactly was the cumulative trend in this pattern over time? The next illustration shows the indexed performance of gold since the turn of the millennium in gold color, as well as that of individual days of the week in other colors.

Gold, cumulative performance by days of the week, 2000 to 2017, indexed.

A steady uptrend was in evidence on Fridays – click to enlarge.

 

As the chart shows, prices essentially tended to move sideways over the first four days of the week. Only in 2009 did Wednesday (green line) manage to generate a somewhat stronger average return as well.

The gains in the gold price over the entire period of almost 17 years were primarily achieved on Fridays. The blue line depicting the cumulative returns achieved on Friday is in a very steady uptrend. On Friday prices frequently even managed to rise even when the gold price declined overall in the course of the year, such as e.g. in 2014.

In short, Friday is indeed quite an unusual day.

 

The action in gold stocks is even more extreme

Given that Friday appears to hold a special position in the gold market, the question arises whether and to what extent gold stocks are affected by it. After all, the trend in gold stock prices depends on the trend in the gold price.

The next chart therefore shows the annualized performance of the HUI Index of unhedged gold mining stocks since the turn of the millennium (black bar) vs. the annualized performance achieved on individual days of the week (blue bars) since the turn of the millennium.

HUI, performance by days of the week, 2000 to 2017 –  Friday shines brightly, Monday is weak

 

Once again Friday is the by far strongest day. Its special status is even more pronounced than in gold itself: gold stocks on average rose by 13.28 percent annualized on Fridays, while the HUI on average gained only 5.76 percent over the week as a whole.  Or putting it differently: Investors who were exclusively invested on this single day every week, were able to achieve more than twice the return delivered by a buy and hold investment!

Moreover, in gold stocks the patterns from Monday to Thursday show a lot more differentiation than those in gold itself. For instance, the average gain recorded on Wednesdays actually exceeded the cumulative gain in the HUI over the week as a whole as well. By contrast, the average performance on Mondays was truly abysmal. Someone who invested in the HUI exclusively on Mondays would have suffered an annualized loss of 9.40 percent!

 

The weekly performance of gold stocks under the magnifying glass

The question of the cumulative performance broken down by days of the week arises in connection with gold stocks as well of course. The next illustration therefore shows the indexed returns of the HUI Index in gray, and those of individual days of the week in other colors.

HUI, cumulative performance by days of the week, 2000 to 2017, indexed.  Knocking it out of the park: Friday beats them all.

 

As the chart shows, the blue line depicting the performance of the HUI on Fridays faithfully tracked the rally in gold prices in the first several years after the turn of the millennium. However, a welcome divergence emerged during the financial crisis of 2008, which had almost no discernible effect on the performance achieved on Fridays.

Thereafter, the blue line by and large continued its ascent (only briefly interrupted in annus horribilis 2013), even though the trend in the HUI as such was quite dismal in recent years. Currently the cumulative return achieved on Fridays stands far above that generated by the HUI.

This once again underscores how extraordinary the performance of gold mining stocks on Fridays actually was.

Compare this to the terrible downtrend in gold mining shares on Mondays, which is found at the very bottom of the chart. The yellow line declines steadily. On Monday, prices even tended to decline in years that were otherwise strongly bullish for gold mining stocks.

Momentum Hasn"t Been This Extreme Since The Peak Of The Dot.Com Bubble

The last month or so has seen "momentum" dramatically outperform the market as retail flows chase "what is working"...

In fact this has very much been a year of momo...

 

But, as Bloomberg notes, U.S. stocks with the fastest-rising prices are showing the kind of strength they did in the 1990s, according to Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at MKM Partners LLC.

He cited this year’s swings in the MSCI USA Momentum and MSCI USA indexes in a report Sunday. The gap between them stands at 15 percent, a threshold that the momentum index only crossed on a full-year basis in 1999.

“Momentum is definitely stretched relative to the market, but there is no guarantee that it won’t become more stretched,” he wrote.