Leading Investor: The Next Financial Downturn Will Be Caused By Corporate Debt

The last recession in 2008 was spurred by excessive debt in the private sector, mostly in the housing market.  But this time, it’ll be worst and much more difficult, as the problem will be caused by corporate debt, according to several leading investors.

The ensuing downturn could be immediate and sharp, once the bull market ends. But some, such as Peter Schiff, already believe we are in a bear market. “Stocks are expensive. The bull market is over. It’s now a bear market. People want to get out. People are allocating out. Growth is slowing whether people want to acknowledge it or not,” said Schiff.

But others still think they have yet to hit the top. “Once we peak, our work shows that we should expect maybe a 40% decline in equities from their peak,” Scott Minerd, chairman of Guggenheim Investments, told Yahoo Finance. “I’m talking about a recession, possibly in early 2020. Stocks tend to do well two years before a recession. But in this rally, it’s the opportunity to sell.”

At the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, the world’s top investors are asking how much longer the good times can last. They claim the current bull-market rally began in 2009, making it one of the longest on record. But others, such as Peter Schiff, said it’s a false recovery because of the money printing scheme employed.

“When we do all that [print money to recover from a recession], the dollar is going to implode because everybody is going to know that the [money printing scheme] experiment failed. Everybody is going to know there is no way out of this box. There is no normalization of rates. That is ever going to happen. Their [The Federal Reserve’s] balance sheet is never going to shrink. The balance sheet is going to grow permanently, which means this banana republic debt monetization. They can no longer pretend that they’re not doing the same things as South American banana republics. It’s a pure ‘we just print money to finance government spending,’ which is going to explode,” said Schiff. –SHTFPlan

The good news, if there is any to be had, is that the tax cuts President Donald Trump signed in 2017 could juice markets a bit longer by leaving more money in American’s pockets. But some investors gathered at the Milken Conference also feel that the corporate forces are now swirling that will trigger the next downturn.

Because the tax cuts didn’t offer a decrease in the size of government, they will add to US government debt. Spending, not taxation, is the problem and will be until the government is reduced. And while the Federal Reserve is gradually raising interest rates, they may still not be high enough to allow for aggressive monetary policy by the time a recession hits and the Fed needs to cut interest rates. “We’re in danger of having a collision between monetary policy and fiscal policy,” Minerd says.  Once interest rates rise, the amount owed on the massive amount of debt corporations hold will increase along with the debt owed by the federal government.

We are in for a rough ride, everyone.

If Minerd is right, some of the riskiest investments include high-yield bonds, other fixed-income securities, and eventually stocks. But some investors will undoubtedly hold on, hoping to squeeze out the last gains before the market turns.

Yahoo‘s suggestion? Keep a parachute handy. But we prefer you actually prepare and store things that are of use. Prepping can be difficult and it’s often hard to take that first step, but if you’re new and interested in learning, it’s never too late to start preparing for any potential outcome.  The book titled The Prepper’s Blueprint offers a simplistic and easy to follow guideline for those who would like to take that first step.

Peter Schiff: ‘The Fed Is Like Mr. Magoo! We Are Headed For A Massive Financial Crisis’

Peter Schiff has been saying that even though the stock market is on a slow downward slide, the biggest problem is actually in the bond market. Last week, Schiff warned us to be wary of the calm before the storm, and this week, he said most, including the Federal Reserve, are oblivious to the upcoming crash.

Yields have risen to levels not seen since before the 2008 crash. More significantly, the yield curve is flattening, according to Schiff. 

According to Seeking Alpha, Schiff pointed out, if you go back to the Second World War and look at average bond yields, these low rates are an aberration. They’ve been low for a long time, but they aren’t going to stay low forever. And yet the market seems to think it’s going to go on for another 30 years.

“Clearly, the market assumes that interest rates on 10-year government bonds are going to stay just barely over 3% for the next 20 or 30 years. I mean, that is crazy. Why would anybody think that?”

Just consider the deficits as well. The federal government is running $100 billion per month budget deficits – and this is during a supposed economic expansion. What’s going to happen when we hit a recession? And of course, rising interest rates just compound the problem. As Treasuries come due, the government has to replace them with higher interest rate bonds. This expands the deficit even further.

Also compounding the problem is the money printing scheme the Federal Reserve has taken to.  Why in the world would any rational person assume inflation will remain low?

We also have interest rates at around 3% and there is already some handwringing and nervousness. But as Peter said, they could easily blow through four or even 5%. The Fed keeps saying it plans to reduce its balance sheet, but it hasn’t sold very many bonds to date. What happens if they follow through with tightening plans and start dumping bonds on the market?

If [the Fed] continues to stay on this path, or at least the rhetoric is on this path, rates could blow through 3% like a hot knife through butter.”

Schiff then discussed Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who said they [the elite globalists that run the Federal Reserve] can’t find any signs of an impending crisis. He said there are no warning signs at all.

“Well, of course, that’s exactly what they said in 2007 and 2008. In fact, even when there was the mother of all warning signs – the crash of the subprime market – the Fed looked at that and said, ‘That’s nothing. It’s contained.’ We’re not worried about that.’ So the Fed has already proved when it comes to warning signs and seeing them in advance, they’re like Mr. Magoo. They have no idea what’s going on. And in fact, just like Mr. Magoo, they create all kinds of havoc all around them as they blindly move through the economy having no idea what’s going on, and there’s just all kinds of carnage.We are headed for a massive financial crisis.”

Schiff has yet to change his mind: we are headed for some major problems in the economy and most are unaware and unprepared.

Peter Schiff: There’s A BIG Problem With The Economy, ‘Americans Are BROKE’

Financial analyst Peter Schiff says there’s a big problem with the economy even though the mainstream media is reporting that rising interest rates are a good thing.  The problem, however, is that Americans are broke, and those interest rates could have a major impact on some of our wallets.

“The bad news is, we are going to live through another Great Depression and it’s going to be very different. This will be in many ways, much much worse, than what people had to endure during the Great Depression,” Schiff says. “This is going to be a dollar crisis.”

“When you are talking about the magnitude of the debt we have, that extra money [raising interest rates] is big. That’s going to be a big drain on the economy to the extent that we have to pay higher interest to international creditors…a lot of this phony GDP is coming from consumption, while the average American who is consuming is deeply in debt and they are going to impacted dramatically in the increase in the cost of servicing that debt…given how much debt we have, and how much debt is going to be marketed the massive increase in supply will argue for interest rates that are higher.” –Peter Schiff

 

Retail sales “unexpectedly” fell again in February even though most media outlets are touting a booming economy that can support raising the interest rates. It was the third straight monthly drop and the first time the US economy has seen three straight months of declining retail sales since 2012.

Sales fell 0.1% in February even though analysts had expected an uptick of 0.3%. According to CNBC, households cut back on purchases of motor vehicles and other big-ticket items, pointing to a slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter. But Peter Schiff won’t sugarcoat this one for us: Americans are broke.

And the worse things get, the less investors seem to notice.

What makes matters even worse is on Friday, we got the “too good to be true” and “just what the doctor ordered” Goldilocks jobs report that said 1 million people got jobs. Schiff said this “good news” report doesn’t make any sense, actually.

“So why didn’t any of those million people take their paychecks and spend them at a retailer? I mean, Trump is talking about all the great jobs, and all the raises that people have, and all the tax cuts. Why are retail sales down for three months in a row?” –Peter Schiff

Unfortunately, we also saw Americans running up record high levels of debt at the same time that the government is running massive deficits.

Last month, the New York Fed released the latest data on US household debt, revealing it has grown to a record $13 trillion. So yes, Americans have been spending, but they’ve been putting a lot of it on plastic. Credit card balances grew by $24 billion in the last quarter of 2017 alone. Could it be that Americans have maxed out the plastic?

At some point, a house of credit cards will collapse.

Schiff is hard on Donald Trump too, and rightfully so.  Lower taxes are always a good thing, the lower the better, in fact.  But Republicans refused to cut any government spending while instead, increasing it to the point of running massive deficits, making them worse than Democrats when it comes to being fiscally conservative.

The cold truth is that a back plan is needed, and most Americans don’t have that.  Many would be in some serious trouble during a financial downturn, and the country is most definitely headed that way.

How Will The Market Absorb Trillions Of US Treasury Bonds to Replace The Feds Balance Sheet Wind Down?

First, the facts:

At Powell"s Nov 28th 2017 testimony to Congress, Powell said that as the Fed allows its 4 trillion dollar balance sheet to wind down, the US Treasury would issue new bonds to the market to replace them (so, technically, US notional debt will neither increase nor decrease as a result of QE).

Recall that QE is a sterile operation (this is why we don"t have hyper-inflation).  What does that mean?  Sterile means that the US public debt will neither increase or decrease as a result of QE, and neither will the money supply.  Another way to say this is that QE is a cash neutral operation.  Where cash is pushed into the system at one point, it must be drained someplace else (in our case, the Fed offers interest to banks to store their cash at the Fed...mostly with IOER - interest on excess reserves..and all the banks have indeed been doing this).  This is also why banks are not over-excited to lend you money...they get risk free money to deposit their cash at the Fed.  QE simply took US debt off the markets balance sheet, and placed onto the Fed"s (yes, the Fed printed digital fiat currency to make this happen...but the unwind will reverse  this "money" creation).  So, the Fed bought 10yr notes with funny money..will hold them to maturity...and then when those 10yr notes mature, the US Treasury will auction new bonds into the market to repay the Fed, making the funny money disapear like magic.  This whole process together "sterilizes" the Feds money printing...but in the meatime, the market pushed that money into other assets (mostly stocks).

Here is the simplified flow of money:
Fed QE --> bond market --> stock market --> bank accounts --> Fed accounts(IOER)

Such that total dollars in circulation didn"t change much...they ended up back at the Fed (with a nice uptick in asset prices as an inbetween step).
There was a nice side effect to this...while the Fed holds a large balance sheet...the US Treasury doesn"t have to pay interest on its debt (because the Fed remits all its profits back to the Treasury...and interest income is considered profit).  When the Fed winds down its balance sheet, the Treasury will have to start paying interest on that debt again.

The interesting question is thus:  When the US Treasury tries to sell 1-2 Trillion dollars of long term debt back into the market...what happens to interest rates and the stock market?  Recall #1 that after the Trump election, 10 year interest rates moved from 1.80% to now 2.40% (expectation of Trump borrowing lots of long term money to finance his infrastructure and deregulation projects).  But that hasn"t even happend yet (analysis of the Republican tax plan cost estimates an additional 1 Trillion US long term debt).  Recall #2 that the Fed is currently holding a lot of that debt...which minimized the need to liquidate bad long positions in the post Trump bond market selloff.  US Treasury debt is "high quality" and so the market will buy it...but at what price?  This is the big question.  Will the market sell stocks to make room to buy up all this new debt (reverse QE)?  Does this cause the next stock market crash?  (hint hint - probably)

 

The piper must be paid eventualy.  However, just like in Cyprus...the banks will have a heads up...and their assets will be safe.  What will happen to yours?

Bloomberg Has Identified Buffett"s Successor At Berkshire Hathaway (It Thinks)

There are some well-kept secrets in the financial world. For example, there’s the identity of the person or people who designed Bitcoin under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. Then there’s the identity of the parties responsible for the frequent dumping of billions of dollars of gold futures contracts on to the market without regard for maximising price. Another one is Warren Buffett’s successor as Chief Executive Officer Berkshire Hathaway.

Besides his advancing years, he’s 87, there are other signs that curtain is coming down on the era of the world’s most successful investor. As we noted in August in “The Value Of Lunch With Warren Buffett Plunges 22%”.

The winning bidder in legendary investor Warren Buffett’s annual charity auction haspledged $2.68 million for the privilege of eating lunch with the billionaire investor…While the sum is far greater than the $25,000 paid in 2000 - the first year Buffett held the fundraiser - it’s about $800,000 shy of the record sum of $3,456,789 paid in 2012 and 2016.

By his own admission, Buffett has also found it increasingly challenging to find “value” in keeping with his investment style which he modelled on an earlier doyen of value investing, Benjamin Graham. That’s not Buffett’s fault, it merely reflects the longevity of the latest iteration of central bank bubbles.

Speaking to the usual throngs of shareholders as Berkshire’s AGM in May 2017, Buffett admitted that.

“If I die tonight, I think the stock would go up tomorrow.”

He wasn’t joking, the world’s greatest capital allocator was merely acknowledging that the market would likely price the parts of his very disparate conglomerate higher than the whole. “It would be a good Wall Street story”, he was reported to have said.

Bloomberg Businessweek has published an article on Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway arguing that the pressure to break up the company will mount after he steps down. Buffett’s successor will be critical if that is to be prevented…and Bloomberg thinks it knows his identity. For the time being, while Buffett remains in situ, nothing is going to change.

The glue is Buffett, who’s argued persuasively for decades that this hodgepodge makes sense. His market-beating returns have helped: $100 invested in Berkshire in 1964, when he began aggressively buying shares to take control, would be worth more than $2 million today.

Nothing of the sort is likely to happen while Buffett is there. He’s still the controlling shareholder, Berkshire is his life’s work, and he doesn’t want it torn apart by investment bankers or activist investors. To slow that process, Buffett assembled a board that backs his approach, and after his death he’ll leave his remaining shares to charities run by family and friends who know his wishes. But the pressure to dismantle his creation will mount—eventually.

The bulwark against that impulse will be Buffett’s successor as chief executive officer, whose identity is one of the business world’s best-kept secrets. In all his years of giving interviews and taking questions at the company’s marathon annual meeting, Buffett has acknowledged that the board has picked his replacement, but he’s never disclosed the name.

In a cheeky dig at Buffet’s ego, the Businessweek article suggests that by naming his successor, it might take the spotlight away from the man himself, “who loves the attention”. While we think there’s some truth to that, we also agree that Berkshire’s board is keen to give itself room to maneuver. Prior to his resignation from Berkshire, it was widely accepted that David Sokol, known as his “Mr Fix-It and major influence on acquisition targets, would succeed Buffett.

 Arguing that “These days, however, most arrows are pointing toward one man”, Bloomberg begins making its case by re-capping what Buffett has said about the qualifications for his job.  

Buffett, at least, has talked about the qualifications for the position. In a 2015 letter to shareholders, he said the board wants his successor to be drawn from the company’s ranks and “relatively young, so he or she can have a long run in the job.” He suggested future Berkshire CEOs should hold the post for more than a decade and that they should be “rational, calm, and decisive.” And, he noted, they should have upstanding character, be unmotivated by ego or a big paycheck, and be “all-in” at Berkshire.

As the article points out, Buffett neglected to mention stockpicking skills, although the next CEO will be able to call on the two former hedge fund managers hired by Buffett, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. The two manage about $20 billion of Berkshire’s stock portfolio, but are unlikely to have the skills or the desire to oversee Berkshire string of operating businesses. The role of Chairman is expected to be given to eldest son, Howard Buffet who’s job will be to “guard the company’s culture—and force out any future CEO who messes with it”.

Bloomberg thinks that a major clue to the identity was dropped by Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger.

Munger called two executives—Ajit Jain and Greg Abel—examples of the company’s “world-leading” managers who are in some ways better than their boss. While Buffett later denied that any executives were in a “horse race” to succeed him, the logical inference from Munger’s letter was that the board had already settled on one of these two—and probably wasn’t as seriously considering other internal candidates such as BNSF Executive Chairman Matt Rose or Tony Nicely, the CEO of Geico. Abel declined to comment, and Jain and Buffett didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Jain and Abel each fit many aspects of Buffett’s carefully tailored job description. They’re deeply committed to Berkshire’s culture, which prizes efficiency and long-term thinking. Neither has outward character flaws that would immediately be disqualifying. And each has built large businesses for Buffett.

Jain runs the insurance business, which remains the core of Berkshire, while Abel runs the energy/utility businesses. It’s tough to make a judgement between the two, but Bloomberg thinks that, in the end, Abel’s youth will sway it.

Jain runs the company’s namesake reinsurance operation, which for decades has provided Berkshire with billions of premium dollars for investments and acquisitions. Buffett has repeatedly said that Jain has probably made more money for shareholders than he has. In 2011 he said the board would make Jain CEO if he wanted the job.

Abel has steadily expanded a utility holding company in Iowa into a colossus in the energy industry. It runs several power companies throughout North America and the U.K., interstate natural gas pipelines, and giant wind and solar farms. It’s a big part of Berkshire that stands to get only bigger, Buffett said in May, adding that it’s “hard to imagine a better-run operation.”

A key distinction between the two executives is age: Jain is 66, Abel is 55. Buffett is proof that the CEO can do well by shareholders long past typical retirement age. Even so, Jain has been facing some health challenges that could eventually make working more difficult, according to people who’ve recently spent time with him. Analysts and some longtime investors don’t think he wants the job. He’s also spent his career in insurance, a business less essential to Berkshire than it once was.

 

Bloomberg notes that others are increasingly sharing the same view about Greg Abel, including Berkshire investors and analysts. If Abel is the man for the job, he will have to contend with Berkshire’s need to allocate around $400 billion of capital over the next decade, a larger sum than Buffett deployed during the last half century. The article argues that Abel is far from a bad allocator.

That’s a skill Abel has spent years honing. An accountant by training, he joined the business he now runs in 1992 when it was a small geothermal power producer in California. Its head at the time was Sokol, who spotted talent in the young executive and promoted him to bigger roles. In 2000, as investors chased the latest dot-com stocks, Berkshire bought a majority stake in the business.

Being part of Buffett’s empire created an opportunity. Abel’s company, then called MidAmerican Energy Holdings, was able to retain its earnings, a rarity in the utility industry, where the norm is to pay generous dividends..For a time, he ran a utility in the U.K. People who’ve worked for him say he’s steeped in the details of his operations. He often visits his far-flung utilities in person. “He’s made big bets,” says Jeff Matthews, an investor who’s written three books about Berkshire. “He’s as smart as they come.”

Ironically, if Abel is promoted to fill Buffet’s considerable boots, one scenario which would make his job considerably easier would be a market crash. Finding value would be much easier in deploying the company’s $100 billion cash mountain.

 

Warning: ‘They Need The Markets To Implode’ To Usher In Cashless System

Market analyst Lynette Zang predicts in the next market meltdown, “real estate, stocks, and bonds will all crash.” When asked when this will happen, Zang says, “Enjoy your Christmas,” but in 2018, all bets are off.

Greg Hunter interviewed Lynette Zang, Chief Market Strategist at ITMtrading.com, and her assessment of the 2018 economy is dire.  Zang predicts, “In 2018, I don’t think they can hold these things together. I think we will see a major market correction in 2018. When that happens, that will cause the derivative implosion. We have to feel a lot of pain. . . . I think we are going to go into hyperinflation, and I think we will start to see that in 2018 because I think we will see these markets implode. I think we will see QE4 (money printing) for sure. . . . We have QE right now propping it up, according to the Fed’s own documents.”

Zang says ever since the 2008 meltdown, the elite have just been buying time to set up a debt reset.

“I am 100% certain we are in the middle of a money standard shift.  Ultimately, they need the markets to implode. . . . In 2008, the debt based system broke.  It died, it was done.  The central banks, globally, put it on life support, and they have to create a new system.  In my opinion, they want us cashless, and they want everything in digital form.  They want to dematerialize wealth at least for the masses.  I am 100% certain that this Bitcoin craze, and all of this, is about getting people used to digital currencies.  So, when they shift us from the debt based system to the digital system, we are more comfortable with it and more familiar with it.”

But this crash is still going to be painful for most because the central banks won’t simply give up their power.

“They are not going to give up their power just like that.  We’ve had a great run, and now it’s your turn.  Hey, population, yes, we’ve taken 96% of your wealth, but here we’re going to let you have this piece.  It doesn’t work like that.  The system doesn’t work like that.”

You can prepare for the coming market crash, but most don’t even know it’s on the way. But preparing should include purchasing physical gold and silver to “hold your wealth.”

“After you have a major implosion, all confidence is lost.  What if we have a grid implosion?  You won’t have access to your Bitcoin.  You are going to need barterable silver, and you are going to need physical gold.  You can always convert real tangible money into any good, service or any other currency.  The true value of gold, if they did the reset today, is north of $9,500 per ounce.  That is a very conservative number.  Before the reset happens, the higher the debt amount and the higher the derivatives amount, the higher that gold price goes.”

Most experts and history tend to agree that precious metals are the best way to protect yourself against the coming market crash.

Tilt! Game Over...

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Anyone who’s ever played a pinball machine can attest to the fact that the player easily becomes wrapped up in it, to the point of the exclusion of all else happening around him. He hits the flippers rapidly, glancing up from time to time at his increasing score. It becomes irresistible to jiggle the table frequently, in an effort to get the ball to go where the player wants it to go.

And, of course, every player is familiar with the disappointment that comes when he’s overplayed his body English and the machine stops suddenly, lighting up a sign that says, “Tilt! Game Over.”

Much of the world is now embroiled in an economic game similar to pinball. The stakes are becoming ever greater, the flipper buttons are being pressed ever faster, and those who are desperately attempting to keep the collapsing system going are shoving the table ever more recklessly.

At this point in the world economy, the number of possible triggers that could take the system down is growing ever more rapidly.

And, for those who are paying attention, the list of dominoes that we’ll see fall is becoming ever more starkly apparent. Let’s have a look at just some of the more basic dominoes:

• Creditor countries dumping US Treasuries back into the US market. (This has already begun and will continue until the dollar crashes.)


• Cessation of the US dollar as the petrodollar. (This is about to begin, but will take several years to play out fully.)


• Economic sanctions by the US against Russia and China (that are unlikely to have the support of the US’s allies).


• Implementation of tariffs, resulting in a tariff war.


• A rise in interest rates (as was consciously created in 1929 by the Fed in order to trigger a timed crash).


• Bursting of the bond market bubble.


• A major stock market crash.


• Dramatic increase in mortgage defaults.


• A spike in commodity prices, coinciding with a drop in asset values (inflation and deflation at the same time—the worst possible combination).


• Collapse of the paper gold market.


• A switch to the new IMF cryptocurrency and a major effort to end the use of cash. (This will succeed to some extent, but will create a worldwide monetary black market.)


• US defaults on its debt. (This, too, will occur over several years.)


• Collapse of the dollar.

Many of these events will be black swans.

As can be expected, some of the events will be sudden, whilst others will take time to play out. In addition, although they’re likely to occur roughly in order, several will be in play at any given time.

Although each of these events can be anticipated, they won’t come with warning notices. Their actual occurrences will be unheralded. (As an example, when a stock market crash occurs, investors will wake up to discover that it’s occurred whilst they were sleeping.)

And, just as in pinball, the end of the game will come quite suddenly. The moment that the player will know that it’s “Game Over” will be when he goes to his ATM and finds that the screen is dark. The machine has been made inoperative overnight. Annoyed, he’ll go to the next-nearest ATM, but will find that that one, too, is shut down. He’ll go to others and, at some point, will realise that they’re all shut down.

Without spending cash in his wallet, he’ll then go to the local gas station or supermarket and attempt to pay with his credit cards but will find that they’ve all been made inactive. In trying to sort out the problem with the manager, he’ll be told that all credit cards for all his customers have been denied that day.

The realization will suddenly hit that money has ceased to flow. For how long? The television news programmes will state that it will be temporary, but they don’t define “temporary.”

Those few individuals who understood that an economic crisis was brewing will take inventory of how much cash they have remaining in their wallets and how much they’ve stashed at home, and realise that this total now represents their total purchasing power.

Overnight, wealth is no longer measured in saleable assets, since, if virtually no one has spending money, they have no means of payment. Therefore, the fellow who thought that, if he found himself in a pinch, he could always sell the Harley in the driveway, or perhaps the family boat, for some quick cash, can no longer locate a buyer who can pay him—at any price.

Of course, many people will do all they can to contact their bankers, demanding that they be allowed to remove their money on deposit and extract the contents of their safe deposit boxes, but they’ll receive a recording, saying, “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but the bank will be temporarily closed until further notice.”

At this point, “wealth” will change its definition to include only the cash in hand, plus whatever might be bartered.

Recently, I received an email from an associate in Canada, who asked, “When will I know when I really have to make a move?” My answer was, “You won’t. But there will be an actual day when you’ll know that you’ve waited too long and it’s now too late. That day will be the day that you visit the ATM and find it closed.”

That’s it. “Game Over.”

So, are we all doomed? Well, no, not at all. Those who are proactive can remove themselves from the system now, before the system reaches the “Tilt!”

If the reader lives in one of the jurisdictions that’s likely to be the most impacted (EU, US, Canada, etc.), he would be wise to liquidate his possessions there and move the proceeds to a jurisdiction that’s less likely to be impacted and which has a long reputation for economic stability. He should place his wealth (no matter how great or little) in precious metals and real estate overseas—again, in a safer jurisdiction.

He should retain some money (in cash and precious metals) at home, or nearby—enough to cover a few months’ expenses.

If he can afford to, he should then create a bolt-hole in a jurisdiction that he can go to quickly, should the crisis overtake him.

However, even those who recognize that their home country may soon become an economic prison camp are likely to dither, failing to prepare adequately. Sadly, they’re likely to find themselves in the position of the fellow in the photo above, discovering that “Game Over” has arrived before he could ready himself.

*  *  *

This isn’t all bad news. A select group of investors will not only endure the collapse—they’ll actually come out the other side much wealthier. There are practical steps you can start taking today to make yourself one of them. Find out how in our Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse. Click here to download your free PDF copy now.

Gold Has Been On A Tear All Year

Posted with permission and written by Rory Hall, The Daily Coin

 

 

 

 

The way gold has been moving the past few weeks, it’s easy to overlook the 11% growth it is enjoying during 2017. As we move towards year end, we see gold has been flat while suffering attack after attack from the banking cabal. The charts over the past ten trading day have these massive waterfalls that are intended to frighten traders. A few years ago this worked like a charm - today, not so much.

 

While these waterfalls make the chart look horrific, if you look just past where the attack ends, you will see a reversal. Not just a reversal, but over the past ten days, close to a 100% reversal. This shows just how the “strong hands” are not letting go and not being shaken at all from their stance. The word is out – gold is where it’s at and physical gold is really where it’s at.

 

We have one more Federal Reserve meeting scheduled for the second week of December. We can only hope Fed Chairman Janet Yellen aka Mother Felon does her thing and raises the Fed Rate by another 0.25% – 0.50%. If this happens we expect a similar reaction as has happened in January 2016 and January 2017.

 

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  On December 15, 2015, gold bottomed out at $1,049 (on the London pm gold price fix) the day after the Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in almost 10 years. Gold immediately took off and rose by almost $200 per ounce to $1,241 in less than two months (by February 11, 2016).
  

  
  


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  On December 20, 2016, gold bottomed out at $1,125 on December 20, shortly after the Fed raised rates again. Gold then rose gradually to $1,257 in February and $1,346 by the next September.
  

  
  

It could happen again this year. Even if gold fell to the low $1,200s range, it could take off again in late December. That’s the theory of the Commodities Corner column in last week’s Barron’s. First, the article points out that gold rose 8.6% in 2016 and is on track to gain over 10% in 2017, so each year’s low gold price is higher than the previous year’s low. Then, Barron’s explained that speculative gold traders tend to ‘short’ gold in advance of the FOMC meeting and then cover those shorts when the Fed meets. Source

 

We are hoping Mother Felon signals that 2018 is going to another great year for gold. Keep your eyes and ears open for the Fed Chair to, hopefully, announce an early Christmas present on December 12-13. The only question that remains is whether she will or she won’t do as she has done the past two years.

 

Starting last Sept. 20, immediately after the Fed’s “pause” on rate hikes, the market began to price in a Fed rate hike for December. Asset classes adjusted in line with those expectations.

Treasuries, gold, euros and yen all fell. Bond yields and the dollar both rose. Tight money was on the way.

The problem is that the markets have now priced in a 100% chance of a Fed rate hike in December. You can’t get any more sure of yourself than that. This means that Treasuries, euros, gold and yen have all found a bottom.

They’re just waiting for confirmation from the Fed in a few weeks. As I said, markets are waiting for Godot.

This sets up one of my favorite trading situations. I call it the “asymmetric trade.”

When something is fully priced, the happening of the event does not move prices. But if the event does not happen, prices move violently to reprice for the unexpected outcome.

This means you have a “Heads I win, tails I don’t lose” situation. Source

I agree people that are holding physical gold, and not an illusion of gold like GLD, it’s a “Heads I win, tails I don’t lose” scenario. While gold is still under the control of the West, gold is nothing more than a hostage and does what it is told by its capture. Gold, in our opinion, is going higher: not just higher, but much higher from where it is currently. Will the next “gold master” allow it to roam free? We doubt it - we just hope gold has some breathing room and the leash is slightly longer than it is today.

 

The global monetary system is beginning to change. Gold is going to be part of the change and a major player in the future global trade system. If one simply reviews gold through the lens that is the countries in Mackinder’s Heartland, you will see nations scooping up gold with both hands. These nations are members of the BRI, EAEU, SCO, AIIB and the endless list of economic and military alliances that are currently developing and solidifying their future economic growth. The picture is very clear – gold, probably on the blockchain or some form of new fintech, is going to be included in the future of global trade. The major players, Russia and China, are making this crystal clear. How we get to the new system is the question of our life time that could have a very ugly answer.

 

We will continue holding physical gold and encouraging people to research reasons to hold physical gold. As we see it, our financial insurance policy increased by more than 8% in 2016 and another 11% in 2017 and is poised to continue to post gains over the next few years. Either way, gains or losses, insurance is insurance and only works if you hold it. We choose to hold it.

 

Questions or comments about this article? Leave your thoughts HERE.

 

 

 

Gold Has Been On A Tear All Year

Posted with permission and written by Rory Hall, The Daily Coin

 

 

 

Check out these other articles by our contributors:

Steve Rocco - Global Silver Investment Demand Maybe Down, But Still Double Pre-2008 Market Crash Level

Dave Kranzler - The Debt Bubble Is Beginning To Leak Air

Craig Hemke - Does The CoT Structure Prohibit A Rally?

Sprott Money"s Ask The Expert - Danielle DiMartino Booth

The Yield Curve Has Not Been This Flat In 10 Years, And Many Believe This Is A Sign That A Recession Is Imminent

This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse

Whenever we see an inverted yield curve, a recession almost always follows, and that is why many analysts are deeply concerned that the yield curve is currently the flattest that it has been in about a decade. In other words, according to one of the most reliable indicators that we have, we are closer to another recession than we have been at any point since the last financial crisis. And when you combine this with all of the other indicators that are screaming that a new crisis is on the horizon, a very troubling picture emerges. Hopefully this will turn out to be a false alarm, but it is looking more and more like big economic trouble is coming in 2018.

The professionals on Wall Street take the yield curve very, very seriously, and the fact that it has gotten so flat has many of them extremely concerned. The following comes from Business Insider…

In the past, including before the Great Recession of 2007-2009, an inverted yield curve, where long-term interest rates fall below their short-term counterparts, has been a reliable predictor of recessions. The bond market is not there yet, but a sharp recent flattening of the yield curve has many in the markets watchful and concerned.

The US yield curve is now at its flattest in about 10 years — in other words, since around the time a major credit crunch of was gaining steam. The gap between two-year note yields and their 10-year counterparts has shrunk to just 0.63 percentage point, the narrowest since November 2007.

If the yield curve continues to get even flatter, it will spark widespread selling on Wall Street, and if it actually inverts that will set off total panic.

And with each passing day, even more of the “experts” are warning of imminent market trouble. For example, just consider what Art Cashin told CNBC the other day…

Investors may want to take cover soon.

Art Cashin, UBS’ director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange, says a “split personality” is manifesting itself in the stock market, and it could hit Wall Street where it hurts at any moment.

“We’ve been setting record new highs, and often the breadth has been negative. We’ve had more declines than advances,” Cashin said Thursday on CNBC’s “Futures Now.”

When the financial markets finally do crash, it won’t exactly be a surprise.

In fact, we are way, way overdue for financial disaster.

Since the last financial crisis, we have been on the greatest debt binge in human history. U.S. government debt has gone from $10 trillion to $20 trillion, corporate debt has doubled, and U.S. consumer debt has now risen to nearly $13 trillion.

Debt brings consumption from the future into the present, and so it increases short-term economic activity at the expense of long-term financial health.

But we simply cannot continue to grow debt much, much faster than the overall economy is growing. I have never talked to anyone that believes that our debt binge is sustainable, and I doubt that I ever will.

The only reason why we have even gotten this far is because interest rates have been pushed to historically low levels. If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt even returned to the long-term average, we would be paying more than a trillion dollars a year in interest on the national debt and the game would be over. Unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve and other global central banks has pushed interest rates way below the real rate of inflation, and that has bought us extra time.

But now the Federal Reserve and other global central banks are reversing course in unison, and global financial markets are already starting to decline.

The only way we can keep putting off the next financial crisis is if we continue our unprecedented debt binge and if global central banks continue to artificially prop up the financial markets.

Of course more debt and more central bank manipulation would just make the eventual financial disaster even worse, but that is what we are faced with at this point.

Most people simply don’t understand the gravity of the situation. Nothing was ever fixed after the last financial crisis. Instead, we went on the greatest debt binge that humanity has ever seen, and central banks started creating trillions of dollars out of thin air and recklessly injected that hot money into the financial system.

So now we are in the terminal phase of the largest financial bubble in human history, and there is no easy way out.

We basically have two choices. We can have a horrific financial crisis now, or we can have one a little bit later.

Usually the choice is “later”, and that is why our leaders have been piling on the debt and global central banks have been recklessly creating money.

But it is inevitable that our bad choices will catch up with us eventually, and when that happens the pain that we are going to experience is going to be absolutely off the charts.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream. 

If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming.

How Tax Reform Can Still Blow Up: A Side-By-Side Comparison Of The House And Senate Tax Plans

To much fanfare, mostly out of president Trump, on Thursday the House passed their version of the tax bill 227-205 along party lines, with 13 Republicans opposing. The passage of the House bill was met with muted market reaction. The Senate version of the tax reform is currently going through the Senate Finance Committee for additional amendments and should be ready for a full floor debate in a few weeks. While some, like Goldman, give corporate tax cuts (if not broad tax reform), an 80% chance of eventually becoming law in the first quarter of 2018, others like UBS and various prominent skeptics, do not see the House and Senate plans coherently merging into a survivable proposal. 

Indeed, while momentum seemingly is building for the tax plan, some prominent analysts believe there are several issues down the road that could trip up or even stall a comprehensive tax plan from passing the Congress, the chief of which is how to combine the House and Senate plans into one viable bill.

How are the two plans different? 

Below we present a side by side comparison of the two plans from Bank of America, which notes that the House and the Senate are likely to pass different tax plans with areas of disagreement (see table below). This means that the two chambers will need to form a conference committee to hash out the differences. There are three major friction points:

1. the repeal of the state and local tax deductions (SALT),


2. capping mortgage interest deductions and


3. the delay in the corporate tax cut.

The House seems strongly opposed to fully repealing SALT and delaying the corporate tax cuts and the Senate could push back on changing the mortgage interest deductions. Finding compromise on these issues without disturbing other parts of the plan while keeping the price tag under the $1.5tn over 10 years could be challenging.

Here are the key sticking points per BofA:

• Skinny ACA repeal: The repeal of the individual mandate is back on the table. It would free up approximately $300bn in revenue to pay for the tax plan. But this likely means no Democratic Senator will support the bill. This could prove costly as the Republicans can only afford to lose 2 votes and several Republican Senators are already on the fence on the tax plan.


• Byrd Rule means tax plan might not hatch: Reconciliation directives allow the tax plan to add $1.5tn to the deficit in the first 10 years (See appendix for breakdown of the cost of each plan). However, rules in the Senate state that any bill passed under reconciliation has to be revenue neutral beyond the 10 year budget window. Given that the Republicans are hoping to make the corporate tax cuts permanent, it would mean that they would need to find additional revenue in the out years while sunsetting all other tax cut provisions (e.g. personal tax cuts). This will mean the personal tax code at best will revert back to current law or at worst roll back the cuts and preserve the repeal of the deduction which would amount to a tax increase on households after ten years. Currently, the Senate plan would let reduction in the personal tax rates, expansions of the standard deduction and child tax credit and other provisions expire after 2025. The court of public opinion could threaten the tax plan.

And while it remains to be seen if tax reform will pass the Senate, or like Obamacare repeal, it will get shot down by the like of McCain (and perhaps Corker), another key question, is whether the US even needs tax reform at this point - the Fed certainly could do without the added inflationary pressure - and whereas former Goldman COO and Trump"s econ advisor, Gary Cohn certainly thinks so, his former boss, Lloyd Blankfein disagrees. So does Bank of America, which maintains that at this stage of the business cycle, tax cuts are not needed to sustain the current expansion. Nevertheless, BofA concedes the passage of a comprehensive tax plan would likely lead to a short term boost to growth which would translate to further declines in the unemployment rate and higher inflation.

Then, as the economy begins to heat up, the Fed will likely lean against the economy by implementing a faster hiking cycle than currently projected, which will ultimately spark the next market crash, recession and financial crisis. Ironically, the seed of Trump"s own destruction would be planted by his biggest political victory yet (assuming tax reform passes, of course).

* * *

As a bonus, here is a simulation BofA ran using the Fed"s FRB/US model to calculate the potential costs of the tax plans. BofA ran its simulations assuming model consistent expectations for all sectors of the economy and using the inertial Taylor rule to set the path of the federal funds rate: "o simulate the impact of the fiscal stimulus brought on by the tax cuts, we make the fiscal setting exogenous during the first 10 year period and adjust the path for corporate and personal income taxes to take into account the government revenue effects from the tax plan."

Costs aside, to get a sense of the economic impact from the two tax plans, BofA similarly models the two plans" outcomes using the FRB/US macroeconomic model. The simulation results suggest under the House plan, the US would see a boost to aggregate demand as growth would be approximately 0.4pp higher relative to baseline in 2018 and 0.3pp higher in 2019. Better aggregate demand would reduce the unemployment rate by 0.3pp by 2019 and put upward pressure on inflation. These growth and price dynamics would lead the FOMC to raise rates an additional 1 to 2 hikes over the next two years. The economic impact from the Senate plan would be slightly more modest but in the same ballpark as the House plan. Under the Senate plan, the model predicts growth to be approximately 0.3pp higher in both 2018 and 2019 and similar dynamics for the unemployment rate and inflation as seen in the House plan, leading the FOMC to tighten quicker than the current baseline path.

There is also an "alternative" scenario where we a watered down version of the tax plan passes (i.e. modest tax cuts for middle-income households and a corporate tax cut near 25-28% that is deficit increasing by $600bn-$800bn on a static basis). Under the "alternative" scenario, we would see approximately half the economic impact that is seen under the House plan. Given that such a plan would likely only generate modest inflationary pressures, the Fed"s response likely would be relatively muted and it would likely stay on its baseline path.

The Greatest Fear Today: The Lack Of Fear

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

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. Prominent magazine covers are notorious for declaring a boundless bull market right at the top just before a crash or correction.

October 19 saw the thirtieth anniversary of the greatest one-day percentage stock market crash in U.S. history - a 22% fall on October 19, 1987. In today’s Dow points, a 22% decline would equal a one-day drop of over 5,000 points!

I remember October 19, 1987 well. I was chief credit officer of a major government bond dealer. We didn’t have the internet back then, but we did have trading screens with live quotes. I couldn’t believe what I was watching at first, but by 2:00 in the afternoon we were all glued to our screens.

It was like being a passenger on a plane that was crashing, but you had no way out of the plane. Our firm was fine (bonds rallied as stocks crashed), but we were concerned about counterparties going bankrupt and not being able to pay us on our winning bets in bonds.

What’s troubling is that a lot of commentators said that the kind of crash that took place in 1987 couldn’t happen today and that markets were much safer. It’s true that circuit breakers and market closures could temporarily halt a slide better than we did in 1987. But those devices buy time, they don’t solve the underlying fear and panic that causes market crashes.

In any case, when I hear market pros say “It can’t happen again” it sounds to me like another market crash is just around the corner.

The problem with a market meltdown in today’s even more deeply interconnected markets, is that once it strikes, it’s difficult to contain. It can spread rapidly. Likewise, there’s no guarantee that a stock market meltdown will be contained to stocks.

Panic can quickly spread to bonds, emerging markets, and currencies in a general liquidity crisis as happened in 2008.

Why should investors be so concerned right now?

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.

The chart below shows a 20-year history of volatility spikes. You can observe long periods of relatively low volatility such as 2004 to 2007, and 2013 to mid-2015, but these are inevitably followed by volatility super-spikes.

During these super-spikes the sellers of volatility are crushed, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy because they can’t cover their bets.

The period from mid-2015 to late 2016 saw some brief volatility spikes associated with the Chinese devaluation (August and December 2015), Brexit (June 23, 2016) and the election of Donald Trump (Nov. 8, 2016). But, none of these spikes reached the super-spike levels of 2008 – 2012.

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.

Here are the key volatility drivers we should be most concerned about:

The North Korean nuclear crisis is simply not going away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. Intelligence indicates that North Korea successfully tested a hydrogen bomb in September. This is a major development.

An atomic weapon has to hit the target to destroy it. A hydrogen bomb just has to come close. This means than North Korea can pose an existential threat to U.S. cities even if its missile guidance systems are not quite perfected. Close is good enough.

A hydrogen bomb also gives North Korea the ability to unleash an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). In this scenario, the hydrogen bomb does not even strike the earth; it is detonated near the edge of space. The resulting electromagnetic wave from the release of energy could knock out the entire U.S. power grid.

Trump will not allow that to happen, and you can expect a U.S. attack, maybe early next year.

Another ticking time bomb for a volatility spike is Washington, DC dysfunction, and the potential for a government shutdown in December…

Analysts who warn about government shutdowns are often viewed as the boy who cried wolf. We’ve had a few government shutdowns in recent years, most recently in 2013, and two in the 1990s.

These were considered true government shutdowns in the sense that Congress did not authorize spending for any agency, and all “non-essential” government employees were put on furlough. (Critical functions such as military, TSA, postal service and air traffic control continue regardless of any shutdown).

These shutdowns don’t last long. They are usually for one political party or the other to make its point about spending priorities, and are soon compromised in the form of higher spending and a return to business as usual.

Government shutdowns because of lack of spending authority are different from government shutdowns due to lack of borrowing authority and the Treasury’s inability to pay its bills, or hitting the so-called “debt ceiling.”

We had a debt ceiling shutdown in 2011. Those are far more dangerous to markets because they call into question the Treasury’s ability to pay the national debt. We’ve had two near shutdowns this year; one in March, and again at the end of September. Both times Congress passed a last minute “continuing resolution” or CR that keeps government funding at current levels and keeps the doors open until a final budget can be worked out.

The current CR expires on December 8.

This time the odds are high that the government actually will shut down. Why should investors be any more concerned about this shutdown than the one in 2013 or the near misses earlier this year?

There are several causes for concern.

The first is that there is less room for compromise. The White House wants funding for the Wall with Mexico. Many Republican members of Congress want to defund Planned Parenthood. The Democrats will not vote for the Wall or to defund Planned Parenthood, but do want more funding for Obamacare.

There is no middle ground on any of these issues so the chance of a long shutdown is quite high.

The second reason is that this shutdown comes at a time when the U.S. in facing an increased risk of war with North Korea, and Congress has many other tasks on its plate including tax reform, confirmation of a new Fed Chairman, the “Dreamers” legislation, and more. Political dysfunction in Washington can easily spill over into markets.

This time the wolf may be real.

In short, the catalysts for a volatility spike are all in place. We could even get a record super-spike in volatility if several of these catalysts converge.

The “risk on / risk off” dynamic that has dominated most markets since 2013 is coming to an end. From now on it may just be “risk off” without much relief. The illusion of low volatility, ample liquidity, and ever rising stock prices is over.

It has been nine years since the last financial panic so a new one tomorrow should come as no surprise.

The safe havens will be the euro, cash, gold and low-debt emerging markets such as Russia. The areas to avoid are U.S. stocks, China, South Korea and heavily indebted emerging markets.

It may not look like it now, but it could be a volatile and bumpy ride ahead.

BofA: "The Market Implies There Is No Way A Shock Can Happen"

For today"s moment of volatility zen, we go to BofA"s Nikolay Angeloff who drew the short straw to be the (un)lucky pundit whose comments on record complacency, low volatility, etc publicized.

Angeloff starts with pointing out what we noted over the weekend , namely that we have now recorded 334 days without a 5% or more pullback (and 335 after today"s close), the fourth longest period on record since 1928.

In another market distortion, whether due to ETFs or central banks, equity vol has fallen so far in October, historically the most volatile month of the year, and if it continues at this pace, it will be the least volatile October in history...

... and third least volatile month ever.

Looking at the above two charts, it is no surprise that at this 30yr anniversary of the ’87 crash, the BofA analyst concludes that "the market seems to currently imply there is no way a shock can happen. However, in part due to today’s low realized volatility creating a steep implied term-structure, along with higher fragility driving steeper skew across tenors, the entry point for “S&P fragility hedges” in the form of put ratio calendars has never been more attractive."

We"ll have more to say on his (costless) hedge recommendation tomorrow, but first here is some more on what the ongoing market distortions mean in practical terms:

Markets mark the 30Y anniversary of Black Monday midst chatter of fragility. On 19-Oct-1987, the S&P 500 experienced its worst day in history (since 1928) when the index plummeted 20.5% in a single trading session. The total loss over the month leading to and including the market crash amounted to 27.6%, a 6.6-sigma event.

 

 

Counter to many peoples’ common belief, a shock of this magnitude would be unprecedented today. Our previous work has shown that there is historically a limit of how large shocks can be based on the prevailing realized volatility. With today’s much lower levels of realized vol, a 6.6 sigma event would correspond to a lesser monthly selloff of only 11.5%

Well, as long as it is "only" 11.5%, one can probably count the number of central banker suicides on "only" one hand as these central-planning mandarins watch the fruit of their centrally-planned labor go up in smoke.

Angeloff"s conclusion:

"generally, the longer time passes without an abrupt market correction, the higher the likelihood of it happening. Markets pricing very little potential for a shock seems at odds with still elevated geopolitical and policy risk globally. Additionally, some have increasingly refocused on quant fund positioning risks, and as we have argued previously CTA and risk parity flows (and the fear of them) can add fuel to (but not cause) a potential sell-off. Notably we see their equity allocations likely at a high (for CTAs this is due to the coincidental occurrence of a strong trend in performance and record-low vol). Thus, an equity sell-off or an uptick in volatility could cause these portfolios to de-lever their equity allocations and so could exacerbate an equity market correction (Charts 14 & 15). However, we still do not believe they would be the sole drivers of an ’87 style crash.

* * *

Two final observations:

For Oct-17, the VIX settled at 10.53, which is 10.6 points below the 2004-2016 October average of 21.2 (less than half). This is the greatest difference between a monthly settlement and monthly average so far in 2017. For comparison, Sep-17’s settlement of 9.87 was 9.82 points below the September average, the second largest discrepancy so far this year. What’s more, on an absolute level October has the second highest monthly settlement on average (21.2), second only to November (22.0). Regardless, Oct-17’s 10.53 was the second lowest monthly settlement realized thus far in 2017.

In stark contrast with historical trends, realized volatility on SPX has dropped in the month of September and if volatility does not pick up materially from here, the month of October will mark the second monthly drop in a row. Indeed, realized volatility in the month of October thus far is 3.5 vol pts. If realized volatility remains flat for the remainder of the month, this would be the third lowest monthly volatility in the history of the index, which realized less volatility only in Feb-64 and Aug-65. Historically SPX realized volatility tends to drop in the month of November. However, this year may witness a break of that pattern given the likely low level for the month of October. In addition the real battle over tax reform will likely start in early November and that the process from here will neither be pretty or smooth...

Personal Recollections From The Crash Of 1987: "There Was No 'Smart Money' That Day!"

Via LyonsSharePro.com,

The following guest post is a first-hand account of the events surrounding the Crash of 1987 by JLFMI President, John S. Lyons.

Personal Recollections of the Crash of 1987 on its 30th Anniversary

“There was no ‘smart money’ that day.”

What do the assassination of President John F Kennedy, the beginning of Desert Storm and 9/11 have in common? Provided you are old enough to recall JFK’s assassination, the answer probably is that you remember exactly where you were on the day of those events. If not that old, there is most likely another event that is so memorable that you recall where you were and what you were doing at that moment.

Being in the securities business for many, many years, the Crash of ’87 on October 19th of that year is right up there with JFK’s assassination and 9/11 as one of the mind-numbing catastrophes I’ve witnessed.

In retrospect only, it was fortunate that I had entered the brokerage business in 1969 and immediately weathered a 36% market decline into 1970. On the heels of that decline, I then endured one of the worst bear markets in modern history in 1973-74 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 50% of its value. As a result, I was weaned on risk in my new profession. And I learned early on that if a career that centered around the stock market were to be endurable, I had to find a way to practice risk management.

As a result, I developed a risk model during the 1970’s as a means of guarding against such disastrous losses in the future. Fortunately, the model has been of very valuable assistance, protecting clients from every major decline since its inception in 1978. Its Sell Signals have occurred prior to insignificant declines as well, but its risk avoidance guidance supersedes those times. On September 25th of 1987, for example, our model issued a Sell Signal and I sold over half of my clients’ holdings. I was reminded just recently by an associate of mine at that time about how he passed by my office that day and was amazed at the pile of sell orders on my desk.

The Friday prior to the October 19th crash ended with the first triple digit decline in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In total, the market lost just over 10% that week. The apprehension of professionals in the business was palpable to say the least as we entered the weekend and yet there was no seemingly immediate cause for a significant decline. I have learned that such unexplained declines are the most insidious. On Saturday night, at dinner with friends at a restaurant in Chicago, I could not eat my food!

On Monday morning, the market opened and headed south immediately. There were no buyers – just panic. Program trading, a technique supposedly providing insurance for portfolios in which computers entered sell orders at certain predetermined levels below the market, simply propelled the decline. Markets were in complete disarray. There were no bids. No one to fill the mountain of orders that were coming from all over the world. Traders left the pits crying as the carnage grew. It seemed like the end of the world – their world at least. And there was nothing stock brokers could do except watch in horror. Paradoxically, on the way home that night, the outside world was acting like nothing happened. That was no comfort.

The DJIA closed down 508 points or 22.6% that Monday, October 19th. To provide some perspective, that decline today would be the equivalent of a 5,176 point loss. The Nasdaq would have fared worse were it not for the fact that it completely failed and effectively shut down. Bid prices were often higher than asked prices. When asked what smart money was doing that day, one leading money manager admitted that “there was no smart money”.

Though most of the eventual decline was over by the close on Tuesday, the gut wrenching market action continued for the rest of the week. And its wreckage would last for weeks and months. First Options, the company charged with settling trades on the Chicago Board Options Exchange couldn’t function for weeks and had to be bailed out by its parent, the Continental Bank. Significant corporate mergers that were almost completed were canceled or at least became questionable. My only major problem during the crash – and it was a big one – was that I was selling puts on some merger candidates that were all but assured prior to the crash.

For example, I had sold hundreds of puts at a quarter of a point with a strike price of 40 on a company that was trading at the 52-53 level. All the company’s stock had to do was to close over 40/share and the puts would be worthless and the trade profitable. Instead, the stock dropped to about 37 which made the intrinsic value of the put 3. Unbelievably, they were bid at 18 for more than a week despite having negligible trading in them. Unbelievably as well, I was issued no margin calls on the positions for over two weeks due to First Options being in chaos. Unfortunately I eventually had to take sizable losses in them. In some other cases that I knew about, no margin calls were ever issued for some substantial unsecured debits. I recall one investor who had a deficit in his account of almost $250,000 and was never called to cover that amount!

When I say chaos, I mean chaos. Will it happen again? Although it is always claimed that we learn by our previous mistakes and take the appropriate steps to avoid the same problems in the future, history doesn’t bear that out. So called “reforms”, as well as proclamations such as that by Yale’s first Ph. D in economics, Irving Fisher, nine days before the stock market crash of 1929 that stock prices “reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”, are made with ultimately untimely confidence throughout history. Portfolio insurance during the ’87 crash was anything but insurance. Although it was embraced as risk management, it turned out to be risk fertilizer. Society in general always thinks that we have hit that new plateau in managing ourselves but unfortunately that is often quite the opposite. To me, the message is that we never should abandon employing some measure of risk management in investing and probably in most of our activities. So how is that accomplished?

Human Nature, The Stick in the Spokes of Risk Management

One of the phenomena that increasingly seems axiomatic is that human nature is the enemy of such risk management. The longer that one has gone without the need for caution, the more it is thought not to be needed when, in actuality, the more it is needed. This is due to a condition called perceptual recency, which simply stated means that one’s expectations of the future are the result of what one has experienced and is in their active memory. We are not good at anticipating junctures of change. That is understandable.

The following two charts show that we humans indeed clearly react to what has occurred in our memorable past. The higher we go and the longer we go higher, the more confidence we have that we will continue to go higher — and the less we feel the need for risk management. That eventually, and I repeat eventually, is injurious to one’s investing health. Note how the level of both household stock investment and consumer confidence continue to grow the higher the market goes.

So, as asked, how do we guard against the human natural tendency to dismiss the need for risk protection the higher the market goes — and to become more bearish, the lower it goes? Frankly the answer probably is that most investors, i.e., humans, cannot. I have spent a career practicing human nature avoidance in my job. Now I will admit that there will be times when the market does not need risk protection and there will be other times when there appears to be substantial risk afoot as quantified by our 40-year-old risk model but the market chooses to ignore it and continue to move higher. However, like wearing a seat belt, you cannot possibly choose to employ caution only shortly before an accident.

As stated above, declines that are the most hurtful typically begin with no seeming warning or at least before any provocation is identified. For example, on July 30, 1990, our model issued a Sell Signal and we sold 100% of our clients’ holdings. On August 2, Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait and Operation Desert Shield began — as well as a substantial decline in the stock market. Similarly, the completion of selling 100% of our clients’ holdings on account of a Sell Signal on September 4, 2001 was obviously done without any known external provocation. The lesson regarding employment of risk management is that, no, you will not know when to sell by just “having that feeling” or even more remotely, by getting tipped off by the news in the morning paper. That said, many investors do believe that they will know when to protect their holdings.

Now of course, there will be legions of market experts, many with an investment product to sell, who will say it is foolishness to even try to “time the market” as they put it. I will admit it is difficult to find a good practitioner of avoiding risk. However, one must try. Failing to avoid a substantial market decline is a double whammy. It is well quantified that losing money has twice the negative emotional impact vs. the pleasing emotional impact derived from making money. That emotional jolt on the downside is what contributes to selling at the bottom (one whammy) and makes you divorce Wall Street until it is well into its next bull phase (a 2nd whammy).

So what was learned from the Crash of ’87? Not much in my opinion. For starters, the laws of human nature have yet to be repealed. Additionally, high frequency trading is today’s version of program trading. Only now, instead of transmitting an order through a stock broker, who sends it to a floor broker, who give it to a trader, who takes it to a specialist at the post where the stock in question is trading, high frequency computer generated orders are automatically entered at the behest of complex algorithms and are executed and reported back in milliseconds. Witness the May of 2010 “flash crash” where the market lost about 1000 points and then mostly recovered all within 15 minutes.

In summary, risk cannot be removed from the stock market. The Crash of ’87 affected everyone. Crashes will occur again. Wear a seat belt!

– John S. Lyons is President and Founder of J. Lyons Fund Management, Inc.

If you’re interested in the “all-access” version of our charts and research, we invite you to check out our new site, The Lyons Share. TLS is currently running a 30th anniversary 1987 Crash Commemoration SALE, offering a discount of 22.6%, or the equivalent of the Dow’s 1-day drop 30 years ago. The SALE ends October 22 so considering the discounted cost and a potentially treacherous market climate, there has never been a better time to reap the benefits of our risk-managed approach. Thanks for reading!

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Could never happen again...