Prayer for the day –
Our Ben,
Who art in heaven,
Hallowed Be-nanke,
Thy auctions come,
Thy Bill’s be done,
In Twos as they are in Sevens,
Give us this day our daily Fed,
And forgive us our Treasuries,
As we forgive those that default against us,
And lead us not into recession,
And deliver us from deflation,
For thine is the borrowing, the easing, and the printing,
For ever and ever.
Amen.
Investors are asking if Britain may soon face its own sovereign debt crisis if the government fails to slash its growing budget deficits quickly enough to escape the contagious fears of financial markets.…
“If you really want a fiscal problem, look at the U.K.,” said Mark Schofield, a fixed-income strategist at Citigroup. “In Europe, the average deficit is about 6 percent of G.D.P. and in the U.K. it’s 12 percent. It is only just beginning.”
…
the government and its citizens have been able to continue to borrow at interest rates that do not reflect their true financial situation.
…
As for the British government, it has been able to finance a budget deficit of 12.5 percent of G.D.P. — equal to Greece’s — at an interest rate more than two full percentage points lower only because the Bank of England bought the majority of the bonds it issued last year.
David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff also referred to the piece in his morning missive, noting:
Britain is probably one of the few countries in the world where political uncertainty, a renewed round of house price deflation and a sinking currency can manage to elicit a bounce in consumer sentiment (the country has a Greek-like 12.5% deficit-to-GDP ratio, which is double the European average and a household debt-to-GDP ratio that, at 170%, makes the U.S. household sector downright frugal at 130%
If you have been waiting for the “global economic crisis” to begin, just open up your eyes and look around. I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because they consider it to be “irrelevant” to their daily lives, but the truth is that the massive economic problems that are currently sweeping across Europe, Asia and South America are going to be affecting all of us here in the U.S. very soon. Sadly, most of the big news organizations in this country seem to be more concerned about the fate of Justin Bieber’s wax statue in Times Square than about the horrible financial nightmare that is gripping emerging markets all over the planet. After a brief period of relative calm, we are beginning to see signs of global financial instability that are unlike anything that we have witnessed since the financial crisis of 2008. As you will see below, the problems are not just isolated to a few countries. This is truly a global phenomenon.
Over the past few years, the Federal Reserve and other global central banks have inflated an unprecedented financial bubble with their reckless money printing. Much of this “hot money” poured into emerging markets all over the world. But now that the Federal Reserve has begun “tapering” quantitative easing, investors are taking this as a sign that the party is ending. Money is being pulled out of emerging markets all over the globe at a staggering pace and this is creating a tremendous amount of financial instability. In addition, the economic problems that have been steadily growing over the past few years in established economies throughout Europe and Asia just continue to escalate. The following are 20 signs that the global economic crisis is starting to catch fire…
#1 The unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of 28 percent. (more…)
1. The most important single factor in shaping security markets is public psychology.
2. To make money in the stock market you either have to be ahead of the crowd or very sure they are going in the same direction for some time to come.
3. Accepting losses is the most important single investment device to insure safety of capital.
4. The difference between the investor who year in and year out procures for himself a final net profit, and the one who is usually in the red, is not entirely a question of superior selection of stocks or superior timing. Rather, it is also a case of knowing how to capitalize successes and curtail failures.
5. One useful fact to remember is that the most important indications are made in the early stages of a broad market move. Nine times out of ten the leaders of an advance are the stocks that make new highs ahead of the averages. (more…)
Here are some interesting quotes from The Battle of Investment Survival, by Gerald M Loeb, Simon and Schuster, 1957 (14th printing).
“There are some rules that hold, and my first is to buy only something that is quoted daily and can be bought and sold in an action market daily. The greater the volume of trading and the broader the market in a particular security, the closer to a fair price at a given moment that security is likely to be.”
“In my opinion, the primary factor in securing market profits lies in sensing the general trend. Are we in a deflation or inflation period? If the former, I would hardly bother to analyze most equities.”
“In short, in my opinion everything of an analytical nature covering specific securities should be persistently linked to past market appraisals and set up for use solely to determine future market possibilities.”
“Any program which involves complete investment of all capital at all times is certain to fail unless the amount of it is extremely small.”
“All this suggests the question – are we learning to trade for the quick turn or to invest for the long pull? We are investing for appreciation, and the length of time one holds a position has noting to do with it. I lean towards rather short turns for many reasons. To begin with, experience is gained much more rapidly that way. Short-term investing once mastered has very much more the elements of dependable business than the windfalls or calamities of the long pull.”
“Obviously, our ideas will sound wrong to the most people. Any investment policy followed by all naturally defeats itself. Thus the first step for the individual trying to secure or preserve capital is to detach himself from the crowd.”
Inflation is hot property today, hyperinflation is even hotter! We think we are modern, contemporary, smart and ready to deal with anything. We’ve got that seen-it-all-before, been-there-done-it attitude. But, we are not a patch on what some countries have been through in the worst cases of hyperinflation in history. Here’s the top 10 list of worst cases in history. We’ll start with the worst first…let’s think positive!
Hungary 1946
Inflation at its peak reached a staggering figure of 13.6 quadrillion % per month! That’s 13, 600, 000, 000, 000, 000%. The largest denomination bill was a 100 Quintillion note. Prices ended up doubling every 15 hours at the time.
Zimbabwe 2008
Prices doubled here every 24.7 hours in November 2008 and inflation reached levels of 79 billion-odd %. They eventually stopped using the official currency and switched to the South African Rand or the $US. A loaf of bread ended up costing $35 million. This is the most recent case. It was Mugabe’s land-redistribution program that caused this.
Yugoslavia 1994 (more…)
Here are Ed Easterling’s 12 Rules of Market Cycles:
1. Secular cycles are driven by the inflation rate (deflation, price stability, and higher inflation)
2. Secular bulls occur when P/E starts low and ends high over an extended period
3. Secular bears occur when P/E starts high and ends low over an extended period
4. Cyclical bulls and bears are interim periods of directional swings within secular periods
5. Cyclical cycles are driven by market psychology, illiquidity, or other generally temporary condition(s)
6. Time is irrelevant to the length of secular stock market cycles
7. Secular bulls require a doubling or tripling of P/E
8. Secular bears occur as P/E stalls and falls by one-third to two-thirds or more
9. When real economic growth is near 3%, there is a natural floor for P/E between 5 and 10, a natural ceiling around the mid-20s, and a typical average in the mid-teens
10. If economic growth shifts upward or downward for the foreseeable future, the natural range moves upward or downward, respectively
11. Inflation drives P/Es location within the range; economic growth drives the level of the range
12. The stock market is not consistently predictable over months, quarters, or periods of a few years; the stock market is, however, quite predictable over periods approaching a decade or longer based upon starting P/E
Good stuff. That’s an interesting take on broad cycles.
