Tag: lows

IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER

It ain’t over until it’s over. The lows were not reached in 2009. Central bank manipulations and schemes temporarily delayed reaching a true bottom. They have failed. A true secular bottom would be 60% to 80% below today’s levels. Are you prepared for that? That would put the Dow at 7,000 or below. Do you think that is impossible? It was trading at 6,500 in March of 2009. If Bernanke and Geithner hadn’t forced the FASB to allow Wall Street bankers to value their worthless assets as if they were worth 100 cents on the dollar, the 4,000 secular low would have been reached. Now we will pay the price with a far worse scenario. The Fed has shot their load. Fourth Turnings are relentless and nasty.

Are We About to Enter a Secular Bear Market?

Guest Post by Chris Hunter

Wall_Street_bubbles_-_Always_the_same_-_Keppler_1901_1

Source: wikimedia

Today’s chart, from the folks at Crestmont Research, speaks volumes about current investor behavior.

In particular, it calls into question claims being bandied about in the mainstream media that we could be at the start of a new secular bull market in US stocks.

It shows that previous secular (long-term) bear market cycles tend to start when the US stock market is trading on a Shiller P/E – a price-to-earnings ratio is based on average inflation-adjusted earnings from the previous 10 years – of between 20 and 25 (blue-shaded area on the chart).

Continue reading “IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER”

FACTS ARE SO INCONVENIENT FOR LIARS

The beat goes on. The lying pricks trying to convince you that we are in the midst of an economic recovery keep having the rug pulled out from beneath their feet. So let me get this straight. The reason, housing, retail, and manufacturing have been in the toilet for the last six months was supposedly cold and snowy weather during the WINTER.

We were assured by highly educated Ivy League Wall Street economists and millionaire CNBC talking heads that there would be a dramatic rebound in the Spring. Well, Summer is only three days away. Home sales always surge in the Spring. Everyone knows that. Here is today’s announcement from the Mortgage Bankers Association:

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 9.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 10 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 13 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 5 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 6 percent compared with the previous week and was 15 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

So let me get this straight. We have 30 year mortgages available at near record low interest rates of 4.35%, we supposedly have a record number of Americans employed as the Obama recovery blossoms, and people are rolling in dough because household net worth is also at an all-time high, but the number of people applying for mortgages is 15% BELOW last year, 30% below levels of 2010, 60% below levels of 2004/2005, and at the same levels of 1997. How can you have a real housing recovery when mortgage applications are at 17 year lows?

The schmuck who generates the chart below continues to blather about a phantom housing recovery because it is clear he was bought off by the industry. Housing starts are in the toilet. New homes sales are at recession levels. The Wall Street Rent to REO scam has run its course. Housing is headed back into the toilet, along with home prices. Housing bust 2.0 is underway and all the propaganda in the world won’t change the facts.