BOOBS ON CREDIT

Do you ever hear something so startlingly mind numbingly ridiculous you realize it must be a sign things have gotten so fucked up something has got to give? As I was driving to work yesterday morning on the Schuylkill Expressway a commercial comes on the radio from a plastic surgeon advertising for anyone looking for a better set of boobs. I had never heard a plastic surgeon commercial before, so I thought that was unusual. But, that wasn’t the best part. This plastic surgeon was offering no money down 18 month interest free financing on your new boobs.

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LIES, LIES & OMG MORE LIES

“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Every month the government apparatchiks at the Bureau of Lies and Scams (BLS) dutifully announces inflation is still running below 2%. Janet Yellen then gives a speech where she notes her concern inflation is too low and she needs to keep interest rates near zero to save humanity from the scourge of too low inflation. I don’t know how I could survive without 2% inflation reducing my purchasing power.

This week they reported year over year inflation of 1.9%. Just right to keep Janet from raising rates and keeping the stock market on track for new record highs. According to our beloved bureaucrats, after they have sliced, diced, massaged and manipulated the data, you’ve experienced annual inflation of 2.1% since 2000. If you believe that, I’ve got a great real estate deal for you in North Korea on the border with South Korea.

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SWINDLING FUTURITY

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”Thomas Jefferson

Yesterday the government reported a “modest” August budget deficit of $108 billion. That’s one month folks. This is another example of how the government and their mainstream media mouthpieces portray horrifically bad, extremely abnormal financial data as normal and expected. They pretend everything that has happened since 2008 is just standard operating procedure. They follow the Big Lie theory to the extreme. The masses have been so dumbed down, desensitized, and taught to believe delusions, they can’t distinguish the abnormal from the normal.

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How Retiring Baby Boomers Could Sink Stocks

From Birch Gold Group

In 2016, the first group of baby boomers turned 70 years old. Millions more will do the same over the next 15 years, and as a result, selling activity in their retirement portfolios could be a big problem for markets.

Here’s why retiring boomers could be the biggest new obstacle for stock prices and market stability, and what you should do about it…

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Little-Known Asset Index Flashes Major Warning Signal

From Birch Gold Group

According to correlations between data from a little-known asset index and previous activity in the broader market, stocks could be primed for a long and significant correction. Or, if historical trends repeat themselves exactly, a sharp crash may be waiting to rear its ugly head.

Here’s what the news means for average savers…

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Have We Just Reached Peak Stock Market Absurdity?

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Colapse blog,

Have you ever wondered how tech companies that have been losing hundreds of millions of dollars year after year can somehow be worth billions of dollars according to the stock market?  Because I run a website called “The Economic Collapse“, there are naysayers out there that take glee in mocking me by pointing out how well the stock market has been doing.  This week, the Dow is flirting with 21,000 and the Nasdaq crossed the 6,000 threshold for the first time ever.  But a lot of the “soaring stocks” that have been fueling this rally have been losing giant mountains of money every single year, and just like the first tech bubble this madness will eventually come to an end in a spectacular fiery crash in which investors will lose trillions of dollars.

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Dissolving Musical Chairs

Guest Post by John P. Hussman

On the first day of March 2017, the combined market capitalization of U.S. nonfinancial and financial stocks reached $34 trillion. Those trillions of dollars in paper wealth filter down to the investment statements of millions of investors, reflected in quotes on computer screens and blotches of ink on paper. Over the completion of the current market cycle, we estimate that roughly half of U.S. equity market capitalization – $17 trillion in paper wealth – will simply vanish. Nobody will “get” that wealth. It will simply disappear, like a game of musical chairs where players think they’ve won by finding chairs as the music stops, and suddenly feel them dissolving as if they had never existed in the first place.

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What do these CEOs know that we don’t?

Guest Post by Simon Black

Last night a good friend of mine came over for dinner.

He’s originally from Poland, and growing up there he heard a lot of bizarre stories about what it was like during the Nazi invasion and World War II.

In 1939, even as 1.5 million German soldiers prepared to invade, the general mood in Poland couldn’t have been more carefree.

My friend’s grandfather once told him that, just prior to the Nazi invasion, the schools in Poland announced they were suspending classes… but only for two weeks, because that’s how long they expected the war to last.

Incredible.

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6 reasons Trump’s erratic, destructive policies could tank the markets

 

Trump’s protectionist, interventionist leanings could hurt U.S., and global economies, Roubini warns

Reuters
Donald Trump’s inconsistent, erratic, and destructive policies will take their toll on domestic and global economic growth in the long run.

NEW YORK (Project Syndicate) — When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, stock markets rallied impressively. Investors were initially giddy about Trump’s promises of fiscal stimulus; deregulation of energy, health care, and financial services; and steep cuts in corporate, personal, estate, and capital-gains taxes.

But will the reality of Trumponomics sustain a continued rise in equity prices?

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SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

I stopped trying to predict markets back in 2008 when the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Wall Street bankers, and their propaganda peddling media mouthpieces colluded to rig the markets to benefit the elite establishment players while screwing average Americans. I haven’t owned any stocks to speak of since 2006. I missed the the final blow-off, the 50% crash, and the subsequent engineered new bubble. But that doesn’t stop me from assessing our true economic situation, market valuations, and historical comparisons in order to prove the irrationality and idiocy of the current narrative.

The proof of this market being rigged and not based upon valuations, corporate earnings, discounted cash flows, or anything related to free market capitalism, was the reaction to Trump’s upset victory. The narrative was status quo Hillary was good for markets and Trump’s anti-establishment rhetoric would unnerve the markets. When the Dow futures plummeted by 800 points on election night, left wingers like Krugman cackled and predicted imminent collapse. The collapse lasted about 30 minutes, as the Dow recovered all 800 points and has subsequently advanced another 1,500 points since election day. Krugman’s predictive abilities proven stellar once again.

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Fewer Americans Participating in Surging U.S. Markets

Via Visual Capitalist

Over the course of the year, U.S. markets have hit new all-time highs on multiple occasions. The most recent iteration of this trend is the “Trump Rally”, which has the S&P 500 up 2.8% since Election Day.

Trump Rally in S&P 500

Fueled by expansionary monetary policy and the lowest interest rates in history, the bull market in U.S. equities is now the second-longest of all time. It’s hard to believe that almost eight years ago, the S&P 500 sat at a measly low of just 676.53 on March 9, 2009.

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Did President-Elect Trump Just Inadvertently Kill The Golden Goose?

Submitted by Gordon T Long via MATASII.com,

President-Elect Trump may have just unwittingly sowed the seed of an equity market draw-down which will send even more protesters into the streets of America. Donald Trump’s stated economic policies are clearly pro-growth and if he manages to implement his pro-business, anti-regulation agenda, in  the longer term they have the potential to surpass the bold and successful initiatives of Ronald Reagan. However, in the near term he has already unknowingly just shot himself in the foot.

To understand this we need to look at some charts from the FRED system which we unearthed in trying to understand what the future presently entails for corporate stock buybacks and dividend payouts. Shown in the chart below we see how Corporate CEO / CFO’s have increased their debt loads by historically unprecedented levels of 20-30% Y-o-Y since just after the GFC (Great Financial Crisis). You will notice that in the last year that rate of growth has gone negative.

11-03-16-mata-studies-buybacks-1

The next chart we found astounding regarding the degree of correlation of the above corporate debt growth (primarily being used for buybacks and dividend payouts) compared  to the movement of the S&P 500 on a Quarterly Y-o-Y change basis. There can be little doubt about what has been sustaining the artificial levels of US equity markets!

11-03-16-mata-studies-buybacks-2

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The Stock Market 2015-2016: Ugly Chopfest With An Equally Ugly Megaphone

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

There’s something fishy about this “new all-time highs” rally of 2016.

It’s interesting to take a longer-term view of the S&P 500 (SPX). Looking at a 10-year chart, the decline from almost 1,600 to 667 in the Global Financial Meltdown of 2007-2009 doesn’t look like that big a deal, given the incredible 6-year uptrend since March 2009.

The boost phase of the rally lasted over 2 years, from 3/09 to 6/11, when the Greek debt crisis caused a temporary swoon in global markets.

Once central banks rescued markets (again), the rally resumed, but beneath the trend line.

This rally ran out of steam in early 2015. The marginal new highs in May 2015 and July-August 2016 are not even visible on this chart.

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WHERE TO FROM HERE?

The stock market is currently at record levels. The average cyclical bull market over the past century has been just over 3 years. The current bull market is now over 7 years. Sounds a little long in the tooth. Unless, of course, this time is different.

The median stock is now more overvalued than any time in history, using multiple valuation methods that have been accurate over the last century. Some people say having all markets reach new highs is bullish, and yuuge gains are ahead. I think this quote will apply once again:

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

1929

2000

2007


Chart of the Day

For some perspective on the post-financial crisis rally, today’s chart illustrates how much of the downturn that occurred as a result of the financial crisis has been retraced by each of the five major stock market indexes. For example, the Dow peaked at 14,164.53 back in October 9, 2007 and troughed at 6,547.05 back on March 9, 2009. The most recent close for the Dow is 18,552.02 — it has retraced 157.6% of its financial crisis bear market decline. As today’s chart illustrates, each of these five major stock market indices have retraced over 150% of their financial crisis decline. However, it is the tech-laden Nasdaq that leads the pack with a retracement of 249% — impressive considering the severity of the financial crisis bear market.

 

YOUR SEVEN YEAR STOCK MARKET RALLY EXPLAINED IN ONE CHART

Who needs free markets when you have central bankers? Printing our way to permanent prosperity. It’s so easy, any Ivy League educated moron could do it. Party on Garth!!!

I’m sure there won’t be any unforeseen or negative consequences. Right?