Feverish Bulls Snub a Day of Rest

Even rigged markets are entitled to a little rest now and then, wouldn’t you say?  If so, they passed up the opportunity to do so on Friday ahead of a three-day holiday weekend. Instead, while nearly everyone in America was fixing to usher out summer in whatever way might retain its savor best , stocks were ratcheting higher with a cheerless determination that was about as laid back as a buzz saw. You can see this in the chart below. The Dow Industrials bottomed a little more than an hour into the session;  then they forged ceaselessly higher until the closing bell imposed a mandatory time-out.  If buyers are acting this aggressively in the lazy, hazy, waning days of summer, just imagine what they are capable of between now and Thanksgiving, when the country traditionally gets back to work with a vengeance.

Whatever happens, and no matter how convinced we are that the stock market is forming a broad top, we’ve grown weary of trying to short it. Some would say we’re crazy to even try to get in the way of a bull that has been rampaging for 65 months. The Dow is on its way to 20,000, permabulls insist, so why try to swim against the tide?  Maybe they’re right. Although we can think of a dozen great reasons why the Dow shouldn’t keep rising in the months ahead, the arguments would be the same ones we’ve made all along. The simplest and most compelling of them is that the stock market’s stellar performance has gotten way ahead of an economy that can’t seem to get off the launching pad. But that’s been true for years, and it’s difficult to imagine what might change this dynamic, no matter how perverse it may seem. As for the spurt in GDP growth alleged by the spinmeisters, we’re simply not buying it. What we see is stagnant wages, a housing recovery that is completely spent, budget tightening at all levels of government save federal, a manufacturing sector so out-of-practice that it’s unable to reap the full benefit of lower energy costs, and job creation that is egregiously sub-par in both quantity and quality.  What’s left?  As far as we can tell, only a car-leasing boom that has probably reached the saturation point.

Why We Like T-Bonds

What about easy money?  On that score, we should be as bullish on stocks as anyone out there, since we’re in a very small minority that thinks the central bank wouldn’t dare tighten (no matter what Yellen says). In fact, we are not bullish at all – except on T-bonds; and, with some reservations, on gold.  Meanwhile, all the easing we can conceive of is not going to cause inflation. Rather, it will merely postpone America’s inevitable slide into the deflationary sinkhole that is about to snuff Europe’s faint recovery.  Our investment advice is unchanged in any event:  buy assets that are leveraged to long-term Treasury prices, and start bottom-fishing gold in earnest. Concerning Treasurys, the capital gains potential is enormous. If there is no outbreak of inflation, or if the bull market in stocks ends, or if the U.S. economy relapses into recession, the unwind out of stocks could push long-term yields back down to their 2012 lows. If that were to occur over the next 12 months, T-Bond investors could see capital gains approaching 40%, and muni portfolios could appreciate by nearly 30%.  FYI, Rick’s Picks has been playing the bull market in T-Bonds aggressively with a calendar-spread strategy designed to make it a very low-risk bet. For real-time guidance, try a free trial subscription that will give you access to the 24/7 chat room and to Rick’s detailed trading “touts”.

  • gary leibowitz September 14, 2014, 3:57 am

    My argument against using bias with a technical system is that you can always find a pattern that will fit. If you discard the bias it probably wouldn’t even be on the radar. Gold’s bias is for a breakout. If that expectation wasn’t baked in, you wouldn’t be looking for a reason to go long. Same is true on treasures. Equities expectation is so one-sided for so long that those long-shots for a crash is wasted money.

    On all 3 picks, short term, I am going against Ricks bets.
    Sorry Rick. Believe it or not it is rare that I bet against your system. On the SPX I am actually expecting a small rise followed by a test of recent lows, in the 1970 area. From there, if it holds, I expect a surge of some 100 points. Will change my position if 1970 doesn’t hold. Gold looks to be breaking down and yields seem to have a decent push behind this move.

  • Baseball Bill September 13, 2014, 5:40 am

    Rick,

    You scenario of a banking collapse and following deflation is wrong. I want to thank you and all your thoughts on the matter as you have been one of my heros in reading economic news, you taught me a lot and I still read your stuff, like many do.

    It just finally hit me how wrong your deflationary outlook is. Of course most real estate and many other things (time shares in Hawaii) would deflate, but damn near everything “needed” will hyper inflate.

    If the banks closed and few had and paper or coins (the fiat type) the currency system would collapse. Even if say 10% of the population somehow had unlimited amounts of these fiat notes and coins, it wouldn’t matter. There would not be enough circulating (that could happen almost immediately) for the currency to maintain value. A barter system would develop overnight and if anyone “out on the streets” wanted to trade, they would be very careful taking any the fiat that say 10% seem to have and no one else.

    Follow me? Fiat currencies only have value when they are massively accepted, available and are not questioned seriously in any major way. Banks closing leaving 90% of the people with no fiat cash ends the “value” overnight.

    HYPERINFLATION. In one week.

    Caveat. If 30%-50% of the people somehow seem to have tradable cash, I still say it’s hyperinflation, but you may see my point that the likely outcome is some small group with “notes” either real or fake and they would not hold their value.

    Thank you and others for helping me think through my own views of what may come. Useless things will have no value and needed things will be priceless. Once a serious gore is blown and the average working man cant trade a buck for anything, the currency is DEAD!

    &&&&&&&

    I am quite certain a deflationary bust lies ahead, Bill, and I have explained why too many times to explain it yet again. I am also convinced that there are no good arguments to be made against this — and no, I do not follow yours. If there were any good arguments to be made a few years ago, Europe’s losing battle against deflation has negated them.

    Concerning ‘Hyperinflation in a week,” as I have suggested here dozens of times, read Fergusson’s “The Day Money Died” if you want to understand why the dollar cannot be hyperinflated.

    Hyperinflation is possible well down the road, but it will come only with the epiphany that our money is indeed worthless. If and when it does comes, though, deflation will already have “cured” the debt problem.

    RA

  • steve September 12, 2014, 6:10 am

    Its all fake bs being put together by con-artists. The US was attacking China for years about their exchange rate. But Japan launches a massive QE to put their exchange rate from 125 to today s low of 93. = silence from the US. They call Eastern Ukraine terrorists for wanting to break from the Ukraine. Did anyone call Quebec, Scotland, South Sudan, etc terrorists? This is just 1 aspect of the bs… It seems the STB are fixed on pumping stocks and destroying gold. After all who owns the majority of stocks? Not the 60 year old taxi driver or the 50 year old builder or the 70 year old factory worker and certainly not the 30 year old trying to pay off a student loan. The rich will remain the rich(er), and the poor will remain the poor(er)
    …. Usually commencing daily right around 8:00-8:15.
    Everything else is just noise.

  • mario September 12, 2014, 3:04 am

    You know somethin’s up when all of a sudden a variety of totally unrelated assets prices all start rallying short squeeze style at the same time, which is again what happened last night in equities, AAPL, coffee n’ crude, while wheat, corn n’ soybeans continue to sell off hard.

    There’s obviously a realignment of the monetary/asset system. We take the combination of HFT machines doing around 75% of all the trading on behalf of institutional money and combine that with the fact that Central Banks themselves are creating the notes and then making them available exactly for such equities and assets in the public trading exchanges.

    The situation couldn’t be more clear and obvious. Its to the point where one might argue its not rigged or a Ponzi scheme at all. Its just the new world order, and therefore its ok, its normal, its the way moving forward. Adjust accordingly.

    Where does this leave the common man? Well, it leaves him and his family marginalized, it leaves him on the outside looking in with less and less ways to participate and actually get it. He in fact is being told, “We know this might sound crazy to you but you should have all of your family’s bank account in equities, not cash. Because we’re doing that now. Its the new global economic system and we wish to inform you. Hell, seriously, instead of doing this stuff in quiet, corrupt, self-serving collusion, they should do it publicly and inform the public what they are doing and recommend to them that the participate. But why don’t they? Because they have no sense of obligation to country and society. They’re doing what they’re doing for their own financial interests, to get as rich as possible. That makes them entrepreneurs, that makes them businessmen, not politicians and leaders managing countries. One could also argue that this chain of events is self-fulfilling, they are simply responding to a trend that was started by the Fed’s QE back in ’08. The entire system has evolved into a previously unheard of, unprecedented entity.

    On the other hand there is potential good news, which is that if you really think about it, under the circumstances, the system is now stable. For all practical purposes, it “can’t” collapse. By comparison, you can’t say a group of people will starve because the village ran out of bread when the village will truly never run out of bread. The Central Banks it seems clear to me are on this path permanently moving forward. There’s no unwinding out of it, just a continuing evolution moving forward, which makes sense to me. Are they screwing with the system, threatening it’s very existence. Perhaps not, perhaps its simply morphed into something new and it is what it is. Philosophically speaking, that would be called “acceptance”, followed by “ok, so now what should I do in response?”

    As I’ve watched price on charts, its so obvious that its not a free open market of buyers and sellers anymore. Then the common man once again has been put into a place of simply putting his funds into the hands of the institutions who are participating in this new financial asset system game.

    We the common man are literally and more than ever at their mercy. I’ve argued this point of being at the mercy of the oligarchs and govts before. Many patriots try to tell me for example that the U.S. govt system is somehow inherently superior to the evil, dark, oppressive Chinese system. But I have argued that is a general and ridiculous argument and asked “Regardless of the govt system, let’s see which govt is actually doing a better job of running its country and taking care of its citizens. In this decade, it just so happens that China wins hands down. People with political and patriotic ideals running through their heads surely don’t like to hear that. But I don’t give a rat’s ass whether the govt of the country I happen to be living in is a parliament, dictatorship, communist, democracy or monarchy or whatever combination they come up with. I am looking at how much they are facilitating a stable society and system of finance and business for their country, for the freakin’ people.

    Thanks to the new road the Fed’s QE lead the world down starting in ’08, it became more and more obvious to the rest of the world’s central bankers and govts that they had no choice but to follow along and join the party, otherwise the system would “collapse.” Rejoice plebes, there can be no collapse. Its good news, eh? Oh my, in other words, we have in fact moved toward a “world govt/bank” system, haven’t we?

    End rant…

    Cheers, Mario

    • gary leibowitz September 13, 2014, 2:47 am

      Don’t you believe it! No matter how changed the “new world order” is the same boom/bust cycle will occur. The early days we had the ticker-tape and its unfair advantages being a floor trader. Today we have institutional players making and leading trends. Different technologies, same insider advantages. The changes in the way the stock market operates can be applied to almost every facet of life. Farming, retailers, and even fashion. You can argue the case that the entrepreneurial spirit is dead for all these industries. Not dead but morphed into a new age level of competitiveness. We still have people become millionaires based on a great idea and an understanding how to play the game.

      This government or any government in any age couldn’t prevent the natural rhythm of boom/bust. Did we not already verify this with the mortgage debacle that almost took the world markets down?

      Don’t elevate governments and their ability to create a fixed market for perpetuity. Never will happen. I only want to know if its based on good old power and excess greed. If the foundation is still a voting democracy than in the end we crash and rebuild.

      Everyone here is sure the debt saturation, left on the same path, will lead to a depression. That can only happen in an open society. The Ross Perot’s of this world will ask for your vote when the time comes.

      This time is not different. As for the current economic picture we are getting a whiff of concern on inflation. A dead topic for many years just might cause the market some trouble. The retail sales figures were very good these past 2 months, consistent with all the other data points showing we have turned the corner. A super tanker that seems to be building steam. I know the premise of many here is that we can’t expand credit to offset the deflationary pull, but the last few months sure looks like we just might. 10 year note just might break out enough to cause problems. It really doesn’t have to rise by much to do so, since this debt ridden economy is relying on low costs and rates. An old drum beat of mine that has not come to pass. Perhaps my myopic view is clouding my judgment. We shall see in the next 4 to 6 months if that’s the case.

      • mario September 15, 2014, 2:47 am

        Gary, I hear what you’re trying to say here about socieities and economies and cycles. However on this point of new Central Bank policy you’re missing the boat. It IS VERY different! Everything else is pretty much the same as you suggest, societies and economies will continue to adjust up and down and flux and evolve as they do through history. But the Central Banks of the world now being invested in the open public stock markets to the tune of half of the capitalization, which has occurred over a period of only six years?….that’s DIFFERENT!

        Cheers, Mario

  • Redwilldanaher September 12, 2014, 3:01 am

    Glad to see that Rick spanked the seal. Let’s see what lengths the seal will go to avoid confronting 29 tril of equities markets central planning.

    For more than 5 years the seal has ignored the fact that equity markets are more rigged than ever and has attempted to smooth it over by citing rigged earnings reports that “beat” by a penny like clockwork. It’s high time the seal accepted reality that it’s all become a rigged Ponzi scheme AND that people can focus on truths yet still trade off charts.

    This is the part Garo where you step forward and act like an honest man for once.

  • Redwilldanaher September 11, 2014, 4:10 am

    Rick, can we keep this “sticky”?

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-15/cluster-central-banks-have-secretly-invested-29-trillion-market

    There are dozens of other reports that can easily be found with little effort. We also know that they’ve manipulated metals, fx, oil, and Libor, etc.. However the seal will argue that we’re conspiracy theorists for pointing to realities. You can’t change reality Garo, so cut the crap.

  • Redwilldanaher September 11, 2014, 3:47 am

    Gas was about $2 per gallon for most of the 2000s. Price the markets in $2 gas jackass, how great do the rigged markets and rigged economy and the rigged “news” reports look now???

  • Redwilldanaher September 11, 2014, 3:24 am

    I am not a fan of censorship but obviously the seal forced Rick’s hand yet again. He must be so impressed by his own work in constructing strawmen that they live on in his mind years later.

    Your propaganda is bad and tired enough Garo, stop misrepresenting statements that have been made and positions that have been taken but genuine truth seekers.

  • danielle September 8, 2014, 9:20 pm

    Bonds are very weak now, and would be a good loser from the open on your bullish talk. Easy money is used car salesman talk. Stocks are down and bonds are down. This was really easy, sell bonds and sell stocks on Monday. I’m not sure how you can’t see the obvious? Good thing I didn’t lose big money with this advice.

    • Rick Ackerman September 8, 2014, 10:37 pm

      Actually, “Danielle,” every one of my subscribers who reported doing the TLT trade has gained — in some cases very substantially. The initial bullish position that I recommended — a calendar spread pegged to the 118 strike with TLT trading near 114 — could have been cashed out for more than four times its original cost. Moreover, no subscriber has reported losing money. If you doubt any of this, I invite you to take a free trial subscription that will allow you to verify my claims by querying subscribers in the Rick’s Picks chat room. Click here for the free trial.

      Incidentally, this is a LONG-TERM play, and we continue to add to the TLT position whenever the stock (ETF) turns weak. My current correction target for this vehicle is 114.25, so there’s no great urgency at the moment. At the right price, I would buy the calendar spread in size.

      Let me add that ALL subscribers have access to a video recording that provides explicit instructions for initiating the TLT calendar spread, and for rolling the short side of it forward every Friday in order to accumulate premium income over weeks and months while TLT makes its way higher. We’ve been doing the same thing in Tesla, by the way, using a longstanding rally target at 305. Again, you can verify subscribers’ actual successes by querying them in the chat room. I have always shunned promoting P&L figures because it is only actual results achieved by subscribers that matter.

  • Gary leibowitz September 8, 2014, 8:42 pm

    The so called Middle East crisis can be summed up with Bushs Mission Accomplished slogan. Where would we be today had we not created a crisis out of nothing.

    As for GDP. We only had a 1.6 rise in gov spending. 3.8 in consumer income thanks to jump in dividends. Rates are once again rising but in a continued down sloping trend. If it breaks out, watch out. The huge productivity gains can’t be denied. It is the reason for this 6 year rally. Why everything seems a mystery to this bunch is my mystery.

    Nasdaq is once again leading the move up. No complacency in market yet. That is perhaps a testimint to our reluctance to give up the pessimism. Bulls and bears alike are anxiously waiting for a decent pullback. If investing means receiving above average earnings returns than our stock market is not an anomaly.

    Failed.assumptions like consumer contraction, web based company over valuation, and shrinkage of world market participation has not materialized. Today we are actually seeing signs of domestic economic improvement. This after 6 years of failed gov policy? Just don’t inderstand the insistence that we are still viewing 2009 down fall. How do you not incorporate continuos economic trends? Does everyone treat all contrarian reports as faked? For 6 years?

    Current trend seems strong still. Would be surprised if we drop below 1965 on SPX this month.

    • Oregon September 9, 2014, 1:59 am

      Just when I think you couldn’t possibly find another way to say the same thing as every other day… you don’t.

      • gary leibowitz September 9, 2014, 6:02 pm

        Since this board keeps rehashing the same arguments as if we were in the early part of 2009, I wonder why your view is still needed? You can take any of this boards argument from the past 6 years, scramble them up, and re-post with the same glowing reception. Me, my view has already happened and yet I am shunned even more for being right. Pretend the domestic economy is not getting better and there is no corporate profits. How has that worked for you?

        I still expect a decent size correction but insist it will be based on over reach on earnings expectation, not a tumble in the economy. I still expect it to be relatively short lived, perhaps 5 to 8 months, followed by another big move up. I state these views based on trend. Clearly we are in much better shape then anytime in the past 6 years. QE is gone. No dreaded rash repercussions. Since wages and jobs have not been the driver for higher rates that can kill this expansion, it seems logical to assume it will not happen soon.

        I rehash my position to prevent this board from misrepresenting my view. It took a very long time with repetitive arguments to finally get understood. I will repeat yet again my view. From here we should have a stock market correction based on earnings over valuation only. I still expect wages, jobs, and the economy to expand way beyond anyone here wants to believe. Credit expansion is a mind-set problem, not based on any fundamentals. Loose credit and willingness to borrow can cause real inflation problems again.

        Todays article is a perfect example of explaining away the last 6 years. No economic growth, fake GDP, weak housing and wages. You dismiss the actual affect that rising housing prices have done to individuals pocketbook. You dismiss rock bottom loan rates. You dismiss the 200K job growth for the last 6 months. You dismiss stable jobs and its psychological impact. Manufacturing, service sector, future orders, and another 2 dozen indicators all point to either improvement or stability. It was already proven that you don’t need large expansion of retail sales to survive and thrive. You don’t need higher wages if discretionary spending manages to rise. The absolute insistence here that such companies as Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft was doomed to crash and burn not only didn’t happen, but real verifiable earnings resulted.

        Yet not one of these “mistakes” has been acknowledged. No debate on how to reevaluate your model. Stuck in a mindset until reality matches it. That is not the way to play this market. Nor is it healthy since anger and frustration has to rise without any means to justify the move up.

        Even if we crash tomorrow your premise was flawed. You can’t justify your mistakes that way. It also will certainly never allow a rebuilding of the cycle with your 4 horseman attitude. You would be stuck in the Great Depression and insist everything that happened after was a temporary mirage.

        BTW, 10 year note is still rising. It has a long way to go before I can announce we hit a bottom. I perhaps give too much emphasis on the ability for credit expansion. We shall see if this is a flawed argument of mine or not.

    • Larry D September 9, 2014, 5:37 pm

      psst…
      when you toss off (heh) statistics, you gotta mention the period, otherwise it’s meaningless numbers that sound good out of the mouths of engineers and politicians alike.

      • Oregon September 9, 2014, 7:44 pm

        Navin, you are f’ing incorrigible.

        Who the hell are you talking to?

        I don’t have a problem with what you are saying, just that you say the same thing in every post. Are you really that insecure?

        Months ago you added to your usual diatribe that you were a “very good programmer”, and I responded that you would be replaced by someone younger and cheaper. Recently you said you were “forced into retirement”. Should I assume I was right months ago and carry on saying I was right for years to come?

        The answer is no, because I don’t have all the facts, nor would I want to hijack someone else’s blog with my personal agenda.

        I happen to think you are a good analyst. I also happen to think the US share market is up due to private and government investment from all over the world, not just federal shenanigans. You could therefore put me on the side of disagreeing with much that is posted on this blog. However, at the end of the day, I am here to see what Rick Ackerman has to say, and I appreciate what others have to say, including you, but I am dumbfounded by your perpetual need to ‘clarify’ your clarifications ad nauseam, and correct every one else’s ‘shortcomings’

        I would appreciate you not responding to this, just take it or leave it.

        &&&&&

        Amen. RA

      • gary leibowitz September 10, 2014, 5:28 pm

        What Rick has said…

        &&&&

        Gary, I can’t allow this post because it so egregiously misstates what I have said, including supposed predictions I made of Facebook’s and Apple’s demise. What the bloody hell are you talking about? Go back to Mars.
        RA

      • gary leibowitz September 11, 2014, 6:13 pm

        Rick, you have a short memory. Facebook you trashed, plain and simple. You thought it couldn’t generate real revenue. Just look at you articles on the subject. I am not talking about your trades, only your articles. Apple when it started falling you commented that the “sleezeballs” have managed to trap shorts. If you aren’t negative about the long term prospects of these companies please state so.

        Please repost the articles on these subjects. I am pretty darn sure I got the gist of the articles correct.

        &&&&&&

        I never liked a single thing about the way Facebook does business, and I still don’t. But because my price forecasts are purely technical and not based on likes or dislikes, you’ll find that the forecasts almost invariably got the stock’s ups and downs right — with due emphasis on ups. One of these days, the company may get its comeuppance for overstepping the bounds of privacy.

        Concerning Apple, below is a quite typical trading ‘tout’ published in May with the stock trading around 633. How bearish is it? You have annoyed me quite enough with your ignorant, repetitive crap, Gary, and I am close to banning you forever as I did Vlad. Please make my day with just one more comment that even slightly irritates me.

        AAPL – Apple Computer (Last:633.40)

        May 30, 2014 1:34 am GMT

        I’m tracking two bullish spreads acquired yesterday by subscribers while AAPL was in the throes of yet another hysterical short squeeze. The spreads were suggested as follows: 1) buy the June 21 655/660/665 butterfly 32 times for 0.20 or less; and/or, 2) buy the June 6 657.5/660/662.5 butterfly 100 times for 0.03 or less. Those who reported doing the spread evidently did not follow my price guideline, instead paying, respectively, 0.25 and 0.08 for the positions. The difference may not seem like much, but it’s enough to reduce our edge considerably. Even so, I’m optimistic that the positions will still make money. The trade was based on a rally target at 660.26 that I had proffered earlier. The stock’s manic spree on Thursday brought it $13 close to the target, making it look less like a longshot. Two days earlier, we had risked small change shorting an ostensibly significant target at 623. It was derived from a long-term pattern on the weekly chart, but when it was easily brushed aside, that argued for getting long rather than short.

        Butterfly spreads offer a relatively cheap and low-risk way to bet on directional moves. In this case, if AAPL rallies an additional 25 points between now and next Friday when the June 6 position expires, the first spread would have a theoretical value of 2.50, or about 30 times what we paid for it. Thus, 10 spreads purchased for $80 (plus commissions) could be exited for as much as $2500. We are not likely to realize that maximum value, however, since the options that we are short in this butterfly– the June 6 660 calls — cannot be covered for zero, even if the stock is trading at or just below the 660 strike five minutes before they expire. The second position, which has three more weeks to play out, involved an initial outlay of $800 for 32 spreads. It will have a maximum value of $16,000 at expiration, meaning we are getting 20-1 odds that AAPL will NOT rally $25 over the next 21 days. Actually, the stock need rally only rise by another $20 to push our spread into-the-money, if not to its point of maximum profitability.

        Keep in mind that we could have gotten much better odds if subscribers had adhered to my price limit. Originally we had set out to leg into the second butterfly spread for a zero debit, meaning no loss would have been possible and that our maximum potential gain would still have been $16,000. That would have taken hard work and perfect timing however. In the end, we opted for the easier path, bidding for the spread rather than trying to leg into it one side at a time. Getting odds of 30-to-1 AGAINST continuing strength in Apple seems like a pretty good bet to me. Would you lay 30-1 against such an outcome yourself? If not, you are implicitly open to the prospect of taking the side of the bet that we took. Trading note: For now, offer half of your spreads for twice what you paid for them. My guesstimate is that it will take a rally of about 12-15 points between now and Tuesday to get filled. If successful, the risk of the remaining position will be zero. ______ UPDATE (10:57 a.m. ET): With AAPL up $6 this morning, the June 6 spread is salable for twice the worst price (0.08) reported being paid by a subscriber. I’ll wait for confirmation in the chat room before I officially ’score’ it. The June 21 spread is fluctuating between 0.10 and 0.60, implying the stock will have to rise perhaps $4-$6 more to get the closing order on half the spreads filled. _______ UPDATE (Sunday night): Before Apple gave up all of Friday’s substantial gains and then some, the June 6 spread was coverable at the price suggested, although not the other spread. Any fills to report? If not, let the order stand.

  • John Jay September 8, 2014, 4:40 am

    Well, thanks to the chaos the Fourth Reich in DC has sown all over the world, the USD is showing amazing strength against the Euro, SF, and GBP, and a flat line against the AD, CD and the JY.

    The CIA etc. have been throwing rocks at the Russian Bear since the old USSR broke apart.
    And our promise to the Bear to not expand NATO towards them looks a lot like the Non Aggression Pact von Ribbentrop and the Third Reich signed with Molotov back in 1939.
    A cynical and vengeance provoking stab in the back.

    And now, exactly 75 years since that happened, and 100 years since The Guns of August, Europe is setting up for another catastrophe.
    All thanks to our reckless foreign policy.
    Oh well, if worse comes to worst, it should all be over in 60 minutes.

    As to how high can the stock and bond markets go……..
    Sky’s the limit apparently.
    What’s another trillion or two on the balance sheet at the Fed?
    As Chico Marx famously said at the Florida land auction in “The Cocoanuts” (1929) ” What do I care, I got lots of numbers.”
    Ride the wave as long as it lasts.
    Even if it eventually collapses, it won’t be a one day process.
    Unless it is a 60 minute event as described above.
    If that comes to pass, your portfolio will be the last thing on your mind!
    So you see, there is nothing to worry about!
    Have a nice day, citizen!

  • mario September 8, 2014, 4:27 am

    Well, re previous post, its definitive that the world’s central banks are now market exchange customers. That redefines EVERYTHING we should be thinking about the evolution of the global economy. It’s a whole new world, whatever it leads us to good and bad.

    Cheers, Mario