Ellis Martin Report with Jim Sinclair "Consolidate Your Holdings and Save Your Money"
The last week has offered an amusing display of the difference between the cheerleading corporate mainstream media, lying Wall Street shills and the critical thinking analysts. What passes for journalism at CNBC and the rest of the mainstream print and TV media is beyond laughable. Their America is all about feelings. Are we confident? Are we bullish? Are we optimistic about the future? America has turned into a giant confidence game. The governing elite spend their time spinning stories about recovery and manipulating public opinion so people will feel good and spend money. Facts are inconvenient to their storyline. The truth is for suckers. They know what is best for us and will tell us what to do and when to do it.... The drones at this government propaganda agency relentlessly massage the data until they achieve a happy ending. They use a birth/death model to create jobs out of thin air, later adjusting those phantom jobs away in a press release on a Friday night. They create new categories of Americans to pretend they aren’t really unemployed. They use more models to make adjustments for seasonality. Then they make massive one-time adjustments for the Census. Essentially, you can conclude that anything the BLS reports on a monthly basis is a wild ass guess, massaged to present the most optimistic view of the world. The government preferred unemployment rate of 8.3% is a terrible joke and the MSM dutifully spouts this drivel to a zombie-like public. If the governing elite were to report the truth, the public would realize we are in the midst of a 2nd Great Depression.
Bernanke's recognition of his penalizing savers with low rates as an 'issue for people' sparked an interesting note from the WSJ
on how sensible and stoic savers are being herded (unsafely) into risky
investments. Bernanke's insistence that "our savers collectively have
to hold all the assets of the economy and a strong economy produces
much better returns in general" must be juxtaposed with comments from a
money manager that "I don't think that's a fair-trade" for money intended to be invested safely.
By removing the last shred of hope for a rise in savings rates anytime
soon, the Fed is once again creating the potential for major unintended
consequences as the 30% drop in interest income for US savers from the
2008 peak forces them to extend duration (TSYs), lower quality
(corporate bonds), and/or increase leverage/risk (equities). One only
has to look at Treasury yields, Muni yields, investment-grade bond
yields, and now high-yield bond yields for how tempted investors
(retail and professional 'insurance/pension' assets) have become to
take their safest net worth asset (low risk liquidity) and expose it to
the business/credit cycle and all its myriad event risks. While
reducing the rate of savings might seem sensible for the short-term
from the Fed perspective, it leaves a wholly unsustainable recovery (or
bubble in who knows which asset class next) and as Nordea notes this
week, based on their models, a considerably higher savings rate will be needed going forward (for any sustainability)
even as 'saved money' is rotated into risk or spent on quality-of-life
maintenance. Perhaps it is time for many to listen to the sensibilities
of the WSJ's last (75 year-old) interviewee who notes "At my age, I can't be a risk-taker anymore"
as maybe it is time to consider the reality of the recent good US data
in relation to coinciding elements such as inventory build-up,
plummeting household savings, and lower gas prices when adding to that
risky investment.
Zero
Hedge has not been focusing much on the topic of our broken equity
markets recently because if by now, following over three years of
coverage, someone is not aware just how fragmented, manipulated
and largely broken the market truly is, they never will. Yet every now
and then it worth reminding readers who may have stumbled on this blog
recently, just how bad things are in graphic format. Our friends at Nanex,
who are by far the best forensic analysts of everything that is busted
with the US stock market, have completed a masterpiece analysis
showing the churning (packet traffic) in the various fragmented US
market venues, from the NYSE to the Nasdaq to BATS and so forth, on a
daily basis beginning in January 2007 and continuing through today.
While the "rise of the HFT machine" over the past 5 years, following the adoption of Reg NMS, will hardly be a surprise to most, what
is stunning is the first animated confirmation of the market
terminally breaking on August 5, 2011, the day the US was downgraded,
an observation that first was made right here on Zero Hedge. Which begs the question: what really happened in the stock market on August 5, 2011 when the US was downgraded to AA+, when
everything literally broke, who is intervening constantly in the stock
market, and why are they doing so via various HFT intermediary
mechanisms?
The adjustment to the population over the last decade was the second
largest on record. However, the devil is in the details, as the
population of 55 and older didn't really increase — they were always
there but just not counted. The real concern is with the 16-24 age
group. The longer that age group remains unemployed, the higher the
probability that they will become long-term unemployable due to
degradation of job skills. As we have seen in the recent reports, this
age group has a much higher unemployment rate than any other category,
and that doesn't bode well for economic strength in future as this group
moves into lower wage-paying positions. Recent manufacturing reports
show that one of the problems they face is finding "skilled" labor to
fill available positions. The shift away from a production and
manufacturing base over the last 30 years in the U.S. is now starting to
take its toll. The problem, in trying to bring manufacturing back to
the U.S., is not just education and skill training but also competitive
advantages that the U.S. will have a difficult time overcoming in terms
of underlying production and labor costs. Countries like China and
Korea have no regulatory, environmental and minimum wage requirements
to meet. Those are all additional costs that the U.S. must build into
production costs, which limits our competitive potential. Outsourcing is
going to be a long-term problem that will be very difficult to
reverse.
While
the EURUSD's recovery post Europe's close seemed to modestly support
stocks, the USD is still up from Friday's close as ES (the e-mini
S&P 500 futures contract) closes marginally in the green against
the direction of FX carry, Treasuries, commodities broadly, and credit.
The volumeless (and gravitationally unchallenged) push from
post-Europe dip lows this afternoon were generally ignored by VIX,
investment grade, and high-yield credit markets, after the morning was a
relatively significant amount of selling pressure in HYG
(the increasingly significant high-yield bond ETF) to pre-NFP levels
only be bough all the way back and some more into the close. Average
trade size and deltas had a decidedly negative feel on every algo-driven
push higher from VWAP to unchanged but the divergence between Brent
and WTI dragged the Energy sector over 1% higher (as every other sector lost ground with Financials and Materials underperforming. Treasuries rallied well from the Europe close and closed just off low yields of the day as commodities all
ended lower from Friday's close with Copper and WTI underperforming
and Silver just edging Gold as they hovered around USD's beta for the
day. VIX dropped modestly after the cash close but ended higher on the
day with a notably low volatility of vol from mid-morning onwards (and
the late-day vol compression seemed index-driven as implied correlation
also fell commensurately). A quiet day in European sovereign and financials
along with the disastrously low volume day in ES and on the NYSE really
don't feel like signs of broad participation as Greek events slowly
but surely unfold along the path of known resistance.
We
are struggling for superlatives (or whatever the antonym for
superlatives is). Today's NYSE volume is as low as we could find on
Bloomberg data. It is the lowest non-holiday trading day volume in over a decade.
This is 26% below last year's post-Superbowl trading day volume. ES,
the e-mini S&P 500 future contract, which has tended to be the most
liquid and heavily traded instrument reflective of the equity markets,
traded around 1.19mm contracts versus a 50-day average of 1.83mm (down
35%) and also we were struggling to find a non-holiday trading day with
lower volumes (lower even than on the Thanksgiving Friday of last
year's volume). Using our trusty Birinyi ruler and extrapolating the
trend since the March 2009 crisis lows, we see No-Volume-Day (NV-Day) as being celebrated on the NYSE in September 2015 (we assume valuations are being adjusted on financials and exchanges as we speak).
In other words, for the Fed to get its desired fiscal stimulus from the government they had better engineer, using only the monetary policies up their sleeves, a recession.
Consolidate Your Holdings and Save Your Money. Good advice. Jim, Liquidity
while it will become the means to misdirect the approaching end (more like
transition) for the old status quo is a deceptive monster that can dominate
public perception. I listened to your comments about government statistics.
You're right, it's far better to ignore them not so much because the
numbers are...
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content, and more! ]]
Guest Post: Illusion Of Recovery - Feelings Versus Facts
The last week has offered an amusing display of the difference between the cheerleading corporate mainstream media, lying Wall Street shills and the critical thinking analysts. What passes for journalism at CNBC and the rest of the mainstream print and TV media is beyond laughable. Their America is all about feelings. Are we confident? Are we bullish? Are we optimistic about the future? America has turned into a giant confidence game. The governing elite spend their time spinning stories about recovery and manipulating public opinion so people will feel good and spend money. Facts are inconvenient to their storyline. The truth is for suckers. They know what is best for us and will tell us what to do and when to do it.... The drones at this government propaganda agency relentlessly massage the data until they achieve a happy ending. They use a birth/death model to create jobs out of thin air, later adjusting those phantom jobs away in a press release on a Friday night. They create new categories of Americans to pretend they aren’t really unemployed. They use more models to make adjustments for seasonality. Then they make massive one-time adjustments for the Census. Essentially, you can conclude that anything the BLS reports on a monthly basis is a wild ass guess, massaged to present the most optimistic view of the world. The government preferred unemployment rate of 8.3% is a terrible joke and the MSM dutifully spouts this drivel to a zombie-like public. If the governing elite were to report the truth, the public would realize we are in the midst of a 2nd Great Depression.
by Deepcaster, 24hgold.com:
“The U.S. economic and systemic-solvency crises of the last five years continue to deteriorate. Yet they remain just the precursors to the coming Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. The unfolding circumstance will encompass a complete loss in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar; a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity; a collapse in the U.S. financial system, as we know it; and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. Outside timing on the hyperinflation remains 2014, but events of the last year have accelerated the movement towards this ultimate dollar catastrophe. Following Mr. Bernanke’s extraordinary efforts to debase the U.S. currency in late-2010, the dollar had lost its traditional safe-haven status by early-2011. Whatever global confidence had remained behind the U.S dollar was lost in July and August. That was in response to the lack of political will—shown by those who control the White House and Congress—to address the long-range insolvency of the U.S. government, and as a result of the later credit-rating downgrade to U.S. Treasury debt.
Read More @ 24hgold.com
“The U.S. economic and systemic-solvency crises of the last five years continue to deteriorate. Yet they remain just the precursors to the coming Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. The unfolding circumstance will encompass a complete loss in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar; a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity; a collapse in the U.S. financial system, as we know it; and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. Outside timing on the hyperinflation remains 2014, but events of the last year have accelerated the movement towards this ultimate dollar catastrophe. Following Mr. Bernanke’s extraordinary efforts to debase the U.S. currency in late-2010, the dollar had lost its traditional safe-haven status by early-2011. Whatever global confidence had remained behind the U.S dollar was lost in July and August. That was in response to the lack of political will—shown by those who control the White House and Congress—to address the long-range insolvency of the U.S. government, and as a result of the later credit-rating downgrade to U.S. Treasury debt.
Read More @ 24hgold.com
Bureau of Lying Statistics
*There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics* -
Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Courtney, et al
Before I get to the employment report fraud, I had to unload
two observations: 1) Yesterday's Super Bowl was an epic game, especially
if you like to watch hard-hitting defensive battles - AND the Super Bowl
ads on TV were probably the worst in memory. 2) The metals got hit on
Friday as the jobs report was being released with the idea that a number as
strong as the one released might delay more Fed money printing and
therefore the report was bearish for gold and silver an... more »
Net Asset Value Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Funds - Sprott Places Gold Offering at Premium
MF Global Trustee Finds That Company "Did Not Always Record Cash Movements"
The MF Global Trustee has just released their preliminary report on the progress in uncovering where the vaporized cash went. Bloomberg notes:- MF GLOBAL DIDN'T ALWAYS RECORD CASH MOVEMENTS, TRUSTEE SAYS
- TRUSTEE SAYS MF HAD SHORTFALL IN COMMODITIES FUNDS START OCT 26
- MF BROKERAGE TRUSTEE TRACED $105 BLN IN CASH MOVEMENT
- MF COMPUTERS COULDN'T TRACK VOLUME IN FINAL DAYS, TRUSTEE SAYS
"No Country For Old Men?" Bernanke Plan To Exterminate Savers Is Unsustainable
Bernanke's recognition of his penalizing savers with low rates as an 'issue for people' sparked an interesting note from the WSJ
on how sensible and stoic savers are being herded (unsafely) into risky
investments. Bernanke's insistence that "our savers collectively have
to hold all the assets of the economy and a strong economy produces
much better returns in general" must be juxtaposed with comments from a
money manager that "I don't think that's a fair-trade" for money intended to be invested safely.
By removing the last shred of hope for a rise in savings rates anytime
soon, the Fed is once again creating the potential for major unintended
consequences as the 30% drop in interest income for US savers from the
2008 peak forces them to extend duration (TSYs), lower quality
(corporate bonds), and/or increase leverage/risk (equities). One only
has to look at Treasury yields, Muni yields, investment-grade bond
yields, and now high-yield bond yields for how tempted investors
(retail and professional 'insurance/pension' assets) have become to
take their safest net worth asset (low risk liquidity) and expose it to
the business/credit cycle and all its myriad event risks. While
reducing the rate of savings might seem sensible for the short-term
from the Fed perspective, it leaves a wholly unsustainable recovery (or
bubble in who knows which asset class next) and as Nordea notes this
week, based on their models, a considerably higher savings rate will be needed going forward (for any sustainability)
even as 'saved money' is rotated into risk or spent on quality-of-life
maintenance. Perhaps it is time for many to listen to the sensibilities
of the WSJ's last (75 year-old) interviewee who notes "At my age, I can't be a risk-taker anymore"
as maybe it is time to consider the reality of the recent good US data
in relation to coinciding elements such as inventory build-up,
plummeting household savings, and lower gas prices when adding to that
risky investment.Presenting The "Rise Of The HFT Machine" - Visual Confirmation How SkyNet Broke The Stock Market On US Downgrade Day
Zero
Hedge has not been focusing much on the topic of our broken equity
markets recently because if by now, following over three years of
coverage, someone is not aware just how fragmented, manipulated
and largely broken the market truly is, they never will. Yet every now
and then it worth reminding readers who may have stumbled on this blog
recently, just how bad things are in graphic format. Our friends at Nanex,
who are by far the best forensic analysts of everything that is busted
with the US stock market, have completed a masterpiece analysis
showing the churning (packet traffic) in the various fragmented US
market venues, from the NYSE to the Nasdaq to BATS and so forth, on a
daily basis beginning in January 2007 and continuing through today.
While the "rise of the HFT machine" over the past 5 years, following the adoption of Reg NMS, will hardly be a surprise to most, what
is stunning is the first animated confirmation of the market
terminally breaking on August 5, 2011, the day the US was downgraded,
an observation that first was made right here on Zero Hedge. Which begs the question: what really happened in the stock market on August 5, 2011 when the US was downgraded to AA+, when
everything literally broke, who is intervening constantly in the stock
market, and why are they doing so via various HFT intermediary
mechanisms?Negative Bank Preannouncements Begin
We are not even half way into the quarter, and the negative preannouncements for financials have already begun:- MACQUARIE SAYS `SUBSTANTIALLY LOWER LEVELS' OF CLIENT ACTIVITY - BLOOMBERG
Guest Post: Bringing The "Not In The Labor Force" Mystery To Light
Volumeless Equity Recovery Ignores Broad Risk Asset Derisking
While
the EURUSD's recovery post Europe's close seemed to modestly support
stocks, the USD is still up from Friday's close as ES (the e-mini
S&P 500 futures contract) closes marginally in the green against
the direction of FX carry, Treasuries, commodities broadly, and credit.
The volumeless (and gravitationally unchallenged) push from
post-Europe dip lows this afternoon were generally ignored by VIX,
investment grade, and high-yield credit markets, after the morning was a
relatively significant amount of selling pressure in HYG
(the increasingly significant high-yield bond ETF) to pre-NFP levels
only be bough all the way back and some more into the close. Average
trade size and deltas had a decidedly negative feel on every algo-driven
push higher from VWAP to unchanged but the divergence between Brent
and WTI dragged the Energy sector over 1% higher (as every other sector lost ground with Financials and Materials underperforming. Treasuries rallied well from the Europe close and closed just off low yields of the day as commodities all
ended lower from Friday's close with Copper and WTI underperforming
and Silver just edging Gold as they hovered around USD's beta for the
day. VIX dropped modestly after the cash close but ended higher on the
day with a notably low volatility of vol from mid-morning onwards (and
the late-day vol compression seemed index-driven as implied correlation
also fell commensurately). A quiet day in European sovereign and financials
along with the disastrously low volume day in ES and on the NYSE really
don't feel like signs of broad participation as Greek events slowly
but surely unfold along the path of known resistance.Lowest Non-Holiday Market Volume In Past Decade
We
are struggling for superlatives (or whatever the antonym for
superlatives is). Today's NYSE volume is as low as we could find on
Bloomberg data. It is the lowest non-holiday trading day volume in over a decade.
This is 26% below last year's post-Superbowl trading day volume. ES,
the e-mini S&P 500 future contract, which has tended to be the most
liquid and heavily traded instrument reflective of the equity markets,
traded around 1.19mm contracts versus a 50-day average of 1.83mm (down
35%) and also we were struggling to find a non-holiday trading day with
lower volumes (lower even than on the Thanksgiving Friday of last
year's volume). Using our trusty Birinyi ruler and extrapolating the
trend since the March 2009 crisis lows, we see No-Volume-Day (NV-Day) as being celebrated on the NYSE in September 2015 (we assume valuations are being adjusted on financials and exchanges as we speak).San Fran Fed Finds Fiscal Stimulus Has Little Impact During Periods Of Economic Growth
It has only been a week since we discussed the San Francisco Fed's research group admitted that water was wet Fed policy will be unable to impact unemployment since the cyclical changes are more structural leading to jobless recoveries as fat is removed from the system. The powerless Fed now has another well-researched problem. As Daniel Wilson of the FRBSF sheepishly admits (having spent several thousands in taxpayer cash to fund the latest Fed 'white paper') with regard to the impact of fiscal stimulus: It is an inconvenient reality that this literature provides an enormous range of multiplier estimates, ranging from –1 to +3. Critically he notes that the benefits of fiscal stimulus vary with the business cycle and are strongest during recessions. So, given that the US is decoupling and that we are not in a recession, we assume the multiplier effect of the Fed's much-desired fiscal stimulus requests will be at the lower end of the range - either negative or inconsequential?In other words, for the Fed to get its desired fiscal stimulus from the government they had better engineer, using only the monetary policies up their sleeves, a recession.
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