Thursday, October 30, 2014

China's Housing Downturn: Is This a More Serious Correction?

China's housing downturn..."is this a more lasting correction?

Source: @IanTalley @WorldBank

...For now the markets don’t seem to be pricing in an impending improvement in China’s housing demand. Here is the May-2015 SHFE steel rebar futures contract (actively traded)."


Source: www.SoberLook.com


Saturday, October 4, 2014

"The Economy is Busted and Stocks Are In a Bubble. End of Story"

"This is getting old.

We continue to be told that the US economy is in recovery and stronger than ever. The press trumpets heavily massaged data (GDP growth and the unemployment number) while ignoring data that clearly indicates the US economy is in the toilet (labor participation rate, median income, etc).

Do the following sound like a strong economy?

1)   The labor participation rate is at a 36 year low meaning there are less Americans of working age actually working than at any point in over three decades.
2)   Median income is down over $4K since 2008. You cannot use mean income to measure income because the wealth disparity in the US skews the results courtesy of the 0.01% who earn millions per year.
3)   An incredible 47% of US households receive some form of social spending from the US Government.
4)   One in five US households are on food stamps.

Keep these in mind whenever you hear that the economy is in recovery or stronger than ever. The reality is that the Federal Government and Federal Reserve handed trillions of dollars to the big banks (most of them FOREIGN banks). Everyone else got hosed.

The end result?

Stocks have become more and more disconnected from reality to the point that we are in a massive bubble even larger than that of the housing bubble.


You cannot have a market go absolutely vertical forever. At some point this whole mess will come crashing down."
-Graham Summers, Phoenix Capital Research


October is a Particularly Dangerous Month...


"October: This is one of the particularly dangerous months to invest in stocks. Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”


  - Mark Twain