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YIKES! Thanks, that was exactly what i was looking for in case i get another of those, short apple at 75, when it was trading near 125 and not one person on the tube was neg. will use tight stop, and not much principle to start with. thanks again.
YIKES, VIX at 14.04, hum, BW, do you still have those crazy 3x and 4x short etf's memorized? I think I might toss a little against the grain as it has been a while since I remember the vix near 13. some short term short might be fun, maybe just outright short the s&p just a little for kicks, and a short while with tight stop in place.
I think vix back up to 20 would bring a nice pop to anyone's trading port, ha. things just SCREAM SHORT to me right now, famous last words, ha.
the gdxj and pcl/wy pot lucks have driven my overall trading port to just 4x overall short position compared to next long, wy, change every day, but 14.04, sounds like someone hit the snooze button
not ready to look long much these days as i have thought for years, mostly incorrectly, that the edge of the cliff will come fast and hard. i mean how much do we have left now as a nation after transfers, ss, and meidi's, to service on the debt, 17%, 25%, and shirnking? not much left to spur growth, they have stolen us about dry........had finger on button for 20k more shares of thld at .22 or so, and chickened out, then watched it go to .50+. just not much interest to trade right now.......
hope not for his sake.......def got my attention, but all i can do, and do actually do, is vote, like most of us, more 100% as i age.
missed your ? about new investments the other day, nothing new to report, just the gold glxj and the pcl/wy merger that has turned out to be great so far, overall keeping trading port in narrow range.
hope you are doing well, took your advice and kept box at bank so don't have to worry when leaving home, good idea, thanks. I stay armed nearly 100% of the time when on my own property, have long tree line bordering property that nearby properties have had rabid animal problems, so i carry, and sleep with it under my pillow in case one comes in at night, :)
have you ever seen, i think, clips from South Korea, where elected folks start throwing punches, live, on TV? just doing what so many of ours want to do, ha.....God I hope they don't try to remove him, I had enough with suicide while seemingly happy, and out on a jog, only so many things can be covered up....ugg. So much power, people can just vanish.
or it might just be, throw the bums out, yet again. politics have always been backhanded, just now we have instant communications and legions of room spinners, outright lying about what your eyes just saw. cracks me up. lots are worried that the easy money train is stopping, or at least slowing, hence the get together of both parties off of Georgia last week. They could no more care which of the two mirrored parties gets in, as long as the status quo of calling the shots remains the same.....and pockets get lined....in myrtle beach the local COC gets a 1% tax of all money spent within city limits, they were videotaped giving something like 80,000 dollars in a brown paper bag, cash, across a table at a local eatery, when the freedom of information request came in, they responded by giving the local paper pallet loads of documents, for the paper to try and sort through and make sense off, where all that money was going,
i think the dems forget that ol abe was a republican who ended slavery and allowed themselves to be hijacked by the gay/pc lobby the same way the repubs were taken over by the far right, and still haven't recovered. they spew their own toxic crap for their own ends to keep that money train going, come hell or high water.....i say let them duke it out with their fists first, let the fbi crack the encryption code, and all go back to our blistfully unaware sleep state, right where they want us.
we each came into the world with nothing, and all of us are leaving the same way, maybe a bigger headstone.....ha.
We have just witnessed a 'death cross' in the market's fear indicator
Yahoo Finance By Lawrence Lewitinn
1 hour ago
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/we-have-just-witnessed-a--death-cross--in-the-market-s-fear-indicator-200044838.html
Put down the champagne glasses and curb your enthusiasm for the seventh anniversary of the bull market. That’s because something quite ominous appears to be brewing in the options market.
The CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) might be back down to the upper-teens. But the so-called “Fear Index” just made its own version of a “death cross,” according to Russell Rhoads, head of education at the CBOE’s Options Institute.
That doesn’t bode well for the market.
In technical analysis, a “death cross” usually occurs when the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day moving average. Technicians see this at as sign that things will get worse.
But the VIX, which measures expected volatility over the following month in the S&P 500 (^GSPC), tends to move in the opposite direction as the overall market.
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
“The VIX is considered a ‘fear index’ with respect to option trading on the S&P 500,” explained Rhoads. “When traders are concerned about downside in the equity market, as indicated by the S&P 500, they tend to buy put index options on the S&P 500 which pushes the implied volatility higher.”
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For that reason, Rhoads sees the VIX’s shorter-term moving average move above its longer-term moving average – which would normally be viewed as a bullish move for any other security – as bad news for the market. In the past several days, the VIX’s 1-year moving average pushed above its 5-year average.
“The last time this happened back in 2007, a year later, the S&P 500 was down about 40%,” he warned. “For the overall equity market this could be a bearish sign.”
Other signs are also worrisome.
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Rhoads also graphed the CBOE’s various volatility indices in a fashion similar to the way yield curves are drawn for the term structure of interest rates. While shorter-term volatility measures (^VXST and ^VIX) are at or below their 2015 averages, longer-term volatility indices (^VXV and ^VXMT) are elevated.
“Those can be taken as a market forecast that we're going to see increased volatility over the next three to six months or farther out in the 2016 calendar,” cautioned Rhoads.
Could certainly be that, but I got the impression he just didn't like banks, had wife, or girlfriend with him, who rolled her eyes when he asked for manager, like, oh, here we go again.....ha
sorry to investor on short question, i have never been short when a R/s was announced, so I never looked into it. quick google would answer it I would guess.......would think you be sitting pretty as often r/s stocks don't do so well, not always, but often, after split.
speaking of the 100 dollar bill, we got behind a couple in line at the movie theater 6 months or so ago and the guy in front of us, I am pretty sure was ex military, there were about 8 of us in line.
the movie place had sign on register that they don't accept 100 dollar bills. so this guy asks for the manager, says all he has is 100's, doesn't believe in credit cards, and it was the theater's responsibility to accept "any and all" US Currency.
He started quoting US LAW, (obviously not his first time and he couldn't care less we were all behind him.) I remember silently rooting for him, but don't remember how it came out, except he was ticked.
used to be gender, (unescourted,) color, or race, that kept you out of movies, now it is the type of cash you have?????
guessing the manager's head would have spun around if the guy had one of those few 10,000 bills that were printed years ago......ha.
Didn't they just arrest the guy who shot the Pastor who prayed with Ted C. at an event 23 hours earlier, and then found him near White House? YIKES, haven't seen it this vile for a long time, maybe 1980;s Dem Convention.
Now costs .4% of your money EVEN TO BUY CORPORATE BONDS in the Euro Zone. That's new, have government have control over that marrket too. Pretty sure it dwarfs Stock Market, (bonds in Euro zone,) so it should be interesting.
Lots of cash going back under mattresses, just as our gov floats the idea of getting rid of the 100 dollar bill, easier to control us that way i guess, lumpier mattresses too, ha.
Probability of a U.S. Recession Within a Year
But buy the greenback anyway
Luke Kawa
LJ Kawa
March 4, 2016 — 8:17 AM ET
==scs here, love him, or hate him, showing his age a little, nailed things i have tracked over the decades going back to when he was a regular on the new tv show, cnbc., ha, and true.===end scs
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-04/jim-rogers-there-s-a-100-probability-of-a-u-s-recession-within-a-year
Rogers Longs the U.S. Dollar As He Prepares For Turmoil
Rogers Holdings Chairman Jim Rogers is certain that the U.S. economy will be in recession in the next 12 months.
During an interview on Bloomberg TV with Guy Johnson, the famous investor said that there was a 100 percent probability that the U.S. economy would be in a downturn within one year.
"It's been seven years, eight years since we had the last recession in the U.S., and normally, historically we have them every four to seven years for whatever reason—at least we always have," he said. "It doesn't have to happen in four to seven years, but look at the debt, the debt is staggering."
Most Wall Street economists see a much smaller chance of a U.S. recession within this span, with odds typically below 33 percent.
Rogers was not specific on what could trigger a disorderly deleveraging process and recession but claimed that sluggish or slowing economies in China, Japan, and the euro zone mean that there are many possible channels of contagion.
The former partner of George Soros suggested that if investors focus on the right data, there are signs that the U.S. economy is already faltering.
"If you look at the … payroll tax figures [in the U.S.], you see they're already flat," he concluded. "Don't pay attention to the government numbers, pay attention to the real numbers."
In light of the economic turmoil envisioned by Rogers, he is long the U.S. dollar.
"It might even turn into a bubble," he said of the greenback. "I mean, if markets around the world are crashing, let's just say that scenario happens, everybody's going to put their money in the U.S. dollar—it could turn into a bubble."
Rogers added that a strengthening U.S. dollar has historically been negative for commodities—the asset class that the investor is best-known for.
While the yen is often designated as a risk-off currency, it won't benefit in the event of a flight to safety due to the massive, continued expansion of the Bank of Japan's balance sheet, according to Rogers, who said he exited his position in the yen last Friday
hey gfp, yup, held the pcl shares through what is supposed to be a non taxable event and got 1.6 wy for each one, or 800 for 500, with div bump, i'll take it. even though it's in trading account, i don't really think of it as tradable like most others, as i use the divs to pay acct expenses, ect.
the price of pcl had tanked before the merger date, but the 20% div increase is really why i still have the stock, good counter balance in portfolio.....
nothing much going on for now, just watching the fight of the machines, from a distance. i did get some gdxj around 21.xx before it spiked some, so happy with that so far. only had couple/few weeks, your and bw's posts on gold and the beaten up charts had me toss a little it's way and it took off some right after, ha, usually reverse, buy and die......
take care.
PCL, ouch, this one has fallen from near 50 to near 35 in just a month or two, after buy out deal announced, and buyer recorded poor results. (sales I think)
Timber Co.
Anyone here have outlook on timber going forward? Likely stupid question with everything being up in the air right now, but it is paying a good div, is a commodity, at least in my mind, and I guess just depends on housing worldwide going forward.
I got in relatively cheap compared to high, think I locked in around 4.7% div, all long term gains on div., which is another plus, and on my list to get more, once I finally sell hdge down the road, along with some higher quality energy stocks.
Prices of timber around here haven't taken a big hit yet so I am guessing it is a demand issue.....anyway.......
It sure seemed electronic, to the tune of hundreds of millions in the blink of an eye, something to see for sure.
That is one beautiful coin, man, great detail, so glad you have found a way, and profitable so far, to quench that collectors bug you have and I have with tubes, ha.
Ever heard of a Bolivian 1970's 4 oz. silver coin? I have one from an auction a long time ago, never really looked at it, first one was going for like 5 bucks and the auctioneer's people started bidding on them as they came up, so not sure if we were taken for a ride, or won a legit solid silver coin, think it was only 20 bucks or so, so no big deal, but curious........will dig it out if you know anything.....huge round thing in old blue box with 70's date on box if memory serves......
saying the rise today was on a single tweet, or post of some kind, for an oil minister saying OPEC was getting back together, seems like we have heard that at least once trading day for weeks, sure felt like PPP team in full on buy mode........
Take Care.
WOW, from down 401 to down 220 in what seemed like 1 minute.....this isn't our father's market anymore.......YIKES
watched Yellon yesterday and she alluded to "looking: at neg rates for usa in 2010, and mentioned something about the legality of it for this country. While perhaps a little more stimulating than watching Greenspan, but I was cross eye'd and missed her overall demeanor when she said it.
it was noted, by a panelist that some recent :stress test" for the big banks had a provision for negative rates here from " 2016-2019," and how they would handle it. Stressed how it was only test, but where there is smoke...................
Got to see Grant from :Grants Interest Rate Letter," one of my favorites, in my mind, brillant stratigists in reading the Tea Leaves that make up Finance. he mentioned that in 2014, low CCC rated bonds were demanding 8% returns, now 21%. YIKES. That woke me more than anything else I have heard in last couple years. Bond open markets are the tip, and base, of pure capitalism for me, and the risks have increased many fold since 2014. He openly laughed when the neg. Japan rates were brought up, and without thinking, he said, yea, that's really worked out well for them so far hasn't it?"
HA, like bizzaroworld on Steroids, Worldwide, and growing.
Take Care and sorry for spelling, but you know my story.......ha
KYLE BASS: China is already out of money
Julia La Roche,Business Insider 5 hours ago
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/kyle-bass-china-already-money-162246964.html
Texan hedge fund manager J. Kyle Bass, the founder of Dallas-based Hayman Capital, sent out a big letter to investors explaining why he thinks China has a problem much larger than the 2008 subprime crisis.
China has been burning through cash of late as it manages the devaluation of its currency, and there is a big debate over exactly how much money it has to burn.
Bass notes that many folks look at the foreign-exchange (FX) reserves of $3.2 trillion and think that China will be just fine.
It's really not enough, though, based on Bass' calculations. According to Bass, the country is out of money today. In other words, China no longer has enough liquid reserves.
The letter said, with Bass' emphasis:
Responses we receive when discussing the FX reserve levels of China are filled with reverence: 'No country in the world has ever achieved $4 trillion in FX reserves by running such enormous trade surpluses with the rest of the world.' While true, this analysis fails to frame the proper context of the larger situation. When a host country has a large industrial base, enormous money supply (M2), and large import/export business, there is a certain amount of liquid reserves that are required to run the day-to-day operations of the country (think working capital). Over the years, the IMF has fine-tuned the formula used to calculate this ‘reserve-adequacy’ metric. It can be best calculated as follows:
Minimum FX Reserves = 10% of Exports + 30% of Short-term FX Debt + 10% of M2 + 15% of Other Liabilities
For China the equation is as follows: 10% * $2.2T + 30% * $680B + 10% * (RMB 139.3T / 6.6) + 15% * $1.0T = $2.7 trillion of required minimum reserves
Hayman Capital estimates that China's FX reserves right now are in a range of $2.1 trillion to $2.2 trillion if you take commitments to various bodies like China's sovereign wealth fund (CIC) into account.
According to Bass, China's reserves are "already below a critical level of minimum reserve adequacy."
"In other words, China is CURRENTLY out of the required level of reserves needed to safely operate its financial system," Bass wrote. "The view that China has years of reserves to burn through is misinformed. China’s back is completely up against the wall today, which is one of the primary reasons why the government is hypersensitive to any comments regarding its reserve levels or a hard landing."
Bass is among a handful of hedge fund managers betting against China's currency, the yuan. Much of Hayman Capital's fund right now is devoted to the yuan short.
NOW WATCH: This is what it looks like when 50,000 travelers get stranded in China
The hedge fund manager who nailed the subprime crisis says China's problem right now is 4 times as big
Julia La Roche
http://www.businessinsider.com/kyle-bass-letter-on-chinese-banking-system-bigger-than-subprime-2016-2
REUTERS/Brendan McDe
Hedge funder Kyle Bass released a presentation slamming a Texas company he claims is a 'Ponzi-like real estate scheme'
Watch Bill Ackman's new mini-documentary for his infamous Herbalife short
Some of the biggest hedge fund names are getting scorched
Texan hedge fund manager J. Kyle Bass, the founder of Hayman Capital, has sent his first letter to investors on a global scale in two years.
The letter, seen by Business Insider, warns that China has a problem much bigger than the subprime crisis in 2008.
Bass was one of the hedge fund managers who correctly predicted and profited from the mortgage crisis in 2008.
The problem in China, according to Bass, is the banking system and its coming losses.
"We have been vigorously studying China over the last year, with the view that the rapid credit expansion in the Chinese banking system will result in significant credit losses that will require the recapitalization of Chinese banks and materially pressure the Chinese currency," Bass wrote in a letter to investors dated February 10.
"This outcome will have many near-term and long-term effects on countries and markets around the world. In other words, what happens in China will not stay in China."
In the investor letter, titled "The $34 Trillion Experiment: China's Banking System and the World's Largest Macro Imbalance," Bass says China's banking system has similarities to the US banking system before the most recent financial crisis — excessive leverage, regulatory arbitrage, and irresponsible risk-taking.
Bass said he had met with Wall Street firms, consultants, and China experts and they all had the view that China would get through the recent turbulence without an economic reset.
That's not how Bass sees it. He wrote:
What we have come to realize through these discussions is that many have come to their conclusion without fully appreciating the size of the Chinese banking system and the composition of assets at individual banks. More importantly, banking system losses — which could exceed 400% of the US banking losses incurred during the subprime crisis — are starting to accelerate.
Bass is among a handful of hedge fund managers betting against China's currency, the yuan. Much of Hayman Capital's fund right now is devoted to the yuan short.
it's the law of diminishing returns running its course in front of our eyes. each, "fix," having less and less effect.
jig is catching up, decades in the making.
What the ‘Chart of Doom’ is saying about a global recession
Published: Feb 8, 2016 2:49 p.m. ET
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-chart-of-doom-is-saying-about-a-global-recession-2016-02-08
Only China and U.S. stand between global economy and the Seneca Cliff
By SUE CHANG MARKETS REPORTER
Heritage Images/Getty Images
A painting depicting the death of philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, after whom Seneca Cliff is named.
“Three down, two to go.”
That is the sub-heading on a chart shared by author and blogger Charles Hugh Smith intended to illustrate the global economy’s precarious footing.
The Chart of Doom from Market Daily Briefing, a site devoted to charting economic indicators from around the world, shows credit dropping off in the U.K., Japan, and the eurozone while remaining expansionary in the U.S. and China.
“Once private credit rolls over in China and the U.S., the global recession will start its rapid slide down the Seneca Cliff,” wrote Smith in a post on his blog ‘Of Two Minds.’
Seneca Cliff is a reference to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Roman philosopher who is credited with saying: “As it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.”
Smith argues that when businesses and households stop taking out loans and instead start paying off debt, it is a sign that a recession or a depression is ahead.
Market Daily Briefing
He told MarketWatch that while private debt isn't a sole barometer of a recession, it is still an important indicator. “An economy with declining private credit can stagnate with nominal GDP growth of sub-1% for quite some time. Eventually this stagnation hollows out the economy,” he said in emailed comments.
The upward trajectory of the trend line for the U.S. may also be a bit misleading from Smith’s view point. The $1.5 trillion growth in private credit since 2008 after trillions were spent on bank bailouts and liquidity injection is “paltry,” especially compared with the robust pace from the mid-1990s to 2008.
He opines that much of the global economic rebound since the 2008 financial crisis is due to the rise in debt in China.
“In other words, the faltering global ‘recovery’ and all the tenuous asset bubbles around the world both depend on a continued hyper-velocity rocket rise in China’s private credit,” said Smith.
The Institute of International Finance estimated that China’s total debt stood at a record 277% of gross domestic product at the end of 2015. “An eventual resolution of this record level of debt could be painful for the economy,” said the IIF recently.
The specter of a sudden unraveling in China’s debt-fueled economy has loomed large in recent weeks as investors fret over the Chinese government’s ability to ward off a crisis amid speculative attacks on its currency.
Société Générale global strategist Albert Edwards last week painted an even more dire scenario, predicting that China will soon burn through its reserves in a futile mission to defend the yuan and be forced to float the currency in the next six months.
Concerns about China were magnified over the weekend when Beijing announced on Sunday that the country’s foreign-exchange reserves fell by $99.469 billion to $3.231 trillion in January to the lowest level in more than three years.
It is the second-biggest drawdown in China’s reserves in history after a decline of $108 billion in December and suggests continued capital flight even as Chinese authorities intervene in the foreign-exchange market to cushion the yuan’s slide.
“China will either tighten capital controls, restricting domestic investors from accessing international capital markets, or allow the exchange rate to adjust according to market-driven fundamentals,” Sue Trinh, a foreign exchange analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said in a note to investors following the release of the latest drop in currency reserves. “We continue to think China will eventually loosen its grip on renminbi and allow for a slow depreciation.”
Trinh predicted the yuan USDCNY, -0.0791% to weaken to 6.95 to the U.S. dollar by end-2016 and 7.50 in 2017.
hey gfp, i have been thinking of your "they can still" options post you made the other day. things like lower the one quarter point, go to neg rates, and i think a few other "signals" they could send to extend things a little farther. it sure makes that my, now years ago, corx post, of "there is just too much dept in the world for me," was 18T early, yuck.....
hope we are wrong, shorts usually are, but I find bw's points setting up the average "joe" as the patsy, so completely believable and "just" in the minds of those unfeeling, "people," who drafted that type of legislation, beyond contempt, ugg times 1000.
it's one thing to hold yourself accountable for the risk you take investing, it quite another to be led to believe that you wouldn't be way down the pole in terms of recouping your funds, so there is little to stop them from taking risks you never knew you were signing up for, like the much less than 1% who actually understand derivatives. i think it used to be called fraud. ugg.
glad to hear that your family made it out of the last one ok, 5 cents on the dollar, unreal, wish i knew more of how mine made it. I remember my mother telling me she didn't even know there was a crash, or what it meant, as she never even heard her parents quibble, turns out they would meet at home for lunch and hammer out just how they would raise the kids and then presented a unified loving front that worked, apparently, really well.
her side had a small grocery store that she often said they would have been much better off, but my grandfather was known for, letting people without jobs, take out small lines of credit, in exchange for food to feed their families, knowing that most likely he would never see the money. it must have been really hard for him to finally have to say no to a family. he never talked about it with me and i knew him into my late teens/early twenties. guessing those were some painful memories. nothing to compare or relate to today's youth so they could get a clue, "what, you were born BEFORE they had computers?" ha.
===For some inexplicable reason,====
it's called the K street lobby effect, ha, and ugg. I had no clue they had gotten away with so much, like a third or fourth lien on a property it sounds like average "joes," will be totally screwed.
do you know if this is the case of mm funds right now?
i know they have been looking for ways to get their hands on those funds in an emergency, like a bear to red meat on salmon, for years, and will likely do it, or have already done it, while we look the other way, or have our eyes diverted on trivial things like the super bowl, or a 2am email dump that in years past would have meant an instant raid and cuffs on the guilty within hours.
thanks bw. i had been wondering if depositors would be allowed to access a box, wait, or lose it.
we are not talking much, but i opened one when we went out of town for xmas for a usb hard drive consisting of some 50k family pictures from over the years, including a 6 year project where I scanned old family photos and have some of one of the "work" camps that my father drove into as the German guards were literally still fleeing out the back of the camp. I think it was Bauchwald, or a name close, never forget him telling me about it. He rarely talked about the war, but had some poloroids of people still in the ovens of that camp and stacked like firewood outside. Once you see them you cannot unsee them.
Tens of thousands of songs are on that drive as well that i wanted kept off site.
There is a little cash, gold, and silver there as well, not too much, and i liked keeping it home in the pretty secure, (have to take the door frame out to remove,) safe. Since I stay armed 99+% of the time I am home I didn't worry much about it, but having it locked up down at the bank, is a hair of a load off, even though I literally sleep with a loaded .380 under my pillow at night.
I remember our retired SC police officer teaching us the consealed permit class saying, "it is better to die right there and then rather then let on of those low life's take control of your loved ones in front of you, and I believed his lifetime of work, that he knew what he was talking about, so the safe stays under armed guard here at home more than at the unarmed, as far as I can see, bank.
again, many thanks.
bw, thanks for info, do you know off the top of your head if bank deposit boxes have continued access to them, during bank runs, generally? (globally?)
thanks
nice call on that gdxj this week gfp. I sold off most all my bottom three losers, closed out options positions, ect, and bought some of that one again. trading acct near all time high even with pcl getting killed today, but it has a 4.7x, or close div to help with that sting, ha.
have a good weekend, guessing you won't have to think to hard about who we are going for in the great American distraction, but enjoying it before some 330 pound lineman beats him into the ground for generally "disrespecting him."
Citi: World economy trapped in ‘death spiral’
Fri, Feb 5, 2016, 2:57pm EST - US Markets close in 1 hr and 3 mins
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/citi-world-economy-trapped-death-160555632.html#
CNBC By Katy Barnato 3 hours ago
The global economy seems trapped in a "death spiral" that could lead to further weakness in oil prices, recession and a serious equity bear market, Citi (NYSE:C) strategists have warned.
Some analysts — including those at Citi — have turned bearish on the world economy this year, following an equity rout in January and weaker economic data out of China and the U.S.
"The world appears to be trapped in a circular reference death spiral," Citi strategists led by Jonathan Stubbs said in a report on Thursday.
"Stronger U.S. dollar, weaker oil/commodity prices, weaker world trade/petrodollar liquidity, weaker EM (and global growth)... and repeat. Ad infinitum, this would lead to Oilmageddon, a 'significant and synchronized' global recession and a proper modern-day equity bear market."
Stubbs said that macro strategists at Citi forecast that the dollar would weaken in 2016 and that oil prices were likely bottoming, potentially providing some light at the end of the tunnel.
"The death spiral is in nobody's interest. Rational behavior, most likely, will prevail," he said in the report.
Crude oil prices have tumbled by around 70 percent since the middle of 2014, during which time the U.S. dollar has risen by around 20 percent against a basket of currencies. ??????
The world economy grew by 3.1 percent in 2015 and is projected to accelerate to expand by 3.4 percent in 2016 and 3.6 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund. The forecast reflects expectations of gradual improvement in countries currently in economic distress, notably Brazil, Russia and some in the Middle East.
By contrast, Citi forecasts the world economy will grow by only 2.7 percent in 2016 having cut its outlook last month.
Overall, advanced economies are mostly making a modest recovery, while many emerging market and developing economies are under strain from the rebalancing of the Chinese economy, lower commodity prices and capital outflows.
Stubbs added that policymakers would likely attempt to "regain credibility" in the coming weeks and months.
"This is fundamental to avoiding a proper/full global recession and dangerous disorder across financial markets. The stakes are high, perhaps higher than they have ever been in the post-World War II era," he said.
Just 151,000 new jobs were created in January in the U.S., in the latest sign that the world's biggest economy is slowing. Economists are concerned about an industrial or manufacturing recession in the country, following some warnings from companies in earnings seasons and recent weak manufacturing activity and durable goods orders data.
However, some analysts say markets are overegging the prospect of a global slump.
"Many markets are now pricing in a significant probability of recession and when we talk about recession, we're talking particularly about a U.S. recession. Do you think that is likely or not? To me, the odds are too high; the market is pricing too high a probability," Myles Bradshaw, the head of global aggregate fixed income at Amundi, told CNBC this week
=wired to their MP3s=Tube Amps, GuiltyHere, EOM
yea, there are scary people everywhere these days. few years ago i got behind a couple at a really slow kmart in line. both had shopping carts full of 1 gallon bleach bottles, even the bottoms of the carts were full. they mad eye contact and i joked, wow you must own a bunch of laundry mats. neither smiled, both looked rough upon a closer look.
they waited for me outside the doors and kind of held back and watched me get in my truck and leave. I was unarmed and spooked for sure, couldn't figure out why they were so weird.
couple days later, the sun news, myrtle beach's newspaper came out with an article detailing "the new meth," all brew up in 1 gallon bleach bottles, and how the police were going to supermarkets and wal mart to alert the managers to alert the cashiers to not confront, but try to get license numbers of cars that buy large amounts of bleach. think the stuff was pretty deadly.
heads up out there.
>> Left Coast, East Coast <<
sorry, didn't mean it personal, asked my bride on one knee in front of independence hall on horse drawn cart. driver couldn't stop cause guys with semi autos would come running out and tell them to move along, but he went as slow as the horse would move for me. after 9/11. kept up theme and got married near here on a plantation owned by one of the signers of the declaration of independence, complete with horse drawn carts for the guests.
philly diamond district is where i promised my dad i would get ring if i ever got married, keeping up generations of old family tradition, worth every moment and highly recommended.
anyway, i am still peeved at my ncy "family" tossing me into the basket of, "we all hate h. but are going to vote for her anyway." without a second thought, like how could anyone even think differently! ha, maybe i need one of those safe zones i have read about, including any critic of BLM movement involving death threats, yikes, guess i'm not the only one a little touchy, ha and ugg.
take care.
===Let the left coast exist in their socialist paradise=====
they can take the great NE with them as far as I am concernened. One giant PC Correct toilet flush......ha.
that's why i like the electorial system, and not popular vote, cause the big giant, one way leaning, (my xmas lowlight, "we all hate h. but will vote for her anyway.") do not get to decide who "leads," each state gets a voice, no matter how different they are.
of course now they have it down to just 8 or so states they decide they must take to win it all, but still, it makes it a more level playing field.
i did not watch or dvr the debate last night once i saw the pictures of the moderator in question posing, as a full grown women, and not some 18 year old, poor little me, female, bimbo, but fully knowing what she was doing, full grown women, posing for GQ magazine sexy pics, trying to make things all about her, instead of who was running. times we live in i guess, real f'ed up times. all about the fame, ugg.
thought we had the right to bear arms and to form "militia's," to counter a far reaching government. doesn't seem to have worked out to well for the mostly peaceful ranchers, who tried to get their msg out by "taking" over land 30 miles from the nearest town, just to be heard, and are conveniently gunned down in a place with no civilian camera's, all in defense of a ranching family who owns 10-12,000 acres, doing a small, high desert, back burn on their property, and having it get out of hand and, Lord please forgive, burning 123 acres of leased, gov, land in the process. they both served a year in FEDERAL JAIL FOR TERRORISM, released, then forced to return to serve out 4 MORE YEARS. the prosecutor should be the one in jail IMO, talk about Gov. Overreach. Terrorism for a back burn, really? So on come our protected militia's, and predictably they are gunned down, by our own Gov.
WAKE THE HELL UP PEOPLE.
===reinforced by the nation’s archaic electoral college system.===
i always loved this part of our system, it protects us from one or two cites, with massive pops deciding who holds the highest office, and gives each state a voice, or we will break up for sure.
as far as just stopping with money flow, it will be interesting to see if h.c. and bill c. gets time for their "pay to play." alleged talk for kickbacks from other nations plays out, now that there is no limit to other governments giving money, thanks to how our utterly disfunctional s. c. branch has treated us. maybe they would just like to donate our property under e.d. to make up for any shortfalls, kinda like the blm just taking land out west, now owning over 50% in a few states,
mf'ing money hungry, and power hunger gov gone wild path we are now on.
ugg.
Some $29 Trillion Later, the Corporate Debt Boom Looks Exhausted
Sally Bakewell
January 27, 2016 — 7:00 PM EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-28/some-29-trillion-later-the-corporate-debt-boom-looks-exhausted
There’s been endless speculation in recent weeks about whether the U.S., and the whole world for that matter, are about to sink into recession. Underpinning much of the angst is an unprecedented $29 trillion corporate bond binge that has left many companies more indebted than ever.
Whether this debt overhang proves to be a catalyst for recession or not, one thing is clear in talking to credit-market observers: It’s a problem that won’t go away any time soon.
Strains are emerging in just about every corner of the global credit market. Credit-rating downgrades account for the biggest chunk of ratings actions since 2009; corporate leverage is at a 12-year high; and perhaps most worrisome, growing numbers of companies -- one third globally -- are failing to generate high enough returns on investments to cover their cost of funding. Pooled together into a single snapshot, the data points show how the seven-year-old global growth model based on cheap credit from central banks is running out of steam.
“We’ve never been in a cycle quite like this,” said Bonnie Baha, a money manager at DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles, which oversees $80 billion. “It’s setting up for an unhappy turn.”
While not as pronounced as the rout in global equity markets, losses are beginning to pile up in the bond market too. The average spread over benchmark government yields for highly rated debt has widened to 1.83 percentage points, the most in three years, from 1.18 percentage points in March, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. Investors lost 0.2 percent on global corporate bonds in 2015, snapping a string of annual gains that averaged 7.9 percent over the previous six years, the data show.
Debt at global companies rated by Standard & Poor’s reached three times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in 2015, the highest in data going back to 2003 and up from 2.8 times last year, according to the ratings company. Total debt at listed companies in China, the world’s second-largest economy, has climbed to the highest level in three years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Worsening debt profiles contributed to S&P downgrading 863 corporate issuers last year, the most since 2009. More than a third of commodity and energy companies have ratings with negative outlooks or are on credit watch with negative implications, S&P said. Almost 6 percent of U.S. corporate bonds were downgraded through the third quarter, the largest proportion since 2009, according to Fitch Ratings.
Much of the cheap credit accumulated by companies was spent on a $3.8 trillion M&A binge, and to fund share buybacks and dividend payments. While that tends to push up share prices in the short term, bond investors would rather see that money spent on strengthening the business in the long term.
Different Climate
“It’s an indication we’re in a different climate of expansion, rather than prudence, that targets shareholders and leverage,” Jeroen van den Broek, head of developed-markets credit strategy and research at ING Bank NV in Amsterdam, said. “It’s detrimental to credit holders.”
That said, the U.S has borne the brunt of the downgrades and China’s slowdown has been mostly felt in the commodities sector, indicating the impact on the global economy may be limited. S&P’s global credit market outlook is stable and analysts estimate earnings will recover this year. Investment-grade firms have accumulated record amounts of cash, which will insulate them from market turbulence, according to a report from Citigroup Inc. this month.
Fragile Economy
“There are hairline cracks but it doesn’t mean it’s going to lead to cataclysmic global conditions in the credit markets,” said Suki Mann, a former head of European credit strategy at UBS Group AG and founder of bond market commentator CreditMarketDaily.com. “Leverage is higher but it’s only a problem if you can’t service your obligation and the ability of investment-grade companies to service obligations is at a very good level.”
At about 3 percent, overall borrowing costs for companies around the world remain below the average of 4.5 in the preceding two decades even as spreads have widened.
Still, for many in the market, the combination of high leverage levels and a sluggish global economy is a big concern. Growth across the world will be dragged down this year as China’s slowdown prolongs the commodity slump and recessions endure in Brazil and Russia, according to the World Bank. It lowered its forecast for 2016 growth this month to 2.9 percent from a 3.3 percent projection in June. In comparison, the world economy advanced 2.4 percent last year, slower than the 2.6 percent expansion in 2014, the bank said.
Companies’ debt costs are reaching new heights. As of the second quarter, high-grade companies tracked by JPMorgan Chase & Co. incurred $119 billion in interest expenses over the last year, the most for data going back to 2000, according to the bank’s analysts.
Symptomatic Problem
The cost of raising and servicing capital is outweighing the returns companies get from it, a problem that Citigroup said has affected one third of all companies -- the majority of which posted shortfalls in each of the past three years. The bank compared returns on invested capital with the weighted-average cost of funding among the more than 1,600 companies in the MSCI World Index in bank data going back to 2010.
The emerging cracks “are part of the same symptomatic problem -- an economy that’s got stuck on stimulus,” said Luke Hickmore, an Edinburgh-based senior investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, with about 284 billion pounds ($405 billion) of funds under management, according to its website. “It’s not sustainable.”
glad to hear that you didn't get too buried up that way. i was there once for a 9 inch storm and it stopped everything for a while.....
i didn't want to hold my apple 75 puts through earnings as they have so often blown everybody out of the water so many times, so i covered them at about a double, not much but should take care of meals out and movies this year. still had 700 plus days left on them so i might have really made out, but one in the hand.......
congrats on the silver build, slow and steady, did you see the euro guy come out and say he would do whatever is needed, meaning print as much as he can, and it barely moved the needle? law of diminishing returns in action as more and more folks realize that it only delays whats likely coming.
i cracked up when i saw that consumer spending was issued out as a 2% increase during the worst start of the market in history. i'm sure those numbers won't be "fixed," in coming quarters......ha and ugg..
take care
not here, but close - EOM
Thx for link GFP...EOM
after our international behavior in the last 7 years, it would take a lot to surprise me at this point. almost glad my father didn't have to live to see it, his words would not be kind and might include things like treason.......comfort and aid to the enemy, I can just imagine, yikes, the air would be blue, ha if it wasn't so sad, and dangerous....
thanks for input on freeport m., might start tiny dollar cost avg program with long term, no rush, goals.....
Thanks for the input gfp....The hdge has been slow and steady up, just like bw said, non levered short. Turns out it was 6.3x bigger than my next biggest position last time we talked about it. i did the math later that night, likely bigger now....got some more thld at .33xx today, missed ctix yesterday, with finger on button at .98, then zooming to 1.15-1.20 in last couple days, with volume, should have put money where mouth was, but to much interference listening to the tv box.....ugg. like being down here, away from the heart of it all to view from afar......
anyway, i was wondering if you had any feel for Freeport M.? I have an interest in anything wacked 80 or 90% and listed, which i assume it is.....got to love em when everyone else hates them, but i know nothing about them, so I thought I would toss it out there in case you or bw were familiar with them.
take care.
Won't go overboard.....EOM
Thx, I use a 1950's/60's beanbag with hard flat top surface that keeps the chromebook 5 of 6 inches above any body parts and always use pack of "travel" kleenex in my pocket for my cell phone to be any from body an inch or two.
The chromebook doesn't even get warm it's so under powered compared to normal laptops, no fans anywhere on them.
There are so many cell towers around I think Americans long ago started living under power lines, if they liked it or not......
do you have a price on that golden cross, i remember i did real well on one you called couple years ago, wnr.....the reason i have new rule of keeping at least 1k shares in anything under 5 and on listed exchange, ha.
i don't have a big exposure in thld, just a slow build, will likely stop around 20k shares, not married to it and would sell in second or maybe if i get uncomfortable in my trading chair, some solid reason like that, ha. as you know i like gathering when they are really out of favor, but i don;t know them well enough to know if they can keep pulling new rabbits out of the hat and entice whole new generations of followers that i then sell into.......otherwise known as the cortex formula, ha.
take care.
i was wondering what was keeping reed above 5 dollars in this downturn, thanks. i'm out of it now, but have had it in the past, not much.
stopped getting corx prices, do you have new symbol off the top of your head? i can look back in that thread tomorrow if needed, no biggie. hate to see it die, so many shares auth........
absolutely loving this 94 dollar black friday acer chromebook, 2.4 lbs, does all the web browsing and vid playing i need for small laptop, not for serious computing or stock workstation, but for light internet stuff, my favorite yet, out of 6 or 8 i have tried......added 64 gig sd card for downloads and internet garbage to save the 16 gig built in drive with chrome on it, and so far it works great.....only comes with 2 gig ram, but seems like plenty enough for about four windows open for me......saw it has an etrade app for chrome built for it, don't know how many, or if other brokers, google chromebook store would have em i guess, just so great not to have that extra 3 pounds on my legs/thighs/feet/legs, all night as i veg in front of tv, very refreshing.......ha, to bad i wasn't famous, i could try and get a contract for talking them up..........
take care.