Declining Profits, Rising Defaults Assure 2016 Recession

Will a 2016 US recession be the next big one?

I believe a 2016 recession is already a fact in the US, and the Great Recession will return with a vengeance. That recession never really ended. It was simply propped up while all of its fundamental flaws remained, and the props are now all ended or failing. It will ultimately become the mother of all recessions. Even the Great Depression has nothing up on what we are now entering.

GDP estimates are increasingly moving in favor of my prediction that the US has been entering a recession since the start of 2016. (Keep in mind recessions are always declared after the fact — after quarterly statistics are in. That’s why I call it a “prediction,” even though I say we have already entered it. The prediction is that it will eventually be declared, but not for many months.)

End of stock buybacks triggers 2016 recession in the US

I’ve noted on The Great Recession Blog a few times that the only force that has been sustaining high stock market values in the recent rally — now ended — has been the huge number of incestuous stock buybacks. The corporate elite have been saving themselves by desperate measures that will leave smaller investors holding crashing shares. When the shares are done crashing, the elite investors will come back in with their cash and thereby profit from the crash.

In stock buyback programs, companies create their own demand for their stocks by taking out low-interest loans to buy their own shares back. Sometimes the major investors on the board make this decision and focus on buying their own shares back. Those extraordinary measures to create stock value are now ending, partially for temporary reasons and partially, it seems, as a reversal in the buyback trend (maybe because board-member aims of cashing themselves out have been achieved).

As a result, we see the recent stock rally has hit a new ceiling. Goldman Sachs reported earlier this week that the end of stock repurchases threatens the rally, and we can now see that the rally has been threatened practically to death as it now struggles against the market’s lowering ceiling like a hero in one of those rooms where the ceiling keeps coming down inch by inch until it crushes you. Since the end of QE, buybacks have formed the primary demand for stocks while the kinds of economic factors that ordinarily create demand have receded.

We’d say the next month would be weaker rather than stronger because you have no corporate repurchases, which are a key source — the only source — of demand for shares. Then you’ve got your core earnings, which are likely to be muted. So there’s an absence of drivers for why the market goes higher. (NewsMax)

Right now the market is in a lull because buyback support is not there, but reports of lower corporate earnings have not started to hit it yet either. I’ve noted that buybacks get curtailed while companies issue their reports for the previous quarter and that the reduction in buybacks would end the rally they have supported. Thus, we see a rally that finished off with a lower ceiling than previous rallies.

You have to be able to recognize that buying back your own stocks is not a sustainable path for creating stock value. If it were, companies would just start out by issuing stocks to the company, forgetting investors altogether and skip entering the New York Stock Exchange. Hopefully, putting it that way makes it clear why a rally based on stock buybacks cannot be sustained. It is, if anything, how corporations end themselves, not how they save themselves. At best, it is a temporary boost.

Not only have buybacks been curtailed as companies ready for the reporting season, but they have been diminishing on a quarter-on-quarter basis. CNBC reports that the buyback fuel for the seven-year bull market is losing steam as a trend, not just as a short-term matter in the lead-up to the present reporting period:

Share repurchases decreased 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three-month period and are tracking at a 21-month low in March, according to respective data from S&P Dow Jones Indices and TrimTabs. If the trend continues, that would mark a major trend shift. Companies have been using reductions in share count as a way to boost earnings profiles, raise stock prices and reward corporate executives. The programs have been seen as a major driver of the market rally, though the extent of the effect has come under scrutiny in recent months…. However, the pendulum could be turning, due in part to several factors. One obstacle to buybacks is the market simply getting more expensive.

February saw a buyback leap because stocks lost so much value in January that companies leaped in with more buybacks to save themselves and because it is sensible to buy back shares when they are a bargain rather than when they are priced high. That began winding down again in March because the buyback rally raised prices.

You see, any rally created by buybacks is ultimately self-defeating as companies are less inclined to purchase back their stock when the value is rising or high, unless they are purchasing back stocks solely from the board members and other major stock holders who want to cash out. When you have players with a lot of stocks to dump, buybacks are a way to keep the dump from crashing the stock’s value. In which case, buybacks continue until the major players who want out have exited.. Buybacks can bridge a company through a slump, too, but they don’t work for longterm gain.

Buybacks are self-defeating as a longer-term support to the market because, when they run on for too long, savvy investors become wary. Buybacks happen at the cost of capital investment that cash and credit could go toward if it were not being poured into buying back shares. So, buybacks happen at the cost of a company positioning itself for the future.

You can do that short-term and maybe not feel it much. You can never do it long-term and succeed. Old-fashion investors, who still like real value, lose interest in companies that are not creating value by doing what they could be doing with that same money in research and development or in upgrading manufacturing equipment, etc.

Call it “financial fatigue.” True investors eventually tire of stock values that only rise because of financial engineering.

What will prevent a 2016 recession in the US if buybacks are running out of steam?

Recessions are not measured by stock market values, but recessions and stock market crashes do naturally tend run in tandem. Corporate profits have declined for three quarters in a row; so what is going to replace buybacks in creating demand for stocks? And, if profits are declining, it’s pretty certain GDP (by which recessions are measured) is also declining.

It’s not likely that the data these companies report will energize investors either. So, April — usually a decent month for stocks — looks poised to hit stall speed just as the overall economy is also hitting stall speed. I’d say the decline of recent days in the market IS the market hitting stall speed.

I’ve reported how Caterpillar has been aggressively buying back shares and offering dividends as a way to support its share prices. That has not helped ward off Caterpillars own recession, as it has seen steadily falling revenue from its own product — both domestic and foreign — for most of the last three years. Its buybacks have done nothing to improve its market or its products, and ultimately even non-savvy investors should be able to see that selling products into a market is the only reason a company like Caterpillar exists. The company has spent more than $8 billion buying up its own shares to create a phony market for its stock.

The more Caterpillar uses its resources incestuously like that in order to pump up flagging stock prices by creating its own stock demand, the less it does to develop its product line and create demand for its products. Perhaps that is why Caterpillar stock has lost 12% of its value in spite of aggressive buybacks. Smart investors aren’t going for the candy. They want the meat.

Again we come to the economic Law of Diminishing Returns that I bring up so often. I bring it up because it is one of those economic fundamentals that cannot be ignored, but which, nevertheless, has been ignored by our recovery geniuses throughout the Great Recession. Remember, that I consider the Great Recession to be ongoing since its causes and its unemployment rage on.

(If you want to be tricked by all those part-time, lower-paying, no-benefit jobs that have been taken up by immigrant workers, both legal and illegal, go ahead. That’s your call based on your willingness to be duped and your willingness to watch the middle class get eviscerated with its eyes wide open as it is forced to compete with people who are willing to work for a lot, lot less. Remember also how the government plays with its job numbers. Only a few months ago, I reported on how only 10,000 jobs out of about 220,000 new jobs reported by the BLS were actual jobs. The rest were “adjustments” based on the Bureau of Lying Statistic’s assumptions. For some reason, the assumptions increased the number of jobs twenty-fold due to unseasonably warm weather when last year they increased the number of jobs twenty-fold due to unseasonably cold weather.)

The Law of Diminishing Returns always assures non-sustainable practices will meet their natural end. You cannot beat it. You can only delay the inevitable. In this case, that means delaying the 2016 recession to the latter part of the year and the stock market crash that should run in tandem with said recession.

Diminishing returns work like this: When companies start buying back shares, they create their own demand for their own stocks, so prices go up (a good return). The more companies continue to buy back their own shares, the more they start losing demand from from savvy investors who see that stock prices are only going up because of the buybacks and not because of a healthy company. As they go even further down that path, the company starts to look desperate and also starts to become less healthy because it is not using its resources to expand its potential. It is, therefore perceived as less worthy because of its apparent desperation, and it is less worthy because it has let its inventiveness and the quality of its operations slide.

Buybacks ultimately are like drinking your own urine or your own milk — not a program that can save you from dying of thirst for very long.

Smart money rushes for the market’s exit doors — another sign of recession

The trend indicates buybacks are nearing their natural end as their downside begins to outpace the upside. That is seen in the form of the smart money leaving the market quickly. As Zero Hedge reports, “Everything is being sold”:

“Still No Confidence In The Rally” – that’s the title of the latest weekly BofA report looking at the buying and selling by its smart money clients (institutional clients, private clients and hedge funds), which finds that not only were sales by this group of clients last week the largest since September, and the fifth-largest in our data history, but this was the 10th consecutive week of selling as absolutely nobody believed this fakest of fake “rebounds” in recent history.

“Fakest of fake” because this last rally was all engineered. The smart money sees through that engineering and gets out. In fact, it is probably the smart money that is creating that rally in order to build an exit door just for itself. If you’re going to dump a ton of shares, you have to do it via buybacks to avoid crashing your own stock values. The smart money can do that with buybacks because the BIG smart money is on the boards of those corporations.

Bank of America reports that its largest clients were net sellers of US stocks last week and that the outflow from the market from its major clients was the largest it has seen in its data history. To me, that sounds like we are running into a recession, and the smart money is rushing for the exits. Led by institutional investors, BofA says the rush out the fire escape shows “that clients continue to doubt the sustainability of the rally amid the lack of fundamental drivers.

Exactly. It was not a sustainable rally. And why wouldn’t they doubt its sustainability if they know they are the ones creating it with buybacks in order to get out?

Buybacks are diminishing as major players finish their exit plans and as the reporting period commences, and that is happening in an environment of degrading economic fundamentals; i.e., lowering sales due to global recession, a high-valued dollar that continues to diminish trade prospects, a crashing oil industry, towering debts, and rising corporate and even international defaults with many more lined up on the near horizon.

We are not just seeing the end of the fakest of fake rallies; we are seeing the end of the fakest of fake recoveries. The other thing that has ended for the stock market is free or cheap money from the Fed. So, when profits are in longterm decline and global trade is highly unlikely to do anything but get worse and corporate buybacks have hit that point in the curve of diminishing returns where they are triggering more concern than demand for stocks and defaults are rising while companies have more debt to default on because of all the buybacks they financed, what is going to drive stock prices up?

Regardless of whatever one might read in their horoscope graphs of the market, please explain to me HOW a genuine rally is possible with those fundamentals ins such thoroughly bad shape.

And that is what the Federal Reserve calls “recovery.”

The biggest leading economic indicator for stocks is pointing toward a 2016 recession

It is an aphorism of the stock market that, when the Dow transportation stocks are in decline, the market will soon follow. This is called “Dow Theory,” and it has a long track record of being one of the best indicators out there for both market drops and recessions.

The theory works like this: transportation companies are the first to notice the hit of an economic downturn. When fewer products ship, transportation companies feel the loss of freight. It starts with fewer natural resources being shipped to non-transportation industries to create products. It, then, worsens as the diminishing shipment of finished products takes transportation down even more.

Transport stocks were looking bullish for the market for a brief stint, but they have now soured again. When transportation is in longterm decline, sales of big trucks go down. Truck sales tanked by 37% in March from a year ago, and inventories of unsold trucks reached a high not seen since … immediately prior to the Great Recession. Who wants to buy big rigs when products are not moving?

Rail is looking bad, too:

The dark clouds just continue to gather on the nation’s economic horizon. This time, rail traffic has plunged to recessionary levels, according to Wolf Street.com’s Wolf Richter. U.S. railroad cargo in 2015 dropped the most in six years, and 2016 isn’t expected to be any better. (NewsMax)

Transportation is a measure of how well the real economy is clicking. Alas rail traffic is getting clobbered. The deterioration in the second half of 2015 dragged the whole year down from 2014: carloads fell 6.1%…. In December, total volume dropped 8.9% year over year…. And then there was last week’s rail traffic! Christine Hughes, Chief Investment Strategist at OtterWood Capital, put it this way: “Rail volumes at recessionary levels.” (WolfStreet)

That was in December and January. Deterioration of Dow transports usually precedes a fall in the overall Dow by as much as five months.

Stock market crash is inevitable and ongoing until Fed comes to the rescue

Even with Fed help, the market’s crash is now inevitable, but it could be delayed when the Fed steps in more aggressively, which it will do. It’s unfortunate that it will intervene like a herd of geniuses running off a cliff because every time it puts off the inevitable, it merely pushes the problem forward, piles the debts higher and makes the eventual difficulty that much worse by trying to delay the kinds of major economic changes needed.

The crash that began in January will continue, as I’ve noted from the start, with surges upward breaking the fall along the way. This last surge was likely so great solely because so much of the smart money was fleeing the market and using company credit to do it. Thus, the big players were able to dump their stocks and increase stock value at the same time.

Just more reason why it is predictable that the stock market will continue on a crash course and not recover into a new bull market. It is not surprising to find that the S&P 500 this week turned from finally becoming faintly positive for the year to being negative. There is just no real support for a positive market … unless, of course, the Fed does a major turnaround and goes back to full-on stimulus as a way to try to pump the market up again. With the oil industry on the gallows and profits falling everywhere, a dovish Fed is really the only hope the stock market has right now.

The Fed has announced an emergency closed-door meeting for this coming Monday. The last time it did that was just before it ended its zero-interest-rate policy. Perhaps it is meeting in such expedited, secretive manner again on Monday to consider reversing that policy change. “Oops. Guess we shouldn’t have done that.” Perhaps the Fed is noting that, without its continued support and without the other fake support of corporate repurchases of stocks, their bubble has nothing left to inflate it.

I’m speculating, obviously, as the Fed does not reveal its secret motives to me; nor did it use the word “emergency.” The word the Fed used for this specially called meeting was “expedited.” I am merely speculating that, if one holds a closed, special meeting under “expedited procedures” there is some sort of emergency behind it. I could be wrong. It could be that Grandma Yellen is calling the board together for a surprise birthday party for Papa Ben, but the declared purpose of the meeting is “to review and determine advance and discount rates” of interest charged to its member banks.

Hmm. Sounds like that would be a review of the recent move to raise those interest rates. Their committee in charge of such matters, the Federal Open Market Committee, just had a meeting to determine interest rates, so why the sudden need for the Fed’s superior Board of Governors expedite a closed meeting to review and determine all that was just reviewed and determined? Perhaps “expedited procedures” allow the Board of Governors to overrule the FOMC on an emergency basis or to take additional action on an emergency basis.

I am only speculating to say I would not be surprised if new stimulus comes out of the meeting. That will not make me feel wrong about what I’ve said about the stock market and the economy crashing if that happens. I’ve always maintained that the Fed’s recovery only lasts as long as the Fed stays continually in recovery mode. That’s why it was easy to predict the stock market would crash as soon as the Fed began winding down the last of its stimulus. Crash it did — the worst January in stock-market history, worse even than any January during the Great Depression.

I’ve also always said the Fed will step back in with more stimulus when its recovery fails, but it will be too little, too late. That doesn’t mean it will not give some temporary lift, especially enough to get through the present election cycle. Even though the Fed’s recovery has no capacity to sustain itself and Fed stimulus has hit the downslope of diminishing returns, a return to stimulus is still likely to give the market some buoyancy for a short time.

On the other hand, I would not be surprised to see Fed stimulus backfire this time — just as it greater stimulus in Japan when the Bank of Japan sunk to negative interest to try to force consumers to move the economy along with more consumption. What it forced was people taking their money out of the banks, and the banks suffering losses.

The way the Fed can try to avoid an immediate backfire is to come up with a form of stimulus that is vastly different from what its done before. I’ve heard a fair amount of speculation about “helicopter money” lately. By that, people mean the Fed may just drop money from the sky — in other words, let it float out directly to the general populous. That would help avoid a populist knee-jerk revolt against more QE for the wealthy.

Whatever they come up with, it will have to be a lot different than what they’ve done in the past if it is to avoid backfiring. More of the same is likely to cause people to ask, “Why are we doing this again when it hasn’t gotten us anywhere in the past?” I could be wrong on that of course. People were dumb enough to believe QE2 would work after QE1 failed, and they were dumb enough to believe QE3 would work after QE2 failed.

Maybe they are just eternally dumb, and I have too much faith in humanity when I suggest you cannot fool them four times in a row with essentially the same tricks. So many people don’t want to see the truth, no matter how much evidence is shoved in their face. Give the masses candy by delivering QE for everyone, however, and that’s easy to forgive … and easy to believe in because you want to. I also may be overestimating the Fed’s ability to think creatively, as it may be impossible for the Fed to conceive of anything that does not go directly to its wealthy members.

Bear in mind that the Federal Reserve has the courage to lead by cowing to the stock market every time it burps. So, I’m sure it would like to avoid the appearance of failure by timing any reversal of its recent interest “normalization” policy to an event outside of the market. Will they find they have that option? They are not omnipotent — even if they think they are the gods of the financial universe — but there are a lot of bad events waiting to happen that they can blame for the need to drop interest … so it doesn’t look like they are the maidservants of the stock market. Maybe they see an aptly timed event approaching now.

Regardless, this has long been a stock market that wants to believe in unreality. It likes to live in fantasy, and that runs in the Fed’s favor. The market wants to believe in recovery, so I would not rule out a burst of market euphoria if the Fed reverses course and returns to some kind of stimulus.

Even though that kind of action will be seen as an admission of failed recovery by any rational mind, I’m not sure there are many rational minds in the investing world any more. Most seem more pleased to run on fantasy economics. Therefore, a temporary rise in the market will especially become true if the Board of Governors can come up with a new crackpot idea that gives new hope to hopelessly stupid investors.

Here is what makes this year different. Both the Republican establishment and the Democrat establishment desperately want to see Trump and Bernie (the anti-establishment candidates) fail. The establishment hates the fact that those candidates are emerging as likely victors because those candidates have gone rogue. They don’t track with the Wall-Street-serving establishment! They track with the party proletariat.

That means the two parties will likely work together (behind the scenes as much as possible) to do all they can to pump things up long enough to get through this election cycle. I’ve stated the administration would do that, even in my predictions of a great crash; but I also said they would not likely succeed because they were at odds with Republicans wanting the economy to fail on Obama’s watch.

However, both parties now have Trump and Bernie brandishing their butts and giving them a reason to work together for the common destruction of the country. They’ve never to come together with a fiscal policy that could actually improve the US economy, but they can and will come together to save the plans of the establishment to bail out bankers and support Wall street, etc. Both parties now have common cause to see the economy make it through the election cycle because economic failure would prove both leading candidates right in their own predictions of economic disaster. If that happens, the establishment fails. And they know it! So, it’s a much different ball game now.

Winning party power is more important to Republicans than the good of the nation. That’s why they spent eight years doing nothing but opposition — not a single grand creative idea to save a nation in its worst condition in generations. Now, however, they know that, if Trump is proven right on what they see as extravagant predictions of economic doom, he will get the popular vote. That scares them to death and scares Wall Street, too. That’s enough to replace concerns about putting the party in power with concerns about keeping the establishment in power — the money behind both parties.

A Trump win, if he’s true to his many words, means the unwinding of the establishment. The alternative Republicans see is a Democrat President Bernie. The Republican establishment would feel the Bern even more if an anti-war socialist wins. Now that the establishment candidates have crumbled into the dust, a failed economy will no longer work for the good of Republican power. It will either put Trump in power or — horror of horrors — Bernie.

The only question that remains for me is whether the two major parties with the Fed’s help can manage to forestall the crash until November now that the crash has already begun. The trouble that is unfolding should be apparent enough to energize them all into trying; but I still think the events will largely override their best efforts.

Last year, I said there will be so many troubles ready to fall apart at the seams in 2016 that the two parties and the Fed won’t be able to hold things together until the end of the election cycle. Even though the Republicans have a lot more reason to work with Democrats and with the Fed to keep the economy sliming along, I think the best we’ll see is heroic efforts that work in faltering ways — series of surges and stalls as the great engine runs out of gas and the market manipulators pull out the choke to help it run on its last fumes for one last surge.

If they can, in the very least, hold off a full collapse until Trump wins (if they can’t stop him), the establishment can try to blame the economic collapse all on him. They can claim that the recovery crashed just because of his brash mouth, even though rational people know the economy is already falling apart at the seams. If they can do that, they will be able to step back into power and, at least, derive the benefit of having a scapegoat for their own failures. That’s why Trump says he hopes it will come down before he gets in, rather than after.

A 2016 recession is likely here already, but can it be papered over through November?

I believe the recession is already here, entering with the stock market’s worst January plunge in history. My only wonder is whether or not a US recession will become visible to everyone until after the 2016 election.

Already GDP estimates for the first quarter are being revised downward week after week. This past week some estimates of what the data will show when published finally reached as low as zero growth for the first quarter. When first-quarter GDP is reported, we could easily find that we are already in a recession since recessions are always declared after the fact when two quarters of decline happen consecutively. Then they are declared to have begun at the start of the first quarter of decline. In short, recessions are never declared until, at least, six months after they began. So, how hard would it be to hide the fact of a recession for an additional four months to take the revelation of a recession past the election cycle?

The first quarter of the year is now looking close to being one of decline. GDP also often reports higher at first and then gets revised downward many months later as more data comes in to replace estimates. When things are this close to going below zero, that area where data is estimated provides enough wiggle room for hiding the truth about recession through November.

I am certain it will be hidden because everyone in the two main parties wants it hidden — except Trump and Sanders — unless the truth is so bad that the government cannot skew the numbers enough in its estimates without getting called on the carpet for blatant falsehood. The government has many ways of “adjusting” GDP upward in those parts of the data that remain estimates until later in the year.

It may turn out the economy did not grow at all in the first quarter. Trade data released Tuesday show the U.S. deficit widened more than expected to $47.1 billion in February and was a bigger drag on growth than expected. It’s the latest economic metric that chiseled away at the tracking model for first quarter growth…. Given the average, and substantial, revisions to government GDP data, that 0.5 percent could easily turn into a negative number.… The widely followed Atalanta Fed’s GDPNow model sees the economy expanding by just 0.4 percent. (CNBC)

Uh huh.

Since estimates of GDP growth has been revised downward every month, it could easily true GDP has reached negative levels by the time it is reported; but you can be sure internal efforts will be a scurry to keep estimated portions of GDP high in order to create an overall positive GDP report so the two parties do not get Trumped and Berned.

Debt-Default Epocalypse approaches in 2016

The market is struggling, the Fed is calling expedited meetings, and we haven’t even hit the next default wave (at least, not that we know):

Losses on bonds from defaulted companies are likely to be higher than in previous cycles, because U.S. issuers have more debt relative to their assets, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists. Those high levels of borrowings mean that if a company liquidates, the proceeds have to cover more liabilities. “We’ve had more corporate debt than ever, and more leverage than ever, which increases the potential for greater pain.” (NewsMax)

Maybe the Fed sees that the default tsunami is arriving on shore. Perhaps that is what triggered a specially called meeting of the Federal Reserve. Do you think they have enough sandbags to create a seawall that will hold against the default tsunami until November? That is really the only question left in my mind. That the economy is all going down is a slam-dunk, but the combination of both parties and the Fed working together equals a lot of sandbags and a lot of manpower. Will it be enough, though, to hold against a tsunami?

All must work together to avoid Fed-Hating President Trump or Socialist President Sanders. So, it is beyond me to know how much that combination of counterforces can stall the inevitable, but they will certainly do their best. Expect to see some extravagant measures in the months ahead.

Only three months ago, the Fed was convinced the US could withstand all the global financial shocks that would be coming its way. I said it wouldn’t take long for that to be disproved, and already it is clear the Fed is no longer convinced the US economy can withstand those shocks. The Fed has already capitulated to the stock market on their return to normal economics by admitting they will have to postpone their earlier schedule of rate hikes due to global concerns.

Uh, huh. That didn’t take long.

I think the Fed is running scared but doing everything it can to put a good face on things because they know they have engineered a market where perception is reality. The Fed, I’m sure, knows a lot more about how credit defaults are leaning than anyone else, but everyone else is starting to learn how bad the possible defaults look:

At least part of the pain that investors will experience in this downturn was deferred from the last credit crunch, which for corporate issuers was relatively short-lived. During the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve was quick to cut rates, and investors began diving back into junk bonds quickly….

Many companies were able to refinance debt instead of defaulting.

“A lot of the troubled companies that had become overleveraged were able to find more temporary solutions in the last credit cycle,” Holtz said. “Those Band-Aids are no longer available now, and a lot of companies are going to have to face distress.”

…Leverage levels have been rising as more companies use borrowings to refinance existing liabilities, buy back shares and take other steps that do not increase asset values. (“Coming Debt-Default Armageddon Will Be Painful for Investors“)

Uh huh.

While I’ve been saying the Dow will probably drop 60% from its all-time high before the current bear environment ends, Albert Edwards, the Société Générale strategist, forecasts the S&P 500 will plunge 75 percent! He, too, says that recession is already underway:

Newly released U.S. whole economy profits data show a gut-wrenching slump…. Whole economy profits never normally fall this deeply without a recession unfolding…. Historically, all recessions are effectively caused by slumps in business investment driven by a profits downturn…. If I had to pick one asset class to avoid it would be U.S. corporate bonds, for which sky-high default rates will shock investors. (NewsMax)

What he said.

26 Comments

  1. Ping from cdndmf:

    What a great article. Thank you Zerohedge for pointing me to this website. Seems to me that a real and sustained collapse in the price of oil will be what pulls the window on this high-altitude flyer, but the magic-craft holding such an thing at bay is apparently not to be underestimated.

  2. Ping from QEternity:

    I’m convinced they’re pull out all the stops — printing, duct tape, chewing gum, band aids, bailing wire, PPT actions, etc etc to keep the game going thru the election season. We saw what happened after it all fell apart at the end under Bush. The Democrats don’t want to see the other guys win, and the Fed is heavily democrat. Not usre it will work, but don’t mean theyre not going to keep trying…

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I believe they are, too, but I’m not sure how. At the end of the Bush term, it was completely obvious — massive bailouts, lowering of interest, etc. All very public, although specific transactions with failing banks were completely behind closed doors. We could see the big picture of what is going on.

      With January’s crash, there was none of the major damage to the central nervous system (no collapse of major investment banks that would bring others down with them). It was a result of coming off of zero-interest-rate policy and a long continuing and steepening plunge in oil prices.

      The reason for the rise back up is not clear to me. The rise in oil prices seems completely irrational, as oversupply continues to build, albeit at a slower rate than I anticipated. Nevertheless, we are increasingly moving toward that position of having no tanks left to store it in.

      As these oil prices rebounded, Washington became stuffed with central bankers and treasurers/financial ministers. The Fed held two or three emergency meetings plus an unscheduled meeting with the president and VP. (Unscheduled as in suddenly put on the calendar for a couple of days out — not the way presidents who have no available time in their schedules hold normal informational meetings.

      But what happened and how it might be driving oil prices and stock prices up, I don’t know. I’ve seen nothing that is anywhere near as clear as we had at the end of the Bush period. It could be there is no connection; but so much sudden smoke smells like fire.

      –David

      • Ping from QEternity:

        The FIRE will soon be under the metals again in great seriousness. No one knows when faith fails in the $USD but the moves in metals and miners tell me something is ‘brewing’.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Well, there is a lot of Chinese movement into metals, and the Chinese want to see gold become a more important part of world trade in order to make the dollar a less important part. So, that movement is a threat to the US if it results in lower demand for US treasuries, raising the price of our debt as we try to entice other investors to finance us.

          It WILL create a lower demand for US Treasuries because China is still a major holder of US debt, and it has been selling those treasuries in order to buy gold.

          Hmm. Maybe the Fed and the Obama Admin. are starting to see what the Chinese game is, and that is the reason for their recent emergency meetings. If only they had read the blog, they’d have figured it out a couple of years ago.

          China has to go slow at this game, though, or it will crash the value of the treasuries it still holds (about $3 trillion) and raise the price of gold that it wants to accumulate. So, China’s repositioning has considerable natural restraints. Hard to move that much money quickly without destroying the value of your own assets.

          –David

          • Ping from QEternity:

            Russia has for all intent completely de-dollarized. China cannot quickly but you are right and they have pretty much admitted as much.

            No one is happy with the ‘dollar system’. Now the Saudis have become very vocal about it as well.

            They say the life of a reserve currency is about 40 years or so and we’ve beat the odds so far. I don’t expect a decade from now things will look the same.

            If the petrodollar ends, so goes the dollar.

  3. Ping from tjb323:

    Great artical Dave, as usual. Just a thought. When I read about all the extra “meetings” this week I could not help think that they are planning or prepping meetings of a sort. (Just a thought not based on anything but my gut) Many believe, and I don’t find it far fetched, that TPTB will actually crash the system when they think it is time or let it crash. If things crash before the election, then that proves Trump was right, but then it becomes the race of “who can claim they can fix the country the best”. Intuition tells me that Trump may not win that one. He does not strike me as the type to be the big Government type to swoop in and save the day, where as Hillary would with all her socialist rederic. People-in-need in this country think they need the government to swoop in and help them out. For the most part we have become a country where self reliance means calling to order pizza all by themselves. This crash now situation also works with another theory that has been around. The one that says there will be no election and Obama stays. If the system crashes soon and it gets soooo bad that everone goes crazy then a national emergency could be declared and then maybe martial law. If it were to crash fairly soon it certianly would be good timing to let things get bad just around the end of summer or the begining of fall. Very interesting times, for sure. No matter if I am wrong or right, it truly saddens me where our country is headed. I do have hope for my children, but that is only because I will be teaching them what it truly means to be resourceful and self-relient.

    I always look forward to your articals, God has given you the gift of insite and it truly helps us all. Thank You!!!
    Take care and God Bless!!!!

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I don’t know, T. It’s hard for me to believe a crash would ever work well for Obama. America has never supported a president that had the economy come down on his watch, and Obama clearly wants a legacy he can be proud of, not one that he has to run from. Given how often he talks about how nicely we have recovered, it seems he wants to be known as the president who brought recovery to the US and that he’d far prefer, if it falls apart, it does it on someone else’s watch. The media has already done a fine job of saying that, Wall Street thinks Trump will be a disaster for the economy, so it looks like their setting the table for blaming Trump when if it does go down. They’ll probably try to claim that Trump spooked the market with all his negative talk; but a market that is that weak has no fundamental support to stand on anyway.

      I have never understood why some people think Obama will stay in office past his second term when that is blatantly unconstitutional — even in a crisis. It’s not just unconstitutional for him to have more than two terms, but it is would be a coup for him to refuse to release power to the duly elected president of the United States. The only way I could Obama staying in power would be temporarily if the winning presidential candidate and vice-presidential candidate died before inauguration. I don’t know what provision the government has for that, but it might be that the standing president would remain in office only until a new election could be called, and I don’t know what good such a brief extra stint would do him. I would think that, in such a case, we’d have an emergency election within a month to choose from among the candidates whose names were already on the ballot. (I don’t know, though, what dictates already exist under law as to how that would be handled, if any.)

      I cannot believe he’d have the audacity to try to forcibly stay in office. He’d create a massive crisis all around him far beyond any of the things he has done to push the outside of the envelope constitutionally. He would create the nation’s worst crisis in its history, and might have to be taken out by the military. So, I don’t know why people think that would or could happen, as I don’t see why Obama would put himself into such a mess, though I do read people saying that fairly often.

      What I see, looking at the evidence in his actual actions, versus wild speculation, is that he has spent eight years, giving the UN increasingly more sway over decisions that were once decided by this nation for itself. That looks to me like someone who is hoping to be the next Sec’y General of the UN and who wants to use his time in office to empower the UN Sec’y’s position so that its all ready for him with the seat warmed up after he leaves office in the US. Refusing to yield power in a proper succession in the US to the next president would virtually assure that the UN wouldn’t trust him and would never elect him. It may also be hesitant to elect him if the US economy tanks on his watch because the UN will want someone who is effective in a financial crisis.

      –David

      • Ping from tjb323:

        Very interesting thoughts. I see your points about Obama and the issue with him staying in office. That is a theory I have seen, but I also don’t take too much stock in it. I also have no real idea how that would even happen, I only mention it because of the rumor. Although another thought I have considered is that the UN is part of the establishment (the NWO) that wants the US to crash (for a list of reasons that would take to long to type). One theory is that Obama is one of their puppets and by him helping them with their grand plan would ensure him the position on the UN. Kind of like in the business world, where you get the big promotion if you fire a few people who did not deserve it. All theories mind you, but one never knows. What ever the plan, I don’t trust them with anything. Thanks for your response!!!

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I appreciate all tips. I’ve been gathering together many of the same articles to draw on for a similar article that focuses more on the banking side, tying it in with the Fed’s latest emergency meetings (today and tomorrow) and the Fed’s surprise meeting with the president and vice president.

      I find Michael and I are often running alongside each other that way.

      Stay tuned : )

      • Ping from Delving Eye:

        I really get the feeling the Fed invited O and Joe to their private little confab to act as middlemen should the Fed need the Prez to manipulate things, like issuing an executive order, say — one that, in the event of a crash, orders banks to continue lending (in their fashion anyway) and extending credit (ha!) at least until the election.

        I think the Fed realizes that the masses holding pitchforks have no qualms about using said weapons (to say nothing of whatever heat they’re packing), and marching into DC and the halls of Congress hungry for blood.

        Still, if there is an epocalypse and everyone goes hungry except the Richie Riches of the country, there’s no holding back the 99%, not even the dreamy-eyed Fed, no matter how many hoedowns they hold.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Instead, the Fed members will be invited to literal hoedowns, as in garden hoes coming down on their heads while the pitch forks skewer their backs.

        • Ping from RichM:

          Unfortunately, I tend to think too many factions of people would turn on each other and there would be no organized movement to take back the government. As the people kill each other off all while communications are cut…. after about 3 weeks of carnage and starvation, here come the well fed and rested FEDs with their 3 Billion extra rounds of ammunition, Apache attack choppers, tanks, armored vehicles…. and knowing Obama the UN “peace keepers” will have been invited in. Mean-while the elites are on their private islands waiting it out.

          • Ping from RichM:

            Actually in a way… the organized attempt to take back our government is already underway via Donald Trump. I mean if you think about it, its not really all about Trump but he has tapped into a movement to take back Washington. We can see how the establishment, media, NWO is not about to allow Trump in no matter what. When that happens…. one way or the other, that may cause major civil unrest and this is combined with the socialist and racial unrest taking place. Two completely different factions. (do I smell a Black Swan?) Cheating or stealing the peoples voice from electing an outsider like Trump is similar with Hillary and her pre-arranged Super delegates that assures Bernie won’t get it. Those Bernie people may also get very upset even though I don’t think most of them even know what capitalism vs socialism really is.

            I even read today that GW Bush and Laura Bush hinted toward all but endorsing Hillary Clinton over Trump. They are protecting their two headed 1 party system and power structure.

            If Trump made it in, they are scared to death of what he might reveal and expose let alone effecting the elitist’s power structure and ability to line their own pockets….. both the Clintons and the Bush’s must have things to hide along with so many others. Even Mitt Romney stabbed Trump in the back because he was told to by the GOP establishment.

            The fact that George Soro’s helps fund both the GOP and Dem establishments stopTrump or anyoneButTrump movements is most telling.

          • Ping from Knave_Dave:

            I am a very positive and happy person myself, but also a realist. When it comes to the economy realism doesn’t leave room for happy scenarios until the unrealism that rules the day goes away. Wonderland is chaos, and that will become more apparent.

            So, like you, I think we will see outbreaks of anarchy and government efforts to put those down in order to retake or maintain control. There was a day when insurrection meant guns against guns. Now insurrectionists don’t have a chance, as it’s guns against tanks or something worse.

            I definitely don’t advocate anarchy as a response, as it will be bloody, and it never results in government for the good of the people. Not that I have seen. The examples I have read about have all turned to “might is right.” The toughest, meanest guy rises to the top.

            However, I do hope people get angry enough to over through their government by legitimate means — by those means that are built into it constitutionally. But, with the two parties running the election, that may mean violence, too, as the parties will likely cheat even in vote counting to stay in power. We got a hint of that Colorado where Republicans decided not to have a vote. In that case, it was apparently the party’s own legal right to declare in advance that they wouldn’t choose candidates via a primary; but the whole thing reeks of the party wresting control from the people.

            This could turn into the dirtiest election we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Out of that comes a sense of illegitimacy of the government elected, and out of that comes contempt for that government and refusal to submit to a government people do not believe was legitimately elected.

            I hope it doesn’t go that way.

            –David

  4. Ping from Chris P:

    I always feel like I want to pop some popcorn before reading your posts. It is always probing and reaching the depths of what is going on behind, under and around the scenes. I think you covered every avenue but due to the date you posted you didn’t know “O and Biden would be invited to the FOMC meeeting. Brings a whole new sordid bit of details into the equation. I would say it could get devious at some point not wanting to pass up a good crisis. Keep up the good work.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      That was a new turn of events that has certainly piqued my interest in this surprise meeting. I’m trying to sniff around and see if I can find any more information as to what that meeting is all about, but we’ll probably never really know. We’ll only know as much as they have to share or know whatever narrative they choose to create.

      Newly “sordid,” as you say, because politics is not supposed to influent the Fed. (Yaright, but we’ve always been told that is why Fed Heads are appointed.)

      What is so important that both the president and the VP will be attending. Hadn’t heard the Biden part this morning; but if that’s correct, it’s somewhat rare that the VP and Pres attend things together due to security reasons. Is this meeting between Fed and Pres an effort to goose the economic engine, as I discussed in this article in order to make sure GDP gets enough of a lift to keep us officially out of recession so that Sanders and Trump are not proven right? Or is it a response to a dire situation that needs immediate coordination of efforts and speeches between the Pres and the Fed — coordination that even the VP needs to be in on?

      Certainly adds a lot of fuel to what I suggested above. Please pass the popcorn.

      –David

      • Ping from Chris P:

        Dave
        The article that stated Biden was going to be there was on Zerohedge @23:35 on 4-10-16. I guess you are going to have to start live streaming to keep up with the changes in numbers the great machine keeps putting out. Doing good!!!

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Also, look at what has happened to the Atlanta Fed’s data on GDP since I gathered information fast enough. I can’t write fast enough to keep up with how fast they are revising data downward. The current info I had a couple of days ago place GDP at 0.4%. By the time I clicked “publish,” they had already revised it down again to to 0.1%. Now that is such a close shave with zero as to be a distinction without a difference. Their margin of error is greater than that. So, overnight, we turned from them looking slightly positive, to clearly sitting right on the edge of negative. (May explain the special meeting with the president if things are being revised downward that quickly.)

  5. Ping from jakartaman:

    And yet the idiots will put an establishment bought and paid for politician in the WH
    Trump 2016
    The media everyone is scared to death of Trump – best reason I know to vote for him!!
    If you ask the average job on the street – they would not know we are facing an disaster – dee – dee dee dum!!

  6. Ping from Creepy Pedro:

    I agree with everything you write with the exception, that we have two parties….we don’t. We have one party and have always had one party since the death of JFK. The LWO (luciferian world order) that is here in the usa, is what calls the shots. We dont have choices, we have owners. They practically own every establishment that you and I pay taxes to. The red team vs the blue team is irrevelant at this juncture in time. “If voting mattered, they would have outlawed it” – Mark Twain.

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