From a conventional “financial stability” standpoint, this Credit cycle may appear virtually pristine. Yet Credit Bubbles survive only with unrelenting debt growth. Today’s mirage of “financial stability” depends on ongoing massive federal deficits coupled with aggressive monetary stimulus.
I’ve updated my Best TSP Allocation for 2019. The discussion on the best TSP funds has not changed significantly this year from 2018 other than discussing the new TSP I fund index and a reversal in interest rates. Current members… Read More ›
A financial smoke detector went off in the last month (I’m sure your financial adviser told you about it, right). The financial media provided many excuses like “who knew corporations would have to pay taxes like they do every year at this time surprising the bankers” (never mind they have the lowest tax rates ever).
First time all four developed countries have been negative year-over-year since last two global recessions.
It was no coincidence that U.S. “repo” market tumult followed on the heels of an abrupt reversal in global bond yields. I appreciate how the enormous global buildup in leveraged speculation works miraculously so long as bond yields are declining (bond prices rising). If only bond yields could fall forever – even as debt and deficits expand uncontrollably. It’s not clear to me how the global system doesn’t turn increasingly unstable, which I believe explains why the ECB and now the Fed have resorted again to QE.
This was the second strongest (22-week) monetary expansion in U.S. history, trailing only 2011’s “QE2” period…
Today the SP500 (TSP C fund) is below its August 2018 high and the TSP S fund is 10% below its August 2018 high – distribution, distribution, distribution. Market tops take time. Secular market tops aided by central banks take longer.
This year we are seeing more underlying turmoil in the global financial markets. The Fed and media talking heads are telling us the markets need more financial reserves ignoring the trillions that are supposedly in them already. No, I think Doug Noland has it right – “The issue is not a shortage of reserves but a gross excess of speculative leverage.”
Tread careful this Fall. Sometimes those Autumn fires get out of control.
Something changed this week in the markets. It has us on heightened alert.
Seventeen trillion dollars of negative yielding bonds and climbing is not the result of free market capitalism. It is the terminal phase of the global credit bubble.
The notion that the Federal Reserve would not respond to declining stock prices – under any circumstance – has become heresy. Where was the outrage when Bill Dudley (while at Goldman Sachs) and others specifically called for the Fed to adopt policies to spur mortgage Credit expansion for the purpose of systemic reflation after the collapse of the “tech” Bubble?