#] #] ********************* #] "$d_web"'economics, markets/market news.txt' www.BillHowell.ca 20Sep2018 initial To view this file - use a text editor,constant width font (eg courrier 10), tab - 3 spaces see also : "$d_web"'economics, markets/market news.txt' "$d_web"'economics, markets/market news extraInfo.txt' "$d_PROJECTS""Investments/0_daily trade plan.ods" "$d_PROJECTS""Investments/7_cheap advice [assumption, plan]s.txt" 48************************************************48 24************************24 # Table of Contents, see ToC file - not listed [here, screen] as it's too large! : # $ grep "^#]" "$d_web"'economics, markets/market news.txt' | sed 's/^#\]/ /' >"$d_web"'economics, markets/Financial Post- TableOfContents.txt' # to view : $ geany -i "$d_web"'economics, markets/Financial Post- TableOfContents.txt' & 24************************24 08********08 #] ??Jan2024 08********08 #] ??Jan2024 08********08 #] ??Jan2024 08********08 #] ??Jan2024 08********08 #] 26Jan2024 Puetz newsletter "... The contraction in free credit balances is likely a secondary signal of an ongoing liquidity squeeze. Because of this squeeze, the ratio of Margin Debt to Free Credit Balances (bottom of page 6) is now near a record for this century, and above the previous record from late-2021. The bottom line is that massive volumes of leveraged trades are thinly margined and highly vulnerable to forced selling during the next selloff. This is one the key conditions for a market crash. ..." ratio of the NASDAQ Index relative to the Dow Utilities (top of page 7) provides an interesting measure of the divergence between low-yielding and high-yielding stocks. Stocks in the NASDAQ Index have a dividend yield of 1.48%, whereas the NASDAQ-100 only yields 0.85%. Conversely, utility stocks currently have a dividend yield of 4.00%. Thus, NASDAQ investors are prone to take above average risks, whereas those who invest in utility stocks tend to be risk averse. Because the NASDAQ/Dow Utility ratio now exceeds both the March 2000 peak and the December 2021 peak, this is yet another signal of outsized speculation and risk-taking. >> buy high-yield utilities? people may jump on these if things go bad... 08********08 #] 28Dec2023 Phil Anderson: Investors Will Fail When They Don’t Understand the 18.6-Year Cycle https://www.rogueeconomics.com/cycles-trading/investors-will-fail-when-they-dont-understand-the-18-6-year-cycle/ Investors Will Fail When They Don’t Understand the 18.6-Year Cycle Phil Anderson 09Feb2023 >> stocks & real estate 08********08 #] 27Dec2023 Andrew Pancholi, Akhil Patel: 18.6 year cycle, what it holds for 2024 Akhil Patel, author of The Secret Wealth Advantage video 47:42 (47 minutes long) : 2,062 views Dec 25, 2023 Join Akhil Patel and myself discussing what lies ahead for 2024 over a fireside chat. see "$d_web"'economics, markets/231225 Pancholi, Patel: 18.6 year cycle, what it holds for 2024.txt' 08********08 #] 29Nov2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/note-to-bulls-stock-market-valuations-havent-improved-over-the-last-2-years-5173c581?mod=mark-hulbert Note to bulls: Stock-market valuations haven’t improved over the last 2 years Published: Nov. 27, 2023 at 2:17 p.m. ET The S&P 500 is almost as overvalued today as it was at the bull market’s January 2022 high &&&&&&&& Howell - Hulbert's monthly table of valuations is always welcome. It's easy to get carried away, or more to the point, get into "Fear of Missing Out" (FOMO). Hitting valuations like 2022 is a caution I needed. +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Betting on Wall Street’s market forecasts predicts trouble https://www.marketwatch.com/story/betting-on-wall-streets-market-forecasts-predicts-trouble-for-your-portfolio-9a89af57?mod=mark-hulbert Betting on Wall Street’s market forecasts predicts trouble for your portfolio Last Updated: Nov. 27, 2023 at 2:14 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 27, 2023 at 7:25 a.m. ET Don’t base your financial plan on expectations about the economy and geopolitics +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-magnificent-seven-is-like-the-nifty-50-if-only-they-could-be-so-lucky-1ef77f6d?mod=mark-hulbert The ‘Magnificent Seven’ is like the ‘Nifty 50’? If only they could be so lucky. Published: Nov. 29, 2023 at 4:28 p.m. ET Buying high-flying growth stocks at premium prices can be profitable — if you can hold on for decades &&&&&&&& Howell - I'm really glad that I saw this article about the Nifty-50. I had only heard two parts of the story: their fabled time, and the downturn. I was missing the "happy ever after" part. Mind you, patience is one thing I don't have, especially for 10+ years. My bad. +-----+ #] Joseph Adinolfi: ‘Magnificent Seven’ resemble ‘Nifty 50’ stocks crushed in 1970s crash https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-beware-magnificent-seven-are-starting-to-resemble-nifty-50-stocks-that-got-crushed-in-the-1970s-market-crash-6e26b351?mod=joseph-adinolfi Investors beware: ‘Magnificent Seven’ are starting to resemble ‘Nifty 50’ stocks that got crushed in the 1970s market crash Published: Nov. 28, 2023 at 9:49 a.m. ET /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/stkIdx- US vs global equity relative price perfom.png +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Munger's list of common mistakes people make Munger himself compiled a list of common mistakes people make, and they’re not just about investing. Last Updated: Nov. 29, 2023 at 8:55 a.m. ET First Published: Nov. 29, 2023 at 4:25 a.m. ET Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency Liking/Loving Tendency Disliking/Hating Tendency Doubt-Avoidance Tendency Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency Curiosity Tendency Kantian Fairness Tendency Envy/Jealously Tendency Reciprocation Tendency Influence-from-Mere-Association Tendency Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial Excessive Self-Regard Tendency Overoptimism Tendency Deprival-Superreaction Tendency Social-Proof Tendency Contrast-Misreaction Tendency Stress-Influence Tendency Availability-Misweighing Tendency Use-It-or-Lose-It Tendency Drug-Misinfluence Tendency Senescence-Misinfluence Tendency Authority-Misinfluence Tendency Twaddle Tendency Reason-Respecting Tendency Lollapalooza Tendency—The Tendency to Get Extreme Consequences from Confluences of Psychology Tendencies Acting in Favor of a Particular Outcome 08********08 #] 21Nov2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: There’s hope for market timing, after all https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-traders-take-note-theres-hope-for-market-timing-after-all-21cc31ec?mod=mark-hulbert Stock traders take note: There’s hope for market timing, after all Last Updated: Nov. 13, 2023 at 5:52 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 13, 2023 at 4:02 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert It’s possible to beat the market by sidestepping the S&P 500’s best and worst days In the real world, of course, no one is able to sidestep all the good or all the bad days. But what if that were possible? The table below provides insight. 2023 return through 11/8 Standard deviation of daily returns Buy-and-hold return +14.1% 0.85 Sidestepping the 8 best days -1.5% 0.78 Sidestepping the 8 worst days +30.5% 0.79 Sidestepping the 8 best and the 8 worst days +12.6% 0.72 Notice that when you sidestep both the best and the worst days, you come close to matching the buy-and-hold return, but with measurably less risk. As a result, you beat the market on a risk-adjusted basis. But do market timers have a realistic shot at avoiding the trading sessions with either the biggest gains or the biggest losses — the most volatile trading sessions, in other words? The surprising answer is “yes,” according to an academic study entitled “Volatility-Managed Portfolios.” It was conducted by Alan Moreira of the University of Rochester and Tyler Muir of UCLA. I wrote about this study several months ago, so will briefly summarize its findings here. The professors found that the most volatile sessions on Wall Street tend to be bunched together in clusters. By reducing your equity exposure when volatility spikes upward, and restoring that exposure when volatility recedes, you have good odds of sidestepping many of the trading sessions with the biggest gains or the biggest losses. +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: This is the worst thing to happen to ETFs https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-worst-thing-to-happen-to-etfs-66094217?mod=mark-hulbert This is the worst thing to happen to ETFs Published: Nov. 20, 2023 at 4:40 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert A monthly review of recent Wall Street research ETFs were a great invention until they fell into the hands of retail investors and advisers. /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/invest Hulbert: ETFs underperform same mutual funds.png I was surprised by this finding until I read the second study, from Morningstar. It measured the difference between the performance of ETFs themselves and the actual returns earned by investors in those ETFs. This gap is created when an investor poorly times when to get into and out of an ETF. Human nature being what it is, the all-too-common pattern is for individuals to invest more cash into an ETF after it has rallied and pull money out after it has fallen. This constant “buy-high-sell-low” behavior can—and often does—significantly subtract from the performance that the ETF otherwise produces. Morningstar calculates this return gap for all ETFs and open-end mutual funds. But in this latest report, they focused only on ETFs that invest in narrow market themes. The table below compares the return gaps that occur with such “thematic” ETFs and open-end mutual funds that invest in the same narrow themes; the performance period is the last five years. Market theme category Return gap for ETFs Return gap for open-end mutual funds Physical world -9.5% -3.3% Social -3.0% -2.5% Technology -7.6% -2.5% Morningstar senior research Kenneth Lamont and co-author of this latest study said in an interview that ETFs’ greater return gap is at least partially due to investors being able to trade them at any time during the day. There’s no way of knowing whether that structure attracted investors who were already predisposed to short term market timing, or encouraged investors to start engaging in such behavior. Lamont said it no doubt is a combination of both. Regardless, however, ETFs facilitate “the worst type of investor behavior.” 08********08 #] 10Nov2023 emfrm Steve: 30y US Treasuries kicked rates higher today /home/bill/PROJECTS/Family/Steve/ 231110 US rates 1979-2023.png 231110 US rates Aug-Nov2023.png 231110 Intl FX 1974-2023.png 231110 Intl FX Aug-Nov2023.png 08********08 #] 07Nov2023 Elon Musk - no one will have jobs (like "fall of Berlin Wall is end of history"?) +-----+ https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-predicts-ai-will-lead-to-future-no-jobs-2023-11?op=1 Elon Musk says AI means eventually no one will need to work Lakshmi Varanasi Nov 2, 2023, 7:17 PM MDT +-----+ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelwells/2023/11/06/inside-elon-musks-future-of-work-there-is-none-thanks-to-ai/?sh=6f9e4ffc51fb Elon Musk Says AI Will Take Jobs Away. Here’s Why That Won’t Happen Rachel Wells Nov 6, 2023,04:59am EST +-----+ https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/elon-musk-tells-rishi-sunak-ai-will-eventually-mean-no-one-needs-to-have-a-job-in-a-conversation-with-the-prime-minister-following-the-summit-at-bletchley-park/ar-AA1jiwq4 Daily Mail Elon Musk tells Rishi Sunak AI will eventually mean no one needs to have a job in a conversation with the Prime Minister following the summit at Bletchley Park Story by Kumail Jaffer and Jim Norton • 5d 08********08 #] 29Oct2023 +-----+ oops - forgot link &&&&&&&& Howell - holeyprofit, wealthprophet : Many of your great comments reflect lessons from years ago, especially Robert Prechter's Socionomics (people always quote news both ways, without any meaning or relevance most often, stinging comments of critics), Harry Dent (accused for 10-year-long periods of being (super, perma)*(bull, bear)), more recently Ray Dalio. It's best not to worry about ghosts from the past that no-one (can, wants to) see: Wilhelm Able 1935, David Fischer David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history", Steve Wickson 2023 "900 year Climate Cycle". Those accounts of (recurring, real) "Great Resets" are far beyond being investment actionable. Not included : By the way, Dent has made the best long-term forecasts I've ever seen, by far, but is it working in an era of [Fed, Treasury] GDP-scale cash injections into [markets, economy]? with almost no growth increment overall, volatility since 2000 not much better than that since 1871 (150 years ago, pre-Fed?). (95% kill-offs locally?) harken back to collapses our academics cannot even possibly imagine, and don't care as "we're too smart now". , mostly the last 600 years, but also going back to King Hammurabi in Babylon 08********08 #] 25Oct2023 +-----+ https://hulbertratings.com/honor-roll/?mod=article_inline The Hulbert 2023-2024 Investment Newsletter Honor Roll market grade since October 2007 Up Down Gain since October 2007 Gain Risk* Sharpe** 59.30 67.90 Blue Chip Investor (The Quality Growth Account) + 6.7% 5.09 0.41 74.00 75.70 The Buyback Letter (Buyback Income Index Porfolio) +10.8% 6.27 0.54 84.00 61.30 Investor Advisory Service +11.6% 5.95 0.60 66.30 85.70 Nate's Notes (Model Portfolio) +11.6% 6.31 0.57 59.60 55.00 Wilshire 5000 Total Return Index + 8.9% 4.77 0.54 Sharpe = Sharpe Ratio** *Risk: This reflects the volatility of a newsletter’s performance, as measured by the standard deviation of its monthly returns. Higher numbers reflect greater volatility and risk. **Risk-adjusted performance. We use the Sharpe Ratio to calculate risk-adjusted performance. Higher numbers mean that the adviser did better in relation to the amount of risk he/she incurred. We calculate the Sharpe Ratio using monthly data, and then annualize it by multiplying by the square root of 12. +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Robert Shiller Cyclically Adjusted P/E ratio (CAPE) is best by far https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-the-real-p-e-ratio-please-stand-up-69f695fc?mod=mark-hulbert Will the real P/E ratio please stand up? Published: Oct. 23, 2023 at 1:21 p.m. ET Which P/E is better? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course, so I measured their ability to forecast the S&P 500’s return over the subsequent 12 months. The forward P/E ratio comes out significantly ahead, at least based on data since 1999. (I was unable to get historical data on the forward P/E prior to then.) But this result traces to the artificially high trailing-12-month P/Es at the bottom of a downturn. Upon bracketing the 2008-2009 bear market, I found that the two P/E ratios have nearly identical records when predicting the market’s subsequent one-year return. Even better than these two P/E ratios, however, is the Cyclically Adjusted P/E ratio, or CAPE, which was made famous by Yale University’s Robert Shiller. Because the denominator of the CAPE is trailing-10-year inflation-adjusted earnings per share, the CAPE smooths out the cyclical gyrations in earnings per share. And in a horse race between the CAPE, the trailing 12-month P/E, and the forward 12-month P/E, the CAPE comes out far ahead. /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/PE Hulbert: Shiller CAPE is best PE ratio 231023.png Howell: how is cyclicality [used, calculated]? 10-year trailing (sunspot cycle) &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting that the "cycle basis" of 10 years is close to the sunspot cycle (~8.2 to something like 12-13 years?, average 11.2 years). The latter has often been mention in cycle-type stock market analysis, but perhaps is best as a "time-window" averaging period? For example, Stephen Puetz's Universal Wave Series watches [1.17, 3.5, 10.5] yeaqr periodicities for markets. He covers a huge diversity of [geological, astronomical, market, etc, etc] cycles - the most diverse that I know of. 08********08 #] 21Oct2023 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stanley-druckenmiller-said-central-banks-not-earnings-move-markets-today-is-the-day-to-pay-attention-b6f85147?mod=home-page&mod=article_inline “Earnings don’t move the overall market; it’s the Fed, focus on the central banks, and focus on the movement of liquidity, most people in the market are looking for earnings and conventional measures. It’s liquidity that moves markets,” Druckenmiller said at the Lost Tree Club in 2015. Note, he’s expressed wariness on stocks this year, as well as predicting a hard economic landing. Our call of the day from Macro Tourist newsletter editor, Kevin Muir would tend to agree, as he says Powell’s comments have important bearing on markets for the next two months. Muir believes some investors way too caught up in recent data that shows a strong economy. “I will not disagree with the analysis that the U.S. economy appears to be running at full steam with no signs of slowing,” Muir writes in his latest blog. “However, I think they are mistakenly looking solely at the economic data and not considering financial conditions,” and given post-FOMC meeting moves in asset prices, it’s easy to see that the Fed sees the market doing its tightening work for it, he says. What investors tend to forget, crucially, is that the Fed is a “supertanker that takes a long time to start and stop,” says Muir. And it doesn’t shift direction due to a couple of data points, but rather looks at the whole enchilada and figures out “gradual starts and stops.” 08********08 #] 16Oct2023 +-----+ #] Isabel Wang: bond-market investors not panicking, worst Treasury bear market in history https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-bond-market-investors-are-not-panicking-about-the-worst-treasury-bear-market-in-history-7bcba5bc?mod=newsviewer_click Why bond-market investors are not panicking about the worst Treasury bear market in history Published: Oct. 16, 2023 at 1:27 p.m. ET ‘Ripping the band-aid off’ this time should be preferable to investors because interest rates are now much higher to act as a margin of safety, says Ben Carlson +-----+ #] peacefulLizard50262, TV: 3D Engine Overlay https://www.tradingview.com/script/gaTNbZEC-3D-Engine-Overlay/#tc10676112 3D Engine Overlay peacefulLizard50262 Updated May 8 “This educational script showcases the potential of rendering 3D objects directly on a chart. It can be useful for those looking to explore innovative methods for visualizing market data.” "$d_web"'CompLangs/PineScript/peacefulLizard: 3D Engine Overlay notes.txt' "$d_web"'CompLangs/PineScript/peacefulLizard: 3D Engine Overlay PineScript.txt' Bill_Howell, 12 minutes ago 350 coins - Very well-written code: clean, built up from solid primitives, reference frames better than GR&QM. I've long had problems with [precise tim (cut off here) peacefulLizard50262, 7 minutes ago - @Bill_Howell, thank you so much! I made a major mistake in not including edges actually. This leads to repeat lines. That's why I couldn't shade it eventhough I built phone shading for it. When I would do the line fills I would run out of fills before I got every polygon because of this haha. I want to see if polyline can clean this code up. It will be cool if I can make a graphing engine. Thank you for checking this out! :) +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/tzSSW9tB-Turtle-Power-Experiment-Turns-Novices-into-Millionaires/ Turtle Power: Experiment Turns Novices into Millionaires Bitcoin (BITSTAMP:BTCUSD) 28099 925 3.40% Nico.Muselle Updated Hi and welcome back! As a trader, you have probably at one time heard about the Turtle Traders, right? But what was it, and what can we learn from it? ... "$d_web"'CompLangs/PineScript/Nico Muselle, TV: TurtlePower PineScript notes.txt' 08********08 #] 13Oct2023 +-----+ #] Rachel Beals: [carbon capture, nuclear, hydrogen] in most net-zero emissions plans https://www.marketwatch.com/story/carbon-capture-nuclear-and-hydrogen-feature-in-most-net-zero-plans-report-shows-11651146098?mod=article_inline Carbon capture, nuclear and hydrogen feature in most net-zero emissions plans and need greater investment: report Last Updated: April 28, 2022 at 10:14 a.m. ET First Published: April 28, 2022 at 7:41 a.m. ET By Rachel Koning Beals Clean Air Task Force says this demand signal means investment must step up +-----+ #] Victor Reklaitis: Biden to roll out $7 billion for hydrogen hubs https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-to-roll-out-7-billion-for-hydrogen-hubs-2a3d7215?mod=search_headline Biden to roll out $7 billion for hydrogen hubs, which are key for meeting climate goals Last Updated: Oct. 12, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 12, 2023 at 2:33 p.m. ET The announcement about the funding could come Friday, when president visits the swing state of Pennsylvania Contenders for the grants, according to a Bloomberg report, include a project tied to Shell PLC SHELL, 1.64%, Pennsylvania and other states; a separate project tied to Plug Power Inc. PLUG, 0.13% and Rochester, N.Y.; another one tied to Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.80%, Air Products & Chemicals Inc. APD, -0.08% and California; and a West Virginia hub connected to natural-gas producer EQT Corp. EQT, 0.44%. 08********08 #] 29Sep2023 +-----+ #] Joseph Adinolfi, Bill Ackman: Treasury yields going higher, shun U.S. government debt https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bill-ackman-says-treasury-yields-are-going-higher-in-a-hurry-and-that-investors-should-shun-u-s-government-debt-cb7814a9?mod=joseph-adinolfi Bill Ackman says Treasury yields are going higher in a hurry, and that investors should shun U.S. government debt Last Updated: Sept. 29, 2023 at 7:23 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 28, 2023 at 5:16 p.m. ET By Joseph Adinolfi Bill Ackman has had a good summer, with his bet on 30-year Treasury bonds paying off in dramatic fashion over the past few weeks. The hedge-fund manager, whose Pershing Square Capital Management just had its “best five years in the history of the firm,” said he expects structurally higher inflation and the U.S. government’s need to issue more bonds to fund a yawning budget deficit to keep the pressure on yields. “Our view is, you’re not being paid enough to enter into a 30-year contract with the U.S. government at a fixed price,” Ackman said. This could potentially drive the 10-year Treasury yield BX:TMUBMUSD10Y above the 5% level in the next few weeks, Ackman said. +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Good news is bad news, and now bad news is bad news, too https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-cant-catch-a-break-good-news-is-bad-news-and-now-bad-news-is-bad-news-too-fe9d8183?mod=steve-goldstein The stock market can’t catch a break. Good news is bad news, and now bad news is bad news, too. Last Updated: Sept. 27, 2023 at 7:08 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 27, 2023 at 6:43 a.m. ET ... Well, it suggests that maybe there’s another force driving market direction, namely the surge in bond yields, which may not really be driven by the data at all. Deutsche Bank posted this chart comparing the ratio of copper to gold to U.S. 10-year Treasury yields. The previous close relationship has totally broken down. GDP 230929 Deutsch Bank, Bloomberg Finance: US Treasury yields are rising in spite, not because, of global growth.jpeg Their take is the rise in long-term yields is due to large fiscal deficits, aggressive central bank quantitative tightening and central banks ruling out rate cuts. GDP 230929 Deutsch Bank, Haver Analytics: With Fed QT continuing, it could be difficult to get supply-demand technicals in balance.jpeg Goldman Sachs devotes a research piece to departing commodities research head Jeff Currie, who’s leaving the bank after 27 years. One of the lessons learned from Currie and colleagues, the bank says, is to track the largest oil and gas projects. Right now the lesson learned are that the cost curve has been steepening, while output is shrinking, following project delays, cost inflation and higher taxes. oil 230929 Goldman Sachs: Cost curve of GS oil top projects.jpeg 08********08 #] 26Sep2023 +-----+ #] Aarthi Swaminathan, UBS: global real estate bubble index https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-most-overvalued-housing-markets-in-the-world-according-to-ubs-a27486eb?mod=newsviewer_click These are the most overvalued housing markets in the world, according to UBS Last Updated: Sept. 26, 2023 at 10:36 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 25, 2023 at 11:43 a.m. ET House prices declined in several major cities around the world over the last year, while some cities are entering ‘bubble’ territory /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Economics cool stuff/230925 Swaminathan, UBS: global real estate bubble index.png 08********08 #] 18Aug2023 +-----+ #] Ciara Linnane: China Evergrande files for Chapter 15 bankruptcy https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-evergrande-has-28-1-billion-of-outstanding-bonds-as-it-files-for-chapter-15-bankruptcy-8e658c23?mod=newsviewer_click China Evergrande has $28.1 billion of outstanding bonds as it files for Chapter 15 bankruptcy Published: Aug. 18, 2023 at 10:12 a.m. ET Troubled developer’s most active bonds have fallen below 5 cents on the dollar China Evergrande Group, which filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in New York late Thursday, has $28.1 billion of outstanding bonds, the bulk of which mature in 2025. A Chapter 15 bankruptcy is a way for foreign companies with U.S. assets to get access to domestic courts, and protect them from U.S. creditors while they restructure overseas. 08********08 #] 15Aug2023 +-----+ #] Rodney Johnson - Financial Asset Inflation driven by Fed interest on reserves Rodney Johnson Report Aug2023 p03 The simplest explanation is that starting in 2009, the economy slowed naturally due to demographic forces (Boomers passing their peak spending age) just as we were dealing with the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). The Fed spent the next 13 years trying to keep the financial balls in the air as economic growth remained muted and inflation remained tame. This could not have happened without interest on excess reserves, where the Fed paid banks interest to hold reserves at the central bank. This new tool, first used in 2008, gave the Fed a way to create liquidity without leaking it into the main economy and creating inflation. It worked, but not without consequences, namely asset bubbles. Now, we have stubborn inflation driven by external forces and government spending, and the Fed is using the only tools it has to bring inflation to heel: higher rates and less liquidity. The thing is, we’ve never been here before. We’ve never seen a central bank, much less many central banks, manipulate an economy for more than a decade and then try to unwind their influence. Before GFC, the Fed and other central banks (except the Bank of Japan, BoJ) would tinker with overnight rates to cool or boost the economy, but they did not pump trillions of dollars into their economies for years at a time to bolster certain sectors, such as real estate and banking, at the expense of others. We’re about to find out if a never-before-experienced financial situation can withstand a never-yet-tried central bank maneuver without triggering a recession. This is interesting to geeks like me, but it brings up a more compelling question: Then what? Whether we fall into a recession or not, it’s the months and years after such an event that should concern us. 08********08 #] 13Aug2023 +-----+ #] Al Root: https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/u-s-steel-bid-by-cleveland-cliffs-65317872?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. Steel Looking at Options After Bid by Cleveland-Cliffs Last Updated: Aug. 13, 2023 at 5:43 p.m. ET First Published: Aug. 13, 2023 at 4:29 p.m. ET By Al Root Investors should brace for volatile trading in steel stocks to start a new week. The steel company built by Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan might not be independent for much longer. On Sunday, United States Steel (ticker: X), the steel maker formed in 1901 by Carnegie and Morgan, announced it was exploring strategic alternatives after receiving “multiple unsolicited proposals.” Many organizations are looking to invest in or take over the steel maker. ... Nine of the largest 15 steel companies in the world are Chinese. China produces more than half of the 2.1 billion metric tons of steel produced annually around the globe. The U.S. produces roughly 100 million tons and is a net importer of finished steel products. Being a net importer means that the price of steel around the world typically sets the price U.S. producers are able to charge. Consolidation in the domestic industry could help producers better match supply and demand and achieve higher profit margins. &&&&&&&& roy friedman, 29 minutes ago - Acquiring US Steel is far more strategic insofar as it would five CLF a near-monopoly on flat-rolled steel for the US automotive industry. Nucor is a great company, but it serves a different segment of the steel industry. Howell - Does this mean that CLF & X (US Steel) are protected by some kind of trade barriers (eg [union, tariffs,...]) for flat-rolled steel?) Otherwise are there not vastly [larger, cheaper, more competitive] foreign suppliers for the US auto industry? Of course, my question should be rolled back one more level, as to what protections allow the [US, European] auto industries continue to survive? Chris Zamborsky, 1 hour ago - They should also buy the Cleveland Browns and fire Stefanski Howell - Roy, you sound like the film "draft Day", when everybody, including his boss, were screaming for coach Kevin Costner's head... +-----+ #] William Watts: A stumbling stock market faces a crucial summer test https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-stumbling-stock-market-faces-a-crucial-summer-test-heres-what-will-decide-the-bulls-fate-f53567de?mod=newsviewer_click A stumbling stock market faces a crucial summer test. Here’s what will decide the bull’s fate. Last Updated: Aug. 13, 2023 at 12:16 p.m. ET First Published: Aug. 13, 2023 at 12:01 p.m. ET +--+ Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, argues that the rally has largely been about fears that never materialized. “I would say about 90% of the move that we’ve seen over the last 10 months has really been a walking back from the ledge of fear,” Hackett told MarketWatch, in a phone interview. The October 2022 lows came as the Federal Reserve was hiking the fed-funds rate in outsize 75 basis point increments, inflation was just coming off its June peak last year above 9% and expectations for an imminent recession, or “hard landing,” were running hot. +--+ Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, contends the rally has been built on three pillars: The Fed is now seen by many investors as likely finished, or nearly finished, raising interest rates; the economy appears set to possibly avert a recession altogether, and inflation has remained largely on a downward path. So trouble for the market would emerge if economic data were to falter and begin pointing to a hard landing, core inflation leveled off or bounced, or Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled another rate hike is “definitely coming” and caused a further rise in Treasury yields. +-----+ #] 230731 Harry Dent forecast: The Recession That Never Quite Happens, It Should Start by Early 2024.pdf +-----+ #] 230812 Puetz newsletter: Dealing with the next Financial Crisis.pdf "$d_PROJECTS"'Investments/Puetz newsletter/Dealing with the next Financial Crisis.pdf' 08********08 #] 02Aug2023 +-----+ #] Claudia Assis: U.S. AAA debt downgrade by Fitch; White House says ‘defies reality’ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-aaa-debt-rating-gets-a-downgrade-by-fitch-credit-agency-sees-u-s-economy-likely-to-slip-into-recession-3bc4e22b?mod=home-page&mod=article_inline U.S. AAA debt rating gets a downgrade by Fitch; White House says move ‘defies reality’ Last Updated: Aug. 1, 2023 at 7:04 p.m. ET First Published: Aug. 1, 2023 at 6:10 p.m. ET +-----+ #] Joy Wiltermuth: U.S. loses its AAA rating for a second time https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-25-trillion-treasury-market-is-in-the-spotlight-as-u-s-loses-its-aaa-rating-for-a-second-time-9a14f163?mod=home-page $25 trillion Treasury market is in the spotlight as U.S. loses its AAA rating for a second time Published: Aug. 1, 2023 at 8:51 p.m. ET ‘We can’t say the reaction is going to mirror 2011,’ says Truist’s Chip Hughey Will August 2023 be a repeat of August 2011? Fitch Ratings on Tuesday became the second major credit firm to cut the U.S. government’s top AAA rates to AA+, a move that was swiftly condemned by the White House and the Treasury Department. But if the past can be a guide, the big reaction in financial markets might actually be a rally in the roughly $25 trillion market for Treasury securities. “The timing is a little surprising,” said Chip Hughey, managing director, fixed income, at Truist Advisory Service, in a phone call with MarketWatch on Tuesday evening. “But if we look at 2011 as a comparison, the immediate response wasn’t about the ability of the U.S. to meet its debt obligations,” Hughey said, but rather toward potential economic growth concerns that “created demand for U.S. Treasurys, despite the downgrade.” S&P Global Ratings downgraded the U.S. credit rating in 2011 to AA+ from AAA, in the days after a debt-ceiling deal was reached in Washington. Fitch initially warned in May that it might pull the trigger too, in part due to “brinksmanship” as the latest debt-ceiling fight remained at an impasse. It warned of the possibility again in June, after the U.S. reached a deal on its borrowing limit, with the actual downgrade following roughly a month later. ... Fitch said its rating downgrade stemmed from “expected fiscal deterioration,” a “high and growing” government debt burden and an “erosion of governance” in the face of repeated debt-limit standoffs and other ills. Short-term Treasury bill yields climbed above 5% in April and have remained elevated, in part because the Federal Reserve has quickly raised its policy rate to tame inflation. The Fed again increased rates a week ago, bringing its policy rate to a 22-year high in a 5.25%-5.5% range. Investors have been snapping up the deluge of Treasury securities issued since the June debt-ceiling deal allowed U.S. coffers to be refilled, albeit at higher borrowing costs than in the recent past. A “tsunami” of additional issuance was expected after the Treasury Department released a $1 trillion borrowing estimate for the third quarter. Longer 10-year Treasury yields, used to price everything from home loans to commercial real-estate debt, were at 4.048% on Tuesday, the second-highest of 2023, according to Dow Jones Market Data. 08********08 #] 31Jul2023 +-----+ #] Chris Matthews: SEC delisting demands would mean ‘end of crypto in the U.S.,’ Coinbase https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sec-delisting-demands-would-mean-end-of-crypto-in-the-u-s-coinbase-ceo-says-d92d05a1?mod=newsviewer_click SEC delisting demands would mean ‘end of crypto in the U.S.,’ Coinbase CEO says Last Updated: July 31, 2023 at 1:51 p.m. ET First Published: July 31, 2023 at 9:10 a.m. ET Going to court was ‘an easy choice,’ according to Armstrong &&&&&&&& Howell - Next is gold, then cash. With only [debit, credit] cards and government stable coin or something, then the government can join the banks at the "percentage of every transaction" party...? +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: The stock market’s lofty valuation right now should make you dizzy https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-markets-lofty-valuation-right-now-should-make-you-dizzy-a7131b25?mod=mark-hulbert The stock market’s lofty valuation right now should make you dizzy Published: July 31, 2023 at 7:22 a.m. ET Valuations are almost as stretched as at the 2022 bull-market high &&&&&&&& Howell - Thanks for the warning. Your earlier article comments on the NASAQ - "... just six high-tech stocks into collectively representing more than 50% of the index’s combined market cap ..." reduced to 40% on 24Jul2023. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nasdaq-100-has-lightened-up-on-big-tech-stocks-but-investors-dont-seem-to-care-1598791c?mod=mark-hulbert But the SP500 still climbs, and a recent article commented on the 1T$ government boost for spmething I forget, and money from the sidelines might account for something. There's more to this than I understand. +-----+ #] Harry Dent: weekly Take /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Harry S Dent Jr/230731 Dent: US household debt not as high as other countries.png 08********08 #] 30Jul2023 +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Inflation to zero, (M2 leads inflation by 1year) Top 20 US wealth creat https://www.marketwatch.com/story/inflation-is-heading-to-zero-according-to-the-one-factor-jerome-powell-absolutely-will-not-discuss-5fb6811b?mod=steve-goldstein Inflation is heading to zero, according to the one factor Jerome Powell absolutely will not discuss Last Updated: July 26, 2023 at 8:39 a.m. ET First Published: July 26, 2023 at 6:50 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day 08********08 #] 28Jul2023 +-----+ #] https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/xxCp3ddQ-As-we-approach-new-highs-what-s-the-bear-case/ ChristopherCarrollSmith As we approach new highs, what's the bear case? S&P 500 Index (SP:SPX) 4582.24 44.84 0.99% ChristopherCarrollSmith Jul 27 &&&&&&&& Howell - Fun, insightful analysis!! : "My models point to a P/E in the 21–23 range as more appropriate for the current rates of interest and inflation." I recently made a similar comment on MarketWatch: "the [current] SP500 P/E ratio seems to imply a 10year forward earning growth of ~15%/yr from a very [simple, iffy] model". A 10y forward P/E at current T-bond rates and SP500 growth of 10%/year also also gives a result which is in line with your statement. Commodities I don't understand : I live in a small town where farmers haven't seen significant prices increases for years (just normal ups and downs), while their input costs are way up. I've long though that commodity suppliers would have to increase at some time, but economies of scale, globalization, and better technologies have kept the lid on. AI may have a huge effect on reducing costs and increasing farm size by a factor of 10 or so? "in my opinion, is that AI greatly erodes the value of their intellectual properties." Thanks for the insight. "S&P 500 puts are somewhat cheap right now" Nice idea, with support from several articles have made that comment. "North Atlantic Current might collapse sooner rather than later": Interesting comment on a subject I've been following for >10 years. These forecasts long pre-date the debut of our CO2-climate science religion, based on at least 100k years of data, and possibly supported by ancient seabed data from several hundred millions of years ago. But the past also hints at several scenarios possibly due about now that are biblical, and in every direction for climate. Several big ones haven't even been paraded as the end-of-the-world yet. Should be good for Hollywood films and self-annointed saviours. +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Nasdaq 100 has lightened up on Big Tech stocks https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nasdaq-100-has-lightened-up-on-big-tech-stocks-but-investors-dont-seem-to-care-1598791c?mod=mark-hulbert Nasdaq 100 has lightened up on Big Tech stocks, but investors don’t seem to care Last Updated: July 26, 2023 at 11:20 a.m. ET First Published: July 25, 2023 at 5:36 p.m. ET Recent ‘special rebalancing’ is unlikely to hurt the performance of the index or the stocks that are affected The Nasdaq 100 Index’s “special rebalancing,” which took effect on July 24, is unlikely to have any noticeable effect on either the performance of the index itself or the individual stocks that are affected. Nasdaq’s motivation behind this change was to address the “overconcentration” that had resulted from the growth of just six high-tech stocks into collectively representing more than 50% of the index’s combined market cap. The rebalancing reduced the collective index weight of those six — Microsoft MSFT, 2.28%, Apple AAPL, 1.33%, Alphabet GOOGL, 2.50%, Nvidia NVDA, 1.42%, Amazon.com AMZN, 3.03%, and Tesla TSLA, 3.78% — to 40%. 08********08 #] 26Jul2023 +-----+ #] Associated Press: California Gov. Gavin Newsom offers to help negotiate Hollywood strike https://www.marketwatch.com/story/california-gov-gavin-newsom-offers-to-help-negotiate-hollywood-strike-677734e?mod=newsviewer_click California Gov. Gavin Newsom offers to help negotiate Hollywood strike Published: July 26, 2023 at 9:04 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - My Netflix viewing includes somewhere between 30 to 60% foreign films (subtitles) from all around the world. Tough situation, fighting AI, when it may be a part of a strategy to survive. Or not, as no-one is standing still... +-----+ #] Victor Reklaitis: U.S. government is ‘absolutely’ in possession of unidentified craft https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ufo-hearing-whistleblower-tells-house-subcommittee-that-u-s-government-is-absolutely-in-possession-of-unidentified-craft-19072ff9?mod=newsviewer_click UFO hearing: Whistleblower tells House subcommittee that U.S. government is ‘absolutely’ in possession of unidentified craft Published: July 26, 2023 at 2:10 p.m. ET ‘I hope this is just the beginning of many more hearings, more people coming forward about this,’ GOP congressman says +-----+ #] Greg Robb: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-no-longer-sees-a-recession-and-other-things-we-learned-from-powells-press-conference-ef98d718?mod=newsviewer_click Fed no longer foresees a U.S. recession — and other things we learned from Powell’s press conference Published: July 26, 2023 at 7:38 p.m. ET ‘They’re putting a soft landing back on the table,’ one economist says &&&&&&&& Howell - Good article and comments. Maybe now is a good time for inducing unease and perhaps a bit later some pain, so that the government can come to the rescue in time for the 2024 election? My guess is that the less exciting guesstimates of historical value are less important than the [Fed, Treasury] policy management of the market, with the potential for GDP-scale stimulus at the right time. That's better than a big runup followed by a downturn at the wrong time? - the SP500 earnings yield (yr) is close to the 10 year bond rate, declining slightly since last summer, but lots of room to increase towards historical numbers. - SP500 index runup since mid-Oct2022 is running roughly parallel to the covid period semiLog trend ~14 nominal%/year (log rate 0.145, vs 0.0298 1926-2022). This is often creited to the AI "magnificent 7" or something like that, while the rest of the market hasn't looked as good. - Fed rates are still modest compared to pre-Aug2007 - not much talk about Fed de-leveraging (reducing debt) to pre-2020 levels (or anyone else) - China's not the driver of global growth that it once was, India's not there yet - the SP500 P/E ratio seems to imply a 10year forward earning growth of ~15%/yr from a very [simple, iffy] model John Hooge 1 hour ago So, your saying everything is manufactured for the 2024 election? Howell - No, in any case I don't understand markets well enough to pick out determining factors with any confidence. I'm just looking at the current situation, wondering what a small subset of "valuation" type indicators might be saying, and thinking about that in the context of the progressive influence of policy [approaches, thinking, actions] since ~2000, and some risk indicators (like desensitization to [deficit, debt] levels). It seems to me that covid showed how powerful a "sledgehammer" policy can be, and that may really help to avoid [fear, greed] over-reactions by investors that can cause real damage both up and down. Significant crashes every ten years or so may be less than in the early 1900s, but are still present. Given the rules of the election challenge, it doesn't make sense to be blind to the potential effects of [policy, spending] actions (in addition to [foreign investment flows, corporate profitability, the current allure of bonds, etc]). A bigger question to me, is the ~14% semilog trend since mid-Oct2022, roughly parallel to the covid financial asset inflation. Has it become a "new norm" in the mid-to-long term, just as early 1900 uptick became a 3% semiLog trendline 1926-2022? How much risk is there? >> my original draft - wayy too long! No, in any case I don't understand well enough to pick out determining factors with any confidence. I'm just looking at the current situation, wondering what a small subset of "valuation" type indicators might be saying, and thinking about that in the context of the progressive influence of policy [approaches, thinking, actions] since ~2000, and some risk indicators (like desensitization to [deficit, debt] levels). It seems to me that covid showed how powerful a "sledgehammer" policy can be, and that may really help to avoid [fear, greed] over-reactions by investors that can cause real damage both up and down. Significant crashes every ten years or so may be less than in the early 1900s, but are still present. Is the [concept, policy] naturally evolving to the point that similar instabilities are the end result anyways, better in some ways than excessive [fear, greed], but not a panacea? Borrowing from comments in the past about chaotic systems (but not the "butterfly in a jungle causing a hurricane image), in the absence of dominant drivers, perhaps relatively small "events" might take disproportionate importance. Elections are policy-influenced (a bit, anyways), and given the rules of the election challenge, it doesn't make sense to ignore the potential effects of [policy, spending] actions, mostly government [spending, deficit, debt]. But how independant is the Fed itself? They don't exactly live in a bubble either. I don't know. As a big question to me, has a ~14% semilog trend since mid-Oct2022, roughly parallel to the covid financial asset inflation, become a "new norm" in the mid-to-long term, just as early 1900 uptick became a 3% semiLog trendline 1926-2022? 08********08 #] 24Jul2023 +-----+ #] David Rosenberg: No chance we’re having a soft landing https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-chance-were-having-a-soft-landing-stock-market-strategist-david-rosenberg-gives-powells-fed-no-credit-and-no-mercy-52ea2ed6?mod=newsviewer_click ‘No chance we’re having a soft landing’: Stock-market strategist David Rosenberg gives Powell’s Fed no credit — and no mercy Last Updated: July 24, 2023 at 4:39 p.m. ET First Published: July 24, 2023 at 11:28 a.m. ET By Jonathan Burton With recession in his forecast, Rosenberg steers investors into bonds and rate-sensitive stocks including utilities, consumer staples and REITs Everybody trades off of nonfarm payrolls without realizing that the workweek is at the same level it was at in April 2020 when most of the economy was in lockdown mode. So when you look at the labor market as not just unemployment but also the number of hours people are putting in on the job, the index that combines bodies and hours peaked in January 2023. People talk about a strong labor market only because they’re focused on nonfarm payrolls. Rosenberg: You want to be in consumer staples, healthcare, and rate-sensitive stocks. We are past peak growth, past peak inflation, and about to go past peak interest rates. I would include real-estate investment trusts [REITs] and utilities. Be defensive and rate-sensitive. I want the earnings visibility you get in most parts of healthcare and consumer staples. I want that rate sensitivity you get from selected REITs and utilities. This has been a speculative, momentum rally, not a fundamentally based rally. So count your lucky stars and take profits in equities and start deploying to the Treasury market. Interest rates are going to come down more quickly at the shorter end of the curve. The yield curve has to mean revert. We are in a bizarre situation with a yield curve that’s been inverted for the past year. The curve will normalize. You’re getting paid nicely in Treasury bills; barbell between short-dated securities and the long bond. +-----+ #] YouTube: Successful NeuraLink Human Trials Have Been Conducted!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjLTU0Jandw Successful NeuraLink Human Trials Have Been Conducted!!! Musk Moments 274 subscribers 1,311 views Jul 23, 2023 #Neuralink #tiny #neuroscience In this mind-bending video, we explore the world of Neuralink's brain implant and its recent FDA approval for human trials. Join us as we encounter the consequence of this ground-breaking development in neuroscience and brain-computer interfaces. Realize how this tiny device has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with our minds and pave the way for outstanding advancements in medical treatments. CNS[brain, spinal chord] [diseases, injuries], cognitive limitations.. 10 patients? hasn't started yet +-----+ #] Philip van Doorn: Why you shouldn’t try to time the stock market https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-shouldnt-try-to-time-the-stock-market-5456259c?mod=newsviewer_click Why you shouldn’t try to time the stock market Published: July 24, 2023 at 10:37 a.m. ET Attempts to avoid getting caught in stock-market crashes by moving to the sidelines are likely to lower your returns over the long term There is more than one way to look at this behavioral phenomenon. Dalbar Inc., a research firm that focuses on the financial-services and healthcare industries, has compiled decades of data studying the effects of mutual-fund investors’ behavior. Here’s a summary of the data from Dalbar’s Quantatative Analysis of Investor Behavior, cited in the Prudent Speculator’s market commentary on Monday: The Prudent Speculator is published by Kovitz Inc. and has the best 30-year record among investment newsletters tracked and audited by the Hulbert Financial Digest for 30 years through June 30. &&&&&&&& Howell - As Chicken Little's chicken little, I can vouch for the wisdom of this article from experience. As extra comments : - amateurs don't have to time, but somebody does implicitly. - machines probably do almost all of the trading, including auto-market-equilibration, and they are probably so much better than me I can't even imagine how that is so and in what ways - you always see the comment that "10 best days during that period", but not the results for [10 random, 10 worst] "days during that period". Are you going to believe statistics or Murphy's Law? It depends if you always walk around with clouds over your head, which may be self-fufilling. +-----+ #] blogto Fomenka: his SP500 forecasts are good https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XAUUSD/1z0in16h-Gold-Longer-term/ On-and-off I've taken a look at your past SP500 models (not USOIL) from 26Jun2022 to present. Simple screen capture to dated files (~31 images). Although I tried fancy image [rescale [time, price], overlay] it works best to keep it simple and just have two image windows open, the lower window >= 1 time lag behind the upper window. One-step-ahead means click each graph to the next (file dates such as 23-724 = 2023, July, 24th mean this is a simple click with the mouse to [forward, back] one chronological step). I was surprised - your results are much better than I had been thinking, even though I've long appreciated your work. I'm less interested in "one-step-ahead, ARIMA (AutoRegregressing Moving Average)" forecasts. Far more important are the longer-term Elliot Wave zig-zag forecasts. A key major turning point was your 29Oct2022 SP500 chart (link below), for example, but there are others. In general, I find that there are usually two kinds of technical analysts that go beyond trends : Elliot Wave, and cycle. But cycle analysis can't seem to progress enough with the math since ~1820 Fourier spectra, even though wavelets, harmonic oscillators, electrical engineering time series analysis techniques, and chaos-like approaches are improvements, but more limited than they should be? 08********08 #] 23Jul2023 +-----+ #] Frank Matt etal WSJ: Who Will Control Wagner’s Empire of War and Gold? https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-will-control-wagners-empire-of-war-and-gold-22444d60?mod=newsviewer_click Who Will Control Wagner’s Empire of War and Gold? This complex network of companies belonging to the paramilitary group will make any Kremlin takeover a challenge By Frank Matt, James V. Grimaldi, Rob Barry, Max Rustand, Kara Dapena July 23, 2023 11:00 pm ET >> FANTASTIC article!! +-----+ #] Joy Wiltermuth: Stocks are making a run for record territory. Will Fed end rate hikes? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-are-making-a-run-for-record-territory-will-the-fed-end-its-rate-hikes-anyway-31f80662?mod=newsviewer_click Stocks are making a run for record territory. Will the Fed end its rate hikes anyway? Published: July 23, 2023 at 12:00 p.m. ET By Joy Wiltermuth ‘This is what happens coming into a recession,’ says Robeco’s Graham. ‘Everything looks fine, and suddenly it’s not.’ /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/230723 US FedRes: Fed rate-hiking cycles are often followed by a recession.png 08********08 #] 21Jul2023 +-----+ #] Myra P. Saefong: scorching summer temperatures, but no lasting rally for natural gas https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-scorching-summer-temperatures-havent-yet-led-to-a-lasting-rally-for-natural-gas-95d3ae33?mod=myra-p-saefong Why scorching summer temperatures haven’t yet led to a lasting rally for natural gas Published: July 20, 2023 at 2:51 p.m. ET Natural-gas prices rally Thursday, but trade 38% lower year to date /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/ 230721 US EnergyInfAdmin: Working gas in underground storage compared with 5-year maximum and minimum.png +-----+ #] UBS Group: 10 reasons why Wall Street’s inevitable recession never arrived https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-10-reasons-why-wall-streets-inevitable-recession-never-arrived-643ffb4d?mod=joseph-adinolfi Here are 10 reasons why Wall Street’s inevitable recession never arrived Published: July 19, 2023 at 3:21 p.m. ET By Joseph Adinolfi >> Howell: AWESOME article! Monetary policy isn’t that tight Since last spring, the Federal Reserve has raised its policy interest rate, which in many ways determines the cost of money in the U.S., at the fastest clip since the early 1980s, according to UBS and others. The upper bound of the Fed’s policy-rate target has climbed from 0.25% at the beginning of March 2022 to 5.25% recently. Many expect it will rise to 5.5% when the Fed meets next week. Advertisement At the same time, the Fed has shrunk its holdings of Treasurys and mortgage bonds by opting not to reinvest the principal as some of these bonds mature. Despite this, the team at UBS still sees the Fed’s policy stance as relatively lenient. “By many measures, monetary policy is only moderately restrictive, and it has been that way for less than six months—neither condition likely being sufficient to tip the economy into recession,” the UBS team said in a note. Fiscal spending boosts growth The Federal government’s spending helped to keep the economy afloat during the pandemic in 2020 and added trillions of dollars to the national debt, before pulling back in 2022. But the fiscal contraction stopped last summer, and since then, spending has been rising on a year-over-year basis. This has helped give the U.S. economy a boost, the UBS team said. “Fiscal policy has implicitly turned expansionary again over the past six to nine months,” the UBS team said. “This means that fiscal policy has been more of a tailwind than a headwind for economic growth this year.” Economy experiences a ‘rolling recession’ When COVID-19 first spread around the world, demand for goods soared, while demand for services like travel plummeted. Now, as the recovery progresses, the opposite is happening. That is essentially what a rolling recession is: manufacturing can be in recession while the service sectors of the economy boom, and vice versa. Here’s how the team at UBS explained it. “The first year of the economic recovery during the pandemic was often called K-shaped because of the diverging fortunes of goods sectors, which boomed, and services sectors, which were hit much harder and were far slower to recover.” “The manufacturing sector was able to recover relatively quickly because of goods demand. Once spending patterns started to revert to normal in 2022 and the demand for goods fell, manufacturing output soon followed.” “As a result, manufacturing output has contracted since last fall and has effectively been in a recession. Now that spending on goods, especially autos, has been rising again in 2023, the manufacturing sector should be able to avoid a deep slump and start to recover by year-end.” Periods of expansion are growing longer Simply put: Over the last century, periods of economic expansions have grown longer, on average, while recessions have become far less frequent. Here’s UBS with more on this: “The best illustration for how these structural changes in the economy have reduced recession risk is the substantial increase in the average length of expansions over the past four decades. From 1854 to 1982, the average expansion lasted 2.8 years, with the average being 2.2 years from 1854–1919 and 3.4 years from 1919–82. But the four expansions since 1982 lasted 8.6 years on average. The evolution of economic activity that has contributed to the lengthening of expansions is unlikely to suddenly change in the postpandemic economy.” /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/ 230721 UBS Group: Fiscal contraction stopped last summer.png 230721 UBS Group: Excess savings have supported the consumer.png 230721 UBS Group: Household debt loads appear manageable.png 230721 UBS Group: High-yield bond issuance market has re-opened.png 230721 UBS Group: Manufacturing has slowed much more than services.png 230721 UBS Group: Economic expansions have grown longer 1854-present.png &&&&&&&& Howell - Great article! UBS has the best analysis that I've seen for the present context, based on [diverse, key] factors over history. I've felt since Nov2022 that somebody is pumping liquidity, suspecting not just international investment flows, but government spending. The figure "Economic expansions have grown longer 1854-present" adds to a long-standing question I have as to whether modern [fiscal, economic] policy causes less frequent, but larger, swings, and how much is due to [diversity from globalization, much smaller roll of [agriculture, manufacturing]. It also looks a bit like policy is progressively protecting investors from our own [over-reactions, bag-holding], progressing in length of solar-induced cycles: quasi-biannual (2y) -> El Nino/ La Nina (8y) -> maybe getting to half-sunspot cycle length (11.2y). 08********08 #] 20Jul2023 +-----+ #] TradingView, USA mixed mkt chart, FYFSGDA188S, FRED OMB FYFSGDA188S US Federal government budget surplus or deficit % of GDP M318501Q027NBEA US Federal government budget surplus or deficit +-----+ #] https://www.tradingview.com/chart/DAX/BXKTXY7a-DAX-massive-Short-This-is-a-no-brainer/ DAX - (massive!) Short; This is a no-brainer! DAX Index (XETR_DLY:DAX) 16204.22 95.29 0.59% Nemo_Confidat Updated 15 hours ago >> fascinating rant about how Germany is destroying itself... Feb 25 Germany decided to systematically destroy their (and the EU's) economy, in a consistent and spectacular fashion. This is a no-brainer!! (I have been shorting this, with everything I've got, for the past week.) The only thing that kept this thing afloat, so far, is the underlying currency (EUR/USD) push-pull. I believe that is now over and full capitulation is at hand. Where will this mayhem stop? ... Well, it depends on the maximum pain tolerance of the combined German industrial base. Will they let their government fully destroy their entire economy or will they put a stop to it, at some point? ... Right now, I don't care! The damage is already done, the only question remaining; Just how bad? Sell, sell, sell ... and then, Short some more! The German government (as well as the EU parliament) is currently under the full control of "The Greens" . - Who, like watermelons, are green on the outside and red on the inside. (Like the vice-chair of the German parliament stated in a speech, last week: "Germans do not deserve to have their own cars, or their own houses. ... Think before you set out to drive your car or to buy a house. Why do you really need it? ...) Feb 27 Comment: "We will take away the dream of the German people to own their own houses or their own cars!" - Katja Diehl; German Parliamentary Advisor and "Mobility Expert & Activist" de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katja_Diehl "The reason for an expedited NATO expansion eastward is the otherwise low tolerance for human casualties in the advanced western democracies. In the future, these advanced societies, which are capable, will provide the means of war against Russia and the Slavic world, in general, to those East- and Central European countries whose population is less sensitive to large number of body bags, should their sons and daughters return home as likely casualties of a major confrontation between East and West." - George Soros; 1993 Essay ... Exactly 30 years ago. BTW, "to be German is to be the best at whatever is at hand." (When Nazis were in vogue, Germans lead the way. When Communists appeared on the scene, there weren't more dyed-in-wool Communists than the East-Germans (DDR). Now, when self-mutilation, "hyper-reality" and "self-genocide" is the order of the day, there shall be no more vigorous practitioners of "The New Order" than Germans, once again! No wonder they went 0-2 the last two times they fielded their Dream Team". This time around, they are clutch for 0-3, true to form. May 21 Having looked at the per capita GDP and unit gains in productivity, going back all the way to the German reunification; Germany managed to wipe out ALL the gains it had made in 27 years, in just 19 short months!! Now, if that is not German "excellence" and devotion to a cause - no matter how suicidal it may be - than I don't know what would qualify as such?! ... This has got to be the most rapid destruction of an industrial base, at least since the Industrial Revolution! (Would be interesting to find an example that would even come close to this.) Jun 5 Comment: Talk about an abject, one-sided, all-out capital flight/relocation ... snapshot ... this would be it! The entire German heavy industry is now worth less than the Soviet Union's was, back in 1980 - And that's a fact! Talk about going 0-3 ... Ein echte Scheißfest Jun 7 Comment: “The fundamental purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which should guide it’s function, as well as to mandate the discharge of all of it’s duties, in reality, is to keep the Germans down and to keep the Russians out! - And that, my fellow patriots, must be the guiding light of any real-politics that must inform this nation in all of it’s future actions for the balance of this century and well into the next one.” - Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster (R-ME); 1949 Those words, spoken by a leading US senator in 1949 promptly following the formation of NATO, have never lost their luster nor did they become hollow in practice. They continue to guide US foreign policy from the moment they were first articulated and for the better part of the past 7+ decades. The difference now is simply the vigor of implementation and the undeniable clarity of the end-game. “... keeping the Germans down and the Russians out” means exactly just that! Namely, a strong Euro Zone, especially one that is in effect nothing more than a German franchise, is in direct collision with US interests, especially one that is based on close Russian integration for cheap energy and for an endless supply of cheap raw materials. In short, this is a doubly dangerous combination as far as US economic interests are concerned. - And as such, this could not stand! E.g., it was just a matter of time before the US saw the need to step in and break up this Russo-German kumbaya, once and for all. When the time came - as it did - Russia, the source of everything that’s cheap and of what Europe could possibly need, combined with the endless, fertile Ukrainian lands (now, all owned by American corporations!) had to be swiftly and permanently cut off from Europe if any hope at all was to remain that this 700 Million strong, additional market for US goods and services between London and the Urals would one day become a rich but permanent US colony. That day is extremely near when this goal, laid out more than 70 years ago, will be reached; Leaving behind a permanently defenseless, 100% energy- and food-dependent Erope, haplessly reliant on US “goodwill”, from food to energy, from iron ore to lumber. Germany’s fundamental economic destruction is simply the final mile in this march towards the total, unquestionable US world hegemony and as it stands, there seem to be only a few meager yards left in this dash to the finish. “Mission erfüllt!” (or … in the words of next official German state language: “Mission accomplished!”) p.s. As some of the more competent contemporary historians had keenly observed: “The White Man had committed suicide with it’s two World Wars, eventually relegating Europe to decline and finally to irrelevance.” Jun 8 Comment: An added note; There are endless, behind the scenes, US-Russian negotiations taking place about the future division of Europe, on every imaginable level - except, of course, for anything "official", even remotely in appearance. Notable exceptions are: Any European country - especially Germany! -, or the Ukraine. A US senator recently remarked when asked: "When will the interested parties be involved?": "No elephant likes it when a flea whispers in it's ear!" Jun 8 Comment: At the risk of beleaguering the point; The demise of the Soviet Union came as a total shock to everyone because it happened not too far past it's zenith and during a politically stable, economically quite manageable environment. (That is what Putin means when he says: "The demise of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical travesty.") E.g., there was no real reason for it to occur, especially at the time when it transpired. (... and without ever putting to use the 3.5 million troops - 800,000 in Eastern Europe -, fully committed to the regime!) Make no mistake about it, the powers to be, including in the United States, have learned quite a bit from such a vivid, real-life example. (What could happen to a super-power once complacency sets in. - Since, at one point the Soviet Union has reached 40% of US GDP while creating a 4:1 superiority vs. NATO, not to mention it's nuclear arsenal. By the time of it's collapse, even their defense spending had already receded from a eye-watering 40% of GDP to a "meager" 17%, making the whole situation rather tenable.) A lot of students of history, no less those in government, took vigorous notes of a situation to be avoided at any cost. That intelligencia, just having graduated from college at the time of the Soviet collapse, are now marking their most meaningful years in government service. For them an undeniable US world hegemony is not just some abstract aspiration but rather, an existential need of the United States - in order to avoid the Soviet example. Jun 12 Comment: This is just breaking out ... snapshot barely half a way to a minimum move. So, buckle your seatbelt and just ride this like a rented mule! Japan is springing out of it's slumber with arms and related industry production up +43% YoY and inflation holding steady at 3%. (While Germany, now the laughing stock of 2/3 of the world, is sinking ever deeper into an irreversible decline, well on it's way back to the '70s. - The 1870s that is.) Japan, for the first time, is participating in the largest NATO air defense exercise in Germany and Eastern Europe. The German defense ministry announced that they will send 2 battle ships to the Sea of Japan, later on this year. They surely must jest! If history is any indication, that has got to be right up there with all the other suicidal ideas, every empire in decline mustered up as it's last grasp! (Like the Tzarist fleet, having sent 8 battle ships there in 1904-05 and after sailing 18,000 nautical miles all of them just to be sunk in a matter of hours. :-0 Whether it's Japan then or China in the future, they can absolutely annihilate anything floating virtually instantly, short of something that happens to sail under a US or a Japanese flag! (Japan's navy being the 2nd largest in the world, including the only long-range navy of size beside the US's!) 15 hours ago Comment: As for a full-cycle view of the DAX; snapshot It is bound to lose -45% of it's value, eerily (but not all that surprisingly) inline with the expected decline in US equities, minus the currency differential. The entire big-picture view of German & US equities pointing to the same outcome with uncanny precision. &&&&&&&& [rare, random, scattered] points ikova82 ∙ Jul 19 dude, DAX reached all time high, there is no crash at all, bullrun since oct22. Which economy is destroyed? Nemo_Confidat ∙ Jul 19 @ikova82, The German economy. - Having undone 27 years of economic progress in 19 short months! Permanently. 08********08 #] 18Jul2023 +-----+ #] Myra P. Saefong: Russia’s decision to halt grain deal & global inflation worries https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-russias-decision-to-halt-grain-deal-is-stirring-global-inflation-worries-5f66c984?mod=myra-p-saefong Why Russia’s decision to halt grain deal is stirring global inflation worries Published: July 17, 2023 at 2:48 p.m. ET Wheat futures shake off early gains that followed news of Russia’s grain deal suspension &&&&&&&& Howell - Saefong's 14Jul2023 MarketWatch article profiled "El Niño to disrupt the outlook for sugar, rice, consumer staples?", and she quotes Darin Newsom's point to the same effect in this article. Given comments of potential problems with US grain production (and frequent correlation of global production problems, such as China), this might be good timing for Russia's gamble to push the West to "...facilitate its own exports of food and fertilizers ...", even if their argument is hollow? There is probably much more going on here that I don't understand, as usual. +-----+ #] Adinolfi, UBS’s Lovell: U.S. stocks might not rally during summer earnings season https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stocks-typically-rally-during-earnings-season-heres-why-this-summer-might-be-different-dc4bc96f?mod=joseph-adinolfi U.S. stocks typically rally during earnings season. Here’s why this summer might be different. Last Updated: July 17, 2023 at 7:19 a.m. ET First Published: July 14, 2023 at 3:15 p.m. ET By Joseph Adinolfi “More likely than not, the market has run ahead of the fundamentals. The buy side has factored in a better outlook for companies, but price-to-earnings multiples are looking rich,” UBS’s Lovell said during a phone interview with MarketWatch. S&P 500 firms are expected to report a 7.1% decline in earnings compared with the same quarter last year, according to the latest blended estimate from FactSet that incorporates results from firms that have already reported. If that number holds, it will mark the biggest year-over-year decline since the second quarter of 2020, when the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic caused profits to collapse by 31.6%. It was also mark the third consecutive quarter where earnings were lower than a year earlier. At the same time, S&P 500 firms are presently being valued at more than 19 times forward earnings. That is above the five-year average of 18.6, and the 10-year average of 17.4. Lovell added that stock valuations are looking “rich,” which means earnings will need to outperform Wall Street’s typically conservative estimates by an even wider margin than usual to keep the rally going. &&&&&&&& Howell - Since 1963, the SP500 monthly earnings rate "sort of tracks" the 10year US Treasury rate within a +-gap of ~4%, with clear multi-year cross-overs in [1968, 1973, 1982, 2003], and a blip 2008-2009. The SP500 rate is "now trending towards" becoming less than the 10year rate after 14 years of being higher. It usually takes 0-2 years to confirm a >1% gap, so nothing definitive can be said about a cross-over for a while. There is not much cross-over fit with rough crash dates of ~[1973-4, 1987, 2000-1, 2008-9, 2020], and given that US[Fed, Treasury] policies have shown their ability to dump GDP portions into the economy, I'm not sure if this means anything at all beyond "what might be acceptable to the market" P/E ratio implications, but somebody may have a theory? +-----+ #] Marko Kolanovic, JPMorgan: ‘modestly wider’ path to U.S. soft landing after June inflation blockbuster https://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-jpmorgan-strategist-sees-modestly-wider-path-to-u-s-soft-landing-after-june-inflation-blockbuster-475dad10?mod=joseph-adinolfi Top JPMorgan strategist sees ‘modestly wider’ path to U.S. soft landing after June inflation blockbuster Published: July 18, 2023 at 10:19 a.m. ET By Joseph Adinolfi They then turned bearish heading into 2023, arguing that a looming recession would likely drive equity valuations even lower. Since then, he and his team have been skeptical of the stock market rebound, led by technology stocks seen benefiting from the artificial intelligence software boom, advising clients to stick to defensive stocks and Japanese stocks, which outperformed during the first half of this year. He still believes valuations for the U.S. stock market leaders look stretched, although small- and mid-cap U.S. stocks could see “quite a bit of upside” if core inflation returns to a 2.5% 12-month pace relatively quickly. Core inflation was 4.8% on a trailing 12-month basis in June, slightly less than the 5% pace economists had expected. +-----+ #] Goldman’s Jan Hatzius lower-chance-of-recession dismisses-inverted-yield-curve https://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-chief-economist-sees-lower-chance-of-recession-and-dismisses-inverted-yield-curve-worries-ff20420b?mod=steve-goldstein Goldman chief economist sees reduced chance of recession and dismisses inverted-yield-curve worries Last Updated: July 18, 2023 at 8:31 a.m. ET First Published: July 18, 2023 at 5:58 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein &&&&&&&& Howell - Thanks, Amos. I'm missing something - the yield inversion is still there but the "Term premium on a 10 year zero coupon bond" remains negative, supposedly negating some of the 10 year rate inversion in a market sense? Seems a bit like the gap between the Fed rate and market numbers... 08********08 #] 14Jul2023 +-----+ #] Myra P. Saefong: El Niño to disrupt the outlook for sugar, rice, consumer staples? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-traders-should-brace-for-el-ninos-effects-on-weather-and-commodities-around-the-world-990169c7?mod=newsviewer_click El Niño has potential to disrupt the outlook for sugar, rice and other consumer staples Last Updated: July 14, 2023 at 1:13 p.m. ET First Published: July 14, 2023 at 12:52 p.m. ET Traders brace for weather impact on commodity prices “The El Niño story is big,” said Darin Newsom, Barchart senior market analyst. “We saw the effects of what it can do by watching Brazil’s soybean and corn crops,” he said. “A number of other softs markets have peaked and dropped back too.” Softs refer to agricultural commodities that are grown, not mined like industrial metals. In the U.S., the “jury is still out” on if the change in weather will be enough to improve crop yield, but “the world could go from struggling with a supply problem for a number of commodities to having too much supply, in some cases,” said Newsom. Droughts can lead to lower production for crops and pasture feed for livestock, while warmer weather in the winter can weaken demand for heating fuels such as natural gas, said James Roemer, publisher of WeatherWealth newsletter, who wrote about El Nino’s impacts in a report published at the end of March. By the winter, there’s an 84% change of a “greater than moderate strength” El Niño and a 56% chance of a strong El Niño developing, according to NOAA. Agricultural commodities, are “weather derivatives at heart,” and therefore “intricately tied to the major weather pattern changes associated with El Niño and La Niña,” said Newsom. La Niña is marked by a cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. "$d_web"'economics, markets/Cool stuff/230714 NOAA: El Nino global climate impacts [Dec-Feb, Jun-Aug]2024.png' &&&&&&&& Howell - Really handy to see the NOAA global map of anticipated effects. 08********08 #] 09Jul2023 +-----+ #] Myra P. Saefong: China restricts access to 2 metals crucial to making semiconductors. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-restricts-access-to-2-metals-crucial-to-making-computer-chips-what-you-need-to-know-cf21ce09?mod=myra-p-saefong China restricts access to 2 metals crucial to making semiconductors. What you need to know. Last Updated: July 8, 2023 at 9:44 a.m. ET First Published: July 7, 2023 at 3:40 p.m. ET Move to curb exports of gallium, germanium came days ahead of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s China visit &&&&&&&& Howell - This carefully-selected rare earth market is closely related to the advanced semi-conductors, so it is a [cautious, limited, relatively non-escalatory] almost-measure by China. So far, so good - just a series of reminders between [USA, China], that hopefully will stabilize. For longer-term strategic plans China needs competitive advanced chip production, which if successful would fit the needs of [Brazil, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Oran, etc] for an alternate supplier. Almost like the ancient days of the spread of nuclear technology - James Bond etc. (Oppenheimer film soon in theatres, and a real issue was spies). +-----+ #] Joseph Adinolfi: rate cuts might not arrive until 2026, new Fed paper finds https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stocks-may-be-in-for-rude-awakening-as-rate-cuts-may-not-arrive-until-2026-new-fed-paper-finds-b3a894b8?mod=joseph-adinolfi U.S. stocks may be in for rude awakening as rate cuts might not arrive until 2026, new Fed paper finds Last Updated: July 5, 2023 at 9:05 a.m. ET First Published: July 3, 2023 at 12:26 p.m. ET ‘The main message in this paper is that to get inflation down to 2%, interest rates will have to stay higher for longer than markets currently are pricing,’ says Apollo’s Slok That is the conclusion of a paper published late last week by Johannes Matschke and Sai Sattiraju, two economists with the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. The paper caught the attention of Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok, who mentioned it in a note to clients shared with MarketWatch on Monday. Powell said last week that he doesn’t expect the rate of inflation to return to the Fed’s 2% target until 2025, implying that the Fed won’t cut rates until some time after that. But Fed funds futures markets suggest traders are once again refusing to take the central banker at his word, and are instead penciling cuts to arrive in 2024. "$d_web"'economics, markets/Cool stuff/230703 Kansas City Fed: fed funds rate hikes began in 2022 Q2, not restrictive until 2023 Q1.png' "$d_web"'economics, markets/Cool stuff/230703 Kansas City Fed: 5-year expectations GDP vs Core PCE inflation.png' +-----+ #] Joseph Adinolfi: Fed’s ‘quantitative tightening’ - sink or boost [stocks, economy]? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-quantitative-tightening-was-supposed-to-sink-stocks-and-the-economy-it-may-be-boosting-them-instead-analyst-says-5667ba49?mod=joseph-adinolfi Fed’s ‘quantitative tightening’ was supposed to sink stocks and the economy. It may be boosting them instead, analyst says. Last Updated: July 7, 2023 at 7:05 a.m. ET First Published: July 6, 2023 at 4:38 p.m. ET The Federal Reserve’s efforts to take some steam out of an overheating U.S. economy by draining liquidity from the financial system may be having the opposite of their intended effect, according to Bank of America interest-rate strategist Ralph Axel. Instead of hurting the U.S. economy and undercutting the stock market, the Fed’s shrinking balance sheet and aggressive interest-rate increases may be helping savers to reap more income from their roughly $17 trillion in bank deposits, boosting consumption and the wealth effect instead of dampening them. This could potentially explain the boost that U.S. stocks have received this year, as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.29% has risen roughly 15% since the beginning of 2023, according to FactSet data. Although these gains have yet to offset a 19.4% drop from 2022, the worst calendar-year performance for the index since 2008. In September, the Fed accelerated the pace of its balance-sheet unwind to $95 billion a month, with maturing Treasury bonds representing roughly two-thirds of that figure. Another analyst made a similar claim that the Fed has been abetting the stock-market rally by relying too much on higher interest rates while not reducing the size of its balance sheet quickly enough. “…The Fed has not tightened enough on Wall Street by using the balance sheet to reduce liquidity in the financial system. They’ve already tightened excessively on Main Street so a recession still seems inevitable to us in the second half of the year,” said Thomas Tzitzouris, head of fixed income research at Strategas, during an interview on Bloomberg TV. According to BofA’s base-case forecast, the Fed’s effective policy interest rate will likely peak at 5.6%, which would imply two more interest rate increases. The upper band of the Fed’s target rate range currently stands at 5.25%. While Fed funds futures are pricing in rate cuts in late 2023 or early 2024. BofA’s economists expect the central bank will keep borrowing costs elevated until May 2024. &&&&&&&& Jow Mosr - 6 July, 2023, I wish it weren't true but I am thinking we will see some very hard times ahead. Like 8% mortgage rates, high foreclosures and eventually much higher unemployment. Howell: Good point, as mortgage rates are approach the ~7% of last November, and are still rising. 10year US Treasury rates are still at the bottom of the 1963-Dec2007 range, when the housing crash (Great Financial Crash) kicked off government financial laxity that seems still necessary to keep the ship afloat? It's been a long time since savers haven't been punished. +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink compares bitcoin to digital gold https://www.marketwatch.com/story/blackrock-ceo-larry-fink-compares-bitcoin-to-digital-gold-as-etf-applications-at-sec-stack-up-395eb12?mod=steve-goldstein BlackRock CEO Larry Fink compares bitcoin to digital gold as ETF applications at SEC stack up Last Updated: July 6, 2023 at 7:02 a.m. ET First Published: July 6, 2023 at 3:42 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting to see the "crypto as digital gold" from a mainstream fund. Should be interesting. Love the comment that "... it costs a lot of money right now to transact bitcoin, and it costs a lot of money to get out of that ..." - my experience a few years back too. Much more [reputable, efficient, stable] crypto may help it a lot, especially as the advanced transactional programming, eg with Ethereum and even more with other alternates, catches on? +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Dhaval Joshi - The world’s already in recession (<2% growth/year) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-worlds-already-in-recession-this-strategist-argues-and-most-markets-agree-90ca4e28?mod=steve-goldstein The world’s already in recession, this strategist argues — and most markets agree Last Updated: July 6, 2023 at 8:42 a.m. ET First Published: July 6, 2023 at 5:50 a.m. ET That’s the view of Dhaval Joshi, chief strategist of BCA Research’s Counterpoint. He says that for global purposes, a recession is less than 2% growth rather than outright deterioration. He points out that Oxford Economics’ nowcast is that the world economy is growing at a 1.2% rate, and also points out that China is growing around 5%, the U..S. less than 2% and Europe is flat-lining. Export heavy economies in Germany, Sweden and South Korea are struggling. "$d_web"'economics, markets/Cool stuff230706 Dhaval Joshi: world recession is sub-2 percent growth (past recessions).png' "$d_web"'economics, markets/Cool stuff/230706 Dhaval Joshi: most markets confirm a world recession.png' &&&&&&&& Howell - Dhaval Joshi's sub-2% criteria for world GDP recession is fascinating, matching major recessions since 1980's. I will have to come back to that several times to let it sink in. The chart "Most markets confirm a world recession" is more problematic, as it's complicated by using current financial market pricing instead of GDP (eg by region), and is more a comparison of socks versus commodities. 08********08 #] 26Jun2023 +-----+ #] Isabel Wang: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deep-lingering-persistent-skepticism-over-chinas-growth-potential-is-keeping-global-financial-markets-from-embracing-its-reopening-872b2154?mod=isabel-wang_seemore ‘Deep, lingering, persistent’ skepticism over China’s growth potential is keeping global financial markets from embracing its reopening Last Updated: April 20, 2023 at 10:02 a.m. ET First Published: April 19, 2023 at 12:58 p.m. ET The reopening is taking a back seat to more fundamental misgivings about the policy regime in China, say strategists Old article - still relevant +-----+ #] Isabel Wang: Why financial markets' big bet on China’s economic boom is going all wrong https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-streets-crystal-ball-is-broken-why-financial-markets-big-bet-on-chinas-economic-boom-is-going-all-wrong-9570200a?mod=newsviewer_click Wall Street’s crystal ball is broken: Why financial markets’ big bet on China’s economic boom is going all wrong Last Updated: June 26, 2023 at 3:36 p.m. ET First Published: June 26, 2023 at 8:49 a.m. ET PBOC’s interest-rate cuts are not effective and amount to pushing on a string, but potential fiscal stimulus for the property sector may help China’s recovery in the next six to 12 months, economists say Ever since China re-emerged last December from three years of COVID-19 restrictions that disrupted manufacturing and limited domestic consumption in the world’s second-largest economy, Wall Street has been optimistic about its recovery with the hope that it could help limit any global recession as central banks raised interest rates to combat inflation. Now, seven months later, China’s economic rebound has disappointed investors. The iShares MSCI China ETF MCHI, +0.41%, the largest U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund tracking Chinese stocks, has tumbled 7% so far this year, while the Invesco Golden Dragon China ETF PGJ, +0.11%, which tracks the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index HXCK, -2.69%, has declined by 4% over the same period, according to FactSet data. In the Chinese market, the China CSI 300 index 000300, -1.41%, which tracks 300 stocks with the largest market capitalization and liquidity from the entire universe of listed A-shares, was off 1.6% year to date, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index has fallen by 5%, according to FactSet data. “This entire view of China’s boom post reopening was wrong,” said Gerwin Bell, lead economist for Asia at PGIM Fixed Income. “We need to take issue with the idea that the consumers are similarly able to be asked to drive the recovery — we never believed it.” ... Papic told MarketWatch that China faces a potential “balance-sheet recession” due to a high debt-to-GDP ratio and a slowing property market. A balance-sheet recession, a term coined by Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Research Institute, is a type of economic downturn that occurs when high levels of private sector debt cause individuals or companies to collectively focus on saving by paying down debt rather than spending or investing, even when the borrowing cost comes down. >> just as Harry Dent said!! &&&&&&&& Howell - Trying to re-stimulate a stretched real estate over-leveraging to push economic activity? Sounds familiar, but hopefully their other new policies will drive more general consumer ex-real estate demand and exports. Will it work this time? +-----+ #] Kollmeyer, Adinolfi: Rebellion in Russia trigger selloff stocks, flight to safe assets https://www.marketwatch.com/story/rebellion-in-russia-could-unleash-chaos-in-global-markets-strategists-fear-heres-what-investors-should-know-3ce10ca4?mod=joseph-adinolfi Rebellion in Russia could trigger selloff in U.S. stocks and flight to safe assets, analysts say. Here’s what investors should know. Last Updated: June 24, 2023 at 6:07 p.m. ET First Published: June 24, 2023 at 12:24 p.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer and Joseph Adinolfi Market-observer eyes riveted to oil, gold and bonds +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: language model career advice based on coup leader Yevgeny Prigozhin https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-asked-a-language-model-to-write-career-advice-based-on-caterer-turned-coup-leader-yevgeny-prigozhin-heres-what-it-generated-fc559bf9?mod=steve-goldstein We asked a language model to write career advice based on caterer-turned-coup leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Here’s what it generated. Last Updated: June 26, 2023 at 8:50 a.m. ET First Published: June 26, 2023 at 7:48 a.m. ET With that in mind, I decided to see what one of these large language models would crank out. I turned to Sage, which is a lot like ChatGPT, and is the default in Quora’s Poe, which hosts several AI chatbots. Instantly, it generated this fully formed and quite conversational piece, with, honestly, not-terrible advice. Like ChatGPT, Sage doesn’t have access to current events, so this weekend’s turmoil isn’t mentioned. &&&&&&&& Howell - Sheesh, this [context, framework] beats the vast majority of career advice that I've read. +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Is the stock market forming a bubble? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-the-stock-market-forming-a-bubble-454ffa6e?mod=mark-hulbert Is the stock market forming a bubble? Published: June 26, 2023 at 6:05 a.m. ET A review of stock market valuation indicators The stock market is not forming a bubble. That’s important to emphasize in order to counter the suddenly-popular narrative that the stock market is as frothy today as it was at the top of the Internet bubble in early 2000. It actually is nowhere close to being comparable, according to an academic study that quantifies the probability of a bubble that bursts. That something more, according to the recent study that quantifies crash probabilities, traces to the magnitude of the price run-up during the inflation phase of the bubble and the magnitude of the crash that subsequently ensues. Titled “Bubbles For Fama,” the study was conducted by Robin Greenwood and Andrei Shleifer of Harvard and Yang You of the University of Hong Kong. They define a bubble to be a gain of at least 100% over a two-year period, followed by a crash in which the market declines by at least 40% over the subsequent two years. To be sure, not all price run-ups that are that large lead to such a crash. But more often than not they do, according to the professors—53% of the time, to be exact. They furthermore found that this probability grows along with the magnitude of the prior run-up. When it is 150%, for example, the probability of the subsequent drop grows to 80%. When the two-year run-up is even greater, a subsequent decline becomes overwhelmingly likely. &&&&&&&& Howell - It's handy to see the update to Hulbert's "[eight, 10year-predictive] stock market indicators". Greenwood and Andrei Shleifer observe that "The S&P 500 SPX, 0.07% is just 2.5% higher today than where it stood two years ago". A two-year time horizon seems awefully short in the context of most bubble analysis that I can remember. A definition is a definition, but speaking of "bubble" in reference to SP500 levels not far off all-time historical highes is weird. Mark Hulbert also comments that "valuation plays a relatively small role in predicting the stock market’s shorter-term prospects." 08********08 #] 25Jun2023 +-----+ #] Associated Press: Russian revolt undermines Putin and could lead to further challenges https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russian-revolt-undermines-putin-and-could-lead-to-further-challenges-to-his-rule-ac866e6b?mod=newsviewer_click Russian revolt undermines Putin and could lead to further challenges to his rule Published: June 25, 2023 at 4:12 p.m. ET Putin struggles to project the image of a man in total control that he once did &&&&&&&& Howell - A dynamic struggle with signs of weakness and power is probably how Putin and other leaders, even long-reigning leaders in the West, have always lived their lives. It's more serious if THEIR media amplify chinks in the armour for too long (a couple of years), but perhaps only a scant few here in the West believe our media, and I imagine that the Russians wouldn't either when our media talk about them? Now I feel like I'm trapped in Orwell's double-speak. Better get to the bar to drink-think this through. +-----+ #] William Watts: markets after aborted Wagner mutiny leaves Russia’s Putin weakened https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-next-for-markets-after-aborted-wagner-mutiny-leaves-russias-putin-weakened-9fbc3b2b?mod=newsviewer_click What’s next for markets after aborted Wagner mutiny leaves Russia’s Putin weakened Last Updated: June 25, 2023 at 6:39 p.m. ET First Published: June 25, 2023 at 2:17 p.m. ET Analysts warn internal strife could lead to jump in market volatility /230625 Jorge Leon, Rystad Energy: Brent crude prices and relevant geopolitical events.jpeg &&&&&&&& Howell - Very nicely written article and the context that it provides. So much of the media noise is so boring: [diatribes, dogmas, doctorates]... Also : Yan Chen, 1 hour ago - The author only listed three issues. I can easily list more: North Korea, Taliban, Brazil, India-China border dispute … A sudden drop of the stock market due to any reason is pretty much guaranteed, as history has shown. So what? What exactly is the author preaching? Chas G, 52 minutes ago - Barron's, stay in your lane. Your guest commentator doesn't realize Putin's grip will be stronger than event in a few weeks. Opponents will be eliminated; warnings issued to western nations, and the full breadth of Russia's military will be put on Ukraine. +-----+ #] Fomenka of TradingView : collage of SPX forecasts, comments see "$d_mkts"'TradingView traders/Fomenka notes.txt' - 08********08 #] 23Jun2023 sharp dip - SELL! Should have done this as plannede 1-2 weeks ago NVIDIA QB-613536 MSFT IX-609517 META DB-611264 08********08 #] 22Jun2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-big-reason-you-can-expect-bonds-to-start-outperforming-stocks-b3c4427a?mod=mark-hulbert Here’s a big reason you can expect bonds to start outperforming stocks Last Updated: June 17, 2023 at 10:05 a.m. ET First Published: June 16, 2023 at 7:20 a.m. ET Above-average U.S. real interest rates are bullish for bond investors What high real rates mean for investors Above-average real interest rates are good news for bonds, since high rates are more likely than not to decline. You can see this regression-to-the-mean tendency in the accompanying chart. The last time real rates were as high as they are now was in the months leading up to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). From then until the bottom of that crisis, bonds experienced one of their more powerful bull markets in U.S. history. Since there’s no way of knowing what inflation expectations were in long-ago decades, I made the simplifying assumption that investors at any given time expected inflation over the subsequent 12 months to be equal to what it was over the trailing 12 months. On that assumption, I found a modest positive correlation between expected inflation and the stock market’s return over the subsequent one- and five-year periods. Given that this correlation was so modest, however, the stronger investment implication of the currently high real interest rates is that the outlook for bonds is quite good. "$d_web"'economics, markets/References/230622 Mark Hulbert: [1, 10]y treasury real returns regress to the mean 2000-2023.jpeg' &&&&&&&& tom coolidge - This is a good article about rates going forward and would like to add that recent article along with comments from Powell that there is going to be a deluge of treasuries coming into markets, and its suppose to happen between now and Sept according to recent article on MW, I think this will have a pretty intense impact on rates going forward and institutions being the biggest buyers of the treasuries. Howell - Thanks to the "deluge of treasuries" comment, as I missed that. How to relate that to potential deficit drive of financial markets (if that is similar to [Fed interest rates, Treasury deficit spending, foreign investor influx]) I don't know. +-----+ #] Lawrence G. McMillan: The stock market is taking a breather after a burst of strength https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-is-taking-a-breather-after-a-burst-of-strength-d40071a3?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The stock market is taking a breather after a burst of strength Last Updated: June 22, 2023 at 8:14 p.m. ET First Published: June 22, 2023 at 2:11 p.m. ET U.S. stocks give no sell signals, but the market is now in a negative seasonal period. SPX closed above its +4σ “modified Bollinger Band” for several days and now has closed below the +3σ Band. That constitutes a “classic” mBB sell signal. We do not trade those, since even though they have a profitable overall track record, there were too many false signals. So, we have inserted the requirement for further confirmation in order to generate a McMillan Volatility Band (MVB) sell signal. That signal still lies in the future, if it is to exist at all (not every “classic” sell signal eventually generates an MVB sell signal). In short, if SPX closes below 4351, that will generate the MVB sell signal. >> Howell: SPX bollinger band +-[4,5] Bollinger bands 21 day equity-only put/call ratio seems reliable at present? VIX - not so sure, more false buys than legitimate as Lawrence McMiillan does: combining the 3 may be handy!? +-----+ #] Joseph Adinolfi: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stocks-head-for-punishing-selloff-as-unknown-unknowns-could-drag-market-lower-jpmorgan-analysts-warn-d2d4c2c7?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. stocks head for punishing selloff as ‘unknown unknowns’ could drag market lower, JPMorgan analysts warn Published: June 22, 2023 at 3:28 p.m. ET The higher the U.S. stock market climbs, the more apocalyptic JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s U.S. equity research team becomes, it seems. After standing by their bearish view on the market all year, a team led by JPM Chief Global Markets Strategist Marko Kolanovic is warning clients that U.S. stocks could be headed for selloff due to some murky, unseen catalyst, according to a research note shared with MarketWatch on Thursday. With the beginning of the second half of 2023 approaching, “…the risk of another unknown unknown resurfacing appears high,” the team said. “Unknown unknowns” is a phrase used by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a 2002 news briefing, where he said: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” 08********08 #] 21Jun2023 +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Here’s what is worrying Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson now https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-streets-leading-bear-is-doubting-himself-a-little-heres-what-is-worrying-morgan-stanleys-mike-wilson-now-ddc98647 Wall Street’s leading bear is doubting himself, a little. Here’s what is worrying Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson now Last Updated: June 20, 2023 at 11:40 a.m. ET First Published: June 20, 2023 at 5:22 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& John Carlo - What a bunch of fictional mumbo jumbo. He's way too deep in the weeds, trying to devine the future negatively citing relatively minor amounts, 500 billion, in relationship to the entire economy and the worlds economy considering the US market is a global go to for international investors & traders. Also, too much ideology; we all know QE has been a slander target by ideologically driven market analysts who've been 100% wrong about QE since its inception. FACT! They're still operating within a hard asset, gold standard adjacent playbook regardless whether they're conscious of it or not. Most aren't; they assume their beliefs are akin to gravity, aka a universal force, a truth.... when in reality it's closer to a religion, a theory, a belief championed primarily by Libertarians & Conservatives. Opposition to QE has always been political/social propaganda tool pretending to be a legit economic truth. The irony, of course, is the vast crossover appeal between those opposed to QE while taking Crypto seriously! The US dollar, managed quite well for decades by the FED, backed by the US, is conceptually a cousin to crypto with the "bugs" removed; its just more evolved, regulated & made secure for the masses! Digressing, the US/global economy is on fire, nowhere to go but up unless there's a nuclear war or another pandemic. The last bull was ended by Covid & supply disruption inflation but the idelogically driven deniers distracted themselves with political propaganda & anti-fed QE nonsense +--+ Howell - "... too much ideology ..." in your blog as well, but that is quite normal, as most tend to do that. +--+ Howell - I should add - at least I am happy that you did NOT focus on key political figures, which gets even more boring. +--+ John Carlo - I suppose one could be cynical & claim everything is an ideology but that's a different discussion, certainly not applicable to the merit of my comment. If some external person or group decides to label me based upon their perceptions of ideology that's not on me nor representative of anything except their need to label & divide. If I say 2+2=4 and someone else says it 2+2=8, and they ignore all efforts to calculate math as we know it to be because it conflicts with their model of the world, it's "they" who are ideologically driven, not I. I'm not married to any theory, I don't care, my identity is evolution based. It's simply a fact that people who follow economics & take their lead from Libertarian/Conservative monetarist ideology have been predicting something akin to the end of the world since QE & low rates were put in place. Before that they were seriously advocating for a return to the gold standard, a finite asset for an expanding population? Unworkable. Also, the FED implemented these things because congress refused to do their job & invest, stimulate the economy during a downturn. You are free to assign ideology to my comment but all we have to do is examine REALITY over the last century to see that countries, including the US as it rose up, China, etc that practiced versions of Keynesian experienced much greater productivity, growth, social stability/freedom & human evolution. Money is a tool of common exchange, NOT a religious item subject to fixed rules & theories. +--+ John Carlo - Glad you're happy, don't wanna trigger anyone's biases. But on the merits of actual reality, why would I do that and why would you go there? It's pretty obvious by now that except for hardcore ideologues & self-serving TV/media provocateurs on BOTH sides, those in actual power flip flop based on who's at bat. Whatever they say on the campaign trail or TV to criticize those in power doesn't mean anything; they're just trying to intimidate, through public pressure, those in power to backtrack AND make a mistake. The same people who'll hammer the FED, hammer whatever policy is being implemented by the President or congress are the very same folks who would be praising those actions were they in power! This isn't a game of consistent positions for a public that wants THEIR benefits protected while simultaneously advocating for cuts! That's illogical. Talk to people on the street; they couldn't tell you what the Affordable Care act actually is as a policy matter nor what the border policy was in 2018. If you've been paying attention over the last couple of decades you'll see the game. The more those out of power criticize those in power, the more you can bet those in power are doing the correct thing/policy. The game is to get those in power to screw up, crash the economy, etc so those on the outside can win power in the next election. Do you really think someone who wants to win power is going to give good advise to the person who already has power? That's not how this works! +--+ Howell - I appreciate your comments, that have [detail, perspective]s that are interesting, in particular : - "... I'm not married to any theory, I don't care, my identity is evolution based. ..." - "... those in actual power flip flop based on who's at bat ..." - "... But on the merits of actual reality, why would I do that and why would you go there? ..." These are themes that have long interested me, albeit not for [markets, economics, policy] but for my main [interest, focus]: [math, science, engineering research]. Flip-flops not just for those in "power" (mainstream beliefs), but more generally the fascinating reversal, or completely different, beliefs that can change so quickly, without a strong self-awareness of that. Not [bad, good] to me, just the way it goes so often. Now retired, I am not so concerned about perceptions about "actual reality", but more explanations of how perceptions form and change in [math, science, engineering research]. "Evolution based" - but I'm not sure how you take that. Evolutionary Computation is one of three main pillars of Computational Intelligence (CI) - the old term for what has been subsumed into "AI", which I think of as the old [rational, logical, scientific]-based thinking (Deep Blue vs Kasparov), as opposed to one of many things that makes CI different. +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: AI boom will stay with the S&P 500, one pessimistic Wall Street firm https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-ai-boom-will-stay-with-the-s-p-500-says-one-of-most-pessimistic-wall-street-firms-heading-into-2023-50aff3df?mod=steve-goldstein The AI boom will stay with the S&P 500, says one of most pessimistic Wall Street firms heading into 2023 Last Updated: June 21, 2023 at 8:42 a.m. ET First Published: June 21, 2023 at 6:46 a.m. ET Goldman Sachs is sticking to its bullish stock-market forecast for the year while Morgan Stanley has just reiterated its downbeat outlook. But not everyone is clinging to their positions at the halfway point. Strategists at Societe Generale headed into the year with one of the more pessimistic S&P 500 targets on Wall Street, of 3,800, though actually that would have represented a flat performance. They have now bumped up their year-end S&P 500 SPX, -0.48% target to 4,300, which does mean the benchmark index would drop 2% by the time Santa arrives. The team led by Manish Kabra say the “AI boom” stocks have added 500 points to the index, and those gains aren’t about to vanish. "$d_web"'economics, markets/Cool stuff/' : 230621 Manish Kabra, Societe Generale: AI-related stocks drove virtually all S&P500 returns this year.jpeg 230621 Manish Kabra, Societe Generale: Real construction activities vs US industrials profit margin.jpeg 230621 Manish Kabra, Societe Generale: profit margins vs ISM, it would be unusual for profit margins not to fall from here.jpeg 230621 Brad Setser, Council on Foreign Relations: China has quietly become an auto exporting heavyweight.png &&&&&&&& Howell - AI is an important race. Financials, high tech, and now AI are among the few globally competitive US sectors, all of which are under increasing global competition (also agriculture and oil&gas which are under sustained attack). Watch out for China AI, too. They now have extra incentive to build capabilities, and have long been a power in the tougher side of "AI" (Computational Intelligence (CI)). +-----+ #] Emily Bary: AI could further an ‘erosion of the middle class’ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ai-could-further-an-erosion-of-the-middle-class-unless-congress-takes-action-schumer-says-cc4349b9?mod=newsviewer_click AI could further an ‘erosion of the middle class’ unless Congress takes action, Schumer says Published: June 21, 2023 at 12:30 p.m. ET ‘AI is unlike anything we’ve dealt with before, and it may be exceedingly difficult for legislation to tackle every single issue,’ Schumer acknowledges ‘The erosion of the middle class, already one of America’s most serious problems, could get much worse with AI if we ignore it and don’t take measures to prevent job loss or maldistribution of income.’ — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “The first issue we must tackle is encouraging, not stifling, innovation,” Schumer said at a Wednesday event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit policy-research organization. “But if people don’t think innovation can be done safely, that will slow AI’s development and prevent us from moving forward.” His AI guidelines, which he calls the SAFE Innovation Framework, focus on how security, accountability, foundations and explainability “can help ensure that AI works for humanity’s good,” Schumer said. &&&&&&&& Howell - They will need conscious AI to help police AI in the wild, just as social media restraints require powerful software for that. Simply beyond human scale, with so many humans involved. 08********08 #] 20Jun2023 +-----+ #] Sabrina Escobar: China-founded Shein- World’s Most Popular Shopping App Upending Retail https://www.barrons.com/articles/shein-clothing-shopping-retail-challenger-16d512db?mod=BRNS_ENG_CVR_EML_WKLYCVR22_AUTO_NAH How the World’s Most Popular Shopping App Is Quietly Upending Retail China-founded Shein is growing into a global titan. Analysts say many Western competitors ignore the app at their peril. Updated June 16, 2023 / Original June 15, 2023 +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Wegovy weight-loss drug on track for $4 billion US sales https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hit-wegovy-weight-loss-drug-on-track-for-4-billion-in-u-s-sales-despite-supply-constraints-analyst-says-b8672974?mod=steve-goldstein Hit Wegovy weight-loss drug on track for $4 billion in U.S. sales despite supply constraints, analyst says Published: June 20, 2023 at 3:23 a.m. ET +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Here’s what is worrying Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson now https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-streets-leading-bear-is-doubting-himself-a-little-heres-what-is-worrying-morgan-stanleys-mike-wilson-now-ddc98647?mod=steve-goldstein Wall Street’s leading bear is doubting himself, a little. Here’s what is worrying Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson now Last Updated: June 20, 2023 at 11:40 a.m. ET First Published: June 20, 2023 at 5:22 a.m. ET /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/230620 Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley: y-y [PPI finished goods (4mnth lead) vs Top 500 sales (ex-financials).png &&&&&&&& Howell - Impressive graph of "y-y [PPI finished goods (4mnth lead) vs Top 500 sales (ex-financials)]"!!! I'm surprised that the correlation is so excellent, as it seems to focus on hard goods output while excluding financials but not other service sectors of the economy. 08********08 #] 19Jun2023 +-----+ #] Zoe Han: AI is coming for your job. Here’s how to prepare. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/make-friends-with-this-technology-yes-ai-is-coming-for-your-job-heres-how-to-prepare-b93c02d0?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Make friends with this technology’: Yes, AI is coming for your job. Here’s how to prepare. Last Updated: June 19, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. ET First Published: June 15, 2023 at 5:28 a.m. ET Generative artificial intelligence can better replicate human-like output because it’s able to process extremely complex tasks. And why are employees concerned? On Wednesday, McKinsey & Co. said AI could generate $4.4 trillion in value a year, equivalent to 4.4% of global economic output. Most of that would be felt in customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and R&D. In fact, one photographer’s AI-generated work won major prize recognition in the Sony World Photography Awards 2023. The photographer refused the prize and said the submission was to test the competition, and create a much-needed discussion about the future of photography. 1. Learn how to ask the right questions How do you take advantage of ChatGPT? Few people are familiar with smart prompting techniques or how ChatGPT works, according to Moritz Kremb, who writes a newsletter aimed at using ChatGPT for career advancement. This is what he found: He gave “one-shot prompting” 3 out of 5. “This is when you provide the AI model with one example to learn from and generate the desired output based on that single input. Combining this with an instruction can be very effective,” Kremb wrote on Twitter. But he gave “few-shot prompting” 5 out of 5. “Here, you present the AI model with several examples to assist it in understanding the task at hand. This method is often the most effective, leading to more accurate and relevant results,” Kremb added. 2. Be acutely aware of AI-related bias It’s important that employees learn how to assess the accuracy of responses from chat bots like ChatGPT, Dhar said. Can a user detect whether an AI-generated answer is a mishmash of aggregated content? Is something missing? 3. Soft skills are people-oriented skills The good news: human beings cannot be replaced for many critical functions in the workplace: complex problem-solving, face-to-face communication, innovation and creativity, adaptability, and leadership, Ashley Stahl, career expert at online bank SoFi, told MarketWatch in an email. &&&&&&&& Howell - Very helpful article!!! - learn to work with it. Missing another side: you can no go far beyond your beliefs (mostly arroted from society, but a few of your own). With future AI generations, will this become more apparent, and more self-enhancing, as [individual, group, organization, society]s? +-----+ #] Barbara Kollmeyer: Alibaba, tech stocks drop as Goldman downgrades China growth forecast https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alibaba-other-tech-stocks-drop-as-goldman-downgrades-china-growth-forecast-873e0552?mod=newsviewer_click Alibaba, other tech stocks drop as Goldman downgrades China growth forecast Last Updated: June 19, 2023 at 10:04 a.m. ET First Published: June 19, 2023 at 4:53 a.m. ET Goldman follows UBS and JPMorgan with downgrades to China growth &&&&&&&& Howell - Maybe a good long-term thing?: "... Going down the old route of boosting short-term growth with massive property and infrastructure stimulus goes against the top leadership’s ‘high-quality growth model,'” said a team led by Hui Shan. ..." Wait and see... +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: close relationship between the S&P 500 and Fed liquidity https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-incredible-chart-shows-the-close-relationship-between-the-s-p-500-and-fed-liquidity-166542a7?mod=newsviewer_click This incredible chart shows the close relationship between the S&P 500 and Fed liquidity Published: June 19, 2023 at 4:47 a.m. ET /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/230619 Torsten Slok, Apollo Global Management: S&P500 performance and Fed net QE since the pandemic began.png &&&&&&&& Howell - Awesome chart! I've seen similar charts before, and since mid-covid I've been tracking the same thing when it became really noticable. It's missing the important Fed deleveraging, as potentially being more important, but it looks like they want to play with that only to a very limited degree (leave it to the next generation?). I also want [US Treasury, sum-of-states, municipal, corporate] [deficit, debt] levels but I've not done that yet. I keep thinking about a "law of supply and demand of money", and all (or most) market asset pricing [rise, fall]ing with more, less] money flowing [in, out] of the financial markets. 08********08 #] 17Jun2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Why there’s a 2-in-3 chance that U.S. stocks will be higher in December https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-theres-a-2-in-3-chance-that-u-s-stocks-will-be-higher-in-december-5bc6403e?mod=newsviewer_click Why there’s a 2-in-3 chance that U.S. stocks will be higher in December Last Updated: June 17, 2023 at 9:40 a.m. ET First Published: June 16, 2023 at 7:10 a.m. ET A positive second-half return for the Dow is likely in any given year, regardless of market valuation &&&&&&&& Howell - This may make sense in terms of a perpetual "semi-log financial asset inflation rate" (due to real GDP increases, eever0increasing [deficit, debt] tolerance, inflation (perhaps more now)), and the current AI frenzy of investors, who may be right about a potential change as with PCs and the internet. Mark Hulbert came up with an interesting "exponential fit" 1872-2022 in https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bad-news-for-bulls-the-stock-market-is-still-trading-above-its-long-term-trend-despite-this-years-deep-slump-11666963277?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest. My own results wonder if the current "Covid-period-like" semi-log financial asset inflation may have taken a permanent upturn, just as it did in the 1926-19-40 period : 1. SP500 is just above 1.0 relative standard deviations (rsd) with respect to the SP500 1926-2022 semilog trend line now. Not huge like the 2000 bubble or covid period (way up there, maybe 3-4 rsd), but the start of something to keep an eye on. 2. SP500 semiLog trends = log (SP500) * [1/1_plus_rsdSP500, 1, 1_plus_rsdSP500] 3. 1926-2022: SP500 = 10 power (-56.7736 + (0.029831 * year)) (a) 1_plus_rsdSP500 = 1 + relStdDev = 1.0937853 4. ~Sep2022 to now: slightly above the trend inflation line from Sep2022, growing at about the same rate as during the covid years, ~14 nominal%/year (log rate 0.145, versus 1926-2022 rate of 0.030)? 08********08 #] 14Jun2023 +-----+ #] Quentin Fottrell: remote wk [Elon Musk, Google ID badge swipes. Employees cry foul] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-is-misguided-about-remote-workers-and-their-moral-high-horse-5f60f97e?mod=newsviewer_click Elon Musk tells remote workers to get off their ‘moral high horse.’ Google tracks ID badge swipes. Employees cry foul. Last Updated: June 14, 2023 at 5:44 p.m. ET First Published: June 13, 2023 at 8:49 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - After all we've seen over the years, who's going to believe much of what [academic, government] researchers say? Greed is the same there as supposedly in companies. Piecemeal work and sales are traditionally more measurable as a basis for compensation, and presumably modern technology (even pre-AI) could help assessments - but I doubt very much this will be allowed. Nobody's afraid of a lack of competitiveness anymore, just as [deficit, debt]s are no concern. MK 4 hours ago My general sense is that the number of highly motivated and organized people who can work effectively from home and really earn their salary is a small fraction of the workforce. I am not among them so I go in to work everyday and often stay late because I enjoy my work and am inspired by the people I work with. Howell - Great comment! Me too, before I retired. Now I work on my own projects, and I don't get along my boss (me). It's tough being many people at once. +-----+ #] Joy Wiltermuth: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/doublelines-gundlach-warns-stocks-are-exhibiting-signs-of-a-mania-feec6aa8?mod=newsviewer_click DoubleLine’s Gundlach warns stocks are ‘exhibiting signs of a mania’ Published: June 14, 2023 at 5:25 p.m. ET Gundlach sees storm clouds gathering over the U.S. economy that should stop the Fed from hiking rates again “The stock market, frankly, is exhibiting signs of a mania, where you have a very concentrated part of the market’s that driving the entire train.” — Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine That’s Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine, in a CNBC interview Wednesday afternoon, following a decision by the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady in June, but penciling in more for later this year. “If you want to talk about the stock market, I think you’ve got to divide it into sectors,” Gundlach said. “You’ve got the ‘S&P seven,’ which is the mania craze regarding if you say anything about AI, your stock goes up 20%.” He was referring to what others have dubbed the “Magnificent Seven,” or a group of mega-cap technology stocks comprised of Apple Inc., AAPL, +0.35% Microsoft Corp., MSFT, +0.91% Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.19% Nvidia Corp., NVDA, +4.81% Alphabet Inc., GOOG, -0.04% Tesla Inc., TSLA, -0.74% and Meta Platforms Inc., META, +0.75% which have soared in 2023, in part on optimism around advances in artificial-intelligence technologies. “Then you’ve got the S&P 500[‘s other 493 stocks], which have gotten a little bit of a tailwind lately, but as of a few weeks ago, were basically unchanged here today,” he said. “The stock market, frankly, is exhibiting signs of a mania, where you have a very concentrated part of the market’s that driving the entire train.” “If there’s a massive default problem, stocks are going down more than 50%, because they are junior in the capital structure,” he said, arguing that with “storm clouds” gathering over the economy, Fed Chair Powell shouldn’t hike rates beyond the current 5%-5.25% range. “He’s done a good job if he doesn’t hike rates,” he said. &&&&&&&& Howell - I tend to agree with Gundlach, but maybe we are under-estimating the AI. Having missed much of the previous tech booms (family, working, other projects etc) I am fighting FOMO for the current "AI frenzy". Having Neural Networks (NN) as my #1 hobby research area since 1988, I've noticed that the whole mainstream world, including Wall Street, (but not Terminator #1), has ignored previous [math, science, programming] revolutions in NNs. Why the frenzy now? My guess is that some AI optimism is understandable: ordinary people can see potential as well as most experts. I didn't use: My guess is that some AI optimism is understandable : 1. chatGPT is free to users, and super easy to use. They could [see, play, work] themselves with OpenAI's (now MicroSoft's platform). They didn't have to listen to the [intellectual, scientist, programmer, company]s, and they immediately had a feel for the implications (better than most experts in some cases!). Previous technologies (like Robert Hecht-Nielson's 2007 Confabulation Theory) weren't out-of-the-box-easy, nor free, although the results were similar to some degree. 2. LLMs deal with language, which people intuitively know very well, and can see when machines [research, compose, present] better than they could for the most part. It's not hard to think of the implications, again, without experts. 3. Many non-experts are quite aware that current systems are primitive compared to what will soon be available. I'm often thinking in terms of 20 years between [hype, revolutionary] breakthrough periods in NNs, and this may be accelerating. 4. Many investors are accutely aware that companies that didn't [adapt, compete] well to past tech revolutions are no longer with us. 5. I am certainly not the only one with a feeling that NNs (beyond TrNNs) can automate much more of societies intellectual activities, but more importantly boost our own [individual, group, organization, society] functioning. Of course some will always abuse anything, this is no different. +-----+ #] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-skips-june-rate-rise-points-to-two-more-25-basis-point-interest-rate-hikes-this-year-92115113?mod=newsviewer_click Fed skips June interest-rate rise but points to two more 25-basis-point hikes this year Published: June 14, 2023 at 2:05 p.m. ET By Greg Robb Fed sees inflation as more stubborn “Holding the target range steady at this meeting allows the [Federal Open Market Committee] to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy,” the Fed said in explaining its pause. The statement also said that “inflation remains elevated.” The signal that the Fed was not done raising rates was in the so-called “dot plot” forecast, which showed the benchmark rate rising to a range of 5.5%-5.75%. The Fed’s prior projected terminal rate was the current range of 5%-5.25%. This new rate projection is above what Wall Street economists were expecting. Financial markets have only one more rate hike penciled in. The Fed didn’t specify when it might move, but a hike as soon as the next meeting is possible. In its forecasts, the Fed was more pessimistic about its progress on lowering inflation. The Fed now expects its favorite inflation measure, the core personal consumption expenditure price index, to end the year at a 3.9% annual rate, up from the prior forecast of 3.6%. It was running at a 4.7% rate in April. +-----+ #] David Madland: Hollywood writers’ strike is about [money, power over AI] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hollywood-writers-strike-is-about-more-than-money-its-also-about-having-power-over-ai-adbe3cba?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Hollywood writers’ strike is about more than money. It’s also about having power over AI. Last Updated: June 14, 2023 at 1:16 p.m. ET First Published: June 14, 2023 at 7:20 a.m. ET Workers need strong tools to bargain with employers over disruptive technology. The strike by film and television writers that began on May 2 is relevant to our lives for far more than just the fate of our favorite shows. It is an important test of whether — and how — workers can get fairly paid as artificial intelligence and other technology alters their jobs. More than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America felt compelled to go on strike because the jobs that they and their predecessors fought to make into solid middle-class careers with the potential for significantly higher pay have been undermined by streaming technologies. They now they fear AI could be used to reduce their compensation further. Because writers are one of the first groups of workers to bargain over AI, the results may have a big impact on the rest of us. In the early days of Hollywood, labor relations were “feudal,” binding workers to studios, but in the 1930s writers started organizing a union and after great struggle eventually signed collective bargaining agreements with movie studios that required minimum compensation and benefits as well as screen credit and payment of residual payments when work is reused. Through the decades writers have fought to maintain this basic payment structure of minimums, credit, and residuals. As new technologies emerged, such as growth of over-the-air television, video cassettes, DVDs and cable, they have used strikes, organizing, and collective bargaining to continue improving standards. &&&&&&&& Howell - Are they actually scripting TV shows with AI now? Trade unions have traditionally protected their own job markets, but in this case might agreements do as much to reduce overall jobs as the AI? Personally, almost half of what I watch on the movie side are foreign films with English subtitles. I'm guessing that a much bigger issue is global competitiveness? +-----+ #] Joy Wiltermuth: Why this $6 trillion (money market) isn't heading for stocks any time soon https://www.marketwatch.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-futures-nudge-higher-ahead-of-fed/card/why-this-6-trillion-pile-of-cash-isn-t-heading-for-stocks-any-time-soon-gkU6RX1NaKaKcL6ee56l?mod=newsviewer_click Why this $6 trillion pile of cash isn't heading for stocks any time soon Money-market funds hit a record of $5.9 trillion in assets as of Tuesday, signaling a continuing drain out of bank deposits into higher-yielding “cash-like” investments, according to Peter Crane, president and publisher of Crane Data. He expects the tally soon to eclipse $6 trillion and then to stay elevated, even though money-market assets already grew almost 18% in May from a year ago. “It’s clear that bank deposits have sprung a leak,” Crane said, pointing to regional bank failures in March that spooked depositors and money-market funds recently offering yields closer to historical averages. Tame T-bill deluge Money-market funds serve as a key cog in the financial plumbing of markets because they hold “cash-like” investments that quickly repay, including 1-month Treasury bills. The bill market includes securities that mature in 52-weeks or less. The funds also are seen as a crucial source of demand as markets brace for an up to $1 trillion deluge of new Treasury issuance this summer to refill U.S. coffers run low by the debt-ceiling fight in Congress. See: Money-market funds own only 15% of the Treasury bill market, but that could change dramatically once Congress passes a debt ceiling deal “Clearly, the debt-ceiling resolution is allowing the Treasury to issue,” said John Tobin, chief investment officer at Dreyfus, a money-market fund manager and a division of BNY Mellon Investment Management. Use of the Fed’s reverse repo facility has declined by almost $150 billion since May, Tobin said, noting that recent auctions have gone off without a hitch, as his and other money-markets have been deploying cash. He expects overall repo balances to retreat by as much as $300 billion. +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Recession? Who cares! Deutsche Bank shares Goldman’s bullish view https://www.marketwatch.com/story/recession-who-cares-deutsche-bank-shares-goldmans-bullish-stocks-view-as-banks-split-on-downturn-90bf4e85?mod=newsviewer_click Recession? Who cares! Deutsche Bank shares Goldman’s bullish stocks view as banks split on downturn. Last Updated: June 14, 2023 at 8:50 a.m. ET First Published: June 14, 2023 at 6:45 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day &&&&&&&& Howell - There still seems to be a lot of money flowing into the markets, the Fed isn't really deleveraging so much (perhaps a bigger issue than interest rates?), the "debt ceiling" seems to be a loose concept, and the SP500 is now slightly above the trend inflation line from ~Sep2022, growing at about the same rate as during the covid years, ~14 nominal%/year (log rate 0.145, versus 1926-2022 rate of 0.030)? Maybe investors are trying to find a home for excess cash, with the "Big AI" theme seen as a relatively safe harbour for now. Like the internet, people have come to appreciate the potential for the long term, even if its still early to see it first hand "in the wild". It's early, but maybe lots of "funny money" still to come into the market for the 2024 US elections? Scott Randolph - Stop talking about what the S&P500 is doing. The index is being driven by the small handful of megacap tech stocks in its top weightings, and some of which are big names in the AI frenzy. While the overall index is up something like 17% YTD, without those top 6 names it's up ZERO percent. The S&P is not a useful proxy for the broad market. Howeell - I agree that the SP500 is not representative of the broad market, a bit like the 2000 high-tech bubble. However, I am too lazy to calculate a "non-[safe, bubble-like frenzy" market indicator, which wouldn't be recognizable by other people anyways. By the way, the other indicator of the current AI heat is that the SP500 is just above 1.0 relative standard deviations (rsd) with respect to the SP500 1926-2022 semilog trend line now. Not huge like the 2000 bubble or covid period (way up there, maybe 3-4 rsd), but the start of something to keep an eye on. While Microsoft has a huge lead in positioning right now, I'm expecting big changes to the current "Transformer Neural Network" (TrNN) tools, and big disruptions are still likely there. 08********08 #] 13Jun2023 +-----+ #] Vivien Lou Chen: U.S. markets might get rattled by a Fed that stops and restarts hiking rates https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-a-stop-and-go-fed-might-rattle-u-s-markets-5d2a911c?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s why U.S. markets might get rattled by a Fed that stops and restarts hiking rates Last Updated: June 13, 2023 at 5:08 p.m. ET First Published: June 13, 2023 at 1:24 p.m. ET ‘The Fed will struggle to sound credibly hawkish if it pauses on Wednesday, given the fact that policy makers have been data dependent,’ said strategist Gennadiy Goldberg of TD Securities. &&&&&&&& Howell - There still seems to be a lot of money flowing into the markets, the Fed isn't really deleveraging so much (perhaps a bigger issue than interest rates?), the "debt ceiling" seems to be a loose concept, and the SP500 is now slightly above the trend inflation line from ~Sep2022, growing at about the same rate as during the covid years, ~14 nominal%/year (log rate 0.145, versus 1926-2022 rate of 0.030)? Maybe investors are trying to find a home for excess cash, with the "Big AI" theme seen as a relatively safe harbour for now. Like the internet, people have come to appreciate the potential for the long term, even if its still early to see it first hand "in the wild". It's early, but maybe lots of "funny money" still to come into the market for the 2024 US elections? I missed: large flow into money market may ebb back into stocks? trend line up-break is very different from historic - for how long? +-----+ #] Wallace Witkowski: AMD launches new Bergamo data-center CPU, against Nvidia and Intel https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amd-launches-new-bergamo-data-center-cpu-to-go-up-against-nvidia-intel-bc860fb1?mod=newsviewer_click AMD launches new Bergamo data-center CPU to go up against Nvidia and Intel Last Updated: June 13, 2023 at 2:01 p.m. ET First Published: June 13, 2023 at 1:30 p.m. ET AMD CEO says new CPU delivers 1.8 times the performance per watt compared with Intel’s Xeon chip +-----+ #] Eric J. Savitz: Oracle to Add Enterprise AI Features to All Cloud Apps https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/oracle-stock-enterprise-ai-cloud-apps-3d16a8c1?mod=newsviewer_click Oracle to Add Enterprise AI Features to All Cloud Apps Published: June 13, 2023 at 1:43 p.m. ET In a Tuesday press release ticking off all of the company’s AI initiatives, Oracle (ticker: ORCL) disclosed that it plans to add generative AI across its portfolio of applications. In particular, Oracle provided fresh details on a new partnership with Cohere, a Canadian company that competes with OpenAI, Anthropic, and other leaders in the emerging AI software business. Oracle said that Cohere’s large language models will be directly integrated into Oracle’s cloud applications. “By embedding Cohere’s language models in its business applications …Oracle will enable customers to quickly and securely deploy generative AI,” the company said. &&&&&&&& Howell - Wow, fast-moving startups [have, are] popping up like [OpenAI (chatGPT - Microsoft), Cohere (Oracle involved), Anthropic (Google involved)] etc. It's like the start of [personal computers, internet, etc], with huge changes in the [math, systems] to come. Be careful, Microsoft already seems to have a handle on how to [delay, shut out] competitors: moratorium on newAI deployment would advantage MS, wasn't ?FTC? investigating Google (Microsoft also 10Dec2022). This is critical for MicroSoft if you consider the underlying idea not only to be the LLM, but also its deeper role as Cognitive [User Interface, Applications Programming Interface, Operating System]. +--+ https://www.anthropic.com/ Introducing Claude A next-generation AI assistant for your tasks, no matter the scale Anthropic has already been a great partner, working closely with us to improve the quality of DuckAssist answers while also meeting our strict privacy requirements. Steve Fischer Chief Business Officer, DuckDuckGo +--+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic Anthropic is an American artificial intelligence (AI) startup and public-benefit corporation, founded by former members of OpenAI.[2][3] Anthropic specializes in developing general AI systems and language models, with a company ethos of responsible AI usage. Since late 2022, Google has invested nearly $400 million in the company, with Anthropic announcing a formal partnership with Google Cloud.[4][5][6] Anthropic Raises $450 Million in Series C Funding to Scale Reliable AI Products May 23, 2023 ● 2 min read We are pleased to announce that we have raised $450 million in Series C funding led by Spark Capital with participation from Google, Salesforce Ventures, Sound Ventures, Zoom Ventures, and others. The funding will support our continued work developing helpful, harmless, and honest AI systems—including Claude, an AI assistant that can perform a wide variety of conversational and text processing tasks. Anthropic was founded to build AI products that people can rely on and generate research about the opportunities and risks of AI. Our CEO, Dario Amodei, +--+ https://cohere.com/ The Enterprise LLM Transform your products with LLMs It’s never been easier to add AI to your products. Cohere’s models power interactive chat features, generate text for product descriptions, blog posts, and articles, and capture the meaning of text for search, content moderation, and intent recognition. https://txt.cohere.com/announcement/ Cohere Team 08 / 06 / 2023 Cohere Announces $270M Series C to Bring Generative AI to Enterprises Funding will accelerate Cohere’s leadership position giving enterprises the power of AI on the cloud platform of their choice, keeping their data private and secure. Today, we have some exciting news to share! Cohere announced $270M in new capital as part of its Series C financing. Inovia Capital led the round, with additional participation from a diverse group of global institutional and strategic investors, including NVIDIA, Oracle, Salesforce Ventures, DTCP, Mirae Asset, Schroders Capital, SentinelOne, Thomvest Ventures, and returning investor Index Ventures. This group represents investors from the USA, Canada, Korea, the UK, and Germany, and includes some of the most respected technology companies in the world. “AI will be the heart that powers the next decade of business success,” said Aidan Gomez, CEO and co-founder. “As the early excitement about generative AI shifts toward ways to accelerate businesses, companies are looking to Cohere to position them for success in a new era of technology. The next phase of AI products and services will revolutionize business, and we are ready to lead the way.” “We are at the beginning of a new era driven by accelerated computing and generative AI,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “The team at Cohere has made foundational contributions to generative AI. Their service will help enterprises around the world harness these capabilities to automate and accelerate.” AI Built for Enterprise Cohere’s AI platform is uniquely designed for enterprises, offering data-secure deployment options in companies’ existing cloud environments, customization, and customer support. This includes an ecosystem of consulting and system integrator partners to help enterprises at any stage in their AI journey. Cohere’s enterprise AI suite is cloud-agnostic, offering the highest levels of flexibility and data privacy. The platform is built to be available on every cloud provider, deployed inside a customers’ existing cloud environment, virtual private cloud (VPC), or even on-site, to meet companies where their data is. This empowers businesses to transform existing products and build the next era-defining generation of innovative solutions all while keeping their data secure. “Our entire raison d’être is to invest in great entrepreneurs who have great worldwide mission and ambitions,” said Steve Woods, CTO and Partner, Inovia Capital. “Very few ideas can fundamentally change society and add more value to humankind. This is obviously one such opportunity and we are thrilled to partner with Cohere to be a part of it.” Today’s news comes on the heels of Cohere’s momentum in several areas: a recent announcement to collaborate with Salesforce Ventures to advance generative AI to realize business value; an engagement with LivePerson to supercharge customer experiences; and a host of additional demand and interest from the enterprise market. As Cohere continues to advance its industry-leading technology, Stanford’s most recent language model evaluation has also ranked Cohere’s Command model highly in accuracy over comparable models. Meanwhile, Cohere recently released the first-ever publicly available multilingual understanding model trained on authentic data from native speakers; it’s equipped to read and understand over 100 of the world’s most commonly spoken languages. +-----+ #] Ciara Linnane: Greedflation as companies raise prices for bigger profits https://www.marketwatch.com/story/greedflation-is-replacing-inflation-as-companies-raise-prices-for-bigger-profits-report-finds-bfb51060?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Greedflation’ is replacing inflation as companies raise prices for bigger profits, report finds Last Updated: June 13, 2023 at 1:05 p.m. ET First Published: June 13, 2023 at 12:05 p.m. ET S&P 500 food and consumer-goods giants are still raising prices — even as input costs are falling “Higher interest rates haven’t stopped S&P companies, especially in the big food industry, from raising consumer prices despite reporting billions in extra net earnings and over a trillion dollars in new giveaways to wealthy investors,” said Liz Zelnick, director of economic security and corporate power at Accountable.US. “Corporate greed is a stubborn thing and requires serious action from Congress. The Fed has not seen an adequate return on its investment in a policy that has already created fissures in the economy that could lead to recession. It’s just not worth it,” she said. &&&&&&&& Howell - "Higher interest rates haven't stopped S&P companies, especially in the big food industry, from raising consumer prices" Wow, quite the disconnect as one would expect, but a fantastic lightning rod for discontent and blame-throwing. 08********08 #] 09Jun2023 +-----+ #] James Rogers: >203,000 global tech employees have lost their jobs in 2023 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-than-202-000-global-tech-employees-have-lost-their-jobs-since-the-start-of-2023-ae315da?mod=newsviewer_click More than 203,000 global tech employees have lost their jobs since the start of 2023 Last Updated: June 9, 2023 at 3:55 p.m. ET First Published: June 6, 2023 at 9:08 a.m. ET Last year tech companies laid off a total of 154,336 employees, according to Layoffs.fyi. &&&&&&&& Howell - This is all due to a lack of forsight. I was laid off 10 years ago and took pre-retirement. I am therefore perfectly ready and aset up for all future layoffs coming my way. +-----+ #] Therese Poletti: Will generative AI complete the cloud transition? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-generative-ai-complete-the-cloud-transition-one-prominent-executive-thinks-so-4a0657c9?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Will generative AI complete the cloud transition? One prominent executive thinks so Published: June 9, 2023 at 3:35 p.m. ET Box CEO Aaron Levie says new generation of artificial intelligence will be the ‘nail in the coffin’ of traditional on-premises data centers, but the likely path may be more nuanced There have been a lot of pronouncements about the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence in recent months, but one that Box Inc. Chief Executive Aaron Levie made recently merited a further look. In a brief interview after Box’s BOX, -0.09% most recent earnings report, Levie expanded on comments he made to Wall Street analysts that AI would be the “nail in the coffin” for legacy data centers, as well as the push that many companies need to move their data to the cloud. His theory is that generative AI systems have been designed to run in the cloud, as we saw with Open AI’s beta testing involving millions of users who were accessing ChatGPT via the cloud. “The classic way a large enterprise would manages its files, its contacts and marketing materials and project files, inside of a legacy center or like server environment, those files will be largely inaccessible by these latest AI models,” he said. “It would be so cost inefficient and counter-productive to try and bring AI through your on-prem data center in any kind of reasonable way.” “There are super nerdy kind of sub reasons, but it all amounts to this tech is really built for cloud systems, not legacy file systems,” Levie said. &&&&&&&& Howell - Box Inc. Chief Executive Aaron Levie makes a great point. This smells a bit like the 1970-1990 period, when the programming language LISP was a key tool in the generation of AI concepts and other [languages, tools]. A key problem was that it was hard to find [employee, professor, grad students] capable of handling it effectively (or to scale it). Maribel Lopez, principal analyst at Lopez Research, has useful points, but to me more appropriate for very large organisations (probably less than half of the SP300?) and AFTER the "generative AI" stabilizes more (which will likely take at least 10-20 years, ignoring a strong potential for other revolutions that will toss out current [tool, system]s like they are moldy food. Perhaps this stuff really needs 3 to 5 new versions of Jeff Bezos, a very rare exec who saw how to capitalize on opportunity, put [a team, finances] together. Others can only copy or crash. +-----+ #] Randall W. Forsyth: AI Could Turn Some Tech Winners Into Has-Beens https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/ai-nvidia-tech-winners-has-beens-e0dec10?mod=newsviewer_click AI Could Turn Some Tech Winners Into Has-Beens Last Updated: June 9, 2023 at 11:56 a.m. ET First Published: May 26, 2023 at 10:48 a.m. ET In terms of economic and financial impact, this rapid technological change could make today’s AI winners tomorrow’s has-beens, the BCA team argues. Some may fade or be swallowed by survivors, as Sun Microsystems was by Oracle (ticker: ORCL) more than a decade ago. Even giants can founder for years, as Microsoft (MSFT) did early in this century until its current management took over and made it one of the big tech winners underpinning the current market. &&&&&&&& Howell - It's good to see all the commentary on AI, we all like to wave our arms and yap, to be seen as being ahead of the curve and insightful. Bit it's almost impossible to find people who actually look into the mathematics and are aware of its context - including many of the experts, programmed to think according to mainstream thinking in their area of expertise. The scary part is the gaggle of [well-intentioned, self-promoted] truthsayers,who know what we should think, how we should act with respect to AI. I have more faith in SkyNet and Terminator 1. +-----+ #] Eric J. Savitz: Apple Goes Mum on AI As Microsoft and Google Dominate the Conversation https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/apple-ai-siri-visionpro-ce5eeae7?mod=newsviewer_click Apple Goes Mum on AI As Microsoft and Google Dominate the Conversation Last Updated: June 9, 2023 at 12:09 p.m. ET First Published: June 9, 2023 at 3:00 a.m. ET Apple didn’t answer my request for comment on that topic. If you count other tech leaders in order of their market value, the next 15 or so have all laid out detailed plans to play the AI trend in one way or another: Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL) have chatbots and have unveiled plans to integrate AI features into most of their application software. Amazon.com (AMZN) is building AI tools for Amazon Web Services. Nvidia’s (NVDA) AI-friendly chips have propelled the stock to a 160% gain this year and a recent visit to the $1 trillion market-cap club. Then you’ve got Tesla (TSLA), Meta Platforms (META), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), Broadcom (AVGO), and Oracle (ORCL)—AI plays, one and all. Meanwhile, it has been nearly 12 years since Apple launched Siri, the company’s virtual assistant. But its growth seems stunted. Since Siri is integrated into my phone, I can ask it to do some useful things while I drive, like “call Steve” or “text Tim.” But it’s not a great option if you need to generate code or draft documents—all things now offered by ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard. &&&&&&&& Richard Russell - 1 hour ago Apple is certainly my most-admired corporation, and I do not share Mr. Savitz' concern about AI. Nonetheless, with the VisionPro launch, all that came to mind was the iPod Nano or the Lisa: why? Wearing goggles, with a super-creepy video of my face projected to the public, is just daft. I believe AR is potentially an internet-sized game-changer, but it simply cannot evolve in this way. Where are the holograms? That seems to me the way forward... Howell - with-held from publish +-----+ #] Emily Bary: How Apple’s Vision Pro compares with the Meta Quest Pro https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-headset-face-off-how-apples-vision-pro-compares-with-the-meta-quest-pro-beyond-a-huge-price-gap-db5b9293?mod=search_headline&mod=article_inline The headset face-off: How Apple’s Vision Pro compares with the Meta Quest Pro, beyond a huge price gap Published: June 6, 2023 at 5:22 p.m. ET The Vision Pro has better resolution than the Quest Pro and makes it easier to toggle between virtual and augmented reality—but Apple’s device will be far more expensive when it arrives &&&&&&&& Howell - I'm lost as to the status of the age-old problems of [time-lag, vision headaches, etc] that have plagued even high-end gamer systems even recently. On maniac gamer recently told me that she uses googles with games all the time, but had a 30minute - to - one hour maximum time-of-use before she had to take a break. I'm older and having similar problems just with reading glasses... +-----+ #] Stephen Wilmot, WSJ: Tesla Has Won the EV-Charger Wars https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-has-won-the-ev-charger-wars-e95928c0?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla Has Won the EV-Charger Wars GM’s decision to follow Ford in joining Tesla’s network paves the way for a single, open U.S. electric-vehicle charging standard June 9, 2023 10:45 am ET +-----+ #] Adam Clark: DocuSign Says It’s an AI Winner. Why ChatGPT Isn’t a Threat. https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/docusign-stock-price-earnings-ai-chatgpt-b035668e?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore DocuSign Says It’s an AI Winner. Why ChatGPT Isn’t a Threat. Last Updated: June 9, 2023 at 10:03 a.m. ET First Published: June 9, 2023 at 6:52 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - I tend to agree with both [Allan Thygesen of DocuSign, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives]. To me, a fundamental problem is to see Large Language Mode4ls (LLMs) like [Google BARD, MS chatGPT] as applications alone, rather than serving as a "Cognitive [User, Interface, App Programming Interface, Integration tool, Operating System, etc]". That is a failure of many critiques of LLMs as well. The constructions of systems with LLMs is more important than just the LLM itself, and DocuSign may simply represent all other successful [application, system]s out there (eg relational databases, MIS, Enterprise stuff, etc]). They all stand to gain great value together. +-----+ #] Associated Press: Past dollarization of North Korean economy now threat to Kim’s rule https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollarization-of-north-korean-economy-become-a-potential-threat-to-kims-rule-49b570ce?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore ‘Dollarization’ of North Korean economy become a potential threat to Kim’s rule Last Updated: June 9, 2023 at 8:52 a.m. ET First Published: June 9, 2023 at 2:46 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Very helpful article - I didn't realize foreign currency was important within North Korea. I wonder if the use of foreign currencies has actually been a great boon to North Korea, by introducing spending discipline and providing an excuse to blame [foreign powers, capitalists] for every little bump in the road. +-----+ #] Barbara Kollmeyer: Turkey’s new central bank governor, ex-First Republic exec https://www.marketwatch.com/story/former-goldman-sachs-banker-hafize-gaye-erkan-becomes-turkeys-first-female-central-bank-chief-as-lira-tumble-continues-64dfe085?mod=newsviewer_click Meet Turkey’s new central bank governor as ex-First Republic exec takes on soaring inflation, tumbling lira Last Updated: June 9, 2023 at 10:53 a.m. ET First Published: June 9, 2023 at 5:31 a.m. ET Erkan needs to clean house at the central bank, but it won’t be easy, says risk expert &&&&&&&& Howell - Twitter, Deer Point Macro "... In some corners of Twitter, eyebrows were raised over the new central bank governor’s stint at First Republic Bank, which failed in the spring amid a banking crisis ..." Other than that, the article gives very little context for Hafize Gaye Erkan's thinking or intended direction. My bad - I should Google translate some of the Turkish financial news articles... +-----+ #] &&&&&&&&& from "$d_web"'economics, markets/TradingView notes.txt' : Howell - I am starting to think that post-event performance must be adjusted for a long-term semi-log trend, or the results are deceptive (eg ridiculously inflated percepts of real gains). Using nominal market gains post-event is especially risky at a time like now when it seems that there is some evidence that the long-term SP500 trend is now much higher. It seems like the SP500 still "wants" to inflate at about the same rate as during the covid years, ~14 nominal%/year (log rate 0.145, versus 1926-2022 rate of 0.030)? That includes real economic growth, net exports, foreign investment, etc, but I have the suspicion that ongoing deficit spending is a key reason, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary. I also wonder if people have found a way to "electronically print money" outside of the official [fiat bank loan leveraging, US [Treasury, Federal Reserve]] systems. Nobody wants to be seen to cut spending and hurt people. It's like repeatedly through history: David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" Ray Dalio 2021 "Principles for dealing with the Changing World Order" 08********08 #] 08Jun2023 Current rate of SP500 "inflation", yrFrac formula see "$d_web"'economics, markets/TradingView notes.txt' https://www.tradingview.com/chart/Dpe2yXH0/ chart image : https://www.tradingview.com/x/QJ0gDYwp/ SP500 "inflation rate" is like the covid years, ~14%/year 08********08 #] 04Jun2023 +-----+ #] Fomenka: use your name in a banner as if you gave me a recommendation? Fomenka Bill, hi there. I am putting together a website to start organising my charts, publish articles and have a landing page to connect to stakeholders outside of Tradingview. Do you mind if I use your name in a banner as if you gave me a recommendation? Have a look - https://deustrader.wixsite.com/trading. I may, of course, change the phrase to whatever you like. This is not 100% serious so far, half a joke. &&&&&&&& Bill_Howell Fine with me, Fomenka. I like your work and diligence. Keep in mind that I'm not a professional, and my website is in disarray: most internal links haven't worked for ~2 years, as I have trouble getting priority time to revamp my website. I will always have crazy ideas that will upset some (as with history & science). Actually, I almost missed your message - TV might have rearranged things a bit. 08********08 #] 02Jun2023 +-----+ #] Isabel Wang: S&P 500 nears bear-market exit. Will Big Tech’s rally finally spread? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/s-p-500-nears-bear-market-exit-will-big-techs-rally-finally-spread-to-the-broader-stock-market-f4f92b9d?mod=newsviewer_click S&P 500 nears bear-market exit. Will Big Tech’s rally finally spread to the broader stock market? Last Updated: June 2, 2023 at 4:55 p.m. ET First Published: June 2, 2023 at 3:19 p.m. ET Large-cap benchmark suffering longest stretch in bear territory since 1948 &&&&&&&& Howell - Strangely, SP500 log-price growth, from the bottom of ~Sep-Oct2022, is parallel to its growth 24Feb2020-30Aug2021 (24Feb2020 was halfway stop of crash down). Taking this as a good indication of the financial asset inflation rate, it would appear that current stimulation (US Treasury, foreign investors, but not so much US Federal Reserve) hasn't abated much since the covid period. The recent debt ceinling resolution might support that perspective in a limited sense. My guess? - the party can no longer be stopped, as Ray Dalio's 2021 "Changing World Order" commented for the course of historical periods going ~600 years back. He had many recommendations of "safe havens" in case history repeats. +-----+ #] Harry Dent forecast - Last Chance To Sell /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/Dent forecast/230531 Harry Dent forecast - Last Chance To Sell.pdf 08********08 #] 28May2023 +-----+ #] Mike Murphy: Nvidia CEO tells graduates: Take advantage of AI or get left behind https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-ceo-tells-graduates-take-advantage-of-ai-or-get-left-behind-988f0625?mod=newsviewer_click Nvidia CEO tells graduates: Take advantage of AI or get left behind Published: May 28, 2023 at 9:35 p.m. ET In commencement speech in Taiwan, Jensen Huang tells grads to seize opportunities &&&&&&&& Howell - Probably good advice. That didn't happen when microcomputers hit the job scene, possibly because it took decades (~1978-2000 dot-com? I forget) for organisations to pick up on it (2005 was when some senior scientists and managers finally sort-of caught on). It might happen much faster now, as the intellectual side of jobs might possibly transition automatically at internet speeds, and one thing the Large Language Models can do is learn [faster, better] for suitable [data, applications]. For almost 10 years, those involved even pre-Transformer NNs have been commenting that the big change now isn't blue-collar, but upper-end professionals, notably medical diagnosis and senior lawyers. (held back - might be offensive) 08********08 #] 26May2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: If you haven’t owned these 5 stocks, your portfolio probably is trailing https://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-you-havent-owned-these-5-stocks-your-portfolio-probably-is-trailing-the-market-c2feb2f7?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest If you haven’t owned these 5 stocks, your portfolio probably is trailing the market Last Updated: May 26, 2023 at 2:13 p.m. ET First Published: May 26, 2023 at 7:18 a.m. ET A handful of stocks has produced the global market’s long-term gain The study was published recently in the Financial Analysts Journal: https://doi.org/10.1080/0015198X.2023.2188870 Entitled “Long-Term Shareholder Returns: Evidence from 64,000 Global Stocks,” the research was conducted by Hendrik Bessembinder of Arizona State University; Te-Feng Chen and K.C. John Wei of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Goeun Choi of Tulane University. This group of stocks that is the source of the stock market’s long-term wealth creation is incredibly small. The researchers focused on all publicly traded stocks in the world between 1990 and 2020 — almost 64,000 in total. They found that just 1,526 securities — 2.39% of the total — accounted for all of the wealth the global equity market produced over this 30-year period. The net wealth creation of the remaining 97.61% of stocks was zero. The return distribution was extremely lopsided even among the 2.39% of stocks that were source of the net wealth creation over this 30-year period. Just five of the more than 64,000 stocks were responsible for more than 10% of the total global wealth creation: Apple AAPL, +1.41%, Microsoft MSFT, +2.14%, Amazon.com AMZN, +4.44%, Alphabet GOOGL, +0.92%, and Tencent Holdings TCEHY, +2.05%. +-----+ #] Philip van Doorn: How the AI boom can affect your money and your career https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-ai-boom-can-affect-your-money-and-your-career-9e0f4561?mod=newsviewer_click How the AI boom can affect your money and your career Published: May 26, 2023 at 12:05 p.m. ET Also: Retailers’ troubles, a Medicare battle, more on investing in Japan and good news about Generation Z +-----+ #] Mike Murphy: Elon Musk’s Neuralink, FDA approval for first human clinical study https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musks-neuralink-says-it-has-fda-approval-for-first-human-clinical-study-ae12a48b?mod=newsviewer_click Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink says it has FDA approval for first human clinical study Last Updated: May 26, 2023 at 8:03 a.m. ET First Published: May 25, 2023 at 8:47 p.m. ET From December: Elon Musk says Neuralink could help create superhuman intelligence. But the technology could be a rare failure for one of his companies https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-says-neuralink-could-help-create-superhuman-intelligence-but-the-technology-could-be-a-rare-failure-for-one-of-his-companies-11670864762?mod=article_inline In November, Musk — who’s co-founder and CEO of Neuralink — tweeted that he was “now confident that the Neuralink device is ready for humans,” and said he expected clinical trials to begin in six months. He also said he would be comfortable implanting a Neuralink chip in one of his kids, if they needed it, and said he intends to get his own brain implant sometime in the future. Last year, Reuters reported Neuralink was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General over allegations that its experiments were causing undue suffering and deaths of its animal test subjects. +-----+ #] Josh Nathan-Kazis: Drugmakers Released a Ton of New Cancer Treatment Data https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/pfizer-merck-effector-cancer-treatment-data-a1cfbbd8?mod=newsviewer_click Drugmakers Released a Ton of New Cancer Treatment Data. The Biggest Developments. Published: May 26, 2023 at 11:42 a.m. ET +-----+ #] Jon Swartz: AI will change the way entertainment is made: for better or worse? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ai-is-going-to-change-the-way-entertainment-is-made-will-it-be-for-better-or-worse-d30a6991?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime AI is going to change the way entertainment is made. Will it be for better or worse? Published: May 26, 2023 at 11:56 a.m. ET ‘AI is potentially a good tool for writers — until it displaces writers’ &&&&&&&& Howell - Many commentators, such as Marc Guggenheim, still look at "AI" ( "Computational Intelligence" (CI) to me) as the old Kasparov vs Deep Blue AI. The potential for vastly-greater-creativity-than-human could easily be there, as in many past projects, and it's perhaps nowhere near as far to machine consciousness than we want to believe. Frankly, for >20 years, systems have been showing that human intelligence isn't quite what we thought it was, and machine [analysis of, action for] cart [individual, group, society] intelligence may be one of the key stepping stones to a much better future. "We need help"is an unstated theme underlying much [sci-fi, fear]. +-----+ #] Emily Bary: ‘Unprecedented’ and ‘unfathomable.’ Nvidia https://www.marketwatch.com/story/unprecedented-and-unfathomable-nvidia-makes-jaws-drop-on-wall-street-as-stock-explodes-higher-9361285f?mod=emily-bary&mod=article_inline ‘Unprecedented’ and ‘unfathomable.’ Nvidia makes jaws drop on Wall Street as stock explodes higher. Last Updated: May 26, 2023 at 8:23 a.m. ET First Published: May 25, 2023 at 7:36 a.m. ET Analysts were awestruck in describing Nvidia’s latest outlook, with one musing that it could have marked the ‘greatest beat of all time’ +-----+ #] William Watts: RenMac- Stock market’s AI frenzy reinforces this crucial rule for traders https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-markets-ai-frenzy-reinforces-this-crucial-rule-for-traders-renmac-says-fc248f84?mod=newsviewer_click Stock market’s AI frenzy reinforces this crucial rule for traders, RenMac says Published: May 26, 2023 at 11:37 a.m. ET +-----+ #] Eleanor Lais: The dark side of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dark-side-of-the-weight-loss-drug-craze-eating-disorders-medication-shortages-dangerous-knock-offs-509ed96a?mod=newsviewer_click The dark side of the weight-loss-drug craze: eating disorders, medication shortages, dangerous knock-offs Published: May 26, 2023 at 10:04 a.m. ET Teens and older adults at risk, say doctors and researchers, as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic are hyped heavily online Drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus and Eli Lilly’s LLY, -0.54% Mounjaro mimic the effects of a gut hormone known as GLP-1, which can help control blood-sugar levels and reduce appetite. (Mounjaro also affects another hormone called GIP.) Ozempic, Rybelsus and Mounjaro are FDA-approved for treatment of type 2 diabetes, while Wegovy is approved for people with obesity and certain people with excess weight combined with weight-related medical problems. 08********08 #] 22May2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Have profit margins risen to a permanently high plateau? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/have-profit-margins-risen-to-a-permanently-high-plateau-7af81fd5?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Have profit margins risen to a permanently high plateau? Published: May 22, 2023 at 11:57 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert A monthly review of stock market valuation indicators &&&&&&&& Howell - Permanently high valuation levels compared to historic? Perhaps could be explained by permanently high [Fed, Treasury] money pump, foreign investors, and some unrecognized source of money creation (I have this feeling more and more). Also: characteristic of systems where only politically-connected czars may do business in key areas, like most of history with [pharoh, king, barron]s, all socialist systems, and modern day example of Putin's oligarchs? Trick is to make returns "on the books" look reasonable, but lots of loose cash to have fun with (and to keep the rulers in power). Looking at USA top billionaires - this might be a plausible description for being stalwarts of politics with the best potential [return, safety]s, I don't know. /home/bill/web/economics, markets/Cool stuff/230522 Hulbert monthly eight valuation measures.png 08********08 #] 20May2023 +-----+ #] Philip van Door: 20 AI stocks & highest compound annual sales growth through 2025 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/20-ai-stocks-expected-to-post-the-highest-compound-annual-sales-growth-through-2025-17f4f293?mod=newsviewer_click Deep Dive 20 AI stocks expected to post the highest compound annual sales growth through 2025 Last Updated: May 20, 2023 at 8:55 a.m. ET First Published: May 17, 2023 at 12:58 p.m. ET By Philip van Door AI is “the next new thing” in tech, but unlike other investment fads, this one seems likely to have staying power as it transforms many industries &&&&&&&& Mo Si 17 May, 2023 - I work in tech in the data field and yet I am confused by this AI talk. Most companies already use data to measure, predict, forecast everything from sales, revenue, etc. And now you could add social sentiment, twitter feeds, etc. to that. Develop chat bots etc. Instead of typing search queries, and clicking on individual sites to get your answer, use chat GPT to get your FAQs answered. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google etc already use AI (data science) in all their products- recommendation engines, image recognition, voice assist, auto-correct, in email and teams/ slack like tools with auto generating responses, etc. Tesla self driving is all AI + Robotics. But beyond that what is the case for AI that will lead to large monetization opportunity? AI to me seems to be more of a feature than a product to sell. So why are stocks going parabolic with the AI talk? Howell - I too was surprised with the catGPT hype, based on a huge version that is somewhat like Robert Hecht-Nielson's 2002 & 2007 "Confabulation Theory" (which did not take off). A young geek said that it was "free", which helps a lot. I think that a huge issue is that linguistics touches home for most people, who can see that chatGPT, for all its flaws, it better than most humans at [bringing together, presenting] ideas, often including the experts themselves. It seems that only Bezos was able to get the jump on the online general store, maybe he was a genius at recognizing what the system needed, or found the right guys who could do that. I don't see an equivalent, yet, for the Transformer Neural Networks (Large Language Models (LLMs) like [BARD, LaMDA, chatGPT, etc]). There is a huge amount of progress remaining, as pointed out by Gary Marcus and others, plus there is a huge pool of almost unknown research (eg Stephen Grossberg's "Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain") that is very, very deep. 08********08 #] 19May2023 +-----+ #] code DENT30 30% off Harry Det newletter 08********08 #] 15May2023 +-----+ #] oops - forgot to record URL etc &&&&&&&&& Howell - My guess is that the "supply and demand for money" will decide what happens next : 1) Fed tightening isn't happening (deleverage was brave rhetoric only) 2) Treasury still spending, and illegal immigration alone will likely guarantee sending no matter what almost-irrelevant [constitutional, legal] constraints might say. 3) I still feel that groups have found out how to "print money" electronically etc far beyond [Fed, Treasury, bank lending, international investor] Maybe the Reddit [crypto, meme] types were right : "Stonks always go up". To me, more like David Fischer's "Great Wave", also pointed out by famous mathematicians [Pareto, Mandlebrot]: [political, legal, constitutional, market, financial, monetary, policy] rules and structures simply become irrelevant. All systems behave the same, try the same tricks, suffer the same failures. We can never learn, or at least we've proved that with 5,000+ years of history of doing the same things with new ideas. Voters certainly won't grow up, and I don't blame the politicians doing the voters' democratic bidding. 08********08 #] 13May2023 +-----+ #] Wallace Witkowski: Who will win race for best AI: Google, Apple, Meta or Amazon? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/who-will-win-big-techs-race-for-the-best-ai-assistant-google-apple-meta-or-amazon-ee10061d Who will win Big Tech’s race for the best AI assistant: Google, Apple, Meta or Amazon? Last Updated: May 13, 2023 at 4:08 p.m. ET First Published: May 10, 2023 at 6:13 p.m. ET Morgan Stanley analysts bet on Alphabet’s Google to win the race, while focusing on a formula that looks for the right collection of hardware, user data and investment capital &&&&&&&& Mike Herbert 10 May, 2023 All of those companies are way behind ChatGPT but Google is making a huge effort to catch up. That plus their existing platforms puts them in a pretty good spot. Amazon has in-house AI expertise but their hardware is almost entirely in the home and hard for them to expand from there. Their focus will probably be further use of AI for ECommerce - maybe when you buy a 60" TV their top recommendation won't be to buy a second 60" TV. Meta wasted their time and effort on the metaverse. Hard to see them competing in AI. Apple doesn't appear to have any expertise or interest in AI. Jack Olin 15 hours ago - And Microsoft is using ChatGPT and they are not included in this article. Point less. William Howell 12 hours ago - Good point. But Transformer NNS (chat GPT is one example of jillions, but big in public mind) are Google-origin (NO Microsoft): Vaniswami etal 2017 "Attention is all you need". Microsoft not much of a research player in previous hype cycles of Deep Learning, Convolutional NNs, etc, and Elon Musk should get far more credit that MS for chatGPT. Jack Olin 9 hours ago - X corp should also be discussed as a new player with significant impact. I think this tech is a huge investment opportunity. Regardless, will be a HUGE productivity booster for the entire advanced world economies. Howell - I agree with your perspective on productivity boost. But that doesn't have to mean "competitive boost", as there is high global interest and talent (US is only a fraction), and it's quite possible that political correctioness will hamper US businesses to the point other countries take over (maybe as the dollar is rejected more and more as a global reserve currency?). Competitiveness is a dirty word, and so is the concept that covid proved that humans are far less important to the economy that not so long ago. Did you mean? : 1) the X corp (or "Moon Shot Division") of Alphabet (Google's parent) which includes Deep Mind and Michael Bronstein & colleagues "geometrical learning" group? I haven't heard anything about Bronstein in the last year or two so except for the occasional pharma comment. 2) Elon Musk's company, something about Twitter and maybe now the chatGPT (which he was an original founder, and maybe still an investor?) 08********08 #] 05May2023 +-----+ #] Ed Dowd: Signposts of The Sovereign Debt Bubble Popping: What Comes Next? https://rumble.com/v2ls0zu-ed-dowd-signposts-of-the-sovereign-debt-bubble-popping-what-comes-next.html at the American Freedom Alliance "World War III: The Early Years" conference April 22 and 23 in Los Angeles To find out more about the American Freedom Alliance, and to sponsor events such as these, please visit AmericanFreedomAlliance.org >> Howell - my notes will have errors Ed, Finance Technologies is a BIG believe in cycles - we're at the end of ne of the mother cycles Tim Woods cyclesman.com - Cycles News and Views 59$US/m partner book Carlos Allegre and ?? Carlos book "Economics, debt, and demographics" M2, long commodity cycles, what happened since 1800s, Fed, monetary system anomalies where are we now what comes next? kinetic wars opportunities in chaos, then a great Renaissance James Fraser 1965 "Crises and panics", not available 06:28 M2 year over year growth went negative end of 2022 fifth time since 1868 all involved ban failures 1876 started in 1873 railrad speculatiion 1893 rampant speculation 1921 over-extension of credit, FedReseve eased (1913 formed) 1930 credit bubble 08:23 Inflate or Die: The grand commodity cycle 1800-2023 (400 years from low-to-low) 6 major commodity cycles since 1800 2nd peaked after Civil War & WWI inflation, M2 negative after 1873, 1893 3rd after Fed establish 1913 192, 1929 panics 4th after WWII US$ global reserve currency 5th 1971? Nixon floated Petro-dollar, 1995 peaked 6th peaked 2011, covd was a stick save for commodities 2019 14:22 Bubble blowing and crises are accelerating in time & magnitude.. leading to ever increasing Fed interventions Dotcom bubble 1987-2001 7 y Quantitative Easing born Euro debt crisis 2011 negative interest rates in Europe 2015 China currency issues 4 years, secret Shanghai Accord 2016-18 Fed abandons attempts to raise interest rates, bond mkt falter, "Non-QE" 2020 covid war 2 years unprecedented Fed action, 2 years between bubbles! 2022 peak of Everything Bubble "event horizons" stimuli don't work anymore, stuff still collapses 17:26 Financial system anomalies 1st Anomaly: dollar & commodity inverse relationship flips from -1 to 1 1971 Petro Dollar inveersely related Jan2021 almost +1 correlation, why? : supply chain disruptions ad constrictive energy policy? global credit contraction as reflected by dollar strength? something else? (Howell - foreign economies more powerful, not stupid) Dowd - policy has big role accelerated changes Dowd thinks are killing the financial system 20:16 2nd Anomaly: a signal trigger for rate hike cycle end fired off before first rate hike 3 month T-bill > Fed discount rate: typically signals end of rate hikes doesn't always trigger, recent caps : 1969, 1974, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1989 recent trigger Feb2022 BEFORE rate hikes, triggered throughout this cycle of hikes why: Fed was hiking into a slowdown? Trigger is irrelevant? Something else? >> Howell - a bit strange as analysis, mayybe too much emphasis on one [factor, event] 21:23 3rd Anomaly: Fed reverse REPOs explode in spring 2021... Fed influences growth complicated subject (REPO - overnight Fed liquidity, reverse - give $ to Fed) Apr2021 exploded due to restoration of tghe supplemental liquitiy ratio banks from past covid related requrements. Drove money from banks to Miney Market Funds (MMFs) who primarily use the fund lack of T-bill supply money flow from banks to MMF deposits with Fed with zero counterparty risk Fec control of money mkt activities -> reduce private activities, distort market price signals Crowding out effects? (from 400M$ -> 2.5T$) Fed is now biggest player in MMF Fed may not even be aware? permanent fixture now? 25:49 4th Anomaly: M2 growth goes negative y/y... first time since 1930 & 3 large bank failures seemingly out of nowhere Silicon Valley Bank, Credit Suisse M@/y going negative is very deflationary hsitorically & has happened 4 times since 1930 (see above) every time bank failures and panics have ensued is this just beginning? is this time different? can monetary autorities reverse it or just slow it down? Dowd thinks pricing signals distored, hard to figure out if someone in distress Fed bank term funding program short term loans to banks @ par, won't stop problems) I think I know why - have seen US$ reserve base, exporting US inflation around world since 70 years ago, spice must continue to flow 28:45 Where are we in the current cycle? Economy, labor force & financial assets crossover to negative (Carlos Allegria's model) 29:15 We are expecting a deep recession in 2023 accrding to our early cycle indicators 2022 technical recession in Q1&Q2 while real GDP growthrecovered in Q3&Q4 at grwoth rates close to zero 9-month ECI hit a new low in April and point to a deep recession similar in magnitude to the 1991 Savings & Loan Crises do not know full extent of recession, which may tip into deep depression assumes no systemic accident (bar the door) 30:00 Flavors of recession Phinance Technologies is expecting recession with no systemic financial crisis? Depends on reactions by Fed & other central banks & speed of those reactions Recession with high unemployment? From out vaccine damage report, we estimate that the current 3.6% unemplyment rate is in fact 2.6% as the loss of productivity of disabled individuals and missed work time needs to be replaced Protracted economic crisis? Continued interventions would lead to inflation >> Howell - covid proved economy has LESS need of people!? approaching "event horizon" 32:54 Budget deficit is exploding into a recession >> Howell - Keynesian mindset of socialists 1st 6 months of government's fiscal year is ~480 G$ above last year: spending rose 13% revenues down 3% looking at 2T$ structural deficits with tax receipts expected to continue to fall into recession Yellen didn't know what multiyear deficits were projected, even though that was the reason for the meeting Without Fed QE who is going to buy this debt issuance? Risk assets [stock, equity, bond]s likely croded out resulting in lower prices Dowd recommends rolling over Treasuries at no risk yield curve control like Japan 35:40 Stocks peaked in Jan2022, commodities in Jun2022... interest rates peaking? Fed policy error likely Tim Wood showed historically at cycle peaks [stock, equity, bond]s on lower gear real economic damage begins Chart shown indicates rate hike cycle is close to done, maybe one more hike in May Fed policy too tight as inflation coming down and deflation will be word on media lips later this year yield curve deeply inverted 37:17 What's coming next? Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) & war 37:29 CBDC is likely attempted Biden executive orders on CBDC and Fed Now Program crack down on crypto by establishment technocrats' ideal control dream to collect taxes abd implement societal control Institutional momentum is building, but good news are concerns in the debate eg Ted Cruise "something wicked this way comes", Dowd wants changes slowed down - fast isn't good for anyone tape of Bank of International Settlements "Central Bank absolute control over cash" 41:03 More kinetic wars very likely (periods of inflation correspond to war) war is a way out for bankers, not us $330T in global debt , we are 21 years into 6th economic cycle as tracked by commodities Deflation cycle is coming? only 2 ways out: deflation or inflation war is only palpable narrative Warren Buffet dumped 4G$ TMSC (Taiwan SemiConductor) China hit their demographic wall in 2020, need a bogeyman >> Howell - China working popln decline started 2010 IMHO "covid wart" failed inflate, next 5-10 years will be over new monetary system US will go to war to protect reserve currency status Dowd - deflationary fail-up in dollar price initially, slow process down we need leadership France etc talk is a concern, don't use dollar as a weapon (Russia Swift system) >> Howell - reserve currency usually lost 20-100 years AFTER countries power is broken 46:56 Opportunities comfortable with uncertainty - infinite possibilities open up 47:59 Before opportunities get your mindset in order! Dowd became depressed when stopped worrying things don't go way he wanted physical health precedes mental health If you have a normalcy bias - dump it, we're not in Kansas anymore live in the present, avoid ruminant thought at all costs fear is mostly imaginary control what you can and let the rest go prep for food shortages (Dowd doesn't) 50:55 Chaos will bring opportunties and Renaissance >> Howell very much theme of Sacha Dobler, David Fisher, Harry Dent (maybe Ray Dalio) albeit Dent isn't expecting it all to fall apart biggest trend TRUTH & INTEGRITY asset prices will be on sale, hoard cash, buy in the panic decentralsation - new health care modalities, crypto, community banks, credit unions align yourself with like-minded positive people & create those networks now integrity to yourself, honesty to others without freedom we've got nothing Maybe they will stick-save it again, I don't know emto Steve - Kaal, Sorensen, Otte, Emming "Strured Atom Model" & SAFIRE - potential for manufacturing gold element (cost = ??) cycles - many take that view, but "cyclomania" is a danger timing often doesn't work best of all is Stephen Puetz, BY FAR, slso Harry Dent, David Fisher, Ray Dalio etc, etc, etc +-----+ #] Fed’s Bullard: Interest rates are likely to need to grind higher https://www.marketwatch.com/story/talk-of-recession-in-u-s-is-greatly-exaggerated-feds-bullard-says-b74d2f13?mod=newsviewer_click Interest rates are likely to need to grind higher, Fed’s Bullard says Last Updated: May 5, 2023 at 3:25 p.m. ET First Published: May 5, 2023 at 1:49 p.m. ET Bullard downplayed the risk of a U.S. recession, joking that the predictions of the imminent demise of the economy have been greatly exaggerated &&&&&&&& Howell - Normal data-shifting may affect this? Rodney Johnson stated "... While the headline jobs number looked hot, the revised numbers for the last two months did not. The February number was revised down from 326,000 to 248,000, and the March number was lowered from 236,000 to 165,000. That makes you wonder if the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will reduce the April figures in June, bringing them much closer to the estimated 180,000. ..." +-----+ #] Rodney Johnson: Rodney's Weekly Wrap May 5, 2023 The U.S. Economy Created 253,000 Jobs in April, Well Above the Estimate of 180,000… The unemployment rate remained unchanged, at 3.4%. What it means— It’s time for revisionist history. While the headline jobs number looked hot, the revised numbers for the last two months did not. The February number was revised down from 326,000 to 248,000, and the March number was lowered from 236,000 to 165,000. That makes you wonder if the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will reduce the April figures in June, bringing them much closer to the estimated 180,000. On the income side, the BLS reported that average hourly earnings rose 0.5% last month, which puts it up 4.4% over the last year. That’s still down 0.6% from March inflation numbers, but we get new consumer price data next week. If inflation has fallen to 4.4% or below for the past 12 months, then workers might have eked out a tiny, real income gain for the first time in years. Stock futures initially jumped on the news, but the joy might not last. Steady jobs data give the Fed cover if it holds rates above 5% throughout the year, and the central bankers want to see income fall, not move higher. >> holy crap - the numbers look like an [intentional, total] conJob, like scientists +-----+ #] David S. Cloud: Iran’s New Friends: Russia and China https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-new-friends-russia-and-china-4b2f1f00?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime Iran’s New Friends: Russia and China Having viewed both powers warily for years, the Islamic Republic sees its best prospects for survival as the junior partner in an anti-Western alliance May 5, 2023 11:05 am ET couldn't read article +-----+ #] TV claydoctor: spx going down https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/iBT8eDav-spx-going-down/ spx going down S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 4123.49 63.12 1.55% spx is finishing a three drivers pattern, with its fib retraces right on. Its not an HS as many say. I feel the idiots in washington DC will not resolve the debt ceiling successfully, adding great volatility to the markets. These lines all "line up" almost as if by design. These drops coming up are wave patterns, and fibs almost exactly, again, as if by design. Will it play out to the lines? We will see. In the end we are headed for 555. &&&&&&&& Howell - I don't blame Washington. It's a democracy, it's the voters. Nobody cares about debt, they will all demand that the government save them from their own flaws. Failing that, they will scapegoat the politicians that they forced to do things that they demanded. I keep feeling that there is a [large, well-[controlled, hidden]] flow of illicit cash into the financial markets beyond the world banks and treasuries. As we saw with covid, enough cash can turn a disaster into a bonanza for investors, who, like the voters, don't have to stand accountable for their own sins? 08********08 #] 03May2023 U.S. and China are on a collision course that could make their cold war hotter +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: 800 years of history of regulators and bank failures https://www.marketwatch.com/story/svb-and-first-republic-are-just-the-first-of-many-u-s-banks-that-will-fail-if-you-believe-800-years-of-history-a8902918?mod=newsviewer_click SVB and First Republic are just the first of many U.S. banks that will fail — if you believe 800 years of history Published: May 3, 2023 at 8:55 p.m. ET Stocks and real estate are vulnerable to a systemic banking crisis that could last months, if not years Two finance professors were warning of this six weeks ago: Andrew Metrick of Yale’s School of Management, and Paul Schmelzing of Boston College and Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In a study circulated in late March by the National Bureau of Economic Research, they argued that the FDIC bailout of Silicon Valley Bank was almost certainly not an isolated event and was instead symptomatic of a much bigger problem. The professors reached their conclusions by comparing regulators’ behavior in the current crisis with how they reacted during almost 2,000 historical banking-sector interventions in 138 countries dating back to the 13th century. This gave the researchers insight into the likely severity of the current crisis. As Schmelzing put it when I interviewed him six weeks ago, “We don’t directly know how bad things really are right now in the banking system. But we can look at the behavior of the regulators who presumably know a lot more than we do about how bad it is. And the pattern of their responses most closely matches that of 57 prior crises that tended to more severe than average.” The professors’ specific prediction is that we’re in the beginning stages of what they call a “systemic bank-distress episode.” A thorough description of what that looks like in practice is provided by the World Bank: “A systemic banking crisis is a situation when a country’s corporate and financial sectors experience a large number of defaults and financial institutions and corporations face great difficulties repaying contracts on time. As a result, non-performing loans increase sharply and all or most of the aggregate banking system capital is exhausted. This situation may be accompanied by depressed asset prices (such as equity and real estate prices) on the heels of run-ups before the crisis, sharp increases in real interest rates, and a slowdown or reversal in capital flows.” &&&&&&&& Howell - Very helpful to see [Metrick, Schmelzing]'s approach and conclusions, which adds light to [early, broad]er historical studies : - Wilhelm Abel 1935, extended in David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" - Ray Dalio 2021 "Principles for dealing with the Changing World Order", based on [huge, heavy duty] full-[economy, market]s globally [Metrick, Schmelzing] didn't comment on the potential for war (as per several comments on Market Watch recently) and a host of other indicators of "decline" (Ray Dalio goes through these in great detail, Arnold J Toynbee commented on increased militarism in the twilight of a civilisation). Yogi Berra said "It ain't over till it's over" +-----+ #] Associated Press: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seizes oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz https://www.marketwatch.com/story/irans-revolutionary-guard-seizes-oil-tanker-in-strait-of-hormuz-4f82352f?mod=newsviewer_click Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seizes oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz Published: May 3, 2023 at 8:46 p.m. ET DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, the second such capture by Tehran in under a week amid heightened tensions over its nuclear program. The taking of the oil tanker Niovi renewed concerns about Iran threatening maritime traffic in the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude passes. It also comes amid the disappearance of a crude oil tanker in southeast Asia believed to be carrying Iranian crude oil amid reports it may have been seized by the United States. +-----+ #] Greg Robb: Fed hikes rates and revamps forward guidance in dovish direction https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-hikes-rates-and-revamps-forward-guidance-in-dovish-direction-86e9bb54?mod=newsviewer_click Fed hikes rates and revamps forward guidance in dovish direction Published: May 3, 2023 at 2:07 p.m. ET Fed says it will factor in cumulative rate hikes and lags from prior moves The quarter percentage point move puts the Fed’s benchmark rate in a range of 5%-5.25%. This is just below the prior peak of rates before the Great Recession of 2008. The Fed reworked its language, scrapping prior language that “some” additional hikes “may” be needed. The pivotal forward guidance now says: “In determining the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate to return inflation to 2% over time, the FOMC will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments.” >> Invest now? +-----+ #] Nouriel Roubini: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-and-china-are-on-a-collision-course-that-could-make-their-cold-war-hotter-c386def8?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: U.S. and China are on a collision course that could make their cold war hotter Published: May 3, 2023 at 1:12 p.m. ET Prospects for cooperation between the two countries look increasingly remote, writes Nouriel Roubini. &&&&&&&& Howell - Good article, and having Nouriel Roubini's recent views adds more credence to long-term scenario books that have been putting the USA-China issue in perspective, such as : - Sacha Dobler 2020 "Solar behaviour: How solar & geomagnetic conditions shape human history, the current self-destruct attempt of the West, and the new Golden Age" - Ray Dalio 2021 "Principles for dealing with the Changing World Order" In ~2017, I peer-reviewed two scientific papers by Chinese (in China) conference papers : (1) the roll-over of global technical dominance (currently USA, long in the tooth), and (2) how many wars will the US become involved in 2020-2030. In a previous year, I had peer-reviewed a Cuban conference paper about the roll-over of global dominant nations over the last ~6700 years. But as per Harry Dent and others, India is coming up, and China's demographic situation will be increasingly important too. +-----+ #] Jon Swartz: With writers on strike, would Hollywood call on AI to fill in? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/with-writers-on-strike-would-hollywood-call-on-ai-to-fill-in-that-day-may-not-be-far-away-6bc0f9de?mod=newsviewer_click With writers on strike, would Hollywood call on AI to fill in? That day may not be far away. Published: May 3, 2023 at 12:30 p.m. ET By powered systems. But the strike itself might increase studio interest in “chatbot” scripts. “The conversation has shifted from this is not possible to a pervasive fear of being replaced. ‘But that’s my job,'” said Monica Landers, founder and CEO of StoryFit, a software startup that educates hundreds of WGA members on how to use AI as a creative tool. Hollywood has infamously treated some of its most iconic authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner with indifference — even disdain. So, the notion of displacing some with bots isn’t unfathomable. It’s already happening with AI-produced music and AI-activated voices in cartoons, and it could spread to low-brow sitcoms and procedural crime shows. Even your run-of-the-mill franchise blockbuster. All the bots need is lots of data. Take Marvel movies, which are based on loads of data for a long time. Longtime Marvel director Joe Russo believes AI will bring the stuff of comic book fantasy to life in a roughly “two years.” “Writers are the first to go and this AI game is just starting,” Scott Page, a technologist and musician (saxophonist, rhythm guitar) known for his work with Pink Floyd, Supertramp, and Toto, said in an email message. “People don’t realize they are designing themselves out by inputting data into AI. It’s getting smarter and smarter by the minute. No question it will destroy the script writing process as we know it.” “Heart on my Sleeve” used AI to simulate a faux song from Drake and The Weeknd that sounded like the real thing. Another recent work sounded a lot like something the British alt-rock band Oasis. When the last Hollywood strike took place in 2007-8, AI was still evolving and the internet had not yet transformed the movie and TV industries via short-videos online, streaming, and mobile devices. That writers strike helped contribute to the ongoing growth of reality TV. &&&&&&&& Howell - We are all Luddites, except when it comes for concern for the other guy? Strange how so many initials reactions were concern for the lower-end jobs, when it was clearly stated by some experts that this would most impact high-end, like [lawyer, medical diagnostic] experts. The really scary thing about AI isn't what it does, it what it shows that we don't do, and the severe cognitive limitations of even the best of our experts (i.e. all of us). Fundamental theoretical physics is a mess, mostly amateurs are breaking through to a new era, not the [university prof, government scientist]s. Currently the dystopian view is that Transformer Neural Networks (TrNNs), as Large Language Models (LLMs) should [extract, distill, conclude] based on over-whelming mainstream consensus (typically politically-correct), but it's most important value may be in telling us when we are out to lunch, when it auto-forms [teams of humans, funding, project management] to create "multiple conflicting hypothesis" to correct and progress. 08********08 #] 02May2023 +-----+ #] Harry Dent: Mailbag- Recession, Safe Havens, and Currencies Date: Tue, 02 May 2023 11:12:15 -0400 Q: Have you taken into account the 18.6-year Real Estate and Banking Cycle? I was present at one of your recent world tour venues, and you presented several excellent cycles, which got me interested in repeating patterns. I've since done more research into cycles and came across Phillip J Anderson's book on the 18.6-year Real Estate and Banking Cycle, which I've just finished reading. The real estate and banking CLOCK is not due to peak until 2025 and the stock market is due to peak in 2026. A new, aggressive bull market should start from March 2023 in both real estate and stocks and end in the above years. I agree that we are headed for the crash of a lifetime and that Civil War farmer with his “sure thing” card has worked out very well in his cycles. As it's all about cycles, can you tell us where we all are in the current Generational, Geopolitical, Innovation, Commodity, and Boom and Bust cycles and how the 18.6-year Real Estate and Banking Cycle fits into all of this? A: I know Phil and just hung with him for a few hours in Australia last November. I love his work. He’s one of the few good cycle guys! His primary cycle is the 18.6-year. It is more a real estate cycle, and it is a good one that I follow. I have a hierarchy of three longer-term and three shorter-term cycles more in line with the great scientific futurists like Milankovich. I think my approach is more comprehensive. But I recommend Phil and his work, along with Robert Prechter with his Elliott Wave patterns and Stan Harley with his intermediate cycle work. >> I emrep'ed Harry Dent : Stephen Puetz 19 year cycle vs [Banking, real estate] 18.6 year cycle Lawrence W. Reed 2008 "Great myths of the Great Depression" MacKinac Center of Public Policy, www.mackinac.org 08********08 #] 01May2023 +-----+ #] Alana Benson: Want to be rich? Try therapy. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/want-to-be-rich-try-therapy-3c68582 Want to be rich? Try therapy. Last Updated: April 29, 2023 at 4:05 p.m. ET First Published: April 27, 2023 at 5:01 a.m. ET Therapy can potentially increase your income. Here’s how, plus ways to get financial assistance for it. &&&&&&&& Howell - I would want to see the therapist's investment record. I've already learned to be comfortable with losing, it's just part of the game. Haven't learned how to get all stressed up about it like in my early days. S G - There are cases where someone can be terrible at something themselves but give great advice. Like I am horrible at romance, but I give top-notch advice! Mostly past the losing stage on markets. As you said, part of the game! Howell - Nicely put, and reminiscent about much of the market advice, albeit MarketWatch etc select people with track records for the articles. I don't advise in areas of science, or at least if I did it's been so long I've forgotten. Scientists cling to beliefs just like everyone else, sometimes for [decade, century, millennia]. Just raise a few points, and rare individuals (not a property of a person, just a jumble of factors) occasionally [comment, react, extend] or congregate, nowadays mostly online. Amateurs often more than professionals: less to lose from enraging the [priest, disciple]s, less highly imprisoned cognitively? Kind of the opposite [goal, approach] to coaching, and I imagine not much use in that domain. S G - Indeed, experts are experts for a reason, but there is also such a thing as curse of knowledge, and being too involved. People also do fall prey to group think and entrenched beliefs. That’s why a fresh set of eyes and beliefs is always helpful to move any given discipline forward. Howell - Very strange timing for me, your response, a bit like chasing after the white rabbit who is darting down the rabbit hole. I am just adding another sub-section to background notes "... Stephen Grossberg may have the ONLY definition of consciousness that is directly tied to quantitative models for lower-level [neuron, general neurology, psychology] data. Foundational models, similar in nature to the small number of general theories in physics to describe a vast range of phenomena, were derived over a period of ?4-5? decades BEFORE they were applied to consciousness. ...". Today : reflections on why one theory is relatively unknown in spite of being one of only two that I know of with a solid basis of applications in other fields. But [deeper, darker] than your statement, S G, is my long [felt, posted] context that science fashions->cults->religions is the normal process, and that religious scientific beliefs become our MAIN impediment to progress because of their successes, being fiercely defended by their [priest, disciple]s. Funny programmers' statement to avoid one of today's inquisitions (that I am deep into, pun intended but not yet correct): "... Open-source pre-training implementation of Google's LaMDA research paper in PyTorch. The totally not sentient AI. ..." +-----+ #] Wallace Witkowski: Geoffrey Hinton warns of fake pictures, upended job market https://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-is-hard-to-see-how-you-can-prevent-the-bad-actors-from-using-it-for-bad-things-googles-former-godfather-of-ai-warns-of-misuse-after-quitting-tech-giant-efad3c05?mod=newsviewer_click ‘It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things’: Google’s former ‘Godfather of AI’ warns of misuse after quitting tech giant Published: May 1, 2023 at 2:31 p.m. ET By Wallace Witkowski Geoffrey Hinton warns of fake pictures, upended job market &&&&&&&& Howell - Strange, there is nothing new in Hinton's sounding of the alarm, after years of others (and Hinton himself, if I remember correctly) stating the same thing and much more. Hinton has made great contributions over the years, but it's a new generation now, and issues are being addressed as they evolve. Maybe the biggest threat is that the new systems empower non-experts to do complex things, and to refine that with expert input under the [watchful, critical] eye of the machine... +-----+ #] Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson: How Fed’s Powell could spoil stock-market’s 2023 rally https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-feds-powell-could-spoil-u-s-stocks-2023-rally-according-to-morgan-stanleys-mike-wilson-2a75868c?mod=newsviewer_click How Fed’s Powell could spoil stock-market’s 2023 rally, according to Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson Last Updated: May 1, 2023 at 2:42 p.m. ET First Published: May 1, 2023 at 12:31 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& I didn't post : Howell - Maybe it's time to create a home-brew "FAAMGN" (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia & other I favourites) index, and to subtract those companies from [SP500, NASDAQ, Russell, Wiltshire, etc] indexes to get a more useful view of the market, something like the Dow and industry indexes. The indexes themselves will always want to include the big high-price-growth stocks, especially for index investors etc, but it's getting hard to see clearly. I didn't include : But at least the current view isn't reminding us of the gloomier side of the markets (eg much of the rest of the whole economy, and competitiveness). 08********08 #] 28Apr2023 +-----+ #] Howell: TVblogTo @fract - Kaal, Sorenson, Otte, Emming @fract - here's an AWESOME fun fractal series, hugely outside of accepted fundamental theoretical physics, and yet in so many ways vastly superior to quantum mechanics concepts even if there's a great deal of work to do: Kaal, Otte, Sorensen, Emming 2021 "The nature of the atom" Curtis Press, 268pp ISBN 978-1-8381280-2-9 https://StructuredAtom.org/ Right away you can see that this is radical : a STRUCTURE of the nucleus? Totally heretical... page 70, section "3.5 The rules of the backbone structure", "... The fractal geometry of the [atomic nucleus] backbone is complicated. ...." [Complicated, beautiful, obvious] - but vastly [simpler, stronger, more phenomenological] than QM concepts. Occam's razer leaves no choice at all (KISS- "Keep It Simple Stupid" in computer programming), even at this early stage, and perhaps as thre SAM (Structured Atom) model evolves to greater complexity. Already, Kaal's SAM seems to explain a great deal that has never been explained by QM, without hiding behind math that by their own admission "nobody understands". It seems clear that they do not understand the implications of "Universal function approximators" (UFAs), and how the do NOT prove a theory if it fits the data (of course : UFAs will fit the data, even if the theory does not). page 71 "Table 3.1 Building the backbone with icosahedrons with initially 12, then 11, protons". - this shows the fractal progression. As with several other fractals, it is simpler than my original understanding of Benoit Mandelbrot's fractal concepts. I'm still reading through this book, but at the same time [learn, look]ing past the geometrical constraints of his rule-based approach backed by geometry constraints. At any rate, [right, wrong, true, false] are NOT issues for me at this point. To me the only point that matters is that here is a rare man and a rare group that thinks. +-----+ There have been many proposals to ditch both General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) since their inceptions ~[150, 120] years ago, as rare individuals have always seen flaws at the most [simple, introductory] stages of the concepts. Kaal is still developing his concept, but he's of interest as I'm already used to seeing as "con-science bandaids to save crappy concepts" many items that he poibts out. A bit more generally, (incomplete list!!!) : - neutrinos don't exist (Pauli invents to save his model) - dark [energy, matter] (laughable idiots and their GR) - speed of light in a vacuum is NOT constant! (last 300 years - big witch-hunt 1940s?) - relativity is a failure, going right back to Michaelson-Morely - on and on and on and on... I don't throw out [GRm,QM], as my self-imposed "multiple conflicting hypothesis" obliges me to retain [overwhelming, mainstream, politically-correct, consensus] theories that have passed from science [fashion -> cult -> religion]. This is to protect myself as I keep getting sidetracked on wild goose chases, including mainstream theories like [GR, QM]. 08********08 #] 27Apr2023 +-----+ #] Ray Dali: U.S., China Are on the Brink of War https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/bridgewater-ray-dalio-u-s-china-tensions-war-ea41ec3?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime Bridgewater Founder Ray Dalio: U.S., China Are on the Brink of War Published: April 27, 2023 at 3:54 p.m. ET By Reshma Kapadia Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, is warning that the world’s two largest economies are on the brink of war and beyond the ability to talk. Dalio, who retired from being co-chief investment officer at the country’s largest hedge fund earlier this year, recently visited China. where he has built relationships over 40 years. He returned worried about the deterioration in the relationship. In a memo posted on LinkedIn, he said the two countries “are very close to crossing red lines that, if crossed, will irrevocably push them over the brink into some type of war that damages these two countries and causes damage to the world order in severe and irrevocable ways—like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did for Russia and the world, just much bigger.” +-----+ #] Michael Brush: Insider selling could be signaling recession and a stock market selloff https://www.marketwatch.com/story/insider-selling-could-be-signaling-recession-and-a-stock-market-selloff-32f6f854 Opinion: Insider selling could be signaling recession and a stock market selloff Last Updated: April 27, 2023 at 12:58 p.m. ET First Published: April 26, 2023 at 4:16 p.m. ET By Michael Brush 5 signs that stocks and the U.S. economy face a rough summer &&&&&&&& Howell - very interesting article, with a reminder about the lag times, which are easy to forget. Labor capacity comments remind me of complaints by older workers and bosses, but generational changes are hard to put into context. Jason Johnson 45 minutes ago, From 2003-2005 I kept talking about a housing bubble to anyone who’d listen. By late 2006, it appeared the damage had been done to the housing and stock markets, so I invested in both. How wrong I was!! Now I’ve (hopefully) learned to recognize the lag times, and the Wile-E-Coyote hanging off the edge of a cliff moments. This time around I’m patiently hanging out in safer assets and will only buy aggressively once I see legitimate capitulation. (Like hearing the younger investors I know swear off stocks forever and similar signs that bottom has been reached or is close.) Howell - You've stolen one of my approaches to "buy high, sell low". There's an old Wall Street saying about "the last of the bears to capitulate", so we might not have invented this after all. Historical lag times might not work very well in an era where even voters don't care about debt (even though they think they do), and GDP-scale dumping of [Fed, Treasury] cash into the markets is now standard practice. Time lags (phase angles) were modeled by Stephen J,. Puetz "Universal Wave Series" in several [books, science journal papers], but I suspect heavy-duty data-crunching still doesn't really resolve that issue. 08********08 #] 26Apr2023 Howell: are market [correlation, phase]s much [higher, in-syc] when $$-dumping? musing... +-----+ #] Ray Dalio: I don’t understand why people are more inclined to go to bitcoin than gold https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-dont-understand-why-people-are-more-inclined-to-go-to-bitcoin-than-gold-says-hedge-fund-billionaire-ray-dalio-5bb0c823?mod=mw_more_headlines I don’t understand why people are more inclined to go to bitcoin than gold’, says hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio Published: April 26, 2023 at 2:05 p.m. ET By Anushree Dave Ray Dalio, billionaire and founder of Bridgewater Associates, holds a “little bit” of bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.17%, but “doesn’t understand why people are more inclined to go to bitcoin than gold,” he said in a new podcast interview with YouTuber Chris Williamson. MarketWatch has reported in the past that Dalio holds bitcoin. “Cryptocurrency or Bitcoin doesn’t move in a reliable way related to almost anything,” said Dalio in the episode uploaded on Tuesday. “It, you know, moves up and down because of this move and that move….and unlike gold let’s say.” In the past he has said bitcoin is like gold, but that “gold is well established blue-chip alternative to fiat money” and his views haven’t changed much despite recent rallies in the token. “Crypto, it’s very easy to track the owners and transactions. It’s not, like, by the government…It doesn’t move in a way that’s consistent with kind of any of the environments,” said Dalio. “It’s a small asset class. We talk a lot more about it, but its size is about, you know, 30% of the size of Microsoft MSFT, +7.24%, and Microsoft is one stock among many stocks.” On Wednesday, bitcoin rallied more than 8.6% to its highest level in a week, topping $30,000, according to CoinDesk data. It is still far from its peak of over $65,000 in November 2021 though. “I’ve seen people get very rich, and I’ve seen people get very broke with it,” said Dalio. +-----+ #] Associated Press: Tucker Carlson firing at Fox News, Russian foreign minister Lavrov https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tucker-carlson-firing-at-fox-news-draws-comment-from-russian-foreign-minister-lavrov-and-ostensible-job-offer-from-rt-d048ee9e?mod=newsviewer_click Tucker Carlson firing at Fox News draws comment from Russian foreign minister Lavrov and ostensible job offer from RT Published: April 26, 2023 at 5:37 p.m. ET ‘One can only guess [the reason for Carlson’s dismissal], but clearly the wealth of views in the American information space has suffered as a result,’ says Russia’s Lavrov at U.N. +-----+ #] David Rosenberg: Fed ‘accident’ could slice 20% off the S&P 500 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-accident-could-slice-20-off-the-s-p-500-warns-strategist-david-rosenberg-548e7f9b?mod=newsviewer_click Fed ‘accident’ could slice 20% off the S&P 500, stock market strategist David Rosenberg warns. Here are 3 ways to protect your money now. Last Updated: April 26, 2023 at 2:45 p.m. ET First Published: April 26, 2023 at 2:23 p.m. ET Treasurys, cash and gold are your best bets when recession hits and squeezes credit, threatens jobs, and takes down bond yields and stocks. As far as households are concerned, the New York Fed released its March survey of consumer behavior and it hasn’t yet shown up in the macro data. Where is the recession? I think it’s starting this quarter. Rosenberg: In terms of where you put your money, if you have my recession view, you want to have cash insofar as the Fed continues to pay you to be in cash. You want to be long Treasurys, which always rally in a recession. In the stock market, I would be in areas that have low correlation with the economic cycle, strong balance sheets, high earnings visibility and low earnings volatility, and in companies that don’t have much in the way of debt maturing in the coming year. I would be very defensive — exposure to consumer staples, utilities, health care. There may be some defensive growth within technology that will benefit from lower long-term interest rates. But be mindful of excessive valuation. I also like gold. The U.S. dollar DX00, 0.00% DXY, -0.39% will come under downward pressure. Gold will be a great hedge against the declining greenback. I’ve been advocating the bond-bullion barbell. I like the safety and the ballast in a portfolio that government bonds offer in troubled economic times which lie ahead and not fully priced in. We are in an ongoing earnings recession. The stock market is going to need the bond market’s help. Traditionally, the stock market bottoms only after bond yields have come down substantially. So if you’re bullish on stocks you have to first be bullish on bonds. We have to get to an equity-risk premium that is more than double where we are today, which means in excess of 400 basis points. That is the alarm bell. If we get a 2.5% 10-year Treasury yield and the S&P 500 down towards the 3,000 level, that will be a call to start dipping into the risk pool. Who knows? I might become David Rosenberg, permabull, and I am looking forward to that day. +-----+ #] Emily Bary: Amazon ripped off the Band-Aid. Does that mean big earnings will flow? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-ripped-off-the-band-aid-does-that-mean-big-earnings-are-about-to-flow-f26e4dba?mod=newsviewer_click Amazon ripped off the Band-Aid. Does that mean big earnings are about to flow? Published: April 26, 2023 at 2:57 p.m. ET By Emily Bary The e-commerce and cloud-computing giant is expected to swing to a profit after taking big charges for layoffs and store closures in the fourth quarter +-----+ #] Angela Palumbo: Activision Stock Drops as U.K. Regulator Blocks Microsoft Purchase https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/microsoft-activision-acquisition-blocked-64c2b136?mod=newsviewer_click Activision Stock Drops as U.K. Regulator Blocks Microsoft Purchase of Videogame Maker Last Updated: April 26, 2023 at 9:42 a.m. ET First Published: April 26, 2023 at 7:16 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - I wonder if this situation arose from armies of Activision Blizzard gamers uniting to fight against the Evil Empire. A bit like [Ready Player One, The Matrix, Star Wars, Terminator, etc]. Only this time, the sci-fi fantasy spilled over into the financial markets and court system, but not yet the real world. +-----+ #] Callum Keown: Microsoft Stock Climbs After Earnings Reveal Early AI Impact https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/microsoft-stock-price-earnings-ai-cloud-7cfc526d?mod=newsviewer_click Microsoft Stock Climbs After Earnings Reveal Early AI Impact. Wall Street Is Bullish. Last Updated: April 26, 2023 at 10:35 a.m. ET First Published: April 26, 2023 at 6:37 a.m. ET “Given the significant head start OpenAI has over other generative AI engines, and Microsoft has over its hyperscaler competitors, we believe Azure may gain share as generative AI continues to proliferate into many more corners of software and the economy,” he added. Its Azure OpenAI service now has 2,500 customers, including Shell (SHEL.U.K.) and Mercedes-Benz (MBG.Germany), up tenfold in the last quarter, CEO Satya Nadella said. The company’s Bing search engine, which has recently incorporated OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is also growing market share. “Microsoft’s purposeful AI moves have left competitors scrambling to respond,” Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan said. The company looks “structurally advantaged” for the next computing wave, with its Azure, OpenAI and Windows, he added. He raised his price target on the stock to $330 from $310, reiterating an Outperform rating. RBC Capital Markets analysts also raised their price target to $350 from $285 following the earnings. They said the percentage point from AI services included in the Azure guidance “could be understated.” &&&&&&&& Howell - Azure OpenAI clients up tenfold in the last quarter? I guess it makes sense because chatGPT became really well-known publicly Q4 2022. Much more advanced Transformer Neural Networks are coming : a MarketWatch article mentioned Nvidia having a potential solution to "halucinations", but that's just fixing a glitch. The race is on - it's fun, like the [PC, internet, social media] revolutions. 08********08 #] 25Apr2023 +-----+ #] Tanner Brown: Here’s what the Chinese think of the U.S. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-views-of-china-have-plummeted-in-recent-years-heres-what-the-chinese-think-of-the-u-s-e4cb1acb?mod=newsviewer_click American views of China have plummeted in recent years. Here’s what the Chinese think of the U.S. Published: April 25, 2023 at 2:33 p.m. ET The superpowers don’t think highly of each other — particularly of late — with Chinese youth viewing the U.S. most negatively One of the few recent authoritative studies on the issue was published this month in the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. Its main finding was that Chinese view the U.S. just as negatively as Americans see China — with 75% of Chinese respondents saying their opinion of the U.S. was somewhat or very unfavorable. Yet the same study found relatively positive views among Chinese toward Europe, despite the continent’s negative views toward China. “Chinese views of European countries and the U.S. diverge sharply, despite these countries being typically grouped together as ‘the West’ in mainstream English and Chinese discourses,” said the authors, from Rice University, the National University of Singapore and the University of British Columbia. The university study produced another worrying finding: Younger Chinese tend to view the U.S. more negatively than their older compatriots. One student of public diplomacy, who would only give his surname as Li, told MarketWatch that the U.S. is experiencing a crisis over its loss of status as the undisputed global power. +-----+ #] Christine Idzelis: Big Tech driven 86% of the S&P 500’s performance so far this year https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-broader-u-s-stock-market-has-a-lot-riding-on-big-tech-earnings-7bc71806?mod=newsviewer_click Why the broader U.S. stock market has ‘a lot riding’ on Big Tech earnings Published: April 25, 2023 at 3:03 p.m. ET ‘Except for Apple, Big Tech has been missing estimates on a consistent basis over the last year,’ says DataTrek Big Tech stocks have driven 86% of the S&P 500’s performance so far this year, according to the note, citing seven stocks including Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.66%, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -1.82%, Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -1.33%. , Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -3.15%, Nvidia Corp. NVDA, -2.22%, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. META, -1.94% and Tesla Inc. TSLA, -0.31%. Most of these companies will report their first-quarter earnings this week and next. Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon — together representing 41 percent of the S&P 500’s gains this year — will all report their earnings this week. ‘Concentration risk’ in growth ETF The combined weight of Apple and Microsoft in the Russell 1000 Growth index RLG, -1.60% is nearing 25%, posing a risk for investors in exchange-traded funds that track the index, according to a Strategas report Tuesday. +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein JPMorgan: ChatGPT revolution driven half stock market gains ytd https://www.marketwatch.com/story/chatgpt-revolution-has-driven-half-the-gains-in-the-stock-market-this-year-jpmorgan-1d70e776?mod=newsviewer_clickhttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/chatgpt-revolution-has-driven-half-the-gains-in-the-stock-market-this-year-jpmorgan-1d70e776?mod=newsviewer_click ChatGPT revolution has driven half the gains in the stock market this year: JPMorgan Last Updated: April 25, 2023 at 10:13 a.m. ET First Published: April 25, 2023 at 4:13 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Wow! I can't believe how much the [public, investors] ha jumped on board. Why so suddenly? Why now and not 15 years ago? A young tech-savy worker commented that it was [free, openly accessible]. I tend to agree, but also add that linguistics and the "closeness to home" of language capabilities with knowledge provide a base for an intellectual fashion that may progress through further stages. +-----+ #] Tae Kim: AI Chatbots Keep Making Up Facts. Nvidia Has an Answer https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/nvidia-stock-ai-chatbots-hallucinations-software-60431bbf?mod=search_headline AI Chatbots Keep Making Up Facts. Nvidia Has an Answer. Published: April 25, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Wow, straight out of one (of only two) theories of consciousness that interest me (far beyond the [hand-wave, yap]ing of almost all theories - but tgere are rare gems in the yap, for sure). Perhaps ex-Google [engineer, programmer] Blake Lemoine was on to something last June as he was being fired. ... >> looks like straight from consiiousness theory. Was it trashed with no notice? >> 2 hours later : wasn't posted, there was a warning 08********08 #] 24Apr2023 +-----+ #] My posting re Tucker Calson quit wan't posted, no warning to that effect (end of alternative views in media). 08********08 #] 21Apr2023 ?date? +-----+ #] ???? The software allows developers to program rules and intercept questions before the chatbot can respond with a low-quality answer. The guardrails can protect against inappropriate topics, toxic misinformation, and also stop insecure connections to third-party apps. >> straight out of consciousness!?! 08********08 #] 20Apr2023 +-----+ #] Aarthi Swaminathan: U.S. existing-home prices fall nearly 1% in March https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-existing-home-prices-fall-nearly-1-in-march-biggest-drop-in-a-decade-910e9be5?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. existing-home prices fall nearly 1% in March, the biggest drop in a decade Published: April 20, 2023 at 10:13 a.m. ET Existing-home sales fell to a rate of 4.44 million in March, National Association of Realtors says The numbers: Existing-home sales in the U.S. fell 2.4% in March, as buyers contended with higher mortgage rates and a lack of new listings. Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. fell to an annual rate of 4.44 million in March, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Key details: The median price for an existing home fell by 0.9% from last March, dropping to $375,700 this year. What the realtors said: “It’s a unique housing market,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, said. Despite drops in home prices and sales, multiple offers are back, Yun said, especially for entry-level homes. New listings are down 17% from the previous year. So it’s unclear if the market is hot or cold, he said. +-----+ #] Beth Pinsker: Ramit Sethi’s 5 lessons on how to get rich — from his new Netflix series https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ramit-sethis-5-lessons-on-how-to-get-rich-from-his-new-netflix-series-7d38a6f9?mod=mw_more_headlines Ramit Sethi’s 5 lessons on how to get rich — from his new Netflix series Last Updated: April 20, 2023 at 10:45 a.m. ET First Published: April 18, 2023 at 5:33 a.m. ET On ‘How to Get Rich,’ the personal-finance guru helps people make better money decisions >> soap opera - like my fast impression of the Netflix series which I looked at before this article: weird timing, of course I need to be better in this way myself >> but most important is to be brutal with my time!! +-----+ #] Paul Merriman: 7 simple portfolios have beat the S&P 500 for more than 50 years https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-7-simple-funds-have-beat-the-s-p-500-for-more-than-50-years-ef0b4ac4?mod=newsviewer_click These 7 simple portfolios have beat the S&P 500 for more than 50 years Last Updated: April 20, 2023 at 12:26 p.m. ET First Published: April 20, 2023 at 6:01 a.m. ET By Paul A. Merriman How long-term DIY investors can get attractive returns, no matter what happens in the stock market Here are seven additional portfolios. In this table below (and available on my foundation’s website), you can see the breakdown of each fund and the asset classes that make up each one. "$d_web"'economics, markets/References/ 230420 Paul Merriman, MktWtch: Sound investing portfolios - asset allocations worldWide, US.jpeg 230420 Paul Merriman, MktWtch: Comparison of eight sound investingportfolios and the SP500.jpeg 230420 Paul Merriman, MktWtch: Risk measures of eight sound investing portfolios.jpeg 1. Chris came through, creating what we call the Worldwide Four-Fund portfolio. From 1970 through 2022, $10,000 would have grown to $3.92 million. 2. Of course, many people are skittish about owning funds with companies based outside the United States. For them, we created the U.S. Four-Fund combo. In this one, $10,000 grew to $4.09 million from 1970 through 2022. If you’re wondering where these higher returns come from, the answer is simple: value stocks. 3. In our five-fund Worldwide All Value portfolio, $10,000 invested in 1970 would have grown to $5.34 million, nearly three times as much as the same investment in the S&P 500 alone. 4. For investors who want to stick with U.S. companies, there’s the U.S. All Value portfolio. In this simple but powerful combination, $10,000 would have grown to $6.43 million. Compared with just the S&P 500, that seems pretty astounding. But hang onto your hat for a moment. 5. Both internationally and in the United States, small-cap value stocks have been the most productive of these asset classes. In our two-fund Worldwide All Small-Cap Value portfolio, $10,000 would have grown to an astonishing $9.14 million from 1970 through 2022. That’s $7.25 million more than the S&P 500 alone. 6. The all-U.S. variation is the ultrasimple U.S. All Small-Cap Value portfolio. The 1970-2022 growth of $10,000 in this one-fund variation would have been $8.65 million. U.S. small-cap value stocks have such a highly productive track record that they are part of every single suggested portfolio except the S&P 500 by itself. By now, you might be thinking you’d like some of that small-cap value horsepower, but also some of the “safety” and familiarity of the good old S&P 500. That seems reasonable. 7. To meet that need, we created the U.S. Two Fund portfolio: equal parts of the S&P 500 and U.S. small-cap value stocks. From 1970 through 2022, an initial $10,000 would have grown to $4.48 million, more than twice as much as the S&P 500 by itself. +-----+ #] Barbara Kollmeyer: five synchronized assets are pointing to a 'black swan event' https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-five-synchronized-assets-are-pointing-to-a-black-swan-event-says-market-veteran-b143c715?mod=newsviewer_click These five synchronized assets are pointing to a ‘black swan event,’ says market veteran Last Updated: April 20, 2023 at 9:39 a.m. ET First Published: April 20, 2023 at 6:38 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day Assets moving in tandem is the theme of our call of the day, from TheoTrade’s chief market technician, Jeff Bierman, who sees dark clouds gathering for markets due to “asset auto correlation overload.” Bierman, an adjunct instructor at Loyola University’s business school, explains that bitcoin BTCUSD, gold GC00, the S&P 500 SPX, bonds and oil have been “moving together in automatic serial correlation, driven simultaneously by algos,” that is, computer-driven trading algorithms used by Wall Street firms, hedge funds and other big investors. “There’s nowhere to hide, no diversification in this type of market. This is a black swan event. It’s a bubble that can be burst at any time by an exogenous cataclysmic risk event or any number of factors,” Bierman tells client in a new note, adding that it’s “highly likely” this will mark the beginning of the end of the 2023 stock market rally. “The market is technically overbought, fundamentally overpriced, has virtually no risk priced in (the VIX is at 17), and is sitting on a mountain of complacency. This is a witch’s brew for the pain trade to the downside,” he said. He suggests investors should pay heed to one of the few realists out there right now, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon “had the integrity and the gumption to admit that we are in an earnings recession and that investor expectations are out of whack.” The chart “Agriculture futures have lost three important pillars of support,” says Dave Whitcomb, founder of Peak Trading Research, in a note to clients. Those pillars: crude oil, down 3.7% this week, the Brazilian real (top origin currency), down 3.2% this week and the Chinese yuan (top importer currency) down 0.5% this week. +-----+ #] Barbara Kollmeyer: Earnings expectations may be about to drop https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gradually-then-suddenly-earnings-expectations-may-be-about-to-drop-says-morgan-stanley-strategist-2ef02302?mod=search_headline&mod=article_inline 'Gradually, then suddenly.' Earnings expectations may be about to drop, says Morgan Stanley strategist. Last Updated: April 17, 2023 at 9:58 a.m. ET First Published: April 17, 2023 at 6:50 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day Our call of the day, from Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson, warns of a long shadow cast by March stress, despite a mostly upbeat stock market. “In contrast to what we expected, the S&P 500 SPX and Nasdaq COMP have traded well since SVB [Silicon Valley Bank] first announced it was insolvent. However, small-caps, banks and other highly levered stocks have traded poorly as the market leadership turned more defensive, in line with our sector and style recommendations,” Wilson tells clients in a new note. The strategist credits “defensive/high-quality characteristics and lower back-end rates” for holding up bigger indexes, but warns against breathing easy here. “On the contrary, the gradual deterioration in the growth outlook continues, which means even these large-cap indexes are at risk of a sudden fall like those we have witnessed in the regional banking index and small-caps,” says Wilson. He uses a quote from one of Ernest Hemingway’s novels to get his point across. In “The Sun Also Rises,” a character, asked how he went bankrupt, responds: “Two ways…Gradually, then suddenly.” Last month’s bank failures were blamed on a gradual build up of risk from long-duration Treasury holdings and concentrated deposit over the past year that suddenly accelerated, noted Wilson. And as most didn’t see those coming, investors need to stay alert for more fallout, he warns. One area to watch — earnings and a “gradually, then suddenly,” decline in estimates. Since last June’s peak, the forward 12-month bottom-up consensus earnings per share (EPS) S&P 500 forecast has fallen by around 9% per annum, “which is not severe enough for equity investors to demand the higher equity risk premium we think they should,” says Wilson. And he is neither swayed by consensus earnings forecasts that imply the first quarter will mark an EPS trough — usually a buy signal. 08********08 #] 19Apr2023 +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Most day traders flop (70% USA currency, 97% Brazil equity futures) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-day-traders-flop-these-researchers-say-one-popular-strategy-works-82a3f7b9?mod=newsviewer_click Most day traders flop. These researchers say one popular strategy generated 46% per-year returns. Last Updated: April 19, 2023 at 8:47 a.m. ET First Published: April 19, 2023 at 6:45 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day Day trading, for most people, is a disaster. One study of retail currency traders found 70% lose money every quarter on average, and lose it all within 12 months. Another, in Brazil, found 97% of equity futures traders who traded more than 300 days lost money. So a new study saying day trading can be profitable is certainly a challenge to that view. It’s written by Carlo Zarattini of Concretum Research, a Swiss firm that focuses on intraday U.S. markets, and Andrew Aziz, the founder and chief executive of Vancouver-based Peak Capital Trading and the author of the book, “How to Day Trade for a Living.” They argue that a strategy called the opening range breakout can outperform a standard buy-and-hold strategy. The idea is that traders can profit on the volatility at the beginning of the trading day, by buying, or selling, when the stock breaks out of the high and low range during the first minutes of trading. They studied the first five minutes, from 2016 to 2023 — which had two bear markets and abnormal volatility — and examined the TQQQ TQQQ, an exchange-traded fund that aims to triple the daily move of the Nasdaq 100 index. 08********08 #] 18Apr2023 +-----+ #] Associated Press: Fox settles 787M$ Dominion defamation suit (false stolen-election) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fox-news-settles-defamation-suit-over-false-stolen-election-claims-with-dominion-voting-systems-e12221fc?mod=newsviewer_click Fox settles Dominion defamation suit over false stolen-election claims for $787 million Last Updated: April 18, 2023 at 8:43 p.m. ET First Published: April 18, 2023 at 4:13 p.m. ET ‘The truth matters. Lies have consequences,’ Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson says outside courthouse &&&&&&&& Howell - "The truth matters. Lies have consequences," so the USA may be following Canada's lead, muzzling people's perceptions of the truth, and perhaps enshrining [political, organisation, mainstream consensus] agendas? Bank accounts haven't been frozen yet? Fox, agree with it or not, was one of the last main media to "speak differently", and presumably Tucker Carlson will go the way of Bill O'Reilly and others. No matter, generational changes may be returning to the norm of ages: be quiet and follow the vagaries of the Pravda, which doesn't look so bad any more. China isn't looking so bad either. +-----+ #] (Dent) Stephanie Gerardot: webinar The Market Crash Around the Corner Wed 19Apr2023 12-14:00 MDT Stephanie Gerardot: webinar The Market Crash Around the Corner 08********08 #] 17Apr2023 +-----+ #] Joseph Adinolfi: What happens to markets if the greenback loses its world dominance? The U.S. dollar is under fire from rival nations. What happens to markets if the greenback loses its world dominance? Last Updated: April 17, 2023 at 10:47 a.m. ET First Published: April 17, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Isn't China constrained by a desired to keep the yuan in step with the dollar? Wild appreciation of the yuan might be a challenge to their competitiveness, which may decrease as they become more wealthy. Chinese foreign investment may help to reduce that trend, to some extent. +-----+ #] Al Root: Tesla Model 3 Loses Half Its EV Credits. GM’s Full EV Lineup Keeps Them All https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-model-3-ev-credits-gm-2460e2c5?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla Model 3 Loses Half Its EV Credits. GM’s Full EV Lineup Gets to Keep Them All. Published: April 17, 2023 at 11:52 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Increased trade protectionism may push prices higher for consumers. Perhaps the Europeans are more experienced at this, trying to survive when globally less uncompetitive, but on the other hand Asian economies continue to advance and may be more expensive with rising standards of living? Maybe things will even out at some point, with some risks as in the past (1929 tariff acts - I can't remember). +-----+ #] Jim Harper: Financial surveillance in the West is more like China's than we admit https://www.marketwatch.com/story/financial-surveillance-in-the-west-is-more-like-chinas-than-we-admit-digital-dollar-concern-reveals-ebc96cbb?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: ‘Financial surveillance in the West is more like China’s’ than we admit, digital dollar concern reveals Last Updated: April 17, 2023 at 10:18 a.m. ET First Published: April 17, 2023 at 7:20 a.m. ET Creating a U.S. central bank digital currency pits national security against individual privacy 08********08 #] 16Apr2023 +-----+ #] Katie Marriner: India most populous nation, but demographics are more important https://www.marketwatch.com/story/india-is-now-the-most-populous-nation-but-this-demographic-metric-is-more-important-for-its-economy-af3e4543?mod=newsviewer_click India is now the most populous nation. But this demographic metric is more important for its economy Published: April 16, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. ET India has overwhelming economic potential due to its population size and demographic makeup. The question is, will the country make the most of it? >> Howell: good charts &&&&&&&& Howell - There is huge potential for major changes to demographics and related issues, but a paucity of substantive thinking. Combined with the huge potential of hybrid human-robot [coopera, competi]tive behaviour, we could very well be travelling to distant galaxies for vacation. We'll stay home and watch TV, and the robots will do the travelling. 08********08 #] 14Apr2023 +-----+ #] Jonathan Burton: Bob Farrell says this bear market drop S&P 500 with a 30% loss https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-wall-street-legend-has-lived-through-every-bear-market-since-the-1950s-he-says-the-one-coming-could-hit-the-s-p-500-with-a-30-loss-11652111307?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline This Wall Street legend has lived through every bear market since the 1950s. He says the one coming could hit the S&P 500 with a 30% loss Last Updated: May 14, 2022 at 11:21 a.m. ET First Published: May 9, 2022 at 11:48 a.m. ET Bob Farrell’s 10 ‘Market Rules to Remember’ are timeless tools to weather volatile markets Bob Farrell, a 90-year-old retiree in Florida, is hardly a household name on Main Street. But on Wall Street, Farrell is an absolute legend. To say that Farrell has seen it all is an understatement. He has witnessed every bull-, bubble- and bear market since 1957, when he joined Merrill Lynch as an analyst trainee and embarked on what became a 45-year career with the firm, including a quarter-century as its high-profile chief stock-market analyst. Farrell’s iconic 10 “Market Rules to Remember,” published in the late 1990s when he was senior investment adviser at Merrill, should be required reading for financial-industry professionals and individual investors alike. 1: “Markets tend to return to the mean over time.” 2: “Excesses in one direction will lead to an opposite excess in the other direction.” 3: “There are no new eras — excesses are never permanent.” 4: “Exponential rapidly rising or falling markets usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways.” 5: “The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom.” 6: “Fear and greed are stronger than long-term resolve.” 7: “Markets are strongest when they are broad and weakest when they narrow to a handful of blue-chip names.” 8: “Bear markets have three stages — sharp down, reflexive rebound and a drawn-out fundamental downtrend.” 9: “When all the experts and forecasts agree — something else is going to happen.” 10: “Bull markets are more fun than bear markets.” +-----+ #] David Rosenberg: I feel like I am reliving the summer of 2008 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-feel-like-i-am-reliving-the-summer-of-2008-strategist-david-rosenberg-sees-bear-market-sinking-the-s-p-500-to-3-300-11653333623?mod=article_inline Opinion: ‘I feel like I am reliving the summer of 2008’: Strategist David Rosenberg sees bear market sinking the S&P 500 to 3,300 Last Updated: May 24, 2022 at 7:10 p.m. ET First Published: May 23, 2022 at 3:20 p.m. ET ‘Inflation is going to melt in the coming year,’ and the U.S. economy will slide into recession And frankly, we also remain steadfast of the view that the inflation scare is going to pass very soon — the bull market is in extrapolation and hyperventilation by economists, strategists, pundits, and media types who can’t seem to see past the tips of their noses. The lagged effects from the supercharged U.S. dollar DXY, 0.55% is huge in terms of the impact on the cost of imported goods. Inventories have shifted from deficient to excessive and will need to be redressed with price discounts. The growth in money supply has literally collapsed and there is nary a pulse in money velocity. Fiscal policy, in the span of a year, has shifted from radical stimulus to restraint that would cause the remnants of the tea party to blush. The cyclical aspect to the commodity bull market is in the rear-view mirror. And as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell myopically focuses on “job openings,” a very soft data point, he is missing the upturn in layoffs and the retreat in company hiring plans. Inflation is going to melt in the coming year, and few (if any) are prepared for it. I feel like I am reliving the summer of 2008. The stock market is following a familiar pattern of a recessionary bear market. The first phase is the Fed-induced P/E multiple contraction. Typically, the first 20% drawdown is all about how liquidity drainage causes the P/E multiple to shrink — typically by four percentage points in this first installment of the recession bear market. This time around, the compression has been five multiple points since the early 2022 peak. How perfect. Every recession in the economy necessarily involves a contraction in earnings, which hasn’t happened yet. As I said, it’s all been about the multiple. So far, that is. A plain-vanilla GDP recession, no matter how mild or severe, sees corporate profits decline more than 20% from the peak. That is the next shoe to drop. It also means that once the analysts start to come to grips with reality and begin to cut their numbers, investors who are dipping their toes back into the market now because they believe that valuations have improved” enough will face their own reality that, no — based on where the consensus will be forced to go on their future EPS estimates — the equity market is not nearly as “cheap” as it appears to be at the moment. >> Howell: great article +-----+ #] Frances Yue: five Wall Street veterans with 230 years experience are bearish on stocks https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-five-wall-street-veterans-have-230-years-of-combined-experience-heres-why-they-are-bearish-on-stocks-17be5660?mod=newsviewer_click These five Wall Street veterans have 230 years of combined experience. Here’s why they are bearish on stocks. Last Updated: April 14, 2023 at 2:10 p.m. ET First Published: April 14, 2023 at 1:13 p.m. ET David Rosenberg, president at Rosenberg Research ‘I feel like I am reliving the summer of 2008’: S&P 500 going to 3,300 Richard Bernstein, chief executive at Richard Bernstein Advisors, said the rally in risk assets so far this year is “not a fundamental one.” the U.S. is already in a profits recession, with earnings growth being negative. The deeper the profits recession, the more likely a economic recession will come, noted Bernstein. Bob Farrell, who is now 90 and worked 45 years at Merrill Lynch including a quarter-century as its high-profile chief stock-market analyst. “Good bottoms are made when you are afraid to buy, when they’re pretty, pretty bad.” Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co “We’ve been very definitely in a risk-off investment stance since May last year,” His firm has been shorting crypto and long Treasury debt the stock market is only halfway to the bottom. “I’ve been forecasting somewhere around a 40% peak-to-trough decline. We are not quite halfway down there,” said Shiling. That means that S&P 500 index could reach a low of 2,877 from its peak at 4,796 on January 3, 2022. “I think the first part of the weakness [in economy] was due to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. The second part, in my view, is dominated by weakness in profits and sales,” Chuck Clough, chairman and chief executive officer at Clough Capital Partners L.P. A recession is likely to start as consumers run out of their Covid savings Still, the recession might be shallow, as the Fed may use its balance sheet to keep things from unwinding the S&P 500 would be flat “for a long period of time.” “I don’t buy the [narrative that] the S&P 500 [would fall to] 3,300, I don’t think there’s enough rebalancing the economy to get us down that far,” “But I think the bulls will be equally disappointed. And I think there’ll be a long but shallow recession.” Bernstein said he would hold 50% in stocks, 45% in bonds and 5% in cash alternatives Farrell said he would hold “a lot of cash” and 30% in equity. Shilling said his firm is long bonds and shorting stocks Clough said he’d have a 50-50 portfolio for stocks and bonds. +-----+ #] Rodney Johnson report: Student Loan Repayments and Standard of Living /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/Dent forecast/230414 Rodney Johnson report: Student Loan Repayments and Standard of Living.pdf +-----+ #] VasilyTrader: Learn Top 4 Price Action Pattern to Trade Reversals https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XAUUSD/MpUz38kv-Learn-Top-4-Price-Action-Pattern-to-Trade-Reversals/ Gold Spot / U.S. Dollar (FOREXCOM:XAUUSD) 2023.30 −16.83 −0.82% Apr 13 >> Howell: see image "$d_web"'economics, markets/Economics cool stuff/230414 VasilyTrader best reversal price actions.png' Hey traders, In this article, I will share with you the list of 4 best reversal price action patterns. 📍Ascending & Descending Triangles The main element of the ascending triangle as the REVERSAL pattern is the BEARISH impulse leg, preceding the formation of the pattern. The pattern consist of 2 main elements: a horizontal neckline based on the equal highs, a rising trend line based on the higher lows. ❗️The trigger is a bullish breakout of a neckline of the pattern and candle close above. 📈The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying at least below the level of the last higher low. 🎯Take profit is the next historical resistance. —————— 📍The main element of the descending triangle formation as the reversal pattern is the BULLISH leg, preceding the formation of the pattern. The pattern consist of 2 main elements: a horizontal neckline based on the equal lows, a falling trend line based on the lower highs. ❗️The trigger is a bearish breakout of a neckline of the pattern and candle close below. 📉The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying at least above the level of the last lower high. 🎯Take profit is the next historical support. 📍Rising & Falling Wedges What makes a rising wedge pattern a reversal pattern? Before the formation of the pattern, the price should form a strong bullish impulse and trade in a bullish trend. The pattern consists of 2 contracting, rising trend lines based on the higher highs and higher lows. ❗️The trigger is a bearish breakout of a support of the pattern and candle close below. 📉The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying above the high of the pattern. 🎯Take profit is the closest horizontal support. —————— What makes a falling wedge pattern a reversal pattern? Before the formation of the pattern, the price should form a strong bearish impulse and trade in a bearish trend. The pattern consist of 2 contracting falling trend lines based on the lower lows and lower highs. ❗️The trigger is a bullish breakout of a resistance of the pattern and candle close above. 📈The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying below the low of the pattern. 🎯Take profit is the closest horizontal resistance. 📍Double Top & Bottom Double bottom pattern usually forms at the end of a bearish trend. After a strong bearish impulse, the price retraces, sets a lower high and retests the current low. Instead of going lower, the price retraces one more time, retests the level of the last lower high and breaks it. Such a formation confirms a bullish reversal. ❗️The trigger is a bullish breakout of a neckline of the pattern and a candle close above. 📈The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying below the lows of the pattern. 🎯Take profit is the closest horizontal resistance. —————— Double top pattern usually forms at the end of a bullish trend. After a strong bullish impulse, the price retraces, sets a higher low and retests the current high. Instead of going higher, however, the price retraces one more time, retests the level of the last higher low and breaks it. Such a formation confirms a bearish reversal. ❗️The trigger is a bearish breakout of a neckline of the pattern and a candle close below. 📈The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying above the highs of the pattern. 🎯Take profit is the closest horizontal support. 📍Head & Shoulders Pattern & Inverted One Inverted H&S pattern usually forms at the end of a bearish trend. The price forms a zig-zag movement with 3 main elements: the left shoulder with a lower low, the head with a new lower low, and the right shoulder with a higher low. While the price sets multiple lows, it keeps setting the equal highs, composing a so-called horizontal neckline. A bullish reversal becomes confirmed once the price breaks and closes above the neckline. ❗️The trigger is a bullish breakout of a neckline of the pattern and a candle close above. 📈The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying below the lows of the pattern. 🎯Take profit is the closest horizontal resistance. —————— Head & Shoulders pattern usually forms at the end of a bullish trend. The price forms a zig-zag movement with 3 main elements: the left shoulder with a higher high, the head with a new higher high, and the right shoulder with a lower high. While the price sets multiple highs, it keeps setting the equal lows, composing a so-called horizontal neckline. A bearish reversal becomes confirmed once the price breaks and closes below the neckline. ❗️The trigger is a bearish breakout of a neckline of the pattern and a candle close below. 📈The position is opened on a retest. 🔴Stop loss is lying above the highs of the pattern. 🎯Take profit is the closest horizontal support. In order to increase the accuracy of trading these patterns, I would recommend trading them only if they are formed on key levels: Bearish patterns on key resistances and bullish patterns on key supports. Also, higher is the time frame where you spotted the patterns, higher is the chance that it will give a valid reversal signal. 08********08 #] 13Apr2023 +-----+ #] Associated Press: G-7 diplomats' multiple crises, from Ukraine to China to North Korea https://www.marketwatch.com/story/g-7-diplomats-to-grapple-with-multiple-crises-from-ukraine-to-china-to-north-korea-e888d151?mod=newsviewer_click G-7 diplomats to grapple with multiple crises, from Ukraine to China to North Korea Published: April 13, 2023 at 10:41 p.m. ET By High-stakes meeting of foreign ministers starts Sunday in Japan &&&&&&&& Howell - I'm waiting to see if a strong emigration wave leaves California to the East Coast. Probably wouldn't last long, as a counter wave of immigration would scramble to take advantage of any slack in housing prices? Not that it changes the equation for the strategic side that counts: submarines? I haven't heard of a Pacific version of the "Hunt for Red October", but there may be some stories (USA, China, Russia in modern times)? added reply : I do like the French film "Cry of the Wolf", set in modern times. +-----+ #] Robert Schroeder: U.S. intel leaks on Ukraine war- suspect Jack Teixeira arrested https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-intel-leaks-questions-and-answers-as-jack-teixeira-arrested-178fd787?mod=MW_article_top_stories U.S. intel leaks: Questions and answers as suspect Jack Teixeira arrested Last Updated: April 13, 2023 at 5:28 p.m. ET First Published: April 13, 2023 at 4:58 p.m. ET Trove of leaked intelligence documents has revealed secrets regarding Ukraine war +-----+ #] Christine Idzelis: anti-inflation ETF attracting inflows as price pressures persist https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-etf-designed-to-protect-against-inflation-is-attracting-inflows-as-price-pressures-persist-425ebd8d?mod=newsviewer_click This ETF designed to protect against inflation is attracting inflows as price pressures persist Published: April 13, 2023 at 5:02 p.m. ET ‘The market still has rose-colored glasses on,’ says portfolio manager at hedge-fund firm Ionic Capital Management “Yes, inflation is moderating. We all know that,” John Davi, chief executive officer and chief investment officers of Astoria Portfolio Advisors, tweeted Wednesday. “The key is that commodity equities, natural resources stocks and other inflation linked assets are trading at bargain basement prices,” he wrote, citing price-to-earnings ratios of 8-9. Inflation-linked assets are a “good hedge” for portfolios that are “back to being overweight technology, defensives, and high quality/long duration assets,” according to his tweets on Wednesday. He said he doubted these “winners of the past decade” will repeat in the next three to five years. As usual, here’s your look at the top- and bottom-performing ETFs over the past week through Wednesday, according to FactSet data. Top Performers %Performance iShares MSCI Brazil ETF EWZ 8.0 iShares Latin America 40 ETF ILF 6.0 Global X Copper Miners ETF COPX 5.1 iShares MSCI Global Metals & Mining Producers ETF PICK 3.4 iShares MSCI Chile ETF ECH 3.2 Source: FactSet data through Wednesday, April 12. Excludes ETNs and leveraged products. Includes NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe traded ETFs of $500 million or greater. Bottom Performers %Performance KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF KWEB -4.4 EMQQ The Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF EMQQ -3.8 Invesco China Technology ETF CQQQ -3.5 United States Natural Gas Fund LP UNG -2.1 Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility & Inflation Hedge ETF IVOL -1.8 Source: FactSet data >> Howell : bullshit weekly measure? &77777777 Howell - Interesting view into the ETF world, I appreciate this. The ETF advantages of [diversity, professional management, protection against the blindness of personal bias], are easiest to see with very [large, low-cost] index funds. Some of the [smaller, more specialized] funds (eg this week's new ETF funds as listed above) seem to put the [bias or political correctness, limited diversification, costs] right back into the mix? An analysis and a graph of [performance, cost] of a collection of smaller ETFs might make their benefits clearer. Furthermore, even the Vantage founder and others warned against problems that would arise when the ETF-index investing became too dominant. It would be great to see an illustration of how these smaller funds may help address that problem (if it exists)! +-----+ #] William Watts: 'fuel is there to blow the top off' the stock market. what’s missing https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-fuel-is-there-to-blow-the-top-off-the-stock-market-heres-whats-missing-925e6cf3?mod=home-page The 'fuel is there to blow the top off' the stock market. Her's what’s missing. Last Updated: April 13, 2023 at 4:12 p.m. ET First Published: April 13, 2023 at 3:21 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& green gator - Two words for why cash remains sidelined. "debt ceiling". Howell - Interesting comment that I had forgotten about already. I was expecting yet another legal or constitutional work-around to ensure that the [spending, debt] party could continue in spite of the current political context. I'm dying to see what that will be, and how, eventually, all of these work-arounds will be used by the [right, wrong] guy to take over. +-----+ #] Bob Henderson: CRISPR Shares Up 16% After Positive Cantor Fitzgerald Report https://www.marketwatch.com/story/crispr-shares-up-16-after-positive-cantor-fitzgerald-report-751b2832?mod=mw_quote_news Published: April 13, 2023 at 3:28 p.m. ET Shares of CRISPR Therapeutics AG were up about 16% to $50.27 Thursday after Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage of the Swiss biotech company with a 12-month price target of $72 and a positive outlook for its ability to transition to a commercial-stage company this year. CRISPR's first gene therapy has a very good chance of getting approved and commercialized later this year, said Cantor analyst Olivia Brayer in the report. The therapy, called exa-cel, is a functional cure for sickle cell disease and beta-thalaseemia, which Ms. Brayer estimates has a 90% chance of success. The market is underestimating the likelihood of exa-cel passing the necessary regulatory hurdles, and upcoming updates could be "major momentum drivers for shares," wrote Ms. Brayer. The market also isn't assigning any value to the rest of CRISPR's therapy pipeline, most of which is still early in development but should see progress before the end of this year that could add further momentum to the company's valuation, Ms. Brayer added. +-----+ #] Bill Alpert: Crispr Therapeutics: FDA Filing on Sickle Cell Gene Therapy in March? #] (month ago news) https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/crispr-therapeutics-stock-fda-sickle-cell-gene-therapy-bf56a18c?mod=mw_quote_news Crispr Therapeutics: FDA Filing on Sickle Cell Gene Therapy Is Almost Done Last Updated: Feb. 22, 2023 at 4:19 p.m. ET First Published: Feb. 22, 2023 at 4:10 p.m. ET >> I buy!! sickle-cell anemia - big political win with blacks, too +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Add R&D expenses back to EBTDA https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-one-radical-change-to-your-stock-research-will-revolutionize-the-results-a0bdc42a?mod=newsviewer_click This one radical change to your stock research will revolutionize the results Last Updated: April 13, 2023 at 1:47 p.m. ET First Published: April 13, 2023 at 7:25 a.m. ET By Including intangible assets when analyzing stocks’ valuation dramatically boosts a company’s profitability &&&&&&&& Howell - Over-whelmingly, [high-risk] basic research is government-based (including universities). Even within corporations, many if not most R&D projects fail, and commercialisation is another issue. There have long been ways to analyze for the value of corporate R&D that do not require a re-definition of earnings, but the approach of Jagannathan etal is interesting and VERY simple. The problem is its "cloudiness", and the implications of it becoming a market-driven performance measure. Perhaps all bad decisions become research? While it might be important to consider the company's [research [diversity, effectiveness] per R&D dollar, company [market, product, service] basis for capitalising on new ideas, etc], I suspect that "crude simplicity" will rule in the market. Just like other measures, the market will play with that. From "profit distributions to shareholders", to "regular, set dividends", to "earnings per share", to "EPS growth", to "Schiller 10-year EPS growth", to "sales per share", to "unpaying clients" (eg Facebook etc), to now perhaps "EBTDA + R&D". Things are getting more complicated - these complications have always been around. At this point, do refinements matter? Humans don't think [well, fast, at scale]. Shouldn't you be asking the new "Transformer Neural Networks" (TrNNs) what they want? Today the rage is "Large Language Models" (LLMs - eg [Google Bard, [OpenAI, MicroSoft] chatGPT]) and the hope is that they will do the work while we make money as we party. 08********08 #] 11Apr2023 +-----+ #] Tae Kim: Nvidia and AMD Stock Have Upside on AI Opportunity, Analyst Says https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/nvidia-stock-amd-ai-a95dccca?mod=newsviewer_click Published: April 11, 2023 at 11:44 a.m. ET 08********08 #] 10Apr2023 +-----+ #] Joy Wiltermuth: Paul Singer sees dangerous 'bubble securities, bubble asset classes' https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hedge-fund-billionaire-paul-singer-still-sees-dangerous-bubble-securities-bubble-asset-classes-in-markets-4cd81a76?mod=newsviewer_click Hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer still sees dangerous ‘bubble securities, bubble asset classes’ in markets Published: April 10, 2023 at 2:40 p.m. ET A credit collapse, deep recession may be needed to restore financial markets, says Paul Singer &&&&&&&& Howell - Paul Singer's great comment "... I know these guys got fired, but all concepts of risk management are based around the possibilities of loss,” he said. "Take it away, it’s going to have consequences. ..." I have this bad feeling that the [university profs, government economists, policy] types have only just started. Dumping 50% of the GDP into the economy over two years, and getting almost no growth, and generating crashes every 10 years as bad as the supposed free markets (they haven't been free for decades), can only encourage them to do more of the same. I can't really blame them - it's happened regularly over history (David Fischer 1996 "The great wave", Dalio 2021 "Principles for dealing with the Changing World Order"). No-one learns from that. I think Dalio referred to it as a behavioural trap, but I see mostly blindness with respect to "moral hazard" (eg Singer's line above). Just kick it to the next generation and let them handle it. A.H. Honeychurch, 27 minutes ago Recessions were much more common when markets were freer. During the Eisenhower administration, there were three mild recessions, one in 1953, one in 1957-58, and the last one (which Nixon believed cost him the election) in 1960-61. Then came the "best and brightest" under Kennedy and Johnson. They believed they could avoid recessions by tinkering with the economy, and successfully put pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates low. The result was that inflation expectations became unanchored, creating the Great Inflation of the 1970s and early 80s, and it took three decades to finally re-anchor them. The Fed shouldn't be trying to prevent recessions. It should focus on keeping prices stable. Howell - I generally agree with your comment that recessions were "more common when markets were freer" (also, as the US economy rapidly developed), and I like your comment about the effects of low rates under [Johnson, Kennedy], which is perhaps pertinent to today. I cannot post on MarketWatch my detrended chart of SPX going back (via proxy) to 1872, but the ~2000, ~2007-08, and covid are comparable to historical, but 2-5 year ups&downs are much more noticeable pre-1920's. The question is, like the previous low-interest-rate period, have we blinded the markets' [price-setting, prioritization, debt balancing]? Does price-stabilisation have the same effect? Maybe it's like Keynesian policies: everybodys' happy with the spending, not so enthusiastic to cut back. +--+ Njal Larson 49 minutes ago Recessions are like wildfires, if you let them happen naturally, they typically remain small and prun the entire economy allowing healthy growth. You should only take steps when they really get out of control. If you stop them out at the first sign of trouble, the fuel builds and builds until no amount of intervention can stop it. We have been stopping the fires for far too long... Howell - Perhaps more of a resemblance than we normally think? Based on modern updated data of the last ?20-30 years?, I did not see the "sunspot half-cycle" (~11.2 years) as shown in analysis by Hoyte&Schatten (somewhat like Tcichevsky's ~10 year economic or market cycles). I retired from volunteer firefighting in a small country hamlet 3-5 years ago, so [forest, grass] fires were an interesting topic. Cycles tend to be overly convincing but not much predictive in the hands of most. Another natural example is the major ocean fish populations ~60 years (~like Kondriatieff's super-cycles of the economy), and one is not allowed to speak of climate or big volcanoes. +--+ A.H. Honeychirch 47 minutes ago The presence or absence of a bubble depends on what future interest rate will be. If real rates are going to return to the levels that prevailed in the late 20th century, then pretty much everything is in a bubble. If real rates are going to remain low, then a lot of assets are reasonably priced. A lot of these old-timers spent their early careers in the high-rate environment of the late 20th century. It was created by the Kennedy/Johnson administration economists, who believed they could prevent recessions and gave us the Great Inflation and decades of high rates instead. If you take a longer-term view, those high rates were an anomaly within a larger, centuries-long trend of falling real rates in developed economies. 08********08 #] 09Apr2023 +-----+ #] DowJones Narioka: Japan Display plan to mass-produce OLEDs with China’s HKC https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japan-display-shares-jump-after-plan-to-mass-produce-oled-with-china-s-hkc-97f74af2?mod=newsviewer_click Japan Display stock jumps after plan to mass-produce OLEDs with China’s HKC Published: April 9, 2023 at 10:15 p.m. ET By Kosaku Narioka +-----+ #] Associated Press: Tesla reportedly plans to build Shanghai factory for power storage https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-reportedly-plans-to-build-shanghai-factory-for-power-storage-86da5f20?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla reportedly plans to build Shanghai factory for power storage Published: April 9, 2023 at 4:35 p.m. ET By Associated Press BEIJING — Electric car maker Tesla Inc. plans to build a factory in Shanghai to produce power-storage devices for sale worldwide, state media reported Sunday. Plans call for annual production of 10,000 Megapack units, according to the Xinhua News Agency and state television. They said the company made the announcement at a signing ceremony in Shanghai, where Tesla operates an auto factory. The factory is due to break ground in the third quarter of this year and start productions in the second quarter of 2024, the reports said. Tesla TSLA, -0.25% didn’t immediately respond to requests for information. >> Musk is smart to position in China!!! Could get shutout by West - may do great in Far East +-----+ #] MktWatch Adinolfi, FactSet: Goldman warns of worst earnings season since pandemic https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-4-things-could-protect-stocks-as-investors-brace-for-worst-earnings-season-since-pandemic-goldman-says-a4d4f62f?mod=newsviewer_click 4 things could shield stocks as Goldman warns of worst earnings season since pandemic Last Updated: April 8, 2023 at 1:56 p.m. ET First Published: April 7, 2023 at 1:46 p.m. ET By Joseph Adinolfi Is China’s reopening making a difference? Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping have promised a powerful reopening. Amid signs of slowdown in the all-important U.S. services sector, as well as in other parts of the economy, companies could look to China for a boost. “We expect investors will keep their ears perked for discussion around how much this has boosted earnings,” the team said. "$d_web"'economics, markets/Economics cool stuff/230409 Goldman Sachs: SP500 EPS bottom-up consensus estimates.jpeg' >> great graph 08********08 #] 07Apr2023 +-----+ #] Emily Bary: Tesla again cuts prices on a host of its vehicles https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-again-cuts-prices-on-a-host-of-its-vehicles-4b9d61ca?mod=MW_article_top_stories Tesla again cuts prices on a host of its vehicles Published: April 7, 2023 at 9:38 a.m. ET By Emily Bary Model S and Model X base prices each come down by $5,000 &&&&&&&& Howell - Makes sense? Is this like the metals industry cost-curve, but instead EV customer affordability curve? Bring out [product, service] at the high end which greatly helps to cover part of [initial, ongoing] investments. As the market expands it has to address less affluent people who aren't just buying a [fashionable, politically correct] self-image booster (there's more to it than that, of course). Normally done by market segmentation by models (here too), perhaps it's also like the Federal Reserve, trying to maintain fat margins without a hard crash? Musk might be afraid of further exclusion, but I imagine he's learning from recent years' experience to adapt as well as us to the modern shift to political conformance. 08********08 #] 06Apr2023 +-----+ #] William Watts: As recession fears grow, a ‘credit crunch’ is already under way https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-credit-crunch-is-already-under-way-and-may-result-in-a-recession-economist-warns-3e9582e9?mod=newsviewer_click As recession fears grow, a ‘credit crunch’ is already under way, economist warns Last Updated: April 6, 2023 at 3:47 p.m. ET First Published: April 6, 2023 at 3:24 p.m. ET By William Watts Bank lending ‘rolled over’ after SVB collapse: Apollo’s Slok /home/bill/web/economics, markets/References/230406 FedResDallas- Bank lending has folled over after SVB.png 08********08 #] 05Apr2023 +-----+ #] Joy Wiltermuth, Morgan Stanley: Commercial real-estate prices could tumble 40%, ~2008 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/commercial-real-estate-prices-could-tumble-40-rivaling-declines-from-the-2008-financial-crisis-morgan-stanley-c50e418b?mod=newsviewer_click Commercial real-estate prices could tumble 40%, rivaling declines from the 2008 financial crisis: Morgan Stanley Published: April 5, 2023 at 7:59 p.m. ET By Joy Wiltermuth Stock-market investors are ‘ignoring’ risks to the economy, Lisa Shalett says >> blah-blah obvious and late +-----+ #] Vivien Lou Chen: Bond-market’s inverted gauge -> ‘large slowdown’ and ‘deep recession’ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bond-markets-most-deeply-inverted-gauge-is-pointing-to-large-slowdown-in-economic-growth-and-deep-recession-3c1d21e1?mod=newsviewer_click Bond-market’s most deeply inverted gauge is pointing to ‘large slowdown in economic growth’ and ‘deep recession’ Last Updated: April 5, 2023 at 4:23 p.m. ET First Published: April 5, 2023 at 4:03 p.m. ET 10-year to 3-month measure of Treasury yield curve is in focus +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: The commodity supercycle is still young, these strategists say https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-commodity-supercycle-is-still-young-these-strategists-say-heres-why-e84f5496?mod=newsviewer_click The commodity supercycle is still young, these strategists say. Here’s why. Last Updated: April 5, 2023 at 8:45 a.m. ET First Published: April 5, 2023 at 6:31 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day >> great article, chart of cycles since ?1800's? 08********08 #] 04Apr2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Nasdaq and Dow have split in a way that isn’t healthy for stocks https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nasdaq-and-dow-have-split-in-a-way-that-isnt-healthy-for-stocks-7b72b494?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Published: April 4, 2023 at 2:45 p.m. ET Wide first-quarter performance gap between these two market benchmarks is troubling ******** Howell - As Hulbert stated, it's hard to get excited about 4 data points, but they are uncomfortable. If the extreme declines are realized, they would fit the narrative of the "crash bears", putting the resulting market into range of 1929? +-----+ #] Jon Swartz: C3.ai’s stock dives 26% on short seller’s accounting allegations https://www.marketwatch.com/story/c3-ais-stock-dives-25-on-short-sellers-accounting-allegations-1aba0903?mod=newsviewer_click Published: April 4, 2023 at 1:48 p.m. ET C3’s stock plunges to biggest daily decline on record The artificial-intelligence company’s stock AI, -26.34% slumped 26% after Kerrisdale Capital Management — which has publicly disclosed that it’s betting that C3 shares will fall in value — said it sent a letter directly to C3.ai’s auditor, Deloitte, to highlight its charge of accounting and disclosure issues. Kerrisdale alleges that C3.ai uses accounting methods that have the effect of inflating its income statement, which it says is intended to meet sell-side analyst estimates for revenue and profit, while “concealing significant deterioration in its underlying operations,” writes Sahm Adrangi, chief investment officer at Kerrisdale Capital Management, in the letter. In an interview, Adrangi asserts “atypical” accounting around unbilled receivables over the past year — grew from less than $10 million in each quarter prior to April 2022 to $88 million in C3’s most recent quarter. One particular customer, Baker Hughes Co. BKR, -2.21%, now accounts for 91% of the total unbilled receivables yet actual revenue from Baker Hughes has been stagnant, according to Adrangi. He said he came to that conclusion through quarterly earnings transcripts, filings, and comments at public conferences by C3. +-----+ #] Christine Idzelis, BlackRock’s Rick Riede: Oil-production cuts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-production-cuts-threw-another-log-on-the-fire-in-feds-inflation-fight-after-mini-banking-crisis-but-fixed-income-investors-getting-paid-to-be-patient-says-blackrocks-rick-rieder-810b88a2?mod=newsviewer_click Oil-production cuts threw ‘another log on the fire’ in Fed’s inflation fight, says BlackRock’s Rick Rieder Last Updated: April 4, 2023 at 7:53 p.m. ET First Published: April 4, 2023 at 4:51 p.m. ET When the Fed changes course and cuts rates, it’ll probably ‘drop them very quickly,’ Rieder tells MarketWatch &&&&&&&&& Howell - The oil markets remind me : how much of the concerns are related to second-guessing the "completely visible hands"? In a generation when financial markets are increasingly socially engineered rather than free, has the preoccupation with stability as a route to market and economic efficiency become an anachronistic moral hazard? [Huge, highly leveraged] market gambles make sense if you know that government bailouts and financial resources will reward investors when they are wrong? In spite of the armies of [academic, policy] types, have modern concepts reduced the [frequency, amplitude] of shocks? It doesn't really look that way. On the other hand, this environment might have been critical to success in the competitive development of advanced [math, science, engineering]-related markets. But the competitive edge may be getting thinner... and the real risk-taking may be subdued by resources misplaced elsewhere by political judgement? +-----+ #] Associated Press: Biden says tech companies must ensure AI products are safe https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-says-tech-companies-must-ensure-ai-products-are-safe-d3797b44?mod=newsviewer_click Biden says tech companies must ensure AI products are safe Published: April 4, 2023 at 6:10 p.m. ET Asked if AI is dangerous, Biden says: ‘It remains to be seen. Could be.’ &&&&&&&& Howell - The common jargon, "safe" and "dangerous" is not helpful here. Hammers can be used either way. I've long been impressed with the IEEE's safety efforts, and their ability to draw in people who have some chance of knowing what they are talking about. But there are no absolute guarantees - even a total ban on "AI" (actually, to me, "CI) is dangerous, though few show signs of understanding that, including perhaps just about none of the crowd fond of the phrase "precautionary principle". 08********08 #] 31Mar2023 Pancholi Apr2023 Edition of The Market Timing Report.pdf /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/Pancholi, Andy/Pancholi Apr2023 Edition of The Market Timing Report.pdf 08********08 #] 29Mar2023 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/142-billion-in-2-days-extent-of-svb-bank-run-comes-into-focus-as-u-s-regulators-mull-new-rules-d7b34d65?spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0001852904_c_2NeiriByZjlEBGO7hJp1K9Y4EgW_r_2Njv9e2mDJmqpRBJclarwyhLqgv&spot_im_redirect_source=email $142 billion in 2 days: extent of SVB bank run comes into focus as U.S. regulators mull new rules Published: March 28, 2023 at 1:58 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews Silicon Valley Bank’s risk model was ‘not at all aligned with reality’ &&&&&&&& Howell - 1 day ago Maybe it's time to address the basic behavioural issue: grab-the-money-or-dodge-the bullet before-the-other-guy, both for insiders and outside investors. It is the responsibility of investors to assess risks before taking big positions, and the responsibility of [executives, directors] to provide timely [information, warning bells]. The bell could be rung by OR[executives, regulators, shareholder groups] with legal authority not bound by consensus - it should NOT be the exclusive right of the organisation! The current setup is a scam. Once the bell goes off, then mid-to-long-term throttling of withdrawals kicks in immediately, possibly with logarithmicly rising rate-of-withdrawal limits. First priority for withdrawal are small investors, then big outside [investor, creditor]s, then shareholders, with the Captains [executive, director]s last (going down with the ship as is honorable). Sounds like a fairy tale? I don't trust my ideas either... Hayek's Shadow 1 day ago "NOT be the exclusive right of the organisation!" What organization are you referring to? Howell - 1 day ago Most specifically the company (bank, in this context). However, as I said my comment isn't very good - scaring the markets every other day would like cause ruinous runs on basically solid companies, plus keep people far too "conservative" (safe) with their investments? I don't know, except that it's easy to pontificate, not so easy to create a system for the real world. Hayek's Shadow 23 hours ago The FED, FDIC, Treasury, and all state banking organizations really failed with their mandated supervision responsibilities. Organizations will push their respective activities knowing that regulators are historically slow with their oversimplistic financial data surveillance, audits,, and risk models. All of these organizations are overloaded with academic and theory expertise vs effective market experience. Furthermore there are too many gov't lifers with political aspirations within these orgs many doing the exact same functions for decades . Yellen is perfect example she was Pres of SF FED from 2004-10 as SVB balance sheet increased by approx 8 to 10 times. Howell 15 hours ago Replying to Hayek's Shadow Agreed, but at least I'm not making the decisions : there is probably more opportunity to damage the market than to help it. Reminds me of this week's "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) request by Academic experts to put a 6 month moratorium on chatGPT etc to allow time for the academics and others to control the deployment of the technologies, lest the machines revolt against us. I fear far less the machines and evil guys, than intellects of "... good intentions paving the way to ..." (second part of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is never quoted, but even more important). Hayek's Shadow 52 minutes ago Replying to William Howell Don't underestimate your abilities. I would bet that were you in banking supervisory role you would do your job. To your point and Adam Smith, the supervision, audits, and enforcement of existing banking regulations is invisible because it was non existent. Howell 46 seconds ago Replying to Hayek's Shadow Touche, I like your point. Normally I would say to just wait, government and regulations can help the invisible hand, but also bind it to be ineffective. I have long been concerned (even pre-2007-08 housing crash) that "moral hazard" by people with genuinely good intentions, perversely amplifies the ghosts that they are fighting. +-----+ #] Rodney Johnson's take - Y2K pre-bout computer precipitated tech crash? Remember when we scoured our offices to verify that all PCs had “Y2K” stickers on them, to signal that they were going to survive the turn of the century? The rush to avoid a possible computing apocalypse drove CEOs and purchasing managers worldwide to buy new equipment instead of taking the time and paying the price to test existing equipment. They “pulled forward” the demand for technology, so that when the calendar flipped to 1/1/00, few tech buyers were left. The Internet bubble was bursting, and hardware companies were stuck with unwanted inventory. Companies like Gateway, with their distinct, cow-patterned boxes, drifted toward zero. +-----+ #] fom a week-or-so ago : https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-most-powerful-weapon-to-beat-china-and-russia-in-cold-war-2-0-is-free-trade-ccf82a6f?spot_im_redirect_source=notifications&spot_im_comment_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0001816411_c_2NNfntPfSX4eUsY4A90VhIEk6uF_r_2NO3qW6uWjQNFS63hC57if8kFw4&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true &&&&&&&& Howell - This is a superb article with [references, thinking] that seems both rare and unlikely from [modern, politically-correct] university or policy types. I do wonder if sanctions, access controls have ever been very effective over the long-term at containing the spread of [math, science, technology] out of the USA. Seems there are always ways it leaks. Further, exclusion of "enemies" from free trade arrangments : is that less important than ensuring [openness, financial reporting standards, level playing field]? I don't have any answers, maybe just a question as to how [USA, Europe] [attitude, expectation]s may change in an era of a much larger "rest-of-world" with their own ideas. John Hooge - Your question seems to be predicated on the world going on as it did over the last 50 years. It's not going to be a much larger "rest-of-world." Europe, Russia, Japan, and China have a demographic problem. They're economies will shrink decade over decade. The USA has been drifting back to it's pre-WWII isolationism. Russia's invasion of Ukraine appears to have delayed that disengagement. The EU and NATO are more united and cognizant of how important US engagement is. Taiwan, Korea and Japan didn't have to be reminded. With China in their neighborhood and their own advanced demographic declines they've been aware of the dangers without US markets and military support. Howell - I can't seem to reply - innocuous wording about demographics etc is all censored? Oh well, all blogSites seem to be going that way, so I'll have to learn how to keep the robots happy. Anyways I agree with much of what you have said, but feel that there are profound changes that question complacency about the past. I couldn't post : I agree with much of what you say, John. Harry Dent, Ray Dalio, Ibn Khaldun, and many others decades ago have hammered on the demographics, albeit no-one seems to repeat the historic solutions going back thousands of years, and especially not the modern possibilities. But USA portion of world population continues to decline, and what strength there is is possibly due to large immigrant immigration, not so much domestic births. How that will change [politics, attitudes towards work, etc] I don't know. I attempt, unsuccessfully (as most others) to escape my biases (preferred views?) of the past, but on the subject at least I have long abandoned the [anachronistic, enduring] USA (and others) view of a post-WWII America super-dominance in [agriculture, manufacturing, financial, economics, competitiveness, high-tech, biotech, etc]. To me, the USA is very important, but has competitors that are so much stronger than the rubble of post-WWII, it changes the equation. Some would argue that the USA dominance in [math, science, engineering, technology] has much to do with providing opportunity for the world's best, together with financial, property rights, etc advantages. But while still applicable, it is much less of an edge than in the past? 08********08 #] 28Mar2023 +-----+ #] Weston Blasi: Robert Shiller: Home prices are 'very, very high', but might get cheaper https://www.marketwatch.com/story/robert-shiller-home-prices-are-very-very-high-but-might-get-cheaper-in-six-months-fbefeaf4?mod=newsviewer_click Robert Shiller: Home prices are ‘very, very high,’ but might get cheaper in six months Published: March 28, 2023 at 12:45 p.m. ET By Weston Blasi Shiller helped create the Case-Shiller Home Price Index +-----+ #] Chris Matthews- extent of SVB bank run comes into focus as U.S. regulators mull new rules https://www.marketwatch.com/story/142-billion-in-2-days-extent-of-svb-bank-run-comes-into-focus-as-u-s-regulators-mull-new-rules-d7b34d65?mod=newsviewer_click $142 billion in 2 days: extent of SVB bank run comes into focus as U.S. regulators mull new rules Published: March 28, 2023 at 1:58 p.m. ET Silicon Valley Bank’s risk model was ‘not at all aligned with reality’ &&&&&&&& Howell - Maybe it's time to address the basic behavioural issue: grab-the-money-or-dodge-the bullet before-the-other-guy, both for insiders and outside investors. It is the responsibility of investors to assess risks before taking big positions, and the responsibility of [executives, directors] to provide timely [information, warning bells]. The bell could be rung by OR[executives, regulators, shareholder groups] with legal authority not bound by consensus - it should NOT be the exclusive right of the organisation! The current setup is a scam. Once the bell goes off, then mid-to-long-term throttling of withdrawals kicks in immediately, possibly with logarithmicly rising rate-of-withdrawal limits. First priority for withdrawal are small investors, then big outside [investor, creditor]s, then shareholders, with the Captains [executive, director]s last (going down with the ship as is honorable). Sounds like a fairy tale? I don't trust my ideas either... 08********08 #] 27Mar2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert- Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns, #] Philosophical Economics blog https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-single-greatest-predictor-of-future-stock-market-returns-says-about-the-stock-market-899b0824?mod=newsviewer_click What the ‘Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns’ says about stocks Published: March 27, 2023 at 12:28 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert >> awesome chart!! 230327 Mark Hulbert- Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns, Philosophical Economics blog.png 08********08 #] 26Mar2023 +-----+ #] Steve Puetz 08Mar2023 Monetary noose tightens as market breadth deteriorates last newsletter suggested bank failures were coming!?!!! Then (25Mar2023) : "... The last letter discussed the possibility of a banking crisis soon erupting. That same day (March 8), Silvergate Bank (California) failed. Then, just two days later (March 10), massive unforeseen withdrawals of deposits from mSilicon Valley Bank (SVB) forced regulators to close that bank. This was the largest US bank failure since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09. Then two days later, regulators closed Signature Bank (New York). On March m17, the contagion spread. ..." "... On the surface, the market might seem stable and safe because the Dow Jones Industrials (bottom of page 2) have mrecovered considerably from the late-September low. Furthermore, the Dow remains reasonably close to its mrecord-high recorded in early-2022. However, a rigorous inspection of market internals paints a far gloomier mpicture. The S&P 500 index (top of page 3) also rebounded from its late-September low, but with less vigor than mthe Dow. Importantly, during the past five months, the key NASDAQ Bank Stock index (middle of page 3) failed mto rally significantly, and the index is now on the verge of penetrating below a triple-bottom from May, mSeptember, and December of last year. The poor action in bank stocks supports the thesis recently presented in mthese letters – that the country is on the verge of another banking crisis, perhaps, even more damaging than the m2008-09 banking crisis. The deteriorating technical outlook is also apparent in the Composite Advance-Decline mline (bottom of page 3), which rebounded measurably from October to February, but has given up more than half of its countertrend gains during the past month. On the monetary front, the indicators are as bearish as ever. The yield-curve remains ominously inverted. The myield-spread between 10-year Treasuries and 1-year LIBOR (top of page 4) serves as one of the many indicators mdepicting the magnitude of the inversion. Yet, the inversion has done little to dissuade yield-seeking investors mfrom aggressively buying junk bonds – which is perhaps the riskiest class of investments in which otherwise mconservative investors widely participate. The complacency amongst junk bond investors is seen from the mTreasury-bond/junk-bond yield ratio (middle of page 4). When the ratio exceeds 0.45, as it is now and also did in m2010, 2011, 2014, and 2018, then junk bonds become prone to massive selling from any kind of shock. Because mthe global economy remains highly vulnerable to economic recession (or worse) and the health of the banking msystem remains inexorably linked to economic activity, junk bonds currently offer limited upside in all feasible mrisk/reward scenarios. Investors were recently willing to look beyond the economic chasm and purchase both minvestment grade and junk bonds, while operating on the premise that the Federal Reserve will soon begin mreducing interest rates as the economy weakens. Anticipation of looming Fed easing briefly caused long-term mrates to fall a month ago, while short-term rates, as with the 1-year Treasury note yield (bottom of page 4), held msteady. However, as investors now increasingly realize that the Fed will persist or even intensify its tightening mpolicies, gloom is again returning to the credit and equity markets. ..." 08********08 #] 24Mar2023 +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Does your personality determine your success as an investor? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/does-your-personality-determine-your-success-as-an-investor-473ded5b?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Does your personality determine your success as an investor? Published: March 24, 2023 at 2:15 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert When it comes to your money, your personality may be your fate Consider the personality trait that psychologists refer to as “neuroticism.” The authors of the study found that those of us who score high in this category tend to have significantly lower equity exposures, on average. On the assumption that equities will continue to provide the best long-term return of any major asset class, this means an investor with untreated neuroticism will at retirement have a significantly smaller portfolio than other investors with different personality traits. The study, titled “Personality Differences and Investment Decision-Making,” was written by Zhengyang Jiang of Northwestern University, Cameron Peng of the London School of Economics, and Hongjun Yan of Depaul University. They based their research on a survey of thousands of members of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). In addition to asking the more traditional questions you’d expect in an investor survey—on topics such as asset allocation, investment strategy, demographic variables, and so forth—the survey also was designed to determine where investors stand along five different personality dimensions. The personality traits that these dimensions measure, known as “The Big Five” among psychologists, are, in the words of this study’s authors: Openness to experience: “The tendency to be open to new aesthetic, cultural or intellectual experiences.” Conscientiousness: “The tendency to be organized, responsible, and hardworking.” Extroversion: “An orientation of one’s interests and energies toward the outer world of people and things rather than the inner world of subjective experiences.” Agreeableness: “The tendency to act in a cooperative unselfish manner.” Neuroticism: “A chronic level of emotional instability and proneness to psychological distress.” The strongest correlations the professors found between these traits, on the one hand, and investment behavior, on the other, had to do with “neuroticism” and “openness.” Investors scoring high in neuroticism “are more pessimistic about average future stock returns and assign a greater probability to a crash. They are also more pessimistic about future economic growth and expect higher inflation,” the researchers write. In contrast, investors scoring high in openness “are more willing to take risks.” Not surprisingly, investors in the former category had average equity exposures that were significantly below average, while those in the latter had higher-than-average exposure levels. &&&&&&&& Howell - Good article, and useful warnings (too late for me!). I guess that most managers have positive experiences with the mantras of modern pyschology, but Myers-Brigg and the rest leave me with questions about the gap between real work environments and theory. Having 2 of 5 "personality dimensions" being used in the current work also leaves me cold: ancient wisdom and witchcraft would have said the same and then some. Much more intruiging is the possibility that Large Language Models (LLM) like [chatGPT, BARD, etc] could eventually do a far more effective job than [psychology, most human experts]. They are currently strongly biased (politically-correct, woke, conformist "thought"), extremely easy to manipulate (selecting datasets is only a start - deep inside there are billions of opportunities, as we found out with "Generative Adversarial Networks" (GANs)), and near-impossible to defend against for most people. But assuming that some group will work to develop beyond LLMs to systems that can identify failures in mainstream science etc, then Terry Sejnowski's vision may flourish : rather than use LLMs to possibly prove some level of machine intelligence (impossible: this quickly becomes a [political, personal] bias-belief quagmire), they already hold out a chance of MEASURING the the diverse intelligences of individual humans in a [reliable, sort-of-unbiased] way that could never be done before. 08********08 #] 22Mar2023 +-----+ #] TradingView - automatic chart patterns, openChat for trading! see "$d_web"'economics, markets/TradingView notes.txt' +----+ #] Harry Dent: Subscriber Update SQQQ Gives Strong Potential Buy Signal at $31 Today Since the March 2022 lows near $31, there has been a series of surges followed by sharp falls back. This recent crash is now approaching a level that should hold or nearly hold. This looks like the best place to buy if you want to catch this third wave down of stocks coming likely into around the end of this year—and that shouldn’t even be the final wave, given a fifth wave to follow into 2024. Today’s low, right at $31 or near there, looks to be the best place to add to stock short positions for those who are selling stocks. It’s also likely the last great chance to sell stocks you are still holding onto. This is a play for more-aggressive investors who want to be short stocks and not just in cash or Treasury bonds. >> SQQQ and other short index funds might be for me? Brother Steve did well... +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasury-yields-a-touch-softer-in-muted-trade-ahead-of-fed-decision-aae27f82?mod=newsviewer_click #] Vivien Lou Chen, Jamie Chisholm: Treasury yields drop after Fed’s policy decision Last Updated: March 22, 2023 at 2:27 p.m. ET First Published: March 22, 2023 at 5:58 a.m. ET U.S. bond yields fell Wednesday after Federal Reserve policy makers lifted interest rates by another quarter of a percentage point and signaled they don’t anticipate that more than one additional rate hike will be appropriate for this year. What’s driving markets On Wednesday, Fed policy makers voted to deliver their second quarter-point rate hike in a row, bringing the fed funds rate target to between 4.75% to 5%. Their median 2023 projection for the appropriate level of the target remained at 5.1%, giving markets reason to believe that no more than one more rate hike is in store. Attention now turns to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference at 2:30 p.m. +-----+ #] U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Dec2020 Advantage at Sea: #] Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power (see MktWatch Peter Morici article) https://media.defense.gov/2020/Dec/16/2002553074/-1/-1/0/TRISERVICESTRATEGY.PDF +-----+ #] Matthew Suarez: China's Maritime Control (see MktWatch Peter Morici article) https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/chinas-maritime-control/ China's Maritime Control Recent supply-chain woes pale in comparison to the havoc China could wreak on international commerce in the event of war over Taiwan. The United States is badly in need of a strategy. Matthew Suarez 09 Dec 2022, 11:30 am In recent years, there has been much loose talk about the United States going to war with China. Yet most commentary displays very little consideration of the impact such a conflict would have upon the national and international economy. The turmoil caused by supply-chain disruptions and inflation in the United States demonstrates how heavily the country’s economic security and sociopolitical stability depend on the smooth functioning of the global trading system. Americans like consumer abundance and low prices, naturally, and they tend to express those preferences at the polls. Protecting the global trading system is so vital to U.S. national interests that it belongs to the realm of national policy rather than strictly in the realm of military and naval strategy. Our military strategists have yet to fully grasp this. In December 2020, the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard laid out their tri-service maritime strategy in Advantage at Sea. The three services identify the People’s Republic of China as a “determined rival” and “the most pressing long-term strategic threat” to the United States. Since the document’s publication, tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan have only heightened, to the extent that within the United States there is a sense of expectation of conflict. Matthew Suarez is a First Lieutenant, AH-1Z helicopter pilot in the United States Marine Corps. He anticipates his next deployment to be in the Pacific. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the policy, opinion, or position of the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Department of Defense, or any other organization. +-----+ #] Peter Morici: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-most-powerful-weapon-to-beat-china-and-russia-in-cold-war-2-0-is-free-trade-ccf82a6f?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: America’s most powerful weapon to beat China and Russia in Cold War 2.0 is free trade Last Updated: March 22, 2023 at 1:48 p.m. ET First Published: March 22, 2023 at 7:03 a.m. ET By Peter Morici The U.S. is in a new Cold War with China and something hotter with Russia. But the America’s shift to protectionism and overreliance on implementing economic sanctions are foolish. After World War II, the U.S. created NATO and alliances in the Pacific, cultivated free trade among allies through the GATT, EU and other regional arrangements and starved the Soviet Bloc of American technology through export controls. Stalinist central planning and autarky created moribund economies. Only through sheer size did the Soviet Union have the resources to create mischief around the globe. The Soviet Union became Upper Volta with rockets. In the words of Japan’s trade minister Yasutoshi Nishimura: “The free trade system ended up increasing the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes” and “amplifying the threat of hegemonic powers.” &&&&&&&& Howell - This is a superb article with [references, thinking] that seems both rare and unlikely from [modern, politically-correct] university or policy types. I do wonder if sanctions, access controls have ever been very effective over the long-term at containing the spread of [math, science, technology] out of the USA. Seems there are always ways it leaks. Further, exclusion of "enemies" from free trade arrangments : is that less important than ensuring [openness, financial reporting standards, level playing field]? I don't have any answers, maybe just a question as to how [USA, Europe] [attitude, expectation]s may change in an era of a much larger "rest-of-world" with their own ideas. +-----+ #] Daniel Newman: 5 tech giants should profit from helping companies use AI https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-tech-giants-should-profit-from-helping-companies-use-ai-to-cut-costs-and-automate-809aecf3?mod=newsviewer_click These tech giants should profit from helping companies use AI to cut costs and automate Published: March 22, 2023 at 7:20 a.m. ET By Daniel Newman Cisco, Broadcom, Oracle, HPE and Adobe are industry leaders with innovative strategies and strong financials The most important technology trend for 2023? Artifical intelligence. The fast and furious pace of AI announcements coming out of Microsoft, Salesforce, AWS, Google, and Meta Platforms has made that clear. But with tech companies cutting headcount and seeking to do more with less, digital transformation activities including automation, analytics, hybrid cloud, and cyber security is also seeing a boost. This is something that I alluded to late in 2022. In short, companies are trying to accelerate growth, secure data and maximize existing tech and software investments. These five technology giants look well-equipped to help their customers achieve those goals: 1. Cisco Systems 2. Oracle 3. Broadcom 4. Hewlett Packard Enterprise A little more than three years after CEO Antonio Neri announced the company’s full transition to everything as a service, HPE’s HPE, 0.24% GreenLake business surpassed $1 billion in its annual run rate, and HPE enjoyed its most profitable quarter since 2017. In a conversation with Neri after the company announced earnings, the CEO was quick to indicate that the company’s strategy had taken hold, and while a pivot from large-capex IT equipment sales to subscription services wasn’t going to be instantaneous, the pivot led to the quarter’s strength. 5. Adobe (Howell: ???? why are they on the list?) +-----+ #] Mark Hulbert: Social Security is in trouble — how would you fix it? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/social-security-is-in-trouble-how-would-you-fix-it-aaf30aed?spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0001808277_c_2NAJGy5AES3PAw4QqEk84UhCk9d_r_2NKuX3TT5faNVbEB28MJGtY3FZj&spot_im_redirect_source=email Social Security is in trouble — how would you fix it? Last Updated: March 18, 2023 at 11:17 a.m. ET First Published: March 17, 2023 at 2:15 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert A new app from the American Academy of Actuaries allows you to explore approaches to overcoming the Social Security actuarial deficit &&&&&&&& William Howell - Sat 18 Mar 2023 12:54:21 AM It would be better if university profs in [humanities, policy, economics] played with it. The rest of us could get a god laugh out of that. publisher's logo Susan Maneck - Tue 21 Mar 2023 06:58:50 PM This history professor did play with it. It took me less than a minute to find a solution that worked. Eliminate the cap on earned income without raising benefits, raise the FICA tax by .01 a year. Actually, I wouldn't have recommended the latter but increasing immigration was not one of the options provided. Howell - Thanks, Susan! Historians, of course, are the most dangerous intellectuals . I'm a big fan of Wilhelm Able and David Fischer's "The great wave: price revolutions and the rythms of history" (very, VERY dark chunks of history in there, but ultimately perhaps [optimistic, hopeful] lessons. I'm not an historian, but wonder how much of the current situation is described by the last 3500 years+, or by Ibn Khaldun's "Muqqadimmah"? 08********08 #] 20Mar2023 +-----+ #] Wallace Witkowski: AI takes center stage as Nvidia’s GTC event kicks off https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-gtc-event-to-showcase-generative-ai-arms-race-afce5206?mod=newsviewer_click AI takes center stage as Nvidia’s GTC event kicks off Last Updated: March 20, 2023 at 3:01 p.m. ET First Published: March 17, 2023 at 5:37 p.m. ET By Wallace Witkowski ‘From Nvidia’s perspective, democratization of AI remains king,’ says analyst, seeing all AIs need GPUs to run and train them &&&&&&&& Howell - The new "Computational Intelligence" (CI) is based on Google Tranformer neural nets (Vaswani etal, Google 2017 "All you need is attention"). Google (Alphabet) has heavily invested in the best groups globally in areas such as Deep Mind, geometrical Deep Learning, etc. But they lack the office business operating system of MicroSoft, so will this end up like Xerox's loss of opportunity with their development of windowing operating systems? Nvidia is well placed, but is China now obliged to try to develop their own equivalents (5 to 20 years?)? And for all involved - this area is in its infancy, following a "dumbing down" of far more powerful, and difficult CI concepts, and major [new, potneetially disruptive] concepts are coming very quickly (I am focussed on Spiking Neural Networks, for example). [Technology, concept, power]s will be very different in 10 years. +-----+ #] Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman sees ‘self-induced’ crisis, stock picker’s market https://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-investor-leon-cooperman-sees-a-self-induced-crisis-and-a-stock-pickers-market-heres-what-hes-buying-6889c67b?mod=newsviewer_click Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman sees a ‘self-induced’ crisis and a stock picker’s market. Here’s what he’s buying. Published: March 20, 2023 at 12:39 p.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Hedge-fund manager says the current financial crisis isn’t much of surprise. He divulges some sectors and one stock that he’s buying now. +-----+ #] Frances Yue, AllianceBernstein: Bitcoin at ‘redemption arc’ as banking pressures rise https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-at-redemption-arc-as-banking-pressures-rise-says-alliancebernstein-d603a385?mod=newsviewer_click Bitcoin at ‘redemption arc’ as banking pressures rise, says AllianceBernstein Last Updated: March 20, 2023 at 12:43 p.m. ET First Published: March 20, 2023 at 12:32 p.m. ET By Frances Yue Bitcoin also has been trading as a risk-off asset, and has started decoupling from U.S. stocks in November, when the crypto exchange FTX collapsed, the analysts said. The cryptocurrency industry has long touted itself as an alternative to government-issued currencies, like the dollar. While returns on bitcoin and equities showed an insignificant correlation from 2010 to 2020, their correlation rose as the Federal Reserve eased its monetary policy since the start of the pandemic, as most risk assets flourished after the Fed’s policy actions, noted the Bernstein analysts. “We expect that as the monetary policy finds a new normal, the correlation should revert to the pre-pandemic trend,” the analysts wrote. &&&&&&&& Howell - It's great to see someone brave enough to re-incarnate the "crypto as digital gold"-type theme, in spite of ast year's losses. Maybe the brutal losses last year are the other side of the coin from the historical extreme crypto price gains vs USD. It's hard enough to guess the conventional market, but at least the raison d'etre for crypto is echoing loud and clear now (including politcal financial engineering of the marketplace). I don't like the phrase "redemption arc" so much - to me it initially suggested everybody was dumping crypto to [cash, other] investments. +-----+ #] Satyajit Das: The end of the ‘everything bubble’ has finally hit the banking system https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-end-of-the-everything-bubble-has-finally-hit-the-banking-system-credit-suisse-and-svb-might-be-just-the-first-of-many-shocks-148ebd83?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The end of the ‘everything bubble’ has finally hit the banking system. Credit Suisse and SVB might be just the first of many shocks. Last Updated: March 20, 2023 at 10:23 a.m. ET First Published: March 20, 2023 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Satyajit Das The Fed and other central banks face a difficult choice: Keep rates high to control inflation or loosen monetary policy to stabilize financial markets. Major financial market regime changes typically take place in stages. - The crypto meltdown in 2022, for example, incurred about $2 trillion of losses. - The technology meltdown followed, with losses of about $5 trillion, - the U.K. government bond (gilt) crisis ($500 billion in losses), - plus an ongoing emerging market debt crisis. These problems have now reached the world’s financial system, with U.S., European and Japanese banks losing around $460 billion in market value so far in March alone. The immediate cause is the rapid increase in official interest rates in the U.S. and other major global economies. The true cause is the unwinding of an economic and financial structure built upon an artificially low cost of money, which gave rise to the “everything bubble” and its leveraged speculation. &&&&&&&& Howell - I'm starting to wonder if a complete switch to a different global reserve currency might be better for the USA than even for the emerging markets. We are "Consumed by monsters of our own making" (the "everything bubble" is just one example), and anything that forces us to deal with reality outside of our modern "day-care facility" [academic, policy, voter] beliefs may do wonders for us long term. Short term pain's been here regularly for >40 years, in spite of the best intentions of mis-guided intellectuals? It may get worse with every delaying tactic, but we won't even notice then as now. +-----+ #] Christine Idzelis: Federal Reserve weighs bank chaos against inflation fight https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-at-stake-for-stocks-bonds-as-federal-reserves-weighs-bank-chaos-vs-inflation-fight-c54c06ca?mod=newsviewer_click What’s at stake for stocks, bonds as Federal Reserve weighs bank chaos against inflation fight Last Updated: March 20, 2023 at 8:07 a.m. ET First Published: March 19, 2023 at 12:01 p.m. ET ‘The inflation threat isn’t gone,’ says Rob Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates &&&&&&&& Howell - Great article, Christine Idzelis - I enjoyed the analysis. I don't believe that the current bank failures were intentionally organised to force the Federal Reserve to slack off, but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it turns out that way eventually (if the truth can ever be known about anything). In any case, this provides hope for all of the ghosts in the closet, and the public doesn't seem to mind being plucked like a goose (I forget the name of the ?European? who coined a phrase about the art of taxation, long ago). John Hooge, 2 hours ago That's too conspiratorial for me. Though I do think the Fed should pause and let this shake out. There's no point in raising rates again if we're about to see a widespread banking crisis and resulting recession. Aurora Homura, 2 hours ago - What happened is pretty obvious if banks didn't hedge their bonds. As interest rates went up very quickly, the (medium - long term) bonds are worth less. If they need liquidity, then they need to sell bonds at a significant capital loss instead of holding to maturity. Now of course, if everyone wants their deposits, the bank does not actually have enough money anymore since the bonds are worth less than face value. If the banks were being greedy and did not hedge for interest rates, then yes, that's their fault. But it's amplified by the rapid rate of interest rate increases, a majority of which won't ease inflation without breaking something since all the fed can do is destroy demand to tame inflation. Howell - Good point, although I wonder if banks could trust the hedges at that scale. What has occurred to me is something much simpler - kind of the dumb failure of thinking I usually pull off. Maybe their thinking was "traditional" in a market that required "inverse thinking" to better handle the lower-than-5000 year rates and regarding the time-frame for big shifts in rates (that were covid-fast coming down). But that kind of thinking would usually be seen as overly conservative. While demographic trends were suggestive of low rates, perhaps much buying was [government, covid financial asset rise, recent flight-to-safety]-related? John Hooge 2 hours ago, Sometimes if feels like we're in a simulation. Climate Change. Banking crisis. Trump Presidency. Pandemic. Jan 6th. Earthquakes. War in Ukraine. Bank Runs. So mad scientist injecting catastrophes into his simulation to see how the system reacts. Amos Library, 22 hours ago Buttonwood The Economist Policymakers want to tighten financial conditions—such as lending standards, interest costs or money-market liquidity—in order to reduce aggregate demand and cool price rises. Since October, markets have been pulling in the other direction. A gauge of financial conditions compiled by Bloomberg, a data provider, has shown them steadily loosening. Over the past week, all this loosening has been reversed. svb’s collapse has shocked markets into doing the Fed’s job. That does not mean investors have given up fighting the Fed. They are still betting it will soon start cutting rates, even though officials have given no such indication. The battleground has nevertheless shifted. Earlier this year, expectations of rate cuts sprang from hopes inflation would fall faster than the Fed expected. Now they reflect fear. On March 13th the two-year Treasury yield fell by 0.61 percentage points, the biggest one-day drop in more than 40 years. Panicked trading on March 15th prompted worries of the market seizing up. Given that some banks have failed, investors are betting that the Fed will cut rates not because the inflation monster is tamed, but in order to avoid breaking anything else. Taken in conjunction with the reaction in other markets, this suggests a degree of cognitive dissonance. Broader stockmarket indices fell, but not precipitously. The s&p 500 index of large American firms is level with its position at the start of the year. The dollar, which tends to strengthen in crises as investors flock to safety, weakened a little. On the one hand, investors think the Fed should fear bank failures enough to start cutting rates. On the other, they do not themselves fear the fallout of such a failure enough to reflect it in prices. Lying behind this contradiction is supposed tension between the Fed’s inflation target and its duty to protect financial stability. The failure of svb, which was rooted in losses from fixed-rate bonds (the value of which fell as rates rose), looks like evidence for this. Since even the fight against inflation pales in importance next to the stability of the banking system, goes the argument, the Fed cannot afford to raise rates any higher. This lowers the risk of recession, gives a boost to stocks and reduces the need for haven assets like the dollar. Do not be so sure. Following svb’s collapse, the Fed has promised to backstop other banks. Its support—lending against securities worth as little as two-thirds of the loan value—should prevent any remotely solvent institution from going under wherever interest rates end up. To squeeze inflation out of the economy, the Fed needs to make lenders nervous, loans expensive and businesses risk-averse. Allowing reckless banks such as svb to fail is not a tragic accident. It is part of the Fed’s job. My note: Anticipating Fed cuts could be quite rough on one's portfolio. First, a pause is NOT a cut. Second, per Lance Roberts, an initial Fed cut would NOT be a cause to get long equities. Rather it would be a tacit recognition by the Fed that something has gone terribly wrong in the financial system. Zweig's monetary model requires 2 consecutive cuts of 25 bps or a full 100 bps cut to become bullish. Or I would like to see a trend following model like Fabian to "get in gear" with the SP500, DJ Transports, and DJ Utilities all closing above 200 day MA, showing a bullish uptrend. See more Howell - Sheesh, Amos. Really well stated, fascinating perspective. I'm trying to find time to go through 1871-curent financial markets. One of the questions is : has modern social engineering of the financial markets led us into the "next big log uptrend" in financial asset inflation, following the ~1929 +-10 years log-linear break upwards, after the Federal Reserve was formed? (I forget - ?1913? or something?) Of course, the problem is that changes in trends of that duration can only be confirmed after a few more generations. Is hyperinflation (>=20%/year) a far-fetched idea for the mid-term (>5 years)? 08********08 #] 17Mar2023 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-volatility-this-week-has-triggered-a-new-sell-signal-c8fb7794?mod=newsviewer_click #] Lawrence McMillan: Stock market volatility this week has triggered a new sell signal Last Updated: March 17, 2023 at 12:47 p.m. ET First Published: March 16, 2023 at 7:12 p.m. ET By Lawrence G. McMillan Stay cautious until new highs outnumber new lows on the NYSE. &&&&&&&& Howell - my comment somehow was lost? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bend-the-market-like-buffett-stop-checking-your-stock-portfolio-especially-on-your-phone-and-youll-make-more-money-f39ff0df?mod=mw_more_headlines Bend the market like Buffett: Stop checking your stock portfolio — especially on your phone — and you’ll make more money. Last Updated: March 17, 2023 at 12:49 p.m. ET First Published: March 16, 2023 at 5:27 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert The more you check, the more likely you are to invest in lottery-type stocks The typical American checks his or her cell phone 344 times per day — an average of every three minutes during waking hours, according to one survey. That’s equivalent to checking 140 times during the trading session on Wall Street. Care to bet whether, during the session, traders on their smartphones are focusing on the cheap and safe stocks that Buffett favors or on lottery-type stocks? +-----+ #] Jamie Chisholm: Ackman say We need to stop this now. First Republic spreading contagion https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-need-to-stop-this-now-frb-support-is-spreading-financial-contagion-says-ackman-37f174c2?mod=newsviewer_click ‘We need to stop this now.’ First Republic support is spreading financial contagion, says Ackman. Published: March 17, 2023 at 6:28 a.m. ET By Jamie Chisholm Critical information for the U.S. trading day "$d_web"'economics, markets/Economics cool stuff230317 Citi Corp: Federal Reserve balance sheet grows again.png' &&&&&&&& Howell - Jamie Chisholm, it was very handy to see the Citi graph of the Federal Reserve Balance sheet sky-jump!! As for Ackman, his cries for more solid help fit right in with the trend of increasing social-objective management of financial markets. My guess is that they have already won, and that it will take time for most of Wall Street to realize it, too late to catch up with those already politically-aligned to court preferred favour. +-----+ #] Steve Goldstein: Every hiking cycle <=70 years ends in [recession, financial crisis] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/every-hiking-cycle-over-the-last-70-years-ends-in-recession-or-a-financial-crisis-its-not-going-to-be-different-this-time-morgan-stanley-strategist-says-f5fddea2?mod=newsviewer_click Every hiking cycle over the last 70 years ends in recession or a financial crisis. ‘It’s not going to be different this time,’ Morgan Stanley strategist says. Published: March 17, 2023 at 6:47 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein After the events of the last two weeks, that notion can be put to bed. “Every rate hiking cycle of the last 70 years has ended in recession (c. 80% of the time) and/or a financial crisis (in 1984 and 1994),” says Graham Secker, chief European equity strategist for Morgan Stanley in London. “A week ago it was possible to argue that this observation was theoretical, now we know that it is not going to be different this time,” he added. 08********08 #] 16Mar2023 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/baidu-gains-as-analysts-praise-ernie-bot-potential-e2c4b537?mod=newsviewer_click #] Dow Jones - Baidu Gains as Analysts Praise "Ernie Bot" Potential Published: March 17, 2023 at 12:16 a.m. ET Jefferies' analysts said the chatbot could give Baidu an early mover advantage, and that the technology has a high entry barrier. "Baidu focuses on Chinese language at the moment and we expect it creates virtuous effect with [an] early mover advantage," they said in a research note. Both Citi and Jefferies maintained their buy ratings on Baidu. Ernie Bot is the first Chinese chatbot set to join the race in AI-powered search technology among global technology giants. Baidu has invested significant capital and human resources for years to develop the technology and burnish its reputation as a leader in artificial intelligence. &&&&&&&&& Howell - I just posted a comment to a MarketWatch reprint of an Associated Press article (today) related to Microsoft's "Copilot". Although Baidu isn't (to my knowledge) a dominant operating system provider to business, perhaps somehow this may still apply? : "... Perhaps one way to look at it is beyond the "Large Language Model" framework, and consider that LLMs provide the start of "COGNITIVE [User Interface, Operating System, Programming Interface]s (CUI, COS, CPI), as a great extension of [Command Line Interface (CLI), Graphical User Interface (GUI), Applications Programming Interface (API)]. China is VERY powerful in "Computational Intelligence". Transformer Neural Networks (basis for many current high-profule systems like chatGPT) are a Google 2017 addition to the family, with the rallying cry "Attention is all you need". ..." +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-adds-ai-tools-to-office-apps-like-outlook-word-excel-78961e3f?mod=newsviewer_click #] Associated Press - Microsoft adds AI tools to Office apps like Outlook, Word, Excel Published: March 16, 2023 at 7:36 p.m. ET By Associated Press Copilot is a processing engine that will allow users to do things like summarize long emails, draft stories, animate slides &&&&&&&& Howell - This brings back part of a comment that I posted on Gary Marcus's webSite for chatGPT : "... Perhaps one way to look at it is beyond the "Large Language Model" framework, and consider that LLMs provide the start of "COGNITIVE [User Interface, Operating System, Programming Interface]s (CUI, COS, CPI), as a great extension of [Command Line Interface (CLI), Graphical User Interface (GUI), Applications Programming Interface (API)]. "Cognitive" relate directly back to Robert Hecht-Nielsen's 2002, 2007 "Confabulation Theory" based on a concept for mammalian cognition. The excitement today resembles some of his work, and expected, but not realized, enthusiasm. chatGPT and kin do not have to resolve all issues, they are already an interface to long existing capabilities in Computational Intelligence (CI - I don't like the AI term as to me that applies to the Kasparov versus Deep Blue era of [rational, logical, scientific] modes of thinking predominantly). It will take more than a generation to work these things out, and by then the beast will be very different. ..." Perhaps Microsoft is now on that track? They have the Windows base in business to capitalize on it best. Let's see if they fumble... +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/french-president-macron-is-setting-an-example-raising-the-retirement-age-could-solve-financial-and-demographic-problems-even-if-workers-hate-the-idea-d36a099e?mod=newsviewer_click #] Alessandra Malito - France raising the retirement age French President Macron is setting an example: Raising the retirement age could solve financial and demographic problems, even if workers hate the idea Last Updated: March 16, 2023 at 2:13 p.m. ET First Published: March 16, 2023 at 11:15 a.m. ET By Alessandra Malito France, the U.K. and China are talking about increasing retirement ages — here’s what’s happening in the U.S. &&&&&&&& Howell - I have long been beyond the point of believing countries like France could make [hard-nosed, necessary] social decisions, so this is quite a revelation for me. Perhaps the goal isn't to achive that any time soon, but just to be allowed to propose it? (protests are a constant any which way) Or perhaps it is like the banking system : no friends would allow much discussion of the recent hits to the old-age pensions etc, but perhaps there is a much darker reality lurking below the surface than [conformist, polite] intellectualism can allow? 08********08 #] 14Mar2023 Mark Hulbert - Stocks look likely to revisit their 2022 low https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stocks-could-revisit-the-s-p-500s-october-2022-low-and-not-because-of-svbs-failure-or-a-banking-crisis-6504e5e6?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Stocks look likely to revisit their 2022 low, but SVB’s failure or a banking crisis won’t be the cause. Last Updated: March 14, 2023 at 2:51 p.m. ET First Published: March 14, 2023 at 7:10 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert These 3 key market sectors aren’t strong enough to indicate that the bear market is over. 230314 Hulbert, MktWatch- What the sector relative swtrength ranking is saying.png 08********08 #] 12Mar2023 William Watts - SVB collapse means more stock-market volatility +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/svb-collapse-means-more-stock-market-volatility-what-investors-need-to-know-b87c962b?mod=newsviewer_click SVB collapse means more stock-market volatility: What investors need to know as U.S. rescues depositors Last Updated: March 12, 2023 at 10:19 p.m. ET First Published: March 12, 2023 at 4:46 p.m. ET By William Watts Traders weigh outlook for rates after bank collapse &&&&&&&& Howell - It's not surprising that we are back in a somewhat-similar situation as 2008, given how well the extreme risk takers were rewarded even when wrong, in spite of stern warnings at the time. It's not surprising that a few cracks have appeared after months of inverted yields, and it's even less surprising that we are surprised when one or two have just cracked, even though we've watched this for so long we've forgotten. It's not surprising that we may be no better than Chinese Evergrand and aftermath. But it makes sense that we are surprised about these unsurprising things, because we really love to be surprised. 08********08 #] 08Mar2023 Stephen Puets UWS newsletter UWS 88.7 solar (very strong), [10.6, 3.54] market due to drop soon (weak signals), [2.12, 258 day] UWS (strong) 08********08 #] 07Mar2023 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-future-stock-fund-manager-could-be-an-ai-program-and-youll-be-richer-for-it-742525b5?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest #] Mark Hulbert -Your future stock-fund manager could be an AI program, and you’ll be richer Last Updated: March 7, 2023 at 3:23 p.m. ET First Published: March 7, 2023 at 7:18 a.m. ET Artificial intelligence is going to replace all but the consistently best stock-picking pros. Artificial intelligence poses a major threat to the worst stock pickers on Wall Street. Even the mediocre ones might want to start looking for another line of work. But the jobs of the best stock pickers are secure — for now. &&&&&&&& Howell - Great article. Especially coming from someone who has monitored solid newsletters for years (or decades?). Together with Mark's ongoing insights and analysis, I value this commentary more than I would most other "experts". I've been following neural networks since 1988, and although Mark's no expert, he seems to have level-headed sense of current transitions. Perhaps the other way to look at it - hybrid [good expert, AI] systems may be the way for a while? 08********08 #] 20Feb2023 Neal Templin: Here’s What Really Matters in Preventing Dementia https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/dementia-alzheimers-prevention-research-f3a67612?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s What Really Matters in Preventing Dementia. It’s Not All Brain Teasers and Crosswords. Last Updated: Feb. 20, 2023 at 6:21 p.m. ET First Published: Feb. 18, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. ET By Neal Templin The Lancet Commission combined research around the world with its own research and found 12 modifiable risk factors that in aggregate account for 40% of dementias. Some are behaviors or conditions long associated with health problems such as smoking, heavy drinking, or diabetes. &&&&&&&& Steven Baker 2 days ago "The Lancet Commission combined research around the world with its own research and found 12 modifiable risk factors that in aggregate account for 40% of dementias. Some are behaviors or conditions long associated with health problems such as smoking, heavy drinking, or diabetes." Mostly correct. Interestingly enough, research has shown that the group LEAST likely to experience dementia are....drumroll please.....SMOKERS! This has been due entirely to the chemical Nicotine, which has been found to have a retarding effect on dementia. Make no mistake, smoking is not healthy and should be avoided. However Nicotine is not the health danger most think it is. Howell - Good eye, Steven Baker, for picking that out. The authors of the report were like the [modern mass media, intellectials, policy specialists] - they just couldn't mention smoking as possibly having a benefit, and haven't for maybe 100 years or so. (I don't smoke) Manxi Wu 2 days ago The longer you live, the more likely you will have this or that problem. With modern healthcare and sanitation, we have prolonged the lifespan, so the side effects of that are many diseases in old age. James Forgy 2 days ago Interesting, but there must be a better way to take care of your brain--a way that does not increase the risk of COPD! 08********08 #] 15Feb2023 +-----+ #] Tae Kim: ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Is a Blockbuster. The Game Could Drive Billions in Revenue https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/hogwarts-legacy-review-warner-bros-games-c7bb8917?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Is a Blockbuster. The Game Could Drive Billions in Revenue. Published: Feb. 15, 2023 at 2:04 p.m. ET By Tae Kim Magical Surprise. Hi everyone. Today, I’m covering the new Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy, which was released last Friday. It has been delighting gamers everywhere and could become a bigger-than-expected boon for its publisher and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery (ticker: WBD). But the developers pulled it off. After playing Hogwarts Legacy for many hours, I can say it’s easily going to be one of the best-selling games in years, and there will be plenty of demand for several inevitable sequels. 08********08 #] 12Feb2023 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-metric-that-shows-why-the-worlds-three-biggest-economies-could-be-in-serious-trouble-9e84b2f1?mod=newsviewer_click #] The metric that shows why the world’s three biggest economies could be in serious trouble Published: Feb. 12, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. ET By Katie Marriner The dependency ratio might be one of the most important statistics when it comes to the future of investing and global markets. For the United States., China and Japan, it’s headed in the wrong direction. &&&&&&&& Howell - There is nothing new here, as the "dependency ratio" has been tracked and commented on for decades by many lead market analysts, although described by different phrases. Nor is the issue confined to [USA, China, Japan]. (Japan was the original inverted example in modern times). India is usally mentioned in articles of the last year or two, given the obvious Chinese demographic challenge since 2010. "This is important because, despite increased automation, the number-one driver of economic output is labor."? - Nope, it's technology which enabled exploding populations since the iron plough became available in medieval times, but most notably because of fertilisers and [pesti, fungi, herbi]cides. We need to start looking beyond very old ideas, and consider [current, future] new challenges. As a hint from covid lockdowns, and a possible inference from the [deep, transformer, etc] neural networks, advanced economies mostly need populations as consumers, as we don't [want, need] to work as much as in the past. Perhaps most of us will do nothing as careers in the future? Some may already attained that state - I am retired, for example. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/chatgpt-ai-invest-8aff5248?mod=newsviewer_click #] ChatGPT Sparked an AI Craze. Investors Need a Long-Term Plan. Last Updated: Feb. 12, 2023 at 9:46 a.m. ET First Published: Feb. 10, 2023 at 6:06 p.m. ET By Eric J. Savitz Company / Ticker Market Value YTD Change Comment ON THE FRONT LINES Microsoft / MSFT $1.96 trillion 9.9% Bing deal with OpenAI shook up the search market. Alphabet / GOOGL $1.22 7.7 Is adding AI to Search, but faces new threat in Bing. THE ARMS DEALERS Nvidia / NVDA $549 billion 52.9% Its graphics processors are used in many AI applications. Adobe / ADBE 172 11.7 Creative-software giant sees boost from generative AI. Advanced Micro Devices / AMD 134 28.5 Launched new AI-focused chip at CES. IBM / IBM 121 -5.1 Remember Watson? IBM is still innovating in AI apps. THE SPECULATIVE BETS C3.ai / AI $2.5 billion 101% Enterprise AI firm launched ChatGPT-based search app. SoundHound AI / SOUN 962 million 126 Its AI-based voice software is used in cars and restaurants. BigBear.ai Holdings / BBAI 682 682 Makes AI-based analytics, mostly for DoD and spy agencies. BuzzFeed / BZFD 235 145 News site announced plans to post content created by ChatGPT. Investors should be wary. Work on AI software has been happening for decades. The technology is complex and resource-intensive. In Alphabet’s case, the launch of Bard is part of a yearslong effort. The company bought the London-based AI software company DeepMind in 2014, for a reported $500 million-plus. Google has been including AI and machine learning in many software products for more than two decades. AI shows up in Google Translate, in the company’s core search service, in Google Lens visual search, in Google Maps, and in Gmail, among other places. ... “AI is the foundation of our discovery engine and our ads business, and we also think it’s going to enable many new products and additional transformations within our apps,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “Generative AI is an extremely exciting new area…and one of my goals for Meta is to build on our research to become a leader in generative AI in addition to our leading work in recommendation AI.” &&&&&&&& Russell Thornton - Does AI respond to empathy and sympathy? Let me know when ready. Howell - There has been a great deal of [interest, research, implementation] over the decades on emotion for several markets using a range of approaches. The famous Google 2017 transformer (self-attention) paper by Google's Vaswani etal "Attention Is All You Need" that kickstarted the current revolution did not mention emotion, but there are many recent "transformer" papers and applications that do. Things are un-stable, as there are ongoing improvements to transformer nets, and there is a tidal wave of new basic concepts not relying on transformers, a few of which will likely drive their own revolutions, as usual. Bill Elswick - I too am concerned about the GIGO problem (Garbage in, Garbage out). Training systems like this using data from Internet sources is certain to introduce errors. And such a system could be used to amplify the untruths and misleading information that so many individuals and organizations pump into the global bitstream on a continuous basis. Fact-checking AIs would be unlikely to help as they must be trained by mass data as well. Howell - I agree, but that's not my main fear. As with today's mass media, well-intentioned but [politically-correct, woke] people will likely pervert the machines more than all of the crooks put together. I also suspect that hiumans will be largely unable to protect themselves from machine misdirections, and on a [scale, intricacy, obtuseness] that no communications before could match, and no intellectual can counter? Looking at a common criticism of [error, hallucination]s, humans make mis-[takes, interpretation, leading]s all the time, and it seems to me that the machines cover far more conceptual [territory, detail] than a human ever could. Sonya March - The negatives on GOOG will fade. Google just needs to be more transparent and share more details on its "AI". MSFT, without question, won the "AI" public relations battle, this week. I still think GOOG will win the "AI" war. MSFT has never been good at playing in the sandbox, with GOOG. MSFT only got lucky this week. GOOG has a TON of brainpower working on AI. I think it is a bad bet shorting GOOG. Close your eyes and buy GOOG. You will be well rewarded if you hold shares for at least 24 months. Good luck. Howell - I sympathize with your comments. However, MS has always grown by coming in late, [use, buy, bully]ing the [idea, company]s of others, and leveraging their dominant operating system. I'm not smart enough to predict whether chatGPT will turn out like Microsoft Office, or one of many failed MS initiatives. But think of chatGPT, DALL-E (images) as a kind of a "Cognitive User Interface" (CUI) to tie users (even experts) to [search, application]s in a more human-like way, going beyond "Command Line Interfaces" (CLI) and Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). Not just the already-demonstrated applications like [writing text, paint an image], but also to [measure sentiment, draw up a business plan, design a board game, engineer a design or architecture, prepare a contract, plan and execute a lawsuit, etc]. Will the meta-level of interacting generally with human sensory [sight, sound, smell, taste, touche] be the most important aspect of these tools, kind of an operating system role? Google could grab that with their more powerful base. 08********08 #] 17Jan2023 Harry's Take - best opportunities for global investment The best opportunities for global investment increasingly will be in Indonesia and other areas of Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan in South Asia, and then Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, in that order. The boom from 2025 to 2037 will focus mostly on Southeast Asia and on India in South Asia, which is likely to become the “next China,” urbanizing rapidly… and filling the great void that China will leave after being the largest driving force of the global boom since the early 1980s. 08********08 #] 17Jan2023 TV trader Tiestobob - explain my scripts Tiestobob Hi Bill! Hope you are well. I had a read of your website and what you recommended but I couldn’t understand it unfortunately. I also tried to reverse engineer your script but had no luck as it was a bit hard to follow. If you have any time to reformat it and complete the script that would be wonderful! &&&&&&&& @Tiestobob - (Part 1) I apologize for the "opaqueness" of my PineScripts, and that I am swamped by other much higher priorities that prevent me from getting back to this. I am also travelling for the next month as well as being swamped by peer reviews of scientific papers on neural networks over the same time, so my answer here is short. I hope to get back to it in 2 months, but that really depends on my real priorities. Worse still is that the posted scripts are NOT my focus now! I always first do the models in my "workhorse" programming language, Q'Nial, THEN I transfer what I can to PineScript. @Tiestobob - (Part 2) For the "PuetzUWS [time, price] multiFractal mirrors, SPX 1872-2020" PineScript, which I assume you are referrring to, two key functions are : (1) drawPriceFrac() - "Relative Standard Deviations" are used as a basis for price fractals. (2) drawTimeFrac() - this "zooms in" according to a set time base (say 1929 as an example), and plots verticle lines according to periodicities from Stephen Puetz. His stunning series is based on a factor-of-three scaling of fractal levels, which is quite similar (not exactly the same) as the first 3 or 4 Fibonnaci levels (the key is to [nest, zoom] these periodicities as fractals). @Tiestobob - (Part 3) My current programs (QNial) focus "zoom" in on SP500 price fractals to provide horizontal axis, which are levels against which several other international stock indexes are plotted, all variances being "normalised" to SP500's variance. My intent is to do that with [SP500, USOIL, GOLD, TNX, etc] as well, to compare diffeent types of markets. I had posted a graph of the international stock markets as a reply to a trader (maybe Deus, now Fomenka), but not as one of my own "ideas" - that's because it was done in QNial! I jad intended to do a PineScript version months ago, but just couldn't get to it. I didn't send : @Tiestobob - (Part 4) I gave up trying to document PineScripts as posted - the environment is too constraining. More complete [explanation, coding]s are available via a mishmash of other web directories, mostly related to Q'Nial, for example (see Puetz- related postings if you dare, but...) : http://www.billhowell.ca/Qnial/MY_NDFS/economics,%20markets/ My advice : DON'T go through this, as my Q'Nial programs are split up and much more generalized! ********************** I assume that you are referring to my PineScript directory : http://www.billhowell.ca/Software%20programming%20&%20code/PineScript%20for%20TradingView%20market%20charts/ Specific scripts include : https://www.tradingview.com/script/xOLBArA6-International-interest-exchange-rates/ https://www.tradingview.com/script/xMrv9RMv-PuetzUWS-time-price-multiFractal-mirrors-SPX-1872-2020/ https://www.tradingview.com/script/lNhAfSRu-Adaptation-of-K%C4%B1vanc-O-zbilgic-s-Turtle-Trade-PineScript/ I also assume that you are referring to my script "PuetzUWS [time, price] multiFractal mirrors, SPX 1872-2020", as the others are much simpler. A [simple, repeat] code listing is at http://www.billhowell.ca/Software%20programming%20&%20code/PineScript%20for%20TradingView%20market%20charts/PuetzUWS%20IntlStkIdxs%20multi-fractals%20(version%202).txt This might have been modified online, as often happens over time, even though I attempt some degree of consistency. The programming must compky with PineScript [requirment, limitation, constraint]s, so it is kludgy even for me. Some of the code is only used for debugging, as with the sections [Time, Labels, Bug check] - it's handy to have this on hand for other scripts. Libraries don't work as usual with PineScript, making it necessary to copy coding to other programs. The program uses SP500 as the "basis" for plotting all price fractals, whereas time fractals are I hope that these URLs are allowed in TradingView private messages, as I've been in TV "jail" for URLs before, and several scripts were blocked because of links (I didn't try to re-post most). I guess we'll find out... 08********08 #] 15Jan2023 +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL23a7nqh1M #] The most Peaceful form of Power Projection - BitWatts | By Jason Lowery MassAdoption-Bitcoin 147 subscribers, 1:45:32 2,308 views Jan 13, 2023 #Bitcoin #satoshi #truckers Jason Lowery explains the emergence of the new internet, how #Bitcoin is the missing piece of the cybersecurity puzzle and how bitWatts are the most peaceful form of power projection in the series of talks orgnized by MassAdoption : a Bitcoin Meetup It was recorded on 12th of January 2023 at Jack's Abby | Framingham, MA Jason Lowery and Greg Foss speak to the MassAdoption Bitcoin community about their Bitcoin thesis, the emergance of softwar and the peaceful power projection principle Btcoin is way more than unconfiscatable, censorship resistant, decentralized peer-to-peer cash A big thanks to our sponsor River Financial for helping in hosting this event and making the night a success +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/to-pick-2023s-winners-look-to-2022s-losers-11673631961?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest #] Mark Hulbert: To pick 2023’s winners, look to 2022’s losers Last Updated: Jan. 14, 2023 at 8:25 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 14, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. ET My monthly report on stocks and funds popular among top performing investment newsletters Another recent example traces to the stocks that make up with so-called “Dogs of the Dow,” which is a portfolio that, at the beginning of each calendar year, invests in the 10 stocks from the Dow 30 with the highest dividend yields. These 10 typically are among the prior year’s worst performers. It’s important to stress that not all big losers from a given year beat the market in the subsequent year, however. Sometimes there will be good reasons why a given year’s worst performers will have lost as much as they did—and are therefore likely to continuing losing in subsequent years as well. If you buy such stocks you run the risk falling into what’s known as a “value trap.” In order to reduce this possibility, the table below only includes those losing stocks from last year that are currently recommended for purchase by at least one of the top-performing newsletters that my auditing firm monitors. I focused only on the 100 stocks in the S&P 1500 SP1500, +0.41% with the worst 2022 returns. Twenty of them are recommended by at least one top-performing newsletter, and they are listed in ascending order based on their 2022 performance. 08********08 #] 13Jan2023 +-----+ #] Barbara Kollmeyer, Joseph Adinolfi: U.S. stocks could fall 10% with ‘pain trade’ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stocks-could-fall-10-as-pain-trade-takes-hold-before-bouncing-back-later-in-the-year-11673630377?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. stocks could fall 10% as ‘pain trade’ takes hold before bouncing back later in the year Published: Jan. 13, 2023 at 12:19 p.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer and Joseph Adinolfi &&&&&&&& Howell - Our financial markets are perhaps far less free will, and far more government policy illusions, than we may be used to. I wonder what new magic will come out of the [academic, economic] realms? I wonder if it matters. Perhaps the growing parts of the world will more and more call the shots, just as demographic politics have transitioning our societies from within? We've always been fond of saying "follow the money", except when other peoples' money dictate the course of events. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/yellen-says-us-will-hit-its-debt-limit-on-thursday-2023-01-13?mod=newsviewer_click #] Yellen says U.S. will hit its debt limit on Thursday Published: Jan. 13, 2023 at 12:14 p.m. ET By Victor Reklaitis There is no stomach on the part of voters to kick our crack addiction to debt, just as has been the case with [kings, . Voters have the ultimate responsibility, but socialist concepts out 40 years agemperors] throughout history, and has accelerated given voter demographics since. [voter, policy, health care, pension, science, etc] &&&&&&&& Howell - Voters have no stomach to kick our addition to debt, nor do [policy, health, etc] professionals who aren't just following voters, but drive at least some of their perceptions. This is no surprise : it is the historical norm of [pharoah, emperor, king, barron, mercantist, etc] across history, and modern democracies may be just as bad (perhaps all are the same). We can never learn, and it's just to hard to know when a transition from "price revolution to price stability" occurs (bad times, as per David Fischer 1989). 08********08 #] 09Jan2023 230109 Harry Dent forecast - Coming year worst since [2008, 2001, 1973].pdf brilliant!!! 08********08 #] 12Dec2022 +-----+ #] Neuralink could be a rare failure, By Jurica Dujmovic https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-says-neuralink-could-help-create-superhuman-intelligence-but-the-technology-could-be-a-rare-failure-for-one-of-his-companies-11670864762?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Elon Musk says Neuralink could help create superhuman intelligence. But the technology could be a rare failure for one of his companies Last Updated: Dec. 12, 2022 at 12:06 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 12, 2022 at 12:05 p.m. ET Brain-computer interfaces have been in the works for decades. History shows that Neuralink will have massive challenges. &&&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting perspective. As stated, there are many challenges, to which I would add : - glial cell passivation of electrodes within weeks to months (if I remember correctly, the team de-emphasized that, which is notable) - heating effects within the brain - not so important with electrodes only, without integrated circuits (or analogue power sources) inside the brain. What's less clear to me are the tools used for analysing neuron signals. Ted Berger and colleagues used fascinating kernel appraches for a hippocampal prosthesis. Given Musk's early involvement in openAI's chat application, and DALL-E image generation from text, maybe there is much more to this, and it may be changing extremely rapidly now. 08********08 #] 09Dec2022 +-----+ #] Be on your guard against Wall Street’s 2023 forecasts, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/be-on-your-guard-against-wall-streets-2023-forecasts-11670464129?mod=newsviewer_click Be on your guard against Wall Street’s 2023 forecasts Published: Dec. 9, 2022 at 2:15 p.m. ET Few forecasters ever go back and assess how their previous forecasts fared One of the best thought pieces about the perils of forecasting, entitled The Illusion of Knowledge, was penned a couple of months ago by Howard Marks, co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management. He divided Wall Street analysts into two groups: Those in the “I know” camp and those in the “I don’t know” camp. Marks argues that the intellectually honest thing for a forecaster is to be in the “I don’t know” camp. He quotes AmosTversky, the late Stanford behavioral economist: “It’s frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what’s going on.” &&&&&&&& Howell - Timely, well compared context for yearly forecasts. However unreliable, forecasts are implicit to investment prioritization, although one can hide behind statistics and non-parametrics (including information theoretics). Maybe the hardest prediction relate to what he maddening crowd will do, including voters. Awesome quote of AmosTversky, the late Stanford behavioral economist: “It’s frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what’s going on.” +-----+ #] why older Americans have left the workforce, By Steve Goldstein https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-resolves-the-big-mystery-on-why-older-americans-have-left-the-workforce-11670586325?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s what resolves the big mystery on why older Americans have left the workforce Last Updated: Dec. 9, 2022 at 8:40 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 9, 2022 at 6:45 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting context - the [US, UK] wealth effect is new to me. Something I wonder about is the "disability" (longer-term morbidity) effect - that the [covid, covax] combination drastically reduced the [energy, effectiveness] of older workers disproportionately. (like me - covax, not covid, mostly via mental hits) 08********08 #] 07Dec2022 +-----+ #] Quiet quitting and working from home are bad, By Michael Brush https://www.marketwatch.com/story/quiet-quitting-and-working-from-home-may-be-good-for-your-lifestyle-but-not-for-your-stock-investments-11670264221?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Stock market worry for 2023: Quiet quitting and working from home are bad for companies’ productivity Last Updated: Dec. 5, 2022 at 1:17 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 5, 2022 at 1:16 p.m. ET Little-known forecasting tool To see why, consider a little-known economic indicator called the index of unused labor capacity. Leuthold Group chief investment officer Douglas Ramsey brought it to my attention recently. Developed by former University of Albany professor Edward Renshaw years ago, this indicator is worth tracking because it’s better than the yield curve at predicting what’s next for the economy. So while everyone is focused on the inverted yield curve — in which shorter-term rates are higher than longer-term rates — they should really be looking at this indicator. “This is a very solid leading indicator,” says Ramsey. “It has a higher correlation to next year’s GDP [gross domestic product] than the yield curve.” The indicator is relatively simple. To calculate it, you take the unemployment rate and add the change in productivity. That’s it. The lower the number, the worse the outlook for the economy and earnings. The indicator recently gave us the dire prediction of a recession next year and a 13% decline in earnings. During recessions, the S&P 500’s SPX price-to-earnings ratio can plummet to 10 or lower. It was recently at around 17. So in this scenario, the S&P 500 could fall to 2,800-3,000 points, says Ramsey. That would be a 25% decline. Here’s how Ramsey uses this indicator to support that forecast. First, take the average unemployment rate over the trailing 12 months, and the most recent year-over-year change in productivity. In October, the trailing unemployment rate was 4.2% and productivity fell by 2.5%, year over year. This gave us a labor capacity index of 1.7%, by far the lowest reading ever. This scatter-plot diagram shows us that this predicts a recession next year. A scatter plot is a diagram that displays correlation between variables. In this case, it looks at what happened to the economy after every year-end labor capacity read since 1948. ..... Ramsey isn’t the only one to think work from home drags down productivity. Elon Musk has been telling Tesla and Twitter workers to get back to the office because he thinks this boosts productivity. The CEOs of top investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are doing the same, for similar reasons. "$d_mkts"'References/221207 Douglas Ramsey, Leuthold, Index of unused labor capacity vs subsequent-year real GDP growth, 1948-2022.png "$d_mkts"'References/221207 Douglas Ramsey, Leuthold, Index of unused labor caqpacity vs subsequent-year real corporate profit growth, 1948-2022.png "$d_mkts"'References/221207 Douglas Ramsey, Leuthold, productivity declined with the work-at-home ethic, 1950-2022.png +-----+ #] Tesla Is Offering Discounts, By Al Root https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-stock-price-discounts-51670417737?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla Is Offering Discounts. Are Drivers Souring on Its Car? Last Updated: Dec. 7, 2022 at 2:39 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 7, 2022 at 7:57 a.m. ET Headwinds for Tesla —and its stock—appear to be growing. The latest may be among the biggest concerns of all for the company. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote Tuesday that Tesla (ticker: TSLA) “increasingly appears to have a demand issue.” +-----+ #] search "oil price - Russian versus global December 2022" https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/oil-tankers-en-route-to-russia-as-oil-price-cap-on-exports-hits.html Tankers seen heading to Russia as oil price cap goes into effect on exports Published Mon, Dec 5 20222:34 PM ESTUpdated Tue, Dec 6 20226:14 AM EST Lori Ann LaRocco @loriannlarocco /home/bill/web/economics, markets/References/221207 Gabriel Cortes CNBC, Dirty tanker imports from Russia to China, Europe and India in 2022.png https://www.csis.org/analysis/price-cap-russian-oil-running-stand-still Price Cap on Russian Oil: Running to Stand Still November 28, 2022 Negotiations are still underway as a critical deadline approaches on December 5, but the G7 is inching toward a price cap that will do little to cut Russia’s oil revenue. The G7 price cap would defuse a package of EU sanctions that could drive Russian oil exports off the market and create a price spike. But the $65 per barrel range under consideration poses no threat to Russia’s revenue stream, and authorizing trade below the price cap could increase demand for its oil. Russia has threatened to ban oil sales to companies and countries that join the price cap. /home/bill/web/economics, markets/References/221207 Ben Cahill CSIS, Russian seaborne crudxe oil and condensate exports.png https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/11/30/the-wests-proposed-price-cap-on-russian-oil-is-no-magic-weapon The West’s proposed price cap on Russian oil is no magic weapon The global energy system is far more flexible than you think Nov 30th 2022 can't view unless subscribe... /home/bill/web/economics, markets/References/221207 Economist, Brent verus Ural crude oil prices Jan-Nov2022.png +-----+ #] What's the effect of Russian oil price cap, ban?, By DAVID McHUGH https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/explainer-effect-russian-oil-price-cap-ban-93924732 EXPLAINER: What's the effect of Russian oil price cap, ban? The deadline is looming for Western allies to agree on a price cap on Russia oil ByDAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer November 24, 2022, 11:33 AM ... A cap of between $65 and $70 per barrel could let Russia keep selling oil and while keeping its earnings to current levels. Russian oil is trading at around $63 per barrel, a considerable discount to international benchmark Brent. A lower cap — at around $50 per barrel — would make it difficult for Russia to balance its state budget, with Moscow believed to require around $60 to $70 per barrel to do that, its so-called “fiscal break-even.” 08********08 #] 06Dec2022 +-----+ #] $3,000 gold and more outrageous market predictions, By Barbara Kollmeyer https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-at-3-000-after-a-war-torn-and-inflation-racked-year-here-are-some-outrageous-predictions-worth-pondering-11670327544?mod=newsviewer_click $3,000 gold and more outrageous market predictions investors shouldn’t brush aside. Last Updated: Dec. 6, 2022 at 9:46 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 6, 2022 at 6:52 a.m. ET As for those predictions, here we go: - Gold crosses $2,075 then rockets to $3,000 on unstoppable inflation. “ Fed policy tightening and quantitative tightening drives a new snag in U.S. treasury markets that forces new sneaky ‘measures’ to contain Treasury market volatility that really amounts to new de facto quantitative easing,” says Saxo. And China’s end of zero-COVID drives up demand, commodity prices and inflation. - Widespread price controls to cap official inflation due to war economy mentality. “In 2023, expect broadening price and even wage controls, maybe even something like a new National Board for Prices and Incomes being established in the U.K. and the U.S.,” said Saxo. Market fallout? Fuel for gold’s GC00 climb. - There’s a new reserve asset in town. Non U.S.-allied countries move away from the U.S. and IMF to create an “international clearing union (ICU) and a new reserve asset, called the Bancor (currency code KEY)” that borrows from economist John Maynard Keynes idea of resisting U.S. power over the international monetary system. Nonaligned central banks slash U.S. dollar reserves, Treasury yields soar and the dollar DXY drops 25% against a basket of currencies that trade with Bancor. - Japan pegs USDJPY to 200. Pressure intensifies on the already weak yen USDJPY into 2023 as currency intervention fails and inflation soars. The government resets the financial system, erasing all debt, recapitalizing banks, as trillions of yen return to Japan shores. But the yen still weakens by year-end. - A $10 trillion-dollar Manhattan project. A team of major tech leaders form a mega research-and-development effort for energy infrastructure and ground-breaking technologies — the Third Stone. Companies tied to the project soar in an overall weak environment for investing. - Tax haven ban kills private equity. The OECD launches a full ban on the biggest tax havens in the world in 2023 and in the U.S., carried interest tax as capital gains is shifted to ordinary income. It’s a body blow for private equity and venture capital — the valuation of publicly listed private-equity firms fall 50%. The rest of their predictions are here, such as the formation of an EU Armed Forces in 2023 and an “UnBrexit” referendum : https://www.home.saxo/en-gb/content/commentaries/pressrelease/saxo-2023-outrageous-predictions-the-war-economy-06122022 /home/bill/web/economics, markets/References/221206 FactSet-Jeffries US consumers use credit and reduced savings to fund Xmas.jpeg 08********08 #] 05Dec2022 ChatGPT by OpenAi - another giant leap? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-is-chatgpt-well-you-can-ask-it-yourself-11670282065?mod=newsviewer_click What is ChatGPT? Well, you can ask it yourself. Last Updated: Dec. 5, 2022 at 6:23 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 5, 2022 at 6:14 p.m. ET By Emily Bary The buzzy chatbot from OpenAI can solve problems, write code and tell creative stories, but it’s hardly perfect &&&&&&&& Howell - Fantastic results, including the oft-cited failures. The [cyn, cryt]ics are skating on very thin ice. I suspect that essentially all would be soundly beaten by ChatGPT by [composition, concept]s when tested across a broad range of subjects? It's easy to snipe from the sidelines, easier to disassemble the all-knowing snipers, computer or human. All the new Computational Intelligence is immature and rapidly evolving. Conceptually many tools are already impressive. Once high-dexterity robots are available, it may become very interesting... 08********08 #] 30Nov2022 Jerome Powell - Fed Comments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s6ZihWKyhw 1.7 jobs available / person looking for work restrictive policy for some time - history shows error of premature slacking Powell doesn't admit that financial asset inflation leakage to CPI is key 2 key wage measures [hourly avg earnings, employment ?? index] 4M employee shortfall China slowing economy - how much drag on USA Powell - China supply-chain sutdowns have impact . 08********08 #] 28Nov2022 +-----+ #] Fundstrat’s Tom Lee : Stock market headwinds have ‘flipped,’ , By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-could-see-fireworks-through-the-end-of-the-year-as-headwinds-have-flipped-fundstrats-tom-lee-says-11669656362?mod=newsviewer_click Stock market could see ‘fireworks’ through the end of the year as headwinds have ‘flipped,’ Fundstrat’s Tom Lee says Published: Nov. 28, 2022 at 12:26 p.m. ET Here are 11 headwinds of 2022 that Fundstrat’s Tom Lee says have ‘flipped’ /home/bill/SG6/web/economics, markets/References/221129 Tom Lee, MW - stock market headwinds have flipped.png +-----+ #] The Federal Reserve Balance Goes Negative, Rodney's Take November 28, 2022 /home/bill/SG6/web/economics, markets/References/21128 Fed liabilities - remuittances due US Treasury, Wednewday level.png From January 1 to August 31, the Fed sent the Treasury about $77 billion. From the first week of September through November 23, the Fed reported $57 billion in losses. With the central bank all but certain to raise rates in the middle of December and likely again at the end of January 2023, it’s likely the Treasury won’t be receiving financial love from the Fed anytime soon. While $100 billion in extra debt for the U.S. Treasury won’t break the bank, it will add just that much more interest that we must pay. And as the Fed lets bonds roll off of its balance sheet while holding short-term rates higher for longer, the situation will get worse, not better. >> graph doesn't make sense!!??!! mid-Sep Fed balance declines? probably due to due dates?!? +-----+ #] Why GM dealers are quietly repairing Teslas, By Sean Tucker Published: Nov. 28, 2022 at 5:00 a.m. ET For some Tesla owners, getting to a nearby Buick dealership is a lot easier than working through Tesla’s complex repair network. +-----+ #] headwinds have 'flipped' Fundstrat’s Tom Lee says, By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-could-see-fireworks-through-the-end-of-the-year-as-headwinds-have-flipped-fundstrats-tom-lee-says-11669656362?mod=newsviewer_click Stock market could see ‘fireworks’ through the end of the year as headwinds have ‘flipped,’ Fundstrat’s Tom Lee says Published: Nov. 28, 2022 at 12:26 p.m. ET Here are 11 headwinds of 2022 that Fundstrat’s Tom Lee says have ‘flipped’ GGoioid graph : FUNDSTRAT NOTE DATED NOV. 28, 2022 08********08 #] 25Nov2022 +-----+ #] ONCY stocktwits - Neil Degrass Tyson, ktdobsonwill blog https://stocktwits.com/symbol/ONCY @ktdobsonwill Neil Degrass Tyson (however you spell it)? There's a science jinx all by itself, but maybe together with Science Guy Bill Nye, they can help pump the believers over to ONCY? Kind of like seeing the ghosts together again of (Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov), evokingde AAAS witch-hunts. 08********08 #] 21Nov2022 +-----+ #] Fed’s Daly: 3.75-4% current rate feels like 6% because of baqlance sheet deleverage, By Greg Robb https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-daly-says-financial-markets-are-acting-like-interest-rates-are-much-higher-than-they-actually-are-11669054962?mod=newsviewer_click Fed’s Daly says financial markets are acting like interest rates are much higher than they actually are Last Updated: Nov. 21, 2022 at 4:37 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 21, 2022 at 1:22 p.m. ET Because of shrinking the balance sheet, market conditions are akin to a benchmark rate around 6%, instead of actual range of 3.75%-4%, San Francisco Fed president says &&&&&&&& Howell - Good timing of this article, as analysis comparing the effects of the rates versus rate of deleverage have been far too few. The 2 to 2.75% incremental impact due to deleveraging seems "somewhat reasonable" to me, albeit excessive as deleveraging has only been at the 50 G$/month since ~Apr or May by the looks of it, and financial asset valuation declines seem much smaller than the post Mar2020 runup due to 90 G$/month plus other cash (and Treasury) injections. However, I haven't tried to model this, and I haven't seen any other quanitative model estimates as a comparison. The Fed has been doing a far better job of putting the lid on a big monster than I ever thought possible. I don't remember either the [Fed, Treasury] saying that they will go all the way to reducing [leverage, deficits] to pre-2007 levels. Voters still want to spend, spend, spend? 08********08 #] 18Nov2022 +-----+ #] Stifel economists say fed-funds rate may need to go to 8%-9%, By Vivien Lou Chen https://www.marketwatch.com/story/did-bullard-undershoot-some-analysts-say-fed-funds-rate-may-need-to-go-even-higher-than-7-11668795625?mod=newsviewer_click Did Bullard undershoot? Stifel economists say fed-funds rate may need to go to 8%-9% Last Updated: Nov. 18, 2022 at 1:37 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 18, 2022 at 1:20 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Refreshing [analysis, comments] by [Stifel, UniCredit] regarding Bullard's "refreshingly honest" comments. I have no idea of how far one should trust the "Taylor model". But at least there may now be less of a chance that runaway US Treasury mega-deficits might countre-act FedReserve actions? +-----+ #] $2 trillion in stock options expire Friday, put-call ratio levels unseen since 2001, By Joseph Adinolfi https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-than-2-trillion-in-stock-options-expire-friday-with-put-call-ratio-near-levels-unseen-since-2001-11668782195?mod=newsviewer_click More than $2 trillion in stock options expire Friday with put-call ratio near levels unseen since 2001 Last Updated: Nov. 18, 2022 at 12:05 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 18, 2022 at 9:36 a.m. ET >> Awesome article, charts!!! +-----+ #] losing in Ukraine — he’s set Russia’s economy back 40 years, By Vitaliy Katsenelson https://www.marketwatch.com/story/vladimir-putin-isnt-just-losing-in-ukraine-hes-set-russias-economy-back-40-years-11668759710?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Vladimir Putin isn’t just losing in Ukraine — he’s set Russia’s economy back 40 years Published: Nov. 18, 2022 at 7:28 a.m. ET Ukraine has both the will and the means to win its fight against Russia "... The means of the Ukrainian army has increased substantially over the past few months. In addition to receiving more modern equipment from NATO, the Ukrainians enjoyed a larger weapon transfer from the Russian side to the Ukrainian than NATO had provided when they pushed Russian army out of Kharkiv Oblast. Ukrainians know how to use this equipment and can start using it immediately. ..." >> Great comments, right or wrong! Vitaliy Katsenelson is CEO of investment firm IMA. His recent book, Soul in the Game – The Art of a Meaningful Life, deals with the most important investment you’ll ever make — investment in yourself. For more of Katsenelson’s writing on investing, life, music and other topics, check out ContrarianEdge.com or listen at Investor.FM. &&&&&&&& Howell - Very astute comments from life experience and from thinking into current ramifications. I loved the comment that the Russians have recently contributed more weapons (perhaps lower quality) inadvertantly to the Ukrainians than NATO has, because of Ukrain's capture of the Kharkiv region. I was expecting a lot of that the other way around because of past wars, but I haven't heard any news of Russian [capture, black market purchase] of Western tech, and as the author points out, Russians may not be able "manufacture" Western tech as they have in the past. 08********08 #] 17Nov2022 +-----+ #] This is the chart that rattled U.S. financial markets on Thursday, By Vivien Lou Chen https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-chart-that-is-rattling-u-s-financial-markets-thursday-11668701498?mod=newsviewer_click This is the chart that rattled U.S. financial markets on Thursday Last Updated: Nov. 17, 2022 at 4:18 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 17, 2022 at 11:11 a.m. ET That chart was presented by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard as part of a presentation in Louisville, Ky., and it shows where he sees “the sufficiently restrictive zone” for the central bank’s main policy rate target. Bullard put the zone somewhere between 5% to 7%, up from the current fed-funds rate range of between 3.75% to 4%. That was enough to cause investors to sell off stocks and bonds in tandem, push the dollar higher, and rewire expectations around how high interest rates could go. /home/bill/SG6/web/economics, markets/References/221117 Bullard, FedRes - 5 to 7pct sufficiently restrictive zone for 10yr bond rates.png 08********08 #] 16Nov2022 +-----+ #] [financials, energy, utilities] to power the market, By Michael Brush https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-new-bull-market-will-be-led-by-stocks-in-these-three-industries-tech-and-the-faangs-will-fall-to-the-wayside-11668626507?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The new bull market will be led by stocks in these three industries. Tech and the FAANGs will fall to the wayside Published: Nov. 16, 2022 at 2:21 p.m. ET John Linehan, who manages $29 billion for T. Rowe Price, is looking to financials, energy and utilities to power the market as interest rates remain high +-----+ #] 200-day moving average is NOT bullish for stocks, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dow-trading-above-its-200-day-moving-average-is-supposedly-bullish-for-stocks-but-not-this-time-11668565554?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest The Dow trading above its 200-day moving average is supposedly bullish for stocks — but not this time Last Updated: Nov. 16, 2022 at 1:14 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 16, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. ET The Dow tends to do significantly worse following 200-day moving average 'buy' signals &&&&&&&& Howell - Another truism blown up. At least Hulbert has provided his list of statistically significant ratios that are predictors of the stock market’s return : [P/E, CAPE, P/Dividend, P/Sales, P/Book, Q, Buffett, HouseHldEquity to savings]. see his posting https://www.marketwatch.com/story/both-stock-market-bulls-and-bears-claim-todays-margin-debt-supports-their-view-heres-the-truth-01653659929?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest 08********08 #] 14Nov2022 Markets are getting a wake-up call in 2023, says Morgan Stanley, By Barbara Kollmeyer https://www.marketwatch.com/story/markets-are-getting-a-wake-up-call-in-2023-says-morgan-stanley-which-offers-a-plan-for-investors-to-get-ready-11668427567?mod=newsviewer_click Markets are getting a wake-up call in 2023, says Morgan Stanley, which offers a plan for investors to get ready. Last Updated: Nov. 14, 2022 at 9:56 a.m. ET First Published: Nov. 14, 2022 at 7:06 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day "$d_mkts"'References/221114 Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley - Fed pauses lead to stock rallies, How [high, long] can it last.png 08********08 #] 06Nov2022 +-----+ #] New stock-market lows ahead?, By Isabel Wang https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-stock-market-lows-ahead-what-investors-need-to-know-as-fed-signals-rates-will-be-higher-for-longer-11667600896?mod=newsviewer_click New stock-market lows ahead? What investors need to know as Fed signals rates will be higher for longer. Last Updated: Nov. 5, 2022 at 12:38 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 5, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. ET The Fed wants to see financial conditions tighten, and that means bear market could continue: strategists &&&&&&&& Howell - Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments. “You don’t normally hit bottom in a bear market until the fed-funds rate is higher than the inflation rate.” Many market analysts have said that recently, but strangely this has rarely been mentioned in a huge number of articles about "when the bear will go away". "... Investors may wonder how much wealth destruction the Fed would tolerate to destroy demand and squelch inflation. ..." - No wealth destruction is occurring. It's just the dissipation of the mirage of wealth as valuations re-adjust towards more normal conditions. Breath in deeply, and keep repeating that when you look at your investment performance this year. You are at one with the universe. 08********08 #] 04Nov2022 +-----+ #] Rohit Chopra is cracking down on big banks and Big Tech, By Eleanor Laise https://www.marketwatch.com/story/rohit-chopra-is-cracking-down-on-big-banks-and-big-techand-business-groups-claim-hes-out-of-control-11667564742?mod=newsviewer_click Rohit Chopra is cracking down on big banks and Big Tech — and business groups claim he’s out of control Last Updated: Nov. 5, 2022 at 12:11 a.m. ET First Published: Nov. 4, 2022 at 8:25 a.m. ET Consumer advocates love the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and business groups are fighting him. As a result, he’s on the MarketWatch 50 list of the most influential people in markets. &&&&&&&& Howell - Wyatt Earp and the OK corral? We'll see, if the same kinds of extreme financial [corruption, bailout]s occur as in the 2008 housing crash and other episodes before, then will there will be a need, and perhaps a mandate to go where Rohit Chopra fears to go? Sooner or later, if efforts fail, credibility of the markets themselves will die, and those who predicted this 150+ years ago, and who have already transformed major parts of the world, may finally succeed here. It's not so hard to do when the population no longer buys in. +-----+ #] A Divided Congress Might Not Be Good for Stocks This Time Around, By Nicholas Jasinski https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/a-divided-congress-might-not-be-good-for-stocks-this-time-around-51667604306?mod=newsviewer_click Published: Nov. 4, 2022 at 7:25 p.m. ET History and polling both suggest that the most likely outcome will be a Republican win in the House and possibly in the Senate, leaving a divided government. The general rule of thumb, as far as the market is concerned, is that gridlock is good. It means fewer policy changes and less risk to individual sectors such as healthcare or energy from one party’s political priorities. Major tax code changes are also unlikely. +-----+ #] Gold - the yellow metal hasn’t bottomed yet, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-prices-are-soaring-but-theres-strong-support-from-the-past-that-the-yellow-metal-hasnt-bottomed-yet-11667578905?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: Gold prices are soaring but there’s strong support from the past that the yellow metal hasn’t bottomed yet Published: Nov. 4, 2022 at 12:21 p.m. ET Traders haven't yet capitulated, something that's needed for prices to reliably rise +-----+ #] Merck gave up its virus research and now partner with Moderna for a MRNA solution to cancer, Deviner https://stocktwits.com/symbol/ONCY Deviner, 11/2/22, 07:22 AM, $ONCY Canadafan, your senseless pumping is not going to do the price any good. Yes, stocks can languish and may recover. However, ONCY has gone past its time. The virus is only mildly effective, and new technologies have now presented much better potential. Why do you think Merck gave up its virus research and now partner with Moderna for a MRNA solution to cancer? Think they are dumber than ONCY management? +-----+ #] bargains on bonds tied to $16 trillion pile of U.S. household debt, By Joy Wiltermuth https://www.marketwatch.com/story/credit-carnage-spurs-bargains-on-bonds-tied-to-16-trillion-pile-of-u-s-household-debt-11667589323?mod=newsviewer_click Credit carnage spurs bargains on bonds tied to $16 trillion pile of U.S. household debt Last Updated: Nov. 4, 2022 at 5:02 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 4, 2022 at 3:15 p.m. ET Although, some parts of credit markets appear to be reflecting a degree of recession-level prices, with speculative-grade subprime auto bonds with BB credit ratings pricing at 12% to 13% yields in October, up from 5% in January, according to bond issuance tracker Finsight. +-----+ #] Fed warns of ‘low’ market liquidity in $24 trillion Treasury market, By Joy Wiltermuth https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-warns-of-low-market-liquidity-in-24-trillion-treasury-market-in-latest-financial-stability-report-11667592786?mod=newsviewer_click Fed warns of ‘low’ market liquidity in $24 trillion Treasury market, in latest financial stability report Last Updated: Nov. 4, 2022 at 5:12 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 4, 2022 at 4:13 p.m. ET There are three main reasons for his caution. First, and this really should not come as a surprise to anyone, the Fed is no longer the market’s friend, despite some still clinging on to the previous era of uber-loose coddling. Powell has “failed to placate the market on its pivot dreams. As peak Fed pricing moves to a fresh high, equities are threatening to revisit the lows. Net short positioning is much cleaner now relative to 4 weeks ago,” says Fahy. Secondly, equity market internals are what he terms “soggy.” “Despite the recent squeeze higher in the market, defensives continue to outperform cyclicals, whilst Citi’s probability of default basket remains at the lows….EPS recession is on the way, and that can add another 20% downside to the market”. That would take the S&P 500 below 3,000, to its lowest since the spring of 2020. Finally, it’s unlikely that seasonal tailwinds — on which many bulls are pinning their hopes — will come to the rescue. “It might seem strange leaning short equities into a period of what has historically exhibited strong seasonal performance. But as noted by Citi quant strategists, the traditional Santa rally has not been delivered when the returns of the first 10 months of the year are negative,” Fahy says. &&&&&&&& Howell - Does this mean that the huge covid-cash-pumps meant that investors were happy to by near-zero-yield bonds (i.e. get rid of useless cash when markets and real estate were also on steroids), but the almost-getting-to-historical-normal rates are insufficient honey to attract investors fearing much worse to come? Is it some law of supply-and-demand of money, manipulated by the politically-correct? Have bond markets been damaged in reputation? +-----+ #] Amazon stock breaks long-term chart support, and the worst may still be to come, Tomi Kilgore https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-stock-breaks-long-term-chart-support-and-the-worst-may-still-be-to-come-11667590598?mod=newsviewer_click Published: Nov. 4, 2022 at 3:36 p.m. ET Next big technical support is in the low-$80s, where a number of chart lines converge &&&&&&&& Howell - Very nice analysis using multi-reinforcing multiple technical perspectives. +-----+ #] S&P500 INDEX (SPY) Bearish Outlook, VasilyTrader https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/YhqopMKF-S-P500-INDEX-SPY-Bearish-Outlook/ S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3767.93 49.65 1.34% 13 hours ago &&&&&&&& Howell - My gut feel - slightly bearish for next couple of months UNLESS Fed pivots : 1) bearish factors - resumption of Aug-Oct down-trend?, Fed stated intentions for (rates, balance sheet), huge (debt, deficit)s 2) bullish factors - tons of cash itching to do something in high inflation period, more cash from continuing bond massacre, buy-on-dip still strong PLUS investors still in covid-era super-market boom mindset (revenge catch-up), (Fed, Treasury) won't let market collapse - must buy election 3) neutral factors - earnings neutral, foreign investors flight-to-safety may be over? (unless they realy crash) - India especially!, we are still on 1871-2022 SPX exponential trendline (Mark Hulbert), and 1926-2022 semi-log trend (Howell) @Bill_Howell, oops, I missed - FAANG fallout, except Apple! This will really force some thinking for many who thought they were ligving in moated castles. 08********08 #] 03Nov2022 trade? - NO, can't afford to loose more$$!!! Just cash in weird locked-in RRSPs, index rest /run/media/bill/Midas/Investments/TD Waterhouse/TDWater 523278-S RRSP stmt /run/media/bill/Midas/Investments/TD Waterhouse/ /run/media/bill/Midas/Investments/TD Waterhouse/ /run/media/bill/Midas/Investments/TD Waterhouse/ 08********08 #] 02Nov2022 -----+ #] Here are 4 causes of the worst monetary-policy mistake in years, By Greg Robb https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-did-inflation-surge-to-a-40-year-high-here-are-4-causes-of-the-worst-monetary-policy-mistake-in-years-11667318263?mod=newsviewer_click Why did inflation surge to a 40-year high? Here are 4 causes of the worst monetary-policy mistake in years. Last Updated: Nov. 2, 2022 at 8:08 a.m. ET First Published: Nov. 1, 2022 at 11:57 a.m. ET ‘I don’t think I would do that again’: Jay Powell grapples with how the Fed got inflation so wrong and lands on the MarketWatch 50 list of the most influential people in markets 1. A new policy framework unveiled in August 2020 (for low inflation environments of past 20 years) 2. A distrust of forecasts (makes snse - but what is the default, because if nothing then implicit) 3. Forward guidance turns into straitjacket for the Fed (end bond purchases before interest rate hikes) 4. The perfect storm This upended the Fed’s longstanding reliance on Phillip Curve models that say that tight labor markets and wage pressures are a main driver of inflation. ... The change was greeted with skepticism by some experts, such as Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Stanley, a U.S. fixed-income broker. In an email to clients after the new framework was announced, Stanley said that, in effect, Powell had concluded that inflation was simply a mystery to the Fed, and since it has no ability to accurately predict inflation, it must simply react to it after the results are in. “That might work out OK, but if inflation occurs with ‘long and variable lags,’ as Milton Friedman famously said, then a reactive policy will always be behind the curve, an exercise in futility,” Stanley said. “By the time the Fed realized that policy was too easy, the inflation genie will be out of the bottle. By the way, this is exactly the approach that got the Fed in so much trouble in the late 1960s and 1970s.” ... Crandall said Powell, a lawyer by training who worked for years as a partner at the Carlyle Group CG, -0.21%, a private-equity firm, was very skeptical of economic models and forecasts. “A career in private equity will make you a little bit skeptical of forecasts,” Crandall said. ... The market understood from Powell and other Fed officials that ending bond purchases was a precondition to any rate hike. For the market, as long as the Fed was buying assets, it was not going to raise rates. In the last cycle, the Fed waited two years between ending purchases and hiking rates. >> In context of David Fischer's "Great Wave" : tight labor markets - opposite of over-population, wage pressures - a non-concept, labor strife based on high-inflation? tight labor markets? missing money printing!?!?!! missing over-population leading to financial degredation 08********08 #] 01Nov2022 +-----+ #] two crosscurrents in the market year-end, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-will-be-the-best-performing-stocks-in-january-can-be-bought-today-because-of-these-two-crosscurrents-in-the-market-11667308997?mod=stocks Opinion: What will be the best-performing stocks in January can be bought today because of these two crosscurrents in the market Published: Nov. 1, 2022 at 9:23 a.m. ET Tax-loss selling and end-of-year window dressing create trading opportunities As a cutoff, I used the market cap of the largest stock in the S&P Midcap 400 index. The stocks that survived my winnowing process are listed below in order of their year-to-date losses (per FactSet calculations). Stock 2022 loss (through Oct. 28) Gannett Co. Inc. GCI -71.5% Align Technology Inc. ALGN -71.3% Neogen Corp. NEOG -71.1% Match Group Inc. MTCH -67.0% Trinseo Public Limited Co. TSE -63.6% Trex Co. Inc. TREX -63.5% Allegiant Travel Co. ALGT -61.0% V.F. Corp. VFC -60.2% Innovative Industrial Properties Inc. IIPR -58.5% Big Lots Inc. BIG -58.4% Stanley Black & Decker Inc. SWK -57.5% Carnival Corp. CCL -55.6% Rent-A-Center Inc. RCII -54.9% Boot Barn Holdings Inc. BOOT -53.5% Seagate Technology Holdings PLC STX -53.1% Zebra Technologies Corp. Class A ZBRA -51.6% CarMax Inc. KMX -51.0% Signature Bank SBNY -50.4% Ball Corp. BALL -48.0% Western Digital Corp. WDC -45.6% Randomly select 5 of above, buy now, sell in January >> but these are USA, tax issues? +-----+ #] Mark Sokolovsky's Raccoon Infostealer, By Lukas I. AlpertFollow https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-russias-war-in-ukraine-helped-the-fbi-crack-one-of-the-biggest-cyber-crime-cases-in-years-11667329599?mod=newsviewer_click How Russia’s war in Ukraine helped the FBI crack one of the biggest cybercrime cases in years Last Updated: Nov. 1, 2022 at 5:01 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 1, 2022 at 3:06 p.m. ET Investigators nabbed a key figure behind malware program Raccoon Infostealer in the Netherlands after he fled the fighting in Ukraine Sokolovsky hails from the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine and attended university there. In the early days of the war, the city came under heavy bombardment by Russian forces. According to an account on a blog run by Brian Krebs, a respected cybersecurity reporter and analyst, authorities were able to connect Sokolovsky to Raccoon through his iCloud AAPL, -1.75% account, which had been used to set up certain accounts attached to the malware program. This allowed authorities to track Sokolovsky’s movements, Krebs reported. It also allowed them to recover a photograph of Sokolovsky holding up a large stack of money next to his face. For months, investigators watched as Sokolovsky bounced back and forth between Kharkiv and the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Then, in late March, he turned up in Poland, near the border with Germany. A photograph was taken of Sokolovsky driving into Germany in a Porsche Cayenne with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. At the time, Ukrainian men under the age of 60 weren’t allowed to leave Ukraine, because they were being drafted to fight the Russian invaders. Investigators believe Sokolovsky may have bribed his way out of the country, Krebs reported. Among the data recovered by the FBI were some 50 million unique credentials, including email addresses, bank-account logins, cryptocurrency addresses and credit-card numbers, prosecutors said. They say they don’t believe they have found all the data stolen through Raccoon Infostealer and are continuing to investigate. Some of the data recovered included login information for several U.S. companies and for members of the military with access to armed-forces systems, according to court documents. +-----+ #] Howell - [Eli Lily, Novo Nordisk] buy - calculate "valuation price" with growth? file:///home/bill/SG6/web/economics,%20markets/PE%20Schiller%20forward%20vs%2010yr%20Tbills/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.html SP500_PEnow = sum[y = 1 to years_SP500; {(1+SP500_earnGrwth)/(1+SP500_disRate)}^y] / {(1 + t10)^years_Tbill / (1 + Treas_disRate)^years_Tbill} https://zhangtemplar.github.io/pe/ Qiang Zhang Experienced Computer Vision and Machine Learning Engineer PE <= sum[t=1 to T: ((1 + x) /(1 + y))^T] = { 1 - ((1 + x) /(1 + y))^T } / { 1 - ((1 + x) /(1 + y)) } This is NOT the EXACT same as mine!?!? (my webPage says that his is better -> it is a single expression for T years out). +--+ Eli Lilly : what portion will be incretin sales? PE_now = 350/7.85 = 44.87 Put into link d_Qndfs 'math - [quick, handy] stuff.ndf' PEratio_calc IS OP n_years earnGrwth discRate Treas_10yrRate Treas_disRate { {1 - (power ((1 + earnGrwth)/(1 + discRate)) n_years)} / {1 - ((1 + Treas_10yrRate) / (1 + Treas_disRate)) } } Missing [CPI, PPI, financial asset] inflations earnGrwth 20%/y for 10 years (1.2^10 = 6.19); 50% -> 57.7; 100% -> 1024 discRate 7%/y Treas_10yrRate 4.5%/y Treas_disRate 0%/y # 01Nov2022 usage for Eli Lilly qnial> PEratio_calc 10 0.2 0.07 4.5 0.0 0.477237 >> WOW!! PE_now = 350/7.85 = 44.87 Eli Lilly : what portion will be incretin sales? qnial> PEratio_calc 5 0.2 0.07 4.5 0.0 0.172031 >> If Eli Lilly product is beat out within 5 years only, all dead +--+ Novo Nordisk - use same earnings growth & discounts what is current PE? 37 >> BUY!! 08********08 #] 30Oct2022 TV BradMatheny - AWESOME demo of order and chaos pendulum of 15 billiard balls +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsIgubUjTck A simple demo of order and chaos (and order again) - Home made Pendulum Wave with 15 billiard balls 736,360 views, Mar 28, 2015, 03:53 duration Ted O 690 subscribers Fifteen uncoupled equal weight pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths move together to produce visual traveling waves. >> awesome illustration of sequence of billiard ball pendula with incremental increases in length - synchrony +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPY/WVqbb7mT-Cycle-Patterns-for-Nov-2022-Enjoy-the-November-Rally/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc9366363 Cycle Patterns for Nov-2022 - Enjoy the November Rally SPDR S&P 500 ETF TRUST (AMEX:SPY) 389.02 9.04 2.38% BradMatheny Oct 29 Thank you to all of you who have been curious and asking questions. This past week I've been busy taking care of family issues and coding. I'm still deep into researching cycles, frequencies, and cycle trends. Often, I take drives to clear my head and think about things. Just last Wednesday, I came up with the idea that multiple cycles may be operating on different levels within a price chart (almost like the Multiverse ) - but slightly different. My thinking is these cycle structures are PAUSED when a primary cycle trend is active. So, there may be 5+ various cycles operating on a chart, but only ONE (the primary) is active at one time with a secondary cycle structure possibly driving shorter-term price structures. I'm going to dig into this to see what I can find out. Here are all of the November Cycle Patterns: &&&&&&&& Bill_Howell, Oct 30 "... multiple cycles may be operating on different levels within a price chart ..." This is implicit in the concept of (time, price) multi-fractals, so a key question is how will your approach differ? But I think it's too early to waste time on that question - it's much more important to think your own way through, and only afterwards make comparisons. "Thinking in context" can easily (pervert, destroy) independent thinking. +--+ BradMatheny @Bill_Howell, Thanks for your comment. As we discussed before, I'm working with these cycle patterns and other analysis techniques to attempt to understand Fibonacci, fractal, & Gann/Tesla theories as applied to price action. I've been entranced with this video... https://youtu.be/JsIgubUjTck I'm studying the various forms of cycle alignment (and disorder) better to understand price trending/cycle alignment/disorder. I think the context of "cycle shifts" takes place at critical junctures of time/price alignment/disorder factors - particularly when Fibonacci factors align uniquely. For example, in any trend there will be a previous unique high/low price level (or multiple unique levels) that will become the basis for Fibonacci Price Theory constructs. Each of the past & subsequent price trends/ranges will construct Fibonacci Retracement Levels (target zones). When current price enters aligning zones and aligns with an inflection point (which I'm still researching) - that is when I believe a cycle shift is most likely to happen. The multiple cycles/frequencies concept would work as a "shifting of gears" for price/trends. The trick would be to identify which gear we shifted into as quickly as possible. Always great to hear from you. Thanks for you input. And you are right - sometimes it is better to keep digging on my own than to get convoluted with outside inputs. But I'm still fascinated by the arcing/trending of the pool balls in this video. I believe there is SO MUCH to learn from how they align/disconnect in this video. It is fascinating to consider they are still arcing in unison to the origin point. That suggests the disorder is still ordered (aligned to the origin point). Happy Halloween. +--+ Howell - @BradMatheny, Thanks for your patience with my questions. I like your comments, but especially I really like the video link you provided. It's a great illustration of perceptions, and a challenge to revisit the idea of chaos. The swinging billiard ball pendulums do not remind me of the explosion of small perturbations to dominate system dynamics (the balls appear to be 100% predictable by glancing at their return to the initial state), but then again chaotic attractors do revisit points in state space via trajectories, and this example of seeing past perceptual complexities through to a deeper understanding is very useful. This contrasts with other processes like sympathetic [resonance, syncing], where apparently independent systems syncronize over time, and other phenomena that I can't remember on the spur of the moment. I look forward to the evolution of your thinking. 08********08 #] 29Oct2022 +-----+ #] The stock market is still trading above its long-term trend, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bad-news-for-bulls-the-stock-market-is-still-trading-above-its-long-term-trend-despite-this-years-deep-slump-11666963277?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: Bad news for bulls: The stock market is still trading above its long-term trend despite this year’s deep slump Last Updated: Oct. 29, 2022 at 8:23 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 28, 2022 at 9:21 a.m. ET However, prospects look much more attractive compared with the start of 2022 &&&&&&&& Howell - AWESOME!! I love the long-term graph and the perspective given by Hulbert!!! Also great to see the update of his "eight valuation indicators stacks up against its historical range". Especially important to me is his simple "unified, exponential" 1871-2022 semi-log trendline, whereas I had broken my simple linear into two segments, which is not as good as his approach. As Hulbert states "... Drawing trendlines is an art as much as science, which is one reason why I don’t include a trendline indicator in the table of valuation indicators that I present each month in this space. ...". However, perhaps he is too harsh, and the difficulty is in dealing with trends at multiple time-scales which are often inconsistent. The long-term trends are almost like concrete, with some leeway for typical "robust regression" issues (outliers, over-fitting, etc, etc). My SP500 2-segment semiLog trendline 1926-2022 : 10 power (-56.7736 + (0.029831 * year)) year fraction 2000.0 2005.0 2010.0 2015.0 2022.0 2022.5 2022.75 2023.0 SP500 price 773. 1090. 1537. 2167. 3505. 3627. 3690. 3754. /home/bill/SG6/web/economics, markets/market data/detrend/Hulbert 29Oct2022 SP500 exponential semi-log trendline 1871-2022.png 08********08 #] 28Oct2022 +-----+ #] A strategy that follows analysts’ herd-like behavior, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-strategy-that-follows-analysts-herd-like-behavior-lets-you-know-when-it-will-be-favorable-to-pile-into-metas-stock-again-11666888485?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: A strategy that follows analysts’ herd-like behavior lets you know when it will be favorable to pile into Meta’s stock again Published: Oct. 27, 2022 at 12:34 p.m. ET Analysts' upgrades and downgrades come in waves &&&&&&&& Howell - I like the concept of "leader" analysts as being a small portion of the analysts, as this seems like many other areas, usually including amateurs as well, as in science. Perhaps leadership rolls over with time and conditions of the market. Taking this one step further, rather than using consensus estimates, do the work necessarty to identify the individual leaders, then watch them like a hawk and react quickly to their reversals? I wonder if a leader on one company generalises to most of the companies they follow? 08********08 #] 26Oct2022 +-----+ #] SPX500 at very crucial Zone!, Trading2ez https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/QcQRZbiq-SPX500-at-very-crucial-Zone/ SPX500 at very crucial Zone! S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3844.31 0.22 0.01% Trading2ez 8 hours ago Bill_Howell - Even at the best of times, the best of tools give guesses. To me, covid era proved that the (Fed, Treasury) are more than willing (happy even), to rack up GDP-scale debts for political purposes (yeah - disguised as altruism). So to me : 1) what are the (Fed, Treasury) going to do, and 2) is there any change in the international investors' faith in the spending? (Russia, China, OPEC - NO, and that's a significant chunk of the world, with a big question regarding (India, Japan, Korea)). Assume for a minute that you were Jerome Powell, even knowing what you do, are you really sure what will happen? 08********08 #] 25Oct2022 +-----+ #] hopes of a Fed pivot, Vivien Lou Chen & William Watts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stock-futures-consolidate-after-last-weeks-rally-11666603931?mod=newsviewer_click Stocks bounce back as disappointing round of data spurs hopes of a Fed pivot Last Updated: Oct. 24, 2022 at 12:58 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 24, 2022 at 5:32 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Very strange non-news as a basis for unbridled optimism? In late September, "... the Fed signaled plans to lift rates by another 1.25 percentage points before the year is over, bringing the federal funds rate to 4.25-4.5 percent before 2022 comes to a close ...". The weight of past Fed commentary, current chatter, and progress to dates means that one might normally expect reduced rate increases by year end. There is nothing new in that at all, even though all may be revisited "according to the data". 08********08 #] 23Oct2022 +-----+ #] Fomenka on TV - very long term SPX chart "$d_mkts"'market data/detrend/220802/221023 20h23m no links detrend StockMkt Indices 1871-2022 PuetzUWS201.png' https://www.tradingview.com/x/jBOjEpY4/ @Fomenka, Its interesting how you have labelled the "Ages", in comparison to other authors. Another separate topic are "quasi-cycles" : whether you think these are important, what the key drivers are (eg technology, shifting voter attitudes, etc) what periodicities interest you, and especially how you might feel these relate to Elliot Wave analysis. Within the last few months TradingView allows images, so lets see if this works... My PineScripts are on hold because I am revamping all my core utilities in my main programming language, Q'Nial. Here is a DETRENDED multi-market [time, price] multifractal from 02Aug2022 (built in a [QNial, Unix command, bash] hybrid environment, incomplete, cleanup needed when I get to it in a month or a year). The major correlate is the exponential growth in pricing with time, so the detrended zig-zags as shown below are secondary, but it's perhaps easier to see the variations and compare them across time. Note the "mashed up" overlap at 1929 - this is purposely left as is, instead of optimizing the [start, end] points of the semi-log linear time segments. I can make it look nice, but then I would forget the underlying [trap, assumption, model limitation]s. https://www.tradingview.com/x/jBOjEpY4/ Addendum : Nuts - I wiped out the colored labels, and the colored table doesn't correspond to stock markets as shown (mix-up left as is while all the underlying code will be changed). In any case, several intenational stock markets can be compared on a detrended basis, to see the degree to which each of them "drifts" from a typical longer-term correlation. Fomenka - @Bill_Howell, interesting that you manetioned ages. I have this one in mind Howell - @Fomenka, This is fun, as there are many completely different [mythology, science] themes which give a somewhat-similar timing of ages as you show. Some go orders and orders of magnitude beyond (astronomically beyond, literally) the impacts of even the wildest (dumbest) imaginings of the "CO2 is the primary driver of climate since 1850" science religion. The alternative themes are immature, but many have a far more credible basis than the CO2 theme. A date speculated for one of them (a 12 ky quasi-cycle, not totally unconnected to the 20+ Mayan calendars) is something like Dec2046 (an event perhaps related to the Toba volcano ~72 ky ago, the eruption being a consequence, not a cause, perhaps like 1815 Tamboura, which was 10* the size of Krakatoa?). In spite of being an "extremist denier" (as others label me) of modern politically-correct science (pretty well all of it - climate science is not important to me), I don't throw out mainstream science "fashions -> cults -> religions", as my self-imposed "multiple confliciting hypothesis" approach demands their retention. 08********08 #] 22Oct2022 +-----+ #] Workers are disengaged — but don’t blame remote work, By Andrew Keshner https://www.marketwatch.com/story/workers-are-disengaged-from-their-jobs-but-dont-blame-remote-work-the-real-causes-lie-elsewhere-11666288699?mod=newsviewer_click Workers are disengaged — but don’t blame remote work. The real cause lies elsewhere. Last Updated: Oct. 22, 2022 at 4:46 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 20, 2022 at 1:58 p.m. ET Some 52% of workers say having a caring and empathetic leader is more important now than before the pandemic, a Conference Board survey found. &&&&&&&& Howell - I wonder if "caring and empathetic leaders" means that the workplace needs mothers and baby-sitters to convert organisations to "day-care centers for adults" as a complement to modern social policies? Funny how generations change, and issues not discussed in lives past become essential to current survival. I don't have TV, but in retirement I can see TV series played out in the "real world" (or the Matrix, I'm not sure). +-----+ #] Why past performance is meaningless, By Dan Moisand https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-past-performance-is-meaningless-when-it-comes-to-investing-11666301264?mod=newsviewer_click Why past performance is meaningless — when it comes to investing Last Updated: Oct. 22, 2022 at 2:01 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 21, 2022 at 2:10 p.m. ET MARKETWATCH CONTRIBUTOR NETWORK Top performing funds typically do not remain top performing funds &&&&&&&& Howell - Fun, useful article! What I need to know is how do I convert to a random mind, and if I do, what will the boss think of my work? More seriously, does this all fall apart if nobody is doing their homework, or too high a portion of investing is in index funds? I seem to remember that the Vantage fund founder made statements something to that effect? +-----+ #] stock-market investors fear ‘something else will break’ as Fed attacks inflation, By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mounting-fear-is-that-something-else-will-break-along-the-way-stock-market-investors-look-ahead-to-pce-inflation-data-amid-fed-overtightening-worries-11666443109?mod=newsviewer_click Why stock-market investors fear ‘something else will break’ as Fed attacks inflation Last Updated: Oct. 22, 2022 at 2:50 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 22, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. ET Will the Fed slow its rate hikes this year? &&&&&&&& Howell - Stop it, for I am drowning in my own crocodile tears, broken hearted for those who [made screaming profits, voted for massive government spending] for a decade or so, but who now need taxpayer salvation as the greater fools holding the bag. Much bigger challenges lie ahead if we continue to make politically-correct decisions. Perhaps a new political system is [quiet, pragmatic]ly evolving, full of who-knows-what promises. Other articles have commented on the potential for [state, phase] changes of the international order and well-being. Great challenges bring great opportunity for those who respond successfully. Can we? +-----+ #] can't watch MW videos https://customercenter.marketwatch.com/home "Membership virtual assistant" chat : Howell - No need to answer, as I will have to work on this when there is a priority need for my projects (not for news etc). I have been unable to play any vidoes in MarketWatch for many months. I believe that was already a problem before I switches from Linux Mint Debian Edition to Linux OpenSuse. Most other videos (eg YouTube) work great, so I suspect problems with a proprietary Microsoft video codec or something. As I said, no need to reply or take action. I just thought I'd let you know in case others are having the same problem. +-----+ #] New Yorkers are ‘stupid’ for moving to Texas, Florida, By Ariel Zilber https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-yorkers-are-stupid-for-moving-to-texas-florida-wall-streets-dr-doom-11666457964?mod=newsviewer_click New Yorkers are ‘stupid’ for moving to Texas, Florida: Wall Street’s ‘Dr. Doom’ Published: Oct. 22, 2022 at 1:08 p.m. ET “A lot of real estate is going to be stranded because of global climate change,” Roubini said &&&&&&&& Howell - Great - we now have the illumination of Roubini's climate science expertise to mix with his economics. Two chaotic-like domains, with all-experts' predictions of uniform noise, but rocket-propelled by the most important expertise : air time. We are, however, missing Kim Khardashian's views. I didn't check if the areas of the US which will be underwater in 20 years time are the same as 10-20 year warnings from [1984, 2000, 2010, etc]. I'm still holding my breath.... +-----+ #] Republican voters told to hold onto mail ballots until Election Day, By Associated Press https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republican-voters-told-to-hold-onto-mail-ballots-until-election-day-01666442608?mod=newsviewer_click Republican voters told to hold onto mail ballots until Election Day Published: Oct. 22, 2022 at 8:43 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - "... unfounded conspiracy theories ..." - kind of a repetition of terms, in a phrase most oft repeated by all sides, but reported on behalf of one volume of state-space. It seems the populace is far ahead of the experts : it's getting hard to find people I meet in the street that watch mainstream media news. People seem pre-programmed, deaf, and unable to discuss ex-political beliefs (even in science areas!). Social media and the internet were supposed to be the main source of misinformation, but it seems that many are adept at picking out great sources that cannot be matched, and at avoiding garbage. Are our [academic, government, science] experts becoming the new "kings without clothes"? DerekBaker631 Sun 23 Oct 2022 02:18:20 AM Who would have though in an era of information so readily available that misinformation and propaganda would bury the truth. After all, the truth doesn’t fear scrutiny nor investigation. >> this comment was removed!?!? - must have been a socialist +-----+ #] earnings season - here’s how it stacks up so far, By William Watts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-investors-brace-for-busiest-week-of-earnings-season-heres-how-it-stacks-up-so-far-11666390519?mod=newsviewer_click Stock-market investors brace for busiest week of earnings season. Here’s how it stacks up so far. Last Updated: Oct. 22, 2022 at 10:08 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 21, 2022 at 6:15 p.m. ET 165 S&P 500 companies, including tech heavyweights Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, set to deliver results The number of S&P 500 companies reporting positive earnings surprises and the magnitude of these earnings surprises increased over the past week, noted John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet, in a Friday note. Even with that improvement, however, earnings beats are still running below long-term averages. Through Friday, 20% of the companies in the S&P 500 had reported third-quarter results. Of these companies, 72% reported actual earnings per share, or EPS, above estimates, which is below the 5-year average of 77% and below the 10-year average of 73%, Butters said. In aggregate, companies are reporting earnings that are 2.3% above estimates, which is below the 5-year average of 8.7% and below the 10-year average of 6.5%. Meanwhile, the blended-earnings growth rate, which combines actual results for companies that have reported with estimated results for companies that have yet to report, rose to 1.5% compared with 1.3% at the end of last week, but it was still below the estimated earnings growth rate at the end of the quarter at 2.8%, he said. And both the number and magnitude of positive earnings surprises are below their 5-year and 10-year averages. On a year-over-year basis, the S&P 500 is reporting its lowest earnings growth since the third quarter of 2020, according to Butters. &&&&&&&& Howell - I appreciate John Butters' historical context for the earnings beats. This prompted me to search for the [Barrons, MarketWatch]'s version of a detailed "earnings reports surprise scoreboards" : find it via the MarketWatch menu -> Research tools -> earnings calendar. As for how this is used for share pricing, I often wonder if a very short-term horizon arises from staring at these numbers too closely. Just like buying 10 to 40-year bonds at zero percent interest : what could possibly go wrong? 08********08 #] 21Oct2022 +-----+ #] , https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fragile-treasury-market-is-at-risk-of-large-scale-forced-selling-or-surprise-that-leads-to-breakdown-bofa-says-11666290995?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Fragile’ Treasury market is at risk of ‘large scale forced selling’ or surprise that leads to breakdown, BofA says Last Updated: Oct. 21, 2022 at 4:19 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 20, 2022 at 2:36 p.m. ET For months, traders, academics, and other analysts have fretted that the $23.7 trillion Treasurys market might be the source of the next financial crisis. Then last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged concerns about a potential breakdown in the trading of government debt and expressed worry about “a loss of adequate liquidity in the market.” Now, strategists at BofA Securities have identified a list of reasons why U.S. government bonds are exposed to the risk of “large scale forced selling or an external surprise” at a time when the bond market is in need of a reliable group of big buyers. “We believe the UST market is fragile and potentially one shock away from functioning challenges” arising from either “large scale forced selling or an external surprise,” said BofA strategists Mark Cabana, Ralph Axel and Adarsh Sinha. “A UST breakdown is not our base case, but it is a building tail risk.” +-----+ #] The Treasury Market Could Seize Up, By Lisa Beilfuss https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/treasury-market-liquidity-bond-market-yellen-51666378531?mod=newsviewer_click The Treasury Market Could Seize Up. That Could Be Disastrous for Everyone. Published: Oct. 21, 2022 at 3:06 p.m. ET Liquidity in the U.S. bond market, the world’s largest, has been deteriorating since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates earlier this year. The end of massive monthly bond purchases followed by the start of quantitative tightening has worsened the problem as the Fed tries to extricate itself from Treasury and mortgage markets after buying a third of each. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently said she was “worried about a loss of adequate liquidity in the market,” as Treasury supply booms to fund government spending but regulations limit big financial institutions’ willingness to serve as market makers. At the same time, traders see the potential for another 2% in rate hikes by March 2023. What is happening amounts to an “illiquidity spiral,” says Greg Barker of Concoda, a geopolitical and financial newsletter. As the Fed reduces Treasury market liquidity, volatility creates more illiquidity, which leads to more volatility, he says. Multiples have still not adjusted to the reality of a 4% 10-year Treasury yield, says Vincent Deluard, director of global macro strategy at StoneX Financial. His model suggests fair value for the S&P 500 is 2,950—or 20% below its current level. As Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn wrote in an investor letter this past week, higher interest rates reduce investment and therefore supply. Einhorn also says that fiscal policy is offsetting monetary policy, as additional spending effectively subsidizes inflation. He points to a recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago that says about half the recent increase in inflation has fiscal roots, with fiscal inflation particularly persistent and less sensitive to monetary policy Concoda’s Barker notes that the U.S. continues to issue twice the amount of bonds a year compared to pre-Covid. As increased supply is issued into increasingly illiquid conditions, higher yields and Treasury-market instability is ahead, he says. +-----+ #] Here’s why gold has been a disaster this year, By Isabel Wang https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-gold-has-been-a-disaster-this-year-despite-geopolitical-instability-and-stock-market-volatility-11666379703?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s why gold has been a disaster this year despite geopolitical instability and stock market volatility Published: Oct. 21, 2022 at 3:15 p.m. ET Gold is not proving to be a ‘safe-haven’ for investors as the U.S. dollar and interest rates rise &&&&&&&& Howell - That inverse relation didn't seem to hold ~1978 (after Nixon) to ~2000. I wonder if +-----+ #] 2 Chip Equipment Stocks to Buy on the Dip, By Tae Kim https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/asml-applied-materials-chip-equipmentstocks-51666369834?mod=newsviewer_click 2 Chip Equipment Stocks to Buy on the Dip, According to an Analyst Published: Oct. 21, 2022 at 12:31 p.m. ET By Tae Kim On Friday, analyst Pierre Ferragu raised his ratings for Applied Materials (ticker: AMAT) shares and ASML (ASML) stock to Outperform from Neutral, saying the bottom was near for makers of semiconductor-manufacturing equipment. He established target prices of $115 for Applied Materials and €770, equivalent to about $758 as of Friday morning, for ASML. “We are at a point in time where we feel confident recommending buying the sector,” he wrote. 08********08 #] 20Oct2022 +-----+ #] SP500 Buying Index Twitter 44/289 (warnings-manipulations), SpartaBTC S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3716.79 16.88 0.46% Updated 13 hours ago &&&&&&&& Howell - A similar decline as previous would yield ~3638 to the next reversal (midline - versus ~3800 midline currently on your graph)? qnial> ((4465 - 3935)/4465)*4128 - 4128 -3638. 08********08 #] 19Oct2022 +-----+ #] Why It’s Time to Buy This Uranium Miner’s Stock, By Ben Levisohn https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/cameco-buy-rating-uranium-miner-stock-price-51665790886?mod=newsviewer_click&tesla=y Why It’s Time to Buy This Uranium Miner’s Stock Last Updated: Oct. 17, 2022 at 9:13 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 14, 2022 at 8:03 p.m. ET At first glance, there didn’t seem to be all that much that was controversial about the joint venture Cameco (ticker: CCJ) announced this past Tuesday. Along with Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP), Cameco agreed to buy Westinghouse Electric, a servicer to nuclear power plants, for $7.88 billion, including debt. Cameco will own 49% of the joint venture once the deal is completed. Its stock dropped 20% this past week, after Cameco said it would issue $650 million in new shares at $21.95 apiece, a discount of 15% to where they had been trading. It was a steep price to pay to raise money for the deal, especially when the amount Cameco and Brookfield are paying is “skewing towards fully valued,” according to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Mike Kozak. The timing of the deal probably isn’t a coincidence. Countries in Eastern Europe have had their reactors serviced by Russia’s Rosatom, but with the war in Ukraine, there’s a good chance they will be looking for a new company to handle those duties. “They are aiming to fill a huge hole left by Rosatom and we like their chances,” writes the Bear Traps Report’s Larry McDonald. Westinghouse Electric services about half of the world’s nuclear reactors, according to Kozak, providing fuel design and fabrication, plant operation and maintenance, and refueling, while about 85% of its $3.3 billion in revenue comes from long-term contracts. “Cameco will undoubtedly be able to leverage Westinghouse’s downstream expertise with its dominance at the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle...in servicing existing customers and targeting new ones,” he writes. Read More Trader The Stock Market’s Rebound Fizzled Again. Why a Real Bottom Could Form Soon. Shortages Have Turned to Gluts. These Stocks Could Benefit. The timing of the deal probably isn’t a coincidence. Countries in Eastern Europe have had their reactors serviced by Russia’s Rosatom, but with the war in Ukraine, there’s a good chance they will be looking for a new company to handle those duties. “They are aiming to fill a huge hole left by Rosatom and we like their chances,” writes the Bear Traps Report’s Larry McDonald. +-----+ #] U.S. companies are off to a strong start this earnings season, By Joseph Adinolfi https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-companies-are-off-to-a-strong-start-this-earnings-season-heres-what-it-will-take-for-stocks-to-rally-11666202376?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime U.S. companies are off to a strong start this earnings season. Here’s what it will take for stocks to rally Last Updated: Oct. 19, 2022 at 2:25 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 19, 2022 at 1:59 p.m. ET How companies are handling inflation will be key, among other factors >> great graph of consensus earnings "$d_mkts"'References/221019 Deutsche Bank via MktWatch SP500 Q3 2022 consensus earnings.png' +-----+ #] Who’s going to be the next world’s economic power?, By Steve Goldstein https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whos-going-to-be-the-next-worlds-economic-power-heres-what-this-famed-economist-is-now-saying-and-one-possible-surprise-11666003767?mod=mw_more_headlines Who’s going to be the next world’s economic power? Here’s what this famed economist is now saying — and one possible surprise Last Updated: Oct. 17, 2022 at 9:42 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 17, 2022 at 6:49 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Critical information for the U.S. trading day A new research paper circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research asks a fascinating question — which region will come to dominate the world economy? One of the authors is Laurence Kotlikoff, the Boston University professor and American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow who in the 1970s designed the model that economists use to track economies over time. Drawing on United Nations demographic and International Monetary Fund fiscal data, they created what they call the Global Gaidar Model, drawing on the name of the Russian institute of one of the co-authors. They focus on five variables — population growth, population aging, productivity catchup, fiscal adjustment and automation. As of 2017, Western Europe and China each accounted for about 17% of world GDP, with the U.S. at 16%. By 2100, they expect a very different story, with China and India becoming the world’s top two economic hegemons, accounting for 27% and 16% of world GDP respectively, with the U.S. and Western Europe share at about 12% each. The real surprise could be Sub-Saharan Africa, where in another scenario, it vies with the U.S. for top billing. That’s based on a study which expects an almost complete end to Chinese, Indian, Russia, Eastern European and former Soviet Union catch-up labor productivity growth. While the authors call that scenario “implausible,” they also acknowledge that worker productivity growth in Western Europe, North Asia, the U.K., Canada and other countries has trailed U.S. growth in the last two decades after exceeding it in the five decades following World War II. “Hence, what seems implausible to us may be exactly on target. The one constant in the record of relative economic growth is its inconsistency,” they say. In one final scenario, if the catch-up growth rates observed between 1997 and 2017 continue into the future, then India comes out on top, with nearly 34% of world GDP. In that scenario, China’s number two at 22%, while the U.S. is down at 10%. 08********08 #] 14Oct2022 +-----+ #] BradMatheny - A little Elliot Wave Fun - are you ready for what's next? https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/ytNSrxRW-A-little-Elliot-Wave-Fun-are-you-ready-for-what-s-next/ A little Elliot Wave Fun - are you ready for what's next? S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3587.29 −82.16 −2.24% BradMatheny 13 hours ago If you are like me, thinking the US markets will act as a safe haven for global capital, then you should clearly see the upside potential if these recent lows hold. If not, then you are seeing the downside risks as more likely - and will want to understand the price structure in place that may prompt some consolidation. IMO, we are amid a Wave 4 correction. Any Wave 4 correction MAY turn into a new price wave structure (ending an ABC wave and starting a new price wave). So, the reality of the current global market trend is... If my analysis is correct, we must rally to new all-time highs. For this to happen, a broad shift in investor sentiment needs to take place. If my analysis is incorrect (related to this being a bottom for the US markets, then we would be anticipating a broad global crisis event related to debts/ inflation and other emergencies. I think the US Fed will move to a more moderate rate adjustment schedule while the global central banks deal with credit/debt issues. It does no good to crash the markets to stop inflation . Just like in the 70s & 80s, inflation will weaken as rates stay elevated. It is just a matter of TIME and POLICY. Capital WILL seek out the best investment vehicle in the future. I believe that will be the USD and US ASSETS. What are your thoughts? +--+ Bill_Howell 8 hours ago Feast or famine choice between the two Elliot waves. The optimistic scenario makes sense to me if a post 2024 boom hits as some market analysts are saying (as a number of negative cycles turn positive), India really kicks in like China had (but probably a decadee later?), if the new tech revolutions really take hold, or we lose control over (financial, consumer) inflation? I like your blue line, which has a higher slope than my my 1926-2022 semi-log trendline. It reflects my assumption that we may never get a handle on (deficit, debt)s until drastically bad conditions for voters to face it. SP500 semiLog trendline 1926-2022 : 10 power (-56.7736 + (0.029831 * year)) year fraction 2000.0 2005.0 2010.0 2015.0 2022.0 2022.5 2022.75 2023.0 SP500 price 773. 1090. 1537. 2167. 3505. 3627. 3690. 3754. From 1872 (after US civil war) to ~1990, SP500 was rarely at its two-segment (break at 1926) semi-log trend line, instead usually >0.33 RelativeStandardDeviations (RSD, semi-log) above or below. Since 1990, apart the (2000 tech bubble-crash, 2008 housing bubble-crash, 2020 covid crash-bubble-crash?) SP500 was within 0.33 RSD. So based on behaviour pre-1990, SP500 would now normally overshoot below trendline. Will it do so now, or settle around the trendline as in last ~30 years? Is (Fed, Treasury) policy responsible for the market behaviour change after 1990, via social engineering of the marketplace?? +--+ BradMatheny 8 hours ago @Bill_Howell, Thanks for your reply. You raise some interesting points. My thinking is the US seems somewhat separated from the global chaos right now. That global chaos may push capital into any viable safe haven asset in the near future - which may end up being US assets. The only thing I would add is that at some point, Emerging Markets may seem like a bargain, but those may come with excessive risks as well. My cycle patterns suggest a 2029~31 major inflation point. So, I'm thinking we may see some settling of the markets over the next 12+ months and possibly see regional defaults take place over the next 4+ years.. Then, we get into that 2027+ year range where I think more chaos could bubble up. Time will tell. +--+ Bill_Howell 4 hours ago @BradMatheny, Agreed that the US has already been benefiting as a (safe haven, reserve currency) and if thing really start to unravel internationally (as you said - emerging economies could get squeezed). I'm fascinated by your 2029-31 major inflation point - presumably higher than todays? Demographics (a key driver of inflation eg with outsized cohorts household formation) and "money printing" - is that what you are focussed on? It's often been said a 40 year up-or-down half-cycle to interest rates, so you're not basing it on that. I've done some (price, time) multifractals (SP500 extended back to 1872 with DJIA proxy), and I was programming a multi-market version of that (first in QNial programming language, later Pine Script once regressions are done). Time "quasi-periods", (Benoit Mandelbrot called them multi-fractals) are a problem for almost everyone. I think the math is just inadquate, and there is too much thinking of natural cycles as sinusoidal curves, even by many (mathematician, scientist)s who use much more advanced techniques. I've concentrated on Stephen Puetz's "Universal Wave Series" (stunning), even though, as-presented, it is again a "sinusoidal" type concept. I like @fract's work on Tradinview, and @EsotericTrading and colleagues are doing interesting things. +--+ BradMatheny mentioned you in a comment to an idea A little Elliot Wave Fun - are you ready for what's next? BradMatheny @Bill_Howell, Boy, lots to cover related to your question. First, I'm deep into Fibonacci, Gann and Tesla theories. Without going into too much detail, I believe in fractal market functions (cycle and price amplitude/frequency), but I believe it is more related to chaos/ordered cycle phases - reacting to impulses prompted by internal/external market dynamics. I had a conversation with a friend the other day and I explained this to him as "a band shifting tempo or changing the key within the midst of a song". Imagine price operating in an orderly manner (tempo/key), then suddenly shifting to a different tempo/key. This shift in base fractal dynamics would change the perceived amplitude, cycle structures, and other market dynamics (often quite drastically). Now, I don't have all of this figured out yet, but I do believe the correlation related to the shifting tempos/keys fall into some orderly function - possibly related to the Rodin Vortex functions (Google Marco Rodin). My thinking is that price changes tempo/frequency/key quite often and the trick to better understanding cycles, Fibonacci, and other critical price functions lies in the fundamental price mechanics of the "core energy frequency/key/vibration" - falling back to Tesla Mechanical Resonance theory. What interests me the most about all of this is what I've learned over the past 25+ years seems to point to macro/micro cycles in price - which can all be distilled into Fractal and/or Fibonacci structures. But, without understanding the shifting tempo/key/amplitude features of price - we are left wondering HOW price can make these shifts at unusual intervals. I propose these shifts take place at time/price/cycle structures that are yet unknown (undiscovered) and the secret is to unlock the fundamental structural components in order to map out these "fracture points". Hope this helps? Really enjoying this chat. Will be researching some of your comments this weekend. +--+ Howell - YES I like your thinking! You touch on a key theme for me - it's one thing to model a system in a (state, phase), it's quite another to predict the CHANGES in (state, phase), which is actually more important in many cases. This is much higher level than simple trends (usually conceived of as some linear or other extrapolation). I think that something key is that we are dealing with systems that respond to the environment, rather than "dead" systems like astronomy (in a classical sense), physics, chemistry - although these too exibit complex behaviour. That's what Elliot Waves try to do - based on human behaviour, and pushed much further as Robert Prechter's "Socionomics", which he claims is the first quantitative sociology. As a "somewhat-related" side issue, Italian mathematician Alfredo Pareto (well-known for the Pareto taxation curve etc, etc), di a paper that almost buried him, stating that over a ~600 year period that the wealth distribution curve is always the same (maybe a different slope - self-organzed criticality)? That was anathema to the humanities (and perhaps the whole basis of much of the political side of sociology?). Benoit Mandelbrot redid his study several decades later and came to the same conclusion. In support of this is historical pricing (most early writing was accounts and market related) "started" (not really?) by Wilhelm Abel in Germany in 1930's, and elaborated by David Fischers 1989 "The Great Wave - price revolutions and the rythm of history". Throughout history, the data that we do have shows similar "waves", independent of the (political, economic, financial, constitutional, legal, busiess, market) type. Of course, Tichevshy, Kondriatieff, and earlier researches came up with shorter-term cycles. Is politics irrelevant, even though it has often meant (life, death, success, defeat) for individuals throughout history (Kondriatieff paid dearly as Stalin reacted strongly against his ideas - kind of like B. I have long had the feeling that the best way to predict a scientist's reaction to a theory is to know what political allegiance he has, even though the topic may have nothing to do with humans, much less politics. We also see that many Wall Street blogs are polluted by inane comments about Biden or Trump - people actually can't help it. My highest-priority focus is neural networks since 1988. Many mathematicians and electrical engineers especially do wonderful work with beautiful methematics. Control theory especially, but also of course system identification, uniqueness, etc) play roles. There are relatively few people that concentrate on the (state, phase) changes, albeit attractor cross-overs in chaos theory have often been used. One of the best I've seen wave wavelet transform analysis by Paul Vaughan of Vancouver, but he never provided a solid mathematical description of what he was doing. Then I ran into "fractional order calculus about 8-10 years ago, and it turns out that Paul Vaughan was doing his own home-brew version of that. I was a fool for never suspecting that FOC should exist, and it seemed strange. Then I found out who started it : Liebniz! Think of the "Great war of calculus" between Liebniz & Newton (I exaggerate, but it's fun to streath it). Not to forget the Elliot wave approach you did as well - it is one of the few approaches that demands that we pay attention to the constant meandering of the markets in some kind of sequence. Rodin Vortex functions - I didn't look closely, as it seems that it resembles many other similar concepts, notably : - Bill Lucas's "Universal force" (strict classical physics and math basis, with rotational components (sort of), and an explanation of quantum levels (his universal force is intended to replace entirely Quantum mechanics and General relativity) - Randel Mills physics (strict mathematical basis, very interesting results) - Buddy James: Torus, Douherty sets Tesla Mechanical Resonance theory - At quick glance, I just saw links to videos which is NOT my preferred way to get into a subject (I like to see papers - here Buddy James is a bit scant too) +-----+ #] , https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine-51665759334?mod=newsviewer_click Starlink Has Been Vital to Ukraine’s Army. Elon Musk Says SpaceX Can’t Fund It ‘Indefinitely.’ Published: Oct. 14, 2022 at 10:56 a.m. ET By Angela Palumbo CNN was the first to report that SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service in Ukraine the same way it has been doing. The letter also asked the Pentagon to take over Spacelink funding for use by Ukraine’s government and military, the report said. Ukranian Ambassador Andrij Melnyk told Musk to “f– off,” earlier this month after the billionaire CEO of Tesla (TSLA) tweeted a poll asking users to vote on different proposals to potentially end the war, including redoing elections and giving up Crimea to Russia. &&&&&&&& Howell - Seems reasonable, Musk has his [hand, wallet]s fully occupied.. +-----+ #] Larry Summers says U.K. ‘tremor’ signaling global economic ‘earthquake’, By Chris MatthewsFollow https://www.marketwatch.com/story/larry-summers-says-u-k-debt-market-stress-could-be-the-tremor-signaling-global-economic-earthquake-11665760395?mod=newsviewer_click Larry Summers says U.K. debt market stress could be the ‘tremor’ signaling global economic ‘earthquake’ Published: Oct. 14, 2022 at 11:13 a.m. ET By Chris MatthewsFollow Summers warns of the most 'complex' set of challenges facing global economy in 40 years “What’s happened in the United Kingdom, some of that is a self-inflicted wound, but some of that is tremors of what’s happening the in the global system,” Summers said. “And when you have tremors, you don’t always have earthquakes, but you probably should be thinking about earthquake protection.” &&&&&&&& Howell - Good to hear candid remarks of risks. +-----+ #] Saudi Arabia suggests White House wanted delay until after midterms, Anviksha PatelFollow https://www.marketwatch.com/story/saudi-arabia-defends-opec-production-cut-after-biden-vows-there-will-be-consequences-11665654636?mod=newsviewer_click Saudi Arabia defends OPEC+ production cut, suggests White House wanted delay until after midterms Last Updated: Oct. 13, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 13, 2022 at 5:50 a.m. ET By Anviksha PatelFollow Saudi Arabia’s ministry of foreign affairs put out a rare statement on Thursday defending the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ decision last week to cut production, and suggested the White House was acting due to its own political motives. ... Biden’s national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, came out to say that he “can’t put a date or a time on when the president will announce any given step” on consequences for Saudi Arabia, which could involve Biden’s asking Congress to support pausing arms sales to the kingdom. &&&&&&&& Howell - Is there anything "real" about today's markets beyond socio-polical controls? Of course there must be, I hope... +-----+ #] Black Scholes Option Pricing Model w/ Greeks [Loxx], loxx Updated Oct 7 https://www.tradingview.com/script/WobQqSxF-Black-Scholes-Option-Pricing-Model-w-Greeks-Loxx/?utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+179+%28EN%29 >> handy script, notes 08********08 #] 11Oct2022 +-----+ #] Ray Dalio says we'll see less money invested in equities in the future, https://www.marketwatch.com/video/marketwatch-25-years/ray-dalio-says-well-see-less-money-invested-in-equities-in-the-future/624C9C04-0BD3-446D-A733-48F165015EFA.html?mod=search_headline Ray Dalio says we'll see less money invested in equities in the future &&&&&&&& Howell - what video codec is used for playing these videos. It's probably been 6+ months that I haven't been alble to views ANY MarketWatch videos, while [youTube, Zoom, etc etc] are just fine? I'm running Linux OpenSuse, and security settings might also be an issue, except other videos work well. +-----+ #] bond market is ‘very close to a crash.’, By Philip van DoornFollow https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-is-in-trouble-thats-because-the-the-bond-market-is-very-close-to-a-crash-11665498623?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The stock market is in trouble. That’s because the the bond market is ‘very close to a crash.’ Published: Oct. 11, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. ET By Philip van DoornFollow Larry McDonald expects an abrupt policy change by the Federal Reserve Pointing to the bond-market turmoil in the U.K., McDonald said government bonds that mature in 2061 were trading at 97 cents to the dollar in December, 58 cents in August and as low as 24 cents over recent weeks. 08********08 #] 09Oct2022 +-----+ #] TV Deus - SP500 we may soon see daily losses in double digits https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/m3nNTqzS-SP500-Short-Term-Update/ SP500 Short-Term Update S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3635.76 −101.79 −2.72% Deus Oct 8 My analysis of SP500 has proved to be on spot so far. If I am correct the price is declining in wave of iii (circle) of wave C of (Y) of 2 (circle). Will post the bigger picture next. To remind you - on the bigger timeframe we completed (on Aug 16) an expanding triangle as wave B - that means that the wave C is expected to be swift and deep. However, the pace of the decline has been somewhat modest so far. That makes me suspect that we may soon see daily losses in double digits as the market gets steam. Perhaps this can happen in the next week or two as we are finishing off the current wave (v) of iii (circle). &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting. Stephen Peutz would agree, as he suggests that 09-25Oct2022 is a ripe time interval for a major October crash, based on technical indicators (eg interest rate inversions, advance-decline, oscillators, NYSE ARMS index, Dow RSI, etc etc) and his own cycle analysis (Universal Wave Series - enormous breadth-depth of themes including astro, history, war, etc). He keeps expecting a BIG crash (since years before Mar2020, which didn't qualify, and he did predict the recent rebound), so many false alarms but still handy warning times. Eventually he expects a turnaround, but I forget which years. Harry Dent is similar, in a different way. 08********08 #] 08Oct2022 Goyko's The World Economic Renegade Summit Sean Allison of Goyko Group [call, put] options - profit on [rise, fall] of market YahooFinance, finnviz, singing alpha, Benzinga & others - show how money flows, need for any option cybersecurity - big growth, Fortinet was one Sean picked out Get Sean Allison to help direct me? www.cashflowoptions.com.au $6,497 for package 08********08 #] 07Oct2022 +-----+ #] , By Dan Varroney https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-u-s-needs-a-unified-energy-industry-to-deal-with-soaring-oil-prices-opec-and-climate-change-11665137608?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The U.S. needs a unified energy industry to deal with soaring oil prices, OPEC+ and climate change Last Updated: Oct. 7, 2022 at 5:45 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 7, 2022 at 7:35 a.m. ET By Dan Varroney The energy industry and its suppliers should work with other industry's trade associations to develop clear, cohensive energy policy. &&&&&&&& Howell - We are in a mess precisely because of past actions arising from flawed [academic, policy] concepts based on corrupted (albeit well-intentioned) science, and repeating the same actions yet hoping for very different outcomes. There are fantastic [science, engineering, industry, trade-global] concepts out there, with real potential for huge revolutions. Leave it to them until a new generation of [academic, policy] types arises that can actually improve things. +-----+ #] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/4-ways-to-corral-a-rampaging-u-s-dollar-and-why-none-of-them-are-ideal-11665171851?mod=newsviewer_click A rampaging U.S. dollar is wreaking havoc in markets: Why it’s so hard to stop. Last Updated: Oct. 7, 2022 at 4:38 p.m. ET First Published: Oct. 7, 2022 at 3:44 p.m. ET By William Watts &&&&&&&& Howell - I can't say that I understand the intracacies, but for me this is a great article to put things in context. Paul F. Gruenwald's comments are [insightful, multi-faqctor, coherent]. I get the feeling that a "fear-feedback" mechanism may be involved, as the flight to safety continues? Does national [deficit, debt] level amplify [current pain, systemic risk] especially after a generation or two of increasing debt-addiction? Nobody seems to talk about that. But perhaps the new technology revolutions will easily bypass those issues? +-----+ &&&&&&&& Howell - Seems to be missing a larger context and longer-term trends. The Fed isn't setting out to damage the economy so much as re-adjust it following massive finanical asset inflation? Is that leaking over to Comsumer Price Index inflation (eg housing may be a great example)? The Fed probably wants to encourage healthy financial markets, but it's not there to babysit investors who go way out on a limb - or maybe it is supposed to do that, as was the case in 2007-2011? Pumping money into the economy to promote jobs has long been done, but what are the issues of continuing this over the long term? Is there nobody that cares about debt levels anymore? Even the Fed only seems to reduce it's covid debt by 2 T$ / 5 T$ total, and that doesn't include the equally massive 2007-Feb2020 buildup ~4 T$. This is NOT debt commensurate with healthy investing, but rather in compliance with social engineering of the financial markets? +-----+ #] Inflation will fall -> investors’ cue, By Michael BrushFollow https://www.marketwatch.com/story/inflation-is-going-to-fall-just-as-fast-as-it-rose-and-thats-investors-cue-to-enter-the-stock-market-11665072070 Opinion: Inflation is going to fall just as fast as it rose, and that’s investors’ cue to enter the stock market Published: Oct. 6, 2022 at 12:01 p.m. ET “If you buy at the (inflation) peak, you do pretty darn well over the next 12 months,” says investment strategist Jim Paulsen. The American Association of Individual Investors sentiment poll released Sept. 29 showed only 20% of respondents were bullish, compared to 60.8% who were bearish. This put the bear-bull ratio at three, a high that has been reached just three times since this survey began in July 2008, says Oppenheimer chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus. “This suggests to us that bearish sentiment is at an extreme,” he says. &&&&&&&& J Clark - One of the biggest drivers of inflation, particularly financial asset inflation is the FED with the explosive growth of their Bal Sheet. The decline of FED's Bal Sheet and the raising of the Fed Funds rate should reduce inflation but to their target of 2%, well that's anyone's "transitory" guess. The FED indicated that it will take approx. 2 years to get their +$2 Trillion Bal Sheet decline so I think it's fair to assume that it will take 2 years to get to their 2% inflation goal Odds of recession/stagflation seem most likely outcome; but this all goes out the window if multiple geopolitical risks escalate which seem to be happening as well. Steve Veroeven - I agree. Nobody knows how this QE experiment gets unwound because it was never done before. Unwinding the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme was bad with billions of dollars of losses to a few hundred clients. Globally, central banks did many trillions of dollars of QE money creation and the effects are now GLOBAL. The Fed was counting on global competition keeping inflation in check forever. This money they created doesn't come out of the system in just a few months of raising rates. We have to see businesses fail and people losing jobs and people losing homes, cars, life savings. The stock, bond, RE markets have been parabolic for 12 years on easy money from central banks. The real rate is still -5%. The stock market will find a bottom but I think it is sometime spring 2023. Winter is coming. Howell - +2T$ or +5T$? Doesn't even include pre-covid buildup? J Clark - I think FED on record as stating approx,$2.5 decline in Treasuries and Mortgage Back investments. The remaining decline (totaling +$5 T) in Reserves, Repo and Reserves are more of a really best guess imo. They need the Reserves, Repo and Reverse Repo to manage the daily FED FUNDS rate and short term liquidity aspects of the market to include Treasury. No ones talking about it but but I wouldn't be surprised to see the FED Discount Window come back into use in the future. after the Reserves at FRB decline from their current +$2T. Howell - Thanks J Clark. I'm not familiar with the Fed Discount Window - does this refer to a kind of "variable rate" setup for Treasury liabilities with respect to T-bonds? In any case, I just updated my tables relate to the Fed balance sheet : Fed Total Assets (T$) : https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends_accessible.htm 01Aug2007 05Nov2008 17Mar2010 14Dec2011 18Dec2013 0.87 2.07 2.31 2.90 4.00 ~:~ 23Mar2016 29Aug2019 26Feb2020 10Jun2020 16Feb2022 4.49 3.76 4.16 7.17 8.91 ~:~ 23Mar2022 05Oct2022 8.96 8.76 ~:~ FRED: WLFN - Federal Reserve Liabilities (via TradingView platform) 05Oct2022 2.23 T$ I don't understand the the exact relationship of the [total assets, liabilities] and [legal, policy, judgmenet] restrictions on their use. In any case, with the [amplitude, speed] of manipulations of the 10 year bond rates and the bond purchases, perhaps THE core measure at the heart of the markets is a socially engineered variable. Is it possible that this [has, may] lead to blinding of the markets, massive mis-allocation of society's resources, direct political manipulation and punishment, and Orwellian truthSpeak (OK - that's overboard but fun)? Does it give justification for the investment community's screaming about the policies and to be protected? Michael Brisebois, blog on MarketWatch - “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell”. ~ Sir John Templeton 08********08 #] 03Oct2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-us-is-losing-scientists-to-china-competition-51664825686?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The U.S. Is Losing Scientists to China. How to Stem the Flow. Published: Oct. 3, 2022 at 3:35 p.m. ET By Christopher S. Tang &&&&&&&& Howell - Awesome wakeup call, it's about time. I've been noticing this since 2017 in areas of science that I follow. Additionally, there is a huge lag in perceptions about many advanced areas and the traditional US dominance (Computational Intelligence (CI) s a great example). While Christopher Tang points out some workforce issues, perhaps his point of better pay, plus greater responsibilities and working with better teams is much more important from a career perspective. Working, living closer to family and disillusionment with crime etc might also be factors? 08********08 #] 01Sep2022 +-----+ #] VasilyTrader - S&P500 INDEX (SPY) Very Bearish Outlook https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/4lhqnUmH-S-P500-INDEX-SPY-Very-Bearish-Outlook/ S&P500 INDEX (SPY) Very Bearish Outlook S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3590.69 −54.93 −1.51% VasilyTrader 6 hours ago &&&&&&&&&& Howell - Bearish agreed. Close, but ever so slightly below BOTH (June lows, 1926-2022 semi-log trend line). SP500 semiLog trendline 1926-2022 : 10 power (-56.7736 + (0.029831 * year)) year fraction 2000.0 2005.0 2010.0 2015.0 2022.0 2022.5 2022.75 2023.0 SP500 price 773. 1090. 1537. 2167. 3505. 3627. 3690. 3754. From 1872 (after US civil war) to ~1990, SP500 was rarely at its two-segment (break at 1926) semi-log trend line, instead usually >0.33 RelativeStandardDeviations (RSD, semi-log) above or below. Since 1990, apart from the (2000 tech bubble-crash, 2008 housing bubble-crash, 2020 covid crash-bubble-crash?), the SP500 was within 0.33 RSD. So based on behaviour pre-1990, SP500 would now normally overshoot below trendline. Will it do so now, or settle around the trendline as in last ~30 years? Is (Fed, Treasury) policy responsible for the market behaviour change after 1990, via social engineering of the marketplace?? As with the Bank of England, we are at the mercy of a wave of the magic Fed wand. 08********08 #] 30Sep2022 +-----+ #] ‘dialogue with Russia’ — once Putin is no longer Russia’s president, By Associated Press https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zelensky-counters-putin-event-staged-to-trumpet-russian-annexation-of-ukraine-regions-with-surprise-application-to-join-nato-01664579945?mod=newsviewer_click Zelensky counters Putin event staged to trumpet Russian annexation of Ukraine regions with surprise application to join NATO Published: Sept. 30, 2022 at 7:19 p.m. ET The Ukrainian president says he’s ready for ‘dialogue with Russia’ — once Putin is no longer Russia’s president +-----+ #] ‘Macro’ forecasters are ... wrong about investing most of the time, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/macro-forecasters-are-everywhere-these-days-but-they-tend-to-be-wrong-about-investing-most-of-the-time-11664544048?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: ‘Macro’ forecasters are everywhere these days, but they tend to be wrong about investing most of the time Published: Sept. 30, 2022 at 9:20 a.m. ET Their probability of being right is exceedingly low because of the complexity of the world &&&&&&&& Howell - 30Sep2022 [Mark Hulbert's] Gem of a statement : "... you don’t have to know the future to be a good investor. On the contrary, it is the very essence of investing to do your best in the absence of certainty about the future. ..." 08********08 #] 29Sep2022 +-----+ #] U.S. economy shrank in the first half of 2022, updated GDP confirms, By Jeffry Bartash https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-u-s-economy-shrank-in-the-first-half-of-2022-new-gdp-figures-confirm-11664455599?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. economy shrank in the first half of 2022, updated GDP confirms Last Updated: Sept. 29, 2022 at 9:57 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 29, 2022 at 8:46 a.m. ET Debate over whether U.S. fell into recession left unsettled &&&&&&&& Howell - While the unemployment rate is an important number (especially for political screaming and government payouts), perhaps it is increasingly irrelevant to GDP, or at least less useful than paid labor hours (~participation rate, not money but time)? There have been huge changes in the pool of people [willing, able] to work, with Boomer retirements being only one of the factors. Are "employed hours" a better component measure of recession, or at least a complement to unemployment numbers? I'm just speculating... 08********08 #] 28Sep2022 +-----+ #] Can't watch [Barrons, Market Watch] videos, and some others - maybe ?h264? codec? https://www.marketwatch.com/video/mastering-your-money/the-moneyist-live-solving-your-real-life-financial-problems/74648090-D1C0-4B92-AA7A-E56D8D7C4AF2.html The Moneyist Live: Solving your real-life financial problems Apr. 21, 2022 at 10:55 PM ET Columnist Quentin Fottrell's inbox is filled with people looking for guidance on real-life financial problems. Watch live as the MarketWatch Personal Finance Managing Editor discuss a real-life tricky issue with guests Nicole Pierce, Founder and Artistic Director at EgoArt and Michael Prettyman, Artist and scholar of Eastern Religions. +-----+ #] IvanLabrie TW - [XAUUSD (GC1!), OIL] long term trend & historical comparison https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XAUUSD/XhBK9PBt-XAUUSD-Monitoring-positioning/ $XAUUSD: Monitoring positioning... Gold Spot / U.S. Dollar (OANDA:XAUUSD) 1659.560 30.070 1.85% IvanLabrie Updated 2 hours ago "$d_web"'Cool stuff/IvanLabrie TW 28Sep2022 Oil long term trend & historical comparison.png' "$d_web"'Cool stuff/IvanLabrie TW 28Sep2022 Gold long term trend & historical comparison.png' +-----+ #] White House considering departure of Treasury chief Janet Yellen after the midterms, By Steve Goldstein https://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-house-considering-departure-of-treasury-chief-janet-yellen-after-the-midterms-report-says-11664352283?mod=newsviewer_click White House considering departure of Treasury chief Janet Yellen after the midterms, report says Published: Sept. 28, 2022 at 4:04 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - If the reasons given for Yellen's potential departure are correct, then I have that more respect for Yellen - standing up for what she believes is right, and not just politically-correct. 08********08 #] 27Sep2022 +-----+ #] , https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-federal-reserve-thinks-inflation-is-higher-than-it-actually-is-because-its-following-flawed-information-11664301152?mod=MW_article_top_stories Opinion: The Federal Reserve is missing a crucial turning point in its fight against inflation because it’s following flawed information Last Updated: Sept. 27, 2022 at 2:25 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 27, 2022 at 1:52 p.m. ET By Rex Nutting 10 The price of shelter — the biggest component of the consumer prices index — is falling rapidly because of Fed rate increases, but don’t expect that fact to show up in the CPI for another year &&&&&&&& Howell - Chicken and egg aspect missed, and there are no perfect inflation measures. Big problems explaining the last year while ignoring the market's ignoring of the Fed intentions. Big problems ignoring the future ignoring of the Fed's intentions. Face it, the Fed's not there to babysit investors, and current [house, market] pricing is not bad at all - it makes vastly more sense than a few months ago, and even another 20-30% decline would not lead to abnormal valuations in context of still-low-by-80y-history interest rates. +-----+ #] smart U.S. responses to Putin’s nuclear weapons threats, By Matthew Kroenig https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-smart-way-for-the-u-s-to-respond-to-putins-hints-over-nuclear-weapons-11664283728?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: This is the smart way for the U.S. to respond to Putin’s hints over nuclear weapons Published: Sept. 27, 2022 at 9:02 a.m. ET Start with deliberately vague but serious threats for any Russian use of nuclear weapons Matthew Kroenig is the acting director of the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, including in the Strategy, Middle East, and Nuclear and Missile Defense offices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency’s Strategic Assessments Group. This was first published by Atlantic Council. &&&&&&&& Howell - Matthew Kroenig provides a useful listing of [issues, scenarios, actions] to keep in mind. While there doesn't appear to be anything new in the list since probably the mid-1950's, its very easy to forget. "... Washington must be prepared to execute its threat if deterrence fails. ..." : for the most part seems very [watered-down, pussy-footed, loser-confirming] and not much different than what has probably long been in the diplomatic toolbox. Albeit as Kroenig says, post-Russian nuclear strike it might be easier to push these agendas. Furthermore, rational analysis is not possible in our politically-correct [society, press, politics]. -> But I am wrong, as Kroenig is one of the rare individuals with the courage to do just that? Risky in terms of our [kill the messenger, defame the good guys, hero-worship the scum] day care society for adults. 08********08 #] 26Sep2022 +-----+ #] Stock market ‘on cusp’ of important test, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-on-cusp-of-important-test-watch-this-s-p-500-level-if-2022-low-gives-way-says-rbc-11664215654?mod=newsviewer_click Stock market ‘on cusp’ of important test: Watch this S&P 500 level if 2022 low gives way, says RBC Published: Sept. 26, 2022 at 2:07 p.m. ET Investors are focused on what ‘higher-for-longer rates’ might mean for stock market valuations, says RBC Capital Markets &&&&&&&& Howell - Lori Calvasina, head of U.S. equity strategy at RBC, does a great job of specifying her model's 10year [interest rate, inflation] anticipation, and historical context on put-to-call ratios. But what about Fed deleveraging? Perhaps missing at least half of the game? From the Fed's own statements, I doubt they will deleverage more than 25-33%, but I was pleasantly surprised at the Fed's resolve regrading a hard line on inflation, and hopefully I will be proved wrong with the de-leveraging as well. G Scott Lowe - struggle is inflation is a lagging indicator. The Fed is using inflation to make decisions instead of looking at the leading indicators. FedEx being a one prime example. The others are energy prices, oil had tanked from the highs, precious metals down to lows, demand has softened. The reason why we had such a huge increase in prices... was during the pandemic we gave unemployed families of 4 (2 parents with 2 kids) over a $100k on unemployment in 19 of states, and then in 35 of states, that same family of four made $72k, when both parents were employed that family only earned $62k on average across the US. They didnt have to pay their rent nor their mortgage nor their daycare (kids were Zoom schooled, and moratoriums on rent and mortgages meant they couldnt get kicked out of their homes). they spent that money as fast as they could get it. Now that family is back to work, making a little more than before the pandemic but they dont have the same pressure on prices because all the funds go to the things they bought during the pandemic, ie new cars and appliances. PPI has decreased, CPI was up mostly due to rent skyrocketing because the Fed has raised rates by 2.5% since March to August. Prices are cooling, supply chain is 80% back to normal. No ships on east coast waiting to be unloaded and only 7 ships on west coast still waiting. Fed needs to look at demand, their tightening has done exactly what they needed it to do. I am just worried they were so late to game that they will keep tightening when they dont need to. Howell - G Scott Lowe, I like your comments, and the lag idea. Numerous Market Watch articles have made similar comments, and that being behind the curve on inflation is hard to address. I can only guess at the Fed reasoning, perhaps dominated by historical precedent and the risks of [moderating too soon, ingrained inflationary expectations]. They are hoping for a "somewhat soft" landing, and are obviously hearing the screaming. What you have said may be doubly important [as, if] the Fed continues to deleverage. I also fear that there may be "continuing leakage" of financial asset inflation from the stimulus (2009 to present, maybe even back to 1987), even though pricing is more reasonable now. As you stated, maybe this will be reduced by familys' spending hangover from fiscal support during covid. Massive [deficit, debt] and risks in the long-term bond markets also are a concern. At least now, I have the feeling that the Fed is not afraid of making unpopular decisions, and that the process isn't entirely politically-correct of the style to get us into worse trouble. That would be my greatest fear. I didn't use : I don't think there is a strong case for simply supporting high financial asset pricing (now not as high), which isn't their principle job. But perhaps market coverage (Fed stimulus?) may be applied to avoid excessive damage from investor fears - with its own problems (compounding the effects of the covid stimulus?). I also fear that there may be "continuing leakage" of financial asset inflation from stimulus (2000 to present, maybe even back to 1987), comparable to what you mentioned for families from fiscal support during covid. All this in an environment of massive [deficit, debt] and risks in the long-term bond markets. We are all lucky that I don't have make decisions here :). +-----+ #] NASA DART is about to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid, By Mike Murphy https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nasa-is-about-to-crash-a-spacecraft-into-an-asteroid-heres-how-to-watch-11664151344?mod=newsviewer_click NASA is about to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid. Here’s how to watch. Last Updated: Sept. 26, 2022 at 8:11 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 25, 2022 at 8:15 p.m. ET DART aims to knock the asteroid Dimorphos off course in first-ever test of new planetary defense system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Qw-C7gmwE NASA DART Tracking LIVE : Countdown to Impact with Asteroid Didymos 360 watching now Started streaming 11 hours ago Neo Universe NASA DART Tracking LIVE : Countdown to Impact with Asteroid Didymos Asteroid Didymos and its small moonlet Dimorphos make up what’s called a binary asteroid system – meaning the small moon (Dimorphos) orbits the larger body (Didymos). The two asteroids are not a threat to Earth, but because they do pass relatively close to Earth, they were chosen as the target for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission – the agency's first mission to test planetary defense technology. This technology could one day be used to deflect hazardous asteroids on a collision course with Earth. CREDIT:NASA,ESA &&&&&&&& Howell - It will be interesting to see if there is a huge electric dischage pre-impact, as has apparently happened with Jupiter and Comet "Shoemaker-Levy 9" 1994), possibly ESA Rosetta's Philae lander on comet 67 P Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67 P, 12Nov2012), and Deep Impact mission to comet Tempel 1 (Jul2005), during which a 350-kg (770-lb) copper mass impactor hit the asteroid. Wal Thornhill predicted the Tempel 1 electrical effects 4 years earlier 18Oct2001, and if I am not mistaken, speculated on the Jupiter effects as well. This all depends on the asteroid-satellite electric charge differential? post to NASA Livestream : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Qw-C7gmwE Howell - It will be interesting to see if there is a huge electric dischage pre-impact, as has apparently happened with Jupiter and Comet "Shoemaker-Levy 9" 1994), Howell - electrical discharge - possibly ESA Rosetta's Philae lander on comet 67 P Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67 P, 12Nov2012), and Deep Impact impactor to comet Tempel 1 (Jul2005), Howell - Wal Thornhill predicted the Tempel 1 electrical effects 4 years earlier 18Oct2001, and if I am not mistaken, speculated on the Jupiter effects as well. This all depends on the asteroid-satellite electric charge differential? 08********08 #] 25Sep2022 +-----+ #] [Italy's] far-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni - poised to win 25Sep2022, By Jamie Chisholm https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-italys-elections-mean-for-bonds-the-euro-and-banks-11663856669?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s what Italy’s elections will mean for bonds, the euro and banks Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2022 at 8:49 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 22, 2022 at 10:24 a.m. ET The far-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni looks poised to win on Sept. 25 &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting, are there no longer "right-wing" and "left-wing" parties, just centrist (conservative, liberal), left-wing, and "extreme right-wing"? [Government, education, media, science] messaging put labels on others best suited to themselves, as the best defence is a good offence? Does it matter, does anybody believe it anymore? In the end are all systems the same, judging by similar [self-induced problems, reactions] across history? Famed Italian mathematician Alfredo Pareto had some thinking along those lines (sort of). He was almost erased from memory because of that thinking plus a perception that he was too close to Mussolini's regime. But French mathematician Benoit Mandlebrot re-did some of Pareto's analysis and came to similar conclusions. Program your intellectual robots, shades of Orwell's 1984 perhaps, through the prism of the Matrix? 08********08 #] 24Sep2022 +-----+ #] Kremlin stages votes in Ukraine, sees protests in Russia, By Associated Press http://www.billhowell.ca/History/Ukraine-Russia/Howell%20-%20Ukraine%20and%20Russia.html Kremlin stages votes in Ukraine, sees protests in Russia Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2022 at 2:44 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 24, 2022 at 11:22 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell- It will fascinating to see if 100% of the votes are for the referendum (not may people want the "looking down the barrel of the shotgun" alternative), or if they align with [2004, 2010] Ukrainian voting as per John Mearsheimer's (Uof Chicago) 2014 presentation "Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?". My guess is more the former, but I don't know much about the situation, and I have a fantastic ability to be completely wrong... +-----+ #] 5 things you need to know about the housing market now, By Alisa Wolfson https://www.marketwatch.com/picks/im-the-chief-economist-of-the-national-association-of-homebuilders-there-are-the-5-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-housing-market-now-01663778074?mod=newsviewer_click&tesla=y I’m the chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders. These are the 5 things you need to know about the housing market now Updated: Sept. 24, 2022 at 1:38 p.m. ET Robert Dietz’s predictions on what will happen to mortgage rates, housing inventory and more. &&&&&&&& Howell - The phrase "housing glut" (of the 2000s, compared to today) seems to me to have poorly understood connotations that are similar to common misconceptions related [oil, mineral] "reserves". While it's useful to model underlying growth trends of demand, and [labor, land, materials] supply capacities, both "housing glut" and "reserves" are highly price-dependent, and [history, other economics] provide a huge array of solutions to housing at dramatically lower [price, availability] than is currently the case. +-----+ #] Al Gore: The next 8 years will be crucial to solving our climate problems, By Levi Sumagaysay https://www.marketwatch.com/story/at-dreamforce-al-gore-highlights-progress-on-evs-energy-but-calls-next-years-crucial-11663873995?mod=newsviewer_click Al Gore: The next 8 years will be crucial to solving our climate problems. Here are the positive signs he sees. Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2022 at 1:10 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 22, 2022 at 3:13 p.m. ET At Dreamforce, Al Gore talked climate: ‘Political will is itself a renewable resource’ &&&&&&&& Howell - The climate modelling of essentially all scientists has been pathetic, although it's clear that the challenge exceeds cognitive capacities. Their mis-conception of the Sun and astronomy is far worse. Sunspots and total solar irradiance is sun a tiny piece of the puzzle, and they can't even do that right. This tends to happen when you close your eyes to everything, as per "conclusions driven modern research". Even though some great scientists are making progress, the situation is similar to that which Copernicus faced (albeit milder today) : "hold back publishing your great life's work until your deathbed, lest it puts you there" (like Bruno). Up to the final edition of his work, Copernicus recognised Aristarchus of Samos ~1400-1800 years earlier as the one who put the Sun in the centre of the Solar system. (I suspect that concept was around for at least 5000 years before that?) As another lesson, you can't correct corruptions to your work after you are dead, and it's unlikely that you will get credit for it. +-----+ #] U.K. is ... like an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market, By Anviksha Patel https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-uk-is-behaving-a-bit-like-an-emerging-market-turning-itself-into-a-submerging-market-former-u-s-treasury-secretary-says-11663944639?mod=newsviewer_click ‘The U.K. is behaving a bit like an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market,’ Larry Summers says Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2022 at 1:26 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 23, 2022 at 10:50 a.m. ET Former U.S. Treasury secretary slams U.K. tax-cutting policy as pound falls to its lowest level since 1985 &&&&&&&& Howell - A 'great nation' that selected Margaret Thatcher, is now 'an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market' that has selected Liz Truss? Seems to fit in very well with modern thinking. I've been saying for years that Canada is racing its way to becoming a third-world nation. It's amazing how many neighbors agree now, even though they know I am crazy. +-----+ #] Stocks crashing? No, but here’s why this bear market feels so painful, By William Watts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-crashing-no-but-heres-why-this-bear-market-feels-so-painful-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-11664024098?mod=newsviewer_click Stocks crashing? No, but here’s why this bear market feels so painful — and what you can do about it. Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2022 at 8:55 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 24, 2022 at 8:54 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Amos Library - 1 hour ago THREE CRUCIAL CONDITIONS FOR BEAR MARKETS, Marty Zweig 1919-1987 average a bear mkt every 3.5 years -35.8% average in DJIA 1. Extreme deflation. Producer Price Index Decline of 10% or more, extreme deflation Figure month to month, annualizing the change and divide by 6 2. Ultrahigh Price/earnings ratio 10-14 normal 6-8 bullish Upper teens/twenties - excessive speculation, overvaluations, poor mkts 3. Inverted yield curve ~:~ Worst bear market in history had all 3, 1929-32, -89% DJIA When 2 of 3 conditions exist, average -38.5% DJIA If none of 3 conditions exist AND all of the major averages (DJIA, SP500, and Valueline) drop 10%, begin buying. Chances of 15% decline are remote. Howell - Nice perspective, Amos Library. Thanks. Your numbers from Marty Zweig complement those in the article of Analysts at Wells Fargo, and Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network. I have a current interest in modelling [time, price] multifractals, but most importantly concepts for time fractals going beyond Benoit Mandelbrot's "Misbehaviour of markets" and Stuart Kauffmann's "At home in the unviverse"? Seeing Zweig's 3.5 year, and McMillan's 5 year "cycles" provides another echo of concepts several millenia old. By far the most [deep, broad, multi-theme, robust] series I've seen is Stephen Puetz's "Universal Wave Series" (UWS), which is far beyond the only other comparable example that I've seen : the Mayan systems of 20+ calendars (weird, eh!?). Essentially none of the academic thinking comes close in scope, albeit some of the mathematical tools are far more powerful and fun. Puetz often shows [1.17, 3.5, 10.5] year cycles. The PuetzUWS series is a (simple factor-of-three ratios ad-infinitum, plus half intervals. It is very similar to basic Fibonacci series that is typically used in technical analysis for market trading. 08********08 #] 23Sep2022 +-----+ #] Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel accuses Fed of big policy mistakes in its 110-year history, By Joseph Adinolfi https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whartons-jeremy-siegel-accuses-fed-of-making-one-of-the-biggest-policy-mistakes-in-its-110-year-history-11663968335?mod=newsviewer_click Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel accuses Fed of making one of the biggest policy mistakes in its 110-year history Published: Sept. 23, 2022 at 5:25 p.m. ET Now, Siegel says, workers will pay the price &&&&&&&& Howell - I'm now quite impressed with Fed Chair Jerome Powell (and committee), even though I wasn't comfortable by the degree of Fed pumping for the 2+ years of covid. I could not imagine that such a strong stance would be taken by ANY group today, especially with Congressional elections, the sea of politically-correct university economists, and the knee-jerk admonitions of the voters. It actually restores some of my hopes. Everybody can yap right now, few were loudly critical before (perhaps they couldn't get their opinions through the media?). While I may agree with part of Siegel's rant, he takes easy [populist, let-it-solve-itself] arguments (at least in this article). I certainly can't say if the current approach is one of the "right ways to go", but nor can I have any confidence in most other experts knowing what they (including most of Wall Street) were saying when we were on easy street? Ram Samudrala - True, they had a tough job and I think they did what they had to do during 2020. Regardless, they could've started earlier than December 2021. The first sign of trouble was in May 2021. They could've started that summer. But instead they "talked". And then the serious stuff didn't happen until this summer. They could've just raised 0.25% and been at the same position as now and it'd have been more gradual and would've had more time to work through the system. Many people did say the Fed should've raised rates earlier. Howell - Agreed for the period you mention (May2021 to Jul2022), with the curious case of Jun2022. Was the Fed panicked by the market reactions close to the infamous ?Aug-Dec"2018 levels when they "had to act to save the bad actors"? But I disagree with the covid stimulus [size, period] too. A covid-panicked public demanded a near-shut-down of the economy. This could have been fatal to much of the public until machines started doing almost all [physical, mental] work 40-20 years ago. Where effort is put into developing advanced systems, apparently the best human [lawyer, medical] experts are no Cognitive match for the still very immature but rapidly evolving Computational Intelligence (CI) systems (but one could have said that for conventional [model, control] systems as well!!). Whose to say that things haven't already progressed far beyond that for the [Fed, Treasury] policies? Jokingly, do the machines think that our [university, government] cart [economic, policy] experts are our greatest impediment to progress in those fields (as I have felt since the late 1980s in many areas of science)? How would you like to play cowboy on new systems that you know you can never fathom? Have leaders and senior managers started to simply "trust" good systems, as they've always had to trust good people? Will future experts be overshadowed by 12 year old kids hacking at home? Ram Samudrala - So you think the stimulus should've been smaller or bigger? I think they overshot a bit but again, hindsight. I work in AI and we've not made it that far. Right now AI is used complementary to humans in the bleeding edge fields. They're better than humans are Chess and Go (barely) but when it comes to protein folding (AlphaFold2) it's a human-machine partnership really. So still a long away from medicine, etc. which is what we're trying to do. Howell - Wow, I really appreciate your AI comments, Ram. You are right - AI (my focus is mostly CI) is "complimentary" (I like to say it's "hybrid human-machine" to beat the machines). But what portion of the "real work" is really human, can even most expert humans really understand it, and what fraction of humans are really conceptually cognitively to a well-developed system with even just [chess, Go]? Not just "AI", but very classical modelling has the same aspects once into sufficient [dimension, complexity] (eg Management Information Systems, engineering design, etc, where conceptual understanding is clear, if not always a solid overall view)? Hava Siegelmann's "Explainable AI" DARPA program followed up on widespread work to open up the black boxes (really interesting ideas keep coming out). I am an amateur enthusiast of [NN, Evolutionary Computation] since 1988, but I am retired and don't get to the IJCNN conferences much anymore, and I don't do journal peer reviews any more (just for the one conference now). My hobby research project is architecture etc for Spiking Neural Nets - How does a neuron really work individually and in groups? But I am always lost in building basic tools, questioning the basic science, and being side-tracked by other projects and demands. I didn't use : Language models (eg GP3 and successors) are really raising questions on Connectionists. Terry Sejnowski recently posted an interesting thought, almost reverse-Turing, will these systems eventually be useful for assessing human Howell - separate response to Ram : With respect to the [Fed, Treasury] covid stimulus, it always looked to me that they overdid it, with potential for a big letdown later, plus a serious risk to the system. But this depends on your view of the covid pandemic and our responses as well, and what the consequences would have been at different levels of stimulus. I don't have any solid knowledge of this, just a feeling or concern. 50% of GDP [Fed, Treasury] stimulus over 2+ years is beyond anything I would have expected, and I will have to wait to see the implications over the next 3 to 5 years. didn't use : Perhaps the economy has a great need for a modest portion of the population for another generation (20 years) until [dexterous, mobile] robots are widely available, then not much need at all after that? We shall all be kings of our own dominions served by robots? I don't agree with the film "The Matrix" in that humans would be really terrible batteries. and the essential ignoring of covid rules for "essential" services helped enormously (the rules are absolute until they hit reality, a reality still not at all understood). However, we all should be extremely thankful that I am not deciding things, or we would be lost. Nor do I think any human could meet our impossible demands in [tough, complex] situations, as you suggest by your "tough job" comment. 08********08 #] 22Sep2022 +-----+ ^&&&&&&&& Howell - Good [article, advice, comment]s. I feel that it's the old "one or the other" game that rarely applies in reality, like [consensus, democracy] compromises that usually only suit a few. Both [recession, inflation] are probably not what you want, and you have the luxury of choosing neither. +-----+ #] S&P 500 sees its third leg down of more than 10%, By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/s-p-500-sees-its-third-leg-down-of-more-than-10-heres-what-history-shows-about-past-bear-markets-hitting-new-lows-from-there-according-to-bespoke-11663800352?mod=newsviewer_click S&P 500 sees its third leg down of more than 10%. Here’s what history shows about past bear markets hitting new lows from there, according to Bespoke. Last Updated: Sept. 22, 2022 at 7:47 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 21, 2022 at 6:45 p.m. ET U.S. stocks fall sharply after the Fed’s policy rate decision Wednesday &&&&&&&& Howell - Fascinating analysis by Bespoke Investment Group, who picked out 5 bear markets post-WWII with 3 down-legs >= 10% : January 1973, November 1980, August 1987, March 2000 and October 2007. The bad news is that the current market weakness most resembles Mar2000-Oct2003, but we will have to see what happens. From another point of view, the SP500 is still slightly above its long-term trendline : SP500 semiLog trendline 1926-2022 : 10 power (-56.7736 + (0.029831 * year)) year fraction 2000.0 2005.0 2010.0 2015.0 2022.0 2022.5 2022.75 2023.0 SP500 price 773. 1090. 1537. 2167. 3505. 3627. 3690. 3754. It would be normal for the SP500 to stay for 10-20 years mostly [above, below] the semiLog trendLine, within one Relative Standard Deviation (rsd = 0.33 in semi-log coordinates, very roughly +- 10% of the trend). One might argue that the rate of financial asset inflation has permanently accelerated in the last decade, as we are no longer able to take the tough decisions to manage our debt? That means that markets would keep rising strongly soon, and that much of the gains in the future, as in the last 3 decades, will be inflation rather than real. +-----+ #] Trading2ez - SPX500 likely to retrace UP! https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/GJyQONY7-SPX500-likely-to-retrace-UP/ SPX500 likely to retrace UP! S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3755.67 −24.99 −0.66% Trading2ez Updated 9 hours ago Howell - On shorter timeframes you may be right. Maybe a trick now is that the "buy on a dip" automatic-emotional-reaction may be starting to wear off, but I think it will take another year for that to attenuate if the market is stable, perhaps a few months if there is another major crash from today's levels some time in the next year. (Trader, investor)s have been programmed (i.e. intellectual robots) to react as they are by 30 years of (debt, deficit)-driven hyper-inflation of financial markets. Remember, China was the driver of the world economy, not the USA except maybe (finance, advanced Computational Intelligence, chips) - and China is rising rapidly and already dominates some areas. Would hve liked to use : Markets have been in a partially-debt-driven rise since post-2000 crash (maybe since 1987), and this was accelerated post-(2008, 2020). Your analysis fits the modern (investor, trader)s expectation for the long-term hyperinflation of financial assets. But is "don't fight the Fed" more crucial now than ever, given they've said mild recession is a possibility (that they won't back down from)? And is the interest rate far less an issue than deleveraging? Their own past comments suggest to me they might deleverage only 25-33% of the covid cash pump, and my pure guess is that this is only slighly more severe than the ~23% drop of SP500 since early Jan2022. A return to the 1926-2022 semi-log trendline would give : SP500 semiLog trendline 1926-2022 : 10 power (-56.7736 + (0.029831 * year)) SP500 price 2000.0 2005.0 2010.0 2015.0 2022.0 2022.5 2022.7 2023.0 year fraction 773. 1090. 1537. 2167. 3505. 3627. 3690. 3754. It would be normal for the SP500 to stay for 10-20 years mostly [above, below] the detrend line, within one Relative Standard Deviation (rsd - in semi-log coordinates). One might argue that the rate of financial asset inflation has permanently accelerated in the last decade, as we are no longer able to take the tough decisions to manage our debt? One relativeStandardDeviation [above, below] that trendline gives [??, ??] That in spite of China having being the major driver of the global economy, not the USA except (finance, hi-tech). But China now dominates the most advanced (math, science, concept)s of "Computational Intelligence" (its CI, not AI), and the recent export limitations will drive them to dominance in semiconductors etc 08********08 #] 21Sep2022 +-----+ #] ‘The path that we actually execute will be enough ... to restore price stability,’, By Greg Robb https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-will-tolerate-a-recession-and-5-other-things-we-learned-from-powells-presser-11663804117?mod=newsviewer_click Fed will tolerate a recession, and 5 other things we learned from Powell’s presser Published: Sept. 21, 2022 at 7:48 p.m. ET ‘The path that we actually execute will be enough — it will be enough — to restore price stability,’ Fed chairman vows &&&&&&&& Howell - Right or wrong, Greg Robb's article is a [serious, refreshing] departure from the reams of self-pity from spoilt investors looking for salvation. I think it is also important for the credibility of the [Fed, Treasury, Government] who, to their peril, have looked too much like agents of the wealthy for too long? +-----+ #] Jerome Powell’s Fed ‘isn’t going to blink’, By Isabel Wang https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dow-tumbled-500-points-because-jerome-powells-fed-isnt-going-to-blink-11663802155?mod=newsviewer_click The Dow tumbled 500 points because Jerome Powell’s Fed ‘isn’t going to blink’ Published: Sept. 21, 2022 at 7:15 p.m. ET Stock-market investors going through ‘5 stages of grief’: analyst &&&&&&&& Howell - Great statement by Mel Casey, senior portfolio manager at FBB Capital Partners : “He’s [Powell] not going to worry about what the market does. For too long people have considered that that is a concern as well, but the concern here is inflation.” It's time for investors to reality-adjust and do their job, taking today's hits as well as the manna from heaven of the last 2+ years. Inflation is a [sticky, trickey] business. As the economy may shake-out the weak organisations, the same may happen with investors? +-----+ #] , By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disinflationary-wave-is-building-even-as-investors-anticipate-aggressive-fed-rate-increase-says-this-economist-11663705892?mod=mw_more_headlines ‘Disinflationary wave is building’ even as investors anticipate aggressive Fed rate increase, says this economist Last Updated: Sept. 21, 2022 at 7:26 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 20, 2022 at 4:31 p.m. ET ‘If we’re right that inflation will fall back soon, officials will quickly pivot to much smaller hikes,’ says Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics &&&&&&&& Howell - At first, given the tiny surfer on the Big Wave, I misinterpreted the theme as DEFLATION. My bad, but I do think the author has blown up the theme far too much, and Paul Ashworth missed context that the Fed isn't there to guarantee the happiness of cry-baby investors who think today's valuations are far too low, and that stock must always go up. Having said that, I'm sure that the Fed always keeps in the back of its mind the deflation issue. See Petri Yankovick's blog below, that Paul Volker didn't cause deflation with a prime rate of 20%, but also consider decades of comments about the Japanese situation post-1989. Maybe we'll end up with stag-dis-de-in-flation or some not-so-impossible-combination like that. +-----+ #] , by ?Barbara Kollymeir? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/markets-ignore-putins-nuclear-saber-rattling-why-that-might-change-11663781693?mod=newsviewer_click &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice "first-impressions" article following Putin's comments. It's a bit strange for me to see military-oriented analysis from market strategists (although there have been good ones in the past), but hopefully they will be better than many [academic, media, policy type]s we've heard from. I vastly prefer John J. Mearsheimer's (Uof Chicago) 2014-15 Ukraine analysis, even for today's situation, and I assume there are other excellent analysis out there. Another great coverage is to simply look yourself at maps of the Ukraine's [history, war, commodity, agriculture, mining, demographic]s - which is much better than to simply listen to other people's conclusions. 08********08 #] 20Sep2022 https://www.tradingview.com/script/xOLBArA6-International-interest-exchange-rates/ $DXY: Trend is up, hard to stop the advance... U.S. Dollar Currency Index (TVC:DXY) 110.192 0.602 0.55% IvanLabrie 2 hours ago The Dollar offers a nice reward to risk entry as a continuation trade here. I'm long via FX pairs and a Dollar Index position. Eventually, it might take coordinated intervention to stop this advance, fundamentals are firmly in place for a continued trend in the Dollar against foreign currencies, given the limitations to affect the energy market and of monetary policy itself in the Euro area. Japan benefits from increased competitivity for their exports, and won't be able to stop the advance if they wished to do so on their own. Perhaps at some point we will get coordinated intervention similar to what transpired in 1985 with the Plaza Accord. The rally here in quarterly and yearly scale is potentially of huge scale, so I'll be ready to trade any continuation signal to the upside while the trend variables remain in place. Best of luck, Ivan Labrie. &&&&&&&& Howell - I like your analysis and comments. From your chart, I assume that you see a possible big surge in DXY for another 5 years (to ~late 2027), and an easing back down after that. I do not have knowledge of currency exchange markets so in response to a DXY blog by quantguy yesterday, I created a small Pine Script to compare (CNY, EUR, GBP, JPY)USD exchange rates to the "gap" between TNX (US10Y) T-bond interest rates and (CN, EU, GB, JP)10Y interest rates. While very (primitive, incomplete), the results were of some comfort in know more about exchange rates. The effects of (debt, deficit, credit rating) would also be handy to see. But in any case, there seems to be an anomalous "interest rate gap" since ~mid-August which might fall in line with some of your expectations. https://www.tradingview.com/script/xOLBArA6-International-interest-exchange-rates/ 08********08 #] 20Sep2022 +-----+ #] Andy Pancholi - The Secret of Market Cycles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA0QprBGphQ An Unfair Advantage - The Secret of Market Cycles 848 views Sep 12, 2022 The Market Timing Report Andrew Pancholi 1.13K subscribers long-term historical event logging Foundation for the study of cycles, started 1941 by US President, headed by Treasury Secretary ?Edward? Dewey 72 year cycle - booms and busts in markets (Harry Dent - [90, ?70?, 45] year, tech cycle 90 yr 2 1720 South Sea bubble 1857 panic US & Europe down 62% (railroads) runs on banks 2 1864 Civil War (war shortage of cotton) 1929 crash DJ down 90% 2001 equity tops dot-com boom bust down 40% 2 2008 Commodity Boom 2073 next crash 2 2080 next echo crash 2152 2 144 yr (2*72 yr) "echo crashes", 7 years after 72 yr timing 180 yr cycle = 2*90 yr = 4*45 1837-1842 Andrew Jackson 1st bank fiat currency 1884 gold was leaving America 1929 1974 equity lows, oil crises 2019 (2020 crash down 34%, within 6 weeks of target) oil crisis 100 year cycle = 2*50yr 1807 Napoleonic War, Embargo Act US, all trade banned with rest of world, blockades in Europe similar to today? 1857 (see bank runs in 72 yr cycle list), end of railroad boom, global panic, falls in several cycles 1907 Rich man's panic (knickerbocker crisis) credit dried up, JP Morgan helped out 1957 Recession in US, eveerybody with [auto, fridge, TV, etc] - peak of manufacturing, mkt down 20% 2007 Global Financial Crisis (all perpetrators were bailed out) CDO-CDS insurance extreme leveraging, DJIA down 54% 2057 Super Macro - the case for 2019/2020 2019 90 years from the 1929 crash 2019 45 y half-cycle from 1974 low (OPEC oil crisis) 2020 90 years from 1930 collapse 2020 300 years from 1720 [South Sea Bubble, Mississippi Land Crisis] 2020 200 years from 1819/1820 Land Panic 2020 100 years from 1920 Land Panic What happened in 2020 pandemic - 100/200/300/400 year market crash Feb2020 - 90 yr cryptocurrency takes off - bubble!, 300 year grains took off - 50 yr cycle Pancholi followers had been pre-briefed! China cycles 1899 Boxer Rebellion 1934-35 The Long March (+ 84 years = 2019) 1959 Tibetan uprising 1989 Tiananmen Square 2019 Hong Kong - Trade War - covid 19 Pandemic cycles 1618 Smallpox (killed NorthAmerican aboriginees) 1717 Measles 1817-24 Cholera 1918-20 Spanish flu (Pancholi states that it started in USA, military base!) 2019-2? covid19 Virus cycles - 18.6 year (trigger 100 year pandemic cycles) 1967 Hong Kong flu 1981-4 Aids/HIV 2002 SARS (November) 2019-2? covid19 Airline industry 2001 9/11 2020 covid Grains 50 year War cycle 82-84 year 1861-65 US Civil war 1853-56 Crimean [France, UK, Russia, Ottoman] Russia lost 1939-45 WW2 2021-23 ??? War 10y cycle (years ending in 1&2) Howell - not so convincing The case for 2022 1914 + 108yrs outbreak of WWI 3*36 year cycles or 6*18 year cycles generational cycle 1933+90 Rooseelt banned "hoarding" of gold 2023 cryptocurrency?? 08********08 #] 19Sep2022 +-----+ #] limiting more downside - S&P500 has already sunk 18% this year, By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fearing-a-hawkish-fed-heres-whats-likely-limiting-more-downside-in-the-stock-market-according-to-jpmorgans-marko-kolanovic-11663620514?mod=newsviewer_click Fearing a hawkish Fed? Here’s what’s likely limiting more downside in the stock market, according to JPMorgan’s Marko Kolanovic. Last Updated: Sept. 19, 2022 at 4:55 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 19, 2022 at 4:48 p.m. ET The S&P 500 has already sunk 18% this year &&&&&&&& (I didn't blog - just liked Egbert's back-of-the-envelope) Darryl Egbert 48 minutes ago This guy is clueless. Now that the Fed "put" has been removed, the most important factor determining the market direction is valuation (finally true again), and markets are overvalued by a factor of four. He is banking on the notion that if our economy turns south (because the debt Ponzi economy for the last 13 years falters), the Fed will back with the "put". Sorry, free market forces are a couple of trillion times more powerful than central banks. Reality is coming back with a vengeance. michael sauk 36 minutes ago what do you mean markets are overvalued by a factor of 4???? If the Dow is 31,000, what do you think it should be? 9000? educate us? Darryl Egbert 14 minutes ago I thought I have already provided you with some data. The long-term historical return on equities has been 9.5% (not the last 35 years - before the Fed "put"). That took the form of 4% in dividends and 5.5% in appreciation. That 5.5% appreciation line can be seen as a straight upwardly sloping line on a semi log plot. The S&P was around 100 in 1980 (and still in 1982). If you take the 100 and grow it at the 5.5% appreciation rate compounded annually, you will get to ~950 in 2022. You can get there graphically by extrapolating the long-term trend line (semi log) pre-1980 to today. Another approach will get the same answer. The current PE ratio for the S&P is ~20, but 30-40% of the current EPS are an illusion created by debt financed corporate buybacks which created "empty" EPS. Adjust for that and the current PE ratios are 30. Also, corporate profit margins are double their historical mean - to which they always reverted (competition caps profit margins over the long-run in free market economy). Reversion to the mean on PMs combined with "empty" earnings adjustment result the current PE ratio being ~60. The median long-term PE ratio is 14. Both this methodology and the first I mentioned get to almost the same exact answer. Go look up John Hussman's site, he gets to the same answer using similar but still different approaches. 08********08 #] 17Sep2022 +-----+ #] This is what the Social Security crisis looks like, By Brett Arends https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-what-the-social-security-crisis-looks-like-11663254261?mod=newsviewer_click This is what the Social Security crisis looks like Last Updated: Sept. 17, 2022 at 3:49 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 15, 2022 at 11:04 a.m. ET Americans are ready to give up money just to make sure they get something &&&&&&&& Howell - "... Voters could usefully start by demanding a clear, on the record commitment from every candidate that they will ensure Social Security meets its commitments to every American. ..." I think that comment exemplifies what is going wrong - a day care center for adults mentality. Cheap promises led to beliefs that pensions were fully paid for, and were iron clad. That approach has won elections for generations. In a democracy, we force politicians to do stupid things that will blow up in our faces, and when it does, we scapegoat the politicians (or business, or whatever). Voters have demanded that we spend far beyond our means, live the easy life by debt, and put good intentions far ahead of tough decisions necessary to make things work. Those most vulnerable are most vulnerable to having to believe what s being peddled by academics and policy civil servants (very priviledged classes who don't have to worry, like the monarchies of old supposedly). It's definitely a boomer thing (I'm a retired boomer), but I suspect that the younger generations are even worse? +-----+ #] Zenflo blogrep @ZenFlo, Thanks. I hope you are right, but I still feel that a Fed or Treasury blitz of cash can reverse the markets quickly, and I think that our [government, academic] experts are well-thinking by intentions yet non-thinking in reality, responding more to their political beliefs than realities that they cannot see. Post (2000, 2008, 2020) crashes may have proved that overwhelming cash can over-whelm. In another sense, it may not matter, as any system (modern Western socialist, ancient, Communist, monarchy, dictatorship) tends to get into the same traps (eg debt) and in the end responds in much the same way, often with the same outcomes (Ibn Khaldun (Muqquadimah, ~1410), Italian anlysis at the time of Machiaveli, Alfredo Pareto early 1900s, Wilhelm Abel 1935, David Fischer (The Great Wave, 1996), Benoit Mandelbrot (The Mis-behaviour of Markets, ?2002?), Harry Dent 1988 etc, Ray Dalio (Changing World order 2021). I cannot do regressions at present as I am in the middle of a massive revamp of all of my computer programs, but I think that a strong argument can be made that we are in a late hyper-inflationary stage for financial assets. Compare semi-log trends 1900-1926 versus the sawtooth like rises ~1985-1995, (leaving out hi-tech bubble 1995-2003), ~2010-2018, Mar2020-Dec2021. Perhaps our economists are like frogs in a beaker of slowly warming water... /home/bill/SG6/web/economics, markets/market data/SLregress/220802 SLregress, detrend/semi-log SP500 1872-1940 TV,yahoo,article.png 08********08 #] 16Sep2022 +-----+ #] A further 27% drop in the S&P 500 could be coming if inflation hawks are right, By Steve Goldstein https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-further-27-drop-in-the-s-p-500-could-be-coming-if-inflation-hawks-are-right-goldman-sachs-team-warns-11663324889?mod=newsviewer_click A further 27% drop in the S&P 500 could be coming if inflation hawks are right, Goldman Sachs team warns Last Updated: Sept. 16, 2022 at 7:22 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 16, 2022 at 6:41 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day &&&&&&&& Howell - "... the downside to both equities and government bonds could still be substantial, even after the damage that we have already seen ...” Goldman's statement is only one of many ways to describe this. One unconventional alternative is that : 1) We have seen no damage over the last year, just a market re-valuation towards normal long-term levels, and yet which are still very pricey. Of course, no-one called it "damage" during the covid hyper-stimulation of the markets, but perhaps that was the real damage? 2) One might expect >=30% lower SP500 levels from Dec2021, compared to the ~20% drop so far. This scenario implies we have another >=10% to fall? This tenuous number is based on my vastly-too-simplistic model of 10yr forward [SP500 P/E, SP500 earnings growth rate, 10y US T-bond rates], from Dec2021 [22, 15%/yr, 1.5%/yr], to a "mythical historical norm" [15, 2.7%/yr, 5.5%/yr]. That mythical PE ratio of 15 is much higher than what my chart suggests, but I will leave it at that because of the point below. 3) Intra-crash financial asset inflation rates since ~1990 seem to be strongly accelerating. Perhaps hyper-inflation will be seen first on financial markets, then consumer markets? That would parallel the very modest past year? The rate of [debt, deficit] growth and financial asset inflation throw a cloud over all historical contexts. SP500 PE ratios - 22 is right off my graph and is close to some estimates of the time, my graph yields PE ~4 to 5 with the [2.7%/yr, 5.5%/yr], SP500 earnings from 100 Mar2017 to 200 Apr2022 -> 100%/5 yr -> 2 power (1/5) = 15% normal interest rate 15.29 Jan1980 27.59 Nov2002 -> (27.5 / 15.29) power (1/22) = 2.7% normal interest rate pre-2000 T-bond rates were > 5.5% from 1968-1998 +-----+ can download data!! https://www.macrotrends.net/1324/s-p-500-earnings-history S&P 500 Earnings - 90 Year Historical Chart This interactive chart compares the S&P 500 index with its trailing twelve month earnings per share (EPS) value back to 1926. https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-earnings-chart S&P 500 PE Ratio - 90 Year Historical Chart This interactive chart shows the trailing twelve month S&P 500 PE ratio or price-to-earnings ratio back to 1926. 08********08 #] 15Sep2022 +-----+ #] Ray Dalio for rates reaching this level, stocks will take a 20% hi, By Barbara Kollmeyer https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ray-dalio-says-watch-out-for-rates-hitting-this-level-because-wall-street-stocks-will-take-a-20-hit-11663239288?mod=newsviewer_click Ray Dalio says watch out for rates reaching this level, because Wall Street stocks will take a 20% hit Last Updated: Sept. 15, 2022 at 9:45 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 15, 2022 at 6:54 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day &&&&&&&& Howell - Listen to all, not just the "big shots", of course with your own "concept spam filter". Multiple conflicting hypothesis can jar you out of beliefs that can get you into trouble. I know little about Siegel except for the accolades, and I do like most of his ideas. However, I'm not aware of anything he's done that compares with Dalio's historical big picture (as an echo of great historical works going back centuries at least), and real-world success. 08********08 #] 14Sep2022 +-----+ #] Russia has spent $300 million to covertly ‘manipulate democracies from the inside,’, By Associated Press https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russia-has-spent-300-million-to-covertly-manipulate-democracies-from-the-inside-u-s-says-01663102499?mod=newsviewer_click Russia has spent $300 million to covertly ‘manipulate democracies from the inside,’ U.S. says in diplomatic cable Last Updated: Sept. 14, 2022 at 4:14 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 13, 2022 at 4:54 p.m. ET U.S. aims to expose secret global influence campaign by Putin &&&&&&&& Howell - This article sounds like the thief who cries "au voleur". 300 M$ is completely miniscule compared to our own disinformation from all parties (media, academia, politics, markets, foreign governments & embassies, etc). Maybe some of the foreign propaganda is not as bad as a lot of our own media. +-----+ #] The next financial crisis may already be brewing, By Joseph Adinolfi https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-next-financial-crisis-may-already-be-brewing-but-not-where-investors-might-expect-11663170963?mod=newsviewer_click The next financial crisis may already be brewing — but not where investors might expect Last Updated: Sept. 14, 2022 at 1:18 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 14, 2022 at 11:56 a.m. ET As the Fed prepares to kick its balance-sheet runoff into high gear, some on Wall Street are worried that thinning Treasury-market liquidity could create a perfect storm. &&&&&&&U Howell - While there have been several good articles explaining potential pain with Fed deleveraging over the last week, some over the 9+ months after the Fed commented on it, I really don't understand why this is any kind of surprise (especially to [market, academic]). A few rare analysts have commented on this from the very start (take a date - 2007-09 bailout, 2020 covid bailout, maybe 2018 glitch). This "blank state of mind" is a good match for current complaints of a "bad market" when it simply easing from over-priced levels given a changing [interest rate, growth, deficit, debt] environment. While comments on interest rates and valuations are abundant, I've only seen Ben Reynold's data plots and my own overly-simple model for future 10y [earnings growth, discount rates, T-bond rate, P/E ratio]. There are a lot of moving parts to the markets, but mostly lips rather than insights? Both inflation and inflationary expectations seem to be leaking from financial markets to consumer markets at an increasing rate, and this still has a very long ways to go following 10 years of gap!? 08********08 #] 12Sep2022 +-----+ #] U.K.’s New Economic Strategy Will Soon Confront Reality, By Jonathan Portes https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/uk-economic-strategy-truss-europe-51662996714?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The U.K.’s New Economic Strategy Will Soon Confront Reality Published: Sept. 12, 2022 at 11:34 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - This was a good article, and merits comment. I sure hope others have much better comments than mine below... "... The U.K.’s New Economic Strategy Will Soon Confront Reality ..." There is NO chance of that. Starting with university professors and students, voters, and now even us old retired types, nobody wants to see reality. We just want to see what we want to see. "... Standard Keynesian analysis, which 10 years ago suggested more borrowing, now says the opposite. ..." Keynes' theories were always inevitably translated to "just keep spending". His ideas are useless without "anti-Keynes" governments intervals, the one requiring the other. All theories are wrong, most are also useless. +-----+ #] bear market in stocks would expose 3 ‘naked swimmers.’, By Barbara Kollmeyer https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-three-potential-naked-swimmers-threaten-stocks-and-financial-markets-11662980665?mod=newsviewer_click A second leg down for the bear market in stocks would expose 3 ‘naked swimmers.’ That won’t be pretty. Last Updated: Sept. 12, 2022 at 10:29 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 12, 2022 at 7:04 a.m. ET Critical information for the U.S. trading day &&&&&&&& Howell - Wow! Very interesting Deusch Bank survey. Sometimes it's easier to see things clearly from a distance (trees versus forests), but are their own self-induced problems with [oil, gas, energy] coloring their view of the US, are they about to launch modular fusion energy (some great German alternative physics on that), or is their view a reflection of a growing global belief that the US will never pay back its debts, and the Germans will have to use a Russia-China-India-OPEC reserve currency? None of the above : I'm sure I'm wrong. But the question still lingers. 08********08 #] 11Sep2022 +-----+ #] What investors need to know as Fed shrinks balance sheet at faster pace, By William Watts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-wild-card-that-could-sink-stocks-what-investors-need-to-know-about-the-feds-accelerating-qt-11662769412?mod=newsviewer_click Stock-market wild card: What investors need to know as Fed shrinks balance sheet at faster pace Last Updated: Sept. 11, 2022 at 5:22 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 10, 2022 at 8:15 a.m. ET Accelerated ‘quantitative tightening’ could stoke volatility, analysts and investors warn &&&&&&&& Howell - It's laudable to calculate the Year-Over-Year R-squared of the Fed balance sheet versus SP500 market cap that is not driven by earnings. But I doubt that's an adequate analysis? During the housing bubble, CDO leveraging was supposedly a factor of 20 of the underlying mortgages? (I'm not at all sure about that, probably wrong). Banking system levelaging is similar, so is there not a comparable factor with Fed balance sheet increases (leveraging)? A factor of 20 times 5G$ Fed balance sheet is a big number, and is possibly completely wrong. However, my impression from Fed statements is that they have NO intention of reducing their balance by the ~5T$ added for covid, only perhaps 1/4 to maybe 1/3 of that, and I question even that. It's clear that modern academics and policy makers would be more than happy to dump boatloads of cash into the system again to save it by making the drivers even worse. Paul Volker did things because there were still voters and attitudes that accepted tough medicine. That won't happen again until if and when there is a system crash. Machines might perhaps save the day, but people won't. +-----+ #] EsotericTrading, BTC Possible Bottom November 8th https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/JW9C1hqh-BTC-Possible-Bottom-November-8th/ BTC Possible Bottom November 8th Bitcoin / U.S. Dollar (INDEX:BTCUSD) 21755.94 −91.58 −0.42% EsotericTrading 8 hours ago &&&&&&&& Howell -100 coins cheer to each : @EsotericTrading, @Ben_vouh My first attempted reply got chopped up. @EsotericTrading, @Ben_vouh Amazing correspondence of 07-08Nov2022 dates, as you both remarked. But Esoteric, I'm lost with respect to the 4-year period - not Jupiter (~11.8 yr), or at first glance not beating frequency with Venus or Mars. It is close to double Ivanka Charvatov's "short period". I have high confidence in her work as I reproduced her barycentric treffoil patters over the last 2,400 years. Your 4 year period is also similar to an ENSO-like period (El Nino Southern Oscillation). Congressional election in November too. 08********08 #] 09Sep2022 +-----+ #] Former Fed Trader Predicts Ugly Times as the Central Bank Shrinks Its Balance Sheet, By Lisa Beilfuss https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/federal-reserve-quantitative-tightening-stock-market-51662736146?mod=newsviewer_click A Former Fed Trader Predicts Ugly Times as the Central Bank Shrinks Its Balance Sheet Last Updated: Sept. 9, 2022 at 5:41 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 9, 2022 at 11:11 a.m. ET By Lisa Beilfuss &&&&&&&& Howell - Fantastic insights from Joseph Wang!! I had been wondering if Social Engineering would kill long-term bond markets, just like "video killed the radio star". So now the government lending to the government, buying its own bonds, setting it own rules, all while most of the former players have picked up their marbles and gone home. Maybe next to suffer is happiness with being paid back by hyper-inflating financial markets, not to mention that we are crowding out banana republics who won't be happy? Should make an online game of this (wait a minute...). Howell - Although many comment on supply chain disruptions and lingering covid shutdowns for inflationary pressures, I wonder if "leakage" of "financial asset inflation" to the consumer side isn't the bigger issue. Perhaps the Fed is fighting with itself, having contibuted to the huge market spikes during covid. To the extent this may be so, then Fed deleveraging might be doubly necessary. Extrapolating Joseph Wang's comments, perhaps this would require far more [courage, pain] than the [Fed, Treasury] are willing to take the blame for. No worries, there is a whole world of scapegoats to choose from for "monsters of our own creation". +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-3-stock-market-benchmarks-nailed-the-dot-com-bubble-in-2000-heres-what-theyre-saying-now-11662626789?mod=newsviewer_click &&&&&&&& Howell - Seems like a mess of combining numbers of the disparate types and fussiness (growth rates, rates, huge assumptions about the distant future). Don't need these at all for [2000, 2008], but if you did anyone should be able to come up with completely different criteria working just as well. "... My conclusion is that stocks look like a substantially better long-run investment than 10-year Treasury bonds, but not by a once-in-a-lifetime amount. ..."??? No kidding, while the social engineering of the markets is so tightly controllling the markets, and the statement not being really any different that what has always been said. +-----+ #] Biden finalized his plan to rein in Big Tech, By Jon Swartz https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-finalized-his-plan-to-reign-in-big-tech-big-tech-wasnt-invited-11662754059?mod=newsviewer_click Biden finalized his plan to rein in Big Tech. Big Tech wasn’t invited. Last Updated: Sept. 9, 2022 at 5:08 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 9, 2022 at 4:07 p.m. ET White House outlines targets in tech push after ‘listening session’ that was largely populated with administration officials and representatives of only two tech companies, both of which are longtime critics of Big Tech’s dominance &&&&&&&&& Howell - Sometimes it appears to me that there are wilder thoughts from those in [political power, media, civil service, etc]s than from [business, social media]. At least there are still good sources of information online (for now) when all else fails. Or is it too late now? Is this Gilligan's Island, Lilliput, or Orweell's Animal Farm? 08********08 #] 08Sep2022 +-----+ #] Yellen pledges to target high-earning Americans, By Robert Schroeder https://www.marketwatch.com/story/yellen-pledges-to-target-high-earning-americans-in-bid-to-keep-u-s-finances-on-sound-footing-11662663190?mod=mw_more_headlines Yellen pledges to target high-earning Americans in bid to keep U.S. finances on ‘sound footing’ Last Updated: Sept. 8, 2022 at 4:09 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 8, 2022 at 2:52 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Amazing, as elections approach, on multiple fronts everything looks pre-ordained from Ray Dalio's "Changing world order". This is yet another of many examples. Irrespective of [constitutional, political, economic, market, financial, judicial] system or [century, millenia], they all seem to fall into the same traps, try the same bailouts, and mostly suffer the same failures. Gordon West - Ray Dalio is a student of history and has some interesting observations. I am not sure all of it is actionable from an individual investor perspective, but interesting nonetheless. Howell - I very much like your comment questioning "actionable". It does not seem to me that there is much real "prediction" reflected in markets beyond a few months to a year (trend is your friend), and often not even that. Look at long-term rates, for which immediate variations are similar across short rates too, and for which there is a miserable record of [state, phase] changes (eg break in trend, the important part). Perhaps more important is that to use any of it for investing, you must predict timing for the "school of fish" thinking of market participants, and the rare insightful interventions that can occur. Are we bound to following the Greater Fools, [hedge, bail]ing at key points? Value investing used to be an option, but I feel that social engineering of the markets penalised that. Not included : I am struggling with this for "dead systems" as well (astro, geological, etc), which should be vastly easier than for [learn, evolve]ing (biological, human) systems. But there are very few candles of light in a cacaphoney of prophets, no real solutions so far, and you should not wait for me to come up with something... +-----+ #] White House mulls order to screen U.S. tech investments in China, By John D. McKinnon https://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-house-mulls-order-to-screen-u-s-tech-investments-in-china-other-countries-11662682452?mod=newsviewer_click White House mulls order to screen U.S. tech investments in China, other countries Published: Sept. 8, 2022 at 8:14 p.m. ET New effort drawing concern from some U.S. businesses and investors &&&&&&&& Howell - Global relative strengths in [math, science, tech] have shifted greatly over decades. Cut-off of US investments may help catalyze a sharp acceleration of this change globally, including financial industries? What about reserve currencies? +-----+ #] Big Tech Stocks Are Still Expensive, By Jacob Sonenshine https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/big-tech-stocks-are-still-expensive-why-thats-important-for-the-market-51662671973?mod=newsviewer_click Big Tech Stocks Are Still Expensive. Why That’s Important For the Market. Published: Sept. 9, 2022 at 12:30 a.m. ET Big Tech stocks are still expensive, despite all the market’s down times this year. And that’s key for the S&P 500. Now, the giants— Apple (ticker: AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOGL) are two examples—haven’t walked away untouched. They’ve gotten caught in the selloff just like the rest of the S&P 500, which is down about 16% from its early January all-time high. The key metric is the earnings multiple. Apple and Alphabet—along with Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Tesla (TSLA), and Nvidia (NVDA)—trade at an average forward earnings multiple of about 38 times. And that’s ??just below -> well above?? the sub-17 times aggregate multiple for the S&P 500. Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce, for example, lets it keep taking market share from bricks-and-mortar retailers—and even other online sellers. Tesla remains the leader in electric vehicles, which are displacing gas-fueled vehicles. Nvidia is entering a brand-new metaverse business, which adds new opportunities. Analysts expect these three—the fastest-growing of the seven Big Tech names—to see earnings per share compound by at least 20% annually for the next three years, according to FactSet. The upshot: The multiples of these stocks will stay high. And that’s key for the S&P 500 because high multiples for Big Tech keeps the index’s aggregate multiple—and consequently its price level—elevated. The index is market cap-weighted, which means companies with higher market capitalizations have more influence on the index’s level. The combined market cap for the seven tech names is roughly $8.8 trillion—just over a quarter of the index’s total market value. What investors should realize—or remember—is that if Big Tech multiples sink fast so will the stock prices—and the lower prices would drag down the S&P 500. &&&&&&&& Howell - Well-written, timely article. +-----+ #] Reality tends to set in as economic reports are revised, By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/theres-one-big-flaw-in-the-idea-that-the-u-s-is-in-a-goldilocks-economy-11662474421?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: There’s one big flaw in the idea that the U.S. is in a ‘Goldilocks’ economy Last Updated: Sept. 6, 2022 at 3:45 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 6, 2022 at 10:26 a.m. ET Reality tends to set in as economic reports are revised &&&&&&&&& Mike Staples - Almost no working age adult has seen the market and economic turmoil of the 1970s. We’ve had a generally benign investing environment, minus a few hiccups, where stocks advanced and interest rates declined. We also had mild inflation. Those who came of age during the present hyper tense are used to speed, whether in downloads, package delivery, or restaurant meals. This mindset may be projected onto the current downturn, with common expectations of brief difficulties, followed by a return to ‘normal.” If this doesn’t happen, there may be an added problem: like a wildfire creating its own whirlwind, the mass disappointment from a delayed recovery may make the downdraft worse. Howell - Agreed. But there is a difference now - the [shallow, unthinking] impressions that "things are good because markets hit all time highs". Apart from frequent divergences of [markets, economy, jobs, etc], we have since 2000 (some say since 1987) in a period of exponential inflation of financial asset values, accompanied by what would have been considered impossible [deficit, debt] levels. Investors are worried about "ingrained inflation expectation" in consumers, but they have long had that affliction far worse than consumers. It is very rare to see anyone who recognizes that. Ray Dalio's book "Changing world order" does a nice job of this, and deeper academic papers and books have been available since Wilhelm Abel in 1935, or Italian anlysis at the time of Machiaveli. Brandon Hunt - I agree. Most market participants have been bullish for so long they don't realize they have become perma-bulls, who cherry-pick data how they like, to fit their thesis, and ignore any data to the contrary. The perma-bears have cried wolf so many times that they are easily ignored, even when they are right. The perma-bulls are like a person who lived their entire life in a big city, visits Yellowstone park, sees a grizzly bear, thinks it looks cute and cuddly, and ends up getting mauled because they didn't respect what it was capable of. There is very little fear of a bear market right now from the majority. Howell - Brandon Hunt - well stated. One of the most rare beasts are long term (>>5 year) forecasters who are perma-bulls for a period (eg 10-20 years), then perma-bears, all the while being 5-10 years ahead of the crowd (often too early!) and ususally correct, while the overwhelming majority of experts were wrong until just [before, after] changes hit. But at those time-scales, timing is a bit fuzzy, and I don't know anyone who predicted the huge changes from the Social Engineering of the marketplace, and attitudes of [voter, market, business] types (except perhaps George Orwell and Ayn Rand). +-----+ #] 4 bear scenarios investors should keep in mind, By Isabel Wang https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-low-can-the-stock-market-go-4-bear-scenarios-investors-should-keep-in-mind-11662672914?mod=newsviewer_click How low can the stock market go? 4 bear scenarios investors should keep in mind Published: Sept. 8, 2022 at 5:35 p.m. ET Bears have S&P price targets that are 15% to 35% below current levels, says DataTrek’s Colas &&&&&&&& Howell - Colas said : “If ‘rest of world’ stocks have already given up their pandemic gains, why should U.S. large caps be any different,”. Maybe because the SP500 still has ~15% to fall by that criteria, and the foreign "flight to safety" may partially reverse when those economies pick up? The 3,386 & 3,236 projections are also roughly at that level. It would have been nice to see a range of bullish levels too, keeping in mind that "financial asset inflation" rates may already have increased from the ~83 year semi-log trend (we'll have to wait 20 years to confirm). = (4009.5 - 3386)/4009.5 Mimo Wol - I know languages and read/listen to foreign analysts too. The reason the US market didn't drop so much is simple - it is relatively best positioned nowadays. The reasoning it has to drop to the level of other markets just to do the same does not make ANY sense. What they are saying is they relatively favor US stocks because the US is ahead and probably will be first to deal with the inflation/recession mess (whatever happens earlier). Howell - Yes, I agree that it MIGHT not make sense to simply assume that the US will follow the rest of the world, but Colas is merely stating that as a reason for the 3,386 level. My comment was about its implications if taken as a given. The usual description of "flight to safety" is fear-based (as with bonds), somewhat in the way you describe. While I'm interested in bull [target, reasoning], the deviations (rather than correlations) of global financial markets from one another, is even more interesting. But most important to me for current work is : How far can [deficit, debt] loads go, and to what degreee might the "advanced economies" start to resemble post-1989 Japan? +-----+ #] Powell says the Fed won’t be distracted by politics, By Greg Robb https://www.marketwatch.com/story/powell-says-the-fed-wont-be-distracted-by-politics-as-it-moves-strongly-to-bring-inflation-down-11662644203?mod=newsviewer_click Powell says the Fed won’t be distracted by politics as it moves ‘strongly’ to bring inflation down Last Updated: Sept. 8, 2022 at 10:58 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 8, 2022 at 9:36 a.m. ET ‘We will keep at it until the job is done,’ Fed chairman says &&&&&&&& Howell - "... the central bank won’t be distracted by political criticism ..." Hmm, let's see how that works. In any case the covid pumping seems to have had a substantial political basis (unemployment-driven), as does the non-free market control over interest rates? From another perspective, one fear is that inflation becomes ingrained into expectations on the consumer side, but it's clear that "financial asset inflation" far above GDP growth and more normal long rates, is deeply entrenched in investor mentality (probably since post 2000 hi-tech crash, perhaps since 1987). So one might think by the crying of investors even though valuations are still quite high by some measures? 08********08 #] 07Sep2022 +-----+ #] TV Deus, USOIL Update https://www.tradingview.com/u/Deus/ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/USOIL/k1ElQJV5-USOIL-Update/ USOIL Update CFDs on WTI Crude Oil (TVC:USOIL) 81.85 0.01 0.01% Deus 2 hours ago &&&&&&&& Howell - Super interesting market right now. There seems to be a strong belief that the US attempt to cap Russian oil price will work, or that reduced economic expectations (even recession?) will bring prices towards pre-covid levels? As with the China semi-conductor blitz (have to build big time), re-channeling oil to non-US pact (eg India, China, etc), and the creation of alternate services (eg insurance) arrangements might ensue? The Russian ruble peg to gold was an impressive move, what are we going to see next, a faster emergence of an alternate reserve currency? Mid-term shifts without coal seem far-fetched, while fingers might be crossed for 2035 commercial fusion energy? Risky, volatile situation. +------+ #] Economic Woes Push China to Reconsider Bigger Stimulus, Tanner Brown https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/economic-woes-push-china-to-reconsider-bigger-stimulus-51662563136?mod=newsviewer_click Economic Woes Push China to Reconsider Bigger Stimulus Published: Sept. 7, 2022 at 11:05 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Looks like China's stimulus is nowhere near the recent US levels, at least not yet. +-----+ #] Russia Is Making a Killing Selling Oil. A New Plan May Finally Stop That, By Rachel Ziemba https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/russia-oil-price-cap-g7-energy-51662561412?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Russia Is Making a Killing Selling Oil. A New Plan May Finally Stop That. Published: Sept. 7, 2022 at 10:39 a.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - How hard would it be for [China, Russia, India, Iran, etc] to build the "services", along with a serious alternative to the US dollar? (apparently the latter is a difficult challenge, but...) Also, is the zero-covid China policy helping them indirectly, by forcing their quick advance with dvanced technologies? +-----+ #] Mortgage applications hit 22-year lows, By Aarthi Swaminathan https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-sign-of-a-rebound-mortgage-applications-hit-22-year-lows-as-home-buyers-pull-back-11662549800?mod=newsviewer_click ‘No sign of a rebound’: Mortgage applications hit 22-year lows, as home buyers pull back Published: Sept. 7, 2022 at 7:23 a.m. ET Mortgage loan applications fell again this week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said, as fewer people are purchasing homes, or refinancing their loans. &&&&&&&& Howell - "... Some sellers and builders are so put off by the fall in buyer demand that they’re pivoting to the rental market. ..." I have to wonder if a mid-term trend may be towards more rental, less ownership? +-----+ #] If there’s one U.S. company that Americans should root for, it’s Intel, By Cody Willard https://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-theres-one-u-s-company-that-americans-should-root-for-its-intel-11662488692?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: If there’s one U.S. company that Americans should root for, it’s Intel Published: Sept. 6, 2022 at 2:24 p.m. ET It might become the most important company over the next 10 years &&&&&&&& No mention of AMD's spinoff GlobalFoundries Inc? They still seem to be manufacturing in NY state, although I'm not sure. There must be a constellation of small companies in very advanced technologies in the USA? 08********08 #] 06Sep2022 +-----+ #] Surging U.S. Treasury yields send ripples through stock market, other assets, By William Watts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasury-yields-jump-amid-central-bank-tightening-trend-11662460431?mod=newsviewer_click Surging U.S. Treasury yields send ripples through stock market, other assets Last Updated: Sept. 6, 2022 at 5:06 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 6, 2022 at 6:33 a.m. ET 30-year Treasury bond yield highest since May 2014 &&&&&&&& Howell - The Fed's primary job isn't to boost the markets, their tools are somewhat limited, and their balance sheet is extremely heavy by historical standards. Interest rates are still at lows since 1964, valuations are very high, and the huge financial asset inflation during the covid [Fed, Treasury] money-pumping era was fun on the way up (when almost everyone was praising the Fed, naysayers being criticized). In the background, there is little enthusiasm for [debt, deficit] reductions, and finally even Blackrock is noticing that might hurt. There's nothing wrong to returning to "somewhat normal" valuations, and the financial market trends don't always correlate to economic performance. Furthermore, the 25-50% of GDP stimulus over 2+ years of covid yielded not much in terms of real GDP growth (diminishing returns). The great fun may be over, or not, but perhaps that just means that investors have to get back to "normal expectations" and do their homework expecting less than the hyper-returns of the recent past, assuming that this doesn't crash? +-----+ #] Florida-sized ‘doomsday glacier’ in Antarctica is melting faster than thought - By Rachel Koning Beals https://www.marketwatch.com/story/florida-sized-doomsday-glacier-in-antarctica-is-melting-faster-than-thought-study-says-11662481260?mod=newsviewer_click Florida-sized ‘doomsday glacier’ in Antarctica is melting faster than thought, study says Last Updated: Sept. 6, 2022 at 1:01 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 6, 2022 at 12:20 p.m. ET By Rachel Koning Beals Thwaites Glacier, which is ‘holding on by its fingernails,’ is warming faster from underneath, putting stress on the ice shelf holding it in place &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting, time-frames for melting ice-shelves are now sounding like time-frames proposed a decade or two ago for the big T-rises coming out of the last glaciation. I guess it's easy to do that when the concept goes with your scientific beliefs, rather than against (i.e. conclusions-driven research). It used to be fun arguing in the bar over "sea-level rise" in a glass of rye with ice cubes. The un-initiated would often fall for it, and we would all get a good laugh. As for the rate of calving of glacier sheets and precipitation versus temperature arguments, well, didn't work so well in the bars, but didn't work so well in the [university, government] labs either. But hats off for the data-gathering, and here's hoping that [concepts, discussions] aren't totally controlled by the [priests, disciples] of science fashions -> cults -> religions. Not that it matters much, perceptions will go one way, reality another, as it has always been. +-----+ #] DropBox recommended by ?investment bank? &&&&&&&& Howell - I'm always slow to understand technology use. Perhaps DropBox has evolved far beyond my experiences several years ago, but it had no-where close to the [power, flexibility, privacy, control] of a simple ssh (secure shell setup). However, it seems to me that DropBox does make sense for not having to do constant security Updates, economies of scale for large customers, and large-scale distributed integration of huge networks of collaborations (eg projects, business, marketing), but I don't know if the latter is even a sigificant market for DropBox? Maybe someone can clarify that... +-----+ #] ‘Why shouldn’t it be as bad as the 1970s?’ Historian Niall Ferguson - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-shouldnt-it-be-as-bad-as-the-1970s-historian-niall-ferguson-warns-the-world-is-sleepwalking-into-an-era-of-political-and-economic-upheaval-akin-to-the-1970s-only-worse-11662231615?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Why shouldn’t it be as bad as the 1970s?’ Historian Niall Ferguson warns the world is sleepwalking into an era of political and economic upheaval akin to the 1970s — only worse. Last Updated: Sept. 5, 2022 at 3:53 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 3, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& Michael Ray - Dont' forget the mini skirt:-) Howell - Maybe it wouldn't work so well today. Too many of us old-timers are obese, and today's teenagers may even have us beat? +--+ Najur Runganadhan - What appears to be ill-considered by Mr. Ferguson ( and the majority of observers) is how much economies and demographics have changed since the 70's. Further, while there may be surface parallels between today and the 70's, the fundamental difference is inflation today is primarily being driven by a global epidemic that is still continuing to deeply impact supply chains, albeit at a lower degree of severity. What is clear that the era of low inflation is over - the historical drivers - China's WTO entry, accelerating baby boomer retirements & the end of the cold war led to an ahistorical dip in inflation drivers. The Ukraine war simply made the situation worse. As such, a fixation on achieving a return to a 2% nominal rate is deeply foolish - the Fed and other central banks should confess that monetary tools are ineffective given that supply chain is the fundamental issue and that what is required is a much more realistic acceptance that inflation is likely to run at a nominal 4-5% for the forseeable future - the costs of artificially suppressing inflation to achieve a 2% goal will likely subject the global economy to a deep recession, so that strikes me as a cure being much worse than the disease. Howell - Nice comments, especially concerning low-inflation drivers. But I wonder if you cut yourself short (as required for blog comments), and got side-tracked by popular news. Comments on [inflation, interest rates, debt, competitiveness, populist economic theory -> religions, much deeper processes] would be interesting, especially in [contrast, comparison] to deeper history. 08********08 #] 05Sep2022 +-----+ #] Here’s what Morgan Stanley says will fuel another decline in stocks. By Steve Goldstein https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-morgan-stanley-says-will-fuel-another-decline-in-stocks-11662371779?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s what Morgan Stanley says will fuel another decline in stocks Published: Sept. 5, 2022 at 5:56 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein &&&&&&&& Howell - Morgan Stanley's" 1 year leading earnings model" is the best that  I can remember seeing! It's so good that I am suspicious, but I also hope that it is somewhat-real. A question is whether the "train-test-vailidate" iterations to build the model may be subject to "over-training" (as in neural networks), making for risky forecasts that aren't so much a problem if you rebuild a model periodically. But taking the graph at its face value, it seems to be superb at predicting a year ahead major market turning points, a capability that is far more important to following a trend under constant [state, phase] conditions. I am surprised that only the factors [ISM Manufacturing Index, PMI Purchasing Managers Index, Conference Board Consumer Confidence, housing starts, credit spreads] are required, and would have though some kind of [hi, bio, other]-tech indices would also be needed (perhaps I am too biased?). Perhaps a "boomer retirement index" might help too, as some kind of an anchor dragging us down? (I'm a retired boomer) /home/bill/SG6/web/economics, markets/Econometric models/220905 Morgan Stanley, MktWatch - 1 year leading US earnings model.jpeg 08********08 #] 03Sep2022 +-----+ #] The stock market typically bottoms before the end of a Fed rate-hike cycle. By Mark Hulbert https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-typically-bottoms-before-the-end-of-a-fed-rate-hike-cycle-heres-how-to-make-that-bet-pay-off-11661850439 The stock market typically bottoms before the end of a Fed rate-hike cycle. Here’s how to make that bet pay off. Last Updated: Sept. 3, 2022 at 9:17 a.m. ET First Published: Aug. 30, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert What to expect when you’re expecting the Fed to pivot &&&&&&&& Howell - Darryl Egbert - I like your comment, but I shudder at the use of linear y-scales for anything longer than 3 months ->the 85 year semi-log trend is quite evident even for 3 months. So my question concerns the saw-tooth-like structures, with periods [01Sep1955-01Jan1973, 02Jun1986-02Jul2007, 01Apr2010-present (ignoring huge hi-tech bubble)] rising at much high than the 85 year trend, separated by crashes or downtrends. This might imply a slower, but consistent "growing exponential, well beyond the normal "inflation-like" exponential (albeit it's not just inflation - real growth is in there too, as well as other factors), it's more like "super-exponential". Do these rising periods reflect a crack-like-addiction-to debt, and if so, what are the implications? Can this go on forever, with tax-by-Fed policy forcing even negative real returns long-term? Is the post-covid rise (much higher rate again), now the "new norm" of modern [economic, monetary] policy? DarrylEgbert Sat 03 Sep 2022 10:24:12 PM Your point on linear scales is spot on and well taken. Semi-logarithmic scale is best for showing constant percentage trendlines. Those are not readily available, and most people would not understand them. I used the linear charts because the degree of change in slope is so dramatic that it still tells the story. To your question of the cause of these rising periods, it is the result of three things. 1) The Fed "put" which was first implemented by Alan Greenspan in October of 1987. This gave investors the belief that any significant drop in equity prices would be met with a response from the Fed to support asset prices. This prevented the standard material corrections from ever materializing. 2) The crack like addition to debt - which is really connected to how the Fed carried out their "put" 3) QE, in which the Fed bought massive quantities of assets, free up the capital that those assets were consuming. That capital then went into other assets like stocks and bonds. Go watch the PBS documentary “The Power of the Fed”. Spells it all out. Another deeper perspective is the book “The Lords of Easy Money - How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy”. Another book I just purchased has some great insights as well - “The Price of Time - The Real Story of Interest”. DarrylEgbert Sat 03 Sep 2022 10:25:15 PM Per how this actually plays out: "There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." – Luwig von Mises. DarrylEgbert Sat 03 Sep 2022 10:28:10 PM One more point. If you do plot the long-term chart on the indices, you will see a significant change in the slope of the trendline starting in the mid-1980s (the "put") and an even greater change in slope after the GFC when the Fed went crazy on stimulative policies like ZIRP and QE. Go pull up a chart of debt and you will see the same inflection points. Mimo Wol 30 August, 2022 It looks like it was due to QE so it depends mainly on QE/QT over the long term. What do you think? DarrylEgbert 30 August, 2022 Replying to Mimo Wol It was both ZIRP and QE. The Fed actually targeted asset price to create the “wealth effect. Go watch the PBS documentary “The Power of the Fed”. Spells it all out. Another deeper perspective is the book “The Lords of Easy Money - How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy”. Another book I just purchased has some great insights as well - “The Price of Time - The Real Story of Interest”. Have not read it yet, but I have seen excerpts as well as an interview with the author. We are in deep trouble and will probably go down the path of Japan. The pain involve with trying to go back to pre-GFC policies would too great at this point. Mimo Wol 30 August, 2022 Replying to Darryl Egbert Thanks for books recommendations. I have the same thought - it will go the way Japan did. In most developed countries. +--+ 05Sep2022 blogrep Howell - Darryl Egbert - I very much appreciate your insightful comments - it helps a great deal to get perspectives from others. Even on TradingView, it's hard to get much response on some aspects of market [behaviour, analysis]. "... 1) The Fed "put" which was first implemented by Alan Greenspan in October of 1987. ..." Nice attribution, I hadn't though of Greenspan and that period of time. I've wondered about Milton Friedmann too. AWESOME quote of Luwig von Mises!! I wasn't aware of him, and that he actually got along with Ayn Rand except for a few points (per wikipedia) is kind of like Greenspan's friendship with Ayn Rand. Do modern economists (eg MMT etc) believe that they can avoid a credit expansion collapse? I susdpect they do, as they don't seem to care about debt or the private sector at all, having strong faith in their economic religions. As with Mimo Wol, I appreciate the PBS and book references. (I wonder if they talk about the Jewish every-50-year-debt-forgiveness, the only multi-year "cycle" that I am aware of in the Bible (apart from perhaps one or two I don't remember), in huge contrast to all ancient societies? I will search for the PBS film (I don't have [TV, Netfilx, etc] - far too addictive for me, and usually far short of quality book content), but I m already avoiding "work reading" to get through Hodges' book on Turing & the Enigma. +--+ Part II Since I started to look at financial markets again at the time of the covid crash, I have done many long-term semi-log graphs of multiple markets (SP500 being one). I do first versions on my computer (QNial programming language), and some I transfer to TradingView as Pine Scripts. I haven't tried to include a link in this blog, as I usually get in trouble for that (I understand, everybody is trying to handle vast spam). In May2022 I started to implement Stephen J. Puetz's "Universal Wave Series" (UWS) for time fractals, and also for price fractals, the latter because the first level of UWS is similar to common Fibonnacci numbers used in technical analysis of markets. More recently I am putting multiple markets on the same semi-log detrended [time, price] multifractal graph, with SP500 going back to 1872, and soon UK100 (for want of a better "symbol" descriptor) back to 1692. Long time series are in "semi-log segments" given very different "inflation rates" (not just inflation, but I'll use that term here). Nowadays, the dominant feature of markets is their exponential rise, but by de-trending, long-term variability across markets has rather ghostly [time, price] multi-fractal consistency. That is why I commented on the "saw-tooth"p pattern of markets since 1955, and the question of whether "current hyper-inflation of markets" is disguised by the periodic setbacks. perhaps the main outcome of modern economics is that it blinds us to what we are doing to ourselves? The most creative that I've seen for time fractals is @fract on TradingView) - again, ghostly results sometimes. https://www.BillHowell.ca/economics, markets/market data/SLregress/220802 SLregress, detrend/detrend StockMkt Indices 1871-2022 PuetzUWS2011.png https://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/market%20data/SLregress/220802%20SLregress,%20detrend/detrend%20StockMkt%20Indices%201871-2022%20PuetzUWS2011.png Darryl Egbert 3 hours ago Replying to William Howell You can find the PBS documentary on the internet with a simple search. There is even a YouTube version, 50 minutes of well spent time. I spent much of career calculating the value of induvial assets and many companies (worked for ExxonMobil). I pretty much did the mathematical due diligence in valuing the largest and most significant opportunities over the past20 years. As such, I think the old fashion way, the value of any company (or asset) is the net present value of its future cash flows. This does not mean there is any single deterministic valuation, because these are future cash flows subject to projections on many parameters, including the proper discount rate. Howell - I also prefer fundamental analysis (it's more like engineering), but you're stuck for time-frames shorter than data-releases (eg trading). I also think Elliot Wave (which almost uniquely forces zig-zag thinking, which helps to fight simple trend tendencies), and especially Robert Prechter's Socionomics, have good points, even though I've never been comfortable with it. Long-term oil pricing behaviour was a shocking illustration that Prechter provided and I didn't want to believe, but whatever. To me, there is also an international supply-and-demand of money. With government debt pumped cash (social engineering of the markets), and a competitive market, people run with perceptions. "Perceptions are their own reality, different from other perceptual realities, all divorced from a reality without perceptions." We are in an Alice in Wonderlands day care center for adults... Not used : Even professional traders (and perhaps their machines) run by market emotion. +-----+ #] ‘The psychology has changed so quickly’, By Christine Idzelis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-psychology-has-changed-so-quickly-why-stock-market-lows-may-be-retested-as-s-p-500-enters-its-weakest-stretch-of-year-11662206547?mod=newsviewer_click Why stock-market lows may be retested as S&P 500 enters its weakest stretch of year Published: Sept. 3, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. ET ‘The September-October period definitely gets more than its share of market weirdness,’ says Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers &&&&&&&& Howell - The graph 'One-year cycle is weak through later October' is labelled by S&P Dow Jones Indices as "based on daily data from 03Jan1929 to 31Dec2021". But it seems to have details that are too-fine (i.e. not smother-smoothed from averaging) to be a long-term average of the annual market cycle? However, the uptrend from Jan2022 to present is definitely more like a long historical average than the 2022 market. What magic mathematical [crystal ball, mirror] are they using? When translated from a historical context to this year, does the [large, annual] mid_August to late-October downtrend belie the reassurances of Ed Clissold of Ned Davis and Bob Doll of Crossmark Global Investments? As is common, the author comments on interest rates, but not the far more important Fed deleveraging (albeit it doesn't sound they will do much, just kick the can down the road). 08********08 #] 02Sep2022 +-----+ #] Parents usually split their estate evenly among their kids. By Morey Stettner https://www.marketwatch.com/story/after-youre-dead-you-cant-explain-it-parents-usually-split-their-estate-evenly-among-their-kids-but-if-they-dont-look-out-11661983011?mod=newsviewer_click ‘After you’re dead, you can’t explain it.’ Parents usually split their estate evenly among their kids. But if they don’t — look out. Last Updated: Sept. 2, 2022 at 10:07 a.m. ET First Published: Aug. 31, 2022 at 5:56 p.m. ET By Morey Stettner Lingering bitterness can lead to litigation or a severing of family ties. &&&&&&&& Howell - Politically-correct advice from modern experts seems so often to go in the opposite direction of anything other than "a fairy tale compromise to zero". Much better to read [Aesop, Grimm]'s fables, and watch TV series based on intra-family backstabbing (usually of the ruling class). If nothing else, it's entertaining, and may help you see your own situation as such. It's also hard to reconcile "a perfect world" with what happens to the highly-variable individual [memory, thinking, emotion]s with advancing age. I'm retired, and getting crazier by the month (I think that's so, but can't really remember). +-----+ #] Opinion: China Blinked on Public-Company Audits. It Won’t Happen Twice. By Paul Leder https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/us-china-audit-displute-deal-51662135576?mod=newsviewer_click Published: Sept. 2, 2022 at 12:21 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& Howell - Brilliant comments : "... But while the breakthrough may resolve a source of conflict between the U.S. and China, this deal says more about China’s focus on shoring up its own markets than about any real change in the relationship between the two countries. ...". "... they were choosing—and not being forced—to delist in the U.S. .." The article then focuses mostly on the threat of delisting by the US. Is the more important issue that China is maturing? In other words it has the usual challenges with : - [corruption, mis-representation] that have hurt many of the guys you had better not hurt - [confidence, credibility] of [investor, business]s - The popular image of a gangster economy is a very normal mis-perception, which should dissolvve after kindergarten, but often doesn't. - efficient market investment allocatons, which require good information, and market decisions relatively independent of [academic, political] bureaucracy. +-----+ #] Beware the Federal Reserve’s double-tightening, By Mark Hulbert https://stocktwits.com/symbol/ONCY If you need one more reason why stocks will likely lose money in September, here it is. Published: Sept. 2, 2022 at 7:35 a.m. ET Another reason to suspect that the Fed’s double-tightening hasn’t yet been fully discounted in stock prices is that in recent years there’s been a close contemporaneous correlation between changes in the Fed’s balance sheet and the S&P 500 SPX, 0.05%. As you can see from the accompanying chart, the S&P 500 rose markedly in the wake of the soaring Fed balance sheet in March 2020 — and has struggled in 2022 as the rate of increase of the Fed’s balance sheet began to flatten. >> neat graph, long not noticed except by me? This is worrisome since the Fed’s balance sheet hasn’t actually declined by much; it simply has stopped growing at its previous rate. That’s about to change, as Deluard notes: “Quantitative tightening will double to $95 billion a month in September. The jump will be all the greater as QT has run behind schedule this summer: the Fed’s balance sheet dropped by $63 billion since QT started on June 1st, about half the promised pace. Furthermore, the recent jump in mortgage rates has reduced prepayments so the Fed will likely need to actively sell mortgage-backed securities to meet its $35 billion monthly quota, rather than passively letting them roll off its balance sheet.” It’s a bad sign that the stock market has already declined so much in the wake of a modest dip in the Fed’s balance sheet. This suggests that equity markets are more addicted to monetary easing than ever. It’s scary to contemplate how much pain will be necessary to cure the markets of its addiction. &&&&&&&& Howell - Insightful article - and its great to see the "Eerie correlation" graph. I've had a similar one since 27Mar2021 based on another market commentators (a year after covid start here). I've long been amazed at how invisible this is to almost all commentators. But is the Fed really going to ramp-up to 95 G$/month deleveraging just before Congressional elections? It seems to me that Fed statements within the last 2 months indicate that they might deleverage for 2.5 years, but only for 1/5 to 1/4 of the 2+ year "covid cash dump" - in other words, not a deleveraging at all, just sufficient twigging for political propaganda purposes. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the [Treasury, Fed] just let rates and the market float (hypothetical only). "Too much stability is poison for a man's soul", but it makes for a perfect environment for highly leveraged investors who know that they will be bailed out & super-paid by taxpayers if their investments go bad (moral hazard at work as usual - we did it, can't blame "them"). Majority "zero pain demand" voters are still addicted to debt, with no major shock in sight to wake us up. 08********08 #] 01Sep2022 prepare-for-an-epic-finale-jeremy-grantham-warns-tragedy-looms-as-superbubble-may-burst https://www.marketwatch.com/story/prepare-for-an-epic-finale-jeremy-grantham-warns-tragedy-looms-as-superbubble-may-burst-11661988022?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_conversation&spot_im_redirect_source=notifications&spot_im_comment_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0001157759_c_2E9HcsC9iuxvB6AtmLwOsyyq8Fa_r_2E9Kom8l1JyTz9vLFvCUmAYVLrs&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true &&&&&&&& Howell blogrep Eric Stone : Things are not at all bad, and remember that things are never so bad that they can't get worse. Market levels, standards of living in the West, etc, etc, are still about 1/3 * rsd (Relative Standard Deviation) or so ABOVE the 85 year semi-log trend-line. Even a full rsd BELOW trend, at the bottom of the 2008 Housing-driven crash, is no basis for claiming the end of the world. I'm not comfortable with ANY of the ideas being floated, even those people are a lot smarter than me. Far more serious commentaries have long been available from Ibn Khaldun (Muqquadimah, ~1410), David Fischer (The Great Wave, 1996), Alfreda Pareto, Benoit Mandelbrot (The Mis-behaviour of Markets, ?2002?). It's also nice to have a modern Wall-Street perspective of Ray Dalio (Changing World Order, 2021). Historically : you ain't seen nothing yet. While it could skyrocket or trash, it is clear that we have NO stomach for voting for hard actions, that we are crack-addicted to debt, and that we are now living in a day care center for adults. My guess : we will drift as societies have been, since long before history began. Until "challenge and response's" first awoken takes charge (Arnold Toynbee). couldn't post all : Eric Stone : "... We want to do something to turn the whole stock market in the U.S. to turn around, and not to have an American business tragedy, which will be a large recovery efforts for our financial systems ..." Howell response : Things are not at all bad, and remember that things are never so bad that they can't get worse. Market levels, standards of living in the West, etc, etc, are still about 1/3 * rsd (Relative Standard Deviation) or so ABOVE the 150 year semi-log trend-line. Even a full rsd BELOW trend, or about the bottom of the 2008 Housing-driven crash, is no basis for claiming the end of the world. Far more serious commentaries have long been available from Ibn Khaldun (Muqquadimah, ~1410), David Fischer (The Great Wave, 1996), Alfreda Pareto, Benoit Mandelbrot (The Mis-behaviour of Markets, ?2002?). It's also nice to have a modern Wall-Street perspective of Ray Dalio (Changing World Order, 2021), although that book is perhaps more a prisoner to Dalio's current political views than the others. On that note, Ibn Khaldun seemed able to be amazingly balanced politically even when his boss at the time (none other than Timur Lehnk) was wiping out Damascus (seems the threat of losing your head can settle down your political views). Perhaps intentions are of little to no value, contrary to [modern, politically-correct] wisdom? Perhaps intentions are far more the basis of our many problems than the source of our solutions? Perhaps ALL of the [political, economic, judicial, constitutional] systems across history get into the same messes, and take a myriad of the same desperate approaches to avoid reality, as we may be doing now? After decades of massive social engineering of the [financial markets, economy] it's hard to say whether there has been much, if any, benefit from the concepts of [government, academic] experts, as compared to the brute power of advancing [science, math, engineering, computing]. Machines do most of the mental work in today's economy, in the same way that they do most of the physical work. The cognitive revolution is only being hinted at. The US is still strong, but it is far from dominant in those areas, as it perhaps was 20 years ago. A roll-over seems to be occuring. 08********08 #] 21Aug2022 EsotericTrading - Ethereum Pivot August 2022 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ETHUSD/fFw4u1mb-Ethereum-Pivot-August-2022/ Ethereum Pivot August 2022 Ethereum / U.S. Dollar (INDEX:ETHUSD) 1612.17 36.17 2.30% EsotericTrading Aug 19 &&&&&&&& Have you listed a "dictionary" for your timings? Venus-Pluto (013/183 90...) - I assume that 90 degrees polar seen from Earth, but (013/183)? swing - are these just "kink" direction shifts not identified with solar system variable? 35:Moon @0 is this moon between Earth&Sun (sometimes a solar eclipse), but what is 35? Jupiter 13 degree (360) - Jupiter opposite side of Sun, 13 degree offset? (why?) 7:8:35:62:72 ??? 22:11 ??? Uranus + Venus : The Big Crash : Numerology - is alignment this Earth side of Sun? I've no idea of the numerology 08********08 #] 11Aug2022 How to improve your trading by looking at interest rates Part 1 : US Government Bonds 10 YR Yield (TVC:US10Y) 2.897 0.091 3.24% TradingView Aug 8 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/US10Y/MTfeZ9jT-How-to-improve-your-trading-by-looking-at-interest-rates-Part-1/ >> awesome article & blogs nuggetrouble, Aug 8 Notice how US10Y is rangebound between the fed's 3.5% terminal rate (final rate hike level) and the fed's neutral rate of 2.5%. Coincidence...IThinkNot nuggetrouble, Aug 8 @nuggetrouble, The terminal rate is the level the fed stops rate hikes and the neutral rate is a rate which is neither expansionary or contractionary. The US10Y will always peak at the terminal rate and stay above the neutral rate in a tightening cycle.... Current Terminal Rate and Neutral rate levels are determined by the market's prediction. If the fed is forced to tighten more, the US10Y will rise! SPY_Master, Aug 8 @nuggetrouble, This is insanely insightful to know. Just added this to my trading notebook. Thank you. SPY_Master,Aug 8 @nuggetrouble, Agree. Can you link us to where you get the neutral and terminal rates? nuggetrouble,Aug 8 @SPY_Master, Terminal Rate can be found by constructing a forward curve on eurodollar futures or fedfundsfuture. Best to ask @TradingView . How can we construct forward curves in TV? But search google " Term FFunds Future, SOFR, USD LIBOR, and Treasury Forward Curves " and you should find something. The terminal rate will be highest rate in the futures curve. The fed has said many times in their speeches/communication that the neutral rate is 2.5%. SPY_Master,Aug 8 @nuggetrouble, Got it thanks! +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/US20Y/8Opcqb5v-How-to-improve-your-trading-by-looking-at-interest-rates-Part-2/ How to improve your trading by looking at interest rates: Part 2 United States 20 Year Government Bonds Yield (TVC:US20Y) 3.375 0.074 2.24% TradingView Aug 15 Howell blog, 17Aug2022 - Here's a bit of mental gymnastics with an inverted TNX 10yr T-bond, lagged by 35 time bars. It has often been said that significant time lags occur in the economy, especially with respect to interest rates, inflation, jobs, etc. The lagged TNX does seem to dance around like the SPX500 on this chart, but that is not always the case. I hope that TVtrader fact keeps progressing with his [time, price] multi-fractals. Perhaps something is brewing... https://www.tradingview.com/x/dmGm1jUc/ 08********08 #] 10Aug2022 StockTwits ONCY - my blog about ONCY vs [SP500, TNX] This was momentarily posted then removed? 11Aug2022 tried again - will this work? Howell - Has anyone else been tracking ONC with respect to other market symbols? Shown here are a number of pharma-related, plus (SP500 blue, 10-year T-bond red, ONC gold). ONC seems to track nicely, with perhaps occasionally a lag with respect to the 10-year bond rate (inverted). Similar effect at other timescales. "$d_web"'economics, markets/Pharma/220810 Howell TradingView Pharma chart Aug2021-Aug2022.png' JohnnyC63, 09:34 AM - @Bill_Howell ONCY is a clinical stage biotech development company. Good luck matching it against established operational pharma companies and indices. 😉 Howell - @JohnnyC63 Agreed, and thanks for the comment. I had expected that, being a very small operation (market float), ONCY's stock price would be very sensitive to (individual trades, news, analyst recommendations, etc), and I still assume that would be the case for an major announcement ((success, failure) of phase III, FDA intervention, commercial deal, etc). However, in looking at the ONCY charts across timescales, it's almost the opposite : floating up and down with the (tides, waves) in the absence of any big news, albeit certainly not a strong fit. I may be imagining things, but at the (5 day, 1 month, 3 month, 1 year) timescales, ONCY sometimes seems to take the split when (SPX, TNX) paths diverge. I wonder if that is the case for most other small science-based companies, or just ones that have special staying power? This isn't a focus for me, just a curiosity from work on major indices, applying Puetz "Universal Waves Series" (time, price) multi-fractals. 08********08 #] 10Aug2022 Burning-Theta - Tricks for Reading the VIX https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/uJoRkDWc-Tricks-for-Reading-the-VIX/ Tricks for Reading the VIX Burning-Theta, Aug 5 >> Awesome explanations! I save this at : "$d_web"'economics, markets/VIX tricks for reading, Burning-Theta.txt' 08********08 #] 05Aug2022 my blog to ?Mkt Watch? https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/nxPfwV0B-SP500-Update/ Not that many (all of us, given the chance?) wouldn't be so diabolical, but is that not greatly over-shadowed by our own "belief flip-flops", and the market's "multiple trader personalities" syndrom? Given the social engineering of the "not very free market" (eg Fed, Treasury), active controls would fit right in. But who is "they", and do "they" have to actually do anything (politically embarassing if caught) or does it actually work better as they trade off what we do to ourselves? 08********08 #] 23Jul2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-the-stock-market-bottom-in-what-the-pros-say-after-s-p-500-tests-4-000-11658516902?mod=newsviewer_click Is the stock-market bottom in? What the pros say after S&P 500 tests 4,000 Last Updated: July 22, 2022 at 4:24 p.m. ET First Published: July 22, 2022 at 3:08 p.m. ET &&&&&&&& Jason Johnson, 5 hours ago This could be like 2002. The temporary bottom led to a four year bull run from 2003 - 2007, and then the REAL bottom finally showed up in 2009. I don't see stocks as a bargain, but people still have lots of savings to invest so I won't be shocked to see a pretty large rally even though I believe (and will wait with most of my capital) until I see what I think is a durable and CHEAP bottom. Howell - Wow, great comment. Extending your comment to the very similar 40-year periods (detrended SP500 with DJIA proxy as needed) ~1880-1920 and ~1940-1980, the incomplete 14 years 2008-2022 differs greatly because of the covid spike (~1/3 of the 2000 detrended spike, ~1/6 or so of the 1929 spike), and QE seems to have driven higer valuations earlier than the previous examples. But can the [social spending, vote buying] continue at GDP rates? Is it a solution? Can bonds survive outside of the [Fed, Treasury]? Carl Torjusen, 1 day ago -awaiting news from JP of the Fed next week. just remember U cannot out run a bear. Howell - Agreed - seems that the primary variable might be the Social Engineering of the financial markets. I was shocked at the scale of the ~50% GDP/ 2 years [Fed, Treasury] cash dump, as well as the next-to-nothing GDP increase in response. I suspect that most [university, civil servant] types want to keep doing this [unless, until] something bad happens. 08********08 #] 10Jul2022 ZenFlo, SPX Outlook https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/mfHOzRPV-SPX-Outlook/ SPX Outlook S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3902.43 5.92 0.15% ZenFlo SPX is in a major reversal, with the FED tapering now and interest rates increasing, the market no longer deems this crazy market valuations as fair, and we are starting to see the big companies off load employees, and reduce their bills, this is a tell tale sign that the growth we saw post Covid is well and truly over, with staggering inflation worldwide, the FED have no choice but to crush the stock market, in order for the cost of living to reduce, in order to get energy prices back to a reasonable level, the FED will use rates as a mean to reduce demand. These prices simply are unjust are were only caused by the staggering money being printed to purchase assets after the initial crash in March 2020, they got so scared the printer went brrrrrrr, they printed of trillions in order to maintain valuations and even pushed it above ATH, then it suddenly becomes a shock when Inflation is at crazy levels, the problem I have with it, is how the retail trading market whilst there would have been a small % making a good profit, in trading crypto or stocks during the bull market, how many of our fellow traders are stuck with massively negative returns right now? What this will cause eventually is people simply selling their long positions to the market, this in turn will cause a massive mean reversion as price returns to a previous balance in the market, if we exclude covids inflation , this is right back where we started, as you can see on the VP the majority of market orders happened in this previous balance, and the deflationary steps by the fed will cause this to crash right back into this range, and their is the potential we crash below this level. At the end of the day we have only just started feeling the pain of the inflation , I personally believe this can get a lot worse, if you were asked in March 2020, when everything stopped, Oil went negative, markets were crazy, but did the fundamentals ever suggest a massive Bull run! the only thing that did cause the bull run was inflation . So be prepared for major sell offs in all asset classes, and I mean all! money is going to return to bonds, and we will see the collapse of US stocks, Crypto, XAU , XAG and Major global currencies, the only thing that can save them is more inflation ... but inflation is like a short term high, it works but then it stops, it is a cowards way of dealing with the direct problem, eventually it has negative effects. I will attach a few charts for you to see below this one. What will also see which will be massive is a surge of flow into the USD, When XAU is sold, when stocks are sold, when everything is bearish the money flows back into the USD, this will be a catalyst in disrupting the major currencies, EUR, GBP ect, will get squashed in this mammoth surge, which will squash growth globally. The pain is near and it is coming to a town near you... be prepared, manage your risk. &&&&&&&& Howell blog : "... but inflation is like a short term high, it works but then it stops, it is a cowards way of dealing with the direct problem, eventually it has negative effects ..." Great comments. I seem to vaguely remember that there is typically a ?6 month to 1.5 year? lag between some policy actions and inflation. Perhaps the same lag just happened since the Mar2020 crash & pump? It was brilliant for the Fed to purchase bonds, drive rates down, drive financial asset prices beyond stupid, and induce private investors to do the socialists' work. That financial assets return to normal prices is not a problem for the Fed at all. In effect, it has been a brilliant way to tax capital (rather than earnings, profit) without the need for legal authority. It's normal thinking from Keynesian economics, spiced up with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). On the other hand, from 1872-present, the long term SPX semi-log detrend (time, price) multi-fractal chart (chart & Pine Script on my TV page) suggests that these policies (perhaps more monetarist of the Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan type?) have reduced volatility a lot. Is that good, or is too much stability poison for a man's soul? (and a Market's soul?) But modern economics does not have seemed to have helped at all with major market (up, down) excursions. And debt-embrittlement of the (econoy, policy) has yet manifest in a big way (2008 Housing crash was noticeable but not huge on an historical basis). ZenFlo an hour ago @Bill_Howell, Thank you for the kind comments, I agree there is no threat to the FED when we see a return to value in stocks. On Volatility maybe the market is simply running out of energy, I mean is there really such thing as ever growing economic expansion and stock growth? We have imo very difficult demographic problems to deal with over the next decade or so. Everytime we have a major problem whether that is 2008 or Covid or any significant threat to the markets, we see spikes in Inflation, and I believe in the early years they were more happy to do this, to simply put a plaster over the problem, Pass the buck down the line. Is the power of this simply running out? Maybe in turn the reduction of volatility is a leading indicator in a huge market collapse much like the great depression, maybe the volatility to the upside is simply done due to the markets being so inflated and pretty much fuelled by printed dollars. The next stage of volatility may be a much larger collapse to the downside. That is just my two cents though, It is clear from your comment you know alot more about Economics than me haha. Bill_Howell 38 minutes ago @ZenFlo, Wrong, I happen to be an idiot in (economics, markets). Keep thinking on your own, it will always come in handy when trying to understand the babblings of the (anointed, credentialed, famous), and to understand how easy it is to beat them from time-to-time (or even always). They are human too, very human. ZenFlo an hour ago @ZenFlo, Really there is probably a massive correlation between devaluation of the USD and stock growth, Now I am really no economist, but I trade the markets, If the USD is to survive does it have to swing the other way now? High interest environment for a longer period of time than we are expecting, Does this increase Value in the USD and eventually bring Stocks right down, but in a very low growth world environment. I mean otherwise we have this correction, and print again send Stocks even higher on false pretence and just hope for this best, without solving any problems. I think a massive problem is how long this has been building, we have a financial nuclear bomb waiting to explode. @ZenFlo, Ray Dalio's book "Changing world order" gets into many of the concepts and puts this into a wonderful historical perspective. A more [detailed, powerful] insight can be found in David Fischer's 1996 book "The Great Wave : price revolutions and the rhythm of history" as a follow-on to Wilhelm Abel's 1935 work on historical pricing. But Dalio's advantage is that he is extremely well known and quoted on Wall Street, is the very successful founder of the largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and he's obviously learned in the school of hard knocks (plus he has modern computers with huge data systems and an army of specialists - humans are NO match). Dalio fears that the US$ may lose reserve currency status, and suffer a major economic hit as world hegemony rolls over to new powers (he emphasizes China, but also India and others). A year or two ago I plotted a (simple, idealistic) model of Schiller-forward-like SP500 [P/E ratio versus, earnings growth], 10y T-bond rates, which can help a bit on that point. I think I got the idea from Ben Reynold's interest rate letter. Unfortunately, I do NOT regard 10y T-bond rates as being a free market at all : it is socially-engineered by the [Fed, treasury, other armies of policy wonks] just as much of the no-longer-free-markets are. I expect that trend to continue strongly (even if socialists effectively won 40 years ago) in step with changing voter composition and political-correctness. ZenFlo 34 minutes ago @Bill_Howell, What is your background? Maths or science? You seem like a well educated guy. I checked out your website. @ZenFlo, A long time ago, after the fall of the dinosaurs, I was educated as a chemical engineer, worked in a [chemical plant, research labs, etc]. I enjoy [math, science, engineering], but perhaps it is wrong to think that you have to do that to think well. In many respects, I didn't stay with engineering for l (kind of a dead profession at the time, at least where I was), and have long thought that in order to progress in my thinking I have to ESCAPE [math, science, engineering] and learn sometimes much more powerful (in their own way) approaches (without much success - but at least I can see the work of others who do that). What has really helped? Since 1988 my priority hobby science interest is neural networks, together with Evolutionary Computation, Fuzzy Systems etc forming the field of "Computational Intelligence" (CI). This has been subsumed into the much older "Artificial Intelligence" (AI), which to me is a huge mistake. CI and AI are almost opposites, even though there is clearly overlap. But using the same label means that most never learn of the important differences (university profs included). Not used : We cannot post links in these blogs, even worse I did a big boo-boo a week ago when updating my webSite, so links internal to my webSite don't work (eg [images, charts, menus, etc]). But direct links to the images and webPages would at least get people there. Much better (for me) - I renamed my home webPage, so that anyone can traverse my entire webSite using their browser as a "file manager" (webPages are cute, but not good enough). 08********08 #] 06Jul2022 China Police Database Was Left Open Online for Over a Year, Enabling Leak https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-police-database-was-left-open-online-for-over-a-year-enabling-leak-11657119903?mod=newsviewer_click&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D77733928119359463852864304544708261410%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1657123217 China Police Database Was Left Open Online for Over a Year, Enabling Leak Cybersecurity experts say error allowed theft of records of nearly 1 billion people, leading to $200,000 ransom note By Karen Hao in Hong Kong and Rachel Liang in Singapore July 6, 2022 11:05 am ET What is likely one of history’s largest heists of personal data—and the largest known cybersecurity breach in China—occurred because of a common vulnerability that left the data open for the taking on the internet, say cybersecurity experts who discovered the security flaw earlier this year. The Shanghai police records—containing the names, government ID numbers, phone numbers and incident reports of nearly 1 billion Chinese citizens—were stored securely, according to the cybersecurity experts. But a dashboard for managing and accessing the data was set up on a public web address and left open without a password, which allowed anyone with relatively basic technical knowledge to waltz in and copy or steal the trove of information, they said. “That they would leave this much data exposed is insane,” said Vinny Troia, founder of dark web intelligence firm Shadowbyte, which scans the web for unsecured databases and found the Shanghai police database in January. 08********08 #] 06Jul2022 blogrep TV @AndyM https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/tgmn4W5M-Just-a-few-thoughts/ Just a few thoughts S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3822.01 −9.09 −0.24% AndyM 18 hours ago SPX is trying to get a minor new high before it gets dispatched to below 1500. I'm not kidding at all when I call that target. At the same time, the 10-year Treasuries will hit 6%, while the Euro will hit 0.8. Why am I assuming those will happen at the same time? Because they are part of the same thing! The Dollar, Treasuries and Stocks are part of the same story that began 51 years ago when the US abolished the Golden Standard. Money printing began in 1971. The same year real estate prices picked up. It took almost 10 years for the newly minted dollars to find their way to the Treasury market. A historic downtrend in yields was ignited in 1981. The money then rushed into stocks: the falling yields by themselves caused an upward repricing of stocks, but also allowed businesses to finance their growth like never before. This alone was enough to fuel stock market growth for 40+ years. Unfortunately, the story of fiat (fake) money is coming to an end. Everything will get real, and over the next 10-20 years all growth in valuations (judging by P/E multiples) will be undone to the levels seen around 1980..1985 ( inflation adjusted). The first wave (wave A) of this adjustment is right around the corner. Meet H2'22 in all its glory . &&&&&&&& Howell - SPX 1872-current semi-log DETRENDED PuetzUWS [time, price] multi-fractal plot, with TNX 10y T-bond rates as-is, from my PineScript. I can't post my non-TradingView graph showing a relationship between (10y T-bond rates, SP500 Schiller-forward P/E ratio, SP500 10y future earnings growth/y), but the combination of both graphs provides a background similar to both of your comments (@AndyM , @Vixtine). The detrended plot is only intended as a compliment to a normal SPX semi-log plot, not a stand-alone, but I think it helps put current conditions in historical context, even though there is certainly no perfect way of doing so. Note that the PuetzUWS priceFractal levels are eerily relevant for all timescales (1872-current shown here, but other timescales are also plotted). PuetzUWS timeFractals as produced by my PineScript are "somewhat broken". They were working well, but my impovements to the priceFractals messed up the timeFractals a bit. Pity, but I didn't yet detrended (USOIL, GOLD), and won't be getting back to this any time soon. https://www.tradingview.com/x/yB7ObDop/ 08********08 #] 29Jun2022 from yesterday : https://canadagold.ca/buy-gold-bullion-canada/ Calgary NW Whitewater Place 1717 10th St. NW Suite 102 Calgary, AB (403) 282-8877 Andrew - no RRSP route They have two offices to visit in Calgary No tracking of buyers! canadagold.ca Andrew (403) 282-8877, my questions about gold, 2 offices in Calgary Bank acct good to go. Andrew : 08:59 not in yet 10:04 I will come in tomorrow with cash (3 k$) 08********08 #] 28Jun2022 MktWatch +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/powell-says-no-guarantee-of-soft-landing-11656510760?mod=newsviewer_click Powell says no guarantee of soft landing for U.S. economy Last Updated: June 29, 2022 at 10:05 a.m. ET First Published: June 29, 2022 at 9:52 a.m. ET By Greg Robb Fed’s aim is to have growth moderate Despite the contraction of economic growth in the first three months of the year, Powell was upbeat about the current health of the economy. Households and businesses were in very strong shape and the labor market is “tremendously strong,” he said. In fact, the Fed is engineering slower growth — “growth moderate,” as he said — a necessary adjustment to let supply catch up with strong demand. “Is there a risk we can go too far? Certainly there is a risk,” he said. “But I wouldn’t agree that it’s the biggest risk to the economy.” The “biggest mistake” would be to fail to restore price stability,” he said. The Fed “will not allow a transition from a low inflation environment into a high inflation environment,” Powell said. The Fed needs to get its benchmark policy rate “into restrictive territory fairly quickly,” he said. 08********08 #] 24Jun2022 Gold & Silver purchase are gold holders registered for tracking? https://silvergoldbull.ca/contacts SILVER GOLD BULL INC. PO BOX 11038 SETON PO CALGARY, AB T3M 1Y6 CANADA 877-646-5303 No physical locations at all - just phone numbers Brad - they don't report to CRA if buying to take possesion, but RRSP purchases probably RRSP go through QuesTrade !!!!! https://canadagold.ca/buy-gold-bullion-canada/ Calgary NW Whitewater Place 1717 10th St. NW Suite 102 Calgary, AB (403) 282-8877 Andrew - no RRSP route They have two offices to visit in Calgary No tracking of buyers! canadagold.ca Andrew (403) 282-8877, my questions about gold, 2 offices in Calgary nyet : https://canadianbullion.ca/ 1140 Sheppard Ave, W. Unit 12. Toronto. ON. Canada. M3K2A2 416-214-4299 or free 866-901-0600 Fax: 1-855-901-0700 08********08 #] 24Jun2022 Edward Dowd – The ‘Great’ Reset is DEAD https://tapnewswire.com/2022/06/edward-dowd-the-great-reset-is-dead/ Edward Dowd – The ‘Great’ Reset is DEAD. Sat 9:56 pm +00:00, 11 Jun 2022 1 posted by Weaver June 11, 2022 emto Steve : Ed Dowd's [market, gold] statements match my own thinking, including physical gold rather than paper gold. Plus, to me, perhaps crypto after 90% crash to see what survives? US Dollar is going to fail but when? Ray Dalio wrote about this, and jillions of others have said this for years. In Canada, apparently no GST/HST on investment [bullion, coins, etc], but a 50% capital gains (big problem for a vastly inflated $Cdn if the shit hits the fan). To bad about school shootings (although I imagine driven by femi-Nazist teachers), too bad they aren't targeting [scientist, doctor, hospital administration, govt policy type]s. It would be just what the media needs - something different to hype, as school shootings are becoming normal. Dowd mentions the pharma-medical frauds - I usually only hear about the pharma companies (only a small part of it). He also mentions ivermectin as a covax cure which I don't remember (I don't remember any of the many others either). I don't agree that people will go to jail over covax, even if this isn't like the [govt, Wall Street] fraud of the Great Financial (housing) crises of 2007. Our society has no justice any more. Nothing will change une composition of the population does, drastically. Maybe we do need a Great Reset, starting with the Great Resetters? "... I'm going to the goulag, or I'm winning. That's where I'm at. ..." great quote Bill 08********08 #] 24Jun2022 Hulbert - single greatest predictor of future stock market returns https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-markets-return-will-be-minus-3-3-a-year-over-the-next-decade-says-this-single-greatest-predictor-11656075819?mod=newsviewer_click The stock market’s return will be minus 3.3% a year over the next decade, says this ‘single greatest predictor’ Published: June 24, 2022 at 9:03 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert This month we’ve received both good and bad news from the “single greatest predictor of future stock market returns.” I’m referring to the indicator, first proposed by the Philosophical Economics blog in 2013, based on the average household’s portfolio allocation to equities. It is a contrarian indicator, with higher equity allocations associated with lower subsequent market returns, and vice versa. 08********08 #] 23Jun2022 Yahoo finance : 7 Great Blogs for Investing Tips https://finance.yahoo.com/news/7-great-blogs-investing-tips-193118517.html Indexology https://www.indexologyblog.com/ (some good stuff, like TD investment analysis) Contributors for S&P Dow Jones Indices' Indexology include S&P DJI experts, such as Jodie Gunzberg, managing director and head of U.S. equities; Hannah Skeates, head of global ESG indices and Marya Alsati, product manager for commodities, home prices and real assets. Bull and Baird https://blog.rwbaird.com/ (nyet - one-son blog mostly advin managing investments) Bull and Baird is a market blog written by Michael Antonelli, a managing director and institutional equity trader at Milwaukee-based investment bank Baird. Think B.I.G. https://business.blogthinkbig.com/ (nyet - for chasing high-risk, hi-tech) authored by New York-based Bespoke Investment Group focuses on how the market performs and includes economic data, such as consumer and unemployment figures, global macro factors and geopolitical issues. The Bespoke macro strategists write about their analysis on stock market data across various indices and sectors. Tim Duy's Fed Watch https://www.sghmacro.com/report/tim-duys-fed-watch-2-16-21/ focuses on the actions of the Federal Reserve and how interest rates affect the stock market, economy, inflation and growth. Duy is a senior director at the Oregon Economic Forum and a professor of practice of economics at the University of Oregon. His blog discusses the effects of decisions made by central bankers, trade disputes, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, monetary policies and more. All Star Charts https://allstarcharts.com/blog/ (looks good! concepts, strategies, picks!) Founded in 2010, the blog published by All Star Charts is mostly written by the firm's chief market strategist J.C. Parets. The blog focuses on technical analysis to discuss outcomes in the stock market, volatility and options trading. Pension Partners https://www.pensionpartners.com/ (nyet - no access) Charlie Bilello, director of research at Pension Partners, a New York City-based investment advisor. The blog discusses the stock market, how it performs and market strategies. 08********08 #] 23Jun2022 crypto to cover for other losses https://www.barrons.com/articles/crypto-voyager-digital-three-arrows-51655915288?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_content=replied-your-message&spot_im_redirect_source=email&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_nFGNPtWO_WP-BAR-0000368945_c_2AwNqy4x59IXaFuNLBRpIIf9FiO_r_2Axd4qIo76vFukq9CMUMbwFoxoK&spot_im_content_id=sp_nFGNPtWO_WP-BAR-0000368945&spot_im_content_type=conversation Howell - I wonder if a part of the problem is the cashing of crypto to cover huge losses on stocks etc? wn schauweker - Who do you think would have to cover huge losses on stocks? Howell - My guess - it was brilliant for the [Fed, Treasury] to pump the markets and get private investors to dump in cash to cover the covid bump. They knew that a reversal would bring valuations down, effectively taxing investors without needing [constitutional, legal] changes. Joseph Stalin called capitalists "idiot allies". For those who didn't ride it up from the start (no net loss), "bag holders" might be a more common expression for the markets. At least I can be happy that my bag helped something, but I'm not sure what, and whether it contributed to "moral hazard" which fits in well with current thinking without the thinking having thought about that? I don't know what to think.. wn schauweker - You didn't answer the question: You wondered about "cashing of crypto to cover huge losses... ". Who do you thing had large losses that had to be covered, and what do you men by "covered"? Howell - Newbies that joined the party from ~early Jul2021 to end-Dec2021, and held until now, long-term investors who, during that period, shifted massively into stocks from real estate or other markets that haven't (yet) eased off, plus way over-leveraged investors who bet the wrong way on the way down. The latter group may be more important to the crypto market, as losses on high-[growth, risk] investments might force sales of [crypto, gold, other stocks] to "cover" (pay off). Other than that, long term investors were fine, as it was just an up and down ride, though many are probably still thinking of what they would have had if they cashed out at the peak (as usual). But are the markets going to surge again? The 23G$ (0.27%) standard deviation of weekly changes of Fed "Total Assets" since 05Jan2022 matches somewhat nicely SP500 moves (example injections for weeks ended 19Jan and 16Mar), but I don't understand that dance well enough. My guess is that they will pump at the right time before Congressional elections, and get serious abot inflation, well, never until it's far too late. 08********08 #] 21Jun2022 Mark Hulbert - A dozen reasons why the stock market will be higher on Dec. 31 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-dozen-reasons-why-the-stock-market-will-be-higher-on-dec-31-and-why-you-shouldnt-get-too-excited-about-that-claim-11655815049?mod=newsviewer_click A dozen reasons why the stock market will be higher on Dec. 31 — and why you shouldn’t get too excited about that claim Published: June 21, 2022 at 8:37 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert &&&&&&&& This makes sense, as there is a strong long-term growth rate of the SP500 index. I estimate that the SP500 1926-2020 semi-log trend is ~7%/y, with a relative standard deviation of 0.4308. We're right on the 83+ year trend now, having been above trend 01Oct2020 to present. Nothing like the ~Sep1996-Jul2002 surge, and of course dwarfed by pre-Dec1931 period (DJIA proxy before SP index started). Perhaps the [real growth, debt, etc] splits have changed? With the Deep Learning and beyond revolutions, and a stronger rest-of-world economies, there is good cause for optimism. It's just hard to guess if and when issues raised by Ray Dalio's "Changing world order" (preceded by some awesome historians' work like Wilhelm Abel 1937 and David Fischer 1996) may kick in as expected over the long term. 08********08 #] 15Jun2022 investor Warren Kaplan - 70 years of experience is trading the bear market +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-is-not-going-to-zero-how-this-individual-investor-with-70-years-of-experience-is-trading-the-bear-market-11655253258?mod=newsviewer_click Michael Sincere's Long-Term Trader Opinion: ‘The stock market is not going to zero’: How this individual investor with 70 years of experience is trading the bear market Last Updated: June 15, 2022 at 12:45 p.m. ET First Published: June 15, 2022 at 7:20 a.m. ET By Michael Sincere ‘You must learn to control your fears,’ says investor Warren Kaplan, who uses stock dividends to his advantage and sticks to a disciplined sell strategy 1: Buy ‘Dividend Aristocrats’: There is nothing that Kaplan loves more than buying dividend-paying stocks, especially the “Dividend Aristocrats.” These are companies that have raised dividends for at least 25 consecutive years. “By paying a meaningful dividend of at least 3% or 4%,” Kaplan says, “it shows that the board understands its responsibility to shareholders compared to companies that don’t pay dividends and instead pay huge salaries to executives.” 2: Buy dividend-paying ETFs: Kaplan buys dividend-paying ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that investment-researcher Morningstar rates as three-, four-, or five stars. ETFs Kaplan likes include ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF NOBL, 0.46%, SPDR S&P Dividend ETF SDY, 0.59%, ProShares S&P Technology Dividend Aristocrats ETF TDV, +0.46% and ProShares Russell US Dividend Growers ETF TMDV, +0.39%. He also favors technology companies that have boosted their dividend for at least the past seven years. Stocks such as IBM IBM, 0.95% Cisco Systems CSCO, 2.12%, Apple AAPL, 1.77% and Microsoft MSFT, 2.97% fit his criteria nowadays. 3: Buy and hold (but not forever): Unlike many investors who buy and hold indefinitely, Kaplan holds stocks until the market environment changes. That catalyst could be a change in management, a dividend cut, technical weakness, poor earnings or overvaluation. If any of these scenarios occur, Kaplan may reduce his holdings or sell all of his shares. . 4: Sell covered call options: Kaplan regularly sells covered calls on his dividend-paying stocks. Selling covered calls generates a premium and allows him to sell stocks at a price that he specifies. After the stock is automatically sold (according to option rules, it is “called away”), Kaplan waits for a lower price and buys the stock back. Then he sells another covered call. Cash is not trash Kaplan points out that cash is not bad to hold. “You might be getting only 1% when inflation is at 7%,” he says, “but my 1% cash return is a far better deal than a stock that goes down 20% to 50%. Some people complain about losing 7% due to inflation when their stock might be losing 40%.” 08********08 #] 06Jun2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-get-fooled-by-another-rip-says-this-strategist-who-advises-watching-this-battleground-s-p-500-level-11654514395?mod=newsviewer_click Don’t get fooled by another ‘rip’ says this strategist, who advises watching this ‘battleground’ S&P 500 level Last Updated: June 6, 2022 at 8:22 a.m. ET First Published: June 6, 2022 at 7:19 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day Less dour is RBC Capital Markets’ equity analyst Lori Calvasina, though she has trimmed her end-2022 S&P 500 target to 4,700 from 4,860. “We are continuing to bake in a slower economic growth backdrop in 2022-2023 but not a recession,” she said. ...Historically, there’s one thing we know about recessions — they tend to be good entry points into Small Cap,” said Calvasina. 08********08 #] 05Jun2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/stock-market-dow-nasdaq-sp500-51654306153?mod=mw_more_headlines The Stock Market Is Charting a New Course. It Won’t Be Pleasant. Last Updated: June 3, 2022 at 10:20 p.m. ET First Published: June 3, 2022 at 9:30 p.m. ET By Ben Levisohn But it’s the shifting longer-term trends that really need to be watched, according to Richard Bernstein, founder of Richard Bernstein Advisors. He notes that tech and the tech-like companies in the communication-services and consumer-discretionary sectors benzefited from low interest rates, low inflation, and too much money seeking a home. Now, the economy is dealing with high inflation, rising rates, and a Federal Reserve that is draining liquidity from the market. The stocks that outperform won’t be the same ones that did so well before, even if investors are reluctant to give up on their past winners. But that will require patience—and rejecting the trends of the past. For Stifel strategist Barry Bannister, that means favoring active management over index funds, international over the U.S., and small stocks over large, More than anything, succeeding in the stock market will mean “navigating a decade of generational macro change,” he writes. 08********08 #] 03Jun2022 I don't believe in ghosts, but if you do, the Ukraine has many After Ghenghis Khan came one even greater, Timur Lenk favorite of Iosef Varionovich Dzugashvili, who found Timur's toomb, and read the curse "in 3 days bad fortune shall fall" Barbarossa hit hard, defenses were shattered, but foe became allie, and that is what mattered So if you think you know, who's friend and who's foe, the ghosts of the Ukraine, know the fool in the room I don't believe in ghost,s but now wonder about you. Postwar a few years, even that was all shattered +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/russia-and-saudi-arabia-dominate-global-energy-is-there-still-room-for-washington-51654283237?mod=newsviewer_click Well written, interesting education for me. Will it soon be time for Islamic ascent beyond the supply of oil and internal [regional, factional] conflict? I wonder how impressed the Saudis are with foreign [lecturing, action]s? Did Rundell and Gfoeller feel any issue like that would be a near-irrelevant distraction for this article? It is nice to at least some countries are capable of [plan, act]ing according to global "realities almost without perceptions", as opposed to here in Canada, dominated by politically-correct "perceptual realities". 08********08 #] 30May2022 next 6 mths? -> market [bear, crash] or inflation stay up, or ??? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-man-who-seized-one-of-argentinas-ships-now-warns-there-will-be-a-wave-of-emerging-market-defaults-11654080638?mod=newsviewer_click There will be a wave of emerging-market defaults, says the investor who seized one of Argentina’s ships Last Updated: June 1, 2022 at 8:44 a.m. ET First Published: June 1, 2022 at 6:50 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Critical information for the U.S. trading day Jay Newman is something of an emerging-markets legend. At Elliott Management, he led their successful campaign to get Argentina to pay out on defaulted debt — which included the seizure of a naval vessel with sailors on board — to the tune of $2.4 billion. He’s now expecting a debt epidemic. “We are on the brink of an epidemic of emerging market defaults, the scale and scope of which will rival the debt crisis of the 1980s,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Financial Times. “Rate increases by Western central banks, fallout from the COVID pandemic, surging food and fuel prices resulting from the economic fallout of the war between Russia and Ukraine, mismanagement, and outright corruption all are contributing factors.” Newman, not uniquely it should be said, says China has laid a debt trap to seize key assets across the world. “When Sri Lanka, predictably, found itself unable to satisfy the debt, China sprang the trap, insisting on repayment, offering to exchange debt for further concessions and vast tracts of land, and offering additional cash to help tide the political class over,” he writes. John Hussman, president of Hussman Investment Trust and a long-time bear, says the selling in the stock market still has a long way to go. “At extreme points like this, it’s useful to remember that risk-management is generous. While market advances in hypervalued conditions can leave investors feeling as if they’re ‘missing out’ on returns, those speculative returns are invariably wiped out over the complete market cycle,” he says. &&&&&&&& Howell - Steve Goldstein - timely article with two great quotes : Newman & others "China debt trap", Hussman "speculative returns are invariably wiped out over the complete market cycle". Funny thing about traps, though. It's only Chinese because we were too lazy to build it ourselves. We were more than willing to waltz right in join the party, while those more sober [stood, watched, waited]. 08********08 #] 28May2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/durability-of-u-s-stock-market-bounce-in-question-as-inflation-worries-linger-ahead-of-payrolls-report-11653733107?mod=newsviewer_click&tesla=y Can U.S. stocks extend the bounce? Inflation worries linger ahead of key jobs data. Last Updated: May 28, 2022 at 1:32 p.m. ET First Published: May 28, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. ET By Vivien Lou Chen Dow industrials log first winning week since March as selloff relents &&&&&&&& Howell - Thomas Simons's comment “The Fed is much more focused on inflation and less concerned about deflating the financial market going forward.” is very astute. The time to worry about deflating financial markets was when they had the pumps going full blast creating that scenario. They knew then, they know now, and so did we, even if we don't want to hear it. I always wonder what will happen to long bond markets, and the ability to raise long-term funds in boring sectors that people don't throw money at. Will the [legal, business] requirements for bond holdings relax? 10-30 year bonds losing 5% per year doesn't sound fun. Maybe every body needs to find more bagholders right now. 08********08 #] 27May2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-stock-portfolio-didnt-have-to-lose-so-much-this-year-11653669893?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Your stock portfolio didn’t have to lose so much this year Published: May 27, 2022 at 2:15 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Conventional wisdom is wrong about the relationship between risk and reward /media/bill/Dell2/Website - raw/Cool stuff/Hulbert 28May2022 More risk doesnt always lead to more return.png /media/bill/Dell2/Website - raw/Cool stuff/Hulbert from Batussen, Vleir, May May2022 - 150+ years of conservative investing, winning by losing less &&&&&&&& Howell - Awesome graphs!! Perhaps this makes sense, and may be driven by innate behaviour : reaching for the highest rewards may be a common characteristic of high achievers (post-facto classification, sometimes high on luck). A huge portion of risk-takers get burned once in a while, or regularly. Risk-propensity must help the markets' raise capital for hi-risk [hi, bio]tech, junior mining exploration, crypto etc? It seemed that the huge tide of [Fed, Treasury] stimulus created a bit of a frenzy in the financial markets, so perhaps the graphs would have been bent even more over the last 2.5 years? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/both-stock-market-bulls-and-bears-claim-todays-margin-debt-supports-their-view-heres-the-truth-01653659929?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Current status of valuation indicators In contrast to the margin debt indicator, the eight listed below are those that my research has found to have a statistically significant ability to forecast the stock market’s return. Notice that while they show the market to be less overvalued than it was earlier this year, it overall remains closer to the overvaluation end of the under-to-overvaluation spectrum. Latest -1M BoY %2000 %1970 %1950 P/E ratio 20.44 20.81 24.23 40% 62% 71% CAPE ratio 32.51 34.34 38.66 91% 90% 93% P/Dividend ratio 1.65% 1.43% 1.30% 81% 86% 90% P/Sales ratio 2.59 2.64 3.15 81% 82% 82% P/Book ratio 4.03 4.10 4.85 84% 79% 79% Q ratio 1.82 1.86 2.14 82% 90% 93% Buffett ratio 1.65 1.74 2.03 93% 97% 97% (Market cap/GDP ) HouseHldEquity 51.8% 51.8% 51.8% 100% 100% 100% Avg household equity allocation -1M = one month ago BoY = Beginning of year %2000 = Percentile since 2000 (100 most bearish) %1970 = Percentile since 1970 (100 most bearish) %1950 = Percentile since 1950 (100 most bearish) One exception is the P/E ratio based on trailing 12-month earnings. It is now at the 40th percentile of its historical distribution since 2000—meaning that the stock market this century has been more overvalued than it is now 60% of the time. That’s a big change from early 2021, when the P/E ratio indicated that the stock market was at the 92nd percentile of its distribution this century. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice job of assessing the margin debt as a coincident indicator only. It's great to see your table "Current status of valuation indicators". I'm surprised that interest rates don't come in as a component of a measure, given [recent, current] concerns, and the old (but I think you showed not so correct?) adage that inversion of 2year versus 10year T-bond rates portends a recession. But I suspect it wouldn't just be the "non-equilibrium state" of interest rates, but also the rate of change. Its fun to have things like the graph "Investing on the margin", but that doesn't speak to fundamental measures and ratios of valuation like your table has. 08********08 #] 24May2022 Dalio 2021 Changing World Order [currency, T-bond, gold] p138-145, emto Steve http://www.BillHowell.ca/economics, markets/Dalio world order/Dalio 2021 Changing World Order [currency, T-bond, gold] p138-145.png http://www.BillHowell.ca/economics, markets/SP500/multi-fractal/220524 USA multi-markets, with SPX500USD [time, price] multiFractals, 2003-2022 span.png 08********08 #] 24May2022 Fannie Mae chief economist: A sharper downturn in residential investment is now underway https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fannie-mae-chief-economist-says-u-s-housing-market-has-finally-turned-a-corner-a-sharper-downturn-in-residential-investment-is-now-underway-11653415119?mod=newsviewer_click Fannie Mae chief economist says U.S. housing market has finally turned a corner: ‘A sharper downturn in residential investment is now underway’ Published: May 24, 2022 at 1:58 p.m. ET By Quentin Fottrell The slower pace of new home sales in April was similar to a slowdown in 2018, said Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae The inventory shortage, high prices and rising interest rates have finally bitten. Single-family home sales fell sharply by 16.6% in April to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 591,000, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. That was the slowest rate of sales since April 2020 following business closures in the wake of the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Advertisement What’s more, new home sales in March were revised downward significantly from 763,000 to 709,000, the Census Bureau said. “The new home sales report released today by the Census Bureau clearly points to a housing market that has turned,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae. Mortgage rates have risen 200 basis points since the end of 2021, putting pressure on existing home sales, mortgage applications, and homebuilder confidence, he said. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast sales to take place at a 750,000 annual rate, although the report can be volatile and subject to revisions. “However, today’s new home sales report is the sharpest indicator yet, with sales coming in well below both our own and consensus expectations,” Duncan said. ”The sales pace in April was similar in level to the slowdown that occurred the last time the Federal Reserve engaged in a tightening regimen in 2018,” he added. ”A sharper downturn in residential investment is now underway,” the Fannie Mae FNMA, -2.43% economist said, adding that he’ll revise downward his own sales projections. A separate report released Tuesday by Realtor.com suggested that people are prepared to buy and sell homes at ”more approachable price points.” George Ratiu, senior economist and manager of economic research at Realtor.com, said the report “offers hope” for seller-buyers. (Realtor.com is operated by News Corp subsidiary Move Inc., and MarketWatch is a unit of Dow Jones, which is also a subsidiary of News Corp.) &&&&&&&& Howell - Good timing on the article, Quentin Fortrell. It's great to see these comments by Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae. Maybe I'm dim, but I've never understood housing prices, even with big-institutional investment. Way too far above any I could afford, way too low mortgage rates for me to trust long term. That the housing market is not entirely immune to today's context is almost human of it. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/george-soros-says-ukraine-war-threatens-civilization-11653415026?mod=newsviewer_click George Soros says Ukraine war threatens civilization Published: May 24, 2022 at 1:57 p.m. ET By Steve Goldstein &&&&&&&& Howell - Genius doesn't exist as a property of human beings, it seems to me in old age, although is a property that we desperately want to exist. If you wish to believe in it, then it's safest to consider it a product of [time, circumstance, opportunity, individual], and that it is not-so-rare individuals (basically at random, with some attitude, talent, but not necessarily expertise) who make it happen, for whom "lightening doesn't strike twice". Often credit is stolen by those in the limelight. No lightning here, not even a light bulb. We really need people who can see though mantras, through science fashion -> cult -> religion. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-large-cryptocurrencies-decrease-on-polkadot-uniswap-drops-01653411637-dfa8b623673c?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime Most large cryptocurrencies decrease on Polkadot, Uniswap drops Published: May 24, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. ET By MarketWatch Automation &&&&&&&& Howell - It would have helped if the article put things in more context, as I'm lost. Most of the day's declines cited are less than some parts of the stock markets, and are far less than the normal volatility over the last [week, month]. I was actually expecting crypto (here I show only Ethereum) to do much worse, given its meteoric covid rise : (gain, loss) since 09Dec2020 03Jan2022 30Mar2022 (approximate % only) Ethereum crypto (ETH) +1,280% -49% -43% NASDAQ (NDX 100) + 38% -29% -22% SPX500USD + 24% -18% -15% Gold (TV) + 26% + 2.3% - 3.1% There have not been massive margin calls in the broad market (yet), and the story hasn't ended one way or aer yet. At least in this era, crypto isn't looking like a substitute for Gold, and gold is looking better than stocks. 08********08 #] 23May2022 +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-feel-like-i-am-reliving-the-summer-of-2008-strategist-david-rosenberg-sees-bear-market-sinking-the-s-p-500-to-3-300-11653333623?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: ‘I feel like I am reliving the summer of 2008.’ Strategist David Rosenberg sees bear market sinking the S&P 500 to 3,300 Published: May 23, 2022 at 3:20 p.m. ET By David Rosenberg ‘Inflation is going to melt in the coming year’ and the U.S. economy will slide into recession The U.S. stock and the bond markets are finally in the process of catching up with our views. We always believed these past two years represented a fake bull market built on sand, not concrete. And frankly, we also remain steadfast of the view that the inflation scare is going to pass very soon — the bull market is in extrapolation and hyperventilation by economists, strategists, pundits, and media types who can’t seem to see past the tips of their noses. The lagged effects from the supercharged dollar is huge in terms of the impact on the cost of imported goods. Inventories have shifted from deficient to excessive and will need to be redressed with price discounts. The growth in money supply has literally collapsed and there is nary a pulse in money velocity. Fiscal policy, in the span of a year, has shifted from radical stimulus to restraint that would cause the remnants of the Tea Party to blush. The cyclical aspect to the commodity bull market is in the rear-view mirror. And as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell myopically focuses on “job openings,” a very soft data point, he is missing the upturn in layoffs and the retreat in company hiring plans. Inflation is going to melt in the coming year, and few (if any) are prepared for it. >> Great comments 08********08 #] 22May2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/bear-stock-market-sp500-51653093411?mod=newsviewer_click How Low Could the S&P 500 Sink? According to History, 3000. Last Updated: May 22, 2022 at 8:26 p.m. ET First Published: May 20, 2022 at 8:36 p.m. ET By Randall W. Forsyth &&&&&&&& Howell - It's very interesting that you specifically said "nominal" and "short term rates", together with the "P/E" phrase. I am NOT a big fan of the religion that markets [anticipate, discount] everything, especially with serious long-term investments (>2 years, but more like 10+years). Do you have nice [models, graphs] of P/E valuations based vs nal rates short term? I don't want MarketWatch trouble again from posting a link, but search Bill Howell "S&P 500 Shiller-forward Price-Earnings ratio (P/E) versus 10 year Treasury bond rates" for my shot at an all-too-simplistic model. You have to remember to use real interest rates, and CPI would NOT have been a good inflation measure for the covid pump - you would need a financial asset inflation measure! &&&&&&&& I thought we were doing our best to be psychotic at all times (or maybe it's just me). Is our salvation is that we are slightly less psychotic than many other foreign markets? How fast might international perceptions change of all countrys' relative [deficit, debt, rate, tax, business] environments, and will international allocations change much in the next years? Are people nervous about the US? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/bear-stock-market-sp500-51653093411?mod=newsviewer_click &&&&&&&& Politicians have to respond to the demands of voters. Boomers are retiring out of active involvement, accelerating the [long-term, radical] change different voter [attitudes, interests, demographics]. It makes no sense to stand up for order in the fiscal house when it is being squandered with glee. Perhaps the best thing you can do is to join the party, grab more than your fair share of the goodies, and help drive the system to a real collapse. I don't think like that, but I always wondered what it would be like to chirp like the nihilists of the mid-1800s (Bakhunin and activists, followed by yappers like Marx). The following step is to blame societal collapse on good people, rather than those who caused it. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/anthony-albanese-emerges-as-australias-new-prime-minister-chances-for-majority-government-unclear-01653257313?mod=newsviewer_click Anthony Albanese emerges as Australia’s new prime minister; chances for majority government unclear Published: May 22, 2022 at 6:08 p.m. ET Biden congratulates Albanese, who may need to be sworn in as ‘acting PM’ ahead of summit Tuesday &&&&&&&& Howell - I wish Australia the best as they "... change the way that politics operates in this country ..." and solve "... climate, COVID-19, women’s rights, political integrity and natural disasters such as bushfires and floods. ...". Canada has already done all that, and we can relax in smug satisfaction with our ruling principle "... Government of the parasites, by the parasites, for the parasites. ...". Remember, we were there first. +-----+ forget - Musk pissed off at Democrats Howell : My focus is science, not markets, and I've long noted that all too often the best predictor of a [mathematician, scientist]'s opinion is their political party kinship, and NOT the [math, science] concepts being considered. It's frustrating, but thankfully after a few decades I don't get mad at anybody : it's the best that human beings can do. We are ALL stupid and smart, there are NO geniuses if by that you mean some humans don't [think, do] stupid ideas more or less regularly. Maybe in the most fundamental way, it is right to jump on bandwagons, as we are not usually are not able to think much differently, and there are clear benefits to being on the winning side (that I know from spending my life on the losing sides ). Democracies and their politicians evolve with the voter composition, but that doesn't mean that it reflects [voter, society]'s best interests. We force our politicians to do stupid things that will blow up in our faces. When that eventually happens, we scapegoat the politicians. No longer can I feel strong blame for those who seek to manipulate voters : "You must program your intellectual robots. If you don't, you can be sure that your enemies will." Through 7,500 years of history, political [concept, system]s come and go, including democracies. Not included : I sometimes wonder if one of the most important human evolutionary basis for thinking IS political affiliation, as the losers might have a slightly lower successful reproductive rate? So m To me, there is NO abnormal polarization of the current political spectrum, it's simply a slow change in relative dominance of different segments of the voter population, which are readily identifiable in [media, politician, policy] emphasis. Perhaps a better way for me to look at it is to assume "the dark side", that what I actually see is much better than what I expect. Therefore, optimism can survive. University professors are among the most susceptible, and they have a huge influence on the next generation, so start there. Hollywood, the media, 08********08 #] ddMay2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-summer-of-pain-the-nasdaq-composite-could-plunge-75-from-peak-s-p-500-skid-45-from-its-top-warns-guggenheims-scott-minerd-11652901040 &&&&&&&& Howell - Maybe Scott Minerd is right, maybe not, but it's not so outlandish. After two years of [Fed, Treasury] pump to support the economy during covid policy crackdown, and "return to normal" isn't crazy. Deleverage Feb balance sheet hasn't even started yet, and if there is a 20:1 ratio (a bit like banking loans and supposedly the housing Collaterallized Debt Obligations (CDOs) of the pre-2007 period), a readjustment may be reasonable, but scary. Taxes might be interesting. We're still a couple of hundred SP500 points above the 1926-2020 semi-log trend-line, but the market has usually been [above, below] that for periods of a decade or so, as was the case post-2008. A lot can happen, so we will see it when we get there, wherever "there" is. Baer Markit - Why do you care what the relationship is between inflation and interest rates? Go study the relationships prior to 2010. Howell - Good comment even if I didn't say anything about that relationship, whereas Guggenheim did. Interest rates (10y T-bond) and inflation have had an interesting ride for ~80 years (my graph only goes back ~1977). The interest rates seeming to have been slower to come down (lagged, perhaps understandably), although the zigs sort of match the zags. Moreover, there are interesting longer-term analysis suggesting that we may be heading to a period of even lower inflation (echos of analysis since the Medici time in Italy), but I don't know enough to have confidence in any forecasts, especially given the current situation. But the real answer is that I don't have the Fed's job and responsibility, lucky for everybody (mostly myself). I imagine that the Fed is sweating a lot right now over their balancing act, and I wish them luck. I didn't include : Furthermore, I wonder what the impact will be on long-term bond markets going into the future, and what effect that will have for "normal" companies with long-term financing needs that don't look like a FANMG (or whatever) company. 08********08 #] 16May2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-these-3-things-so-federal-and-state-governments-can-offer-more-targeted-help-during-the-next-recession-11652727409?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Fix these 3 things so federal and state governments can offer more targeted help during the next recession Last Updated: May 16, 2022 at 6:09 p.m. ET First Published: May 16, 2022 at 2:56 p.m. ET By Wendy Edelberg Louise Sheiner David Wessel Learn these COVID lessons &&&&&&&& Howell - Grand statement of nothing, it seems me. The authors are NOT proposing anything that hasn't been [done, proposed, commented] many, many times before, even with respect to the covid [challenge, response]. How many of the other proclamations are superior to these current authors', and can any of promoters of such programs ever imagine the [risks, potential damage] their ideas may pose? I didn't use: The authors seem unable to provide any [basis, criteria, approach] for how to accomodate their misty proposal into the swamp of existing demands on [time, resources] and [how, why] to prioritize that. "... Making permanent some COVID-era benefits ..." sounds different and specific to the covid situation, but is meaningless without details. "[Increasing administrative capacity, modernize computer systems, improve communications]" adds nothing to what has long been done, has hugely evolved over decades, and is an automatic step in any [new, expanding] program. I do have this uneasy feeling that the economy is no longer internationally [competitive, productive] in a traditional sense except maybe [finance, hi-tech, entertainment, etc]; that most [mental, physical] work is done by machines; that government is THE major job growth area (including [academic, education, health, social, contractor] areas). But to deal with those kinds of issues, [sociologists, economists, policy] types are not the right people. Maybe the new computational intelligence (CI) systems are? 08********08 #] 15May2022 SP500 1926-2020 semi-log trend = 10^(0.792392+2.89587*10^(-2)*(year - 1926.25)) price revolution* (~7%/y) SP500 1872-1926 semi-log trend = 10^(0.784617+1.40925*10^(-4)*(year - 1871.08)) price equilibrium* (~0.03%/y) *David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" qnial> price revolution : (10 power 0.0289587 ) - 1 = 0.0689532 or ~7%/y qnial> price equilibrium : (10 power 1.40925E-4) - 1 = 0.000324544 or ~0.03%/y SP500 15Apr-06Sep2021: semilog trend = 10^(3.5018 + 0.0940601*(year - 2020.02)) Fibbonacci(0.0) ~upper bound, effective rate ~= ((10 power semiLog_slope) -1) : 24%/year this mis-adjusts somewhat as time progresses from ~06Jan2022 qnial> (10 power 0.0940601) - 1 0.241824 or ~24%/y SP500 1926-2020 semi-log trend (thick navy blue, ~7%/y) gray lines above trend : (1 + fib*stdDev/2) * fib0000_base gray lines below trend : (1 - fib*stdDev/2) * fib0000_base where fib = [ 0.382, 0.618, 0.786, 1.000, 1.272 ] stdDev = 0.4308 (for entire 1926-2020 period!) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/data-from-2-1-million-students-in-10-000-schools-reveal-the-impact-of-remote-learning-on-academic-achievement-11652118143? Wow, thanks for the reminder. I didn't even think of that aspect of it, in spite of watching my back for 2 years in high school after a ball peen hammer incident (I was really lucky). I laugh about now, but it's not funny when you don't know how the story ends. [Violence, fights] in [hockey, football] were part of the reason I was there, but probably not for everyone. Sometimes I wonder if gangs are the most basic form of government, and will always arise because of the schisms between our [intent, belief, law, court, police] and reality. There cannot be a perfect answer, and perhaps the attempt to impose one can itself be the biggest problem? I just don't know... 08********08 #] 11May2022 +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6LINUyA5WY Doug Casey: the world is headed for chaos and radical change 232,242 views Apr 18, 2022 Small Caps 27K subscribers Doug Casey, founder of Casey Research, joins Small Caps to share his views on what's taking place in the world, financial markets, where opportunity may be for investors and what we might see next. Doug Casey's Take YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/DougCaseysTake/videos internationalman.com >> Casey is cynicahas his head screwed on. Chaotic time : Gold & Silver physically Must [think, behave] like a speculator (completely different from gambling!!) position for politically-caused distoritins of marketplace desperate governments create more speculative opportunities catastrophic collapse of bond markets much higher rates market crash nobody wants to touch [oil, gold, uranium] mining companies - very small markets will explode with small money influx oddball investments like Uzbekistan Two types of people 1. like to build and do things 2. like to control other people - civil servants +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-is-it-safe-to-start-buying-stocks-again-were-not-there-yet-but-these-are-the-six-signs-to-look-for-11652297223?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: When is it safe to start buying stocks again? We’re not there yet, but these are the six signs to look for Last Updated: May 11, 2022 at 3:27 p.m. ET First Published: May 11, 2022 at 3:26 p.m. ET By Michael Brush Extreme negativity is only one indicator. Six market professionals explain what they track. “It’s a basket of things, but when they start to pile up, it gives me more confidence,” says Larry McDonald of the Bear Traps Report. Michael Hartnett, Bank of America’s chief of investment strategy Look for peak negativity among investors Verdict: We are not there yet. Since the start of 2021, investors put $1.5 trillion into mutual funds and exchange traded funds. So far, they’ve only taken out around $35 billion. “That is not capitulation,” says Hartnett. For that, he’d like to see $300 billion in withdrawals, particularly if it happened fast. Likewise, stock allocations are at 63% among portfolios in Bank of America’s private client network. For capitulation, we’d need to see that drop to the mid-50% range. “This just isn’t it,” he says. Bob Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments Look for a peak fear index : CBOE Volatility Index VIX Verdict: Not there yet He’d like to see moves closer to 40. He also wants to see more stocks hitting the 52-week low list, and more stocks trading below their moving averages. Leuthold Group chief investment officer Doug Ramsey Look for a spike in the put/call ratio Verdict: Not there yet To smooth out volatility, he tracks a three-day average. Since 2014, capitulation bottoms happened when this ratio moved to 0.85 or higher, as you can see in the chart below from Ramsey. It was recently at around 0.7. So, it’s not there yet. McDonald at the Bear Traps Report Look for a spike in the number of stocks getting trashed Verdict: The low is in — tradable bounce ahead. For what he calls the “classic pukes,” he looks for a sharp contraction in the number of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) above their 200-day moving averages. When this falls into the 20% range, this suggests capitulation. It was recently at 28%. That’s close enough considering the following confirming indicators. McDonald cites the elevated ratio of decliners to advancing issues on NYSE (seven to one), one of the highest levels in the past five years. And the large number of stocks recently hitting new lows on Nasdaq. That was 1,261 on May 9, also near the high for the past five years. The upshot: “There’s a 95% chance we have seen capitulation for a tradeable bounce,” concludes McDonald. It could create a 20%-30% upside move. But this will merely be a rally in a sustained bear market that will carry on for a year or two. He cites two reasons. First, most investors are down a lot, and they just want their money back. “The average investor is so torched right now,” says McDonald. “They will sell strength.” Next, the Federal Reserve is going to “break something” with its aggressive rate hikes. Likely candidate: Something in the commercial real estate market. “You have skyscrapers in all the big cities empty, and loans are starting to come due,” says McDonald. “There could be big default cycle.” Look for a high-volume blow-off Martin Pring, publisher of the InterMarket Review investment letter and author of “Investment Psychology Explained,” one of my favorite market books. Verdict: Not there yet. One good sign of capitulation is a “selling climax” marked by a sharp move down on big volume... Often this can happen with a big whoosh down in the morning and a recovery, followed by relative calm. So far, we have not seen a high-volume selling climax. Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader Look for a big decline in margin debt Verdict: Not there yet. likes to see a big reduction in brokerage account margin debt as a sign of capitulation. How big? He looks for a 10% drop year over year. The current decline is just 3% to $799 billion. Goepfert has at least 12 capitulation indicators, and only three suggest we are there. They are: The initial public offering drought; several consecutive weeks of $10 billion equity fund outflows; and extreme lows in investor sentiment surveys. Among other signs, he’d still like to see at least 40% of NYSE stocks at 52-week lows (we are near 30%); fewer than 20% of S&P 500 SPX, -1.65% stocks trading above their 200-day moving averages (currently 31%); and a spike in correlation among stocks in the S&P 500. 08********08 #] 11May2022 TradingView, jbrothersjr : Revisiting a long term trend line, S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) Inspired by @jbrothersjr blog : https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/yjSVcTsJ-Revisiting-a-long-term-trend-line/ I revamed an old PineScript of mine, which you can hopefully access directly from within the chart on this posting, or perhaps I will have to post it separately. https://www.tradingview.com/chart/u4klPKBn/ The general idea is to show the SP500 trend based on 1926-2020, and see how the last 5 years compares to that. If you view the 5-year timescale for this chart, it appears that the massive "covid pumping" of the market by the US [Federal Reserve, Treasury] via low interest rates and heavy Fed bond purchases, led to the massive financial asset inflation we've seen, without a corresponding Consumer Price inflation uptrend until last summer (it wasn't considered to be real at the time). Investors were of course estatic, confident that the reason they were becoming rich was because of their superior intelligence and NOT because of the "rising tide carries all ships" theme. Recent small increases in the interest rates, and maybe-not-even-started-yet bond sales by the Fed, are corresponding to a correction of the markets. The net effect seems to be that private investors pumped huge money into the markets to help mitigate nasty effects of covid shutdowns (one is not allowed to suggest policy insanity), and will be relieved of some part of their brilliant gains by the reversion to the long-term mean of the markets. Now everybody is brilliant : 1) the Fed & Treasury because they effectively expropriated the wealth of a hated sub-class of society, without even needing to change the constitution or laws. 2) Investors, who not only made a ton of money, but who, out of the goodness of their hearts, donated some of it back to helping their fellow Americans. In some cases they were so generous, bei late to the game, to donate much MORE than they made. Pretty nice of them, eh? 3) Altruists (scientists, politicians especially) who fought bravely to save us all from a situation that could have killed even more than the small percentage of the population that died anyways. Of course, we'll have to the 150 years to confirm this, in case it turns into one of the great pandemics of old. No problem : votes and funding have already been received, so [scientists, politicians] are very happy. Long-term trends - these are my fit periods: SP500 1926-2020 semi-log trend = 10^(0.792392+2.89587*10^(-2)*(year - 1926.25)) price revolution* SP500 1872-1926 semi-log trend = 10^(0.784617+1.40925*10^(-4)*(year - 1871.08)) price equilibrium* *David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" More recent trend that I keep on the chart for now, as I suspect that until very recently, much of the market really was hoping for the 24% financial asset inflation that occurred well into the Feb, Treasury] pump period : SP500 Fibbonacci(0.0) ~upper bound 15Apr-06Sep2021 : semilog trend = 10^(3.5018 + 0.0940601*(year - 2020.02)) effective rate ~= ((10 power semiLog_slope) -1) : 24%/year this mis-adjusts somewhat as time progresses from ~06Jan2022 Not used : Of course, we are not allow to consider the others they killed along the way, nor ask whether more died that way than by covid. +---+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/yjSVcTsJ-Revisiting-a-long-term-trend-line/ Brilliant @jbrothersjr!! I had dropped my old Pinescript for a 1926-2020 semi-log trend of SP500. I've just revamped it for a simpler perspective, and added it back to one of my charts. I posted it to https://www.tradingview.com/chart/u4klPKBn/ (not sure if even TradingView URLs are legal in blog comments, I've been in trouble before). My stuff is public (I hope), so you might be able to see it there (basically the same result as you). I've hidden a pile of other international stock markets on the chart, so it's easier to see the SP500 trend. Long-term trends - these are my fit periods: SP500 1926-2020 semi-log trend = 10^(0.792392+2.89587*10^(-2)*(year - 1926.25)) price revolution* SP500 1872-1926 semi-log trend = 10^(0.784617+1.40925*10^(-4)*(year - 1871.08)) price equilibrium* *David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" More recent trend that I keep on the chart for now, as I suspect that until very recently, much of the market really was hoping for the 24% financial asset inflation that occurred well into the Feb, Treasury] pump period : SP500 Fibbonacci(0.0) ~upper bound 15Apr-06Sep2021 : semilog trend = 10^(3.5018 + 0.0940601*(year - 2020.02)) effective rate ~= ((10 power semiLog_slope) -1) : 24%/year this mis-adjusts somewhat as time progresses from ~06Jan2022 I do NOT yet have a proper "Fibonacci mirror" [above, below] the long-term trend-line. It's been a while since I last programmed in PineScript, and I'm older and dumber now too. 08********08 #] 10May2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-u-s-will-have-more-people-by-2100-russia-and-china-wont-why-this-matters-to-your-stock-portfolio-now-11652144850?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest The U.S. will have more people by 2100 — Russia and China won’t. Why this matters to your stock portfolio now Last Updated: May 10, 2022 at 3:28 p.m. ET First Published: May 10, 2022 at 7:28 a.m. ET Last Updated: May 10, 2022 at 3:28 p.m. ET First Published: May 10, 2022 at 7:28 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert In order to grow, economies need an expanding base of both workers and consumers https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-is-haunted-by-the-loss-of-real-russians-3c996k3c7 Putin is haunted by the loss of ‘real’ Russians Population decline is the driver of the war — and may decide its outcome Dominic Lawson Sunday March 13 2022, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times &&&&&&&& Edward Emory 5 hours ago "At just 0.3% on an annualized basis, it’s barely enough to keep the U.S. population from shrinking." "The United Nations Population Division projects that the U.S. population will be 31% higher in 2100 than in 2020," Do these 2 statements really belong in the same article? Howell - (2100 - 2020) = 80 years wrong but simple : 80 * 0.3 = 24% non-compounded (24%/80 years) compounded (1 + 0.003)^80 = 1.27079 (27%/80 years) So I've made a mistake, but seems in the ballpark. Howell - Great article about a centuries old [theme, debate], and how easy it is to lose track of population [growth, age distribution, family formation, etc] . Bankers (Medici?) in Florence Italy debated the relative influence of [money printing, population growth] on inflation, a long-time theme of Harry Dent and the population boom-bush author. but I don't remember the aging population theme in earlier works. A second aspect may be loss of competitiveness in higher-standard-of-living leading countries. Hah - almost like a society can get old and tired, literally. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/pfizer-biohaven-biotech-mergers-51652207078?mod=newsviewer_click Pfizer Is Spending $11.6 Billion on Biohaven. Its Plans Point to a Lot More M&A. Published: May 10, 2022 at 2:26 p.m. ET By Josh Nathan-Kazis Pfizer’s $11.6 billion planned acquisition of Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding is only the start of the spending spree that the company has planned, the company signaled on Tuesday. Pfizer (ticker: PFE) appears to be prepared to spend tens of billion dollars more as it gets ready for a number of its key drugs to go off patent toward the end of the decade. That is good news for the biotech sector, where valuations have plummeted this year, partly because deals have been rare. >> for BioHaven, see : https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/BHVN?mod=MW_story_quote Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd. Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the research and development of late-stage product candidates targeting neurological diseases, including rare disorders. It focuses on a pipeline of product candidates that represent mechanistic platforms, calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonists, and glutamate modulators. The company was founded in September 2013 and is headquartered in New Haven, CT. +-----+ Awesome fun!! https://www.marketwatch.com/story/1-000-pound-great-white-shark-spotted-near-the-jersey-shore-track-it-here-11652202724?mod=newsviewer_click 1,000-pound great white shark spotted near the Jersey Shore — track it here Published: May 10, 2022 at 1:12 p.m. ET By Nicole Lyn Pesce Ironbound the shark has been swimming up and down the East Coast. A satellite tracker also caught him swimming past Pennsylvania and North Carolina this week https://www.ocearch.org/tracker/ &&&&&&&& Howell - Really fun article, and awesome tracking of [sharks, alligators, swordfish, turtles] on linked pages. Phew! Track your favourite great white shark, jump in a boat, jump in the ocean, and give her a big kiss! +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/keep-calm-theres-no-recession-on-the-way-these-13-stocks-may-rise-as-investors-figure-this-out-11652199311?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Keep calm — there’s no recession on the way. These 13 stocks may rise as investors figure this out Published: May 10, 2022 at 12:15 p.m. ET By Michael Brush The economy is strong, as consumers and businesses are in good shape 1. The economy is strong 2. The yield curve is not predicting a recession 3. Companies are guiding up, not down 4. The household sector is strong 5. Companies are cash-rich 6. Junk bond credit spreads are narrowing 7. Signs confirm inflation has peaked 8. Company insiders see no recession ahead &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice article, and list of recession risk metrics, albeit a few are very close to their borderlines. I thought it's always been a given that a market setback (even crash) isn't an automatic recession, and it seems most of the "fear" news I look at is strictly financial market, not recession (yet). A frequent word is "oversold" in the last couple of days, so many are looking for a bounce? And how are the "new" AI machines different from the "old" ones, which we called market analysts and economists, just as "computers" were people doing long pen&pencil calculations in the 1800's? Is there any chance the "new" AI can output anything that their supervisors, the "old" AI, don't like? +-----+ https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-scrambles-as-china-economy-stumbles-beijing-economic-prospects-technology-covid-lockdowns-evergrande-president-for-life-re-election-11652190698?mod=newsviewer_click&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D77733928119359463852864304544708261410%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1652200028 Xi Jinping Scrambles as China’s Economy Stumbles His recipe for stagnation: Hostility to the private sector, friendship with Russia, and ‘zero Covid.’ By Kevin Rudd May 10, 2022 12:06 pm ET Today China’s economic prospects look significantly weaker than at the beginning of the year, with the International Monetary Fund cutting its forecast for Chinese growth to 4.4% while other economists predict figures below 4%. Capital has been fleeing the country, with foreign investors dumping $18 billion in Chinese bonds and more than $7 billion in Chinese stocks in March alone. What happened? Four things: First, the crisis in China’s property sector, which represents as much as 29% of gross domestic product, has proved worse than expected ever since real-estate giant Evergrande went into default last year. The contagion has spread and at least 10 Chinese developers have defaulted on dollar-denominated debt, spooking investors. Second, Mr. Xi’s crackdown on China’s technology sector has helped drive down the market capitalization of China’s 10 largest technology companies by more than $2 trillion over the past year. Those companies are now laying off thousands of people. Third, the invasion of Ukraine by Mr. Xi’s “best friend in the world,” Vladimir Putin, has sent energy and commodity prices soaring and has snarled supply chains already backed up by the pandemic. That’s terrible news for the world’s largest manufacturer, exporter and energy-consuming economy. Fourth, there is Mr. Xi’s insistence on China’s zero-Covid strategy, which has led to mass lockdowns in cities including Shanghai. Mr. Xi declared “victory” over the virus last year, having staked his political reputation on a strategy he declared superior to those employed by the West. In Chinese Communist Party politics, the leader can never be wrong on anything, so Mr. Xi can’t be seen to be changing his zero-Covid policy—at least not until the 20th Party Congress in November has concluded and Mr. Xi is safely reappointed. But some 373 million people in 45 cities have been under some kind of lockdown since late April. Those places represent roughly 40% of China’s total economic output, or around $7.2 trillion in annual GDP. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-charts-warn-the-dows-new-lower-low-wont-be-the-lowest-11652125193?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_content=replied-your-message&spot_im_redirect_source=email&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000852201_c_28wtwCGIx9v9D1NQRYbWrSP6M2O_r_28y58LHEH7GaKsfG2kXlJR87qBR&spot_im_content_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000852201&spot_im_content_type=conversation Expanding from your comment : also important is the humbling process of learning about markets by [trading, investing] with "losable" money, and realising that, other than passive investing, it's not as easy as it seems, that your own [emotion, logic, model, belief]s will betray you. Not enough people really learn, so we get armies of conspiracy theorists dumping on good men and organisations, and making heros of the wrong people. That could apply to my own comments about the Fed, although that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, thinking how Fed actions might have been a really interesting pragmatic solution. Not used : I especially like your insight "... And if you're not young you really should know better--but I guess we will have yet another cycle of people who were in cash way too long after the last downturn ...". 08********08 #] 09May2022 Sheesh, after bragging about fantastic returns for most of a decade, 15-50% loss in a few months is hardly a problem, unless you jumped in late like me. I admire the approach : 1. pump the markets to seduce massive private money into financial markets 2. rapid inflation of financial assets occurs without immediate consumer price inflation 3. this stimulates the economy, thereby avoiding serious social costs from covid shutdowns 4. then shut off the pump and watch [rates, valuations] go to sane levels (i.e. much down) 5. all the blame goes to innocent scapegoats Confiscation of personal money without need for laws, and though simple, it's still too complex for us to catch on. And the Fed hasn't even started to delevereage yet (is this a ~20 times factor, a bit like bank deposits, and maybe CDOs of 2007-8 housing crash?). The balloons we see at used car sales lots don't seem to mind this treatment, so we should be happy. 08********08 #] 09May2022 USOil snapshot in TradingView "$d_webRawe"'economics, markets/Oil/220509 USOil snapshot in TradingView, Aug2021-May2022.png' 08********08 #] 05May2022 emto Steve : Bearish Insiders on the downtrend of US broad indices - an unusual situation How about ONCY insiders? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/executives-are-so-bearish-theyre-not-even-buying-their-own-companies-shares-at-steep-discounts-11651771982?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest 08********08 #] 22Mar2022 Harry Dent: High Valuations Suggest Near-Zero Stock Returns for the Next Decade /media/bill/Dell2/Website - raw/economics, markets/Harry S Dent Jr/220322 Stifel via Dent: SP500 implied price corridor 10y forward-looking 1956-2022.jpg 08********08 #] 13Mar2022 MktWatch blog: many of my blogs not recorded for a while Couldn't post : No, although I perhaps didn't make my sarcasm clear enough. I am generally NOT a fan of conspiracy theories, although sports teams, business, politics, are all competitive, and to me are "real conspiracies" in that sense (i.e, organised competion between groups). I respect George Soros for his [talent, success] (far better than I could do, that's for sure!), but I just don't trust him. The Toba reference is very iffy, as any interpretations going back 10s of thousands of years. But it is an "interesting time". As I remember it (not - my memory is not so good wage), Tamboura volcanic eruption of ~1815 was followed by the last big "summerless year" and was something like ten times the eruptive size of Krakatoa. There are dark things in the geological record - including the 5-7 great mass extinctions (again, my memory is cloudy). 08********08 #] 10Mar2022 MktWatch blog: "Government of the parasites, by the parasites, for the parasites" https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gasoline-vouchers-worth-300-a-month-some-economists-back-new-government-aid-as-prices-at-pump-soar-11646855782?mod=newsviewer_click Gasoline vouchers worth $300 a month? Some economists back new government aid as prices at the pump soar Last Updated: March 10, 2022 at 9:25 a.m. ET First Published: March 9, 2022 at 2:56 p.m. ET By Victor Reklaitis Analyst: Stunning rise in gas prices in an election year could lead to vouchers &&&&&&&& Julian Esh - America is doomed if we think the government is going to solve all our problems. Howell - You are behind the times in your thinking. Now it's : - "Government of the parasites, by the parasites, for the parasites" - Nations as day care centers for adults - Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Democracies go the way of voters, voters go the way of the media, media goes the way of [government, academic] experts and well-established socialism. "You must program your intellectual robots. If you don't, your enemies most certainly will?" Education is a great foundation until it is ultimately mis-directed and politicized. Just look at science over the last 2-3 generations. 08********08 #] 09Mar2022 MkWatch: Crypto leaders hail Biden executive order as a ‘watershed moment’ for the industry https://www.marketwatch.com/story/crypto-leaders-hail-biden-executive-order-as-a-watershed-moment-for-the-industry-11646847738?mod=newsviewer_click Crypto leaders hail Biden executive order as a ‘watershed moment’ for the industry Published: March 9, 2022 at 12:42 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews The order directs a broad government review of policies related to digital assets Leading figures in the cryptocurrency industry are applauding President Joe Biden’s executive order on digital assets as an important milestone and evidence that crypto has reached the mainstream. The order directed federal agencies to conduct a broad review of their policies related to cryptocurrencies and other digital assets and to put forth proposed regulatory and legal changes needed to foster consumer protection, financial stability and innovation while guarding against illicit finance and threats like ransomware attacks. “It’s more industry friendly than some in the cryptocurrency world might have feared,” Jonathan McCollum, a lobbyist who represents crypto companies before Congress, told MarketWatch, adding that the administration decision to engage in a deep study of the issues before issuing new regulations was welcome by the industry. 08********08 #] 09Mar2022 MkWatch blog: We can’t stay in a state of panic.’ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-cant-stay-in-a-state-of-panic-forecaster-who-predicted-a-series-of-rolling-bear-markets-has-just-turned-bullish-11646828024?mod=newsviewer_click ‘We can’t stay in a state of panic.’ Forecaster who predicted a series of rolling bear markets has just turned bullish. Last Updated: March 9, 2022 at 10:12 a.m. ET First Published: March 9, 2022 at 7:13 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day &&&&&&&& Howell - Yves Lamoureux may be correct with his timing, I certainly don't know. But the "infatuation-yapping" with the Ukraine-Russia situation is [far, far] from a state of panic in the [US, EU], other than for people in the Ukraine, hyper-sensitive outside of it, and a small minority who cannot afford both increased [food, gas,heat] prices at the same time (this does not include most investors). Given the recent covid payouts, I expect that most of the"affordability vulnerable" [expect, will get] more help. For markets, there's lots of time for many more large [bull, bear] swings. History and markets are not dead yet. 08********08 #] 09Mar2022 MkWatch blog: Fortune magazine’s ‘most admired’ companies likely not 2022’s best stocks ttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-fortune-magazines-most-admired-companies-likely-wont-be-among-2022s-best-performing-stocks-11646728958?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: Why Fortune magazine’s ‘most admired’ companies likely won’t be among 2022’s best-performing stocks Last Updated: March 8, 2022 at 3:01 p.m. ET First Published: March 8, 2022 at 7:20 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Pfizer’s appearance on this year’s list, for example, may be more of a curse than a blessing Again, since the magazine doesn’t publish rankings below 50th place, it isn’t possible to know which companies these are. Mastercard MA, 3.22% was in the top 50 a year ago (43rd) but this year dropped out altogether. Among those remaining in the top 50 but falling the most in the ranks are Southwest Airlines LUV, 3.83%, which dropped from 14th to 28th, and Visa V, 2.75%, which slid to 47th from 36th. ... The Journal of Corporate Finance study found that “the CEOs of firms that experience an increase in score are more likely to undertake acquisitions than are the CEOs of firms that experience a fall in score and the acquisitions are more likely to be value reducing.” The CEOs engage in this value-destroying behavior because they can increase their power, reputation, prestige and compensation by increasing the size of their companies, even when acquiring another company comes at the expense of shareholders. So CEOs operate with powerful incentives to engage in so-called “empire building,” and an increased rank in Fortune’s list evidently enables them to do more of it. 08********08 #] 09Mar2022 MkWatch blog: U.S. Treasury bonds provide portfolio insurance https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-strong-hedge-against-global-unrest-and-rattled-markets-and-it-isnt-gold-or-energy-11646731141?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: Here’s a strong hedge against global unrest and rattled markets — and it isn’t gold or energy Last Updated: March 8, 2022 at 7:57 p.m. ET First Published: March 8, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert U.S. Treasury bonds provide portfolio insurance for investors seeking safe havens Consider a 2020 study published in Oxford University’s Review of Financial Studies, entitled “Flights to Safety.” Its authors were Lieven Baele of Tilburg University; Geert Bekaert of Columbia University; Koen Inghelbrecht of Ghent University, and Min Wei of the Federal Reserve. They created a database of extreme “flight to safety” episodes in 23 countries, and found that during these times, bonds outperformed stocks by an average of 2.79% per day. &&&&&&&& Howell - Prior to March it seemed that markets expected long-term rates to rise modestly for the "1-year-term" (6 month to 2 year range), but not for the "7-year-term" (3 to 10 year range). Presumably one has to be ready to sell long-term bond ETFs after a strong episode of unrest, if rates are heading to much higher levels? This gives safety for the period of shock, and the flexibility to switch to bullish after the short "market unrest" period. I think Harry Dent has also proposed this approach, but for years if not decades. didn't use : Several markets commentators claim that the potential for inflation should be more subdued modest-to-strong rate increases on the "7-year-term" (3 to 10 year range), inflation should be more subdued but that doesn't automatically translate into interest rate moves. But markets may not yet factor in much for Fed balance sheet deleveraging, nor (apart from commodities) a huge hit from the Ukraine-Russia situation. 08********08 #] 07Mar2022 MktWatch blog: machine traded modern markets too [fast, efficient] for human intellect https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-copper-and-oil-prices-predict-about-the-chance-of-recession-in-2022- oops ??????????? Opinion: Here’s what copper and oil prices predict about the chance of recession in 2022 Last Updated: March 8, 2022 at 7:59 p.m. ET First Published: March 7, 2022 at 7:10 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Copper suggests continued growth — in contrast to oil. But neither have much of a track record. &&&&&&&& Howell - Are machine traded modern markets just too fast at efficient [pricing, learning] for human intellect, so not much works anymore? Traditionally the thought was that as soon as we have something that works, others rapidly adopt the idea, which then loses value. But now maybe humans can't even think of opportunities before the machines have already [analysed, reacted], anticipating our behaviour long before we've figured anything out? Or is it just that, like Robert Prechter has long maintained, precious few of our concepts about markets have ever held water? (Or both - torn between machine paranoia and a horrible image of self) J. Thompson 09Mar2022 ~10:00 - Machine trading doesn't move faster than AN individual's intellect, it's just faster than yours (& mine): it sees collective mood swings & sentiment faster than we do. Doesn't mean contrarian thinking can't work. But I think it's hard for us as individuals to differentiate when we're thinking smart but contrarian, from when we're just part of the herd. Howell 09Mar2022 ~10:50 - Nice comment. I've long been fascinated with how [math, astronomy, physics, geology, etc] experts think they think, versus the "mainstream consensus scientific thought" which most often looks more like religious beliefs than thought. Science specialties are far more simple than markets, but seemingly induce with their own [herd, contrarian] types. "... Perceptions are their own reality, divorced from other perceptual realities, all of which drift away from a reality without perceptions, which some say we can never attain. ..." Alas, science got bogged down, perhaps in much the same human way as its brothers : [myth, theol]ology. 08********08 #] 04Mar2022 MktWatch blog : media rhetoric- everything that they don't like is called "right wing" +--+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/right-wing-serbians-rally-in-central-belgrade-behind-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-01646449293?mod=newsviewer_click Right-wing Serbians rally in central Belgrade behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Published: March 4, 2022 at 10:01 p.m. ET By Associated Press Protesters chant ‘Russia, Russia’ and pledge wider demonstrations if Belgrade participates in Western sanctions against Russia &&&&&&&& Howell - It's funny how media rhetoric goes: everything that they don't like is called "right wing", like National Socialist Party of Germany (if that's what they called it at one time). Presumably the old USSR is now classified as extreme right-wing as well by our [intellectual, academic, media]s. I just finished reading details behind the Battle of the Bulge, a defensive campaign that pulled resources away from Germany's Russian front, largely driven by Roosevelt-Stalin's announced surrender conditions, and perhaps by Roosevelt's loyal pursuit of Stalin's decisions all during the war and knowing where that was going (eg Soviet, China, East Europe] sellouts). Some Germans may have trusted the Soviets more than the Americans? (sounds crazy to me, but that's how they sometimes acted) I'm not a fan of Russia, but maybe the Serbs are onto something here, even if things have changed? It's funny how media rhetoric goes: everything that they don't like is called "right wing", like National Socialist Party of Germany (if that's what they called it at one time). Presumably the old USSR is now classified as extreme right-wing as well by our [intellectual, academic, media]s. I just finished reading details behind the Battle of the Bulge, a defensive campaign that pulled resources away from Germany's Russian front, largely driven by Roosevelt-Stalin's announced surrender conditions, and perhaps by Roosevelt's loyal pursuit of Stalin's decisions all during the war and knowing where that was going (eg Soviet, China, East Europe] sellouts). Some Germans may have trusted the Soviets more than the Americans? (sounds crazy to me, but that's how they sometimes acted) I'm not a fan of Russia, but maybe the Serbs are onto something here, even if things have changed? +--+ Baris Ersoy - Hitler did not like the name of the NSDAP and wanted to keep it as DAP. Goebbels convinced him that it was worth it to attract disillusioned communists who shied away from internationalism. Hitler later purged the socialist element of the party, known as Strasserism. Howell - Thanks for your corrections, Baris. I am not as willing to purge Hitler from the Nazi party. Granted, he hated Marxists, Russian implemented socialism originating from Germany, as well as described by the one many thought to be the leader of socialism, Michael Bakunin "Statism and Anarchy" (translated by Marshall S. Shatz). It see to me that Hitler was "somewhat consistent" in socialist thinking at least until power and war preps, at which time words must serve propaganda. My suggestion is to use Adolph Hitler (v1 1925, v2 1927) "Mein Kampf" The Ford Translation, 2009 Michael Ford & EliteMindsInc, rather than the traditional English translations (also Michael Ford "Mein Kampf: A translation controversy"). I didn't use : Forget the actual history, far more interesting to me is how problems of interepretation "mis-color" understanding for thousands of years : my favourite example (stunning fun!) is Lucio Russo 2004 "The forgotten revolution: How science was born in 300 BC and why it had to be reborn". History is FAR from my primary focus on [neural networks, fundamental theoretical physics], but my late father (died 23Dec201) dragged me into it, and I enjoyed doing projects with him. >> problem was URL "EliteMindsInc.com", so I droped ".com" & worked OK Stalin's writing: a bit hard to put into context, as he wasn't "simple" at all. What am I really reading in : Josheph Stalin 1951 "Economic problems of socialism in the U.S.S.R."? +--+ Darren Weis - I get the feeling you conflate or mixup the conservative or right wing ideology of today (not all but those who watch fox news or are in the Trump cult) with the old conservative right (Eisenhower) type right wing that existed in the 1940's and up until the late 90's., RINO's you probably call them. Howell : Darren Weis - I like your break-over timing of late 1990's. You are absolutely right, I "conflate AND mixup", but to me it's more a question of questioning the [meaning, value] of the phrase today. Words change faster than I do, but just wait until the machines kick in for real, and help to [shape, direct] or vocabularies. Neural Nets are my priority hobby since 1988 - and even back in 2007 I found only 1 of 25 total respondents who could identify which answers to a series of general qestions where composed by a machine that was given NO [spelling, grammar, etc] rules. I'm just finishing Sean McMeekin 2021 "Stalin's War: a new history of World War II", BasicBooks. But this is absolutely NOT my original inspiration at all!! Primary [question, inspiration] was ~2005-2010 when I read Edvard Radzinski 1997 "Stalin...". That lead to : Jung Chang, Jon Holliday Nov06 "Mao: The unknown story". Of course, I back read William L. Shirer 1959,1980 “The rise and fall of the Third Reich...". Both [fun, controversial] was Viktor Suvorov's () 1988 “Icebreaker : Who started the second world war?”, Many others, of course, including: Peter Padfield 2013 "Hesse, Hitler, Churchill...", Robert Gately 2013 "Stalin's Curse..." etc, etc. Even if this was my father's interest: piles of other WWII books and 7,500 years of history (another project of my father & I - rise&fall of civilisations, war, etc, etc) are scattered all around my house and garage, but far more [neural network, physics]. 08********08 #] 04Mar2022 Mark Hulbert - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is bitcoin’s first big test to topple gold https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-bitcoins-first-big-test-to-topple-gold-as-a-safe-haven-11646381767?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Mark Hulbert Opinion: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is bitcoin’s first big test to topple gold as a safe haven To paint a more comprehensive picture, I examined the correlations between gold and bitcoin with the Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index. This index was created several years ago by Scott Baker of Northwestern, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford, and Steven Davis of the University of Chicago. I went back five years to analyze the correlations, with bitcoin then trading for around $5,000. I examined all rolling 7-day and 30-day returns since then. Over both time frames, bitcoin’s correlation with the EPU index was negative, though of marginal statistical significance. A negative correlation means that bitcoin should fall when uncertainty rises and vice versa — which is just the opposite of what you want from a hedge. In gold’s case the correlations were barely positive, and of no statistical significance. You shouldn’t be surprised by this. As I reported several weeks ago, based on an entirely different approach to measuring risk going back five decades, gold falls almost as much as it rises in the wake of uncertainty. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice article, based on normal appropriate measures and analysis. So much for the "sit back, don't think, this is safe" sheltered thinking I was hoping for, as neither [gold, crypto] looks all that good. Back to the trading board and hard work... Perhaps, as comments below suggest, the real test of crypto isn't "normal safe havens from normal market [corrections, crashes]", but safety from extreme events that most people can't really even imagine, and don't want to imagine. Crypto might be great if anything is left, and if anybody left knows how to run it and trade it, but if your like me, buying and selling [gold, silver] might be vastly easier to do than crypto, in a remote area or on a battlefront. Cal Eson - Crypto is good if you might want to flee your government (see Chinese billionaires), which is why authoritarian governments want to crack down on it. It's also good if your authoritarian government freezes your bank accounts for protesting against their authoritarian policies (see Canada). Howell - I forgot, Cal - I live in Canada. And it's MUCH worse than the media would ever show. For two decades non-conformist scientists have been [personally, professionally] threatened & sued (I have contributed to 2 defense funds), and more recently I've heard hilarious and not-so-hilarious first-person accounts of being [jailed, mental-instituted, harassed]. Mind you, these weren't all the quietest of people, but eventually we'll fix everything in Canada, the "day care center for adults" : the lunatics will be free, and reasonable people will be in the mental institutes. I'm half crazy, so I'm fine either way. Howell - Good point, Cal. But now I see how I foolishly forgot : what is worth more in the end when things fall apart, some gold, or the equivalent value in bullets? Remember : save the last bullet for yourself but don't rush it. As with the rabbits in "Watership Down" : "And the first thing you must know, <... I forget this middle part...>, is that if they catch you they WILL kill you. But first they must catch you. ..." 08********08 #] 25Feb2022 Mark Hulbert - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could keep stocks sliding for weeks Opinion: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could keep stocks sliding for weeks before the market hits bottom Published: Feb. 25, 2022 at 4:26 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert U.S. stock market typically begins to recover about three months after a geopolitical crisis. Notice too that it can take weeks or months following a crisis before the market hits bottom. The average across all six of the crises in the chart is 60 trading days — about three months. In no past crisis did the market bottom on the day of the invasion or attack. 08********08 #] 02Feb2022 What Happened to the Index Effect? A Look at Three Decades of S&P 500 Adds and Drops https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/research/article/what-happened-to-the-index-effect-a-look-at-three-decades-of-sp-500-adds-and-drops Research - Sep 15, 2021 What Happened to the Index Effect? A Look at Three Decades of S&P 500 Adds and Drops Contributor Image Aye Soe, Managing Director, Global Head of Core and Multi-Asset Product Management Hamish Preston, Director, U.S. Equity Indices Soe, Preston 15Sep2021 What Happened to the Index Effect, A Look at Three Decades of S&P 500 Adds and Drops Contributor Image 08********08 #] 02Feb2022 A Dynamic Multi-Asset Approach to Inflation Hedging https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/research/article/a-dynamic-multi-asset-approach-to-inflation-hedging Research - Aug 02, 2021 A Dynamic Multi-Asset Approach to Inflation Hedging Lalit Ponnala, Director, Global Research & Design Fiona Boal, Head of Commodities and Real Assets Jason Ye, Associate Director, Strategy Indices Gaurav Sinha, Managing Director, Head of Americas Global Research & Design In this paper, we construct a multi-asset index for inflation protection. First, we look into forecasting inflation. Next, we analyze the inflation sensitivity of various asset classes. Then, we identify strategies for different inflation regimes. Finally, we present portfolios that adjust their allocation dynamically to changes in the inflation regime. Ponnala, Boal, Ye, Sinha 02Aug2021 A Dynamic Multi-Asset Approach to Inflation Hedging 08********08 #] 02Feb2022 search "Canadian short-term bond funds" Sheesh, almost better keeping things in cash!! But money market won't rise with higher interest rates? >> just leave cash with TD >> main thing is to transfer chequing accounts to Tangerine! +-----+ https://wealthawesome.com/best-bond-etf-canada/ 20 Best Bond ETFs in Canada (2022): Fixed Income Made Easy Author: Christopher Liew, CFA Last Updated:January 14, 2022 >> great article! Only short-term ETFs are of interest to me - will lose a bit >> but 2.7 average duration is TOO long! data shows 2021 losses are significant +-----+ https://wealthawesome.com/money-market-etfs-canada/ 5 Best Money Market ETFs in Canada 2022: Are They Worth It? Affiliate Disclosure Photo of author Author: Christopher Liew, CFA Last Updated:January 17, 2022 1. CI First Asset High Interest Savings ETF ci first asset logo Ticker: CSAV Dividend Yield: 0.59% (12 month trailing) Net Asset Value: $2.02 billion Management Fee: 0.15% >> best that I can see - ~0.45% returns, low management fee +-----+ https://maplemoney.com/money-market-funds/ Are Money Market Funds a Good Place to Park Your Cash? By: Tom Drake Last updated: May 17, 2021 TD Canadian Money Market Fund Symbol: TDB164 MER: .46% Total Assets: $1.7 billion NAV: $10.00 Minimum Investment: $100 Early Redemption Fee: Nil Summary: This big-bank money market fund lists the FTSE Canada 30 Day T-Bill Index and FTSE Canada 60 Day T-Bill Index as benchmarks. In addition to government t-bills, it offers some exposure to high-quality corporate investments. +-----+ Canada Savings Bonds - don't lose principle! Bond Maturity Bonds in all Canada RSP plans reached maturity in November or December 2021, depending on the maturity date of the bonds owned. Your Canada RSP plan remains accessible to you, but the bonds in your plan no longer earn interest. Choose the option that best suits your needs at any time. >> doesn't look like they are available anymore? 08********08 #] 01Feb2022 Harry Dent forecast - Likely Stock Peak 04Jan, Peak Boomers Retire at Crash of a Lifetime "$d_PROJECTS"'Investments/Dent forecast/220201 Harry Dent forecast - Likely Stock Peak 04Jan, Peak Boomers Retire at Crash of a Lifetime.pdf' That would be like the S&P 500 today going to around 2,450 by mid- to late March. Have you read any newsletters telling you that could happen? The ultimate low back then came 2.8 years later, down 89%. My projection for this first crash is now as high as 58%, and for the total crash ahead it is 86%, which is nearly as bad as for the 1929 bubble, and it could be worse. The worst first whack was in the dizzying Internet Index bubble and first crash of 47%, both within the first 1.5 months... think of Bitcoin falling 48% after peaking on November 10. It’s the same idea. The Bitcoin peak and crash actually happened over 2.5 months, but the crash was almost exactly the same in magnitude and took just one month longer to crash that hard. Is this starting to sound real in today's terms? I always remember when the China Shanghai Composite bubble started in 2005... That was the fastest and steepest bubble in history, taking two years to go up 6 times and just one year to crash 72% to its full bottom. That’s another rule of bubbles: They tend to crash in about half the time it took them to bubble up. >> fantastic forecast results!! 08********08 #] 01Feb2022 Hulbert - Bitcoin’s as a leading indicator of the stock market doesn’t hold up under scrutiny https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-is-powerful-but-can-it-predict-nasdaq-and-s-p-500-corrections-and-rallies-11643697587?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Bitcoin is powerful but can it predict Nasdaq and S&P 500 corrections and rallies? Last Updated: Feb. 1, 2022 at 1:31 p.m. ET First Published: Feb. 1, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Bitcoin’s as a leading indicator of the stock market doesn’t hold up under scrutiny &&&&&&&& Howell - I think Hulbert may be right. Just looking at the charts, while there doesn't seem to be a strong [lead, lag] time, there does appear to be a fairly close "co-tracking" of [SP500, BTCUSC, ETHUSD] on the [week, [1,3,6] month, [1,5] year] timeframes (semi-log scale). About the only "significant apparent lead time" I see is on a 6 month chart from 29Sep-14Oct2021. During that period, BTC leads SP500. From 06Dec-04Jan2022 SP500 goes on an upward excursion apart from BTC, but the timing isn't so much a lead-lag thing. 08********08 #] 01Feb2022 Putin offers more talks with West to defuse Ukraine tensions https://www.marketwatch.com/story/putin-offers-more-talks-with-west-to-defuse-ukraine-tensions-01643738801?mod=newsviewer_click Putin offers more talks with West to defuse Ukraine tensions Published: Feb. 1, 2022 at 1:06 p.m. ET By Associated Press >> good article https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russian-stocks-have-35-upside-when-the-ukraine-crisis-de-escalates-these-2-etfs-give-you-a-way-to-play-11643729093?mod=newsviewer_click Russian ETFs : iShares MSCI Russia ETF (ERUS); VanEck Russia ETF (RSX); Russian ETFs have no hi-tech companies? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/iran-tatneft-gets-1b-oilfield-development-accord-2011-12-18?mod=search_headline Iran: Tatneft gets $1B oilfield-development accord Last Updated: Dec. 18, 2011 at 9:38 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 18, 2011 at 6:10 a.m. ET 08********08 #] 01Feb2022 Apache Log4j 2 software library "most serious vulnerability I have seen..." https://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-cyber-official-has-never-seen-a-more-serious-vulnerability-heres-what-you-should-know-about-log4j-11643736595?mod=newsviewer_click Top cyber official has never seen a more ‘serious vulnerability.’ Here’s what you should know about Log4j Published: Feb. 1, 2022 at 12:29 p.m. ET By Michael Korsh Criminals have used the vulnerability to launch attacks against companies and governments An employee on Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s security team first reported a vulnerability within the Log4j library to Apache on Nov.21. When Apache publicly announced the flaw, now referred to as Log4Shell, they gave it a rating of 10.0 (the highest possible score) on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System scale, a standard way to rate a security flaw’s severity. Why was Log4Shell so severe? Sadik Al-Abdulla, chief product officer at application security company Onapsis, said the 10.0 rating was the result of two key aspects of Log4Shell: It is a remotely exploitable flaw, and it allows for code execution. “That means that an attacker can attack you remotely — they don’t have to already have a presence on the system,” Al-Abdulla said. “If they can communicate with a vulnerable system, they can attack it. The ‘remote code execution’ part means they can cause code to execute, which means when they can take the system over, they can do whatever they want to do,” he added. &&&&&&&& Richard Grace Couple things here: 1) There are competing solutions to Apache. They might cost more, but so does having your company wrecked by remote control. Time to can Apache forever; 2) This should drive a stake into the heart of the Open Source movement in corporate clouds. Open Source has an ideology of being "Better" because of the "community" but it's a ruse. It gives companies a way to outsource development of strategic tools and products to an unpaid workforce that inevitably loses its attention and does not sweat the details. So you beat your quarterly numbers and got that second Porsche in your driveway. How does it feel to have that egg on your face now? Howell - It's also scary to think of the consequences of this happening in proprietary systems. As Al-Abdulla said "major vulnerabilities like Log4Shell will serve as a wake-up call for companies that haven’t been forward-thinking about cybersecurity CIBR". It's apparently hard to put huge resources into security, hard to deal with it beyond platitides, easy to become complacent, and there are no guarantees. 08********08 #] 01Feb2022 Great Pinescript : wugamlo - MACD including 6-period Forecast and Divergences https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/ONd8kvvU-short-now/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc7969552 short now S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 4517.24 17.08 0.38% bonnenul 18 hours ago it's time to short. waiting for 4100 first ,then to see if there is a bounce about two week? big bounce will after sept. in nov. or even the last month ,will be back 4400? i'm sure big bounce will only after sept 18 hours ago Comment: short eu, gbp and gold silver, either silver about 17-18 Bill_Howell : Interesting "MACD close -Flat - Neural - Histogram", color coding of numbers changes as the cursor sweeps past the current date. Not sure how this works. bonnenul, 9 hours ago @Bill_Howell, hoping to help you. Just a script https://www.tradingview.com/script/aYS7faUJ-MACD-including-6-period-Forecast-and-Divergences/ MACD including 6-period Forecast and Divergences wugamlo Feb 2, 2021 Bill_Howell Thanks! I appreciate the Pinescript link : wugamlo - MACD including 6-period Forecast and Divergences It would be interesting to have separate lines for (1, 3, 6) day forecasts starting from the beginning of the time series. That would give an view of (how well the algorithm forecasts, time lags of the predictions, situations that forecasts are (good, bad), etc). I won't be doing any more Pinescript programming - I have to focus on priority projects, and my main Pinescript challenge if I ever get back to it would be to implement exogenous time series. 08********08 Jan2022 08********08 #] 30Jan2022 U.S. lawmakers traded an estimated $355 million of stock last year https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-lawmakers-traded-an-estimated-355-million-of-stock-last-year-these-were-the-biggest-buyers-and-sellers-11643639354?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. lawmakers traded an estimated $355 million of stock last year. These were the biggest buyers and sellers. Last Updated: Jan. 31, 2022 at 9:29 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 31, 2022 at 9:28 a.m. ET By Victor Reklaitis The stock trading by U.S. representatives and senators comes amid a push for a ban on the congressional buying and selling of public shares. &&&&&&&& William Lazott - What about Nancy Pelosi it has been in the news that she made quite a bit but I don’t see it in your article Howell - Pelsoi is in the table for 12M$ buys, no sells. In January, the right options (puts) could have been a tidy windfall? According to fineprintdata (I don't know how reliable that source is) "Speaker Pelosi and her husband have proven themselves as highly strategic and successful investors." (long-term) Looking at the details, I'd agree, and all power to them (her husband seems to be the driver of the investments?) if these aren't insider, and I don't assume that unless shown otherwise. lita lepie - Pelosi's husband is in the financial services business. He makes all decisions. He's obviously a very smart business man. That being said, I personally favor blind trusts. Howell - I like your comment! It's hard to figure out how to be fair to her husband. They both excel at what they do (and probably love). I don't know what the answer should be... "trust but verify"? (Russian KGB phrase based on "Chernobyl" film, add in transparency to allow independent verification). What I do know is that my own investing looks like something far worse than a blind trust, more like misplaced trust in my own delusions. Anybody that does well at investing or politics, hats off, irrespective of what part of the spectrum they are in. 08********08 #] 30Jan2022 60%-40% portfolio will deliver anemic returns over the next decade — here’s how to adapt https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-60-40-portfolio-will-deliver-anemic-returns-over-the-next-decade-heres-how-to-adapt-11643406415?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The 60%-40% portfolio will deliver anemic returns over the next decade — here’s how to adapt Last Updated: Jan. 30, 2022 at 9:48 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 29, 2022 at 7:15 a.m. ET By Phil Huber Consider these three model portfolios than use stocks, bonds and alternative investments Cal Elson - 1 day ago 25% stocks, 25% bonds, 25% commodities (gold/natural resources), 25% cash. That used to be called the "permanent portfolio", with one component going up in any kind of economy. You miss out on the big stock market years of course, but the objective was to not lose ground in down years. There are ETFs that try to match that, although they don't follow the formula that closely. 08********08 #] 28Jan2022 Borrowing rates : SOFR (US Treasury backed) vs LIBOR (private bank assessed risk) https://www.compareclosing.com/blog/sofr-vs-libor-the-key-differences/ SOFR Vs LIBOR - Compare Closing [Search domain compareclosing.com] https://www.compareclosing.com › blog › sofr-vs-libor-the-key-differences LIBOR represents an unsecured loan whereas the SOFR represents loans backed by Treasury bonds, which is a virtually risk-free rate. LIBOR has 35 different rates, but SOFR currently publishes only one rate based exclusively on overnight loans. Term rates Going further to understand the difference between the term rates of SOFR vs LIBOR. 08********08 #] 28Jan2022 Hulbert: Stock investors know not to fight the Fed, but you can fight the Fed Model https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-investors-know-not-to-fight-the-fed-but-you-can-fight-the-fed-model-11643311362?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Stock investors know not to fight the Fed, but you can fight the Fed Model Published: Jan. 27, 2022 at 2:22 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert If rising interest rates are the reason you’ve turned bearish, you may want to reconsider &&&&&&&& Howell - It would be nice to see a re-analysis comparing [P/E (or earnings yield), 10 year T-bond rate, earnings growth expectation], all projected out 10 years (Schiller like forward). I have played around with an overly-simple model as below (hopefully somewhat readable) : SP500_PEnow = sum[y = 1 to years_SP500; {(1+SP500_earnGrwth)/(1+SP500_disRate)}^y] / {(1 + t10)^years_Tbill / (1 + Treas_disRate)^years_Tbill} A key problem, besides missing variables, is that future projections by the market so often seem to be simply today's values, or maybe normal past-10 year Schiller, and aren't forecasts. 08********08 #] 28Jan2022 Lisa Beilfuss - Housing Is the Fed’s Frankenstein, and It Won’t Be Easily Tamed https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/housing-is-the-feds-frankenstein-and-it-wont-be-easily-tamed-51643401802?mod=newsviewer_click Housing Is the Fed’s Frankenstein, and It Won’t Be Easily Tamed Published: Jan. 28, 2022 at 3:30 p.m. ET By Lisa Beilfuss &&&&&&&& Howell - Nicely put together article. Will long term bond markets long remain dominated by government policies and participation? What is the long-term consequence of markets blinded by socially engineered financial systems? Perhaps the post 2008 decade gives some perspective, as well as the post 1989 Japan as often mentioned by others. Or maybe the Fed along with the rest of us will be "consumed by monsters of our own making", with scapegoats being made of innocents, and Frankenstein left with the job of fixing himself. 08********08 #] 27Jan2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-investment-demand-down-over-40-in-2021-new-report-finds-11643331635?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime Gold investment demand down over 40% in 2021, new report finds Published: Jan. 27, 2022 at 8:00 p.m. ET By Myra P. Saefong Total gold investment demand, which includes bars, coins and gold-backed exchange traded funds, declined by 43% to 1,007 metric tons last year. Within that segment, annual bar and coin investment rose 31% to 1,180 metric tons — an eight-year high, while global gold exchange-traded funds saw outflows of 173 metric tons last year, a 5% fall in total holdings. Total gold demand for the full year 2021, which includes investment, jewelry, technology and central-bank demand, rose by 10% to 4,021 metric tons, as fourth-quarter gold demand climbed by almost 50% to a 10-quarter high, the World Gold Council report said. &&&&&&&& Howell - While (inflation, interest rates, US dollar exchange rates) are described as "recurring drivers", there is no mention of the possible crypto "gold substitute effect", and if an effect can be seen somehow in the data. Crypto's still much smaller than gold, but not insignificant if I remember correctly. If you do have to flee your country from a socialist takeover, a little bit of gold (as in tooth fillings) could get you killed. Crypto's harder to spot, but good luck trying to remember your passwords on the other side (new country or grave, same problem). I didn't include : The distinction between "Total gold demand" and "Total gold investment demand) assumes that was awake when I read it. 08********08 #] 27Jan2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/s-p-500-would-need-to-drop-another-20-to-get-the-feds-attention-says-co-cio-at-ray-dalios-bridgewater-11643284556?mod=newsviewer_click Co-CIO at Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater on how much deeper the S&P 500 would need to dive to get the Fed’s attention Last Updated: Jan. 27, 2022 at 9:41 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 27, 2022 at 6:55 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day What kind of market selloff would it take to get alarm bells ringing at the Fed? Try another 20% or so, says our call of the day from Greg Jensen, a co-chief investment officer alongside Ray Dalio and Bob Prince at Bridgewater Associates. ... Jensen estimates a 15% to 20% drop would get the Fed’s attention, and that it depends on how fast that happens, as he noted recent declines have been “healthy” as they’ve taken out bubbles in cryptocurrencies and elsewhere. ... Many have lobbed criticism at central banks for getting investors and markets hooked on cheap money over the years. They have warned that an adjustment will be hard, especially for the new investors that have come into the market since the start of the pandemic. Jensen said the recent rout hitting stocks and bonds has been caused by a “liquidity hole,” with “excess liquidity” that had shored up risk assets now being pulled by central bankers, and too few buyers to fill the gap. ... He warned that the shape of the economy now means a Fed rescue isn’t likely, as opposed to 2018, when inflation was far lower and companies were pouring on buybacks and raising wages. “We’re at a turning point now and things will be much different.” Jensen also sees the 10-year Treasury yield hitting 3.5% or 4% before all the excess bonds can be soaked up, and predicts a stagflation type environment, which means investors need more commodities, international equities and Treasury breakevens, and can’t depend on that traditional 60/40 portfolio. &&&&&&&& Howell - "how much deeper"? Great question that I wasn't thinking of. I like Greg Jensen's analysis as being one of the perspectives that we need rather than what we want to hear. It's tough to take tough talk in a day care center for adults, recently expanded from Washington DC to Wall Street? Funny how so many complain about the Fed one way or another now, but don't as long as the markets keep going up. I suppose they really want a day care center for adults, to be held by the hand to the promised land. . 08********08 #] 27Jan2022 retail longs, average is well above 30x and 100x's! (crypto) https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/miMTznT1-BTC-range-bound-between-34-37K/ BTC: range bound between 34 - 37K Bitcoin / U.S. Dollar (INDEX:BTCUSD) 36835.01 4.01 0.01% cryptobullethbtcxlm 36 minutes ago I see clear revenge trading going on with retail covering their losses with over leveraged longs, the average is well above 30x and 100x's are no exception! Do the math and you can see how easy these liquidations grabs are for the market makers. 08********08 #] 26Jan2022 Federal Reserve Board statement - effect on markets +--+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/stock-market-today-51643193354?mod=newsviewer_click Dow Drops as Powell Talks — and What Else Is Happening in the Stock Market Today Last Updated: Jan. 26, 2022 at 3:15 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 26, 2022 at 5:43 a.m. ET By Jacob Sonenshine and Jack Denton &&&&&& Howell - "reducing the size of its balance sheet" - Will this have an amplified effect on the economy? Is there a 10 to 20 times multiple on Fed balance sheet changes, via the like normal [3, 10%] reserve ratio requirement? However, I hadn't see that 26Mar2020 the reserve requirment was reduced to zero by the Fed, so I'm guessing cash creation via load generation was limited by borrowing needs (for those with the credit ratings)? How bad is this? +--+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-expects-it-will-soon-be-appropriate-to-raise-interest-rates-11643223873?mod=newsviewer_click Powell says Fed ‘of a mind’ to raise interest rates in March to fight high inflation Last Updated: Jan. 26, 2022 at 3:12 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 26, 2022 at 2:04 p.m. ET By Greg Robb Central bank ramping up to fight high inflation &&&&&&&& J Acorn - Epic fail--a jump in stock prices after that limp statement is the market laughing at the Fed Howell - But maybe the [Fed, Treasury] will have the last laugh? I don't think the Fed said recently that it was targeting ever-rising market prices. But the easy [Fed, Treasury] money certainly has been doing that since the Mar2020 ~1/3 correction, supposedly helping them to grows jobs up to now, while the economy was suffocating from covid restrictions. This may have been achieved by near-zero interest rates driving up valuations, inducing investors to pile in for the feast while it lasted, pumping many times the Fed cash into a 20-30%/year financial asset inflation bubble. Any [10%, 20%, 50%] downward correction of market values is eerily like a taxation method on investor capital that doesn't need legal approval. Big mid-term impact for almost no relative [Fed, Treasury] cost. But it's going to be interesting to see the tight-wire walk to avoid even worse damages if things unravel to bite us. I doubt that Modern Monetary Theorists are worried, but I am. >> Market Watch didn't allow my post, or I screwed up 08********08 #] 26Jan2022 Fiona Hill - Putin wants to evict the United States from Europe https://www.marketwatch.com/story/putins-ambitions-are-bigger-than-ukraine-says-fiona-hill-he-wants-to-evict-the-united-states-from-europe-11643048139?mod=mw_more_headlines Putin’s ambitions are bigger than Ukraine, says Fiona Hill: ‘He wants to evict the United States from Europe’ Last Updated: Jan. 24, 2022 at 3:30 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 24, 2022 at 1:15 p.m. ET By Robert Schroeder Russian leader has U.S. ‘right where he wants it,’ expert says In the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes are on a bigger prize, a top expert on Putin and his country says. “This time,” writes former intelligence officer Fiona Hill in a New York Times op-ed, “Mr. Putin’s aim is bigger than closing NATO’s ‘open door’ to Ukraine and taking more territory — he wants to evict the United States from Europe. As he might put it: ‘Goodbye America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’ ” Hill, who was a top adviser to President Donald Trump on Russia — and gave testimony against him during his first impeachment — writes that Putin wants the U.S. to “suffer” in a way similar to that in which Russia did in the 1990s, when NATO and the U.S. forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from bases in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Hill’s op-ed comes as the New York Times is reporting that Biden is considering deploying several thousand troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO countries in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Such an expansion of U.S. military capability would come as fear mounts of a further Russian incursion into Ukraine, having previously annexed the Crimean peninsula and backed pro-Kremlin separatists in the country’s east. With Putin playing what Hill calls a “longer, strategic game,” the Russian leader “has the United States right where he wants it,” she writes. “Forging a united front with its European allies and rallying broader support should be America’s longer game,” Hill writes. “Otherwise this saga could indeed mark the beginning of the end of America’s military presence in Europe.” &&&&&&&& >> Howell : Very insightful perspective of Fiona Hill, that goes beyond the limited bounds of my thinking. Russian leader “has the United States right where he wants it,” she writes, echoing an oft-recurring theme of the past? This is like Sean McKeekin's 2021 "Stalin's War: a new history of World War II", and many others that go into depth on [goal, strategy, opportunism] at the edge of war. There are also many awesome blog comments that provide food for thought. As usual, it unfortunately seems that many bloggers can't think outside the context of their own political allegiances, which is a huge constraint for understanding the situation. 08********08 #] 25Jan2022 CN railroad names new CEO, resolves dispute with investor (JJ Ruest!!) Published: Jan. 25, 2022 at 7:51 p.m. ET By Associated Press Tracy Robinson to take helm of Montreal-based railroad OMAHA, Neb. — Canadian National railroad on Tuesday named a new CEO and also reached an agreement with the investment fund that has been pushing it to focus more on cutting costs and streamlining its operations. The Montreal-based railroad said Tracy Robinson will take over the top job. She will replace retiring CEO JJ Ruest, who announced he would step down after CN CNI, +0.72% failed to acquire Kansas City Southern railroad last year. 08********08 #] 25Jan2022 200 day Moving Average death cross : stocks typically come roaring back https://www.marketwatch.com/story/surprised-by-mondays-market-recovery-whenever-the-dow-and-the-s-p-500-fall-below-this-key-support-level-stocks-typically-come-roaring-back-11643104365?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Whenever the Dow and the S&P 500 fall below this key support level, stocks typically come roaring back Last Updated: Jan. 25, 2022 at 4:20 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 25, 2022 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert The U.S. market breached its 200-day moving average last week and, true to form, reversed course and staged a snapback rally &&&&&&&& Howell - Sheesh, Hulbert destroys another rule of thumb. What's next : the tooth fairy, Santa Clause? But I suppose that traders, as opposed to investors, might be able to sell quickly at the 200MA death cross, and buy right at the bottom that the rest of us can never find. Which would bring them right back to the tooth fairy. 08********08 #] 25Jan2022 gold bullion in Calgary >> best : Calgary company https://silvergoldbull.ca/gold-bars https://silvergoldbull.ca/10oz-gold-bar Silver Gold Bull (877) 646 5303 By appointment only Please, no payments to this address 888 - 3rd ST SW 10th Floor - West Tower CALGARY AB T2P 5C5 CANADA https://canadagold.ca/locations/calgary/ Calgary Gold - a division of Canada Gold TOLL FREE 1-888-219-7001 Calgary Gold is proud to be a BBB A+ rated gold dealer in Alberta. We buy and sell all jewelry, precious metals, bars and coins. Find out how much your gold is worth at Calgary Gold today. Expert advice, highest payouts, and friendly service. Free no-obligation quotes are available every day, free estimates and offers on larger diamonds are available by appointment. Do you want to sell your old gold for cash in Calgary? Todays gold price in Calgary is constantly fluctuating. Here at Calgary Gold, we update our buying prices in real time, so you always get the best possible deal. Whitewater Place 1717 10th St. NW, Suite 102 Phone: 403-282-8877 South Calgary 154 58th Ave. SW Phone: 403-475-8035 Hours: Monday-Friday: 9:00am – 6:00pm Saturday: 10:00am – 5:00pm Sunday (South Calgary Only) : 11:00am – 4:00pm 08********08 #] 25Jan2022 what happened when low-income moms received regular cash payments https://www.marketwatch.com/story/researchers-surprised-by-what-happened-when-low-income-moms-received-regular-cash-payments-with-no-strings-attached-11643054578?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime Researchers ‘surprised’ by what happened when low-income moms received regular cash payments — with no strings attached Last Updated: Jan. 25, 2022 at 10:38 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 24, 2022 at 3:02 p.m. ET By Elisabeth Buchwald ‘This underscores how sensitive children are to their environments very early in childhood,’ one researcher said. >> Same old socil welfare support argument - no brains at all 08********08 #] 25Jan2022 is-saving-half-your-income-hard-saving-10-is-even-worse https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-saving-half-your-income-hard-saving-10-is-even-worse-11643122486?mod=newsviewer_click &&&&&& Howell - I like this article. It's a bit daunting at lower incomes, but interesting at mid-income levels. Funny, spending lots of money often goes against real satisfaction for me with doing projects, and keeping physically active etc rather than travel. The article doesn't say much about building a family wealth transfer, but attitudes don't seem to be there anymore? 08********08 #] 25Jan2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cardano-leads-way-as-most-big-cryptocurrencies-post-decreases-01643122866-719c003d209b?mod=newsviewer_click Cardano leads way as most big cryptocurrencies post decreases Published: Jan. 25, 2022 at 10:01 a.m. ET By MarketWatch Automation Most of the largest cryptocurrencies were down during morning trading on Tuesday, with Cardano ADAUSD seeing the biggest change, tumbling 5.07% to $1.02. Six additional currencies posted drops Tuesday. Litecoin LTCUSD fell 3.17% to $106.44, and Uniswap UNIUSD dropped 2.23% to $10.45. Ripple XRPUSD shed 2.23% to 60 cents, while Bitcoin Cash BCHUSD shed 1.86% to $286.48. Ethereum ETHUSD dropped 1.79% to $2,398.85. Editor's Note: This story, which tracks nine of the top cryptocurrencies and excludes stable coins, was auto-generated by Automated Insights, an automation technology provider, using data from Dow Jones, FactSet and Kraken. See our market data terms of use. >> I need to look into [Litecoin, Cardano, Ripple] 08********08 #] 24Jan2022 (EDIT) Editas Medicine, (TARA) Protara Therapeutics (EDIT) Editas Medicine, Inc. engages in the development and commercialization of genome editing technology. Its technology includes clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), and CRISPR associated protein 9 (Cas9). The company was founded by Feng Zhang, Jennifer A. Doudna, George McDonald Church, J. Keith Joung and David R. Liu in September 2013 and is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. (TARA) Protara Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage company engages in developing treatments for rare and specialty diseases with significant unmet needs. Its current development programs focus on the treatment of rare diseases in structural and connective tissues and rare hepatology, gastrointestinal, and metabolic disorders. The company was founded by Jesse Shefferman and Jacqueline Zummo in March 2006 and is headquartered in New York, NY. The Motley Fool Investing Philosophy Buy 25+ Companies Over Time Hold Stocks for 5+ Years Add New Savings Regularly Hold Through Market Volatility Let Winners Run Target Long-Term Returns https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/ibm-earnings-stock-price-51643058417?mod=newsviewer_click IBM dividend is good? https://webbroker.td.com/waw/brk/wb/wbr/static/main/index.html#/page/research?DESTINATION=MOD&PARTNER_FIELDS=markets/News&uuid=7abda33d-95da-a94c-7bf7-e4754f92cc18 08********08 #] 24Jan2022 https://geometricdeeplearning.com/ - Michael Bronstein can't find investment 08********08 #] 24Jan2022 Steve Howell - Steve Puetz's last note 17Jan2022 sent email 08********08 #] 23Jan2022 posted to company site @Deus - This may be of interest. The paper reference below appears to be a STRONG substantiation of the value of Elliot Wave (EW) analysis, using a more-or-less standard MultiLayer Perceptron - Neural Network (MLP-NN). Reading briefly through the paper, it appears that they have used (astute, pragmatic) judgment in their design decisions. Their conclusions state : "... we prove that the...Elliot Wave apparatus...a significant improvement...successfullness of presented trading patteren achieves 77% on average ..." (for EUR/USD, USD/JPY, CHF/JPY, and EUR/CHF). Robert Jarusek, Eva Volna, Martin Kotyrba "FOREX rate prediction improved by Elliott waves patterns based on neural networks" Neural Networks, Volume 145, January 2022, Pages 342-355 University of Ostrava, Department of Informatics and Computers, 30. dubna 22, 70103, Ostrava, Czech Republic Received 24 May 2021, Revised 30 August 2021, Accepted 28 October 2021, Available online 5 November 2021. (I cannot put URL - but can read online ScienceDirect - NN journal is an Elsevier publication) Their use of an MLP-NN, which is a Feed-Forward (FF) architecture (neurons/layer = 120-120-100-100), really surprises me, as usually researchers are into the fad of Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs - kind of the idiots' guide to deep learning), Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), etc. I would have expected vastly more powerful Recurrent NNs (eg Jeurgen Schmidhuber), and possibly Geometrical Deep Learning NNs that can model (market, exogenous) structural relationsips (eg Michael Bronstein). But I am a fool - it's likely best for Elliot Waves to start with a (simple, robust, stable) approach and do that well. Great power can bring great headaches, greatly ridiculous results, and perhaps requires super-capabity-end-users that simply are't there? Jarusek, Volna, Kotyrba 05Nov2021 FOREX rate prediction improved by Elliott waves patterns based on neural networks #] 22Jan2022 TradingView Publish Idea - USOIL snakes, ladders, Tchaichovsky http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/Oil/220122%2009h46m24s%20TradingView%20USOIL%20snakes%20and%20ladders.png see also http://www.billhowell.ca/Projects - mini/History/Howell - Ukraine and Russia.html +-----+ Blame the Fed? Praise rained on the Fed from [markets, business, academic, public] in the early stages of the 2007-08 and Mar2020 crashes, except for a few 08********08 #] 21Jan2022 Mark Hulbert - What Davos can teach us about retirement financial security https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-much-heralded-p-e-ratio-as-a-stock-selection-tool-has-been-more-wrong-than-right-11642773888?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: The much-heralded P/E ratio as a stock-selection tool has been more wrong than right Published: Jan. 21, 2022 at 9:04 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Declining price-to-earnings ratios suggest stocks are more attractive now. But that indicator isn’t all that useful, according to research. &&&&&&&& Howell - Intrigued by Ben Reynolds' 22Jul2016 data plot, and 22Aug2018 "P/E Ratios & Interest Rates: A Formula for Fair P/E Ratios Incorporating Interest Rates", I did a simple back-of-the-envelope theoretical model of 10-year "Shiller-forward-like" [P/E ratios (P/E), T-bill rate (T%), earnings growth (EG)], that shows future expectations for earnings growth should also be considered. Given the huge uncertainties of 10 year projections fall 3 variables, it is useful mainly as one more step to understanding P/E ratios. As I can't post a graph, I will use examples in a table : T% EG P/E 0% 15% ~25 0% 10% ~16 0% 5% ~12 4% 15% ~17 4% 10% ~11 4% 5% ~ 7 This does not account for [taxation rates, inflation, etc]. But in looking at 10y expectations, it seems clear that the current levels seem to dominate market expectations for the future. Together with the current era of [Fed, Treasury] "social engineering of financial markets", perhaps the "blinding of the markets" leads to wild variations of actual P/Es? Maybe over-enthusiasm also has great benefits, otherwise risk-takers wouldn't do what they do? Others' comments : #] safasf afafgafg, MktWch - 40% to GDP monetized debt - always hyperinflation as Peter Bernholz shows safasf afafgafg - Latest 15 countries that achieves hyperinflation have monetized some15% to 25% debt to GDP, so verify this fact. If the FED, ECB and the US government and EU monetize debt by 2 trn to prop the stocks against the new covid, this means 100% sure hyperinflation in USA and EU in 2022. Now the probability of hyperinflation for 2022 with so far monetized debt is 75%. For 40% to GDP monetized debt there is always hyperinflation in history as Peter Bernholz shows. There is also some share of hidden illegal printing in USA and EU in last covid waves. 08********08 #] 21Jan2022 Mark Hulbert - What Davos can teach us about retirement financial security https://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-you-name-todays-biggest-risks-11642718791?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Can you name today’s biggest risks? Published: Jan. 21, 2022 at 2:15 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert What the World Economic Forum in Davos can teach us about retirement financial security &&&&&&& Howell - Really well [written, thought out] article. Black swans, recency bias, fiancial plans for unknown unknowns. "... Otherwise, we will constantly be in a reactive mode, with our portfolios periodically selling assets after they have fallen and buying others after they have risen. ..." - yes, that has been my plan for decades, with highly predictable results no matter what the circumstances. 08********08 #] 21Jan2022 Prominent market technician Ralph Acampora - Now we’re talking a bear phase https://www.marketwatch.com/story/godfather-of-technical-analyst-says-the-stock-market-could-fall-20-or-more-but-dont-panic-this-market-really-really-did-unbelievable-for-18-months-11642790170?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Godfather’ of technical analysis says the stock market could fall 20% or more, but don’t panic: ‘This market really, really did unbelievable’ for 18 months Published: Jan. 21, 2022 at 1:36 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre ‘Now we’re talking a bear phase,’ says Acampora Prominent market technician Ralph Acampora says the recent bout of market volatility has him uneasy and now he’s forecasting a deeper drop in a market that has already delivered a significant bruising to Wall Street in the first few weeks of 2022. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice perspective. A bit late - more of a hind-cast than a forecast? Didn't we need this prediction back in early November, but nobody would listen then? On the poetic side, isn't the phrase "stagflation" outdated? Don't we have a better phrase for our younger university crop of economists to celebrate crypto as their blood-flow, the meta-verse as their place of business, and the triumvirate of [infinite debt, 0% interest, Modern Money Theory] as their deity? (Any suggestions?) However, in only a few days from now, maybe all of that will also be anachronistic... Like death, you can't take it with you into a major crash, you can only pray for resurrection on the other side. 08********08 #] 21Jan2022 U.S. and Russia agree to continue talks aimed at defusing Ukraine standoff https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-and-russia-agree-to-continue-talks-aimed-at-defusing-ukraine-standoff-11642779240?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. and Russia agree to continue talks aimed at defusing Ukraine standoff Last Updated: Jan. 21, 2022 at 10:34 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 21, 2022 at 10:33 a.m. ET By William Mauldin, Ann M. Simmons, Vivian Salama Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. will address in detail the Kremlin’s claims that Western powers threaten Russian security &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting time to ramp up the heat in the Ukraine, with oil ignoring the premature announcements of its death, Europe's alternative energy being bailed out by natural gas (as usual) almost like Kim Jong Un's occasional tirades 08********08 #] 20Jan2022 08********08 #] 20Jan2022 Vivian Salama, James Marson - Ukraine concerned about Russia series of smaller-scale attacks https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ukraine-increasingly-concerned-that-russias-playbook-might-call-for-a-series-of-smaller-scale-attacks-11642716045?mod=newsviewer_click Ukraine increasingly concerned that Russia’s playbook might call for a series of smaller-scale attacks Published: Jan. 20, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. ET By Vivian Salama andJames Marson ‘We should not give Putin the slightest chance to play with quasi-aggression or small-incursion operations,’ says Ukraine’s foreign minister &&&&&&&& Howell - I wish the best for the Ukraine, and I have no idea of how to improve their chances. I have just started reading Sean McMeekin 2021 "Stalin's War: a new history of World War II", which, like other books I've read, leaves me wth the dark impression that Western nations are like puppets on strings, not knowing re their thinking comes from. My guess is that actual solutions may have to come from outside, seated in the [individual, collective] interests of rising nations, rather than being too strongly dependent on the UN and a relatively weakening US. But keep all the Ukrainian eggs you can in your basket. have usual been great at rhetoric and stylistic positioning, but rather darkly, . Furthermore, we don't seem to know why we think the way we do, where "our" thoughts came from. We are like grass in the wind. 08********08 #] 20Jan2022 Arthur Shivavo - many bargains in biotechnology : TLIS, VYGR, SBTX LUMO SPRB SGTX BDTX 6 hours ago Today I see so many bargains in the biotechnology area, stocks trading below their cash per share with no dilution, like never before TLIS, VYGR, SBTX LUMO SPRB SGTX BDTX to name a few. With biotechnology stocks already beaten up in general I can’t help but think this basket of stocks will Up 50% or more In the next six months. On october 19th 1987,when I was running my own arbitrage boutique, my client called me and said what do you think is going to happen? I said to Dean, I do not know whether we are entering another great depression or not but I see so many bargains out there, and of course the market went right up from there! Today I see so many bargains in the biotechnology area, stocks trading below their cash per share with no dilution, like never before TLIS, VYGR, SBTX LUMO SPRB SGTX BDTX to name a few. With biotechnology stocks already beaten up in general I can’t help but think this basket of stocks will Up 50% or more In the next six months. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/good-luck-well-all-need-it-u-s-market-approaches-end-of-superbubble-says-jeremy-grantham-11642723516?mod=newsviewer_click #] 20Jan2022 Good luck! We’ll all need it’: U.S. market approaches end of ‘superbubble,’ says Jeremy Grantham Published: Jan. 20, 2022 at 7:05 p.m. ET By Christine Idzelis ‘We are in what I think of as the vampire phase of the bull market,’ says GMO co-founder Jeremy Grantham As for GMO’s investment recommendations, Grantham summarized them as avoiding U.S. equities while emphasizing value stocks in emerging markets and cheaper developed countries, “most notably Japan.” On a personal note, he said, “I also like some cash for flexibility, some resources for inflation protection, as well as a little gold GC00, -0.31% and silver.” Beyond the recent record highs of the U.S. stock market and “crazy” investor behavior that has accompanied its rise, Grantham warned that “we are indeed participating in the broadest and most extreme global real-estate bubble in history.” He said that houses in the U.S. are at “the highest multiple of family income ever, after a record 20% gain last year.” Plus, said Grantham, “we also have the highest-priced bond markets in the U.S. and most other countries around the world, and the lowest rates, of course, that go with them, that human history has ever seen.” And then there’s the “incipient bubble in commodities,” he added. Oil CL00, -3.06% and most of the “important metals” are among commodities priced broadly “above trend,” while the “U.N.’s index of global food prices is around its all-time high,” according to his paper. 08********08 #] 20Jan2022 Richard D. Wyckoff - His trading Method and Story https://www.wyckoffanalytics.com/wyckoff-method/ Richard Demille Wyckoff (1873–1934) was an early 20th-century pioneer in the technical approach to studying the stock market. He is considered one of the five “titans” of technical analysis, along with Dow, Gann, Elliott and Merrill. At age 15, he took a job as a stock runner for a New York brokerage. While still in his 20s, he became the head of his own firm. He also founded and, for nearly two decades, wrote and edited “The Magazine of Wall Street,” which at one point, had more than 200,000 subscribers. Wyckoff was an avid student of the markets, as well as an active tape reader and trader. He observed the market activities and campaigns of the legendary stock operators of his time, including JP Morgan and Jesse Livermore. From his observations and interviews with those big-time traders, Wyckoff developed the Wyckoff Method that codified these traders’ best practices into laws, principles and techniques of trading methodology, money management and mental discipline. From his position, Mr. Wyckoff observed numerous retail investors being repeatedly fleeced. Consequently, he dedicated himself to instructing the public about “the real rules of the game” as played by the large interests, or “smart money.” In the 1930s, he founded a school that later became the Stock Market Institute. The school’s central offering was a course based on Wyckoff schematics and integrated the concepts that Wyckoff had learned about how to identify large operators’ accumulation and distribution of stock with how to trade in harmony with these big players. His time-tested insights are as valid today as they were when first articulated. This article provides an overview of the Wyckoff Method and both its theoretical and practical approaches to the markets, including guidelines for identifying trade candidates and for entering long and short positions, analysis of accumulation and distribution trading ranges and an explanation of how to use Point-and-Figure (P&F) charts to identify price targets. Although this article focuses exclusively on stocks, Wyckoff’s methods can be applied to any freely traded market in which large institutional traders operate, including commodities, bonds and currencies. Based on his years of observations of the market activities of large operators, Wyckoff taught that: The Composite Man carefully plans, executes and concludes his campaigns The Composite Man attracts the public to buy a stock in which he has already accumulated a sizeable line of shares by making many transactions involving a large number of shares, in effect advertising his stock by creating the appearance of a “broad market.” One must study individual stock charts with the purpose of judging the behavior of the stock and the motives of those large operators who dominate it. With study and practice, one can acquire the ability to interpret the motives behind the action that a chart portrays. Wyckoff and his associates believed that if one could understand the market behavior of the Composite Man, one could identify many trading and investment opportunities early enough to profit from them. 08********08 #] 19Jan2022 Greg Owen host : Harry Dent versus Peter Schiff Questions : Harry - Will the USA and China go to negative interest rates Working population growth versus CPI inflation (as opposed to financial asset inflation) Peter - What are the chances of confiscatory policies, such as when FD Roosevelt made it illegal to hold gold? Could this be more and more the case even without a bad [recession, depression], assuming a greater trend of voters towards socialism? Good part about gold if "black market" - not traceable like crypto? Aren't value stocks still at very high valuations if interest rates go back +--+ Schiff - global value, dividend paying 08********08 #] 17Jan2022 TradingView @fract - How do you generate the more-or-less-vertically inclined fractals? +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/PLTR/kcWloYvZ-Palantir-Tech-inc-SCHEME-IX/ Palantir Tech inc SCHEME IX Long Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR) 16.01 0.00 0.00% fract Jan 6 Current price is a gift for a long-term investment and as well as for speculative entries. Since november it has been falling more than 34%, we can see a cycle formed after hitting new lows. In fact this is the lowest price of the whole year. The shape of the cycle is similar to the historic fractal's patterns confirming the upcoming bullish incentive of the market for this stock. Bill_Howell, Jan 14 @fract - this is killing me! How do you generate the more-or-less-vertically inclined fractals (I assumed Fibonaccis, but they are different)? I don't see your posted script for that, and the spacings (also for more-or-less-horizontal fractals(fibs?) are non-standard. If I remember correctly, Benoit Mandlebrot stated in his book "Misbehaviour of Markets" that "the true power of fractals emerges when you apply multi-fractals, for which time is a fractal dimensions. Do you apply this? Far more interesting to me is the application of "fractional order calculus" which I've peer review journal articles related to the (stability, control) of memristor arrays (4th missing basic electrical element after (resistor, capacitor, inductor) by Leon Chua 1971) using neural networks. Application of fractional order calculus has been growing strongly in recent decades, even though it comes from Gottfried Liebnitz in ?1600's?. I haven't looked for applications for financial markets. fract, Jan 14 @Bill_Howell, man, those are just classic ratios from fibonacci retracement with a direction of incline like vectors to which is added alternating dark and bright background to separate and break down the fractal into its episodes of action. Since markets are unpredictable sequence of candlesticks, I try to cover the highs and lows with 0 and 1 so the rest ratios given off the base would mimic the chaos governed by the rule of golden ratio projected into the future. I'm on my way to expand the approach into more solid calculus which can be comprehensible for everyone. I'm actually believing that market's chaotic movements are closely related to the phenomenon of uncertainty of electrons spin until measured first and the collapse of wave function by observing the behavior of electron which acts like a wave not a particle. Same way as market fluctuates drawing cycles or the very act of reversal. Basically, I want to decode the chaos of the market exclusively based on historic patterns. If there is a way to actually find out the targets before reversal, it can bring a serious wealth into pockets. Thank you for sharing this information with me, I will certainly take into account the principles and doctrines you have mentioned and try to fuse them into my further works. If it's not hard, please send your observations and findings in terms of a screenshot of a chart next time due to my dyslexia, so I can fully understand where to focus. Bill_Howell, 2 hours ago @fract, Thanks for the nice explanation. "... If there is a way to actually find out the targets before reversal ..." : kind of like the tough challenge, not of following a trend, but predicting the (timing, destination) of the (state, phase) change of a system. Fractional Order Calculus (FOC) doesn't seem to be common, wavelet transforms needs something else? But some people use phase diagram cross-over points (eg Cornelius de Jager & Silvia Duhau for solar activity prediction). I don't know enough about this area. I posted : @fract - Here are two images from a presentation related to a chaotic attractor transition point. http://www.billhowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/de%20Jager,%20Duhau%20121107%20-%20The%20active%20sun,%20chaotic%20attractor%20phase%20transition%20point.png http://www.billhowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/de%20Jager,%20Duhau%20121107%20-%20The%20active%20sun,%20what%20the%20phase%20diagram%20shows.png These are from a 07Nov2012 presentation : de Jager, Duhau 121107 - The active sun - Activity areas, the dynamo, Grand Episodes and the transitions between them.ppt Look elsewhere on my site for Paul Vaughan's wavelet transform approaches for climate, but these are are not well explained, even though he's one of the very few I have some confidence in for (state, phase) changes. He did "roll his own" fractional order calculus, he claimed. 08********08 #] 11Jan2022 Harry Dent take - Labor force participation rate vs inflation Great article! (again) 08********08 #] 08Jan2022 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/CT1!/EinJLY6z-Why-Implied-Volatility-Is-A-Critical-Tool-For-All-Traders/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+128+%28EN%29 #] 08Jan2022 TradingView Andy_Hecht - Why Implied Volatility Is A Critical Tool For All Traders Education COTTON NO. 2 FUTURES (ICEUS:CT1!) 115.12 0.40 0.35% Oct 11, 2021 +--+ Implied volatility is a real-time sentiment indicator While we can calculate historical volatility from historical data, implied volatility is a different story. Implied volatility is the expected or projected volatility or price variance of an asset over time. We back into calculating implied volatility using an options pricing model. We can establish an implied volatility reading by entering the option value into the Black-Scholes options pricing formula or other formulas that determine options prices. If we have a put or call options price, we can solve for the implied volatility level. The Black-Scholes formula in mathematical notation is: C = S_t*N(d1) - K*exp(-r*t)*N(d2) d1 = (ln(S_t/K) + (f + sigma_v^2 / 2)) / sigma_s(t^(1/2)) d2 = d1 - sigma_s(t^(1/2)) C - call option price S - current stock (or other underlying) price K - Strike price r - risk-free interest rate t - time to maturity N - normal distribution sigma_v, sigma_v - implied volatility +--+ The primary variable determining put and call option prices There are no option prices without implied volatility as it is the critical variable that determines put and call option values. Yogi also said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” The current implied volatility level is the market’s consensus perception of what volatility or price variance will be during the life of the put or call option. Observing and watching reveals the constant changes in implied volatility levels, which can be highly volatile over time. Option traders call an option’s sensitivity to changes in implied volatility Vega , which measures the change in an option price for a one-point change in implied volatility . Implied volatility is constantly changing. Yogi had another great saying, “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be,” which rings true for implied volatility which can change in the blink of an eye. Option traders pay lots of attention to their Vega risk as the volatility of implied volatility can be…highly volatile! How’s that for a tongue twister? +--+ The three critical factors implied volatility reveals Implied volatility is a valuable tool for all traders and investors for three significant reasons: It is a real-time indicator of the market’s perception of the future price range of an asset. It can change suddenly, and changes often occur before the price of an asset reacts, making implied volatility a leading indicator. Implied volatility reflects the wisdom of the crowd, and crowds tend to make better decisions than individuals. Moreover, it is reading that reflects the present, not the past, and is a constantly changing measure of consensus forecasts for the future. As traders and investors, we exist in the present. We attempt to increase our wealth with long and short risk positions that either add or subtract from our nest egg in the future. Implied volatility is a critical measure we should understand, utilize, and always keep in our toolbox. Any project requires the right tools. Implied volatility’s value is that it reflects a snapshot of the current market’s consensus. Historical volatility depends on “Deja vu” happening “all over again.” Implied volatility is a measure that understands that the “future ain’t what it used to be.” +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/qbLCFEgz-10-Rules-for-Every-Trader/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+131+%28EN%29 #] 08Jan2022 TradingView iamroot 10 Rules for Every Trader Education S&P 500 Index (TVC:SPX) 4677.04 −19.00 −0.40% iamroot Oct 30, 2021 Trading Psychology Trading Plan rules education I have on the wall next to my trading desk a list of 10 rules which I remind myself of every day. These are rules that I've come up with as a result of mistakes that I've made in the past. New traders often have misconceptions about what good trading looks like, or how a successful trader behaves. The barriers to getting into trading today are low, but the learning curve is still just as steep. You can save yourself considerable time and money by learning from others. I'm sharing this list mainly for new traders, but anyone can benefit. So, without further ado: 10 Rules For Every Trader 1. Price doesn't HAVE to do ANYTHING. A common misconception among very new traders is that skilled traders are able to 'predict' the market. This is not true. This is not even possible. As a trader, your job is to deal in probabilities and risk-management. 2. Ranges are more common than breakouts. In any given market, for every successful breakout and acceptance of new price, you will find 3-5 failed breakouts. New traders often prefer breakout trades because they happen fast, they're exciting, and there's a certain thrill to profiting off of a sudden move that you know caught a lot of other traders with their pants down. Remember that price action stays rangebound by default, until a demand imbalance pushes the auction process to a new range. Range bound trading is a boring grind, but it's also the easiest money you'll make. 3. You will be wrong at least 50% of the time. Keep your risk tight! So, it's not necessarily true that you'll be wrong more than you are right, however as a new trader it's highly probable. This is however the mindset that I adopt when I am evaluating the risk of a potential trade. With any trade I take, I assume that I've got a greater chance of being wrong than being right. When you think about your trading this way, I guarantee that you'll tighten up your risk management game. 4. Check your ego at the door. You're here to make money. That's all. The market is not here to offer you self-validation. The market doesn't care about your need to prove anything. Stay humble, and always keep the possibility of being wrong in the forefront of your mind. 5. Take what is offered. This goes hand in hand with rule one and rule four. A common saying is 'follow the signals, not the cents'. I've let winners turn into losers in the past because I FELT (rule 4) like price action HAD (rule 1) to go farther before rolling over. Take what the market offers, and see the next rule. 6. There will ALWAYS be another opportunity. FOMO (fear of missing out) is very real. It will also lead you to get cut to pieces in a leveraged market. If you missed your ideal entry, don't chase. You didn't just miss the last and only good trade in the world. Think of your risk capital like ammunition. Save it for tomorrow. 7. Winners add to winners. Losers add to losers. What more can I say? If you're adding to a losing position with the intent to move your average entry price, you're already in trouble. Every time you think about adding to a position, I want you to hear this rule in your head. "Winners add to winners. Losers add to losers." Close that losing trade. Save your capital for the next opportunity. 8. Be greedy with your entries: fight for price. If your trading thesis requires price to reach a certain level to validate your entry criteria, then wait for that level. Remember, don't FOMO into a trade. See rule six. 9. Be patient with your entries: Being early is the same as being wrong. Similar to rule 8, no FOMO! Have you ever taken a trade and then been stopped out before the market makes the move you were expecting? You're trying to predict the market instead of reacting to what it is showing you. Slow down, and remember that acceptance of price is validated by both time and volume . 10. Hope is NOT a strategy! This is the difference between trading and gambling. Good trading looks very boring. As a general rule of thumb, if it's exciting, you're probably gambling and not trading. If you don't have a solid 'if this, then that' thesis about the market you're looking to trade, then you don't have a trade to make. These rules are meant to be guidelines for self-improvement as a trader. Write them down. Add your own personal rules. Print them out and put them where you will see them every day. Look at them before you trade and while you manage your positions. At the end of the day, evaluate how well you followed them and record your thoughts in a trading journal. I promise you that if you incorporate these rules into your trading plan, and make them a part of your thinking, you will find success as a trader. Trade well everyone. 08********08 #] 07Jan2022 Article (didn't capture URL) market guy states "'Dont fight the fed' is a stock market term, but in bondds 'fight the fed' is routine" or something like that +----+ TradingView Fri 07Jan2022 #] 07Jan2022 TradingView Deus - SP500 bigger picture Short S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 4677.34 −27.59 −0.59% Deus At last, SP500 starts making technical sense to me. In two years, it taught me a lot. Some of the lessons learnt: - impossible is possible; mad things can happen and will happen (man, I should have read Black Swan as people recommended); - absolutely no point listening to the news; - there are no 'distortions' that can stitch the count. Every wave has its own value in the big picture. We just need to wait for the technicals to clear up; - picking highs and bottoms is damaging to my psyche (no matter whether I proved right or wrong) and ultimately deadly for the account. I am setting up a subscription service to offer intensive coverage of the key markets (Indexes, Gold and Crypto) through the website. If you are interested in free Tradingview Fellow Membership - ping me via private message with your e-mail. I will set up a mailing list and grant you access for free. In return, I will be looking for active feedback to tailor the service up to your needs. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-good-news-hidden-in-the-bond-markets-2021-losses-11641576769?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest #] 07Jan2022 MktWtch Mark Hulbert - Retirement good news hidden in the bond market’s 2021 losses Published: Jan. 7, 2022 at 2:20 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Low correlations mean that bonds zig when stocks zag /220107 Hulbert, MktWatch - trailing six months correlation between the total stock and total bond markets.png 08********08 #] 07Jan2022 MktWtch Daren Fonda - Visa Is Being Squeezed by Crypto and Digital Wallets What to Watch. Published: Jan. 7, 2022 at 1:25 p.m. ET By Daren Fonda &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice, timely article by Daren Fonda. I'm surprised that Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev is factoring in cryto impacts on Visa so early, even considering their significant moves towards cryptos. Bigger pool, more competition, but also no need for a credit rating thave secure payment from many [people, organisation, countries] who don't have a rating. Perhaps that isn't as small a market, as I might think, even excluding drug dealers. Maybe that's the basis to help transform many struggling areas? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-you-run-after-age-50-these-coaches-runners-and-a-physical-therapist-explain-why-you-should-and-how-to-do-it-safely-11640654098?mod=newsviewer_click Can you run after age 50? These coaches and runners and a physical therapist say you can and should. Here’s how to do it safely. Last Updated: Jan. 7, 2022 at 1:55 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 3, 2022 at 4:59 a.m. ET By Rashelle Brown Less is more, they say, and recovery is key &&&&&&&& Howell - Going on 66 year of age, I like comments by Paul Warloski and Michael Rodriguez. I'm a [slow, lousy] runner, and I've never [followed advice, trained] properly. For all of the <10 marathons, and 4 ultra-marathons I was more "pain" than "train". At my age now, the biggest problem is a loss of [aggression, explosive energy], but exercise helps a bit there (takes forever compared to 10 years ago or so). As for injuries, don't worry, they find you whether or not you do something stupid. I fear doing nothing, rather than do nothing for fear. I may become permanently [injured, incapable], like so many non-[sportive, runner, etc] end up at 65+ years. Not interested in a long life extended by the [physical, mental, work] ineptitude of our modern health care system. Not afraid of death so much as afraid of not living. 08********08 #] 05Jan2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/china-strict-covid-policies-risks-global-economy-51641408422?mod=newsviewer_click How China’s Strict Covid Policies Could Create Risks for the Global Economy Last Updated: Jan. 5, 2022 at 6:18 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 5, 2022 at 1:47 p.m. ET By Reshma Kapadia &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting thesis, that a country that makes far tougher decisions than we do, and perhaps far more quickly if needed, will have trouble making decisions now, and will thereby inconvenience the rest of us. "... its approach toward a more transmissible Omicron variant - alongside concern the vaccine many Chinese received may have limited effectiveness ..." - funny this isn't stated so much in our society, nor are vaccine effects. I wonder what these analysis look like from a Chinese perspective. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/charlie-munger-warren-buffetts-right-hand-man-just-turned-98-and-has-some-choice-words-about-inflation-ebitda-and-marriage-11641319939?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, just turned 98 and has some choice words about inflation, EBITDA and marriage Last Updated: Jan. 4, 2022 at 3:46 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 4, 2022 at 1:12 p.m. ET By Mitch Tuchman MarketWatch Contributor Network Unfiltered wit and wisdom from Buffett’s better business half Many Americans, even those who don’t pay much attention to investing and the markets, know the name Warren Buffett. Buffett, of course, is the billionaire philanthropist who created one of the greatest investment fortunes in history. Far fewer, however, know the name of his longtime business partner Charlie Munger. And that’s a shame, because Munger is at least half the brains behind Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A BRK.B, the holding company he runs with Buffett and which manages billions and billions of investor dollars. Advertisement Notably, despite his deal-making prowess, Buffett is a big fan and longtime proponent of low-cost personal investing. Munger turned 98 on Jan. 1. To celebrate his wit and market wisdom, here is a collection of quips from various interviews and question-and-answer sessions over the years. Read MarketWatch’s interview with Charlie Munger https://www.marketwatch.com/story/charlie-munger-warren-buffetts-right-hand-man-just-turned-98-and-has-some-choice-words-about-inflation-ebitda-and-marriage-11641319939?mod=newsviewer_click On business education Those of you who are about to enter business school, or who are there, I recommend you learn to do it our way. But at least until you’re out of school you have to pretend to do it their way. On common sense If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich. On company earnings Yeah, I think you would understand any presentation using the word EBITDA, if every time you saw that word you just substituted the phrase “bullsh** earnings.” On a changing economy So no, I’m optimistic about life. If I can be optimistic when I’m nearly dead, surely the rest of you can handle a little inflation. On public spending Everybody wants fiscal virtue but not quite yet. They’re like that guy who felt that way about sex. He was willing to give it up but not quite yet. On legacy Well, you don’t want to be like the motion picture executive in California. They said the funeral was so large because everybody wanted to make sure he was dead. On stock buybacks I think some people just buy it to keep the stock up. And that, of course, is insane. And immoral. But apart from that, it’s fine. On marriage Warren: Charlie is big on lowering expectations. Munger: Absolutely. That’s the way I got married. My wife lowered her expectations. On the purpose of money Sure, there are a lot of things in life way more important than wealth. All that said…some people do get confused. I play golf with a man. He says: “What good is health? You can’t buy money with it.” On money managers The general system for money management requires people to pretend that they can do something that they can’t do, and to pretend to like it when they really don’t. I think that’s a terrible way to spend your life, but it’s very well paid. On systematic investing Well, I can’t give you a formulaic approach, because I don’t use one. If you want a formula you should go back to graduate school. They’ll give you lots of formulas that won’t work. On human nature As Samuel Johnson said, famously: “I can give you an argument, but I can’t give you an understanding.” On financial innovation It’s perfectly obvious, at least to me, that to say that derivative accounting in America is a sewer. is an insult to sewage. On business competition Competency is a relative concept. And what a lot of us needed to get ahead was to compete against idiots. And luckily there’s a large supply. On cryptocurrency I think the people who are professional traders that go into trading cryptocurrencies, it’s just disgusting. It’s like somebody else is trading turds and you decide, “I can’t be left out.” On investment bankers Once I asked a man who just left a large investment bank, and I said, “How does your firm make its money?” He said, “Off the top, off the bottom, off both sides, and in the middle.” And finally, a parting shot Munger: I think I’ve offended enough people. Buffett: There’s two or three in the balcony! 08********08 #] 02Jan2022 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoins-computational-power-may-double-in-2022-a-major-miner-says-11640891270?mod=newsviewer_click Bitcoin’s computational power may double and make the market more secure in 2022 Last Updated: Jan. 2, 2022 at 11:03 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 30, 2021 at 2:07 p.m. ET By Frances Yue Bitcoin hashrate, which took a hit after the China ban, has fully recovered making the network more secure The industry was also plagued by the China ban. After China started cracking down on crypto mining in May, Bitcoin’s hashrate, which measures the total computational power contributed to the blockchain network, fell more than 50% to about 85 EH/s on a seven-day average basis in July, according to data from Blockchain.com. A lower hashrate means the Bitcoin network is less secure and more vulnerable to attacks. Bitcoin’s hashrate has fully recovered since then, reaching a record high of 182 EH/s in early December, as some Chinese miners migrated to other places such as the United States, Canada, and Kazakhstan, while other miners expanded their capacity. &&&&&&&& Howell - Frances Yue - very helpful article, as it "closes the loop" on the impacts of the China ban that I had been wondering about. It would be interesting to see comments on "crypto-market specialisation" for several cryptos, as my assumption is that crypto can go very broad & deep, from allowing computer gamers to escape their [Microsoft, Apple] prisons, to facilitate small local communities' financials (eg clubs, in contrast to country-wide shopping points cards, etc). Maybe we will all have our own crypto eventually, and I can be my own Federal Reserve AND Treasury? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-s-p-500-beat-both-dow-and-nasdaq-in-2021-by-the-widest-margin-in-24-years-heres-what-history-says-happens-next-year-11641064618?mod=newsviewer_click The S&P 500 beat both Dow, and Nasdaq in 2021 by the widest margin in 24 years. Here’s what history says happens in 2022. Last Updated: Jan. 1, 2022 at 2:17 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 1, 2022 at 2:16 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 14 It is only the 6th time S&P 500 beat the Dow and the Nasdaq in a year: 1984, 1989, 1997, 2004 and 2005 &&&&&&&& +-----+ Ants Viirlaid 13 hours ago There are too many potential ‘straws that broke the camel’s back’ to keep the markets sailing smoothly ahead. Although they’ve managed to keep pretty steady thus far in the face of some doozies. Geopolitical concerns (Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran) leading to conflicts? Pandemic winding down or just getting going? Price inflation inflating even higher, forcing the Fed to act with a resulting hard landing? Political instability from yet again a new antagonistic election year? More disruptive natural catastrophes? Terrorism or homegrown violence from racial or ideological hatreds? There are likely a hundred such possibilities, some foreseeable, some not. The point is that with markets so richly priced (and far too exuberant with NFT-s, SPAC-s, and cryptocurrencies) it will not take much to light a fuse to bring reality to bear. +--+ Ants Viirlaid 13 hours ago v“The question is when will the music stop for the bulls?” Most likely before the current Shemitah year ends. It runs from September 7, 2021 to September 25, 2022. The 7-year cycle in the Jewish calendar (ending each time with the Shemitah year) has been eerily prescient in correctly foreseeing meaningful collapses. It’s not guaranteed but would you argue with a record that’s as good as the Shemitah cycle has, especially when it comes to socioeconomic and financial downturns? You can search on it. And find a fascinating compendium of corresponding past disrupting cataclysms. While not guaranteed to repeat it makes for riveting reading. +--+ Howell - Fascinating, first time I've heard of the Shemitah year. 7-year cycles pop up here and there - sometimes the full El Niño -> La Niña cycle (2 to 7 yr)?, which some have tied to conflicts in nations with high ENSO effects. Also shows up weakly (6.33yr) in Stephen Puetz's stunning "Universal Wave Series" (harmonics of 3 [times, divide]) - far, far, beyond the 20+ Mayan calendars. Of course, natural cycles aren't sinusoids, so while spectral analysis may be extremely accurate, predictability isn't. didn't use : SP500 [strong, confirmed] signals at [9.57, 28.7, 86.1, 258]-day and [2.1, 19.1, 88]-year. Very few predict [state, phase] changes of systems. +-----+ Fawaz Alfahad 18 hours ago I think market is fairly valued, market is going to stay sideways, lets wait and see inflation my cool off after the pandemic is passed. Howell - Fawaz - you may be right. It seems that few adjust [test, ratio]s of valuations for context. Take P/E ratios for example (should these be expressed as E/P ratios, kind of like interest rate?). Pushing things to the ridiculous extreme, 0% long interest rates should give near-infinite financial asset valuations (eg - don't even pay back principle, just keep borrowing ad infinitum). There is a law of supply & demand for [money, credit, socialism] just like everything else. With [dependable, predictable] government bailouts - just have fun and go wild! Of course, all takes is a flip of the light switch to leave us in the dark. 08********08 #] 31Dec2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/look-for-the-best-dividend-paying-stocks-to-stay-in-the-money-in-2022-and-beyond-11640857701?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: Look for the best dividend-paying stocks to stay in the money in 2022 and beyond Last Updated: Dec. 31, 2021 at 3:26 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 30, 2021 at 7:10 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert High-quality dividend-paying stocks, relative to bonds, now offer compelling value &&&&&&&& Howell - Good observation! I'm no expert, just a dabbler, but I also use charts going back to 1871, based on a adjustment of DJIA as a proxy for SP500, provided by numerous sources (eg yahoo finance and another I used but forget). Others go much further back using London Stock Exchange as a proxy, but I haven't done that. I split the graph into semi-log-linear segments 1871-1926, and 1926-2020, losely based on David Fischer's 1996 book "The Great Wave : Price revolutions and the rythms of history". It even has a chart of King Hammurabi's time in ancient Babylon, plus ancient [Greek, Roman], medieval, prices of commodities plus financials for the medieval period. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-new-years-resolution-for-retirees-11640816894?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest A New Year’s resolution for retirees Published: Dec. 30, 2021 at 2:15 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert How frequently should you be checking your portfolio? The study, by MIT accounting professor Chloe L. Xie, focuses on how much traders could profit if they knew in advance whether companies would be reporting earnings that were better or worse than the analyst consensus. You might think that conducting such a study would be impossible. But the occasion nevertheless arose because, between 2011 and 2015, a group of Ukrainian hackers hacked into the servers of the major business newswire companies such as BusinessWire, PR Newswire (now part of Cision), and Marketwired (now part of GlobalNewswire). These are the companies that many publicly traded companies use to distribute their earnings report press releases. The hackers were able to read drafts of these releases in advance of their being distributed to the market as a whole, and they executed more than a thousand trades based on that knowledge. Amazingly, however, they did not make a killing, according to professor Xie. Sometimes their trades were very profitable, but not always. Overall, she found, they “performed poorly.” &&&&&&&& Howell - "... The first is that you recognize that your obsession with the markets’ gyrations is a hobby. .." and it is also one of the greatest learning experiences, somehow enhanced by the losses more than any gains. Maybe this is a huge problem in society, not enough people learn the hard way (in spite of stock market games in schools), and morphs into [conspiracy theories, jealosy, socialist beliefs? I don't know, I just know that periodic doses of humble pie is good for my mental health and a deeper understanding of limits, if not so much for my ego (or perhaps great to keep my ego in check). 08********08 18Dec2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-buybacks-rose-to-a-record-this-year-or-did-they-the-true-story-is-different-than-you-might-think-11639748137?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest MarketWatch Premium Member Exclusive Opinion: Stock buybacks rose to a record this year — or did they? The true story is different than you might think Last Updated: Dec. 18, 2021 at 10:30 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 17, 2021 at 8:35 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Investors need to focus on net, not gross, buybacks When it comes to forecasting the stock market, you should focus on net, rather than gross, buybacks. ... Take this year, for example. Year to date, according to data compiled by EPFR, a unit of Informa Financial Intelligence, major U.S. corporations have announced nearly $1.2 trillion of repurchases, eclipsing 2018, which held the previous record of $1.1 trillion. And, yet, at the end of the third quarter the total number of shares actually outstanding at S&P 500 SPX, -1.03% companies was more than at the beginning of the year — not less. ... Negative net buybacks mean the stock market’s longer-term prospects have fallen. And recent research suggests we pay very close attention. According to a 2018 study in the Financial Analysts Journal titled “Net Buybacks and the Seven Dwarfs,” net buybacks explain 80% of the difference in the intermediate and long-term returns of countries’ stock markets. No other indicator came close. ... No wonder investors often reach the wrong conclusion about buybacks’ significance. In an email several months ago, Robert Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates, laid out the following all-too-common scenario: “Say you’re a CEO, and you have 10 million shares of stock options [that you want to redeem.] … You’ll want to mitigate market impact by doing a stock buyback at the same time. So, noisily announce a 10 million share stock buyback for a certain date. … Issue yourself 10 million shares of new stock at about the same time and promptly sell it. Change in the float of the stock? None. Perception in the marketplace? ‘They did another big buyback! Applause!’” &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice selection of research & comments. "... 2018 study in the Financial Analysts Journal titled “Net Buybacks and the Seven Dwarfs,” net buybacks explain 80% of the difference in the intermediate and long-term returns of countries’ stock markets. ..." Wow, will time for this to sink into my head, especially assuming that [earning, investment, economic (10y bond, monetary)] are also part of that mix? Is this limited to post 2010? 08********08 #] 17Dec2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/inflation-adjusted-treasury-yields-are-lower-than-theyve-been-in-70-years-heres-why-that-isnt-a-bigger-negative-for-stocks-11639697020?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Inflation-adjusted Treasury yields are lower than they’ve been in 70 years. Here’s why that isn’t a bigger negative for stocks Last Updated: Dec. 17, 2021 at 2:33 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 17, 2021 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Expected return is positive even when real rates are as low as they are now. &&&&&&&& Comment rejected : (?) Howell - But are expectations for 10 years bonds limited to an ARIMA-like one or two years out? Is that the only required time horizon, given the expectation that large funds can bail out in a timely fashion as things change? Or is this just like stock market expectations, in other words, the supposed more solid analysis of bond markets isn't much different than stock market investors now? Or do the funds that are red to be in bonds, plus the Fed, now comprise such a large portion of the market that bs are more like a prison? If so, what will happen to the ability to raise long-term funds for "boring" (non high tech, pharma, etc) sectors? +-----+ blog comment for Quant-guy : Any hypothesis on the correlation between 10year T-bill rates ad SP500? Perhaps like : - risk-adjustment of portfolios, especially funds that are required to man bonds, and perhaps some ETFs - fund adjustments for year-end to give the right "risk-portfolio-balance look" - bag-holders like me - most interesting to me : Fed market-control concept of purchases that simply follow the market to some extent, as an easy stabilisation approach? - I lack any ideas, so I'm groping And how blind (optimistic bias) is everyone now, given that the current state seems difficult to describe as a free market that provides realistic (pricing, risk) signals? What is the long-term prospect - ongoing never-pay-back until better-priced options (emerging economies, even more crypto in spite of government controls?) can emerge? 08********08 #] 14Dec2021 #] 15Dec2021 Fed FMOC announcement [Treasury/ agency mortgage-backed] securities for covid 115-120?? G$/mnth, taper 15 G$ Nov, 20/10 G$ Dec, increases >= 40/20 G$/mnth Jan https://www.marketwatch.com/story/odds-of-being-a-stock-market-winner-in-2022-are-in-your-favor-for-this-one-big-reason-11639453074?mod=panda_marketwatch_digest Opinion: Odds of being a stock market winner in 2022 are in your favor for this one big reason Last Updated: Dec. 14, 2021 at 2:01 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 14, 2021 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Dow Jones Industrial Average has posted yearly gains two-thirds of the time, no matter what &&&&&&&& I didn't post this Howell - Useful reassurance in the way that current versus subsequent year performances are compared. The 66% rule is just a threshold trigger on a long-term trend, and because of its market-wide basis, and because it is not a quantitative predictor? But investors often want to know quantitative ranking of returns with respect to [allocations, expectations for long-term investments, standards of comparison] over a variety of timelines. That is like a semi-log correlation ~1926-2020 (~83 years) for S&P500 : decadal+ above-below levels make it difficult to state whether a change in long-term trend has occurred, so it provides roughly the same result (for the very [long-term, patient] investor) as the threshold year-to-year. "... the stock market discounts the future, not the past ..." I've always liked that concept, but I question that it works with detailed human forecasts for investment time periods >1 year or more (ARIMA-like one step ahead). [Can, will] the post-Deep-Learning machines change this? Will they be allowed to, even if they become [robust, effective] at strategic allocations and picking [people, organisations]? 08********08 #] 11Dec2021 https://www.cxoadvisory.com/sentiment-indicators/mark-hulberts-nasdaq-newsletter-sentiment-index/ Mark Hulbert’s Nasdaq Newsletter Sentiment Index Steve LeCompte | October 12, 2015 | Investing Expertise, Sentiment Indicators “Mark Hulbert’s NASDAQ Newsletter Sentiment Index” reviews the usefulness of the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which “reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timers tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest.” Mark Hulbert presents HSNSI as a contrarian signal for future stock returns; when HSNSI is high (low), he views the outlook for stocks as materially bearish (bullish). In recent years, he has shifted emphasis in his MarketWatch columns from HSNSI to the Hulbert Nasdaq Newsletter Sentiment Index (HNNSI), stating that: “Since the Nasdaq responds especially quickly to changes in investor mood, and because those timers are themselves quick to shift their recommended exposure levels, the HNNSI is the Hulbert Financial Digest’s most sensitive barometer of investor sentiment.” Is HNNSI useful? Using a small sample of 38 values of HNNSI over the period April 2010 through September 2015 (generated by searching MarketWatch.com for “HNNSI”) and contemporaneous daily closes of the S&P 500 Index, we find that: The following chart superimposes the HNNSI sample on a plot of the S&P 500 Index. The average value of HNNSI for the sample is 35.5%, with high 93.8% and low -50.0%. Visual inspection is not helpful for understanding the relationship between the HNNSI sample and S&P 500 Index returns. The published sample may be biased due to selection and clustering, because Mark Hulbert may be more likely to cite HNNSI, and cite it frequently, when it has extreme values. ... In summary, evidence from simple tests on a small sample indicates that the Hulbert Nasdaq Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index has some inherent power to predict stock market returns over near horizons, but exploiting this predictability may be difficult. Cautions regarding these findings include: The sample period offers limited variety in market conditions. As noted, the overall sample (38 observations) and especially subsamples are small, exacerbated by some clustering (such that future return measurements overlap). There are only 9 non-positive observations. There are only 13 non-overlapping 63-day future return observations. As noted, it is plausible that published HNNSI values are biased toward distribution tails. Statistics for a continuous sample may be different (weaker if like other sentiment variables). As noted, there may be more efficient ways to exploit HNNSI data using a continuous sample (but the cost of the data would affect net performance). >> very interesting, would be nice to see Hulbert's reply. 08********08 #] 09Dec2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-data-were-seeing-is-largely-pointing-in-the-wrong-direction-biden-sounds-alarm-as-he-convenes-global-summit-of-democracies-01639072600?mod=newsviewer_click Associated Press ‘The data we’re seeing is largely pointing in the wrong direction’: Biden sounds alarm as he convenes global summit of democracies Published: Dec. 9, 2021 at 12:56 p.m. ET By Associated Press The U.S. may be at its own pivot point as numerous states enact laws to limit access to the ballot and with allies of former president Donald Trump continuing to echo his baseless election-theft claim, eroding public trust in the accuracy of the vote &&&&&&&& Howell- These "democratic issues" problems are mostly from within, which is possibly most obvious to those outside our political systems. If "foreign organisations" are influencing voters in our systems, is it any worse that what we do to ourselves, and is that not easily handled by a robust system backed with vigilance and thought? Is this primarily an issue for those who currently have most [control, influence] over public opinion, who insist that others follow their opinions, and who resent any challengers, including alternative [political, scientific, professional] voices within? Our [generations, attitudes, representation] are changing [rapidly, significantly], and old [standards, expectations] [have, will] morph, including changes in democracy itself. Be careful with proposed solutions, and beware the historical context and warnings of the past, which can be larger than [political, economic, financial, etc] systems. I have no solutions, just questions. not included : They long pre-date covid, althought that probably hasn't helped either. , especially as well-meaning policies may actually have exacerbated the problems they were intended to solve (as often happens - things aren't always so simple, eg solving [housing, debt] crises by making them bigger?). It seems to me that these "democratic issues" long pre-date covid, althought that probably hasn't helped either, especially as well-meaning policies may actually have exacerbated the problems they were intended to solve (as often happens - things aren't always so simple, eg solving [housing, debt] crises by making them bigger?). Maybe miscontent is amplified by [fears, rapid changes, declining hegemony], and maybe the politically-correct massaging of [mainstream news, policies] eventually generates its own dis-credibility, as with Pravda during the Soviet era? This isn't something new at all, and isn't specific to democracies (as a laugh - is there a crisis of too much democracy in some countries?). "News technologies" are often a "culprit", but many of the areas (usually science) that I follow, the best sources are far and away rare online sources (published papers are always critical for in-depth follow-p). especially as well-meaning policies may actually have exacerbated the problems they were intended to solve (as often happens - things aren't always so simple, eg solving [housing, debt] crises by making them bigger?). 08********08 #] 07Dec2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-surprising-investing-strategy-crushes-the-stock-market-without-examining-a-single-financial-metric-11638985326?mod=newsviewer_click BookWatch Opinion: This surprising investing strategy crushes the stock market without examining a single financial metric Last Updated: Dec. 8, 2021 at 12:42 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 8, 2021 at 12:41 p.m. ET By Fred Reichheld I simply ranked competitors in each industry based on customer love and then bet on the winner To measure customer love, I used the Net Promoter Score (NPS) that I created 20 years ago. It captures how likely a customer is to recommend a product or service to a friend or colleague. I relied on the market to incorporate all financial insights into the current stock price. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-will-face-competition-from-blockchain-based-decentralized-autonomous-organizations-in-the-near-future-11638996760?mod=newsviewer_click Revolution Investing Opinion: Stocks will face competition from blockchain-based DAOs in the near future Last Updated: Dec. 8, 2021 at 3:59 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 8, 2021 at 3:52 p.m. ET By Cody Willard They will be powered by cryptocurrencies &&&&&&&& Howell - Fascinating article, thanks for another wake-up call. Incentivisation system - This may take 10 years or more to sink into my head as applicable to corporate activities (other than simply as a "stock currency"). Large corporations can be extremely complex, how will decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) address the normal challenges of (responsibility, process, decision, foresight, criminality)s? Project-management environments seem more likely early targets for DAOs, but even there there is a huge challenge of picking the right partners at the right [quality, price]. The politically-correct concept is that we are all the same, little-resembling any reality? "... the current batch of 15,000 cryptocurrencies traded on nearly 500 exchanges ..."But I would have expected a VASTLY greater number of eventual cryptos? After all, shouldn't they scale down better than any previous "money", allowing localisation by [geography, organisation, social group, etc]? I didn't include : I suspect the same may also happen to human languages with online access resources - several commmon lingua franca, making it much easier to sustain very small languages across the globe? +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/DJI/c0jgRt08-DOW-JONES-1929-2021-strongest-break-out-EVER/ samitrading blog comment DOW JONES 1929-2021 strongest break out "EVER" !!! Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (DJ:DJI) 35738.14 18.70 0.05% samitrading 3 hours ago Clear break out with 5 monthly retests. We have one of the strongest break out ever since ever of probably any financial market in the world, this better mean something big to come ! &&&&&&&& Howell - Perhaps due to sub-zero real long-term interest rates (eg 10 year T-bill), with implications of infinite financial asset pricing if expectations are that it will keep going on? (i.e. pay back principle from ever-increasing borrowing in a Treasury-Fed induced Ponzi scheme?). My quip aside, David Fischer's "The Great Wave" book shows a haunting 800 year analysis of pricing suggests we have been in a "price revolution" since roughly 1926 or even before, with "price equilibria" interspersing waves of revolution. (think renaissance, enlightenment, etc - high correlation between society and pricing. Original concept from Wilhelm Abel of Germany, 1935). This exponential curve is even more exponential with covid fear-driven spending. Across history and (political, religious, economic, racial, geographical) systems, the revolutions have progressed and ended pretty much the same way. Many of the attempted solutions have been the same irrespective of the systems, so are these pretty much irrelevant in spite of what we "have to believe"? I didn't include : Side comment - covid is a complete non-pandemic on the scale of history - it could get worse beyond modern cognitive ability and imagination, other than the zombie firms? 08********08 #] 03Dec2021 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/8CSnI6ei-beautiful-channel/ Howell blog : Yes - Your SP500 heavy red trend line is approximately Fibonacci 1.0 down from the Apr-Sep2021 maximum upper-bound line. Question : Do you think that the rate of financial asset inflation has bent down to a lower level, perhaps down to the ~Mar2016-Nov2018 rate? (although a small part of that is real economic growth, not just 0% long-term interest-driven (debt, consumer purchases of foreign goods, hype, etc). The rate of financial asset inflation is certainly way down from Sep2020-Apr2021. The 83 year, 1926-2020 baseline SP500 financial (inflation + growth) was roughly 3%/year (see below - not really the same number as it's semi-log, but good enough for now), much of which was probably real growth until perhaps 1980-2000 (I didn't dig into that). SP500 1926-2020 semi-log trend = 10^(0.792392+2.89587*10^(-2)*(year - 1926.25)) price revolution* SP500 1872-1926 semi-log trend = 10^(0.784617+1.40925*10^(-4)*(year - 1871.08))) price equilibrium* *David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" I didn't add : This is probably wishful thinking on my part, as it's hard to imagine the current administrative base, plus continued new appointees, would ever be capable of questioning their lifelong belief systems (as with all human beings). I favor the Ibn Khaldun theme that thinks have to fall apart long before we can ever wake up. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/berkshire-hathaways-charlie-munger-says-markets-crazier-now-than-they-were-in-the-late-1990s-11638525537?mod=newsviewer_click Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger says markets ‘crazier’ now than they were in the late 1990s Published: Dec. 3, 2021 at 4:58 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Cryptocurrencies ‘should never been invented’ said Munger “Crazier than the dot-com boom.“ Munger also singled out one of Berkshire’s holdings, China electric-car group BYD 1211, -2.49%, which he described as “one of the best companies in the world.” He’s also backing the shift to renewable energy, such as wind and solar. “I love the fact we’re rapidly reducing the burning of coal and the burning of gasoline and diesel…and replacing them with electricity from renewable sources.” One big dislike that hasn’t changed for Munger is cryptocurrencies, which he believes “should have never been invented.” China made the right decision to ban them, while the U.S. “has made the wrong decision” not to, he said. Bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.84% was trading below $57,000 in the early hours of Friday, but has nearly doubled this year. 08********08 #] 02Dec2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/in-his-final-warning-this-stock-trading-wizard-who-made-big-money-in-bear-markets-and-crashes-called-this-market-a-bubble-like-no-other-11638434148?mod=newsviewer_click Michael Sincere's Long-Term Trader Opinion: In his final warning, this stock trading wizard — who made big money in bear markets and crashes — called this market a bubble like no other Published: Dec. 2, 2021 at 7:20 a.m. ET By Michael Sincere MarketWatch Contributor Network Veteran trader Mark D. Cook, who passed away recently, closely monitored the market’s health and was convinced that U.S. stocks are due for a major hit In recent years, he predicted that the U.S. bull market which began in 2009 would meet a similar fate. He and I even collaborated on a book about bear markets, published in 2015. In our most recent conversation, Cook said he was convinced that this current bull market was on its last legs. He said it had gone on too long and gone up too high. “Think of a vacant building that has a gas leak,” Cook once told me. “The gas has been leaking for a long time. The longer the gas leaks, the bigger the explosion. It will take a catalyst to trigger an explosion, but no one knows what is the trigger point. The longer the gas is in there and ignored, and forgotten, the greater the explosion. “The stock market,” he said, “is like the vacant building.” When it blows, the result will be horrible. He expected the worst to hit this market. Cook’s to-do list Here’s a list of some of the ways Cook was able to thrive during crashes and bear markets. Keep in mind that these strategies are primarily for traders: Sell long positions and move into cash until the storm has passed. Buy puts on the S&P 500. Buy inverse ETFs. Short individual stocks. Cook said that the most prudent strategy for many traders is to move into cash or sell stocks to a point where they’re comfortable. Moving to cash is not designed to make a profit but to protect your portfolio and also to be ready to take advantage of future investment opportunities. &&&&&&&& Howell - Agree - well written window into Michael Sincere's thinking. 08********08 #] 26Nov2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-much-as-we-want-to-move-past-the-virus-we-cant-right-now-what-a-cancelled-trip-says-about-our-continuing-struggle-with-covid-19-11636657659?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Will we ever move past the age of COVID? With the latest variant threat, it seems like we’ll forever be on guard Last Updated: Nov. 26, 2021 at 11:35 a.m. ET First Published: Nov. 11, 2021 at 2:07 p.m. ET By Charles Passy ‘Our lives could remain a series of calculated choices and the constant need to wear masks for months, if not years, to come’ &&&& Howell - OK, so almost two years late, the near-constant theme of historic pandemics is mentioned, not to mention seasonal influenza and the common cold. The most interesting thing is not the virus, but the thinking, and its twists and turns,often without realising it. Still waiting for anything on viruses (certainly not just covid) capitalising on mRNA vaccine as a kind of Trojan horse. There's probably [tests, analysis, conjecture] out there somewhere, but not so much in the press and professional communities? May never happen, maybe already has? 08********08 #] 25Nov2021 MktWatch survey Item Description Newsletters Access to a range of exclusive emails including breaking news, how to invest, top stories for market close, and sector specific newsletters including mutual funds, tech, and Europe. Watchlist Select your companies of interest and track all the financial data you need. Virtual Stock Exchange Build your imaginary portfolio and react to the markets in real time. Create a private game and compete against your friends. Or join a customized public game and talk strategies with others in the chat. Custom price/volume alerts Create an alert on a specific symbol and get notified when it hits a specific price target or moves up or down. You can also find out when the specific symbol hits a volume target or its 52 week high or low. Intro pack for beginner investors Member-exclusive content including newsletters and daily insights into how to trade the news. Investment-specific content i.e. Crypto, Personal Finance, Investment Strategies - all the news and data you need to invest smartly. Historical simulation Test the viability of your holdings or investing strategy versus past market moments to inform your future approach. Video events/Q&As Special Zoom meetings (interactive or live stream), Live message boards, or engage in Ask Me Anything chats with MarketWatch journalists. Ad-lite Faster load speed of the site due to reduced ad load. Advanced charting Compare and contrast a wealth of data both current and historic for various companies and investment vehicles. Access to advanced data points Quote subtabs. Analyst ratings, Analyst Estimates, Historical Quotes, etc. Live blogs Live content at key market moments such as results announcements. 08********08 #] 24Nov2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-one-interest-rate-hike-by-a-small-african-nation-could-derail-powells-fed-policy-plans-and-sink-stocks-11637625129?mod=mw_more_headlines Opinion: How one rate hike by a small African nation could derail Powell’s Fed inflation-fighting plans and sink stocks Last Updated: Nov. 23, 2021 at 1:05 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 22, 2021 at 6:51 p.m. ET By Callum Thomas Investors need to stop obsessing about the Fed taper and pay attention to the dozens of central banks that have raised rates so far this year It may take time, but one thing I know to be true is that these things go in cycles. While it looks and feels like the Fed has your back forever in the markets right now, this won’t be always true. “Don’t fight the Fed” means swim with the tide, not against it, and the tides here are clearly turning. 211124 Callum Thomas, TopDown Charts, 2000-2021 percent central banks whose last rate change was a hike, emerging & developed.png 211124 Callum Thomas, TopDown Charts, 1980-2021 annual inflation rate.png 211124 Callum Thomas, TopDown Charts, 1970-2021 residential property [price, rent] to income, developed markets.png 211124 Callum Thomas, TopDown Charts, 1997-2021 global pct rate hikes vs equities.png &&&&&&&& Howell - Thought-provoking article and graphs, with a much-needed multi-generational perspective. I would like to see update graphs on the tendancy of financial asset prices (including real estate, commodities, stocks, etc) and debt to rise towards infinity as rates go to zero and below, in competitive markets. Paying back principle isn't so much a problem when debt can cover part of that, and the inevitable deep hits to the economy never seem to be in any mainstream forecasts. Even bond markets seem short-sighted today, perhaps blinded by the non-free market situation in rates etc? Are we blinded by our generational perspectives as well as government policy manipulations? 08********08 #] 03Nov2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/stock-market-today-51635928115?mod=newsviewer_click The Dow Is Dipping, the Fed Is Looming—and What Else Is Happening in the Stock Market Today Last Updated: Nov. 3, 2021 at 12:13 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 3, 2021 at 4:29 a.m. ET By Jacob Sonenshine and Jack Denton Markets now largely expect that the Fed will begin slowing these purchases, which consist of Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities, at a rate of about $15 billion a month, starting this month. If the central bank announces a faster pace, investors could react negatively, and it could put pressure on stocks. The larger risk is that the Fed could indicate that it is considering short-term interest rate hikes sooner rather than later. With inflation running hot and economic growth slowing, an indication of a rate hike too soon could also cause a selloff in stocks. “It is widely expected the central bank will commence tapering in November or perhaps December,” wrote Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management. “The question at hand is whether or not it will change its time line as to when it intends to increase the overnight rate.” As the Fed looms, not even solid economic data could move stocks higher. The ADP jobs report showed that the U.S. added 571,000 private-sector jobs in October, above the consensus forecast for 395,000. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-deglobalization-spark-inflation-not-if-the-robots-have-anything-to-say-about-it-11635882800?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: How robots will save us from inflation Last Updated: Nov. 3, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET First Published: Nov. 2, 2021 at 3:52 p.m. ET By Dalia Marin 0 The pandemic-driven retreat from globalization—together with an aging population in China and the advanced economies—is a recipe for inflation. But while workers’ bargaining power may rise, a wage-price spiral in the advanced economies is unlikely. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice robot counterpoint to some typical reasons for inflation, like : [near-zero interest rates, declining work [population, effectiveness], rising relative foreign wealth, trade protectionism]. It would be nice to know how effective some of the newer Deep Learning Neural Nets etc technologies are for different sectors of the economy (beyond finance, banking). Are robots for manufacturing enough to becoming internationally competitive, in spite of our rising social costs and tendancy to hamstring businesses? Will [China, India, etc] will increasingly dominate with the new technologies, as one often sees in the advanced journal publications? +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/u/quantguy/ &&&&&&&& Howell : Cool! I didn't know that you had broadened coverage to [rates, oil, currency, gold] 08********08 #] 01Nov2021 Couldn't post : Howell's TradingView Idea : SP500 bottoms in 2019 cap tops for last 6 months? It almost seems as if the SP500 bottoms for the latter half of 2019, have been a ceiling of resistance for SP500 since May2021 (semi-log plot). That behaviour often occurs in charts, even over much longer time-frames, but does it have special significance at this time, for example, smooth resumption of the stimulusdriven latter half of 2019? Maybe this is a "sweet spot" for (Fed Reserve, Treasury) policy controls of the markets, as a balance between generating jobs and generating criticisms (supposed wealth gap effects)? To reduce clutter on the graph, "hide" non-SP500 curves with the drop-down tool at the top-left of the chart (just under the "S&P 500 Index" subtitle). /media/bill/Dell2/Website - raw/economics, markets/SP500/211101 12h50m12s Howell - SP500 bottoms in 2019 cap tops for last 6 months.png >> I might be blocked from Publishing - now way apparent to do so. 08********08 #] 11Oct2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-self-nudge-yourself-to-make-better-money-and-life-decisions-11633958152?mod=newsviewer_click How a ‘self-nudge’ could help you make better money and life decisions Last Updated: Oct. 11, 2021 at 9:33 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 11, 2021 at 9:15 a.m. ET By Jeremy Olshan New research provides a useful tool kit for hacking your brain to stop yourself from fumbling your finances Temptation bundling - I’m only allowed to enjoy indulgent entertainment while I’m exercising at the gym. >> Howell - WCCI2021 videos at gym also helps do much more machine weights! Commitment Devices - In an experiment economists ran in the Philippines, a bank offered some customers a standard savings account with interest, while others had the option of a commitment account that locked their money up for a time with no additional benefit. “They found that the people with access to this special new kind of account ended up saving 80% more year over year,” Milkman said. >> Howell - FirstConnect for spending $, but doesn't work that well. Tangerine set-aside much better, but certificate of deposit would really help, but not for van purchase.. Time Travel - By regularly writing letters to our future selves, and by making this older version of us a real, three-dimensional character, we can do a better job in balancing the trade-offs between our present-day hedonism and our future well-being (or hedonism). ... “Having this sort of self-conversation may make it easier to recognize the benefit of something like enrolling in an automatic savings account.” Which of these two habit changers is more likely to succeed: >> Howell - I do this with WorkComp receipts, but they are spent Wear your retainer - Someone who commits to exercising at the same time every day or someone who commits to exercising at some point every day? It surprised me to hear that in Milkman’s experiment, flexible habits worked better for many. >> Howell - Best results for fixed [day, time] walking.but I'm really flex-time failure Don’t eat the stale popcorn - Among the moviegoers who reported they always ate popcorn at the theater, freshness and taste proved irrelevant. They consumed roughly the same amount no matter if they were served the fresh stuff or the stale cardboard.Among the moviegoers who reported they always ate popcorn at the theater, freshness and taste proved irrelevant. They consumed roughly the same amount no matter if they were served the fresh stuff or the stale cardboard. Howell - Yeah, I recognize that. 08********08 #] 10Oct2021 Puetz newsletter "$d_PROJECTS""Investments/Puetz newsletter/UCT_2021-10-10 A Financially Lethal Mix.pdf 211010 Puetz newsletter, stock market crashes [03Sep1929 DJIA, 27Jan1980 Gold, 24Aug1987 DJIA, 27Dec1989 Japan Nikkei, 07Sep2021].png copied to : "$d_webRawe""Cool stuff/Puetz 211010 newsletter, stock market crashes [03Sep1929 DJIA, 27Jan1980 Gold, 24Aug1987 DJIA, 27Dec1989 Japan Nikkei, 07Sep2021].png 08********08 #] 08Oct2021 Harry Dent - huge reversal of opinion till crash - he thinks it will go to 90-115k$US by year-end!!! >> buy now?? Rardos Santos, PineScript - polynomial regression +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/texas-california-and-indiana-offer-surprising-lessons-about-low-taxes-and-economic-growth-11620138549?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Texas, California and Indiana offer surprising lessons about low taxes and economic growth Last Updated: Oct. 8, 2021 at 9:49 a.m. ET First Published: May 4, 2021 at 10:29 a.m. ET By Michael J. Hicks The growth in Texas? In its high-tax areas Windy City Woman 9 May, 2021 Red/Blue states, continued: MENTAL HEALTH Of the 10 states with the … • Highest rate of suicides, 7 are RED states. • Highest rate of unhappy residents, 7 are RED states. • Highest ranking as the worst place to live, 9 are RED states. • Most incidents of major depression, 9 are RED states. • Lowest ranking of mental health expenditures per capita, 9 are RED states. HEALTHCARE Of the 10 states with the … • Highest usage of prescription medications, 9 are RED states. • Most incidents of and deaths from lung cancer, 9 are RED states. • Most overweight and obese residents, 10 are RED states. • Greatest loss of natural teeth, 10 are RED states. • Highest child death rate, 10 are RED states. EDUCATION Of the 10 states with the … • Lowest ranking on NAEP math & reading tests, 6 are RED states. • Least high school graduates, 7 are RED states. • Worst public schools, 8 are RED states. • Most high school dropouts, 8 are RED states. • Least college graduates, 9 are RED states. +--+ Windy City Woman 9 May, 2021 The following statistics correlate the standing of states in various categories, to the RED state BLUE state divide in the 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections. ALCOHOL & TOBACCO Of the 10 states with the … • Most alcoholics needing but not receiving treatment, 6 are RED states. • Most babies born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), 6 are RED states. • Most underage drunk-driving fatalities, 8 are RED states. • Most tobacco use and dependency, 9 are RED states. • Most adult drunk-driving fatalities, all 10 are RED states. THE WAR ON DRUGS Of the 10 states with the … • Most illicit drug/alcohol abuse/dependency ages 12 to 17, 6 are RED states. • Most cocaine abuse/dependency, 7 are RED states. • Most marijuana abuse/dependency, 7 are RED states. • Most methamphetamine abuse/dependency, 8 are Red states. • Most illegal use of oxycodone/OxyCotin (AKA “Hillbilly Heroin”), 9 are RED states. TOUGH ON CRIME Of the 10 states with the … • Most assaults, 7 are RED states. • Most burglary & robbery, 8 are RED states. • Most incidents of rape, 8 are RED states. • Most automobile theft, 9 are RED states. • Most firearms deaths, 9 are RED states. ECOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT Of the 10 states that … • Are the most polluted, 9 are RED states. • Are the greatest consumers of oil per capita, 9 are RED states. • Are the worst places to live, 9 are RED states. • Have the worst water quality, all 10 are RED states. • Are the least green, all 10 are RED states. +--+ Windy City Woman 9 May, 2021 The 2011 American Community Survey, a 5-year compilation released by the US Census Bureau, details graduation rates for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia which, for statistical purposes, is treated as a state. 7 Least Educated States: Texas Mississippi Kentucky Louisiana Alabama Arkansas West Virginia 7 Best Educated States: New Hampshire Vermont Colorado Massachusetts Connecticut Maryland New Jersey Did I forget to mention the least educated states are Red states (conservative) and the best educated are Blue states (liberal)? My bad. 08********08 #] 07Oct2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/does-driving-an-electric-car-really-save-you-money-a-cheapskate-runs-the-numbers-11633119574?mod=newsviewer_click Does driving an electric car really save you money? A cheapskate runs the numbers Published: Oct. 7, 2021 at 5:03 a.m. ET By Philip Reed You can save thousands over the life of the car compared with gas—but electricity isn’t free or cheap everywhere. &&&&&&&&& Howell - Nice article, and fun to see how it's working for someone. As a warning, though, it is a mistake to base [long-term, economy-wide] thinking on on the basis of short-to-mid-term PERCEPTIONS of costs. Subsidies for [EVs, charging stations, transmission-distribution systems] are effective in encouraging EV [purchase, use] but lead to [gross, almost non-fixable] misperceptions when discussions are applied more generally, which is probably intended by policy. From a longer-term strategic point of view, there are huge benefits to countries that lack their own [coal, oil, gas] resources, and for all countries in terms of [energy diversification, conflict (yes, it still happens)]. I am not impressed by most analysis in this area, but I'm sure that there some good studies out there. One holy grail a long time in coming is fusion energy, which might dovetail extremely well with EVs. You can laugh, but who knows? removed : EV mindsets are also part of a "sustainability" package, and will be sensitive to rising portions of alternative energy sources like [solar, wind], as typically experienced world-wide. Factoring in environmental, sustainability costs is problematic, but very important for policy, especially when some key science (eg "CO2 is the primary driver of climate since 1850") is problematic. https://www.dollarcollapse.com/chinese-real-estate-imploding/ Chinese Real Estate Imploding? by John Rubino ◆ October 6, 2021 ... China’s Property Fantasia Turns Nightmarish https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-property-fantasia-turns-nightmarish-11633522146 (Wall Street Journal) Fantasia Holdings failed to repay a $206 million U.S. dollar bond on Monday. The company is much smaller than whale-like Evergrande—its sales last year were $3.4 billion versus the latter’s $79 billion—but many more developers that overextended themselves in the boom years could face a similar fate. China’s housing market continued sputtering in September, after an already terrible August. In terms of area sold, new home sales in 30 Chinese cities tracked by information provider Wind fell 33% year over year. That is consistent with plunging sales reported by developers themselves: Kaisa’s September contract sales by value dropped 48% from last year while Country Garden’s were down 29%. Home sales in China as a whole by value fell 20% year over year in August. Meanwhile, videos have been appearing of people actually inspecting Chinese building sites and finding materials that are substandard to the point of being dangerously fraudulent. Here are two such videos. Be sure to read the comments, especially from viewers claiming to have construction experience. https://youtu.be/lKbLB_T-IjY ADVChina Scary crap materials and building https://youtu.be/s-2DtL-Wjkc Also scary Are there ANY good constructions? SELL ZCH!!!! 08********08 #] 05Oct2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-this-veteran-analyst-sees-stocks-headed-for-the-biggest-bear-market-since-the-great-depression-11633432477?mod=newsviewer_click This veteran analyst hears echoes of the 1929 crash in today’s stock market Published: Oct. 5, 2021 at 7:14 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day Don’t look for reassurance in our call of the day, where the founder and CEO of BullAndBearProfits.com, Jon Wolfenbarger, predicts U.S. stocks may be “on the verge of starting the biggest bear market since the Great Depression.” “Now with the Fed talking about tapering and money supply growth slowing significantly from 39% y/y in February to only 8% y/y in August, perhaps that is enough of a ‘tight monetary policy’ to change investor psychology to a more bearish mood? We will see,” he said in a Monday interview and follow-up comments with MarketWatch. 211005 FactSet, MktWatch - Risk [on,off] guage [guage,USD,SP500,Nas100,oil,gold] &&&&&&&& Howell - Several "perma-bears" [are, have been] super-bulls, over the decades, so the label is incorrect for these analysts other than for time-scales much shorter than their outlooks. "Perma-bear" is less applicable than "perma-bull", but only one phrase gets mentioned. Given 80+ year trends, "perma-bull" is understandable, but hardly informative. Those allocating resources to multiple markets in fixed portions in different sectors of [stocks,bonds,real estate,international markets, etc] can ignore timing and take occasional hits of varying magnitudes. That no-one can predict market timing ignores the imperative that some sort-of have to, implicitly or explicitly (eg for active portfolio reallocation [between, within] markets by [fundamental analysis, follow the trend, cycles, econometric, sentiment, jump-on-the-bandwagon, etc]). Active portfolio management is a basis of efficient markets for all time-scales, whereas [fixed, indexing] allocations merely follow the flow. It seems to me that too high a portion of the latter type of investor brings its own market risk (I think the Vangard founder made comments a decade or so to that effect)? 08********08 #] 30Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pandora-papers-investigation-sheds-light-on-secretive-financial-dealings-of-royalty-politicians-religious-leaders-and-the-global-elite-01633304929?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Pandora Papers’ investigation sheds light on secretive financial dealings of royalty, politicians, religious leaders and the global elite Published: Oct. 3, 2021 at 7:48 p.m. ET By Associated Press ‘This is where our missing hospitals are,’ Oxfam International bristles. ‘Global tax evasion fuels global inequality,’ observes Green Party member of European Parliament. &&&&&&&& Howell - I have no idea of which situations involved illegal activities, which are within normal tax planning, and which are actually [shady, illegal]. Ideally I would do some homework and read the report, and perhaps it wouldn't seem as shady as the reporting. In a sense we all hide our wealth, or at least I haven't seen many cases (other than perhaps some public figures) of people simply posting their [banking, stock, bond, real estate] statements online for all the world to see, complemented with lists of their acts of [theft from employers, porn, alcohol, sex, etc etc]. Maybe the whole thing is a pyramid scheme of sorts, as I've long suspected of [economic, financial, crime, political] problems in many countries. 08********08 #] 30Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/third-quarter-earnings-were-fantastic-until-you-peek-below-the-surface-11633017629?mod=newsviewer_click Third-quarter earnings were fantastic — until you peek below the surface Last Updated: Sept. 30, 2021 at 1:10 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 30, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET By Ciara Linnane, Tomi Kilgore An analysis of the financial strength of travel-related companies finds things are not nearly as good as they seem &&&&&&&& Howell - Great article. I wonder how consistently organizations report benefits received from (government payroll support, sending, other) programs. A sector overview would be nice, but I assume would involve a lot of guesswork. This article points out another big perceptual distortion in the not-so-free-markets-anymore. Beyond this, the manipulated-interest-rates, social-media-driven investments, (environmental, health) cliff-jumping, and my failing eyesight, its like driving at high speed in a dense fog. 08********08 #] 27Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-stocks-could-lose-popularity-as-the-markets-presidential-election-cycle-enters-its-second-year-11632776543?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Why stocks could lose popularity as the market’s ‘presidential election cycle’ enters its second year Published: Sept. 27, 2021 at 5:02 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Stock returns typically weaken in the second year of a U.S. president’s four-year term &&&&&&&& Howell : Nice analysis : helpful look at something that we know that just might ain't be so. Ray Dalio "Changing world order" book 08********08 #] 21Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jpmorgan-says-buy-that-s-p-500-dip-but-you-might-want-to-look-at-this-chart-first-11632221985?mod=newsviewer_click /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/210921 Goldman [SPX, NDX, RUT] 1985-2019 index seasonality.png 08********08 #] 15Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-traders-brace-for-quadruple-witching-11631653933?mod=newsviewer_click Stock-market investors brace for ‘quadruple witching’ this Friday Last Updated: Sept. 15, 2021 at 3:42 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 14, 2021 at 5:12 p.m. ET By William Watts Options expirations blamed by some analysts for bouts of mid-month volatility in 2021 The stock market is repeating a pattern of midmonth stumbles some analysts tie to options expiration. That dynamic could be amplified this week ahead of “quadruple witching,” the simultaneous expiration Friday of individual stock options, stock-index options, stock-index futures and single-stock futures. “Almost like clockwork, over the past six months the S&P 500 has fallen in the week leading into OpEx, so the risk is we see this flow repeat and come into play this week, which could mean weakness into Friday’s expiry — although perhaps it’s all too obvious now,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, in a Monday note. OpEx is trader slang for options expiration. Rodney Johnson Sep2021 report Lithium Americas (NYSE: LAC) Lithium Americas is based in Vancouver, Canada, and owns interests in the Cauchari-Olaroz Lithi- um Project located in Jujuy province of Argentina. It also owns the Thacker Pass project in Nevada. LAC is a relatively new company and doesn’t turn a profit yet. This mining company is more specula- tive than Albemarle. If you’re interested in buying just one, go with Albemarle. Actions to take: Buy Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) at the market. Buy Lithium Americas (NYSE: LAC) at the market. Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) This Charlotte, NC, company is the second-largest lithium miner in the world. It generated more than $3 billion in revenue last year and has more than 5,000 employees in 100 countries. It is the biggest supplier of lithium for electric cars. Noting the incredible demand for electric cars over the next sev- eral years, Albemarle just announced that it plans to triple its earnings over the next five years. The stock is sitting at a record high but should have a lot further to go as EVs begin to hit dealer lots. 08********08 #] 14Sep2021 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/DJI/FNGo576r-Warren-Buffett-performance-from-14-to-83/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+123+%28EN%29 Warren Buffett performance from 14 to 83 Education Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (TVC:DJI) MrRenev Sep 5 >> great comments!!! Today meta is: - There are zero no risk investments and on the flip side borrowing is free - Stonks only go up (until they won't anymore), for years, with central banks that have unlimited "money" supporting the equity markets - Forex is much harder (too difficult) for amateurs, and does not trend for long - Day trading is incredibly stupid, it was a terrible way to get very poor returns 3 decades ago and negative returns today - Bank deposits, day trading, mindless price action trend following: All haven't "worked" for over 30 years, amateurs still haven't figured it out The modern western zombie can't help but be wrong, they're imagining the "dynamic" 20 year olds and the "experienced" 60 year olds. No? Why are zombies like this? Are they actually trying to be wrong? They enjoy saying false things to look open minded? Or just dumb? "Dynamic" = excited. If you are excited in your investing you are doing it wrong. I am excited when my investment has been going up in a straight line for a year but not each time I enter a limit order. Even if you started investing at 5, at 20 your brain isn't even fully formed anyway. Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen did become chess world champions at 22 - MC learned to play at literally 5 and GK at 7 (or before) and he started going to a chess school at 10. And still they were far from their peaks. Now who starts investing at 5 years old? Plus honestly, it's much more complex and you take your decisions over days, weeks, months, not a few minutes (I think the average chess game is 40 moves for a total of 1-3 hours). Also in chess you do not get drowned in a sea BS info and peer pressure, and sorting through all this crap takes a lot of rational thinking, something that appears later on. Now concerning this "experienced" 60 yos . These guys really think Warren Buffett was a mindless fool at 40? He'd been investing for 30 years boys way longer than you at your 60. How much more do you think you learn? There are obviously diminishing returns. I don't have any numbers but it got to be something like in the first 10 years you learn 100x, the next 10 you learn 15x, the next 10 you learn 5x, and so on. Also you need to keep up, a lot of things are changing, a lot of the "new things learned" will just replace the old ones that have changed. The majority of people can't even keep up with things as simple as "keeping your money at the bank does not pay anymore" or "day trading has always been bad but now it does not pay at all" after over 20 years... It's crazy how simple it is. Proves how useless it is to repeat these things. No one doesn't hear the basic tips. On day 1 investors will hear the words "follow the trend, cut your losses, don't day trade" and on day 1 will be decided if they are losers or not. They either go in the right direction or the wrong one. If they didn't listen on day 1 they won't listen on day 600, no matter how much proof is shown, no matter how often it has been repeated to them. This is crazy, do humans (99.99%) even possess self-awareness? Or are they just mindless NPCS that repeat something over and over no matter what? Someone has sweaty hands, is all shaky, and incapable of cutting their losses: there is no hope for them. Great traders are born, not made, but it takes decades of practice and learning for them to reach their best. So (ideally): 1- 15 to 25 years old: Find your future career. Luckily as I said you can find out fast if stand up comedy, or investing, or writing novels, or strongman is for you. You got 10 years (at least) to find our your calling. Ideally start as young as possible but it's ok doesn't have to be super early. George Soros started really testing his trading strategies at the ripe age of 36 years old BUT before that he was alternating between writing his philosophical theories and working for banks. - 25 to 55 years old: Ideally that will be the investor's career. According to the Korniotis and Kumar paper, the peak will be 32-44 years old with 36-40 as the absolute maximum (quite exactly the middle of the typical human lifespan). - 55 to 60: Time to prepare retirement. Play it safe, take it easy. - 60 to 65: A few last investments as a hobby. A well filled career deserves a good rest. - 65+ just enjoy life, be satisfied with your lifetime, enjoy nature, look forward to the next life. Common knowledge... &&&&&&&& Howell Great comments. Eerily like some of my own thoughts about scientists (mostly (physics, astronomy, geology, etc)) even though science is quite different. (Right, wrong, true, false) is often judged too (quick, final)ly, when the (detailed work, creative thinking, questions) can be more important. 08********08 #] 13Sep2021 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/ICbj6Kls-S-P500-Index-SPY-The-Zone-to-Watch/ VasilyTrader 6 hours ago Will S&P500 keep growing? what do you think? &&&&&&&& Howell - @VasilyTrader, I agree with your expectation that the upwards trend may continue for at least several months, with monthly dips, possibly shortening to perhaps 2 week dips in the fall. But my gut feel is there are far greater short-term risks than upside potential, over the past ~6 months, including : - the ?perceived? time-frame for Federal Reserve taping seems to have dramatically shortened from perhaps 2023 to (early-mid) 2022. China has been clamping down, and I guess Europe has started to taper. Significant 10 year T-bond and other rate increases have had big impact in ~2018 and within the last year. But market perceptions will likely change unpredictably over time, with actions perhaps mostly influenced by the present administration's (and academics') social objectives. Will the Democrats be increasingly sensitive to critiques that policies have made the rich richer and the poor poorer? (Will, how) they adapt policies over the next quarter? - inflation (CPI) short term has gone up, and there is increasing concern that this may be permanent. Financial asset inflation (eg (stock market, real estate) valuations, bond suffocation) has been running at ~30%/year, which is fine if SP500 earnings keep up, but for how long? - the progress of covid this fall may also affect market mood (another wave, conversion to seasonal variants like influenza since 1990's?, ~10 year psuedo-cycles, or even major psuedo-cycles (eg drop 1940-1975, strong rise 2000-2018)). - When does the (debt, tax) issue come to roost? It has already gone for much longer than I had thought it could. Some of the support programs are ending, and job growth and the ability to (pay back, spend) may not be there for affected (consumers, renters, mortgage payers). In terms of the overall markets, maybe that doesn't matter as much as for social goals? On the positive side, many new tech benefits are only just having a small part of their long term potential impacts. One lesson I suspect from covid is that machines do most of the (physical, mental) work in the economy, and the mental side is changing fast (eg - wait for post-deep learning concepts). Ergo, while social impacts are important (social, political)y, they are less-and-less important economically, other than through the (cost, distortion)s of social programs. Longer term, it is a different story altogether. Oops - forgot about the "square bracket] omissions. Some corrections : ... the poor poorer? (Will, how) they adapt policies ... ... (eg (stock market, real estate) valuations, bond suffocation) ... ... affected (consumers, renters, mortgage payers). In terms ... ... do most of the (physical, mental) work ... ... social impacts are important (social, political)y, ... ... through the (cost, distortion)s of social programs ... 08********08 #] 10Sep2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr4_aPys2mw Jeffrey Gundlach on the Fed, stock market, and what's driving record highs #JeffreyGundlach #stockmarket #BondKing Jeffrey Gundlach, DoubleLine Capital Founder & CEO, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the bond market, commodities, currencies, and the crypto market. the US dollar, the Fed, and more. >> Great comments on China (real) versus USA (debt) 08********08 #] 10Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/companies-are-issuing-more-stock-than-they-did-at-top-of-the-internet-bubble-and-heres-why-that-matters-11631052165?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_content=replied-your-message&spot_im_redirect_source=email&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000389323_c_1xs63quAZuqMys4uQAMXxB9EWIS_r_1y28bVqapFNyjIXvzbuGV5WS4e1&spot_im_content_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000389323&spot_im_content_type=conversation&utm_spot=sp_ekXntyLk Opinion: Companies are now issuing more stock than they did at top of the internet bubble and here’s why that matters Last Updated: Sept. 11, 2021 at 10:07 a.m. ET First Published: Sept. 7, 2021 at 6:02 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Record stock issuance is not necessarily bearish if it is accompanied by high levels of buybacks or M&A activity &&&&&&&& Howell blog 8 Sep2021 As usual, another interesting analysis by Mark Hulbert, helping to put things in context. I had simply assumed high sock issuances as another bubble-o-meter. Barry Allen 11Sep2021, Replying to William Howell When everyone screaming bubble, that's exactly the opposite of a bubble, because the premise of a bubble is that hardly anyone sees there is a bubble. What is happening here is that a lot of people sitting on the sideline with piles of cash missed the terrific run from March 2020 low are now desperately trying to deploy that said cash. Yelling bubble continuously is not going to make a correction. Howell 12Sep2021, Replying to Barry Allen Good point, and there are many other considerations, such as Amos Library's comment. I am also concerned that the markets might no longer be as free, but managed by policy more and more, with a political. Are we all flying slightly more blind, unable to [discern, adjust for] [short, mid, long]-t...See more Amos Library 12Sep2021, Replying to Barry Allen here's Lance Roberts' bull case from his weekly newsletter You get the idea. Between the leverage in the market, economic growth slowing, and rising inflationary pressures, numerous issues could disrupt the high levels of market complacency. The bullish argument is that such a correction will force the Fed’s hand. As Zerohedge aptly concluded: “Even the smallest market hiccup will prompt a furious response at the Marriner Eccles building, because we are now well beyond the point of no return and Jerome Powell and company simply can not afford even the smallest drop in stocks without risking a full-blown market meltdown, much to the chagrin of the banks above who are predicting just that.” Amos Library 12Sep2021, Replying to Barry Allen Keep running those red lights, BA...;) Desperate?....I'd say they're licking their chops as they wait. 08********08 #] 08Sep2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/economists-strategists-say-u-s-investors-may-be-unaware-of-china-risks-what-to-know-51631128694?mod=newsviewer_click BlackRock and Ray Dalio Say Investors Should Be in China. Weighing the Risks. Published: Sept. 8, 2021 at 3:18 p.m. ET By Reshma Kapadia .. Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio has described China as a market that investors can’t ignore, and said some have misconstrued China’s crackdown as anti-capitalist. BlackRock Investment Institute recently advocated investors raise their allocations to China. Blackrock is also the first of many asset managers trying to get a foothold in China to target investors domestically, raising about $1 billion for the first mutual fund from a foreign company targeting Chinese individuals, according to the Wall Street Journal. “China’s market is just too large to ignore for foreign financial firms,” says Rory Green, TS Lombard economist. “From Beijing’s perspective, the Party welcomes foreign investment in areas that it can control and regulate, such as the financial sector.” Green added that “an added benefit is that closer links between Wall Street and Beijing can help offset a wider decline in Sino-U.S. relations. If America’s banks are heavily invested in China it is harder for decoupling to occur.” It may be harder but that doesn’t mean both countries will back away from recent efforts to reduce their dependence on each other. China has not only been increasing investment in its technological capabilities but stepping up scrutiny of Chinese companies listed in the U.S. in what could be an effort to nudge them back home as U.S. regulators look to delist those that don’t comply with U.S. auditing standards. While China had viewed U.S. capital markets as a relatively easy source of funds, Shaswat Das, counsel at King & Spalding who was formerly a chief negotiator for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, said at the hearing that he expects China to retrench, forcing companies to list on its local markets before they are forced to delist by the U.S. While some ADR contracts let investors convert shares into corresponding securities elsewhere, like in Hong Kong—something many fund managers have already started doing for holdings of Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) JD.com (JD), NetEase (NTES), Yum China Holdings (YUMC), and New Oriental Education & Technology Group (EDU)—Das says there’s the risk that other companies are taken private, with insiders buying out U.S. shareholders at a very large valuation and then relist elsewhere at a higher valuation, resulting in “tremendous losses to U.S. investors, particularly retail investors.” Others closely monitoring China, though, note one big incentive for why China may not go this route: They want foreign capital to build out their own capital markets, crucial for its larger plans to be more independent. And that’s a reason more fund managers are eyeing opportunities in China’s domestic market—and what could happen as more Chinese are encouraged to put their considerable savings in other assets—like stocks. 08********08 #] 10Aug2021 https://www.elliottwave.com/Assets/April-2021-Elliott-Wave-Theorist--HD?rcn=2104thedent&utm_medium=prtnr&utm_source=dent&utm_campaign=cr-2104ewt&utm_content=dentshare?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elliottwave.com%2FVideo%2FApril-2021-Theorist%3Futm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dpromotion%26utm_content%3DWatch%2520a%2520Rare%2520Video%2520Issue%2520of%2520Theorist%2520for%2520FREE%26utm_term%3D7-21-2021%2520Elliot%2520Wave%2520inflation%2520market%2520trends%2520in Robert Prechter "Regime Change" video planning of investments : "Conquer the Crash" book stocks Prechter 212 years DJIA index 210907.png stocks Prechter 212 years DJIA index 210907 cycles [20, 40] years.png quantguy message : Couldn't send !!!: From IJCNN conference 18-22Jul2021, the authors come out with a too-strong-conclusion (in my opinion) but it's good to see the [thinking, standard tests, analysis] : paper #1437 Shamoon Siddiqui, Rowan U, USA, "The Case Against Sentiment Analysis for Natural Text" Typically, datasets used to train and evaluate these models consist of text with appropriate labels, such as movie reviews with an accompanied star rating. However, the applicability of those results to other scenarios, such as unstructured or natural text has not been clear. In this paper, we demonstrate a clear and simple case that shows that the problem of sentiment analysis is fundamentally unsuitable for natural text. We consider state-of-the-art black box models developed and hosted by 3 of the largest companies in this field: Amazon, Google and IBM. (Microsoft Azure was not tested) Here is probably [old news, trivial] for you in the context of text analysis, from www.ijcnn.org conference 18-22Jul2021. The authors come out with a too-strong-conclusion (in my opinion) but it'good to see the thinking and analysis : paper #1437 Shamoon Siddiqui, Rowan U, USA, "The Case Against Sentiment Analysis for Natural Text" Natural language processing is a broad field that encompasses several sub-tasks. One problem that has gained visibility over the past several years is that of Sentiment Analysis. This is the process of determining the attitude of an author towards some subject across some spectrum, typically "positive" or "negative," by analyzing the textual information. Whereas the field started with simple counting of words with certain characteristics, it has grown in complexity with the advent of deep learning and neural network based language models. Typically, datasets used to train and evaluate these models consist of text with appropriate labels, such as movie reviews with an accompanied star rating. However, the applicability of those results to other scenarios, such as unstructured or natural text has not been clear. In this paper, we demonstrate a clear and simple case that shows that the problem of sentiment analysis is fundamentally unsuitable for natural text. We consider state-of-the-art black box models developed and hosted by 3 of the largest companies in this field: Amazon, Google and IBM. https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/jDukuNuC-New-trading-Strategy-upgrade/ New trading Strategy upgrade - Long S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 4519.68 −26.73 −0.59% QGuo-Shane, Sep 5 &&&&&&&& Flat band on a short timeframe is OK - monor longer timescales need to accout for financial asset inflation (currently ~30-40%/year?, I'm guessing). Since April or May seems that there has been a mini-correction the third week each month, and we are just over half-way to the next on that basis. (buy on dips as long as Fed doesn't let it correct further?) SP500 [4570, 4542] targets mod-Sep2021 seem in-line with some other commentators. Todays glitch (07Sep2021) doesn't negate your projects, depending on known assumptions you are making? I didn't add : Context can come from multi-scalar trends [08Apr2021-present, [May,Jun]2020-present, 83 year], plus some expectations for duration of US [Fed, Treasury] cash, and current over-valuations versus realistic 10y earning expectations, but that's not so useful for 1 week projections 08********08 #] 23Aug2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-inflation-isnt-higher-even-though-money-is-flooding-the-economy-01629511685?mod=mw_more_headlines Opinion: Why inflation isn’t higher even though money is flooding the economy Last Updated: Aug. 23, 2021 at 8:32 a.m. ET First Published: Aug. 23, 2021 at 7:18 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Relationship between the money supply and inflation isn’t as simple as many investors believe Increasing the nation’s money supply inexorably leads to more inflation, right? I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard or read analyses that insist that it does. Many take it as so obviously true that they never stop to subject it to critical scrutiny. That’s a warning flag, according to contrarian analysis, since, as Humphrey O’Neill — the father of contrarian analysis — liked to remind his clients: “When everyone thinks alike, everyone is likely to be wrong.” In this, my monthly review of the latest Wall Street research, I want to at least begin subjecting this conventional wisdom to scrutiny. I rely heavily on a recent research report by two members of the Asset Allocation team at Boston-based GMO (James Montier and Philip Pilkington). &&&&&&&& Thanks, Mark Hulbert. Another reminder of the dangers of "... things that we know for sure that just ain't so ...", and this time for a theme that has been argued for >500 years, perhaps millenia longer. David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave : Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" (page 84) notes that he and several other modern historians believe that the prime mover of inflation is population growth (Harry Dent as well). In the 1556 Spaniard Azpilcueta proposed "... Money is worth more when and where it is scarce than when it is abundant ..." Others, including Nicolas Copernicus!, came up with the same general idea. A second theory, for example by England Alderman Box 1576, was that population growth was responsible. A third concept was that both [population, money] growth together led to inflation (eg George Hakewill 1630). Fischer writes "... This was the most accurate explanation, but he most complex. It had less appeal than simple monetary or demographic mosels. ..." 08********08 #] 10Aug2021 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/IXIC/F0OUcyLu-The-2022-Tech-Bubble-Fractals-and-Sentiment-Analysis/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+119+%28EN%29 >> Awesome comparison to 2000 dot-com tech bubble 08********08 #] 30Jul2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/u/samitrading/ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/oNraAhZ6-SPX-s-flashing-rare-signal-since-1946-Negative-total-yield/ SPX's flashing rare signal since 1946 "Negative" total yield !! S&P 500 Index (TVC:SPX) 4395.27 −23.87 −0.54% samitrading Jul 27 08********08 #] 27Jul2021 https://www.tradingview.com/u/cryptobullethbtcxlm/ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/TOTAL/WpEaLb26-Crypto-Market-Makers-how-trends-always-reverse/ The total crypto cap just fell out its rising wedge which means the market is in for a correction! Like I said at the start of the week, there were too many green days stringed together in cryptoland; which only means one thing: a correction is coming! Be aware of the market maker! Now let's have a conversation! We just came out of an insane run to the upside which many people believed Bitcoin (and alts) would go straight to the moon! Let me tell you something: the chance of such a scenario is zero. Why? Because (like I said) these markets are MADE by market MAKERS. If they let cryptoland run only run up without any retraces or corrections; they lose money. Are they in this business to lose money? No, they are not. They are not some sort of charity organization, quite frankly the opposite. This means that every time you buy or (even worse) place a leverage trade; they are on the opposite side of your trade. That means for them to make money, they need to bring the market to the opposite direction of where you think / want the market to go. Like I said earlier this week; BTC longs are at all time high; that means Bitcoin can never go the moon, impossible. Why? Because the market maker would lose money and guess what? They never lose money because they have enough liquidity to compete with Elon Musk , Bill Gates and George Soros at the same damn time. How market makers always win. So how do they work? Very simple: they use price action to trigger your emotions; equivalent to: Bitcoin to the moon or Bitcoin to zero. They run price in any of those directions, get traders committed to a move and before they know it reverse the trend in the opposite direction to bag THEIR profit. This what they do over and over and over again - and as longs as people act like people - they will win this game over and over again. How to trade with leverage So whats next? Well, first off; the market is likely to hit the liquidity box as seen on the chart. This is because the liquidity is there. What is liquidity? Liquidity are people's stops or liquidation points. Market makers will hunt those areas and that's why I never put a stop loss (in loss!) but monitor my trades in real time and close them when they are about to turn against me; like my last ETH trade. To be profitable with leverage you run a sum zero risk game, when in profit; trail your trade with a stop loss in profit or manually close it as soon as there are even just the slightest indications of price turning against you. Like I say in my bio: you do not hunt for maximum profit; you trade for maximum consistency of profitable trades, even if its just a couple procent. That said, if you want to be consistent in profit without staring at charts all day? You buy fundamentally strong coins at bear markets lows or DCA during bearish times, then you hodl until you see bull market mania. That's where you DCA OUT OF THE MARKET and wait for a bearish trend . Rinse, repeat. In general, only trade with money you can lose and never, never, never, ever sell a hodl portfolio at a loss. My own first chunk of a Bitcoin was bought in 2017, missed out on the top and hodled throughout the whole bear market and was sold at 64K 4 years later. (Why I sold there you can see with the analysis I made of April 14 linked below) The state of the current crypto market For the long term the crypto market is very bullish! There is no doubt in my mind about that. However we need to have a close look at how this mini bear market turns out. The runup of last week was unlike other runups with the RSI clearly breaking out of the bearish trend on the daily timeframe . However; the weekly and monthly time frame are still waiting for a confirmed bullish reversal. This is why I said at the beginning of the week that if you missed out on this latest move, accept that you missed out and sit on your hands. I have to admit that I missed it too as I'm trying to enjoy summer a bit after a winter full of trading. What I did do is hedge my risk; which means that deployed 20% of my stable coins into coins that I deem to be underpriced and I have 80% still waiting for the bottom of the current correction or possible the bottom of the bear market. Now, I will have some drawdown on that 20% of my portfolio in the coming week or two; that is likely but it is not a problem as I am 100% sure that those coins will at least 2x my buy in price in the coming year or (at worst) two years. Support zones to consider There are a few key support zones to consider; first the bullish support zone at the golden pocket. Staying around or above these levels for another week will most definitely lead us into more bullish action. Secondly; there is the liquidity zone; the preferred zone to take the market for the market makers; this is the most likely support zone . Thirdly we have a bearish support zone below that; even there we have a bullish scenario if we hold support at the bullish trendline. However if we break into the box or below our lowest low (dotted line) we might very well be in for more pain! Lets see what the weekend and the coming week bring us... Good luck to you all and trade safe! IMPORTANT: this is not financial advice, trade or invest based on your own risk and research. 8 hours ago Comment: IMPORTANT UPDATE: Binance Futures will be halted in some countries in Europe due to regulatory pressure. Now if you understand what that means for the Binance market makers; it means they have "too much" inventory when these markets drop out. The crazy run up we have just seen might be an answer to that, meaning they pump prices; short squeeze and get rid of a part of their inventory at higher prices before bringing the market back down. Notice how the news exactly coincides with the top the current run. Nothing is a coincidence... Side note: support this analysis with a like so more people get informed about how these markets work! Thanks and have a good weekend! :) >> Great analysis, rants about market makers... no fundamental analysis 08********08 #] 07Jun2021 Justice Department says ‘millions of dollars of bitcoin’ paid to Colonial Pipeline ransomware hackers has been reclaimed Last Updated: June 7, 2021 at 6:06 p.m. ET First Published: June 7, 2021 at 4:13 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Critics of digital assets say that one of the biggest drawbacks of crypto is its use in illicit transactions and money laundering, as evidenced by the Colonial Pipeline episode. Champions of bitcoin and blockchain technology, though, make the case that tracking bad actors is made easier on the decentralized, distributed ledger, even if the actors are otherwise anonymized by the technology. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/criticism-of-bitcoins-carbon-footprint-is-overblown-its-greener-than-many-think-11622641883?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_content=replied-your-message&spot_im_redirect_source=email&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000290266_c_1tRWEWN2D64OHKK7GU2V6eYqW8U_r_1tV3oofIW4c5wqqFrz9BhiPWYUM&spot_im_content_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000290266&spot_im_content_type=conversation&utm_spot=sp_ekXntyLk Opinion: Bitcoin is greener than many — including Elon Musk — think it is Last Updated: June 2, 2021 at 3:28 p.m. ET First Published: June 2, 2021 at 9:51 a.m. ET By Jurica Dujmovic 42 Bitcoin miners use a lot of energy. But the devil is in the details. Michael - Thank-you for the link to your "Powering Clean Energy With Bitcoin" Published on May 30, 2021. I may already have received that from you some time ago, or perhaps I saw another of your postings. Your article was a fun reminder of my past work at an aluminum smelting complex (actually, I worked in aluminum [fluoride, powder] plants), mining and processing reserch, industrial [hybrid, EV] research funding, etc. But most important of all in relation to the current topics, is the failure of coherent recycle analysis, but how that has been advancing. Or perhaps, had been advancing, as it's been a decade since I worked alongside a colleague who was one of the world's best in that area before retiring. It's not something that many [researcher, analyst]s were good at, and it's not easy to do ($$). Strong conclusions can be very deceiving. I was often chastised for using the old phrase "life cycle analysis", but I just can't remember what the new-phrase-at-time was. Many people use the jargon, not many researchers do the analysis well. It's a bit like "precautionary principle" - those who yapped the most about it were often at odds with professionals and researchers who never used the phrase, and who do far superior analysis. 08********08 03Jun2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/TLT/47a7PLWD-Are-bonds-driving-the-ship/ Are bonds driving the ship? Short Ishares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:TLT) 138.76 0.75 0.54% ChristopherCarrollSmith 14 hours ago But inflation expectations have continued rising, and official inflation data have lately been surprising to the upside. The Citi inflation surprise index is at its highest level in 13 years. The dollar has been weakening, and foreign purchases of US treasuries have almost entirely dried up. The Russian government announced today that it will sell its reserves of US dollars and replace them with other nations' currencies. The dollar reserve system that made the last decade of "easy" monetary policy possible looks to be at risk. 08********08 03Jun2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/criticism-of-bitcoins-carbon-footprint-is-overblown-its-greener-than-many-think-11622641883?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Bitcoin is greener than many — including Elon Musk — think it is Last Updated: June 2, 2021 at 3:28 p.m. ET First Published: June 2, 2021 at 9:51 a.m. ET By Jurica Dujmovic Bitcoin miners use a lot of energy. But the devil is in the details. &&&&&&&& Howell - As with ALL other articles I've read, this article fails put cryptos in perspective with [internet, cable TV, computer, cellphone, total "currency [government, industry]", etc, etc] electrical demand. Without that context, all the writing is just arm-waving and yapping, and almost all thinking is [conclusions-driven belief, incomplete, possibly totally irrelevant]. I assume that crypto-energy is vastly less than that of the financial industry that does the equivalent work (think of all the energy (electrical equivalent basis - includes car gas) [buildings, employees, their [computer, internet, phones]transport to get to work, on and on]). Maybe I'm wrong, but I've seen no article that helps with this. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-china-is-trying-to-put-the-brakes-on-a-rising-yuan-11622671416?mod=newsviewer_click Why China is trying to put the brakes on a rising yuan Last Updated: June 3, 2021 at 7:21 a.m. ET First Published: June 2, 2021 at 6:03 p.m. ET By William Watts Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics Weinberg, meanwhile, argued that balance-of-payment issues were likely the main driver of the currency’s strength against the dollar. In particular, the use of the yuan along the Silk Routes for financing infrastructure and transacting trade has boosted its value and will continue to do so. China has become a global leader in loans to emerging economies, and repaying those loans in yuan increases demand for the currency, while net income from other direct investments abroad is translated into yuan when it’s repatriated, he said. “As a currency becomes adapted for international uses, it naturally appreciates as demand for it increases,” he wrote. It’s a process that’s set to continue, Weinberg argued. “There will be ups and downs along the way, but we believe the yuan is on an unstoppable ascent towards global transaction currency status,” he wrote. “It will rise on all cross rates as its uses in the world increase in volume.” &&&&&&&& Howell - Nicely written context, William Watts. I like Weinberg's "Silk Road" comments, and that he "isn’t convinced that official China is all that worked up about a stronger currency versus the dollar". China is doing very well, perhaps due in apart to their ability to make the tough decisions (not just in markets) rather than to pander to politically-correct Western votes, but likely in accordance to politically-correct popular Chinese thinking. Perhaps thinking in the rest of the world is shifting, warming to what they see. Let's see how that stands up over the next 2 generations as China faces increased inversion of their demographic pyramid, pronounced since 2010 Maybe they will have some interesting ideas? Howell - If China's performance leads to superior rates over time (currently - this means that one would actually be compensated for savings in a long-term historical context, which is not the case here), this may be one of key ways to force critically-needed reform of our own behaviour, if that is possible. The "Chinese threat" could be one of the best things for the USA, a blessing in disguise if, as historian Arnold J Toynbee stated, one doesn't simply "rest on one's oars". Not used of past improvements in Chinese [scientific, technical, manufacturing, competitive, policy] competitiveness, if coupled with improved [reporting, transparency] of financials, plus increasing confidence in China being a "safe and stable investment haven"continued 08********08 01Jun2021 +-----+ TradingView CBOE Treasury Bond futures ZB1! continuous current contract >> didn't add, ran out of scales, and is onuseful <= 5 days timescale +-----+ ?date I saw? MarketWatch or yahooNews? https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2604248 Lumber: Worth Its Weight in Gold Offense and Defense in Active Portfolio Management 2015 NAAIM Founders Award Winner Updated Through November 30, 2020 20 Pages Posted: 11 May 2015 Last revised: 14 Feb 2021 Michael Gayed Lead-Lag Publishing, LLC Date Written: May 8, 2015 Abstract Prior academic research focuses on commodities in isolation as leading economic indicators, ignoring the message price behavior may have on other asset classes. We find that the relative movement of Lumber to Gold provides important information on economic growth and inflation expectations, which gradually diffuses with a lag to stock and bond markets. Lumber’s sensitivity to housing, a key source of domestic economic growth in the U.S., makes it a unique commodity as it pertains to macro fundamentals and risk-seeking behavior. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Gold, which is distinctive in that it historically exhibits safe-haven properties during periods of heightened volatility and stock market stress. We find that the relationship between Lumber and Gold helps to answer the critical question of when to “play defense” and when to “play offense” within the context of active portfolio management. In this paper, we show that a strategy using the signaling power of Lumber and Gold results in stronger absolute and risk-adjusted returns than a passive buy-and-hold index. This outperformance stems from being more aggressive in a portfolio during periods when Lumber is leading Gold and being more defensive during periods when Gold is leading Lumber. The results are robust to various time frames and across multiple economic and financial market cycles. Keywords: Intermarket Analysis, Stocks, Risk, Trading, Market, Momentum, Rotation, Volatility, Bonds, Fixed Income, Treasuries, Equities, Rebalancing, Quantitative, Efficient Markets, Hedge, Asset Allocation, Gold, Lumber, Offense, Defense, Small-Caps, Large-Caps, Cyclicals JEL Classification: C00, C10, C50, G00, G11 Suggested Citation: Gayed, Michael, Lumber: Worth Its Weight in Gold Offense and Defense in Active Portfolio Management (May 8, 2015). 2015 NAAIM Founders Award Winner Updated Through November 30, 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2604248 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2604248 /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/Gayed 08May2015 Lumber, Worth Its Weight in Gold Offense and Defense in Active Portfolio Management.pdf 08********08 27May2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/tkkHBHFZ-S-P500-monthly-fractal-huge-blowoff-top/ S&P500 monthly fractal huge blowoff top? Long S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 4201.68 3.96 0.09% cryptodiggy 6 hours ago &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice work, and you are in the camp of many people who have plotted variations of similar long-term trends. My own newbie attempt from almost a year ago is a semi-log detrended Fibonacci of the SP500 index, 1872-2020, in two line segments : 1872-1926, and 1926-2020 (DJIA and proxy for pre-SP500 years). Three observations are : 1) The semi-log detrended SP500 usually stays "somewhat constant" for "major periods" of ~10 or ~20 years, but NOT periods of intermediate duration. Note that the detrended SP500 for these "10-or-20 year periods" is typically in the range 0.382 < Fibonacci(semi-log detrended SP500) < 1.7. (?I didn't check for a better upper level, but it is certainly between 1.382 and 2.000). The "somewhat constant" level is close to Fibonacci= 1.0 less than half of the 1872-2020 timespan. 2) The key exception to the "somewhat constant 10-or-20 year periods" are the ~10 year "bubble-crash-shake-dive" periods ~1926-1937 and ~1995-2008. No other iterpretations of "bubble-crash-shake-dive" come anywhere close to those two within that 1872-2020 timeframe, and are very small in comparison. 2) Withing the "somewhat constant 10-or-20 year periods", "rolling-up-and-down periods" (either spiky or not) occur with ~2-4 year periods. Fibonacci variations of ~0.4 or within these "rolling-up-and-down periods" with time periods of ~2-4 years. Surprisingly, on the 1872-2020 detrended graph, the 2014-to-current period doesn't stand out at all. Also, from my observations above, while your SP500 is well above your mid-trend-line, it could stay that way for 10-20 years. Or not. 08********08 #] 23May2021 ChristopherCarrollSmith https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-c5r35-1047f8c Cryptocrash: The Present and Future of Cryptocurrency with Carl Youngblood 2021-05-25 We dig into the reasons behind last week's cryptocurrency selloff and nerd out on cryptocurrency, blockchain, and decentralized finance with special guest Carl Youngblood. Learn why Ethereum is Carl's coin of choice and he remains optimistic about the space. >> I got in late 08********08 23May2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ETHUSD/uSPblslX-Watch-this-major-support-level-on-Ethereum-to-see-if-it-holds/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_publish Watch this major support level on Ethereum to see if it holds Ethereum / U.S. Dollar (BITSTAMP:ETHUSD) 1903.11 −393.20 −17.12% ChristopherCarrollSmith an hour ago I also expect that Cardano will continue to outperform Bitcoin , and possibly also ETH. Cardano is already proof-of-stake, and like ETH, it has a lively developer community. Cardano was created by academics and has been the subject of something like a hundred whitepapers. The Cardano community has raised several rounds of funding for development, the most recent in excess of a million dollars. Most alts will eventually go to zero, but Cardano is robust enough that I think it has a real chance of challenging the market leaders. Another coin I'm keeping an eye on is Nano . Nano is a feeless proof-of-stake coin with extremely fast speeds and extremely low energy demands. However, the Nano network operates on a completely volunteer basis, with no compensation for running a node. This is the coin you invest in if you're optimistic about the human race, and you believe that people will do work without getting paid. Nano has recently struggled because its volunteer network isn't robust enough and has been getting shut down by a barrage of spam. Another coin I'm keeping an eye on is Nano . Nano is a feeless proof-of-stake coin with extremely fast speeds and extremely low energy demands. However, the Nano network operates on a completely volunteer basis, with no compensation for running a node. This is the coin you invest in if you're optimistic about the human race, and you believe that people will do work without getting paid. Nano has recently struggled because its volunteer network isn't robust enough and has been getting shut down by a barrage of spam. >> Fuck volunteers - I know, I'm one of them (in totally different aas) The cryptocrash has reduced crypto's market cap from about $2 trillion to about $1 trillion. Ultimately I think that's still way too high a valuation for what is basically a glorified wire transfer service. But the crypto hype isn't over yet, and we will almost certainly see some strong rallies later this year as the technologies continue to progress. I do think it's time to be very selective about which coins to buy, though, because the technology is maturing and we're seeing the emergence of clear technological and market leaders, and the coins that experience the worst government crackdowns moving forward from here will be the ones with the largest environmental costs. 08********08 21May2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/seyFw7CO-SPX-s-JM-Hurst-s-Cycles-According-to-this-Engineer-137-days/#tc6275355 https://www.tradingview.com/u/samitrading/ I don't dare put links in TradingView blogs - I've been warned of being banned for that from past attempts. Two key (serious) references are : Stephen J. Puetz 2009 "The Unified Cycle Theory: How cycles dominate the structure of the universe and influence life on Earth" OutskirtsPress Denver Colorado USA, ISBN: 978-1-4327-1216-7 Stephen J. Puetz, Glenn Borchardt 2011 "Universal Cycle Theory : Neomechanics of the hierarchically infinite universe" www.outskirtspress.com, ISBN 978-1-4327-8133-0 Most (scientist, engineer)s will NOT be comfortable with Borchardt's work. But he has very different perpectives on physics, and wether you like the ideas or not, they are interestingand thought-provoking. His concept of "infinity" is of great pragmatic value to me, having fallen short myself regularly. Puetz runs a monthly "Universal Cycle Theory" investment analysis newsetter to which I am subscribed, even though my main interest is (physics, astronomy, geology, history) with respect to his work. I am a terrible investor, as this week has shown again. A couple of publications (of many!) that are interesting examples of the breath of his work re shown below. The power of the first paper, plus having long known of [Prokoph, Borchardt] work, the first paper listed below is what started me looking much more closely at Puetz's work. : Puetz, Stephen J., Prokoph, Andreas, Borchardt, Glenn, Mason 2014, Evidence of Synchronous, Decadal to Billion Year Cycles in Geological, Genetic, and Astronomical Events: Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, v. 62–63, p. 55-75 Puetz SJ, Prokoph A, Borchardt G (2015). Evaluating alternatives to the Milankovitch Theory. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, in press, uncorrected proof. +-----+ &&&&& https://www.tradingview.com/chart/USDRUB/tIGlXYe8-USDRUB-Update/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_publish Bill_Howell Like Russian dolls-within-dolls? Does it say something about Mandlebrot multi-fractals (time as a fractal dimension)? Deus - @Bill_Howell, thanks for the coins, Bill. I like Matreshka (Russian dolls) analogy! I will have to look into what Mandlebrot is before attempting to answer your question)). Bill_Howell - @Deus, I think Mandlebrot's book on markets (see below) is a hoot, but it may be more work than you want? On the other hand, I'm sure there are plenty of TradingView bloggers with the right background (not me!). Benoit Mandelbrot, French mathematician sort of developed fractal dimensions (used by Pixar etc for movie animations). Very much like a super-extension of some of (Elliot's wave, Fibonacci number)s thinking, but really based on observations of natural systems. His book "Misbehaviour of markets" (~2000 +-) describes multi-fractals, but I was too dumb to understand, and dumber still not to follow up. Then, ~2013? I was peer-reviewing a paper on advanced control theory for memristor circuits (the 4th, missing, basic electrical circuit element after (resistor, capacitor, inductor)), and it hit me - fractional order calculus, traceable at least back to Liebniz, who fought Isaac Newton for the title of "inventor of calculus". Question - If you think about the importance of the calculus revolution to (science, engineering), then if fractional order calculus is only starting to be used and developed seriously because of the performance of modern personal computers (especially GPU cards), are we at the onset of yet another revolution at the same time as the successor to the Deep Learning neural networks are being developed? (and (genetic, epi-genetic, etc) revolutions). To me, it's NOT Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Kasparov versus IBM's DeepBlue), it's Computational Intelligence (CI) (Deep Mind, now part of Alphabet Inc, "alphaGo" versus Lee Seedol) at a completely higher level than AI and chess. AI is the old stuff (that's NOT a fair comment, so maybe someone will educate me). I'm not a fan of Ray Kurzweil's "singularity", but is happening. Deus - @Bill_Howell, Jesus, Bill.. you just opened a whole new universe for me! I am not in math, though. What you are talking about sounds like doing biomimicry in computations at a very deep level. Biomimicry always makes sense. I will definitely dive into this one, however, I suspect I will struggle. Trading for me is mostly visual patterns interpretations, so all computations are hidden in the brain. This one - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Mandel_zoom_11_satellite_double_spiral.jpg/1024px-Mandel_zoom_11_satellite_double_spiral.jpg - deserves a tattoo))) Howell - I totally agree with what you are saying, and I certainly don't recommend that you drop the way that you do your work, quite the opposite. The hidden computations in the brain are far more advanced than any of the mathematical concepts (we are not there for another 300 years in my opinion), albeit often not as complex in some ways (certainly not as fast for simple problems). I like the "hybrid (computer, human) being" concept, combining the strengths, and mitigating the weaknesses, of both. I doubt that if Gorban or others have applied "the blessing of dimensionality" to financial markets, but maybe I'm wrong. There probably are Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Network (DL-CNN) toolsets available for trading, perhaps even much more powerful (recurrent, graphical, geometr)al DL-NNs. It's probably best to wait until a useable toolset is available, unless you want to become a research (mathematician, programmer). I am neither, although all of my projects require me to do programming. Look for free open source software if it interests you. Not used : My assumption is that all the mathematical techniques still cannot compare to an experienced and skilled "eye", or perhaps better put - if you can't understand what mathematical tools are doing, then you need to work with them for a long time to learn of their strengths and limitations, and how to use them, just as you have done with your trading techniques. I like especially your Elliot Wave analysis, and in a very loose way, Elliot Waves are kind of like a distant cousin to Mandelbrot fractals, as they share a few common concepts. The great successes of Deep Learning Neural Networks, for example, bring computational capabilities closer to what humans do in some ways, and in specialized tasks (usually fairly simple situations like the game of Go, apparently the hardest board game?). I often like to look closely at concepts, and let them simmer for a while, before trying to put real effort into computer programming, which can take (years, decades) to develop effectively (and most of the time have to be dropped because of (time, other priorities). +-----+ Actually, science religions often have a lot to do with perennially-failing models and trumped-up data. My memory of dates is very fuzzy and failing, but in the obal warming science, roughly : Fourier (famous for his series) proposed GHG theme ~1820 (others probably before that), Tyndall tested it mid-1800s and clearly pointed out that the main GHG is water, ~1896 a divorced Arrhenius kept getting errant numbers by pencil, Consider the flip-flops of huge scientific consensus : global cooling [early 1900, 1970s, coming soon to a planet near you]; global warming ~2000-present, but not so much in the 1930 - I assume that the market crash and rising [socialism, war] distracted everyone in the dirty 30's (mostly prairies etc in [Western North America, parts of China (Henan famine, and again later in 1942 during Japanese invasion)], probably Ukraine Holomodor but hard to say, I don't know about India). Notice that the over-whelming mainstream scientific for either [cooling, warming] usually kicks in after the actual trend is going in the opposite direction, which is a perfect match their reverse-temporal-causation model arguments (eg CO2 lags at almost all timescales). Those of us who notice what ISN'T in the models, how the models parameters are applied, and how they are used, just shake our heads. Geniuses who know the truth are a dime a dozen; those who can think are much more rare. Did not use : Based on a closer look at my favourite scientist across the last 2+ ky, my impression is that there are ingenious ideas, but not genius people. I respect scientists for their accomplishments, but never put them pedestal (same message as from [business, politics, philosphy, religion, mythology, etc]). We are all very, very human. Intellectual robots parrot the [mainstream, politically-correct] science (not just climate science, this is the rule, not the exception,across much of science), without ever noticing anything wrong. That latter part is most interesting : I like to argue that biology does show reverse-temporal-causation (anticipatory behaviours even in low life forms, easio explain with seasonal behaviour in snowy countries), but I know of only one or two mathematical systems showing this for "dead natural systems (rocks etc). Engineering controls, obviously, aren't just reverse-temporal at times, the proactively control. Intellectual robots parrot the [mainstream, politically-correct] science, without ever noticing anything wrong. That includes most climate scientists, as is the case right across pretty well every area of science (look at the last 100 years of [physics, astronomy, geology, you name it] - much has been written). That doesn't negate that a great deal of fantastic progress has been made. I am still a huge fan of some [science, scientists], and virtually all my spare time goes into science projects. But science fashions, become science cults, become science religions, and modern government labs and universities are perfect centers of [high priests, disciples] to defend the faiths, and to attack non-believers. Same old, same old, nothing ever learned since thousands of years (go back long before ancient Greece, long before we claim that science has existed, far beyond science into other areas as well.) +-----+ ETH volumes ?daily? : https://ethereumprice.org/charts/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=8bb8c543d029b99a392145ead542fce26becd071-1621611097-0-AQEke6Vmu_k8n-9kOTD8ihaMPZoWPQb8o-Y4rj_PXrrp8iEUR-cE1CT6Q6SOOdCcpHIy_b_y-qJfIt37qJY3hmK-0K5gwu6iBB_oufsHY6uqmVCCD9pg9PByhkmcnGcbp9DVZIdFj964ijrXXHDLa6Jn509rnVY0skmatGkORiAqF_4ktECL-PojU7Ta12V5xXGv1ovjDSoU1t71PMFYtt0oqmAshO8RNh8iuZoEYNrZ8pe1gD3FiVbsMiZfq0j6S-sqGj0O4LXRGUwPvDAIw9gYCD5c9PtD7-bv9UcqLQWHD72w9VPUN2lFQV-dC42jCNLZrVeZxDT5DlboYPf9VRIL9aBpBYE1o2N1XnVKwPce8YT0I0VCARB9Z256l8REfB23J-ozLS1F3KjeS9_ZmWg 08********08 20May2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/video/beyond-tesla-driverless-startups-promise-next-level-autonomous-vehicles/83E69C51-B96D-4D83-958C-A6DF3E1762AD.html?mod=newsviewer_click May. 20, 2021 at 9:00 AM ET While Tesla and others already offer assisted-driving features, startups Waymo, Cruise, TuSimple and Aurora are betting their autonomous vehicles will make driving a thing of the past. WSJ asked them about safety and other challenges they face. Photo composite: George Downs 08********08 19May2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/latest-news?mod=side_nav Cryptos Why is crypto crashing? Will bitcoin prices ever recover? Here’s what traders and investors say Published: May 19, 2021 at 4:31 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Dogecoin, ethereum and bitcoin were all trading lower on the day &&&&&&&& Howell - Now I understand why it crashed! Loo at the chalk board - everybody tripped as they tried to dance across the confused equations, and failed to reach consensus. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-drop-250-points-and-tech-stocks-slump-anew-ahead-of-fed-minutes-11621423385?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_content=liked-message&spot_im_redirect_source=email&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000274845_c_1sldyYIwSdnLYGuxeIpQhSJQyuQ_r_1slt3PDTKKR0UQBCdJbNsTwuY6j&spot_im_content_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000274845&spot_im_content_type=conversation&utm_spot=sp_ekXntyLk Geoff Bernard - Thinking about thinking about thinking about buying reasonably priced stocks again. That means not yet really thinking about buying over-priced stocks. William Howell -> Geoff Bernard - I was thinking about thinking about what you said, but I'm so confused I'll have think about that some other time instead? Now I'm really lost... maybe that's what's also happening with the voters, and hence the Fed? Geoff Bernard -> William Howell I'm glad you mentioned Fed. Last regime put Mr. Powell in because Trump wanted a dove who he felt he could tell what to do. Biden is more into letting the Fed do what it needs to do. I think there are big changes are coming to the Fed soon enough, anyhow. At some point we need to get out of denial that the higher home prices is not really helping all those people we are hoping go back to work. In fact, the stimulus is having the opposite effect, lately. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-drop-250-points-and-tech-stocks-slump-anew-ahead-of-fed-minutes-11621423385?mod=newsviewer_click Market Snapshot Dow off 250 points after Fed minutes show officials debating inflation risk Last Updated: May 19, 2021 at 2:52 p.m. ET First Published: May 19, 2021 at 7:22 a.m. ET By Joy Wiltermuth and Mark DeCambre &&&&&&&& Farid Ullah - Fearful souls are again restless and scared of nothing. Investors should take advantage of them and buy their assets for peanuts. They were scared when Dow was 10000, 20000, 30000 and now when it is 34000. DOW will be 50000 in 5-7 years and they will still be scared. Howell - Financial asset inflation, possibly morphing into hyper-inflation. Get investors to finance social engineering projects, which turns into legal [confiscation, taxation] when crashes occur. It's strange that what you are saying about the rising indexes doesn't appear to be obvious to most people. Are we stuck with mental images and decision criteria yardsticks that are also stuck in the past? It is also encouraging to see a few comments by other people who are quite aware of the supposed "widening" of the wealth gap being caused by the very policies that are intended to "cure" it. I do the same thing with my investments all the time. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-chinas-digital-yuan-is-largest-threat-to-the-west-in-past-30-or-40-years-according-to-kyle-bass-11621374668 Cryptos Why China’s digital yuan is ‘largest threat to the West’ in past 30 or 40 years, according to Kyle Bass Published: May 18, 2021 at 5:51 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 32 ‘It’s because it allows China to actually get their claws into everyone in the West and allows them to potentially export their digital authoritarianism,’ Bass says Kyle Bass, chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, says that the biggest threat to the West is the advent of the digital yuan, which he has described as a Trojan Horse that could undermine developed Western countries. “I think China can force the adoption of their digital currency for trade and investment in China per se, unless the U.S. and the West outlaws it or basically disallows it,” Bass told CNBC during an interview Tuesday afternoon. “And I believe the digital yuan is the largest threat to the West that we’ve faced in the last 30-40 years, and it’s because it allows China to actually get their claws into everyone in the West and allows them to potentially export their digital authoritarianism,” Bass said. Of course, not everyone agrees with Bass. +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/8C4aWiEk-SPX-s-Fib-s-channel-If-you-know-drop-a-comment/ SPX's Fib's channel. If you know drop a comment. S&P 500 Index (TVC:SPX) 4096.3 −31.5 −0.76% samitrading May 18 Lower highs on fibs #s. What does it mean? Dunno if you know drop a line. &&&&&&&& Howell - I don't know, but one might expect a higher fib slope soon after the March 2020 crash, and a lower slope as things "get back to normal" (i.e. massive stimulation that may be the new norm?). If you semi-log normalize the SP500 back to 1872 (DJIA proxy pre-SP500), you get a flat 1872-1926, and an 83-year trend 1926-2020 to today. Of course one can arbitrarily pick multiple linear segments, but that least follows the "price revolution" versus "price equilibria" periods of several thousand years of history (David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history"). That 83-year semi-SP500 trend is lower than the Nov2020-current line on your graph. Questions : Will we be "able to" manage our challenges, or will the recent near-hyperinflationary financial asset trend continue because we cannot manage? If we cannot manage, will it lead to historical-scale big crashes? (1929 might not meet the criteria!) If an historical crash occurs, will technology save us from pre-1600 type big crashes (fall of the Roman Empire etc), or will current world populations be too much even for advanced technology? I am being stupidly melodramatic, but everybody needs >= 5 "end of the world" scenarios in their pockets, to replace the death scenarios that roll over and die. And this helps to prevent over-blowing our current circumstances. (Political, economic, financial, market) concepts don't seem to have much use in his context, maybe not even [agricultural, trade, industrial, information] economies make an ultimate difference? My guess is that technology (as sometimes distinct from science) may be the real game changer, but it faces the same end challenges. Perhaps this is a bit like all the fancy [economic, mark, finance] theories, ablated away with the realities of trading and (human, social) behaviour? +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-bitcoin-battle-of-the-billionaires-ensues-as-jack-dorsey-faces-off-with-musk-on-green-merits-of-worlds-no-1-crypto-11621031968 A bitcoin battle of the billionaires ensues as Jack Dorsey faces off with Musk on ‘green’ merits of world’s No. 1 crypto Published: May 14, 2021 at 6:39 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Dogecoin consumes 0.12 kilowatt-hour, according to technology company TRG Datacenters. Ripple Lab’s XRP coin uses the least amount of energy, 0.0079 KW/h, and bitcoin consumes 707 KW/h. &&&&&&&& Howell - Sheesh, Mark DeCambre, please straighten out the [energy, power] figures. I don't blame this on you, as I have yet to see a competent context and metric for what may be yet another (usual) politically-correct crusade. Energy consumption (eg kW-hr / crypto-unit, possibly without proper adjustment for dollar values when comparing different cryptos and our banking system) is one issue. What is always missing in reports is the context - should we shut down the [banking industry, internet, cable TV, cellphones] because of their energy consumption, not to mention the salaries? Is crypto energy consumption (for those using all the above) miniscule in comparison, meaning that the issue is arm-waving with no thinking? Is there a security side of things? (Do you want zero energy consumption and zero security?) Is this an anachronistic problem that is already been solved by the rapidly-evolving nature of the crypto technologies as they mature? 08********08 18May2021 +----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX/seyFw7CO-SPX-s-JM-Hurst-s-Cycles-According-to-this-Engineer-137-days/ SPX's & JM Hurst's Cycles. According to this Engineer 137 days . S&P 500 Index (TVC:SPX) 4149.1 −14.2 −0.34% samitrading May 10 Puetz 2014 paper: qnial> 365.25 * 1.753E-02 5.258E-02 1.578E-01 4.733E-01 1.420E+00 4.259E+00 1.278E+01 3.833E+01 1.150E+02 3.440E+02 6.4 19.2 57.6 173 518 1,556 4,668 14,000 42,000 125,600 qnial> 12 * 1.753E-02 5.258E-02 1.578E-01 4.733E-01 1.420E+00 4.259E+00 1.278E+01 3.833E+01 1.150E+02 3.440E+02 0.21 0.63 1.90 5.68 17.0 51.1 153 460 1,380 4,128 &&&&&&&& Howell - Interesting comparison to the most (comprehensive, powerful, confirmed) cycle concept that I am aware of, by Stephen Puetz. The wavelengths for the standard "Universal Wave Series" (UWS) from a 2014 paper are shown in (day, month)s below. There is also a half-wave series - just (divide, multiply) the standard series by 2 (or maybe it's double-wave, I forget which he uses currently). The half-wave series is often used for (astronomy, geology) cycles. From sub-second, to many times greater than "known" age of the universe, many acceted ccles from almost any field seem to fit into the UWS. days : 6.4 19.2 57.6 173 518 1,556 4,668 14,000 42,000 125,600 months: 0.21 0.63 1.90 5.68 17.0 51.1 153 460 1,380 4,128 Financial market cycles, as mentioned in recent newsletters : 1.17y, 3.5y, 10.5y Note that Puetz's UWS goes (up, down) by a factor-of-3, in contrast to Hurst's (and many others) factor-of-2. It's fun picking out periods that are "close" to ancient calendar cycles. The Mayan system of 20+ calendars is most familiar to me, as my reading into (Chinese, Mesopotamian, Harrapan, Egyptian) isd too limited. (Beware of Egyptian dating by modern scientists!!). Puetz does occasionally re-align (tune) his time series. I see the data as "quasi-series" : most natural systems are NOT sinusoidal curves of constant (waveform, period, amplitude, etc), but it's extremely rare to see people incorporate that formally. Mandlebrot's "multi-fractals", and perhaps more importantly Leibnitz's "fractional order calculus" are being considered in some complex areas of engineering, but it may take generations for (scientists, academics) to adapt to that 300+-year-old concept. (just look at how long it took for fractals to be considered seriously by most academics!). +-----+ You have an edge over algos in trading counter-momentum news RANDOM LENGTH LUMBER FUTURES (CONTINUOUS: CURRENT CONTRACT IN FRONT) (CME:LBS1!) 1264.0 −63.0 −4.75% ChristopherCarrollSmith May 16 The conventional wisdom out there among traders is that by the time you read a news headline, the algorithms have already priced it in. That's really not true, especially in cases where the news goes against strong upward momentum. The algorithms aren't going to place big bets against momentum. This is a case where you, as a human trader, have an edge over algorithms, because you're better at making predictions based on qualitative news reports that can't be neatly quantified and plugged into a forecasting model. Look at how lumber futures responded to news that a federal judge had struck down the moratorium on evictions. (8 million renters are underwater on their rent to the tune of five and a half thousand dollars each, so this could put a lot of housing inventory on the market all at once.) Momentum weakened for a few days, but lumber continued upward. An increase in bond rates didn't stop the upward movement either. Only the next day, when the US dollar hit a support level , did lumber finally plummet. And even then, it rallied for a day before falling off a cliff again. Momentum doesn't die easily, but when it finally dies, it dies hard. (Note that Friday evening a federal judge agreed to let the eviction moratorium stay in effect while the government pursues an appeal, so we could see a short-term bottom this week-- but again, it could take a few days for the tide to turn.) Let's look at another example. On February 7, 2020 it became absolutely clear to me just how bad Covid was going to be, and I pulled all my money out of the market. To my surprise, the S&P 500 just kept going up-- for nearly two weeks! In fact, I even bought a few shares on February 18, thinking, "I guess stocks just aren't going to react to this." Then I sold again on February 20 when it looked like the momentum finally might stall. And thank God I did, because what followed was a bloodbath like nothing I've witnessed before. +-----+ 210515 Rodney Johnson Report The Fed's Mandate The Federal Reserve Bank was created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The Fed was tasked with maintaining U.S. currency by ensuring moderate price changes and moderate interest rates. The bankers were charged with taming the business cycle by keeping the value of the U.S. dollar steady. It was an impossible job, made worse by political decisions, wars, and actions by other countries, so Congress did the only thing politicians know how to do: they made it worse. In the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 (the Humphrey-Hawkins Act), Congress added full employment to the Fed’s to-do list. Congress had been legislatively impotent in its efforts to cure the malaise of the 1970s, so it punted the issue to the central bank. Without getting into the nitty gritty of banking (reserve requirements, etc.), the Fed essentially has two tools, interest rates and the aggregate monetary base. This brings to mind the old saying, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The Fed tries to achieve full employment by changing interest rates and increasing or decreasing the monetary base, while keeping an eye on prices, interest rates, and overall economic growth. Given such varied and often competing interests, the Fed prioritizes differently as the situation changes. Today, the U.S. economy is growing at a torrid pace, and yet Fed Chair Powell and his fellow bankers are clear that they won’t raise rates or even reduce their bond-buying program anytime soon. They have their eyes on one narrow and recent goal: not just full employment, but equitable employment 08********08 12May2021 +-----+ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ for [images, [article, video] links, etc] qnial> loaddefs link d_Qndfs 'economics, markets/yahoo finance news [search,NLP].ndf' qnial> news qnial> newsDisplay_titles 3 5 6 8 10 19 38 41 44 48 3 210513 17h35m Tesla’s Musk Renews Critique of Bitcoin, Talks Up Dogecoin 5 210513 17h31m Dogecoin pops after Musk tweets about 'promising' system improvements Business Reuters 210513 17h31m Dogecoin pops after Musk tweets about 'promising' system improvements Cryptocurrency dogecoin jumped as much as 20% on Friday after Tesla boss Elon Musk said he was involved in work to improve the token's transaction efficiency. Near worthless in late 2020, dogecoin has surged to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to CoinMarketCap.com, and is up more than a hundredfold this year as speculators have piled in to the asset class. 6 210513 17h01m Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5 Million in Ransom 8 210513 16h55m Roaring Crypto Cacophony Drowns Out Rest of Wall Street 10 210513 16h42m Tesla’s Musk Renews Environmental Critique of Bitcoin 19 210513 15h04m Ontario Ratings Matter More Than Canada’s, Fund Manager Says Health Costs “It’s the longer term that we’re more concerned about” because education and health-care programs, which consume roughly half of the provincial budget, are only going to get more expensive, said Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman, whose department is scheduled to release a report about the province’s debt sustainability in June. That’s especially true of health care, due to the aging of the population, he said. To be sure, potential talks about transfers between provinces and the federal government have surfaced before. Most recently Alberta has been lobbying Ottawa as the western province has faced a decline of its oil-related revenues in recent years.Regarding such talks, “I don’t think that’s going to happen in at least over the next year or over the next budget cycle,” said Reithinger. related revenues in recent years. 38 210513 12h55m These companies are hiking wages because they can't find workers 41 210513 12h41m Republicans are setting a tax trap for Biden 44 210513 12h22m Teens and social media: 'Unfollow some accounts that don't make you feel good 48 210513 11h47m Dogecoin is still in a steep uptrend but relative strength is concerning: analyst qnial> display_newsIDL 3 5 6 8 10 19 38 41 44 48 08********08 #] 12May2021 W +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-bulls-on-social-media-reject-musks-reasoning-for-halting-crypto-based-car-sales-11620879149?mod=newsviewer_click &&&&&&&& Howell - Mark DeCambre - next article please provide a table comparing electrical usage for each of several industries : [internet, cellphone towers & phone-charging, cable TV, [aluminum, magnesum, copper] manufacture, etc]. I have seen zero signs of any homework or context on this, but hopefully you will again surpass the norm. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-stops-accepting-bitcoin-for-environmental-reasons-51620864578?mod=newsviewer_click &&&&&&&& Howell - They should take down the internet and cellphone towers. I'm guessing that they use more energy, of course from [coal, nuclear, geothermal, blowhard thermal]. Television should be banned. The only [safe, environmentally sustainable existence is in pods like the film Matrix. Except, dn't plug them in. Smart people have been living like this for millenia - they call them coffins. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-stock-and-bitcoin-drop-after-elon-musk-says-car-sales-with-crypto-will-be-halted-due-to-energy-usage-of-mining-11620858326?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla stock and bitcoin drop after Elon Musk says car sales with crypto will be halted due to energy usage of mining Last Updated: May 12, 2021 at 6:48 p.m. ET First Published: May 12, 2021 at 6:25 p.m. ET By Jeremy C. Owens Bitcoin price drops by $2,000, Tesla shares decline about 1% in after-hours trading following announcement on Musk’s Twitter account &&&&&&&& Howell - It's possible that someone has actually done some [thinking, analysis] on the context for crypto energy usage, and I am guilty of not trying to track down reports. But I've become so used to the lack of thinking into any politically-correct theme, especially in our [academic, government] research institutes, that I'll assume until reported (?) that precious few have considered the energy (and other [employee, human] environmental] costs) associated with currency in circulation, more general forms of money, financial institutions, paychecks, etc, etc, etc. Some time ago, I think there were reports that server farms consumed ~10% or so of the total US electrical output. Gold is another matter - moving mountains for mere specs, but it's not something that I take as good or bad. I am sure that food production consumes vastly more. But I guess we have no right to decide for ourselves what is good or bad anymore. Nor does that mean much either, coming from the madness of crowds. 08********08 #] 11May2021 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Future of Everything webEvent #] 04May2021 first looked details http://l.em.dowjones.com/rts/go2.aspx?h=68795&tp=i-1NGB-J0-2Ca-6bKi0-1p-72Fyw-1c-6bwek-l61BAWnRRD-1IdYMv +-----+ Tue 11May2021 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT / 8:00 AM - 8:30 AM Your local time (30 min) The New Rules of Wall Street, Bill Ackman, CEO Pershing Square Capital Management Stage 1 The billionaire hedge-fund manager joins us to discuss the latest trends on Wall Street, from the GameStop craze to the sizzling SPAC market 2:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT / 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM Your local time (30 min) Facebook’s Future, Mike Schroepfer, Chief Technology Officer Stage 1 Facebook has come under fire for its policies on data privacy, as well as tackling misinformation and unlawful content. Amid the flashpoints with regulators and competitors, the tech giant is at work building innovative products in virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Facebook’s top technologist shares his plans for the company’s next phase in hardware and software, ranging from smart glasses to wrist-based wearables that are powered by AI. +-----+ Wed 1May2021 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT / 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM Your local time (30 min) Inside the Roblox Rocket, David Baszucki, Founder & CEO Roblox Stage 1 Roblox, the user-generated games platform, became a pandemic darling as Generation Z turned to it as a haven to pass time and connect with friends. After the company’s recent public-market debut, hear from Roblox Chief Executive David Baszucki—known to gamers on the platform as “Builderman”—on mapping out the next chapter for the community, spanning beyond games to the creation of online interactive worlds. 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM EDT / 9:30 AM - 10:00 AM Your local time (30 min) Mastercard’s Next Five Years, Michael Miebach, CEO Mastercard Stage 1 Last spring, Mastercard pledged to connect one billion people to the digital economy by 2025. A year on, the company’s chief executive explains how it is harnessing new technologies, including blockchain, 5G and advanced artificial intelligence, to propel the credit-card company’s mission to shape the future of commerce. Moderator: Charles Forelle, Financial Editor, The Wall Street Journal 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM EDT / 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM Your local time (30 min) The Office Reinvention, Sandeep Mathrani, CEO Wellwork Stage 2 Throughout the pandemic, WeWork was managing an exodus of tenants and millions of open square footage. As vaccinations around the globe continue, hear predictions on the office rebound from the company’s chief executive, as WeWork again prepares to go public—this time via a special-purpose acquisition company. 08********08 #] 10May2021 +-----+ qnial> loaddefs link d_Qndfs 'economics, markets/yahoo finance news [search,NLP].ndf' qnial> news qnial> newsDisplay_titles 0 7 12 21 31 37 44 48 0 210510 18h43m Top India Stock Fund Warns of Correction as Virus Runs Amok 7 210510 17h50m Gas Stations Running Dry as Hacked Pipeline Still Down 12 210510 16h26m Cyber Sleuths Blunted Pipeline Hack, Choked Data Flow to Russia 21 210510 14h57m Mining companies begin to ramp up staffing efforts 31 210510 13h25m Iron Ore Turns ‘Very Hot’ as 10% Surge Adds to Commodities Boom 37 210510 13h17m Venezuela needs $58 billion to restore crude output to 1998 levels - document 44 210510 13h00m Wall Street Uses Old Tricks in $2.4 Trillion Crypto Jungle 48 210510 12h12m Identifying three big drivers of the tax gap: Expert qnial> display_newsIDL 0 7 12 21 31 37 44 48 Business Yahoo Finance Video 210510 14h57m Mining companies begin to ramp up staffing efforts Lindsey Schultz, MRC Recruiting CEO, joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss mining companies ramping up staffing efforts. +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/RSUKhxDT-SPX-What-if-the-trend-is-still-intact-in-the-long-term/ SPX: What if the trend is still intact in the long term? S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 4183.41 −51.48 −1.22% IvanLabrie &&&&&&&& Howell - Several long-range forecasters with somewhat-successful track records have also been saying for (weeks, months) that this (week, month) has "stronger than usual potential" for significant market declines. But they've said that several other times over the last year as well. Trying to guess the timing of sudden market moves is brutal at the best of times, but with today's "socially engineered financial markets" that are "intentionally blinded by direct manipulation of key indicators" (like the 10 year T-bill rate, which is like a market thermometer), I wonder if we are even more vulnerable to being blind-sided, but definitely morn vulnerable to political manipulation? 08********08 #] 08May2021 +-----+ qnial> loaddefs link d_Qndfs 'economics, markets/yahoo finance news [search,NLP].ndf' qnial> news qnial> newsDisplay_titles 1 2 4 7 9 15 1 210508 15h03m Colonial Is Just the Latest Energy Asset Hit by Cyber-Attacks 2 210508 15h03m Ransomware Attack Shuts Down Biggest U.S. Gasoline Pipeline 4 210508 14h03m Bond Traders See a Path to 2% Yields Lurking in U.S. Jobs Miss 7 210507 14h00m Stock market news live updates: S&P 500, Dow set record highs as tech shares jump after jobs report miss 9 210507 13h40m CANADA FX DEBT-Canadian dollar rises for 6th straight week despite jobs decline 15 210507 12h58m Analysis: Cryptocurrency ethereum is flourishing but risks linger qnial> display_newsIDL 1 2 4 7 9 15 08********08 #] 07May2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/a-battle-with-china-looms-threatening-tech-stock-valuations-morgan-stanley-51620385443?mod=newsviewer_click A Battle With China Looms, Threatening Tech Stock Valuations: Morgan Stanley Last Updated: May 7, 2021 at 1:39 p.m. ET First Published: May 7, 2021 at 7:04 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Of course, those rules have been largely written by the U.S. and western allies. One area where China is trying to pen standards is in the area of technology. China’s Standards 2035 is its effort to set the rules governing new technologies such as 5G/6G internet, internet of things, quantum networks, and blockchain. In autonomous driving testing in California, Baidu, Hong Kong start-up AutoX and Toyota Motor -backed Pony.ai are among the top five in terms of miles per disengagement, which means miles driven before a human had to get involved. China is moving quickly to a cashless economy thanks to Alibaba and Tencent, and is at the forefront of central bank digital currency rollout. Of course, it isn’t a given China will succeed, either because of what non-Chinese companies do or because other nations won’t accept Chinese standards. “The biggest pushback to China’s will to lead the global governance of technology standards is the potential for interventions by the central government. This hurdle has already sparked debates, for example over the recent issues with Huawei and its development of 5G networks,” the report points out. And Morgan Stanley had to run a disclaimer, thanks to the executive order barring U.S. investors from investing in companies with links to the Chinese military. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nicely put-together article. Perhaps national attitudes change over generations, reputations over decades, and performance over years. Funny how so many who scoffed at geo-political strategic issues before, are now so sensitive to them, in a false sense, as their cherished perceptions seem challenged. Faint is the possibility that reality may actually change said perceptions (as with the [markets, debt, interest rates, inflation, valuations, etc]). For now. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-kashkari-says-april-jobs-report-shows-just-how-far-economy-has-to-go-11620393438?mod=newsviewer_click Fed’s Kashkari says April jobs report shows just how far economy has to go Last Updated: May 7, 2021 at 9:59 a.m. ET First Published: May 7, 2021 at 9:17 a.m. ET By Greg Robb No need to move off easy policy stance, Minneapolis Fed president says “What we’re doing right now, I think, is supporting, certainly the housing market, supporting financial markets in general, keeping the yield curve lower, keeping the 10-year down, which bleeds through into all sorts of other different interest rates across the economy,…providing a lot of support to accelerate that recovery,” he said. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.540% was down 2.5 basis points to 1.54% after briefly falling below 1.5% for the first time since early March. >> Wow! - notice the claimed effect on the 10-y rate. By swamping cash on te market, no safe place to go? 08********08 #] 05May2021 +-----+ qnial> news qnial> newsDisplay_titles 6 13 11 6 210505 18h18m Brazil Pledges Another ‘Sharp’ Rate Hike to Hit Inflation Target 13 210505 16h52m Peloton Recall Tests Analyst Devotion as Stock Slump Deepens 11 210505 18h46m Asia Stocks Climb After U.S. Tech Sector Declines: Markets Wrap qnial> display_newsIDL 6 13 11 08********08 #] 04May2021 +-----+ # Howell's daily yahoo title-picks, # https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ for [images, [article, video] links, etc] qnial> news qnial> newsDisplay_titles 0 1 2 7 9 20 42 0 210505 16h30m Brazil Raises Key Rate by 75 Basis Points, Sees a Repeat in June 1 210505 16h26m Exclusive: China's Tencent in talks with U.S. to keep gaming investments - sources 2 210505 16h23m Bezos Sells $2.5 Billion of Amazon and Signals More Coming 7 210505 09h07m UPDATE 1-U.S., China to assess Phase 1 deal soon, Biden trade chief says 9 210505 09h06m U.S. Keeps Quarterly Bond Sale at High, Warns on Debt Limit 20 210505 07h58m Tesla Losing Source of Credit Revenue That’s Been Key to Profits 42 210504 19h28m Inflation Risk Intensifies With Supply Shortages Multiplying qnial> display_newsIDL 0 1 2 7 9 20 42 08********08 #] 04May2021 +-----+ qnial> newsDisplay_titles 0 1 6 18 23 30 46 65 0 Colombian Peso Dives on Reports of Finance Minister Quitting 1 UPDATE 1-U.S. and Britain tell China and Russia: the West is not over yet 6 Oil to see $70 a barrel or possibly higher: Marketgauge.com Partner 18 U.S. approves massive solar project in California desert 23 Mexico Hits Remittances Record in March as U.S. Stimulus Flows 30 Norfolk Southern Dangles Duration Bet With 100-Year Bond Sale 46 Investors ‘continue to underestimate the incredible recovery’ in the economy: Strategist 65 Stock market outlook: 'the whole market is invited to the party, expect decent things ahead' +--+ # priority 10 items (all) : qnial> display_newsIDL 0 1 6 18 23 30 46 65 Business, Bloomberg 210503 10h20m Mexico Hits Remittances Record in March as U.S. Stimulus Flows President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had projected last week remittances would hit a record in March, after totaling $40.6 billion in all of 2020. An estimate of 12 million Mexican wokers live outside the country, and remittances account for roughly 3.5% of the country’s gross domestic product. Later : qnial> display_newsIDL [0] Business, Yahoo Finance 210504 11h26m Buffett: It's 'corporate fiction' to say higher business taxes hurt customers At the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Warren Buffett responded to concerns about President Joe Biden's proposed tax changes. qnial> a := 0 1 2 8 13 qnial> newsDisplay_titles a 0 210504 12h55m Pfizer CEO: 'We do think our stock is undervalued' 1 210504 12h55m Tech Selloff Sweeps Across Stocks; Dollar Climbs: Markets Wrap 2 210504 12h50m 'We’re entering the harder phase' of coronavirus vaccination 8 210504 12h20m Largo Resources taps Brazil in vanadium battery push 13 210504 11h54m UPDATE 1-Brazil's Guedes says real poised to rise, would be 'great' if dollar fell qnial> display_newsIDL a Yahoo Finance 210504 12h55m Pfizer CEO: 'We do think our stock is undervalued' Pfizer's (PFE) COVID-19 vaccine is nothing short of a blockbuster drug for the company, bringing in $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, nearly a quarter of its total revenue, Pfizer announced today in its first-quarter results. The company now expects full-year sales of $26 billion from the vaccine, up from its previous forecast of about $15 billion. Reuters 210504 12h20m Largo Resources taps Brazil in vanadium battery push U.S.-based Largo Clean Energy is preparing to produce batteries using vanadium extracted from northeastern Brazil, the company's chief executive said on Tuesday, in a bid to capture a chunk of the fast-growing renewable energy storage market. The company, whose parent Largo Resources Ltd is mining the elemental metal in the Brazilian state of Bahia, is in advanced negotiations with potential clients, said Paulo Misk, CEO of the Largo group. "Our battery isn't competing with car batteries," he said in a video interview. qnial> a := 5 9 14 16 5 210504 15h14m Yellen Clarifies Inflation Remark, Sees No Need for Fed to Hike 9 210504 15h06m Trump launches place to post ahead of Facebook board ruling on his ban 14 210504 14h32m Yellen: Higher interest rates may be needed to prevent economy from 'overheating' 16 210504 14h26m 'Bamboo Ceiling' author: 'Asians have been invisible’ for too long Business Yahoo Finance 210504 14h26m 'Bamboo Ceiling' author: 'Asians have been invisible’ for too long In a new interview with Yahoo Finance, Jane Hyun, the author of "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians,” points out that Asians still face immense difficulty breaking into management roles, Hyun first coined the term “bamboo ceiling” in 2005 and says there’s been positive movement toward equity and inclusion at work since then. But Asians still face immense difficulty breaking into management roles, according to Hyun, who has worked as an executive coach for over two decades, specifically focused on equipping Asian employees with the skill sets to succeed in often cutthroat corporate environments. The Asian community, which encompasses over 40 ethnicities, is also the most economically diverse by at least one measure. Asian Americans have the largest intragroup income inequality compared to any other race in the United States, as Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung has reported. The top 10% of Asian-American earners made 10.7 times the income of the bottom 10%, according to Pew Research Data from 2018. +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ETHUSDT/rmB3LTxT-ETH-x-Binance-Legacy-Chart-the-road-to-10K/ ETH x Binance Legacy Chart: the road to 10K Ethereum / TetherUS (BINANCE:ETHUSDT) 3246.95 −184.09 −5.37% cryptobullethbtcxlm 6 hours ago >> Awesome crypto analysis, why is Ethereuning (& Binance) Well, my answer to that is; you are a tech investor / trader by investing in crypto; therefore technology will always be the main driver of the market - not hype. So first off; Ethereum has a bunch of upgrades coming to improve performance and scalability. This will be challenging because they need to replace the engine of their cars while keeping the car running on the road. A potential risk indeed however the perfect test for vigilance of the team and network itself to prove my 5 year projection. If they pull off ETH 2.0 without major problems and they have significantly improved their performance and scalability; a new era for ETH has opened. So lets quickly go over the updates: - Beacon chain: staking mechanism for ETH 2.0 (implemented on December 1st, 2020) - Berlin Fork: reducing gas fees - successfully implemented on April 16, 2021 and gas fees are down already. - London Fork: transaction focused; fees + deflationary ETH through token burn (coming July 2021) - Shard chains: scalability, performance and POS transaction protocol for ETH 2.0 - The Docking: Implementing the Beacon and Shard chains and live is ETH2.0 with proof of stake (2022) The upgrades above are the most important steps for ETH becoming fully proof of stake and a deflationary cryptocurrency. By doing so, ETH elimenates scalability and performance issues and will evolve inflationary ETH1.0 into deflationary ETH2.0. So right now, one would ask again; the top? No, not in my opinion and yes I can throw all the fundamental reasons above (thats 1) but (2) there have been multiple technical indicators flashing big time! The first one that flashed was the ETH/BTC valuation that broke a key resistance and the BTC dominance that broke below 50. These two signals created an historical pivot in the crypto markets forever. (no one is writing about it because no one realizes the implications, yet!) These are that: - Bitcoin is no longer the major and the hedge for crypto against crypto (nothing changed against fiat) - Ethereum is from now on the crypto hedge (portfolios should be valued in ETH) - Altcoins no longer exist and we should get rid of this word (the majority of coins cant be called alternative) You can read more about this in my previous analyses on ETH and BTC: Blockchain about technology built on a network that is decentralized and trustless. And that is exactly what Ethereum provides. The utility and adoption of the blockchain technology is what drives the price of a digital asset. For Bitcoin that is store of value and it is (by far) the best fiat hedge there is right now; with diminishing risks and returns it has become the perfect digital gold . And to add to that; I believe the BTC price will still go up substantially given the upcoming inflation wave. However; it will no longer beat Ethereum , as Ethereum is the fundament for blockchain technology - just like Microsoft was to the personal computer. Welcome to a new era of crypto; welcome to the era of Ethereum. &&&&&&&& Howell - Really [insigtful, creative, powerful] analysis, helpful to me. Interesting statement "... Well, my answer to that is; you are a tech investor / trader by investing in crypto; therefore technology will always be the main driver of the market - not hype. ...". Yes, but perhaps only for the initial stages of the industry, as later the [business, marketing, finance, legal] powers may dominate? I am thinking of the historical development of software, and the modern role of open source. 08********08 #] 03May2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ECONOMIST/BIGMAC_USA/GumYy4yO-Think-differently-about-inflation-to-recognize-opportunities/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+105+%28EN%29 Think differently about inflation to recognize opportunities ECONOMIST/BIGMAC_USA (QUANDL:ECONOMIST/BIGMAC_USA) 5.66 −0.05 −0.88% ChristopherCarrollSmith Apr 29 &&&&&&&& Howell - I like ChristopherCarrolSmith's comments. It seems to me that CPI is well-designed for people in the lower- middle-income to poverty levels, which is very useful as that is a key group that "needs help and protection", and it helps to have CPI to remain sensitive to their changing situation. CPI is mostly irrelevant for most of the population (unless the economy collapses and we all end up below the poverty line), even though it is great for political [grandstanding, butt-covering, promotion]. The disconnect between government [deficits, debt, money printing] and inflation has long been pointed out : for several decades [Harry Dent, ?Robert Prechter?, others] have analysed it. For example, Dent proposes a generation-lagged correlation of [births, household formation, inflation]. David Fischer's 1996 book "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" notes that "... American treasure could not have been the the first cause of a price revolution. Prices began to go up as early as 1480, many years before American gold and silver arrived in Europe. ...". The tendency to have progressively larger families during extended good times, and resultant severe population pressures when agriculture declines naturally (eg astronomical cycles, ocean currents, etc which dominate Earth (weather, climate)), ise of several other important factors that may sideline money printing effects. Confirmed history relies on authentic documents from history, ancient quotes of long-lost material, and other archaeological material. But it would not surprise me at all if we were to learn that the "three first major civilisations" (?) in [Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus valley (Harrapan)] had not also come up with concepts for this. +-----+ # Howell's daily yahoo title-picks qnial> news qnial> newsDisplay_titles 3 6 8 12 +--+ # priority 10 items : qnial> display_newsIDL 3 6 8 12 3 Stocks Advance in Busy Week for Economic Reports: Markets Wrap 6 Oil Reverses Losses as European Union Looks to Open Borders 8 Oil Trades Near $67 as India Demand Drop Curbs Recovery Optimism 12 Ethereum breaks past $3,000 +--+ # Also : Business Reuters 210503 08h41m Canada's Wealthsimple hits $4 bln valuation after latest funding round Wealthsimple said on Monday it raised C$750 million ($610.40 million) in its latest funding round, with participation from celebrities Drake, Michael Fox and Ryan Reynolds, more than doubling the Canadian fintech company's valuation to C$5 billion ($4.07 billion). The Toronto-based company that has helped make financial products like stock trading, peer-to-peer money transfers and tax filing easily accessible, said it will use the amount raised to further expand its market position, build out its product suite, and grow its team. The latest funding round, led by venture capital firms Meritech and Greylock, also includes investments from iNovia, Sagard, TSV and Redpoint. +--+ # maybe qnial> display_newsIDL nyet... 08********08 #] 02May2021 +-----+ # Howell's daily yahoo title-picks # 02May2021 this is an example - for ongoing, see "$d_PROJECTS""Investments/market news.txt" # https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ for [images, [article, video] links, etc] # display_newsIDL IS OP newsIDL - show a selection of newsItems (create list below for easy follow-up) # 02May2021 selection to prioritize : # newsDisplay_titles 2 4 10 11 13 15 35 36 50 55 59 76 78 84 88 92 # priority 10 items : 2 Intel to invest $600 million to expand chip, Mobileye R&D in Israel 4 Colombia Sends Soldiers to Cities Amid Protests Against Tax Bill 10 Record Metals Prices Catapult Mining Profits Beyond Big Oil In the corporate world, the top five iron ore mining companies are on track to deliver bottom-line profits of $65 billion combined this year, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That’s about 13% more than the five biggest international oil producers, flipping a decades-old hierarchy. China, which accounts for about half of global steel production, is making a record amount of the metal, while industrial output is surging across the rest of the world as huge stimulus packages fuel a recovery from the pandemic. 13 Berkshire shareholders reject climate change, diversity proposals that Buffett opposed 50 Exxon Set to Lock Out Beaumont Refinery Workers Amid Impasse 55 ‘Technology is the largest single growth trend of our lifetime’: Expert >> missed it (pass-through or something) 59 Copper’s Surge Toward a Record High Is Hitting Chinese Industry And there is a precedent for demand destruction in China amid higher prices, according to BMO Capital Markets analyst Colin Hamilton. Hamilton pointed to 2006 where prices recorded the largest January-April gain on record and came amid a credit-fueled sudden acceleration in developed world demand.“2006 was the only year this century where annual Chinese copper consumption fell on a y/y basis, as marginal buyers simply stepped away,” Hamilton said in a note.Higher price levels also could see marginal buyers pull back in the near term and look to substitute in the medium term.“$10,000/t copper now is the biggest danger to future demand use, particularly in these nascent trends where material selection is still evolving,” said Hamilton. “There is no doubt copper may be best for electrical or heat transfer performance, but with the ratio to aluminium now well above the 3.5:1 level where we consider substitution accelerates, the risk is clear. 78 TREASURIES-Yields dip as investors buy bonds for month-end 88 U.S. labor costs accelerate in the first quarter 92 UPDATE 1-German 10-year yield set for biggest weekly rise since February # display_newsIDL 2 4 10 13 50 55 59 78 88 92 # Also : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/greed-bankers-politics-star-danish-040000695.html Greed, Bankers and Politics Star in Danish Negative-Rate Debacle Morten Buttler Sat, May 1, 2021, 10:00 PM·3 min read country since current Denmark 2012 -0.5% EU 2014 -0.5% (not including former Soviet states) Switzerland 2016 -0.1% 90 210430 06h00m Irrational World of Distressed Debt Leaves $15 Billion Idle >> great articlat I missed the first two look at titles # maybe 11 UPDATE 5-N. Korea says Biden policy shows hostile U.S. intent, vows response 15 Warren Buffett: We are seeing substantial inflation and are raising prices 35 Buffett to new investors: 'It's not as easy as it sounds' 36 Warren Buffett touts U.S. economy's unexpected strength as Berkshire rebounds 76 Canadian Output on Cusp of Full Recovery After 11th Monthly Gain 84 Exxon, Chevron Garner Huge Cash-Flow Boosts on Crude’s Rally # display_newsIDL 11 15 35 36 76 84 # display_newsIDL [84] 08********08 #] 28Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/after-covid-its-time-to-reinvigorate-american-science-51619790795?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: After Covid, It’s Time to Reinvigorate American Science Published: April 30, 2021 at 9:53 a.m. ET Stanley Litow &&&&&&&& Howell - Boatloads of cash are being dumped everywhere, and of course everyone wants more than their fair share. Health care and pensions are way up on the list, but the huge [government, academic, policy] science profit juggernaut is in no danger of not being heard. Given the much better access to science papers and results, my guess is that at least some of the public is more aware of the huge problems in modern science than the scientists seem to be (or admit). As for 100% internal rates of return, I've been involved in that science Ponzi-game too (pick a number, any number), and although this is easily met by some [area, project]s of science, it is a "fantasy" in others. Science is my hobby in retirement as it was after-hours while I worked, and I don't have any ideas beyond what has been tried and what many others have proposed. Global [collaboration, competition] in science has changed a great deal, and this alone may be the best hope for driving our science, along with freeing our scientists and engineers from some of the chains that bind them. More hard-nosed [science, scientists] and less politically-correct crusading might help, but maybe that is perhaps a [naive, forlorn] hope. 08********08 #] 28Apr2021 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ETHBTC/Z9DFJ2Nf-ETH-just-broke-ATH-and-key-resistance-against-BTC-178/ >> trader cry - great discussion of BTC versus ETH ETH VS BTC As for the ETH/BTC pair we can be very short and simple; for the next months but most likely years; Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin . Only if ETH will be outperformed by a rival blockchain; we could see a shift in this trend. For now there is zero reason to believe that ETH will not rule the crypto and defi space; it is literally what is made for and it has most of the market share. In my opinion the ETH price has a long way to reach its top and with this crucial signal flashing; I seriously have no clue of where this will stop but let me do a wild assumption; 10K is coming this year but maybe more, who knows? https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ETH1!/7NYu92E0-Helping-the-friends-at-CME-with-ETH/ Comment: So what did I read just a day after creating this post? EU bonds to be sold over the ETH blockchain, did I say something about ETH and defi? https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-... 08********08 #] 25Apr2021 +-----+ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-canada-turns-hawkish-investors-140000590.html As Bank of Canada turns hawkish, investors retool for higher rates outlook Fergal Smith Sun, April 25, 2021, 8:00 AM·3 min read By Fergal Smith Canada's central bank on Wednesday signaled it could hike interest rates as soon as next year and cut the pace of bond purchases, becoming one of the first major central banks to reduce stimulus. "The fact that the Bank of Canada is now starting to take the foot off the gas... it is the first sign of what's going to happen and be the big story for the second half of the year," said Greg Taylor, a portfolio manager at Purpose Investments. 08********08 #] 23Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/really-the-market-will-collapse-by-end-of-june-11619199491?mod=newsviewer_click Really? The market will collapse ‘by end of June?’ Last Updated: April 23, 2021 at 1:40 p.m. ET First Published: April 23, 2021 at 1:38 p.m. ET By Brett Arends These forecasts always generate a lot of attention “A huge collapse is coming,” warns longtime market prognosticator Harry Dent. He adds, “This thing will be hell,” it could be “the biggest crash ever,” and the start of “the next big economic downturn.” When? By the end of June, if not sooner, it seems. That’s less than 10 weeks away. Oh well. Dent’s forecast seems to have struck some kind of chord: For about a week or longer the article was the most popular article at ThinkAdvisor.com. But although he may be unique in setting a deadline, he’s not the only guru predicting disaster. Just this week I got a note from Jonathan Ruffer, an eminent money manager in London, with this dire warning: “I take it pretty much for granted that the 40 year bull market is ending, and that it will be replaced by hard investment times.” And Jeremy Grantham (also born in England, but long based here) recently concluded that stocks, bonds and real estate are all in a bubble and may well collapse together in the next year or two. Longstanding gloomster John Hussman estimates the S&P 500 SPX, 1.16% could end up losing us all money over the next 20 years even before you deduct inflation, and suspects a quick 25-30% market slump may be ahead. >> Fun - I've read some by all but Jonathan Ruffer (John Hussman only just recently from MktWatch blogger) &&&&&&&& Howell - Fun article by Brett Arends. This seems to be a basic need of every human : to carry around at least five "end-of-the-world scenarios" at all times. Why 5? Because these scenarios have a habit of [washing out, breaking in two, being mis-placed or forgotten]. But historically they also become true, even in recent times, and perhaps to far greater depths than the imaginations of Hollywood? But one can't stop living for fear of death (or a bad-return year). At least one of your doomsayers has also been a super-bull on and off, not a perma-bear. With respect to the comment "... But most of them have been predicting various reruns of the Great Depression for most of the past 20 years. ...", at least one of your doomsayers was the Bull of Wall Street, and not just once. It's also hard to keep up enthusiasm waiting for a second coming after more than a [week, year, decade, century] (check off your memory-patience tolerance). On the serious side, history always shows calamities, including modern times even though we easily [forget, ignore] the plight of others. 08********08 #] 21Apr2021 /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/investment orders.ods +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zombies-robots-and-big-unknowns-lurk-as-the-u-s-economy-recovers-from-pandemic-11619105504?mod=newsviewer_click Zombies, robots and big unknowns lurk as the U.S. economy recovers from pandemic Published: April 22, 2021 at 11:31 a.m. ET By Greg Robb What you don’t know about the economy could seriously mess up your plans &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice article. I like Mark Gertler's "trap of complacency". Put another way, mainstream thinkers always miss the big turning points, where the "trend may not your friend", and it turns out that my only talent was to repeat the same tired theories and concepts which ultimately prove to be meaningless +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hydrogen-is-the-one-clean-energy-source-everyone-seems-to-like-so-why-arent-we-using-it-more-to-fight-climate-change-11619105019?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Hydrogen is the one clean energy source everyone seems to like, so why aren’t we using it more to fight climate change? Published: April 22, 2021 at 11:23 a.m. ET By John Ballantine Hydrogen has tremendous potential but needs massive upfront investments to be really green or affordable &&&&&&&& Howell - Our scientists are disciples of the "CO2 is the primary driver of climate since 1850" religion (with occasional changes to the start date to cover butts). Almost all of the [model, projection]s are complete rubbish, as is most of the theoretical science. China, India, Russia, are making fools of [American, European] scientists with much more solid thinking. What might be used as an argument for alternative energy is the geopolitical strategic perspective, as well as regional differences in traditional [petroleum, natural gas, coal, hydro, nuclear] energy [availability, cost]. Hydrogen for transportation might possibly make sense when produced from natural gas (for those too blind to use natural gas directly instead of converting it to hydrogen), and perhaps from fission nuclear when natural gas is not cheap locally. Nuclear fusion energy is a different game altogether, for which tritium (super-beefed-up hydrogen, sort of) is critical importance to current technologies, but normal hydrogen may be sufficient for more advanced concepts. Fusion is only 10 years away, which is a great improvement on the 30 years delay of the last 100 years. Only value investors have that kind of patience. Stephen Snyder > William Howell Fusion has been 10 years away for the past 50 years. Maybe some day. Global warming is not theoretical, the science is solid. Howell > Stephen Snyder Thanks for clarifying the postponement issue, which I didn't make clear. I've worked since 1999 on climate science, for short while at a government lab but mostly personal reviews of literature and construction of my own models (eg using NASA JPL Horizins ephemeris program for solar irradiance, but that only a small fraction of [solar, astro] inputs. It's only only one of many science themes that I put time into, and it's not my priority area. The science is a complete mess, in spite of many backtracks and diversions by the mainstream. That is very easy to verify by comparing [models, claims] since the 1980's to the data, and it just keeps getting worse although more (rare) scientists are gradually waking ubut cannot be heard in the din). The only concepts that work and progress, albeit still incompletely, are those involving astronomical and geological drivers. But ultimately one has to wait for the old science dogs to die... +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fall-of-a-value-icon-could-be-good-for-value-11619098112?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Fall of a ‘value’ icon could be good for ‘value’ Published: April 22, 2021 at 11:01 a.m. ET By Brett Arends Timing is everything &&&&&&&& Howell - Fun article. Seems like my investment mis-timings... pateince betrayed. 08********08 #] 21Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-the-u-s-housing-market-heading-for-a-crash-heres-what-the-experts-say-11619023745?mod=newsviewer_click Is the U.S. housing market heading for a crash? Here’s what the experts say Last Updated: April 21, 2021 at 7:42 p.m. ET First Published: April 21, 2021 at 12:49 p.m. ET By Jacob Passy Searches for the phrase, ‘When is the housing market going to crash?’ are up 2,450% over the past month &&&&&&&& Howell - Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, has a really good point : If you ignore all of the risks, the housing [market, finances, opportunities] look vastly [better, safer] than 2007. After the subtitle "Will COVID-19 spark a rise in foreclosures?", Jacob Passy's article was a useful list of reminders. I thought that the 2007 zombie mortgages were still a problem BEFORE the pandemic. And I guess I'm not as confident as others that the bond buyers will remain happy to be paid nothing forever in possibly very high risk [market, economic, policy] conditions. But most of all, the current policy juggernaut seems likely to go further than the concepts behind the 2007 problem, as that would be the politically-correct thing to do. But now the concepts themselves may simply launch into outer space, just like the [Fed, Treasury] stimulus have already done. Who cares about the debt? It will never be paid off anyways. That is why the Mars rover missions are so important - a whole new real estate market, and shazaam, we move the debt there! +--+ Dean Joseph We aren’t giving 0% down jumbo loans to the underprivileged and teenagers, so no the housing market isn’t going to ‘crash’. The worst that happens is a little air gets released over time. The people that are buying homes can afford them. This plays more to the supply side. People want to move and, because of the building slowdown due to the pandemic plus materials bottlenecks, there aren’t enough homes to meet the demand. Howell > Dean Joseph How do you know? Essentially everyone seemed oblivious to the extremes of the 2006 housing bubble, even though everyone claims to be 1 of 10,000 who actually looked deeply into the actual market and contracts and knew that before hand. Are you taking the same approach as everyone else, knowing what is true without worrying if that just ain't so? What does anything mean while socialist policies are mutating faster than the corona virus? +-----+ Charts for [Steve, Dad] - do as a monthly newsletter web-page! /media/bill/Dell2/Website - raw/economics, markets/0_BillHowell market news/ 210421 BillHowell.ca market news.html 210421 SP500 83y detrend, 10y T-bill, Chinese Yuan per USD, Oil, Gold, BitCoin.png 210421 SP500, NASDAQ, SHCOMP, 10y T-bill 2004-2021.png 210421 SP500, NASDAQ, SHCOMP, 10y T-bill 1Month.png 210421 SP500, NASDAQ, SHCOMP, 10y T-bill 6Month.png 210421 Interest rates, currency [DXY,CNYUSD] 1Month.png 210421 Interest rates, currency [DXY,CNYUSD] 6Month.png 210421 crypto [BTC,ETH,COIN], 10y T-bill 1Month.png 210421 crypto [BTC,ETH,COIN], 10y T-bill 6Month.png 210421 USOIL, Canadian [XEG ETF,CNQ,IMO,SU], 10y T-bill 1Month.png 210421 USOIL, Canadian [XEG ETF,CNQ,IMO,SU], 10y T-bill 6Month.png 210421 pharma [CRSP,NTLA,BEAM,BLUE,EDIT,ONC] 1Month.png 210421 pharma [CRSP,NTLA,BEAM,BLUE,EDIT,ONC] 6Month.png 210421 pharma ONC, 10yT-bill 5year.png http://www.BillHowell.ca/economics, markets/0_BillHowell market news/210421 BillHowell.ca market news.html http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/0_BillHowell%20market%20news/210421%20BillHowell.ca%20market%20news.html 08********08 #] 19Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-are-at-all-time-highs-and-the-u-s-economy-is-booming-so-why-is-everyone-so-nervous-11618605072?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_content=replied-your-message&spot_im_redirect_source=email&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_reply_id=sp_ekXntyLk_WP-MKTW-0000235404_c_1rIv0kG9wRQXq2cvcSyFDYyK18C_r_1rO9NMEmu5ABF7KfrUvXyzEho7l&utm_spot=sp_ekXntyLk &&&&&&&& Kevin P Kenna 1 day ago it's different this time Dave Rausch -> Kevin P Kenna 1 day ago And fusion is just 10 years away. These are classic lines for a reason - thanks for the laugh. Kevin P Kenna -> Dave Rausch 22 hours ago The Fed is like one big Enron stock William Howell -> Dave Rausch 23 hours ago Fusion used to be 30 years away, a long-standing joke. But I am optimistic - not so much in the ITER religion and its bent physics, but in far more profound concepts that have already blown past conventional limits. Do not foro factor in the pragmatic time requirements for developing a new industry (as with oil at the time of its birth), when engineers make thiinrk in spite of academic theories. Like GPS - touted as "proof of General Relativity, but ?most? engineers who built the systems clearly state that GR doesn't work, so they went Galilean. They are careful not to be too public about it. Why go through the hassles of the wrath of the disciples and their influence on funding bodies and the mainstream science? Dave Rausch -> William Howell 1 hour ago As a retired scientist, the running fusion joke has rung true for all of my life but I agree at some point we will actually crack it. The rate of technology development will just increase as each new tech is developed from the last and we should see shorter time frames between breakthroughs. I also believe access to the data an new tech will make it easier to make advancements faster outside of academic negativity and government control of research. For example, SpaceX has made great strides by being independent. As for academics, another old adage that held mostly true over my decades of observation was that "those who can do, those who can't teach." Wrath of the disciples indeed. The best scientists were actually the humble ones who let the data lead them and not their personal pride to defend their position and shoot arrows at dissenters. I frequently found that we would have new insight about processes we had run for decades and thought we had a full understanding of, so the best path was to investigate when something unexpected happened and not to dismiss it. We called those who denied it the "perfect scientists" because of their pride they wouldn't accept they might be wrong. And, they would try to demean those who challenged them. My expertise was sterile drug manufacturing and microbiological control so this Covid 19 mess has been frustrating to watch. Guys like Faucci were "perfect scientists" giving advice that wasn't consistent and went too far. William Howell -> Dave Rausch Thanks! Your Golden Insights are rich with [observation, people-reality, wisdom]. "... We called those who denied it the "perfect scientists" because of their pride they wouldn't accept they might be wrong. ..." You are far too forgiving of us all with that statement, or perhaps I am far too preditorial. Thomas Khune was wrong - his tiny ideas ignore the 800 pound gorillas in the room of scientific thinking. As the character Vinney says in the film "The Big Short" : "stupid" is actually the descriptor. This applies as much across all areas of science as the financial industry, and I cannot blame zebras for their stripes (of which I have more than most). But I certainly don't have to follow their herd either. The political-correctness of the rising generations of scientists doesn't lend to optimism, but not all of the world is as badly infected as us. Maybe they are our new hope. Dave Rausch -> William Howell Only somewhat forgiving because I lived in that professional world for ~34 years as a scientist in business. That made it a little better because while we had out share of senior scientist who would never make a decision out of fear it might not be the right one and they'd be caught/called out, a decision had to be made so logic prevailed. Perfect doesn't exist, statistics do so making the decision with the highest probability of success was chosen and we moved on and made adjustments if needed. A friend used to say we could make 3 wrong decisions before the perfect scientists made their first wrong one. One of the engineering managers used to love to say that "perfect" meant never delivered in regards to projects. Fail fast works best with many incremental improvements along the way. This is the approach SpaceX uses and why they are crushing the competition. The naysayers take glee when they see the recent crash landings but fail to realize SpaceX is suffering pain and decades of knowledge in month timescales that leave the competition in the dust. A great example of good science and business combined because they plan for failures along the way and don't waste effort blaming someone for it - just move forward. We moved to a similar fail fast model before I retired and project that had languished for years suddenly made great strides. Best to make your best guess, be humble and learn from the failures. That was what a career of manufacturing related science taught me. Not included in my last comment : , with the less than one-in-a-million thinkers (only a tiny fraction of the intelligensia) coming up with breakthroughs, and It is actually a [beautiful, optimistic] perspective to see all homo sapiens as big, hopelessly stupid apes. So the rare [critical, insightful] thinkers and their breakthrough are rightly seen as miracles to be thankful for. The reverse perspective is dark and negative, as one has to explain why the failure of [rational, logical, scientific] thinking fails so uniformly, and why that is the rule, rather than the exceptioross all areas of science. 08********08 #] 17Apr2021 Hussman Funds website John P. Hussman "How to Spot a Bubble", "Always a Reckoning" +-------+ Darryl Egbert replied to you on Opinion: The Dow and the Nasdaq are diverging. Why that’s honey for stock market bears: Posted 4/16/2021, 19:55 I love your comment about interest rates being a measure of the financial markets temperature - Japan is a great example of that. Unfortunately, I believe the central banks of the world can never let interest rate go up in my lifetime. Very few governments could. service their debt with rates that are determined by the markets. You really need to go visit the Hussman Funds website. The two most recent papers he has written are really good with respect to demonstrating where we are with respect to valuations: "How to Spot a Bubble", and "Always a Reckoning". He is a PhD mathematician and has uses quantitative analysis of historical data to come to his conclusions. Based on our comments, I believe you would really like his approach and analysis. You can access his website for free and actually sign-up to get his newsletters. &&&&&&&& Howell - Wild and strange path - thanks again! Hussman's "How to Spot a Bubble", "Always a Reckoning" are interesting and show serious work and solid thinking. His semi-log 1928-2021 plot of SP500 is similar to my 1926-2020 semi-log trend, and his 1900-2021 detrended graph is very similar to my own from a year ago. His plot of log(prices) versus 12 year cash flow is similar (without T-l rates) to : one component of my P/E model; Qiang Zhang's github "Price Earning Ratio model" of 30Jan2021 (which is better than mine); and Ben Reynold's newletter has plotted actual data. Hussman's MarketCap/GVA merits a re-derivation if I ever find the time (not likely). Hussman comments that "In recent years, it [valuation] hasn’t even imposed a limit on speculative recklessness" (not likel). To me, investors are being squeezed by social engineering : damned if they invest, and damned if they hold cash. Not used : but it is missing the connection with "real 10year T-bill rates" as an "unbiase discount factor" (also debt is a big issue that I do not yet model). Wild and strange path - thanks again! Hussman's "How to Spot a Bubble", "Always a Reckoning" are interesting and show serious work and solid thinking. His semi-log 1928-2021 plot of SP500 is similar to my 1926-2020 semi-log trend, with the addition of his year-by-year estimates of valuation norms, which is an interpretation that I avoid. His 1900-2021 detrended graph is fun to see as it very similar to my own from a year ago. His plot of log(prices) versus 12 year cash flow is similar to one component of my P/E model, but it is missing the connection with "real 10year T-bill rates" as an "unbiase discount factor" (also debt is a big issue that I do not yet model). Qiang Zhang's github "Price Earning Ratio model" of 30Jan2021 is better than mine, and Ben Reynold's newletter has plotted actual data. I like Hussman's MarketCap/GVA, which appears to be far more accurate than I would have thought. That merits another look if I eevr find the time. Hussman comments that "In recent years, it [valuation] hasn’t even imposed a limit on speculative recklessness". To me, investors are being squeezed by social engineering : damned if they invest, and damned if they hold cash. Howell - To me, Hussman's market analysis is not as important as his wikipedia quote : "... the severe disruptions observed in autism may be linked to suppression of GABAergic inhibition, resulting in excessive stimulation of glutamate-specialized neurons and loss of sensory gating." I'm still 2-5 years from neurotransmitters etc on my spikingNN project (if I ever get there), and mostly have been buffetted by schizophrenia work. Funny, maybe the latter is useful for the markets, quite possibly leading to predictable drivers as well? 08********08 #] 16Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/will-bitcoin-replace-the-dollar-as-a-means-of-exchange-51618592524?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Can Crypto Escape The Buck’s Gravity? Published: April 16, 2021 at 1:02 p.m. ET By Marc Chandler &&&&&&&& Howell - Marc Chandler, nice analysis. I guess we will all be guessing for a few years, as things evolve and opportunities appear (or not). The future may depend on the intrepid, and the extent to which the US is seen as "more [responsible, trustworthy, productive]" than future challengers. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dow-and-the-nasdaq-are-diverging-why-thats-honey-for-stock-market-bears-11618556362?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The Dow and the Nasdaq are diverging. Why that’s honey for stock market bears Last Updated: April 16, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. ET First Published: April 16, 2021 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Disconnected trading pattern hasn’t been so ominous since the internet bubble years &&&&&&&& Barry Allen -> Darryl Egbert If past performance any indication, possible market crash in 2022-2023. Go all in and make most of the money now, then dollar cost average later. Darryl Egbert -> Barry Allen It is actually much worse by most metrics. Go look up "How to Spot a Bubble" by John Hussman. Or Jeremy Grantham. Doug Kass had a table of 15 different valuation metrics. We were the at highest in 11 of the 15, and in the top 92% (or higher) in the other 4. And that was when the S&P was below 3800. Or how about the Warren Buffet indicator? Hussman's article (25 pages) works through the math and comes to the conclusion that the S&P would need to drop 70% to get to fair value. My simple trend line (log scale) and long-term mean (100+ years) returns get you to around 1000 for the S&P. Just go pull up a max time frame chart of the S&P or Nasdaq and it jumps off the screen - parabolic on steroids since the mid-1980s (basically when Greenspan introduced the first of many Fed "puts"). Profit margins are more than double their historical mean - to which they always reverted. Much of the EPS growth over the past 12 years is related to debt funded stock buybacks. A company can double its EPS by borrowing and buying back half their stock, but it isn't worth any more, because the remaining shareholders own the new debt as well as the assets. Howell -> Darryl Egbert "... My simple trend line (log scale) and long-term mean (100+ years) returns get you to around 1000 for the S&P. ..." Interesting comment, as my long-trend is broken into 1872-1926 (price equilibrium period, perhaps extended too far), and 1926-2020 (price revolution). This very simple semi-log plot of SP500 (DJIA proxy early years) puts today at a modest Fibonnci of ~1.2, where Fib 1.0 = 83 year trend. We have only just passed the 2007 Fibonacci level, and we are far from the 1999-2000 levels, which in turn is the only period that is remotely close to 1929. My very simple model for the P/E dependence on [interest, growth] rates is similar to many others in the last year, and shows that overall P/E ratios are as one might roughly expect for the current long-term rates. "... Just go pull up a max time frame chart of the S&P or Nasdaq and it jumps off the screen - parabolic on steroids since the mid-1980s ..." I have the impression that you don't at least plot log(SP00) : it has always been a HORRIBLE mistake to ignore compounding beyond a few years. With today's financial asset inflation just under 100% per year, it is also a huge mistake to plot nominal for anything more than a month or two! However, as many can't handle change, it's often best for them to stick with what they know. I like your comment about debt levels, but that apparently suits today's voters just fine. Darryl Egbert -> William Howell I told I did use a log scale on my trend line - just saying the degree of the parabolic rise since the mid-1980s goes far beyond compounding. The trend line I used excludes any data beyond the mid-1980's, because that is bubble data. Using bubble data distorts the true trendline. That is why I laugh when people use the 1983-2000 performance metrics as a reference point. It was a bubble for crying out loud!! The long-term return on equities (excluding the last 30 year Fed induced bubble period) has 9.5% - 5.5% appreciation, and 4% in dividends. The S&P was ~100 in 1982 (before the bubble blowing began). Escalate the S&P at a 5.5% compound rate for 39 years and you get to ~800. As far as the the impact of lower rates, the reason rates are lower is because economic growth is going to be pathetic (excluding the unsustainable stimulus that is going). Did you know that if we to exclude JUST the federal debt, we have not had any positive growth in GDP over the past 12 years? Go read John Hussman's write-up on "How to Spot a Bubble". He explains why low interest rates don't have any impact on the true valuation of a company. As I mentioned, PE's are not a very good metric for determining valuations. Corporate profit margins are inflated and return to mean margins would double the current ratios. I also mentioned the use of debt financed stock buy-backs (financial engineering) to artificially inflate EPS. The fed has intentionally inflated asset prices to create the "wealth effect" Howell -> Darryl Egbert Thanks, I appreciate your response and the insight it provides. "... Using bubble data distorts the true trendline. ..." In a way I agree, and I was thinking of a multi-segment curve, rather than just the 1926 breakover of semi-log trends (that really stand out in the data). I also agree with your comment regarding P/E distortions (I used Schiller-10-year forward P/E estimates vs interest rates). But rather than tinker, I prefer to stick with bare-bones structures for the actual data over [theories, interpretations] which can be scotch-taped-in later, and which are often at their best as a context for astute market observations. I very much like your debt & interest rate comment. I have plotted some data on the US federal government debt (& Fed Reserve balance sheet) from 1929-2020 against [SP500, GDP] etc. While it is interesting, I may die of old age before finding time to delve into that. Interest rates fascinate me as a kind of "information theoretic" measure of "financial markets' temperature", as a haunting resemblance to Harold Szu's information theoretic derivation of Hebbian learning in Artificial Neural Networks. Darryl Egbert -> William Howell I love your comment about interest rates being a measure of the financial markets temperature - Japan is a great example of that. Unfortunately, I believe the central banks of the world can never let interest rate go up in my lifetime. Very few governments could. service their debt with rates that are determined by the markets. You really need to go visit the Hussman Funds website. The two most recent papers he has written are really good with respect to demonstrating where we are with respect to valuations: "How to Spot a Bubble", and "Always a Reckoning". He is a PhD mathematician and has uses quantitative analysis of historical data to come to his conclusions. Based on our comments, I believe you would really like his approach and analysis. You can access his website for free and actually sign-up to get his newsletters. Nor am I a fan of going crazy with advanced tools. Since 1988 my priority "hobby research" has been neural networks, which have often been mis-used in the same way as much of statistics : to make very bad [concepts, theories] fit the data. 08********08 #] 14Apr2021 Galaxy Digital is Coinbase-like company in Canada 13 ETF applications in USA this year Goldman Sachs Chair says would be surprised if BitCoin doesn't surpass gold Mike Novogratz, Galaxy Digital founder & CEO : SEC guy ?Genzler? - BTC & ETH aren't securities (Mike Novogratz : good thing) once sck mkt security resolved - blockchain killer of [JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs] - 2T$ is an asset class, 1-3% of world GDP 08********08 #] 13Apr2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-couple-pledges-to-donate-5-of-wealth-why-that-still-riles-critics-of-elite-philanthropy-11618319142?mod=newsviewer_click Billionaire couple pledges to donate 5% of wealth — why that still riles critics of elite philanthropy Last Updated: April 14, 2021 at 10:37 a.m. ET First Published: April 13, 2021 at 9:05 a.m. ET By Leslie Albrecht Former Enron trader and hedge fund manager John Arnold and his wife Laura say they’ll make this donation every year &&&&&& I didn't post : Howell - Same old, same old, same old tired & wonky arguments, with no signs of homework, no signs of reason, no signs that reason might prevail. So we keep voting for policies, and hoping for miracles, that worsen the very things we want to fix. It's like being on the 3,700+ year treadmill back to King Hammurabi as described by David Fischer's "The great waves" of price revolutions. The [political, economic, financial] systems make but little difference to the end stages, nor apparently does modern [science, education]. We may actually be the worst at understanding the issues of the last 3,700 years. 08********08 #] 09Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdcqj_OKUfQ Peter Schiff: Fed is trapped; will either bankrupt the government or the American people (Pt. 1/2) 535,177 views •Mar 25, 2021 Watch part 2 of the interview: https://youtu.be/Xyz3fwmuBj4​ The Federal Reserve has trapped themselves; either they raise interest rates and bankrupt the Treasury, or they don’t raise rates, let inflation spiral out of control, and bankrupt the American people, said Peter Schiff, chief market strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management. “How does [the Fed] fight that inflation without bankrupting the U.S. government? The answer is it can’t. My thinking is, if it can’t fight inflation without bankrupting the U.S. government, it won’t fight the inflation, which means it bankrupts the public because it destroys the value of the dollar,” Schiff said. 0:00​ - Next financial crisis? 13:20​ - End of the U.S. dollar? 21:00​ - Emerging markets 28:30​ - Gold price and monetary policy 35:10​ - Commodity price outlook >Schiff is good overall +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyz3fwmuBj4&t=0s Peter Schiff says this is the only cryptocurrency that makes sense (Pt. 2/2) 126,285 views •Mar 25, 2021 Peter Schiff has been a vocal opponent of Bitcoin, but in an interview with Kitco News on Wednesday, he said there is a form of cryptocurrency that he could potentially support. The chief market strategist of Euro Pacific Asset Management told Kitco News that a “legitimate” cryptocurrency is a gold-backed token that could replace fiat currencies in utility. 0:00​ - Why is Peter Schiff's son invested in Bitcoin? 4:46​ - People who have changed their minds on Bitcoin 9:00​ - Gold vs. Bitcoin 11:14​ - "The only cryptocurrencies that would make sense" 08********08 #] 09Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYfmRTyl56w Jeremy Grantham video 22Jan2021 -> Grantham is a DUMB FUCK global warmer!!! Why Grantham Says the Next Crash Will Rival 1929, 2000 3,077,306 views •Jan 22, 2021 Jan.22 -- Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist of Boston’s GMO, believes U.S. stocks have become an epic bubble and will burst in a collapse rivaling the crashes of 1929 and 2000. In this interview, he explains why, discusses the futility of Federal Reserve policy, criticizes the state of American capitalism, and shares his thoughts on gold, Bitcoin, emerging markets and climate change. He spoke exclusively to Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg’s “Front Row.” >> Awesome Overseas - not as overpriced, great opportunity eg emerging market - compared to S&P as cheap ave ever been low-growth stocks nice pricing true value is ONLY future value of dividend stream - yield, book, P/E are crappy measures Buy low-growth in emerging marketes Buy climate change stocks -> Grantham is a DUMB FUCK global warmer!!! Eddie Greenspan was very focussed on "moral hazard" >> I disagree with Grantham's historical con - he doesn't understand international [changes, competitions] >> Milton Freedman at corporate level is a sociopath +-----+ update https://www.tradingview.com/chart/olC6bR38/ : SP500 83-year semi-log trend = 10^(0.792392+2.89587*10^(-2)*(year - 1926.25)) price revolution* SP500 1872-1926 semi-log trend = 10^(0.784617+1.40925*10^(-4)*(year - 1871.08))) price equilibrium* *David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" 08********08 #] 08Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/TSLA/options https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/options?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAL3RicF8gsDW9h1guVk-aJxkVXalzAdgs0e6CHG6LYr9UwECtRKbiwhBNx8RbzEo32_k5yWH4l71tygrgpjnRRA-EdH5QGsWWqpWvNnkN5ZZcfX_3W_IWNeqQVUrfRQop6GQB0bLHXKM4iLOaNdqDVQwEQk_8QuhCaWll4LFfQkv see "$d_PROJECTS""Investments/options/TSLA/210407 Tesla puts.png" buy 30Apr2021 puts strike ~550 ask ~4.00 >> I don't think I can use my RRSP for this 08********08 #] 07Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-coming-recession-could-force-the-federal-reserve-to-swap-greenbacks-for-digital-dollars-2019-09-06 Why the coming recession could force the Federal Reserve to swap greenbacks for digital dollars Published: Sept. 21, 2019 at 2:29 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews Paper bank notes are being upgraded for a digital future around the world More important, an e-dollar could pay interest. The idea that cash should pay interest dates back to monetary economist Milton Friedman, who argued in 1969 that the most efficient monetary system would be one in which cash bears interest equal to that of short-term government bonds, to encourage greater use of the dollar. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-chinas-new-digital-yuan-threaten-king-dollars-reign-11617743063?mod=mw_more_headlines Will China’s new digital yuan threaten King Dollar’s reign? Published: April 6, 2021 at 5:04 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews China needs to make more fundamental economic reforms for the renminbi to gain reserve status China is the first major economy to issue a blockchain-enabled, digital version of its currency, the yuan, and this development has some in Washington worried that the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is under threat. “Anything that threatens the dollar is a national security issue. This threatens the dollar over the long term,” Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council told the Wall Street Journal, in a feature that described the digital yuan as “a re-imagination of money that could shake a pillar of American power.” China certainly has reason to chafe at a global economic order wherein nearly 90% of foreign-exchange transactions involve dollars and where more than 60% of all global central-bank reserves are held in dollar-denominated assets, when the U.S. government has increasingly leveraged this reality in order to sanction countries and companies it sees as acting contrary to its national interest. “Most cross-border payments either for trade or finance are already digital, so it’s hard to imagine a digital yuan having a huge impact on international payments,” he said. A more important development, he argued, was the introduction in 2015 of China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, a rival to SWIFT. That system, in combination with a digital yuan, would make it easier for countries facing U.S. sanctions, including Russia, Iran and Venezuela, to be paid in yuan for oil or other exports. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-is-behind-the-curve-on-crypto-regulations-says-sec-commissioner-peirce-11617824160?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. is ‘behind the curve’ on crypto regulations, says SEC Commissioner Peirce Last Updated: April 7, 2021 at 3:36 p.m. ET First Published: April 7, 2021 at 3:35 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews Commissioner calls on Congress to streamline regulatory framework A top financial regulator warned that the U.S. is falling behind other countries in constructing a rational regulatory framework for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries, and that this failure threatens to deprive the U.S. economy of the benefits of new innovations. “I think we’re certainly falling behind the curve,” said Hester Peirce, one of what will soon be five commissioners at the Securities and Exchange Commission, during an interview at MarketWatch’s Investing in Crypto virtual event series Wednesday. “We’ve seen other countries take a more productive approach to regulating crypto. Our approach has been to say no and tell people wait…we need to build a framework that is appropriate for this industry.” >> Hah! I listened to the webinar, but I didn't notice that comment (might have bthinking of hot dogs for lunch) She expressed optimism that Gary Gensler, who is on track to be confirmed as the next chairman of the SEC, will be able to use his experience as CFTC commissioner to enable a constructive working relationship between the two capital markets regulators. >> I remember that comment, but not who. Peirce also addressed the issue of central bank digital currency, in light of China’s recent unveiling of a digital yuan and as the Federal Reserve is currently studying the possibility of issuing a new, blockchain-enabled digital dollar. She noted that private stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies that aim to peg their value to some other asset, like the U.S. dollar DXY, 0.10%, could serve the same role as a government-backed digital currency, and have already proven their popularity. Meanwhile, she argued that the decentralized nature of some cryptocurrencies are where the “real power” of the technology resides. “Some of the weakness in our financial system comes from its concentration…you can make a more robust system” by relying more on decentralized elements, like the cryptocurrencies bitcoin BTCUSD, -3.87% or ethereum ETHUSD, -6.73%. +-----+ https://www.purposeinvest.com/funds/purpose-bitcoin-etf FIRST Canadian BitCoin ETF? what??? TSX-BTCC.B THE BITCOIN FUND CAD QBTC TSX The Bitcoin Fund operates as a closed-end investment fund. The fund will invest in long-term holdings of bitcoin, purchased from reputable bitcoin exchanges and OTC counterparties, in order to provide investors with a convenient, secure alternative to a direct investment in bitcoin. +-----+ search "what is the difference between an exchange traded fund (ETF) and a closed end fund?" https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052615/what-difference-between-exchange-traded-funds-etfs-and-closed-end-funds.asp By Melissa Horton Updated Apr 1, 2021 Investors have a number of options available to them when it comes to investing in pooled funds. While mutual funds offer the largest array of choices and are most popular among individual investors, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and closed-end funds (CEFs) have their merits as well. Both ETFs and CEFs allow an investor to purchase shares of a professionally managed fund without the need for a large initial investment, and both fund options are traded continuously through an exchange. However, ETFs and CEFs are different in terms of fees, fund transparency and pricing on the open market. Fees and Expense Ratio Differences All pooled investment options have associated expense ratios that cover the costs necessary to manage and distribute the funds. The expense ratios assessed on ETFs are often much lower than those applied to CEFs due to the nature of management of the underlying securities. ETFs are indexed portfolios; they are created to track the performance of a specific index, such as the S&P 500. An ETF manager purchases shares of the securities to mimic how they are weighted on the tracked exchange, and changes are made only when companies are added or removed from that specific exchange. This passive management approach keeps expense ratios on ETFs low. Although CEFs are structured and listed on an exchange like ETFs, fund managers in the CEF market hone in on specific industries, sectors or regions of the world, and they actively trade the underlying securities to generate returns. Because of this active management style, expense ratios in CEFs are often much higher than they are in ETFs. Expense ratios and other fees charged to investors can be found within an ETF or CEF prospectus provided by the sponsor company. Fund Transparency Differences The greatest difference between ETFs and CEFs is how transparent each fund is to the investor. ETFs are highly transparent because ETF fund managers simply purchase securities that are listed on a specific index. Stocks, bonds and commodities held in an ETF can be quickly and easily identified by reviewing the index to which the fund is linked. However, the underlying securities held within a CEF are not as easy to find because they are actively managed and more frequently traded. +-----+ April 7: How to Invest in Crypto MarketWatch webinar, sponsored by BitStamp Live Q&A | 4/7/2021 1:00 PM ET 1:00 PM | Sponsor Session*: Tracking Crypto Markets Against Traditional Markets Hunter Merghart, Head of U.S., Bitstamp *This is a sponsored session and not part of the Barron’s News Department's program. 1:15 PM | How Did We Get Here? Tom Jessop, Head of Fidelity Digital Assets, Fidelity Investments 1:30 PM | How and Why to Invest in Crypto Flori Marquez, Co-Founder and SVP, Operations, BlockFi Leeor Shimron, VP of Digital Asset Strategy, Fundstrat Global Advisors 1:55 PM | How Does Crypto Fit into a Portfolio? Raoul Pal, Co-Founder and CEO, Real Vision Group; Global Macro Investor Sheila Warren, Deputy Head of C4IR, Head of Data, Blockchain, and Digital Assets; Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum 2:20 PM | Understanding the Regulatory Landscape Hester M. Peirce, Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 2:40 PM | The Elusive Crypto ETF Jan van Eck, CEO, VanEck Som Seif, Founder and CEO, Purpose Investments Inc. 08********08 #] 05Apr2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/grayscale-wants-to-turn-giant-bitcoin-fund-into-an-etf-why-its-a-big-deal-51617658541?mod=newsviewer_click In any case, Grayscale may not be the only game in town for long. Investors have been eagerly waiting for a U.S.-listed Bitcoin ETF, which would allow individuals, financial advisors, and institutional investors easy access to the digital assets in the form of a security. While anyone can buy and own Bitcoins today, it remains hard for regular investors with brokerage accounts to manage cryptocurrencies as part of their portfolios. Canada authorized its first Bitcoin ETFs in February, and a few more in the following weeks. The first and largest one, Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC), has amassed $1.2 billion in assets under management just two months after it started trading. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/waymo-chief-steps-down-is-the-tesla-self-driving-writing-on-the-wall-51617637313?mod=newsviewer_click Lidar Stocks Are Under Pressure. Why the Market May Be Wrong. Last Updated: April 5, 2021 at 4:53 p.m. ET First Published: April 5, 2021 at 11:41 a.m. ET By Al Root Elon Musk is probably right - if machines can better human performance with his selection of cheaper sensor systems, then that's great. The problem is that [Luddites, politically-correct] will want to go far beyond human-performance levels of safety, as in all other areas that I can think of. Musk's tweets point out that driver standards may skyrocket. Perhaps to the point that we won't be allowed [free, unsupervised] travel anymore. That's a far more important issue than safety. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-has-advanced-so-much-it-wrote-this-article-11617639437?mod=MW_article_top_stories Artificial intelligence has advanced so much, it wrote this article Published: April 5, 2021 at 12:17 p.m. ET By Jurica Dujmovic Natural language processing rivals humans’ skills. OpenAi GPT-3 Language Models are Few-Shot Learners Tom B. Brown∗Benjamin Mann∗Nick Ryder∗Melanie Subbiah∗Jared Kaplan†Prafulla DhariwalArvind NeelakantanPranav ShyamGirish SastryAmanda AskellSandhini AgarwalAriel Herbert-VossGretchen KruegerTom HenighanRewon ChildAditya RameshDaniel M. ZieglerJeffrey WuClemens WinterChristopher HesseMark ChenEric SiglerMateusz LitwinScott GrayBenjamin ChessJack ClarkChristopher BernerSam McCandlishAlec RadfordIlya SutskeverDario Amodei OpenAI Abstract - Recent work has demonstrated substantial gains on many NLP tasks and benchmarks by pre-training on a large corpus of text followed by fine-tuning on a specific task. While typically task-agnostic in architecture, this method still requires task-specific fine-tuning datasets of thousands or tens of thousands of examples. By contrast, humans can generally perform a new language task from only a few examples or from simple instructions – something which current NLP systems still largely struggle to do. Here we show that scaling up language models greatly improves task-agnostic, few-shot performance, sometimes even reaching competitiveness with prior state-of-the-art fine-tuning approaches. Specifically, we train GPT-3, an autoregressive language model with 175 billion parameters, 10x more than any previous non-sparse language model, and test its performance in the few-shot setting. For all tasks, GPT-3 is applied without any gradient updates or fine-tuning, with tasks and few-shot demonstrations specified purely via text interaction with the model. GPT-3achieves strong performance on many NLP datasets, including translation, question-answering, and cloze tasks, as well as several tasks that require on-the-fly reasoning or domain adaptation, such as unscrambling words, using a novel word in a sentence, or performing 3-digit arithmetic. At the same time, we also identify some datasets where GPT-3’s few-shot learning still struggles, as well as some datasets where GPT-3 faces methodological issues related to training on large web corpora. Finally, we find that GPT-3 can generate samples of news articles which human evaluators have difficulty distinguishing from articles written by humans. We discuss broader societal impacts of this finding and of GPT-3 in general. Brown etal 22Jul2021 "Language Models are Few-Shot Learners", Johns Hopkins University, OpenAI https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.14165.pdf Brown etal 22Jul2021 Language Models are Few-Shot Learners.pdf &&&&&&&& Howell - OpenAi's Brown etal 22Jul2021 "Language Models are Few-Shot Learners" : "... [we train] a 175 billion parameter autoregressive language model, which we call GPT-3, and [measure] its in-context learning abilities ...". Hmmm, this autoregressive example seems comparable to Robert Hecht-Nielsen's "Confabulation theory" from 2002, with [language, auditory] examples in his book of 2007. GPT-3 looks juike his "Ghost Writer" concept. A very early language cognition example trained on tens of millions of sentences, and produced beautiful automatic responses. It's scale of >7.5*10^11 floating point numbers not too many orders less than the GPT-3. Confabulation is not the same as Baye's theorem, which often gets credit for confabulation's successes by those who don't understand their important differences. 08********08 #] 05Apr2021 read these ... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-infrastructure-stocks-could-rise-up-to-41-in-a-year-on-bidens-massive-spending-plan-analysts-say-11617192926?mod=newsviewer_click These infrastructure stocks could rise up to 41% in a year on Biden’s massive spending plan, analysts say Published: March 31, 2021 at 8:15 a.m. ET By Philip van Doorn The president on Wednesday will release details of his “Build Back Better” plan, which includes $2 trillion for infrastructure spending across the country. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-stocks-that-could-benefit-from-4-trillion-of-infrastructure-spending-according-to-bank-of-america-11617187558?mod=mw_more_headlines Wall Street is pricing in $4 trillion of infrastructure spending. Here are the stocks that could benefit, according to Bank of America. Published: March 31, 2021 at 3:15 p.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Critical information for the trading day https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/SkHcYS8q-BTC-1W/ 210329 AriaTrades - BTCUSD 2012-2023 to 300k$US.png +-----+ My TradingView chart : SP500 >= 2007 levels (83 year semi-log detrended) Image https://www.tradingview.com/x/Smyuzhwb/ For what it's worth, my 83 year semi-log detrend of the SP500 is currrently >= 2007 peak quarterly averaged levels. (semi-log detrended over the period 1926-2020, SP500 = 10^(0.792392+0.0289587*(year - 1926.25)) A separate plot (not shown here, with time-folding) puts 1929 & 2000 as the high years, well beyond the 1.618 Fib level. Although simple linear regression (semi-log scale) was used, the actual setting of the trend-line is always an interpretation. For 1872-1926 (DJIA as proxy for years SP500 not available, from TradingView) a horizontal line was used. Later I read David Fischer's "The Great Wave" on historical pricing, which contrasts "price revolution" (skyrocketing pricing) with "price equilibria" (slow declines or stable pricing). But the big question is whether "this time it's different", and that financial asset almost-hyper-inflation will last much longer. At least until consumer and producer inflation get juiced as well, or maybe we could just crash? 08********08 #] 30Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-one-stock-market-analyst-now-expects-the-s-p-500-to-double-by-2030-11617126976?mod=newsviewer_click The stock market could double by 2030 because COVID has ‘utterly changed’ the policy environment: analyst Last Updated: March 30, 2021 at 4:03 p.m. ET First Published: March 30, 2021 at 1:56 p.m. ET By William Watts Bernstein analyst lifts S&P 500 decade-end target to 8,000 That was the conundrum faced by Inigo Fraser-Jenkins, co-head of the portfolio strategy team at Bernstein Research, as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.32% advanced on the 4,000 level — the target he had put in place in 2019 for the S&P 500 to hit by the end of the current decade. Making the dilemma more interesting, Bernstein’s Alla Harmsworth, also co-head of the portfolio strategy team, in 2019 had called for the large-cap benchmark to end the decade at 8,000. “Of course, having got to 4,000 doesn’t necessarily mean that I have lost the argument. But the idea that the nominal level of the S&P will be the same eight-and-a-half years hence seems too horrible an outcome to countenance,” Fraser-Jenkins wrote. The more important point, he said, is that it’s likely “too horrible for politicians and other policy makers to countenance, at least if they want to persist in the notion that individuals need to carry the risk of saving for their retirement,” he wrote. “Thus, given those alternatives I find it easier to accept that I was wrong, so I am belatedly changing my view to agree with that of my colleague and taking 8,000 as our S&P target for the end of the 2020s.” &&&&&&&& Howell - For what it's worth, my 83 year semi-log detrend of the SP500 (1926-2020) gives ~6,300, with Fibonacci 1.618 level = 10,100, and Fibonacci 0.618 = 3,900. (SP500 semi-log trend SP500 = =10^(0.792392+0.0289587*(year - 1926.25)) A plot on my website (with time-folding) puts 1929 & 2000 as the high years, well beyond 1.618 Fib level. Although simple linear regression (semi-log scale) was ued, the actual setting of the line is always an interpretation. For 1872-1926 (DJIA as proxy for years SP500 not available, from TradingView) a horizontal line was used. Later I read David Fischer's "The Great Wave" on historical pricing, which contrasts "price revolution" (skyrocketing pricing) with "price equilibria" (slow declines or stable pricing). But the big question is whether "this time it's different", and that much higher fial asset inflation will last much longer. (Or we could just crash maybe?). 08********08 #] 26Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-individual-investors-poured-money-into-stocks-as-a-pandemic-crash-turned-into-a-bull-market-11616682298?mod=newsviewer_click Will individual investors stick around after pandemic’s ‘mind-blowing’ stock trading surge? Last Updated: March 27, 2021 at 9:42 a.m. ET First Published: March 25, 2021 at 10:24 a.m. ET By William Watts Recent weakness in technology stocks seen damping investor enthusiasm It’s difficult to understate the surge in individual investor flows over the past year, which have been “just mind-blowing,” said Eric Liu, co-founder and head of research at Vanda Research, a firm that provides tactical macro and strategic investment analysis to institutional investors. Individual investors now make up a much larger chunk of daily trading volumes. In fact, the share appeared to double from around 10% in 2019 to around 20% in 2020, said Shane Swanson, senior analyst at Greenwich Associates, in an interview. And then there’s stock options trading. Volume in call options, which give the holder the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying security at a set price by a certain time, is at a record high after more than doubling in 2020, said Jared Woodard, head of the research investment committee at BofA. In some ways, the surge in options activity is among the most notable developments of the past year. “The way people have used this kind of leverage…to boost buying power is a more sophisticated tactic than we’ve seen before,” Woodard told MarketWatch. Indeed, aggressive buying of out-of-the-money calls (meaning options with strike prices well above the then-current stock price) has been a favored tactic by traders organized via platforms like Reddit’s WallStreetBets. The coordinated buying forced market makers, who sold the calls, to buy the underlying stock as a hedge, contributing to a buying frenzy that saw shares of meme stocks like videogame retailer GameStop Corp. GME, -1.50% surge earlier this year. The surge in trading activity has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators. Greg Davies, head of behavioral finance at Oxford Risk, a U.K.-based behavioral-finance consulting firm, contends that a tide of “emotional” investing, in which people act on impulses to buy and sell stocks on the back of movements up and down, poses a risk to investors’ long-term well-being. The surge in individual investing activity “is an opportunity to bring people into more thoughtful investing activity than otherwise would be the case,” he said, in an interview. The flip side is that most of the activity taking place “is a long way from thoughtful or useful…there are an awful lot of people catching falling knives.” That doesn’t mean individuals should be discouraged from engaging in active trading. Instead, there are tools that can be incorporated into trading platforms that help individual investors better understand their own behavioral biases and shortcomings, he said. Observers had expected individual investor interest to cool somewhat as the pandemic was eventually tamed. “I would expect you would see some pullback” in activity, said Greenwich’s Swanson. Individual investor volume won’t evaporate, he said, noting there were 10 million new brokerage accounts opened in 2020. It’s possible that 10% to 20% of those could be lost or go “somewhat inactive,” which would put pressure on retail brokers to make up for lost revenues. Vanda’s Liu said any expectations for the rise in individual investing activity to largely evaporate were likely to prove off the mark. It was clear that investor interest was building before the pandemic. And in contrast to the stereotype of individual investors buying high and selling low, they instead proved nimble and opportunistic, moving to snap up stocks in the wake of a February-March selloff that left equities at a huge discount, he said. “The common notion is that it’s just a bunch of 25-year-olds sitting in their parents’ basements…I don’t think that’s true at all,” Liu said. /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/210327 Eric Liu, Vanda Research - Will individual investors stick around after pandemics stock trading surge, William Watts, MktWatch.png /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/210327 Eric Liu, Vanda Research - areas favored by individual investors over the course of the pandemic.png James Zimmerman, 1 day ago To be confident in this market, you have to believe two things that I don't believe can exist together, 1) permanently low rates and 2) permanently low CPI inflation. Frere Jacques -> James Zimmerman 1 day ago I agree, and neither point looks stable to me. 1) The 10yr treasury yield was at 0.5% last July, and it has risen to 1.6% since then despite heavy bond buying by the Fed for much of that period - almost a trillion added to the Fed balance sheet since then. This is reasonably solid evidence that the Fed is no longer in control of interest rates. 2) In the past, the fruits of QE were not generally handed directly to consumers, but rather they were used to push creation of debt thereby driving up prices of assets and securities bought with that debt. Now the government is monetizing debt and applying that magic money directly to consumer's checking accounts or paying them through expanded programs. Money with no goods created or services rendered to back it. More liquid money in consumer's hands with no commensurate value added to the economy means more new dollars chasing the same everyday goods. There are plenty of tricks in calculating CPI meant to keep the reporting artificially low for a number of reasons, but at the end of the day it's tough to trick the average consumer when they see their grocery bills growing. It's even tougher to control investors and lenders who will drive interest rates higher by refusing to buy bonds until their price is discounted accordingly or refusing to lend until the return on the loans can match bonds and beat real inflation. +--+ Ronald Schneider 2 days ago Retail investors are virtually wrong 100% of the time as marked by their consistent and dramatic underperformance of the S&P 500 over the long term. In fact, be it a mutual fund, an ETF, or individual securities, the retail investor tends to only capture around 50% of the long-term performance of any of them. They are one of the most reliable contrarian indicators available to institutional investors and hedge funds. wtmgeo wtmgeo -> Ronald Schneider 1 day ago Many individual investors are buying ETFs. Rather than buy individual stocks they have been rotating from techs, to small caps, and then to cyclicals. All of these trends have had long timelines and many have made a killing. Amos Library -> wtmgeo wtmgeo 1 day ago run that by me again...how is that "investing"? Ronald Schneider -> wtmgeo wtmgeo 1 day ago Good point. But keep in mind that for every buy there is a sell. The retail investor is like a leaf in the wind -- they can literally be on both sides of those transactions at the same time. Most did not have the patience to live through the dips, and most did not regain courage until we neared a top. It is why they only get 50% of upside movements. Jeanne Palomin -> Ronald Schneider 1 day ago If you buy and hold for the long term, you only have to be right, once. (Buying a stock from a company that isn't going out of business, buying a well managed nicely diversified ETF...) If you buy and sell, you have get the timing right, twice. Knowing when to buy at a low point AND knowing when to sell, at either a high point or when the stock (the company) has become such a ruin that all there is left is loss and company bankruptcy. It's easy enough to be right once. It's hard as the dickens to be right, TWICE every time. Yes. Most of us who make money, make it off the panic-sellers and fomo buyers - the short term, emotion-based, and yes usually retail traders. You can tell them all day not to panic sell, not to fomo (fear of missing out) buy. But it takes a lot of practice, a lot of getting burnt by your emotional trading, and a lot of discipline, to just hold, or to do some gentle, strategic contrarian investing, and so, not with the whole investment, but in tranches. It trims your profits down a bit but it trims losses significantly. Howell - Our society is suffereing from a massive lack of [knowledge, reality] regarding [economocs, finances, markets, etc]. At this stage, our educational systems are probobaly making this worse, not better. If the retail investors get hurt, but come out with a far better understanding of the real world, a far more humble opinion of their own grip on truth, and a close-to-non-existent-faith in much of the yapper classes, perhaps we will all benefit on a [serious, long-term] way? Somehow beyond the maddenning crowd? 08********08 #] 26Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y5r7cxD1-8 Can the government confiscate your gold? E.B. Tucker on 'the war against your wealth' 111,079 views •Mar 21, 2021 Ray Dalio, co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, recently wrote that policy makers short on money will likely raise taxes and prevent capital flows into “other assets” like gold and Bitcoin. E.B. Tucker, director of Metalla Royalty and author of “Why Gold, Why Now” said that the government already has the tools to do this. “Everyone gets this idea that the [government] will raid your house and look for your gold. It’s not necessary. All you have to do is limit the ability to transact gold in the legal market, and then you assess an excise tax,” Tucker said. 0:00​ - Gold confiscation 11:49​ - Capital flows 16:35​ - Wealth taxes 21:10​ - Beating inflation Kitco News is the world’s #1 source of metals market information. Our videos feature interviews with prominent industry figures to bring you market-affecting insights, with the goal of helping people make informed investment decisions. 08********08 #] 25Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/opolicy/operating_policy_210127 Home > Markets & Policy Implementation > Operating Policy Statement Regarding Repurchase Operations January 27, 2021 In light of the sustained smooth functioning of short-term U.S. dollar funding markets and consistent with the most recent FOMC directive, the Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will no longer offer regularly-scheduled one-month term repo operations following the current monthly scheduling period. The one-month term repo operations scheduled for February 2 and 9 will be the last regularly-scheduled term repo operations. The Desk will continue to conduct large-scale, daily overnight repo operations each afternoon. In addition, the Desk remains ready to adjust repo operations as appropriate to support effective policy implementation and the smooth functioning of short-term U.S. dollar funding markets. In line with these changes, the Desk will discontinue the monthly release of repo operation schedules. Detailed information on repo operation parameters will continue to be provided on the Repurchase Agreement Operational Details page and in Frequently Asked Questions. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/powell-and-yellens-game-plan-is-evocative-of-the-world-war-ii-playbook-heres-what-happened-then-11616582706?mod=mw_more_headlines Powell and Yellen’s game plan is evocative of the World War II playbook. Here’s what happened then. Published: March 24, 2021 at 3:15 p.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Critical information for the trading day 210325 Fidelity - Secular bull market aver 1949-168, 1982-2000, 2009-current, Steve Goldstein MktWatch.png 08********08 #] 23Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-jury-is-out-on-whether-ark-innovations-red-hot-returns-are-due-to-cathie-woods-skill-or-luck-11616460092?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Why ARK Innovation’s red-hot returns aren’t as impressive as they seem Last Updated: March 23, 2021 at 11:33 a.m. ET First Published: March 23, 2021 at 7:20 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert 19 Statistical scrutiny brings this high-flying ETF down to earth The Sharpe Ratio is not the only method that statisticians employ for measuring adviser performance on a level playing field, but other widely used approaches reach the same conclusion. Perhaps the best known, at least in academic circles, is the Fama-French factor model, named for University of Chicago finance professor Eugene Fama (the 2013 Nobel laureate in economics) and Dartmouth College professor Ken French. Their model involves an econometric test to see if a mutual fund’s return is significantly better than a combination of index funds benchmarked to factors such as small-cap, growth, and momentum. Luck versus skill Note carefully that these statistical tests do not prove that ARK Innovation’s performance is due solely to luck. Instead, those tests tell us that we cannot conclude that its performance was not due to luck. In this case, the double negative is not the same as the positive; this is a subtle, but important, difference. Advertisement This goes to show just how difficult it is to prove that an investment manager has genuine market-beating ability. If beating an index fund by more than 10 percentage points annualized over a 6-plus-year period is not enough, then what is? (An email to ARK Investment Management requesting comment was not immediately answered.) The answer: Satisfying traditional standards of statistical significance requires beating the market by a larger amount over a much longer period. An example of a fund that does jump over this much-higher hurdle is Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund, a hedge fund that has produced an incredible 39% annualized return over the 33 calendar years through 2020, versus “just” 11% annualized for an index fund. Bradford Cornell, an emeritus finance professor at UCLA, told me in an interview that it is impossible to attribute that fund’s outperformance to mere luck. (Unfortunately, this fund is only available to current and former partners at Renaissance Technologies.) /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/210323 Mark Hulbert - Cathy Wood ARKK fund vs leveraged Nasdaq QQQ, same performance.png 08********08 #] 22Mar2021 STOP wasting time on market news! Ahit or get off the pot - buy/sell once a week or quit! +-----+ https://zhangtemplar.github.io/pe/ Qiang Zhang - Price Earning Ratio, Option Pricing Model &&&&&&&& I was looking for references for a neural network peer review, and stumbled on your website. I then noticed your Black-Scholes and P/E web-pages. Nice! This was touched on over the last year by Joe Kalish in a recent [Barrons, MarketWatch] article : https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-far-the-nasdaq-could-fall-if-bond-yields-reach-2-11615548461?mod=newsviewer_click and by my own posting inspired by Ben Reynolds : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/SP500/PE%20Schiller%20forward%20vs%2010yr%20Tbills/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.html I imagine that P/E ratios versus long rates was done >>100 years ago, so why aren't these models mentioned more? Do we have to learn everything all over again every major market cycle? This I expect from the humanities, and the rolling disaster of [psychology, sociology], but I expected more from finance? Anyways, I hope that your computational Intelligence work is going well. www.BillHowell.ca +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-more-evidence-that-the-next-decade-for-stocks-wont-be-as-good-as-the-last-11616193108?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Here’s more evidence that the next decade for stocks won’t be as good as the last Last Updated: March 22, 2021 at 2:42 p.m. ET First Published: March 22, 2021 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Expect gains from equities to be thin but still beat inflation and bonds The data points in the chart were calculated by Elroy Dimson, a professor at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School and chairman of its Centre for Endowment Management. Dimson also is co-author of Credit Suisse’s Global Investment Returns Yearbook, which is based on the complete return histories for the stock and bond markets in 23 different countries dating back to 1900. /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/210322 Elroy Dimson, Credit Suisse - annualized 5y real [equity,bond] returns vs real interest rate at beginning of period.jpeg &&&&&&&& Steve Goldstein's MarketWatch article "Here’s how far the Nasdaq could fall if bond yields reach 2%" of #] 12Mar2021 showed a different perspective of the same issue on the basis of a simple theoretical model by Joe Kalish, chief global macro strategist at Ned Davis Research. There have been many such models over the last year, probably jillions over the last 100+ years, but still the concept doesn't seem to stick. For sure, reality makes a mess of beautiful theories. On the other had I sometimes suspect that the concept just doesn't sink in,creeps up unseen, and may surprise us every time? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-team-preparing-to-recommend-up-to-3-trillion-in-new-spending-for-economy-report-2021-03-22?mod=newsviewer_click Biden team preparing to recommend up to $3 trillion in new spending for economy: report Published: March 22, 2021 at 2:11 p.m. ET By Robert Schroeder President Joe Biden's economic team is preparing to recommend spending as much as $3 trillion on a set of efforts to boost the economy, reduce carbon emissions and narrow economic inequality, the New York Times reported Monday. The effort would begin with a giant infrastructure plan that may be financed partly through tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, the Times said. Biden's advisers are expected to present a proposal to him this week that recommends carving his economic agenda into separate legislative pieces, according to the report. The $3 trillion figure doesn't include the cost of extending new temporary tax cuts to fight poverty. The report said it's unclear whether Biden will back splitting his agenda into pieces, or what legislative strategy he and Democrats will pursue. +-----+ https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-play-the-new-space-race-51616195373?mod=djm_brns_eneml_wklycvr The Next Space Race—and How to Play It By Al Root Updated March 22, 2021 / Original March 19, 2021 As the cost of sending rockets into orbit has fallen, the number of companies offering satellite-based services has expanded. Company SPAC Tkr Cap Rev P/Rev Description AST & Science NPA ASTS 2.3 2.6 0.9 Provider of sattelite cellphone service Astra HOL ASTR 3.3 1.5 2.2 Launches smaller, low cost rockets into orbit BlackSky Holdings SFTW BKSY 1.5 0.5 2.8 Satellite maker with plans to shakeup geospatial imaging market Momentus SRAC MNTS 2.1 2.0 1.1 Provider of space logistics, from moving satellites to fixing them Rocket Lab USA VACQ RKLB 5.7 0.7 7.6 Like SpaceX, it makes its own satellites and rockets Spire Global NSH SPIR 1.7 0.9 1.8 Satellite maker calls itself a space software company Tkr = stock market symbol Cap = Once Merged Market Value (bil) Rev = 2025E Revenue (bil) (not earnings!) P/Rev = 2025E Revenue (bil) Price / 2025E Sales E=Estimate. Source: company reports /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/210322 FactSet - Shares of SPACs planning to merge with space firms have had a turbulent start to 2021, Al Root, MktWatch.png The big opportunity, however, could be in businesses that can exploit the new space model. Rossettini’s D-Orbit will ferry satellites to different locations and clean up space junk. That’s one example of a second-order impact. Eventually, satellite-services companies might be doing in-space repair and refurbishment. All told, those services could be worth $400 billion, more than four times that of building satellites and launching rockets. Spire Global Spire, the satellite company, initially focused on weather and atmospheric monitoring. Spire says it generated about $30 million in sales in 2020 and projects that sales will grow to $900 million by 2025. By then, Spire expects about $350 million in free cash flow. The company, which plans to go public by merging with NavSight Holdings (NSH), is valued at $1.7 billion, based on 164 million shares after its merger closes, or about 1.8 times projected 2025 sales. BlackSky Holdings BlackSky, also a satellite company focusing on Earth imaging, is valued at $1.6 billion, and is merging with Osprey Technology Acquisition (SFTW). It has $20 million in 2020 sales and trades at 2.8 times projected 2025 sales. AST & Science AST is merging with New Providence Acquisition (NPA) in a deal that values it at $2.2 billion. AST projects sales of $2.6 billion in 2025 by becoming part of the telecom infrastructure used to provide mobile data. AST trades for less than one time projected 2025 sales. Astra Astra, a new launch-services provider, has no sales. It has had some successful launches, but its goals are aggressive: sales of $1.5 billion by 2025, by launching close to a rocket a day. The company is valued at $3.3 billion, based on the 261 million shares outstanding after it completes its merger with Holicity (HOL), and trades at 2.2 times projected 2025 sales. Momentus Momentus, which calls itself a deep-space logistics company, projects sales of $2 billion by 2025 through a mix of transportation, launch, and refurbishment services. The company, which is merging with Stable Road Acquisition (SRAC), is valued at about $2 billion, and trades at one time projected 2025 sales. Rocket Lab USA Of all these start-ups, we prefer Rocket Lab, which has the most conservative projections and, with $35 million in 2020 sales, the most revenue. Rocket Lab provides launch services and makes its own satellites, giving it multiple ways to win. “When you look at all the satellites launched over the next decade or so, there’s a real need for a…constellation building machine,” says CEO Peter Beck. Satellite-related sales are projected to be about $350 million by 2025, with launch revenue of $400 million. That’s more than tenfold growth compared with 2020 launch sales, but would amount to only 5% of projected dollars spent on launch services. Its current valuation of $5.5 billion, based on its merger with Vector Acquisition (VACQ), is a fraction of the $74 billion that SpaceX, its larger rival, is worth. It’s not cheap, but its business breadth and successes make the path to viability far more clear. Andrew H. 1 day ago Disappointed with the lack of faith the author has in Iridium. They have a current working constellation, sell services for military and civilian use, and nothing is stopping an already successful company (after clear 1990's failures) from building an upgraded constellation and capabilities in the future. It is a company that once failed....but got back up again. For me, that says a lot. I like the new opportunities...but, am also long IRDM, the first mover (with lessons from previous failure) in this space. I also hate SPACs, as they have markedly inflated valuations - valuations that will make a lot of finance types VERY rich at the expense of the little guys. IRDM is not a SPAC. P.S. - Most recreational offshore fisherman currently use Iridium via Garmin In-Reach; it's a product with growing civilian use. Chuck G. -> Andrew H. 13 hours ago Iridium would be a customer of some these launch cos. and a competitor to the comm service ones. Their old-school birds are in place, revenue is consistent and their stock has done well, but they don't have the capital to make any major leaps at the moment. I suppose they could be an acquisition target for someone wanting an instant footprint in comm satellites. Charlene King -> Andrew H. 1 day ago Iridium was a 2008 SPAC Andrew H. -> Charlene King 17 hours ago Was unaware - thx Tom Furlong 2 days ago Interesting article and space is the next frontier. LMT is best of breed and for me the way to go. Dan Laramie 1 day ago The equipment needed for these projects is so huge and costly that companies like Lockheed and Boeing are light-years ahead of the competition. There are lessons they've learned in the past century or so, that have taught them secrets to avoid going bankrupt, which is easy to do in that field. Those are the only two stocks I would touch with a 100 foot pole if I was exuberant enough to invest in another space race. Jon Morgan 1 day ago Rocket Lab is being traded through S.P.A.C. symbol VACQ. Merger to be completed in second quarter 2021. Another launch is scheduled for March 2021. Website: rocketlabusa.com Tom T 20 hours ago I took a close look at Iridium (IRDM) last year (at favorable pricing) and saw a lot to like. I am still adding to that position for the long term. They already have a constellation, growing revenues and increasing margins and a far lower capex (better cash flow) than anything mentioned here. I also like AST Spacemobile and Momentus too. If Spacemobile’s array actually works at scale, adding telco customers reasonably fast is almost guaranteed. Momentus is already generating revenue and they have the only transfer vehicle service. David L Speyer 2 days ago MAXR capabilities so much more than black sky. This article completely discounts this. Maxr has the #1 capabilities as it relates to sat imagery. Legion sat constellation will completely be a game changer. Stock is at 8x ebitda post legion - that’s the real story that no one is talking about. +--+ >> Howell actions? https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NASDAQ-IRDM/ Feb wek or more of insider selling at double-recent-price-peak 08********08 #] 18Mar2021 +-----+ emto Steve - risky day, interest rate effect on pharmas? 210318 cross-indexes [FX-SPX500,CBOE-TNX,CNYU,BTSD,BEAM] 5 day.png 210318 pharma [BEAM,CRSP,EDIT,NTLA,BLUE,TSX-ONC] 3 month.png 08********08 #] 16Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-may-propose-1-trillion-in-new-taxes-says-a-former-aide-and-heres-how-congress-will-react-11615978938?mod=newsviewer_click Biden may propose $1 trillion in new taxes, says a former aide — and here’s how Congress will react Published: March 17, 2021 at 7:02 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Critical information for the trading day The White House will propose $1 trillion worth of new taxes, according to Sarah Bianchi, head of U.S. public policy and political strategy at Evercore ISI and the former director of economic and domestic policy for then Vice President Joe Biden. Officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have started suggesting what will be in the White House plan. Bianchi says hiking the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, establishing a global minimum tax and raising what’s called the global intangible low-taxed income rate to 21% will be in his plan. The plan will probably include nearly doubling capital-gains taxes on those with income over $1 million, and likely will include taxing unrealized gains at death, ending carried interest and raising the top individual income-tax rate. Other possibilities include restoring the 2009 estate tax policies, limiting individual deductions, phasing out some business income deductions and establishing a financial transactions tax. Bianchi says Congress isn’t likely to swallow the whole proposal — she suggests it will only agree to $500 billion of new taxes. For instance, Congress may agree to increase the corporate tax rate, but only to 25%. She says Congress will agree to end carried interest, and is likely to approve increasing the top individual rate of taxes, but won’t be as eager to increase capital-gains taxes. The global minimum tax that Yellen has floated also is considered unlikely to pass. Get ready for the dot plot There are four things to watch in the Federal Reserve decision, due at 2 p.m., according to Alan Ruskin, chief international strategist at Deutsche Bank. The market’s initial knee-jerk reaction is likely to center on the so-called dot plot — “the most captivating part of their formal presentation and likely to create the most volatility,” says Ruskin. In December, a large majority didn’t expect an increase in rates until 2024. “Surely, the fiscal initiatives have brought forward tightening, if they have brought forward an accelerated recovery by at least a year. There is an argument for a flatter distribution and much fatter tails attached to the Fed dot distribution,” he says. Also of importance will be the summary of economic projections, and what the recently passed stimulus will due to the central bank’s estimates of gross domestic product, unemployment and inflation in the years ahead; Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments on whether the central bank has successfully built a bridge across the COVID economic divide; and the more technical issue of whether banks will get another delay in meeting supplementary leverage ratio rules. 210317 Kastle Systems, Building occupancy in major US cities Mar2020-Mar2021.png &&&&&&&& Awesome chart by Kastle Systems! I'm in suspense and can't wait to see what the dot plot is, and what it does. Sounds expensive, or maybe it's so small you can't see that it's there? 08********08 #] 16Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/dr-michael-burry-new-doomsday-prediction-the-dying-of-money-summarized.597164/ Dr. Michael Burry New Doomsday Prediction | “The Dying Of Money” Summarized Thread starter China Connection Start date Saturday at 6:19 PM https://recision.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/jens-parsson-dying-of-money-24.pdf The book he posted. Read it, it's bloody enlightening. https://www.reddit.com/r/DueDiligenceArchive/comments/lrenb8/michael_burrys_market_crash_thesis_summarized/ https://recision.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/jens-parsson-dying-of-money-24.pdf The book he posted. Read it, it's bloody enlightening. Michael Burry Mar2021 "The dying of money" 2103dd Michael Burry - Long commodities, short long terms bonds as inflation rises.png Jens Parssons 03Mar2009 "Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations" https://recision.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/jens-parsson-dying-of-money-24.pdf Jens Parssons 03Mar2009 Dying of Money, Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations.pdf review of Michael Burry, The dying of money.pdf +-----+ https://www.reddit.com/r/DueDiligenceArchive/comments/lfr2p7/mindmed_forecastfundamental_case_bullish_mmedf/ blogger speaks of MMEDF psychadelics - PTSD etc +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-health-care-sector-not-gold-is-the-best-inflation-hedge-11615857353?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Why the health-care sector — not gold — is the best inflation hedge Last Updated: March 16, 2021 at 9:24 a.m. ET First Published: March 16, 2021 at 7:18 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert Health care is relatively immune from inflationary pressures &&&&&&&& Howell - Useful analysis by Mark Hulbert and chart by Claude Erb. Mining's always been a bit scary, the very few world class deposits can lead to stable operations, whereas many become market-price swing operations. But when the price is high, its like the Yukon gold rush days. Health care almost seems like a cancer itself, eating up progressively more of the economic activity. Highly unionized & protected jobs, obscene salaries & benefits, politically correct selling points - nowhere to go but up, at least until the baby boomer generation all croak out. 08********08 #] 13Mar2021 +-----+ emto Steve 210315 pharma [BEAM,CRSP,EDIT,NTLA,BLUE,TSX-ONC] 5 day.png 210315 cross-indexes [SPX500,TNX 10yT-bill,BTCUSD,BZX-BEAM,CNYU-USD-to-CNY,USOIL] 3 month.png 210315 interest rates long term, 5 years.png 08********08 #] 13Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/despite-their-differing-approaches-california-and-florida-have-experienced-almost-identical-outcomes-in-covid-19-case-rates-01615659826?mod=newsviewer_click Despite their differing approaches, California and Florida have experienced almost identical outcomes in COVID-19 case rates Published: March 13, 2021 at 1:23 p.m. ET David A. Lieb Virus tolls similar despite governors’ contrasting actions Perhaps we need to go far beyond the politically-correct science of [university, public] health experts. It seems that Amesh Adalja does not even consider the possibility that public health measures didn't just backfire, but may have been badly based to start with, or that other non-public health [factors, processes] may have been just as, or far more, important? Also, although the [suicide, depression, overdose, etc] health impacts of the covid-19 policies are starting come out, the reports are usually far short of being open-context. It strange to see that [social, medical] communities that have screamed for decades for public [funding, policies] to [avoid, reduce] economic impacts on individuals, are so silent about their own "economic impacts" for covid-19. Perhaps that doesn't matter much any more (ignoring debt buildups) - maybe people just don't matter as much now that both [physical, mental] work in the economy is done by machines? How do the "corrected covid deaths" (i.e. try to take out mis-allocations) compare to "covid policy-induced deaths"? Can believe anymore the self-serving studies from the [civil-service, health care, university] [self-perpetuating, mega-profit] communities? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-looks-to-ease-chinas-monopoly-on-rare-earths-11615568838?mod=mw_more_headlines U.S. looks to ease China’s monopoly on rare earths Published: March 12, 2021 at 12:07 p.m. ET By Myra P. Saefong ‘Grab a bucket and get busy,’ expert tells rare-earth investors Rare earths refer to a group of 17 elements that have a variety of uses, including lanthanum, used in oil refining, praseodymium for aircraft engines, and neodymium, used to create permanent magnets that have many applications. Among the most highly prized are the “magnet feed” rare earths: neodymium and praseodymium, says natural-resource expert Sean Brodrick, an editor at Weiss Ratings. “They are critical for high performance magnets used in cellphones, electric vehicles and wind turbines,” he says. Demand for these powerful magnets are poised to see sharp growth in the next decade. Rare-earth magnet applications are forecast to account for roughly 40% of total rare earth demand by 2030, compared with an estimated 29% in 2020, according to commodity analysis provider Roskill. >> search "neodymium praseodymium and Canadian mining" Saskatchewan NexGen Energy >> political project, nothing on international yap stream +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-investment-newsletters-favorite-value-stocks-have-widely-outpaced-growth-stocks-11615557570?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: These investment newsletters’ favorite value stocks have widely outpaced growth stocks Last Updated: March 13, 2021 at 9:15 a.m. ET First Published: March 12, 2021 at 8:59 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert The “value” proposition still holds: Since November, the return on a basket of value stocks totals 53% compared with only 11% for the S&P 500. S&P 500’s P/E ratio is 40.1 - I assume that this is based on current year rather than Schiller past 10 years? Symb div% name XRX 3.77 Xerox BK. 2.70 Bank New York Mellon ONB 2.75 Old Natl Bancorp Ind FITB 2.84 Fifth third Bamcorp KEY 3.50 Keycorp New CMA 3.85 Comerica TFC 3.06 Truist Finl Corp ... PFE 4.38 Pfizer 4.38% dividend!?!!?! &&&&&&&&&&& Mark Hulbert - It's great to see this value-side update based on a solid assesment of top-performing funds, especially after news this last week of the shut down of a high-profile value fund (ran out of gas just as their target focus was pickg up?) 08********08 #] 12Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-far-the-nasdaq-could-fall-if-bond-yields-reach-2-11615548461?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s how far the Nasdaq could fall if bond yields reach 2% Last Updated: March 12, 2021 at 8:48 a.m. ET First Published: March 12, 2021 at 6:27 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein So analysts are now modelling just how far techs could fall if bond yields keep rising. Joe Kalish, chief global macro strategist at Ned Davis Research, says the Nasdaq 100 could fall 20% from its peak if the 10-year Treasury reaches 2%. (The index is already down 6% from its peak.) 210312 Joe Kalish - NDX could fall by 20pct if bond yields rise 50bp.png 210312 Joe Kalish - Theoretical imct of instantaneous rise in bond yield.png &&&&&&&& Howell - It's great to see Joe Kalish's graph of the change in P/E ratio versus bond yield rise. This kind of estimate comes up only rarely in articles about the P/E ratios being too high or low (risk). Other examples over the last year or two include Ben Reynold's plot of market data 22Jul2016, Qiang Zhang's 30Jan2021 results, and my own simple model on my website 13Apr2020. I used [revenue growth, T-bond rates, forward P/E], but did not take into consideration taxes, and assumed real rates that included inflation effect. While far more accurate results must be out there, I think that many readers don't even consider this effect that professionals can live and die by. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/wall-streets-dr-doom-sees-danger-in-the-markets-and-economy-51615566219?mod=newsviewer_click Wall Street’s ‘Dr. Doom’ Sees Danger in the Markets and Economy Published: March 12, 2021 at 11:23 a.m. ET By Randall W. Forsyth So, what’s the problem? As always, Kaufman peers around the corner for the implications. “With the federal government and the Fed firmly joined at the hip, the transformation of capitalism into statism is gaining momentum, perhaps irreversibly. Not only is this a great departure from the vision of America’s founders, I suspect it is also not the kind of economic system most Americans living today want to leave for future generations,” his book concludes. Agree with him or not, Kaufman’s challenges to the bullish consensus have always been worth serious thought. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice article. Kaufman's statement that "transformation of capitalism into statism is gaining momentum, perhaps irreversibly" is perhaps far behind the distribution of current voter beliefs. Beliefs driven perhaps by our education systems and mass media, but I suspect above all by today's context of being similar to other historical "price revolutions" going back thousands of years. In essence, the same [moods, behaviours], independent of the [financial, economic, political, religious] systems. (eg. Ibn Khaldun, Kondriatieff, Vilredo Pareto, Benoit Mandelbrot, David Fischer) Capitalism is a set of concepts to [finance, prioritize, optimize] competitive [individual, business, state] investments, and is NOT confined to any political [concept, system], nor is capitalism necessarily limited by the latter. I suspect that capitalism itself will survive until other much more advanced concepts come along. But politics can turn any good idea into a turnip, and while foreign socialists are past experts at deep sub-optimal operations, our socialists still have to break and learn. I couldn't paste these : Witness the change-overs in China, Russia, and much of the world, which shows that capitalism can also work well with cronyism (as it did during monarchist periods). There is almost no threat from retarded concepts such as socialism. If anything, it is individual freedom and democracy (in the ways that we like to see them) that are incompatible with other political systems. These may be our biggest changes from rising socialism - the progressive decline of freedom of speech, and the evaporating rights to choose a [lifestyle, career, religion]. I've long thought that socialists won the basic game of "programming the voters' beliefs" in our society 30-40 years ago (about the time of Kaufmann's 1982 story), and that it's just been a generational progression since. (how on Earth did it take so long for them to recognize the simple-minded lameness . This is "alien" to the [awareness, education, job responsibilities, talent] of the great majority of the population. Selling to them the politically-correct nice guy story of socialism is easy, and the perpetual misallocation of blame when things go wrong perversely cements their convictions. +-----+ TNX CBOE 10y T-bill yield 08********08 #] 11Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/todays-big-number-reveals-where-all-the-money-went-last-year-11615504379?mod=newsviewer_click Today’s Big Number reveals where all the money went last year Last Updated: March 11, 2021 at 6:13 p.m. ET First Published: March 11, 2021 at 6:12 p.m. ET By Rex Nutting The Big Number: U.S. households parked a record $2.67 trillion in the bank and in money-market funds during 2020, according to the financial accounts of the U.S., released on Thursday by the Federal Reserve. What happened: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the economy hard, but the pain wasn’t felt by everyone. While tens of millions of people lost their jobs or had their incomes severely reduced, many others were able to save a lot of money, in part because they weren’t able to travel, go out on the town, or do a lot of other things they enjoy. The value of U.S. households’ holdings in money-market funds and in personal checking and savings accounts rose by $2.67 trillion to $16.5 trillion during 2020, even though yields are close to zero. >> The wealthy especially arn't dumping spare cash into oer-valued markets!!! Warning to me?!?!?! +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/inflation-rebound-means-40-year-bull-market-in-bonds-is-over-says-bofa-11615484717?mod=newsviewer_click Inflation rebound means ’40-year bull market in bonds is over,’ says Bofa Published: March 11, 2021 at 12:45 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh “2020 marked the secular low point for inflation and interest rates,” warned Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist for Bofa Global Research, in a Thursday note. “The 40-year bull market in bonds is over.” ..Hartnett anticipated the coming decade could show similarities to the late 60s and early 70s when inflation and interest rates started to lift off as investors questioned the combination of easy fiscal and monetary policy. So what does this all mean? First of all, investors will have to get used to a world of lower investment returns, while dealing with an upturn in volatility, said Hartnett. And the ravages of inflation could turn negative returns in fixed-income into the norm. Instead, investors should look to take shelter in assets that tend to thrive during period of price pressures such as commodities. &&&&&&&& Howell - It's interesting to see Michael Hartnett's comment that “40-year bull market in bonds is over.”. The 40-year half-cycle ~1980-2020 has been talked about for at least a decade, following the 40-year bear half-cycle ~1940-1980. Commodities he says, and they sure look alive now... 08********08 #] 10Mar2021 https://zhangtemplar.github.io/pe/ Qiang Zhang - Experienced Computer Vision and Machine Learning Engineer Blog Deep Learning System Design Investment About Price Earning Ratio [ finance ] Most people know price earning ratio (P/E ratio or PE) and use it a way of value whether the stock is over-valued or not. PE=company market capearning=price per shareearning per share 08********08 #] 09Mar2021 +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-clear-signal-says-the-big-tech-unwind-isnt-done-yet-according-to-strategist-11615292077?mod=mw_more_headlines This clear signal says the big tech unwind isn’t done yet, according to strategist Published: March 9, 2021 at 3:15 p.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day Lori Calvasina, RBC Capital’s head of U.S. equity strategy, ... Calvasina also suggested investors keep an eye on valuations for the tech + internet + media + telecom (TIMT) space, based on where those levels were in the bubble of 2000. ... “Our work here also suggests that big tech underperformance hasn’t run its course,” she said, even with sharp falls seen early this year, the weighted median forward price/earnings measure of TIMT sits at 26.2 times, well above a long-term average of 18.3 times. It is also elevated on a forward price/earnings relative to the S&P 500. &&&&&&&& Howell - Lori Calvasina states that tech + internet + media + telecom (TIMT) forward price/earnings sits at 26.2 times, well above a long-term average of 18.3 times. I don't get it, why speak of an average P/E ratio alone, instead of providing a much better context in terms of [historical, forward] [inflation, interest] rates (say 10 year horizon similar to Schiller)? Analysts should at least do that!! I did a [cheap, simple] model on my website out of frustration for the lack of anything visible from the [academic, industry] professionals, although I'm sure they have something somewhere. 08********08 #] 09Mar2021 +-----+ 09Mar2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-biden-administration-is-light-on-wall-street-vets-what-that-means-for-markets-51614949201?mod=mw_more_headlines Opinion: Biden Is Shutting Out Wall Street. Investors May Be in for a Surprise. Published: March 5, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. ET By Avi Tiomkin This means two things: Biden and his fellow Democrats are deadly serious about tackling America’s social and economic inequalities, or, in their preferred parlance, inequities. And, their priorities and policies are likely to disadvantage equity investors. ... What does this mean for investors? The famous 1987 and 2001 Alan Greenspan puts, and the 2008 Ben Bernanke put—Fed policies that effectively set a floor under stock prices—have ceased to exist. Powell most likely will be replaced by a progressive Democrat when his term ends next year. But even if he remains Fed chair, the Fed put is now kaput. &&&&&&&& Howell - no posting - 99 already posted +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/forget-nio-and-xpeng-this-company-and-tesla-will-be-the-top-2-electric-vehicle-plays-by-2025-says-ubs-11615306959?mod=newsviewer_click Forget Nio and XPeng. This company and Tesla will be the top two electric-vehicle plays by 2025, says UBS. Published: March 9, 2021 at 4:00 p.m. ET By Jack Denton Tesla leads in a few critical technical areas, including software and ‘ruthless engineering’ &&&&&&&& Howell - According to cnevpost 09Feb2021, Hongguang Mini EV (General Motors involved) held the top spot (it was #1 in latter half 2020 as well), the second-ranked Tesla Model 3 sold only about half as many units. So as of January, VW #1 in Europe, GM in China, and Tesla in USA (the smallest of the 3 major EV areas). Cute results for the rich-guy markets, with an "EV toy" often as the family's third car. As for Tesla's driveless tech : also cute, but they had [insane, incompetent] target dates a few years ago (i.e. they didn't understand their own technology, but they did understand how to hype it), and frankly, who cares except tech-head nerds (OK, I'm kind of one, but without that kind of money). 21Feb2021 evpost : Great Wall Motor's Ora R1 electric car of China is billed as the world's cheapest electric car, starting at $8,680, will soon be sold in India as well. Unless the whole world becomes rich guys within 5 years, it seems to me none of the touted EVs will be the mass of the global market. But then again, the [US, EU] financial markets are less and less about the mass of the world's economies. https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/china-electric-vehicles-2021?ctid=1954-14c27ec6c15566adddc0c54a23c7227d 210221 canalys - Chinas EV sales to grow by more than 50 pct in 2021 after modest 2020.pdf The Chinese government has been supportive of the transition to EVs, but several changes to EV-related policies and consumer subsidies in recent years disrupted the market and car makers struggled to build sales momentum. “The Chinese EV market in 2020 was all about two vehicles: the made-in-China Tesla Model 3, the market leader in the first half of 2020, and the Hongguang Mini EV from the SGMW joint venture (SAIC, General Motors and Wuling), the market leader in the second half of 2020, which only launched mid-year,” said Chris Jones, Chief Analyst for automotive at Canalys, “If it had not been for the huge success of these two very different EVs, the Chinese EV market would have declined in 2020. Between them, the two models represented one in five of all EVs sold in China.” https://cnevpost.com/2021/02/09/these-are-the-top-selling-new-energy-models-in-china-in-january/ These are the top-selling new energy models in China in January Arlene HuangFebruary 9, 2021 A total of 155,000 new energy passenger cars were sold in China in January, up 274.5% year-on-year and down 25.3% from December, according to data released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). With 25,778 units, Hongguang Mini EV held the top spot, selling far more cars than any other brands. The second-ranked Tesla Model 3 sold only about half as many units as Hongguang Mini EV did, with 13,843 units sold in January. BYD Han EV is in third place, with 9,298 sales in January. Chery eQ, GAC Aion S, Ola R1, Li ONE, Coleville CLEVER, Rongwei eRX5, XPeng P7 among the top ten. 08********08 #] 07Mar2021 ??? Karl Marx saw potential for revolution in the increasingly deep recessions in capitalism caused by panic austerity among people without a social safety net, by panic spending cuts among businesses suddenly deprived of consumer sales and by banking system failures. The way out of deep recessions is contracylical government spending,especially on infrastructure,as explained by Keynesian theory. Keynes in a meeting tried to dissuade President Roosvelt from increasing taxes on high incomes because of the negative impact on aggregate demand, the main driver of the economy. With still massive unemployment in the mid 1930s despite New Deal hiring, getting people back to work would have taken care of federal deficits without those tax increases. But Roosvelt had an unnecessary fear of deficits in depressionary conditions, so it took military Keynesianism in the build up of the American military in WW2 to end unemployment. 08********08 #] 04Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/what-chinas-falling-birthrate-means-for-its-economy-51615028401?mod=newsviewer_click China’s Birthrate Is Falling. What That Means for the Country’s Economic Growth. Published: March 6, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. ET By Tanner Brown &&&&&&&& [Astute, consistent] market analysts have consistently shouted out China's demographic decline since long before it actually began circa 2010, so it's interesting to see others start to wake up (why now?). China's current 1.5 children per family is towards the upper end of advanced Western Nations. I like Barbara Fraumeni's comment that "... contribution to economic growth of young Chinese ... is expected to increase relative to that of current working age individuals ...". But perhaps she misses something key : most [physical, communications, intellectual] work is now done by machines, which already function above normal human Cognitive levels in some areas. China is massive in the [math, science] of the new Computational Intelligence, just as she is in manufacturing. Furthermore, a lesson of covid-19 may be that the economy is already far less dependant on the population than I would have imagined, although it's hard to see past the fog of debt. 08********08 #] 04Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/why-warrens-wealth-tax-could-be-good-for-investors-51614983213?mod=newsviewer_click Why Warren’s Wealth Tax Could Be Good for Investors Published: March 5, 2021 at 5:26 p.m. ET By Matthew C. Klein Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman estimate that about a third of all the assets owned by the ultrarich are invested in low-yielding deposits and bonds. &&&&&&&& Ghosts of great calamities past, champions of the new calamity : It's so hard to find intellectuals with intellect. It is sometimes best to skip over today's intellectual rabble, to get perspectives (right or wrong, scattered and independent) scarcely allowed in modern universities. - Lawrence Reed 2008 "Great myths of the Great Depression" - the bad Recession 1929 to ~1932 became a Great Depression to some degree as a result of Herbert Hoover's policies, which were relabelled and amplified by Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal". Active suppression of Industry leaders, and 75% top tax rates (100% put forward by Roosevelt, but not put into effect), poured cold water on investments. - David Fischer 1996 "The Great Wave, Price revolutions and the rhythm of history" - This "kill the rich" theme is normal for each Great Wave, irrespective of the [political, economic, financial, philosophical, social] [concept, system]s. ... more populist than the populists... - Ibn Khaldun 1377 "The Muqaddimah" - "... It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments. ..." (wikipedia, sounds a bit like Alfredo Pareto) I'm not proposing anything here, just picking a few points out of a big, rich bag. 05Mar2021 patrick slattery replied to you on Why Warren’s Wealth Tax Could Be Good for Investors: Karl Marx saw potential for revolution in the increasingly deep recessions in capitalism caused by panic austerity among people without a social safety net, by panic spending cuts among businesses suddenly deprived of consumer sales and by banking system failures. The way out of deep recessions is contracylical government spending,especially on infrastructure,as explained by Keynesian theory. Keynes in a meeting tried to dissuade President Roosvelt from increasing taxes on high incomes because of the negative impact on aggregate demand, the main driver of the economy. With still massive unemployment in the mid 1930s despite New Deal hiring, getting people back to work would have taken care of federal deficits without those tax increases. But Roosvelt had an unnecessary fear of deficits in depressionary conditions, so it took military Keynesianism in the build up of the American military in WW2 to end unemployment. 07Mar2021 Howell - Thanks for your comments, especially the Keynes-Roosevelt story. "Military Keynesianism" - this is taking credit for [knowledge, practice]s that likely predate history. One can imagine Military Keynesianism during the Leschamps geomagnetic excursion 41ky BP, as the Neanderthals wispered away and a few surviving Cro-Magnon got on with it. Likely with the usual innate flaw - it seems that nobody can stop spending until it all crashes down and there is nothing left to spend. (I mention Leschamps that because that crazy ghost is back, including the Mayan calendar thing. Good thing too, as we all seem to need 5 "end of the world" scenarios in our pockets as the current scenarios die off -> eg "global warming".) Same thing for Marx - he is outclassed by MUCH better analysis during the "price revolutions" that followed the Renaissance and Elightenment, maybe also back in ancient Babylon. (King Hammurabi came at an interesting time in this context, perhaps he comments in his Code?) The Industrial Revolution was far too much for Marx to handle, as it was for essentially all intellectuals, and is even now with the ongoing series of Tech revolutions. 08********08 #] 04Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/DWaapfXM-SP500-on-a-down-trend-for-weeks/ Emma&Molly &&&&&&&& Quite possibly. I like your point about savings. Adding to that, we may be in a new hyperinflation era for financial assets, with continue upwards movement for as long as it can last. (I'm afraid of hazarding a guess on that). In other words, "reaching new highs" is almost the same as "standing still in real terms, as "cash is trash" might be a lesson. Furthermore, the "new" Computational Intelligence tools (going to the next generations of Deep Learning and Evolutionary Computing) are rapidly evolving, and hold great promise (kind of like other tech revolutions). And the rest of the world holds much potential as they evolve. The economy has been wonderfully resilient, and perhaps not just because of the stimulus. Maybe that also reflects that most physical and mental work in the economy is now done by machines? But there are still many downside risks. It may be that much of the boost has already been factored into the markets, including the vaccines, the new 1.9T$ relief program save for its eventual details. I doubt that much is factored into how we handle the debts (if ever, at these levels - Japan might be the template). Would you expect even a full recovery and vaccines to put the markets so far beyond pre-crash levels? Do you expect long-term bonds to be happy with near-zero rates over the mid-term (>=2 years)? If not, then anything approaching "normal" interest levels of the past has implications for P/E ratios, and what will be the impact on vital long-term investments? The vaccines might be over-rated, as it's not at all like great historical pandemics. In the views of Lawrence Reed, "Great myths of the Great Depression", the bad Recession 1929 to ~1932 became a Great Depression to some degree as a result of Herbert Hoover's policies, which were relabelled and amplified by Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal". Active suppression of Industry leaders, and 75% top tax rates (100% put forward by Roosevelt, but not put into effect), poured cold water on investments. Echos as of a few days ago by the Warren-Saunders plan for a 3%/yr "asset tax" (they didn't say per year, but will they really drop it after one or two?), with much more extreme opinions throughout the ruling government. Not sure how that will work out for critical foreign investments, but they may in worse shape. Trade and be wary? Long and short at the same time? Volatility is your friend? Perhaps follow the rotation towards commodities and value sectors? I don't know, and that's why this so interesting. But your key point was a 10% dip every 16 months. Your graph is post-2020 crash only, and it's not the 10% corrections that are scary. Your support levels are plausible. +---+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/treasury-yields-are-spiking-after-the-jerome-powell-spoke-heres-why-51614882915?mod=newsviewer_click Treasury Yields Moved Above 1.5% After Jerome Powell Spoke. Here’s Why. Last Updated: March 4, 2021 at 1:40 p.m. ET First Published: March 4, 2021 at 1:35 p.m. ET By Alexandra Scaggs The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed back above 1.5% after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated that there is “long way” to go before the central bank meets its goals but didn’t signal any imminent plans to address the recent rise in yields. Investors have been keeping a close eye on Fed officials’ comments, after a weekslong rise in Treasury yields that last week devolved into messy trading after a “brutal” 7-year Treasury auction. Wall Street strategists have highlighted the possibility that the central bank could decide to extend the maturity of its Treasury purchases, as long-term yields climb and short-term yields sink closer to zero. Powell did address the rise in yields, saying it was “notable,” but didn’t commit to—or hint at—any coming shift in policy. “It’s not appropriate to isolate one particular interest rate or price,” he said. “We monitor a broad range of financial conditions and we think that we’re a long way from our goals, and we think it’s important that financial conditions support the achievement of those goals… I would be concerned by disorderly conditions in markets, or a persistent tightening in financial conditions.” &&&&&&&& Howell - Powell "... I would be concerned by disorderly conditions in markets, or a persistent tightening in financial conditions. ...". Does he mean the disorderly conditions of markets injected with Fed crack? 08********08 #] 03Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/go-out-and-buy-yourself-some-gold-if-warrens-wealth-tax-passes-says-billionaire-leon-cooperman-11614804308?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore ‘Go out and buy yourself some gold’ if Warren’s wealth tax passes, says billionaire Leon Cooperman Last Updated: March 3, 2021 at 5:07 p.m. ET First Published: March 3, 2021 at 3:45 p.m. ET By William Watts Warren proposal would tax wealth above $50 million ‘If the wealth tax passes, go out and buy yourself some gold because people are going to rush to find ways of hiding their wealth.’ — Leon Cooperman They’re at it again. That’s billionaire hedge-fund manager Leon Cooperman, who also told CNBC Wednesday that a proposal by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, that would impose an annual tax on fortunes of more than $50 million was probably “illegal” as well as “foolish” and without merit. Under Warren’s proposed legislation, which is unlikely to become law soon given Democrats’ narrow control of the Senate and likely opposition to a wealth tax from some members of her own party, an annual tax of 2% would be levied on individual net worth between $50 million and $1 billion. Net worth exceeding $1 billion would see a 3% tax on every dollar above that level. &&&&&&&& Howell - Perhaps un-necessary? If I wanted to be Robbin Hood and confiscate (not tax) the rich to give to the poor, then one app would be to socially engineer the financial system to juice financial assets to extreme over-valuation, yet leave consumer prices relatively stable, then let a major crash "evaporate" values back to more normal levels. This possibly [could, has] been done legally, and one could then blame the capitalists for their greed and self-destruction. Anyways, it happens every 10 to 90 years or so naturally. I'm not suggesting that this the plan, nor that it will happen, as I'm not that paranoid and I do think that the best of intentions are being applied. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and perhaps it will work out that way? It's almost like watching tight-rope walking over the Grand Canyon or Nascar racing. +-----+ Harry Dent March forecast Action : Be short stocks (if you have the risk tolerance) if there is a convincing break below 3,780 near term or if it makes a new high between 4,000 and 4,050 on the S&P 500 later this month or so. You can use PSQ for simple 1X short QQQ or SH for 1X short the S&P 500. I would target those moves for the first crash down toward 2,100, sell there, and wait for a major bounce to re-short again. Over the past decade, I’ve put together my first long-term hierarchy of trends to go beyond those medium-term cycles: a 500-year Mega Innovation/Inflation Cycle; a 250-year Revolutionary Cycle; and a 165-year East-to-West Cycle, which covers power and dominance. I’ve been showing the chart of these trends in books and newsletters for years. The 500-year cycle clicked in around 1900 and has already created the greatest income and wealth surge in human history. In the U.S., inflation-adjusted income grew 8 times just between 1900 and 1970 and has grown more marginally since then—and we’re only halfway through that cycle, which will continue to rise into around the year 2150. At present, the 250-year cycle has become very important, because it is just emerging in what I call the Network Revolution—wherein management of everything comes from the bottom up instead of from the top down—at the same time that we are in an economic winter season (projected to last from 2008 to 2023) within a broader, four-season 80-year (2x40-year) demographic cycle. Presently, the the 250-year cycle is the top long-term cycle, as it is just now bottoming and should turn upward by 2024 or so. The world did not fully appreciate the power of the American Revolution and democracy at first, nor did it understand the impact of the “invisible hand” of free market capitalism that came with Adam Smith—the first (and still the greatest) of the macroeconomists. This ever-expanding, from-the-bottom-up revolution in how everything is managed will pay off increasingly into around 2150 at or near its top, about the same time that the 500-year cycle will top. By then, Asia will be as dominant as the West was in the early 1980s. But today, the most important cycle is the 90-year (2x45-year) Super Bubble Cycle. It is coinciding with the greatest stock and “everything bubble” in modern history, which is already overdue to peak, because so much QE was and continues to be added to keep the markets The Western World clearly has dominated since the Industrial Revolution clicked in during the early 1820s. It peaked around the early to mid-1980s, when the much-larger country of China rose to follow Japan in challenging the economic dominance of the West. We’ve been in a transition ever since that will see the East (Asia) clearly dominate from around 2070 into around 2150, after which I project that India will be the largest and richest Eastern nation, not China. (I get bashed a lot for that.) 08********08 #] 02Mar2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/markets-are-in-eye-of-the-storm-and-mounting-turmoil-will-drive-stocks-lower-and-10-year-bonds-to-negative-0-50-11603393405 Markets are in ‘eye of the storm’ and mounting turmoil will drive stocks lower and 10-year bonds to negative 0.50% Last Updated: Oct. 24, 2020 at 10:43 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 22, 2020 at 3:03 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre ‘Do not be mistaken. The relative calm we feel right now isn’t the end of the storm, it is just the eye,’ says Guggenheim’s Minerd >> From last fall - see new statement below (same theme) +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/history-suggests-surge-in-bond-market-rates-is-unlikely-to-last-says-guggenheims-minerd-11614726435?mod=newsviewer_click History suggests surge in bond-market rates is unlikely to last, says Guggenheim’s Minerd Published: March 2, 2021 at 6:07 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh Fiscal relief may be funneled into government bonds “The foregone conclusion today is that long-term rates are on an uninterrupted trajectory higher. History tells us something different,” said Scott Minerd, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, in a Tuesday note, noting that after every recession, a trough in bond yields came a few quarters later. If Congress passes the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, only a small share of this fiscal relief would be spent while the rest would end up in individuals’ savings, according to Minerd. In turn, Americans would funnel the cash into government bonds and other fixed-income securities, pushing their yields lower, he said. If history holds true, the 10-year note could fall as low as negative-0.5% in early 2022, suggesting there remains plenty of room for rates to slide from here. &&&&& Howell - Fascinating consistency with Scott Minerd's MarketWatch comments last October, given how rare that can be, as with a few long-term forecasters (even pre-2020 crash). But what is the mid-to-long term impact of artificially suppressed long-term yields? Governments can dump our money around anyway they want, but will private investors provide capital for long-term [business, infrastructure, future] investments, or will the private side dry up? Is post-1989 Japan the model, with direct government ownership as well as intervention? To what extent will social engineering of the financial markets squeeze out private investments? Right now, I feel like I am flying blind and stupid. +-----+ Why the stock market’s big rotation can continue even if bond yields stop rising Published: March 2, 2021 at 2:26 p.m. ET By William Watts Fiscal stimulus, vaccine progress are key drivers for sectors left behind during the pandemic: economist 10 hours ago Before fall apart EU is smaller by GDP than China in 2020. European Union will fall apart in 2022 or sooner. The German populists will win elections in late 2021, the french populists in early 2022 and both vote to stop 750 bn EU debt issuing program with grants for Italy and Spain. Without support Italy and Spain will leave EU in 2022.- ECB will do a 2.4 trillion program of QE to monetize EU debt till end of 2021. That is some 50% sure hyperinflation, so they will stop in end of 2021 and Italy and Spain yields will rise to new sovereign debt crisis. Debt of Italy will be close to 200% to GDP in 2021 with TARGET2 debt included. So sustainable - debt primary budget surplus will lead to recession. LTRO is also some ECB subsidy deposits at -1% interest rate by some 50% of deposits in Italy and Spain added to TARGET2 by some further 50% of deposits. There is no need ECB to print some 2 trillion QE to keep Italy yield low in the short run. instead, EU may buy some 50 bn Italian ans Spanish debt only. Similar to USSR fall apart with hyperinflation? Are the policymakers accountable only in-front of the 1%? Italy, Greece will default on sovereign debt so their part in 750 billion EU debt will be paid by other countries. 10 hours ago Euro zone banks are generally insolvent according to ECB euro zone recent bad credit estimation of 1.4 trillions, over 10 year profits of euro zone banks not two as ECB claims, with a second covid wave and after government support stops. This is some 15% of total euro zone credits ,but collateral, that is more than the capital to loans ratio of most banks that makes them insolvent. Check capital to loans ratio by searching in google - investing com and bank name balance she et. Capital to loan ratio for e.g. Deutsche bank is 14%, , Unicredit 13%, Societe Generlale 13%, Paribas 14%. Similarly HSBC 18%, Lloyds 10%, UBS 16%, Credit Suisse 16%. When banks are insolvent credits are not enough to cover deposits and bank runs and liquidity problems follow. Often banks overestimate the capital to hide insolvency. Observe that EU directive for bail in will be followed that means that losses will be covered from shares, bonds and big deposits. Introduce deposit rationinig.- - EU banks are exposed to bad credits from CEE in banks, they own. In a classification by IMF , the countries from Cyprus to Italy were world champions in bad credits. That reduced the capitalization of EU banks from some 200bn to 15bn. 15bn means that there are expectation of profits from 3bn per year over 10y period to minus 20 bn per year for such market capitalization as only positive expectations count for stocks evaluation and variance is big for average of yearly expectation of minus 17bn. GEORGI GEORGI 10 hours ago There will be a new wave of bad credits with end of support for covid 19 as only for Bulgaria the moratorium bad credits are 15% for now. Check Austria banks and telecoms for money laundering in ,same as Greece bankrupted banks (actually 4th and 5th Austrian banks also bankrupted) ,CEE region. Italy and Spain big deposits run abroad to escape potential bankruptcy of banks. There are by some 500 BN TARGET2 loans and similarly by some 500 BN EUR LTRO by ECB. Both are loans that substitute by a trillion left deposits for It and Sp. - - ECB intervenes to buy stocks of banks on this news these days. There follows a crisis due to reduced credits after a lot of bad credits I the economy. 10 hours ago - there is helicopter money in USA already as the first and 2nd cheques to Americans and unemployment support are from monetized by FED debt.-Inflation coming with savings rate increase in USA EU. FED balance increased some 3 trillion with covid, that went in M0 and corresponding no multiplication M2 increase as money went in safes and bank excess reserves. That corresponds to a sharp increase in savings rate due to covid uncertainty as agents keep money in banks deposits, that go in excess reserves, and safes that increases M2. That leads to a sharp recent decrease in velocity of money as they are not in turnover corresponding to M2 increase that prevents inflation in MV=pQ. With the covid vaccine, savings rate will decline again that will put money out of safes and excess reserves in FED and ECB and increase inflation. Once the inflation increase , it will cause money from full safes to go in deposits. Banks will reduce the interest rate and ease credit conditions to give away the resources as credits that will multiply the money, M2 will increase and cause hyper inflation. 10 hours ago The zero and negative interest rates create zombie private and public balances..Zombie companies do not compete for positive return and they are not productive. .2009 financial crisis bubble burst in stocks and housing deteriorates the balances that increases private savings next years to fix balances. - - To stimulate less savings and realize more projects ,to avoid secular stagnation, the EU introduces negative interest rates. But agents do not borrow with broken balances and there is no effect of negative interest rate. EU goes in sovereign debt crisis in 2012 when governments are trying to borrow excess private savings with budget deficits. So EU realizes negative return projects to use savings until agents fix their balances and start to borrow again to realize positive return projects. There are a lot of private and public negative yields now in the world, that are negative return projects. - - USA also follows the way of Japanification by government borrowing excess savings that also creates zombie companies. It is better to go in deleverage and in 10 years to reach the initial level even for 50% GDP decline as is the case for this big deleverage, than to go for 30 years and more with zero economic growth as in Japan. Not to mention that debt - monetization QE power money increase is sure pending hyper inflation when money multiplier increases again. 10 hours ago 20% saving rate means the economy is headed towards 1929 debt crisis scenario or hyperinflation..25% saving rate to GDP for EU and 15% for USA means that this money are used for paying the huge household debt and do not go in someone’s income and hence GDP declines. There is stress from covid 19 that increases fixing of balances that will persist after the vaccine and there is huge segment of Americans and Europeans with huge debt and savings bellow 1000 USD. So the Governments of USA and EU will increase correspondingly some 15-20% budget deficits in 2021 to provide incomes that debt servicing cancels as Dalio and Koo show as long as saving persist or 1929 debt crisis GDP depression follows. This debt will be monetized by FED and ECB as otherwise yields will increase. For 15% saving rate in USA 5% goes to investment, but 10% is servicing huge debts of households to shrink their balances (covid firms savings will also decline in 2021). 10% monetized debt per year over 3 trillion in 2020 is some 25% to GDP monetized debt in a year only, that is 70% sure hyper inflation as Peter Bernholz shows that 40% monetized debt to GDP is 100% sure hyperinflation in a year. Debt in 2021 will be 2 trillion for savings and 2 trillion to stimulate to 2019 level of GDP after double dip lock down recession so even higher probability of hyperinflation in 2022. 10 hours ago -social institutions in usa and eu , uk are led to civil war by governments , fed , ecb- conflict theory . non effective social institution. the institution only share the scare resources. two main segment in social groups , the 1% and the middle class. the rich are useless sector with political , economic , social resources. dynamic change to crash in the system based on organization and structure. the 1% social institution is coercive hidden behind fake elections of bureaucratic controlled governments. conflict theory for coercive systems or civil war .- functional institution were it effective. everyone specializes in functions , there is solidarity as they value each other. stability in complex system.- authority is coercive with intelligence , surveillance , breaking laws , fake elections , racism , fascism. police countries.- use open os , open encryption, there may be agents around you by authority illegal. if you see someone to disappear , person or family hurt by government inform on internet.- trump takes 30 % of wages for capital as wage growth for 50y is bellow productivity. hides behind the idea for social mobility but provides money to the 1 % . now is not possible in usa orphan to invent pc and smart phone. probably they will be killed for these money with fake medical diagnosis. trump leads clearly insane pro cyclical fiscal policy similar to stupid pro cyclical monetary policy in usa- authority steals your money 10 hours ago - USA and EU are between the rock and the hard place – either hyperinflation or financial crises now- if USA goes for 2 trillion monetized debt, as Biden wants, now they will increase monetized debt this year from 15% to 25% to GDP, that is from 25% to 75% sure hyperinflation e.g. Peter Bernholz. At 40% monetized debt a year, hyperinflation is 100% sure. In this case they postpone financial crises but go in a year in 75% sure hyperinflation that will end USA and EU civilization.- in the other case EU expects 1.4 trillion bad loans with 2nd lock-down, and some bankrupted banks that is financial crises as ECB states. USA also will go with non-bank bad debt soon without monetized debt. There are high US mortgage delinquencies as well. “Financial crises often happen after large buildups of household and corporate debt, and around the same time as large falls in asset prices” Romer- financial crises with zero bound and high debt to gdp is some 10 % gdp decline by Romer. Another 10% at least from deleverage so great depression is sure.- WB Carmen Reinhart has some papers on high inflation and yield floor for decades to decline government debt. Can you imagine what debt decline means for GDP decline with multiplier. 10 hours ago Biden, Yellen will just simulate decline of inequality to postpone the Civil war , while supporting the 1% bubble. USA and EU lost New Economy based on knowledge, where companies create customer experience and workers work for pleasure. Instead with surveillance of population by big tech companies, that rule the government of USA and EU , and mind control, the 1% return us to Marx and Civil War due to inequality economy. The Marx model is that the 1% acquire most capital , then the return of capital decline as it is abundant to labor. So the 1% reduces the wages to keep the return of capital and Civil War follows by workers . This is the second most important model in economics after Adam Smith. GEORGI GEORGI 10 hours ago Now the 1% rule the FED and ECB to create bubble in stocks with massive experimental monetary policy of QE that risks hyperinflation latter. So a lexicon , a search engine , a retail hauler ,a tim apple, and immunologist rule USA and EU monetary policies towards hyperinflation to create bubble with QE printing of mind-controlled mafia of banks for channeled money to buy stocks. USA and EU know that by 2030 China and a little later India will be the biggest markets in the world , that there will be more grandparents then children in few years as Guillen shows, so the 1% mafia is trying to cheat the middle class by bribed scientists and media to create stock, bond and housing bubbles to cheat the middle class to buy before the prices fall sharp. Covid 19 makes the civil war more likely as in difficult times the elite steals more money and there are new poor and squeezed small companies in USA and EU. As Dalio claims the 1% created inequality with debt cycle in 1929 created communism and fascism and latter world war. To avoid this scenario USA accepts Sherman antitrust law to break the 1% in 1929, that is good idea for the big tech bubble now but does not work. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-should-do-this-1-thing-now-to-protect-from-a-brewing-market-storm-says-pictet-manager-11614687351?mod=mw_more_headlines Investors should do this 1 thing now to protect from a brewing market storm, says Pictet manager Last Updated: March 2, 2021 at 1:15 p.m. ET First Published: March 2, 2021 at 7:15 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer 32 Critical information for the U.S. trading day 210302 Bittel of Pictet Asset - US yield curve (10yr) deviation from 24-month rolling lows vs SP500.jpeg 210302 Bittel of Pictet Asset - CFTC commodity composite net speculative posn (%of totalOU) vs. BB commodity index 210302 Bittel of Pictet Asset - US dollar index (DXY) Aug2020-Mar2021 vs Sep2017-Aug2018 210302 Bittel of Pictet Asset - Lead index vs Conference Board total measure of US CEO business confidence +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/record-414-billion-of-new-treasury-debt-issuance-poses-supply-test-for-shellshocked-bond-buyers-11614708102?mod=newsviewer_click Record $414 billion of new Treasury debt issuance poses supply test for shellshocked bond buyers Published: March 2, 2021 at 1:01 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh An extension of regulatory relief could help banks soak up debt supply, say analysts Market participants say there’s a ready solution available to the Fed. The central bank could extend regulatory relief introduced last April on capital requirements for banks that had exempted Treasurys from being treated as assets in calculations of the so-called supplementary leverage ratio. Under the current rules, banks must have capital equal to at least 3 per cent of their assets, with that share rising as high as 5% for so-called systematically important financial institutions. Analysts say the continued relaxation of these rules would help ease up some of the balance-sheet constraints that had prevented broker-dealers from acting as an intermediary last March when the U.S. government bond market temporarily broke down. “It’s a fix that’s available if it’s needed,” said Dyer. >> Wow! 3% resereve much lower than I thought. Didn't this used to be 10% in the old days? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-one-hedge-fund-trader-says-happened-in-thursdays-bond-market-tantrum-which-sent-the-10-year-treasury-yield-to-1-60-11614376522 Here’s what one hedge fund trader says happened in Thursday’s bond-market tantrum, which sent the 10-year Treasury yield to 1.60% Last Updated: Feb. 27, 2021 at 8:34 a.m. ET First Published: Feb. 26, 2021 at 4:55 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh 7 ‘What happened Thursday was a complete dry-up of risk appetite in the fixed-income space,’ said Hu’s Winshore Capital +-----+ Harry's Take Q: What else is there to invest in if you don't want to buy Treasuries? A: You are underestimating the appreciation on a 30-year T-bond if rates fall from around 2.2% to 0.5%: 40%+. But if you know this and still want other options, then consider AAA corporates or short stocks unleveraged. You can buy SQQQ to single-short the Nasdaq 100 or SH to short the S&P 500. Q: You have stated to keep your money out of banks and go to brokerage companies. I assume that you are referring to places like Charles Schwab. Do you suggest spreading money to a few brokerage companies to be safe, too? A: Yes, it definitely makes sense to spread your money around to different discount brokerage firms. I'm not recommending the big financial brokerages, as they are into so many risky businesses. I prefer the ones like TD Ameritrade, E*Trade, Schwab, and Fidelity that make more of their money on trading fees, not on investments and speculation. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/current-bond-market-selloff-worse-than-taper-tantrum-in-one-key-way-argues-analyst-11614357162?mod=newsviewer_click Current bond-market selloff worse than ‘taper tantrum’ in one key way, argues analyst Published: Feb. 26, 2021 at 11:32 a.m. ET By Sunny Oh Fed hasn’t even started conversation of moving away from easy policy, says Columbia Threadneedle’s Al-Hussainy &&&&&&&& Howell - Echos of the Fed's "influence versus control" over interest rates. Robert Prechter and others point out that often the game is set (especially major turning points), then the Fed reacts and sustains the illusion of control. But can these be called "free markets" any more, with the current twist of gigantic [Treasury, Fed] dumping of cash into the market? Are the financial markets being progressively blinded by social engineering? Are asset allocations twisted? +-----+ quantguy msg : Post 1 My message yesterday didn't go through, so here is a shorter version in two parts : Part I Sorry, quantguy, but I have failed at finding an NLP-specific conference in my Inbox archives. You have better knowledge of that area than I, so I didn't do a general web search for NLP-related conferences. In searching through the World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) program of last summer, there is far less now than I thought (only 3 papers identified by title). Post 2 As for Hungary, the two Hungarians I know best in the neural network area : Peter Erdi, Kalamazoo College - very braod background. I have a book of his on chemical kinetics (includes fractional order calculus approach or something, I forget) Robert Kozma, Uof Memphis - did a lot of chaos theory work Neither has worked on NLP as far as I can remember, but of course I wouldn't usually know that level of about their research unless it was in an area that I focus on. 08********08 #] 25Feb2021 Fix my TradingView T-bill charts for Interest Rates T-bill 10y, 5y T-bill 10y,3m TSX:VLB Vanguard Cdn long bond index ETF NASDAQ:TLT iShares barclays 20+y T-bond to 2013 OTC:FMCC Freddie Mac TYX CBOE 30y T-bond yield SPX,TVC S&P 500 08********08 #] 25Feb2021 quantguy - Natural Language Programming (NLP) conferences Sorry, quantguy, but I have failed at finding an NLP-specific conference in my Inbox archives. I thought that there was a French group doing a regular international conference in this area, but I didn't find it. You have better knowledge of that area than I, so I didn't do a general web search for NLP-related conferences. NLP is a topic in many "Computational Intelligence" conferences, but in searching through the World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) program of last summer, there is far less now than I thought. Papers in this area have likely found more specific conferences. Searching paper titles for [NLP, natural language, linguistic], only 3 papers showed up! I didn't save the Fuzzy Systems program (oops), and (as usual nowadays, it seems) I didn't get the conference papers so I couldn't do a full search of their contents. In any case, the conferences that I ad clearly aren't the bvest for your area. Quick comment - good topic to get yourself killed? (WC20 poster): P3907 Enhancing the Detection of Criminal Organizations in Mexico using ML and NLP [#21871] As for Hungary, the two Hungarians I know best in the neural network area : Peter Erdi, Kalamazoo College - very braod background. I have a book of his on chemical kinetics (includes fractional order calculus approach or something, I forget) Robert Kozma, Uof Memphis - did a lot of chaos theory work Neither has worked on NLP as far as I can remember, but of course I wouldn't usually know that level of about their research unless it was in an area that I focus on. https://icnc-fskd.sust.edu.cn Big Data https://irdta.eu/bigdat2021s/registration/ 2020 16th International Conference on Natural Computation, Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (ICNC-FSKD 2020), to be held from 1-3 August 2020 in Xi’an, China WCCI2020 : P3907 Enhancing the Detection of Criminal Organizations in Mexico using ML and NLP [#21871] Javier Osorio and Alejandro Beltran University of Arizona, United States IJCNN2020 : $ find "$d_PROJECTS""2020 WCCI attendance/" -maxdepth 2 -type f -name "*" | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 -IFILE grep -w --with-filename --line-number "NLP" "FILE" /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/2020 WCCI attendance/IJCNN program webpage source.txt:9880:<td>Enhancing the Detection of Criminal Organizations in Mexico using ML and NLP [#21871]</td> /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/2020 WCCI attendance/program list IJCNN2020.txt:2541:P3907 Enhancing the Detection of Criminal Organizations in Mexico using ML and NLP [#21871] $ find "$d_PROJECTS""2020 WCCI attendance/" -maxdepth 2 -type f -name "*" | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 -IFILE grep -iw --with-filename --line-number "natural language" "FILE" /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/2020 WCCI attendance/IJCNN program webpage source.txt:4459:<td>Enhanced Privacy and Data Protection using Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence [#21548]</td> /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/2020 WCCI attendance/IJCNN program webpage source.txt:13828:<td>Improving Deep Learning Approaches for Human Activity Recognition based on Natural Language Processing of Action Labels [#20301]</td> /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/2020 WCCI attendance/program list IJCNN2020.txt:1110:5:45PM Enhanced Privacy and Data Protection using Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence [#21548] /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/2020 WCCI attendance/program list IJCNN2020.txt:3585:7:15PM Improving Deep Learning Approaches for Human Activity Recognition based on Natural Language Processing of Action Labels [#20301] $ find "$d_PROJECTS""2020 WCCI attendance/" -maxdepth 2 -type f -name "*" | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 -IFILE grep -i --with-filename --line-number "linguistic" "FILE" ~ 08********08 19Feb2021 https://www.tradingview.com/chat/m/48469ee2-79eb-46b1-baa2-0b45c67307d8/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_chat_offline quantguy - hey bill i really appreciate your support. would you like to take one of our bootcamps? free gift to you Howell - @quantguy, I really appreciate your offer, but I will have to take a raincheck for at least a few months. Over the last 3 days I've been hit with https://www.ijcnn.org/ Shenzen, China conference paper review assignements. couldn't include : (example : would like to inform you that the IJCNN 2021 Program Chairs have assigned the following paper(s) to you: Paper ID: 506, Author(s): Wenrui Zhang and Peng Li, Title: Spiking Neural Networks with Laterally-Inhibited Self-Recurrent Units). This is a challenge for my other projects too. You are doing great work, and I'd like to learn from you, but it can't happen anytime soon. 08********08 18Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/kgop493z-SPX-Alien-Hieroglyphs-in-3D/ SPX - Alien Hieroglyphics - in 3D KrisVT &&&&&&&& Howell - Vaguely reminiscent of Johannes Kepler's tetrahedra for planetary orbitals (I hope I'm remembering this correctly). Aristarchus of Samos put the Sun at the center of the Solar System circa ?250 BC?. Circa ?150 AD? Ptolemy came up with an ingenious (right or wrong) system of epicycles with the Earth at the center. ~1543 AD, up to the next-to-last versn of his great work, Copernicus acknowledged Aristartus of Samos and supported the helio-centric view. ?1600 AD? Johannes Kepler, went to work with Tycho Brahe, who had high accuracy planetary observations, and came up with the (eliptical, egg-shaped) planetary orbital concept. But apparently, some reason, Kepler really felt that tetrahedra were the key, but was unable to make that work? Perhaps @KrisVT is travelling a similar road? 08********08 18Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gamestop-hearing-challenges-assumptions-about-rookie-investors-retail-investors-making-up-this-new-surge-are-different-11613680041?mod=newsviewer_click GameStop hearing challenges assumptions about rookie investors — ‘Retail investors making up this new surge are different’ Published: Feb. 18, 2021 at 3:27 p.m. ET By Andrew Keshner Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev discussed average account sizes and user demographics during a congressional hearing on GameStop’s rise and fall. &&&&&&&& Howell - It's fun to rank the quoted commentators in showing some kind of insight for this round (should get [Reddit, RobinHood] survey): Winners : Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood; Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America; Patrick McHenry, the ranking Republican on the committee; Losers : Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America; Maxine Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. What to do? I don't know - this sounds like 1929 margins and the film "Big Short" CDOs. Extreme-risk bets make sense if you can only go bankrupt (they won't cut out your heart for suspecting undue risk beforehand), but collectively it is a growing cancer for the taxpayers, who are now [continuously, day-by-day, massively] bailout investor-players. One could have closed-value markets for derivatives at a fraction of the underlying market values. But maybe the Mayan heart sacrifice route could pay for the collective damages from live-streaming royalties. In any case, the GameStop thing is insignificant compared to [Fed, Treasury] corporate geriatric support post 2000. 08********08 15Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-rightly-sees-an-economic-rebound-but-is-overlooking-these-worrisome-details-11613400002?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The stock market rightly sees an economic rebound — but is overlooking these worrisome details Last Updated: Feb. 15, 2021 at 9:40 a.m. ET First Published: Feb. 15, 2021 at 9:39 a.m. ET By Christopher Smart Watch this measure of the long-term unemployed "$d_PROJECTS""Investments/References/key stuff/210215 US unemployed jobless for 27 weeks or longer, MktWatch, US LaborDept.png" 08********08 14Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/yellens-gamestop-dilemma-how-to-let-indexers-freeload-in-peace-51613171321?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Yellen’s GameStop Dilemma: How to Let Indexers Freeload in Peace Published: Feb. 14, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. ET Christopher Geczy and David Musto Secretary Yellen will see Professor Akerlof’s insight at work not just in the indexing by retail investors, but in their stock trading as well. The customers of Robinhood figure prominently in the GameStop narrative, and much has been made of the zero commissions they pay, and the role of Citadel’s payment for order flow in this “freebie.” The arrangement might seem sneaky, but at its core it simply monetizes the randomness of Robinhood customers’ trades with respect to what happens next, and hands some of that value back to them. Through Akerlof’s logic we can see the profit from charging a portion of the prevailing spread for uninformed trades. This profit is apparently big enough to eliminate the commission. The lower cost undoubtedly boosts the democracy of retail participation in the markets, including in squeezes, and this could tempt regulators to protect markets from crowdsourced enthusiasms and retail investors from themselves by raising the cost or limiting access or participation. But markets have always gathered and incorporated information from the diverse experiences of retail and other investors. The consequences for price efficiency can benefit society even if the average retail trade is uninformed and some retail investors make bad bets. &&&&&&&& Howell - Nice article, which helps throw some light on basic aspects of market not always well understood, for example the tradition hate for shorts, the market risks that accompany benefits associated with index investing (Vanguard comments have long warned of that). But isn't the bigger "blindness to price discovery" the "Social Engineering of the Financial Markets" (such as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) related concepts)? [Fed, Treasury] support levels are now far beyond the 2007-2010 financial crash, without a clear end to it. Already the question arises - what are we buying? A major financial crash "evaporates wealth", and if part of a carefully planned policy, is this going to turn into a legal confiscation of wealth on a massive scale, private wealth that help pump recovery? On the other hand, as per David Fischer's 1996 "The Great Wave", for hundreds of years this seems to be the norm, independent of [philosophical, political, economic, financial] system. The good part is that consequences have greeatly diminished over the centuries, thanks probably to technologies. 08********08 11Feb2021 +-----= https://www.marketwatch.com/story/diabetes-drug-hailed-as-a-breakthrough-for-weight-loss-11613041104?mod=newsviewer_click Diabetes drug hailed as a breakthrough for weight loss Last Updated: Feb. 11, 2021 at 1:27 p.m. ET First Published: Feb. 11, 2021 at 5:58 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer A total of 1,961 adults from North America, South America, Asia, and Europe took part in the 68-week trial during 2018 involving the drug semaglutide, which is an anti-diabetic medication used for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, according to the study that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, Advertisement The individuals received a shot of semaglutide under the skin or a placebo weekly, along with counseling sessions to adhere to a reduced-calorie diet and increased exercise. Semaglutide is sold under the names Ozempic and Rybelsus by Danish drug company Novo Nordisk NVO, 3.66%. 08********08 #] 10Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-u-s-could-catch-japans-economic-malaise-if-the-fed-and-other-officials-dont-heed-the-warnings-11612975948?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The U.S. could catch Japan’s economic malaise if the Fed and other officials don’t heed the warnings Published: Feb. 10, 2021 at 11:52 a.m. ET By Jay Bowen Note the striking parallels between the U.S. of today and Japan before it entered its lost decades ... First and foremost, this should mean rejecting the “financial repression” model embraced by the Japanese monetary and fiscal authorities, characterized by negative interest rates, high levels of government spending and debt, aggressive central bank ownership of financial assets, and a tax and regulatory regime that discourages innovation and entrepreneurship. ...In the midst of its third lost decade, this approach has undermined the country’s previous growth-glorious profile and resulted in chronic stagnation. Since 1990, Japan has witnessed a negative compounded annual growth rate of industrial production. Public debt as a percentage of GDP now sits at 235% compared with 64% in 1990 and 50% in 1980. The Nikkei 225 Index NIK, +0.19%, the country’s stock market benchmark, has still not recaptured its high reached in 1989 and has generated a negative annual return over the past 30 years. The initial culprit of these lost decades was a deflationary monetary mistake, which included a major contraction in money growth, in order to prick what was perceived as a financial bubble. Subsequently, the story has evolved into an obsessive reliance on the creation of debt and government spending, along with a variety of hyper-activist monetary actions. These include the aggressive purchases by the Bank of Japan of government bonds, exchange-traded funds, and real estate investment trusts. This has proven to be a recipe for a perverse set of incentives that has undermined Japan’s growth and prosperity. This includes large swaths of Japanese companies having access to capital that would have been denied in a merit-based, market-oriented system, as a collaborative effort between the government, banks and monetary authorities keeps these companies on chronic life support. While this might provide a mirage of stability, the longer-term implications of these “zombie companies” are detrimental for economic efficiency and vibrancy. It also demonstrates how ambitious Keynesian spending programs, with their supposed multiplier effects in tow, habitually fail. Our policy makers, particularly on the fiscal and monetary fronts, need to heed the warning emanating from Japan, Inc., sooner rather than later. Their model is antithetical to the core principles that have resulted in magnificent periods of economic prosperity in the U.S. and provided rising standards of living. This growth model, when at its best, is characterized by high levels of innovation, capital formation, new business startups and robust productivity growth. Of particular concern on this front has been the rapid emergence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) as a legitimate methodology in some circles to conduct policy. It represents a direct refutation of Milton Friedman’s famous dictum that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In reality, it is more of a political philosophy, as opposed to an economic theory, and has the potential to create an “iron triangle” that could jeopardize our fiscal well-being. This would consist of Congress aggressively appropriating funds via legislation, Treasury Department authorities ready and willing to finance this spending, and Federal Reserve officials poised to monetize the newly minted Treasury debt with their magic checkbook. &&&&&&&& William Howell - Great article, good timing. I have this bad feeling that the voters are walking in the other direction, and will blame the good guys and praise the flakes. 08********08 #] 09Feb2021 210201 Andrew Pancholi Market timing report.pdf 08********08 #] 05Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/uEKgUoHK-Thinking-Big-Picture-on-SP500-and-Macros/ Thinking Big Picture on SP500 and Macro chrism665 >> Wow! Better analysis than almost all professionals!!! 210205 chrism665, TradingView - Thinking Big Picture on SP500 and Macro, forecast 2021-22.png +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-biden-stock-market-wont-be-like-the-trump-market-what-to-expect-51612535400?mod=newsviewer_click The Biden Stock Market Won’t Be Like the Trump Market. What to Expect. Published: Feb. 5, 2021 at 9:30 a.m. ET By Leslie P. Norton Thinking of Savita Subramanian, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s widely followed strategist, A double major in math and philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Subramanian is a heavy user of quant data in her studies of investor sentiment, and has been chief strategist since 2011. >> Howell : 50% woman - repeats same advice I've been hearing for 6 months, but talks nice Full of shit over Democrats' "focussed on economy" (bimbo) No idea of [stimulis, deficit, debt] impact. Blames retail investors for "the decoupling of fundamentals from price" (never heard o[Feb, Treasury] I guess) >> quant studies of market sentiment - she won't even know any Deep Learning stuff, even if she studied it. >> She is totally into corrupt [climate, green, women, socialist] corruption and lies ... She recently chatted with Barron’s about how the Biden administration will achieve economic growth, and why—despite being the firm’s head of ESG—she’s recommending energy stocks. ... So, what should investors do? Focus on GDP-sensitive areas of the market that haven’t done well for almost a decade. ++++Our sector overweights include financials, energy, industrials, and health care. [Howell - Health Care? - not good for a decade? You're kidding, right? The same plucking up much of the money in hte economy?]++++ We find some pent-up manufacturing demand from an unprecedented paralysis in the manufacturing and services economy. We’re more bullish on business investment than on consumption of durable goods. Within consumption, we’re more bullish on a pickup in consumer services than a pickup in consumer goods. Based on our credit-card data for 2020, unlike in the usual economic recession, spending trends remain strong. We had the fastest bear market. The Fed, fiscal policy, and Corporate America basically stepped up and staved off what could have been a deeper recession. Spending took place in home goods and the higher-end consumption areas of the market. Those areas could be at risk in 2021. Our sector underweights are communication services, which are half-growth, half-bond proxies; real estate; and staples. In 14 of the past 14 recessions, the recovery was led by value and cyclical. So, we’re going to see a value cycle. Growth stocks are overly discounting this low-rate, low-growth environment. An easier call to make than value is another area nobody wants to touch—smaller companies, because of liquidity, because of the oligopolistic market. We could be at the start of a longer-lived small-cap cycle, which tends to last eight to 10 years. 08********08 #] 04Feb2021 +-----+ Technical indicators LSMA - Least Squares Moving average, bails out fast misses all of recovery EMA - Exponential Moving Average, misses half of [rise, fall] >> Why not just LOOK at the charts? These indicators might help, but they also hinder and distract. Stay focussed on reality,not crutches for [morons, salesmen]. >> [Fibonnacci, Elliot] are at least somewhat predictive 08********08 03Feb2021 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-interest-rates-to-surge-says-this-bond-expert-11612352825?mod=newsviewer_click A perfect storm is brewing for interest rates to surge, says this bond expert Published: Feb. 3, 2021 at 3:15 p.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Critical information for the trading day /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/210203 Steve Goldstein, MktWtch - Commodto equities ratio 1970-2020.png +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-fear-buoyant-global-markets-vulnerable-to-china-credit-crunch-11612381753?mod=newsviewer_click Investors fear buoyant global markets vulnerable to China credit crunch Published: Feb. 3, 2021 at 2:49 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh Short-term lending rates spiked in January, fanning fears Chinese policymakers would tighten policy /media/bill/Dell2/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/210203 Sunny Oh, MktWtch - Chinese money market rates 2017-2021.png &&&&&& Howell : Sunny Oh - Awesome article and timing. Just the update I've been looking for. Thanks. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/to-fix-the-economy-and-give-workers-a-chance-biden-should-replace-the-job-killing-tax-code-11612299432?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: To fix the economy and give workers a chance, Biden should replace the job-killing tax code Last Updated: Feb. 3, 2021 at 9:41 a.m. ET First Published: Feb. 2, 2021 at 3:57 p.m. ET By Daron Acemoglu Human labor should not be taxed more heavily than robots &&&&&&&& Howell - Perfectly normal academic "conclusions-driven" thinking, what mathematician Alfredo Pareto referred to as "residues". It would be nice to see academic thinking comparable to Deep Learning Neural Network machines, but it may be better to bet on the machines soon. Even though that technology is hugely immature and rapidly evolving, it is one of several areas of hope when there are less and less competitive areas of the economy, and apparently not much at all in academia. 08********08 #] 29Jan2021 Harry Dent - A.C. Hunt - only favourite economist other than ?Henry? Schiller +-----+ QuantGuy 29Jan2021 Cautiously Optimistic of Stocks, long Stocks saw some incredible volatility yesterday. No doubt some of this is related to the GameStop saga. The S&P 500 has completely retraced the bear move only to give back thse gains and settle around a cluster of levels beginning at 3737. It is likely to find support here, at least for the moment, which seems to be verified over the past few hours. Kovach OBV whipsaw extremely rare. This is telling us that there is an extreme amount of momentum in stocks lately, in both directions: selling and buying. It is difficult to determine the overall direction of stocks, however we still remain cautiously bullish for now. lower support - 3737, 3714, 3694 upper targets - none 28Jan2021 Short, Cypher Pattern Breakdown in Stocks, consolidation at 3712-3750 lower supports 3695, 376 3658 upper targets - none 27Jan2021 big downspike! OBV turn negative so bear momentum lower supports 3810 is Fib level Kovach upper targets - none 26Jan2021 flash crash, continued rejection upper resistance 3867 would be bearish, could go either way lower support 3792 Fib level upper targets - none 25Jan2021 ranging 3825-3867, long lower support - 3811,3800 (psychological level), 3792 (tech level) upper target 3887 22Jan2021 retraced to 3825 strong level of support, Both Kovach bearish so pendulum may swing soon lower support if wrong - 3811, 3800, 3792 upper targets - range 3825-3867 21Jan2021 new highs, resistance exactly at 3856 as called for weeks, inched to 3867, Kovach OBV very stron FOMO to go long now, buy on dip lower support - none higher targets - 3887, 3935 Deus 22Jan2021 (@~3880) It has got to end sometime soon. What bugs me is that there is no diversion with RSI . Surely I do not want to long that market. But shorting is not yet in the cards. 08********08 #] 25Jan20201 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-of-president-bidens-key-executive-orders-in-one-chart-2021-01-21?mod=newsviewer_click All of President Biden’s key executive orders — in one chart Published: Jan. 25, 2021 at 12:26 p.m. ET By Victor Reklaitis and Robert Schroeder New president also deploys memorandums, proclamations, other executive actions Key Biden executive actions Subject Type of action Date Re-engage with World Health Organization End withdrawal process Jan. 20 Create position of COVID-19 response coordinator Executive order Jan. 20 Rejoin Paris climate agreement Sign an "instrument" Jan. 20 Revoke permit for Keystone XL pipeline, pause energy leasing in ANWR Executive order Jan. 20 Ask agencies to extend eviction/foreclosure moratoriums Request Jan. 20 Ask Education Dept. to extend student-loan pause Request Jan. 20 Launch an initiative to advance racial equity, end "1776 Commission" Executive order Jan. 20 Revoke order that aims to exclude undocumented immigrants from census Executive order Jan. 20 Preserve/fortify DACA, which helps "Dreamers" Memorandum Jan. 20 Require masks/distancing on all federal property and by federal workers Executive order Jan. 20 Reverse travel ban targeting primarily Muslim countries Executive order Jan. 20 Stop construction of border wall Proclamation Jan. 20 Combat discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity Executive order Jan. 20 Require ethics pledge for executive-branch personnel Executive order Jan. 20 Modernize and improve regulatory review Memorandum Jan. 20 End "harsh and extreme immigration enforcement" Executive order Jan. 20 Extend protection from deportation for Liberians in U.S. Memorandum Jan. 20 Revoke certain executive orders concerning federal regulation Executive order Jan. 20 Freeze any new or pending regulations Memorandum Jan. 20 Fill supply shortfalls in fight vs. COVID-19 with Defense Production Act, other measures Executive order Jan. 21 Increase FEMA reimbursement to states for National Guard, PPE Memorandum Jan. 21 Establish “COVID-19 Pandemic Testing Board,” expand testing Executive order Jan. 21 Bolster access to COVID-19 treatments and clinical care Executive order Jan. 21 Improve collection/analysis of COVID-related data Executive order Jan. 21 Mount vaccination campaign amid goals such as 100 million shots in 100 days Directives Jan. 21 Provide guidance on safely reopening schools Executive order Jan. 21 OSHA guidance for keeping workers safe from COVID-19 Executive order Jan. 21 Require face masks at airports, other modes of transportation Executive order Jan. 21 Establish a “COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force” Executive order Jan. 21 Support international response to COVID-19, “restore U.S. global leadership” Directive Jan. 21 Ask agencies to boost food aid, improve delivery of stimulus checks Executive order Jan. 22 Restore collective bargaining power for federal workers Executive order Jan. 22 Repeal ban on transgender people serving openly in U.S. military Executive order Jan. 25 Tighten ‘Buy American’ rules in government procurement Executive order Expected Jan. 25 Source: Biden administration +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hong-kongs-flagship-stock-market-index-topped-30-000-this-chart-helps-shows-why-11611587071?mod=newsviewer_click China’s CSI 300 index, a market-weighted benchmark composing of shares listed in both Shanghai and Shenzhen’s stock exchange, topped its all-time high in January. The Chinese benchmark 000300, +1.01% has gained 8% this month, versus the 2.3% in the S&P 500 SPX, +0.45% over the same stretch. China’s CSI300 = Shanghai SHCOMP + Shenzhen 08********08 #] 24Jan20201 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-leapfrogs-u-s-to-become-worlds-no-1-destination-for-foreign-direct-investment-11611519119?mod=newsviewer_click China leapfrogs U.S. to become world’s No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment Published: Jan. 24, 2021 at 3:11 p.m. ET By Paul Hannon and Eun-young Jeong New investments in the U.S. by overseas businesses fell 49% in 2020 >> Howell : US fell 49%, China up 4%. Thus is temporary, but may help shift attitudes away from the USA, especially if heavy taxation becomes an issue 08********08 #] 24Jan20201 emto Steve - BitCoin debate, market rises SP500 #] 13Nov2020 ~3614 to ~3855 22Jan2020 (monthly chart, eyeballed) (3855 / 3614)^6 = 1.47305 (~6% per 2+ months, 40% per year) US Treasurey, Fed] injection - another 2 T$ coming, not counting monthly bond buys to depress interest rates. 08********08 #] 06Jan20201 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-a-blue-wave-forming-in-washington-means-for-markets-11609942450?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s what a ‘blue wave’ forming in Washington means for markets Last Updated: Jan. 6, 2021 at 11:04 a.m. ET First Published: Jan. 6, 2021 at 9:14 a.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 210106 DeCambre, MktWtch, Wolfe Research - Investor perceptions of Georgia runoff results.png +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/dYAZos6N-What-s-Next-for-Stocks/ What's Next for Stocks? S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3760.64 32.19 0.86% quantguy 3 hours ago Stocks are extremely volatile lately. It does not seem like they've gotten the risk on memo that caused bonds to collapse last night. After that dip, it still seems like the S&P is feeling out current levels, between 3676 and 3737. The Kovach OBV has tanked but is currently flat lining, a testament to the ambivalence. Keep in mind, that even if it were to correct further into the low 3600 handle, it would still be in bull mode. So it would be wise to be patient for further dips and use them as buying opportunities. if we do get some momentum, 3758, and 3774 will provide resistance before new all time highs. 08********08 #] 05Jan20201 +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-bitcoin-could-soon-be-worth-146-000-says-jpmorgan-11609869356?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s how bitcoin could soon be worth $146,000 according to JPMorgan Last Updated: Jan. 5, 2021 at 2:17 p.m. ET First Published: Jan. 5, 2021 at 12:55 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre The team at JPMorgan Chase JPM, +0.54%, make the case that the blockchain-backed cryptocurrency could be valued at $146,000 in the not-so-distant future , if it can continue to draw demand away from gold buyers, as the researchers at the bank think is already happening. The analysts point to outflow from gold-pegged exchange traded funds, or ETFs, and inflows into a digital-currency focused trusts sponsored by Grayscale, for example, as part of the evidence pointing to increased use of bitcoin as a gold-like security, which would help to drive its price further into the stratosphere. “Bitcoin’s competition with gold has already started in our mind as evidenced by the more than $3 [billion] of inflows into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the more than $7bln of outflows from Gold ETFs since mid-October,”(see attached chart): +--+ Larry Horowitz -The most serious prediction of BTC price I have seen was done by Cathy Wood’s team at ARK Investments, in two open white papers on their website. They looked at four potential uses for BTC, and the likely adoption rates for each use. Based on this, they predicted a price of $140K in 3-5 years. This is quite close to the prediction made by JPM in this article. Justin Dyczewski, 1 hour ago Wow $146,000. Check out Presearch search engine. They are the anti google search "Presearch search engine" https://www.presearch.io/ We believe that the world deserves a community-driven, grassroots, decentralized search engine that’s built by and for the community it serves. This search engine should reward those who contribute to its success, and leverage blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to align the interests of all of its stakeholders. https://www.presearch.io/ecosystem >> "$d_Projects""Investments/References/key stuff/210105 Mark DeCambre, MktWatch, JP Morgan - Cumulative flows in BitCoun Trust & Gold ETF holdings.png 08********08 #] 29Dec2020 +--+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/talk-of-a-2000-style-stock-market-bubble-burst-is-all-the-rage-but-heres-one-missing-ingredient-11609269510?mod=newsviewer_click Talk of a 2000-style stock-market bubble burst is all the rage — but here’s one missing ingredient Published: Dec. 29, 2020 at 2:18 p.m. ET By William Watts Fed appears nowhere near ready to start jacking up interest rates: DataTrek’s Colas &&&&&&&&&&&& Howell - Don't fight the fed, of course. But looking back over the last few decades, the Fed typically lagged market rate moves, coming in at the right time to appear to be in control. Looking back over the last few hundred years, even monarchies and dictatorships ultimately lost the [debt, interest rate] battles, although that often took decades, maybe even more decades than today's situation. Some of the other key factors aren't usually mentioned - [population spurts, crop failures, poverty, pandemics, war]. But of course, these don't happen any more... 08********08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnNCVfo3G-o&feature=emb_rel_end Ray Dalio's introspective look at financial world order, inequality and capitalism: Full interview book - Changing world order 08********08 #] 21Dec2020 Harry Dent Safest deflation play: long T-bonds. Strongest play: short tech stocks, like QQQ, through SQQQ. Potential strategy: 80% short stocks/ 20% long 30-years into around early April 2021, and then switch increasingly to 50/50 after that into late 2022. +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/videogames-are-a-bigger-industry-than-sports-and-movies-combined-thanks-to-the-pandemic-11608654990?mod=newsviewer_click Videogames are a bigger industry than sports and movies combined, thanks to the pandemic Published: Dec. 22, 2020 at 11:36 a.m. ET By Wallace Witkowski COVID-19 lockdowns expected to help global gaming sales rise 20% to nearly $180 billion in 2020, and experts don’t see growth taking a hit in 2021 after release of next-gen Playstation, Xbox Videogames have grown to resemble competition-based, interactive movies, and the COVID-19 pandemic has propelled the industry to make more money than movies and sports combined. Global videogame revenue is expected to surge 20% to $179.7 billion in 2020, according to IDC data, making the videogame industry a bigger moneymaker than the global movie and sports industries combined. The global film industry reached $100 billion in revenue for the first time in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association, while PwC estimated global sports would bring in more than $75 billion in 2020. Two companies, Tencent Holdings Ltd. 700, +0.09% and NetEase Inc. NTES, 0.05%, account for more than half the market share of China’s mobile gaming market. Outside of China, the mobile gaming market is dominated by companies like Activision Blizzard Inc. ATVI, 0.02%, Zynga Inc. ZNGA, 1.87%, and Glu Mobile Inc. GLUU, 0.26%. Mobile growth is also good news for smartphone and tablet-based game distributors like Apple Inc. AAPL, 2.92% and Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOG, -0.97% GOOGL, -0.99%, which dominate how games get on iPhones and Android-based smartphones, respectively, as they take a significant cut of game revenue that passes through their app stores. That practice received a huge amount of attention beginning in August when Epic Games, which publishes the popular battle game “Fortnite,” got banned from Apple’s and Google’s storefronts when it sought to work around those fees. Top 10 videogames by US sales year-to-date, 28Nov2020 The NPD group, Activision Blizzard, Nintendo 1 Call of duty: Black Ops, ColdWar Activision Blizzard 2 Call of duty: Modern Warfare Activision Blizzard 3 Animal crossing : New Horizons Nintendo 4 Madden NFL 21 Electronic Arts 5 The last of us, Part II Sony 6 Ghosts of Tsushima Sony 7 Assasin's Creed : Valhalla UbiSoft 8 Final Fantasy VII: Remake Square Enix 9 Marvel's Avengers Square Enix 10 Super Mario 3D All-Stars Nintendo +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-bull-market-in-complacency-could-stop-the-stock-rally-in-its-tracks-11608650149?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: A ‘bull market in complacency’ could stop the stock rally in its tracks Published: Dec. 22, 2020 at 10:15 a.m. ET By Michael Brush Because sentiment is so high, any hiccup could lead to a reversal in equity prices. You don’t have to go back to 2000 to find precedent for investors being dinged by surprises that tank stocks. Coming into 2020, most of us felt pretty sure we would have another year of nice gains in the stock market. The economy was doing OK, and there didn’t seem to be any major risks on the horizon. To help make market calls like these, I regularly track a dozen sentiment indicators. As a contrarian, I try to do the opposite of the crowd. Now, all my sentiment indicators are at, or near, extreme highs. I’m happy people have joined me and pushed my stocks up. But at this point, we have too much of a good thing. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Consider the analysis of Leuthold chief investment officer Doug Ramsey. To gauge sentiment, he goes beyond the 12 measures I track. He likes to follow the “dumb money” vs. “smart money” in the stock options market. Ramsey compares options positions held by retail investors in individual stocks (the dumb money in his view), to options positions in the S&P 500 Index held by institutional investors. Right now, retail investors are very bullish and institutional investors are relatively cautious. The gap between these two is at an extreme not seen since March 2000 right before the tech bubble blew up, he says. Ramsey also notes the gap between bulls and bears in an Investors Intelligence survey on a trailing four-week basis is the highest in 35 years. Risk factor #1: There could be more serious issues with vaccines and Covid-19 Risk factor #2: The Senate flips to the Democrats Investors like to see political power split between the two parties, since this means politicians can do less damage. But if the two Senate seats in Georgia go to Democrats, that would upend this “goldilocks” split-power scenario in Washington, D.C. That could send stocks tumbling, as investors worry about excessive government spending and regulation. The Georgia elections will take place Jan. 5. Risk factor #3: Inflation heats up because economic growth is so strong There’s been so much stimulus injected into the economy, we could see excessive growth and inflation next year. This would have investors worried the Federal Reserve will hike rates to curtail inflation. Or the bond market would do this on its own — meaning investors sell bonds on inflation fears, sending interest rates higher. Either way, it would be bad for stocks, especially what are known as “long duration” stocks in tech and biotech. These are companies whose valuations are based on earnings expected from products that come to market many years from now. Investors value these distant earnings streams by “discounting” them back to the present — using the current low interest rates — in their “net present value” models. If those discount rates spike because inflation drives up bond yields, then those future earnings will suddenly be worth a lot less today in these valuation models. These stocks would fall a lot. “If all the stimulus begets inflation and higher interest rates, discount rates could move up and cause multiple compression,” cautions Andy Braun, the portfolio manager of the Pax Large Cap Fund PXLIX, -0.08%. He says many tech and biotech companies have high valuations that he has trouble justifying even considering earnings expected five or 10 years from now. “You have to have quite an imagination. It harkens back a little bit to the dot-com era,” says Braun. Risk factor #4: Earnings expectations prove to be too high Risk factor #5: Middle East tensions flare &&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Howell - This makes for a nice [comparison, contrast] to the Deutsche Bank risk list, as per MarketWatch article by William Watts 11Dec2020. Even though most points are the same, I like the descriptions for Risks #3 & 4, especially as relates to discount factors, plus the [contrarian, smart-dumb, dumb-scared] points. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-sign-the-stock-market-rally-hasnt-fully-factored-in-a-successful-vaccine-rollout-11607708770?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s a sign the stock market rally hasn’t fully factored in a successful vaccine rollout Last Updated: Dec. 11, 2020 at 12:51 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 11, 2020 at 12:46 p.m. ET By William Watts 2 Vaccine-related worries seen as biggest risks for financial markets next year: survey Deutsche Bank asked investors to select from a number of risks to global financial markets in 2021. The top worry, cited by nearly 40% of the survey’s 984 respondents, was that mutations would allow the virus to “dodge” the vaccines (see chart below). 08********08 #] 21Dec2020 +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-single-greatest-risk-facing-americans-could-hit-within-a-decade-billionaire-warns-11608578905?mod=newsviewer_click The ‘single greatest risk’ facing Americans could hit within a decade, billionaire investor warns Published: Dec. 21, 2020 at 2:28 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois ‘The single greatest risk that we are dealing with today is the loss of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency. If we keep doing what we are doing right now, I think it is 10 or 15 years away.’ That’s Sam Zell, the founder and chairman of Equity Group Investments, warning in a recent RealVision interview that “a 25% reduction in our standard of living” could take place if the dollar DXY, 0.08% loses its reserve status, which he says is a very real possibility. “Unlimited debt and irresponsible activity don’t lead to positive outcomes,” the billionaire real-estate mogul added. “That’s a disastrous kind of scenario.” Zell isn’t the only heavy-hitter concerned about what a crumbling dollar could do to the U. S. economy. Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio recently warned that “we’re very close” to losing that status. “The system needs to be re-engineered to do this. But if we don’t do this engineering well, we’re going to spend in an unlimited way and deal with that by creating debt that won’t ever be paid back,” Dalio told MarketWatch back in September. “Within the next five years you could see a situation in which foreigners who have been lending money to the United States won’t want to.” As for Zell, he also shared his thoughts on the current investing climate in comments from the RealVision interview compiled by Business Insider. “We can look at some parts of the stock market today and say, ‘Everybody is crazy,'” he said, “I look at valuations and see extraordinary numbers that I can’t support.” He pointed specifically to one of the market’s highfliers. “I can’t even begin to give you an intelligent assessment of Tesla TSLA, -6.49%. ” Then there’s bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.34% and it’s nosebleed ride to record highs. “I am very skeptical, frankly, of bitcoin.” he said. “Ultimately, it may be the answer or one of the answers. But right now, it’s a world that’s extraordinarily populated by chameleons and other fast-talking characters. I don’t believe everybody involved in it are the kind of people I’d like to follow. ” Finally, Zell also had a message for those confident that they have a pulse on where the volatile stock market is headed in 2021: “Everybody else seems to have a kind of timing game in their own head. ‘Well, I can get out before so and so happens,'” he said. “The world is full of skeletons of people who believed they could get out before the bad event came.” 08********08 #] 17Dec2020 /media/bill/SWAPPER/Website - raw/economics, markets/currency-crypto/ : crypto versus 10 year interest rate, bonds 06No2019-17Dec2020.png https://www.marketwatch.com/story/should-you-buy-bonds-with-yields-this-low-an-expert-who-has-been-right-for-years-says-yes-2020-04-21 Opinion: Should you buy bonds with yields this low? An expert who has been right for years says yes Published: April 22, 2020 at 9:28 a.m. ET By Howard Gold Schwab’s Kathy Jones says rates will stay low for some time Opinion: Should you buy bonds with yields this low? An expert who has been right for years says yes Published: April 22, 2020 at 9:28 a.m. ET By Howard Gold 29 Schwab’s Kathy Jones says rates will stay low for some time She also doesn’t expect the Fed to officially push rates into negative territory, but the market may do it on its own. The one-year Treasury TMUBMUSD01Y, 0.091% yielding 0.15% doesn’t have too far to fall before its yield goes into the red. “It is possible, if we get another scare that’s deep enough and there’s another flight to safety, that yields along the Treasury curve could go negative just because demand for safety is so strong,” she notes. A weak economy and deflationary, rather than inflationary, pressures (illustrated by Monday’s sickening plunge in crude-oil prices CL00, 1.25% that continued on Tuesday) make it an OK environment to own bonds, even though income investors may be frustrated by the paltry yields. Jones respectfully disagrees with Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund firm, who said last week investors would be “pretty crazy to hold bonds” now. For those of us who aren’t Ray Dalio, Jones still likes high-quality investment-grade corporate bonds with average durations no longer than five to eight years. “In the corporate bond market, you’re going to get, with higher -rated bonds, anywhere from 2% up to 3% depending on the bond. That’s not the end of the world. It’s not fantastic, and it’s not terrible,” she said. Jones advises all but the most aggressive bond investors to avoid high-yield bonds, which she thinks are very risky at a time when she expects bankruptcies and bond defaults to rise. [Howard Gold] I like long-term Treasurys, which I think will do well if stocks plunge again. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT, -0.28% gives you exposure to the long end, while the Schwab Intermediate-Term U.S. Treasury ETF SCHR, -0.04% has an average duration of around five years. The Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF VCIT, 0.11% is a good way to invest in another one of Jones’s favorite bond sectors. I don’t own any of these ETFs. 08********08 #] 16Dec2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/why-bitcoin-is-overpriced-by-more-than-50-51608120001?mod=newsviewer_click Why Bitcoin Is Overpriced by More Than 50% Last Updated: Dec. 16, 2020 at 9:47 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 16, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Howell - Erb's network is smarter than his theories. There are other fields of researchers, and scientists, who do wonderful work with highly complex networks. But markets, economies, voters, are perhaps beyond most of it? And I appreciate that Erb's concept is thought-provoking. Thanks +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-proof-that-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-dont-boost-the-economy-11608136674?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Here’s proof that tax cuts for the rich don’t boost the economy Last Updated: Dec. 16, 2020 at 4:38 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 16, 2020 at 11:37 a.m. ET By David Hope and Julian Limberg So much for trickle-down economics espoused by Ronald Reagan and others &&&&&&&&&&&&& Howell : Conclusions-driven research. Perhaps right, perhaps wrong, perhaps completely irrelevant or not. We don't expect anything better of [academic, government] researchers. Perhaps a revamp of thinking about the Great Depression, Western North American dust bowl versus the Holomodor? Substantive historical pandemics and [drivers, conditions, policies, outcomes] versus covid-19? Or how about [Pareto, Mandlebrot]s' disagreement with the long-standing politically-correct analysis of wealth distributions in society. Are you kidding, right or wrong we can't touch that in modern society!? Didn't do those two good at all, either. Best stick to the bed-time stories we are comfortable with. It's way too hard to find ... whatever, ever, ever not. 08********08 #] 14Dec2020 BTCUSD 5y - is hyper-exponential /media/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/BitCoin/ : Currency-crypto 5 day 11-16Dec2020.png https://www.tradingview.com/x/Zp6sLh8o/ Currency-crypto 1 month 23Nov-16Dec2020.png https://www.tradingview.com/x/mWex3OiC/ Currency-crypto 1 year 26Feb-16Dec2020.png https://www.tradingview.com/x/O9PYlZBR/ Currency-crypto 5 year 09Jan2017-16Dec2020.png https://www.tradingview.com/x/ulMw9Ngg/ Posted to TradingView ; Currency-crypto over (5 years, 1 year, 1 month, 5 days) I'm a crypto newbie, so the pricing relationship comparisons across time are very curious to me. Similarity of currency patterns over time on a linear scale, and crypto patterns on a logarithmic scale sort of make sense to me. But the similarity is more than I would have expected. How long can crypto maintain the logarithmic growth? Will the (linear, logarithmic) pattern similarities sustain for years, or "invert" or change somehow soon? Will the logarithmic growth rates decline to the pace of financial asset price inflation (eg debt growth, Modern Monetary Theory Treasury-Fed injections)? I don't want to be a crypto-trader, I just want to send $$ to my grandchildren, and to have fun and frustration doing it. 08********08 #] 14Dec2020 TradingView notable posts - awesome!! +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/XdbpIwWn-Harmonic-Patterns-With-Advanced-Explanations-Check-It-Out/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+86+%28EN%29 Harmonic Patterns With Advanced Explanations Check It Out Education Bitcoin / U.S. Dollar (BITSTAMP:BTCUSD) 19216.45 54.09 0.28% GoldenWolFCharts Types of Harmonic Patterns Harmonic price patterns are those that take geometric price patterns to the next level by utilizing Fibonacci numbers to define precise turning points. Unlike other more common trading methods, harmonic trading attempts to predict future movements. Let's look at some examples of how harmonic price patterns are used to trade currencies in the forex market. ----------- KEY TAKEAWAYS Harmonic trading refers to the idea that trends are harmonic phenomena, meaning they can subdivided into smaller or larger waves that may predict price direction. Harmonic trading relies on Fibonacci numbers, which are used to create technical indicators. The Fibonacci sequence of numbers, starting with zero and one, is created by adding the previous two numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc. This sequence can then be broken down into ratios which some believe provide clues as to where a given financial market will move to. The Gartley , bat, and crab are among the most popular harmonic patterns available to technical traders. ---------- Geometry and Fibonacci Numbers Harmonic trading combines patterns and math into a trading method that is precise and based on the premise that patterns repeat themselves. At the root of the methodology is the primary ratio, or some derivative of it (0.618 or 1.618). Complementing ratios include: 0.382, 0.50, 1.41, 2.0, 2.24, 2.618, 3.14 and 3.618. The primary ratio is found in almost all natural and environmental structures and events; it is also found in man-made structures. Since the pattern repeats throughout nature and within society, the ratio is also seen in the financial markets By finding patterns of varying lengths and magnitudes, the trader can then apply Fibonacci ratios to the patterns and try to predict future movements. The trading method is largely attributed to Scott Carney although others have contributed or found patterns and levels that enhance performance. Issues with Harmonics Harmonic price patterns are precise, requiring the pattern to show movements of a particular magnitude in order for the unfolding of the pattern to provide an accurate reversal point. A trader may often see a pattern that looks like a harmonic pattern , but the Fibonacci levels will not align in the pattern, thus rendering the pattern unreliable in terms of the harmonic approach. This can be an advantage, as it requires the trader to be patient and wait for ideal set-ups. Harmonic patterns can gauge how long current moves will last, but they can also be used to isolate reversal points. The danger occurs when a trader takes a position in the reversal area and the pattern fails. When this happens, the trader can be caught in a trade where the trend rapidly extends against him. Therefore, as with all trading strategies, risk must be controlled. It is important to note that patterns may exist within other patterns, and it is also possible that non-harmonic patterns may (and likely will) exist within the context of harmonic patterns . These can be used to aid in the effectiveness of the harmonic pattern and enhance entry and exit performance. Several price waves may also exist within a single harmonic wave (for instance, a CD wave or AB wave). Prices are constantly gyrating; therefore, it is important to focus on the bigger picture of the time frame being traded. The fractal nature of the markets allows the theory to be applied from the smallest to largest time frames. To use the method, a trader will benefit from a chart platform that allows him to plot multiple Fibonacci retracements to measure each wave. There is quite an assortment of harmonic patterns , although there are four that seem most popular. These are the Gartley , butterfly , bat, and crab patterns. 201212 GoldenWolFCharts, TradingView - Harmonic [Gartley, butterfly, bat, crab] patterns, [bull, bear]s.png +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/TSLA/7NccPqQ5-This-Is-When-To-Short-Tesla-TSLA/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+86+%28EN%29 >> short Tesla https://www.tradingview.com/chart/URTH/lYEsJzhQ-MSCI-Country-Performance-in-2020/?&utm_source=Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TradingView+Weekly+86+%28EN%29 MSCI Country Performance in 2020 ISHARES INC (AMEX:URTH) 110.62 0.15 0.14% drewby4321 Dec 9 >> Awesomecharts!!! stock [index, currency]s drewby4321 09Dec2020 iShares MSCI World country performance in 2020 08********08 #] 11Dec2020 BMO TSX-ZCH is baqsically a Chinese NASDAQ!! Presumably just as vulnerable as NASDAC to a crash? +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-sign-the-stock-market-rally-hasnt-fully-factored-in-a-successful-vaccine-rollout-11607708770?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s a sign the stock market rally hasn’t fully factored in a successful vaccine rollout Last Updated: Dec. 11, 2020 at 12:51 p.m. ET First Published: Dec. 11, 2020 at 12:46 p.m. ET By William Watts 2 Vaccine-related worries seen as biggest risks for financial markets next year: survey Deutsche Bank asked investors to select from a number of risks to global financial markets in 2021. The top worry, cited by nearly 40% of the survey’s 984 respondents, was that mutations would allow the virus to “dodge” the vaccines (see chart below). /media/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/Deutsche Bank 11Dec2020 investor perrceptions of top risks to global financial markets in 2021.png +-----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-2020s-performance-scoreboard-tells-us-about-the-wisdom-of-short-term-trading-2020-12-11?mod=newsviewer_click What 2020’s performance scoreboard tells us about the wisdom of short-term trading Published: Dec. 11, 2020 at 2:15 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert It’s important to know the circumstances in which it’s more and less dangerous Nice article, humbling and human-realistic (at least for me) I like the Harry Browne idea, although I'm so chicken it comesout to the same thing. The numbers don't account for financial asset inflation versus interest rates that can't be attractive for long term bond issuers (other than the government). Will normal gains even keep up? &&&&&&&& William Howell 7 minutes ago Nice article, humbling and human-realistic (at least for me)I like the Harry Browne idea, although I'm so chicken it comes out to the same thing. The numbers don't account for financial asset inflation versus interest rates that can't be attractive for long term bond issuers (other than the government). Will normal gains even keep up? William Howell Just Now Mark Hulbert's results are public-available on his website - very interesting comparisons! 08********08 #] 10Dec2020 Russell 1000 and Wilshire 5000 I have no idea of hi-tech weight... Maybe rotate into cyclicals, value, commodities? Buy China - the West is too [cunt, socialist-idiot-ally] infested. Only Socialists know how to manage their own kind 08********08 #] 08Dec2020 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/RSUKhxDT-SPX-What-if-the-trend-is-still-intact-in-the-long-term/ I've been considering this possibility, given the still active quarterly and yearly trend signals in #SPX500 here. You can see that both trends predict rising prices until the end of 2021, or even until Q3 2022. So far, seems like most people have been constantly trying to call tops since the COVID lows, and failing miserably at it. I've had my doubts, but now that vaccines are being rolled out very soon, I believe we might see further upside in equities, specially in the right sectors (which I'm invested in). Some names might start faring worse if we see increasing inflation , but we have to keep an eye on the yield curve to tell if this is the case or not. For now, it isn't farfetched to assume a rotation to value might take place, but it is not crazy either to assume the index will trend higher for a long time still. Personally, given the yield of stocks compared to treasuries I think it is reasonable to be long stocks, long term, as long as rates don't rise too fast. A lot of the usual suspects started banging their hyperinflation/death of the dollar drum again, I find it hard to believe they get it right. I trust in our collective determination and wits, to take us out of this hole we are in since Feb, hopefully I'm not wrong for our sake. Cheers, Ivan Labrie. 08........08 Howell - Your comments find some corroboration from a "semi-log detrended" graph of S&P500 from 1872-2020, using two basis periods : 1872-1926 (54 years); 1926-2020 (84 years). I don't think I can put links here, so here is a "puzzle link" to my webPage with (graphs, description) : BillHowell ca "economics, markets" SP500 multi-fractal "1872-2020 SP500 index, ratio of opening price to semi-log detrended price" html I prefer a "multiple conflicting hypothesis" view, and I am no expert, but at present we are almost exactly at the mid-point of the 83-year trend, with potential for BOTH huge up and down movements if the trend means anything. So super-(bulls, bears) are both plausible by this criteria, along with everybody in the middle. To me, one BIG question is : Does the 1929-sized "Hi-Tech" crash of 1999-2000, along with massive social engineering of the financial markets (housing, QE, deficits, etc), signal a new, possibly vastly higher long-term trend of financial asset inflation in comparison to last 83 years? Can that actually happen, or is a major crash-every-five-years a possibility? Ray Dalio's LinkedIn "Changing world order" is like a haunting chant to me - shades of (Ibn Khaldun, Arnold J Toynbee, Kondriatieff, Tijevsky, Stephen Puetz, Harry Dent, etc). But don't worry, be happy, there are potentially far greater problems on the horizon (climate and other BS science aren't among them). 08********08 #] 04Dec2020 HS Dent December forecast Global outlook on the precipice of the crash of a lifetime, many bottoms projected to end of 2022 Nov was : Greatest bubble ever either has tipped or is near, pattern of the longer crash ahead Oct : The depression we have to have, deflation is the only outcome from here Post-2022 - buy India Sensex index The most unique aspect of this bubble is that it comes on the most powerful 90-year Great Bubble/Great Reset Cycle and on the 250-year Revolution Cycle, which includes the American Revolution and the Protestant Reformation in Europe before that. And it comes right smack during the “Fourth Turning” generational cycle that comes about every 80 years, as outlined by William Strauss and Neil Howe. Their research closely parallels, politically and socially, my economic and financial generational research. No wonder it is taking so long for such a grand, historical bubble to build and then to burst—two giant 80-year and 90-year cycles are converging! The most important aspect of such 90-year cycles in particular is that they are deflationary crises, not inflationary ones such as the 1970s extreme summer season on my economic cycle and the hyperinflationary Weimar Republic of Germany in the early 1920s. All debt and financial assets deflate down to reality painfully, except the highest-quality currencies and long-term bonds, which become safe havens…. There is nowhere to hide! 08********08 #] 03Dec2020 Barrons/Grayscale THE CRYPTOCURRENCY INVESTOR FORUMW https://ripple.com/ etherium bitcoin greyscale +-----+ 13:00 WORKSHOP: DIGGING DEEPER INTO PORTFOLIO CONSTRUCTION Join a workshop built for financial advisors designed to consider portfolioallocation, due diligence and different product alternatives. Paul Pagnato | ​Co-Chairman, Cresset; Founder, PagnatoKarp Michael Sonnenshein​ | Managing Director, Grayscale Investments Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary ​| Director of Investor Relations and BusinessDevelopment,Grayscale Investments Pagnato : Conversation evolution with clients : BitCoin Blockchain Other cryptos assymetric returns +--+ Surveys : Do you have an expectation for when cryptocurrencies will become a mainstream investment? a. They already are! (12%) b. I have no idea (12%) c. In the next 1-2 years (38%) d. In the next 2-5 years (34%) e. I don't think it ever will (4%) Closed at11:42 AM What do you think remains your biggest hurdle in allocating to cryptocurrency? a. Lack of personal understanding and education (40%) b. Lack of mainstream and/or widespread acceptance (14%) c. Volatility and general headline risk (21%) d. Operational hurdles (24%) How knowledgeable are you about cryptocurrency investments? a. Very knowledgeable, I can speak about it fluently with clients (14%) b. Somewhat knowledgeable, but I’d like to know more (33%) c. Not very knowledgeable, I’m just starting to learn (43%) d. I haven’t seriously engaged with cryptocurrencies before (10%) Closed at11:04 AM +--+ Questions : Douglas Price 11:07:02 am Could you talk about how bitcoin or other cryptoassets are treated with respect to taxes? If you own bitcoin through Grayscale is the capital gains/ loss treated as it would be with any other stock? 4 votes Josh Spector 11:09:28 am Can we discuss the fact that most cryptocurrencies lose value versus BTC. A couple that perform well versus BTC are ETH and LINK. In my opinion, anything outside of BTC, ETH, and LINK, is a speculative bet. ETH has more volatility than BTC, but sees higher returns. LINK has been gaining value versus BTC exponentially since it’s inception. Can someone comment on that too? 3 votes Douglas Price 11:03:06 am Does Grayscale have insurance on it's cryptoassets? 3 votes Karina Buckner 11:13:03 am Grayscale - Can you discuss your GBTC & GDLC product. Why is the minimum investment so high 50k versus the 25k for your other products? 3 votes Eric Nielsen 11:11:58 am Why is there such a large premium on Grayscale shares vs moving price of Bitcoin? It reminds me of the heavy marketing of PHYS vs GLD. 3 votes Victor Melendez 11:09:30 am Does Grayscale have active selling agreements with the major financial advisory firms throughout the U.S? 2 votes Natasha Bogatova 11:12:48 am Please talk about Bitcoin taxation. 2 votes NEIL KIRBY 11:24:58 am How can I get a copy of that moon/earth photo - awesome! 2 votes Jacob yang 11:39:56 am If you’re only weighting portfolios by market cap, how do you identify underrated Digital Assets (eg Decred / $DCR) 2 votes Josh Spector 11:05:47 am Can we expand more on lengthening cycle theory versus the halving/4 year cycle theory? 1 votes NEIL KIRBY 11:15:32 am What are the components of GRAYSCALE BITCOIN TRUST (BTC) Common Stock? 1 votes NEIL KIRBY 11:05:09 am If I want to invest some money in Bitcoin, which Companies offer the best stability and peace of mind? 1 votes Jonathan Wagner 11:18:35 am can you please discuss specifically why the GBTC price v NAV delta exists? 1 votes George Nastas 11:17:25 am 1. What is the lowest transaction/administration cost, most secure method to buy/hold bitcoin? 2. Bitcoin is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it Tulip mania now? 1 votes Anthony Lew 11:10:25 am Do you have a statistical breakdown of global sovereign govt ownership of Bitcoin by percentage? 1 votes Ryan Franz 11:22:21 am My second question is, I am heavily invest inside Grayscale. North of 50k in GBTC and spreading the wealth between all trust funds the Scale offers... If/when this does launch to the other universe, will Grayscale offer their customers part of their actual coins to be used 'to pay said visa credit card bill?' 1 votes Karina Buckner 11:38:18 am Grayscale - Why is XRP only 3% of your GDLC when it is the third largest asset by marketcap? 1 votes Brian Markham 11:29:54 am When will the younger crypto assets like zcash be available in a GBTC like OTC vehicle? 1 votes Bill Howell 11:29:06 am To respond to the poll, my delay in getting into crypto was to see it being used seriously and widely. It has been repeated by several speakers that fear of central bank stimulus-driven financial asset inflation is now driven a big change-over? 1 votes Robert Hesslink 11:40:40 am Given that most registered firms don't allow us to offer cryptocurrency, how will the retail client gain access and guidance? 1 votes eric mING 11:03:39 am when will the bitcoin to break 20, 000 USD? 0 votes Bill Howell 11:08:39 am No poll? I am "javascript voided". Sounds serious 0 votes Event Host 11:10:17 am Hi Bill, the poll results are available in 'Closed Polls.' Please try refreshing your browser or opening an incognito tab if you are having trouble viewing. Jacob yang 11:12:28 am What's the premium on the crypto assets vs actual underlying? 0 votes Ryan Franz 11:20:26 am I see Crypto becoming a 'new asset' to these younger kids, for our world future. Although, my question is. How do we see the legal rules coming down from the WH? Any speculation to this? if Blockfi is launching a CC with Visa and rewards on Crypto, there has to be a pending bill for the WH or Senate. 0 votes pradeep kumar 11:28:31 am how does taxes work on GBTC (Retirement vs regular account) 0 votes Ryan Franz 11:32:41 am I hate to play politics on this. But lets say this.. Trump re-tweets what he did years ago. That he isn't a fan of BTC or any Coin. I know personally, I'll pac-man every single coin up. -- Does this 'fear' worry other investors and our current balance sheet. 0 votes Ryan Franz 11:36:38 am Last question Michael, with an index fund offered by Fidelity, do you see Grayscale moving that direction as well? I'd love to work offline about this as well. 0 votes Ryan Franz 11:39:38 am 8 to 14 months. maybe change the question Michael to months not years.. 0 votes +-----+ 12:25 WEIGHTING CRYPTO IN A PORTFOLIO David Grider​ ​| ​Director, Senior Research Analyst​, Fundstrat Global Advisors Breanne Madigan |​ VP, Head of Global Institutional Markets, Ripple Paul Pagnato | ​Co-Chairman, Cresset; Founder, PagnatoKarp In conversation with:Sterling T. Shea​ | Global Head, Wealth & Asset Management,Barron’s Group Valentina Kadashikova 10:48:19 am Please address safest places to purchase Bitcoin, Ripple, etc. 4 votes Rob Bob 10:37:52 am Can XRP accomodate other assets (fiat currencies, gold, bitcoin) on its ledger while maintaining its advantanges of speed and cost effectiveness? 3 votes karly wang 10:28:53 am if energy consumption is a limitation for bitcoin to be a payment tool, does it limit its potential as an investment? 3 votes Eric Nielsen 10:32:59 am Why won't Barrons build an on-ramp to crypto purchase, and for larger account, interest-earning savings accounts? You're leaving us at the mercy of less reputable actors. 3 votes Valentina Kadashikova 10:34:18 am How truly decentralized is cryptocurrency? 1 votes John Murray 10:42:27 am Should I be buying XRP? Or Ripple equity? 1 votes Bo Zhou 10:41:05 am What is the advantage of XPR over stablecoins in terms of reminttances? 1 votes Josh Spector 10:47:09 am Can we speak to the fact that very few cryptocurrencies gain value versus bitcoin (usually until bitcoin reaches its prior all time high)? A couple that do are ETH and LINK, but can we speak to the value of holding others long term that haven’t historically beat BTC? 1 votes Alessandra Bufano 10:48:07 am I am still not understanding why bitcoin would not be susceptible to inflation. All currencies are measured in relation to the money in circulation. Holding the supply fixed does not necessarily guarantee that the actual value of an asset will be stable and unchanging. What would you say to that? 1 votes Seth Finkel 10:44:07 am Re. XRP, doesn't the current moment-to-moment volatility restrict the ability to practically use it as a standard method of fund transfer? I.e., the value changes so frequently, can a user rely on pricing and value when they plan their intended transfer? 0 votes Josh Spector 10:44:46 am Do we believe that the bitcoin cycles are lengthening versus the theory of the halvings being the catalyst for these blow off tops? 0 votes Phil Lorenzi 10:50:28 am if world wide fiscal policy leads to stimulus to offset Covid-19 economic damage and vaccines drive a return to normal economy, how does that effect digital currencies ? 0 votes +-----+ 12:00 THE DEATH OF CASH BRINGS NEW BIRTH TO BITCOIN MasterCard crypto strategy Jorn Lambert MasterCard Chief Digital Officer utility, recourse for consumer if transaction goes bad, compliant speed of transactions Lynn Odland 10:16:10 am Could you give us three safe places to buy Bitcoin 4 votes John Murray 10:13:19 am wouldn't XRP be the most promising vehicle for payments? 3 votes George Nastas 10:10:23 am What is the minimum transaction cost method to purchase bitcoin What is/are the tax implication/s of using bitcoin in a commercial transaction 2 votes Songyan Li 10:04:41 am What do you think of the bitcoin core (developers) dominate the chain itself, do you think it is unhealthy for bitcoin's future 0 votes Josh Spector 10:05:40 am Can we discuss Ethereum and it’s growing economy? 0 votes sen zhang 10:07:53 am people are talking about quantum may threat the security of bitcoin. does the bitcoin network has capability to upgrade its network and getting more secure over time? 0 votes Songyan Li 10:11:57 am That is the reason we have smart contract, so we don't need decentralized patform like Amazon to win all the profits from information inequality 0 votes Songyan Li 10:16:25 am Visa has already made cooperation with Circle, would Master move forward to work with other stable coins? ex. Libra.. 0 votes +-----+ 11:35 THE BULL CASE FOR BITCOIN Michael Taylor - put 425 M$ into Bitcoin fiat M2 blowout - will loose 10-15% ofyour wealth every year for next 5 years if you don't do something. gold as safe haven - producers can hugely increase production, gold is counterfeited, Bitcoin is pharaceutical-engineered gold, will de-monetise gold >> He has great arguments!! >> 3 cypto challenges - [copy, hacked, banned] - non have worked >> Rupert Murdoch putting into it >> He is short 30 year bonds - he knows the market well (nti-Money-Laundering (AML) compliant, YML-compliant, Anti-Terrorist Financing (ATF) compliant Marc Perton (WSJ Barron's) - asked Michael Taylor about volatility of Bitcoin Questions : Valentina Kadashikova 09:55:54 am Any thoughts on Ripple? 4 votes Karina Buckner 09:56:55 am It would be a mistake to ignore XRP. Many companies are saving real money using XRP. Ripple the company is leveraging the XRP asset so is Moneygram. 2 votes Marco Dell’Omo 09:48:37 am where do you see the price of Bitcoin in 10 years ? 2 votes Luis Odon 09:36:12 am What are the challenges for Bitcoin to act as both a store of value and a medium of exchange? 1 votes Valentina Kadashikova 09:32:48 am Please don't forget to address that there's only going to be 21 million bitcoins created, specifically to curb inflation with this type of currency. 1 votes George Nastas 09:35:32 am Bitcoin is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Is bitcoin subject to 'greater fool theory' Bit coin like fiat money has no hard asset backing like gold. 1 votes Valentina Kadashikova 09:47:11 am Just because it hasn't been hacked, doesn't mean it can't be. 1 votes 哈哈 09:43:42 am 能多买点btc拉盘吗？今晚拉到2万美金吧！ 1 votes Lisa Bagot 09:48:56 am How is it stolen? CAN small investor get insurance? 1 votes John Murray 09:49:44 am The govmnt regulations apply to cryptocurrencies, not just bitcoin. Why shouldn't a better version come along? 1 votes Simon Y 09:50:15 am What if government make a strict audit policy on btc/eth 1 votes Alex Yang 09:52:43 am Crypto is undoubtedly the trend with people flooding in and its foreseeable that it will revolutionize the IT industry. But how fast the government regulations will comply with this trend. 1 votes Mark Beguin 09:47:41 am As the pandemic continues to destroy us. Will people embrace Bitcoin as a legit currency, due to the fact it will not spread germs? 1 votes Eliot Weinman 09:46:48 am what is the investment thesis for ethereum vs bitcon? 1 votes Eric Nielsen 09:53:37 am Is it true that 2% of Bitcoin accounts own 95% of Bitcoin value? Isn't this very destabilizing? 1 votes HAL SCOTT DAVIS 09:53:28 am The central premise/rationale of hyperinflation seems farfetched - it assumes US monetary authorities cannot manage inflation - there's no evidence for this - comments? 1 votes Frederick Scarboro 09:58:36 am What companies have real solutions for business? Ripple comes up consistently. What are the true plays? 1 votes Songyan Li 09:57:34 am Is institution like Matrixport gonna dominate the bitcoin derivatives 1 votes Anil Nair 10:00:07 am do you foresee bitcoin to increase by 10 x in next few years 1 votes minghai jin 10:01:49 am What about BCH 0 votes Ram Agarwal 09:36:52 am Which product is going to split 9 to 1? 0 votes Ram Agarwal 09:38:12 am Are you going to split LTCN? or ETHE? 0 votes Joe Trombka 09:39:27 am These two should be able to comment how we can buy some bitcoin.. Simple or complex? 0 votes Evan Shelan 09:43:38 am Has Bitcoin changed its persona as to where illicit behavior hang out, such as drug dealers and money laundering? 0 votes sen zhang 09:44:27 am How about the security of the bitcoin network in long run? what if some revolutionary computer computing power being create and it overrun the bitcoin network and break it ? 0 votes HAL SCOTT DAVIS 09:48:17 am Bitcoin will eventually be subject to money laundering rules which will eliminate its anonymous payment capability - comments? 0 votes Barry Mevorach 09:51:57 am The value of bitcoin is impacted by the limited-constant supply of 21 million "units". Is it likely that the supply of bitcoin will increase and thus impact (reduce) the market price of bitcoin? 0 votes minghai jin 09:53:22 am Wow 0 votes Jeff Politis 09:53:24 am What are the weaknesses of the cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Coinbase and others? Are they still at risk of seeing currencies "disappear" overnight like it happened a few years ago? 0 votes Susan Stephens 09:54:42 am What about LTC? 0 votes 哈哈 09:56:55 am 比特币狗庄最近比较猖狂，灰度有什么应对策略。 0 votes Simon Grendene 09:58:59 am The only problem I can see with Bitcoin is that very few people hold a majority of the Bitcoin reserves which speaks against a "public" adoption. 0 votes Eric Nielsen 09:59:08 am Okay. Corrected for extremely small accounts, 6% of accounts hold 95% of Bitcoin, according to Barrons. Still very destabilizing. Having said that, I just bought a share of MSTR. 0 votes Jeff Politis 10:00:06 am Thank you 0 votes gina posey 10:00:16 am what website / books/ etc educational matieral to learn more and to keep up on trends 0 votes +-----+ 11:05 THE STATE OF THE DIGITAL CURRENCY MARKET Howell question, not asked - Naveen Mallela, You commented about cryptos reducing the cross-border transactional annoyances of sovereign currencies (with SBDCs). Achieving scale while solving real problems. What about completely new crypto-enabled capabilities - are there market developments here? I don't have any knowledge of this - perhaps Questions Eric Nielsen 09:10:00 am Can you please comment on 95% of bitcoins being held by less than 2.2% of bitcoin owners? This would seem to be extremely destabilizing to for essentially ALL of Bitcoin's future. 10 votes Ken Meuser 09:04:00 am Will you be discussing the pros and cons of various crypto? and please discuss the Grayscale fund that invests in a variety of them... 9 votes Daniel Berz 09:06:59 am What is expected to happen with the regulatory uncertainty that Digital Assets pose in the US? Daniel Berz - Fintech Capital Corp. 8 votes LWRENCE Doute 09:06:47 am How to invest? Are there ETFs covering Bitcoin? 6 votes Valentina Kadashikova 09:09:09 am Please address the misconception of crypto being incapable of being hacked 6 votes Whitaker Deflin 09:05:58 am Do you think the governments commitment to debt monetization should further the case for bitcoin? 5 votes Jeff Politis 09:13:12 am Hi, Thanks for this conference! Could the Moderators please help curb the enthusiasm of the speakers by asking tough questions about relevancy of crypto currencies, known weaknesses, hacking, transaction speed, etc...? Thanks! 5 votes Townsend Baldwin 09:09:19 am If governments begin to regulate BTC, then what might the regulated environment look like in the future and how would that affect demand for BTC? 4 votes Rick Budd 09:02:08 am WHAT WILL BE THE IMPACT OF INDUSTRY ETF’S? THANKS. 3 votes Lou Corapi 09:08:07 am Will stablecoins will be banned? What is the potential impact on BTC? 3 votes Douglas Price 09:10:28 am What are your thoughts on centralized blockchain currency that is backed by fiat currency such as the proposed Diem (formerly Libra)? 3 votes Michael L 09:14:14 am Dow Jones announced it will launch crypto indexes in 2021 even though Bitcoin makes up over 60% of total crypto market cap, is the dominance of bitcoin here to stay and what kind of impact would indices make on investment products? 3 votes Gary Anderson 09:17:42 am How will the new question on the 1040 about about any sale or use of virtual currency will affect use of virtual currency? 3 votes Soon Moon 09:27:38 am When will XRP moon? 3 votes Josh Spector 09:10:35 am Can we have a discussion on Ethereum and it’s growing economy? 2 votes Erik Olson 09:11:39 am Please address the risk of losing passwords and forever losing access to assets. Is it true 20-30% of the total coins are lost forever? 2 votes Frederick Scarboro 09:18:57 am Is ETH 2.0 a game changer? 2 votes Dawns Xu 09:18:49 am when Grayscale will add $near and $dot? 2 votes brendon-powder 12:NaN:NaN am How would increased Centralisation and regulatory framework in FINTECH influence the availability of the products and services currently offered by Decentralised protocols eg. AAVE, Barn Bridge etc.? 2 votes Johannes Berz 09:25:22 am Has any major Endowment invested in Crypto? 2 votes mayank van 09:05:23 am Hi,Thanks for arranging such a informative event,My Question is,How Bitcoin can help US economy ? Can Bitcoin increase value of US dollars if 30% of worlds gold is a replaced with Bitcoin ? Mayank 2 votes Victor Melendez 09:29:20 am What is the potential liquidity risk given BTC has a finite amount of coins in circulation? 1 votes Qing Zhou 09:20:39 am So far the crypto-currency made the wealth inequality worse. Are there any thoughts around how to address it? 1 votes HAL SCOTT DAVIS 09:23:30 am The only plausible rationale for investing in Bitoin is as an inflation hedge but has a correlation been established - it seems there's no empirical support for this - comments? 1 votes karly wang 09:26:58 am DEFI platforms are blossoming. interested in the panelists' view on future of DEFI - opportunities and risks. 1 votes Tom Engle 09:24:54 am Is Quantum Computing a threat to the integrity of Blockchain/Bitcoin? 1 votes scotte carter 09:25:39 am Morning. Right now, I see PrimeTrust as a leader for custody for digital securities. Fidelity will have a solution for 2021 as well. Do you also see the other larger Asset Managers offering the same service ? 1 votes Howard Savin 09:27:36 am Are their opportunities for individual investors? 1 votes S Smith 09:30:09 am A rather basis question and to confirm, there is no hard asset behind Bitcoin 1 votes Valentina Kadashikova 09:31:14 am How truly "decentralized" is Bitcoin? 1 votes Sharvin Baindur 09:06:50 am Please share more about tokens that are “backed” by various cryptos. 0 votes Charles Flathers 09:24:15 am Treasury Dept. is rumored to be planning new regulations for stable coins...comments on this and other potential legislative action would be of interest... 0 votes Brian Markham 09:26:05 am When will Zcash be available via OTC vehicle like GBTC? 0 votes Daniel Rojas 09:28:04 am How you see the most recent headlines on sale or exchange of digital currencies likely being taxed as capital gains in the US? 0 votes Victor Melendez 09:31:50 am Are the panelist seeing an increase in blockchain technology adoption from institutions? What is the prospective outlook for increased adoption going forward? 0 votes 08********08 #] 01Dec2020 find a 20+ year long bond fund in Canada +-----+ https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individual/mvc/loadImage?country=can&docId=9811 #] 31Oct2020 Vanguard Canadian Long-Term Bond Index ETF (VLB) +-----+ https://www.blackrock.com/ca/individual/en/products/239489/ishares-canadian-long-term-bond-index-etf?switchLocale=y&siteEntryPassthrough=true iShares Core Canadian Long Term Bond Index ETF Politically-correct [climate, anti-military] fucks No way will I invest in shits. +-----+ https://www.stocktrades.ca/canadian-bond-etfs/ Nelson Smith, September 14, 2020 +--+ BMO Aggregate Bond Index ETF (TSX:ZAG) Stock % Assets BMO Long Provincial Bond ETF 3.61 BMO Short Federal Bond ETF 3.57 BMO Short Corporate Bond ETF 2.83 BMO Mid Provincial Bond ETF 1.61 BMO Mid Federal Bond ETF 1.60 BMO Long Corporate Bond ETF 1.56 BMO Short Provincial Bond ETF 1.53 BMO Long Federal Bond ETF 1.32 Canada (Government of) 1.02 Canada (Government of) 0.75% 0.87 +--+ iShares Canadian Hybrid Corporate Bond ETF (TSX:XHB) Top 10 Holdings: Stock % Assets Ford Credit Canada Limited 3.74% 1.42 Videotron LTD/ Videotron 4.5% 1.10 Ford Credit Canada Limited 3.35% 0.92 Inter Pipeline Limited 6.88% 0.86 Inter Pipeline Limited 6.75% 0.81 Ford Credit Canada Limited 2.77% 0.80 iShares Canadian Hybrid Corporate Bond ETF (TSX:XHB), a security that invests in Canadian companies that aren’t quite as good of a credit risk. It buys the bonds of companies that have a BBB credit rating or lower. The portfolio – which consists of almost 500 individual bonds – is an interesting mix of household names and risky bonds added in to really goose the yield. The ETF also increases its yield by holding bonds that don’t mature until 2070 or 2080. This translates into a yield of right around 3.72%. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s a full 33-50% higher than the most popular bond ETFs. That alone should be enough to get some investors interested. There’s just one big problem with this unique product. Like with a lot of specialty ETFs (like say Canadian REIT ETFs,) the management fee is a little high. The current MER is 0.45%, which is much higher than the other two bond ETFs on this list. +--+ iShares Core Canadian Bond Universe ETF (TSX:XBB), a behemoth fund offered by Blackrock. Stock % Assets Canada (Government of) 3.5% 1.26 Canada (Government of) 1% 1.21 Canada (Government of) 1.75% 1.04 Ontario (Province Of) 2.9% 1.02 Quebec (Province Of) 3.5% 1.02 Canada (Government of) 2.75% .98 Canada (Government of) 5.75% 0.96 Canada Housing Trust 2.9% 0.96 Canada Housing Trust 2.4% 0.94 It has net assets of more than $4.6 billion, with more than 1,300 different bonds in the portfolio. The vast majority of these are government bonds, issued either by the federal government or various provincial governments, but there are also some corporate bonds mixed in as well. One big advantage this ETF has over some of its peers is its ridiculously low management fee. You’re paying a mere 0.07% of assets under management to get access to the entire universe of Canadian bonds. That’s a small price to pay. 08********08 #] 04Nov2020 Harry Dent November report - US long-term bonds are safest harbour India - Bombay Sensex index - Harry Dent "the strongest stock index in Asia" iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) As good as that simple TLT play is, I would prefer to buy 30-year Treasury Bonds now that the spread over the 10-year has gone from 20-30 basis points to 80+ basis points. That not only gives a substantially higher (but still low) yield, it also offers a bigger deflationary play as rates fall to near zero on the 10-year bond. These rates even could go negative, as many other major government bonds already have. They could go as low as 0.5% or so for 30-year bonds. In this deflationary scenario, that could take your gains to 40%+ in one of the safest investments on earth. Yes, they are way less volatile than gold. And don’t even think about Bitcoin at this earliest and most-volatile stage… its heyday will come later into this crash. If Bitcoin goes back down to its 2018 low near $3,000 or especially to its bubble origin around $1,350, that will be a screaming long-term buy signal. But that is not likely to happen until late 2021 to late 2022, well into or at the bottom of the great crash ahead. 08********08 01Dec2020 +-----+ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SU/DvsFYNp6-Suncor-A-Tale-of-Two-Traps/ Suncor - A Tale of Two Traps, Long SUNCOR ENERGY INC (TSX:SU) 20.64 −0.13 −0.63% ColdMetalAlchemy Sep 21 For 20 years, the market has never had anything but dips to buy. Even the 2008 "Financial Crisis" was just a dip to buy. Even the March illusion of a pandemic was just a dip to buy. However, a pendulum always swings from one side to another. What throws people off and makes trading so difficult is that you can know: Where the market is going What direction the market is going But what you don't know is when the market is going to do it. Only the makers know that, and that's why they're rich and retail is not. But, one thing you should be clear on is that this is the end of the line and the party is over. The world is not in good shape. Trouble is only just beginning, and it won't be a brief flash in the pan this time. The presence of a huge number of people practicing socialism (Communism) all over North America, and the world, has already shown itself to be a huge problem to the future of this world, and is about to show its economic consequences. After all, the biggest players can trade short and make even more money than they do during bull runs, while everyone's portfolio, 401K, and life savings gets wiped out. The ultimate purpose is to cause people to capitulate their holdings at the bottom, actualizing huge losses that cannot be regained. Once you're poor, you're easy to buy off. Once you're poor, people will do anything, including betray their friends, family, and country. In all the other areas of the world where poverty is common, prostitution, arms, and drugs all become booming industries. What else are people going to do when they need to eat? That is, unfortunately, the endgame for the human race. But before all good guillotines drop, you must raise the blade high into the air so it can fall in dramatic fashion. That is what our good friend Suncor is about to do, and likely WTI Crude Oil along the way. So, this is a long trade, but it is a scalp. This isn't for you to pack a bag for your portfolio thinking that you're going to see a new all time high in 12 or 24 months. People are no longer allowed to live like human beings, which means travel has been destroyed, which means the energy industry is in big trouble. After it is complete, take your profit and stay cash heavy. Consider getting out of the market and buy yourself something nice. Spend some time with your family. Maybe take up meditation or spiritual practice. When the rivers of blood begin to show themselves in the streets, wait a few months before you start buying. Every rally will be for suckers and the pullback will be in the 80% range on all asset classes. Perhaps gold and silver will be the only exceptions, in the end. Sep 24 Trade active: An opening gap into the top of the box and then a significant bounce into a close over $17. Not sure that there will be any retracement to give additional chances to get long in. Sep 30 Comment: Suncor trading away from the box and back to the box is actually a sign of accumulation. Trading to the bottom of the box at ~$16.18 and even to $15.80 is also accumulation. You can buy there, as harry as it looks and feels. Smart money buys when it's red and shorts when its green. Retail shorts when it's red and buys when it's green. Oct 4 Comment: Donald Trump contracting Wuhan Pneumonia is a very, very dangerous situation not only in the market, but in the world. At any time, a gap can come and the gap may be 20, 30, 40 percent or even more. A lot of groups and entities make tremendous money during crisis. Unfortunately, you are not one of them. You only make money getting long and hitting the jackpot like you're at the casino. Be careful. Oct 8 Comment: If you buy the bull trap, you'll die. If you sold the bear trap, that's not so bad by comparison. Now is not the time to be "investing". Now is the time to be moving out of the market and getting away from the sharks (whales) circling. There are more important things in life than gambling. Fame and material gain are short lived. It's not like you even live in a world where you can spend your money on anything now. Borders will be closed until the socialists are eliminated, which will take years, if it ever happens, which means travel is permanently off the board. Time to ask yourselves one simple question: "What did I come to Planet Earth for?" Nov 9 Comment: Comment: Now that a socialist who both he and his son are controlled by the Chinese Community Party controls the White House, the next stage of "the plan" begins. If you are thinking that socialist policies will bring you happiness now that Donald Trump is gone, then I'd say your conscience and your sense of justice are rotten. Not to mention you're a total moron. Sell Suncor over $20. It's going there. 08********08 01Dec2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-severe-drop-is-imminent-this-3-musketeers-stock-market-is-signaling-says-contrarian-strategist-11606824335?mod=newsviewer_click The stock market is signaling a ‘severe’ drop is imminent, says contrarian strategist Last Updated: Dec. 1, 2020 at 9:28 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 1, 2020 at 7:05 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day But a “pretty severe” stock drop may have already started, if not a week or so away, warns our call of the day, from the True Contrarian blog and newsletter’s chief executive officer, Steven Jon Kaplan. He says there are plenty of signals flagging this if investors know where to look. “What I notice the most is investors crowding into the stock market and making record inflows, while insiders have never been selling more heavily than they have done in November 2020,” Kaplan told MarketWatch in an interview and emails. He notes “intense selling” across the board via J3 Information Services Group, a website that tracks company director buying and selling, known as insiders. That means “most knowledgeable investors realize that some big drop is coming…and they’re preparing for it by reducing risk,” he says. Kaplan says “a lot of things are going to be dropping by 30% or 40%,” and believes we are in a bear market, so suggests looking at pullbacks between 2000 and 2003 for an idea of what’s ahead. >> Howell : Kaplan also mentions : “We also have safe-haven assets like TLT TLT, -1.47% (iShares 20+ Year Treasury exchange-traded fund), the U.S. dollar index DXY, -0.73%, and VIX VIX, 1.36% (which measures stock volatility) forming important bases in what looks like preparation for significant rallies,” he says. “Usually when these ‘Three Musketeers’ climb higher, almost everything else will soon be moving lower.” 08********08 Puetz newsletter https://www.marketwatch.com/story/simon-property-gives-up-on-four-struggling-malls-why-more-could-follow-11605362409 08********08 #] 10Nov2020 TVmsg to QuantGuy I'm almost totally flexible, so it's much important that you pick a time that's good for you. My non-availabilities are : tonight 18:00-on (I can break this), tomorrow 10:00-14:00MST (Remembrance Day ceremony). I'm on Mountain Standard Time (1.5 hours drive out of Calgary). Bill@BillHowell.ca 1-587-707-2027 Questions for him - see '/media/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/QuantGuy/Howell - Financial markets and Computational Intelligence, questions.txt 08********08 #] 09Nov20220 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/OamNy6my-The-Pfizer-News-Hear-it-First/#tc4480028 QuantGuy - Stocks have blasted through new highs completely disregarding election drama and focusing solely on the Pfizer news. Indeed news of a 90% success rate in the vaccine has fueled a risk on frenzy. It is really difficult to "crystal ball" what's going to happen other than to say that a retracement is likely at some point. This news seems highly dubious and when that is priced into the markets we could retrace the entire move and then some. I'd be highly skeptical of this move. That being said, I would also not get in the way of this freight train. If you have an existing stock portfolio you should be singing right now. But I would also consider taking profits. We have just found resistance at a Fibonacci Extension level, which may prove to be a retracement. The Kovach OBV is incredibly bullish so there is a lot of meat to this rally. Bill_Howell - 90% success? My assumption until now has been that 40-60% of population is effectively immune from the start, a much lower % get moderately sick, I forget my guesstimate from the spring how many get "hospital sick", and <<1% die. Hard to assess the news without better guesstimates and how they came up with the 90%, and still no talk of a test for "susceptible" people, even though many "at risk" populations have easily been identified. But, as you state, bullishness is apparent. quantguy - @Bill_Howell, I'm right there with you! The data suggests that the coronavirus is not much worse than the flu, yet we don't shut down the world every flu season. Furthermore, the fact that this is an mRNA virus makes any reports of a vaccine highly dubious. However, my personal opinions don't really matter for the sake of my commentary here. My point was to communicate how the *markets* will interpret this news. 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/bgs0C8IU-Overweighing-stocks-significantly/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc4479698 Adamsb (long) - In the context of the new vaccine, all fear has become hope, and a lot of growth will come the coming days, I hope. I am definitely buying a lot here. Bill_Howell - Right at new record levels, albeit strong economic partial rebound. is the top? Adamsb - @Bill_Howell, There are numerous bullish factors. Households are very deleveraged, the risk premium is very good, uncertainty about Covid in terms of potential lockdown in the winter months has evaporated because of the vaccine. A actually do not see anything which can stop the market from rallying the coming days and months. However, there are industries such as Tech, which might not be as good investments right now. Please share your view. I like getting as many angles as possible. Bill_Howell - Thanks Adamsb, I appreciate your comment, which reflects the current market. I am always afraid when I don't understand, and when valuations are so high, but as you say, no so much for the favoured [hi, bio]-tech, some pharma, Tesla, and a few others. There i great deal of faith put in vaccines, which is not necessarily reflected in historical results. TradingView won't allow a link to a ?scary? influenza graph I threw together last spring, but from Peter Doshi 2008 "... The overall decline in influenza-attributed mortality over the 20th century cannot be the result of influenza vaccination, because vaccination did not become available until the 1940s and was not widely used until the late 1980s [19]. ..." Still [people, scientists] will believe what they want to believe, and that has an important effect on markets - hope. 08********08 #] 09Nov2020 BioNTech BNTX 0 Pfizer 90% vaccine effectiveness https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NASDAQ-BNTX/ BioNTech SE operates as a clinical-stage biotechnology company. It operates through the following business units: Biotech Business and External Services. The Biotech Business unit consists of Clinical, Technology Platform and Manufacturing segments. It also includes business services operations. The External Services unit consists of External Services segment, which includes activities related to the sale of diagnostic products, peptides, retroviral vectors for clinical supply, development and manufacturing services. The company was founded by Christopher Huber, Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin on June 2, 2008 and is headquartered in Mainz, Germany. 08********08 #] 08Nov2020 QuantGuy on MarketWatch ghostsquawk.com/ QuantGuy, 02Nov Hi Bill, Thank you for the donation. We offer alot more content related to trading if you are interested. My partner does live streaming sessions daily from 9-11 AM EST. We also developed AI technology for news trading and have a free trading community on discord. Let me know if you would like to join. Thank you. Howell, 03Nov quantguy - hope I'm answering your message properly (not used to this blog). I'm fascinated by markets, economics, finance], but rarely get time to look at it. This year I have taken some time, a bit more than I can afford. What would be fascinating to me is a session on how traders view "AI" or "machine intelligence", and whether [fractals, Elliot waves] are involved in your thinking. I have had much feedback from academics (I am not an academic), but I am fairly disconnected from the "real applications" world. What is your website? This week is a wash, perhaps in a week or two? QuantGuy, 03Nov Hi Bill! Thanks again for your interest! You can check out our website at ghostsquawk.com (its provided in my profile). We have a discord channel where traders share their knowledge in a community of over 2500 My background is AI and machine learning in finance. we have a product that reads the news and determines, using natural language processing technology what the risk sentiment is in the markets If you are interested, id be happy to chat with you about this topic Howell, 05Nov Yes - I'm rushing today and tomorrow, so I'll get back to you this weekend. My guess is that you are too busy tomorrow morning, and it's a bit off topic, but the International Neural Network Society is holding a free online workshop tomorrow morning on explainable, and among the NN historical giants, one of the speakers is Lee Giles, Professor of Information Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, https://clgiles.ist.psu.edu/ (CiteSeer, NLP-related a bit) : https://www.eventbrite.hk/e/explainable-ai-xai-virtual-workshop-registration-122938932657 It may be too late to register... Howell, 08Nov I was thinking of paying you 100 to 200 $US of chat over the phone or something (my guess is that would be a fraction of an hour). I'm mostly interested in how you view "AI", and [its current, your expectations of future] use in the financal industry. Opinions about Computational Intelligence toolsets is also of interest, and I am aware that you cannot get into proprietary tools. I am not, and never will be a trader, although [markets, finance, economics] have long been of passive interest. Couldn't message the following (too long for TradingView) https://www.ghostsquawk.com/ : ghost-squawk-education/ Module 5: Elliot Wave Theory and Kovach Indicators ghost-squawk-trading-community/ YouTube : sign-on failed for some reason about-us/ "... Daniel Kovach graduated from Florida Institute of Technology with a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and two Bachelor of Science degrees in Math and Physics. He began his career as a NASA Analyst through his MS program at FIT. ..." Howell : I wonder if he knows Fred Ham (?not sure of name- I think he was INNS President one year, and I met him at IJCNN2007 Orlando). Lee Giles - ExplainableAI, Recurrent Neural Network verification with automata & grammars - As I mentioned in a previous chat, Lee Giles did present during the INNS workshop on ExplainableAI. Hopefully INNS will post the video of this presentation for open access. 08********08 #] 04Nov2020 Opinion: Breaking up Google and the rest of Big Tech wouldn’t be enough to fix our innovation problems Published: Nov. 4, 2020 at 1:41 p.m. ET By Daron Acemoglu Ensuring that innovation benefits the many will require a more comprehensive policy approach 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell -Hmm, to me this is somewhat off the mark. Blind to the onslaught of foreign companies in the most [advanced, important areas], to the rise of a highly diverse eco-system of social media, especially among the young (future). And measured only in US market cap. We need a future guesses of the future industry, and a solid self-critical view of how to stay ahead. [Social, environmental] engineering has laid waste to enough industries already, and the young may need hope of careers for the future. Tread carefully, the US dominates only a few areas of the economy, albeit that is doing well for now. 08********08 27Oct2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/an-enormous-stock-market-bubble-has-already-popped-says-david-einhorn-11603828447?mod=newsviewer_click An ‘enormous’ stock-market bubble has already popped, says David Einhorn Published: Oct. 27, 2020 at 3:54 p.m. ET By William Watts Einhorn acknowledged that Greenlight had “prematurely identified” the bubble in a 2016 warning, one he put down in part to the notion that the height of the 1999-2000 bubble was a once-in-a-career experience and that investors wouldn’t repeat “that level of insanity.” “Clearly, we were mistaken,” he said. Bubbles, meanwhile, tend to topple under their own weight as all investors finally hop in, short sellers cover, and the “last buyer has bought (or bought massive amounts of weekly calls),” he wrote. “The decline starts and the psychology shifts from greed to complacency to worry to panic,” Einhorn said. Einhorn pointed to 10 signs that backed up his bubble call. These include, he wrote: - an IPO mania; - extraordinary valuations and new metrics for valuations; - a huge market concentration in a single sector and a few stocks; - a second tier of stocks that most people haven’t heard of at S&P 500-type market capitalizations; - the more fanciful and distant the narrative, it seems the better the stock performs; - outperformance of companies suspected of fraud based on the consensus belief that there is no enforcement risk, without which crime pays; - outsized reaction to economically irrelevant stock splits; - increased participation of retail investors, who appear focused on the best-performing names; - incredible trading volumes in speculative instruments like weekly call options and worthless common stock; and - a parabolic ascent toward a top. Einhorn said that if the call is correct, investor sentiment is shifting from greed to complacency. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - William Watts - Nice to see Einhorn's list of 10. That the fraud statement doesn't include financial industry components stands out in contrast to "Big Short" film (Michael Lewis' book) comments by ?Michael Bleury?and Mark Baum. This makes me wonder, how might palyers be taking advantage of the [Treasury, Fed] largess? There have to be ways, or perhaps not. In the end, maybe this arises from our democratic push for [enrichers, saviours]? 08********08 06Oct2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-now-is-the-time-to-get-more-bullish-on-tech-stocks-says-citi-11601983229?mod=newsviewer_click Why now is the time to get more bullish on tech stocks, says Citi Last Updated: Oct. 6, 2020 at 7:27 a.m. ET First Published: Oct. 6, 2020 at 7:20 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer Critical information for the U.S. trading day 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Why has anyone compared international COVID-19 [cases, deaths] numbers on the basis of total cases only, instead of at least on the basis of per capita, and even better by clustering countries on per [capita, race, demographics]? Why they are still doing so? So much for the experts... Jim Jab > William Howell, 5 minutes ago You're assuming that lower capita countries actually perform ample testing and log COVID deaths accurately, which is a bad assumption to make. Lower capita countries have worse healthcare infrastructure, so obviously there are going to be a higher mortality rate. Idk what you are trying to prove. There is no incentive for countries to report accurately, if you're a 3rd world nation you regularly lie to your citizens, why stop at COVID? Report less deaths, citizens don't get upset == control the population. Howell - Good points, I agree. "... so obviously there are going to be a higher mortality rate ..." : Obvious assumption, but it doesn't necessarily match many countries (look at the more advanced examples where you may have some limited degree of confidence (eg [India, Korea, Taiwan, Signapore])). I was not trying to prove anything - from doing limited peer reviews of papers with mathematical theorems, I have perhaps both a high love of "proofs", and a wariness of what that actually means. Theorems are [fun, powerful, useful], but they can also be blinding. Perhaps market traders realize that more than most? Max Day > William Howell, 1 hour ago There is no uniformity of data quality from country to country, or even within one country from region to region. Some countries don't even bother to collect data. And some countries intentionally fudge the data for political purposes. You're always comparing apples to oranges in this data realm. Howell - That is a conformist response that I often see, and to a large extent I agree. However, it is rare that I see the same reasoning applied to the data that they are using (eg the table shown here), and in a sense we are trapped in an imperfect data world for many issues. Furthermore, I don't remember seeing comments that not all of the ?third world? is more [backwards, ignorant, corrupted] than we are. So the question is, will we close our eyes, or dare to look with a huge grain of salt? 08********08 01Oct2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacy_Hunt Lacy Harris Hunt[1] is an economist and Executive Vice President of Hoisington Investment Management Company (HIMCO).[2] He is Vice-Chairman of HIMCO’s strategic investment policy committee and also Chief Economist for the Wasatch Hoisington Treasury Bond Fund.[3] He has authored two books, A Time to Be Rich and Dynamics of Forecasting: Financial Cycles, Theory and Techniques, and has had articles published in Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times[4], The Journal of Finance, the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Portfolio Management and other locations.[5] He received the Abramson Award from the National Association for Business Economics for “outstanding contributions in the field of business economics.” [6] https://thesoundingline.com/lacy-hunt-deflation-not-inflation-is-coming/ 19Apr2020 Lacy Hunt also emphasizes deflation not inflation Who does Lacy Hunt respect but disagrees with? no answer Fudamentals only affect longer-term markets 08********08 22Sep2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/xpeng-gets-its-first-buy-rating-heres-why-51600811348?mod=newsviewer_click Electric Vehicle Maker Xpeng Gets Its First Buy Rating. Here’s Why. Last Updated: Sept. 22, 2020 at 6:02 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 22, 2020 at 5:49 p.m. ET By Al Root Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng got its first analyst rating Tuesday—a Buy from J.P. Morgan analyst Nick Lai. The rating sent Xpeng stock higher in Tuesday trading. It’s good news for Xpeng (ticker: XPEV) shareholders, as well as all EV bulls. Another Buy-rating builds on the popularity of the main Chinese EV stocks: Li Auto (LI), Xpeng, and NIO (NIO). Asia-based analysts aren’t scared off by sky-high valuations of EV shares, but a look at EV pioneer Tesla suggests that the same can’t be said of their U.S.-based peers. Analysts based in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia covering Li, Xpeng, and NIO now have, in total, 17 Buy ratings and 9 non-Buy ratings. (Non-Buys are Hold and Sell ratings.) That works out to a Buy-rating ratio of about 65%. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500, for comparison, is about 55%. The average Buy-rating ratio for traditional, gasoline-based Chinese auto makers, accounting for about 14 million in new car sales each year, is 69%. U.S. analysts are far more skeptical about EV companies. There is really one pure-play EV maker in the U.S., of course: Tesla (TSLA), the most valuable auto maker in the world. Only 16% of analysts covering the company rate shares Buy. Meanwhile, the Buy-rating ratio for Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU) is 57%. Valuation is the most likely reason for the divergence in analyst sentiment toward the rapidly growing sector. The former Detroit-three auto makers trade for about 0.2 times sales and 7 times estimated 2021 earnings. Tesla trades for about 16 times sales and 136 times estimated 2021 earnings. Tesla, of course, is still growing rapidly. Meanwhile, traditional Chinese auto stocks trade for about 14 times earnings and 0.4 times sales. The Chinese EV stocks trade for about 35 times sales. Li Auto (LI), Xpeng, and NIO (NIO) aren’t profitable yet. 08********08 #] 21Sep2020 05-----05 Opinion: The COVID-19 lockdown is squeezing real estate from all sides and threatens to burst the housing and mortgage bubble Published: Sept. 21, 2020 at 6:55 a.m. ET By Keith Jurow Sooner or later, homeowners in this frothy U.S. housing market must pay the piper The more serious matter is how many homeowners are now delinquent. By the end of 2020, several million borrowers who have received mortgage forbearance will have gone nine months without making a mortgage payment. What impact will this have on U.S. housing and mortgage markets? Let’s start with FHA-insured loans. According to HUD’s July 2020 “Neighborhood Watch” report, 17% of 8 million insured mortgages are now delinquent. This percentage includes mortgages in forbearance as well as those not in forbearance. Hard-hit metropolitan areas include New York City with 27.2%, Miami with 24.4% and Atlanta with 21%. >>>>> Another reason for alarm is the private, non-guaranteed (non-agency) securitized mortgages that go back to the crazy bubble years and which are still active. These were the millions of sub-prime and other non-prime loans that were egregiously underwritten, many fraudulently. At the peak of this activity in late 2007, more than 10 million of these mortgages were outstanding with a total debt of more than $2.4 trillion. As recently as early 2018, 25% of all delinquent borrowers nationwide had not made a mortgage payment in at least five years. In New York State, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., that percentage was more than 40%. Keep in mind that these extremely high delinquency rates existed well-before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. Since March of this year, delinquency rates for subprime mortgages reversed a 10-year decline and climbed to 23.7% in July, according to TCW’s most recent Mortgage Market Monitor report. Other non-prime bubble-era mortgage delinquency rates also were substantially higher. <<<<< According to Inside Mortgage Finance, mortgage servicers had eased the pain for owners of these non-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) by advancing the delinquent principle and interest to them. But in TCW’s latest report, nearly one-third of these delinquent payments had not been advanced to the owners at the end of July. A telling figure is the percentage of home sellers who had to drop their asking price in August. San Francisco showed the highest percentage of reduced asking prices since Redfin began tracking it — 24.5%. Other major metros including Chicago, Philadelphia and New York also saw an increased percentage of reduced listing prices compared to a year earlier. Denver — one of the hottest markets in the nation a few years ago – led the nation in August with 41% of home sellers compelled to reduce their asking price. Another former sizzling market — Seattle — was the second-highest at 31% along with Tampa, Fla. These are signs of weakening markets. /media/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200921 HUD’s Neighborhood Watch, MktWatch - COVID-19 lockdown threatens to burst the housing and mortgage bubble.png 08********08 18Sep2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-comparing-tech-stocks-now-to-the-2000-dot-com-bubble-is-pretty-absurd-according-to-one-wall-street-bull-11600445218?mod=newsviewer_click Why one stock-market bull thinks it’s ‘pretty absurd’ to compare tech selloff to 2000’s dot-com bust Last Updated: Sept. 18, 2020 at 3:11 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 18, 2020 at 12:06 p.m. ET By William Watts Tech sector ‘substantially better positioned’ now than it was 20 years ago: BMO’s Belski History isn’t repeating itself when it comes to the highflying technology stocks sector, despite a sudden round of jitters following the Nasdaq’s quick tumble into correction territory this month after a breakneck rally off the pandemic-induced March lows, according to one longtime Wall Street bull. “After a 62% price run-up in technology stocks since the March lows, all it took was a three-day, 11.4% selloff to shake the confidence of investors and incite renewed fears of a severe and prolonged price decline comparable to the dot-com bubble,” said Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets, in a Thursday note. Among his examples, nearly 87% of tech stocks in the S&P 1500 haven’t seen earnings-per-share losses in any of the past five years, compared with around 64% in early 2000. Also, 47.2% of tech stocks are paying dividends now versus 19.5% 20 years ago, while cash positions as a percentage of total assets now stand at 22.3% versus 18.7%, a sign of “meaningful improvement” in balance-sheet strength, he said. And while valuations, as measured by aggregate profit-to-earnings ratios are above historical averages, they’re well below the excesses of the early 2000s on both a trailing 12-month and forward 12-month basis, Belski said. Also the current median trailing 12-month P/E ratio of 22.0 and the forward 12-month P/E ratio of 18.8 are roughly 26 and 12 multiple points below the levels seen in March 2000, respectively. And then there’s the interest-rate backdrop, with the Fed funds target rate at 0.25% and unlikely to budge for a long time thanks to the Federal Reserve’s new inflation-targeting policy. That contrasts with a fed-funds rate of 6% in March 2000, after policy makers had already delivered 125 basis points of rate increases since June 1999, he noted. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - On a simple long-term semi-log de-trended basis, so far the 2020 SP500 doesn't compare to 2000, as show by : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/SP500/1872-2020%20SP500%20index%20semi-log%20detrended%201871-1926%20&%201926-2020,%20TradingView%20-%20[time,%20mind]%20bend.jpg Simple copy-paste overlays on that graph (shuffled in time, but without changing the image sections as you can check) indicate that on the SP500 semi-log detrended basis, 2020 is not a big thing yet, although it may have a much greater economic impact. And who knows what the world-wide (debt, deficit) addictions may do. For more details about the semi-log de-trended basis, and just in case the graph doesn't shown on this posting, see the web-page : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/SP500/1872-2020%20SP500%20index%20semi-log%20detrended%201871-1926%20&%201926-2020,%20TradingView%20-%20[time,%20mind]%20bend.jpg >> NUTS!! The system rejected my comment! 08********08 #] 14Sep2020 05-----05 SP500 call-put activity, pricing : https://ycharts.com/indicators/cboe_spx_put_call_ratio https://thetradable.com/markets/sp-500-spx-putcall-ratio-is-record-low-but-dark-pool-buying-activity-slowed-down-which-might-cause-bearish-trend https://www.alphaquery.com/stock/SPY/volatility-option-statistics/30-day/put-call-ratio-volume https://www.alphaquery.com/stock/SPY/volatility-option-statistics/30-day/put-breakeven 08********08 05Sep2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/u-s-may-consider-restrictions-on-chinas-smic-why-that-could-make-tech-cold-war-worse-51599336759?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. May Consider Restrictions on Chinese Chip Maker SMIC. Here’s Why That Could Make Tech Cold War Worse. Published: Sept. 5, 2020 at 4:12 p.m. ET By Reshma Kapadia The U.S. may have a new target for export restrictions—Chinese chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing InternationalCorp. , or SMIC—a move that would continue to ratchet higher the U.S.-China tech cold war. The Trump administration is weighing adding Chinese chip maker SMIC (9821.Hong Kong) to its export restriction list, according to a Reuters report, citing a U.S. Defense Department official. That would require U.S. companies to seek a license to supply the chip maker. In a statement on its WeChat account, reported by Chinese media, the company said “it was in complete shock” at the news and denied any ties with the Chinese military, noting it has had “long-term strategic partnerships with multiple U.S.-based semiconductor equipment suppliers” and said it would keep open channels of communication with U.S. agencies to address “potential misunderstandings.” 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - A [decoupled, bifurcated] tech world may be a very good thing : competition not dominated by oligopoles in entrenched markets; creative diversity in the different markets. The Rest-of-World getting to choose. To some degrees there is already some market separation on the consumer social media-like side (eg [Baidu, Ai-Baba]). Some headwinds for [cellphones, tablets, operating systems, etc] but in the end, that's good too. 08********08 04Sep2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/quantumscape-stock-another-ev-stock-is-coming-this-time-its-all-about-the-batteries-51599129030 Another EV Stock Is Coming. This Time It’s All About the Batteries. Last Updated: Sept. 3, 2020 at 4:23 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 3, 2020 at 6:30 a.m. ET By Al Root and Nicholas Jasinski ... Solid-state batteries promise lower cost and higher power density than existing battery technology. That’s a panacea for EV makers—a battery that is relatively cheap and light weight, making the upfront costs of EVs comparable to gasoline-powered cars. Solid state batteries charge faster too. It’s taken a while to get solid state right. QuantumScape believes it is there, pointing out that Volkswagen (VOW.Germany) has tested and validated Quantum’s solid-state batteries and plans to commercialize them by 2025. That might feel like a long way off, but “the automotive cycle is long,” explains Singh. “People have recognized solid state potential for decades.” Singh tells Barron’s that the critical technical challenge needed to be overcome with solid-state batteries has to do with dendrites, branch-like growths that people might see on a windshield in the winter. In the case of a battery, the dendrites aren’t good. They create a short circuit rendering the battery useless. QuantumScape’s core technology stops dendrites from crossing a separator and creating problems. Advertisement Volkswagen has been involved with QuantumScape since 2012. The German auto maker put an additional $200 million into the Quantum this year. When the merger is complete, Kensington’s stock market ticker will change from KCAC to QS. Investors interested in owning QuantumScape can start buying KCAC stock before the merger closes. ... 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/tesla-didnt-join-the-s-p-500-but-three-others-did-51599255574?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla Didn’t Join the S&P 500, but Three Others Did Last Updated: Sept. 4, 2020 at 5:56 p.m. ET First Published: Sept. 4, 2020 at 5:39 p.m. ET By Al Root Another key date to watch is Sept. 22, when Tesla will spend a day bringing investors up to date on battery technology. That will be a fundamental event that drives shares—up or down. Investors will want to hear about gains being made in battery costs and reliability. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/frackings-decade-of-growth-ends-as-schlumberger-exits-51599264046?mod=newsviewer_click Fracking’s Decade of Growth Ends as Schlumberger Exits Published: Sept. 4, 2020 at 8:00 p.m. ET By Avi Salzman, Barrons The U.S. oil boom was the most exciting growth story in energy for nearly a decade. But the exit of a major player from a big part of the business suggests that the growth story may be over. Schlumberger last week said it would unload its North American hydraulic-fracturing unit, combining it with Liberty Oilfield Services for a 37% stake in Liberty worth $488 million. Schlumberger helped transform U.S. oil exploration, making fracking more efficient and profitable and the U.S. the world’s No. 1 oil producer. But Covid-19 and years of weak results have turned investors off. There are now fewer than 100 U.S. fracking spreads, or sets of fracking equipment, from over 400 in 2018. New Schlumberger CEO Olivier le Peuch has committed to reducing assets and focusing more on overseas business, while cutting 21,000 jobs and reducing the dividend. On Wednesday, Schlumberger shares were down 0.3%, to $18.57. /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200904 EnergyInfoAdmin, MktWtch - US oil production & fraccing 2010-2020.png 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-only-path-to-a-sharply-higher-stock-market-is-a-bubble-like-the-late-1920s-and-1990s-says-analyst-who-called-rally-off-march-lows-11599240793?mod=newsviewer_click /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200904 Barry Bannister, Stifel, MktWtch - SP500 Cycle-Adjusted PE ratio (CAPE), market bubbles 1927-2020.png 08********08 03Sep2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-biggest-stock-market-losers-on-thursday-as-the-tech-sector-tanks-2020-09-03?mod=article_inline Here are the biggest stock-market losers on Thursday as the tech sector tanks Published: Sept. 3, 2020 at 5:06 p.m. ET By Philip van Doorn All S&P 500 sectors ended lower 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/todays-older-workers-may-see-the-first-cuts-to-social-security-benefits-2020-09-03?mod=newsviewer_click Today’s older workers may see the first cuts to Social Security benefits Published: Sept. 3, 2020 at 11:44 a.m. ET By Alessandra Malito The Congressional Budget Office released an updated budget outlook, including the pandemic’s impact on the economy Among the numerous adverse effects of the current crisis is the steep incline in the expected insolvency dates for Social Security and Medicare’s programs, which are expected to run out of money in 11 years compared with the previous projection of 15 years. Still, Social Security is in trouble. The two trust funds that support the program, which pays out retirement benefits as well as disability and survivorship benefits, are already at risk of running out of money within the next two decades. With the impact of the pandemic under review, the CBO estimates the insolvency date for Social Security Disability Insurance to be 2026, and the Social Security retirement program, known as Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, by 2031. Medicare Hospital Insurance faces insolvency by 2024 if nothing is done to rectify these projections. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/video/tech-decoupling-china-race-to-end-its-reliance-on-the-us/0BFA6A39-D394-4E83-8835-A8F6BDE62370.html Star Market -> China's equivalent to NASDAQ 200903 WallStJrnl - global projected GDP change 2020-2019, only China grows.png >> Howell : If China does what US does and stops Chinese use of [Apple, Android] phones, the latter will tank 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-30-too-old-to-work-in-media-this-advertising-boss-has-been-forced-to-apologize-after-ageism-row-11599127075?mod=newsviewer_click Is 30 too old to work in media? This advertising boss has been forced to apologize after ageism row Published: Sept. 3, 2020 at 5:57 a.m. ET By Rupert Steiner The chief executive of one of the world’s biggest advertising groups has apologized after misspeaking during a financial update and sparking a row over ageism >> Iforwarded to Catherine (also Charie-Rose's birthday) 08********08 01Sep2020 05-----05 https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/11/01/the-average-americans-investment-returns-and-how-y.aspx The Average American's Investment Returns -- and How You Can Do Better You may be surprised at how awful the average American investor's returns have been. Here's how to be better than average. Matthew Frankel, CFP (TMFMathGuy) Updated: Oct 2, 2018 at 4:55PM, Published: Nov 1, 2015 at 12:10PM According to the latest research, the average American investor underperforms the market over the long term -- and by a huge margin. And yet the reasons for that poor performance are completely avoidable. Here's what the data tells us about the average investor's returns, along with four easy principles that can ensure you do better. Wait, the average investor does how badly? According to Dalbar's 2015 Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior, the average mutual fund investor has underperformed the market over all the time intervals that were examined, which range from one year to three decades. And the underperformance is astonishing. period EquityF S&PIndx diff FixedF BondIndx diff 1 year 5.50% 13.69% (8.19%) 1.16% 5.97% (4.81%) 3 years 14.82% 20.41% (5.59%) 0.72% 2.66% (1.94%) 5 years 10.19% 15.45% (5.26%) 1.21% 4.45% (3.24%) 10 years 5.26% 7.67% (2.41%) 0.69% 4.71% (4.02%) 20 years 5.19% 9.85% (4.66%) 0.80% 6.20% (5.40%) 30 years 3.79% 11.06% (7.27%) 0.72% 7.36% (6.64%) Time Period (ending Dec. 31, 2014) Average Equity Fund Investor Return S&P 500 Average Return Difference Average Fixed-Income Fund Investor Barclays Aggregate Bond Index Difference The study also found that in the 20-year period ending Dec. 31, 2013, the average investor (in all varieties of mutual funds) only managed an average total return of about 2.5%. According to Richard Bernstein Advisors, this performance was even worse than that of three-month Treasury Bills -- which are considered just a step up from keeping money in cash. >> Bill Howell concluded that long ago!! What's to blame for this poor performance? In its report, Dalbar identified nine self-destructive behaviors exhibited by investors that contribute to the dismal performance. For example, investors tend to have a herd mentality, copying the behavior of others no matter what the outcome. They also tend to have knee-jerk reactions to news without considering all of the relevant information. Four ways to be better than average 1. Don't try to time the market. Howell always does this!! (except held good health care >10 years) 2. Don't chase hot stocks Howell almost never did this! (traded NVidia for 2 weeks, rode [S&P, SHCOMP], 5 months)) 3. Don't panic during crashes Howell always does this!! 4. Use the power of dollar-cost averaging Howell did save regular to RRSP, but didn't invest that, just left in cash Howell's entire investment behaviour is fear-of-crash driven, plus some crazy fun tiny [high, bio] tech companies in the past. https://www.thebalance.com/why-people-lose-money-in-the-market-4144737 The most recent Dalbar study of investor behavior found that for 2018, the average investor underperformed the market as a whole for the 25th year in a row (as long as Dalbar has conducted the study). For 2018, the S&P 500 retreated 4.38%, while the average investor lost 9.42%.4 The reasons are simple. Investors try to outsmart the markets by practicing frequent buying and selling in an attempt to make superior gains. It rarely works. https://www.thebalance.com/why-average-investors-earn-below-average-market-returns-2388519 Why Average Investors Earn Below Average Market Returns Dana Anspach, Reviewed by David Kindness Updated August 28, 2020 Ways to Avoid Money Losing Moves 1. Do nothing 2. Gene Fama Jr., a famed economist, “Your money is like a bar of soap. The more you handle it, the less you’ll have.” 3. Never sell equities in a down market 4. Science works 08********08 #] 31Aug2020 05-----05 https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-counts-of-death-by-jurisdiction-and-cause-o/u6jv-9ijr/ CDC-NCHS : Weekly counts of death by jurisdiction and cause of death >> I downloaded data /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/corona SARS2 virus/200826 CDC-NCHS, Weekly counts of death by jurisdiction and cause of death.ods >> Nuts! BullShit - this is respiratory deaths ONLY, no suicides >> Will have to use CDC-NCHS Wonder system, probably https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fbclid=IwAR3-wrg3tTKK5-9tOHPGAHWFVO3DfslkJ0KsDEPQpWmPbKtp6EsoVV2Qs1Q /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/corona SARS2 virus/200822 CDC-NCHS, Provisional death counts for covid-19 by age category. 08********08 28Aug2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-should-be-wary-of-warren-buffetts-crash-warning-2020-08-26?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Investors should be wary of Warren Buffett’s crash warning Published: Aug. 28, 2020 at 1:07 p.m. ET By Brett Arends Leaving the party too early can cost you as much as leaving too late 08&&&&&&&&08 Gregory Tippitt - 1 day ago The author's basic premise has a serious flaw. The downside FOMO on unrealized gains if you get out of stocks until the current uncertainty settles a bit, is not nearly as large the potential losses in the next few months . For example will we have a good COVID19 vaccine in 6 months, or will the reopening of schools result in a Tsunami infections. The eventual impact of current rent and mortgage delinquencies is eventually going to hit hard when the piper eventually must be paid. Then there is the election. Regardless of who you want to win, elections have consequences and things will be changing, with either a new President Biden or a more emboldened President Trump. With the expiration of the $600 per week extra unemployment benefit having now expired, millions of households are going to be spending LOTS less money. Fewer new iPhones being bought, more cancellations of NetFlix subscriptions to instead by groceries, fewer folks ordering non-essential items from Amazon, and more businesses cutting back on digital ads buying from Google. As for the possibility of missing out on possible gains, I have not seem many folks expecting more than modest further increase in the stock market over the next 6 months, while fairly significant chances of a major correction during this time seems very possible, if not probable. Given the choice of maybe a 2% gain or equally likely 20% loss, I'd not risk much on this gamble at present. Gregory Tippitt, 1 day ago I think it funny that of the initial "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down" to my short term pessimistic outlook was 4 to 2, which matches the Consumer Confidence Boards survey for August that found that twice many Americans thought the short term outlook is grim for our economy , compared to the ones that think the clock at the ball ain't gonna ever reach midnight, and the folks missing rent and mortgage payments won't ever have to make up the payments they're missing. Renters can't pay the rent, landlords can't make their mortgage payments without rental income, and the banks are pretending everything is fine on their balance sheets, with tons of delinquent loans. For conventional Jumbo loans that were not included in the Federal bans on foreclosures, many banks are ignoring a rising tide of 90 day delinquencies because they're afraid of tons of repo homes on the books that they can't sell. Meanwhile home buyers are bidding up prices of homes above the asking prices. There will be lots of new loans way under water, if 6 months from now there are repo homes for sale on every block. Leamon Coates -> Gregory Tippitt, 1 day ago Yep John Golden -> Gregory Tippitt, 1 day ago Gregory, You make some great points! The thing I wonder about is the Fed. Regardless of how bad the economy is and will be, it appears they can always pump more money into the stock market if that's what they want. The total US stock market is about $35 trillion, and they already own around $7 trillion of stuff. What would stop them from keeping the market going up essentially indefinitely? Gregory Tippitt -> John Golden, 1 day ago I agree with you about the FED. They and almost all the other major central banks about the globe fired all their guns after the Great Recession, without ever re-tightening monetary policies. As a result they've not had much room to make many changes except point the nose plane towards the ground and hope the engines restart hitting bottom with Japanese style stagflation. I've tried reading about "Modern Monetary Policy", but I have a problem wrapping my head around the idea that national debts don't matter so long as they're borrowed in a country's own fiat currency. While all economist agree that Herbert Hoover styled austerity measures are the absolute wrong policy right now, I can't help but think wistfully of 20 years ago when we had balanced budgets and economist were debating the pros and cons of completely paying off the national debt. Bill Howell -> Gregory Tippitt 28Aug2020 Any thought? : Lawrence W. Reed's analysis "Great Myths of the Great Depression" (www.mackinac.org) provides a very different and fascinating analysis of the Great Depression. Coolidge-years : substantial cuts to high marginal tax rates, bloating of money supply 1921-1928? (+60%?) followed by strong contraction late 1920s, substantial sales of government securities post-crash, and Smoot-Hawley tariff of Jun1930 igniting international trade war (eg loss of 1/3 of agricultural markets from foreign import restrictions? Adolf Hitler "When goods don't cross frontiers, armies will"). In 1932, Hoover doubled the income tax (top marginal rate fro 24 to 63%). Roosevelt years : During the 1932 election, Franklin Delano Roosevelt criticised Hoover for "leading the country down the path of socialism". One of Roosevelt's policy architects of 1930's, Rexford Guy Tugwell "We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started". Roosevelt's initiatives included the Civil works Administration and sucessor Works Progress Administration, gold seizure, the strong-arm National Recovery Administration (NRA, outlawed by Supreme Court in 1935), and strong tax increases. These initial programs resulted in some "signs of life" for the economy (plus debt). In the next phase, the National Labour Relations Act of 1935 was passed partially to make up for the loss of the NRA, and punitive treatment of "high income earners resposible for making the bulk of the nation's decisions about private investment. The top tax rate was increased to 79% then 90%, and doubled banking reserve requirments. Economic historian Robert Higgs : "The relentless assault of the Roosevelt administration - in both word and deed - against business, property, and free enterprise guaranteed that the capital needed to jump-start the economy was either taxed away or went into hiding." Lawrence Reed concludes his report stating "... The Great Depression finally ended, but it should linger in our minds today as one of the most colossal and tragic failures of public policy in American history. The genesis of the Great Depression lay in the irresponsible monetary and fiscal policies of the US government in the late 1920s and early 1930s. ..." reduced to : Bill Howell -> Gregory Tippitt 28Aug2020 Any thoughts? : Lawrence W. Reed's analysis "Great Myths of the Great Depression" (www.mackinac.org) provides a very different and fascinating analysis of the Great Depression. Coolidge-Hoover years : substantial cuts to high marginal tax rates, bloating of money supply 1921-1928? (+60%?) followed by strong contraction late 1920s, substantial sales of government securities post-crash, and Smoot-Hawley tariff of Jun1930 igniting international trade war (eg loss of 1/3 of agricultural markets from foreign import restrictions. Adolf Hitler : "When goods don't cross frontiers, armies will"). In 1932, Hoover doubled the income tax (top marginal rate from 24 to 63%). Lawrence W. Reed (continued) Roosevelt years : One of Roosevelt's policy architects of 1930's, Rexford Guy Tugwell "We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started". Roosevelt's early initiatives included the Works Progress Administration, gold seizure, the strong-arm National Recovery Administration (NRA, outlawed by Supreme Court in 1935), and strong tax increases. In the next phase, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was passed, and punitive treatment ensued for "high income earners responsible for making the bulk of the nation's decisions about private investment". The top tax rate was increased to 79% then 90%, and banking reserve requirements were doubled. Economic historian Robert Higgs : "The relentless assault of the Roosevelt administration - in both word and deed - against business, property, and free enterprise guaranteed that the capital needed to jump-start the economy was either taxed away or went into hiding." Lawrence Reed concludes his report stating "... The Great Depression finally ended, but it should linger in our minds today as one of the most colossal and tragic failures of public policy in American history. The genesis of the Great Depression lay in the irresponsible monetary and fiscal policies of the US government in the late 1920s and early 1930s. ..." NUTS!!!! My comments on Roosevelt were NOT accepted! Rob Frances -> Gregory Tippitt, 1 day ago In California it looks like tenants might be able to stay in place until Feb 1, 2021 if they pay 25% of any missed rent. The rest of the rent is due later. Many landlords have low operating costs and low or no debt, so they'll be fine. The banks will extend and pretend many loans until next year when things start getting sorted out. My guess is only those investors with too much debt or recent property purchase (last 3 years) needs to worry too much about losing their investment. Gregory Tippitt -> Rob Frances, 1 day ago While some states have passed measures regarding foreclosures and evictions, these as well as the federal measures have lapsed in most states. Given California's extreme problems with the virus as well as some of the highest housing costs, it is great that state measures have been extended. Your assumption that landlords have little debt on the properties they own, isn't consistent with my knowledge. One of the great benefits of real estate investment is that no other investment will allow you to leverage up to 80%. You also seem to be assuming that in 6 months, the economy will have returned to its pre-COVID levels of employment and activity. Hopefully we may have seen the worst of this recession and begun to recover, but the recovery of the general economy will be SLOW. Millions of small business will never reopen, and unemployment will take a long time to reach reasonable levels. There will be millions of folks that are behind on rent or mortgage payments that will still not be back to pre-COVID earnings levels. Forbearance isn't forgiveness, so if their household earning don't recover quickly, they will eventually be forced from their homes. Unlike the Great Recession where mainly residential mortgages were involved, this time many owners of commercial real estate are facing high vacancy rates with mortgages to pay. The combined mass of foreclosures for residential and commercial real estate mortgages are going to be major losses for banks soon. 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/4mxAC2o8-Stock-prices-have-reached-a-permanently-high-plateau/ "Stock prices have reached .. a permanently high plateau" S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3494.33 3.10 0.09% AndyM 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Nice reminder. Below I've provided a few TradingView references and two other sources that have plotted similarities with 1929, including (lead, lag) times involved. I expect that there are thousands of others references proving comparitive plots. Several MarketWatch comments pose the question - will the Fed new accommodation of inflation lead to Japan-like post-1989 moribund conditions? TradingView postings : #] 26Mar2020 TexasWestCapital, Amjad Farooq 1929 versus 2020 #] 15Apr2020 PassiCoin, S&P500 1929vs2020- short-mid-long term Forecast. Conclusion- We are fucked Two other subscribed sources : #] 28Mar2020 Steve Puetz newsletter, Economic Depression - (1929,1987,2020) comparison of Dow Industrials versus (NASDAQ,railroads) #] 25Apr2020 Steve Puetz newsletter, The Greatest Depression - (1997,2020) comparison of (DJIA, NASDAQ) versus 1997 Hang Seng (Hong Kong) crash #] 05Jul2020 Steve Puetz newsletter, Quadruple Whammy - (1637 Tulips,South Sea Bubble,1869,1929,1980 Gold,1982,1984,1987,2000,2008,2018,mid 2020) (DJIA,S&P500,NASDAQ) full moon before solar eclipse preclude to crashes #] 27Aug2020 Harry Dent subscriber update, Dow 1929 scenario - Dow first crash with 5-month bounce 08********08 27Aug2020 05-----05 1929 comparisons : $ find "/home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/" -maxdepth 2 -type f -name "*1929*" /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/Howell projections/US Bureau EconAnalysis GDP 1929-2020.xlsx /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200326 Howell, TexasWestCapital, Amjad Farooq 1929 versus 2020.jpg /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200415 TradingView, PassiCoin, S&P500 1929vs2020- short-mid-long term Forecast. Conclusion- We are fucked.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200317 MarketWatch Steen Jacobson, Saxo Bank 1929, 2008, 2018, 2020.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200313 tradingView TexasWestCapital 1929 versus 2020 crashsh.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200326 Howell, TexasWestCapital, Amjad Farooq 1929 versus 2020.jpg /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200319 MarketWatch Michael Batnick DJIA 1929-54 crash recovery.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200415 TradingView, PassiCoin, S&P500 1929vs2020- short-mid-long term Forecast. Conclusion- We are fucked.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/gimp work/200326 1929 versus 2020, TexasWestCapital, Amjad Farooq.xcf 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-treasurys-record-debt-auctions-may-swamp-market-appetite-without-more-support-from-federal-reserve-11598557017?mod=newsviewer_click_realtime U.S. Treasury’s record debt auctions may swamp market appetite without more support from Federal Reserve Published: Aug. 27, 2020 at 3:36 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh U.S. Treasury debt issuance will exceed the Fed’s bond buying if the central bank does not step up its asset purchases In recent weeks, the U.S. Treasurys market has shown signs of indigestion as the federal government auctions off record amounts of debt which may be starting to overwhelm investor appetite. While investors globally appreciate the higher yields on U.S. debt compared with negative rates in Europe, new issuance may soon swamp the Federal Reserve’s asset purchases in the coming months if the central bank does not step up its pace of bond-buying. Even so, investors don’t see Treasury prices buckling under the weight of new supply, with few predicting the 10-year Treasury yield returning to its pre-pandemic levels. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-2020-hurricane-season-could-end-up-rivaling-the-worst-on-record-11598544359?mod=newsviewer_click How the 2020 hurricane season could end up rivaling the worst on record Last Updated: Aug. 27, 2020 at 1:08 p.m. ET First Published: Aug. 27, 2020 at 12:05 p.m. ET By William Watts 2020 storm season threatens to exhaust the alphabet, Deutsche Bank notes 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Now seems to be a promising time for greatly improved [understanding, forecasting] of hurricanes etc. USA Middle-school student Ferris Wald won a 25 k$ science competition in 2017 with his project relating the Sun’s Power and cyclones. US lawyer Ben Davidson etal. established a strong predictive correlation between major earthquakes and geo-magnetics in ~2012-2015. This was further pursued by the Chinese & Italians, and more recently by [NASA, Harvard, etc], if I remember correctly. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-biggest-problem-in-the-stock-market-bullishness-is-clouding-investors-thinking-2020-08-27?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The biggest problem in the stock market: Bullishness is clouding investors’ thinking Published: Aug. 27, 2020 at 10:37 a.m. ET By Michael Brush You need this five-part plan to protect your portfolio Market challenge : 1: Investor sentiment is getting rich 2: Insiders are on vacation, and not because it’s August 3: Stock valuations are stretched 4: Participation in the rally is dwindling 5: We are moving into two problem months What to do now: Your five-point plan Given these increasing risks, I suggest you do the following. 1. Avoid borrowing money to buy stocks, meaning cut margin buying to zero. 2. Have some cash on hand to take advantage of weakness in your favorite stocks. 3. Avoid getting sucked in to the bullishness. Market exuberance is highly contagious. When you hear how much your friend just made in Tesla TSLA, 3.66%, it might blur your judgment and make you hop in. 4. Get out of dubious trades, or positions that have been bugging you because they have been weak and you can’t see the bull case. 5. Do not sell out of long-term positions, because a prolonged recession is probably not at hand. Yardeni, at Yardeni Research, expects the economy will recover all of the GDP lost to the Covid-19 crisis by the second half of 2022. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-and-apple-have-had-a-great-run-heres-why-theyre-poised-to-rocket-even-higher-in-the-next-year-2020-08-26?mod=newsviewer_click Tesla and Apple have had a great run — here’s why they’re poised to ‘rocket’ even higher in the next year Published: Aug. 26, 2020 at 10:14 a.m. ET By Shawn Langlois Much of the buzz on Wall Street these days focuses on the idea that value is positioned for a comeback. Tech stocks are running out of steam, can’t go on forever, time for new leadership, etc. But history is on the side of Tesla TSLA, 2.20% and Apple AAPL, -1.10% , according to online broker eToro, which took a look at decades of data to find that a basket of the biggest name brands have historically enjoyed a 33% rally, on average, a year after splitting their stock. By comparison, Amazon AMZN, -0.86% has split its stock three times, rallying an average of 209% the following year. Microsoft MSFT, 2.42% has done it nine times, with a gain of 47%. It’s not just tech either. McDonald’s MCD, -0.25% has split nine times, as well, averaging a 22% annual return. Coca-Cola KO, 0.25% , nine times for 11%. Apple’s history isn’t quite as stellar as all those, with its four previous splits resulting in an average gain of 10.4% in the following year. However, that includes a disastrous 61% plunge in the 12 months after its June 2000 split, which was a result of the popping of the dot-com bubble. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-u-s-dollar-is-struggling-that-should-give-a-shot-in-the-arm-to-global-growth-goldman-sachs-says-11598529162?mod=newsviewer_click The U.S. dollar is struggling. That should give a shot in the arm to global growth, Goldman Sachs says Last Updated: Aug. 27, 2020 at 9:19 a.m. ET First Published: Aug. 27, 2020 at 7:52 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200827 Haver Analytics, Fed, Goldman Sachs - US dollar versus global GDP.png 08********08 26Aug2020 05-----05 https://policyadvice.net/car-insurance/insights/electric-car-statistics/ Electric Car Statistics in the US and Abroad Andrea Clariss Hernandez May 3, 2020 1. What percentage of cars are electric? On a global scale, only 1 in 250 cars on the road is electric. Meaning, electric vehicles account for only 2.2% of the global vehicle market share. Meanwhile, in the US, plug-in electric cars account for less than 2% of the vehicle market. Based on these statistics, the transition to electric cars is clear but the speed of adoption remains debatable. Source: Quartz 5. Which electric car is the cheapest? Some electric car statistics show that the 2018 Ford Focus is the cheapest at $29,200. However, with an EPA range of 115 miles, it may not be a good option for those who travel longer and more frequently. In this case, The Tesla Model 3 would be a much better option, available from $35,000 with an EPA range of 220 miles. After tax-credit it will cost around $31,000. Source: Santander Consumer USA /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/EVs/200503 policyadvice.net - EV sales by global region.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/EVs/200503 policyadvice.net - EV prices by manufacturer.png 08&&&&&&&&08 couldn't post : "... Whether they are up too high is anyone’s guess. ..." Hmm, China's the big market, then Europe, and the Europeans, GM have been at this for a long time (Ford too at least several years ago). I hope Elon Musk has special ties in China to capture their market, but I can't see the Chinese lying down and playing dead even if they are key drivers of Tesla sales at the moment. China market makes most sense given their dominant oil importer role globally, but can the Europeans keep strong EV incentives while they are battling huge deficits like everyone else? (Yes, but will they?) EVs are often a second car for relatively well off, and maybe foreign cars have appeal to them, but what about their possible frustration with the US-China relations now? What would Kublai Khan have done, and what is the Chairman Xi Jianping going to do with his new fancy title? Still, this is a sexy market for some reason, as with the GM EV-1 and Ballard fuel cells in its heyday. 08********08 25Aug2020 05-----05 https://knowm.org/the-problem-is-not-memristors-its-how-hp-is-trying-to-use-them/ The Problem is Not HP’s Memristor–It’s How They Want To Use It Knowm Inc.'s CEO Alex Nugent discusses HP's recent announcement on their failure to use memristors for The Machine ... This result demonstrated that the attractor points of the unsupervised AHaH rule coincided with the exact optimal solution to the classification problem. As I damaged the network it would repair itself by making adjustments to the working synapses. It did not matter if some synapses failed or behaved randomly. So long as there was redundancy in the network and the majority of the synapses obeyed AHaH plasticity, the network as a whole would spontaneously heal itself. If the fault rate was below a threshold, AHaH plasticity could continuously heal. Just as we recover from cuts and scrapes and bruises–not only recovering our function but actually getting even better–so too could the AHaH network. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsaelm.8b00034 An Optically Gated Transistor Composed of Amorphous M + Ge2Se3 (M = Cu or Sn) for Accessing and Continuously Programming a Memristor Kristy A. Campbell*, Randall A. Bassine, Md. Faisal Kabir, and Jeremy Astle Abstract - We demonstrate that a device composed of sputtered amorphous chalcogenide Ge2Se3/M + Ge2Se3 (M = Sn or Cu) alternating layers functions as an optically gated transistor (OGT) and can be used as an access transistor for a memristor memory element. This transistor has only two electrically connected terminals (source and drain), with the gate being optically controlled, thus allowing the transistor to operate only in the presence of light (385–1200 nm). The switching speed of the OGTs is <15 μs. The OGT is demonstrated in series with a Ge2Se3 + W memristor, where we show that by altering the light intensity on the OGT gate, the memristor can be programmed to a continuous range of nonvolatile memory states using the saturation current of the OGT as a programming compliance current. By having a continuous range of nonvolatile states, one memory cell can potentially achieve 2n levels. This high density, combined with optical programmability, enables hybrid electronic/photonic memory. Dr Kris Campbell, Boise State U 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-should-stop-saying-stocks-are-not-the-economy-11598295686 Stop saying ‘stocks are not the economy’ Last Updated: Aug. 24, 2020 at 3:48 p.m. ET First Published: Aug. 24, 2020 at 3:01 p.m. ET By William Watts The market is a ‘growth momentum barometer’, says RenMac’s Dutta “While literally true, this platitude has long been used to imply the market is divorced from the fundamentals or ignoring the economy altogether. The reality, of course, is more nuanced,” wrote Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, in a Monday note. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-value-traps-that-bank-of-america-says-investors-should-avoid-11598363317?mod=newsviewer_click Here are the value traps that Bank of America says investors should avoid Published: Aug. 25, 2020 at 9:48 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein >> list of value traps, and quality value 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-disturbing-reality-fueling-this-bull-market-51598004009?mod=mw_more_headlines The ‘Disturbing Reality’ Fueling This Bull Market Last Updated: Aug. 24, 2020 at 9:17 a.m. ET First Published: Aug. 21, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert >> Howell : Hulbert lists : Correlation between domestic and international stock markets Consumer confidence : Also Conference Board (CCI) vs OECD measures for USA Steepening yield curve This is perhaps the most compelling sign that any economic recovery remains far off. The bond market is larger than the stock market, and arguably even more sensitive to economic demand than equities. It certainly seems plausible that a steepening yield curve would be one of the first indicators of imminent economic strength. The disconnect between the economy and the stock market 08********08 #] 24Aug2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sweden-has-developed-herd-immunity-after-refusing-to-lock-down-experts-claim-its-coronavirus-infection-rate-is-falling-2020-08-24?mod=newsviewer_click Sweden has developed herd immunity after refusing to lock down, experts claim. Its coronavirus infection rate is falling Published: Aug. 24, 2020 at 10:17 a.m. ET By Rupert Steiner 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-one-fund-manager-says-todays-stock-prices-are-unsustainable-2020-08-21?mod=mw_more_headlines Here’s why stock prices are unsustainable, according to this fund manager Published: Aug. 21, 2020 at 8:40 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200824 Michael Batnick, MktWatch - recovery titled to big companies /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200824 Christopher Pavese, MktWatch - S&P 500 versus MSCI All-Country ex-U.S. index /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200824 Liberum Capital Markets - US stock-market returns, adjusted for inflation, are better under Democratic presidents 08********08 22Aug2020 05-----05 Vitaliy Katsenelson's Contrarian Edge The U.S. dollar’s sharp decline is driving this investment manager — reluctantly — into gold Published: Aug. 22, 2020 at 4:07 p.m. ET By Vitaliy Katsenelson Spiraling debt, slow COVID-19 response and trade wars could spike prices, inflation and interest rates for Americans The problem with being the envy of the world is that it changes your behavior. You start believing that you are very special for reasons that are not grounded in reality. 08********08 #] 19Aug2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-covid-19-pandemics-baby-bust-could-impact-stock-prices-for-the-next-30-years-2020-08-19?mod=newsviewer_click Mark Hulbert - Thanks for the reference to "Demography and the Long-Run Predictability of the Stock Market" by John Geanakoplos, Michael Magill, Martine Quinzii. It might be a handy contrast to earlier works and more recent "Deep Learning" (DL) studies, if those are available. Evolutionary Computation approaches seem to be blowing [mathematicians, scientists] out of the water in more and more areas, but current generation DL concepts are very fragile. John Geanakoplos, Michael Magill, Martine Quinzii 24Sep2002 "Demography and the Long-Run Predictability of the Stock Market" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=329840 /home/bill/PROJECTS/References - stuff/Economics/Geanakoplos, Magill, Quinzii 24Sep2002 Demography and the Long-Run Predictability of the Stock Market.pdf 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/fd3r5Rrb-33-Years-Ago-1987-TERMINAL-Pattern-in-SPX500-Diagrammed/ craigemm 9 hours ago Hello fellow Traders and Investors, Here is my analysis that shows clearly the 5 Wave Elliot pattern over the VERY long term beginning in 1979 and completing its final leg in February 2020, or now whatever way you want to look at it. We have been in a Long Term ABC Corrective Wave since then with the Bull Impulse since February being the greatest Dead Cat Bounce in ALL OF HISTORY! Not only was February the end of The 40 yr Super Cycle it also happens to be the End of a Grand Super Cycle Bull Market which has been in place since 1789 when Divine Right Monarchy was abolished in France by The French Revolution and formal Stock Market Records were initiated. So in 231 years we have seen the Market climb, we are now in the ABC Corrective Wave of that 231 Bull Impulse. Take a look at the Chart and read the Commentary and watch out below!!! Just a cursory look shows it is forecasting for things to go much, much lower to LEVELS UNTHINKABLE !!! Hope you enjoy and are prepared for whats just over the Cliff! UH MY !!! GRAND SUPER CYCLE CLOSE UNLEASHES VERY LONG TERM BEAR. xCM 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Great comment & interesting historical context with [40, 231] year quasi-cycles and "Let them eat cake". There are an almost limitless number of cycles, and [harmonics, frequency-splitting] increase that hugely. Strangely, frequency-splitting seems less frequently understood, but is standard in electrical engineering for decades if not longer. Of quasi-cycles I have on hand, it's fun to compare : - 40 years is one of them (Rogers, Richards 2005 - Long-term Variability in the Length of the Solar Cycle), and is also close to [35,38,45,50-60] periods for [Jupiter-Neptune, Puetz, Jupiter-Uranus, Charvatovan treffoils]. - 231 years is close to the "Suess cycle", with estimates from 200-500 years depending on reference. Thus is much higher than the Charvatovan "Solar Inertia Motion" fundamental period of 178 years (150-200). By far the most powerful context for natural cycles I've ever seen is Stephen Puetz's "Universal Wave Series". Nothing else comes even close for [time, subject] hyper-scales, and it subsumes most of what you see into a [coherent, simple] framework (plus or minus). Careful - "cyclomania" can be a mental disease. 08********08 17Aug2020 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/QMZuf9tN-S-P-500-Next-Week-Expected-Move-64/ SPX Next week expected move = $64. A very strange week last week. Nasdaq mega-caps rotated into Small-cap value. This is due to a short squeeze in the Most-shorted index, not a cyclical rebound. Seeing $VVIX upward movement this week alongside the $SPY. This is a huge Divergence. I said keep a lookout for divergences. This week was full of 'em. 30-year Bonds got demolished. Higher yields + Steeper yield curves helped out the banks. The $IWM is full of banks. $GLD was overextended and a pullback was expected. $UUP The Dollar appears to be forming an inverse H&S . Lots of money moving around under the surface. $TIPS $LTPC Inflation Expectations are moving up I believe, which will be a problem for these more richly valued stocks that've been justified by really low rates. Market Breadth is deteriorating as can be seen from the: - $RSP Equal Weight Index - $MMTW % of stocks above 50-day ma Small caps are the only major index that's been in a primary downtrend since 2018 high. Warren Buffett last week sold all of his exposure to Goldman Sachs $GS and purchased Barrick Gold $GOLD. Best of luck next week, - RH 10 hours ago Comment: $HYG High Yield a huge red flag Divergence $PC Put/Call ratio is lowest it's been in 20 years for those contrarians out there. 08********08 30Jul2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-has-no-role-in-portfolio-of-wealth-clients-says-goldman-manager-11596138456?mod=newsviewer_click Gold has ‘no role’ in portfolio of wealthy clients, says Goldman manager Last Updated: July 30, 2020 at 7:32 p.m. ET First Published: July 30, 2020 at 3:47 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 20 ‘Our view is that gold is only appropriate if you have a very strong view that the U.S. dollar is going to be debased. We don’t have that view,’ says Mossavar-Rahmani 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - "... but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be debased, that we are going to have huge inflation ..." While consumer price inflation (CPI) (and perhaps PPI?) hovers very low by historical standards, we have enormous "inflation" in [financial, real estate] assets. This may be OK if you assume that interest rates will remain near-zero forever, but that may imply stratospheric valuations : you don't care if you can always borrow more at zero rates and there is an ongoing expectation of evere-rising financial asset inflation. This is over my head, but the very fortunate combination of near-zero consumer inflation with hyper-capital gains far beyond historical [risk, valuation] expectations seems to be some kind of utopia-of-the-moment? 08********08 #] 29Jul2020 search https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-08/a-crash-in-the-dollar-is-coming A Crash in the Dollar Is Coming The world is having serious doubts about the once widely accepted presumption of American exceptionalism. By Stephen Roach June 8, 2020, 3:00 PM MDT https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/fundamental/us_dollar_index/usd_trading_today/2020/07/28/us-dollar-paces-big-drop-for-july-as-consumer-confidence-wanes.html DXY index - great chart of dollar https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/TVC-DXY/ The U.S. Dollar Index tracks the strength of the dollar against a basket of major currencies. (DXY) originally was developed by the U.S. Federal Reserve in 1973 to provide an external bilateral trade-weighted average value of the U.S. dollar against global currencies. U.S. Dollar Index goes up when the U.S. dollar gains "strength" (value), compared to other currencies. The following six currencies are used to calculate the index: Euro (EUR) 57.6% weight Japanese yen (JPY) 13.6% weight Pound sterling (GBP) 11.9% weight Canadian dollar (CAD) 9.1% weight Swedish krona (SEK) 4.2% weight Swiss franc (CHF) 3.6% weight https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/USDCNH/?exchange=FX USD CNH (US Dollar / China Offshore Spot) The U.S. Dollar vs. the offshore Chinese Renminbi. The Renminbi (CNH) is the designation used when the currency is traded offshore. It often referred as the Yuan and uses the letters CNY when traded inside China. China is the world’s second largest economy behind the U.S. but is the world’s largest exporter. 08********08 #] 16Jul2020 https://markettimingreport.com/ Andrew Pancholi Howell: This apparently does what I have stated for ~1-5 years : the key modelling isn't of trends, but of [phase, state] changes 08********08 15Jul2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-goldman-sachs-gives-a-90-chance-of-happening-to-the-sp-500-over-the-next-decade-2020-07-15?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s what Goldman Sachs gives a 90% chance of happening to the S&P 500 over the next decade Published: July 15, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Looking a bit farther afield are strategists at Goldman Sachs, led by David Kostin. They estimate that the S&P 500 SPX, +1.34% will generate average annual returns of 6%, including dividends, over the next 10 years. Not bad, right? Of course, any long-term forecast is subject to considerable uncertainty, and returns between 2% and 11% capture one standard deviation around its mean estimate, the Goldman strategists say. Goldman did a similar exercise in July 2012 and forecast a return of 8%, compared with the actual 13.6% gain, which was more than one standard deviation away. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - It seems to me that they are missing at least : - long-term interest rate projection - this might be hidden in other factors, but should be explicit given their potential relevance to P/E ratios http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.html - government [deficit, debt] risks, including Federal Reserve [mandate, policies, actions]. Voter left-wing drift is probably more important than ever now, with more of a mixed economy potential. - US dollar importance - normally one assumes no change, but what's the risk here? - shifts in national GDP importance in the world - I always feel nervous when one ignores the rest of the world, which normally should be positive for the US even with a relative decline. China is important and takes all of the attention, India is watched, and other regions could surprise (new tigers). Howell - I should have said that [deficits, debt, left trend] might make the US more like other countries, i.e. losing the "creative destruction edge" 08********08 #] 14Jul2020 Puetz newsletter : referenced : Elliot wave principle https://www.elliottwave.com/ 08********08 #] 04Jul2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a8pz6lXyqE The Last Gasps of the Central Bank Experiment (w/ Brent Johnson and William White) 22,434 views •Jul 2, 2020 At few moments in history have the policies of global central banks been as important as they are today. Former central bank insider and senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, William White, tells Santiago Capital's Brent Johnson just how we’ve gotten to this point. Dr. White puts forward the nuanced view that he is glad policymakers have implemented certain tools to lessen the impact of the crisis while also driving home the point that at best we are kicking the can down the road. The pair also discuss central bankers' recent abdication to fiscal authorities, the political limitations of policy tools supporting foreign markets, and the fate of the global dollar system. Filmed on Tuesday, May 12, 2020. Bank of International Settlements - [derivatives, swaps] on debt easily twice basic amount legality of expanded Fed actions 05-----05 Puetz newsletter In addition to normal seasonal weakness, the 14-month cycle and the eclipse cycle are just moving into bearish phases. The eclipse cycle is especially relevant. After re-analyzing the cycle's long market-related history, my ideas of how it operates are slightly changed. The new focus is on full moons before and after a solar eclipse. Full moons in this timeframe are either a total lunar eclipse, a partial lunar eclipse, or a penumbral or ~ penumbral lunar eclipse. 08********08 These "eclipse-like full moons" generally coincide with times when markets reverse, whereas all other full moons have limited impact on market direction. 08********08 The charts on pages 7 through 10 identify full moons before and after solar eclipses with green up-arrows at market lows and red down-arrows at market highs. In the charts, Day-0 is a full moon before a solar eclipse, Day-30 is a full moon after a solar eclipse, and other vertical gridlines indicate other full moons. Thus, every vertical gridline indicates some type of a full moon, which occur every 29.53 days. 05-----05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwf22B0ihPQ Kyle Bass on Corona Chaos, Insolvency Risk, & US-China Tensions (w/ Raoul Pal) 60,275 views Jun 30, 2020 Kyle Bass, founder and CIO of Hayman Capital, joins Real Vision's Raoul Pal to break down the state of global macro. Bass talks about the bifurcation between capital markets and the real economy due to unprecedented monetary policy response. Bass and Pal discuss both temporary and permanent behavioral changes in response to coronavirus shutdowns and the potential for the global economy to stave off an insolvency crisis. Finally, Bass shares his perspective on U.S. – China tensions and provides viewers with a few ideas for investments that can help portfolios navigate today's uncertain markets. Filmed on May 7, 2020. The amount of stimulus will exceed GDP decline, we'll be back at new highs in the next year squeeze on middle class affordability, election BIG issue economy will fire back, 40% CEOs hire less than had, 30% same, rest more I'm changing, won't travel as much Moment of truth endJuly when Cares Act ends (Howell : new one coming) Liquidity versus solvency Europe - Germany & Holland said everyone for themselves, pigs of Europe have a real problem now only have agreement to normalize deficits, without a [taxing authority, Eurobond, unified fighting force] I don't know how they are going to get through this Raoul Paul - bond spreads aren't moving, wait for 800 cent Euro? when things trade on rates - easier it's all up to the Germans - if they allow ECB to print money for most troubled kids can stocks go higher - yes but not on true economic activity Paul - US continues to suck in international money Bass - where in the world would you invest your money - not China (350% GDP in banks), Hong Kong, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, European existential crises, Bass - Paul said USD will continue to strengthen (70% of global transactions) 1st - avoid excessive deflation, filling a hole isn't ?? Paul - Hong Kong - HK currency not devalued Bass - Gav Collin don't need Chinese jugernaut growth, 1975-2003 HK currency Chian became largest trading partner. 300% banking to GDP worse than [Ireland, Spain, Greece] when they collapsed. Hong Kong will lose US priviledge position (stated 07May2020!!) China manipulates currency higher, <1% capital account trade?? (Howell - purchasing power parity basis different story!?!??) Paul - Chinese stopped capital outflows to preserve currency, Chinese Road initiative in Africa etc draws in development USD, Chinese don't adhere to US [accounting, reporting, control] standards Chinese don't pay US capital gains taxes!??!!!!! Bass - invest in 6 flags, theme parks etc with 2 years cash on hand Paul - look for most gamma, Carnival Cruise, Hong Kong currency play (short) 05-----05 Lanmar www.mmaran.com - TradingView messages Michael Maranslicht 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/blog/en/new-study-function-parameter-resolution-18479/ TradingView "What's New" : Multi-fram time-analysis is easier than ever. Chaeck out our blog to see why we're excited about the new 'resolution'; parameter for Pine scripts. 08********08 25Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cdc-estimates-10-times-as-many-us-coronavirus-cases-than-have-been-reported-2020-06-25?mod=newsviewer_click CDC estimates 10 times as many U.S. coronavirus cases than have been reported Published: June 25, 2020 at 6:52 p.m. ET By Associated Press 11 20 million Americans may have been infected, CDC chief Redfield says 05-----05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBl05xNq_AU Kyle Bass, CIO of Hayman Capital, sits back down with Raoul Pal in order to finally reveal the opportunity that he called “the most asymmetric trade ever seen in my entire life.” Bass follows up on his earlier thoughts on China, and lays out the logic behind his thesis. He also delves into the relevant historical context, and discusses the risks to the financial system posed by an overvalued property market. Filmed on April 24, 2019 in New York. 08********08 #] 24Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sp-500-is-cheaper-and-more-profitable-that-you-think-2020-06-24?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The S&P 500 is cheaper — and more profitable — than you think Published: June 24, 2020 at 5:27 p.m. ET By David Trainer, Kyle Guske II and Matt Shuler 38 Second-quarter earnings are distorted, and the stock market will keep going up 05-----05 Rodney Johnson Rodney's Take email June 24, 2020 While the government was busy handing out free money, the Fed was ginning up both printing presses, the one that cranks out dollars and the one that prints their words. 08********08 23Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-blood-type-may-help-determine-your-odds-of-contracting-coronavirus-study-finds-2020-06-20?mod=newsviewer_click Blood type and genetics may determine your odds of contracting the coronavirus, study finds Published: June 23, 2020 at 9:00 p.m. ET By Elisabeth Buchwald 54 People with Type A blood were ‘associated with’ a 45% ‘higher risk of acquiring COVID-19’ compared with people with other blood types, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fauci-says-covid-19-has-one-characteristic-hes-never-seen-before-ive-been-dealing-with-viral-outbreaks-for-the-last-40-years-2020-06-23?mod=newsviewer_click Fauci says COVID-19 has one characteristic he’s never seen before: ‘I’ve been dealing with viral outbreaks for the last 40 years’ Published: June 23, 2020 at 6:14 p.m. ET By Quentin Fottrell 9 Anthony Fauci was speaking during a House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the Trump administration's response to the pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - I really wonder about Fauci's central statement "I’ve never seen a single virus — that is, one pathogen — have a range where 20% to 40% of the people have no symptoms." Maybe most diseases are like that, but the experts just assumed "no symptoms, ergo no [contact, infection]? I'm no expert, but something smelled fishy very early on. Another point - it seems that https://covid19-projections.com/about/ quickly caught on to the flaws in the standard pandemic models (machines do better than experts?), and perhaps there is an issue that "Flattening the curve means Extending the curve?". Why a surprise about "second waves", why no talk of the potential for "seasonal COVID-19" for the next 100+ years, like influenza and other diseases? Are we really going to shut down the economy for 3 months every year? Strong faith in vaccines isn't as well supported by history as it's made out to be either, but I'm still a "believer" of sorts. It seems like the experts are learning the basics from scratch each step along the way. And perhaps that should be expected - it's probably not as simple as we would like to think. An Observer - Not true on the vaccine front. Smallpox, a disease which killed hundreds of millions in just the 20th century for example, has literally been eradicated by mass vaccination programs with no reported cases since 1979. Howell - Great point, and I think there are a great many examples where diseases weren't eradicated, but have been drastically reduced. But these aren't guarantees, and the vaccines don't eliminate [outbreaks, epidemics, possibly pandemics?]. Influenza was what I was thinking of most : Peter Doshi, May2008 "... The overall decline in influenza-attributed mortality cannot be due to vaccines. ..." (speaking of 1942 to early 2000's period, most decline was before widespread vaccines). Seasonal influenza in modern times is a another great example of vaccine limitations, beyond just the problem of guessing which strains to vaccinate against. Worse - it seems to me that cases are returning towards the old levels since 2011! (see graph, based on CDC numbers) Some comments suggest that corona virus may be even harder for vaccines. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't? http://www.billhowell.ca/Pandemics,%20health,%20and%20the%20Sun/influenza/Howell%20-%20influenza%20virus.html Matthew Pendergraft - History of vaccines not impressive? How many of your friends have died from polio? Measles? TB? "Spanish flu"? Many, many, many thousands died when these were "novel". Howell - I didn't say "not impressive" - but it's good that you brought this up. I should have simply said that vaccinations are not a guarantee of protection, but that would be too soft a statement in my view. Do not forget the impact of antibiotics for non-viral diseases (of your 4 examples, only tuberculosis is non-viral). "Spanish flu" - that is a VERY interesting and special case (follow the link in my response to An Observer). I don't have answers for the Spanish Flu (or anything else), but I do have a lot of questions. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Perhaps the [blame game, scape-goating] is overdone, and it's overly easy to be an after-the-fact-armchair-critic. While I haven't updated my graphs for countries of different regions around the world over a month, on a rate per million (or hundred thousand) basis, [Italy, Spain, UK, USA] have been particularly hard hit, but not hugely so compared to [Sweden, Canada]. http://www.billhowell.ca/Pandemics,%20health,%20and%20the%20Sun/corona%20virus/Howell%20-%20corona%20virus%20of%20countries,%20by%20region.html It seems that "European descended nations" were usually MUCH harder hit than much of the rest of world, who often have very small [cases, deaths]. The quality of the data does NOT explain away the difference for many nations, and perhaps recent data would show big differences. Nor does it seem to be much of a case to accuse China of bio-weapons : corona isn't the best pandemic for that, and it meant they were shooting themselves in the foot [economically, health] and most importantly by reputation. 02--02 Eddie Larry - ““I’ve been dealing with viral outbreaks for the last 40 years. I’ve never seen a single virus — that is, one pathogen — have a range where 20% to 40% of the people have no symptoms,” he told a House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the Trump administration's response to the novel coronavirus pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.” This admission is the key. Science has to figure out why that 20 to 40% get no symptoms. Then, we have to build up the rest of the population to this level of immune protection. Howell - What I'd like to see are in-vitro tests of "susceptibility" - who is really vulnerable, apart from the general [age, preconditions], but getting more into modern [DNA, RNA] based tests of "for whom the virus tolls" , if that is a possibility. That way, rather than [self-isolate everyone, destroy their jobs & lives, throw away resources on the wrong people], we quickly deal with the obvious groups, and large-scale test others to isolate or otherwise protect them, while the rest keep working. Keep in mind, perhaps our policies might kill more than the virus? (not that I trust those estimate either). 08********08 22Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/nikolas-stock-tesla-analyst-ratings-buy-sell-hold-51592837390?mod=newsviewer_click No One Knows What Nikola Stock Is Worth. Another Analyst Just Offered His Best Guess. Last Updated: June 22, 2020 at 1:08 p.m. ET First Published: June 22, 2020 at 10:51 a.m. ET By Al Root couldn't blog... 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Reminds me of the Ballard fuel-cell bubble in the early 2000's. I also wonder if combined electric vehicle sales by [Ford, GM, Toyota, Mercedes, etc, etc] aren't many times Tesla, and those companies know how to [manufacture, service, sell, finance] cars. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/he-hates-shorting-the-market-and-lost-a-ton-of-money-betting-against-high-flyers-in-1999-but-hes-at-it-again-2020-06-21?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore He hates shorting the stock market, but this ‘terrible, gut-wrenching scenario’ has him doing just that Published: June 22, 2020 at 9:47 a.m. ET By Shawn Langlois 33 ‘It’s a terrible, gut-wrenching scenario all around’ Wolf Richter, the veteran investor behind the Wolf Street blog, got hit hard betting against the market during the blow-off rally of in 1999. But he says this market “is even crazier” than that legendary internet bubble, and he’s banking on an imminent downturn. Still, he’s keeping a sense of humor about it his short of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY, -0.02% . “I’m sharing this trade for your future entertainment,” he told readers, “so you can hail me as the obliterating moron that infamously shorted the greatest rally floating weightlessly ever higher above the worst economic and corporate crisis imaginable.” This isn’t the only short trade Richter’s made public in the past six months. He’s on a bit of a roll with the doom and gloom. Earlier this year, Richter nailed his bearish call when he pocketed a 26.5% gain by covering his SPY position and another 13.1% covering his QQQ QQQ, 0.41% short. The day-trading frenzy of 1999 didn’t even reach these levels, he said, adding that investors are now facing stocks prices that will no longer be propped up by the Federal Reserve. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Great [graph, article] & stupid me. I was looking for higher-frequency estimates of the Fed injections, just didn't wake up that weekly changes to total Fed assets would reflect that given the size of the market issue. /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200622 MktWatch, Shawn Langlois, WolfStreet.com - Federal Reserve weekly changes in total assets.png 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-interest-rates-are-saying-about-stock--and-bond-returns-for-the-next-5-years-and-the-bulls-wont-believe-it-2020-06-22?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Here’s what interest rates are saying about stock and bond returns for the next 5 years — the bulls won’t believe it Published: June 22, 2020 at 10:34 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert 2 Markets’ performance is anemic when inflation-adjusted interest rates are negative, as they are now But ignoring those odds doesn’t make them go away, as I was reminded recently listening to a seminar conducted by Elroy Dimson, a professor at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School and chairman of its Centre for Endowment Management. Dimson is the co-author (with Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton of the London Business School) of what most researchers accept as the most comprehensive global database of stock and bond returns. It encompasses 23 different countries and dates back to 1900. The chart is based on averages, so of course there are exceptions. One was the five-year period in the U.S. beginning in 2013, when real interest rates were also negative. The subsequent five years were extremely good to both stock and bond investors, needless to say. But it’s risky to construct your investment outlook on exceptions to the rule, rather than the rule itself. And the historical correlation between real interest rates and stocks’ and bonds’ subsequent returns, while not perfect, is nevertheless quite compelling. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Fascinating graph - I am surprised at the [monotonic, regular] increases of [markets, bonds] after 5 years (on average across time and countries). /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/market/200622 MktWatch, Mark Hulbert, Elroy Dimson - real rates vs [equities, bonds] next 5 yrs.jpg 08********08 19Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/how-to-play-biotechs-next-big-runup-51592615237?mod=newsviewer_click How to Play Biotech’s Next Big Runup Published: June 19, 2020 at 9:07 p.m. ET By Ben Levisohn The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) might be the best to play the trend. Unlike the iShares Biotech ETF, it is equally weighted, which means that smaller companies are given greater heft than in its market-cap-weighted competitor. Practically, that means the iShares ETF is more defensive—it lost 21% from the S&P 500’s peak on Feb. 19 through its low on March 23 to the SPDR ETF’s 30% decline. But the SPDR ETF should outperform on the upside, says Evercore ISI’s Rich Ross. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-federal-reserve-wont-allow-companies-to-fail-and-that-weakens-the-us-2020-06-19?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The Federal Reserve won’t allow companies to fail, and that weakens the U.S. Published: June 19, 2020 at 1:22 p.m. ET By Jared Dillian 7 The unintended consequences of the Fed’s actions are alarming This country was built on failure People only look at what is seen. Companies get to borrow more cheaply. People get to keep their jobs. But they don’t look at the unseen, which is how this capital could be better used somewhere else. This is how capitalism works. You can’t have capitalism without failure. This country was literally built on failure. It was built on the past mistakes of entrepreneurs. People lose money, and they get smarter. That is how capitalism works. The reason the U.S. economy is so spectacular is precisely because we allow failure to an extent not allowed anywhere else in the world. If older firms don’t die, younger, better ones can never take their place. When you don’t allow failure, you lose dynamism from your economy. Up until this point, we had the most dynamic economy in the world. And we were killing it. What the Fed is doing now, however, is not capitalism. 08********08 17Jun2020 Howell : "... Oh how small are the worlds of the experts, but still too large for their minds. And far beyond my mind. ..." 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-legend-who-called-3-stock-market-bubbles-says-this-one-is-the-real-mccoy-this-is-crazy-stuff-2020-06-17?mod=newsviewer_click Stock-market legend who called 3 financial bubbles says this one is the ‘Real McCoy,’ this is ‘crazy stuff’ Published: June 17, 2020 at 10:10 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 296 ‘And the chutzpah involved in having a bubble at a time of massive economic and financial uncertainty is substantial,’ says Jeremy Grantham ‘My confidence is rising quite rapidly that this is, in fact, becoming the fourth, real McCoy, bubble of my investment career. The great bubbles can go on a long time and inflict a lot of pain but at least I think we know now that we’re in one. And the chutzpah involved in having a bubble at a time of massive economic and financial uncertainty is substantial.’ That is Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist at Boston-based money manager Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co., offering up a stark warning to speculators driving the stock market to new heights amid the greatest pandemic of the past century. “This is really the real McCoy, this is crazy stuff,” said Grantham during a Wednesday afternoon interview on CNBC that appeared to knock some of the stuffing out of a market that had been drifting along listlessly on Wednesday. “It is a rally without precedence,” he told CNBC, noting that the run-up comes amid a period in which U.S. economic health is at a low point, with millions of people out of work and bankruptcies likely to continue to rise due to a slowdown in business activity and closures that have come in the aftermath of lockdowns implemented to curb the spread of the deadly COVID-19 pathogen. Grantham is worth paying attention to due to his prescient calls over the years. He said that stocks were overvalued in 2000 and again in 2007, anticipating those market downturns, the Wall Street Journal reports. Grantham also signaled that elements of the financial market had become unmoored from reality leading up to the 2008-09 financial crisis. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-police-officers-are-shot-and-killed-by-blacks-than-police-officers-kill-african-americans-claims-former-new-york-city-mayor-giuliani-2020-06-17?mod=newsviewer_click ‘More police officers are shot and killed by blacks than police officers kill African-Americans,’ claims former New York Mayor Giuliani Published: June 17, 2020 at 10:11 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 200 ‘I think logically, 99%, if not more, of the police contact with the public is appropriate,’ Giuliani says ‘More police officers are shot and killed by blacks than police officers kill African-Americans.’ That’s former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani offering his perspective to Fox News on rising concerns that police disproportionately kill black Americans. “The unarmed shootings — which are the ones that are the troublesome ones — there are only 9 of them against blacks — 20 against whites in 2019. So that‘ll give you a sense. Meanwhile, there were 9,000 murders of blacks, 7,500 of which were black-on-black,” Giuliani told Fox’s Ed Henry during a recent interview. Giuliani, however, described the reaction to the incidences and calls to defund the police as “created” and “almost hysterical.” “I think logically, 99%, if not more, of the police contact with the public is appropriate,” said the former mayor, a Trump confidant and lawyer. The statistics rattled off by Giuliani, a New York district attorney and federal prosecutor before becoming mayor, however, drew a rebuke from the Washington Post, who refuted his claims, making the case that “black Americans are more likely to be shot and killed by police when unarmed than are whites.” The paper argued, drawing from its own database, that there were 55 incidents in which police shot and killed unarmed individuals last year, not the 9 that Giuliani notes. The newspaper goes on to say that of some 1,002 deaths at the hands of law enforcement last year, 250, or 25%, were of black people, while noting that 48 police offers died over the same period, citing data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cooped-up-millennial-traders-have-sparked-a-new-pandemic-it-wont-end-well-warns-princeton-economist-2020-06-17?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Cooped-up’ millennial traders have sparked a new pandemic — it won’t end well, warns Princeton economist Published: June 17, 2020 at 2:13 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois “I have no argument with those who like to gamble,” Malkiel wrote. “But legions of new day traders have poured new money into stocks without a care for the risks involved, clearly unaware of Buffett’s maxim that ‘It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.’” 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/theres-a-one-in-three-chance-of-a-massive-disaster-that-could-be-worse-than-covid-19-says-deutsche-bank-2020-06-17?mod=newsviewer_click There’s a one-in-three chance of a ‘massive’ disaster that could be worse than COVID-19, says Deutsche Bank Published: June 17, 2020 at 8:44 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein Analysts, led by Henry Allen, say there is at least a one-in-three chance that at least one of four major tail risks will occur within the next decade: a major influenza pandemic killing more than two million people; a globally catastrophic volcanic eruption; a major solar flare; or a global war. (The current COVID-19 pandemic has killed 443,765 globally already.) If the time frame is two decades, then there is a 56% chance of one of these disasters occurring, the analysts say, based on various studies and risk assessments. Earthquakes were omitted from the numbers on the grounds that they are more local events. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Cool article and Deutsch Bank focus on 4 types of events. Funny, if you actually look at the data, ALL FOUR [associate, correlate] far better with astronomy (including the Sun) than anything else, although Western science has been VERY slow to wake up to what even the ancients suspected. We may be due to a once-every-12,000year "solar micro-nova" in a decade or four. The last one might account for the "Great North American mammalian extinction"? It may be the end of the world, but I feel fine... Hans Viirlaid - So true. Will government cash help us next time? Howell - Yes, if you believe interpretations of some mythologists, after almost everyone is killed, then we build pyramids such as in Croatia, Egypt, etc, funded by a scheme that somehow or other works out to a lot of debt (that's my guess). Kind of like Isaac Asimovs sci-fi short story "Nightfall" (longer book with Silverwood co-author). Surviving woolly mammoths are probably eaten by the government-funded workers, so keep looking over your shoulder for signs of the Fed. Hans Viirlaid - William, you might be interested in “The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch” by Donald W. Patten available online I believe. Just search. ORIGINAL for message : (couldn't send a message) Howell - @Viirlaid Thanks for the note, Hans. I downloaded the book and took a quick look. Having read through a great deal of Velikovsky's work, and being a member of the [Electric Universe, Natural Philosphy Society, Suspicious0bservers] communities, I am quite familiar with the content that I saw. I am a hard-nosed engineer by nature. I am NOT religious, but I am not anti-religious at all (I hope others aren't as spiritually dead as me), and I do consider essentially all scientists and socialists to be religious fanatics, perhaps more so than the theologically religious. It is always the case that new [fashions, cults, religions] must [ridicule, suppress] their predecessors, while none can see themselves as just the next step of the same thing. Socialists I think are the worst in all of history - perhaps a strange and pre-ordained outcome of "university induced stupidity". None of theme realize how dark their own ideas are, and have no capability of imagining the really dark places. Catastophist authors : missing Jean Baptists Lamarck & especially his father or grandfather who stated the essence of evolutionary theory. Long discredited, Lamarckian heredity is back - for the very few scientists capable of seeing it. Charles William Lucas - Creationist. Author of "The Universal force" which is the focus of "re-derivations" of one of my two major priority projects. It's on hold until at least the end of 2020 while I try to find time to work on the current active priority - Spiking Neural Network (SNNs) [models, architectures, etc]. In some was Lucas and I are complete contrasts, and I certainly don't agree with everything he says. But his fundamental "natural philosophy" is very interesting, and possibly may be an alternative to current physics, like several other [beautiful, radical] concepts. I like to say : "... General relativity is a turkey. Quantum mechanics is a fool's paradise. ..." Final for posting Howell - @Viirlaid Thanks for the note, Hans. I downloaded the book and took a quick look. Having read through a great deal of Velikovsky's work, and being a member of the [Electric Universe, Natural Philosophy Society, Suspicious0bservers] communities, I am quite familiar with the content that I saw. I am a hard-nosed engineer by nature, so these groups are a huge change for me, but there is no issue as I am skeptical of everything (in a manner few could be) : "multiple conflicting hypothesis". 1. Catastrophist authors : missing Jean Baptists Lamarck & especially his father or grandfather who stated the essence of evolutionary theory long before Alfred Russell Wallace (who was before Darwin). Long discredited, Lamarckian heredity is back (eg epigenetics) - for the very few scientists capable of seeing it. 2. Charles William Lucas - Author of "The Universal force" which is the focus of "step-by-step re-derivations" for one of my two major priority projects. It's on hold until at least the end of 2020. In some was Lucas and I are complete contrasts, and I certainly don't agree with everything he says. But his fundamental "natural philosophy" is very interesting, and possibly may be an alternative to current physics, like several other [beautiful, radical] concepts. I suspect that beautiful [math, science] is coming to take us away... downloads : Donald W. Patten 1966 "The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch" Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, Seattle, WA. USA https://creationism.org/patten/ Patten 1966 The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch.pdf $ find "/home/bill/PROJECTS/References/Patten 1966 The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch/" -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.htm" | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 -IFILE grep --with-filename --line-number "Mars" "FILE" >> nothing with Lucas, although other check phrases worked 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/4n2aCJBl-What-s-next-for-SPX/ 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Nice ~6 month pitchfork context over the crash. Besides the "6 month downtrend" line, you might also consider the pre-crash peak horizontal line (Nasdaq example). I think that it also helps to show the long-term (50-85 year) uptrend lines on a six-month chart, as the long-term trend is noticeable over that time (but perhaps only I do that - it's likely that the actual trading decisions don't account for it). Given that your chart is currently close to mid-line, maybe you want week-day-hour scale analysis (whichever type you are most comfortable with) to help with shorter term trading decisions. Perhaps like many others, I am trying to figure out how the Fed might react to the market, and just how far the massive [Fed, Treasury, government] cash injections can distort market (perceptions, behaviours). For example, unlimited risky behaviour in a protected environment affecting (bubbles, speculation) - and dragging all with it. 08********08 16Jun2020 deus Elliot waves XAGUSD silver, Beautiful waves XAUUSD gold down : USOIL SPX500 the slide should begin soon (to ~3000) 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dollar-is-going-to-fall-very-very-sharply-warns-prominent-yale-economist-2020-06-16?mod=newsviewer_click ‘The dollar is going to fall very, very sharply,’ warns prominent Yale economist Published: June 16, 2020 at 5:40 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Stephen Roach, Yale University senior fellow and former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman, has a warning for U.S. dollar bulls. The prominent economist says that the era of the U.S. buck may be coming to an end and is forecasting a 35% decline soon in the U.S. currency against its major rivals, citing increases in the nation’s deficit and dwindling savings. The lecturer said during CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Monday that the rise of China and the decoupling of the U.S. from its trade partners is setting the stage for a dramatic weakening of the U.S. currency in the next few years that is likely to end the supremacy of the monetary unit as the world’s reserve currency. “The dollar is going to fall very, very sharply,” he told the business network. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-decade-ago-he-predicted-that-2020-would-be-a-complete-mess-now-he-says-things-could-get-even-worse-2020-06-16?mod=newsviewer_click A decade ago, he predicted that 2020 would be a complete mess — now he says things could get even worse Published: June 16, 2020 at 2:26 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois “Very long ‘secular cycles’ interact with shorter-term processes. In the United States, 50-year instability spikes occurred around 1870, 1920 and 1970, so another could be due around 2020,” he wrote at the time. “Records show that societies can avert disaster. We need to find ways to ameliorate the negative effects of globalization on people’s well-being.” Then, in 2013, he reiterated his prediction in an essay on Aeon.com. ‘Unfortunately, things are not as bad as they can be.’ That is Peter Turchin, a 63-year-old researcher at the University of Connecticut, sharing his thoughts in a story for Time.com on where the U.S. goes from here. As the divide between the rich and the poor has only widened during the coronavirus pandemic, Turchin said he believes tensions “may escalate all the way to a civil war.” Why do we care what he says? Well, back in 2010, he predicted on Nature.com that the U.S. would suffer major social upheaval beginning around 2020. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Interesting article, Shawn Langlois. Peter Turchin mentions Kondriatieff's "economic super-cycles" (like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)), which seemed to drop out of media comment around the 2000 tech crash if I remember correctly, but does not mention Alexandrer Tchijevsky's sunspot cycle analysis, smaller but similar effects. Note that it is always problematic to consider these as fixed-periodicity timing cycles : spectral analysis shows it clearly, but instances varied wildly. Far more [interesting, creative, contentious] is the famous Pareto's analysis, also in the early 1900's, that concluded that European income distributions over the last +-500 years are essentially constant across societies, regardless of the [economic, political] system in place. That was later re-iterated by non other than Benoit Mandelbrot (familiar to fractal and Elliot wavers I guess?). A profound recent book is Sacha Dobler's "Solar History", which suggests that a [possible, probable] Grand Solar minimum in the next 10-30 years would hugely reduce wealth, but would also give rise to a period of "social enlightenment and progress" as everyone dealt with the problems. Who knows? As for the 83 year bullish market trend ([debt, technology] driven?) with a Fibonacci mirror : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P500%20with%20Fibonacci%20mirror%201872-2020.jpg Had to remove : which seemed to drop out of media comment around the 2000 tech crash if I remember correctly Expousing research that flies in the face of popular academic belief systems was bad for all (except possibly Mandlebrot) : the Rissians ended \up in goulags, and Pareto was almost buried academicly over this. I give far more credence to these renegades than to essentially all of the politically-correct academia. 02--02 https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads Return of the oppressed From the Roman Empire to our own Gilded Age, inequality moves in cycles. The future looks like a rough ride Peter Turchin is Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Connecticut and Vice-President of the Evolution Institute. He wrote War and Peace and War: the Rise and Fall of Empires. Edited by Ed Lake Syndicate this Essay 3,870 Today, the top one per cent of incomes in the United States accounts for one fifth of US earnings. The top one per cent of fortunes holds two-fifths of the total wealth. Just one rich family, the six heirs of the brothers Sam and James Walton, founders of Walmart, are worth more than the bottom 40 per cent of the American population combined ($115 billion in 2012). 02--02 https://www.nature.com/articles/463608a Published: 03 February 2010 Political instability may be a contributor in the coming decade Peter Turchin Nature volume 463, page608(2010) The next decade is likely to be a period of growing instability in the United States and western Europe, which could undermine the sort of scientific progress you describe in the Opinion collection of '2020 visions' (Nature 463, 26–32; 2010). Quantitative historical analysis reveals that complex human societies are affected by recurrent — and predictable — waves of political instability (P. Turchin and S. A. Nefedov Secular Cycles Princeton Univ. Press; 2009). In the United States, we have stagnating or declining real wages, a growing gap between rich and poor, overproduction of young graduates with advanced degrees, and exploding public debt. These seemingly disparate social indicators are actually related to each other dynamically. They all experienced turning points during the 1970s. Historically, such developments have served as leading indicators of looming political instability. Very long 'secular cycles' interact with shorter-term processes. In the United States, 50-year instability spikes occurred around 1870, 1920 and 1970, so another could be due around 2020. We are also entering a dip in the so-called Kondratiev wave, which traces 40-60-year economic-growth cycles. This could mean that future recessions will be severe. In addition, the next decade will see a rapid growth in the number of people in their twenties, like the youth bulge that accompanied the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s. All these cycles look set to peak in the years around 2020. 08********08 15Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-rise-of-a-mom-and-pop-investors-in-the-stock-market-will-end-in-tears-warns-billionaire-cooperman-2020-06-15?mod=newsviewer_click The rise of mom-and-pop investors in the stock market will ‘end in tears,’ warns billionaire Cooperman Published: June 15, 2020 at 4:16 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 86 ‘They are just doing stupid things,’ Cooperman said Billionaire Leon Cooperman on Monday said that the emergence of individual investors eagerly scooping up stocks that have been rocked amid the coronavirus-induced downturn will ultimately not end well for those individual investors. The ‘Robinhood markets are going to end in tears,” said Cooperman during CNBC’s show “Halftime Report” on Monday, referring to the popular online trading platform. ‘They are just doing stupid things, and in my opinion, this will end in tears,’ — Leon Cooperman video comments : CNBC : political change in November? Cooper : believes in high marginal taxe 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/germany-makes-a-big-bet-on-a-covid-19-vaccine-developer-once-coveted-by-trump-51592235902?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Germany Makes a Big Bet On a Covid-19 Vaccine Developer Once Coveted by Trump Published: June 15, 2020 at 11:45 a.m. ET By Bill Alpert Germany anted up the equivalent of $338 million Monday to fund a Covid-19 vaccine project that will become the third well-financed program in the world to try the cutting-edge messenger RNA technology against the novel coronavirus. privately hgeld German firm CureVAC AG US-based Moderna & team of Pfizer (PFE) & Germany's BioNTech (BNTX). The latter two programs have started human clinical trials. >> Interesting mRNA 08********08 14Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/biotech-stocks-big-buys-in-june-51591888396?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore 4 Biotech Stocks That Are Seeing Big Buys in June Published: June 14, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. ET By Ed Lin Referenced Symbols ALLO -1.24% PSNL -2.17% CRTX +0.11% LJPC -2.68% SPX +1.30% >> Hoowell : Hah! None of theese have been listed by ONCY stocktwits!!?? The early days of June have seen investors buy up biotech stocks. For the most part, it isn’t about buying the dip. 08********08 13Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/thursdays-selloff-should-embolden-the-stock-markets-long-term-bulls-2020-06-13?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Thursday’s selloff should embolden the stock market’s long-term bulls Published: June 13, 2020 at 3:59 p.m. ET By Simon Maierhofer 7 History says the S&P 500 should be higher in a year’s time >> Nice analysis 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/d05cSDel-Call-options-are-getting-frothy-what-are-hedge-funds-doing/ Call options are getting frothy... what are hedge funds doing? S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3037.10 21.88 0.73% Lanmar The price of S&P 500 tail risk is calculated from the prices of S&P 500 out-of-the-money options, same as the VIX . A SKEW value of 100 means that the perceived distribution of S&P 500 log-returns is normal, and the probability of outlier returns is therefore negligible. As SKEW rises above 100, the left tail of the S&P 500 distribution acquires more weight, and the probabilities of outlier returns become more significant. Since an increase in perceived tail risk increases the relative demand for low strike puts, increases in SKEW also correspond to an overall steepening of the curve of implied volatilities, familiar to option traders as the "skew". 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Interesting projected timing for SP500=4,000. Not sure why your projections would be particularly sensitive to [glitches, branches] right now - unless you have a [concept, model] for the slow regain post-2007 (maybe [debt, tax] effects?). I've just back-extended an S&P500 chart (1872-2020) to see if the "eye-balled mid-line trend" is similar to an earlier 1970-2020 version. It seems somewhat similar from ~1933 on, although my plotting accuracy is poor. The mid-line (Fibonacci=0) would take longer than your plot to reach 4,000, but a strong surge above mid-line would of course shorten that. I wonder if something like the broad deployment of [internet of things, beyond Deep Learning NNs] in the global economy could give rise to a super-surge above mid-line like the automobiles in the 1920s and the [micro-computers, internet] IT boom of the 1990's? Warning : The link below won't work unless you remove the "%25" codes inserted by TradingView : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P500%20with%20Fibonacci%20mirror%201872-2020.jpg Lanmar, 39 minutes ago @Bill_Howell, Hi Bill, I'm not sure I follow your question. 3500 - 3700 is just a possibility if the S&P closes above 3250 before Q4. Odds are I'll be wrong. But if I am not, that is the next major level to watch. I do not consider any fundamental drivers in this technical possibility. Sorry, I can't get the link to open. Howell - Ouch! I really blew it with the formatting of my posting. I forgot that we can't use square brackets in TradingView, so my second sentence should have read "... Not sure why your projections would be particularly sensitive to (glitches, branches) right now - unless you have a (concept, model) for the slow regain post-2007 (maybe (debt, tax) effects?). ...". But you've answered that question. Also, as I stated, to get the link (URL) to work : copy-paste the link to a text editor, remove the "%25" codes, then copy-paste the edited link to your browser. In any case, the link shows an 87+ year trend in the S&P500, with 10-to-20 year duration switchovers (above, below) mid-point. I think this provides a nice underpinning for your 2009-2024 (upper, lower) rising divergent channel. Lanmar (... didn't receive message ...) Howell - @Lanmar - My second message just now does give feedback. The system isn't accepting the URLs. Not many systems fail this badly, but perhaps this is a [scam, spam, porno] protection for their system? Try my basic web-page, then follow the Menus : www.BillHowell.ca -> Menu at top -> Projects -> "S&P500 P/E ratios vs Treasury rates" -> click on "Directory of available files for this webpage" at the bottom of the web-page. 08********08 12Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-market-collapsed-under-its-own-weight-says-nomura-quant-guru-to-explain-wall-streets-violent-selloff-on-thursday-2020-06-12?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore ‘The market collapsed under its own weight,’ says Nomura quant guru to explain Wall Street’s violent selloff on Thursday Published: June 12, 2020 at 12:24 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh Selling by options desks and other volatility-sensitive traders were a big reason for Thursday’s U.S. stock-market rout 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/governments-cure-for-the-coronavirus-recession-is-worse-for-the-global-economy-than-the-disease-2020-06-12?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Opinion: Government’s cure for the coronavirus recession is worse for the global economy than the disease Published: June 12, 2020 at 11:43 a.m. ET By Satyajit Das Heavy debt and slow economic growth threaten stocks, bonds and currencies Debt is analogous to the effect that ice has on an aircraft. Planes are designed to cope with modest icing on the wings. But large build-ups cause a loss of lift, resulting in erratic flight, loss of altitude — and ultimately a crash. Global debt levels resemble a large buildup of ice on the wings of the global economy and threaten a catastrophic final chapter. 08&&&&&&&&08 Durwood Dugger - The too late and ineffective partial lock down - was definitely a disaster economically for the country. However, the current Trump gov. "cure" is worse - continued denial of the disease by manipulating the infection and death statistics. Why is the media is not reporting more about Red states refusal to report new daily infection cases and the new guidelines that limit nCV-19 deaths by blaming prior health conditions instead. I'm fine with reopening, but I want to know as accurately as I can the risks to my family before coming out of isolation. Article in this weeks local paper that they were closing the testing units at the local hospitals - in spite of the fact that daily infections had risen four fold the same week - three weeks after reopening. Apparently, if people are not lying dead in the street, we won’t get the accurate and transparent information we need from the politicians - especially current Republicans - to make the decisions regarding our own families safety. Current US nCV-19 new daily infection data vs. death data is squirrely as hell with ownly 16 out of 50 states reporting their infections to the CDC. https://www.newsy.com/stories/most-states-not-following-cdc-covid-19-reporting-guidelines/?utm_source=MaropostMailing&utm_medium=Email&utm_name=02192020&omhide=true https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2020/05/19/emails--covid-19-dashboard-manager-questioned-request-to-remove-data Howell - "... Why is the media is not reporting more about Red states refusal to report new daily infection cases and the new guidelines that limit CV-19 deaths by blaming prior health conditions instead. ..." They are reporting this. What they are not reporting is what we hear from friends - families that are furious that the cause of death of loved ones was relabelled COVID-19 - well in line with the normal "reality-reporting" dysfunction of we get. Seems that nobody can think apart from squawking their political platform messages? 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/epidemiologists-fear-endless-loop-coronavirus-infections-51591970272?mod=newsviewer_click Epidemiologists Fear ‘Stuttering, Endless Loop’ of Covid-19 Infections. Watch Out, Investors. Published: June 12, 2020 at 9:59 a.m. ET By Bill Alpert 08&&&&&&&&08 Couldn't post : Howell - What is it with the so-called "experts"? Early on in the pandemic, pathetic two-week self-isolation pronouncements, nary a comment about [seasonal, mutant] viruses, and ongoing ?excessive? hopes for vaccines. Have we forgotten about seasonal influenza, perpetual recurrence of many other diseases (ex smallpox and anti-biotic treatable diseases)? Still no data [analysis, reporting] comparing policy-driven death rates to viral-induced deaths? But with the typical manipulation of [data, analysis] in modern [health, science] (we are too aware of families' who are furious over re-classification of cause of death to corona virus!!), not much hope for truth there? Sometimes I feel the public has long known lessons the experts can't wrap their heads around - like we have to get on with life, and there are consequences. 08********08 10Jun2020 A rising tide carries all ships. Great Admirals' ships carry the tide. * But hopeless tides require a divine wind. 08********08 ...Don't let your wind pass... * like [Greek vs Xerxes, Korean vs Japanese, Dutch vs (Brits + French), Horatio Nelson, French Admiral, Nimitz 08********08 Chinese attempt to conquer Japan 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-real-reason-for-the-stock-markets-7-plunge-shouldnt-surprise-you-and-it-happens-every-time-2020-06-11?mod=newsviewer_click Mark Hulbert Opinion: The real reason for the stock market’s 7% plunge shouldn’t surprise you — and it happens every time Published: June 11, 2020 at 6:25 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert 179 Market-timer sentiment had reached extreme bullishness, setting up a sell-off One indicator that helps fill this explanatory void is market sentiment. Only this week did bullishness among short-term market timers start to reach a dangerous extreme; contrarians therefore were not particularly surprised by Thursday’s decline. Contrarians insist that there’s no need to predict, since we can sit back and let the market timers tell their story on a day-by-day basis. We’ll know soon enough when those timers throw in the towel and contrarians again become willing to bet on a rising market. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Interesting - almost like an "on-off" switch of sentiment. Mark Hulbert notes that "... Contrarians insist that there’s no need to predict, since we can sit back and let the market timers tell their story on a day-by-day basis. ..." But surely the [why, when] of timer sentiments must gnaw away at contrarians? Yesterday is an example, and some did "semi-predict" it 2 days beforehand? It's hard to see a consistent "lead-time" in the graph above. 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/oQp9l9V5-S-P-500-compared-with-2009/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc3746453 S&P 500 compared with 2009 S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3014.72 −0.50 −0.02% System_T - Let's see! 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Like you said 20May2020 "We're living in a Matrix." Spooky self-similarity across time scales. AtlantyQ, 9 minutes ago - @Bill_Howell, Nope juest eliot waves ;-) Howell - @AtlantyQ Hah! Great comment! Elliot waves are beyond my [talent, knowledge] level, but "Elliot Wavers" are fun to watch. Perhaps I'm still a bit upset with all of you, and Benoit Mandelbrot, for "keeping the secret of the hidden gem". Mandlebrot's book "The Mis-behaviour of Markets" was clear about "multi-fractals", but my mind definitely was not. Ten-to-twenty years it took before I tripped across the phrase "fractional order calculus". (Of course - but I would never have guessed myself). That conjures up the Great War between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over calculus. FOC is now back with a vengeance in [science, engineering]. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-u-s-is-headed-for-a-messy-china-divorce-without-a-plan-51591807403?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: It’s Time to Plan for a Messy U.S.-China Divorce Last Updated: June 10, 2020 at 4:45 p.m. ET First Published: June 10, 2020 at 12:43 p.m. ET Christine Loh and Christopher Tang In technology, the U.S. administration has not been satisfied with China’s progress on the enforcement of protections for intellectual property. The case against Huawei, a Chinese telecoms equipment supplier, symbolizes the issues surrounding the tech race. China seems to be advancing too fast for U.S. companies to compete, especially in 5G development. The Trump administration has attempted to stall by limiting Huawei and its suppliers’ access to American technology and software. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-shale-oil-industry-may-collapse-new-report-says-after-goldman-warns-crude-is-set-for-a-fall-2020-06-10?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore The U.S. shale-oil industry may collapse, new report says, after Goldman warns crude is set for a fall Published: June 10, 2020 at 3:16 p.m. ET By Rupert Steiner Institute for Economics and Peace also ranks countries most likely to stage a swift economic recovery in the wake of the pandemic ... China, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico and Australia all emerge as best placed to facilitate a recovery because they have low unemployment rates, low dependence on international trade, low tax revenue relative to gross domestic product, and low central government debt as a proportion of GDP. 05-----05 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nikola-stock-market-value-soar-past-ford-fiat-chrysler-surpass-2020-6-1029298004 Tesla competitor Nikola Corp sees market value soar past car giants Ford, Fiat Chrysler (NKLA, F, FCAU) Matthew Fox Jun. 10, 2020, 06:33 PM Tesla competitor Nikola Corp. has seen its shares surge since debuting as a public company last week. The rise in Nikola has sent its market valuation to $31 billion in Wednesday morning trades, higher than car giants Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Nikola Motor Corp. has yet to sell a single car, has $0 in revenue, and doesn't expect to generate revenue until 2021. On the other hand, Ford and Fiat Chrysler produce and sell millions of cars annually and both generate more than $100 billion in annual revenue. In response to Nikola surpassing Ford in market valuation, Ford CEO John Farley pointed to its upcoming electric F-150 and said, "I'm thinking opportunity for Ford Motor Company." The disparity between Nikola and the established car giants highlights a recent increase in investor speculation as day traders bid up stocks to astronomical levels. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. https://www.barrons.com/articles/nikola-stock-tesla-semi-truck-short-seller-ipo-51591794032 Truck-Building Tesla Competitor Nikola Draws the Attention of a Short Seller By Al Root June 10, 2020 9:03 am ET 08********08 09Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-more-hand-holding-from-the-fed-does-the-market-really-need-2020-06-09?mod=home-page Opinion: How much more hand-holding from the Fed does the market really need? Published: June 9, 2020 at 1:45 p.m. ET By Caroline Baum The Fed shouldn’t give forward guidance because it doesn’t know when a change in policy will be needed Whenever I write about forward guidance — a policy tool designed to influence market rates by promising a specific level for the funds rate — I hark back to the advice of former Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer. Fischer said it’s unreasonable to expect the Fed “to spell out what it’s going to do… because it doesn’t know.” 02--02 Fed officials are reportedly considering an enhanced form of forward guidance that would tie any future rate changes to the realization of economic thresholds, such as a prescribed unemployment and inflation rate, or to calendar dates. No enhancements to forward guidance are expected to be announced this week, however. The last few years have witnessed a peaceful coexistence between low unemployment and low inflation, contrary to the relationship described by the Phillips Curve. In the wake of such evidence, why would the Fed want to commit to specific numerical thresholds until it has a better grasp of the phenomenon? The Fed is also exploring an additional policy tool to augment its near-zero interest rate and aggressive bond-buying program. A strategy called yield-curve control would entail capping short- and intermediate-term yields at a desired level, buying securities in the amounts necessary to keep them at the target. The problem with yield-curve control is simple. There is vital information in the yield curve. Any attempt to distort the slope of the curve deprives policy makers of guidance: guidance they need, not guidance they offer. The juxtaposition of an artificially pegged rate (the funds rate) and a market-determined interest rate provides a succinct snapshot of the stance of monetary policy. Tinkering with the term structure deprives the Fed of an early-warning signal indicating whether policy is too tight (an inverted curve) or too easy (an ultra-steep curve). Why would the Fed want to give that up? 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Nice article that highlights some of the challenges for Fed [analysis, policies]. I like the paragraph : "The problem with yield-curve control is simple. There is vital information in the yield curve. Any attempt to distort the slope of the curve deprives policy makers of guidance: guidance they need, not guidance they offer." I wonder also if there are disadvantages in [providing, projecting] too much stability for market participants and businesses. After all, managing risk is part of their job : policies that create perceptions of artificially low risk might blind them to real risks; bail-outs of high-risk behaviour might also might boomerang over the long term? I like to say the "Too much stability is poison for a man's soul", and perhaps that applies to perceptions of stability in the market as well, just as distortions of price perceptions also may bring problems. Rick Nah - This sounds much like predicting weather. Howell - Maybe [weather, Fed policies] are similar from the perspective of [feedback loops, hidden variables, a bit of chaos]. [Weather, climate] are a challenge, but to me the main problem is that the scientists don't look at the primary drivers, just the politically correct ones (rare people, mostly amateurs, are starting to look). [Biology, humans, organisations, markets, ...] pose a completely different class of challenges, where they "react with intent" to [challenges, opportunities] in the environment. The [math, stats, modelling, etc] frankly isn't very good in many cases, but again, the main problem is that we must consider only the politically correct [drivers, models, theories, solutions, scapegoats]. 08********08 #] 09Jun2020 - I'm out assuming 10% max reward/ -30% risk to Jan2021 [Feb, Treasury, Govt] pump >7 T$ / 30T$ marketCap -> 25% over Mar2020 highs likely lookBack : coming to triangle convergence 04Jun2020, went up then usefull at times : I'm now out of this stock I'm now out of this ETF I have ZERO [fundamental, X-sector] analysis!!!! 08********08 08Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/9OewcK97-SP500-At-MONSTER-Confluence-Zone/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc3720188 SP500 At MONSTER Confluence Zone S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 3219.96 31.17 0.98% PriceActionNation Jun 3 SP500 is fast approaching a major confluence zone of resistance in the form of: -Multi-Year Trendline Resistance -78.6 Retrace of the March lows -March swing high From a risk-reward perspective. I am favoring shorts. Be wise to wait for price action on lower time frames before getting in short. Best of luck! :) Bill_Howell Jun 3 Awesome observation! Thanks for pointing it out! PriceActionNation 13 hours ago @Bill_Howell, You bet! :) Howell : Here are two links of where I followed up on your posting with a 50-year "Fibonacci mirror" (simple & weird) You are mentioned on the chart. Although I tried to post on TradingView, that might not have worked. http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P500%20with%20Fibonacci%20mirror%201970-2020.jpg http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P500%20with%20Fibonacci%20mirror%20Jan-Jun2020.jpg 08********08 05Jun2020 https://stocktwits.com/symbol/ONCY PennyStocksSME Bearish 46m $ONCY No, I do not agree with the "experts". I apologize in advance if I hurt your feelings. ONCY is not performing with the expectations of the shareholders. ONCY missed deadlines and keeping publishing the same research all over and over again and when the stock goes up, then ONCY's warrants get used and etc... ONCY will not go up until they start performing the rest of the companies. Now, ONCY is going down to $1.50. Then, I will go long! Right now, I am going up to make lost of money in the airlines, hotels, car rentals, retail (Macy), industries. These companies really deserve the money of investors. Period! 08********08 #] 04Jun2020 05-----05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory Modern Monetary Theory From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Modern Monetary Theory or Modern Money Theory (MMT) or Modern Monetary Theory and Practice (MMTP) is a macroeconomic theory that posits that fiat currency can be continually issued by a central bank to achieve full employment, without a traditional regard for budget deficits or risk of inflation. MMT theorists believe that government spending will not necessarily lead to increased inflation, which can be addressed by raising taxes.[1] MMT is an alternative to neoclassical economic theory and may be more effective in describing the global economy in the years following the Great Recession.[2][3] MMT advocates argue that the government could use fiscal policy to achieve creating new money to fund government purchases. According to advocates, the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which can be addressed by raising and gathering taxes and issuing bonds to reduce money and the velocity of money in the system.[4] MMT is debated, with active dialogues[5] about its theoretical usefulness, the clear useful real-world practical applications and implications, together with the varying effectiveness of its targeted use and varying challenges of its policy prescriptions. >> Hmm, not much thinking here, but it's convenienbt for parasites (socialists). 08********08 02Jun2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7G0OfJUON8 Anton Kreil Annihilates Retail Brokers and "Trading Educators" 2,481,225 views •May 15, 2017 >> Awesome - you must trade diverse asset classes and go where the volatility is For me, I cannot spend the time, and the machines will probably beat me? Current volatility is very low compared to Mar-Apr I am afraid of BIG downside risk! The Fed can continue for some time, but how long will they? Is the decreasing volatility a sign of decreased Fed injections? Are they happy at current levels of market LIQUIDITY? (problem they set out to conquer, not prices) Is most volatility currently due to the rapid rise in markett levels, but small variability around the trend? (time for Fed to stop injecting?) +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-may-sell-treasurys-but-that-doesnt-mean-its-weaponizing-its-more-than-1-trillion-hoard-of-us-debt-says-deutsche-bank-2020-06-02?mod=newsviewer_click China may sell Treasurys, but that doesn’t mean it’s ‘weaponizing’ its more than $1 trillion hoard of U.S. debt, says Deutsche Bank Published: June 2, 2020 at 3:09 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh China is now the No. 2 holder of Treasurys at $1.08 trillion, down from its 2014 high of $1.32 trillion 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Makes good business sense for China to sell Treasuries? Why put up with anaemic returns elsewhere, and compete with Fed bailouts? They have the growing economy to provide a base (albeit debt somewhat high?), and a world of investors anxious for better returns. Making good on investments will boost their credibility, and for them, hopefully build growing foreign investment in their economy. I suspect that, as with the US decades-or-so-ago, the internal Chinese market is a growing portion of its activity, and South-East Asian markets and Europe provide some buffer. And as the article suggests, declining surpluses mean less need to dump oversears, and it's still important for them to avoid too much of a rise in the yuan at present. No need for conspiracy theories here, even if there are some. Too bad that everybody seems confined to politically-correct thinking. 08********08 01Jun2020 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/NQM2020/ZtKPHDbW-Why-Knowledgeable-Traders-Lose-Money/ Why Knowledgeable Traders Lose Money NASDAQ 100 E-MINI FUTURES (JUN 2020) (CME_MINI:NQM2020) 9545.50 −14.75 −0.15% ttrending May 21 I've been trading for 20+ years and I believe I have almost seen it all. I've had big winning trades, and huge losses. Some of my biggest wins came when I was a beginner aka fomo trader, and my biggest losses came when I become more knowledgeable of the market. My most consistent trading came in my latter years when I gained experience and felt real pain, and I would like to share what I observed. I believe most retail traders naturally follow the same path if they stay solvent and interested enough to stick through it. 1. Beginner trader (1st year trading): These traders generally tend to be profitable. You can call it beginners luck, but it's what gets most people to learn more about trading and put them into the 2nd class of traders (knowledgeable traders), which are the losers in the market. You can recognize a beginner trader as they believe in generalities. Those who believe "stonks only go up bro", yes they likely outperform you. It's only a matter of time before they don't, but this is where they get their confidence to invest more. 2. Knowledgeable trader: I believe most Tradingview users fall into this category. They likely had some great luck starting out by fomoing into a stock that was in an uptrend which made them want to learn more about trading, and with this newfound knowledge and tools like Tradingview they can't figure out why they are consistently losing money. They theorize in the back of their mind that the more they learned, the more they lost, and they are correct, but it's hard to accept this realization. The frustration they feel only leads to further losses which results from deleting stop losses because they're sick of losing. These are traders who upgraded their account to margin trading and they now have the awesome ability to short stocks. They imagine catching the top of a trending market and riding it all the way down. It's a fantasy I believe we all shared at one point. Instead of trading with the trend, they trade in the direction of their emotions, namely disbelief. They believe stocks are too oversold or overbought, and they look for setups to match their bias. In general, they are against the long term trend which makes their amazing setups likely to fail. When they're stuck in a trade, they resort to media and other traders to give them hope that the market will go their way. In general, the media is only adding to the traders disbelief and giving them false hope. Most traders fit into this category, and they are part of the reason for these extreme trends. They consistently get squeezed by going against the market, adding fuel to the trend. High frequency traders / institutions make a killing running these traders out of the market, while the beginner traders enjoy the gains from their fomo trades which are generally aligned with the trend of the market. 3. Experienced trader: These are traders who have been trading for 4 or more years and have stayed solvent enough to make it through phase #2. They have likely lost a lot of money trying to catch reversals and they has since realized most money is to be made in the middle by trading with the long term trend within the context of larger patterns. They also know how to take a stop loss and see it as an opportunity for a new trade. They realize they are wrong at least 40% of the time and they are at peace with it. They still get frustrated when a trade doesn't go their way, but they know this is a game of risk and reward, it's not about fortune telling. They know they will generally feel more pain if they don't take their stop, and while they may delete their stop in their weakest moments, the largest majority of the time they take the stop or exit with a loss before the loss becomes greater. The hardest part is knowing it's okay to be wrong, and it's okay be to be stopped out 4 or 5 times in a row and not be a failure. They see themselves as risk managers, not traders. They know there is no such thing as oversold or overbought, and have likely removed stoch and RSI indicators as they cause fomo to bet against a trend. They know nothing is oversold or overbought unless price reaches an area of extreme on a higher time frame chart or price is contained inside of a large well defined pattern that at least appears on an hourly chart that spans for days if not weeks. This analysis will likely not help anyone as emotions overpower logic 20:1. Most traders need to feel enough pain before they transition from phase 2 to phase 3, it's not something that can be taught. They need the financial and emotional scars. They need the natural feeling of pain in the moment they feel they might delete their stop loss or bet against a trend when the price is not at strong resistance / support in a longer term pattern. In general human behavior, most people have a plan but the plan is usually thrown out the window in the moment a decision has to be made. The purpose of this analysis is just to let you know that it's okay to be in the middle, and if you can at least have the control to trade with smaller amounts when you're in phase 2, you'll one day likely make it to phase 3. This analysis wont make anyone transition from a phase 2 to a phase 3 trader, I mainly wanted to make it clear that your emotions will likely continue to rule your trading, even in phase 3, the big difference is that you'll naturally feel pain before you make a mistake a phase 2 trader will make. Embrace your scars and the journey ahead. My goal is to find the best risk:reward setups. For instance, if you risk $1,000 at a chance to make $5,000, you can afford to be wrong 4 out of 5 times and still not lose money. I hit my targets over 50% of the time. 08********08 31May2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-will-not-have-a-vaccine-by-next-winter-what-happens-when-coronavirus-returns-2020-04-22?mod=newsviewer_click ‘The 1918 Spanish flu’s second wave was even more devastating’: WHO advises caution to avoid ‘immediate second peak’ Published: May 31, 2020 at 1:34 p.m. ET By Quentin Fottrell 916 Immunizations against smallpox, measles or Hepatitis B should last a lifetime, but that has not been the case for previous coronaviruses 08&&&&&&&&08 I should post my web-page 08********08 30May2020 /media/bill/SWAPPER/Economics/200530 S&P500 Jun2015-Jun2020.png 08********08 29May2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-corporate-america-a-going-concern-this-one-chart-suggests-otherwise-2020-05-27?mod=newsviewer_click Is Corporate America a going concern? This one chart suggests otherwise Published: May 29, 2020 at 8:33 a.m. ET By Andrea Riquier Policymakers keep interest rates low to stimulate borrowing for things that boost the economy, not the share price /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200529 MktWtch, David Rosenberg - USA corporate debt-for-equity 2010-2019.jpg 08********08 28May2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sorry-bill-ackman-truth-is-youre-probably-not-warren-buffetts-ideal-investor-2020-05-28?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Outside the Box Opinion: Sorry, Bill Ackman: The truth is you’re not Warren Buffett’s ideal investor, anyway Published: May 28, 2020 at 4:33 p.m. ET By Lawrence Cunnigham. 0 Berkshire Hathaway chairman and famed stock picker values long-term ‘high quality’ shareholders 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Interesting article. Does the "Quality Shareholder" research project also look closely at fundamental versus technical analysis, and the role of [debt, leveraging]? How much similarity would there be with the period leading into the 1929 crash? 08********08 #] 27May2020 05-----05 Coronavirus update: Global death toll climbs above 353,000; U.S. deaths surpass 100,000 Published: May 27, 2020 at 6:15 p.m. ET By Ciara Linnane 119 Domino’s Pizza and Papa John’s enjoy strong sales bump, while Ralph Lauren’s sales falter with stores closed 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Are we in a period conducive to another major flu pandemic, possibly with a very different type of flu? The current corona virus pandemic also comes at perhaps the right time? With another weak cycle coming, and possibly a Grand Solar Minimum in the waiting, perhaps things could get interesting? I took some time to look again at the issue in light of a growing number of papers about possible [solar, astronomical] influences on human [health, behaviour]. One such suggestion is that a low geomagnetic field leads to greater exposure to [cosmic, galactic] rays, and some have even speculated that this may be related to mutations (including [virus, bacterial, microbes]) and extinction events in geologic time. The attached graph is a messy collection of [USA influenza, sunspots, Kp index, zero Kp bins], which is interesting, but the time period is not long enough to really say too much. I stanley - Interesting stuff. I just wonder if large solar flares might be more dangerous than a weak geomagnetic field - which of course, would not help. Howell - Interesting question. Solar flares are only one of the drivers of intense geomagnetics, ad disease is only one of many human effects. Flare effects go way beyond human health (power grids, satellites, etc, etc, etc). Epidemic effects of short time interval of a solar flare might be very difficult to pull out of the data, especially with time lags, Earth location during a flare, and other factors involved. Schumann resonances in the atmosphere correspond to the brains [alpha, beta, whatever] waves, and are apparently related to lightning around the world (which is also solar-related, and telluric deep mining exploration from aircraft). Two relatively recent articles on health effects (Russians led, but Western publications have risen rapidly in last 10 years?) : 1. Feigin, Kasabov etal 22Apr2014 "Geomagnetic Storms Can Trigger Stroke : Evidence From 6 Large Population-Based Studies in Europe and Australasia", https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STROKEAHA.113.004577 (I've known Nik Kasabov personally for >15 years in the neural network area - great [person, leader, researcher, creative thinker]!) 2. Alabdulgader etal 08Feb2018 "Long-Term Study of Heart Rate Variability Responses to Changes in the Solar and Geomagnetic Environment" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20932-x Not used : There are many papers on [heart, stroke, accident, mental] effects of hours-to-days intense geomagnetic events. Russians and Scandanavians have long been strong in this area, Western science is increasingly on a roll for the last 20 years? (they used to call these ?Frobisher? events or something - I don't see that term anymore) 08********08 26May2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-wants-you-to-read-this-story-about-one-of-the-biggest-medical-and-economic-blunders-of-all-time-2020-05-26?mod=home-page The Margin Elon Musk wants you to read this story about ‘one of the biggest medical and economic blunders of all time’ Published: May 26, 2020 at 2:49 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois Tesla boss Elon Musk flagged it to his 35 million Twitter followers. Media mogul Steve Forbes cheered it as “an absolute must read.” And Fox News analyst Brit Hume is also apparently a fan. It’s the story of “what may eventually be known as one of the biggest medical and economic blunders of all time,” according to tech entrepreneur, military vet and bioengineer Yinon Weiss. What “story” is that exactly? ‘The collective failure of every Western nation, except one, to question groupthink will surely be studied by economists, doctors, and psychologists for decades to come. That’s his take, posted on RealClearPolitics.com last week, with regard to how governments around the world have handled the coronavirus pandemic. “In the face of a novel virus threat, China clamped down on its citizens,” he wrote in his intro. “Academics used faulty information to build faulty models. Leaders relied on these faulty models. Dissenting views were suppressed. The media flamed fears and the world panicked.” Weiss’s critique has resonated in recent days with the likes of Musk, who have consistently raged against lockdowns of business and personal activity to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as perhaps causing more damage than the coronavirus itself. Weiss took shots at the government for taking extreme action when the fatality rate for those under 65 years old “is no more dangerous than driving 13 to 101 miles per day.” He used this chart to downplay the risks facing those not in the most vulnerable categories: “Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year,” Weiss wrote. “Yet we put billions of young healthy people under house arrest, stopped cancer screenings, and sunk ourselves into the worst level of unemployment since the Great Depression.” >> very negative blog posts - we are such a bunch of dimwits 200526 MarketWatch, David Spielhalter Imperial College risak of dying if you get coronavirus vs normal annual risk.jpg 08&&&&&&&&08 Awesome post, Shawn Langlois!!! Facebook blog " 08********08 25May2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-one-strategist-says-these-hard-hit-stocks-will-rebound-even-if-theres-a-second-wave-to-the-pandemic-2020-05-22?mod=newsviewer_click Why one strategist says these hard-hit stocks will rebound — even if there’s a second wave to the pandemic Published: May 25, 2020 at 6:39 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein There has been a yawning gap for some time between growth and value stocks, and the coronavirus pandemic has only widened the disparity. James Solloway, chief market strategist at investment manager SEI Investments, expects that to change — soon. “There are periods where leadership changes in a drastic and dramatic fashion, and they usually correspond with the bottoms, or the near-bottoms, of a recession following a period of accelerated deterioration in those asset classes. And that is precisely what we have seen this year with small caps, value stocks and emerging markets,” he said in an interview with MarketWatch. Solloway said most of SEI’s funds are shying away from momentum stocks. “I’m not talking about buying the [hard-hit] sectors and then holding them through the entire next market cycle. I will concede that there is a secular characteristic to the outperformance of growth,” he said. “But at this point we are at an extreme, and depending on the metric you measure it by, the extreme is even greater than what we saw at the top of the tech bubble.” /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/corona SARS2 virus/200525 MktWatch, Dallas FedRes new measurement of social distancing vs economic index.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200525 MktWatch, James Solloway SEI Investments - provocative equity valuations.png /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200525 MktWatch, James Solloway SEI Investments - values day is coming 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hulbert-my-stock-market-forecast-for-june-is-likely-wrong-but-watch-out-for-august-2020-05-25?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo Tech Qn blog : "The Market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"..... Never forget that. Too many are trying to time it, looking for bottoms, or highs etc... My suggestion for everyday investors (those who do not day/week trade) is and always has been, invest in good, solid companies with strong balance sheets, good financial moats and use dollar cost averaging. And as always, watch that VIX (anything above 31 is considered uninvestable)... The fed is not all knowing after all and though they are trying, they have brought a liquidity knife to an insolvency gun fight. Watch your backs (trades) people. Cheers. >> Howell : Hah - great saying! 08********08 23May2020 05-----05 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm Elevated influenza-like-illness is likely related to COVID-19. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-could-be-coronavirus-free-by-late-september-scientists-say-2020-05-23?mod=newsviewer_click The New York Post U.S. could be coronavirus-free by late September, these Singapore scientists say Published: May 23, 2020 at 8:36 p.m. ET By Isabel Vincent 11 World can expect to put pandemic behind it by December, say scientists using mathematical model created by Singapore University of Technology and Design A mathematical model created by the Singapore University of Technology and Design is allowing the scientists to predict the future of the virus using data from already confirmed cases and deaths around the world. Based on “a predictive-monitoring” technique, the model inputs global data, which is converted to a bar chart. A curve over the top of the chart displays the trajectory of the disease. At the end of April, its predictions showed that the U.S. would be virus-free by Sept. 20 and that the U.K. could see the end of the coronavirus by Aug. 27. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-time-for-china-to-blink-first-says-rep-sherman-who-is-the-leading-push-for-china-delisting-bill-2020-05-23?mod=newsviewer_click Capitol Report ‘It’s time for China to blink first,’ says Rep. Sherman, who leads the drive to delist China stocks Published: May 23, 2020 at 11:19 a.m. ET By Chris Matthews 15 Rep. Brad Sherman, who introduced the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, says in MarketWatch interview that the goal is to make Chinese companies listing in the U.S. abide by this country’s capital-markets standards “The purpose here is not to delist or de-register; it’s to demand that China do what every other country has done and agree that if their companies want to participate in U.S. capital markets, they agree to live by U.S. capital-markets rules,” Sherman argued in an interview with MarketWatch. “It’s time for China to blink first for the benefit of investors.” 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-stock-investors-too-complacent-about-a-full-scale-blowup-between-china-and-the-us-heres-what-wall-street-experts-say-2020-05-23?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Market Extra Are stock investors too complacent about a full-scale blow-up between China and the U.S.? Here’s what Wall Street experts say Published: May 23, 2020 at 11:15 a.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 0 The Dow ended the week up 3.3%, the S&P 500 surged 3.2% and the Nasdaq put in a weekly gain of 3.4% >> plain vanila comments. >> Do they reaqlly think that mandated local supply chains make a country competitive? The Americans no longer understand what that word means. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/todays-stock-market-looks-like-march-2009-before-the-longest-bull-run-in-history-says-morgan-stanleys-mike-wilson-2020-05-18?mod=newsviewer_click Today’s stock market looks like March 2009, before the longest bull run in history, says Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson Published: May 23, 2020 at 1:05 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews 261 Stocks’ value relative to bonds is equal that of 2009 /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200523 Market breadths similar 2009 vs 2020, MktWatch, Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley.jpg /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200523 Market graphs similar 2009 vs 2020, MktWatch, Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley.jpg /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200523 Market equity-risk-premium (ERP) similar 2009 vs 2020, MktWatch, Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley.jpg 08********08 #] 22May2020 can't log into MktWtch!??! 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-now-the-most-powerful-empire-but-it-is-in-relative-decline-as-chinese-power-is-rapidly-rising-says-founder-of-worlds-largest-hedge-fund-2020-05-21?mod=newsviewer_click The U.S. ‘is now the most powerful empire’ but it is in ‘relative decline’ as Chinese power is rapidly rising,’ says founder of world’s largest hedge fund Published: May 21, 2020 at 4:36 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre 1 China and U.S. tensions are rising but will it lead to a hegemonic shift? Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio says: yes Ray Dalio, co-chief investment officer and co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates >> facinating glimpse of history : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-cycles-over-last-500-years-ray-dalio/?mod=article_inline The Big Cycles Over The Last 500 Years >> Phenomenal reader blogging!! 08********08 #] 21May2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/baidu-is-considering-delisting-from-the-nasdaq-amid-tensions-between-us-and-china-report-2020-05-21?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Baidu is considering delisting from the Nasdaq amid tensions between U.S. and China: report Published: May 21, 2020 at 11:28 a.m. ET By Emily Bary Baidu Inc. BIDU, 0.54% is considering delisting from the Nasdaq exchange as it deems its stock to be undervalued, according to a Reuters report Thursday. The story says that the Chinese internet company is contemplating "moving to an exchange closer to home" in an attempt to "boost its valuation amid rising tension between the United States and China over investments." The Senate recently passed a bill that could bar some Chinese companies from listing their shares in the U.S. and that aimed to apply stricter auditing rules to Chinese companies. Baidu has had early-stage discussions with advisors about its options, according to Reuters, which cited multiple anonymous sources. A Baidu spokesperson said that the report was a rumor and that the company "has no comment on market rumors." The company's U.S.-listed shares have declined 17.2% over the past three months as the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF KWEB, -2.53% has increased 0.1% and as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.67% has dropped 11.9%. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-could-be-the-next-signal-for-the-sp-500-to-climb-past-3000-says-standard-chartered-2020-05-21?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Need to Know This could be the next signal for the S&P 500 to climb past 3,000, says Standard Chartered Published: May 21, 2020 at 11:48 a.m. ET By Barbara Kollmeyer 38 Critical information for the U.S. trading day The chart shows how tight the relationship has been in recent weeks between the S&P and the Cboe Volatility Index VIX, 5.11%, a volatility gauge for stocks known as the VIX or “fear gauge.” The VIX is based on options contracts for the next 30-days pegged to the S&P 500, and tends to rise when stocks are falling, and vice versa. It currently stands at 29 — a level above 30 has historically pointed to more investor uncertainty, while below 20 tends to hint of less stress in the markets. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-four-companies-get-the-most-love-from-top-performing-market-newsletters-and-not-one-is-a-faang-stock-2020-05-21?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: These 4 companies get the most love from top-performing market newsletters, and not one is a FAANG stock Published: May 21, 2020 at 11:55 a.m. ET By Mark Hulbert 0 Value stocks are out of favor, but not among successful investment pros Try telling that to the top performing investment newsletters tracked by my Hulbert Financial Digest performance-auditing firm. These four stocks are tied for being the most recommended right now by those newsletters: • Walt Disney DIS, -2.25% • FedEx FDX, -0.25% • IBM IBM, -1.14% • JPMorgan Chase JPM, -1.14% Notice the absence of any of the so-called FAANG stocks that have been leading the market in recent weeks. All four of these stocks are instead solidly in the “value” category: Their average trailing 12-month PE ratio, for example, is 35% lower than the S&P 500’s SPX, -0.62% . Their average price/book ratio is 26% lower, and their average price/sales ratio is 10% lower. (See chart below.) And given their status as value stocks, it is not a surprise that they have been lagging of late. Research Associates study mentioned above, which was authored by Rob Arnott, the firm’s founder; Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at Duke University; Vitali Kalesnik, a senior member of Research Associates’ investment team, and Juhani Linnainmaa, a finance professor at Dartmouth College. https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articles/reports-of-values-death-may-be-greatly-exaggerated.html?mod=article_inline It’s beyond the scope of this column to review the statistical tests that the authors used in analyzing each of these explanations, but you should read their report if interested. They rejected those hypotheses that would imply that value is permanently dead and concluded instead that “the stage is set for potentially historic outperformance of value relative to growth over the coming decade.” 08&&&&&&&&08 Timely article for a possible change of emphasis in investor focus? But I suspect that this will take time, even with a crash, as attitudes change slowly. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/were-now-seeing-the-sharp-edge-of-market-volatilitys-sword-and-it-cuts-deep-2020-05-21?mod=newsviewer_click Outside the Box Opinion: We’re now seeing the sharp edge of volatility’s sword and it cuts deep Published: May 21, 2020 at 11:52 a.m. ET By Satyajit Das 15 Central bank policies encourage speculation and many investors are in over their heads Central bank actions have for the most part suppressed market volatility since the financial crisis of 2008. This is part of a deliberate strategy to lower risk, which is measured by volatility. Reduced risk, it’s hoped, will facilitate borrowing to boost growth. Yet these measures have failed in their primary objective, instead encouraging speculation — which now exerts significant influence over markets and prices. Artificially low volatility has driven a wide range of investment strategies which generate small returns under stable conditions but are vulnerable to large losses under stressful conditions. Depending on how it is measured, an amount of more than $2 trillion and as much as $8 trillion may be exposed in this way. The strategies themselves vary. Investors including institutions, mutual funds, hedge funds and high-net-worth individuals explicitly sell options to generate premium income either directly or using call- and put-writing programs. ... The largest exposure is via share buyback programs and risky corporate debt, which entail implicit sales of options. Companies with active share repurchase programs funded by low-cost debt are de facto selling put options on their own shares. Since 2009, the purchases, totaling about $4 trillion, account for as much as half of all earnings-per-share increases and around one-third of price gains. Reduction in shares outstanding and increased debt makes firms vulnerable to volatility increases such as that resulting from an external shock like the coronavirus pandemic. Significant risks The explicit or implicit sale of options poses significant risks. Higher volatility translates into losses. In the first place, there is a mark-to-market loss, particularly with sold options. This affects explicit sold options but also in cases where the optionality is implicit. For example, higher volatility increases the risk of default of leveraged companies, which translates into wider credit spreads causing mark-to-market loses for holders. Volatility also increases debt costs and affects the ability to refinance borrowings. Bigger losses come about due to the need to rebalance portfolios, known as gamma risk. In effect, if there is a large movement in asset prices, that is, real volatility, then portfolios based on selling options must be rebalanced. This typically requires pro-cyclical trading, selling when markets fall and buying when markets rise. This exacerbates market gyrations. 08&&&&&&&&08 Great article. "Too much stability is poison for a man's soul, and leads to the mindset of entitlement." Somewhat related to "Adversity builds character, affluence destroys it." 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-2020-presidential-forecast-says-trump-faces-historic-defeat-due-to-terrible-economy-2020-05-20?mod=newsviewer_click Capitol Report This 2020 presidential forecast says Trump faces historic defeat due to terrible economy Published: May 21, 2020 at 11:33 a.m. ET By Jeffry Bartash Oxford Economics predicts Trump to only get 35% of the vote The Oxford model primarily relies on key economic barometers such as inflation, the unemployment rate and inflation-adjusted disposable income to generate its forecast. The jobless rate has soared to almost 20% unofficially from just 3.5% several months ago, and it’s unlikely to drop below 10% before the election, Oxford Economics predicts. Incomes have also taken a big whack. There are reasons to be cautious about such forecasts. The Oxford model was wrong in 1968 and 1976, for example, and it doesn’t try to predict the Electoral College winner. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 — an outcome predicted by the Oxford model — but he won in the Electoral College. It’s also unrealistic to expect Biden to capture what would be a record 65% of the vote even if he did win the White House. It’s rare in modern times for one of the two main parties to gain less than 40% of the vote in a two-person race. The last time that happened was in 1972. What could save Trump? A faster-than-expected economic rebound and lower-than-normal turnout among Democratic voters, the model indicates. 08&&&&&&&&08 Robert Prechter has long done a better "Socionomic" analysis (socionomics.net), which covers a vastly broader context of [natural, market, economic, social] phenomena. Obviously Elliot Wave market analysis is part of that. http://www.BillHowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/Prechter%201999%20Landslide%20elections%20&%20Stock%20Prices.jpg An interesting analysis of Trump's potential impeachment was given in a video last November : https://www.socionomics.net/2019/11/will-trump-be-thrown-out-of-office/ Stephen Puetz has an even more breath-taking span of subjects over [tiny, huge] timescales, with timing! While I don't remember election forecasting, his idesas make for a fascinating read. http://www.uct-news.com/ 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/AmewniWr-Possible-scenario-if-America-adopts-NIR-policy/ Possible scenario if America adopts NIR policy S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 2939.6 −36.5 −1.23% dchua1969 11 hours ago It was in February 2016 when Japan adopts negative interest rate policy. For the next 6 months or so, the stock market barely moves, consolidating between 15000 to 17000 range. In Sept 2019, President Trump tweeted about his support for zero or negative interest rates policy and pressured FEDs to do it asap .In May 2020, he renewed his calls once more,claiming other countries are already enjoying the gift. This is what the Fed's chairman, Jerome Powell said : “When you have negative rates, you wind up creating downward pressure on bank profitability, which limits credit expansion,” Powell said in a congressional testimony. President Trump is running out of time, with his reelection coming up in November 2020 and he needs to prop up the stock market to a new level. Could this NIR policy be his saviour ? If the bear camps are right about this recovery as too sudden and premature, then we could see a retest of the March low again. (yellow) Alternatively, this V-shape recovery could already be playing out and shooting for a new high. (blue) 08&&&&&&&&08 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/AmewniWr-Possible-scenario-if-America-adopts-NIR-policy/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc3657171 dchua 20May2020 - It was in February 2016 when Japan adopts negative interest rate policy. For the next 6 months or so, the stock market barely moves, consolidating between 15000 to 17000 range. In Sept 2019, President Trump tweeted about his support for zero or negative interest rates policy and pressured FEDs to do it asap .In May 2020, he renewed his calls once more,claiming other countries are already enjoying the gift. This is what the Fed's chairman, Jerome Powell said : “When you have negative rates, you wind up creating downward pressure on bank profitability, which limits credit expansion,” Powell said in a congressional testimony. President Trump is running out of time, with his reelection coming up in November 2020 and he needs to prop up the stock market to a new level. Could this NIR policy be his saviour ? If the bear camps are right about this recovery as too sudden and premature, then we could see a retest of the March low again. (yellow) Alternatively, this V-shape recovery could already be playing out and shooting for a new high. (blue) Bill_Howell 21May2020 - Nice commentary helping to highlight questions about negative interest rates. I'm intrigued - what model did you use for your very interesting projections? That's an amazing amount of detail, very uncommon and brave. It seems to assume an ongoing debt-driven rise of the market to historical highs over the next 2 years, for both scenarios (bear and bull). It seems that is now the norm in (debt-addicted) Western nations, assuming the US jumps in? The UK issued a bond recently at negative interest rates, and is contemplating a negative rate policy? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uk-sells-first-government-bond-with-a-negative-interest-rate-2020-05-20 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/20/uk-sells-government-bond-with-negative-yield-for-first-time-coronavirus dchua1969 28May2020 - @Bill_Howell, sorry for my late comments. If you recalled 2 to 3 weeks ago, many analysts were still debating if this is a V shape recovery or a bear market rally. Nobody knows for sure as the price action could surpass the previous high , giving us a V shape recovery before plunging down. I remain cautiously bullish for now for a few reasons : 1. Central banks worldwide are printing money. Remember QE1-3 - it was in millions, now we are talking trillions 2. Interest rates remain ultra low with possible reduction to NIR 3. President Trump re-election (he will do all he can to influence , coerce FEDs to prop up the stock market this year) I think he is already doing that with the trade tariffs with China, pressuring them on the HK saga and rallying other countries to join US to push for an independent study on Covid -19 sources Chart wise, it has break above the 618 FIB level , closed above the 200 EMA and remains intact on the bullish trend line. I look at pullbacks as buying on dips. I hope this is helpful. Cheers. Bill_Howell 28May2020 - @dchua1969 - Thanks for the feedback. Others have commented that this is no longer a "free market", and with 7+ G$ injection by [Fed, Treasury, government programs], I have that feeling now too. The previous thinking was that the government [could, would]n't handle the scale of the market decline, but the new policies seem to be doing that. But adding debt to solve a big debt problem, following the same issues in 2009 and almost continuously, seems dangerous. In a larger context, I'm waiting for Part 2 of Ray Dalio's, co-chief investment officer and co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates, 21May2020 facinating glimpse of history as reported in MarketWatch, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-cycles-over-last-500-years-ray-dalio/?mod=article_inline A couple of years ago, I peer-reviewed two scientific papers by Chinese (in China) conference papers : (1) the roll-over of global technical dominance (currently USA, long in the tooth), and (2) how many wars will the US become involved in 2020-2030. In a previous year, I had peer-reviewed a Cuban conference paper about the roll-over of global dominant nations over the last ~6700 years. I think it is impossible for us to see ourselves from a detached perspective like that, but perhaps we are doing exactly the same things that have marked declines over >4,000 years of history? This all seems too much like the great historian Ibn Khaldun's "Muqqadimah" (circa 1410 AD?), for whom a core theme was decline of a nation's greatness 3-4 generations after their peak. Arnold J. Toynbee always refered to Ibn Khaldun, but as a core idea, he thought that civilisations didn't have to collapse, as long as they could reject core beliefs and change for the future. That's not happening with us now. 05-----05 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/20/uk-sells-government-bond-with-negative-yield-for-first-time-coronavirus Bank of England paves way for negative interest rates Governor says all options are open after UK sells first ever bond with negative yield Phillip Inman and Larry Elliott Wed 20 May 2020 19.01 BST The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has paved the way for negative interest rates in a dramatic move that illustrates concerns inside the central bank that the impact of the coronavirus lockdown will be longer and deeper than expected. Bailey said central bank officials were actively considering all options to help see the economy through a deep recession and told MPs that it would be “foolish” to rule out cutting the cost of borrowing to below zero. The move came after Britain sold a government bond with a negative yield for the first time. 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/NhHu0xiK-Does-Feds-has-a-plan-B/ Does Feds has a plan B ? S&P 500 Index (FX:SPX500) 2946.3 −29.8 −1.00% dchua1969 May 16 The dateline is 31 July 2020. Why ? The average americans reckon that the extra money received (600 bucks) from the government would be used by this date, 31 July 2020. With the alarming unemployment rates of millions (more than 30)of Americans and businesses still struggling to reopen their business and if Feds does not have a Plan B, it is highly likely mortgage rates is going to increase. What are they going to pay it with ? How about those on rental flats ? Will the Landlord be compassionate further to reduce the rent? Already states that are re-opening their economy are fearful of a backlash of the Covid-19 coming back to haunt them, thus the governor is treading on thin ice now. They are really stuck in a catch 22 situation. In the past Quantitative easing programs, businesses and consumers are allowed to borrow at cheap rates and run their business activities. Not now with the stay at home curfew imposed worldwide. What's the point of getting cheap loans if I can't get out to the showroom to check out the latest automobile or shop at the mall ? Can every products and services be purchase over the internet ? With so much fear, people are tightening their belt and trying to save more and reduce spending, contrary to what the Government wants them to do. Maybe, the payroll tax that President Trump was talking about in early May might be used. If implemented, it means employees received a higher take home pay (about 8% ) , a short term solution to his myriad of challenges. Chart wise, we can see 2966 level has been rejected twice and the price action moving forward is likely to be in a consolidation pattern. I will be watching the tech stocks that are currently driving the stock market. Their correction will be a catalyst for the long awaited downfall that many bears are eagerly awaiting. 08********08 #] 20May2020 Ian Hepher added a post to the album: Nasty Stuff. 10 hrs · Ian's friends Now I know we are going in the right direction. I started to calc the positive to number of test ratio. As this shows if we are finding less and less in the comunity. Although it is clouded by who they test ie care homes probably done on the 16-17th may. So here are the results:- 16/5 - 2.53% 17/5 - 3.45% 18/5 - 2.67% 19/5 - 2.69% 20/5 - 1.40% As they expand their range of testing so the number of positive tests should drop and reduce the % RATIO. If we get a few more points it may be possible to extrapolate to zero pos test results and a day. What would be usefull if we randomly tested 100000 people around the country to determine our background positive results ratio. Thiughts anyone? 08&&&&&&&&08 Yes, as some "doctors" have been requesting much wider testing than could be done up to now, given the immediate priorities. One of the best-performing pandemic models in the US "projects" ~6% infected by 04Aug2020 (~20M exposed/ ~350 M population, https://covid19-projections.com/#view-projections). The handily has greatly outperformed that of the Uof Washington IHME. The latter has very widely been followed up to now. A key point is that the model does NOT assume a taper-off to zero on the mid-term when most of the population hasn't been infected. Instead, cumulative projections are like a straight line continuing up. I wonder if it wouldn't be far better if it was possible to test for susceptibility, so we can protect the more vulnerable (in addition to the very aged). That way they can be kept out of harms way as things open up. In other words, looking forward rather than backward. +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasury-yields-inch-lower-before-20-year-bond-auction-2020-05-20?mod=newsviewer_click Bond Report Treasury yields sink after first 20-year bond auction since 1986 Published: May 20, 2020 at 4:03 p.m. ET By Sunny Oh What are Treasurys doing? U.S. Treasury yields fell Wednesday after the Treasury launched its first sale of the 20-year bond since 1986, drawing better-than-expected appetite for the new issuance. The 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, 0.681% fell 3.2 basis points to 0.679%, while the two-year note rate TMUBMUSD02Y, 0.181% was down a basis point to 0.161%. The 30-year bond yield TMUBMUSD30Y, 1.407% slipped 3.3 basis points to 1.400%. What’s driving Treasurys? As part of the Treasury Department’s strategy to finance its multi-trillion-dollar deficits this year, it sold $20 billion of 20-year bonds in the afternoon. >> Sheesh - who wants 20 years of exposure by assuming continued [zero, negative] rates? 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/senate-could-vote-on-bill-that-could-delist-chinese-companies-from-us-stock-exchanges-2020-05-19?mod=mw_more_headlines Capitol Report Senate passes bill that could delist Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges Published: May 20, 2020 at 12:58 p.m. ET By Chris Matthews The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act would force Chinese companies to adhere to U.S. securities law The U.S. Senate approved sweeping new legislation Wednesday that could ultimately bar many Chinese companies from listing shares on U.S. exchanges, or otherwise raising money from American investors. Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, submitted the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act for unanimous consent, a bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. The bill was approved without objection. “I do not want to get into a new cold war,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor. “All I want, and I think all the rest of us want, is for China to play by the rules.” Steve Dickinson of Harris Bricken wrote in the China Law Blog that American companies seeking to raise money publicly must be audited by an accredited firm and that these audits are further monitored by the PCAOB. China has refused to allow its companies to follow U.S. securities law, arguing that Chinese law bars auditors’ work from being transferred out of the country, Dickinson wrote. “Stated more directly, unlike companies from the U.S. and Europe and everywhere else in the world, Chinese companies that list on the U.S. stock exchanges are exempt from meaningful financial oversight,” the lawyer said. The Trump administration has also voiced support for stricter oversight of Chinese companies. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Fox Business Network on Tuesday morning that “we have to” push for more accountability from Chinese companies listed in U.S. markets. >> Well, I got out of ZCH 05-----05 https://covid19-projections.com/about/#historical-performance Updated comparative models IHME has changed their model basis - now too high, YYG is critical of their work YYG uses John HopkinsU data covid19-projections.com is made by Youyang Gu, an independent data scientist. Youyang completed his Bachelor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), double majoring in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Mathematics. He also received his Masters degree at MIT, completing his thesis as part of the Natural Language Processing group at the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His expertise is in using machine learning to understand data and make accurate predictions. >> I added this to my web-page 200520 covid19-projections.com - Best performing models for US projections, 16May2020.png 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-it-will-take-for-the-stock-market-to-hit-a-new-record-within-2-months-2020-05-18?mod=article_inline Opinion: Here’s what it will take for the stock market to hit a new record within 2 months Published: May 18, 2020 at 2:05 p.m. ET By Nigam Arora Moderna’s announcement on progress toward a coronavirus vaccine could start the second leg of a short squeeze Many investors not familiar with the mechanics of short squeezes are confused by the strength of the stock market rally that began after the S&P 500 hit a coronavirus low on March 23. Short-squeeze-related actions were the force that unleashed the strong rally. As the market continues to rally, the odds that the stock market will set a new record within the next two months are rising. I see it as 55% now, up from just 30% on May 13. As impressive as that rapid shift is, I will wait until the odds reach 70% to my call. What will push the likelihood to 70%? The second leg of the short squeeze has to start. And although stocks are surging on Monday, I am not yet seeing this — bid-ask spreads aren’t widening and trades aren’t being done predominantly at the ask price. Disclosure: Arora Report portfolios have positions in Apple, Qualcomm, Cisco, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook. Nigam Arora is the founder of The Arora Report, which publishes four newsletters. He can be reached at Nigam@TheAroraReport.com. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/prepare-for-the-post-coronavirus-vaccine-world-by-selling-stocks-that-are-hot-today-but-will-lose-earnings-momentum-2020-05-20?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Prepare for the post-coronavirus-vaccine world by selling stocks that are hot today but will lose earnings momentum Published: May 20, 2020 at 8:49 a.m. ET By Nigam Arora Smart money flows have already turned negative on Zoom, Peloton, Teledoc and Slack What does it all mean? The intra-market shifts in money flows described above are a positive sign for the stock market because they indicate a shift from stocks which are likely to have decelerating momentum of earnings to accelerating momentum of earnings. The emphasis here is on “momentum of earnings” and not just earnings. As a note of caution, this does not mean that investors should necessarily rush out and buy stocks. From a technical perspective the stock market is very overbought and vulnerable to a pullback unless the second leg of the short squeeze starts. I extensively use the technique of trade-around positions — shorter-term positions that surround the core positions, which in turn are partially hedged. Investors should consider separating out strategic decisions from tactical decisions and also short-term trades from long-term investments. 05-----05 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/sp500-concentration-large-cap-bad-sign-future-returns-effect-market-2020-4-1029133505?op=1 5 companies now make up 20% of the S&P 500. Here's why Goldman Sachs says that's a bad signal for future market returns. (MSFT, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, FB) Matthew Fox Apr. 27, 2020, 04:15 PM The stock market has been propped up by a handful of mega-cap companies leading into the coronavirus pandemic. The five largest stocks now account for 20% of the S&P 500 market cap, exceeding the 18% concentration level reached during the dot-com bubble. Historically, such narrow breadth is a poor signal for future market returns, Goldman Sachs said. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. In a Friday note, the Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin observed that "narrow breadth and high dispersion have lifted equity market concentration above the Tech Bubble peak." The five largest stocks in the S&P 500 now account for 20% of its total market cap, exceeding the 18% concentration level reached during the dot-com bubble. Those stocks are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Facebook. Stock-market breadth is an indicator of how many stocks are advancing relative to those that are declining. When a market has narrow breadth, it means a relatively small group of stocks is driving the upside in the market, while the majority of stocks are declining. 200520 MarktWtch, Matthew Fox - 5 companies now make up 20% of the S&P 500 (MSFT, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, FB).png 05-----05 https://www.investing.com/analysis/top10-sp-500-market-cap-weights-estimated-2020-eps-growth-200493246 Top-10 S&P 500 Market Cap Weights: Estimated 2020 EPS Growth By Brian GilmartinStock MarketsDec 17, 2019 03:15PM ET The top-10 market cap weights in the S&P 500 comprise 23.6% of the index. According to Morningstar, here is the SPY's top-10 list by market cap as of 12/12/19: 1.) Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL): 4.47% 2.) Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT): 4.46% 3.) Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN): 2.76% 4.) Facebook (NASDAQ:FB): 1.79% 5.) Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa): 1.67% 6.) JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM): 1.65% 7.) Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL): 3.03% 8) Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ): 1.41% 9.) Visa (NYSE:V): 1.21% 10.) Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG): 1.18% (Ranking as of 12/16/19 at close of trading per Morningstar.) The only stock not on the spreadsheet above is Procter & Gamble (PG) which has worked it’s way up from the “teens” to the 10th position. (Long all in some form or fashion except Procter.) Apologies to readers – this hasnt been updated in 6 months. The next update for 2020 numbers will happen late January, early February, ’20 after the “big 10” have reported Q4 ’19 results and have given 2020 guidance. Thanks for reading. 08********08 19May2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/call-it-fate-call-it-karma-why-the-coronavirus-is-merely-the-final-kick-into-the-abyss-for-the-us-economy-2020-05-19?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Call it fate, call it karma’ — Why the coronavirus is merely ‘the final kick into the abyss’ for the U.S. economy Published: May 19, 2020 at 5:52 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois Charles Hugh Smith The man behind the OfTwoMinds.com, which was recognized by CNBC as one of the best alternative financial blogs on the internet, has been calling for the implosion of the U.S. empire for years now, and the coronavirus pandemic has him believing that time has finally come. “The slippery slope to collapse — decadence — is characterized by greed, corruption, irreconcilable internal political rifts, moral decay, frivolity, materialism,” Smith writes. “Hmm, sound familiar?” The pandemic is merely “the final kick into the abyss,” he said, after the global financial crisis laid bare the fragile nature of an economy kept alive with artificial stimulus. “Elites have done nothing but kick the can down the road for over a decade,” he wrote. “Nothing that’s broken has been fixed; all that’s been done is trillions in currency has been borrowed or printed to paper over the dissolution, decay and decline.” Smith warned of a “terminal crisis” that begins in 2021, regardless of any progress made to bring an end to the pandemic and kickstart the ravaged global economy. 08&&&&&&&&08 Bob Parish - The book "The Fourth Turning" describes an 80 year cycle of ups and downs, driven by generational values. Written in 1996, the authors predicted that the next "Crisis" period or "turning" would arrive between 2005 and 2008 and last for about 20 years. The previous Crisis Turning included the Great Depression and WWII. This one will include the Great Recession, Donald Trump, COVID-19 and who knows what's to come. It's a fascinating read. Check it out on Amazon. John Locke - Thanks Bob, I'll check it out. It sounds similar to Ray Dalio's long term debt cycle and Chris Cole's hawk and serpent periods and Kondratieff Waves. Bill Howell - Cool! I haven't seen Russian Kondriatieff's name on [blogs, articles] for decades (I forget the last time - 1984 or 1987?). Kondriatieff for 60-90 year cycle, Russian Alexander Tchijevsky sunspot scalee correlates of behaviour of human masses [war, social progress, etc etc]. Both went to the gulags, if I remember correctly. Sacha Dobler's "Solar History" is a great romp, and Stephen Puetz's "Universal Waves Series" is by far the greatest [breadth, depth] of analysis I've seen (also his investment newsletter - http://www.uct-news.com/). Scott Hudson - Look. I'm no "Trumper" but really...you want Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine right now? We would be in World War 3 with Russia by now...our economy would be a vassal to China and oil would be at $130 a barrel and the United States would be back to buying 40% of our oil from the Mid-East and embroiled in those territory wars to keep the oil flowing. C'mon, lets get real for just a freaking second. Jeff Thompson - Oh look, someone raided Hannity's wastebasket for talking points. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nano-dimensions-stock-rockets-on-heavy-volume-after-a-breakthrough-in-3d-printing-of-circuit-boards-2020-05-19?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Nano Dimensions' stock rockets on heavy volume after a breakthrough in 3D printing of circuit boards Published: May 19, 2020 at 10:24 a.m. ET By Tomi Kilgore Shares of Nano Dimension Ltd. NNDM, +101.36% were vaulted 98% higher on heavy volume Tuesday, after the Israel-based company and Germany-based Hensoldt announced a new way to utilize 3D printing to develop high-performance electronics components. Trading volume spiked up to 34.9 million shares, compared with the full-day average of about 1.7 million shares. The companies said they were able to assemble the first 10-layer printed circuit board (PCB) carrying high-performance electronic structures soldered to both outer sides. Previously, the companies said 3D PCBs could not bear the soldering process necessary for 2-sided population of components. The stock has still lost 40% year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.11% has declined 8.6%. 20May2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nano-dimensions-stock-tumbles-after-share-offering-prices-at-deep-discount-2020-05-20?mod=newsviewer_click Nano Dimension's stock tumbles after share offering prices at deep discount Published: May 20, 2020 at 8:57 a.m. ET By Tomi Kilgore Shares of Nano Dimension Ltd. NNDM, +341.67% pulled a sharp U-turn to trade down 22% in premarket trading, to pullback from the previous session's more-than 4-fold rally, after the Israel-based 3D printing company priced a share offering at a deep discount. The stock had been up as much as 91% early in the premarket session. The company said its sale of 17.95 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) priced at $2.00, compared with Monday's closing price of $3.40. The stock had rocketed 341.7% on massive volume of 331.9 million shares on Tuesday, after the company and Germany's Hensoldt announced a new way to utilize 3D printing to develop high-performance electronics components. Nano Dimension said the gross proceeds from the stock offering was $35.9 million. The stock has more than doubled (up 141%) over the past three months through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 SPX, -1.04% has lost 13.4%. 08********08 #] 18May2020 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/MULTPL/SHILLER_PE_RATIO_MONTH/R7T1yfh7-The-Shiller-PE-Ratio-Proof-that-the-Market-is-Irrational/ The Shiller PE Ratio: Proof that the Market is Irrational MULTPL/SHILLER_PE_RATIO_MONTH (QUANDL:MULTPL/SHILLER_PE_RATIO_MONTH) 26.50 −0.77 −2.82% TayFx May 15 The U.S. equity market now appears "cheap" to many--the ones who have named this so called "V" shaped recovery in the U.S. equity markets, however it's important to keep context in mind when looking back at a decade of earnings growth compared to 1919. Into December of 1919, the CAPE was at an all-time low. With so much focus on 1919 going into the COVID-19 pandemic among market commentary, the comparison that this chart allows to make is 1919 to 2019, with a suggestion of downtrend. If the SPX indeed returns to multiples in 1919, that would put a market valuation of the SPX at around $500 according to the CAPE ratio. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Is not the PE ratio also strongly affected by expectations for long-term interest rates? http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.html Also, the Shiller ratio is backwards-looking, which is based on actual data. But is not the real question the forward looking ratio over a 5-10 year horizon at least, which requires [guesswork, judgement] as to whether investors see supportable earnings growth, castles in the sky, or a retrenchment to more conservative (realistic?) levels? 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-unprecedented-coronavirus-stimulus-was-right-move-says-howard-marks-but-adds-we-havent-had-a-free-market-in-money-since-2008-2020-05-18?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Fed’s ‘unprecedented’ coronavirus stimulus was right move, says Howard Marks, but adds, we haven’t had a ‘free market in money’ since 2008 Published: May 18, 2020 at 4:05 p.m. ET By Andrea Riquier Investors don’t have to achieve particular goals, they just have to outperform their peers, which is possible no matter the market conditions, Marks says legendary investor Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management Still, Marks said, “I would say that since the Great Financial Crisis we have not had a free market in money,” referring to the 2007-09 recession that was sparked by mortgage-backed debt. The Fed’s efforts to stabilize the system have “driven down the price of money” and markets reacted in “unprecedented” ways in 2018 when the central bank, led by then-chair Janet Yellen, kept on a path of raising rates and the balance sheet. That was too late in the cycle to start normalizing policy, Marks said, adding that he hopes that once the economy is out of the woods in terms of needing ultralow rates to respond to the current crisis, the Fed doesn’t take as long to act. 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Are the stock markets any more free now than the money market? 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/nvidia-has-soared-this-year-it-isnt-too-late-to-buy-analyst-says-51589836506?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Nvidia Has Soared This Year. Now It’s Entering ‘Beast Mode.’ Published: May 18, 2020 at 5:15 p.m. ET By Eric J. Savitz Not every tech stock that has rallied this year is a clear stay-at- home play. Consider, for instance, the graphics-chip maker Nvidia, up 44% for the year through Friday. There are multiple reasons for the ascendance of Nvidia shares, including strong demand for the company’s graphics processors from public cloud operators and a positive investor reaction to the company’s $7 billion acquisition of the Israeli computer-networking company Mellanox. Demand from the core gamer PC market is still robust. Nvidia reports earnings for its April quarter on Thursday, after the close of trading, and analysts are getting jazzed. On Monday, BMO Capital analyst Ambrish Srivastava raised his rating on the stock to Outperform from Market Perform, with a target of $425 for the stock price, up from $285. The company, he says, is “entering beast mode.” “We believe this shift only accelerates as the type and size of workloads that a data center has to be able to address continues to grow and evolve,” he wrote. “The workloads range from [artificial intelligence] to data analytics to genomics ...what Nvidia has done with its [graphics processor] along with its software architecture, positions the company uniquely to be the prime beneficiary as we look over the next five years or so. We also believe the acquisition of Mellanox makes Nvidia an even more formidable presence in the data center market.” Deutsche Bank’s Ross Seymore Monday morning repeated his Hold rating on Nvidia shares, while raising his target to $300, from $290. “We expect Nvidia to deliver results [and] guidance that would be strong in normal times, and likely even more impressive in light of the current pandemic,” he wrote in a research note. He said, though, that strength is already reflected in the stock’s price, which has far outperformed the rest of the semiconductor sector. 08********08 #] 16May2020 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/the-fed-props-up-money-market-funds-what-that-means-for-investors.html The Fed is propping up money market funds. Here’s what that means for investors Published Thu, Mar 19 20203:38 PM EDTUpdated Fri, Mar 20 202010:06 AM EDT If you have cash parked in a money market fund that invests in non-U.S. Treasury debt, the Federal Reserve says it’s got your back. Late Wednesday, the Fed announced a new program that will make loans to financial institutions that buy shares in “prime” money market mutual funds, whose investments include corporate bonds. It’s the latest move by the Fed to prop up the U.S. financial system as the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic continues to run roughshod over the economy. #] 23Mar2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/business/economy/fed-coronavirus-stimulus.html How the Fed’s Magic Money Machine Will Turn $454 Billion Into $4 Trillion The central bank takes Treasury Department loan guarantees and uses them to stand up huge programs. Here’s how that works. It is worth noting that this setup will not necessarily pump $3.5 trillion of monopoly money into the economy permanently. The Fed could simply print the money to back that lending, but it avoids taking on credit risk, so it asks for Treasury funding to insure against losses. But those taxpayer dollars can be leveraged: Because the Fed expects most borrowers to pay back, it does not need one-for-one support. As a result, a mere $10 billion from Treasury can prop up $100 billion in Fed lending. And voilà — the $454 billion Congress dedicated to Fed programs in the aid bill can be multiplied many times. A separate $46 billion in the package will go to specific industries. Why can’t the Fed go it alone? The Fed is legally prohibited from lending to bankrupt companies, and it avoids lending to risky businesses without backup. That’s partly because it is afraid of losing money on loans and facing political repercussions, lawyers who study the matter say. That may seem silly. The Fed is no ordinary bank: It creates money at the touch of a digital button. If it is not paid back, it will not go out of business. But if it took a significant loss, it would mean that the central bank had tried to prop up failing companies rather than simply striving to improve market functioning amid a temporary cash crunch. Keeping the gears of commerce chugging is the Fed’s job. Picking winners and losers is not. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/thanks-to-covid-19-social-securitys-day-of-reckoning-may-be-even-closer-than-we-thought-2020-04-15?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Thanks to COVID-19, Social Security’s day of reckoning may be even closer than we thought Published: May 16, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. ET By Paul Brandus A lot less money is coming in, and pretty soon, more will be going out During the near-economic collapse of 2008, which was accompanied by a devastating 57% drop in the S&P 500 SPX, +0.39% from its 2007 peak, millions of Americans saw their investment portfolios evaporate. The one-two punch then—millions of jobs lost and older Americans opting to take Social Security earlier than they otherwise might have—caused the trust fund’s estimated depletion date to fall four years, Munnell says, from 2041 to 2037. It then drifted lower to last year’s estimate of 2035. Now, it could drop another two years. ... And on top of a lot less money coming in, a lot more will soon be going out. That’s because people who are now out of work and eligible to draw benefits may soon do so, out of sheer economic need. This one-two punch could mean the depletion of the trust fund sooner than 2035. How soon? Perhaps two years earlier—2033—estimates one of the country’s leading experts on Social Security, Alicia H. Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, and a MarketWatch columnist. ... Again, what happens when the trust fund runs out? Since Social Security is financed by payroll taxes, the Social Security Trustees estimated last year that benefits would have to be cut about 25%. And that was before the current crisis. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-happened-to-value-stocks-2020-05-14?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: What’s happened to value stocks? Published: May 16, 2020 at 1:47 p.m. ET By Brett Arends They will rise again, but we just don’t know when Meanwhile Verizon Communications VZ, -0.36%, one of the top “value” stocks in the market, sells for just 12 times last year’s earnings, or barely one-tenth as much. Someone buying Verizon isn’t taking a big gamble on future growth. They’re happy with what they own right now. Verizon stock currently pays a 4.5% dividend yield. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-next-big-shoe-to-drop-in-the-us-economy-could-hit-by-july-2020-05-13?mod=newsviewer_click Why ‘the next big shoe to drop’ in the U.S. economy could hit by July Published: May 16, 2020 at 2:05 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois >> Insane number of blog postings!! 08********08 14May2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-packaged-subprime-loans-could-collapse-on-investors-in-this-financial-crisis-just-like-they-did-in-2008-2020-05-14?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: In a replay of 2008, toxic subprime loans could worsen this financial crisis Published: May 14, 2020 at 5:41 p.m. ET By Satyajit Das Stakes are high for yield-hungry buyers of CLOs of leveraged corporate debt In April, Moody’s placed 20% of its rated collateralized loan obligations (CLO) (valued at around $22 billion) on review. The decision carried ominous echoes of 2008 and the Great Financial Crisis, when collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) proved problematic for the U.S. and global economies. In the current financial crisis, CLOs, which — despite industry protestations to the contrary — share many of same structural characteristics as CDOs, may cause similar problems. Like mortgage securitizations, CLOs package portfolios of corporate loans (often of lower-quality) into investable securities. Investors do not take a pro-rata interest in the portfolio but instead take different slices of risks. In return for higher returns, investors in the equity or subordinated tranches take the first losses. Meanwhile, Investors in the senior tranches are protected against these first losses and receive lower returns. In recent years, the underlying assets used have been riskier non-investment grade leveraged loans. Gains and (spectacular) losses But CLOs expose investors to loss leverage; that is, they change sensitivity to particular events. For example, assume a CLO based on a diversified $1 billion portfolio consisting of 100 loans of $10 million each. If any of the loans default, then you recover 40% of the amount lent from realizing the underlying assets, and you take a 60% loss. On each $10 million loan, lenders would lose $6 million (60% of the $10 million exposure) if the borrower defaulted. If an investor invested $30 million pro rata in the 100 loans or US$300,000 per loan ($30 million divided by 100), then five defaults in the portfolio would result in a loss of US$0.9 million ($300,000 times 60% times 5). Contrast this with the investor investing the $30 million in the equity tranche of a CLO based on the portfolio of 100 loans of $10 million each. Under the CLO arrangements, you are required to take the first losses until your entire investment is written off. So, an investor must take the first few defaults in their entirety — not pro-rata as where they spread their money across all the loans. The investor is exposed to the first five defaults out of the 100 loans in the portfolio. Any five losses would wipe out the entire equity investment of $30 million ($6 million loss per loan times 5). CHINA : China’s woes Bass said the economic fallout in China could be even more severe, laying bare what he sees as a desperate shortage of U.S. dollars in the Chinese economy at a time when the Chinese Communist Party is beating back a political crisis in Hong Kong, a key conduit of foreign capital. Bass argued that the Chinese economy has evolved in several fundamental ways over the past decade as wages for its workers have risen, making Chinese exporters less competitive relative to rivals in countries including Vietnam and Mexico. Meanwhile fears about the health of the Chinese economy, which has required ever greater debt loads to fuel ever lower levels of economic growth, have led wealthy Chinese citizens to try to move money abroad to jurisdictions that protect against government expropriation. This behavior peaked in 2016, when a worrying decline in China’s foreign-exchange reserves led the government to impose strict controls on moving funds out of the economy. At the same time, Chinese companies have taken on increasing levels of dollar-denominated debt to enable their purchases of foreign commodities like oil and agricultural products. "They are starting to look like a traditional emerging market, with a closed capital account and huge dollar-based borrowing," Bass said. China’s four largest banks "in the last two years switched from huge dollar-based asset surpluses to now they have dollar-based deficits across the board." Though Bass said he has exited previous bets against the China’s currency, the renminbi, to avoid the impression that he was promoting a hard line on China for personal profit, he does see a potential for investors to gain by betting against Hong Kong’s banking system. "The Hong Kong banks are completely insolvent," he said. "Very much like U.S. banks were during the financial crisis, except it’s eight times worse." 08********08 13May2020 https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/ZCH 08********08 #] 12May2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-chinas-coronavirus-shutdown-did-to-global-supply-chains-2020-05-12?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Here’s what China’s coronavirus shutdown did to global supply chains Published: May 12, 2020 at 3:55 p.m. ET By William Watts China lost market share, likely accelerating a trend toward more diversified supply chains: New York Fed economist 200512 MktWtch, Sebastian Heise - US Imports from China, Oct19-May20.png 200512 MktWtch, Sebastian Heise - US Imports shift from China to other cntrs, Mar-May20. 08********08 11May2020 https://www.tradingview.com/script/7PRbCBjk-Stochastic-Heat-Map/?utm_source=weekly_digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_digest_idea Stochastic Heat Map, Violent, Apr 27 A series of 28 stochastic oscillators plotted horizontally and stacked vertically from bottom to top as the oscillator background. Each oscillator has been interpreted and the value has been used to colour the lines in. Lower lines are shorter term stochastics and higher lines are longer term stochastics. The average of the 28 stochastics has been taken and then used to plot the fast oscillator line, which also has a slow oscillator line to follow. The oscillator line can be used to colour in the candles. 08********08 10May2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-coronavirus-has-exposed-political-cracks-leading-to-a-disintegrating-europe-a-declining-america-and-a-shrinking-china-2020-05-07?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The coronavirus is accelerating America’s decline Published: May 10, 2020 at 8:19 p.m. ET By Arvind Subramanian The federal government’s response to the pandemic exposes incompetence and decay. The consequences will play out over years to come. Arvind Subramanian, a former chief economic adviser to the government of India, is a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a visiting lecturer at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The COVID-19 crisis augurs three watersheds: the end of Europe’s integration project, the end of a united, functional America, and the end of the implicit social compact between the Chinese state and its citizens. As a result, all three powers will emerge from the pandemic internally weakened, undermining their ability to provide global leadership. 08&&&&&&&&08 I like Arvind Subramanian's [critical, historical] perspective, and [ability, courage] to dwell on the issue of possible current declines of [Europe, US, China], although I view China as perhaps not quite as advanced. Foreign reactions to a rising power have historically been protectionist, which is not a sign of decline. But I would love to see comments on India, as many "futurists?" have long expected a role-over to their rising dominance in the 2040-2050 time-frame if I remember correctly, depending on their ability to overcome internal issues. With respect to corona virus, a basic per-capita analysis of daily new cases by country shows that the US impact is clearly NOT the standout in new daily cases : Spain was. Sweden is doing mid-range in spite of very lax controls, and Taiwan and others kept working and coped wonderfully (with strict personal protection equipment). All of this destroys much of the current rhetoric and finger-pointing. The real fascinating question is why are other cultural groups so very low in comparison? Are we too [clean, protected] for too long, leading to pampered immune systems that are having more trouble coping? Other nations with very low rates have even more highly inverted demographic pyramids, so age effects aren't clear. Lifestyle factors, reporting issues? I had to remove : Perhaps give China 4 generations to get to a turning point, as per Ibn Khaldun's "Muqquadimah". In my opinion Khaldun is a great fit for the modern situation, even if his book dates to ~1400 AD. is a bit on the higher end of caucasian nations. But it So far US is like Italy, without the same degree of triage . Travel and less propensity for following health officials recommendations could be contributors, or perhaps other factors such as high-quality reporting in spite of slowness to catch up on testing. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-investors-are-oblivious-to-the-potential-calamity-of-negative-interest-rates-2020-05-08?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Stock market investors are oblivious to the potential calamity of negative interest rates Published: May 10, 2020 at 8:07 p.m. ET By Nigam Arora ... If the U.S. employs negative rates, investors better think about protection in the form of gold, bitcoin and other vehicles Investors are too drunk to notice that the fed funds futures rate has gone negative. This contradicts the "V"-shape-economic-rebound elixir that the stock market is drunk on. Furthermore, it could foreshadow really bad things to come. Let’s explore with the help of two charts. Two charts Please click here for an annotated chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF DIA, +1.97%, which tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.00%. Please click here for an annotated chart of January fed funds futures. Note the following: • The first chart gives a long-term perspective. • The first chart shows that after touching the top band of the "mother of support zones," the stock market is threatening to break above the low band of the resistance zone. From a technical perspective, this is normal behavior. However, when you take into account the overall economic picture and fundamentals, it is a different story. • The second chart shows that January fed funds futures have gone negative. A value above 100 indicates negative rates. • As a note of caution, the Federal Reserve has not announced negative interest rates at this time. Futures simply indicate expectations by the market that the Fed will announce negative interest rates by January. • In our analysis at The Arora Report, calling negative interest rates "evil" is not too strong a word. • Japan and Europe already have negative interest rates. Have you taken a look at the perpetual anemic growth rates in Japan and Europe? In our analysis, those economies are decaying. In contrast, the U. S. has vigor and the potential for strong growth. Hopefully our leaders will realize that negative interest rates in Europe and Japan have failed and will stay away from them. But hope is not a good investment strategy. Investors should, for the first time in history, start considering a scenario of negative interest rates in the U.S. /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/key stuff/200510 MktWtch, Arora Report - Stock market investors are oblivious to the potential calamity of negative interest rates.png 08&&&&&&&&08 FB msg to Ian Hepher : My chart of new covid cases/day/population suggests that caucasians are particularly vulnerable. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but bio-weapons is one of multiple conflicting hypothesis. There are far better ways to release than creating a local epidemic, but that does have the advantage of deflecting suspicions if you are into conspiracies. On the other hand, they targeted the wrong subset of the population for such an action if that was what happened unless it was just a low-level warning shot. Ebola would be far better maybe? I haven't charted the deaths - might not do that with other time pressures... On another point, if I double the highest level of projected US corona deaths per capita by 04Aug2020, and take the "median" deaths per capita due to recession, the latter is still much higher (500k vs 300k) not that the numbers have any accuracy. Oh yeah, that 0.1% death rate on a total population rate basis, but I assume that this just keeps going up linearly more or less for a long time, as per YYG projections look to 04Aug2020. resurgences and mutations would add to that. 08********08 09May2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-same-number-of-people-could-die-from-deaths-of-despair-as-have-already-died-in-the-us-from-coronavirus-new-study-finds-2020-05-08?mod=newsviewer_click The same number of people could die from ‘deaths of despair’ as have already died in the U.S. from coronavirus, new study finds Published: May 9, 2020 at 8:14 p.m. ET By Quentin Fottrell ‘More Americans could lose their lives to deaths of despair, deaths due to drug, alcohol, and suicide, if we do not do something immediately’ In addition to more than 75,000 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19, the growing epidemic of "deaths of despair" in the U.S. is also increasing due to the pandemic — and another 75,000 more people will likely die from drug or alcohol misuse and suicide, according to new research released by Well Being Trust and the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care. Projections of additional "deaths of despair" range from 27,644, assuming a quick economic recovery and the smallest impact from unemployment, to 154,037, assuming a slow recovery and the greatest impact from unemployment. "We can prevent these deaths by taking meaningful and comprehensive action as a nation," the researchers wrote in the "deaths of despair" report published Friday. 200509 MarketWatch, Well Being Trust - deaths of despair with unemployment increases.png 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell : I don't get it. The table from Well Being Trust lists increases in mortality per 1% increase in unemployment, whereas unemployment has shot up by far more than that (say 10-20%). The [1, 1.3, 1.6]% groupings represent what? - I assumptions that the 1% is the base case, the rest are for higher scenarios, but it's confusing. Recalling the figure that apparently has been taught in economics classes, for every 1% increase in unemployment, 40,000 Americans due, so the table is in line with that, approximately. To me, it seems to suggest that FAR MORE Americans will die from the recession than corona virus, even if you take the higher range of model estimates. For example, the 08May2020 https://covid19-projections.com/#view-projections model has a high range off 300k deaths due to corona virus by 04Aug2020 (~180k as best guess, ~120k low). Compare that to a naive wild guess of 10% increase of unemployment times a medium projection of 50k deaths per 1% increase of unemployment = 500k deaths? I don't have much confidence in any of the numbers, but perhaps these are the best that we have. 08********08 #] 07May2020 08&&&&&&&&08 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/wcwI05pz-Trading-the-Volatility-of-Volatility-Itself/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_mention#tc3519063 Hope this idea will inspire some of you ! Don't forget to hit the like/follow button if you feel like this post deserves it ;) That's the best way to support me and help pushing this content to other users. Kindly, Phil Bill_Howell 9 hours ago Very interesting thoughts. Is "VixVix" a bit like the "CDOs of CDOs" (I forget the expression) in the film "The Big Short"? The film showed Mark Baum's fear when he realized that the derivative market was 100 times the underlying markets (my memory is bad - might have that wrong). I can't remember if the film used the term "Ponzi scheme". This was a lot of fun in the housing mortgage market, should be a real scream when applied more broadly? While mainstream thinking is to create a stable environment, I keep thinking that "... too much stability is poison for a man's soul ..", engendering the attitude of entitlement, and the practice of bailouts, among other side effects. PRO_Indicators 9 hours ago @Bill_Howell, That's excatly it ! Same problem, just moved it to another area. 2008 popped bc of too much risk taken on housing credit. Nowaday the thing is about stock risk. Just like CDO prices back then were totally not reflecting the real risk of the associated credit package. Just replace Subprimes bt ETFs and CDOs by Puts&Calls and you've a got the next speculative bomb ! I can definitely tell you that there will be a crisis over this topic in the future ! When remains a tough question. It was just for an information purpose. Just saying that for now on we cannot use VIX as a true risk marker. That's the only reliable information that you can use immediately. The rest is just to bare in mind, avoiding to be too much invested into ETFs, a bit is OK of course Howell 21:00 07May2020 Then based on "The Big Short" film (Michael Lewis' book) you are kind of like ?Michael Bleury?", who was among the first to identify the problem, do real research, and [designed, established] the whole category of housing mortgage shorts. Then Vinnie ?? of Deutcsh Bank sets up a concept which is accidentally overheard (via wrong phone #) by Mark Baum's group (Morgan Stanley associated gang of renegades), and two young guys (Ben & ??) from Colorado hear about it in specialized financial newletters. All four groups had the same problems : - they had to act very fast, before everybody else jumped on board, which would have ruined the paybacks - [long term, dishonest] valuation by the issuers of the shorts, lasting well after the onset of the crash - they were able to cash in only a fraction of what was due, and only AFTER the issuers had dumped their stake on an [unsuspecting, misled] public in what was likely [criminal, civil] breach of trust But in my opinion, by FAR the most important point (either Vinnie himself or author Micahel Lewis) was the actual reason for the insane market behaviour - STUPIDITY by essentially all of the [professionals, intellectuals]. The film echos my thinking since at least 1988 about [government, academic] science researchers in my [secondary, non-expert] areas of interest : [fundamental theoretic physics, astronomy, geology, climate, etc]. I don't get quite the same feeling about my priority hobby R&D focus (neural networks), perhaps becasue it hasn't had time to develop such problems in the extreme. 08********08 #] 07May2020 Covid-19 model comparisons yyg - covid19-projection.com https://covid19-projections.com/about/ great comparison - YYG (covid19-projections.com), Impereial College, ?Baseline?, Uof Geneva all stand out IHME - tends to under-estimate. YYG has better day-by day plot than Uof Washington IHME 200507 covid19-projection.com comparison of US model projections.png YYG corona deaths daily, total 200507.png YYG corona deaths current,total infected 200507.png YYG covid19-projection.com comparison of US model projections 200502.png >> Howell : their "infected graphs show that infections will simply keep rising, depending on self-isolation etc This makes sense to me. https://covid19-projections.com/about/ About the Model Our COVID-19 prediction model adds the power of artificial intelligence on top of a classic infectious disease model. We developed a simulator based on the SEIR/SEIS model (Wikipedia) to simulate the COVID-19 epidemic in each region. The parameters/inputs of this simulator are then learned using machine learning techniques that attempts to minimize the error between the projected outputs and the actual results. We utilize daily deaths data reported by each region to forecast future reported deaths. After some additional validation techniques (to minimize a phenomenon called overfitting), we use the learned parameters to simulate the future and make projections. The goal of this project is to showcase the strengths of artificial intelligence to tackle one of the world’s most difficult problems: predict the track of a pandemic. Here, we use a pure data-driven approach by letting the machine do the learning. We are currently making projections for: the United States, all 50 US states (plus DC, PR, VI, Guam) and 40 countries (including all 27 EU countries). https://covid19-projections.com/model-details/ For our SEIS implementation, we use a discrete-time state machine where each step is a day in the simulation. For each day, we have a probability distribution for which individuals in each S/E/I/S state may transition to another S/E/I/S state. For example, we have a probability distribution for when a currently-infected individual will transmit the virus, and another probability distribution for when an infected individual will succumb to the disease. These distributions are then convolved with the total existing cases to determine the number of new infections and new deaths per day. For new infections, we multiple the convolution by R0, while for deaths, we multiple the convolution by the mortality rate. 08********08 #] 05May2020 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell (part 1) - Are conventional [short, mid]-term [trading, fundamental] analysis tools anachronistic for this crash period? Given the huge [Treasury, Fed, Government] influence on the current market, and their [social, economic] policy perspective, I wonder if an engineeering-control perspective is actually more appropriate, and may describe what they are doing. If we take the [Treasury, Fed, Government] perspective, and I am plainly incompetent in these areas, key objectives may be : - to reduce the "avoidable" [short, mid, long]-term damage to [markets, economy, jobs, public confidence, psychological side effects] - to compensate for investor [fear, indecision, cash-hoarding] behaviour that naturally arises during crashes, but that can exaggerate greatly the damage - to accommodate "necessary" changes to the [markets, economy], balancing "creative destruction" with "social impact" and [mid, long] term growth - to use this opportunity to develop longer term [policies, tools], extending what has been done in previous crashes (particularly 2008) - to immediately apply an approach to [stabilise, underpin] investments that will help to positively adapt the economy - to minimise the debt [growth, mid-to-long term] impact related to the Keynesian support - "invisible hand" - the [Treasury, Fed, Government] cannot simply control the market by stated formulae, as they do need to see "real investor reactions". Otherwise everybody is flying blind (or more blind than usual). Howell (part 2) : It seems that the [Treasury, Fed, govenment] have already injected a substantial portion of the total market captilisation (say ~30 T$?). Guessing that this already amounts to >3-5 trillion$ of [cash, loan guarantees, interest rate cuts], combined with [municipal, state, federal] government "Keynesian" spending plans, this ~10%+ level should be sufficient to exercise significant "control" over the market status. Furthermore, there are clear indications that much more support will be provided if needed. In a sense, we are not in a period of "free markets", but rather state-[supported, controlled] markets. As shown in the linked chart, since ~07Apr2020, it seems that there may be a "flexible" S&P500 control zone of ~2770-2915, corresponding to Fibonacci levels 0.5-0.618 from the ~24Mar2020 bottom (to date). Just like [baby, momma, papa] bear, for now this would seem to be a comfortable compromise control zone, requiring minimal support (give and take) to achieve about the right results relative to their objectives? This would also be a [familiar, expected, comfortable] band for traders? From a control theory perspective, the tools could go far beyond simple "trading bands", and could include : - stability analysis to avoid un-intended overshoots or un-neccesarily small control actions (for non-linear systems, perhaps even Lyapunov-style math) - optimisation - maxium effect for minimum bucks (possibly self-[learning, evolving] controls based on Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) or reinforcement learning that adds-in ADP) I am wet behind the ears, and likely my comments are off-base, influenced by what I am more familiar with than markets. http://www.BillHowell.ca/economics,%20markets/200505%20SP500%20[Fed,%20Treasury,%20Govenment]%20control%20zone%20possibility,%20TradingView%20graph.png Too long - not included for MarketWatch, but included for TradingView, FaceBook : In a sense, we are not in a period of "free markets", but rather state-[supported, controlled] markets. Just like [baby, momma, papa] bear, for now this would seem to be a comfortable compromise control zone, requiring minimal support (give and take) to achieve about the right results relative to their objectives? I am wet behind the ears, and likely my comments are off-base, influenced by what I am more familiar with than markets. 08&&&&&&&&08 TradingView - without square brackets Update without square brackets, so original lists can be read (clumsy) : Are conventional (short, mid)-term (trading, fundamental) analysis tools anachronistic for this crash period? Given the huge (Treasury, Fed, Government) influence on the current market, and their (social, economic) policy perspective, I wonder if an engineeering-control perspective is actually more appropriate, and may describe what they are doing. If we take the (Treasury, Fed, Government) perspective, and I am plainly incompetent in these areas, key objectives may be : - to reduce the "avoidable" (short, mid, long)-term damage to (markets, economy, jobs, public confidence, psychological side effects) - to compensate for investor (fear, indecision, cash-hoarding) behaviour that naturally arises during crashes, but that can exaggerate greatly the damage - to accommodate "necessary" changes to the (markets, economy), balancing "creative destruction" with "social impact" and (mid, long) term growth - to use this opportunity to develop longer term (policies, tools), extending what has been done in previous crashes (particularly 2008) - to immediately apply an approach to (stabilise, underpin) investments that will help to positively adapt the economy - to minimise the debt (growth, mid-to-long term) impact related to the Keynesian support - "invisible hand" - the (Treasury, Fed, Government) cannot simply control the market by stated formulae, as they do need to see "real investor reactions". Otherwise everybody is flying blind (or more blind than usual). It seems that the (Treasury, Fed, govenment) have already injected a substantial portion of the total market captilisation (say ~30 T$?). Guessing that this already amounts to >3-5 trillion$ of (cash, loan guarantees, interest rate cuts), combined with (municipal, state, federal) government "Keynesian" spending plans, this ~10%+ level should be sufficient to exercise significant "control" over the market status. Furthermore, there are clear indications that much more support will be provided if needed. In a sense, we are not in a period of "free markets", but rather state-(supported, controlled) markets. As shown in the linked chart, since ~07Apr2020, it seems that there may be a "flexible" S&P500 control zone of ~2770-2915, corresponding to Fibonacci levels 0.5-0.618 from the ~24Mar2020 bottom (to date). Just like (baby, momma, papa) bear, for now this would seem to be a comfortable compromise control zone, requiring minimal support (give and take) to achieve about the right results relative to their objectives? This would also be a (familiar, expected, comfortable) band for traders? From a control theory perspective, the tools could go far beyond simple "trading bands", and could include : - stability analysis to avoid un-intended overshoots or un-neccesarily small control actions (for non-linear systems, perhaps even Lyapunov-style math) - optimisation - maxium effect for minimum bucks (possibly self-(learning, evolving) controls based on Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) or reinforcement learning that adds-in ADP) I am wet behind the ears, and likely my comments are off-base, influenced by what I am more familiar with than markets. http://www.BillHowell.ca/economics,%20markets/200505%20SP500%20[Fed,%20Treasury,%20Govenment]%20control%20zone%20possibility,%20TradingView%20graph.png 05-----05 https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-presents-groundbreaking-all-solid-state-battery-technology-to-nature-energy Samsung Presents Groundbreaking All-Solid-State Battery Technology to ‘Nature Energy’ on March 10, 2020 On March 9 in London, researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) and the Samsung R&D Institute Japan (SRJ) presented a study on high-performance, long-lasting all-solid-state batteries to Nature Energy, one of the world’s leading scientific journals. Compared to widely used lithium-ion batteries, which utilize liquid electrolytes, all-solid-state batteries support greater energy density, which opens the door for larger capacities, and utilize solid electrolytes, which are demonstrably safer. However, the lithium metal anodes that are frequently used in all-solid-state batteries, are prone to trigger the growth of dendrites1 which can produce undesirable side effects that reduce a battery’s lifespan and safety. To overcome those effects, Samsung’s researchers proposed utilizing, for the first time, a silver-carbon (Ag-C) composite layer as the anode. The team found that incorporating an Ag-C layer into a prototype pouch cell enabled the battery to support a larger capacity, a longer cycle life, and enhanced its overall safety. Measuring just 5µm (micrometers) thick, the ultrathin Ag-C nanocomposite layer allowed the team to reduce anode thickness and increase energy density up to 900Wh/L. It also enabled them to make their prototype approximately 50 percent smaller by volume than a conventional lithium-ion battery. This promising research is expected to help drive the expansion of electric vehicles (EVs). The prototype pouch cell that the team developed would enable an EV to travel up to 800km on a single charge, and features a cycle life of over 1,000 charges. >> ultra-capcitors? https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/articles/supercapacitor-vs-battery-ultracapacitor-pros-and-cons https://www.barrons.com/articles/this-strategist-predicted-the-s-p-500-rally-now-he-sees-the-index-hitting-a-ceiling-51588331701?mod=BarronsMostPopularMarketingNewsletter This Strategist Predicted the Recent S&P 500 Rally. Now He Sees the Index Hitting a Ceiling. By Evie Liu May 1, 2020 7:15 am ET Stifel strategist Barry Bannister has been spot on lately when it comes to predicting the S&P 500’s rise. But now he thinks the index has rallied enough. Much of the reason for the S&P 500’s recent rally has been the aggressive policy response of the Federal Reserve, says Bannister, which slashed interest rates and injected a significant amount of liquidity into the market. In response, Treasury yields have become even lower, making equities more attractive relative to bonds. That has kept stocks more afloat than they would be otherwise, even as earnings prospects have deteriorated materially. 08********08 #] 04May2020 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/VIX/6b01srZZ-VIX-LONG-CHEAPEST-BET-IN-THE-MARKETS/?utm_source=weekly_digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_digest_idea VIX LONG - CHEAPEST BET IN THE MARKETS Volatility S&P 500 Index (CBOE:VIX) 38.63 1.44 3.87% MIAM1 May 2 ... If you can spot them BEFORE they happen...then you can put some very small cost bets that can pay off wildly...if you nail the timing. I believe we got a massive amount of information from the poker table in March...tells, reactions, and a look at how ALGOS sell off... The bet is set. It's dirt cheap... >> looks sharpo #] 04May2020 update of corona daily rates by country Can't find spreadsheet!? $ find "/home/bill" -maxdepth 6 -type f -name "*corona virus*" $ find "$d_SWAPPER" -maxdepth 6 -type f -name "*corona virus*" China had cases before 31Dec2019, not shown Sweden did not follow the same strict self-isolation https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-cases-per-million-three-day-avg?tab=chart http://www.BillHowell.ca/Cool stuff/200504 OurWorldInData.org daily-covid-cases-per-million-three-day-avg.jpg Here is an update of my quick comparison of the corona virus 3-day averaged daily cases per day per population, plotted against the date of the first case in each nation. Again, be careful as I may have made some mistakes. It's interesting to note that European-like nations seems to have the biggest trouble, whether that's due to better resistance in the rest of world, or due to [testing, reporting, immune systems better prepared] or whatever, I won't speculate. Sweden (very little self-isolation) versus Canada is an interesting comparison. I'm looking for signs of "Flattening the curve" may also mean "Extending the curve", but not much to go by for now. http://www.BillHowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/200504%20OurWorldInData.org%20daily-covid-cases-per-million-three-day-avg.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/tradingview/snapshots/c/C5haN6TP.png 08********08 #] 04May2020 TradingView - Best Scripts of the Month — 2020.04 Pseudo-Random Number Generators via Pine Script midtownsk8rguy (https://www.tradingview.com/u/midtownsk8rguy/) gives us three pseudo-random number generators. Absolute Retracement Clear code and impeccable visuals are e2e4mfck's (https://www.tradingview.com/u/e2e4mfck/) trademark. This publication is no exception. It includes many options to calculate and display SR levels. >> Cool! Great example code - long and featured. Heikin-Ashi Source Function allanster (https://www.tradingview.com/u/allanster/) has a history of pumping out great little snippets you will see reused all over the place. We'll bet on the usual outcome for this one. Gap Filling Strategy alexgrover (https://www.tradingview.com/u/alexgrover/) presents a gap-based strategy with his usual rigor. It's refreshing to see an author who understands backtesting and the inherent incompleteness of single test runs presented on a single symbol/timeframe pair with a given set of parameters. Accordingly, Alex (https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NYSE-ALEX/) goes through the results of a few different test runs with the objective of, rather than finding the one with the splashiest results, understanding the characteristics of his strategy. We wish more strategies were presented this way by authors. https://www.tradingview.com/script/ghocsiv7-Gap-Filling-Strategy/ Auto Adjust To Ideal Pearson's R Oscillator x11joe (https://www.tradingview.com/u/x11joe/)combines a long and short-term Pearson's R oscillator. LUBE We rarely include strategies in our list because authors rarely show realistic results, but the logic used in this script by Jomy (https://www.tradingview.com/u/Jomy/) was compelling and original enough for us this time. Williams Fractal Trailing Stops SimpleCryptoLife (https://www.tradingview.com/u/SimpleCryptoLife/) revisits Williams Fractals, using them to derive stops in a generously commented script. Dynamic Money Flow RezzaHmt (https://www.tradingview.com/u/RezzaHmt/) publishes an adapted version of the Chaikin Money Flow Index (https://www.tradingview.com/ideas/chaikinmoneyflow/) with improvements he explains well and make sense to us. Yield Curve Percent Inverted nj_guy72 (https://www.tradingview.com/u/nj_guy72/) publishes an indicator analyzing inverted T-Bond yield spreads. They normally indicate a relative lack of confidence in the short-term vs the long-term outlook, which in turn can predate recessions. Nth-Occurrence Custom barssince() Function by Cryptorhythms Aha moments are what make progress possible. theheirophant (https://www.tradingview.com/u/theheirophant/) brings Pine coders one of those moments with this function that allows you to get the number of bars since the nth occurrence of an event. Filter Information Box - PineCoders FAQ alexgrover (https://www.tradingview.com/u/alexgrover/) gives coders a tool to evaluate signal-processing filters. Z-Histogram alexgrover (https://www.tradingview.com/u/alexgrover/) presents a Z-Score histogram that is not only useful, but is also an exercise in conciseness, in typical alexgrover fashion. 08********08 #] 29Apr2020 MarketWatch : Reply to Homer Dodge Howell : Great article that provides an historical context for the short-to-mid-term modern context. As for the longer term, on the one hand it's hard to give too much credence to the "end of oil" theme, given the [perpetual, ongoing, catastrophic] failure of the idea for perhaps 150 years. On the other hand the historical roll-overs from [agricultural material -> wood industry -> coal -> oil] provide some context. I wonder about the "holy grail of energy" (fusion), that is only 30 years away, and has been for perhaps 100 years. Modern "consensus science" (one of the greatest oxymorons) is still fighting with the enormous [temperatures, pressures] of [[magnetic, inertial] confinement, inertial impact], and they say that 2030 should see demo plant achievement of technical (rather than economic) economical targets. However, a range of [much smaller scale, innovative] fusion concepts might be where the real breakthroughs occur? I like the example of the [tiny, now-completed] SAFIRE project (among others), which was a very successful test of an experimental model of the Sun (believe it or not, driven in part for decades by concepts from mythology, albeit with very impressive government-only plasma science main work as well). Operating in a vacuum at "modest temperatures (5k+ Celsius?), with perhaps far less radio-active byproducts, it should at least be easily deployable from the perspectives of [capital, market building]. I wonder about [energy, power] densities, though. Homer Dodge : William, what are your related thoughts on Hydrogen power ? Howell : Some very quick points : - H2 [energy, power] density is extremely low! - Safety - while H2 certainly raises eyebrows and must be carefully considered (eg [flash, explosion] points and combustion ranges, lack of smell), there are surprising safety advantages of H2 (eg highest diffusion of all helps) - H2 is an energy carrier rather than an energy source (even though fusion may flatten the difference, keep it in mind) - economically competitive, large volume, H2 is either a byproduct of chemical processes (eg chloralkali etc), or is produced from natural gas (maybe Chinese have special processes for their Fischer-Tropsch-like coal-to-petroleum plants?) - H2 is an expensive fuel (if successful, fusion could make that less of an issue?) - [chemical, electrical, mechanical conversions] - [are, will] freak ultracapacitors be [reproducible, cost-effective, robust, loing-lived]? - there are probably some great niche markets for [H2, fuelcells] etc where their particular advantages are high-value. Often that is the way that markets can developed, although the distortions of oceans of government [financing, regulation] can broaden that by blinding hte [markets, investors]. - If you are a disciple of the science religion that "CO2 is the primary driver of climate since 1850", there is nothing that I, nor reality, can say to help you. All the best with your [dreams, nightmares]. Not included - I am WAAYY out of date on hydrogen power systems, as >15 years have passed since working administratively on H2-related hybrids, H2 fuel cells for underground hard-rock mining. - Although a past member of an electric vehicle club - none of the options are useful to me in small-town Canada as a primary vehicle. They might have been fun as a second inner-city car when I lived in Montreal or Toronto, but even for city driving only a small part of my needs would have fit alternatives (my commuting by car was negligible - mostly [bus, metro, train]! But I still find EVs to be fun. - comparison to battery : dramatic drop in Li-ion battery costs - fuelcell versus H2 combustion (including H2 in natural gas fuels etc) - how do these compare? I suspect that H2 is still very expensive unless "almost free" as a byproduct in some regions. Flex-fuel capability of vehicles is often only practical way of introducing special [fuels, power systems]. 08********08 26Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/how-corporate-managers-are-coping-with-working-from-home-51587907790?mod=newsviewer_click How Corporate Managers Are Coping With Working From Home Published: April 26, 2020 at 9:29 a.m. ET By Cheryl Strauss Einhorn 08&&&&&&&&08 Couoldn't post again, where are my notes? : >> It's good to see the feedback with this article, and the [social, emotional] improvements are interesting to see. There was no mention of whether current arrangements are materially improving the participation of "distant offices". I always felt that video-conferencing still left them a bit of a disadvantage, but I retired several years ago so that may not be much of an issue even before the pandemic. 08********08 25Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boeing-ends-deal-with-embraer-angering-brazilian-jet-maker-threatens-to-legal-action-2020-04-25?mod=newsviewer_click Boeing ends deal with Embraer, Brazilian jet maker threatens legal action Published: April 25, 2020 at 3:00 p.m. ET By Associated Press The planemakers planned to work on Embraer’s commercial aviation business Embraer issued a statement saying it "believes strongly that Boeing has wrongfully terminated" the mutual transaction agreement and "that it has manufactured false claims as a pretext to seek to avoid its commitments to close the transaction and pay Embraer the US$4.2 billion purchase price." https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-former-fed-official-says-the-us-central-bank-should-do-the-formerly-unthinkable-take-interest-rate-below-0-2020-04-24?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore A former Fed official says the U.S. central bank should do the formerly unthinkable: take interest rates below 0% Published: April 24, 2020 at 5:12 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre The Fed’s next policy meeting is April 28-29 ‘Unprecedented situations require unprecedented actions. That’s why the U.S. Federal Reserve should fight a rapidly deepening recession by taking interest rates below zero for the first time ever’ That’s Narayana Kocherlakota writing in an op-ed in Bloomberg Opinion on Friday. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/warren-buffetts-favorite-indicator-scares-the-beejezus-out-of-this-investor-2020-04-20?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Warren Buffett’s favorite stock-market indicator ‘scares the bejeezus’ out of this investor Published: April 25, 2020 at 9:29 a.m. ET By Shawn Langlois Evans pointed to a recent comment from Buffett’s right-hand man that shows how hesitant the men behind Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A, +0.25% are in this climate. "I would say basically we’re like the captain of a ship when the worst typhoon that’s ever happened comes," Berkshire’s Charlie Munger said. "We just want to get through the typhoon, and we’d rather come out of it with a whole lot of liquidity. We’re not playing ‘oh goody, goody, everything’s going to hell, let’s plunge 100% of the reserves [into buying businesses]." 200425 MarketWatch, global-macro-monitor.com, US Stock market cap vs GDP https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-shakes-the-conceit-of-american-exceptionalism-2020-04-25?mod=newsviewer_click Coronavirus shakes the conceit of ‘American exceptionalism’ Published: April 25, 2020 at 10:50 a.m. ET By Calvin Woodward When the coronavirus pandemic came from distant lands to the United States, it was met with cascading failures and incompetencies For effective diagnostic testing, crucial in an infectious outbreak, look abroad. To the United Arab Emirates, or Germany, or New Zealand, which jumped to test the masses before many were known to be sick. Or to South Korean exceptionalism, tapped by Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who accepted a planeload of 500,000 testing kits from Seoul to make up for the U.S. shortfall. The aid was dubbed Operation Enduring Friendship and annoyed Trump, the "America First" president. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/flatlined-hospitalization-numbers-in-new-york-state-troubling-2020-04-24?mod=mw_more_headlines Flatlined hospitalization numbers in New York state ‘troubling’ Published: April 25, 2020 at 8:47 a.m. ET By Beckie Strum Roughly 1,300 COVID-19 patients have been hospitalized daily in recent days, but public health experts say even plateaus can signal progress 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell : Why is a sustained flattened curve at all surprising? "Flattening the curve" also means "extending the curve", meaning one has to maintain the same economy-killing measures just to tread water until the curve declines. As typically stated, the curve [peaks, declines] when the virus has already infected a good chunk (40-60%? I don't know) of the population. Very high (perhaps approaching 100%) exposure of the entire population should be assumed in the mid-term, as with normal [common, cold, flue, etc]. This constrasts to TB, and other past quarantines. Essentially all of the "protection" comes from our immune systems (ready or not), with bad news for the [old, weak] and those for whom the virus has the key for their immune system. Nobody's been stupid enough to guess the benefit of reducing "medical overload", but I'm stupid, so out of ignorance I'll just cook up that 20-40% of the deaths that would have happened will be saved? Whatever it is, it's not 100%, nor is it seasonal flu. Hard-nosed decisions have to be made, and are being made. You might not trust the Chinese stats, but at least it seems (illusion?) that they are capable of making decisions, and aren't as dominated by our politically-correct thinking. They have their own politically-correct thinking to deal with. I cut out : A primary objective of social distancing, mostly to reduce [hospital, staff] overload and triaging. Did everyone think this as a very short term seasonal-like pandemic? but China has only recently relaxed, and it's not back to normal because many [China, Korea, Hong Kong, etc] gave some hope, but strong measures still apply. (still an overload) on the medical system The real question is a trade-off of many factors, including the economy. , barring or find better mixes of approaches 08********08 24Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russia-is-the-worlds-biggest-loser-from-oils-crash-and-thats-reason-to-be-worried-2020-04-24?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Russia is the world’s biggest loser from oil’s crash, and that’s reason to worry Published: April 24, 2020 at 5:56 p.m. ET By George Friedman Russia’s economy and power is highly dependent on oil and energy prices 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell : Great article that provides an historical context for the short-to-mid-term modern context. As for the longer term, on the one hand it's hard to give too much credence to the "end of oil" theme, given the [perpetual, ongoing, catastrophic] failure of the idea for perhaps 150 years. On the other hand the historical roll-overs from [agricultural material -> wood industry -> coal -> oil] provide some context. I wonder about the "holy grail of energy" (fusion), that is only 30 years away, and has been for perhaps 100 years. Modern "consensus science" (one of the greatest oxymorons) is still fighting with the enormous [temperatures, pressures] of [[magnetic, inertial] confinement, inertial impact], and they say that 2030 should see demo plant achievement of technical (rather than economic) economical targets. However, a range of [much smaller scale, innovative] fusion concepts might be where the real breakthroughs occur? I like the example of the [tiny, now-completed] SAFIRE project (among others), which was a very successful test of an experimental model of the Sun (believe it or not, driven in part for decades by concepts from mythology, albeit with very impressive government-only plasma science main work as well). Operating in a vacuum at "modest temperatures (5k+ Celsius?), with perhaps far less radio-active byproducts, it should at least be easily deployable from the perspectives of [capital, market building]. I wonder about [energy, power] densities, though. >> Not enough room for this : , for transportation markets. I am biased - I contributed "peanut-scale citizen donations" to the effort for several years now. But I have no investment (and not much money to invest either). In any case I think it is a private arrangement. I am certainly not very knowledgeable about the science either, although I have tracked it, and it's a lot of fun if nothing else! So are other alternative fusion ideas... +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/stocks-could-rally-15-by-mid-2021-u-s-money-managers-say-51587770761?mod=newsviewer_click [Barrons] Stocks Could Rise 15% by Mid-2021, Money Managers Say Published: April 24, 2020 at 7:26 p.m. ET By Nicholas Jasinski Kevin Grimes, president and chief investment officer of Grimes & Co. in Westborough, Mass. : "My biggest fear is that we’ve entered a world of big government in the United States," he says. "You have to allow companies to fail—what the economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. You don’t want to keep stale industries or companies alive, and I’m worried that the U.S. has gone down this path. Once government gets to be your partner, it’s going to be very hard to get rid of government as your partner." >> Really awesome article! 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-respected-market-timing-model-just-flashed-a-bullish-four-year-outlook-for-stocks-2020-04-24?mod=nextup_bomw This respected market-timing model just flashed a bullish four-year outlook for stocks Published: April 24, 2020 at 5:56 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert The median U.S. stock will produce an annualized price-only gain of 6.0% over the next four years. With dividends, that’s equivalent to nearly 8% annualized. This cheerful forecast is produced by a market timing model that has an excellent track record predicting the market’s return over the subsequent four years. It is based on a single number that is printed each week in the Value Line Investment Survey. That number represents the median of the projections made by Value Line’s analysts of where the 1,700 widely-followed stocks they closely monitor will be trading in three- to five years’ time. Researchers who have analyzed its market timing potential call this number the VLMAP, which stands for Value Line’s Median Appreciation Potential. They translate the number into a return forecast by searching for the formula that, when applied to the VLMAP, best fits the historical data. Value Line survey sees 8% annualized returns between now and April 2024 One such study appeared in the Journal of Wealth Management in 2013, co-authored by Daniel Seiver, a member of the economics faculty at Cal Poly State University and editor of an investment advisory service named The PAD System Report. Seiver reported that the VLMAP "has strong medium- and long-horizon stock-return forecasting ability." (Full disclosure: Seiver’s newsletter is not one that utilizes my firm to audit its returns.) 200424 MarketWatch, www.HulbertRatings.com Value Line 4 year forecast.png 08&&&&&&&&08 Very interesting article, Mark Hulbert - thanks for bringing up Value Line as it's been a long time since I looked through their stuff. The results of Daniel Seiver etal are encouraging, and the VLMAP predictions versus results for 2012-2020 are absolutely stunning up to the current crash. I wonder what would happen if a 10 year time horizon was also included in the VLMAP, as that would be far enough out that one would seriously have to consider a crash during the interval. As with many areas in science, it's often not so difficult to forecast long periods without major changes of [state, phase] of a system. What is rare is to have any handle on predicting the timing of the change, and which of many [phases, states] will subsequently prevail (including, of course, the present one). I'm pretty old, so Value Line reminds me of the Farmer's Almanac. Everybody laughs at the Almanac, but comparisons to the catastrophic failures of essentially all modern climate models makes the Almanac look like a totally sure thing in comparison. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-states-are-loosening-economic-shut-down-orders-texas-expected-to-announce-new-rules-soon-2020-04-23?mod=article_inline >> list of openings by state 200424 MarketWatch, US BurEconAnlys How much does each state contribute to US GDP.png These states are loosening economic shut-down orders; Texas expected to announce new rules soon Published: April 24, 2020 at 12:03 p.m. ET By Silvia Ascarelli States all have their own definition of ‘reopening’ Updated UofW IHME charts : UofW IHME corona deaths cumulative 200422 by 04Aug2020.png UofW IHME corona deaths per day 200422.png UofW IHME corona hospital resources 200422.png 08&&&&&&&&08 FBrep to Yves Poirier I certainly don't know. My first guess is to simply follow the Uof Washington IHME team, as they update their USA model at least weekly (very low by mid-May to June). My second guess is that seasonal re-occurrences will occur as long as the seasonal flu continues (i.e., forever), and we'll either get used to it or go into two months self-isolation every year to avoid the [flu, corona] (yes, I do think we're that stupid). "Flattening the curve" also means "extending the curve", with big benefits in being able to apply limited medical resources, and it will be interesting to see if that shows by country policies. Sweden hasn't done the self-isolation, and while their curve is still rising, if it doesn't skyrocket that might be saying something. My ignorant guess is perhaps a 20%-40% savings in lives by self-isolation's improved medical access, with of course 100% exposure of populations to the virus over a not-so-long-term. Are we already at 30-70% exposure (at some point this is what drives the curves down)? Clearly, almost all of our protection is from our immune systems, but its bad news for the [old, weak] and those whose immune system key is in the hands of the virus. But I'm just guessing... http://www.billhowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/200407%20CDC%20influenza%20burden%20USA,%202010-2018.png Not posted : All that changes if the virus mutates to evil fast enough (record number of "galactic/cosmic ray days last summer/fall (magnetic Kp index on floor 24 hours), or if a [vaccine, wonder treatment] reduces the impact. Only now are some "experts" (none in Canada?) commenting that this is longer-term (remember : isolation of 2 weeks, then 1 month, then 1.5 months, ...). Few are commenting that it looks more and more like the seasonal flu (forever), with corona twists. I'm furious (as usual) at the [medical, science] experts and the media. Very bad [analysis, misinformation] on a familiar story several thousand years long. 08********08 23Apr2020 Facebook posting : Chart of daily cases/day/population by nation Here is my quick comparison of the corona virus 3-day averaged daily cases per day per population, plotted against the date of the first case in each nation. Careful as I may have made some mistakes. http://www.BillHowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/200423%203-day%20avg%20cases%20of%20corona%20virus%20per%20population.jpg https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-bear-market-isnt-over-citi-says-here-are-the-signals-to-watch-2020-04-22?mod=mw_more_headlines The bear market isn’t over, Citi says. Here are the signals to watch. Published: April 22, 2020 at 9:08 a.m. ET By Steve Goldstein 200422 MarketWatch, Citi Research Central bank purchases globally vs Earnings per share forecasts https://www.marketwatch.com/story/capitalism-as-we-know-it-will-likely-be-changed-forever-and-10-other-lasting-implications-of-coronavirus-according-to-billionaire-leon-cooperman-2020-04-23?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Capitalism as we know it will likely be changed forever’ and 10 other lasting implications of coronavirus, according to billionaire Leon Cooperman Published: April 23, 2020 at 9:47 a.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Leon Cooperman’s comments come as another 4.4 million people filed for unemployment benefits The prominent, veteran investor, who boasts a net worth of $3.2 billion, according to Forbes, said he thinks that the market is currently fairly valued at its current level but could head to as low as 2,200 on the S&P 500 index due to the coming recession. >> pretty lame comments 08********08 22Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-a-return-to-normal-could-mean-disaster-for-the-stock-market-2020-04-22?mod=mw_more_headlines Why a ‘return to normal’ could mean disaster for the stock market Published: April 22, 2020 at 12:15 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois 200422 MarketWatch, Jean-Paul Rodrigue manias and bubbles 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/new-data-suggest-the-economic-downturn-is-far-from-over-51587567103?mod=newsviewer_click The Surge in Bank Lending to U.S. Companies Is Over. The Cutbacks to Households Have Just Begun. Published: April 22, 2020 at 10:51 a.m. ET By Matthew C. Klein 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/negative-oil-prices-from-the-folks-who-brought-you-the-financial-crisis-51587549601?mod=newsviewer_click Negative Oil Prices, the Vix, and the Risk of Trading ETFs You Don’t Understand Last Updated: April 22, 2020 at 10:33 a.m. ET First Published: April 22, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. ET By Randall W. Forsyth > Great warning to me : "Contango" behaviour of options 08********08 21Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fda-approves-first-coronavirus-test-that-allows-self-swab-at-home-2020-04-21?mod=newsviewer_click FDA approves first coronavirus test that allows self-swab at home Published: April 21, 2020 at 5:59 p.m. ET By Associated Press For now, LabCorp test will only be available to health workers, first responders WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators on Tuesday OK’d the first coronavirus test that allows people to collect their own sample at home, a new approach that could help expand testing options in most states. The test from LabCorp LH, +1.76% will initially only be available to health care workers and first responders under a doctor’s orders. The sample will still have to be shipped for processing back to LabCorp, which operates diagnostic labs throughout the U.S. Allowing people to self-swab at home would help reduce infection risks for front-line health care workers and help conserve protective gear. For the home test, people are initially screened with an online questionnaire. If authorized by a physician, LabCorp will ship a testing kit to their home. The kit includes cotton swabs, a collection tube, an insulated pouch and box to ship the specimen back to LabCorp. To take a sample, a cotton swab is swirled in each nostril. The test results are posted online to a secure company website. >> Fucking asshole medical system - We don't need doctors!!!! https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/domestic-market-operations/monetary-policy-implementation/repo-reverse-repo-agreements/repurchase-agreement-operational-details Repurchase Agreement Operational Details In accordance with the most recent Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) directive, the Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will conduct a series of overnight and term repurchase agreement operations (repos) to ensure that the supply of reserves remains ample and to support the smooth functioning of short-term U.S. dollar funding markets. >> Wow! Blank cheques for covering each day! Pump, pump, pump from : LagunitaLLC, 17 hours ago, @The_Real_AMF, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/popular-oil-etf-uso-halted-for-news-pending-as-crude-prices-extend-ugly-drop-2020-04-21?mod=newsviewer_click Popular oil ETF USO was halted for news pending as crude prices extend ugly drop Published: April 21, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Trading in United States Oil Fund LP USO, 0.00%, one of the most popular ways for retail investors to gain exposure to crude-oil futures CL.1, -96.07%, was halted Tuesday before the opening bell for news pending. The ETF had was down more than 20% in premarket trade before the halt and has been under severe pressure as oil has been beaten down due to oversupply and a lack of storage. The ETF sponsor said that it would halt the creation of shares of the fund. The ETF holds between 25% and 30% of the June contract for West Texas Intermediate oil. The ETF saw about $1.5 billion in inflows as retail investors have tried to pick the turning point for oil, which has been slammed due to a lack of storage and price pressures amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Financial Times.The most actively traded June contract on Tuesday CLM20, -29.42% was down nearly 30% at $14.38 a barrel, a day after the front-month May contract CLK20, -96.07% CL.1, -96.07% staged a historic plunge to close in negative territory for the firs time ever. USO is down more than 70% so far this year, as of Monday's close. >> Nuts - I should have known about this EFT!!! 08********08 20Apr2020 +----+ https://www.tradingview.com/blog/en/export-chart-data-in-csv-14395/ You Can Now Export & Download Data Into a CSV File Chart data (including ticker symbols & indicators) can now be saved into a CSV file. It can then be imported into Microsoft Excel or other apps for further analysis, if that’s what you are into. To download the data choose Export Chart Data… from the menu: Select the chart & hit Export: Exporting becomes available as soon as chart data is loaded. Scroll left to add more data to the chart, or drag the x-axis, then download. This feature is available on PRO+ & Premium plans. Data export to Google Docs is coming, stay tuned! Thanks for being with TradingView & ping us with any suggestions! >> I would have to upgrade at ~50$/mnth (?) 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/offshore-oil-stocks-are-sinking-heres-what-to-buy-51587299411?mod=mw_more_headlines Offshore Oil Stocks Are Sinking. Here’s What to Buy, According to an Analyst. Published: April 19, 2020 at 8:30 a.m. ET By Avi Salzman Evercore analyst James West : He thinks that the major oil service companies are in relatively better shape, making their stocks worth buying at these levels. That includes Schlumberger, which drills on land and in the ocean. Its decision to cut its dividend pleased Wall Street, because the business looks much more sustainable now. And as the shakeout comes closer, Schlumberger is likely to be a winner, along with fellow major service company Baker Hughes (BKR), West predicts. Oil inventory is piling up so fast that it will likely be a year at least before business picks up, so investors will have to be patient. "These are fantastic opportunities to get in, but you’ve got a waiting period before you get paid," he said. He also rates Halliburton (HAL) at Outperform, but sees it as less attractive than the other two. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-oils-may-contract-skids-about-20-at-nadir-as-crudes-woes-continue-2020-04-19?mod=newsviewer_click U.S. oil benchmark crashes below $3 a barrel, on track for lowest close and biggest one-day fall on record Published: April 20, 2020 at 1:29 p.m. ET By William Watts and Mark DeCambre The May contract is set to expire at the end of regular trade on Tuesday, while the June contract is the most active The soon-to-expire May contract for the U.S. oil benchmark was on track Monday to finish in single digits for the lowest close and biggest one-day plunge on record for a front-month contract, reflecting a growing glut of crude and a lack of storage space. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery US:CLK20 US:CL was down $15.71, or 86%, at $2.66 a barrel. The May contract expires on Tuesday. The one-day drop would be the largest on record going back to 1983, while a finish near its current level would be far below the previous all-time low for a front-month contract at $10.42 a barrel set on March 31, 1986, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The huge drop in the nearby contract reflects traders scrambling to exit long positions that would require them to take physical delivery of crude amid dwindling storage space. It also reflects a convergence with the physical spot price for oil. 08********08 19Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-we-overreacting-to-the-coronavirus-lets-do-the-math-2020-04-19?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Are we overreacting to the coronavirus? Let’s do the math Published: April 19, 2020 at 8:49 a.m. ET By Geoffrey Joyce Is the economic cost of COVID-19 $150 billion? Or $5.6 trillion? Some economists and business leaders believe the costs of constraining the virus have exceeded the benefits. They point to unemployment totals not seen since the Depression and entire industries shut down, compared to virus death totals that may reach only the numbers from a bad flu season (55,000). Serology results suggest that about 3% of the U.S. population is infected, 1 in 10 of whom will be hospitalized (based on New York City data), and 1 in 200 of the infected dying (0.5% mortality rate or about 5 times the flu). Economists can use those numbers as part of a cold-eyed calculation that includes the economic value of a life year. By looking at what we are willing to pay to reduce the risk of death—for example, how much will we pay for a smoke detector at home or air bags in the car—economists assign a dollar figure to a life year, now typically measured at $150,000. Applying that measure to the age distribution of the deceased, and adding the costs of treating the infected population, the total cost of COVID-19 in the U.S. under current restrictions appears to be about $150 billion. This estimate pales in comparison to the $2.3 trillion stimulus package alone and seems to support Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s recent concern that "the cure is worse than the disease". But what would the cost be if governments had not imposed restrictions and simply let the virus run its course? Suppose, if unchecked, 30% of Americans became infected, far below most estimates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s projection that 56% of his state’s residents would be infected without mitigation. Applying the same rates of hospitalizations and mortality to this higher rate of prevalence increases the cost of COVID-19 to nearly $3 trillion. And if we assume, quite reasonably, that mortality rates would rise from 0.5% to 1.5% as hospitals become increasingly overrun, the estimated cost of COVID-19 increases to $5.6 trillion, by my calculations. 08********08 #] 18Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/fords-ceo-says-its-cars-will-be-built-to-kill-viruses-51587119401?mod=newsviewer_click Ford Vehicles Will Have Surfaces That ‘Puncture’ Viruses, According to CEO Jim Hackett Last Updated: April 18, 2020 at 6:17 p.m. ET First Published: April 17, 2020 at 6:30 a.m. ET By Jack Hough Barron’s spoke recently with Jim Hackett, CEO of Ford Motor , about the company’s ability to weather the pandemic and the future of pickup trucks, ride-sharing services, electric vehicles, and more. His edited comments follow. On how the virus might change vehicles: Surfaces will have to have micro structures that can’t hold viruses. These things are there. They’re nano-level structures that are in the fabrics. You can’t feel them, but if you had a microscope, they’d look like you’re putting a virus on top of arrows. The virus can’t live. The surface punctures it, literally. On electric vehicles: I think we’ve got this part right. An event like this causes a re-sorting of what you care about. The bigger opportunity is the extra [interior] space that an electric vehicle gives you. The new priority is space, to perform in ways that pandemics can’t disrupt. Extra space is a good thing in the design of vehicles. >> Interesting comment. He can't speak against electric, or he'll get shit upon by all of the shitheads. On autonomous vehicles: It has been our estimation that autonomy would find its application in moving both people and goods. So we created a dual bet. It’s a little more expensive, but that’s why we had a partner in Volkswagen [VOW.Germany]. And this explains a little bit of our investment in [electric-truck maker] Rivian, because Rivian announced that it has won contracts from Amazon.com to electrify home-delivery vehicles. Now, as we look back at this pandemic, we’ll go, "Hey, how valuable would an autonomous vehicle have been to run errands for me or to deliver things?" >> Howell : sounds dumb, but he has to sell cars 08********08 #] 17Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/big-government-could-be-here-to-stay-why-thats-a-problem-51587171975?mod=newsviewer_click Uncle Sam’s Growing Intrusion Into the Private Sector Sets a Dangerous Precedent Published: April 17, 2020 at 9:06 p.m. ET By Randall W. Forsyth >> Howell - great article! Picking winners may put the Fed’s independence at risk, many critics worry, including eminent observers such as Henry Kaufman, the former chief economist of Salomon Brothers. The Fed’s efforts undermine the market’s function of allocation of assets in the bond market, contends Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and chief strategist at Quill Intelligence and onetime adviser to former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher. Because the Fed is interjecting itself into the market, investors are effectively flying blind as to true asset values, and might not be able to see clearly after the market’s reset, she wrote in an email. Others worry, however, about the slippery slope that the Fed might be on by intervening in the private credit market. The next logical step would be for the central bank to purchase equities, which would represent government being an owner of, rather than a creditor to, private enterprise. There is ample precedent for this abroad, with the Bank of Japan actively purchasing Japanese ETFs. The Swiss National Bank also has been an active buyer of U.S. stocks rather than just holding government securities in its foreign-exchange reserves. The BOJ’s equity investments appear to be a logical extension of its monetary policy to fight persistent economic torpor and deflation, after having set interest rates to zero and buying Japanese government bonds. But critics contend that, by propping up Japanese stocks, it has instead kept alive zombie companies and prevented the reallocation of their assets to more competitive entities. The result has been a stagnant economy, exemplified by the Nikkei 225 stock index selling at approximately half of its 1989 peak. And why would the federal government rein in spending when it can, in effect, borrow without limit with support from the central bank? The Fed’s balance sheet has grown by $2.1 trillion since mid-March, or roughly by half. In effect, the central bank has created as much liquidity in the past five weeks as the federal government will need to cover its greatly expanded budget deficit as well as the Fed’s various programs to inject money into the private sector, John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, economic advisors to Brean Capital, wrote in a research note. "This is an economic experiment of a magnitude that almost no one imagined, with consequences that will be felt for years to come," they concluded. Not only is the Fed financing the government with printing-press money, but also it is extending credit to the private sector in the same manner. Will there be a return to normalcy when the crisis passes? Given the scope of America’s economic problems, this just might turn out to be the new normal. 08********08 #] 16Apr2020 I should have bought SP500!!! (XIU?) I am not agressive enough!! Buy Tesla too, just because I am an ass. I don't think the [Treasury, Fed] will do anymore stimulation at this point. NO!! Buy China! That's the only thing that has worked for ME. Maybe other high-growth countries? Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia Not re-exporters Singapore, Not Europe http://www.worldstopexports.com/chinas-top-import-partners/ China’s Top Trading Partners April 7, 2020 by Daniel Workman Below is a list highlighting 15 of China’s top trading partners in terms of export sales. That is, these countries imported the most Chinese shipments by dollar value during 2019. Also shown is each import country’s percentage of total Chinese exports. United States: US$418.6 billion (16.8% of China’s total exports) Hong Kong: $279.6 billion (11.2%) Japan: $143.2 billion (5.7%) South Korea: $111 billion (4.4%) Vietnam: $98 billion (3.9%) Germany: $79.7 billion (3.2%) India: $74.9 billion (3%) Netherlands: $73.9 billion (3%) United Kingdom: $62.3 billion (2.5%) Taiwan: $55.1 billion (2.2%) Singapore: $55 billion (2.2%) Malaysia: $52.5 billion (2.1%) Russia: $49.5 billion (2%) Australia: $48.1 billion (1.9%) Mexico: $46.4 billion (1.9%) Almost two-thirds (65.9%) of Chinese exports in 2019 were delivered to the above 15 trade partners. 200407 WorldsTopExports, Daniel Workman, China’s Top Trading Partners.png https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-china-could-win-over-the-post-coronavirus-world-and-leave-the-us-behind-2020-04-14?mod=home-page Opinion: How China could win over the post-coronavirus world and leave the U.S. behind Published: April 16, 2020 at 10:35 p.m. ET By Kishore Mahbubani China is now the world’s largest trading power; its total trade is $4.43 trillion compared to $3.89 trillion for the U.S. To boost trade within Africa, first-rate infrastructure is needed. China is now the world’s infrastructure superpower, building badly-needed ports, railways, roads, and power stations in Africa. These projects include the megaport at Bagamoyo, Tanzaniya and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, which is the first fully-electrified cross-border railway in Africa. Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, has said: "The Chinese bring what Africa needs: investment and money for governments and companies." Here’s one leading indicator. When China convenes China-Africa summit meetings, all African leaders turn up. In a 2019 research paper, Johns Hopkins professor Deborah Brautigam concluded that most of these countries voluntarily signed on to these loans and had positive experiences working with China. Brautigam writes, "The evidence so far, including the Sri Lankan case, shows that the drumbeat of alarm about Chinese banks’ funding of infrastructure across the BRI and beyond is overblown." She continues, "…a large number of people have favorable opinions of China as an economic model and consider China an attractive partner for their development. For example, in 2014, 65% in Kenya, 67% in Ghana and 85% in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, held favorable views of China." Hence, when China launched its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to build infrastructure from Central Asia to Africa (and even to Latin America), most countries signed on. Yes, China has made mistakes with BRI. Mahathir bin Mohamad protested against its terms when he became Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2018. However the deal was quietly renegotiated, and Mahathir became one of the key opening speakers of the BRI Summit in Beijing in 2019. All 10 ASEAN countries do more trade with China than with the U.S. To balance this, the stock of U.S. investment in ASEAN countries is far greater. Indeed, America’s total investment in ASEAN of $328 billion is far more than what it has invested in India, China, Japan and Korea combined. By contrast, the Chinese investment in ASEAN is about $150 billion. Kishore Mahbubani is the author of Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (Public Affairs, 2020). He is a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. A former Singaporean diplomat, he was president of the United Nations Security Council between January 2001 and May 2002. https://www.amazon.com/Has-China-Won-Challenge-American/dp/1541768132?mod=article_inline COVID-19 pandemic may accelerate America’s declining status with traditional allies, former diplomat says 2007-2008 Great financial recession search "" https://www.conservapedia.com/Financial_Crisis_of_2008 As of 2013, there are still 4 million fewer jobs in the U.S. than in 2008 - despite $5 trillion in federal stimulus spending. The U.S. government provided cash bailouts of several hundred billion dollars and long-term loan guarantees of over $7 trillion (compared to a GDP of $14.6 trillion in 2008). U.S. government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which injected billions of dollars of government-backed funds into the credit markets to restore confidence and liquidity. Britain Britain on October 8 announced a gigantic £400 billion ($680 billion) rescue plan for its banks; the government would partially own them. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said banks would still be run by their old managers, but that the government would have to be "satisfied" on matters of salaries, dividends and lending activities. The money involved is about a third of Britain's annual GDP (comparable to $5 trillion in the U.S. economy.) On October 13, Britain announced it would spend £50 billion ($85 billion) to nationalize two of the five largest banks, HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) and RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), while taking partial ownership of a third, Lloyds TSB. A fourth, Barclays will remain private if it can raise an additional £7 billion. The fifth, HSBC is based in Hong Kong and will remain private.[24] Obama Administration Critics feared Geithner's vague plans would crash The Obama Administration, taking office on Jan. 20, 2009, moved to handle the crisis on two fronts. Working with Democrats in Congress (and three moderate Republican Senators), it passed the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," calling for $500 billion of new spending and nearly $300 billion in new tax cuts. The new law began operations in mid-February, 2009, and supporters hoped it would slow and turn around the nosediving economy. Conservative critics feared it would be ineffective in the short run and add to the national debt and tax burdens in the long run. As of late March no results are visible. With major banks on the verge of failure, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled yet another massive bailout program in mid-February. Trillions would be spent to move toxic assets out of the banks, but few details were provided. The widespread reaction was very negative, and Geithner lost more of his credibility as a problem solver. Geither finally came back with a plan on March 23 that will not need additional funding or approval by Congress. The Treasury will use $100 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), as well as new capital from private investors, in order to generate $500 billion in purchasing power to buy toxic loans and assets. The program could potentially expand to $1 trillion over time. 08********08 15Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-next-45-days-are-the-most-critical-period-in-us-financial-history-says-stock-market-expert-who-profited-in-1987-and-2008-crises-2020-04-15?mod=newsviewer_click The next 45 days are the ‘most critical period in U.S. financial history,’ says stock-market expert who profited in 1987 and 2008 crises Published: April 15, 2020 at 11:38 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre Alan B. Lancz - The contrarian money manager, who is a disciple of famed investor Sir John Templeton, said that the timing and execution of the reawakening of the U.S. economy from its dormancy could be one of the biggest factors in determining how the market recovers from COVID-19, which has forced swaths of businesses to shut down to help stem the spread of the deadly contagion that has infected more than 2 million people and claimed 137,000 lives, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University as of Wednesday evening. "Unfortunately, this crisis has all three parts of the past bear markets’ sell-offs," he wrote. "This pandemic not only threatens America’s standard of living but also could position us as a secondary global power." 200415 TradingView, PassiCoin, S&P500 1929vs2020- short/mid/long term Forecast. Conclusion- We are fucked.png 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - blog to TradingView "Fundamental St9ockMarket Analysis" https://www.tradingview.com/ideas/fundamental/ go to "Public Chats, fundamental stockmarket analysis" S&P 500 Shiller-forward PE versus 10y US Treasury bond rates - here is a very [primitive, amateur] model http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20US%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.jpg More details, and a link to a very simple spreadsheet, can be found at : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.html Image didn't show, try : http://www.billhowell.ca/SP500-Shiller-forward-PE-versus-10y-US-Treasury-bond-rates.jpg 05-----05 Original text was too long : S&P 500 Shiller-forward PE versus 10y US Treasury bond rates Here is a very [primitive, amateur] model for estimating the relationship between the S&P 500 and 10-year Treasury bond rates, by looking forward 20 years for earnings. Don't pay too much attention to the results. More important is just a "feel" for how parameters MIGHT affect results in a very rough sense, and getting a feel for what might done to improve the [concepts, model]. I am sure that much better thought out models canbe found in standard textbooks. More details, and a link to a very simple spreadsheet, can be found at : http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.html Image posted : http://www.BillHowell.ca/economics, markets/S&P 500 Shiller-forward PE versus 10y US Treasury bond rates.jpg http://www.billhowell.ca/economics,%20markets/S&P%20500%20Shiller-forward%20PE%20versus%2010y%20US%20Treasury%20bond%20rates.jpg 08********08 14Apr2020 Yardeni Research 23Mar2020 Stock Market Briefing, S&P 500 Bull & BearMarket Tables.pdf https://www.marketwatch.com/story/prepare-for-social-distancing-into-2022-warns-harvard-researchers-2020-04-15?mod=newsviewer_click The U.S. could be looking at social distancing measures into 2022, Harvard researchers warn Published: April 15, 2020 at 11:27 a.m. ET By Shawn Langlois 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell's blog : While waiting for a vaccine, a number of interim medical treatments are being applied, and new ones are being developed. As suggested by some, what we need now is to allow social mixing for the [COVID-cured, relatively immune], which should be a dominant majority of the population who don't develop serious hospitalizing symptoms. Self-isolation and quarantine for those who are at risk, not for everyone. What would really help here is a [test, certification] for those who are relatively resistant to the disease. They still may get quite sick, but not requiring hospitalisation. I don't know if such tests exist, but we really need them now! https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-rebound-could-take-sp-500-to-2950-in-april-as-coronavirus-fear-bubble-bursts-says-analyst-who-called-2018-rout-2020-04-15?mod=newsviewer_click Stock rally could run another 4% as Fed responds to coronavirus and ‘fear bubble’ bursts, says analyst who called 2018 rout Published: April 15, 2020 at 11:33 a.m. ET By William Watts But ‘relief rally’ may not last long, warns Stifel’s Bannister Barry Bannister, head of institutional equity strategy at Stifel But Bannister sounded less upbeat about the market’s prospects beyond mid-2020. "As the public narrative shifts and weather warms, we see S&P 500 strength into mid-2020, but beyond that point the added debt and government control, loss of Fed independence and erosion of capitalism may limit S&P 500 upside and potential GDP growth," he said. 200415 MarketWatch, Stifel, M3 US money supply, global vs S&P500.jpg https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-recent-strength-in-the-stock-market-is-an-ominous-sign-of-whats-next-2020-04-14?mod=mw_more_headlines Chris Kimble of the Kimble Charting Solutions blog says the "quick burst higher" could be an "ominous sign" of what lies ahead. After all, we’ve seen this kind of action before. In fact, the timing and the size of the market move should be eerily familiar to anybody who’s been around awhile. Kimble used this 20-year chart of the S&P 500 to explain why: As you can see, the two prior market crashes — like the current one, so far — put in March lows before staging big, but short-lived, comebacks. From there, it got ugly in a hurry. "Could this be happening again this year?" Kimble wrote. "Is history repeating right on time? Is the bear market rally setting up a giant bull trap?" 200415 MarketWatch, Kimble, 50% rallys early in a bear 2001-2020.png https://www.tradingview.com/ideas/relativestrengthindex/ RSI divergence on the 1 hr eggb3rt As you can see, the volume is going down but the price is going up. This is a bearish formation. I'm expecting 2930 top and then back down. #] 14Apr2020 TradingView Someone posted RSI as a reliable indicator https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rsi.asp What Is Relative Strength Index – RSI? The relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can have a reading from 0 to 100. The indicator was originally developed by J. Welles Wilder Jr. and introduced in his seminal 1978 book, New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems. Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition. >> I added this to "0_Puetz chart explanations.txt" (It was already there!) which is a convenient collection of market terms 08********08 #] 11Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.longtermtrends.net/price-earnings-ratio/ 200411 LongTermTrends S&P500 price-earnings ratio 1870-2020.png 200411 LongTermTrends S&P500 CAPE-Shiller 10yr-infl-adj price-earnings ratio 1870-2020.png >> Howell : valuation depends on other investment assets like [fixed (interest rates), real estate, commoditites] In other words, the investment money has to go somewhere, some (pensions) is [obliged, restricted] in what they can do. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sp-500-is-now-more-overvalued-than-ever-per-this-measure-2020-01-08 The S&P 500 is now more overvalued than ever, per this measure Published: Jan. 11, 2020 at 9:24 a.m. ET By Chris Matthews S&P 500 price-to-sales ratio is well above its dot-com bubble peak 200411 MarketWatch, Ned Davis Resrch, S&P500 price-to-sales at record high 1955-2019.png 200411 MarketWatch, Ned Davis Resrch, NYSE&Wiltshire5000 stock market capital & and profits 1947-2019.png https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_valuation_ttm.php?pe&sp5 What is this publisher? data looks wonky? S&P500 Q1 P/E 22.38 But I want CAPE-Shiller as well!!! Need forward estimates for comes expected to undergo change - not as important for [slow-growing, stable, consistent] businesses https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history Why does yahoo still exist? Can download actual data https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-trends/2015-economic-trends/et-20150810-comparing-price-to-earnings-ratios.aspx >> Awesome! 200411 Cleveland Fed, S&P500 P-E [, forward, avg] 1990-2014.png 200411 Cleveland Fed, S&P500 CAPE, real-[, earnings, prices] 1881-2014.png 200411 Cleveland Fed, S&P500 CAPE with Hodrick-Prescott filter 1881-2014.png 200411 Cleveland Fed, S&P500 CAPE with +- standard deviation bands 1881-2014.png https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe >> YES!! - current estimates!!!! 200411 Multipl.com Shiller PE ratio 1880-2020, daily updates.png #] 09Apr2020 Shiller = 26.32 05-----05 https://www.gurufocus.com/news/429977/how-much-do-interest-rates-affect-the-markets-pe-ratio How Much Do Interest Rates Affect the Market’s P/E Ratio? Taking a look at the relationship between the two July 22, 2016 Ben Reynolds, Articles (798) | Author's Website | Correlation between market valuation and interest rates From 1971 through 2015, the S&P 500’s P/E ratio and PE10 has been highly correlated with the 10-year T-Bond rate. PE10 and 10-Year T-Bond correlation of -0.63. P/E and 10-Year T-Bond correlation of -0.52. Source: Data from Multpl What’s a fair valuation today? What is a fair P/E ratio for the S&P 500 today given ultra-low interest rates? Running a linear regression on the data above gives the following: SP 500 Linear Regression Interest Rates Using the slope and intercept above combined with the current 10-Year T-Bond yield of 1.57%, we get the following: Fair price-to-earnings ratio of 28.4. Current price-to-earnings ratio of 25.1. Using PE10 tells a similar story: Fair PE10 ratio of 28.9 Current PE10 ratio of 27.0 Factoring in near all-time high interest rates, the market is trading around fair value today. One could argue it is actually slightly undervalued! When will interest rates rise? Interest rates have been in free fall since 1982. This has created tremendous wealth in the stock market and real estate market due to rising valuation. This trend cannot and will not continue. Interest rates simply do not have much room left to fall. Interest rates cannot go much below 0. Final thoughts Is the market overvalued based on an absolute historical basis? Absolutely. Is the market overvalued given current ultra-low interest rates? No. It is trading around fair value, and possibly a bit lower. Will interest rates rise soon? No one knows the future. With that said, it appears unlikely given the Fed’s moves over the last 30 years that interest rates will rise in the next several years. The one exception to this would be if high inflation were to take hold. In this case, the Fed would likely raise interest rates to curb serious inflation. The conclusion I draw from this data is that the stock market is trading around fair value given our current artificially low interest rate environment, and the artificially low interest rate environment will likely be with us for a long time. Regardless, the prerogative for long-term buy-and-hold investors does not change: Invest in high-quality dividend-growth stocks with strong competitive advantages trading at fair or better prices. When the market trades for a lower P/E ratio this is easier, but it is still possible today. https://www.suredividend.com/interest-rates-valuation/ P/E Ratios & Interest Rates: A Formula for Fair P/E Ratios Incorporating Interest Rates Updated August 22nd, 2018 by Ben Reynolds The Federal Funds Rate was slashed to a range of 0% to 0.25% (virtually free bank borrowing costs) to stimulate the economy in 2008. It was held at that rate until 2015. Movement in the Federal Funds rate from 2015 onward is below: 0.25 percentage point increase, December 2015 0.25 percentage point increase, December 2016 0.25 percentage point increase, March 2017 0.25 percentage point increase, June 2017 0.25 percentage point increase, December 2017 0.25 percentage point increase, March 2018 0.25 percentage point increase, June 2018 The Federal Funds rate has gone from a range of 0.00% – 0.25% prior to December 2015 to 1.75% – 2.00% today. More increases are likely over the coming months and years as long as the United States economy remains strong. What’s a Fair Valuation Today? What is a fair price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500 today given ultra-low interest rates? Running a linear regression on the data above gives the following: PE10 PE Correlation -0.65 -0.53 Intercept 32.4 31. Slope -191.3 -186.9 Using the slope and intercept above combined with the current 10 Year T-Bond yield of 2.82%, we get the following: Fair price-to-earnings ratio of 25.8 Current price-to-earnings ratio of 24.8 Using PE10 tells a similar story: Fair PE10 ratio of 27.0 Current PE10 ratio of 32.8 Based on today’s still low interest rate, the market is actually trading around fair value today using the P/E ratio. It is somewhat overvalued using the PE10 ratio, in part due to depressed earnings near the end of the Great Recession, and in part due to higher earnings today from lower corporate tax rates. All in all, the market certainly doesn’t look extremely overvalued when one factors in current interest rate levels. 200411 Ben Reynolds suredividend.com, multpl.com, 10 yr Treasury rate 1871-2018.png 200411 Ben Reynolds suredividend.com, multpl.com, S&P500 PE10 vs 10 yr Treasury rate 1971-2015.png 08********08 10Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/is-the-economy-going-to-crash-because-of-coronavirus-how-quickly-will-the-economy-revive-51586560301?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s How Bad the Economy Will Get — and How Quickly It Could Revive By Randall W. Forsyth April 10, 2020 7:11 pm ET 08&&&&&&&&08 Can't post - Barrons, Yes I can - just go to the Barron's site! William Howell - Assuming that this is a COVID-19-only hiccup, not a market fall [hastened, catalysed] by COVID-19, which was expected on a worse scale by a number of bears for a year or two. It's perhaps hard to assess value in near-zero interest rate environments, and you assume that they remain that way and import cash flows don't run after the rest of the world picks up. With huge [internal, non-[US, Europe] export markets, a vastly healthier debt situation, not-necessarily-more-fictitious [market, economic] numbers, and a still-impressive (albeit much reduced) growth, China might be looking more [stable, promising] to many until US [stability, growth] have proven staying power and attractive fundamentals. Bulls and bears, greed and fear, anchovies and pizza, life goes on... for some. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/iceland-finds-that-half-its-citizens-with-coronavirus-have-shown-no-symptoms-2020-04-10?mod=newsviewer_click Iceland finds that half its citizens with coronavirus have shown no symptoms Published: April 10, 2020 at 3:43 p.m. ET By Nicole Lyn Pesce The island has tested more of its population for COVID-19 than any other country And the scariest finding: At any given time, about half of its citizens who have the coronavirus — and don’t know it — are not showing any symptoms. That’s double the CDC’s recent estimate that as many as one in four people with COVID-19 may be asymptomatic. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/another-victim-of-covid-19-social-security-2020-04-10?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Another victim of COVID-19: Social Security Published: April 10, 2020 at 3:15 p.m. ET By Paul Brandus Long-term and short-term problems are looming And that something is already beginning to give. For the first time since 1982, Social Security is paying out more than it in taking in; by 2035—just 15 years from now—its cash reserve (the so-called "trust fund") will be depleted. After that, the Social Trustees (the head Trustee is Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin) warns that Social Security will only "be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits." In other words: a 25% cut. 08&&&&&&&&08 William Howell - We need hyper-virtual-reality like [The Matrix, Total Recall, Ready Player One], where us old guys float in liquid chambers with minimal [capital, operating] cost: texting, watching perpetual reruns, exotic vacations, restaurants, living out our [powers, greatness]. Best thing is, none of us will even notice the change. One drawback, as stated in Ready Player One, "the only place to get a good meal is in the real world". They'll have to work on that, but it should be do-able virtually. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-will-lose-crucial-support-as-millennials-tap-401ks-for-cash-2020-04-09?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: The stock market will lose crucial support as millennials tap 401(k)s for cash Published: April 10, 2020 at 11:27 a.m. ET By Brian Frank Millennials, who primarily invest through retirement accounts, will need money as they lose their jobs because of the economic shutdown 200410 TradingView, Brian Frank, USLabStat 2000-2020 Civilian unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted.png http://frankfunds.com/media/Slaughterhouse%20Five%20(Hundred).pdf?mod=article_inline Slaughterhouse-Five (Hundred)Passive Investing and its Effects on the U.S. Stock MarketBy: Alfred C. Frank, President, Frank Capital Management LLC Brian J. Frank, CIO, Frank Capital Partners LLC First Printing: February 23, 2020 Updated: April 3, 2020 To further support this point, in an article at cnbc.com, JP Morgan global head of quantitative and derivative research, Marko Kolanovic, has shown than 90% of the daily stock trading in the US is comprised of non-fundamental investors, meaning that the investors who actually analyze businesses and buy and sell stocks based on companies’ future growth prospects are outnumbered www.frankfunds.com ww.frankcapitalmgmt.com in daily stock trading by strategies that ignore these fundamentals by a factor of 9 to 1. ... "While fundamental narratives explaining the price action abound, the majority of equity investors today don’t buy or sell stocks based on stock specific fundamentals," Marko Kolanovic, global head of quantitative and derivatives research at JP Morgan said, in a Tuesday note to clients. Kolanovic estimates "fundamental discretionary traders" account for only 10 percent of trading volume in stocks. Passive and quantitative investing accounts for about 60 percent, more than double the share a decade ago, he said. As a result, stock prices are being pushed higher by passive investment flows and by other market participants that buy stock without regard to the fundamental value of the businesses behind the stock prices. ... p15 Parallels to the Destruction of XIV: During the sell-off of February 2018 discussed above, an obscure exchange-traded fund called the XIV blew up and went to zero in a matter of days. Professional and retail investors used this fund to speculate on lower volatility in the markets. Volatility exploded when the stock market sold off and the fund essentially went bankrupt. The reason for this is the XIV fund used futures contracts to achieve its objective and its position became so large to where it became basically the entire market for VIX (volatility futures). Once the price of the futures began dropping, there was almost no one to sell to and the fund collapsed. This setup has obvious parallels to the passive investing environment. As passive becomes a larger and larger share of the market, it eventually becomes the market (if it has not already). This dynamic produces the gradual melt-up phenomenon as money is added to passive each year. However, when the passive investment industry experiences a cash outflow (something that is inevitable given its size and the aging of overall U.S. population), there will be no one to sell to on the other side of the trade. The only logical outcome in such a supply/demand mismatch is a violent stock market crash. ... $500,000 which is roughly twice the balance of the average 401(k) ... http://frankfunds.com/media/Slaughterhouse%20Five%20(Hundred).pdf?mod=article_inline Alfred Frank 23Feb2020 "Slaughterhouse-Five (Hundred), Passive Investing and its Effects on the U.S. Stock Market" Frank 23Feb2020 Slaughterhouse-Five (Hundred), Passive Investing and its Effects on the U.S. Stock Market.pdf By: , President, Frank Capital Management LLC Brian J. Frank, CIO, Frank Capital Partners LLC First Printing: February 23, 2020Updated: April 3, 2020 200410 Brian Frank, MorningStar, Indexing on the rise, passive US funds could soon take over their active peers.png 200410 Brian Frank, BofA Merrill Lynch, Active vs passive equity flows since 2009.png 200410 Brian Frank, BofA Merrill Lynch, % stocks where Vanguard owns >5% of float.png 200410 Brian Frank, JP Morgan, 12M active outflows at record.png 200410 Brian Frank, co-movement on <25 bps moves in S&P.png 200410 Brian Frank, co-movement on 50-100 bps moves in S&P.png 200410 Brian Frank, historical co-movement for S&P 500 1928-2018, break-point when Vanguard discovers futures.png 200410 Brian Frank, [BEA, Haver alytics, DB], Household interest payments rising 15% yoy 1960-2001.png 200410 Brian Frank, S&P 500 price to sales ratio, 1990-2020.png >> Howell - buy shares not part of an index, with soid fundamentals!!?? Is that what Michael Burry is doing? How, which companies AREN"T on indexes? Alternatively - create own portfolio, which is more likely Burry's approach (Active management, not indexing). 08&&&&&&&&08 >> Howell - Brian Frank's paper - printed just before the Mar2020 crash Brian Frank - Your 23Feb2020, 48 page paper "Slaughterhouse-Five (Hundred)" (linked) is far more [general, interesting] than the millenial post alone. "... a profound shift in market share from active to passive management is the underlying cause ...[of]... extreme valuations in US stocks ... stock prices are being pushed higher by passive investment flows and by other market participants that buy stock without regard to the fundamental value of the businesses behind the stock prices. ... Names we followed began drifting above and away from our reasonable valuation targets in 2014 like a child losing their grip on a helium balloon. ... Passive strategies in aggregate have never seen annual outflows before, but since they now represent nearly half of all professionally managed money and roughly 20% of all major US stock ownership, this will inevitably occur. Therefore, a reversal of flows in passive will be devastating to US stock liquidity and result in an explosion of price volatility and instability. ..." You cite many authors, of which I only mention : - Is there a Dark Side to Exchange Traded Funds? An Information Perspective by Israeli, Lee, and Sridharan, January 13, 2017 "... when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) increase their ownership of a given company’s stock by just 1%, it makes the stock’s price 14% less correlated to its future earnings ..." Leave these out (I can't post everything) : "... a profound shift in market share from active to passive management is the underlying cause ...[of]... extreme valuations in US stocks ... stock prices are being pushed higher by passive investment flows and by other market participants that buy stock without regard to the fundamental value of the businesses behind the stock prices. ... stock prices of virtually all the 500 companies in the S&P 500 are not reflecting business fundamentals ... Should money exit passive strategies in the aggregate, the underlying unstable and dangerous system will be revealed as prices collapse to fundamental value. ... Evidence For Herding Behavior Caused By The Dominance Of Passive Investment Strategies ... It is difficult to measure the movement of different stocks relative to each other if stocks as a group do not move much at all. ... Names we followed began drifting above and away from our reasonable valuation targets in 2014 like a child losing their grip on a helium balloon. ... the expanding-valuation-party will continue only if passive consistently enjoys net inflows. ... Active has lost its voice in pricing US stocks. ... Passive strategies in aggregate have never seen annual outflows before, but since they now represent nearly half of all professionally managed money and roughly 20% of all major US stock ownership, this will inevitably occur. Therefore, a reversal of flows in passive will be devastating to US stock liquidity and result in an explosion of price volatility and instability. ..." - Mike Green "... has said his expertise is figuring out when people are forced to do irrational things in markets. ) ... active investors are hesitant to speak out because they do not want to call further attention to their subpar performance ... Green believes those who see problems are correct, and the issue is enormous for the future of the financial markets. ... unidirectional money flows into passive funds has caused stocks to act increasingly like a single herd of sheep, walking in unison ... explains how passive investing is like a very dumb computer program. It buys when clients deposit cash. It sells when clients withdraw cash. ..." - Robert Shiller, author of the seminal book on asset bubbles Irrational Exuberance "... Cyclically Adjusted Price to Earnings Ratio, or CAPE reached 33 in January 2018 and is almost as high now, at 31. That number might seem meaningless in itself, but it is significant when you consider that it has been as high or higher on only two occasions: 1929, just before the 85 percent stock market crash ending in 1932, and in 1999, just before the 50 percent drop at the beginning of the new millennium. ..." - Vanguard Founder Jack Bogle Privately Feared Indexing Would End In Tragedy "... universal indexing could be the new tragedy of the commons; 'If everybody indexed, the only word you could use is chaos, catastrophe', Bogle said. ... - Horizon Kinetics [Steve Bregman, Murray Stahl] "... shares held by passive funds are not part of the float ... the supply of shares in the stock market is continuously restricted while demand is strong, making stock prices surge and awarding passive funds with exceptional performance, despite lackluster earnings growth in the US overall ... causes passive investors to buy more of the assets that are already expensive and less of the assets that are cheap ..." - Seth Klarman 1991 predicted, and Barron’s has pointed out, "... A self-reinforcing feedback loop has been created, where the success of indexing has bolstered the performance of the index itself, which, in turn promotes more indexing. ..." - Robert Shiller, author of the seminal book on asset bubbles Irrational Exuberance "... Cyclically Adjusted Price to Earnings Ratio, or CAPE reached 33 in January 2018 and is almost as high now, at 31. That number might seem meaningless in itself, but it is significant when you consider that it has been as high or higher on only two occasions: 1929, just before the 85 percent stock market crash ending in 1932, and in 1999, just before the 50 percent drop at the beginning of the new millennium. ..." >> Howell, separate blog post : Questions : - Will Vangard and other ETFs be forced to drive fundamental analysis via [contractors, consultants], sooner rather than later? Free-loading off experts is a great idea until you've killed them all off? - Will active [intervention, management] by [ETFs, pension funds, raiders] be REQUIRED soon, if not sooner? - will investors start looking for "free by perceptions" [university, government] cart [advice, analysis]? After all, althey generate the data and already do an enormous amount of analysis, and they won't conceivably disappear tommorrow. They are, however politically-correct, from one region of multi-dimensional political space, and don't have any skin in the game (pensions [rich, guaranteed], etc, etc - I know, I'm one of them, retired). - are government policies (reacting to popular voting and nice-guy objectives) creating a perpetual current of excess financial stimulus fueling "permanent investment [inflation, over-valuations]" (versus [PI, PPI])? (this is addressed by you and [Israeli, Lee, Sridharan]. In line with your paper, I've long wondered : 1) what happens when nobody is looking closely at the individual corporate numbers, nobody is thinking? 2) technical trading seems to me to be a necessary COMPLEMENT to fundamental analysis, as valuations must be adjusted real-time when solid fundamental information is not available on anything like that time-scale, and is "rear-view mirror". I've felt the same way as Kolanovic (in your paper), fundamental analysts do only 10% of trading volume. Worse - I suspect the same problems that are prevalent modern [government, academic] science - very few traders have the [skills, mindset] to challenge their own orthodoxies, and 3) politically-correct (PC) massive mis-allocation of economic resources - It's one thing to talk about investment [analysis, approaches, strategies, results], but completely another to address the issue of financial asset [prioritization, allocation], which is a key function of markets. Has social engineeering, through [regulations, taxes, interventions, propping-up] led not only to : a) government propping of PC [technologies, hiring, businness practices] b) propping-up most importantly those [businesses, business leaders, investors] that, market-wise, "should be killed off". Instead, they are co-evolving with the system that nurtures them, leaving traditional [businesses, leaders] as suckers providing the taxes to encourage losers. d) discredited, to some extent, a key mechanism that USED TO distinguish us from the Socialist nations. Perhaps soon they will beat us even at this game, while retaining political systems that are best-suited for dealing with people with socialist mindsets (now approaching a majority of US voters?)? I typically assume that I am asking stupid questions in a vacuum, so it is nice to see hints that I may not be the only crazy person on Earth. 08&&&&&&&&08 second MyBlog Patrick Durkin - *Real live Millennial speaking here* I know my entire generation is blamed for the demise of the world and everyone's problems and eating avocado toast. Here's one take - my pregnant wife is laid off, I sell real estate in Las Vegas (currently 40% unemployment) and we aren't freaking out because we both worked our tails off to pay off all debt, save up 6 months worth of expenses, and we are continuing to fund retirement (hell of a lot more than most Boomers can say about themselves). Unpopular opinion: Instead of blaming the generation that was raised by Boomers (monkey see...monkey do) who were also responsible for 2 of the last 3 recessions...maybe take this time to look inward. I'm 31 years old, this is the third recession I've lived through. Boomers - use this time to address your fear that you mask with "I'm never quitting, I love working" (BS) and throw in the damn towel already and retire so my generation has a fighting chance to increase the workforce and boost the economy. I know most won't, that's okay, I'll continue to put them out of business by doing it better! Cheers! Idaho Native - You're in the very small percentage of "do it ourselves" millennial subgroup that I have a lot of respect for (you're almost like many Gen-X!). Same people are filling classes on hunting, fishing, cooking, gardening, etc. However... asking for artificial forced retirement instead puts more tax burden on you, so don't ask for it. If you want the job then earn it. William Howell - You are letting us boomers off lightly. Cashing in on reverse mortgages to party and vacation? Where are the inheritances going? Maybe now you don't have to feel bad if the pensions are trashed... Patrick Durkin - Lol, what is a pension? 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-federal-reserves-emergency-lending-has-peaked-at-least-for-now-51586525260?mod=newsviewer_click The Federal Reserve’s Emergency Lending Has Peaked. At Least for Now. Published: April 10, 2020 at 9:27 a.m. ET By Matthew C. Klein 08&&&&&&&&08 Actually, I can't post to Barron's I did NOT post these blog (no need for cynicism, trivial reactions) : I'm not trying to be cynical at all, it's just beyond my comfort level as understanding. So it's reasonable to expect continued Fed injections for another 3 years? more? Is a [mortgage, rent] overhang, still lingering from 2008, contributing to the current situation? Can we expect this to recur approximately every ten years from 2008? (not corona virus - I am confident that a new reason can be found each time). Are near-zero interest rates, massive bailouts, and routine social engineering of the financial markets blinding us of underlying realities? Are the markets no longer "real", not longer reasonable indicators to go by? If domestic [investors, lenders] don't care about the borrower's state, aren't at least the foreign creditors getting nervous? How much does financial asset inflation (vs [CPI, PPI]) have to do with the march of rising GDP since 2010? 08&&&&&&&&08 Thanks for the update. It will be really interesting to see this comparison between 2008 and 2020 over the next 3 years, and how the overall approach will evolve after one or two more crashes. 05-----05 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp 08********08 09Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-ways-to-get-a-coronavirus-skeptic-to-take-the-pandemic-seriously-anecdotes-are-much-more-convincing-than-statistics-2020-04-08?mod=newsviewer_click 10 ways to get a coronavirus skeptic to take the pandemic seriously: ‘Anecdotes are much more convincing than statistics’ Published: April 9, 2020 at 9:52 p.m. ET By Meera Jagannathan What if someone in your life is part of the small sliver of the population that isn’t taking the threat of the pandemic seriously? 08&&&&&&&&08 David Clay - Yeah, ignore those pesky statistics and focus on fear and emotion. Here are some actual numbers. 0.000195 of the world's population has this "pandemic." Dr. Anthony "Big Pharma" Fauci now predicts 60,000 deaths in US, down from his crazed two million number. 80,000 people died from the flu during the 2017-18 season. No shutdown for that. North and South Dakota had no shutdown. They have about 10 deaths total. Why weren't they wiped out? Calls to suicide hotlines are up 2500%. Benjamin Franklin - Very well said Howell - Yes - From what I see, it is the anecdotal (and emotional) thinkers who tend to see the end of the world, and who are only too happy to clamp down on others. But giving anecdotal tools to anecdotal thinkers probably does make sense, and in any case they're probably used to the rolling of the eyes of the beneficiaries of their lectures. In the end, it's probably belief systems and fears (for some), and hard-nosed "here we go again" (for others) that have a heavy influence on our reactions, not so much supposed analysis. So on with the thundering herd.... 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/they-could-face-housing-situations-that-spiral-out-of-control-more-than-half-of-renters-say-they-lost-their-jobs-due-to-covid-19-2020-04-09?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore More than half of renters say they lost jobs due to coronavirus: ‘They could face housing situations that spiral out of control’ Published: April 9, 2020 at 5:26 p.m. ET By Quentin Fottrell ‘Low-income renters, especially those who lose employment during the crisis, will have a hard time paying back rent’ More than half (53.5%) of renters reported that they lost their job due to the measures introduced in their town or city due to the COVID-19 pandemic, concluded a survey made up of 2,775 landlords and 7,379 tenants by Avail, an online resource for landlords. +----+ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-will-revisit-their-coronavirus-crash-low-and-heres-when-to-expect-it-2020-04-09?mod=home-page Opinion: Stocks will revisit their coronavirus crash low, and here’s when to expect it Published: April 9, 2020 at 2:43 p.m. ET By Mark Hulbert U.S. market history points to a final bottom in August Tom Sullivan - Thank you, once again, Mark Hulbert. Now that we are locked in for the week on our U.S. stock markets, hold on to your hat in the coming weeks. There like is a very good reason for the lack of details about the OPEC+ meeting today, which I expect our President's economic advisers will learn about tomorrow. That is, at the G20 meeting of energy Ministers, V. Putin's Russian reps likely will amplify Russia's crushing of the economies of the Dakotas, New Mexico, Texas, etc. (oil producing States, which happen to generally favor Trump's stupid policies and practices). There might be collateral damage to Canada and Brazil. I will actually be much more worried if that doesn't happen, because V. Putin almost certainly will keep spanking us for months to come. John Seed - I hear this alot, but can't grasp how trashing the one commodity that Russia's economy is so dependant on helps Russia? Howell - What about geopolitically? One occasionally hears over the decades that the house of Saud might encounter destabilizing unrest. With the implosion of Syria, and the hit from US super-production, does this create an opportunity for Russia at short-term cost? Strange that we don't see more mention of China in the region... 05-----05 #] 09Apr2020 response to Ian Hepher's blog on Facebook Great information, thanks. Do you have the link? I am also looking forward to updated estimates of : the portion of "natural sort-of immunity", including "asymptomatic infected" ; mild illnesses of those admitted to hospital (80%?); serious symptoms; life-threatening; and the success rate of hospital treatments for the serious symptoms (which is hopefully improving quickly?). We probably won't have a good handle on this until >20-50% of ALL citizens are tested? Right now, the first group cannot be a concern for the over-whelmed medical systems. At least immune systems are handling a big chunk of the exposures - much more than with [Ebola, Spanish flu]? https://www.newsmax.com/health/health-news/virus-symptoms-recovery/2020/03/25/id/959868/ #] 25Mar2020 "About 80% of people get a very mild illness and they recover uneventfully. That's important to realize," said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. An additional 15% of people infected with coronavirus have more serious symptoms, and 5% develop life-threatening illness, experts say. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html #] 07Apr2020 update - An early report out of China found serious illness in 16% of cases. #] 28Feb2020 - https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032 08********08 08Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-doctors-and-nurses-who-beat-back-the-coronavirus-in-wuhan-want-you-to-know-about-their-months-in-hell-2020-04-08?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: What the doctors and nurses who beat back the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, want you to know about their months in hell Published: April 8, 2020 at 6:23 p.m. ET By Tracy Wen Liu >> great article! 08********08 07Apr2020 My MarketWatch blog https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-york-governor-looks-to-antibody-testing-as-a-potential-means-to-get-people-back-to-work-2020-04-07?mod=newsviewer_click New York governor looks to antibody testing as a potential means to get people back to work Published: April 7, 2020 at 6:59 p.m. ET By Beckie Strum As early indications show a possible plateauing of coronavirus cases in New York, state leaders are looking at how to return to some sort of normalcy 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - Interesting - something that I've been waiting to see : that people who have had the disease (or exposed and resistant) are good to go, but others will be at risk for the duration of this epidemic or its resurgence (possibly mutated) until a vaccine comes out (1-2 years?). Do they get a certification of [resistance, non-transmit-ability]? Will they be hot items on a reviving job market (probably NOT - as the vast majority of people will fall into that category once exposed)? The winds may be changing due to the efforts of a few, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems to be following carefully and adapting well. harry stratton - They would be resistant to re -infection (symptoms) but an A-symptomatic person can still pick up and carry the virus , wherever, for 14-29 days Howell - Harry, are you comfortable with the "instant disappearance, non-contagion" of diseases, for one who has developed immunity? This seems to ban implicity assumption in thys the news and expertise is provided. I am NOT knowledgeable about [virus, bacteria, microbe, parasite] diseases, but the mere re-occurence of diseases in [original, different life-stage, mutated] forms after [seasons, years, decades], seem to leave a huge gap in the concept, apart from assuming that it was carried off elsewhere or exists in some localised bio-reservoir (which is fine, but I'm looking for more). Malaria (parasite?), Herpes, HIV, and pretty well all of the big pandemics like [cholera, influenza, smallpox], and many I don't remember, continue on. So do the bacteria, viruses in your digestive system etc. "Shazam, the virus is gone" isn't being claimed by anybody, but that impression kind of stuck with me from the news coverage. John G - Which would tell you that the number of actual cases is in the million already Howell -Likely, isofar as "actually exposed" but not in the reported (confirmed) cases, as per https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html For the 2017-2018 seasonal flu, IHME estimates were ~45 M illnesses, which doesn't include "exposed but not ill enough to care or notice". Just taking 3 k deaths so far in the US, adding by 61 k $ flu deaths in 2017-2018, and multiplying by 45 M gives you complete nonsense (I admit), but its a big number. IHME projects 82 k deaths in the USA by 04Aug2020, so both by the IHME model projection, and by comparisons to 2017-18 seasonal flu, we have a long way to go yet, and millions are already touched by it. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/china-will-learn-from-its-coronavirus-failures-51586282934?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Fears of a Chinese Global Takeover Are Greatly Exaggerated Last Updated: April 7, 2020 at 4:47 p.m. ET First Published: April 7, 2020 at 2:08 p.m. ET Susan Thornton (fucking dumb article!, but at least a lof recent epidemics in China) We are still in the throes of the pandemic, yet alarm bells have already been ringing in the U.S. and elsewhere over China’s possible gains from this crisis. Some worry that the crisis will shake the world order and put a new dog on top. These fears are greatly exaggerated; China will not emerge from this crisis as a dominant world power. It has much to answer for in its early handling of the outbreak, and it will come under enormous postcrisis pressures, as others have noted. But it will use the crisis to adapt and change, as it has in the past. I lived in Chengdu during the 2003 SARS outbreak, and while many others have made comparisons between SARS and Covid-19, few have highlighted that China learned from SARS. China failed to disclose the SARS novel coronavirus between its discovery in November 2002 and March 2003. Word leaked out slowly, until an infected doctor traveled to a wedding in Hong Kong and many others spread the virus around the world. But after SARS, China made many improvements to its disease surveillance and health systems, some with the advice of U.S. Centers for Disease Control counterparts. Since SARS, China has confronted several avian flus, H1N1, MERS, Ebola, Zika, African swine fever, and others. It has been adapting. The Covid-19 response seems to have been marred by early misjudgments and misreporting. China’s CDC did not acknowledge that human-to-human transmission was occurring until well into the epidemic. But despite the fumbles that may have cost precious time, the response was thankfully much different than 2003. The response was much faster and the early lockdown of Hubei was dramatic and unexpected. And it is likely that China will get to the bottom of what happened and will make changes again. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-short-investor-who-made-a-killing-during-the-financial-crisis-the-economic-shutdown-is-worse-than-the-coronavirus-2020-04-07?mod=newsviewer_click ‘Big Short’ investor says the shutdown is worse than the coronavirus: ‘It bleeds deep anguish and suicide’ Published: April 7, 2020 at 4:35 p.m. ET By Shawn Langlois ... He offered more detail in his emails this week to Bloomberg News as to why he would immediately lift stay-at-home orders for everybody but high-risk groups. "I would let the virus circulate in the population that is not likely to get severe disease from it," he wrote. "This is the only path that comes close to balancing the needs of all groups. Vaccines are not coming anytime soon, so natural immunity is the only way out for now. Every day, every week in the current situation is ruining innumerable lives in a criminally unjust manner." Meanwhile, the COVID-19 tally keeps rising in the U.S., home to the most confirmed cases at almost 400,000, with 11,851 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Globally, here are now 1.39 million cases and 79,091 deaths. Another 292,973 people have recovered. >> Awesome, tuys (Trump and him) make sense! 08&&&&&&&&08 Howell - It's great to see someone stand out and question the current orthodoxy. It will be interesting to see what % of COVID-19 serious cases are saved by "flattening the curve" (eg reducing peak (shock) demands on hospital resources to reduce triaging and effects on other patients). Will this just end up as an exceptionally bad flu season? https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html Nabil Istafananus - The problem with this reasoning is you can't prove the counterfactual. It is absolutely clear, this virus left unabated and no vaccines is more than 10 times more deadly than the flu. After we open up the economy in 60 days, these same folks will say, see, this was only as bad as the flu and they won't believe that social distancing actually saved millions of lives. We can't prove it. I trust the infectious disease experts and the massive mobilization of our scientists for effective treatment will be enough to open things up gradually. Folks who are saying opening up the economy without a strong testing and proven treatments are short-term thinkers and simply protecting their porfolios. The stock market will come back. Take a deep breath and calm down folks. We're in this together and I trust that we will not be locked down forever. Howell - Nabil Istafananus - Thanks, and I agree with your comments. Believe me, I am not looking for "proofs", nor could I expect that. But I am hoping to see a range of estimates over time based on diverse approaches (what I call "multiple conflicting hypothesis") that are transparent and available (subject to privacy constraints etc, in the health area, of course). At the end of the day, lessons learned and comparisons to past pandemics are not just inevitable, but part of the process of improving (we hope). Others will not have our perspective, nor do we have theirs, which is normal. 05-----05 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html Burden of influenza CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010. 08&&&&&&&&08 Hopefully the COVID-19 situation will have improved by at least the middle of August so that fans can get back into their normal baseball stadiums? If the COVID-19 deaths end up at ~85 k (thousand), this is like an exceptionally bad flu season! Nobody was sure how this would turn out, but China had already shown the way and something of what could be expected. Very different context, though, given the very tough measures taken in China, and they seem to have been ready for this (thanks to SARS etc?). However, if deaths turn out to be 250 k or 1 M (million), then it is in a somewhat different class, perhaps like the Spanish flu. Estimates of death and disruption to lives because of the economic impacts of self-isolation and business shutdowns are important, as we don't do that for seasonal flu, and COVID-19 sets a precedent. A rule of thumb of 40,000 deaths per 1% increase in unmployment appeared in the film "The Big Short", and apparently is used in some economics classes, but it seems that is a guess in the dark, and I think it's crazy to extrapolate that to 20-25% unemployment. By now, I think that everyone realizes how serious the impacts are of "social distancing" as currently applied, but also how important that has been to allow the health care system to cope. Thank goodness for the ventilators that were on hand, and kudos to medical personnel on the front lines. http://www.billhowell.ca/Pandemics,%20health,%20and%20the%20Sun/200407%20CDC%20influenza%20burden%20USA,%202010-2018.png https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/south-korea-coronavirus-covid-19-testing-cases-deaths-51586265433?mod=newsviewer_click South Korea Is Beating Covid-19. Here’s How. Published: April 7, 2020 at 9:18 a.m. ET By Al Root So far, more than 10,000 Koreans have tested positive for coronavirus, with the first case reported around Feb. 19. Almost 6,700 people have recovered and, as of April 6, there were roughly 3,600 active cases. "Testing is absolutely critical with a fast-traveling virus like this," South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said to the World Economic Forum Covid Task Force. "We have tested over 350,000 cases so far—some patients are tested many times before they are released, so we can say they are fully cured. Altogether, we’re talking about one out of 145 or one out of 150 people having been tested so far." >> Howell : 10,000/350,000 ~3% develop the disease, most don't 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-worst-is-behind-us-with-the-most-attractive-risk-reward-in-years-it-is-time-to-buy-stocks-morgan-stanley-says-2020-04-06?mod=nextup_bomw ‘The worst is behind us’ — the most attractive risk-reward in years means it is time to buy stocks, Morgan Stanley says Published: April 6, 2020 at 5:24 p.m. ET By Callum Keown Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson said that for stocks and investors the worst was behind us. He said bear markets end with recessions and that stocks had reached a good entry point for investors. "With the forced liquidation of assets in the past month largely behind us, unprecedented and unbridled monetary and fiscal intervention led by the U.S. and the most attractive valuation we have seen since 2011, we stick to our recent view that the worst is behind us for this cyclical bear market that began two years ago, not last month," Wilson said in a note. He added that current stock market levels would prove to be good entry points on a 6-12-month horizon. "Bear markets end with recessions, they don’t begin with them, making the risk/reward more attractive today than it’s been in years; with the twist that the next leg of the bull market could look much different than the last…" 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/some-fabrics-are-more-effective-than-others-for-making-diy-face-masks-heres-which-ones-are-best-2020-04-07 After watching surgeon general’s Twitter video on face masks, doctor sent him research on the best materials to use Published: April 7, 2020 at 12:25 p.m. ET By Elisabeth Buchwald Scott Segal, chairman of anesthesiology at Wake Forest Baptist Health, met Jerome Adams on Feb. 4 when Trump’s surgeon general visited the North Carolina medical facility to discuss HIV in Indiana and the opioid crisis https://www.marketwatch.com/story/some-fabrics-are-more-effective-than-others-for-making-diy-face-masks-heres-which-ones-are-best-2020-04-07 Scott Segal, chairman of anesthesiology at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina, studies the effectiveness of materials used to make homemade masks. ... The study used instruments that detected a fabric’s effectiveness at filtering small particles. Quilters’ cotton, a tightly woven high-thread-count fabric, can filter out some 70% to 79% of small particles including viruses, according to Segal’s research, which has not been submitted for publication and has not been peer-reviewed. That’s better than surgical masks, which Segal said filter out 65% of particles. (N95 masks offer the highest level of protection — filtering out 95% of air particles.) ... He added, "Some cotton fabrics filter less than 25% of air particles." 08********08 06Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-new-york-flattens-and-hospitalizations-fall-suggesting-social-distancing-is-working-2020-04-06?mod=newsviewer_click Number of coronavirus deaths in New York flattens and hospitalizations fall, suggesting social distancing is working Published: April 6, 2020 at 7:17 p.m. ET By Liz Lucking Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned against making a ‘mistake’ of overconfidence and thinking the crisis is nearly over 08&&&&&&&&08 My questions : If the curve is flattening, could that mean one or more of the following : - the disease has already spread to much of the population (most seem to be resistant?), so cases will soon decline as happened in China? - the same cumulative number of people will have been infected by the end of the pandemic (not counting further waves that would be normal) as without social distancing, but spread out much more (it's not clear how the models handle that)? - by flattening the curve, is there some report on the "extra lives saved" due to lower demands on the medical systems and therefore the ability to care for patients has avoided much of the "triaging" that has happended in some [region,country]s? An IHME web-page mentionned something about a 20% reduction but it's not clear what theat really meant. I've lost track of the web-page,t a link to IMHE is : https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections - are [special, new] medical treatments helping a great deal (beyond the ventilators, and great medical care), given that we do not yet have a vaccine? Left out : Perhaps that is hardly possible anymore - almost everything is taken in a political context even when politics may be irrelevant to the [subject, many people who are involved] (or perhaps I am alone?). 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/naked-investors-not-coronavirus-numbers-will-determine-how-much-stocks-rally-2020-04-06?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Opinion: ‘Naked’ investors — not coronavirus numbers — will determine how much stocks rally Published: April 6, 2020 at 4:22 p.m. ET By Nigam Arora Investors who went all-in on stocks might sell once they recoup some of their losses, leading to a bigger decline in the market Who are the naked investors? The naked investors are those who were fully invested in the stock market at the peak, and many were buying on margin. In spite of warnings, these investors chose to go "naked" — that is, without any protection for their portfolios. This was like going out naked during winter. • The data we gather at The Arora Report shows that for the most part, naked investors are still fully naked. They continue to believe the best strategy in the stock market is to be always fully invested because the stock market always goes up. • Data from the 1987 crash, the 2000 technology bubble and 2008’s Great Recession show that naked investors hold on until the stock market rallies 20% to 30%. Upon such a rally, naked investors breathe a sigh of relief that their losses are smaller, and they start selling. • When the stock market goes about 5% to 10% above the top band of the support/resistance zone shown on the chart, based on past data, the expectation is that naked investors will start selling and, thus, contain any rally absent a cure for the coronavirus. 08********08 #] 03Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/biotech-could-be-a-big-winner-in-a-post-pandemic-world-51585953254?mod=newsviewer_click 7 Promising Biotech Stocks in a Postpandemic World Published: April 3, 2020 at 6:34 p.m. ET By Lauren R. Rublin Referenced Symbols IBB -1.34% GILD +1.59% BPMC -1.15% NVTA -0.23% BLUE -1.71% FATE +8.87% CRSP -0.32% 08********08 #] 02Apr2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-hard-truth-about-the-mortgage-markets-that-isnt-being-told-2020-04-02?mod=MW_article_top_stories Opinion: This hard truth about the mortgage markets isn’t being told Published: April 2, 2020 at 3:35 p.m. ET By Keith Jurow Real estate industry sees no problem, hears no problem, speaks no problem Keith's website : http://www.keithjurow.com/?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline 05-----05 Howell digging [Epidemic, pandemic]s impacts in the USA (Center for Disease Control (CDC), worldwide numbers not shown below): Year cases hosp deaths epidemic-pandemic 2012 2 2 0 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (obviously NOT an epidemic in the USA) 2009 60.8M 274k 12.5k novel influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 virus 2003 8 SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) (not an epidemic in the USA?) 1968 100k influenza A (H3N2) virus. Most excess deaths were in people >= 65 years 1957 116k new influenza A (H2N2) virus ("Asian Flu"), avian flu components 1918 675k H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html Estimates of pandemic influenza mortality ranged from 0.03 percent of the world’s population during the 1968 H3N2 pandemic to 1 percent to 3 percent of the world’s population during the 1918 H1N1 pandemic. It is estimated that 0.001 percent to 0.007 percent of the world’s population died of respiratory complications associated with (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection during the first 12 months the virus circulated. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic. Few young people had any existing immunity (as detected by antibody response) to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus, but nearly one-third of people over 60 years old had antibodies against this virus, likely from exposure to an older H1N1 virus earlier in their lives. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/ Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is viral respiratory illness that is new to humans. It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since spread to several other countries, including the United States. Most people infected with MERS-CoV developed severe respiratory illness, including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Many of them have died. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html Few young people had any existing immunity (as detected by antibody response) to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus, but nearly one-third of people over 60 years old had antibodies against this virus, likely from exposure to an older H1N1 virus earlier in their lives. From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus. https://www.cdc.gov/sars/ Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003. The illness spread to more than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia before the SARS global outbreak of 2003 was contained. Since 2004, there have not been any known cases of SARS reported anywhere in the world. The content in this website was developed for the 2003 SARS epidemic. But some guidelines are still being used. Any new SARS updates will be posted on this website. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html It was first noted in the United States in September 1968. The estimated number of deaths was 1 million?? worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States. The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus. Seasonal H3N2 viruses, which are associated with severe illness in older people, undergo regular antigenic drift. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html In February 1957, a new influenza A (H2N2) virus emerged in East Asia, triggering a pandemic ("Asian Flu"). This H2N2 virus was comprised of three different genes from an H2N2 virus that originated from an avian influenza A virus, including the H2 hemagglutinin and the N2 neuraminidase genes. It was first reported in Singapore in February 1957, Hong Kong in April 1957, and in coastal cities in the United States in summer 1957. The estimated number of deaths was 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. https://journals.lww.com/pidj/Fulltext/2005/11001/History_and_Recent_Advances_in_Coronavirus.12.aspx History and Recent Advances in Coronavirus Discovery Kahn, Jeffrey S. MD, PhD*; McIntosh, Kenneth MD†Author Information The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal: November 2005 - Volume 24 - Issue 11 - p S223-S227 Ongoing research using serologic techniques has resulted in a considerable amount of information regarding the epidemiology of the human respiratory coronaviruses. It was found that in temperate climates, respiratory coronavirus infections occur more often in the winter and spring than in the summer and fall. Data revealed that coronavirus infections contribute as much as 35% of the total respiratory viral activity during epidemics. Overall, he proportion of adult colds produced by coronaviruses was estimated at 15%.8 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/brace-for-the-deepest-recession-on-record-says-bofa-analysts-as-jobless-claims-surge-to-66-million-2020-04-02?mod=mw_latestnews Brace for the ‘deepest recession on record,’ says BofA analysts, as jobless claims surge to 6.6 million Published: April 2, 2020 at 4:21 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre BofA economists forecast that the unemployment rate will soon hit 15.6% from 3.5% as of February To that end, BofA sees between 16 and 20 million job losses, which could send the unemployment rate, which stands at 3.5% as of February’s report, surging within a few months to 15.6%, which would by far outstrip the unemployment rate during the 2007-09 recession. 08&&&&&&&&08 My reply to a blogger : harry stratton : The large spread of covid19 is that it is a completely new strain of SARS . NO ONE had any latent immunity from previous contact / infection . Most persons that have been infected ,and survive will have a degree of immunity to reinfection . It is safe to say when the testing shows a leveling/decline in spread ALL of the population will mirror that, whether tested or not . The VACCINE is needed not so much for this go around but for the next encounter with the covid19 mutation that is certain to happen , just like every virus , flue or whatever , this virus is certain to do. Bill Howell - Good point, harry. The CDC website explains that for the 2003 SARS-CoV epidemic , Tom Simmons - It mutates slowly and only in small increments. The vaccine will be effective for this encounter. Because it changes slowly, a second vaccine should be ready in advance of any future outbreak. 08********08 #] 01Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pandemic-resources.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/index.html Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is viral respiratory illness that is new to humans. It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since spread to several other countries, including the United States. Most people infected with MERS-CoV developed severe respiratory illness, including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Many of them have died. https://www.cdc.gov/sars/index.html Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003. The illness spread to more than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia before the SARS global outbreak of 2003 was contained. Since 2004, there have not been any known cases of SARS reported anywhere in the world. The content in this website was developed for the 2003 SARS epidemic. But some guidelines are still being used. Any new SARS updates will be posted on this website. On October 5, 2012, the National Select Agent Registry Program published a final rule declaring SARS coronavirus a select agent. A select agent is a bacterium, virus or toxin that has the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html Updated March 26, 2020 CDC is responding to a pandemic of respiratory disease spreading from person-to-person caused by a novel (new) coronavirus. The disease has been named "coronavirus disease 2019" (abbreviated "COVID-19"). This situation poses a serious public health risk. The federal government is working closely with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners, as well as public health partners, to respond to this situation. COVID-19 can cause mild to severe illness; most severe illness occurs in older adults. COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in people and many different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread between people such as with MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and now with this new virus (named SARS-CoV-2). The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a betacoronavirus, like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. All three of these viruses have their origins in bats. The sequences from U.S. patients are similar to the one that China initially posted, suggesting a likely single, recent emergence of this virus from an animal reservoir. Early on, many of the patients at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread. Later, a growing number of patients reportedly did not have exposure to animal markets, indicating person-to-person spread. Person-to-person spread was subsequently reported outside Hubei and in countries outside China, including in the United States. Some international destinations now have ongoing community spread with the virus that causes COVID-19, as do some parts of the United States. Community spread means some people have been infected and it is not known how or where they became exposed. Learn more about the spread of this newly emerged coronavirus. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic: A New Flu Virus Emerges The (H1N1)pdm09 virus was very different from H1N1 viruses that were circulating at the time of the pandemic. Few young people had any existing immunity (as detected by antibody response) to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus, but nearly one-third of people over 60 years old had antibodies against this virus, likely from exposure to an older H1N1 virus earlier in their lives. Since the (H1N1)pdm09 virus was very different from circulating H1N1 viruses, vaccination with seasonal flu vaccines offered little cross-protection against (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection. While a monovalent (H1N1)pdm09 vaccine was produced, it was not available in large quantities until late November—after the peak of illness during the second wave had come and gone in the United States. From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus. From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus. Estimates of pandemic influenza mortality (percent of the world’s population) : (H1N1)pdm09 virus on the global population during the first year was less severe than that of previous pandemics. ranged from 1-3% 1918 H1N1 pandemic 0.03% 1968 H3N2 pandemic 0.001-0.007% 2009 (H1N1)pdm09 pandemic (first 12 months the virus circulated) The United States mounted a complex, multi-faceted and long-term response to the pandemic, summarized in The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic: Summary Highlights, April 2009-April 2010. On August 10, 2010, WHO declared an end to the global 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. However, (H1N1)pdm09 virus continues to circulate as a seasonal flu virus, and cause illness, hospitalization, and deaths worldwide every year. 05-----05 Howell, revised forecasts (peak = S&P500 index on ~01Mar2020) 1929 pattern forecast : 1. "fast dead cat bounce" - taking 23Mar2020 as bounce-up - 01Apr2020 start falling to 50%-off peak over 3 months (by 01Jul2020) 2. "medium- speed dead cat" - bounces back up to 25%-off peak over 6 months (by 01Jan2020) - drops to 40%-50% off in 3 months (to 01Oct2020) 3. "long road to hell" - continuation of step 2 over next 2 years (by 01Jan2023) to 70%-off peak - 5 intermediate dead cats with 6 months between 4. "1 generation (20 yrs) of recovery" - - may need a WWIII stimulus 1918 Spanish flu forecast - DJIA had 6 month major period Weekly trading #] 02Apr2020 S&P500 seems to bee sitting still trading band of 2400-2650 for now 08********08 #] 01Apr2020 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-index-futures-fall-as-trump-issues-grim-warning-on-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-04-01?mod=newsviewer_click Stocks get rocked to start April trade as investors weigh coronavirus duration; small-cap index plunges 7% Published: April 1, 2020 at 4:38 p.m. ET By Mark DeCambre and Sunny Oh All three main stock-market indexes book losses of about 4.4% https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-is-getting-dangerously-close-to-the-mother-of-support-zones-2020-04-01?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Opinion: The stock market is getting dangerously close to the ‘mother of support zones’ Published: April 1, 2020 at 10:28 a.m. ET By Nigam Arora Watch key stocks including Apple and Nvidia to determine whether investors are holding on or giving up mother of support zones - 2015-16 bottom https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investor-money-is-flowing-into-alibaba-amazon-intel-and-microsoft-2020-03-25?mod=article_inline Opinion: Bullish investors pour money into Alibaba, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft Published: March 25, 2020 at 4:45 p.m. ET By Nigam Arora That’s what professional investors are buying. Momentum chasers are purchasing Apple, AMD, Netflix and Tesla Alibaba is the 'most interesting' among a group of 11 stocks of large technology companies. ?source? The Federal Reserve, President Trump and Congress have come up with $6 trillion in stimulus and relief programs to help the economy. 08&&&&&&&&08 #] 01Apr2020 My comment - posted 02Apr2020 MarketWatch https://www.marketwatch.com/story/brace-for-the-deepest-recession-on-record-says-bofa-analysts-as-jobless-claims-surge-to-66-million-2020-04-02?mod=mw_latestnews COVID-19 "Peak versus Area of the pandemic curve"? To what extent does the AREA under the pandemic curve area remain the same until effective vaccines are developed? In other words, does "flattening the curve" result in much the same [number, % of population] of infected people as simply letting the pandemic spread? : - On the plus side, by spreading out the disease over time, there could be a huge reduction of the peak loads on the medical system, plus there is more time to build up people, resources] to tackle the problem. That, plus other factors, might significantly reduce [severe cases, deaths], but : what % reduction under what scenarios? - On the minus side, widespread shut-downs damage people's work, businesses, finances, i.e. the economy in general. An oft-cited number is that 40,000 US citizens die for every % increase in unemployment. I don't trust that number, but the politically-correct use it to push their agenda, so now it can be used with confidence where they don't like it (not by their reasoning, of course). Several economists have forecast 20-25% unemployment with COVID-19, plus a risk of major recession. Is there any validity in any of the numbers below for projected deaths in the USA ? : - 800,000 from recession (@ 40,000 deaths per % unemployment increase) - 250,000 from COVID-19 (Donald Trump ~31Mar2020, project to the end of April?) -10,000,000 from COVID-19 (a friend's guess - you can do this too) A very nice amateur analysis, and the only quantitative model that I've seen in the net so far, was Posted on February 26, 2020 by Chris Stelter at : https://selenianboondocks.com/2020/02/modeling-covid-19-when-will-the-peak-occur-in-the-us/ Chris states "... the usual logistical model (which I think turns out to be the wrong model for a virus… but let’s just run with it for now) the usual logistical model (which I think turns out to be the wrong model for a virus… but let’s just run with it for now) ...". - Will the highly infectious stage attenuate naturally, for example with the seasons? (influenza and ebola come to mind) - If the disease attenuates naturally will it simple re-surge shortly thereafter? As overly simplistic, alternative assumptions : - Do nothing - In other words, the same amount of [severe sickness, death], but spread over more or less time. - Middle of the road - self-isolation and other measures until the (very much reduced) rate of new infections stabilises at a But the benefits in providing a much better medical care for severe cases could dramatically reduce the number of deaths, understanding that this is a much lower fraction of the populationj that reporting suggests (perhaps 0.8 to 2%)? - Shut down the economy, and take the hit - the curve is "decaptitated" at the level afforded by [self-isolation, busines shutdowns] for a period of time that is only a small multiple (say 1.5 to 6 times) of the "do nothing" scenario. This seems to be the current assumption. But is it reasonable? I have no idea of which [scenarios, assumptions] are more likely. I'm sure that there are [health, science] professionals who have solid opinions about that, but they are dwarfed by dwarfed by a vast majority that don't. It's probably somewhere in papers and analysis, but is not profiled in the media. Maybe China, with so much [historical, recent] experience with [epidemics, pandemics] made hard decisions early, haken the hit that they deemed necessary, and now are getting on with life, cautiously. "Peak versus Area of the pandemic curve" - Is this issue yet another great [omission, deception] by our con-scientists? Is nobody awake in the mass media (again)? First, the public is led to believe that a two- period of self-isolation will do the trick, then a month, then a month and a half, and currently, so late in game, at least one or two journalists (Financial Post in Canada was the first that heard) pull out internal government documents suggesting a "best case cenario of July". But NO mention in the media of the worst case or median scenarios? Cut : Historically, people have always tried to hide from pandemics, with limited success (but critically important for those who saved themselves). There are occasional mentions that we aren't really "safe" (like influenza safe) until vaccines are developed for the different corona variants, plus the ability to rapidly adapt vaccines for new [variants, mutations] that can be expected over the next few decades with recurrences. I know nothing about infectious diseases, but over the decades even a simpleton like myself learns to smell out a rat, to spot the King with no clothes in the area of science. I'm used to this, mostly in the areas of [fundamental theoretical physics, astronomy, geology, history, computational intelligence...]. I am somewhat blind to this in my hobby focus area of Computational Intelligence. CI is the epicenter of many of the critical excitement, not Artificial Intelligence (AI), the much older conceptual basis for "machine intelligence", although the [old-timer AI experts, media] have succeeded in "saran wrapping" concepts together to ensure continuity of support (actually, more from misunderstanding). Even many, if not most, CI experts use the AI term now. Unfortunately, that hides the very significant differences in the concepts, and leaves the public blind to the nature of the technology (unless they do their homework, sifting through mountains of misleading material). Pandemic checklist (horribly incomplete, omitting what is commonly said in the media) : - pandemics often have recurred in waves over decades - while the very [old, young] are often the most susceptible, really bad [epidemics, pandemics] are less discriminating (not so much COVID-19, by appearances) - while I don't trust any analysis fully, there seems to be stronger correlations of [disease, astronomy] than with many of the "controlable [social, helath] variables". Many aspects of solar activity have been pointed out for a very long time (perhaps even centuries?). 08********08 #] 31Mar2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/coronavirus-vaccine-update-when-will-a-covid-19-vaccine-be-ready-51585587652?mod=newsviewer_click When Will a Coronavirus Vaccine be Ready? These 9 Programs Are Making Progress. Last Updated: March 30, 2020 at 2:05 p.m. ET First Published: March 30, 2020 at 1:02 p.m. ET By Josh Nathan-Kazis My attempted blog (couldn't post) 08&&&&&&&&08 Wow! We're lucky, as this is a perfect time to [apply, test, screen, prove] more advanced science. Have I missed something? Because I haven't noticed any recent media news about armies of protesters (like the anti-GMO types) trying to stop good men from trying to build great businesses by providing awesome [goods, services, capabilities]. Am I delusional - maybe like war, COVID-19 will provide a platform for launching into new technologies quickly? Of course, safety first, just less obstacle courses to bleed the doers? Of course, there are risks, but perhaps the context puts them into perspective for once? 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trillions-in-coronavirus-spending-could-explode-deficits-to-world-war-two-levels-2020-03-31?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore Trillions in coronavirus spending could explode deficits to World War II levels Published: March 31, 2020 at 4:39 p.m. ET By Jeffry Bartash The U.S. could add $5 trillion in deficit spending in the fight vs. COVID-19 Altogether, deficit spending in the next two years could drive the national debt to around $29 trillion from an estimated $23.6 trillion right now. Previously the U.S. was not expected to reach that mark until 2025. To put deficits in perspective, economists like to measure them against the size of the economy based on gross domestic product. The federal budget deficit in the current fiscal year is set to easily exceed the postwar record of 9.8% of gross domestic product in fiscal 2009. The deficit-to-GDP ratio topped 20% from 1943 to 1945 — when the U.S. became the "arsenal of democracy" — and peaked at almost 27% in 1943. 08********08 #] 30Mar2020 05-----05 One of the best articles I've seen : https://spectator.us/understand-report-figures-covid-deaths/ How to understand — and report — figures for ‘COVID deaths’ Nuance is crucial — not just in understanding the disease, but for understanding the burden it might place on health services in coming days Dr John Lee We often see a ratio expressed: deaths, as a proportion of cases. The figure is taken as a sign of how lethal COVID-19 is, but the ratios vary wildly. In the US, 1.8 percent (2,191 deaths in 124,686 confirmed cases), Italy 10.8 percent, Spain 8.2 percent, Germany 0.8 percent, France 6.1 percent, UK 6.0 percent. A 15-fold difference in death rate for the same disease seems odd among such similar countries: all developed, all with good healthcare systems. All tackling the same disease. Next, what about the deaths? Many UK health spokespersons have been careful to repeatedly say that the numbers quoted in the UK indicate death with the virus, not death due to the virus — this matters. When giving evidence in parliament a few days ago, Prof. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London said that he now expects fewer than 20,000 COVID-19 deaths in the UK but, importantly, two-thirds of these people would have died anyway. In other words, he suggests that the crude figure for ‘COVID deaths’ is three times higher than the number who have actually been killed by COVID-19. (Even the two-thirds figure is an estimate — it would not surprise me if the real proportion is higher.) The deaths apparently due to COVID-19, the COVID trajectory, will approach the overall death rate. It would appear that all deaths were caused by COVID-19 — would this be true? No. The severity of the epidemic would be indicated by how many extra deaths (above normal) there were overall. Let me finish with a couple of examples. Colleagues in Germany feel sure that their numbers are nearer the truth than most, because they had plenty of testing capacity ready when the pandemic struck. Currently the death rate is 0.8 percent in Germany. If we assume that about one-third of the recorded deaths are due to COVID-19 and that they have managed to test a third of all cases in the country who actually have the disease (a generous assumption), then the death rate for COVID-19 would be 0.08 percent. That might go up slightly, as a result of death lag. If we assume at present that this effect might be 25 percent (which seems generous), that would give an overall, and probably upper limit, of death rate of 0.1 percent, which is similar to seasonal flu. The number of recorded deaths will increase in the coming days, but so will the population affected by the disease — in all probability much faster than the increase in deaths. Because we are looking so closely at the presence of COVID-19 in those who die — as I look at in more detail in my article in this week’s UK edition of The Spectator — the fraction of those who die with COVID-19 (but not of it) in a population where the incidence is increasing, is likely to increase even more. So the measured increase in numbers of deaths is not necessarily a cause for alarm, unless it demonstrates excess deaths — 340 deaths out of 46,000 shows we are not near this at present. Britain has prepared for the worst, but it has not yet happened. The widespread testing of National Health Service staff recently announced may help provide a clearer indication of how far the disease has already spread within the population. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-reasons-why-the-us-spread-of-covid-19-could-be-worse-than-italy-2020-03-30?mod=newsviewer_click_seemore 5 reasons why the U.S. spread of COVID-19 could be worse than Italy Published: March 30, 2020 at 3:24 p.m. ET By Tomi Kilgore Infection growth likely to start slowing late-April before ‘second wave’ hits central U.S. cities; social distancing timeline likely to be pushed past April 30, Morgan Stanley says 08&&&&&&&&08 My comment : Without the availability of several vaccines for different corona virus variants (current and possibly new), won't the curve just shoot up again when self-isolation is reduced? Many thought (still think) that a "two week to a month to 2 month" period of self isolation would somehow "solve" the problem. But what if it's more like six months to a year? There seems to be something wrong with the expectations that have been built up in the public, and the [self-righteous, politically-correct] aren't saying what they propose to do at much higher levels of serious infections - the tough decisions that follow. China may have done that, and may have made tough decisions early. They might also have long been more resistant to such viruses? "Flattening the curve" is an understandable objective, from the point of view of reducing the load on the medical facilities and personnel, providing time for the build-up of capabilities to deal with it, and giving time for "moderation [medicine, treatments]" that doesn't cure but at least reduces the impact of serious cases. Perhaps the [media, medical experts] refrain from revealing detailed projections out of fear that they might be wrong (sued), but at present some of the best analysis I've seen is by complete amateurs who at least provided their [models, assumptions, historical] comparisons, and discussed the scenarios and implications quantitatively. This also seems to be the case right across different areas of science. #] 31Mar2020 blog response, my comment Jons Ax : If people really "self" isolate with only a few family members, at the end of two weeks they will either have COVID-19 or be virus free. Testing can determine who should be allowed to go out. Unfortunately people still go out and don't keep proper distances and nor do proper cleaning so some will still have SARS-CoV-2 in their bodies. A factory that ships it's products could become a self contained unit with raw materials let set for 5 days before being used in manufacturing and then having the product loaded with no human to human interaction. Of course this would take the workers living on the premises for a while. I would think that some workers would think a temporary condition like that would be OK if they could get back to work and start making money again. After all, people deal with family members going on business trips and families deal with military members being deployed. My reply : Jons Ax - Thanks for your comment. I wonder, though, if [viruses, bacteria, microbes] survive for a long time in a dormant phase for [weeks, months, years], rather than simply being 100% eliminated by the bodies defenses? The common cold (some types of corona virus are involved, along with other pathogens?) might not be a good example, as it always seems to be active, although it has seasons of [high, low] prevalence. It seems that malaria (from what I've read, and my father's case) recurs on a ~7 year basis or something like that after the initial hit, albeit in milder forms? Herpes , if I remember correctly, is something like that too, although I have no idea of periodicity. Some kinds of skin diseases as well ([shackles, psoriasis])? Transmission is a different matter, though, and that seems to have "contagious periods" in individuals, but I have no idea of the details. JonsAx : Hi William. Malaria is a parasite protozoan that is good at hiding in the liver in a dormant stage and becomes active once in a while. Some bacteria can produce spores that are very hardy and long living but they stretch the definition of living in the spore state. The specific mechanism to go from spore to bacteria again in the right environment is not well known. Herpes hides in neural ganglia to avoid detection during a latent stage. On the other hand, the corona virus that is common cold survives by continuing to infect people and genetically changing enough that body defenses usually don't wipe it out before it has been passed on. In fact, I joke that you don't start getting better with a cold until you have solidly passed it on to someone else. SARS-CoV-2 is not a particularly hardy virus but it is good at infecting others who get too close to an infected person or get the virus from a surface that it is on. MY eply : Thanks, Jons Ax! 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/global-markets-retreat-as-virus-spread-continues-while-australian-stocks-surge-on-stimulus-plan-51585559920?mod=newsviewer_click President Donald Trump said social distancing measures would continue through the end of April and set June as his target for returning to normal. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-chinas-economy-hasnt-gotten-better-the-implications-could-be-more-serious-than-investors-realize-2020-03-23?mod=newsviewer_click No, China’s economy hasn’t gotten better. The implications could be more serious than investors realize Published: March 30, 2020 at 1:33 p.m. ET By Andrea Riquier ‘There’s going to be mixed signals sent to markets,’ says Leland Miller Leland Miller, CEO of the China Beige Book Miller thinks it is critical that investors understand how bad the downturn in China is so that they can read official reports with some healthy skepticism. "There’s going to be mixed signals sent to markets," he said. "Gloom in Europe and the U.S. but growth in China. That will be very alluring. But it will be wrong." Specifically, Miller expects the Chinese government will report a "March recovery" and then data from then on "will shoot to the moon." That will help China appear to have met President Xi Jinping’s growth targets. But investors need to understand that the Chinese economy hasn’t just fallen off a cliff because it was the epicenter of the blow from the coronavirus, Miller said. It is also because of the way the virus is now rippling around the world. "The China recovery story is no longer just about domestic resilience, but also factors beyond Beijing’s control," the report explained. Some industries may be able to decouple, but some players, like Apple Inc. AAPL, 1.954%, may find themselves too dependent on China, Miller said. In fact, if the U.S. and China find themselves locked in a Cold War, there may be political implications for American companies that continue to rely on Chinese supply chains. 05-----05 TradingView, SPY About to hit MAJOR Right Shoulder Resistence AcornWealthCorp Mar 26SPY He pegs it at ~2750 at current date 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-wont-hit-coronavirus-lows-until-these-3-criteria-are-met-says-goldman-sachs-2020-03-30?mod=newsviewer_click Stock market won’t hit coronavirus lows until these 3 criteria are met, says Goldman Sachs Published: March 30, 2020 at 9:45 a.m. ET By Chris Matthews Stock-market analysts at Goldman Sachs believe the S&P 500 will end this year more than 19% above current levels, but warned investors in a note this weekend that there will be short-term pain the markets in coming weeks. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-investors-are-too-optimistic-theyre-running-up-abbott-johnson-johnson-and-general-motors-without-doing-any-research-2020-03-30?mod=newsviewer_click Stock investors are too optimistic — they’re running up Abbott, Johnson & Johnson and General Motors without doing any research Published: March 30, 2020 at 10:27 a.m. ET By Nigam Arora Companies that are pitching in to help defeat the deadly virus may get kudos, but they won’t earn any extra money Please click here for a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF DIA, 1.498%, which tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 1.527%. Note the following: • Look at the last bar. After touching the top band of the mother of support zones, the stock market has moved above the top band of the support/resistance zone. From a technical perspective, this shows significant optimism in the face of worsening coronavirus news. • The chart shows that RSI (relative strength index) is nowhere near the level shown at the last major bottom. This indicates there is significant risk in this market that investors are underappreciating. • The chart shows the Arora call on Jan. 22 that the coronavirus could cause problems for the stock market. This call was repeated on Jan. 30. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index SPX, 1.904% was on its way to new high Feb. 19. • When the Dow was in 16,000-point range, I was calling for the index to reach 30,000 while President Trump was in office. • When the Dow reached almost 30,000, I didn’t raised my target. It was not because I knew the coronavirus would come along, but because our adaptive ZYX Asset Allocation Model was keeping us cautious. Here are a few examples: • Abbott Laboratories ABT, 7.403% has come up with a coronavirus test that takes five minutes. The revenues from the coronavirus test will dwarf those that Abbott is likely to lose due to issues related to coronavirus. Investors are running up the stock. • Johnson & Johnson JNJ, 6.561% is making great progress on a coronavirus vaccine. Johnson & Johnson is likely to sell the vaccine at cost. This will have no material increase in earnings. Investors are running up the stock. • General Motors GM, -0.748% will make ventilators. It is selling them at cost, so they will have no impact on earnings. Investors are running up the stock. • Medtronic MDT, 3.004% makes ventilators, which are a small portion of its business. At the same time, Medtronic is suffering because its sales are likely to drop due to the postponement of non-essential surgeries. Investors aren’t seeing the whole picture. And, yes, they are running up the stock. The foregoing shows that there is simply too much optimism. Investors aren’t able to judge correctly. In my 30-plus years in the stock market, I have never seen investors behave this way. To decide on buying or selling, use an objective framework. Please read "Stock market investors are asking ‘should I buy or sell?’ Here’s how to decide." 08********08 #] 27Mar2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amid-coronavirus-stimulus-push-kentucky-republican-manages-to-anger-everyone-from-donald-trump-to-john-kerry-heres-how-2020-03-27?mod=newsviewer_click Amid coronavirus stimulus push, Kentucky Republican manages to anger everyone from Donald Trump to John Kerry — here’s how Published: March 27, 2020 at 1:36 p.m. ET By Victor Reklaitis Massie, a libertarian-leaning conservative who has been called "Mr. No," has said he objects to the huge package because of how much it adds to the national debt, and he has said he could support it if the legislation were just about helping people get more unemployment benefits. He is known for moves such as casting the lone vote against a recent Hong Kong human-rights bill — and for clashing with Kerry during a hearing last year on climate change. https://www.barrons.com/articles/ceos-gorged-on-buybacks-for-years-now-they-want-bailouts-51585258543?mod=hp_DAY_11 CEOs Gorged on Buybacks for Years. Now They Want Bailouts. William Lazonick March 26, 2020 5:35 pm ET https://www.barrons.com/articles/fiscal-and-monetary-actions-countries-have-taken-to-combat-coronavius-51585326738?mod=hp_DAY_5 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/why-asian-stock-and-bond-markets-merit-a-closer-look-51585351800?mod=newsviewer_click Asian Markets Merit Attention by Gavekal Research March 24: Chinese fixed income was one of the few asset classes that did its job in the past month. As many investors will have paid little attention to the asset class, this performance could yet spur a shift in assets from Western to Asian bond markets. Such a shift could be justified by the increased divergence in policy-making between the two regions—in the West, domestic economic collapse followed by universal basic income and modern monetary theory; in the East, rapid detection and quarantine with limited monetary and fiscal stimulus. Along with fixed income, Asian equities may also warrant a look. Here again, we have in the past month started to witness outperformance from Asia, which is unusual, as in broad selloffs, Asian equities tend to deliver worse returns than developed-market equities. In big equity market downturns, Asia has been the "high beta" play; never the "low beta" play. Historically, the region has been a "price monetizer" and tended to thrive during inflationary booms. This makes Asia’s recent outperformance all the more interesting. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/dow-jones-industrial-average-ignores-coronavirus-for-one-week-it-wont-be-able-to-again-51585353765?mod=newsviewer_click The Dow Ignored the Spread of Coronavirus Last Week. It Won’t Be Able to Anymore. Published: March 27, 2020 at 8:02 p.m. ET By Ben Levisohn The financial stimulus and rescue measures signed into law Friday will bring people financial relief, but it isn’t clear that they will be enough for the economy to bridge the gap of a near-shutdown or prevent another stock market swoon—one that almost surely is coming. "The market could easily go back and test the low," writes Stuart Kaye, portfolio manager at Matarin Capital Management. "It will depend on the progression of the disease and its cost to society." That would square with the historical record. Bear markets rarely end without retesting the low. In 2008, the passage of the financial-system bailout package and other measures helped the market soar off its low. Attention then turned to the real economy and corporate earnings. The initial estimates were off—way off—and it wasn’t until analysts got a grip on the profit path that the S&P 500 found a bottom on March 9, 2009, says RBC strategist Lori Calvasina. Analysts today are busy cutting their forecasts for earnings—but likely not fast enough. According to Refinitiv, S&P 500 corporations will see their earnings drop 0.2% in 2020. They had been predicting high-single digits heading into the year. Wall Street’s strategists, though, are warning of a much bigger drop. Calvasina calls for S&P 500 companies to report earnings of $139 a share in 2020, down 16% from $165 in 2019. But she acknowledges that it’s anyone’s guess right now. 08********08 26Mar2020 Key ideas from below : 3. Buy gold Gold is immune to recessions and so far it has been resistant to corona crises as well. Returns are usually inversely proportional to the returns of both stocks and bonds. So often, when other major asset classes fall, gold rises. A good hedge is to buy the largest, most popular gold ETF , SPDR Gold Shares ( GLD ). But in the digital age, you can even buy gold in the form of a cryptocurrency with PAX Gold ( PAXG ). 8. Consider commodity-based ETFs The benchmark Bloomberg Commodity Index is currently about 55% down from the peak in 2011. Commodities have intrinsic value and you can assume their prices will not fall to zero. Thus, when they reach technical lows, I see a tremendous buying opportunity. Go long with iPath Bloomberg Commodity Index ( DJP ). 9. Take some risk and go net short The only way to make a lot of money in a downturn is to take a risk. This means losing money if the downturn never comes. The easiest way to short risk is to buy an ETF that goes up when the underlying index it tracks goes down. One of the most liquid short ETF is Proshares Ultrashort ( QID ), shorting Nasdaq 100 Index . Russell 2000 small cap index ( TWM ) is quite popular in a bear market, as well. 05-----05 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SP1!/GE2N1WGQ-15-Investment-Strategies-For-Surviving-The-Corona-Recession/ 15 Investment Strategies For Surviving The Corona Recession S&P 500 Futures (CME:SP1!) 2465.5 −1.5 −0.06% Virtu Ras Vasilisin is the founder and CEO at Virtuse Exchange, Singapore-based multi-asset platform with a significant presence in the EU, that allows investors in more than 100 countries to trade crypto and traditional assets. One of Warren Buffet’s most famous sayings is "Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1." So, realistically, my target scenario during a recession is to stay flat. But, my blue sky scenario is to actually try and make some money as the world collapses all around. So, this is the list of 15 lessons learned the hard way from my own experience and observations: 1. Be OK with no longer making money The first step to making money during the downturn is to be OK with no longer making money during an upturn. It hurts to miss out on gains, but missing out on gains is the only way not to lose money. Your goal is to time your asset allocation so that you have the least amount of risk exposure when the cycle turns. The problem is that nobody knows when the period will turn. 2. Don’t panic! This is truly invaluable advice from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. So, make a plan and don’t make any hasty investment decisions. Try not to worry so much, especially if you are not near retirement age. If you have at least a 5-year investment horizon, recessions should be factored into your portfolio. 3. Buy gold Gold is immune to recessions and so far it has been resistant to corona crises as well. Returns are usually inversely proportional to the returns of both stocks and bonds. So often, when other major asset classes fall, gold rises. A good hedge is to buy the largest, most popular gold ETF , SPDR Gold Shares ( GLD ). But in the digital age, you can even buy gold in the form of a cryptocurrency with PAX Gold ( PAXG ). 4. Buy dollars Sharing similarities with gold , the US Dollar also boasts safe haven attributes. Due to its role as the world’s reserve currency and the backing of the world’s largest economy, the US Dollar is both liquid and sought after during downturns. 5. Cash is king One of my best pieces of advice is to have some cash on hand during the recession. Buying stocks during economic slowdowns is a time-proven strategy to build wealth. Good companies generally don’t become bad stocks because of a recession or coronavirus. They do, however, often go on sale because of the crises. As Baron Rothschild, said: "the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets." 6. Buy long-term Many investors focus too much on short-term stock price fluctuations. They tend to feel good when stock prices increase and become anxious when they fall. Some companies will thrive during a downturn. Consumers still need to eat during a recession, Costco (COST) and Walmart ( WMT ), for example, are good bets. How long should you hold a stock? Warren Buffett says if you don’t feel comfortable owning a stock for 10 years, you shouldn’t own it for 10 minutes. 7. Keep an eye on divorces According to Forbes, divorce rates go up when the economy goes down. And when couples split, the assets have to be sometimes liquidated fast, especially to satisfy court rulings. For you savvy investors out there, one man’s heartbreak is another man’s treasure. 8. Consider commodity-based ETFs The benchmark Bloomberg Commodity Index is currently about 55% down from the peak in 2011. Commodities have intrinsic value and you can assume their prices will not fall to zero. Thus, when they reach technical lows, I see a tremendous buying opportunity. Go long with iPath Bloomberg Commodity Index ( DJP ). 9. Take some risk and go net short The only way to make a lot of money in a downturn is to take a risk. This means losing money if the downturn never comes. The easiest way to short risk is to buy an ETF that goes up when the underlying index it tracks goes down. One of the most liquid short ETF is Proshares Ultrashort ( QID ), shorting Nasdaq 100 Index . Russell 2000 small cap index ( TWM ) is quite popular in a bear market, as well. 10. Go long volatility Volatility is a certain bet during crises. You can easily buy a volatility ETF such as iPath S&P 500 VIX ST Futures ETN ( VXX ). During the recent "corona crisis" sell-off, the VXX almost tripled from $15 to $40. 11. Go long US Treasuries When the world is collapsing, investors tend to seek the safety of US Treasury bonds. Two of the most common ETFs to buy are iShares 7+ Year Treasuries ( IEF ) and iShares 20+ Year Treasuries ( TLT ). Buying TLT will give you more upside. 12. Take advantage of defaults This is when cash comes handy too. As we saw during the last downturn, when the economy tanks, people lose their homes. When the market plummets, properties can be yours for pennies on the dollar. Once the market recovers, which is always the case you have a good cash-flowing property. The last recession was a nightmare for homeowners, but it turned out to be a boon for some real estate investors. 13. Buy stablecoins Stablecoins are a storage place for crypto investors to escape the volatility . Dollar deposits no longer offer any returns. By investing in the new digital dollars you can profit from a large interest on your holdings. Blockfi, for example, offers 8.6% on Gemini Dollar (GUSD), and soon on Paxos Standard (PAX). 14. Invest in yourself Think about what is the most impactful thing that you can do and where to grow. Don’t make decisions when you are angry or ecstatic. The best decisions are made with a clear conscious mind, not in the throes of any emotion. Everything has its right moment. And remember, what other people think doesn’t matter. Stick outside of the box and be confident. 15. Buy Bitcoin People sometimes describe bitcoin as digital gold . But the difference is that while gold is physical and clunky, bitcoin is borderless and digital. The real genius of the Satoshi whitepaper lies in the fact that it predicts the upcoming collapse. It’s an alternative financial system that you can own a piece of. Bitcoin is essentially a call option on an outcome. I believe that Bitcoin has the potential to save us from the corona recession and the everything bubble. This recession too shall pass Ray of sunshine for investors is that nothing lasts. Recessions never create a new normal and, eventually, the economy will recover. For those of you who have enough money to be happy, taking an excess risk is unnecessary. Once you’ve made your money, the key is to keep it. 08********08 #] 26Mar2020 Bull market comments https://www.barrons.com/articles/dow-jones-industrial-average-bull-market-51585259793?mod=hp_LEAD_1 Stifel managing director and strategist Barry Bannister didn’t answer the bull-bear question directly, but is keeping a close eye on retracement—stocks tend to bounce back after hard falls. His downside scenario for the S&P is about 2,050, down another 20% from Thursday’s close. That isn’t his base case though. He thinks a low of 2,300 is a more reasonable number. >> Very cose to my "buy levels"!! #] 25Mar2020 : Puetz scenario : S&P Short term : sell <= 2280 || buy >=2550 3k$ S&P Long term : sell >= 2280 || buy <=2280 3k$, 2100 3k$, 1800 3k$, 1400 6k$, 1000 6k$, 800 3k$ https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/stock-futures-rise-as-vote-is-expected-on-relief-bill-51585269893?mod=newsviewer_click "You could almost smell the burning shorts on Wall Street today, but as credit spreads remain wide, one has to wonder how much ‘real’ buying is behind this week moves, besides the bailout-induced short-covering," Gorilla Trades strategist Ken Berman wrote, referring to investors that sell borrowed shares to bet on a stock’s price decline. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-do-you-choose-between-economic-deaths-of-despair-and-coronavirus-victims-economists-lawmakers-grapple-with-a-moral-conundrum-2020-03-26?mod=newsviewer_click George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, said it’s not as simple as making a choice between the human lives of Americans and the long-term health of the American economy. "I think it might be a false dichotomy because we don’t have a very good understanding of what the impact of a severe [economic] depression would be on human life," he said. "It will dramatically decrease the quality of human life, and it will certainly kill people as well." "We’ve already have unprecedented levels of deaths of despair, and, if we lose a generation as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s going to have mortality consequences," Loewenstein added. "They’re just going to be more difficult to discern from the statistical victims. If you ignore the impact on quality of life — which is potentially an immense thing that should be taken into account — we don’t really understand what the impact of the economy on mortality." Anne Case and Angus Deaton, economists at Princeton University, first chronicled these "deaths of despair" among middle-aged non-Hispanic Caucasians since 1999. They include deaths by suicide, alcohol poisoning, overdoses of opioids and other drugs, and cirrhosis of the liver. The CDC estimates that such deaths of despair have almost doubled since 1999, reaching 150,000 in 2017, with one-third of that figure accounted for by suicide. The Trump campaign of 2016 may have had the victims and potential victims of such outcomes in mind when it spoke of "the forgotten people." Loewenstein argues that Americans are caught between these two events now: start the economy too soon and an avoidable number of people will likely die; wait too long and it could also lead to untold long-term suffering. "I don’t think people have thought efficiently or carefully about smart strategies that would get the best of both, and make a better trade-off between the two. I say that as someone who is 64, and who might be — as part of a smart strategy — isolated," he added. "We’re very comfortable with making these trade-offs," Camerer said. "Without even thinking about it, we do make these trade-offs. You may pay less attention crossing the street if your parking meter is about to run out. You are endangering your life in a tiny way to avoid getting a parking ticket. Such decisions that involve an implicit trade-off, but they’re almost invisible." However, he said such decisions involving other human beings are obviously far more morally complicated. Economists use the Value of Statistical Life. It measures the value placed on changes that increase likelihood of death, not the value on a human life to avoid death. "It’s used in court cases when assigning damages," Camerer said. I could make a highway a little safer at a very high cost. This is one reason economics is called the dismal science. People are typically paid more money to do risky jobs in timber and fishing. We call that a compensating differential." VSL is used in court and by governments. Guidance on the amount varies by state agency and can run up to $10 million. "Imagine volunteering for a dangerous mission, and there’s a 10% chance you’ll get killed, and you’re going to be paid x," Camerer said. "The implicit value of a life is x divided by 0.10. If the boss offers $1 million and the guy says no, he’s acting like his life is worth more than $10 million. If he says yes, he’s acting like it’s worth less." https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millions-more-us-jobs-at-risk-of-being-lost-as-coronavirus-crisis-deepens-2020-03-26?mod=newsviewer_click Whatever the case, the longer the crisis goes on, the more jobs that will be lost. Some economists think job losses could surge to 20 million or even higher. The St. Louis Federal Reserve estimated a whopping 67 million jobs are at high risk of unemployment. By comparison, some 152.5 million Americans were employed in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many economists predict unemployment could soon top 10% — surpassing the peak during the 2007-’09 recession — and perhaps reach 15% to 20%. The only other time unemployment was anywhere close to that high was during the 1930s Great Depression. 08********08 26Mar2020 >> Great article, but doesn't explain failures of [economics, politics, thinking] : https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-isnt-your-ordinary-recession-the-us-is-now-experiencing-a-economic-meltdown-more-typical-of-a-third-world-natural-disaster-2020-03-26?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: This isn’t your ordinary recession — the U.S. is now experiencing a economic meltdown more typical of a Third World natural disaster Published: March 26, 2020 at 9:56 a.m. ET By Mohamed A. El-Erian Advanced economies are saddled with structural and institutional impediments that have stifled growth in a manner quite familiar to developing economies Governments and central banks are pursuing unprecedented measures to mitigate the global downturn, lest a now-certain global recession gives way to a depression (already an uncomfortably high risk). https://www.marketwatch.com/story/algorithms-sped-up-selling-leading-to-the-fastest-bear-market-in-stock-market-history-2020-03-26?mod=newsviewer_click Opinion: Algorithms sped up selling, leading to the fastest bear market in stock market history Published: March 26, 2020 at 11:08 a.m. ET By Beth Kindig 08********08 #] 20Mar2020 Futures Market March Hussar S&P DJIA 20 17:00? -123 -922 21 08:26 -22.00 ?? 21 09:55 -22.00 -157 22 16:14 -114.50 -5.00% -954 -5.01% futures trading halted at down-limit 23 06:50 +40.75 +1.86% +267 ~+1-2% 23 14:30? -71.8 -3.2% -568 -3.1% 23 17:39 -40.3 -1.74% +362 +1.95% 23 18:12 +32.10 +1.43 +248 +1.32 23 19:27 +68.60 +2.98% +529 +2.86% 23 20:53 +86.85 +3.92% +702 +3.79% 24 07:30 +113.10 +5.09% +930 +5.03% 24 15:40 +222.10 +10% +2187 +11.82% 24 16:43 +30.63 +1.2 +309 +1.43% falling as I try to write down the numbers (just a blip) 24 17:45 both futures indexes at zero +- (just look at the SPX500 S&P 500 Index : FXCM as it greal-time futures) 08********08 24Mar2020 Mon : Trump today said 6T$ in aid packages https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/why-asian-stock-and-bond-markets-merit-a-closer-look-51585351800?mod=newsviewer_click Asian Markets Merit Attention by Gavekal Research March 24: Chinese fixed income was one of the few asset classes that did its job in the past month. As many investors will have paid little attention to the asset class, this performance could yet spur a shift in assets from Western to Asian bond markets. Such a shift could be justified by the increased divergence in policy-making between the two regions—in the West, domestic economic collapse followed by universal basic income and modern monetary theory; in the East, rapid detection and quarantine with limited monetary and fiscal stimulus. 08********08 #] 24Mar2020 search "deaths per percent increase in unemployment" 05-----05 https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/39267/do-40-000-people-die-in-the-united-states-for-every-1-increase-in-unemployment Do 40,000 people die in the United States for every 1% increase in unemployment? Asked 2 years, 7 months ago Viewed 22k times In the 2015 movie The Big Short, the character of Ben Rickert, played by Brad Pitt, makes the following statement to two investment bankers. If we're right (about the housing market collapsing), people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what I hate about fucking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here's a number - every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that? (Wikiquote source if the video gets taken down) I've never heard this statistic before, and I would normally be disinclined to believe it as something made up by a movie. However, The Big Short seems to go out of its way to be as factually accurate as possible, with scenes that cut away from the story entirely to explain economic principles to the watcher. Since there is not a source for the fact presented in the movie but the movie tries to be accurate, I have to ask if this is literally accurate, if there is a context that needs to be injected, or if it was made up for the purposes of the movie. edited Feb 9 '18 at 14:56 asked Aug 22 '17 at 19:57 DenisS 02--02 The data probably goes back to work by Harvey Brenner in the 1970s. It has been challenged, particularly by C. Ruhm. If you can, listen to a BBC More or Less radio clip or read the first 12 introductory pages of a study from Martin Nilsson and Anette Brose Olsen - the rest of their paper finds a positive association between unemployment and mortality but a lower coefficient – Henry Aug 23 '17 at 8:15 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03kpvk2 http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=8057844&fileOId=8057865 02--02 This appears to be somewhat true. Death rates increase when you lose your job, but 40,000 people per year is an order of magnitude higher than my estimate. This Quora question answers an identical question and concludes that a 1% increase in unemployment results in about 1,500 excess deaths per year in America. My answer follows the same logic as the Quora answer. I have checked his sources, but I am forced to find my own data for mortality rates because his link is broken. There are roughly 162 million workers in the US, therefore a 1% increase in unemployment corresponds to 1.62 million workers losing their jobs. According to this CDC data, for every 100,000 people aged 25-64 roughly 400 of them will die in a given year. That number comes from averaging the mortality rates for the age groups I assume make up most of the labor force. Therefore, for a given sample of 1.62 million working age people, we expect 6400 of them to die in a given year. This meta-analysis indicates that your risk of death increases by 63% when you lose your job. This means that 10,000 people will die instead of 6400, an increase of 4000 Americans per year. In order for this claim to be true, the increased death rate would have to be 630% instead of 63%. The Quora answerer looked at mostly the same data I did, and his answer is of the same order of magnitude as mine. We both make some simplifying assumptions to get to an answer, and I believe his numbers about as much as mine. Take both with a grain of salt. As a further warning to take this logic with a grain of salt, the meta analysis has a pretty detailed discussion of confounding factors. Many researchers continue to argue that the unemployment-mortality association is spurious. These scholars argue that health selection into unemployment operates through health behavior variables rather than in a direct manner (i.e. the "latent sickness hypothesis") (Jusot et al., 2008). In more plain English, people with unhealthy behaviors may be more likely to lose their jobs; Alcoholism can get you fired and lead to an early grave, but getting fired wasn't what killed you. A third reason to take this with a grain of salt is that when unemployment increases, underemployment increases as well. This logic may exclude some number of people who die after they take two crappy part time jobs after they lose their one good job. Those people are not counted in the U3 unemployment rate. If your child or spouse dies after you lose your job and your health insurance, that death would also not be counted. Summary: A 1% increase in unemployment results in a few thousand excess deaths. I am uncertain how many thousand exactly. edited Aug 24 '17 at 3:59 answered Aug 23 '17 at 22:38 BobTheAverage 11.3k66 gold badges3636 silver badges4848 bronze badges I have a big problem with your logic here. The death rate for people 25-64 and working people 25-64 would be different. The latter category would not include anyone too sick to work--a population that obviously has a higher death rate. – Loren Pechtel Aug 24 '17 at 1:18 3 @LorenPechtel Unemployment stats are based on people who could be working and want to be working, but are not. It excludes retirees, homemakers and people who are too sick to work. The meta-analysis presumably reviewed papers with multiple definitions of unemployment, but I would assume that a majority of them do not count people too sick to work. – BobTheAverage Aug 24 '17 at 15:57 Unemployment stats, but you're comparing working people to all people of the same age--that includes those too sick to work. – Loren Pechtel Aug 25 '17 at 1:17 05-----05 https://www.quora.com/The-Big-Short-2015-movie-Is-it-true-what-Ben-Rickert-Brad-Pitts-character-said-that-40-000-people-die-when-unemployment-goes-up-by-1 The Big Short (2015 movie): Is it true what Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt's character) said that 40,000 people die when unemployment goes up by 1%? 02--02 Hlynur Hallgrímsson, Political Economist Answered February 23, 2016 Yes, pretty much. The actual number mentioned in introductory econ classes is 37,000 deaths. It's often credited to Gregory Mankiw and his textbook "Macroeconomics", but I can't find it in my book (the 7th edition), perhaps it wasn't in the actual book but only in the accompanying slides. Anyway, looking online it shows up in "The American Economy: What it is and what it isn't" by Thomas and Carson on page 300 under the subheading "The cost of unemployment". They cite their source as Bluestone, Harrison and Baker, "The Causes and Consequences of Economic Dislocation" from 1981. The information put forth for a 1 %-point increase is as follows: 37.000 deaths... of which: 20.000 heart attacks 920 suicides 650 homicides (the rest is undisclosed as far as I can see) Hope that helps. 02--02 John Ross, physician, scribbler Answered February 22, 2016 There is evidence that unemployment is bad for your health. According to one meta-analysis of 42 studies involving 20 million people, the risk of death increases 63% when you lose your job. Some of this risk is attributable to the negative health effects of stress and poverty, some of this is due to crappy health behaviors that are more common with poverty and unemployment (bad diet, smoking, booze, drugs). One obvious criticism is reverse causation: people who are already unhealthy and have poor health behaviors are probably more likely to lose their jobs than other employees. Here's a link to the meta-analysis: Losing Life and Livelihood: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Unemployment and All-Cause Mortality http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/ 08********08 #] 21Mar2020 div% EPS P/E Lear Corp LEA 4% 12.79 5.97 08********08 #] 20Mar2020 post-crash recoveries https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2020/03/18/when-is-the-right-time-to-buy-stocks/?mod=article_inline When Is the Right Time to Buy Stocks? Posted March 18, 2020 by Michael Batnick >> great seeries of graphs ?Who said this??? : Much of market runup for last 5-10 years due to share buy-backs (take on debt, I suppose?) FAANG = All investors should watch the "five big" stocks because they each have different characteristics and provide important clues. The big five are Apple AAPL, -6.34%, Amazon AMZN, -1.85%, Microsoft MSFT, -3.75%, Alphabet GOOG, -3.85% GOOGL, -3.90% and Facebook FB, -2.22%. 08********08 #] 20Mar2020 Government programs for [market, economic] stability 0.25% interest rates 0.7 T$ bond purchases ?? commercial paper ?? Primary Dealer Credit Facility (loans) ?? Municipal bonds - expands its money-market mutual fund program 0.03-0.6 Currency swap lines 1 T$ Repos - short-term loans to Wall Street’s roughly two dozen "primary" securities dealers 4.5 T$ ?corporate bonds? - if it starts snapping up corporate bonds, says Bank of America 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-breakdown-of-the-feds-rescue-programs-to-keep-credit-flowing-during-the-pandemic-2020-03-20?mod=newsviewer_click Here’s a breakdown of the Fed’s rescue programs to keep credit flowing during the pandemic - MarketWatch Interest rates: March 15: In a surprise weekend move, the Fed cut benchmark rates by 100 basis points to a range of zero to 0.25%, but said not to expect U.S. benchmark rates to be pushed into negative territory, like some foreign central banks. Bond purchases: March 15: Plans unfold to buy at least $700 billion of U.S. Treasury debt and "agency" mortgage bonds, or assets with government backing Commercial paper: March 17: Fed invokes section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act to provide a backstop for a key source of short-term funding for big businesses, after calls by investors for the U.S. central bank to unclog the so-called commercial paper market. It’s a roughly yearlong program that aims to support the real economy, rather than just the financial sector, by helping businesses meet payrolls, inventory payments and other short-term liabilities. Primary Dealer Credit Facility March 18: Another 13(3) program to supply key dealers of securities on Wall Street with up to 90 day loans at ultralow cost to jump-start trading again and boost liquidity across financial markets. Municipal bonds: March 20: The Fed again uses its crisis-era powers to roll out another new program to help rescue the municipal-bond from soaring yields, a sign that investors are concerned about rising defaults. The plan expands its money-market mutual fund program to let banks get loans from the Fed by using assets purchased from single state and other tax-exempt municipal money-market mutual funds. Currency swap lines: Global market volatility also has led to a desperate dash for U.S. dollars, the world’s reserve currency, writes MarketWatch’s Gregory Robb, in no small part because the greenback is used for most international trade and payments. Analysts say the rush into dollars has amplified the world-wide equity selloff and volatility across financial markets as many industrial nations all but shutter their boarders in an attempt to contain the spreading pandemic. To help ease dollar funding strains, the Fed on March 19 set up $30 billion to $60 billion worth of U.S. dollar swap lines with nine central banks in Asia, South America and Europe, which are expected to stay in place for at least the next six months. The Fed already had standing facilities with central banks in Canada, England, Japan, the European Central Bank and New Zealand. Then on March 20, the Fed and five other major central banks moved together to bolster their global funding efforts by moving to daily 7-day U.S. dollar funding facilities, up from weekly ones. In addition, the group of central banks will keep offering weekly 84-day maturity U.S. dollar operations to help tamp down market turmoil. Repos: Since chaos erupted in the overnight lending market in September, the Fed has been offering billions worth of short-term loans to Wall Street’s roughly two dozen "primary" securities dealers to help ease pressure in this key corner of the market. On March 20, it was ramped up to a stunning $1 trillion in daily liquidity, split between a morning and afternoon borrowing facilities. 05-----05 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-fed-starts-buying-corporate-bonds-45-trillion-of-debt-could-be-eligible-says-bank-of-america-2020-03-19?mod=article_inline Fed could buy $4.5 trillion of debt if it starts snapping up corporate bonds, says Bank of America 08********08 #] 20Mar2020 create market charts for China vs US, and Spanish flu versus corona virus 200320 MarketWatch Shawn Langlois from Thomas Hayes DJIA Spanish flu, TradingView SPX vs SHCOMP corona virus.xcf MarketWatch Shawn Langlois from Thomas Hayes, Spanish flu DJIA Jul1916-Jul1918 TradingView, corona virus SPX vs SHCOMP Oct2019-Mar2020 Facebook posting : How much of the current [market, economic] impact is due to the corona virus? Obviously a lot, but the (very sloppy) graph overlays below suggest that the current US [debt, deficits, over-pricing] may also be making for a less-resilient response and fears that the cures will bring their own problems (as with 2008)? 1918 Spanish flu - occurred towards the end of a [long, brutal] World War I, after socialists had taken over Russia and were a popular political threat to regimes throughout the west. Great political changes were in the wind, although perhaps their staying power was still a question to many in 1918. 2020 corona virus - doesn't seem to be having anywhere near the same impact in China as the US http://www.billhowell.ca/Cool%20stuff/200320%20MarketWatch%20Shawn%20Langlois%20from%20Thomas%20Hayes%20DJIA%20Spanish%20flu,%20TradingView%20SPX%20vs%20SHCOMP%20corona%20virus.jpg 08********08 #] 19Mar2020 14:02 Howell's guess for next stop as markets close fall biased by Peutz's commenty to "sell" tomorrow, to : closing: Previous Today Tomorrow Actual Howell Actual Futures Howell Actual Futures 18Mar2020 19Mar2020 20Mar2020 20Mar2020 change change change % % % S&P500 2,398 2,409 2,200 2,305 -209 -104 +57 -9 -4.47 +2 DJIA 19,899 20,087 18,000 20,080 -2,087 -913 -8 -10 -4.55 -0 (1) My same target as before (2) Lower than my previous 18,600 Longer term - I have no idea, guess ranges for Friday, based on [support, ceiling] levels of past : 27Mar 03Apr 10Apr 17Apr 24Apr 30Aug Jan2022 (1) LowExt 2,200 2,100 2,000 1,800 1,300 900 (2) ChinaPath (3) HigExt 2,500 2,550 2,870 2,870 2,900 3,100 3,400 Notes : (1) support levels, 1929 scenario govt efforts cause more problems given [debts, mkt distortions] drying up investments to other assets, more global$ to China growth than USA possible hit by entry into Grand Solar Minimum - agriculture, forestry still pre-fusion energy Jan2022 lowest point = 70% loss from 2020 highs to 1964-87 levels, then slow recovery 10ys (2) China recovery before the SPX crash (3) ceiling thresholds, very rapid bounce-back recovery from current levels & COVID-19 abeyance, vaccine by late summer 5T$ cash injection to Aug2020, 10T$ to 2022, COVID-19 vaccine,USA resilience & tricks Jan2022 slow growth from 2020 high point S&P 500 Futures - trend (MST, not ET) 19Mar2020 post closing @2,409.39 : 14:05 +57 14:25 -18.4 15:05 -52.9 15:56 -46.4 17:12 -52.10 18:46 -34.10 -1.36% (~) 19:20 -33.10 20:23 -25:10 21:33 -19.60 06:46 +33.65 08********08 #] 18Mar2020 MarketWat Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) I should consider these https://www.barrons.com/articles/want-to-snatch-up-dividend-aristocrats-amid-the-coronavirus-fallout-these-are-the-10-best-bets-right-now-51584526502?mod=hp_DAY_4 Want to Snatch up Dividend Aristocrats Amid the Coronavirus Fallout? These Are the 10 Best Bets Right Now. Lawrence C. Strauss at lawrence.strauss@barrons.com Thinking about the Dividend Aristocrats and their pumped-up yields in the aftermath of the coronavirus-driven stock-market crash? Don’t, says Bespoke Investment Group, instead pointing to a much smaller set of companies: those that have gone at least double the minimum 25 years of dividend hikes needed for admission to the club. Bespoke says investors should consider the 10 firms within the larger group of 64 S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats that have raised their dividends for at least 50 straight years—an era that spans the Vietnam and Iraq wars, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Great Recession, and now the coronavirus pandemic: highest yield recently 3M (ticker: MMM) at 4.32% Emerson Electric (EMR) at 4.19% Genuine Parts (GPC) at 4.17%. Since the S&P 500 peaked on Feb. 19, the stock in this group that had held up the best as of Tuesday was : Hormel Foods (HRL), down only 3%. It yields 1.94%. Stanley Black & Decker (SWK), down nearly 50%; it yields 3.24% - the worst performer over that period Dover (DOV) has fallen by about one-third. The stock yields nearly 2.5%. a capital-goods company, The other four companies in the elite Aristocrats contingent are : Coca-Cola (KO), which yields 3.5% Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), 2.8% health-care conglomerate Colgate-Palmolive (CL), 2.61% Procter & Gamble (PG), 2.5%. Besides having a long history of increasing their dividends regularly, these companies "generally have healthy payout ratios indicating the further potential to return value to shareholders," Bespoke notes. Nearly all of these companies have payout ratios—the percentage of earnings paid out in dividends—in the 40%-70% range. The exception is Procter & Gamble, but Bespoke attributes that to "a one-time charge in the adjustment of its carrying value for its Gillette unit." 08********08 #] 16Mar2020 13:50 Howell's guess for next stop free fall to : prev close close Howell Futures Howell Futures Howell Futures 16Mar2020 17Mar2020 week? change change % % S&P500 2,386 2,200 (wrong) 2,062 -186 -324 -8% -14% DJIA 20,189 18,600 17,192 -1,589 -2,997 -8% -15% Sheila Bair, a top U.S. banking regulator during the 2007-’08 global financial crisis, said the Federal Reserve needs to quickly shift its focus to getting credit flowing to U.S. businesses crippled by the spreading coronavirus and workers losing their jobs. "This isn’t a financial crisis — at least not yet," she told MarketWatch on Sunday evening following the Fed’s announcement, which drops the target U.S. benchmark rate to zero and aims to shore up liquidity for banks and investors in the $15.6 trillion Treasury and $8.5 trillion agency mortgage bonds markets. While preventing the implosion of big banks and the American auto industry were an immediate focus of rescue programs more than a decade ago, relief was less comprehensive and slower to reach U.S. households, which the Brookings Institution estimates led to the loss of 8.7 million jobs, more than 8 million home foreclosures and the shuttering of more than 500 community banks. ProPublica has kept an ongoing scorecard of which banks and industries were part of the $700-billion bailout in 2008, including how much has been repaid and how much still remains outstanding. "Forget this 2008 financial crisis playbook," Bair said. "We never focused enough on the real problem in 2008, which was homeowners," she said, adding that she "loves the idea" of recent proposals that aim to get cash straight into the hands of households who are grappling with shuttered schools, businesses and more. 08********08 #] 14Mar2020 Elliot Wave Robert R. Prechter, Deepak Goel, Wayne D. Parker 2, Matt Lampert 19Jan2012 "Social Mood, Stock Market Performance and U.S. Presidential Elections: A Socionomic Perspective on Voting Results" 42pp, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1987160&mod=article_inline 1. Socionomics Institute 2. Emory University School of Medicine; Socionomics Foundation Prechter, Goel, Parker, Lampert 19Jan2012 Social Mood, Stock Market Performance and US Presidential Elections, A Socionomic Perspective on Voting Results.pdf 08********08 #] 13Mar2020 Historical stock market charts - including 1929, 1987 crashes https://www.tradingview.com/markets/indices/ideas/page-2/ https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data gives inflation-adjusted version too 05-----05 https://www.marketbeat.com/market-indexes/SPX/ Index funds - stock & bond The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) - "The Dow" as this index is frequently referenced to is the oldest of the major stock exchanges and has instant name recognition. The Dow is an index of 30 companies that are chosen by the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Every effort is made to ensure that the Dow represents a cross-section of the economy, but the 30 Dow components are not necessarily the largest ones. For example, while Apple is listed, Amazon and Alphabet (Google) are not. The DJIA is also a price-weighted index. This means that stocks with a higher share price will have a greater effect on the index. The S&P 500 Index– As its name suggests, the S&P 500 is an index of 500 companies. In contrast to the DJIA, the S&P 500 index is weighted by market capitalization (companies with a larger market cap have a greater effect on the index). However, the S&P 500 includes only large-cap stocks. This means it excludes small- and mid-cap companies that can have a significant impact on the economy. For investors who are looking for a more narrow focus, the S&P also offers the S&P 500 Growth Index for stocks that exhibit more growth characteristics (think Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) and the S&P 500 Value Index for stocks that exhibit more "value characteristics" such as are likely to be found in many blue-chip stocks (think Berkshire Hathaway, AT&T). The S&P 500 also has a dedicated mid-cap and small-cap index. The Nasdaq Composite Index– This is commonly referred to as just the Nasdaq. This index includes every stock that is traded on the Nasdaq exchange (currently over 3,000 stocks). The Nasdaq is a market-cap weighted index. Some compelling features of the Nasdaq are its focus on the technology sector (nearly half the index is composed of tech stocks) as well as that it contains some international stocks. Like the S&P 500 Index, there are other Nasdaq-based indexes such as the Nasdaq 100 which features the largest 100 stocks listed on the exchange. The Nasdaq 100 does not include any financial companies by design. The Russell 1000, 2000, and 3000 Indexes– There are three separate indexes that when put together provide what is considered to be one of the most complete snapshots of the market. The Russell 1000 includes the largest 1000 companies in the market. The Russell 2000, by contrast, focuses exclusively on 2000 small-cap U.S. companies. The median market cap of a company in the Russell 2000 is $933 million. Small-cap stocks are generally more volatile than large-cap stocks but have a track record of providing better performance. The Russell 3000 brings all of this together in an index that combines the stocks from the Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 indexes. 08********08 #] 11Mar2020 Chinese coal-to-liquids and current oil price crash 2015 report : 16 plants, 22 Mt/y +[built, under construction, in advanced planning] Ratio : (22,000 bbl/d) / (1 Mg coal/y) ~$67-82 a barrel to produce CTL fuel (figures from SASOL) 2015 Chinese guidelines (3.7 Mg/y coal) / (Mg oil/y), prioritize use of low-quality coals Until 2012, China only had one coal-to-liquids plant with an annual output of over 1 million tons. Yankuang Mg oil/y G$ construction cost Built: Shanxi 1 2009? startup Shenhua 4 2016 startup 6.33 Ningxia, Inner Mongolia Yankuang 1 2015 startup 3.2 Yulin, Yitai 1 ?2012? startup Planned, construction : Botswana ?? ?2030? construct 4 Botswana Shenhua +7 2020 expansion Ningxia, Inner Mongolia China CTL now 7 now 154,000 bbl/d China CTL plan 22 ?2026? (built+const+plan) 464,000 bbl/d Howell : not enough for WWIII China import* 2018 9,261,000 bbl/d China prodn 2017 3,850,000 bbl/d World prodn 2019 80,622,000 bbl/d * 2018 8,400,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_imports 2018 ~11,000,000 https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/10/17/china-is-the-worlds-largest-oil--gas-importer/#236166235441 Botswana = Botswana Oil (BOL), state-owned Shanxi = Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group, state owned Shenhua = Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group, a subsidiary of China’s biggest coal producer, the Shenhua Group. Yankuang = Yankuang Group, China's coal giant Yitai = Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal, privately owned 05-----05 #] 13Mar2020 email to Steve I've probably made a conversion error, but if correct, the Chinese coal-to-liquids projects coming on stream may remove close to 5% of the world's largest importer from the market (~20% of world total?). [464,000 bbl/d, 5%] is not a huge portion, especially when compared to declining Chinese conventional production, world oil production, US shale, and Chinese oil demand growth. But Chinese scientists are world leaders in CO2-climate debunking, advanced control theory, CTL technology, and good control over internal nut cases, so maybe we'll see much more activity coming into Chinese plans? A bigger issue might be whether Saudi Arabia (ripe for revolution for a couple of generations) is destabilized by Russia. After losing out in [Vietnam, Afganistan, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran, etc, etc], and with long-term problems with competitiveness and re-balancing of world power, the US might not be in a good position to do much in Saudi Arabia, but my guess is that they would probably feel obliged to do something. Of course, this is VERY expensive oil. Sasol estimates 67-92 $/bbl on average for CTL, but that may be too high for China, and it may be almost irrelevant for strategic-military reasons. Water availability is a big issue for the plants, which are in dry regions. Bill 05-----05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production 2019 World production 80,622,000 bbl/d 05-----05 https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Chinas-Becomes-Worlds-Next-Top-Oil-Importer.html China’s crude oil and other liquids production dropped the most among non-OPEC nations in 2016, and the EIA expects production to have booked the second-biggest such drop last year. Liquids production in China fell by 2 percent annually to 4.8 million bpd last year and is further expected to drop this year and next. Crude oil production alone fell by an annual 4 percent to 191.51 million tons — or about 3.85 million bpd in 2017 — to the lowest in nine years, due to maturing fields and few viable new discoveries at home. While China’s production is declining and is expected to further drop in the coming years, its consumption of petroleum and other liquid fuels last year was the world’s largest for the ninth consecutive year, up by 3 percent to 13.2 million bpd, the EIA said. Refinery capacity and refinery runs also rose in 2017, with refinery runs estimated to have increased by 500,000 bpd to 11.4 million bpd, partly driven by two refinery expansions in the second half of the year. A total of 1.4 million bpd of new refinery capacity is planned to open in China by the end of 2019, which, combined with pipeline infrastructure expansion, will likely further raise Chinese oil imports. While China has continued to boost its oil imports in recent years, it has also lessened its dependence on OPEC’s crude oil. According to the EIA, 56 percent of China’s crude oil imports came from OPEC members last year, compared to a peak of 67 percent in 2012. Over those five years, Russia and Brazil significantly boosted their market shares on the Chinese market, with Russia’s rising to 14 percent from 9 percent, and Brazil’s imports went to 5 percent from 2 percent. 05-----05 https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/china/crude-oil-imports 2018 9,261 bbl/d Chinese cride oil imports (mistake! - should be 9,261,000 bbl/d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_imports 2018 8,400,000 bbl/d https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/10/17/china-is-the-worlds-largest-oil--gas-importer/#236166235441 China Is The World’s Largest Oil & Gas Importer Jude Clemente, Oct 17, 2019,07:05pm EST graph shows ~11,000,000 bbl/d in 2018 05-----05 http://www.worldstopexports.com/crude-oil-imports-by-country/ Crude Oil Imports by Country March 9, 2020 by Daniel Workman Overall, the dollar value of crude oil imports for all importing countries fell by -22.9% since 2014 when crude oil purchases were valued at $1.532 trillion. Year over year, imported crude oil expanded in value by 31.7% from $897.3 billion for 2017. Among continents, Asian countries accounted for the highest dollar worth of imported crude oil during 2018 with purchases costing $628.2 billion or 53.2% of the global total. In second place were European nations at 27.6% while 15% of worldwide crude oil imports were delivered to North America. Smaller percentages went to Latin America (1.8%) excluding Mexico but including the Caribbean, Africa (1.2%) then Oceania (1.1%) led by Australia and New Zealand. Below are the 15 countries that imported the highest dollar value worth of crude oil during 2018. China: US$239.2 billion (20.2% of total crude oil imports) United States: $163.1 billion (13.8%) India: $114.5 billion (9.7%) Japan: $80.6 billion (6.8%) South Korea: $80.4 billion (6.8%) Netherlands: $48.8 billion (4.1%) Germany: $45.1 billion (3.8%) Spain: $34.2 billion (2.9%) Italy: $32.6 billion (2.8%) France: $28.5 billion (2.4%) Thailand: $28.4 billion (2.4%) Singapore: $28 billion (2.4%) United Kingdom: $26 billion (2.2%) Taiwan: $23.4 billion (2%) Belgium: $19.5 billion (1.7%) By value, the listed 15 countries purchased 83.9% of all crude oil imports in 2018. The sole increase from 2014 to 2018 among the above top countries was the 4.8% gain for the People’s Republic of China. 05-----05 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-energy-ctl-idUSKBN14I011 December 28, 2016 / 5:31 PM Ningxia coal-to-liquid plant delivers first shipment: paper SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A project to convert coal into oil in the northwestern Chinese region of Ningxia, the biggest plant of its kind in the world, delivered its first shipment of products on Wednesday, the official China Daily reported. The coal-to-liquid (CTL) project, which has an annual production capacity of 4 million tonnes of oil, was built by the Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group, a subsidiary of China’s biggest coal producer, the Shenhua Group. It took 39 months to build and cost 44 billion yuan ($6.33 billion), China Daily said on Thursday. The controversial plant was first mooted in 2006 and involved the South African energy conglomerate Sasol. However, the firm pulled out in 2012 after the plant had still not been approved by regulators. Coal-to-oil technology rose to prominence in China due to soaring global oil prices, but regulators suspended all new projects in 2008 after oil prices retreated and concerns were raised about its feasibility. Government experts also expressed concern about the deployment of a highly water-intensive technology in some of China’s most arid regions, including Ningxia. According to new guidelines issued last year, CTL plants in China are permitted to use a maximum of 3.7 tonnes of coal for each tonne of oil produced, and they should prioritize the use of low-quality coals in order to reduce their use elsewhere. The Shenhua Group launched its first CTL project in Inner Mongolia in 2010. The firm aims to boost total capacity at the Ningxia plant to 11 million tonnes a year by 2020. Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Richard Pullin 05-----05 https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060013819 Chinese companies plunge into coal-to-liquids business, despite water and CO2 problems Coco Liu, E&E Asia correspondent Climatewire: Monday, February 23, 2015 YULIN, China -- At about 8:30 on a chilly winter morning, a factory outside this desert city is already getting busy. The success the factory is aiming at is the operation of its coal-to-liquids business. Yankuang Group, China's coal giant, is betting its future on it. To ensure that the plant's production starts on time, over a thousand workers here have sacrificed holidays to push forward the construction. And Yankuang is hardly alone. As Chinese leaders have pledged to burn less coal, coal companies in the country have been scrambling for ways to diversify their business. Plants that transform coal into liquid fuels -- through coal gasification or other techniques -- are among the top choices. Until 2012, China only had one coal-to-liquids plant with an annual output of over 1 million tons. Presently, Chinese energy firms such as state-run Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group and privately owned Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Co. Ltd. have all carried out projects at that scale. Nobody knows how many coal conversion projects China actually has, nor their total production capacity, given that Chinese companies -- rich in cash and backed by local authorities -- often go ahead with the project construction before receiving a final approval by the central government. 16 plants in the works But according to an engineering website tracking China's coal conversion projects, across the nation, at least 16 coal-to-liquids plants, with a cumulative production capacity of over 22 million tons, have been built, are under construction or are in advanced planning stages. Experts say shrinking profits in the traditional coal business are a major driving force behind China's coal-to-liquids boom. Statistics from the China National Coal Association show that, in 2014, 7 out of 10 Chinese coal companies failed to make ends meet. The organization notes that such a dim business outlook is likely to continue, since many newly built coal mines in China will soon supply more coal. Meanwhile, Chinese power plants have lost their appetite for this dirty fuel, due to mounting pressures to clean up the air. Coal to liquids For the country's coal giants like Yankuang, that has created an urgency to seek a new economic engine. Coal conversion business ranks high among all the desired actions in the company's 2014-20 development plan. And company executives publicly called the coal-to-liquids plant "Yankuang's No. 1 project." In partnership with two other Chinese energy firms, Yankuang kicked off the construction phase in 2012. Nearly three years of hard work and an investment of 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) have turned desert sand dunes into an industrial zone the size of about 280 soccer fields, filled with pipes, purification towers and other manufacturing facilities. Yankuang's coal-to-liquids plant is designed to produce 1 million tons of coal-derived liquid fuels each year, for China's growing fleet of heavy vehicles. It can also convert industrial waste into chemicals and other valuable byproducts. The plant will start trial production in June. Once the coal conversion technology proves itself, Yankuang plans to quintuple the operation. Already, the company has rolled out a feasibility study for the planned facility. 05-----05 https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/shenhua/ ?dae? First CTL commercial plant in China The Shenhua Group Corporation, which is one of the world’s largest coal companies, began to construct the world’s first commercial direct coal liquefaction plant, located in Inner Mongolia (80 miles south of Baotau at Majata) in 2003, at a cost of $3.2bn (this is an area with huge coal fields). China Shenhua Coal Liquefaction Co Ltd (CSCLCL) is the operating company for the plant. The first phase of the facility opened in July 2009 and employ US-developed technology from Headwaters Inc and Hydrocarbon Technologies Inc (HTI) in conjunction with West Virginia University and the US Department of Energy. The facility will have three reactor trains when the second phase is completed in 2010 and will be able to produce 6m tons of oil products per year. The first train, which entered trial production in July 2009, converts 3.45m tons of coal into a million tons of oil products (22,000bbl per day of liquid fuel). Beijing plans to have CTL capacity approaching 50m tons by 2020 and Inner Mongolia plans to turn half of its coal output into liquid fuel or chemicals by 2010, which will be around 135m tons – or about 40% of Australia’s annual coal output. Figures have suggested that it costs $67-82 a barrel to produce CTL fuel (figures from SASOL). But with prices of Brent crude approaching $150 per barrel at times in 2008, these figures begin to make economic sense. 05-----05 https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2020/02/botswana-to-accelerate-4-b-coal-to-liquid-refinery-project #] 04Feb2020 Botswana to accelerate $4 B coal-to-liquid refinery project Botswana, which has some of Africa’s largest coal reserves, wants to cut harmful carbon emissions but is committed to using its resources for a new coal-to-liquid (CTL) refinery set to come onstream by 2025, the mines minister said. State-owned firm Botswana Oil (BOL) issued a tender three years ago seeking investors to build the plant, estimated then to cost around $4 billion, as the diamond-rich southern African country seeks to secure its energy supplies. "It (CTL plant) is still in its infancy stage, but we believe now it will be accelerated," Lefoko Maxwell Moagi, minister of mineral resources, green technology and energy security, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba investment conference in Cape Town. Moagi described Botswana’s 212 billion coal reserves as "God’s gift" and said the CTL project, as well as a 100 megawatt pilot coal bed methane project, were two projects Botswana would fast-track. Last year, Shumba Energy formed a joint venture with two Chinese companies to build a separate coal-to-liquids plant at a cost of between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. 08********08 20Dec2019 Daglis etal 04Dec2019 "The forecasting ability of Solar and Space weather Data on NASDAQ’s Finance Sector Price Index Volatility" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0275531919307639 Theodoros Daglis, Konstantinos Konstantakis, Panayotis Michaelides, Theodoulos Papadakis National Technical University of Athens, Greece, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2019.101147 Daglis etal 04Dec2019 The forecasting ability of Solar and Space weather Data on NASDAQ’s Finance Sector Price Index Volatility http://viewer.copyright.com/viewer-web/viewer/?reqid=0d25e654-2208-4cf4-a7d1-8b0a061349e3 08********08 Pandemics-epidemics are like predator-prey population dynamics [Cdn Lynx, locusts, red tides?, sea algae], forest fires, extreme weather [monsoons-hurricanes, typhoons, etc] : tie to [Earth-astronomy] most notably the Sun. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tradinghalt.asp Exchange Circuit Breakers Stock exchanges can also take measures to ease panic selling by invoking Rule 48 and halting trading when markets have severe downside movements. Under 2012 rules, market-wide circuit breakers (or 'curbs') kick in when the S&P 500 index drops 7% for Level 1; 13% for Level 2; and 20% for Level 3 from the prior day’s close. A market decline that triggers a Level 1 or 2 circuit breaker before 3:25 p.m. Eastern Time will halt trading for 15 minutes, but will not halt trading at or after 3:25 p.m. https://www.isthemarketopen.com Stock Market Hours 9:30am to 4pm (EST) The U.S. stock exchange is open for trading Monday through Friday from 9:30 to 4pm. All US exchanges (ie: NYSE) adhere to standard federal holidays closures. day stops at -7% and -13% open of NY markets : 09:30 EST 07:30 MST 13:30 UCT (TradingView) (UCT-4 = 09:30 EST) seems off by 1/2 hour close of NY markets : 16:00 EST 14:00 MST 20:00 UCT (TradingView) (UCT-4 = 16:00 EST) Sign In to [Barrons, MarketWatch, stockTwits] : bill@billhowell.ca T8BHpUFviYVy Trading View bL4Jj8Fh7axL confirmation code on phone 320266 #] 20Mar2020 My forecasts sheet : /home/bill/PROJECTS/Investments/References/Howell 2020 Great Crash & depression forecasts.ods "Previous" index price - 23Mar2020 Futures Market just-prior-to-open 24************************24 QuantGuy 16Feb2021 S&P 500 to 4000!!! The S&P has hit our price target exactly. We had identified 3963 as a potential target using our Fibonacci Extensions several days ago. Currently stocks are ranging, feeling out the new price territory. It could go either way from here. We could see another retracement, which would take us down to 3937, 3928 or 3909 at the most. These would be good opportunities to buy back. If we breakout, the next target its fairly close at 3978. The next level after that is 4009. 12Feb2021 Breakout Imminent in Stocks!!! Stocks are consolidating into a triangle corrective wave. This is a perfect consolidation pattern an suggests a breakout is imminent. We are bullish of stocks and anticipating a bullish breakout at open which will take us back to 3928. From there we will likely meet resistance and consolidate further perhaps in a bull wedge before breaking out to higher highs. If we are wrong, we will find support at 3882 or 3871. The Kovach OBV is very strong and the Kovach Chande is neutral which is a perfect storm for a breakout. 11Feb2021 Stocks Reject All Time Highs!! What's Next?? We called out resistance at new highs with stocks for many reasons. The higher highs were increasingly less pronounced, momentum was sluggish and the Kovach Chande was gradually tapering. That and being at or near ATH's would take some momentum to break through. We were spot on with this analysis. The S&P tried to break new all time highs, and did so for a split second before completely and utterly rejecting them, diving to support exactly at the levels we identified. It sliced through 3898 to finally find support at 3882, which would have been a great level to buy back, and some readers did take advantage. Currently we seem to have gained some momentum from the bounce off 3882. The Kovach OBV has turned positive again, and the Chande has swung up. This however suggests that we are back to overbought territory and are due for a rejection of highs at 3928 or 3937. If we are able to break highs again, which will likely happen next week 3963 is the target. 10Feb2021 Retracement In Stocks?? Stocks have formed an extremely narrow range at highs. This is an extremely common behavior after an asset has made strides especially to the extent that the S&P has. However it does appear to be running out of steam. The Kovach OBV is still very strong, but has plateaued a bit, suggesting that momentum is waning. Additionally, although we have been seeing higher highs and lower lows, the hallmark of a bull trend, the extent has decreased with every attempt, forming an overall arc pattern. The signs are pointing to a correction in stocks or at least a sideways correction for a bit. If we do have a correction look to 3909, 3898, or even 3882 for support. These are a mixture of technical and Fibonacci levels. We are completely aware of bubble forming thanks to free Federal Reserve magic papers. So if stocks do breakout they will contend with 3937 first. 09Feb2021 Stocks At Highs!! Retracement?? LONG Stocks have continued their ascent but are slowing down. Indeed, we are seeing higher highs, but at a decreasing extent. This suggests that a healthy retracement is coming. We are still 100% in bull mode, and would still solidly be so even with a retracement to 3824. A 50% retracement of the Fibonacci levels shown is much more likely, which could bring us to 3871. Of course, this assumes a healthy market not the bloated, fed fueled bubble of a stock market we have now. It is also perfectly reasonable under these conditions to break out again to new highs. If so, 3937 if a good target. Either way, it would be extreme FOMO to enter a long trade at this point, unless you expect an imminent breakout for some reason. 08Feb2020 Stocks to Retrace from ATH's long Stocks are facing some resistance at 3909, after breaking new highs once again. Our Fibonacci extensions predicted a price target of 3928, which the S&P will hit once it is able to break through 3909. It is likely that it will retrace from here first. The Kovach OBV was strong but has plateaued, and the chande (purple line) has dipped notably. We are still bullish of stocks but must note that the pendulum has swung to the bull side, and it's natural for it to swing back before another push for all time highs. The levels 3867 and 3848 will give us support. Currently we are finding some support at the psychological level of 3900. 05Feb2021 lower support for short term dip before upwards - 3867, 3848 higher targets - all-time highs past vacuum zone to 3928, 3937 (3% gain) Stocks broke through to new highs yesterday. The Kovach OBV suggests there was a lot of momentum here, and there had to be. The S&P formed a double top back in January validating the importance of 3867. It broke through and is currently having trouble with 3887. This is a level we called out last month, which was a Fibonacci Extension . The S&P is pretty extended right now, so we can expect a retracement, perhaps off 3887 to highs at 3867 or perhaps 3848. No one can deny the momentum in stocks, the Kovach OBV is quite strong. So eventually we will break through 3887 and hit 3928, then 3937. These are two somewhat proximal levels garnered from Fibonacci extensions. Note the vacuum zone between current levels and these targets. If the S&P is able to break new highs, it should sail through to those targets soon after. 29Jan2021 Cautiously Optimistic of Stocks, long Stocks saw some incredible volatility yesterday. No doubt some of this is related to the GameStop saga. The S&P 500 has completely retraced the bear move only to give back thse gains and settle around a cluster of levels beginning at 3737. It is likely to find support here, at least for the moment, which seems to be verified over the past few hours. Kovach OBV whipsaw extremely rare. This is telling us that there is an extreme amount of momentum in stocks lately, in both directions: selling and buying. It is difficult to determine the overall direction of stocks, however we still remain cautiously bullish for now. lower support - 3737, 3714, 3694 upper targets - none 28Jan2021 Short, Cypher Pattern Breakdown in Stocks, consolidation at 3712-3750 lower supports 3695, 376 3658 upper targets - none 27Jan2021 big downspike! OBV turn negative so bear momentum lower supports 3810 is Fib level Kovach upper targets - none 26Jan2021 flash crash, continued rejection upper resistance 3867 would be bearish, could go either way lower support 3792 Fib level upper targets - none 25Jan2021 ranging 3825-3867, long lower support - 3811,3800 (psychological level), 3792 (tech level) upper target 3887 22Jan2021 retraced to 3825 strong level of support, Both Kovach bearish so pendulum may swing soon lower support if wrong - 3811, 3800, 3792 upper targets - range 3825-3867 21Jan2021 new highs, resistance exactly at 3856 as called for weeks, inched to 3867, Kovach OBV very stron FOMO to go long now, buy on dip lower support - none higher targets - 3887, 3935 +-----+ Deus https://www.tradingview.com/u/Deus/ 22Jan2021 (@~3880) It has got to end sometime soon. What bugs me is that there is no diversion with RSI . Surely I do not want to long that market. But shorting is not yet in the cards. +-----+ wstchse https://www.tradingview.com/u/wstchse/ 11Feb2021 SPX500-Bear Setup (Update) This is an updated trade plan based on my last published trade setup (SPX500-Bear Setup)-posted yesterday. Just reading price structure and making some adjustments on where I think this correction might end. 3870 is going to be descent support and would complete a measured abc move from the local top. This would give us the correction we need to proceed to 4k+....nothing has changed with my longterm view on sp . We are still in a very strong uptrend and have key fib extensions at 3960 & 4k+. Please let me know if you have any questions but for now im leaning towards taking most of my profit @387 may lets some ride just depends. Thanks, and Happy Trading! 10Feb2021 SPX500-Bear Setup completed 5 wave up it seems...many reasons to be looking for downside. i'm to busy to list all of them so ask your questions 08********08 Harry Dent cycles (years) - not collected-compared in books in compact way 500 Mega Innovation/Inflation Cycle 250 Revolutionary Cycle 165 East-to-West Cycle 90 stocks most powerful cycle 80 demographic cycle 46 average peak spending lag to immigration-adjusted births 45 techhnology cycle post late-1700s industrial revolution 40 generational cycles (Bible referenced) Others https://cyclesresearchinstitute.org etc 52 Mayan 50-60 Van Gelderen 1913, Dutchman, economic cycle 50-60 W.H.Beveridge 1921&23 (1879-1963), studied wheat prices back to the 1500’s and is reputed to have deduced them back to 1260 45-60 Kondriatieff 1926 - wholesale prices and then looked at interest rates, wages and foreign trade. Finally he analysed data on the production and consumption of coal, pig iron and lead https://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-research/economy/kondratieff/ 10 Tchijevshy - sunspot 7-16 years (mose often 9-13), human he & history https://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-research/general/chizhevsky/ https://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/pdf/cycles-history/chizhevsky1.pdf huge Puetz 08********08 Follow people - Trading View : best regular trading : QuantGuy (Hungary?), weekly or less : tntsunrise (Singapore), Duetz (Brit?), Bands, not so good : RHTrading (Australian?, horizontal), Zarko (trend) cool ideas : chrism665 https://www.tradingview.com/chart/SPX500/uEKgUoHK-Thinking-Big-Picture-on-SP500-and-Macros/ Andrew Pancholi. Market timing report - Harry Dent collab, can't afford Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates Hedge Fund Sam Zell, founder & chairman of Equity Group Investments Don't follow, or do the opposite Cathie Wood, chief executive of ARK Invest and manager of the popular ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund Peter Garnry - Saxo Bank’s head of equity strategy 08********08 Prepped comments ddmmm2020 Howell : "... How small the worlds of experts, but still too large for their minds. And far beyond my mind. ..." Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund, a hedge fund that has produced an incredible 39% annualized return over the 33 calendar years through 2020, versus “just” 11% annualized for an index fund. Bradford Cornell, an emeritus finance professor at UCLA, told me in an interview that it is impossible to attribute that fund’s outperformance to mere luck. (Unfortunately, this fund is only available to current and former partners at Renaissance Technologies.) &&&&&&&& Howell - Perhaps the Japanese post-1989 situation is the best analogy, as touted by many over the last year, and perhaps before that. Their more direct government [ownership of bonds, control of markets], seems to be a plausible outcome of the situation here? I suspect that voter pressure is coming for that, given the now-perpetual taxpayer propping up of markets and generational changes in voter preferences, and the perceived reskless greed and risk of market participants, coupled with waves of panic. But political control has its own problems, and we will likely re-learn that. Not included : WRONG!!! It seems that we are much further away from the concept of free markets, with governments comprising a much higher level of [employment, academic] activity (US Bureau of economic analysis, Table 1.13. National Income by Sector, Legal Form of Organization, and Type of Income, T11300-A% Howell), and with [market, economy]s being socially engineered to political (voter driven, by a vastly changing voter orientation). I don't understand the current [economic, financial] situation, as it appears to violate traditional market truisms and self-regulation, with extreme risks being managed every decade or less by the government, as the financial sector just can't seem to do that (in part to do with social engineering of policies to promote growth?). &&&&&&&& At ?time? in the video "The Big Short" regarding the 2007-2009 crash, Vinnie of Deutsch Bank states "... ????yes there is fraud. But the most important factor is stupidity [by the market participants].??? ...". This is just like my own observations two decades ago in the sciences (basically all of them), where we roll from one dysfunctional mainstream consensus to another, driven by well-meaning altruistic policies and funding. There are definite limits to our ability to deal with even modestly complex systems. Machines do most [physical, intellectual] work already, probably since the advent of competent usage of [mainframe, personal computer]s starting in the 1980s, and that is going to skyrocket to a whole new level soon driven by Computational Intelligence capabilities that are still in their infancy. Maybe they will help to rescue us, but not unless we overcome our innate tenencies and force them to do what is politically correct instead of what might work. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-couple-pledges-to-donate-5-of-wealth-why-that-still-riles-critics-of-elite-philanthropy-11618319142?mod=newsviewer_click Billionaire couple pledges to donate 5% of wealth — why that still riles critics of elite philanthropy Last Updated: April 14, 2021 at 10:37 a.m. ET First Published: April 13, 2021 at 9:05 a.m. ET By Leslie Albrecht Former Enron trader and hedge fund manager John Arnold and his wife Laura say they’ll make this donation every year &&&&&& I didn't post : Howell - Same old, same old, same old tired & wonky arguments, with no signs of homework, no signs of reason, no signs that reason might prevail. So we keep voting for policies, and hoping for miracles, that worsen the very things we want to fix. It's like being on the 3,700+ year treadmill back to King Hammurabi as described by David Fischer's "The great waves" of price revolutions. The [political, economic, financial] systems make but little difference to the end stages, nor apparently does modern [science, education]. We may actually be the worst at understanding the issues of the last 3,700 years. &&&&&&&& I didn't post : #] 15Apr2021 Howell - The SP500 has almost doubled over the last year {~(4,000/2,000)^(1/1 year)}, which is almost double the compound rate of growth from 2010-2020 {~(4,000/1,000)^(1/10y)=1.74), and that of 1926-2020 {~(4,000/7)^(1/83y)=1.85} (eyeballed numbers). There seems to be ZERO stomach on the part of voters to address the [rising debt, loss of competitiveness, tough decisions rather than give money away]. Is it time to start thinking about inflation of 100% [financial asset, wages, taxes, etc] per year, with hyper-inflation to follow, possibly by 2023? It's foolish of me to extrapolate trends, but social engineering of our financial system to the state of "cash is trash" may force all of us to compete as greater fools? If so, holding long bonds is a total loser proposition. >3,700 years of history has many examples just like today, and the very different [financial, market, economic, political, philosophical] systems of societies have made almost no difference. But "this time it's different", because machines already the vast majority of [physical, mental] work in our economy, they have long been vastly superior to us on basic simple things, and they are starting to crush the absolute best things among us on very complex problems. All they have to do is decide what small fraction of uswant to keep around as pets . While one can postulate a giant [market, currency] crash or other outcomes, it may be time to start thinking about investments during a modern period of 100% [financial asset, wages, taxes, etc] inflation per year, with hyper-inflation to follow, possibly by 2023 if the 10 years of 2010-2020 is compared to the 83 years from 1926-2020. # enddoc