By being short, I am trading against the 8 traders I've talked about who are normally right about market direction. That's not something I want to do very often.
Meanwhile, I'm continuing to build shorts as the market rises.
Would be very interested in any additional views you may have
I have no strongly held views and no new ideas. It's still my guess that 4200 should cap this market and maybe 4000 will do it.
I would not be long any stocks here, even if it looks like some kind of extreme low in this or that individual stock. Bitcoin is back down to 16K tonight and I would not be long that either.
I've seen talk about how FTX could be the next Lehman. To me, FTX looks more on the scale of Bear Stearns and their MBS. Those were a few billion also when they went belly up in July 2007. The problem with that kind of thing is not the few billion. It's that it influences the whole market for the particular thing like MBS or in this case crypto or maybe stated more properly indicates the whole market has been influenced. The difference between now and July 2007 is the Fed has no room to move or it's at least much more questionable that they can. You might remember a previous post where I documented what Bernanke was told in August 2007 by PIMCO and others. They told him in August 2007 with the S&P about 13% off the July high (which happened the same week the Bear Stearns MBS funds went belly up) that he had better drop rates by morning or the Dow would be down another thousand points. There was no question he could do that and he did. Doing so some weeks or months from now in the midst of a meltdown could cause more damage than it fixes.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
I tried to research how much gold is in the world to try to understand if it could become a support to an alternative reserve currency desired by the BRICS. The best estimate I got was $ 11.6 trillion at current valuation for physical gold i.e. $ 1760
Now the big question is how much paper gold? Some years ago the Reserve Bank of India, after considerable research, estimated that there 99 ozs of paper gold to every ounce of physical. Personally I would have guessed more; derivatives are huge!!
So that would take the figure to $ 1100 trillion which is about 3 times the size of global debt
I am expecting at least some central banks to push for an upwards revaluation of gold so that their gold holdings can offset their additional interest costs estimated for 2023 to 2026, certainly this is the case as announced by the Govenor of the Dutch Reserve Bank and I image a number of Central Banks in Europe.
So if gold goes to say $ 4000 / oz then the $ 1100 trillion figure grows to $ 2273 trillion, which is now a substantial size.
So perhaps gold will play a greater global monetary role in the future, perhaps in partnership with the US dollar or a basket of currencies? Interesting what the future brings!
US 500 futures are 4028 as I write. If projections that the S&P 500 will peak at somewhere beywen 4066, or 4150 and perhaps touch 4250, then that would probably happen in the short term.
Which makes the option expiry this Friday 18 November a possible candidate for a big down day
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos warns a recession is looming - and Americans should 'prepare for the worst'
Jeff Bezos warned the US economy is likely to slump in a painful recession.
Amazon's billionaire founder advised consumers and businesses to delay purchases and stockpile cash.
Bezos recently suggested it was time to "batten down the hatches."
Jeff Bezos has warned a US recession is looming, and advised consumers and businesses to stockpile cash in case there's a devastating downturn.
"The economy does not look great right now," Amazon's billionaire founder and executive chairman told CNN on Saturday.
"Things are slowing down, you're seeing layoffs in many, many sectors of the economy," he continued. "The probabilities say if we're not in a recession right now, we're likely to be in one very soon."
Bezos recommended American households delay big-ticket purchases such as new TVs, refrigerators, and cars, given the risk that economic conditions worsen. Similarly, he suggested small-business owners consider holding off on investments in new equipment, and build their cash reserves instead.
"The credit card balance collectively rose more than 15% from the same period in 2021, the largest annual jump in more than 20 years, according to the New York Fed."
"Total debt jumped by $351 billion for the July-to-September period, the largest nominal quarterly increase since 2007, bringing the collective household IOU in the U.S. to a fresh record $16.5 trillion, up 2.2% from the previous quarter and 8.3% from a year ago."
"The credit card balance collectively rose more than 15% from the same period in 2021, the largest annual jump in more than 20 years, according to the New York Fed."
Seems like there are a lot of "largest since 2008" type things these days...
Yes, the debt crisis is coming. Bad recession / depression too.
Hi Cool,
on Tue Sep 07, 2021 you replied to Vince:
Vincey baby, notice how I've been shining with my uranium and lithium plays for the last two years? Add BTC to that and few can touch me.
It turns out that I do know what I'm doing.
I am looking at my portfolio and am looking for views on uranium and lithium. Are you still invested? What are forward prospects?
Great question. The uranium plays have been really good since 2018 (some 4x, mostly the average is 2.5x) but lithium I was in more speculative stuff so it didn't do as well, even though the spot price has been up. It's a weird world, that Li, because I think the green stuff is so unpredictable/politically motivated and manipulated.
Soon, I'm going to sell all paper related investments (except BTC/miners since they are so low and I'm bullish long term) and re-evaluate. I'll likely do this in the next 6 weeks to close out the year. I will then wait for the next leg down to get commodities/dividend producers for a long term (5-10 year) hold. Is that specific enough?
I am looking at my portfolio and am looking for views on uranium and lithium. Are you still invested? What are forward prospects?
I think that long term nuclear power will be growing fast.
If I make lots of money on a general crash and Nuscale Power Corp is then cheap (as I expect),
then I will probably invest in that. They are the first licensed small modular reactor in the USA I think,
but have not installed one yet. It went public as a SPAC earlier this year. Most SPACs are still overpriced,
but after the crash...