IT WILL CONTINUE OR IT WON'T?

If you've hung around markets for a while you're most likely familiar with much of the jargon.

With the Dow recently crashing the 18,000 level, the index is up 15% since it's early 2016 low in February, supposedly because investor fears have receded at least for now about the U.S. economy not to mention a host of other things like what's up the Fed's sleeve on interest rates.

Recession worries were rampant and everything the Fed has done with its usual doctored data has been to quell that perception. Recent earnings reports are another case in point as MSM one of the Fed's major supporters spins these reports as favorable as they think they can get away with. Two recent examples were IBM and Bank of America.

Another case is big bank Morgan Stanley which beat analysts' expectations for the quarter, but who cares where those expectations end if they were ratcheted down, as frequently is the case, beforehand. Profits at the firm dropped 53%. This is an ongoing Wall Street game a lot like whistling past the grave yard at night. Both have their purpose.

It turns out JP Morgan and Wells Fargo turned in similar performances, hailed by MSM as besting phony expectations. Today, Goldman Sachs became the last of the six U.S. big banks to report pathetic profits.www.yahoo.com/news/goldman-sachs-profit-slumps-fourth-straight-quarter-114645813--sector.

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc's <GS.N> quarterly profit fell by more than half and revenue slumped to its lowest in more than four years as market volatility hit the Wall Street bank's bond trading and investment banking businesses.

Goldman, wrapping up a dismal quarter for big U.S. banks, reported a 40 percent drop in net revenue, reflecting declines in all of its main businesses.

As with other banks, Goldman's trading revenue was hit by sliding commodity and oil prices, worries about the Chinese economy and uncertainty about U.S. interest rates.

Highlighting the challenges facing the bank, Goldman's return on average common equity - a measure of how well the bank uses shareholder money - was 6.4 percent in the quarter, down from 14.7 percent a year earlier. (http://bit.ly/22KtaAI)

Many investors think ROE should be at least 10 percent to cover the cost of capital.

Longtime traders know you take markets down to shake out the weak hands and you push them up to bring in the fear-of-missing-out greedy ones. No one knows for sure when this is going to happen, but it will.

If one looks at this market on an historical evaluation it is rich by nearly every measure. Part of the MSM meme to explain away these dangers is the risk on, risk off one. It's a perverse form of going further out on the limb to capture yield only here it's about capturing some dependable yield with perhaps some growth tossed in along the way.

That meme alone is pushing up valuations to questionable sustainable levels. Most of these stocks are part of the Dow and S&P 500. A recent example of this is the largest PC state retirement fund in the largest PC state, California, is now considering investing in tobacco companies. Phillip Morris International, Inc. now trades at 21 times forward earnings estimates and carries a decent dividend. That P/E is the highest since the bubble era of the late 1990s.

And despite all the PC rants against smoking and smokers, it appears the decline in those who imbibe has tailed off and now even among the younger crowd it's becoming at least somewhat fashionable again. Like this upcoming presidential election, this form of investing is all about the status quo. It will continue or it won't?

OVERNIGHT

It was an up day of trading for most Asian markets overnight as shares in the Nikkei 225 led the way, advancing 3.5% gaining back most of what it gave up a day earlier. The deal that turned into a no deal among oil producers over the weekend sent downward ripples through Monday's markets coupled with the earthquake that tore through earlier in the week.

The yen weakened against the dollar helping fuel Tuesday's rally. Exporters rebounded owing to the weaker yen as did bank shares.The dollar gained 0.2% against the yen at 109.10 after hitting a one-week low Monday at 107.75.

Two other markets that rallied were the Australian ASX 200, up 1.13%, and the Hang Send, up 0.84%. The Kospi also edged slightly higher by 0.15%.  For China it was a slightly different tune with the Shanghai Composite down 0.1% while the Shenzhen Composite fell 0.12%.

Brent crude trade at $42.83 a barrel down slightly as some were saying the correlation between share and energy price broke down. The WSJ reported the following:

Remember when what was bad for oil was bad for stocks, and vice versa? That isn’t true anymore.

For investors, this indicates the adverse feedback loops that were rattling markets earlier this year have, for the moment, been broken. A good thing—though it may also make the Federal Reserve more comfortable about raising rates.

Not so long ago, the easiest way to figure out where U.S. stocks were headed was to look at oil. There were only two days in the 20-day trading period that ended Feb. 12 that the front-month Nymex crude oil contract and the S&P 500 went in opposite directions. The correlation between daily oil and stock price changes during that period was an atypically high 0.74, with 1 representing perfect correlation and zero no relation whatsoever.

SIR ALAN SPEAKS

Sir Alan speaks again.

This time in a rare incident of truth-telling. Maybe he's full up on $100K and higher honorariums to deliver what the in-crowd loves like to hear. Quantitative easing had only one purpose, that of wealth transfer.

He conveniently leaves out it was a direct hit on the pocketbooks of the retired, the poor and the less fortunate. War on the poor, the disenfranchised and the fixed-income group. They probably won't want to utter it, but we'll do it for them: Thanks, Alan. Thanks, Janet. Thanks, Ben.

Now you know in part why the Federal Reserve Bank is the most dangerous institution in America when it comes to your liberty, your independence and your financial future.

To paraphrase Voltaire: If you see a central banker jump out of a window, it's probably a good idea to follow because there's most likely a profit in it for them and their wealthy friends.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-18/greenspan-admits-feds-plan-was-always-pushing-stocks-higher

SCANDAL WITHIN A SCANDAL

Like any good political scandal there's usually a scandal within a scandal

In the wake of the phony leaked Panama Papers scandal here is a brief excerpt from The Daily Bell that accurately depicts what all the sudden outrage is really about. Once again it's another version of the old ploy of tightening the garrote around the windpipe of the many to catch the so-called evil few.

Since some of the greedy wealthy crowd have abused their rights to privacy, we'll take away yours along with theirs. It's part and package of the giant globalization condom--one size fits all.

From U.S. Treasury officials arbitrarily rewriting the rules to big bureaucrats from the International Monetary Fund to the G20 to the World Bank, all were in a staged, indignant huff much of last week. Something must be done. And now. Now, now is a word we didn't realize was even in the vocabulary of this noted foot-dragging bunch. We'd say go figure, but that would date us. Besides, that's what we're suppose to let them do.

We are supposed to believe that the entire spectrum of international political and financial executives were so incensed with what the Panama Papers revealed that they were able to act in concert within a couple of weeks of the initial hacks.

This is in stark contrast to most international gambits that take months and even years to orchestrate.

And, yes, it is really unbelievable.

The entire Panama Papers leak is unbelievable. The 11.5 million email leak seems carefully calibrated to embarrass US and British “enemies” – especially political opponents such as Boris Yeltsin.

And accusations that Russia itself organized the leak are almost laughable given the recent reactions emanating from Washington DC.

More and more it becomes difficult to deny that a sub stratum of organized globalism exists that is orchestrating a global regime of rules and regulations. These will affect seven billion people around the world while exempting a relative handful of families and individuals doing the orchestrating.

The mainstream media is habitually blasé about what’s taking place and the way the global regime is growing – quickly and powerfully.

It is the biggest story in the world and yet only the alternative ‘Net media gives it the singular urgency it deserves. And even then there are plenty of evolutions that are not fully noted.

This would seem to be one of them. The ramifications of what just happened in DC are enormous. Financial and investment privacy – a hallowed right for centuries if not millennia – has just been outlawed.

You, of course, are reading this article, and perhaps you do understand the heinous ramifications of what just occurred.

For anyone who believes this was anything but a planned, staged event, keep on smoking what you've been smoking. It's working.

IT'S ENDEMIC

There's a lot of screaming of late on both sides in what could be labeled the pot calling the kettle black among the wealthy, left and right. And the recent Panama Papers added to the fray.

Here's an  interesting take on the subject from the UK. This time those wealthy on the left being called out.

The Left-wing war on privilege is hypocritical to say the least. Labour is not a vanguard of equality. Its ranks are stuffed with well-heeled family members, including the sons of former leaders – such as Stephen Kinnock MP, who is also married to a retired Danish prime minister. Lord Kinnock, his father, reportedly earned a total salary of £1.85 million as an EU commissioner and was much criticised for the pay-off he took when he stepped down. The Miliband brothers rewrote their late father’s will, cutting their inheritance tax bill.

“Crusaders for comprehensive schools send their children to grammars and private schools. Defenders of meritocracy put their own children on the payroll.”

The Left ought to be a lot more careful when talking about tax. Jeremy Corbyn has tried to exploit David Cameron’s perfectly legal and ethical investment in an offshore company to trigger a phony war against tax dodging. But recent investigations into the arrangements of another former Labour leader suggest that the Left might be casting stones inside a fragile glass house. It has emerged that Tony Blair used a secret trust to manage his multi-million pound fortune. Interest-in-possession trusts do not have to file accounts, and can offer significant tax advantages, including the possibility of passing on wealth to children free of tax. Mr Blair’s lawyers, however, spoke only of his desire for privacy in setting up the trust and insist that it does not give him a tax advantage. More:

telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/04/17/the-left-has-double-standards-on-wealth

The same can be said for the U.S. People get it. 

OVERNIGHT

Trouble in Doha set the stage for overnight trading Monday as any agreement to cut production in oil apparently fell apart after 18 countries met over the weekend in the capitol of Qatar.

According to reports from Reuters, the pact fell apart "when Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran join the agreement." Iran had previously stated it would not consider cutting production until it reach its 500,000 barrels a day quota it was doing before sanctions were slapped on the nation for its nuclear program. Many felt going into this meeting that would be s sticking point. Brent crude was down 4.5% to $41.10 while U.S. crude was trading at $38.26.

Japanese shares were hit by concerns over the devastating earthquake that hit the southwest part of the country. The big quake registered at 7.3 early Saturday, following a smaller one Thursday. Reuters noted:

The plunge in crude oil prices took a large slice out of commodity currencies.
The greenback gained 1.1 percent against the Canadian dollar to C$1.2961 CAD=D4 while the Australian dollar shed 0.8 percent to $0.7663 AUD=D4.
The Japanese yen, a perceived safe-haven, rose on the turmoil, with the dollar skidding 0.6 percent to 108.07 yen JPY=.

Meanwhile, the Nikkei 225  dropped 2.7% until investor figured out how bad the quake affected an area known for its manufacturing. In other news, economic data out Friday in the U.S. showed further slowing as industrial production declined more than expected. economists were looking for 0.1% drop but the data showed 0.6% downturn last month, the sixth downturn in the last seven months./ Consumer sentiment added to the gloom dropping to its lowest level in seven months. Gold managed a 0.2% gain to $1,233.70. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 1.3% and South Korea’s Kospi was off 0.5%.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

 

A SOUND DOLLAR

This is a presidential election year, as nearly everyone knows.

There's much at stake. Possibly a deciding seat on the Supreme Court of the Land. Possibly what some are calling a rogue president. But if you ask us all three of the major candidates, not to leave out those possible subs on the sidelines, look like rogues to us.

But that in our view is the least of our worries. The most dangerous thing in America today is the Federal Reserve Bank. We would say the out-of-control-feeling-their-way-in-the-dark Federal Reserve Bank but that would be a gross understatement.

These are hand picked, non-elected, appointed people. Vetted by whom, Congress? If Congress' public confidence ratings gets any lower, it will soon be whale dung on the ocean's floor. This is serious business. Joined by their global central bank comrades, the havoc these people are setting up is the real shock and awe awaiting this country. 

And what's at stake here is your future, your liberty and that of your children and their children. Believe these bureaucrats and their MSM shills at your own peril. If you awoke one morning to discover you were just a few bucks short of being $43,000 in debt and so was every person in your household, your neighborhood, your county, your state and your country, how would you feel about that? Then there's a knock the door and someone from the government says he's there to collect.

All governments are rogue and rogue governments always try to inflate their way out of debt, the more crushing, the more obvious. Ask yourself why all these central banks are suddenly looking for a bit of. inflation. Praying in some circles might still be a proper term. We know what they tell us. But that's like the Big Rock Candy Mountain, a fantasy.

Deflation is about falling prices. It's about the increasing purchasing power of your money. When did deflation become Public Enemy Number One? When the Fed figured out it didn't understand and know how to deal with it? It's about creditors trumping debtors. The big squeeze is on. Printing money is a counterfeit form of low cost borrowing.

As we said, this is an election year. Your vote might not count for much, but your voice, that's a whole another matter. Below is an excerpt from James Grant of the Interest Rate Observer and it's link.  Read it for yourself and decide. We are well aware of what awaits those who question the in-crowd. They'll roll out their trite package of epithets, gold bug, scaremonger, conspirator and no doubt a bunch more unseemly ones if need be.

The Fed has painted the country--maybe even the globe--into a horrible corner that really has only one of two ways out. But neither will pleasant when the time comes.

We always need protection against cockeyed economic experimentation. Once a national consensus on money and debt furnished this protective armor. Money was gold and debt was bad, Americans assumed. Most credentialed economists today will smile at these ancient prejudices. Allow me to suggest that our forebears knew something.

Keynes himself would recoil at 0% bank-deposit rates, chronically low economic growth and the towering trillions that we have so generously pledged to one another. (All we have to do now is earn the money to pay them.)

How do we escape from our self-constructed fiscal jail? According to the Government Accountability Office, unpaid taxes add up to more than $450 billion a year. Even so, according to the Tax Foundation, Americans spend6.1 billion hours and $233.8 billion each tax season complying with a federal tax code that runs to 10 million words. Are we quite sure we want no part of the flat-tax idea? An identical low rate on most incomes. No deductions, no H&R Block. Impractical? So is the debt.

So is the spending (and the promises to spend more down the road). We need to stop the squandermania. How? By resuming the principled fight that Vivien Kellems waged against the IRS during the Truman Administration. It enraged Kellems, a doughty Connecticut entrepreneur, that she was forced to withhold federal taxes from her employees’ wages. She called it involuntary servitude, and she itched to make her constitutional argument in court. She never got that chance, but she published her plan for a peaceful revolution.

She asked her readers–I ask mine–to really examine the stub of their paycheck. Observe how much your employer pays you and how much less you take home. Notice the dollars withheld for Medicare, Social Security and so forth. If you are like most of us, you stopped looking long ago. You don’t miss the income that you never get to touch.

Picking up where Kellems left off, I propose a slight alteration in payday policy. Let each wage-earning citizen hold the whole of his or her untaxed earnings–actually touch them. Then let the government pluck its taxes.

“Such a payroll policy,” wrote Kellems in her memoir, Taxes, Toil and Trouble, “is entirely legal and if it were universally adopted, in six months we would have either a tax revolution or a startling contraction of the budget!”

Black ink, sound money and the spirit of Vivien Kellems are the way forward. “Make America solvent again” is my credo and battle cry. You can fit it on a cap.

http://time.com/4293549/the-united-states-of-insolvency/

WELCOME ABOARD!

The Ivy League Pedigree Disease. Yes, there is one.

There is a long article in The WSJ weekend edition, "The Next Conservative Movement," by Yuval Levin. Levin is a contributing editor to the National Review and the Weekly Standard. That, conservatively speaking, places him in the conservative camp, the faction of the GOP most in an uproar about a certain presidential primary candidate.

Though he apparently is from the University of Chicago, the Ivy League Pedigree Disease is contagious. Probably the only time he spends in the real world everyday is when he commutes to and from his book-lined academic cellar. His writing style is a bit stilted, highly Latinate and punctuated with a heavy dose of the obligatory -tion words, nouns mostly abstract and meaningless, all too safe and common to the world of bureaucrats and political party apologists.

They sound good, at least to him and his pedigree. And probably look good to his eye on paper as well. Not to mention the Journal editors.They're a formula, a recipe supposedly for fixing things. They're the polar opposite for the declarative, straight-forward subject, verb, object. The real essence of honest communication. Billy hit the ball. He touched all the sacks on his way around the diamond.

There is no room for misunderstanding or error there. Nor for highfalutin, academic babble attempting to masquerade as prose. One of his criticisms of a current presidential hopeful is the candidate criticizes but offers no solutions.

The is not a new line of thinking. We run into it frequently. The point being one must offer solutions along with one's criticisms for his criticisms to be valid. That's the kind of half-truth academia and it denizens are noted for. But there are times when one has to realize there is a problem first before one can focus on possible solutions.

This is a form of shooting the messenger. In politics, apparently, one has to have solutions before taking office. Is that it, kind sir?  Cite a president who has not been guilty of learning on the job including the current one who may make history books as the classic example of such.

And is a solution not a solution because you or I don't agree with it? We don't endorse or agree with building walls, xenophobia and such. But to a candidate who tossed them out there and to those who supported him in trumped up, phony primary elections, under the guise that their vote matters, they must see them also as solutions.

To make up for years of wasteful mismanagement of taxpayer money, one of the other candidates wants to tax us to kingdom come in the name of fairness and a whole gaggle of other abstracts. One of the excuses for such often cited is comparing us with what those in other countries pay. Why must we be compared with anyone? Who wrote that rule? We're suppose to be a sovereign nation.

We don't necessarily see that as a solution. But we understand many do. Are they correct? Is their answer a valid solution and that of anyone who differs not so? In the same issue in the Opinion section, Michael Barone, a well-know mouthpiece of the status quo GOP, writes this pathetic but telling paragraph. Barone's article is "Trump Can't Break the Republican Party."

It is generally agreed that the presidential nomination process is the weakest part of our political system. One reason is that it leaves the two great parties vulnerable to disruptive candidates--controversial political figures who threaten to reshape the party to which they have attached themselves.

Notice the terms disruptive, reshape, controversial,vulnerable. That should  give you an idea about elitism, diversity of opinion, controversial, tolerance and a rock hard mentality to keep the status quo. Focus also on the "our political system." We thank the WSJ and the two authors for letting us see your real, exclusionary feelings.

The "two great parties," Barone sounds as if he stole that phrase from another WSJ GOP apologist. These are two essentially bankrupt parties that have served less than 25% of the population for decades. The numbers of people who don't vote anymore now rival the number of people who dropped out of looking for a job a long time ago, the ones the Fed don't want to accurately report.

Levin notes what is one of the biggest blabbed American secrets, this is a fractured nation. And indeed it is. It started out that way and little has changed. One has to forgive his pedantic pedigree leanings and realize he's speaking only to the GOP troops, not ordinary people who queued up in those primary voting lines to express their votes. Barone coughs up Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressive movement failed to do-in the GOP. Teddy was s Democrat in bison clothing. He never met a government too big. Many of those who dropped out understand all too well what their vote actually means in a system governed by these "two great parties." The value is right up there with negative zero interest rates.

The other octopus in Washington, the Democrats, have not been able to do-in the GOP either after all these years. But it looks like they won't have to. Elitist statements like the paragraph noted above will do it for them.

A while back the CEO of BlackRock, a multi-billionaire, the world's largest asset management fund, publicly stated he didn't understand why everyone was so upset. To Mr. Barone and Mr. Levin we can say: "Welcome aboard," You three must know each other.