Until the beginning of last year you often spoke on the theme of the early stages of a secular bull market. David had begun speaking about it as long as 4 years ago. But with the onset of the pandemic, you have been largely silent about it. Has it stalled or, in your view, already peaked?
Thanks so much for the terrifically informative analysis that you continue to provide. The quality of your work is simply jaw dropping at times. But I wonder if you could please clarify one thing. Would you mind defining more clearly what you mean by the term “financial repression”? I can certainly search this, but I’d like to know what it means to you.
Thanks to a subscriber for this note from Zoltan Pozsar for Credit Suisse. Here is a section:
Thanks to a subscriber for this article by Greg Valliere for AGF which may be of interest. Here is a section:
AN INEPT INSURRECTION FAILED, and there will be an orderly transition of power on Jan. 20; even Trump pledged as much early this morning. He probably won’t be ousted but his legacy will be forever stained, and his sycophants — Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, etc. — will never recover.
THE TEMPERATURE WILL LOWER SOON: For the next few days, there will be speculation about removing Trump, largely out of fear over what he may do — especially geopolitically — in his final two weeks. And there will be questions about why the Capitol Hill police were so pathetically caught off guard yesterday. But a change is coming . . .
This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
Investors poured into financial assets that benefit from a stronger economy after Democrats looked set to take control of Congress, potentially unleashing a torrent of federal spending to revive growth.
Banks and energy producers led gains in the S&P 500 as the Russell 2000 Index of smaller companies climbed 3%. The Nasdaq 100 fell as traders sold out of high-flying stocks such as the Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed.
Democrats claimed one of the two Senate seats contested in Georgia and led in the other tight race. Two wins would give President-elect Joe Biden’s party control of Congress and smooth the path for some of his spending policies. That’s fueled bets that increased stimulus will boost the economy and spark inflation. The 10-year Treasury yield powered past 1% for the first time since March, and the dollar fluctuated after earlier weakening toward a six-year low.
“The growth-into-value rotation may be reinforced after the results of the Georgia Senate election amid the prospect of a higher fiscal stimulus bill and steeper yield curve, which would benefit banks and other non-tech companies,” David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group in Newport Beach, California, wrote in a note to clients.
Thanks to a number of subscribers for this article by Jeremy Grantham which may be of interest.
The strangest feature of this bull market is how unlike every previous great bubble it is in one respect. Previous bubbles have combined accommodative monetary conditions with economic conditions that are perceived at the time, rightly or wrongly, as near perfect, which perfection is extrapolated into the indefinite future. The state of economic excellence of any previous bubble of course did not last long, but if it could have lasted, then the market would justifiably have sold at a huge multiple of book. But today’s wounded economy is totally different: only partly recovered, possibly facing a double-dip, probably facing a slowdown, and certainly facing a very high degree of uncertainty. Yet the market is much higher today than it was last fall when the economy looked fine and unemployment was at a historic low. Today the P/E ratio of the market is in the top few percent of the historical range and the economy is in the worst few percent. This is completely without precedent and may even be a better measure of speculative intensity than any SPAC.
This time, more than in any previous bubble, investors are relying on accommodative monetary conditions and zero real rates extrapolated indefinitely. This has in theory a similar effect to assuming peak economic performance forever: it can be used to justify much lower yields on all assets and therefore correspondingly higher asset prices. But neither perfect economic conditions nor perfect financial conditions can last forever, and there’s the rub.
All bubbles end with near universal acceptance that the current one will not end yet…because. Because in 1929 the economy had clicked into “a permanently high plateau”; because Greenspan’s Fed in 2000 was predicting an enduring improvement in productivity and was pledging its loyalty (or moral hazard) to the stock market; because Bernanke believed in 2006 that “U.S. house prices merely reflect a strong U.S. economy” as he perpetuated the moral hazard: if you win you’re on your own, but if you lose you can count on our support. Yellen, and now Powell, maintained this approach. All three of Powell’s predecessors claimed that the asset prices they helped inflate in turn aided the economy through the wealth effect. Which effect we all admit is real. But all three avoided claiming credit for the ensuing market breaks that inevitably followed: the equity bust of 2000 and the housing bust of 2008, each replete with the accompanying anti-wealth effect that came when we least needed it, exaggerating the already guaranteed weakness in the economy. This game surely is the ultimate deal with the devil.
Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Crescat Capital which contains a number of interesting charts. Here is a section:
Contributing to the supply shortage, the number of major new gold discoveries by year, i.e., greater than 2 million Troy ounces, has been in a declining secular trend for 30 years including the cyclical boost between 2000 and 2007. At Crescat, we have been building an activist portfolio of gold and silver mining exploration companies that we believe will kick off a new cyclical surge in discoveries over the next several years from today’s depressed levels.
Gold mining exploration expense industrywide, down sharply since 2012, has been one of the issues adding to the supply problems today. Crescat is providing capital to the industry to help reverse this trend.
Since 2012, there has also been a declining trend of capital expenditures toward developing new mines. From a macro standpoint, gold prices are likely to be supported by this lack of past investment until these trends are dramatically reversed over the next several years. Credit availability for gold and silver mining companies completely dried up over the last decade. Companies were forced to buckle up and apply strict capital controls to financially survive during that period. Investors demanded significant reductions in debt and equity issuances while miners had to effectively tighten up operational costs, cut back investment, and prioritize the quality of their balance sheet assets.
This article by Tim Duy for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a question:
For an example of how the economy might recover faster than expected, consider that the consensus estimate for fourth-quarter growth is just under 4% while the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow current estimate is 10.4%. Although the fourth quarter might not turn out to be quite so rosy given rising Covid-19 cases, the Atlanta Fed number still illustrates the possibility of some very good outcomes for the economy. For another example, consider that the $900 billion fiscal package is about 4.5% of GDP, or just about the size of the output gap. Imagine the possibility of being on the edge of full capacity already when the vaccine has been sufficiently distributed to allow the resumption of normal activities.
To be sure, any estimates of the output or unemployment gaps are just that — estimates. They will raise some worries about reports showing higher rates of inflation yet still leave the Fed hesitant to change the expected path of rate increases. The Fed will believe the economy is operating closer to full capacity if wage growth accelerates meaningfully beyond the 3.5% seen in July 2019, the high of the last cycle. That would help the clear the way to higher interest rates
My instinct is that getting all three of these pieces to come together makes inflation more of a 2022 story than a 2021 story. At this point, the 2021 story still looks less like real inflation and more like an inflation scare. And with its new policy strategy, the Fed won’t scare easily.
