podcast to be posted shortly …
Blog
06/10/2020 - The Roundtable Insight – Peter Boockvar and Yra Harris on Economic Risks and Investing
06/08/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini – Opciones de inversión: Wall Street o Uruguay
“El Nasdaq 100 llegó a un nuevo máximo histórico de 9.824,39 puntos, en tanto que el Dow Jones sube hasta los 27.110,98 y el S&P 500 queda a un 1,1% de ponerse en positivo en el año. Mucha liquidez sobrante y optimismo con la recuperación de las represiones al mercado por parte de los Estados, con la excusa del coronavirus. EE.UU. generó en mayo 2,5 M de empleos, regreso a la creación de puestos laborales que significa la mayor creación desde al menos 1939.”
06/05/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini: Hay inflaciones e hiperinflaciones (en Argentina)
“La represión de los mercados -cuarentenas y demás- han provocado una muy fuerte recesión y, fiel a su filosofía según la cual solo los Estados pueden salvar a las sociedades -y no el mercado- proyectan enormes emisiones monetarias que tendrán distinto impacto según sean absorbidas por la demanda o no.”
06/04/2020 - The Roundtable Insight: Demelza Hays and Bill Laggner on Crypto Currencies and Assets
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06/03/2020 - Charles Hugh Smith: The Post-Covid Economy Will Be Very Different From the Pre-Pandemic Bubble Economy
“As the old models break down opportunities for new models will arise. For example, the entire education complex based on the outdated, dysfunctional “factory model” of large campuses and hundreds or thousands of students packed together is ripe for disruption.
Why not have small decentralized classes without the bloated administration and centralized curriculum–not to mention the improved security of small, decentralized groups? In my book The Nearly Free University I describe how small, decentralized “apprenticeship” groups could improve actual learning while eliminating the entire bloated administration and campus costs (lab work could be performed onsite in existing work places).
Rather than accredit the institution, accredit the student.
The unsustainably costly healthcare sector is equally ripe for disruption as demand destruction and soaring costs undermine the current model of profiteering.
Decentralizing the economy sacrifices the long global supply chains and corporate monopolies for local jobs and local supply chains. All the corporate and state monopolies and cartels that have hollowed out the economy and the social order were exploitive, parasitic and predatory as well as unsustainable, and their slide into the dustbin of history is accelerating as linear systems cascade into non-linear dynamics.
The post-Covid economy will be very different from the pre-pandemic bubble economy, in ways few anticipate: non-linear creative destruction and DeGrowth will be the dominant dynamics. Models that obsolete the old, unsustainable, dysfunctional models will blossom, and that is how civilization advances.
Maybe “shareholder value” has been the greatest con in history, a PR cover story for the greatest rise in wealth and power inequality in American history.”
06/01/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini – Wall Street no para y el principio del fin de HKG y de Argentina
“Imparable parece Wall Street. Como señala Marcos Bazzana, cuando la Fed quiere que los mercados de acciones suban -con su casi ilimitada capacidad de fuego- a pesar de que las compañías y el mundo estén en decadencia, los mercados van a subir. Total, que la oferta de dólares es ampliamente absorbida en el mundo sin provocar demasiada inflación. El S&P500 supera los 3.000 puntos y a mediano plazo parece alcista.”
05/30/2020 - Michelle Goldberg: America Is a Tinderbox
“So many things make America combustible right now: mass unemployment, a pandemic that’s laid bare murderous health and economic inequalities, teenagers with little to do, police violence, right-wingers itching for a second civil war and a president eager to pour gasoline on every fire. “I think we’re indeed in a moment where things are going to get a lot more tense before they get more peaceful,” said the University of Michigan historian Heather Ann Thompson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2016 book “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy.”
05/27/2020 - The Roundtable Insight: Charles Hugh Smith on Meeting the Challenges of the “New Normal” World
podcast to be posted shortly
05/26/2020 - Judd Hirschberg – Tutorial on Trading
05/23/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini – Previsible: la estrella son los futuros de crudo
“Esta semana pareciera que renació el optimismo en las bolsas que, en mi opinión sigue siendo exagerado porque no está tan claro que los gobiernos levantarán fácilmente la represión -con la excusa de “combatir el coronavirus”- sobre los mercados. El S&P 500 alcanzaba los 2971 su nivel más alto desde el 6 de marzo pasado, aunque este jueves bajaba un 0,7% y el Nasdaq 100, aunque también bajaba este jueves, está solo a un 2,5% debajo de su máximo histórico.”
05/21/2020 - Daniel Lacalle on Gold for Protection from Financial Repression
“There is a huge disconnect between markets and the economic reality, and it’s fundamentally based on the view that 2020 is a lost year and therefore what investors need to think about is 2021 is a recovery year. It looks a very dangerous bet to me because if there’s anything that we have learned from this crisis is that estimates for 2021 remain excessively optimistic, and that the V-shaped recovery is more than elusive.”
05/20/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini – INFLACIÓN Se disparó fuerte en abril y asoma la híper
” Días atrás, la OCDE advertía que el crecimiento anual del IPC en los países desarrollados se desaceleró significativamente, cayó al 1,7% en marzo desde el 2,3% en febrero, “reflejo de la evaporación de la demanda” a medida que la represión de los gobiernos detuvo casi por completo la actividad.”
05/13/2020 - Peter Boockvar: The Idiocy of NIRP
1)It’s a tax. A tax on bank capital housed at a central bank that someone has to eat, either the bank itself or they pass it on to their clients. Taxes aren’t stimulative.
2)It would blow up the $4 Trillion money market industry as money would flee and this money finances government repo’s, commercial paper, CD’s, etc…
3)It would damage bank profitability, which is the blood of small and medium sized business lending and a big help to large ones that also have access to capital markets. To remind you, the Japanese Topix bank stock index is down 92% in nominal terms since its peak in 1989. The Euro STOXX bank stock index is down by 89% from its 2007 high.
4)We’re seeing in Europe that banks have passed on some of the tax on to retail deposits. There is a story today on BN that UBS is offering some of its high net worth clients a payment holiday for a few months from paying the negative rate penalty for keeping money at the bank. They are doing this because money is leaving the bank.
5)It hurts insurance companies and pension funds that have little low risk options in meeting their investment return goals.
6)It crushes the saver and retiree.
7)It has created a massive bubble in sovereign bonds that will be a complete mess when reversed considering the large debt taken on that NIRP encourages.
8)It therefore becomes a trap for central banks because of the potential damage to bond prices when unwinding it.
9)The Swedish Riksbank saw the error of its negative rate ways and got its benchmark rate back to zero, but only zero. Even the BoJ realized the damage done as they stopped at a negative rate of .10% years ago.
05/13/2020 - Yra Harris: Myopic Gibberish
“Why push for negative interest rates? What would be the desired outcome? If it is to weaken the DOLLAR, better to follow the Swiss paradigm even if it verges on the legality of the Federal Reserve Act. The FED has supposedly begun purchasing corporate bonds so it is already stretching its legal position.”
05/12/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini – Las tasas negativas de la Fed y la evolución del dólar
“En EE.UU. orquestaron estímulos fiscales por unos u$s3 B, más del 14% del PBI de 2019 y todavía se espera otro billón para el mes que viene. Esto acarrearía una fuerte sobreoferta -inflación- sino fuera por la gran demanda global de dólares, a la vez que las otras monedas se depreciarán quizás más: se estimaba que los países del G-20, para capear la crisis por las cuarentenas, lanzarían estímulos por u$s8 B, pero esta cantidad ya supera los 10 B. De hecho, Dollar Index Spot ahora sube hasta los 100,23.“
05/05/2020 - Spanish: Alejandro Tagliavini – De cómo los argentinos pobres financian a Boeing
“Dos meses atrás Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) fue a Washington a pedir un rescate de u$s60.000 M para sí y sus proveedores. Había gastado mucho en recompras de acciones mientras se recuperaba del desastre del 737 Max y cuando recién empiezan los efectos de la represión del mercado aerocomercial por parte de los gobiernos.”
05/04/2020 - The Roundtable Insight – Judd Hirschberg and Yra Harris discuss their Research and Trading Strategies
05/01/2020 - The Roundtable Insight – Charles Hugh Smith on how COVID 19 will affect Jobs and the Economy
04/27/2020 - Dr. Albert Friedberg on the Economy and the Financial Markets
Quarterly Conference Call with Dr. Albert Friedberg – some notable points:
- Discussion on the Federal Reserve “put” on the financial markets
- Money supply is growing at 20% per year now
- S&P 500 PE ratio of 35 now makes sense
- Still bearish on oil, but cautiously bearish now
- Discussion on gold in the international monetary system
04/27/2020 - Dr. Albert Friedberg – “We have entered the third phase of the life of fiat money”
“We have now entered the third phase of the life of fiat money. There are now no restraints on its creation because it is widely believed that there is no link between money growth and inflation. Therefore, the Fed will create as much money as is needed to lift the economy from temporary deflation and depression. The money explosion under way will have an impact on consumer prices as soon as the economy begins to stabilize. My guess is that by the end of this year inflation will run at well over 3% per annum and at 3% to 6% per annum sometime in 2021. These are, of course, guesses as we are unable to know (a) how fast money will run by then, (b) what the precise relationship between money and prices is, other than it is positive, and (c) the role of expectations. If the latter turns into an inflation psychosis, inflation may run much higher than estimated. Such a scenario favours hard assets over investment/income-producing assets and, in turn, gold over most other hard assets. By tradition, gold is viewed, at least partly, as money because it possesses certain notable attributes. Unlike fiat money, it does not represent the liability of an issuer nor can it be created without cost by an issuer; for the past few thousand years, its supply has grown at no more than about 2% to 2.5% per year. It is extraordinarily liquid, portable, and marketable. Gold is quoted at the same price in every country of the world. These attributes qualify gold to retake an important role in monetary affairs.”
