Dollar Collapse

On Monday, stocks tanked around the world and so did oil, breaking $27. On Tuesday things looked better. Central banks were jawboning, with Mario Draghi making noises about intervening. The Chinese were also busy buying stocks. The true test is when the banks really start intervening and whether they will be able to reflate another cycle. At some point this strategy is bound to fail. Will it be now or the next time? That past couple of weeks have seen a very brutal bear market. If you look at the average stock, it has lost more than 20 percent. Sounds like a bear market in the making with tech stocks leading the way. 

For US stock markets, last week was the worst start to a year EVER. And lots of other countries were hit even harder. What happened? In two words, debt and China. We've borrowed way too much money in the past few decades, so a crisis was long overdue. And China's myriad mistakes are now impacting the rest of the world. Toss in a eurozone political crisis and Middle-East war, and as goes January, so might go the rest of 2016. 

The sound money community woke up this morning to a world finally behaving rationally — which is to say cowering in abject terror at the prospect of insane levels of debt, criminal incompetence at most major governments and geopolitical turmoil on a scale not seen since Vietnam, if not WWII. Stocks are plunging everywhere (with the Chinese market closed because of instability), gold is surging, and the “buy the dip” voices in the mainstream media are vacillating between bemusement and panic.

2016 is off to an eventful start. Already, Iran and Saudi Arabia have blundered into a Middle East confrontation while China has had to close its stock markets to prevent a melt-down. On Monday the turmoil spread to the developed world, with US and European share prices plunging while terrified capital poured into cash and gold. The likely result? More hedge fund failures, plunging corporate profits and yet another central bank attempt to preempt market forces by bailing out everyone in sight. Will it work again? Maybe not. 

Gold is down in the US but rising in most other places. Could this be the start of the next bull market in precious metals and mining stocks? Meanwhile, the shape of next year's monetary policy is becoming more clear, and it's unlike anything seen since, well, biblical times. You'll be amazed and probably shocked.     

The Dallas Fed just announced the Texas numbers and they are terrible. The manufacturing report is abysmal at negative 20. Texas is heading into a recession due to the oil price implosion. What's really bad is that the Oil Patch kept the US Economy afloat during the post-crash era. Is there possibly another sector that can keep it all going? Junk bonds are becoming worth what their name implies. So what's next? Does it spread to the rest of the economy or will it be contained? 

Three smaller stories -- a debt default by a Mexican construction firm, Spain's recent election of an anti-euro government, and Brazil's replacement of its finance minister with an easy-money political operative -- combine to paint a picture of a world that's heading inexorably towards a financial mess. It will begin with a wave of defaults, as emerging market borrowers of US dollars are unable to manage their debts. Then a critical mass of newly-elected (or newly-configured) governments will throw austerity and other related notions of fiscal restraint out the window. The result will be another wave of aggressively easy monetary and fiscal policies that will set the stage for an epic crisis. Get the details here. 

  John writes, "Sometimes one big event dominates the landscape, like last week when the Fed raised interest rates. Other times a bunch of less-universally-significant-things add up to a meaningful story. And the story that follows here is, of course (given the venue), ominous.  First up is the much-discussed US$9 trillion that developing countries borrowed back when the dollar was weak and their currencies were relatively strong. Pundits have been warning that with the dollar soaring this debt was largely underwater and therefore a threat. But as far as anyone could tell it wasn’t blowing anything up.  Then on Friday a big Mexican construction company ICA has defaulted." Listen on to hear more about those dominoes.     

Interest rates were finally increased after many years of threats/promises by the Fed. Economic numbers coming out of the Philadelphia Fed are decidedly negative and portend more economic weakness. Oil prices are going lower and there's stories of tankers full of the stuff not being able to find a will storage site. This is bad news for the oil patch, the banks and junk bond holders. The bond issuers will be defaulting en masse and this could lead to another banking crisis or a stock market collapse. Corporate profits were down 5% last year and could fall more this year. Combined with the imploding junk bond market there could be a major market collapse in early 2016. So keep your eyes open and be ready for the opportunities that will inevitably arise.

John writes, "For a while there, companies deemed to be highly risky were nonetheless able to borrow money for less than 6%. And borrow they did. Frackers, ultra-high-leverage retail chains and various other close-to-the-edge entities slurped up trillions from yield-starved investors who had forgotten about the other side of the risk/return equation.  That this hasn’t worked out so well is not much of a surprise. But the speed with which it has gone bad is still breathtaking. The following chart from Bloomberg illustrates just how fast an illogical market can be brought back to reality."

In Greek plays the authors were never sure how to write the ending. They used a technique known as the deus ex machine, now referred to as the Hand of God to magically solve the seemingly unsolvable. John asks if the Fed is not modern man's deus ex machine. But perhaps they're running out of their magical god-like powers. How will they save Kentucky or Illinois's pension plans, or the thousands of other public pension plans that are heading towards insolvency? The answer isn't yet known, but perhaps the deus ex machine is being dusted off now. 

John discussed two alarming trends taking place right now. First, tech is getting cheaper and therefore, there's less and less reason to buy expensive Apple products. Will the Apple Cachet carry them through slowing economies worldwide? Most of their profits come from the iPhone. And then we have a slowing China with more and more defaults taking place. Will this also result in people looking for tech on the cheap? And what will it mean for the Chinese and World Economies?

John writes, "Between that Russian plane being taken down by a soda can bomb and the recent Paris attacks, travel is losing some of its appeal.  Last night, for instance, I was at a party talking to a friend who’s retiring soon. When asked about his plans, he said he’d love to visit Italy, where he has some relatives. But not right now. “There’s a lot to see right here in the Pacific Northwest,” he said. “And you don’t have to fly to get there.” With less tourism comes less trade, and with less trade comes less growth — as if the already-overleveraged and sputtering global economy needed another push towards the edge. See Container freight rates plummet 70% in 3 weeks.And there's news from a pig farm in China that there's a potential super bug epidemic brewing, for which there is no cure. Listen on and get the scoop. 

John writes, "This weekend’s Paris attacks, occurring in the middle of one of history’s largest mass-migrations, has the feel of uncharted territory. But it’s actually an eerie echo of something that happened nearly two thousand years ago in more-or-less the same place. According to some historians, the fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t pre-ordained. By AD 300 it had its problems, including far-flung, hard-to-defend borders and recurring currency crises, but was generally stable and prosperous. Then a new power arose in the East. The Huns were horse archers who could out-ride and out-shoot their neighbors, and they terrorized the Vandals and Goths who lived in what is now Germany and the Balkans, driving them west to Rome’s borders. Rome chose to let half a million “barbarians” enter, hoping to use them as soldiers and laborers. Instead, it found itself with invading armies and unstable, uncontrollable political coalitions. The complete story is winding, convoluted and full of unfamiliar names, but it ends wi

John writes, "This weekend’s Paris attacks, occurring in the middle of one of history’s largest mass-migrations, has the feel of uncharted territory. But it’s actually an eerie echo of something that happened nearly two thousand years ago in more-or-less the same place. According to some historians, the fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t pre-ordained. By AD 300 it had its problems, including far-flung, hard-to-defend borders and recurring currency crises, but was generally stable and prosperous. Then a new power arose in the East. The Huns were horse archers who could out-ride and out-shoot their neighbors, and they terrorized the Vandals and Goths who lived in what is now Germany and the Balkans, driving them west to Rome’s borders. Rome chose to let half a million “barbarians” enter, hoping to use them as soldiers and laborers. Instead, it found itself with invading armies and unstable, uncontrollable political coalitions. The complete story is winding, convoluted and full of unfamiliar names, but it ends wi

John writes, "Some recent stories from, of all places, Texas, offer the first clear glimpse of the coming energy revolution. The short version: Combine wind at night, solar during the day, and next-generation batteries, and you get an energy economy that doesn’t need oil, coal, or gas." Truly an energy revolution is taking place. How long it may take to become fully embedded is the question. It may be sooner than you think. 

John writes, "It’s understandable (sort of) that the Fed wants to raise short-term interest rates so it can cut them again in the next downturn. But what if the next downturn is already here? That’s the signal being sent by the world’s other central banks." Central Banks around the globe are loosening the monetary strings or pursuing their own variety of QE. How can the Fed possibly tighten when the end result will likely be a stronger dollar and decreased exports?