Tuesday, July 29, 2025

 Are the Feds Buying Junk Bonds??




Saturday, July 26, 2025

 Has the Dam Burst

With Real Estate Prices

Going Downstream??



 




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Repeat: Paedo-In-Chief Trump Is Not Coming To Save You Or 'The Children'

When will the Trumpstein brigade get it into their heads all politics is theatre. All puppeticians are actors with skeletons in their cupboards - that’s how they get the job in the first place

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Overall, then, the stock market stands at the highest level of valuations in U.S. history, easily eclipsing the extremes of 1929 and 2000.

 

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." 

Mark Twain

When desire disagrees with judgment, there is a disease of the mind: and to make a man forget the past, and blind him to the future, is as easy as making him drunk. The impression of invincibility is disaster itself. The stronger the illusion, the greater the fall.”

– Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly


The Impression of Invincibility

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
President, Hussman Investment Trust

July 20, 2025

With our most reliable stock market valuation measures at the highest extremes in U.S. history, record negative readings on our most reliable “equity risk premium” gauge (estimated S&P 500 total returns vs. Treasury yields), and the narrowest junk bond risk premiums in history, it’s useful for investors to remember that a market crash is nothing but risk-aversion meeting a market that is not priced to tolerate risk.

My impression is that the exuberance of the moment is too strong for investors to care about history. As is true in every bubble, investors are undoubtedly convinced that we’re in a new era to which history doesn’t apply. Simply observe corporate profit margins, for example, and the fact that they haven’t eroded in years, and it’s natural to imagine that they’ve simply established permanent highs beyond all historical experience.

We’ve had two decades of “free money” – not only fiscal deficits, but monetary policy that – for much of the past decade – funded those deficits by flooding the economy with zero-interest cash, which also significantly reduced corporate interest costs. That’s where the record profits have come from. It’s not a theory. It’s an accounting identity.

Remember also that despite the emergence of the internet, smart phones, networking, cloud computing, and countless other technological breakthroughs in recent decades, S&P 500 revenues, corporate profits, and GDP have grown slower, not faster, than in the decades prior to 2000. We forget. In the exuberance of this moment, the S&P 500 information technology index is priced at valuations that embed, and now require, a permanently high plateau in profit margins and growth rates.




Monday, July 21, 2025

 Blind Man’s

Bluff!

















Are we in a new era of unstoppable security prices??

Or

Another history making bubble??

Sentiment Changes


Smart Money - Buys Aggressively!
Capitulation
Despondency

Max-Pessimism 
Depression 
Hope - Silver F
Relief *Market returns to Mean  - Short Term Notes & Bills or MMF

Smart Money - Buys the Dips!
Optimism - Swiss Treasury Securities  
Media Attention - Gold
Enthusiasm

Smart Money - Sells the Rallies!
Thrill
Greed
Delusional
Max-Optimism  Residential Real Estate   - Stocks -BitCoin 
Denial of Problem  
Anxiety 
Fear
Desperation - Long Term Bonds

Current Economic Conditions

Prosperity - Moderate
Recession - Shallow
Deflation - None
Inflation - Moderate

Economic Choices
None
Shallow
Moderate
Prominent
Extreme 


Saturday, July 19, 2025

 The High-Tech

Market Distortion

Waiting for the Year 2000 Market Redo!!



The top 10 companies in the S&P 500, as measured by market capitalization, represent approximately 38% of the index's total market capitalization.  This indicates a high degree of concentration within the index, as a relatively small number of companies account for a significant portion of its overall value.

NVIDIA (NVDA): $4.022 trillion.

Microsoft (MSFT): $3.740 trillion.

Apple (AAPL): $3.153 trillion.

Amazon (AMZN): $2.388 trillion.

Alphabet (Google) (GOOG): $2.192 trillion.

Meta Platforms (Facebook) (META): $1.804 trillion.

Broadcom (AVGO): $1.290 trillion.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B): $1.026 trillion

Tesla (TSLA): $1.009 trillion.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM): $797.20 billion.


Wednesday, July 16, 2025

 

Inflation

Stocks versus Bonds

Has the inflation dragon retired to his cave with the latest annualized 2.7% increase?  So far the long end of the debt market hasn’t thrown in the towel with the bell weather 30 year Treasury bond breaking the current yield level of 5%.  Worries are abounding with inflation determined to remain along with budget deficits massively growing as far as the eye can see.   

If history is any guide the first sign of trouble in the equity markets the Federal Reserve will turn back into doves creating a floor instead of ceiling of 5% for the 30 Treasury bond.

What does all of this mean for long term investors??

DYI’s Earnings Yield Coverage Ratio - [EYC Ratio] as the stock market is close to my crash alert level under 0.50!  Today 7-16-2025 the Shiller PE stands at 38.03 and Vanguard’s Long-Term Investment-Grade Fund at 5.48% pushing the EYC Ratio to 0.53 any number below 0.50 it is a high probability bonds out performing stocks.

The S&P 500 index with its tiny dividend yield at 1.24% as compared to Vanguard’s Long-Term Investment Grade fund at 5.48% is a 342% difference in yield.  Shiller PE at 38 investors is not just expecting but demanding earnings growth way beyond anytime in history to maintain the expansion of equity prices.

Bottom line:  Long-Term high grade corporate bonds (reinvesting the interest) bought today go to sleep like Rip Van Winkle waking 10 years it is likely to outperform the S&P 500.  When DYI’s EYC Ratio drops below 0.50 (low 0.40 level) your probability is so high of outperformance the expression is “shooting fish in a barrel!”      

Friday, July 11, 2025

 

The (Declining) Status of the US Dollar as Global Reserve Currency: Central Banks Diversify into other Currencies & Gold


The dollar’s status as dominant foreign exchange-reserve currency has been diminishing for years as central banks have been diversifying to other currencies and over the past three years massively into gold. The decline of the dollar has been slow and halting, a couple of steps forward, one step back, sometimes bigger steps, other times smaller steps, and it remains by far the dominant global reserve currency. But the long-term trend is clear – and this has significant long-term consequences for the US.

The share of USD-denominated foreign exchange reserves declined to 57.7% of total foreign exchange reserves in Q1, according to IMF’s data today. In Q3 2024, the dollar’s share had dropped to a 30-year low.

Why is the dollar’s status as global reserve currency important?

Central banks other than the Fed have purchased $6.7 trillion in dollar-denominated financial assets, largely US Treasury securities. This money flow into the US has helped the US fund its twin deficits – the huge trade deficit and the even huger budget deficit – and thereby has enabled the US to incur those two deficits.

The dollar status as the dominant reserve currency has been crucial for the US, it has enabled the US to live beyond its means. As that dominance declines slowly — two steps forward, one step back — all kinds of risks pile up ever so slowly, including the sustainability of the government deficits and the debt.

Charles Smith SubStack click HERE 

DYI:  Our debt pile up.  1st gear 1980; 2nd gear 2000; 3rd gear 2009; 4th gear 2020.

When the next recession hits will the Fed's push the panic button and push inflation into overdrive?  So far history says yes they will driving the U.S. economy back into the 20 year inflationary cycle of 1965 to 1985.  The current ploy for individual investors is not the return on your principal but the return of your principal after inflation!

I've added to my sentiment indicators Swiss Treasury Securities as another possible safe haven from the long term effects of U.S. inflation.

  Smart Money - Buys Aggressively!

Capitulation
Despondency

Max-Pessimism 
Depression 
Hope - Silver F
Relief *Market returns to Mean  - Short Term Notes & Bills or MMF

Smart Money - Buys the Dips!
Optimism - Swiss Treasury Securities  
Media Attention - Gold
Enthusiasm

Smart Money - Sells the Rallies!
Thrill
Greed
Delusional
Max-Optimism  Residential Real Estate   - Stocks -BitCoin 
Denial of Problem  
Anxiety 
Fear
Desperation - Long Term Bonds

Current Economic Conditions

Prosperity - Moderate
Recession - Shallow
Deflation - None
Inflation - Moderate

Economic Choices
None
Shallow
Moderate
Prominent
Extreme 

   


Wednesday, July 9, 2025

 Kennedy gutted FOIA offices months ago. Gee, I wonder why.

This lying scam artist now wants to see every American wearing a “wearable” aka “injectable” within 4 years and promotes the CDC’s quackcine schedule that he knows perfectly well is not safe and knows or ought to know is not needed.

RFK Jr. & HHS: still searching for records to support their measles & covid narratives