What Bernanke Doesn’t Understand
September 6, 2010
This week’s Outside the Box is an incendiary blog written by Steve Keen on debt deflation and GDP growth. I am not certain as to his math (is he double counting debt and consumer spending?) but he does illustrate very well the problem of a deleveraging recession, which I have been writing about for a long time. This is just a different type of recession we are in. So rather than fret over the absolute certainty of the math, read this for an understanding of the nature of the problems we face. He has the direction right, I think, which is the important part for us to grasp.
Then he just now posted a second blog on Quantitative Easing, which he ends with pointing out why it might “work” but also suggests that it would lead to yet another financial bubble. Again, very Outside the Box thinking. It has me going ‘hmmm.”
Steve Keen is Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney, and author of the popular book Debunking Economics. He has won numerous awards and is widely published in academia. Seems quite the serious guy. You can read his material at http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/.
Your working on Labor Day analyst,
Demographics, Destiny and Asset Markets
August 2, 2010
I am in Minnesota this morning doing a speech, but do have a very good candidate for this week’s Outside the Box. Tony Boeckh just published a piece by George Magnus on demographics and the markets that I think is very thought-provoking. Demographics is something I think about a lot and you should too. I will let Tony do the introduction of George.
Have a good week. My goal is to write this Friday’s letter a little early so that I can get in some fishing time. And when you look at today’s ISM number, look past the headline number, which is just fine, and look at the weakness in the leading indicators. New orders declined by 5 points to 53.5, its lowest level since June 2009. Also, imports slowed noticeably, which is a bad omen for domestic demand. Overall, the ISM index suggests that real GDP and factory output slowed early this quarter.
Your concerned about the lack of growth analyst,
Print baby, print ... emerging value and the quest to buy inflation
June 14, 2010
This week I thought I would give you an Outside the Box with a more European flavor, as I am in Tuscany at the moment and on to Paris later this week and then back here for a working weekend with partners. Life is tough. :-)
Dylan Grice of Societe Generale (based in London) is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. This thought-provoking piece makes us meditate on whether central banks will print money in response to the fiscal crisis in the developed world countries. I am not certain that all central banks will print with abandon, BUT we need to think about what happens if they do.
I need to hit the send button now, as we are off to watch Italy in the World Cup in a little village (Montisi) where they have set up screens in the town square. My first connection with European football live with crazy fans and all! Should be fun!
Your under the Tuscan sun analyst,
The Great Reflation
May 3, 2010
Let me start this week's Outside the Box by venting a little anger. It now looks like almost 30% of the Greek financing will come from the IMF, rather than just a small portion. And since 40% of the IMF is funded by US taxpayers, and that debt will be JUNIOR to current bond holders (if the rumors are true) I can't tell you how outraged that makes me.
What that means is that US (and Canadian and British, etc.) tax payers will be giving money to Greece who will use a lot of it to roll over old bonds, letting European banks and funds reduce their exposure to Greece while tax-payers all over the world who fund the IMF assume that risk. And does anyone really think that Greece will pay that debt back? IMF debt should be senior and no bank should be allowed to roll over debt and reduce their exposure to Greek debt on the back of foreign tax-payers.
I don't think I signed on for that duty. Why should my tax money go to help European banks? This is just wrong on so many levels and there is nothing seemingly we can do. Oh, well. Thanks for listening.
This week we look at an essay by my friend Tony Boeckh, who from 1968 until 2002, was chairman and editor-in-chief of BCA Publications, publisher of The Bank Credit Analyst. He has written a very important book called The Great Reflation. Tony feels that one of the most important things for investor to understand is money flows, whether from debt or monetary easing. The ebb and flow of money can both create and burst bubbles and we are now in what he calls a Great Experiment where governments around the world are trying to again reflate the economy (and are succeeding). What bubbles will this create and how does it end? How should we then invest?
My good friend Marc Faber has this to say about The Great Reflation:
"The Great Reflation is by far the best economic and investment book that I have read in the last ten years. Tony is a seasoned historian, economist, and strategist with a unique ability to explain complex issues in simple, readable terms. These are illustrated with numerous charts on economic and financial trends that put current conditions in a historical context."
—Marc Faber, Editor, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report
The book is in most bookstores and you can of course get it by going to www.amazon.com and you save 34% and it is available on Kindle. So, let's enjoy Tony's essay.
Your never did like the IMF anyway analyst,
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
August 24, 2009
There is the strong possibility that policy makers in the US and UK will not time the transition from the current quantitative easing to a more tightened monetary policy. That is not because they are no competent. It is because the task is very tricky and there is no play book outlining the steps. This is not Tom Landry (former Dallas Cowboy coach) pacing the field with a play for every situation already planned and practiced well in advance.
The odds favor they will either be too late or too early. Getting it "just right." The Goldilocks play, would be more than fortunate. In fact, there may be no right play to call. They may be forced to choose between a slower economy and/or inflation/deflation. And as this week's Outside the Box authors note, there is also the possibility of yet another asset bubble, making the choices even more risky.
Those who are absolutely positive about which of a variety of outcomes will emerge have a level of clairvoyance with which I am not familiar. It makes risk asset (like stocks) investing particularly tricky right now. This is a time to be nimble and avoid creating opportunities for large losses if you are wrong.
We will start this week's OTB with a few paragraphs from the Bank Credit Analyst about the Great Depression and then move on to a piece from the London office of Morgan Stanley on the problems facing central bankers.
And on a less ominous but more important note, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) has issued a warrant for my arrest which goes into effect on August 26th! I will be held at the PM Lounge in the Joule Hotel from 3-6. My bail is set at $2,400, which will benefit local families living with neuromuscular disease. No one person can set me free. It will take a little help from all of my friends, family, colleagues and enemies! Please use the link below to visit my Bail Page and help me post my bond by contributing in any way that you can. Thank you for having a big heart! And come see me in jail!
CLICK HERE TO HELP RAISE MY BAIL!!
And now, the thoughts from BCA.
Slow Long-Term Growth, And Government’s Response
August 10, 2009
This week I am really delighted to be able to give you a condensed version of Gary Shilling's latest INSIGHT newsletter for your Outside the Box. Each month I really look forward to getting Gary's latest thoughts on the economy and investing. Last year in his forecast issue he suggested 13 investment ideas, all of which were profitable by the end of the year. It is not unusual for Gary to give us over 75 charts and tables in his monthly letters along with his commentary, which makes his thinking unusually clear and accessible. Gary was among the first to point out the problems with the subprime market and predict the housing and credit crises. His web site is down being re-designed, but you can write for more information at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you want to subscribe (for $275), you can call 888-346-7444. Tell them that you read about it in Outside the Box and you will get not only his recent 2009 forecast issue with the year's investment themes, but an extra issue with his 2010 forecast (of course, that one will not come out until the end of the year. Gary is good but not that good!) I trust you are enjoying your week. And enjoy this week's Outside the Box....
Make Sure You Get This One Right
July 6, 2009
There are those who sweat over every decision, worrying about how it will affect their lives and investments. Then there is the school of thought that we should focus on the big decisions. I am of the latter school.
85% of investment returns are a result of asset class allocations and only 15% come from actually picking investment within the asset class. Getting the big picture right is critical. In this week's Outside the Box we look at a very well written essay about the biggest of all question in front of us today. Do we face deflation or inflation?
This OTB is by my good friends and business partners in London, Niels Jensen and his team at Absolute Return Partners. I have worked closely with Niels for years and have found him to be one of the more savvy observers of the markets I know. You can see more of his work at www.arpllp.com and contact them at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Quarterly Review and Outlook - First Quarter 2009
April 20, 2009
There is a reason I call this column Outside the Box. I try to get material that forces us to think outside our normal comfort zones and challenges our common assumptions. And this week's letter does just that. I have made the comment more than once that is it unusual for two major bubbles to burst and for the conversation and our experience to be rising inflation and not a serious problem with deflation.
Van Hoisington and Dr. Lacy Hunt give us a seminar on why they think it is deflation that will ultimately be the problem and not inflation we are dealing with today. This week's letter requires you to think, but it will be worth the effort.
Now, if you put all of the various inputs together, Hoisington and Hunt show that theory suggests we will soon be dealing with deflation. It's counter- intuitive to what we hear today, which is why the Bank for International Settlements used the stagflation word in a recent report. The transition that is coming will not be comfortable.
Hoisington Investment Management Company (www.hoisingtonmgt.com) is a registered investment advisor specializing in fixed income portfolios for large institutional clients. Located in Austin, Texas, the firm has over $4-billion under management, composed of corporate and public funds, foundations, endowments, Taft-Hartley funds, and insurance companies. And their track record over the last 20 years suggests we should pay attention. And now let's jump right in to the essay.
Roadmap To Inflation And Sources Of Cheap Insurance
March 24, 2009
What happens when inflation once again returns. As this week's Outside the Box writer, James Montier, writes, we may want to start thinking now about inflation insurance and he mentions a few ways to do so. But this letter is a must read for his bringing to light a speech by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke in 2000 given to the Japanese, where he suggest inflation targeting:
"In the speech, he laid out a menu of policy options that are available to the monetary authorities at the zero bound. First, aggressive currency depreciation, as per Romer's analysis of the end of the Great Depression. Second on Bernanke's list is the introduction of an inflation target to help mould the public's expectations about the central bank's desire for inflation. He mentions the range of 3-4%!"
I think you will find this week's OTB to be exceptionally thought provoking. Montier is one of my favorite economic thinkers (and a good friend). He works for Societe Generale in London in their Cross Asset Research group.
Inflation Is Not The Problem
July 14, 2008
This week we are going to do something unusual for Outside the Box. Normally I take an essay and send it to you to read. Today I am going to give you a link and strongly suggest you click to it. Long time readers are familiar with friend and comrade James Montier, who along with Albert Edwards, migrated to Societe Generale earlier this year. They are co-heads of Global Cross Asset Strategy and based in London.
Kate Welling does some of the best interviews anywhere in her Welling@Weeden letter, and this one of Montier and Edwards is typical of her immensely enjoyable style. She gave my good friend Prieur du Plessis permission to reprint the letter, and I provide you with a link to his blog and if you scroll down 6 short paragraphs you get the link to the letter, which includes the graphics and is much more fun than just me cutting and pasting. You can also subscribe to Prieur's blog if you wish. Once a week he provides a very useful review of what was written the previous week.
Montier and Edwards speak quite forcefully about the problems they see in the market today, and they are truly Outside the Box thinkers.
"They are, in a word, skeptics, and at this juncture most deeply skeptical of any and all notions that 'the worst is over.' The recession, which has barely begun, is more likely to be deep than shallow, market valuations are hideously expensive and the -flation policymakers should be worried about starts with de-, not in-. For their reasons, keep reading, if you dare."
The link is: http://www.investmentpostcards.com/2008/07/05/market-fundamentals-are-appalling/
And no, despite the picture, they are not twins separated at birth.
Quarterly Review and Outlook - Second Quarter 2008
July 7, 2008
There is a reason I call this column Outside the Box. I try to get material that forces us to think outside our normal comfort zones and challenges our common assumptions. And this week's letter does just that. I have made the comment more than once that is it unusual for two major bubbles to burst and for the conversation and our experience to be rising inflation and not a serious problem with deflation.
Van Hoisington and Dr. Lacy Hunt give us a seminar on why it will be deflation that will ultimately be the problem and not the current inflation we are dealing with today. This week's letter requires you to think, but it will be worth the effort. Remember our lesson from Economics 101. If you raise the supply of something, in normal markets the price goes down. And if you increase the price, suppliers will respond by producing more.
Now, if you put all of the various inputs together, Hoisington and Hunt show that theory suggests we will soon be dealing with deflation. It's counter-intuitive to what we see in the stores today, which is why the Bank for International Settlements used the stagflation word in a recent report. The transition that is coming will not be comfortable.
Hoisington Investment Management Company (www.hoisingtonmgt.com) is a registered investment advisor specializing in fixed income portfolios for large institutional clients. Located in Austin, Texas, the firm has over $4-billion under management, composed of corporate and public funds, foundations, endowments, Taft-Hartley funds, and insurance companies. And now let's jump right in to the essay.
The End of the Inflation Scare?
June 30, 2008
I mentioned in last Saturday's letter a report by Louis Gave of GaveKal fame on whether inflation may be waning and its importance. Louis gave me permission to use it as this week's Outside the Box. It is typical of the thoughtful analytical work they do.
Louis and his partners and associates at GaveKal write some of the more thought-provoking material I read. They really challenge my position on numerous matters, causing me to look at many items from a different view. That of course, makes this particular piece good for Outside the Box. Whether you agree or disagree, you need to know why you hold a position. If you can't articulate the "against," how can you be sure you truly understand the "for"?
I think given the current debate on inflation, this week's Outside the Box is a must read. While it may look longer, there are a lot of very important graphs here. And thanks to Doug Harrison for helping with the tricky technical aspects of getting this letter out today. It was a lot more than a simple cut and paste, and way beyond my pay grade.
And congratulations to Louis and his wife Kelly who by this time may have a new child. She was due any minute on Friday. I trust you are enjoying your summer. I will be on Larry Kudlow's show tomorrow evening and then having dinner with he and Louis' father Charles (and Tiffani of course). And expect an announcement about a new survey in the next few days.
A Kind Word for Inflation
June 23, 2008
This week's Outside the Box will challenge a few of your base assumptions. Paul McCulley, the managing director at PIMCO, offers us a kind word for inflation and the reasons that the Fed will be on hold for a lot longer than the markets currently think. And part of that is to avoid a real recession or even a depression. Getting this debate right is important.
These are indeed interesting times we live in. I look forward to being with Paul at the end of July on our Maine fishing expedition, where he can defend his proposition to the group of economists and analysts gathered there. Have a great week.
Fooling With Inflation
June 9, 2008
This week in Outside the Box we look at Bill Gross's recent essay on measuring inflation. How you measure inflation makes a difference not only in social security payments but also in what your real returns on bonds are. As Bill notes, there is a significant difference in how the world measures inflation and how it is done in the US. He gives us some insights that are very thought-provoking.
In the last decade economists regularly argued the CPI over-stated inflation by 1%. Now Gross suggests that it may understate inflation by 1%. This week's OTB makes for very interesting reading. Bill Gross is managing director of PIMCO. (www.pimco.com)
Why We Must Fix It
May 5, 2008
This week in Outside the Box we take up a topic that should be on the top of the agenda of every regulatory authority, executives at financial services firms of all types, and average investors: How do we fix the credit markets to make sure we do not have such a crisis again? Good friend Michael Lewitt of Hegemony Capital Management gives us his observations, some of which go further than I would personally like to see us go. But this is the conversation that must happen if we are to steer clear of future crises. It is clear to me now that a laissez faire approach to regulating certain financial instruments exposes the entire economy to risks much larger than the loss of a business here or there. While better disclosure is certainly appropriate, it is not enough.
I think that we should seriously consider having an exchange for credit default swaps and other similar OTC derivatives. If Bear Stearns is deemed too big to fail because of the extent of its CDS book, and taxpayers are put at risk in a bailout, which I agree was necessary, then rules must limit taxpayer exposure. Having futures and options trade on an exchange certainly hasn't limited commerce or restrained business, and with instantaneous execution and inexpensive transactions there is little friction from using an exchange.
Getting the rules right in the future is going to be difficult and contentious. But it is something we must begin to do as soon as possible. The footnotes that Michael uses are at the end.
Two Essays on the Continuing Financial Crisis
April 28, 2008
This week in Outside the Box we look at two brief essays which give us different perspective on the Continuing Crisis. The first is by Mohamed El-Erian, the co-chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pimco. His book, 'When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change', will be published by McGraw Hill in June, and it will be on my summer reading list. El-Erian argues in the thought-provoking piece from the Financial Times that the crisis is still far from finished, and that those who think we are returning to more placid times may be surprised when volatility suddenly becomes even more pervasive.
The second is by good friend and Maine fishing buddy David Kotok, the chief investment officer of Cumberland Asset Managers (www.cumber.com). He was recently in Africa where he met with the head of the central bank of a small country with headline inflation of 10%. The problem is that "core inflation" is 5% and food inflation is 15%, yet accounts for 50% of the GDP. He asked a group of financial thinkers (including your humble analyst) to ponder what that central banker should do. Do you set high rates and target overall inflation or set lower rates and not worry about food inflation.
Why should we worry about inflation in a small African country? Because the principles are the same, and it makes a real difference where the Fed comes down at the end of the day on this very question.
This week's reading should be very helpful and thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy this read as much as I did.
Quarterly Review and Outlook - First Quarter 2008
April 21, 2008
This week's Outside the Box is from my friends at Hoisington Management. While somewhat technical, they make the case that a slowdown in consumer spending is inevitable. This is worth taking some time and thinking about. Quoting: "This means that consumer spending increases should be approximately zero for the next three years. Further exacerbating the problem is the personal saving rate which declined from 5.2% in the decade of the 1990s to average 1.3% in the last seven years, and now stands at 0.3%. Should declining wealth, rising unemployment and poor economic conditions cause consumers to begin to save and lift the rate back to the 1.3% average of the past seven years, real consumer spending would experience a multi-year contraction."
If they are right, and the evidence of their research is compelling, then we are in for a much tougher time than the recent stock market rallies suggest. The stock market is not always a leading indicator. This week's letter suggests that businesses that depend on the US consumer for growth may be in trouble.
Let’s Get Real About Bear
March 17, 2008
This week's Outside the Box is going to be a little different. I am going to write about the extraordinary action by the NY Fed to foster the Bear Stearns deal with JP Morgan, and give you three brief notes from Michael Lewitt of Harch Capital Management and Bob Eisenbeis (former executive vice-president of the Federal Reserve of Atlanta) of Cumberland Advisors.
A Trip Back in Time to Profit from the Unfolding Crisis Today
October 8, 2007
I get more questions about gold than other single topic. The fascination for the "barbarous relic" among my readers is clear. This week in Outside the Box we take a look at the gold market, its growth-to-date, and potential future investment opportunity. Doug Casey and David Galland of Casey Research provide an intriguing analysis of the gold market today.
I have known Doug and David a very long time. They take their research on gold stocks very seriously, and have been quite successful over the past years. While they are more bearish on the economy than I am, their analysis of the natural resource markets and gold stocks in particular has been spot on. In the mid-80's I wrote my first newsletter which focused on gold stocks. I sold it after about a few years as I became bearish on gold, but kept up the interest in the stocks.
But one thing I learned. If you are not on the ground talking to the men who are doing the work, getting into the behind the scenes facts, you are going to have a hard time making money even in a gold bull market. Doug is one of the few guys that truly knows what is going on in the market. He knows the difference between those who are serious about mining and those who are simply promoters.
If you are interested in specific gold stocks and gold stock investing, I really suggest you subscribe to Doug Casey's letter The International Speculator. They will send you his recent update which covers in-depth all the stocks he likes and a few he says to avoid. For more information on how to subscribe, please click here.
What Do They Know?
October 1, 2007
We are in a world far different than the one I learned about in economic text books. As I have written, the shadow banking system of hedge funds and CDOs, CLOs, PIPES, etc. have created a new financing economic reality far different than the traditional banking system was just 20 years ago. Does the Fed have the tools in its toolkit to deal with the new reality?
This week, Bill Gross of Pimco fame looks at the problem in a manner that is truly Outside the Box. Bill Gross has been called "the nation's most prominent bond investor," by the New York times, managing Pimco's Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund.
Enjoy your week.