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Inflation

How Inflation Affects Our Savings & Our LivesFor the past few months, we’ve heard a lot in the news about increasing living costs. The cost of our essential goods and services – from our food to our electricity bills, housing, and electronics – is constantly rising. And our salary increases (if any) aren’t enough to cover the increasing cost of our basic expenses. I wanted to write this article for several reasons. I’m not trying to paint a gloomy picture, but rather to help people better understand the situation and how increasing prices affect our lives. So, as trivial as it may sound, let’s start with the basics and the basic definition of inflation. What Is Inflation? Inflation is the decline of the purchasing power of a currency over time measured amongst a pre-selected basket of goods. Now, here’s where it gets more interesting. The root cause of inflation is an increase in the supply of money in an economy. Our local monetary authorities (Central Banks and Governments) can increase the money supply, either by printing and giving away more money to individuals, by legally devaluing the currency, or by loaning new money into existence and purchasing government bonds from banks on the secondary market. In all such cases, the supply of money increases. Thus, your living expenses increase, your purchasing power decreases, and you get less for your money. There are some exceptions to this – but we will get into that a bit later when we look at possible solutions to this phenomenon. So, now, let’s review what we’ve seen for the past year, how inflation has affected our lives, and what our governments and central banks have done about it. What Are Governments Doing? Europe – The EU member countries agreed on a Pandemic Emergency Program. It’s designed to support the economies of member countries, and it’s worth 1.8 trillion euros. That’s a little over 2 trillion dollars. America – The US has several programs designed to help its economy. The first was a 3 trillion dollar program designed to help the US overcome the difficulties of the COVID19 pandemic. There are also several other programs going to the Senate for approval, all of which will further fuel the current inflationary cycle. What Level Of Inflation Are We Currently Experiencing? Well, this is a great question. It’s also a bit tough to answer. You might think that the easiest way to measure price increases is by comparing prices at the grocery store, at the petrol station, or with your landlords. And that makes sense. But you might not all see the same level of inflation from one item to the next. This is because the official inflation figures are calculated slightly differently, and they’re based on a so-called basket of goods. In the US, this “basket of goods” is managed by the Central Statistical Office. They decide what items to include in the basket and how often to change them. So, when the US inflation was calculated at 7.00% last week (the highest recorded rate in the last four decades), this was based on that specific basket of goods. That said, we’re seeing sharp increases in the official inflation data in many countries – with the UK hitting 5.40%, 5.70% for Germany, and 36% for Turkey. This means, regardless of each country’s chosen ‘baskets’, consumers worldwide are experiencing sharp measurable price increases. The more we get into the new year, the more we find ourselves asking when this vicious cycle will end. Experts are yet to agree on what kind of inflation we’ll see in the months ahead. However, the one thing that they all seem to agree on is that inflation is here to stay for the next two to five years. What Can We Do To Protect Our Savings And Plan For A Better Financial Future? There are a few options that you can consider. For those of you who prefer to take a more traditional approach towards money, well, these options might not be for you. But let’s explore all the options available to you, regardless of your age: 1 – Savings accounts If this has worked for you previously, I’m sorry to tell you that it might not work this time. Unfortunately, putting your money in a savings account is unlikely to be your best option when it comes to protecting your savings and your hard-earned money. This is because of the meagre interest rates on offer. When measured against the official inflation figures, with a 1% interest rate, you are still likely to be losing at least 4% – 5% of your actual purchasing power. While the official inflation figures might be around 7%, the level of inflation for your specific purchases could be as high as 12% to 15%. For simplicity of calculation, let’s look at an example. Say you had 100,000 USD or EUR in a savings account with your favourite bank, you would be making a whopping 1,000 USD or EUR in interest in a year (that’s assuming you are lucky enough to get a 1% interest rate from your bank). With inflation ranging between 12% to 15%, this means that you will be down between 11% to 14%. That’s a loss of about 11,000 to 14,000 USD or EUR per year. You won’t see that reflected in your bank account as numbers, but you will feel it when you go out to purchase goods. And let’s not forget that we are entering the 2nd year of high inflation – and that means twice the potential loss in buying power. 2 – Real estate In my country, we have a saying that if a person doesn’t know what to do with their money, they put it into real estate. It might still be a good choice; it depends on how you look at money. But with real estate returning between 7% -8% gross per year and with rising maintenance costs, it still might not make up for the 12%-15% increase in inflation. You might help to make a complete evaluation – one that factors in increasing prices and that factors in the size of your investment. If there is further inflation, or if you find yourself in sudden need of money, you may find yourself selling at a less than ideal price. Again, this doesn’t mean that real estate isn’t a good investment; it can be, based on your financial goals and investment horizon. Another thing to consider when evaluating your investment options is your purchasing power. It might help to compare the purchasing power of your investment now with the possible increase in the price of the property in the future. It might also help to keep in mind that if inflation goes up by 20% over three years, for example, then your property will need to go up by more than 20% in value for you to benefit from the investment. 3 – Bonds The FED is on track to raise interest rates in 2022. So, could government bonds be the way forward? 10Y US Treasuries are often considered the benchmark for a risk-free investment. That said, they don’t usually bring high returns. Let’s assume that, in a best-case scenario, you get the kind of high annual return we saw at the beginning of the century (5%-6%). Unfortunately, it still wouldn’t be enough to beat inflation and increase your overall purchasing power. 4 – Precious Metals Precious metals, in particular gold, have always been considered a great way to protect against inflation. One thing to consider: the financial markets haven’t been reacting very well recently to the idea of the Federal Reserve keeping a hawkish mood for the next year to come. In recent years, we have noticed how the inverse correlation between the stock market and gold has partially vanished during “cold” periods of general selloff. To avoid getting liquidated on their positions on stocks, big players would rather start selling massively their positions on assets where they have gained substantial profits, as it could be on gold. The result: massive drops also on the precious metal. This means that the old-fashioned hedge against inflation might have severe volatility in price during a bear market. 5 – Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrencies are considered the new store of value. They have recently been compared to precious metals and sometimes been referred to as digital gold, especially when we talk about the king of cryptos – Bitcoin. Bitcoin has proven to be a great store of value, providing stellar performances in the past years, closing 2021 with +57%. Investors who have been able to jump on crypto projects at early stages have been able to get stellar returns in the sphere of 3 to 4 digits percentage. The only tiny issue with cryptos is that they require a cold-blooded investor, being able to “hodl” during periods like the current one, where they have been losing across the board more than 50% of the picks. It’s an investment that requires a very high appetite for risk. Be sure to take a look at our blog for more content. And don’t miss out on our free webinars. Next up: “How to protect your crypto investment against adverse market movements”.
ECONOMICS:USCCPIEducation
by Atlas-Horizon
Answer to all the questions you have about Inflation?These days everyone talks about inflation, Hyperinflation, Stagflation,..etc. You may want to know how you could protect yourself in the high inflation era? What would be the best assets? What are the measures governments would take to control inflation? What is the definition of Inflation, Hyperinflation, Stagflation? What history tells us about high inflation? If you are an avid reader you just need to review my past 7 articles about inflation in the past 8 months! (links are provided in the chart) I am pretty much sure you will find the answer to your questions and also links to good articles for more information! On May 31, 2021: I warned about accelerated Inflation (my very first Editor's Pick) when Jerome Powell talked about transitory inflation and Cathie Woods talked about Deflation..! Best, Moshkelgosha DISCLAIMER I’m not a certified financial planner/advisor, a certified financial analyst, an economist, a CPA, an accountant, or a lawyer. I’m not a finance professional through formal education. The contents on this site are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice. I can’t promise that the information shared on my posts is appropriate for you or anyone else. By using this site, you agree to hold me harmless from any ramifications, financial or otherwise, that occur to you as a result of acting on information found on this site.
FRED:CPIAUCSLEducation
by Moshkelgosha
2
Zombie Companies and You!Much of the massive amount of new money the Fed is printing is going into Zombie Companies. How Zombie Companies Survive Zombie Companies are firms that don’t survive by producing value for their customers. Instead, they survive by parasitically draining resources from the overall economy by borrowing at near 0% interest from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve just creates this money out of thin air. How this Harms Everyone So this borrowing has the same negative effect on everyone’s paycheck purchasing power as criminal counterfeiters do. Instead of consumers having the power to support businesses that do provide valuable goods and services, the Fed effectively steals that money from consumers and gives it directly to corporations without them having to produce value for consumers. Stolen Productivity Gains Productivity gains allow the government to do this without increasing the consumer price inflation too much. In the first half of the 20th century, the financial benefits of technological innovation and productivity gains were generally evenly enjoyed by society. Immediate Effects on the Stock Market The immediate effect of dumping money into corporations is that their stock value rises. You can see this in the recent explosive growth in the US stock market. However, it can’t go on forever, because it would lead to catastrophic hyperinflation as seen many times throughout history and most recently in Venezuela. Long-Term Effect of Sustaining Zombie Companies You can see the long-term fallout in Japan’s “Lost Decade”. Japanese banks continued to support weak or failing firms. The result was three decades of poor economic growth. Long-Term Effect of Killing Zombie Companies This effect can also be seen in the Stagflation of the 1970s. The US abandoned the Gold Standard in 1972 allowing the Federal Reserve to print as much as they wanted. What followed was almost no economic growth for a decade and a 17X explosion in the price of gold relative to the dollar. Then Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volker the chairman of the Fed. Volker had a will of steel required to force America to endure the short-term pain of increasing interest rates. This pain took the form of massive unemployment as zombie companies went bankrupt or were forced to restructure to live within their means. However, the long-term result was two decades of great stock market performance through the ’80s and ’90s. Possible Future Scenarios Based on all past periods of massive monetary supply inflation like this, it’s very likely the US will eventually reach a point where the bubble pops and there’s a stock market crash. Pre-Crash Strategy Ideally, you’d have the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s insider information that would help you predict the timing of the crash and get out in advance. Then you could keep enjoying the amazing returns from the bubble as long as possible. However, for the rest of us, the best we can probably do is put our money in precious metals ETF’s to be protected from these losses. Post-Crash Scenarios 1. Fed Responsibly Raises Interest Rates If the Federal Reserve begins behaving responsibly at that point, they would raise interest rates and force all the zombie companies to go bankrupt or restructure to begin surviving by providing value and earning money. This was the approach of Fed Chairman Paul Volker in 1979. Higher interest rates will temporarily increase unemployment and make the stock market sharply fall even more in the short term. However, after this correction, it will great opportunity to sell your gold ETF’s get back into the stock market at the bottom and enjoy significant future growth. 2. Fed Continues Low-Interest Rate Policy This was the approach of Japan in the ’90s. The zombie companies were kept on life-support. The result was that it took 3 decades for the market to get back where it was before the crash. Given that it’s unlikely anyone has the political will to cause the short-term pain of higher interest rates, this seems like the most likely scenario.
TVC:GOLDEducation
by mikepsinn
The Dollar INFLATION? Part 2 (see link to Part 1 attached below) Hello,Traders! As we found out in Part 1,the FED and The Treasury added 5.3 Trillion dollars to the money supply, with 3 Trillion Dollars being spent, not invested and all that coming from borrowing, not taxes, which would have created price inflation even without the supply shock. However, the supply side was also affected by the lockdowns, and below is a summary of how this happened! First of all, we saw a massive structural change, with the demand suddenly shifting from services to goods , as the majority of the former became unavailable to the indoors bound population. That additional demand for goods, would have strained the supply chain in any scenario, but several factors made it much much worse. First, the lockdowns in China, especially Wohan, a major logistics hub, brought some of the manufacturing and shipping to a halt, that led to the initial shortages, but the demand fell sharply too, so at first, the two canceled each other out. Then with China opening up at the end of 2020 faster than any other country, and the demand picking up in the US and other countries , China started shipping Covid-19 supplies and other goods to the rest of the world. But as manufacturing in China recovered , the United States were locked down, which affected two major ports in the US : the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The thing is that 41% of all the US container traffic goes through just these two, and while the container traffic went up by 49%, the ports were operating at lower capacity , due to the dock workers either being sick with Covid, or being in quarantine. Loaded Ships were stranded for weeks , waiting to be unloaded, doubling the shipping time. As if that wasn’t enough, the shipping containers price went from 1800$ to 3500$ , because due to the lockdowns in the US there wasn’t much to be shipped back to China, and for every 100 containers that went in, only 40 were exported back . The ports operating at lower capacity didn’t have the resources to load empty containers onto the ships going back to China, and the truck drivers shortage lead to that the empty containers weren’t returned back to the ports, from inside the US. This led to a vicious cycle: shortage of shipping containers was worsening the shortage of shipping capacity, which was worsened by the shortage of port capacity, which in turn was worsening the shortage of shipping containers, which as in turn worsened by the shortage of truck drivers which worsened the shortage of goods. All that led to scarcity exacerbated by the debt funded, non-investment consumer spending, and worsened by a demand shifting from services to goods.A perfect storm situation, which nearly collapsed the «Just-in-Time» manufacturing based supply chains. All that led to the official FED inflation figures for April 2021 being 4.2% , which is A LOT! And more is to come, if the lockdowns are not lifted, and, especially,if Biden's 6 Trillion budget gets passed. Please, Like comment and subscribe!
Education
by TopTradingSignals
1
The Dollar INFLATION? Part 1 Hello,Traders! The fears of inflation are now the reality, with the official FED number showing that inflation went from 1.6% in 2020 to 4.2% in April 2021, which means that the situation "on the ground" is even worse. Even just by looking at the charts of lumber, copper , and other commodities , while finding out that all the cars in your local dealership are sold out a year ahead, and the car prices are up, with the FED and the Treasury competing for the number of zeros on their official operating papers, the thoughts of «shortages» and «inflation» are naturally creeping into your head,followed by the question of "how it all came to it?" And while the Covid-19 and the lockdowns are the obvious culprits, the details are interesting. So let's dive into the mess of the Covid-19 consequences to find out. Generally, Inflation can be caused by any of the two components: excess money supply, directed towards consumption, as opposed to investments, or goods supply shortage, with the unchanged money supply. In 2021 we seem to have both, but the details are quite peculiar. Let's deal with the excess money supply bit first, as it is kinda obvious: In march of 2020, the FED added 2.3 Trillion dollars to the direct asset purchases program, while expanding indirect liquidity by relaxing bank reserves standards, and relieving other regulations of the money markets to facilitate lending and prevent broad money contraction. Most of that money, however, went into the financial assets, inflating the asset prices, which can be seen by looking at the prices of Gold , Bitcoin , S&P500 , and other key benchmarks. U.S. Fiscal Policy bit, however,was more directly relevant to the consumer goods inflation . Throughout March and April 2020, the U.S. government passed three main relief packages and one supplemental package, totaling nearly $2.8 trillion. After the passage of the supplementary package in April, nicknamed "stimulus phase 3.5," there was no substantial action on COVID-19 stimulus or relief from Congress for several months as each party proposed their own stimulus package. Then, after the election of President Biden in November, a $900 billion stimulus bill was passed in December 2020. Another $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, was signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021. 3 Trillion Dollars was actually spent so far, the remainder being available to congress for allocation. Most of that money was spent, not invested, and came from borrowing, not taxes, which, would have added to inflation even without the supply shock. The supply side of the equation, however, looks much more complicated, but we will dive into that in the next article, tomorrow! If you want to read the most interesting piece, please like comment, and subscribe!
Education
by TopTradingSignals
1
The Dollar INFLATION? Part 2. (see link to Part 1 attached below) Hello,Traders! As we found out in Part 1, the FED and The Treasury added 5.3 Trillion dollars to the money supply , with 3 Trillion Dollars being spent, not invested and all that coming from borrowing, not taxes, which would have created price inflation even without the supply shock. However, the supply side was also affected by the lockdowns, and below is a summary of how this happened! First of all, we saw a massive structural change, with the demand suddenly shifting from services to goods , as the majority of the former became unavailable to the indoors bound population. That additional demand for goods, would have strained the supply chain in any scenario, but several factors made it much much worse. First, the lockdowns in China, especially Wohan, a major logistics hub, brought some of the manufacturing and shipping to a halt, that led to the initial shortages, but the demand fell sharply too, so at first, the two canceled each other out. Then with China opening up at the end of 2020 faster than any other country, and the demand picking up in the US and other countries , China started shipping Covid-19 supplies and other goods to the rest of the world. But as manufacturing in China recovered, the United States were locked down, which affected two major ports in the US : the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The thing is that 41% of all the US container traffic goes through just these two, and while the container traffic went up by 49%, the ports were operating at lower capacity, due to the dock workers either being sick with Covid, or being in quarantine. Loaded Ships were stranded for weeks , waiting to be unloaded, doubling the shipping time. As if that wasn’t enough, the shipping containers price went from 1800$ to 3500$ , because due to the lockdowns in the US there wasn’t much to be shipped back to China, and for every 100 containers that went in, only 40 were exported back . The ports operating at lower capacity didn’t have the resources to load empty containers onto the ships going back to China, and the truck drivers shortage lead to that the empty containers weren’t returned back to the ports, from inside the US. This led to a vicious cycle: shortage of shipping containers was worsening the shortage of shipping capacity, which was worsened by the shortage of port capacity, which in turn was worsening the shortage of shipping containers, which as in turn worsened by the shortage of truck drivers which worsened the shortage of goods. All that led to scarcity exacerbated by the debt funded, non-investment consumer spending, and worsened by a demand shifting from services to goods.A perfect storm situation, which nearly collapsed the «Just-in-Time» manufacturing based supply chains. All that led to the official FED inflation figures for April 2021 being 4.2%, which is A LOT ! And more is to come, if the lockdowns are not lifted, and, especially,if Biden's 6 Trillion budget gets passed. Please, Like comment and subscribe!
Education
by TopTradingSignals
8
Macroeconomics 101: inflation, bonds, interest rates, stocksHello fellow traders and dear padawans. The equities market has been hit very hard the past 3 weeks or so, specially growth stocks. I think it is important to address what is happening behind the scenes that caused the selloff in the equities market so that many of you can better understand what is going on. This is a very basic explanation of macroeconomics and by no means thorough but I know that many of my followers would benefit from it at times like these. To establish a common ground I will start with some definitions of terms. I wanted to keep things straight forward so I am getting these definitions from investopedia.com because they did a much better job than I would, defining terms thoroughly yet concisely. Keep in mind these are short definitions of concepts that deserve in-depth study if you want to understand them fully. However, for the purpose of this discussion what follows is enough (you can always read full articles on investopedia.com or somewhere else). If you are well versed on those you can certainly skip ahead (or use this as a refresher). DEFINITIONS Inflation : Inflation is the decline of purchasing power of a given currency over time. A quantitative estimate of the rate at which the decline in purchasing power occurs can be reflected in the increase of an average price level of a basket of selected goods and services in an economy over some period of time. The rise in the general level of prices, often expressed a a percentage means that a unit of currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods. Inflation can be contrasted with deflation, which occurs when the purchasing power of money increases and prices decline. Bonds : A bond is a fixed income instrument that represents a loan made by an investor to a borrower (typically corporate or governmental). A bond could be thought of as an I.O.U. between the lender and borrower that includes the details of the loan and its payments. Bonds are used by companies, municipalities, states, and sovereign governments to finance projects and operations. Owners of bonds are debtholders, or creditors, of the issuer. Bond details include the end date when the principal of the loan is due to be paid to the bond owner and usually includes the terms for variable or fixed interest payments made by the borrower. Treasury Notes : A Treasury note (T-note for short) is a marketable U.S. government debt security with a fixed interest rate and a maturity between one and 10 years. Issued in maturities of two, three, five, seven and 10 years, Treasury notes are extremely popular investments, as there is a large secondary market that adds to their liquidity. Interest payments on the notes are made every six months until maturity. Treasury notes, bonds, and bills are all types of debt obligations issued by the U.S. Treasury. The key difference between them is their length of maturity. For example, a Treasury bond’s maturity exceeds 10 years and goes up to 30 years, making Treasury bonds the longest-dated, sovereign fixed-income security. Federal Fund Rates : The federal funds rate refers to the interest rate that banks charge other banks for lending to them excess cash from their reserve balances on an overnight basis. By law, banks must maintain a reserve equal to a certain percentage of their deposits in an account at a Federal Reserve bank. The amount of money a bank must keep in its Fed account is known as a reserve requirement and is based on a percentage of the bank's total deposits. They are required to maintain non-interest-bearing accounts at Federal Reserve banks to ensure that they will have enough money to cover depositors' withdrawals and other obligations. Any money in their reserve that exceeds the required level is available for lending to other banks that might have a shortfall. Note: although the Federal Fund Rates are charged to banks, banks pass them down to clients' personal/auto/student/mortgage loans and credit card interest rates so these interest rates cascade down to society as a whole. With those out of the way we can start discussing the relationship they have with one another as well as the equities market and understand what is happening with the stock markets. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFLATION AND INTEREST RATES In general they have inverse correlation, meaning when one goes up the other goes down. The inverse correlation happens because when interest rates are low people feel encouraged to borrow money, which leads to more spending thus creating more demand of goods and services than supply. When demand is bigger than supply prices will increase to both slow down demand and also (perhaps more importantly) to increase profit margins, which leads to inflation. Because the Fed can manipulate short-term interest rates via the Federal Fund Rates they are able to somewhat control inflation. When interest rates are high the process is inverse to the one described above: people feel discouraged to borrow and spend money; instead they prefer to invest in a fixed income instrument such as high yield savings accounts, CD, or bonds to take advantage of the high yields. It is therefore the job of the Fed to keep inflation and interest rates in balance. Although not everybody agrees, it is understood by economists in general that some inflation is good for economy because it encourages consumers to spend their money and debtors to pay their debt with money that is less valuable than when they borrowed it. Thus some inflation drives economic growth. One of these economists is John Maynard Keynes, who believed that if prices of consumer goods are continuously falling people hold off on their purchases because they think they will get a better deal later on (who doesn't like a good discount?). Another important element that factors into inflation is how much liquidity is injected in the economy (cash, or money supply). More money would translate into more demand and rise in prices. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BOND PRICES, BOND YIELDS (or INTEREST RATES), and INFLATION Bond prices and yields also have an inverse correlation: if the bond certificate price (AKA face value , or what the bond certificate is worth) increases the yield decreases and vice-versa. To make things simple and to better illustrate how bond prices and yields are related the example below uses what is known as ZERO-COUPON BOND, where the yield is derived from the relationship between the coupon payout and the bond face value (back in the day the bond certificate--a piece of paper--had small coupons that investors would rip off and present to the borrower to redeem their yields. That terminology is still used to this day although these coupons are not used anymore). Example: if the bond price is $1,000 and the borrower receives $1,100 back at the end of one year, the so-called coupon rate (the yield paid for each bond certificate throughout the lifetime of the bond) is 10% . So the formula to find the coupon rate is: COUPON RATE = ANNUALIZED COUPON VALUE/BOND FACE VALUE; in this case, 100/1000, or 0.1. That formula helps to understand why the bond price and bond yield (coupon rate) have an inverse correlation. It is important to keep in mind that bond yields reflect genereal interest rates. Like interest rates they can move up or down Like other asset classes such as options, a bond certificate holder can sell that certificate back to the market (known as secondary market). If the current bond yield is lower than when the bond holder "bought" their bond it may be interesting for them to consider selling it because it is now more valuable than when they bought it due to the inverse correlation discussed above. So for bond holders, decrease in interest rates is beneficial. Hopefully it is also clear that a rise in inflation that results in higher interest rates affects bond holders negatively. Who would want to sell a bond that is now less valuable than when they bought it? However, higher bond yields are attractive to new bond investors because it gives them more return for their investment overtime. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 10-YEAR TREASURY NOTES AND ITS YIELD The government sells Treasury Bills/Notes/Bonds via auction. The yield of bonds is determined by investors' bids. The 10-year-yield's importance goes beyond the rate of return for investors; mortgage interest rates are derived from the 10-year yield for instance. But for the purpose of this text, it is important to understand that the market relies on the 10-year to gauge investors's confidence. Here we see another inverse correlation: if confidence is high, the 10-year yield rises and bond prices drop and vice-versa. Any change in the 10-year yield is closely watched by the markets and has enormous impact in other asset classes. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: BOND YIELDS, STIMULUS, EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS, STOCKS, AND THE FED When Treasury bond yields rise bonds become an attractive investment because it is a safer than stocks--specially growth stocks where investors are placing their money on future success as opposed to present profits--since it is backed by the US government and provides fixed returns. While bond investors don't enjoy the big rallies of the stock market they also don't expose their capital to volatility and crashes. With the reopening of the economy in clear sight due to vaccination, and the better than expected job reports investors started fearing higher inflation. That is a simple math: more people making money and out on the streets will boost consumption, which will lead to rise in prices. As explained before, higher inflation causes the Fed to adjustment interest rates, which causes bond prices to fall and yield to rise. Despite what Jerome Powell has said last week--that inflation rise is going to be temporary--investors didn't feel much confidence, which caused the recent sharp rise in the 10-year yield Treasury. With that, bonds became a good alternative to the stock market, causing investors to reallocate some of their capital into bonds. That and the fear caused by falling prices and the media (most of the media fuels panic--one month later everything is green again) resulted in the huge selloff we have seen the past weeks. CONCLUSION Phew, that was a lot. As I wrote on the preface of this text this is an overview of the subject matter so you can always read up on each one of the areas covered here to get more in-depth knowledge. However, I think this provides a good summary of what is going on on the markets right now. Hopefully you will have filled some gaps on your knowledge and will start making more sense of the interrelationship of the many aspects of economy covered here. This is a difficult subject to write about so I apologize if any idea is unclear. I can always clarify anything on the comments. Bottom line: when things are clearer (inflation + interest rates) the markets will most likely stabilize and follow its due course. Growth stocks will continue growing (perhaps at a slower pace) and you will continue making good returns on good companies. I am using this selloff as an opportunity to lower my cost basis and enter positions in stocks that were too expensive before. Sometimes a pullback is all you were looking for even if you lose money in the short term. And hey, one can always buy put options to hedge against their long positions. Good luck and safe trades! ===If you get anything out of this text, please hit the like button and/or follow for updates and new publications.=== ***The ideas shared here are my opinion, not financial advise to place trades. Please do your own research before buying/selling stocks***
FRED:WM2NSEducation
by Safe_Trades
6
The Link Between Inflation, Rising Bond Yield, & Market Sell-offAggravated by Jerome Powell's speech at the Wall Street Journal Jobs Summit, the tech-led sell-off continues, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall by 1.11%, S&P 500 by 1.34%, and Nasdaq Composite by 2.11%. On that note, the 10-year Treasury yield also popped to 1.541% during Jerome Powell's speech, later closing at that level for the day. But how, specifically, did Jerome Powell cause the market to sell-off yesterday? Let's find out. Prior to Jerome Powell's speech, there were already a substantial amount of tension surrounding the bond market and concerns regarding inflation. A key event occurring recently that brought a great deal of attention to the acceleration of rising bond yields were the sudden spike in 10-year Treasury yield back in 2/25/21 from 1.38% to 1.54% - temporarily jumping as high as 1.6%, when an auction of US$62 billion 7-year notes was met with weak demand. This rattled the stock market because investors were not ready for the velocity of the 10-year Treasury yield surge. Instead, they were expecting for yields to gradually inch higher throughout the year. In an effort to pinpoint the exact reason for the surge, many conclusions were drawn. One of which relates to inflation concerns. Over the course of the pandemic, trillions in fiscal relief has been delivered, of which an addition $1.9 trillion in fiscal package is expected to come from the Biden Administration. With so much money printed and nowhere to flow yet due to economic lockdown as a result of the pandemic, investors fear that once the economy reopens again, pent-up demand will drive people to go on vacation and spend in masses, injecting all the printed money over the course of the pandemic into the economy all at once, driving inflation up at a rate that has not been seen since the 2008 Financial Crisis. Due to this belief of a looming inflation, it makes bond that are purchased currently potentially worthless because of possible subpar yield. As a result, people flock away from bonds at the moment because they are expecting that yields will rise going forward in order to compensate for inflation risk. Thus, yields are continuously being driven up. However, with the sudden spike in yield, it creates uncertainty around whether we will be seeing an acceleration of rising bond yields and possibly indicate that inflation could be around the corner. The possibility of this scenario is further amplified by vaccination efforts contributing to a recovering U.S. economy, and the incoming $1.9 trillion fiscal package that could further inflate the economy going forward while pushing the economy further into the recovery. Taking all of this into account, let's go back to Jerome Powell's speech. Having understood all of these, investors were looking at Jerome Powell to see whether he would give any indication on how he plan to control the acceleration of the rising bond yield, perhaps through an adjustment of the Fed's asset purchase program, where they will step up on the purchasing of long-term bonds to drive down long-term interest rates, or even extending the Supplementary Leverage Ratio that will be expiring on 3/31/21, so that banks can further help with the purchase of long-term bonds. However, in his speech, Jerome Powell said nothing of the sort, in which the market took as a signal that yields could rise further, triggering the sell-off even further, and driving the 10-year Treasury yield further up to a level that matches the initial 10-year Treasury yield spike back in 2/25/21. In fact, Jerome Powell made supposedly positive remarks stating that he expects the rise in inflation as the economy recovers to only be temporary, that he does not expect the move up in price to be long-lasting nor does he expect it to be enough to change the Fed's accommodative monetary policy, among others. With the market sell-off and surge in yield during his speech, it is clear that the market neither believes his words nor views it positively. To conclude, we are now in a very volatile situation where stocks no longer just goes up. We cannot control the direction of the market, but what we can control is how we deal with this situation emotionally and monetarily. Don't get too hung up on the short-term bearishness of the current market condition because if you zoom out your chart, in the grand scheme of things, this is just a tiny bleep. As such, if you believe that we will eventually recover from this market sell-off, use this as an opportunity to buy into your favorite companies at a huge discount. Invest safe. This is not investment advice so please do your own due diligence! Support this idea with likes and share your thoughts below.
TVC:US10YEducation
by AntrePoint
How Much BTC Do You Need to Create Generational Wealth?Hi Tradingviewers, in this article I am going to break down this question into smaller items and try to give a concrete answer to the question: “How Much BTC Do You Need to Create Generational Wealth?” First, we’ll have to define what ‘wealth’ means. Then we need to define how we look at the ‘generational’ part. Lastly, we also need to take into consideration long term outlooks on Bitcoin. Let’s try and put some actual numbers on this and see how much BTC you would actually need. I’ve been on Twitter a lot lately (putting some more effort into my account!) and got inspired to answer this question as this was a very common topic on Twitter. The interesting thing is that I saw a lot of people talking about this, but nobody actually made an effort to go through the math. Without further ado, let’s dig into the numbers. First let’s look into some options to define wealth. Using data from the World Inequality Database and Statistics Canada), it takes about $488,000 to be considered part of the top 1% in the U.S in 2019. Let’s assume that this applies to the number needed in a family/household. Let’s make ~$500,000 our first option, I’d say belonging to the top 1% in the US would be a pretty fair definition of wealth. If we look further than the US, we can also use this same 1% methodology to define wealth on a global scale. In that case you would need at least $744,400 in combined income, investments, and personal assets according to the global wealth report from the Credit Suisse Research Institute. A slightly more ambitious goal compared to our first option but we could define this as ~$750,000. Another option to look at wealth is to look at financial independence . My preferred way to define financial independence is to have enough wealth such that you can completely live off the dividends. A common rule used by the FIRE community (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is the 4% rule. The 4% can be summarised as a safe withdrawal rate that will not lower your total wealth over the long run. Even when there are temporary downturns in the global economy. This assumes you invest all your money in the stock market. The median household income in the US is $61,937 per year. We could consider a passive income of the median household income as wealthy. If we divide $61,937 by 4% from the safe withdrawal rate above we get to a total of $1,548,425. So using this logic you would need roughly ~$1.5M in total assets in order to be considered wealthy. Now, let’s discuss the generational part. Honestly, I was surprised when I found the exact definition: “ generational wealth represents assets passed down from one generation to the next. If you can leave behind a notable inheritance to your descendants, that constitutes generational wealth. These assets can include real estate, stock market investments, a business, or anything else which contains monetary value. I had somehow expected it would be something more ambitious such as that for x generations they would all have to be considered “wealthy too”. Achieving generational wealth would then be relatively easy given method one and two. You would just need to make sure something is left of your $500,000 or $750,000 respectively. Option three even has it implied. The whole idea behind option three is to never actually spend any of your wealth, you’re simply living off the dividends. This leaves us with the most difficult one: how much Bitcoin would you need? The first and most obvious approach is to directly calculate the amount of bitcoin that represents our different definitions of wealth given the current price. If we take a Bitcoin price of $30,000 that would give 16 bitcoin for option 1, 25 bitcoin for option 2 and 50 bitcoin for option 3. Now let’s bring in some of the nuance. First of all if you’re expecting to live off your dividends you cannot have all of your wealth be in bitcoin itself as it doesn’t pay any dividends directly. Normally the wealth would be in the stock market or in real estate. Also, if you assume that the value of bitcoin will keep rising you would obviously need far less bitcoin today to achieve generational wealth later. For example, Bloomberg analysts have predicted a price target of $50,000 for Bitcoin in 2021, implying a $1 trillion market cap for just this cryptocurrency. JP Morgan analysts estimate the price of Bitcoin to grow more aggressively, as they estimate a value of $650,000 by the end of 2022. Let’s be more conservative on the date, but keep an aggressive price target for the sake of the argument here. If we take a $300,000 price target by the end of 2031 how much bitcoin would you need today to achieve generational wealth? This would give us 1.6 bitcoin for option 1 2.5 bitcoin for option 2 and 5 bitcoin for option 3. Specifically for option three it would still mean though that you would have to cash out all your crypto assets and convert them into dividend generating assets instead. Also, with a possibility to see hyperinflation later given that 35% of all dollars in existence have been printed during the last 10 months it is questionable whether thinking of generational sustainable health should even be expressed based on dollar figures to begin with. I wouldn’t know how to express it in any other way, but am really curious to hear if anyone has good alternatives on this point. I am really curious to hear your views on this. I used many assumptions here, how would you have approached this? Are there any flaws you see in my logic? Feel free to comment on anything, and please feel free to absolutely destroy it! I’d love to have the discussion. Just to summarize, based on this you would need today: 16 bitcoin to be considered among the top 1% wealthiest in the US 25 bitcoin to be considered among the top 1% wealthiest in the world 50 bitcoin to achieve generational financial freedom Trading-Guru p.s. You might have seen a few reposts of this article as Tradingview was struggling with a faulty spam detector. The moderators kindly helped blocking and unblocking some posts. Thanks @scheplick!
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by Trading-Guru
11
Money Supply, Velocity, Inflation, Rates & the Federal ReserveI was taught in undergrad that adding to the money supply is inflationary . The logic was, you print more bills; the existing currency gets diluted in buying power. Following the ‘Crises of 2008’ the Fed launches Quantitative easing and purchases long term securities increasing the money supply and lowering rates. This activity would result in more investment and encourage lending. Keep in mind the lever the Fed historically wielded was changing the short-term interest rate, so by lowering the discount rate that banks pay on short term loans from the Fed, the Fed is able to provide liquidity and – ease. Monetary Policy's version of stimulus. Quantitative Easing was much more potent and was a lever that enabled much more control for the Fed, and control over a longer time frame. Keep in mind the mandate of the Fed: Maximum Employment Stable Prices Moderate Long-Term Interest Rates One can see that the Fed's tool kit was easily justified by the Board of Governors as they sought to fulfill Congress’ mandate. Not to mention the stability here is global, at least the Fed is responsible for keeping everything stable. This status for America globally is a great privilege. Many Americans are not cognizant of what this affords to us as individuals in this nation. QE did result in in inflation, but the environment has not been unruly with any problematic inflation , and we certainly did not get any Hyper-Inflation like so many economist were shouting about, especially those grounded in traditional economic ideology. This new environment has me wondering again how this will all play out of course as the parts at play are each so multifaceted. With that said, I would think we see inflation rise especially with the macro environment of easing and potential fiscal policy and the Federal Funds rate being this low. With that said, the biggest concern I have with this thought process is curiosity of what was stated by Jerome Powell in the last FOMC meeting – rates will be at these levels near the zero-bound (limit of 0% for short-term rates) with the Fed setting a higher target for inflation . Keep in mind the Fed has never been able to hit their recent targets for inflation for years, yet now they want the target even higher. With that thinking in mind, he seemed to indicate the reason the Federal Funds rate can be so low for so long is because inflation will not even be getting to their own target, just as it hasn't in recent memory. Again I still have a bias towards a weaker dollar and inflation – I am however readily willing to change my mind on a moments notice here as we see what actually transpires. I have an alternative to all the "deflation" vs "inflation" debates - an environment that will be stable with just modest inflation. Please be sure to comment, debate and let me know where you think the dollar goes next.
Editors' picks
FRED:WM2NSEducation
by ZenMode
88
"Free stuff" part 2: Just print money!Reminder of my idea about taxing the rich as a solution: And so (high) inflation.... Here is an economist article on it, they have a chart with the budget balance. www.economist.com I'll make some bullet points here too about inflation: - The government robs wealth from the whole population to fund programs. Printed money isn't real money, you can't just print money out of thin air, they dilute the money supply making every one poorer except those that get the money first (banks and big stock holders in the USA, France and the UK in Germany) - It snowballs and ends up making the whole country poorer - Politicians and even emperors have been doing it so many times over the last thousands of years. IT. HAS. NEVER. WORKED. - The people hurt first are savers, people with fixed income (anyone that works), taxpayers (every one) since you will move to a high tax bracket while not really making more - People that don't work and get free stuff are happy at first (remember, koko the gorilla...), and then once the government can't support them no more they starve to death (well done), a "condescending tone" is the least of their concerns - The wealthy, the entrepreneurs are not going to bother building anything, they'd rather speculate, look for valuable assets that won't depreciate (as much). Can be real estate (hey even the Venezuela government did that, in particular with exiles homes), foreign stocks, gold (hey even the Venezuela government did that), cryptocurrencies like bitcoin in zimbabwe (hey even the Venezuela government did that) - If no one makes stuff then there is no stuff. You cannot legislate it into existence. This is painfully obvious what isn't is the process in which it destroys a country, what I attempted to list here. Crazy money printing to offer "free stuff" always ends badly. Every single time. Here is a nice little essay on Bernie Sanders senator page, it's from 2011: www.sanders.senate.gov Ahem, ahem, *clears throat*, I quote: "These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who's the banana republic now?" As you know, Bernie is pro "free stuff", and never had a real job. Therefore it is no surprise that he still has not delete that page, gee, that's alot of hard work! 😉 Bernie Sanders, praising Venezuela & Argentina in 2011. Nice. And then during his campaign for 2020 he was saying "I'm not thinking of Venezuela and Argentina those are bad places". Maybe Bernie has lost his memory like sleepy Joe? He praised the Soviet Union, then he pretended he never did, then he praised Venezuela and Argentina, then he pretended he never did, then he praised Europe ... Eu... OH MY GOD WE ARE NEXT WE ARE DONE FOR! Oh this Bernie. I will make an idea with his finest quotes, I promise. Here is a fine picture of Chavez holding hands with Michael Moore the american feminist andit white man pro free stuff filmmaker. Maduro is walking next to them. Moore can't pretend he wasn't there😉 adribosch.wordpress.com Short sell any country that promises free stuff. Part 3 could be debt spending (stealing money from future generations) and part 4 government spending in general, regroups all 3 parts.
NYMEX:CL1!Education
by MrRenev
7
PETER SCHIFF VS JEFF SNIDER!THIS POST WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE COMPETING VIEW POINTS ON THE FUTURE PERFORMANCE OF THE U.S. DOLLAR RELATIVE TO OTHER CURRENCIES! JEFF SNIDER'S POSITION ON THE DOLLAR: THE U.S. DOLLAR IS STRONG BECAUSE OF A SHORTAGE OF DOLLARS WORLDWIDE TO CONDUCT GLOBAL TRADE IN, DUE TO THE FED'S INABILITY TO TRULY SATISFY DEMAND FOR U$Ds, AND WILL CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN AS LONG AS FOREIGN CURRENCIES ARE SOLD TO BUY U$Ds. PETER SCHIFF'S POSITION ON THE DOLLAR: THE U.S. DOLLAR IS STRONG BECAUSE OF AN IRRATIONAL FAITH IN THE U.S. ECONOMY BY FOREIGNERS AND THE WILLINGNESS OF PRODUCTIVE ECONOMIES WORLDWIDE TO USE AND ACCEPT PRINTED U.S. DOLLARS IN GLOBAL TRADE, SUBSIDIZING THE CONSUMPTION AND TRADE DEFICIT OF THE U.S. JEFF SNIDER'S POSITION ON U.S. TREASURIES: THE U.S. GOVERNMENT BOND MARKET HAS BEEN BID HIGHER FOR DECADES AS U.S. TREASURIES PROVIDE THE SAFEST SOURCE OF U$Ds AND ARE THE MOST ACCEPTED FORM OF COLLATERAL FOR U$D LEVERAGE. IF U$D LIQUIDITY BECOMES CONSTRAINED ENOUGH WORLDWIDE, A SELL-OFF IN THE GLOBAL U.S. TREASURY MARKET CAN OCCUR AS THEY ARE SOLD FOR THE IMMEDIATELY NEEDED U$Ds, RAISING INTEREST RATES THROUGHOUT THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE ECONOMY. PETER SCHFF'S POSITION ON U.S. TREASURIES: THE FEDERAL RESERVE'S ARTIFICIAL SUPPRESSION OF INTEREST RATES SINCE THE 1990's THROUGH QE , COUPLED WITH THE USE OF U$Ds IN GLOBAL TRADE AND THE IRRATIONAL FAITH BY FOREIGNERS THAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE COULD SHRINK ITS BALANCE SHEET AND NORMALIZE INTEREST RATES HAS LED TO FOREIGN CAPITAL BIDDING UP THE PRICE OF U.S. GOVERNMENT BONDS. ONCE THAT FAITH IN THE DOLLAR'S SCARCITY IS DIMINISHED AND PRODUCTIVE ECONOMIES WORLDWIDE REFUSE TO HOLD/ACCEPT U$Ds AND SUBSIDIZE AMERICAN CONSUMPTION, U.S. TREASURIES WILL BE SOLD-OFF, RAISING INTEREST RATES THROUGHOUT THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE ECONOMY. JEFF SNIDER'S VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF THE DOLLAR: AS LONG AS THE FEDERAL RESERVE FAILS TO ADDRESS THE COMPLEX NEED FOR U$Ds AND AS LONG AS THE U$D REMAINS THE WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY, DEMAND WILL OUTPACE SUPPLY, AND THE U$D WILL CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN AGAINST OTHER CURRENCIES UNTIL A CULMINATION OF DEFAULTS AND RESTRUCTURING RAVAGES THE COUNTRIES WITH THE MOST SEVERE LACK OF U$Ds, SENDING THE U$D SKY HIGH, LEADING TO AN ABANDONMENT OF THE U$D AS WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY. PETER SCHIFF'S VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF THE DOLLAR: ONCE PRODUCTIVE COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH THE AMOUNT OF EASILY CREATED U$Ds CHASING PRICES, THE APPETITE TO ACCEPT THOSE U$Ds IN EXCHANGE FOR GOODS/SERVICES AT CURRENT PRICES WILL DIMINISH, ALONG WITH THE DESIRE TO HOLD U$Ds, U.S. ASSETS AND U.S. TREASURIES. ONCE U$Ds AND U$Ds OBTAINED THROUGH THE SALE OF U.S. ASSETS AND U.S. TREASURIES ARE SOLD FOR OTHER CURRENCIES, THE U$D WILL WEAKEN SIGNIFICANTLY, FURTHER INCREASING THE PRICES OF IMPORTED GOODS/SERVICES, SENDING THE U$D INTO AN INFLATIONARY SPIRAL, MARKING ITS END AS THE WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY. IN THIS CASE, IF THE FEDERAL RESERVE MONETIZED THE SOLD U.S. TREASURIES TO PREVENT INTEREST RATES FROM RISING, THIS COULD EASILY LEAD TO HYPERINFLATION. -THE NOTES ON THE CHART REFLECT KEY EVENTS THAT MARKED THE PEAK IN THE U$D's EXCHANGE RATE VS OTHER CURRENCIES
INDEX:DXYEducation
by UnknownUnicorn4195243
PETER SCHIFF VS JEFF SNIDER!THIS POST WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE COMPETING VIEW POINTS ON THE FUTURE PERFORMANCE OF THE U.S. DOLLAR RELATIVE TO OTHER CURRENCIES! JEFF SNIDER'S POSITION ON THE DOLLAR: THE U.S. DOLLAR IS STRONG BECAUSE OF A SHORTAGE OF DOLLARS WORLDWIDE TO CONDUCT GLOBAL TRADE IN, DUE TO TO FED'S INABILITY TO TRULY SATISFY DEMAND FOR U$Ds, AND WILL CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN AS LONG AS FOREIGN CURRENCIES ARE SOLD TO BUY U$Ds. PETER SCHIFF'S POSITION ON THE DOLLAR: THE U.S. DOLLAR IS STRONG BECAUSE OF AN IRRATIONAL FAITH IN THE U.S. ECONOMY BY FOREIGNERS AND THE WILLINGNESS OF PRODUCTIVE ECONOMIES WORLDWIDE TO USE AND ACCEPT PRINTED U.S. DOLLARS IN GLOBAL TRADE, SUBSIDIZING THE CONSUMPTION AND TRADE DEFICIT OF THE U.S. JEFF SNIDER'S POSITION ON U.S. TREASURIES: THE U.S. GOVERNMENT BOND MARKET HAS BEEN BID HIGHER FOR DECADES AS U.S. TREASURIES PROVIDE THE SAFEST SOURCE OF U$Ds AND ARE THE MOST ACCEPTED FORM OF COLLATERAL FOR U$D LEVERAGE. IF U$D LIQUIDITY BECOMES CONSTRAINED ENOUGH WORLDWIDE, A SELL-OFF IN THE GLOBAL U.S. TREASURY MARKET CAN OCCUR AS AS THEY ARE SOLD FOR THE IMMEDIATELY NEEDED U$Ds, RAISING INTEREST RATES THROUGHOUT THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE ECONOMY. PETER SCHFF'S POSITION ON U.S. TREASURIES: THE FEDERAL RESERVE'S ARTIFICIAL SUPPRESSION OF INTEREST RATES SINCE THE 1990's THROUGH QE, COUPLED WITH THE USE OF U$Ds IN GLOBAL TRADE AND THE IRRATIONAL FAITH BY FOREIGNERS THAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE COULD SHRINK ITS BALANCE SHEET AND NORMALIZE INTEREST RATES HAS LED TO FOREIGN CAPITAL BIDDING UP THE PRICE OF U.S. GOVERNMENT BONDS. ONCE THAT FAITH IN THE DOLLAR'S SCARCITY IS DIMINISHED AND PRODUCTIVE ECONOMIES WORLDWIDE REFUSE TO HOLD/ACCEPT U$Ds AND SUBSIDIZE AMERICAN CONSUMPTION, U.S. TREASURIES WILL BE SOLD-OFF, RAISING INTEREST RATES THROUGHOUT THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE ECONOMY. JEFF SNIDER'S VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF THE DOLLAR: AS LONG AS THE FEDERAL RESERVE FAILS TO ADDRESS THE COMPLEX NEED FOR U$Ds AND AS LONG AS THE U$D REMAINS THE WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY, DEMAND WILL OUTPACE SUPPLY, AND THE U$D WILL CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN AGAINST OTHER CURRENCIES UNTIL A CULMINATION OF DEFAULTS AND RESTRUCTURING RAVAGES THE COUNTRIES WITH THE MOST SEVERE LACK OF U$Ds, SENDING THE U$D SKY HIGH, LEADING TO AN ABANDONMENT OF THE U$D AS WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY. PETER SCHIFF'S VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF THE DOLLAR: ONCE PRODUCTIVE COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH THE AMOUNT OF EASILY CREATED U$Ds CHASING PRICES, THE APPETITE TO ACCEPT THOSE U$Ds IN EXCHANGE FOR GOODS/SERVICES AT CURRENT PRICES WILL DIMINISH, ALONG WITH THE DESIRE TO HOLD U$Ds, U.S. ASSETS AND U.S. TREASURIES. ONCE U$Ds AND U$Ds OBTAINED THROUGH THE SALE OF U.S. ASSETS AND U.S. TREASURIES ARE SOLD FOR OTHER CURRENCIES, THE U$D WILL WEAKEN SIGNIFICANTLY, FURTHER INCREASING THE PRICES OF IMPORTED GOODS/SERVICES, SENDING THE U$D INTO AN INFLATIONARY SPIRAL, MARKING ITS END AS THE WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY. IN THIS CASE, IF THE FEDERAL RESERVE MONETIZED THE SOLD U.S. TREASURIES TO PREVENT INTEREST RATES FROM RISING, THIS COULD EASILY LEAD TO HYPERINFLATION. -IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THE 0% YIELD ON U.S. 10 YEAR GOVERNMENT BOND IS A DANGER ZONE IN EITHER CASE, AS FOREIGN ENTITIES WILL NO LONGER HAVE AN INCENTIVE TO HOLD U.S. TREASURIES, PREFERRING CASH, GOLD OR OTHER ASSETS OVER A NEGATIVE YIELDING BOND. -THE NOTES ON THE CHART OFFER CONTRIBUTING FACTORS AS TO WHY YIELDS BOTTOMED OR PEAKED AT VARIOUS POINTS DURING THIS BOND BULL MARKET.
TVC:US10YEducation
by UnknownUnicorn4195243
DXY THEORY YOU HAVEN'T HEARD YET!THE DXY IS ONLY MADE UP OF 6 MAJOR CURRENCIES MEASURED AGAINST THE DOLLAR: EUR (57.6% OF THE WEIGHTING), JPY (13.6%), GBP (11.9%), CAD (9.1%), SEK (4.2%), CHF (3.6%) A MISTAKE MANY PEOPLE MAKE WHEN PREDICTING THE DOLLAR'S STRENGTH IS USING THE DXY AS A GAUGE FOR ALL CURRENCIES' PERFORMANCES AGAINST THE DOLLAR! EMERGING MARKET AND MANY OTHER MAJOR CURRENCIES ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE DXY! RECENTLY, PETER SCHIFF PLACED A BET WITH BRENT JOHNSON ON THE DIRECTION OF THE DXY, STATING THAT THE DXY WOULD BE WEAKER THAN 99 IN JANUARY 2021, WHILE BRENT JOHNSON PREDICTED IT WOULD BE HIGHER! PETER'S THEORY CLAIMS THAT THE CURRENCIES OF PRODUCTIVE COUNTRIES WILL STRENGTHEN AGAINST THE DOLLAR FOR MANY OBVIOUS REASONS, WHILE BRENT CLAIMS THAT THE MASSIVE SHORTAGE OF U$Ds WORLDWIDE WILL ACT AS DEMAND ON THE DOLLAR, INCREASING IT'S VALUE AGAINST OTHER CURRENCIES! I BELIEVE THEY COULD BE BOTH RIGHT, AND THAT PETER MAY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE IN USING THE DXY AS A BAROMETER: BRENT JOHNSON IS RIGHT BECAUSE: THE WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM WILL ABSORB ALL U$Ds CREATED, AND EUR, GBP, CHF AND CAD WILL ESPECIALLY SUFFER BECAUSE OF THE EURODOLLAR SYSTEM! WESTERN ECONOMIES COULD ALSO WEAKEN SEVERELY WHICH WOULD DEVALUE THEIR CURRENCIES IN ADDITION TO A EURODOLLAR SQUEEZE! PETER SCHIFF IS RIGHT BECAUSE: AS COUNTRIES NOT INCLUDED IN THE DXY DIMINISH THEIR TRADE WITH THE U.S.A., AS THEY CEASE USING THE EURODOLLAR TO SETTLE FORMS OF TRADE NOT INVOLVING THE U.S.A. (MAINLY OIL), AND AS THE AMOUNT OF U$Ds' CREATED IN EXCESS OF THEIR DEMAND FOR DOLLARS INCREASES, PRODUCTIVE ASIAN AND EMERGING MARKET CURRENCIES WILL ABSOLUTELY STRENGTHEN AGAINST THE DOLLAR, BUT THIS WILL NOT APPEAR IN THE DXY! IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE THAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE MEETS THE GLOBAL DEMAND FOR DOLLARS, AND THEN SOME, WHICH WOULD DEVALUE THE DOLLAR AGAINST ALL CURRENCIES, AND I BELIEVE THIS IS THE CASE, BUT I DO NOT DISCOUNT THE POSSIBILITY EXPLAINED ABOVE!
INDEX:DXYEducation
by UnknownUnicorn4195243
How to monetize the debt to finesse the law"The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt." - Ben Bernanke in 2009 while testifying before US congress. Those that did not believe this were called perma bears and fear mongering lunatics :) (Imagine being that gullible LOL!) Alot of the ones calling others perma bears and crazies are now saying they knew all along, or that no one could have seen this coming and that they were one of the earliest person to warn us. Pathetic dishonest sore losers. The saddest part is the Dunning-Kruger is so high they probably even believe it. Absolutely pathetic. What is monetizing the debt? And how is it finessing the law? First, some context. (If you don't want to wait I explain the process in this idea only screenshot below). In 1913 was passed the Federal Reserve Act, as described by congress of the time: "An Act to provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes" (Elastic means which can inflate to adapt to the country gdp - unlike Bitcoin - it does not mean hyperinflate thought) You might have heard of the panic of 1907, a financial crisis where the NYSE fell 50% from peak in 3 little weeks. Oh my it's hard to write about this without laughing. Long story short, bankers got greedy and then got rekt. From JPMorgan site "The crisis was global. The Bank of England sent $3 million in gold to Alexandria to stop the Egyptian Stock Exchange’s slide, only to find itself short of cash. Banks throughout Japan failed. French investors sold American stocks to buy gold to send home, badly depleting U.S. reserves." And then J. P. Morgan a rich banker, with his Rockefeller and Rothschild buddies bailed everyone out. The USA had no central bank since the Bank War of the 1830s, and alot of americans now felt the need of a central bank. So the FED got created, a private entity, private and separate from government to ensure a government couldn't print whatever they wanted. Fun fact during the 1929 crash, Morgan again (the bank, not the man he was dead by then) and his buddies were the ones to (try to) buy stocks to save the stock market. Along the decades the FED power has grown, after each crisis. The USA had alot as they are a country built on massive debt and on being the world reserve currency (and used to be the most promising emerging country due to size geography potential). In 2009 the FED for the first time monetized the debt, the chairman said it was not the case, which was a big fat obvious lie, and it was supposed to "not be that bad because temporary", but of course they never have been able to liquidate their assets, and all they did was postpone the problem and make a bigger, much bigger one. Now they are saying they are going to print with no restriction, and are going to be much more aggressive than previously, so we can totally expect tens of trillions, unless it's all bluff to encourage investors to buy? So, here we have it: This is it. Germany. Zimbabwe. The US government can now print as much money as they want via their little trick. Oh btw, US bonds are trash bonds, it's like 2005-2007 all over again. The only rating agency to downgrade treasury in the 2000s was SnP (other ones were criticized for not doing so), and guess what agency was the only one to get Punished by the government? Yup. So no one is downgrading government trash bonds now of course. They could be ranked Z it wouldn't matter anyway, the federal reserve is going to buy everything the government prints. The days of the us dollar as a world reserve currency are over if they continue in this direction. What kind of idiot would use the german mark as a safe haven? Money printer go brrrr.
TVC:GOLDEducation
by MrRenev
8
HYPERBITCOINIZATION: Adjusting prices for inflationInflation is a measure of a currencies devaluation over time. It is determined by the consumer price index (CPI) which itself is a record of the cost of a standardised basket of goods over time. CPI figures are recorded monthly by governments. Here I use the CPI of the USA. Economists call a price which has been adjusted for inflation the real price . To adjust the price P the formula is simple: P_adjusted = CPI_today / CPI_date * Price_date What this means is that the adjusted-for-inflation price (P_adjusted) for, say, Dec 2014 is equal to the CPI value today (CPI_today) divided by the CPI for Dec 2014 (CPI_date) * the price for Dec 2014 (P_date). Do this for every month in your set. You can see that for Bitcoin this adjustment makes very little difference to the price, because Bitcoin is very young. But if you do this for say gold you can really see how inflation affects value over time. In fact when we adjust for inflation, the 2012 bubble was in fact less dramatic than the 1980 bubble - no wonder, that was the peak of 1970s hyperinflation. Gold was in demand, yet inflation continued to grow steadily since then, meaning today's dollar is worth less than even a 1970s dollar. Going back to Bitcoin, you can move the crosshairs on the main chart and compare prices for a given date. Check the Dec ATH for instance. The price difference will give you an idea of how much the dollar has been devaluing since then. The following chart shows that using July 15 2018 (today) as the reference date, the dollar has lost 14% of its value in real terms since 2010 when Bitcoin trading started.
BNC:BLXEducation
by RealMcafee
5
HYPERBITCOINIZATION: dollar purchasing power down 94% since 1914Purchasing power ( PP -25.00% ) is a measure of strength of a currency. It represents a quantity of goods & services that can be bought by a unit of currency. Since 1914 the purchasing power of the US dollar -0.89% is down 96 %. The calculation is simple. We take the consumer price index ( CPI 0.24% ) for the USA and divide every value by the value for our base year (1914), then multiply by 100 to get a percentage: PP -25.00% = CPI_i / CPI_base * 100 The CPI 0.24% is itself a measure of economic strength and its rate of change forms the basis of inflation . From Wikipedia: "The CPI 0.24% is a statistical estimate constructed using the prices of a sample of representative items whose prices are collected periodically." Since the introduction of a de facto system of free floating fiat currencies in the early 70s, the decline has been slow but persistent 3.66% . It looks very much like an asymptotic decay, where the value will go to zero over an infinite 2.39% amount of time. Inflation may effect the rate of decline, but it seems that the natural process in this case is decline.
REducation
by RealMcafee
13
Prediction of the S&P500 and NIkkei based on financials and CPIIn the following content i will explain how you can forecast the market with CPI (inflation) and Financials: If we look at our figure we can say a few things, i will assume them below: 1. ABN AMRO (a dutch Financial) is highly correlated to the NIKKEI225 index. 2. Since nearly May 2016 we can see that the CPI (inflation)-chart has change 5 times. If we look at the Nikkei225 index we can see a few things: when the inflation in the US rose, the Nikkei225 fell 4 out 5 ( a chance of 90% or mathematical: a chance of 0.900). Using maths we know that ABN AMRO has an statistic correlation of 0.70 < r < 0.90 (70% - 90%) to the Nikkei225. Conclusion: The fInancials are following the NIkkei225, and in turn the Nikkei is following the US CPI (inflation) in a divergence/opposite movement. 3. We can use the inflaton from the US as a staircase for the movement in the S&P500 (on this moment a consolidating market) Sources: Bloomberg Markets, ING Technical Analyses NOTE: I don't make any predictions, making decisions based on my reports is at you'r own risk!
INDEX:NKYEducation
by tmp_cox