Tag Archives: stock crash

Repo Rates And Gold: Something Big Is Happening

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , ,

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” – Ayn Rand

Something big is happening beneath the surface of a Dow and S&P 500 trading near all-time highs. The soaring repo rate, more demand for overnight Fed funding loans than is being supplied and a big move in the price of gold since the end of May are clear indicators.

The global financial system is unsustainably over-leveraged. This problem is compounded by the massive increase in OTC derivatives. The U.S. financial system, in exceptional fashion, leads the way. Trump calls it “the greatest economy ever.” Yet the Fed was unable to “normalize” the Fed Funds Rate back up to just the historically average level without crashing the financial system. In fact, the Fed couldn’t even get halfway there before it had to reverse course and take rates lower plus hint a more money printing.

Phil Kennedy of Kennedy Financial hosted me plus Larry Lepard (mining stock fund manager) and Jerry Robinson (economist and trend trader)  to discuss what appears to be a giant margin call on the global financial system and where we think the price  of gold is headed:

NOTE:  I will be analyzing the signal being sent by the soaring repo rate this week and why it may be evidence that the fractional reserve banking fiat currency system is collapsing in my Short Seller’s Journal this week. You can learn more about my newsletters here  Short Seller’s Journal  and here  Mining Stock Journal. Two weeks ago I presented ROKU as a short at $169 and last week Tiffany’s (TIF) at $98. So far my put play on ROKU has been a home run.

A Global Race To Zero In Fiat Currencies…

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , ,

…ushers in the restoration of price discovery in the precious metals market. The price of gold is at or near an all-time in most currencies except the dollar. This summer, however, it would appear that the dollar-based valuation of gold is starting to break the “shackles” of official intervention and is beginning reflect the underlying fundamentals. Gold priced in dollars is up over 14% since mid-November 2018 and over 44% since it bottomed at $1050 in December 2015. But those RORs for gold are inconvenient truths you won’t hear in the mainstream financial media.

The movement in gold from 2008-2011 reflected the fundamental problems that caused the great financial crisis. The gold price also anticipated the inherent devaluation of the U.S. dollar from the enormous amount of money and credit that was to be created in order to keep the U.S. financial/economic system from collapsing. But those “remedies” only  treated the symptoms – not the underlying problems.

Once the economic/financial system was stabilized, the price of gold – which had become
technically extremely over-extended – entered a 5-year period of correction/consolidation.
This of course was helped along with official intervention. Gold bottomed out vs. the dollar in late 2015. As you can see, the gold price is significantly undervalued relative to the rising level of Treasury debt:

This is just one measuring stick by which to assess a “fundamental” dollar price for gold. But clearly just using this variable, gold is significantly under-priced in U.S. dollars.

As mentioned above, the underlying problems that led to the systemic de facto collapse in 2008 were allowed to persist. In fact, these problems have become worse despite the  efforts of the policy-makers and insider elitists to cover them up. But gold is starting to sniff the truth.  I’ve been expecting an aggressive effort by the banks to push the price of gold below $1400 – at least temporarily. But every attempt at this endeavor has failed quickly.  This is the ”invisible hand” of the market that ”sees” the ensuing currency devaluation race, which has shifted from a marathon to a track meet.

Though the politicians and Wall Street snake-oil salesmen will blame the fomenting economic contraction on the “trade war,”  the system was heading into a tail-spin anyway – the trade war is simply hastening the process. As such, the only conclusion I can draw is that there’s big big money globally – over and above the well publicized Central Bank buying – that is moving into gold and silver for wealth preservation. In short, bona fide price discovery in U.S. dollar terms is being reintroduced to the precious metals market.

The Mining Stock Journal  covers several mining stocks that I believe are extraordinarily undervalued relative to their upside potential. I also present opportunistic recommendations on select mid-tier and large-cap miners that should outperform their peers.  You can learn more about this newsletter here:   Mining Stock Journal information.

Every Bounce In Tesla Stock Can Be Fearlessly Shorted

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Elon Musk sent out an internal email to employees on Thursday in which he makes the highly dubious claims that the Company has 50,000 new orders for the Model  3,  the Company has a “good chance” of exceeding Q4’s record deliveries and the production of the Model 3 is close to 1,000 per week.

Regardless of the veracity of the production numbers, the new orders and Q2 deliveries assertions are likely Musk’s standard fraudulent misrepresentations.  From all of the data that can be gathered from official sources which track deliveries and VIN registrations globally, sales of all three Tesla models are falling off a cliff.  The recent price-cuts announced confirm the sales reports (eventually the Law of supply/demand/price prevails).

More likely, Musk scripted the email and its “leak” for the purpose of juicing the stock price in pre-market trading trading on Thursday morning in an attempt to stimulate hedge fund and retail daytrader momentum chasers and trigger a short-squeeze.

The leaked email had the intended effect – for about an hour – as the stock shot up to as high as $199.60 from $181.  The stock closed at $195.46.  This morning, the bubble-promoting financial media transformed lies embedded in the email into reports that Tesla was on track for record deliveries in Q2.  The stock ran up in pre-market from $196 to as high as $203.71.  As I write this the stock is trading below $191.

Elon Musk is obsessed with fighting the shorts rather than running a business and proving the shorts wrong. The funding secured debacle was more than a mistake – 1) it reflected desperation 2) it was highly illegal but our Government no longer prosecutes the crimes committed by billionaires.

The “leaked” email is another example of Musk using social media in an attempt to manipulate the stock price and punish short-sellers.  He’s emboldened by the fact that SEC has made it clear that it has no interest enforcing securities laws on Musk.  The public is on its own –  those for whom the laws are meant to protect (unsophisticated daytraders and the investors in  recklessly managed public mutual funds like ARK) are the ones who get hurt the most.

The problem faced by Tesla is that, in order to generate sales, Musk is unable to charge a high enough price to cover the all-in cost of designing, producing and delivering his cars to the end user. That’s why TSLA bleeds so much cash – it’s that simple.  Furthermore, he should have never issued debt to bridge the funding gap until it was guaranteed that the business model was truly profitable. It’s the same problem all these unicorn businesses face (NFLX, W, CVNA, LYFT, UBER, etc ad nauseum).

Tesla is now headed toward “zombie” status as both its business and its stock price limps toward and off the cliff.  As evidence, all of the stock analysts at firms involved with helping the Company raise $2.7 billion ($2.4 billion net) just two weeks ago  have suddenly become bearish on the story. Morgan Stanley’s Andrew Jonas – snake oil salesman extraordinaire – has publicly set a “downside” price of $10.  However, in a non-public conference call with clients, Morgan Stanley’s cross-asset trading group has made the case that the stock is worthless.

That the stock is worthless has never been an issue for me.  The more interesting question regards the ultimate value of the junk bonds, which are currently “priced” in the low $80’s. But this is based on small trades –  $1mm-2mm face value crosses and investment advisors at boiler room operations like Wedbush dumping 10 bond lots into client accounts. We used to play this game with ill-fated junk bonds that were artificially priced to high until a big seller capitulated when I traded junk bonds in the 1990’s.  More likely the  ultimate chapter 7 liquidation value of the unsecured debt on Telsa’s balance sheet is  well below 20 cents on the dollar.  In other words, short away every time the stock price spikes up on rumors or on desperate attempts by Musk to squeeze the shorts.

Put A Fork In Tesla – It’s Done

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Tesla has been “done” for awhile but many of the Wall Street and investor “uber” bulls are finally starting to see this reality.  Amusingly, Wedbush’s Dan Ives issued a report in which he lowered his price target on Tesla stock from $270 to $235.   He refers to Tesla’s situation as a “code red situation.”  Quite frankly, a “code red situation” with regard to a company and its stock price should be regarded as, “sell your shares if you’re long and get out of the way.”

How someone with the credentials to occupy a stock analyst’s seat at a stock brokerage – even if it is just Wedbush, a retail pump and dump mill – can truly believe that Tesla stock is worth the $40 billion market cap at $230/share is truly mind-blowing.  As an example, consider just a basic valuation metric.  The average automotive car OEM trades at an enterprise to revenue ratio of 0.2x revenues.  At the high-end Toyota trades at 0.6x revenues. That’s because Toyota sports a 7.5% operating margin.  Tesla’s market cap plus debt is 2.6x revenues, or 13x greater than the industry mean.

It would be useful to use other valuation metrics but Tesla does not generate any profits beyond its highly suspicious gross profit as shown in its SEC filings. It would also be useful to know if Dan Ives owns any Tesla shares. Does he really put his money where is mouth is?

That aside, Tesla shares are going to zero. Tesla stock broke down last week, closing at its lowest price since December 21, 2016. The stock is down $44 (17.5%) since May 6th, when it closed at $255 after completing the stock/convertible deal. It’s down 43% from its $370 close after the “funding secured” incident (August 8, 2018). Today the shares traded as low as $195 before a dead-cat short-cover bounce that has lifted the shares back over $200.

Tesla has likely entered into an irreversible death spiral. The only question at this point is how long it will take for the stock to head below $10 and how long the Company can stay solvent. There are scattered reports that the latest price cuts have stimulated a brief increase in sales of the Model S and X, but nothing has been verified. To be sure, sales of the Model 3 have fallen off a cliff in Europe and China, as an increasing number of potential buyers are made aware of the poor quality and follow-up service of this vehicle.

At TSLA’s current cash-burn rate, it won’t make it until the end of the year without a sales turnaround miracle on par with Moses seeing God in a burning bush. I doubt the Company will ever be able to raise money again. The stock does not have value as an acquisition because I highly doubt any potential acquirer would pay an amount that would cover Tesla’s debt load plus other fixed obligations.

In my 34+ years of experience in the financial markets, I’ve witnessed several Pied Piper types who have led their faithful  off the cliff.  Elon Musk for my money is the greatest purveyor of cult of personality that I’ve observed in my lifetime.  I don’t know how else to explain, at least for myself, how so many seemingly intelligent people continue to support Musk’s glaringly indisputable fraud.

April Retail Sales Soiled The Bed Sheets

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Perhaps the perma-bullish Wall Street analysts should contribute to retail sales by stocking up on Depends – like the Merrill Lynch analyst who forecast retail sales to climb 0.7% ex-autos. Retail sales, preliminarily, were said to have declined 0.2% from March.   The “core” retail sales group – retail sales not including autos and gasoline – were flat. Wall Street’s finest expected a consensus 0.4% gain.

I say “preliminarily” above because, if you scan the Census Bureau’s report you’ll note “asterisks” in several major line items.

This means that “advance” numbers were not available for those retail sales categories.  Thus, the CB guesstimates the number based on past numbers for that category.  It also means the Census Bureau can overestimate that category for headline purposes with the intent to revise lower in future reports.

Retail sales numbers are reported on a nominal basis.  If they were to be adjusted by a real rate of inflation, the month to month decline from April likely would have approached at least one half of one percent.

Funny thing about the guesstimate for new car dealer sales.  The OEM’s report actual deliveries to new dealers every month.  I would have to believe that new car dealers have highly automated sales tracking software. It would seem that the Census Bureau should be able to have a fairly accurate data sample and estimate for April new car dealer sales well before the middle of the following month. But using the (*) enables the Government to manipulate the number into a favorable outcome for the “advance” report.

We know that the average household – i.e the 80-90% of all households – are struggling under the weight of record monthly debt service requirements on a record amount of consumer debt. This plight is made worse by the fact that real wages are declining.  Not to judge Wall Street analysts harshly (said sarcastically), but it should be obvious that retail sales were going to show a decline in April.  Imagine how bad the actual number must be if the Government has to release a guesstimated report showing a nominal decline.

In my weekly Short Seller’s Journal, I present detailed analysis of weekly economic reports. In addition, I provide specific short ideas along with suggestions for using options to short stocks synthetically. You can learn more about this newsletter here:  Short Seller’s Journal information

Global Synchronized Depression: Buy Gold And Silver Not Copper

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It’s not “different this time.” The steep, prolonged yield curve inversion reflects the onset of a deep global economic contraction which is now being confirmed by leading indicators such as semiconductor and auto sales.  At some point the Fed is going to be forced by the market to cut the Fed Funds rate, as the 1yr Treasury is now yielding less than the Fed  Funds target rate. In addition, the yield curve is inverted from 1yr out to 7yrs, with a steep inversion between the 1yr and 3yr Treasurys.  It won’t take much flinching from the Fed to ignite a rally in the metals.  In addition, the investor sentiment as measured by MarketVane is about as low as I’ve seen it in a long time (34% bullish for both gold and silver).

We are headed into a severe global recession with or w/out a trade agreement. To be sure, over the next 10-20 years, it’s likely the price of copper will move higher. But if my view plays out, a severe recession will cause a sharp drop in the demand for copper and other base metals relative to the demand over the last 10-15 years. This in turn will push out the current supply/demand forecasts for copper by several years and drive the price of copper lower.

Trevor Hall and I discuss the global economy, the intense western Central Bank gold price manipulation activity and the factors that will drive the price of real money – gold and silver – higher and commodities like copper lower in our latest Mining Stock Daily podcast – click here or on the graphic below:

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You can learn more about  Investment Research Dynamics newsletters by following these links (note: a miniumum subscription period beyond the 1st month is not required):  Short Seller’s Journal subscription information   –   Mining Stock Journal subscription information

When The Stock Market Reversal Happens, It Will Be A Whopper

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“They may try to run this poor thing straight up and over a cliff. Recall the 2000 top was in March but they briefly ran it back in Sep 00. Ditto in Oct 07. When warning signs are ignored, the endings are abrupt. Maintain safety nets, but don’t assume stupidity has limits.” – John Hussman

Before I saw that quote from Hussman on Twitter, I was contemplating how the trading patterns this year in bond and precious metals markets remind of the way they were trading in 2008 before the financial system de facto collapsed.  Similarly,  the tech stocks right now remind me of the blow-off top that occurred in tech stocks in January/February 2000 just before the Nasdaq collapsed. Whether intentional or not, the Fed has quickly re-inflated the tech bubble that was punctured in September 2018.

Semiconductor stock bubble – The tech bubble in the late 1990’s was led by the semiconductor sector and the dot.coms. 98% of the dot.coms taken public during that time are no longer around. The semiconductor industry is “hyper”-cyclical. It has a beta of 11 vs. the economy. Right now the global economy is in melt-down mode. Just ask the IMF, BIS and World Bank. The Fed and Trump have recklessly reflated the stock bubble that led to the all-time high in the stock market. The semiconductors closed at an all-time high on Friday. It’s sheer insanity given that industry fundamentals are melting down.

The semiconductors seem to be the most responsive to trade war headlines that promote optimism. But the stock prices of these companies have completely disconnected from reality. Every possible consumer-driven end-user product market that uses semiconductors is contracting. As an example, Samsung warned on Thursday that it’s Q1 profit would be down 60% from Q1 2018, citing declines in prices for memory chips and lower demand from OEMs for screens, like the OLED display that Samsung makes for Apple’s iPhone.

Samsung’s inventory is now twice the size of two of its primary competitors. One of those competitors is Micron (MU – $41.72), which admitted that its inventory had soared to 137 days and was on its way to 150+ days in the current quarter. The slashing of capex by chip manufacturers has barely begun.

Semiconductor sales fell 7.3% in February from January and 10.6% from February. Globally semiconductor sales fell across all major categories and across all regional markets (not just China) in February. In North America, chip sales were down 12.9% from January and 22.9% from February 2018 (vs. down 7.8% in February in China sequentially from January and down 8.5% from Feb 2017).

The trade war has nothing do with the sales crash in the chip industry. And the “green shoots” seen in the “blip” in China’s PMI which ignited the stock market last Monday is not confirmed by the PMI data coming from Japan and South Korea, two of China’s largest trading partners. In short, when semiconductor stocks reverse from this insane run higher, they will literally rip in reverse. DRAM average selling prices (ASP) plunged over 20% in Q1 2019. The ASP is projected to drop another 15-20% in Q2 and a further 10% drop in Q3. So much for the 2nd half “recovery” that several chip company CEO’s saw in their crystal ball during the latest quarters’ conference calls (Micron, Lam Research, etc).

Inventories of all categories of semiconductors are extremely high because the demand for the end-user products (smartphones, autos, electronics) is plummeting, which means the inventory of those products is soaring as end-user demand contracts. The best news is for shorts looking for contrarian signals is that Cramer has been on his CNBC show recently pounding the table on chip stocks. This can only mean that his Wall Street sources are trying to move big blocks of stock out of their best institutional clients.

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The commentary above is an excerpt from my latest Short Seller’s Journal.  In that issue I present a detail rationale with data to explain why the U.S. economy is tanking and I provide several stocks to short, along with put option suggestions and capital management advice.  You can learn more about this weekly newsletter here:  Short Seller’s Journal information.

“Man, this is high-value newsletter.  Especially for me.” – Subscriber “Scott” from Michigan

The Divergence Between Stocks And Reality Is Insane

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , ,

“They may try to run this poor thing straight up and over a cliff. Recall the 2000 top was in March but they briefly ran it back in Sep 00. Ditto in Oct 07. When warning signs are ignored, the endings are abrupt. Maintain safety nets, but don’t assume stupidity has limits.” – John Hussman

This is the nastiest bear market rally that I have seen in my over 34 years of experience as a  financial markets professional. It would be a mistake to make the assumption that there has  not been some official intervention to help the stock market recover from the December sell-off.

Rob Kientz of goldsilverpros.com – a relatively new website that focuses on gold and silver market news and research – and I had a conversation about the extreme negative divergence between the economy and the stock market. And, of course, we discussed gold, silver and mining stocks:

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If you are interested in ideas for taking advantage of the inevitable systemic reset that  will hit the U.S. financial and economic system, check out either of these newsletters:   Short Seller’s Journal  information and more about the Mining Stock Journal here:   Mining Stock Journal information.

The U.S. Economy Is In Big Trouble

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , ,

“You’ve really seen the limits of monetary and fiscal policy in its ability to extend out a long boom period.” – Josh Friedman, Co-Chairman of Canyon Partners (a “deep value,” credit-driven hedge fund)

The Fed’s abrupt policy reversal says it all. No more rate hikes (yes, one is “scheduled” for 2020 but that’s fake news) and the balance sheet run-off is being “tapered” but will stop in September. Do not be surprised if it ends sooner. Listening to Powell explain the decision or reading the statement released is a waste of time. The truth is reflected in the deed. The motive is an attempt to prevent the onset economic and financial chaos. It’s really as simple as that. See Occam’s Razor if you need an explanation.

As the market began to sell-off in March, the Fed’s FOMC foot soldiers began to discuss further easing of monetary policy and hinted at the possibility, if necessary, of introducing “radical” monetary policies. This references Bernanke’s speech ahead of the roll-out QE1. Before QE1 was implemented, Bernanke said that it was meant to be a temporary solution to an extreme crisis. Eight-and-a-half years and $4.5 trillion later, the Fed is going to end its balance sheet reduction program after little more than a 10% reversal of QE and it’s hinting at re-starting QE. Make no mistake, the 60 Minutes propaganda hit-job was a thinly veiled effort to prop up the stock market and instill confidence in the Fed’s policies.

Economic data is showing further negative divergence from the rally in the stock market. The Census Bureau finally released January new home sales, which showed a 6.9% drop from December. Remember, the data behind the report is seasonally adjusted and converted to an annualized rate. This theoretically removes the seasonal effects of lower home sales in December and January. The Census Bureau (questionably) revised December’s sales up to 652k SAAR from 621k SAAR. But January’s SAAR was still 2.3% below the original number reported. New home sales are tanking despite the fact that median sales price was 3.7% below January 2018 and inventory soared 18%.

LGI Homes reported that in January it deliveries declined year-over-year (and sequentially) and Toll Brothers reported a shocking 24% in new orders. None of the homebuilders are willing to give forward guidance.  LGI’s average sale price is well below $200k, so “affordability” and “supply” are not the problem (it’s the economy, stupid).

The upward revision to December’s new home sales report is questionable because it does not fit the mortgage purchase application data as reported in December. New homes sales are recorded when a contract is signed. 90% of all new construction homes are purchased with a mortgage. If purchase applications are dropping, it is 99% certain that new home sales are dropping. With the November number revised down 599k, and mortgage purchase applications falling almost every week in December, it’s 99% likely that new home sales at best were flat from November to December. In other words, the original Census Bureau guesstimate was probably closer to the truth.

The chart to the right shows the year-over-year change in the number of new homes (yr/yr change in the number of units as estimated by the Census Bureau) sold for each month. I added the downward sloping trend channel to help illustrate the general decline in new home sales. As you can see, the trend began declining in early 2015.

Recall that it was in January 2015 that Fannie Mae and Feddie Mac began reducing the qualification requirements for Government-backed “conforming” mortgages, starting with reducing the down payment requirement from 5% to 3%. For the next three years, the Government continued to lower this bar to expand the pool of potential homebuyers and reduce the monthly payment burden. This was on top of the Fed artificially taking interest rates down to all-time lows. In other words, the powers that be connected to the housing market and the policy-makers at the Fed and the Government knew that the housing market was growing weak and have gone to great lengths in an attempt to defer a housing market disaster. Short of making 0% down payments a standard feature of Government-guaranteed mortgage programs, I’m not sure what else can be done help put homebuyers into homes they can’t afford.

I do expect, at the very least, that we might see a “statistical” bounce in the numbers to show up over the couple of existing and new home sale reports (starting with February’s numbers). Both the NAR and the Government will likely “stretch” seasonal adjustments imposed on the data to squeeze out reports which show gains plus it looks like purchase mortgage applications may have bounced a bit in February and March, though the data was “choppy” (i.e. positive one week and negative the next).

E-commerce sales for Q4 reported last week showed a 2% annualized growth rate, down from 2.6% in Q3. Q3 was revised lower from the 3.1% originally reported. This partially explains why South Korea’s exports were down 19.1% last month, German industrial production was down 3.3%, China auto sales tanked 15% and Japan’s tool orders plummeted 29.3%. The global economy is at its weakest since the financial crisis.

It would be a mistake to believe that the U.S. is not contributing to this. The Empire State manufacturing survey index fell to 3.7 in March from 8.8 in February. Wall Street’s finest were looking for an index reading of 10. New orders are their weakest since May 2017. Like the Philly Fed survey index, this index has been in general downtrend since mid-2017. The downward slope of the trendline steepened starting around June 2018. Industrial production for February was said to have nudged up 0.1% from January. But this was attributable to a weather-related boost for utilities. The manufacturing index fell 0.4%. Wall Street was thinking both indices would rise 0.4%. Oops.

The economy is over-leveraged with debt at every level to an extreme and the Fed knows it. Economic activity is beginning  to head off of a cliff. The Fed knows that too. The Fed has access to much more in-depth, thorough and accurate data than is made available to the public. While it’s not obvious from its public posture, the Fed knows the system is in trouble. The Fed’s abrupt policy reversal is an act of admission. I would say the odds that the Fed starts printing money again before the end of 2019 is better than 50/50 now. The “smartest” money is moving quickly into cash. Corporate insiders are unloading shares at a record pace. It’s better to look stupid now than to be one a bagholder later.

A Financial System Headed For A Collision With Debt

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The retail sales report for December – delayed because of the Government shut-down – was released this morning. It showed the largest monthly drop since September 2009. Online sales plunged 3.9%, the steepest drop since November 2008. Not surprisingly, sporting goods/hobby/musical instruments/books plunged 4.9%. This is evidence that the average household has been forced to cut back discretionary spending to pay for food, shelter and debt service (mortgage, auto, credit card, student loans).

I had to laugh when Trump’s Cocaine Cowboy – masquerading as the Administration’s flagship “economist” – attributed the plunge in retail sales to a “glitch.” Yes, the “glitch” is that 7 million people are delinquent to seriously delinquent on their auto loan payments. I’d have to hazard a wild guess that these folks aren’t are not spending money on the latest i-Phone or a pair of high-end yoga pants.

Here’s the “glitch” to which Larry must be referring:

The chart above shows personal interest payments excluding mortgage debt. As you can see, the current non-mortgage personal interest burden is nearly 20% higher than it was just before the 2008 financial crisis. It’s roughly 75% higher than it was at the turn of the century. The middle class spending capacity is predicated on disposable income, savings, and borrowing capacity. Disposable income is shrinking, the savings rate is near an all-time low and many households are running out of capacity to support more household debt.

I found another “glitch” in the private sector sourced data, which is infinitely more reliable than the manipulated, propaganda-laced garbage spit out by Government agencies. The Conference Board’s measurement of consumer confidence plunged to 120.2 from 126.6 in January (December’s number was revised lower). Both the current and future expectations sub-indices plunged. Bond guru, Jeff Gundlach, commented that consumer future expectations relative to current conditions is a recessionary signal and this was one of the worst readings ever in that ratio.

This was the third straight month the index has declined after hitting 137.9 (an 18-yr high) in October. The 17.7 cumulative (12.8%) decline is the worst string of losses since October 2011 (back then the Fed was just finishing QE2 and prepping for QE3). The expectation for jobs was the largest contributor to the plunge in consumer confidence. Just 14.7% of the respondents are expecting more jobs in the next 6 months vs 22.7% in November. The 2-month drop in the Conference Board’s index was the steepest 2-month drop since 1968.

This report reflects a tapped-out consumer. It’s a great leading economic indicator because historically downturns in this report either coincide with a recession or occur a few months prior.

Further supporting my “glitch” thesis, mortgage purchase applications have dropped four weeks in row after a brief increase to start 2019. Last week purchase applications tanked 6% from the previous week. The previous week dropped 5% after two consecutive weeks of 2% drops. This plunge in mortgage purchase apps occurred as the 10yr Treasury rate – the benchmark rate for mortgage rates – fell to its lowest level in a year.

Previously we have been fed the fairy tale that housing sales were tanking because mortgage rates had climbed over the past year or that inventory was too low. Well, mortgage rates just dropped considerably since November and home sales are still declining. The inventory of existing and new homes is as high as it’s been in over a year. Why? Because of the rapidity with which number of households that can afford the cost of home ownership has diminished. The glitch is the record level of consumer debt.

The parabolic rise in stock prices since Christmas is nothing more than a bear market, short-covering squeeze triggered by direct official intervention in the markets in an attempt to prevent the stock market from collapsing. This is why Powell has reversed the Fed’s monetary policy stance more quickly than cock roaches scatter when the kitchen light is turned on. But when 7 million people are delinquent on their car loan and retail sales go straight off the cliff, we’re at the point at which stopping QT re-upping QE won’t work. The stock market will soon seek lower ground to catch down to reality. This “adjustment” in the stock market could occur more abruptly most expect.