QUESTION: Martin; it seems the Emerging Markets are back in favor just as interest rates are on the rise and their dollar borrowings have exploded. Is this the final bubble that is unfolding? When the WSJ writes about a trend it is usually the end. They are noting that significant flows of funds are now going out of the US and into Europe. Is this time to sell the emerging markets and Europe? Picking up the rug here in Berlin, nothing seems to have really changed. Any comment?

ANSWER: Yes, the move back to Europe after the French election seems to be the relief rally that is always the case for hot money. The Emerging Market debt bubble is what I wrote about a few days ago that the rush to emerging markets has seen an explosion in new debt offerings. This is very alarming. People act like you should short the US stock market and buy Emerging Markets. You really have to wonder if they understand the global economy at all. The willingness of investors to buy debt securities is rooted in these bearish forecasts for U.S. equities. But the bulk of this is really desperate pensions funds who are in search of higher yields. This is by no means the start of some new Emerging Market boom of prosperity.  It reminds me of Andrew Melon’s comment when the stock market began to decline in 1929 before the bond meltdown in emerging markets back then: “Gentlemen buy bonds!”

The fool will jump in with both feet as always. You need people to buy the highs. The US equities have been in a sideways consolidation since February and their greatest vulnerability is Trump’s stupid firing of Comey that the Democrats are calling a Constitutional Crisis. Trump should have been wiser than this. The danger is this distraction holds off any tax reform for that has been the underpinning to the US equities.

A friend of mine was Chief of Staff in the White House years ago. We went to dinner after he won the position. He was so optimistic that he would be able to accomplish a lot. He knew my view he would never get to anything by the end of the day. After he left the White House we went to dinner. I said nothing. He burst out and said alright you SOB, I never got to a single thing I wanted to change. That is Washington for you. Trump’s greatest flaw is he fails to understand that. Stupid moves like firing Comey are costly. They will eat up time and delay everything if not block tax reform. Congress loves to investigate every leaf that falls to the ground and assign blame even in the middle of a wind storm. That’s just the way it goes in that city. Trump handed them a controversy on a gold platter.

As far as money rushing back to Europe, yes, there was the parking of money here for fear of the French election. But this is nothing more than a short-term knee-jerk reaction. European growth has nothing to offer long-term but higher taxes.

The US share market has been unable to make a significant correction and the numbers remains the same. The surge into emerging markets has been taking place over the past year and this has been the desperate search for higher yields. This is a bubble that is very dangerous and smells like the Russian one back in 1998.

The only way to bring about real economic change remains a rising dollar – not a lower one. That will kill the emerging markets. The US share market remains flat-to-lower and only a breakout to new highs will signal the next leg up. The main area to watch is the 20000 level in the Dow on a weekly closing basis.

Not a single European bank parking money at the Fed through their US branches have reversed that trade. Not a single major player among our clients has been a buyer of Emerging Market debt in this bubble. So the flows written about by the WSJ are indeed the tail-end and not some major brand new trend emerging

I have warned that whenever a government creates a solution to any crisis, that solution becomes the next crisis. This is what I have called the Paradox of Solution.The unfolding of the exit of the central banks from the Quantitative Easing monetary policy will become a much more serious threat to the financial markets than anyone suspects. The Federal Reserve has already exited and begun to raise rates while also announcing it will NOT be reinvesting the money when the government debt they bought expires. The Federal Reserve is already shortening their balance sheet. Bills of $426 billion will be due at the Fed in 2018, and again about $357 billion a year later. So the Fed will not repurchase that debt. The US economy is absorbing this because US dollars are effectively the only real reserve currency in the world right now.

The real problem lies with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Japanese central bank and when they exit their Quantitative Easing programs, their economies are not the reserve currency and lack a solid bid from international capital. The end of QE will lead to a sharp increase in yields on the bond markets, and thus the financing costs for the states will explode far more rapidly today than at any time in past history. It is also possible that other sectors of the financial system, such as the stock markets and the foreign exchange markets in peripheral economies to the USA, will be cast into turmoil experiencing great difficulties without the financial support of the central banks.

Since 2008, the Bank of Japan recorded an increase of 107 trillion yen. The ECB has more than doubled its balance sheet from EUR 2 trillion to EUR 4.1 trillion and holds 40% of member state debt while tensions rise against the EU. The crisis emerges when governments, who are the ones who have been subsidized since 2008, find no bid for their paper. This will really send rates upward at a rapid pace.

As central banks appeared as omnipotent purchasers of government bonds to the un-savvy trader, the yields of the debt by no means reflect the risk of a default in the country’s payments. The decline in yields masked the rising risks from fiscal mismanagement that has been widespread.

While the Federal Reserve had recently announced that it would no longer reinvest its gains on government bonds that had matured into new US securities, the US bond market will need to find new buyers to absorb the additional supply. That may not be a problem right now, but as other government debt moves into crisis, we will see the capital flight from bonds to equities unfold.

The balance sheets of both the Japanese central bank and the ECB are unlikely to follow the Fed just yet. A withdrawal of the ECB’s purchases of securities could produced the most widespread damage in Europe since the Dark Ages.