Cyber attacks & the Vulnerability of a Cashless Society


QUESTION: Cyberattacks vs. Cash elimination – an argument against eliminating cash. Hello Mr. Armstrong, it is quite apparent that no government, no financial institution, Anti-virus software developer, or either ‘whatever’ is is really capable to stop cyberattacks. Now these people want to eliminate cash, make larger cash amounts illegal. So theoretically these cyber attackers could/ maybe will, eventually just stop the whole economy. Nobody may even be able to buy food. So instead of eliminating cash, should it not be policy people carry at least a month’s worth of expenses in cash? Your reply should be quite interesting to us, your readership!

Best,

AP

ANSWER: The WannaCry ransom attack is actually variant from a February 2015 sample attributed to the Lazarus Group, a Kaspersky-tracked actor tied to the North Korean government. Parts of the code go beyond shared code. It appears to be written by the same programmer.

Let’s get something straight here. At the core of those responsible is really the NSA and Microsoft itself. The attack exploited a Windows networking protocol to spread within networks, and while Microsoft released a patch nearly two months ago, it’s become very clear that patch didn’t reach all users particularly because institutions often do not install patches fearing that proprietary software may not function.

If behind the curtain we have government demanding back-doors into iPhones and computer so they can listen to everything everywhere, well guess what – so can everyone else. Patches will work for individual users, but not major institutions. Trying to upgrade their operations is a real effort. They are slow to act and thus vulnerable.

The NSA was well aware of this little trick. The real answer is the NSA and FBI must do investigation the old fashion way. Stop asking for secret back-doors that never remain secret very long. The entire world will become vulnerable and they use to counterfeit an adversary’s currency to undermine their economy. Today, if we keep this nonsense up, they will hack into the entire thing and shut it down.

The idea of moving to a cashless society is just insane. Somebody has to give up something here. Trust me – the intelligence community will not take responsibility.

Gold & Euro & Dollar


QUESTION: Marty; You said gold was still vulnerable in dollars but that the low was probably in place in Euros. I have been trying to reconcile that statement in my mind. The only way that happens is a real crisis in Europe and a strong dollar. Correct? It seems really naive that people get bullish on a few weeks of price movement and predict the next 10 years. The dollar first is week with Trump and bullish euro for Macron? Right?

Thank you for a lone voice in the wilderness of analysis.

OT

ANSWER: Yes. Just compare the two chart patterns. Notice that gold in euros bottomed back in December 2013 compared to December 2015 in dollars. The numbers will not come down unless gold makes a new low in dollars. Then the breakout will drop from the 1362 level. Just looking at gold in euros exposes the real trend.

The fools keep saying see the euro rallies and the dollar declines so I have to be wrong. The European Central Bank is the one at risk of collapsing. Draghi bought 40% of all Eurozone debt. He raises interest rates at his own balance sheet takes the hit. This fool is really in trouble and then you have Germany turning against the Draghi. Neither the Fed nor the Bank of Japan are in such a dangerous position.

The perpetual dollar bears cannot see the light. Just how is the world economy going to crack with a lower dollar? They look at the dollar as if it is a SHARE PRICE up is bullish and down is bearish for America. Currency is the opposite of share prices. The higher the currency, the greater the deflation and the lower the economic growth. They never heard of “competitive devaluations” or currency wars. Every crisis has come with a rising dollar. The solution was a dollar devaluation as Roosevelt did in 1934. They look at everything backwards and that’s why the lose a fortune consistently buying highs.

Here is the CAC40 of France. The high in the French stock market is 1999. Yet everyone is cheering as if the US is down and Europe is the new wonderland?

Compare the German stock market in euros and in dollars. It has finally made new international highs only in 2015. We have to look at everything from a global perspective. The new highs in the Dax in international terms is ONLY because of the decline in the euro. With the bounce in the euro, the Dax will rally in euros, but only to a point.

A spike up in the dollar can be achieved from political chaos, but also geopolitical. Only a rise in the dollar will break the system and end the dollar as the reserve currency. The debt crisis we face is building and with higher interest rates, then there will be the risk for major loses overseas and capital will contract once again. It was the US capital outflows that rebuilt the world. A lower dollar encourages overseas investment. A higher dollar causes a contraction.

Only a total idiot forecasts the long-term by one month worth of price action. We need these fools to make the trends. Somebody has to buy the high and sell the low. This entire political-geopolitical mess us starting to bubble up. Why are two Republicans, McCain and Graham, acting as Trump’s worst enemy trying to destroy the Republican Agenda? They are being paid by their lobbyists to protect the corrupt establishment. They are against their own Party and should just join Hillary on vacation. Oh that’s right. They have the same backers. Graham’s number one contributors are law firms really on behalf of their clients to hide the source of the money I believe.

Gold & the False Move


QUESTION: Dear Marty, could the current ongoing deleveraging in China cause Gold and Silver to fall beneath 1000$ (Silver under ?) or is this currently no big deal what`s going on in China? Keep up the good work!

Best regards,

B

ANSWER: There are so many fundamentals out there is hard to predict which one causes what. Combined, they are all a nightmare. What is essential, is if we are going to really rocket up in a major phase transition, you MUST always have the false move first. These are just minor swings creating the false move which is always counter to the ultimate trend. To swing down under the December 2015 low will cause people to capitulate and then you will make a run and swing out to new highs.

With the stock market crash into 2009, this was the PERFECT storm, which was a FALSE MOVE. Even Barrons as last of 2011 ran a story saying tongue in cheek how I was forecasting new highs. They thought it was a joke. That’s because these people have never been traders or students of the market. The chart patterns are always the same regardless of the instrument because you are plotting human emotion – not really that instrument.

The most powerful move up for gold requires a false move of a slingshot proportion.

Mutual Funds versus ETF’S


 

People are waking-up to the fact that they can substitute the expensive Asset Manager fees by doing it themselves. There are many ways but here we distinguish between Mutual Funds (MT) and ETF’s (Exchange Traded Funds). When buying into a MF it is via a company such as Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street etc. and they either execute the trade themselves or via a brokerage company. You are then part of a pool of money that tracks the underlying performance of the asset class. You are priced at the net asset value of the fund at the close of business that day. There is a bid/offer spread to the fund and typically a holding period with penalty for early redemption. ETF’s on the other hand are similar to a single name stock/Index/Municipal Bond etc. are traded directly on the exchange but bears no holding period. ETF’s attempt to track the net asset value of the underlying and are typically following an index; such at the S+P. One key difference is the cost – ETF’s are usually a lot cheaper to trade but on the other hand can be considerably riskier.

The growth of this type of self-investing has been huge. At the end of 2016 it is estimated the global ETF market was around $2,775bn (ICI data) with over 1,700 ETF listed. There are also rumoured to be around 79,000 Mutual Funds in the world, with just 7,900 in the Sates. However, much of the market size is dominated with in the US accounting for over 60% of the entire market value.

Growth rate into MF and ETF’s has only just stalled (in the US) but that could be because the US has such a dominant role and if considering the level of the overall stock market. Assets roughly stand around $16trn having been rising by over 12% pa since 1965 (according to Investment Company Institute). Although we are seeing a levelling-off in the US market we continue to see growth for less developed market and especially in Asia. The growth in India, for example, it is reported that Asset Management Companies grew AUM by 30% (reported by Value Research) over the past 18 months.

There could be several factors influencing recent trends. The mainstream players are facing a contracting market. This could be due to the absolute level (contract highs) and competition on fees. Clients are also becoming more financially aware, millennials are more socially astute with technology playing a huge role but also local emerging market players have started to reclaim their markets. This could be one of the reasons why GIC (Singapore sovereign wealth fund) is offering 2.4% stake in UBS; because of the increased competition from local funds in their own domestic market. UBS currently plays a dominant role within Asia for wealth management so it should not be a surprise that local companies are making a play to regain lost territory.

Stock Market Crash?


The correction has begun with the uneasiness of the two political scandals surrounding Trump – Russian meeting and now a Comey memo saying Trump asked him to kill the investigation into Flyn. The first is not really an issue legally, but the second could fuel the quest to impeach Trump which is really led by McCain and Graham behind the curtain in league with Schumer. McCain is already calling this a Watergate demonstrating he is out to get rid of Trump and protect the establishment.

The impeachment of Trump is being talked about behind the curtain as a positive move for then Pence would take up the Presidency and then the tax reforms would become possible. That is an interesting twist on things.

We are showing choppiness for three months and big volatility its in August. The likelihood of getting any tax reform now before the August Congress holiday is fading very fast. This is taking the icing off of the Trump rally. Forget the infrastructure expenditures for that is matching funds and states will just raise taxes for that one which is detrimental not bullish other than from the companies who will overcharge government fix stuff.

The Daily Bearish Reversals in the Cash S&P500 lie at 237900 and 234450. A Weekly closing below 233500 will tend to warn a serious correction becomes possible.

The fact that the Dow has been unable to make new highs and the Global Market Watched on the monthly level labeled April when it closed for the month as IMPORTANT HIGH. Our Capital Flow Models models are showing that there has been some European selling of equities, which is the reason the Dow has not followed the S&P500 or the NASDAQ. There has been a flight to quality moving into the US Treasuries, but also the hot money has been selling the dollar after the French election. Here we still see a Weekly closing below 20000 will confirm a more serious correction. The Daily number remains at 20204.

The NASDAQ shows a daily closing below 610750 will signal that a temporary correction is possible.A Weekly closing below 580500 will confirm a serious correction is possible.

The Global Market Watch classified the April high in the Dow as a Possible Important High. That should not be ignored. If May closes lower than April at month-end on these three indexes, that will confirm the correction. We do see the possibility for the correction to extend into 2018 from which a slingshot to the upside remains probably.

US Share Market – Still Up or Correction?


QUESTION: Marty you warned previously that an April high would have the potential to create an important temporary high with a decline into 2018 and then a slingshot up. Is that still a possibility?

ANSWER: Yes. We have the S&P500 and the NASDAQ Composite making new highs but NOT the Dow. This raises some concern that a correction is still possible. The Dow needs to make new highs above April intraday and on a monthly closing basis. This is a tall order right now. This will warn we are consolidating sideways and preparing for the breakout. The support on the Dow remains at 20,000 on a Weekly Closing basis. The majority has to be wrong for they are the fuel that drives the market. We have had nothing but bearishness in the bull market which has exceeded the 2007 high by nearly 50% yet throughout the rally everyone is bearish. This has been the fuel that made it rally. You even have people touting short the S&P500 and buy Emerging Markets. That has to be a suicide mission. Then you have people touting Europe is a wonderland and the Euro will be fine because Macron won. Of course these are Americans who obviously do not have clients in Europe nor do they visit often. Sure the Euro will rally for the key resistance is still in the 113-114 level.

We will be releasing a special report after the HK World Economic Conference just on the Dow, S&P500 and NASDAQ with timing. The broader market is rising and the Dow has flattened out. This is in part due to people assuming the Macron victory relieves the bearishness for Europe.

On the other hand, our risk is Trump. If Trump ever gets his act together and stops making stupid decisions that hand controversy to Democrats and ruthless pretend Republicans like Lindsey Graham, who backed the bill to allow the government to imprison people without a trial indefinitely for life and denied lawyers, then maybe we can get the tax cuts. Without the tax cut boom, we still have the chaos of Europe, and rising geopolitical tensions outside the USA. Those issues alone are capable of sending the dollar to the moon – but not yet. That’s still what we need to break the back of this monetary system and those cracks appear likely starting next year.

Lindsey Graham is a disgrace to our government and he is not qualified to dare criticize Trump for anything no matter how stupid Trump is. Graham is just an unconstitutional embarrassment. Graham and McCain are the biggest threats to our political-economy moving forward. They are protecting the establishment and are two people who I do not believe should be in Washington, and certainly do not trust them for a second. McCain would invade Canada to get even for his capture and betrayal of reading propaganda messages for the Vietnamese.

Is Germany Putting Pressure on Draghi? Absolutely!


QUESTION: Hi Martin,

It cannot be said enough: thank you for everything that you do.

While I would love the opportunity to sit down with you as I have a million questions concerning your excellent posts of today, let me focus in on The Coming Central Bank Crisis.

As the Fed begins to unwind its balance sheet this year, will that spur the Germans to demand Draghi stop with his program and unwind the ECB balance sheet in 2018, since the Fed will be successful?  Also, how can that occur if we are in a recession?  (Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are indeed calling for a recession by 2018?)

Thank You,
D

ANSWER: Wolfgang Schäuble has already been jawboning Draghi to reverse course. Draghi knows he has 40% of all Eurozone public debt. He has lost total control of the crisis and has become the crisis. He is frozen like a deer in headlights. Schäuble wants Draghi to leave, but he has a 10 year term. This will not end nicely. We may see the crisis be the reason the Euro turns back down after testing the overhead Reversals in the 113-114 zone.

We have been in a major economic declining trend ever since the 1950s. Yes there are bouts with booming economic periods, but the growth during such rallies is progressively making lower highs. Once upon a time, we had growth of 8-10%. Volcker raised interest rates to 14% to stop inflation. Today, we celebrate 2% growth. This is a worldwide consequence of socialism. Government have doubled in size since 1950 and people wonder why Trump, BREXIT or even Le Pen won nearly 35% of the vote compare to 5% 20 years ago in France.

So are we in a recession? Economists would say no unless there are two-consecutive quarterly declines in GDP growth. As a trade, you have to say we are on a very long protracted Bear Market in economic growth and the future, for us and our children, rests solely in the hands of this “populist” movement to replace socialism.

Dying Shopping Malls and Wealth Managers


People talk about the changing environment. In the financial world around us, things are also changing dramatically. What use to be is no more. There are no real ticker-tape parades any more and future pits are closing opting for online trading. What is changing and why can we not see it? The internet has changed the way people shop around the world with the retail sector currently dominated by Amazon, accounting for almost 65% of online sales.   Amazon pasted Walmart (in market cap) back in 2015 and within the past two years has grown in value to be worth twice as much. Large department stores and the more traditional malls are closing but this is happening as retail spending continues to grow. Admittedly, online merchants have made it far easier, tap a button and our goods arrive at the doorstep the next day, but obviously at the expense of shop staff. The more comfortable we get with online retail the more intelligent we are shopping around and doing it ourselves. Is having the ease of service and renewed confidence a major influence upon why we are turning to index trackers and ETF’s rather than pay a money manager 2% to do it for us?

The ETF market has ballooned since the early 2000’s and is now worth approximately $2.5tn. With this “online” competition, the rumours are that the fees have been reduced to an almost nothing, with money managers taking just 20bp on the fund in the hope that they can make additional returns on the bid/offer spread. One of the problems we could face however, is that the derivative (ETF) becomes more liquid than the underlying. The relationship will work fine in an orderly market but will be tested in extremely or volatile conditions. The concern should be when will Market-Makers widen their spreads so just ensure you are not the last one to see the problems.

Macron & His Socialist Agenda


Macron’s funding reveals that elite Socialists were really behind him changing the label to sell a centrist agenda, but in reality, to maintain their agenda. Macron was able to raise funds from French abroad with the promises of change, and this targeted particularly the French who fled Hollande living in London and New York. He did a photo-op with Nobel Prize laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz before journalists who is critical of the management of globalization, against  laissez-faire economists who he classifies a “free market fundamentalists”, as well as international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.  

Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University and is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He was also a former member and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Bill Clinton and supported Hillary over Obama saying she is more “liberal” (socialist) than Obama. Stiglitz believes in Georgism, which is a variety of Marxism whereby the State should own all the resources derived from land, which is an old Physicocrat (French) idea that wealth is derived from land. In this way, all natural resources should belong to government from mining to energy just for starters as if government operated industries ever ran efficient or were free from corruption. He also supported a single tax for all and believes that, while people should own the value what they produce themselves with everything derived from land should belong to government characterized as belonging equally to all members of society (government).

Joseph Stiglitz criticized Obama publicly saying that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP)  trade deal should not be about “who makes the trade rules—China or the United States?’” Stiglitz said  “I think the big issue is, this is about who makes the rules of trade—the American people, our democratic process, or the corporations? And who they’re made for, which is, for the corporations or for all of us?”

Stiglitz is a core Marxist, which is why he is liked in France where Communism began and convinced Marx this was the way to go. In 2015, Stiglitz wrote two books, The Great Divide and Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy, which are based upon select years for research to support his idea rather than all history. Each book highlights a series of problems he maintains have led to the current state of economic inequality with the gap between the rich and the poor. Stiglitz merely maintains that taking from the rich in greater proportion is necessary to even the playing field and this somehow will make everything better ignoring the fact that as government grows, it consumes the wealth of a nation rather than raises the standard of living. He thus blames everything on a faulty tax code that rewards the rich and hampers the poor, an increase in behavior that boosts the economic gains of only a few while extracting more capital from the majority, and a misplaced focus on altering the economy in a way that benefits shareholders, executives, and investors, but not the average worker.

Macron publicly wanted to be photographed with Stiglitz who is a popular socialist in France. In total, he collected around €15 million, all from private individuals. 1.7% of the donors gave 45% of the funds. He collected €1.9 million when he was still an economic minister illustrating that he saw the collapse in popularity of Hollande, and decides to repackage the same old agenda pretending it was now centrist.

Even Stiglitz believes the Euro is a failure and should be split into a “flexible” euro creating separate groups within Europe, which by default would also be the end of the European Central Ban

Global Market Watch Window to the World Interconnectivity


COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, I have been on Socrates for about one year now on what you now call your standard edition. I have to say, you have done an amazing job of programming. To have a computer simply provide a comment that is short and to the point that you can look at the whole whole at your finer tips, is the most fantastic tool I have ever encountered. Its calls just on the Dow Jones have saved me countless multiples of the cost of service and I am a small investor. This is what you are expanding to over 5,000 instruments worldwide?

REPLY: Yes. The Global Market Watch was originally designed for hedge fund use and was inspired by one of our major institutional clients back in 1995. They did not have the time to read a written report on everything in their portfolio. They wanted a quick cheat-sheet that was visually a view of their portfolio. We use to sell this for $250,000 annually. However, since we are looking to simply open up Socrates to the world in hopes that it will ultimately help politically manage the economy rather than constantly shooting from the hip, the best way to prove the world is interconnected is to let everyone see for themselves.

Analysis is also changing. You still have the huxtsers who make up flashy headlines to sell stuff that is just opinion. Those days are fading. Under new EU Rules, investment banks charged fees for doing business and they gave you the research free if you did business with them. Indeed, that is how I started. The research was free as long as you were a client back in the days when I was a market-maker. When I retired, the clients still wanted the research. That was the beginning of our firm. Bit reports were delivered by telex so the communication costs would often reach $250,000 annually. That is why we were institutional only. Then came fax. The cost to deliver dropped from $50 to $3. Now we have the internet and the cost to deliver is basically zero.

We have institutions buying access per 100 for employees. For you see, research is changing. Under the new rules, research must be paid for separately. The London FT reported:

“Under draft rules published by the commission, the EU’s executive arm, last month, the fund industry’s decades-long practice of lumping together the fees they pay investment banks and brokers for research and trading will come to an end. Instead, for the first time, asset managers in Europe will have to make it clear to investors exactly what they are paying for.”

We have more people and institutions signing up than anyone would imagine. One bank just took 250 subscriptions for employees. Research has to be separate and accountable. It cannot be lumped in any more. Major institutions do not read the huxtsers who offer just opinion and all sorts of claims for they do not cover markets every day of a major scale. They also do not tell the press what they are doing until AFTER the fact. This is the only product like this in the world.

The Global Market Watch was designed as a wind into the inter-connectivity of the world. It does not matter if you are investing in India or Singapore and Greece. Being able to cover the world in a consistent manner that is completely computer driven so there is no human interaction and opinion is the key to the future. All other analysis will eventually die out and become obsolete. We live in a global economy and this domestic restricted view is primitive to say the least no much different from those who refused the believe that the Earth was not the center of the universe or the the Earth was no fla