Our models have been targeting 2018 for the last 30 years as the first potential year for a monetary crisis and reform. There was a shot that we could have doubled the Dow and everything would have bottomed on the first potential, such as gold in 2013 to 2014, and then turn up into that target. But the markets have been dragging this affair out so long that it looks like this is the beginning rather than the end point, and the real chaos is just extending into the next 8.6-year cycle. This is why we have the Reversal System, for it provides the numbers we have to achieve to confirm the trend. Just as we missed the 17800 on the Dow for the close of May, everything happens for a reason.

The vast majority remains bearish on the Dow, and, of course, the gold promoters always say the dollar is worthless, but their forecasts have not changed for decades. The Dow has all these people claiming it is overvalued and has to crash. Then we have Fed watchers who just focus on domestic numbers and ignore the entire world trend.
It is clear that everything is within a staging position in preparation for something really big. While so many say this is the end of the world and everything will go to zero, such events have never corresponded to their scenarios in history.

The most likely course of action has not changed. When confidence in government collapses among the GENERAL MASS PUBLIC, everything will breakout. Listening or convincing oneself about fiscal mismanagement of government is nice, but the general population is what counts. They are the movers and shakers. We merely jump to their actions.

So the computer gives us the numbers and the time. They simply have to be elected to confirm a trend. All I can do is articulate the points and then say here are the points and the time.

What we are facing is nothing anyone has ever experienced. So it is not going to be easy to come up with some “gut feeling” or opinion that matters. Whatever we “think” will or will not happen is irrelevant. Everything is changing. Financial analysts are failing everywhere. Hedge funds are losing money. The only way to trade is with something definitive without the personal opinion.

The days of searching for some guru who is never wrong from an opinion perspective are gone and only fools seek such ideals. We are heading into the eye of a financial storm that will topple governments. The future is being constructed before our eyes if we wake up and just look. The hard heads always lose everything because they are too stubborn and incapable of adjusting their investment strategy. Those looking to buy growth or value in equities will also lose their shirt for this is not a normal trading affair.

The central banks have risked it all and lost. They have reached the point of no return. The Fed decided not to raise rates, which are desperately needed to prevent a collapse in pensions and insurance companies, and merely froze like a deer in headlights. The superficial analysts who think lower rates are good for the stock market are blinded by their own stupidity. The theory that low rates will encourage people to buy stocks is brain-dead and demonstrates that these people are incapable of comprehending how the economy functions.

We have taken simple correlations of interest rates and the stock market and discovered something in plain sight. The market has NEVER peaked with the same level of interest rates in history. WHY? It is not the empirical level of interest rates that matters, rather it is the rate of interest that is a factor of expected inflation. Therefore, if the expectation of gain is greater than the rate of interest, there is profit in borrowing. If the expectation is below the rate of interest, then the rate must decline. Consequently, assuming that simply raising or lowering rates will reverse the trend is primitive and lacks any analysis whatsoever.

The central banks have gone way too far and are now trapped. They do not have the ability to influence the economy anymore for they are loaded with government debt that will default. They have converted government bonds into one of the riskiest asset classes of all time.

More and more of our institutional clients (pensions & insurance) are bailing out of government bonds and switching to corporate. Why? No major corporate debt becomes worthless. One was audited by S&P and they remarked that they were taking on more risk. They conducted their own studies to verify what we have been saying and found no corporate defaults, but countless government defaults and partial defaults. In the few rare cases of a default, you receive a payout after liquidation. In the case of government debt, you have something to frame and that is all. Government debt is unsecured and since they have the guns and the armies, you cannot force them to pay anything.

Some insurance companies have come out and stated publicly that they are selling government debt and moving to corporate. Swiss Re AG moved more of its investments into corporate debt as conceded by its chief investment officer who said, “If you’re looking for a bubble, here you go…With government bonds, you’re not adequately compensated for the risk you’re taking.”

We have been in meetings with pension funds. Here too, we find the same response. They are starting to shift. Government debt has become a time bomb. A simple 1% rate hike will be devastating to bond values and blow the budgets of government sky-high.

The European Central Bank has created a total mess of the European banking system. Negative interest rates have been devastating. Now in the Middle East, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank PJSC are exploring a potential merger to create the largest lender in the Middle East. But forget the fluff — banks do not merge unless there is a problem. Rumors behind the curtain say First Gulf Bank PJSC is in trouble.

Negative interest rates have destroyed much of the economy. The rise in regulations and taxes have combined to create the weakest recovery in the United States post-Great Depression. This is not going to end nicely. It is only a matter of time before the general public begins to see the real crisis, and then everything will explode in their faces.