ECB & the Coming Banking Crisis


 

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Your post of November 16th where you state that the ECB is looking to freeze accounts in a banking crisis, does that mean they will no longer honour the claimed insurance of €100,000 per account?

PH

ANSWER: No. They will not pretend to eliminate that insurance, they just will “suspend” it as a bank holiday. But you gloss over another problem. The insurance of  €100,000 is NOT per account, but PER PERSON. So taking €1 million euro and spreading among 10 banks does not thereby provide insurance for the whole lot. The same is true in the USA. The ECB is proposing supplementing it with discretionary powers to suspend bank withdrawals. To say that the entire program will be terminated is an exaggeration. Nevertheless, it reflects the realization that the European banking system is in serious trouble. I recommend that Europeans should have a stash of cash, and if you have a lot of cash in your account, put some into dollars in the States before it is too late.

Warning About People Soliciting Money for Trading


It has come to our attention that there are individuals soliciting clients for money to trade on their behalf claiming they have mastered our system and will use it. These people have NEVER managed money and handing them money is no different than asking a cab driver to conduct surgery on you because he sounds like he knows something about medicine. Managing money is a difficult task, to say the least. It takes nerves of steel and every study has shown that someone who trades a small amount of money even successfully, loses money when they try to trade size. In fact, 66% of large-cap active managers failed to top the S&P 500 in 2016. Some 58% of hedge fund managers reported a decline in assets under management in 2016 and 63% of funds-of-fund firms also reported a decline in assets under management.

Handing money to anyone without a LIVE TRADING background is suicidal!!!!! Emotion will ALWAYS overrule their decisions when it counts most! This is why I have NOT endorsed anyone. I am at that stage in life that money does not impress me. I am interested in demonstrating that there is a better way to manage our economy and our future. This service is about trying help clients stay on the RIGHT side of the market. I need not push any philosophy religious or otherwise.

Life is a journey of learning. We have all made mistakes in life. If you learn from your mistakes, that is the path to wisdom. If you fail to learn, that is the path to ruin. Most losses take place in trading because people try to find a trade or they are listening to the TV. There is far more at stake here than personal OPINION. A trader who follows his opinion and tries to claim he is better than someone else is a total fool. Success requires always assuming you are wrong and that demands you constant recheck what you are doing. NEVER marry a trade or form an inflexible opinion.

 

Historically, my best trades in life were usually the hardest to do. You have to fight your inner gut to stay calm and do what has to be done in the middle of everyone in a state of panic and chaos. If you have never been there, you will not know how to survive. Emotions will get the better of you every time.

When I shorted the markets for the Russian collapse that manifested into the Long-Term Capital Management Crisis, that was easy to initiate. The hard part came when to take profits and reverse. I sold $1 billion against the Yearly Bullish Reversal in the yen at 147 and had to cope with a contagion that hit every market contrary to all fundamentals. It was a liquidity crisis so everything was sold without logic.

The Japanese yen fell to 103. I covered all my shorts in everything, flipped, and then left the office. It was a gut-wrench trade for I was truly alone. I put in my stops and it would work or not. Very black and white. This was a discipline that I knew I had to walk away and not second guess myself, which would be a disaster. The market would decide. The New Yorker Magazine reported:

“The hedge-fund manager who used to work for Armstrong remembers him coming out of his office in September, 1998, two months after he’d got short in front of the ruble crisis. Monica Lewinsky was on TV. “My oscillators just turned,” Armstrong announced. He booked his profits, pulled out of the market, and went to his beach house, on the Jersey Shore.”

I traded through many crashes. It was that EXPERIENCE that I drew on. Sometimes you just have to fight your emotions to go against the majority. They will all think you are insane. But the majority will also be wrong. This is not an easy thing to do when you are managing other people’s money. What is critical to trading is to see HOW someone acted in the middle of a panic. Were they calm? Did they join the majority or comprehend what was really at stake?

 

DeutscheBank-1

 

My drawdowns were less than 2%, which is unheard-of. Many people dubbed me the “legend” I supposed for trading. The best way to make money is to REDUCE your trading activity.  All the analysis starting funds found that 22% of emerging manager funds made a loss in their first year of trading. They are also more volatile and represent the risk of significant losses to investors. It takes a seasoned trader with a global perspective to survive. Someone who keeps their head in the middle of a panic. At the same time, a fund that grows in size too large, cannot trade like a small fund. Returns tend to decline with size, not expand.

 

Investors are regularly reminded that past performance is NO guarantee of future results, but track records continue to play an important role in manager selection. One reason for this is the
evidence of their decision making and survival. Here is an audit from Republic National Bank showing again the drawdown max for 1997 was $2.7 million compared to $38.1 million gain and I used only 4% of the cash for margin. You cannot guarantee the return made one year will be repeated the next for the basic reason that volatility rises and declines from one year to the next. Even the indexes do not perform the same from one year to the next.

However, a track record reveals something much more important. How did someone respond to abrupt market movements? Did they get out in advance? Did they just panic and follow the crowd? How quickly did the abandon a losing trade? This is where the seasoned trader comes in.

Many people dream of being a hedge fund manager and yearn to cut their teeth on other people’s money. If he puts forth trades that are hypothetical, does he have the courage of his convictions to trade in a flexible manner or refuse to admit when he is wrong? There is so much more to selecting a fund manager than meets the eye. The best hypothetical track record means nothing. Do they have the courage to actually trade?

We will be setting up a forum for our clients who are subscribers to Socrates run by people who have used the models for more than 20 years. You will be able to ask questions there that will be answered without soliciting you for money. We have a couple of major banks with EXPERIENCE in trading who we are looking at allowing our models to be used formally to prevent others from trying to solicit people using our track record pretending it is theirs.

I have stated I am not interested in returning to funds management. That is a job which is 7 days a week and you have to be on call 24 hrs a day. I still have a hard time sleeping more than 3 hours straight. I greatly appreciate all the offers and understand that the track record of the fund I managed for Deutsche Bank remains probably the best ever.  Nonetheless, we all have our shelf-expiration dates and I just have no interest in going back to that lifestyle – been there done that!

I will make an effort to find the right firm who I believe is seasoned to survive the chaos ahead because what lies ahead will be far greater than most are even capable to trading. We are entering a period of extreme volatility on just about every front. This will indeed try the character and soul of the best funds manager. So please do not listen to anyone who claims to have mastered our model. Emotions will override any model if they are not a truly seasoned trader. A lot of people think they can become rich as a hedge fund manager. It takes a hell of a lot more than simply a few good trades.

Germany Moving Toward Political Crisis


Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday her efforts to form a three-way coalition government had failed. Merkel only received 32.5% of the vote, which is probably the lowest vote of any major world leader. The FDP pulled out of negotiations thrusting Germany into a political crisis and ever closer to a possible new election.

Meanwhile, German hoard of cash is escalating and the cities debt burdens are exploding in Germany. The entire game4 was to hide the debt crisis in Germany until after the elections. With the failure to form a government, new elections are appearing likely extending this Year from Political Hell.

This is becoming the political crisis that just will not go away. Politics around the world remain in turmoil and as our computer had forecast, this would contribute to the collapse in public confidence. The fate of the Euro hangs in the balance.

The Dow v S&P500 v NASDAQ – What’s the Difference?


 

 

QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong

 

Why do you always use the Dow Jones Index? It seems to have the least logical construction of the major indices. Why not use the S&P500?

Many thanks for your informative and thought-provoking blog,

G

ANSWER: Each index offers a completely different perspective. The Dow Jones Industrials is the “big” money. You will notice that this index leads the way. It is the first out of a key low because it is typically the foreign capital that comes in based on currency. You will also notice it tend to top out first because the big money tends to start to pull out first also due to currency.

The S&P500 is domestic institutions and this tends to reflect the more serious money in the market.

Last, but not least, is the NASDAQ. This is the retail market. You will see this is the last to peak and is the one that gets the retail all hot and bothered.

Each index has its place and reflects a different segment. The foreign capital always buys the big names. That is why the Dow is very important. It is also where big money parks in crisis.

Lithium – the new White Gold


Lithium is known and “white gold” since electric cars require a lot of batteries. This has resulted in transforming the metal into a valuable and sought-after commodity. The demand keeps rising as there is a need for energy storage that can only be produced if lithium is available in sufficient quantities.

The price has soared from $1,550 to $9,100 a metric ton. This interesting metal was once used as a treatment for brain disorders. It was also the title of a song by Nirvana for its effect on the brain. Lithium is often found in salt flats when water repeatedly evaporates from a shallow lake, leaving behind a crusty layer of salt minerals. Consequently, Lithium is unique because it is the lightest known metal.

During the 1790s, it was a Brazilian naturalist who discovered the mineral called petalite on an island in Sweden. Then in 1817, a chemist in Sweden discovered that petalite contained a previously unknown element. He was able to isolate one of the salts, but he could not isolate the mineral itself. Nevertheless, he gave it its name – lithium, which meant “stone” in Greek.

Finally, 1855 a British and a German chemist were able to separate the metal from the salts. Once this was accomplished, commercial production of the lithium metal began in Germany in 1923. Because it is so light, it is known for its wide use in batteries.

The latest story involved a pair of exploding headphones on a plane. That incident came after the Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 recall of their phones, which ended that line. You can’t chalk it all up to incompetence, either. At the famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a robot named RoboSimian blew-up thanks to a lithium battery. So what is so dangerous? Inside, there is a thin and porous slip of polypropylene that normally keeps the electrodes from touching. If that separator is breached, the electrodes come in contact, and things get very hot very quickly. So why even use them? Lithium-ion batteries are indeed the most efficient battery. They hold an amazing amount of energy in a tiny package that is light. They can keep a laptop running all day.

They have been used in batteries going back 25 years ago by Sony. However, they seem to get more volatile as time goes on because we are pushing the envelope. We want lighter products to last longer and they have to be cheap.

Devices containing lithium metal or lithium-ion batteries (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.) should be carried in carry-on baggage. Most airlines will not allow you to check them in baggage.

The Hunt for Taxes Destroying Healthcare in Britain


The Hunt for Taxes is now creating a crisis in healthcare in Britain. The UK government is gearing up for a massive tax clampdown targeting private sector contractors. The UK Treasury estimates in its budget that this taxing of private contractors in healthcare will create £185m in new taxes for the year 2017/18. This is known as the IR35 regime, which will apply to hundreds of thousands of freelancers outside the public sector.

At the core of this is the issue where someone who is incorporated pays less tax and national insurance than an employee on the same income working freelance under contract. Many suspects that this is just a test run and the government will extend the tax increases to the private sector in a year.

 

Because most are freelance contractors in the Public Sector healthcare, there is an immediate decline in patient care standards in NHS due to this hunt for taxes under IR35. UK healthcare is deteriorating rapidly. A survey of 450 healthcare locums by ContractorCalculator and the Independent Health Professionals Association(IHPA) has revealed that the NHS is failing to replace critical contract workers who have been forced out of the sector due to IR35 and questionable compliance procedures. It’s all about taxes.

And so many people in the USA think that public healthcare is free in Europe and so much better, they are just victims of propaganda. There is a major crisis unfolding in the British healthcare system all because of the hunt for taxes.

Remaining EU Member will have to pay 15% More upon BREXIT


QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; All the news here in Britain is always how bad it will be if we leave the extortion ring in Brussels. You have mentioned that we are the biggest market for German cars. What will Brexit do to the EU?

Thanks

GD

ANSWER: Once the British exit from the EU “extortion” ring as you call it, the remaining nations will have to pay more than an additional €10 billion euros to keep Brussels floating in jobs and exorbitant pension. Besides the German auto-industry being clipped for political reasons as the EU punishes Britain to act as a deterrent to prevent others from leaving, Germany’s proportion of making up the shortfall from BREXIT will be almost €4 billion. With BREXIT, everyone will have to contribute an additional 15% so they can do nothing but make more miserable in Europeans.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani calls for a doubling of the budget of the European Union. “We need twice as much money as today, so 280 billion euros instead of 140 billion euros per year,” said Tajani the spark newspapers. The doubled EU budget should not be financed by additional transfers from the Member States, but by the introduction of taxes.

“This will require new EU own resources, such as a financial transaction tax on stock exchanges,” Tajani said. The President of the European Parliament justified his initiative with the costs of dealing with the refugee crisis and the fight against terrorism, as well as the increased need for investment. “Europeans must invest more in energy and digitalization of the economy in the future,” the Italian said. Only in this way could the EU compete with the US, China, India or Russia in global competition.

The EU Parliament is currently negotiating with the finance ministers of the EU governments for the Community budget for the year 2018. The EU parliament demands funds of 146.7 billion euros for the coming year – 2.3 billion euros more than the finance ministers want to make available.

Almost 80 percent of the EU budget is covered by the contributions of the member countries, the remainder comes from so-called own resources of the EU – these are mainly customs revenue. Germany, the largest net contributor, contributes just under 20 percent to the EU budget.

On top of that, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani has called for a doubling of the budget of the European Union. Since the EU cannot issue debt, that means the doubling of the EU budget should not be financed by additional transfers from the Member States, but by the introduction of taxes. They are looking at increasing the tax burden even more on Europeans in the Eurozone.

The EU wants to impose its own tax resources, such as a financial transaction tax on stock exchanges. This is being justified, believe it or not, to cover the costs of dealing with the refugee crisis and the fight against terrorism as they claim. They are right now negotiating with the finance ministers of the EU governments for the Community budget for the year 2018. They now want 146.7 billion euros for the coming year – 2.3 billion euros more than the finance ministers want to make available. Brussels knows how to spend money. Almost 80 % of the EU budget is covered by the contributions of the member states. The rest is primarily customs revenue. Germany, the largest net contributor, contributes just under 20 percent to the EU budget.

Is the Dollar Really a Petrodollar anymore?


QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I want to thank you so much for shedding light on what can only be deranged forecasts on the dollar and gold and never change regardless of how much money they lose people year after year. I received this email with the headline How Much Longer Can the Petrodollar Survive? They claim that now adversarial nations like “China, Russia and Iran” are threatening the petrodollar hegemony by establishing their own trading and banking infrastructure that excludes dollars for trade. Suddenly Iran is now a world power and as you said at the conference, the dollar support is not trade or oil, but where big money parks.

My question is, just how can these people sleep at night putting out false information all the time? Isn’t that what the investment banks pled guilty to putting out false forecasts to support their own positions during the Dotcom bubble?

ANSWER: Yes, you are correct. It is one thing to put out analysis that is unbiased and it is raw corruption to put out forecasts that support your own investments creating a conflict of interest. It would not be a criminal act as long as they disclose what their portfolio is. Only the government gets a free get out of jail card for fake forecasts.

The decline in commodities was was due to a number of factors, including an economic slowdown in China, a severe recession in Brazil, with falling prices for oil and other commodities, and exchange rate volatility that saw the dollar rise. Despite positive growth in trade volume terms, the current dollar value of world merchandise exports declined by 14% in 2015, to US$ 16.0 trillion, as export prices fell by 15%. Even the dollar value of world commercial services exports also fell 6% in 2015 to US$ 4.7 trillion, although the decline was less severe than for merchandise.

All these claims that the “petrodollar” is going to collapse are just a total joke. Oil is less than 10% of world trade. These people are living in the ’70s. Hey, cut the hair and get rid of the bell bottoms. It’s 40+ years later!

There is not even an attempt to be a true honest analysis of the subject. Just look at the figures. The oil and gas drilling sector make up between 4.6% and 6.5% of the global economy.  The FX market DAILY trading volume is about $5.3 trillion which dwarfs the equities and futures markets no less oil and gold.

The support behind the dollar is (1) it can be used worldwide without permission from the USA as is the case with the Japanese yen. It is a single currency with a single federal debt market where BIG money can park – that is not the case for the Euro, Ruble, or Yuan. The Iranian Rial has gone through major inflation. It will be devalued and called the “toman” despite the aliollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), who confirmed that the CBI has sent a bill to the government requesting the removal of a zero from the currency to reflect the public’s use of the term “toman” to refer to 10 rials. Any revaluation must wait until inflation has stabilized. And this is the currency that will dethrone the dollar? Give me a break!

Ethereum Cryptocurrency – Almost $400 Million Vanishes


Thanks to a string of screw-ups and bugs, an unsuspecting developer recently took possession of an estimated $US390 million worth of the Ethereum cryptocurrency by accident. In an attempt to give back the money, however, the guy ended up locking up the funds permanently. Essentially, the money has just evaporated.

It turns out that hackers started the trouble getting into the cryptocurrency wallet service stealing about $42 million. To then patch the vulnerability to their block-chain technology, they introduced a bug that affected multi-signature wallets. These are wallets which require several people to enter keys before funds get transferred. This was intended to be top security for Ether which is the second largest cryptocurrency. Somehow, a guy called “devops199” triggered the bug and took control of all multi-sig wallets unintendedly. Then devops199 attempted to reverse the process to give back the money which then triggered they bug. The result was the destruction all of the funds. The bug caused a chain reaction of events that locked all multi-signature wallets that cannot now be unlocked.

Welcome to the world of Cryptocurrency.

Deadlocked Jury – Trial of Senator Bob Menendez Ends in Mistrial…


According to the general legal outline that surfaced in the trial of Senator Bob Menendez, quid-pro-quo agreements between “abiding friends” can never be considered corruption or defined as ‘bribes’ because,.. just like non-public officials or business associates, close friends would do favors to help and repay each other.

In essence the legal definition of bribery for public officials now comes down to how long the two parties have known each other, and if they can show an abiding friendship. If two parties can show an “abiding friendship“, of undefined duration, no action taken by one party -to the benefit of the other party- can ever be considered bribery, regardless of the scope of the action.

You can bet a social networking strategy and Christmas Card lists of a whole bunch of politicians and public officials will be much longer this year. Everyone involved in paying-off public officials will now begin creating evidence of a much deeper friendship – which is now a proven legal defense.

(Reuters) – The corruption trial of New Jersey’s Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez ended in a mistrial on Thursday, after the jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked on bribery, fraud and other charges.

Menendez, 63, a longtime fixture in the state’s political circles who first joined the Senate in 2006, was accused of accepting private flights, campaign contributions and other bribes from a wealthy patron, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, in exchange for official favors.

The hung jury was a victory for Menendez and a major setback for federal prosecutors in what was the Justice Department’s first high-profile corruption trial since a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year limited its ability to bring such cases.

It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would seek to retry Menendez, who is running for re-election next year, and his co-defendant Melgen. In a statement, the Justice Department said it would “carefully consider next steps in this important matter.”

[…] The case was seen as a test for prosecutors in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling vacating the bribery conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. In doing so, the high court narrowed the grounds for corruption cases.

The trial judge, Williams Walls, strongly considered a defense motion to throw out the case mid-trial in light of the McDonnell decision before deciding against it.  (read more)