Posted originally on May 24, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
In an interview on May 11, 2014, I explained on USAWatchdog that confidence always outweighs reality. “It’s basically what you believe. There have been all sorts of studies on fundamentals that say if interest rates go up, stocks go down. It is simply not true. The stock market has never peaked with interest rates twice in history. If you think you are going to make 25% in the market, you’ll pay 10% interest; but if you really think the market is only going to go up 10%, you won’t pay 10%. So, it’s always the difference between what you believe and reality.”
The people have lost all confidence in government. There were rumors of a “soft landing” from the Fed, but the situation can no longer be controlled by the central bank. Washington maintains that everything is stable as banks continue to fail and inflation rages on. There can be no price stability when war is at play. Government spending has reached a new high, as have taxes which are not counted in any major data report. I explained in 2014 that great empires all come crashing down after piling on massive debt. People believe hyperinflation would cause such a scenario, but debt is the major player. Once the government accumulates enormous debt, it targets its citizens aggressively. That is what we are seeing today.
So where should you put your money? I said in 2014: “One of the number one questions I get all the time is where do I put my money? If the banks can just take whatever they want now, there will be bail-ins rather than bail-outs. People are afraid. What do you do with the cash? So, people are buying things like real estate and stocks, just trying to get money out of the banking system.” Smart money has been trying to escape the banks for years. There was no incentive until very recently to park money in the banks due to artificially low rates. The hunt for taxation is causing people to flee from the banks. The downturn in government trust has caused everyone to run from government debt for fear that it will not be repaid.
I also explained that the Fed would only bail out deposits and had been asking institutions to change their models. “Everybody knows I advise some of the big institutions around, and I can tell you that they have told me directly that the Fed went to them and told them they will not be bailed out for proprietary trading. It will be only on deposits. That’s it,” I stated. “The Fed has been going around telling them, ‘hey, you better change your models.’ They don’t think it will be a flight to quality as it was before. You buy the long-term (Treasuries), and that saves you. They don’t think that’s going to happen. It’s quite interesting. . . . It looks like the long-term (Treasury bonds) is going to end up starting to rise.”
Sound familiar with the current situation? People have moved from the public sector into the private sector. We are well into a private wave, and the public will not go back to the public sector for many years to come. By that time, the government will have transformed into a new model that is far different from what we have today. My warning from 10 years ago was derived from the computer models, who never relies on mere opinion and are unable to factor in bias.
When I say that the computer is honing in on a new target or date, often, we must simply look at what unfolds on that target to understand the full forecast. We are waiting for the CONFIRMATION. The computer will give us that signal and we just have to go with the flow. It may be worse than trying to give a 5-year-old cough medicine. Yes, it tastes horrible, but it is necessary for the cure. The majority will not be able to make that transition thanks to their preconceived ideas and preconditioning. Many pilots who flew prop planes could never fly a jet because they could not make that transition to faster travel requiring quicker reaction times. This is the type of transition we face. We just have to abandon all prejudice and go with the markets. May 7 marked a major shift in the geopolitical landscape that ensures major conflicts with both Russia and China are on the horizon. I trust the trends in motion to forecast the future. As they say, the trend is your friend.
Posted originally on May 20, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
It is crucial to understand correlations as EVERYTHING fluctuates! There is absolutely nothing that remains constant. You MUST understand that correlations are NOT one for one, and often show changes in advance of turns. It is a lot to keep track of but this is why I try to post a global view to help you see the world around you. It is a necessary way of thinking to survive the future of our own follies.
When I was trading going into the high in interest rates at the Fed in 1981, each time the Fed raised rates the markets reacted less and less. When the final rate hike came, the markets moved UP, not down, showing that the trend was over. Interest rates DO NOT peak and bottom with the markets. There are advances and lags.
It is very frustrating to always try to sort out misconceptions created by analysts and the talking heads on TV. Just do a simple correction by comparing two charts. The DOW bottomed in March 1980. Gold peaked on January 21, 1980. The Fed kept pushing rates higher into May 1981. The Dow rallied with the last year of rising interest rates.
I stated many years ago that real estate would RISE with the first uptick because people would ANTICIPATE rates rising so they better rush to lock it in now. The people with interest rates under 3% lucked out, but some simply understood the trend. They do not throw in the towel on the first uptick. They disregard the nonsense spouted out by the talking heads on TV that create false images of why markets are moving as they do.
I noted to pay attention to rates in Europe. Germany was able to sell short-term debt at NEGATIVE yields. Why? Because Europeans are moving money in preparation for the collapse in the debts of Southern Europe. Some think if the Euro cracks they will end up with Deutsche Marks or Swiss. This is the same driving force sending money to high end real estate and the Dow. It is the MOVEMENT of capital that causes these trends and each confirms the other. It cannot be one thing in isolation.
Corrections DO NOT work one-for-one. Here, we see the call money rates from the NYSE. It would be nice if it were as stupid as the talking heads make it sound. We have tested every possible relationship. We have employed more computing power and capital to figure out what makes the world tick than anyone ever. That is why the NY banks & government want us to shut up. Just look at this chart. The stock market DOES NOT even peak with the same empirical level of interest rates with each crisis. It would be nice to say if rates hit 8% the market will peak. Sorry – that will NEVER happen. It is the spread between expectations of profit and the empirical level of interest rates.
It is not that I manipulate the world economy. We just spent a great deal of money to deconstruct it. Guess what – the world is not flat. There is a whole new way of economics and looking at how the world actually functions. Eureka! Try observing instead of dictating how the world should operate to support some hair-brain theory. Those who want me to shut up because what we discovered does not fit with their theory or belief that the government can control the economy by regulation are no different than those who killed Bruno or imprisoned Galileo for life.
Knowledge advances by observation. Stagnation emerges when people try to suppress advances because they want to remain in control. The Goldbug press refuses to quote me just like the NY establishment press that supports the bankers. They both have self-interests to support and hate anyone who says they are wrong. There is no difference from the Pravada of the old Communist Party that never acknowledged opposition.
Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Retail sales in the US fell short of expectations this month, according to data compiled by the Commerce Department. Retail spending decreased 0.6% from April to March, undermining forecasts of a 0.4% decrease. Yet, Americans are spending MORE on the essentials such as groceries. How is this a shocking admittance to anyone?
Even online sales fell by 1.2% from March to April. Americans spent 1.6% less at clothing retailers, and 0.9% less at hobby stores on a monthly basis. Again, of no surprise, gasoline sales rose 3.1%.
The Fed is attempting to smooth over the data, using rhetorical language such as the economy is presenting a “softer tone.”Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams, who believes monetary policy is “in a good place” albeit “restrictive.” Williams, like Chair Powell, said that there are no indicators stating a need to lower interest rates. “I don’t expect to get that greater confidence that we need to see on the inflation progress towards a 2% goal in the very near term.”
The Fed held rates loosely for so long that there was not much it could do, in addition to the utter disaster that is America’s fiscal policy. I explained in another post why the Fed simply cannot attain the 2% target.
People do not have the disposable income to spend on retail at this point, and those who do prefer to invest or save those funds as confidence has vanished, leading to a pullback in spending on nonessentials. Bad news for America’s consumer-based economy.
April’s CPI is up 3.4% YoY, slightly down from March’s 3.5% posting. I do not believe they are accurately calculating prices. No one believes them at this point. So, we should expect the Fed to maintain the 5.25% to 5.50% rates at the next FOMC meeting. Inflation is here to stay.
Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Various cultures and religions have been concerned about the end of time looming throughout history. Aethelred II (978-1016 AD) was so convinced the world was about to end in 1000 AD that he removed his portrait from the coinage and placed the Christian symbol of the lamb on it. The world did not end, and he restored his portrait the year after. Why is there this need to constantly scream the end is near, which seems to plague Western society?
Turn the economy down, and you will find major upheavals in religion. To whatever extent our model may align with religion or even astrology, rest assured that neither are inputs into Socrates to make forecasts. So, I have found these prophecies of various religions interesting.
In our Western culture, we think everything is linear. I always found it interesting how Revelations 20, clearly lays out a cycle.
[7] And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
[8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
The Bible describes a cycle. Some have interpreted this cycle as 6,000 years up, 1,000 down, and then it repeats. These are interesting times no doubt. Are they Biblical in proportion? No one knows the answer to that. But many always preach doom and gloom right down to Y2K and the Mayan calendar ending. They cling to the latest topic and go. It was the year 1,000 AD when the Last Judgment was to take place, according to popular conjecture. It did not. But it did start the pilgrimage movement from Europe to the Holy Land, and that led to the creation of the Knights Templar to protect the pilgrims. It ushered in a rebirth of trade that created merchant banking and then sovereign debt. This also sparked the Crusades. So, even wrong interpretations can have profound impacts.
One indeed begins to wonder what will happen to the human race. Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for good or for destruction, as the government desires to eliminate all rights, privileges, and immunities. But this is part of a constantly repeating cycle.
Government is the enemy of the people. Historically, it has always been. They seek only one thing—power over others. They will do anything to retain that power. They cannot sleep at night worrying that someone has something they want or is doing something they do not approve of. This is part of a long cyclical process where government is always the great evil empire, for it ultimately always seeks to dominate the people regardless of what form it has taken.
If we take this 1000 years to be literal, this is by no means the end of the world. Yes, it may be a Great Reset, but our computer shows they will NOT win, and we are headed into the rising tide of civil unrest around the globe, which is revolutions and the prospects of international war.
Then there is the passage from Peter about a day being like 1,000 years. All I can say is the computer is non-biased and non-religious, and it simply looks at all the patterns throughout history. People will act the same way no matter what century they live in because human nature has never changed since Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy. We have advanced technologically but not emotionally.
Peter 3:8–9 reads:
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Even when we look at the Old Testament, we find cycles abound. Following the Ten Plagues to hit Egypt, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out across the Red Sea. However, After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. Moses did not make it to the promised land, so they wondered for about half the duration of an ECM wave. The fact that the prophets understood a year as 360 days is well established and can be seen in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation as seen in the use of “time, times and half a time” (i.e. 1+2+0.5=3.5), “1,260 days” and “42 months.”
There is an agreement among Christianity and Islam that the end days will be similar. In Jewish eschatology, they are concerned with events that will happen at the end of the day. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of a Jewish Messiah, the afterlife, and the revival of the dead Tzadikim. Interestingly, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, which I visited in the early ’80s, east of Jerusalem, and within sight of both the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque, there lie about 150,000 Jewish graves dating from ancient times through today. Many of the bodies are buried with their feet toward the city, because ancient prophets declared that the resurrection would begin there, and the faithful would rise and follow the Messiah into the Holy City.
So, there is agreement among the main religions that the end of days or time awaits us. I do not know if this is the second coming. All I can do is provide the non-biased, non-religious forecasts of what is unfolding for the signs in the data. I do not dismiss that we will end up in World War III, but I also see that we should expect rising civil unrest and revolutions that will overthrow these pretend elected officials.
The computer agrees there is a great confrontation being thrust upon us as this Great Reset. Our computer shows that this is NOT the end of the world, but indeed a Great Reset where nations will fall but this is more like the final battle against communism. I am not a religious scholar and I am only trying to look at this and rationalize it with our computer forecasts which I do trust.
Posted originally on May 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
COMMENT: It is baffling why you are not on the front page of the WSJ, Barons, London FT, NY Times, and every financial newspaper claiming to be interested in markets. In the ’80s, when the Dow was 1,000, you forecast it would reach 6,000 by 1996. On the day of the 1987 low, you said the market would make new highs by 1989. You forecast the Nikkei high at 40,000 for 1980. Even after the 2007-2009 crash, you said the low would hold, and we would see new highs. In at least 2013, you said the Dow would test 40,000. You have correctly forecasted every crash and every high, yet the pretend main financial press will never report the truth.
You have shown the world that forecasting from a quantitative view rather than opinion is possible. My hat is off to you. You get standing ovations at conferences. You are a world teacher.
See you in London.
LS
REPLY: Thank you. I think the bias stems from what I experienced in school. The physics professor said nothing is random, and in economics class, they said it is random, like a drunk walking in the park staggering back and forth. So, we can follow Marx and Keynes and manipulate society to produce the perfect world.
Even in 2013, the first projection was 40,000. In 2018, I again warned that 40,000 was not the extreme target but the medium range. You have to comprehend that everything is connected. You cannot have the Dow going to 40,000 and nothing else happens. The question now is that with the Neocons pushing for World War III before the economy and Europe also in desperate straight needing war, we have a clash of trends converging where there is nearly $11 trillion in US debt maturing this year, which I warned about on Feb 18, 2024.
Do we get the knee-jerk reaction when people realize we have a DEBT CRISIS about to smack us in the face BEFORE the election? Or do we need war to get the foreigners to buy the debt that China will not? How long will it take people to figure out you need to hide in private assets – not public? That will dictate the length of a knee-jerk correction. This is why it takes a computer to make such projections – not personal opinions.
History dictates that they will only look at what I have done after Scotty has beamed me up – rarely ever before without a major crisis. That is just the way the prejudices and biases exist in human society. You will never extinguish them. Good and bad, that’s what makes us all human. Still, from time to time, there have been some who reported the forecasts.
Posted originally on May 16, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The Dow surpassed 40,000 during midday trading for the very first time this Thursday. In a January 2020 interview with Andrew McCreath from BNN Bloomberg I explained that the Dow was heading up. The video was posted with the headline “DOW 40,000” and everyone dismissed my forecast as if it were my own personal opinion. I made similar statements in other interviews, such as my interview with Financial Sense five years ago in August 2019. I reiterated this forecast in a 2021 interview and continued to stick by the computer without relying on personal opinion.
I was asked how I knew then that we’d be where we were at now. My answer is the same — I just follow the models.
The Dow was 29240 on the day of the interview with BNN Bloomberg, and while many feared a correction was coming, I explained any dip was likely short-term in nature and that it would need to drop below 19000 to be truly considered a bear market – BUT that fell on deaf ears. Even with the notable COVID dip that soon followed this interview, the market bounced right back to new highs thereafter and the models stayed on track over the long term. We experienced one of the most HATED bull markets in history. Despite all of the turmoil over the years, The Dow consistently went up for over a decade but all the talking heads insisted it would go down.
So what’s next, as indicated by Socrates? The computer sees the Dow rising to 65,000 by 2032 when we are likely to see a change in not just the markets but governments worldwide. Governments throughout the world are still in trouble and the money remaining on the grid is fleeing into the US.
Watch the Dow for it will show you where the international money is flowing. The big players are not interested in small tech or companies that could go under. The S&P 500 is domestic-oriented, and fund managers and institutions tend to focus on this index. The NASDAQ typically reflects retail, often tech-heavy, and usually does not peak at the same time. 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 based on currency. You will also notice the Dow tends to top out first because the big money tends to pull out first also due to currency.
Capital is flowing like never before, and the smart money is on the move. Socratesusers have access to our capital flow heat map that shows where money is moving in real time. The USD remains the last safe haven, and money is pouring into the US.
Posted Originally on May 16, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Powell reiterated this week that he does not see any short-term need to lower interest rates. The Fed remains delicate in its speech to the public. They knew that inflation would continue rising due to various factors but had to say they were awaiting incoming data. The data is in for Q1 and nothing indicates that inflation is easing, therefore, expect rates to hold.
The Labor Department noted that the PPI rose to 0.5% in April from May, up 2.2% since the year prior. PCE, the Fed’s primary inflation indicator, rose 2.7% in Match from 2.5% in February. The US economy overall advanced 2.7% from October to December. We are looking at inflation beginning to rise faster than economic growth, which will lead to stagflation.
I have pointed out numerous times that the various measures provided to the public drastically downplay the dollar’s loss in purchasing power. Americans can feel it daily every time they make a purchase or check their bank accounts.
I explained that we already began experiencing stagflation in 2021. Normally, the standard definition of “stagflation” has been explained as slow economic growth with relatively high unemployment/or economic stagnation that takes place with rising prices. Some have also defined it as a period of inflation combined with a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP).
Stagflation became a term that defined the 1970s because economic growth was still positive, but the rate of inflation was far greater due to the price shock of the OPEC embargo. The Democrats are constantly pushing to raise taxes, and sent corporations fleeing offshore, and it was NOT merely because of the tax rate. Back then, I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on taxation, and they wanted to know why NO American company got a contract from China to construct the Yellow River Dam. I explained that German companies were NOT taxed on worldwide income, and as such, they were already 40% less than an American company because Americans pay taxes on worldwide income, and the ONLY other country to that was Japan. Thus, American companies moved offshore, NOT because labor was cheaper, but so they could complete.
Now, we have additional regulations that are making it increasingly difficult for American businesses to prosper. The capital gains tax will be a nail in the coffin. The recent tariff slap on Chinawill also cause the price of goods to rise and harm the supply chain.
Remember, inflation was only 1.4% when Joe Biden took office – far beneath the Fed’s target. Inflation has risen as a direct result of fiscal policies under Bidenomics. The government has completely ignored the Fed’s warning that it must curtail spending. We are sacrificing our economy for the interests of the globalists.
The problem with people’s attitudes toward the national debt is that everyone has forgotten why we borrowed in the first place. The theory was that if you borrowed rather than printed money, you were NOT increasing the existing money supply, and therefore, in theory, it would not be inflationary.
However, the Democrats forgot how to run for government without their Marxist agenda of bribing the people to vote for them. This led to always creating deficits. Add to this the NEOCONS who have done nothing but wage wars ever since World War II to defeat Communism and have spent money lavishly on trying to conquer the world.
During the Presidential Third Debate of 1960, the question about the outflow of gold from the USA reserves arose. This sparked a Gold Panic in the London gold market, whereby gold rallied to $40 for the first time, showing that the Bretton Woods System was beginning to collapse. The United States’ outflow of gold was not really from a trade deficit but from the fact that the USA was defending the world with its military establishing bases everywhere. That meant capital was leaving. Gold rallied again to $40 in the late 1960s, and finally, it forced the collapse of the convertibility of gold under the Bretton Woods System in 1971. Kennedy’s words were:
“Now, on the question of gold. The difficulty, of course, is that we do have heavy obligations abroad, that we therefore have to maintain not only a favorable balance of trade but also send a good deal of our dollars overseas to pay our troops, maintain our bases, and sustain other economies. In other words, if we’re going to continue to maintain our position in the sixties, we have to maintain a sound monetary and fiscal policy. We have to have control over inflation, and we also have to have a favorable balance of trade. We have to be able to compete in the world market.”
The dollars were being spent not to benefit our economy but to fulfill the dreams of the Neocons; when Communism fell, they refused to accept any real change.
Rome takes care of widows and orphans.
We borrow, which is worse than printing because we have to pay interest on constantly rolling the debt. This year, we will spend about $1 trillion on interest, the total national debt when Reagan took office in 1981. At times, 70% of the national debt is accumulative interest. That means it went nowhere to improve society or care for widows and orphans, at least as the Romans did. Had we printed the money instead of borrowing, it would have been less inflationary and the capital would have created more jobs instead of investing in government debt which has only funded the Neocons’ wildest dreams.
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