Points in Time

Major turning points are usually looked back at a later date and we see that the warning signs were evident prior to the event. Looking at the financial news over the past week, it appears that an economic collapse is being foreshadowed in the near future. Here are ten points for your consideration:

1. Bitcoin Surges Above $3000 As Asian Premium Collapses
   Naturally, the increasingly parabolic look of the bitcoin chart raises the question whether it represents a bubble, and if so, how large it will become. A good answer to the second part of the question is usually “larger than anyone thinks possible”. As to the first part, it may be fair to say that it has been in a bubble since shortly after its birth. At one point in 2009 the currency could be bought for 1/100 of 1 US cent (USD 0,0001). It rallied to 5 cents by 2010, which is quite a big move.
2. Jim Rogers: The worst crash in our lifetime is coming
   Legendary investor Jim Rogers sat down with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget on this week’s episode of “The Bottom Line.” Rogers predicts a market crash in the next few years, one that he says will rival anything he has seen in his lifetime.
3. Apple, Facebook and other big tech stocks tank, weigh on Wall Street
   Goldman Sachs on Friday released a report on the top five outperforming mega-cap names in tech with some warnings on valuations and concerns that their volatility has become extraordinarily low. In fact, the stocks had become closely correlated to safe haven plays, like bonds and utilities.
4. Central Banks Now Own Stocks And Bonds Worth Trillions – And They Could Crash The Markets By Selling Them
   The Swiss National Bank is one of the biggest offenders. During just the first three months of this year, it bought 17 billion dollars worth of U.S. stocks, and that brought the overall total that the Swiss National Bank is currently holding to more than $80 billion.Have you ever wondered why shares of Apple just seem to keep going up and up and up?Well, the Swiss National Bank bought almost 4 million shares of Apple during the months of January, February and March.
5. U.S. Weeks Away From A Recession According To Latest Loan Data
   While many “conventional” indicators of US economic vibrancy and strength have lost their informational and predictive value over the past decade (GDP fluctuates erratically especially in Q1, employment is the lowest this century yet real wage growth is non-existent, inflation remains under the Fed’s target despite its $4.5 trillion balance sheet and so on), one indicator has remained a stubbornly fail-safe marker of economic contraction: since the 1960, every time Commercial & Industrial loan balances have declined (or simply stopped growing), whether due to tighter loan supply or declining demand, a recession was already either in progress or would start soon.
6. Labor Pressures Build While Restaurant Sales Continue to Decline
   May was a disappointing month for chain restaurants by most measures. Same-store sales were down -1.1 percent, which represents a 0.1 percentage point drop from April. The industry has not reported a month of positive sales since February of 2016. These results come from data by TDn2K™ through The Restaurant Industry Snapshot™, based on weekly sales from over 27,000+ restaurant units, 155+ brands and representing $67 billion dollars in annual revenue.
7. “Bail-In” Era for Europe’s Banking Crisis Begins
   Banco Popular, until today Spain’s sixth biggest bank, is no more. Its assets, including a massive portfolio of small-business clients, now belong to Banco Santander, Spain’s biggest bank. The global giant now has 17 million customers in Spain, a country of just 45 million people. The price was €1.
8. The unknown victims of Puerto Rico’s historic bankruptcy
   The battle to recoup pennies on the dollar of Puerto Rican bonds has been epitomized by Wall Street’s most prominent hedge-fund managers. But siding with them are the unsuspecting Puerto Rican residents, who piled into the securities just as hungrily.
9. Maduro wants to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution. That’s rocket fuel on the fire.
   When your house is burning and smack in the path of a Category 5 hurricane, it’s probably not the best time to tear down the frame and jackhammer the foundation. But those are the home improvement plans of President Nicolás Maduro, who is moving forward with a provocative attempt to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution despite the country’s descent into political and economic catastrophe.
10. Record iron ore glut of 204 mt to trigger price fall
    Weak domestic demand despite expanding iron ore production in the country [India] has led to the mineral ore surplus reaching an all-time high of 204.09 million tonnes (mt) at the end of 2016-17. Inventory of iron ore at mine pit heads has climbed to 149 mt (as on March 31, 2017) with ore getting accumulated in key producing states like Odisha and Jharkhand.

While the prospect of either a financial collapse or a world war loom heavily, we must not lose sight of what is really important. These are the times that try men’s souls.

David DeGerolamo

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