The following is an excerpt from our most recent issue of Private Wealth Advisory. In it we outline a recent development on the Fed’s Board of Directors. The implications of this will be severe for all asset classes.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you stay ahead of the major developments in the market… Click Here Now

The Fed is growing increasingly splintered as an organization.

The media hasn’t really picked up on this issue yet. But once they do things could become quite problematic for the Fed.

Remember, the primary force that has held the financial system together since the Crash of 2008 was the view that the Fed could backstop everything.

However, dissent is now growing at the Fed… which means it will be harder for it to move forward in a unified fashion.

Consider its recent FOMC minutes released on January 3 2013.

With regard to the possible costs and risks of purchases, a number of participants expressed the concern that additional purchases could complicate the Committee’s efforts to eventually withdraw monetary policy accommodation, for example, by potentially causing inflation expectations to rise or by impairing the future implementation of monetary policy. Participants also discussed the implications of continued asset purchases for the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Depending on the path for the balance sheet and interest rates, the Federal Reserve’s net income and its remittances to the Treasury could be significantly affected during the period of policy normalization. Participants noted that the Committee would need to continue to assess whether large purchases were having adverse effects on market functioning and financial stability. They expressed a range of views on the appropriate pace of purchases, both now and as the outlook evolved. It was agreed that both the efficacy and the costs would need to be carefully monitored and taken into account in determining the size, pace, and composition of asset purchases.

Source: Fed FOMC minutes

Remember, the Fed only just announced QE 3 in September 2012 and QE 4 in December 2012. At the time of these announcements, the media heralded these moves as indicating that the Fed would act aggressively forever.

And yet, today we find that the Fed was actually conflicted about announcing QE 4 and was questioning the benefits of QE the very day that QE 4 was announced. As we noted in last issue The Great Global Rig of 2012 is Ending, the schemes and policies implemented to hold the system together (including QE) are beginning to lose their effect on the system.

On that note, let us turn our attention to the Fed’s actual activity.

Since September 2011, the US Federal Reserve has announced Operation Twist (extending this beyond its original deadline) as well as QE 3 and QE 4. And yet, in spite of these numerous programs, until January 10 2013 the Fed’s balance sheet was actually smaller than it was the year before (the blue line below).

Throughout this period, the S&P 500 (the red line below) began to disconnect from the Fed’s actual activity. Note how the market continued to rally even when the Fed’s balance sheet was contracting throughout most of 2012.

Why is this?

Because, starting in late 2011 and continuing to the present, the Fed has discovered that verbal intervention has the same impact as actual monetary intervention. Why actually spend the money when you can simply state on TV that you will act if needed and the markets react the same way as if you had announced a new program?

Between the end of QE 2 in June 2011 and the start of QE 3 in September 2012, the Fed resorted time and again to implying it stood ready to act at any time. Despite over eight FOMC meetings in which the Fed didn’t announce QE the markets continued to general push higher on hype and hope of more QE.

Between this, the Fed’s most recent FOMC minutes in which multiple Fed members expressed concern about the efficacy of QE, and the fact that the Fed balance sheet only just eclipsed its previous year levels on January 10 2013 (despite QE 3 and 4 being announced in the second half of 2012), we can draw some very strong conclusions:

1)   The Fed is growing splintered on how to proceed from a policy standpoint.

2)   This splintering will have political implications (Bernanke will likely step down at the end of his term in early 2014, if not before)

3)   This splintering will have major financial implications for every asset class  particularly stocks which have become completely disconnected from economic realities.

This is precisely the sort of “unquantifiable” investment analysis we specialize in with our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

With most of the markets dominated by computer programs and Wall Street sharks, the only way to make serious money is by focusing on the opportunities and risks that no computer or group-think Wall Streeter can come up with. If you can do this, you can still making a killing in the markets.

We’re speaking from experience here.

By focusing on investment ideas and portfolio risks that are “unquantifiable” we’ve shown  Private Wealth Advisory a success rate of OVER 80% on our investments.

Put another way, we’ve made money on more than eight out of ten investments. This includes a 74 trade-winning streak (from July 2011-July 2012 we didn’t close a single losing trade).

And this is not some flash in the pan either… Private Wealth Advisory has a history of beating the market and locking in serious gains when others are losing their shirts (we saw a 7% gain in 2008 when the markets fell over 30%)

Indeed, I’m so confident in this newsletter that it comes with a 30-day refund period. If you’re not totally satisfied with Private Wealth Advisory in the first month, simply drop us a line and we’ll refund every cent of your subscription.

You’ll have full access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives in that time. You’ll also receive two new hot off the press issues and very likely several trade signals (it’s getting close to time to close out our 7^th and 8^th  winners for the year).

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you beat Wall Street and the market…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research

The tension between Central Banks that we noted yesterday continues to worsen. This time it was China and the EU, not just Germany, that fired warning shots at the US Fed.

A senior Chinese official said on Friday that the United States should cut back on printing money to stimulate its economy if the world is to have confidence in the dollar.

Asked whether he was worried about the dollar, the chairman of China’s sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, Jin Liqun, told the World Economic Forum in Davos: “I am a little bit worried.”

“There will be no winners in currency wars. But it is important for a central bank that the money goes to the right place,” Li said.

Speaking at the same session, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici voiced concern that the euro was becoming overvalued as a result of quantitative easing and other stimulus actions taken by other nations’ central banks.

“Certainly, the level of the euro is high and creates some problem,” he said, attributing the single currency’s recent gains partly to the return of confidence created by the European Central Bank and euro zone governments in starting to overcome Europe’s debt crisis.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/25/us-davos-currencies-idUSBRE90O10620130125

So first Germany begins pulling its Gold reserves from the US, and now China and the EU are saying publicly that the Fed’s policies are damaging confidence in the US Dollar.

This does not bode well for the financial system. The primary role of Central Banks is to maintain confidence in the system. If the Central Banks begin to turn on one another it is only a matter of time before the system breaks down.

Remember, every time the Fed debases the US Dollar it forces the Euro and other currencies higher, hurting those countries’ exports. The Fed has recently announced it will be printing $85 billion every month until employment reaches 6.5% (obviously the Fed is ignoring the mountains of data that indicate QE doesn’t create jobs).

How long will the other Central Banks tolerate this before they initiate a currency war? Both Germany and China have fired warning shots at the Fed. And we all know that just beneath the veneer of goodwill, tensions are building between the primary players of the global financial system. More importantly, how can investors profit from this? Remember, entire fortunes can be made during times of crises.

This is precisely the sort of “unquantifiable” investment analysis we specialize in with our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

With most of the markets dominated by computer programs and Wall Street sharks, the only way to make serious money is by focusing on the opportunities and risks that no computer or group-think Wall Streeter can come up with. If you can do this, you can still making a killing in the markets.

We’re speaking from experience here.

By focusing on investment ideas and portfolio risks that are “unquantifiable” we’ve shown  Private Wealth Advisory a success rate of OVER 80% on our investments.

Put another way, we’ve made money on more than eight out of ten investments. This includes a 74 trade-winning streak (from July 2011-July 2012 we didn’t close a single losing trade).

And this is not some flash in the pan either… Private Wealth Advisory has a history of beating the market and locking in serious gains when others are losing their shirts (we saw a 7% gain in 2008 when the markets fell over 30%)

Indeed, I’m so confident in this newsletter that it comes with a 30-day refund period. If you’re not totally satisfied with Private Wealth Advisory in the first month, simply drop us a line and we’ll refund every cent of your subscription.

You’ll have full access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives in that time. You’ll also receive two new hot off the press issues and very likely several trade signals (it’s getting close to time to close out our 7^th and 8^th straight winners).

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you beat Wall Street and the market…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research

Germany has the second largest Gold reserves in the world behind the US. Since the early ‘80s, it has stored the majority of these reserves with the NY Fed (45% vs. 13% in London, 11% in Paris and the remaining 31% in Frankfurt).

With that in mind, everyone needs to be aware that last Monday Germany’s Bundesbank announced it will be moving a major portion of its reserves from the US and all of its reserves from France back to Frankfurt.

Nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are held in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — billions of dollars worth of postwar geopolitical history squirreled away for safe keeping below the streets of Lower Manhattan.

Now the German central bank wants to make a big withdrawal — 300 tons in all.

On Wednesday, the Bundesbank said that it would begin moving some of the reserves, the second-largest stock in the world after that of the United States. The goal is to house more than 50 percent of German gold in Bundesbank vaults in Frankfurt by 2020, up from a little less than a third today, the bank said…

The new policy will include the complete withdrawal of 374 tons of German gold stored at the Banque de France in Paris, about 11 percent of the total. Bundesbank officials were quick to note that the decision was not a reflection of French trustworthiness. Rather, because France and Germany now share the euro, there is no need for reserves as insurance against currency crises

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/global/german-central-bank-to-repatriate-gold-reserves.html

This announcement came with the usual political statements that the decision had nothing to do with a lack of trust between the Bundesbank and the US Fed or Bank of France, but the message is obvious: Germany sees the writing on the wall and is moving to secure its Gold reserves.

Remember, Germany has spent the better part of two years preparing for financial chaos. Since the autumn of 2011, it has:

1)   Implemented legislation that would permit Germany to leave the Euro but remain a part of the EU.

2)   Revived its Special Financial Market Stabilization Funds, or SoFFin for short, allocating 480 billion Euros to the fund (and also providing German banks with a place to dump their Euro-zone Government bonds if they need to).

3)   Implemented reforms that would allow it to close off its borders for as long as 30 days if it needed to (so individuals and capital couldn’t leave Germany)

4)   Created a working group to assess both the economic impact of a Greek exit from the Euro as well as how to manage the impact of a collapse in France.

5)   Pulling all of its Gold from France as well as a major portion of its Gold from the US.

All of these are verifiable facts that the Western Media has avoided talking about. It is very easy to connect the dots here: Germany is implementing a contingency plan to put a firewall around its financial system for when the EU finally breaks down.

A final note here: the tension between the world’s Central Banks just increased dramatically.

Since the Great Crisis began in 2008, the world’s Central Banks have collectively pumped $10 trillion into the global financial system. Every major Central Bank from Germany to the US and China wants to debase its currency to benefit exports and facilitate dealing with its debt load (even China sports a real Debt to GDP north fo 200%).

This competitive debasement has lead to increased tension between the world’s Central Banks. You will never hear their stated outright for the simple reason that the single most important responsibility of the Central Banks is to maintain confidence in the system.

However, underneath the veneer of goodwill and the occasional necessary coordinated intervention, tensions are rising between Central Banks. When the US debases the US Dollar it pushes the Euro higher. This hurts German exports which in turn angers the Bundesbank.

The Bundesbank fired a warning shot at the Fed last autumn when it announced it wanted to have its Gold reserves at the Fed audited. To be clear here: no one of major financial import has ever questioned the Fed’s trustworthiness before. However, at the time of this announcement Germany stated it had no intentions of actually moving its reserves.

Fast-forward to today and Germany has not only audited and checked its Gold reserves at the Fed but it is now moving them. In plain terms, Germany has told the world that A) it does not trust the Fed and B) it is through playing around.

This situation will likely be getting worse going forward. The fact that Germany will be removing all of its Gold reserves from France certainly doesn’t bode well for future German French relations if push ever comes to shove (it’s not as though Europe has a history of getting along well).

Remember, the only thing holding the financial system together is belief in the Central Banks. If the Central Banks (it was Germany’s Bundesbank that is behind the Gold move) stop trusting one another or grow openly antagonistic, then things will get very bad very quickly.

For months now we’ve been asserting that the “improvements” in the global economy and financial system were a mirage. Germany’s move has confirmed this. If the financial system was in fact safe and the global economy was improving, Germany would not feel the need to repatriate its Gold.

Which begs the question, what exactly do German Central Bankers know that we don’t?

This is precisely the sort of “unquantifiable” investment analysis we specialize in with our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

With most of the markets dominated by computer programs and Wall Street sharks, the only way to make serious money is by focusing on the opportunities and risks that no computer or group-think Wall Streeter can come up with. If you can do this, you can still making a killing in the markets.

We’re speaking from experience here.

By focusing on investment ideas and portfolio risks that are “unquantifiable” we’ve shown  Private Wealth Advisory a success rate of OVER 80% on our investments.

Put another way, we’ve made money on more than eight out of ten investments. This includes a 74 trade-winning streak (from July 2011-July 2012 we didn’t close a single losing trade).

And this is not some flash in the pan either: we’re currently beating the market handily with out closed trades in 2013. In fact, we just closed another winner last week.

Indeed, I’m so confident in this newsletter that it comes with a 30-day refund period. If you’re not totally satisfied with Private Wealth Advisory in the first month, simply drop us a line and we’ll refund every cent of your subscription.

You’ll have full access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives in that time. You’ll also receive two new hot off the press issues and very likely several trade signals (it’s getting close to time to close out our 7^th and 8^th straight winners).

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you beat Wall Street and the market…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research

We’ve received a number of emails regarding the long-term performance of The Perfect Trade.

Having already locked in a return on invested capital of 36% in 2013 so far, investors are curious how this newsletter has fared in the past.

The below table should help explain why this newsletter is so extraordinary.

As you can see, The Perfect Trade’s model portfolio has produced MASSIVE returns on invested capital three of the last four years.

The one year that we lost money was in 2012. And that loss was the result of just four trades that we let run for too long. Without them, The Perfect Trade would have once again doubled investors’ money in 2012.

Since this disappointing performance, we’re changed our stop loss policy to make sure this never happens again.

And yet, despite that one terrible year, this newsletter has produced an AVERAGE ANNUAL GAIN OF 46.25% since 2010.

This has crushed the performance of EVERY ASSET CLASS under the sun by MANY multiples.

Since 2010, the S&P 500 has returned an average annual gain of 10%. So The Perfect Trade has returned more than FOUR TIMES the S&P 500 over the same time period.

From 2010 until today, Gold has produced an average annual return of 12%. So The Perfect Trade has outperformed even the precious metal by more than THREE FOLD.

Even Apple, the most popular holding for Hedge Funds and individual investors, has returned an average annual gain of 26% since 2010. The Perfect Trade has nearly DOUBLED THIS.

So with just one trade, made once per week, you could have outperformed EVERY asset class on earth as well as 99% of investing legends and hedge funds.

This is why it’s called The Perfect Trade.

And if you’re an investor looking for the means of producing major income from your portfolio, this is it.

As you can imagine, as word gets out regarding this newsletter and its performance, investors are piling in. However, we cannot allow thousands and thousands of traders to follow these trades while maintaining our performance.

For that reason, we’re only allowing a limited number of slots before we close the doors on this newsletter and simple start a waiting list.

So if you’d like to be one of the investors to snag one of these remaining slots, you need to move quickly.

To take out a subscription to The Perfect Trade… and start seeing kind of investment income most investors can only dream of…

Click Here Now!

Phoenix Capital Research

A few months ago, we asked, “is China an economic miracle or one giant government sponsored fraud?” Our views were the latter with corruption as one of the key driving forces for wealth creation and economic growth in China.

Consider the following:

1)   In 2010 alone, 146,000 cases of corruption were launched in China (that’s 400 PER DAY).

2)   Of the 14 cases that were actually reported in the Chinese media, the average amount stolen was 18 MILLION RMB (for perspective, the average college graduate in China earns 2,500 RMB per year).

3)   Between 1991-2011, it’s estimated that between 16,000-18,000 Chinese officials fled China taking 800 BILLION RMB (roughly $125 BILLION) with them. Bear in mind China’s entire GDP was just 2.1 trillion RMB in 1991.

4)   It’s estimated that on average bribes comprise 5-10% of a given project’s costs in China today.

Indeed, things are so corrupt in China, that as soon as the new Government stated it would crack down on corruption, a fire sale of luxury properties began as corrupt officials sought to dump their illegal holdings.

Thousands of Chinese communist officials have been panicked into a fire sale of their illicit properties and billions of pounds have been smuggled overseas as the country’s new leaders intensify a campaign to root out corruption…

It said the volume of deals had intensified by “a hundred times” after Xi Jinping, the incoming Chinese president, warned that corruption could kill the party and put one of the country’s most vigorous and resolute politicians, Wang Qishan, in charge of stamping out graft…

The CDIC report, which was obtained by the Economic Observer newspaper, suggested that nearly 10,000 luxurious homes had been sold by officials in Guangzhou and Shanghai last year.... Li Chengyan, a professor at Peking University, suggested that about 10,000 officials had absconded from China with as much as pounds $US100 billion.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-great-china-corruption-fire-sale-20130122-2d3v5.html#ixzz2IobQB27X

These individuals fleeing China have been buying up luxury properties outside of the country. As you likely have noticed, the world has experienced a wave of Chinese buyers for high-end real estate. While some of them are indeed individuals who have made legitimate money from business, many are in fact corrupt officials who have fled the country with vast quantities of loot.

A new wave of buyers from China is snapping up luxury properties across the U.S., injecting billions of dollars into the country’s residential-real-estate market.

The industry is scrambling to court the new buyers. Some developers of new projects are installing wok kitchens, following feng shui principles and putting lucky numbers on choice units; others are packaging property sales with government programs designed to encourage foreign investment. Real-estate agencies are flying representatives to China, and hiring Mandarin-speaking agents.

In Los Angeles, New York and even Miami, buyers mostly from China—and some are from Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea—are radically altering the landscape. Last month, a Chinese couple paid $34.5 million for a Versailles-style mansion on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Calif. A year earlier, a Hong Kong businessman paid around $28 million for a nearby estate. Over the last six months in New York, several full-floor apartments in a new Manhattan high-rise called One57, each with a price tag of roughly $50 million, have gone into contract with Chinese buyers, according to two people close to the situation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304765304577478573004173212.html

This sort of fraud and corruption is systemic in China but it doesn’t show up in the GDP or other economic figures the country posts. After all, if a poorly constructed bridge collapses China can always build another one and count it twice for GDP growth. And since the Government controls the media, no one is the wiser.

As a final example of how the China story will likely turn out, consider the following:

Caterpillar Inc. believed acquiring China’s Zhengzhou Siwei was a way for the U.S. company to boost its fortunes in a lucrative but challenging market.

Siwei’s sales and profit growth were surging. And the company offered access to China’s mining industry, where domestic companies were prospering.

Siwei, which sells mine-safety equipment, also boasted an American pedigree. Its controlling shareholders were James E. Thompson III, the scion of one of Asia’s most successful expatriate families, and Emory Williams, a former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. Caterpillar paid about $700 million in June for Siwei’s parent, ERA Mining Machinery Ltd.

Caterpillar, known for bulldozers, excavators and wheel loaders, will have to write off about $580 million over alleged accounting misconduct at a Chinese maker of mine-safety equipment it bought in June. The WSJ’s James T. Areddy talks about what this means for the big U.S. industrial company.

But now, the purchase has dealt a blow to Caterpillar’s already lackluster performance in China.

The Peoria, Ill., construction-machinery maker on Friday said it would write down ERA’s value by $580 million, blaming “deliberate, multiyear, coordinated accounting misconduct” that was designed to overstate profit at the unit before the deal. The accounting surprise contributed to the departure of a senior Caterpillar executive, a person familiar with the matter said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578255740261180404.html

What are the odds that this is an isolated case?

If Caterpillar, one of the largest corporations in the world, with its army of accountants and consultants was duped by a Chinese company run by American executives no less… what are the odds that ordinary investors can accurately value Chinese businesses or the Chinese economy?

This is just one example of how a popular theme in the investment community (in this case that China is a superpower) can in fact turn out to be total bunk. Given how many investment professionals are banking on China leading the world to economic growth again, this trade is extremely crowded on one side.

This is why, smart investors are already taking advantage of the lull in the markets to position themselves accordingly. While everyone else continues to believe the fairytale story spun by the political class and mainstream media, our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter subscribers have already been warned of these issues and are taking action (just as they did in early 2008 when others were bullish, or in 2010 when the EU crisis first began to take off).

Private Wealth Advisory outlined several critical investment strategies, designed to hedge our subscribers from the risks in the market while also alerting them to unique investment ideas that 99% of investors don’t know about.

To find out about these investments and start positioning yourself for what we all know is coming, but no one wants to openly admit, all you need to do is take out a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory.

You’ll immediately be given full access to the subscribers’ only Private Wealth Advisory website where you can find the historical archives of this investment newsletter.

You’ll also begin receiving new, hot off the press, issues of Private Wealth Advisory to your inbox every other Wednesday. Running between 20 and 30 pages in length, these intensive newsletters outline an expert understanding of what’s happening in the world, in plain, easy to understand language so our subscribers have the best research presented in the clearest way possible.

In this manner, our clients are always informed about the economy, financial markets, and most importantly, their investments.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you and your investments…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research

The markets are closed today in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

With that in mind, we’re stepping back from our usual daily analysis of the markets to address the big picture for the investment landscape in 2013.

The following is an excerpt from a recent issue of Private Wealth Advisory. In it, we outline three popular investment delusions pertaining to China, Japan and the US. As was the case in 2007, many investors are investing based on misguided theories. We outline three of the biggest here.

Private Wealth Advisory subscribers are already gearing up for the next round of the great crisis with several back-door trades that will profit enormously as the investment herd gets slaughtered. To find out their names, symbols, and how to buy them… Click Here Now!

Popular Delusion #1: The investment world believes China will engage in another massive round of stimulus.

This will not be the case. China’s new ruling party has stated point blank that the country will not be engaging in rampant stimulus (for the obvious reasons of rising inflation):

This may sound like an oxymoron, but China‘s new Communist government is turning away from financial stimulus to help its slow-moving economy.

During the party’s two-day Central Economic Work Conference this weekend, party leader Xi Jinping said the country would essentially not be pursuing high growth rates through stimulus. That doesn’t mean that Beijing has turned sour on fixed asset investments on things like roads, bridges and subways. They’re still going through with major urbanization projects. But whenever the economy is slowing, the new leaders say they will be less likely to prime the pump.

Source: Forbes

China’s market has rallied over 16% in the last month on the belief that China will engage in another large-scale stimulus plan… despite China’s leaders stating they will not. This has the makings of a very nasty correction.

Popular Delusion #2: Japan’s new leadership will be able to kick off an even more aggressive monetary intervention.

Truth be told, Japan is on the cusp of the mother of all debt implosions. Case in point, Japan’s Yen is thought to be a safe haven. With that in mind, it’s critical to note that when the EU Crisis hit in mid-2012, the Yen fell. Indeed, it has now taken out its trendline:

Indeed, it is interesting to note that political leaders Japan, like those in Europe and the US, have begun to use verbal intervention as a primary tool. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office urging the Bank of Japan to act even more aggressively, even threatening to strip the bank of its independence.

Since that time, the Nikkei has erupted higher. The Japanese Government got what it was looking for, and Japanese Economic Minister Amari announced that the Yen was correcting in line with fundamentals.

Take note, this series of events indicate that Japanese leaders will likely engage in verbal intervention to get what they want. It’s worked for the EU and US.

Popular Delusion #3: The US bond bubble will burst in 2013.

It’s become increasingly common to see calls for the US bond bubble to implode this year. To be clear, the US’s financial situation is terrible. But it is nothing compared to the financial situation in Europe, Japan, and China.

Europe has not recapitalized its banks. Many of its countries’ entire banking systems are insolvent. The EU banking system as a whole is leveraged at 26 to 1 (Lehman was at 30 to 1 when it went bust). Even Germany’s banking system is in worse shape than the US’s (the US recapitalized its banks following the 2008 crisis. Europe. including Germany, has not).

China’s true Debt to GDP is over 200%. Already in a hard landing, the country is now facing several major problems, namely looming water and agriculture crises, food inflation and accompanying civil unrest, and the potential of armed conflict with Japan.

Moreover, the belief that China will shift over to a consumer economy is misguided. Consumption has increased by 9% per year in China for 30 years now. The China consumer is not somehow dormant. And as more and more manufacturing firms leave China for more stable markets (Apple, Ford, GE, Bridgestone, have all announced they are moving facilities back to the US), China will be facing rising unemployment.

Finally, and most critically, financial institutions are desperate for high-grade collateral in the form of quality sovereign bonds. Say what you will about the US, it remains the most liquid market for debt in the world. And if you had a choice between lending money to the US, Japanese, any European, or the Chinese Government, the US is the obvious answer.

This is not to say the US is in great shape. Instead, we would argue that the US is the least ugly of the major debt markets. The US bond bubble will burst at some point. But it will likely not do so in 2013.

To conclude, the world Central Banks and EU politicians have done everything imaginable to postpone the EU crisis. They’re now out of options. The EU crisis will very likely erupt anew in the first half of 2013. Meanwhile Japan is waiting in the wings. And China has its own issues to contend with.

This is why, smart investors are already taking advantage of the lull in the markets to position themselves accordingly. While everyone else continues to believe the fairytale story spun by the political class and mainstream media, our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter subscribers have already been warned of these issues and are taking action (just as they did in early 2008 when others were bullish, or in 2010 when the EU crisis first began to take off).

Private Wealth Advisory outlined several critical investment strategies, designed to hedge our subscribers from the risks in the market while also alerting them to unique investment ideas that 99% of investors don’t know about.

To find out about these investments and start positioning yourself for what we all know is coming, but no one wants to openly admit, all you need to do is take out a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory.

You’ll immediately be given full access to the subscribers’ only Private Wealth Advisory website where you can find the historical archives of this investment newsletter.

You’ll also begin receiving new, hot off the press, issues of Private Wealth Advisory to your inbox every other Wednesday. Running between 20 and 30 pages in length, these intensive newsletters outline an expert understanding of what’s happening in the world, in plain, easy to understand language so our subscribers have the best research presented in the clearest way possible.

In this manner, our clients are always informed about the economy, financial markets, and most importantly, their investments.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you and your investments…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research

Since the EU Crisis went into overdrive in 2010, EU politicians have largely resorted to political posturing rather than implementing any actual financial solutions to the EU’s debt and banking crisis.

To clarify that statement, we view a “real solution” as one that A) cleared bad debts from the system, B) brought debt levels down to manageable levels, and C) got the troubled country’s economy back on track.

By way of example, real solutions would involve outright debt defaults, bank failures, and very likely one or more countries leaving the Euro. However, no major EU leader ever seriously promotes any of these ideas because doing so would akin to committing political suicide as the rest of the political class would blame them for what followed.

As a result, EU politicians continue to kick the can down the road with half-measures such as austerity measures in exchange for bailouts. The end result is that nothing is ever solved as those in charge of the decisions that matter have no incentives to actually do anything beneficial for their countries’ economies.  See Greece whose economy has completely imploded to the point that children are being admitted to hospitals every week for malnutrition… and it will still have a Debt to GDP of 120% in 2022!

It is now obvious that US politicians have seen this work well for their European counterparts (nothing gets fixed, not tough choices have to be made and almost no one gets kicked out of office), and are now adopting this strategy on this side of the pond.

Consider the fiscal cliff issue, which our political leaders discussed endlessly for over a month, only to then pass a “deal” which both raised taxes AND failed to cut the deficit or debt.

Again, nothing solved, but plenty of posturing and blame.

Expect more of this. Today, the top story for the US is gun control even though we will officially breach the debt ceiling in roughly one month’s time. The last time we did this the US lost one of its AAA ratings from a credit agency and the markets imploded wiping out over a trillion dollars in household wealth in a matter of days.

This time around, things will be far worse if nothing is solved. If the US loses another AAA rating, then the financial markets could face systemic risk. The reason for this is that US Treasuries are one of the senior most forms of collateral used by the banks to backstop the $600+ trillion derivatives market.

As any trader who trades on margin can tell you, when the value of your collateral is called into question, those on the other side of the trade come looking for you to put up more capital on your trades. This can result in assets being sold en masse (similar to what happened after Lehman failed) and things can get very ugly very fast.

Another consequence of the US losing another AAA rating would be a potential spike in interest rates as a result of us having a lower credit rating. A 100 basis point move higher in interest rates means the US paying another $100+ billion in interest payments on its debt. The US is slated to pay some $300+ billion in interest payments in 2013. This amount could explode higher if interest rates rose.

We already have a Debt to GDP ratio of over 100%. Our deficit to GDP is nearly 10%. These are Greece type levels. And while the US has several advantages Greece does not (it produces the reserve currency of the world and is also the largest economy), the bond markets can be very unforgiving of fiscal profligacy.

But US politicians don’t care. They know that the US economy is a disaster and will be getting worse. The issue for them is not fixing this, but shifting the blame for what’s coming onto the other party.

Bottomline: the US debt situation is not going to be brought under control. We’ll either breach the debt ceiling or pass some hurried bill to raise it. Neither of these will help our credit rating or our fiscal issues.

Buckle up, 2013 is going to be an “interesting” year.

This is why, smart investors are already taking advantage of the lull in the markets to position themselves accordingly. While everyone else continues to believe the fairytale story spun by the political class and mainstream media, our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter subscribers have already been warned of these issues and are taking action (just as they did in early 2008 when others were bullish, or in 2010 when the EU crisis first began to take off).

Private Wealth Advisory outlined several critical investment strategies, designed to hedge our subscribers from the risks in the market while also alerting them to unique investment ideas that 99% of investors don’t know about.

To find out about these investments and start positioning yourself for what we all know is coming, but no one wants to openly admit, all you need to do is take out a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory.

You’ll immediately be given full access to the subscribers’ only Private Wealth Advisory website where you can find the historical archives of this investment newsletter.

You’ll also begin receiving new, hot off the press, issues of Private Wealth Advisory to your inbox every other Wednesday. Running between 20 and 30 pages in length, these intensive newsletters outline an expert understanding of what’s happening in the world, in plain, easy to understand language so our subscribers have the best research presented in the clearest way possible.

In this manner, our clients are always informed about the economy, financial markets, and most importantly, their investments.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you and your investments…

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Phoenix Capital Research

The following is an excerpt from a recent issue of Private Wealth Advisory. In it, we outline the ongoing stress in the EU banking system, particularly the issues of Spain and Greece, both of which have large banks with negative values.

Private Wealth Advisory subscribers are already gearing up for the next round of the EU crisis with several back-door trades that will profit enormously as Europe falls. To find out their names, symbols, and how to buy them… Click Here Now!

Europe’s banking system has been on the ropes for years.

It’s a little known fact that  the largest recipients of US bailouts were in fact foreign banks based in Europe. Also bear in mind that the biggest beneficiaries of QE 2 were European banks. Things got so bad in mid-2012 that the whole system lurched towards collapse. The only thing that pulled the EU back from the brink was Mario Draghi’s promise of unlimited bond buying (a promise and nothing more as the EU has yet to do any of this).

However, these efforts, like all cover‐ups, will not last. Indeed, by the look of things, Europe’s banking system is breaking down again…

Greece’s four largest banks need to boost their capital by 27.5 billion euros ($36.3 billion) after taking losses from the country’s debt swap earlier this year, the largest sovereign restructuring in history.

National Bank of Greece SA, the country’s biggest lender, needs to raise 9.8 billion euros, according to an e-­‐mailed report by the Athens-­‐based Bank of Greece (TELL) today. Eurobank Ergasias SA (EUROB) needs 5.8 billion euros, Alpha Bank (ALPHA) needs 4.6 billion euros and Piraeus Bank SA (TPEIR) needs 7.3 billion euros, according to the report. Total recapitalization needs for the country’s banking sector amount to 40.5 billion euros, the report said.

source: bloomberg.

The above articles tell us point blank that Europe’s banking crisis is neither fixed nor even close to over. However, the numbers need some perspective: sure, €27.5 billion sounds like a lot of money, but just how big is it relative to Greece’s banks.

The entire capital base of the Greek banking system is only €22 billion.

By saying that Greek banks need €27.5 billion Greece is essentially admitting that is needs to recapitalize its entire banking system. Also, you should know that Greek banks are still sitting on €46.8 billion in bad loans.

There is a word for a banking system with a capital base of €22 billion and bad loans of €46.8. It’s INSOLVENT.

We get other signs that Europe is ready to fall back into the abyss from recent revelations concerning Spain’s sovereign bonds.

In July 2012, Spain’s ten year bond yield hit 8% even though Spain had already been granted a €100 billion bailout by the EU and the ECB had also promised to provide unlimited bond buying.

As a point of reference, remember that any yield over 7% is GAME OVER as far as funding your debt.

Then, starting in August 2012, Spain’s ten-­‐year bond yields magically began to fall. Since that time, they’ve plunged to just 5%.

The reason for this drop in yields?

It’s not that Spain’s finances improved (its Debt to GDP ratio hit 85% this year and is on track to reach 90% by the end of 2013). Nor is it that Spain’s economy is recovering (unemployment reached a new record in 3Q12).

It’s not also that investors are less worried about Spain and have decided to buy Spanish debt (Spain just staged a terrible bond rally in early December).

So why were Spanish yields falling?

Spain has been using up its Social Security fund to buy its own debt.

Spain has been quietly tapping the country’s richest piggy bank, the Social Security Reserve Fund, as a buyer of last resort for Spanish government bonds, raising questions about the fund’s role as guarantor of future pension payouts.

Now the scarcely noticed borrowing spree, carried out amid a prolonged economic crisis, is about to end, because there is little left to take. At least 90% of the €65 billion ($85.7 billion) fund has been invested in increasingly risky Spanish debt, according to official figures, and the government has begun withdrawing cash for emergency payments.

Source: Wall Street Journal

This is precisely what we mean when we say the system was rigged in the second half of 2012. Spain, a country that is totally bankrupt and likely heading for its own version of the Arab Spring (things are so bad that Spaniards have begun self-­‐ immolating just as they did in Tunisia right before that country suffered a societal breakdown) managed to fool the world into believing that things had improved by raiding its social security fund to buy its own debt.

As we said at the beginning of this issue, the rigging that occurred in the second half of 2012 was simply staggering. But it will end. Our view is that we have perhaps another month or so left at the most before things begin to get ugly again.

This is why, smart investors are already taking advantage of the lull in the markets to position themselves accordingly. While everyone else continues to believe the fairytale story spun by the political class and mainstream media, our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter subscribers have already been warned of these issues and are taking action (just as they did in early 2008 when others were bullish, or in 2010 when the EU crisis first began to take off).

Private Wealth Advisory outlined several critical investment strategies, designed to hedge our subscribers from the risks in the market while also alerting them to unique investment ideas that 99% of investors don’t know about.

This includes out of the way hard asset plays that are undervalued by as much as 70%, back-door investments on the US debt ceiling talks that allow individual investors to profit when the stuff hits the fan there, and more.

To find out about these investments and start positioning yourself for what we all know is coming, but no one wants to openly admit, all you need to do is take out a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory.

You’ll immediately be given full access to the subscribers’ only Private Wealth Advisory website where you can find the historical archives of this investment newsletter.

You’ll also begin receiving new, hot off the press, issues of Private Wealth Advisory to your inbox every other Wednesday. Running between 20 and 30 pages in length, these intensive newsletters outline an expert understanding of what’s happening in the world, in plain, easy to understand language so our subscribers have the best research presented in the clearest way possible.

In this manner, our clients are always informed about the economy, financial markets, and most importantly, their investments.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you and your investments…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research

Ben Bernanke and the rest of the US Federal Reserve bet the farm that they could engage in countless monetary interventions, keep interest rates at zero, and print over $2 trillion in new money without damaging the US’s credibility.

They were wrong. Indeed, Germany just fired a major warning shot to the US Federal Reserve.

On Monday, Germany announced that it will be moving a significant portion of its Gold reserves out of storage with the New York Fed and moving them back to Germany.

A few background details.

• Germany has the second largest Gold reserves in the world behind the US.
• Since the early ‘80s, Germany has stored the largest portion of its Gold reserves with the New York Fed (45% vs. 13% in London, 11% in Paris and the remaining 31% in Frankfurt).
• In the fall of last year, German officials began raising the issue of auditing its reserves at the NY Fed.

Why would Germany suddenly decide that it wants to change a policy it has had in place for over 30 years?

More importantly, how did it go from wanting to audit its reserves to actually removing them from the NY Fed’s care?

In simple terms, Germany has just announced that it doesn’t trust the US Fed.

The world’s Central Banks have been staging a global currency way for several years now. Germany, China, Japan, and the US all want to keep their currencies weak to improve exports and minimize their debt loads.

In the case of Germany, it’s the second largest exporter of goods in the world behind China. More than anyone in the EU, Germany wants a weak Euro. However, every time the Fed announces a new policy, the US Dollar falls, the Euro rallies and German exports fall off a cliff.

Germany is now openly telling the Fed that it is done playing around. This will have severe consequences in the financial system.

Remember, the only thing holding the financial system together is belief in the Central Banks. If the Central Banks (it was Germany’s Bundesbank that is behind the Gold move) stop trusting one another or grow openly antagonistic, then things will get very bad very quickly.

For months now we’ve been asserting that the “improvements” in the global economy and financial system were a mirage. Germany’s move has confirmed this. If the financial system was in fact safe and the global economy was improving, Germany would not feel the need to repatriate its Gold.

Which begs the question, what exactly do German Central Bankers know that we don’t?

This is precisely the sort of “unquantifiable” investment analysis we specialize in with our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

With most of the markets dominated by computer programs and Wall Street sharks, the only way to make serious money is by focusing on the opportunities and risks that no computer or group-think Wall Streeter can come up with. If you can do this, you can still making a killing in the markets.

We’re speaking from experience here.

By focusing on investment ideas and portfolio risks that are “unquantifiable” we’ve shown  Private Wealth Advisory a success rate of OVER 80% on our investments.

Put another way, we’ve made money on more than eight out of ten investments. This includes a 74 trade-winning streak (from July 2011-July 2012 we didn’t close a single losing trade).

And this is not some flash in the pan either: we’re currently beating the market handily with out closed trades in 2013. In fact, we just closed another winner this morning.

Indeed, I’m so confident in this newsletter that it comes with a 30-day refund period. If you’re not totally satisfied with Private Wealth Advisory in the first month, simply drop us a line and we’ll refund every cent of your subscription.

You’ll have full access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives in that time. You’ll also receive two new hot off the press issues and very likely several trade signals (it’s getting close to time to close out our 7^th and 8^th straight winners).

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you beat Wall Street and the market…

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Phoenix Capital Research

This week is options expiration week: the week in which various call and put positions will expire. Wall Street is notorious for using these weeks to gun the markets this way and that in order to insure that the greatest number of puts and calls expire worthless. So expect the market to be even more volatile than usual this week.

Outside of this, the investment world is slowly emerging from its Central Bank policy induced stupor to realize two of our long-standing themes:

1)   That European markets are highly overvalued based on their underlying fundamentals.

2)   China has an inflation problem and cannot print money non-stop to keep its economy on track.

Regarding #1, Bloomberg ran an article over the weekend expressing concerns that the European markets are overvalued. The truth of the matter is that the entire European banking system is insolvent. There is simply no other way to describe a banking system that is leveraged at 26 to 1 with net assets at nearly 300% of GDP (Europe’s GDP is $16 trillion and its banking system is $46 trillion).

However, the mainstream media can never tell the ugly truth here (doing so would trigger a panic). So instead we’re going to see concerns voiced that Europe is “overvalued” and that European economies need to pick up because the ECB is essentially tapped out.

This is about as close as we’ll get to the media admitting Europe is bust and out of solutions. The fact that this story is already showing up in the media should be a warning that the next round of the EU Crisis is likely around the corner. Both Spain and Greece have recently admitted their banks are at negative value. Expect the news to worsen out of Europe in the coming weeks. What happens if the markets call Mario Draghi’s bluff? We’ll find out this year.

Regarding #2, roughly 30% of China’s population lives off of $2 per year. Food inflation hits this country very hard. And the Government is now stuck between a rock (a slowdown in its economy) and a hard place (higher inflation that results in mass civil unrest).

As a result of this, the Government has to focus on managing expectations both inside and outside of the country. Inside of China this means making public displays of cracking down on corruption to keep the population calm (many Chinese area beginning to ask themselves, “why should I go along with a system in which I’m not getting wealthy but corrupt officials are?” The Government is also taking measures to control prices (see the ongoing rise in Chinese imports despite the economic slowdown) in an attempt to keep inflation at bay.

Outside of China, the Government needs to send signals to the rest of the world that it will not be engaging in massive stimulus without triggering a capital run. Notice that the language coming out of the new leadership is carefully crafted: new party leader Xi Jinping has openly stated that China will not be pursuing “high” growth rates through stimulus going forward.

The message here is that “we’ll engage in stimulus, but we won’t be pumping anywhere near the amount needed to hit double digit growth.” The investment world is totally convinced China is going to pump $1 trillion or more into its economy. Chinese officials are denying this. Take note… typically when the investment world finds out it’s wrong there are serious fireworks.

While everyone else continues to believe the fairytale story spun by the political class and mainstream media, our Private Wealth Advisory newsletter subscribers have already been warned of these issues and are taking action (just as they did in early 2008 when others were bullish, or in 2010 when the EU crisis first began to take off).

Private Wealth Advisory outlined several critical investment strategies, designed to hedge our subscribers from the risks in the market while also alerting them to unique investment ideas that 99% of investors don’t know about.

This includes out of the way hard asset plays that are undervalued by as much as 70%, back-door investments on the US debt ceiling talks that allow individual investors to profit when the stuff hits the fan there, as well as a major slowdown in China.

To find out about these investments and start positioning yourself for what we all know is coming, but no one wants to openly admit, all you need to do is take out a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory.

You’ll immediately be given full access to the subscribers’ only Private Wealth Advisory website where you can find the historical archives of this investment newsletter.

You’ll also begin receiving new, hot off the press, issues of Private Wealth Advisory to your inbox every other Wednesday. Running between 20 and 30 pages in length, these intensive newsletters outline an expert understanding of what’s happening in the world, in plain, easy to understand language so our subscribers have the best research presented in the clearest way possible.

In this manner, our clients are always informed about the economy, financial markets, and most importantly, their investments.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you and your investments…

Click Here Now!!!

Phoenix Capital Research