Tonight between 7:30-9:30PM, the House will vote on Boehner’s “Plan B” for the fiscal cliff.

At this point the entire exercise is one of looking busy for appearance’s sake: it wouldn’t bode well if the US were to go over the fiscal cliff because members of Congress were already on vacation. So the political class needs to appear to be working on this problem even if no one is actually incentivized to come up with an actual solution.

My point is that the likelihood of an actual solution being presented and worked through at this point is less than 1%. The various plans that have been put on the table all propose items like reducing the deficit by $1 trillion over multiple years. This doesn’t really accomplish much when you consider that we’ve run a $1+ trillion deficit for four years now.

The fact remains, if we want to balance the budget, we need spending cuts and tax raises that add up to over $1 trillion. That’s simple math, but neither side of the political aisle is going to propose anything resembling this because it would be political suicide.

After all, what incentive is there to solve anything? US political leaders must have noticed that Greece, a country whose economy is only 2% that of the US’s, has managed to draw out its problems for over two years and the proposed “solutions” there remain as absurd as getting the country’s Debt to GDP levels down to 120% by 2022.

If this is what a country as small as Greece can get away with, why can’t the US, the single largest economy and owner of the world’s reserve currency draw out its fiscal problems far longer, must be the thinking process for Washington.

And why not? The US Federal Reserve has committed to fund the US’s bloated deficits. The Fed will buy 50% of new debt issuance next year. And interest rates will be kept at next to nothing for the foreseeable future.

There’s a reason for this: roughly half of the US’s debt outstanding matures in less than a year or so. Every point increase in interest rates means another $150 billion in interest payments. So Bernanke has to keep us at ZIRP forever.

This will “work” until it doesn’t. The problem is that when it doesn’t work anymore, the financial system will implode. Until then, there are little to no incentives for the political class to address the US’s financial problems. The Fed’s giving them a free lunch.

Unfortunately, these folks are ignoring the human toll Greece has had on its citizens. Today, 20% of Greek households are living below the poverty line. Five Greek children at hospitalized for malnutrition every week. This is the real cost of the crisis in Greece. And it’s the situation most analysis ignores.

Which is why the US is playing a dangerous game by hemming and hawing about the fiscal cliff: numbers wise the situation may not look apocalyptic, but with incomes down and the cost of living rising in the US, there will be a lot of suffering going forward.

So buckle up because we’re going over the cliff. And unlike the debt ceiling talks of 2011, the Fed is already pumping money into the system (in 2011, there was no official QE program in place when the debt ceiling talks took place).

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US going over the fiscal cliff, then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 76 out of our last 90 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the US debt implosion picks up steam in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 76 out of 90 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

 

 

The markets in Europe continue to rally hard despite the fact that Europe’s financial system is totally insolvent.

At the center of this mess is Spain, which now barely functions as a country. Spanish pharmacies, owed $500 million by the government, are running out of medicine in Valencia. Strikes have resulted in trash not being collected for 20 days in Jerez. Over 2.2 million children live in poverty in Spain (the countries entire population is just 47 million). In the region of Andalusia some government workers haven’t been paid in eight months and are working for free while begging for food.

The banking system is in even worse shape. Having experienced a housing boom that made the US’s look small in comparison, Spain’s banks are packed to the brim with garbage debts which are worsening by the month.

Spanish housing prices saw their biggest quarterly drop since the crisis began, falling an average of 15% in the third quarter. Spain’s number of bad loans has hit a new record, moving up at the fastest pace since June 2012 when the entire Spanish system almost imploded. The default rate on real estate loans is an astounding 30%.

The Spanish Government’s response during the crisis has been to merge one totally insolvent regional bank or caja with another. Bankia, the large bank that had to be nationalized last June was in fact the product of a merger of seven bankrupt cajas.

Spanish banks are drawing over €365 billion from the ECB to keep the system afloat. The entire market cap of the Spanish banking system is only a little over €100 billion. We’re talking about an entire banking system that is bust and on life support from the ECB.

And yet, somehow, the investment world is convinced that there is a way out of this mess. Spanish yields are falling. The Spanish Ibex rallies. Spanish bank stocks are up over 10% in the last month and a half. Why? Because of more money from the ECB and EU? Short-covering? Who knows. But there is absolutely no fundamental improvement to Spain’s finances, its economy, or its banking system.

And sometime down the road, this whole mess will come crashing down.

If you’re looking for someone who can help protect yourself from this mess and even profit from it, I can show you how. My clients made money in 2008. And we’ve been playing the Euro Crisis to perfection, with our portfolio returning 34% between July 31 2011 and July 31 2012 (compared to a 2% return for the S&P 500).

All told, 77 out of our last 93 trades have made money. In fact we just closed our 77th this morning: a 6% gain in just TWO DAYS. We’re now positioning ourselves for the next round of the Crisis with several targeted investments that will explode higher as the EU crumbles. Already three of our picks are up more than 4% in the last week.

To find out what they are, and take steps to protect your portfolio from the inevitable collapse…

Click Here Now!

Graham Summers

Do you find the Fed’s announcement of QE 4 confusing? After all, why would the Fed engage in more QE when it just announced QE 3 three months ago? In this excerpt from my latest issue of Private Wealth Advisory I outline the real reasons the Fed announced more QE (virtually no one I’ve spoken to understands this).

I also explain which investments will profit from this monetary madness and how to best go about preparing for 2013.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory as well as its incredible track record (76 of out last 92 trades made money)…

Click Here Now!!!

Last week the US Federal Reserve surprised yet again by announcing QE 4: a program through which it would purchase $45 billion of US Treasuries every month.

Between this program and the Fed’s QE 3 Program announced in September, the Fed will be monetizing $85 billion worth of assets every month ($40 billion worth of Treasuries and $45 billion worth of Mortgage Backed Securities) ad infinitum.

Indeed, the Fed’s new policies are anchored to its goal of getting employment down to 6.5%. This means the Fed will buy these assets non-stop until employment gets down to 6.5%.

I’ve spoken to a number of people in the financial community as well as outside investors and no one seem to grasp the significance of this announcement.

First and foremost, QE does not create jobs. The UK has announced QE efforts equal to an amount greater than 20% of its GDP and has not seen any meaningful job growth. Similarly, Japan has announced nine rounds of QE for a combined effort equal to 20% of its GDP over the last 20 years and job growth remains dismal there.

Based on this, the Fed’s decision to anchor its QE efforts to employment is a bit hard to swallow. Indeed, I would argue that the Fed’s moves have very little to do with employment and instead are meant to address the following.

1. The US economy is nose-diving again and the Fed is acting preemptively.
2. The Fed is trying to provide increased liquidity going into the fiscal cliff.
3. The Fed is funding the US’s Government massive deficits.

To continue reading this… you need to take out a trial subscription to Private Wealth Advisory: my bi-weekly investment  newsletter designed specifically to help individual investors cut through the noise and profit from the market’s gyrations.

Indeed, 76 out of our last 92 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 82% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the US debt implosion picks up steam in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 76 out of 92 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

Now that Obama has been re-elected, the BLS and other Government entities have begun to revise all of the positive data from before the November election downward. New jobless claims are back over 400,000. The amazing new home sales of 389,00 from October has been revised back down to 369,000. And a new record has been set for food stamp usage.

Things are only going to get worse for the following reasons:

1)   Increased taxes

2)   Increased regulation

Both of these items will result in people parking their cash rather than investing in the economy. Case in point, last week $132 BILLION was suddenly parked in bank savings accounts. That’s $132 billion (nearly 1% of US GDP) leaving the US economy and plunking into savings accounts

To put this number into perspective, this is more than the amount of money that fled to the safety of savings accounts when LEHMAN FAILED.

In simple terms capital is going into hibernation. Without the investment of capital, the US economy will continue to weaken. Between this, the fiscal cliff, the earnings disaster for corporations and more, the market is set for a truly horrendous 2013.

Economic bell-weathers such as Caterpillar (green), Fed EX (red) and McDonalds (purple) are already discounting this in a big way.

However, we’re not quite there yet. Unless things come unhinged sooner due to some event in Europe, it will probably be the end of December (when the fiscal cliff will be hitting) before things really get messy in the markets.

I want to alert you to all of this in advance because I believe 2013 will be the year in which the BIG Collapse happens. As I’ve explained in earlier articles, it almost hit last summer. It was only through the ECB and Fed promising to buy everything that the system held together. But now even the Fed has stated outright that it cannot contain the impact of the fiscal cliff.

Please prepare well in advance. What’s coming next year will be worse than 2008. There is literally nothing positive I have to say about what I see. At the very least, we’ll face an economic slowdown on par with that of 2008 accompanied by a market crash. And this will happen at a time in which Central Banks will be totally out of ammo.

We get additional signs that those in charge are out of ideas in Europe. There the latest proposal for Greece is a debt buyback plan through which Greece would use €10 billion to buy some €30 billion worth of debt. Greece doesn’t have €10 billion lying around so it would likely tap a bailout fund (the EFSF or ESM) to do this. This means Greece would need (you guessed it) another bailout in order to buy its own debt.

It would also need to convince Greek bondholders to sell their stakes, which was a huge issue during the Second Greek bailout earlier this year.

So once again, we have yet another non-solution (the goal of this plan is to help Greece get its Debt to GDP to 120% by 2020) which will require a great deal of arm-twisting and political machinations to accomplish almost nothing.

The same idiocy is playing out in Spain. The latest plan there is for the country to cut the balance sheets of three nationalized banks by 50% sometime in the next five years. How will they do this? By dumping their toxic property assets into a “bad bank.”

The idea here is that somehow someone will want to buy this stuff. Spain already had to postpone the launch of the bad bank by a month because no one wanted to participate in it (despite the mainstream media claiming that the idea was popular which is untrue).

So, here we have Spain proposing that it can somehow unload a ton of garbage debts onto “someone” even though there is no “someone” to buy them. And the whole point of this exercise is to meet conditions so that Spain would qualify for another €40 billion in aid.

€40 billion in aid.

On an annualized basis, Spain has experienced portfolio and investment outflows of more than €700 billion. And the latest plan to address this situation (as well as the implosion of the Spanish banking system) is to dump toxic bank assets into a bad bank to free up €40 billion in aid.

Oh, and Spain needs to issue over €200 billion in debt next year.

Again, a non-solution which doesn’t fix anything.

As I mentioned before, without a doubt 2013 will be a disastrous year for the global economy and for the financial markets. Things could get ugly before then due to any number of issues that are boiling just beneath the surface… but barring any sudden developments, most of the key players will try to hold things together into year end.

At that point, there’s really not anything to look forward to (compared to this year when many pinned their hopes on the US elections or on more intervention from the Central banks). And that’s when things will get really ugly.

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US debt bubble bursting, then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 76 out of our last 90 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the US debt implosion picks up steam in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 76 out of 90 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

 

Today the US Federal Reserve announced that it would be implementing QE 4: a policy of spending $45 billion per month buying Treasuries on the long-end of the yield curve until employment falls to 6.5%.

So between this and QE 3 which was announced just two and a half months ago, the Fed will be printing $85 billion per month.

First and foremost there is no evidence that QE creates jobs. Consider the case of the UK.

Since the crisis began, the Bank of England (BoE) has announced QE efforts equal to $598 billion in the UK. The UK’s GDP is $2.43 trillion. So the BoE has engaged in QE equal to over 20% of the UK’s GDP.

Despite this massive amount of QE, 2.53 million people are out of work today in the UK, up from 2 million at the start of the Great Crisis in 2007. Similarly, the UK’s GDP remains well below its peak.

In simple terms, QE fails to generate economic growth or jobs. End of story. The BoE spent 20% of the UK’s GDP on QE (a truly staggering amount) and more people are unemployed now than when it started. And GDP has yet to get even close to its pre-Crisis highs.

The same can be said of Japan which has implemented QE over 20% of its GDP. There, as has been the case in the UK, there is no evidence that QE has created jobs or even economic growth.

So the Fed is flat out lying in its claim that QE will create jobs. There is no evidence that this QE does this. So the Fed is announcing this new program for a different reason.

Regardless of the reasons, Ben’s got a major problem on his hands. That problem is the fact that Treasuries are on the verge of breaking their upward sloping trendline. If Treasuries begin to collapse at a time when the Fed is buying up over 70% of debt issuance, then the Great Treasury Bubble is finally about the burst:

If we take out this line when the Fed is buying as much Treasuries as it is, then it’s game set and match for the Fed. Take out this line and you’re on your way to ending the 30+ year bull market in bonds.

Which means:

1)   Interest rates will be soaring

2)   The $700 trillion derivatives market most of which is based on interest rates will suffer some systemic events

3)   The Fed’s interventions are finished

We’ll have to wait to see how this plays out, but we’re getting dangerously close to a US debt crisis that will make 2008 look small in comparison.

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US debt bubble bursting, then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 76 out of our last 90 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the US debt implosion picks up steam in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 76 out of 90 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

Ever since the EU Crisis began in earnest in January 2010, EU leaders have maintained the following strategy:

1)   Engage in endless meetings/ discussions, none of which resolve anything.

2)   Announce that the situation is resolved.

3)   Wait for the world to realize nothing has been fixed.

4)   Repeat.

The prime example is Greece. There have been no less than 30 “Greece is saved” press releases/ announcements, accompanied by market rallies only to discover that Greece is not saved and in fact is worsening by the week.

We’ve now had two formal Greece bailouts. We’re currently working on a third/ debt buyback program, the stated goal of which is to get Greece’s Debt to GDP ratio to 120% by 2020.

Again, the goal for the current proposal is to get Greece to the point at which it will still be totally broke in eight years. It’s amazing no one laughs out loud at EU meetings.

Actually they did… the below came from a recent Q&A session with Jean-Claude Juncker, current Prime Minister of Luxembourg.

Question: Is the goal still to get Greece’s debt to 120%?

Juncker: The fact is that the target of 120% will remain, but the target as far as the time frame is concerned has been postponed to 2022.

[Laughter in the room]

Juncker: That was not a joke!

            Source: ZeroHedge

The reality is that no politician wants to implement actual solutions (total default, wipe out of all bad debt, and massive economic structural changes) because all of them are 100% politically toxic.

Meanwhile Greek unemployment worsens while its GDP continues to collapse. Indeed, from peak to today, Greek GDP has fallen nearly 20%. This collapse is equal to that of Argentina in 2001, when it had a full-scale systemic implosion.

Again, this is the country that political leaders and financial luminaries claim has been “saved” dozens of times.

US leaders see that this strategy has worked for EU leaders (those who went along with it are still in office, those who didn’t have been kicked out). And so they are now adopting a similar strategy with discussions on the fiscal cliff.

President Obama is out campaigning the notion that we need to increase taxes on those who earn more than $250K per year.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s current proposal would raise an additional $83 billion in taxes per year.

The US budget deficit is over $1 trillion. It has been ever since Obama took office. So his proposal would not even cover one month of deficit spending. And this is supposed to represent a “solution.”

Mathematically, the only way to cut the Federal deficit would be to either raise an additional $1.2 trillion in taxes (politically impossible, no one would go for it) or cut Federal Spending by $1.2 trillion (again, politically impossible).

Indeed, the US’s fiscal problems are so great that tackling them would require truly impossible measures. For instance, consider that the top 1% of income earners (the very folks Obama is targeting) paid $318 billion in income taxes according to the most recent data.

So, even if we doubled their taxes, we’d only raise enough money to cover about six months of the US deficit.

So, in order for us to close the deficit in the US, we’d have to both double the taxes paid by the top 1% AND cut spending by $600 BILLION. Now imagine trying to get the American people to go along with this.

My point with all of this is that the US budget talks are really just an American version of the various EU crisis talks we’ve seen over the last two years: a lot of discussion over phony “solutions” all of which fail to address the try size of the problem.

As a result, we’re likely going to experience something very similar to the debt ceiling talks in July-August 2011: a lot of talks which fail to go anywhere followed by a market collapse.

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US going over the fiscal cliff… then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 74 out of our last 88 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the we go over the fiscal cliff in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 74 out of 88 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

Last week I outlined the reason why we are very likely going over the fiscal cliff: there are little if any political incentives for the GOP or Dems to fix the problem; the best option politically is to let us go over the cliff and then offer targeted tax breaks in late 2013 early 2014 as part of their 2014 Congressional campaigns.

With that in mind, corporations are now rushing out special dividends to shareholders in an effort to beat the coming tax hikes on dividends.

Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 5, 349 companies moved up their dividends or paid special dividends, according to Silverblatt. That is higher than the 314 irregular dividends paid last year in all of November and December. Silverblatt expects the pace of early dividends to pick up if Washington keeps dawdling.

Many companies go beyond moving up ordinary payments. They are declaring special, one-time dividends to take advantage of the lower tax rate while it lasts.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/dec/10/us-wall-street-week-ahead/

This is a serious red flag for the US economy’s future: all of the capital being paid out to shareholders will not be going into corporate expansions or hiring. This, when taken along with the recent rush of capital into savings accounts ($150 billion was shifted into savings accounts following Obama’s re-election), indicates that big money is either going into hibernation or being paid out to shareholders.

In simple terms: none of these funds will be used to grow the US economy or create jobs. Which means the US economy will be taking an even sharper nose-dive than expected in 2013.

On the other side of the pond, the EU as a whole is in recession. However, recent data coming from Germany indicates things are going to be getting significantly worse.

Month over month, German industrial production fell 2.6% in October. It fell 1.3% the month before. This contraction has resulted in the Bundesbank lowering its 2013 GDP growth projection to just 0.4%.

The entire EU bailout process has been based on the notion that Germany will write the check to fund various bailouts/ interventions. If Germany enters a recession then politically it will be much harder for German politicians to push for additional aid to the rest of the EU.

Remember, Chancellor Angela Merkel is up for re-election next year. So she will be turning her attention increasingly towards her campaign. And running on the idea of more bailouts when the German economy is contracting is political suicide.

Thus, we have something of a capital freeze occurring in the US at the very same time that the primary pillar of EU stability (Germany) will very likely begin to pull back from providing additional aid (case in point, Greece is still waiting on receiving proposed aid from six months ago).

All of these items point towards what will be a particularly ugly 2013.

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US going over the fiscal cliff… then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 74 out of our last 88 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the we go over the fiscal cliff in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 74 out of 88 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

The market continues to track the same pattern it performed going into the failed debt ceiling talks of July 2011. As you’ll recall, then as is the case now, US politicians failed to reach a credible solution to the US’s debt problems. What followed was a credit rating downgrade and a market collapse:

Here’s the S&P 500’s recent action:

Here’s the S&P 500’s action going into the failed debt ceiling talks of 2011:

Here’s what followed:

Be forewarned. As noted earlier this week there are no political incentives for the GOP or Democrats to propose a real solution to the fiscal cliff. So it is highly likely we will be going over the cliff.

Another item holding up the market is hype and hope of more QE from the Federal Reserve at its December 10-11 meeting. I have to admit, I find this proposal completely baffling. Macroeconomics 101 dictates that it takes a full six months or more before a change in monetary policy by the Fed will be fully digested by the system. The Fed just announced a new program three months ago. So the academics at the Fed aren’t even drinking their own Kool-Aid anymore.

Since the Great Crisis began, the Fed has on average funneled some $40+billion per month into the system (even when no official program was in place the Fed was still juicing the markets this much, typically during options expiration weeks).

QE 3, which may as well be called QE infinite because it is open ended (will never end), combined with the Fed’s Operation Twist 2 program has the Fed currently putting $85 billion into the system every month. On an annualized basis this is over $1 trillion. This means that at this pace, by the end of 2013 the Fed’s balance sheet would be $4 trillion. The entire US banking system is $13 trillion.

And somehow pumping more money would work?

At some point some group in the political class needs to actually ask the Fed the following: “You’ve had four years of implementing any policy you like without political consequence. Four years. During that time you’ve spent well over $2 trillion.  And the Crisis has not been fixed. Why on earth should we give you more time or money?”

I believe this will happen in 2013. As the US economy takes a nose-dive and the Sovereign Crisis moves into hyperdrive, the triumvirate of the financial system (the Fed, Wall Street, and Washington DC) will begin to increasingly point fingers at one another to divert blame for the fact that we’ve spent trillions of Dollars and things haven’t really improved.

This process has already begun with the Fed firing the first shots: it has sued Goldman Sachs while Bernanke has told Congress that it’s their fault the US is so indebted and facing fiscal ruin.

This process will accelerate next year. At that point I expect Congress and Wall Street to enter the fray more aggressively targeting the Fed. And that’s when things could get very ugly.

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US going over the fiscal cliff… then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 74 out of our last 88 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

And we’re not getting complacent by any means. In fact, I’m about to alert Private Wealth Advisory subscribers to several trades that will all produce HUGE profits when the we go over the fiscal cliff in the coming weeks.

You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 74 out of 88 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

 

The primary market forces remain in play.

The markets are holding up on hopes of additional stimulus from the Central Banks. Some bulls are even calling for QE 4 at the upcoming Fed meeting, despite the fact that QE 3 was launched a mere three months ago and was open-ended (meaning it would not end until the Fed deemed it time).

This is extraordinary and proves point blank my concern that we’d reach the point at which additional monetary stimulus would no longer having a significant impact. This was always the End Game for the Fed’s response to the financial crisis: that by intervening as much as it did, eventually we’d get to the point that even extreme interventions had little if any impact.

Given that the Fed has been the primary driver of stocks for the last four years (even the NY Fed admits the S&P 500 would be at 600 without Fed intervention) this is a major red flag that we could be due for a sharp correction to the downside.

Against this backdrop of hopes for more intervention, the ugly fundamentals continue to worsen. As I indicated in yesterday’s missive, there is little if any political incentive for the Democrats or the GOP to address the fiscal cliff. Consequently we are very likely going over it.

In Europe, the great banking crisis continues to worsen. The EU has definitively lost one of its primary AAA supports when France was downgraded. Moreover, the mega-bailout fund, the ESM, has been downgraded as well.

The implications of this are mainly pertinent to the banks. Sovereign bonds are the primary collateral backstopping hundreds of trillions of Euros worth of trades at the large EU banks. With France no longer AAA and the ESM losing a rating as well, a scramble for AAA collateral is underway. This will be beneficial to Treasuries, bunds, and other high-grade bonds (high grade relative to non-AAA rated collateral). It will be bad for low-grade collateral bonds (Spanish, Greek, Italian, etc.).

Thus, stocks continue to seesaw. The fundamentals want to pull stocks down while the hope of more intervention from Central Banks pushes stocks up.

The one thing that trumps this is the fiscal cliff. Since there is little likelihood of a solution, we are likely to see heavy selling from institutions in the coming weeks (see Apple’s recent action) as they close out positions before the tax increases.

This will put selling pressure on the markets. Combined with the ongoing EU debacle, this makes for a potentially very ugly sell-off into year-end.

After that, we’ll see… but 2013 is shaping up to be an absolutely hellacious year. We have:

1. The EU’s banking crisis.
2. A global economic contraction.
3. The implosion in corporate profits.
4. Heightened inflation from the Fed’s money printing.

If you’re an individual investor (not a day trader) looking for the means of profiting from all of this… particularly the US going over the fiscal cliff… then you NEED to check out  my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Indeed, 74 out of our last 88 trades have made money for Private Wealth Advisory subscribers. That’s an incredible 84% success rate on our investments.

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You’ll find out what they are the minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory. You’ll also gain immediate access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports outlining how to prepare these areas of your life for the coming Great Crisis.

These reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory  now… start profiting from the market’s gyrations (again we’ve made money on 74 out of 88 trades in the last 18 months)… and gain access to all my Special Reports…

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Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

 

I’m going to lay out everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff negotiations. After reading this, you can ignore all of the media’s coverage of this topic as well as various politicians’ announcements pertaining to this subject.

All you need to know consists of just one sentence.

Politicians are in charge of this issue.

These are the same folks who haven’t even produced a budget in four years. The same folks who have run $1+ trillion deficits for four years. The same folks who rarely if ever leave office as a result of their fiscal mistakes.

In simple terms, none of the people in this group will likely suffer any consequences if we do go over the cliff. Indeed, as far as options go, their best option would be for us to go over the cliff and then implement some targeted tax breaks in late 2013 early 2014 as they go into the 2014 Congressional elections.

Let’s take the side of the Democrats.

Obama was largely re-elected based a solid turnout for the Democrats and a lack of voter turnout for the GOP. If you want to argue about voter fraud the fact remains that if there was widespread voter fraud the GOP let the Democrats get away with it. So for simplicity’s sake, Obama won based on a strong turnout while the GOP lost based on a weak turnout (Romney took less votes that McCain!).

With this in mind, Obama and the Democrats can easily argue that they have the mandate of the people for their policies. If the GOP proves unwilling to go along with their proposals, Obama and the Dems can simply take us over the cliff, increase taxes on the wealthy (which would appease their voting base) and blame the failure to reach a solution as well as the ensuing economic mess on the Republicans (much as the Dems and Obama have blamed the terrible economy on Bush).

So, truth be told, Obama and the Dems really have very little to gain politically from solving the fiscal cliff.

On the GOP side, there is little incentive to solve the fiscal cliff either. If they kowtow to Obama’s wishes, they’ll infuriate their base. And there’s no chance that they’ll convince Obama and the Dems to meet their demands of cutting spending (they sure haven’t done anything of this nature in the last two years). So the best thing they can do is simply refuse to address the problem, go off the cliff and then maintain a “we fought the best we could against insurmountable odds” stance.

So… neither the Dems nor the GOP are incentivized to solve the fiscal cliff.  Both parties are best off from a political standpoint having us go over the cliff and then fighting for some kind of tax breaks/ tax relief for their bases sometime in late 2013/ early 2014.

With that in mind, we’re very likely going over the cliff in a month’s time. The whole situation has echoes of the failed debt ceiling talks and subsequent market collapse of 2011.

Indeed, the market’s action today looks virtually identical to its moves going into the Debt Ceiling talks in July/August 2011.

Here’s the S&P 500’s recent action:

Here’s what the market looked like going into the Debt Ceiling talks of 2011.

Here’s what followed:

I highly suggest preparing in advance.

If you’re an active investor looking for investment ideas on how to play this, I’ve recently unveiled a number of special investments to Private Wealth Advisory subscribers designed to produce outsized gains when we go over the fiscal cliff.

These are the exact same investments we used to lock in gains of 14%. 16%, even 18% in a matter of days during the Debt Ceiling debacle in 2011.I believe we’ll see even larger gains this time around.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory (a bi-weekly investment advisory that focuses on the global economy and outlines which investments will do best in various environments)… and learn more about my fiscal cliff trades…

Click Here Now!

Best Regards

Graham Summers

 

During the its first term, the Obama Administration thus far has proven itself in favor of increased Government control and Central Planning. That is, the general trend throughout the last four years has been towards greater nationalization of industries (first finance, then automakers and now healthcare and insurance), as well as greater reliance on our Central Bank to maintain our finances.

Now that Obama’s won a second term, there is no indication that this trend will end. We must recall that regardless of what is said, it was Obama who re-appointed Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman. And it was under Obama’s watch that QE lite, QE 2, Operation Twist 2, and now QE 3 were launched. It was also under Obama’s watch that the US reached a Debt to GDP ratio of over 100%.

Indeed, at no point in history has the US had this much debt during peacetime. And the fact that we’re overspending by this amount at the exact time that other countries are showing signs of shunning US Treasuries is a formula for disaster.

With that in mind, it is highly likely that the US will enter at the very minimum a debt crisis and quite possibly a currency crisis during Obama’s second term. In preparation for this, investors will want to focus on the following investment themes:

1)   Inflation hedges based on continued spending and money printing.

2)   Gold and Silver as an alternate currency based on the US Dollar falling further.

3)   Productive assets (foreign real estate, apartments in specific markets, businesses, essentially anything that produces cash).

4)   Preparing for an eventual US Debt Default.

Regarding #1, there are several areas to consider. They are:

1)   Precious metals (bullion)

2)   Natural resources, particularly timber

3)   (last and least) Blue chip businesses or companies with pricing power that can maintain profits during periods of inflation

As far as precious metals go, you need to:

1)   Own Bullion

2)   Store it yourself (not in a bank)

I do not recommend owning a paper gold-based ETF because frankly the custodial risk is high (that is, there’s no telling if the Gold is even there or who would get it if the ETF is liquidated).

In comparison, physical bullion, stored outside a bank, is literally money in hand. You know where it is and you can find out what it’s worth. Compare that to a Gold ETF in which you’re hoping that the bank actually has the Gold and that it could actually send it to you if you requested (fat chance).

In terms of actual gold coins, there are three coins that comprise the bulk of the bullion market. They are Kruggerands, Canadian Maple Leafs, and American Gold Eagles. I’ve been told to avoid Maple Leafs by both a trader and a bullion dealer as they can easily be scratched which damages the gold and reduces the coin’s value.

In terms of silver, the easiest way to get it is via pre-1965 coins (often termed “junk” silver). You can also get silver one-ounce rounds (coin-like medallions) and 10-ounce bars. Or you can buy Silver Eagles coins.

I cannot tell you which dealer to go with, but look for someone who’s been dealing for years (not a newbie).  You should always ask for references from the dealer (former clients you can talk to about their purchases/ experiences).

Some warning signs to avoid are dealers who try to store your bullion. Never, I repeat, never store your bullion with someone else. Always store it yourself. Also, be sure to talk to the dealer for some time and ask him or her numerous questions about the industry, the coins, etc. (feel free to test him or her on the information I’ve provided you with e.g. the three most liquid Gold coins, etc.). If they can answer everything you ask in a knowledgeable fashion, their references check out, and you verify everything they say with a 3^rd party, you should be OK.

In terms of other natural resources, the best assets to own are the actual resources themselves. However, not everyone can go out and buy timberland or a lead mine. So this means looking at various commodity and natural resource ETFs.

As far as stocks go, I suggest looking at large cap blue chips stocks that are able to pass on rising costs to consumers (at least in part). I’m talking about well-defined brands that offer goods and services which consumers are willing to pay more for as prices rise due to increase operational costs and commodity prices.

This inevitably leads to defensive non-cyclical industries: tobacco, beverages, medicine, energy, etc. In the large-cap space, the following are worth consideration.

Company	Symbol	Industry	Price to Cash Flow	Dividend Yield
Kraft Foods	KRFT	Food	10	N/A
Nestle	NSRGY	Food	15	2.6%
Coke	KO	Beverage	17	2.6%
McDonalds	MCD	Fast Food	13	2.9%
Exxon Mobil	XOM	Oil	8	2.2%
Clorox	CLX	Cleaning Supplies	16	3.2%
Colgate-Palmolive	CL	Oral Health	18	2.2%

Smaller companies I would consider if you need to remain long in the stock market are:

Company	Symbol	Industry	Price to Cash Flow	Dividend Yield
Smith and Wesson	SWHC	Guns	10	N/A
Sturm, Ruger & Company	RGR	Guns	14	2.3%
WD 40	WDFC	Lubricant	22	2.2%
Hormel	HRL	Spam	17	1.9%

I want to stress that even though these companies all have considerable pricing power, during an inflationary collapse all companies will be hit as costs rise. This is why stocks are listed as the last inflation hedges from our list at the beginning of this issue: they do not offer the same protection against inflation as bullion, and natural resources assets/ companies do.

I am not recommending any of these companies here. But if you need to have exposure to stocks to the long side, these are some of the companies I would consider. As always be sure to do your own diligence before investing in anything

Now more than ever, investors need to get access to high quality guidance and insights. There sheer magnitude of the issues the global financial system is facing is enormous!

So if you’re looking for someone to help you navigate the markets and protect your wealth from Obama’s various fiscal nightmare policies, I can help with my bi-weekly investment service, Private Wealth Advisory.

To whit, my clients made money in 2008. And during the Euro Crisis, we outperformed the S&P 500 by over 12%.

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To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory…

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Best Regards,

Graham Summers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The following is an excerpt from a recent issue of Private Wealth Advisory. In it I reveal that Germany has in fact already implemented a working group to assess the cost of Greece leaving the EU. Moreover, numerous multinationals are now preparing for this outcome as well.

If you’ve looking for investment ideas on how to profit from this collapse (the gains will be even bigger than those produced during the 2008 Crash) Private Wealth Advisory can show you how. We already have a handful of EU Crisis Trades open, all of which are moving up fast.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the coming crisis… Click Here Now!!!

I believe we are at a major turning point for the financial system.

For nearly four years, the entire financial system has been held together (just barely) by extraordinary interventions on the part of the world’s Central Banks.

These interventions have resulted in capital fleeing the markets (hence the low trading volume), moral hazard becoming the norm and a marketplace in which hope of more intervention has a greater impact than the actual intervention itself.

The problem with this, from day one, was that eventually we would reach the point at which additional intervention no longer had any effect. This would come about due to:

1)   Investors having grown so accustomed to Central Bank intervention that they no longer respond to additional measures.

2)   Central Banks facing a problem so massive that it is beyond their power to stop it.

Few people understand just how close we came to #2 early this past summer. Indeed, there was a brief period there, where we were literally on the verge of systemic collapse courtesy of the Spanish banking system imploding.

It all started with the collapse of Spain’s Bankia in May 2012. Bankia was formed by merging seven smaller bankrupt banks. In early May 2012 Bankia had to be nationalized. This was a potential Lehman moment that kicked off a massive bank run and resulted in the ECB putting the entire Spanish banking system on life support to the tune of over €300 billion Euros (the entire equity base for every bank in Spain is only a little over €100 billion).

At that time, the Spanish Ibex (stock market) broke out of its 20-year bull market and nearly took down all of Europe with it.

The one thing that held the system together was ECB President Mario Draghi promising that he may provide unlimited buying (which would give Spanish banks a chance to dump their assets in exchange for cash to fund liquidity needs… they were in that bad a shape). That pulled the system back from the edge and things rallied.

The ECB did indeed announce an unlimited bond buying program on September 6 2012. The Federal Reserve then announced an open-ended QE program a week later on September 13 2012.

And that’s when everything changed.

Instead of blasting off into the stratosphere, stocks fell soon after this announcement. That was the first sign that the game has changed: after every other announced program in the past four years, the markets fell briefly but then rallied hard and didn’t look back.

Not this time.

And so we experienced the first item I listed above (investors grew accustomed to Central Bank intervention that they no longer respond to additional measures).

We now are also experiencing #2 (Central Banks are facing a problem so massive that it is beyond the power to stop it). That problem is the fiscal cliff which Bernanke himself has admitted that the Fed cannot contain. “I don’t think the Fed has the tools to offset [the fiscal cliff].”

This is Ben Bernanke, arguably one of the most powerful if not the most powerful man in the Western financial system, admitting that the Fed doesn’t have the tools to address an issue. This has never happened before. For every single issue that has arisen going back to 2006, Bernanke claimed he had things under control.

Not this time.

So, we have investors now so accustomed to Central Bank intervention that even the promise of unending intervention doesn’t appease them… at the exact same time that an issue so great (the fiscal cliff) appears that even the Fed has admitted it cannot manage it.

No one is picking up on this because everyone is focusing on Black Friday and the Santa rally which I mentioned in last issue. But things have changed. And they have changed in a big way.

And no one has a clue how to deal with what’s coming.

If you’re an active investor looking for investment ideas on how to play this, I’ve recently unveiled a number of back-door plays designed to produce outsized gains from Europe’s next leg down. They’re available to all subscribers of my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory (a bi-weekly investment advisory that focuses on the global economy and outlines which investments will do best in various environments)…

Click Here Now!

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Spain’s financial system is at truly apocalyptic levels.

If you’ve been reading me for some time, you know that Spain has already experienced a bank run equal to 18% of total deposits this year alone (another story the mainstream media is avoiding). However, what you likely don’t know is that an on annualized basis, Spain has experienced portfolio and investment outflows GREATER THAN 50% OF ITS GDP.

To give this number some context, Indonesia only saw outflows equal to 23% of its GDP during the Asian Financial Crisis. Spain is experiencing more than DOUBLE this.

I’ve long averred that Spain will be the straw to break the EU’s back. By the look of things this is not far off. The country’s regional bailout fund has only less than €1 billion in funding left. As the below chart shows, this will barely make a dent in the regions’ debt problems:

Indeed, things are far far worse than is commonly know. Valencia for instance owes its pharmacies over €500 million. In some areas there is no longer insulin.

In the region of Andalusia some government workers haven’t been paid in eight months and are working for free while begging for food.

And Catalonia is pushing to secede from Spain entirely. Indeed, its pro-secessionist leader, President Artur Mas, just won the most recent election. And over 1.5 million of Catalonia’s 7.5 million inhabitants turned out for an independence rally in September.

Again, Spain as a country is finished. Things are so bad that British Airways (many wealthy Brits vacation in Spain) is putting a contingency plan for SPAIN to leave the Euro.

Worst of all, it is clear EU and Spanish leaders have no clue how to deal with any of this. Their latest plan is for the country to cut the balance sheets of three nationalized banks by 50% sometime in the next five years. How will they do this? By dumping their toxic property assets into a “bad bank.”

The idea here is that somehow someone will want to buy this stuff. Spain already had to postpone the launch of the bad bank by a month because no one wanted to participate in it (despite the mainstream media claiming that the idea was popular which is untrue).

So, here we have Spain proposing that it can somehow unload a ton of garbage debts onto “someone” even though there is no “someone” to buy them. And the whole point of this exercise is to meet conditions so that Spain would qualify for another €40 billion in aid.

€40 billion in aid... when  Spain has experienced portfolio and investment outflows of more than €700 billion.

Indeed, things are so bad that the ECB has put the entire Spanish banking system on life support to the tune of over €400 billion Euros. To put this number into perspective, the entire equity base for every bank in Spain is only a little over €100 billion.

Oh, and the country needs to issue over €200 billion in debt next year.

If you’re an active investor looking for investment ideas on how to play this, I’ve recently unveiled a number of back-door plays designed to produce outsized gains from Europe’s next leg down. They’re available to all subscribers of my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory (a bi-weekly investment advisory that focuses on the global economy and outlines which investments will do best in various environments)…

Click Here Now!

Best Regards

Graham Summers

 

 

Meanwhile, as Greece continues to distract the markets, France, the other primary prop for the EU besides Germany, is now experiencing an economic contraction on par with that of 2008-2009.

Indeed, France’s September’s auto sales numbers were worse than those of September 2008 (the month Lehman collapsed). The country’s PMI reading is back to April 2009 levels. Even the French Central Bank, which would hold off as long as possible before unveiling bad news, has announced the country will re-enter recession before year-end.

Over the past few weeks, an extraordinary cry of alarm has risen from chief executives who warn that the French economy has gone dangerously off track. In an interview to be published on Nov. 15 in the magazine l’Express, Chief Executive Officer Henri de Castries of financial-services group Axa (CS:FP) warns that France is rapidly losing ground, not only against Germany but against nearly all its European neighbors. “There’s a strong risk that in 2013 and 2014, we will fall behind economies such as Spain, Italy, and Britain,” de Castries says.

On Nov. 5, veteran corporate chieftain Louis Gallois released a government-commissioned report calling for “shock treatment” to restore French competitiveness. And on Oct. 28, a group of 98 CEOs published an open letter to Hollande that said public-sector spending, which at 56 percent of gross domestic product is the highest in Europe, “is no longer supportable.” The letter was signed by the CEOs of virtually every major French company. (The few exceptions included utility Electricité de France, which is government controlled.)

            http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-14/french-ceos-help

We get additional confirmation that France is in big trouble from its partner in propping up the EU, Germany.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has asked a panel of advisers to look into reform proposals for France, concerned that weakness in the euro zone’s second largest economy could come back to haunt Germany and the broader currency bloc.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters this week that Schaeuble asked the council of economic advisers to the German government, known as the “wise men”, to consider drafting a report on what France should do…

“The biggest problem at the moment in the euro zone is no longer Greece, Spain or Italy, instead it is France, because it has not undertaken anything in order to truly re-establish its competitiveness, and is even heading in the opposite direction,” Feld said on Wednesday.

“France needs labour market reforms, it is the country among euro zone countries that works the least each year, so how do you expect any results from that? Things won’t work unless more efforts are made.”

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/09/uk-germany-france-economy-idUKBRE8A80MN20121109

France will be a bigger problem than Spain or Italy for the EU?!?! That is one heck of an admission from a German official. If France deteriorates then it’s game over for the EU.  The current bailouts mean Germany is already on the hook for an amount equal to 30% of its GDP. If France tanks the amount will balloon astronomically. At that point it’s game over.

If you’re an active investor looking for investment ideas on how to play this, I’ve recently unveiled a number of back-door plays designed to produce outsized gains from Europe’s next leg down. They’re available to all subscribers of my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory (a bi-weekly investment advisory that focuses on the global economy and outlines which investments will do best in various environments)…

Click Here Now!

Best Regards

Graham Summers

 

 

The following is an excerpt from a recent issue of Private Wealth Advisory. In it I reveal that Germany has in fact already implemented a working group to assess the cost of Greece leaving the EU. Moreover, numerous multinationals are now preparing for this outcome as well.

If you’ve looking for investment ideas on how to profit from this collapse (the gains will be even bigger than those produced during the 2008 Crash) Private Wealth Advisory can show you how. We already have a handful of EU Crisis Trades open, all of which are moving up fast.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the coming crisis… Click Here Now!!!

The US Presidential election is over and the world has woken up from the political rhetoric and propaganda to realize that the problems it faced before November 6 are still in place. Indeed, one could very well make the case that the US Presidential Election distracted most people from the fact that things were in fact getting markedly worse in the financial system.

Let’s start with Europe.

Greece has managed to get through its latest budgetary crisis (a €5 billion bond redemption due the Friday before last) by the skin of its teeth. In this case, the ECB permitted Greece to redeem asset-backed-securities (read: total and complete garbage) in exchange for funds.

This deal occurred commensurate with the usual promised budgetary cuts on the part of Greek politicians (none of which will be met as usual) along with the Greek populace rioting in Athens. This has been and will remain the deal in Greece right up until someone cuts off funding. At that point Greece will leave the EU, default or both.

Timing this will be quite difficult, but Germany has already given us clues that it is preparing for a Greek exit.

         Debt crisis: German finance ministry examines cost of Greek exit

A special working group, led by deputy finance minister Thomas Steffen, is working on scenarios in the case that Greece is forced to withdraw from the 17-nation bloc, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Friday.

“Colleagues are making calculations about the financial consequences [of an exit] and are considering how a domino effect on other euro member states might be prevented,” it quoted a finance industry source as saying.

The ten-member working group, which is made up of officials from various finance ministry departments, wanted to be fully prepared for a possible “negative scenario,” the source added.

Last week, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said it would be “stupid” not to make contingency plans in case Europe’s rescue efforts failed, adding that the debt crisis must not become a “bottomless pit” for Germany.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9496397/Debt-crisis-German-finance-ministry-examines-cost-of-Greek-exit.html

This news story received almost no coverage from the mainstream media, despite its import.

Firstly, this is the first time Germany has officially moved to prepare for a Grexit. Germany has certainly threatened to kick Greece out, but it has never actually taken formal, official steps to prepare for this.

Since August 24 2012, it has.

There is good reason for this and we get clues from German Finance Minister Schauble’s “bottomless pit” comments in the above article.

Schauble made this comment once before back in February 2012 before the second Greek bailout:

Schaeuble pointed out that German opinion polls show a majority of Germans are willing to help Greece.

“But it’s important to say that it cannot be a bottomless pit. That’s why the Greeks have to finally close that pit. And then we can put something in there. At least people are now starting to realize it won’t work with a bottomless pit.”

Schaeuble said Greece would be supported “one way or another” but warned the country needed to do its homework on improving its competitiveness and hinted it might have to leave the euro zone to do that.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/12/us-germany-greece-idUSTRE81B05N20120212

Note that in reference to Greece being a bottomless pit, Schauble was already hinting that Greece may leave the EU even before the second Greek bailout occurred.

The fact that Schauble has now formed a working group to measure the impact of a Grexit while again referring to Greece as a “bottomless pit,” shows clearly that he is about done with propping up Greece… and for good reason.

Currently Germany is on the hook for €751 billion in EU backstops. The German economy is only €2.5 trillion. Put another way, Germany is on the hook for an amount equal to of its GDP.

Anyone who believes Germany will actually pony up this cash is dreaming. The single largest transfer payment in history was the German Marshall Plan, which was $13 billion at a time when US GDP was just $200 billion.

This constituted a transfer of slightly over 6% of US GDP.

That is the single largest transfer in history… and Germany is going to bailout Europe by an amount equal to over FIVE TIMES this?

This is simply not going to happen. Germany will play ball with the EU by signaling its efforts to keep things together, but the German’s have in fact been implementing a contingency plan for nearly one year now.

I broke this story in February 2012. I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else. I wrote:

…Germany has put into place a contingency plan that would permit it to leave the Euro if it had to.

As a brief recap, this contingency plan consists of:

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

2)    The revival of its Special Financial Market Stabilization Funds, or SoFFin for short, to which Germany has allocated 480€ billion Euros to in the case of a banking crisis (the fund will also permit German banks to dump their euro-zone government bonds if needed).

This occurred back in February. And Germany now has a formal working group assessing the cost of a Grexit? The EU is on borrowed time. I mentioned earlier this year that German tourism companies have put contingency plans for the return to the Drachma in the contracts for their Greek subsidiaries. However, now even large US-based multinationals are implementing contingency plans for a Grexit.

The list includes JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Visa, PricewaterhoursCoopers, Boston Consulting Group, Juniper Networks, and others.

Buckle up, things are about to get ugly.

This is why I’ve been warning that 2008 was just the warm-up. What is coming will be far far worse.

If you’re looking for someone who can help you navigate and even profit from this mess, I’m your man. My clients made money in 2008. And we’ve been playing the Euro Crisis to perfection, with our portfolio returning 34% between July 31 2011 and July 31 2012 (compared to a 2% return for the S&P 500).

Indeed, during that entire time we saw 73 winning trades and only one single loser. We’re now positioning ourselves for the next round of the Crisis with several targeted investments that will explode higher as the EU crumbles. Already three of our picks are up more than 5% in the last week.

To find out what they are, and take steps to protect your portfolio from the inevitable collapse…

Click Here Now!

Graham Summers

This is going to be a very special holiday season. The reason? It’s the last hurrah before things get very very ugly.

Just off the cuff, you need to know that:

1)   China, the EU, and the US (comprising over 50% of Global GDP) are in recession already. The EU has already announced this. Look for the formal announcements concerning the US and China to hit the airwaves next year.

2)   Some data points concerning these nations indicate that this recession will be on par with that of 2007-2008.

A rising tide raises all ships. Similarly, a sinking tide lowers everything. Bear this in mind as a global economic contraction will have severe implications for everything.

Beyond the global economy, we now face sovereign and banking crises in Europe.

Regarding the sovereign crisis, the whole issue boils down to where the money will come from. The ECB has pumped the system full of liquidity to help sovereigns meet their funding needs, but unless real capital shows up (not piling just more cheaper debt onto of old debt).

The ECB cannot make capital appear. And the various bailout funds (the EFSF and ESM) all need Spain and Italy, neither of which have any money to spare, to contribute 30% of their funding. So they’re not an option either.

This leaves Germany, which couldn’t pick up the tab for the EU even if it tried. If Germany were to agree to fund things as they are (assuming nothing worsens in the EU), it would amount of over 30% of its GDP.

Never in history has one country issued a transfer of that amount to another. The single largest transfer in history (on a GDP basis) was the German Marshall Plan, which represented only slightly over 6% of US GDP (hat tip to Dr Malmgren for pointing this out).

So forget about Germany writing the check. There will be political machinations and games played to maintain the house of cards that is the EU… but when push comes to shove, Germany will leave before it foots the bill for everything.

As for the EU’s banking crisis, again the matter is one of capital. The EU banking system has over $46 trillion assets making it nearly four times larger than that of the US. And while US leverage levels are just 13 to 1 (this is across the board, the large Wall Street banks are far more levered), the EU banking system is leveraged at an astounding 26 to 1.

To put this in context, Lehman Brothers was leveraged at 30 to 1 when it went bust. Moreover, at a leverage level of 26 to 1, even a 4% decrease in asset values wipes out your entire capital base.

So, unless EU banks raise over $1-2 trillion in capital in the near future (they won’t), they’ll go the way of Lehman. This is just basic common sense. It doesn’t matter how many bailout funds or crazy schemes the EU bureaucrats come up with, unless someone ponies up actual capital to fund the banks and bring down their leverage levels, they’ll got bust.

All of this stuff (a global economic contraction, EU sovereign crisis, and EU banking crisis) will be hitting the fan in 2013.

This is why I’ve been warning that 2008 was just the warm-up. What is coming will be far far worse.

If you’re looking for someone who can help you navigate and even profit from this mess, I’m your man. My clients made money in 2008. And we’ve been playing the Euro Crisis to perfection, with our portfolio returning 34% between July 31 2011 and July 31 2012 (compared to a 2% return for the S&P 500).

Indeed, during that entire time we saw 73 winning trades and only one single loser. We’re now positioning ourselves for the next round of the Crisis with several targeted investments that will explode higher as the EU crumbles. Already three of our picks are up more than 5% in the last week.

To find out what they are, and take steps to protect your portfolio from the inevitable collapse…

Click Here Now!

Graham Summers

 

With most of Wall Street on vacation, those few traders manning their desks are taking advantage of the low volume to push the market sharply higher. This, combined with a large move up by the Euro has pulled the entire risk trade up forcing the US Dollar lower.

This move was to be expected on some levels. Since 2002, there has been a rally from just before Thanksgiving until the second week of December. This year is shaping up to replay this move. Stocks and other risk assets were certainly oversold from the preceding week and needed a breather.

However, from a larger perspective there is no shortage of truly horrible developments in the world. EU budget talks failed to accomplish anything. This comes on the heels of failed Greece debt talks from last week (there is another meeting next week on this).

Meanwhile, France has lost its AAA credit rating, Spain’s bad bank plan has been dropped due to lack of interest. And then there is Cyprus Portugal and soon to be Italy’s issues to deal with.

At the end of the day, the whole issue in the EU boils down to whether or not Germany will foot the bill for everything. The fact of the matter is that it won’t. If Germany were to agree to fund things as they are (assuming nothing worsens in the EU), it would amount of over 30% of its GDP.

Never in history has one country issued a transfer of that amount to another. The single largest transfer in history (on a GDP basis) was the German Marshall Plan, which represented only slightly over 6% of US GDP.

So forget about Germany writing the check. There will be political machinations and games played to maintain the house of cards that is the EU… but when push comes to shove, Germany will leave before it foots the bill for everything.

And then of course there is the fiscal cliff in the US: the single largest tax hike increase in US history (on a % of GDP basis). Ignore the media’s spin on this, no one has a clue how to fix the problem, largely because math is not partisan and we’ve been living beyond our means for far too long to fix this with one deal.

The reality is that what we are witness today is the collapse of the welfare states of the developed world. The real solutions (defaults both sovereign and on social spending plans) are completely unsavory from a political perspective, so politicians will do all they can to avoid what actually needs to happen.

In simple terms, the great debt implosion has begun. It will likely take several years to complete, but what’s coming will make the 2008 debacle will seem like a picnic.

This is why I’ve been warning that 2008 was just the warm-up. What is coming will be far far worse.

If you’re looking for someone who can help you navigate and even profit from this mess, I’m your man. My clients made money in 2008. And we’ve been playing the Euro Crisis to perfection, with our portfolio returning 34% between July 31 2011 and July 31 2012 (compared to a 2% return for the S&P 500).

Indeed, during that entire time we saw 73 winning trades and only one single loser. We’re now positioning ourselves for the next round of the Crisis with several targeted investments that will explode higher as the EU crumbles. Already three of our picks are up more than 5% in the last week.

To find out what they are, and take steps to protect your portfolio from the inevitable collapse…

Click Here Now!

Graham Summers

We hope all of you are enjoying a day of family and friends with good food, even if you don’t necessarily celebrate this holiday!

Thank you for reading!

Over the last week I’ve introduced the concept of collateral: the little known basis for the entire financial system. We’ve also addressed why any EU sovereign default would bring about an epic meltdown as EU bonds, particularly those of Spain and Italy are the collateral underlying hundreds of trillions of Euros worth of trades for EU banks.

Again, the most important issue for the financial system is the search for high quality collateral.

Indeed, it is the search for high grade collateral that has caused such periodic spikes in Treasuries, German Bunds, French sovereign bonds, and Japanese bonds (all of these have yielded 0% or even negative yields in the last five years). Big banks are moving away from PIIGS bonds into safer havens.

This is also why the Fed isn’t touching Treasuries with QE3 and why it won’t touch short-term Treasuries with Operation Twist 2 (this program sees the Fed selling short-term Treasuries to buy long-term Treasuries): the Fed wants to keep as much good quality collateral in the system as possible (long-term Treasuries are problematic because institutions know it’s highly likely the US will default within the next 30 years).

However, even this move is problematic because much of the Treasury market is locked up with governments both foreign and domestic.

Total US Sovereign Debt	$16 trillion
Foreign Nation holdings	$5 trillion
Intergovernmental holdings	$4.8 trillion
US Federal Reserve	$1.5 trillion
Remaining	$4.7 trillion

Again, this is why clearinghouses (which oversee the derivatives markets) are now allowing Gold as collateral: they know that eventually sovereign bonds will be worth less or even worthless. And they want access to their clients’ Gold for when this happens.

With that in mind, the countries that will ultimately be considered safe havens when the BIG collapse starts are those with the largest Gold reserves.

Country	Gold Holdings	% of Foreign Reserves in Gold
The US	8,133 tonnes	75.1%
Germany	3,395 tonnes	71.9%
Italy	2,451 tonnes	71.3%
France	2,435 tonnes	71.6%
China	1,054 tonnes	1.6%
Switzerland	1,040 tonnes	14.2%
Russia	918 tonnes	9.2%
Japan	765 tonnes	3.1%
Netherlands	612 tonnes	60.2%
India	557 tonnes	9.8%

I’m not going to get into the issue of whether this Gold exists still (many commentators claim that Central Banks have in fact sold much of this) as I have no way of proving it. The key issue is that the financial elite are now trying to get their hands on Gold as collateral because they realize that sovereign paper based collateral from the EU will soon be worth much less or even worthless.

It is no coincidence that Germany floated the idea of accepting other EU nation’s Gold in exchanged for bailouts back in May 2012 when Europe teetered on the brink of collapse:

Europe’s debtors must pawn their gold for Eurobond Redemption

Southern Europe’s debtor states must pledge their gold reserves and national treasure as collateral under a €2.3 trillion stabilisation plan gaining momentum in Germany.

The German scheme — known as the European Redemption Pact — offers a form of “Eurobonds Lite” that can be squared with the German constitution and breaks the political logjam. It is a highly creative way out of the debt crisis, but is not a soft option for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other states in trouble.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9298180/Europes-debtors-must-pawn-their-gold-for-Eurobond-Redemption.html

It’s also not coincidental that Germany is performing an audit of its Gold holdings today, either.

Bundesbank Says NY Fed to Help Meet Gold Audit Request

The Bundesbank said the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will help it meet auditing requirements related to its gold reserves that were demanded by Germany’s Audit Court.

“We have been in discussions with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York about the Bundesbank’s holdings of gold,” the Bundesbank said yesterday in a letter to the German parliament’s budget committee. “The discussions have been fruitful and the Federal Reserve has expressed a commitment to work with the Bundesbank to explore ways to address the audit observations, consistent with its own security and control processes and logistical constraints.”

The agreement is part of a compromise between the German central bank and the Audit Court, which has called on the Bundesbank to take stock of its gold holdings outside Germany, saying it has never verified their existence.

The Bundesbank distributed the letter to reporters after board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele and the Audit Court’s head Dieter Engels testified to budget committee lawmakers in the lower house of parliament in Berlin.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/new-york-fed-to-help-bundesbank-meet-gold-audit-requirements.html

I realize that the last few essays have been pretty dense. So I’ll summate everything here:

1)   The #1 issue for the financial world is too little quality collateral backing too many trades.

2)   The search for good collateral has lead investors to seek high grade sovereign bonds (Treasuries, German bunds, French bonds, Japanese bonds) as a safe haven between 2008-the present.

3)   The folks who monitor the derivatives market (the large clearing houses) realize that sovereign bonds are not going to be a safe haven for much longer and so are looking at Gold as a new form of collateral for trades (this has NEVER been the case before).

4)   Germany and other nations will be increasingly looking to audit and accumulate their Gold holdings.

Keep all of this in mind at all times going forward. This is the BIG picture for the financial world.

This is why I’ve been warning that 2008 was just the warm-up. What is coming will be far far worse: the collateral crunch that will ensue when Spain or Italy defaults (they have €1.78 trillion and €1.87 trillion in external debt respectively) will be absolutely massive. At a minimum it will be multiples of times larger than what followed Lehman’s bankruptcy.

If you’re looking for someone who can help protect yourself from this mess and even profit from it, I can show you how. My clients made money in 2008. And we’ve been playing the Euro Crisis to perfection, with our portfolio returning 34% between July 31 2011 and July 31 2012 (compared to a 2% return for the S&P 500).

Indeed, during that entire time we saw 73 winning trades and only one single loser. We’re now positioning ourselves for the next round of the Crisis with several targeted investments that will explode higher as the EU crumbles. Already three of our picks are up more than 5% in the last week.

To find out what they are, and take steps to protect your portfolio from the inevitable collapse…

Click Here Now!

Graham Summers

The following is an excerpt from a recent issue of Private Wealth Advisory. We are reprinting it here because no one is addressing the real reason why Europe is such a huge problem for the financial system. You need to know this.

If you’ve looking for investment ideas on how to profit from this collapse (the gains will be even bigger than those produced during the 2008 Crash) Private Wealth Advisory can show you how. We already have a handful of EU Crisis Trades open, all of which are up.

To find out more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the coming crisis… Click Here Now!!!

Last week I outlined the issue of collateral and how it is the most critical issue in the financial system today. For a review of that article, click here now.

If you want further evidence that the financial elites are already preparing for a default from Spain and a collateral crunch, you should consider that the large clearing houses (ICE, CEM and LCH which oversee the trading of the $700+ trillion derivatives market) have ALL begun accepting Gold as collateral.

Gold as Collateral Acceptable for Margin Cover Purposes

From 28 August 2012 unallocated Gold (Loco London) will be accepted by LCH.Clearnet Limited (LCH.Clearnet) as collateral for margin cover purposes.

This addition to acceptable margin collateral will be subject to the following criteria;

Available for members clearing OTC precious metals forwards (LCH EnClear Precious Metals division) or precious metals contracts on the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange. Acceptable to cover margin requirements for all markets cleared on both House and ‘Segregated’ omnibus Client accounts.

http://www.lchclearnet.com/member_notices/circulars/2012-08-21.asp

CME Clearing Europe to Accept Gold as Collateral on Demand

CME Clearing Europe will accept physical gold as collateral, extending the list of assets it’s prepared to receive as regulators globally push more derivatives trading through clearing houses.

CME Group Inc. (CME)’s European clearing house, based in London, appointed Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as gold depositaries. There will be a 15 percent charge on the market value of gold deposits and a limit of $200 million or 20 percent of the overall initial margin requirement per clearing member based on whichever is lower, Andrew Lamb, chief executive officer of CME Clearing Europe, said today.

“We started with a narrow range of government securities and are now extending that,” Lamb said in an interview today. “We recognize there will be a massive demand for collateral as a result of the clearing mandate. This is part of our attempt to maintain the risk management standard and to offer greater flexibility to clearing members and end clients.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-17/cme-clearing-europe-to-accept-gold-as-collateral-on-demand-1-.html

Is it coincidence that this began ONLY when the possibility of a sovereign default from Greece or Spain began? Nope. This actions show that the large clearinghouses see the writing on the wall (that defaults are coming accompanied by a mad scramble for collateral) and so are moving away from paper (sovereign bonds) into hard money.

The reason?

They know that when Spain defaults the system will be rocked even harder than it was with Lehman in 2008. And they are doing everything they can get access to real collateral (Gold) when paper collateral (Spanish bonds) becomes worthless.

Remember, history has shown us time and again that defaults come in waves. So when Spain defaults, it will be only a matter of time before the rest of the PIIGS, the UK, Japan, and then the US do as well.

However, for now Spain is the biggest issue. As a result of this, Treasuries, Japanese bonds, German bunds and even French sovereign bonds remain attractive to the big banks as collateral… for now.

Indeed, it is the search for high grade collateral that has caused such periodic spikes in Treasuries, German Bunds, French sovereign bonds, and Japanese bonds (all of these have yielded 0% or even negative yields in the last five years). Big banks are moving away from PIIGS bonds into safer havens.

This is also why the Fed isn’t touching Treasuries with QE3 and why it won’t touch short-term Treasuries with Operation Twist 2 (this program sees the Fed selling short-term Treasuries to buy long-term Treasuries): the Fed wants to keep as much good quality collateral in the system as possible (long-term Treasuries are problematic because institutions know it’s highly likely the US will default within the next 30 years).

However, even this move is problematic because much of the Treasury market is locked up with governments both foreign and domestic.

Total US Sovereign Debt	$16 trillion
Foreign Nation holdings	$5 trillion
Intergovernmental holdings	$4.8 trillion
US Federal Reserve	$1.5 trillion
Remaining	$4.7 trillion

Again, this is why clearinghouses (which oversee the derivatives markets) are now allowing Gold as collateral: they know that eventually sovereign bonds will be worth less or even worthless. And they want access to their clients’ Gold for when this happens.

This is why I’ve been warning that 2008 was just the warm-up. What is coming will be far far worse.

If you’re looking for someone who can help you navigate and even profit from this mess, I’m your man. My clients made money in 2008. And we’ve been playing the Euro Crisis to perfection, with our portfolio returning 34% between July 31 2011 and July 31 2012 (compared to a 2% return for the S&P 500).

Indeed, during that entire time we saw 73 winning trades and only one single loser. We’re now positioning ourselves for the next round of the Crisis with several targeted investments that will explode higher as the EU crumbles. Already three of our picks are up more than 5% in the last week.

To find out what they are, and take steps to protect your portfolio from the inevitable collapse…

Click Here Now!

Graham Summers