What We're Reading

We’ve been bulls on 30-year Treasury bonds since 1981 when we stated, “We’re entering the bond rally of a lifetime.” It’s still under way, in our opinion. Their yields back then were 15.2%, but our forecast called for huge declines in inflation and, with it, a gigantic fall in bond yields to our then-target of 3%.

The Cause of Inflation

We’ve argued that the root of inflation is excess demand, and historically it’s caused by huge government spending on top of a fully-employed economy.  That happens during wars, and so inflation and wars always go together, going back to the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846, the Civil War, the Spanish American War of 1898, World Wars I and II and the Korean War.  In the late 1960s and 1970s, huge government spending, and the associated double-digit inflation (Chart 1), resulted from the Vietnam War on top's LBJ’s War on Poverty.

By the late 1970s, however, the frustrations over military stalemat

While guests on CNBS CNBC and Bloomberg are busy encouraging you to buy oil names which are down over 50%, I wouldn't expect to reap any big rewards any time soon.  In fact I believe there will be much more pain ahead, depending on the strength of the company you chose.  Iran sanctions may be giving it a boost near term but once they're lifted (or eased) their production is expected to double which is once again, bearish for this oversupplied market

While everyone is in agreement that crude oil is in a bear market, quite often one strategy is to buy the laggard and anticipate it to outperform the following year.  The trouble with crude oil however, are the fundamentals.

1. U.S. consumer Demand (figure 1)  Consumption has been dropping since 2000 thanks to more fuel efficient autos and younger Americans (millennials born from 1980 to early 2000s) being drawn to work in and the lifestyles of large metropolitan areas.  Baby boomers (born 1946-1964 or 51-69 years of age) will contribute

Volatility definitely increased leading up to this weeks quadruple witching and the S&P (400, 500 and 600) index re-balancing taking place tonight after the close.  Selling the last two weeks resulted in oversold conditions in the near term charts and massive short covering at the market as every fund and investment bank bought new shares (as they rebalanced ahead of the indexes), resulted in two astounding days of back to back two percent gains.  Bulls were partying in the streets but is it warranted?   Has anything truly changed? 

Yes, the Fed has reassured investors that they have no intention of raising rates any time soon which is what everyone wanted to hear but we still have a bull market which has had an incredible six-year run so just "who" is going to buy at these elevated levels for their 2015 portfolio?

I also do not believe that crude oil (and oil/gas companies) are out of the woods yet either.  There's that pesky $OVX which is the VIX for crude oil.  Note how it's not c

Given today's big GPS miss (-2.9% vs. expected -1.8%), I felt we should take a look at the historical performance of the S&P500 when it comes to recessions.  For all of those who harp that the stock market is not the economy, past reactions to recessions is certainly interesting.

Click image to enlarge.

Chart courtesy of ElliottWaveAnalytics

While the continual question remains, why are bonds holding up?  Why isn't that money flowing into equities?  We highly recommend recommend this piece from Variant Perceptions.  These gusy have nailed it over and over again in the past and maybe, just maybe big investors are embracing something that the little guy doesn't wish to accept.  That profit margins in our "new recovery" are unsustainable.  We may crawl higher, but they wouldn't bet the bank it will last long.  That's great!  I'd prefer reverting to the mean and loading up on names..........at lower levels.  Enjoy-

Profit margins in the US have hit modern-day record levels, and this has been used to help justify high equity valuations. Consensus estimates are for profit margins to remain steady, or even increase from current levels. We disagree for ironclad economic and accounting realities, and think margins will fall, taking equities down too.

Profit margins have, at least until now, exhibited mean-reversion like behaviour. Th

In a word:  sustainable?

Numerous articles have noted a sharp rise in the price of renting an apartment or house across the U.S.  Many have also argued that the rise in rents disproportionately affects lower and middle class renters.

I know in my own situation, my rent increased 9% in 2013 and 10% in 2014.  Did our incomes increase by as much?  I wish.

Houseofdebt.org decided to take look by examining the great data available on rents from Zillow.

The chart shows general inflation (measured with PCE headline inflation) versus the increase in rents. Both series are indexed to be 100 as of November 2010 (the first month the Zillow data are available).

The pattern is undeniable: rents are rising much more rapidly than other consumer prices.

The Fed may be emphatic that we're not experiencing inflation but when it comes to housing, there's no denying the facts.  Gas at the pump has doubled since 2008 (isn't it convenient they exclude food and energy), food prices have crept higher but portions and package size hav

Amazing the shift since oil rigs were shifted from gas to more of the black gold AND with Bakken coming on line yet sadly, gasoline at the pump has tripled........smh

In the span of a mere four years, U.S. production of crude oil has surged by 67%, according to the Dept. of Energy, reaching levels not seen since the late 1980s. Crude production is up 14% in just the past year. This is the fruit of new fracking technology and it is nothing short of astonishing. Natural gas production is up almost 40% over this same period, and—since natural gas is not easily exportable—this has resulted in a two-thirds decline in the price of natural gas, which in turn gives our energy-intensive industries a big competitive advantage. All of this adds up to a huge boost for the U.S. economy, and it has nothing to do with any government initiatives or infrastructure investment. Indeed, it comes despite Obama's reluctance to approve the Keystone pipeline.

Mark Perry has been doing a terrific job of cov

Last week BTIG's Dan Greenhaus tried to dismiss the talk of the January effect (calm investors) stating “Normal corrections” tend to be anywhere from 5-8%, which is basically what we had/are having. If that’s the case, and our underlying fundamental views have not shifted (they have not), then stepping into markets down more than 5% should prove rewarding over time.  Of course me, being a skeptic of MSM (and everything out there for that matter), caught the last two words "over time" and raised an eyebrow.  Seriously?  Over time?  Most small investors won't risk more than 10% of any position.  Many only $100 if possible and this prompted me to poke around a little further on this January effect *thang*

The Street seems to buy the theory "When the first five trading days of the new year are positive, the month of January ends positive 76% of the time. When the month of January is positive to start the year, the stock market finishes the year positive 82% of the time."   While Barry Rit

Ah, 1978 and U.S. airline deregulation.  What a thing of beauty.  Suddenly there seemed to be a new airline popping up each year, all vying for a piece of the pie in the sky.  Then how to drum up business.  Remember the days of airfare wars?   A new start-up would lower prices to attract business and the big  boys , no longer with the luxury of their monopoly, had no choice but to follow suit as their passenger counts fell in step. 

The consumer was obviously elated!  Even those who previously couldn't afford to visit Grandma in Boca, were suddenly able to take to the skies; kiddies and all.   

Those were the clear benefits of deregulation and the consumer loved it - but corporate profits did not.

Then came the rise of jet fuel.  Did the government intervene to stop it?  If they did, it was too little too late.  (click chart to enlarge)  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine what that did to profits and prices.

Oddly enough with dramatically less demand, fuel prices haven't

"I've just completed a new research paper that surveys the history of the oil industry with a particular focus on the events associated with significant changes in the price of oil. Here I report the paper's summary of oil market disruptions and economic downturns since the Second World War. Every recession (with one exception) was preceded by an increase in oil prices, and every oil market disruption (with one exception) was followed by an economic recession."

The table above itemizes the particular postwar events that are reviewed in detail in my paper. The paper also provides the following summary discussion:

The first column indicates months in which there were contemporary accounts of consumer rationing of gasoline. Ramey and Vine have emphasized that non-price rationing can significantly amplify the economic dislocations associated with oil shocks. There were at least some such accounts for 5 of the 7 episodes prior to 1980, but none since then.

The third column indicate