Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

There She Blows!!!……………….Evil Plan 83.0 (by BDI)

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0254-001-moby-dick

Well, my fellow Slope-a Dopes, your favorite intrepid seafaring Frenchman got blown out of the water by Benjamin Moby-Dick Bernanke once again.  I have to hand it to captain grey beard, for a guy with a curiously quivering lower lip, who seems so utterly unsure of himself every time he opens his moronic mouth, he sure does have some pair of ballistic brass balls.  Not only did he delivered on his QE3 promise, but he actually turbo charged it into a terrifying trifecta!  Boatswain BDI was left for dead, desperately drowning in a sea of red DOOMs.  So now that Moby Dick has breached and surged the equity waves to new highs, where do we sail from here?  

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The Week Ahead by BKudla

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Well if you looked at my post last week, every target on my charts were hit or exceeded. Wow! What I did not expect was the follow through.  I was convinced we'd get some profit taking.  My trade signals stocks had another great week, but I was more lightly invested than my signals, so I had an OK week, but quickly added back to my miner positions.

What I am trying to get my arms around is how buying MBS's in a already low interest rate environment is going to add any more juice.  I mean people who can refinance probably already have, right?

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Hail Mary Pass

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We now have an open ended money pumping mechanism in USA. Is
that a good news or bad? This program was initiated in the name of job
creation, but will it? Remember that Democratic hack Chuck Schumer, who is in
bed with TBTF banks telling Bernanke in one of the Senate hearing that the fed
is the only game in the town? I think everyone knows and understands that the
Fed QE has nothing got to do with job creation. It is all about the 1st
and 3rd mandate of the Fed, i.e. to give free money to its member
banks and to blow another wealth bubble to create an illusion of wealth and
implement the trickledown theory.

So from now till Nov. US markets will have about $ 85
billion per month of flow and now they will target the MBS not treasuries. Did
any of the reporters attending JH or any of Ben’s press conferences ask him
what happened to the $2 trillion that he had already dumped in the market since
2009? Why it did not create any jobs to reduce the unemployment?  The fact is jobs are not created by Central
Bankers. Yes they can help. If the interest rate is too high, the central bank
can help reduce the rate of interest. When there is liquidity crisis, they can
pump liquidity and help the small business get loans. But today in America, the
interest rate is near zero and banks are sitting on huge reserves. Banks have
no interest in giving loans to the small business which creates the jobs.

Simply because, the banks can get free money from the Fed, purchase the US
treasuries which give them risk free 3% and use the same treasuries as collateral
for further loan. The giant Ponzi scheme and debt monetization that I wrote few
months back. So the only way this more free money will be used in speculation
and derivatives trading by the TBTF banks. It might push up the equities prices
but won’t achieve anything else. And now they have given themselves a mandate
to go on printing and pumping till infinity. It is un precedent for any central
bank to take this step unless there is desperation and their back is on the
wall. There is nothing else they can do, if this also fails, which it will.

So what is the unintended consequence? While the massive
deleveraging is on with no growth whatsoever anywhere and the geopolitical
situation is so bad that there is talks of possible war between Israel and
Iran, or is it China and Japan or some other countries in far east, how long
before inflation takes hold in USA?

As and when it does, what it will do to the wealth effect
that Bernanke is desperately trying to create.

The long bond yield has started to rise and inflation expectation
and it very much matches with my view that the 30 year period of the bull
market in bonds is coming to an end. I think one can safely bet for the rise in
the interest rates in USA. The bond market is many times bigger than equities
market. When the bond market bubble burst there would be no place to hide.

Don’t
expect the money to flow in equities because the S&P earnings ratios are
already high and the companies are not going to be able to generate any higher
income going forward. There is only so much IPads you can sell or dump so many
new cars on dealers and book sell, or build so much empty homes. Don’t expect
China to bail out the world because there is trouble in heaven. For e.g. the
low cost manufacturers of Christmas decoration manufacturers in Yiwu province
are seeing their order dropped 20% to 40% for this year. They are the bell
weather for Chinese exports sector.

So I am wondering where the job growths are going to come
from? If US companies are unable to sell abroad because the BRICs have no
money, if Chinese companies cannot export because Europe has no money, if Middle
East is going to blow up anytime, what will happen to all those freshly minted dollars?
The worst nightmare situation that can happen is: Dollar goes up, interest rates
go up and asset prices go down. Along with it comes the social unrest. What we
are seeing in MENA region, in southern Europe and Greece, reaches USA. By the
way, while there is no demand for the business to hire more people, another
reason is the huge bureaucracy that makes the life of small businessmen hell.
Few years back one of our business tried to expand it the US market.

We used to
think that doing business in Canada is tough. But what we saw in the state of New
York, with their labour laws and 1000s of forms and regulations, made us
realize that Canada is much more business friendly than USA. They talk of NAFTA
making business easier between US and Canada but that’s absolutely incorrect.
You can import poisonous toothpaste from China and sell it in USA with much
less hassle than importing a container of maple chocolate truffle. The FDA would
make life living hell and yet businessmen make an effort. Hats off to those who
continue to do business in this hostile environment. But what else you can
expect when your president says that the businessmen did not develop their own
business. The alternative on the other side is not any better either.

Yesterday John Mauldin sent his news letter “Thoughts from
Frontline” and he makes a top ten list of most important issues facing America.
They are:

  • 1. Deficit.
  • 2. Deficit
  • 3. Deficit
  • 4. Deficit
  • 5. Deficit
  • 6-10.Everything else.

    And I could not agree with him
    more. With a deficit of well past $16 trillion and the printing press at full speed,
    the future does not look very promising. How we will use this knowledge in our
    investment world is another story.

    That’s it for this sunny Sunday. Enjoy the weekend and
    please join me in Twitter( @ BBFinanceblog) and share with your friends.