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Welcome to the global freak show. What a sick, deadly joke.
Ben Bernanke, the clown boy who played Fed Head prior to, during and following the “Panic of ’08” (the economic collapse forecast by Gerald Celente who took out the domain name in November 2007) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics last week.
How about a Nobel Piece of Crap Prize for boasting a long losing streak of making wrong economic forecasts and misreading the economic tea leaves?
Bernanke’s win is a reminder of another fraud, President Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Piece of Crap Prize in 2009. Obama, was, of course, the president who is quoted in the book “Double Down” for bragging that he is “really good at killing people,” for his approval of massive drone strikes overseas that even claimed the lives of American citizens.
This is the arrogant Obama who sold himself as a peace candidate in the 2008 campaign with his slogan, “Hope and Change you Can Believe In.” Once elected, he followed that message by ramping up the Afghan War with his troop surge, and launching and promoting the Libyan, Syrian and Yemen wars.
Obama praised Bernanke’s award and credited the former Fed Head for taking “bold action and out-of-the-box thinking.”
In a CNBC interview, July 29, 2005, Bernanke, the Harvard-graduate, former Princeton Professor of Economics, was asked:
Q. “Tell me, what is the worst-case scenario if we in fact see [real estate] prices actually come down substantially across the country?”
A. “Well I guess I don’t buy your premise. It’s a pretty unlikely possibility; we have never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis.”
Speaking before Congress 18 months later (28 February 2007), as the subprime mortgage fiasco deepened, Bernanke said: “There is not much indication at this point that subprime mortgage issues have spread into the broader mortgage market which still seems to be healthy.”
Gregory Mannarino wrote in The Trends Journal: Bernanke said then that the issue with subprime mortgage meltdown was also “contained.” Bernanke’s “contained” played out to be totally false and led to a global financial meltdown—and public bailout of the banks.
Regardless of how many new egregious failures the governmental and bureaucratic nobility add to their old egregious failures, rarely are they held accountable. Instead, they are awarded trophies for their drastic draconian deadly demonic failures.
An Equity Con Game
We note this Nobel ignobility to illustrate the high levels of fraud and fraudsters running the socioeconomic and geopolitical con game. Facts don’t matter, fraud is all that counts.
Since the COVID War was launched by the maniacs-in-charge in January 2020, Chinese Lunar New Year, the “Year of the Rat,” we warned of the dire consequences and have written and detailed them. Among them, we had forecast that the equity markets and economies that had been artificially propped up with countless trillions of phony money and record low interest rates would spike inflation.
Yet, again as we detailed, governments and the Banksters denied the facts and instead said inflation was only “temporary” and then “transitory.”
The artificial economic boom pushed equities to new highs while billions of lives and livelihoods were devastated across the globe as politicians locked down the world to fight the COVID War.
But now, finally, the reality of how bad it is and what to expect has hit Main Street.
On the economic front, over the past few days, the headlines from the mainstream media are finally warning what we had forecast several months ago: “US recession forecast hit 100%”—Bloomberg.
They go on that, according to their economic model, the American economy is certain to dive into recession in the next 12 months.
Here is this front page headline from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: “Risks of A Deeper Global Slump Escalate,” that warns of a steep worldwide economic slump. On the second page, the top story is, “Recession Now Seen as More Likely.”
The paper goes on to note that their survey of economists predict that “The U.S. is forecast to enter a recession in the coming 12 months as the Federal Reserve battles to bring down persistent high inflation, the economy contracts and employers cut jobs in response.”
Yet, despite inflation in the U.S. spiking higher than The Street had forecast, coming in at 8.2 percent in September, equity markets keep spiking higher… while gold prices continue to slump. (See “YESTERDAY: STOCKS SEE BIG GAINS, BUT WORRIES REMAIN,” in this issue.)
Clearly, the reality of what the COVID War has done to Main Street and the economic fallout is of no concern to The Street. Again, it is a complete con game. As Gregory Mannarino notes, “If central banks do not find another mechanism to continue to inflate, IMMEDIATELY, the entire global financial system will melt down.”
Therefore, expect the central banksters to come up with another scheme to artificially prop up the equity markets so the big gamblers—equity funds, private equity firms and the bankster bandits—can keep cashing in.
TREND FORECAST: Remember, the 8 November U.S. midterm elections are just three weeks away, and the maniacs in power of the crime syndicate—that adult children call political parties—will do anything they can to stay in power. Even though inflation hit 8.2 percent in September and the yearly gain for core was the highest since August 1982, as the saying goes, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Indeed, The New York Times/Siena College poll noted in the Times front page story that “The poll’s findings reinforce the idea that for many Americans, this year’s midterm elections will be largely defined by rising inflation and other economic woes…”
Therefore, when the Fed announces their next rate hike on 2 November, just 6 days before Election Day, we forecast that to help the party in power, they may only raise interest rates between .25 or .50 basis points rather than the .75 basis points The Street forecasts.
LAST WEEK: EQUITIES RIDE THE ROLLERCOASTER
On Friday, 14 October, the Dow Jones Industrial Average marked another first: it was the first time on record that the Dow fell at least 500 points and rose at least 800 points in a single trading session, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
On the day, the Dow closed up 827 points, or 2.8 percent, its best one-day percentage leap since November 2020. The NASDAQ added 232 points, about 2.2 percent, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index grew by almost 93 points, roughly 2.6 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Share prices sank early in the day on news that inflation had failed to moderate last month. The Dow fell almost 2 percent, the NASDAQ lost more than 3 percent, and the S&P shrank by more than 2 percent.
The S&P closed up 95 points, or 2.6 percent, on Monday.
All 11 S&P sectors dove, led by materials and consumer-discretionary companies. The KBW NASDAQ Bank Index shrugged off 1.4 percent.
Buyers then stepped in when “they decided that fresh evidence of high inflation wasn’t as bad as it initially appeared,” the WSJ said.
Friday made a dismal week less bleak.
Stocks marked their sixth straight losing day on Wednesday, with the S&P ending the day at its lowest closing level since November 2020.
For the week, the Dow added 1.2 percent, the NASDAQ gave up 3.1 percent, and the S&P contracted by 1.6 percent.
Falling bond prices lifted yields on the benchmark 10-year treasury note from 3.952 percent Thursday to 4.005 percent Friday, their second-highest close this year, the WSJ noted. Yields rise as bond prices fall.
Gold moved down 1.3 percent through the week, ending Friday at $1,642, according to BullionVault.com.
The price of Brent crude oil for December delivery drifted down through the week, ending 5.5 percent lower at $91.61 at 5 p.m. U.S. EDT. West Texas crude, which benchmarks U.S. oil prices, fell back below $90 and settled at $85.63, down about 6.7 percent lower.
Bitcoin opened the week at $19,043, plunged below $18,500 briefly on Thursday before jumping up almost to $19,900, then settled to $19,297 at 5 p.m. U.S. EDT on Friday for a weekly gain of about 1.3 percent.
Abroad, Europe’s Stoxx 600 squeezed out a weekly rise of 0.8 percent. The Nikkei went down 0.6 percent and the South Korean KOSPI lost 1.8 percent.
The Hong Kong Hang Seng was off 1.9 percent, China’s SSE Composite added 1.5 percent and the CSI Composite tacked on 1 percent.
TRENDPOST: The quote that “Buyers then stepped in when “they decided that fresh evidence of high inflation wasn’t as bad as it initially appeared,” is contrary to the facts. Read the headline of last Friday’s WSJ: “Core Inflation Revs to New High.”
That the equities soared as U.S. consumer inflation—excluding food and energy—spiked to a new forty year high last month proving that price pressures persist… proves inflation is “as bad as it initially appeared.” Yet, the equity con-game persists.
The NASDAQ Bear
On 11 October, the NASDAQ slipped into its second bear market this year after Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey announced that the bank’s purchase of British government bonds would end as planned at the end of last week.
A bear market is defined as a decline of 20 percent from a recent high.
The bank had been expected to continue buying bonds to rescue pension funds endangered by sweeping tax cuts the new U.K. government of prime minister Liz Truss announced last month.
The purpose of the purchases was to give pension funds the chance to sell assets in an orderly way.
However, last week the government indicated it would scale back the cuts, leading the bank to curtail its rescue operation.
“You’ve got three days left,” Bailey told the markets in a public statement. “You’ve got to get this done.”
The British turmoil hit U.S. stocks because U.K. pension funds are now expected to continue selling assets to raise cash to meet their payment obligations as interest rates rise.
The sales are expected to be big enough to drive down prices.
“No one wants to hold a position overnight if they think it’s going to open weaker the next day,” Mohit Bajaj, director of ETF trading at WallachBeth Capital, said to the WSJ.
YESTERDAY: STOCKS SEE BIG GAINS, BUT WORRIES REMAIN
The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 550.99 points, or 1.9 percent, to 30,185.82 and the benchmark S&P 500 was also up 94.88 points, or 2.6 percent, to 3,677.95. The Nasdaq Composite increased by 354.41 points, or 3.4 percent, to 10,675.80.
Investors (gamblers) on The Street are cautiously optimistic about upcoming earnings reports and some believe that the market is generally oversold due to months of pessimism about inflation and interest rates.
In Europe, the FTSE was up 1 percent to 6,921.81 on Monday and the STOXX 600 was also 1.8 percent higher to 398.48. In Asia, South Korea’s benchmark Kospi increased 7.16 points, or 0.32 percent, to 2,219.71. China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.42 percent to 3,084.94 and its Shenzhen Component increased by 0.365 percent to 11,162.26. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 25.21, or 0.15 percent to close at 16,612.90. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 314.97, or 1.16 percent, to 26,775.79.
Traders were dealing with news out of China that the government will continue to pursue a “zero-COVID” policy. The country’s National Bureau of Statistics also took an unusual step and announced that it will not release its economic data that was set to come out on Tuesday.
“I’ve not come across before a situation where a whole raft of statistical reporting has just been postponed, in nearly half a century of monitoring data releases—not even in times of pestilence and conflict,” George Magnus, a former chief economist of UBS who is now an associate at the China Center at Oxford University, told The New York Times.
TRENDPOST: This comes as no surprise to Trends Journal subscribers. We have long forecast that China’s zero-COVID policies of locking down hundreds of millions of people and businesses would bring their economy down, while also hurting revenue of retail importers. China has incentive to hide the data while Xi Jinping clinches another five years leading the country.
Xi said his COVID policy “protected people’s lives and health to the greatest extent possible.” And other than Trends Journal subscribers, most of the world does not know Xi used COVID-19 lockdowns to snuff out protests in Hong Kong and tighten his grip over all facets of the economy, a move imitated by the West. In May of 2020 we wrote: “It should be noted that prior to the Chinese Lunar New Year coronavirus outbreak this past January, China could not stop the demonstrations, which increasingly were turning violent.
In the absence of another virus, man-made or natural, which again will be used to lock down the city, we forecast Beijing will use military/police force to quell dissent.
OIL: Oil prices were little changed on Monday with Brent Crude rising 14 cents per barrel, to $91.75 and West Texas Intermediate down 5 cents, or 0.06 percent, to $85.56 per barrel.
Oil traders have been trying to piece together what the global economy is going to look like with OPEC+ cutting back output and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vow to continue the country’s drive to “zero-COVID.”
These traders are concerned that the Federal Reserve, in its effort to tame inflation, will increase the risk of a global recession, thus destroying demand.
“Lower prices are no longer a positive,” Martin Tillier wrote on Nasdaq.com. “They indicate a belief that the world is heading for economic trouble that no amount of supply manipulation can overcome so, as weird as it seems after years of doing the opposite, they should be rooting for oil to hold above $80 and even nudge back up towards $100 a barrel.”
David Turk, Washington’s deputy energy secretary, said last week the administration can tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in coming weeks and months to stabilize oil for Americans already dealing with high inflation.
GOLD: The precious metal benefited Monday from a decline in both the U.S. dollar and Treasury yields and was up 1 percent. Some gold investors said the precious metal has been given another look by potential investors due to the increased risk of a global recession.
Gold is a non-yielding asset so investors can be lured away from the precious metal when Treasury yields are high. CNBC noted that the yield on a 2-year Treasury reached a 15-year high on Thursday, but came down slightly on Monday to 4.54 percent.
TRENDPOST: Gerald Celente said the price of gold should be much higher than it is currently trading due to economic turmoil and uncertainties. However, as U.S. interest rates rise and the dollar gets stronger, non-yielding bullion prices will continue to weaken.
BITCOIN: The world’s most popular cryptocurrency flirted with $20,000 during trading on Monday as stocks rocketed. Bitcoin usually does well when the Nasdaq is in positive territory. After hanging around the $19,500 mark for the past few months, bitcoin’s price increase prompted some bears to sell, according to The Coin Telegraph.
TRENDPOST: Bitcoin will not have any break-out days as long there are so many question marks about the future of the global economy and the next moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve. We’ve said that the higher the value of the U.S. dollar, along with elevated Treasury bond yields, means more headwinds for bitcoin. However, considering where the coin began, and where it is, there have been very strong profits for long-term buyers.
TODAY: HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average had a bumpy ride but ended the day closing up 337.98 points, or 1.12 percent, to 30,523.80, while the benchmark S&P 500 also gained 42.03, or 1.14 percent, to close the day at 3,719.98.
The Nasdaq Composite closed up 96.60, or 0.90 percent, to 10,772.40.
Lockheed Martin, the major weapons manufacturer, surged $35.65, or 8.72 percent, to $431.84 in today’s trading.
War is an enormous money maker for the military industrial complex. A reporter for Politico tweeted that Jim Taiclet, the CEO, confirmed that the company has met with its long-lead supply chain to increase HIMARS production to 96 units annually.
“We advanced funded ahead of contract, $65 million to shorten the manufacturing lead time and that was without a contract,” he said.
Netflix’s stock jumped $35.04, or 14.51 percent, in after-hours trading to $275.71 per share after reporting that it added 2.41 million subscribers.
Stocks seemed to brush off recessionary fears for the second-straight day, despite Fitch Ratings warning of a mild recession by the spring. CNN reported that Fitch said the U.S. GDP is now expected to grow by just 0.5 percent next year, down from 1.5 percent in the firm’s June forecast.
The 10-year Treasury yield was trading nearly unchanged at 4.015 percent and the 30-year Treasury was up slightly to 4.035 percent. High Treasury yields makes non-yielding assets like gold less attractive to investors. The Wall Street Journal noted that utilities that offer yields in the 3.3-percent range, are also facing competition with Treasuries.
“The 10-year is repricing everything. I’ve got something that’s even safer and yields even more,” Kevin Barry, chief investment officer at Summit Financial, told the paper.
Elsewhere, the FTSE was up 16.50 points, or 0.24 percent, to 6,936.74 and the STOXX 600 was also up 1.36, or 0.34 percent, to 399.84.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei was up 380.35, or 1.42 percent, to 27,156.14 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 301.68, or 1.82 percent, to 16,914.58. South Korea’s Kospi was up 30.24, or 1.36 percent, to 2,249.95. In China, the Shanghai Composite was down 3.98, or 0.13 percent, to 2,080.96 and the Shenzhen Component was up 25.44 points, or 0.23 percent, to 11,187.70.
TRENDPOST: Deutsche bank said this week that markets are underpricing the risk of 1970s-style stagflation and “neglecting the fact that we are increasingly at risk of returning to prolonged 1970s-style stagflationary dynamics, which would require an even larger interest rate response.”
The facts are in the data which we have greatly detailed: Dragflation!
Yet, despite our sending several thousand “Dragflation” press releases to the mainstream media, they refuse to acknowledge them, and keep peddling the “stagflation” bullshit. No, economies will not stagnate, they will decline…drag down as inflation continues to rise.
OIL: Brent crude was trading down $1.36 today to $90.29 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was also down $2.26, to $83.15.
OilPrice.com reported that the last time WTI was this low was days before OPEC+ meeting when the cartel announced it would cut 2 million barrels per day from its production targets next month.
The report noted that recession fears and the Biden administration’s willingness to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves were dragging down the price. The administration has been dipping into the reserves in an effort to offset prices, but in the process, has reduced levels to those not seen since 1984. There are currently 405 million barrels remaining, compared to 593 million at the start of the year.
TRENDPOST: The message from Washington is: “Don’t worry, we’ve got this under control.” But, as we have seen with the Federal Reserve downplaying inflation as “transitory,” politicians wait until a problem is unavoidable and then look to someone/something to blame.
The Biden administration has made a sport out of using Russia as a scapegoat for its failed planning and failed strategy when it comes to energy. Saudi Arabia has also faced scorn from the White House. But the fact remains that the U.S. faces an energy crunch. Wholesale diesel prices in the spot market of New York harbor hit $200 per barrel and electricity prices along the East Coast of the U.S. is expected to jump 50-60 percent year-on-year.
And things will only get worse after the midterm elections.
GOLD: The precious metal is trading down $7.70 an ounce, to $1,656.20 as of 3 p.m. ET as it continues to face headwinds from a strong U.S. dollar that makes an investment less attractive to foreigners.
BMO Capital Markets told Kitco that it believes gold will make another run to the $1,700 range by the spring.
“What’s interesting here for us is that we’re expecting gold prices to remain fundamentally well-supported, even out to 2026. We have our gold price average of $1,600 an ounce, really not expecting a sharp retracement in prices from where we are today,” Rory Townsend, an associate at the Canadian-based bank and author of the latest gold report, told the outlet. “And that partly is on inflation remaining stickier for longer, that is also partly on slower growth over the outlook period, and it’s also on the elevated geopolitical risk remaining.”
TREND FORECAST: With no sign of the Ukraine War ending amid a global slowdown, gold will continue to be a valuable safe-haven asset to any portfolio. Like any asset up against a strong dollar and higher Treasury yields, the precious metal will not have a clear path to higher value, but it will soar when the Ukraine War expands and officially becomes a world war.
BITCOIN: The crypto currency continues to face resistance as it tries to hit $20,000 per coin.
CNBC noted that about 48,000 bitcoins were moved off Coinbase, which the report noted was the biggest outflow since June and the second-largest ever. The report noted that the outflows “suggest investors are withdrawing their crypto from exchanges and shifting from selling mode to accumulating mode.”
Coin Telegraph reported that about 121,000 bitcoins were moved from exchanges in the past month, about $2.4 billion. The report noted that these moves are usually considered bullish. When there is a jump in inflows, it is usually seen as a bearish trend.
TRENDPOST: Bitcoin has been on a rollercoaster the past year, but the crypto has proven to have a stable of loyal customers. One took to Twitter today to post, “FUN FACT: 12 years ago today, you could buy 10 #Bitcoin for $1.”
Those who are bearish might respond to that fact by saying, “Give it a few months.”
The Trends Journal’s position has been that the cryptocurrency will continue to face headwinds as the U.S. dollar value remains persistently high along with Treasury yields.
Kanye West, the rapper who has been at the center of a controversy after refusing to go along with the mainstream media, had his bank account at JP Morgan Chase closed over some comments seen as anti-Semitic.
“I put $140 million into JPMorgan and they treated me like shit,” West said in an interview.
He was later photographed wearing a Satoshi Nakamoto hat after he was de-banked by JPMorgan. Nakamoto is the mysterious name behind bitcoin that could be a person or group of individuals, according to Wikipedia.
West’s decision to wear the hat was seen as a message that banks could decide to close your account over your free speech, whereas bitcoin cannot, thus making it a more reliable investment.