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Unlike the mainstream “business” media and the “economists” they quote to see what direction the stock markets and economies are heading, The Trends Journal methodology of trend forecasting is Globalnomic®.
Trends are exponents of meaningful change on a global or macro level. The Trends Research Institute, founded in 1980, is the first research organization to integrate social, political, economic, and other data from scores of fields in developing trend forecasts.
By incorporating the most reliable quantitative and qualitative data available from sources spanning the globe, our trend forecasts are uniquely balanced with a comprehensive perspective.
As Founder and Director of The Trends Research Institute and Publisher of Trends Journal, Gerald Celente says, “Opportunity misses those who view the future through the eyes of their profession.”
Therefore, when staying with the mainstream “news”, the “economists” that they quote mostly view the world through a narrow economic prism, while avoiding the broad spectrum of current events forming future trends.
For those prepared to proact—take action before it hits the mainstream—trends are harbingers of opportunity.
How We Got Here
Tracking trends is the understanding of where we are and how we got here, to see where we are going.
However, since the financial game is rigged, hard data and indisputable facts are no longer accepted gauges of reality to see “how we got here.”
On the economic front, it’s a 360 degree con-game… “It’s one big club, and you ain’t in it,” George Carlin brilliantly noted: Central Banksters, The Street’s money junkie bandits, Hedge Funds, private equity groups, “the chains” that monopolize every business sector, the billionaires, Davos, etc.
We have reported in great detail over the decades how Washington and the U.S. Federal Reserve Banksters do all they can to make the “Bigs” bigger and bloat up those who are “Too Big to Fail,” their “quantitative easing” schemes of buying up corporate bonds… while the middle class and Mom and Pops are decimated.
Indeed, this trend is perfectly clear. All of a sudden, when the Panic of ’08 hit, millions of Americans lost their homes. Down and out, the private equity bandits began buying up the foreclosed homes and renting them out. Now that trend is in full force, and the American middle class continues to shrink, the chance of home ownership is vanishing. The best option is to, instead, rent from one of those “investment firms.”
And how do the plantation workers of Slavelandia suffer?
While many commodity prices are plunging as the reality of recession takes hold, on the apartment front rents, which account for almost one third of the consumer price Index, have spiked… and keep on spiking.
According to Apartment List, from January to June, rents on new leases shot up 14.1 percent. Last year they were up 17.5 percent.
Why is the world awash in never ending and inflating debt? Moreover, why does global debt keep expanding relentlessly every day, every month, and every year, in what seems like some kind of twisted mass insanity? Where is inflation going? What to expect? Read Gregory Mannarino’s article in this issue, “Complete Lock Up of The System Will Occur”.
Before politicians launched the COVID War in 2020, Chinese Lunar New Year, the Year of the Rat, annual rent increases were between 2 and 3 percent.
As we have greatly detailed, the non-scientific draconian mandates imposed on nations across the globe by political dictators to fight the COVID War has devastated the lives and livelihoods of billions. And no, it won’t “come back.” What is dead is gone.
And now, re-starting it from where the coronavirus began—and further pushing down commodity prices—China has re-imposed its zero COVID policy on some 8 percent of its population to curb COVID cases. And to help bring down business deeper, they also just closed down their center city of gambling casinos, Macau.
What will be some of the implications?
As reported on King World News:
“Kyle Bass: Bank runs are happening all over China. It’s important to note that the Chinese banking system represents 350% of Chinese GDP (on balance sheet) while the U.S. system is only 100%. One of the largest lending categories of Chinese banks is real estate…Chinese property developers are filing bankruptcies at a record pace.
“Moody’s has DOWNGRADED 91 Chinese property developers this year alone…while Moody’s had only downgraded 54 OVER THE PAST DECADE before this year’s actions. China’s banks are insolvent. The CPC is likely to brutally suppress the bank runs in the near term as they can’t allow them to spread further. It’s not just small banks, the biggest crowd over the weekend was found at The Bank of China (one of the largest SOE banks).”
What’s a Yats?
However, while governments control their nations, and the game is fixed, despite their manipulations, the end-game economic trends can be forecast.
But when a war breaks out or some other market changing event hits the mainstream headlines, the “economists” only factor in the economic effects resulting from big “news” events, while they were mostly deaf, dumb and blind to the trend line of “how we got here.”
Thus, with the Ukraine War among the critical geopolitical events that are affecting equities and economies, while “economists” see what is going on through their narrow mainstream filter, with few exceptions, most have no idea of the “how we got here” factors that shaped the trends leading up to the Ukraine War.
Ask the economic experts “What was the “Orange Revolution?” Where is Maidan Square and what difference does it make?” Who is Jeffery Pyatt and Victoria Nuland and what bonds their relationship?
Remember listening to their hacked telephone call: “I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU.” And for who should be leader of the Ukraine gang, “I think Yats is the guy.”
Of course, the details of these words and names are part of “how we got here” by understanding the hard facts – and not government and media propaganda – of America’s role in paving the path to the Ukraine War. By knowing how and what built the foundation of this current mega-trend is essential to see where we are going.
And as we have forecast, those who have incited and escalated the Ukraine War have ignited the flames of World War III. (See “DUCK AND COVER 2.0: PREPARE FOR A NUCLEAR ATTACK” in this edition of the Trends Journal.)
Yet, ask Americans to find Ukraine on the world map, mention those names and places we listed above—and while they will know the names and place of every baseball team, their ranking, and their players—the facts and data about the Ukraine War, how it started and why is the $64,000 question.
LAST WEEK: STOCKS MAKE A COMEBACK
The three major U.S. stock indexes gained ground last week, despite some intraday turmoil and a losing day on Friday for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500.
For the week, the Dow rose 0.8 percent, the NASDAQ a whopping 4.6 percent, and the S&P 1.9 percent.
The NASDAQ rose in five consecutive trading sessions, its best streak so far this year.
With the S&P down 18 percent on the year, many investors were bargain-hunting, The Wall Street Journal reported, especially among tech stocks.
Share prices of Tesla and Micron Technology did especially well last week, each up about 10 percent. The ARK Innovation ETF jumped 14 percent.
In contrast, energy stocks that were stellar performers recently have slipped amid fears of a global recession that would cut oil demand.
Those same recession fears also have torpedoed bond yields and commodities prices, with the cost of copper falling to its lowest in nearly two years, which we detail in “Is the Commodities Supercycle Over or Just Paused?” in this issue.
Recession jitters were stoked by news that the U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs in June and unemployment remained at 3.6 percent.
A strong jobs market increases the chance that the U.S. Federal Reserve will stick to its plan to raise interest rates three-quarters of a point when it meets late this month.
An aggressive schedule of rate hikes raises the chance that the economy will tip into recession, many analysts warn.
Also, the closely watched yield curve—the spread between yields on the two-year and 30-year U.S. treasury notes—remains inverted, usually a signal that a recession is looming.
Normally, yields on long-term notes are higher than those for shorter terms. That indicates investors’ faith in the short-term economic future.
When short-term interest rates exceed longer-term yields, as was the case last week, the spread or “curve” between them is said to “invert,” signaling a darker near-term view among investors.
The strong jobs news lifted the yield on the 10-year treasury note to 3.098 percent, its strongest weekly gain in a month. The two-year note returned 3.119 percent on Friday, up from 3.039 percent Thursday.
Gold broke below $1,800, trading just below $1,741 at 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, 8 July, as we detail in “GOLD KEEPS FALLING” in this issue.
Brent crude began the shortened trading week at $111.69, slipping to $107.02 on Friday, losing 4.2 percent. West Texas Intermediate opened the week slightly above $108 and dipped to $104.85 at 4:30 p.m. EDT Friday, down 3.8 percent.
Bitcoin gained 7 percent for the week, breaking above $21,000 on Friday but slipping over the weekend.
Overseas, the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 added 2 percent, Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.65 percent, and the South Korean KOSPI index was up 1.73 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index managed to add 0.16 percent, while the Chinese mainland’s SSE Composite lost 0.76 percent. The CSI Composite bounced through the week, ending flat.
YESTERDAY: TRADERS HOLD THEIR BREATH WAITING FOR INFLATION DATA
It was another choppy day on The Street Monday with investors considering the upcoming inflation reading due out later this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 161.31 points, or 0.5 percent to 31173.84. The S&P 500 fell 44.95 points, or 1.2 percent to 3854.43, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 262.71 points to end at 11372.60.
Stock traders are anticipating Wednesday’s release of the consumer price index that could result in the Federal Reserve to keep increasing interest rates to bring down inflation. The June reading is anticipated to, once again, be near 9 percent, which is expected to prompt the Fed to act aggressively.
Traders are also anticipating corporate earnings from major companies like PepsiCo and JPMorgan, which are seen as indicators of consumer confidence and the impact that the strength of the U.S. dollar has on these earnings.
The dollar is up about 11 percent this year and its value against other currencies could be a drag on companies that sell their products in a foreign market.
Tech stocks took a dive with Meta Platforms and Twitter both down 4.7 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Twitter appears ready to sue Elon Musk after the Tesla billionaire backed out of a deal to purchase the social media company.
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has noted that most of these financial issues were brought on by ineffective COVID-19 lockdowns that destroyed businesses and local economies, the Federal Reserves’ miscalculation that inflation was just “transitory,” and the sanctions leveled against Russia that have done nothing to stop the war.
FactSet, a market data firm, estimates that the profits for S&P 500 companies will grow by 4 percent, which marks the slowest pace since most countries reopened from COVID-19 lockdowns.
Elsewhere, Europe’s Stoxx 600 declined 0.5 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 1 percent to 7120. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.44 percent to close at 2340.27. Japan’s Nikkei was up 1.02 percent to 26787.00.
Stocks in China also responded positively to the news and were higher today, with the Shanghai Composite was down 1.27 percent and the Shenzhen Component fell 1.87 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell about 3 percent to close at 21124.2.
There are fresh concerns in the European and Asian markets that China will, once again, lock down cities to stop reports of isolated outbreaks of COVID-19. Reports out of the country indicate that there has been an uptick in infections in Shanghai, the city of 25 million.
Europe is also bracing for additional energy cuts from Russia that could send the EU into recession.
GOLD/SILVER: Spot gold was down 0.3 percent to $1,737.32 per ounce on Monday and gold futures fell 0.3 percent to $1,737.00 due to the strengthening U.S. dollar and its inverse relationship with Treasury yields.
Gold prices are vulnerable to higher Treasury yields, U.S. dollar, and interest rates.
Gold prices hit their lowest point in more than six months because investors see more attractive alternatives to gold due to the surging dollar and higher interest rates.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that for gold to maintain strength, prices must stay in the high $1,900 per ounce range and when they solidify above $2,200 per ounce, gold will spike to new highs. On the downside, should gold fall below $1,800, its bottom will be in the $1,730 range.
BITCOIN: Bitcoin was down to about 19,790.72 on Monday after trading as high as $21,000 a coin since Friday.
The Trends Journal has pointed out that the world’s most popular crypto has lost more than half its value since November when it was trading at $68,982 per coin.
Ruchir Sharma, the chairman of Rockefeller International, told CoinDesk that he believes the next six months for bitcoin could see further drops.
“I’m not willing to call the [market] bottom as of yet on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,” Sharma said. “The U.S. bear market regime, which is the driver of risk appetite around the world, is still very much in play.”
But he is bullish long-term on the crypto and believes it can replace the U.S. dollar.
“The dependence on the U.S. dollar in general cannot continue … There is a need for having another currency out there with some transactional need, which is a bit more stable in value … Three to five years from now, hopefully [bitcoin] will emerge as a more stable asset,” he said.
TREND FORECAST: We had long forecast, the downward breakout point is when prices fall below $25,000 per coin. They are now below that breakout point, thus bitcoin could fall back to $10,000 per coin or lower.
On the upside, we maintain our forecast that bitcoin will find strength to hit new highs when it breaks above $55,500 per coin.
We have long noted that cryptos would be hurt when governments act to regulate these trades.
The Trends Journal has long pointed out that if an asset is considered by the SEC to be a security, those involved in the transactions must comply with the rules.
TODAY: ALL EYES ON CPI DATA, MARKET NERVOUS
As it has been for the past few months, it was another roller coaster day on Wall Street with the Dow ending down 192 points or 0.61 percent to close the day at 30985.02.
The S&P 500 benchmark index finished the day down 35.29, or 0.92 percent to 3819.14. Still in bear territory, the tech heavy NASDAQ fell nearly 1 percent to close at 11,264.73
There is a pessimistic feeling on The Street, and investors see a recession on the horizon. Citigroup analysts said Google searches for “recession” are now higher than 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Investors are anticipating key inflation data that is due out tomorrow that could mean continued interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve to bring down inflation, which came in at 8.6 percent last month.
The Consumer Price Index is expected to be high again, and the Biden administration has already shown a level of defensiveness. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters at the White House that the data is “already out of date.” The White House noted that gas prices have come down since 13 June. A senior official told Yahoo! Finance that the numbers—which are expected to be red hot—do not represent the current reality for the American consumer.
“The June CPI data will largely not reflect the substantial declines in gas prices we’ve seen since the middle of June,” Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in a memo obtained by reporters. The national average for a gallon of gas fell to $4.66, which marks a 34 cent drop since May.
Another drag on the market has been persistent, slowing growth and tightening by central banks around the world. The S&P 500 down, more than 20 percent this year, is in bear territory.
COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the Ukraine War continue to worry investors and could impact supply chains. The day ended on a bit of a chaotic note, with the Dow falling up to 300 points in the final hour of trading.
Neil Desai, a portfolio manager for Putnam Investments, told The Wall Street Journal that the “days of ‘buy the dip,’ appear to be over.
“We’re definitely more cautious,” he said.
TREND FORECAST: The Trends Journal has long warned subscribers that the central bank Banksters were either too stupid to see inflation rising, or are totally in the game of rigging the markets, and were fully aware that the higher interest rates reach, the harder the market will fall.
As we continue to note, while the average person feels the economic pain as inflation rises and it costs them more to buy less, the true levels of economic devastation will not be realized by the general population until Wall Street crashes.
Therefore, the Bankster Bandits and The Wall Street White Shoe Boys will do all they can behind the scenes to delay the market crash. In fact, the Feds may even ease up on rising interest rates if the economy and equites move into crash landing mode.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 was up 2.02 points, or 0.49 percent, to 417.04, and Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 13.27 points, or 0.18 percent 7209.86. South Korea’s Kospi was down 22.51, or 0.96 percent to 2317.76. Japan’s Nikkei was down 475.64 points, or 1.77 percent to end at 26336.66.
The Shanghai Composite was down 32.12, or 0.97 percent to close at 3281.47. The Shenzhen Component was also down 177.96 points, or 1.41 percent to close at 12439.27. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 279.46 points, or 1.32 percent, to close at 20844.74.
The European market will continue to watch inflation data from the U.S. and monitor the COVID-19 outbreak in China. President Xi Jinping has been intent on pushing a “Zero-COVID” policy and, holding true to form, put Wugang, a steelmaking hub, on lockdown after there was one case of the virus. The city is home to 300,000 residents.
OIL: Oil was trading lower today due to concerns of slowing economies and growing lockdowns in China. Brent crude was down 7.99, or 7.46 percent to 99.10 and West Texas Intermediate was down 8.41, or 8.0988 percent to 95.66.
Oil prices are also down due to a combination of a strong dollar and high inflation. OilPrice.com pointed out that OPEC, which is normally bullish on crude, lowered its 2023 demand growth forecast to 2.7 b/d due to recessionary pressures and weaker overall demand. The report pointed out that the estimation does not take into account an escalation in Ukraine or COVID-19 lockdown in China.
TRENDPOST: It’s basically a guessing game. Some analysts believe the drop in oil prices is temporary due to the uncertainty with Russia. They see oil rising by 50 percent if Russia dramatically cuts its supply.
TREND FORECAST: The picture is clear. The higher oil prices rise, the faster inflation will rise and the greater the pressure on central banks to raise interest rates. And the higher interest rates rise, the deeper equity markets and economies will fall.
GOLD/SILVER: Gold continued to head lower today and was down 6.10, or 0.3696 percent, to 1725.30 at 3:30 p.m. ET. as the yield on 10-year Treasury fell to 2.956 percent.
As the Trends Journal has long pointed out, gold prices are vulnerable to higher Treasury yields, U.S. dollar, and interest rates. The dollar hit its highest level in about 20 years. Gold prices hit their lowest point in more than six months because investors see more attractive alternatives to gold due to the surging dollar and higher interest rates.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that for gold to maintain strength, prices must stay in the high $1,900 per ounce range and when they solidify above $2,200 per ounce, gold will spike to new highs. On the downside, we had forecast that should gold fall below $1,800, its bottom will be in the $1,730 range… it is in that range now.
BITCOIN: Bitcoin continued to hit resistance as it approached $20,000 per coin today. The world’s largest crypto was trading at $19,607.70, or down 334.70 at 3:18 p.m. EST.
The Trends Journal has pointed out that the world’s most popular crypto has lost more than half its value since November when it was trading at $68,982 per coin. Decrypt.co reported that the crypto fell from $1.27 trillion in that time to $377 billion for all the bitcoin today.
The losing streak is not isolated to bitcoin. Ethereum, which is the world’s second-largest crypto, is down about 78 percent since November and lost about 7 percent in the last day.
The report, citing CoinGlass, said about 62,000 crypto traders liquidated their funds in the past day.
TRENDPOST: We have noted that the health of cryptos depends on several factors. Investors are now being lured to Treasuries due to increased interest rates and the U.S. dollar is soaring, which is also seen as a safer investment for foreign buyers.
We have pointed out that these rates set by the Fed can impact cryptos because of an increased competition for capital. Speculative investments, like cryptos, tend to lose.
TREND FORECAST: We had long forecast, the downward breakout point is when prices fall below $25,000 per coin. They are now below that breakout point, thus bitcoin could fall back to $10,000 per coin or lower.
On the upside, we maintain our forecast that bitcoin will find strength to hit new highs when it breaks above $55,500 per coin.
As we have been noting for over five years, a major factor in forecasting the future price of bitcoin and other crypto currencies is dependent upon government regulations.
(For more crypto trends and forecasts, please see our TRENDS IN CRYPTOS section.)