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After going into a deep slump, tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Tesla combined market value spiked $1.3tn since July, pushing up tech-heavy Nasdaq by 14.8 percent.
On the other side of the equity fence, investors, aka “gamblers,” are dumping private equity and venture capital funds at the fastest pace on record. The Financial Times reported that pensions and sovereign wealth funds alone pulled $33 billion from these investments in the first half of the year, according to Jefferies, the U.S. investment group.
As we have greatly detailed, equity markets and the economy have been artificially pumped up with a toxic combination of ultra-low interest rates and unprecedented government money-pumping schemes. Thus, as interest rates rise and governments go deeper in debt, by their sell-off actions there is real fear on The Street that the boom is going bust.
But of course, the game is rigged and facts don’t matter.
No, this is not a “conspiracy” theory.
As we note in this Trend Journal, PIMCO KEEPS PIMPING, the former Fed clown boy Richard Clarida—who stepped down from his post earlier this year after moving $1 million to $5 million from a bond fund to a stock fund just days before Fed Head Jerome Powell announced that the central bank will “use our tools” to support growth—was hired last week by the California-based bond fund manager.
Yes, as George Carlin said, “It’s one big club, and you ain’t in it.”
Yes, the monopoly game is rigged.
“Without Any Legislative Powers, the Fed Is Rewriting the Law and Creating a Permanent $500 Billion Bailout Facility for Wall Street,” is the headline in yesterday’s Wall Street on Parade article.
They detail that this money-pumping scheme is something that the Fed, in its 109 years of Bankster operations, was never allowed to do. And there is no pushback from the D.C. Gang that Americans call “Congress.”
Wall Street on Parade notes:
“On July 28 of last year, the Fed announced that it was creating a $500 billion permanent bailout facility for the trading houses (“primary dealers”) on Wall Street to support “smooth market functioning.” The Fed gave the facility the bland sounding name of “Standing Repo Facility” or SRF. What the Fed was effectively doing was creating a new “discount window” where both Fed member banks and Wall Street trading houses could obtain billions of dollars in cumulative loans if a liquidity crisis arose.
The resolution issued by the Fed in conjunction with the announcement indicates that the $500 billion ceiling can be “temporarily increased at the discretion of the Chair.” That means that Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who just recently started a new four-year term, has the power, without any advice and consent from Congress, to throw unlimited amounts of money at the trading houses on Wall Street.
The resolution also puts this unlimited bailout facility under the auspices of the New York Fed—the same regional Fed bank responsible for the majority of the $29 trillion Wall Street bailout during and after the 2008 financial crisis.
The New York Fed is literally owned by some of the biggest banks on Wall Street, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. (See our report: These Are the Banks that Own the New York Fed and Its Money Button.)” (Click here for full article)
TREND FORECAST: Yes, this Bankster deal to keep enriching the rich and rig the markets is steeped with sad facts of who runs what and who owns the economic and equity market system in America … the nation that militarily attacks and kills millions of people in sovereign countries across the globe in the name of bringing “Freedom and Democracy.”
Imagine, if you can because it is unimaginable, that the Bankster Bandits would bail out their money-junky partners to the tune of $29 trillion while the “middle class” descends into living in a Dollar General retail world.
And as accurately noted by Wall Street on Parade, it is not a “Federal Reserve.” The JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley own the New York Fed.
We are living in perilous times. We maintain our forecast for the greatest equity market and economic crash in modern history.
When forecasting trends it is important to note that all things are connected. Indeed, as Chief Seattle said, “All things are connected, like the blood which unites us all.”
And as for the blood—with the Ukraine War raging, U.S./China tensions increasing and civil wars erupting across the globe as people take to the streets in protest of the lack of basic living standards, government corruption, crime and violence—the blood will be heavily spilling.
Yes, all things are connected. With economic devastation on the near horizon, as Gerald Celente says, “When all else fails, they take you to war”… and WW III, as we have forecast has already begun.
“In today already walks tomorrow,” Friedrich von Schiller said back in 1790.
Thus, when analyzing the current events of where we are “today” and how we got here to see the trends of “tomorrow,” if the current trend lines are not reversed, the Greatest Depression and global devastating are on the near horizon.
As we have greatly detailed, as a result of the COVID War launched by the Chinese in January 2020 on its Lunar New Year, The Year of the Rat— which the rest of the world joined in the fight to kill the coronavirus—the socioeconomic and geopolitical devastation is incalculable.
Following the “Chinese Way, You Must Obey,” the political class of power-hungry control freaks who declared that they, and they alone are in charge of everyone’s life—and the pursuits of liberty and happiness would not be tolerated—they destroyed the lives and livelihoods of billions across the globe.
In the New World Disorder they force human beings to be vaccinated with an Operation Warp Speed jab or no job, no school, no freedom; to forcing humans to wear masks; to made up “social distancing” mandates; forcing “non-essential” mom and pop business to close while the Bigs can stay in business and get bigger; to forbidding more than a few people to gather; to killing the live entertainment business; to sucking the joy out of life as evidenced by the soaring crime, homeless, suicides, drug addictions and overdoses, etc.
Yes, all things are connected. And the connection is this. A crime syndicate is in charge of governments in a country near you. The financial game is rigged.
We maintain our forecast that precious metals prices, such as gold and silver, will sharply spike when reality hits the Streets and the markets and economies can no longer be rigged. We also maintain our forecast for bitcoin to be the primary cryptocurrency that will also be seen, especially by younger generations, as a safe haven asset.
LAST WEEK: STOCKS FALTER ON STRONG JOBS REPORT
Stocks flatlined on Friday after the U.S. labor department announced that the economy gained 528,000 jobs in July, more than twice as many as analysts had predicted. (See related story in this issue.)
The job market’s surprising continued strength left investors worried that the U.S. Federal Reserve would now have a strong incentive to raise interest rates aggressively again in its meeting next month.
The Street sees the high job numbers as proof that the economy is growing and that with the economy going up (despite two quarters of negative GDP growth) the Feds will keep raising interest rates.
The Fed’s rate increases so far this year have scotched an extended market rally and sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 index down close to 20 percent through July.
The S&P managed a 0.4-percent gain for the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2 percent, and the NASDAQ was up 2.2 percent over the five trading days.
Bond prices fell, with yields on the benchmark 10-year treasury note shooting up to 2.838 percent on Friday from Thursday’s close of 2.674. Bond yields rise as bond prices fall.
Gold ticked up 0.7 percent for the week, closing Friday at $1,972.
Brent crude oil broke down through the $100 mark, beginning the week at $103.50 and sinking to $94.92 by 5 p.m. U.S. eastern time Friday. West Texas Intermediate opened the week at $97.46 and slid down to $90.54.
Bitcoin moved sideways for the week, ending Friday at $23,288.20.
Overseas, markets were relatively quiet.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 was down 0.5 percent. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 moved up 1.3 percent.
The South Korean KOSPI gained 0.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng put on 0.9 percent.
The Chinese SSE Composite dropped 0.7 percent, with the CSI Composite slipped down 0.2 percent.
YESTERDAY: ALL EYES ON INFLATION DATA
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 29.07 points, or 0.089 percent, to close the trading day at 32,832.54. The S&P 500 was down 5.13 points, or 0.12 percent to 4,140.06, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 13.10 points, or 0.10 percent, to end the day at 12,644.46.
Investors are waiting for inflation data for July that is due out this week. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), Producer Price Index (PPI), and unit labor costs are all due by the end of the week.
Economists are eyeing a year-over-year CPI rise of 8.7 percent in July. The CPI reading in June was 9.1 percent. CPI is a measure of the average change in prices paid by urban consumers for consumer goods and services.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is also expected to release its PPI on Thursday. The Street is anticipating a 10.4 percent increase from 2021. The PPI came in up 10.4 percent in July.
Stocks in the U.S. are coming off a positive jobs report on Friday that showed employers added 528,000 jobs in July. The unemployment level fell to 3.5 percent. The report has some on The Street believing that the Fed could be bolder when it comes to monetary tightening.
Fannie Mae also released a report Monday that showed some nervousness in the housing market. The survey found that consumer confidence in the housing market is down to its lowest level since 2011, with just 17 percent of those surveyed last month saying it is a good time to purchase a home.
TREND FORECAST: It should be noted that investors are concerned about the increased tensions between the U.S. and China over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and there are no signs of a breakthrough in Ukraine. In fact, the Biden administration on Monday announced another billion in weapons to Kyiv and $4.5 billion in financial support.
Michael Every, a global strategist at Rabobank, told Bloomberg that Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan “will linger far longer than the market’s attention span will allow.”
“Yet geostrategists are largely united in the view that we are still worryingly close to a potential Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis,” he said.
China’s military reaction, which was expected, revealed how Beijing could impose a blockade in the future on the island.
“The official return of the US influence in Asia-Pacific will inevitably accelerate US-China decoupling,” Xiadong Bao, a fund manager at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management in Paris, told the news outlet. “Given it’s an evolving event, investors should brace for a test of nerves which may implicate high market volatility in the near-term.”
Elsewhere, Europe’s Stoxx 600 increased by 0.75 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.6 percent to close at 7,482.37
South Korea’s Kospi finished up 2.30 points higher to end the day at 2,493.10. The Shanghai Composite increased by 0.31 percent and closed at 3,236.93, and the Shenzhen Component rose 0.27 percent to close at 12,302.15. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.77 percent to close at 20,045.77.
Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong’s flag carrier, saw its stock increase 1.42 percent when the city announced that it will loosen hotel quarantine guidelines for international visitors in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. The city will enforce a three-day quarantine instead of seven, John Lee, the city’s leader, said.
The airline said in a statement: “We are asking the Government to urgently provide a clear roadmap showing the complete removal of all COVID-related restrictions for aircrew and passengers as soon as is feasible to protect Hong Kong’s international aviation hub status.”
Investors in Europe are keeping a close eye on Wednesday’s inflation numbers in the U.S. to get a gauge on the next move by the Fed.
GOLD/SILVER: Gold prices increased on Monday, with spot gold up 0.8 percent to $1,788.39 per ounce and U.S. gold futures up 0.8 percent to $1,804.8.
The two main factors in the increase were the weakening U.S. dollar and the decline in U.S. Treasury yields. The dollar index fell 0.17 percent to 106.4360. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped 9 basis points to about 2.746 percent. The Trends Journal has noted that gold loses some of its luster when interest rates increase because the precious metal pays no interest.
Gold is seen as a safe-haven investment during turbulent times, and foreign investors could turn to it as tensions in Taiwan and the war in Ukraine continue. But the Fed may act bolder after the jobs report and continue to increase interest rates.
Spot silver jumped 3.8 percent to $20.62 per ounce.
TRENDPOST: Gerald Celente told Stansberry Research last week that gold should be trading much higher than its current position due to the turmoil in the world. Citing the fines imposed upon JPMorgan Chase for rigging the precious metals markets He said the market is “rigged.”
“There’s two things they don’t want to happen,” he said. “They don’t want the equity market to crash and they don’t want gold prices to skyrocket to where they should go because then the little people will know how bad it is. They don’t know how bad it is until the markets crash. Gold prices should have been skyrocketing for the last three years.”
As Celente noted, back in September 2020, CNBC reported:
“JPMorgan Chase is set to pay $920 million to resolve probes from three U.S. government agencies over its role in the alleged manipulation of metal and Treasurys markets.”
The figure was released Tuesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in a statement from Commissioner Dan Berkovitz. Last week, news reports indicated the New York-based bank was nearing a settlement of almost $1 billion.
For eight years, a group of traders at JPMorgan systematically ‘spoofed’ precious metals and Treasury futures markets by entering hundreds of thousands of orders with the intent to cancel them before execution,” Berkovitz said. “The Commission’s Order finds that JPMorgan manipulated these markets and failed to diligently supervise its traders.”
The language is a farce.
Government B.S. spewed out for the Presstitutes to sell.
“Resolve probes,” “alleged manipulation,” “systematically ‘spoofed’ precious metals market.”
How about: “Greedy, lowlife criminals were again caught stealing… destroying the lives and life savings of honest people who invested in precious metals.”
But don’t call them criminals.
They’re “White Shoe Boys”… and they come in all races, creeds, and colors.
One of them was President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, who, when The Banksters fleeced the American public out of trillions of dollars, he declared the “Too Big to Fail” were Too Big for Jail.
We note the government’s slap on the Banksters’ wrist with minor fines compared to the money they made and lives they ruined… and continue to ruin.”
BITCOIN: Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, hit $24,000 per coin on Monday as cryptocurrencies have shown a tendency to trade in line with stocks.
The crypto also showed a tendency to respond to central bank moves to tighten interest rates in order to bring down inflationary pressures on the economy. Crypto analysts say they believe bitcoin could hover in the $20,000 to $30,000 range for some time, and not the huge increases that were seen back in 2017 or 2021.
The general feeling in the crypto world is that if inflation numbers for July come in at about 8.7 percent, cryptos will not be negatively affected. But if the number is significantly higher, the greater the likelihood that the Federal Reserve takes bolder action to raise rates. The higher the rates rise, the more people look to Treasuries as interest-bearing assets. The Fed raised rates by 75 basis points last week.
TRENDPOST: The value of bitcoin fell from nearly $1.3 trillion to $436 billion from November to last week.
The crypto made gains when Fed Head Jerome Powell announced that the central bank could ease its interest rate hikes, but James Bullard, the St. Louis Federal Reserve president, seemed to throw cold water on that possibility when he said the Fed could increase interest rates by 1.5 percentage points by the end of 2022.
We have pointed out that bitcoin’s value – like gold and silver – can also take a hit when there is a strong U.S. dollar. However, we maintain our forecast that bitcoin will be among the safe-haven assets prices that will go up when the equity markets and economies go sharply down.
TODAY: CPI MIGHT MAKE US CRY
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 58.13 points, or 0.18 percent to 32,774.41, and the S&P was also down 17.59, or 0.42 percent to 4,122.47.
The Nasdaq Composite was down 150.53, or 1.19 percent to 12,493.93.
Investors are focused on tomorrow’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index report for July, which is expected to come in at 8.7 percent year-over-year. In June, the CPI came in at 9.1 percent.
Economists say the expected decrease from June can be attributed to the drop in energy and commodity prices. Supply chain issues were also seen as easing in recent weeks.
The Fed is expected to use the CPI data to influence its next rate hike. Economists believe the CPI reading will be 8.7 percent year-over-year growth for July. If the number comes in much lower, the Fed could ease its monetary tightening. If the number comes in much higher, the central bank will likely act more aggressively.
The Royal Bank of Canada said the U.S. will likely need to see a more significant pullback in consumer demand “to get inflation moving back toward the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target rate. Overall, we look for the Fed to hike rates to 3.25 percent-3.5 percent range by end of this year.”
Novavax, the vaccine maker, was one of the market’s big losers after the company cut its 2022 sales outlook due to weakening demand for its COVID-19 vaccine. The stock fell 31 percent.
The vaccine was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration in July for use in adults.
Revenue for the vaccine maker was $186 million for the second quarter. The Street was predicting $975 million. Adam Crisafulli, an analyst from Vital Knowledge, told CBS News that there is a sense that the “COVID opportunity is diminishing overall while Novavax just came out of the gate too far behind the mRNA products.”
Chipmakers were a drag on the NASDAQ Composite with lingering macroeconomic concerns and supply chain issues. Micron warned investors that it may not hit its guidance numbers and the stock fell more than 5 percent.
Ed Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda, told CNBC that the chip industry is a concern for the tech sector because there was a belief that the big players were in a “better position to navigate through some of these recent supply chain issues.”
Microsoft moved to rein in some expenses—like corporate travel—to control costs, The Wall Street Journal reported. The report said the Redmond, Wash., company laid off some employees in its Modern Life Experiences group.
TRENDPOST: Cracks are beginning to emerge that show the fragile state of the economy. Stocks would have crashed a long time ago if not for the Banksters at the Federal Reserve artificially propping up equities.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a report by Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service, said public pensions in the U.S. lost an average of nearly 8 percent in the year ended 30 June—the worst performance since 2009. These are pensions that are owned by police officers and other city workers.
And the worst is yet to come. The report said these funds are short hundreds of billions that are needed to pay future guarantees. The Fed has not been acting aggressively enough to bring down inflation because the stock market would crash. If the Fed raised rates at the level needed to bring down inflation, stocks would crash and, in the words of Warren Buffett, only then would you discover “who’s been swimming naked.”
Europe’s Stoxx 600 was down 2.95 points, or 0.67 percent, to 435.98, and Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 5.78 points, or 0.08 percent to 7,488.15.
South Korea’s Kospi was up 10.36, or 0.42 percent to 2,503.46. Japan’s Nikkei was down 249.28 points, or 0.88 percent to end at 27,999.96.
The Shanghai Composite was in the green and was up 10.50, or 0.32 percent to close at 3,247.43. The Shenzhen Component was up 28.94 points, or 0.24 percent to close at 12,331.10.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 42.33 points, or 0.21 percent, to close at 20,003.44.
The European Union’s emergency gas plan to adapt to reduced gas flows from Russia took effect today, which means EU member states were asked to cut the amount of gas they use by 15 percent and begin speeding up the process of filling storage containers for the fall and winter months.
Germany is Europe’s biggest customer of Russian gas and has seen prices more than double since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Cornwall Insight estimates that energy bills in the United Kingdom are due to increase from £1,971 today to around £3,582 in October, before rising even further in the New Year.
Investors in Europe are also eyeing tomorrow’s CPI data in the U.S. as an indicator of future monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve.
In the Asian market, SoftBank shed about 7 percent of its value due to a huge loss from its Vision Fund. The tech-heavy fund was down 2.93 trillion Japanese yen for the June quarter. CNBC said the company was hurt by rising interest rates to combat inflationary pressures around the world.
Japan has maintained its -0.1 percent target for short-term rates. The country’s 10-year bond yields are around 0 percent.
OIL: Oil prices were in the red today, with Brent crude falling 0.22, or 0.14 percent at 4:34 p.m. ET to $96.48 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate was down 0.12, or 0.13 percent to $90.63 per barrel.
It was a bumpy day in the oil market and ended lower after reports that Russian crude shipments would restart into countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Prices increased when there were early concerns that Russia would end shipments, but Mero, the Czech state-owned pipeline operator, told Bloomberg that supplies should resume “within several days.”
Some analysts say oil prices, which came down from record high prices in March when they hit $130 per barrel, may still be headed to about $120 per barrel by January.
Amrita Sen, the director of Energy Aspects, told Bloomberg that the U.S. will stop releasing oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve and she anticipates that China will further ease COVID restrictions and buy more oil.
China purchased 8.79 million barrels per day in July.
She also mentioned that the European Union’s planned ban of Russian oil will take 2.2 million barrels of oil from the market.
The dramatic drop in oil prices since the Ukraine War began has some oil analysts accusing the Biden White House of “fabricating low gas demand data in a bid to hammer oil prices,” OilPrice.com reported.
The report highlighted a note from Doug Legate, an energy strategist at Bank of America, who wrote, “the fall of gasoline demand appears grossly exaggerated.’’
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has long reported on the devasting impact that the sanctions leveled against Russia have had on the global economy that still did not recover from COVID-19 lockdowns.
The Biden administration is doing everything it can to bring down energy prices in the U.S.. President Joe Biden recently visited Saudi Arabia to discuss the issue and Washington announced a major weapons deal for the Kingdom.
The U.S. also inched closer to reviving the Obama-era nuke deal with Iran after a draft text emerged.
Thomas Westwater, an analyst, wrote on DailyFX.com that the draft could pave the way to the removal of sanctions on Iran, “including oil exports. Iran would likely be able to supply upward of 1 million barrels per day, although no specific timeline is known. Overall, a deal would likely pressure oil prices on the additional supply.”
GOLD/SILVER: Gold was up today by 0.30 percent to $1,810.70 per ounce. Silver fell 0.58 percent to $20.495 an ounce.
Gold prices hit a five-week high today due in part to the further weakening dollar, which means gold is more affordable to those paying with other currencies. The precious metal is normally seen as a safe haven investment in times of economic uncertainty, but has been feeling the pressure of tightening monetary policy in major markets around the world.
Craig Erlam, an analyst for OANDA, wrote in a note to investors that he will be watching the CPI data, particularly the core data, which measures the changes in the price of goods and services. The data does not take into account food and energy. Economists predict that the annual core inflation number could jump to 6.1 percent. The number was 5.9 percent in June.
“A softer inflation number tomorrow, particularly on the core side, could be the catalyst (for gold prices) for a breakout to the upside, while a stronger number could put $1,800 out of reach for the foreseeable future,” he said, according to CNBC.
TREND FORECAST: Gerald Celente said the price of gold should be much higher than it is currently trading due to economic turmoil and uncertainties.
It is worth noting that gold shed 1 percent on Friday after the U.S. jobs report showed employers added 528,000 jobs, doubling expectations.
The gold selloff at the end of the week was seen as a shift in sentiment that “markets were premature to price in a Federal Reserve pivot from the aggressive tightening cycle,” Bart Melek, told Kitco News.
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.
BITCOIN: Bitcoin fell below the $23,000 mark earlier today but regained its footing and was trading at $23,066.40 per coin at 2:11 p.m. ET. It was still down, but was inching higher.
We have long noted that cryptos tend to fall whenever there is evidence of government oversight of the market. Thailand’s central bank announced that it will move to regulate digital assets.
Akhom Termpittaya, the finance minister, told Bloomberg that his government plans to increase supervision of platforms that trade the cryptos.
TRENDPOST: We have long noted that bitcoin tends the fluctuate with the market, and crypto investors will be concentrating on CPI data that is set to be released because high Treasury yields compete with gold and bitcoin because it offers interest.
The Coin Telegraph reported that bitcoin and other cryptos tend to pull back before CPI results because traders look to “de-risk.” Some investors called the concerns unreasonable but expect the value to continue hitting resistance at $24,000.