After the panic low in the stock market on Monday, August 24, traders were hoping for a “V” bottom, and stocks did bounce back quickly for a couple of days, But since then stocks have not made any progress and are again turning over. This action suggests that August low is going to re-tested. If that low does not hold, there could be a bloodbath.
Sometimes stocks become overpriced relative to their true underlying value, and sometimes we see the reverse. When stock prices are undervalued, the equity ownership conveyed by the stock is worth more than the price. The important point is that most investors do not factor into their economic calculations when evaluating stocks whether the dollar — the measuring stick — is itself overvalued or undervalued.
So will the dollar tank and remove some of the selling pressure on stocks? Or will a dollar rally make stocks look even more overvalued and increase the selling pressure?
If history is any guide, I expect the former. For decades the Fed has trashed the dollar in an attempt to paper over declining living standards to keep the U.S. welfare state afloat. Expect more of the same.
For this reason I do not think the air pocket the precious metals yesterday is a reason for concern. Gold in dollar terms is down 4 percent this year, but I expect gold to post a gain this year when the counting is done in three months.
This downtrend in the dollar has been underway for months. The dollar has been moving lower since the U.S. Dollar Index hit 100 early this year. It also topped out last month around 98 and has been unable to rally back to those previous highs. The tide is rolling out.
The stock market has also been giving us sell signals. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke below key moving averages last month and has not produced any meaningful rally. These are negative signals.
Since the 2008 collapse, we have seen this action in stocks and the dollar before. In those instances the Federal Reserve saved the day for the dollar and stocks with QE programs and other schemes that pumped newly printed dollars into the system. But this time is shaping up differently.
The Fed has not done anything of substance — at least not yet anyway. The rising selling pressure in the stock market is the result.
“These two markets are of course inextricably interrelated. We price the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and, for that matter, every individual stock in terms of the dollar. The dollar is the measuring stick by which market participants state their individual subjective view of the value of every stock. But valuations are less important now than the need for liquidity.
Because of all the leveraged bets, investors have had to sell stocks to keep their heads above water. But with prices in Asia heading lower to begin this week, a global slide in prices is the result.
It is noteworthy that the dollar fell yesterday along with the stock market. We are seeing a rush for liquidity as stocks head lower, but yesterday’s weakness shows that the dollar is losing its position as the currency of choice."
Gold expert James Turk thinks the biggest bubble of all is long past its expiration date. Turk thinks this bubble will end like all bubbles. Turk predicts, “This money bubble is going to pop. It has to because there is just too much debt in the world. That debt has to be reconciled and, ultimately, when you are reconciling debt, it gets back to the point about collateral on the balance sheets. There is just not enough good collateral to support all of this paper money circulating out there.”
Turk also says there is way too many paper promises for the actual physical gold that can be delivered. So, in the future, Turk says, “I see a lot of these promises to deliver gold being broken and, ultimately, the only way you are going to see this being resolved is with a much higher gold price.” How high? Turk estimates, “You’ve got to be looking back to the all-time highs of $1,900 or $2,000 per ounce. We are eventually going to take those out. It’s just a question of when we do it. It’s obvious it is going to happen because gold has been money for 5,000 years and, ultimately, people will come back to gold when they realize that all these promises of bankers and central bankers really cannot be fulfilled. So, it is just a question of when that reconciliation comes. In March of 1968, the dam broke and the gold price was released and the gold price climbed for another 12 years. When the gold price finally gets released this time around, it’s going to climb for many, many more years. It’s hard to say how high it can go, but relative to the amount of paper that’s out there . . . a price several times higher than what we have today seems very, very reasonable in the long run.”
Renowned gold expert James Turk says prolonged gold backwardation like we are seeing now, where the spot price is higher than the future price, has never happened before. Turk contends,“No, never, and I am a student of monetary history as well, and I have never seen it happen like this in monetary history. Typically, when a backwardation would occur under the classic gold standard, for example, the banks that would have fractional reserve banking would go under. There would be a banking collapse. So, typically, if there was a backwardation, it would only last for a few days as it did in 1999 and in 2008. So, we have an unusual situation where we have heavy government involvement where they are trying to keep the gold price under wraps so they can maintain this policy of zero interest rates. They are thinking they are going to jumpstart the economy, but the economy is not being jumpstarted. All it’s doing is deferring the ultimate collapse and the governments’ ability to repay all the debt that they owe.”
Turk, a best-selling author who co-wrote a book called “The Money Bubble,” says what is happening now is nothing short of an historic bubble getting ready to pop. Turk explains, “In other words, just as we look back to the South Sea bubble and the Mississippi bubble, people are going to look back to today and say this is the money bubble. People are using what they think is money, but what they are using is really a money substitute. That’s the theme of the book that John Rubino and I wrote. We have lost sight as to what money truly is. It is a physical asset without counter-party risk and that is gold and silver.”
Turk thinks this bubble will end like all bubbles. Turk predicts, “This money bubble is going to pop. It has to because there is just too much debt in the world. That debt has to be reconciled and, ultimately, when you are reconciling debt, it gets back to the point about collateral on the balance sheets. There is just not enough good collateral to support all of this paper money circulating out there.”
It comes as no surprise that Turk thinks the premier collateral is gold. Turk goes on to say, “That’s what you are going to want, and that is ultimately what’s going to reemerge in global commerce. . . . It’s ultimately going to go back to gold.”
Turk also says there is way too many paper promises for the actual physical gold that can be delivered. So, in the future, Turk says, “I see a lot of these promises to deliver gold being broken and, ultimately, the only way you are going to see this being resolved is with a much higher gold price.” How high? Turk estimates, “You’ve got to be looking back to the all-time highs of $1,900 or $2,000 per ounce. We are eventually going to take those out. It’s just a question of when we do it. It’s obvious it is going to happen because gold has been money for 5,000 years and, ultimately, people will come back to gold when they realize that all these promises of bankers and central bankers really cannot be fulfilled. So, it is just a question of when that reconciliation comes. In March of 1968, the dam broke and the gold price was released, and the gold price climbed for another 12 years. When the gold price finally gets released this time around, it’s going to climb for many, many more years. It’s hard to say how high it can go, but relative to the amount of paper that’s out there . . . a price several times higher than what we have today seems very, very reasonable in the long run.”
Gold expert James Turk thinks the biggest bubble of all is long past its expiration date. Turk thinks this bubble will end like all bubbles. Turk predicts, “This money bubble is going to pop. It has to because there is just too much debt in the world. That debt has to be reconciled and, ultimately, when you are reconciling debt, it gets back to the point about collateral on the balance sheets. There is just not enough good collateral to support all of this paper money circulating out there.”
