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Asset Inflation/Deflation: The Fed’s QE2 vs. $15 Trillion in Losses

Asset Inflation/Deflation: The Fed’s QE2 vs. $15 Trillion in Losses

Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds

Given that the economy faces $15 trillion in writedowns in collateral and credit, the Fed’s $2 trillion dollars in new credit/liquidity is insufficient to trigger either inflation or another speculative bubble.

"Don’t fight the Fed" is supposed to be a strong argument for being bullish on the U.S. economy and stocks. We all know the Federal Reserve is about to unleash a torrent of money into the financial markets via its QE2 (quantitative easing) campaign of buying Treasury bonds directly and pulling various other monetary levers to open the liquidity gates.

But before we succumb to the excitement that accompanies the unleashing of the Fed’s supernatural powers, perhaps we should look at some numbers first.

Size of U.S. economy: $14 trillion. Probable size of QE2: $1 trillion. That means QE2 is perhaps 7% of GDP. Even a whopping $2 trillion QE would equal about 14% of GDP.

In contrast, by some measures China opened the floodgates of credit to the tune of fully 35% of their GDP to combat the contraction caused by the global financial meltdown in late 2008: China’s Creative Accounting.

How much collateral and credit will be destroyed as the U.S. economy rolls over into recession/depression in 2011-14? Based on the latest (September 17, 2010) Fed Flow of Funds, here is my back-of-the-envelope estimates of losses yet to be booked in assets (collateral) and credit (debt):

1. Residential real estate: current value, $18.8 trillion. Estimated value in 2014: $13.8 trillion, i.e. a decline of $5 trillion or 26%. If all impaired mortgages are written down or sold for fair market value, I am guessing the full $5 trillion will need to be written off by somebody, somewhere.

My 26% estimate is conservative; according to the Case-Shiller Index chart, a decline of 40% would be required to return the index to the year-2000 level.

2. Commercial real estate (CRE): The Flow of Funds only reports "nonfarm nonfinancial corporate business" so the CRE number of $6.5 trillion is a few trillion light (that is, we need to add in CRE owned by financial corporations). I am estimating writedowns of $3 trillion--a number others have also guesstimated.

Empty malls, empty office parks, empty warehouses, empty retail: they’re all worth essentially zero. The cost of bulldozing them is higher than their auction value.…
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Chart School

Hottest Stock Market in the World Creates a Huge Engulfing Bearish Wick

Courtesy of Doug Short.

Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.

33 days ago I was honored to do an interview with Phil Pearlman, executive editor of StockTwits (listen here). A couple of the key points in the interview were:

  1. Follow the price action of the world's hottest stock market.
  2. Investor sentiment did not appear to be at peak levels and the market had more room to the upside.

Click the adjacent thumbnail to listen to the interview.

What has happened since the interview? The S&P 500 was up 6% and the Nikkei gained 17% more.

Well that is now the past.

The chart below reflects that the hottest stock market in the world rallied to its 23% Fibonacci retracement of the 2007-2009 financial crisis decline and so far t...



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Zero Hedge

The Bronze Swan Arrives: Is The End Of Copper Financing China's "Lehman Event"?

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

In all the hoopla over Japan's stock market crash and China's PMI miss last night, the biggest news of the day was largely ignored: copper, and the fact that copper's ubiquitous arbitrage and rehypothecation role in China's economy through the use of Chinese Copper Financing Deals (CCFD) is coming to an end.

Copper, as China pundits may know, is the key shadow interest rate arbitrage tool, through the use of financing deals that use commodities with high value-to-density ratios such as gold, copper, nickel, which in turn are used as collateral against which USD-denominated China-domestic Letters of Credit are pleged, in what can often result in a ...



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Phil's Favorites

Nikkei Plunges 1,143 Points (7.32%); Global Equities Hammered; Start of Reflation Bubble Bust?

Courtesy of Mish.

The Nikkei plunged a whopping 1,143 points as the following chart shows.



Global Equities Hammered

It's not just the Nikkei that's being hammered. Asia-Pacific is in a rout as well.



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Start of Reflation Bubble Bust?

Is this the start of the great reflation un...



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Sabrient

Sector Detector: Fed tries to refill bulls’ fuel tank as cyclicals lead

Courtesy of Sabrient Systems and Gradient Analytics

The market went through some gyrations on Wednesday in reaction to Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. He first defended continued quant easing by warning, “A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but also would carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery.” Stocks dutifully rallied and all major indexes hit new intraday highs.

But alas, consensus is apparently not a given over the longer term. The minutes hinted that a tapering off could start sooner, “A number of participants expressed willingness to adjust the flow of purchases downward as early as the June meeting if the economic information received by that time showed evidence of sufficiently strong and sustained growth.” So …...



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Insider Scoop

Long Setup in Herbalife Still Attractive; Stock Breaks Out as New Auditor Hired

Courtesy of Benzinga.

Few stocks have attracted more news over the last six months than nutritional supplement maker Herbalife (NYSE: HLF).

Even casual market observers are aware of the circumstances surrounding the the initial bout of extreme volatility in the name back in December 2012. The shares went into free-fall at the end of the year after hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealed in typical sanctimonious fashion that his firm Pershing Square Capital Management was short around $1 billion worth of the stock.

Amid much pomp and circumstance, Ackman laid out his short thesis at a New York investment conference and...



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Option Review

Big Volume In Saks Options As Shares Rip Higher

 

Today’s tickers: SKS, USG & PFE

SKS - Saks, Inc. – Timely bullish bets initiated in Saks options just seconds prior to the closing bell on Tuesday are generating sizable gains for at least one trader today, with shares in the high-end retailer up at the highest level since 2008. The stock closed Tuesday up 11% on the day at $13.67 after the company reported first-quarter revenue above average analyst expectations. Within minutes of the close shares in SKS moved sharply to the upside after the New York Post, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported...



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Market Montage

Putting in a Bearish Outside Candle Today

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

The indexes along with a host of stocks are putting in a bearish outside candle today (over yesterday's highs and below yesterday's lows).  Typically this is … well bearish.  But in the QE era when a technical signal screams bearish it has tended to be completely forgotten within a few days, causing those who follow it to get squeezed if you are short or left behind if you go to cash.  This is the difficulty of the current market – QE causes it not to behave as normal.  In the "old days" today would be a day to take major note of.

The RSI I noted at an extremely rare 75 this morning, is...



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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of May 20th, 2013

Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

...

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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly

NEW: Newsletter writers are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Here's the latest Stock World Weekly! Just sign in with your PSW user name and password, or sign up to try it out. 

...

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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

The IRA portfolio

Reminder: Craigzooka is available to chat with Members regarding his virtual portfolio performance, comments are found below each post.

By Craigzooka

I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis.  My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA.  Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis.  To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year.  These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.

  • We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
  • We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
  • We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...


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ETF Selector

Stock Market Gets Big News After Friday’s Close

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.

Courtesy of NASA

The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.

For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...



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Pharmboy

Give Them an Inch, They Will Take a Mile

Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi.  Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward.  So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...



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About Phil:

Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...

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