Rosie On The Fed’s Intent To Get Everyone Onboard Its All-In Bet On Stocks
by ilene - October 18th, 2010 11:30 am
Rosie On The Fed’s Intent To Get Everyone Onboard Its All-In Bet On Stocks
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Just in case there is someone living in a cave who still doesn’t understand that the Fed’s one and only mandate (forget that crap about inflation and jobs) is to give everyone one last shove into the all inponzi before the diarrhea hits the HVAC, here is David Rosenberg explaining, for the cheap seats, what the Fed’s terminal intent is.
The Fed’s intent is not to create consumer inflation, but rather asset inflation — primarily in the equity market. By pulling longer-term bond yields lower, the Fed hopes that this will alter how investors value equities relative to the fixed-income market. Moreover, the Fed will be actively pushing up the value of bonds that exist in investor portfolios, and as such the intent is to induce these investors to rebalance their asset mix towards equities in order to maintain their current allocation. The Fed is also trying to incentivize fund flows into the equity market. This in turn would theoretically boost household wealth and as such make consumers, who now feel richer, to go out and spend more. So the theory goes — we shall see how it works in practice.
The Fed’s intent is also to lower both the debt and equity cost of capital so that companies will, at the margin, compare that to expected returns on newly invested capital and begin to spend more on new plant and equipment. The hope here is that the investment spending multiplier will kick in and that stepped-up job creation would occur in tandem with the renewed capex growth.
In essence, the Fed wants to avoid what happened in Japan over the last two decades — have a look at Japan Goes from Dynamic to Disheartened on the front page of the Sunday NYT. The comment in the article to the effect that back in 1991, the consensus was looking for the Japanese economy to begin surpassing the U.S. economy in size by 2010. Nice call. Instead, Japan’s economy has not expanded at all since that time whereas the U.S. economy, despite all its problems, has grown 65%.
That said, the U.S. has already experienced a lost decade in many respects, especially as it pertains to the labour market, while Japan has lost two decades. Also have a
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Three Indications Gold and Silver Will Continue to Rise
by Chart School - September 8th, 2009 5:21 pm
Three Indications Gold and Silver Will Continue to Rise
Precious Metals are tacking on more strength this morning after a strong showing last week. Gold futures are now above the symbolic $1,000 per ounce level, and the December silver contract is at $16.75. While there have been several false starts this summer where precious metals have traded higher, only to be forced back into a trading range, today’s move appears to be setting up a true (and potentially long-term) positive trend. The following are three indications that the current move is legitimate.
Volume – When looking at any sharp breakout in stocks, commodities, currencies or other asset class; most traders will tell you that they want to see heavy volume in order to validate the trend. Volume which is above average usually indicates strong institutional buying (or selling in the case of falling prices), and when institutions make a move, it can take them several days or even a period of several weeks in order to build their full position. Nimble traders can often see these volume tracks and get involved quickly in order to profit from the continual buying as a group of professional managers build positions.
Another thing that volume can tell you is that many players have been caught off guard. In the case of precious metals, the argument against inflation has been widespread as economists believed that a weak recovery would keep loose policy from resulting in the traditional inflationary pressures. If those opinions prove to be false, there will be many investors and traders alike, scrambling to find protection which could result in a long-term buying spree for gold and silver.
Currencies – The media has named several forces in play which are pushing gold and silver higher, but one of the most important factors is the continued weakness of the US dollar. Take a look at the chart on the right and you will see the dollar as compared with a basket of other currencies has been trading south since the peak which coincided with the March low in equities. The picture will look different depending on which individual currency you compare the dollar to, but the bottom line is that the dollar is quickly losing ground and becoming worth-less as we print more paper in order to meet our obligations.
Now in order for…
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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...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.