Over 1.5 MILLION International Followers and Readers have engaged our various curated Digest of Insights and Ideas from leading global investors, economists, scientists, experts and media; focusing on Humanity's "BIG 7 Es" Energy, Economics, Exponentiation, Environment, Entropy, Earth and Extinction as they pertain to individual wealth issues. Meshing the best and brightest minds to provide our world leading -Investors' Advice -
"IN THE KNOW, AHEAD OF MARKETS, DECIDING WISELY"
LEADERS
International LEADERS Calling Market Crashes Years Ahead
Second to None, Anywhere...
'Warned 2000 tech slide; predicted 2008 meltdown in 2007. Forecasted 2020 global economic collapse in 2011, AND NOW- BY 2050 - THE MOTHER OF ALL CRASHES"
Is an inverted yield curve here to stay and what does that mean?
The yield curve between the 2-year and 10-year Treasury notes has inverted again to start Friday’s session, a closely watched indicator that has historically been associated with eventual recessions.
While the curve has now flirted back and forth with inversion over the last several days, investors are looking to see what the dynamic signals and whether the condition is likely to persist over a meaningful period of time.
At the moment, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield is up five basis points to 2.39%, whereas the U.S. 2-year Treasury yield is up twelve basis points to 2.45%.
Inversion describes a situation where the longer-duration bond has a lower yield than the shorter-duration one. This represents the opposite condition than usual, as investors typically ask for additional return when locking up their cash for a longer period of time. Thus, under normal conditions, long-duration bonds generally have higher rates than those with shorter durations.
The concern surrounding inversion centers around the idea of a potential future recession.
US airlines cast a wider net in search for sustainable aviation fuel supply
Highlights Global supplies of oils tighten, exacerbated by lower Ukraine output SAF producers use alternate methods to meet growing demand As US airlines seek to lock in sustainable aviation fuel supply to reach their 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, many are looking beyond suppliers who produce SAF using traditional feedstocks like hydrogenated vegetable oils and tallow. Not registered? Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now With more renewable diesel and SAF projects starting up, renewable feedstock supplies are tightening, increasing costs.
The price of key soybean oil feedstock averaged 75.86 cents/lb in March, compared with the year-to-date average of 68.22 cents/lb, according to Platts assessments from S&P Global Commodity Insights.
I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me - they're cramming for their final exam.
. "I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives."
Sri Lanka Economic Crisis: Five Other Countries Facing A Similar Catastrophe
With a number of socio-political grounds inducing a growing crisis in the country’s economy, Sri Lanka has joined the line of countries that have undergone similar economic crises.
Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis in years. The acute shortage of US dollars in the country has pushed up the price of basic food items including milk, that are essential for regular meals and food businesses. The island country is facing a double whammy of increasing prices and high external debt.
Faced with an acute economic and energy crisis, triggered due to a shortage of foreign exchange, Sri Lanka’s fuel shortage has forced tens of thousands of people to queue for hours outside petrol pumps. People are also facing long hours of power cuts daily.
According to economists, Sri Lanka’s debt spiral was already on an unsustainable path even before the pandemic dried up the tourism funds.
With a number of socio-political grounds inducing a growing crisis in the country’s economy, Sri Lanka has joined the line of countries that have undergone similar crises.
Inflation is so hot the Fed may have to hike interest rates like it’s 1994
By Matt Egan, CNN Business
Inflation is so hot that Wall Street banks are falling over each other to predict the dramatic moves the Federal Reserve will have to make to cool prices off.
Goldman Sachs raised eyebrows earlier this week by forecasting the Fed will raise interest rates by a half a percentage point in each of the next two meetings.
Morgan Stanley and Jefferies quickly endorsed that view, even though the Fed hasn’t done a rate hike of that size at a single meeting since 2000.
Now, Citigroup is upping the ante. Citi economists said Friday they expect the Fed will boost interest rates by a half a percentage point during each of the next four meetings. And Citi left the door open for even more aggressive steps, such as big rate hikes at every remaining meeting this year.
The aggressive call underscores the level of concern about the inflation outlook, which has darkened considerably in recent weeks because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing spike in food, energy and other commodity prices.
The recent stock market rally is a trap. This is because Wall Street is vastly underestimating how hawkish the Federal Reserve will have to get in order to fight inflation. And how much weaker earnings and GDP growth will become as a result. The fact is Fed Chair Jerome Powell has finally become enlightened to the inflation crisis engendered by his own hand. The Powell's inflation epiphany is mainly the result of his observation that shelter costs are soaring out of control. He now realizes that he will have to pop the housing bubble in order to vanquish inflation.
The data on this front is shocking. Home value growth was so extreme last year that it actually surpassed median salaries in 25 of 38 metropolitan areas across the country, according to research firm Zillow. And, rent prices have surged by nearly 20% nationwide year over year in January, while in the sunbelt, they have skyrocketed by 50%. Some 30% of these properties are owned by Wall Street and other investors.
What else would you expect to occur when the Fed guarantees access to money for next to nothing. Wall Street then uses that cheap credit to purchase massive tracks of single-family homes with a cash deal and then rents them out to would-be first-time homebuyers who have been priced out of the market by this very process. Wall Street wins big, profiting from both the increase in real estate prices and the increased cash flow derived from rising rent payments. While the people the Fed professes to care the most about fall further behind the American dream.
Exchanges and brokers are demanding more money upfront to trade oil, wheat and natural gas, straining markets amid supply disruptions from war in Ukraine.
Commodity prices are hot right now. But the prices investors are paying in the open market for commodities like coffee, copper or corn can have little to do with the price customers pay at the store. READ MORE
Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America -- not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
First of all, it is difficult to argue that even today the index is fairly valued. On the other hand, there are a number of metavariables that leads us to conclude it is extremely over-priced and there is a major correction brewing in the winds of market volatility. In a nutshell here are a few factors that drew us to this conclusion:
Clearly, an increase in the Fed rate will impact the valuation mathematics. Simply doubling the long rate from 1% to 2% - depresses the net present value of cash flow and earnings by 50%.
Climate change weather and water shortages will continue to put pressure on the production of agricultural items and essentials; thereby inflation.
The costs of diesel fuel are rising faster than gasoline under the current oil market frenzy which adds more cost pressures and creates logistical issues for the supply chain. Result - more inflation and higher rates.
Housing costs continue to rise throughout Western societies and workers we can expect will be demanding greater compensations. Again fueling the algebra of inflation/rates.
Geopolitical issues remain unresolved and that could lead to further supply and market disruptions which could lead us to Oil priced over $200 a barrel in 2022. You know what that means!
The proliferation of cryptocurrencies garners little in terms of concrete real value or logistical science and hence the danger becomes that they could undermine the inherent value of sovereign currencies thereby fueling the road to the US dollar losing its reserve currency status. Fear this event above all - because it provokes the unknown ravages of hyperinflation which are beyond any imaginable catastrophes.
Bottom line, one could argue that cost containment and inflation is now in the ballpark of nature - and it bats last. We are, most importantly, running out of essential industrial resources, water, climate conditions, and arable land. The microcosms are demonstrated today by terrible economies in a number of countries; viz, Turkey, Lebanon, SriLanka, Venezuela, Argentina and so forth.
There is no reason to believe that nature will provide papal dispensation to Western societies from these economic diseases because our broken models and theories are corrupt and outdated. They do not recognize the consequences of the per capita imbalance of population and natural resources: particularly energy, materials, and agricultural inputs.
Conclusion
To summarize, what can be expected in the future as a consequence of these hard and logical growth limits imposed by the planet? The answer is clearly more inflation, higher rates and naturally lower NASDAQ stock values over the longterm.
So don't be surprised to see the average PE Ratio for the NASDAQ market drop below 10 or worse as real earnings and future outlooks evaporate while inflation and rates sky-rocket to the high heavens. The economies are backed into a corner as we knowingly created a physical-mathematical trap that has dire consequences.
We cannot build a sustainable economic system and markets unless we redefine our economic, concepts theories and models to rebalance the relationship between population and essential resources. We need thinking based on reality and mathematics, not invisible hand abstractions.
"THIS IS THE MOST CRITICAL CHALLENGE OF OUR TIMES"
T A McNeil
CEO Founder
First Financial Insights Group
The NASDAQ’s real value is shockingly low—and it could drop another 18%
The NASDAQ's fall was bound to happen, and it's still not nearly deep enough to hit bedrock. The powerful momentum driving tech's shooting stars ever skywards is finally surrendering to market gravity. The "innovation-at-any-price" high spirits that sent the NASDAQ shooting into the stratosphere over less than three years, is giving way to the realization that its members can't grow profits nearly fast enough to give you a decent return. The reason is basic: These stocks are still just too damn expensive. Put simply, the fundamentals are taking hold following a long and crazy ride. The more unhinged prices became, the steeper the fall that was bound to follow––and most likely, we're witnessing the early stages of that inevitable descent right now.
Gravity is finally taking hold
How deeply will the NASDAQ drop? To make a reasonable estimate, let's unpack the traditional metrics that are reliable predictors of equity price trends over long periods, and address the question: What's the NASDAQ really worth? The NASDAQ 100 that represents the vast bulk of the overall index's valuation has already entered correction territory, shedding 10% from the close of 2021 to stand at 14,438 at the close on Friday, January 21, and down 13% from its all-time high, set on November 19, of 16,573. Among the glamour, stay-at-home economy luminaries that suffered the biggest hits since then: Zoom (down 41%), Netflix (-42%), Peloton (-43%), and Docusign (-56%).
China property shares soar on Beijing stimulus, despite continued debt crisis
Plans to shore up real estate and tech sectors welcomed by investors, but downgrade of third-biggest developer Sunac shows problems persist
Chinese property shares have soared for a second day thanks to a decision by Beijing’s leadership to throw the country’s struggling real estate sector a lifeline amid growing pressures at home and abroad.
Despite a downgrade for China’s third-biggest property developer Sunac on Thursday, stocks in the sector lifted again in Hong Kong and the mainland thanks to an announcement by vice premier Liu He, China’s economic tsar, on Wednesday that the government needed to reduce risks in the industry.
In a sign of the heightened concern inside China’s Communist party leadership about the property sector and the economy in general – best illustrated by the near-collapse of the giant developer Evergrande – Liu urged the roll-out of market-friendly policies to support the economy.
