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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Marc Faber's Predictions for 2014

Since 2010, we had a massive outperformance of the US vis-a-vis emerging economies. The US cyclically adjusted earnings P/E ratios are relatively high, which would indicate low returns for the next 7 to 10 years. In other words, in the opinion of Jeremy Grantham returns of less than 2% are negative in real terms for each of the next 7 years. Conversely, in emerging economies we had bear markets. In some markets, adjusted for the depreciation for currencies like the Brazilian real, the Indian rupee, and so forth, we had declines of 30% to 50% from the highs. So the question for the investor is, ‘Do I buy the US that is still currently momentum driven but it won’t be driven forever, or do I gradually move into emerging economies?’ I think it’s too early to move into emerging economies, and I think it’s too late to buy US stocks. They (US stocks) may go up another 10%, maybe even 20%, but the risks have increased significantly and I don’t think equity investors in the US, aside from a short-term trading opportunity, will reap very high returns in the future. Now, compared to equities in emerging economies and equities in the US, what is really incredibly depressed are mining companies. My preference has always been to own physical gold, but I have to say that at this level the mining companies are relatively good values.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Gold shares could go up 30 percent in 2014

Given all the money printing that is going on globally . . . and given that the total credit as a percentage of the advanced economies is now 30% higher than in Year 2007 before the crisis hit, I think Gold is good insurance. I think Gold shares are very inexpensive. So a basket of Gold shares I think next year could easily appreciate 30 percent.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Singapore, Hong Kong better now than 15 years ago

The difference between the wealth and income inequality in Singapore and Hong Kong, and that in the US, is that most people in these two cities (the so-called 90%) enjoy better living conditions than 15 years ago and their net worth has appreciated, whereas in the US this is not the case.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Marc Faber is Sounding Like a Reluctant Bull

Amid all the steady-as-she-goes predictions for the S&P 500 SPX -0.01% Marc Faber is predicting U.S. markets could rise another 20% from here.

But unless you have the temerity to get in then get out quick, it’s already too late to profit.

“They may go up another 10%, maybe even 20%, but the risks have increased significantly and I don’t think equity investors in the U.S., aside from a short-term trading opportunity, will reap very high returns in the future,” said Marc Faber, outlining his expectations for 2014 in an interview with King World News on Monday. Since 2010, said Faber, U.S. markets have massively outperformed compared to emerging economies.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Gold Shares could go up 30 percent in 2014


Given all the money printing that is going on globally . . . and given that the total credit as a percentage of the advanced economies is now 30% higher than in Year 2007 before the crisis hit, I think Gold is good insurance.
I think Gold shares are very inexpensive. So a basket of Gold shares I think next year could easily appreciate 30 percent.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Opportunities in individual smaller cap stocks in India



We are down in India from the early 2008 high by 40 percent in US dollar terms, in other words adjusted for the currency movements. We are not down 40 percent in rupee terms, but in dollar terms. I think that people pay too much attention to GDP growth figure etc and should rather focus more on individual companies. 

The problem in Emerging economies is that a lot of money has flowed in and it has boosted the valuation of essentially very liquid stocks or big market cap stocks whereas smaller cap stocks are reasonably priced. 

So I think there is an opportunity in India, whether the index will go up a lot or not that I do not know, but for the active investor that does not buy the index, I see an opportunity.






Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, December 20, 2013

There is Value in Precious Metals Mining Companies

Faber said that the nomination of Janet Yellen to head the Federal Reserve could lead to an even bigger bubble.

"With all this collection of dovish professors at the Fed, that actually the asset-purchased programs could be increased—not tapered, increased," he said. "There's no great value in equities with very few exceptions, but it can become even more overvalued."

The Nasdaq was overvalued in the summer of 1999 but continued climbing until March 2000, Faber noted.

"The fact that the market goes up doesn't necessarily make it good value," he said.

Faber said that he saw value in mining companies, particularly precious metals. - in cnbc.com

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Opportunities in individual smaller cap stocks in India


We are down in India from the early 2008 high by 40 percent in US dollar terms, in other words adjusted for the currency movements. We are not down 40 percent in rupee terms, but in dollar terms. I think that people pay too much attention to GDP growth figure etc and should rather focus more on individual companies.
The problem in Emerging economies is that a lot of money has flowed in and it has boosted the valuation of essentially very liquid stocks or big market cap stocks whereas smaller cap stocks are reasonably priced.
So I think there is an opportunity in India, whether the index will go up a lot or not that I do not know, but for the active investor that does not buy the index, I see an opportunity.


Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Cosmetic Taper is possible

Now there has been talk about tapering for the last 6-8 months, but in my view if they taper, it will be a very cosmetic gesture and on any sign of further economic weakness, or if asset markets decline again like the stock market drops 10-20 percent they will actually increase the asset purchases. My sense is that the Federal Reserve will continue to buy assets in order to try to support the asset markets.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Money flowing from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand into India stocks

We had an under-performance of India compared to other emerging economies until recently. And we have this pool of international liquidity that is driven by asset allocators, so they look at India - they see a relative poor performance and they see some marginal improvement in the macroeconomic environment of India. So money is flowing out of countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand into India.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

From Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand to India

Money is flowing out of countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand into India. We had an under-performance of India compared to other emerging economies until recently. And we have this pool of international liquidity that is driven by asset allocators, so they look at India - they see a relative poor performance and they see some marginal improvement in the macroeconomic environment of India. - See more at: http://www.marcfabersblog.com/#sthash.9hVSD1BH.dpuf

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

There is Value in Precious Metals Mining Companies

Faber said that the nomination of Janet Yellen to head the Federal Reserve could lead to an even bigger bubble. "With all this collection of dovish professors at the Fed, that actually the asset-purchased programs could be increased—not tapered, increased," he said. "There's no great value in equities with very few exceptions, but it can become even more overvalued." The Nasdaq was overvalued in the summer of 1999 but continued climbing until March 2000, Faber noted. "The fact that the market goes up doesn't necessarily make it good value," he said. Faber said that he saw value in mining companies, particularly precious metals. - Marc Faber via a recent CNBC interview:

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Monday, December 16, 2013

A Colossal Bubble in the High End Sector

Known as a market bear, Faber also said bubbles are forming in some areas. "I see a bubble in everything that relates to the financial sector," he said. "We have a bubble in bonds. We have a bubble in low-quality bonds. We have a bubble in equities. If you look at the financial sector as a percentage of the global economy, it's very large. We have a huge debt bubble, and it's only getting bigger. It's not getting any smaller. "Everything that is in the financial sector is the bubble, and it's been pumped up by central banks." Faber also called "a colossal bubble" in the high-end sector, adding, "Think diamonds and the prestige art and luxury." While the luxury sector has been strong, costs have also been going up and competition has increased, Faber said. "The outlook is relatively favorable, but tastes may change."

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Market has adjusted to Taper

The market has already adjusted, because they introduced QE3, QE4 in the summer of 2012. At the time the 10-year Treasury note yield was 1.43 percent. We are now at 2.8 percent on the 10-year. In other words, they have both assets at the end of November over a trillion dollars already this year and yet interest rates have gone up; in other words it seems that the Federal Reserve has lost control of the bond market. They can keep short-term rates indefinitely at essentially very low rate, but there will be of course some economic damages arising from zero interest rate policies.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Bill Gross vs Marc Faber on Taxation


The November 2013 Investment Outlook published by PIMCO caught my attention with an essay by Bill Gross. Gross wrote remorsefully,

    “Having benefited enormously via the leveraging of capital since the beginning of my career and having shared a decreasing percentage of my income thanks to Presidents Reagan and Bush 43 via lower government taxes, I now find my intellectual leanings shifting to the plight of labor........... .... ... .. .”

I suppose that, by “the plight of labor”, Gross is referring both to the decline of median household income in real terms over the last ten years or so, and to the collapse of labor’s share of US national income since 2000. Personally, I am also concerned about the slump in the labor force participation rate.

Having written about rising wealth and income inequality for the last ten years or so, I have a lot of sympathy with Bill Gross’s views. However, I am far from certain that the inequality was caused by lower tax rates on carried interest and capital gains.

As an example, it is not only the “1%” who have increased their share of national income considerably over the last 30 years, but also the top 10% of income recipients. Moreover even if capital gains are excluded, the top income recipients have increased their share of national income meaningfully. I simply cannot believe that the top decile of income earners would all have benefited from low taxes on carried interest. (This may be different for the “0.01%”.)

Therefore, other — possibly more important — factors than favorable taxes on carried interest and on capital gains may have led to the growing income inequality, such as education (rising cost), outsourcing of production to low labor-cost countries, low interest rates (substitution of labor with machines), rising debts, increasing entitlements, immigration of low-skilled workers, etc. I shall return to Gross’s essay further below. However, I should first like to address some of the problems associated with taxation.

Therefore, other — possibly more important — factors than favorable taxes on carried interest and on capital gains may have led to the growing income inequality, such as education (rising cost), outsourcing of production to low labor-cost countries, low interest rates (substitution of labor with machines), rising debts, increasing entitlements, immigration of low-skilled workers, etc. I shall return to Gross’s essay further below. However, I should first like to address some of the problems associated with taxation.

Everyone will agree that taxes should be fair, but what is fair is hard to determine. Your friend inherits a high income-producing property that allows him a lifestyle of leisure and pleasure, whereas you earn your living on the factory floor through hard work. Assuming your incomes are equal, is it fair that your fortunate friend’s tax rate is the same as yours, or should it be higher or lower?

On the surface, someone could argue that, since you work for your income, you should be taxed at a lower rate than your friend, who does not work for his income. Someone else might argue that, on the contrary, your friend should be taxed at a lower rate since his parents have already paid taxes on the income that allowed them to purchase the property. (This question also relates to taxes on dividends.)

In my humble opinion, the probably fairest tax is a flat tax on incomes (no deductibles such as the interest payments on debts, children allowances, or investment tax credits, and no subsidies for any interest groups) which is levied on all income earners and corporations, churches, missions, charities, pension funds, government officials (and governmental organisations), etc. at a maximum rate of between 10% and 15% per annum (no exceptions).

Naturally, the approximately 49% of taxpayers who pay no federal income tax, as well as the entire industry of lawyers, accountants, and auditors who make a living from a complex tax regime, would object to a flat tax. In terms of indirect taxes, the fairest tax is a value added tax levied on all transactions at a maximum rate of 5%. Regarding property and capital gain taxes, the fairest taxes are most likely no taxes.

I am aware that some readers will consider such a system of taxation to be radical. But I can assure them that, while not perfect, this system would be far fairer and more equitable than the tax system we currently have in most Western democracies, which is so complex and incomprehensible for ordinary people that it requires an army of costly and time-consuming lawyers, accountants, and auditors to calculate the taxes that are owed.

This simplified tax system would also eliminate more than 90% of the IRS’s more than 100,000 employees who have the power to arbitrarily harass people and small business owners, since most of these agents themselves do not have a full understanding of all the tax laws and regulations. Complex tax laws also hurt small business owners far more than large corporations.

It is easy to see that the more tax laws there are, the more corruption there will be.




 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Cosmetic Taper is possible

Now there has been talk about tapering for the last 6-8 months, but in my view if they taper, it will be a very cosmetic gesture and on any sign of further economic weakness, or if asset markets decline again like the stock market drops 10-20 percent they will actually increase the asset purchases. My sense is that the Federal Reserve will continue to buy assets in order to try to support the asset markets.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Monday, December 9, 2013

After excesses follows a financial crisis


As a distant but interested observer of history and investment markets I am fascinated how major events that arose from longer-term trends are often explained by short-term causes. The First World War is explained as a consequence of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne; the Depression in the 1930s as a result of the tight monetary policies of the Fed; the Second World War as having been caused by Hitler; and the Vietnam War as a result of the communist threat.

Similarly, the disinflation that followed after 1980 is attributed to Paul Volcker’s tight monetary policies. The 1987 stock market crash is blamed on portfolio insurance. And the Asian Crisis and the stock market crash of 1997 are attributed to foreigners attacking the Thai Baht (Thailand’s currency). A closer analysis of all these events, however, shows that their causes were far more complex and that there was always some “inevitability” at play.

Simply put, a financial crisis doesn’t happen accidentally, but follows after a prolonged period of excesses…




Take the 1987 stock market crash. By the summer of 1987, the stock market had become extremely overbought and a correction was due regardless of how bright the future looked. Between the August 1987 high and the October 1987 low, the Dow Jones declined by 41%. As we all know, the Dow rose for another 20 years, to reach a high of 14,198 in October of 2007.

These swings remind us that we can have huge corrections within longer term trends. The Asian Crisis of 1997-98 is also interesting because it occurred long after Asian macroeconomic fundamentals had begun to deteriorate. Not surprisingly, the eternally optimistic Asian analysts, fund managers , and strategists remained positive about the Asian markets right up until disaster struck in 1997.

But even to the most casual observer it should have been obvious that something wasn’t quite right. The Nikkei Index and the Taiwan stock market had peaked out in 1990 and thereafter trended down or sidewards, while most other stock markets in Asia topped out in 1994. In fact, the Thailand SET Index was already down by 60% from its 1994 high when the Asian financial crisis sent the Thai Baht tumbling by 50% within a few months. That waked the perpetually over-confident bullish analyst and media crowd from their slumber of complacency.

I agree with the late Charles Kindleberger, who commented that “financial crises are associated with the peaks of business cycles”, and that financial crisis “is the culmination of a period of expansion and leads to downturn”. However, I also side with J.R. Hicks, who maintained that “really catastrophic depression” is likely to occur “when there is profound monetary instability — when the rot in the monetary system goes very deep”.

Simply put, a financial crisis doesn’t happen accidentally, but follows after a prolonged period of excesses (expansionary monetary policies and/or fiscal policies leading to excessive credit growth and excessive speculation). The problem lies in timing the onset of the crisis. Usually, as was the case in Asia in the 1990s, macroeconomic conditions deteriorate long before the onset of the crisis. However, expansionary monetary policies and excessive debt growth can extend the life of the business expansion for a very long time.

In the case of Asia, macroeconomic conditions began to deteriorate in 1988 when Asian countries’ trade and current account surpluses turned down. They then went negative in 1990. The economic expansion, however, continued — financed largely by excessive foreign borrowings. As a result, by the late 1990s, dead ahead of the 1997-98 crisis, the Asian bears were being totally discredited by the bullish crowd and their views were largely ignored.

While Asians were not quite so gullible as to believe that “the overall level of debt makes no difference … one person’s liability is another person’s asset” (as Paul Krugman has said), they advanced numerous other arguments in favour of Asia’s continuous economic expansion and to explain why Asia would never experience the kind of “tequila crisis” Mexico had encountered at the end of 1994, when the Mexican Peso collapsed by more than 50% within a few months.

In 1994, the Fed increased the Fed Fund Rate from 3% to nearly 6%. This led to a rout in the bond market. Ten-Year Treasury Note yields rose from less than 5.5% at the end of 1993 to over 8% in November 1994. In turn, the emerging market bond and stock markets collapsed. In 1994, it became obvious that the emerging economies were cooling down and that the world was headed towards a major economic slowdown, or even a recession.

But when President Clinton decided to bail out Mexico, over Congress’s opposition but with the support of Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, and tapped an obscure Treasury fund to lend Mexico more than$20 billion, the markets stabilized. Loans made by the US Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements totalled almost $50 billion.

However, the bailout attracted criticism. Former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin used funds to bail out Mexican bonds of which Goldman Sachs was an underwriter and in which it owned positions valued at about $5 billion.

At this point I am not interested in discussing the merits or failures of the Mexican bailout of 1994. (Regular readers will know my critical stance on any form of bailout.) However, the consequences of the bailout were that bonds and equities soared. In particular, after 1994, emerging market bonds and loans performed superbly — that is, until the Asian Crisis in 1997. Clearly, the cost to the global economy was in the form of moral hazard because investors were emboldened by the bailout and piled into emerging market credits of even lower quality.

…because of the bailout of Mexico, Asia’s expansion was prolonged through the availability of foreign credits.

Above, I mentioned that, by 1994, it had become obvious that the emerging economies were cooling down and that the world was headed towards a meaningful economic slowdown or even a recession. But the bailout of Mexico prolonged the economic expansion in emerging economies by making available foreign capital with which to finance their trade and current account deficits. At the same time, it led to a far more serious crisis in Asia in 1997 and in Russia and the U.S. (LTCM) in 1998.

So, the lesson I learned from the Asian Crisis was that it was devastating because, given the natural business cycle, Asia should already have turned down in 1994. But because of the bailout of Mexico, Asia’s expansion was prolonged through the availability of foreign credits.

This debt financing in foreign currencies created a colossal mismatch of assets and liabilities. Assets that served as collateral for loans were in local currencies, whereas liabilities were denominated in foreign currencies. This mismatch exacerbated the Asian Crisis when the currencies began to weaken, because it induced local businesses to convert local currencies into dollars as fast as they could for the purpose of hedging their foreign exchange risks.

In turn, the weakening of the Asian currencies reduced the value of the collateral, because local assets fall in value not only in local currency terms but even more so in US dollar terms. This led locals and foreigners to liquidate their foreign loans, bonds and local equities. So, whereas the Indonesian stock market declined by “only” 65% between its 1997 high and 1998 low, it fell by 92% in US dollar terms because of the collapse of their currency, the Rupiah.

As an aside, the US enjoys a huge advantage by having the ability to borrow in US dollars against US dollar assets, which doesn’t lead to a mismatch of assets and liabilities. So, maybe Krugman’s economic painkillers, which provided only temporary relief of the symptoms of economic illness, worked for a while in the case of Mexico, but they created a huge problem for Asia in 1997.

Similarly, the housing bubble that Krugman advocated in 2001 relieved temporarily some of the symptoms of the economic malaise but then led to the vicious 2008 crisis. Therefore, it would appear that, more often than not, bailouts create larger problems down the road, and that the authorities should use them only very rarely and with great caution.

Regards,

Marc Faber   via   http://dailyreckoning.com/that-financial-crisis-was-no-accident
Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

No idea what Bitcoin is worth




I have no idea whether a bitcoin is worth $10,000, a million dollars, or $50. Its a symptom of excess liquidity goes into bitcoins, it can go into paintings, farmland, diamonds, all at different times. It shows that there is a lot of liquidity that just flushes into one speculative sector of the market to another one. Farmland is up 10 times over the last 10 years. And Bitcoins are up now and who knows what next will go up.
Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Financial Crisis Don't Happen Accidentally, They Are Inevitable


Authored by Marc Faber, originally posted at The Daily Reckoning blog,

As a distant but interested observer of history and investment markets I am fascinated how major events that arose from longer-term trends are often explained by short-term causes. The First World War is explained as a consequence of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne; the Depression in the 1930s as a result of the tight monetary policies of the Fed; the Second World War as having been caused by Hitler; and the Vietnam War as a result of the communist threat.

Similarly, the disinflation that followed after 1980 is attributed to Paul Volcker’s tight monetary policies. The 1987 stock market crash is blamed on portfolio insurance. And the Asian Crisis and the stock market crash of 1997 are attributed to foreigners attacking the Thai Baht (Thailand’s currency). A closer analysis of all these events, however, shows that their causes were far more complex and that there was always some “inevitability” at play.

Take the 1987 stock market crash. By the summer of 1987, the stock market had become extremely overbought and a correction was due regardless of how bright the future looked. Between the August 1987 high and the October 1987 low, the Dow Jones declined by 41%. As we all know, the Dow rose for another 20 years, to reach a high of 14,198 in October of 2007.

These swings remind us that we can have huge corrections within longer term trends. The Asian Crisis of 1997-98 is also interesting because it occurred long after Asian macroeconomic fundamentals had begun to deteriorate. Not surprisingly, the eternally optimistic Asian analysts, fund managers , and strategists remained positive about the Asian markets right up until disaster struck in 1997.

But even to the most casual observer it should have been obvious that something wasn’t quite right. The Nikkei Index and the Taiwan stock market had peaked out in 1990 and thereafter trended down or sidewards, while most other stock markets in Asia topped out in 1994. In fact, the Thailand SET Index was already down by 60% from its 1994 high when the Asian financial crisis sent the Thai Baht tumbling by 50% within a few months. That waked the perpetually over-confident bullish analyst and media crowd from their slumber of complacency.

I agree with the late Charles Kindleberger, who commented that “financial crises are associated with the peaks of business cycles”, and that financial crisis “is the culmination of a period of expansion and leads to downturn”. However, I also side with J.R. Hicks, who maintained that “really catastrophic depression” is likely to occur “when there is profound monetary instability — when the rot in the monetary system goes very deep”.

Simply put, a financial crisis doesn’t happen accidentally, but follows after a prolonged period of excesses (expansionary monetary policies and/or fiscal policies leading to excessive credit growth and excessive speculation). The problem lies in timing the onset of the crisis. Usually, as was the case in Asia in the 1990s, macroeconomic conditions deteriorate long before the onset of the crisis. However, expansionary monetary policies and excessive debt growth can extend the life of the business expansion for a very long time.

In the case of Asia, macroeconomic conditions began to deteriorate in 1988 when Asian countries’ trade and current account surpluses turned down. They then went negative in 1990. The economic expansion, however, continued — financed largely by excessive foreign borrowings. As a result, by the late 1990s, dead ahead of the 1997-98 crisis, the Asian bears were being totally discredited by the bullish crowd and their views were largely ignored.

While Asians were not quite so gullible as to believe that “the overall level of debt makes no difference … one person’s liability is another person’s asset” (as Paul Krugman has said), they advanced numerous other arguments in favour of Asia’s continuous economic expansion and to explain why Asia would never experience the kind of “tequila crisis” Mexico had encountered at the end of 1994, when the Mexican Peso collapsed by more than 50% within a few months.

In 1994, the Fed increased the Fed Fund Rate from 3% to nearly 6%. This led to a rout in the bond market. Ten-Year Treasury Note yields rose from less than 5.5% at the end of 1993 to over 8% in November 1994. In turn, the emerging market bond and stock markets collapsed. In 1994, it became obvious that the emerging economies were cooling down and that the world was headed towards a major economic slowdown, or even a recession.

But when President Clinton decided to bail out Mexico, over Congress’s opposition but with the support of Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, and tapped an obscure Treasury fund to lend Mexico more than$20 billion, the markets stabilized. Loans made by the US Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements totalled almost $50 billion.

However, the bailout attracted criticism. Former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin used funds to bail out Mexican bonds of which Goldman Sachs was an underwriter and in which it owned positions valued at about $5 billion.

At this point I am not interested in discussing the merits or failures of the Mexican bailout of 1994. (Regular readers will know my critical stance on any form of bailout.) However, the consequences of the bailout were that bonds and equities soared. In particular, after 1994, emerging market bonds and loans performed superbly — that is, until the Asian Crisis in 1997. Clearly, the cost to the global economy was in the form of moral hazard because investors were emboldened by the bailout and piled into emerging market credits of even lower quality.

Above, I mentioned that, by 1994, it had become obvious that the emerging economies were cooling down and that the world was headed towards a meaningful economic slowdown or even a recession. But the bailout of Mexico prolonged the economic expansion in emerging economies by making available foreign capital with which to finance their trade and current account deficits. At the same time, it led to a far more serious crisis in Asia in 1997 and in Russia and the U.S. (LTCM) in 1998.

So, the lesson I learned from the Asian Crisis was that it was devastating because, given the natural business cycle, Asia should already have turned down in 1994. But because of the bailout of Mexico, Asia’s expansion was prolonged through the availability of foreign credits.

This debt financing in foreign currencies created a colossal mismatch of assets and liabilities. Assets that served as collateral for loans were in local currencies, whereas liabilities were denominated in foreign currencies. This mismatch exacerbated the Asian Crisis when the currencies began to weaken, because it induced local businesses to convert local currencies into dollars as fast as they could for the purpose of hedging their foreign exchange risks.

In turn, the weakening of the Asian currencies reduced the value of the collateral, because local assets fall in value not only in local currency terms but even more so in US dollar terms. This led locals and foreigners to liquidate their foreign loans, bonds and local equities. So, whereas the Indonesian stock market declined by “only” 65% between its 1997 high and 1998 low, it fell by 92% in US dollar terms because of the collapse of their currency, the Rupiah.

As an aside, the US enjoys a huge advantage by having the ability to borrow in US dollars against US dollar assets, which doesn’t lead to a mismatch of assets and liabilities. So, maybe Krugman’s economic painkillers, which provided only temporary relief of the symptoms of economic illness, worked for a while in the case of Mexico, but they created a huge problem for Asia in 1997.

Similarly, the housing bubble that Krugman advocated in 2001 relieved temporarily some of the symptoms of the economic malaise but then led to the vicious 2008 crisis. Therefore, it would appear that, more often than not, bailouts create larger problems down the road, and that the authorities should use them only very rarely and with great caution.




 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Marc Faber December 2013 Market Commentary



December 2013 Market Commentary

Many investment professionals complain that the investment environment has become extremely difficult. However, I am showing that with a disciplined approach and integrity, and by avoiding chasing short-term performance through speculative investments in momentum stocks, a successful fund management business can be built. In particular, I am focusing on Selling Disciplines. If there is great value in buying distressed assets, there must be value in selling highly priced assets as well.

According to Mark Hulbert, “The current Shiller P/E is 24.4, which puts the [US] market in the 9th decile. On the assumption that the future is like the past, the market’s expected real return over the next decade is just 0.9% annualized.” Hulbert then explains that the stock market bulls argue that the “alternatives” such as bonds are hardly any better because it would take only a small increase in interest rates to produce losses in real terms over the next decade. But, according to Hulbert, “this argument doesn’t really support the conclusion the bulls draw. Just because the alternatives are awful doesn’t mean the stock market is a good place in which to invest your money. T-Bills are not an unattractive option...”

High valuations, excessive debts, and extremely bullish sentiment do not necessary imply that a US stock market collapse is imminent. This especially not in an environment of unlimited money printing but if we believe in Selling Disciplines then the combination of high valuations and extremely positive sentiment strongly argues for reducing one’s exposure to US equities. As Tennessee Williams said, “there is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.”


For the full monthly market commentary, you may get a paid subscription at
http://new.gloomboomdoom.com/public/pSTD.cfm?pageSPS_ID=7100

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

After excesses what follows is a financial crisis

As a distant but interested observer of history and investment markets I am fascinated how major events that arose from longer-term trends are often explained by short-term causes. The First World War is explained as a consequence of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne; the Depression in the 1930s as a result of the tight monetary policies of the Fed; the Second World War as having been caused by Hitler; and the Vietnam War as a result of the communist threat.

Similarly, the disinflation that followed after 1980 is attributed to Paul Volcker’s tight monetary policies. The 1987 stock market crash is blamed on portfolio insurance. And the Asian Crisis and the stock market crash of 1997 are attributed to foreigners attacking the Thai Baht (Thailand’s currency). A closer analysis of all these events, however, shows that their causes were far more complex and that there was always some “inevitability” at play.

Simply put, a financial crisis doesn’t happen accidentally, but follows after a prolonged period of excesses…




Take the 1987 stock market crash. By the summer of 1987, the stock market had become extremely overbought and a correction was due regardless of how bright the future looked. Between the August 1987 high and the October 1987 low, the Dow Jones declined by 41%. As we all know, the Dow rose for another 20 years, to reach a high of 14,198 in October of 2007.

These swings remind us that we can have huge corrections within longer term trends. The Asian Crisis of 1997-98 is also interesting because it occurred long after Asian macroeconomic fundamentals had begun to deteriorate. Not surprisingly, the eternally optimistic Asian analysts, fund managers , and strategists remained positive about the Asian markets right up until disaster struck in 1997.

But even to the most casual observer it should have been obvious that something wasn’t quite right. The Nikkei Index and the Taiwan stock market had peaked out in 1990 and thereafter trended down or sidewards, while most other stock markets in Asia topped out in 1994. In fact, the Thailand SET Index was already down by 60% from its 1994 high when the Asian financial crisis sent the Thai Baht tumbling by 50% within a few months. That waked the perpetually over-confident bullish analyst and media crowd from their slumber of complacency.

I agree with the late Charles Kindleberger, who commented that “financial crises are associated with the peaks of business cycles”, and that financial crisis “is the culmination of a period of expansion and leads to downturn”. However, I also side with J.R. Hicks, who maintained that “really catastrophic depression” is likely to occur “when there is profound monetary instability — when the rot in the monetary system goes very deep”.

Simply put, a financial crisis doesn’t happen accidentally, but follows after a prolonged period of excesses (expansionary monetary policies and/or fiscal policies leading to excessive credit growth and excessive speculation). The problem lies in timing the onset of the crisis. Usually, as was the case in Asia in the 1990s, macroeconomic conditions deteriorate long before the onset of the crisis. However, expansionary monetary policies and excessive debt growth can extend the life of the business expansion for a very long time.

In the case of Asia, macroeconomic conditions began to deteriorate in 1988 when Asian countries’ trade and current account surpluses turned down. They then went negative in 1990. The economic expansion, however, continued — financed largely by excessive foreign borrowings. As a result, by the late 1990s, dead ahead of the 1997-98 crisis, the Asian bears were being totally discredited by the bullish crowd and their views were largely ignored.

While Asians were not quite so gullible as to believe that “the overall level of debt makes no difference … one person’s liability is another person’s asset” (as Paul Krugman has said), they advanced numerous other arguments in favour of Asia’s continuous economic expansion and to explain why Asia would never experience the kind of “tequila crisis” Mexico had encountered at the end of 1994, when the Mexican Peso collapsed by more than 50% within a few months.

In 1994, the Fed increased the Fed Fund Rate from 3% to nearly 6%. This led to a rout in the bond market. Ten-Year Treasury Note yields rose from less than 5.5% at the end of 1993 to over 8% in November 1994. In turn, the emerging market bond and stock markets collapsed. In 1994, it became obvious that the emerging economies were cooling down and that the world was headed towards a major economic slowdown, or even a recession.

But when President Clinton decided to bail out Mexico, over Congress’s opposition but with the support of Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, and tapped an obscure Treasury fund to lend Mexico more than$20 billion, the markets stabilized. Loans made by the US Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements totalled almost $50 billion.

However, the bailout attracted criticism. Former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin used funds to bail out Mexican bonds of which Goldman Sachs was an underwriter and in which it owned positions valued at about $5 billion.

At this point I am not interested in discussing the merits or failures of the Mexican bailout of 1994. (Regular readers will know my critical stance on any form of bailout.) However, the consequences of the bailout were that bonds and equities soared. In particular, after 1994, emerging market bonds and loans performed superbly — that is, until the Asian Crisis in 1997. Clearly, the cost to the global economy was in the form of moral hazard because investors were emboldened by the bailout and piled into emerging market credits of even lower quality.

…because of the bailout of Mexico, Asia’s expansion was prolonged through the availability of foreign credits.

Above, I mentioned that, by 1994, it had become obvious that the emerging economies were cooling down and that the world was headed towards a meaningful economic slowdown or even a recession. But the bailout of Mexico prolonged the economic expansion in emerging economies by making available foreign capital with which to finance their trade and current account deficits. At the same time, it led to a far more serious crisis in Asia in 1997 and in Russia and the U.S. (LTCM) in 1998.

So, the lesson I learned from the Asian Crisis was that it was devastating because, given the natural business cycle, Asia should already have turned down in 1994. But because of the bailout of Mexico, Asia’s expansion was prolonged through the availability of foreign credits.

This debt financing in foreign currencies created a colossal mismatch of assets and liabilities. Assets that served as collateral for loans were in local currencies, whereas liabilities were denominated in foreign currencies. This mismatch exacerbated the Asian Crisis when the currencies began to weaken, because it induced local businesses to convert local currencies into dollars as fast as they could for the purpose of hedging their foreign exchange risks.

In turn, the weakening of the Asian currencies reduced the value of the collateral, because local assets fall in value not only in local currency terms but even more so in US dollar terms. This led locals and foreigners to liquidate their foreign loans, bonds and local equities. So, whereas the Indonesian stock market declined by “only” 65% between its 1997 high and 1998 low, it fell by 92% in US dollar terms because of the collapse of their currency, the Rupiah.

As an aside, the US enjoys a huge advantage by having the ability to borrow in US dollars against US dollar assets, which doesn’t lead to a mismatch of assets and liabilities. So, maybe Krugman’s economic painkillers, which provided only temporary relief of the symptoms of economic illness, worked for a while in the case of Mexico, but they created a huge problem for Asia in 1997.

Similarly, the housing bubble that Krugman advocated in 2001 relieved temporarily some of the symptoms of the economic malaise but then led to the vicious 2008 crisis. Therefore, it would appear that, more often than not, bailouts create larger problems down the road, and that the authorities should use them only very rarely and with great caution.

Regards,
Marc Faber   via   http://dailyreckoning.com/that-financial-crisis-was-no-accident


 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

We Are In A Gigantic Speculative Bubble

"We have to be careful of these kind of exponentially rising markets," chides Marc Faber, adding that he "sees no value in stocks." Fearful of shorting, however, because "the bubble in all asset prices" can keep going due to the printing of money by world central banks, Faber explains to a blind Steve Liesman the difference between over-valuation and bubbles (as we noted here), warning that "future return expectations from stocks are now very low."

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Even the silly real estate bubbles we experienced in Asia in the 1990s had their benefits





I would like readers to consider carefully the fundamental difference between a “real economy” and a “financial economy.” In a real economy, the debt and equity markets as a percentage of GDP are small and are principally designed to channel savings into investments.

In a financial economy or “monetary-driven economy,” the capital market is far larger than GDP and channels savings not only into investments, but also continuously into colossal speculative bubbles. This isn’t to say that bubbles don’t occur in the real economy, but they are infrequent and are usually small compared with the size of the economy. So when these bubbles burst, they tend to inflict only limited damage on the economy.

In a financial economy, however, investment manias and stock market bubbles are so large that when they burst, considerable economic damage follows. I should like to stress that every investment bubble brings with it some major economic benefits, because a bubble leads either to a quantum jump in the rate of progress or to rising production capacities, which, once the bubble bursts, drive down prices and allow more consumers to benefit from the increased supplies.

In the 19th century, for example, the canal and railroad booms led to far lower transportation costs, from which the economy greatly benefited. The 1920s’ and 1990s’ innovation-driven booms led to significant capacity expansions and productivity improvements, which in the latter boom drove down the prices of new products such as PCs, cellular phones, servers and so on, and made them affordable to millions of additional consumers.

The energy boom of the late 1970s led to the application of new oil extracting and drilling technologies and to more efficient methods of energy usage, as well as to energy conservation, which, after 1980, drove down the price of oil in real terms to around the level of the early 1970s. Even the silly real estate bubbles we experienced in Asia in the 1990s had their benefits. Huge overbuilding led to a collapse in real estate prices, which, after 1998, led to very affordable residential and commercial property prices.

So my view is that capital spending booms, which inevitably lead to minor or major investment manias, are a necessary and integral part of the capitalistic system. They drive progress and development, lower production costs and increase productivity, even if there is inevitably some pain in the bust that follows every boom.

The point is, however, that in the real economy (a small capital market), bubbles tend to be contained by the availability of savings and credit, whereas in the financial economy (a disproportionately large capital market compared with the economy), the unlimited availability of credit leads to speculative bubbles, which get totally out of hand.

In other words, whereas every bubble will create some “white elephant” investments (investments that don’t make any economic sense under any circumstances), in financial economies’ bubbles, the quantity and aggregate size of “white elephant” investments is of such a colossal magnitude that the economic benefits that arise from every investment boom, which I alluded to above, can be more than offset by the money and wealth destruction that arises during the bust. This is so because in a financial economy, far too much speculative and leveraged capital becomes immobilized in totally unproductive “white elephant” investments.

In this respect, I should like to point out that as late as the early 1980s, the U.S. resembled far more a “real economy” than at present, which I would definitely characterize as a “financial economy.” In 1981, stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP was less than 40% and total credit market debt as a percentage of GDP was 130%. By contrast, at present, the stock market capitalization and total credit market debt have risen to more than 100% and 300% of GDP, respectively.

As I explained above, the rate of inflation accelerated in the 1970s, partly because of easy monetary policies, which led to negative real interest rates; partly because of genuine shortages in a number of commodity markets; and partly because OPEC successfully managed to squeeze up oil prices. But by the late 1970s, the rise in commodity prices led to additional supplies, and several commodities began to decline in price even before Paul Volcker tightened monetary conditions. Similarly, soaring energy prices in the late 1970s led to an investment boom in the oil- and gas-producing industry, which increased oil production, while at the same time the world learned how to use energy more efficiently. As a result, oil shortages gave way to an oil glut, which sent oil prices tumbling after 1985.

At the same time, the U.S. consumption boom that had been engineered by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s (driven by exploding budget deficits) began to attract a growing volume of cheap Asian imports, first from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea and then, in the late 1980s, also from China.

I would therefore argue that even if Paul Volcker hadn’t pursued an active monetary policy that was designed to curb inflation by pushing up interest rates dramatically in 1980/81, the rate of inflation around the world would have slowed down very considerably in the course of the 1980s, as commodity markets became glutted and highly competitive imports from Asia and Mexico began to put pressure on consumer product prices in the U.S. So with or without Paul Volcker’s tight monetary policies, disinflation in the 1980s would have followed the highly inflationary 1970s.

In fact, one could argue that without any tight monetary policies (just keeping money supply growth at a steady rate) in the early 1980s, disinflation would have been even more pronounced. Why? The energy investment boom and conservation efforts would probably have lasted somewhat longer and may have led to even more overcapacities and to further reduction in demand. This eventually would have driven energy prices even lower. I may also remind our readers that the Kondratieff long price wave, which had turned up in the 1940s, was due to turn down sometime in the late 1970s.

It is certainly not my intention here to criticize Paul Volcker or to question his achievements at the Fed, since I think that, in addition to being a man of impeccable personal and intellectual integrity (a rare commodity at today’s Fed), he was the best and most courageous Fed chairman ever.

However, the fact remains that the investment community to this day perceives Volcker’s tight monetary policies at the time as having been responsible for choking off inflation in 1981, when, in fact, the rate of inflation would have declined anyway in the 1980s for the reasons I just outlined. In other words, after the 1980 monetary experiment, many people, and especially Mr. Greenspan, began to believe that an active monetary policy could steer economic activity on a noninflationary steady growth course and eliminate inflationary pressures through tight monetary policies and through cyclical and structural economic downturns through easing moves!

This belief in the omnipotence of central banks was further enhanced by the easing moves in 1990/91, which were implemented to save the banking system and the savings & loan associations; by similar policy moves in 1994 in order to bail out Mexico and in 1998 to avoid more severe repercussions from the LTCM crisis; by an easing move in 1999, ahead of Y2K, which proved to be totally unnecessary but which led to another 30% rise in the Nasdaq, to its March 2000 peak; and by the most recent aggressive lowering of interest rates, which fueled the housing boom.

Now I would like readers to consider, for a minute, what actually caused the 1990 S&L mess, the 1994 tequila crisis, the Asian crisis, the LTCM problems in 1998 and the current economic stagnation. In each of these cases, the problems arose from loose monetary policies and excessive use of credit. In other words, the economy — the patient — gets sick because the virus —the downward adjustments that are necessary in the free market — develops an immunity to the medicine, which then prompts the good doctor, who read somewhere in The Wall Street Journal that easy monetary policies and budget deficits stimulate economic activity, to increase the dosage of medication.

The even larger and more potent doses of medicine relieve the temporary symptoms of the patient’s illness, but not its fundamental causes, which, in time, inevitably lead to a relapse and a new crisis, which grows in severity since the causes of the sickness were neither identified nor treated.

So it would seem to me that Karl Marx might prove to have been right in his contention that crises become more and more destructive as the capitalistic system matures (and as the “financial economy” referred to earlier grows like a cancer) and that the ultimate breakdown will occur in a final crisis that will be so disastrous as to set fire to the framework of our capitalistic society.

Not so, Bernanke and co. argue, since central banks can print an unlimited amount of money and take extraordinary measures, which, by intervening directly in the markets, support asset prices such as bonds, equities and homes, and therefore avoid economic downturns, especially deflationary ones. There is some truth in this. If a central bank prints a sufficient quantity of money and is prepared to extend an unlimited amount of credit, then deflation in the domestic price level can easily be avoided, but at a considerable cost.

It is clear that such policies do lead to depreciation of the currency, either against currencies of other countries that resist following the same policies of massive monetization and state bailouts (policies which are based on, for me at least, incomprehensible sophism among the economic academia) or against gold, commodities and hard assets in general. The rise in domestic prices then leads at some point to a “scarcity of the circulating medium,” which necessitates the creation of even more credit and paper money.



 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Real Estate, Stocks are better than Cash

I would imagine that real estate is relatively safe because it’s widely owned by a large portion of the population. It may go down in value and it may be taxed away but it’s feasibly safe. If you look at Germany in 1928, the large and the more stable companies from Siemens to whatever it is, say, BASF, they survived. And so you were better off in stocks in the long run to wars and hyperinflation than in cash and bonds.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Faber on The Real Economy vs. The Financial Economy

 I would like readers to consider carefully the fundamental difference between a “real economy” and a “financial economy.” In a real economy, the debt and equity markets as a percentage of GDP are small and are principally designed to channel savings into investments.

In a financial economy or “monetary-driven economy,” the capital market is far larger than GDP and channels savings not only into investments, but also continuously into colossal speculative bubbles. This isn’t to say that bubbles don’t occur in the real economy, but they are infrequent and are usually small compared with the size of the economy. So when these bubbles burst, they tend to inflict only limited damage on the economy.

In a financial economy, however, investment manias and stock market bubbles are so large that when they burst, considerable economic damage follows. I should like to stress that every investment bubble brings with it some major economic benefits, because a bubble leads either to a quantum jump in the rate of progress or to rising production capacities, which, once the bubble bursts, drive down prices and allow more consumers to benefit from the increased supplies.

In the 19th century, for example, the canal and railroad booms led to far lower transportation costs, from which the economy greatly benefited. The 1920s’ and 1990s’ innovation-driven booms led to significant capacity expansions and productivity improvements, which in the latter boom drove down the prices of new products such as PCs, cellular phones, servers and so on, and made them affordable to millions of additional consumers.

The energy boom of the late 1970s led to the application of new oil extracting and drilling technologies and to more efficient methods of energy usage, as well as to energy conservation, which, after 1980, drove down the price of oil in real terms to around the level of the early 1970s. Even the silly real estate bubbles we experienced in Asia in the 1990s had their benefits. Huge overbuilding led to a collapse in real estate prices, which, after 1998, led to very affordable residential and commercial property prices.

So my view is that capital spending booms, which inevitably lead to minor or major investment manias, are a necessary and integral part of the capitalistic system. They drive progress and development, lower production costs and increase productivity, even if there is inevitably some pain in the bust that follows every boom.

The point is, however, that in the real economy (a small capital market), bubbles tend to be contained by the availability of savings and credit, whereas in the financial economy (a disproportionately large capital market compared with the economy), the unlimited availability of credit leads to speculative bubbles, which get totally out of hand.

In other words, whereas every bubble will create some “white elephant” investments (investments that don’t make any economic sense under any circumstances), in financial economies’ bubbles, the quantity and aggregate size of “white elephant” investments is of such a colossal magnitude that the economic benefits that arise from every investment boom, which I alluded to above, can be more than offset by the money and wealth destruction that arises during the bust. This is so because in a financial economy, far too much speculative and leveraged capital becomes immobilized in totally unproductive “white elephant” investments.

In this respect, I should like to point out that as late as the early 1980s, the U.S. resembled far more a “real economy” than at present, which I would definitely characterize as a “financial economy.” In 1981, stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP was less than 40% and total credit market debt as a percentage of GDP was 130%. By contrast, at present, the stock market capitalization and total credit market debt have risen to more than 100% and 300% of GDP, respectively.

As I explained above, the rate of inflation accelerated in the 1970s, partly because of easy monetary policies, which led to negative real interest rates; partly because of genuine shortages in a number of commodity markets; and partly because OPEC successfully managed to squeeze up oil prices. But by the late 1970s, the rise in commodity prices led to additional supplies, and several commodities began to decline in price even before Paul Volcker tightened monetary conditions. Similarly, soaring energy prices in the late 1970s led to an investment boom in the oil- and gas-producing industry, which increased oil production, while at the same time the world learned how to use energy more efficiently. As a result, oil shortages gave way to an oil glut, which sent oil prices tumbling after 1985.

At the same time, the U.S. consumption boom that had been engineered by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s (driven by exploding budget deficits) began to attract a growing volume of cheap Asian imports, first from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea and then, in the late 1980s, also from China.

I would therefore argue that even if Paul Volcker hadn’t pursued an active monetary policy that was designed to curb inflation by pushing up interest rates dramatically in 1980/81, the rate of inflation around the world would have slowed down very considerably in the course of the 1980s, as commodity markets became glutted and highly competitive imports from Asia and Mexico began to put pressure on consumer product prices in the U.S. So with or without Paul Volcker’s tight monetary policies, disinflation in the 1980s would have followed the highly inflationary 1970s.

In fact, one could argue that without any tight monetary policies (just keeping money supply growth at a steady rate) in the early 1980s, disinflation would have been even more pronounced. Why? The energy investment boom and conservation efforts would probably have lasted somewhat longer and may have led to even more overcapacities and to further reduction in demand. This eventually would have driven energy prices even lower. I may also remind our readers that the Kondratieff long price wave, which had turned up in the 1940s, was due to turn down sometime in the late 1970s.

It is certainly not my intention here to criticize Paul Volcker or to question his achievements at the Fed, since I think that, in addition to being a man of impeccable personal and intellectual integrity (a rare commodity at today’s Fed), he was the best and most courageous Fed chairman ever.

However, the fact remains that the investment community to this day perceives Volcker’s tight monetary policies at the time as having been responsible for choking off inflation in 1981, when, in fact, the rate of inflation would have declined anyway in the 1980s for the reasons I just outlined. In other words, after the 1980 monetary experiment, many people, and especially Mr. Greenspan, began to believe that an active monetary policy could steer economic activity on a noninflationary steady growth course and eliminate inflationary pressures through tight monetary policies and through cyclical and structural economic downturns through easing moves!

This belief in the omnipotence of central banks was further enhanced by the easing moves in 1990/91, which were implemented to save the banking system and the savings & loan associations; by similar policy moves in 1994 in order to bail out Mexico and in 1998 to avoid more severe repercussions from the LTCM crisis; by an easing move in 1999, ahead of Y2K, which proved to be totally unnecessary but which led to another 30% rise in the Nasdaq, to its March 2000 peak; and by the most recent aggressive lowering of interest rates, which fueled the housing boom.

Now I would like readers to consider, for a minute, what actually caused the 1990 S&L mess, the 1994 tequila crisis, the Asian crisis, the LTCM problems in 1998 and the current economic stagnation. In each of these cases, the problems arose from loose monetary policies and excessive use of credit. In other words, the economy — the patient — gets sick because the virus —the downward adjustments that are necessary in the free market — develops an immunity to the medicine, which then prompts the good doctor, who read somewhere in The Wall Street Journal that easy monetary policies and budget deficits stimulate economic activity, to increase the dosage of medication.

The even larger and more potent doses of medicine relieve the temporary symptoms of the patient’s illness, but not its fundamental causes, which, in time, inevitably lead to a relapse and a new crisis, which grows in severity since the causes of the sickness were neither identified nor treated.

So it would seem to me that Karl Marx might prove to have been right in his contention that crises become more and more destructive as the capitalistic system matures (and as the “financial economy” referred to earlier grows like a cancer) and that the ultimate breakdown will occur in a final crisis that will be so disastrous as to set fire to the framework of our capitalistic society.

Not so, Bernanke and co. argue, since central banks can print an unlimited amount of money and take extraordinary measures, which, by intervening directly in the markets, support asset prices such as bonds, equities and homes, and therefore avoid economic downturns, especially deflationary ones. There is some truth in this. If a central bank prints a sufficient quantity of money and is prepared to extend an unlimited amount of credit, then deflation in the domestic price level can easily be avoided, but at a considerable cost.

It is clear that such policies do lead to depreciation of the currency, either against currencies of other countries that resist following the same policies of massive monetization and state bailouts (policies which are based on, for me at least, incomprehensible sophism among the economic academia) or against gold, commodities and hard assets in general. The rise in domestic prices then leads at some point to a “scarcity of the circulating medium,” which necessitates the creation of even more credit and paper money.


- Source, Marc Faber via the Daily Reckoning:



Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The US FED is Counter Productive


“The question is not tapering. The question is at what point will they increase the asset purchases to say $150-B, $200-B, or $1-T a month,” Mr. Faber said Monday in a TV interview.

The Fed is now buying $85-B of Treasury and mortgage bonds a month in what is known as quantitative easing is now dubbed (QE-Infinity).

When the Fed started buying long-term bonds, in what was called QE-1, it said the program would last 6 months. But it started another round of assets purchases, and then another, without setting a firm ending dated. That is why the latest reiteration of the program is called QE Infinity.

“Look, every government program that is introduced under urgency and as a temporary measure is always permanent,” Mr. Faber explained. “The Fed has boxed itself into a position where there is no exit strategy.”

The continuing QE is counterproductive, he noted, stating benefits flow only to a limited number of people.

And, although inflation continues to remain subdued, Mr. Faber sees “a colossal asset bubble” as well as a debt bubble.

“The quantitative easing is wind at the back of the economy,” he said. “But when they unwind quantitative easing, which they will ultimately have to do, it will be a head wind in the face of the economy. And then it will not be so much fun.”

Few believe the Fed will increase QE or make it permanent, more experts are predicting the central bank will maintain its current level of bond purchases into next year because of growth disruptions caused by the government shutdown.

A survey of 40 economists indicated the Fed will decide to reduce its purchases to $70-B a month in March 2014, to $25-B by July and end the purchases in October 2014.

The shutdown cut economic growth by 0.3 percentage points in Q-4, the economists said. It also suspended data collection the Fed uses to set policies.

It is going to be harder to signals from the data, Fed’s policies are tied to the data, they waiting for more confirmation the economy is moving in the direction of the Fed’s outlook, and they do not have data or the data is inconclusive, then the Fed will not feel confident enough in the outlook to make a clear determination to pare or not pare. This is a continuing story, stay tuned…


- Source, Live Trading News:




Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Stocks Could Be Dead Money For A While



"Since September 2011's $1921 peak, gold has been in correction mode," Mark Faber tells Barrons in this brief clip, but the overhwleminly bearish sentiment combined with the major accumulation (most notably by China) means "gold prices have probably bottomed," and some gold mining stocks are well positioned. While Faber has recently expressed concern at the potential for a major correction in stocks, he notes that there are pockets of value worth investigating including European Telcos and Indo-China travel-related stocks. However, the Gloom, Boom & Doom report writer warns that "stocks could be dead money for a while."

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Deflationary Collapse is Coming




"One day this asset inflation will lead to a deflationary collapse one way or the other. We don't know yet what will cause it."


Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Markets about to crash like Titanic

Marc Faber video compares the Global stock market to the famous ship Titanic.



Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Tech Stocks, USA


Marc Faber says Singapore, Hong Kong not growing and the cost of living has gone up. "Kicking the can down the road, each time they kick they hurt their foot a little bit more." Additonally Dr Faber asks, why do product prices in Singapore, Hong Kong more than in US ? Watch the interview below to hear his take on that question and much

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Something fishy about the gold market


All  I want to say is, something is fishy about the gold market in the sense that if the Germans demand to have a part of the gold received in Germany, I think it would take eight years, we should put gold on three Boeings 747′s and you ship it to Germany and that’s it.




If the gold would be held in Germany, in a vault, and if there was a financial panic and they really needed to draw loans against the gold that they hold in Germany, they could obtain loans at any time from a bank or from another central bank or whatever it is. So they could have the gold in Germany and if they wish to obtain a large loan against those gold reserves and they wouldn't be that much anyway, but if they wanted to obtain a loan, they could have an auditor come and check the gold and then a bank or a central bank would essentially lend them money against that gold.

rarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Emerging economies currently in no growth environment


Well, basically the U.S. market is in the sky, we have a very strong outperformance of U.S. stock vis-à-vis Europe until a year ago and vis-à-vis emerging markets until now. But the European economies are a large portion of the U.S. corporate earnings, but they’re not growing. The U.S. is hardly growing. Growth came from emerging markets and these emerging economies are essentially today in a no-growth environment. I live in Asia, so I am quite familiar on my observations on the ground. We have no recession that is visible. It is often seen like a pain. But we’re just at the high level of economic activity; no longer growing. - See more at: http://www.marcfabersblog.com/#sthash.pXdGQP3D.dpuf

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Marc Faber been through 2 Gold Bubbles already


Well, I lived through the bubble in gold in the 1970′s and by 1979, November, the gold price was around 450 Dollars and within three months it went up to 850 Dollars, so within three months, actually two months, November, December and early January, we made it big. It went up almost 50 percent. So a bubble usually characterized by a terminal upwards move in these real estate or gold or stocks or collectables that is almost vertical. In other words, an acceleration on the upside. And that hasn’t happened yet.

Moreover, one of the symptoms of a bubble is widespread public market invasion, in other words most people are one way or the other involved in the market, in real estate, like in the U.S. in 2007 or in NASDAQ stocks in 2000 or on other … Or in the 70′s, in the 70′s, when I was running Drexel Burnham at that time, our office was like a casino; people came in to trade gold 24 hours a day. That doesn’t happen today.

Okay, we have now better communication so we have the internet on which you can place orders through the internet and through phones and others but if I go to conferences and I talk about investments, I frequently ask the audience, how many of you own gold and how many have, say more than five percent of your assets in gold? Most, I mean, if at most three to five percent of the audience owns any gold, that’s about it. So where, say 12 years ago, if I had asked, who of you owns NASDAQ stocks, maybe 80 percent would have said, yes. So based on the ownership of gold from financial institutions and also based on the public participation, I don’t think we’re in a bubble.


 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

FED Policy Has Made the Wealthy Wealthier

"We are in a gigantic asset bubble around the world with prices of real estate having risen a lot," he said. "The high end is at record highs. In the Hamptons, in Mayfair, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and we have a high inflation overseas, so I think that one day this asset inflation will lead to deflationary collapse one way or the other."

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Marc Faber : Quantitative Easing is Permanent

Marc Faber, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, explains why the thinks the Fed's quantitative easing program is permanent and is likely to increase.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, November 1, 2013

The FED Will Increase QE



Marc Faber, publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, told CNBC on Monday that investors are asking the wrong question about when the Federal Reserve will taper its massive bond-buying program. They should be asking when the central bank will be increasing it, he argued.

"The question is not tapering. The question is at what point will they increase the asset purchases to say $150 [billion] , $200 [billion], a trillion dollars a month," Faber said in a "Squawk Box" interview.



Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Marc Faber Warns Deflationary Collapse to Destroy America

In today's video, Christopher Greene of AMTV reports Marc Faber warns of a deflationary collapse to destroy America.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Chinese tourists in Thailand up 100 percent

We all know China is a growing economy and market for almost everything. Well this now also includes the tourism export industry as the Chinese people are now travelling to international destinations more frequently due to ease of getting a passport and their own increasing wealth. Here Dr Marc Faber talks about what he observed while he was in Macao and other parts of Asia. "The Chinese tourist group is the largest group in the world. 90 million Chinese travel overseas every year. They first go to Macao to casinos. Gradually they are moving to other countries in South East Asia, by the way also US and Europe. For instance in Thailand arrivals from China was up 90 percent. In some months they were up 100 percent."

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Marc Faber: Apple could face bankruptcy


 The famous investor Marc Faber believes that Apple is a problem the company that makes many " frivolous " products and therefore may be directed towards bankruptcy.

" Apple shares are those you are not interested ," Faber said in an interview quoted by Business Insider. " I'm not saying that they will sink , but may get there eventually ," said another prominent investor.

According to Marc Faber eventual fate of Apple has a similar example from the past.

" It's like a Polaroid of the 70s . Eventually she , like Apple, has been founded and led by renowned innovator who eventually left her," recalls Faber.

"Dr. Edwin Land, who is the founder of Polaroid, was the owner of more patents than any other in the world," said Marc Faber.

1982 Land left his seat on the Board of Directors of Polaroid, and subsequently dropped from his research position at the company. In 2001 and famous for its production of sunglasses company filed for bankruptcy protection and continue to sell its assets.

At present, Apple certainly is a far cry from the fate of Polaroid. The technology giant has current assets of $ 43 billion. Her only income in the second quarter of 2013 even reached $ 35 billion.

Faber argues that the technology industry is full of " tombstones " of ekspazarni leaders. "We and many other examples of high-tech companies that simply disappeared," said the investor.

According to Faber biggest issue of Apple is that its products are not suited to human needs.

" It's just a company that produces toys for grown-ups," said popular investor.




Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Weakening consumer confidence



Marc Faber clearly is still feeling rather bearish on the stock markets and specially on the US stock market. He comments on the consumer confidence.

"With what is going on consumer confidence is going to worsen further. Any common sense man, he looks at congress sees a dysfunctional government, is not going to rush and buy out goods. Secondly, according to the Feds own statistics the money that was printed by the Fed has gone to 5 percent of the population. Maximum 50 percent of the population household wealth is still down more than 40 percent from 2007 peak."




 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Inflation Leads to Deflation

  "We are in a gigantic asset bubble around the world with prices of real estate having risen a lot," he said. "The high end is at record highs. In the Hamptons, in Mayfair, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and we have a high inflation overseas, so I think that one day this asset inflation will lead to deflationary collapse one way or the other."- in CNBC



Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Marc Faber would not Buy US Stocks at the present levels

We are coming into the earnings season. The earnings are likely to disappoint. The markets are not cheap according to many valuations. The returns over the next 5 to 10 years will be very moderate.



Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

The Markets are Overbought

 "When I look at the market action today, I would like to see the next few days, because it may be a one-day event. The markets are overbought. The Feds have already lost control of the bond market. The question is when will it lose control of the stock market. So, I'm a little bit apprehensive. I would like to wait a few days to see how the markets react after the initial reaction."



Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Emerging Markets benefited from Cheap Money & Money Printing


Money printing has been beneficial to people with money in emerging economies because a lot of funds flow into emerging economies due to the huge U.S. trade and current account deficits and it has been rather detrimental to the middle class and the working class because their costs of living have risen more than their wages.




 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Danger signs flashing for Apple

"I'm not saying it will go bust," but "it could go bust eventually" -via cnbc

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Where Gold is Heading

"When I look at the market action today, I would like to see the next few days, because it may be a one-day event. The markets are overbought. The Feds have already lost control of the bond market. The question is when will it lose control of the stock market. So, I'm a little bit apprehensive. I would like to wait a few days to see how the markets react after the initial reaction."- in Bloomberg

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Faber: Apple could face bankruptcy

The famous investor Marc Faber believes that Apple is a problem the company that makes many " frivolous " products and therefore may be directed towards bankruptcy.

" Apple shares are those you are not interested ," Faber said in an interview quoted by Business Insider. " I'm not saying that they will sink , but may get there eventually ," said another prominent investor.

According to Marc Faber eventual fate of Apple has a similar example from the past.

" It's like a Polaroid of the 70s . Eventually she , like Apple, has been founded and led by renowned innovator who eventually left her," recalls Faber.

"Dr. Edwin Land, who is the founder of Polaroid, was the owner of more patents than any other in the world," said Marc Faber.

1982 Land left his seat on the Board of Directors of Polaroid, and subsequently dropped from his research position at the company. In 2001 and famous for its production of sunglasses company filed for bankruptcy protection and continue to sell its assets.

At present, Apple certainly is a far cry from the fate of Polaroid. The technology giant has current assets of $ 43 billion. Her only income in the second quarter of 2013 even reached $ 35 billion.

Faber argues that the technology industry is full of " tombstones " of ekspazarni leaders. "We and many other examples of high-tech companies that simply disappeared," said the investor.

According to Faber biggest issue of Apple is that its products are not suited to human needs.

" It's just a company that produces toys for grown-ups," said popular investor.

Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Wealthy people benefited more from money printing

In an ideal world money printing from the Fed would flow evenly into all sectors. The fed probably do believe that their money printing program is working just fine. Others like Marc Faber are skeptical. "The problem is that the money doesn't flow evenly into the system but it flows into some sectors at different times and it creates booms in some sectors of the economy." Who and which sectors in the economy benefits from uneven money flow ? Dr Faber says "The major beneficiaries of the most recent monetary inflation based in 2008 have been people closest to the source of the liquidity. In other words the financial sector, hedge fund and bond managers, private equity firms and large asset holders; because if you look at, say, who owns shares in the U.S.; the majority of people have no shareholding to speak of. It’s the minority, maybe five percent of the population, that holds the majority of shares. So the money printing has actually been very beneficial to well-to-do people. That’s why some high-end property prices are at record highs. It’s been also beneficial to people with money in emerging economies because a lot of funds flow into emerging economies due to the huge U.S. trade and current account deficits and it has been rather detrimental to the middle class and the working class because their costs of living have risen more than their wages."




Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

This WILL End Badly

I'm not thinking. I'm convinced. It will end very badly. It doesn't mean it has to be tomorrow, you understand. I'm a car mechanic and I tell you, “Look, your car has several problems.” In a week’s time, you’re telling me, “Look, I've been driving and it still works perfectly fine.” The car may still work for another year, or two years, or three years, and one day, you have a crash. And then, you will think back, “Maybe back then I should have repaired my car.” - in Sprott Money


Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Marc Faber Predicts another “Black Monday” by the End of 2013

 On October 19, 1987, the day known as “Black Monday”, S & P 500 index dropped sharply by 20%. This event remains forever in the history of Wall Street as the biggest loss suffered in exchange for one day. It was the end of five years-long period of appreciation of the shares. Faber notes that in just two days this week, when the S & P 500 hit historic high of 1,709 points, there were 170 issues, which were trading at 52-week lows. This means that only a few companies moving market.
“In 1987 we had a significant increase in stock prices. Profits, however, did not g row at a stable rate. Markets were overvalued. There was a sharp decline, and on August 25 was the last day on which a large number of shares registered 52-week low. In other words, the number of shares that rose, curled up and saw a number of disruptions to trade with different shares, “said in an interview with CNBC


Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

China is Encouraging Gold Ownership




I wouldn't say that I would trust them much more. I don’t trust any government, period. But if there are significant problems, I think they would come from over-indexness. In other words, the debts are too burdensome for the system, and then it leads to all kinds of symptoms.

In other words, if you can’t pay your debts, you may print money, or you default, or you increase taxation, or you take things away from the well-to-do people, the evil people that make so much money. Well, the Federal Reserve enables them to make so much money. That is a key difference. They didn't abuse the system; they just took advantage of a situation of money printing so their wealth increased more than the wealth of the middle class and the lower classes.

In the Western world, they’ll go after these well-to-do people and people that own gold. In Asia, I'm not so sure this will happen because Asia is increasingly coming under the umbrella, our own umbrella of China. The Chinese government has actually encouraged people to accumulate gold, and themselves, they are accumulating gold.

- in Sprott Money:



 Contrarian Investor Dr.Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.
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