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European Growth is Slowing, Quickly: Look Out Below
Growth across the European Union is slowing, quickly and dramatically. On top of that, Brexit looms.
For interest rates, the euro, European stock markets, and Eurozone banks, that means, look out below.
Something’s happening across Europe, and you need to be aware.
Things could get bad, and you need to know where to take cover.
Here’s what’s you need to know, and what you can do in the meantime to potentially profit…
“I’m From the Federal Reserve and I’m Here to Help”
Most Americans would probably agree, if the Federal Reserve hadn’t come to the rescue in the 2008 financial crisis, the United States (and the world) would have sunk into another Great Depression.
However, most Americans don’t realize that the Fed caused the financial crisis of 2008 by keeping interest rates artificially too low for too long, fostering “irrational exuberance” and insanely leveraged mortgage bubbles.
How do you know I’m telling you the truth?
Ask yourself two questions:
- What caused the financial crisis?
- Where was ground zero?
If you don’t immediately and automatically, instinctively and historically know the answers to both questions, I’m afraid you don’t know what you don’t know.
The Fed’s Announced Triple Mandate is the Final Nail in the Free Market’s Coffin
The Federal Reserve System, the privately-owned central bank that most Americans believe is a department of the U.S. government, just publicly gave itself the last hammer it needs to nail shut the coffin they shoved free markets into.
By admitting it’s going to “think about financial conditions,” meaning the stock market, when exercising control over interest rates, the Federal debt, consumer and producer prices, employment, the economy, and investor returns, the Fed cemented its position as chief of the new command economy.
The Stock Market Needs Another Exchange Like It Needs a Hole in the Head
As if thirteen so-called “exchanges” and forty “dark pools” aren’t enough, here comes the Members Exchange (MEMX).
Founding members of Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS Group, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade Financial, Fidelity Investments, Citadel Securities, and Virtu Financial claim the new trading venue slated to open in 2020 will feature lower costs, greater transparency, and simplified order types.
Seems all well and good, but what they’re never going to admit is why they’re really pushing another exchange into an already fragmented, liquidity draining, churning ocean of viciously competing trading venues.
But I’ll tell you.
IBM is Going Right Back to the Dump Where it Belongs
On Wednesday, shares of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) jumped more than 10% on its better-than-expected earnings report.
The stock closed at $133.34, up 8.8% on the day.
Calling that remarkable is like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch.
It’s remarkably ridiculous, because IBM is the worst managed company in America – and its stock is heading right back where it belongs, in the garbage heap.
And if you play your cards right, you could make a quick killing as it falls…
How Do Ya Like Them Apples? Here’s Why This This Company Went Rotten
Poor, tarnished Apple Inc. (NasdaqGS:AAPL).
It did everything right for decades, making itself the first company in the history of the world to be worth one trillion dollars.
Then it fell off analysts’ conviction buy lists, and Apple’s stock got hammered good and hard.
What suddenly happened to the most valuable company in the world? How could it lose almost $300 billion in value in a matter of weeks?
Truthfully, what happened to Apple was mostly its own fault. Sure enough, it got caught up (or down as the case may be) in the market’s October selloff, but that wasn’t unexpected.
In hindsight, Apple held up better than the market last October and better than its FAANG family members did.
What took the shine right off the most valuable company in the world, after its all-time high of $233.47 in October, was the company’s announcement on November 1, 2018, not a month after its high water score, that it would no longer breakout iPhone sales in its earnings.
The stock got hammered – hard.
That self-inflicted wound, some say death knell, happened just as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had traded down close to 24,000 at the end of October, began a robust rally.
Only a week and a half into November, the Dow got back above 26,000.
Apple, not so much. In fact, not at all. Apple stock continued to slide, like it was falling off Everest.
The stock traded down to $142, just shy of a 40% dump off its high-flying act.
It’s back up around $155 today.
Is Apple at $155 or just below there a “value” stock? Is it a bargain down by more than 33%?
Or, is Apple too full of worms and worth betting against?
The Death of Jack Bogle and Laying to Rest the Myth of Passive Investing
Last week, the investing world lost a man of conviction, and, for sure, contradictions – a true luminary, a pioneer, an advocate for “Mom-and-Pop” investors, a generous man, and a legend in his own time.
John Clifton Bogle, who preferred to be called Jack, died at the age of 89, leaving behind a lot.
That’s because Jack, who started The Vanguard Group, the $5.3 trillion asset management company that specializes in indexed products for passive investors, left behind an estate worth $80 million.
That’s after giving away half of his Vanguard salary for most of his working career.
But, the legend himself began criticizing the passive investing boom he’s credited with pioneering.
Whether his accumulated apprehensions and market fears will lay the myth of passive investing to rest, he won’t get to see – but we better be watching if the myth turns into a monster.
And, later, I have a special message for you about another hot topic in investing.
The U.S. Will Never Get What It Really Wants in a Trade Deal with China
Besides the U.S. and China saber-rattling over control of the South China Sea, the reason the U.S. will never get what it really wants in a trade deal is because Chinese “trade” is how China plays its foreign policy game.
And they’re very dirty players.
What the U.S. needs to get out of a trade deal is for China to stop playing dirty, which it will never do.
Real Fake News: Trade Talks with China Will Be Settled Amicably
The chances of the U.S. and China, the two biggest economies in the world and the two remaining superpowers on the planet, amicably settling the trade tiff between them are between slim and none.
Fake news that midlevel U.S. negotiators had productive meetings with their Chinese counterparts this week was just that – fake news.
That’s because something else was happening this week between the U.S. and China.
Something frightening.
The truth is there are two reasons, one insidious and one frightening, why a comprehensive trade deal will never be struck.
Next week, I’ll tell you what the Chinese have really been doing that makes an honest deal impossible.
But first, I’ll give you the frightening reason today.
It’s been brewing for years.
The Real Story Behind Credit Suisse Bankers’ Fishy $2 Billion African Fraud
Last Thursday, three former Credit Suisse bankers were arrested in London in connection with a fishing fraud aided and abetted by Mozambique government officials and other characters.
Indictments handed down by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York charged the bankers and their accomplices with bribery, money laundering, and securities fraud in connection with raising more than $2 billion for three suspect companies, including a tuna fishing business marketed as guaranteed by the government of Mozambique.
The companies, with proceeds from bond sales, allegedly generated cash to pay bribes and kickbacks by overpaying $713 million for equipment they bought from an accomplice.
Corporate investigations and risk consulting firm Kroll says $500 million of the money raised is missing.
More than $50 million was paid to the bankers and their cohorts in the form of kickbacks.
That doesn’t include $200 million in bank fees the conspiring borrowers paid their bank cronies.
It’s another story of greedy, loan-pushing bankers, paying bribes, getting kickbacks, canoodling with corrupt foreign heads of state and government officials, and bank compliance departments being circumvented like subway thugs jumping over turnstiles.