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ramrodd · 1 year

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How did Heidegger not fall back in “ontotheology” that he criticized by virtually equating true Being with an apophatic God?

Yes, given his defense of the apophatic god of both Calvinism and the anti0christ of Hitlerism against Hegel/s Historic Gestalt. Connect the dots between Hegel’s Field of the Phenomenology of Spirt with Kurt Lewin’s political FOrce Field Analysis and you’s see what I mean

COMMENTARY:

don’t think I understand your question and, to the degree I might plumb the subtlety of your thinking, I think your premise is probably wrong.

Your question has help me clarify my own understanding of Heidegger in his context from my perspective. Newton, Kant and Hegel just blew up conventional wisdom between Aristotle and Spinoza. Both sides, idealists and empericists. Among other things, they achieved the synthesis of thought that had been put into motion about the time of Melchizedek and about 1400 years after the Boj of Job was writted. The Bible starts with the Book of Job and proceeds directly to the, which the theological code of law collided with the Roman secular rule of las arising from the ethical basis of Socrates’ example of civil law as the fundamental of a just society. The Romans had a better idea for the most efficacious of self-aware social contract. The critical path of mankind took a 90 degree re-orientation from the Law of Moses as the unique society that believed that history was going some place. Judaism was aesthe pleasing social contract, but, like the Pharoash’s, they were headed into the ozone, sort of like Jew Haley’s new tax burden on the American middleclass in the warfare of the January 6 republicans. The Roman Republic, which connected to the Roman SPQR at Socrates’ civic duty and was a creature of the roman secular rule of law and this form of government was headed to Sace, the Final Frontier. The Critical Pat oof both Jerusalem and the Roman Jesus ult originated with Geneasis 15:5 in terms of what we would call a Mission Statement, like Domino’s Mission Statement, which is my choice as the the best mission statement in the Fortune 500 and, unlike the Harvard MBA program, is based on the smal unit leadership model of the USMC. Jut like the Roman legions.

One of the things I love about Quora is that it allows me to think about things I didn’t have time for in colege. Philosophy and Literature, generally. And ROTC. I couldn’t major in ROTC, in literature because it was easy for me: I loved to read and I like things about the stuff I had read the way you do in the study of literature as cocktail party foreplay. One of the easiest ways to get laid in the 60s was to be able to discuss literature seriously with any woman and unloose the libido engaged. Getting a hard=on reading the Bible is a trope of the Total Depravity Gospel of the Pro-Life Jesus Freaks and, even reading Song of Songs does nothing for me and the Bishop, if you get my drift. But talking about scripture is how a lot of religious professionals get into the habit of sex with parishioners. Most of the good parts of sex happen in the personal psychosis and talking about literature, generally, can go straight to the ID.

What Hegel demonstrates conclusively is that the TULIP doctrine is an instrument of the anti-Christ. It is a subversive element of the strategy The Satan employed to trick God into letting The Satan to fuck with Job for no other reason that to indulge God’s pride of authorship in Job. Twice. And then God jump’s in Job’s shit a third time for impotence. Three time’s God betrayed Job with the same prideful boasting as Peter before he denied Christ three times before the cow crowed twice.

That, buy the say, is an example of the Holy Spirit at work, making the cock crow the second time on cue, if you are keeping score.

Jesus was sent by The One as atonement for fucking with Job 3 times. God promised Noah He wouldn’t destroy Israel by flood, but He didn’t stipulate against fire. Synagogue Socialism was God’s intent for Israel, al along This is the premise of process theology: The Book of Job is God’s promise of perfect Free Will to all born of woman. A consequence of Free Will is that we al emerge from magical thinking into innocent atheism, Hegel is correct about Reason: it is an acquired capacity of consciousness and begins with potty training, when pull-ups give way to the calibration of the Pucker Factor and self-actualization

Total Depravity ends when the mystery of Santa Claus is dispelled. . . The TULIP doctrine of Calvinism is grounded firmly on the Total Depravity of Eve without mitigation of the Cross. It is an excuse by the force of the anti-Christ to violate Free Will with the agony of the stake. The Total Depravity Gospel is a big part of the Jesus Inc business plan based on the Tax Free status of religious organizations as the primary money pump. Hate and Fear are big crowd pleasers in the Fire and Brim Stone branding of American Evangelicals. like Campus Crusade for Christ. .

Hegel bows it out of the water. Which is why people at Yale pretend they don’t understand Hegel when they understood Hegel exactly like William F. Buckley. It is part of the subversive agenda to conceal the shere analytic power of Hegel D-Day is a product of people who employed Hegel to wipe their butts by the numbers.

In any event, I have come to see Heidegger was engaged in a all out defense of Christianity. Hegel and Kant don’t reject Christianity in the least: they, in fact validate the natural divinity of humanity in the Categorical Imperative, with the metaphysically necessary atheism of Hume to ground Reason firmly on the unknowable essence of existence. His rules of evidence proceed from that existential benchmark. In an age when the TULIP doctrine was still hanging witches in America, thanks to the TULIP bias of thePuritans, it was safer to be a Skeptic than an atheist. It was an effective defense against the charge of heresy Kant and Hegel were accused of.

From my point of view, The Old Testament was an rough draft. Jesus was the final product process theology that began with Job. Jesus revises the Ghema to include Plato in the attributes of righteousness with “mind” and then He added the Atheist Clasue “Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Self”, the syntehsis of which abrogates the 624 Lws of the Mishnah and Talmud and justifies the Free Will of atheism as an an ethical behavior. KISS: Keep It Simple. God is perfectly content with atheist who live by the ethic of the Golden Rule, no matter where they heard it first. It is the Tao of the Logos.

All the glossary of Heidegger's inquiry from Being and Ime to his 1043 retranslation of the Greek before Socrates was chosen to refute Hegel., For example, the logos of Dasein was chosen as a deliberate allusion to John 1″1. An you can follow the trajectory of his narrative from an examination of the person in his environment although he didn’t employ that particular linguistic register which would develop out of his narrative. His most important insight alogh the way was the relationship of the mastrr carpenter to his/Her hamer. Again this is a transparent Reference to Jesus the Carpenter and the nature of allegory in Heidegger’s argument. Transparency is the operative word, The hammer represents the authority of the carpenter just as the transparency of the relationship of Jesus to the authority o The One is evident throughout His ministry and is established existentially by He Resurrection from the instrument of the Cross, the instrument of unambiguous due process of the Roman secular rule of law. The Death of Jesus is beyond confusion within the context of Hume’s roles of evidence Pilate’s report of his Resurrection to Rome is simply beyond the slight probability that it didn’t happen: Christianity would have happened without Mark 15, which is a consequence of the entry of the authority of The Noe into history as a consequence of a mundane bureaucratic method of systematic feedback.

The trajectory of logos from being in the world through transparency to metaphor basically validates the Figure of Hegel’s Historic Gestalt. Jesus, as the living, breathing authority of The One , is the logos at the leading edge of the narrative of the Gospel of Mrk. Go on YouBube and pull up an audio video of the Gospel of Mark and play it and wathc the dot of the time—stamp advance from left to right underneath the optics. That dot is the leading edge of the narrative drama paying out in your imagination and is the logos of Heidegger’s Dasein The logos is the point where Heidegger and Hegl are joind at the hp in regards to the divine nature of Jesus. And the Categorical Imperative is the chematic for the Bing in the world of the logos in an “all humans are created equal” andthe individual is creaed in the image of The one in that the gestalt of Human Perception reflects the Gestalt of the Mind of The One.

Heidegger was engaged in what Carl Rogers called “becoming a person”> and his narrative arc defines the epistemological intent of the US Army Ranger School. Heidegger’s problem, in answer to what I think your question infers, was that, by 1943, he was trying to justify Nazi Racial theory by pre=Socratic soial contract He was like Bart Ehrman, motivated by a desire to be popular with the Nazis who made fun of his theology. Like everybody after Newton, Kant and Hegel and before Kurt Lewin stumbled over Group Dynamics., they had no way of reconciling the idealism of Plato with the empiricism of Locke. It’s why linguistics became so important \. There was a great intellectual spasm between Spinoza and Locke and Kurt Lewin that made it possible to put man on the moon

So, in a very real sense, Heidegger was defending the apophatic god of of the TUPIP doctrine, but his ture emphasis, in his heart, was coincident with the irresistible grace of the logos of Jesus. If you understand Hegel like william F. Buckley understood Hegel, the moral confusion that plagued Heidegger evaporates. The thing to rememberis that all metaphor ultimately arils and that Paradox occurs where Metaphor fails. Heidegger’s Dasein runs logos straight into Paradox in 1843, which is exactly who Jesus was: Paradox. Heidegger was the New Age guru of Nazi Germany, but the simply didn’t have the linguistic register to complete the synthesis. His flirtation with Nazi Racial Theory was his defense of the anti-Christ of the apophatic god of Hitlerism.

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thebeautifulzoo · 5 years

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The Beautiful Zoo X Jibola

Meet Jibola. A 20-year-old rapper from Lagos, Nigeria. His first ever body of work titled “Truss Me” recently just dropped. We caught up with him to talk about his musical background, inspirations and his experience working on the project.

A personal listen of the Truss Me tape gives a sonic insight into a mix of well-prepared, genre-diverse, lyrically mature and yet youthful and fresh songs. Jibola proves himself to be a very versatile and adept entertainer, we can’t wait to see more from him. The album features Loti and Ocho as guest appearances, production credits go to Tobi Baron and Ocho again, a star-studded collaborators list in a few years to come certainly. The 5-track rap tape is available on Apple Music and you should do get it. This is the interview, read about it.

1. Give an introduction about yourself.

My name is Jibola Oduwole. I’m an independent recording artist.

2. What is your musical background?

I think that’s based on watching a lot of Michael Jackson videos, also listening to Lagbaja as a kid really made me want to be on stage, but it wasn’t up until secondary school I started battle rapping, and I knew I had flow too so.

3. Who are your influences, in music and in life?

In music, of course the goat, Wizkid, Michael Jackson, Lagbaja, I listened to a lot of Drake also over the years. I feel like any artist I really fuck with now has at least a little impact on me, even with the beats I use and all that. Daniel Caesar, PND, Amine, Boj, Prettyboydo, the list is long.

In life, my family, friends and relating with people influence me. I’ve noticed that if you’re influenced by someone or something, it means you’ve learnt or you’re learning from them, so when I talk to people, I always look out for what I can pick up. I also watch a lot of stuff from all fields just to feed myself.

4. What are your best 5 songs of the year? Of course, excluding your own music.

It’s tough but I’ll say;

Pan Fried – Kano Ft. Kojo Funds

Cyanide – Daniel Caesar (best song ever)

John Redcorn – SiR

Hell and Back – Bakar

Mafo – Naira Marley

5. The Truss Me EP is your first musical project. What was the experience like working on it?

It was great. I found out that I really enjoy making music and there’s a lot to it, so hopefully I can grow in my craft. In general, it was a crazy good feeling.

6. How did you figure out producers and featured artists you collaborated with on the project?

I actually didn’t know I was gonna put out a body of work, I just wanted to do more than I was doing at that moment. So I called Ocho over and he played some beats for me and my guy Raj who also makes beats. He sent me a short pack and once I heard the Ali Bomaye beat, I fucked with it. I had like 3 songs and just felt like putting out an EP. I later hit up Baron and he sent me the Holy beat. Actually, I didn’t know he made the On My Flex beat so shout out Baron, got that beat from Kenny.

I wasn’t really keen on features, I only wanted to work with dope artists so shout out Loti also for that cold verse on Ali Bomaye.

7. Ocho clearly worked extensively with you on this project as he got featured and also produced a track. How did that come about and what was the experience like?

Ocho actually produced 2 tracks on the tape; June and Gualla which he’s featured on. I believe in energy; we had worked on a song before but I didn’t release it. So I was already familiar with his work ethic. He’s a beats when it comes to this music thing so yeah we exchange ideas and hopefully the world will see and hear.

8. The international and worldwide recognition of Nigerian music in the past few years have helped to popularise more artists especially young and upcoming, also with the help of social media and the internet. How do you feel being a new age artist?

I think it’s a good time for upcoming artists. Social media in the end is people and if you can get your work out to the people and they fuck with it, nobody can come in your way. That has really helped our African artists reach the far ends of the world and represent. Also with collaborating with other international artists, it’s incredible. One of my best songs this year is the Bas and Kiddominant joint.

9. What’s the future like for Jibola?

I just have to keep working on myself and the music and dropping to show progress till no one can deny it.

10. If you weren’t into music, what else?

Probably a DJ or an actor or something artsy.

11. Describe your ideal Lagos cruise?

I don’t know if I have an ideal one but I just want to say that unplanned rocks are always the best, like when you just go out to see someone and then they suggest a motive and it’s lit, yeah those kinds of nights are calm.

12. Drake – Scorpion // Playboi Carti – Die Lit. Choose one.

I’ll say Scorpion just cause it has Non Stop on it.

#music #musicians #hip hop #rap #new music #Nigeria #nigerian creative #Jibola #tbz #Truss Me

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billehrman · 7 years

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No Need For Pessimism

Why is everyone so pessimistic? After all…

IMF has raised its forecast for global growth from 3.1 % in 2016 to 3.5 % for 2017 and inflationary expectations remain muted. 2018 is projected to be even better than 2017.

Monetary authorities remain accommodative, interest rates remain amazingly low, and the financial system is awash in liquidity.

Earnings are accelerating with first-quarter gains the best reported so far in 7 years.

Trump’s pro-growth, pro-business agenda is on the horizon.

Global trade tensions have eased and fear of trade wars have diminished.

The U.S. has shown itself willing to defend human rights and long-term relationships rather than being an isolationist as many feared.

The U.S. is working well with China while becoming a growing adversary of Russia, North Korea, Syria and Iran.

OPEC and non-OPEC members are working together to maintain stability in the oil markets.

Change is everywhere creating opportunities for profitable investing yet investor sentiment is as negative as I have seen in some time. Virtually everyone is calling for a 5-10% correction at a minimum or saying that we have entered the next bear market. Few are calling for another leg up. I like those odds, as the majority is rarely right.

The preconditions for a market top are just not evident. And yes, corrections can come at any time but rarely happen when everyone is looking for it. Markets make tops when there is excessive optimism/exuberance and bottoms occur when pessimism is at its maximum.

I constantly review my core set of investing beliefs to see if and where I may need to make some adjustments. A successful hedge fund manager always has a bearish tendency thinking that the glass is half full. We always doubt ourselves looking for that missing fact(s) or perception that may alter our view. While we recognize that there are always global tensions and political uncertainties in the world, it is difficult to know when and if ever it will occur, so it is difficult to hedge.

How do you hedge against a possible “accident” with North Korea? It certainly appears that China is working hard to defuse the situation. After all, North Korea counts on China for virtually everything that it consumes including its energy. Did you hedge the Brexit vote? If so, how did that work out? France is up next, followed by Italy. I still expect that the Eurozone will need to make major changes or not survive.

The economic surprise so far this year is that China’s growth accelerated in the first quarter to 6.9%, the best performance since the fall of 2015 while the U.S. decelerated from a strong fourth quarter. IMF forecasts global growth of 3.5% in 2017. Here is a breakdown by region: U.S. growing 2.3% in 2017 up from 1.6% in 2016; China growing by 6.6% in 2017 versus 6.7% in 2016 and developing nations accelerating to a 4.5% gain in 2017 as compared to 4.1% in 2016. Global trade volume, an indicator of health in the global economy, is projected to rise by 3.8% in 2017 and 3.9% in 2018 versus 1.8% in 2016. What I find important is that the IMF has not factored much, if any, of Trump’s pro-growth agenda in its forecasts.

Comments last week out of key members of the ECB, BOJ and also our Fed supported the notion that monetary policy will remain accommodative. Both the ECB and BOJ specifically mentioned that their bond buying programs would be extended well into 2018 with no intentions to let any of the debt on their balance sheets run off. Stanley Fischer and other members of the Fed went out of their way to assure the markets that there may be only 2 more rate hikes this year and any roll off of debt, if it begins this year, will be very minor and won’t impact the markets as many pundits fear.

Germany’s 10-bunds finished the week at 0.25%; Japan’s 10-year JGB closed at 0.01% and the U.S. 10-year treasury at 2.25%. Finally did you notice the improved capital and liquidity ratios of all the major U.S. banks reported last week? As Jimmy Dimon said on JPM’s earnings conference “the economy is primed to accelerate, and we are ready to supply all the capital needed.” Other bank chairmen echoed his comments. One of our core beliefs remains that the supply of capital exceeds the demand for capital, which is good for financial assets.

First-quarter earnings calls have been excellent so far with revenues, volumes, margins and profits expanding at a faster pace than in the fourth quarter, which happened to have been the best overall earnings report in 4 years. I suggest that you listen to as many of these calls as possible to gain a sense of comfort that, in fact, the global economic environment, including the U.S. is improving. The chairman of Nucor, the best run and most profitable steel company in the world, commented that construction and infrastructure spending has already begun to pick up. By the way, Nucor had a sensational quarter and forecasted even better days ahead. The stock still sells at only 60% of the market multiple and remains undervalued. It is one of our core holdings. I continue to believe that second-quarter U.S. economic growth will snap back from a slow first quarter and the U.S. will expand by at least 2.3% in 2017 even before Trump’s agenda to “Make America Great Again” is enacted.

The next point is that it appears that Trump is about to re-introduce his healthcare bill, and surprisingly, will also announce his plan to cut both corporate and individual taxes next week. Clearly he would not come back with a rejiggered healthcare program unless it had sufficient support within his own party to pass the House. While the devil is in the details, I remain confident that Trump and his team learned from the last fiasco and won’t come forth with this or any major programs unless there was sufficient support to pass his own party. I fully expect changes in the Senate and then in committee will make these bills more palatable to both parties and eventually pass.

And then there is the infrastructure program, which I am most confident will pass Congress this year with only minor changes. The surprise will be that it won’t impact the federal budget much, if at all, as it will be publicly and privately funded. All of these programs, once passed, will accelerate U.S. growth into 2018 and 2019, which has not been factored into anyone’s numbers.

Trade has become a two-way bargaining chip with all our trade partners. China is the perfect example as we asked for China’s help in easing tensions with North Korea and offered “better” trades deals if successful. I remember all too well that the pundits biggest fear was that the U.S. would become isolationists no longer supporting our long-term partnerships like NATO and cause trade wars to erupt. Clearly our actions show differently, which has benefited our relations abroad. Also, I am glad that is appears that a border tax will not be part of Trump’s tax reduction program. It looks like Trump’s trade team will do everything in its power to promote a level playing field and enact punitive tariffs if dumping can be proven to protect our industries from unfair, illegal competition. Steel may be the poster child, but it will extend to aluminum and other industries too.

I am not surprised that OPEC and major non-OPEC nations are working to maintain stability in the energy markets holding oil prices above $45/barrel while aiming for $60/barrel. The Mideast countries could not support their domestic spending needs with oil below $45/barrel so they had to work together or go down together. And this includes Russia! The fly in the ointment is that U.S. shale production has recovered much faster than expected therefore the benefit of OPEC cutting production has been muted. OPEC has had no choice but to extend the cuts into the high demand summer months too. Oil prices should stay range-bound between $45-$60 per barrel which is good for both businesses and the consumer. Have you noticed that the price at the pump remains below $2.30 per gallon?

I want to end by elaborating on my belief, which is that all this change is creating tremendous opportunities to profit. Whether it's government, business or the consumer, the status quo is not a recipe for peace and prosperity. Technology is progressing at an amazing pace and disrupters are rising everywhere providing more services with better distribution at lower costs. You must always look towards the future.

Paix et Prospérité continues to outperform. We do not accept the status quo as fact and recognize that change is a dynamic and evolving process making passive management passé. If you don’t change along with it, you fall behind. We also know that change won’t happen overnight, so patience is a key virtue. We know how hard it is to stay conscious and present as the news bombards you throughout each day, but you must not react.

Don’t be pessimistic. The best is yet to come!

Review all the facts; step back, reflect and consider mindset shifts; adjust your asset composition and risk controls if needed; and finally, do in-depth independent research on each idea and…

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman Paix et Prospérité LLC

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doris7216911848-blog · 7 years

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Mading Patches On Bike Leather-made Vests As Well As Jackets

Scottsdale, an urban area which possesses an acreage from more than 180 founded virtually in the heart of the State from Arizona, was included in 1951. For the complete year 2017 our government and also scholarly category grew an incredibly solid 6% though as our company have consistently stated this company is a much smaller component of our mix and also purchases usually be lumpy quarter-to-quarter.

Therefore to begin with, on the mid-contract change, I am actually definitely positive this was actually the correct trait to accomplish. Our experts told you at that time you are actually not going to see it. You must only elevate your costs coming from just what your estimate was actually if all you prefer to do is appear at a spread sheet. Therefore i delivered every thing and also Exactly on the third day, my ex-spouse enthusiast contact me incredibly as well as exactly what surprised me most was that a business i looked for over four months earlier phoned and also claimed I ought to resume work as soon as incredibly thankful to DOCTOR Inibokun. Now, as Doug discussed, also on decision with me today are actually Patrick Vaughan, Head Of State of our Institution Transportation Team as well as Tom Kominsky, our Chief Growth Policeman, that is actually heading up our Managed Companies Team and brand-new company ventures. At that point they told me that they have to designate a spell on him that are going to make him come back to me as well as the little ones, they appointed the incantation as well as after 1 full week my hubby named me and he told me that i ought to eliminate him, he began to apologize on phone and stated that he still reside me that he did unknown what happen to him that he left me. it was the incantation that he traditionalspellhospital appointed on him that produce him rebound to me today, me and my family members are currently pleased once again today. Keeping an eye out more advanced condition, with considerable provider and also field news as Growlife constructs out its company design, the company needs to have the capacity to hold a market hat from $500 million, or regarding $0.70 cents an allotment, potentially more if the market costs keeps. Dan Andrews of the Lifestyle Business Podcast nailed it when he stated 'you have actually reached discover your 5 hours.' All 4-Hour Workweek imaginations apart, if you would like to build one thing you would certainly much better locate that five hours (or even even more) every day. God Melbourne, Queen Victoria's 1st prime minister, was actually listened to murmuring one Sunday morning on his way out of be-fit-maxblog.pt Congregation, Religion is all quite possibly, however that is actually going a little bit much when it states to disrupt a person's private lifestyle." This is our very most recurring and also usual technique from limiting God. It's my adventure that you'll frequently get better results through focusing on today time favorable considering that this allows your husband to willingly want to spend even more opportunity with you without fretting that you're visiting attempt to dredge up recent or reveal his qualms. Tidy Power Durham is actually continuouslying move its own community energy cost savings plan, Pete Road, across the country, and that is by means of this Southern best that neighbors must aid neighbors that the United States are going to find more electricity discounts on a neighborhood amount. Simultaneously, the BOJ has been gradually paring back its own asset buy from its ¥ 80 mountain yearly guideline (photo listed below), though the idea of a BOJ placed" (i.e., requirement that the BOJ are going to properly bail out markets if they drop as well dramatically) is actually still a largely kept belief.

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abigailswager · 5 years

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Marc Faber: Currencies To Collapse Against Precious Metals - Seeking Alpha

New Post has been published on https://tradegold.today/marc-faber-currencies-to-collapse-against-precious-metals-seeking-alpha/

Marc Faber: Currencies To Collapse Against Precious Metals - Seeking Alpha

Marc Faber: Currencies To Collapse Against Precious Metals Seeking AlphaThe gold market finally broke away from the $1300 level, where it had been ranging for several weeks. Gold hit a slight new low for the year on Thursday. Altho. […]

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.

Coming up the one and only Marc Faber joins me for a tremendous conversation on debt, the global economy and the future of the dollar. Marc tells us how much he believes the average investor should have in gold and silver right now and reveals which precious metal he favors most going forward. Don’t miss a must-hear interview with Marc Faber, Dr. Doom, coming up after this week’s market update.

Well, the gold market finally broke away from the $1,300 level, where it had been ranging for several weeks. Unfortunately for the bulls, it broke to the downside.

Gold hit a slight new low for the year on Thursday. With the markets closed today for Good Friday, the gold spot price will end the week at $1,276 per ounce, registering a 1.2% weekly decline.

Although gold is showing some technical weakness, it is not seeing a massive liquidation in the futures markets.

Well now, without further delay, let’s get right to this week’s exclusive interview.

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to be joined by a man who needs little introduction, Marc Faber, editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report. Dr. Faber has been a long-time guest on financial shows throughout the world and is a well-known Austrian school economist and investment advisor, and it’s a tremendous honor to have him back on with us today.

Dr. Faber, thank you so much for joining us again, and how are you?

Dr. Marc Faber: Fine, and that it’s a pleasure for me to participate in this interview.

Mike Gleason: Well Marc, we’ll start out today with everyone’s favorite topic, that being Fed policy and what’s happening there because it continues to be such a key driver for everything, much to our dismay. The markets have been so addicted to Fed stimulus and cheat money since the Great Recession a decade ago, so is it possible that they can withdraw this stimulus? Or did we just learn over the last few months… going back to, say, November and December when we saw the equity market suffer dramatically over the idea of the Fed moving forward with those three to four planned rate hikes for 2019, after which the Fed has reversed course and completely backed off on any rate hikes this year… are we just looking at never-ending stimulus from the central banks now, Marc? What are you thinking as you’ve watched the events unfold over the last few months with respect to monetary policy and this apparent sea change?

Dr. Marc Faber: Well, it’s a complex issue. It’s particularly complex at the present time because the global central banks, I mean the major central banks, they can argue, well, there is little inflation in the system, and so we can continue to print money or to purchase assets, which, either way, is true. There is little consumer price inflation, partly because the economy of ordinary people is not particularly good. We have a split economy. The economy of the well-to-do or extremely well-to-do people is doing well, and the economy of the ordinary people in Europe, in Japan, in the U.S., is not doing well. And so there is little inflationary pressure, but there is a lot of inflation, or has been a lot of inflation in asset prices. Stocks are at highs in the U.S. essentially, not the oil industries but several industries. And we have now 10 trillion-dollar worth’s of bonds in the world that have negative interest rates, it’s in some kind of a bubble, or a big bubble.

And so we have this asset inflation, and in my view, the central banks and the policy makers, they realize that if the asset bubble really breaks, if the stock market drops 20%, if home prices drop 20%, if bond prices go down 20% or so, the whole world is in a depression. So, I think that when they started actually in 2008, with QE1 in December 2008, and I was asked at the time, “How do you think it will end?” I said, “They just started QE unlimited. I think they will continue to print money until the system breaks.” And that can take another few years.

But I think, yeah, it’s likely, if you were to look at the political landscape, you have on the one end the Republicans, at the present time under the leadership of Mr. Trump. He wants to spend on defense and on his wall and on all kinds of things. And the Democrats, they also want to spend on all kinds of things. So, you can be sure that the deficit in the U.S. will remain around a trillion dollars a year for the foreseeable future. And in my view it’s more likely that this deficit will go up, and possibly quite substantially. So, the money printing, in my view, will continue.

Now could you have QE, and at the same time the Fed raising interest rates? That is a possibility. But in the current environment, where the economy has been slowing down, I think they will rather do nothing, especially also under the pressure from the White House, which essentially accuses, or tells the world that if the Fed hadn’t raised interest rates, the stock market would be much higher. So, I think they will not increase rates further. I think they will not cut the rates, as Trump and Kudlow would suggest, to simply show them that they’re independent, and that they don’t need Mr. Trump and Mr. Kudlow to tell them what to do.

Mike Gleason: Despite what the Fed has been doing, we are still seeing a strong dollar because the Fed has been a bit more hawkish than the ECB and the BOJ – the Bank of Japan – and other major central banks throughout the world. Do you see this reversing at some point? We know Trump doesn’t want a strong dollar, so how do you see things playing out in the currency markets? Because for the most part, gold, if we relate it to gold, is going to trade off the U.S. dollar in many respects. As long we see strength in the dollar, it’s likely going to be difficult for gold to really catch fire. Give us your comments on the dollar and what you see ahead for the greenback.

Dr. Marc Faber: Well, I think the dollar is strong because many investors argue that the economy in the U.S. is either better conditioned than European economies. Who knows? But one reason the dollar has been strong is you have all these negative interest rates in Europe. In Germany the 10-year yield is now negative, and in Japan as well, in Switzerland as well. And in Spain you have interest rates on the 10-year government bonds of 1%, whereas in the U.S. it’s 2.58%. So, I could argue it’s logical that if you get more than twice as much interest in U.S. Treasuries than in Spanish bonds, and you’re an insurance company in Europe, or sovereign fund in the world, you rather buy U.S. Treasuries than Spanish bonds. I think it’s quite logical. So, I think that has supported the dollar.

But I personally, I think the dollar should in due course weaken, and as the dollar weakens it could also trigger weakness in the stock market.

Mike Gleason: As usual, when you’re a guest on our podcast, we like to get your take on what’s happening globally. In particular, we are interested in what you expect from Asia. There seems to always be talk in the U.S. media about China slowing down. Perhaps the tariffs are having an impact. However, the U.S. trade deficit doesn’t appear to be budging very much. What are you expecting with regards to the possibility of recession in China? And where do you see the global economy headed in the near term?

Dr. Marc Faber: Well as you know, the Chinese had all this excessive credit growth. Now you could argue, well, they have this excessive credit growth because they have also a very high propensity, or rate of capital spending to build apartment buildings and bridges and roads, and the whole infrastructure. This is very costly. And so the borrowings are very high. But whether China will go into recession or not is a question also, can in China some sectors be in a recession, like car sales are down this year, and other sectors continue to expand? It’s a huge country. It’s actually almost a continent with 1.3 billion people. So, different sectors will perform differently. But since I live in Asia, my observation is that there has been a slowdown in economic activity. We’re not in a recession, but we’re in a very low-growth phase. There’s very little growth at the present time, and if there is growth it is because of borrowings… but that is also the case in the U.S. Without a trillion-dollar deficit and the debt build-up, student loans and car loans and everything, and credit card loans, the U.S. economy wouldn’t be growing either.

Mike Gleason: We saw back in, I believe it was late summer 2015 when the Chinese economy really hit the skids there temporarily, and it almost started a massive global panic there in the equities markets. Is China still a key linchpin when it comes to how they’re doing, so goes the world to some respect? And do you see maybe some doom coming down the road for China that could find itself manifesting in other economies and other markets?

Dr. Marc Faber: Well, China consumes approximately 50% of all industrial commodities in the world. So if there is a recession in the manufacturing sector in China, yeah, of course the world feels it. Or if there is less demand for smart phones in China, and also, I have to mention here that India has also become a large market. So, if there’s less demand for these toys, or for these very sophisticated mobile phones, then obviously the world feels it because it affects Taiwan and South Korea. And in turn it affects American semiconductor companies and so forth and so on. So, it goes through like a bush fire. And if China travels less, if there are less international travelers, then you’re talking about 140 million Chinese, and if they drop by 10%, then it’s 14 million Chinese that will no longer travel. And that, every market will feel. So they have a huge impact on the global economy undoubtedly.

Mike Gleason: Marc, how about this move towards socialism that we’re seeing, whether we’re talking about monetary policy or when we look at the landscape of the Democrat presidential candidates who will challenge Trump in next year’s election here in the U.S., what do you make of this movement that does seem to be gaining steam in many respects throughout the world? And how might this impact financial markets and investment opportunities in your view?

Dr. Marc Faber: Well, I just wrote an essay about monetary inflation and the social impact of monetary inflation, because depending how the monetary inflation works through the system… in the case of hyperinflation, Germany in 1922, 1923, the middle class was essentially eliminated. They lost basically most of their savings one way or another. But the rich people made a lot of money. And I’m comparing it to the current time, where the middle class hasn’t lost money per se, but because the rich people became so rich, the middle class has kind of been pushed down relative to the super rich people. That creates then an unfriendly environment.

The people that vote, they don’t understand a lot. But it’s very easy for a politician to go to people and say, “You know why you’re not doing well? It’s because of Jeff Bezos, he’s got so much money, and because of Warren Buffet, he’s got so much money, and Bill Gates, and so forth. And because of these hedge fund managers, they don’t pay any tax or they don’t pay much tax,” which is actually true. The corporate world in America pays very little tax compared to individuals. If you look at the composition of tax revenues by the government, the bulk is paid by individuals, not by the corporate sector.

And so, through destroying wealth and income inequalities, the mood is in favor of taking money away from the wealthy people and distributing money to the ordinary people. And then they see, the ordinary people, how much is being spent on defense, in the case of the U.S., close to 750 billion dollars a year. And a lot of it is not accounted for. And they say, “Well, this money shouldn’t be spent on defense. It should be spent on social programs,” and so forth and so on. So the mood, towards socialism, especially we have surveys that showed the millennials, about 60% of the millennials, they are in favor of more government interventions.

Mike Gleason: Yeah, definitely something we’ll be keeping an eye on here over the next year or so, especially as we get close to the election season, we’ll see what happens there.

Well Marc, as we begin to wrap up here, give us some more of your thoughts on the precious metals. For instance, do you see better value in one of the PMs over the others perhaps? And given everything that we’ve been talking about here today, with all of the debt in the system and the potential of never-ending stimulus and perpetual money printing, do you envision it being a strong environment for the metals moving forward? And basically, how do you see the sector performing overall, say this year and next? And then what will it take for them to sustain a rally to the upside finally?

Dr. Marc Faber: Well, the one thing I want to say, that everybody who lived through the monetary inflation of Germany – which ended up in kind of a hyperinflation, but I just want to explain – in the case of Germany, the hyperinflation was also made possible because the other countries didn’t inflate. And so the mark depreciated against the foreign currencies, which then added to inflationary pressures. In the present state of monetary policy around the world, because everybody prints money, currencies don’t collapse against each other, with very few exceptions like the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso and so forth. But basically, the major currencies, they trade against each other.

So where will the collapse of the currencies come from? In my opinion, they’ll all collapse against precious metals. And it is conceivable, and this is something we just don’t know, it is conceivable that they’ll also collapse against some cryptocurrencies. Now, I think there is a chance, we’re not sure – this is a kind of a theory – it is conceivable that Bitcoin becomes the standard, the gold standard of cryptos. But I’m not sure.

All I want to say, investors, in an environment such as we have of money printing, they need to diversify. They need to own some equities. We don’t know whether these monetary inflations will end up with a deflationary bust, in which case you may want to own some U.S. Treasuries, or it could lead to high inflation, consumer price inflation, in which case you want to own maybe a farm or some properties overseas. Or you may wish to own some precious metals. I think in any scenario, you should own some precious metals. Or the question is, should you own 3% of your money in precious metals or 90%? That everybody has to decide for himself. I recommend about 20, 25% of your assets in precious metals.

And as to the question, which one is (likely to perform) best? I think platinum is the cheapest at the present time of the precious metals. And I think it has actually a favorable outlook. I think there will be a supply shortage, and that the price could significantly outperform gold and silver.

Mike Gleason: Yeah, we agree. Lots of geopolitical dynamics involved in platinum there, and that’s going to be an interesting market to follow.

Dr. Marc Faber: Yes, exactly.

Mike Gleason: Well, Dr. Faber, thanks so much for your time and for staying up late with us there in Thailand. It was certainly real joy to have you back on and get your insights on the state of things. And before we let you go, please tell folks how they can subscribe to the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report so they can get your great commentaries on a regular basis.

Dr. Marc Faber: Thank you. Well there’s a website, GloomBoomDoom.com. And there all the information it contained.

Mike Gleason: Again, it was a real privilege to speak with you, Dr. Faber. I hope we can do it again before too much longer. And have a great weekend. Thanks for joining us again.

Dr. Marc Faber: Yes, you too. Bye-bye. Thank you.

Mike Gleason: Well that will do it for this week. Thanks again to Dr. Marc Faber, editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report. Again, the website is GloomBoomDoom.com. Be sure to check that out.

Editor’s Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.

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ronnykblair · 6 years

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My 2019 Financial Market Outlook – According to My Current Portfolio

“People ask me my forecast for the economy when they should be asking me what I have in my portfolio. Don’t make pronouncements on what could happen in the future if you’re immune from the consequences. In French, they use the same word for wallet and portfolio.”

–Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Over the next few days and weeks, you’ll see many year-in-review stories and predictions about what will happen in 2019.

I thought about doing something similar, but then I stumbled upon a better idea: instead of writing predictions that have no consequences, I’ll share my current portfolio.

After all, people reveal their preferences and beliefs through their actions.

Look at someone’s bank statements, brokerage accounts, and a time log of his/her activities each week, and you’ll get infinitely more information about the person than you would gain from surveys, conversations, job interviews, or Instagram.

This article does not directly relate to winning a job in the finance industry, but sometimes I like to write about other topics. And I suspect that sometimes you get bored reading about networking, interview questions, and exit opportunities.

So, here goes:

My Current Portfolio

First, I am not going to give dollar amounts because it’s a bit tacky and I don’t feel comfortable disclosing that information – so these will all be percentages of total investable assets.

Second, these figures are across a wide array of accounts (Vanguard, Fidelity, Wealthfront, etc.), and some are in tax-advantaged accounts such as SEP IRAs, while others are in taxable accounts.

This is important because tax-advantaged accounts make assets like corporate bonds, real estate loans, and even dividend stocks far more attractive.

Some accounts are completely automated (Wealthfront), while others are “passive” but with allocations I select (Vanguard), and still others are a mix of automated and manual (real estate).

Finally, this is not “investment advice.” I am not suggesting that you follow anything here – in fact, for reasons I’ll explain below, you probably shouldn’t follow anything here.

Here’s my current breakout:

Cash & Savings: 40%

U.S. Treasuries: 12%

Real Estate – Senior Secured Loans: 12%

Equities: 10%

Angel Investments: 8%

Municipal Bonds: 5%

Real Equity – Equity in Individual Properties: 5%

Miscellaneous (Risk Parity Fund): 3%

Crypto (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Others): 2%

“Investment Grade” Corporate Bonds: 2%

I have an extremely high allocation to Cash & Savings and Treasuries, and it’s there because I sold a lot of positions in the second half of 2018 and am sitting on funds right now.

You could view this portfolio as following the “barbell strategy,” where you invest mostly in safer, lower-yielding assets, and then put the rest in higher-risk, higher-potential-return assets.

However, my total percentage in “safer” assets (~60%) is probably too low to meet the traditional definition.

Unfortunately, I can’t change my allocation much at the moment because many higher-risk assets are also illiquid (real estate, angel investments, etc.).

If there’s an actual market crash and the S&P drops by, say, 30-50%, I would start increasing my Equities allocation to 30-40%.

Portfolio = Market View + Personal Circumstances

I mostly agree with Taleb’s quote at the top – ask someone what’s in their portfolio if you want to know what they think about the economy and the markets.

But I would add one point: your personal circumstances also factor in quite heavily.

As an extreme example, even if you’re very bullish, it would be crazy to invest 100% in high-growth stocks if you’re 70 years old, retired, and need to stay alive for another 10-20 years.

And if you have irregular income, or you just earned a huge windfall from selling your company, it would also be crazy to put everything into high-risk assets right away.

In general, I think people tend to place too much faith in the financial markets and overlook several factors:

The timing of contributions and withdrawals makes a huge difference – this is why you can’t take those online “returns calculators” seriously. Does anyone actually put $1 million in an S&P index fund at age 30, never touch it for 30-40 years, and then withdraw all the funds?

There is no way to know your “risk tolerance” until you start losing large amounts of money. A lot of people say they’re fine with losing 40-50%, but when it happens, they panic and immediately start selling. I still remember the markets in 2007-2009 when everyone thought the world was ending.

Government policy (QE, QT, interest rates) now affects the markets more than ever, so future performance is likely to diverge significantly from historical performance.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t invest, but I don’t think it’s a wise idea to rely 100% on an index fund to pay for your retirement.

My Current Market View

Over the last few months, everyone turned bearish as the S&P experienced a big sell-off and as stock markets in places like the U.K., Germany, and China fell by 10-20%+ for the year.

Nothing seemed to work, as ~90% of asset classes posted negative total returns for the year.

Many news stories have pointed to trade wars, political instability, doubts about global growth, and rising interest rates to explain the poor market performance and volatility in 2018.

I am also quite bearish, but for somewhat different reasons.

Put simply, the Federal Reserve and other central banks have massively distorted financial markets since the 2008-2009 crisis by injecting over $12 trillion of liquidity into the system with quantitative easing.

The Fed also dropped interest rates to ~0%, and banks in Europe and Japan followed, with some eventually setting negative rates.

These policies led to a big increase in stock markets worldwide, but barely affected the “real economy”; they also explain why the wealthy have become even wealthier over the past ~10 years and the middle class is on its deathbed.

Take a look at the charts, and you’ll see how much of a stretch it is to say that QE had any impact on GDP growth in the U.S., EU, U.K., or Japan.

I like this graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on the Fed’s Total Assets vs. the S&P 500:

Or, for even more fun, take a look at this one from Yardeni Research about the S&P 500 vs. the Total Assets of the Fed + ECB + BOJ:

Now that the Fed is enacting “quantitative tightening” by letting the bonds on its Balance Sheet mature, it’s only logical to expect market declines as it reverses its policy.

Yet the central bankers want us to believe that “everything will be OK” as they tighten monetary policy and reduce their Balance Sheets.

Well… sort of.

At least one central banker admitted the truth before ascending to his current position:

“Right now, we are buying the market, effectively, and private capital will begin to leave that activity and find something else to do. So when it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response.”

-Jerome Powell, October 2012 FOMC Meeting

My Personal Circumstances

Beyond just my bearish views, I’ve also allocated very little to Equities for another simple reason: at this stage, I have more downside than upside from investing.

Put differently, if my net worth increased by 50%, my life would barely change. But if it fell by 50%, that would be a catastrophic loss.

Also, it’s highly unlikely that I will be earning the same level of income from this business far into the future.

I anticipate much lower income when I’m older, which means that I can’t take huge risks and then make up for next year’s giant loss 10 years from now.

It’s similar to a startup founder who ran his/her company for ~10 years, sold it, and earned a windfall from the sale: nicely done, but who knows if it will happen again.

My Current Portfolio

Now I’ll go through the different categories and explain my reasoning for each one:

Cash & Savings (40%)

I am parking cash here to earn 2-3% interest while I wait for the markets to drop further.

The 2-3% interest rates currently offered by high-yield savings accounts and CDs in the U.S. are not great, but a 2-3% yield is a whole lot better than losing ~6%, as the S&P 500 did in 2018.

And this yield at least lets me keep pace with inflation – unlike the rates offered several years ago before the Fed began hiking interest rates.

I am thinking of shifting some Cash into physical Gold or putting more into Treasuries or Municipal Bonds, but I don’t plan to make big changes until the end of the year.

U.S. Treasuries (12%)

I own a mix of short-term and long-term Treasuries, held in various low-fee funds.

The short-term ones are less sensitive to interest rates because of their short durations, while the long-term ones are much more sensitive.

I don’t own 100% short-term Treasuries because, contrary to expectations, I think there’s a decent chance that the Fed could slash interest rates if there’s a market crash or recession.

If that happens, 30-year Treasury prices should jump up, just as they did at the end of 2008.

I don’t plan to hold Treasuries long-term because I assume that QT and the massive deficits the U.S. is running will eventually make a very negative impact on prices.

Real Estate – Senior Secured Loans (12%)

Following the JOBS Act in 2012, dozens of real estate crowdfunding sites have sprung up.

I experimented with some of the more credible ones (Fundrise, PeerStreet, RealtyShares), but RealtyShares announced it was shutting down a few months ago, so maybe it wasn’t so credible.

So far, my debt investments have yielded about what I expected, with interest rates above those offered by savings accounts, CDs, and Treasuries, and no defaults.

I prefer senior real estate loans to P2P lending because the loans are all backed by collateral, and I can pick the types of loans more easily.

For example, I almost always avoid single-family owned homes because I don’t like the risks.

I like commercial real estate, especially multifamily and student housing properties, with occasional office/retail/industrial ones mixed in.

I don’t plan to increase my allocation here because I want to see how the loans perform over several years, especially if prices fall by 30%+ in the next recession.

Equities (10%)

These are a mix of growth and value-oriented stocks, divided between the U.S. and international markets.

I have these mostly because I experimented with Wealthfront, and it allocated a certain percentage automatically based on my “Risk Score.”

Most financial advisors would say that someone in my age range should have a much higher Equities allocation, such as 60% or 80%.

But there’s no way I’m willing to risk losing 30% or 40% of everything if global stock markets decline by 50%.

So, this one is “wait and see” until QT finishes, markets decline by 50%+, or something even worse happens.

Angel Investments (8%)

Back in 2014-2015, when the Fed finished QE3, I thought the markets were overvalued and that everything would come crashing down.

I was a few years early on that one, but as a result of this thinking, I started looking into alternative investments that weren’t as correlated with the stock market – such as early-stage tech startups via AngelList.

I’ve had a few exits, a few shutdowns, and a few cases where I doubled down on companies that were doing well.

This one is in the “too soon to say” category because it might take 5-10 years to see the full results of these deals, and there’s no liquidity until exit or shutdown.

I’m not planning to put much more into this category because 8% is more than enough for my highest-risk, least-liquid asset.

Also, individual investors are at a disadvantage in angel investing due to dilution in later funding rounds.

And I do not live in Silicon Valley and do not have special insight into most startups, so maybe I shouldn’t even be here in the first place.

Municipal Bonds (5%)

Wealthfront automatically allocated this one due to my relatively low Risk Score.

I might put more into this category and buy a muni bond fund; unlike Treasuries, they do have credit risk, but in my tax bracket, the favorable tax treatment makes a big difference.

Real Equity – Equity in Individual Properties (5%)

I like real estate as an asset class for many reasons, but a big one is psychological: I’m not tempted to check prices every 5 seconds and flip out when there’s a decline.

Also, there are many different ways to invest, including different strategies (core, core-plus, value-added, opportunistic), different property types, and different geographies.

Prices of coastal real estate in the U.S. have been “elevated,” to say the least, so I’ve focused on multifamily and student housing properties and eREITs in less expensive regions like the Midwest and South.

This one is in the “too soon to say” category because some of these deals have multi-year holding periods.

I don’t plan to allocate much more here because I’m afraid that more of these crowdfunding sites will shut down or otherwise not survive.

Miscellaneous (Risk Parity Fund) (3%)

This is another one in the “Wealthfront automation” category. The intent was to imitate AQR’s “Risk Parity” fund, but it did not work so well – and it didn’t work so well for AQR, either.

I probably should have disabled this setting in Wealthfront, but I’ll leave it for now and see if it improves this year at all.

Crypto (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Others) (2%)

Ah, crypto.

I bought (some) Bitcoin for under $1,000 back in 2013, held on for years as the price fell, and then sold it for $15,000 – $20,000 in late 2017 and early 2018, earning almost 20x.

Then, I put a portion of the proceeds into altcoins and lost around 70%.

Thus, crypto has the distinction of delivering both my best returns and my worst returns of the past year.

I don’t plan to put more into this category because 2% is more than enough for something that is, essentially, pure speculation.

I think blockchain as technology is promising, but I have less confidence in cryptocurrencies as “assets.”

There’s a chance that Bitcoin could reach $100,000, and there’s an equally good chance that it could fall to $0.

“Investment Grade” Corporate Bonds (2%)

These are here because of a Vanguard fund that invests in conservative stocks and corporate bonds.

I have no interest in increasing my allocation here because I’m very bearish on corporate bonds.

The credit quality of most corporate bonds is overstated (see: the percentage of “covenant-lite” loans), and high corporate leverage is one of the biggest risks for the entire economy right now.

Up Next in This Series

Over the next few weeks, I’ll cover a few related topics and outlooks in different areas:

The Bull Case and the Bear Case for the economy and markets as a whole.

Which finance jobs look appealing going into 2019 (and beyond), and which ones you should avoid.

And how recruiting might change in coming years.

Stay tuned.

And feel free to laugh at my ultra-bearish views, especially if the market is up 30% this year.

The post My 2019 Financial Market Outlook – According to My Current Portfolio appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/2019-financial-market-outlook/

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bojk87 · 6 years

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Day 4 - Romantic beach walks

Another morning, and another nine plus hours of sleep. I think that being on holidays definitely agrees with me, though after all of the drinking yesterday, both of us are a little slower to rise this morning. Which was a shame really, given that by the time we got to the breakfast buffet, most of the good stuff was gone and we had to wait for everything to be restocked in island time.

Demolishing a few pastries and some toast while we waited for the bacon and eggs to get done was a worthwhile food investment. We tried to make a bit of conversation, but were too hungry to speak for any real length of time. With breakfast out of the way, it was time for the usual ritual of malaria tablets and figuring out what to do for the day. We were incredibly excited at the prospect of seeing some sunshine poke through the clouds and promptly decided that a nice and long romantic walk on the beach would be a great way to pass the time and certainly go a long way to help get rid of all the excess calories consumed at breakfast.

Being the responsible travellers that we are, we lathered ourselves in sunscreen then went to town on deet, our mosquito repellent friend. Hat, sunglasses and no thongs for me were the order of the day as we would be walking along the stunning beaches of Vanuatu.

We got onto the sand at our resort and saw our friends perched on the beach chairs with a drink in hand waving us goodbye and wishing us good luck. The sand felt extremely soft and nice to walk on, and I was told that this is very good for my feet. It was only about fifty meters up the beach that our first challenge came through where the beach changed from soft sand to being hard gravel.

Gritting my teeth and moving at the speed of a ninety year old man, we walked past what seemed like an old and abandoned resort. We took some nice photos and continued the painful experience of walking on gravel with the view of getting close to the second beach where soft sand would once again welcome us. After what seemed like an eternity of fifteen minutes of walking barefoot on gravel, we finally got to the second beach that had the soft sand. Problem at this stage was that it looked like an old abandoned ship wreck where there were old boats there, glass along the beach and remains of several old bonfires.

We both realised that this entire experience was very far removed from the usual romantic beach walks that you see in all the movies and imagine yourself doing, so we decided to head back along the main street to our resort. Feeling like a true local as I walked along the road barefoot, it wasn’t long before we were back at our resort desperately craving a drink. We went back to our cottage and cracked open the last two Coronas that we had and proceeded to relax on our balcony while reading and having a cold beer in hand.

Unlike yesterday where I was able to crack open the Coronas with no issues, these ones did not want to play ball and ended up cutting my knuckles when trying to pop the lids. While only tiny, the cuts are right on the joint which means that I feel them every time I open or close my hands. Michelle being the super planner and packer that she is, packed a full first aid kit, and was smiling with glee at the fact that she got to use it, but not so much at the fact that she had to put her beer down for a few minutes and help me to apply antiseptic cream, because you know, we are safe travellers and a little cut can go a long way. Finally then, it was time to sit back down and enjoy a few hours reading on the balcony with a mildly warm beer in hand.

That is how we spent the afternoon, until we decided it was time to have some food, and we headed out to town. Getting on a bus proved to be a harder experience today as two of the drivers had no idea where we wanted to go, or they just pretended not to speak English. Either way, the third guy seemed to understand that we wanted to go to the centre of the city, and off we were on our merry way.

We pulled up at the Brewery, ordered the nice chicken wings that we had yesterday and a few beers to help wash it all down with. We spent a few hours like this, chatting away and watching the traffic go past, absolutely stunned and confused by the fact that there was no locals or tourists drinking at one of the few bars in Port Villa. On our travels yesterday, a barkeep at the Warhorse told us that they host karaoke nights on a Thursday, so we figured we would go there, because if singing badly in front of other people while drunk doesn’t pull a crowd, we didn’t know what would.

We got some bottled water and some beer for later, and this time a bus was easy to get, so before we knew it we were entering through the doors of the Warhorse.

To our surprise and delight, there were all of five other people seated there drinking, all who looked like expats, and we were incredibly happy to see someone else at a bar apart from us. We sat down, ordered a jug of the local beer and a kilo of beef ribs, with beef being the speciality around this part of town, and sat down to see how the vibe of this place would build.

Sure enough, by about 6:30pm there were a few families that had made their way down, as well as a few tourists, and the place started to get busy and have that buzz of conversation and clinking glasses that one comes to expect from a pub. We played a few games of pool quite badly, with both of us blaming the bad pool queues and the lack of chalk, especially when two out of the three games one of us had sunk the black 8 ball within two shots of starting the game. We had fun though, and finished off our jug just as the karaoke was about to start. On our way out the door we ran into our newly found resort friends who persuaded us to stay a while longer and listen to the local singing talent.

This meant ordering a few more drinks and claiming a spot at the bar, before the most over the top, stereotypical American cowboy grabbed the microphone and got the proceedings under way. White long sleeved, collared shirt, wide brimmed cowboy hat, old jeans, and white cowboy boots with red flames all over them is what he was wearing, all whilst holding a cigarette and beer in one hand with a microphone in the other. It was truly a stereotypical masterpiece of Americana.

So, the party got started. First up was a young girl who was probably no older than fourteen and she was determined to rock the stage. If I had my eyes closed I would have imagined that it was a voice of a rough and tumble thirty year old lumberjack who was keen to let loose for the night, but no, it was a fourteen year old white girl dressed in a local island dress that was up on stage. The assault on the ears thankfully finished, but our interest was piqued when we were told it was her brother up next. Looking slightly like an island cross between Eminem and Post Malone, her brother then continued the assault on our ears with what can only be described as a consistent pitch with absolutely no variation. It was like listening to radio static that was out of tune and out of time, and it would just not stop.

Thankfully, the next five or so songs were sung by enthusiastic expats who were barely average, but it felt like I was listening to the opera compared to what had come before. Not to be outdone in terms of effort, the brother and sister duo each had three more goes, just in case we had forgotten how badly they had sounded the first time. It was through one of the performances that I noticed that they were both wearing a cochlear implant, which made me feel like a right old twat for about a millisecond. I am all up for inclusion and good on them for having fun, but it made me realise that having tough conversations with your children is something that needs to be done at a very early age.

It was somewhere at this stage that my darling angel Michelle decided to take the stage with a Whitney Houston classic of I Want To Dance with Somebody. She was fired up and took to the mic and the stage with the gusto and zeal of a true performer. The first few verses she was a bit behind on, but that’s ok because she was doing her best to imitate Pink on stage and get the crowd involved. Walking up and down the stage and throwing her arms around everywhere unfortunately did nothing to get the crowd on her side, and after our post show debrief, we concluded that this was what made the microphones go dodgy and not allow her to do her best performance. The crowds and I were certainly well entertained, and I am glad that she proof reads these blogs before I post them up otherwise I could end up in a lot of trouble.

With that done, we decided it was time to head home, and it was probably the first time on our trip that we had to wait for about five minutes to get a bus. We arrived home safe, and feeling tired from the day’s exploits, we headed straight to bed. Tomorrow is our last full day of our holiday, so let’s see if sunshine rears it’s head through the clouds to give us the impression that we have been on a tropical island holiday. Until tomorrow, wishing you plenty of drinks and karaoke from the islands of Vanuatu.

Your performers,

Boj and Michelle

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bearishmitch · 6 years

Text

Event-Driven Weekly - Week Ending 20 July 2018

This week in Asia Event-Driven Land we have a slew of interesting updates and a couple of interesting deals.

In some of the event pieces, there is considerable data below the fold and they may be worth the time for those involved or looking to get involved.

M&A

Itochu Corp (8001 JP) Partial TOB for FamilyMart UNY Hldgs (8028 JP)

On Friday the 13th after the close, Itochu finally announced the receipt of approvals and the imminent launch of its Partial Tender Offer to buy 10,880,400 shares (~8.6%) of FamilyMart UNY in a Tender Offer which commenced 17th July and closes 16th August, designed to get Itochu to a stake above 50%.

Despite the expectations some may have had ITochu would bump because the price had extended beyond the originally proposed price of ¥11,000/share, the Tender Offer price was not lifted. There is no minimum but Itochu makes it clear in the document that if it does not get all the shares it needs, it will buy shares in the market or by other means to eventually get to 50.1%. Presumably that could mean purchasing shares directly from the company at some point, which might dilute minorities.

¥11,000 had proven to be a floor since it powered through a few days after the announcement in what looked like a short squeeze. It then came back down as it looked like the squeezers got squeezed.

While the theoretical minimum proration is 14.9%, actual results will likely come in much higher. There will be follow-on index effects as MSCI, FTSE, TOPIX, and JPNK400 trackers sell some shares as float drops, but real float will drop more than calculated float. Fundamentals against peers suggest FamilyMart is a short. And there is another reason it might be - discussed in the BOJ-Nikkei 225 piece noted below.

After the price fall this week, the event has become a fair bit more interesting to play as an arb, but one must be highly aware of the risks of one's own estimates of the register structure and tendencies. Much more detail in the link below.

Travis' most recent piece on the subject is ITOCHU Tender for Familymart - Going Ahead As Planned But Remember - Greedy Bears Get Stuck. The history of this event is covered in the insights below.

Date Title 20 April 2018 Itochu Tender For FamilyMart - Winnie Sees a Hunny Pot But Greedy Bears Get Stuck 20 April 2018 Itochu's Tender Offer Provides an Attractive Profit-Taking Opportunity 30 April 2018 Did Itochu & BOJ Buying of FamilyMart-UNY in the Past Year Squeeze It Vs Comps? 16 June 2018 FamilyMart UNY Tender - Will It Go As Planned?

Alps Electric (6770 JP) / Alpine (6816 JP) Merger

Alpine has traded above the merger terms since about 6 weeks after the deal was announced almost a year ago. It was announced at the wrong price with a methodology insulting to minority shareholders and clearly advantageous to the acquiror - who has been uncuriously silent (and why wouldn't they be - when the target is willingly giving themselves up cheaply, one does not complain). Alpine decided it was appropriate that financial assets (shareholdings and cash) equivalent to half its market cap should be considered as "operating assets" which rather than having a market value, should be considered to be assets discounted by a high discount rate. For shares one might get lucky but when discounting the cash flow generated from cash over the long term, one is likely to determine that cash is only worth half of what the bank statement says.

Then the forecasts upon which the ratio was calculated were low. And wrong. Then magnificently wrong. Then even further wrong, but Alpine has yet to admit that it was wrong. And probably will not.

Since the start of this year, the premium to terms has rarely ventured below 10%, and really only dropped in June from mid-teen highs in the run-up to the AGM where there was a vote on a special dividend. That special dividend could have damaged buyers who purchased after the end-March record date. When the special dividend proposal did not get passed, the stock immediately popped 10% vs Alps, dipped a little, which brought us to last Friday when well-known activist investor Elliott International, who had been sitting at ~4% around end-March, upped their stake to 5+% and announced to the world they would make important proposals to management. The stock popped further, and Elliott reported on Thursday they had bought yet more shares to get to 6.3%.

After the 5+% announcement, Alpine's president was quoted in the news dismissing the idea of negotiating a bump in terms. As pointed out by Mio Kato, CFA in the discussion section to last week's insight on the topic, this is likely to simply get the idea out in the public that the nasty foreigner is, well, a nasty foreigner.

Last week's insight Alpine (6816 JP) - Squeezer Vs Squeezee discusses the dynamics, the possible event outcomes, and importantly, the structure of the shareholder register in some detail. In my analysis, those who would block the merger probably already have enough votes on their side, but there are even more interesting eventualities one could look at. The history of insights related to this event is below.

Date Title 30-Oct-2017 Alps Deal for Alpine Not Fair - Oasis Is Right 31-Oct-2017 Alpine & Alps Earnings Revisions - Moooar Value for Alpine 21-Mar-2018 Alpine (6816 JP): Don't Hold Your Breath 29-Apr-2018 What To Do With The Alpine/Alps Ratio Part I: This One Went To 11! And Beyond! 29-Apr-2018 What To Do With The Alpine/Alps Ratio Part II: Where To From Here? 17-Jun-2018 The Alpine AGM Vote Results - What They Tell You

DHG Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG VN) Partial Tender by https://goo.gl/TQzMR8

#RESEARCH #BEARISH #INVESTMENTS #SMARTKARMA RESEARCH

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peachdues · 4 months

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Hi Peach!

the latest episode of KNY and your recent posts have just made me go and reread TGW - don’t ask me how many times I’ve read it now cause I lost count 🤷🏼‍♀️

I love your take on my emo King so much. Giyuu is quite a deadpan character but you are able to write him having silly/funny moments so well. They don’t feel forced at all. Adding comedy to the endless of list of your amazing writing skills 🩵

And I’m so looking forward to the part II Tanjiro visit scene (poor poor boy) and the Miko chastising Giyuu for having an empty house (she will be chewing him out I can’t wait)

I went back and reread the first TGW teaser you ever posted and I hope you don’t mind me asking but was reader always going to be a Shrine Maiden or did that idea come later as the fic came together?

Now I need to be so honest with you - Peach ‘IT TAKES TWO’ killed me in the best horny way possible, I am quite partial to a wee bit of SaneGiyu so seeing them in a threesome fic the scream I scrumpt 😭 mean corruption kink Giyuu forever

I hope you’re getting lots of smooches and fresh air

much love

-🫧🫧

(PS no stop no don't write for Shinjiro, he’s totally not everyone’s anime dad crush at all 😉😚)

BESTIE BUBBLEEEEEEEEEE!!

So tickled that you reread TGW again. Honestly, I’ve fallen right back into the brain rot it, and spent a good portion of today writing for it 😭 seeing Giyuu smile in last night’s episode made me MELT.

and ALSMSKAKOAKS as always your compliments reduce me to an absolute puddle and I will never be solid again.

I’ll answer your asks about TGW below!

I won’t give away Reader’s backstory quite yet (that comes in Part 3!) but I will say — she was raised in a shrine and doesn’t have a lot of personal items either. She’s actually so overwhelmed by the fact she finally has a home — something that she can call hers, that she almost cries 😭 but you’ll see Giyuu feel sort of insecure about it for the first time (he just wants to impress his girl lmao).

As for your question about when I decided to make Reader a shrine maiden in TGW..

TGW came about because of the “I’m not your enemy” scene that was teased in the OG teaser — hence, why it was the first look. The entirety of TGW bloomed around this one mental image I had of Giyuu strangling his lover. I decided pretty quickly it would be his BOJ.

I knew she was going to be a civilian when I published the OG teaser, but I hadn’t settled on anything more concrete than that. HOWEVER, the second scene I wrote was the first time scene that ends Part I — I wrote that entire thing in like an hour while procrastinating. I first teased the virginity loss scene like, maybe two days after the OG teaser? So in the span of those two days I decided she would be a Shrine Maiden. It was a pretty easy decision — I needed her to have some flexibility RE her background but also give her a stable place Giyuu could come back to and see her. So that’s how I decided! But to answer your question, she was pretty much a Miko from the start, minus like two days lmao.

As for the Tanjiro scene — honestly, I’m enjoying the thought of it sm. Especially because he, like everyone else left alive after Muzan, had NO IDEA Reader even existed.

Giyuu actually takes off from the Butterfly Mansion to get her as soon as he regains consciousness and doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going — so when they show up concerned to his estate, you can imagine how SHOOK they are to se that not only is there a woman there (the implication of what they did the previous night being very clear lmao), but also that she’s introduced as his fiance. Like, “here she is, this is mine. I love her.”

I’m so glad you loved It Takes Two 🫡🫡 I am happy to provide spit roasting always!!

Sending you much love!! Please stop encouraging me to write Shinjuro I have too much to do!! I’ve already started HELP

#so anyways that red dress Kyojuro fic is getting a part 2 with Shinjuro lmao #🫧 anon #🍑’s asks #giyuu tomioka

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mercurialtraveller-blog · 7 years

Photo

Day 4 Tokyo > Fuji Packed in a hurry to check out for 10am and left for Shinjuku Station to exchange our rail passes. After some confusion managed to work out where to exchange our passes and where our train would go from. Headed to Starbucks to kill some time and get some food (Starbucks wraps are REALLY small here - about 1/2 the size of a wrap in the UK) before jumping on a train to Otsuki where we would change and head on a different train to Fujiyoshida - home of the Fuji-Q theme park, which I had no idea about, but heard was absolutely amazing. There was some beautiful scenery en route - mostly mountainous forests, however much of my time was taken up by blogging and showing off my new noise cancelling headphones to Maddy - they are the bomb! Maddy concurred with my evaluation of them saying they were 'probably the best headphones she's ever heard'. Winning. Anyway, enough bragging... Although I suppose that's what this whole thing is in a way? I'd like to think people find it interesting and not *too* boastful. After a couple of hours of travel, we arrived at Fujikyu Highland station, where we immediately got a view of one of the biggest attractions of the theme park. We took a short walk to our hotel (mystays fuji) where we were greeted with some of the most polite hotel staff I have ever encountered who were completely fluent in English. They explained all the normal bits and pieces to us, before Maddy asked about the baths in the spa on the top floor and we were told that if we wished to use them we had to a) be completely naked and b) cover our tatts with medical tape! What a bummer! After a short rest in our rooms we made our way out for some food - we had planned to go to the highest rated restaurant on Trip Advisor (which has basically become our bible for good, cheap eats) - Miyaki and began walking down towards it. We were just over half way, having turned down a small side street where a local woman pulled up next to us and wound down the window to ask us where we were going and if we needed any help. At first I was sceptical, because I had Google Maps on lock and knew exactly where I was going, however she was insistent that she helped us. We ended up discussing whether it would still be open as it was nearing 3:30 and it shuts at 4:00 for a break between lunch and dinner. She (very kindly!) ended up ringing the restaurant for us, and it transpired they had closed for the day as they had run out of Udon! That interaction really summed up Japanese people so far, very polite and always wanting to help, even if there is a language barrier. We headed back to the main road and popped into a cafe for lunch, where I mistakenly ordered cutlets instead of croquettes, before heading on to the supermarket. In the supermarket we pretty much immediately headed to the alcohol section 📷 as we had decided the plan for the evening was to get drunk... But not so drunk that we couldn't enjoy the theme park the next day! The alcohol aisle was full of unrecognisable crazy drinks, from pre-mixed cocktails (very popular in Japan) to beers, to strange bottles of different fruit flavoured wines or liquors (we couldn't tell which!). There were also Japanese spirits and bottles of wine. I bought a small bottle of 50% strength mango liquor and a couple of bottles of lemonade to mix it with, Ville got red wine and Maddy bought an assortment of pre-mixed cocktails. We then headed over to get snacks for breakfast and the theme park the next day and grabbed a wide assortment, including crackers, pizza flavoured crisps, sweetcorn and butter flavoured crisps, toffee and cheese popcorn (in the same bag!) and some pastries. We came back to the hotel, I had a little nap, then put on the indoor wear provided by the hotel and headed up to see Maddy and Ville to start drinking! We started drinking and initially Ville gave me a glass of red. We were all wearing our indoor wear (japanese pyjamas, basically!) so we took the obligatory selfie 📷 . We thought we looked like jungle adventurers - but with no hat, however I believe Boj commented that we looked like convicts! After finishing my wine I decided to pour some of my 50% mango spirit out. It certainly did not smell like 50% alcohol! I had a sip and it didn't taste like it either! I made a guess that it was 50% juice... At this point Ville decided to break out the Google Translate App's augmented reality translator... The app works by using the camera to view foreign text and translate it live to the language of your choice on screen, as if the text was actually written in your own language. In theory this is a great use of technology... For Japanese? Not so much! We did manage to establish that the drink was in fact 50% juice. However there were more than a few 'questionable' translations on the juice bottle and packet of crackers that we also scanned, including... On the drink bottle: juice plenty of use journey engineering and rims On the cracker box: spread taste, brain crackers. secretion crackers, the texture, more taste, more fun. (To be fair, this one could have been accurate, but still quite amusing!) As Maddy stated... This is why we need human translators! At this point we realised we had totally forgotten to either buy or organise going out for dinner. We decided to just pig out on junk food, leaving just enough for breakfast the next morning. We tried out all the weird crisps flavours, and in order of worst to best: 📷 Pizza Crisps - I can't remember if these were normal crisps or tortilla chips. They did taste like pizzas, but they tasted like those really shit little pizzas you used to be able to get for about 20p each. Weirdly sweet. 3/10. Would've been 2, but added an extra point on as they did taste like pizza. Cheese and Toffee Popcorn - These were a mixture of toffee coated popcorn, and cheese flavoured popcorn. Neither taste was too overbearing, and in practice they pretty much just tasted like sweet and salted popcorn, with a slight hint of cheese on the salted ones, and a slight toffee crunch on the sweet ones. 7/10. Better than expected, but didn't set the world on fire. Sweetcorn and Butter Tortilla Chips - Wow! These were a revelation. Strong and accurate taste of both sweetcorn and butter. Good crunch. 9/10. Would buy again. Near enough crisp perfection. We decided to call it a night and I headed down towards my room. On my way I decided I would try out the baths in the spa. Unfortunately this meant a trip to reception to get medical tape to cover up all 9 of my tattoos! What an effort that was. After about 20 minutes of precision cutting and sticking the tape I managed to cover all of them 📷 and head up to the baths. Nudity was a non-issue, really, so I relaxed there for about 20 minutes before coming down to bed. Whilst I respect Japanese culture and tradition and wouldn't go against it, it was somewhat frustrating to spend as long getting ready to go in the baths as I did in them! Bed awaited, and the next day, Fuji-Q theme park also awaited.

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forextutor-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Forex Blog | Free Forex Tips | Forex News

!!! CLICK HERE TO READ MORE !!! http://www.forextutor.net/forexlive-asia-fx-news-aud-the-biggest-loser/

ForexLive Asia FX news: AUD the biggest loser

Forex news for Asia trading Thursday 1 June 2017

Goldman Sachs sees AUD/USD falling to high 60s

Analyst responses to Australian data coming in – Q1 capex

Analyst responses to Australian data coming in – retail sales

It looks the Australian Treasurer has hinted at a poor GDP result next week

AUD/USD hitting new session lows. Poor China PMI>capex, retail sales

China Caixin manufacturing PMI: 49.6 (expected 50.1)

More from Fed’s Williams: US inflation below 2% is a challenge for monetary policy

BOJ’s Harada: Nothing decided on future BOJ exit policy

Australia – April retail sales: 1.0% m/m (expected +0.3%)

Australia Q1 Capex, ‘headline’ is 0.3% (vs. expected +0.5%)

People’s Bank of China sets yuan reference rate at 6.8090 (vs. yesterday at 6.8633)

Australian data due at the bottom of the hour: Q1 Capex & April retail sales (previews)

Morgan Stanley’s CEO positive on economies, but warns on US stockmarket

Japan – Nikkei / Markit Manufacturing PMI for May (final) 53.1 (‘flash’ 52.0)

Australia – CoreLogic house prices for May -1.1% m/m

Fed’s Williams: Unconventional policies will become the norm

More on yesterday’s BOJ announcement re JGB buying plans for June

Japan capex data for Q1: +4.5% y/y (expected +4.0%)

PIMCO’s 5 significant pivots, & says US recession chance now 70% within 5 years

Australia (May) manufacturing PMI: 54.8 (prior 59.2)

Australia retail sales data (April) – previews

NZ terms of trade data for Q1, up 5.1% q/q

Preview – “Your 10-second guide to today’s Australian retail sales report”

Australian Q1 capex data due today – preview 3 (this one is a quickie)

Australian Q1 capex data due today – preview 2

Muddy Waters: “Starting to believe that there could be some real problems with Canada”

Australian Q1 capex data due today – preview

UK poll, Cons 42, Labour 39 (You Gov)

Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: USD rises against commodity currencies. Falls against the rest.

Economic data due from Asia: Japan, Australia capex; BOJ, Fed; China – big day coming

Brazil’s central bank cuts benchmark interest rate by 100bps

Trade ideas thread – Thursday 1 June 2017

OIL – Private inventory data shows bigger than expected draw in crude stocks

US commerce secretary Ross comment on NAFTA, Canadian lumber, Mexican sugar

The Australian dollar was a big mover today, but I’ll come to that.

New Zealand terms of trade and Australian manufacturing PMI kicked the session off, but with little currency impact beyond minor wiggles. Yen moves were more notable then, with USD/JPY moving above 111 in the Tokyo morning. We got better than expected capex data for Q1 out of Japan, which argued for a more positive yen, but this wasn’t to be as it lost a little ground. A contributing factor to yen weakness may have been the international securities flows data for Japan, which confirmed a fifth successive week of Japanese buying of foreign bonds. USD/JPY has not managed to sustain above 111 and it soon calmed for a small range on the session.

EURJPY gained too, with EUR/USD confined to a very small range only, USD/CHF also with only small movement. Even cable, which has been active as we move towards the June 8 election was mostly subdued.

The next news to hit was a huge revaluation of the CNY against the USD from the People’s Bank of China today, USD/CNY was set (reference rate) at its lowest since early November of 2016.

There are various potential factors for the PBOC moving the yuan higher, a response to Moody’s downgrade of the country last week (the PBOC/government supporting equities, bonds and currencies in its wake). Another reason for the Bank supporting the yuan directly is with evidence showing growth is slowing (I’ll get to today’s piece of significant data in just a moment), the pressure will be on the PBOC not to push too hard with their tightening policies (which is yuan supportive to the extent it keeps the interest rate spread to the US wide even as the Fed moves towards further hikes).

And, as I update, its not just the yuan on the move, overnight offshore yuan lending rates are moving, surging, higher again in Hong Kong today. The overnight rate reported above 42%, one-week above 19%.

Next up was Australian data – April retail sales (a solid beat, see bullets above) and the not as bad as it could have been Q1 capex data (it wasn’t great, just not too terrible). The Australian dollar moved higher in the wake of the data .The strength lasted 15 minutes, until the Caixin China manufacturing PMI hit..

And hit it did. The private-survey manufacturing PMI: Caixin / Markit Manufacturing PMI for May came in showing contraction (for the first time in 11 months). Yesterday we got the official PMIs from China, which held up well, despite other private data showing growth slipping in May – see here: Early economic data for May from China shows cooling growth. I was wary of the official data yesterday and mentioned the market would be watching for confirmation (or not) from the private survey. Well, it was ‘or not’

The response expressed in the Australian dollar was swift and very harsh. The Australian dollar was hit lower immediately and has barely recovered from its session low as I update. It was a nice example of the market doings its “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” thing. And also how a trading vehicle behaves when its in a downward trend.

NZD is lower in the day also, but not as much as the Australian dollar. Gold is little changed.

Late NY oil inventory data say a much bigger draw than expected, helping oil to op, and it remained near its high through the day.

Regional equities:

Nikkei +1.10%

Shanghai -0.51%

HK +0.28%

ASX +0.04%

Still to come: President Donald Trump will announce his decision on the Paris climate accord Thursday afternoon US time

ForexLive Asia FX news: AUD the biggest loser ForexLive Asia FX news: AUD the biggest loser http://www.forexlive.com/feed/news $inline_image

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jareddillian · 8 years

Text

13 Contrarian Economic Predictions For 2017

Everyone likes to compile lists of predictions for the new year.

I don’t.

Did you ever notice that when you look at all the failed predictions in any given December, what ended up happening was the opposite of what everyone predicted?

Given that most predictions end up being wrong, why not just take a look at what passes for conventional wisdom and do the opposite?

Warning: many of these involve Trump.

Trump is going to nuke somebody in 2017

It is true that Trump wants to increase, rather than decrease, our nuclear capabilities, which runs pretty much counter to anybody’s idea of what constitutes peaceful behavior in 2017.

The interesting thing about the nuclear threat is that as the popular perception of it has waned since the Cold War, the actual nuclear threat has increased as the number of nuclear weapons has declined.

What if the opposite happens—what if peace breaks out all over in 2017? And what if it is because of Trump?

Trump’s billionaire cabinet is going to turn the United States into a vast plutocracy

The interesting thing is that inequality massively increased under Obama, who was allegedly concerned about the poor. Trump seems concerned about the rich—what if the opposite happens? What if inequality decreases?

There are a lot of good reasons why this would happen, particularly the composition of the Federal Reserve, which is about to get more hawkish no matter what happens. Raise interest rates to something approaching equilibrium, and a lot of this stupid risk-taking activity comes to an end.

We are due for a recession

What if we’re not? Recessions, probabilistically speaking, are independent events. Just because we haven’t had one in eight years doesn’t mean we’re going to have one tomorrow. There’s no reason the expansion can’t continue. The only way we get a recession is if the Fed causes one by ripping rates.

The Fed is full of crap and will never raise rates

People are starting to come around to the idea that the Fed might hike rates some more, but the consensus opinion is that the Fed has a history of overpromising and underdelivering. There is a big blind spot here. It’s the classic boy-who-cried-wolf fable.

International trade is going to collapse under Trump

What if the opposite happens? What if there is actually more trade?

What if Trump doesn’t simply tear up existing treaties but renegotiates them? If we’ve learned anything since the election, it’s that a lot of the things we thought were true about Trump have been all wrong.

The BOJ is out of tools

USDJPY went from 100 to 118 in a heartbeat. It would appear that the BOJ has finally found its most powerful tool—the 10-year rate cap. People have been predicting endless deflation in Japan as long as I can remember. They missed the move in the Nikkei and USDJPY in 2012, and when inflation comes, it’s not likely anyone will get that right, either.

The ECB will continue to do whatever it takes

What if they don’t?

We saw last Tuesday that German inflation is starting to rip.

You can read in Street Freak the implications of a Fillon presidency.

The Eurozone might be breaking out in growth—which might mean the end of radical monetary policy.

Healthcare and education costs will continue to skyrocket well into the future

People are so used to healthcare and education costs going up 15-odd percent a year, that they feel there is no way for the trend to be reversed. Again, a pro-growth, pro-business president introduces some market reforms (in the case of healthcare) and ends subsidies (in the case of education)… problem solved, or at least improved.

Global temperatures will continue to skyrocket

What if they don’t? I understand perfectly well the science behind it. But when everyone believes something, it is almost always wrong.

France, Italy, etc., will never grow

The French workers now have a government-approved right to ignore work-related emails outside of business hours. I’m guessing this is the top tick in stupidity. Wealth is the direct result of work. If you want wealth, you have to work. If you don’t work, you won’t have wealth. I think Europe is getting closer to figuring this out.

There are some really cool trades to put on with this idea.

Mexico is screwed, because of Trump

Probably not.

China is going to blow up the world

Everything you read about China is probably false.

The Cubs are going back-to-back in the World Series

I actually believe this. The Cubs will be a dynasty for years to come.

File this away and look at it a year from now.

I bet a lot of my dumb contrarian predictions actually come true, because whatever is the consensus is usually wrong.

Here’s a great tweet:

It’s better to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, than to be consensus for the sake of being consensus.

So for 2017, question your assumptions—always, always question your assumptions. Question what people believe to be true. Find the blind spots. Trade accordingly.

Grab This Free Report to See What Lies Ahead in 2017

Now, for a limited time, you can download this free report from Mauldin Economics detailing the rocky roads that lie ahead for three globally important countries in 2017—and how the economic fallout from their coming crises could affect you. Top 3 Economic Surprises for 2017 is required reading for investors and concerned citizens alike. Get your free copy now.

#economics #economy #markets #money #investing #investments #trump #2017 #2017forecast #forecast

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silviajburke · 8 years

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Political – Financial Road Map for 2017

This post Political – Financial Road Map for 2017 appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

This post was originally featured on nomiprins.com.

Happy New Year! May yours be peaceful, safe and impactful!

As tumultuous as last year was from a global political perspective on the back of a rocky start market-wise, 2017 will be much more so. The central bank subsidization of the financial system (especially in the US and Europe) that began with the Fed invoking zero interest rate policy in 2008, gave way to international distrust of the enabling status quo that unfolded in different ways across the planet. My prognosis is for more destabilization, financially and politically.

Over 2016, I circled the earth to gain insight and share my thoughts on this path from financial crisis to central bank market manipulation to geo-political fall out, while researching my new book, Artisans of Money. (I’m pressing to hand in my manuscript by February 28th – the book should emerge in the Fall.)

I traveled through countries Mexico, Brazil, China, Japan, England and Germany, nations epitomizing various elements of the artisanal money effect. I spoke with farmers, teachers and truck-drivers as well as politicians, private and central bankers. I explored that chasm between news and reality to investigate the ways in which elite power endlessly permeates the existence of regular people.

In last year’s roadmap, I wrote we were in a “transitional phase of geo-political-monetary power struggles, capital flow decisions, and fundamental economic choices. This remains a period of artisanal (central bank fabricated) money, high volatility, low growth, excessive wealth inequality, extreme speculation, and policies that preserve the appearance of big bank liquidity and concentration at the expense of long-term stability.”

That happened. Going forward, as always, there’s endless amount of information to process. The state of economies, citizens and governments remains more precarious than ever. Major areas on the upcoming docket include – central bank desperation, corporate defaults and related job losses, economic impact of political isolationism, conservatism and deregulation, South America’s woes, Europe’s EU voter rejections, and the ongoing power shift from the West to the East.

For now, I’d like to share with you some specific items – which are by no means exhaustive, that I’ll be analyzing in 2017.

1) Watching the Artisans of Money (Central Banks)

On December 16th, 2015, after equivocating for seven years, the Fed raised rates by 25 basis points. To hedge itself against its own decision, the Fed claimed that despite this move (that the financial press considered indicative of an actual policy shift) its “stance of monetary policy remains accommodative after this increase.” Sure enough, the Dow opened January, 2016 with a 10% drop. The US stock market exuded its worst 10-day start to a year since 1897. Other global markets fared worse.

Four hikes were initially predicted for 2016. We got just one. Another 25 basis points followed – nearly to the day, on December 14, 2016. The Fed has now forecast another three hikes, for 2017. If you do the math, consider the reasons behind the Fed’s wishy-washy language, and ignore economic rhetoric, that translates to one hike this year.

Last year, I noted that the Fed’s December 2015 rate move was “tepid, and it’s possible the Fed moves rates up another 25 or 50 basis points over 2016, but less likely more than that.” This happened. Given the tempestuous state of the world and over-optimism surrounding Trump’s ability or desire to follow through on certain campaign vows, I see no reason for a different rate pattern in 2017.

2) Volatility for Stock Markets

Following a volatile start to 2016, markets rebounded. Not because fundamental economic conditions of the world’s major countries improved instantly or geo-political tension declined. But as other major central banks took over the cheap money mantle.

The cavalry appeared. The Bank of Japan hit negative rate territory in January, 2016. The European Central Bank adopted negative rates in March, 2016. As a result of these major central banks equalizing the cost of global money back to zero, the stock market bubble marched on. And if that wasn’t enough to show that liquidity and crisis concerns still exist, both central banks introduced additional manifestations of quantitative easing during the year with the ECB extension in time and BOJ extension up their yield curve.

In November, Donald Trump’s victory further elevated stock markets, especially sectors most likely to be deregulated by the incoming billionaire club administration, like banks.

Yet, the idea that any President can control the economy with a tweet and a set of disparaging or aggrandizing comments is foolish. Once the hype of a reality TV show president subsides into prevailing political and economic uncertainty, stock and bond markets will end the year crumbling in the dust of broken promises.

3) Rising Corporate Defaults and Oil Prices

Extending a disturbing trend, the number of large global corporations that defaulted in 2016 outpaced those in 2015 by 40 percent. The figure for 2016 hit 150, making 2016 the worst year for corporate defaults since the financial crisis.

If Trump wants to make America great again, he should start by examining the leverage in corporate America, where 2/3s of global corporate defaults occurred. Of those, 50 out of 63 globally, were in the oil and gas sector. (Emerging markets accounted for 28 defaults and Europe for 12). S&P expects the default rate to rise in 2017. And if Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has anything to do with it, oil prices won’t move up much for 2017. This will mean more defaults in that sector. Based on his recent statements, his policies are cushioned in the ideology of pumping more oil, not less.

4) Turmoil in South America

Last year, given how scandal-plagued Brazil was, I thought no matter what happened regarding now-former Dilma Rousseff’s government, its markets would slip along with its economy. Yet, against all logic, interim President Michel Temer, even more plagued by scandal than his ejected predecessor, got a Hail Mary from the international investor community. Much of that had to do with Wall Street’s old friend Henrique Mereilles nabbing the minister of finance spot (having run Brazil’s Central Bank under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (a.k.a. “Lula”) from 2003 to 2010.)

I also said that Argentina wouldn’t be having a “walk in the park.” The new centrist government removed currency capital controls in order to attract foreign money, which had the side effect of crushing the Argentinean peso. Unemployment and general angst increased. A group of protestors recently stoned the car of President Macri amidst growing resentment of his austerity measures.

Venezuela, a nation dependent on oil for 96% of its exports has erupted into total chaos. As perhaps the desperation move “currency controls” or restrictions were introduced in early December President Maduro announced plans to withdraw the 100 bolivar note which makes up 77 percent of all currency in circulation and closed the borders to stop people holding Venezuelan currency outside of the country. That caused mass panic and Depression like bank lines, looting and violence. The government chose to keep the 100-note in circulation until January 20. That’s a temporary measure. So is a large year-end bond issue from the government forced on the state banks. Things will get uglier. Restricting currency circulation is a harbinger of the war on cash everywhere. Contagion in South America is more likely to be acute this year.

5) First Half: Rising Dollar/ Sideways Gold, Second Half: Reverse and Cash

Last year, I said that despite other countries (and the IMF) seeking to battle the almighty Greenback, global malaise would “keep the dollar higher than it deserves to be.”

Then, I expected gold “to rise during the summer as a safe haven choice” which it did and to “end the year lower in US dollar terms” which it also did. This year, it’s likely that the dollar will remain strong in the beginning given the recent Fed hike, expectations of more, and initial enthusiasm for Trump’s promises. This will keep a lid on gold.

Yet once it becomes clear that US economic conditions remain lackluster and inequality rampant, the dollar will weaken and gold will appreciate. In the backdrop, though the US remains the world’s biggest gold holder, nations like China, India and Russia will continue to stockpile gold in a bid to diversify against the dollar.

In addition to watching the yellow metal, as I’ve urged over the past few years, routinely extracting cash from bank accounts remains a smart defensive play for 2017. People have asked me where to keep it. The answers depend on individual financial situations, but paying down debt, buying necessary hard assets and staying liquid with the rest in physical reach (there’s a reason for the term, keeping it ‘under the mattress’ is practical.

6) Power Shift from West to East Through China and Japan

As it has done since cheap money became US economic and financial policy in the wake of the financial crisis, China continues to forge a US-independent path. It did so through inclusion of the Renminbi in the IMF’s SDR basket in October 2016. It also established a stronger relationship and side agreements with Russia, the BRICS community and increasingly with Europe and the United Kingdom post the Brexit vote. That was no accident, but part of a strategy to be distanced from the risk the US and its central and private banking system poses. The New Development Bank (formerly referred to as the BRICS bank) headquartered in Shanghai, China, offers alternatives to old institutions like the IMF, and allows for a rise of eastern and emerging nations to succeed in a collective format.

The trajectory of this power shift from the US dollar and US policies will escalate. If Trump and his team go the isolationist, or bilateral trade agreement routes, it will only push China to increases its economic, military and diplomatic presence globally. While Trump (and the outgoing Obama administration) accuse China of currency devaluation, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has actually been selling US treasuries to bolster its currency – hit by capital outflows, not manipulation. China sold $22 billion of US treasuries in July. Its US government debt holdings are at their lowest level in more than three years, and these sales, especially in the face of Trump’s scorn, will continue.

These accusations and geo-bullying will also push former adversaries, China and Japan closer together. The two nations are already negotiating some historic agreements. We could be approaching a new era in which Sino-Japanese relations allow for diplomatic normalization and more economic partnerships, which would be mutually beneficial.

Over 2016, Japan entered greater cooperation with India and Russia. The agreements it arranged will bolster Japan’s potential for 2017. The Yen should appreciate as a result. Even in the case of further economic turmoil in the US and around the world, the Yen will benefit, as it did during the financial crisis, from being a safe haven currency.

7) More Anti-EU Sentiment and Economic Hardship in Europe

In 2015, Mario Draghi, European Central Bank (ECB) head decided to extend Euro-QE into March 2017. At the start of last year, I said that, “The euro will continue to drop in value against the dollar” and “negative interest rates will prevail.” That happened. And despite no evidence of any economic benefit (and purely to help ailing banks) Draghi extended Euro-QE to December 2017, with a promise to do more if necessary.

Meanwhile, mega banks in Europe continue to buckle, economies continue to stagger and the uprising of populations increasingly apprehensive of the entire EU apparatus will be felt in votes this year. Already, much of Eastern Europe (with notable exceptions of Austria and Romania) has elected anti-EU politicians. With major elections approaching – in the Netherlands in March, France in May and Germany likely in October, the only way for the sitting elite to retain power is to make the markets seem frothy. That means more QE manifestations from Draghi, a weaker euro, more bubbles in major European stock markets and greater presence from conservative, protectionist politicians.

In Europe, weaker countries are struggling more than ever. In Greece, more than one out of every three people now lives in poverty and 25% of Greeks are unemployed and receive no benefits. Even stronger countries like Norway and Switzerland will be at economic risk as they begin to negotiate trade agreements with the central EU.

8) Upside for Russia

Any way you look at it, Russia will be a key economic beneficiary for 2017. The ruble appreciated about 21% vs. the dollar in 2016, outperforming all other emerging market currencies for the year. This trend will continue. Russia’s MICEX stock market index rallied 24% for 2016. Russian bonds will maintain that path amid high interest rates (around 10%) and a positive geo-political outlook relative to the US.

Russia will enjoy warmer relationships with the US under the Trump administration and find and ally in Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. It has strategically engaged in trade agreements with China to diversity against US ones. Simultaneously it has furthered relations with many Eastern European countries that have been disillusioned with the EU. As more pro-Russia officials are being voted into power, the positive impact on Russia’s economy will carry on.

These alignments could provide Russia more impetus militarily. Having stepped in to assuage the situation in Syria while the US remained relatively silent, it can also capitalize on its Middle East relationships. Russia supplies nearly one-third of the EU’s natural gas, but energy but, it has also begun clean energy initiatives through the BRICS development bank and other platforms, a strategic diversification. That’s why the ruble will outperform the euro and the pound sterling.

9) Angst in the United Kingdom

Before being picked as Trump’s Commerce Secretary, billionaire, Wilbur Ross called Brexit a “God-given opportunity” for UK rivals. As commerce secretary, he can act upon that characterization – through negotiations of new US-UK trade agreements that favor the US. That would increase UK reliance on more optimal EU negotiations, by no means a given. The UK can also hope that China and the BRICS will offer better opportunities, which increases the West to East power shift.

The sterling fell 14% in 2016, due to Brexit and anxiety over what form it will eventually take. Despite a year-end dead-cat bounce, uncertainty can only mount once negotiations truly begin. As the Financial Times noted, the number of times the words “uncertain” and “uncertainty” appeared in the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting minutes in 2016 rose 78 per cent vs. 2015. That doesn’t bode well for the sterling. But in the event of a Bank of England rate cut (to compensate for the Fed hike), there would be another temporary boost to the UK stock and bond market.

10) The Trump Effect Will Accentuate Unrest

Trump is assembling the richest cabinet in the world to conduct the business of the United States, from a political position. The problem with that is several fold.

First, there is a woeful lack of public office experience amongst his administration. His supporters may think that means the Washington swamp has been drained to make room for less bureaucratic decisions. But, the swamp has only been clogged. Instead of political elite, it continues business elite, equally ill-suited to put the needs of the everyday American before the needs of their private colleagues and portfolios.

Second, running the US is not like running a business. Other countries are free to do their business apart from the US. If Trump’s doctrine slaps tariffs on imports for instance, it burdens US companies that would need to pay more for required products or materials, putting a strain on the US economy. Playing hard ball with other nations spurs them to engage more closely with each other. That would make the dollar less attractive. This will likely happen during the second half of the year, once it becomes clear the Fed isn’t on a rate hike rampage and Trump isn’t as adept at the economy as he is prevalent on Twitter.

Third, an overly aggressive Trump administration, combined with its ample conflicts of interest could render Trump’s and his cohorts’ businesses the target of more terrorism, and could unleash more violence and chaos globally.

Fourth, his doctrine is deregulatory, particularly for the banking sector. Consider that the biggest US banks remain bigger than before the financial crisis. Deregulating them by striking elements of the already tepid Dodd-Frank Act could fall hard on everyone.

When the system crashes, it doesn’t care about Republican or Democrat politics. The last time deregulation and protectionist businessmen filled the US presidential cabinet was in the 1920s. That led to the Crash of 1929 and Great Depression.

Today, the only thing keeping a lid on financial calamity is epic amounts of artisanal money. Deregulating an inherently corrupt and coddled banking industry, already floating on said capital assistance, would inevitably cause another crisis during Trump’s first term.

In closing, I share with you my yoga instructor’s New Year’s motto:

Don’t half-ass anything.

That means whatever you do – imbue it with passion, courage, attention and conviction.

Regards,

Nomi Prins, @nomiprins for The Daily Reckoning

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