November 16, 2016, 4:00pm EST

Yesterday we talked about the missing piece in the pro-growth rally in markets.  It’s oil.  A pick-up in demand and growth, tends to also accelerate demand for oil.

But the market is holding out for the November 30 OPEC decision.  They’ve told us they plan to cut.  The inventories have jumped in recent weeks, suggesting producers are ramping up production into a cut (taking advantage while they can).  And Russia’s energy minister said today he thinks OPEC members will agree to terms on a production cut by the November 30 meeting.

With that, oil spiked this morning, but fell back from the highs — still hanging around the $45 area.

Today I want to talk about the performance of small caps over the past week compared to the broader market.  If we consider a Trump economy where regulation will be peeled back, a few areas come to mind as being among winners:

Banks:  Banks have been crushed by Dodd Frank, made into utility companies.  This is the legislation that responded to the global financial crisis — where banks had become hedge funds, taking massive-leveraged-speculative bets against their deposit base.  When the black swan event occurred, they became exposed and were bailed out to keep the financial system alive.  Those days should never return, but the pendulum swung too far in the other direction on Dodd Frank.  In a Trump economy, risk taking will almost certaintly return to the banking system again.  The XLF, bank ETF, is up 10% in the past week.

Energy:  The energy industry has been crushed under the weight of clean energy policies.  Billionaire Carl Icahn, one of Trump’s biggest advocates and once thought to be a candidate for Treasury Secretary, penned a letter to the EPA a few months ago saying their policies on renewable energy credits are bankrupting the oil refinery business and destroying small and midsized oil refiners. Icahn happens to own a controlling stake in one, CVR Energy (CVI).  The stock is up 30% in the past week.

Small caps:  The common theme in the above two industries is that all companies have been hurt, but the burden of increased regulation has been far a greater economic and financial cost to small companies.  That’s why the Russell 2000 (small cap index) is racing higher in the President elect Trump era.  The small cap index is outperforming the S&P 500 by 5 to 1 since Tuesday of last week.

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November 14, 2016, 4:45pm EST

We talked last week about the Trump effect on stocks.  With a new President promising aggressive growth polices and a supportive Congress in place to make it happen, the Trump plan is now being coined as Trumponomics.

As we discussed last week, the markets are reflecting this hand-off, from a Fed driven economy to a pro-growth government driven economy, positively — pricing in a period of hot growth.  And it couldn’t come at a better time — in fact, it may come at the perfect time.

The Fed has been able to manufacture stability but not demand and inflation.  Fiscal stimulus is designed to fill that void — to boost aggregate demand and inflation.  That’s why the bond market has shifted gears so dramatically, now reflecting a world with a trillion dollar infrastructure spend on the table, tax cuts, deregulation and incentives to get $2.5 trillion of U.S. corporate capital repatriated. Prior to last week, despite all of the best efforts from global central banks, and a Fed that was telegraphing a removal of emergency policies, the bond market was reflecting a world that was in depression, with the 10-year yield well below 2% in the U.S. and negative rates throughout much of the world. Today the U.S. 10 year traded above 2.25%, returning to levels we saw last December, when the Fed made its first post-crisis rate hike.

As we’ve discussed, growth has a way of solving a lot of problems, including our debt problem.  Politicians and economists love to scare people by emphasizing the enormity of our debt (close to $20 trillion). But our debt size is all relative — relative to the size of our economy, and relative to what’s going on in the rest of the world.

Take a look at this table…

  General Government Gross Debt as % of GDP
2007 Latest Change
United States 63% 104% 65%
United Kingdom 44% 89% 102%
Japan 187% 229% 22%
Italy 103% 132% 28%
Germany 64% 71% 11%
Canada 64% 92% 43%

Source: Billionaire’s Portfolio, TradingEconomics.com

You can see, in a major economic downturn, debt tends to rise. And it has for everyone. The downturn has been global.  And the rise in debt has been global.

The fears that a big debt load will lead to a dumping of the dollar, hyper-inflation and runaway interest rates don’t fit in this picture of a broadly weak recovery from a paralyzing global debt bust. Coming out of the worst global recession since World War II, inflation hasn’t been the problem. It’s been deflation. Inflation will be a concern when the structural issues are on the mend, employment is robust, confidence is high and the real economy is working. That hasn’t happened.  But an aggressive and targeted government spending plan can finally start changing that dynamic.

And the markets are telling us, an inflationary environment is welcomed – it comes with signs of life.

Gold is the widely-loved inflation hedge.  And gold isn’t rising out of concerns of overindebtedness.  It’s falling hard in the past week, in favor of growth.

With this in mind, we may very well be entering an incredible era for investing – after a long slog. And an opportunity for average investors to make up ground on the meager wealth creation and retirement savings opportunities of the past decade, or more.  For help, follow me in our Billionaire’s Portfolio, where you look over my shoulder as I follow the world’s best investors into their best stocks.  Our portfolio is up 16% this year.  That’s 2.5 times the performance of the broader stock market. Join me here.

 

November 8, 2016, 4:00pm EST

As we head into the election, everyone involved in markets is trying to predict how stocks will perform on the results.  When the Clinton email scandal bubbled up again, the stock market lost ground for nine straight days, the longest losing streak since 1980.  Since the probe has allegedly ended, stocks have been up.

Does it mean Clinton is good for stocks and Trump is bad for stocks?  Not likely.

Big institutional money managers think they have a better understanding of what the world will look like under Clinton than Trump, and therefore feel more compelled to go on with business as usual heading into the event (i.e. allocating capital across the stock market) with the expectation of a Clinton win, and conversely, they’re not as compelled to do so with the expectation that Trump might win (i.e. they sit tight and watch).

When they sit on their hands, liquidity in markets shrinks, and speculators can push the stock market around.

With that, is there any predictive value in the either moves in stocks of the past two weeks?  Not likely. No matter what the outcome, your 401k money will continue to flow to Wall Street, and stocks will be bought with that money.  Moreover, central banks have been in control and remain in control. They’ve been responsible for the global economic recovery of the past nine years, and for creating and maintaining relative economic stability. And stable to higher stocks play a big role in the coordinated strategies of the world’s biggest central banks.  Neither the economic recovery, nor the stock market recovery can be credited much to politicians.

If anything, politicians (both parties) have been a drag on recovery, which has lead to the threatening “stagnation forever” malaise that is saddling economies across the globe.  From mis-spending early fiscal stimulus, to ignoring central banks cries for much needed targeted spending programs, they’ve proven to be an impediment in the economic recovery.

In this environment, in the long run, the value of the new President for stocks will prove out only if there’s structural change.  And structural change can only come when the economy is strong enough to withstand the pain.  And getting the economy to that point will likely only come from some big and successfully executed fiscal stimulus.

Now, as we head into tonight’s results, as we’ve been told, a Clinton win remains the clear favorite (a known quantity).  And Trump has always represented the vote that the unknown is better than the known.

This vote for some time has looked very much like the Brexit vote (the UK’s vote to leave the European Union), and the Grexit vote (Greece’s vote against austerity). As with the Trump vote, the buildup to both Grexit and Brexit were accompanied by threats from trusted officials of draconian outcomes for the people.  But as we know, the Greek and British shocked the world by voting for the unknown, over the known.

Let’s take a look at how things looked going into those votes and how it compares to today’s election…

As we headed into the Greek vote in July of last year. It was thought to be a done deal that the Greek people would vote in favor of another bailout package from the European Union (and accept more austerity for fear of an apocalyptic outcome from voting no). The bookmakers put the “yes” vote at 71% chance of occurring. A UK bookmaker paid out those voting “yes” four days before the vote.  The “no” vote won, shocking the world with 61% of the vote.

And then there was Brexit …

The UK vote was about trade, immigration, ability to work and live in other EU countries — perhaps mostly about control and politics.

The bookmakers had the chances of a “leave” vote as slim (at about 70/30 favoring the ‘stay’ camp).  When voting day arrived, the chances of a “leave” vote had dropped to just 25%.  But the British people shocked the world, voting to leave by 52% to 48%.

Going into today’s vote, the chances they’re giving Trump are spot on with the Brexit odds going into the day of the referendum.  Of course, it’s not a popular vote.  The electoral vote creates a bigger hurdle for voting the candidate of the “unkown” in this case.

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October 25, 2016, 4:00pm EST

The markets are sitting on Apple earnings, which will come after the close today (by the time you read this).

We’ve been talking about the quiet move in currencies, some commodities and some foreign stock markets.

Given that the dollar is looking like another (maybe big) run is in store, which means much lower euro and much lower yen (and higher German and Japanese stock markets, as we’ve discussed), what does a higher dollar mean for commodities?

Commodities have, of course, been crushed throughout this post financial crisis period.  And earlier this year, oil was the most recent mass declining commodity.  That was after an initial collapse in 2008, and a sharp recovery from 2009 through much of 2014.  But then of course, it came crashing back to earth to revisit the deeply depressed levels of most other commodities, following OPEC refusal to cut production back in late 2014.

So, we’ve talked about the importance of oil.  Cheap oil had all of the ingredients to be even more destructive to the global economy than the credit bubble burst (and housing bust).  But it’s out of the danger zone now, at around $50, and the outlook is bullish, given the supply dynamics and given that OPEC is prepared to cut for the first time in eight years.

So this begs the question:  If the dollar is strengthening, and may continue to strengthen, isn’t that bad for commodities?  And therefore, isn’t that bad news for the oil price recovery?

The mainstream financial media usually is very quick to attribute moves in commodities to an inverse move in the dollar (and vice versa). On the surface, it’s a logical enough argument. After all, commodities like gold, oil, and grains are all priced in dollars.

Therefore, if the dollar weakens the value of the commodity shouldn’t be penalized. With that logic, it should strengthen to maintain its value on the global stage.

So all things remaining equal, the commodity should move in the directly proportional opposite direction of the dollar.

The only problem with this argument is that all things never remain equal …

So is there a legitimate price relationship between the dollar and commodities? Or is it just market fodder to attempt to explain and justify the market activity?

That depends on the time period you look at …

For example, from December 1998 to September 2000 the relationship of oil and the dollar was positive, as shown in the chart below. When one went up, the other went up.

Here, crude oil and the dollar are moving together

On the other hand, from 2006 to 2009, the relationship was been negative. Take a look at the following chart: When oil was crashing, the dollar was rising sharply. And toward the far right of the chart, oil recovered and the dollar fell.

oct25 crude and dollar opposite

Of course, these are just two isolated periods of time that I’ve used here to demonstrate exact opposite relationships.

However, over longer periods the influence of the dollar on oil, or oil on the dollar, is found to have NO statistical significance. There’s not a significant positive or negative correlation. Consequently, statisticians would conclude that the dollar and oil have nothing to do with one another.

So there is no reason to believe oil can’t continue its strong recovery, and do so in an environment when the Fed is moving in the opposite directions of other major central banks, providing fuel for a much higher dollar.

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October 19, 2016, 3:00pm EST

By November 15th, the biggest investors in the world will be required to disclose a snapshot of what their portfolios looked like at the end of the third quarter.

I suspect we’ll find that Apple was heavily bought during the period.

You might recall, the media was stirring about the second quarter filings (which were reported back in August).  Some big names had sold or trimmed stakes in Apple.

But, as I discussed at that time, the Q2 portfolio snapshots came just days following the big surprising Brexit decision in the UK. Global markets swung violently on the news back in June.  Remember, between June 23rd and June 27th, the S&P 500 fell as much as 5.7%.  It made it all back the subsequent four days.

With that event in mind, billionaire investors David Einhorn, George Soros and Chase Coleman – all had sold Apple shares by the end of the second quarter.

But remember, unlike most stocks they own, they can all trade Apple with virtual anonymity between quarters.  The stock is too large for anyone one investor to take a 5% controlling stake, which would trigger the requirement of a 13D or 13G filing with the SEC, which would require updated filings (or amendments) within 10 days of any change in the position size (sell one share, you have to report it).

Einhorn even bragged in one of his investor letter’s this year that they have done a good job of “trading” Apple.

Make no mistake, even with the trimmed stakes of Q2, Apple was (and is) still the “who’s who” of billionaire investor-owned stocks.  It was still Einhorn’s largest position into the end of Q2.  Buffett swooped in and bought shares near the 52-week low.

When we see the Q3 filings next month, I would expect those that were cutting stakes at the end of Q2, were adding it all back in early Q3.  And with the run-up in Apple shares since, up 22% from the June lows, I predict it will be the most bought stock of the third quarter.  If that’s true, I predict the media and Wall Street will be talking about how great Apple is again (i.e. analyst upgrades will follow).

In the past month, there’s been a solid take up on the new iPhone 7 for Apple. Importantly, with the iPhone 7 launch, all four major carriers have returned to the model of offering free new iPhones for long term contracts. That’s a huge positive on the stock as a product-cycle driven company. Add to that, there’s no other stock that, if not owned and owned enough, can get a professional money manager fired than Apple.  That creates a “fear of missing out” trade in the institutional investor community — pushing them off of the sidelines and back into Apple.

But perhaps the most important event for Apple has been the very public implosion of their biggest competitor Samsung.  Samsung has been forced to recall their competitive smartphone the Galaxy Note 7 because it’s been bursting into flames.  It’s projected to cost the company over $5 billion. Most importantly, it’s positioning Apple, right in the sweetspot of their new product (latest phone) rollout, to take more market share.

If we do indeed find next month that the biggest and smartest investors in the world spent Q3 loading up on Apple, it should give a stamp of approval that sentiment has turned for the stock.  Apple remains one of the most undervalued stocks in the S&P 500, with the most powerful fundamentals: it’s cheap at 13x trailing and forward earnings, has an incredible balance sheet with $231 billion in cash, and a high analyst price target of $185 a share.

As I noted last week, the company reported a second consecutive quarter of year-over-year earnings decline in July. But it crushed estimates. The stock took off from $96 and trades today at $117. They report on the most recent quarter on October 25.  The consensus earnings estimate is $1.64–which would be a third consecutive year-over-year decline. The recent revisions to that estimate have been down (not surprisingly), which sets up for a beatThe last time Apple reported two consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines was mid-2013. The stock bottomed in that period.

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October 10, 2016, 3:15pm EST

I talked last week about the move in oil, and the lag in natural gas.

But natural gas was knocking on the door of a technical breakout.  As you can see, that breakout looks to be underway now.

oct10 natgas

Nat gas is now at $3.25.  If history is any indication, it could be in the low $4s soon.

That’s helped by chatter today from OPEC members out vocally supporting the production cut that was agreed to two weeks ago.  And the Secretary General of OPEC piled on today by saying the sharp contraction in investments (due to low prices) poses a threat to global oil supply.  As we’ve discussed, for those that had the “oil price to zero” arguments earlier in the year, supply changes, so does demand.

With all of this, oil continues to climb higher, testing the June highs today.  Here’s another look at the chart.

oct10 oil

A break above the June highs of $51.67 would project a move to near $65 (technically speaking, it’s a C-wave).  Another big technical level above is $68.60, which is the 61.8% retracement of the move down from almost $95 in late 2014, to the lows of earlier this year.  That’s the breakdown in oil prices driven by OPEC’s 2014 refusal to cut production.  And now were on the verge of getting the first cut in eight years.  So oil is looking like higher levels are coming — it was up another 3% today.

What’s does it mean for stocks?  As we’ve discussed, for much of the year, lower oil has meant lower stocks, and higher oil has meant higher stocks.

oct10 oil v stocks

This emerging bullish technical and fundamental backdrop for energy should be very good for stocks.  Remember, higher energy prices, in this environment, removes the risk of another oil price shock-to-sentiment (good for stocks, good for the economy). And it means producers can start producing again, downstream businesses can fill capacity, and we can start seeing some of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs replenished that have been lost over the past two years.

Since OPEC rigged lower oil prices back in late 2014, we’ve had over 100 North American energy company bankruptcies.  Some of those have/are reorganizing and emerging with lean balance sheets into what could be a hot recovery in energy prices.  I’ll talk about some tomorrow.

The Billionaire’s Portfolio is up 23% year-to-date — that’s nearly four times the return of the S&P 500 during the same period.  We recently exited a big FDA approval stock for a quadruple, and we’ve just added a new pick to the portfolio — following Warren Buffett into one of his favorite stocks.   If you haven’t joined yet, please do.  Click here to get started and get your portfolio in line with our Billionaire’s Portfolio. 

 

October 4, 2016, 5:00pm EST

Stocks continue to chop around as we head into the big jobs report this week.  But the dollar has been a mover today, so has gold.

Let’s take a look at the chart of gold.  It has broken down technically.


You can see the longer term downtrend in gold since it topped out in 2011.  And we’ve had a corrective bounce this year, which was contained by this descending trendline.  And today we broke the trend that describes this bullish technical correction (i.e. the trend continues lower).

A lot of people own gold.  And it’s a very emotional trade.  Whenever I talk about negative scenarios for gold, the hate mail is sure to follow.

We’ve talked quite a bit about the drivers of the gold trade. I want to revisit that today.

Gold has been a core trade for a lot of people throughout the crisis period. When Lehman failed in 2008, it shook the world, global credit froze, banks were on the verge of collapse, the global economy was on the brink of implosion—people ran into gold. Gold was a fear–of–the–unknown–outcome trade.

Then the global central banks responded with massive backstops, guarantees, and unprecedented QE programs. The world stabilized, but people ran faster into gold. Gold became a hyperinflation–fear trade.

Gold went on a tear from sub–$700 bucks to over $1,900 following the onset of global QE (led by the Fed).

Gold ran up as high as 182%. That was pricing in 41% annualized inflation at one point (as a dollar for dollar hedge). Of course, inflation didn’t comply.

Still eight years after the Fed’s first round of QE (and massive global responses), we have just 13% cumulative inflation over the period.

So the gold bugs overshot in a big way.  We’ve looked at this next chart a few times over the past several months.  This tells the story on why inflation hasn’t met the expectations of the “run-away inflation” theorists.

This chart above is the velocity of money. This is the rate at which money circulates through the economy. And you can see to the far right of the chart, it hasn’t been fast. In fact, it’s at historic lows. Banks used cheap/free money from the Fed to recapitalize, not to lend. Borrowers had no appetite to borrow, because they were scarred by unemployment and overindebtedness. Bottom line: we get inflation when people are confident about their financial future, jobs, earning potential…and competing for things, buying today, thinking prices might be higher, or the widget might be gone tomorrow. It’s been the opposite for the past eight years.

When this reality of low-to-no inflation and global economic malaise became clear, even after rounds of Fed QE, there were a LOT of irresponsible people continuing to tout gold as an important place in everyone’s portfolio, even at stratospheric levels.  People bought gold at $1900 and have since lost as much as 40% on the value of their investment – an investment that was supposed to “hedge” against inflation.

On that note, today the IMF downgraded U.S. growth estimates for the year from 2.2% to just 1.6% — in a year that many were initially expecting to be a good year, nearing trend growth levels (3%-3.5%).  So eight years from the inception of the Fed’s extraordinary policies, the case for gold remains weak and an investment with more risk than reward.

The Billionaire’s Portfolio is up 23% year-to-date — that’s nearly four times the return of the S&P 500 during the same period.  We recently exited a big FDA approval stock for a quadruple, and we’ve just added a new pick to the portfolio — following Warren Buffett into one of his favorite stocks.   If you haven’t joined yet, please do.  Click here to get started and get your portfolio in line with our Billionaire’s Portfolio. 

 

September 28, 2016, 4:30pm EST

Oil popped over $3 from the lows of the day (as much as 7%) on news OPEC has agreed to a production cut.

We’ve talked a lot throughout the year about the price of oil.  When it collapsed to the $20s, it put the entire energy industry on bankruptcy watch.

Of course, oil bounced sharply from those lows of February as central banks stepped in with a coordinated response to stabilize confidence. Not so coincidentally, oil bottomed the same day the Bank of Japan intervened in the currency markets.

The oil price bust all started back in November of 2014, the evening of Thanksgiving Day, when OPEC pulled the rug out from under the oil market by vowing not to make production cuts, in an attempt to crush the nascent shale industry.  At that time, oil was trading around $73.

You can see in this chart, it never saw that price again.

sept 28 crude 20 yr

OPEC was successful in heavily damaging the U.S. shale industry through low oil prices, but it has damaged OPEC countries, too.

What will the news of an agreement on a production cut mean?

A policy shift from OPEC can be very powerful.  In 1986, the mere hint of an OPEC policy move sent oil up 50% in just 24 hours.  And as we discussed earlier in the year, the relationship between the price of oil and stocks this year has been tight.  At times, stocks have traded almost tick for tick with oil.

Take a look at this chart.

sept 28 crude v stocks

An oil price back in the $60s would be a catalyst for a big run in stocks into the year end. For a stock market that has been rudderless surrounding a confused Fed and an important election, this oil news could kick it into gear.

If you’re looking for great ideas that have been vetted and bought by the world’s most influential and richest investors, join us at Billionaire’s Portfolio.   We have just exited an FDA approval stock for a quadruple.  And we’ll be adding a two new high potential billionaire owned stocks to the portfolio very soon.  Don’t miss it.  Join us here.

 

September 27, 2016, 4:30pm EST

The debate last night was entertaining.  It’s sad to see how the media manipulates facts and cherry picks quotes to fit their narrative.

But that’s what they do and it ultimately shapes views for voters, unfortunately.

Today, I want to focus on China and Trump’s comments on China’s currency manipulation.  Everyone knows the U.S. has lost jobs to China.  Everyone knows China has become the world’s manufacturer.  But not everyone knows how they did it.

Is it just because the labor is so cheap?  Or is there more to it?

There’s more to it.  A lot more.

China’s biggest and most effective tool is and always has been its currency. China ascended to the second largest economy in the world over the past two decades by massively devaluing its currency, and then pegging it at ultra–cheap levels.

Take a look at this chart …

sept 27 usdcny

In this chart, the rising line represents a weaker Chinese yuan and a stronger U.S. dollar.  You can see from the early 80s to the mid 90s, the value of the yuan declined dramatically, an 82% decline against the dollar.  They trashed their currency for economic advantage – and it worked, big time.  And it worked because the rest of the world stood by and let it happen.

For the next decade, the Chinese pegged their currency against the dollar at 8.29 yuan per dollar (a dollar buys 8.29 yuan).

With the massive devaluation of the 80s into the early 90s, and then the peg through 2005, the Chinese economy exploded in size.  It enabled China to corner the world’s export market, and suck jobs and foreign currency out of the developed world.  This is precisely what Donald Trump is alluding to when he says “China is stealing from us.”
Their economy went from $350 billion to $3.5 trillion through 2005, making it the third largest economy in the world.

sept 27 china gdp

This next chart is U.S. GDP during the same period.  You can see the incredible ground gained by the Chinese on the U.S. through this period of mass currency manipulation.

sept 27 us gdp

And because they’ve undercut the world on price, they’ve become the world’s Wal-Mart (sellers to everyone) and have accumulated a mountain for foreign currency as a result.  China is the holder of the largest foreign currency reserves in the world, at over $3 trillion dollars (mostly U.S. dollars).  What do they do with those dollars?  They buy U.S. Treasuries, keeping rates low, so that U.S. consumers can borrow cheap and buy more of their goods – adding to their mountain of currency reserves, adding to their wealth and depleting the U.S. of wealth (and the cycle continues).

The U.S. woke up in 2005, and started threatening tariffs against Chinese goods unless they abandoned their cheap currency policies.  China finally conceded (sort of).  They agreed to abandon the peg to the dollar, and to start appreciating their currency.

They allowed the currency to strengthen by about 4.5% a year from 2005 through 2013.  That might sound good, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to the double digit pace the Chinese economy was growing at through most of that period.  Still, the U.S. passively threatened along the way, but allowed it to continue.

With that, the Chinese economy has ascended to the second largest economy in the world now – on pace to the biggest soon (though it still has just an eight of the per capita GDP as the U.S.).  But China’s currency is a bigger threat, at this stage, than just the emergence of China as an economic power.   The G-20 (the group of the world’s top 20 economies) has had China’s weak currency policy at the top of its list of concerns for a reason.

The current global imbalances are the underlying cause of the global financial crisis, and China’s currency is at the heart of it.

And without a more fairly valued yuan, repairing those imbalances — those lopsided economies too dependent upon either exports or imports — isn’t going to happen.  It’s a recipe for more cycles of booms and busts … and with greater frequency.

Are big tariffs the answer?  Historically that’s a recipe for disaster, economically and geopolitically.

What’s the solution?  I’ve thought that the Bank of Japan will ultimately crush the value of the yen, as the answer to Japan’s multi-decade economic malaise and as an answer to the stagnant global economic recovery.  It’s an answer for everyone, except China.  A much weaker yen could crush the China threat, by displacing China as the world’s exporter.

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September 26, 2016, 3:45pm EST

All eyes are on the Presidential debate/face-off tonight.  Heading into the event, stocks are lower, yields are lower and the dollar is lower — all a “risk-off” tone.

And the VIX (implied S&P 500 vol/an indicator of uncertainty) has popped higher from the very low levels it had returned to as of Friday.  Speculators are out today making bets on a political firework show tonight, and thus betting on more uncertainty in the outcome and in post-election policy making.

If we step back a bit though, given the difficulties in getting through the legislative process, the biggest potential market influence from the election may be more about the prospects of getting a fiscal stimulus package done, rather than the many promises that are made on an campaign trail.  Both candidates have been out promising a spending package to boost the economy.  And on the heals of a package from Japan, and the unknown risks from Brexit, the idea is becoming more politically palatable.

As we discussed on Friday, the Fed has taken a strategically more pessimistic public view on the economy, in effort to underpin the current economic drivers in place (stability, low rates and incentives to reach for risk).

Following the Fed and BOJ events last week, the 10-year yield is back in the 1.50s and sitting in a big technical level.  This will be an important chart to keep an eye on tomorrow.

sept 26 10 year yield

If you’re looking for great ideas that have been vetted and bought by the world’s most influential and richest investors, join us at Billionaire’s Portfolio.   We have just exited an FDA approval stock for a quadruple.  And we’ll be adding a two new high potential billionaire owned stocks to the portfolio very soon.  Don’t miss it.  Join us here.