Asset prices are high across the board. Is it time to worry?

 

With ultra-loose monetary policy coming to an end, it is best to tread carefully

IN HIS classic, “The Intelligent Investor”, first published in 1949, Benjamin Graham, a Wall Street sage, distilled what he called his secret of sound investment into three words: “margin of safety”. The price paid for a stock or a bond should allow for human error, bad luck or, indeed, many things going wrong at once. In a troubled world of trade tiffs and nuclear braggadocio, such advice should be especially worth heeding. Yet rarely have so many asset classes—from stocks to bonds to property to bitcoins—exhibited such a sense of invulnerability.

Peter Schiff: Time Is Running Out, “Crisis Worse Than 2008 Coming”

 

We are headed for disaster, and the only question is how long the economy can dodge a bullet.

The illusory bubble on Wall Street claims to be at record highs, but the reality, the underbelly, is dark indeed.

Economic expert Peter Schiff speaks on not only the safe haven of gold, and what is at stake in the election, but just how dire the financial consequences will be when the great storm hits and batters everyone.

Iran sanctions: Middle East stock crash wipes £27bn off markets as Tehran enters oil war

Prospect of the Islamic Republic pumping an additional 500,000 barrels a day sends stock markets in Dubai and Saudi Arabia into tailspin

Stock markets across the Middle East saw more than £27bn wiped off their value as the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran threatened to unleash a fresh wave of oil onto global markets that are already drowning in excess supply.

All seven stock markets in the Gulf states tumbled as panic gripped traders. London shares are now braced for a second wave of crisis to hit when they open on Monday morning after contagion from China sent the FTSE 100 to its worst start in history last week.

Glencore Collapse Could Be Even Worse Than Feared

Editor’s Note: We’re sharing this update on Glencore’s collapse with you because it’s shaping up to be even worse than Michael originally thought. Glencore still poses a “Lehman Brothers”-level risk to the global economy – but it’s now clear the world’s biggest commodities trader is on the hook for hundreds of billions in “shadow debt” that it simply refuses to address. This crisis is one small step away from upending our financial system, so here’s what you need to know…

A lot of powerful voices have joined me in warning about the potential threat that Glencore Plc. (LON: GLEN) poses to global financial markets. Bank of America, for instance, has published a report on the true size of the fallout. As you’ll see in a moment, it’s staggering.

But since we talked about Glencore late last month, something insane has happened: The stock has gone up.

But not for any good reason. The company has not righted the ship. The surge is only due to short-sellers covering their positions.

Fed, Central Banks Trapped – Gold Foundation of Exter’s Pyramid

Essentially, the price of gold has been kept artificially low and should be well over $2000 per ounce by now. The manipulation game with gold, currencies and the economy in general cannot continue indefinitely and we’ll see that soon. The Fed is running out of tricks.

 

 

The future direction of the planet is between the central bank’s counter-party paper Ponzi currency or the independence of real money.

Foresighted central banker John Exter is famous for his classification of risk assets. Using Exter’s Golden Pyramid the riskiest assets are those at the bottom of the pyramid and situated at the top of the apex is gold bullion – independent from the counter-party risk of central banks’ paper and electronic currency.

At the bottom of the wealth asset pyramid are overleveraged paper derivatives estimated to be a magnitude of up to six times the world’s wealth. An example of this is in Germany today where it was recently estimated that Deutsche Bank has a massive 70 trillion dollars worth of exposure to derivatives. Meanwhile, annual GDP in Germany is just 4 trillion dollars.

Warren Buffett warned of these “financial weapons of mass destruction.”

Stock up on canned food for stock market crash, warns former Gordon Brown adviser

Global Geopolitics does not call dates, and a global market crash may in fact not happen, but all signs point towards an imminent crash. Warning signs are flashing, and not just from ‘conspiracy theorists’.

Don’t be foolish and think this warning pertains only to Great Britain. The U.S. will be one of the, if not the, hardest hit nations.

Why take a chance? How many more warnings do you need to see? Don’t be complacent. Prepare how you see fit. The best advice is to get right with God.

 

 

A former adviser to Gordon Brown has urged people to stock up on canned goods and bottled water as stock markets around the world slide.

Damian McBride appeared to suggest that the stock market dip could lead to civil disorder or other situations where it would be unreasonable for someone to leave the house.

“Advice on the looming crash, No.1: get hard cash in a safe place now; don’t assume banks & cashpoints will be open, or bank cards will work,” he tweeted.

Global stocks in ‘panic mode’ as Chinese factory slump drags on markets

Global markets are hemorrhaging. How many more band-aids can be put on a wound that is somehow only delaying the death of the patient?

 

Britain’s leading share index fell to 6,286 points on Friday morning immediately after opening, a decline of 1.26%.
The drop mirrored stock markets across Asia-Pacific after they went into “panic mode” when further signs of a weakening Chinese economy compounded overnight losses on Wall Street and European bourses.

China’s factory sector shrank at its fastest pace in more than six years in August as domestic and export demand dwindled, a private survey showed, adding to worries that the world’s second-largest economy may be slowing sharply and sending financial markets into a tailspin.

China’s surprise devaluation of the yuan and heavy selling in its stock markets in recent weeks have sparked fears that it could be at risk of a hard landing, which would hammer world growth.

America’s day of reckoning just 60 days away?

Ancient biblical cycle now 2 months from climax

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This period of early autumn was the most crucial time on the biblical calendar for the ancient Israelites, with the end of the seven-year cycle described in Deuteronomy as the Shemitah or Sabbath year. All farmland was to be left in a state of rest and the people were to focus on God and His will for their nation and their lives.

This year on Sept. 13, the Shemitah reaches its peak on the last day on the Hebrew calendar, Elul 29, known as the “day of nullification.” All debt and credit were to be wiped away on this day as described by author Jonathan Cahn in his New York-Times bestseller, “The Mystery of the Shemitah,” published in September 2014.

But the Shemitah can be a game-changer not only for economies and stock markets but also in geopolitics.

Greek debt default is now inevitable, government officials say prepare now for systemic collapse

(NaturalNews) We have been tracking and reporting on the worsening economic situation in Greece now for more than a year, and it appears as though our earlier predictions – that the broke Mediterranean nation would eventually default on bailout loans it received in 2012, under different leadership – will happen.

Reuters reported Monday that Greece will not pay a 1.6 billion-euro installment it owes on its loan that is due June 30, according to a Greek government official who confirmed the default yesterday, further highlighting the overall severity of the country’s financial crisis.

This Financial “Seismograph” Signals A Monetary Earthquake

 

Stock markets in the U.S. are trading approximately 2% from their all-time highs, the German DAX has slightly retraced from its all-time highs, the Nikkei index in Japan has almost surpassed its 2000 highs in recent days, the Shanghai stock index used to be a laggard but is making up at an incredible pace (currently trading at 7-year highs). Indeed, it feels like nothing can go wrong.

We are not yet in bubble territory, and the market is not setting up for an implosion as it did in December 1999 or July 2008. However, we are in the midst of a monetary bubble, driven by an explosion of the monetary base and an implosion of interest rates. Paper assets, as opposed to hard assets, have been pumped up by the liquidity that is being funneled into the economic system and the markets.

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 1

We are only two months into 2015, and it has already proven to be the most volatile year for the economic environment since 2008-2009. We have seen oil markets collapsing by about 50 percent in the span of a few months (just as the Federal Reserve announced the end of QE3, indicating fiat money was used to hide falling demand), the Baltic Dry Index losing 30 percent since the beginning of the year, the Swiss currency surprise, the Greeks threatening EU exit (and now Greek citizens threatening violent protests with the new four-month can-kicking deal), and the effects of the nine-month-long West Coast port strike not yet quantified. This is not just a fleeting expression of a negative first quarter; it is a sign of things to come.

Central bankers may have no quick fix as markets swoon, economy weakens

Stocks slumped again on Wednesday pushing S&P 500 losses to almost 8 percent since mid-September. The dollar fell and U.S. bond prices soared after weak Chinese inflation and U.S. producer price and retail sales data fanned fears the world economy could be even weaker than thought.

When stock markets turned south last week after rallying for much of this year, many policymakers initially played that down. In fact, the sell-off could be seen bringing some healthy volatility back to markets that officials worried had become too complacent to risks ranging from tensions surrounding the conflict in Ukraine to the Ebola outbreak.

But the deepening of the sell-off may have put major central banks on their heels, by raising the prospect of the market rout going too far too fast, threatening to hurt confidence and potentially triggering a pullback in spending.

“It reminds me of the massive flight to quality we saw during the (2008) banking crisis, when there were fears that the whole global economy would tip into depression,” said Nick Stamenkovic, a strategist at Edinburgh-based RIA Capital Markets.

“Federal Reserve and Other Central Banks Own Close to Half of All Stock Markets”

These links reveal that the US Federal Reserve Board and other central banks around the world own “close to half of all [the] stock markets.” The title of this post is the title of the first link. Please re-read the first sentence and let it sink in to grasp the meaning of this shocking revelation. I think most citizen-investors around the world assumed that all stocks were owned by private investors, sovereign investment funds, pension funds, mutual funds, etc. Not true! The first three links reveal that vast amounts of stock equities are owned by the US Federal Reserve Board and other central banks! The Fed and the central banks have surely been buying these stock funds with fantasy money, money created by the central banks “out of thin air.” If a private investor tried to do that, it would be called “counterfeiting.”