LIVE Gold Prices $  | E-Mail Subscriptions | Update GoldSeek | GoldSeek Radio 

Commentary : Gold Review : Markets : News Wire : Quotes : Silver : Stocks - Main Page 

 GoldSeek.com >> News >> Story  Disclaimer 
 
Latest Headlines

GoldSeek.com to Launch New Website
By: GoldSeek.com

Is Gold Price Action Warning Of Imminent Monetary Collapse Part 2?
By: Hubert Moolman

Gold and Silver Are Just Getting Started
By: Frank Holmes, US Funds

Silver Makes High Wave Candle at Target – Here’s What to Expect…
By: Clive Maund

Gold Blows Through Upside Resistance - The Chase Is On
By: Avi Gilburt

U.S. Mint To Reduce Gold & Silver Eagle Production Over The Next 12-18 Months
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report

Gold's sharp rise throws Financial Times into an erroneous sulk
By: Chris Powell, GATA

Precious Metals Update Video: Gold's unusual strength
By: Ira Epstein

Asian Metals Market Update: July-29-2020
By: Chintan Karnani, Insignia Consultants

Gold's rise is a 'mystery' because journalism always fails to pursue it
By: Chris Powell, GATA

 
Search

GoldSeek Web

 
Death by a Thousand Cuts



-- Posted Thursday, 3 July 2008 | Digg This ArticleDigg It! | Source: GoldSeek.com

The general stock market behavior recently has been painful, to say the least. Now with the DJIA broken below the March low, any hope of a quick ending on the current bear market diminishes. Even though the S&P 500 Index has not broken below the March low yet, and even though the market is very oversold at the moment and a rebound before the 4th of July Holiday weekend is possible, the damage is already done. January and March lows will not hold for the current on-going bear market, and we should expect a 2nd leg down leading the S&P toward the $1,100 level.

Usually, strong rallies happen during a bear market, partially due to short squeeze but more due to false hope that the bear market will end soon and greed will take over, as investors try to pick a "bottom". This kind of bottom picking rarely works, especially during the early phase of a bear market, when sovereign wealth funds [SWF] buy investment banks and other financial institutions in the 1st half of this year. At the same time, SWF's interest might not be totally bottom picking.

Investment banking is a relationship and sales business; SWFs representing their countries were probably returning a favor to Wall St. for issuing all the IPOs of their government-linked enterprises in the US financial market for the last couple of years. But once they realize they are the 1st round of suckers on this rip-off capital raising game, the relationship goes sour and it becomes difficult to squeeze more money out of their pocket in the future.

Two months ago, the banking sector represented by KBW Bank Index (BKX) (or other similar indices) had been range- bound and traded around $75-90, now below $60. From technical point of view, we might see a mini-rebound for BKX from the current oversold condition around $55-60 which could temporarily provide a weak support. In December blog: "My Ten Predictions for 2008", I felt very confident that Citi shares would be at the teens this year, and now they are. I just hope that at the end of this banking bear market, which might have several more years to run, Citi shares will still hold up at double digits instead of falling into the single digit territory, like Bear Stearns.

Overall, for the general stock market, especially the banking sector, the last two months might be qualified as something called "death by a thousand cuts", an ancient form of torture and execution in Imperial China. If you look at the BKX chart, everyday the index has been dropping bit by bit, not drastic enough to have media headlines all over the place like the 1987 crash, but still painful enough for buy and hold investors. And the pain has grown day by day, however so far there is no capitulation (I wouldn't call last Thursday's 6/26 crash a capitulation), which usually signals a relief rally coming soon. So we don't know how long this pain will last.

After the March bottom, I was looking for a strong bear market rally lasting for about half year, or at least getting us through the summer, since it is very normal to see such rally in the bear market after a capitulation like the one that happened in March. For example, we had two very strong rallies in 2001 for several months during the last bear market. However, this was only a one-month mini-rally, bringing us back to only $1,420, then the whole banking sector dragged everything down again. Usually we don't see a big crash in the summertime due to slow trading activity, but maybe this year will be different.

At the peak, financials were over 30% of total profits in the S&P 500 when they only represented 22% of the index's market value. Now with everyone realizing that their trading profits from structured products are phantom, non-repeatable, and likely gone forever, at the same time that their banking advisory fees from M&A, IPO, especially LBO from private equity firms dry up as long as this credit crisis is not over, it is actually very natural to see the banking sector suffer badly. Then S&P 500 is dragged down by it, similar to GE 's being dragged down by its GE Capital division.

Even with absolutely no transparency on the GE Capital portfolio, it is widely speculated that problems and losses have happened in their commercial lending, asset-backed securities, and especially over-the-counter derivatives. The banking sector becomes a large liability on our society's balance sheet.

In a Barron's interview early this year, Jeremy Grantham of GMO predicted the S&P will go down to $1,100 by 2010. When I read his wonderful insights and comments, my gut feeling was that he is too conservative on both the target and the time. I would not be surprised to see his target of $1,100 reached this year, and by 2010, we will see only 3 digits left in S&P 500, which could touch $800, the bottom of last bear market, and possibly also the bottom of the current one.

I mentioned this $800 possibility in one of my blogs in August of 2007, and I don't think there were any believers at that time, but it doesn't seem to be as farfetched now. The current market behavior of slow death by multiple small cuts is not very usual, a nightmare for bottom pickers. We probably won't know the reason behind this until it is much too late. I feel that the market has smelled and figured out that something really bad coming, especially for next year, as smart money is withdrawing capital from stock market gradually.

At the same time, I am also very concerned about baby boomers getting close to retirement. According to Jeremy Siegel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, his computer model shows that, putting aside help from overseas investors, the boomers' retirement could cause stock prices to fall 40% to 50%. This becomes more likely with the depreciation of US dollar so that overseas investors will further shy away from US stock market.

There is also more urgency now with real estate, a big nest egg for boomers, falling double digits, something they over which they don't have full control. Who wouldn't want to protect the only other nest egg left, their stock portfolio, while they have some control and still can cash out their capital gain from the bull market of the last 20 years? At the end of the day, if people foresee capital flowing out of the stock market, and their investment horizon shrinking day by day, who would want to be the last one holding the bag?

If you look at the period of 1968-1982, a bear market that lasted 14 years, there a lot of similarities to the current period. If we try to map the two periods, 1968 top is probably like 2000, and 1969 is the 1st crash like our last bear market, then the extremely difficult period of 1973-74 resembles the current one with the same concerns of oil, energy, agricultural commodities, inflation, and falling US dollar.

History never repeats itself exactly and perfectly, so I wouldn't be necessarily counting on another 8 years of bear market from now. But from this historical perspective, at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised either to see that this bear has another 4-5 years to run. This recession will likely last longer than the previous several recessions. The main reason for this is that during last several recessions, the Fed had always aggressively reduced interest rates, then reduced some more.

This may be good or bad, but in economics or the financial market, no single trick will work forever. This one-trick approach most likely won't work this time due to inflation and in addition, the Fed is running out of bullets to lower rates. This is why, when Fed held the rate unchanged, the market went into crash mode last week. From the liquidity side, the Fed has used up almost half of its balance sheet on subprime to rescue Wall St banks already. The next crisis of credit default swap will wipe out the remaining balance sheet of the Fed. During the current market turmoil, I have maintained a strong confidence and commitment to gold, silver and precious metal stocks. They provide a good insurance for this period full of uncertainty. Gold and gold stocks have negative correlation with equities, if we view their relationship for an extensive period of time. In other words, gold would go up and gold positions would provide some protection and offset the hit we would take on the equity portfolio.

There will also be many unexpected crisis from outliers, anomalies and black swans in the future. During a bear market and financial turmoil, capital protection and preservation is far more important than taking risk for capital gain. Gold also provides good protection to double digit inflation which we are currently facing (not the government published scale-down figures). When inflation expectation skyrockets, long bonds will suffer heavy losses and TIPS won't provide protection from price increases on energy and food. With equities, bonds, real estate and US dollar all falling to face a slow death by a thousand cuts, only gold can save us now.

Thomas Tan, CFA, MBA

Thomast2@optonline.net

 

Those interested in discovering more about me, my trading strategy and reading many of my other blogs can visit web site at www.Vestopia.com/thomast

 

Disclaimer: The contents of this article represent the opinion and analysis of Thomas Tan, who cannot accept responsibility for any trading losses you may incur as a result of your reliance on this opinion and analysis and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission. Individuals should consult with their broker and personal financial advisors before engaging in any trading activities. Do your own due diligence regarding personal investment decisions.


-- Posted Thursday, 3 July 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com




 



Increase Text SizeDecrease Text SizeE-mail Link of Current PagePrinter Friendly PageReturn to GoldSeek.com

 news.goldseek.com >> Story

E-mail Page  | Print  | Disclaimer 


© 1995 - 2019



GoldSeek.com Supports Kiva.org

© GoldSeek.com, Gold Seek LLC

The content on this site is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and is the property of GoldSeek.com and/or the providers of the content under license. By "content" we mean any information, mode of expression, or other materials and services found on GoldSeek.com. This includes editorials, news, our writings, graphics, and any and all other features found on the site. Please contact us for any further information.

Live GoldSeek Visitor Map | Disclaimer


Map

The views contained here may not represent the views of GoldSeek.com, Gold Seek LLC, its affiliates or advertisers. GoldSeek.com, Gold Seek LLC makes no representation, warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy or completeness of the information (including news, editorials, prices, statistics, analyses and the like) provided through its service. Any copying, reproduction and/or redistribution of any of the documents, data, content or materials contained on or within this website, without the express written consent of GoldSeek.com, Gold Seek LLC, is strictly prohibited. In no event shall GoldSeek.com, Gold Seek LLC or its affiliates be liable to any person for any decision made or action taken in reliance upon the information provided herein.