An Open Letter to All Presidential Candidates

March 19, 2012 By gpc1981

Dear Presidential Candidates: Democrats, Republicans, Independents, etc.

Watching your debates and speeches of late, it is clear that you are all (with possibly the exception of Ron Paul) missing the point and only continuing to widen the gap between the US Government and the American people.

In some regards, this is not entirely your fault. You all are doubtless surrounded by strategists and experts who ascribe to the dominant economic theories of the last 80 years; namely that Government and monetary intervention can “fix” any economic problems this country faces. Mr. President I know for a fact that your inner circle of advisors is comprised of individuals who owe their current jobs and fortunes to bailouts (Mr. Immelt and Mr. Buffett to name two).

Your strategists are missing the point. Aside from the fact that their own self-interests are completely at odds with those of the American people, they are looking at economic numbers and data as “realities” or stand alone items. This the completely off-base. The economy and economic data are not reality, they are simply measures of the American People’s activity.

With that in mind, you need to actually consider the people, not the data.

The people are already voting whether you realize it or not. They’ve voted with their money by doing the following:

1)   Pulling their money out of the stock market en masse (the mutual fund industry saw investors pull $132 billion from stock-based funds in 2011).

2)   Buying guns (according to the FBI, there were over 16 million background checks in 2011, an all-time record. The FBI has noted that only 1.3% of background checks result in denial of a weapon… so these were gun buyers.)

These two data points tell us one thing: Americans do not buy into or trust the current policies being enacted in the US.

Americans don’t believe that the stock market represents the US economy or should be the main focus of the Government’s efforts. Moreover, they don’t believe that the bailouts/ Stimulus have worked.

It is easy to see why. Despite record Government deficits, debt levels, and stimulus, the US economy is in the gutter. The following four charts prove it beyond any doubt.

Here’s duration of unemployment. Official recessions are marked with gray columns. While the chart only goes back to 1967 I want to note that we are in fact at an all-time high with your average unemployed person needing more than 40 weeks to find work (or simply falling off the statistics).

Here’s the labor participation rate with recessions again market by gray columns:

Another way to look at this chart is to say that since the Tech Crash, a smaller and smaller percentage of the US population has been working. Today, the same percentage of the US population are working as in 1980.

Here’s industrial production. I want to point out that during EVERY recovery since 1919 industrial production has quickly topped its former peak. Not this time. We’ve spent literally trillions of US Dollars on Stimulus and bailouts and production is well below the pre-Crisis highs.

Here’s a close up of the last 10 years.

Again, what’s happening in the US is NOT a garden-variety cyclical recession. It is a STRUCTURAL SECULAR DEPRESSION.

Americans don’t pay their bills using the proceeds from stocks. They pay their bills and buy their food/ gas with the money earned from their incomes.

This is why most people don’t care about the stock market anymore. Well, that and the fact that a large percentage of the ones running the show in the markets committed massive fraud, earned billions doing it, and have never been called to justice despite admitting they did this.

As for the Depression, the reason we are in a Depression is due to the realities underlying our financial system: namely too much debt. Moreover, the US’s response to dealing with this problem has been to simply add more debt: since 2008, the National Debt has increased over $4 trillion since 2008.

Let’s face the facts… we are saturated with debt on a Federal, State, Local, and Household basis. You cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt no matter what your economists and strategists tell you.

For the sake of my letter to you, let’s focus on US Households since they’re the ones who will vote for the next President.

During the housing boom, consumer leverage rose at nearly twice the rate of corporate and banking leverage. Indeed, even after all the foreclosures and bankruptcies, US household debt is equal to nearly 100% of US total GDP.

To put US household debt levels into a historical perspective, in order for US households to return to their long-term average for leverage ratios and their historic relationship to GDP growth we’d need to write off between $4-4.5 TRILLION in household debt (an amount equal to about 30% of total household debt outstanding).

This is the mathematical reality underpinning our economy today.

So how do we solve this?

The only way for us to get out of this mess is for incomes to start rising. And the only way that will happen is if jobs pick up. For that to happen, we HAVE to do two things:

1)   Focus almost exclusively on small businesses.

2)   Remove the distrust that Government policies have engendered in the US populace.

Regarding #1, according to the Government’s own data:

*        Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

*        Employ half of all private sector employees.

*        Generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.

*        Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP.

*        Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.

Who runs these small businesses? The American people. Main Street. Not the big firms. Not the Too Big To Fails. Not Wall Street. Not the firms that were bailed out. Etc.

In simple terms, the US economy is PRIMARILY comprised of those who decide political elections. They‘re not the ones coughing up $30,000 to have dinner with you, but they’re the ones who decide who will be in office starting in 2013.

And they will vote based on their experiences of the economy, NOT based on the fudged numbers coming out of the BLS.

So, if you want to win the 2012 Presidential Election, you need to focus on these people and win back their trust. And how can you do that? Two simple steps:

1)   Stop bailing out/ permitting the elite to get away with crimes that normal Americans would be prosecuted for.

2)   Stop interfering with small business. Make it easier for small business to start hiring by removing the uncertainty surrounding future benefits/ regulations/ taxes that small businesses will face (why do you think everyone’s hiring temps and part-timers?)

Obviously these moves wouldn’t solve the problems for the US. But they’d go a long ways towards getting us back on track in terms of re-establishing trust in the Government and the system at large.

Trust creates jobs. Trust wins votes. Trust gets the economy back on track, even if it means some short-term pain (defaults/ deleveraging). This country has gotten through a Civil War, Great Depression, numerous recessions, and more. We will get through this latest Depression as well. But this will only happen if we go back to being the United States of America, not the United States of Government Driven America.

Whichever of you figures this out first and acts accordingly, will be the next President.

Sincerely,

Graham Summers

 

What the End Result of the Fed’s Cancerous Policies Will Be and When It Will Hit

March 17, 2012 By gpc1981

Yesterday I noted that the “addict/ dealer” metaphor for the Fed’s intervention in the markets was in fact not accurate and that the Fed’s actions would be more appropriately described as permitted cancerous beliefs to spread throughout the financial system, thereby killing Democratic Capitalism which is the basis of the capital markets.

Today I’m going to explain what the “final outcome” for this process will be. The short version is what happens to a cancer patient who allows the disease to spread unchecked (death).

In the case of the Fed’s actions we will see a similar “death” of Democratic Capitalism and the subsequent death of the capital markets. I am, of course, talking in metaphors here: the world will not end, and commerce and business will continue, but the form of capital markets and Capitalism we are experiencing today will cease to exist as the Fed’s policies result in the market and economy eventually collapsing in such a fashion that what follows will bear little resemblance to that which we are experiencing now.

The focus of this “death” will not be stocks, but bonds, particularly sovereign bonds: the asset class against which all monetary policy and investment theory has been based for the last 80+ years.

Indeed, basic financial theory has proposed that sovereign bonds are essentially the only true “risk-free” investment in the world. While history shows this theory to be false (sovereign defaults have occurred throughout the 20th century) this has been the basic tenant for all investment models and indeed the financial system at large going back for 80 some odd years.

The reason for this is that the Treasury (US sovereign bond) market is the basis of the entire monetary system in the US and the Global financial system in general. Indeed, US Treasuries are the senior most assets on the Primary Dealers’ (world’s largest banks) balance sheets. To understand why this is as well as why the Fed’s policies will ultimately destroy this system, you first need to understand the Primary Dealer system that is the basis for the US banking system at large.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Primary Dealers, these are the 18 banks at the top of the US private banking system. They’re in charge of handling US Treasury Debt auctions and as such they have unprecedented access to US debt both in terms of pricing and monetary control.

The Primary Dealers are:

  1. Bank of America
  2. Barclays Capital Inc.
  3. BNP Paribas Securities Corp.
  4. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
  5. Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
  6. Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
  7. Daiwa Securities America Inc.
  8. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
  9. Goldman, Sachs & Co.
  10. HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
  11. J. P. Morgan Securities Inc.
  12. Jefferies & Company Inc.
  13. Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
  14. Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated
  15. Nomura Securities International Inc.
  16. RBC Capital Markets
  17. RBS Securities Inc.
  18. UBS Securities LLC.

I’m you’ll sure you’ll recognize these names by the mere fact that they are the exact banks that the Fed focused on “saving” thereby removing their “risk of failure” during the Financial Crisis.

These banks are also the largest beneficiaries of the Fed’s largest monetary policies: QE 1, QE lite, QE 2, etc. Indeed, we now know that QE 2 was in fact was meant to benefit those Primary Dealers in Europe, not the US housing market.

The Primary Dealers are the firms that buy US Treasuries during debt auctions. Once the Treasury debt is acquired by the Primary Dealer, it’s parked on their balance sheet as an asset. The Primary Dealer can then leverage up that asset and also fractionally lend on it, i.e. create more debt and issue more loans, mortgages, corporate bonds, or what have you.

Put another way, Treasuries are not only the primary asset on the large banks’ balance sheets, they are in fact the asset against which these banks lend/ extend additional debt into the monetary system, thereby controlling the amount of money in circulation in the economy.

When the Financial Crisis hit in 2007-2008, the Fed responded in several ways, but the most important for the point of today’s discussion is the Fed removing the “risk of failure” for the Primary Dealers by spreading these firms’ toxic debts onto the public’s balance sheet and funneling trillions of dollars into them via various lending windows.

In simple terms, the Fed took what was killing the Primary Dealers (toxic debts) and then spread it onto the US’s balance sheet (which was already sickly due to our excessive debt levels). This again ties in with my “cancer” metaphor, much as cancer spreads by infecting healthy cells.

When the Fed did this it did not save capitalism or the Capital Markets. What it did was allow the “cancer” of excessive leverage, toxic debts, and moral hazard to spread to the very basis of the US, indeed the entire world’s, financial system: the US balance sheet/ Sovereign Bond market.

These actions have already resulted in the US losing its AAA credit rating. But that is just the beginning. Indeed, few if any understand the real risk of what the Fed has done.

The reality is that the Fed has done the following:

1)   Set itself up for a collapse: at $2.8 trillion, the Fed’s balance sheet is now larger that the economies of Brazil, the UK, or France. And with capital of only $54 billion, the Fed is leveraged at 51 to 1 (Lehman was at 30 to 1 when it failed).

2)   Called the risk profile of US sovereign debt into question: foreign investors, now fully aware that the US’s balance sheet is suspect (the US has lost its AAA credit rating), are dumping Treasuries (see China and Russia). This has resulted in the Fed now being responsible for the purchase of up to 91% of all new long-term (20+ years) US debt issuance.

3)   Put the entire Financial System (not just the private banks) at risk.

The Financial System requires trust to operate. Having changed the risk profile of US sovereign debt, the Fed has undermined the very basis of the US banking system (remember Treasuries are the senior most asset against which all banks lend).

Moreover, the Fed has undermined investor confidence in the capital markets as most now perceive the markets to be a “rigged game” in which certain participants, namely the large banks, are favored, while the rest of us (including even smaller banks) are still subject to the basic tenants of Democratic Capitalism: risk of failure.

This has resulted in retail investors fleeing the markets while institutional investors and those forced to participate in the markets for professional reasons now invest based on either the hope of more intervention from the Fed or simply front-running those Fed policies that have already been announced.

Put another way, the financial system and capital markets are no longer a healthy, thriving system of Democratic Capitalism in which a multitude of participants pursue different strategies. Instead they are an environment fraught with risk in which there is essentially “one trade,” and that trade is based on cancerous policies and beliefs that undermine the very basis of Democratic Capitalism, which in the end, is the foundation of the capital markets.

In simple terms, by damaging trust and permitting Wall Street to dump its toxic debts on the public’s balance sheet, the Fed has taken the Financial System from a status of extremely unhealthy to terminal.

The end result will be a Crisis that makes 2008 look like a joke. It will be a Crisis in which the US Treasury market implodes, taking down much of the US banking system with it (remember, Treasuries are the senior most assets on US bank balance sheets).

I cannot say when this will happen. But it will happen. It might be next week, next month, or several years from now. But we’ve crossed the point of no return. The Treasury market is almost entirely dependent on the Fed to continue to function. That alone should make it clear that we are heading for a period of systemic risk that is far greater than anything we’ve seen in 80+ years (including 2008).

The Fed is not a “dealer” giving “hits” of monetary morphine to an “addict”… the Fed has permitted cancerous beliefs to spread throughout the financial system. And the end result is going to be the same as that of a patient who ignores cancer and simply acts as though everything is fine.

That patient is now past the point of no return. There can be no return to health. Instead the system will eventually collapse and then be replaced by a new one.

On that note, if you’re looking for actionable investment strategies on how to play these themes in the markets I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Private Wealth Advisory is my answer to the consensus view presented by the mainstream media and non-thinking “analysts.” It’s a  bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world as well as numerous hedge funds.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

 

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

The Fed Isn’t Providing “Monetary Morphine”; It’s Spreading Financial Cancer That is Killing the Markets and Democratic Capitalism in General

March 16, 2012 By gpc1981

While the vast majority of commentators look at the market action of the last three months and celebrate, I cannot help but shudder. The reason is that the stock market has been propped up solely by Central Bank and/or Federal Government intervention or the hope of more intervention.

That alone is worrisome as it indicates the stock market no longer cares for economic or financial fundamentals (something that has been clear for several years now).

However, far more worrisome is fact that the Fed and Federal Government are now not only propping up stock prices, but are openly trying to crush other assets (especially politically dangerous commodities such as oil and gasoline) in an attempt to make it appear that inflation is under control.

Consider the following:

1)   The sudden talk of “sterilized QE” or QE that won’t involve more money printing (read: There is No Such Thing as Sterilized QE).

2)   The sudden and curious collapse in precious metals (right after Bernanke says QE 3 isn’t coming anytime soon… only for the Fed to leak the “sterilized QE” talk a week after Gold and Silver collapse).

3)   The Government’s decision to unlock our Strategic Petroleum Reserves again (crushing gas prices which were the primary inflationary concern of the Obama administration)

4)   Those Wall Streeters close to the Fed (Goldman’s Jan Hatzius) predicting “sterilized QE” coming in April or June

All of these moves have two goals:

1)   Propping up stocks

2)   Crushing those commodities/ assets that are politically (and economically) dangerous (gasoline, food prices).

The take away point that I’m trying to make here is that we’re now at the point of intervention in which the Fed is openly managing the markets right down to specific asset classes.

Never in history has Central Planning gone well for either the markets or the economy. Wall Street and the mainstream media may cheer that stocks are up and inflation “transitory” (despite clear evidence that the latter point is false: the bond market indicates real inflation to be around 10%). However, I for one am truly terrified by what I see occurring in the markets.

The reason for this is that I do not view what’s happening through the same lens as most investment commentators. Most commentators, including Fed officials, view the Fed’s involvement in the markets as being akin to a drug dealer trying to cure an addict of his/her addiction by providing more drugs (see Dallas President Fisher’s recent speech on the market’s need for “monetary morphine”).

I disagree with the “addiction” metaphor because it implies that the markets/ addict could potentially become healthy if the dealer stopped dishing out the drugs. This ties in with Bernanke’s claims that everything is under control and that he can remove the excess liquidity anytime he wants to.

Remember, Bernanke is speaking from the perspective of an economist: someone who believes that monetary policy and the economy are items that are separate from human psychology or emotion (much as an addiction can be viewed as a physical issue that can be cleared up by physical removal of the drug and the body adjusting accordingly).

However, the markets and the economy are not standalone items or “real things” in of themselves. They are in fact measures of human activity. And human activity is guided by reason and emotions, which are based on varying amounts of evidence and belief.

With that in mind, I believe Central Bank intervention is not a drug or “hit” for an addict. Instead, it is a cancer that has spread throughout the financial system’s psyche and which is killing the markets and Democratic capitalism.

The markets are supposed to be based on Capitalism. And Capitalism, particularly Democratic Capitalism, which is based on the involvement of the general population, by definition requires two primary items:

1)   The risk of failure as well as the opportunity for success

2)   Trust between market participants

The Fed’s policies have damaged both of these areas beyond repair.

Regarding #1, the Fed’s action of bailing out the connected elite erased the concept of risk of failure for that group entirely. The Big Banks continue to engage in reckless practices including drawing down loan loss reserves, refusing to come clean about their true balance sheet risk, paying out record bonuses, and of course, screwing their clients (the Greg Smith op-ed in the New York Times is only the beginning of the whistleblowing for Wall Street).

Put simply, the Big Banks, and even well-connected hedge funds (several of which were warned in advance of the Fed’s upcoming moves in private meetings with Fed officials) are now basing their business models and investment strategies on the idea that risk of failure is next to none.

This in turn has destroyed the second principle of Democratic Capitalism: trust between market participants.

By supporting the very folks who should have failed (the Big Banks) the Fed has engendered distrust from those who were not on the receiving end of the bailouts (Main Street). Indeed, housing data has now made it clear that the policies implemented by the Fed were aimed at propping up the Big Banks/ Wall Street, NOT the housing market/ Main Street.

As a result, the markets are now viewed by market participants and the general public as a “rigged game.” This, in turn, has caused two trends to emerge:

1)   Investors leaving the market en masse (the mutual fund industry saw investors pull $132 billion from stock-based funds in 2011 while the hedge fund industry experienced a net removal of funds in 4Q11 for the first time since 2Q09).

2)   Those investors who remain market participants simply betting on continued Fed intervention and/or front-running Fed policies when they can.

Put another way, the Fed has killed the most important form of trust for Democratic Capitalism. I’m referring to the trust that there is one set of rules/ guidelines for all market participants or that the person on the other side of the transaction has the same risk of failure and opportunity for success as you or I do.

Indeed, things have gotten so bad that even those on the receiving end of Fed largesse no longer trust one another as evinced by inter-bank lending in the US and the EU.

As if this was not bad enough, the Fed is not only killing the basic trust of Democratic Capitalism and replacing it with another, more “sickly” form of trust: the trust that the Fed will continue to prop up those institutions that should have failed as well as the stock market in general.

This fits well within my “cancer” metaphor, as the Fed is literally killing off the positive form of Democratic trust needed for Capitalism and spreading a negative Moral Hazard-based form of trust, much as cancer cells kill off healthy cells by infecting them until they too are cancerous.

So while the mainstream media and various “gurus” view the Fed’s actions as saving capitalism, I totally disagree.

The Fed’s actions have permitted cancerous beliefs to spread throughout the financial system, thereby killing Democratic Capitalism which is the basis of the capital markets.

Short-term, this may have allowed the “patient” (the markets) to continue to function, much as can someone with cancer can continue to function normally for a while before the disease makes it impossible. But long-term the end result will prove disastrous.

I’ll address the “end result” in my next research piece. But for now, everyone should know that whether the “end result” happens next week, next month, next year, or further down the road, it will be akin to what happens when cancer spreads unchecked throughout a patient.

On that note, if you’re looking for actionable investment strategies on how to play these themes in the markets I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter. 

Private Wealth Advisory is my answer to the consensus view presented by the mainstream media and non-thinking “analysts.” It’s a  bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world as well as numerous hedge funds.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

The Big Fat Greek Lie Is Now Obvious to Spain… So Who’s Next to Default?

March 15, 2012 By gpc1981

The big fat Greek lie being spread throughout the financial community is that Greece has been saved. It’s a lie for the following reasons:

1)   Greece did in fact default

2)   Greece now has more debt than it did before the bailout (how does writing off €100 billion Euros in debt and taking on €130 billion Euros in more debt improve this situation?)

3)   The Greek economy continues to implode (youth unemployment over 50%, one in ten Greek youth looking for jobs abroad, Greek GDP fell 7% in 4Q11)

4)   This Second Bailout was indeed a “Credit event” which the markets have yet to discount (though German investors are already lining up litigation)

5)   Germany’s finance minister has already admitted Greece may need a third bailout.

Anyone who thinks that Greece is better off, let alone “saved” is out of their minds. The Euro may have been saved for a few more weeks/ months. But Greece is in worse shape than ever.

Indeed, if anything, the Greek situation has made it clear that the whole “give up fiscal sovereignty and implement austerity measures in exchange for bailouts” formula is a waste of time and money. Let’s take a look at the progression here.

1)   Greece claims it doesn’t need a bailout at all (January 2010-March 2010)

2)   Greece begins to ask for a bailout (April-May 2010)

3)   Greece gets a bailout equal to 57% of its GDP (May 2010)

4)   Greece posts a GDP of -4% in 2010

5)   Greece announces it won’t be able to meet budget requirements/ payback the first bailout on time and asks for an extension (January-February 2011)

6)   Greece asks for another extension (May 2011)

7)   Talk of Second Greek Bailout begins (July –October 2011)

8)   Greece posts a GDP of -6.5% in 2011

9)   Second Greek bailout announced/ finalized (February/March 2012)

10) Talk of third Greek bailout begins (March 2012)

No other EU country could look at this progression and think “this looks like a good approach.” Indeed, Spain and Italy must be watching what’s happening in Greece and asking themselves whether they want to go through this whole process of negotiating for bailouts via austerity measures.

Both countries have already had a small sampling of the austerity measure medicine. Spain recently implemented a meager 19€ billion in austerity measures while Italy passed 30€ billion in austerity measures in 2011… hardly a drop out of their respective 1.06€ trillion and 1.5€ trillion economies.

Yet, even these tiny moves resulted in protests and riots. One can only imagine what Spanish and Italian politicians are thinking as they witness the widespread civil unrest, country-wide strikes, and economic depression that have occurred in Greece as a result of that country’s full commitment to the EU’s austerity measure demands.

Spain’s official Debt to GDP is only 64%, but its private sector debt is at an astounding 227% of GDP. And the Spanish banking system is leveraged at 19 to 1 (worse than Greece).

Moreover, the country is already experiencing an economic Crisis with an unemployment rate of 20+% and an economy that has been contracting since mid-2011 (in fact Spain’s GDP just actually went negative in the first quarter of 2012)…

Indeed, Spain’s recent efforts to tell the EU to “shove it” have put a crack in the Eurogroup power over individual EU members that can quickly widen.

Spain’s sovereign thunderclap and the end of Merkel’s Europe

As many readers will already have seen, Premier Mariano Rajoy has refused point blank to comply with the austerity demands of the European Commission and the European Council (hijacked by Merkozy).

Taking what he called a “sovereign decision”, he simply announced that he intends to ignore the EU deficit target of 4.4pc of GDP for this year, setting his own target of 5.8pc instead (down from 8.5pc in 2011).

In the twenty years or so that I have been following EU affairs closely, I cannot remember such a bold and open act of defiance by any state. Usually such matters are fudged. Countries stretch the line, but do not actually cross it.

With condign symbolism, Mr Rajoy dropped his bombshell in Brussels after the EU summit, without first notifying the commission or fellow EU leaders. Indeed, he seemed to relish the fact that he was tearing up the rule book and disavowing the whole EU machinery of budgetary control.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100015432/spains-sovereign-thunderclap-and-the-end-of-merkels-europe/

The EU rejected this (of course) and Spain has since agreed to meet softer budgetary requirements. But it’s clear that a shift has begun in how EU members will deal with the Eurogroup as a whole.

So… we must consider that it is highly likely the option of simply defaulting is being discussed at the highest levels of the Spanish and Italian government. Should either country decide that austerity measures don’t work and it’s simply easier to opt for a default, then we are heading into a Crisis that will make 2008 look like a joke.

On that note, if you’re looking for actionable investment strategies on how to play these themes in the markets I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Private Wealth Advisory is my bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include analysts and strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Relationships Between Wall Street, the Fed, and Politicians Are Crumbling

March 14, 2012 By gpc1981

People often write to my company asking customer service to forward emails to me asking how I can remain bearish when stocks continue to rally.

For one thing, I want to note that one can be bearish, but still profit from the “current game,” or short-term trends that are in place. For example, while I am ultimately very bearish on the economy and on the markets, I positioned my Private Wealth Advisory clients to profit from the various trends of 2011 so that we saw a 9% return for the year vs. a 0% return for the S&P 500.

Having said that, the big picture reason why I’m bearish can be expressed as follows: the current situation that is allowing the market to rally is based on relationships and policies that are crumbling.

The relationships that most matter for stocks are those between the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and the White House (the topic of today’s research).

The policy that matters most is the Fed’s ability to convince the market that it can and will keep the markets up without letting inflation get out of control (we’ll address this tomorrow).

Regarding the relationships that matter, I’ve stated for months now that we are going to see them crumble. This process has already begun in the sense that we’ve seen:

1)   Key Wall Street players hiring famed defense attorneys (Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs) in preparation for future litigation.

2)   The Fed distancing itself from its responsibility for the Crisis by:

    1. Suing Goldman Sachs
    2. Opening itself to Q&A sessions and townhall meetings
    3. Having “pro Fed” editorials written in the Wall Street Journal
    4. Putting the blame for the Crisis and the US’s financial weakness on Congress’s shoulders

3)   Various members of Congress (especially Ron Paul) and GOP Presidential candidates taking aim at the Federal Reserve.

Do not, for one minute, believe that the folks involved in the Crisis will get away with it. The only reason why we haven’t yet seen major players get slammed is because no one wants the system to crumble again. And the only way for the system to remain propped up is for the Powers That Be to appear to have things under control and be on good terms with one another.

However, eventually things will come unhinged again. Whether it’s Europe collapsing, or the US facing runaway inflation, or another stock market crash, etc, something will break and the Financial Crisis of 2008 will begin anew.

When this happens, the relationships between Wall Street, the Fed, and the White House will crumble to the point that some key figures are sacrificed.

Indeed, this process is already starting.

Fed Fights Subpoena on Bernanke

The Federal Reserve is fighting a subpoena from lawyers in a civil lawsuit who want the central bank’s chairman, Ben Bernanke, to testify about conversations he had with Bank of America Corp. executives before the lender completed its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co.

The three-year-old class-action suit alleges that the Charlotte, N.C., bank and Kenneth D. Lewis, then its chief executive, misled shareholders about ballooning losses at Merrill before the $19.4 billion acquisition was approved. The government provided $20 billion in U.S. aid after Bank of America officials told Mr. Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in December 2008 …

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303717304577277712160795098.html

I’ve stated before that I believe Bernanke will face legal troubles in the coming months. The only reason he got a free pass before was because he was thought to have saved the system and capitalism. So, when it becomes evident that he actually didn’t do either of these things (another Crisis hits), expect to see Bernanke in the hot seat.

Indeed, things may already be accelerating here. Consider JP Morgan’s moves yesterday in which it announced ahead of the Fed’s release of its stress test results that it (JPM) would be raising its dividend and issuing a $15 billion buyback program with Fed approval.

Jamie Dimon played this one beautifully. By including the “with Fed approval” phrase he made it appear that the Fed is in charge of JP Morgan’s business. However, by announcing that he wanted to raise JPM’s dividend and issue a buyback program he:

1)   Implicitly stated that JPM was in great shape and would pass the Fed stress test with flying colors.

2)   Indicates that JPM was depleting its capital, which goes against the Fed’s supposed claims that it wants banks to raise capital.

3)   Shows who’s really running the show in the markets (the Fed had to speed up the release of its stress test results as the other large banks released similar leaks to the press).

This last factor is key. Wall Street just publicly stated “we’ll do as we like, thank you very much” which undermines the view that the Fed is the one in charge of the markets. This is yet another illustration that the relationship between Wall Street and the Fed is not what it used to be.

This is a major political trend that needs to be watched closely as we approach the next Crisis as well as the Presidential election. Just how it will play out remains to be seen. But it is certain that dynamics these three groups (Wall Street, the Fed, the White House/ politicians) will be changing dramatically in the months to come. And when push comes to shove, eventually someone(s) will be sacrificed so that others can maintain control. This will happen concurrently with the markets facing “reality” which is that the Crisis is not over and we’re in worse shape than we were in 2008.

I’ll explain why in tomorrow’s research. Until then…

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Two Reasons Why the Global Economy Will Slow and Government Promises to Retirees Will be Broken

March 13, 2012 By gpc1981

The coming years will be marked by a seismic change in the economic landscape in the US. Firstly and most importantly, we are going to see economic growth slow down dramatically. Jeremy Grantham, an asset manager I respect, believes we’ll see global growth at 2% over the next seven years. Personally I believe it could be even lower than that.

The reasons for this slow down are myriad but the most important are:

1)   Age demographics: a growing percentage of the population will be retiring while fewer younger people are entering the workforce.

2)   Excessive debt overhang.

Regarding #1, Europe is the most glaring situation. According to Eurostat, between 2004 and 2050, the number of people of non-working age relative to those of working age will increase dramatically. In the EU in 2004 there were approximately four people of working age (19-64) for every person of non-working age (65 and older). By 2050, this number will have dropped to only two people of working age for every person of non-working age.

Over the same time period, Europe will also see a tripling in people considered to be “elderly” (80 or older) from 18 million to 50 million.

These numbers alone go a long ways towards explaining why Europe is facing a budgetary Crisis of epic proportions. All of these retirees will be expecting various Government/ private sector outlays whether they are pensions, healthcare, or various other social services.

These issues are, for the most part, left out of most current analysis of Europe’s debt crisis. Indeed, while the vast majority of commentators are well aware of Europe’s official Debt to GDP ratios, when we include unfunded liabilities such as the Government outlays or social programs I detailed above, it is clear that the situation in Europe is far, far worse than is commonly known.

Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Cato Institute presents the situation with an interesting data point, “The average EU country would need to have more than four times (434 percent) its current annual gross domestic product (GDP) in the bank today, earning interest at the government’s borrowing rate, in order to fund current policies indefinitely.”

The situation is not quite as profound in the US, though we will be seeing a dramatic increase in the age dependency ratio (the number of people of retired age relative to those of working age) between 2010 and 2030 as the Baby Boomers retire: in 2010 there were 22 people aged 65 and older for every 100 people of working age. By 2030, this number will have grown to 37 people aged 65 and older for every 100 people of working age.

However, while the ratios are not as poor in the US as in Europe, the unfunded liabilities the US faces are truly astronomical. USAToday puts the number at $61.6 trillion in unfunded obligations, an amount equal to roughly $528,000 per US household.

However, Japan makes both the EU and the US look tame.  In 2009, Japan already had 35 people aged 65 or older for every 100 people of working age. However, by 2050, this number will have swelled to an incredible 73 people aged 65 or older out of every 100 people of working age. This among other things sets Japan as a ticking time bomb, which we will assess in another report.

The EU, Japan, and the US comprise $36 trillion of the global $64 trillion economy (roughly 57%). So this debt overhang will have a profound impact on global growth particularly in the developed world going forward.

This debt overhang will result in several developments from a political perspective. For one thing, the social contract between Governments and retirees will have to be re-negotiated, as the money promised by the former to the latter simply isn’t there.

Governments will try to deal with this in one of two ways: by raising taxes on high- income earners/ any other potential avenue for raising revenues and by reneging on the promises made to retirees.

The impact these moves will have on the political landscape will be profound. Among other things we will be seeing more protests both at the ballot box and in the streets (Greece’s riots are a taste of what’s to come for much of Europe and eventually the US).

To picture how a cutback in social programs will impact the US populace, consider that in 2011, 48% of Americans lived in a household in which at least one member received some kind of Government benefit. Over 45 million Americans currently receive food stamps. And 43% of Americans aged 65-74 are Medicare beneficiaries.

Consider the impact that even a 10% reduction in these various programs would have on the US populace.

With that in mind, people will have to make do with less. This will have a profound social impact, as it will force many more traditional values to come to the forefront of American culture again. Among other things I believe:

1)   Divorce rates will drop as people cannot afford to divorce anymore.

2)   Individualism will give way to more community focused lifestyles: whether they be food co-ops, neighborhood watches, or simply having to live with relatives, the nuclear family and local community will become increasingly important as an emotional and economic support.

3)   Savings will increase and entertainment expenditures will become more frugal (Netflix vs. going to the movies, camping vs. more expensive vacations, etc.)

More importantly, the political process will change dramatically in the developed world, as politicians will no longer be able to promise social benefits and other handouts in order to incur votes. The impact of this will be very dramatic both in terms of campaigning and lobbying efforts in DC.

From an economic growth standpoint, these age demographics and their accompanying debt overhangs will act as a drag in the developed world. Regrettably, this will likely lead to increase geopolitical tensions (much as we saw in the Arab spring) as times of economic contraction usually result in increased conflict both in terms of trade (the US and China) and actual warfare (the Middle East).

However, the fact remains that we will witness a Global Debt Implosion. It has already begun in Europe and will be coming to Japan and eventually the US.

On that note, if you’re looking for actionable investment strategies on how to play these themes in the markets I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Private Wealth Advisory is my bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include analysts and strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Five Charts That Prove We’re in a Depression and That the Federal Reserve and Washington Are Wasting Money

March 12, 2012 By gpc1981

Wall Street and mainstream economists are abuzz with chatter that we’re seeing a recovery in the US due to the latest jobs data. These folks are not only missing the big picture, but they’re not even reading the fine print (more on this in a moment).

The reality is that what’s happening in the US today is not a cyclical recession, but a one in 100 year, secular economic shift.

See for yourself. Here’s duration of unemployment. Official recessions are marked with gray columns. While the chart only goes back to 1967 I want to note that we are in fact at an all-time high with your average unemployed person needing more than 40 weeks to find work (or simply falling off the statistics).

Here’s the labor participation rate with recessions again market by gray columns:

Another way to look at this chart is to say that since the Tech Crash, a smaller and smaller percentage of the US population has been working. Today, the same percentage of the US population are working as in 1980.

Here’s industrial production. I want to point out that during EVERY recovery since 1919 industrial production has quickly topped its former peak. Not this time. We’ve spent literally trillions of US Dollars on Stimulus and bailouts and production is well below the pre-Crisis highs.

Here’s a close up of the last 10 years.

Again, what’s happening in the US is NOT a garden-variety cyclical recession. It is STRUCTURAL SECULAR DEPRESSION.

As for the jobs data… while the headlines claim we’re adding 200K+ jobs per month the sad fact is that without adjustments we’ve lost jobs 1.8 million jobs so far in 2012.

Not only is this data point actually in the JOBS REPORTS THEMSELVES… but it’s supported by the fact that taxes (which are closely tied to actual incomes/ jobs) are in fact below 2005 levels.

Folks, this is a DE-pression. And those who claim we’ve turned a corner are going by “adjusted” AKA “massaged” data. The actual data (which is provided by the Federal Reserve and Federal Government by the way) does not support these claims at all. In fact, if anything they prove we’ve wasted money by not permitted the proper debt restructuring/ cleaning of house needed in the financial system.

It all boils down to the same simple sentence repeated by myself and others: you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt (even if it’s at better rates).

Indeed, take a look at Greece today. The ECB and IMF have spent two years trying to post-pone a real default. Having wasted over €200 billion, they’ve now let Greece stage a pseudo-default (at least in their minds)… which, by the way, has only actually increased Greece’s debt load and crippled its economy.

Just like in the US. And while the topic of a US default is not openly discussed today, it’s evident that what’s happening in Greece will eventually come our way, after first making stop at the other PIIGS countries as well as Japan.

Which is why smart investors are already preparing for a global debt implosion. And they’re doing it by carefully constructing portfolios that will profit from it (while also profiting from Central Bank largesse in the near-term).

If you’ve yet to take these steps, I strongly suggest you consider a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter. Few people on the planet can match my ability to return a profit during times of Crisis.

To wit , my clients MADE money in 2008 outperforming every mutual fund on the planet as well as 99% of investment legends.

We also outperformed the market by 15% during the Euro Crisis of 2010. And since the latest round of the Euro Crisis began in July 2011, we’ve locked in not 10, not 20, but 35 STRAIGHT WINNERS including gains of 12%, 14%, 16% and 18%,

So if you’re looking for a guide to get you through the coming disaster, I’m your man.

I’ve been helping investors, including executives at many of the Fortune 500 companies, navigate their personal portfolios through the markets for years.

I can do the same for you with my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

The minute you subscribe to Private Wealth Advisory you’ll be given access to my Protect Your Family, Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports telling you precisely which steps to take to prepare your loved ones and your personal finances for what’s coming.

You’ll also join my private client list in receiving my bi-weekly market updates outlining what’s really happening behind the scenes in the markets and which investments will profit in the coming months.

And when it’s time to pull the trigger on a given investment, I’ll send you real-time trade alerts.

All of this is yours for just $249 per year.

The time for dilly dallying is over. Europe is literally on the eve of systemic failure. Even the IMF has warned we’re facing a global collapse.

To take action to protect yourself… and insure that the coming weeks and months are a time of profit and safety, NOT losses and pain…

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Best Regards

Graham Summers

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mr. Market: Get It Through Your Head, The PSI DOESN’T Matter

March 9, 2012 By gpc1981

I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I’m saying it again.

Greece and the Euro are finished. The math is impossible. There is no way on earth that this Second Bailout accomplishes anything worthy of note. The idea that this country will somehow return to economic growth within two years, based on an additional €130billion in bailouts is outright insane.

Remember, Greece already received €110 billion in bailout funds in 2010… and still posted GDP growth of -4.5% in 2010 and -6.8% in 2011. Greece’s economy is only €227 billion, so the country failed to post any economic growth and in fact saw its economic collapse accelerate after receiving a bailout equal to 57% of its GDP!!!

And somehow another 130€ billion is going to get this country back to economic growth in two years’ time? Greece hasn’t experienced any growth in five years.

Again, this entire deal is just stupid. And all it’s done is alert Spain and Italy to the fact that handing over fiscal sovereignty and implementing austerity measures in exchange for bailouts is a waste of time.

As I wrote to clients several weeks ago:

Meanwhile, on the other side of EU equation, Spain and Italy must be watching what’s happening in Greece and asking themselves whether they want to go through this whole process of negotiating for bailouts via austerity measures.

Both countries have already had a small sampling of the austerity measure medicine. Spain recently implemented a meager 19€ billion in austerity measures while Italy passed 30€ billion in austerity measures in 2011… hardly a drop out of their respective 1.06€ trillion and 1.5€ trillion economies.

Yet, even these tiny moves resulted in protests and riots. One can only imagine what Spanish and Italian politicians are thinking as they witness the widespread civil unrest, country-wide strikes, and economic depression that have occurred in Greece as a result of that country’s full commitment to the EU’s austerity measure demands.

Spain’s official Debt to GDP is only 64%, but its private sector debt is at an astounding 227% of GDP. And the Spanish banking system is leveraged at 19 to 1 (worse than Greece).

Moreover, the country is already experiencing an economic Crisis with an unemployment rate of 20+% and an economy that has been contracting since mid-2011 (in fact Spain’s GDP just actually went negative in the first quarter of 2012)…

So… we must consider that it is highly likely the option of simply defaulting is being discussed at the highest levels of the Spanish and Italian government. Should either country decide that austerity measures don’t work and it’s simply easier to opt for a default, then we are heading into a Crisis that will make 2008 look like a joke.

Well, Spain just woke up and smelled the coffee:

Spain’s sovereign thunderclap and the end of Merkel’s Europe

As many readers will already have seen, Premier Mariano Rajoy has refused point blank to comply with the austerity demands of the European Commission and the European Council (hijacked by Merkozy).

Taking what he called a “sovereign decision”, he simply announced that he intends to ignore the EU deficit target of 4.4pc of GDP for this year, setting his own target of 5.8pc instead (down from 8.5pc in 2011).

In the twenty years or so that I have been following EU affairs closely, I cannot remember such a bold and open act of defiance by any state. Usually such matters are fudged. Countries stretch the line, but do not actually cross it.

With condign symbolism, Mr Rajoy dropped his bombshell in Brussels after the EU summit, without first notifying the commission or fellow EU leaders. Indeed, he seemed to relish the fact that he was tearing up the rule book and disavowing the whole EU machinery of budgetary control.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100015432/spains-sovereign-thunderclap-and-the-end-of-merkels-europe/

So… if you still think the Greek PSI matters in any way, you’re not thinking past the next 24 hours. Spain has just told the EU to “shove it.” Having seen Greece enter a depression and get pushed around by Germany and France for two years, Spain’s just told the EU that it’s not going that route.

So… if Greece, whose economy is roughly the size of Massachusetts, nearly took down the European banking system… what do you think will happen when Spain decides to it doesn’t want to play ball and would rather just default.

Hint: It will be Lehman times ten.

On that note, if you’re looking for actionable advice on how to play this situation (and the markets in general) I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Private Wealth Advisory is my bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include analysts and strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

There is No Such Thing as Sterilized QE

March 8, 2012 By gpc1981

Over the last 24 hours, the market has rallied on a Wall Street Journal piece stating that the Fed is considering a new bond buying program through which it would print money to buy bonds but then borrow the money back to make sure inflation remains under control. This has resulted in some commentators calling this “sterilized QE.”

The story was published by Jon Hilsenrath who is generally considered to be a mouthpiece for the Fed itself. Because of this, the markets are taking his story to be
gospel.

I don’t buy it. There is no such thing as “sterilized QE.” Either the Fed prints and inflation explodes or the Fed doesn’t and the market tanks. End of story. The notion that it can somehow inject money but then take it out to make sure there’s no inflationary impact is ridiculous.

Besides, the Fed cannot announce more QE due to political pressure (if they do Obama has NO CHANCE at re-election which in turn means the White House turning on the Fed) not to mention gasoline prices, which are already through the roof.

Do you really think the Fed would do QE now? What for? The markets have only fallen a few percentage points.
So… a much more likely interpretation of this is that this story is a Fed leak to attempt to juice the market because the Fed is going to disappoint by announcing NO QE at next week’s meeting.

Remember, just last week Bernanke told Congress that no more QE was coming. Also remember that the Fed has been largely using verbal and symbolic interventions to prop up the market rather than actual money printing or new monetary policies (Operation Twist 2 only shuffles the Fed balance sheet; it doesn’t actually inject more money into the system).

So my view is that the Fed is about to disappoint and is doing damage control by verbally intervening via its favorite Wall Street Journal reporter to juice the markets higher.

Which means… the Fed will disappoint, and we will get a market correction. This Hilsenrath story is just an attempt to prop things up verbally without the Fed openly contradicting Bernanke’s testimony last week. All the macro and technical signs point towards something bad coming this way. The red flags are literally everywhere. And judging by the significance of them, we could very well be heading into a full-scale Crisis.

On that note, if you’re looking for actionable advice on how to play this situation (and the markets in general) I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Private Wealth Advisory is my bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include analysts and strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Mainstream Media Still Doesn’t Get the ECB Greek Debt Swap

March 6, 2012 By gpc1981

Graham’s note: this is an excerpt of a client letter I sent out to subscribers of Private Wealth Advisory regarding the ECB’s “game changing” Greek debt swap. To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you grow your portfolio (we returned 9% last year vs 0% for the S&P 500) CLICK HERE.

First off, the details of the swap are as follows: the ECB simply exchanged 50€ billion worth of old Greek sovereign bonds (which were soon to be worth much less if not be outright worthless) for 50€ billion worth of new Greek sovereign bonds which would not be exposed to default risk or any kind of debt restructuring (unlike those bonds held by private Greek bond holders).

I want to mention here that the ECB only owned about 50€ billion worth of Greek sovereign bonds to begin with. So they exchanged roughly ALL of their exposure to Greece to new bonds that will not lose money during a restructuring or default.

The message here is clear: all private investor sovereign bond holdings are now subordinate to those of the Central Banks/ the IMF.

The ECB had been toying with this idea of subordinating private debt holders for over a year now: all negotiations concerning a Greek debt restructuring featured private debt holdings taking a “haircut” while the ECB, IMF, and Eurozone countries kept their holdings at 100 cents on the Dollar.

However, this latest move by the ECB has made this arrangement completely formal. Essentially, the ECB just told the private bond market “what we own and what you own are two different things, and ours are the only holdings that are risk free because we make the rules.”

Thus, the academics, who have been governing the private economy and private capital markets for the last four years, have finally made their control of these entities explicit. It’s simply astounding. And the repercussions will be severe.

However, for now, the mainstream media believes this move to be insignificant:

Feared Bond Swap Met With Shrug (from the Wall Street Journal)

A bond swap completed last week aimed at protecting the European Central Bank from a restructuring of Greek government debt was widely seen as unsettling euro-zone sovereign-bond markets. So far, though, it hasn’t.

Last week, the ECB swapped the estimated €45 billion to €50 billion ($59.2 billion to $65.7 billion) face value of bonds—bought in the open market in 2010 and 2011 in a vain effort to quell bond-market turmoil—for bonds of the same face value. The new bonds—unlike the old—won’t be subject to any forced restructuring like those held by private bondholders.

The above story only confirms that that mainstream media, like the Central Banks themselves, have no concept of the unintended consequences such policies can create: if you’ll recall most coverage of the Fed’s QE 2 announcement only briefly mentioned that some “critics” thought the move might result in runaway inflation. What actually happened were numerous revolutions, riots, and a massive increase in the cost of living as inflation took food prices to record highs.

With that in mind, it is not surprising that the media has not caught on to the true consequences of the ECB’s move. However, the ripple effect this will have on the private bond market is going to be seismic in nature.

The global sovereign bond market is roughly $40 trillion in size. And the ECB just sent a message to all bond fund managers and private financial institutions that their Euro-zone sovereign bond holdings are not only the only holdings that are “at risk” for debt restructuring, but that ECB can change the rules at any point it likes.

This instantly and immediately makes Euro-zone bonds far less attractive to private investors. It was bad enough that the idea of a 50+% haircut on a sovereign bond was on the table. The only reason private Greek bondholders were willing to stomach this was in order to avoid a default/ catastrophe and the total loss of capital.

However, now all private bond investors know that not only will they be shouldering all of the losses during any upcoming sovereign defaults/ debt restructurings but that the ECB can change the rules any time it likes.

Indeed, the only reason the ECB was able to get away with this without causing private bondholders to flee European sovereign debt en masse was because it didn’t take a profit on the debt swap.

In terms of Europe’s ongoing debt Crisis, this move is extremely damaging to any hopes of clean debt restructuring for Greece or the other PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Spain). Remember, this entire round of the Euro Crisis was caused by concerns over 14€ billion in Greek debt payments that were due March 20th.

So what happens once we get into the hundreds of billions of Euros’ worth of sovereign debt that needs to be rolled over in the coming months. The ECB, IMF, and EU have already spent 176€ billion trying to prop up the PIIGS bond markets. What happens now that private bondholders know that any potential restructuring of sovereign bonds for these countries means them taking a large hit while the ECB doesn’t suffer a cent in losses?

Again, we really need to step back and think about what just happened: the entire Eurozone and financial system were on the verge of collapse because of a mere 14€ billion in debt payments from minor country. This should give us pause when we consider the fragility of the financial system.

Regarding the actual Greek deal itself, it:

1)   Fails to address Greece’s debt issues (the new forecast is that Greece will cut its Debt to GDP ratio to 120% by 2020)

2)    Slams Greece with additional 3.3€ billion in austerity measures (spending cuts and tax increases) thereby guaranteeing a weaker Greek economy (Greece is already in its fifth year of economic contraction)

3)   Is anything but guaranteed (Germany and the Netherlands have raised issues that could stop the deal dead in its tracks)

We’re fast approaching the end of the line here. It’s clear that the EU is out of ideas and is fast approaching the dreaded messy default they’ve been putting off for two years now.

Indeed, Greece is just the trial run for what’s coming towards Italy and Spain in short order. NO ONE can bail out those countries. And they must already be asking themselves if it’s worth even bothering with the whole economically crushing austerity measures/ begging for bailouts option.

Which means… sooner or later, Europe is going to have to “take the hit.” When it does, we’re talking about numerous sovereign defaults, hundreds of banks going under, and more. It will be worse than 2008. Guaranteed.

This is not a situation that gives one much confidence that Germany will stick around for too much longer. It is my view Germany is going to do all it can to force Greece out of the Euro before March 20th (the date that the next round of Greek debt is due) or will simply pull out of the Euro (but not the EU) itself.

Indeed, I recently told subscribers of my Private Wealth Advisory of a “smoking gun” that proves Germany is ready to walk out of the Euro at any point. I guarantee you 99% of investors don’t have a clue about this as the mainstream media has completely ignored this development.

So if you’re looking for actionable advice on how to play this situation (and the markets in general) I suggest checking out my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

Private Wealth Advisory is my bi-weekly investment advisory published to my private clients. In it I outline what’s going on “behind the scenes” in the markets as well as which investments are aimed to perform best in the future.

My research has been featured in RollingStone, The New York Post, CNN Money, the Glenn Beck Show, and more. And my clients include analysts and strategists at many of the largest financial firms in the world.

To learn more about Private Wealth Advisory and how it can help you navigate the markets successfully…

Click Here Now!!!

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist