Tag Archives: Boom and Bust

Reading the Financial News; Microdocumentary on Boom/Bust

As Gold Rises; Gold Miners Fall Down By Johanna Bennett

The price of gold may be rising, but gold mining stocks are getting hammered today. And do you know why?

They are still stocks.  (What does THAT mean?)

On the heels of yesterday’s late-day price surge, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), of fell more than 4.5% amid a broader market selloff that sent the Dow dropping more than 300 points and the S&P 500 declining almost 2%.

The dovish minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September policy meeting have gold bugs buzzing. The precious metal touched a two-week high today, amid easing concerns that the Fed is near to raising interest rates, reviving gold as an inflation hedge.

Gold prices rallied to $1,234 a troy ounce, their highest level since Sept. 23, a day after minutes from the Fed’s September policy meeting revealed officials were worried weaker growth in Asia and Europe could curtail U.S. exports. The central bank also highlighted a stronger dollar as a barrier to U.S. inflation climbing toward the Fed’s 2% target, stoking hopes for a sustained period of low interest rates.

The most actively traded contract, for December delivery, was ended the day at $1,225.10 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $19.10, or 1.59% after earlier today climbing as high as $1,380.

ETFs linked to the commodity prices saw little improvement today. The SPDR Gold Trust(GLD) rose 0.25% to $117.76, while the iShares Gold Trust (IAU) inched up 0.21%.

But while worries regarding a weak economy can lift gold prices they can squeeze gold mining companies. GDX has plunged more than 60% over the past two years with the likes of Barrick Gold (ABX) falling more than 65% during that same time span and Newmont Mining (NEM) falling 59%.

The above is an article from an “elite” financial publication (Barrons) where the theme is that miners are being hurt/squeezed because they are stocks.  I ask my readers how are miners hurt LONG-TERM (the next decade) if the REAL price of gold is rising?  Sure miners may have been sold today due to leveraged investors selling to go into cash, but how does that “squeeze” the mining business if gold is risng RELATIVE to input costs like crude oil and commodities? Mining is a spread business. You make money on the spread between input costs and output revenues.  Never take what you read on face value.

gold oil

Gold commodities

 

gdxj gold

Miners realtive to gold in the chart above.

Four Boom and Bust Cycles and the Implications for today’s Cycle (Microdocumentary)

This microdocumentary video examines in detail 4 major booms in the last 100 years and explains how monetary policy and interest rate manipulation has led to the inevitable bust:

  1. The great depression of the 30ies
  2. The recession of the 90ies
  3. The dot com bubble
  4. The housing bubble

http://www.safehaven.com/article/35401/microdocumentary-the-truth-about-boom-and-bust-cycles   A bit simplistic, but a good introduction to the dangers of excess credit growth.

Rap Video on the Boom Bust Cycle or Hayek vs. Keynes

Internet Boom and Bust; Herbalife and Bill Ackman

nasdaq1986s

Here is the Perhsing Square website on Herbalife. Sign up and learn:

Pershing has their HLF deck up on the website: http://factsaboutherbalife.com/

Verdict: This will get ugly but my money would be on Ackman since there is no competitive advantage, so I would place the value no more than tangible book value at best with no more than a 90 second look at the financials.

The purpose of this post is also to study a Ponzi scheme. The response of the company to Ackman’s research leads me to say this company’s days are numbered.

BOOM and BUST

Could Austrian Business Cycle Theory Dotcom Boom and Bust have helped you as an investor? Buffett’s presentation on the Dotcom Bubble in early 1999 (See page 64) A Study of Market History through Graham Babson Buffett and Others. Note how the market went into a speculative frenzy, rising more than 50% AFTER Buffett’s speech. Human action can’t be predicted like a physics experiment.

An excellent book that predicted the bust was the The Internet Bubble: Inside the overvalue World of High Tech Stocks–and What you Need to Know To Avoid The Coming Shakeout by Anthony Perkins and Michael Perkins (1999 and 2001 editions).

Burning up (cash) http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2002/foth020830.htm

A student’s overview: David Carr – THE TECHNOLOGY STOCK BUBBLE

Ackan presents on Herbalife: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-ackman-herbalife-idUSBRE8BI1MZ20121220. He says that he will be setting up a website with all his research on Herbalife. If anyone FINDS IT, please send me the link to post. This could become a good case study on multi-level marketing.

Dec. 21 2012 Update: Thanks to a reader: www.businessinsider.com/bill-ackmans-herbalife-presentation-2012-12

See presentation here:Who-wants-to-be-a-Millionaire

See this article:http://seekingalpha.com/article/918831-an-investor-s-guide-to-identifying-pyramid-schemes

Motivate thyself: Anthony Robbins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpc-t-Uwv1I&feature=share&list=PL70DEC2B0568B5469.  Yes, he could be a huckster, but he is a great public speaker. Focus on HOW he presents.

 

Paul vs. Paul Debate

http://www.valuewalk.com/2012/04/ron-paul-vs-paul-krugman-exciting-debate-on-video-with-transcript/

www.valuewalk.com is a recommended blog. Several readers kindly sent me links to the Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman debate.  I am biased toward Ron Paul, but for the life of me I could not understand what Krugman was saying. Perhaps using reason will not convince a religious fanatic.

I stopped reading half way through the discussion, because I knew Ron Paul’s positions but couldn’t understand the logic behind Krugman’s contrary position.  Do you? A few examples:

Krugman’s response to Ron Paul:

You can’t leave the government out of monetary policy. If you think we’re going to let it set itself, it doesn’t happen. If you think you can avoid the government from setting monetary policy, you’re living in the world that was 150 years ago. We have an economy in which money is not just green pieces of paper with faces of dead presidents on them. Money is a part of the financial system that includes a variety of assets – we’re not quite sure where the line between money and non-money is. It’s a continuum.”

What is he saying. Getting the government out of monetary policy would be like regressing? A fall into a primitive state?  Krugman makes an “Elephants can fly” assertion.

Has a monetary system worked without government control? Yes, in the brief period of a classical gold standard pre-WWI.  However, fractional reserve banking (ponzi finance) operated so, of course, booms and busts would not be eliminated. Another assertion without facts. Fiduciary media existed during the gold standard era.

“History tells us that in fact a completely unmanaged economy is subject to extreme volatility, subject to extreme downturns. I know this legend that some people like that the Great Depression was somehow caused by the government or the Federal Reserve, but that’s not true. The reality is it was a market economy run amok, which happens repeatedly…I’m a believer in capitalism. I want the market economy to be left as free as it can be, but there are limits. You do need the government to step in to stabilize. Depressions are a bad thing for capitalism and it’s the role of the government to make sure they don’t happen, or if they do happen, they don’t last too long.”

So let me try to understand……an unmanaged economy is subject to extreme volatility. But with the Fed operating since 1913, we have had the Great Depression, Inflation of the 1970s, Ultra high interest rates of the 1980s, credit crisis of 2007-2009, a managed economy (the FED cartelizing the fractional reserve banking system and suppressing interest rates) is LESS volatile? What amount of failed economic policies due to intervention would you need to say–this is a failure?

The Federal Reserve helped inflate the boom: http://library.mises.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/Americas%20Great%20Depression.pdf

Since the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913, the supply of money and bank credit in America has been totally in the control of the federal government, a control that has been further strengthened by the U.S. repudiating the domestic gold standard in 1933, as well as the gold standard behind the dollar in foreign transactions in 1968 and finally in 1971. With the gold standard abandoned, there is no necessity for the Federal Reserve or its controlled banks to redeem dollars in gold, and so the Fed may expand the supply of paper and bank dollars to its heart’s content. The more it does so, the more prices tend to accelerate upward, dislocating the economy and bringing impoverishment to those people whose incomes fall behind in the inflationary race.

The Austrian theory further shows that inflation is not the only unfortunate consequence of governmental expansion of the supply of money and credit. For this expansion distorts the structure of investment and production, causing excessive investment in unsound projects in the capital goods industries. This distortion is reflected in the well-known fact that, in every boom period, capital goods prices rise further than the prices of consumer goods.

See what Graham and Buffett had to say about booms and busts:A Study of Market History through Graham Babson Buffett and Others

Krugman seems neither to understand Austrian Business Cycle Theory nor economics (“ABCT”): http://mises.org/daily/4993 and http://mises.org/daily/3579

Krugman is constantly shifting arguments:http://mises.org/daily/5086

Krugman’s response:

“I want to say something about Milton Friedman here because if you actually read what he wrote in his writing for economists, as opposed to some of his loose popular writings, he actually said that the Federal Reserve was responsible for the Great Depression because it didn’t go enough. Friedman’s complaint was that the Federal Reserve did not print enough money. I know this. When Ben Bernanke was talking about the helicopter, he was taking that from Milton Friedman. That was really his idea. The state of the economic debate in America right now Milton Friedman would count on the far left of monetary policy.”

Milton Friedman was advocating for the government to intervene and prevent the market clearing. But why was a non-interventionist policy during the vicious 1920/21 depression so successful:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcUmnsprQI. Both theory, common sense and empirical evidence expose Krugman’s and Friedman’s nonsense.

Here is a seven minute video that explains booms and busts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk