The State Of The Macro

As our Continuum chart predicted over a year ago, Jerome Powell was called to his higher inflationary powers when the macro markets liquidated with great violence and terror. This link shows the Continuum (30yr yield and its monthly EMA 100 limiter) as it was then, begging for inflationary action…

Oh Jerome? Bond market calling…

Below is the Continuum today. Since the linked post from February 2020, a lot has happened and it has been according to the plans we laid out last spring. The plan was inflationary because the Fed was going into steroidal inflation mode. The ‘Fed comfort box’ on the chart has thinned out from the original post because the red dotted limiter (monthly EMA 100) has declined appreciably since then.

These many months the NFTRH target has been 2.5% to 2.7% on the 30yr Treasury yield. This week that zone’s lower bound got dinged. It is coming time for a cool down at least if the macro reflation is going to get a second wind. What could provide that second wind? Continue reading "The State Of The Macro"

The Big Picture Continuum

The Continuum (monthly 30yr yield with the 100-month EMA ‘limiter’) simply states that the economy was weakening, as were inflation expectations, before 2020. In early 2020 we got a real deflationary jolt from which asset markets are still clawing back, with full frontal inflationary support from a Federal Reserve desperate to keep asset owners whole (and further enriched) and to further punish savers and those without the means to invest in the racket.

They called Ben Bernanke “the Hero” but he was actually the perpetrator of the next debt-backed inflation that would further ruin the country, primarily by greatly increasing the divide between asset owners and everyone else. If we had taken the pain in 2008 and 2009 we’d be on a new system now. Instead, we are riding the Greenspan>Bernanke>Powell continuum. Yellen is omitted because nothing egregious happened under her watch. She slipped in between the cycles and fell through the cracks.

Racism? Scapegoating? Xenophobia? Paranoia? Polarization? Caricature of the truth and of the debate? It’s all in there and it’s all in one way or another compliments of the rigged monetary system promoted by the Fed and whatever party happens to be in power at any given time (let’s remember that Bernanke’s ‘rich richer, poor poorer’ scheme was cooked up under a supposed socialist president). The public is filled with political bias and hatred but is relatively ignorant about where the wheels of injustice actually turn. Continue reading "The Big Picture Continuum"

Gold Miners And Inflation

I think the case is closed, or it should be closed. But with firmly ingrained perceptions passed down from one generation of inflationist gold bugs to the next, you never know. Remember the old dismissive “gold is silver is copper is tin is oil is hogs” line from the 2003-2008 time frame? Probably not, but I remember it because it was me saying it against an army of inflationist commodity and resources bulls advising to buy gold, buy silver, buy oil… buy resources of all kinds to protect yourself from the evils of inflation!

As an interlude, here is a pleasant interaction I had with a reader (actually, the interaction was his in a comment to an article of mine, but you get the drift) during the 2016 gold sector launch that ultimately proved to be ill-fated by mid-year because… inflation.

I’m sick of internet d******s and the lying media and govt trying to tell me there’s no inflation! Inflation in the US is VERY HIGH. Its currently 8.3%, and has averaged 9.5% over the past 7 years.

Dude, the article was about why gold stocks do not benefit from inflation and why at that time the backdrop was positive (again, it degraded badly later in the year as inflation reared its head). Of course, there is inflation, all along the Continuum of deflationary macro signaling against which they routinely spray the stuff out of fire hoses, like now for example.

Without the secular decline in Treasury bond yields and complete abdication of the mythical Bond market Inflation Vigilantes, the decades-long inflationary regime would not be possible. Jerome Powell was unimaginably hawkish during the market correction of late 2018. The herd could not understand why, but we could. Inflation signals were getting out of hand as the yield spent a couple of months above the Continuum’s limiter (monthly EMA 100).

30 year bond yield

But sure enough, that got fixed as we suspected it would as the Continuum got hammered down since then into today’s deflationary doldrums. The Continuum has reloaded the inflation gun yet again as yields have tanked and bonds have bulled ever since. Continue reading "Gold Miners And Inflation"

Macro Implications, As Silver Takes Leadership From Gold

Since we noted the initial move to break the 200 day moving average – and at least temporarily break the downtrend on August 27th – the Silver/Gold ratio (SLV/GLD) has held its breakout, looking to close the week and the month of August on a signal that we have long anticipated.

silver gold ratio

Okay, but the monthly chart of the Silver/Gold ratio makes abundantly clear that nothing has happened that has not happened before during the precious metals bear market. So that is the caveat to a macro thesis that would see a change to inflationary (as led by Silver/Gold), thereby letting commodities of all stripes and many global markets out of the barn. The monthly EMA 30 (grey dotted line) is a reasonable marker for the ratio’s post-2011 containment. The ratio’s price is below that marker. Continue reading "Macro Implications, As Silver Takes Leadership From Gold"

A Path Toward Inflation

Yes, it’s another inflation post going up even as inflation expectations are in the dumper and casino patrons just cannot get enough of Treasury and Government bonds yielding 0%, near 0% and below 0%.

Feel free to tune out the lunatic inflation theories you’ve found at nftrh.com over the last few weeks.  But if by chance you do want to look, here’s a visual path we have taken to arrive at the barn door, behind which are all those inflated chickens, roosting and waiting.  All sorts of animals will get out of the barn if macro signals activate.

Gold led silver ever since the last inflationary blow off and blow out in early 2011.  The gold-silver ratio rose through global deflation, US Goldilocks, good times and bad.  There was no inflation problem, anywhere.  Then early this year silver jerked leadership away from gold and now for the second time the ratio of gold to silver has broken below the moving average that has defined its trend (it did so in 2012 as well).

gsr

Why is this significant?  Well, try on 2010 for size (see chart below).  I for one happily managed the gold-silver ratio up spike in 2008, buying gold miners as they crashed.  As gold (monetary, risk ‘off’) topped vs. silver (commodity/monetary, relatively risk ‘on’) we expanded the bullish view to commodities as well.  But then came the bottoming pattern that was not a bottoming pattern.  To this day I believe that the macro was preparing for a next leg up and some serious new destruction before Ben Bernanke, the “Hero”, sprung into action and ruined the beautiful Inverted H&S pattern that long-time NFTRH subscribers will remember me making a big deal about at the time. Continue reading "A Path Toward Inflation"