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Category: Economy/Recession

Last Week Confirms It. Goodbye, Recession – Hello, Bull Market

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It is time to get excited, optimistic and bullish. Last week put the final nails in the “Oh, woe is me” recession coffin. RIP.

Last week’s good news supported and confirmed recent anti-negative and pro-positive improvements. Here is the wonderful list:

Earnings reports are driving a shift to the positive

Compare these two headlines from The Wall Street Journal:

  • October 9: “U.S. Earnings Flash a Worrying Signal”
  • November 2: “Earnings Tide Lifts Most Stocks – Investors are getting a more positive picture of American corporations’ health than that painted by analysts in buildup to earnings season”
Today In: Money

The cause? Earnings reports continue to be positive on balance, with most of the September quarter-end earnings reports now in. The 336 S&P 500 companies reporting September results so far (from October 15 through November 1) represent 67% of the 500 companies and 75% of the $27T market capitalization. (Many of the remaining 164 companies will report October or November quarter-end results later.)

While reports of companies beating expectations are widespread, a good way to view investors’ complete evaluation is by examining stock performance. Below is a graph of the one-month returns (including dividend income) for all of the 336 reporting companies. I have broken out the so-called “safe” stocks (REITs and utilities) because they have been beneficiaries of both reduced interest rates and bearish thinking – therefore, expect them to underperform.

Clearly, Wall Street views this earnings report season as favorable. Additionally, the need and desire for “safe” stocks has given way to the pursuit of growth.

The Federal Reserve cuts and quits

Finally! While rates remain abnormally low (meaning there is music to be faced in the future), at least the game of will-they-or-won’t-they looks over for now. That is helpful because businesses, consumers and investors now can make decisions based on a stable rate environment.

GDP growth is just fine

A good example of how negativity can take time to turn positive is the last week’s third quarter GDP growth report. Expectations had been for a seasonally adjusted, real (adjusted for inflation), annualized rate of 1.6%, down from 2% last quarter. Instead, it came in at 1.9%. That is good news, but most reports focused on the “continued slowing” instead of the desirable surprise.

Think of that report this way. For a quarter that had its problems, growth was still around 2%, in line with the average post-recession growth rate. Looking at a longer time period provides a good perspective for that 1.9% growth rate.

Employment and consumer spending are good

The recession pundits keep expecting these shoes to drop, but they do not. The problem is the factors leading up to reduced employment are absent. Following, so long as consumers are employed, they will spend. Therefore, in spite of that previous sharp drop in consumer confidence, consumer spending has remained strong and consumer confidence has improved.

The Wall Street Journal’s November 2 lead story (print edition) says it best: “Jobs, Consumers Buoy Economy, Defying Slowdown Across Globe.”

The bottom line

Last week offered an outstanding combination of good news that removes recession pessimism and reintroduces growth optimism for 2020. Stock ownership (excluding “safe” stocks) continues to look desirable.

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John S. Tobey

During my 30-year career, I managed and consulted to multi-billion dollar funds. Using the “multi-manager” approach, I worked with leading investment managers. I now manage personal accounts and write about my analysis and decisions. … From my 50-year personal/professional investment experience, I developed the skills I use to find opportunities and avoid risks. Because markets are ever changing, I choose the strategies (safety, income, value and growth) that conditions warrant. … My one regular activity is to seek developments and trends being ignored or misinterpreted by investors. These are the situations that consistently produce higher return opportunities (or higher risk levels). … I am a CFA charterholder with an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Finance from San Diego State University. I am a former Washington DC CFA board member and currently serve on the AAUW Investment Advisers Committee and the City of Vista Investment Advisory Committee. … For more, please see my LinkedIn bio at http://www.linkedin.com/in/johntobeycfa

Source: Last Week Confirms It. Goodbye, Recession – Hello, Bull Market

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Traders Jon and Pete Najarian are joined by Sarat Sethi, managing partner at Douglas C. Lane & Associates, and Anastasia Amoroso, global investment strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, to discuss calls on Netflix, Apple and Juniper Networks.

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News & Politics

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China Growth Nowhere Near Official Estimates, Says Morningstar

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China’s third quarter growth rate has fallen to 6%, says Beijing. No it hasn’t. It’s more like 3%, says Morningstar’s China economics team led by Preston Caldwell in a report dated October 29.

While Donald Trump and his economic advisor Larry Kudlow try to convince Wall Street today that trade talks are going well and the two sides will still ink their so-called Phase 1 mini-deal this year, investors are noticing something awry in China. Companies are sourcing product elsewhere in modest, yet increasing numbers. China’s usual high fixed asset investment numbers are falling. Economic policy makers could be afraid of debt burdens and don’t want to overstimulate the economy. Growth is slowing. Industrial production is contracting.

To make matters worse, the full brunt of tariffs hasn’t quite been felt fully by China. The average incremental tariff rate increased to about 12% in the third quarter from about 9% in the second quarter. If Phase 1 talks result in no signed agreement anytime soon, Morningstar predicts it would send the average U.S. tariff rate on Chinese imports to over 20% by the first quarter of 2020.

The dollar/yuan exchange rate has helped offset some of the tariff costs. The yuan has weakened by about 5% since the end of the first quarter. For exporters, China is still cheap.

Today In: Money

The bulk of the third quarter decline was due to the consumer durables index component of the Morningstar proxy for measuring GDP. It contracted 4.1% from 3.8% growth in the second quarter. Morningstar analysts believe there is a chance that the locals may be temporarily pulling back on spending in anticipation for new government subsidies. Still, slowing durables consumption matches the trend in place since early 2017. And stimulus has been trickling in since.

Two of the other Morningstar proxy components that brought them to the 3% figure also saw a marked decline in the third quarter. Their power proxy index is now in line with the other index components after being a positive growth outlier for about two years.

But it appears the real drag that brought Morningstar’s number down to 3% is industrial production. Industrial profits are down 5.3% year over year versus August’s contraction of 2%.

“Neither a surprise nor a market mover,” says Brendan Ahern, CIO of KraneShares in New York. “U.S. tariffs are still exacting their toll on export-focused manufacturers.”

The industrial sector slowdown might also be understated, especially if China is over-estimating inflation, Morningstar report authors warned.

Meanwhile, China’s dependence on credit to sustain economic growth has so far thwarted Xi Jinping’s attempts to convince the provincial governments to deleverage. Debt growth remains above nominal GDP growth rates.

“We’re not surprised that China’s economy has failed to recover, given that credit growth stalled after a slight rebound in the first quarter,” Morningstar analysts wrote.

China-bound investors will be watching for solid Singles Day sales on November 11. If they disappoint, emerging market funds who are mostly overweight China could finally start shifting positions.

China’s A-shares have been outperforming the MSCI Emerging Markets Index all year. Only Russia, as measured by the VanEck Russia (RSX) exchange traded fund, is beating the CSI-300, an index tracking mainland China equities listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.

Official consumer spending showed a mixed picture in the third quarter. Nominal retail sales grew 7.8% year over year in September versus a high of 9.8% growth back in June. Real retail sales fell only 30 basis points from August.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ household survey data suggests that most of the spending went towards education, entertainment, and “miscellaneous services.”

Morningstar said that their own sampling of alternative consumer sales data such as box office revenue, telecom revenue, and air passenger volume suggests tepid consumer services growth. China’s number crunchers are more upbeat on that and Morningstar’s team is not, which brings their forecast so much lower than official figures.

E-commerce giant Alibaba – the company behind Singles Day – announced this week that Taylor Swift will be performing at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai where the shopping spree will have their telethon-like tally of sales. If Swift can hype Singles Day shoppers to spend, the China consumer bull narrative will remain in tact. If she fails, and Singles Day ends up being mediocre, all bets are on for more stimulus in the months ahead out of Beijing.

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Kenneth Rapoza

Spent 20 years as a reporter for the best in the business, including as a Brazil-based staffer for WSJ. Since 2011, I focus on business and investing in the big emerging markets exclusively for Forbes. My work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Nation, Salon and USA Today. Occasional BBC guest. Former holder of the FINRA Series 7 and 66. Doesn’t follow the herd.

Source: China Growth Nowhere Near Official Estimates, Says Morningstar

291K subscribers
China released third-quarter GDP figures on Friday showing the economy grew 6.0% from a year ago — the lowest in at least 27-1/2 years, according to Reuters records. CNBC’s Eunice Yoon reports.

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News & Politics

The Fear Fund: Nancy Davis’ ETF Aims To Protect Investors From Scary Stuff, Like Recession And Inflation

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Stocks have recovered from last fall’s crash, low interest rates stretch out to the horizon and the VIX volatility index is half what it was at Christmas. Sit back and coast to a comfortable retirement.

No, don’t, says Nancy Davis. This veteran derivatives trader runs Quadratic Capital Management, where her somewhat contrarian view is that investors, all too complacent, are in particular need of insurance against financial trouble.

The Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility & Inflation Hedge ETF, ticker IVOL, is designed to provide shelter from both inflation and recession. Its actively managed portfolio mixes inflation-protected Treasury bonds with bets, in the form of call options, on the steepness of the yield curve.

Those options are cheap, for two reasons. One is that, at the moment, there is no steepness: Yields on ten-year bonds are scarcely higher than yields on two-year bonds. The other is that the bond market is strangely quiet. Low volatility makes for low option prices.

                                   

“Volatility has been squashed by central bank money printing,” Davis says, before delving deep into the thicket of option mathematics. If volatility in interest rates rebounds to a normal level, her calls will become more valuable. Alternatively, she would get a payoff if the yield curve tilts upward, which it has a habit of doing when inflation surges, stocks crash or real estate is weak.

If IVOL is all about peace of mind for the investor, it’s all about risk for its inventor. Davis, 43, has poured her heart, soul and net worth into Quadratic, of which she is the founder and 60% owner. If the three-month-old exchange-traded fund takes off, she could become wealthy. If it doesn’t, Quadratic will struggle.

The fund showed its worth in the first week of August, climbing 2% as the stock market sank 3%. But it needs a much bigger shock to stock or bond prices in order to get big. It has gathered only $58 million so far. A crash had better arrive soon; IVOL’s call options expire next summer. Quadratic, moreover, needs to somehow scale up without inspiring knockoff products from ETF giants like BlackRock.

Davis was a precocious trader. As an undergraduate at George Washington University, she took grad courses in financial markets while earning money doing economic research for a consulting firm. She put some of her paychecks into a brokerage account. “Some women love to buy shoes,” she says. “I love to buy options.”

This was in the 1990s, a good time to indulge a taste for calls. Davis made out-of-the-money bets on technology stocks, which paid off well enough to cover the down payment, in 1999, on a New York City apartment. Nice timing.

There may be a sour grape, but there’s also truth in her current philosophy that hedge funds are not such a great deal for investors. ETFs, she says, are more liquid, more transparent and cheaper.

Davis spent a decade at Goldman Sachs, most of it on the firm’s proprietary trading desk, then did a stint at a hedge fund. At 31 she quit to actively manage two kids. Returning to Wall Street after a three-year hiatus, she worked for AllianceBernstein and then did what few women do, especially women with children: She started a hedge fund.

Quadratic, whose assets once topped $400 million, used a hedge fund platform at Cowen & Co. When Cowen ended the partnership last year, Davis set about reinventing her firm. There may be a sour grape, but there’s also truth in her current philosophy that hedge funds are not such a great deal for investors. ETFs, she says, are more liquid, more transparent and cheaper.

IVOL’s 1% annual fee is stiff, but Davis says it’s justified for a fund that is not only actively managed but also invested in things that ordinary folk cannot buy. If you want to duplicate her position in the Constant Maturity Swap 2-10 call due July 17, you’d need to know what banker to ring for a quote, because this beast is not traded on any exchange. Each of these calls, recently worth $7.71, gives the holder the right to collect a dollar for every 0.01% beyond 0.37% in the spread between ten-year interest rates and two-year interest rates. The spread has to move a long way up before the option is even in the money. But at various times in the past the spread has hit 2%. Could it do that again? Maybe, at which point the option pays $163.

Starting a firm like Quadratic is like buying an out-of-the-money call: long odds, big payoff. Davis is doing what she was doing in college. You can’t stop a trader from trading.

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William Baldwin

I aim to help you save on taxes and money management costs. I graduated from Harvard in 1973, have been a journalist for 44 years, and was editor of Forbes magazine from 1999 to 2010. Tax law is a frequent subject in my articles. I have been an Enrolled Agent since 1979. Email me at williambaldwinfinance — at — gmail — dot — com.

Source: The Fear Fund: Nancy Davis’ ETF Aims To Protect Investors From Scary Stuff, Like Recession And Inflation

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Nancy Davis, founder and CIO of Quadratic Capital Management, introduces her new ETF that takes advantage of interest volatility and inflation expectations: IVOL. In this interview with Real Vision’s co-founder & CEO Raoul Pal, Davis deconstructs the structure of the ETF, highlights the cost of carry associated with the strategy, and discusses her macro outlook and where she thinks the yield curve is headed next. Filmed on May 29, 2019. Watch more Real Vision™ videos: http://po.st/RealVisionVideos Subscribe to Real Vision™ on YouTube: http://po.st/RealVisionSubscribe Watch more by starting your 14-day free trial here: https://rvtv.io/2KHDkoc About Trade Ideas: Top traders unveil their specific plans for cashing in on the market’s next move. In these short videos, our traders cut straight to the point and lay out their thoughts on the best risk-reward trades of the moment. Each episode concludes with a visual recap of trade details including profit-loss potential and trade duration. About Real Vision™: Real Vision™ is the destination for the world’s most successful investors to share their thoughts about what’s happening in today’s markets. Think: TED Talks for Finance. On Real Vision™ you get exclusive access to watch the most successful investors, hedge fund managers and traders who share their frank and in-depth investment insights with no agenda, hype or bias. Make smart investment decisions and grow your portfolio with original content brought to you by the biggest names in finance, who get to say what they really think on Real Vision™. Connect with Real Vision™ Online: Twitter: https://rvtv.io/2p5PrhJ Instagram: https://rvtv.io/2J7Ddlw Facebook: https://rvtv.io/2NNOlmu Linkedin: https://rvtv.io/2xbskqx The ETF Play on Interest Rate Volatility (w/ Nancy Davis) https://www.youtube.com/c/RealVisionT… Transcript: For the full transcript visit: https://rvtv.io/2KHDkoc NANCY DAVIS: So we invest with options with a directional bias on everything. So our new product that we recently launched, IVOL, is the first inflation expectations and interest rate volatility fund out there. It’s a exchange traded product. RAOUL PAL: Does anybody even know what that means? NANCY DAVIS: So what we do is for an investor, if you’re an equity investor, you want to have tail protection, for instance. It’s hard to own equity volatility as an asset allocation trade because it decays so aggressively. So it’s a more benign way to carry volatility as an asset class from the long side using fixed income vol. It’s not as sensitive as equity vol, but it’s a lot lower level. Like, the vol we’re buying is 2, 2 basis points a day in normal space. So it’s very, very cheap, in my opinion, and it gives you a way to have an asset allocation to the factor risk of volatility without having as much decay as you would in the equity space. And then for a fixed income investor, the big risk there is obviously Central Bank policy, fiscal spending, trade wars, as well as inflation expectations. And we saw a need to really give a fixed income investor a way to capitalize on the deflation that’s been priced into the market for the next decade. I mean, so current US inflation is around 2%. The five-year break-even is 1.59%. So that’s an opportunity in an option space. And so it’s long options with TIPS. And so that gives investors exposure. It gives you inflation-protected income, but also options that are sensitive to inflation expectations. And we think it’s pretty– you know, you’re never going to time these macro calls perfectly. But given the Central Bank in the US is so focused right now on increasing inflation expectations, and there’s been so much talk about the yield curve inverting– and that’s kind of crazy. If you step back and you’re like, all right, we have a $3.9 trillion balance sheet. We have a fiscal budget deficit. We have unclear or radically changing monetary policy. If you look where we are now with so many cuts priced into the interest rate markets in the US versus where we were four months ago, it’s wildly different. And at the same time, interest rate volatility is literally at generational lows. Equity, while people talk about equity vol, I think VIX today is 17. It’s low, I guess, in the context. But when you look at a percentile, like one-year vol over the last decade in equities, it’s about the 70th percentile. So it might be low, but it doesn’t mean it’s cheap. Interest rate volatility is literally at, like, 2, 1, you know, 0.

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News & Politics

3 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Company & Why Right Now Is the Best Time to Do It

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David Barrett survived the Great Recession by making his business as boring as possible.In 2007, the founder and CEO of Expensify was trying to launch a prepaid debit card that would enable–and hopefully encourage–charitable giving to panhandlers in San Francisco. But, as forecasts of economic turmoil mounted, investors were interested only in ideas that sounded “sane and reasonable,” he says. So Barrett started pitching the safest related product he could imagine: an automated expense-report management system.

That worked; Barrett secured enough money to quit his full-time job in April 2008. He still intended to pursue the card idea, but soon hit a production snag–and with the economy in free fall, Barrett recalls thinking, “Shit, I really need to make a business out of this right now.” So he doubled down on business-expense management.

Almost 1.4 million small businesses with employees closed from 2008 through 2010, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Expensify, now with five offices and a staff of 120, wasn’t one of them–a feat Barrett attributes to those pre-recession pivots. They taught him to “build a product that is needed in a downturn,” he says. “Sell aspirin, not vitamins.”

Recession war stories may seem out of place during this prolonged period of economic growth, but there are signs that a slowdown is on the way. A June 2019 survey from the National Association for Business Economics put the risks of a recession beginning before the end of 2020 at 60 percent. A third of the 2019 Inc. 5000 CEOs expect a recession to begin this or next year, with another third bracing for one in 2021. Whenever the downturn hits, these steps can help your business weather it.

Fundraise.

Build your cash reserves while you can. Serial entrepreneur Mitch Grasso had a potential downturn in the back of his mind while raising capital for his latest venture, Beautiful.ai. The presentation software company raised $11 million in Series B funding in March 2018, just 17 months after a $5.25 million Series A round. “I chose to raise money earlier than I would have otherwise, even though it cost me probably a little more” in terms of valuation, says Grasso. “If there’s money on the table, take it sooner rather than later. You’ll always find a way to spend it.”

Conduct consumer research.

You might not be able to pivot your entire business model, so figure out what products and services your customers will need even in poor conditions, says Carlos Castelán, managing director of the Navio Group, a retail business consulting firm.

Ryan Iwamoto, co-founder of caregiving service 24 Hour Home Care, started asking his customers for their input when the federal government introduced sweeping rules for home health care agencies in 2016. He wanted to be “the first in market to educate them on all the regulations coming down in our industry,” Iwamoto says. “It allowed us to build better relationships”–and has helped boost his company’s revenue by more than 68 percent since the law changed, he reports.

Ink multiyear contracts with clients, not vendors.

Earlier this year, during a regular assessment of her company’s revenue targets, Sandi Lin considered the potential impact of an economic slowdown. The co-founder and CEO of Skilljar was happy to discover half of the customer training platform’s revenue was on multiyear contracts, meaning “at least theoretically, that even if all of our other customers went bankrupt,” Skilljar would have some runway–and less pressure to scramble for new business.

Lin applies the opposite approach for vendor contracts; while Skilljar is sponsoring a major customer conference this fall, she negotiated a minimal commitment on room nights and seats with the hotel and venue. Which is a smart business practice in good times, too; as Lin says, “the most important job of an entrepreneur is to survive.”

By: Jeanine Skowronski

Source: 3 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Company–and Why Right Now Is the Best Time to Do It

WATCH MY PREVIOUS VIDEO ► https://youtu.be/SCCMp_PVxz8 WATCH MY NEXT VIDEO ► https://youtu.be/9Pa7mAcKmXo ———————————————————– FINANCIAL STEWARDSHIP ACADEMY (USE DISCOUNT CODE: “FREEDOM” FOR 30% OFF) ► http://bit.ly/Buy-FSA-Webinar ———————————————————– ▼ 30 DAY GUIDE TO REDUCING STRESS AT WORK▼ ============== EBOOK FOR MOMS (30% OFF DISCOUNT CODE: STRESSFREE30) ► http://bit.ly/Reduce-Stress-eBook PAPERBACK (AMAZON) ► http://amzn.to/2yvaQaS KINDLE (AMAZON) ► http://amzn.to/2lUZ57W AUDIO (AUDIBLE) ► http://amzn.to/2oEp3sJ iBOOK (APPLE) ► http://bit.ly/StressiBook ———————————————————– FREE DETOX SYSTEM FOR MOMS ► http://bit.ly/10DayMBDS SMART MOM’S TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM ($100 OFF DISCOUNT CODE “TRANSFORM”) ► http://bit.ly/Buy-SMTS ———————————————————– Brief Overview: Small and Large businesses can get hit pretty hard during recessions so it’s important to choose a business that can withstand the ups and downs that come with the economy. There’s lots of different options and ideas to choose from if you are new to small business, but there’s also some ideas that you can choose to diversify your income streams if you already own a business or multiple businesses. The key is to pick a person, product, and/or company that you know, like, and trust to make sure you have the best chance of success during the ups and downs. ———————————————————– ▼ NEXT STEPS▼ ============== SUBSCRIBE ► http://bit.ly/LanceMcGowanYT SHARE ► This video with someone that would benefit from it COMMENT ► On what you liked most about this video! ———————————————————– ▼ SEARCH ▼ =========== #lancemcgowan #fsa #financial #financialstewardshipacademy #finances #finance #stewardship #biblical #bible youtube for more videos! ———————————————————– ▼ BUSINESS INQUIRIES▼ ===================== Email Lance at support@lancemcgowan.com with questions OR Email Tanner at frigaardtanner@gmail.com ———————————————————– ▼ SEND ME MAIL▼ ===================== Lance McGowan 11700 W Charleston Blvd #170-415 Las Vegas, NV 89135 ———————————————————– Disclaimer: The information contained on the Lance McGowan YouTube channel and videos are provided for general and educational purposes only and do not constitute any legal, medical or other professional advice on any subject matter. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health professional prior to starting any new diet or treatment and with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem, promptly contact your health care provider.

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Howto & Style

Wall Street Wants You To Sell Now. Buy This 7% Dividend Instead

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The most reliable recession indicator in the world just flashed red—and it’s actually setting us up for 33%+ gains in the next two years.

A contradiction? Sure sounds like it.

But history tells us we can expect a fast return like this when the economy and stock market look exactly like they do right now.

I’ve got two ways for you to grab a piece of the action, one of which even hands us a growing 7% cash dividend.

And when I say “growing,” I mean it: this already-huge cash stream has grown 96% in the last 15 years, and it’s backed by the strongest stocks in America (I’m talking about the 30 names on the Dow Jones Industrial Average), so there’s plenty more to come.

More on this cash-rich fund shortly. First, we need to talk about the “recession signal” everyone’s panicking about.

Recession Alert: Red

That would be the yield curve, which just “inverted” for the first time since 2007. This means the 2-year Treasury was briefly yielding more than the 10-year Treasury.

That shift grabbed a lot of headlines because every time the 2-year has yielded more than the 10-year, a recession has followed (though there’s typically a long time lag).

However, there’s a hugely important detail the mainstream crowd is forgetting—and that’s where the 33% gain I mentioned off the top comes in. I’m talking about what happened in 1998, when, like today, the yield curve briefly inverted, then “uninverted.”

What happened then?

Stocks exploded 33% post-inversion before a recession did eventually arrive.

Why the big jump? Because 1998 was unlike most periods of an inverted yield curve: shortly after the yields flipped, the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates—and that’s exactly the situation we’re in today.

This is the opposite of what happened when the yield curve inverted in 1989, 2000 and again in 2006. During those periods, the Fed kept raising rates, and economists say those hikes made recessions worse—or even started them in the first place.

Only in 1998 did the Fed respond to the inverted yield curve by starting to cut rates—and then, when the central bank went back to raising rates two years later, the recession followed in about a year.

Funny thing is, no one is talking about this right now, and it’s critical, because it tells us that the chances of a recession in the near term largely depend on what the Fed does. And with the Fed now cutting rates, a recession could be delayed for over two years. And that means letting fear get the better of you and moving to the sidelines now could cause you to miss out on a double-digit gain.

Here’s something else that tells us a recession is nowhere near: earnings blew out expectations in the second quarter, and analysts now expect profits to grow in the third quarter of 2019. Sales are still up about 4% across the board for S&P 500 companies, and US GDP growth is slated to come in above 2% this year.

This is where the two funds I want to show you today come in—they position you to profit if it’s 1998 all over again, but, just in case things do take a sudden downward turn, they build in a bit of protection, too.

The first (but not my favorite) fund is a plain-vanilla ETF, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA), which, as the name says, holds the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Because of its large-cap focus, the Dow largely tends to track the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) when stocks rise, and it falls less in a declining market.

However, you’re missing a far more important piece of downside protection when you go with DIA: a strong income stream (DIA yields just 2.1% as I write this). And a serious dividend is critical when the next downturn hits, especially if you’re counting on your portfolio to fund your lifestyle. That’ s because a strong dividend reduces the need to sell your holdings in a crash—at fire-sale prices—to access cash.

This is where a closed-end fund (CEF) like the Nuveen Dow 30 Dynamic Overwrite Fund (DIAX) really shines. DIAX also holds the “Dow 30”: household names like Home Depot (HD), McDonald’s (MCD) and Apple (AAPL), but with a big difference from DIA: a 7% dividend yield—over three times bigger than DIA’s payout.

Plus, it offers something few high-yield stocks and funds do: a dividend that’s growing.

Holding DIAX will get you exposure to stocks, no matter what happens, and an income stream you can depend on. That’s a lot better than letting yield-curve fears force you to the sidelines—where you’ll miss out on solid returns.

Michael Foster is the Lead Research Analyst for Contrarian Outlook. For more great income ideas, click here for our latest report “Indestructible Income: 5 Bargain Funds with Safe 8.5% Dividends.”

Disclosure: none

Michael Foster

I have worked as an equity analyst for a decade, focusing on fundamental analysis of businesses and portfolio allocation strategies. My reports are widely read by analysts and portfolio managers at some of the largest hedge funds and investment banks in the world, with trillions of dollars in assets under management. Michael has been traveling the world since 1999 and has no plans to stop. So far, he’s lived in NYC, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Seoul, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Kuala Lumpur. He received his Ph.D. in 2008 and continues to offer consulting services to institutional investors and ultra high net worth individuals.

Source: Wall Street Wants You To Sell Now. Buy This 7% Dividend Instead

A Recession Won’t Wreck Your Retirement…But This Will

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Here is what matters if you’ve made it and want to keep it.Do the financial markets have your attention? I assume so. After all, Wednesday’s 800-point drop in the Dow was the worst day in the U.S. stock market this year. And while many investors missed it, the December 2018 plunge in stock prices capped off a 20% decline which started in October. That could have put a big divot in the plans of folks recently retired or in the late stages of their careers.

Stumbling at the finish line?

Demographics tell us that there is massive group of people who are between 55 and 70 years old. They are the majority of the “Baby Boomer” generation. Many of them have built very nice nest eggs, thanks to a robust U.S. economy over the last 40 years. That period of technological innovation and globalization of the economy also produced four decades of generally falling interest rates. That’s provided a historic opportunity to build wealth, if you saved well and invested patiently.

But now here we are, with a stock market near all-time highs and interest rates crashing toward zero. The tailwind that lifted Baby Boomers in their “accumulation” years may flip to a headwind, just in time for them to start using the money.

Focus on what matters

At this stage of their investment life, Baby Boomers are tempted from all directions. They are told to bank on index funds, 60/40 portfolios, structured products and private partnerships. And, while there are merits to each, I am telling you what I see as someone who has been hanging around investment markets since this Baby Boomer was a Wall Street rookie in the beloved World Trade Center in NYC: much of it is bunk. It’s a distraction. It’s a sales pitch.

Take these over-hyped attempts by wealth management firms to boost their bottom line and scale their businesses, and bring your attention to your own priorities. Today, as much as any time in the past 10 years, your focus should be on true risk-management.

That does not necessarily mean running to cash. That is an outright timing move, and it borders on speculation. But it does mean that the intended use of your accumulated assets (when you need it, how much you need, and how you will navigate the markets of the future) should be

inward-looking. It should not be based on trying to guess what the stock market is going to do.

Rate cut? Check. Inversion? Check. Giant stock market drop? We’ll see.

uncaptioned
Source: ycharts.com

The big news on Wednesday was the “inversion” of a closely-watched part of the U.S. Treasury yield curve. Translated to English, that means for the first time since 2007, U.S. Bonds maturing in 10 years yielded less than those due in 2 years. This is far from the first inversion we have seen between different areas of the Treasury market. However, it is the one that is most widely-followed as a recession warning signal.

The chart above shows 3 things that were essentially in sync around the time the last 2 stock bear markets began. The 10-2 spread inverted, but then quickly reverted to normal. The Fed cut interest rates for the first time in a while. And, the S&P 500 peaked in value, and fell over 40% from that peak.

Let that sink in, given what we have witnessed in just the past 2 weeks. Then, fast-forward to today, where we find ourselves in a very similar situation regarding inversion and the Fed. See this chart below:

uncaptioned
Source:ycharts.com

What stands out the most to me in that chart is how the spread between the 10-year and 2-year yields is almost perfectly opposite that of the S&P 500’s price movement. That is, when the 10-2 spread is dropping, the S&P 500 is usually moving higher. But when that spread starts to rise, at it is likely to soon, the S&P 500 falls…hard. As a career chartist, I just can’t ignore that.

I have been writing about the threat of an eventual “10-2 inversion” in Forbes.com since April, 2017. It finally happened this week, 19 months into what increasingly looks like a period of muted returns for investors. That is, if they follow rules identical to those they followed for the past 10 years.

Recessions are bad, but this is worse

We saw on display this week what I have been talking about since early last year: that it will not take the declaration of a recession to tip the global stock market into a panic-driven selloff that rips through retirement efforts. All that is needed is for stock prices to follow through to the downside is to actually see the market react to the preponderance of evidence that has been building for a while now.

In other words, it is the market’s fear of the future (recession) and not the actual event that is most important. By the time a recession is officially declared, you won’t need to react. The damage will already be done.

Specifically, a slowing global economy, excessive “easy money” policies by the Fed and its global counterparts, and a frenzied U.S. political environment. This has shaken investor confidence, and now the only thing that ultimately matters in your retirement portfolio: the prices/values of the securities you own, is under pressure.

What to do about it

First, don’t fall prey to the hoards of market commentators whose livelihood depends on progressively higher stock prices. Corrections are not always healthy, diversification is often a ruse, and long-term investing is for 25 year-olds!

For those who have “fought the good fight” to get to the precipice of a retirement they have darn well earned, the last thing they want is to have this inanimate object (the financial markets) knock them back toward a more compromised retirement plan.

The best news about today’s investment climate is that the tools we have to navigate through them are as plentiful as ever. Even in a period of discouragingly low interest rates for folks who figured on 4-6% CDs paying their bills in retirement, bear markets in stocks and bonds can be dealt with, and even exploited for your benefit.

Bull or bear? You should not care!

Maybe this is not “the big one” that bearish pundit have been warning about. Perhaps it is just another bump in the road of a historically long bull market for both stocks and bonds. But again, market timing and headline events like 10-2 spreads, recessions and the like are not your priority.

What your priority is, if you want to improve your chances of success toward and through retirement, is something different. Namely, to get away from the jargon and hype of financial media, simplify your approach, and take a straightforward path toward preserving capital in a time of uncommon threats to your wealth. I look forward to sharing insight on that in the coming days.

Comments provided are informational only, not individual investment advice or recommendations. Sungarden provides Advisory Services through Dynamic Wealth Advisors

To read more, click HERE

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Rob Isbitts

I am an investment strategist and portfolio manager for high net worth families with over 30 years of industry experience. A thought-leader, book author and founder of a boutique investment advisory firm in South Florida. My work for Forbes.com aims to break investment myths and bring common sense analysis to my audience. Connect with me on Linked In, follow me on Twitter @robisbitts. Visit our website at www.SungardenInvestment.com

Source: A Recession Won’t Wreck Your Retirement…But This Will

Creative Planning President and Founder Peter Mallouk discusses why he thinks the economy is in good shape, who should look to alternative investing and how to invest for retirement. He also discusses why he is not a fan of crypto.

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Is This Really A Currency War Or Just A Tantrum?

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Since the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) allowed the yuan to surpass the dreaded level of 7 to the dollar on August 11, rivers of ink have flowed citing a new matter of contention between the U.S. and China, namely using currencies to gain competitiveness or, more simply, a “currency war.”

To describe the events as a currency war may seem logical because another type of “war” between the U.S. and China, namely the trade war, has been on everybody’s mind for the past year and a half. Moreover, the Trump administration itself has continued this game by classifying China as a “manipulator” of its currency immediately after this latest devaluation.

In the same way as the U.S. Treasury is not following its own script when classifying China as a currency manipulator, neither should we think of the yuan mini-devaluation as China initiating a currency war with the U.S. The reason is simple: the yuan–which is not convertible–cannot afford a war with the dollar, nor can the U.S. Federal Reserve control its currency so as to use it as a weapon against China.

In other words, neither of the two rivals have the instruments to successfully engage in a currency war against each other. Starting with the dollar, there is no doubt that its value is determined by the market, as it could not be otherwise being the reserve currency of a world still governed by flexible exchange regimes for major currencies.

The Fed can influence the dollar with expansive or restrictive monetary policies, but there are many other factors that it and the Treasury simply cannot control. One important factor is risk aversion: the more the Trump administration tightens the screws on China and, thereby increases the risk of recession globally, the more the dollar appreciates, contrary to what Trump wants.

Moving to the yuan, the PBOC is much closer to determining its value than the Fed can for the dollar, as it retains control on capital flows and does not need to intervene in a highly liquid forex market like that of the dollar. Nevertheless, the reality is that capital is ubiquitous, so capital controls will never be completely effective.

In other words, the value of the yuan is not exempt from the forces of demand and supply, nor is its value in the medium term, no matter what the PBOC may opt to do on a specific date or period. Considering the yuan’s mini-devaluation, the beginning of a currency war is a mistake for one more very important reason. The PBOC has accommodated market pressure by devaluing while central banks tend to move against the market during currency wars.

It’s true, though, that the timing of the devaluation could mislead us towards the idea of a China-initiated currency war because it happened right after the U.S. announcement of additional import tariffs on Chinese products.

More than a war, we should see this reaction as a tantrum of Chinese policy makers facing additional pressure from the U.S. Besides, as happens for every tantrum, its consequences may not be the desired ones as such mini-devaluation will only prompt more capital outflows from China, undoing part of the monetary stimulus that the Chinese central bank has been carrying out for more than a year to sustain economic growth. In other words, it will not help China to grow, but rather the opposite.

Thus, it is important to distinguish between a war and a tantrum. In the former you control your weapons, in the latter you do not.

Alicia Garcia Herrero

I’m the chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis. I also serve as a senior fellow at European think-tank BRUEGEL and am a non-resident research fellow at Madrid-based political think tank Real Instituto Elcano. I am also is an adjunct professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and member of the advisory board of Berlin-based China think-tank MERICS, an advisor to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s research arm (HKIMR) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as well as a member of the board of the Hong Kong Forum and cofounder of Bright Hong Kong. I hold a Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University and have published extensively in refereed journals and books. I’m also very active in international media as well as social media. As recognition of my leadership thoughts, I was recently nominated TOP Voices in Economy and Finance by LinkedIn.

Source: Is This Really A Currency War Or Just A Tantrum?

China allowed its currency to fall below the key 7 yuan-per-dollar level for the first time in more than a decade. CNBC’s Eunice Yoon joins “Squawk Box” with the details.

The Week Recession Talk Grew Very Loud

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Topline: Recession fears—which have gone up and down and back up just in the past nine months—suddenly seem here to stay for the foreseeable future, as global growth slows to a crawl amid trade war fears. Here’s what happened this week, along with key reactions:

  • Goldman Sachs issued a note Monday saying a trade deal between the U.S. and China is not expected to be made before the 2020 presidential election.
  • On Tuesday, Trump walked back planned tariffs on China, delaying some until after holiday shopping, his first acknowledgment that tariffs impact U.S. shoppers.
  • On Wednesday, Germany’s economy was reported to have shrunk as it contends with Trump’s tariffs and trade war with China.
  • Trump also blasted the Federal Reserve Wednesday on Twitter, as he blamed the central bank for dragging down the U.S. economy and returns on government bonds.
  • Then Wednesday’s close registered the worst stock performance of 2019, as investors were spooked by Germany, China and the much-discussed inverted yield curve.
  • China responded on Thursday by promising a retaliation, threatening “necessary countermeasures.”
  • Global markets responded, with the Nikkei and FTSE 100 closing down over 1% Thursday.
  • By Friday, the Dow rebounded 300 points before closing bell, while the S&P recovered 40 points and the tech-heavy NASDAQ bounced almost 130. But the Dow still lost 1.5% for the week, while the S&P edged slightly down at 0.3%.
  • Globally, the FTSE 100 regained 50 points, while the Nikkei recovered 13 Friday, but both indexes ended the week lower than where they started.
  • Analysts pegged the stock market’s slight Friday recovery to an increase in government bond yields.

Key background: The yield curve is the difference in interest rates (or returns) between short-term and long-term bonds. Usually, investors get more money when they invest in 10-year bonds over three-month short-term bonds. The yield curve is also a pretty accurate historical predictor of recessions, so when it happens, economists and investors alike get worried. This year, the yield curve inverted in March and May, and it happened again Wednesday, contributing to the stock market’s tumble.

Further reading:

Why Trade War Plus Yield Curve Equals Recession (John T. Harvey)

Markets Panic For The Second Week In A Row (Milton Ezrati)

Fed Poised To React Swiftly To Persistent Yield Curve Inversion, With More Rate Cuts (Pedro Nicolaci da Costa)

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Lisette Voytko

I’m a New York-based journalist covering breaking news at Forbes. I hold a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Previous bylines: Gotham Gazette, Bklyner, Thrillist, Task & Purpose, and xoJane.

Source: The Week Recession Talk Grew Very Loud

 

Three Reasons Recession Fears Have Suddenly Increased

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Topline: Falling stocks, trade wars and an inverted Treasury yield curve are three signs that analysts say are predicting a U.S. recession—the only problem, however, is that no one can definitively tell when (or if) one will actually happen.

  • The White House announced Tuesday it would delay some China tariffs from September 1 until December 15, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to zoom up nearly 500 points by mid-morning.
  • Stocks fell Monday and were predicted to decline Tuesday, as uncertainty mounts for a China trade deal and global economic health.
  • After Trump surprised the world with more tariffs on Chinese goods, Goldman Sachs analysts estimate a new trade deal will not materialize before the 2020 election.
  • In the bond market, an inverted Treasury yield curve—long used by economists as a recession predictor—is nearing the same level it had reached before the 2007 recession.
  • Bank of America analysts said the odds of a recession happening in the next year are greater than 30%.
  • And Morgan Stanley analysts predict a recession in the next nine months if the trade war between the U.S. and China continues to escalate.
  • Overall, economists cannot accurately forecast recessions, but they suggest de-escalating the trade war with China could soothe fears—and help Trump’s reelection chances.

Surprising fact: Analysis by the New York Times found that recent economic downturns occur in late summer. August of 1989, 1998, 2007, 2011 and 2015 all saw slowdowns.

Key background: One of the Trump’s key platforms is a strong economy, and the stock market has reached historic highs since he assumed office. The President has often used Twitter to demand economic changes, like interest rate cuts and trade deals, and the markets tend to respond to the president’s Twitter proclamations, but it remains to be seen if the economy will continue to grow.

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Lisette Voytko

I’m a New York-based journalist covering breaking news at Forbes. I hold a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Previous bylines: Gotham Gazette, Bklyner, Thrillist, Task & Purpose, and xoJane

Source: Three Reasons Recession Fears Have Suddenly Increased

 

Russians Pulling Out Credit Cards & Consumer Debt Spirals

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MOSCOW — Yekaterina V. Bulgakova gushed about the cozy one-room apartment that she and her boyfriend share, and particularly about the way they could always cover the rent: by charging it on credit card.

“Our salaries don’t go far enough” to pay for housing, food and other necessities every month, Ms. Bulgakova, a tattoo artist, said.

She earns about 35,000 rubles, or $560, a month, which she considers a good paycheck for a young person. Her boyfriend, a naval cadet, receives a monthly military stipend of $480. Together, their income is above the average monthly wage in Russia of about $735, and it usually covers their expenses. But every few months, Ms. Bulgakova has a drop in business. That’s when she relies on her credit card from Tinkoff, a large private bank.

“Nobody wants to go into debt,” Ms. Bulgakova, 21, said. Yet millions of Russians like her are doing just that, spurring a boom in consumer lending.

The growth in such lending has alarmed some economic policy officials, who note that a growing number of Russians are using a quick swipe of plastic or relying on payday lenders to cope with hard times brought on by Western sanctions and slumping prices for oil, one of the country’s major export commodities. The spending has lifted the economy but with ballooning consumer debt that could help start a recession.

Since the onset of Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions, total outstanding personal debt among Russians has roughly doubled, according to the country’s central bank. Outstanding average debt per person has reached about $3,300, according to the National Association of Professional Collection Agencies, a trade group whose membership has grown by a third since the crisis began in 2014.

Some independent and government economists say that the personal credit industry has found a mother lode in a population that was wholly debt-free when it entered the capitalist era a generation ago. Others warn that the industry’s expansion is unsustainable.

A pawnshop in Moscow. Many first-time credit card users have little experience managing debt. And with Russia facing other economic woes, these spenders are also seeing their inflation-adjusted salaries decline.
CreditMax Avdeev for The New York Times

Many first-time credit card users have little experience managing debt. And with Russia facing other economic woes, these spenders are also seeing their inflation-adjusted salaries decline.

Elvira S. Nabiullina, the central bank’s chairwoman, has played down the problem while also imposing some regulatory restrictions to slow consumer lending. “It’s absolutely wrong to think that already now we have risks to financial stability or a risk of a bubble,” Ms. Nabiullina said at an economic conference in St. Petersburg last month.

The central bank has tried to cool the market by raising so-called provisioning requirements that dictate how much money banks must set aside to insure against defaults and by capping the amount of interest that payday lenders can charge at 1 percent per day, still a steep 30 percent a month.

Debt payments are taking a bite out of some slim paychecks: Low-income households spend an average of 8 percent of their monthly incomes on debt payment, according to the central bank. Surveys show that most borrowers are 25 to 35 and that they are taking more than three loans from different sources, according to Vladimir Tikhomirov, the chief economist at BCS Global Markets.

There were warnings from others at the St. Petersburg conference, where Russian officials laid out their economic priorities for the year. Andrey R. Belousov, an economic adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin, said the debt market was “overheating.” Maksim S. Oreshkin, the minister of economy, warned that the surge in short-maturity consumer debt could bring on a recession within two years.

“You had a similar story in the United States,” with debt rising faster than salaries before the recession in 2008, Mr. Tikhomirov said.

In the first quarter of 2019, real incomes fell 2.3 percent from the same period a year earlier. Over the same three months, the amount of newly issued unsecured consumer debt rose 22 percent.

Consumer lending in Russia, as elsewhere, benefits the economy by sustaining consumer demand. The lending boom may have prevented a recession in the first quarter, according to a central bank report published in June. State-owned banks issued the bulk of this credit, about 70 percent, the report said, suggesting that the Kremlin has at least partly endorsed the rise in consumer lending.

CreditMax Avdeev for The New York Times

For some Russians, personal debt is akin to the garden plots of their parents’ generation. In that era of post-Soviet economic depression, many families short on money grew their own food, transforming their kitchens into storerooms of pickled vegetables, dried mushrooms and sacks of homegrown potatoes.

Despite the wretched poverty of those years, Russians entered the country’s capitalist era with some advantages. Families had no debt, and virtually every adult wound up owning the property where they lived. But they were also unschooled in matters of lending or in calculating reasonable levels of debt. And they were unprepared for a rush of predatory lenders offering quick loans burdened with high rates.

At the end of 2018, there were 2,002 payday lending companies in Russia, with many operating from storefronts in provincial towns and offering one-month loans with interest rates compounded daily. Established banks joined in, offering loans and credit cards with quick approvals.

Igor Kostikov, chairman of the Union for Protecting Financial Consumers, an advocacy group for debtors, said that poor Russians were accumulating payday-lending debt. “They are getting deeper and deeper in trouble,” he said. “The poorest will not be able to repay.”

On Vkontakte, a social media site, Russians swap stories of debt and bankruptcy, revealing the naïveté of their experience with debt.

One user, who identified herself as Helga, wrote seeking free legal advice. “Respected lawyers! I have an opportunity to take a loan of three to five million” rubles, or $48,000 to $80,000. “If I take it out, pay a few times, and then declare bankruptcy, what problems might arise?” She mused about possibly using the money for a down payment on a home.

Helga’s optimism might be crushed if she considered the realities of debt collection. Russian debt collectors are notoriously violent. The state allows court bailiffs with minimal oversight to enter homes to confiscate televisions or other valuables to offset debts. Scofflaws face harsh punishment, including a ban on foreign travel.

Ms. Bulgakova knows credit can cause trouble, but she and her boyfriend believe that they can stay afloat. She likened their experiment with debt to her approach to tattoos. “We are trying this out on our own skin,” she said. Credit has helped them afford their St. Petersburg apartment, and comfort is important in these uncertain times. So far, she has paid off her debts promptly.

“I want to say thanks that I can at least keep up this lifestyle” by using credit, she said. “But it would be better if I didn’t have to.”

By Andrew E. Kramer

 

Source: Russians Pulling Out Credit Cards, and Consumer Debt Spirals

 

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