If everything is going to be “just fine”, why are so many big names in the financial community warning about an imminent meltdown?  I don’t think that I have seen so many simultaneous warnings about a market crash since just before the great financial crisis of 2008.  And at this point, you...

There are multiple sources of friction in the Perpetual Motion Money Machine. We’ve been playing two games to mask insolvency: one is to pay the costs of rampant debt today by borrowing even more from future earnings, and the second is to create wealth out of thin air via asset bubbles. The t...

Over the last couple of months, I have repeatedly discussed what has been possibly the most “boring” market ever. That was until the previous Wednesday when the market deciding to take a quick “road trip” to the 50-dma.  It didn’t last long. The market promptly went back to sleep in a lig...

Breadth is one of the most powerful tools available to investors and can be used to measure the health of any stock market or economy. Simply put, it is a measure of the level of participation of stocks in a bull market or, in terms of an economy, the number of regions or states participating in an ...

In this past weekend’s newsletter, I discussed the fact that despite the bullish “exuberance” of market participants, the underlying internal deterioration has continued. To wit: “Furthermore, the underlying internals have continued to weaken over the last week which has remained a concern ...

Bitcoin has been rocketing higher lately, as it gains widespread official approval and more people figure out how to use it. As the first of its kind to emerge, bitcoin has become synonymous with “cryptocurrency”. But lately it’s been joined by a lot of others – which together now account f...

In this past weekend’s newsletter, I discussed the fact this market has been “nothing short of boring” as of late, but remains on a “bullish buy signal” currently. To wit: “Importantly, the ‘buy’ signal that was registered in late April is very close to tripping a short-term sell s...

Note: This update incorporates the latest monthly close and the GDP Q1 Advance Estimate data. Market Cap to GDP is a long-term valuation indicator that has become popular in recent years, thanks to Warren Buffett. Back in 2001 he remarked in a Fortune Magazine interview that “it is probably...

Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update on a monthly basis. The Crestmont Research P/E Ratio (more) The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings as the divisor (more) The Q Ratio, which is the total price of the market divided by its replacement cost (more...

Last week I ran into a friend whom I’d been worrying about. He’s a real estate appraiser and his work had been drying up as interest rates rose and homeowners stopped refinancing their mortgages. But now he’s back to being happily swamped because instead of refinancing, everyone is buying — ...

In this past weekend’s missive, “Markets Go On Alert,” I stated that due to the oversold condition of the market on a very short-term basis, a rally was due this week. To wit: “IMPORTANT: By the time weekly signals are issued on an intermediate-term basis, the market is generally oversold, ...

As the first quarter of 2017 closes, April begins the last leg of the markets “seasonally strong” period of the year, which is where the idea of “Sell In May And Go Away” comes from. And, of course, every year, there is always a litany of articles written about why it is such a bad idea, yo...

The UK’s Telegraph just published an analysis of global debt that pretty much sums up the coming crisis. Here’s an excerpt with a couple of the more hair-raising charts: Global debt explodes at ‘eye-watering’ pace to hit £170 trillion Global debt has climbed at an “eye-watering” pace o...

Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update on a monthly basis. The Crestmont Research P/E Ratio (more) The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings as the divisor (more) The Q Ratio, which is the total price of the market divided by its replacement cost (more...

Gold suffered heavy selling in early March leading into the Fed’s latest rate hike.  Speculators frantically dumped gold futures ahead of the Fed’s meeting as implied rate-hike odds soared.  This is nothing new.  This key group of traders has long feared Fed-rate-hike cycles, convinced they a...

For a while there it looked like the US and its main trading partners had finally achieved escape velocity. Growth was up, inflation was poking through the Fed’s 2% target, and most measures of consumer sentiment were bordering on euphoric. Then it all started to evaporate. Lackluster manufacturin...