Look at the new warning signals

1) Deutsche Bank, today is at 26.53, is down 3.2% and has broken below its support at 27.34. To me, this indicates that there will be a larger fallout from the Volkswagen car emission test cheating. Today the DAX index Is at 9492 down 2% and very close to breaking into new low ground at 9426.

2) Today’s headline in the Wall Street Journal is “US bonds flash a warning signal! “With a sub title of “corporate debt yield spreads have climbed, which could signal economic trouble.” The spread between investment grade corporate bonds/ over treasuries is 1.6%. In the past this kind of spread foreshadowed economic problems. Watch where the money goes, not the HYPE you hear from analysts.

3) Brazil national bonds and their corporate bonds are in trouble. Brazil’s economy depends very heavily on oil prices, which are down severely. Also, a new problem is Brazil’s sugarcane price which is at an eight year low. A Brazilian sugarcane company has missed a bond payment for February and has not been able to renegotiate the terms of its debt. A Fitch analyst has said “the company is likely to seek bankruptcy protection.” This is just the beginning and the tip of the iceberg of problems with high-yield debt that  are attached to commodity prices.

4) John Bonners resignation as speaker of the house will make matters worse in the House of Representatives, as radical right wing Republicans and no government advocates, continue to be an obstructionist Congress. The tail is trying to wag the dog. As quoted from Paul Krugman in today’s New York Times, he said, “Mister Bonner is quitting because he found himself caught between the limits of the politically possible and a base that lives in its own reality… Cry for America, which must find a way to live with the GOP gone mad.” They would rather shut down the government, than govern.

5) Baghdad, Iran and Syria have agreed to work with Russia in combating Islamic state extremists. These countries border Russia and they are trying to regain their influence in the area. The deal is another challenge to US influence in the area. This is a major shift in geopolitical power, that has negative implications to the United States.

9/24/15 The DAX Index has broken below its Aug 2015 low!

The DAX Index has fallen below its August low of 9,648 and is now 9,427. At 27.34 Deutsche Bank has broken into hew low ground. The Japanese Nikkei August low is only 180 points away from making a new low. The FTSE is only 70 points from breaking into low ground. What this means is, the markets worldwide are becoming more vulnerable. Any further drop in any of these indexes and could probably lead the world markets lower.

Trouble with illiquid bonds

The Wall Street Journal has been issuing reports on the bond market. One of the things  that they point out, is that US mutual bond funds have invested over 15% or more of their money in rarely traded securities. This practice runs counter to long held SEC guidelines. By the Journal’s count, 10 of the 18 largest bond mutual funds have invested meaningfully in corporate debt that have significant holdings in bonds that are seldom traded. Bond buyers are concerned that the funds could cause market turmoil, if they tried to sell these ill liquid investments to meet redemption requirements. The crux of the problem is that mutual funds own more bonds that seldom trade than ever before, but they still promise to pay out investors within 7 days of redemption of the shares. John Ramsey, acting director of the SEC’s trading in markets division from 2012 to 2014 has said “in some sense, we have a crisis waiting!” If liquidation in bond funds begins to increase beyond a certain limit, fund managers will have to sell their more highly liquid grade A bonds in order to meet liquidation requirements. The Walls St., Journal mentions several bond funds and the percentage of bonds the fund would have trouble selling in 7 days as follows: Vanguard high quality corporate bond fund 40%, American funds American high income trust 39%, Vanguard long-term investment grade 39%, Dodge and Company income 31% and Lord Abbott short duration income 29%. According to the Wall Street Journal these bond funds hold approximately $132 billion of illiquid securities. Ponds connected to the price of oil trouble already, particularly Brazil.I wonder how many trillion dollars worth of illiquid securities the Fed owns?

9/18/2015 THE FED IF FRIGHTENED! – THEY CAN’T EASE AND THEY CAN’T TAPER!

The Federal Reserve decided to hold to their zero interest rate policy. They are concerned that if they raise rates, the economic crisis in the world will go mainstream. There only tool is to use monetary policy, as there is no fiscal policy collaboration with the do-nothing Congress.The primary driver of our present financial bubble in the United States has been the Federal Reserve. Through quantitative easing and zero interest rates, they have tried to encourage inflation, which has remained close to zero. They mention in this report that international considerations have influenced their decision, which for the first time is not unanimous. China is definitely part of a bigger problem. In today’s Wall Street Journal James Chanos said “As long as China adds credit faster than its growth, the real story is months and years ahead.” The Fed has done everything it can to bolster inflation. However, nothing yet has worked. The Fed says that it will delay any interest rate rise until December or 2016. This may give the stock market one more short-term boost. This will only delay the inevitable. Zero interest rates and overnight lending has directly created debt bubbles in numerous areas. The Fed QE1,2,3,bought $4 trillion worth of bonds and flooded the economy with dollars and still, they couldn’t stir up inflation.  CPI in August was down -0.1% and is only up 0,2%in the last year. They are out of bullets to help the economy. All they can do is delay or slow reverse tapering. If oil goes down anywhere close to the $20 a barrel, as forecast by Goldman Sachs, it will have the same effect as the mortgage debacle, when mortgage bonds defaulted causing another financial crisis. Oil-producing nations have bonds that will be in trouble. Jim Flores the vice chairman of Free Port McMoran said “Whe’re all going to get wet. A few people are going to drown” Oil-producing companies have bonds that will be in trouble. The banks hold more derivatives on these trouble securities than they did of mortgage bonds in 2008. Once again, the banks are a house of cards. If the economy is doing so well, why is the capacity utilization rate at 77%? Before the recession it was at 80% and during the 1990s averaged 82%? S & P 500 earnings for the 3rd quarter are down -4.4% and more worrisome, revenue is down -2.9%. What is the real unemployment rate of those who have stopped seeking employment or have settled for poverty wages? the economy is in trouble and without fical policy changes from the do-nothing Congress, the Fed is at the opposite end of the Fed funds spectrum to help. Another quantitative easing will just make the end game worse, as the Fed already owns $4 trillion worth of questionable securities. They can’t ease and they can’t taper . We are ……!

THE REPUBLICAN DEBATE In my opinion the world is headed for an economic catastrophe and the Republican debate didn’t give us any SOLUTIONS. They are all on the same page when it comes to immigration, Planned Parenthood worth shutting down the government, gay marriage, abortion, Obama-care, the cancellation of the Iran deal, being tough with Russia, less regulation, lower taxes, denial of climate change, more drilling for oil and gun control. They all want a bigger defense budget and for our military to take a more active role. We already have a $700 billion defense budget that is larger than all the military budgets of other economies put together. Cary Fiornia was the biggest hawk, suggesting a process for an increased militarily to directly confront Russia that would once again take money away from social programs and infrastructure. There are consequences for military intervention which in most cases are more negative than positive There were no solutions given about how Trump is going to take care of women, what is the alternative to Obama care, how do we obtain a promised 4% growth in our economy and how we can prevent the demise of the middle class.The answer the Republicans gave to any foreign-policy problem was to use the military. The answers they gave to help the economy was that anything that helped the rich is capitalism and anything that helps the poor Is socialism.

They did all agree with each other as though they were taking a litmus test. as follows:1) Send 11 million of our undocumented workers and 4 million children back to Mexico and build a wall. This will make the current refugee problem in the Middle East look like a trickle. I suggest they all see the movie “A Day without Mexicans” where the earth stood still in the United States. A deportation plan and the wall would cost trillions and our economy would be crippled without Mexican workers. As the debate was at the Reagan Library, they could’ve taken the advice from Reagan, who offered amnesty during his administration. During the Obama administration, Mexican immigration has stopped to a trickle. We could use some legislation, but the Republicans are resistant to collaboration. 2)  They claimed the Planed Parenthood video was shocking. The video taking body parts from a fetus was not a Planned Parenthood video. Lies, if said often enough do no make them true! What is more shocking than the video, is the insistence of the Republican Congress that we shut down the government in October on this issue.3) Abortion, if you don’t like it, don’t have one. I am also pro-life, but I will not insist that my religious values he thrust on others. That’s what Islamic Shari law does. Family planning avoids unwanted children. In California birth control is public and is the only state where unwanted pregnancies have almost disappeared. There is no other alternative to abortion and birth control except to take care of those children that are unwanted through governmental public care, educational and health programs  that would be very costly and are unwilling to be paid for by evangelistic capitalists. If you promote unwanted children, in my opinion, then you have the complete responsibility of taking care of them 4) What’s the alternative to the insistence that Obama-care be canceled. What are they going to do about the 15 million people that now have health insurance? The uninsured have gone down by 50% because of Obama-care. It’s a success. Don’t break what is not broken! 5) The Iran deal is an international agreement. Is there’s something  the tea party Republicans don’t like about the ‘strategic arms limitation treaty’, the ‘anti-ballistic missile Treaty’, and the opening of diplomatic relations with China? That all seemed to work out. And as Reagan said, when he dealt with Gorbachev to reduce nuclear weapons from 36,000 warheads to the mere 2000 we have now, “trust but verify.” The alternative is war with Iran.  If you haven’t noticed, it borders Russia. All the Republicans want to be tough with Russia. As their position with Iran. How brave of them. The’re not talking about their lives, we’re talking about the lives of our troops. Diplomacy is an alternative to military action, which should always be the last alternative. 6) All the Republicans are unified against gay marriage. 50% of American marriages end in divorce. Let’s see how much they like it. Love is love. Sex when viewed by the third-party can be vulgar. Judge not that ye shall not be judged.7) All the Republicans want less regulation. The Glass Steigle Act would have kept us out of the 2008 debacle. Enforcement of the Dodd/Frank could keep this out of the next debacle. However, with the influence of Citizens United, our Congress (republicans and democrats) are bought and sold to big business. If corporations are people, then in my opinion, corporations are sociopaths, and should be institutionalized under government care. Both capitalism and socialism has tendencies to be selfish and only government overseers can keep the playing field level. Which if you read my LONE BEAR LETTER ABOVE, you will find that labor and capital are out of balance and are due for either collaboration or mutual destruction. 8). Lowering taxes? Kansas tried it and now they’re bankrupt. Taxes have to be lowered for the middle class and increased for the top 1%, so that educational programs, social programs and infrastructure programs can be initiated to make this country great again. Even Trump agrees. 9) The Republicans not only deny climate change, they say even if it is true, we can’t afford to do anything about it. The Defense Department said, “if climate change continues at its present course they will not be able to defend this country.” This year is the hottest year on record since records have been kept in 1880. Scientist’s consensus is that CO2 levels are causing climate change. Why is that so difficult to understand and to deal with? The government has a great history of denial; Atmospheric A-bombs tests do not cause damaging radiation, smoking does not cause cancer, lead in paint and gas is not dangerous, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and fracking does not cause earthquakes in Kansas.  The era of wood is over, the area of steam is over and the era of oil is over. The sooner the better, for the Middle East countries 10) Congress he is beholding to the gun lobby. There are enough guns in each one of our cities to sink a battleship. How many murders and attacks will it take for common sense to prevail and for collaboration to reach a reasonable compromise without endangering the public.

Current	Dow	NASDAQ	S&P 500
	16,101	4,596	1,898
Short Term	DOWN	DOWN	DOWN
Int. Term	DOWN	DOWN	DOWN
Long Term	Down?	Down?	Down?
Forecasted Trend	DJIA	NASDAQ	S&P 500
Short Term	Down	Down	Down
Int. Term	Down	Down	Down
Long Term	Bear Market?	Bear Market?	Bear Market?
Breakout Points	DJIA	NASDAQ	S&P 500
Short Term Up (Resistance)	18,352	5,231	2,134
Short Term Down (Support)	15,855/	4605/4,545	1970
Int. Term Up (Resistance)	18,000	5,157	2,131
Int. Term Down (Support)	/15,370 /14,688/ 13,377	4,116/ 3,986/3294	1,820 /1,560
Long Term Up (Resistance)	18,352	5,231	2,134
Long Term Down Fibonacci Support	50%12,000  62% 10,750	50%2,958  62% 2,555	50%1,390 62% 1,177
10Treasury 2.12%	Gold 1,133	Oil 44.75