Archive for month: July, 2016

Since the Brexit vote, we have seen some interesting price action unfold with various assets. With global/Euroland uncertainty, investors have been flocking to what they feel are the safe havens until things get sorted out overseas.

Typically, precious metals and the Dollar Index move in opposite directions. This means that if the dollar rises, metals fall in value. But since the Brexit vote, investors are piling their money into what they feel is the safe place for them to store capital. These are: US Dollars, Silver, Gold, Mining Stocks, Bonds and even US equities.

The good news for silver and the price of gold is that no matter what happens to the US Dollar (up or down), investors will continue to invest in these metals. Eventually, the US Dollar will have some pullback — but this will only help lift precious metals higher.

Gold Miners Bullish Percent Index – Many Miners With Bullish Chart Patterns

After many years precious metals miners are finally breaking out and making their first bull market leg.

The following chart shows the multi-year downtrend, the recent breakout, and subsequent rally. Indeed, an awesome and exciting time!

Silver Weekly Trend Chart

Silver has recently broken a previous significant high, which is the first sign of strength for the white metal. I have high hopes where silver will be trading by 2020, which is between the $74 and $99 per ounce.

Silver Analysis Conclusion

The bull market in silver, gold, and miners has really JUST begun. Sure, many stocks have exploded in value already up 200% to 600%. However, in the grand scheme of things, prices will continue to rise – even though many gold miners have not yet left the station. This means that if you buy a basket of stocks, you stand to do very well in the coming year or three.

Get My Precious Metals Daily Video Forecasts and ETF Trades at: www.TheGoldAndOilGuy.com

Chris Vermeulen

It was a relatively dull session yesterday (Monday July 11th) with stocks gapping higher only to trade sideways up till now. As I talked about in the morning’s video I expected stocks to grind higher, and for vix ETF to keep moving lower for another day or three.

Coffee continues to be on caffeine-high today testing near today’s high, which looks as though it will continue to run higher in the coming days.

Precious metals continue to hold up but I don’t expect them to go much higher until equities reverse down in the next week or so.

A couple leading sectors have been underperforming (transports, and financials). The stock market needs the financials to take part in this rally to new highs for the SP500 if the market is to have any real power behind it. The fact that both these key sectors are underperforming tell me there is not a ton of power behind this move to new highs for large cap stocks.

Also, a few months back I shared some bonus spike trade alerts with everyone.  Many of you loved these momentum trades every week as I do also. If you are interested in these spike alerts, see yesterday’s blog post for details – Exciting Stuff!

Talk soon,

Today I like to share my thoughts about the S&P 500 index, the volatility index, and what I believe will be the trigger/event which sends stock markets around the world to new multi-year lows.

While the charts shown here are very simple there is a lot of information behind the scenes that backup the analysis/predictions on the charts below.

For example, the sentiment of the average market participant remains extremely bullish on the market. The majority of investors think and feel stocks will continue to rise in the coming year. Typically, when the majority of investors think the same thing it tends to be a contrarian signal that the opposite will soon take place.

Cycle analysis is telling us that the seven-year cycle, which is one of the most powerful cycles that reoccurs in the stock market is now topping. What does this mean? It means we should expect a 1 to 3-year stock market correction.

The market breadth has been slowly deteriorating over the past year. Fewer stocks are making new highs, and many leading sectors are already in bear markets.

So it is just a matter of time before the US large-cap stocks roll over, breakdown, and start a new bear market.

As of Friday, July 9 we’ve seen the stock market momentum show signs of a short squeeze, and also that the majority of market participants are in a panic running to buy stocks. In fact, the NYSE volume ratio shows that there are 18 shares being purchased to every 1 being sold on Friday. I consider a ratio over three to be an extreme level, meaning 18 is signaling a potential significant turning point in stocks in the coming week.

SP500 & VIX Weekly Comparison Chart

If you take a look at the chart below you can see where I feel the stock market is currently trading in terms of its 2007 to 2008 market top. The volatility index is also showing similar patterns to what we saw before the 2008 bear market.

Based on the current price action of the S&P 500 index and the volatility index it appears that a sharp decline in shares is likely to unfold in the coming weeks.

SP500 & Bond Price Comparison – Bonds rally before/lead Bear Markets

Take a look at the chart below. The red line is the price of US bonds. The black candlestick chart is the S&P 500 index which is the US large-cap stocks. As you can see the price of bonds start to rally way before the US stock market rolls over and sells off.

Why does this happen? I believe that the smart money is rotating their money slowly out of equities and into bonds in anticipation of the bear market collapse. Bonds act as a safe haven during times of weakness in both the economy and stock market.

US equities still have a long way to fall before they are technically in a confirmed bear market. The recent rally in bonds is just the beginning for what is to happen.

The Trigger/Event/Tipping Point for A Global Equities Crash

In a recent article called “Deutsche Bank to initiate the next financial crisis”, I wrote about how Deutsche Bank is going down the exact same road as Lehman Brothers. In short, both stocks are declining in a similar fashion in terms of share price.

But here is the kicker… If you thought Lehman Brothers was bad you haven’t seen anything yet. The big differences this time around with the banking crisis is that this is 40 times larger than Lehman Brothers and will directly affect almost all key countries and banks around the world. And this time, countries are in far worse shape financially than they were in 2008 during the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

My Concluding Thoughts:

In short, the US stock market is trying to hold up and convince investors everything is fine. While stocks are testing all-time highs I know as a technical analyst that the market is much weaker than it appears.

A lot of things are coming together to form a major market top but like all previous stock market tops, they require a lot of time to mature before they breakdown and new nominal highs are normal to see. Until these new major trends start, you can use a Price Spike Trading Strategy which has 1-5 trades a week which last no longer then 4-48 hours.

So, if you want to stay ahead of the curve and avoid the next stock market crash and profit from it follow me at www.TheGoldAndOilGuy.com to receive my daily analysis, swing trades and long term ETF investing signals.

Chris Vermeulen

Deutsche bank (DBK) shares dropped to fresh new lows with the various news announcements, as well as a feeling that Germany will not be capable of bailing out the bank. The imminent outcome for DBK is ‘bankruptcy’ while the world will have to bear the brunt of the fallout from all of the complicated ‘derivatives’ which are being held by Deutsche Bank.

DBKs’ outstanding ‘derivatives’ exposure is 20x the German GDP and 5x the Eurozone GDP.

Amongst all of the chaos, DBKs’ head of currencies trading and emerging-markets debt trading, Ahmet Arinc, has left the company which is the most recent negative news to impact the banks’ financial status. Traders slammed the stock by more than 6% during that trading session, to touch intraday lows of $12.5 after which the stock recovered marginally to close at $12.97.

Germany will not be able to bail out DBK:

The latest bank which might require a bailout is the Italian lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena which is the worlds’ oldest bank. The European Central Bank warned that the Italian bank is holding dangerously high levels of bad debt.

Italy wants a bailout for Monte Paschi, however, the Germans are opposing any such move. Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German Finance Minister, stated in a news conference, in Berlin, that Italy intends to stick to the banking-union rules, as was conveyed to him by his Italian Counterpart, Pier Carlo Padoan.

Italian Prime Minister hits back at Germany:

However, Italy did not wait before hitting back at Germany and it came from none other than the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi.

Mr. Renzi stated that “the difficulties facing Italian banks over their bad loans are miniscule by comparison with the problems some European banks face over their derivatives.” He reminded the Germans that there were other European banks which had much bigger problems than Monte Paschi, in an indirect hint towards DBK.

“If this non-performing loan problem is worth one, the question of ‘derivatives’ at other banks, at big banks, is worth one hundred. “This is the ratio: one to one hundred,” Renzi stated, reports Reuters.

More troubles ahead for DBK:

The bank is likely to lose its’ place in the STOXX 50 index, according to analysts at Societe Generale. The bank will face renewed selling pressure as the index funds will have to reposition themselves, post the change, which is more than likely to bring about a fresh round of selling.  According to a statement by the IMF, DBK is now the most dangerous bank in the world. DBK is currently the riskiest bank which will bring down the entire financial banking system, globally.

Gold is the key asset to own:

The bond king, Jeff Gundlach, stated that “things are shaky and feeling dangerous”. Regarding the European banking crisis, the Double Line bond king noted: “Banks are dying and policymakers don’t know what to do. Watch Deutsche Bank shares go to single digits and people will start to panic… you’ll see someone say, ‘Someone is going to have to do something’.”

Gundlach stated that “gold remains the best investment amid fears of instability in the European Union and prolonged global stagnation, as well as concerns over the effectiveness of central bank policies,” reports Reuters.

Conclusion:

The belief by Wall Street that Germany will not allow DBK to fail is fading. Post the Brexit, tensions are running high among the remaining members, as seen in the spat between Germany and Italy. Due to the earlier hard stance of the Germans, it is likely that any move to bailout DBK will face considerable resistance from all of the member nations. If allowed to fail, DBK will cause a ‘crisis’ many times over that of which Lehman Brothers did. The final meltdown commences!

Americans need to pay attention to this European Financial Crisis because its’ very contagious and going to spread here.

Gold remains the asset to invest in, as I have been advising my subscribers for a long time now. DBK is failing and not even the ECB will be able to stop its’ plunge into oblivion!

Next week I will share with you another asset class rarely mentioned or invested in which could explode in value going forward and actually become a major asset/currency world wide – Stay Tuned!

Chris Vermeulen is full-time trader and research analyst for TheGoldAndOilGuy Newsletter.
Author does not currently have any position in Deutsche Bank at this time.

I am certain that you remember Lehman Brothers and the “chaos” that it created when it ‘failed’. If you think that the Worlds’ Central Banks are now wiser and consequently will not allow another similar event to occur, think again. We will not only see a repeat of this occurrence, again, but it will be exponentially larger than Lehman’s was!

On June 29^th, 2016 the IMF stated that “among the [globally systemically important banks], Deutsche Bank appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks, followed by HSBC and Credit Suisse,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

However, if you were to believe that statement, why should you be concerned about a German bank and how it will affect you while living in the U.S.? The IMF adds: “In particular, Germany, France, the U.K. and the U.S. have the highest degree of outward spillovers as measured by the average percentage of capital loss of other banking systems due to banking sector shock in the source country,” reports Bloomberg. The chart below clearly shows the systemic risks emanating out of a Deutsche Bank (DBK) collapse.

Two years in succession, the American unit of Deutsche Bank has failed the FED’s “stress test” which is what determines the ability of the bank to weather out yet another ‘financial crisis’.

Leverage of Lehman vs. Deutsche Bank:

In 2007, Lehman had a leverage (the ratio of total assets to shareholder’s equity) of 31:1.  At the time that Lehman filed for bankruptcy, it had $639 billion in assets and $619 billion in debt. Still, it caused a ‘systemic risk’ worldwide.

In comparison, DBK has a mind boggling leverage of 40x, according to Berenberg analyst, James Chappell. He stated, “facing an illiquid credit market limiting Deutsche Bank’s (DBK) ability to deliver and with core profitability impaired, it is hard to see how DBK can escape this vicious circle without raising more capital. The CEO has eschewed this route for now, in the hope that self-help can break this loop, but with risk being re-priced again it is hard to see DBK succeeding.”

Why Can’t the ECB save DBK in the similar fashion as how the FED saved the banks, in the US?

The nominal value of derivatives risk that DBK holds on its’ books is $72.8 trillion, according to the banks’ April 2016 earnings report. What is astounding about this, is that a single bank owns 13% of the total outstanding global derivatives, which was a staggering $550 trillion in 2015.

What is more concerning and alarming is that the market cap of DBK is less than $20 billion.

Nonetheless, the nominal value of derivatives exposure does not mean that DBK will have a default worth trillions of dollars seeing as most of the contracts are covered by counterparties. However, when the domino effect is put into motion, we have witnessed how it engulfs the entire world, into it.

If the domino effect does occur, Germany with its GDP of $4 trillion or the EU with a GDP of $18 trillion will not be in a position to gain control over it.

A nominal figure of the high derivatives risk on DBK, as of December 2014, is shown in the chart below.

Negative interest regime is NOT the solution to global economic problems which we are facing today:

The European Central Banks’ NIRP policy is making matters worse for DBK, as the banks’ profits are getting squeezed thus making it difficult for it to repair its’ balance sheet.

The bank is finding it difficult to sell its’ assets because of illiquid credit markets. The banks’ management will also find it difficult to raise capital as the investment-banking industry is in a “structural decline”, according to Berenbergs’ James Chappell.

 BREXIT is adding to the woes:

DBK receives 19% of its’ revenues from the UK. After the “BREXIT” vote, the uncertainty regarding future relations of the U.K. with Europe has increased the risk for all of the banks. President Francois Hollande of France is eyeing the financial industry and is pitching for them to move to Paris from London.

DBK is the biggest European bank in London. Moving operations, which are handled by 8,000 members of the staff, will not be an easy task for DBK and will further weaken their balance sheet.

How is the stock behaving?

The stock is in a downtrend and has broken below the panic lows of 2009.

The stock is quoting at a price to book ratio of 0.251, which indicates the pessimism of the markets towards the stock. The investors believe that the stock is not worth more than a quarter of its’ liquidation value.

A comparative study of the stock, with Lehman, gives a more accurate picture of the future price of DBK, which is zero.

The German Newspaper ‘Die Welt’ reported that the great George Soros had recently opened a short position of 0.51% of the DBK’s outstanding shares. This equates to 7 million shares, worth $7.5 billion, reports Investopedia.

 Conclusion:

The easy monetary policy of various Central Banks is the main reason for the banks holding such massive leverage. The “next financial crisis” will cause the Central Banks’ actions to be redundant and ineffective, as they will not be in a position to control this impending catastrophe! In such a situation, the world will revert to the only remaining resort left, and that is gold.

My readers have benefited immensely during the mini-crash post the ‘BREXIT’. Please continue to follow me so as you can protect yourself from the next “big one”, which will wipe out tens of trillions of dollars around the world.

Chris Vermeulen
TheGoldAndOilGuy.com