All central banks are desperate to stop stress from building in the global banking system. Despite what they say, job No. 1 of every central bank is to do whatever it takes to prevent a disorderly collapse of banks caused by “bank runs.”
December 6th, 2011 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | ContinuedArchive for Dan Amoss
Dan Amoss, CFA is managing editor for Strategic Investment and a contributing editor for Whiskey & Gunpowder. Dan joined Agora Financial from Investment Counselors of Maryland, investment advisor for one of the top small-cap value mutual funds over the past 15 years.
Crony Capitalism at Work
High-speed trading is turning the stock market into a farce, and in the process, is turning off an entire generation of investors. It’s speeding up a process – P/E ratio compression – that normally takes a grinding bear market a couple of decades to accomplish.
August 12th, 2011 | Dan Amoss | 5 comments | Continued
Inflation 1; Economy 0
America’s recent economic “recovery” is just a dismal version of “Mother May I.” Almost every “one step forward” will succumb to “two steps backward.” To switch metaphors, the so-called recovery is not the fruit of sustainable underlying demand; it is merely the weed of rising inflation expectations. Let me explain…
March 11th, 2011 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
The Food Crisis is a Dollar Crisis
At this week’s hearing on Capitol Hill, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke demonstrated a lack of understanding about what causes inflation. His comments reflected a belief that GDP growth causes inflation.
February 21st, 2011 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
Time to Buy Gold Stocks…Again
It’s time to buy gold stocks. Top-down “macro” analysis indicates that the bull market in gold stocks still has a long way to go. And bottom- up analysis tells me that gold stocks are cheap. Buying opportunities in this asset class will be rare, simply because so many institutional investor portfolios remain hugely underweight gold. These investors will keep looking to add exposure to gold because of the dismal state of the private credit markets, government debts and central banks.
January 27th, 2011 | Dan Amoss | 1 comment | Continued
The Pain in Spain…and in Ireland
Financial markets underestimate just how deep the rot extends into the euro zone’s banking systems and economies. Since early 2010, when credit spreads on the euro zone’s periphery started blowing out, I’ve viewed the EU bailouts as futile efforts to refinance themselves out of a solvency crisis. If you’re truly bankrupt, trying to put it off by refinancing never works out.
December 3rd, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
Earnings Aren’t What They Used to Be, Part II
They just don’t make earnings like they used to. In many industries, the quality of earnings has deteriorated in recent quarters. Banks are among the worst offenders. On the downside of the biggest credit cycle in history, many banks are slowing the pace at which they’re provisioning for credit losses.
August 25th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
Earnings Aren’t What They Used to Be
As Wall Street’s big money players return from the Hamptons in the coming weeks, they will have to reassess the earnings power of their portfolio companies. Last week, Staples confirmed the message we heard from Office Depot and Office Max: the small business sector as a whole isn’t very healthy.
August 24th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
The “Road to Serfdom”
The US government is pursuing the same misguided strategy that has failed for twenty years to revive Japan’s economy. This strategy consists of squandering taxpayer dollars on failed financial institutions, and prop up unaffordable federal and state spending programs. One key difference: Japan’s competitive export-oriented manufacturing base was…
August 11th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 3 comments | Continued
Avoid Bank Stocks
Ever since the suspension of rigorous mark-to-market accounting rules one year ago, banks have gained the ability to “time” their credit losses. This development does not feel like progress. Banks now possess the ability to defer embedded credit losses for a very long time, in the hopes that a “typical” postwar rebound in house prices and employment comes to fruition.
July 8th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 1 comment | Continued
Inflation Up, Stocks Down
Banks are making out like bandits…at least on paper. They simply post whatever earnings they feel like reporting, because loans and securities no longer have to be marked to market. So why not mark down bad loans at a glacial pace? Doesn’t matter that they might be in non- performing status and aren’t producing cash flow.
May 6th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 2 comments | Continued
A Free Market In Chains
US policymakers at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have been trying to re-inflate the credit bubble by pumping trillions of dollars of fresh credit and currency into the financial system. The Fed is still maintaining these Keynesian tactics, despite the increasing possibility that inflation and other adverse outcomes will result.
April 23rd, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
