The last successful invasion of England took place at the Battle of Hasting in 1066. William the Conqueror, a Norman, brought his French language and toppled the natives and their King. We only mention it because both the S&P 500 and gold closed at the same level after Monday trading in New York: 1066.
It probably means nothing. But then again, there is a nice historical resonance, isn't there? Financial markets are making a lot of history with their volatility and excess. And the world's currency landscape is changing fundamentally as gold is remonetised and debt backs the break of vulnerable nation states.
It's quickly becoming a market where you're worried more about the preservation of your capital rather than capital appreciation or even dividends. Late last night we read the latest monthly report from Australian Wealth Gameplan, edited by Kris Sayce. Kris has come up with a way to hedge against the falling Aussie dollar and listed all the collateral damage that would occur if the currency falls more.
Kris normally chases beaten down blue chips that pay dividends. If the market keeps going this way, there may be quite a few more beaten down stocks. But until recently, valuations were pretty rich. What's more, companies are hoarding more cash and paying out less.
"Lean times for investors on dividends," reports George Leonidis in today's Australian Financial Review. Australian investors will lose $4 billion in dividend income this year, according to research from Macquarie Securities. Macquarie analyst Neale Morris says, "Company management are being very cautious. They have just come through a very cathartic event. They are trying to retain as much cash as possible just in case bank lending disappears again."
Just in case.
Now one medical definition of 'cathartic', according to dictionary.com is "An agent for purging the bowels, especially a laxative." This raises an interesting question. Have the bowels of the banking system been purged of bad debt or not? Or does the financial sector merely feel better without any fundamental improvement...in its bowels?
We'd say there is still a large debt overhang in the banking sector. Granted, according to official Aussie sources, residential and commercial real estate loan portfolios are performing well. But globally - and Australia was certainly not immune from global trouble last time around - there are plenty of private and public balance sheets that are pretty stuffed up.
Speaking of which, how about some news which should terrify anyone who owns a significant amount of U.S. dollar-denominated assets. The American Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has said the U.S. government "will never" lose its triple A credit rating. As one of our friends back in the States wrote, "Never is a very long time."
One thing we know for certain is that all paper currencies eventually reach their intrinsic worth. It's also true that the more vocal monetary officials are about not devaluing or preserving the purchasing power of a currency, the closer they are to doing exactly the opposite.
The greenback is enjoying a nice flight-to-liquidity rally. Investors prefer liquidity now over return. But that doesn't mean the buck is strong or safe. It's neither. It's notable that gold was up $13.20 in trading today and that North American listed-gold stocks are moving too.
Last week Slipstream Trader analyst Murray Dawes went "long" a couple of Aussie blue-chip gold stocks. He was worried he might be a bit early. But his signals fired and he pulled the trigger on the trades. This morning he sends this chart over of the Australian Gold Composite Index. It looks fairly bullish, although we'll l leave the analysis to the traders.
Still, it's hard for us to shake our concern that other commodities, especially base metals, have gone too far too fast on the easy money express. The rally since last March has been a huge boon for base metal prices and some base metal stocks. We expressed this worry to Diggers and Drillers editor Alex Cowie. He'd just recommended a copper stock in his latest report.
Alex replied that, "My view is that the resource sector is oversold after a very rough month. The key issue driving mining stocks down is risk aversion driven by fears of a European sovereign debt crisis. The anxiety in markets is that the Greek tragedy may lead to what I like to think of as 'the Ouzo effect'."
"This is where we see contagion pass across to the other European countries with bad balance sheets like Portugal, Italy and Spain, the so-called 'PIGS'. If this situation plays out slowly, and investors get little reassurance from the 'PIGS', then high risk assets such as mining equities may offer even better buying opportunities in coming weeks. It all hangs off the European story at the moment.
"Mining stocks are doing well in the market today despite a flat Friday session in the US markets, so investors may be seeing opportunities in front of them already. Although the commodity markets are still getting a hiding with risk aversion driving the US dollar up, I believe that the supply and demand story should keep prices trucking higher over the year and take resource stocks along with them. This week or two looks like a crossroads in the market to me. Either the debt story passes like Dubai did, or it festers."
Tomorrow? More on the festering and the reaction of resource stocks.
Dan Denning
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Dan Denning is the author of 2005's best-selling The Bull Hunter (John Wiley & Sons). He began his financial publishing career in 1997 and has covered financial markets form Baltimore, Paris, London and, beginning in 2005 Melbourne. He’s the editor of The Daily Reckoning Australia and the Publisher of Port Phillip Publishing.
Comment by Ross on 9 February 2010:
This is 9 parts great article but despite flirting with similar sentiments to mine Dan runs counter with the final prognosis.
I think the commodities have yet to have the fake liquidity extracted from them and ponzi carry schemes like these have in the past have never lasted a decade. It isn't the cheapness of the money at source but the volume of it at destination and what it does to supply as well as price. High price .... excess supply ..... poor quality ....... risk wobblies at liquidty source .... boom. They could get a heck of alot of supply of Brasil if they wanted to, but what would they do with it and what could it earn? And is CBA's or CGF's equity prices doing anything for their interest rates swaps and funding? Tick tick tick.
For mine it will happen well before the usd meets its waterloo because the US is currently the unchallengeable military power and there are too many vested interests that have to pretend that their USD positions are OK. And they may be more fearfull of a band of Timothy McVeigh's with a charismatic leader than of foreign militants. There are plenty out there in the US who have lived the lie of US military invasion narratives and come away black hearted.
Comment by Sambo on 9 February 2010:
Make what you will of this Ross:
http://www.oilprice.com/article-rogue-aluminium-shipments-suggest-chinese-metal-stockpiles-are-being-re-exported.html
Comment by Ross on 9 February 2010:
Sambo my favourite BDI monitoring site is
http://investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm
See vs gold, copper, oil. All the same.
There are answers in the shipping trades about that aluminium, regional ports like that handle particular vessel types but I can't get at it. You might get at it anyway following that same path. Traders do grab spot cargoes at times from anywhere so it might be a demand surge side thing too.. but it might not as they are saying.
Comment by watcher7 on 9 February 2010:
The American historian David Landes would disagree with 1066:
“By [Adam] Smith’s day, the era of Dutch primacy was over. It had been a hundred-year wonder; this small country dominating the oceans; moving goods, bulky and rare, in thousands of vessels; standing up and defeating more populous nations; setting an example to all of rationality and purpose. Nothing shows this better than the conquest of England by William of Orange, Stadholder of the United Provinces, in 1688. This was the last successful invasion of England, and the first since William, him of Normandy, in 1066. To be sure, the British do not remember it that way. The Whig interpretation of the overthrow of James II as the “Glorious Revolution” has obscured the character of the event. Yet invasion it was, and it was intended to take over the English crown to prevent it from joining with France against the Netherlands. The Dutch fleet assembled that September was four times the size of the Spanish Armada and carried the best troops in the Dutch army, plus foreign volunteers, animals, equipment, and a huge artillery train. “When all dimensions are considered - military, naval, financial, logistical, diplomatic, domestic... it was arguably one of the most impressive feats of organization an early modern regime ever achieved”1” (“The Wealth and Poverty of Nations”, p.443).
Future European Hegemony?
"Every modern transition of world power supremacy has involved an ally or former colony of the previous hegemonic power" (Davidson & Rees-Mogg, p.137).
United Provinces of the Netherlands (Protestant) then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Protestant) now United States of America (Protestant) next United States of Europe (Catholic).
"The 1990s should be seen as but a temporary interlude between eras of cosmic competition. And America's allies in the last round (against the Soviet Union) are shaping up as opponents in the new one" (Daniel Pipes, Europe vs. America, capmag.com, January 21, 2003).
"History is coming full circle. After breaking away from the British Empire, the United States came together as a unitary federation, emerged as a leading nation, and eventually eclipsed Europe's Great Powers. It is now Europe's turn to ascend and break away from an America that refuses to surrender its privileges of primacy. Europe will inevitably rise up as America's principal competitor. Should Washington and Brussels begin to recognize the dangers of the growing gulf between them, they may be able to contain their budding rivalry. Should they fail, however, to prepare for life after Pax Americana, they will ensure that the coming clash of civilizations will be not between the West and the rest but within a West divided against itself... and America remains largely oblivious" (Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the West, The Atlantic Monthly, November 2002, p.42-44).
Manhattan Island has been the possession of the last three “hegemonic powers”. In the future a German-dominated continental European will arise from the depths of the Great Depression 2 and will also possess the island.
"Wilhelm II wanted colonies and military bases around the world," author Henning Sietz wrote in Die Zeit. "The United States was increasingly getting in the Kaiser's way.""
"Beginning in 1897, a German navy lieutenant named Eberhard von Mantey was assigned the task of preparing an invasion of the United States after German and American interests had collided in the Pacific.
"Von Mantey's aim was to find a way to force the United States to sign a treaty giving Germany free reign in the Pacific and Atlantic. He rejected ideas of a naval blockade or a naval battle and made plans for an invasion of the northeast instead" (Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany Had Plan to Take New York, reuters.com, May 8, 2002).
It was not viable for the Second Reich after the Great Depression of the Nineteenth Century but it will be for the ‘Fourth’ Reich after the future Great Depression.
Comment by nv on 9 February 2010:
The british monarchy has and always will bow to the dutch monarchy.
Royal Dutch Shell?
The Dutch East India Company?
The quiet rulers.
Anyone remember where Harold Holt disappeared and who runs the town?
Comment by Dan on 9 February 2010:
The quiet rulers are families and not nations.
Comment by Sambo on 9 February 2010:
Ta Ross, good site.
Comment by nv on 9 February 2010:
Dan,
Families that run and ruin nations, many nations.
Comment by Ross on 9 February 2010:
Welcome back Watcher7, always a pleasure.
Comment by Dan on 9 February 2010:
Well yes, families that represent tribal groups, I guess you could also say.
Comment by Ross on 11 February 2010:
Sambo, one for you below extracted from Profarmer along the same lines as the Aluminium.
Volume is only a week's worth of soybean imports but there might be a story there yet. Quality is one thing to watch and I don't figure their comments on price. If you can get it cheap in USD from the US why would pay higher from the Chinese stockpile? Unless the Chinese have started some thing akin to barter trading outside the USD bloc to finance some of their imports from 3rd countries, and China not wanting more USD's and the buyer "facilitating" their exports, cutting their bilateral surplus, and not wanting reliance on US for key commodities?
quote
China offers Government owned soybeans 8 February
Last week the Chinese government announced that they would offer 208,400t of soybeans for sale on the world market. This added pressure to CBOT soybean futures and saw prices fall. China has been the dominant buyer of US soybeans this season, and the news that they were selling domestic beans rattled the market.
However on closer inspection losses may have been overdone. The parcel up for sale is not particularly large – as a comparison China took 262,500t of US soybeans last week.
The Government owned soybeans are priced considerably higher than Chinese cash prices and international landed beans. This indicates they will not provide competition to US beans.
The USDA weekly export sales report, reported soybean sales of only 381,500t for delivery in 2009/10 - a marketing-year low. China took 262,500t of that, noticeably less than they have been booking of late. There was also a small sale of 3,100t for delivery in 2010/11. That leaves this week's sales at 384,600t, well below trade estimates ranging from 650,000 to 800,000t. While soybean sales are low, they are still on track for meeting USDA marketing year estimates.