RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Market Down Before the Bell A late-day rally wasn't enough to bring the U.S. stock market indexes into the black on the day.  In fact, this is the first down week that the U.S. stock market has had in 2019. Something tells me it's certainly not going to be the last. The market was down from the bell this morning. Even before the bell, if you look at the futures, even before we got the jobs number - the February jobs report (which I will get into a little later in this podcast) the markets were already down.  The Dow Futures, I think were off about 125, 135, something like that. Normally, the markets are not making a big move in either direction before the jobs report comes out, because people don't know what the number is going to be, and generally it's a market-moving number, so the markets are typically pretty flat before we get the number. Trade Deal Up in the Air This time, the markets were down.  Based on rumors that the trade deal with China may be delayed.  People were talking about this Mar-a-Lago Summit that was going to take place later in the month, and now I was reading about how there may not be a deal in time, and the Chinese may not want to go to Mar-a-Lago, and so the whole thing is up in the air. So people were getting a little nervous about the trade deal. So that's why the markets were already selling off, plus, I think the Chinese markets had been weaker overnight. Trump or someone else Tweeted out that Trump had said, as soon as we signed the trade deal, the markets are really going to spike. Apparently, nobody has explained to Donald Trump how the stock market works. Buy the rumor sell the fact. Maybe the President has more experience in the real estate market, not understanding how the stock market generally anticipates news, and sells off on the realization of that news.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Wall of Overhead Resistance It looks like the correction in the U.S. stock market, and by correction I am referring to the rally, the first correction in what I believe is a new bear market - but it's looking like that correction may have finally run its course as the stock market has run into a wall of overhead resistance. In fact, the technical action on Monday was quite telling, because early in the morning we opened quite a bit higher - 100 points or so higher, and then had a 350-point reversal to the downside.  The catalyst for the initial rally was yet another rumor of an impending trade deal with China.  And it seems to me that we've basically run out of the ability to continue to rally the market by regurgitating the same news story over and over again. Now They've Sold the Last Rumor Remember I was saying that, when we actually have a trade deal, with China, my thinking would be it would be a "buy the rumor, sell the fact"?  Well the problem is, traders have already bought that rumor over and over again and that they may have already sold the last rumor. They can't wait for the fact.  They've just had so many rumors, that now they've sold the last rumor, and it doesn't even matter if we get a deal - the market is going to sell off.  Of course, if we get no deal at all, then the market could sell off even more, because a great deal has already been priced in to the market.  But there isn't going to be a great deal. There will be a deal, there will be nothing great about it; there will probably be nothing substantive about it. Expectations have been raised so high, which is another reason that I don't think Trump is as good a negotiator as he pretends.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Market Keeps Rallying on Regurgitated News The Dow Jones started off the final day of the week with a pretty strong rally; we were up a little better than 200 points earlier in the day.  Then we got some weaker than expected economic data which I will get to a bit later, and the market sold off.  The Dow never quite went negative, and then we rallied back and the Dow managed to end the week back above 26,000 with a 110 point gain. In fact all of the major indexes were positive on the day.  What caused the early morning rally was optimism, once again, that a trade deal with China is about to be signed, and it's kind of amazing how often the markets can bite on this and keep rallying on regurgitated news, because, we've heard this before. According to Trump the Chinese Are Going to Pay, but According to Economics, Americans Are Going to Pay As I have said on this podcast before, we are going to get a trade deal.  A trade deal with China is inevitable. The only positive about the trade deal is going to be that it takes the prospect of a self-inflicted wound off the table. That's the only good thing.  If we have a trade deal, then Trump is not going to increase tariffs on American businesses and on American consumers. That is the empty threat that is out there:  "Hey, we're going to force China to the negotiation table because, if they don't, we're going to erect these tariffs, which, according to Trump the Chinese are going to pay, but according to economics, Americans are going to pay. That's one of the reasons that we can't afford to actually use this weapon that we are threatening the Chinese with. Promising the Moon In fact, one of the reasons that you had all this optimism about this new deal was Larry Kudlow was out talking about how great the new deal is going to be - how this is going to be a huge win for America, it's a fantastic deal, it's a boon, it's better than we could have expected, it is all-encompassing... He has really raised expectations. Doesn't Kudlow know anything about the expectation game?  The idea is to under-promise so you can over-deliver. It seems like we're destined for failure here because everybody in the Trump administration is promising the moon.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Jerome Powell Wades into the Deficit Debate This year Fed chairman Jerome Powell made his obligatory visit to Capital Hill, where he spoke to Senators and Representatives about monetary policy.  Of course, this really just amounts to a press conference for Democrats and Republicans to either talk up the economy or talk down the economy, depending on who's got the White House.  Trump is the President, so you have a lot of Democrats trying to talk about why the economy is actually weak and trying to get the Fed Chairman to say something negative about the economy, or negative about President Trump.  And, of course you have the Republicans trying to get Powell to validate how great the economy is, and how Trump's policies are helping the economy. Republicans Aren't Willing to Recognize Problems The biggest problem with all this is that the biggest promoters of how great the economy is are the Republicans. These are supposedly the defenders of capitalism and they're saying everything is great, everything is booming, and you have the Democrats, particularly the Democratic Socialists saying that there are a lot of problems.  And the Republicans are saying that these problems don't exist. Democratic Socialists Have no Idea Why the Economy is Screwed Up Unfortunately, when it hits the fan, when we end up in a recession, and I've been making this point over and over again, Capitalism is going to be thoroughly discredited because the people who advocate it were oblivious to the problems. They said everything was fine. Now the Socialists will appear to be the ons who had it right - even though they were right for the wrong reasons. They have no idea why the economy is screwed up, and their plans to solve the problems will just screw it up even more. But the voters aren't going to know that. They're going to say, "Oh, these Republicans who talk about Capitalism, they were wrong. They didn't realize what a mess it was.  These Democratic Socialists, they knew there was a problem, so let's vote for them." Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Another "Greatest Deal Ever" 'The Dow rose a little over 180 points today, closing above 26,000 -26,031.81, to be exact, for the first time during this bear market rally.  I still believe that we are in a bear market rally, not a new bull market. the catalyst for today for today's stock market strength, and it was across the board; the markets were strong from the opening bell to the closing bell.  I think the high in the Dow was maybe just above 200; we sold off intra-day.  But the NASDAQ, the Russell 2000 were also higher on, again, optimism that there is going to be a trade deal between the U.S. and China.  Donald Trump is saying that he is negotiating the greatest deal ever, which is something that I have been saying, regardless of what the deal ends up being, Trump is going to say "It is the Greatest Deal Ever". What Helps China Is an Appreciating Yuan But there was a lot of attention being paid to the deal, a lot of stories coming out that were close to a deal.  In fact, I read that they do have a agreement on exchange rates.  Currencies, obviously the U.S. likes to accuse China of being a currency manipulator, and so maybe there's some type of deal that says they won't manipulate their currency - they won't use their currency as a weapon. Which is something China wasn't going to do, anyway. To the extent that we win any concessions from the Chinese, where they agree not to weaken their currency, that basically amounts to nothing. In fact, a weak currency is bad for China.  What helps China is an appreciating Yuan. Today's "Fedspeak" on Inflation More important than the talk about the trade deal was a lot of  "Fedspeak" today.  You had a lot of Fed officials that were talking; James Bullard, Clarida, John Williams - they were all talking.  The real common theme today was inflation. I have been talking about this for years.  How was the Federal Reserve going to basically respond to inflation above their 2% target? The real rate of inflation has probably been above 2%, in fact I'm confident that it's been above 2% every year.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ FOMC Minutes Describe Abrupt About-Face This afternoon we got the minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting which took place a few weeks ago.  This was the meeting where the Federal Reserve did what is now being described as probably the biggest policy shift in the history of the Fed. This was really an abrupt about-face, where they went from "Everything is great; we're going to keep on raising interest rates, and we are on auto-pilot - we are going to let the balance sheet continue to decline."  All of a sudden, now they're "patient", meaning they're not going to raise rates at all in the foreseeable future, and not only is the balance sheet reduction program no longer on auto pilot, but it is now going to end prematurely sometime this year. Fed Balance Sheet North of $4 Trillion Of course, the balance sheet is still north of $4 trillion, and if the reduction program comes to an end this year, you're still going to be talking about a balance sheet $3.5 to $4 trillion in size.  This would mean that almost all of the mortgages and treasuries which the Federal Reserve purchased in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as part of its Quantitative Easing Programs, 1,2&3.  Almost all of that debt will remain on its balance sheet after the Fed has finished shrinking it.  Also, FOMC officials are now talking about Quantitative Easing once again as just another tool in the Fed's tool box. It's no longer something that will pulled out for an emergency, it's just going to be a normal policy tool for the Fed to deal with recession.  Of course, that's going to be their main tool, given that this next recession is going to start when interest rates are at 2.25%. So there is not a lot of room for the Fed to try to artificially stimulate the economy when it hardly has any room to reduce rates. Quantitative Easing is Debt Monetization Of course, what does that mean about the Fed's balance sheet? That means the balance sheet will ultimately be much higher than it was when it began its current Operation Quantitative Tightening. We will be higher than we were before it started. All this does is confirm what I've been saying all along, that Quantitative Easing is Debt Monetization.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Market Rallies on Old News The U.S. stock market continues to rally on basically the exact same news story that keeps on getting replayed.  Today, it was the absence of another government shutdown.  I guess now, this is final when it comes to no more government shutdowns, although that should have been obvious to everybody when Trump caved the last time and decided to pay everybody and temporarily end the shutdown. I said on my podcast at that time that that was it; that there was no way that there was going to be another government shutdown - yet the market continues to celebrate when they think that the shutdown's not going to happen. A National Emergency for the Wall Well now they know for sure it's not going to happen.  Everything's signed, it's a done deal and Trump is getting his wall anyway because he has now declared a national emergency, and so now because it's a national emergency, we are now going to pull these funds from other parts of the budget and we are going to build the wall. The National Debt is the Real National Emergency Of course, the real national emergency is not the lack of a wall, the failure to build the wall, but building up the national debt. The $22 trillion national debt.  We eclipsed that dubious milestone earlier in the week.  And again, when you talk about the national debt at $22 trillion, we're talking about the tip of a huge iceberg. This is just the funded portion of the debt.  This is where the U.S. sells a bond and somebody owns that bond. The Tip of the Iceberg It doesn't include liabilities like what the government owes for Social Security, or guaranteed bank deposits, or mortgages or student loans - that's not there.  Those are contingent liabilities.  They're just as real. They're not even part of the national debt. So, when you look at all the liabilities that the U.S. government is on the hook for, you're talking about well over $100 trillion - so $20 trillion is maybe d5 or 10 percent of the debt. But that debt is the real national emergency.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ The 7th Best Start Ever for the S&P 500 The Dow was up 372 points today, continuing the bear market rally.  In fact, this is the best start for a year in almost 30 years - 28 years to be exact. I think it is the 7th best start ever for the S&P 500.  Now I think the other 6 starts that were better; 3 of those happened during rather dubious circumstances. Two occurred during the Great Depression, and one of them happened in 1987, and we all know how that year ended up. So sometimes getting off to a good start doesn't necessarily mean that the year is going to finish strong, or the year, itself, is going to be a prosperous year. Again, I think the main reason that the market is so strong early this year is, A) because of the sharp decline we had at the end of last year and B) because the Federal Reserve came in to save the market precisely the way I had forecasted for many years. How Many Times Can the Market Rally on the Same Good News? We had a lot of news today that was supposedly good news which provided the extra catalyst for the market.  The question, of course, is, "How many times can the market rally on the same good news? One of the pieces of good news was the fact that it looks like maybe there is some kind of compromise on the border that will avert a second government shutdown, and that is supposedly good news. Of course, we've been having this type of good news over and over again. Also, on the trade front, there were some rumors that the negotiations were going well (some of these rumors started by Trump), so when the market hears that, and that they will probably extend the deadline.  If the negotiations were really going great, they wouldn't have to extend the deadline.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Disguising "Red" Goals in Green Wrapping I'm still here in my hotel room in Orlando at the Money Show, but before I went downstairs on this Saturday morning,  I wanted to record a podcast to address the issues raised by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, as she is now being referred to - I guess I'm just going to call her the bartender for simplicity.  Well, anyway, the bartender-turned-congresswoman has released the laughable details of her "Green New Deal".  Of course, the Green New Deal really lays bare the smokescreen that I have always believed existed with respect to extreme environmentalism.  I've always thought that it masked a real desire for socialism; that the real goal of some of these radical environmentalists was socialism: nationalizing the means of production, getting government control.  But they couldn't come out and say that. They had to disguise their "red" goals with green wrapping. This Bartender is Advocating Fascism They had to approach it as an environmental issue;"Hey, we have to save the planet!" and, yeah, who isn't in favor of that? Everybody wants clean air and clean water.  So the way the Socialists really try to wedge their way into the mainstream was with this veneer of Environmentalism.  But when you actually read the "Green New Deal", it blows all the smoke away. It really lays bare the Socialist agenda of environmentalists.  Really, that's what the Green New Deal is all about.  It's Red. It's all about turning America into a Socialist economy, or more particularly, a Fascist economy, because Fascism is really the form of Socialism that best describes what this bartender is advocating. The Government Taking over the Means of Production I have said from the beginning when Ocasio-Cortez ( the bartender) describes herself as a Democratic Socialist - "I'm not a real Socialist, I am a DEMOCRATIC Socialist - putting the word "Democratic before something bad doesn't make something bad into something good.  If you read this proposal, it is pure, unadulterated Socialism. It is about the government taking over the means of production.  The bartender actually believes that  the government, by micromanaging the economy, it will succeed in creating prosperity.  This is what every Socialist who has risen to power, rather by force or by vote, has promised the public. They always promise pie-in-the sky prosperity, all these great things that the government is going to provide. In order to get people to buy into this, they have to create a false threat of global warming.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

See Peter in person at the Orlando Money Show https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-orlando/ Celebrate Peter's birthday with him on the 2019 Investor Summit at Sea! Visit schiffbirthday.com State of the Union Not Addressed Last night President Trump delivered what purported to be a State of the Union address but really, Donald Trump talked about a lot of things, but he didn't really speak at all about the State of the Union. Bernie Sanders recorded his own response. He didn't do the official Democratic response; that was done by Stacey Abrams, the woman who ran for and lost the Governorship of Georgia in 2018. She was a Democratic candidate.  I think the Democrats are grooming her probably to run for Senate in 2020 so they wanted to put her up on that stage and shine the spotlight on her. Bernie Did a Better Job of Laying out Economic Problems But Bernie Sanders delivered his own response on YouTube, and Bernie Sanders did a much better job of describing the problems in the U.S. economy, that Donald Trump ignored in his State of the Union address.  He spoke a little bit about the economy; he said we're having an "economic miracle" here in the Unites States, that we were the envy of the world, the hottest economy in the world.  Everything is great, and theoretically the only thing that could screw it up is if the Democrats keep going after him with this ridiculous investigation, but everything is doing great, which, of course is a bunch of nonsense. Socialism, However, Won't Work Bernie Sanders did a much better job of presenting the facts. He pointed out that maybe, if Donald Trump is talking about his rich friends at Mar-a-Lago Country Club - for those guys, the economy is great. But for average Americans, the economy is lousy and Sanders describes some of the problems that Donald Trump overlooked or ignored when he gave his address.  This is going to be the problem for the Republicans in 2020 when they run for re-election, talking about how great the economy is, they don't have a chance.  It's the Democrats who will be feeling the pain of the voters and coming up with their own solution.  The problem is, the solutions that Bernie Sanders is putting forth, Socialism, aren't going to work.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

See Peter in person at The MoneyShow Orlando https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-orlando/ Stronger than Expected Jobs Number We actually got a bunch of economic data released today; apparently the shutdown no longer is affecting some of these newer releases, although we still have a bunch of old data that has yet to be released. I have a feeling that there is a lot of weak economic data that has yet to come out. Today we got some stronger than expected data including the January jobs number. They were looking for 158,000 jobs to be created, which would follow the 312,000 number that we got for December, which was a surprisingly strong number.  So the consensus was that we would have a weaker number in January; but we ended up with 304,000 jobs allegedly being created in January. December Jobs Number Revised Down 90,000 Jobs But they now tell us that we didn't create 312,000 jobs in December - we only created 222,000 jobs, which is still a pretty big number, but it's 90,000 less.  That's a huge revision, to think that they were off by 90,000 jobs.  Maybe they're off by 90,000 jobs in January. I guess we'll have to wait another month to find out.  But that number was much bigger than what was expected; and of course, even if you take into consideration the revisions, it was still a better net number than what the markets were looking for. U6 Went from 7.6% to 8.1% The official unemployment rate rose to 4%.  Part of that was because the Labor Force Participation Rate continued to notch up. It went from 63.1 to 63.2, and since more people are now looking for work, those people are now officially unemployed. But a bigger story than the official rate is the U6 rate, which is far more accurate if you want to get a real look at the U.S. labor market.  Of course, it's not 100% accurate because it only includes discouraged workers who have discouraged for under a year.  So it doesn't capture any of the long-term unemployed, which are a big part of the American labor market. But the U6 rate includes the short-term discouraged workers, but also the people who are working part time, but who really want to work full time. We had a surge, like half a million part-time jobs were added according to household survey during the month, so a lot of people working part time - they probably want to work full time, but they are settling for part time work.  That meant that the U6 number went from 7.6 to 8.1.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

See Peter in person at the The MoneyShow Orlando https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-orlando/ Monetary Drug Pushers Earlier today, the monetary drug pushers at the Federal Reserve gave the addicts on Wall Street exactly the fix that they have been craving. In fact, not only did Powell deliver exactly what the doctor ordered with respect to interest rates, saying the Fed was going to remain "patient", probably indefinitely, with respect to another rate hike, but Powell also made it clear that the balance sheet wind-down, otherwise known as quantitative tightening, was off of auto-pilot.  In fact, based on what Powell said, I would be surprised to see any significant reductions in the Fed's balance sheet from here.  Not surprising, the market rallied as a result of getting what they wanted out of the Fed.  At one point, I think, the Dow was up better than 500 points, but it did close up 434 points - back above 25,000 - 25,014.86, to be precise. Quantitative Easing and a Return to Zero But, you know, just like any addict, they can never get enough. I think that soon the markets are going to be demanding a lot more from the Fed than just a cessation of rate hikes and a commitment not to shrink the balance sheet.  I think what the addicts are going to require is going to be more quantitative easing and a return to zero, and that is exactly what the Federal Reserve is going to provide, once it realizes that that's what's necessary. Of course, I don't think that is going to work; I think that is going to deliver the overdose that I have been warning about since the Fed first went down this mistaken policy road. I knew that we would ultimately end up exactly where we're headed.  It's just that the markets still haven't figured this out. Markets Need to Focus on the Why The markets really need to be focusing on the Why. Not just looking at what the Fed is doing, but why the Fed is doing it, and what it actually means about the underlying health of the U.S economy or the efficacy of prior Fed policy. Now if you listened to the press conference, or even just read the prepared remarks, the Federal Reserve wants to pretend that everything is still great - that the U.S. economy is still in great shape.  In fact, the Fed wants to pretend the U.S. economy is just a good as it was when it hiked rates during the September meeting, let alone the December meeting. Continued Rate Hikes and Auto Pilot QT Going back to September, when the Fed was saying that they were going to do maybe 3 or 4 rate hikes in 2019, and that the balance sheet unwind was on auto-pilot, that the Fed was going to set that aside and sell off about $50 billion worth of treasuries and mortgages every month, just forget about it, not even worry about it and that the Fed was going to simply focus on interest rates.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Downwardly Moving Expectations The record-breaking partial U.S. government shutdown looks like it has now come to an end. Donald Trump today announcing that he is going to be re-opening the government for three weeks, and during that time we will have negotiations regarding funding for the border wall, the barrier, the smart wall - whatever it is being called now.  Donald Trump seems to be downwardly moving his expectations of what that wall would constitute, how much terrain it would cover, but at the end of the day, I don't believe that whatever compromise we get 3 weeks from now is going to include any type of funding for the wall. Democrats Trying to Teach Trump a Lesson And I think that the President talking about potentially shutting the government down again in 3 weeks if the wall money is not there, I think that's an empty threat; I think that is a bluff that would be easily called by the Democrats.  If you look at the Democratic press conference that followed the Trump announcement, Chuck Schumer basically said,"I hope the President learned his lesson." I'm surprised he even said that because it is admission that the Democrats were trying to teach Trump a lesson. That is, in fact, probably what they did.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Broader Averages Up The Dow Jones rose 171 points today recovering a little better than half of yesterday's 300 point decline, helped by some better than expected earnings in both IBM and Proctor and Gamble. The broader averages is also up, but not nearly as much, because of the impact from those stocks; obviously not as strong. In fact, the NASDAQ, and even the S&P 500 all took out yesterday's lows intra-day, but still managed to eke out small gains - actually the Russell 2000 was down slightly on the day. Dow Transports Down All Day But the Dow Transports were down all day. They didn't even recover; they closed off the lows, adding about 48 points to yesterday's decline.  But everybody in the financial media, in fact everybody at Davos (I'm going to talk about that in a minute) but everybody seems to be completely forgetting the bear market.  Ignoring the fact that we went into a bear market and pretending that either we're back in a correction of the bull market or we've actually left correction territory, as if the bull market is still intact, and that bear market that we had never even really took place. I Wouldn't Bet on the Fact That the Bear Market Is Over Now, it is possible that the bear market is over.  I am not saying it's impossible.  It seems to me again that it is extremely unlikely that the longest bull market in history is going to be followed by the shortest bear market in history. I guess it could happen but I wouldn't want to bet on it. A lot of people seem to be betting on it. To me, again, the rally that we had made a lot of sense. After all, the Fed came in and did exactly what I have been saying it is going to do since before they raised rates for the first time.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ High School Students Smeared by Mainstream Media I am still out in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Resource Conference.  I will be back in Puerto Rico on Wednesday. But I wanted to take a little time out to record this podcast here in my hotel room to address just one topic. And that has to do with this viral video that was making the rounds early yesterday that purported to show a group of high school students taunting an elderly Native American.  As soon as this thing went out, spreading throughout the internet, the conduct of the high school students was condemned by everybody. Fanning the Flames All the celebrities and the media, everybody on the left we out there condemning the actions of these kids. In fact even the school - they were from an all-boys Catholic high school.  Of course, there is nothing racist about the fact that the high school was all boys; there are all-girl Catholic high schools. The idea being that maybe you can educate kids better if they are concentrating on their studies, rather than members of the opposite sex. But even the school administrators or the principal came out and said they condemn the conduct of their students and they're going to look into this and that this does not reflect their values. Of course they're very tolerant, they're not racist, they don't discriminate. Maybe they will even expel these boys. Of course, that comment actually helped fuel the fire. This Whole Thing is Made Up I really wish that people would not be so quick to throw people under the bus when confronted by this feigned outrage from the left. This whole thing is just made up. If the government had been skewing this with would be called propaganda. But it is not the government; it is the media elites, it is the left that has concocted a fake story. They have altered the facts to conform to their agenda.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ It Is Not a New Bull Market The U.S. stock market averages continued the bear market correction - the correction actually extended for another week.  We capped a strong week with a strong gain today across the board.  But this is a correction. It is not a new bull market. But of course, if you watch stations like CNBC you wouldn't know that. All day today all they kept talking about on CNBC was that the market is now out of correction territory, meaning that it is no longer down 10% from the highs, and so we're no longer in a correction. We Entered a Bear Market First of all, we didn't enter a correction - we entered a bear market. Now, bear markets have corrections, too. They're called rallies, except people at CNBC don't get that. They think the only correction is a move down in a bull market. Now this bull market went on for 10 years, so a lot of these guys don't remember the last bear market, and it wasn't even that long.  A lot of these bear markets have been very short. They decline 40-50% and then the Fed was able to come in and save the day.  But people don't get that we are in a bear market now.  We haven't made new highs, so any rally is a correction.  Certainly a rally of more than 10%  - that's the same definition for the downward correction in a bull market.  So if you want to apply that definition to an upward correction in a bear market - we are in a correction. This is a pretty big correction, helping the bear market fall a slope of hope. Russell 2000 Had  Best Annual Start Since 1987 The Dow was up around 330 points today, back up to 24,706.35.  In fact, if you look at the Dow Jones year to date, we're up almost 6% so far this year. Strong move.  We're not even finished with the month of January.  Of course we have a holiday weekend,  s the markets will not be open on Monday celebrating Martin Luther King Day. But there are still quite a few days left in January.  The NASDAQ composite is actually outdoing the Dow, it is now up almost 8% on the year and the biggest gainer is the Russell 2000.  It's up almost 10%.  In fact the Russell 2000 is having its best annual start since 1987.  Now, of course, 1987 didn't end well for the Russell 2000 or any of the stock markets. That was the year of the stock market crash in October.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ The Eye of the Financial Hurricane U.S. stock markets continue to bask in the eye of this financial hurricane.  Remember, we ended the hurricane following the September rate hike, and if you recall I titled my podcast, "The Hike that Broke the Camel's Back", and that's what really began the sell-off in the market. We had this horrific fourth quarter, the worst December since 1931.  It may have ended up being the worst December ever had it not been saved by that last-minute Santa Claus rally - the biggest Boxing Day (Day after Christmas) rally ever, which followed the worst Christmas Eve in stock market history. The Fed's New Dovish Outlook But we entered the eye when the Federal Reserve came out and rescued the markets by backtracking on their previously indicated path of continued rate hikes and quantitative tightening.  In fact, we had a lot of people come out this week from the Federal Reserve today, again, reiterating their new dovish outlook. Everybody is a dove. There are no more stock market hawks.  Like there are no atheists in a foxhole - in a bear market there are not hawks, there are only doves.  That included people who are no longer on the Federal Reserve. Fmr. Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen came out yesterday, and she said that she thinks it is very possible that the December rate hike is the last rate hike in the cycle. She's right about that.  It's not just very possible, it's probable. Yesterday we had Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said that the Fed is going to raise rates fewer times than they had indicated in their most recent press conference.  Of course, by then, they had indicated two rate hikes. Now he is saying they are going to raise rates fewer than two, which could be one, but it could also be zero. Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Everything up on the Week Except Treasury Bonds and the Dollar The stock market ended a positive week on a little bit of a down note; all of the major averages had small losses today - well off the lows of the day.  The market tried a couple of times to sell off but the dips were bought on each occasion and we ended up closing near the highs of the day, even though we were down on the day. Pretty much everything was up on the week except treasury bonds and the dollar. The dollar fell, long-term interest rates rose.  Gold was up.  Oil was the big winner, even though it was down close to a dollar a barrel today, we closed right around $52; up better than 8% on the week. All Fed - No Change in Fundamentals But what has been driving the rally has all been the Fed. There's nothing fundamental that has changed about the U.S. economy or about the U.S. stock market other than the "Powell Put" is now back in play.  In fact, it's not just Powell putting that out there, he has been joined by a chorus of central bankers who came out today, yesterday, all throughout the week - they're all now reading from the same dovish playbook.  They've got their marching orders and they are talking up the market.  Now talking how the Fed has to listen to the market, be careful and take its cues from the market. It used to be that the market didn't matter.  The Fed was going to do its thing and the markets are going to do what they are going to do. And it didn't take long for that to change. The Fed Can Not Allow the House of Cards to Fall Of course, I've been saying that all along; that the Fed was not going to allow this house of cards that they deliberately inflated to just fall apart. Now they had to pretend that they didn't care about the markets but, of course the whole time, they were hoping the markets actually didn't go down because they didn't want to have to reverse policy.  They wanted to talk tough even though they didn't have a stick.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Peter Schiff Show Podcast - Episode 433 RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. A Bear Market Correction U.S. stocks continue their correction by moving higher yet again today. Remember, when you have a bull market, the corrections are down, because you're correcting the upward trend by moving backward.  In a bear market, it's the opposite. You correct a downward trend by retracing upwards.  That's what we're doing now. I think this is the first rally in this bear market, so this rally is, in fact, a correction. Powell is now "Super Dove" I think the U.S. stock market is off to its best annual start in about a decade; certainly the NASDAQ is up I think not quite 5% - 4.7% on the year.  Of course, what got the correction going was the complete 180 by Powell in that round table discussion, where he basically reversed everything he was saying and became the "Super Dove" when it comes to rate hikes. So the market is now pricing out many rate hikes it had probably priced in and that was the catalyst to really get the market going. Markets Have Not Priced in End of Quantitative Tightening Of course, what hasn't been priced in yet are the rate cuts or the end of the quantitative tightening program and the re-launching of quantitative easing.  All that is coming. The markets just aren't there yet. They just can't see beyond where we are now. They're looking at this mountain and they don't see the valley on the other side. Interest Rates High Relative to Mountain of Debt Again, it's not the rate hikes in the future that were going to cause the recession, the rate hikes from the past have already guaranteed a recession, even though interest rates in absolute terms and relative to where they've been historically are still very low, they are not very low considering the enormity of the debt that we now have; that we didn't have historically. So when you have this mountain of debt, a historically large amount of debt, you need a historically low rate. Even though the rates we have now are still low, they're not as low as they used to be and they're not as low as they need to be.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Big Move Up Today Another big move today in the U.S. stock market except this time the big move was to the upside, more than eradicating yesterday's big decline.  In fact, looking back historically, yesterday's drop was the second biggest drop in history for the second day of the New Year. The biggest drop on the second day of a new year was in the year 2000. That was the year when the NASDAQ bubble originally popped. That big drop happened at a time where the market was peaking and we were just beginning a bear market where the U.S. stock market went down by about half and the NASDAQ went down by abut 80%.  So not a good comparison. NASDAQ Biggest Mover Up 4.25% On the other hand, today's rise was the second biggest rise for the S&P on the third day of a new year in U.S. stock market history. The biggest rise happened in 1932, and that was during the great depression.  Clearly not a good period for the U.S. stock market or the U.S. economy to have to go back to 1932 to see a third trading day in January where you have this big a gain.  In fact, the Dow was up 3.3% on the day but the S&P up 3.4%.  The biggest mover was the NASDAQ, which was up 4.25%. So much bigger than the drop that we had yesterday.  The Russell 2000 was up 3.75%. What was the Catalyst? So what was the catalyst?  Why did the U.S. stock market go up so much today after being down so much yesterday? First of all, the market started off on a positive note.  I'm pretty sure we were up 2-300 points right out of the gate in the futures, even before we got the Nonfarm Payroll number that came out at 8:30 a.m.  Futures were already trading, and there was already a big gain before that number was released. So it wasn't the jobs report that actually was responsible for today's move. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's Dovish Statements It had much more to do with the comments made by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.  Those comments were made maybe an hour or so after the stock market opened.  But let's start off early this morning.  What was propping up the market in the morning, or overnight, was more optimism that a trade deal between the U.S. and China is imminent. Now, of course, whatever trade deal is negotiated is going to do nothing.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Big Moves in the Market Today For those of you who have been waiting all year for the first Peter Schiff Show Podcast of the new year, 2019, here it is.  We finally got a day with enough worthwhile news that it made sense for me to do a podcast.  I'll probably end up doing another one tomorrow, when we get the Nonfarm payroll numbers - the jobs numbers.  We'll see if that's a big market mover.  But we had a lot of movement in the markets today; all sorts of news came out as well, weighing on the markets. Apple Closed Down 9.7% The Dow was down 660 points today - pretty much about the same drop that we had on Christmas Eve.  Now I doubt that today will be followed by a repeat of Boxing Day, where we get a 1,000 - point rally, but we'll see. The excuse of the day was probably Apple.  You can say that Apple took a bite out of the stock market today.  Apple announced yesterday just after the close that its sales would be disappointing, and Apple stock was down just under 10%.  It closed down 9.7%, pretty close to the lows of the day - not the exact lows, but it has got to be one of the biggest losses in history for Apple. Everybody Got a Rotten Apple Today Apple is very widely owned; the Swiss Central Bank is a big holder of Apple stock.  A lot of hedge funds own Apple, Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet) has a big position in Apple - pretty much in everybody's portfolio. So everybody got a rotten Apple today. In fact, Apple is now down almost 40% - 39% from its peak price.  Remember, when it was at peak, it was over a trillion dollars in market cap. It was Apple and Amazon that were trillion dollar companies.  Well, no more.  Apple, again, has dropped not quite $400 billion in market cap from its peak.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Published on: Dec 28, 2018  Or Did It? It looks like the Grinch may not have been able to stop Christmas from coming to Wall Street.  It looks like the Santa Claus Rally came just the same. - or did it? The worst Christmas Eve in the history of the stock market was followed by the biggest Boxing Day rally in the history of the stock market. We don't celebrate Boxing Day here in the United States; all the other English-speaking nations celebrate that holiday, but maybe we'll celebrate it in the future, given the fact that the Dow Jones rallied over 1,000 points this Boxing Day.  So that more than eradicated the 650 point drop which was the biggest Christmas Eve drop in history. A Bounce Could Come at any Time If you recall, on my last podcast, I mentioned that following Christmas Eve's drop, this December was the worst December in stock market history. We has finally beaten out the 1931 December.  But I also mentioned that given the extreme oversold condition that existed in the market, it was possible that a bounce could come any minute or any day, and I was not sure whether or not we would finish as the worst December in the history of the stock market because we still had several trading days left for the market to bounce, and that is exactly what happened. The Grinch May Have a Change of Heart In fact, we managed to close positive on the week. I think the Dow finished up about 617 points.  Now, of course, we still have one more day for the Grinch to have another change of heart. If on Monday, the Dow is down more than 617 points which is easy to do given the volatility that we're seeing, especially we're no longer oversold to the extent that we were on Tuesday - then the Grinch may have ended up stealing the Santa Claus Rally anyway.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Worst Christmas Eve Day in Stock Market History As I thought would be the case, it looks like the Grinch Stole the Santa Claus Rally.  Normally, the U.S. stock market rallies during the final five trading days of the year between Christmas and New Year's Day. But today was not only the worst Christmas Eve day in stock market history, it blew apart the old record.  In fact, there has never been a Christmas Eve day where the S&P or the Dow fell by as much as 1%. Today, the Dow Jones dropped better than 650 points - 2.9% on the day. Officially Not a Correction Although the Dow now is the only major index not officially in a bear market (now down 19.15% from its peak), but the S&P 500, which dropped 2.7% today is now down just over 20%.  So it's now official, Wall Street can stop pretending that it's a correction, they have to admit that it's a bear market. Now, if they want to hang their had on the Dow, O.K. well they can hang it there maybe for one more trading day, because it's not going to take much for the Dow to join the party.  Of course, other indexes are extending moves into bear market territory. The Dow Transports are down 25.7%; the NASDAQ just under 24% to the downside. The Russell 2000 Losing Gains Rapidly The Russell 2000 is down 27.3%.  This index is down better than 5-1/2% since Donald Trump was inaugurated.  This was the index that was supposed to benefit the most from Trump's economic policies.  It's still up about 6% since he was elected President. So all that hype is still in there. But at the rate the index is falling, this index is going to lose those gains pretty rapidly. Then, of course, Trump is not going to be able to talk about all the wealth that has been created in the stock market since he's been elected, because all that paper wealth will have been destroyed.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ NASDAQ Now in Bear Territory It was a big down day, in fact there was even more carnage in the NASDAQ.  Today is the day that NASDAQ finally slipped into bear market territory. So, Wall Street's been calling this a correction the whole way, well now the NASDAQ is down 22%, joining the Russell 2000, down 26% and the Transports down 24%.  Those 3 indexes are now officially in bear markets. It's All a Matter of Time But what does that mean? That means when the NASDAQ was only down 5%, it was in a bear market. That's exactly what I was saying. They don't acknowledge the bear market until it's down 20%, but that doesn't mean it's not in a bear market. It just means nobody wants to admit that it's a bear market.   Now we still have 2 indexes that are not in bear markets, the S&P 500 is now down almost 18% and the Dow Jones is down just under 17%.  So Wall Street maybe can cling to the notion that these indexes are not in bear markets because they're not down 20%.  Look, it's all a matter of time.  As I said on the last podcast, I thought that the NASDAQ would be in a bear market by the end of the week and that's exactly what happened, and I'm pretty sure that the S&P 500 and the Dow are going to join this party before the end of the year. Huge Bear Market in FAANG Stocks Today's decline started off as a rally.  The Dow was up about 400 points this morning, before it collapsed.  So we basically reversed yesterday's decline and then we got clobbered and took out new lows. The NASDAQ was down 3%.  That was the weakest index, and it was led down by the FAANG stocks, which are now down collectively, on average, 35%. This is just generally in the last few months. So this is a huge bear market in the FAANG stocks. The worst of the FAANG's is Facebook, which was down big again today, like 5 of 6%.  Facebook is now down 43%.  Second place, is Netflix, down 42%, then Amazon down 33%, and lastly, Google, which is down only 23%. Google just finally went into a bear market this week. If you look at the charts, there is nothing but air - there is a long way down between where we are now and where any kind of trend lines or support lines could be drawn.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Seventh Rate Hike since Trump's Election As expected, earlier today, the Federal Reserve nudged up the Fed Funds rate by another quarter point.  The Fed is now targeting their rate at 2.25 - 2.5%.  So the range is somewhere in the middle, there. This marks the sixth time the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates since Donald Trump has been President, and the seventh time that the Fed has hiked rates since Trump was elected. Remember, during the entirety of Obama's 8-year Presidency, the Fed raised interest rates only once. A 900-point Selloff What the markets did not expect was the dovish hike to be so hawkish. In fact, the minute I heard the language, I was surprised that the Dow didn't immediately sell off, more than it did. It had a bit of a bounce before it sold off, the Dow Jones ended up down just over 350 points.  The selloff from the high to the low was just under 900 points. Earlier in the day the Dow had rallied up about 300 points because there was a lot of anticipation that even though the Fed was going to hike rates today, that it would indicate it would pause.  That was on neutral - that it wasn't really planning any more rate hikes for 2019, and would just play it by ear. It was going to be data dependent. Dow's Worst December since 1932 But what the Federal Reserve said in their official statement that accompanied the news was that they had reduced their expectation for rate hikes for next year from 3 to just 2 anticipated rate hikes.  Now, that may be considered dovish, but it did not nearly meet the expectations of the market.  It was expecting something much more than that. When I heard that, I thought, "The market's going to get killed." And it did go down but I think a lot more of the carnage is going to happen probably later in the week and next week.  In fact, the market is now down so much that the Dow is having its worst December since 1932.  Of course, that was the beginning of the Great Depression.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Two Podcasts in One Day! For those of you who were worried that I wasn't going to be able to do a podcast today to talk about the stock market or the economy because I already did a podcast earlier this morning, well, you're wrong! Here I am, doing my second podcast of the day.  This may be an unprecedented event. I don't know if I've ever recorded 2 podcasts in the same day. Don't Miss This Morning's Podcast on the Unconstitutionality of Obamacare The reason I did the earlier podcast was because I wanted to address the topic of the Federal court in Texas striking down the ACA individual mandate and rendering the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. I would encourage you to listen to that podcast if you are interested in this topic or the Constitution to listen to it in its entirety. Not a Crash, but Regular Volatility But let's talk about another big down Monday.  As I suggested when I did my podcast on Friday, I'm still thinking that there is a possibility of a Black Monday type event this year.  I said we were running out of Mondays because we only had 3 left, and now one down.  This, again was not a crash, but the Dow did close down better than 500 points.  At one point, we were down over 600.  You know, these big drops are not becoming a recurring event - they add up, right? Worst December Start Since 1980 If you look at the charts, we look extremely vulnerable to a big drop. I read that already, we're off to the worse start for a December since 1980. That was really the end of the last bear market. We had a bear market that went from 1966 to 1982, so the last time we had a December this week was at the tail end of that long-term secular bear market.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Decision May Well Stand up under Appeal A Federal Judge in the state of Texas, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, has ruled that the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional, and therefore the law would be null and void, that it would be struck down.  Of course this will be the subject of appeal, so whether or not this decision is going to hold is still an open question. But if you listen to the way it is being reported in the media, the reaction from a lot of the people, particularly the Democrats, is that they are accusing this judge of being partisan, being a judicial activist, that this is a ridiculous crazy decision and that it will clearly be overturned.  All this is a bunch of nonsense. The judge in this case is completely correct. Obamacare was unconstitutional before this decision. The Rationale Behind Judge's Ruling This particular judge focused on one aspect of the law, but there are so many reasons this law is unconstitutional. But for the purpose of this podcast is to focus on the rationale behind the judge's ruling and why I believe the decision is valid and may, in fact stand up under appeal.   Under the new makeup of the Supreme Court, some of the new justices could easily side with the original dissent to form a new majority now that the law itself has been changed based on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is the basis of this particular decision. Read Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution I did an earlier podcast on whether or not the U.S. government could require American citizens to purchase health insurance. Now the theory was that they had the right to do this under what is now known as the Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution), one of the single most understood Constitutional clauses which has enabled the government to get away with all sorts of things that the Constitution does not authorize. This is where all the powers to the Federal government are delegated. One of the powers is to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes. That's it. Constitution Allows Federal Government to Regulate Commerce, not Companies Now based on that clause, you have had Supreme Courts validate government regulation of companies because the government claims that since those companies engage in interstate commerce, that it falls within that power, that Congress can regulate these companies because the company is engaged in commerce. Of course, that's not what it says.  The Constitution doesn't say the Federal government has the right to regulate companies that engage in interstate commerce, it just says it can regulate the commerce, itself. The commerce has to do with the flow of goods and services over state borders. So this is an unconstitutional expansion of Federal power. The Federal government does not have the constitutional authority to regulate businesses simply because these businesses happen to engage in interstate commerce. Federal Regulation of Business Outside of Constitutional Authority But that was even the camel's nose under the tent, because then it got worse.  Then what happened is companies that were regulated that did no interstate commerce were saying, "this law does not apply to me because I don't engage in interstate commerce." But the Supreme Court said that the Federal government under the Commerce Clause can regulate companies that do not even engage in interstate commerce if they can show that those companies somehow effect interstate commerce, even though they themselves do not participate in it. So now,Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Technicals Portend Bear Market in Small Caps and Transports The Dow managed to finish off this Friday with a loss of less than 500 points.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down just 496.87 points. So I guess the headline can be: "We Avoided a 500 Point Decline!".  At one point, the Dow was better than 550 points in the red.  But, when you close that close to your low of the day, within 10 percentage points of the low, that is a very weak close. The Dow finished the day weak, the week weak, and it is a very weak month.  In fact, the weakest indexes continue to be the Russell 2000 - I've been talking about the weakness in the small caps.  That index is now down better than 19% from its peak just about 4 months ago. So we're almost officially in bear market territory.  We'll probably be there by Monday, judging by the technicals. Possible Black Monday? The other index that is leading the way down is the Dow Jones Transports. This index is now down better than 18% from its peak.  Both the Transports and the Russell 2000 are at the lowest levels of the year. They took out the lows from the earlier decline that happened at the beginning of the year, so the Dow and the NASDAQ have yet to take out those lows set earlier in the year, but I believe they will.  In fact, they may even take them out before the end of the year. Monday, again, is looking extremely weak. I've been talking about this all quarter, where I think there is a potential for a Black Monday type of event. Obviously, we're running out of Mondays this year.  Both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fall on a Monday and there will probably be very light trading going on, so potentially the markets could see a lot of selling if there are not enough people there to buy. Appearance on Countdown to the Closing Bell this Monday I will be on Fox Business News, The Countdown to the Closing Bell this Monday, with Liz Claman.  Maybe if I get lucky we'll have a Black Monday on a day that I happen to be on television.  I will be there for the final hour of the day and often times, the biggest part of the sell-off on big down days happens at the very last hour, so I'll be live on Fox Business for that potential big drop. Make sure to tune in live.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Mainstream Forecasts Incorporating Recession We are in the early stages of this bubble popping.  That's why, if you look now at a lot of the mainstream forecasts, all of a sudden, they're all incorporating recession. The probability of recession is now very high over the next couple of years.  I read J.P. Morgan now is saying that there is a 70% probability that the U.S. is in recession by the end of 2020. In fact, most of the forecasts I'm looking at now predict that the U.S. will either enter recession next year or in the following year. This is a huge change from where people were just a few months ago, where there were no recessions as far as the eye can see. Now we're staring them in the face. Third Consecutive Drop in Small Business Confidence One thing that really hasn't changed so much is that you have all this optimism that still abounds. It doesn't make sense to me that people could be so optimistic about an economy that they concede is so close to recession. Now, I think on Tuesday we did get a drop in small business confidence, it's the third consecutive monthly drop, and three months ago, small business confidence hit an all-time record high. But if you have more of these small business owners thinking that we are a year away from recession, in fact less than a year if you think recession is going to start in 2019 - we're going to be in 2019 in a few weeks. So, if you think recession is so close, how much longer can you remain so confident? The Fed Doesn't Have Recession in its Forecast Now, of course, the Fed doesn't have recession in its forecast; not even close.  The National debt is careening toward $22 trillion and these guys are putting out their rosy estimates for economic growth.  They're not starting to factor in these recession forecasts that are becoming more and more mainstream. Fed Funds Rate in Negative Territory in Real Terms The problem for the Federal Reserve is that they are trying to keep this bubble from imploding, but the task is impossible because enough air has already come out of it. Interest rates have already risen to the point where the camel's back has been broken. The Fed has now backtracked into admitting that we're just slightly below "neutral". We're one more rate hike away from "neutral" even though one more rate hike will still leave the Fed Funds Rate in negative territory in real terms, not in nominal terms. If you accept the government's inflation numbers and we got CPI and PPI numbers that came out yesterday and today - if you look at the core, we've got the hottest core in 7 years.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Pearl Harbor Day 2018: A Very Interesting Technical Day Today is December 7th, a day that will live in infamy.  Unless you are a Millennial who was educated in the U.S. public school system.  In which case you have absolutely no idea what happened on December 7th 1941. You've probably never heard of Pearl Harbor, you certainly don't know where Pearl Harbor is located.  Maybe you've heard of World War II, but a lot of them haven't.  Even those who have heard of World War II probably have no idea who fought, or even who won. As Goes the NASDAQ, so Goes  the Rest of the Market Today, December 7th maybe won't live in infamy, but it seems to me it was a very interesting technical day in the U.S. stock market, which should give the bulls on the stock market something to think about. I think the action today, particularly in the NASDAQ, (I think as goes the NASDAQ, so goes  the rest of the market) but that action was particularly significant. An "Outside Day" One of the more reliable technical patterns is an "Outside Day". An outside day is when you trade above and below the highs and lows of the previous day, and then close above or below one of those lows. It's an outside day even if you close somewhere in the middle. An "Inside Day" is when you trade within the range of the previous day; you don't take out the high or the low. But the most significant type of an outside day is an outside day where you close above or below the previous day's high or low. That would be called an "Outside Reversal Day".  It' s a positive if you could take out the previous day's low, but then rally and then close above the previous day's high. The Russell 2000 and the NASDAQ Took out Yesterday's Lows What the NASDAQ did today was the opposite of that.  The NASDAQ rallied this morning on, I guess the weaker than expected jobs numbers and took out the highs from yesterday.  In fact, all of the major markets - the Dow, the NASDAQ, the Russell 2000 - they all took out yesterday's highs. But then they came crashing down,  The Dow did not take out yesterday's low - so the Dow did not have an outside day.  But both the Russell 2000 and the NASDAQ took out yesterday's lows.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Dow Volatility Started with Huawei News We had another very volatile day today on Wall Street, and it really got started last night with the news of the arrest in Canada of the CFO of the Chinese company, Huawei. Her father is the founder of the company and a very prominent, powerful and influential man in China and this set the mood.  the Dow futures dropped initially, I think about 500 points as soon as the story broke.  Obviously, anything that may throw a monkey wrench in the supposed deal that was made over dinner, mano a mano, down in South America between Trump and Xi.  So this caused some problems. Dow Down About 780 on the Lows The market clawed its way back; I think we were down maybe 200 and change, but then we started selling off early in the morning and when the Dow Jones opened up, we were down maybe about 400-500 very quickly and we sold off almost down to 800 points. The Dow was down about 780 points on the lows.  This is following yesterday's market holiday honoring the memory of the late President George Herbert Walker Bush. That day of mourning, however did not do anything to stop the carnage on Wall Street. Market Clawed its Way Back on Fed "Wait and See" News What it took was an article that came out later in the day in the Wall Street Journal.  That article basically said that the Fed was considering a new "Wait and See" strategy after the December rate hike. And the odds of a December rate hike, which are coming up, the probability is about 75%, which is lower than it was, so there is still a chance that the Fed does not hike in December. But according to the Wall Street Journal doesn't take place immediately.  This is after the December hike. So for 2019, the article suggests that maybe there'll be even fewer rate hikes than the markets believed. Debt Service Costs Creating a Drag Everything was weak until we got this news from the Fed that turned a lot of the tech stocks around and got the market moving higher. I don't think this does anything, because, it doesn't take the December rate hike off the table, and if the Fed raises rates in December, then all the problems that already exist because of higher rates, will be bigger. This means mortgage rates will be going up. Debt service costs will go up. One of the big drags on the economy now is that debt service costs have gone up. So if the Fed adds to that pain by following through with another rate hike in December, it will be just another weight on the economy's back. The Fed is still talking about raising rates in 2019 - they're saying one more, and we're going to wait and see.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ No Relief As I said on yesterday's podcast, I did not we had a "Wall Street Relief Rally", based on the stand down or truce in the trade war following the backtracking by the Fed on the potential number of rate hikes and the distance we were from neutrality. Interest Rates Anything But Neutral By the way, yesterday I referred to the rate hikes as normal; I should have said neutral - obviously what we have now is not even close to being normal. The Fed is trying to convince us that the new "neutral" rate of interest is now lower than what was considered neutral in the past. Why is that? Because we have such an enormous amount of debt now, the Fed has to keep interest rates much lower in order to achieve neutrality.  But, of course, if the Fed needs to keep interest rates low, it's not neutral. Those low interest rates are actually stimulative. What the Fed is trying to do is use artificially low interest rates to prop up the economy and then claim that those artificially low rates are neutral. They're anything but neutral. They are accommodative.  This is cheap money, this easy money, and ultimately it is going to set off massive inflation. A Terrible Day, Technically Nobody seems to understand that yet, but that's what's coming. People are continuing to be complacent despite today's substantial drop in the value of stocks. Today the Dow was down just shy of 800 points - 799 points.  At the lows, it was down over 800. We didn't close on the exact low; maybe they're going to somehow claim that that was a rally or something - the fact that we closed slightly off the lows.  This was a terrible day, technically, and in fact I mentioned again on yesterday's podcast, the fact that the market made the highs on the open - it did not trade very well, and it looked to me that we would fall down. I did not know that we would drop this much this quickly, but it doesn't surprise me.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Interest Rates and Trade War The two things that everybody seems to agree were weighing down the markets were the Fed's relentless drive to normalize interest rates, and figure out where "normal" was, and, of course, the trade war - the threat of additional tariffs overhanging the markets.  So I think it was pretty clear to President Trump who is hanging his hat on the stock market, has decided that the stock market performance is the best barometer of his Presidency. So the fact that the stock market was falling was really a big problem for the President so he had to do what he could to try to get the stock market to go back up. Fed Restated "Normal" The first part of the two-pronged attack was the interest rates. Whether he was able to convince Powell to change his tune or whether Trump just got lucky and the Fed decided to backtrack, as I mentioned in my last podcast, the Fed has now said, "We are just below normal." Meaning that we only need one more rate hike before we get to normal, whereas in the past the Fed had said that normal was quite a ways away, and that the Fed would have to raise rates many, many more times in order to achieve normal.  And of course, anybody who knows anything about the history of interest rates would have to agree that where we are now, at 2% is historically abnormal. It obviously could not be considered neutral based on any kind of past precedent. So the fact that the market was able to backtrack so quickly really threw a bone that the market and Donald Trump badly needed.. Trade Tensions Weighing Down the Market But the other factor that was weighing down the market was all the trade tensions, and all the talk about the tariffs that were going to be imposed in less than a month. The first of next year we were going to get these 25% across-the-board tariffs.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ The Fed's Game of Chicken The big news was yesterday, when Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, basically flinched. I've been talking about the game of chicken that the Federal Reserve has been playing with the markets. The way the game of chicken goes, is the markets keep moving lower and the Fed keeps talking about how great the economy is and how many rate hikes are coming in the future. Somebody has to flinch - somebody has to blink. It's like you have these two automobiles driving toward each other, and there's going to be a major crash unless somebody turns the wheel.It seems like it was Jerome Powell who turned the wheel first, and, in fact, was chicken. The Fed Is Worried About All Asset Prices, Not Just the Stock Market As much as the Fed wants to pretend they don't care about the stock market - they absolutely care about the stock market. They are tremendously worried about a weakening stock market.  Remember the goal of quantitative easing was to lift the stock market - to create a wealth effect and it was that stock market-created wealth that was going to drive consumption and the economy. And it wasn't just the stock market; it was also the real estate market.  So the Fed is worried about all asset prices, not just the stock market.  Clearly the real estate market is in even more trouble than the stock market, but both of these markets were headed lower, and I think that is what really prompted the Fed to blink - to swerve in this game of chicken. Powell Suddenly Dials Back the Narrative Now, of course you also had President Trump pressuring the Fed, you had Mnuchin putting some pressure on the Fed, which I think should also be a worrying factor.  We don't really know. There was a lot of speculation about what was behind the Fed's change of heart - change in policy.  After all, up until yesterday, even when you had the Vice Chair speak, the tone was very hawkish: "Yep, we've got lots of rate hikes coming." And now all of a sudden, Powell dials it all back.  Basically, what Powell said that convinced people that maybe there will not be as many rate hikes in the future, is, "We're just below neutral. We're almost there, maybe one more rate hike ought to do it." Is 2.25% to 2.5% Neutral? First of all, we're still at 2%, so that would imply neutral is 2.25% or 2.5%. That really shows you how low the neutrality bar has been lowered given the enormity of the debt bubble that have.  Once upon a time, and not too long ago, a 2.5% Fed Funds rate would have been considered highly stimulative.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ 25% Tariffs Will Inflict Rather Substantial Damage to the U.S. Economy The Dow Jones managed to finish the day up just over 100 points - I think that was about the high of the day, and we erased a loss that at one point was better than 200 points.  I think a potential catalyst was a talk given by Larry Kudlow earlier in the day in which Kudlow raised some optimism over the possibility of a deal with China that would, of course avert the 25% across the board tariffs that are going to go into effect at the beginning of the new year. Of course, there is always the possibility of a resolution, and I still thin that there is going to be some type of face-saving resolution on both sides to avert these 25% tariffs.  I do think that they will inflict rather substantial damage to the U.S. economy, which is already rapidly decelerating, despite everybody's refusal to admit that (including the Federal Reserve, and I'll get to some comments later in the podcast). Trump Is Pulling the Strings But I don't think the President can risk the 25% tariffs as much as he wants to posture that the U.S. economy is in great shape, and we are in a better position than China to weather any kind of short-term damage that might be created by the tariffs.  I don't think the President is eager to test that hypothesis.  I think he would rather take credit for averting the crisis, even if the crisis was a matter of his own doing. He throws out the potential for the crisis, but of course, the only reason why the crisis is dangling in front of us is because Trump is pulling the strings. It's Impossible to Consume What Has Not Been Produced To the extent that the Chinese can produce all these products, they don't need America to consume them; they can consume the products themselves. Once the products are produced, consumption is a foregone conclusion. It's easy to consume what's been produced; it's impossible to consume what has not been produced.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Dow Could Not Hold Onto the Gain After yesterday's, I think 550 point drop in the Dow, the market bounced back a bit today.  I think at one point earlier in the day the Dow managed to gain over 200 points, but it could not hold on to that gain.  It closed down just under one point.  Very weak technical action for today's pre-Thanksgiving bounce. Normally, the markets are up on the day before Thanksgiving, and in general, they were.  The other indexes all managed to close in the black, although considerably off their intra-day highs. Decline in Retail Touted as Excuse, But It's Just a Bear Market The XRT, which is an index of retailers (I talked about that on this podcast before) snapped an 8-day losing streak.  More bad news came out from retailers yesterday; that was part of the reason that you saw the big sell-off in the Dow.  That was the excuse; I don't think the market needs a reason to go down. It's a bear market, and that's what bear markets do - they go down. Of course people who don't know that they're in a bear market make excuses to try to rationalize why the market is going down because they don't want to admit that they are, in fact, in a bear market. Dead Cat Bounces All Around Everything bounced today, I guess dead cat bounces all around. Even Bitcoin managed a rally. In fact yesterday, Bitcoin got as low as $4,050.  So it held $4,000.  Of course, you have people saying, "Ah Ha! $4,000 is the bottom!" I doubt it. It makes sense that there'd be some support at a round number. I doubt that this is THE low. It may not last more than a day or two, given the momentum in this decline. Malinvestments are a Classic Part of Every Bubble Remember I have talked about all the malinvestments that are taking place. When a lot of people argued with me about why Bitcoin was going to succeed, they pointed out that all this capital was going into the industry; all this infrastructure was being built up, and so therefore Bitcoin was going to work because it had all this infrastructure behind it. My argument was always that  infrastructure represents malinvestment. That is a classic part of every bubble.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ FAANG's Took a Big Bite Out of the Market Another Monday, another big down day for the U.S. stock market, it is turning out to be one hell of a quarter; not all of the declines happening in October. But as I said earlier, it doesn't have to be in October for the market to crash. Today wasn't a Black Monday; certainly the percentage decline wasn't out of the ordinary.  Although the FAANG stocks, in particular, there was a big bite taken out of those stocks, and it wasn't just the bite that was taken out of the Apple, which was some of the news that precipitated today's decline. A big down day nonetheless. NASDAQ Having one of the Worst Quarters Ever The Dow Jones down just shy of 400 points - 395, or 1.5%. On the lows, we were down better than 500 points.  The Russell 2000 closed down just over 30 points - that's a 2% point drop.  But the big drop was the NASDAQ - down 219 points, just over 3%, pretty close to the lows of the day. The NASDAQ is now down 12.5% so far this quarter - probably one of the worst quarters ever. I think the only thing that may slow down the decline is if the Fed skips the December rate hike. Although, even that may not be enough. If the Fed doesn't hike in December, the markets might get worried that the Fed knows something and that the economy is much weaker and therefore earnings will be much weaker, so, to me, i think if the market's going to get a stay of execution from the Fed, it's actually going to have to be a rate cut. Homebuilder Sentiment Lower Than Expected There are plenty of other data points that are coming out, both corporate news and news about the overall economy,  In particular, today, that I think weighed heavily on the markets. The first one being the Homebuilder Sentiment for November.  That came out at 10am. So the markets were already trading based on another piece of news which I will get to. Last month, Homebuilder Sentiment's number was at 68. Now anything above 50 is supposedly O.K. It still means they're optimistic. And the consensus was for Homebuilder Sentiment to stay at 68. Instead, it plunged all the way down to 60. In fact, the range of forecasts went from a low of 66 to a high of 69. That drop, from what I've read, that is bigger than any drop we've had during any month of the last bust that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis. We've never seen a rate of decline like this. Obviously that scared the market. This is just one of the first sentiment indicators that is giving way. Obviously, home sales are imploding so you might expect builders to be a little bit nervous about this, even though they are still somewhat optimistic. But remember, this whole rally is built on confidence and the confidence is going to start going everywhere, In addition to the Homebuilders, you're going to see business confidence, particularly small business confidence, which was at a record high. Apple Now in a Bear Market But there was some other particularly bad news that came in before the opening bell, and that one was from Apple. They said they will be cutting production because of lower sales. That decision trickles down, effecting a lot of companies who count on those orders from Apple. The price of Apple is down by 4% on the day. But if you now look at the total drop - just over 20% - and that means the way Wall Street scores it, Apple is now in a bear market. Facebook Led the Market Down Of course, not just Apple, the FAANG's in general, the market took a bite out of those guys today. Facebook leading the market down - down another 5.5% on the day. That brings the total decline for this bear market to 40%. In second place is NETFLIX, that was down 5.5%, today so pretty much neck and neck with Facebook. But since its peak, NETFLIX is down 36%.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Optimism Over No Tariffs Fueling Market Move Donald Trump, I think, was the reason the markets ended up finishing in the black today, at least most of the major indexes.  In fact, the only index that was down on the day was the NASDAQ - the NASDAQ was the only major index that was down on the week, thanks to weakness in tech stock, in particular, the FANG stocks.  The comments that Trump made today basically gave hope to some people that potentially 25% across the board tariffs on all Chinese imports may not go into effect at the beginning of next year, which is the threat. If the Chinese ant Trump don't come to an agreement, then those tariffs are going to hit. Tariffs Are the Stick Apparently the tariffs are the stick that is going to be brandished by Trump, and he is going to use it to hit the Chinese over the head. But the threat of this big stick is supposedly going to bring the Chinese to the table, and there will be a deal that is favorable to the United States.  Of course, if these tariffs actually go into effect, the people who are really going to be hit with the stick are going to be Americans.  It's going to be American consumers who have to pay 25% more for everything they buy, and it's going to be American retailers who, of course, are going to sell a lot less stuff, because, if they have to raise prices by 25%, sales are going to collapse. Fed Hinting that "Data Dependent" May Signal Slowdown in Rates We had a couple of Fed guys out today -Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida - was interviewed today on CNBC by Steve Liesman -  I happened to catch that interview, and was listening closely to what Clarida had to say.  To me, he almost admitted that when the Fed pretended to be "data dependent" early on, they really weren't data dependent at all. They were just raising interest rates because they wanted to get them higher. They were afraid of getting caught with rates too close to zero in the beginning of the next recession, so they wanted to re-load that gun, so they wanted to get interest rates higher.  They kept saying they were data dependent, but I never really thought they were. Once they started to raise rates, they were just on auto pilot. But now, Clarida seems to open the door to the possibility that maybe, some of the rate hikes that we think are coming aren't going to come, because he talked about how now, the Fed can be more data dependent than it was in the past. Optimism Among Warning Signals Where in the past, we talked about being data dependent, but we really weren't, but now we actually can be because now we're closer to neutral. And since we're now closer to that number  we can take the data more seriously, meaning that if the data comes out weaker than we expect, well maybe we won't raise rates as much as we think.  and I think Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan was also out today making similar comments that were initially taken as Dovish by the markets, because he was leaving the door open, apparently to the fact that the Fed may not deliver as many rate hikes as the markets believe. Both of these guys are extremely optimistic and upbeat about the U.S. economy. As if none of the bad news  that is happening around them matter. You've got the semi-conductors, you've got the retailers, you've got the autos, you've got the home builders.  All these sectors are blowing up one after another and they guys at the Fed are thinking "No Problem!" Cramer Exceeding Very Low Bar Set By Fed Also today, Jim Kramer, on CNBC, was out there critical of the Fed, basically saying that these guys don't know what they are talking about and that he's smarter than them, and they should pay attention to what he's saying.  Kramer may in fact know more than the Fed,Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Very Negative Technical Action We had another roller coaster ride in the stock market today, with the Dow Jones ending down about 200 points, but that was well off the lows of the day. I think we were down about 350 points, or close to it, at the lows. But, more interesting, we were up over 200 points earlier this morning. So this is very negative technical action, when you have these rallies and then close negative.  In fact, we were down another 100 points yesterday on the Dow, and today, we came to within, I think 10 points of taking out yesterday's high - and then we not only crashed below yesterday's low, but we closed below yesterday's low.  So another very weak day. A Change in Name Only I think one of the catalysts for the late afternoon rally, before the selloff, was all of the headlines coming out of Europe - the UK, regarding a Brexit deal, and I think that caused some people to buy stocks.  The dollar actually sold off.  It was down already; it sold off some more on that news coming out of Europe. But I don't know if this deal is going to fly . we'll see.  I read through some parts of the deal, and to me, it looks like Theresa May is trying to borrow a page from President Donald Trump. Basically, what she is doing, is she is trying to rename the union that the UK has with Europe . If you read what they are going to sign on to, it is going to be some kind of trade pact that really kind of subjects the UK to all the rules and regulations that prompted them to want to get out of the European Union in the first place.  So they're going to Brexit, but they're not actually going anywhere. Kind of like renaming NAFTA the USMCA . Basically, you're re-branding what you had before and claiming a victory. Maybe, politically speaking, May wants to try to honor the will of the voters by saying we accomplished Brexit, but basically not change anything.  It's just a change in name only.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Surrendered Rest of Post-Election Gains in One Day As I thought, it didn't take long for the markets to surrender all of the post-election gains.  The Dow Jones today was down 602 points, so we've already lost it. It took one day.  On my podcast on Friday I said that we would surrender the remainder of the gains this week and we did it in the first day of the week.  The NASDAQ actually had an even bigger decline; down over 200 points - 206.03 to be exact -down 2.78%. The Russell 2000 was also down 1.98% - just over 30 points - just shy of 2%. The S&P 500 was almost down 2% - 1.97% - 54.79 points . NASDAQ: Usual Suspects The usual suspects, of course, having some of the big declines.  Apple computer came out with worse than expected earnings last week- down another 5.45% today - down 194.  It is now below 250 - This is a new low for Apple.  A lot of the other computer stocks got beat up today: NVIDIA down 7.7%, Broadcom down 6.5&, so the entire tech sector really got beaten up. Of course, Swiss National Bank was a big loser; they are one of the largest investors in U.S. Technology stocks.  I did read an article, though, that said that they trimmed their portfolios rather significantly before the October decline, so the Swiss National Bank did not quite take it on the chin as badly as might otherwise have been the case. But, potentially, the news that the Swiss Central Bank was paring back its portfolio could be part of the negative news that is currently weighing down the market. $15 Billion of G.E. Shareholder Wealth up in Smoke Looking at stocks like G.E. - have been talking about G.E. on this podcast for quite some time. It is down again another 7% today, closing below $8 - $7.99 - the low price on the day was $7.72.  This is a perfect example of what happens when the buyback chickens come home to roost.  General Electric was buying back a lot of stock when money was cheap.  The company is loaded up with debt - $45 - 50 billion of debt.  They also have $20 billion + of underfunded pension liabilities which I think are going to be more under funded when the market goes down.  When money was cheap, yes, it was easy to borrow money and buy back stock; the price of the stock was going up. Look at 2016 alone. I think that was the biggest year of buy backs, although they have been buying back every year, but in 2016, G.E. bought back about $20 billion worth of stock, and the stock was around $30. It is now under $8.  The stock is down 75%. That means if they bought $20 billion worth of stock, that stock now has a market value of just $5 billion. $15 billion of shareholder wealth up in smoke!Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Dead Cat Bounce Flattens Out The Dow Jones was down a little over 200 today, closing back below 26,000. NASDAQ composite down 124 - that's a bigger percentage decline, 1.7%, approximately.  The Composite is being led lower by the tech stocks, particularly the FANG stocks once again taking a bite out of the market.  The markets, though, were positive on the week, thanks to that huge relief rally that took place on Wednesday following the results of the midterm elections on Tuesday. But as I said on my Wednesday podcast, I thought that relief rally was  just another dead cat bounce, that the fundamentals and the technicals still looked horrible for the U.S. stock market. I expected that rally to reverse, and of course that process had already begun Thursday and Friday.  I think it will continue next week and I think the rest of those gains will be surrendered. Higher than Expected PPI Sparked Sell-Off The catalyst for today's selloff was a much hotter than expected Producer Price Index number. The PPI was up .6% in 1 month, which is a big gain.  In fact this is the biggest jump in the PPI in 6 years. On a year-over-year basis, producer prices are up 2.8%.  The market was looking for an increase half that size: .3%, Even year-over-year, when you strip out food and energy we were still up 2.6%, which is considerably above the 2% level that the Fed is looking at. Of course, the Fed is looking at consumer prices, not producer prices, but of course, nobody can consume what is not produced.  These are really wholesale prices and of course they are going to get passed on to the consumer, so consumer prices are headed higher. The Markets Don't Get It But, again, the markets don't get it.  Gold dropped the minute this number came out, gold dumped about $10. It was already down on the day, and then it sold off and never recovered. On the other hand, bonds were relatively stable when the number came out. Maybe rates ticked up just a smidgen, but actually bonds rallied on the day.  Now maybe the weak stock market had a little bit to do with it, but the irony of it is that you get these numbers that show much more than expected inflation, and what do investors do?  They sell gold and they buy U.S. treasuries. Now, that is the worse thing to do if there's more inflation. Gold is an inflation hedge. So, if inflation is picking up, you would want to own gold to protect yourself from inflation.  On the other hand, the one asset that suffers the most, where the most value is eroded away because of inflation is a bond. A bond is specifically payments of cash in the future, and the more inflation we have, the less that future cash is worth.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Relief Rally Post-Midterms The elections are over and the Blue Wave was averted and the Dow Jones rose 545 points today to celebrate that fact and the NASDAQ was up 194 points, 2.64%; Russell 2000 up 26 points, about 1.67% .  Now you may be wondering why there was such a big rise in the stock market based on an outcome that was pretty much expected.  The Republicans lost the House of Representatives, and that was something that was widely anticipated by the markets.  But the loss wasn't that big; they lost 26 seats.  I think 23 was the number that the Democrats had to pick up.  But I think there was some concern that the Republicans may have lost the Senate - instead they actually picked up, I think 3 seats as of now, in the Senate - increasing their margin. This is only the third time in 100 years where that's happened, where you've had the incumbent party lose House seats but gain Senate seats. Obama's Midterm House Loss: 63 Seats But it is amazing that the press was trying to hold this out as some kind of repudiation of his policies: "You lost the House of Representatives".  Big deal!  Obama lost the house of Representatives during his first midterms in 2010.  That was one of the biggest disasters for an incumbent since Roosevelt. Obama lost 63 house seats. Not 26 - remember the Tea Party?  That was all 2010.  Trump did so much better than Obama.  In fact, the average loss for a midterm in the House is 37 seats.  Trump's loss of 26 was much better than average, but you wouldn't know that from listening to the Media.  But most impressive was the 3 seats gained in the Senate.  Barack Obama lost 6 seats during his first midterm elections. That's a 9-seat difference between what Trump was able to accomplish and Obama's accomplishment. Economy-Stimulating Tax Cuts Less Likely I think the reason that the dollar was weaker is the narrative is that since the Republicans no longer have control of the House of Representatives that it is less likely that we will get more tax cuts - at least the tax cuts that would be stimulative to the economy.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ An Advanced Auction on the Sale of Stolen Goods Tomorrow is Election Day, or as H.L. Mencken once described the process, "An advanced auction on the sale of stolen goods".  My wife has been bugging me for some time to urge people who listen to my podcast to go out and vote on Election Day. I think she's prepared to blame me if there are any close races, either for the House, Senate or even for Governor that end up going to the Democrats - if I do not urge my listeners to vote against that wave, somehow it will be my fault. So I urge all of the people who listen to my podcasts to actually go out and vote this Tuesday on Election Day. Lesser of Two Evils In most cases, our votes are not even going to matter. In fact in most cases it is a matter of voting between the lesser of two evils. Even though the lesser of two evils is still evil, it is "lesser", and when it comes to evil, I guess lesser is better. In some cases there are actually some good candidates who are running. Sometimes, however, when good candidates actually get elected and get into the cesspool that is Washington, D.C., a lot of the values that led them into politics go out the window if they want to stay there. You  can have good intentions when you get to Washington, you can be principled, and you can say, "I'm going there to make the country a better place" but ultimately once you get there, everything changes. Politics Ahead of Principle In fact, when it comes to elections, and politics, the worst candidate usually wins.  If you are a candidate or an elected official, and you are making decisions that are economically sound, and that are in the best interest of the nation or your constituency, and if your opponent is making decisions based on politics, which are likely to result in a larger number of votes, Which decisions are likely to land me money from special interests?  If you're campaigning on principle, and your opponent is a practical politician, who's going to win? Even if you win a few elections, you're eventually going to lose. And the politicians who are i office the longest, are most successful at putting politics ahead of principle.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes https://www.branddrivendigital.com/how-to-rate-and-review-a-podcast-in-itunes/ Futures Rallied after Drop on Apple News I want to get to the nonfarm payroll number. This is the big number, and, maybe, because the initial number was good, the market rallied. Although, I think the real reason that the market rallied in the morning is because we had a big rally in Asia last night. There were some rumors that there would be some type of trade deal between China and the United States, and when that rumor came out, everybody bid up these Asian stocks.  So the U.S. stock market, U.S. futures got bid up.  So initially U.S. futures were way down on the Apple news, but then, when this rumors came out about a trade deal, then the markets rallied. Hopes for Trade Deal with China Part of the reason that people wanted to believe that there might be a trade deal is because everybody knows the election is coming up on Tuesday, and maybe the President is looking to do something between now and then in order to: a) make the market rally, but b) be able to claim victory.  Like" aha! another deal like the USMCA - I got rid of NAFTA, and we have this new deal which is basically the same deal we had before, just with a different name, but he's able to pretend that he kept some kind of promise and now we've got a great deal,  Whereas the old NAFTA was the worse deal in the history of deals, the one that he's got, which is virtually identical, is the best deal in the history of deals. No Deal I thought maybe he would do something similar to that with China.  Come up with some ridiculous agreement that basically does nothing, then talk about how great it is… but apparently, not. Maybe they can still do that on Monday if they really want to wait to the last minute and come up with some kind of bogus deal… But people believe the rumors, but then this morning Larry Kudlow was on CNBC early in the morning before the open basically shooting that rumor down, saying there was no deal.    Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes https://www.branddrivendigital.com/how-to-rate-and-review-a-podcast-in-itunes/ The Bulls Had No Fear Today may be Halloween, but the Bulls had no fear. The U.S. stock markets closed higher today for the second consecutive day - the first time for the month of October. A lot of traders are probably happy that the month of October is over.  Despite the back to back rally, this is still the biggest decline in a month for NASDAQ since 2008. The Market Gave Back Gains Before Close In fact, the rally off of yesterday's lows, I think was better than 1100 points. We had this huge gain, and even though today, the Dow was up better than 200 points (241 points), it was up about 450 points going into the last hours. So we did give back a couple of hundred points of that gain, which, to me, looked pretty weak. The NASDAQ had a 2% higher close; it was up 144 points.  But you look at the Russell 2000 - much smaller gain there. That index up just a third of 1%. The Dow transports, they were barely positive. Not even 2 tenths of 1 percent - a 15 point rise in the Dow Transports. Bear Market Correction Nonetheless, all the Bulls were out in force on the financial networks claiming that the correction is over.  Everybody was confident that the lows are in; that this big back to back rally is proof that you'd better buy now, otherwise you're going to miss the rally, and this is a typical correction, and now it has run its course. You know what?  If this really was the "end of the correction", most likely, there wouldn't be so many people so confident that it was over.  You'd have a lot more fear, especially on a Halloween.  The fact that there is no fear, to me, shows that it is more likely that this is not the end of the correction but the beginning of the bear market.  And that this rally is the correction. In bull markets, the market going down is a correction, because the trend is still positive. In a bear market, it's the opposite: the rallies are the correction.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes Dow Swings More Than 900 Points Well we didn't have a Black Monday today, but we did have a pretty big selloff, especially if you measure the decline from the early morning pop to the late afternoon drop.  I think it was better than a 900 point selloff.  Earlier this morning the Dow Jones was up about 350 points, and I think halfway through the final hour, we were down as much as 560 points.  Now, we managed to recoup a good chunk of those late day losses in the final half hour, with the Dow down just 245 points. Just over 1%. The NASDAQ trimmed its loss to 116 points - 1.63%.  Of course, all the analysts are focusing on the fact that we didn't close on the lows!  "Hey, it's strong; look, we had a huge rally, impressive rally off the lows!" A Downside Reversal There was nothing impressive about that rally. This actually was a downside reversal. Remember we were all talking last week about the upside reversal that wasn't?  When the market was way down, and then it only closed a little bit down? That's not a reversal. Today was a reversal.  We were way up, and we closed way down. That is a real downside reversal, and that's far more significant than the meaningless, fictitious reversal that we had last week. Warning Signs Ignored Look at some of these individual stocks: Boeing, last week, which was one of the only Dow stocks that actually had a good day - remember it had better than expected earnings, and Boeing went up?  It was down almost over 7% today - Boeing getting killed.  IBM, though, a much bigger deal: down 4%.  A new 52-week low - multi-year low. This should have been a warning sign right out of the gate. It's kind of amazing that people ignored the news that came out over the weekend on IBM and they bought the market anyway. Red Hat Hail Mary IBM announced that it was buying a company called, Red Hat, and it's an all cash deal.  They are way over-paying for this company. Now IBM is the poster child for stock buybacks. And the fact that they are throwing this Hail Mary by over-paying for this company really shows you that time is running out.    Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Look Carefully at the Price Index The GDP number came out yesterday; 3/5% did slightly beat the consensus of 3.3%, but remember, for a while the Atlanta Fed was looking for a print in the 4's.  But the New York Fed was at 2.2%, so the print was much higher than what the  New York Fed was looking for.  But if you look at the internals, the biggest reason that we got 3.5% was because of the price index - the "deflator". Last quarter, when we had 4.2%, the government said that prices rose at an annualized rate of 3%. But in Q3, they said that prices only rose at an annualized rate of 1.7%. Calling B.S. on that Number Now I call B.S. on that number. I don't think we had that significant a slowdown in the annualized rate of inflation between the second quarter of the year and the third quarter of the year. If the 3% inflation rate had held steady, then Q2 GDP would have been just 2.2%. So, obviously not nearly as good a headline as 3.5%.  We'll see if they revise this thing down after the election.  Obviously the Republicans can still campaign on 3.5% even if it turns out that 3.5% was an over-estimate. Largest Trade Deficit in History I think new data is going to come out - particularly on trade.  Donald Trump is out there again bragging about how we're winning the trade war.  I talked about that.  That was the topic of my last podcast because we just printed the worse Merchandise Trade Deficit on a monthly basis in U.S. history. Trade Deficit Amounted to the Largest Subtraction from GDP in 33 Years The trade deficit was so large in the third quarter that it subtracted 1.78 percentage points from the GDP number. That is the largest subtraction from GDP that we have had from trade during a quarter in 33 years.  What happens, when you calculate GDP, you take government spending, you take consumer spending and business spending and then you add in your trade surplus or you subtract out your trade deficit. Now, since we never have a trade surplus, trade is always a net subtraction from the GDP.  Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Merchandise Trade Deficit Largest Trade Deficit on Record Today's rally had to overlook the bad news that came out today. I was watching CNBC this morning just before the news was announced and the anchor said, "We've got a lot of news coming out at 8:30 and I am going to go over the news items in order of importance. The first news item was the Durable Goods numbers (+0.8%), and then they went over the weekly jobless claims (202,000) and wholesale inventories (+1%). That was it. That was all they reported.  They left out the most important number that came out at 8:30, which was the Merchandise Trade Deficit ($26 billion - largest trade deficit on record). But as far as CNBC is concerned, the trade deficit is immaterial. It doesn't even matter what the trade deficit is. In a way, they are right. because the markets couldn't give a damn. People Don't Recognize that the Trade Deficit is a Bad Thing At one point in time, the trade deficit was the most important number that came out every month.  It was more important than the Non-Farm Payroll number. That's when people were smart enough to recognize that a trade deficit is actually a bad thing. But Donald Trump has made the trade deficit a big part of his Presidency. It was a big part of his campaign. You would think that maybe CNBC would consider the trade deficit important enough to even mention. If they were presenting the numbers in order of importance, at least mention it 4th, but they don't even mention it at all.  That's how unimportant the trade deficit is. Durable Goods Up Only Because of Defense Spending But the Durable Goods number that came out (+0.8%) was reported as a good number because it was a beat.  They were looking for -.5%. But the main reason that the headline beat was because of military orders - defense spending: aircraft.  But if you take all that stuff out and you just looked at core capital goods, they were looking at an increase of .5% and we got a decrease of .1%. So the only reason the number went up is because the U.S. government took on more debt to buy more military equipment.    Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy