Make no mistake – the current surge across numerous U.S. asset classes has very little to dow with good old fashioned value generation and is simply a natural response to the systematic destruction of the U.S. Dollar. It’s also part of a narrative that strangely seems to be favored by both sides of the political isle – for different reasons. In other words, rapid loss of confidence in the greenback is pushing asset holders into whatever tangible they can get their hands on.
Have you noticed that Trump hasn’t been bitching about the Dollar even once over the past few months? Which may come as a surprise as it’s remained on a massive tear higher for over two years now. One that has finally propelled it into shouting range of its coveted 100 mark. Maybe the Donald has finally realized that multiple efforts by the Fed to stomp it back lower have effectively been rendered fruitless. However despite an ever strengthening Dollar the U.S. economy continues to run on six cylinders. So it bodes the question: Does it matter? Can you have your economic cake and eat it too?
I’ve been literally in stitches over the past few days marveling over the Shakespearean drama unraveling behind the curtains of the crypto universe. And I’m not even talking about the big sell off which now seems to be reversing. Apparently BitConnect is shutting down exchange operations and a bunch of people found themselves unable to convert their tokens to bitcoin or any other crypto currency. Seems to me a bunch of unhappy folks just learned the difference between (imagined) paper profits and real profits.
The equity market in particular has become extremely good at luring and then trapping people into highly volatile reversals. Which especially is true for those rare moments when we may be tempted to trade against the prevailing trend, which of course continues up, up, and then up. Given the increasing number of traps placed in front of us on a weekly basis I have a hard time imagining how anyone could succeed trading equities on a long term basis without the aid of some sort of participation measure (a.k.a. market lie detector) as for example our very own Zero indicator: