Ten Things You Should and Should Not Do During Deflation

Market Oracle ^

[Chet 99]

Add to this economic contraction that will take out a further $2 trillion globally and further asset price deflation throughout 2009 estimated at another $8 trillion, then the real threat still remains DEFLATION rather than INFLATION, this despite the deficit spending money printing to date, as it is so far not on the scale that can begin to reverse ongoing Deflation, and until we see that Quantative Leap in Quantative Easing then investors, business, consumers and workers alike, all need to be fully aware of the dangers and consequences of Deflation.

In this regard Robert Prechter, the world's foremost expert on and proponent of the deflationary scenario has made available the following article on 10 Things You Should and Should Not DO During Deflation, which has been adapted from Robert Prechter's NEW Deflation Survival eBook , a FREE 60-page compilation of Prechter's most important teachings and warnings about deflation made available to our readership.

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Ten Things You Should and Should Not Do During Deflation

By Robert Prechter, CMT

1) Should you invest in real estate?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: The worst thing about real estate is its lack of liquidity during a bear market. At least in the stock market, when your stock is down 60 percent and you realize you've made a horrendous mistake, you can call your broker and get out (unless you're a mutual fund, insurance company or other institution with millions of shares, in which case, you're stuck). With real estate, you can't pick up the phone and sell. You need to find a buyer for your house in order to sell it. In a depression, buyers just go away. Mom and Pop move in with the kids, or the kids move in with Mom and Pop. People start living in their offices or moving their offices into their living quarters. Businesses close down. In time, there is a massive glut of real estate. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 16

2) Should you prepare for a change in politics?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: At some point during a financial crisis, money flows typically become a political issue. You should keep a sharp eye on political trends in your home country. In severe economic times, governments have been known to ban foreign investment, demand capital repatriation, outlaw money transfers abroad, close banks, freeze bank accounts, restrict or seize private pensions, raise taxes, fix prices and impose currency exchange values. They have been known to use force to change the course of who gets hurt and who is spared, which means that the prudent are punished and the thriftless are rewarded, reversing the result from what it would be according to who deserves to be spared or get hurt. In extreme cases, such as when authoritarians assume power, they simply appropriate or take de facto control of your property.

You cannot anticipate every possible law, regulation or political event that will be implemented to thwart your attempt at safety, liquidity and solvency. This is why you must plan ahead and pay attention. As you do, think about these issues so that when political forces troll for victims, you are legally outside the scope of the dragnet. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 27

3) Should you invest in commercial bonds?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: If there is one bit of conventional wisdom that we hear repeatedly with respect to investing for a deflationary depression, it is that long-term bonds are the best possible investment. This assertion is wrong. Any bond issued by a borrower who cannot pay goes to zero in a depression. In the Great Depression, bonds of many companies, municipalities and foreign governments were crushed. They became wallpaper as their issuers went bankrupt and defaulted. Bonds of suspect issuers also went way down, at least for a time. Understand that in a crash, no one knows its depth, and almost everyone becomes afraid. That makes investors sell bonds of any issuers that they fear could default. Even when people trust the bonds they own, they are sometimes forced to sell them to raise cash to live on. For this reason, even the safest bonds can go down, at least temporarily, as AAA bonds did in 1931 and 1932. - Conquer the Crash, Chapter 15

4) Should you take precautions if you run a business?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: Avoid long-term employment contracts with employees. Try to locate in a state with “at-will” employment laws. Red tape and legal impediments to firing could bankrupt your company in a financial crunch, thus putting everyone in your company out of work.

If you run a business that normally carries a large business inventory (such as an auto or boat dealership), try to reduce it. If your business requires certain manufactured specialty items that may be hard to obtain in a depression, stock up.

If you are an employer, start making plans for what you will do if the company's cash flow declines and you have to cut expenditures. Would it be best to fire certain people? Would it be better to adjust all salaries downward an equal percentage so that you can keep everyone employed?

Finally, plan how you will take advantage of the next major bottom in the economy. Positioning your company properly at that time could ensure success for decades to come. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 30

5) Should you invest in collectibles?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: Collecting for investment purposes is almost always foolish. Never buy anything marketed as a collectible. The chances of losing money when collectibility is priced into an item are huge. Usually, collecting trends are fads. They might be short-run or long-run fads, but they eventually dissolve. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 17

6) Should you do anything with respect to your employment?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: If you have no special reason to believe that the company you work for will prosper so much in a contracting economy that its stock will rise in a bear market, then cash out any stock or stock options that your company has issued to you (or that you bought on your own).

If your remuneration is tied to the same company's fortunes in the form of stock or stock options, try to convert it to a liquid income stream. Make sure you get paid actual money for your labor.

If you have a choice of employment, try to think about which job will best weather the coming financial and economic storm. Then go get it. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 31

7) Should you speculate in stocks?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: Perhaps the number one precaution to take at the start of a deflationary crash is to make sure that your investment capital is not invested “long” in stocks, stock mutual funds, stock index futures, stock options or any other equity-based investment or speculation. That advice alone should be worth the time you [spend to read Conquer the Crash].

In 2000 and 2001, countless Internet stocks fell from $50 or $100 a share to near zero in a matter of months. In 2001, Enron went from $85 to pennies a share in less than a year. These are the early casualties of debt, leverage and incautious speculation. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 20

8) Should you call in loans and pay off your debt?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: Have you lent money to friends, relatives or co-workers? The odds of collecting any of these debts are usually slim to none, but if you can prod your personal debtors into paying you back before they get further strapped for cash, it will not only help you but it will also give you some additional wherewithal to help those very same people if they become destitute later.

If at all possible, remain or become debt-free. Being debt-free means that you are freer, period. You don't have to sweat credit card payments. You don't have to sweat home or auto repossession or loss of your business. You don't have to work 6 percent more, or 10 percent more, or 18 percent more just to stay even. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 29

9) Should you invest in commodities, such as crude oil?

Short Answer: Mostly NO

Long Answer: Pay particular attention to what happened in 1929-1932, the three years of intense deflation in which the stock market crashed. As you can see, commodities crashed, too.

You can get rich being short commodity futures in a deflationary crash. This is a player's game, though, and I am not about to urge a typical investor to follow that course. If you are a seasoned commodity trader, avoid the long side and use rallies to sell short. Make sure that your broker keeps your liquid funds in T-bills or an equally safe medium.

There can be exceptions to the broad trend. A commodity can rise against the trend on a war, a war scare, a shortage or a disruption of transport. Oil is an example of a commodity with that type of risk. This commodity should have nowhere to go but down during a depression. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 21

10) Should you invest in cash?

Short Answer: YES

Long Answer: For those among the public who have recently become concerned that being fully invested in one stock or stock fund is not risk-free, the analysts' battle cry is “diversification.” They recommend having your assets spread out in numerous different stocks, numerous different stock funds and/or numerous different (foreign) stock markets. Advocates of junk bonds likewise counsel prospective investors that having lots of different issues will reduce risk.

This “strategy” is bogus. Why invest in anything unless you have a strong opinion about where it's going and a game plan for when to get out? Diversification is gospel today because investment assets of so many kinds have gone up for so long, but the future is another matter. Owning an array of investments is financial suicide during deflation. They all go down, and the logistics of getting out of them can be a nightmare. There can be weird exceptions to this rule, such as gold in the early 1930s when the government fixed the price, or perhaps some commodity that is crucial in a war, but otherwise, all assets go down in price during deflation except one: cash. – Conquer the Crash, Chapter 18

For more on deflation, download Prechter's FREE 60-page Deflation Survival eBook or browse various deflation topics like those below :

• What happens during deflation?
• Why is deflation bad?
• Effects of deflation
• Deflationary spiral
• And much more in Prechter's FREE Deflation Survival Guide.

Robert Prechter, Chartered Market Technician, is the world's foremost expert on and proponent of the deflationary scenario. Prechter is the founder and CEO of Elliott Wave International, author of Wall Street best-sellers Conquer the Crash and Elliott Wave Principle and editor of The Elliott Wave Theorist monthly market letter since 1979.

[Windcatcher]

Bingo. This is the time to be buying CD’s (or if you’re concerned about bank failures, cold hard-cash in a safety-deposit box)

[Dr.Zoidberg]

...cold hard-cash in a safety-deposit box

Safe bolted to the basement floor.

Items not in your possession have been known to suddenly become forfeit, IMHO, a safe deposit box isn't.

[Jeff Chandler]

Time to invest in CDs and T Birds.

[SFC Chromey]

CD’s might be returning 1 to 1.5%. Not very likely to outperform. Best place to be over the last year has been US Govt Securities and international sovereign debt. Both were up +/- 6% last year. This is likely to continue for the near future (6-9 months)

[Windcatcher]

I’ve been seeing CD’s ebb and flow, but your point is taken. I recently got into an 11-month CD at 3.15%. Sometimes deals appear, but it means checking at the bank often.

[I see my hands]

Aren't people nice providing coping strategies? Other wise some might revolt and that would be bad.. or good. Am I supposed to know?

[o_zarkman44]

Strange he didn’t mention investing in guns. ammo, and survival items.

[I see my hands]

Now that we've tossed you in crap creek here's a paddle.. just stay in the creek.

[FormerACLUmember]

Deflation, if it comes at all, will certainly be followed by massive INFLATION as the government prints worthless money.

[Age of Reason]

Sometimes I think all this deflation talk is to distract us while the government tries to inflate us out of this recession.

[Chet 99]

I personally think that deflation is preferable to inflation - but that’s because I am debt free. Deflation is crushing to people with high debt loads and few cash reserves. Inflation crushes people who save money.

[babyfreep]

ping

[AprilfromTexas]

4 later

[RC one]

Coincidentally, I have been studying deflation tonight; Here area couple of interesting links related to the topic at hand:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2861780/Why-worry-about-the-D-word.html

http://www.goldensextant.com/Gold&Deflation.html

[Salvation]

Good stuff here!

[dalereed]

” I recently got into an 11-month CD at 3.15%.”

When the run on the banks started in August, I rook $150k out of my Money Market and put it in a 13 month CD @ 5%.

[dalereed]

I think that we are going to have deflation and massive inflation of the money supply to pay the government spending spree.

Prices will go down because the stimulus won't work and the printed money to pay for it will drive interest rates up, as Volcker did under Carter.

If that happens i’ll put at least a quarter mil in long term gov. bonds like at 15%.

[Chet 99]

Interesting times we live in say Confucious... almost all financial conventional wisdom rests upon the basic assumption of inflation of everything - wages, houses, rentals, investments...

[dalereed]

I’t wait and watch at this point.

Since obinawtion has retained Volcker I wouldn’t bet against my peojection at this point.