The Coming Rout (In Stocks, Bonds, Commodities and Precious Metals)

The following article has been contributed by market analyst and contrarian thinker Chris Martenson.

Editor’s Note: As stock markets, commodities, and precious metals heat up due to a variety of factors, including excessive quantitative easing and stimulus, Chris Martenson warns that prices may be set to collapse. For years we’ve maintained that the longer-term trend for essential goods like food, energy, gold and silver will be higher prices, as central banks the world over, starting with our very own Federal Reserve, continue to intervene in the free market by printing more and more money to stimulate and stabilize the economy. So too have we warned economic crisis and confusion lead to extreme global volatility, not just in financial markets, but geo-politics. As food costs go through the roof, oil approaches $150 a barrel, and gold reaches new historic highs, caution is called for.

If there’s one thing we should have learned over the last few years, it’s that the consensus is usually well behind the curve, and when everybody believes the same thing is going to happen (in this case, continued rising prices), the exact opposite takes place. If you own a 401k or IRA with stocks, bonds and commodities, we suggest you consider Chris Martenson’s views on what we may see in financial markets in the near term.

As we did in the summer of 2008, we may now be approaching another breaking point. And as we saw in 2008, nothing but the US dollar was spared. Does this mean you should immediately sell all of your precious metals and other safe haven assets? Chris Martenson suggests not, especially if you’ve planned to hold those asset for a long investment horizon of years as opposed to months. Nonetheless, given what has transpired so far, it is important to understand that nothing is outside the realm of possibility. We urge our readers to remain vigilant, and if Mr. Martenson is correct in his forecast, there may be yet another great opportunity for investment and preparedness, especially in precious metals, in the very near future. If the ‘S’ hits the fan within global asset prices, we shouldn’t be surprised. Rather, we should embrace the opportunity, as it may not last long, especially in investments that have historically been the assets of last resort, such as commodities and precious metals. If Mr. Martenson’s forecasted scenario were to play out, we strongly believe that governments will act immediately, in unison, and without restriction to flood the economic system with yet more monetary stimulus.

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There’s a scenario that could play out between May and September in which commodities (including my beloved silver) and the stock and bond markets could all sell off between 20% and 40%. The trigger will be the cessation of QE II and a multi-month pause before QE III.

This is a reversal in my thinking from the outright inflationary ‘buy with both hands’ bent that I have held for the past two years. Even though it’s quite a speculative analysis at this early stage, it is a possibility that we must consider.

Important note: This is a short-term scenario that stems from my trading days, so if you are a long-term holder of a core position in gold and silver, as am I, nothing has changed in my extended outlook for these metals. The fiscal and monetary path we are on has a very high likelihood of failure over the coming decade, and I see nothing that shakes that view.

It’s time to build on the idea I planted in the Insider article entitled Blame the Victim (February 28, 2011) where I speculated on the idea that the Fed might be forced to end its quantitative easing programs, almost certainly because of behind-the-scenes pressure.

How I read [the Fed's recent propaganda tour] is that the Fed is taking some heat for its inflationary policies, mainly behind closed doors, and it is trying to do what it can — with words — to soothe the situation. Perhaps China is making noises, or perhaps Brazil’s finance minister is making the phone lines feeding the Eccles building smoke ominously, or perhaps it is internal pressure coming from politicians with restless voters. Or all three.

The big risk here is that the Fed will be forced by this rising pressure to discontinue the QE program in June at the normal ending of the QE II efforts. Couple that with a possible federal showdown over the debt ceiling right at the same time, and you have the makings for a massive fireworks display, possibly involving derivative mortars bursting in air.

At the time, I speculated that all of the Fed’s pronouncements about inflation being almost nonexistent were actually signs that the Fed was taking some behind-the-scenes heat for the inflation its policies was creating. And I worried about what would happen if the Fed were to end the QE program in June.

Everything would tank. Stocks, bonds, and commodities. All of the risk assets that have been unnaturally supported by a flood of liquidity, too-low interest rates, and thin-air base money would give up those ill-gotten gains. Gold might behave a bit differently, because along with these market declines will come an enormous amount of uncertainty about the financial system itself, usually a condition for higher gold prices. So I expect gold to correct somewhat, but not nearly as much as everything else, and it could even gain.

The story is, admittedly, getting more confusing by the week, with some calling for hyperinflation and some calling for massive, outright deflation. I am trying to surf the probabilities and stay one step ahead of whatever curve balls are coming our way.

The basic idea is this: The Fed has been dumping roughly $4 billion of thin-air money into the US markets each trading day since November 2010. The markets, all of them, are higher than they would be without this money. $4 billion per trading day is an enormous amount of money. It’s gigantic by historical standards. As soon as the QE program ends, the markets will have to subsist on a lot less money and liquidity, and the result is almost perfectly predictable.

The markets are quite substantially elevated due to the efforts of the Fed. T, and then some, is quite likely to be rapidly eliminated as soon as the QE program has ended.

To make the story even more difficult to follow, the Fed has been sending out teams of PR agents in an effort to guide the markets with their words.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled he’s in no rush to tighten credit after the Fed finishes an expansion of record monetary stimulus, seeing little inflation risk and still-slow job growth.

A surge in the prices of oil and other commodities probably won’t generate a lasting rise in inflation, Bernanke told lawmakers yesterday in semiannual testimony on monetary policy. A “sustained period of stronger job creation” is needed to ensure a solid recovery, and the Fed’s benchmark rate will stay low for an “extended period,” he said.

The “no rush to tighten credit” statement is a signal that the Fed will neither raise rates at the end of the QE program nor perform reverse POMOs where it reels cash back in and pushes MBS and/or Treasury paper back out.

Upon the cessation of the QE efforts, and the cessation of $4 billion a day in Treasury buying pressure, it’s a safe bet that market interest rates will rise. Bernanke is at least on record as saying that if this happens, it won’t be because the Fed has taken the lead.

Bernanke was being a little bit sloppy in his statements, because stopping QE will serve to tighten credit simply because there will be a lot less liquidity sloshing around the system. It’s a situation where the absence of excess is the same as the presence of tightness, if that makes any sense.

Then on March 5th, a much stronger and clearer signal was given, confirming my worries:

Federal Reserve policy makers are signaling they favor an abrupt end to $600 billion in Treasury purchases in June, jettisoning their prior strategy of gradually pulling back on intervention in bond markets.

“I don’t see a lot of gain to reverting to a tapering approach,” Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart told reporters yesterday. “I don’t think that is necessary,” Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said last month.

Whoa. This is important news. Not only a cessation of QE, but the possibility of a sudden stop is being telegraphed. This will change everything.

The old saying ‘sell in May and go away’ might never be truer than this year, although with this sort of a warning, the cautious investor may want to get a head start on things and sell in March or April.

For some time there have been rumors that the Fed has been splitting into factions, with some of the inner team becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the QE program and its effects. But so far they’ve either spoken in code to reveal their displeasure or quietly resigned. So we’re pretty sure there’s an admirable level of support within the Fed for ending QE, and it has now bubbled to the surface and reached the public arena.

Of course, there’s some form of gobbledy-gook reasoning being floated to justify the plan for a sudden stop rather than a gentle wind-down, and it involves the distinction between ‘stocks and flows’ (from the same article as above):

Fed staff members, such as Brian Sack, the New York Fed official in charge of carrying out the bond buying, have argued the total amount, or stock, of securities the Fed has announced it will make has more impact on longer-term interest rates than the timing of those purchases. That’s a view now held by several members on the Federal Open Market Committee, including the chairman.

“We learned in the first quarter of last year, when we ended our previous program, that the markets had anticipated that adequately, and we didn’t see any major impact on interest rates,” Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee during his March 1 semiannual monetary-policy testimony. “It’s really the total amount of holdings, rather than the flow of new purchases, that affects the level of interest rates.”

Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen supported that perspective, saying at a monetary policy forum in New York last week that “the stock view won out over the flow view.”

The idea that Brian Sack, a 40-year-old economist with a PhD from MIT, is winning the day in the argument of “stocks over flows” is somewhat troubling to me. MIT is a quantitative shop, home to some very brilliant people, but how markets will actually respond is another specialty altogether, one that requires a bit of on-the-street experience. Markets have a bad habit of not being logical, not fitting neatly into tidy formulas, and ignoring things like ‘stocks and flows.’

I’ll go even further. I’ll take the other side of that bet and opine that the flows are much more important than the stocks, because it is the flows that support the continued budget deficits of the US government — which, it should be noted, will still be with us each and every month long after June 2011. Those deficits are baked into the cake and will require in excess of $125 billion in new Treasury sales each and every month.

Who will buy all the Treasury bonds after the Fed steps aside? That is unclear. If there are not enough buyers at these artificially inflated prices, then the price will have to fall until sufficient buyers can be found. Falling bond prices are at the other side of the financial see-saw from rising bond yields; one goes down while the other goes up, and the Fed has been pressing firmly down on yields for a while via the QE II program. When that’s over, pressure will be reduced and yields will rise.

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Chris Martenson is the father of three young children; author; obsessive financial observer; trained as a scientist; experienced in business; has made profound changes in his lifestyle because of what he sees coming.

I guess we all have our doomsday theories. There is one problem with this one...a crash of commodities and precious metals requires OTHER COUNTRIES to do stupid things, whereas a crash of the dollar only takes the US.

At this point, it looks like the US is far and away the DUMBEST country out there...so the dollar is certainly doomed, but not commodities and precious metals.

So the FED stops buying Treasuries...interest rates jump...commerce stops...houses and cars don’t sell...colleges are bankrupt because they are based on ever more low interest loans...

All prices settle at their real values. Not the prices propped up by low interest rates. This is what needs to happen, but it will be very rough for a while.

If interest rates go up 2% for the US Treasuries, we won’t be able to pay our debt, so we default, which causes rates to up further.

I am far from an economist, but I also have been subscribing to this guy’s “buy with both hands” theory. My thought is, they’re printing money left and right... all that money has to go somewhere, and some it has to find its way into the market. He has an interesting point about the Fed turning off the spigot in June. I think that might be a reason to sell, like he says. If the spigot stayed off. But it won’t. If there’s any sort of economic slowdown, they will quickly turn the printing presses back on again, and voila QE III.

Can’t argue against that move. In the last two months, it seems as though everyone and I mean everyone, is thinking we are in for an economic walloping soon.

I have heard everything from hyperinflation predictions that are well reasoned through deflation predictions that are also well reasoned, but from whatever the cause, pretty much everyone but the established multi-national corps and government thinks things are going to be gettiing worse soon.

We do seem to living in intersting times and they will probably be getting more interesting in the near future.

I'm in 50/50 right now, due to the (however false it is, inflation-based, The Last Great Pump-and-Dump, or whatever..) rally, but will probably pare way down after April. I don't see how we can avoid a nasty, nasty crash, when we are spending $Trillions beyond our means, indefinitely.

I wonder what gets said in the smoky back rooms of Congress. Do they already know our goose is cooked, and they are saying "What they hell, we might as well get on with it", or are they delusional? The ol' "Evil, or Stupid?" question.

I wonder if there are Freepers buried deep within the bowels of the airline ticketing industry, who can tell us when these clowns initiate their one-way tickets to Switzerland or other non-extradition countries. Do I sound paranoid? :)

If you stop and think about it, the FED has no choice but to either buy treasuries (since they're the only ones buying in the quantities required) or raise interest rates drastically (double digit) to interest other buyers. In either case, the trap is sprung and the economy collapses.

How bad it gets will be directly proportional to when our leaders put a stop to the excessive spending and borrowing. A short term fix and one I'm sure being considered is confiscation of individual savings, retirements, business and property. To appease struggling masses, watch for price and wage controls to be put in place. Of course, once enacted, shortages will occur.

"I wonder what gets said in the smoky back rooms of Congress. Do they already know our goose is cooked..."

I think they know we're done. There's no way back from here.

Inflation? Deflation? It doesn't matter either will end with rioting in the streets or maybe a civil war.

Prepare now.

It will certainly be very ugly.

Bug out? I'm betting, in my most pessimistic fashion, there will be heavily-armed checkpoints waiting to strip you of your arms and illicit materials (i.e. gold and silver. I think they will treat them the same as they treat drugs. Possession thereof will result in hard sentencing, confiscation of assets. Except for the most privileged, of course).

The only chance one might have, is to live way out in the country, well-trained and well-equipped for self-sufficiency, surrounded by like-minded neighbors.

And even then, if ya get too uppity with all that, the Predators and AC-130's will be overhead to ruin your day. History tells me that government is capable of all evil. It's too bad half our population doesn't get that.

... At this point, it looks like the US is far and away the DUMBEST country out there...

If you are thinking in terms of traditional economics it sure seems that way. However, if your goal was to destroy the US dollar, to subvert traditional economics in order to establish your own new economics, then it makes perfect sense and that is where it is going.

... so the dollar is certainly doomed, ...

Yet, maybe, but maybe not. This "new" economy is supposed to establish a new currency to be used worldwide. What if after they have destroyed the dollar, and everything else, they decide it is cheaper and more convenient to continue with the old, under new management. After all, there is plenty of it out there, most of the worlds accounting systems are dollar oriented, currency exchange would be a thing of the past, there are hundreds of years of trust in it's strength, etc. So, maybe the will keep it.

...but not commodities and precious metals. Why? Paper money is a convenient medium of exchange. The idea of buying commodities is to have something that is scarce and in demand so that when the fiat money managers cheapen the currency you will still have something valuable in its own right. Then you can exchange it for more of the currency than you bought it for, thereby offsetting the lost value of the currency. That is traditional economics.

However, if everything is destroyed then nothing has value. Everything is arbitrary. If the economic Armageddon I think the Communists are seeking actually happens, commodities will be worth no more than anything else. All will be worthless in relationship to currency. As things start to rebuild everything will establish its own value in relation to all else.

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