The Big Long 2021

This year has many of the similarities of 2008, and a few fatal differences from that successful bailout...

At this lethal juncture, strip away the monetary heroin induced speculation bubble and all you are left with is lethal delusion on a biblical scale. 

There are several factors that are eerily similar to 2008, and then major differences.

Similarities:

Fake reflation

Election

Bailout/Vaccine false dawn

Clueless leadership

Wall Street criminality

Corporate defaults

Differences (Factors that make this situation far more dire):

Lethal pandemic

Negative global GDP growth

Record layoffs

Record small business decimation

Accumulation of debt versus deleveraging

Record speculation

Extreme overvaluation

Permanently changed consumption patterns

I won't hit all of these similarities and differences, but here are the major ones:

Rewind to 2007. The housing bubble had peaked and was beginning to roll over. The first major blowup was a company called New Century financial which specialized in subprime mortgages. They imploded in April 2007. Two Bear Stearns hedge funds that had invested heavily in subprime mortgages imploded in June 2007. The Fed started cutting rates in August 2007 to offset the credit losses. The stock market peaked in October 2007, led by Tech stocks. Banks had peaked earlier in the year in February. In 2008 the dominoes started falling harder and faster, so the Fed took rates down aggressively. Bear Stearns failed in March 2008, Countrywide failed in July, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac imploded in early September, followed by Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Lehman Brothers all failing in mid-September. Even after that seminal market event, the Fed was basically clueless. We know in hindsight, that the economy had entered the great recession in December 2007, a full nine months before the September Fed meeting: 

"On the morning after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, most Federal Reserve officials still believed that the American economy would keep growing despite the metastasizing financial crisis"

The Fed’s understanding of the crisis, however, was clouded by its reliance on indicators that tend to miss sharp changes in conditions."

One of the main reasons the Fed under-reacted at that critical juncture is because their own monetary easing earlier in the year had sparked a global hunt for yield and speculative stock market mania. Which had the effect of artificially compressing risk premiums in the credit default market, which was the entire plot behind the book/movie ("The Big Short"), and of course the Fed artificially compressed volatility in the stock market.

In addition, all of that cheap money used to stem the burgeoning subprime crisis had sparked transitory inflation via the commodities market, similar to what we are seeing now, only on a much greater scale. The inflation rate in August 2008 was 6.5% as oil soared to $140/barrel. Whereas last month the inflation rate was 1.2% and oil recently reached $45/barrel. Those who are now believing in a sustained breakout in inflation are merely getting headfaked the same way they were in 2008, only by a far less convincing spike in inflation.

September 2008:

"The outlook of Fed officials also reflected a deeply ingrained bias to worry more about the risk of inflation than the reality of rising unemployment"

The transcript for that meeting contains 129 mentions of “inflation” and five of “recession.”

As far as failed leadership, it's the GOP Congress who are clueless this time around. The Fed has been pounding the table for more fiscal stimulus for months now. They know that at the zero interest bound, monetary policy is impotent without fiscal stimulus to monetize. Aside from creating monster asset bubbles, and generating mass complacency, Fed policy is inert. 

Ironically, the GOP leadership has been fooled by the Fed's Jedi Mind Trick. They see their portfolios at all time highs and they assume that the recovery is going just fine.

Meanwhile, as I've pointed out this vaccine delusion is similar to the TARP bailout in October 2008, it gave people a false sense of security. However, far more complacency this time around, than last time, because at peak Baby Boomer retirement, the urgency to believe in fairy tales has escalated dramatically. And that is where Wall Street criminality comes into play, because they are nothing more than a big fairy tale factory. And they exist to monetize willful idiots. 

Those are the similarities, now to the major differences. On a scale of lethality, nothing can compare to the COVID virus itself and the amount of complacency among the general populace. 

Last February, when the virus was just breaking out, Trump ordered a nationwide lockdown. Aside from going to the grocery store to hoard toilet paper, no one was allowed to go anywhere. Shopping malls were CLOSED. Now, with the pandemic at its height of lethality, people are out shopping for Christmas presents. Malls are open, as are restaurants. I am not saying this is right or wrong, only to say that the election and Thanksgiving superspreader events are now being accelerated further by Christmas shopping. 

“This fall/winter surge is combining everything that we saw in the spring with everything we saw in the summer — plus the fall surge going into a winter surge"

The other major difference from winter 2008 is that the stock market had peaked a year earlier and aside from short-covering rallies, was rolling over hard. Stock market valuations were coming down, not sky-rocketing as they are now. Similarly, corporations were de-leveraging whereas now they are piling on record amounts of debt in anticipation of the economic "re-opening" in the spring. 

Why? Because the biggest difference between now and then is that people are even dumber now than they were back then.

And they will believe ANY circus clown when he tells them the economy is great. 

But they won't believe the truth, even if their life depended on it.

"Ackman said he made his new hedge on the day that Pfizer announced its promising new COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer’s announcement was “actually bearish,” Ackman said, predicting that it will prompt Americans to grow complacent about mask-wearing, allowing the deadly virus to spread even more widely."

2021 Prediction

Below I lay out how I see the coming year playing out from this point forward...

The first order event is an impending "correction" from record overbought levels and this persistent delusion that 2021 will bring a global recovery - both of which are central bank sponsored fabrications. On the other side of that "Black Swan" event we will be confronted with mass panic and of course yet more lying as usual. If it's one thing we've learned over the past decade it's that an aging society can't handle the truth. McDonald Trump will forever be known as the lying president.

To give an idea as to the magnitude of this delusion, here we see that the Global Dow has now equaled its 2016/2017 tax cut rally in one third the time. Under the ubiquitous belief that the post-pandemic economy will be better than the pre-pandemic economy. Human history's biggest denialistic fantasy. 

Overall I predict that 2021 will be the year when even the most delusional morons begin to recognize the chasmic divide between fantasy and reality. The cracks in the facade will be too wide to ignore with printed money. Ultimately, faith in Wall Street, economists, pundits and politicians will collapse. 

I believe this first order crash will be violent and panic-inducing, but ultimately create a sharp rebound similar to 1929. A rebound that could last a matter of months - somewhat of a mini version of what we just saw this past year. 

In other words I think that the 1930s analog of soaring and crashing markets has already begun. Each rally will be weaker and less believed than the last. But central banks won't give up without a fight. What we have learned over the past decade is that you can rent delusion but you can't own it long term. However, we should be mindful of the fact that the return on pump and dump will diminish over time, as capital depletes itself on false rallies.  

"Investor bullishness is flashing a “code red,” wrote Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America. He points to the firm’s proprietary Bull & Bear Indicator “accelerating toward extreme bullish” 

"Buy the dip"

With central banks bidding and crashing global markets in the backround, the continuously imploding economy will be the ultimate arbiter of this impending reset. I suggest that we have already seen peak employment for the next several years. Meaning that economic erosion will accelerate from this point forward. Nevertheless, the ideological paradigm shift to a fully reflationary economy is still not yet visible on the horizon. It will take a matter of extreme market dislocation to create ideological paradigm shift and sadly central banks are doing everything possible to prevent that from happening:

The next key economic events in the road to reflation are the Senate runoff in Georgia in January, the vaccine rollout, and the inauguration. By the spring the full impacts of COVID winter and all of the other deflationary factors should become fully evident, notwithstanding the spring thaw and the vaccine rollout. To believe that everything will bounce back to normal is the greatest delusion of all. Some habits have changed forever. Some industries may never fully recover to their pre-pandemic levels. Once economic reality is fully revealed months hence, then markets and the economy should get fully in synch to the downside, until such time as the ideological paradigm shifts to middle class bailout on a MASSIVE and ongoing scale. By that time corporate defaults will be well underway and bond markets will be in no mood for a yield spike.

Many people are now throwing around this term "reset" on both sides of the political spectrum. Lunatics on the far right see this as another conspiracy to tighten George Soros' grip on the world economy. What all of these people left and right have in common, is that they have not even the slightest clue how brutal and uncontrolled this event is about to  become. It will be far from a planned and coordinated event. And when the smoke clears, billionaires will not be the prime beneficiaries. 

 

Which gets us to the true Black Swan risk, and most obvious outlier to all of these forecasts for 2021. The greatest risk is faith in the Disney market itself. 

Over time these Disney markets have become more and more fraudulent and fragile. Which is why the rallies and crashes have become more violent. We saw multiple limit down moves in March and several day session trading halts. Multiple brokerages experienced outages. If it's one thing all of these 2021 linear predictions are forgetting it's that record capital imbalances and a record rush to risk will test these Disney markets to the limit. And when they break, then confidence in markets will be destroyed sooner rather than later. If that happens you can be certain that my prediction above is far too sanguine. Those who believe that TRUE market reality is impending, and positioned accordingly will be vindicated. In other words, tail hedges are recommended. 

Here we see the difference between the 2016/17 tax cut rally and this monetary fabrication in 2020. Realized volatility has remained high all this year.

Because after all, take away these stimulus gimmicks and all you're left with is a bear market in an accelerating depression, cleverly disguised as a buying opportunity. So the question for 2021 is how long will that delusion last?

Gamble at your own risk.

The Future Is Deflationary

We are witnessing the largest headfake reflation rally in human history, compliments of epic amounts of misallocated capital creating its own imaginary recovery...

Hendry's iron law of Disney markets is leading them straight into depression:

"The worse the reality of the economy becomes, the more we take on the reflexive belief in further and dramatic monetary expansion and the more attractive the stock market looks"

The story of this week was rising inflation/reflation:

Bloomberg: Five Reasons To Worry About Faster Inflation

FT: Inflation Expectations Reach 18 Month High On Vaccine Hopes

Reuters: Higher Inflation Finally Looks Credible

Finally indeed - because all of the other times it was a fakeout. And yet, of all of the times in the past decade to believe that reflation will take place, now is the LEAST credible moment in history. No question, central banks have amply proven they can generate asset inflation and asset bubbles. However, they have yet to cross the Rubicon into actual economic reflation. They have perfected reflation for billionaires, at the expense of the economy. 

Globalized capitalism is inherently deflationary, as evidenced by the decline in Treasury bond yields for forty years straight. Now at the lowest levels in U.S. history. The pandemic accelerated the deflationary trends that were already in place, and yet the vast majority of investors expect reflation will be the theme of 2021. Somehow after decades of deflation, they haven't figured out that true middle class economic reflation is never returning under the current paradigm. Until policy-makers and their useful idiots understand that the "system" has failed, nothing will change and we will see mass unemployment on an unprecedented scale. That revelation of failure will require a market crash and the destruction of the virtual simulation of prosperity and its acolyte QE.

There are several sources of deflation in the Globalized economy:

>Technology/Automation

>Debt

>Trade imbalances/outsourcing

>Continuous cost cutting/profit seeking

Add to this list the most deflationary factor of 2020 - the pandemic and its attendant lockdowns and mass unemployment. Also add political gridlock and the refusal of the GOP to bailout the middle class. Which will be the theme of 2021 until such time as they are "incentivized" to change. Pending crash. These two factors alone will ensure that the economic multiplier from "stimulus" will remain muted. How do you stimulate a part of the economy that is not allowed to operate? Which is why fiscal stimulus today is not stimulative, it's merely life support. 

Writing on Friday morning, today's jobs report was an unmitigated disaster. However, as per normal, the futures ramped on the revised fairy tale that bad news is good news and will move Congress closer to a stimulus deal. When bulls are adequately lathered up, they can fabricate any excuse to buy stocks.

Among the factors that have accelerated deflation, one of the key themes of 2020 was the realization of the virtual economy. The concept of a no-touch economy in which millions of jobless consumers buy everything online and have it drop shipped to their doorstep. Zero human contact required. Sadly, contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a virtual economy. I've discussed this fictional jobless consumer many times in the past - the mythical beneficiary of all free trade agreements. However, never before has it been more of a delusion than right now. Going forward, this accelerated automation of the economy will stifle job creation for the foreseeable future. Worse yet the ultra low deflationary interest rates of today are accelerating automation and job destruction. Because capital is essentially "free" versus labor which is relatively expensive. Deflation is generating more deflation. 

The debt overhang from the pandemic I've discussed several times. Debt is inherently deflationary and is a claim on future consumption.

The other main risk to the deflationary fantasy is of course political gridlock. Or as I put it political ideology. The Senate runoff race in Georgia on January 5th will determine which party holds the balance of power in government. If the Democrats pull out a miracle, then serious stimulus will take place in early 2021 after inauguration. However, if as expected the GOP wins, then the result will be inadequate stimulus throughout 2021. 

My view is that even the Democrats don't really understand what it will take to pull this economy out of this deflationary crater. These current stimulus discussions are way behind the curve and we will know how far behind in the coming weeks as the collapsing economic data finally catches up with the Casino.

This week's fake reflation was compliments of an oil rally into the OPEC meeting which was a clusterfuck as usual. The purpose of the meeting was to NOT raise production, which they couldn't agree upon, so they reached an agreement to raise it instead. 

Meanwhile, hedge funds have been piling into oil futures:

Hedge Funds Pile Into Crude Oil

I think we all see where I'm going with this - it's the usual Ponzi inflation. Asset speculation feeding back into the economy:

Bloomberg put out a note yesterday indicating that the market is extremely over-extended and likely to "correct" before the end of the year. Basically all of the charts show the same thing - gamblers way over their skis on risk:

 

Of those five charts, I won't re-create them all, however, one chart shows the 5 day equity put/call ratio at a 20 year low. I show the inverse which is the call/put ratio. Notice the last time the ratio was in this vicinity was just prior to Flash Crash 2010.

Which is what I expect now - A massive unexpected crash out of nowhere, compliments of legions of idiots with their heads up their own ass.

“The public is embracing options in a truly unprecedented manner, as you can see from the volumes”

when you are in an up market like we have been experiencing, you can come to believe that the odds really are in your favor"

"Good news, no jobs"

The Brexit clusterfuck is heading for a weekend showdown. A deal failure could be a global risk off event as it was in June 2016.

When the dollar reverses its nosedive, global risk will get duly monkey hammered:

The Golden Age Of Fraud

Since 2008, the largest frauds were the ones that were fully legal and taking place in broad daylight. Beginning with the Wall Street free money bailout in exchange for collapsing the global financial system. All of the bailout gimmicks invented during the past decade are now being combined to fabricate this late cycle super delusion. In 2020, infinite amounts of monetary heroin bid up risk assets to the permanent plateau of deception. Now for 2021, Wall Street is building their new Disney market estimates on top of the 2020 house of cards. Fraud on top of deception. In doing so, they are pulling forward at least five years of fictional recovery into 2021, in order to justify their imaginary earnings estimates. There have been a lonely too few of us who would do anything to avoid being complicit in mass fraud. And it has not been easy. However, the sheeple at large are willing accomplices in this golden age of fraud. They wouldn't have it any other way...

McDonald Trump's sendoff to early retirement is ready for takeoff.

It's that time of year when Wall Street pulls out their Magic 8 ball and fabricates their Voodoo Economic estimates for the coming year. These people all consider themselves "fundamental" analysts which means they eschew charts and technicals for clues as to market direction. They prefer to guess where the economy and earnings will be one year from now, by drawing a straight line from where they are today and applying a crowd-appealing growth factor. Most of the time this "technique" works. However, when it counts the most, at the end of the cycle, this method fails catastrophically with 100% track record. Fundamental analysts are nothing more than the marketing department for Wall Street.

Which is how magically every year at this time, the forward estimates always increase through good times, financial crises, and pandemics.

We are now to believe that the 2021 post-pandemic economy will be even better than the pre-pandemic economy and thereby justify higher stock prices. You would have to be brain dead to believe that, which is why no one is questioning it.

This is Goldman Sachs' 2021 price estimate for the S&P 500:

What could go wrong?

The problem with Wall Street's extrapolation approach this time around, is that unlike every other down cycle in U.S. history, this time the stock market never priced in the economic impacts of the pandemic. Central banks conveniently papered right over millions of unemployed and the wholesale decimation of the small business sector. So what to do, Wall Street analysts merely extrapolated their S&P price targets from the 2020 permanent plateau of deception.

Which means that the 2021 estimates are fraud on top of deception. Worse yet, these fools are assuming an ongoing stimulus bonanza which in 2020 was solely a function of the election. We already see now that this gridlocked government is going to be extremely deflationary. 

"Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets is betting massive fiscal and monetary support will keep coming"

We already know that it's NOT coming. We learned today that McConnell is warming up to a stimulus package that will likely be in the $700-$900 billion range. Which, at the low end is a mere 1/3rd of the Pelosi proposed package. I think we will see a deal in this lower range (700-900) by next week prior to the government shutdown deadline. However, one need not think of this as stimulus, because it's merely life support for cratered GDP and an impending onslaught of additional layoffs.

So to summarize, for 2021, record COVID deaths don't matter, market valuations don't matter, the economy doesn't matter, dwindling stimulus doesn't matter, a massive debt overhang is no problem, all that matters is monetary heroin overdose.

Wealthy short-seller Jim Chanos calls this era, the "golden age of fraud". And I couldn't agree more.

However, he finally capitulated on Tesla this week, which means the stock will likely crash sooner rather than later. Although I have no position, nor would I short that widow maker. Goldman just upgraded the stock to +infinity. And of course this month it will be the largest stock ever to be added to the S&P 500.

"Short interest has declined by 63% this year"

2020 was the year of Tesla, which currently sports an 1100 P/E ratio, but as we know, in the golden age of fraud, valuations don't matter. 

Now we know why the dollar has been getting shellacked. It's been getting dumped to buy much riskier EM assets:

“We are recording the strongest pace of non-resident portfolio flows to EM in many years,”

If December keeps the pace since October, the fourth quarter could see the highest level of net EM debt issuance ever, according to IIF’s data."

In the golden age of fraud, record debt expansion is now bullish. From a global perspective, this period is very much deja vu of the tax cut. A big RISK ON party into the tax cut. Followed by a massive deflationary hangover.

Which is why my prediction for 2021 is a MASSIVE crash any day now, followed by extreme deflation.

All of which can only come as a total shock in the golden age of fraud.

"Goldman Sachs has been one of the top Dow performers over the past month, rallying more than 20%"

  

Sucker's Rally aka. Bull Trap

Don't assume this robo rally is a coincidence, this is the second largest pump and dump since Y2K...

Wall Street is taking full advantage of this fool's rally to dump epic amounts of stock. The same thing is taking place globally.

Hong Kong's IPO market is red hot, featuring the most issuance in ten years. Not to be outdone, the U.S. is heading for the second best year since Y2K, and the best year since Alibaba tanked the U.S. market in 2014:

Two massive IPOs - Airbnb and DoorDash are on tap for next week:

"Airbnb Inc. and DoorDash Inc. earlier this week raised the terms for their initial public offerings as a stock market rally indicated investors might be willing to spend more to boost returns."

Many of the companies that have gone public this year are pandemic plays in the technology and biotech sectors, propelling Renaissance’s IPO index to a 109% gain this year versus a 12% advance for the S&P 500"

The IPO market is more overbought than it was in September when it imploded. Take a look at volume:

Among the many bubbles in this era, semiconductors are also hyper overbought.

Being at the happy intersection of Tech and Cyclicals and hence going up every single day, regardless of rotation to deflation or reflation.

The overall Tech sector peaked back in September, giving us a good wave count:

The equity call/put ratio just reached a new record high this week:

It's no coincidence that all of the bubbles are peaking at the same time. Bitcoin's latest overthrow high is looking like a bull trap:

Just as the Dow's latest high is looking like a bull trap as well. Just orders of magnitude larger in impact:

Semiconductors, the inverse dollar, and reflation expectations are all reaching extreme overbought conditions in perfect lockstep deja vu of September:

When these rollover as one, global risk assets will explode:

Global markets ex-U.S., are deja vu of February 2018, only two months early:

What could go wrong?

"Global stocks face a potential $300 billion headwind heading into year-end: portfolio rebalancing."

"There would be some vulnerability in equity markets in the near term from balanced mutual funds having to sell equities to revert to their 60/40 equity/bond target allocation, either by the end of November or by the end of December at the latest"

This is the stock/bond ratio, which as we see is back at the key level that generated crash the last two times:

"It's called auto rebalancing"

Remember, it's just a hoax:

Party Like It's 1933

America's Casino Class has a fatal blindspot for unprecedented poverty. In the Third World tradition...

Post-pandemic, the World will face unprecedented poverty in 2021. Wall Street is upgrading stock price estimates, while the OECD is downgrading the global economy.

Gamblers are riding a Monetary-induced crack high that is about to wear off.

COVID put this failed system of robbing the poor to pay the rich on steroids. In the U.S., the four year MAGA circus only made the problem far worse, as Trump worked overtime to stripmine the working class of benefits to pay for his tax cuts. However, the modus operandi of neo-conservatism is to forget the past of recycled failure, and focus all attention on the here and now. That's how all of these Neo-Marxists "came out of nowhere", because it was all going so well. "The system" was working great as usual. Unfortunately, for these historical illiterates history has a much better recollection of all of the tax cuts, mass outsourcing, stock buybacks, Wall Street bailouts, and false promises that created this epic disaster called the American Dream. It's a testament to the power of brainwashing that half the country STILL believes in this con job. To change a system leading to now imminent self-destruction would be "socialist". History will say they were a useful Idiocracy to the very end. 

Yesterday, the OECD cut their global economic forecast and warned that additional massive stimulus will be needed to cross the valley of COVID death to get to the other side:

"The resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically weakened the global recovery and it could get a lot worse if governments withdraw support too soon or fail to deliver effective vaccines, the OECD warned"

China will account for over a third of the global expansion.

Governments should continue to support their economies beyond the end of lockdown measures and avoid “fiscal cliffs,”

This is the potential magnitude of the U.S. fiscal cliff in 2021, which is now dependent upon the level of political gridlock:

Yesterday (Tuesday), stocks ramped on the news that a bipartisan group is working on a stimulus compromise in the order of $900 billion. However, by the end of the day, McConnell shot it down. What he has in mind will not prevent tens of millions of Americans from falling into abject poverty in 2021.

Economists and Wall Street are far too focused on growth rates and not at all focused on absolute levels of (un)employment. We continue to see a weekly level of jobless claims that would be considered apocalyptic at any other time in U.S. history.

A few people are starting to understand what is coming after this vaccine crack high wears off:

“The Covid-19 outbreak has the potential to have an even bigger effect on the economy through the channel of debt overhang than what we identified in the Great Recession”

Bueller?

We are on the cusp of experiencing a level of poverty not seen since the depths of the Great Depression. Jim Cramer's 1933 moment of post-pandemic ecstasy will feature billionaires celebrating record monetary-sponsored wealth amid record poverty for society at large. There is absolutely no plan on the table to create the level of jobs that will be necessary to prevent wholesale economic devastation. 

Last year, around this time here is what I wrote for my 2020 prediction, pre-pandemic:

Dec. 29, 2019:

"Social mood rollover and crash from a lower high, portends rage on a scale we've never seen before. A society bilked AGAIN by the exact same psychopaths. Going into this, the sheeple are of the belief that everything is going just fine. Consumer sentiment is at a seven month high. Major U.S. stock indices at record highs. They are blissfully unaware that record stimulus gimmicks have been deployed to create this illusion. An asinine 10% of GDP in combined fiscal and monetary stimulus, as we enter 2020. Unprecedented in U.S. history. This is the best con job record amounts of money could buy"

Today I would write the same thing all over again for 2021, with only a few updates:

Social mood rollover and crash from an all time high portends rage on a scale that makes 2020's rioting look like a picnic. An asinine 30% of GDP in combined fiscal and monetary stimulus has been deployed to create this illusion. The biggest mistake our policy-makers are making right now is ignoring this chasmic divide between billionaires and everyone else. They have perfected the technique of generating insane asset bubbles while the economy disintegrates in real-time. A diversion that has allowed the entire developed world to achieve Third World status in just over one decade's time.

The crowning achievement of Globalization.