Business

The Sad Truth About the State of the Financial System Today

For seven years, the world has operated under a complete delusion that Central Banks somehow fixed the 2008 Crisis.

All of the arguments claiming this defied common sense. A 5th grader would tell you that you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt. If the below chart was a problem BEFORE 2008… there is no way that things are better now. After all, we’ve just added another $20 trillion in debt to the US system.

As we approach the mid point of earnings season (this is the busiest week of the Q1 earnings season with 39% of companies having already reported in the US, 33% in Europe and 17% in Japan), here is a quick summary of where we stand.

Here is a quick rundown courtesy of JPM:

Submitted by Wall Street Examiner's Lee Adler via Contra Corner blog,

In March of 2005, 52,000 new homes were sold at prices of less than $200,000.

At the bottom of the crash in March 2009 that number had dropped to 14,000.

The Fed instituted ZIRP and QE around that time.  

Sales of homes under $200,000 totaled 9,000 units in March.

US stocks may have already forgotten about the dramatic collapse in Japanese equities and the surge in the Yen which wiped out months of profits from macro funds (and certainly the latest GDP miss) with the S&P wiping out some 15 points in losses in 36 minutes, but for Japan the hangover from Kuroda's lack of action last night remains, because according to Mark Cudmore, former FX trader who currently writes for Bloomberg, the BOJ made a massive misstep. Here's why.

The BOJ's Massive Misstep

 

Submitted by Pater Diekmeyer via SprottMoney.com,

Gold investors learn early that one of the best ways to leverage their exposure is to buy gold stocks. That strategy has performed well recently. As of Friday, the NYSE ARCA Gold Bugs Index , which trades under the symbol HUI, had nearly doubled since its January low. The index far out-performed the yellow metal itself, which increased in the low double digits.