Business

While the growing woes facing the auto sector are well-known by now (see "Carmageddon: Ford & GM Sales Tank Despite Record July Incentive Spending") and boil down to excess capacity, insufficient demand and just a tiny - if one listens to the experts - subprime lending bubble, one key culprit has emerged as the biggest catalyst behind the chronic weakness among US carmakers: a moribund fleet, or rental, industry which has been devastated in recent years from Uber's juggernaut of disruption.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

John Hussman’s report this week, Estimating Market Losses at a Speculative Extreme, has an interesting chart on Median price-to revenue ratios over time. Let’s dive in.

I added the dashed blue line for ease in comparison to the dot-com bubble peak. Here are some snips from Hussman.

Financial Presstitutes Cover Up for the Big Banks

Paul Craig Roberts

The big New York banks no longer perform the banking function of lending to consumers and businesses. Thanks to government policies that foster increased financial concentration, banking incentives have changed fundamentally. The big banks today are focused on higher risk-return speculation and on trading and fee-based income.

Several days after Paul Singer released his much anticipated letter to investors (key excerpts here), the founder of Elliott Management was profiled on Bloomberg as the "most feared activist investor in the world—by hedge fund rivals, companies and even countries", and for good reason.

The 9th record close in a row for The Dow (and 10th straight day higher - longest streak since Feb).

As one veteran trader exclaimed "holy smokes... never saw volume this low" -

This is the lowest aggregate S&P 500 e-mini Futs volume for this day in history since 2001...

This is easy...