Hi again all,
Historically September is the worst month for stocks and we have had some bad crashes in October (1929 and 1987 for example). From 9/1/21 open to 9/30/21 close, S&P500 lost 4.88% but during the same time our portfolio gained 13.45%. On 9/20/21, the Dow fell 800 points; and at that time I sold my S&P500 (SPY) puts with a December 2021 expiry date and bought some that expire in February 2022. It is always good to have some puts as a hedge.
In the past I discussed how the corrupt government of El Salvador, going against the advice (warnings) of the World Bank and the IMF and was the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. “May ring their bells now, before long they will be wringing their hands” (Sir Robert Walpole,1887). In El Salvador, 75% of the people do not even have credit cards. There were massive rallies in the country where people set fire to Bitcoin ATM’s. China continued their crackdown on bitcoins and crypto currencies and threatened legal action against those who against their policies. We should do the same!
Current real estate situation and markets remind me of 2006/2007. Market is at an all-time high but everyone is getting in to more and more debt for that privilege. As it has happened many times in the past, this will not end well and for decades millions will be end upside down on their mortgages.
Chinese property giant Evergrande is on the brink of collapse, and analysts warn the potential fallout could have far-reaching implications that spill outside China’s borders.On the heels of Evergrande’s debt crisis, there are increasing signs of stress in China’s property market after one developer failed to make a bond payment on Tuesday. “Evergrande’s collapse would be the biggest test that China’s financial system has faced in years,” says Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics. After expanding rapidly for years and snapping up assets as China’s economy boomed, Evergrande is now snowed under a crushing debt of $300 billion. (CNBC, 10/5/21). Chinese luxury real estate developer Fantasia Holdings said it failed to make a $206 million U.S. dollar bond payment due Monday, sparking fears that debt problems among China’s property development companies spans far beyond China Evergrande. Shenzhen-based Fantasia issued a $500 million senior bond at 7.375% in 2016, but did not repay the outstanding principle when it matured, it said in a Monday exchange filing. Fantasia (ticker: 1777.Hong Kong) invests chiefly in luxury real estate developments in metropolitan areas. Just two weeks earlier, Chairman Pan Jun said in a statement there was no delay in repaying offshore security notes, and that the company’s operating performance was “good with sufficient working capital and no liquidity issue.” (Barron’s, 10/8/21) This column argues that the footprint of China's real estate sector has become so large – with an impact of real estate production and property services on GDP of 29% a few years ago it was around 10%) – that absorbing a significant housing slowdown would significantly impact overall growth, even absent a financial crisis (Voxeu, 9/21/21)
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning” (Winston Churchill). The whole globe will be impacted but it will take time.
When the Chinese government announced that they will not bail out these real estate firms, many on Wall Street stated that this is real capitalism as they believe that there is nothing as “too big to fail”. China is very good at controlling so it might not work for us. Instead of saving these super rich who were exploiting wage earners, the Chinese government promised to help wage earners. As they stated, they do not want home ownership, education only limited to the super rich as it is done in the West. The Chinese government is trying to boost the middle class. The economic growth was the greatest when our middle class did very well- soon after World War 2 with the GI Bill and other veteran benefits.
Most people think free enterprise or capitalism is a “free for all” for the rich and the powerful. That is not true. Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author who is considered the father of modern economics. Smith argued against mercantilism and was a major proponent of laissez-faire economic policies. In his first book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," Smith proposed the idea of an invisible hand—the tendency of free markets to regulate themselves by means of competition, supply and demand, and self-interest. (Investopedia).
When I was in grad school, the Chairman on the Economics Department stated that in Adam Smith’s last book was on the importance of government intervention in the economy or else the richest few would destroy most middle income and lower income people. He came to that conclusion after studying the public transportation system in UK at that time.
History repeats itself when we do not learn from history. We have so much in common with the 1920s. We know how it all ended. After the 1929 The Emergency Banking Act of 1933 was a bill passed in the midst of the Great Depression that took steps to stabilize and restore confidence in the U.S. banking system. It came in the wake of a series of bank runs following the stock market crash of 1929.Over the past 30 years we have been dismantling most of those safeguards in the name of deregulation. This is very dangerous. There are laws against conflict of interest governing people in Congress or in the administration so almost expected the same from people working for the Federal Reserve Bank. It should apply more to them than to those in Congress or Administration. Let us assume a few people who sit on the Federal Reserve Board decided to short sell the stock market and bond market buying puts on the indices (SPY, DIA, QQQ etc.); and then they make a surprise announcement that with immediate effect they are going to increase the interest rate by 5% which would result in a 90% decline in the bond market and in the stock market. All those Federal Reserve officials would become billionaires overnight! What came to light last month was shocking to most people. They did not do anything illegal but that makes it worse. Not only they held stocks/bonds but they were also were trading!
Two Federal Reserve officials said on Thursday they would sell their individual stock holdings by the end of the month to address the appearance of conflicts of interest. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren issued statements saying they would invest the proceeds of those sales in diversified index funds and cash savings and would not trade in those accounts as long as they are serving in their roles. The announcements come after the officials faced scrutiny over trades they made last year, according to their financial disclosure forms. In the forms, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Kaplan disclosed he held a total of 27 investments in individual stock, fund or alternative assets that were valued at over $1 million each. He also made sales or purchases of at least $1 million in 22 individual company shares or investment funds, the report noted. The transactions included Apple, Amazon and General Electric.(Reuters, 9/9/21). Eric Rosengren, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said he would step down this week for health reasons. Meanwhile, Robert Kaplan, the president of the Dallas Fed, said he would resign Oct. 8 to avoid becoming a "distraction" from the Fed's broader mission.(NPR, 9/27/21).
No one knows when but one day we will have an immense crash so it is better to keep 25% to 50% of one’s portfolio in cash so we can benefit from such a crash. However good technicians expect the market will be bullish from the end of October to January.
Have a great October!
Fernando