Tag Archives: deficits

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – POLITICIANS BICKER, CONSUMERS AND INVESTORS, HOLD COLLECTIVE BREATH

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – POLITICIANS BICKER,  CONSUMERS AND INVESTORS HOLD COLLECTIVE BREATH

The general equity market was on the downside in September, up a little so far this month, probably based on the uncertainty relative to the election and the size (and nature) of the new stimulus program, still under negotiation between Steve Mnuchin and Nancy Pelosi. Gold bullion was down 4.3% in September, as the Fed Balance sheet “stabilized” around $7 trillion for a couple of months before taking off again. The gold miners were weaker in September, down a bit more than bullion. Both are still up substantially for the year.

Over the long term, the price of gold has closely tracked the increase in government debt. We’ve written almost continuously about the debt and the deficits and how increasing debt is a burden on the future economy. In simplistic terms, deficit spending (for an individual, a family, a business or a country) brings consumption forward at the expense of the future. It is just that simple and future consumption is currently being sacrificed at the altar of the can kicking (down the road) exercise.

A corollary to the current situation is that Federal Reserve money creation has been used to finance a very large portion of the US Federal deficit spending. As the table just below shows, the deficit in the current year has been $3 trillion for the eleven months ending 8/31/20. It seems like no accident that the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet has increased from approximately $4 trillion to $7 trillion currently, coincidentally exactly matching the eleven months of “stated” deficit.

But the story doesn’t quite end there. It’s true that the Fed, with the keystroke of a computer has created trillions of dollars to purchase US Treasuries, which has financed our massive spending deficits. The Fed has been a major buyer, for sure, but not the only buyer. In fact, the Total Public Debt of the US has gone up by almost exactly FOUR TRILLION DOLLARs in the last eleven months, a cool trillion dollars more than the stated deficit spending. Only with government accounting can the incremental debt not equal the deficit during the same period. Our website article on this subject, written in October, 2018, and provided to our investing partners  as well,  is provided just below.

https://www.liptonfinancialservices.com/2018/10/semi-monthly-fiscal-monetary-report-rising-deficits-even-faster-rising-debt-weve-only-just-begun/

In essence the reported monthly and annual deficits are just the numbers within the budget, and almost always the debt buildup is greater, most of it borrowed from the Social Security “lockbox”, now almost depleted. As our article two years ago pointed out, in the eleven years ending 9/30/18, the “extra” debt amounted to an enormous $3.24 trillion.

So the beat goes on, except:

All the numbers are an order of magnitude larger than just a couple of years ago. We all are well versed in the stated deficit, now over $3 trillion for fiscal 2020, but hardly anyone talks about the extra trillion of debt that has been incurred. A trillion dollars is still a great deal of money and the number of trillions is building rapidly. Just a matter of months ago, fiscal hawks were warning that the cumulative debt could approach $30 trillion by 2030, now more like the end of 2021, nine years earlier.

Many observers lose track, or lack perspective, over the actual results of various asset classes, including gold bullion. We all know that gold went from $35 to $850 in the 1970s after Richard Nixon eliminated the conversion of dollars into gold. From 1980 to 2000, with good reason, the price of gold suffered as Reagonomics (with Fed Chairman, Paul Volcker)  and then Clintonomics  kicked in and a strong economy with relatively modest inflation reduced the need for gold as a monetary safe haven. When US deficits increased dramatically in the early 2000s, with the cost of two wars, Y2k inefficiencies, and the aftermath of 9/11, gold started to perform well, and that has generally continued in the last twenty years. The chart below shows how gold bullion has performed in various currencies.

The chart is as of May, 2020, when gold bullion was up 14.3% in US Dollars and it has done even better since then. As you can see, 2013 was the one very poor year (out of 20). It is worth noting that our Partnership was down over 50% that year, since the gold miners typically go up and down more than the price of bullion. We have often pointed out that the upside performance of the gold miners has substantially lagged the price of gold bullion, and it was specifically the terrible 2013 from which we are expecting to recover.  Aside from that observation, you can see that gold bullion in US Dollars has averaged a 10.7% increase annually, almost exactly the 10.3% average of all currencies. There is nothing shabby about the price performance of gold bullion as an asset class, and when the gold mining stocks catch up, the same observation will apply.

Keep all of this in mind as the politicians, economists and pundits predict a new growth phase for the US economy. The Presidential “debate” on Tuesday evening only reinforced our view that the partisan (adolescent) bickering, the legislative dysfunction, the spending and deficits will all continue indefinitely, and there is no “graceful” way out of this political, social and economic mess. Gold and gold related securities have historically protected purchasing power over similar stressful periods, and we firmly believe that this time will not be different.

Roger Lipton

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY REPORT – CHAIRMAN POWELL SPEAKS, THE BIG NEWS IS NOT WHAT YOU’VE HEARD!!

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY REPORT – FED CHAIRMAN POWELL SPEAKS, THE BIG NEWS IS NOT WHAT YOU’VE HEARD!

The general capital markets were strong in August, both equity and fixed income, as the Fed continues to keep interest rates close to zero and grow the money supply at a double digit rate, M2 running at +24% annualized.  Gold related assets gave back hardly any portion of the year’s gain, even though, with a very strong stock market,  there was no obvious short term need for gold as a presumed “safe haven”.  Gold bullion was down 0.3% in August, gold mining stocks down a touch more. For the year, gold bullion is up almost 30%. The gold mining stocks are up more than that as investors are beginning to allocate a  portion of their assets to the precious metal sector. Our update from two weeks ago describes the value based appeal of gold mining stocks, and how their value has substantially lagged the increase in the price of gold bullion.  As we have said before, this is the very early stage of the resumed bull market in gold related assets.

There has been a number of fiscal/monetary developments within just the last week, none larger than the enlarged role of the Fed Reserve, embedded in the commentary of Chairman Powell last Wednesday.

JEROME POWELL DESCRIBES THE FED’S THIRD MANDATE !

Chairman, Jerome Powell’s, speech last week summarized the country’s tenuous financial condition, the Federal Reserve’s approach to dealing with the situation, and, most importantly, a revised view of their long term role. Recall that the Federal Reserve was established in 1913, with the primary role of maintaining stable prices while managing the US money supply to alleviate or avoid the financial panics that precluded the Fed’s creation. In the late 1970s, during a period of high unemployment and high inflation (“stagflation”), Congress broadened the Fed’s responsibility, creating the “dual mandate” of (1) encouraging stable prices and  (2) maximum employment, at the same time promoting moderate interest rates. It is on this basis that the presumably apolitical Fed has become increasing important to the US capital markets and the economy as a whole over the last four decades.

Powell’s much anticipated speech expressly described how the previously described 2% annual inflation target (which destroys about 50% of your purchasing power over 30 years) is now to be considered an “average long term” target. This means that if the inflation rate has been running below 2% for a period of time, the Fed will be tolerant of a range above 2% for a similar time. This was presumably the BIG NEWS.  This should not be news to our followers. In August, 2019, we started writing about all Fed governors invariably using the word SYMMETRICAL when describing the 2% target, and we explained what that means. How much above 2% is tolerable, and for how long, is uncertain, and can the Fed even control these parameters once the inflation genie is out of the bottle ? Only time will tell !

THE REAL NEWS: A third mandate is coming. As Powell described it, for the first time publicly, a broad review of economic conditions was put in place, including events called FED LISTENS. Community groups, apparently something like “town halls” talked to Fed representatives around the country, involving “a wide range of participants—workforce development groups, union members, small business owners, residents of low and moderate income communities, retirees, and others—to hear about how our policies affect peoples’ lives and livelihoods”. YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING. “A clear takeaway from these events was the importance of achieving and sustaining a strong job market, particularly for people from low and moderate income communities.” Further along in Powell’s talk last week, as part of the “New Statement on Longer Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy” – Powell specifically states: “With regard to the employment side of our mandate, our revised statement emphasizes that maximum employment is a broad-based and inclusive goal….particularly for many in low and moderate income communities”.

What this means is: MONEY, trillions of dollars of it, to be printed up by the Fed to purchase the government securities that will finance the huge debts that will increasingly be a drag on future productivity. The Wealth Gap must be addressed, without question, so the Fed is correct to that point. However, inflation, in and of itself. creates  a predictable Wealth Gap. This Wealth Gap has increasingly asserted itself after Richard Nixon eliminated the exchange of US Dollars into gold in August, 1971, and the Fed started managing the money supply more aggressively.  This “third mandate”, now clearly described by Chairman Powell, allows the “fox to continue to be in charge of the henhouse”.

CONCLUSION: 

Inflation is coming, and it will not be “controlled” at 2.25% or 2.5%. So far it has been limited to “Assets”, rather than groceries and apparel, but that will change, as it always has. The Fed is now embracing an effort to narrow the Wealth Gap, as described above, but their effort will not succeed.  The well to do have their stocks, bonds, art, real estate, and perhaps even gold, so can largely maintain their purchasing power. Lower and middle class consumers, on the other hand, never quite figure out why the higher nominal amount in their paycheck doesn’t ever catch up with their needs.  Inflation is the cruelest tax, predictably embraced by the politicians (because they don’t get blamed), and the Federal Reserve, which was established to control inflation becomes an accomplice.

It takes a sound currency to support a productive economy that can grow for the benefit of all, and there is no prospect of that any time soon.

Roger Lipton

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – THE MOVE IN GOLD, AND THE GOLD MINERS, HAS JUST BEGUN!

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – THE MOVE IN GOLD, AND THE GOLD MINERS, HAS JUST BEGUN!

The capital markets continued to be supported by the Federal Reserve Bank’s continued accommodation, in its effort to counter the pandemic related slowdown. The Fed’s policy, to do “whatever it takes”, not even “thinking about thinking about” higher interest rates or tighter money, supported most asset classes, including gold bullion (up 10.8% in July, and up 29.8% YTD) and the gold mining stocks (which did even better). Our Investment Partnership’s portfolio, virtually 100% invested in gold mining stocks, has performed in a similar fashion. While we are pleased with the progress, we expect gold miners to continue to outperform bullion on the upside and feel it is only the top of the second inning for the major move to come. While gold bullion is now at an all-time high, the gold miners are still down more than 50% from their highs. We expect bullion to at least triple from here over the next 3-5 years and the gold miners to increase by a multiple of that. All the financial factors that the pandemic has brought into focus and magnified are still in play.

Prominent investment strategists at Goldman Sachs and other investment firms, as well as legendary investors such as Ray Dalio are now recommending gold and gold mining stocks as productive portions of a diversified portfolio. Virtually every point they make we have been discussing every month for seven or eight years. Goldman says gold is the “currency of last resort and there is more downside to come with interest rates”. Dalio points out that “China is an adversary, the dollar’s reserve status is at risk, there is no true ‘price discovery’ as the Fed is buying everything in sight, the deficits and cumulative debt are a huge burden on future economic growth, central bank balance sheets are exploding as they purchase stocks and bonds and gold bullion as well, all of which support an important allocation to gold”. Does any of this sound familiar?

In addition to the debt burden, another factor that slows the growth path is the aging population. The increasing portion of the US population represented by older people, similar to trends in Japan, China, and Europe, is shown in the following charts.

Lastly, an important feature of government spending in the US is the increasing burden of entitlements, social security in particular. Entitlements and defense make up about 75% of government spending, and that’s a major reason why the total budget is mostly (‘baked in the cake”. With everything else going on in the world, it is often forgotten that the social security system was put in place in the 1930s when the average life span of an American male was about 65, which today is about 80. There were also A LOT MORE workers contributing than recipients. The chart just below shows the steady contraction of that ratio, from 3.7 down to the low 2s.

The above chart is impressive….but the following chart shows numbers closer to the 1930s when FDR put the program in place, with 159 workers/recipient in 1940, decreasing to “only” 42 workers by 1945.

Combine the above charts dealing with Social Security with the reality of an aging population. Add to that what might be considered “anecdotal” in terms of our impression of the work ethic of the younger working age population. If “America’s Greatest Generation” of workers is being replaced by today’s youth, perhaps less convinced of the morality of capitalism, it is difficult to picture government spending coming down or GDP and productivity accelerating.

All of this is to say that central banks, around the world, will have no alternative to aggressive monetary accommodation. Governments, similarly, will do likewise with fiscal  measures. We can watch this play out currently on almost a daily basis, and this is at a scale unprecedented in modern business history. Gold bullion, based on many parameters which we have described previously, is as cheap now as it was in 1971, before it went from $35 to $850. At $850 it was likely “ahead of itself” but $300-400 would have been a rational range at that point. Accordingly, 8-10 times the current level, which discounted by 50% would be $8-10,000 per oz., can be justified today. The gold mining companies, leveraged to the price of gold, could (and should) go up by somewhere between two and four times that gain. This is the basis by which we suggest  that the gold mining stocks could increase by 10-20x their current levels.

With gold hitting all-time highs, and the gold miners at seven or eight year highs, you will no doubt hear a number of financial commentators suggest that “the easy money has been made”. Some will suggest taking profits, with an objective of getting back in at a lower level. We suggest that if you owned a stock that had gone from $11 to $20, but you think it will be $80 or $90 or $100 in a few years, would you sell it at $20 to try to buy it back at $19 or $18? Probably not :).

Over the very long term, gold should be considered a “store of value” rather than an “investment”. There is, after all, no dividend or organic growth.  At the present time, however, the investment characteristics of this asset class, substantially lagging the increased nominal prices of almost all others, are too compelling to ignore. That is why our investment partnership is 100% invested by way of the above approach.

Roger Lipton

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – THE CORONAVIRUS, EVEN SOCIAL UNREST, WILL PASS, ECONOMIC RAMIFICATIONS WILL BE FAR LONGER LASTING

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – THE CORONAVIRUS, AND EVEN THE SOCIAL REST, WILL PASS, BUT THE ECONOMIC RAMIFICATIONS WILL BE FAR LONGER LASTING

PROLOGUE

We wrote most of this update a couple of weeks ago, before the horrific situation in Minneapolis triggered protests, often with accompanying riots, in major cities all over America. There is no doubt that the growing wealth and opportunity gap in America, in and of itself,  is adequate justification for protest and rebellion. The stage was set, on top of that, by the social and economic tension from several months of restricted activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. While we cannot claim to be an authority regarding social trends, the recent developments, unfortunately, magnify  and accelerate even further the trends we discuss below.

THE MONTH OF MAY

While the general equity markets were strong all month, as investors seem to assume that the Coronavirus pandemic is in the rear view window, gold bullion strengthened a bit as well, up 2.6% for the month. The gold mining stocks continued their strong relative performance of April, up by low double digits in May and now comfortably positive for the year. As we have suggested, the gold miners should move at a multiple of the gold price because of their operating leverage and that is happening. Most impressively, since March31st, the low point, gold bullion is up about 9.9% and our gold mining stocks are up over 5 times that, measured by an average of GDX and GDXJ, the two major gold mining ETFs.

We continue to point out that the miners are down a lot more from their highs of 2011-2012 than gold bullion. Bullion, at $1730/oz. is down about 10% from the high and the gold mining stocks are still down well over 50%. Theoretically, then, if gold bullion moves up by 10%, the miners could double. That might be a “reach”, but the seven times move over the last two months could be indicative of what is ahead. Let’s hope so.

The following update is longer than we like to provide. However, since there is so much misinformation about the role of gold and the prospects for the gold miners, we want our readers to  be as well informed as possible.

THE STIMULUS IS MIND BOGGLING –THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT, AND IT IS A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON

The coronavirus will pass, but the economic ramifications will be far longer lasting.  You don’t get out of a fiscal/monetary hole by continuing to dig. The current health crisis has brought forward, accelerated, and magnified the economic trends that were already in place. The monstrous buildup in debt is important because economic history has clearly shown that the higher the debt burden the bigger the drag on productive growth. This is why the longest (and falsely promoted as “the strongest”) economic expansion in US history only provided 2.3-2.4% annual real GDP growth from ’10 through ’19. You heard it here first: there is no chance in hell that future growth (after the “dead cat bounce” from current levels) will be higher than 2% or so, likely to be materially lower, with the new debt burden that the world will be carrying. 

We all know that the Fed balance sheet is exploding, as it finances the monstrous government spending. It is instructive to look at the pattern of growth over the last dozen years, as the supposedly apolitical Fed ignores the conservative side of the Keynes economic equation. John Maynard Keynes suggested, in the late 1920s and early 1930s,  that the Fed should provide stimulus in hard times and pull it back in better times, presumably muting potential booms and busts. Unfortunately, economic conditions never seem to get good enough to remove the previous accommodation.

Recapping the last dozen years: The Fed Balance sheet was under $1T in early ’08. It grew to about $2.2T by late’08, stayed around that level until mid ’09 when it started moving to about $3T by late ’11. From late ’12 to late ’14 it moved to $4.5T where it stayed until early ’18. The economy apparently never got quite good enough to pull back between ’10 and late ’17. In early ’18 the Fed announced a program of “automatic” reduction, with the implied objective to get back to perhaps $2.5-3.0T. It got back (only) to $3.7T by the end of ’19, but with the economy softening and distortions in the short term “repo” bond market, the Fed backed off and built its asset base to $4.2T, clearly on the way to a new high by mid’20.

Which brings us to the current “new world”. Since March 4, 2020, the Fed has taken its balance sheet from $4.2T to $7.0T, and Chairman, Jay Powell, has indicated that he will do “whatever it takes”. We expect it to be $10T or more in a matter of months. Folks,, this does not provide organic, productive, sustainable economic growth. This only provides an addictive high (not so high, in this case), supportive by always increasing doses of fiscal/monetary drugs.

The money printing, as the Central Banks finance their respective deficits, is not limited to the United States. Just this week, the European Common Bank announced a $2T stimulus package and The Japanese Central Bank weighed in with $1T. While the European economy, in total, is larger than the US, the Japanese economy is only 1/6 our size, so these are huge numbers in any context.

The debt and deficits that require the Fed’s intervention are likewise exploding. The US debt, excluding unfunded entitlements like Social Security, is now approaching $26T, up from $22.7 at 9/30/19. The operating deficit which was supposed to be about $1.2T for the full year ending 9/30/20 is now expected to be at least $4.0T. The deficit in April alone was $738B. At this junction, after trillions of dollars have already been provided, it is clear that there is much more fiscal/monetary stimulus to come and nobody knows the ultimate magnitude or duration. Most importantly: virtually everyone, fiscal hawks and doves alike, bipartisan in nature, agree that the support must be provided, and we can all worry about the ramifications later.

 THE PRICE OBJECTIVE FOR GOLD BULLION

The price of gold has shown a strong long term correlation with the federal US debt. The buildup of the Federal Reserve balance sheet over the last fifteen years has also strongly correlated with the gold price. The above discussion therefore supports a materially  higher price of gold related securities.

We believe that gold has proven itself for thousands of years as a store of value, is the ultimate currency, and this is the single most important reason that it is worth owning. It competes with paper currencies as the supply and demand of one currency (gold) must relate to the supply and demand of unbacked colored paper. The following chart shows the value of the gold held by the United States, since 1918 (shortly after the Fed was established in 1913), relative to the adjusted monetary base. A chart looks similar on a worldwide basis. You can see that from 1913 until just before the end of WWII, the value of the gold was about 35% of the monetary base. After the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 whereby the US Dollar was established as the reserve currency, the percentage drifted down. The monetary base was growing steadily, and the US gold backing was declining, but the world was relatively unconcerned during a postwar recovery period. In the late 1960s, however, as US spending for the Vietnam War and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society accelerated, US trade and operating deficits became widely anticipated. Over 50% of the US gold was exchanged for dollars within eighteen months prior to August, 1971, when Richard Nixon “closed the gold window”. At that point, our gold amounted to only 6-7 % of the US monetary base. This level is important because we are back to that same level today.

We are not suggesting that the US, or anyone else, will make their paper currency convertible into gold any time soon. It wouldn’t work for long, in any event, because deficits in all major trading countries are larger than ever, and paper currencies would once again be tendered for gold. No country could back their currency with gold, unless they were “balancing their books” or, at the least, that prospect was in sight. We do, however, feel that the value of the gold “in circulation” should have a relationship to the value of alternative currencies. You might be surprised to learn that the country most able to make their currency convertible into gold would be Russia, perhaps our most prominent political adversary and a consistently large buyer of gold.

The chart above indicates that 7% could be 35%, or five times the current price. This  ballpark calculations indicate what we consider to be a rational value of 5-6x the current $1730/oz, or $8600 to $10,300/oz. This ballpark price range objective is at the current time. The monetary base is now rising at about 20% per year with all the money printing to support the economy in the current crisis. Though gold is now moving steadily higher, the monetary base is also rising so the price objective within just the next few years could be well over $10,000/oz.

THE TIMING – FOR GOLD BULLION PRICES

The following two charts provide insight into the possibility of an imminent major upward move. The first chart shows the high correlation of the gold price to the amount of worldwide sovereign negative yielding debt, which peaked at $16-17T in mid ’19 and is now in the low teens. Even in Germany, the strongest European country, the entire yield curve has been negative or close to it. We believe that the amount of negative yielding debt will continue its upward march and could even include some of the US debt, especially based on President Trumps implied blessing just two weeks ago. The continued upward trend of this indicator could be influential in breaking the gold price out above the previous all-time high of $1911. That, in turn, could ignite the price toward the price objectives noted above.

The second chart shows a nineteen-year price chart of gold. It shows the end of an 11-12-year bull market, ending in 2012, then a 6-7 year “consolidation”. The price has now clearly broken above $1400, the previous high. Chart technicians would say that the longer the base, the bigger the move. It is conceivable that a new bull market has begun that could last for quite a few years. This would tie in to our logic that the price of gold could be 5-6 times higher over a number of years.

There are other charts we could provide that show a long term correlation of the price of gold to the level of US debt. Over the last fifteen years the same sort of correlation has taken place between gold and the buildup of the Federal Reserve balance sheet.

THE GOLD MINING STOCKS

The chart just below shows the gold mining index, XAU, relative to the price of gold bullion. Since 2008, the relative valuation of gold equities to gold bullion has fallen 75% from the prior 25-year average. The ratio of the XAU Index to spot gold averaged 0.25x for a quarter century through 2008. As of 3/31/2020, the ratio was 0.05x.

We believe that the substantial divergence in performance is due to mostly outdated opinions.  Managements have been improved, balance sheets have been strengthened, operations have been streamlined. Additionally, energy costs, which are 15% or operating expenses, are much lower today than the range of $80-120/bbl of ten years ago.  Higher gold prices and lower expenses have produced impressive recent results from established miners and should become even more so.

SUMMARY

The healthcare crisis, now exacerbated even further by the social unrest,  has accelerated, magnified, and brought forward in time many of the long term fiscal/monetary trends that we have been expecting for some time. We continue to feel that gold mining companies are the single best asset class in terms of reward versus risk.

We’ve been joined lately in our conviction relative to gold by legendary investors and portfolio strategists such as David Rosenberg, Jeff Gundlach, Ray Dalio, Jim Roberts, Stanley Drukenmiller, David Einhorn, Stephanie Pomboy, Luke Gromen and others. Long term proponents of gold and gold miners such as John Hathaway Fred Hickey, Bill Fleckenstein and Peter Schiff are more convinced than ever. Though it’s nice to have some “smart money” in our camp, the investment world in general is just beginning to take small positions in this sector.

Gold bullion is up about 14% this year at this moment (a safe haven, after all). The miners, which were down for the year a month ago, are now in positive territory and catching up with bullion. In the last two months, gold mining stocks, as measured by an average of  GDX and GDXJ, the two largest gold mining ETFs,  have moved over 5x the price change of bullion (Our Investment Partnership, RHL Associates, LP, has done even better).  We believe we are still in the first inning of the resumption of the long term bull market for gold related securities.

Roger Lipton

 

 

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY REPORT – YEARLY TRENDS NOW ONLY TAKE MONTHS, EVEN WEEKS ! !

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY REPORT – YEARLY TRENDS NOW  ONLY TAKE MONTHS, EVEN WEEKS !

We discussed last month how gold bullion and the gold miners were swept up in the panic of March ‘20, just as in the fall of ’08, irrational as it might have been for this supposedly uncorrelated, and safe asset investment class. We described how gold bullion and the gold miners led the markets higher from early ’09 through ’11-‘12 once the dust settled, and suggested that this might be the case again. In the month of April just ended, gold bullion was up  about 9% and the gold mining stocks did 4-5x as well.  Since the gold miners are still so depressed relatively, as shown in the chart just below, we expect the miners to far outperform the bullion price in the future, just as they have in April. Again we say: we expect the price of gold bullion to go up by 4-6x times in value over the next several years and the gold miners could go up by 2-4x that. Add the two multipliers together and we get potential of 8-24x the current price for the gold mining stocks. April was an excellent month, but we view it as just the bottom of the first inning of this baseball game.

A PICTURE (ABOVE) IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS!

This chart above shows vividly that since 2008, the relative valuation of gold mining equities to gold bullion has fallen 75% from the prior 25-year average. While the industry has recently suffered health-related mine shutdowns affecting something like 15% of worldwide production, gold not produced today should grow in value and be sold at higher prices with lower costs in the future. Earnings for almost all the publicly held operating mines were very good in Q4’19 when gold bullion was about $200 higher year to year. Q1’20, which is yet to be reported, will have gold bullion closer to $250 higher and Q1’20 has started off closer to $300/oz. higher. Importantly, energy prices, which account for something like 15% of mining costs (pushing around heavy equipment to process ore) have come down sharply, so mining companies will increasingly have the twin advantages of higher gold prices and lower mining expenses. It is relevant that in the deflationary depression of the early 1930s, Homestake Mining not only went up about six times in value from 1929 to 1935, but paid out almost twice its 1929 stock price in dividends. FDR did raise the price of gold from $20.67 to $35.00 (devaluing the dollar relative to gold) but that wasn’t until 1934. Sharply increased earnings and dividend payouts were largely the result of lower mining costs. The manufacturing “leverage” is the reason why mining stocks have historically delivered outperformance 3 to 5 times that of the metal itself in a favorable cycle for bullion prices.

A QUICK LOOK BACK

As you know, we have long held the view that the worldwide economy has been built, for forty years but especially over the last ten years, on an increasingly dangerous foundation of credit and debt. The necessary financial measures to deal with the current health crisis are being imposed on a system that is already loaded down with far too much debt, short term and long term. With interest rates artificially suppressed, many trillions of dollars have been mis-allocated as investors in both equity and debt have reached for yield in increasingly risky ventures. Governmental deficits, after ten years of steady, if tepid, worldwide growth, were already approaching record levels. The US Federal Reserve asset base, which expanded from $1T to $4.5T to cope with the last financial crisis in ’08, had been reduced by mid-2019 to only $3.7T. In the current crisis, the balance sheet has gone from about $4.1T to $6.5T in just six weeks. So much for Keynesian economics, where the central bank stimulates the economy in bad times, and removes the stimulus in better times. The result, predictably, is that there is now no margin for error.

Less than six weeks ago, on March 3rd, when the coronavirus crisis was just emerging, we said:

“It is important to note that the monetary stimulus that supported the worldwide economy ten years ago……will of necessity be dwarfed by today’s needs.

“Today’s starting point for the Fed balance sheet is just over $4T and the ending point could be $10T. It always takes more (financial) heroin to maintain the (monetary) high.

”Our conviction is that the Fed, and the other Central Banks around the world have become impotent. Each round of stimulus the last twenty years has been increasingly less effective in stimulating growth. It is called a “diminishing marginal return on investment”. Monetary stimulus has run its course. It then falls back to the need for more fiscal stimulus, in the form of tax cuts, etc. That will have a limited effect, also, but will explode the deficit.”

WE UNDERESTIMATED THE URGENCY, THE DEPTH, AND THE BREADTH OF THE FISCAL/MONETARY SUPPORT NECESSARY

The US government (followed by others  worldwide) are throwing trillions of dollars around like confetti. We are together watching the daily news as everybody, large and small, is being supported for an indefinite period. (Turns out that Bernie Sanders didn’t have to get elected.) The Fed assets are already over $6.5T, up about $1.5T in the last 3-4 weeks. Ten trillion dollars was the consensus for a week or two, but is constantly moving higher, and our bet is at least $15T within a year.  The Fed has to purchase most of the US Treasuries that will be sold to finance a US operating deficit that will be something like $4-5T this year ending September 30. They are also buying securities of all types, including High Yield Debt, Mortgages and Municipal Bonds. Since capital gains tax receipts are important to cities, states, and the Federal government, their absence will compound the problem for all. We have yet to see discussion of the $6T of underfunded pension liabilities, which the Fed will have to backstop in the absence of a constantly rising stock market.

CONCLUSION AND STRATEGY

It’s been said that “In every crisis, you can look like a fool either before or after”. The fiscal/monetary trends we have been “foolishly” describing “before”, along with the predictable consequences, are now being all too vividly demonstrated.  However, there is an important unexpected consequence.

The long term trends of increasing deficits and increasingly sluggish growth (burdened by the higher debt) are now being compressed in time and very substantially magnified. What might have played out over ten years is now taking place in a matter of months. The Fed balance sheet, for example, which we always believed would get to $10T, perhaps in 5-7 years, will now get there late in 2020.  Operating deficits, scheduled to grow steadily in the 2020s from comfortably over $1T this year to $2T or more by 2030, will now have a much higher baseline. Just as we have said, however, the economy will be far too burdened by debt to grow strongly, if at all. There may well be a short term rebound when the cabin fever breaks, but it will be short lived. Consumers will have been traumatized. Businesses will be trying to rebuild balance sheets, and there will be new rules for all to play by. As Warren Buffet famously pointed out: “When the tide goes out, you see who is swimming naked.”

As we said at the beginning of this letter, we believe that gold bullion will go up 3-4x or more and the gold mining stocks by a multiple of that.  We cannot think of any other asset class that offers nearly as much opportunity, and protection at the same time. We had previously thought that this would play out over perhaps five years but we now believe that it could be a much shorter time frame.

Roger Lipton

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY REPORT – THE VIRUS IS CONTROLLABLE, THE FED IS NOT !

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY REPORT – THE VIRUS IS CONTROLLABLE, THE FED IS NOT !

FOREWORD: This report is early because major developments are practically daily, all very supportive of higher gold prices.  Gold bullion, and the gold miners are up sharply this month. Relative to our Investment Partnership, RHL Associates, LP (almost entirely invested in gold mining stocks):  Considering the pace of news and the volatility  of prices, new investors (minimum $250,000), or additional investment by existing investors (no minimum), will be allowed to add funds as of closing prices on Wednesday, April 15th. If interested, call at 646 270 3127 or email at lfsi@aol.com. (This is not a solicitation, which can only be made by way of an offering circular, to be provided.)

UPDATE

We have long held the view that the worldwide economy  has been built, for forty years but especially over the last ten years, on an  increasingly dangerous foundation of credit and debt. The necessary financial measures to deal with the current health crisis are being imposed on a system that is already loaded down with far too much debt, short term and long term. With interest rates artificially suppressed, many trillions of dollars have been mis-allocated as investors in both equity and debt have reached for yield in increasingly risky ventures. Governmental deficits, after ten years of steady, if tepid, worldwide growth, were already approaching record levels. The US Federal Reserve asset base, which expanded from $1T to $4.5T to cope with the last financial crisis in ’08, had been lately reduced to  only $3.7T. So much for Keynesian economics, where the central bank stimulates the economy in bad times, and removes the stimulus in better times. The result, predictably, is that there is now no margin for error.

Less than six weeks ago, on March 3rd, when the coronavirus crisis was just emerging, we said:

“It is important to note that the monetary stimulus that supported the worldwide economy ten years ago……will of necessity be dwarfed by today’s needs.

“Today’s starting point for the Fed balance sheet is just over $4T and the ending point could be $10T. It always takes more (financial) heroin to maintain the (monetary) high.

” Our conviction is that the Fed, and the other Central Banks around the world have become impotent. Each round of stimulus the last twenty years has been increasingly less effective in stimulating growth. It is called a “diminishing marginal return on investment”. Monetary stimulus has run its course. It then falls back to the need for more fiscal stimulus, in the form of tax cuts, etc. That will have a limited effect, also, but will explode the deficit.”

WE WERE WRONG: WE SUBSTANTIALLY UNDERESTIMATED THE NEED

The US government (followed by others worldwide) are throwing trillions of dollars around like confetti. We are together watching the daily news as everybody, large and small, is being supported for an indefinite period. (Turns out that Bernie Sanders didn’t have to get elected.) The Fed assets are already over $6T, up almost $1T in the last two weeks alone. Ten trillion dollars is the consensus, but our bet is at least $15T within a year, and more later.  They have to purchase most of the US  Treasuries that will be sold to finance a US operating deficit that will be something like $4-5T this year. They are also buying securities of all types, including High Yield Debt, Mortgages and Municipal Bonds. Since capital gains tax receipts are important to cities, states, and the Federal government, their absence will compound the problem for all. We have seen no discussion yet on the news about the $6T of underfunded pension liabilities, which the Fed will be called upon in a declining stock market.

ONE YEAR AGO, ON 4/15/19, WE WROTE AN ARTICLE ABOUT INTERVENTION IN NORMAL SUPPLY/DEMAND RELATIONSHIPS, E.G. GOVERNMENTS NOT  ALLOWING FOR TRUE “PRICE DISCOVERY” . PART OF THE ARTICLE IS AS FOLLOWS:

“Where are we in this process ??  In addition to the negatively yielding fixed income government securities, the Bank of Japan (that has been doing this for almost thirty years) now owns about $250 billion of Japanese ETFs, or 75% of that entire market of ETFs. On the fixed income side, the Bank of Japan owns about 45%, or $4.5 trillion worth of all the Japanese government bonds outstanding. With it all, the Japanese economy is still running well below 2% real growth, with inflation at well under the 2% objective. It is of course an important sub-text that central banks worldwide are trying to stimulate inflation, rather than subdue it, which was the original objective.  Closer to home, we have been informed that our Fed is abandoning QT, preparing for a new form of QE, which, some have suggested, could include the purchase of US equities as well as bonds.

“Here’s a quick economic lesson for the hundreds of PHDs that are working within central banks. Don’t intervene in a market unless you are prepared to BUY IT ALL, because you will, eventually. Witness the holdings of the Bank of Japan, who have been at this game the longest, still without the result they have been reaching for. Aside from a long list of unintended consequences that have yet to play out, the attempt to lighten the inventory, (Sell to whom?) has just been demonstrated in the US. One down month in the stock market (December ’18) with the two year treasury rate approaching 3% and the US Fed caved. Whom do you think the Japanese Central Bank can sell to?”

BACK TO TODAY,  APRIL 13, 2O20

Governments and Central Banks, around the world, are doing precisely what is described above, buying all kinds of securities at prices higher than the free market would call for.  The end result is that they will own it all. The previous owners are getting a gift, with an unnaturally high price. 

CONCLUSION AND STRATEGY

It’s been said that “In every crisis, you can look like a fool either before, or after”. The fiscal/monetary trends we have been “foolishly” describing “before”, along with the predictable consequences, are now being all too vividly demonstrated.  However, there is another, unexpected by all of us, consequence.

The long term trend of increasing deficits and increasingly sluggish growth (burdened by the higher debt) is now being compressed in time and very substantially magnified. What might have played out over ten years is now taking place in a matter of months. The Fed balance sheet, for example, which we always believed would get to $10T, perhaps in 5-7 years, will now get there late in 2020.  Operating deficits, scheduled to grow steadily in the 2020s from comfortably over $1T this year to $2T or more by 2030, will now have a much higher baseline. Just as we have said, however, the economy will be far too burdened by debt to grow strongly, if at all. There may well be a short term rebound when the cabin fever breaks, but it will be short lived. Consumers will have been traumatized. Businesses will be trying to rebuild balance sheets, and there will be new rules for all to play by.

Stock investors, at Thursday’s closing prices , have generally given back about five years of gains, and could give up the previous five as well if there is another downleg.

On the other hand, gold, the “real money”  has protected purchasing power over the very long term. Gold bullion after bottoming several years ago at $1050, has been steadily higher and is now selling only about 15% below its all time high of $1900 in 2011. Our preference, the gold mining stocks, have not done as well since 2012, still down more than 50% from their highs in 2012. Our choice has been admittedly costly, but we wanted the operating leverage that the mining companies provide with a rising gold price.  This continues to be the case, and we think the upside opportunity in the gold mining stocks is greater than ever. Coming off the lows of early ’09, gold bullion doubled in price and the miners more than quadrupled. The opportunity is even larger today since (1) balance sheets are better (2) management teams are improved (3) energy prices represent 15-20% of operating costs. Crude oil was between $80-120 per barrel back in ’09-’11, now a fraction of that, so profits at these higher gold prices will be that much more impressive.

We have been heavily invested in this area for 6-7 years, writing on this subject for the last four years. The articles are available, for FREE, on this website.

We believe that gold bullion will go up 3-4x or more and the gold mining stocks by a multiple of that.  We can not think of any other asset class that offers nearly as much opportunity. We had previously thought that this would play out over perhaps five years, we now believe that it could be a much shorter time frame.

Roger Lipton

YEAR END FISCAL/MONETARY SUMMARY – GOLD, AND THE GOLD MINERS, RE-ESTABLISH UPWARD TREND, WITH GOOD REASON!!

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YEAR-END FISCAL/MONETARY SUMMARY – GOLD, AND THE GOLD MINERS, RE-ESTABLISH UPWARD TREND, WITH GOOD REASON!!

December, and the fourth quarter, continued in the same vein as the first three calendar quarters.  The operating leverage for the miners is starting to be recognized, since the move in mining stocks in December was more than double the 3.7% that gold bullion moved. It was a similar case for the year, with gold bullion up 17.9% and the miners up about double that. The most impressive relative move of the month was the last two days when the miners were up  2-3% with bullion up only 0.4%, so it is possible that this is the beginning of the still very depressed mining stocks catching up to the bullion price. The performance of our investment partnership, almost entirely invested in gold mining companies, mirrored that described above.

While bullion (at $1525/oz.) is down about 20% from its high of $1900/oz. (in 2011), the miners are down 50-70%, so the mining stocks could go up 100% or more with bullion rising 20-25% to the previous high. Since we believe that bullion will sell for something like $5,000/oz. within the next few years, you can see how our portfolio could multiply by many times the current price.

There is no reason to change our longstanding view that gold mining stocks have the most upside potential of any liquid asset class we know of. All the reasons we have been discussing for the last six years are only intensifying, and the potential reward for our patience has increased with time. You can review at your leisure our article written in August  of this year: THE CASE FOR GOLD – we are gratified that a true giant of the gold mining industry, Rob McEwen, who built Goldcorp, one of the largest and successful mining companies (recently merged with Newmont Mining),  has re-published (with our permission) our article on the website of his young company, publicly traded McEwen Mining (MUX). . Maybe we know something, after all 😊

Our many articles on this subject, largely summarized in THE CASE FOR GOLD, are hereby augmented with the following thoughts regarding Inflation, Central Bank Gold Purchasing, US Deficits and Cumulative Debt, Interest Rate Expectations and Worldwide Economic Trends.

INFLATION, which is supportive of the gold price, is not dead, as widely assumed. The apparent absence of inflation, as measured by the Bureau of Economic Statistics, has provided comfort to the PHDs at central banks. However (1) the price indexes that are quoted, inexplicably excluding food and energy which are consumed daily, have been manipulated periodically to put a false face on reality. Among other benefits to our government, understated inflation provides an insufficient increase to entitlements such as social security payments (2) Though certain imported apparel prices and some consumer electronics have not increased in price, asset prices (explicitly targeted by central banks), including stocks and bonds and prime real estate and collectibles have made the rich richer while the middle class strains to make ends meet. Inflation is with us when a Van Gogh painting sells for $240M or a NYC coop sells for over $100M. The super rich are purchasing iconic items which they know will command a premium price long into the future, as opposed to holding the colored paper that they know will have a tiny fraction of its current purchasing power. Even an understated 2% annual inflation rate destroys 50% of your purchasing power in 35 years. A 1971 dollar is worth about $0.15, a 1913 dollar is worth less than $.03. That Van Gogh or Central Park South penthouse will do better than that. The chart below shows how big ticket items, where the money is spent, have inflated over the last twenty years at rates well above those reported by our Bureau of Economic Analysis.

CENTRAL BANKS INCREASE GOLD BUYING, and the inevitable ramifications are becoming more obvious. Central Banks, most notably China and Russia, are buying physical gold at a record rate in 2019, at the same time reducing US Treasury Securities as a percentage of their reserves. Central banks collectively, even with China’s understated purchases, are now absorbing more than 20% of annual worldwide gold production. Furthermore, an increasing amount of trade is taking place between China, Russia, and the Mideast, conducted in terms of Yuan and Rubles and Gold, and the ounces of Gold it takes to purchase a gallon of Oil may indeed be a very important guidepost that determines the future relationship between various currencies. With geo-political-trade tensions so high, nothing would please the Chinese, the Russians, or the Saudis more than an ability to conduct more of their business in something other than US Dollars. Well connected sources are increasingly suggesting that China, combining the gold ownership of its many government agencies, likely owns upwards of 20,000 tons of physical gold, rather than the 1,900 tons owned by the Peoples Bank of China, which they report. This dwarfs the 8,100 tons the US has owned since 1971. Russia, with their rapidly increasing 2,200 tons, is the largest owner relative to the size of their economy and currency and most able to implement some sort of a gold related monetary system if they were so inclined.

There are reports of international discussions relating to a new “reserve currency”, joining or even replacing the US Dollar. The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 assumed the US would maintain the “value” of the US Dollar by backing it with gold. The USA has blatantly abused its trading privilege during the last 75 years by “closing the gold window” in 1971, generating annual operating deficits in 35 out the last 39 years, running up $23 trillion of debt (excluding tens of trillions of unfunded entitlement)  and printing $4 trillion of fresh (fiat, i.e.unbacked) money by our Federal Reserve Bank. International monetary circles are starting to consider a new monetary “approach”, and worldwide central banks may be anticipating that likelihood by way of their physical gold purchases.  We believe that China could announce, almost any time, a new form of currency, perhaps a so called crypto-currency, backed by upwards of 20,000 tons of gold. At the same time, a new base price for gold bullion at $5,000/oz. or more would be supported by the Chinese.

The current worldwide fiscal/monetary “promiscuity”, unbacked paper currencies being diluted into oblivion by the politicians of the day, cannot go on indefinitely without predictable ramifications. When a trend cannot go on, by definition, it will not. We view gold as re-emerging as the true currency, the store of value and unit of exchange it has been for 5,000 years. Central banks, including our most direct political and economic adversaries, get it. The public in China and India get it. Investors in North America hardly at all, some might say “whistling past the graveyard”. It’s going to be interesting.

THE FEDERAL DEBT is north of $23 trillion in the US, also growing rapidly in the other largest trading nations in the world. We’ve pointed out many times that the debt is increasing even more than the annually budgeted operating deficits would imply. This can only happen with governmental accounting. The difference is due largely to the federal government borrowing from the social security trust fund. In the fiscal year ending 9/30/19, for example, the operating deficit was $984B but “off budget” spending, financed by the social security system which is itself approaching insolvency, took the cumulative debt up an extra $206B, from $21.97T to $23.16T. This is not “one off”, it happens almost every year and is to be expected. Therefore, we can expect the total deficit in the fiscal year ending 9/30/20 to be something like $24.5T, on its way to $26T by the time the newly elected president takes office in January,’21. This assumes that there are no economic disruptions, and a recession, with lower tax revenues and larger deficits are out there somewhere. All of this is very important because, the larger the debt the more difficult economic growth becomes. Whether we’re talking about an individual, a family, a company or a country, the more effort it takes to service debt, the less investment can be made in productive pursuit. Our economy and other major worldwide economies will therefore continue to be kept afloat by central bank financial creativity. It will work until it doesn’t, and will inevitably be accompanied by many unintended painful consequences.

INTEREST RATES are not going to change much in the foreseeable future. Interest payments on the debt are barely tolerable only because rates are so low. Every increased point (100 basis points) of extra interest equates to $230B of extra interest as current bonds mature, and over 50% of our outstanding debt is under 5 years. This extra interest would be a material increment and would squeeze out potentially productive government spending. Higher interest rates, which the US Fed tried briefly a year ago, stopped our economy and the stock market in its tracks, and the policy was quickly reversed. The US economy has stabilized currently but GDP growth is projected to be no more than a tepid 2% this year, even less than it was a year ago when slightly higher interest rates took their toll. The only way interest rates could rise by much is if the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, lose control over the situation and this would be a sign of impending financial chaos. Lower interest rates are possible, but the 10 year treasury note is under 2%, and the marginal benefit of lower rates from here is debatable. Negative interest rates on something like $13T of sovereign debt is a fact of life, but that approach has its own set of unintended consequences, and adoption by the US Fed would clearly be a sign of desperation. Give or take 50 basis points, we believe interest rates are “range bound” for the next year or two.

WORLDWIDE ECONOMIC TRENDS support our contention that worldwide central banks, in support of local economies, will maintain low interest rates interest rates, which provides a major tailwind for our portfolio. Headlines in the Wall Street Journal today, January 2, include (1) Asian Economies Must Brace for Chill Wind From China (2) Japan’s Lost 30 Years (with debt going to 250% of GDP) Give Pause to Those Looking at U.S. (3) Japan Has Gone from Growth Market to Bargain Rack (4) ‘Japanification’ Haunts Slow Growth Europe (5) Latin America’s ‘Oasis” Descends Into Chaos. As Wendy’s put it, thirty years ago: “Where’s The Beef”.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER, we’re certainly pleased that our gold mining oriented investment partnership provided positive results in December, the 4th quarter, and the year.  The mining stocks have just begun to gain investment traction. It seems that, until now investors and analysts have not believed that gold at $1400-1500 per oz. is here to stay. They have been therefore unwilling to adjust upward their estimates of gold reserves, mine lives, earnings and cash flow expectations for the gold mining companies. Gold bullion prices have now clearly broken out on the upside from their six year “consolidation” and the possibility (we call it a likelihood) of a big upside move now comes into view. We can therefore expect upgraded expectations and higher valuations.

There have been virtually no major new gold reserves discovered in the last ten years, and new mines take many years to get permitted. Higher prices will allow expanded mining of some lower grade reserves by established companies but will not allow new mines to come onstream for many years. Existing miners have made major progress in cost control over the last few years and are in a position to improve cash flow and profits dramatically, even at current prices. Operating results for the quarter ending 9/30/19, the first quarter in eight years that the gold price was something like $200/oz. higher than a year earlier, have begun to demonstrate the operating leverage that is in place. We believe that the bull market in gold and gold mining stocks has resumed and the upside potential is very substantial.

Roger Lipton

 

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – FED ACTS, CAPITAL MARKETS REACT, GOLD MINERS SHINE

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – THE FED ACTS, CAPITAL MARKETS REACT, GOLD MINERS SHINE

The general equity market was up just a little in July as the investing world waited to see how aggressive the Fed would be in terms of lowering rates. When the cut in rates yesterday afternoon was only 25 basis points, all capital markets sold off, with his remarks interpreted as if this cut would be “one and done”. This will not be the actuality, in our opinion, as extended monetary ease will be necessary to support the weakening worldwide economy. It is encouraging to us that, with gold bullion virtually flat for the month of July, based upon the prices of GDX and GDXJ, the two largest gold mining ETFs, and TGLDX, OPGSX, AND INIVX, the three precious metal mutual funds that we track,  the gold mining stocks were up about 5% for the month. This price performance is starting to reflect the inherent operating leverage within the miners vs. the price of gold bullion. For the year to date,  the gold mining stocks are up about 24.1%, nicely outperforming gold bullion which is up 9.9%.

The price action of gold bullion and the gold mining stocks is beginning to attract attention, but ownership is still almost non-existent among North American investors. Many of the reasons provided by observers have some validity, but are nothing new to all of us. The monetary stimulus, the deficit, the debts, the geo-political risks, the political dysfunction, the increasing social unrest and the wealth gap are all continuing worldwide trends that have long been in place but are suddenly become newsworthy. It’s been said, in response to how a crisis develops: “very slowly and then very suddenly”. The following are a few of the most important reasons that precious metal holdings are all of a sudden performing well.

FUNDAMENTALLY: David Rosenberg, one of the most highly regarded investment strategists, and not a perennial “gold bug” by any means, just a couple of weeks ago, wrote “WHY GOLD HAS ALLURE”.

(1) The Fed is set to cut rates (as discussed above), which will send the fed funds rate into negative territory in real terms.

(2) Geopolitical risks, including Iran’s behavior, are increasingly bothersome.

3) Trade talks with China do not seem to be making progress, and Beijing has “tools” to hit back, including the ability to weaken their currency and/or continue reducing their US Treasury holdings.

(4) The economic war between the US and France is heating up, as Emmanuel Macron imposes a tax on American large cap tech companies. At the same time, trade tensions increase between the US and Japan, as well as South Korea.

(5) The Chinese economy, as well as the entire Asian economy, is clearly in retreat, adding to the prospect of worldwide monetary ease.

TECHNICALLY: In terms of supply of demand for physical gold, and the price charts:

(1) Central Banks around the world have continued their massive accumulation, a total of 374 tons in the first half of calendar ’19. While the first half total was down around 5% from ’18, the annualized rate of 750 tons is far more than in prior years. Russian and Chinese Central Banks continue their steady accumulation.  India, between their central bank and their population, perennially the second largest accumulator of physical gold, imported 78 tons in May alone, running 49% ahead of a year earlier. Poland has now joined the other major buyers, buying a huge (for them) 100 tons in the second quarter alone. Sine the total annual worldwide production is about 3400 tons, these purchases are very meaningful.

(2) The price charts, for gold as well as gold mining shares, indicate much higher prices. Gold bullion has broken out to a five year high, though still 25% below the 2011 high. The gold mining shares are at three year highs but are still as much as 75% below their 2012 high.

The gold mining stocks are still substantially undervalued by many historical measures. Gold bullion, is down about 25% from its all time high of about 1900 in 2011, but GDX (the ETF with the larger miners) is down over 50% from its high and GDXJ (with the small to midsize miners) is down 75%. Our expectation is that gold bullion, will sell for a multiple of its current price and the mining stocks at a multiple of that. The timing, as always, is the big question, but the pieces seem to be falling into place, as outlined above.

In summary, there are never any certainties, especially in the short run, but it seems like both fundamental and technical considerations are in gear, and indicating much higher prices for precious metal securities.

Roger Lipton

SEMI-MONTLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – GOLD STARTS TO SHINE, WITH GOOD REASON !!

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SEMI-MONTLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – GOLD STARTS TO SHINE, WITH GOOD REASON!

The general capital markets were strong in June: equities because investors came to the conclusion that the Fed “put” is back in place, and bonds because the Fed tightening (“QT”) is behind us. Gold and the gold mining stocks were strong as well, for lots of overdue reasons, a couple of which  are discussed below. Gold bullion was up 8.0% and gold mining benchmarks were up 18.4% (the average of ETFs,  GDX and GDXJ) and 16.2% (the average of precious metal mutual funds (TGLDX, OPGSX, and INIVX) respectively. Our  portfolio was up in line with the benchmarks. The  subject matter below describes only a couple of the many reasons that justify the recent overdue action in gold and the gold mining stocks.  Reminds me of the song “we’ve only just begun”.

THE SINGLE BIGGEST REASON TO OWN GOLD RELATED SECURITIES !!

The most important justification for our our ownership of precious metal related securities is the 5,000 year history of gold being the safest and surest protection of purchasing power. Gold is a unit of exchange and a store of value. There has never been an unbacked “fiat” currency that has survived. It is just a question of time until the politicians of the day dilute their currency into oblivion and today’s politicians (of both parties) are clearly on the same path. Our portfolio represents gold as the safest currency and we believe that the history of the quantity of gold owned by Central Banks relative to the amount of paper currency they have created (M2 or “FMQ” as shown on the below chart) is indicative of where we are at the moment. You  can see from the chart below that gold bullion relative to M2 was at a low in 1970 (before gold went from $35 to $850/oz. and 2000 (before gold went from $250 to $1900). Lo and behold, gold is at that level again today. In terms of a price objective, we believe $850, the top of the parabola in 1980, was too high. Probably $300-$400 was more appropriate. The move from $250 in 2000 to $1900 was more justifiable, based on our standard that the gold owned by Central Banks should be in the range of 25-40% of the paper currency out there. This is the range between 1790 and 1913, before the creation of Central Banks, when inflation was zero and real GDP growth averaged 4%. This is how we conclude that an appropriate price of gold today is perhaps $5-7000 per oz. Of course, this price objective is moving higher all the time as more paper currency is created. Two or three years from now, the objective could well be $9-10000/oz. We conclude that just because gold has gone from a low of $1050 a couple of years ago to $1400 now, we will not be tempted to lighten up any time soon. If we had a stock that had gone from $10.50 to $14.00 and we thought the upside was north of $50.00 per share, that would be a lot of money to potentially leave on the table. Don’t forget that the mining stocks, depressed as they still are, could move 2-3x as much as the gold price.

We like to keep our letters short, but since we recently reviewed the “state of the union” in terms of the current deficit, we present the information below. This part of the puzzle is important because it indicates how much new paper “fiat”, unbacked, currency must  be created to fill the deficit gap. We predicted a few weeks ago, when we published this information here that the deficit for the current year would be over $1 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office has now confirmed our work.

$206B US DEFICIT IN MAY – HEADING TO $897B FOR YEAR , MAYBE OVER $ONE TRILLION NEXT YEAR ? – YEAH, RIGHT !! – and the FED now agrees.

There are about 250 persons working at the Congressional Budget Office, according to their website. Their budget, according to Wikipedia was $46.8M annually, as of 2011, probably higher now. Their projections are widely quoted, and presumably relied upon by policy makers in our administration. The CBO updates their projections on an irregular basis, sometimes several times per year, sometimes only once per year. The update from 5/2/19, only two months ago has now been adjusted upward. Considering how far off their past projections have been, and the questionable assumptions within their analyses, it is a wonder that anyone takes these numbers seriously, and the latest installments provide a good example why not.

A brief two months ago, on 5/2, based on relatively firm numbers through March, and presumably pretty reliable indications through April, the CBO predicted that the US operating deficit through the current fiscal year, ending 9/30/19, would be $897 Billion. April and May results are now reported, and the table below shows the monthly numbers for the last two fiscal years.

You can see that last year’s total operating deficit was $779B, and the total debt went up by $1,271B (due to “off budget” items, the largest of which is the social security shortfall). The projection two months ago was for the current year’s deficit to be $897B, up 15.1% from fiscal ’18. The total debt is not projected, and you can see that number frozen the last few months since our administrators have already exceeded the formal debt “limit”.

The April result, with tax receipts generating the surplus (normal for April) of $160B, which was lower than the $214B surplus a year earlier, so the cumulative deficit through April (shown at the extreme right of the table) was up 37.6%. They May results showed a $206B deficit, up from $147B, so the cumulative deficit is up 38.6% year to  year. Last  year, the monthly deficits from June through September totaled  $246B. The CBO projection, on 5/2, of $897B for the ’19 year would allow for only $158B the rest of the year, down 36% from the last four months of fiscal ’18 – which was ridiculous.

We don’t have 250 professionals pushing numbers here but during the current year:  December’s YTY deficit reduction (which some might have considered hopeful) was on an  immaterially low base. March’s improvement was material, but March and April combined (tax season) showed a $13B surplus this year versus $5B in fiscal ’18, which is an immaterial change. May bounced back to a 40.1% increase YTY in the deficit. You can see, along with ourselves, that the last four months would have to be 36% lower than last year, improbable, to put it mildly.

Our projection, with 247 professionals fewer  than the CBO was for the following, and we published this conclusion several weeks ago: The last four months would provide a deficit about  40% higher than a year ago ($247B), which would provide for $346B  on top of the current $739B, for a total of $1.08 Trillion. This is 20% higher than the $897B projection made by the CBO with only five months left in the fiscal year. We shouldn’t have to point out that: if the CBO was 20% off the mark with five months remaining, their projections ten years out don’t have a great deal of credibility.

Furthermore: the total debt, whether or not the debt ceiling has been formally raised, will have expanded by $1.3-$1.5 Trillion, bringing it close to $23 trillion.

We have presented a great deal of information in this letter, and our conclusions are justified by much more. The biggest single reason that gold and gold mining stocks are going up in price is that they never should have gone down in the first place.  All the reasons we have discussed over the last six or seven years continue to intensify.

Roger Lipton

 

SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – $206B US DEFICIT IN MAY – HEADING TO $897B FOR YEAR – YEAH, RIGHT !!

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SEMI-MONTHLY FISCAL/MONETARY UPDATE – $206B US DEFICIT IN MAY – HEADING TO $897B FOR YEAR , MAYBE OVER $ONE TRILLION NEXT YEAR ? – YEAH, RIGHT !!

There are about 250 persons working at the Congressional Budget Office, according to their website. Their budget, according to Wikipedia was $46.8M annually, as of 2011, probably higher now. Their projections are widely quoted, and presumably relied upon by policy makers in our administration. The CBO updates their projections on an irregular basis, sometimes several times per year, sometimes only once per year. The last update was 5/2/19, only about six weeks ago. Considering how far off their past projections have been, and the questionable assumptions within their analyses, it is a wonder that anyone takes these numbers seriously, and the latest installment provides a good example why not.

Six weeks ago, on 5/2, based on relatively firm numbers through March, and presumably pretty reliable indications through April, the CBO predicted that the US operating deficit through the current fiscal year, ending 9/30/19, would be $897 Billion. April and May results are now reported, and the table below shows the monthly numbers for the last two fiscal years.

You can see that last year’s total operating deficit was $779B, and the total debt went up by $1,271B (due to “off budget” items, the largest of which is the social security shortfall). The projection, six weeks ago, was for the current year’s deficit to be $897B, up 15.1% from fiscal ’18. The total debt is not projected, and you can see that number frozen the last few months since our administrators have already exceeded the formal debt “limit”.

The April result, with tax receipts was a surplus of $160B, which was dower than the $214B surplus a year earlier, so the cumulative deficit through April (shown at the extreme right of the table) was up 37.6%. They May results showed a $206B deficit, up from $147B, so the cumulative deficit is up 38.6% year to  year. Last  year, the monthly deficits from June through September totaled  $246B. The current CBO projection of $897B for the ’19 year would allow for only $158B the rest of the year, down 36% from the last four months of fiscal ’18 – which is  ridiculous.

We don’t have 250 professionals pushing numbers here but this year to date: December’s YTY deficit reduction was on an  immaterially low base. March’s improvement was material, but March and April combined (tax season) showed a $13B surplus this year versus $5B in fiscal ’18, which is an immaterial change. May bounced back to a 40.1% increase YTY in the deficit. You can judge for yourself the likelihood that the last four months will give us a deficit 36% lower than last year.

Our projection, with 247 professionals fewer  than the CBO is for the following: The last four months will provide a deficit about  40% higher than a year ago ($247B), which would provide for $346B  on top of the current $739B, for a total of $1.08 Trillion. This is 20% higher than the $897B projection made by the CBO with only five months left in the fiscal year. We shouldn’t have to point out that: if the CBO is 20% off the mark with five months remaining, their projections ten years out don’t have a great deal of credibility.

Furthermore: the total debt, whether or not the debt ceiling has been formally raised, will have expanded by $1.3-$1.5 Trillion, bringing it close to $23 trillion.

This reality is unlikely to be comforting to the capital markets.

Roger Lipton