JustThinking.us

As previously disclosed, for many years, I've read people who have been reading Richard Russell for many years.

When what I should have been doing was reading Richard Russell.

Along with Harry Schultz and Joe Granville he clearly is one of the grand old men of the financial newsletter business.

Despite the fact that Mr. Russell is now 86 and significantly less hail than he used to be, I just dropped another $175 for a 6 month subscription to his newsletter, the Dow Theory Letter, despite the disclaimer at the bottom of the offering that reads something to the effect that, "You know Richard is 86 years old, Right?  Ain't gonna be no refund.

If it goes just one week, it will have been cheap at twice the price.

The chart below is for DBC, the commodity tracking index offered on the New York Stock exchange.

Richard pulls out some of the items that make up that index immediately below.

 Scoreboard year-to-date in percentages -- Agricultural 

Cattle (lb)....................+12.0%
Coffee (lb)...................+36.9%
Corn (bu).....................+37.3%
Cotton (lb)...................+46.7%
Lumber(1000 bd.ft.)....+32.9%
Orange Juice (lb)..........+19.7%
Soy beans (bu)..............+13.2%
Wheat (bu)....................+29.8%

 With the following commentary,

"Trouble -- The poverty sector and the middle class are having trouble enough, but the chart below spells more pain. This is the Commodity chart, and it's telling us that the price of food is heading skyward. With the price of food (corn, grains) heading higher and with oil now over 83, the squeeze is on for the majority of Americans. 

The US is floating in liquidity. And nobody knows what to do with it. Which is one reason why stocks have been floating higher. Should you buy farm land, housing, commodities, silver, bonds, gold, insurance, what? There's no safe return on anything."

Here's Mr. Russell's latest writing on Gold.

  Around 1999 and 2000 gold was selling at just above 260 an ounce. But more important, many well-known gold shares were selling like second-hand rain coats. These formerly much-loved gold shares were selling at such low or bargain prices that I thought one could buy thousands of shares and just "put 'em away" and forget about them. I knew gold wasn't going out of style, and it was just a matter of time before interest in gold returned, as it has in all history.

Great bull markets start with stocks selling "below known values." That's where gold mining shares were selling around 1999 and 2000. I equated gold shares in the year 2000 with the Dow in June 1999 at a time when the Dow was priced at 161. In the year 2000, I thought to myself, "Could this be the very beginning of a great bull market in gold, a bull market that could ultimately take gold above its January 1980 peak price of 850? That idea stuck in my head; in fact I became obsessed with the idea that a great bull market was beginning and very few people even suspected that was happening in gold.

Question -- OK, Russell, gold is now well above its peak price of 850 struck in 1980. So what do you expect next?

Answer -- I went through this same phenomenon in the 1960s with the stock market. We went through the correction of 1953, and we staggered through the vicious correction of 1957. In 1957 a severe recession enveloped the US economy, and almost everybody was convinced that the bull market that had started in 1949 had ended.

I learned from George Schaefer that big bull markets almost always end with a speculative explosion. We had not seen that kind of action in the bull market that started in June, 1949. I was convinced that a speculative third phase of the bull market lay somewhere ahead. For that reason I was convinced that the bull market was not over.

In fact, I was so sure of my stand that I wrote an article that was published in Barron's (December, 1958) in which I made the case for a coming final boom phase in the stock market. That article drew a great amount of interest, and it put me in business. A speculative third phase did appear in the stock market during 1956 through the early '60s.

Today I am taking the same stand regarding the gold bull market. The gold bull market will not end with a fizzle and a whimper. It will end with intense speculation and widespread interest from the funds and the public. We haven't seen that kind of activity yet, but I'm convinced that a period of wild speculation in gold lies somewhere ahead.

This is why I continue to beg my subscribers to load up with gold. As I see it, we are nearing a period of intense speculation that will be beyond anything seen before by the last three generations of Americans. Ironically, more money made in the final explosion in gold than was made during the first two phases combined.

Great bull market are seen maybe once or twice in a lifetime. The current "stealth" gold bull market has sneaked up on most Americans. The very phrase, "gold bull market" is sneered at by most analysts today. In fact, most of the comments on gold today come in the form of warnings; "Gold is too high." "Gold is in a bubble." "Gold will sink back below 1000." "Gold is a fool's play."

Nonsense. Gold is moving ever-closer to it's climactic speculative third phase. The negative comments about gold will only serve to make the gold bull market that much stronger. In this business, there is nothing more powerful than a primary bull market that has been denigrated, spat at, and held back for years.

And that's the end of my "lecture" about the fabulous gold bull market.

Below, the profile of one of history's greatest primary bull markets (and it's not finished yet).

 Either chart will link you up to Richard Russell's fine site.

Super duper way double highly recommended ......... with the previously discussed caveat.

To quote Richard Russell one more time,

He goes on to say something about denial, the NYSE, the administration, the Fed and clueless newspapers.

It all seemed redundant.

But then ...

He hits his stride.

And since we're on the subject of jokes .....

The second simplest and most concise explanation of the newest revelation concerning Goldman Sachs, John Paulson and the toxic securities that have poisoned the investing world comes from Richard Russel's Dow Theory Letter.

(The best one is above).

Now it can be told. It started with billionaire fund manager John Paulsen. He had an idea that the wild speculation in homes was putting the price of homes into the bubbly stratosphere, and that the whole home-structure was due to collapse. Paulsen went to a few firms including Goldman and asked them to structure mortgage packages that would include some of the poorest quality mortgages. Paulsen's plan -- bet against these vehicles and these items and hope that he would be correct -- that the housing boom would go into free-fall. This is exactly what happened, and Paulsen and his investors pocketed billions in profits.

Bear Sterns turned down a deal with Paulsen. But Goldman and Deutsche Bank went along with Paulsen. Goldman, knowing the mortgage packages they had created were toxic, sold these deals to investors without telling them about Paulsen and his thesis that these mortgage packages were created to fail. What's worse, Goldman even sold these toxic packages short. Goldman sold the product to their customers and at the same time shorted the products.

But what about the agencies that were supposed to grade these packages? They were as asleep as was the SEC on the Madoff case. The toxic packages got a AAA classification from the rating agencies. All in all, a disgusting case of collusion and incompetence by Wall Street and the rating agencies and stupidity on the part of the buyers of these toxic packages.

The fact is that Paulsen had been searching for bubbles in the economy, and he correctly zeroed in on real estate and specifically home mortgages. But Paulsen never sold his toxic packages to investors, Goldman did. Which is why the SEC has focused its fraud accusations on Goldman and left Paulsen alone.

Paulsen & Co. earned $15 billion betting against the housing market in 2007. Paulsen, 54 years old, personally made nearly $4 billion that year. Today Paulsen's hedge fund has $32 billion in assets, making it one the world's largest hedge funds. Of interest is that Paulsen's most recent big investment is in gold and gold stocks and exchange traded funds tied to gold.

"Nearly everybody I read or talk to is convinced that we're in a new bull market -- a primary bull market which they claim started at the March 2009 low.

If the March 2009 was a bear market low, it was unlike any bear market low that I have ever seen.

Where were the "great values" that always present themselves at a bear market bottom?

Where were the juicy Dow dividend yields that we invariably see at true bear market bottoms.

For instance, back in 1981 the Dow dividend yield was 6.42%.

At the bear market low of 1974 the Dow dividend yield was 6.12%.

In 1940 the Dow dividend was 6.84%.

In the dark year 1931, the Dow dividend yield was 10.78%

Where were the fabulous values in March 2009?

The answer, March 2009 was not a true bear market bottom.

The next great bear market low lies ahead!"

Here's Richard Russell, publisher of the Dow Theory Letters, with yet another take on the Bond Market.

He offers this chart on the 30-Year Treasury Bond with the following comments,

"I've been keeping an eagle eye on the daily chart of the 30-year Treasury bond. As of yesterday, the "long bond" had sunk exactly to its support at around 114. If support breaks, interest rates will be heading dangerously higher. The chart shows a double top (first two red arrows). Then a break to the downside and a formation showing a triple top (second set of three red arrows). As of yesterday's close, the 30-year T-bond was sitting exactly on critical support. If bonds are down today, it won't be pretty.

Friday Alan Greenspan called higher Treasury rates "the canary in the mine" and forecast rising rates. Greenspan is almost always wrong, but this time I agree with the former "Maestro."

Might be just about time to get that 30 year fixed refi, if you're able.

"This is very bad."

Among those things slowing down my posting lately, is the following quote by Richard Russell who has written and published the Dow Theory Letters for many years.  This quote is the first questioning I've seen from a serious, well respected, and heavily followed source of President Barack Obama's competance.  

Criticism of Obama, up until this instant have always been proceeded by qualifiers having to do with The President's obvious intelligence, communication skills and his seeming niceness, before fault finding on his specific policies could begin.  

 “I've been thinking about President Barack Obama and the nation's problems. My conclusion, in all honesty, is that Obama was unqualified for the job. Unlike Reagan, Obama had no deep-seated convictions about anything other than he would spread the wealth and go down in history as the people's hero.

 “When it comes to economics, I'm afraid that the President is lost. It's all so clear now that we can't spend ourselves back into prosperity, although some dour souls insist that we are spending ourselves into virtual bankruptcy. Even the American public understands that, but the prez doesn't.

“On economics, Obama is a rank amateur. He thought he could listen to a collection of name-economists and come up with the right answer. Unfortunately, Obama listened to the former head of the Princeton economics department an erudite young man named Ben S. Bernanke. Ben was considered to be our reigning top-expert on the Great Depression. Bernanke's solution to the whole mess was simple -- first save Wall Street and then release a massive amount of liquidity into the system. If there wasn't enough inflation in the system, then flood the system with liquidity and hopefully inflation will return. Anything to hold off dreaded deflation.” – Richard Russell, Dow Theory Letters, 01-26-10

 Up until this instant, while it had been OK to question The President's competance at the bar over a beer, in the elevator, or over the telephone while sitting there with your feet on the desk,  no credible public source had felt the need, or found the stones, ... take your pick, ... to question the man's abilities.

 Now comes the following from The Wall Street Journal.