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Marvin Clark's  Instablog

Marvin R Clark is Managing Principal and Chief Economist and Strategist for Monsoon Wealth Management, LLC, an investment advisory firm that provides financial management advice to select private wealth clients and small businesses. He consults regularly with clientele and business executives on... More
My business:
Monsoon Wealth Management
My blog:
Fixed Income Daily
  • Boo!: October 30, day of the dead on Wall Street
    As the bulls whistled the last six months while passing the graveyard, pretending that the undead was just a myth that the recovery was on schedule, on Friday, the flesh rotting, decomposing zombie financials stocks leapt from their government-lined stimuli sarcophaguses, and scared investors back to reality. 
    The preliminary GDP number of a plus 3.5 percent, announced the day before, and lifted the DJIA up 200 points, was just like in the movies when everyone exhales because the worst is over – but it’s not. 
    Digging deeper into the report by Stephanie Pomboy, highlighted in Market Watch in Barron’s, shows what should have been common knowledge: companies aren’t spending, consumers aren’t spending, it’s the government that is keeping the economy afloat.  The cash-for clunkers program represented 1 percent of the GDP; the homebuyer credit relief another .5 percent, and government expenditures of added 0.5 percent.  The $30 billion reduction in inventory liquidation accounted for 1 percent of the 3rd quarter number. 
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    Tags: economy, GDP, Barron's, Stephanie Pomboy
    Nov 01 02:07 am | Link | 5 Comments
  • Replace Ben Bernanke with Paul Volcker
    Last week, the Federal Reserve statistical release (G.17) reported on industrial production and capacity utilization for the economy. 
    “Industrial production rose 0.7 percent in September after an upwardly revised gain of 1.2 percent in August. For the third quarter as a whole, output advanced at an annual rate of 5.2 percent, the first quarterly gain since the first quarter of 2008 and the largest gain since the first quarter of 2005. Production in manufacturing increased 0.9 percent in September, and the index excluding motor vehicles and parts rose 0.5 percent. Mining output strengthened 0.7 percent, while the output of utilities fell 0.7 percent. At 98.5 percent of its 2002 average, total industrial production was 6.1 percent below its level of a year earlier. In September, the capacity utilization rate for total industry increased to 70.5 percent, a level 10.4 percentage points below its average for 1972 through 2008.” 
    The Los Angeles Dodgers skipper, Joe Torre, when recently asked what the difference is managing during the regular season versus the post-season playoffs replied, to paraphrase Joe, in the regular season, you think about making a change; you consider it, then you follow your gut instincts.  In post-season, you don’t consider making changes – you make changes. The inference here is years of experience are superior to rationalization. 
    More »
    Tags: GLD, IAU, GDX, Bernanke, Volcker, inflation, economy
    Oct 19 05:37 am | Link | Comment!
  • Gold is breaking out
    The price of Gold is nearing its breakout point. 
    The catalyst was a report in The Independent newspaper in London that Gulf Arab states, along with China, Russia, Japan and France, had held secret meetings to consider using a basket of currencies to trade oil instead of the US currency.

    Disclosure: No positions
    Tags: GLD, GDX, gold
    Oct 06 08:55 am | Link | Comment!
  • Fourth Quarter Outlook: Become a gold bug, now

    The horrible jobs report, which overshadowed the stock market at the end of last week, portends a 4th quarter reality that will disturb the financial markets as we continue to escape 2009.  John Williams’ www.shadowstats.com forensics analysis of government data, namely U-2, U-6, and his SGS Alternative Data describes the brutality of the current recession/mild depression, in which, we find ourselves. 

    More »
    Tags: GLD, GDX, unemployment, GDP, gold, inflation, interest rates
    Oct 05 07:33 am | Link | 5 Comments
  • Why no news coverage on the story: Hong Kong recalls gold reserves?

    With this week’s spike in the price of gold, I am puzzled over the lack of media coverage regarding Hong Kong’s recall of their physical gold, held in London, to relocate the yellow metal to their newly built depository vault, at Chek Lap Kok Airport.

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    Tags: GLD, GDX, Hong Kong
    Sep 04 01:08 am | Link | Comment!
  • Tuesday Markets: after you, my dear Alphonse

     

     

    The next five per cent move in the market is as clear as the smoke-filled skies above Los Angeles. The deadly and massive Station fire, which doubled in a day to 105,000 acres, from 52,000, mirrored the brutally singled-minded cyclical bull market beginning in March. Both U.S. Fire Service and the Los Angeles County Fire Department concur that the fire’s growth had slowed and that its ferocity is declining. The same might be true for the magical, mystical Wall Street rally we witnessed over the last six months.  
    More »
    Tags: GS, MS, recession, economy, bull market
    Sep 01 10:21 am | Link | Comment!
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  1. Fourth Quarter Outlook: Become a gold bug, now (5 Comments)
  2. Boo!: October 30, day of the dead on Wall Street (5 Comments)
  3. R.I.P. Pontiac; Janet, you too. (2 Comments)
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