WEEKEND WRAP: With Continued Volatility In Stocks, Is It Time To Consider Alternative Investment Asset Classes?

To say the least, this was one wild week.

Monday opened with word that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had phoned six major banks and the Plunge Protection Team to assure that the banks had adequate liquidity to survive a significant downturn. There were two problem with Mnuchin making these calls and then making them public. First, nobody was thinking about bank liquidity. Second, alerting the PPT suggests that there are significant economic issues facing the market.

Mnuchin initiated a panic, good for -653 points on the Dow, on a day in which markets closed at 1:00 pm. That was Christmas Eve.

The day after Christmas, Wednesday, the Dow set a record for points gained in one session. It was a spectacular day for anybody in the bullish camp. All the other indices were up more than four percent, another first.

On Thursday, stocks were slumping badly again, but then, the rally from nowhere produced a positive finish, boosting the Dow more than 600 points from 2:15 pm into the close, for a net gain on the day of 260 points.

On Friday, the opposite occurred. The Dow Industrials were up 240 points at three o'clock, but closed down 76.

Volatility. It's what's for Christmas, it appears.

When it was all over the week turned out to be a winner, the first in four weeks of December. Since the start of October, there have been nine weekly losses on the Dow, with just five weekly gains. The net result of this wicked roller-coaster of a market is a Dow Jones Industrial Average that's down nearly 2500 points in December and 3766 points from October 3.

While the week's heavy lifting (most likely done by our friends at the PPT) kept the Dow out of bear market territory, it - and the other major indices - are still deep in the correction zone, and all indices are down for the year. Since there's only one trading day left in 2018, this year is a good bet to end up a loser, despite the best efforts of the pumpers, panderers, shills, and jokers in the financial field to separate you from your money with promises of outstanding gains.

Every stock pumper in the world mouths the word "diversification" as a key element leading to positive investment results. The problem with their kind of diversification is that it normally references one, maybe two asset classes: stocks, and then, maybe, bonds.

Such short-sighted thinking obscures all the other asset classes, broadly, real estate, commodities, currencies, art, collectibles, precious metals and gemstones, vehicles, business equipment, private equity, cash, cash equivalents, and human capital.

There are plenty of opportunities in small business development, where ownership can be hands-on or hands-free, with the potential to grow a local business within a community. President Donald Trump (and many other private businessmen) is one good example of how much money can be made in real estate investment and privately-owned businesses.

People who held on to their Spiderman, X-Men, and Fantastic Four comic books are smiling broadly. So too, those who kept baseball and football cards for more than 50 years. The value of a Mickey Mantle rookie card today is astronomical compared to its original cost (less than a penny).

With the recent volatility in stocks, people may be considering diversifying out of stocks and into other asset classes. In the coming year and beyond, presentation of alternative money-making and investment opportunities will be a focus of Money Daily.

Here's to looking forward at a year of diversifying out of strictly stocks in a portfolio.

In advance: Happy New Year!

Dow Jones Industrial Average December Scorecard:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
12/3/18	25,826.43	+287.97	+287.97
12/4/18	25,027.07	-799.36	-511.39
12/6/18	24,947.67	-79.40	-590.79
12/7/18	24,388.95	-558.72	-1149.51
12/10/18	24,423.26	+34.31	-1115.20
12/11/18	24,370.24	-53.02	-1168.22
12/12/18	24,527.27	+157.03	-1011.19
12/13/18	24,597.38	+70.11	-941.08
12/14/18	24,100.51	-496.87	-1437.95
12/17/18	23,592.98	-507.53	-1945.58
12/18/18	23,675.64	+82.66	-1862.92
12/19/18	23,323.66	-351.98	-2214.90
12/20/18	22,859.60	-464.06	-2678.96
12/21/18	22,445.37	-414.23	-3093.19
12/24/18	21,792.20	-653.17	-3746.36
12/26/18	22,878.45	+1086.25	-2660.11
12/27/18	23,138.82	+260.37	-2399.74
12/28/18	23,062.40	-76.42	-2476.16

At the Close, Friday, December 28, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 23,062.40, -76.42 (-0.33%)
NASDAQ: 6,584.52, +5.03 (+0.08%)
S&P 500: 2,485.74, -3.09 (-0.12%)
NYSE Composite: 11,290.95, +5.64 (+0.05%)

For the Week:
Dow: +617.03 (+2.75%)
NASDAQ: +251.53 (+3.97%)
S&P 500: +69.12 (+2.86%)
NYSE Composite: +254.11 (+2.30%)

Stocks, Oil Whacked Again; 10-Year Note at 1.86%; Yellen's Fed in Shambles

It's official.

The groundhog didn't see his shadow, and Janet Yellen didn't see the recession just ahead, proving, within a shadow of doubt, that animals have better sense than most humans.

At least in the case of furry rodents versus doctors of economics, the rodentia class is in a class all its own. Punxsutawney Phil, the most famous of ground hog prognosticators, came outside this morning and reassured everybody in the Northeast that the most mild winter in decades would continue, and, to boot, be short-lived.

By not seeing his shadow, Phil assuaged the assembled crowd that what remains of winter would be over within two weeks, rather than the usual six week span that extends nearly to the first day of Spring, March 20.

Despite this being a leap year, which adds a full day to the cruel month of February, residents in the most densely-populated area of the country seem to be settled in for a short stay on the chilly side.

In upstate New York, there is little to no snow on the ground. What remains are a few remnants of shoveled piles that take a little longer to melt, though even that should be gone by tomorrow, as temperatures from Buffalo to Albany are expected to approach sixty degrees on Wednesday.

Similar circumstances prevail throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and into New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts. The milder-than-normal conditions have resulted in lower use of heating fuels such as oil and natural gas, both of which are hovering around decades-long lows.

As for the Federal Reserve and the captain of that sinking ship, Janet Yellen, she and her hench-fellows seem to be on the wrong side of economic history, considering that since their historic rate hike in mid-December, interest rates have gone in the opposite direction, the 10-year note today closing at 1.86%, as the winds of global deflation and tight labor conditions continue to push consumer demand and consumption lower and lower.

Compounding the complexity of the Fed's non-tenable situation are the twin engines of stocks and oil, both of which have hit stall speed in 2016. WTI crude close in New York within whispering distance of the $30 mark, while the major stock indices were battered into submission by a combination of reduced earnings capacity and a growing confidence gap from investors.

Even with last week's brave showing by the markets in the face of a 2015 fourth quarter that slipped to 0.7% growth, stocks were unable to regain the footing which took the Dow 400 points higher on Friday as the Bank of Japan endorsed negative interest rates on its treasury bonds extending though eight years.

Supposedly, cheap, easy money was good news for the stock market. However, with the BOJ cancelling a treasury auction today due to lack of interest (no pun intended) from selected participants, equity markets around the world backtracked towards the lows of January. Apparently, there aren't many out there who see it as a prudent idea to pay somebody to hold your money.

Negative interest rate policy, aka NIRP, is the death-knell of central bankers. Traditionally, banks paid OUT interest on savings, but, in this decade of upside-down economics, the glorious kings and queens of monetary policy are sticking to the belief that people are so afraid of losing what they've earned that they will pay to have the banks hold it for them.

Mattresses and shotguns are back in style, kids, but nobody seems to have told the central bankers. Everybody from simple savers to mega-millionaires are losing confidence in a clearly broken system, pulling their assets out and into cash, precious metals, gemstones, art, real estate, or other stores of value that have stood the test of time. The only buyers of government debt are governments, a condition which cannot be sustained long.

Truth be known, the Fed, the ECB, BOJ and PBOC are all aware of this condition and have yet to devise a strategy that will resolve the liquidity and solvency crunch with a minimum of pain. Pain will come to many, precisely those holding debt which cannot be repaid. Ideally, this epoch of economic history will see the end of central banking with fiat currencies and fractional reserves.

We may be within weeks or months of a global reset, a change in the nature of money which will tear at the fabric of society itself.

Stay tuned. This is only the middle of the show which started in 2008.

Today's crap shoot:
S&P 500: 1,903.03, -36.35 (1.87%)
Dow: 16,153.54, -295.64 (1.80%)
NASDAQ: 4,516.95, -103.42 (2.24%)

Crude Oil 30.02 -5.06% Gold 1,129.20 +0.11% EUR/USD 1.0920 +0.27% 10-Yr Bond 1.8640 -5.19% Corn 372.00 +0.20% Copper 2.05 -0.29% Silver 14.31 -0.26% Natural Gas 2.03 -5.81% Russell 2000 1,008.84 -2.28% VIX 21.98 +10.01% BATS 1000 20,356.76 -1.72% GBP/USD 1.4411 -0.10% USD/JPY 119.84

Who Bought This Dip?

About the best that could be said about today's general market decline is that it could have been worse. Stocks were slammed right out of the opening bell, and quickly fell to their worst levels of the day. By around 11:00 am EDT, the Dow had slumped 180 points from the previous close, the NASDAQ was down 38, the S&P off by 20 and the Composite down a whopping 126 points.

Naturally, some traders smelled the unmistakable aroma of easy money, so the buying started in earnest, with the major averages getting back close to half of the losses by day's end.

Still, anyone buying this particular dip - which incidentally, began from a peak early in the morning on Tuesday - might not be in the chips any time soon, as the market of late has not shown a great propensity for quickly and quietly erasing losses from previous downfalls.

Despite yesterday's advance, stocks left half of the gains from early in the day off the table, vanished, so the decline on the Dow, from the top of 15,521.49 to today's close, is nearly 220 points, or, about 1 1/2 percent.

That surely isn't anything to write home about, but it is significant in a short, end-of-month week heading into the summer doldrums, so to speak. It's difficult to make a case for buying so close to a market all-time peak, but money has to go somewhere, it is said, though many outside the world of Wall Street are beginning to find better places for the dough than in stocks. Bonds have slumped as well, pushing up yields, the 10-year note hitting 2.16% yesterday before settling down at 2.11% today.

Other places people have been putting money are into homes, either as new purchases or renovations, classic and not-so-classic cars (everybody needs reliable transportation), arable land, small business machinery, art, collectibles, rarities, gold, silver and other hard assets.

If stocks continue to display weakness (or even if they continue to sprint back and forth and increase volatility) and the Fed continues twiddling and tweaking and cajoling the markets with jabberwocky talk about easing or tapering or slowing their bond purchases, people can and will look beyond the NYSE and the NASDAQ for better, tangible assets with intrinsic or functional value.

People may be wearying of the constant barrage of "suggestions" from the Fed, analysts, broker-dealers and other hucksters of equities and make the move to something that they can actually touch, feel and literally appreciate. Sometimes - and this may be one of those times - it's better to keep what money you have than to risk it in what appears to be a very risky environment.

Today's action was rather uniform, with all the major averages falling about the same percentage amount on better-than-average volume. If this looks like an orderly retreat, those who bought the dip midday might be wondering what happens when the market becomes a bit more disorderly.

Dow 15,302.80, -106.59 (0.69%)
Nasdaq 3,467.52, -21.37 (0.61%)
S&P 500 1,648.36, -11.70 (0.70%)
NYSE Composite 9,422.49 71.68(0.75%)
NYSE Volume 3,969,497,750
Nasdaq Volume 1,754,239,625
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1627-4849 (1:3)
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 172-151 (narrowing of the gap)
WTI crude oil: 93.13, -1.88
Gold: 1,391.30, +12.40
Silver: 22.45, +0.26