Further Evidence of his Future Outlook is Provided By “The Big Short” Michael Burry
It has been three-plus years since Michael Burry first warned that index funds’ popularity is creating distorted valuations of stocks included in the larger indexes. The reason for his warning is fund managers need to own the companies in the index. This creates buying pressure on stocks that might not otherwise be as strong of a buy candidate. In other words, investments are not being purchased on their own merit and, therefore could be thought of as overvalued. He called this the “passive investment bubble,” and he is still warning investors about a stock market investment bubble.
“Difference between now and 2000 is the passive investing bubble that inflated steadily over the last decade,” he tweeted late last year. “All theaters are overcrowded, and the only way anyone can get out is by trampling each other. And still, the door is only so big,” Burry said in October 2022. While his SEC filings show he is not opposed to owning individual stocks with a unique opportunity, he’s expecting a market collapse that dwarfs the dot-com crash because there’s so much money parked in index funds.
This week Burry provided a backup argument to his thesis in the form of a chart. The Bloomberg produced chart showed the S&P’s 40% plunge between February 2001 and October 2002. The S&P data was plotted alongside the sharp decline in the Fed Funds overnight benchmark interest rate. Burry’s latest tweet suggests a feeling of deja-vu that includes the stock market’s surge in early 2001, when rates were 6%. There seems to be concern that market participants are looking for enough weakness for the Fed to drop rates. The chart, and his written message is one to be careful what you wish for.
His tweet read, “This time is different.” This apparent sarcasm could be read, if you want lower rates, it may come at a cost.
Image: @michaeljburry (Twitter)
Burry seems to expect enough economic weakness that the Fed will again ratchet down rates in a hurry. The poor economic scenario would likely cause the S&P 500 to tumble.
Take Away
Higher rates encourage traditional savings, which then becomes money not used to stimulate the economy. It also slows growth by making borrowing more expensive. This dampens demand and increases the risk of a bad recession. Burry, a widely followed hedge fund manager has been warning of the broader market taking a huge hit.
Burry has noted that blistering but brief rallies are common during market downturns.
A Journey from Work to Home is about More than Just Getting There – the Psychological Benefits of Commuting that Remote Work Doesn’t Provide
For most American workers who commute, the trip to and from the office takes nearly one full hour a day – 26 minutes each way on average, with 7.7% of workers spending two hours or more on the road.
Many people think of commuting as a chore and a waste of time. However, during the remote work surge resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, several journalists curiously noted that people were – could it be? – missing their commutes. One woman told The Washington Post that even though she was working from home, she regularly sat in her car in the driveway at the end of the workday in an attempt to carve out some personal time and mark the transition from work to nonwork roles.
This article was republished with permission from The Conversation, a news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It represents the research-based findings and thoughts of Matthew Piszczek, Assistant Professor of Management, Wayne State University, Kristie McAlpine, Assistant Professor of Management, Rutgers University.
As management scholars who study the interface between peoples’ work and personal lives, we sought to understand what it was that people missed when their commutes suddenly disappeared.
In our recently published conceptual study, we argue that commutes are a source of “liminal space” – a time free of both home and work roles that provides an opportunity to recover from work and mentally switch gears to home.
During the shift to remote work, many people lost this built-in support for these important daily processes. Without the ability to mentally shift gears, people experience role blurring, which can lead to stress. Without mentally disengaging from work, people can experience burnout.
We believe the loss of this space helps explain why many people missed their commutes.
One of the more surprising discoveries during the pandemic has been that many people who switched to remote work actually missed their commutes. Gerald Streiter (Flickr)
Commutes and Liminal Space
In our study, we wanted to learn whether the commute provides that time and space, and what the effects are when it becomes unavailable.
We reviewed research on commuting, role transitions and work recovery to develop a model of a typical American worker’s commute liminal space. We focused our research on two cognitive processes: psychological detachment from the work role – mentally disengaging from the demands of work – and psychological recovery from work – rebuilding stores of mental energy used up during work.
Based on our review, we developed a model which shows that the liminal space created in the commute created opportunities for detachment and recovery.
However, we also found that day-to-day variations may affect whether this liminal space is accessible for detachment and recovery. For instance, train commuters must devote attention to selecting their route, monitoring arrivals or departures and ensuring they get off at the right stop, whereas car commuters must devote consistent attention to driving.
We found that, on the one hand, more attention to the act of commuting means less attention that could otherwise be put toward relaxing recovery activities like listening to music and podcasts. On the other hand, longer commutes might give people more time to detach and recover.
In an unpublished follow-up study we conducted ourselves, we examined a week of commutes of 80 university employees to test our conceptual model. The employees completed morning and evening surveys asking about the characteristics of their commutes, whether they “shut off” from work and relaxed during the commute and whether they felt emotionally exhausted when they got home.
Most of the workers in this study reported using the commute’s liminal space to both mentally transition from work to home roles and to start psychologically recovering from the demands of the workday. Our study also confirms that day-to-day variations in commutes predict the ability to do so.
We found that on days with longer-than-average commutes, people reported higher levels of psychological detachment from work and were more relaxed during the commute. However, on days when commutes were more stressful than usual, they reported less psychological detachment from work and less relaxation during the commute.
Creating Liminal Space
Our findings suggest that remote workers may benefit from creating their own form of commute to provide liminal space for recovery and transition – such as a 15-minute walk to mark the beginning and end of the workday.
Our preliminary findings align with related research suggesting that those who have returned to the workplace might benefit from seeking to use their commute to relax as much as possible.
To help enhance work detachment and relaxation during the commute, commuters could try to avoid ruminating about the workday and instead focus on personally fulfilling uses of the commute time, such as listening to music or podcasts, or calling a friend. Other forms of commuting such as public transit or carpooling may also provide opportunities to socialize.
Our data shows that commute stress detracts from detachment and relaxation during the commute more than a shorter or longer commute. So some people may find it worth their time to take the “scenic route” home in order to avoid tense driving situations.
Different investing environments call for adjustments to portfolios. What’s in your equity portfolio mix? Whether you’re an index investor, stock picker, or a 60/40 with a regular rebalance investor, stocks of different companies, different sectors, and different sizes are not the same. The characteristics of each slice of your portfolio can swing performance from negative to positive. For example, the Dow Industrials have returned less than 2.50% this year, while the large-cap Nasdaq 100 and the small-cap Russell 2000 have exceeded the Dow’s performance by well over 10%.
Performance
The reason for the tech large-cap resurgence may be a reaction to last year’s sell-off, a declining dollar, some surprise strength in earnings, or any combination of things. Can the large-cap rally be trusted? Time will tell. Small-caps are also doing well; they had been running behind the other indexes in terms of performance based on price/earnings averages and overall return. The two have different forces driving the performance of each; for this reason, investors looking to diversify could find comfort in allocating to large and smaller stocks if they haven’t already. The 60% of a 60/40 mix should be mixed and varied if the investor is truly interested in diversification. Recent performance shows small-cap stocks have outperformed over the last six months with the Dow Industrials in second place and measured year-to-date with the Dow barely getting off the starting line – the small-cap index however has taken off.
The Russell 2000 index turned around in late summer last year after it hit its low. The large-caps didn’t bottom until early winter, a little over a month ago. This discrepancy in timing shows they trade on different factors and often have very different investors. One example is large-cap stocks are in the news each day and easily driven by hype, while small-cap stocks that are out of the spotlight are driven by other factors, including growth prospects, sharp pencil analysis, and even raw speculation.
The optimism that kicked off 2023, includes the Fed nearing the end of its aggressive tightening, a healthy labor market, and an economy that is still flush with capital looking for a home. Add in a weakening dollar, as US interest rates have remained stagnant, and last year’s weak markets may continue to unwind their negativity as higher highs are reached.
A Word on Diversification
An investor in a fund that tracks the S&P 500 may feel they have the diversification of 500 multi-industry stocks. They do have exposure to 500 stocks, however the top 10 of the 500 represents more than 25% of the performance of the index – and most of these would qualify as tech stocks. For this reason diversifying away and into investments that are less correlated to tech may be prudent. Small-cap stocks, especially considering the past six months, would seem to be the best offset to this concentration risk.
If an investor is astute enough to understand market dynamics, digest research on industries and companies within those industries, and know how to recognize high-quality objective research, the investor may do better hand selecting a variety of stocks rather than being an index investor or even a single index investor.
This experience doesn’t happen automatically, if you are already there, may I suggest signing up for Channelchek’s daily emails to get introduced to, and stay on top of some interesting small companies (small and microcap)? And if you don’t believe that you are at that level yet, let Channelchek build on your knowledge with exclusive video content, insightful articles, and top-tier company research?
The year 2023 will be filled with opportunity. Let Channelchek help you explore. Complementary registration here.
January’s Stock Market Performance Bodes Well for the Rest of 2023
The stock market has put in a solid January in terms of overall performance. Following month after negative month last year, this is a welcome relief for those with money in the market which is beginning to look welcoming to those that have been on the sidelines. While the Fed is still looming with perhaps another 50-75 basis points in rate hikes left to implement over the coming months, the market has been resilient and has already made up for some of last year’s lost ground.
For the month (with an hour left before market close on January 31), the Nasdaq 100 is up over 10.8% for the month. Over 10% would be a good year historically, of course averaging in last year, it is still solidly underperforming market averages. The small-cap Russell 2000 index is also above 10%. Small-caps have underperformed larger cap stocks over several years and are seen to have more attractive valuations now than large caps as well as other fundamental strengths. These include a higher domestic US customer base in the face of a strong dollar, fewer borrowings that would be more costly with the increased rate environment, and an overall expectation that the major indexes will revert to their mean performance spreads which the small-cap indexes have been lagging. The S&P 500, the most quoted stock index is up over 6% in January, and the Dow 30 Industrials are up almost 2.4%.
Rate Increases
The stock and bond markets hope for a solid sign that the FOMCs rate increases will cease. The reduced fear of an ongoing tightening cycle will calm the nervousness that comes from knowing that higher rates hurt the consumer, increases unemployment, reduces spending and therefore hurts earnings which are most closely tied to stock valuations.
January Historically
January rallies, on their own, statistically have been a good omen for the 11 months ahead. When the S&P 500 posts a gain for the first month of the year, it goes on to rise another 8.6%, on average for the rest of the year according to statistics dating back to 1929. In more than 75% of these January rally years, the markets further gained during the year.
Other statistics indicate a bright year to come for the market as well. Using the S&P 500, it rallied for the final five trading days of last year and the first two of 2023, it gained for first five trading days of the new year, and rallied through January. When all three of these have occurred in the past, after a bear market (20%+ decline), the index’s average gain for the rest of the year is 13.9%. In fact it posted positive returns in almost all of the 17 post-bear market years that were ushered in with similar gains.
Follow Through
Beyond history, there is a reason for the follow-through years. January rallies are signs of confidence, they indicate that self-directed investors and professional money managers are buying stocks at the lower prices. It suggests they have a strong enough belief that conditions that caused the bear market have or will soon reverse.
And this is quite possibly where the markets are at today. The lower valuations seem attractive, this is especially true of the overly beaten down Nasdaq 100 stocks and the small-caps that had been trailing in returns since before the pandemic.
Federal Reserve Chair Powell is looking to make money more expensive in order to slow an economy that is still exhibiting inflationary pressures. He is not, however, looking to crush the stock market. Fed governors seem to be concerned that the bond market prices haven’t declined to match their tightening efforts, but a healthy stock market helps the Fed by giving it latitude to act. Powell will take the podium post FOMC meetings eight times this year.
Each time his intention will be to usher in a long term healthy economy, with reasonable growth, low inflation, and jobs levels that are in line with consumer confidence.
When it comes to hand-selecting companies for investment, a critical ingredient for success is information. This ingredient becomes even more critical with biotech companies. Each year, many companies have been involved in medicine, medical equipment, genetics, and wellness that take off and provide investors with double or triple-digit gains. During the same years, there are stocks in the sector that, on the surface seem to have just as much going for them, yet a diligent peak below the surface demonstrates their success is less probable.
The ability to get below the surface is one reason the JPMorgan Health Symposium draws between 8,000 and 10,000 attendees each year. Attending is an expensive commitment, but firsthand information, insights from others that are in-the-know, and exposure to scientific paths, trends and research that barely existed a few years earlier, can pay off.
If you were not among the 8,000 counted as attending at the 2023 JP Morgan Health Symposium, you’ll want to know, Noble Capital Markets, teamed with Channelchek to provide a video recap with insights and key takeaways on some of the biotech trends that may be worth exploring. This takeaway, coupled with select company presentations and questions from two top equity analysts in the field is sure to build on your current health sector knowledge. Go Here For More Information (and free access).
Trends Worth Exploring
Molecular diagnostics, involves taking DNA or RNA which is our unique and easily obtainable genetic code, and analyzing the sequences for red flags. These markers can pinpoint the chance for emergence of specific diseases. This field has expanded rapidly in recent years, with some products now being used regularly. But the potential is for far more to be developed and approved for use. This provides for tremendous profit potential.
Alternative pain relief, non-opioid and non-NAISD pain medications for chronic sufferers, could benefit millions who suffer eah day. The potential runs the gamut from chronic headaches or back pain to situations where one is recovering from surgery, sports injuries, or accidents. Millions of prescriptions are written each year for pain medications. This has, in part fed into the opioid crisis in the U.S. It has prompted an almost emergency-level need for replacing older addictive medications with effective alternatives. There are a number of companies making gains in this area of great need.
Gene therapy is a technique to treat or cure disease by modifying one’s genes. In many cases, the hope is that it leads to a permanent cure. New gene therapies are being developed for a wide swath of ailments including life-threatening disease. It is expected to be in many cases the next generation of cure. The methods for gene therapy include replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy, or inactivating the disease-causing gene. In other cases a modified gene may be introduced to help treat the disease. The research and development include cancers, infectious disease, organ failures, and autoimmune problems. Many of these companies will be opening the door to welcome life improvements for the some people, and curing what are now incurable diseases for others.
Drilling Down at the Company Level
It may feel uncomfortable to suggest that investing in and backing the right companies that resolve health issues can be profitable to you. But, the truth is, without investments and interest in stock ownership, tomorrow’s miracle drugs would never come to exist.
Watch the Takeaway from the JP Morgan conference with an eye toward what the company presenters deem important, and then listen to the analysts that also drill deeper beyond concept and stage of development, they discuss finances, which for many less experienced biotech investors, isn’t focused on enough. The companies selected for the Noble Capital Markets Takeaway all fall within one the fields mentioned above. Register Here.
Possible Side-Effects
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Symposium was held in mid-January. It is one of life science’s largest and most frenzied sharing of information related to the industry. Not everyone gets to go. We’re enthusiastic to be bringing you a slice of the excitement in hopes that you deepen your understanding of not just these companies, but what to look for in others as well.
In 2022, central banks purchased the largest amount of gold in recent history. According to the World Gold Council, central bank purchases of gold have reached a level not seen since 1967. The world’s central banks bought 673 metric tons in one month, and in the third quarter, the figure reached 400 metric tons. This is interesting because the flow from central banks since 2020 has been eminently net sales.
Why are global central banks adding gold to their reserves? There may be different factors.
Most central banks’ largest percentage of reserves are US dollars, which usually come in the form of US Treasury bonds. It would make sense for some of the central banks, especially China, to decide to depend less on the dollar.
China’s high foreign exchange reserves are a key source of stability for the People’s Bank of China. But the high amount of US dollars ($3.1 trillion) may have been a key stabilizing factor in 2022, but it could be too much if the next ten years bring a wave of money devaluation that has never happened before.
Central banks have been talking about the idea of issuing a digital currency, which would completely change the way money works today. By issuing a digital currency directly into a citizen’s account at the central bank, the financial institution would have all access to savers’ information and, more importantly, would be able to accelerate the transmission mechanism of monetary policy by eliminating the channels that prevent higher inflation from happening: the banking channel and the backstop of credit demand. What has kept inflation from going up much more is that the way monetary policy is passed on is always slowed down by the demand for credit in the banking system. This has obviously led to a huge rise in the prices of financial assets and still caused prices to go through the roof when the growth in the money supply was used to pay for government spending and subsidies.
If central banks start issuing digital currencies, the level of purchasing power destruction of currencies seen in the past fifty years will be exceedingly small compared with what can occur with unbridled central bank control.
In such an environment, gold’s status as a reserve of value would be unequalled.
There are more reasons why a central bank might buy gold.
Central banks need gold because they may be preparing for an unprecedented period of monetary devastation.
The Financial Times claims that central banks are already suffering significant losses as a result of the falling value of the bonds they hold on their balance sheets. By the end of the second quarter of 2022, the Federal Reserve had lost $720 billion while the Bank of England had lost £200 billion. The European Central Bank is currently having its finances reviewed, and it is predicted that it will also incur significant losses. The European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank, and the Australian central bank all “now face possible losses of more than $1 trillion altogether, as once-profitable bonds morph into liabilities,” according to Reuters.
If a central bank experiences a loss, it can fill the gap by using any available reserves from prior years or by requesting help from other central banks. Similar to a commercial bank, it may experience significant difficulties; nevertheless, a central bank has the option of turning to governments as a last resort. This implies that the hole will be paid for by taxpayers, and the costs are astronomical.
The wave of monetary destruction that could result from a new record in global debt, enormous losses in the central bank’s assets, and the issuance of digital currencies finds only one true safe haven with centuries of proven status as a reserve of value: Gold. This is because central banks are aware that governments are not cutting deficit spending.
These numbers highlight the enormous issue brought on by the recent overuse of quantitative easing. Because they were unaware of the reality of issuer solvency, central banks switched from purchasing low-risk assets at attractive prices to purchasing any sovereign bond at any price.
Why do central banks increase their gold purchases just as losses appear on their balance sheets? To increase their reserve level, lessen losses, and foresee how newly created digital currencies may affect inflation. Since buying European or North American sovereign bonds doesn’t lower the risk of losing money if inflation stays high, it is very likely that the only real option if to buy more gold.
The central banks of industrialized nations will make an effort to shrink their balance sheets in order to fight inflation, but they will also discover that the assets they own are continuing to depreciate in value. A central bank that is losing money cannot immediately expand its balance sheet or buy more sovereign bonds. A liquidity trap has been set. Quantitative easing and low interest rates are necessary for higher asset values, but further liquidity and financial restraint may prolong inflationary pressures, which would then increase pressure on asset prices.
The idea that printing money wouldn’t lead to inflation served as the foundation for the monetary mirage. The evidence to the contrary now demonstrates that central banks are faced with a serious challenge: they are unable to sustain multiple expansion and asset price inflation, lower consumer prices, and fund government deficit spending at the same time.
So, why do they buy gold? Because a new paradigm in policy will unavoidably emerge as a result of the disastrous economic and monetary effects of years of excessive easing, and neither our real earnings nor our deposit savings benefit from that. When given the choice between “sound money” and “financial repression,” governments have forced central banks to choose “financial repression.”
The only reason central banks buy gold is to protect their balance sheets from their own monetary destruction programs; they have no choice but to do so.
About the Author:
Daniel Lacalle, Ph.D., economist and fund manager, is the author of the bestselling books Freedom or Equality (2020), Escape from the Central Bank Trap (2017), The Energy World Is Flat (2015), and Life in the Financial Markets (2014).
Daniel is a professor of global economy at IE Business School in Madrid.
Meme Stocks are Putting Up a Strong Offense – Is this a Positive Sign for the Broader Market?
During the first three weeks of 2023, meme stocks and crypto tokens, often viewed in the same category, have scored early. Have meme stock investors now come off the sidelines after the poor performance last year? In 2022 they completely failed to repeat their historic 2021 wins. So the current rally is a great sign.
Successful meme trading occurs when there is a mass movement by retail accounts. So far in 2023, like flipping a New Year’s switch, retail is again causing a commotion. And by looking at the trending hashtags and cashtags on Reddit and Twitter, fans are also making an increased volume of noise.
Looking at the 2023 performance chart above, the S&P 500 ($SPY) opened the year more positively than the prior year ended. While one obviously can not extrapolate out the current 1.59% return for the year, annualizing it helps bring the short period being measured into perspective. The overall market is running at a 30.50% pace this year. Wow.
The performance of GameStop ($GME), which was one of the original and among the most recognized meme stocks, is outperforming the overall market by double. While it is well off its high reached earlier this week, the above 3% return is running well ahead of the overall stock market.
The cryptocurrency in the group, the often maligned Dogecoin (DOGE.X), which is legendary as it started as a parody token, has been tracking Bitcoins (BTC.X) rise closely. DOGE is up over 18% on the year, averaging an increase near 1% per day.
AMC Entertainment ($AMC), which is off its high of almost 50% a few days ago, now has returned over 32% to those holding the stock. To put this in perspective, it has an annualized return in 2023, so far, of 628%. This likely has gotten ahead of itself, time will tell, but it is the clear MVP among the meme stocks to date.
Last year the overall market, despite being down near 20%,, trounced the meme stocks that have thus far put in a stellar showing in 2023.
Is Meme Rally a Reason for Optimism?
Retail dollars coming in off the sidelines and mounting enough of a drive to force values up so quickly indicates a mood change that may play out elsewhere in the financial markets. The average trade size of retail is so small that it indicates a large wave of willingness, if not outright optimism, that putting money in play will lead to gains. Similar forces are causing money to move into mutual funds and ETFs, which serves to put upward pressure on the overall market.
Wall Street’s so-called “fear gauge,” the Volatility Index ($VIX) dropped on average 1% a day since the start of the year. This is a spectacular trend. It now stands near its long-term average of 21; a reading above 30 is considered bearish. The $VIX was last near these levels in April of last year. The overall market stood 15% higher back then compared to today.
The Volatility Index has applications across digital assets as well. On a scale of 1-100, where 100 is overly greedy, The Crypto Fear and Greed Index stands near neutral at 52. This is also the most optimistic reading since April. It may be considered even more positive since the digital asset market is still digesting the “unprecedented” bankruptcy of crypto exchange FTX.
Meme mania has never been about macro; more about crowd behavior, commitment, and momentum. But there are fundamentals that are viewed by stock investors of all varieties that likely have fed into the burst of interest. First, economic data suggests that inflation is trending lower. This deceleration lessens the need for the Federal Reserve to put the brakes on the economy. The enthusiasm is just more pronounced among this style of retail traders that are loud and proud. They serve as cheerleaders to captivate the imagination of more traditional investors.
Take Away
The overall financial markets opened with a sigh of relief in 2023. Meme stocks and crypto opened the year with extreme optimism. The optimism isn’t without cause; a number of factors point to a much better environment than the dismal returns of last year.
Will this contagion, led by many small accounts, inspire further the larger individual and institutional investors to commit investments in the broader markets, there are many signs that suggest the year is starting that way, fear of missing out will build with each day that the markets move in a positive direction.
Why America Has a Debt Ceiling: Five Questions Answered
The Treasury Department on Jan. 13, 2023, said it expects the U.S. to hit the current debt limit of $31.38 trillion on Jan. 19. After that, the government would take “extraordinary measures” – which could extend the deadline until May or June – to avoid default. A default, even a risk of default would drive bond prices (interest rates) much higher than they currently are.
Is the debt ceiling still a good idea?
Economist Steve Pressman is a professor at The New School in Manhattan, below he explains the debt ceiling is and why we have it – and then shares his opinion on its usefulness.
What is the Debt Ceiling?
Like the rest of us, governments must borrow when they spend more money than they receive. They do so by issuing bonds, which are IOUs that promise to repay the money in the future and make regular interest payments. Government debt is the total sum of all this borrowed money.
The debt ceiling, which Congress established a century ago, is the maximum amount the government can borrow. It’s a limit on the national debt.
What’s the National Debt?
On Jan. 10, 2023, U.S. government debt was $30.92 trillion, about 22% more than the value of all goods and services that will be produced in the U.S. economy this year.
Around one-quarter of this money the government actually owes itself. The Social Security Administration has accumulated a surplus and invests the extra money, currently $2.8 trillion, in government bonds. And the Federal Reserve holds $5.5 trillion in U.S. Treasurys.
The rest is public debt. As of October 2022, foreign countries, companies and individuals owned $7.2 trillion of U.S. government debt. Japan and China are the largest holders, with around $1 trillion each. The rest is owed to U.S. citizens and businesses, as well as state and local governments.
Before 1917, Congress would authorize the government to borrow a fixed sum of money for a specified term. When loans were repaid, the government could not borrow again without asking Congress for approval.
The Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, which created the debt ceiling, changed this. It allowed a continual rollover of debt without congressional approval.
Congress enacted this measure to let then-President Woodrow Wilson spend the money he deemed necessary to fight World War I without waiting for often-absent lawmakers to act. Congress, however, did not want to write the president a blank check, so it limited borrowing to $11.5 billion and required legislation for any increase.
The debt ceiling has been increased dozens of times since then and suspended on several occasions. The last change occurred in December 2021, when it was raised to $31.38 trillion.
Currently, the U.S. Treasury has under $400 billion cash on hand, and the U.S. government expects to borrow around $100 billion each month this year.
When the U.S. nears its debt limit, the Treasury secretary – currently Janet Yellen – can use “extraordinary measures” to conserve cash, which she indicated would begin on Jan. 19. One such measure is temporarily not funding retirement programs for government employees. The expectation will be that once the ceiling is raised, the government would make up the difference. But this will buy only a small amount of time.
If the debt ceiling isn’t raised before the Treasury Department exhausts its options, decisions will have to be made about who gets paid with daily tax revenues. Further borrowing will not be possible. Government employees or contractors may not be paid in full. Loans to small businesses or college students may stop.
When the government can’t pay all its bills, it is technically in default. Policymakers, economists and Wall Street are concerned about a calamitous financial and economic crisis. Many fear that a government default would have dire economic consequences – soaring interest rates, financial markets in panic and maybe an economic depression.
Under normal circumstances, once markets start panicking, Congress and the president usually act. This is what happened in 2013 when Republicans sought to use the debt ceiling to defund the Affordable Care Act.
But we no longer live in normal political times. The major political parties are more polarized than ever, and the concessions McCarthy gave Republicans may make it impossible to get a deal on the debt ceiling.
Is There a Better Way?
One possible solution is a legal loophole allowing the U.S. Treasury to mint platinum coins of any denomination. If the U.S. Treasury were to mint a $1 trillion coin and deposit it into its bank account at the Federal Reserve, the money could be used to pay for government programs or repay government bondholders. This could even be justified by appealing to Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.”
Few countries even have a debt ceiling. Other governments operate effectively without it. America could too. A debt ceiling is dysfunctional and periodically puts the U.S. economy in jeopardy because of political grandstanding.
The best solution would be to scrap the debt ceiling altogether. Congress already approved the spending and the tax laws that require more debt. Why should it also have to approve the additional borrowing?
It should be remembered that the original debt ceiling was put in place because Congress couldn’t meet quickly and approve needed spending to fight a war. In 1917 cross-country travel was by rail, requiring days to get to Washington. This made some sense then. Today, when Congress can vote online from home, this is no longer the case.
Unbalanced Hype in the Markets Surrounding the “Unknowable” Could be Costly
“It’s not knowable” if there will be a recession in 2023, said Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently. A month earlier, after the last change in monetary policy, he said it is easier to go too far and bring the economy back than to do too little and then have to then tame stronger inflationary pressures. The most recent CPI number shows a trend that policymakers want to see, but it likely is not a number the Fed will pivot off of. After all, for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to rise by 6.5% YoY means that cost increases experienced by consumers are running more than three times higher than the Fed’s stated target. Of course, the rate increases have not had time to work their way into the system; they haven’t even fully worked their way into the interest rate markets.
An Alternative Way to Look at Tightening
Relatively speaking, a hypothetical decline in your investment account by 2% last month may be an improvement in performance if it had been down 3% the month before. But if your need to meet your goals is a positive 8%, then you still have a lot of work to do in order to consider yourself successful. The same for the Fed policymakers. US dollar buying power is losing ground, just not as quickly as it was. And since the inflation rate is also subject to what savers and investors call ‘the miracle of compounding’ and the jobs market is strong, the Fed has motivation and room to keep pulling money from the system and raising interest rates – the sooner, the better based on Powell’s statements.
And it may be that they are willingly driving the economy into reverse to stop service costs from rising as quickly, and bring inflationary wage increases lower. Workers, after all, have not reacted to the possibility of a recession. They still feel at ease leaving their employers at a very high pace, and the layoff rate is still near a record low. To demonstrate, the economy added 223,000 in payroll employment in December (well above the 200,000 forecast — and the unemployment rate came down to 3.5%, below the 3.7% forecast. This may not seem high compared to the gains just after the pandemic opening, but it is quite steamy.
Take Away
The financial news has been full of ‘pivot’ headlines for months. When it comes to the “unknowable,” it is important to remind oneself, as an investor, that very few things are a done deal until they happen. The big picture is the bond market has not priced itself in a way that fully reflects the Fed tightening of short-term rates. This represents difficulty for the Fed, and the Fed is looking for slower economic growth.
Throughout 2022, the big question while consumers faced increasing prices was whether the Federal Reserve would push the economy into decline. Their intent, after years of excessive stimulus, is to slow economic growth to bring inflation down. The Fed hiked interest rates seven times during 2022, its aggressive tactics caused some to worry about job losses and a recession. With an inflation rate that Powell thinks is more than three times too high, investors must consider that the Fed has different goals than investors but the same as consumers. We are all consumers, we’re not all investors.
As a final note, what the year brings is unknowable. There are always stocks going up, going down, and tracking sideways. A 2% inflation rate is easier to beat in terms of performance as an equity market investor than a 4% or 6% level. What the Fed will do, they likely don’t know for sure themselves; our job, that of investors, is to not get caught up in hype. And the markets and the media are breeding grounds for hype.
The Data Supporting Small-Caps Should Attract Money from Former Mega-Cap-Only Investors
When I see an investment statistic that reads, “in the past, this has happened 100% of the time,” I not only take note for my own portfolio consideration, I share it with my more risk-averse investment friends. It’s now mid-January, and like many investors, I have read dozens of 2023 forecasts and projections. I value the ones where the forecaster likely has skin in the game (i.e.: not many economists), and I am more highly interested in those that support forecasts with stats (ie: most economists). I came across a stat of ‘100% of the time’ from a trusted source that has skin in the game – this is certainly share-worthy.
Source
Each month Royce Investment Partners publishes an interview-style update between founder Chuck Royce and Co-CIO Frank Gannon. It’s always full of statistics and probability analysis. It never fails to be interesting and very often worthwhile. Investment decisions based on hard data from the past are less speculative, this doesn’t always make the investment a win, but it lowers the need for guessing. And if the stats are based on a large enough sample period, confidence to act overrides underlying opinion or emotions. The most recent publication from Royce Associates, LLC offers very compelling data.
The update includes a look at the stock market trends of late last year and why they’re confident small-cap stocks can achieve a positive return that could outpace larger-cap sectors. Especially for those companies whose underlying data meet criteria that they also explain.
Rear Looking View
The two were able to put the challenges for many investors last year in context by first talking about how infrequently bonds and stocks have gone down in the same year. This left 60/40 investors without anything to be happy about. Then they switched to small cap versus large cap, which they say was the third worst year for both the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, which fell 20.4%, and the Russell 1000 Index, which declined 19.1%. The third worst since each index’s inception at the end of 1978. According to the Royce update, “only two years had lower returns—and it was the same two years for both indexes—2008 during the Financial Crisis and 2002 through the worst year of the Internet Bubble.”
Forward-Looking View
As indicated above, Royce Associates believes small-cap is well positioned for positive returns and long-term comparative performance. The argument is hinged mainly on valuation but also on past behavior.
Valuation, they explain, even after last year’s sell-off, “remained near its lowest rate in 20 years compared to large-cap’s, based on our preferred valuation metric of the median last 12 months’ enterprise value to earnings before taxes (LTM EV/EBIT).” Royce recognized that accompanying the worldwide equity sell-off, many small-cap stocks were taken lower unrelated to financial fundamentals and/or operational expertise. “We have often been struck by the contrast between the more confident—albeit cautious—outlooks from the many management teams we’ve met with and the fatalistic headlines we see almost every day,” they explain.
A High Probability of Positive Small-Cap Performance Ahead? Average Subsequent Five-Year Annualized Performance for the Russell 2000 in Trailing Five-Year Return Ranges of less than 5% from 12/31/83 through 12/31/22:
Source: Royce Investment Partners (Past performance is no guarantee of future results).
Frank Gannon says, “small-cap’s historical performance patterns show that below-average longer-term return periods have been followed by those with above-average longer-term returns—and the subsequent periods have enjoyed positive returns most of the time.” Drilling down to the numbers of the market’s current state, he says, “Subsequent annualized three-year returns from three-year entry points of less than 5% have been positive 99% of the time—that is, in 75 out of 76 three-year annualized periods—averaging 16.1% since the Russell 2000s 12/31/78 inception.”
Stretching the investment period out to five years had even higher probabilities and positive outcomes. “The Russell 2000 also had positive annualized five-year returns 100% of the time—that is, in all 81 five-year periods—and averaged an impressive 14.9% following five-year periods with annualized returns of 5% or less. We think this is especially relevant now because the respective three- and five-year annualized returns for the Russell 2000 as of 12/31/22 were 3.1% and 4.1%.”
On the subject of inflation, the Royce review was also positive. “Small-cap has beaten inflation in every decade going back to the 1930s—and is the only equity class to have done so.” Details of how this and other numbers are derived can be found in the article (available here).
Take-Away
While Royce Investment Partners, a fund company that holds small-cap stocks as its specialty, is not affiliated with Channelchek, or Noble Capital Markets, the monthly and quarterly newsletter/blog is always looked forward to. New readers should be ready for numbers and details backing up their stated positions. This is something not always found in public forecasts by other investment officers or portfolio managers. It’s more longwinded than some, but this is good because sound bites are not very helpful when one investor is trying to understand the thoughts of another.
To find data on ‘less-followed’ stocks, sign- up here for Channelchek and get immediate, no-cost access to information on over 6,000 small and microcap companies.
What’s a ‘Gig’ Job? How it’s Legally Defined Affects Workers’ Rights and Protections
The “gig” economy has captured the attention of technology futurists, journalists, academics and policymakers.
“Future of work” discussions tend toward two extremes: breathless excitement at the brave new world that provides greater flexibility, mobility and entrepreneurial energy, or dire accounts of its immiserating impacts on the workers who labor beneath the gig economy’s yoke.
This article was republished with permission from The Conversation, a news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It represents the research-based findings and thoughts of David Weil, Visiting Senior Faculty Fellow, Ash Center for Democracy Harvard Kennedy School / Professor, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University.
These widely diverging views may be partly due to the many definitions of what constitutes “gig work” and the resulting difficulties in measuring its prevalence. As an academic who has studied workplace laws for decades and ran the federal agency that enforces workplace protections during the Obama administration, I know the way we define, measure and treat gig workers under the law has significant consequences for workers. That’s particularly true for those lacking leverage in the labor market.
While there are benefits for workers for this emerging model of employment, there are pitfalls as well. Confusion over the meaning and size of the gig workforce – at times the intentional work of companies with a vested economic interest – can obscure the problems gig status can have on workers’ earnings, workplace conditions and opportunities.
Defining Gig Work
Many trace the phrase “gig economy” to a 2009 essay in which editor and author Tina Brown proclaimed: “No one I know has a job anymore. They’ve got Gigs.”
Although Brown focused on professional and semiprofessional workers chasing short-term work, the term soon applied to a variety of jobs in low-paid occupations and industries. Several years later, the rapid ascent of Uber, Lyft and DoorDash led the term gig to be associated with platform and digital business models. More recently, the pandemic linked gig work to a broader set of jobs associated with high turnover, limited career prospects, volatile wages and exposure to COVID-19 uncertainties.
The imprecision of gig, therefore, connotes different things: Some uses focus on the temporary or “contingent” nature of the work, such as jobs that may be terminated at any time, usually at the discretion of the employer. Other definitions focus on the unpredictability of work in terms of earnings, scheduling, hours provided in a workweek or location. Still other depictions focus on the business structure through which work is engaged – a staffing agency, digital platform, contractor or other intermediary. Further complicating the definition of gig is whether the focus is on a worker’s primary source of income or on side work meant to supplement income.
Measuring Gig Work
These differing definitions of gig work have led to widely varying estimates of its prevalence.
A conservative estimate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics household-based survey of “alternative work arrangements” suggests that gig workers “in non-standard categories” account for about 10% of employment. Alternatively, other researchers estimate the prevalence as three times as common, or 32.5%, using a Federal Reserve survey that broadly defines gig work to include any work that is temporary and variable in nature as either a primary or secondary source of earnings. And when freelancing platform Upworks and consulting firm McKinsey & Co. use a broader concept of “independent work,” they report rates as high as 36% of employed respondents.
No consensus definition or measurement approach has emerged, despite many attempts, including a 2020 panel report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Various estimates do suggest several common themes, however: Gig work is sizable, present in both traditional and digital workplaces, and draws upon workers across the age, education, demographic and skill spectrum.
Why it Matters
As the above indicates, gig workers can range from high-paid professionals working on a project-to-project basis to low-wage workers whose earnings are highly variable, who work in nonprofessional or semiprofessional occupations and who accept – by choice or necessity – volatile hours and a short-term time commitment from the organization paying for that work.
Regardless of their professional status, many workers operating in gig arrangements are classified as independent contractors rather than employees. As independent contractors, workers lose rights to a minimum wage, overtime and a safe and healthy work environment as well as protections against discrimination and harassment. Independent contractors also lose access to unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation and paid sick leave now required in many states.
Federal and state laws differ in the factors they draw on to make that call. A key concept underlying that determination is how “economically dependent” the worker is on the employer or contracting party. Greater economic independence – for example, the ability to determine price of service, how and where tasks are done and opportunities for expanding or contracting that work based on the individual’s own skills, abilities and enterprise – suggest a role as an independent contractor.
In contrast, if the hiring party basically calls the shots – for example, controlling what the individual does, how they do their work and when they do it, what they are permitted to do and not do, and what performance is deemed acceptable – this suggests employee status. That’s because workplace laws are generally geared toward employees and seek to protect workers who have unequal bargaining leverage in the labor market, a concept based on long-standing Supreme Court precedent.
Making Work More Precarious
Over the past few decades, a growing number of low-wage workers find themselves in gig work situations – everything from platform drivers and delivery personnel to construction laborers, distribution workers, short-haul truck drivers and home health aides. Taken together, the grouping could easily exceed 20 million workers.
Many companies have incentives to classify these workers as independent contractors in order to reduce costs and risks, not because of a truly transformed nature of work where those so classified are real entrepreneurs or self-standing businesses.
Since gig work tends to be volatile and contingent, losing employment protections amplifies the precariousness of work. A business using misclassified workers can gain cost advantages over competitors who treat their workers as employees as required by the law. This competitive dynamic can spread misclassification to new companies, industries and occupations – a problem we addressed directly, for example, in construction cases when I led the Wage and Hour Division and more recently in several health care cases.
The future of work is not governed by immutable technological forces but involves volitional private and public choices. Navigating to that future requires weighing the benefits gig work can provide some workers with greater economic independence against the continuing need to protect and bestow rights for the many workers who will continue to play on a very uneven playing field in the labor market.
For Now, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Still Hold a High Place in the USA
Commentators worry that the United States might lose its dominance in innovation to Asian countries like China and Singapore. Many policymakers are intimidated by the R&D budgets of Asian countries and by their superior performance on international academic assessments. However, these concerns are misguided because the United States still dominates innovation.
The United States ranks second on the Global Innovation Index and scores the highest in the world on fifteen of eighty-one innovation indicators. The US innovation ecosystem continues to lead in the commercialization of research, and its universities are on the cutting edge of academic research. Other countries are expanding research budgets, but the United States’ genius is its ability to commercialize relevant innovations.
Innovations are only useful when they disrupt industries by transforming society and altering consumer preferences. Because innovations respond to market changes, anything can become an innovation, and the process is highly spontaneous. Unfortunately, too many countries are laboring under the assumption that government plans inevitably lead to innovation. Finding the next game changer is tremendously difficult due to the dynamism of consumer preferences.
US entrepreneurs appreciate that innovation is a freewheeling process rather than an object of grand design. That is why Silicon Valley, with its reverence for risk and failure, has been known for innovation. In her 2014 book, The Upside of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success, Megan McArdle argues that the United States’ tolerance toward failure is a crucial pillar of prosperity because it promotes self-actualization, risk, and the continuous quest for innovation.
The United States’ rivals have eloquent five-year plans and extravagant budgets, but US innovation is undergirded by private institutions with a strong appetite for risk and iconoclastic thinking. Private venture-capital associations and research institutions searching for future pioneers are the primary players in US innovation. Government innovation plans are inherently conservative because they hinge on the success of targeted industries.
But, in the private sector, entrepreneurs are deliberately scouting for disruptors to undercut traditional industries by launching breakthrough products. The conformity of government bureaucracies is an enemy of the unorthodox thinking that spurs innovation. China is known for having a competent and meritocratic civil service, yet scholars contend that it lacks an innovative environment.
A key problem is that China focuses on competing with western rivals instead of developing new industries; innovation is perceived as a competition between China and its rivals rather than an activity pursued for its own sake. Consequently, US companies remain market leaders and are more adept at converting market information into innovative products than their Chinese counterparts. Unlike China, US entrepreneurship is not a function of geopolitics.
Meanwhile, some commentators suggest that the US education system is better at deploying talent due to its encouragement of unorthodox thinking. In contrast, Singapore and China have been criticized for emphasizing rote learning at the expense of critical thinking. For example, Singapore’s public sector is a model of excellence; however, despite government support, Singapore is yet to become an innovation hotbed.
Bryan Cheung, in an assessment of industrial policy in Singapore, comments on the failure of Singapore to translate research into innovation: “Even though Singapore ranks highly on global innovation indices, closer scrutiny reveals that it scores poorly on the sub-component of innovation efficiency.” A recent edition of the Global Innovation Index, using a global comparison, declared that “Singapore produces less innovation outputs relative to its level of innovation investments.”
Cheung explains that Singapore is heavily reliant on foreign talent to boost innovation: “Even the six ‘unicorns’ that Singapore has produced (Grab, SEA, Trax, Lazada, Patsnap, Razer) were all founded or co-founded by foreign entrepreneurs. In the Start-Up Genome (2021), Singapore also performed relatively poorly in ‘quality and access’ to tech talent, research impact of publications, and local market reach, which is unsurprising since innovation activity is concentrated in foreign hands.”
Asian countries are growing more competitive, but it will take decades before they develop the United States’ appetite for risk, market-driven innovations, and the uncanny ability to monetize anything. The United States’ spectacular economic performance and business acumen are based on its unique culture. Those who bet against the United States by downplaying its culture are bound to lose. The United States’ rivals are still catching up.
About the Author
Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and contributor to Merion West, The Federalist, American Thinker, Intellectual Takeout, mises.org, and Imaginative Conservative. Visit his YouTube channel, here. He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or on Twitter (@matthewslipton)
Could There be an Impact on Robinhood Shareholders with the SBF Share Seizure
Creditors and customers of FTX may be able to reclaim some assets that were wiped out as the feds have been seizing the 7.50% stake in Robinhood (HOOD) stock held by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). SBF faces charges of fraud and a myriad of financial crimes after the collapse of FTX in November. The impact of the collapse is having an effect on other areas of finance, including assets that had been controlled by SBF. The Robinhood shares are valued near $450 million, and while this may bring some hope or relief to those that will receive a distribution, there is a risk to HOOD investors.
Background
The FTX bankruptcy has left a line of claimants to recapture what they can from the cryptocurrency giant. Bankruptcies are seldom easy; those that could involve layers of fraud become tied up in even larger disputes and legal battles. For example, the large Robinhood holding is tied up in a dispute between FTX and bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi. The company alleges that SBF put up the shares as collateral for a loan to Alameda Research, a company he also owned.
The HOOD stake was purchased in 2022 through a holding company SBF controlled, Robinhood of course is the innovative broker specializing in self-directed individual investors. Through the DOJ, authorities are going after the shares of HOOD and accounts that are held at the bank Silvergate Capital (SI) which is a banker for the crypto industry.
Separately, court filings on January 4th brought awareness to a NY federal judge ordered last month requiring the seizure of some $93 million that an FTX arm held in accounts at Silvergate. As it relates to this seizure. The Justice Department says it believes the assets seized are not the property of the bankruptcy estate, while a lawyer for FTX maintains that the seizures were from accounts not directly controlled by the company. They were ordered in connection with the criminal case involving SBF.
FTX investors’ asset claims in the exchange, which was once valued at $32 billion, come after creditors and other rightful claimants.
How This Could Impact Robinhood Shareholders
Asset seizures and later distribution to those hurt by fraud involve liquidation of the assets seized. In the case of stocks, they will be sold and turned into cash. Imagine a sudden effort to sell 7.50% of any company. That is a large percentage to move. The stake, worth between $400 and $500 million, may serve as a dark cloud depressing share prices and slowing any planned growth of the company. It may eventually culminate in liquidation at a pace not conducive to retaining a level stock price.
