Change in Leadership in Hard Assets?

As you can see from the chart below, oil service stocks and integrated majors (XOI and OIH) have matched the performance of the XAU and HUI. While the demand for gold as money (and as a hedge against paper currencies) is strong and sustainable over time, so is the demand for oil, especially in Asia.

Gold Rally is Sustainable

French Security

Ran across this item in today's Guardian (viat Instapundit): Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Killer was hired as Air France guard: "The company put in charge of security for Air France flights employed a convicted murderer and a number of others with serious criminal records, it emerged yesterday. The background of the guards was disclosed in a Paris court during a hearing to wind up the company, Pretory, which had been operating security on the French airline for more than two years but went into bankruptcy after tax fraud allegations. " I have mixed emotions about Air France. On one hand, alcoholic beverages on Air France flights are still free. U.S. airlines are charging $5 for a small bottle of California cabernet. French security has its drawbacks and advantages, I suppose. For example, when I flew from Paris to Baltimore on one of the first international flights to leave Charles de Gaulle after 9/11, I carried with me a large bottle of 1998 Bordeaux in a big wooden box. The box was nailed shut, sealed, and could have contained, for all anyone knew, lighter fluid. But passing through passport control the guard merely looked at the bottle and said, "Very good choice monsieur." Other times, the security has been inane. For example, on a flight back home this summer, I was rigorously questioned about how long I'd spent in England while in France (a short 3-day trip.) The questions kept coming. The passengers behind me got irritated. I started to sweat. I finally said, "Look, if I'm somehow in violation of my Visa...what are you going to do...make me stay?" That seemed to break the mental logjam and I was on my way. It's easier to get through security in Paris. Does that make it less secure? You tell me...

The Lowly Dollar....How much lower?

Ahh, The Good Old Days

Not Just Rising Spending, But Falling Receipts

You find a lot of arcane but telling statistics when you go digging through the U.S. Treasury's Monthly Report. The report gives you general line items for Federal receipts and outlays each month of the fiscal year. In the November report, I note two developments: First, in the first two months of FY 2004, Federal spending is already at $366.5 million dollars--an increase of 2.5% from the same time last year. Second, it wasn’t just increased spending that drove the deficit higher. Receipts declined, too (the government likes to call them revenues…even though you don’t really have a choice about where to “spend” your tax dollars.) Total income tax receipts for FY 2003 were down 7.5% from the previous year. And corporate tax receipts fell 7% as well. Falling corporate tax receipts are to be expected in a down economy...lower profits, right? Hard to reconcile that with the image of a profitable recovery. Or higher stock prices. But more worrisome are falling income tax receipts. That means wage stagnation. And without wage growth, it's hard to see how debt burdens can expand without swamping consumers. In fact, without wage growth, it's hard to see how consumption can expand in ANY way but through more debt....

Yellow Hope

You start working on a story...and you have no idea where it will take you. So it was Sunday night when I kept getting the question, " Won't Asian Central Bank buying of U.S. bonds (a) make your IEF puts a bad idea and (b) put a floor under the exchange value of the dollar? The question has to be tackled in two parts. First, does Japanese buying of U.S. bonds support bond prices. Second, to what extent does Japanese buying of U.S. bonds support the dollar itself? Let's take the bond price question first. The Japanese buy U.S. bonds in order to keep the yen weak relative the dollar--and keep Japanese exports cheap to U.S. buyers. In fact, just this week, the Japanese government said it spent 17.8 trillion yen (US$166.23 billion) on yen-selling operations in the first eleven months of 2003. And to what effect? Well, the yen did stabilize relative to the dollar, for awhile. But this is what central bankers like to call an "orderly retreat." Check out the chart below. A Disorderly Retreat So, now we know that yen intervention kind of worked, at least to keep the currency from getting too strong too fast. It certainly kept the yen from getting as strong as the euro, as the chart below shows. Of course, we also need to know if yen buying supported U.S. bond prices. That's the critical question for IEF. Indulge me in one more chart. The chart above compares the year-to-date performance of IEF and the yen. It's hard to draw a definite conclusion. But the key time on the chart is the August-September period. During that period, bond prices made a bottom--and the yen strengthened against the dollar (it's counterintuitive to say that the yen got "stronger" when its line on the chart is going down...but remember, that means it's taking fewer yen to buy one dollar. 100 yen for one dollar would be about where 'parity' is.) According to this report from Mizuho bank, there were two occasions in September of this year that yen selling/dollar buying exceeded 1 trillion yen. The first was September 12th and the second was on September 30th. The first intervention at yen 116 to the dollar. The second came at 110. And neither worked very well. What's interesting about those days is that one came before the G7 meeting and one came after. The G& meeting in Dubai which famously (as statements from central bankers go) called for "flexible exchange rates." This was a not so subtle request that the Japanese quit selling yen and buying dollars and that maybe the Chinese should de-peg the yuan. The Japanese, having intervened to the tune of 1 trillion yen before the meeting, took some of the sting of the move they must have known was coming. Then, they put a new floor in at 105. Yet not one jot or tittle of this has arrested the dollar's spectacular fall versus the euro. It's 19% this year, and a full 50% since the euro was at its nadir against dollar of .82 back in October of 2000. It's clear now that a weak dollar isn't in ANYONE's interests (except, perhaps, any U.S. manufacturers that haven't already been put out of the business by the Chinese.) A weak dollar is certainly not in Europe's interest. Already the dollar is close to the 1.30 versus the euro level that Europeans have said would cause substantial "pain." So will the green back firm up without the U.S. having to raise rates? Will the dollar find its level versus the euro and the Japan...and then, in the orderly fashion everyone expects, settle light on its feet and begin a graduated comeback? Everyone would like to think so. But the problem is the same as it's ever been these last five years....debt. The whole point of flexible and open currency exchanges is that a currency can accurately reflect the health of the economy it comes from. And as much as everyone would LIKE the dollar to be stronger, the level of debt in the U.S. is the ugly, insistent reminder than the world cannot ride the back of U.S. consumers to economic salvation. For instance, take U.S. Federal debt. It was $374 billion in FY 2003. It's already on pace to that exceed that and end up between $400 billion and $500 billion. Let's say $450. And let's say Japan and China continue buying up about 35% of the Treasury market. That leaves nearly $300 billion in new U.S. debt to be scooped up by foreign governments and the public markets. Can that happen? Sure. It's new supply. But there seems to be a healthy appetite for U.S. debt. Let's say the world can swallow it. What does that leave? Well...assuming everyone's dreams are realized...it leaves a HUGE current account deficit whereby U.S. consumers scoop up even cheaper Asian and European imports. That deficit--where Americans take up the cause of the world and consume more than they produce---threatens the value of the dollar. Only if the world continues to scoop up U.S. financial assets and own dollar-denominated assets does the dollar keep from buckling. And so this is the bargain the world seems to be willing to make: own richly valued U.S. stocks and pray for two things. Pray first for a robust U.S. economic rebound that takes stocks even higher. Pray second that American consumer can keep up their spending pace--even if it means taking on more debt. This seems like a bad bet to me, and a prayer not likely to be answered (anymore that my prayers about winning the lottery, dating Miss America, and pitching for the Orioles). More likely, 2004 will see even more hedging against the dollar. Foreign Central Banks will add euros to their reserves. Perhaps even gold. Dollars will be sold, and certainly bought with less frequency than now. And eventually, U.S. interest rates will rise money gets tighter. It's actually pretty astonishing it hasn't happened yet. But the debt, unlike the dreams, isn't going away any time soon. And all that debt makes America--the American consumer and his government--a bad credit risk.

Propositions

You may recall a few months back I hit you all up with a vague request. I was looking for parties interested in developing a new business proposition. My wording was sufficiently vague that I got a ton of responses. So many that I couldn't respond to all of them. My original intent, however, hasn't wavered. While I've got a fresh cup of coffee in me (it's so much stronger here in France), let me give you a few things to think about. The proposition in question then, and now, is Strategic Insider...and what may spring from it in 2004. The direction of the Insider is going to be driven, for the most part, by analyzing financial markets on a daily basis, and then refining our investment tactics. It'll be a full time job. But I'm hoping, if there's enough interest from readers like you, we can build it into something else. That is, the real intent of this venture isn't only to provide more interesting reading. First, I'm hoping to bring you more and better investment ideas. Second, I'd like to bring more depth and analysis to what's turning out to be an incredible period in financial and geopolitical history. To that end, I'm extending an open invitation to you. An invitation to what? Good question. Here's my proposition, I'm going to spend 2004 beating the bushes for the best investment ideas and stories. You can help, though. Fist, keep sending along links, ideas, or articles. You can send them to strategicinsider@agora-inc.com or strategicinsider@aol.com. The reader base for the Insider includes many, many talented investors and creative thinkers. You've already seen me publish quite a bit of reader mail. The more you send, the more I can publish. Of course I have plenty to publish on my own...but what I'm getting at is that the Insider can be a collaborative proposition...to the extent that you have the time or interest in making it so. Second, I often get detailed questions about how to accomplish difficult investment objectives. For example, just last week I got an e-mail asking for more detailed investment coverage of Australian mining shares. This is something I'd like to do. And I've already begun working through channels to make it happen. But this is just one in a long list of specialized topics that merit more attention. I already have a long list of research contacts all over the world, brokers, money managers, traders, analysts, hedge fund managers, other investment writers. But it never hurts to have more. If you're in the business, or if you just happen to have some local knowledge about a particular opportunity...or just an eyewitness report from the front lines, contact me. Just consider it the digital version of sending your business card. This medium gives me the chance to be a publisher of thousands of professionals, thinkers, and investors. Of course I exercise a fair amount of discretion about what I publish. But the more sources I have (human intelligence), the better the quality of the material you end up reading. Blegging In a slightly different context, you'll notice that the design of the site and its technical functionality are fairly bare bones. I prefer it that way. But I'm always open to improvements. So I'm going to do what is called blegging, asking (not begging) readers of the blog for help with a particular issue. I know that some of you out there are fairly savy when it comes to programming and design. I'm not averse to tapping into that source of knowledge...nay, even doing business with a few of you if you have good suggestions and would like to be compensated for your services. In the next year, I'd like to add an audio-blogging feature to the site...plus some other bells and whistles. If you've got some ideas, let me know. Finally, don't take any of this as an imposition on your time or resources. Fundamentally, this a service which I've contracted to provide to you. You'll get your money's worth, and, I hope, then some. Beyond that, I've excited about the possibilities. What we've already begun to establish is a loose network of individuals, brought together by a common financial goal, and perhaps, more than that. I'd shy away from saying I have any over-arching philosophy for the Insider, certainly nothing that would include the wide variety of readers with very different ideas and beliefs. What we DO have in common though, is a curiosity about the times we live in. And what we now have, through the Insider, is a tool for reporting, analyzing, and thinking about those times with greater speed, depth, and effectiveness than ever before. That's the proposition anyway... P.S. speaking of blegging, if any of my London-based readers have suggestions on affordable neighborhoods to live in London (in the Central part), hit me up. Studios, one-rooms, anything really...

Gives a Whole New Meaning...

Getting the coming New Year off to an upbeat start with some fun from an article you can find here. As you may know, Strategic Investment at one time offered a liftime membership under the name of the Carpathia Society. The name came from the first ship to arrive on the scene after the Titanic went to the bottom of the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. As far as I know, our Carpathia Society has nothing to do with this one: "A central element in those apocalyptic potboilers is the establishment of New Babylon in Iraq by the Antichrist, Romanian Nicolae Carpathia. "