Money Update. New Gamblers Play, Interest Rates Rising. Update February 1, 2012 Corrected copy.
Note: in the prevoius update a type appeared in Paragraph 3. The symbol SBJ shoud read SJB. It has been corrected in this newsletter
Marc’s Notes:
The market’s rally continues (kind of) with the Dow breaking up through 14,000 and now we wait to see if it will hold. Many times a stock market turns right after they break through a major milestone like the Nasdaq crash years ago.
With investor sentiment at historic complacency levels and the VIX index (fear index) also at all time lows, this usually means the markets are ready to correct. The VIX fear index is as low as it has ever been including the recent previous market crashes. This could very well mean a market correction is imminent.
Whether it turns out to be a simple correction or an all-out rout only time will reveal. I would be careful adding a lot of stocks right now. Gamblers can play VIX right here, or buy APPLE and sell the covered calls, or put in orders to buy GAZ at 2.60 and sell at 2.70. You can also buy SJB which bets on the coming bond rout. These plays are only for investors who fully understood the last sentence and not for your average investor. Those who bought YCS on my recommendation shorting the Yen are seeing great gains. I put the buy alert out when YCS was in 50 or so and today it’s almost 58! Put a stop in at 55 to protect your gains. This was kind of a no brainer as the new Prime Minister Abe promised to drive the Yen down by printing massive quantities of it. The Yen as a result has fallen dramatically. Nice job to those who bought YCS. (Don’t add it here, wait for my signal though).
Meanwhile the debt ceiling debate has been kicked out a few months as usual. Can kicking is Washington’s way of never having to face the bad things. Shameful but the debate is coming. Another cobbled together agreement of nothing substantial will be the result in March or so unless they kick the can once again. For now the government gets an extension on its credit card and yes, we have seen this movie before and all the sequels too.
I have some updates for you:
Those holding VIPSX should exit now. This “safe money” fund has run its course and now that interest rates are rising, we should move into something even less volatile to interest rates.
BIL or SHY should do fine. They don’t earn anything to speak of but also won’t fall as fast. VIPSX paid nicely and rose nicely but now it’s falling again ever so slightly so its time to say goodbye.
Gold has gone nowhere for months. Although it could correct down another 500 bucks or more, keep adding. It's day is in the future and if you think you saw a great rise from $250/oz to $1,700/oz, you are right. But its best days may still be to come. I do not think you will see another quintuple but $2,000/oz is definitely its next stop and higher still in the years to come. Ditto for silver but remember, both could fall as much as 40 % in a correction before violating their long term bias.
Oil is rising again. Economic news in the positive drives oil higher. Its has risen nicely and those adding UCO in the high 20’s as suggested are looking at 20% gains in 6 week or so. Set a stop to protect losses around 32. With rising oil comes economic pain however as this pulls more money from consumers wallets.
By the way, note the Swiss Franc! You Swiss annuity holders out there should rejoice.
The Franc had breached 139 to the dollar and those holding my recommended Swiss Annuities in Francs were VERY HAPPY. The Swiss National Bank then intervened and starting printing Francs to buy Euros to drive the Franc down. All the way into the low 100’s they drove it, and took half our profit!
At that time the SNB said they would buy as many Euros as possible to stem the Francs rise. Now they have close to 600 billion Euros! That’s a whole lot of a rotten decaying currency they now hold and the Swiss could be looking at huge losses if the Euro problems don’t get solved. Since there really IS no solution, the SNB will suffer huge losses eventually. The point I warned about back then was that the Swiss could not hold down the Franc forever as it would take too many Francs printed up and they would have to stop the practice or own trillions of Euros! (Think owing trillions of Mexican Pesos which you had paid good dollars for). Now the SNB is starting to look foolish and may have to go back on their promise to “print as much as it takes’ to drive Franc down. The market is turning out just too large for them to print forever. I suspect the recent rise in the Franc is the SNB starting to realize they have WAY too many Euros and they cannot fight the market forever. I advised Swiss Franc holders to stand pat back then and also recommended buying and holding the Swiss Franc funds FXF as it was only a matter of time before the SNB would HAVE to let the Franc rise. Now it looks like we might be at that point. See chart below:
That is pretty substantial in the world of currencies.
Have you looked at you paycheck in 2013? Not as big is it. The higher tax rates are also weighing on the average Joe.
What is really interesting is interest rates continue to rise. The last few times they did this it turned out to be a head fake, but this latest rise is continuing.
See the chart below:
This rise is despite the fact the Federal Reserve is printing tens of billions a month to hold them down. That does not bode well for their efforts or for us if the rise continues. The rise IS the direct result of their money printing, borrowing and bailouts and this rise I have discussed so many times on Money Matters. It’s this rise in rates that is the end game for the US dollar if it continues. Another percentage rise like the last 3 months will start to have serious effect on the economy. You can count on the fact that the Federal Reserve is watching this very carefully. The money addicted patient called the US economy may be getting the shakes. Another dose of money may not help him as it has so many times before. We will see if the Feds can stem the rise. If they cannot, get ready for an event that will shake you to your core. A US dollar event that will make the evening news.
Protect yourself with the Money Matters plan. Keep tuned and get the Dream Portfolio on the website to see what you have to do.
A new Super Dividend Payers list is almost done so those people on the year subscription can soon download the latest update. You can also download it one time for a small fee. Watch the newsletter for the announcement.
No Market Safe Cd’s from EVERBANK yet but stay tuned. They do have great checking savings/ Money market programs with the best rates I have seen. Here are the links to the accounts I like:
Money Market: https://www.everbank.com/personal/high-yield-money-market.aspx?referid=13286
Checking: https://www.everbank.com/personal/interest-checking.aspx?referid=13286
Money Class 2 offered at a discounted rate through the See Jane Do Woman’s organization is looking like it will take place late this month! If you took class 1, now you can go to Class 2. I suspect a smaller class so I can answer all your questions! We will cover real estate, rentals, inheritance, stocks, dividends, should you have money offshore, bank accounts, 401K. Calpers and Stir accounts and much, much more. Email me or watch this newsletter. If a few men want to attend, I can ask the organizer if they will allow men in.
That’s all for now but follow Marc Cuniberti on Twitter for daily updates and recommendations on some possible quick stock money makers!
Marc