Author: Colin Twiggs

Colin Twiggs is a former investment banker with almost 40 years of experience in financial markets. He co-founded Incredible Charts and writes the popular Trading Diary and Patient Investor newsletters. Using a top-down approach, Colin identifies key macro trends in the global economy before evaluating selected opportunities using a combination of fundamental and technical analysis. Focusing on interest rates and financial market liquidity as primary drivers of the economic cycle, he warned of the 2008/2009 and 2020 bear markets well ahead of actual events. He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.
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Econbrowser: Europe in 1931

What happened in 1931 to turn a bad economic downturn into the Great Depression? Dramatic events in Europe included failure of Credit-Anstalt, Austria’s biggest bank, in May of 1931. That was followed by bank runs in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, and Germany. As is often the case historically, the financial problems were a combination of a banking crisis….and a currency crisis…..

In 1931, countries faced doubts about whether they would stay on the gold standard, and had a choice of either to abandon gold or else to inflict further domestic economic damage in the form of monetary contraction and price deflation. Those doubts and their damage ended up bouncing across countries like a ping pong ball.

via Econbrowser: Europe in 1931.

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"Which Eurobonds?" by Jeffrey Frankel | Project Syndicate

Jeffrey Frankel: Ever since 1841, the market requires that US states running up questionable levels of debt pay an interest-rate premium to compensate for the default risk. By contrast, Greece and the eurozone’s other heavy borrowers were able to borrow at interest rates that had fallen to virtually the same level as German Bunds. Had the ECB operated from the outset under a rule prohibiting it from accepting SGP-noncompliant countries’ debt as collateral, the entire eurozone sovereign-debt problem might have been avoided….

The version of Eurobonds that might work as the missing long-term enforcement mechanism is almost the reverse of the Germans’ ERF proposal: the “blue bonds” proposed two years ago by Jacques Delpla and Jakob von Weizsäcker. Under this plan, only debt issued by national authorities below the 60%-of-GDP threshold could receive eurozone backing and seniority. When a country issued debt above the threshold, the resulting “red bonds” would lose this status……market interest rates would provide the discipline that bureaucrats in Brussels cannot.

via "Which Eurobonds?" by Jeffrey Frankel | Project Syndicate.

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History of the Gold Standard in the 20th Century – James Rickards

James Rickards, senior managing director of Tanget Capital Partners and author of “Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis,” talks about inflation and the gold standard in the 20th century.

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Inflation/Deflation Face-Off: Harry Dent v. James Rickards

At the latest Casey Research conference, Recovery Reality Check, James Rickards, senior managing director of Tanget Capital Partners and author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, debates Harry Dent, founder and president of HS Dent Foundation, on the subject of which is more likely in the near-term economic future, inflation or deflation.

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China in deflation, and how to reflate it at all costs

Zarathustra: [Chinese] over-investment over the past many years, and particularly in the years after the financial crisis, has created massive over-capacity across the economy that no one is really able to quantify. We have already got over-building in the real estate sector which resulted in massive number of empty apartments and empty shopping malls…. We are also aware of the over-capacity and inventory build-up in various sectors like coal and steel….. steel industry profits have fallen by 96.7% in the first four months of the year compared to the same period a year ago….. actual CPI figures are already in negative territory on a month-on-month basis. In short, deflation is already here for China….

via China in deflation, and how to reflate it at all costs.

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Since Lehman’s collapse, China’s money supply has doubled

Zarathustra: We have just discovered that China’s M2 money supply has doubled once more since the collapse of Lehman brothers. M2 money supply currently stands at around RMB90 trillion, and it was at about RMB45 trillion the month before Lehman collapsed. Thus the so-called RMB4 trillion stimulus after Lehman’s collapse (which is more like a RMB8 trillion fiscal stimulus in reality) has translated into a RMB45 trillion increase in M2 money supply.

via Chart: Since Lehman’s collapse, China’s money supply has doubled.

Hat tip to macrobusiness.com.au

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FedEx Signals Freightload of Economic Woe – WSJ.com

Air-freight competitor UTi Worldwide, which recently reported results, sounded a note of caution about business in coming months. And April data on volumes from FedEx, the latest available, suggest a 9% drop in international cargo through its main hub in Memphis.

All this hints that fourth-quarter results for the period ended in May, due Tuesday, could be accompanied by cautious guidance for the next fiscal year…….A glance at sales and income from previous downturns shows how sensitive FedEx is to economic growth…. the kind of company that catches a cold when the world economy merely sneezes.

via AHEAD OF THE TAPE: – WSJ.com.

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ECB’s Nowotny Cautions Against ‘Single-Minded’ Austerity – Real Time Economics – WSJ

“The single-minded concentration on austerity policy (in the 1930s) led to mass unemployment, a breakdown of democratic systems and, at the end, to the catastrophe of Nazism,” said Ewald Nowotny [Austria’s central bank governor and member of ECB governing council] at a financial conference in Vienna. He added that central bankers during the start of the financial crisis had been very keen to avoid the mistakes of the 1930s.

Mr. Nowotny also cautioned against trying to impose a “moralistic” solution to the euro zone’s current debt problems. “It is not about punishing children who have behaved badly,” he said, adding that it was important not to let the concept of moral hazard turn into an excuse for not taking “practical initiatives.”

via ECB’s Nowotny Cautions Against ‘Single-Minded’ Austerity – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

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UK & Europe

The FTSE 100  is headed for resistance at 5600 but 21-day Twiggs Money Flow reversed below zero warning of short-term selling pressure. Failure of support at 5400 would mean another test of primary support at 5250, while respect would confirm the rally to 5600. In the longer term, breach of the descending trendline (at 5600) would indicate that the down-trend has ended.

FTSE 100 Index

Dow Jones Europe Index rallied off primary support at 210. Breach of medium-term resistance at 230 would suggest a rally to the primary descending trendline. 13-Week Twiggs Money Flow, however, continues to display long-term selling pressure. Breach of primary support would offer a long-term target of 160*. Breakout above 265 is unlikely but would indicate an advance to 310*.

Dow Jones Europe Index

* Target calculation: 260 + ( 260 – 210 ) = 310; 210 – ( 260 – 210 ) = 160

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India & Singapore

Dow Jones India 30 Titans broke resistance at 162 and is headed for a test of the descending trendline at 170. Rising 13-week Twiggs Money Flow suggests buying pressure and a test of the February high at 180; breakout would signal a primary up-trend.

Dow Jones India 30 Titans

* Target calculation: 180 + ( 180 – 150 ) = 210

Dow Jones Singapore Index rallied off support at 220 and is testing medium-term resistance at 230. Breakout would test the March high of 244. A “bounce” off  zero by 13-week Twiggs Money Flow indicates medium-term buying pressure.

Dow Jones Singapore Index

* Target calculation: 245 + ( 245 – 220 ) = 270

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