We Are Witnessing A Financial Warfare On A Scale Never Seen Before And Momentum Towards Inflation Is Accelerating After A Period Of 19 Month Of Disinflation
Investmentwatchblog.com
March 25th, 2014
Will Inflation Make A Comeback In 2014 When The Consensus Worries About Deflation
The Incrementum Inflation Signal started showing rising inflationary momentum after a period of 19 month of disinflation. Is Inflation making a comeback just as the consensus worries about deflation risk? That was the subject of Incrementum’s first Advisory Board in which much respected names have a seat, including James Rickards, Heinz Blasnik, Rahim Taghizadegan, and Zac Bharucha. The Board was led by Ronald Stoeferle, managing director of Incrementum Liechtenstein, and its partner, Mark Valek. This article summarizes Incrementum’s Advisory Board meeting. The full transcript is at the bottom of this article.
The direction of inflation is important in Incrementum’s Inflation Signal, not the absolute figure. At the moment, especially central bankers and mainstream economists are scared of deflation. Further easing by central bankers could be expected going forward. Related to the Fed’s policy, Rickards expects a pause in the taper by July and perhaps increased asset purchases later this year. “They tapered into weakness. They should have not tapered in December by their own metrics, specifically inflation, employment and a few other things. I expect the sequence as follows: I think they will taper another $10 billion in April, pause in June and July, and then probably increase asset purchases later in the year (maybe August or September). That should be bullish for equities but also signal to commodity investors that inflation is on the way, because it just says that the Fed will do whatever it takes to get inflation.”
In particular the commodity complex shows a significant divergence: industrial metals (especially copper) are weak while agriculturals are very strong, just like precious metals and aggregate commodities. Heinz Blasnik points to China for a better understanding of the industrial metals weakness. “Broad money supply in China (M2) is now growing at 13.2%. That is at the low end from the range of the post decade. M1 has actually collapsed to 1.5% growth from almost 40% in 2009. I think that is where the weakness of industrial metals is coming from. It’s definitely China, because money supply growth is declining and also bank-lending and total lending are declining. It actually seems that house prices are beginning to turn down as well.”
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/we-are-witnessing-a-financial-warfare-on-a-scale-never-seen-before-and-momentum-towards-inflation-is-accelerating-after-a-period-of-19-month-of-disinflation/#MMkrgiAiZlOoyox7.99
