Featured post

#WSJ COMMODITIES CRUNCH - FIRST RULE OF #INVESTING - #MOTHER #NATURE BATS LAST

  Cash Crunch Drives Wild Moves in Commodities Exchanges and brokers are demanding more money upfront to trade oil, wheat and natural gas, s...

Thursday 31 March 2022

#FFIGROUP MEDIA #EXCLUSIVE:There is Little #Time Left - Do the #Math!

 



HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE?


It is so strange that the answer to our demise comes from a straight-forward overall calculation that seems so simple because the equation consists of just three key primary factors that can be used to theoretically calculate our species expected long term existence in any environment - where there are determinable finite resource inventories and constraints; big or small - including the resource inventories of our whole planet.





The theoretical calculation goes roughly like this - there are A current quantities of total combined energy and material resource units available to use for survival on this planet; there are B probable quantities of people units existing in an annual time period going forward, and they will each in turn consume C total resource units per capita annually. Then just divide A total resource units available by B times C (= total of expected annual consumption of resource units of all people) to calculate D - and the answer then tells us what the probable expected duration or the number of years that the species can roughly expect the resources to last and provide for its survival.



Expected Time Remaining Formula


D = A\ ( B x C)


To illustrate; suppose there are 100 million combined energy and material resource units available for consumption from an environment and 10,000 people exist there and they consume 100 resource units annually. Therefore, every year 1 million resource units are consumed. The equation calculates that there is roughly 100 years left if this people/consumption pattern is continued under the constraints and numeric inventories of this environment.



INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENT FINAL CURTAIN






Admittedly, this result is a ballpark figure, but it is still close enough to draw our attention to the critical metrics we need to manage and their resultant and variable timelines. Moreover, based on our general knowledge of energy and material resource inventories - we can reasonably assert that we don't have thousands or even hundreds of years left to manage these factors and get the equation right. Time is quickly running out...


To add even a little more acceleration to the mathematically expected outcomes - also apply exponential growth laws to the B and C factors or inversely to the A factor and you dramatically and quickly reduce the total resources available for consumption and thus the amount of survival time remaining.


To sum up - you can never defeat the combined numerical laws of mathematics and physics - I guess Moses left the tablets with these commandments behind somewhere on the old hill. Yet, from the beginning we were taught by secular doctrines that we are playing a positive sum economic game with a guiding mantra of infinite growth that is authoritative and unquestionable - when the true reality is we were actually engaged in a negative finite sum game rapidly using up the planet's scarce resources - that is consequently now heading towards a terrible conclusion.



T A McNeil


First Financial Insights Group


Picture




Further Background:



Exponential Growth Arithmetic, Population and Energy, Dr. Albert A. Bartlett





POPULATION BOMB




Monday 28 March 2022

#FOOD SHORTAGES AND #INFLATION SPARKED BY #DIESEL CRISIS

 OILPRICE.COM

 


Diesel Crisis In Europe Worsens As Austrian Energy Giant Limits Sales

By ZeroHedge - Mar 24, 2022

Earlier this week, we quoted the heads of some of the world's biggest independent energy trades, who spoke at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland and unveiled a dire forecast for the diesel market: "The thing that everybody’s concerned about will be diesel supplies. Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East,” said Russell Hardy, chief of Switzerland-based oil trader Vitol. “That systemic shortfall of diesel is there.”


As a reminder, Russian supplies account for about 15% of Europe’s diesel consumption, according to the FT which carried their comments.

Hardy said the shift to more diesel consumption over gasoline in Europe had helped to create shortages of the fuel. He added that refineries could boost their diesel output in response to higher prices at the expense of other oil-derived products to shore up supply, but warned that rationing was a possibility.


THE NEW ENERGY ORDER?




READ MORE


Saturday 26 March 2022

STILL SLOW IN #NYC -WHY?

  Bloomberg


New York City’s Renewed Vibrancy Is Hiding Deep Economic Pain


Workers still aren’t flocking back to offices and unemployment is double the U.S. average, ratcheting up pressure to reinvent the city’s economy.

Thursday 24 March 2022

#WSJ COMMODITIES CRUNCH - FIRST RULE OF #INVESTING - #MOTHER #NATURE BATS LAST

 


Cash Crunch Drives Wild Moves in Commodities


Exchanges and brokers are demanding more money upfront to trade oil, wheat and natural gas, straining markets amid supply disruptions from war in Ukraine.




Commodity prices are hot right now. But the prices investors are paying in the open market for commodities like coffee, copper or corn can have little to do with the price customers pay at the store. 



     READ MORE






WHAT IS THE LINK WITH RETAIL PRICES?



 T

Monday 21 March 2022

#WSJ - How to Lose Money Without Really Trying - #NFT

 


The Wall Street Journal

#Inspirational #Wisdom Quotes - March 21, 2022


 

Inspirational Wisdom Quotes  

 March 21, 2020   






Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America -- not on the battlefields of Vietnam.

Marshall McLuhan







THE TRUTH HURTS

 'INVISIBLE GENOCIDE'



SING ALONG FOLKS




Sunday 20 March 2022

HOW FAR WILL THE #NASDAQ FALL?

    FORTUNE

Editor's Comments:

The Challenge of our Times

First of all, it is difficult to argue that even today the index is fairly valued. On the other hand, there are a number of metavariables that leads us to conclude it is extremely over-priced and there is a major correction brewing in the winds of market volatility. In a nutshell here are a few factors that drew us to this conclusion: 

Clearly, an increase in the Fed rate will impact the valuation mathematics. Simply doubling the long rate from 1% to  2% - depresses the net present value of cash flow and earnings by 50%.

Climate change weather and water shortages will continue to put pressure on the production of agricultural items and essentials;  thereby inflation.

The costs of diesel fuel are rising faster than gasoline under the current oil market frenzy which adds more cost pressures and creates logistical issues for the supply chain. Result - more inflation and higher rates.  

Housing costs continue to rise throughout Western societies and workers we can expect will be demanding greater compensations. Again fueling the algebra of inflation/rates.

Geopolitical issues remain unresolved and that could lead to further supply and market disruptions which could lead us to Oil priced over $200 a barrel in 2022. You know what that means!

The proliferation of cryptocurrencies garners little in terms of concrete real value or logistical science and hence the danger becomes that they could undermine the inherent value of sovereign currencies thereby fueling the road to the US dollar losing its reserve currency status. Fear this event above all - because it provokes the unknown ravages of hyperinflation which are beyond any imaginable catastrophes.

Bottom line, one could argue that cost containment and inflation is now in the ballpark of nature - and it bats last. We are, most importantly, running out of essential industrial resources, water, climate conditions, and arable land. The microcosms are demonstrated today by terrible economies in a number of countries; viz, Turkey, Lebanon, SriLanka, Venezuela, Argentina and so forth. 

There is no reason to believe that nature will provide papal dispensation to Western societies from these economic diseases because our broken models and theories are corrupt and outdated. They do not recognize the consequences of the per capita imbalance of population and natural resources: particularly energy, materials, and agricultural inputs.


Conclusion

To summarize, what can be expected in the future as a consequence of these hard and logical growth limits imposed by the planet? The answer is clearly more inflation, higher rates and naturally lower NASDAQ stock values over the longterm.

So don't be surprised to see the average PE Ratio for the NASDAQ market drop below 10 or worse as real earnings and future outlooks evaporate while inflation and rates sky-rocket to the high heavens. The economies are backed into a corner as we knowingly created a physical-mathematical trap that has dire consequences. 

We cannot build a sustainable economic system and markets unless we redefine our economic, concepts theories and models to rebalance the relationship between population and essential resources. We need thinking based on reality and mathematics, not invisible hand abstractions.


 "THIS IS THE MOST CRITICAL CHALLENGE OF OUR TIMES" 


T A McNeil

CEO Founder

First Financial Insights Group


The NASDAQ’s real value is shockingly low—and it could drop another 18%



The NASDAQ's fall was bound to happen, and it's still not nearly deep enough to hit bedrock. The powerful momentum driving tech's shooting stars ever skywards is finally surrendering to market gravity. The "innovation-at-any-price" high spirits that sent the NASDAQ shooting into the stratosphere over less than three years, is giving way to the realization that its members can't grow profits nearly fast enough to give you a decent return. The reason is basic: These stocks are still just too damn expensive. Put simply, the fundamentals are taking hold following a long and crazy ride. The more unhinged prices became, the steeper the fall that was bound to follow––and most likely, we're witnessing the early stages of that inevitable descent right now.

Gravity is finally taking hold





How deeply will the NASDAQ drop? To make a reasonable estimate, let's unpack the traditional metrics that are reliable predictors of equity price trends over long periods, and address the question: What's the NASDAQ really worth? The NASDAQ 100 that represents the vast bulk of the overall index's valuation has already entered correction territory, shedding 10% from the close of 2021 to stand at 14,438 at the close on Friday, January 21, and down 13% from its all-time high, set on November 19, of 16,573. Among the glamour, stay-at-home economy luminaries that suffered the biggest hits since then: Zoom (down 41%), Netflix (-42%), Peloton (-43%), and Docusign (-56%).


READ MORE


BOTTOM LINE 

 NASDAQ GROWTH VALUE IS A NEGATIVE-SUM GAME