Author Archives: Wordsmith

Malarkey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbZYe4yTrpQ
Pinocchio, A True Story, is COMING AGAIN!

The world is full of people who could harm you.
I can move! I can talk! I can walk. I’m alive!
A lie keeps growing and growing until it’s as clear as the nose on your face.
You thought you knew already?
Pinocchio is not just a Puppet (Prophet?), he’s a MIRACLE to OUR PROBLEM.
Pinocchio, Pinocchio, please tell me the truth!?

Think about a situation in our life, when we had massive bills (mortgage, necessities, business due payments, investment, health, etc) all due together and we have to honour them all. At same time lenders (markets) are forcing to pay NOW (threatening) at much higher rate. On the other side, the lenders/markets still have too much excess money that they are willing to make loss (negative yield and RRP). What will be solution to the situation?

For the sake of saving of billions of economy participants, we might need help from a malarkey. None should be surprising with increasing historical abuse of economy politics (foreign exchange manipulator, beggar thy neighbour, etc) from all market participants. Regardless, our job as data scientist is to take advantage/understand truthfully of market participants behaviour. My idea is not new. My three years ago article, a pinocchio, is still holding strong. That’s when I started accumulation number in nothing, but inflation, which is nothing but ALL today. Those who understand might continue to survive and should my 25 years of interest be in this industry. Joe Biden likes the word of Malarkey and I think it may proxy the idea well.

Wall street doesn’t have any clue about working economy, give me a break, that’s a bunch of malarkey.

Treasury maturity
Continuous increase in Federal Reserve balance sheet

Of course, dancing with a bunch of Wall Street wolves, we should not take strategy lightly. September 2019 was obviously a time where overnight repo became a broken lie, continued with curve inversion and correction at the end of that year 2019, the CoVid. It’s no different today, should we learn from history. There’s a time where hiding the truth might be broken and we should be prepared for it, not to stop, but to take advantage of their possible correction, and then to continue again after.

To avoid disruption to economy systems, money should always need to be sanitized. Money is bouncing back and forth between central bank and government, until they can find a place in or driving our economy. Do we remember our possible big catalyst of anode and cathode from our last month article. When it was written, Europe and Japan green shots was unclear. It might now be becoming obvious, German Bund jumps tremendously and broke their historical negativity. We shouldn’t be surprised that ECB, BOJ and RBA are still lowering their tone down. Their inflation thrust is just crossing zero mark, for the USA inflation to keep pulling them out.

Seawater could provide the solution to South Australia's power woes | Roger  Dargaville for the Conversation | The Guardian
Flow of money triggers electricity/economy

Our job as economy street middleman is to run this economy and possibly getting paid from it. Currently there is a lot of money due to move from treasury to central bank and central bank hands are shackled from ability to sanitize, due to their mandates. Inflation is too high, while the decision makers should face the truth to possibly redo malarkey strategy.

In this situation where we couldn’t satisfy all interests, where I think most of victims is only our belief that economies would need to run efficiently and faith that decision makers would abide to their mandates. Therefore it may be best time in our life, to reconsider the use of necessity defence. It’s not something new. Both sides of market participants have been decades of using economy necessity defence actions with economy politics/national security. Possibly the best solution is to keep our best effort to abide our mandates and implement necessity defence only as necessary. Public will critic the malarkey, but hopefully they understand, it’s for their important necessity defence.

Before we take deeper look into the malarkey, let’s do our health checks.

  • Since our article 3 moths in November 2021, NASDAQ heavy trucks still continues rolling down hill and sparking very high inflation. Commodities (EV infrastructure) and Oil (one of our top energy pick) are burning high and takes massive toll of interest in early February 2022. It does seem look similar to 2015. Please be aware.
Open interests to have oil 100 – 120$.
2015 Oil open interests
  • EV dip buying trade continues to provide better option to correct their high valuation.
  • German lead Euro crosses negative cathode to positive anode. It’s our belief that a small negative to positive could make more impact than high positive to higher. Same applies to Japan.
  • Last but not the least, my expectation of volatility came true and it’s as expected. Inflation volatility shot into one of highest in past decade since our last month article.
Extreme Volatility (came true)

Lets have a look into inflation components where they should take priority and do any possible re-engineering.

For Australia, biggest weights are housing (23%), food (16%) and transport (11%). With China and Asia property in slower growth, and already in expensive property cycle, it makes it hard to raise inflation number further. With good food resource and location near to resources, this shouldn’t make lots of increase.

Australia inflation weight.

USA looks likely to have same weights. However it has quite substantial increase in energy and fuel, which Australia doesn’t have.

Gasoline, fuel and energy is the biggest inflation numbers

Which is quite same to Europe to some degree:

Energy is main driver of European inflation

It’s quite obvious as well, oil as main barometer of the energy, has left their relatives far behind.

WTI vs Industrial metals

No surprising, democrats have been well known with energy issue and their historical party trouble with energy and oil.

Biden approval

Some would argue, that is a malarkey. US shale is just making more cash flow! I’m not suggesting US LNG which have been able to suppress European energy crisis, is enough to come forward and solve the energy issue.

US shale producers cash flow

Despite UAE under pressure to keep their weight increase, other OPEC members seem to be muted. It’s no surprising, only UAE can weather costly green initiatives, while other OPEC members should stay quiet. Good for UAE, they can be one of few players in Oil and Gas and bring their troubled economy and ARAMCO back to shine again.

OPEC targets

I narrow down all of this madness to only ONE question:

Are the USA and Europe, biggest countries in this world, currently with huge capital excess, be able to bring energy cost down?

We should know that if the answer is NO, that’s a bunch of malarkey!

Next question, should energy be manageable, do we allow financial index to climb much higher? Please remember at the moment, US BIG refinancing bills are due, meaning it shouldn’t stop climbing per se. Questioning ability of the USA to control (not to bring down) energy cost, is questioning ability of who owns the sea, e.g. South China Sea (Taiwan and Hong Kong) and Crimea (Ukraine).

Ukraine – rich of commodities

USA is the main actor that I described initially at the start of this article. They would just need to give US, Europe, Japan and Australia time to heal their refinancing bills and everything will be great again. However, just like our CoVid 2020 strategy, many market participants might exploit this situation to take advantage of possible correction or sector rotation. Please do prepare well.

Dow Jones Industrial Average index

I should stay with my course that Emerging market is about to start their due:

China credit impulse

This is where I think energy needs to be hidden from fossil one into other form like Electricity. With electricity being greenly subsidized well (as usual) and can be produced from many forms of committers (nuclear, green, wind, solar, hydrogen, etc), it might be easier to control the energy number. As long as the number is great, it’s a green light for the economy, I meant the financial world. What else? That’s a malarkey.

In order to do that, as usual, we need more victim/participants. There are lots of bullish call for oil above 100$ under their expiry term.

Oil contract options.

This project as explained in previous articles, were due to acute capital and expenditure in past decade, and their investment door is being shut down with green initiatives, leaving only few niche big players.

Fossil capital expenditure.

This hunger game is expected to run long. Green ETF is still much lower, much less crowded, not yet attracting much investments. Therefore this inflation issue might still be strong, until the green energy is populated well. I believe the efforts are there. However I believe fossil fuel narrative is still far away from being over.

Green energy is still not populated

To support my arguments above, investors to US debts are more than willing to make loss and support strong US economy growth. They are professionals who conduct daily professional work in the area, therefore I won’t doubt that they will be correct (drop in inflation/correction in share market/stronger USD to name of few possibilities).

US 10Y bid to cover

As written in previous articles, I’ve been living in big inflation environment for almost 40 years and they always intrigue me. I don’t see any surprise and indeed our last month article had already predicted incoming big continuous volatility. During that, I expect to experience strength of our inflation vehicles (EV infrastructures, metals, food, energy, and a start of traded accumulation of EV) with a possible BLIP in near future. We should start to slowly diversify our inflationary vehicles to embrace controllable high inflation and escape from the crowded oil play.

I’m not predicted crash in US inflation but I’m predicting flatter or slower growth of US inflation at about sustainable 3-5%, that could guarantee optimum economy and financial growth (yes higher financial growth, the Wall Street). This should also support my articles few months back in which I was expecting authorities to give inflation tightening ABOVE market expectation. It seems my wish is coming true, market is already pricing near to 7 points increase, while the Fed is still not yet moving from their near zero rate front end and to keep their QE running well.

We may see clearly how Central Banks are now behind market inversion curve but current situation might be different from past 30 years. Should we see for first time in history, financial market survives during curve inversion? I don’t think that’s not impossible. Central Banks could easily subsidise their banks for the sake of US government and passing through this inflation storm, to behold my number one money principle strategy, economy is nothing else but strongest (the USA) interests. I understand why my principle will be called Malarkey, but it could be the main key/answer to our main investment questions. We may disclose further strategy, as we move along in next few months.

Inversion vs Rate

In doing so, I’m starting to lower my tone from high inflationary loudspeakers in past 2 years into lower tone of innovation in energy. Lets’s continue to navigate our investment journey well.

After any possible blip in this year or two, let’s continue our journey to infinity and beyond.

Cantor on the Shore: The Real Meaning of To Infinity and Beyond!
To Infinity and Beyond

As timeless tale is as old as time, any idea that you may possibly read or hear from this blog website is my personal own. They can not be used in any case of financial advise.

No Body Does It Better

Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest

Nobody does it quite the way you do
Why’d you have to be so good
?

Baby you’re the best!

Following relentless bullish thesis past 2 years, do we still hold our inflation play tight? Since my article two months ago prior to Omicron, I should still think this year is last best possible investment time windows. It was shown in yield curve, possible end of ultra low rate era, and seems to match significant short term SOMA maturity. The Federal Reserve might have less option for treasury to seek their refinancing, which may contribute to weakness of USD. We might agree, faster raising price usually happens when bullish is about to end and it may lead to temporary/unsustainable inflation/price increase.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-7-1024x505.png

I should still hold my thesis in December 2021, that when heavy load NASDAQ goes down hill in lower gear, it will spark inflation. During this NASDAQ selling pressure, I believe money maker will keep juicing them, possibly because opponents are still taking opposite positions. Due to this newly created money, in my own opinion, it should be followed with newly investment hedge in inflation, which could lead to significant further price increase in commodities, like oil and metals; also since commodities are currently at lowest weight.

To double hedge the data, I would pick EV (Electric Vehicle) and their infrastructure numbers. In my argument, the EV still offers attractive long term sentiment (seen in China low emission record sale, increasing green bonds and their policy). Based on history, I would believe price is leaning more towards sentiment/prospect, rather than current financial analysis score. For example, EV has been notoriously known as expensive share, compared to other technology shares, like DOCU, TWTR, etc. However due to its evolution, I believe EV will still perform much better. I may see few financial engineering options for them to grow much further.

I also prefer to pick EV related technology rather than inflation related consumer technology, e.g. in FCPI (Apple, Microsoft, and Coca Cola). I’m not saying Apple and Microsoft won’t perform well during this inflation. I think they will. However I still believe EV would perform better. Unlike Cathie Wood strategy to abandon some of her innovative one to other small technologies, I prefer to hedge every increase in inflation with traded dip buying data in EV and EV infrastructure. I think ARKK investors are still interested with long future invention/hype like EV, rather than current not so wonderful evolution technology, causing relentless selling.

It shouldn’t give impression that it is an easy pick. Inflation has strong correlation to volatility. We should expect persistent volatility, e.g. Omicron, Oil drama, Digital Coin crash, and ultimate horror of Fed taper, rate raise and QT (Quantitative Tightening). That means, we should keep enough liquid or always maintain our pain level in-check, especially when it hits upper channel. We should acknowledge, only strong thesis/numbers can navigate our highly leveraged inflation journey. One early comforting sign, fireworks at the end and new of year, is usually/statistically a sign of a roaring event follow up.

Stowaway 2021 Film poster.png
Despite life volatility, our purpose of life will always be challenged bigger.

New year, is statistically time to review back. Since year 1995, financial industry always intrigues me. Do I have a dejavu gen from my parents, when they had financial difficulty? After learning known economy theories, I still grow interest with never-ending research of known-unknown. It’s very rare to see economists speaking honestly about their secret society recipes, either due to their trade secret or insanity perception of their thesis. Since I believe economy is a living organism, it might be wise to say past experience never guarantees future performance and should all human known economy theories. A bliss, keeping them secret might prolong their lifespan longer.

Blindly use known economy theories to make money is simply too good to be true.

1997 Asian crisis was my first personal self experience, under real and rubber bullet. It was a remarkable experience of financial destruction, which burned most of South East Asian life and put them into massive global slavery, including me and my family. Few characteristics of the crisis includes:

  • previously high foreign debt (trap?),
  • high inflation,
  • resiliency of SME (Small and Medium Enterprise),
  • bailout for wealth transfer, and
  • weaker currency.

Two years later, in magical city of Kristiansand, I was stunned with lots of smiles I had never seen in my life. Lots of wealth, no lie, did money buy happiness? Rather than spending most of my time to write master thesis to find secret of the SME resiliency during financial crisis, I spent most of my time to find secret of Scandinavian financial happiness. Did we remember story of Scandinavian farmers got busted in LEH (Lehman Brothers) crisis? Do we know Norge and Israel keep their leverage high in US stocks and indeed they make so much more?

No surprise in year 2008 GFC (Global Financial Crisis), after 10 years, I still failed to understand this secrecy of wealth protection systems. Learning is always costly and better be when we were young and fool. However, persistent, I always believe, another decade is always another story, always be much better. To be successful, we must always be optimistic.

Sovereign Default.jpg
Default 2018
Asian 1997 Financial Crisis story

To proof financial is a systematic systems, in 2017, an economist was able to show a simple mathematical formula of IOER, Fed balance sheet interest payment, etc, to figure out when Fed would break their unsustainable deflation spell to sustainable inflation. Same to the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis, same financial destruction to Turkish Lira. I think South Korean Default movie (2018) may explain it well cinematically. Should we consider it as a non random generator of phi (ϕ)? Should we say sorry to Turkish people for our human created financial weapon systems? Personally experienced with decades of inflation, in early 2020, I all-in believed in incoming global high inflation, if not hyperinflation.

I took insane research in 2019 with overweighting data towards property sector for resiliency. I believed the property rally won’t be over yet, due to its missing inflation component. I leveraged the data into newly created CoVid in early 2020, to advanced countries with strong GDP. Looking at how much liquid has been created and how the Central Banks policies are moving behind their curve, they seem to push inflation to hyperinflation cliff. In that cliff hanger game, only advanced country with high buffer margin to inflation would be able to survive. Unfortunately that means, the data must take short position to emerging economies to hedge.

I believe we should endure second phase of 2020-2023 mature inflation life cycle. While this is not 100% best return of this decade, it should provide strong leveraged resiliency during the inflation crisis. The world shouldn’t be dictated by god playing dictator ideally, if we are looking at fraction of the ϕ. How many of us missing the boat of growth vehicles like BTC and NFT, rather than keeping our economy theories in value growth vehicles? I am one of them. I think in my case, it was due to our perception that money is still too much valuable and our regular post traumatic GFC (Global Financial Crisis) stress disorder (PTGSD). This growth stock should rather work well to newly breeds who didn’t have any PTGSD gen yet. However they should still be aware that going zero stress disorder might mostly hit late comers. I don’t say value growth is dead. Apple has proven to reach first 3T$ valuation and experience enormous growth.

I still believe persistence in another decade should write another story.

Year 2021 might hand over long monetary era to the hand of fiscal. Many see massive future calls like MSFT from insider fiscal related participants. Due to that, tightening with fiscal support should differentiate from previous taper tantrum in 2013 or rate rise attempt in 2017. While some strategists might expect a following easing or twist operation (OT), I might think differently. In my opinion, if we believe in Central Banks is to behave like previously, we might end up to same failure to Central Bank transitory thesis. While many including me long believed inflation would be persistent, I don’t think Central Banks were serious with their transitory thesis. Why did they keep buying TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities)? Soros market participants theory of reflexivity?

Relentless buying of TIPS despite transitory thesis

This is where I quickly see connected dot with the 1997 Asian GFC inflation.

You play DRAMA you get KARMA" - Picture of Nook Umalas, Kerobokan -  Tripadvisor
I think financial world is playing Karma Drama.

Few recent signs are Fed admittance to permanent inflation, lost control in 2Y, behind the curve, and persistence in long term yield raise. I should think, this probability might have less chance if China is not rising by that much. However looking at recent China condition, it seems they might still need another decades before they can be an inflation director. I don’t believe China could come any near to challenge the US yet.

To explain in simple number, why none is able to take advantage of the US, which has 8% inflation (going to be market expected 10%) and only gives 1.6% return from their most liquid asset on this planet, the 10Y? US debt investors are loosing their money more than 6.4% every year. They might think inflation to drop and or looking possibility of USD appreciation to compensate. However back to Fed SOMA and Treasury refinancing theory, I think they may not be able to catch up of their potential loss, depending on spectrum of their maturity. There should be a limit to where USD could appreciate, before it triggers either too high inflation loss or global M&A account transfer. This leads to my next theory.

In my theory, when US was in deflation, Federal Reserve took the loss. It should be similar to when US is above high inflation range. In my previous theory RRP is Central Bank subsidy to inflation loss to take over from their octopus, with many front runners as usual. This is where magic of global currencies/coin may work. If the Fed takes the loss, other weaker countries will take over the loss.

We should see DXY starting to break their lower channel to support the inflation thesis. I would watch Japan (JPY/USD) and Europe (EUR/USD) for possible main drivers. Being superior in their negativity/deflation might come to an end.

Don’t be confused with the US inflation in 1980 and 1945. Current 10 year yield is only 1.5%, vs 16% in 1980. This is another proof that China is still much weaker to challenge US as world biggest economy. Only US and advanced economies can navigate this high inflation well, unlike Asia in 1997 and probably China today. This should validate my strategy to leverage advanced countries and taking opposite to emerging numbers.

US inflation
US 10 years yield

Taking high inflation pill is debt sin forgiveness. This is where I doubt SME resiliency in current inflation situation since they have lower debt load. Therefore I think SME won’t be able to survive well in this high global inflation crisis. I would also think global and internal trade issue due to CoVid might have big contribution to SME issue, rather than giving them resiliency to the global change crisis. I think we should see widespread bankruptcy in small business and increasing profit in large companies, until I expect to see more big M&A (Merger and Acquisition), rather than corporate buyback activities. Supporting my previous opinion, I believe private buy back strategy is still offering enough benefits to weather current high risks. This is why I don’t prefer to overweight my data against small cap companies.

Expected soaring corporate buyback.

Characteristics of current US inflation crisis, to differentiate with emerging economies inflation crisis:

  • high internal debt,
  • global inflation where no body does it better than the US,
  • weak SMEs and possible widespread of bankruptcy in small countries,
  • global bailout,
  • unsustainable strong currency, which should then lead to weaker currency to support inflation run.

So far, only the US country:

  • can escape themselves from internal GFC deflation crisis and also navigate high inflation crisis,
  • can decide non bankruptcy of imminent death of HK offshore listing of China property sector,
  • have optimum return, while other world is relatively muted with China lower growth in 2021.

Nobody does it better. Nobody does it half as good as you. United States, you’re the best!

Why’d you have to be so good? It’s no secret from our 2 years ago GDP expectation. Basically only the US has ability to juice their market. Due to that, the US has absorbed most of global money creation in past 2 years, which has been driving their index, causing envy to most other countries. Have a look into emerging and smaller countries, they are suffering massive capital outflow to the US, while they have to fight for internal inflation.

Best growth in the world, Nobody does it better!
Image
Inflow to US of course.

It left emerging country dried with liquidity and stuck with high inflation to support their growth. If China has difficulty and so do other countries smaller than China, which makes only the US, one of only few winners here. Does China take hostage of other economies too, through the use of their infrastructure for resource programme?

In Indonesia. The liquidity was so severe that one of biggest national owned steel company was about to go bankrupt in December 2021. They have no choice, but to open liquidity tap again, and face the truth of inflation pain. Unfortunately, this situation may leave less room for emerging to juice their market. Therefore I would rather see emerging to be a possible late global inflation player.

IDR strength in December 2021 almost stalled their economy

Does the US have to worry about maximum inflation when this competition symbiosis becomes endosymbiosis? They would most likely run taper, balance runoff, and reluctant to raising rate. I still believe in my theory, that 1.5 trillion of RRP and above 10T$ hovering negative yield might juice taper well, but we would need to re-calculate balance runoff and raising rate impact to later adapt market reflexivity.

This effort should reduce inflation pressure which might benefit some selected sectors, like the long waited Biden infrastructure agenda. Supporting my last month article, market participants should support faster taper above market expectation. In my theory, that is bullish for some selected sectors and free up other countries inflation Genny. How about we start with Germany and Japan? Japan has been well known in decades of deflation and Germany driven Europe has been years in severe negative yield. Positive US inflation anode and negative cathode Europe/Japan might be able to drive back global trade account of USD/EURJPY in next 2 years and possible US lead global M&A.

Basic concept of high to low flow

The Indonesian government proclaimed to have inflation to only just 1.68%, much better than any other countries, like US (6%), or even China and Japan, with 10 year bond returning massive 8%. It’s no white t-shirt, but widespread manipulation against inflation formula is just getting too obvious to protect their national security from capital outflow inflation threat. It might be better to run enormous infrastructure incentives like India to grow near to 10%.

It’s quite obvious China takes opposite policies with relentless easing. I think their pain level might be weighted with effort to secure long term infrastructure for resource deals with weaker economies. At same time, China might use this event to soft landing their highly leveraged property and transfer offshore property into local listing where they have more control, rather than allowing foreign hostile take over. Hopefully there’s a possible peace treaty, between the two biggest economies. If they continue to separate, I’m afraid we might see possible widespread of bankruptcy, of not only small companies, but big ones in weaker countries, because their central banks there are not able to juice their market due to inflation.

From above explanation, we may come back to our biggest question, would the US be able to navigate global inflation issue or let others to take advantage of it? This may impact our main investment thesis, whether continue to take higher risk or start moving into safety side. I believe Americans should be very lucky in this environment. Do we see relatively low inflation compared to other countries, never ending increase of their incoming and raising funds, and very high exit to employment indeed?

China admits, US is the envy to the world, might be in attempt to have other countries to fight against the US, or China themselves admitted to feel envy to the US. Unfortunately in this winning situation, money usually seeks higher return possible. If needed, they might destroy other countries (like Turkey). It is double trouble to the victim, from possible hostile take over by enemies and friends, since money rarely does mutualism symbiosis. This inflation might still have longer life, since the US still has enough buffer to future shock, through the use of BBB (Build Back Better), when time is right or maybe when inflation stalls. It may not be the time yet.

Recent check of our last year 3 selected sectors seem still valid:

  • Food: never ending increase of fertilizer cost, Xi’an city food shortage, Sri Langka food shortage, from Sydney to Philadephia supermarket food shortage amid CoVid restriction. It may be related to recent global trade crash in BDI (Baltic Dry Index) due to persistent high transport cost and supply chain issue,
  • Energy: rally in oil, electricity, natural gas, and other form of energy, like Uranium.
  • EV and EV infrastructure: China records low-emission car sales. We also expect bigger deficit this year of base metals related, like nickel, graphite, lithium, copper, aluminium, etc. If these base metals were not able to fulfil demand last year, how about their luck this year with bigger deficit expectation?
Four Facts about Soaring Consumer Food Prices | European American Chamber  of Commerce New York [EACCNY] | Your Partner for Transatlantic Business  Resources
Soaring food price

Despite our hectic life, it might be wise to put some break at the end of this month, just before another hemisphere of new year embraces their start of roaring year, for the Tiger to restock, reload and re-roar. During this high volatility inflation life, it’s wise to keep our insanity in-check, from destructive over optimism and inflation hype. Hopefully, my thesis about incoming 1-2 years of inflation prosperity comes true.

Paul Wagner
Signature of wishing you Roaring Prosperity.

Disclaimer: Opinion is my own. It’s not financial advise and for research purpose only.

All Time High (ATH)

On an all time high
We’ll take on the world and win
So hold on tight, let the flight begin

Meanwhile this song is playing in the background: ALL TIME HIGH

Did we hear Omicron was scarier and in fact infected much faster than years of Covid-19 influenza, despite mild symptom downplay?

Image
one of most infectious influenza virus in human history

Surprise, not? After all of the influenza drama, we are on an all time high (ATH).

Our still most obvious sign is world excess money and inflation expectation is on all time high with staggering 1.8T per day. Back to our last month article, why do we need QE when in fact we have RRP bigger than the QE itself? We shouldn’t get confused with negative effect of TGA balance transfer during early adoption of RRP. If Omicron and Covid are currently human biggest threat, why there are instead many ATH on the run and Central Banks are tightening? Obviously it’s not virus taking care of our life, but probably my own money cycle thesis.


Excess money / Inflation expectation is ATH
Vancouver property price
BRK.A broke higher high during Omicron release

Following our last month thesis, when money/crowd is continuously ‘invested’ in FATANG, they should hedge with inflation protection assets. I would think current dynamic is twisted with recent China property drama, which widen spread between US and China/Emerging.

Image
wider spread between US and China / Emerging

I should still believe, following previous month thesis, by knowing their culture, China would eventually blink, eventhough it’s still very early to conclude. They started to cut benchmark loan rate in almost 2 years.

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China credit impulse

In my own economy model, in case of too big to fail, when there’s no money advantage, there is no need to have bankruptcy. For example, if Lehman Brothers (LEH) didn’t bring any advantage to bankrupt, I believe there’s no need for it to bankrupt. This economy model secrecy would become obvious, when being challenged with rising China power. If there’s no advantage to bankrupt China 2nd biggest property developer for now, I believe there’s no need for them to bankrupt their offshore liabilities. This is where money power would take hostage of their hegemony. Would there be any new money trying to step in on their way, they would throw this towel to them. I should still also believe, China would rather die, than directly bailing out their property developers.

During this cycle change, inaugurated with Omicron, FATANG heavy loaded trucks are rolling down hill with lower gear. They should induce heat, higher inflation, and increasing volatility. In my theory, when money is distributed within attractive discount opportunity, inflation should be ignited. There are two big players in here, trend followers and majority holders who will continue to support their own rally. Both of them at the end of day, should continue to invest in long run and try to reduce spread risk with other barometers. It’s no secret recipe, the success of FATANG was also due to liquidity. Indirectly few of them, QQQ, TQQQ and recent 5QQQ, are on all time high [leverage] ever.

Liquidity is the key.

lower geared FATANG sparks inflation heat

Recent cycle change seems to support FATANG de-risk effort which should induce global inflation instead. We heard Mr Musk was selling 15B$ worth of Tesla and paid 11B$ of tax. I would rather think from different approach, that it’s a great news! We should know that it’s coming from stock option, that rather be expired next year, is being used to provide more oil liquidity to Tesla truck (rather than negatively perceived company issuance), supporting US fiscal budget, and provide re-entry opportunity. During this de-risk event, inflation is usually in focus. Central banks and senators are mostly focusing on inflation, taper and increasing rate. Aren’t we surprised that some countries are taking opposite strategies? China is easing and cutting rate, and so do Australia, Europe and Canada. To ensure they could navigate this change, they should just need to provide abundant liquidity and market will navigate themselves beautifully. No surprise, we see beautiful XAU rally.

To hear most of FATANG and BTC, we should hear from Cathie Wood. She still believes that her innovation technology is within deep value territory. It’s no surprising that she finally admits of her poor performance, even though sadly, her view still doesn’t fit with my inflation related commodity rally and liquidity thesis. She should stick with her mojo, the EV, rather than selling it to small cap ones. Current check, my EV infra thesis seems still alive (together with food and electricity). Copper is still showing persistent strength and acute inventory problem in a decade. I think this should be more persistent than end of year Oil tax event Santa Claus rally.

copper inventories

To put myself on market feet, I would think the idea to attract risk should be to provide attractive discount to previous rally, where most market calculators were still based on previous historical numbers, rather than current dynamic value proposition. In doing so, they shouldn’t give too much discount and must avoid crash to the market, because that would rather be destructive and push market back to risk off side. Therefore in my own thesis, to attract risk taker, market should:

  • give enough opportunity, while maintaining current trend,
  • create fiscal opportunity with government guarantee to lower risk, and
  • have manageable inflation with faster tightening above expectation.

I don’t think the first two would be an issue. The market currently worries more with manageable inflation, whether Fed is behind the curve or not, seeing current probability of dot plot and drop in long term bond yield.

drop in long term yield question

However in my own imaginary theory, this drop should be no different than common QE front running. They front run long term yield, before RRP is returning to their native asset, while at same time, they reduce probability of market to not taking more risk.

At the end, I would be excited to see more Corporate buy back, which I would think is rather a good opportunity to later escape and navigate finance world better.

Corporate buy back

If you believe in yourself, in your own long term growth, you should purchase back your own debt, or leverage up your own promise. I think that would be best strategy to navigate risk, de-risking your current high risk after easing rally, while at same time, taking advantage of the risk itself.

I would consider this as part of my escape plan to continuously run All Time High in long run.

Disclaimer: opinion is my own and never become any financial advise.

Escape Plan

“Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley.

Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

Genenis 19:1-38

Twenty one months ago, my time has come to leave my nest, to embrace reality of harsh world we live in. As always, like a little bird, afraid to leave their comfortable lullaby of 9 to 5 nest. I had to fly into jungle of personal enterprise world. There were many butterflies flying around. Didn’t we hear them buzzing, “life time opportunity”, “things to do before you die”, and “go big or go home”?

I was born into a very humble (excuse me to make poor word better) family, who could never afford to have overseas study, let alone overseas travel. It’s still very vivid in my eyes, US university brochures, my father brought back home. In that silent, heart touching moment, my eyes could hear well, and stored the image safely in my brain vault. My parents only left me persistence and perseverance, no capital, but that’s more than I needed. Due to that persistence, Norwegian government invited me to come and experience Scandinavian life. It’s my next important stepping stone, confidence.

Twenty twenty, what a year of resident evil moment. Many asked, was it the end of human race when streets were so empty, puny human race was jailed to their own home, and stock index was falling? My persistence and experience told not to discourage, but took that opportunity. I might still believe the influenza that turned into Covid name event, is a man made. I’m talking about a coordinated orchestra event, at the end of financial curve inversion, after failing with ominous overnight rate spike in September 2019, not the virus. If it’s true, how powerful is financial could take a grip of human life. We do realize though, none of us is immune to any virus, nor the curse of death, nor possibly we can escape from them.

Entering reality of my own personal corporate world and competition is never been darker and colder. Very sure, rhodopsin, dark adaption, is never be a pleasant experience. I had to close my eyes, looked into my heart, what is my best mutant ability? X-MEN is never be a 1-MAN, everyone has their own unique and incomparable skill. The easiest way to look for is what interested us most, not our one year interest but our many decades of interest(s).

I surely know myself. Even though I can do very well, it’s not Information Technology that I interested most. What should people look from well known university brand name in their resume? I disbelieve it’s skill from that palace. It’s rarely economy books and theories can be used to make money from market competition. However it’s still important knowledge. Without knowing how economy theory works, we can’t make a lie about them, nor get fooled from it. It’s all about opportunity, to enter higher ladder corporate, for then to experience real cruel world in comfortable chair of salary to pay bill of liability, and take opportunity to build more confidence experience. Luckily the information technology gave me entry opportunity point to the ladder. There were many great leaders and they will always be my unforgettable mentors to me. In 2020, I’s drawing a line. I’m flying with my own wings, nothing can stop me now, no superiority, nor woke barrier, not even any sky can limit.

Meanwhile this music is playing in the background.

Let me summarized, what I needed were persistence/perseverance, confidence and opportunity. Year 2020, was the year of my opportunity. I forced myself to run as fast as I can. It’s never be perfect. I still missed lots of opportunities, hit many road blocks, that is life. Persistence, go fall and rise stronger, there is no way back.

Here is what I like most, The United States. The country has made me great, I owed them, and I think they will make me greater again.

The United States (especially their 10 years debt) is still the most liquid asset on earth. Its hegemony spell prohibits their front end from increasing to next 2 years, without crashing everything, and wasting their costly momentum effort.

This game is not complicated. White collar like banks, are just buying front end (mostly 2 years) and invest it back to longer end (mostly 10 years). Due to their leveraged greed, less liquid and certain 30 years, is currently getting hurt most, inversing the 10. What can fail them is USD bankruptcy but that should never be an option at this moment. Even China will blink, and continuously lie with their 3 red-lines from transferring their surplus into their current not-so-much troubled Real Estate sector. This asset changing moment cycle must be protected at all cost.

We shouldn’t be surprised with a possibility of commodity deflation moment before their run. Thanks God, it seems to be timid. When money is invested into long term, its long term yield will be under pressure, which will beg for long term support of central bank and short term rally in US golden child, FAT ANG. However to hedge their long term investment, they should go against USD risk or do investment in inflation protection like TIPS, estate or commodity. My thesis is supported with recent PBOC net buying and continuous growth of their mortgage book, rather than their 3 red lines. Please forgive China for their lying of everything, for having inflation death threat, it may not be a sin.

China Bonds Advance on PBOC's $16 Billion Liquidity Injection

I believe taper is less worrying with existing support of RRP:

Have a look back into yield curve picture, arching and moving to front end, shorter term rate, even its very long term 30 years is hardly able to follow. For me, I think it’s obviously a beautiful front end steepening indeed. Houston, we don’t have a problem, our mission after 12 years of easing trick, seems to start being fruitful. People are now starting to enter our trigger baits. We’ll keep baiting them to next 8 years, before we claim our mission to mars is successful.

Without having to explain detail of this math, I’d summarize my humble thesis and vision, before happening, in my own English version:

  • Next year is probably last average windows time to take big investment. It’s still able to raise to next 5-8 years, but they should never be better investment compared to ones taken from year 2020-2022. Last overshoot is always possible but that doesn’t justify better risk and return profile.
  • In 2 years something big will come and I don’t believe it’s a Minsky moment.
  • The Federal Reserve taper should help to transition RRP/negative yield with fiscal deadline to market upside and not allowing front end rate to raise. However even if inflation force would be uncontrolled, we should still have about enough 6 points until the rate could hit their long term downtrend.

The market rally screams same music:

I’m floating around in Ectasy, so don’t stop me, don’t stop me now…

I’m a shooting star leaping through the sky
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
I’m a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva
I’m gonna go, go, go
There’s no stopping me

I’m burnin’ through the sky, yeah 200 degrees
That’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit
I’m travelling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic man out of you
Like an atom bomb about to
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, explode!!!

Is Rocket Lab a Buy? | The Motley Fool

What is the world thinking at the moment? My vision of current decade evolution is with Electric Vehicle (EV) infrastructure, not just the EV itself. Hundred millions of Electric (not-gas) stations grid to build, all over the world in 10 years. Low rate weapon to protect uncompetitive low growth of advanced countries, turns into climate change cooperative initiative to protect high margin business to survive and to end low margin uncompetitive fossil fuel. This effort to leave fossil fuel has hit their competitor most, no less than China. Economy growth related copper and nickel, as their similar industry had lack of capital expenditure, would then be their hidden Cleopatra. Other scarcity of cheap electricity and cheap food may also have to get censored from their expected 100% growth for every 3-5 years. I hardly believe copper, nickel, energy and food will undergo transitory theme, while US steel is hinged under protection from entering transitory.

In this squid game, life and death, profit or loss, I should start with my escape plan, not to quit the squid game because it’s always be my interest, but to start planning their golden parachute plan, before the game is even starting to plan their end, in which I believe so much temptation of greed will be happening in next following years. Why I think is important? We may work and accumulate income well for rest of life, however at the end of the day, it’s our competitiveness to keep them growing that will matter most. A stable 20-30% per year (or faster return) is enough to catapult into billion mark in long run. A sudden 50% drop at the start of retirement means 50% loss of whole life wealth accumulation. Do we know soon-to-see high inflation is a hidden harsh of regressive tax? Our best effort, even with real estate portfolio, is always prone to these thieves. Have a look at how RRP should survive and take wealth from their pension funds. I would also expect we will see a lost decade between year 2030 to 2040, when Sodom and Gomorrah sky may be most likely being turned dark for 10 years. Welcome to reality of financial squid game, win big, survive, or die. My x-ray lobster-eye satellites keep scanning them, stay tuned.

11,788 Squid Illustrations & Clip Art - iStock

Disclaimer: opinion is my own and never become any financial advise.

Evolution, but not like that

Microorganism is always evolving. Corona virus is like an influenza virus but it’s not like that. It carries new characters. One of few similar characters is they are evolving over time, in which is under a spell of frequency or cycle.

The corona virus is like an influenza virus but not like that.

A possible similar situation is like in 1930s. It could be a reflation but I will argue if it ignites high inflation with their money expansion. I don’t think is because of long easing but simply anything times zero is just zero. This might arguably fit with value vs growth hunting theme/arguments. Negative or near zero rate has failed to perform its inflation targeting. It should be true that market participants have learned and anticipated possibility of recession with monetary polices but unfortunately its number power has gone zero. I like the idea of using yield control targeting but it must come to opposite of monetary policy or long waited fiscal initiatives.

The reflation is like in 1930s but not like that.

Hugh Hendry argued we should instead raise the interest. We know it’s not possible in massive debt. Currently we don’t have any issue with massive debt because the massive debt times zero is also just zero. However we might be able to raise its real interest, like in spread, but still just not like that.

Real rate might increase, but not like that.

The times zero event unleashes a new characteristic of economy theory, that may never be found in any economy literature. Let’s imagine, if money and debt continue going exponential to infinity, is infinity times zero still zero? The answer is false as indicated here but undefined. It will unleash another new characteristic of new economy event. The “undefined” moment will allow more freedom for money to go to whatever it likes. We should start seeing wild gravity of economy theory and mathematics.

I also like the idea that money would need to come to the opposite of its value. The supremacy of USD is being challenged by China rise. Its value depreciation might flow to its opposites like assets but not many countries are able to challenge US. Warren Buffett and Jerome Powell reminded not to challenge America.

The depreciation of USD or any of their peers is like loosing their value but not like that.

a volatility supported with a “rising” is usually a confirmation of cycle reversal

I like the idea from Hugh Hendry, other countries will not allow their currency to appreciate and they will do monetary policy (or even better in mixture with fiscal policy). They would increase reserve but at same time buying anything else. Countries will run currency war but it won’t allow their currency to win.

Countries will try to win currency war but not like that.

However I would notice one thing similar. They are all under a curse of time, born, grow and die, a cycle. Time is always an opposite of a period, opposite plays. Anything we do in time zone, should also be seen in frequency zone, in this case is the cycle. Five and 10 year cycles are still looked likely repeating with quite similar sign of their reversal, such as extreme volatility during their rise.

Cycle repeats but not like that.

I would have to argue that assets might run like in year 2005 to 2008 but the zero and negative rate has pushed it to the opposite side.

Assets may rise similar to year 2005-2008 but not like that.

We should also see discrepancy between rich and poor. If we could explain this phenomena, why should we argue high growth of selected shares like FAANG and TESLA? The demand of money opposite should go to not just everything else but very distinct-ed or special assets or equities.

Learning above, I like the idea of being opposite sides. If monetary policies are printing money like no-end, the growth will go to the opposite, asset in value, in a distinctive way.

Opposite works like in a supply and demand theory but not like that.

I’m fond of adaptive theories in which its mathematical frequency characteristic is a base of learning. I think that could explain a “correlation but not like that” event. It can follow market participants without foolishly following just like that.

This is just my own opinion and not in any case of financial advise.

Make Ansible Nice and Tidy

This article is to demonstrate a simple user administration, and following basic rules:

  • data must be separated from code, avoid data in too many places,
  • critical information must be encrypted,
  • data could be grouped using some environment fact, for example: dev, staging and prod
  • ansible skill is no longer required, once systems is written down.

In an example below, we can forward/filter variable and pass authorized/public key. Sometimes it’s good to keep simple control to what is going to happen to user module/role.

# ansible-galaxy init roles/users --offline
- Role users was created successfully

# cat roles/users/tasks/main.yml
---
# tasks file for users
- name: ensure user exists
  user:
    name: "{{ user.username }}"
    comment: "{{ user.name }}"
    state: "{{ user.state if user_state is defined else 'present' }}"
    password: "{{ user.password }}"
  loop: "{{ users }}"
  loop_control:
    loop_var: user
- name: add authorized key
  authorized_key: user="{{ user.username }}" key="{{ user.publickey }}" state=present
  loop: "{{ users }}"
  loop_control:
    loop_var: user

We can use ansible to create sha-512 passwords:

# ansible -m debug -a msg="{{ 'test123'  | password_hash('sha512') }}" localhost
localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "msg": "$6$UnrDMoPPnIDtNT43$nQvXEqvApVTY09clkvrXg/M4B59qpS2yOM18E9luYXiHQUPmis18bpMKiDxNjd7Wl.QWJM3mFm1TxMnhi74M6/"
}
# ansible -m debug -a msg="{{ 'test123'  | password_hash('sha512') }}" localhost
localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "msg": "$6$Xfc.7wW3XdY8.urH$e40tqEmNHUGFFLdchoXui4.kYIidQm6YxztOQxiviWcKLGtIwCmVNLWGQ/YtM5PnPW5J3dHtm4AClB7OHRv6c/"
}

And use existing/any user public key.

# cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768

The Ansible recommended structure is using groups and multiple inventories, just like here. Per recommendation, if there’s any common user, we then use a symbolic link.

# tree environments/
environments/
├── dev
│   ├── group_vars
│   │   ├── all
│   │   │   └── users.yml
│   │   ├── db
│   │   └── web
│   └── hosts
├── prod
└── stage

We can group user variables using domain name.

# ansible-vault create dev/group_vars/all/users.yml
# ansible-vault edit dev/group_vars/all/users.yml

---
users:
  - name: Aimee
    username: aimee
    password: $6$UnrDMoPPnIDtNT43$nQvXEqvApVTY09clkvrXg/M4B59qpS2yOM18E9luYXiHQUPmis18bpMKiDxNjd7Wl.QWJM3mFm1TxMnhi74M6/
    publickey: ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768
  - name: Beta
    username: beta
    password: $6$Xfc.7wW3XdY8.urH$e40tqEmNHUGFFLdchoXui4.kYIidQm6YxztOQxiviWcKLGtIwCmVNLWGQ/YtM5PnPW5J3dHtm4AClB7OHRv6c/
    publickey: ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768`

Once all setup well, all of our user variables are very simple like above, and our main yml is very simple, nice and tidy like below. The advantages of it is, if there is any change to variable (in this example is user), we don’t need ansible skill to re-code. It just needs some basic yml variable editing skill, and it will reduce human error significantly. It also won’t leave data everywhere.

# cat mainuser.yml
---
- name: run on all host
  hosts: "*"
  roles:
    - users

We can make dev environment for default with defining default in ansible.cfg to avoid running in stage/prod unnecessarily.

[defaults]
inventory = ./environments/dev

And finally running it:

# ansible all --list-hosts
  hosts (1):
    192.168.2.101

# ansible-playbook mainuser.yml --ask-vault-pass
Vault password:

PLAY [run on all host] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.2.101]

TASK [users : ensure user exists] ***************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.2.101] => (item={'name': 'Aimee', 'username': 'aimee', 'password': '$6$UnrDMoPPnIDtNT43$nQvXEqvApVTY09clkvrXg/M4B59qpS2yOM18E9luYXiHQUPmis18bpMKiDxNjd7Wl.QWJM3mFm1TxMnhi74M6/', 'publickey': 'ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768'})
changed: [192.168.2.101] => (item={'name': 'Beta', 'username': 'beta', 'password': '$6$Xfc.7wW3XdY8.urH$e40tqEmNHUGFFLdchoXui4.kYIidQm6YxztOQxiviWcKLGtIwCmVNLWGQ/YtM5PnPW5J3dHtm4AClB7OHRv6c/', 'publickey': 'ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768`'})

TASK [users : add authorized key] **************************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.2.101] => (item={'name': 'Aimee', 'username': 'aimee', 'password': '$6$UnrDMoPPnIDtNT43$nQvXEqvApVTY09clkvrXg/M4B59qpS2yOM18E9luYXiHQUPmis18bpMKiDxNjd7Wl.QWJM3mFm1TxMnhi74M6/', 'publickey': 'ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768'})
changed: [192.168.2.101] => (item={'name': 'Beta', 'username': 'beta', 'password': '$6$Xfc.7wW3XdY8.urH$e40tqEmNHUGFFLdchoXui4.kYIidQm6YxztOQxiviWcKLGtIwCmVNLWGQ/YtM5PnPW5J3dHtm4AClB7OHRv6c/', 'publickey': 'ssh-rsa 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 root@VM-101932768`'})

PLAY RECAP *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
192.168.2.101              : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

Ansible Hiera

We might be aware of Puppet Hiera flexibility. Below is an example to proxy hiera in native Ansible (without third party product/plugin).

An example, we have one external host inventory running on RedHat.

# cat demo
[web]
192.168.2.101

Below is the playbook. Once it connects to the inventory host, it will return ansible_facts[‘distribution’] = ‘RedHat’, similar to facter in Puppet. Using this O/S type, we can then define all O/S related roles specific variables in “vars/os_RedHat” variable file.

# cat main.yml
---
- name: talk to all hosts just so we can learn about them
  hosts: all
  vars_files:
    - "vars/os_{{ ansible_facts['distribution'] }}"
  roles:
    - sshd
  tasks:
    - name: tell us the variable in main.yml
      debug:
        var: sshd_ssh_packages

Below are variables that we defined in vars/os_RedHat variable file. By defining O/S specific variables in data hierarchy, the role can be made independent from O/S or any other hierarchy.

# cat vars/os_RedHat
# Information for the sshd for RedHat
sshd_package: "sshd"
sshd_ssh_packages:
  - openssh-server
  - openssh

The issue with Ansible hierarchy is their precedence order couldn’t be easily modified like in Puppet. The precedence order of role and host variables from highest is:

  • role vars
  • hosts vars
  • role default

Unfortunately role variable has higher precedence, therefore the nicest way to define variable is in role default, not in role vars. This role default can then be overwritten with host variables.

# cat roles/sshd/vars/main.yml
---

# cat roles/sshd/defaults/main.yml
---
sshd_package: "nothing"
sshd_ssh_packages: "nothing"

# cat roles/sshd/tasks/main.yml
---
- name: tell us the variable inside sshd role
  debug:
    var: sshd_ssh_packages

Let’s run the playbook.

# ansible-playbook -i demo main.yml

PLAY [talk to all hosts just so we can learn about them] **********

TASK [Gathering Facts] **********
ok: [192.168.2.101]

TASK [sshd : tell us the variable inside sshd role] **********
ok: [192.168.2.101] => {
    "sshd_ssh_packages": [
        "openssh-server",
        "openssh"
    ]
}

TASK [tell us the variable in main.yml] **********
ok: [192.168.2.101] => {
    "sshd_ssh_packages": [
        "openssh-server",
        "openssh"
    ]
}

PLAY RECAP **********
192.168.2.101              : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

If we comment out host variable, the role variable takes over. It means in case of finding undefined O/S, both host and role can warn/fail task from being processed.

# cat main.yml
---
- name: talk to all hosts just so we can learn about them
  hosts: all
#  vars_files:
#    - "vars/os_{{ ansible_facts['distribution'] }}"
  tasks:
    - name: tell us the variable in main.yml
      debug:
        var: sshd_ssh_packages
  roles:
    - sshd

# ansible-playbook -i demo main.yml

PLAY [talk to all hosts just so we can learn about them] 

TASK [Gathering Facts] 
ok: [192.168.2.101]

TASK [sshd : tell us the variable inside sshd role] 
ok: [192.168.2.101] => {
    "sshd_ssh_packages": "nothing"
}

TASK [tell us the variable in main.yml] 
ok: [192.168.2.101] => {
    "sshd_ssh_packages": "nothing"
}

PLAY RECAP 
192.168.2.101              : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

With ability to separate data and code completely, we can build similar data hierarchy like in Puppet Hiera. However, unfortunately in Ansible, we have to follow fixed Ansible precendence order and work from there.

Sure, It’s a Plus! +

The + sign is getting obvious, there might be a start of a change to the world of economy. Australia continues to record current account surplus. It’s first time since 1975 or 45 years ago, and to continue rising.

source: tradingeconomics

The current account surplus is mainly related to commodity export to China and depressed currency. It should have high correlation to recent rebound in China PMI or highly probable China expansion.

source: bloomberg

How about other countries?

Emerging market and developing Asia seem to be the ones on way back down to deficit.

With US tries to control deficit, I may suspect China may have risk/difficulty to maintain their current account surplus, as seen a big flash drop in 2018.

source: tradingeconomics

Trade war will try to balance US and China trade and current account. They try to tango/stable two world strongest currencies, in simple term is trying to not manipulate currency, but to monopolize them. There seems to be an effort for China to stimulate their economy and effort to park the money in US to stable the pair.

USDCNY tries to stable at 7
source: marketwatch

Meanwhile, the impact seems to benefit some other countries like Australia. Negative sentiment of trade war, in addition to almost crash in property, is fueling local central bank easing to indeed catapult Australia to a condition we might never see in 45 years.

Everyone is waiting for fiscal initiative. One plausible outcome is a big tax cut. The stage 3 might put it back well to about 50 years ago, which seems to be correlated with the condition of current account surplus history.

source: theconversation

With net overseas immigration continues to run hot, it may help to mitigate recent oversupply in Australia property. And when the fiscal does more such as infrastructure, it’s expected to be another plus.

source: abc

From property perspective, investment properties (IP) are heavier than owner occupier, having more lending restriction and higher interest. If we look at gross rental yield, they return at average of 3% to 3.9% and quite stable in last decade despite price volatility. With current IP mortgage rate at about 3.5% from big banks and 3% with non conforming lenders, it’s quite clear that depreciation (tax benefit) suddenly turns investment property to be a surplus vehicle, as long as price is no longer down and rental yield is reduced less than mortgage rate, in which both of these two are happening. My argument in May 2019 is correct. There’s no benefit for investor to sell at this lower price, rather than to keep them for almost definite profit, even if the price doesn’t increase.

source: SQMResearch

If we’d like to forecast how much tax benefit is diminished with price increase, assuming other conditions are stable, we may look at how much tax benefit is. This article shows that taxman contributes 24% of the cost, therefore we might expect price to rebound at about 24% from bottom to bring this vehicle back to normal, i=r+t or when we may expect volume to build.

It’s only a matter of time. The price has rebounded and only half way to go.

source: abcnews

We may see clearly, that if RBA cut another rate, at current yield curve, one more rate cut to 0.5%, may ease short term lending pressure and form an inflationary yield curve. However even if RBA reduces the rate, I may doubt banks will pass the rate cut, considering recent profit pressure and may become a positive news for the bank instead.

source: guardian

I don’t say that economy is healthy enough (stubborn low inflation and wage increase), but many conditions have been definitely improving well, as long as RBA helps this recovery on track.

We do hope though, the plus is giving more benefit to the economy. Some evidences might show a surplus could be negative to local investment vehicle, such as shares, and may introduce some unintended consequences, like in Japan, which is still trying hard to stimulate their economy.

Japan Current Account
Japan has been recording current account surplus for decades.
source: tradingeconomics

However it seems the government is being careful, before doing a massive change and may take a safe measure, such as tax cut. The forecast from IMF shows that the surplus might be just an impulse and may quickly go back to deficit. This forecast is correct because it’s just based on simple past series math, but it may not be able to tell future, should the surplus condition persists. There is some argument that there might be some volatility in near future which may require financial sector to have bigger buffer.

source: imf

The story might be related to a ‘big rescue‘ to US banks in September 2019 when their daily repo rate shot up very high. The Federal Reserve wouldn’t disclose who are the rescued ‘too big to fail‘ ones until next 2 years. The most coincident event during that time was a possible bubble burst of negative yield in long term US treasury. Many US banks have been participating to hold/engineer more treasury rather than what they park in Federal Reserve, causing short term liquidity crunch. In an event of global correction that could easily challenge other countries. It’s no coincident that many Australia banks are now in rush to raise their liquidity level.

Eventhough China seems to lead non US rebound, Germany is still contracting. People may still look for further evidence. Until then, US economy remains unchallenged.

Germany Manufacturing PMI
German PMI source: tradingeconomics

If indeed condition of surplus continues further, I would expect the fiscal policy to do more than just a tax cut initiative. We’ll see.

It’s my own opinion and not in any case of financial advise.

Holy Grail

Many years, investors and traders have been trying to find and formulate their holy grail techniques. Most of them are failed and it’s not surprising. It’s market participants behaviors that are always trying to take advantages from those who are trying to find it. However I still find a dynamic adaptive learning to follow market participants is still doing well, rather than sets of quantitative formula or trying to redo past experience.

source: The Damsel of the Sanct Grael wikipedia

Since 2009, central bank balance sheet has been growing tremendously in a binary pattern. I always argued that we are not required to do any normalization yet until there’s any sign of global inflation. We were worry about US inflation in 2016, but at the end, US has to give up their inflation to bigger slow down of global growth.

In any of those events, our main concern is always about uneven money distribution which is related heavily to high grade investment vehicles supply issue. We see high quality bonds is getting scarce and drove their price to unprecedented negative yield. When we see junk bonds are being elevated too, people start to worry. There’s not enough supply for high quality vehicles which then raised another opportunity for their longer term. Companies also widely do buy back in effort to reduce their supply and cause unprecedented very high PER (Price to Earning Ratio). Funds may get more concern about what i called “new elevated normal” and due to their anchor to previous lower PER, they leave. If sufficient permanent balance sheet keeps permanent, as they are, this high PER could be the new normal, rather than previous failed effort to normalize it down. Isn’t it the behavior of economy policy makers?

We shouldn’t be surprised that ascending triangle of US shares, supported by Federal Reserve should be a conducive environment for them to continue up rising. Also if we looked our history, flat curve can cause rally as well, just like in 2002-2004. Did we just worry about US recession recently? I can tell that the recession is now officially gone in which I already predicted few months ago, as long as central bank remains supportive. Isn’t it amazing that money (rate cut and continuous 160B$ injection) can turn recession away, just like that? The impact should, of course, happen to US share market before it spills into other economy since US is still doing better than rest of world. We can see very clear that significant US 2y steepening makes their banks on right spot. Other countries like Australia big banks are now starting to raise their CET1 and Basel III, to possibly get their engine ready and catch up.

If we look Australian property market, after GFC 2008, actually Sydney property and many emerging property had been doing well. The GFC had caused people to panicky do saving and it caused these property market very healthy, which then caused rally from 2012 to 2015. This boom of profit margin attracted many developers (including from other states) to build Sydney and caused oversupply. It’s Sydney which has oversupply issue. Similar to money effort to save current risk to the jewel of US economy (IT industry) this year, there should be same effort to save Sydney property and I believe it will unevenly spill into other states which are not oversupplied, such as Victoria, with their tier-1 Melbourne CBD. With continuous effort to choke developer funding, it may evenly cause unevenly under-supply. It’s not difficult to measure number of cranes with our own little eyes.

China on the other side, was entering crisis in 2015 and may start to recover in 2020 ( 5 years ). It might be similar to pattern of US recovery from 2009 to 2014 ( 5 years ). Those are relatively matched with average length of maturity of their bonds. If it’s, inflation might start to happen in next couple years and people with negative yield may start to worry. US and China may really need to cooperate and introduce fiscal initiative. Powell said there might be a positive path towards negotiation. However we might interpret this as an opportunity for US to front run other world, rather than trade war deal. There’s still an effort to introduce #bluedotnetwork, an initiative from US Australia and Japan to challenge China BRI.

Other sign of inflation, may also be seen from recent plan of Aramco IPO. There’s an argument that the IPO might change the structure of Saudi people subsidy to rather fund their kingdom and US fiscal/global initiatives. Those masterminds behind the IPO are world rulers and leaders. They can decide market behaviors. My holy grail is to learn and follow their behaviors, the money.

Another sign of inflation is correction of negative yield bond rally in August which might cause short term funding issue. Eventhough the correction pattern may complete, it clearly shows that there was a pause in rally or having some structural change. It may continue to rally in medium term since it’s still above 2018 average, but it could also lead to global inflation. Christine Lagarde will take helmet of ECB (where most negative yield is) and she seems to be more fiscal supporter, unlike her predecessor.

source: bloomberg

Let’s have a look from RBA speech today. In past few years, RBA has been hard to maintain inflation to their mandate of 2% due to slow global growth, trade war and China efforts to combat their economy slow growth issue. The achievement from 2015 to 2018 were mostly only due to lower currency. If currency didn’t fall, we might not have much luck.

source: ABS
source: tradingeconomics

The recent inflation data were broadly as expected, with headline inflation at 1.7 per cent over the year to the September quarter. The central scenario remains for inflation to pick up, but to do so only gradually. In both headline and underlying terms, inflation is expected to be close to 2 per cent in 2020 and 2021.

source: RBA monetary policy decision November 2019

We don’t need holy grail to save the economy. The yield curve clearly shows, we just need to push up their belly and all kind of recessions and gloomy doom outlook could magically be gone. We know well, fiscal initiatives can help to push belly up (property), probably after pushing banks healthiness, supported by RBA with keeping rate lower than the market. Don’t be surprised with recent gloomy outlook from RBA to justify lower rate longer. Spring has really sprung, Australia banks are now reducing their dividend payment to grow. Just like natural cycle, flowers stop blooming after spring, they started to grow leaves and root. It’s a significant change to their previous years of high dividend. We hope this summer inflation is not that hot and return can be at their optimum.

We might not need to worry about lower volume of Australia property transaction/auction. I believe most of the low volume is because all big banks are now lowering their risk with some actions such as abandoning any Interest Only (IO). In the event of preparation to grow, this situation might be well perceived as an effort to increase healthiness. In 3 years, all IO will be gone massively from banks balance sheet and borrowers are already enforced to put more equity through Principal and Interest (P&I). Any weak hand will be funded with lower rate. Isn’t it healthy? I hope so.

We might not know when inflation start to bite. I will worry to non conforming lenders who are trying to expand their market share and being exposed to high risk borrower profile. I would advise their borrowers to monitor carefully their non conforming lender loans, probably in next 3-5 years.

Please be very aware, I may already have significant position written in this article. It definitely has conflict with my interests. Therefore this article is not in any case of financial advise.

Global Recession?

People are talking about global recession, mainly referring to US (United States) economy and their impact to global economy. It is because people used to use history that when GDP is contracted over 2 quarters, I meant “when yield curve is inverted over 2 quarters“, we will most likely see a recession. Definition of a recession is below:

A recession is a macroeconomic term that refers to a significant decline in general economic activity in a designated region. It is typically recognized after two consecutive quarters of economic decline, as reflected by GDP in conjunction with monthly indicators like employment. Recessions are officially declared in the U.S. by a committee of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), who determines the peak and subsequent trough of the business cycle which demonstrates the recession

source: investopedia

It’s clear that the definition is historically and mainly applied to US economy and should reflect current US economy structure. It may not be 100% true. The definition shouldn’t emphasize all 100% population GDP but all 100% money GDP since money growth has taken over population growth with their enormous binary growth.

There’s an interesting thing is happening here. During this kind of recession risk, which is most likely a temporary turn of tightening into easing, it might already be predicted long before this decline is happening.

In my article 7 months ago, I would have to argue that we can predict the end of not so beautiful “normalization” or when the Fed tightening would have to stop or turn. I used excess reserve because it can connect dot between banks activity in relation to inverted yield curve, and its correlation to recession risk. In my article that time, I argued that the Federal Reserve would have to stop tightening after the excess balance sheet is left with 1.4T$. My math and prediction is correct with exact amount.

source: excess reserve

Since excess reserve is left with 1.4T$, market asked easing and the Fed had no choice but to end this premature normalization (in my previous articles, i used word of the end of a temporary normalization game). If the Fed has to start easing again and global economy is still not better, it means there might not be yet any real normalization need, like many economists argue.

Using a simple technical analysis from the same graph above, it clearly shows that the knowledge of this end of tightening and excess reserve numbers should have been been known since 2015 to 2017. It’s clearly showing that the risk of today recession is simply just a temporary turn from tightening into easing. It also supports that global economy can not afford higher rate and long term trend of rate is still pointing down. If long term trend of rate remains down and central banks remains accomodative, there shouldn’t be significant risk of recession. We have no doubt in past few years, central banks remains accomodative.

There could be a possibility that it’s not a time yet for normalization. The argument is because global growth is still declining while only US is rebounding. The rebound itself could be merely just a technical rebound due to excessive easing from the Federal Reserve or overshoot of easing between 2013 to 2015. It’s shown in a stubbornly strong USD even when US risks recession, which should show that other parts of the world are still weaker and global economy is not yet asking for normalization.

This situation could be made worst with recent push to long term bond play such as happening in negative yield. This capitalism may now negatively affect basic structure of economy itself. Trump may become one of the participants, having interest to introduce the trade war to benefit from government bonds. It could be a perfect time to introduce ultra long bond simply because market is so populated in this place. However if ultra long bond bursts together with other long term bonds, the ultra long bonds may need ultra long years to recover, just like its name.

source: oecd

Here now we know, Federal Reserve may temporarily have to stop tightening and back to easing. One day I believe there will be a time to do real normalization (not this time yet). That time could probably be when trade war ends and spark in inflation.

After market experienced yield crashed in Q1 2019 and already in 2 quarters, people start to talk about recession probability. It then raises a question, will we have a recession in 2020?

Based on arguments above, if numbers are so orchestrated, we do know it’s now leaving to yield curve to lead future. At the moment, Federal Reserve is so way behind curve. Stated in my last month article, market still remains asking for 2 basis points of rate cut and unfortunately next central bank meeting is still 3 weeks away (end of October 2019). The Fed has been trying to help with repo but I believe it’s not enough. Therefore we shouldn’t be surprised to see some share market correction. The same question again, will we have a recession? If it’s, share market should probably go down even further.

If my theories above are true, we might be able to avoid recession if Federal Reserve is willing to run at least as fast as market curve with at least a 2 basis points of rate cut this month. So far, market has been predicting monetary policy very well because monetary policy is very friendly to them. An example is in my article 5 months ago. where I predicted that RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) would have to start cutting rate again. RBA then continuously cuts 3 rate cut after holding rate at 1.5% for almost 2 years. It’s in my opinion, the Fed should cut faster or possibly have emergency rate cut. They should, of course, try not to scare/shock market.

There’s an interesting thing happening. Australia is one country that has been running faster than the US in easing. RBA cuts their rate 3 times within past few months. If the Fed cuts 2 more rate basis points, RBA should at least cut 1 time, simply because Australia is smaller. RBA chief recently confirms that he doesn’t want to see strong AUD (which I believe is very risky to Australia property market trend) and he will maintain currency competitiveness. The issue is, if RBA cuts just one more, it may be most likely trigger an inflation in Australia and it could be one of few countries that leads global inflation, together with other AAA credit rating countries such as Canada, Denmark, Finland, etc. When inflation sparks, it may shock their share market. It’s then I believe, on next inflation cycle, probably at the end of trade war and burst of negative yield, we might see a true normalization effort, rather than the ‘not so necessary’ normalization efforts in past few years.

I’m back to the question of whether we will see recession in 2020. In my opinion, we shouldn’t see recession next year if central banks remain fully accomodative. The Fed should run at least as fast as market curve. In today situation, the Fed should cut with 2 basis points. Until that happens, we should continuously see some pressure in short term liquidity, seen clearly in share market. We hope the Fed is not too late to ease, considering effectiveness of monetary policy is now diminishing. The difficulty, of course, if the Fed is easing too much, inflation may pickup rapidly and we may experience bond crash like in 1994. I believe today correction of share market is not due to recession risk but merely because central bank policy is so behind market expectation. We should still expect share market pressure until the central bank is on or ahead market curve without inducing inflation spark threat.

Technically speaking, share market should worry of this negative divergence, until central banks put break on this as soon as possible.

This article is my own opinion and not in any case of financial advise.