Roger Babson's Ten Commandments For Investing

Some friends and I were discussing Roger Babson earlier today.  Several of us have a feeling that the markets may be approaching a critical juncture, and we were wondering how that might express itself, given today's Fed and government activism as opposed to the more ad hoc to stabilizing markets in Babson's day.

As you may recall he was an MIT trained engineer who became a famous stock market analyst and financial theorist. I have acknowledged in the past that my own particular style of charting was in part inspired by his approaches to force and resistance. He never really codified his techniques, so they are not all that well understood. But he used them to some great personal advantage.

I see in reviewing some of these fossilized chart remains that I used to put a great deal more energy into them when I was more actively trading.  On my old site I used to update charts several times per day and look at ten minute intervals, which may be appropriate to futures trading in size.

As a point of interest Babson helped in the creation of a 'business engineering' course at MIT, a first for an American University. Babson founded Babson College among other things.  I have written about Babson several times when discussing the events of 1929, but also about 'The Boulders of Dogtown' which are typical of the man.

But Babson is most well known for his prediction on 5 September 1929, "sooner or later, a crash is coming, and it may be terrific."

Roger Babson had ten commandments he followed in investing and encouraged his readers to do the same.  I was reminded of them when I looked up the exact date of his crash forecast that triggered 'the Babson Break.'

It pleased me that I had arrived at several of those commandments through personal experience but that lesson always involved the loss of capital, alas.  One hears these things, and they are sayings.  And then you encounter them in practice, and you learn them.  And so it is with most sound principles and advice.  And quite often whole peoples must relearn the principles of the past.

They are all valuable, but I have placed asterisks behind those that have served me most well, and some which bear the most vivid memories. lol

One thing Babson does not overtly mention is to follow the money, and understand who stands to gain what from any deal or transaction, but I think it is implied.  I would also urge one to never confuse reliable performance with luck, unless you aspire to be soundly lashed by the tails of probability.

One thing that did strike me oddly in reviewing this is to ask, 'is anyone except for a few old codgers like me investing anymore?'  It almost seems archaic to say, when everything is just a bet and most everyone is just a player.  It must have seemed that way to Babson as well, in the Autumn of 1929.

These were:

• 1. Keep speculation and investments separate. **
• 2. Don't be fooled by a name. **
• 3. Be wary of new promotions.
• 4. Give due consideration to your market ability.
• 5. Don't buy without proper facts. **
• 6. Safeguard purchases through diversification. **
• 7. Don't try to diversify by buying different securities of the same company.
• 8. Small companies should be carefully scrutinized. ***
• 9. Buy adequate security, not super abundance.
• 10. Choose your dealer and buy outright (i.e., don't buy on margin.) **

Sarah Lacy and the Darker Side of Über Corporatism

This is a stunning video, with some serious implications. I urge you to watch it. It involves abusing corporate power to smear and intimidate critics.

It was a bit humorous to watch the talking heads discomfort with some of the implications and statements.  The West coast anchors tend to be more business focused and laid back than their New York based cousins who are more deeply into the Wall Street culture.

I am not familiar with Sarah Lacy's work as a journalist and editor, but as a debater she is on point and brilliant.

I am not completely unfamiliar with the attempted use of power to suppress people's views. Outside of professional circles it is petulant and childish, given to snarky emails, snide backstabbing, and cliquish exclusion. You know, the kinds of things one often finds within University departments, corporate bureaucracies, and the blogosphere. lol.

But too often where serious power and money is involved it is real, it is a threat, and it cannot be tolerated if there is to be any aspiration to a free and open society. And we are fools if we allow such power to grow and its abuse to be tolerated, for the misguided fears for our security, much less some short term easy money.

Can You Help the Fed Figure Out What Is Wrong With The Recovery™

Why doesn't the public spend and save more?

"We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address

Senate Report Reveals Powerful Manipulative Positions of Goldman, JPM In Global Commodities

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Why is JP Morgan getting so much heat?   Maybe because it is a massive international crime syndicate."

Matt Taibbi, Talking JPM With Sam Seder

JPM and Goldman sought and obtained manipulative powers in global commodities, even while they were being bailed out on the back of the American people?   Oh no, nothing like this could be true, or so the shills and toadies of the moneyed interests will say.  Just get the government out of our way, and everything will be all right.  The market is naturally rational and efficient, pure and pristine.   No Bank would risk its reputation by doing anything illegal.

Especially when they buy off and intimidate enforcement, write the laws, and do what they will. 

I doubt that anything meaningful will be done about this.  The corruption runs deep.  In corporatism the private and public elites are largely interchangeable.  Different roles, similar objectives.

The politicians may make a good show of it, and talk harshly to their witnesses.  And then take their money, and lick their hands.

But at least we know more about what is true, and what is not.

Perhaps this may help you understand those who do not wish to remain under the power of the Banking cartel, and may be in a better position to do something about it.

Related: Wiseguys: Drawing Parallels Between the Mafia and Wall Street

Dealbook

Senate Report Criticizes Goldman and JPMorgan Over Their Roles in Commodities Market

By Nathaniel Popper and Peter Eavis

November 19, 2014

A two-year Senate-led investigation is throwing back the curtain on the outsize and sometimes hidden sway that Wall Street banks have gained over the markets for essential commodities like oil, aluminum and coal.

The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase assumed a role of such significance in the commodities markets that it became possible for the banks to influence the prices that consumers pay while also securing inside information about the markets that could be used by the banks’ own traders

Bankers from both firms, along with other industry executives and regulators, will testify about the allegations at hearings on Thursday and Friday.

The 400-page report, which was made public on Wednesday evening, included case studies on nine different commodities in which banks have taken big positions, including the 100 oil tankers and 55 million barrels of oil storage that were owned by Morgan Stanley, and the 31 power plants owned by JPMorgan at one point.

The subcommittee discussed several reasons that these commodity operations could create problems. The potential for price manipulation and the unfair advantage that banks can gain in these markets were among the top concerns expressed by Senator Levin and Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the subcommittee.

But both senators also echoed previous warnings that the enormous holdings of oil, uranium and other hazardous materials could expose the banks to significant legal liability that could, in turn, lead to runs on the banks.

A 2012 study by the Federal Reserve, cited in the report, found that banks have not put aside enough money and insurance to adequately prepare for the “extreme loss scenarios” involving commodities...

Read the entire article here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Bear Market Grinds On

There was intraday commentary here and here.

Gold in particular is hitting stiff resistance at a key resistance point. It is not the breakout point, but it does offer some threat if momentum can build to the next level. This is how I read it. You may choose to think differently.

Silver provided some support in refusing to break 16 when the metals were hit hard in a typical bear raid selloff this morning.

 

Bear markets and hard times can be trying.  It is not unheard of for reformers to start turning on each other when the going gets tough.   I have found myself shut out of a few sites whose owners and denizens apparently do not appreciate those who have different viewpoints. It almost resembles a kind of tribalism.  This is to be expected in times of stress as hysteria ebbs and flows.  

 

I have found myself accused on one side of being a 'liberal and communist' and on the other side of being a 'goldbug, fundamentalist, and arch-conservative.'  It is not always easy to deal with the works and consequences of creatures from the bowels of hell, and maintain a calm and cheerful disposition.  So mostly I just slough these things off.  As one of my friends likes to say, 'It is the times.'

 

As for myself I say what I think, and try to do it with civility, clear reason, and conscience. And if that is not enough to be a member of some people's clubs, then I do not wish to be a part of them. It is one of the reasons why I have refused all money, any power, and do not seek 'followers' in the worst sense of the word.   I don't want to carry that weight.  I may be a poor servant, I make mistakes, I stumble too often, in fear and trembling, I say things badly and awkwardly at times, but I only have one love, and one master.  And without that, I am nothing.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Trust Us

Stocks were under pressure much of the day.

There were more technical than fundamental reasons for the trades.

Stocks are at a key juncture.

 

The behavior of the Fed may be looked at by future historians as so bad as to be incompetent, rather than notorious, in the manner of the 'Greenspan defense.' 

 

After all, these are educated and responsible people.  How can they not be trusted?

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

Even the Best Can Fall Victim To the 'Efficient Markets Hypothesis'

The preamble to this recent column by Ted Butler (subscription but worth it for his fine work in tracking the silver market) is a discussion of how 'gold loans' are not really proper loans, because the collateral gets reformatted and sold off.

What sparks the discussion is the recent talk and articles in Bloomberg about the Gold Forwards rates being negative, implying that it is difficult to obtain leased gold. Ted finds this kind of discussion frustrating apparently.   They disclose rates, but not the amount of ongoing transactions.

I should add that to me there is little substantial difference between leases and swaps in what these fellows are doing.  That seems to be largely a manner of terminology and choice of market venue when you boil the transaction down to the essentials.

Ted explains that when you loan a tool to your neighbor, you expect to get your tool back.  In the case of gold leasing, as Bloomberg points out, the gold gets reformatted and sold off to Asia.  So the gold leasing really does not make sense to Ted.

 

Now I would beg to differ at this point, because unlike your favorite power tool monetary objects are often considered to be 'fungible' and in a lease you may not expectto get the exact bars back necessarily.  You merely ask for the same quality, form and amount as I understand it.  If this is not the case, then Bloomberg has inadvertently disclosed a massive fraud.

You don't expect to get your bars back unless it is a custodial arrangement.  But as the German people have recently discovered, good luck with that.  You may get whatever the custodians at the Fed can find, because they have not merely stored the gold for you, but they have apparently utilized it.

Therefore, Ted's reasoning goes, because they do not make sense, gold leases do not exist in any appreciable size anymore. They were just a kind of fad perpetrated by JPM and some foolish miners some years ago.  That forward selling in the form of hedges blew up badly and miners like Barrick were forced to take sizable losses in a rising market.

At this point I would say the leases do not make sense, but not for the same reason Ted cites.  They do not make sense to me because they both misprice the counterparty risk AND the terms and other details of the leasing are not disclosed to all the interested parties.  The lenders who are central banks do not inform. the public who actually own their nation's gold.  Such leasing ought to be disclosed transparently and in real time.  

But this is not the case. The lengths to which the public must go to discover the extent of the leasing of their gold has been well documented by GATA for example.

The reason I find Ted's conclusion weak, and potentially harmful, is that it is obviously based on the 'efficient markets hypothesis.'   If something does not make economic sense, it ought not to exist in an efficient market, and therefore it does not exist except as some limited anomaly.  Gold leases don't make sense to me, so therefore they do not exist, or if they do, are not significant enough to be considered.

Economists used to joke that if you told an efficient markets guy that there was a ten dollar bill lying on the sidewalk, he would reply that 'there couldn't be, because if there was someone would pick it up.'

I have asked the fellows at GATA if they have any firm numbers on current gold loans out, primarily from central banks.  I know this is an ongoing quest because central banks are notoriously reticent to providing any such details of their activities. 

We know leasing exists, we know the rates, we just do not know the details of the size of the market and the extent of the deals.

I found this column to be of concern because Ted is a very well respected analyst.  I read his columns regularly and like him quite a bit.  So I do not wish this to seem to be overly critical.  And I realize that it might seem that I am trivializing his argument, but this is the heart of it. 

Ted has been quite vocal in asserting that JP Morgan et al. have been manipulating the silver market based on what he has seen at the Comex.

But I did want to take the time to point out that a) gold leasing is not like lending out a specific object and b) just because something does not make economic sense to you, does not mean it is not happening.   His argument is not based on any new data, but rather dismissive of something because there is no 'smoking gun' available, only circumstantial evidence. 

These markets and this financial system is all too often the story of all control frauds and bubbles, and misappropriation of others people's money and goods.  Lots of things don't make sense to the rational, honest mind anymore.   Many of the financial deals that cities, counties and nations engaged in that cost their people hundred of millions of dollars made no economic sense.  But there they are.

The efficient markets hypothesis has been used to justify an enormous amount of financial fraud and bad policy decisions over the past thirty years. It is the mother of frauds, from MF Global to Enron to Madoff to the Housing Bubble.

These are smart and important men.  They are far too rational and god-like, your betters, to do things that you would not even think of doing.  They are 'the System.'

Given the extent of the frauds and riggings, I am often tempted to think these days that if there is money to be made at it, if it is being conducted in secrecy, and if it involves other people's property, people who are relatively unheard and powerless, it probably does exist.  But I prefer to stick to the facts, even if it is a plodding and sometimes frustrating path.

 

GATA was kind enough to provide this link to more recent news below.  What do you think they mean by 'actively managing their gold reserves?'   Moving the bars around and dusting them off?

 

If the world 'leasing' troubles you, think about OTC swaps.

 

Related:  Central Banks More Actively Managing Their Gold Reserves

Ted Butler's column of Nov 19 - Popular Misconceptions

"Gold loans are fraudulent through and through, because the real owners don’t get the proceeds when the sale is made and the collateral ends up with an unrelated third party who has no obligation to return the metal. But because they appeared to work for a while, otherwise intelligent people overlooked the obvious fraud and collected the benefits while they were available. Today, those tracking gold loans report the amounts of these loans outstanding are down 95% from levels at the peak around the year 2000. For me, I can’t figure out how even 5% of these loans could still be in existence.

That’s why I’m skeptical about all the talk of GOFO and gold lending as who in their right mind would ever loan or borrow metal under the circumstances I’ve described? There are few, if any, documented instances of specific loans and the parties involved or to the purpose of these loans. I suppose it might make sense to be a borrower if one intends to default on the loan, but that’s hardly legitimate. Likewise, I suppose a central bank might lease metal if there was an illegitimate intent to depress prices, but that couldn’t be discerned from GOFO rates.

Therefore, I think all the articles and commentary about GOFO are still goofy and unproductive. It seems akin to some deep debate by religious philosophers during medieval times about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I’m not trying to be insulting, because I believe there is a negative side to the current discussion about gold loans and lending rates that would be eliminated if the discussion ended once and for all. There is somewhat of a common denominator in the debate over gold lending in that most reporting on GOFO appear to be staunch believers in the ongoing gold and silver price manipulation. It is also well-known that those who insist that there is an ongoing manipulation in silver and gold (like me), are considered to be fringe conspiracy theorists. I think that is somewhat earned because so many who believe in manipulation tend to espouse other conspiracy theories (definitely not me). "