In this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Adam and Charles Hugh Smith discuss:
- Market Turning Point?
- Weakness seen post-"taper" rumors
- Impact of Higher Interest Rates
- Kryptonite for most asset classes
- Gold & Silver's Terrible, No-Good, Very Bad Year
- Will it get any better?
With Chris on the road, I sit in to talk with Charles Hugh Smith this week.
With the unpleasant reaction to last week's FOMC minutes (which included a whiff of the dreaded "taper"), there was a technical breakage in the general market uptrend. If this proves to be the case, based on current support levels for the major indices, Charles thinks a correction of 20% could happen quite swiftly. He'll be looking for choppy volatility over the next few days/weeks as an indicator that the previously steady upward momentum has indeed been broken.
The FOMC announcement also saw a jump in interest rates, which began rising around the world in May. We are keeping our eyes closely focused on this development to determine if this could be more than a cyclical rise in rates. If not — meaning it's an end to the 30-year secular period of declining rates – then things are about to change dramatically. Rising rates are kryptonite to economic growth and pretty much exactly what the struggling global economy doesn't need right now.
When rates rise, almost all assets (bonds, stocks, real estate) need to be re-priced downwards. The impact will be felt across the spectrum in our cost of living. Charles
by oliveoilguy 
