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Dollar

by Adam Taggart

Executive Summary

If you have not yet read Part 1: Fortunes Will Be Made & Lost When Capital Flees To Safety available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

So, given the conclusions in Part 1 — as well as the larger risks to the economy and financial markets that we analyze daily here at Peak Prosperity — how am I positioning my own personal investments?

I get asked this question often. Often enough that I'm deciding to open the kimono here and let it drop to the ground. Everyone interested to look will get the full frontal.

Before I do though, let me make a few things absolutely clear. This is NOT personal financial advice. The investment choices I've made are based on my own unique situation, financial goals and risk tolerance. And I may change these choices at any moment given new market developments. What's appropriate for me may not be for you, so DO NOT blindly duplicate what I'm doing.

As always, we recommend working with a professional financial adviser to build an investment plan customized to your own needs and objectives. (If you do not have a financial adviser or do not feel comfortable with your current adviser's expertise in the market risks we discuss here at PeakProsperity.com, consider scheduling a free consultation with our endorsed adviser)

Suffice it to say, any investment ideas sparked by this report should be reviewed with your financial adviser before taking any action. Am I being excessively repetitive here in order to drive this point home? Good…

OK, with that out of the way, let's get started. I'll walk through the asset classes I own and my rationale for holding each.

The strategy behind my portfolio allocation is of my own devise, though it has been influenced in no small part by the good folks at New Harbor Financial, Peak Prosperity's aforementioned endorsed financial adviser.

At a high level, it has been constructed to address my strongly-held conclusions that:

  • Prices of most asset classes are dangerously overvalued
  • The risk of another economic contraction on par with (or greater than) the Great Recession within the next 2-4 years is uncomfortably high
  • The most likely path is we will experience a short period of coming deflation, followed soon after by one of high inflation as central banks starting printing currency without restraint (the Ka-POOM theory)
  • Capital will increasingly want to flow from paper assets (tertiary wealth) into tangible ones (primary and secondary wealth)
  • This is a time to prioritize protecting capital (defense) over speculating on how to grow it (offense)
  • Diversification is wise: just be emotionally prepared that some of your bets, by definition, will not pay off
  • In today's world of financial repression, no asset class is truly "safe". As such, asset performance is all relative.

This is not a swing-for-the-fences portfolio. It's much more of a prepare-for-the-storm approach…

How My Personal Portfolio Is Positioned Right Now
PREVIEW by Adam Taggart

Executive Summary

If you have not yet read Part 1: Fortunes Will Be Made & Lost When Capital Flees To Safety available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

So, given the conclusions in Part 1 — as well as the larger risks to the economy and financial markets that we analyze daily here at Peak Prosperity — how am I positioning my own personal investments?

I get asked this question often. Often enough that I'm deciding to open the kimono here and let it drop to the ground. Everyone interested to look will get the full frontal.

Before I do though, let me make a few things absolutely clear. This is NOT personal financial advice. The investment choices I've made are based on my own unique situation, financial goals and risk tolerance. And I may change these choices at any moment given new market developments. What's appropriate for me may not be for you, so DO NOT blindly duplicate what I'm doing.

As always, we recommend working with a professional financial adviser to build an investment plan customized to your own needs and objectives. (If you do not have a financial adviser or do not feel comfortable with your current adviser's expertise in the market risks we discuss here at PeakProsperity.com, consider scheduling a free consultation with our endorsed adviser)

Suffice it to say, any investment ideas sparked by this report should be reviewed with your financial adviser before taking any action. Am I being excessively repetitive here in order to drive this point home? Good…

OK, with that out of the way, let's get started. I'll walk through the asset classes I own and my rationale for holding each.

The strategy behind my portfolio allocation is of my own devise, though it has been influenced in no small part by the good folks at New Harbor Financial, Peak Prosperity's aforementioned endorsed financial adviser.

At a high level, it has been constructed to address my strongly-held conclusions that:

  • Prices of most asset classes are dangerously overvalued
  • The risk of another economic contraction on par with (or greater than) the Great Recession within the next 2-4 years is uncomfortably high
  • The most likely path is we will experience a short period of coming deflation, followed soon after by one of high inflation as central banks starting printing currency without restraint (the Ka-POOM theory)
  • Capital will increasingly want to flow from paper assets (tertiary wealth) into tangible ones (primary and secondary wealth)
  • This is a time to prioritize protecting capital (defense) over speculating on how to grow it (offense)
  • Diversification is wise: just be emotionally prepared that some of your bets, by definition, will not pay off
  • In today's world of financial repression, no asset class is truly "safe". As such, asset performance is all relative.

This is not a swing-for-the-fences portfolio. It's much more of a prepare-for-the-storm approach…

by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

  • Other currencies are inflating faster than the USD
  • The USD is still backed by a preponderance of the world's assets
  • The potential for a global currency crisis is rising
  • Why USD will be the (initial) safe haven when it arrives

If you have not yet read Part 1: How Much Higher Can The U.S. Dollar Go?, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part 1, we reviewed the technical evidence in support of a second move higher in a multi-year U.S. dollar rally. Here in Part 2, we ask: What conditions might drive such a move higher?

To answer this question, let’s start with another question: What’s scarce in the world of foreign exchange (FX)?

We ask this because capital, profits and gains flow to what’s scarce and in demand. This boils down to supply and demand: gains go to whatever is in high demand and scarce, and whatever is not in demand and over-supplied will lose value.

Supply and Demand

Like every other commodity, currencies respond to supply and demand: whatever currency is scarce and in demand will rise, while currencies that are in oversupply and not in demand will decline.

Though many presume the world is awash in dollars as a result of Federal Reserve quantitative easing, the reality is that expansion of USD via bank loans (credit) and Fed money-creation is modest compared to the expansion of other global currencies such as China’s renminbi (RMB), a.k.a. yuan.

Consider this chart of bank credit expansion in the U.S. and in China since the onset of the “Great Recovery” in early 2009: China’s bank credit has soared by 260%, a sum that is roughly 140% of China’s entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while U.S. bank credit rose by a modest 12% of U.S. GDP.

 

If we compare M2 money supply, we find…

Why The Coming Currency Crisis Will Push The USD Higher
PREVIEW by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

  • Other currencies are inflating faster than the USD
  • The USD is still backed by a preponderance of the world's assets
  • The potential for a global currency crisis is rising
  • Why USD will be the (initial) safe haven when it arrives

If you have not yet read Part 1: How Much Higher Can The U.S. Dollar Go?, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part 1, we reviewed the technical evidence in support of a second move higher in a multi-year U.S. dollar rally. Here in Part 2, we ask: What conditions might drive such a move higher?

To answer this question, let’s start with another question: What’s scarce in the world of foreign exchange (FX)?

We ask this because capital, profits and gains flow to what’s scarce and in demand. This boils down to supply and demand: gains go to whatever is in high demand and scarce, and whatever is not in demand and over-supplied will lose value.

Supply and Demand

Like every other commodity, currencies respond to supply and demand: whatever currency is scarce and in demand will rise, while currencies that are in oversupply and not in demand will decline.

Though many presume the world is awash in dollars as a result of Federal Reserve quantitative easing, the reality is that expansion of USD via bank loans (credit) and Fed money-creation is modest compared to the expansion of other global currencies such as China’s renminbi (RMB), a.k.a. yuan.

Consider this chart of bank credit expansion in the U.S. and in China since the onset of the “Great Recovery” in early 2009: China’s bank credit has soared by 260%, a sum that is roughly 140% of China’s entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while U.S. bank credit rose by a modest 12% of U.S. GDP.

 

If we compare M2 money supply, we find…

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