The Collapse That Will Change A Generation ?

Is it really surprising that a man whose entire career is built around commodity investing is bullish on commodities? It's not an opinion, it's a sales pitch. There's no information there that the market is not already aware of.
 
I'm basically taking the opposite position, I bought the dip of the US. I think the most likely scenario is Trump caves, there's a reasonable deal and things go back to closer to normal than collapse of the US.

Aside from this, I think the debt & deficit is a real problem for the US gov - I've seen this coming for years, but that's more of a reason not to hold dollar denominated assets than US companies. There's probably no way out of that except inflation.
 
My humble opinion is that WW1 was effectively a clash of empires.
WWII was the continuation of that clash of empires with additional empires colliding into the mix.

I now think it is reasonable that the empires, US and its Allies, are clashing with the empire of old, Russia, the empire of China, and the emerging interests of BRICS and other African nations.

I say, skip the war, and go straight to negotiating a new international order?
 
Sister Sara said:
I now think it is reasonable that the empires, US and its Allies, are clashing with the empire of old, Russia, the empire of China, and the emerging interests of BRICS and other African nations.
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The US isn't an empire its an economic and military power (despite Trump's fantasies ) , China isn't an empire either its a huge economic power but it hasn't done any imperial stuff in many centuries, in fact it was the victim of imperialism itself from both Russia and Japan, Russia isn't an empire either (despite Putin's fantasies) in fact the Russian empire collapsed in WW1 like the Ottamons and Austro hungarian ones. Russia merely replaced imperialism with communism and then that collapsed itself in 1989. As for the rest of the "Brics" they have yet to show a coherency and cooperation with each other they all have a fierce distrust of each other
 
@joe sod Thanks Joe.

I suppose I'm coming from the school of general relativity.

I agree with most of what you say, it's all fantasy.

Or more profoundly, a bizarre incapability of human beings to understand none of us are fighting with each other.

Its just bad leadership.

And in fairness to leaders, bad communications from the ground up.
 
joe sod said:
China isn't an empire either its a huge economic power but it hasn't done any imperial stuff in many centuries,
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I am not sure China's neighbours would agree about them not doing any "imperial stuff". Land and maritime borders are continually being challenged - aggressively. The Tibetans and the Uyghers might also (silently) dissent from this opinion. Both of their large territories are being increasingly settled (colonized?) by Han Chinese and dissent suppressed.

joe sod said:
The US isn't an empire its an economic and military power (despite Trump's fantasies )
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The US doesn't like to use the term empire - but it has all the features. The territories of the West were conquered by ruthlessly banishing, suppressing and/or slaughtering the native peoples. It launched and fought a war with Mexico in the 1840s and seized approx 1/3 of their territory. Similarly with the war with Spain in the 1890s after which most of the Spanish overseas territories were seized (not liberated) - The Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and more. Cuba became "a Protectorate" - for a time. Other territories that have been "incorporated" include American Samoa, The US Virgin Isles and The Marianas. The US also maintains about 800 overseas military bases. And not to ignore the coups in South America and elsewhere that have been engineered by US agencies to install "friendly" governments.

joe sod said:
Russia isn't an empire either (despite Putin's fantasies)
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Russia is doing "imperial stuff" in Ukraine and making threatening noises towards the Baltic States. Putin has been fairly "imperialy" too towards Chechnia and Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and Russia still keeps troops stationed in Moldova (Transnistria). Belarus maintains at least nominal independence by staying deferential and obedient. Current Russia does not seem that much different from pre-WW1 imperial Russia - smaller, yes, but keenly looking to reverse that.
 
Yes Russia is trying to go back down the imperial route again under putin after it's communism experience failed. However it looks like it is no longer powerful enough to achieve it, it needs a compliant west and a stand offish China for any type of success. So far they haven't achieved much because even half hearted western help for Ukraine has been enough to thwart those goals.
In other words Russia is no state to pursue a confrontation with the west, it's alot less powerful now than it was in 2022
 
It's good that trump has pulled back alot lately from tariffs and the stock markets have largely recovered again. Even Trump as bad as he is is many times better that putin or Xi because he has to respond to public and financial pressures, that shows the inherent strengths of western democracies. Look at putin, he has destroyed russian economy, has a million casualties from Ukraine war and nobody can remove him or impose pressures on him from within. In fact the only thing they is forcing putin hand is outside pressures from those "weak democracies " and that small guy in Kyiv.
 
ronaldo said:
Is it time to change the thread title to "The Collapse That Will Change A Month?" yet?
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I see the US 10-Year bond yield breached 4.5% yesterday with the dollar simultaneously falling so I think it's a bit early to claim victory yet. 4.5% was the breach that caused Donald to put the 90 day pause on his liberation day tariffs. So there's a lot more to play out. Wait for the May US CPI figures which I believe will show an uptick in US inflation due to tariffs. Highly likely that the current quarter growth will be negative indicating the US is already in recession.
 
A wise investor once said.If we look at the past say last 50 or 100 years in the market we can see glimmers of the future and if you sell when stocks are down all you are doing is turning a temporary loss into a permanent one.!!
 
DK123 said:
A wise investor once said.If we look at the past say last 50 or 100 years in the market we can see glimmers of the future and if you sell when stocks are down all you are doing is turning a temporary loss into a permanent one.!!
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Agreed but the US market is back near it's all time highs with a CAPE Shiller ratio of 36 meaning it's massively overvalued. Add to that the US deficit and 125% of GDP debt (with a further 300% GDP of unfunded liabilities Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) and an aging population and a birth rate way less than 2.1. The US will continue to grow its deficit under Trump and US interest rates/bond coupons will rise to the norm of above 5% which will only cause the US more pain in refinancing its national debt and increase its budget deficit. Add to that noises from the treasury secretary of a soft default on US treasury bond coupons for foreign investors. The dollar can only go down in the medium/long term and the US will be forced to print money. All this tells me that US stocks are not a good bet at the moment and with the recovery bounce you have an excellent opportunity to offload and rebalance to rest of the world equities.
 
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Flybytheseat said:
CAPE Schiller ratio of 35 meaning it's massively overvalued.
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What is the CAPE Schiller ratio and why does it equating to a value of 35 categroically mean that the US stock market id massively "overvalued".

Can you explain all of this please as its a big assertion.
 
Sorry, its probably me, I just dont understand this.

What do you mean by avg value and over what length of time? So its currently well above average, is what I am hearing.

Not sure how this reconciles to the categoric assertion that its overvalued. The fact is its just well above its historical average.

it may be overvalued, it may not be. Thats the truth of it.
 
You can get lots of great information on this site but it also pays to read around or simply get watching a bunch of YouTube videos. Some channels explain things really well and back up explanations with visual queues such as helpful charts.
 
"an aging population and a birth rate way less than 2.1."

This applies to Canada, Europe, Oz/Nz, and most of Asia as well.
 
I am not sure I see a collapse of US equities. Yet I do see trouble.

A stagnant middle class signals a society losing its spark. As a mid-30s professional who traveled to the U.S. monthly for years, I’ve seen the US role-model status fade. Fifteen years ago, when I was leaving education, America inspired nations and individuals. Today, crime, opioids, a broken healthcare system, and homelessness mar its cities. US politics is broken. National debt exceeds 120% of GDP. Political gridlock stalls solutions. The West’s middle class, the backbone of prosperity, hasn’t grown in two decades, or is even declining.

Meanwhile, Asia and the Middle East are rising fast. Asia’s share of global GDP jumped from about 30 % in 2000 to 50% now. Places like Singapore and the UAE project ambition. Trump understands this - hence his "1 trillion USD" trip to Saudi, Qatar, and UAE earlier this month.

In 15 years, my young family will be more likely to look east than west "to make it". That is sad - as it reflect the state of capitalist democracy, which despite all its strengths seems to be in need of repair. My own investment's geographical diversification is only increasing.
 
presidenttttt said:
Places like Singapore and the UAE project ambition. Trump understands this - hence his "1 trillion USD" trip to Saudi, Qatar, and UAE earlier this month.
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I think this is giving Trump too much credit, there’s no grand inspiring leadership vision there - they have money, I can enrich myself is about the height of it. I mean, the guy took home a retirement gift of a €400m 747!

This is why I worry for America. Beating up on education is not a path to long-term success, never has been, never will be. And the increasingly uncritical-thinking electorate have elected this guy not once but twice. Carl Sagan’s foreboding vision in real-time. Were it not for globally-focused big-tech companies, where would their stock markets be?
 
conor_mc said:
Were it not for globally-focused big-tech companies, where would their stock markets be?
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This is the key issue here. Presidentttt's gloomy prognistications focus on depressed conditions in, and depressing characteristics of, the US domestic market. But a company's share price is not really affected by the conditions and characteristics of the market in which it is headquartered, or where its shares are listed and traded. Share price is much more affected by the conditions and characteristics of the markets into which it sells its products and services. The more global, the more multinational, the more diversified the sales of a US-based or US-listed company are, the less the stock price is affected by domestic conditions in the US.

Apple, for example earns 35% of its revenues in the US. That's not trivial, but it leaves 65% of revenues earned in the rest of the world, including in the growing Middle Eastern and Asian markets to which Presidentttt posts.

And, interestingly, Samsung earns 39% of its revenues in the US, meaning that Samsung, a Korean company, is actually (slightly) more exposed to the US domestic market than Apple is. Which underlines the point that it's not a given that US-based companies, or US-listed companies, are more exposed to the US market than non-US companies. In so far as US domestic conditions do pose a threat to investment returns, it's not a threat you avoid by investing in non-US markets.

Something similar is true, incidentally, for all the world's major stock markets. The companies that make up the FTSE 100 index, for example, derive a surprisingly small share of their revenue in the UK (though I cannot offhand recall what that share is).
 
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