Transcripts
Erik: Joining me now is Axel Merk, founder of Merk Investments. Axel, it’s great to get you back on the show. It’s been way too long. I’m really looking forward to this interview.
Let’s start with the high-level big picture of what’s going on – both the stock market coming off of its all-time highs, new all-time lows in bond yields.
Is this all about the coronavirus crisis? Or is the coronavirus just a catalyst that brought something else about?
Axel: Great to be with you. In this industry we always love to give a story to the action and, by all means, let’s fit that story, right?
Clearly, we’ve had a many-year bull market, stocks were at an all-time high – that may have been due for a correction according to many. And sure enough, we got a shock. And it helped us. And so, ultimately, does it really matter?
One of the things, if you’ve been around the block a few times now, is that there is a storyline that starts these things. And then these stories evolve. Remember in 2000 for example (or whenever you’ve had a crisis or a bear market coming), it starts somewhere. But then suddenly there are ripple effects that you don’t foresee.
Erik: Joining me now is Jesse Felder from “The Felder Report,” which, without a doubt, is one of the most popular subscription newsletters in the marketplace.
Jesse, it’s been way too long. It’s great to get you back on the program.
I want to start with the market because you have been a voice of reason for years now, saying, hey guys, it’s great that the stock market is making money for people. But it’s 10 years straight up. It’s too much, too far, too fast.
The question on my mind now, Jesse, obviously the COVID-19 situation is the proximal catalyst that’s caused the recent selling. But is this the extent of what’s going on? Or is it more likely the case that COVID-19 is the catalyst that was needed to bring about a change in market direction that might have been overdue to start with?
Erik: Joining me now is Fasanara Capital founder, Francesco Filia. And I always enjoy interviewing Francesco because, not only does he always send us a terrific slide deck, but it’s usually a big slide deck. So we won’t be able to get to all of the slides in this deck. I do strongly encourage our listeners to peruse the entire deck because it has some really fantastic content in it.
You’ll find the download link in your Research Roundup email. If you don’t have a Research Roundup email, that means you haven’t yet registered a free account at macrovoices.com.
Just go to our home page at macrovoices.com, look for the red button that says Looking for the Downloads? right next to Francesco’s picture on our home page.
Francesco, we can’t get into every single slide here, so I want to start maybe with Page 6, I believe, where you’re looking at the 50-year swap rate. Tell us what’s going on here and fit it in to the big picture of what you see in the market.
Erik: Joining me now is Ralph Delguidice, global macro strategist for Pavilion Global Markets. Ralph put together a terrific slide deck for today’s interview. You’ll find the download link in your Research Roundup email.
If you don’t have a Research Roundup email, that means you’re not yet registered. In that case, just go to our home page at macrovoices.com, look for the red button that says Looking for the Downloads? right next to Ralph’s picture on our home page.
Ralph, it’s great to have you on the show. I know that you are a regular listener. And I want to take advantage of that, because I know you’ve been listening to my interviews with Jeff Snider.
Something Jeff has said that just really threw me for a loop when he said it recently is he said, you know, really, we have to just accept that US Treasury bonds are not really an investment anymore. Big institutions need to have them as a balance sheet management tool, but they don’t make any sense as an investment.
And I thought about that after the fact. I thought, holy cow, what are all of the knock-on implications of the United States Treasury bond? You know, the full faith and backing of the United States government (cue the patriotic music), most safest, reliable investment on earth, and it’s not even an investment in Jeff’s eyes.
How did we get here? What does Jeff mean by that? And what’s the story of regulatory changes that have gotten us to this point?
Erik: Joining me now is petroleum geologist Art Berman.
Regular listeners already know it wouldn’t be an Art Berman interview without an Art Berman slide deck. You’ll find the download link for the Art Berman slide deck in your Research Roundup email. If you don’t have a Research Roundup email, that means you’re not yet registered at macrovoices.com. So just go to our home page at macrovoices.com, and look for the red button that says Looking for the Download? next to Art’s picture.
Art, it’s great to get you back.
Before we dive into your excellent slide deck, I want to start with the big picture.
First of all, I want to congratulate you. When we last had you on the show just before Christmas, you were getting very, very sharply criticized for an article you had just published called “The Oil Rally Won’t Last.”
And at that point we’re at $61. A whole bunch of people were saying, hey, we’re headed to $90. This is it, this is the big one.
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