THE SKEPTICAL INVESTORTM

Issue No. 16. January 1999

17.I.1999


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"An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principle and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative."
Ben Graham and David Dodd (1934) "Security Analysis."

Is a global recovery underway?

Being without my eyes and ears on the world (in addition to a computer crash I am also on the road) was unintended, but the break may have been fortuitously advantageous. When dealing with matters as complex as the global economy it is very, very difficult to maintain one's perspective. It can be hard to "see the forest for the trees" and easy to end up with tunnel vision. Sometimes stepping out of the forest for a while clears the mind.

Given the recent performance of American stock markets - up until last week anyway - I had been having some doubts about my overall analysis. Was there something crucial that I had missed? Might perhaps we really have seen the worst of the global economic crisis that began in 1997 (as stock prices in the USA suggest is believed by many investors there)? If the markets had indeed already bottomed out, then The Skeptical InvestorTM had "missed the boat."

But, after a few weeks of reflection and detachment, my core view has not changed. Indeed, my belief that the global economy has changed, fundamentally, and that we have already entered a major secular deflationary trend, has been strengthened.

The fact is that interest rates are falling at the same time that commodity prices and corporate profits growth are also declining. Adjusted for inflation, oil prices recently fell to such low levels that they rival those during the Great Depression. Canadian resource stocks - historically often used by investors to generate income during periods of low interest rates because they move in opposite directions - are doing poorly. Trends like this cry out "deflation ahead!"

The performance of the US dollar is possibly the single most significant sign that something very fundamental has changed. I have several times noted and emphasised the importance of the strong dollar:weak Yen relationship in understanding global trends. This previously well-entrenched relationship appears to have changed: last year the dollar fell significantly against the Yen and it stayed down. It has also, more recently, dropped against other currencies. At the end of 1998, the trade weighted average of the dollar was off approximately 10% from its highs. I have not yet had an opportunity to assess what this trend is going to mean, but it is certainly very important: likely it will eventually turn out to have been the single most important financial event of 1998.

Where are we?

In order to gauge where we are now, I suggest looking at the Canadian stock market instead of the American. At present it may be a better indicator of the fundamentals of the North American economy than the US stock markets because the latter have become so totally irrational that their behaviour is no longer indicative of anything much. The Canadian economy is very closely linked to that of the USA, which accounts for 80% of our exports and, I believe, about 60% of our total imports. The widely-watched TSE (Toronto Stock Exchange)300 Index may thus be viewed as a damped (due to socialism and confiscatory taxation) analogue of the broader North American markets. It almost always moves in the same direction as the DJIA and the SP500.

The interesting thing about the TSE300 is that, unlike its American counterparts, it has recovered from its lows in the second half of 1998, but has NOT rebounded to its peak. A glance at a chart of this Index will immediately show that its current recovery may easily be viewed as a "dead cat bounce" rather than a continuing bull run. Thus those who now believe that the new highs established in American stocks in the past few weeks reflect anything other than a, admittedly highly-aberrant, "dead cat bounce" perhaps should take pause. A serious decline in the TSE300 now may well indicate serious difficulties ahead on Wall Street.

To close, a Happy New Year and successful investing to all readers.


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Copyright © 1999 Max Moseley and The Skeptical Investor, All Rights Reserved