Credit deflation and the reflation cycle to come (part 3)

[Frank Hovis]

16 hours ago, Democorruptcy said:

Have you seen the latest surveillance report? The infection rates are much lower for no vax, mandates don't compute?

 

Though as ever you can prove what you want with statistics.

I am not vaccinated and have taken one LFT because I, and everyone else attending a lunch, was requested to do so. It was negative.

People who are vaccinated IME tend also to be into regular testing as well.

I would therefore suggest that rather than those statistics being the killing argument it is rather that those unvaccinated who do not see this as any more of a threat than 'flu are not going to be testing when there are no symptoms so it isn't going to be picked up.

I have had 'flu (badly) twice and Covid (very mildly) once and in each case I didn't trouble the health service so per my medical records I haven't had any of them and don't appear in the stats.

 

The use of statistics has been appalling by the pro-vaccine brigade, 150k deaths indeed , so let's not join them in their lies.

[Democorruptcy]

8 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

 

Though as ever you can prove what you want with statistics.

I am not vaccinated and have taken one LFT because I, and everyone else attending a lunch, was requested to do so. It was negative.

People who are vaccinated IME tend also to be into regular testing as well.

I would therefore suggest that rather than those statistics being the killing argument it is rather that those unvaccinated who do not see this as any more of a threat than 'flu are not going to be testing when there are no symptoms so it isn't going to be picked up.

I have had 'flu (badly) twice and Covid (very mildly) once and in each case I didn't trouble the health service so per my medical records I haven't had any of them and don't appear in the stats.

 

The use of statistics has been appalling by the pro-vaccine brigade, 150k deaths indeed , so let's not join them in their lies.

I can see holes in that suggestion but this thread isn't the place to carry on about it. All I'd say is that I'd be fuming if my employer was producing stats like that and at the same time forcing me to get jabbed. I only posted in reply to @sancho panzapost about covid, in case he hadn't seen the latest update yet.

[DurhamBorn]

13 hours ago, JREWING said:

BP is struggling to break that 365p resistance. I've a big holding with my finger hovering over sell at times.

The div cut was orchestral in popping its SP and will act as resistance as there are far better options offering better returns in the market. Low div yield compared to BATS for example, low growth possible due to low yield for income. 

The murmurs of a windfall tax also adds to downward pressure on the SP.

If BP is making  huge Profit while households go cold, bills double, Loony faces backlash and will be under more pressure.

Its a political hot potatoe.

Interesting times.

Im not interested in the short term though,only the cycle.I dont know the days it will go up or down.There will be special divis and lots of them later in the cycle,but for now they will manage things as to not gloat.Im not a chartist etc so resistance etc are just words to me with no meaning.They should of increased the divi back up of course like Shell did before it got political.A windfall tax would be a disaster for the country.They would simply go to care and maintenance and pump from other fields.

[sleepwello'nights]

23 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

 

Though as ever you can prove what you want with statistics.

 

The numbers are generally correct with an acceptable margin of error. The distortion comes about by carefully selecting the numbers to suit the picture to portray.

The report we are discussing gives results for cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

Forget the cases because that is not the most relevant issue. Although it can be used to illustrate how many are infected and do not develop serious symptoms. How many are unique tests? How often are Starmer's tests included for instance.

The most distorted chart is the deaths. It only shows novax and double dosed. Where do they show the single dosed. Is it excluded or included with novax?

Either way it misleads the reader if it is accepted at face value.

The hospitalisations results are also misleading because a casual viewer is likely to assume that the result is for those hospitalised because of covid. Whereas it actually includes in the result anyone in hospital for an unrelated reason who coincidentally has a postive test result after admission.

Anyway I post about this to often on the relevant threads. Although it does support my trust in the way financial analysts use statistics to glean what is happening 

On topic the latest tranche of my ISA top up are all in the black. Within 6 weeks the gain before dividends is greater than the interest they would have earned in a year as cash on deposit.

 

[Frank Hovis]

3 minutes ago, Democorruptcy said:

I can see holes in that suggestion but this thread isn't the place to carry on about it. All I'd say is that I'd be fuming if my employer was producing stats like that and at the same time forcing me to get jabbed. I only posted in reply to @sancho panzapost about covid, in case he hadn't seen the latest update yet.

 

Yes, I will leave it there as it's only speculation on my part unless you have a genuinely representative sample.

However it is always good to think what factors lie behind the stats as presented.

I remember the glorious Brexit vote where Brexiteers had detected the bias of the establishment and their polls so either didn't answer them or answered them falsely.

This worked brilliantly as it lulled them into a torpor as they confidently expected that Remain would win so there was no last minute big campaign.

Had Jo Cox not been murdered the week before the vote and had the media not made great capital about this by lieing about what Thomas Mair said then the discrepancy between polls and votes would have even more stark.

[Democorruptcy]

8 minutes ago, sleepwello'nights said:

The numbers are generally correct with an acceptable margin of error. The distortion comes about by carefully selecting the numbers to suit the picture to portray.

The report we are discussing gives results for cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

Forget the cases because that is not the most relevant issue. Although it can be used to illustrate how many are infected and do not develop serious symptoms. How many are unique tests? How often are Starmer's tests included for instance.

The most distorted chart is the deaths. It only shows novax and double dosed. Where do they show the single dosed. Is it excluded or included with novax?

Either way it misleads the reader if it is accepted at face value.

The hospitalisations results are also misleading because a casual viewer is likely to assume that the result is for those hospitalised because of covid. Whereas it actually includes in the result anyone in hospital for an unrelated reason who coincidentally has a postive test result after admission.

 

Damn! You have drawn me back in with that comment about the death chart being distorted. If you look at deaths within 28 or 60 days, did you notice a column that was missing?

1 dose 1 to 20 days, 1 dose 21 days or more, 2 doses 14 days or more.

I noticed 2 doses 1 to 14 days was missing so emailed and asked about it. They put deaths after 2 doses within 14 days in the 1 dose 21 days or more. There might not be many but it obviously reduces the number of 2 dose deaths.

[Harley]

Macro is dead, long live covid! 

Maybe I can find some macro on the many existing covid threads out there on the internet? 

PS:  One begrudgingly good thing is finance orientated folk tend to give good commentary on data!

[Democorruptcy]

1 hour ago, DurhamBorn said:

Im not interested in the short term though,only the cycle.I dont know the days it will go up or down.There will be special divis and lots of them later in the cycle,but for now they will manage things as to not gloat.Im not a chartist etc so resistance etc are just words to me with no meaning.They should of increased the divi back up of course like Shell did before it got political.A windfall tax would be a disaster for the country.They would simply go to care and maintenance and pump from other fields.

Labour has called for a windfall tax on North Sea gas and oil producers to help limit the expected rise in household gas and electricity bills by £200

The party says its £6.6bn plan would also remove VAT on domestic energy costs for a year and increase the warm homes discount for poorer households.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told the BBC the UK was "uniquely exposed" to global energy price rises.

But the government said it was working to manage the impact on consumers.

And Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not ruled out taking steps to tackle the rising cost of energy, amid pressure from some of his own backbench MPs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59927575

[Harley]

Since we're playing with data.....

FYI, not investment advice, for discussion purposes only, DYOR; 154 potentially "value orientated" (my personal definition) common stock "opportunities" (my definition) for me to look at this weekend as follows (primary listings so no secondary listings, ADRs, etc):

Of course, those "at the bottom" could sink further!

The numbers as percentages of the available cohort stocks tell a somewhat different story but I'll stop there!

[DurhamBorn]

35 minutes ago, Democorruptcy said:

Labour has called for a windfall tax on North Sea gas and oil producers to help limit the expected rise in household gas and electricity bills by £200

The party says its £6.6bn plan would also remove VAT on domestic energy costs for a year and increase the warm homes discount for poorer households.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told the BBC the UK was "uniquely exposed" to global energy price rises.

But the government said it was working to manage the impact on consumers.

And Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not ruled out taking steps to tackle the rising cost of energy, amid pressure from some of his own backbench MPs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59927575

Energy companies are in the driving seat not the government.Reeves is as thick as pig shit.Notice she doesnt mention fracking.Polo's and woke left wing crap brought us here.The big north sea companies will just drop production if its taxed more and go on care and maintenance and the government cant tax the profits made in other countries.LNG cargo will go where it makes most profit and Asia will take it all if it can.The government and Labour have about 1% of the understanding of this thread on what was coming and what is coming.

The Centrica boss is doing a very good job though by keeping mentioning the green taxes etc.The whole industry needs to keep pushing that so the public understand why their bills are so high,go woke go broke.

[DurhamBorn]

28 minutes ago, Harley said:

Since we're playing with data.....

FYI, not investment advice, for discussion purposes only, DYOR; 154 potentially "value orientated" (my personal definition) common stock "opportunities" (my definition) for me to look at this weekend as follows (primary listings so no secondary listings, ADRs, etc):

Of course, those "at the bottom" could sink further!

The numbers as percentages of the available cohort stocks tell a somewhat different story but I'll stop there!

@Harley do you have any thoughts on Pheonix Group? .I have added a lot in the sector during the December sell off but i was thinking of also adding Pheonix.I bought a lot of Wetherspoons then and have a 15% profit and was thinking of selling half the holding.I cant seem to find in their accounts what percentage of their annuities are inflation linked and more the point how many are flat.Im avoiding most areas of financials but insurers should gain a lot from rising rates,outside of a BK and derivative bomb of course.

[Democorruptcy]

29 minutes ago, DurhamBorn said:

@Harley do you have any thoughts on Pheonix Group? .I have added a lot in the sector during the December sell off but i was thinking of also adding Pheonix.I bought a lot of Wetherspoons then and have a 15% profit and was thinking of selling half the holding.I cant seem to find in their accounts what percentage of their annuities are inflation linked and more the point how many are flat.Im avoiding most areas of financials but insurers should gain a lot from rising rates,outside of a BK and derivative bomb of course.

Insurers could start making a lot more out of health insurance.

[CannonFodder]

32 minutes ago, DurhamBorn said:

@Harley do you have any thoughts on Pheonix Group? .I have added a lot in the sector during the December sell off but i was thinking of also adding Pheonix.I bought a lot of Wetherspoons then and have a 15% profit and was thinking of selling half the holding.I cant seem to find in their accounts what percentage of their annuities are inflation linked and more the point how many are flat.Im avoiding most areas of financials but insurers should gain a lot from rising rates,outside of a BK and derivative bomb of course.

I had a look around March as SL fees are high for customers and could be a play. Good divi too.

I didnt invest as found it too convulted to understand their ops. Between client money and funds for life policies, that were invested in property funds, I was afraid property funds could do badly which could mean difficulties paying out insurance policies.

Essentially I couldnt understand it and one of my own rules is if I dont understand it, I dont invest in it.

Also the internal trading between those companies within the groups.

Probably is bargain of the century lol

 

[ThoughtCriminal]

15 hours ago, stoobs said:

In the same table it shows the death rate for unvaccinated is around 7 times higher than vaccinated.

It's called healthy user bias.

[Noallegiance]

Someone in the 'right' place gets it...

[CannonFodder]

1 hour ago, Democorruptcy said:

Labour has called for a windfall tax on North Sea gas and oil producers to help limit the expected rise in household gas and electricity bills by £200

A lot of the north sea assets been sold on from supers to small companies to operate and run down fields in decline or so I hear. Frees up capital for the big boys and eeking out and decommissioning not really their thing.

These juniors dont have deep pockets, and paying tax on profit before balance repays debt would hit some hard, certainly make it less attractive. Especially if only field.

The supers will continue to look elsewhere and continue to withdraw.

I feel this could lead to accelerated field closure, increased imports, less supply, job loss etc. The North sea is not what it was, and the golden goose is struggling to lay while mired in tax 

The analgy of a drowning man flailing around for any tax take to grab onto comes to mind.

Increasingly, I dont see this ending well. The gov needs to reduce outgoings not strangle to death a private sector weaken by covid, loss of manpower and supply chain issues

[DurhamBorn]

16 minutes ago, CannonFodder said:

A lot of the north sea assets been sold on from supers to small companies to operate and run down fields in decline or so I hear. Frees up capital for the big boys and eeking out and decommissioning not really their thing.

These juniors dont have deep pockets, and paying tax on profit before balance repays debt would hit some hard, certainly make it less attractive. Especially if only field.

The supers will continue to look elsewhere and continue to withdraw.

I feel this could lead to accelerated field closure, increased imports, less supply, job loss etc. The North sea is not what it was, and the golden goose is struggling to lay while mired in tax 

The analgy of a drowning man flailing around for any tax take to grab onto comes to mind.

Increasingly, I dont see this ending well. The gov needs to reduce outgoings not strangle to death a private sector weaken by covid, loss of manpower and supply chain issues

This is the stage on the roadmap where monetizing debt slows or stops,but governments cant accept it,or understand the new world they are in.At first they try to answer every problem with more spending,more bennies etc,but that makes the problem worse as workers then demand higher and higher pay at the same time as they cut back.

Another 6 months and there will be massive pushback against council tax etc.Green agenda is finished as well in its present form,though you wont hear it.

Brutal start to the cycle,but very enjoyable,and im looking forward to more dis-location.

[Loki]

4 minutes ago, DurhamBorn said:

This is the stage on the roadmap where monetizing debt slows or stops,but governments cant accept it,or understand the new world they are in.At first they try to answer every problem with more spending,more bennies etc,but that makes the problem worse as workers then demand higher and higher pay at the same time as they cut back.

Another 6 months and there will be massive pushback against council tax etc.Green agenda is finished as well in its present form,though you wont hear it.

Brutal start to the cycle,but very enjoyable,and im looking forward to more dis-location.

Thank you (And everyone on this thread) for your efforts in helping financial midwits like me navigate, understand, and benefit from all this

[CannonFodder]

I hope you are right

i.m not sure the general population equate increased taxes to cost of services.

Many of the general population simply dont understand the connection and think the gov should run a bigger deficit and print more. Or shaving 0.025 percent of foreign aid or some such will solve it. 

Their sense of entitlement and lack of critical thought could send us down the MMT route.

I.LL watch and learn and it will be interesting as you say. I.M just feel the stupidity of society is a serious risk here..

At least any revolution will be televised but I suspect the executions will be behind a paywall.

 

[Axeman123]

1 hour ago, CannonFodder said:

i.m not sure the general population equate increased taxes to cost of services.

I can picture the coming calls for tax cuts as well as wage rises for all public setor staff, both to help with the cost of living.

1 hour ago, DurhamBorn said:

This is the stage on the roadmap where monetizing debt slows or stops,but governments cant accept it,or understand the new world they are in.

You can see this in so many places just now. The undefined flat cladding solution announced late last week for example; no new money from treasury, flat owners not paying a penny, and a vague commitment to extract the full whack from the big builders through various forms of tax extortion. The same thing again with gas prices; no money from the treasury to pay people's bills, no more blood to squeeze from the ordinary Joe, and an assumption that Utility companies can swallow it under duress. The government is out of money, ordinary Joe is out of money, and now the private sector is in the cross-hairs.

[JMD]

4 hours ago, Harley said:

Since we're playing with data.....

FYI, not investment advice, for discussion purposes only, DYOR; 154 potentially "value orientated" (my personal definition) common stock "opportunities" (my definition) for me to look at this weekend as follows (primary listings so no secondary listings, ADRs, etc):

Of course, those "at the bottom" could sink further!

The numbers as percentages of the available cohort stocks tell a somewhat different story but I'll stop there!

I like Stock Exchanges. They will continue earning their fees no matter what, and some pay good divis, plus they are decomplex. Is that your thinking here Harley? However how to value them and what entry price to buy at is difficult, ie if we get a DH style meltup and crash with most global market sectors not recovering for many years, wouldn't the exchanges themselves suffer similar fate? ... Historical charts wouldn't show a tight correlation but my thinking is that under extremes the exchange price would be coupled with its own underlying market and follow it down?

[Harley]

4 hours ago, DurhamBorn said:

@Harley do you have any thoughts on Pheonix Group? .I have added a lot in the sector during the December sell off but i was thinking of also adding Pheonix.I bought a lot of Wetherspoons then and have a 15% profit and was thinking of selling half the holding.I cant seem to find in their accounts what percentage of their annuities are inflation linked and more the point how many are flat.Im avoiding most areas of financials but insurers should gain a lot from rising rates,outside of a BK and derivative bomb of course.

Not advice, DYOR, no responsibility, etc.

I had a quick look and was worrying why it had not come up on my searches (and if so, what else!).  Looks like it would pass my initial financial criteria but then such financial companies are somewhat different (e.g. the quick and current ratios) and further analysis is challenging (e.g. the cash flow statement).  Maybe the technicals weren't quite there, although they are very interesting.  If the recent pullback is a bullish confirmation of a new uptrend, then I'm sure they'll pop up on my radar soon.  If so, I'll look harder and wonder about the increasing amount of common shares outstanding over the years (with an increased float but a static number of shareholders) and the negative ROI and other profitability ratios.  But that yield is tempting!

PS:  You can get a limited number of free company reports on Simplywall.st.  But then there are also the technicals to judge any buying opportunities.  

[DurhamBorn]

20 minutes ago, Harley said:

Not advice, DYOR, no responsibility, etc.

I had a quick look and was worrying why it had not come up on my searches (and if so, what else!).  Looks like it would pass my initial financial criteria but then such financial companies are somewhat different (e.g. the quick and current ratios) and further analysis is challenging (e.g. the cash flow statement).  Maybe the technicals weren't quite there, although they are very interesting.  If the recent pullback is a bullish confirmation of a new uptrend, then I'm sure they'll pop up on my radar soon.  If so, I'll look harder and wonder about the increasing amount of common shares outstanding over the years (with an increased float but a static number of shareholders) and the negative ROI and other profitability ratios.  But that yield is tempting!

PS:  You can get a limited number of free company reports on Simplywall.st.  But then there are also the technicals to judge any buying opportunities.  

The common share increases are because they used to issue equity when they bought out old back books from other insurance companies,but it looks like they have around a billion now available so likely next decent sized deals wouldnt need shares to be issued.Main thing for me is how much is fixed annuity,how much inflation linked.If a large amount are fixed,could be some big capital releases down the road for shareholders assuming rates tick higher.

[geordie_lurch]

I missed this on the FT the other day but Zerohedge have picked it up here and it chimes in with this thread nicely - there's a whole "antiwork" movement going on in the USA and elsewhere so the pool of tax payers is shrinking fast

Quote

Doreen Ford spent 10 years working in retail stores in the Boston area and hated it. So in 2017, when Ford’s grandmother suggested that she give up her traditional job altogether and leverage her love of dogs to make ends meet, she went for it. Ford walks dogs part-time, but otherwise has not held a traditional job since and says she has never been happier. "Usually, at best, [working was] pointless," said Ford, 30, "and at worst it was degrading, humiliating and exploitative."

As a moderator of r/antiwork, Ford has overseen the community during a massive explosion of membership, which has ballooned from 160K in October 2020 to 1.6M at the end of 2021.

These numbers have become large enough to force Goldman Sachs' analysts to take notice: In a November note, Goldman warned that the "antiwork" movement might present a "long-run risk" to labor force participation.

Their numbers are sufficient to prompt Goldman Sachs to warn in a November research note that the antiwork movement posed a “long-run risk” to labour force participation. “I think there’s a lot of positions that just don’t make any sense, that do not have to exist,” Ford said. “You’re just pushing around papers for no good reason. It doesn’t really help anybody.” “Idlers”, as members of the antiwork movement call themselves, largely believe that people should strive to work as little as possible and preferably for themselves. Many who have stopped working say they operate their own microbusinesses, like Ford, or work as few hours as possible in part-time jobs in order to survive. Some take on roommates or raid dumpsters for food to reduce their cost of living, according to Ford.

And let's not forget the other side of the coin: the pandemic has been a boon for the retire early movement, which also could create serious problems for the workforce participation rate, as we explained just the other day.

EDIT Whilst I'm here I have also just read a great article I found in the ZH comments about someone new to me called Peter Turchin. It's too long to quote lots but basically he seems to have predicted the current issues back in 2010 as per this interview https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/ and the following seems to have some uncanny parallels with where we are currently at...

"The final trigger of impending collapse, Turchin says, tends to be state insolvency. At some point rising in­security becomes expensive. The elites have to pacify unhappy citizens with handouts and freebies—and when these run out, they have to police dissent and oppress people. Eventually the state exhausts all short-term solutions, and what was heretofore a coherent civilization disintegrates."

[Axeman123]

9 minutes ago, geordie_lurch said:

there's a whole "antiwork" movement going on in the USA and elsewhere so the pool of tax payers is shrinking fast

I think this is a marker of a top of some kind, an unsustainable extreme at the end of a long term trend of some sort, in the same way Argentina being able to sell century bonds a few years ago was. The vast majority of people will always need to exchange a significant part of themselves for financial sustenance one way or another; whether that is a significant % of their waking lives to toil, a few years of absolute max effort to get a scalable business of the ground and then personally throttle back, or their total focus on acquiring and maintaining a specialised and highly valued skill to enable part self-employment. The future isn't legions of self-sufficient dog-walkers etc, IMO.