“There are many ways of calculating purchasing power by means of index numbers, and every single one of them is right, from certain tenable points of view; but every single one of them is also wrong, from just as many equally tenable points of view. Since each method of calculation will yield results that are different from those of every other method, and since each result, if it is made the basis of practical measures, will further certain interests and injure others, it is obvious that each group of persons will declare for those methods that will best serve its own interests. At the very moment when the manipulation of purchasing power is declared to be a legitimate concern of currency policy, the question of the level at which this purchasing power is to be fixed will attain the highest political significance.”

The above paragraph contains remarkable foresight considering that it was written by Ludwig von Mises way back in 1934 (it is from the preface to the 1934 English edition of “Theory of Money and Credit”). In particular:

1) There are now more ways than ever of coming up with a number that purportedly represents the change in money purchasing power (PP), with different groups advocating on behalf of different numbers depending on their agendas. For one example, the US government likes the Consumer Price Index (CPI), because its rate of increase has been very slow for a long time (enabling cost-of-living adjustments to be minimised) and because the calculation methodology can always be changed by the government if the result deviates too far from what’s deemed acceptable. For another example, the Fed likes the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) calculation, because it tends to be even lower than the CPI and therefore shows the Fed in a more positive light and gives it more flexibility. For a third example, at the other end of the spectrum there are the perennial forecasters of hyperinflation who are always on the lookout for ‘evidence’ supporting their outlook. This group likes the Shadowstats CPI, even though the Shadowstats calculation contains a basic error that makes the result unrealistic and leads to ridiculous conclusions regarding GDP growth.

2) The manipulation of PP is most definitely now deemed to be a legitimate concern of currency policy. In fact, it is generally deemed to be the primary concern.

3) The question of the level at which PP is to be fixed has attained the highest political significance, with senior policy-makers throughout the developed world having almost simultaneously arrived at the conclusion that 2% is the correct level for the rate of annual PP loss. As a consequence, economies and financial markets are now being constantly pummeled by central-bank interventions designed to ensure that monetary savings lose about 2% of their PP every year.

It would be nice if prices returned to being indicators of genuine supply and demand, as opposed to being the effects of the central bank’s latest attempts to make an arbitrary index of prices match an arbitrary target.

I have kept an open mind over the past few months as to whether the July-September decline in US equities was the first leg of a new cyclical bear market or a correction within an on-going cyclical bull market. There were hints that it was the former, but there was nothing definitive in the indicators I follow and the price action was consistent with either possibility. The jury is still out, although there has been a probability shift over the past couple of weeks. Before I discuss this shift I’ll do a quick recap for the benefit of blog readers who aren’t TSI subscribers.

During the first half of July this year I thought that there was almost no chance of the US stock market experiencing a bona fide crash over the ensuing few months, but — for reasons outlined in TSI commentaries at the time — I thought there was a good chance of the S&P500 Index (SPX) falling by 10%-20% from a July peak to a bottom by mid-October and that a put-option position was a reasonable way to trade this likely outcome. Then, when there was a discontinuity at the start of the US trading session on Monday 24th August with prices gapping sharply lower across the board, I sent an email to TSI subscribers saying that all bearish positions should be exited immediately. My view was that the 24th August mini-panic would be followed by a multi-week rebound and then a decline to test the low by mid-October, but regardless of what the future held in store the 24th August price action created a very obvious profit-taking opportunity for anyone who was betting on lower prices.

Subsequent price action could aptly be described as noncommittal. There was a successful test of the 24th August low in late-September followed by a strong rebound to a high in early-November, none of which was surprising. Also, this price action didn’t provide any important new clues, because I considered a successful test of the August low followed by a rebound to at least the 200-day MA to be likely regardless of whether we were dealing with a bull-market correction or the early stages of a new bear market.

I’ll now deal with the probability shift mentioned in the first paragraph.

Although I was keeping an open mind regarding the nature of the July-September downturn, if someone had held a gun to my head a few weeks ago and forced me to pick a side I would have chosen the ‘new bear market’ scenario. That is no longer the case.

The jury is still out and for practical investing/speculating purposes there is no need to pick a side, but the probabilities have recently shifted in favour of the ‘bull market correction’ scenario. Displayed below is a chart that illustrates one of the reasons for this probability shift. It is a monthly chart of the S&P500 Index (SPX) with a 20-month moving-average (MA).

This chart shows that once a bear market got underway in 2000 and 2007 and the SPX had achieved a monthly close below its 20-month MA, it did not achieve a monthly close above this MA until the bear market was over. However, in 2011 and again this year, a monthly close below the 20-month MA was quickly reversed.

If a cyclical bear market was in progress then the SPX should have weakened enough in November to give another monthly close below its 20-month MA, but it didn’t. Instead, it managed a second consecutive monthly close above this MA. This is a meaningful divergence from the price action in the early stages of the preceding two cyclical bear markets and is more consistent with the bull-market correction scenario.

There is other evidence to support the ‘bull market correction’ scenario, but, as I said, the evidence is not yet conclusive. In fact, in a TSI commentary scheduled for tomorrow I’m going to show two important indicators that support the ‘equity bear market’ scenario. Moreover, the bull market is ‘long in the tooth’, valuations are high and earnings growth (on a market-wide basis) is non-existent, so even if the long-term bullish trend is still in progress there’s a high risk that it will end sometime next year.

The following charts from www.sharelynx.com are referenced in an email that will soon be sent to TSI subscribers.

This post is a slightly-modified excerpt from a recent TSI commentary.

In the US, the commercial banks can create money and the Fed can create money. A chart showing the change in the US money supply therefore won’t directly tell us if the Fed was a creator of new money during the period covered by the chart. However, unlike the commercial banks, when the Fed monetises debt it boosts bank reserves as well as the money supply, which means that we can quickly identify the periods during which the Fed was a direct creator of new money by looking at a chart of the total quantity of US bank reserves. Such a chart is displayed below.

With reference to this chart, notice the huge rises in bank reserves during the periods labeled “QE1″, “QE2″ and “QE3″. These are the times when the Fed was directly creating new money. The downward/sideways drifts in bank reserves prior to the start of “QE1″, between the QE programs and since the end of “QE3″ are times when the Fed was not directly creating new money. The US money supply still increased during these ‘non-QE’ periods, but it increased due to the actions of commercial banks rather than the direct intervention of the Fed.

To put the 2008-2015 period into perspective, here is a chart showing the total quantity of US bank reserves going back to 1959. Notice that for decades prior to 2008, total bank reserves hovered just above zero. There was a lot of monetary inflation during this period, but almost none of it was due to the direct creation of money by the Fed.

As an aside, if you compare the above chart of bank reserves with a chart of commercial bank credit you will see that over the past few decades there has been no relationship between bank reserves and the quantity of money loaned into existence by US commercial banks. That’s why, as I wrote in a recent blog post (https://tsi-blog.com/2015/10/the-zero-reserve-banking-system/), it’s more realistic to think of the US as now having a zero-reserve banking system as opposed to a fractional-reserve banking system. Bank reserves are a throw-back to an earlier monetary system, when gold was held in reserve and receipts for gold circulated within the economy. It makes no sense to have dollars backed by dollars, especially since the quantity of dollars held in reserve in no way determines/limits the quantity of dollars loaned into existence or held in bank deposits.

An extraordinary situation can start to seem ordinary if it persists for long enough, so the main point I wanted to reiterate with the help of the above charts is that the past several years constitute a massive and unprecedented departure from the Fed’s traditional mode of operation. An implication is that the Fed’s next monetary tightening program, which may or may not tentatively begin with a tiny rate hike in December, will not look like any previous monetary tightening program. The “uncharted waters” cliche is now very appropriate.