Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post Reply
User avatar
Hal
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1349
Joined: Tue May 03, 2011 1:50 am

Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by Hal » Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:32 am

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/inte ... c-suicide/

So... if you live in a small economy, then some international diversification is advisable.

Take a bow Smithy => viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11920&p=223541&hili ... th#p223541
Aussie GoldSmithPP - 25% PMGOLD, 75% VDCO
boglerdude
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1313
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 1:40 am
Contact:

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by boglerdude » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:34 am

Chinas working age population is declining and they dont need your rocks anymore. But ofc asset prices cant be allowed to fall so you inflate and blame covid. Cuz of Straya I was skeptical of Dalio's cycles theory. You guys didnt have a recession for 30 years
D1984
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by D1984 » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:27 am

Hal wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:32 am
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/inte ... c-suicide/

So... if you live in a small economy, then some international diversification is advisable.

Take a bow Smithy => viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11920&p=223541&hili ... th#p223541
Why does anyone actually take this guy (Martin Armstrong) seriously? His cycle theory is almost pure woo and hasn't panned out.

On top of that, he is a convicted felon and served almost 11 years for fraud. If you wouldn't have trusted, say, Madoff or Skilling for advice on financial matters (and it goes without saying that you obviously shouldn't! ) why would you trust someone like Armstrong?

It reminds me of people taking Peter Schiff (and before him, his even nuttier dad Irwin Schiff) seriously despite him being wrong since at least 2006 and despite him making his clients less money (even before fees) than they would've gotten in a plain boring world index fund. Is it just because guys like this scratch the correct ideological itches to attract right-wingers and libertarians? Because it seems to me what they are basically doing is perpetrating a kind of affinity fraud on those very same right wing and libertarian leaning people who buy their books or subscribe to their newsletters or pay them for any kind of market advice; they are selling pure bunkum (if anyone--regardless of their political ideology--really could predict market cycles with enough accuracy and repeatability that they could do it more than once or twice he/she would be so rich that they'd have no need to sell or market anything to anyone) but getting people to pay for it by appearing to affirm those people's ideological priors.
Don
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 286
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 6:21 pm

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by Don » Sat Oct 30, 2021 10:35 am

Peter Schiff has been a proponent of gold all of this time so I wouldn't say that he's been "wrong."
User avatar
jalanlong
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 829
Joined: Mon Jul 01, 2019 7:30 am

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by jalanlong » Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:35 pm

D1984 wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:27 am
despite him making his clients less money (even before fees) than they would've gotten in a plain boring world index fund.
Gold has returned almost 8% annualized over the time period since 2006. I believe a World Stock Index fund returned the same (but with slightly worse drawdowns) during that same period. But regardless, following Schiff's advice on that has not exactly bankrupted you.
D1984
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by D1984 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:50 pm

jalanlong wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:35 pm
D1984 wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:27 am
despite him making his clients less money (even before fees) than they would've gotten in a plain boring world index fund.
Gold has returned almost 8% annualized over the time period since 2006. I believe a World Stock Index fund returned the same (but with slightly worse drawdowns) during that same period. But regardless, following Schiff's advice on that has not exactly bankrupted you.
1. Schiff has been beating the drum for gold pretty much all his adult life (or at least his life as an investment adviser). He has been in favor of gold (and gold mining stocks) whether it turned out to have been a good buy or not.

In October 2014 he called for gold to be above $2K soon; "it’ll go through $2,000 very quickly, and people will be upset that they didn’t buy gold at $1,700.” ( https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/20/the-pet ... tions.html ). It may be arguing semantics to question what "really quickly" means but FWIW gold actually took almost six years since then to hit $2K and even when it did hit that price it was only for a few days in the summer of 2020 and it has gone down since then

In October 2012 he was calling for gold to be $5K or more within "a few years" ( https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/20/the-pet ... tions.html ). Here it is nine years later and gold isn't even close to $5K.

In that interview he also predicted the US Dollar index (the measure of the strength of the USD against other currencies) would be "cut in half, at a minimum" (https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/20/the-pet ... tions.html ). In actuality the dollar generally strengthened against other currencies for the next several years; even today; the US Dollar Index is above where it was when Schiff made his prediction.

In August 2011 ( https://www.perthmintbullion.com/us/blo ... rices.aspx ) he was very bullish on gold. If you had bought gold then you'd have made less money as of today (Nov 2021) than if you'd put your cash in a high-yield online savings account or money market account.

In 2008 Peter Schiff predicted gold would hit $2,000 by 2009 and $5,000 by 2013. Suffice to say, it didn't. https://seekingalpha.com/article/172276 ... forecaster

In late 2009 Schiff called the rally since the March 2009 lows a "rally in a bear market" (i.e. a cyclical rally in a secular bull...implying that we were still in a bear market and the true bottom was yet to come); he also predicted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would fall another 90% from current levels when measured against gold. ( https://www.businessinsider.com/henry-b ... 000-2009-9). Needless to say, both of these calls were dead wrong.

Schiff has also issued occasional calls for hyperinflation since at least 2007 or 2008; obviously, that hasn't happened either.

Finally, Schiff's WORST call IMO was being "right but wrong" when (in 2007) he predicted a bursting of the housing bubble, a financial market crash, and a devastating recession.....but then had his clients in gold mining stocks, small and midcap energy and resource stocks, and small cap foreign stocks; all these did as badly or worse than US stocks did in 2008. He got the macro call (bursting bubble, financial crisis, recession) and the market directional call (a big decline and/or crash) pretty much dead-on target but his "solution" saw most of his clients lose between 40 and 70% of their wealth in the 2008 crash. If he had just told his investors to hold 100% gold they'd have done much better than they actually had investing with him (although to be fair if they'd held cash under their mattresses they'd have done much better than investing with him in 2008....or indeed pretty much better than investing in ANY stocks in 2008); finally, the asset Schiff most HATED (Treasury bonds...specifically long-term fixed rate Treasury bonds) provided some of the best returns in 2008 (and again in 2011, 2014, 2019, and 2020).

In all fairness, Schiff was in favor of gold from 2004 to 2007 which obviously was (in hindsight) an excellent call....but that's just my point...Schiff is ALWAYS saying to invest in gold (and gold miners, and other inflation-sensitive assets or assets that will benefit from higher prices and/or a weaker dollar). If one always predicts the same things and makes the exact same recommendation, sometimes one will be wrong and sometimes one will be right (stopped clocks and all that) but it doesn't mean that one has any special predictive power or investment/expertise skill (and managing to lose your clients more than the US market or world markets did as a whole in 2008 despite being 100% correct for once in your macro calls is an excellent example of this).

Schiff's main problem IMO is that his whole theory (imminent double-digit inflation and/or hyperinflation, dollar collapse, Austrian economics in general) is pseudo-scientific nonsense with no real basis in fact or in evidence. Sometimes he may be right but that's only because if you keep predicting the same thing over and over again no matter what you are bound to eventually be right a time or two.

2. A roughly 67% US 33% total Intl ex-US (which I use as an approximate simulation of total world since the total world index ETF doesn't go back quite that far) has yield around 1.05% a year more than gold since 1-1-2006 (albeit with slightly higher max DD than gold).

My problem isn't investing in gold per se (indeed, an annually rebalanced mix of, say, 15% gold and 85% the total world index above would've returned a higher CAGR, higher Sharpe, and higher Sortino than either portfolio alone above); my problem is that Schiff (and others like him) are fearmongering doomer goldbugs who come up with their investment theses based on an ideology that has its basis in politics and unproven theories rather than actual facts and evidence.
User avatar
Hal
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1349
Joined: Tue May 03, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by Hal » Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:49 am

We get a mention again ???
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/worl ... vid-fines/

and some pushback, but without a bill of rights, good luck with that.
https://www.rebelnews.com/kill_dans_bill
Aussie GoldSmithPP - 25% PMGOLD, 75% VDCO
User avatar
jalanlong
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 829
Joined: Mon Jul 01, 2019 7:30 am

Re: Martin Armstrong on Australia

Post by jalanlong » Tue Nov 02, 2021 9:29 am

D1984 wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:50 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:35 pm
D1984 wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:27 am
despite him making his clients less money (even before fees) than they would've gotten in a plain boring world index fund.
Gold has returned almost 8% annualized over the time period since 2006. I believe a World Stock Index fund returned the same (but with slightly worse drawdowns) during that same period. But regardless, following Schiff's advice on that has not exactly bankrupted you.
1. Schiff has been beating the drum for gold pretty much all his adult life (or at least his life as an investment adviser). He has been in favor of gold (and gold mining stocks) whether it turned out to have been a good buy or not.

In October 2014 he called for gold to be above $2K soon; "it’ll go through $2,000 very quickly, and people will be upset that they didn’t buy gold at $1,700.” ( https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/20/the-pet ... tions.html ). It may be arguing semantics to question what "really quickly" means but FWIW gold actually took almost six years since then to hit $2K and even when it did hit that price it was only for a few days in the summer of 2020 and it has gone down since then

In October 2012 he was calling for gold to be $5K or more within "a few years" ( https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/20/the-pet ... tions.html ). Here it is nine years later and gold isn't even close to $5K.

In that interview he also predicted the US Dollar index (the measure of the strength of the USD against other currencies) would be "cut in half, at a minimum" (https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/20/the-pet ... tions.html ). In actuality the dollar generally strengthened against other currencies for the next several years; even today; the US Dollar Index is above where it was when Schiff made his prediction.

In August 2011 ( https://www.perthmintbullion.com/us/blo ... rices.aspx ) he was very bullish on gold. If you had bought gold then you'd have made less money as of today (Nov 2021) than if you'd put your cash in a high-yield online savings account or money market account.

In 2008 Peter Schiff predicted gold would hit $2,000 by 2009 and $5,000 by 2013. Suffice to say, it didn't. https://seekingalpha.com/article/172276 ... forecaster

In late 2009 Schiff called the rally since the March 2009 lows a "rally in a bear market" (i.e. a cyclical rally in a secular bull...implying that we were still in a bear market and the true bottom was yet to come); he also predicted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would fall another 90% from current levels when measured against gold. ( https://www.businessinsider.com/henry-b ... 000-2009-9). Needless to say, both of these calls were dead wrong.

Schiff has also issued occasional calls for hyperinflation since at least 2007 or 2008; obviously, that hasn't happened either.

Finally, Schiff's WORST call IMO was being "right but wrong" when (in 2007) he predicted a bursting of the housing bubble, a financial market crash, and a devastating recession.....but then had his clients in gold mining stocks, small and midcap energy and resource stocks, and small cap foreign stocks; all these did as badly or worse than US stocks did in 2008. He got the macro call (bursting bubble, financial crisis, recession) and the market directional call (a big decline and/or crash) pretty much dead-on target but his "solution" saw most of his clients lose between 40 and 70% of their wealth in the 2008 crash. If he had just told his investors to hold 100% gold they'd have done much better than they actually had investing with him (although to be fair if they'd held cash under their mattresses they'd have done much better than investing with him in 2008....or indeed pretty much better than investing in ANY stocks in 2008); finally, the asset Schiff most HATED (Treasury bonds...specifically long-term fixed rate Treasury bonds) provided some of the best returns in 2008 (and again in 2011, 2014, 2019, and 2020).

In all fairness, Schiff was in favor of gold from 2004 to 2007 which obviously was (in hindsight) an excellent call....but that's just my point...Schiff is ALWAYS saying to invest in gold (and gold miners, and other inflation-sensitive assets or assets that will benefit from higher prices and/or a weaker dollar). If one always predicts the same things and makes the exact same recommendation, sometimes one will be wrong and sometimes one will be right (stopped clocks and all that) but it doesn't mean that one has any special predictive power or investment/expertise skill (and managing to lose your clients more than the US market or world markets did as a whole in 2008 despite being 100% correct for once in your macro calls is an excellent example of this).

Schiff's main problem IMO is that his whole theory (imminent double-digit inflation and/or hyperinflation, dollar collapse, Austrian economics in general) is pseudo-scientific nonsense with no real basis in fact or in evidence. Sometimes he may be right but that's only because if you keep predicting the same thing over and over again no matter what you are bound to eventually be right a time or two.

2. A roughly 67% US 33% total Intl ex-US (which I use as an approximate simulation of total world since the total world index ETF doesn't go back quite that far) has yield around 1.05% a year more than gold since 1-1-2006 (albeit with slightly higher max DD than gold).

My problem isn't investing in gold per se (indeed, an annually rebalanced mix of, say, 15% gold and 85% the total world index above would've returned a higher CAGR, higher Sharpe, and higher Sortino than either portfolio alone above); my problem is that Schiff (and others like him) are fearmongering doomer goldbugs who come up with their investment theses based on an ideology that has its basis in politics and unproven theories rather than actual facts and evidence.
To be fair to Schiff, as opposed to Ron Paul who really does keep all of his money in gold and gold mining stocks, Peter advises to also keep a healthy percentage in foreign stocks. His company runs one gold mutual fund but four international value and small company funds. So he is not really a collapse of civilization guy as much as a weak dollar guy. I agree that he and others like him do themselves a great disservice by predicting specific prices within a specific time frame. That is asking to be wrong. I know it doesn't get headlines to say that gold will go up dramatically "sometime in the future" but really that is what they should be saying Even if their economic premises are 100% correct, nobody can know how and when it will play out enough to say that gold will reach x price within x time frame.
Post Reply