The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Relief Rally Post-Midterms The elections are over and the Blue Wave was averted and the Dow Jones rose 545 points today to celebrate that fact and the NASDAQ was up 194 points, 2.64%; Russell 2000 up 26 points, about 1.67% .  Now you may be wondering why there was such a big rise in the stock market based on an outcome that was pretty much expected.  The Republicans lost the House of Representatives, and that was something that was widely anticipated by the markets.  But the loss wasn't that big; they lost 26 seats.  I think 23 was the number that the Democrats had to pick up.  But I think there was some concern that the Republicans may have lost the Senate - instead they actually picked up, I think 3 seats as of now, in the Senate - increasing their margin. This is only the third time in 100 years where that's happened, where you've had the incumbent party lose House seats but gain Senate seats. Obama's Midterm House Loss: 63 Seats But it is amazing that the press was trying to hold this out as some kind of repudiation of his policies: "You lost the House of Representatives".  Big deal!  Obama lost the house of Representatives during his first midterms in 2010.  That was one of the biggest disasters for an incumbent since Roosevelt. Obama lost 63 house seats. Not 26 - remember the Tea Party?  That was all 2010.  Trump did so much better than Obama.  In fact, the average loss for a midterm in the House is 37 seats.  Trump's loss of 26 was much better than average, but you wouldn't know that from listening to the Media.  But most impressive was the 3 seats gained in the Senate.  Barack Obama lost 6 seats during his first midterm elections. That's a 9-seat difference between what Trump was able to accomplish and Obama's accomplishment. Economy-Stimulating Tax Cuts Less Likely I think the reason that the dollar was weaker is the narrative is that since the Republicans no longer have control of the House of Representatives that it is less likely that we will get more tax cuts - at least the tax cuts that would be stimulative to the economy.  Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ An Advanced Auction on the Sale of Stolen Goods Tomorrow is Election Day, or as H.L. Mencken once described the process, "An advanced auction on the sale of stolen goods".  My wife has been bugging me for some time to urge people who listen to my podcast to go out and vote on Election Day. I think she's prepared to blame me if there are any close races, either for the House, Senate or even for Governor that end up going to the Democrats - if I do not urge my listeners to vote against that wave, somehow it will be my fault. So I urge all of the people who listen to my podcasts to actually go out and vote this Tuesday on Election Day. Lesser of Two Evils In most cases, our votes are not even going to matter. In fact in most cases it is a matter of voting between the lesser of two evils. Even though the lesser of two evils is still evil, it is "lesser", and when it comes to evil, I guess lesser is better. In some cases there are actually some good candidates who are running. Sometimes, however, when good candidates actually get elected and get into the cesspool that is Washington, D.C., a lot of the values that led them into politics go out the window if they want to stay there. You  can have good intentions when you get to Washington, you can be principled, and you can say, "I'm going there to make the country a better place" but ultimately once you get there, everything changes. Politics Ahead of Principle In fact, when it comes to elections, and politics, the worst candidate usually wins.  If you are a candidate or an elected official, and you are making decisions that are economically sound, and that are in the best interest of the nation or your constituency, and if your opponent is making decisions based on politics, which are likely to result in a larger number of votes, Which decisions are likely to land me money from special interests?  If you're campaigning on principle, and your opponent is a practical politician, who's going to win? Even if you win a few elections, you're eventually going to lose. And the politicians who are i office the longest, are most successful at putting politics ahead of principle.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes https://www.branddrivendigital.com/how-to-rate-and-review-a-podcast-in-itunes/ Futures Rallied after Drop on Apple News I want to get to the nonfarm payroll number. This is the big number, and, maybe, because the initial number was good, the market rallied. Although, I think the real reason that the market rallied in the morning is because we had a big rally in Asia last night. There were some rumors that there would be some type of trade deal between China and the United States, and when that rumor came out, everybody bid up these Asian stocks.  So the U.S. stock market, U.S. futures got bid up.  So initially U.S. futures were way down on the Apple news, but then, when this rumors came out about a trade deal, then the markets rallied. Hopes for Trade Deal with China Part of the reason that people wanted to believe that there might be a trade deal is because everybody knows the election is coming up on Tuesday, and maybe the President is looking to do something between now and then in order to: a) make the market rally, but b) be able to claim victory.  Like" aha! another deal like the USMCA - I got rid of NAFTA, and we have this new deal which is basically the same deal we had before, just with a different name, but he's able to pretend that he kept some kind of promise and now we've got a great deal,  Whereas the old NAFTA was the worse deal in the history of deals, the one that he's got, which is virtually identical, is the best deal in the history of deals. No Deal I thought maybe he would do something similar to that with China.  Come up with some ridiculous agreement that basically does nothing, then talk about how great it is… but apparently, not. Maybe they can still do that on Monday if they really want to wait to the last minute and come up with some kind of bogus deal… But people believe the rumors, but then this morning Larry Kudlow was on CNBC early in the morning before the open basically shooting that rumor down, saying there was no deal.    Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes https://www.branddrivendigital.com/how-to-rate-and-review-a-podcast-in-itunes/ The Bulls Had No Fear Today may be Halloween, but the Bulls had no fear. The U.S. stock markets closed higher today for the second consecutive day - the first time for the month of October. A lot of traders are probably happy that the month of October is over.  Despite the back to back rally, this is still the biggest decline in a month for NASDAQ since 2008. The Market Gave Back Gains Before Close In fact, the rally off of yesterday's lows, I think was better than 1100 points. We had this huge gain, and even though today, the Dow was up better than 200 points (241 points), it was up about 450 points going into the last hours. So we did give back a couple of hundred points of that gain, which, to me, looked pretty weak. The NASDAQ had a 2% higher close; it was up 144 points.  But you look at the Russell 2000 - much smaller gain there. That index up just a third of 1%. The Dow transports, they were barely positive. Not even 2 tenths of 1 percent - a 15 point rise in the Dow Transports. Bear Market Correction Nonetheless, all the Bulls were out in force on the financial networks claiming that the correction is over.  Everybody was confident that the lows are in; that this big back to back rally is proof that you'd better buy now, otherwise you're going to miss the rally, and this is a typical correction, and now it has run its course. You know what?  If this really was the "end of the correction", most likely, there wouldn't be so many people so confident that it was over.  You'd have a lot more fear, especially on a Halloween.  The fact that there is no fear, to me, shows that it is more likely that this is not the end of the correction but the beginning of the bear market.  And that this rally is the correction. In bull markets, the market going down is a correction, because the trend is still positive. In a bear market, it's the opposite: the rallies are the correction.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes Dow Swings More Than 900 Points Well we didn't have a Black Monday today, but we did have a pretty big selloff, especially if you measure the decline from the early morning pop to the late afternoon drop.  I think it was better than a 900 point selloff.  Earlier this morning the Dow Jones was up about 350 points, and I think halfway through the final hour, we were down as much as 560 points.  Now, we managed to recoup a good chunk of those late day losses in the final half hour, with the Dow down just 245 points. Just over 1%. The NASDAQ trimmed its loss to 116 points - 1.63%.  Of course, all the analysts are focusing on the fact that we didn't close on the lows!  "Hey, it's strong; look, we had a huge rally, impressive rally off the lows!" A Downside Reversal There was nothing impressive about that rally. This actually was a downside reversal. Remember we were all talking last week about the upside reversal that wasn't?  When the market was way down, and then it only closed a little bit down? That's not a reversal. Today was a reversal.  We were way up, and we closed way down. That is a real downside reversal, and that's far more significant than the meaningless, fictitious reversal that we had last week. Warning Signs Ignored Look at some of these individual stocks: Boeing, last week, which was one of the only Dow stocks that actually had a good day - remember it had better than expected earnings, and Boeing went up?  It was down almost over 7% today - Boeing getting killed.  IBM, though, a much bigger deal: down 4%.  A new 52-week low - multi-year low. This should have been a warning sign right out of the gate. It's kind of amazing that people ignored the news that came out over the weekend on IBM and they bought the market anyway. Red Hat Hail Mary IBM announced that it was buying a company called, Red Hat, and it's an all cash deal.  They are way over-paying for this company. Now IBM is the poster child for stock buybacks. And the fact that they are throwing this Hail Mary by over-paying for this company really shows you that time is running out.    Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Look Carefully at the Price Index The GDP number came out yesterday; 3/5% did slightly beat the consensus of 3.3%, but remember, for a while the Atlanta Fed was looking for a print in the 4's.  But the New York Fed was at 2.2%, so the print was much higher than what the  New York Fed was looking for.  But if you look at the internals, the biggest reason that we got 3.5% was because of the price index - the "deflator". Last quarter, when we had 4.2%, the government said that prices rose at an annualized rate of 3%. But in Q3, they said that prices only rose at an annualized rate of 1.7%. Calling B.S. on that Number Now I call B.S. on that number. I don't think we had that significant a slowdown in the annualized rate of inflation between the second quarter of the year and the third quarter of the year. If the 3% inflation rate had held steady, then Q2 GDP would have been just 2.2%. So, obviously not nearly as good a headline as 3.5%.  We'll see if they revise this thing down after the election.  Obviously the Republicans can still campaign on 3.5% even if it turns out that 3.5% was an over-estimate. Largest Trade Deficit in History I think new data is going to come out - particularly on trade.  Donald Trump is out there again bragging about how we're winning the trade war.  I talked about that.  That was the topic of my last podcast because we just printed the worse Merchandise Trade Deficit on a monthly basis in U.S. history. Trade Deficit Amounted to the Largest Subtraction from GDP in 33 Years The trade deficit was so large in the third quarter that it subtracted 1.78 percentage points from the GDP number. That is the largest subtraction from GDP that we have had from trade during a quarter in 33 years.  What happens, when you calculate GDP, you take government spending, you take consumer spending and business spending and then you add in your trade surplus or you subtract out your trade deficit. Now, since we never have a trade surplus, trade is always a net subtraction from the GDP.  Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Merchandise Trade Deficit Largest Trade Deficit on Record Today's rally had to overlook the bad news that came out today. I was watching CNBC this morning just before the news was announced and the anchor said, "We've got a lot of news coming out at 8:30 and I am going to go over the news items in order of importance. The first news item was the Durable Goods numbers (+0.8%), and then they went over the weekly jobless claims (202,000) and wholesale inventories (+1%). That was it. That was all they reported.  They left out the most important number that came out at 8:30, which was the Merchandise Trade Deficit ($26 billion - largest trade deficit on record). But as far as CNBC is concerned, the trade deficit is immaterial. It doesn't even matter what the trade deficit is. In a way, they are right. because the markets couldn't give a damn. People Don't Recognize that the Trade Deficit is a Bad Thing At one point in time, the trade deficit was the most important number that came out every month.  It was more important than the Non-Farm Payroll number. That's when people were smart enough to recognize that a trade deficit is actually a bad thing. But Donald Trump has made the trade deficit a big part of his Presidency. It was a big part of his campaign. You would think that maybe CNBC would consider the trade deficit important enough to even mention. If they were presenting the numbers in order of importance, at least mention it 4th, but they don't even mention it at all.  That's how unimportant the trade deficit is. Durable Goods Up Only Because of Defense Spending But the Durable Goods number that came out (+0.8%) was reported as a good number because it was a beat.  They were looking for -.5%. But the main reason that the headline beat was because of military orders - defense spending: aircraft.  But if you take all that stuff out and you just looked at core capital goods, they were looking at an increase of .5% and we got a decrease of .1%. So the only reason the number went up is because the U.S. government took on more debt to buy more military equipment.    Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ Bearish Signal So much for yesterday's dead cat bounce.  All of the U.S. stock market averages came plunging down today, in fact they all closed below yesterday's lows. So even though we had those big rallies off the lows, today, we lost the entire gain and closed lower than yesterday's low point.  That is is the most bearish signal you can get. Yesterday's Short Covering Remember on yesterday's podcast, I was not impressed with yesterday's rally. I thought it was a typical "reversal Tuesday" rally that should be ignored. To me, it looked like a lot of short covering, particularly if you look at the type of stocks that were being bought.  They seemed to me that they were the stocks that had a lot of shorts, so the shorts saw a big gap down and decided to take an opportunity to cover. But, when you have a lot of shorts who cover, that's actually bearish, because during the next decline, they are no longer there to buy. That's why this next decline could be particularly vicious.  I don't think the decline is finished; as I said, I think it is just getting started, unless the Federal Reserve is going to come in and change the nature of the game, Biggest Single NASDAQ Decline since 2008 Financial Crisis The Dow was down over 600 points today - 608 points. That is a percentage decline of  2.41%.  Of course there were a lot of stocks that did a lot worse.  Earnings today from AT&T - that stock was down just over 8%.  I think there were also some worries concerning the slow growth of subscribers at DirecTV, a recent AT&T acquisition.  Also, UPS, came out with disappointing earnings today. The stock was down 5.5% today.  Boeing might be the only stock that was positive today, up 1.3% - a beat. The fact that this was the biggest single day decline in Nasdaq since the 2008 financial crisis means that today's drop is larger than any point drop that we had during the 2008 financial crisis. You have to go all the way back to the bursting of the dot com bubble.  Something big is happening when you see this kind of drop. The market technically couldn't be weaker.  Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

RATE AND REVIEW this podcast on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PeterSchiff/reviews/ A Big Constituency of Highly Indebted People The fact that you have created this big constituency of highly indebted young people - they're like indentured servants. The government now loans them the money and now they are in debt to the government for the rest of their lives. But now the government can say, "Vote for me and we'll let you off the hook!" You Don't Have to Repay Your Loan as Long as You Keep Re-Electing Me Or they might have some other program where they do not completely wipe out the debt; maybe if you work for government for a certain number of years - maybe they will try to craft the program in such a way to make sure that these young people constantly vote for whichever politician promises to keep the wolves at bay: "You don't have to repay your loan as long as you keep re-electing me." It is another group of bought voters. Just like Social Security. Why does Trump want to pander to Social Security?  Why does he want to say, "We're never going to cut Social Security."? He wants all the people who are on Social Security to vote for him, or to vote Republican. At Least the Democrats Say the Rich Are Going to Pay for It No one wants to take anything from anybody. Nobody wants to give anybody the bad news.  Trump wants to be all things to all people. Everybody gets everything; no one has to sacrifice.  No one has to pay. Everybody eats free lunch - no one has to cook it. At least the Democrats say the rich are going to pay for it.  Trump says nobody's going to pay for it. It's all going to magically appear because of this booming economy which isn't even booming. At least the Democrats' lie seems a little more believable. They are not saying the money's coming from nothing, it's coming from these rich people who are lucky enough to have all this money and we can just take this money from them - they're not going to miss it because they don't need it anyway, and somehow it's enough for everybody to have everything that they want.  Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rate and Review This Podcast on iTunes Overwhelming Evidence of a Weakening Economy The Dow Jones was the only one of the major indexes to close the day higher.  The S&P was down slightly, we had larger declines in the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000.  More importantly than the movements that we've just seen on the day, or even the week, look at what's happened thus far during the month of October, which I had been warning on my podcast. It looked like there could be a weak October, given where we were in the market, given how ridiculous the sentiment was in the face of overwhelming evidence that the economy was weakening Russell 2000 Down 9.2% If you look at the numbers, the Dow Jones is down 3.8% so far on the month. That's the best performing of the averages. The S&P, down about 4.7% on the month, Nasdaq Composite down 7.4%; the transport down 8.3% and the Russell 2000 - 9.2% decline. Remember, the Russell 2000 is where everybody wanted to buy. Earlier last month the talk was that you needed to be in the Russell 2000 because the rest of the world was in trouble, you needed a safe haven from all the turmoil around the world, that the U.S was going to win the trade war, and of course, the companies that had the least vulnerabilities to the trade war were the domestic companies that weren't multinational and those are the companies that you would find in the Russell 2000. Small-company U.S. stocks - so people were piling in. Those are the stocks that have done the worst. Down 9.2% on the month. Gold, Gold Stocks Up; Bond Yields Continue to Rise While stocks were going down, gold was going up. Gold is up about 3% so far during the month of October.  Gold stocks doing even better - GDX and GDXJ each up about 8% so far on the month. Bond yields continue to rise; they were higher today; higher on the week; higher on the month and as bond yields are rising, the dollar is also rising, but ever so slightly. We're not seeing that much of a gain in the dollar. But ultimately, the dollar is going to turn around when people finally what should have been obvious all along: that the U.S. economy is not nearly as strong as is generally believed. It is certainly not as strong as the Federal Reserve is claiming. Markets Fall as Fed Shrinks Balance Sheet The FOMC minutes were out earlier  this week and once again, the Fed is displaying extreme confidence in the U.S. economy as it continues to maintain its stance that it will continue to raise interest rates; that it is going to continue with its plan to shrink its balance sheet.  Of course that is the real reason that the markets continue to fall.  The Fed continues to threaten the markets with higher interest rates. When You're in a Bear Market, You Don't Need an Excuse for the Market to Go Down Yesterday, we had a pretty big drop in the markets intra-day; the Dow surrendered some gains and a lot of the people in the media were trying to figure out what was to blame.  They were pointing to speeches that Larry Kudlow made where he was talking tough against China or Trump talking tough or even European Union getting tough with Italy - I forget all the various excuses. But, you know what? the market would have probably fallen even if none of those things had happened. When y0u're in a bear market, and I think there's a very good chance we're in a bear market, you don't need an excuse for the market to go down. The market just goes down.  Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy