“From a purely technical basis, the extreme downside extension, and potential selling exhaustion, has set the markets up for a fairly strong reflexive bounce. This is where fun with math comes in.

As shown in the chart below, after a 35% decline in the markets from the previous highs, a rally to the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement would encompass a 20% advance.

Such an advance will ‘lure’ investors back into the market, thinking the ‘bear market’ is over.”

So, is the bear market over? 

Are the bulls now back in charge?

Honestly, no one knows for certain. However, there are 5-questions that “Market Bulls” need to answer if the current rally is to be sustained.

These questions are not entirely technical, but since “technical analysis” is simply the visualization of market psychology, how you answer the questions will ultimately be reflected by the price dynamics of the market.

Let’s get to work….CLICK for complete article

We have never been through times like these, as the novel corona virus (COVID-19) ravages populations and economies across the globe. Globally, the disease continues to spread, although it looks like China has gotten past their peak. What many would view as draconian measures seem to be what it took for China to get past being the epicenter of the pandemic. The rest of the world has not reached the peak, so there is no end in sight for us in the Western world. There are many strategies, rules, policies, and protocols enacted to “flatten the peak” and each day, each hour, these rules get more stringent. We must escalate the fight…Click for full article.

An ongoing challenge to modern society is how best to identify who we are, and who are all those other people out there. We used to be able to carry a card in our wallet or purse that reliably identified who we are. We could carry a birth certificate, a driver’s licence, a passport, or some other government issued identification that included a photo, to assure everyone that we are who we say we are. As technology progressed so did the ability of those with nefarious intent to replicate those card or document based forms of identification. Identity theft is on the rise and it is something we all need to be aware of and take steps to prevent. Even with secret PIN codes and CHIP card readers, bank cards (credit and debit) have been criminally duplicated, and phony automated teller machines (ATM’s) have been set up to capture user info, like account numbers and PIN codes. Today, the costs of identity theft are significant – for individuals and corporations. It is very telling that in the last four months of 2019 the number of users losing secure control of financial accounts was up by…Click for full article.

For the better part of a decade, institutional investors have redeemed capital from active strategies and dumped it into Private Equity (PE). What’s the benefit of PE for allocators? You get to have levered equity returns without the volatility of actually owning public equities. Unlike stocks that often fluctuate wildly, PE is marked-to-model (M-T-M), hence quarterly volatility is minimal. Then, when there’s a liquidity event, you get to see how well you did.

Or at least, that was the theory. However, by the time of the liquidity event, usually someone else is in charge of the position. Meanwhile, you’ve used the nice smooth M-T-M to earn yourself a bunch of bonuses and maybe even a promotion to somewhere else that’s ring-fenced from your allocation decisions at your prior job. In many ways, the funds and the allocators themselves are both incentivized to mark the numbers higher and hope that they’re proven right…..CLICK for complete article

Just last year, on a day in July, impoverished El Salvador celebrated its eighth murder-free day in two decades. It’s not much cause for celebration unless you have one of the highest murder rates in the world–but you take victories where you can get them.  The 24-hour ceasefire was short-lived in more ways than one. This past weekend, upon the order of El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele, armed police and soldiers briefly stormed the nation’s parliament, demanding increased means for fighting gang violence.

Previously, President Bukele had demanded that opposition lawmakers vote to approve a $109 million loan procurement for his Territorial Control Plan designed to fight gang violence and restore a semblance of security to the country.

The opposition right-wing ARENA and leftist FMLN parties say they want more details on the spending plan before a vote. After legislators refused to gather to vote on the loan, which would provide better equipment to police and armed forces, Bukele called on supporters to converge on parliament.

They showed up with guns, offering a show of violence to express exactly how deep the need is to better fight violence…CLICK for complete article