Eoin Treacy's view

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

As we wrote in our March 24 industry note, we see extreme monetary and fiscal stimulus leading to dollar deflation. In this environment, similar to the set up in 2008, we expect gold price to trade materially higher and we have raised our gold price forecast to $2,500/oz. With higher prices, gold miners stand to benefit from substantial margin growth, assuming that industry-specific cost inflation remains low. In our opinion, investors should be looking to build positions in gold-related equities that give them exposure to gold. In our experience, investors will gravitate to large-cap producers and select those with the largest annual production of gold. Investors will also look to published gold reserves (and resources) in the ground, and selecting those equities with the largest accumulation. While neither of these section methods is without its flaws, we have reviewed our coverage and aggregated this data. As we indicated in our January 30 gold industry note (“Strategies for Outperforming the Gold Miner ETFs”), we continue to recommend investors build a concentrated portfolio of our favorite names that offer gold leverage, but also minimize exposure to production interruptions and provide exposure to the M&A cycle that historically accompanies a gold bull market.

Eoin Treacy's view

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

This is not the time to worry about deficits” are likely to prove fateful words 18 months from now. The measures being adopted by the world’s governments, in tandem with their respective central banks, are sowing the seeds for future inflation.

That’s not a short-term risk because the velocity of money is at an unprecedented low but stimulus often proves sticky and any improvement in economic conditions is going to result in a surfeit of money sloshing around.

The Federal Reserve is not leaving any corner of the U.S. bond market behind in this crisis. There’s no other way to interpret the central bank’s sweeping measures announced Thursday, which together provide as much as $2.3 trillion in loans to support the economy. It will wade into the $3.9 trillion U.S. municipal-bond market to an unprecedented degree, can now purchase “fallen angel” bonds from companies that have recently lost their investment-grade ratings, and has expanded its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to include top-rated commercial mortgage-backed securities and collateralized loan obligations.

This is new and close to what I’ve argued for over the past year. The Fed’s facility will buy muni debt directly from issuers that’s sold for cash-flow purposes and matures no later than 24 months from the date of issuance. I had figured that for simplicity the central bank would make this available only to
states, but the Fed decided that in addition to states and Washington, D.C., it would also buy notes from cities with more than 1 million residents and counties with more than 2 million. The Treasury Department is making an initial $35 billion equity investment, and the vehicle can snap up as much as $500 billion of eligible debt.
 

Eoin Treacy's view

The buck has to stop somewhere and the support mechanisms announced following the lockdowns resulted in the burden of fiscal supports falling unevenly on different portions of the market.

Saudi Arabia and Russia ended a devastating oil price war on Thursday, agreeing to slash output together with other members of the OPEC+ alliance in an effort to lift the market from a pandemic-driven collapse.

The tentative deal came after strong pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump and American lawmakers, who fear thousands of job losses in the U.S. shale patch, not to mention Wall Street chaos. The price crash has also threatened the stability of oil-dependent nations and forced companies from Exxon Mobil Corp. to small independents to rein in spending.

OPEC and its allies, meeting by video conference, agreed to cut production by about 10 million barrels a day in May and June, delegates said, asking not to be identified ahead of an official statement. Saudi Arabia and Russia, the biggest producers in the group, will each take output down to about 8.5 million a day, with all members agreeing to cut supply by 23%, one delegate said.

“Both Saudi and Russia were going to have to cut anyway, and these cuts allow them to win political points too,” said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd.

While the headline cut equates to a historic reduction of about 10% of global supply, it makes up just a fraction of the demand loss, which some traders estimate at as much as 35 million barrels a day.

Eoin Treacy's view

The oil price turf war is over, for now, but unfortunately the cuts announced are not near enough to rebalance the market in the near term. The very fact the Federal Reserve supplemented its stimulus with an additional $2 trillion in spending today, only a week after the last announcement is a testament to how weak economic activity is, even if it turns out to be short-term in nature.

Eoin Treacy's view

State Street Global Advisors: Quantifying Macroeconomic Risk

Trust you are keeping safe in your home. Here is a bit more on Vitamin C worth reading. I have been taking 5000mg( sodium ascorbate) for years and I can’t remember getting the common cold or flu going back years. I have never had a flu jab. I am definitely a convert. I won’t bother checking the subject matter with doctors because these guys whilst they are good in their respective disciplines are not trained in the area of nutrition. 

And

IMPORTANT From a Respiratory Therapist Friend

They are calling on Respiratory therapists to help fight the Corona virus. I am a retired one, now too old to work in a hospital setting. I'm going to share some common sense wisdom for those with the virus, and trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given, you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator.

This applies to the otherwise healthy population, so use discretion,

(1) Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprofen, Advil etc. will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don't let fever go over 103. If it gets higher than that, take your Tylenol, not ibuprofen or Advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm, and cover up with blankets so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.

(2) The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature, so you must rehydrate yourself regularly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or Pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don't do this, and you end up in the hospital, they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors.

(3) You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis, if your wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste, and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower, and deep breath through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dilation and help loosen the phlegm. Force yourself to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.

(4) Eat healthy and regularly. Gotta keep your strength up.

(5)  Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.

(6) Deep breathe on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don't, it becomes easy to develop pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That's breathing in deep and slow; then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle. Blow until you have completely emptied your lungs, and you will be able to breath in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.  

(7) Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.

(8) If you have difficulty breathing, chest pain or pressure go to ER. Please wear a mask.

I've been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years, and I've kept them out of the hospital. All are healthy and still living today.

Thank you all for sharing this with family & friends. We gotta help one another.

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for this first hand account and we are all well. My girls are looking forward to getting off of online school for their Easter holiday. They are both in agreement online classes are the closest thing to make believe one might imagine. Either that or what they spend most of their time at school doing is a complete waste of time. After lockdowns end, I suspect the number of people opting for home schooling, at least in the early years, will surge.