The Four stages of a bear market ~ expect dashed hopes

Our starting point for developed-market equities is that we are not in a new secular bull market. Extended bull markets typically happen when: 1) the starting point valuation is very attractive; 2) growth is strong and sustained, and 3) credit is readily available, allowing greater use of leverage. None of these factors seems likely in this cycle. Once the current rally ends, we expect an extended period of choppy markets. Exhibit 1 shows a stylized picture of how this could play out (taken from Teun Draaisma's report entitled The Aftermath of Secular Bear Markets, 10 August).

What is likely to end the rally? We think the biggest risk is growth and earnings disappointment. As is typical, an expanding PE ratio led the rally. The PE expands from a market low due to improving risk appetite and investors factoring in better earnings to come. Next year equities will have to become more earnings-led, again as is typical.

Indicator of the Week: Monthly MACD By Rocky White, Senior Quantitative Analyst

Hat Tip qqq.

Foreword: The market has rallied quite strongly during the past several months. A couple of popular long-term technical indicators, the Stochastics and the RSI, signaled a buy at the end of April. We just had another major technical indicator give a buy signal. I'm talking about the Moving Average Convergence Divergence, better known as the MACD.

The MACD can be looked at over different time frames (for example, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly). I'm taking a long-term perspective here and looking at it monthly. In the chart below, the MACD is calculated by subtracting a 26-month moving average from a 12-month moving average of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). I plot the difference of those moving averages (red line below), and then calculate the nine-month moving average of that line (dotted line). This dotted line is the signal line. When the signal line crosses above the MACD, it's a buy signal. The most recent buy signals are marked by the red dots (I only consider one signal every 12 months).

Historical Analysis: Going all the way back to 1900 on the Dow, this is just the 25th MACD buy signal. Below is a table showing annualized returns for the Dow following these buy signals. The second table below is for comparison, and shows typical Dow returns since 1900. In the short term, you will see the signal shows no outperformance to the market. In fact, the three-month returns following a signal have tended to underperform the market at other times. But once you get out to six months, especially at the one year mark, you see quite a bit of outperformance. The market has averaged a gain of about 14.5% in the year after a MACD buy signal. This is way better than the typical market return of less than 7%. Furthermore, the market was positive one year later 83% of the time after a signal. Compare this to 64%, which is the percentage of time the market has usually been positive a year later.

http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/commentary/observations.aspx?ID=95912&obspage=2

Gold is still the go, no doubt about it..

It is our contention that this breakout is the real deal and the pathetic action of the US Dollar Index supports our view. Rather than rally, the American currency has embarked on another southbound journey and this is extremely bullish for gold. Furthermore, the recent zoom in silver and the precious metals mining stocks is additional evidence that this breakout is not a head fake. Figure 1 highlights the recent breakout in gold. As you will observe, gold's bull-market has been punctuated by lengthy consolidations and this is the third time gold has broken out towards the end of the third calendar quarter.


On the 5-year weekly chart for gold we can see that everything is now in place for a MAJOR RALLY in gold to commence. It has managed to hold the high ground for weeks following its upside breakout from a Triangle, and is repeatedly pushing at the resistance approaching its highs. Yesterday's action was strongly bullish. With all moving averages in bullish alignment, THIS RESISTANCE IS ABOUT TO FALL.



Charts and commentary Maund and Saxena

One chart to inform them.....

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/truth-behind-todays-bls-report

China Building Yuan Strength

China has massive savings and massive trade surpluses and is capable of tremendous growth on the back of rural and regional development. Strategies such as yuan loans to the third world in return for access to resources might work and levering up at this point in China's development, if it is based on stimulating manufacturing and Chinese access to resources rather than property prices in Shanghai, might successfully run for a long while...

Some new economic paradigm is in the works; something along the lines of cuban advisors trained in community based urban agriculture enabled by access to cheap finance for building materials and, say, alternate energy infrastructure made in and financed by China will likely sweep through the third world and lay the basis for the next step in human economic progress.

Thats my guess but its a bit early to be sure....but I don't buy doomsday post fossil fuels, thats for sure.

This is a great article on Chinese technicals....

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/FXI-UDN-GLD-BIDU-uup/index/a/23845

I hear her heart beating, loud as thunder
Saw the stars crashing
China Girl (David Bowie)

Last week a subscriber asked me to comment on the Chinese market.

My feeling about the subject reminds me somewhat of Willie Sutton’s response when asked why he robbed banks: “That’s where the money is.”

Asking me to comment on China is like asking an economist to analyze a potential time/price harmonic with Kaiser Soze pattern following a Rule of 4 Breakout. Well, you get the point. Other than my economics class in college and my stint at Drexel Burnham in Beverly Hills, I have no formal fundamental economic training--and frankly, that may have been a blessing. I am not carrying a lot of the preconceived baggage regarding the financial markets that many educations have shoved down the throats of those hungry to matriculate.

In all seriousness, there is a lot of magical thinking and a lot of statistical significance imbued in both the "science" of economics and the "art" of reading the technical picture of the financial markets--neither of which will yield a high degree of certainty. If you are looking for certainty in the fundamentals of economics or the technical’s of the stock market, you won’t find it either place. Prowling the bowels of economic theory will offer little clarity: put 10 economists in a room and you will get 11 opinions. Nor are charts the compass of certainty when it comes to the stock market: there are many ships at the bottom of the ocean and I am quite certain they all had chart rooms.

This is a game of probabilities, not certainties. Nothing always works. What we are looking for is an edge. Many edges, ideally. I won’t make you do this again, promise, but read that again: this is a game of probabilities, not certainties. Nothing always works.

That is why the secret to stock market profits is two-fold: use a stop, and decide where that stop is beforeyou initiate a position. Trying to figure out how to get out of trouble after you’ve gotten into it doesn’t work well. Oh, and from my experience, a third prong to success is that after identifying an edge (set-up) and getting stopped out, consider taking that set-up the second time around if it retriggers. The stock market likes to bait participants. The second mouse usually gets the cheese. And if stopped out the second time, consider taking a perfectly good set-up the third time if it triggers yet again. There is a reason why the cliché, ‘the third time is a charm’ is so well-worn.

None of this has anything to do with China. The recent eclipse that was the tightest in the last 100 years and the next 100 years cut a swath directly over the country and may have nothing to do with China either. But it is interesting in light of the cycles regarding the Federal Reverse offered in this space in past months and the challenge that some in Congress are giving to the Fed. This is interesting in view of the idea that the amount of greenbacks that we owe cannot be supported by demographics, i.e. we can’t earn our way out of the debt leaving three choices: default, remodification, or monetization.

The symbiotic relationship between the U.S. and China seems to be reaching a point of critical mass. Last week a high level Chinese delegation came to Washington. After they left, the US dollar made a 10 month low late in the week and gold exploded. Did the Chinese ask for something they didn’t get and in response is the US getting slapped in the face? Trying to decipher the delicate relationship is a job for Jake.

According to recent reports, China is rapidly accelerating efforts to internationalize its currency with a series of maneuvers that could see the Yuan become one of the top three monetary units in the world. Some analysts expect that by 2012 as much as $2 trillion worth of trade flows may be settled using the ‘redback’ as China shifts its commercial tentacles throughout the commodity producing world. The red octopus is holding hands with the emerging markets of Asia, South America and the Mid-East. Will it become a choke hold on the US? It is worth considering that with all their wealth versus the great wealth destruction in the West in the last year, the US is bogged down militarily while China is not.

Currently, Chinese dreams of a major role in international currency transactions are impeded by Chinese government policy which restricts the yuan from trading freely around the world and being fully convertible. But that could change quickly. China has already inked a series of agreements with Argentina, Malaysia and Indonesia to allow their central banks to acquire yuan for use in trade with China.

The radical shift in attitude may arise from a desire to protect China from what it may perceive as a ‘dollar trap’. This problem emerges when a country, through its trade, amasses a huge surplus of dollars, which it is effectively forced to reinvest in dollar assets. This is why China is the US’s largest creditor. It has as much to do with necessity as desirability. China’s US dollar assets have in the past been vulnerable to the whims of Washington. But the greenback is losing some of its hue. Moreover, the specter of a US consumer without the same tools to spend wildly should be making China nervous about the export of goods/import of US Treasuries double helix.

Not all is peachy-keen for China. They may have a few economic curve balls of their own to duck: during the first part of the year China came in with a much heavier stimulus than took place in the US. However, the export market in China which relied heavily on a now devastated American consumer must rely on domestic, organic growth. Because the domestic economy in China is 25% the size of the US, all that money sloshing around could cause a very serious inflation problem in China. Can the Chinese consumer replace the American consumer--quickly? That’s a big transformation which may entail China having to deal with a bubble of its own. Will China be forced to raise interest rates?

At the same time some analysts say China is not ready to take reforms needed to allow the yuan to be an true international contender. In making the yuan a freely traded currency would mean losing control by Chinese policy makers over its value and flows of capital in and out of the country. China’s government loves control and ruthless competition and may be fearful about protecting China’s domestic financial sector from seismic shifts in the global economy.

Another interesting issue is that at the same time the Chinese population is big buyers of gold as in the past they have been forced to turn in their gold for paper currency that turned worthless.

Speaking of gold, just as it appeared to be breaking down early last week, the metal reversed offsetting the stab down and recaptured its 50 day moving average. Last week left an outside up week in gold and any extension this week looks as if it will trigger a move out of a bullish Cup & Handle pattern.



This pattern exists within the pattern of a short-term inverse head and shoulders pattern as well as a larger inverse head and shoulders pattern. Last week’s turnaround in gold sets up a potential move over resistance in the way of a long declining 3 point trendline. A breakout over triple tops will trigger a Rule of 4 Breakout which has a strong likelihood of follow through. As many of you know panicky moves often times culminate at/near the 49th period of a move.



The crashes of 1929 and 1987 being good examples as the crash in both instances occurred 49 to 55 days from the high day. Looking at the weekly chart of gold, we see how the two most important peaks on the chart occurred 49 weeks apart. October will mark 49 weeks from the last important swing low. Will it be a spike high if gold breaks out?

While gold is poised to break out, the stock market is coming off the July Jolt. Despite the seeming bullishness of the outside up month of the S&P, the market has entered into the time period where a reversal could occur.

I don’t know what the catalyst for a reversal would be anymore than I knew what the catalyst would be at the March low. I still don’t think anyone can point to anything other than hope in a heavily oversold market that turned stocks around in the spring. The reason why any downside reversal must be respected is that it could be larger than most participants expect: bull and bear trends often play out in three’s---I don’t see 3 drives to a low on the monthly chart of the S&P which raises risk on any turndown in the Monthly Swing Chart in August.



Because of many cycles and patterns including 1979, 1929, 1990, and 1999 (the DJIA topped in August and double topped in January the next year) which I will flesh out further tomorrow, I believe that the July Jolt will lead to August Angst and a September Surprise... to the downside

Gold Techs, Kapoom Theory....

But this is no more than an argument that the U.S. is not likely to experience a replica of an Argentina 2001 debt and currency crisis, and of course that is true. But that does not mean that a related, equally unseemly but fundamentally different catastrophic result may follow from similar causes and crisis triggers. Evidence abounds that the U.S. is trapped in a cycle of economic contraction and declining creditworthiness from which an Argentine style default with U.S. characteristics is all but inevitable.

Here we take a deep dive into the macro economics of the Argentine crisis—GDP growth, consumption, investment, inflation, industrial production, unemployment and a dozen other details of the Argentine economy in the period before it collapsed at the end of 2001. We compare the same macro economic measures during the U.S. economic crisis that started in 2008.

A few items, such as currency reserves, stand out in ways that show how different the U.S. situation is now from Argentina’s then, but most of the macro economic comparisons reveal astonishing similarities, especially measures of output and inflation.



http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?p=106493#post106493

GOLD

LONG TERM

The long term P&F chart is still in a bullish phase but it has now set a new upper support at the $915 level. A move to $900 would break below the support and two previous lows as well as an up trend line for a trend reversal signal. Just something to keep in the back of one’s mind if the price should start to drop.

As for our normal chart and indicator analysis, things are still a-okay for now. The price of gold remains above its positive sloping moving average line and the long term momentum indicator (daily version) remains in its positive zone above its positive trigger line. The volume indicator is at its highest point since its highs in late February and is above its long term positive trigger line. Nothing here yet to get worried from the long term standpoint. The rating remains BULLISH.

INTERMEDIATE TERM

Since the end of January the price of gold has been basically in a wide lateral drift with the upper and lower barriers at about the $1000 and $870 levels. I guess as long as it remains in this box, with the right wall continually moving further to the right, it would be hard to really guess which way the eventual direction of future trend will be.



While in this box the intermediate term moving average line will move in a basically lateral direction and the price of gold will continue to fluctuate above and below the moving average line. This makes it very difficult to definitively gauge the influence a crossing of the moving average line by the price will have. So, although I will continue with my normal commentary as to the positive or negative nature of the price versus its intermediate term moving average line one should keep in mind this box situation. An intermediate term trend will most likely start inside the box but its confirmation must await a move outside the box.

Having given myself the cop-out excuse in case my analysis is wrong, let’s go to the intermediate term analysis.

The price of gold has once more moved above its moving average line and the line slope is once more in the positive direction. The momentum indicator has set up a strong support just above the 48% level. This would be a level to watch (instead of the 50% level) for a real change in strength of the price move. In the mean time the momentum continues in its positive zone above its positive trending trigger line. The volume indicator is also trending positively and remains above its positive sloping trigger line. All normal indicators give me an intermediate term rating as BULLISH, at this time.

SHORT TERM

From the short term perspective we are still in good shape. The price remains above its positive trending moving average line and the momentum indicator remains in its positive zone just above its positive trigger line. As for the daily volume action, well that could be a little better but I wouldn’t complain yet. All in all, the short term rating is BULLISH.



As for the immediate direction of least resistance, that’s another story. We have the price above its very short term positive moving average line (8 DMAw) while the line remains above the short term line. However, if one looks carefully the moving average line has started its turn towards the negative (although it’s not there yet) in keeping with the lateral move of the price over the past few days. Of greater concern is the action of the more aggressive Stochastic Oscillator. It had topped out in its overbought zone and has now dropped below the overbought line and its trigger line. It is now heading lower. This is too often a precursor to a turn down in the price, at least for a short while. So, I must go with the down side as the direction of least resistance until something in the indicators changes.

SILVER

First, a quick comment on my P&F chart of silver. It has set up a strong support at the $12.00 level. A move to $11.50 would break that support and would break below an up trend line. From a P&F standpoint this is the level to watch. Until then silver remains long term bullish, P&F wise.

Silver still has a better performance versus gold over the intermediate and long term but is losing its advantage. Although this past week it performed better than gold it still has some catching up to do from the shorter term standpoint. A comparison of the two short term charts here shows that silver dropped more than gold in June and although it is recovering nicely these past two weeks it is a catch-up game and still better performance is required.



From a long term perspective silver had dropped below its moving average for a couple of weeks in early July but is back above the moving average. The average continues to slope upwards. The momentum indicator also dropped into its negative zone at the same time but is also back into the positive, above its positive trigger line. For the long term the rating is back into a BULLISH rating.

The intermediate term is not quite so lucky. Although the momentum indicator has moved back into its positive zone and above its positive trigger line the price of silver remains just below its intermediate term moving average line. The line itself is still in a negative slope. The volume indicator has been moving in a basic lateral direction over the past couple of months although it is presently above its positive sloping trigger line. On the intermediate term the best I can give the rating is a – NEUTRAL rating. Next week, should the price of silver advance again most likely this rating will go full bullish. But we’ll have to wait for it.

The short term is more encouraging. It often tells us what’s ahead for the other time periods. The price is above its moving average line and the line is sloping upwards. The very short term moving average line remains above the short term line for a direction confirmation. The momentum indicator is in its positive zone above its positive trigger line and heading higher. Only the daily volume activity could be a whole lot better. The recent two week advance in price was not accompanied by any significant increase in volume activity, in fact the daily volume seemed to have dried up. This is a real concern for the longevity of this rally. In the mean time the short term rating is BULLISH.


http://www.kitco.com/ind/burak/jul272009.html
Each major bear market in the D. J. I. A. has been accompanied by a bull market in gold and gold shares. The first two major bear markets in the D. J. I. A. did not end until the bottom green area was violated. The third and current major bear market has not yet gone below the bottom green area. This is powerful evidence that the bear market may not be complete but is ongoing.
Based on the previous bull markets in gold and gold shares the current gold bull market will not end until after the bear market in the D. J. I. A. ends.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/rosen/jul272009.html

Truth is in da charts...

Nice of Duncan to note the truth that the real action is most often seen in the charts......

The fortunes of the markets are in the charts
Anatole Kaletsky: Economic view
Why have stock markets around the world just enjoyed their best two-week run since 2003? A very clear explanation appeared at the weekend: analysts said that the market run was due to one simple statistical fact: the strength of US second-quarter earnings, which have taken almost everyone by surprise.

But if this was true, it was odd that Wall Street’s biggest gains came after disappointing results announcements from some of the most closely watched US bellwether companies: General Electric, Morgan Stanley and Microsoft. Maybe the market euphoria reflected a generalised conviction among investors that the recession was over? If so, it was odd that stock markets fell sharply in June, when most of the economic figures were rather stronger than they have been this month. Or maybe the bullish sentiment was a return of confidence in the global financial system? If so, it was odd that the shares of the four most vulnerable major banks — Citigroup, Bank of America, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland — are all lower than they were two months ago.

The fact is that the so-called fundamentals that preoccupy media commentators, central bankers and politicians rarely determine market directions on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. Usually, the absence of any close correspondence between market movements and economic events is of no great significance to anyone except financial traders. But, at a time when the fate of the world sometimes seems to depend on the short-term gyrations of financial prices, understanding the mood of the markets is crucial, which is why it is worth looking at some information that many professional financial traders rely on, which economists and central bankers ignore. This is the visual picture of the balance between demand and supply among investors, presented by charts and other technical studies of price movements taking place within the markets themselves.

Last week’s stock market movements provided a classic example. The really important event from a technical perspective was not some better than expected corporate profits or some worse than expected news on Britain’s GDP and US employment. It was the completion of an inverted head-and-shoulders formation illustrated in the attached graphic by the letters S5, H2 and S6.

The head and shoulders, whether inverted like the one this month, or right way up, as in the stock market peak of October 2007 (letters S3, S1, S2, H1, S2 and S4 in the attached chart) is considered by technical analysts to be the most important and reliable of all reversal patterns, indicating that the direction of the market has changed. More precisely, the investment trend tends to change when share prices break through the neckline created by an upright or inverted head and shoulders (indicated as NL1, NL2 and NL3 in the graphic). It is clear from the chart that the breakdown of share prices through lines NL1 and NL2 in 2007 and 2008 were followed by big falls on Wall Street.

Probably the main reason for the sudden outbreak of optimism in stock markets last week was the hope that the upside breakout through line NL3 would prove the prelude to some correspondingly big gains.

As noted by Brian Marber, a technical analyst whose work I have followed closely for ten years and who has proved uncannily precise in calling the gyrations of currencies and stock markets during the credit crisis, even without paying any attention to the dramatic changes in economic statistics or the astonishing financial and political events: line NL3 is all important. A 971.78 close would confirm an inverted head and shoulders with the inference of a no time limit advance to 1,323. When the S&P 500 closed at 976 on Thursday, this confirmation occurred and the objective of over 1,300, which would restore share prices to their levels before the Lehman crisis, suddenly appeared within reach.

But why should we pay any attention to such numerology? Most economists and policymakers regard technical analysis of market patterns with complete contempt, comparing its graphic terminology of head and shoulders, shooting stars and pennants with astrology or alchemy.

The obvious answer is that these techniques are widely used by professional investors and therefore have passed a market test. Indeed, according to a study by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, “nearly all” currency traders use technical models, which means that some, although not all, must produce consistently useful results.

This is particularly true of analysts such as Mr Marber, who name specific figures and focus rigorously on internal market information, rather than speculating about economic and political events, which may or may not occur and who also turn out to be right far more often than wrong. Such analysts provide an invaluable reality check for economic analysis, as well as a salutary reminder of the need to change one’s mind when the facts change. That the success of this approach, as described in the recently published book Marber on Markets, is not just an aberration is suggested by a growing body of statistical testing that has recently been done on technical analysis. The latest review of this academic work, published in 2007 in the Journal of Economic Surveys, found that 56 out of 90 recent academic studies demonstrated positive results from a variety of technical approaches.

A second reason for taking technical analysis seriously is that its main rationale makes sense. Markets usually move in uptrends or downtrends for extended periods because investors take a long time to recognise or notice changes in economic conditions and then acknowledge that reality has permanently changed. Technical analysis picks up this trending behaviour and tries to detect when trends reverse.

A third attractive feature of technical analysis is that its success refutes the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), which has led economists astray for the past 30 years in their efforts to understand financial markets. The EMH asserts that predictable patterns of market behaviour can never exist because if they did, they would be known to all investors, who would bid prices up (or down) instantly to make them disappear. In the words of Burton Malkiel, the Princeton economist whose book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, is still an intellectual bible for most economists and central bankers: “The problem is that, once a regularity is known to market participants, people will act in such a way that prevents it from happening in the future.”

The problem with this argument, as with so much of modern economics, is that the EMH is a simplifying assumption masquerading as an empirical fact. In the real world, it is manifestly untrue that investors respond instantly to all publicly available information. Instead, markets spend months or even years adjusting to changes in economic conditions or company prospects. Moreover, it is far from clear what economists even mean by the information to which investors are supposed instantly to respond. For what one investor views as information — whether a corporate results announcement, or a government statistic or a technician’s chart pattern — may be an illusion or deception in the minds of other investors. If uncertainty is inherent, not only about the future but even about the present and the past, then academic economists’ assumptions about efficient markets can bear almost no relation to the real world. This is a lesson that we should surely have learnt in the past two years and it is a good reason for paying attention to the practical experience of technical analysts and traders, as well as to the theorising of economists and central bankers.

Buy the dips in Gold and Silver?

"buy the dips & hold long, gold & silver; you will be amazed how your account can build using this strategy (this approach sounds easy, but its not so easy, but with much understanding, its credible)" Duncan Robertson

It has certainly pay off for seven years and no change of trend is evident, in fact, the reverse is true. The recent low looks solid in the bigger context, a bear trap.

Will Martin Weiss publish my comment? I doubt it..

http://blogs.moneyandmarkets.com/martin-weiss/the-timing-breakthrough-of-the-century-revealed/comment-page-1/#comment-19211

I hope your high end services have improved. I'm skeptical of your web presence. This is why. In 2004 I subscribed to your Interest Rate Options advisory to make money on your expected spike in rates. It was $5000 dollars per annum, if I recall correctly, I got six months for 2500.
I staked $10000 and opened an account to trade US options.

The account was gone in three months. Nearly every trade was covered at a loss. Your vague general apology was noted but no refunds were offered.
I would say on that basis your all hype and no responsibility. You leveraged your credibility and wiped me out when I was a timing newbie.

How can you live with yourself without taking responsibility and take yourself seriously when you hired an idiot to run a timing service that was doomed from the start by way of his sloppy rather conventional trades that foundered on a bad premise and poor execution and then go on to make similar promises.

If you had offered a refund and a free turn with a high end timing service of yours with a track record of success, assuming one actually exists, I might have kept faith.

You leverage your cred and hype the news and claim to be for the little guy, but you just take the money and run, apparently, and rely on your massive addy budget for new suckers to arrive.

What else can I infer from my experience.

Martin Weiss, you cost me 15K in six months, it was genius..but it wasn't about timing.

What are you going to do about it?

Trader Mark peeks at Australia...

Australia in Perfect Position Aside China, But at a Cost?


Two good articles here on Australia... here we have a Western style economy, capitalist in nature but with a far greater balance between corporate interests and citizen interests than the U.S. The government is not run at massive deficits year in and year out, and the country while relatively small in population (53rd in the world), has a good sized economy (14th in the world) and an abundance of natural resources. Think of a slightly smaller version of Canada (by population, land, and GDP) with a lot warmer weather. Unfortunately, it seems they are learning *some* things from the U.S. [May 12, 2009: Australia May Face Debt Crisis From Grants to Young Home Buyers]




With their proximity to China, many are bullish on the long term prospects of Australia - but is there a cost? Let's explore.

Bloomberg: Luckiest Economy Shines in Down & Out World
Australians sure are a stubborn lot where their economy is concerned. With global growth crashing and markets reeling, Kevin Rudd in April did what any smart prime minister would: He warned that the nation’s first recession in 17 years was “inevitable.” Australians are having none of that. The economy grew 0.4 percent last quarter, defying trends in other wealthy countries.
Yet two things are worth noting -- one bad, one good. One, while the Asia-Pacific region’s fifth-biggest economy has avoided the technical definition of recession, the two engines of the recent boom -- exports and business investment -- are sputtering. Try telling the growing ranks of unemployed this isn’t a recession.
.... worth noting that Australia’s unexpected expansion, driven by government cash handouts and record interest-rate cuts, masks a darker picture. Rudd said that without the government’s move to dole out more than A$12 billion ($9.9 billion) to lower-income earners, the economy would have contracted about 0.2 percent.
... even as Australia’s challenges increase, it will still be the envy of the developed world.
Measures of corporate investment contain more ominous signs. They showed outlays on machinery and equipment tumbled by the most since the economy was last in a recession in 1991. (nearly 20 years without recession? and without a central bank flooding the country with easy money every 3-4 years to make it so? remarkable) Rio Tinto Group has slashed its global spending by $5 billion to a total of $4 billion this year. BHP Billiton Ltd. shut its $2.2 billion Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia. (with the way commodity prices are elevating once more to the stratosphere many of these decisions may be reversed) Those amounts seem negligible as the U.S. throws trillions of dollars at its economy. (hey now... we call it prosperity here)
The nation’s trade balance unexpectedly turned to a deficit in April as lower prices for coal and iron ore led to the biggest drop in exports since 1997.
Australia has been lucky so far. Its fortunes are changing before investors’ eyes. And it’s still an open question whether the country will experience the same type of crash in real- estate values that has taken place around the world.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that even as Australia succumbs to the global recession, its economy will be the envy of peers in the developed world.
Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is deeply concerned about the budget surpluses of recent years swinging back toward deficit. It’s hard to get bent out of shape. Net debt will peak at 13.8 percent of GDP in fiscal 2014, Treasurer Wayne Swan said last month. Most advanced economies will have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 80 percent then, Swan said.
Growth is positive, ample fiscal ammunition remains and the Reserve Bank of Australia has 300 basis points worth of interest rates to cut.
Australia’s problems are good ones to have at the moment. (Reserve Bank Governor) Stevens is even counseling caution about cutting rates too far because that may encourage borrowers to take on debt they can’t afford. (what??? *rubbing eyes* those words came from a central banker? Please someone send Alan Greenspan to Australia to talk some sense to this Stevens fella)
Those relative strengths explain why the Australian dollar is up more than 13 percent versus the U.S. currency this year.




Risks certainly do abound. One is Australia’s growing reliance on demand from developing China. (more on this later) The longer that Asia’s second-biggest economy has to live without a profligate U.S. consumer, the harder it will be to maintain stable growth.

But overall?
Even in its worst moments, though, Australia is among the least unsightly economies anywhere. It does have its share of problems as growth slides everywhere. They are still the kinds of challenges that most world leaders can only dream about.

*************************

Now, onto the second story - as Australia increasingly ties its fortunes to China how is it shaking out inside the country? Via the NY Times
If outlanders tend to associate Australia with kangaroos, broad-brim leather hats and an opera house, many Australians are different. They think of iron ore and bauxite, copper and coal, nickel, gold and uranium, a trove of mineral riches that is their nation’s birthright and the bedrock of its prosperity.
Which explains much of the breast-beating that has ensued since the Chinese announced plans this year to buy a big chunk of it. Since three state owned Chinese companies said they would buy stakes in Australia’s storied mining industry totaling $22 billion — as much as China’s entire investment here in the last three years — some of this nation’s 21.3 million people have reacted with aggrieved nationalism.
The government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, which generally favors the sales, has been savaged as naïvely cozy with China, a view some in his own military appear to share. Opposition politicians have flogged the specter of an Australian future more or less as a giant open-pit mine in which the locals toil, but Beijing takes the profits.
“It’s the Communist People’s Republic of China, 100 percent Communist-owned, buying up sections of the country and minerals in the ground which they will then sell to the Communist People’s Republic of China,” said Barnaby Joyce, who is a leader of the National Party in Parliament. “And we’re going to live off the commission on the way through. They’ll try to make sure we get as little as possible.”
But a few months after the first of the deals was announced, a sharp initial backlash has given way to a more subtle queasiness over whether Australia’s place in the region, anomalous but secure for so long, is about to be altered by the new Chinese giant looming over its horizon.
Australia has always been the West’s outpost in the East, the British penal colony with American spunk and European joie de vivre. But seemingly overnight, China has become Australia’s biggest trading partner, one of its biggest tourism customers, the largest single buyer of its government debt, a major buyer of farmland and real estate. (with much of the money coming from Americans via Walmart) :)
China’s hunger for steel gobbles up half of Australia’s iron ore exports, and its textile factories buy more than half of Australia’s wool. Over 120,000 Chinese students throng to Australian schools and universities.
And suddenly, Australians are stepping back, realizing that their new best friend is someone they really do not know very well, much less trust. “The momentum has shifted from being broadly receptive to these deals to having a hard think at this,” said Alan DuPont, who heads the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. “This is not just about China and Australia. It’s about how the world sees China playing its role in the future as a great power.”
Western companies, if at one time equally ravenous for Australia’s resources, are not direct appendages of their national governments. The dominant shareholder in major Chinese resources companies is the Chinese government. China has 115,000 state owned companies; the cream are more than 150 giants controlled by the central government. Those corporations — in mining, steel, finance, communications and other crucial areas — seek to make profits much as Western companies do. Government boards audit them, appoint their top executives and evaluate their performance, but in general, the companies insist, Communist Party leaders do not meddle in business strategy. (of course not) Even if that is true, China has long insisted on maintaining state control over companies in crucial industries, blurring the line between national and corporate interests.
There is also the question of whether China’s stake in strategic industries — like its investment in United States Treasury bonds — could one day morph from a business deal to an instrument of diplomatic influence. (mmm... the world is finally catching on. Took them a while)
Paul Glasson, a Shanghai-based Australian who brokers deals between Chinese and Australian businesses, notes that China’s domestic reserves can meet demand for fewer than half of 45 strategic minerals. By 2020, it will have sufficient supplies of only six. “In a nation of 1.3 billion people, with the complex issues they face, with such resource deprivation, would it be wise for the government to abdicate that responsibility to S.O.E.’s?” he asked, using the abbreviation for state owned enterprises. “Claiming the head doesn’t know what the body is doing just makes the situation difficult.”
Mr. Glasson says state ownership actually brings advantages — among them, deep pockets and a focus beyond the next quarterly statement — that any merger partner might find attractive. But Beijing’s denial of a role in its state owned companies, he said, is creating a credibility problem.
Allies of Prime Minister Rudd argue that increased Chinese investment pumps money into Australia’s economy and opens new trade opportunities. But Mr. Rudd’s opponents say he does Beijing’s bidding. Among a drip of well-timed news leaks were claims that Chinese spies sought to hack into Mr. Rudd’s laptop during last year’s Olympic Games, and that his defense minister had failed to disclose gifts from a Chinese friend with ties to Beijing’s military establishment.
Those allegations have been flying even as the Australian military has become more focused on China as a potential rival. A newly issued defense strategy proposes the biggest Australian military buildup since World War II, driven in part by a forecast of rising Chinese economic and military power, and a slow American fade in the Pacific.

http://www.greenfaucet.com/blogs/tradermark

Short selling opportunity in stocks?

Seems like a B top to me..

Geithner is in China, attempting to gain increased support for US paper markets. And he may get this support at the expense of the IMF’s gold, which would be the trade off. Such a move would increase Chinese gold reserves substantially in short order, giving them what they want, in exchange for heightened support of US Treasury purchases, which would help to keep interest rates low. If successful, this could help stocks out temporarily in tracing out a more elongated recovery pattern than would be the case under a 1929 to 1932 sequential repeat (see Figure 1). The jury is still out in this regard however, meaning although it’s always possible a stronger bounce higher will prevail, as you will see below it’s not a higher probability based on thoughtful analysis.

Naturally such an outcome would be frustrating for stock market bears with fundamental factors worsening every day. Companies are cutting dividends because earnings are crashing, however right now this doesn’t appear to matter if one is simply looking at stock market performance and not how prices are being artificially jammed higher. Of course manipulations never work for very long, so even if Geithner is successful in wooing the Chinese back into stepped up support of US paper, such efforts will undoubtedly prove futile in the end, as is always the case. This perspective makes a great deal of sense when one realizes that with an estimated $2 trillion in deficits this year the necessary Treasury buying will need to be four times that of last year alone. So you see even though money supply measures are not correctly reflecting this stepped up largesse, as stepped up monetization is occurring already, never the less an exploding monetary base is with us, making the stock market’s lack of response to this condition scary to say the least.

Is this because the bureaucracy wishes to hide the inflation? Perhaps, however as you know from our previous work on this subject matter, money supply growth rates are only part of the equation in equity markets, with the other half of the formula being speculation trends. And as I was alluding to above, with speculators bullish on future prospects for stocks, while it’s always possible the bulls get their way longer, difficulty associated with levitating equity prices should become increasingly apparent as options expiry approaches in three weeks, where at some point such efforts are should fail if history is a good guide. So, while price managers might go the full distance in supporting stocks until Geithner heads home on Tuesday to make it appear the administration is in control (when in actuality they got lucky), with all the shorts blown out of the market now it’s going to be very difficult for these jokers to keep this act up with little buying coming from an increasingly bankrupt public.

This, along with sentiment related considerations is why a sharp decline that would mirror the 1929 to 1932 sequence is still possible if prices start dropping in earnest this week.

hook

Keep it simple: buy and hold gold stocks for the next 5-10 years

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/brochert/2009/0602.html

Bullish Gold technicals point to 1200

http://unbiasedtrading.blogspot.com/2009/05/fibonacci-may-call-1192-next-station.html

Getting ready for the next big move in gold (even if it weakens for a few weeks), my bullish projections point to 1192 (so, about 1200) if it passes 1008 and continues "north". Below are some some bullish and bearish ideas, and my charts. First the numbers: While my bearish projections are to 641 or even 521 if gold drops in a big (C) wave (similar to Tony Caldaro's alternative OEW precious metals view), the bullish case calls for the 1192 area for several reasons. One is my long-term Fibonacci extension (based on a "bullish butterfly" Fibonacci pattern in the yearly charts), that if it moves above the 1033 high that completed a 1.382-extension initial objective for that pattern, then 1192 is the 1.618 extension objective for that pattern. The weekly and monthly chart projections support that area too.

A symmetry target on the weekly charts, applying a doubling of the move up from 681 and adding to the recent swing lows, points toward approximately 1190. Interestingly, the monthly charts can point there too. Applying a 1.382 extension to the drop on the monthly charts from 1033 to 681 (as if this could still be part of one large (B) wave movement), calculates to 1167. These numbers are all close enough, and have significance in enough time frames - weekly, monthly and yearly - that I must point them out. Readers know that I've been working with these bullish and bearish alternatives for a long time; also, I see that Tony Caldaro has been too, with his more bullish count marked as preferred count on his gold charts (as I posted a while ago, use the "Gold" label at right to see prior posts on this).

Some factors for the bullish case:
- If gold were going down in a (C) wave, it shouldn't be as strong as it's showing now.
- The shorter-term technical indicators have moved up smartly, although the longer-term indicators haven't followed suit yet. Generally, the technical indicators moving into a more positive position.
- Chris Carolan's comments at Pothole or Not? (5/21/09) · "Does the pothole for gold prices foreseen by the solunar model occur? Or is this break above the weekly net-line a strong enough signal that propels gold prices to the 1064 area of the upper weekly channel? The bottom line is that any seasonally inspired gold weakness should be temporary. The larger trend is up, and the corresponding technical picture is healthy for the yellow metal." See his updated Solunar chart at his post there (which does show the next move as another drop into mid-June however).
- Comments by both Merriman and Armstrong that point out, whether or not the dollar pulls out of its swoon, gold is seen globally as a currency alternative (and as I think on it, countries around the world seem right now in a contest to see which can devalue its currency more for economic competitiveness purposes - so if they're all trying to weaken their currencies, maybe that's bullish for gold!).
- This finally kicked in - there have been news accounts of individuals selling their gold and gold jewelry, and also that recent news story that people haven't been buying much gold jewelry lately. Maybe it is a contrarian indicator. Then again, all those TV ads touting gold coins has me worried. (Has Mr. T surfaced again? (Check out Minyanville's "Mr. T" gold indicator!)

Great analytical framework and track record ~ sees disaster ahead

And Bronson says you can expect a bottom around 2014. I agree....

The market won't rally until doomsday is priced in...

pdf link

Big breakout for Gold and Silver

Flags and a massive inverted head and shoulder says up we go...

http://www.kitco.com/ind/vermeulen/may112009.html

Murray Pollitt: The gold monetization scheme is ending ~ GATA

Submitted by cpowell on 02:43AM ET Sunday, May 10, 2009. Section: Daily Dispatches
By Murray Pollitt
Pollitt & Co., Toronto
Thursday, April 30, 2009

The G8 appears finished but their policymakers continue to try to bend the G20, and the world, to their will. The establishment, the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank for International Settlements, the same gang that has been setting policy for decades, is still at it. They appear to remain in charge (with nary a whimper of criticism about the trillions of dollars' worth of damage their policies have caused) but, when it comes to gold, they are slowly losing their grip.

Besides setting the stage decades ago for sub-prime paper, CDSs, and so on, it appears policymakers embarked on a scheme, at more or less the same time, to monetize the hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of gold lying sterile in central bank vaults. The temptation was too much. One-percent income on gold for a central bank was better than nothing, so the argument ran, and for the Lehman types borrowing gold (and selling it) provided lots of money (capital) to play games with.

It was so easy. Besides, the gold carry trade involved selling lots of gold into the market and this helped keep the price down (and hopefully the dollar up), a subject near and dear to policymakers.

It also led to: a) huge mine hedging with the two biggest miners, each with a link to Morgan, together short over 30 million ounces ("making money on gold in the ground" was the argument) and b) significant outright central bank sales, which may have been interventionist or may have been for portfolio diversification, however ill-advised.

And if banks and markets didn't always follow the script, there was always high-level intervention. To illustrate the mindset, in 2004 one William White, advisor to the BIS, talked about the need for "international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful." The idea of rigging markets is as old as the hills, and if the government is on your side. ...

Anyway, the great gold monetization (mobilization?) scheme appears to have started in the 1980s and the following events that, in part, characterize it are not necessarily in sequence.

1) Goldman bought gold dealer J. Aron.

2) In an early gold carry trade, Drexel borrowed hundreds of tonnes of gold from Portugal.

3) All the big swinging banks sought to get into the gold game and they bought all the London gold dealers except Rothschild, which was definitely in on the game on its own.

4) Mine hedging was pushed very hard, to a peak of about 120 million ounces.

5) Greenspan and others dropped broad hints that central Banks stood "ready" to supply gold to the market.

6) Drexel went broke and it apparently took Portugal five years to recover its gold.

7) Two long-term gold players, Republic and Safra, each with a somewhat checkered past, had a shotgun wedding. Later Mr. Safra was fried to death in his Monte Carlo apartment, presumably for nonrepayment of gold.

8) Two of the largest American players, JP Morgan and Chase, also had a shotgun wedding and now carry more gold derivatives than can be imagined.

9) Much of the Drexel brain trust apparently went to work for AIG, which promptly started boasting about mine hedging.

10) HSBC (often advised by Paul Volcker) bought Midland Bank (which had earlier bought bullion dealer Samuel Montagu) and, in another shotgun wedding, bought Republic, transactions that made HSBC one of the major gold players. HSBC's U.S. subsidiary is now the custodian for the SPDR ETF.

11) When the gold price started to move up, Rothschild said enough and sold its "book" (at a loss?) to Barclays.

12) Finally there was recently a shotgun wedding between Dresdner bank and Commerzbank.

Crisp details are rare, but the past generation has seen hundreds of millions of ounces of gold bled into the market. Canadian and Australian gold reserves are gone; Britain, Switzerland, and many others are down by two-thirds.

But this doesn't count the gold that has been lent. In general it seems that the same sort of banks that got into trouble investing in high-yield, low-quality sub- prime paper have also taken short positions in low-yield, high-quality gold. Too many favorite-son banks are on the wrong side of the market for policymakers to be rational. Given the option between common sense and helping a bank, well, the record is clear. This is probably the main reason the establishment remains anti-gold today -- the old ideological reasons are not that relevant.

So once again they trot out the idea of International Monetary Fund gold sales. What rubbish. The IMF hasn't sold gold since the 1970s, but every year the idea is advanced to frighten the gold market. Why would the IMF sell $10 billion of gold when central banks are printing $10 billion of new money every day? Gold is the only IMF asset worth 100 cents on the dollar -- everything else is junk.

As well the establishment hammers on the idea that the gold price is high, and GFMS continues its weird forecasts.

Well, the gold price is not high. Oil and several other commodities have outperformed gold since World War II. A good underground gold mine may grade 5 parts per million (ppm) while a good open pit may grade 1 ppm.

Nobody who has said the gold price is high has ever spent a nine-hour shift drilling rock -- it's a tough business. God only knows the blood-to-gold ratio for old Roman mines in Spain or Spanish mines in Peru, and getting the gold from mine to home base was often not easy. Much Victorian gold went from Ashanti by caravan through Timbuktu, the Sahara, and on to Europe -- the Brits were hardly keen to auction it off then.

Gold mine production is down about 12 percent from the 2001 peak (and still falling) and Barrick shares have barely moved in a decade. Much of the industry's cash flow is attributable to accounting magic, and the long years, even decades, of gold price suppression have taken their toll. There are few major new mines on the horizon, and lots of old ones on the way out.

Notwithstanding, GFMS has consistently forecast rising production for the past eight years (even though it has consistently fallen), raising the question: Why?

Our guess is that GFMS' big clients are the very banks we refer to above, the ones on the wrong side of the market, and for them Ms. Rosy Scenario needs the healthy, and expanding, industry model that GFMS gives them.

What are companies like Commerzbank and Societe Generale doing sponsoring GFMS anyway? Neither Germany nor France has any gold mining industry at all.

One would have to be barking mad not to see the benefits a higher gold price would have on vast chunks of the global economy. Even long-suffering Zimbabwe would be a huge beneficiary, and more wealth in Africa and Latin America would mean more exports of Fords and Cats from the United States. The establishment may not care, but that won't stop G20 members (and others) from connecting the dots and following China's lead in increasing gold weighting in monetary reserves.

Gold is again becoming a preferred central bank asset and the great monetization scheme is coming to an end. Western policymakers and banks have pushed their game too far for too long and the combination of the shift of power from G8 to G20, plus the reduced availability of gold, will turn the tide. You can sell gold only once, although, in the new wondrous world of derivatives, maybe somebody has actually sold it twice.

----

Murry Pollitt is president of Pollitt & Co., a brokerage firm in Toronto, and a veteran of mining industry finance. This essay is excerpted from his latest letter client letter and reprinted by permission.

http://www.gata.org/node/7415

Audio from Wall Street Examiner ~ Technicals

Bullish noises

"Systemic Correlation Is At October 1987 Levels"

From Zero Hedge. quants see instability.....

First, there has been yet another dramatic shift in the style with the recent rally that began on March 10th. Value has markedly outperformed while Sentiment has strikingly underperformed. This marks the fourth such dramatic change in the past 10 months. From early May 2008 through July 14, 2008, Sentiment dramatically outperformed, returning over 50% during this period as Financial and Consumer Discretionary stocks fell and Energy and Material names rose. In mid July, these trends sharply reversed with the bursting of the energy bubble. Through the Fall of 2008, we saw Sentiment re-emerge strongly, again, while Quality also out-performed. Styles reversed yet again starting around November 21st, 2008 with the catalyst being the announcement by the Treasury of the TALF program and a general reduction in risk-aversion. Deep value names strongly outperformed, led by Book-to-Price and other normalized earnings factors, while Sentiment and Momentum factors manifestly underperformed. This trend yet again reversed itself starting on January 7th. Our Sentiment Index went on another tear and our Value Index declined sharply. And then on March 10th, yes, you guessed it, it all switched once again and reversed gears very strongly. Picking the right style has been critically important to generating outperformance while the Style that has been working has shifted repeatedly and sharply. Thus, this has been a very difficult environment in which to generate consistent outperformance.

Second, we continue to see factor volatility remain at historically high levels. Not only have there been a number of significant longer trends but we have seen the daily volatility of factor returns rise to levels with scant precedence. This month saw a number of days with extraordinary positive and negative returns to our theme indices as well as individual factors. Specifically, April 9th was the 2nd worst day ever for Sentiment and the 5th best day for Value, measured back to July 1950. April 20th was the single best day ever for Sentiment and the 5th worst ever for Value. And April 23rd was the 7th worst day ever for Sentiment. Just within this past month, we have seen some of the best and worst days ever for our quantitative indices, when measured over approximately 15,000 days. This environment certainly presents a challenge to both investors and portfolio managers who might not enjoy experiencing radical daily swings in the value of their investments.

Third, there have been a series of significant rotations in the correlation of quantitative factors Historically, the correlation between Valuation factors and Sentiment factors has been mildly negative. Presently, the correlation is almost perfectly negative. Moreover, within the factor theme portfolios, there have been significant rotations among factors. For example, free-cash-flow based variables and forward earnings variables have decoupled from more traditional normalized earnings variables. Dividend Yield and Total Yield are now almost perfectly negatively correlated with Book-to-Price and Sales-to-Price as distressed cheap companies have cut dividends.

In turn, this has caused the natural balance built into quant models to become unglued. In the context of a multi-factor model, one cannot take for granted that the valuation and momentum are offsetting each other. Of course, this depends upon the specific Valuation and Sentiment factors one is using in one’s models. As described above, a number of Valuation metrics have become negatively correlated, thereby tempering the overall performance of the Valuation Theme. On the other hand, Sentiment variables have increased their correlation, thereby amplifying the negative performance of the theme. Hence, for many quantitative models, the natural offset of Valuation and Sentiment has broken down with the result that the negative underperformance of Sentiment is dominating overall performance.

Fourth, risk models continue to do a poor job of predicting tracking error. As shown in Figure 14, since August 2007, the risk model we use has consistently been underestimating risk. We are presently targeting tracking error of 2.85% but have consistently been realizing tracking errors two to three times that level. This month was actually slightly better as realized tracking error was only 150% of the predicted level. From our conversations with clients, we do not believe this is solely a problem with our risk model but with all risk models. Nearly everyone is reporting similar stories.

Finally, fifth, the average systemic correlation across stocks is at near all times highs, exceeded only by the days following the October 1987 crash and a brief period in 1954. We measure this “implied correlation” as the correlation among a portfolio of stocks, where we assume the correlation is constant for each pair of stocks. In other words, implied correlations are the values one gets from doing portfolio math and ascertaining what the dispersion is among stocks within that grouping. A high correlation means that there is very little dispersion among the stocks and a low correlation means that there is high dispersion in performance. Today there is very little dispersion when measured in stocks across the market as a whole. Systemic factors are driving stock returns across the market. Stock specific news is largely irrelevant and that this is the case in the middle of earnings season, when stock specific news should be at its height, is truly remarkable. Getting the individual names right in the portfolio has never been less important. Getting your systematic risk exposures (e.g. your style tilt) correct has never been more important.

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/market-dispersion-has-collapsed.html

Gold very bullish, imo

Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators increased their net-long position in New York gold futures by 2 percent in the week ended April 14, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 129,895 contracts on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.....


Gold imports by India may more than double this month from a year ago as the recent price decline revives demand ahead of the nation’s Akshaya Tritiya festival next week.

Purchases may reach 50 metric tons from about 25 tons last year, said Harmesh Arora, vice president of the Bombay Bullion Association. About 10 tons has been imported since April 1, he said in Mumbai.

India’s central bank reduced interest rates for the sixth consecutive month to 3.25pc, a record low. Sweden’s central bank, the world’s oldest, cut its main rate to 0.5pc. Investments in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange-traded fund in gold, have more than tripled in the past year as governments worldwide lowered rates to revive economies, making gold more competitive because it doesn’t pay interest.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/

Institutions selling so US rally is done ~ Chenard

http://www.safehaven.com/article-13169.htm