Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Consumer credit chart update

Right now the data is suggesting to economists that there is no recession in the cards.  After all, look at the shape of the Total consumer credit outstanding.  It looks like up and up and up some more.  To those who do not understand Elliott waves, this tree will certainly grow to reach the sky.  In response to Trumps call for a big recession, academia responded as follows:

Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Research in New York, told Reuters, "We're not heading for a recession, massive or minor, and the unemployment rate is not 20 percent."
Boston College economics professor Robert Murphy agrees. “Donald Trump’s comments that the U.S. economy is heading toward a deep recession in which the unemployment rate will reach 20 percent is completely unfounded,” he told ABC News.

Unfortunately for "Harm", I can finally count 5 clear waves up on this long standing chart and so I think the odds are that credit is going to begin seeing a big pullback very soon.  Since we live in a fractionally reserved economy, the reduction of credit will be deflationary in nature for many asset classes.  I think that stocks and housing will be hard hit.

Yes, the chart below could extend.  But given the assurances of people like Harm Bandholz and other people who act like they are smart and who believe they are smart and who are in fact intelligent people who simply do not understand what moves the economy, It sure sounds to me like pompous prognostications of the late 1920s.

Mind you, nobody among well known and followed economists is telling us why this could be a top.  Even the very few right now sounding the bubble warning are all going by gut feel.  Only the wave count provides something specifically actionable.  The next time this begins to turn down, it will not likely be a small blimp like the 1990s and 2007-2009.  It will be a major, major pullback that could be Icelandic in nature.  In other words, a complete retracement only to close below where it started.  If this happens to credit, it will essentially affect all faith based asset valuation because debt is the energy source for the pumped up valuation of paper assets.

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