Whether you keep up with EWI's Free Updates on our website or via our daily eZines (sign up here), I'm sure the phrase "mainstream financial 'experts'" is not lost on you. We often use it to point out mainstream media follies when they comment on the financial markets, such as their utter cluelessness about the Fed's supposed "control" of interest rates and the financial markets.
You might remember a few of our articles from a while back, when former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was running the book tour circuit. Here's one in which Greenspan apparently gives a glowing endorsement of socionomics (Sept. 19) and two more that discuss the Fed's effect on the markets: "Suddenly, Greenspan is Crystal Clear" (Sept. 17), "Fed Cuts, Pushes on A String" (Sept. 18). Or you might have read a fourth EWI article in which we reveal that Greenspan bluntly admits that the market – not the Fed – sets interest rates (Nov. 9).
Now, we don't pick on the media and the Fed because we think Greenspan, Bernanke, etc. are a bunch of dummies. (We hear Bernanke is a fantastic speller.) And not because we think the mainstream media are full of blowhards. It's because we have HARD EVIDENCE that when it comes to what moves financial markets, the Fed, Warren Buffett, Abu Dhabi – whom or whatever is the mainstream media’s darling or villain of the day – none of them have an affect on the big picture, the long-term outlook. It's all noise. It can distract you from what's really driving the trend: social mood.
Back before Greenspan released his book and embarked on the media tour that supplied us with the great market commentary above, The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast released a special section entitled "The Unwonderful Wizardry of the Fed," with a crystal clear picture that shows just the facts: the market – not the Fed – sets interest rates. If you read that issue, you might have felt as if you were reading tomorrow's news today – and in a way, you were. The thing is, the mainstream media still hasn’t picked up on it.
So feel free to look to the mainstream media for lighthearted analysis or a rosy outlook. But for straight talk about the markets that are most important to you, stick with The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast.
The brand new December Financial Forecast builds on all of this knowledge about the Fed, and it uncovers a telling picture of the future of U.S. markets you won't get from the mainstream financial media – until after the fact, of course – with 20 charts on 10 pages of unrivaled analysis.
So while some folks call it "tomorrow's news today," others might call it timely analysis or valuable research. This dedicated subscriber calls it "Absolutely the Best."
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Dear Steve and Pete,
I have been a subscriber to your service for quite some time, and have always found it informative. Your analysis of the markets, interest rate movements, etc. are much appreciated. However, I have to tell you that your December 2007 issue was absolutely the best you have written in a long time.
The December issue of the "pictures of a bear market" and your work on the dollar sentiment clarified emphatically what I have been telling my clients for some time. But the best, in my opinion, was the little chart and associated write up on the bond market. Showing how 1.) the credit spread in High Yield U.S. Corp bonds over Investment Grade U.S. Corporate bonds is greater now than in 2005, at the height of the housing mania, and 2.) how ineffective the Fed's much ballyhooed rate cuts are was just inspiring. Now that people have seen what a little taste of the credit crunch is like (late summer ’07 to now), and knowing that "somebody" knew something in 2005 to keep the spread high to compensate them for risk, this chart is just awesome in its implications.
No, the market will not move down in a straight line, but smart investors better "batten down the hatches" as there are rough seas ahead ... much worse than we've seen so far.
I am a market technician and know how much work it takes to produce your service. I also appreciate how you are willing to say what you believe is going to happen to give your readers advance warnings unlike the worthless talking heads on TV. You are so correct ... having the media declare a "10% correction" recently was useless to anybody who believed them. Where was the media in October at Dow 14,200? They were feeding at the bullish hog trough as much as possible. That pretty much displays my disgust for these people who will forever put "lipstick on this pig" as the classic commercial went.
Anyway, keep up the fine work.
Richard L., CFP, CPA
Dayton, Ohio
Los Angeles, Ca