In recent weeks we have discussed the downfall of top hedge fund managers this year that have yielded greater losses than -20% year-to-date because of the simple fact that they had been able to ride the back of fraud for several years now and did not understand that fraud always eventually loses. Even though the success of fraudulent artificial, and non-fundamental, inflation of US stock market indexes lasted much longer than most people thought possible, the talking heads that you always see on mass financial media always speak of the “massive” gains that they’ve made in the US stock market in recent years even though virtually none of them were “smart” enough to avoid being out of the US markets when they crashed, so the reality is that their long-term records are not impressive when you factor in the massive down years in the US stock markets that preceded the recent fraudulent up years. Furthermore, the worst part of their braggadocio is that they believe that riding the fraudulent wave of momo stocks higher was a skill, and as they are all discovering now, when the fraud no longer works, their “skill” as money managers evaporates faster than a puddle exposed to a high-noon sun in the desert.
These are not my sentiments alone, but the sentiments of everyone that understands the massive fraud that has propelled US stock markets higher in recent years. A quick look at facts backs this assessment. If we go back to October 2007, at the current time, the US S&P 500 index has yielded a nominal return of approximately 30% in over eight years, including all the benefits of Central Bank quantitative easing and all the fraud of banker-controlled HFT algorithmic share price rises. We will soon witness what this performance should have been in the past several years as this fraud that has held up US stock markets implodes. US fund managers always brag about their performance starting only after a US stock market crash which implies that they are smart enough to always be out of the market during every single down turn and only invested in markets when it rises. Of course, as I stated before, this applies to virtually no fund manager that works at a commercial bank and investment house as their firms make no money from client asset management fees if they are out of the markets and not invested in them.
If you applied the same criteria US stock market managers use to relay their performance to the public, unrealistically using the exact bottom of market crashes and ignoring prior periods of terrible performance during which they had instructed their clients to remain in crashing markets, then every single hedge fund manager, whether they are managing oil futures, natural gas futures, copper futures, and even gold and silver mining stocks could brag about 300% to 500% returns quite easily as long as they only measure their performance from exact market bottoms to market tops. For example, if you had a gold and silver portfolio manager bragging about 500% returns because he or she pretended to call the exact bottom of the market while claiming that they had the foresight to avoid every single downturn in the market leading up to the market’s exact bottom, almost every single person would be skeptical of this person’s claims. Yet US stock fund managers use this extremely deceptive and dishonest tactic when trying to lure more client money into US stock markets, yet no one ever challenges them on this dishonest tactic. If you are wondering why this is, this is because the financial media is just as dishonest in perpetuating lies and myths about the US stock market rise as are bankers and politicians. In other words, the mainstream financial media is nothing but a different tentacle of the same giant bloodsucking squid.
For example, just look at these following headlines that have appeared on US financial websites this year. In reality, every single author of these below financial articles should have their journalism license revoked for failing to perform their duty of reporting the truth to the public. Again, I am not condemning these “journalists” for having a differing opinion, as a difference of opinions only helps one to form a well-rounded outlook. Rather, I am excoriating these “journalists” for a lack of integrity, for being nothing but puppets and shills for their Wall Street masters, and for failing to perform any research that may conflict with the desired articles their Wall Street owners want them to write. In other words the “investigative” part of investigative journalism is without a pulse and has been flatlining for years within the realm of mainstream financial media.
For anyone that has spent just a few hours of digging beneath the surface to uncover the true reasons US stock markets have risen in recent years, these reasons are not only crystal clear and indisputable, but they oppose the reasons given by mainstream financial “journalists” that claim US markets have risen due to undervalued stock prices and to fundamental strength of the economy. The truth, of course, is that US stocks have risen on the back of massive fraud perpetrated by US Central Bankers and fraud committed by commercial bankers exercising HFT algorithms to push the share prices of favored and widely-owned momo stocks to undeservedly high levels. From an inspection of facts, it is quite easy to draw the conclusion that nearly zero of mainstream financial journalists care about uncovering the truth and explaining reality to the public. Rather, they now see their job as constructing and upholding the banker-created perception of market strength even though all fundamental pillars are fracturing and preparing to crumble. It is for this reason, I can justifiably excoriate every last one of them for being a miserable failure in upholding their oath to report the truth to the public.
Here is the parade of ridiculous headlines in recent months posted on mainstream financial websites:
In September, after the US market briefly crashed, the meme was “buy, buy, buy!”
“If You’re Brave, It’s a Buy-the-Dip Moment in Stocks” (8 September 2015), by Barbara Kollmeyer
“Why It’s Good New Investors Feel So Crummy” (25 September 2015), by Mark Hulbert
In November, when the US market regained most of the earlier crash, then came messages of reassurance, such as the ludicrous message below, as if it can be scientifically proven that there is only a 4% chance that the US stock market is a bubble.
“There’s Only a 4% Chance We’re in a Stock Market Bubble” (10 November 2015), by Mark Hulbert
Then came more assurance on November 11th that investors should dive headfirst with foolhardiness into US stocks.
“Why 100% of Your Portfolio Should Be In Stocks” (11 November 2015), by Jeff Reeves
This was then followed with the obligatory but very false “gold is dangerous, stocks are safe” message.
“Gold Now Looks Riskier Than Stocks” (2 September 2015), by Jeff Reeves
And even when one of their own broke ranks and professed that dangerous bubbles existed in bond, stock, art and real estate markets, the tactic of financial journalists that only serve one master –the bankers – was to ridicule money manager Carl Icahn on his assessment of markets.
“Why Icahn’s ‘Danger Ahead’ Video is Funny, Not Scary” (1 October 2015), by Tim Mullaney
If those calls to buy US stocks back in September still look good at the time I am writing this article, then why infuse this article with any criticism, you may ask? Because hindsight is always 20/20, and I wanted to write this article while some of those calls still look good before those calls all go to hell in a hand basket, and I wanted to be able to revisit this article sometime in 2016 to prove my point. Furthermore, if you look at the history of these financial “journalists”, they ALWAYS declare all times, negative and positive, as great times to keep holding stocks or to keep buying stocks. Any call can look like a “positive” call in the confines of a very short time span, but when analyzed within the context of a longer timeframe, more often than not, the vast majority of these calls appear atrocious. I can’t recall the last time one of these financial “journalists” ever advised investors to sell stocks right before stock markets plunged to them from suffering eventual manifested huge losses.
For example, here’s what the journalist that advised investors to “be brave” and “buy the dip” in US stock markets in September wrote earlier in May of this year.
“When a 1% Pull Back is Much Ado About Nothing” (27 May 2015), by Barbara Kollmeyer
The only problem was, that in reality, the US stock market collapsing breadth at the time was much ado about something, as US markets rapidly fell -12% over the next three months. And when I performed a Google search for “Barbara Kollmeyer” and “sell US stocks”, the search came up empty.
Furthermore, we received much of the same from her fellow propagandists. On May 15, here is a piece that again urged investors to buy US stocks on 15 May 2015.
“The Screaming Buy Signal From the Bears” (15 May 2015), by Shawn Langlois.
What happened thereafter? The US market plunged -12% in the next three months and again, my Google search returned no results of any warnings to sell the US stock market during this time from this financial “journalist”. And when this banker “every day is a good day to buy stocks” meme didn’t work out in US stock markets, this same “journalist” urged investors to buy Chinese stocks just two weeks later.
“China Just Corrected. Here’s Why You Should Buy the Dip” (29 May 2015), by Shawn Langlois
The only problem with the above article, even though Chinese stocks did rise by 12% in a few weeks after that article, is that the next article Shawn wrote about Chinese stocks was titled “The Chart That Shows the Worst May Come for Chinese Stocks” on 3 August 2015. By this time, with only instructions to buy and never to sell, the SHCOMP had already lost -21.44% from the May 29th date Langlois posted his article on “why you should buy the dip” in Chinese stocks. And today it is still down -23.37% with nary a peep from the mainstream financial media warning any one to sell Chinese stocks.
So the above examples illustrate the problem I have with all these propagandists posing as “journalists”, as with the vast majority of them, they merely parrot the banker meme that it is “always a great time to buy stocks”, but it is never ever a great time to sell them. Furthermore, these same journalists often never surface with any warnings to sell until stock markets have plunged well below the levels at which they urged people to buy, when accumulated losses are already very significant. Remember, the mainstream financial media has become one with the commercial investment industry and their narrative is always to have you fully vested in the stock (and bond) markets at all times, as they do not earn any management fees if they tell you to move to the safety of the sidelines.
In conclusion, never ever follow mainstream financial propagandists. They will always ensure that you are on the side of the dumb money that attempts to build wealth on nothing but empty promises and false hopes. Instead, ignore the mainstream financial media completely, and start (or preferably continue) preparing to deal with the truth that lies well underneath the surface of mainstream financial journalism and outside the realm of any mainstream financial discussion.
