Long Hard Bear Mkt in process, June 24, 2022

Bear Market  finally?  Things that we overlook cost us.

All of the indicators that we use tell us the same sad  story,  expect to see a long brutal bear market coupled with a painful bear market for stocks. We try but have been unable to time the market as the central  banks have poured cash into the markets for support. Just examine the enormous out of control money supply growth!

We are always invested and have never suggested selling everything.-just regularly taking some profits. We are and remain full time investors always looking for undervalued stocks. What has created the problem that will cause much anguish is blindly piling into the big brokerages primary recommendations that have created such ridiculously high overvaluations. That is done by necessity as adequate trading volume is sorely needed by the brokerage industry.  Volume in the many undervalued small cap and mid-cap stocks is and would be totally insufficient and cannot offer adequate liquidity.

Sadly brokerage advice is dominated by what is popular not what is undervalued and again the brokerages’ need is to address volume for commissions and underwriting fees. Creating overvaluation such as we have seen eventually leads to long bear markets. it is occuring again in our opinion.

We can only estimate (guesstimate) but our research suggests that now over 85% of the volume is institutional trading volume. That is not to say that the trading desks own 85% of the shares but rather do 85% of the volume. High Valuations?  Price to Earnings ratios, Price to Sales ratios, Return on Equity and Corporate Debt have been at historical highs which has led the market to today’s problems.  

Insiders buying and selling of their very own companies’ stocks are  one of the finest measures of value. Note well that it is rarely discussed in the financial media and it is almost never mentioned in brokerage/banking recommendations. Why?  It limits business.

For example,  over the last several months  we examined the largest twenty weekly insider purchases and found an average of approximately a dollar value of $31 million in purchases per week. At the same time for each week we found on average approximately $320 million in sales. As we see it, all of the important “insider” information are kept hidden as it interferes with business.

But note that there is not the same percentage of insider selling in the Canadian stocks, rather it is strongly to the buyside.

The major brokerage houses and banks rarely permit their brokers to recommend stocks that are not covered by their own research departments. Unless the brokers clients specifically requests a purchase, they cannot be executed. It must be unsolicited.

Research indicates that U.S Dollar is overvalued by 15% to 20% which may take the market down when it corrects to its proper value levels. As the dolllar drops stocks and bonds denominated in US dollars will drop as well as they have in the past.