Juggling Dynamite

As part of the BRIC story sold to investors over the past decade, India was the focus of great bullish hopes and breathless forecasts all projecting its 1.2 billion people as centers of endless consumption. India does boast the second largest population on the planet just behind China. But with the Indian stock market down now 52% since it peaked with the credit bubble in 2008, investors have discovered the hard way once more, that it takes a lot more than just population to grow a developing economy. The masses need to be earning, participating and spending money in order to sustain economic growth. At the same time, every week it seems, we hear news of yet another horrifying gang rape story out of India. All of which should cause thinking people to wonder…what the hell is going on in India? This interview with Jayant Bhandari offers some insight.

Jayant Bhandari, an institutional advisor, talks about the myth behind India’s so-called economic juggernaut. He also reveals his perspective on China, gold, the junior resource sector and dominant trends in the global economy. Here is a direct video link.

What Hollywood films about Wall Street and record margin use suggest about stock markets. Here is a direct video link.

Best understated quote of the month is in this clip: “surely this is not a bottom.”
**correction to this clip, the sequel to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, actually was released in 2010, not 2007 as Carter states here.

The Canadian dollar soared with the commodities bubble from 2002 to 2007, imploded with the credit bubble and global recession in 2008, rebounded with QE hopium into 2011 and has been falling steadily with global growth ever since.

As captured in the chart below, last week the C$ Index broke below its secular support in place since 2002 around $92. Today as the Bank of Canada warned of slowing growth and falling inflation, the loonie confirmed the thesis and broke below $90. Next support level is in the $82 area as marked below. But if this secular mean reversion story holds, and the global economy continues to disappoint from here, we could see the C$–a currency of global risk speculating–fall back below $70 in the months ahead.

Hard for most to believe I know. But the seeds of this down cycle were sown in the extreme optimism and over-confidence in Canada (and global demand) built during the 2002-07 credit boom, and excessive domestic debt building in Canada since. It’s pay back time.