• 310 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 310 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 312 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 711 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 716 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 718 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 721 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 722 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 722 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 724 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 724 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 728 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 729 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 729 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 732 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 732 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 735 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 736 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 736 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 738 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
The Problem With Modern Monetary Theory

The Problem With Modern Monetary Theory

Modern monetary theory has been…

Another Retail Giant Bites The Dust

Another Retail Giant Bites The Dust

Forever 21 filed for Chapter…

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

An economic slowdown in many…

Michael Pento

Michael Pento

Pentoport

Michael Pento produces the weekly podcast "The Mid-week Reality Check", is the President and Founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies and Author of the book "The…

Contact Author

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Beware of Central Bank Success

The most important question investors will soon have to face is: "what's going to happen once central banks finally meet their inflation targets?"

For example, let's assume after years of monetizing government debt, bidding up equity prices, and forcing debt on the public by keeping borrowing costs at or below zero; that the ECB is finally able to achieve its inflation target rate of 2%. This would only occur once money supply growth becomes both robust and sustainable. It is silly to believe ECB President Mario Draghi can bring inflation to just 2% and nail it at that level. Inflation will continue to rise past 2% until the ECB raises interest rates by reducing its pace of bond buying. So, we will have the environment where inflation is rising north of 2% and the central bank will be forced to start cutting back its purchases of debt and preparing the market for eventual outright sales.

Here's the problem: there is $2.1 trillion dollars, or 1/3 of the $6.3 trillion European sovereign debt, with a negative yield. The ability to produce sustainable inflation that is rising past the ECB's 2% target along with the removal of the massive central bank's bid for sovereign debt should cause the most violent interest spike in history.

Indeed, asset bubbles exists all over the planet due to central bank overreach for which there is no escape. The carnage will be especially acute in Japan where a 2% inflation rate won't jive too well with a 10-Year Note that yields just 0.3%. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) certainly cannot keep wrecking the value of the yen at its current pace of depreciation (down over 30% since 2013) without eventually creating a currency and inflation crisis. Therefore, Japanese investors will soon have to deal with imploding bond and stock prices, as investors try to front run the huge sell orders coming from the BOJ trying to unwind its massive 385 trillion yen balance sheet (75% of its GDP) to boost the value of the currency. However, the BOJ's balance sheet now consists of both bonds and trillions of yen worth of stocks. The inevitable ending of the BOJ's support for bond and equity prices will cause an unprecedented economic crisis in Japan.

The laws of economics state that an unprecedented and humongous level of money printing must eventually produce inflation. Up until now most of this high-powered money has sat fallow with central banks. However, the growing level of sovereign debt dictates that increasing amounts of this money must be put to work buying government debt in order to keep the illusion of solvency intact. Inflation has always been, and always will be, the inevitable result.

Central bank "success" in creating inflation will produce a period of stock market chaos such as the world has never seen, as the economic environment moves violently between inflation and deflation cycles. This is what happened during the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and is destined to reoccur with greater intensity. The challenge for investors will be the ability to model these changes and to prosper during times of unprecedented market volatility. And is the inspiration behind the creation of the Pento Portfolio Strategies' Inflation/Deflation Portfolio.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment