Great charts. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for clarifying the actual fact. Much like you must look at the total population employment data not the distorted unemployment applications to see employment data you apparently can't depend on government home sales disclosures anymore either. For goodness sakes, are we paying the government to lie to us these days?

Negative rates will drive the economies engaged in it which have no growth to start into the ground. Hopefully the US won't go there because our constitution prevents it although the Fed went to capital hill to hear them say its unconstitutional to impose a tax on assets without public representation and by a institution that isn't even part of the US government and is not beholden to the Congress or President. Likewise, it is also probably viewed as taking much like eminent domain is and should not be legal; and even then they must offer compensation for taking it although it's worth is debatable when they execute it.

LOL the Fed is in good shape after zirp for years and not even 1% Fed funds rate and is scared raising even 1/4 of a percent? What world are these guys from. It's sad that these members are the fiscally conservative ones on the Fed. The central bank will kill capitalism well before we elect a socialist President. The Federal Reserve members need to be elected and need to take an oath to the Constitution and to the capitalist ideal.

Very good and astute article. Sadly China is not the only one bending the rules and hiding disclosure of their positions.

That said, the Federal Reserve and other central banks should also disclose their positions in derivatives and stocks and bonds and who they came from and went to. Central banks are the unknowns that cause financial ruin regularly and yet blame others who are often the sad sacks who were destined to loose with their financial distortions. Purging the unknowns from the banking sector will let us know more clearly how badly in trouble a central bank is and what tricks they are using to hide their weaknesses.

Of course, the Federal Reserve and others say it will cause instability. What they are doing improperly causes the instability, not the knowing they are doing improper things with their balance sheet and assets.

Generally those wanting to push down gold settle to playing with silver because their purse strings are short and they get better bang for their buck manipulating silver. Someday they will pay for it, most likely when the market collapses again and the banks force taxpayers to pay for their bad bets like last time they got blown out in heavy metals in the last downturn. Taxpayers end up footing the bill.

One thing that would help is the barring of companies from pushing non-GAAP results onto investors to sell their company. This is especially prevalent with tech companies and should be an outrage to accountants and regulators. It's akin to someone selling tin pots labeled Costco tin pot and then covering up the label and saying they're from Saudi Arabia and 1 in 10 have genies inside.

There is little to no regulation to protect investors these days. Buyers beware. This may be why direct investment in stocks have plummeted to all time lows.

Agreed, short term ups and downs shouldn't alter your long term investment strategy. That said, the Fed's push to destroy income generation for capital appreciation has forced many savers to invest a disproportional amount of money in stocks, real estate, and high yield bonds including junk bonds. Clearly those who went to junk are realizing their mistake, and like the last downturn, other bets encouraged by the Fed's misuse of their power will also feel the pain sooner or later.

Beware and get back to more normalized long term allocations.

"However, inflation does not correlate well to the economy - and cannot be used as a economic indicator." Great point, please mail it to the Federal Reserve before its too late. The Federal Reserve continues to trying to get inflation in a low growth environment which would lead to no growth and inflation witch creates mass poverty. Instead, they get cause and effect backwards because they don't understand even basic economics and think feverish inflation is a godsend that means recovery. Not.

A bit late don't you think? As stated well before the crash on Seeking Alpha. Linked in is more brick and mortar hiring agency than a web titan. The fact that most all their profiles are ancient or false to look at others fake or ancient profiles adds to the problem. Now there's lots of competition in this area. The gig is up and the barrier to entry is 0.