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Part III – Crunching Some Numbers – Virus, Market Crash, Rate Cuts

In this section of this multi-part research article related to the potential economic destruction of the Covid-19 virus event across the global markets (Part I, Part II).

We’re going to peer into data related to the GDP and other factors of the US economy.  Remember, the US economy is the largest single economy and consumption component in the world.  As we suggested in our earlier research, the US and China (combined) account for about 30% of the total global GDP each year.  The top 12+ GDP nations on the planet account for just under 80% of the total annual GDP for the globe.  What happens if economic activity and global GDP collapse for the next 24+ months because of the Covid-19 virus?

First, be sure to opt-in to our free market trend signals before closing this page, so you don’t miss our next special report!

The second thing we want to discuss is the real potential for economic interruption within the global markets.  As of today, the US has declared an emergency status and many states and cities have already started to shut down schools, sporting events, entertainment venues and many other aspects of the US economy.  Additionally, a travel ban has been set up in an attempt to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus and the potential of an uncontrolled global contagion.  We believe these travel restrictions will stay in place for at least 60+ days and we believe the spread of this virus will continue for at least another 45+ days before potentially “leveling off”.

The third thing we want to discuss is the economic fallout that is resulting from this Covid-19 event.  It has clearly become evident that exporting a large portion of our manufacturing capabilities to China and other nations puts the USA in a very dangerous situation.  China has threatened to withhold vital medical supplies and other items from the USA over the past few weeks as China attempts to blame the USA for initiating this virus event.  Simply put, America will not be held hostage by China under any circumstances.

Additionally, we believe other mature economies and nations are also starting to reconsider many policies and manufacturing processes related to this event.  Although we don’t have any real proof that this Covid-19 virus event originated in a Chinese lab in China, the very first instance of this virus was documented in China in November 2019 and didn’t really spread to any other country until well into 2020.  It makes perfect sense this Virus originated in China and spread throughout the Chinese New Year to other nations.

Debt and Banking capabilities become a real issue at times when consumers shift spending and economic habits.  Large sectors of the economy become “at-risk” very quickly.  The way our researchers put it is “isolated economic events may cause certain economic events to unfold, but extended economic events put greater pressure on even mostly healthy corporations and enterprises as lack of revenues and a shift in consumer activity can result in a broad market collapse”.

So, here we have the setup of the economic event and now we can speculate about the consequences.  Our researchers believe the immediate needs of all nations is to attempt to contain this virus event and to reconsider policies and manufacturing processes/locations to eliminate risks related to hostile countries.  Is it worth it to save a few pennies to manufacture something while putting your entire nation at risk when an event like this happens?

The funny thing about all major events, like this, is that usually cause people and nations to “shift gears”.  Remember after 9/11 how America shifted away from certain policies and came together to support our military against terrorists around the world?  Remember after the 2008-09 credit crisis how the US took immediate steps to attempt to prevent this type of financial event from happening again and how consumers were “shell-shocked” to re-enter the marketplace after the fallout?  This same type of social constriction happens all over the world as consumers/people act in a flock-mentality.

WHAT DO OUR RESEARCHERS BELIEVE IS THE MOST LIKELY OUTCOME FOR Q1 AND Q2 OF 2020?

We took the past 73 years of quarterly US GDP data and attempted to run two rolling Standard Deviations on them.  The first, a 12 quarter (roughly three years) rolling Standard Deviation.  The second, a full 10-year rolling Standard Deviation.  The purpose of this was to determine how volatile past economic events have been related to these standard deviation ranges.

There have only been a few economic events that meet any of the criteria similar to the Covid-19 virus event.  The closest was the 2008-09 Credit Crisis.  All other events were isolated US types of events related to bubble events and Federal Reserve functions.

1957-1958: a collapse in GDP growth (below the 12 QTR StdDev) took place where GDP contracted by nearly 10 billion (-2%), then almost immediately rebounded back to 2x StdDev growth by 1959.

Mid 1960 to mid-1961: GDP growth collapsed to below 1x StdDev range, at one point almost stalling in Q1 1961, then immediately rebounded back to 2x StdDev growth by the end of 1961.

Q1 1982 to Q1 1983: GDP growth stalled to levels near 0.5 StdDev range for a period of 12 months before slowly rebounding back to 1x+ levels by late 1983 into 1984.

Q3 1990 to Q4 1991: GDP growth stalled to nearly 0.6 of the StdDev range, then rebounded back to 1.5x StdDev range by Q2 1992

Q4 2000 to Q3 2002: The Dot Com bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in an extended contraction in GDP expansion throughout this time.  By Q4 2001, GDP growth was only 0.53x the StdDev range.  Growth finally rebounded in late 2002.

Q1 2008 to Q1 2010: The Credit Crisis really took a toll on GDP.  Throughout most of 2008, GDP levels were still positive and above 0.5x the StdDev range.  Yet in Q3 2008, everything turned negative and GDP reached an extreme (-2.088x) StdDev range in Q3 2009.  Gdp rebounded back to 2x StdDev range in Q1 2010.

Q3 2015 to Q3 2016: This was an election year GDP contraction.  GDP continued to grow, but fell below the 1x StdDev range that seems to be very consistent.  Q4 2016 returned to levels above 1x StdDev.

What this shows us is that a -2x StdDev range is not uncommon and that a bigger move could take place with the right global economic setup.  A 3x or 4x GDP reversion (downside collapse) is also not out of the question if certain circumstances setup to present such an event.

IN CONCLUSION

This lengthy article and extensive research, our researchers do believe a 2x to 3x GDP reversion event is on the immediate horizon.  Given current data points and the fact that we’ve had little “transition” from previous growth phases to this potential new contraction phase, we believe the GDP contraction for Q1 2020 is likely going to be -10% or more from previous levels.  We believe Q2 GDP contraction may actually be higher (-12% or more).  This will be the result of China’s contracting and quarantining economy as well as the fallout from the continued spread of the Covid-19 virus throughout the rest of the world.

We believe Q4 2020 may result in a positive GDP quarter before further GDP contraction takes place in early 2021. We believe this will likely be the result of extended global economic malaise, global banking issues, global credit, and corporate earnings issues and the possibility that a global asset revaluation event may be taking place (similar to the 2008-09 Credit Crisis event).  This time, though, we believe it will be foreign markets engaging in a Credit Crisis and asset revaluation process that will drag the US economy into a 2021~2023 slump.

A 2x StdDev GDP event right now would be a collapse of $1.65T.  A 3x StdDev GDP event right now would be a collapse of $2.486T.  A 4x StdDev GDP event (God forbid), right now would be a collapse of $3.316T.  Remember, it is not really the size that matters – it is the length of time this contraction takes place.

Be prepared for some really ugly earnings data in Q1 an Q2 of this year, then we’ll figure out if our expectations were accurate or not and what we should be doing to plan going forward.

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As a technical analysis and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for short-term swing traders.

Visit my ETF Wealth Building Newsletter and if you like what I offer, and ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth while others lose nearly everything they own during the next financial crisis.

Chris Vermeulen
www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Crunching Some Numbers – Our Researchers Share Their Data – Part II

Continuing our earlier multi-part research post related to our extensive number crunching and predictive modeling systems expectations going forward many years, (Part I) this second part will highlight some existing data points and start to discuss the concepts of what the Covid-19 virus event may do to the immediate global economy.  Remember, in the first part of this article, we shared research related to the US Fed Funds Rate (FFR) and how the Covid-19 virus event may create an environment of economic malaise over the next 12 to 24+ months as well as potentially disrupt the population and deficits over a 5+ year span.

This type of event is very similar to war (think WWII) in the sense that consumer spending changes, population growth, and levels change, GDP changes and deficits change for all involved.  Our researchers modeled the GDP levels from 2017 will now with the intent of attempting to identify probable outcomes of GDP output throughout the world over the next 5+ years.  Throughout these types of events, a massive capital shift takes place where consumers within areas impacted by war shift their spending and purchasing habits to address the immediate real needs of their attempted survival.  Speculation vanishes.  People only spend on things they are confident they can afford to risk their money on.  Anyone who is able to take advantage of the displaced or disparaged has a real opportunity to create some real gains if they don’t become the next displaced or disparaged individual.

Here is some data we used to model what we believe will happen over the next 2 to 5+ years as a result of the Covid-19 virus event.  We are using this global data as a basis for our modeling going forward and attempting to align 2018 and 2019 data with that reported by the St. Louis Federal Reserve data.  Our objective is to attempt to identify the scope and extend of any potential change in economic cycles going forward and to prepare our friends and followers of what to expect.

This data illustrates the scale and scope of the total global GDP output of all the nations on the planet for 2017.  It is important to understand that China and the United States are the two biggest GDP producers of all nations.  Between the US and China, both nations produce roughly 40% of the world’s total GDP annually.  When you consider all nations producing more than $1.5T in annual GDP on this graphic, these 12+ nations (including OTHERS) produce nearly 78% of the world’s total GDP annually.

The nations that make up this list of top GDP producing nations are:

These nations (and the group of nations listed as OTHERS) total almost 80% of total annual GDP across the entire planet.  Keeping in mind that we are attempting to model the Covid-19 virus event, which nations are likely to be the hardest hit on this list?  Obviously China, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and the United States are all prime targets of the Covid-19 virus event.  Brazil, Canada, France, India, and Others are secondary targets for GDP disruption.  Yet, their proximity to the price candidates makes them fairly easy targets for future GDP disruption related to the Covid-19 virus.

The point we are trying to make by illustrating this is that 80% of the world’s total GDP is at risk over the next 24+ months related to shifting consumer spending, central bank activities, asset valuation levels and much more.  We’re not talking about 4% or 5% of the world – we’re clearly showing you that 80% of the world’s total economic output is within the cross-hairs of this virus event.

Be sure to opt-in to our free market trend signals before closing this page, so you don’t miss our next special report!

Our modeling suggests the 2017 GDP levels presented by the image (above) and the subsequent yearly REAL GDP levels presented by the St. Louis Federal Reserve deliver this data as a basis for our modeling system.

Our attempted modeling of the Covid-19 virus event across global economies is based, in part, on what happened in the 2008-09 Credit Crisis event.  Throughout that span of time (2008 to 2009), US GDP fell -3.36% over 12 to 16 months.  The difference between this Credit Crisis event and the Covid-19 event is that the Covid-19 event appears to be disrupting a broader segment of economic sectors across dozens of nations/cities all at once.  Whereas the Credit Crisis event resulted in somewhat isolated asset and economic contractions related to banking, insurance, credit, and assets – the Covid-19 virus event appears to be much broader in scope and consequences.  Our researchers believe the Covid-19 virus event will reach nearly every segment of the global economy in some way or form – causing some type of economic disruption either in supply, demand or overall consumer activity related to the sector/economic component.  Therefore, we believe the scope of the contagion event related to Covid-19 will be, at a minimum, 2x to 3x the scale and scope of the Credit Crisis.

We’ve come to the conclusion that the disruption to earnings, revenues, expenses and other economic factors across a broad spectrum of global economic outputs may look something like this.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image.png

We believe Q1 and Q2 of this year will be a disaster for almost all nations.  We believe there is a chance Q3 and Q4 2020 may see a moderately strong recovery (or the start of a recovery).  We believe winter 2020 and into 2021 may bring further influenza type illness and may begin the process anew.  Or, we believe the recovery process may be somewhat stalled in 2021 as we believe the fallout from the previous year may still be taking place across multiple asset classes and corporate level and banking/insurance level industries.  We believe that by mid-2022 and early 2023, the global economy will begin to find a solid foundation for future economic growth and that global GDP may begin to move higher overall.

We are basing our modeling process on the information we have gained from our experience in the markets and from living through the 2008-09 Credit Crisis event.  Far too many people fail to understand the contagion event process that takes place when consumers abandon traditional spending patterns as income levels become more “at-risk”.  As we’ve suggested many times in previous articles, consumer spending and the “flock mentality” is not something to underestimate.  Current GDP levels are calculated mostly by consumer spending activity.  Think about what that means going forward.

Here are some St. Louis Federal Reserve data charts that we used in attempting to model these results.

A potential further decrease in M2 (velocity of money) throughout this Covid-19 virus event is very likely.  This is one of the primary reasons we believe this event may last more than 24 months in total span.  We believe the continued decline of the M2 velocity level is a very strong indication that historical levels of economic activity (1965 through 1995) simply are not present in today’s global economic world.  This complicates how money is used within the global market – it is being engaged as active money transactions by a -30% ration than 1995 levels. If M2 continues to decline, we believe the consequence of this move will relate to an even slower recovery from the Covid-19 virus event.

In the next part of this article, we’ll explore the real data points and outlier expectations of the 2020 Covid-19 virus event.

As a technical analysis and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for short-term swing traders.

Visit my ETF Wealth Building Newsletter and if you like what I offer, and ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth while others lose nearly everything they own during the next financial crisis.

Chris Vermeulen
www.TheTechnicalTraders.com