Guest Expert

Jim welcomes Gregory Weldon, President & CEO of Weldon Financial. Greg and Jim cover a number of topics, including the global bond market as a massive bubble, and how central banks are funding the majority of government spending. Greg also believes QE3 is not effective so far, and expects the Fed to announce additional Treasury purchases in the next few Fed meetings. Greg also sees Japan as the next "black hole" in the global debt crisis, as Japanese citizens have finally exhausted their savings and can no longer buy government debt.

Jim welcomes Jon Matonis, an e-Money researcher and Crypto Economist focused on expanding the circulation of nonpolitical digital currencies. Jon explains the definition of "crypto-currency" and discusses Bitcoin, the first true crypto-currency, which he describes as ''digital gold." Jon and Jim discuss the potential of Bitcoin, if it will eventually compete against government monopoly currencies, and if crypto-currencies could in fact become the future of money itself.

Jim welcomes Ned Schmidt CFA, publisher of The Agri-Food Value View and The Value View Gold Reports. Ned discusses the "must own" stocks in the agriculture sector, but cautions that agricultural equipment manufacturers are not having a good year. Ned also notes that world grain surpluses have all but disappeared and the corn shortage is basically an American story, not global. In the precious metals sector, Ned sees new highs for gold, but not until next year. He also advises buying dividend-paying stocks if investing in precious metals equities. Finally, he believes that gold bullion has finally been recognized as a legitimate investment class.

Jim welcomes Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics and founder of Princeton Economics. Martin sees a strong trend of financial and economic power moving to Asia. In the US, he notes that stability is vital to economic growth, but that is lacking in Washington. As to the stock market and gold, he sees the next up-cycle for both beginning by summer 2013, with the Dow reaching 20,000 later next year. He sees the "smart money" moving out of bonds and into stocks. Martin believes the strongest up-cycle for gold will be in 2016-2020, when he sees gold prices going parabolic. He sees the civil unrest cycle accelerating in 2014 in the US, driven by layoffs in the public sector.

Jim welcomes Jeffrey Saut, Managing Director of Research at Raymond James Financial Inc. Jeff believes that valuations are much better today than in the crash year of 1987, and that March 2009 marked the low in this market cycle. He sees very little investor belief that this is a new secular bull market, even from institutions, which is a bullish indicator. Jeff sees investors looking in the rear view mirror, as they usually do, and believes that exiting the stock market will be a big mistake. On the other hand, he sees the bond market as an accident waiting to happen within the next 3-5 years. Jeff would only turn bearish at this point if there was a "black swan" event that would disrupt the US economy, such as large-scale war in the Middle East.

Jim welcomes back John Doody PhD, Editor of The Gold Stock Analyst. John sees silver stocks as gold on steroids and believes that because of the small universe of silver producers, there is great opportunity in this group. John also discusses how many gold equity analysts act like they hate the metal, and underprice forward precious metals prices. He also mentions that Gold Resource Corp is a great company with very poor public relations.

Jim welcomes back John Williams from Shadow Government Statistics. John believes the US has been given a "free pass" due to election year politics, but if its fiscal issues are not seriously addressed after the election, the dollar could come under attack. He feels the fiscal issues are now too great and have gone well beyond the point of "easy fixes." John recommends precious metals, real estate and hard assets as the best defenses against a dollar that will be increasingly debased.

Jim is pleased to welcome Ian McAvity CMT, editor of Deliberations on World Markets since 1972. Ian sees all the Quantitative Easing by central banks as nothing but a banking bailout, and believes the world is heading toward a global currency crisis. Ian believes gold is the best investment alternative, but doubts the public will become engaged until the price reaches the $2200-$2500 range. Ian also believes the precious metals equities have bottomed, and gold is the key driver of silver. Ironically, the biggest current buyers of gold are the central banks themselves.

Jim welcomes back Kurt Wulff CFA, Independent Energy Analyst at McDep LLC. Kurt notes that in terms of new supplies of oil and gas globally, North America is currently the one bright spot. He also mentions that the foreign oil majors, particularly European, are a bargain, due to their focus on dividends versus stock buy-backs. For income investors, Kurt discusses where to invest now. For growth investors, he feels they should stick to shale and small cap names for now. In general, Kurt sees energy as still a good value, despite the recent rise in energy equity shares.

Jim welcomes Don Coxe of Coxe Advisors LLP to discuss the Commodity Super-Cycle. Don believes that because most commodities are no longer priced primarily by Europe and North America, they are less risky than conventional Wall Street economists understand. Don strongly feels that investors need to invest where the demand is, and will be, for coming decades. That means economies whose consumption of commodities per unit of GDP is still far higher than ours. Since 1998, Don has advised clients to "invest in companies which produce what China needs to buy."

Jim welcomes Axel Merk, founder of Merk Investments LLC. Axel discusses the potential risk to the US dollar, beyond the issues of the Fiscal Cliff. He also discusses three scenarios that put the bond market at risk going forward. Axel notes that unless Medicare is truly reformed, it will cease to exist in the future. With the rising cost structure and arrival of the baby boomers, there are simply not enough wealthy people to tax to save the system.

Jim welcomes back Russell Napier, consultant with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. Russell sees bank credit contracting, and a dearth of borrowers globally. He also notes a weakening in money-supply growth among the emerging market countries, and money exiting China as labor costs rise dramatically. Russell believes the days of China funding the US budget deficits are over, and that the environment of "financial repression" will last for decades.

Jim welcomes back Dr. Peter Warburton, Director at Economic Perspectives Ltd. in London. Dr. Warburton offers nine compelling arguments for higher inflation coming our way. He sees global markets becoming more oligopolistic, leading to more concentration of production and higher prices. Dr. Warburton predicts the future will likely hold an agonizing cycle of false hopes and disappointments, which will repeat until the cycle ultimately triggers an uncontrollable inflation.

Jim welcomes back Jeffrey Christian, founder of the CPM Group in New York. Jeff notes that gold coin sales are down 42% year-to-date, and silver coins sales are down 22% YTD. Despite this, Jeff sees shrewd investors continuing to buy on dips, and central banks continuing to buy gold bullion. Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson continues to increase his gold and gold stock holdings. Jeff expects the performance of the gold stock sector to improve going forward.

Jim welcomes back Evelyn Browning Garriss, editor of The Browning Newsletter. Evelyn discusses how the El Niño weather pattern has returned; the only question is how strong it will be. She sees warmer and wetter weather for the US this winter, cold weather for Europe and warm and wet in Asia. She notes that the El Niño pattern helped the soybean crop in the Midwest this year, but the corn harvest has been poor. Meat producers have been stressed as grain prices have risen. Look for higher beef prices next year.

Jim welcomes back Douglas Noland, Senior Portfolio Manager at Federated Investors Inc. in Boston. Doug believes the central banking system has created a giant Ponzi-finance monster. The Ponzi-finance sequence begins with massive credit creation, which leads to increased consumption, which produces asset inflation, and finally the inevitable bust. If this central banking policy finally causes a severe breakdown in the US dollar, then Doug sees hyperinflation coming soon thereafter.

Jim welcomes John Butler from London, Amphora’s CIO and author of The Golden Revolution. John notes that central bankers are not taking accountability for their mistakes, which is leading to unintended consequences. He also sees the concentration of wealth continuing to grow in the financial sector, as "too big to fail" institutions grow ever bigger. John also believes we will see banks begin to charge fees on deposits at banks, as banks pass along higher fees on cash charged by the Federal Reserve. As to gold and commodities, John sees hard assets as the most undervalued sector today, with gold more underpriced today than during the financial crisis of 2008. He stresses that investors need to own hard assets, but exercise extreme due diligence when choosing commodity funds or ETF’s.

Jim welcomes back Marin Katusa, Senior Market Strategist at Casey Research to discuss energy and political tensions in Saudi Arabia. Marin sees the aging Saudi royal family in jeopardy, and losing support with the Islamists in Saudi Arabia. If the House of Saud were to fall to the Islamists, Marin sees the possibility of $300 oil. He also believes there are currently unrecognized opportunities in energy equities.

Jim welcomes back Bud Conrad, Chief Economist at Casey Research. With the Fed now committed to open-ended Quantitative Easing, Bud believes investors need to own tangible assets, with gold and silver topping the list. He also thinks it may be time to consider investing in real estate once again. Bud also warns that the Fed’s easy money policy is going to translate into significantly higher inflation eventually, leading to the potential for civil disruption.

Jim welcomes back technician Ron Griess, founder of The Chart Store. Ron and Jim discuss some of Ron’s charts that illustrate that US debt is not contracting, but in fact total credit market debt in the US is still growing, reaching a new record high of $55 trillion in the second quarter of 2012. Conversely, household net worth peaked in 2007 and household real estate values are down 25.8% since the peak in Q4 of 2006. Also in this segment, Ryan Puplava has this week’s Market Wrap-up and Rob Bernard looks at the credit markets in the Fixed Income Report.