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Friday, September 07, 2007

If a shoe falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

In an earlier post, I brought up what could knock down credit markets. One issue was the availability of credit, which has been the subject of much pain and anguish, recently. The other two issues were interest rates and employment.

In the news today, the employment report for the month of August looked dreadful. For the first time in 4 years (when we were stumbling out of the last recession), payrolls tracked by the Labor Department shrank instead of climbing.

Could this be the result of financial service firms laying off workers in an attempt to adapt to current credit conditions? Could these laid off workers then have trouble making their home payments, thus promoting the negative spiral of home price declines, credit defaults, financial market troubles, and more layoffs?

I certainly think so. In fact, I believe this is the beginning of the other shoe dropping. I also believe the Fed will react as it always does, by lowering interest rates in an attempt to "jump-start" the economy.

This will, in time, lead to higher interest rates on longer dated bonds as foreigners demand higher rates to compensate for the dropping dollar. The dollar will drop further as more and more market participants realize the Fed will lower interest rates by printing more dollars (in other words, creating inflation).

How bad will this get? I don't know, but lower employment and higher interest rates will make current housing problems look tame by comparison.

It's a good time to avoid companies with lots of debt. It's a good time to avoid investments related to the housing market or its financing (although a bit late).

More importantly, it's a good time to be invested in securities that will benefit from this fallout. It's a good time to have some cash that can be invested as the market goes down.

If inflation is a concern, it's a good time to consider investing in tangible things (other than real estate) that are hedges against inflation. It's not a bad time to consider foreign investments that may be hedges against inflation, too.

It's also a great time to consider those companies that will fair best as we emerge from our credit market problems and into another growth up cycle.

Nothing in this blog should be considered investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. The opinions, estimates and projections contained herein are subject to change without notice. Information throughout this blog has been obtained from sources believed to be accurate and reliable, but such accuracy cannot be guaranteed.

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