Invest with Rothschild? – Strong US Stocks and Bonds – Pfizer Shares Plunge (Again) – State of Texas v Pfizer – Argentina ‘The Hail Mary Pass’ – What is Hyperinflation? - [12-17-23]

Direct from BOOM Finance and Economics at the links below

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BOOM EDITORIAL THIS WEEK

THE ROTHSCHILD INVESTMENT TRUST — RIT CAPITAL PARTNERS - There are many narratives concerning the Rothschild family to be found on the Internet. If you wish to join forces in investing with the Rothschild family expecting to enrich yourself beyond your wildest dreams, you can. However, you might be disappointed.  RIT Capital Partners (formerly the Rothschild Investment Trust) is a listed investment trust on the London Stock Exchange whose objective is, “to deliver long-term capital growth, while preserving shareholders’ capital”.

From the RIT website: “RIT Capital Partners plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange with net assets of £281 Million on 1^st August 1988. It is now one of the UK’s largest investment trusts, with a market capitalisation of around £3bn. Jacob Rothschild chaired the Company from inception until 30 September 2019, when he stepped down as Chairman and from the Board. He is today Honorary President and his immediate family interests remain the largest shareholders with a holding of about 21%.”

That leaves 79% in other hands. All this information is readily available at the RIT website. There are no secrets.

The 10-year chart shows almost no growth in capital value over that period with the share price being just below its level from five years ago. The 10 Year period is equally revealing. The current share price is close to where it was in early 2016. Thus, there has been no growth in capital for eight years. The share price has been in steady decline over the last two years, having moved from 2,800 British Pence per share to 1,700 Pence, yielding a loss of 40% to investors who purchased in early 2022.

BOOM is sorry for those readers who imagined this would be a sure-fire way to riches beyond their wildest dreams. It just shows how difficult the last 10 years have been for the world of investors.

As at 30^th June 2023, the RIT investment portfolio was 9.1% exposed to direct investment in listed shares, 15.4% to Long Only Funds, and 9.1% to Hedge Funds. Derivatives make up only 0.3%.  Thus, the total for Quoted Equity was 33.9%. The Fund was 39.8% invested in Private Investments (27.9% in Private Investment Funds and 11.9% in direct corporate investments). 25.7% of the Fund was in Uncorrelated Strategies. Interestingly, Government Bond exposure was only 3% with all in UK Treasuries.

As at 31^st October 2023, the fund had Net Assets of £3.488bn with a Net Asset Value per share (diluted) of 2,362 Pence and a share price (then) of 1,770 Pence. Thus, the discount was 25%.  Buying shares at a 25% discount to “Net Asset Value” sounds like a great opportunity to get on the Rothschild train. However, the world of investment is extremely complex where reward versus risk must always be considered and balanced. Private asset valuations can be a potential hidden danger. Such valuations can be optimistically biased. Too much Diversification can become “Diworsification” (a term popularised by the famous investor, Peter Lynch). BOOM does not offer investment advice to readers. However, caution and regular review is always a good strategy.

The Asset Allocation of the Fund as at 31^st October is freely available. It contains some interesting decisions that are worthy of note. The Fund has only 2% of the total invested in Real Property while 30% is invested in “Private Investment Funds” and 26% in “long” quoted stocks.  Currency exposure of the Fund shows 43% Sterling and 37% US Dollar. The Geographical Exposure is 58% North America and 14% Emerging Markets with 5% exposure to Europe.

Dividends of 38 pence per share have been declared for the last 12 months with an acceptable, but not stellar, Dividend Yield.  This is the recent share price performance of the Rothschild Fund over two years:

Investing with Rothschild carries all the usual risks of investment. There are no secrets and no magic.  Investing is hard work and extremely complicated. This will disappoint some readers looking for fast, easy gains but others might find it reassuring.

As always, please note that BOOM does not offer investment advice to readers.

US STOCK MARKET HAD STRONG PERFORMANCE SINCE OCTOBER 22 & 23. Over the last 2 years, the US ‘S&P 500’ Stock Index was in downtrend from January 2022 but found a base in October 2022.  At the time, global investors felt overwhelmed by CPI inflationary pressures and higher interest rate settings from aggressive central banks.

BOOM saw through the gloom and wrote on October 15^th 2022, “…. overall, the inflation statistics and retail sales figures were a good result, offering some firm evidence that the peak of CPI inflation may be in the past. If we are past the peak, then the prices of stocks and bonds should start to rise from here”.  That comment proved deadly accurate. And on 5^th November, this year, 2023, BOOM wrote:

“In summary, BOOM is expecting US investors to become more aggressive here in buying all financial assets.  If so, a new Bull market especially in stocks but also in bonds will be confirmed if (and when) the S&P 500 Stock Index rises above 4,600.”

MORE LOSS OF TRUST — PFIZER SHARES PLUNGE YET AGAIN.  Last week, BOOM’s editorial focused on the dramatic loss of trust that developed in the major institutions of the advanced, western democracies. This is clearly a major concern for citizens living in those nations.  Other recent BOOM editions have focused on the loss of trust in renewable energy companies, electric car manufacturers and Hydrogen energy companies with investors selling out hard in most. The commercial viability of these enterprises seems highly suspect. Investors are fleeing despite politicians and the mainstream media claiming that they represent the future.

This week, BOOM will look at loss of trust in the pharmaceutical companies that created the Covid ‘vaccines’.  The shares of these companies have been falling for two years. Last week, Pfizer shares continued their rapid decline ending the week down 7.47%; mid-week they were down almost 10%.

The following charts are from ‘Stockcharts’ and ‘Incredible Charts’ for all four Covid ‘vaccine’ companies over the last five years:

Long term, Pfizer investors have been even more disappointed. Their shares have now fallen back to where they were 10 years ago.

Concerning the dramatic downtrend in the company’s revenue this year and falls in anticipated profits, their CEO, Albert Bourla said last week, “Although I’m not happy, all we can do is to execute on our strategy so that investors will see that this is a good growth opportunity”.

BOOM can think of a few other things that the management could do in this situation. Pfizer’s shareholders would also have some suggestions but they are busy leaving the crime-scene.  For investors buying, there is a well-known, old and wise investment adage which perhaps should be at the forefront of their minds, “Don’t catch a falling knife”.

BOOM has written extensively in the last two years about these companies that manufacture Covid “so-called vaccines” using mRNA technology.  [NB: Novavax uses a different technology absent the genetic material present in mRNA products.]  BOOM has been warning investors of potential insolvency if the pending US class action legal cases result in massive damages claims when companies could be forced to seek Chapter 11 protection.

BOOM is also aware of pending human rights cases being launched against various governments involved in promoting these products. The companies will inevitably be indirectly damaged by these challenges; win, lose or draw.

Now the State of Texas has launched a legal case using a new approach. Texas is suing Pfizer for, “unlawfully misrepresenting the effectiveness of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discussion of the product.”

In a Press Release, the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said, “We are pursuing justice for the people of Texas, many of whom were coerced by tyrannical vaccine mandates to take a defective product sold by lies”.  From the Press Release, “Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.  The pharmaceutical company’s widespread representation that its vaccine possessed 95% efficacy against infection was highly misleading. That metric represented a calculation of the so-called “relative risk reduction” for vaccinated individuals in Pfizer’s initial, two-month clinical trial results.  FDA publications indicate “relative risk reduction” is a misleading statistic that “unduly influence[s]” consumer choice.”

It is now common knowledge that the mRNA Covid jabs do not prevent infection by the virus and neither do they prevent transmission of the virus to others, even Granny.  Thus, the word “vaccine” appears to have been misused. And the word “effective” also appears to have been misused when promoting these products. We will remember the message, “safe and effective” being delivered ad nauseam.

It’s becoming clear that Pfizer’s Covid jab has almost zero effectiveness, on a population basis, in preventing the disease known as COVID-19 and, worse still, it appears to come with a long list of potential side effects that are far worse than COVID-19 itself—such as blood clots, heart damage, brain damage, neurological conditions, auto-immunity, possible damage to the immune system, possible infertility (nobody knows), and even death.  One Canadian expert, Professor Denis Rancourt, has estimated 17 Million deaths worldwide to date, presumably with more to come.

Then we need to consider the products, which were jabbed into 5 Billion arms globally, are not the same as the products that were used in the clinical trials. To solve the scale-up problems of mass manufacture, apparently “Process 2” was used. Process 2 is reportedly very different to Process 1, which was used to make the products for the clinical trials, were used to declare the products “safe and effective”.

BOOM read a brilliant summary last week written by Australia’s most senior expert Pharmacologist, Dr Phillip Altman. His summary on Substack should be compulsory reading for everyone on Planet Earth. [NB: Bolded emphasis by editor]

QUOTE: “The COVID gene-based so-called “vaccines” have been a cataclysmic failure from a number of points of view.

After 3 years we now know, and it is widely admitted, that the “vaccines” do not prevent infection; do not keep you out of hospital; do not prevent transmission of infection; do not stay at the site of injection and travel to every cell in your body; linger for weeks or even months (think “long COVID”); and, have been temporarily associated with an enormous number of non-COVID, unexplained, Excess Deaths worldwide approaching several million (based on NZ Ministry of Health record level data and considerable other statistics).

Drilling down to the biochemical level there are even more disturbing facts which have come to light over these three years (all covered in my Substacks). We now know the shots which were used commercially were made by an entirely different manufacturing process (Process 2) as compared to those shots used in the original clinical trial used to support the claimed safety and efficacy. Use of this process meant that DNA contamination in the form of DNA plasmids and endotoxins were contained in the shots. Both are highly toxic and should not be there. In addition, it was more recently found that the Pfizer “vaccine” contained undeclared Simian virus promoter nucleotide segments which have been recognised has having oncogenic (cancer) potential. What could possibly go wrong?

Now it has been reported in one of the most prestigious scientific journals, Nature, that the mRNA gene-based injections can cause random production of unusual proteins which could have profound immunological and other effects on the body. The highly technical and detailed paper by Mulroney et al can be uploaded: Frame Shifting Nature Dec 2023; 20.5MB ∙ PDF file Download

This is a bombshell. The implications are unknown but you can bet that the production of these random proteins due to genetic “frame shifting” cannot be good. You may expect the proponents of the Covid “vaccines” to declare “nothing to see here” based on zero evidence and shift the onus of proof of harm elsewhere.

Dr. Philip McMillan does an exceptional job at simplifying complicated scientific information and he has done a video to explain what “frame shifting” is all about. CLICK HERE to view his 18 min video. Basically, the use of N-methylpseudouridine in the unnatural mRNA in the shots causes the genetic code machinery to “skip a cog” as it were and produce something other than intended Spike Protein. Nobody knows the consequences. This was reported in this paper to occur in up to 30% of vaccinated individuals.”

And “Pfizer fostered a misleading impression that vaccine protection was durable and withheld from the public information that undermined its claims about the duration of protection. And, despite the fact that its clinical trial failed to measure whether the vaccine protects against transmission, Pfizer embarked on a campaign to intimidate the public into getting the vaccine as a necessary measure to protect their loved ones.”

STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS PFIZER. It is certainly worth reading the Press Release from the Texas Attorney General. Those readers who seek more detail can read the full petition.  State of Texas Press Release: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-pfizer-misrepresenting-covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-and-conspiring To read the full petition, click here.

URSULA AND ALBERT TOGETHER AGAIN!

” Together Again” is a 1964 song by American country singer and guitarist Buck Owens. The song is best known as the “B” side to Owens’ No. 1 hit, “My Heart Skips a Beat”. By the way, here is a photo of the carefully selected (not elected) CEO of Pfizer with the carefully selected (not elected) President of the European Commission which is the highest office in the European Union.

They are meeting at – where else? — the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is an American think-tank in the field of international affairs, favouring Atlanticism, and founded in 1961.  It manages sixteen regional centres and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity and is headquartered in Washington DC. Does the word ‘Globalist’ spring to mind?

Atlanticism, also known as Transatlanticism, is the ideology which advocates ever closer alliances between nations in Northern America (the United States and Canada) and in Europe (the countries of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Turkey etc.) on political, economic, and defence issues.

Let’s look at associated groups of carefully selected (not elected) people. ‘The North Atlantic Council’ is the premier, governmental forum for discussion, and decision-making in an Atlanticist context and is the principal political decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Organisations that can be considered Atlanticist in origin include:

• NATO

• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

• G-6/7/8

• North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC)

• Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC)

• The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF)

• European Horizons

• The Atlantic Council

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are also considered Atlanticist. Under a tacit agreement, the former is led by an American and the latter European. Atlanticism essentially ignores 7 Billion people on the planet. It’s a cosy club of mostly selected (not elected), well-groomed and well promoted people.

ARGENTINA – LOSS OF TRUST IN A SINGLE CHART - But let’s go back to this week’s current theme: ‘Loss of Trust’.

Loss of trust in institutions is at a severe stage in Argentina. After almost 100 years of an economic roller-coaster and financial mayhem induced by successive governments who had no clue what they were doing, the people have been in a state of panic for the last 18 months, desperately buying shares in the hope of preserving some wealth. This is what happens when the people lose trust in their banking system, the value of their homes and their national currency.

The share market index, the ‘MerVal’ Index, has doubled three times in the last 18 months. It has risen from around 100,000 points to over 1 Million. That is called a “10 Bagger” in investment terms. Some naïve individuals may see this as a strong vote in favour of Argentina’s corporate sector with high expectations of future prosperity. However, this is clearly not the case. Argentinians are simply terrified of the future and are desperately trying to find a “safe” place for their hard earned money.

The nation’s annual CPI inflation rate is currently 161% which sounds awful but is relatively low by historical Argentinian standards. In 1989, Argentina experienced a period of hyperinflation (currency collapse), with annual inflation reaching almost 5,000% for a short period.

Here is a chart of inflation rates in Argentina since 1944. You can see the Hyperinflation events (currency collapse) clearly. Some events are not shown as it would be impossible to fit them all into a single chart:

The current top of the pops in Annual CPI inflation is Venezuela with a current figure of 283% while Lebanon is runner-up with 215%.

Argentina elected a new President recently, Javier Milei who is promising yet another economic nirvana by abandoning the national currency in favour of the US Dollar, closing down the central bank, turning away from the BRICS nations, and dismissing many thousands of public servants. If he achieves all this (he may not), a crash of the nation’s commercial banks will eventually result, due to loss of inter-bank trust, if there is no central bank to act as the intermediary.

History tells us this and, if it happens, a crash of the national economy is almost guaranteed.  Poverty will then go from 40% to over 70% (estimated by BOOM). Asset prices will collapse. Productive assets will then be (presumably) sold off to “international investors” for peanuts (US Dollars borrowed for that purpose from offshore Tax Haven banks).

BOOM often says, “your currency is your nation” and “your nation is your currency”.  The US Dollar has been used in Argentina for so long to settle large asset transfers (such as homes and apartments) that it is arguable that the Nation no longer exists and has not really existed in financial terms for decades.

The sad thing is that the people of Argentina have little choice but to take the Milei gamble. It is called a “Hail Mary” pass in American football, a last desperate attempt to win the game. Seductive Utopian, Socialist ideas, and Marxist dialectic have destroyed the nation’s economy. Of course, everything was done “for the greater good”.

This appears to be a repeat of what happened to the USSR after it collapsed in 1990 – 1999 when the so-called “Harvard Boys” – the Harvard Institute for International Development — turned up to “re-construct” the productive assets of Russia.

HYPERINFLATION – WHAT IS IT? — IT’S CURRENCY COLLAPSE. Let’s look at the worst episode of Hyperinflation in history. It occurred in Hungary at the end of WW2, which makes present-day Argentina look like a non-event.

Wikipedia, [QUOTE]: “Between the end of 1945 and July 1946, Hungary went through the highest inflation ever recorded. In 1944, the highest banknote value was 1,000 Pengo (the Hungarian currency at that time). By the end of 1945, it was 10,000,000 Pengo, and the highest value in mid-1946 was 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Pengo. A special currency, the adópengő (or tax pengő) was created for tax and postal payments. The inflation was such that the value of the adópengő was adjusted each day by radio announcement. On 1 January 1946, one adópengő equalled one pengő, but by late July, one adópengő equalled 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Pengo or 2×1021 Pengo (2 sextillion pengő).

When the pengő was replaced in August 1946 by the Forint, the total value of all Hungarian banknotes in circulation amounted to 1⁄1,000 of one US cent. Inflation had peaked at 1.3 × 1016% per month (i.e. prices doubled every 15.6 hours). On 18 August 1946, 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Pengo (4×1029 pengő, four hundred quadrilliard on the long scale used in Hungary, or four hundred octillions short scale) became 1 Forint.

• Start and end date: August 1945 – July 1946

• Peak month and rate of inflation: July 1946, 41.9×1015% [UNQUOTE]

BOOM’s QUANTITATIVE BOOSTING FOR THE PEOPLES MONEY EXPLAINED: https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/12/15/boom-as-at-15th-december-2019/  AND BOOM’s Perfect Economy: https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/boom-as-at-19th-january-2020/

In economics, things work until they don’t.  Make your own conclusions, do your own research.  BOOM does not offer investment advice.

CLICK HERE FOR PODCASTS:   OUR BRAVE NEW ECONOMIC WORLD

BANKS DON’T TAKE DEPOSITS, THEY BORROW YOUR MONEY: LOANS CREATE DEPOSITS — that is how almost all new money is created in the economy (by commercial banks making loans). https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.  Watch this short 15-minute video and see how Professor Richard Werner brilliantly explains how global banking systems really work.

In 2014, Richard Werner provided the first empirical evidence that banks create credit out of thin air.  They do this whenever they issue a loan or, more specifically, purchase a promissory note. This is a walk-through of exactly how they do it.

Most economists are unaware of this and even ignore the banking & finance sectors in their econometric models.

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COMING SOON:

-       Letter from Great Britain – Christmas Special, Saturday December 23, 2023

-       The Financial Jigsaw Part 2 – December 30, 2023 - Chapter 3

-       Letter from South Africa – Coming early in 2024