Martin Armstrong Discussion

[TPTB_need_war]

Stop spamming the thread. Armstrong doesn't have to prove anything to you. You are not paying for his services. Thus you have no official data from him to accuse him with. His public writings and blogs are not official trading data from his company. End of story.

Your speculation about his trading data is ambiguous because he never promised any trading accuracy to anyone who doesn't buy his trading data. The public writings are not his official data. There is no way he can communicate the complexity of his dynamic models in static written form. His trading models are meant to be used in real-time by savvy traders, not by idiots who think they can extract his model by reading hastily written blog posts. You are completely misinterpreting the intent of the information he puts out for free. It is not for trading. It is only broad stroked informational.

Continue ranting and it is clear you are a paid disinformation agent.

1. You don't need to buy MA's garbage in order to criticize his public claims. He's made predictions publicly in interviews and most of them have been false.
2. Just because you criticize someone doesn't make you a "paid disinformation agent."

You can't understand his public claims, because the thought process of his model (which is very complex and has overlapping cycles) is spread out over numerous blog posts and public writings. When you take some statement out-of-context of the understanding of the entire holistic set of writings, then you are making false accusations because you don't understand what he has actually said holistically. Thus if you don't buy his services where you can get precise assistance from the model on your specific trading objectives, then you are just blowing farts in the wind with your erroneous "criticism" (more like making yourself look like the fool that you are).

Continue to enjoy wasting your fucking time. I don't know who wastes their time other than someone who is paid to do it, an idiot, an addict, or because it is a form of fun/entertainment (cure for boredom and inability to find something more interesting to do). So you decide which applies to yourself.

I'm glad to hear your time was well spent. I hope the paid subscribers fare similarly.

Why not head over to the Altcoin forum and try to convince fools to stop gambling. You could not do it in a million years. Since when it is YOUR job to worry about how other people evaluate the performance they get from speculating.

Matthew 7  applies. Look first at the plank in your own eye, before worrying about the speck of dust in someone else's eye.

Nor have I based any trades on his public blog.

Still, for me Armstrong reads history and current events in a manner where I learn.  So, for me the time spent reading Armstrong has been very positive.

If all Armstrong is selling is that some people think they have gained knowledge, then it is no other person's duty to tell everyone else that what they perceive to have gained in return for reading Armstrong (for free!) is useless.

Note I have made successful financial trades based only on reading his blog. I've been selling out of silver, Bitcoin, and Philippines pesos into dollars every since 2011 for silver (and in fact I publicly predicted the top precisely many months before it happened so Armstrong just confirmed for me!), 2013 top for Bitcoin, and since 2014/5 for the peso. This has been an extremely correct trade! But as an example of why you fools are clueless, that correct trade doesn't count the speculation trades that could have been made on the shorter-term moves of BTC in its rollercoaster gyrations along the way down from $1000 (although I did correctly predict most of those too based on mania sentiment). So this is why you can't take his blog posts out-of-context, because the longer-term cycles are not the same as the shorter-term cycles, plus cycles from different asset classes and phenomenon interact.

Armstrong was the first one to shock everyone by predicting the dollar would rise in the coming global economic contagion (post 2015.75). All the delusional goldbug anal-lists were predicting hyperinflation and a dollar decline as China took over, etc...

Also before when I was reading only his public writings, I didn't know the predicted < $1000 low for gold wasn't until March 2016 (which someone shared with me from his paid gold report) and thus I made some wrong decisions about the potential low for BTC being at the 2015.75 turn date this past September. So having access to the paid reports is essential. That coming low does not change the long-term forecast for a secular bull market peak of $2500 - $6000 ($12,000 being the maximum possible chart projection but won't happen except in some very rare circumstances).

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[fredhead]

As previously stated by Vokain, a very relevant question is:
Quote "Looking back, was it better or worse to tie your time and money with Armstrong?"   The answer for me personally is that financially it was worth the effort.

Looking forward I would add:

Does anybody here believe that we are not heading into a very serious economic situation sometime in the fairly near future?

Does anybody here not believe that huge economies such as Japan and particularly Europe are in very serious and more imminent trouble and are likely to crash before the US does?

Does anybody here not believe that, if the above statement is true, much of the big money fleeing Europe, Japan etc will end up moving into the US?

Does anybody here believe that it is not in their best interests to try to protect themselves by following where the big money is going and/or getting some of their investments off the grid etc?

The above questions, I believe, reflect some of the very basics of what MA is talking about. I am sure he is not the only one stating these things but he has been pretty consistent about it over quite a long period of time. His shorter term timing (at least as stated in his blog) isn't necessarily reliable enough to risk your hard earned money on. His main overall views, longer term trends etc, I would humbly suggest, are worth paying serious attention to though. Take what he offers and make the best use of it, is my approach.

Fred

[OROBTC]

...

TPTB and fredhead

Obviously I can only speak for myself, as I know NO ONE (personally) here at bitcointalk.  Armstrong is only one of many that I follow.  Nor do I pay for any trading newsletters, etc.

Nor do I trade, I think TPTB already knows that.  For perspective, almost every time I took a speculative punt, I lost all or most of my "investments".

Apparently hardly anyone can successfully predict the future.  How can anyone expect Armstrong to have a record that is way better than the market?  It could be, if so, then anyone looking to speculate along his lines is clearly worth the money for his paid subscriptions.  And if Armstrong DOES make good predictions (for his subscribers), then bully for him.

*   *   *

It does look like we have a very rocky road ahead re the financial markets.  China announced that their steel companies will be firing some 400,000 employees.  I have never accepted as fact that the BRICS were anything for the USA to worry about.  (We have are own problems to worry about)

China does look to be leading the world into hard times.

The Baltic Dry Index is down again.

Our sales of bearings are Peru are down HARD in the past several weeks.

Europe seems to be drowning in a sea of Muslims, and they don't seem capable (now anyway) of doing anything about it...

[TPTB_need_war]

It does look like we have a very rocky road ahead re the financial markets.  China announced that their steel companies will be firing some 400,000 employees.  I have never accepted as fact that the BRICS were anything for the USA to worry about.  (We have are own problems to worry about)

China does look to be leading the world into hard times.

The Baltic Dry Index is down again.

Our sales of bearings are Peru are down HARD in the past several weeks.

Europe seems to be drowning in a sea of Muslims, and they don't seem capable (now anyway) of doing anything about it...

All of which Armstrong predicted. 2020 is the low for China, but then it will rise up while the West continues to fall into the abyss, because the developing world doesn't have the socialism problem that the West has. Simple as that. China and developing world can write off the debt and renew. The West can't because the youth and all the people are addicted to socialism. It will require a lot of pain and decades for the West to reculture itself. China's write down will be a short-term decline only. Armstrong has explained this clearly so many, many times.

Armstrong predicted in 2014 everything happening in Europe now.

Yes OROBTC, I told you long ago (based on Armstrong's models) to expect a big decline in your developing country markets from 2015.75 to 2020. After that, it will rise again and by 2032 according to Armstrong's model, China will be the new financial capital of the world.

You should also refer to my recent epiphany on the future of the Knowledge Age, since the developing world will have more Knowledge Age producers and creative youth. Peru is your future. The United States not (will peak and head down 2017.9 and won't bottom until perhaps 2024 and that will only be temporary bottom with more downside coming after 2028). Near-term until 2017.9, the USA and the dollar will be the strongest.

See how much pent-up potential can be unleashed in China as the power of technology removes the silly barriers in China:

http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Chinese-parents-split-up-for-the-kids

[TPTB_need_war]

Doesn't StorJ have a coin on polyonoxious? Aren't they nearing a milestrone.

Again I recently explained why all those decentralized file systems (including MaidSafe and Sia) are technological nonsense, but doesn't seem to the concern of you P&D followers.

Potential problem with XMR is that the coin was too well distributed and absent a premine, thus no one has the means and incentive to P&D it. Monero would seem to instead be a long-term investment (and personally I think a very poor one for the recent reasons I have explained about their UNRELIABLE anonymity having no market).

Rather I would say take your profits from crypto before March and hold dollars because a major contagion is brewing in the markets that is going to wipe out Bitcoin, gold, and all markets except the US dollar and US stocks. The coming interest rate hikes from the Fed will turn up the dial pressure. Note for example OROBTC's comment today that his Peru ball bearing sales have fallen significantly since December. Martin Armstrong's model is coming true as predicted as the periphery collapses and the USA and US dollar will be the last man standing in the global economy.

It does look like we have a very rocky road ahead re the financial markets.  China announced that their steel companies will be firing some 400,000 employees.  I have never accepted as fact that the BRICS were anything for the USA to worry about.  (We have are own problems to worry about)

China does look to be leading the world into hard times.

The Baltic Dry Index is down again.

Our sales of bearings are Peru are down HARD in the past several weeks.

Europe seems to be drowning in a sea of Muslims, and they don't seem capable (now anyway) of doing anything about it...

When the liquidity dries up in the altcoin market, you can be holding a dead asset.

What I don't understand about pump and dumps is where is the money coming from?  It made sense when new people were entering crypto in droves but the last six months pump and dump have turned into mostly just dumps.

It can be mostly fake volume with the insiders buying from themselves.

And they can then use that to sell off more of their premines to greater fools who think the pump is real volume.

For me it indicates the insiders are getting out and dumping it on the greater fools. Just don't be the last man out the door when the stampede (waterfall collapse) dump starts.

Remember the market caps for altcoins are lies. There isn't that amount of capital invested in them. These are just pumped prices by insiders buying from themselves. Much easier to do that when you control the float from a deceitful premine as is the case with Dash and Ethereum (buying the ICO from themselves).

[OROBTC]

Doesn't StorJ have a coin on polyonoxious? Aren't they nearing a milestrone.

Again I recently explained why all those decentralized file systems (including MaidSafe and Sia) are technological nonsense, but doesn't seem to the concern of you P&D followers.

Potential problem with XMR is that the coin was too well distributed and absent a premine, thus no one has the means and incentive to P&D it. Monero would seem to instead be a long-term investment (and personally I think a very poor one for the recent reasons I have explained about their UNRELIABLE anonymity having no market).

Rather I would say take your profits from crypto before March and hold dollars because a major contagion is brewing in the markets that is going to wipe out Bitcoin, gold, and all markets except the US dollar and US stocks. The coming interest rate hikes from the Fed will turn up the dial pressure. Note for example OROBTC's comment today that his Peru ball bearing sales have fallen significantly since December. Martin Armstrong's model is coming true as predicted as the periphery collapses and the USA and US dollar will be the last man standing in the global.

When the liquidity dries up in the altcoin market, you can be holding a dead asset.

altcoins look very risky, as there is not mass participation (mass, hah!) in them vs. BTC, and compounding that is even less liquidity than here in Bitcoinistan.

Gold may fall to $800 or whatever (gold price = "paper gold"), but HODLers of gold will not mind (for the most part).  I will find the necessary ammo to buy gold should it drop 25% more...  I don't care about the short-term fluctuations.  BTFD.  Gold will do great in the coming hard times.

Yep re our bearing sales in Peru.  I am waiting on the data to show me exactly how bad.  But spare parts almost always will sell at reasonable levels as it is cheaper to repair axles than buy new cars in places like Peru.

I would agree with Armstrong & TPTB about the US$ for the short to medium term.  King Dollar, bitchez.  The next interesting question worth exploring would be WHEN and HOW to exit the US$ when our problems finally hit.

And actually, this ^^^ is where Armstrong (and TPTB as well re Asia) offers up interesting IDEAS.

[pinky]

TPTB_need_war was banned for 3 days for writing in big red letters that "Ethereum is broken and can't be fixed" and proceeded to defend this point factually.

And so the mods have now demonstrated they are involved in the pump of Ethereum.

So much for the objectivity of this forum.

Yeah, many jumped on the ETH wagon and I guess irrationality (pump) is the only way to unload.
http://qntra.net/2015/09/buterins-waterfall-nearly-spent/

[OROBTC]

...

A pair of gems from Armstrong today:

"Clinton Speaking Fees Since 2001 Total $125 Million"

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42551

A quote:

"However, the total amount Clinton received in speaking fees since 2001 has reached $125 million. It seems to be a fair issue that she should release the transcripts of those speeches so you can see how she kisses the asses of the bankers behind closed doors and then pretends she will be independent as president."

Wow, $125 million..........

*   *   *

"The Calais Refugee Camp Known as the Jungle"

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42588

Ugh for Europe...

[tabnloz]

Doesn't StorJ have a coin on polyonoxious? Aren't they nearing a milestrone.

Again I recently explained why all those decentralized file systems (including MaidSafe and Sia) are technological nonsense, but doesn't seem to the concern of you P&D followers.

Potential problem with XMR is that the coin was too well distributed and absent a premine, thus no one has the means and incentive to P&D it. Monero would seem to instead be a long-term investment (and personally I think a very poor one for the recent reasons I have explained about their UNRELIABLE anonymity having no market).

Rather I would say take your profits from crypto before March and hold dollars because a major contagion is brewing in the markets that is going to wipe out Bitcoin, gold, and all markets except the US dollar and US stocks. The coming interest rate hikes from the Fed will turn up the dial pressure. Note for example OROBTC's comment today that his Peru ball bearing sales have fallen significantly since December. Martin Armstrong's model is coming true as predicted as the periphery collapses and the USA and US dollar will be the last man standing in the global.

When the liquidity dries up in the altcoin market, you can be holding a dead asset.

altcoins look very risky, as there is not mass participation (mass, hah!) in them vs. BTC, and compounding that is even less liquidity than here in Bitcoinistan.

Gold may fall to $800 or whatever (gold price = "paper gold"), but HODLers of gold will not mind (for the most part).  I will find the necessary ammo to buy gold should it drop 25% more...  I don't care about the short-term fluctuations.  BTFD.  Gold will do great in the coming hard times.

Yep re our bearing sales in Peru.  I am waiting on the data to show me exactly how bad.  But spare parts almost always will sell at reasonable levels as it is cheaper to repair axles than buy new cars in places like Peru.

I would agree with Armstrong & TPTB about the US$ for the short to medium term.  King Dollar, bitchez.  The next interesting question worth exploring would be WHEN and HOW to exit the US$ when our problems finally hit.

And actually, this ^^^ is where Armstrong (and TPTB as well re Asia) offers up interesting IDEAS.

So if we are looking to see when the US dollar will turn, my uneducated 2c worth is to consider:

- will the fed continue to raise (if they do, assume continued appreciation)
- if they are "forced" to stop / reverse ('forward guidance' signalling the wish for a weaker dollar, overt movement ie negative rates, depreciation of overseas markets leading to increased inflows)
- will the market lose confidence with their stewardship?


Another interesting take I read was is an orderly de-dollarisation agenda in motion (where other nations buy up gold to a % of GDP, China is in SDR basket and SDR becomes the new reserve in preparation for the next crisis. In this case national currencies are just that, national) or will it be disorderly (where nations try to destroy the hegemony of the USD or a crisis forces it to happen).

I lean more towards orderly. I think it might be managed between allies, exemplified by the timing of the CB easing merry go round. The weaker, non-allies have an uphill battle.

Good point re: ideas

[fredhead]

Looks like MA has raised his trader account price from around $450/500 straight up to $750.
Not saying that it won't be well worth it (jury's out) but things are looking slightly more profit motivated and somewhat less philanthropic.

Fred

[st0at]

Can anyone trust this MA when his predictions are always changing   

Appears that MA has changed the predicted top of the dollar and US stock markets to beyond 2017, if the pre-slingshot selloff is confirmed this March. A March panic apparently is his targeted gold low.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42678
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/41708

So if true, one could envision the possibility of this portending complete dominance of globe finance by the USA with its FATCA and other capital controls moving to increased enforcement mode in 2017. One could envision this exacerbating any collapse of the global economy, thus paving the way for China to lead if it bottoms 2020 as predicted by MA.

MA is predicting that everything that can go wrong will go wrong between 2017 to 2020, including a possible pandemic.

I have warned that we are entering a period that is summed up best as the Age of Whatever Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong.

[bigtimespaghetti]

Interesting post and is MA advertising for programmers?

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42663

[marcus_of_augustus]

Interesting post and is MA advertising for programmers?

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42663

cypherpunks?

[jehst]

A global pandemic would wreck India and China. They wouldn't be bouncing back in 2020 if that happened...

[altcoinUK]

Looks like MA has raised his trader account price from around $450/500 straight up to $750.
Not saying that it won't be well worth it (jury's out) but things are looking slightly more profit motivated and somewhat less philanthropic.

Fred

Armstrong's business isn't a charity nor he is running a philanthropic organisation.
$750.00 is not even the margin for a 10 point DJIA trade. 1 point DJIA requires £70.00-£80.00 margin at my broker, so what possibly could be unreasonable in a $750 per annum investment service?
I am very-very far from the serious traders, even a light year further from the institutional investor client's of Armstrong, but my spread betting trades are often 200 points. What Armstrong charges is only 5% of what small retail traders like me deposit for the margin of one trade. For small retail traders like me his price is affordable and for serious traders his price is a peanut. His target audience is not the usual high school demographics of Bitcointalk. Some of his institutional clients manage a many billion dollars balance sheet portfolio. The $750.00 annual price is symbolic really in the market what he serves.

[CoinCube]

I was asked to offer my thoughts on Martin Armstrong’s latest writings regarding a plague occurring by 2019. He also commented on the Zika virus.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42597

Anonymint and I have previously debated if it is possible to accurately predict something like a pandemic.

Most pandemics occur when a pathogen jumps a species barrier to a new host (humans) that are not adapted to it. Such a process should be random and follow a Poisson distribution. The expected time between pandemics should therefore follow an exponential distribution. I am skeptical of the validity of a cyclical model predicting a definitive pandemic date.

It is not likely random because I explained how it was likely man's economy that caused the Black Death, because of the overconcentration of fleas and squalor in proximity to humans, because over the overpopulation meant less than a subsistence wage for agriculture meant the Industrial Age did not occur yet meant that squalor was worse
,,,
Have you looked at the overcrowded, inhumane way we farm raise poultry and other farm animals?

I agree that that economic collapse and overpopulation could lead to worsening squalor increased contact with infected animals and increased chance of a pathogen jumping the species barrier. If economic collapse and downturns occurred cyclically that could introduce a cyclic increase in jump probability and the Poisson distribution would not hold.

However, all that would mean is that there would be times of increased risk of a pandemic and times of lesser risk. A higher probability is no guarantee that such a pathogen will jump. The Jump itself would still be a random process. It seems ridiculous to me for anyone to claim there is definitively going to be a pandemic in 2018. The only way to know that with certainly would be if you were the one introducing the pandemic.  

I don’t have a lot to add to what I wrote previously. Armstrong is of course correct that we are slowly losing the arms race against antibiotic resistant bacteria primarily due to antibiotic overuse, but we have not yet lost that battle. A viral outbreaks like the 1918 influenza like the influenza pandemic of 1918 which was highly infectious, spread through the air via small droplets and killed somewhere between 20 to 100 million people worldwide out of a population of 1.8billion (1%-5% of world population) would be very difficult if not impossible to stop. Our current therapies against viruses are by and large lacking compared to the tool we have to combat bacteria.

Given the rapid growth in world population and the crowded and impoverished condition of much of that population we are fortunate that there has not been a repeat of such a tragedy. I would not be shocked if a severe pandemic occurred soon. However, I also believe it is entirely possible that the next decade will be pandemic free.

Zika virus is a poor pandemic candidate. Its a potential nightmare for women in some areas who are planning to conceive but in everyone else it appears to mostly cause a self limited infection. It is a blood born pathogen that requires mosquitoes to spread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus

Common symptoms of infection with the virus include mild headaches, maculopapular rash, fever, malaise, conjunctivitis, and joint pains. The first well-documented case of Zika virus was described in 1964; it began with a mild headache, and progressed to a maculopapular rash, fever, and back pain. Within two days, the rash started fading, and within three days, the fever resolved and only the rash remained. Thus far, Zika fever has been a relatively mild disease of limited scope, with only one in five persons developing symptoms, with no fatalities.

[st0at]

Interesting post and is MA advertising for programmers?

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/42663

He asks for OOP experience. OOP (subclassing) is an anti-pattern and will create brittle, non-composition, non-extensible code. I could give you a link to a detailed explanation, but I do not feel like digging for it.

So when I saw that, I realize MA is not as highly knowledgeable of a programmer as he thinks he is. A programmer not using or at least acknowledging the superiority of functional programming is lacking complete knowledge of the research in type theory and on Wadler's Expression Problem.

Zika virus is a poor pandemic candidate. Its a potential nightmare for women in some areas who are planning to conceive but in everyone else it appears to mostly cause a self limited infection. It is a blood born pathogen that requires mosquitoes to spread.

The bubonic plague was a bacterial infection spread by fleas and rats.

The developing world can't avoid mosquitos, because their bamboo or wooden homes have cracks in the walls.

A global pandemic would wreck India and China. They wouldn't be bouncing back in 2020 if that happened...

If it preyed on the elderly as some variants of Influenza appear to do, then it might help solve China's impending age demographics imbalance.

[fredhead]

AltcoinUK:

Obviously not a charity, but he has stated many times that he was doing this strictly as a "service" to others and doesn't need money since he can play markets so easily and successfully. I was being a bit of a smart ass when I said that (philanthropic).  What I was talking about was more to point out what I see as another inconsistency. He makes many short and short-medium term predictions and then often, somewhat subtly, makes significant revisions to those predictions. I think his long term views make a lot of sense and I believe that he probably is one of the best LT forecasters out there. I am going to purchase the trader service but I will probably hang back a little bit to see how things are working out before I risk too much of my money. If the service is able to live up to the hype then the price paid for it will be the bargain of the century. Proof is in the pudding.

Fred

[st0at]

Fred have you ever considered that giving away (short-term) trading information for free makes the information worthless. I let you figure out why. Consider it a homework assignment. And it isn't the obviously incorrect reason that everyone will try to make the same trade. The reason is more subtle than that. A hint is that, "is every trade a winner for everyone" (a universe with an entropy of 0).

The Bible says, "Don't throw your pearls at swine".

[fredhead]

Hi StOat

Sure I have considered that but when a clear prediction is made (even if it is for free on the blog) I expect that MA's intent is not to try to deceive readers. If that were the case then that would make him simply dishonest and I very much doubt that he is. One example would be what he wrote almost a year ago regarding the imminent demise of the Euro suggesting it would likely soon be heading into free fall. I believe he is right long term but shorter term he wasn't right. In fact, he recently blogged that the Euro was doomed in the future but that it wasn't ready to fall yet and then quoted the old saying, something along the lines of "rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated". In other words it ain't likely to happen very soon. I just want to see things as they really are and not as I hope they will be (MA predictions, not the Euros demise). So far I haven't seen a consistent enough track record from him regarding shorter term predictions and that is really what the Trader service, he will soon be offering, is mostly about. I really hope that the reservations I hold will be proven wrong. Again, proof is in the pudding and at this point the pudding doesn't taste quite right to me.

Fred