You Can't Warn Greed. Fortunately.

The Trump tax cut was human history's largest bull trap. Ironically it accelerated the end of the cycle via misallocation of capital, rampant speculation, global liquidity collapse, and consumer over-confidence...

As a card carrying perma-bear I have had to come to terms with the fact that repeating the same dire warnings over and over again comes with a certain loss of credibility. People are not so much interested in the fact that this gong show will explode spectacularly, they want to know exactly when it's time to take their seat for the show. Because in the meantime dancing around like a serial-conned jackass along with everyone else can be a lot of fun. So I am told. Be that as it may, the "imagined realities" perma-bull view brings it's own set of challenges. Amid rampant lying, how is one to know exactly when the last fool is found? Because when the music stops, the last chairs will be long gone...

The best way to see the quality of this epic con job, is via S&P futures positioning. Here we see that at the top in 2007, speculators were very well positioned (short). Now, they are still near record long. Similarly in late 2015 three years ago, speculators were heavily short into that sell-off:

Oil gamblers, currently in the process of getting margined out of existence, were even more deluded by Trumptopia.

Here we see crude futures net specs versus oil. Despite a persistent downtrend in the price of oil over the past decade, speculators have become increasingly more aggressive:

Mutual Funds:

This week, all of the "bullish" factors cited by perma-bulls as catalyst for a Santa Rally came to pass - OPEC deal, weak jobs report, dovish Fed, 48 hour trade truce etc.

The S&P 500 lost 170 points on the week (-1500 Dow). The high was the open on Monday, the low close for the week was Friday. 

This week's low close was the same level as the low close for November and October. Over-leveraged S&P futures speculators will be the next ones margined out of existence.

In the immortal words of George H.W. Bush with respect to Supply Side Voodoo Ponzinomics: 

"It just won't work"

Unfortunately, you can't warn the greediest people to ever walk the Earth:

The walls are closing in on King Donny...

"Never an honest word, that was when I ruled the world"