Friday, December 22, 2017

Fed Unwinds, Gold Market Yawns / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

In October, the Federal Reserve started the unwinding of its massive balance sheet. According to the addendum to the Policy Normalization Principles and Plans revealed in June 2017, Fed officials wanted to reduce the size of its security portfolio by $10 billion in October ($6 billion in Treasuries and $4 billion in the mortgage-backed assets). Let’s analyze whether this is really what happened, how the so-called quantitative tightening has influenced the financial markets so far, and what the Fed’s normalization would mean for the gold market.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Will Tax Bill Sink Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

This week, the U.S. Congress approved the tax bill. What does it mean for the gold market?

So it finally happened. After months of struggle, the U.S. lawmakers passed a tax reform on Wednesday. Now, Trump has to sign it into law. What’s in the final version? The bill maintains current seven tax brackets for individuals, but temporarily lowers most income levels and rates for each one. It also increases the standard deduction.

Friday, December 22, 2017

The Main Characteristics Of Bitcoin / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

Bitcoin is a newer form of currency, the difference being it is completely digital. Nobody controls bitcoin, they are not printed in a factory, they are completely held and created electronically. They are only used to buy things electronically, and you can invest in bitcoin if you wish. The price of bitcoin changes hour by hour so it’s best to keep an eye on when is the right time to invest. If you are new to bitcoin, below are a few characteristics to help you understand bitcoin better before you invest.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Bitcoin: Gold Rush in the Wild Wild Math Game / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: EconMatters

Bitcoin has become a buzz word in the investing community, not as an alternate currency unit replacing the fiat money, but as an asset class with a spectacular 1,600%+ return this year, valuation almost doubled just in the December month alone. Bitcoin was heading towards $20,000 before pulling back to $15,000 level on 12/21/2017. The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization rose above $600 billion for the first time on Dec. 18, 2017.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Another Technical Tool in the Markets Chart Analysis Toolbox! / InvestorEducation / Technical Analysis

By: Peter_Degraaf

Charts are fascinating!  They reflect human action.  We look at charts for direction, for support and resistance.  Here is a chart (courtesy Stockcharts.com) that is just now in the process of showing a buy signal for gold mining stocks.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Economic And Technical Outlook Of Indian Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Submissions

Macroeconomic Fundamentals

India is the sixth largest in terms of nominal GDP already. Moreover it has shown a outstanding momentum in its GDP growth rates. The country is the world’s fastest growing major economy.

Future prospects are magnificent. India is right in the sweet spot of the „new economy“ that the world is going to. It has a very young and well-educated workforce, which is already a major exporter of IT and outsourcing services.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Stock Market Importance of the Final Hour / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Here is some information that I thought I’d pass along.

The first is an article by ZeroHedge, which begins, “For months, the so-called "Smart Money" has been on-board with the incessant rally in US equity markets, buying every dip - no matter how shallow.

However, since the end of November, a very different regime appeared to take hold.”

Friday, December 22, 2017

Short-term CRB Rally Driven Mainly by Oil / Commodities / CRB Index

By: Donald_W_Dony

The recent rebound strength in the Commodity Research Bureau Index (CRB) has been underpinned by only a select few natural resources.

The CRB having completed a basing pattern in Q2/Q3 has rallied largely on the back of a single commodity - Light crude oil.

Copper prices have also contributed to the rebound, but the heavy lifting has gone to WTIC.

As near-term futures contracts point to $61 for oil and $3.25 for copper, the rebound maybe short-lived.

Friday, December 22, 2017

The Stock Market Train Left the Station Years Ago, Now What? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Submissions

Chad Champion writes:The S&P 500 hit record highs 53 times this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had 70 record closes this year.

It’s tempting to jump in.

Here’s 2017 summed up by the Wall St. Journal in yesterday’s piece, This Year in Review:

A global stock-market surge powered by corporate earnings and economic growth sent major indexes to repeated records this year, defying predictions that the rally would peter out.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Here’s Why China Unofficially Ended the Dispute with South Korea / Politics / China US Conflict

By: John_Mauldin

BY PHILLIP ORCHARD : The countries of East Asia are worried about the coercive power of Beijing’s pocketbook. And perhaps they should be.

China is flush with money, and as it continues to pour massive amounts of aid and investment into the region, it’s only a matter of time before Beijing tries to cash in.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

4 Breakout Stocks to Watch / Companies / Company Chart Analysis

By: Harry_Boxer

Here are four stocks showing strong technical momentum.

BlackBerry Limited (BB) shot up out of a double-top pattern on Wednesday, closing up nearly 12% at $12.17 on 29 million shares traded. That was the largest volume since the end of September, and more than 7x the stock's daily average. The move came with the company's positive earnings announcement and news on the transformation of its core business from communications hardware to cybersecurity solutions. Price has not been this high since January 2015. Next targets: $14 and $17.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Gold, Stocks, Bitcoin in 2018. Everything Bubble Bursts? - Video / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2017

By: GoldCore

In this our first GoldNomics podcast we take a look at the major financial market themes of 2017 and delve into the outlook in 2018. GoldCore CEO Stephen Flood and GoldCore’s Research Director and world renowned precious metals commentator Mark O’Byrne are interviewed by Dave Russell.

Macro-economic and geo-political developments are considered in an attempt to assess the risks of a global financial shock in the coming year and the outlook for bitcoin, stocks and gold. We cut through the financial markets jargon and look at the risks to your investment portfolio and financial wellbeing that are largely ignored in the mainstream media.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Is Apple Old iPhone's Stealth Slow Down IOS Update a SCAM? / Companies / Apple

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Technology expert John Poole has forced Apple to come clean on the real secret behind Apples marketing and sales success, of why customers are so eager to upgrade to the latest iPhone model, and the answer may surprise you!

Apparently what Apple has been doing for at least a year and probably for more than 5 years is to SLOW DOWN the operation of Older iPhone's via IOS software updates. Which has the effect of encouraging older phone owners to UPGRADE to the latest model. This way the consumers have no real world first hand experience to compare the speed and performance between an Old iphone and a New i-phone!

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Stock Market Topping Pattern Or Just Consolidation - Will Stocks Continue Higher? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Paul_Rejczak

Briefly:
Intraday trade: Our Wednesday's intraday trading outlook was neutral. It proved accurate, because the S&P 500 lost 0.1% following slightly higher opening of the trading session (+0.2%). The market fluctuates after its Friday-Monday rally. We still can see technical overbought conditions. However, there have been no confirmed negative signals so far. Therefore, we prefer to be out of the market again, avoiding low risk/reward ratio trades.

Our intraday outlook is neutral today. Our short-term outlook is neutral, and our medium-term outlook is neutral:

Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): neutral
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): neutral
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): neutral

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Some Commodity Charts are Breaking Out / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Rambus_Chartology

Today I would like to update some charts for the commodities complex as we are starting to see some action in this sector. Back in the summer months when we first started to get long some of the different commodities sectors, we got many breakouts from some very nice H&S bases. After the initial move up came the first consolidation phase that has been going on for nearly four months or so. We are now starting to see some of these consolidation patterns breaking out which should lead to the next impulse move higher in most cases.

Lets start with BHP, one of the biggest miners on the planet, that shows a good example of where we are at in the bull market. Today the price action broke out with a gap above the top rail of an almost 5 month triangle consolidation pattern. A backtest to the top rail would come in around the 43.50 area.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

GOLD AND CRUDE SETUP IS VERY BULLISH! / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Enda_Glynn

My Bias: Long to a new all time high above 1827.
Wave Structure: Impulse structure to a new high.
Long term wave count: wave (3) above 1666.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Bitcoin: Here's Why the Push Above $20,000 Was in the Cards / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: EWI

Bitcoin: Here's Why the Push Above $20,000 Was in the Cards

Thursday, December 21, 2017

If You Want To Get Rich, Invest In T-Bills, Not FANGs Or Bitcoin / Interest-Rates / US Bonds

By: John_Mauldin

BY JARED DILLIAN : Demand curves are usually downward-sloping. That’s because people will buy more of a product when it is cheaper and less of it when it is more expensive.

Some things—like stocks and especially bitcoin—have upward-sloping demand curves, which should be theoretically impossible. But they happen in the real world. People really want bitcoin when it is expensive, but nobody was interested when it was cheap.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

20 Positive Trends That Will Make You Feel Good About the World in 2018 / Politics / Social Issues

By: John_Mauldin

I’m probably one of the most optimistic people you will ever meet. I’m confident in the future of humanity. But I also recognize that we must overcome many challenges to get to the future we ultimately want.

In other words, I try to stay balanced.

For whatever reason, we tend to tune into bad news more eagerly than we do good news. The media is partly to blame, because murders, fires, and nasty weather sell advertising. But something deeper is at work.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Amey / Acron Fell Iconic Shefffield Ash Tree 'Milly' on Millhouses Lane / Local / Sheffield

By: Anika_Walayat

For over 3 months the Tree campaigners of the Millhouses area of Sheffield had put up a brave effort in attempts at saving Millhouses Lane's big Ash tree 'Milly' that saw many tree campaigners out from dawn until dusk protecting the tree in all weathers, from late summer, to autumn right through to the bitter cold of late November into mid December. First came the cropping of 10 days ago that saw Amey / Acorn take street overhanging branches, but still the tree lived on, and so did the campaigners continue to brave freezing temperatures. Unfortunately on 20th December, Amey / Acorn came in the very early hours of the morning at around 4.30am to complete the felling of Milly. Which now stands no more, just a mere stump remains where once a mighty Ash tree once stood.