Wednesday, November 29, 2017
The Oil Information Cartel Is (Finally) Broken / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
By Keith Schaefer : The below article was written by Keith Schaefer of Oil and Gas Investments Bulletin
A determined James Stafford of OilPrice.com just busted wide open an oil industry information cartel that has existed for decades.
Most investors look at WTI and Brent prices at Bloomberg or CME Futures, and figure the oil price is in the public domain. You would be about 2 percent correct, because there are hundreds of different grades of oil, and hubs where it is bought and sold. And they all have different prices.
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Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Gold's Global Supply Artery: Heading for Cardiac Arrest / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: MoneyMetals
By David Smith: An oceanic-scale demand push from "all parts Far East" is building, as the desire to own gold and silver promises to place an increasingly solid foundation for years to come.
China, India, and Southeast Asia have historically accumulated precious metal as a savings vehicle, a hedge against political uncertainty (e.g. India's surprise call-in last year of 80% of the country's paper currency), and as an expression of affection. China's newly-emerging affluent middle class alone is set to become larger than the population of the U.S. Frank Holmes collectively refers to these elements as "love and fear trades".
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
There’s No Silver Deficit, and Hasn’t Been One For 10 Years / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: David_Morgan
The ongoing debate in the industry is whether or not there is a surplus or a deficit of silver supply. However, to silver expert David Morgan of The Morgan Report, there hasn’t been a deficit in at least a decade. “In the past, we were in a deficit, from 1990 to 2006. From 2006 until now, we’ve been in a surplus,” he told Kitco News at the Silver & Gold Summit in San Francisco. “We are not and have not been in a silver deficit for the last 10 years.” However, Morgan remains optimistic that silver prices can move higher. “We have a good base here, we’re at the launch point in next 3-6 months,” he said. “2018 is going to be a good year for silver.”
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Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Nabru Sofa Condition After 3 and 5 Years of Use Long Term Review / ConsumerWatch / Reviews
By: HGR
It's now 5 full years since we bought and assembled a large 7 seater corner Nabru sofa, so find out what to expect condition wise after relatively light use, i.e. what are the Nabru sofa's strength and weaknesses after a number of years as we compare the condition at the 3 and 5 year marks.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Labour Sheffield City Council's War on Street Tree Protestors - Day 2 / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
Monday witnessed a ramping up of Sheffield City Council's 'streets ahead' PFI contractor Amey's attempts to fell Sheffield's largest street trees as it appears dozens of private security personnel were deployed along side felling crews to ensure that any attempts at the preventing felling of street trees were met with a security response. The catalyst for Monday's change of tack by the city council's contractor Amey appears to be the looming deadline contained within the PFI contract to fell 6,000 of Sheffield's big street trees by the end of 2017 (out of an estimated total of 36,000).
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Inflation Target, Taylor Rule and Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The central banks’ inability to achieve their inflation targets led some analysts to argue for modifying these targets. Are they inappropriate in a modern, globalized economy? Should central banks change them? Or should they conduct a more rule-based policy, as John Taylor argues? How would such moves affect the gold market?
As a reminder, the Fed (as well as other major central banks) targets 2-percent inflation. It may seem to be strange, as such a level is far away from the price stability (which, taken literally, means neither inflation nor deflation), which the central banks should are obliged to ensure. However, deflation is a central banks’ worst nightmare, so they want to have some buffer in case of negative demand shock. With the inflation target at zero, the margin of error would be very limited. But central banks have been missing their targets for years – should they change them?
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
The $76 Trillion Bond Market Is Forecasting Inflation. Are You Ready? / Interest-Rates / Inflation
By: Graham_Summers
This year, (2017) was the year that the financial system moved from fearing deflation to expecting inflation.
You can see this in the breakout in inflation expectations. From 2013 until mid-2016, the financial system’s expectations of future inflation were in a downtrend. Mid-2016 this changed as expectations began to rise, breaking this downtrend in early 2017.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Why a Corporate Tax Cut Won’t Boost Economic Growth / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
BY PATRICK WATSON : The House and Senate are considering tax legislation that will add $1.5 trillion to annual deficits over the next 10 years, according to their own numbers.
This is okay, we're told, because the tax cuts will stoke economic growth, delivering added tax revenue that offsets the rate reductions.
Note the bigger point here.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
The Fed Is at the Height of Monetary Policy Lunacy / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
How often do central bankers, regulators, corporate leaders, lawyers, politicians, and ordinary investors make the same mistakes over and over again? All the time.
If we stopped erasing our memories and for once learned from our mistakes, we might make better progress. But no, we must always step on the same rake.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Tech Breakthrough Could Transform The Oil Sector / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Bitcoin $10,000 – Huge Volatility of Cryptocurrencies and Risky Fiat Making Gold Attractive / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: GoldCore
– Bitcoin tops $10,000, soaring more than 850% since beginning of 2017
– Irrational exuberance arguably main driver of price performance
– Google Trends shows search for ‘Bitcoin Bubble’ hit highest level this morning
– Buyers need to be aware of hacking and security risks
– Other primary risks to widespread adoption is volatility and liquidity risk
– World’s largest online trading platform IG Markets suspends BTC trading
– Volatility of cryptocurrencies and risky world of fiat make gold attractive
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Retail Industry Index Providing The Next Stocks Long / Companies / Retail Sector
By: ElliottWave-Forecast
The S&P Retail Industry Index comprises stocks in the S&P Total Market Index that are classified in the GICS retail sub-industry. For this article we’ll be using The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) which tracks an equal-weighted index of stocks in the US retail industry and correspond generally to the total return performance of the S&P Retail Select Industry Index.
The performance of XRT is significantly correlated to the prevailing level of consumer confidence in the economy because the ETF represent the companies whose main business is selling retail merchandise to consumers like WalMart , Groupon, American Eagle, ect.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
‘Implosive’ Silver Vulnerable To Big Price Drop / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: Kelsey_Williams
Admittedly, it must sound encouraging, and even exciting, to hear proclamations that a “silver” lining is now apparent in the metals complex. Or that a silver “blast-off (is) about to happen”.
Expectations abound for the long-expected, vertical leap in silver prices that never seems to come. And we are told it is supported by solid fundamentals that include supply deficits, a return to the 16 to 1 gold/silver ratio, increasing monetary demand for silver, etc.However, an examination of those fundamentals reveals a different picture. And that picture is inconsistent with the call for higher prices.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Sheffield City Council Deploys Private Security Against Street Tree Fellings Protestors / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
Sheffield City Council's contractor Amey appears to have upped the anti in the council / Amey's long running dispute with thousands of residents opposed to the felling of thousands of 'healthy' street trees, as this week saw the deployment of private security patrols operating more aggressively than has been seen in the past in support of Amey's felling crews as they roam Sheffield's streets attempting to fell large trees before the end of this year.
Monday, November 27, 2017
How to Know When a Stocks Bull Market Is About to End – Part I / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Knowing when a bull market is about to end is critical for both traders and investors. Why? Because once a bull market ends the price movement characteristics of stocks and indexes change dramatically and require different strategies to be used in order to profit from falling prices and increased volatility.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be expanding on this topic to add several more parts because there are some really exciting things you should know as we move towards 2018.
So, let’s kick things off with the first few data points that tell us that the bull market is about to end.
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Monday, November 27, 2017
8 Charts That Show How Insane the Economy Is Today / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Since the 2008 financial crisis, there’s been a growing number of ridiculous, inane, and otherwise nonsensical economic interventions from our central bankers that fill the daily economic headlines.
I have gone from the occasional smile to scratching my head now and then to "WTF" moments.
All that said, the economists who designed these interventions had their reasons. They thought lower interest rates and liquidity injections would create jobs, spur investment, and eventually produce inflation.
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Monday, November 27, 2017
S&P 500 At New Record High, Will Uptrend Continue? / 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 index lost 0.1%, following neutral opening of the trading session. The market broke above its short-term consolidation last week. We still can see negative technical divergences along with medium-term overbought conditions. However, there have been no confirmed negative signals so far. Therefore, we prefer to be out of the market today, 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:
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Monday, November 27, 2017
UK Cashback Mortgage Deals Rise by 27% in Just a Year / Housing-Market / Mortgages
By: MoneyFacts
Buying a new home or getting a new mortgage can often be an expensive process. Cashback can be a great way for cash-strapped borrowers to reduce any costs that may occur, especially as the latest research from moneyfacts.co.uk shows that the number of cashback deals has increased by 27% over the past year.
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Monday, November 27, 2017
OPEC Will Extend The Production Cut / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
There will be an OPEC deal extension—no matter the public tussling between opposing forces in the industry cartel—if the world's largest oil producers are really determined to end the supply glut.
A failure to agree on the market remediation would cause oil prices to plummet immediately, forfeiting any gains that have been made in the last year.
Saudi Arabia needs $60 per barrel for its Aramco initial public offering to be a success in the second half of next year. It plans to sell just five percent of its prized company in the largest IPO in financial history, but a low price could force the country to sell a larger share, siphoning off government revenues at a time of strained budgets.
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Monday, November 27, 2017
Overcoming Decades of Missed Foreign Direct Investment in the Philippines / Economics / Asian Economies
By: Dan_Steinbock
Since the 1980s, economic success in Asia has often relied on foreign investment, at least initially. Last week, President Duterte took a decisive step toward that direction. Why has the change taken so long? And why is the devil in the details? In the third quarter, the Philippine economy grew 6.9%, which made it Asia’s second fastest-growing economy after Vietnam. But unlike Vietnam, which has reaped many benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI), the Philippines has not.
Again and again, former President Benigno Aquino III acknowledged the need to boost FDI during his reign. Yet, the main challenge to attract FDI has been the 60/40 foreign ownership law, which Aquino neglected to confront between 2010 and 2016.
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