Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Fracking – An Unconventional Poisoning / Politics / Fracking

By: Richard_Mills

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it’s more commonly referred to, is used to stimulate the production of oil and gas from unconventional oil and gas deposits - shales, coalbeds, and tight sands. These types of deposits need to be stimulated because they have a lower permeability than conventional reservoirs and require the additional stimulation for production.

Hydraulic fracturing involves drilling a well then injecting it with a slurry of water, chemical additives and proppants. Wells are drilled and lined with a steel pipe that’s cemented into place. A perforating gun is used to shoot small holes through the steel and cement into the shale. The highly pressurized fluid and proppant mixture injected into the well escapes and create cracks and fractures in the surrounding shale layers and that stimulates the flow of natural gas or oil. The proppants (grains of sand, ceramic beads, or sintered bauxite) prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped and the pressure of the fluid is removed.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

What Happened to Bitcoin? / Commodities / Bitcoin

By: GoldCore

• Bitcoin hits $2,700, a 500 fold increase in five years and doubling in price since May 1st.
• Previous surges – in 2011 and 2013 – have been followed by dramatic crashes
• Significant premiums seen in Asia, over USD price
• Total cryptocurrency market cap reached over $90bn, last week
• Market remains small and volatile
• Comparisons between bitcoin and gold are old, invalid and misleading
• Both bitcoin and gold offer opportunities to diversify away from corrupt financial system

Monday, May 29, 2017

Opinion Polls Based UK General Election Seats Per Party Forecast 2017 / ElectionOracle / UK General Election

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The opinion pollsters are back in force for election 2017, publishing polls on a daily basis that are completely ignorant to the fact that they have gotten virtually every major election very badly wrong for the past 5 years. Where the excuse constantly peddled being that of margins of error, which appear always skewed in the favour of those who commission the polls thus ensuring that the pollsters have gotten the likes of the 2015 General Election, EU Referendum and the US Presidential election very, very badly wrong.

Monday, May 29, 2017

An Invisible Curtain Falls Between Russia and the West / Politics / GeoPolitics

By: STRATFOR

By Jon Sather : The Cold War ended over 25 years ago, but the lingering Soviet specter continues to haunt the Western world. Since the election of Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2000, a new conflict has been brewing, this time in cyberspace. And on a battlefield monopolized by the United States and Russia, the historical threats of nuclear war, ambitions of global dominance and aspirations of containing the enemy may not be the relics of the past we imagine them to be.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Gold Broke Above Triangle Pattern on 4-hour Chart / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Submissions

Franco Shao writes: XAUUSD broke above the triangle patter on its 4-hour chart last Friday and continued its short term bullish movement from the May 9 low of 1214.17, and the price extended to as high as 1269.37. Near term support is at around 1255, as long as this level holds, the bullish move could be expected to continue over the next several days.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Gold Proprietary Cycle Indicator is Down - 29th May / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: The_Gold_Report

Technical analyst Jack Chan charts the latest moves in the gold and silver markets, noting COT data supports higher silver prices.

Our proprietary cycle indicator is down.

Monday, May 29, 2017

How Investors Can Profit From The Coming Resource Wars / Commodities / Metals & Mining

By: OilPrice_Com

Monday, May 29, 2017

The Vienna Deal: Only Temporary Relief in Oil Markets / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Dan_Steinbock

The Vienna agreement among OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers will extend oil cuts by nine months. After the deal, oil price plummeted by about 5 percent. Far more is needed to subdue new economic uncertainty and market volatility.

Among the oil insiders, the decision to extend oil production cuts was seen as a done deal well before last week's Vienna meeting. But as I have argued in the past few years, investors seek assurances of longer production cuts. That is vital in an era of huge energy overcapacity.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Gold vs. Gold Mining Shares – Just The Facts, Ma’am / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017

By: Kelsey_Williams

“…but what I do know is the people running the company are practically married to their shareholders and investors, like you.”

That’s good to know.  After two decades of sharing their bed(s) with investors “like you” since the honeymoon period and birth of gold’s bull market in 1999/2000, the management of this particular gold mining company is still committed.  And, presumably, other companies’ managements are similarly committed. Are you? 

Monday, May 29, 2017

Is a QQQ/NDX Stock Market Peak Looming? / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks

By: WavePatternTraders

The move from the Nov 2016 lows is one impressive move to say the least. I think its common knowledge that the majority of the recent upside on the QQQs is from a certain number of stocks. So until those tech stocks reverse or appear to suggest a reversal, then the QQQ/NDX is likely to continue higher.

Monday, May 29, 2017

The Story Behind Continuing Strong Gold Bullion Coin Demand / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Michael_J_Kosares

I have always considered sales of modern gold and silver bullion coins a bellwether on the general health of the global precious metals market. In reality, though, bullion coin sales comprise only a very small portion of the physical gold and silver markets. According to the World Gold Council, modern gold coins make up only about 13% of investment demand and a little less than 5% of overall demand.* Yet, as is often the case in statistical inquiry, it is the small and often unobserved, sometimes even ignored, that can accurately tell the larger story – particularly when it reflects the net effect of human action within the greater economy and financial markets.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Walkers Crisps Pay Packet £5 Cash Wins After Buying 64 Multi-packs / Personal_Finance / Freebies and Comps

By: Anika_Walayat

Walkers win a pay packet £5 to £28,000 promotion having hit the sweet spot of enticing shoppers to splurge on loads of packs of walkers crisps. So as the second month of the promotion draws to the close what can shoppers expect to win after buying 64 multi packs / 384 packs of crisps at a cost per 6 pack of between £1 to £2.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Trump’s Predatory Infrastructure Privatization Scheme / Politics / US Politics

By: Stephen_Lendman

Straightaway in office, Trump proved he’s an imperial/predatory corporatist tool - his rhetorical populism pretense, not real, his agenda hugely harming ordinary people at home and abroad.

Days after his election, Ellen Brown exposed his phony promised economic change, saying “his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same - privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people.”

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Libya: A US-Created Terrorist Haven / Politics / Middle East

By: Stephen_Lendman

US-led NATO aggression on Libya raped and destroyed its sovereign independence - one of history’s great crimes.

Africa’s developed nation was transformed into a cauldron of failed state, terrorist-infested violence, chaos, deep poverty, mass unemployment, and devastating human misery.

Libya was Obama’s war, launched in 2011, orchestrated by Hillary Clinton. Her remark after hearing of Muammar Gaddafi’s death, saying “(w)e came, we saw, he died” alone will long define her pure evil.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

The REAL Stock Market Remains Below Its February Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Graham_Summers

For weeks I’ve been noting that stocks are being driven by a market rig.

By way of review, that rig is as follows:

1)   Someone slams the VIX lower.

2)   This forces risk-parity funds to buy stocks, usually the FANGs or large-cap Tech names (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google).

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Subprime 2.0: Lending a $1 Trillion to People With No Proof of Job or Income / Interest-Rates / Financial Crisis 2017

By: Graham_Summers

SubPrime 2.0 is proving far worse than even we suspected.

If you’ve not been following this story, our view is that the auto-loan industry is Subprime 2.0: the riskiest, worst area in a massive debt bubble, much as subprime mortgage lending was the riskiest worst part of the housing bubble from 2003 to 2008.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Malefic Planets, Cycle-Waves Portend Big Stock Market Drop Ahead / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Brad_Gudgeon

May 17 saw one of the largest drops of the stock market this year.  I believe we will see an even larger drop early next week. There are three distinct reasons apart from the daily MACD failing to make a new high along with the SPX. Firstly, we have Mars in Gemini opposing Saturn in Sagittarius on May 29, Memorial Day.  This is a violent combination with each in a mutable sign. Either there is likely to be a terrorist attack (God forbid) or an attack on another nation that they will likely blame the drop on.  I hope I’m wrong about the violence, but I’m positioned short with SPY puts based on other factors as well.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

SPX/NDX/NAZ Hit New All-time Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Tony_Caldaro

The market started the week at SPX 2382. After a gap up opening on Monday the market continued to rally until it hit a new high at SPX 2419 on Thursday. After that there was a small pullback to end the week at SPX 2416. For the week the SPX/DOW gained 1.35%, and the NDX/NAZ gained 2.25%. Economic reports for the week were mostly negative. On the downtick: new/existing home sales, durable goods, consumer sentiment, the Q2 GDP estimate, plus weekly jobless claims rose. On the uptick: Q1 GDP and the WLEI. Next week’s reports will be highlighted by monthly payrolls and the FED’s beige book.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

GBPUSD Top in Place, GOLD Price Ready to Rocket? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2017

By: Enda_Glynn

My Bias: short below parity.
Wave Structure: continuing impulsive structure to the downside in wave (5)
Long term wave count: decline in wave (5) blue, below parity
Important risk events: GBP: N/A. USD: N/A.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Gold Price and the Fed’s Shrinking Balance Sheet / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

The latest FOMC minutes suggest that the Fed may start decreasing its balance sheet later this year. There are many unknowns about this process, so we invite you to read our today’s article about the unwinding of the Fed’s balance sheet and find out how it could affect the gold market.

As we wrote in the Gold News Monitor, the latest FOMC minutes suggest that the Fed may start decreasing its balance sheet later this year. There are many unknowns about this process, so we will closely watch the U.S. central bank’s comments and actions in this context. But let’s dig into the subject with the information we have.