Wednesday, April 26, 2017
10 Facts That Show Our Taxes Are Worse Than You Thought / Personal_Finance / Taxes
By: John_Mauldin
The article I’m highlighting this week will make half of the readers indignant and the other half feel righteously vindicated in their thinking. I have no idea which half you are in. What is so controversial? Who pays taxes and why they should.
The piece was written by Mark J. Perry, whose bio tells us that he’s a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan. So yes, he is a conservative.
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Wednesday, April 26, 2017
This Event Could Lead To A Collapse Of The Euro… And Send Gold Skyrocketing / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: HAA
Stephen McBride : The first round of the French presidential election takes place this Sunday, April 23… and the future of the European Union depends on the outcome.
Establishment candidate Emanuel Macron leads in the polls, but Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Front National is trailing him by only 1%. However, the real story of the past month has been the rise of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
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Wednesday, April 26, 2017
What Trump’s Next 100 Days Will Look Like / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
Reva Goujon : U.S. President Donald Trump approaches his 100-day benchmark on Saturday, a media deluge has already begun bemoaning the demise of the liberal order, celebrating waves of deregulation or simply blaming the president's rocky start on the "disaster" he inherited on taking office. Rather than wade into that predictable morass, we prefer to focus instead on what the next 100 days hold in store.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
G20: SURPASSING THE 2nd GLOBAL STEEL CRISIS / Commodities / Steel Sector
By: Dan_Steinbock
In the 2016 G20 Summit, advanced economies accused China for steel overcapacity. Before the Hamburg Summit, similar charges have surfaced. Yet, the postwar era has witnessed two steel overcapacity crises. The current debate cannot afford to ignore the past lessons.
As the global steel sector is coping with an overcapacity crisis, multinational industry giants are struggling with consolidation and adjustment. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Buying American, Losing America / Politics / US Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Recently, President Trump signed his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order. Ironically, while the stated goal is to put “America First,” the White House may actually subsidize old industries and undermine innovation.
Recently, President Trump traveled to Wisconsin to sign the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order, which seeks to crack down on fraud and abuse of the skilled worker (H-1B) visa program.
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Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Real Reason Trump Why Reversed His Stance On NATO, China, and Mexico / Politics / US Politics
By: John_Mauldin
By Allison Fedirka Donald Trump has recently reversed his stance on a number of key foreign policy issues: NATO, Russia, China, and Mexico. From a geopolitical perspective, Trump’s remarks validated that limitations exist in the real world—even for the US president.
These limitations explain why he has backtracked on some of his key campaign promises.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
What A War With North Korea Would Look Like / Politics / North Korea
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : The possibility of war between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States has recently increased. It is necessary to consider what such a war might look like.
I use the term war rather than merely American attacks on North Korean nuclear and missile program facilities. We have to consider the possibility of North Korea’s response and a more extended conflict.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Pensions Are On The Way Out But Retirement Funds Are Not Working Either / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Mauldin
US law provides for many kinds of tax-advantaged retirement plans. They fall into two broad groups: defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution (DC) plans.
Defined-benefit plans are mostly the old-style pensions. They came with a gold watch and ensured you some level of benefit for the rest of your life.
Your employer would invest part of your compensation in the plan, based on some formula. In some cases, you, the worker, might have added more money to the pot.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Frank Holmes : Gold Could Hit $1,500 in 2017 Amid Imbalances & Weak Supply / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: MoneyMetals
Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.
Coming up Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors joins me to share his thoughts on Trump’s first 100 days, the resetting that’s going on the global political front and gives what he sees as a very realistic price target for gold before the end of the year. Be sure to stick around for a fantastic interview with Frank Holmes, coming up after this week’s market update.
Precious metals markets are putting in a mixed performance this week as gold prices hold above their breakout level from the prior week. Spot gold currently comes in at $1,287 an ounce, essentially unchanged on the week.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Even “Father of Logic” Thought That Gold Makes the Best Money in the World / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: HAA
Shannara Johnson : In the wee hours of March 27, plucky thieves stole one of the world’s largest gold coins, a 221-pound colossus named the “Big Maple Leaf” from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany.
The coin, which takes two to three strong men to carry, had a face value of $1 million, but at current market prices is worth around $4.5 million.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
3 Reasons Why “Spring Forward, Fall Back” Also Applies To Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: HAA
Stephen McBride : Year to date, the price of gold is up 12%. This is not unusual: the yellow metal also had a strong start into 2016, rising 18% over the same period.
So is there a seasonal pattern to the gold price? To answer that question, we dissected gold’s performance dating back to 1975 and identified some trends investors can use to their advantage.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
SPX may be Aiming at the Cycle Top Resistance / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Yesterday I asked the question, “Will the SPX reverse in hour 86?” We got our answer as SPX rallied through the rest of the day. Interestingly enough, the rally thus far took 90 hours. 90.3 is divisible by 4.3 and also happens to be 12.9 days. This may be a good spot for a reversal.
SPX futures are positive this morning, but The corrective Wave appears to be nearly finished. An additional probe to the 2-hour cycle Top at 2384.51 may do the job.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Walmart Stock Extending Higher - Elliott Wave Trend Forecast / Companies / Retail Sector
By: ElliottWave-Forecast
Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is the world’s largest company by revenue as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.3 million employees. It’s an American multinational retailing corporation that operates as a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Despite being the biggest physical retailer in the world, Wal-Mart is still trailing back in e-commerce business as there is increased competition from online retailers in particular Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) which continues to gain market share as the world is merging to online shopping.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Google Panics and KILLS YouTube to Appease Mainstream Media and Corporate Advertisers / Companies / Google
By: Nadeem_Walayat
March's advertisers revolt that saw the mainstream media and corporations apparently suddenly woke up to the fact that some of their ads were appearing against extremist videos, threatened to pull their ads from Google the owner of Youtube, has literally sent the Tek giant into a panic. A case of slash and burning Youtube of ad placements on every topic that could potentially be perceived as not being advertiser friendly, and this is not just the usual suspects of guns, violence and border line criminality, but comedy, satire, reviews, politics, even finance amongst many other topics are taking a major hit as google pulls their ad revenue plug resulting in many channels seeing more than 99% of their earnings disappear over night, all to placate the advertisers.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Gold Price Is 1% Shy of Ripping Higher / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: The_Gold_Report
Precious metals are on the verge of a legendary move, says Lior Gantz, editor of Wealth Research Group, and details the indicators he watches for.
With the first round of the French elections over and a potential beginning of the end for the Eurozone might be within sight, this is only one of the macro-political events that are causing gold prices to be within 1% of shuttering its 10-year resistance level.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
US Treasury Bond Yields / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Ed_Carlson
TNX – the yield on the 10yr US Treasury note - gained 0.22% last week closing at 22.37 but 14-day RSI remains below its own 20-dma; bearish. The break of support at 23.35 (now resistance) has opened a door for a return to 20.00.
The monthly chart below shows how the long-term trend line has turned back the rally in TNX on numerous occasions. However, as the monthly Coppock Curve failed to confirm the 2012 low during the 2016 test of that low we’ve probably seen the low of the +30yr decline in interest rates.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Exchange-Traded Funds Make Decisions Easy / Stock-Markets / Exchange Traded Funds
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Stock Market Forecast Big Picture: The broad stock market is working through a more complex corrective price pattern. My recent forecast, as displayed in the chart below, indicates that the next leg up is toward 2500. The market may be about to start a larger A-B-C correction to test the 2300 level to fully cleanse itself, before starting the next leg up. But overall, the SPX is very bullish long-term.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Trump Is Among The Institutionally Weakest National Leaders In The World / Politics / US Politics
By: John_Mauldin
By George Friedman : During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump advocated for a more disengaged US foreign policy. Involvement in the world would be limited to actions in the interest of the United States.
On the surface, this was not an irrational argument. American involvement—chiefly militarily—has not yielded the outcomes the US hoped for in recent years.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
3 Maps That Explain the Geopolitics of Nuclear Weapons / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : North Korea has received a lot of focus due to a recent missile test and the expectation of another nuclear test. It is a poor country whose nuclear program has allowed it to punch above its weight internationally. This has also forced superpowers to approach it with great caution.
Nuclear bombs are in their own category of weapon. They are useful in that they deter aggression. The potential for massive destruction on both sides forces countries to rethink moves that may threaten an adversary’s national security interests.
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Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Fed Drops MOAB on Wall Street, Swamp Creatures Sack D.C. / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_Pento
Wall Street and our central bank are in for a rude awakening very soon! The idea that the US economy is on stable footing and about to experience a surge in growth is ridiculous. Hence, the consensus that the Fed can normalize interest rates and its balance sheet is nothing short of a bad joke...and it's on them.
For starters, the government's fiscal deficit for the month of March came in at $176.2 billion, which means the deficit 6 months into fiscal 2017 is $526.9 billion and running 15% over last year. If not for the calendar timing of receipts and payments, our government's deficit would be a year-to-date $564.0 billion or 23% above last year. In addition, there was an 18% decline in corporate income tax collection. We all know there was no corporate tax reform passed. So the credible conclusion must be reached that corporations are not growing there profits...they are actually shrinking.
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