Thursday, August 20, 2015
Did China Kick-Start A New Bull Market In Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Many have written about the devaluation of the Chinese currency last week, in particular its causes and consequences.
In mainstream media, most opinions are centered around the weakness of the Chinese economy which is now growing less than 7%. Logically, they argue, China wants to stimulate exports and stabilize the currency by ‘de-pegging’ it from a strengthening dollar.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Shanghai and DAX-30 Stock Indices Dance around 200-DMA / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
Overnight, China central planners saved the 200-DMA in the Shanghai Composite, with an intraday 6.7% recovery following an earlier 5% decline. This is especially crucial as the index held above its 200-DMA since Jul 23, 2014. The latest selling pressure may have resulted by three consecutive daily gains in the Chinese yuan, following media assault from the rest of the world on the day of the CNY devaluation. Coincidently, the Shanghai Composite's late Wednesday session recovery emerged on the day the CNY depreciated for the first time four days.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Will UK Interest Rate Rises Crash House Prices? / Housing-Market / UK Housing
UK interest rates have flat lined at 0.5% for 78 straight months, that now post the general election has market attention turning towards the prospects for the first of a series of interest rates hikes as signaled by the Bank of England. Firstly, understand this fundamental fact that interest rates at 0.5% has been a PANIC measure. The Bank of England has been in a state of perpetual PANIC for over the past 6 years of which 0.5% interest rates was just the first step towards propping up Britain's bankrupt banking system, the second step was the £500 billion or so of Quantitative Easing or money printing that has been stuffed into every orifice of the bankrupt banks, and the list goes on with capital injections and the Funding for Lending Scheme which has succeeded in eroding the purchasing power of savings (stealth theft) since it was first implemented since Mid 2012, ALL to prop up the Bank of England's banking sector brethren.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Crude Oil Energy Markets and Jobs Disintegrating / Commodities / Crude Oil
The US Energy Information Administration released their weekly data this morning as usual. The reaction to the data from crude oil was anything but the usual. Most everyone in the industry was looking for a draw in crude oil stockpiles especially after yesterday afternoon’s API data showed a reduction in supplies.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Asia's Whirling Dervish of Devaluations Has Encircled China's Exports / Currencies / Currency War
Much digital ink has been spilled to the catalyst of China's sudden thrice devaluation of the CNY, a move trumpeted to be a unilateral action by China. It makes for good headlines, but this simply is not the case: China has been responding to stealthy and not-so-stealthy devaluation of its Asian neighbors, and is responding to these actions to maintain competitiveness of its exports. Hence a whirling dervish of devaluations has started in unlikely small countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, as well as larger economies like Japan, and China has only recently taken its place in the spiraling revelry that is set to ensue. And this has effectively economically encircled China's exports-- and the balance sheets of Chinese companies show it.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Why You Should Go to Africa Instead of College / Stock-Markets / Africa
Recently Doug Casey was a guest on the always excellent podcast, The Tom Woods Show.
Tom and Doug talked about the enormous economic potential in Africa, Doug’s efforts to build a truly free market country, and better uses of your time and money than going to college.
It’s an exciting and informative conversation.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Solution Space / Politics / Social Issues
To use the word ‘solution’ is perhaps misleading, since it could be said to imply that circumstances exist which could allow us to continue business as usual, and this is not, in fact, the case. A crunch period cannot be avoided. We face an intractable predicament, and the consequences of overshoot are going to manifest no matter what we do. However, while we may not be able to prevent this from occurring, we can mitigate the impact and lay the foundation for a fundamentally different and more workable way of being in the world.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
McDonald Stock Investors too Optimistic / Companies / Corporate Earnings
There are some stocks on the market that investors just love to hate. No matter what these stocks do, it seems as if it’s never enough. And then there are the stocks that investors just can’t bring themselves to hate, regardless of all of the reasons why they probably should. McDonald’s is one of those stocks.In spite of the company experiencing an unprecedented downturn over the last two years, McDonald’s shares are actually up 5.51% over that time. Shares recently topped $101, pushing to a 13-month high with analysts expecting the company to finally start making a turnaround in terms of comp sales, where it has more than struggled recently.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
The Trigger For The Upcoming Stock Crash / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
I recently explained that it’s one thing for a central bank to artificially prop up its own stock market. It’s another thing entirely to even imagine doing something similar to falling oil prices. What’ll they do – buy oil futures? Give me a break.Oil hit a six-year low this week. As I write this, it’s around $43, closer yet to the $42 target I forecast when oil bounced back to $63. After another tepid bounce, it will very likely fall to the $32 support level we saw in late 2008. John Kilduff, a leading oil analyst who will be speaking at our Irrational Economic Summit in Vancouver next month, sees this happening earlier than his original Christmas call.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Struggling To Make Ends Meet / Politics / Social Issues
I recently wrote about the cost of child care, which got me thinking of my own experience. My wife and I were in our mid-20s when we had our first child. To prep for the expenses, we sold my car. I replaced it with a 10-year old pickup painted in primer. It had an AM radio, vinyl seats, and no air conditioning. I took our son to daycare, so we commuted in the Texas summer heat with 2-by-60 air conditioning. By that, I mean rolling down both windows (by hand) and driving 60 miles per hour.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Druckenmiller Buys A Lot Of Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Stan Druckenmiller is going big on gold.
Druckenmiller is one of the world’s most successful and respected traders. As a hedge fund manager from 1986 to 2010, he generated an incredible average annual return of 30%.
Druckenmiller was also George Soros’s right-hand man at Quantum, Soros’s famed hedge fund. Quantum’s now legendary 1992 trade shorting the British pound was Druckenmiller’s idea. It made Quantum about $1 billion. People say the trade “broke the Bank of England.”
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Keeping the Stock Market Bubble-Boom Going / Stock-Markets / Liquidity Bubble
The US Federal Reserve is playing with the idea of raising interest rates, possibly as early as September this year. After a six-year period of virtually zero interest rates, a ramping up of borrowing costs will certainly have tremendous consequences. It will be like taking away the punch bowl on which all the party fun rests.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Crude Oil Price Time for Reversal? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Trading position (short-term; our opinion): No positions are justified from the risk/reward perspective.
On Tuesday, crude oil gained 1.17% as hopes that crude oil inventories could decline for a third consecutive week weighed on investors' sentiment. Thanks to these circumstances, light crude bounced off its key support line, but will we see the commodity above $43 in near future?
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
How Apple Stock Will Help Us Beat China's Downturn / Companies / Apple
MoneyMorning.com Michael A. Robinson writes: It's been about a month since Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) shares started their recent slip. They're now down about 12% in that time, and a few talking heads are still trying to scare investors into selling…
As usual, they're wrong.
The stock market has pulled back overall, and Apple isn't immune from those downturns.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
How Cheap are Gold Mining Stocks Now? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015
Are Gold Stocks Cheaper Than They Were in 2008?
Chris Marchese, Senior Equity Analyst : The short and simple answer to this question is yes! Some will say--that is just my opinion. I could show you numerous equations proving the gold stocks were cheaper in 2008 than today and vice versa using similar metrics.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Who Wins in a Currency Devaluation War? / Currencies / China Currency Yuan
The paradox in the question of who wins in a currency war presupposes that any participating combatant can actually claim victory. If winning means ending up with the most cash, when the value of the money as a store of tangible wealth is debased, it is doubtful anyone can be declared the victor. The absurdity of lowering the purchasing power of a countries currency to enable exports to be more competitive is economic sacrilege that the heretical “Free Trade” mythos is based upon. Without a reliable standard of objective comparison, floating currencies maneuver their exchange rates to disguise internal imbalances in their own political and economic expenditures.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Crude Oil Price Works In Mysterious Ways / Commodities / Crude Oil
But there is one solution to staying ahead of oil's trend changes -- Elliott wave analysis
You know the expression "God works in mysterious ways"?
Well, according to an August 6 CNBC article, the price action of one financial market -- i.e., crude oil -- has out-mystified even God himself. Or, rather, the well-heeled star of the oil world, Andy Hall -- a.k.a. "God Trader."
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Uranium Has a New Hot Spot / Commodities / Uranium
Several developments in the uranium space, including the restart of a reactor in Japan that has been offline since the Fukushima disaster, have primed the commodity for a price surge. In this interview with The Energy Report, Mick Carew, research analyst with Haywood Securities, explains how, in addition to the Japanese restart, expansion in the Athabasca Basin is bolstering prospects for consolidation in the sector, and describes how a Brazilian phosphate company with a first-rate product might produce for portfolios.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Corporate Profits Have Peaked — And Will Tank Next Year / Companies / Corporate Earnings
One of the reasons US stocks have had such a nice run is that public companies have been making a lot of money. The profit bounce from Great Recession lows was both big and fast, taking corporate earnings to record levels both in nominal terms and as a portion of GDP.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
SPX Keeping a Bearish Profile / Stock-Markets / Stock Index Trading
Although SPX hasn’t crossed below the 50-day Moving Average at 2095.05, it hasn’t made any progress higher, either. This increases the probability of a Diamond formation, where the breakout is down. Diamond formations usually precede an average decline of 20% from the lower trendline, suggesting a target near 1656.00. The Diamond may supersede the Orthodox Broadening Top, so I may have to alter the Wave structure should that happen. Tomorrow is the Pivot day.
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