Thursday, February 18, 2021

Silver Backwardation and Other Evidence of a Silver Supply Squeeze / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021

By: MoneyMetals

The effort to squeeze silver shorts may appear to have fizzled, but naked short sellers are as vulnerable as ever.

Silver futures prices are entering backwardation. That is a bad omen for anyone betting on lower silver prices.

Backwardation happens very rarely, but this condition has been a reliable indicator that higher prices are on the way each time it has occurred over the past decade.

In the futures market, silver prices generally go up based on how far away the delivery month is. Most of the time, prices for future delivery are higher than today’s spot price, i.e., the price for delivery now. There is a cost of carry – primarily driven by storage fees and opportunity cost of funds – when it comes to holding physical silver bars.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Why I’m Avoiding These “Bottle Rocket” Stocks Like GameStop / Companies / Investing 2021

By: Stephen_McBride

Should I be investing? What are the “hot” stocks? How much money do I need? Stephen! HELP!

My phone’s been lighting up over the past few weeks. Old friends from college who I haven’t talked to in years are texting me about stocks—for the first time ever. I’m not surprised. They’ve been seeing “GameStop short squeeze” and similar headlines plastered across their Facebook and Twitter feeds 24/7.

They’re intrigued. They’re confused. They want to know how they can get rich! One even asked if he should put $5,000 into GameStop (GME) after it had already surged a mind-boggling 1,900%. I told him not to touch it.

He would have gotten taken to the cleaners (and probably scared off from ever investing again). As you’ve probably seen, shares have fallen off a cliff recently, crashing 85%. Which would have shrunk his $5K into less than $600—in a matter of days.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

S&P 500 Correction Delayed Again While Silver Runs / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2021

By: Submissions

The window of opportunity for the stock bears is slowly but surely closing down as Friday‘s gentle intraday peek higher turned into a buying spree before the closing bell. The sentiment readings and put/call ratio are at the greed, euphoric and compacent end of the spectrum again.

I asked on Friday:

(…) How long can it last, and what shape the upcoming correction would have? Right now, the warning signs are mounting, yet the bears shouldn‘t put all their eggs into the correction basket really, for it shapes to be a shallow one – one in time, rather than in price.

Today, I‘ll say that waiting for a correction is like waiting for Godot. Trust me, I have come to experience quite some absurd and Kafkaesque drama not too long ago. What an understatement.

One week ago, I called the dollar as making a local top, and look where we are in the process. Coupled with the steepening pace of rising long-dated Treasury yields, that‘s a great environment for financials (XLF ETF) as they benefit from the widening yield curve.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Silver Prices Are About to Explode as Stars are Lining up Like Never Before! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021

By: Submissions

2020 was a stellar year for the precious metals, indeed one for the books.

As the pandemic hit the global economies early in the year and governments around the world began to shut everything down and the printing machines began to print ginormous amounts of money out of thin air to save their economies from total collapse, gold jumped 24%, while silver jumped nearly 50%, over double that of gold.

But that was not the real news. This is not the first time the precious metals have had a groundbreaking year. You don't have to look any further than 2011 to see these two safe haven metals have a record breaking year.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Cannabis, Alternative Agra, Mushrooms, and Cryptos – Everything ALT is HOT / Commodities / Cannabis

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The recent rally in Marijuana and Alternative Pharma/Agriculture stocks has been impressive, to say the least.  One thing we have to remember about this sector is that it rallied to highs in 2018 and 2019, then fell out of favor for many months.  The anticipation of this new sector emerging within the US, and across many areas of the globe, prompted quite a bit of excitement after 2016 when many US states voted to legalize Marijuana. Even before this date, the alternative medicine and consumer product use related to Marijuana has been heavily speculated on by investors/traders.

If we were to consider the out-of-favor phase of this sector over the past 15+ months, after the rally/hype phase which took place in 2017 and early 2018, we’ve seen many cannabis stocks collapse 70% to 85% or more recently.  This downward price trend likely set up a number of incredible opportunities based on expanded marketplace opportunities, enterprise valuations, and longer-term consumer/pharmaceutical use applications for CBD and other chemical extracts.  Additionally, we need to also consider what would happen if a consolidation phase were to take place in this industry – how would cannabis leaders play a role in acquiring smaller, yet important, firms with innovative technology/solutions.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Crypto Mining Craze, How We Mined 6 Bitcoins with a PS4 Gaming Console / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: Eliza_Walayat

The worlds gone crypto currency mining MAD, with crypto miners buying up all of the expensive new graphics card to create huge multi GPU mining rigs given that the price of Bitcoin has shot to over $50,000! Even Elon Musk has bout $1.4 billion of bitcoins!

So everyone under the sun with a mining capable GPU, even laptops set their devices to mine crypto currencies.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Stock Market Trend Forecasts Analysis Review / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The stock market has continued to confound all of the doom merchants out there who blindly continue to point to the worst economic contraction since the great depression if not in history for most western economies. All whilst the Dow pushed its way to a new all time high into the end of 2020 and has continued to march ever higher during 2021 in response to which most investors have faced a barrage of that messages that the bubble is always about to burst, whilst my Patrons have received an unequivocal consistent message that this bull market has a long ways to go and that investors should not look a gift horse in the mouth when all of the stocks on my AI list were typically marked down by over 1/3rd against their Pre pandemic trading levels during March 2020.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Vaccine Nationalism Is a Multilateral, Neocolonial Failure / Politics / Coronavirus 2021

By: Dan_Steinbock

In the coming months, vaccine nationalism is likely to compound COVID-19 economic damage and penalize more lives. It reflects the utter failure of multilateralism. It is old colonialism in a new disguise.

After mid-January, WHO chief Dr Tedros warned that, due to unequal COVID-19 vaccine policies, "the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest countries.”

And yet, in contrast, The Economist reported it was “Asian governments” that “are needlessly hampering vaccination drives,” due to their “nationalism and geopolitics.”

The simple reality is that by mid-January almost 40 million vaccine doses had been given in nearly 50 rich-income economies, whereas one poor nation had only 25 doses. As a result, 9 out of 10 people in poor countries are set to miss out on COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, according to Oxfam.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

First year of a Stocks bull market, or End of a Bubble? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021

By: Troy_Bombardia

This bull market is unique because unlike past bull markets, this one began with extreme speculation. Historically, extreme speculation occurred at the end of multi-year bull markets. This is why the markets are currently exhibiting extremely bullish signs (e.g. breadth today is similar to what you see at the start of multi-year bull markets) and extremely bearish signs (e.g. speculation today is similar to what you see at the end of multi-year bull markets). How do we reconcile these two opposites?

Let’s take a look at some bullish & bearish factors:

Subsiding volatility

VIX closed below 20 for the first time in almost a year. The past year was a nervous one for markets: stocks rallied, but investors and traders were consistently on edge.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

5 Reasons Why People Prefer to Trade Options Over Stocks / Stock-Markets / Options & Warrants

By: Chris_Vermeulen

As technical traders, we know the importance of following the price charts using proven trading strategies and implementing risk and position management. Here at TheTechnicalTraders.com we are stepping things up a notch by adding options to our trading.

By using options, a trader can leverage, hedge positions, and generate income via selling premiums. There are basic options, strategies, and complex, and everything in between. Because of that, I have brought options trading specialist Neil Szczepanski to join our team. I will let Neil introduce himself.

Hi everyone!  Neil Szczepanski here.  In case you are wondering it is pronounced “Sus’ pan ski”.  Yes, I have roots in eastern European ancestry and I’m first generation.  I love options and have been trading them for many, many years. I like options because you have more ways to be profitable in your trading.  I hate putting on a position and then waiting for the market to go your way.  I want to be in control of my trades and options allows for that.  Also, trading can equal freedom. 

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

The Gold & Gold Stock Corrections Are Normal / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021

By: Gary_Tanashian

Corrections in Gold and Gold Stocks are completely normal in an inflationary macro market phase

See also The Normalcy of Gold posted on February 16.

Every week I notice the agony ratcheting up incrementally. While the rest of the casino takes off to the speculative heavens, gold sits on its heavy ass and the gold miners go nowhere in a downward-biased perma-correction. Or so it seems. It’s all normal and I’ll explain why.

First of all, it is not healthy to be railing against unseen nefarious manipulative interests. That is emotion and emotion has to be kept out of it (and yes, I get as aggravated as the next guy sometimes, but it cannot affect your plan or you will be the victim, the mark). You have to take what the market gives you and roll with it. All markets are manipulated when you consider that the greatest manipulation of all is courtesy of the Federal Reserve, implementing its MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), err, that is TMM (Total Market Manipulation) toward desired ends.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

WARNING Oculus Quest 2 Update v25 BROKE My VR Headset! / ConsumerWatch / Virtual Reality

By: HGR

A few days ago putting on the headset prompted me with a message to upgrade the Oculus Quest 2 software to the latest version 25, existing version was 23. This should have been a straight forward seamless excercise one of clicking okay to the update and then wait a few mins for the download to complete and install with the update applied. However after a reboot the system was far from better! First off the home screen was mostly black with a floating rectangle that was the environment, a bit like looking into a floating window! And that's not the worst of it, find out in my video below of what could happen to your headset following an update to v25.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

UK Covid-19 Parks PACKED During Lockdown Despite "Stay at Home" Message - Endcliffe Park Sheffield / Politics / Coronavirus 2021

By: N_Walayat

Lockdown-weary families were out in Endcliffe Park Sheffield despite freezing cold weather. But officers kept a close eye on them as they were on the beat in pairs wearing face coverings. It comes after a scientist advising the Government on coronavirus called for tighter lockdown restrictions.

Here we see Sheffield's Endcliffe Park densely packed with people as many make the most of the outdoors during the third national lockdown, despite the Government's message urging people to 'stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.'

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

How to Invest in ETFs in the UK / Companies / Exchange Traded Funds

By: Dumitru_Midon

Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are openly traded on a stock exchange and are different from mutual funds. You can buy and sell them throughout the day and not wait until the end of the day to determine the price like you would in mutual funds.

As the number of investors continues to increase globally in recent times, the UK has also been a spotlight, as it houses some of the best and highest paying investors today. This is one of the countries with the largest economies in the world with a GDP per capita recorded to be $42,330. 

If you reside in the UK and would like to invest in ETFs, this article will serve as a quick guide to help you get started.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Real Reason Why Black and Asian Ethnic minorities are NOT Getting Vaccinated - NHS Covid-19 Vaccinations / Politics / NHS

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The mainstream press has gone off on a tangent where the story being peddled by the likes of the BBC to explain the lack of uptake of vaccinations amongst Britain's Black and Asian communities being put down to ignorance, gullible brown people who are easily susceptible to fake news stories, whatsapp and twitter messages.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

THE INFLATION MEGA-TREND QE4EVER! / Economics / Inflation

By: Nadeem_Walayat

US House Prices Real Estate Trend Forecast Review

Did the perma bears finally get their US house prices crash that they have been crowing so loudly for a decade now?

Firstly a recap of my existing US house prices trend forecast.

30th April 2019 - US House Prices Trend Forecast 2019 to 2021

Therefore my forecast conclusion is for a relatively weak continuation of the US housing bull market into late 2020 at a much shallower pace than experienced in recent years for a likely gain of just 3% over the next 2 years (Jan 2019 to Jan 2021) before entering into a downtrend going into 2021 i.e. Case Shiller 10 city Index (SPCS10RNSA ) rising from 225.9 (Jan 2019 data) to just 232.4 (Jan 2021 data) as illustrated by my trend forecast graph.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Gold / Silver: What This "Large Non-Confirmation" May Mean / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021

By: EWI

When a trend is strong, related markets tend to move in unison.

However, when a trend is near exhaustion -- either bullish or bearish, "non-confirmations" often occur. This is when one market continues to rise (or fall), but a related market does not.

As a case in point, the Feb. 3 U.S. Short Term Update, an Elliott Wave International thrice weekly publication which provides near-term forecasts for major U.S. financial markets, discussed the details of a non-confirmation between the price action of gold and silver. Here's a chart and commentary:

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Major Optimism for Platinum, Silver, and Copper / Commodities / Metals & Mining

By: MoneyMetals

Attention in the metals markets shifted this week from silver to copper and platinum. While big moves in silver and gold prices may be coming down the road, the monetary metals are currently taking a back seat to electrical and automotive metals.

A massive push by the Biden administration to replace gasoline vehicles with electric vehicles is helping to crank up demand for copper. Anything involving electricity involves copper – and lots of it.

Electric vehicles and their massive batteries contain an average of 180 pounds of the metal.  That’s six times the copper that’s used in gasoline cars. Even larger quantities of copper are required for EV charging stations and necessary upgrades to electrical grid infrastructure.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

S&P 500 Correction Looming, Just as in Gold – Or Not? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021

By: Submissions

Stocks are clinging to the 3,900 level, and the bulls aren‘t yielding. Without much fanfare, both the sentiment readings and put/call ratio are at the greed and compacent end of the spectrum again. How long can it last, and what shape the upcoming correction would have? Right now, the warning signs are mounting, yet the bears shouldn‘t put all their eggs into the correction basket really, for it shapes to be a shallow one – one in time, rather than in price.

Gold‘s hardship is another cup of tea, standing in stark comparison to how well silver and platinum are doing. At the same time, the dollar hasn‘t really moved to the upside – there is no dollar breakout. If the greenback were to break to the upside, that would mean a dollar bull market, which I don't view as a proposition fittingly describing the reality – I called the topping dollar earlier this week. The world reserve currency will remain on the defensive this year, and we saw not a retest, but a local top.

This has powerful implications for the precious metals, where the only question is whether we get a weak corrective move to the downside still, or whether we can base in a narrow range, followed by another upleg (think spring). February isn't the strongest month for precious metals seasonally, true, but it isn't a disaster either. As has been the case throughout the week, I‘ll update and present the evidence of internal sectoral strength also today.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Stock Market Last pull-back before intermediate top? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX Long-term trend:  There is some good evidence that we are still in the bull market which started in 2009 and which could continue into the first half of 2021 before coming to an end.

SPX Intermediate trend:  May continue until SPX reaches ~4150 (March 2021).

Analysis of the short-term trend is done daily with the help of hourly charts. They are important adjuncts to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which determine longer market trends.