Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Banksters Finally Hit with Racketeering Charges– Better Late Than Never! / Companies / Banksters
JPMorgan Chase and other bullion banks spent most of a decade screwing clients and investors who were naive enough to expect a fair shake in the precious metals futures markets. It was a solid racket.
Yet claims of price rigging were simply dismissed by financial journalists and regulators as conspiracy theory. The banks’ defenders were bolstered by a 5-year-long investigation by the compromised Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which ended without a single banker being prosecuted.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
The 60/40 Stocks Portfolio Is Riskier Than Ever / Portfolio / Investing 2019
As investors we have to make assumptions about the future. We know they will likely prove wrong, but something has to guide our asset allocation decisions.Many long-term investors assume stocks will give them 6–8% real annual returns if they simply buy and hold long enough.
Pension fund trustees hire consultants to reassure them of this “fact,” along with similar interest rate and bond forecasts, and then make investment and benefit decisions.
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Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Watching Paint Dry in the Repo Market / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
The world of fixed income trading has been extremely volatile lately. Rates have not only spiked in the Treasury market but borrowing costs in money markets have also become extremely disconcerting. The residual effects from Quantitative Tightening, which ended just this past July, are wreaking havoc on the liquidity in bond markets. Ironically, the Fed’s erstwhile rate hikes and its QT program--what Fed Chairs described as running in the background and like watching paint dry—turned out to be the catalyst for a freeze in the junk-bond market in December of 2018 and is now causing major disruption in the Repo market.
This illustrates clearly the tenuous nature of the bond bubble and that it will someday implode like a supernova---sending yields skyrocketing on a long-term basis. However, it most likely does not yet mark the start of the epoch debt bubble debacle that is in store. We will need a surge of inflation expectations, or the credit markets to shut down on a protracted basis for that to occur. We are moving closer to that eventuality every day.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Surprising Advantages Of Investing In Gold, A 50 Year Historical Analysis / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
One of the most common reasons to buy gold is to use it as a stable store of value. This analysis uses 50 years of history to test that common belief, and finds it woefully lacking - for it misses the best parts of investing in gold.
The graph below will be developed, and we will show that gold is instead a more sophisticated (and desirable) investment than most people realize. When properly understood, gold can deliver unique advantages to knowledgeable investors, and it can be put to much better uses than just acting as a mere stable store of value.
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Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Crude Oil Price Volatility Returns / Commodities / Crude Oil
By Andy Hecht: Crude oil is the energy commodity that powers the world. Over half of the world’s petroleum reserves are in the Middle East, which is the most turbulent political region on the face of the earth. Meanwhile, the United States is the leading consumer of crude oil.
For many years, the US dependence on Middle Eastern oil contributed to its price variance. The Arab-Israeli War in the 1970s led to an oil embargo and gasoline shortages in the US. When I first got my driving license, the US was on a program where gas was only available on alternate days each week depending on if a license plate had an odd or an even last digit. In 1979, the Islamic revolution in Iran led to a hostage crisis and supply concerns in the oil market.
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Tuesday, September 24, 2019
UKGC: Features & Duties - Gambling Commission / Personal_Finance / Gambling
The internet development brought a new form of gambling in the UK and in 1994 the first virtual casino was released which was powered by software developer Microgaming. Then, other casinos were launched that catered to the gambler’s needs.
The UK Gambling Act was signed in 2005 and the Gambling Commission was established under this Gambling Act. Apart from regulating commercial gambling, this authority has also controlled the British National Lottery since 2013 in the UK under the National Lottery Act 1993.
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Silver and the Yield Curve Inversion / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Yield curve inversions have historically been great for silver prices. Currently we are experiencing such a phenomena, and again it is evidence of conditions that are conducive to some impressive silver rallies.
Below, is a long-term chart showing the spread between the 10-year Treasure Note Yield and the 3-month Treasury Bill Rate.
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Comparing Gold Producers to Main Stream Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
Long term trends take a long time to reverse. One such trend compares gold mining stocks to the S&P 500 stocks. From 2002 until 2011 gold mining stocks outperformed generic stocks, as can be seen in the following chart. (Charts courtesy Stockcharts.com).
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Monday, September 23, 2019
The Incredible World of Gold Stock Chartology / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
Tonight I would like to start out by looking at the old ratio combo chart that has the GOLD:XAU ratio chart on top with the XAU on the bottom. I’m not going to go over all the details the ratio combo chart has, only to emphasize the 20 year 6 point parabolic arc which shows how gold had been outperforming the XAU until the small double top at 24.33 in late 2015. When the parabolic arc was broken to the downside in early 2016 that strongly suggested that it was going to be the XAU’s turn to outperform gold.
Initially, you can see the sharp vertical move down that broke the back of gold outperforming the XAU at 12.50. From the low in early 2016 the ratio had been building out the blue rising flag until the bottom rail was broken to the downside just 3 months ago in June. Since then the ratio has been in backtest mode to the bottom rail of the rising flag which looks like it could be coming to an end which shows up better on the weekly chart we’ll look at later.
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Monday, September 23, 2019
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Stocks Wedge At The Edge – Front And Center / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
We continue to alert our followers of the extended Wedge (Flag or Pennant) formation that has setup over the past 16+ months in most of the US major indexes. The reason these are so important for skilled technical traders is because the Apex of these formations typically result in a violent price move that may result in a dramatic profit opportunity (or massive risk event). The most interesting facet of the current Wedge formation is that it is happening just 12 months before the US Presidential Election cycle.
It is our believe that a major price reversion event will begin to take place over the next 2 to 6+ weeks and complete near the end of 2019 or into early 2020. This reversion event is and continues to align with our super-cycle event analysis from earlier this year. Our researchers believe this reversion event is essential for price to establish “true valuation levels” and to begin a renewed future price trend. We believe that trend will begin between June 2020 and August 2020 and will result in a strong bullish price trend. We also believe this bullish price trend in the US stock market may last well beyond 12+ months – well into 2021 and beyond.
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Stock Market Top Almost Confirmed / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend – Finallong-term phase on the way? How much longer, is the question.
Intermediate trend – We have started a correction of intermediate nature.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily basis with the help of hourly charts. It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discusses the course of longer market trends.
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Zimbabwe's New Currency Collapses and Inflation Surges / Economics / Inflation
The most important price in an economy is the exchange rate between the local currency and the world’s reserve currency — the U.S. dollar. As long as there is an active black‐market (read: free market) for currency and the data are available, changes in the black‐market exchange rate can be reliably transformed into accurate estimates of countrywide inflation rates—if the annual inflation rates exceed 25%. The economic principle of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) allows for this transformation.
I compute the implied annual inflation rates with high‐frequency data and report them on a daily basis. PPP is used to translate changes in the black‐market exchange rates into annual inflation rates. For the countries that I follow each day, the table below shows the annual rates for the six countries with the highest inflation rates.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Thomas Cook COLLAPSE! 300,000 Passengers Stranded, Flights Cancelled, Planes Grounded / ConsumerWatch / Airline Sector
One of the world's oldest and largest travel companies, Thomas Cook has gone bust, ceased trading, all planes have been grounded whilst all planes in the air have been ordered to return back to the UK and all booked future flights and holidays have been cancelled. With the Thomas Cook website stating that the company has entered into compulsory liquidation.
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Sunday, September 22, 2019
Massive Stock Market Price Reversion May Be Days or Weeks Away / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
Our researcher team believes a massive global market price reversion/correction may be setting up and may only be a few days or weeks away from initiating. Our team of dedicated researchers and market analysts have been studying the markets, precious metals, and most recently the topping formation in the ES (S&P 500 Index). We believe the current price pattern formation is leading into a price correction/reversion event that could push the US major indexed lower by at least 12 to 15%.
Historically, these types of price reversion events are typically considered “price exploration”. Over time, investors push a pricing/valuation bias into the markets because of expectations and perceptions related to future market valuations and outcomes. What happens when these current valuation levels and future expectations shift perspective from optimistic to potentially overvalued is that a price reversion event takes place. This happens when investors shift focus, determine value exists at a different price level and abandon previous valuation expectations.
The rotation in price is actually a very healthy process that must take place from time to time. The structure of price waves (for example Elliot Wave, Fibonacci, Japanese Candlestick, Gann and other price theories) are based on this process of price rising to overbought levels, then retracing to oversold levels – again and again as price trends higher or lower. This is the process of “price exploration” – just as we are describing. In order for price to trend higher or lower over time, price must move in the wave like pattern to identify true value (retracement/reversion) and extended value (a rally or selloff) in a type of wave formation.
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Sunday, September 22, 2019
How Russia Seized Control of the Uranium Market / Commodities / Uranium
Critical Mass - A point or situation at which change occurs.
Just over a year ago Cameco made the difficult decision to close its MacArthur River and Key Lake mines, in response to low uranium prices, leaving the Canadian company’s flagship Cigar Lake facility as its only operating mine left in northern Saskatchewan, home to vast reserves of the nuclear fuel.
The mine closures by Cameco were preceded by 20% production cuts in Kazakhstan, the number one uranium-producing country. The former Soviet bloc nation has said 2020-21 output will not rise above 2019 levels. In Canada, the second largest U producer, 2018 production was cut in half to 7,000 tonnes.
An estimated 35% of uranium supply has been stripped from the market since Kazakhstan’s supply reductions in December 2017.
While the mine closures kicked up the price of uranium in 2018, they haven’t been enough to build momentum. Spot uranium finished last year up just over 20%. Year to date 2019, triuranium octoxide, or U3O8, is down a disappointing 11.9%, trading at $25.25 per pound, as of Sept. 19.
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Saturday, September 21, 2019
Dow Stock Market Trend Forecast Update / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
This is the 2nd of my 2 part latest update to my stock market trend forecast for 2019 (Part1). Also note that the whole of this analysis was first made available to Patrons who support my work Stock Market Trend Forecasts When Mega-Trends Collide).
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Saturday, September 21, 2019
Is Stock Market Price Revaluation Event About To Happen? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
Skilled technical traders must be aware that price is setting up for a breakout or breakdown event with recent Doji, Hammer and other narrow range price bars. These types of Japanese Candlestick patterns are warnings that price is coiling into a tight range and the more we see them in a series, the more likely price is building up some type of explosive price breakout/breakdown move in the near future. The ES (S&P 500 E-mini futures) chart is a perfect example of these types of price bars on the Daily chart (see below).
Tri-Star Tops, Three River Evening Star patterns, Hammers/Hangmen and Dojis are all very common near extreme price peaks and troughs. The reason they form is that price is unable to rally or fall far enough within a normal trading day to project broader range types of Japanese Candlestick patterns and these rotational/top/bottom types of Japanese candlestick patterns are often found at or near key reversal points in price. When they form in a series, like we are seeing currently, it is a very ominous warning that price will react in an explosive movement – either UP or DOWN. Be sure to opt-in to our Free Trade Ideas Newsletter.
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Saturday, September 21, 2019
Gold Leads, Will the Rest Follow? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Fund manager Matt Geiger provides his overview of the resource market and shares some principles he is using to invest in today's market. The natural resource landscape has shifted dramatically since the end of 2018. At the time, we were still nursing our wounds from an unexpectedly vicious 2018 and hoping to avoid a repeat performance in 2019. I did speculate that "we may have already exited the bear market as of late December 2018. The nickel price is up roughly 25% YTD, the gold price is up roughly 10% since early December, the TSXV is up 15% since mid-December, and the MJG partnership itself was up 20.5% in January alone."
In hindsight, it looks like we did indeed exit the bear market as of late December 2018. The nickel price is now up 54% YTD. The price of gold is now up 25% since earlier December. The MJG partnership was up 42% in the first half of the year. The major diversified miners have hit 52-week highs within the past 60 days. The major precious metal royalty names have hit either multi-year or all-time highs recently. The same applies to the GDX and GDXJ. These are the types of moves you'd expect to see in a mining bull market.
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Saturday, September 21, 2019
Are Cowboys Really Dreaming of... Electric Trucks? / Companies / Electric Cars
The title of this piece is a play on a book, but the question stands: Will cowboys, or anyone else who buys a truck, be interested in an electric version? Ford and GM are betting their companies on it, which could be a huge mistake.A Truck-Loving Family
Somewhere along the way, we became a truck family. My wife wanted a small 4×4 to navigate flooded streets, which makes sense given where we live. She ended up with a Chevrolet Colorado, and couldn’t be happier. For whatever reason, my younger daughter always wanted a Ford F-150, so she drove off to college in a jacked up, 4×4 SuperCrew. Granted, it was used, but still pretty cool.
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