Friday, May 03, 2019
Universal Basic Income Would Be a Social and Economic Disaster / Economics / Economic Theory
By: Jared_Dillian
I am never going to retire. Oh sure, I say that now, but what about when I am 80? No. I will never stop working.
Every morning, I get out of bed when the alarm goes off, take a shower, put on dress clothes (a suit, usually), and drive 35 minutes to work in an office that I rent in an office building.
I write newsletters. I can just as easily do that on the couch, in a pair of gym shorts, with a cup of coffee. Why spend over an hour a day commuting and dealing with all the brain damage of putting on a suit and going to work?
Friday, May 03, 2019
The May FOMC Meeting Is Over. They Say Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining... / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The May FOMC statement didn’t bring much of a surprise. Fed Chair Powell remained upbeat in his assessment of the U.S. economy while dismissing low inflation as transitory. Gold has initially jumped, only to keep declining later. What has actually happened yesterday, then?
FOMC Statement Acknowledges Lower Inflation
Yesterday, the FOMC published the monetary policy statement from its latest meeting that took place on April 30-May 1. In line with expectations, the US central bank unanimously kept its policy rate unchanged. As previously, the inaction reflected the new patient approach adopted by the Fed in January. So, the federal funds rate remained at the target range of 2.25 to 2.50 percent:
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Friday, May 03, 2019
UK Real Unemployment Rate is 5.5 million - Britains Benefits Culture / Economics / Unemployment
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This analysis directly continues on from (UK Demographics Crisis Silver Lining of Sorts) which is part of a series that aims to conclude in a new multi-year trend forecast for UK house prices. But first a recap of my analysis to date that so far suggests to ignore mainstream press hysteria that warns of impending doom for Britains housing market, encouraged no less than the Government and Bank of England which warn to expect a 30% CRASH in UK house prices should the UK LEAVE the EU without a deal.
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Friday, May 03, 2019
Stock Market Investing Dow Theory Overview. / Stock-Markets / Dow Theory
By: Christopher_Quigley
Applying Dow Theory To Investment Practice.
I first came across Dow Theory in 1989 when I lived in Belmont, San Mateo County, California. I thought its creators Charles Dow and William Hamilton had unique insight into stock market behaviour. Accordingly, for over ten years I developed a course incorporating their fascinating insights and have been solidly teaching their market philosophy for over 12 years; writing my first published on the topic in 2007.
One of the most difficult tasks I have encountered teaching this subject is how to prevent students
Friday, May 03, 2019
Toward Japan’s Economic End-Game / Economics / Japan Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
As the spotlight has been on Japan's new Emperor Naruhito, the economy is coping with half a decade of Abenomics, monetary injections, huge debt – and a proposed sales tax that could make things a lot worse by the fall.
Ever since Shinzo Abe started his second stint as Prime Minister, Japan has focused on positive economic signals, which has sparked futile hopes, including a bad sales tax proposition.
Japanese officials vow to stick to the planned tax hike in October (it has been delayed twice), barring a big economic shock. With the 2019 budget, Abe hopes to offset adverse impact of the sales tax by returning much of the extra revenue to consumers via $18 billion of offsetting measures, instead of faster debt-reduction.
Friday, May 03, 2019
US Fed Leaves Interest Rates Unchanged – The Shake-Out Begins / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The US Federal Reserve announced today they are leaving rates unchanged based on their latest meeting. The markets should take this as a sign of relief. Yet, hear all-time highs and expecting the Fed may actually decrease rates a bit, the market reacted with quiet price rotation near these highs.
The US Fed could have shaken up the markets even more, but we believe this move by the Fed will be interpreted as “Fed Uneasiness” with regards to the overall US and global economy at the moment. A failure to prompt a rate increase could be seen as weakness by the Fed and uneasiness over the fragility of the US and Global economies. Once this shake-out settles, the markets will go back to doing what the markets always do – interpreting future fair values.
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Thursday, May 02, 2019
BAIDU (BIDU) - Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Stocks Investing To Profit from AI Mega-trend / Companies / AI
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This is my latest analysis in my machine intelligence investing mega-trend series that warns to prepare for EVERYTHING to change EXPONENTIALLY when average machine intelligence surpasses average human intelligence following which it will be off to the races. When the pace of change will leave everything that has happened before far behind. And in my opinion that key date will occur sometime during 2022, i.e. in less than 4 years time! Which means if you have not already got your act together by getting onboard this investing gravy train then you really need to take action or kick yourself many years down the road, when you will be asking yourself why I did not invest in those AI stocks before they went stratospheric!
Thursday, May 02, 2019
Disney Stock Price Will Hit $170 Next Year / Companies / Investing 2019
By: Stephen_McBride
On April 12, Disney (DIS) took a massive leap. The stock jumped 12% in a single day:Big, safe stocks like Disney don’t often move 5% in a day, let alone 12%.
And Disney isn’t a small, medium, or even large company. It is a giant company. It’s the 18th-biggest publicly traded American company—bigger than Coca Cola, McDonald’s, and Wells Fargo.
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Thursday, May 02, 2019
Stop Feeding the Chinese Empire - ‘Belt and Road’ Trojan Horse / Politics / China US Conflict
By: Richard_Mills
“Whoever has an army has power.” - Mao Zedong
In March Italy broke ranks with its EU partners in joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative, known also as One Belt, One Road or the New Silk Road.
Students of history know the original “Silk Road” refers to the ancient network of trading routes between China and Europe, which served as both a conduit for the movement of goods, and an exchange of ideas, for centuries.
The “New Silk Road” is the term for an ambitious trade corridor first proposed by the Chinese regime under its current president, Xi Jinping, in 2013. The grand design also known, confusingly, as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is a “belt” of overland corridors and a “road” of shipping lanes.
It consists of a vast network of railways, pipelines, highways and ports that would extend west through the mountainous former Soviet republics and south to Pakistan, India and southeast Asia.
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Thursday, May 02, 2019
The Fed Can’t Ease Interest Rates Until Stocks Collapse… / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Graham_Summers
Yesterday’s Fed meeting had one clear message:
The Fed needs a reason to cut rates.
The Fed has obviously laid the ground work for a rate cut by hinting at easing… but with the “official” GDP numbers at 3.2% and inflation under 2%… the Fed doesn’t have a clear reason to ease just yet.
It will soon… and that reason is going to be a stock market collapse.
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Thursday, May 02, 2019
How Online Gambling Has Benefited New Jersey’s Economy / Personal_Finance / Gambling
By: Boris_Dzhingarov
...
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
US Housing Market House Prices Bull Market Trend Current State / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
It's been a while since my last analysis of the US housing market, in fact a full 3 years, preceded by my original 3 year trend forecast covering November 2012 to early 2016 that forecast a strong a bull market against expectations at the time (and for many subsequent years), for it's forgotten today that in the aftermath of the financial crisis the prevailing view was that the US housing market was dead for a generation, and this not just from the usual perma doom merchants (I don't like to name names but you know who they are!) but was consensus view at the time.
So before we plunge into the analysis deep towards concluding in a trend forecast, it's good to understand the reasons why the consensus led by academics usually tend to find themselves on the WRONG side of major market trends.
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Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Gold and Silver Precious Metals Carpe Diem / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: The_Gold_Report
Sector expert Michael Ballanger reviews recent movements in precious metals and discusses how he is playing the market. Last week I sent out my uber-bullish call on the metals and miners at the conclusion of a period fraught with doom and despair for all things gold and silver. The criminality of the interventionists was in full bloom as they bombed gold down through that critical "Line in the Sand" at $1282 forcing the Speculative Longs (hedge funds, quant funds, technical funds) to immediately reverse and regurgitate longs and initiate big new short positions as the bullion bank behemoths took profits. First, let's revisit that missive.
From Saturday the 20th: "All right, now that I have concluded my rant on the madness being inflicted upon us, I have a couple of observations to make about gold. Earlier last week, I was looking at GLD wondering whether my GLD May $124 puts might hit $5.00 before the end of the week and then it occurred to me that my "Line in the Sand" at the prior lows of $1,282 and the subsequent "breakDOWN" was no different in its blatancy than the "breakOUT" in Barrick. So, I pulled up the GLD chart and lo and behold, while the sub-30 level for RSI sported two super buying opportunities in 2018, it has not been much under 35 in all of 2019 thus far. Now, notwithstanding that the stock markets are getting somewhat stretched, I have to respect two things: 1) the dotted red line in the RSI window in the chart below and 2) that only in the perverse world of precious metals are technical "breakdowns" to be BOUGHT while technical "breakouts to be SOLD. Therefore, I have covered all my shorts in both gold and the mining shares and initiated 50% long positions in JNUG, NUGT and the GLD June $120 calls. The chart below pretty much says all that is needed; we are at an inflection point that represented tradeable bottoms in mid-November and early March."
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Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Will Platinum Be the Precious Metal Leader? / Commodities / Platinum
By: The_Gold_Report
Platinum, after making what appears to be a wash-out low in August 2018, now looks poised to be a precious metal leader, writes fund manager John Newell at Fieldhouse Capital Management.
What is Platinum:
Platinum is a precious transition metal that has the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78 on the periodic table. Platinum is grayish white in color and is often mistaken for silver. Platinum is derived from the Spanish word, platina, which translates to "small silver." Once considered a nuisance mineral, it was often discarded by early miners. Platinum is thirty times rarer than gold, with annual production of 6 million ounces per year, compared to ~100 million p/a ounces of gold, and 850 million ounces p/a of silver.
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Wednesday, May 01, 2019
How Close is the Stock Market From Topping? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Now that most of the US Major Indexes have breached new all-time price highs, which we called over 5+ months ago, and many traders are starting to become concerned about how and where the markets may find resistance or begin to top, we are going to try to paint a very clear picture of the upside potential for the markets and why we believe volatility and price rotation may become a very big concern over the next few months. Our objective is to try to help you stay informed of pending market rotation and to alert you that we may be nearing a period within the US markets where increased volatility is very likely.
Longer term, many years into the future, our predictive modeling systems are suggesting this upside price swing is far from over. Our models suggest that price rotation will become a major factor over the next 12 to 15+ months – headed into the US Presidential election cycle of November 2020. Our models are suggesting that the second half of this year could present an incredible opportunity for skilled investors as price volatility/rotation provide bigger price swings. Additionally, our models suggest that early 2020 will provide even more opportunity for skilled traders who are able to understand the true price structure of the markets. Get ready, thing are about to get really interesting and if you are not following our research or a member of our services, you might want to think about joining soon.
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Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Why US Dollar Strength is Long Term Catalyst for Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
As we know, Gold and the US Dollar have an inverse relationship. Gold is priced in US Dollars and the drivers of each are similar (from an inverse point of view). Over long-term periods both trend in the same direction but the magnitude of the moves can vary and be quite different.
The standard inverse relationship has not been a perfect one in recent months or years.
In the chart below we plot Gold, gold stocks and the US Dollar.
We highlight (with vertical lines) the points at which Gold tested the wall of resistance. As you can see, the relationship with the dollar hasn’t been uniform.
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Wednesday, May 01, 2019
America’s Gradual Slide, Experience and Withdrawal From Vietnam - Part 2 / Politics / US Politics
By: Raymond_Matison
Continuation from Part1 - Vietnam, Part I: Colonialism and National Liberation
The Kennedy Years
Before he became President, a tour of Vietnam convinced John Kennedy that the US must align herself with the emerging nations, and that Communism could never be defeated by relying solely of force of arms. His Indochina experience led him to that conclusion, as did a dinner conversation in New Delhi with Jawaharlal Nehru, who called the French as an example of doomed colonialism and said Communism offered the masses “something to die for” whereas the West promised only the status quo. War would not stop Communism, Nehru warned him; it would only enhance it, “for the devastation of war breeds only more poverty and more want.” In 1957 JFK declared in a Senate speech “The most powerful single force in the world today, is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile – it is man’s eternal desire to be free and independent.”
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Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Silver Market Alert: Powerful Bullish Setup Takes Shape / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: MoneyMetals
The silver market appears to be setting up for a big move.
After spending this spring stair-stepping lower in a narrowing range, silver prices have formed a falling wedge pattern. That pattern usually resolves in a powerful directional breakout. The good news for bulls is that falling wedges usually break out to the upside.
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
This Stock Is as Safe as Coca Cola but Pays a 6.4% Dividend / Companies / Dividends
By: Robert_Ross
I bet you’ve never heard of Pat Munroe.
And unless you’re from the Florida Panhandle, I imagine you haven’t heard of Quincy, Florida, either.
But the two can teach us a lot about investing.
See, in the early 1920s, Munroe was a banker in Quincy.
One thing Munroe noticed was no matter how hard the times, the people of his small town always seemed to have money to buy a Coca-Cola.
So he started buying shares of the company. Not long after, he was telling everyone in town to buy shares of Coca-Cola.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
U.S. GDP Accelerates, while Socialists Triumph in Spain. Will Gold also Win? / Economics / US Economy
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The US economic growth in the Q1 2019 positively surprised. Indeed, on the upside. The doubting Thomasses were proven wrong. And The Socialist Party just won the snap elections in Spain. Is the left back in vogue in the Eurozone? But what does it all mean for the gold market?
US GDP Surprises on the Upside
On Friday, the government said that the US GDP expanded at a 3.2 percent annual pace in the first three months of 2019. What is important is that the number significantly surpassed the forecasts. For example, the economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 2.3 percent increase. The fears of the slowdown were overblown, as we have been warning for a long time.
Actually, the American economy accelerated in the first three months of 2019, as the economy grew at a 2.2 percent in Q4 2018, as one can see in the chart below.