Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Facebook: The Anti-Social Network Covert Data Gathering / Companies / Internet
By: Raul_I_Meijer
All of a sudden, politicians in the EU, UK, and USA all want to talk to Mark Zuckerberg. That’s a bad enough sign all by itself. It means they all either have been asleep, complicit, or they’re not very bright. The media tries to convince us the Facebook ‘scandal’ is about Trump, Russia (yawn..) and elections. It’s not. Not even close.
If Zuckerberg ever shows up for any of these meetings with ‘worried’ politicians, he’ll come with a cabal of lawyers in tow, and they’ll put the blame on anyone but Facebook and say the company was tricked by devious parties who didn’t live up to their legal agreements.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Chaos is the Only Way Out of Interest Rates Normalisation / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Michael_Pento
The prevailing fiction pervading Wall Street right now is that economic growth is picking up in a sustainable fashion and that interest rates will merely rise slowly. Then, soon level off at historically low levels. In other words, they are selling a fairytale; and a dangerous one at that.
This premise is blatantly false. The Fed’s reverse QE program, Government debt levels and Nominal Gross Domestic Product, all dictate that the 10-year Note Yield should be now swiftly on its way to at least 4.5%, from the artificial level of 1.4% found in July of 2016.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Additional Signs for Gold and Silver Amid Increasing FOMC Tension / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Are you feeling lucky? We all should. Whether you’re short or long gold (or you’re waiting on the sidelines), the additional day of signals is truly a blessing. That is if you know what to look at. The previous days and weeks provided us with multiple signs and yesterday’s price action served as the – likely final – sign before the big price move. Were you listening?
Let’s start today’s analysis with something that we didn’t feature so far this week – the short-term look at the gold stocks to gold ratio (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Credit Concerns In U.S. Growing As LIBOR OIS Surges to 2009 High / Interest-Rates / Financial Crisis 2018
By: GoldCore
Key Metric LIBOR OIS Signals Major Credit Concerns
– Widening of the spread between LIBOR OIS (overnight index swap) rate raises concerns
– Spread jumped to 9 year widest spread, rising to 54.6bps, most since May 2009.
– Libor recently moved to over 2% for first time since 2008
– Wider spread usually associated with heightened credit concerns
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Stock Markets Are Flat-to-lower Before the FOMC / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX futures are trading within a 10.5 point range around the flat line this morning. As I write it remains under mid-Cycle resistance at 2718.90 which proved to be resistance yesterday, as well. Note that the chart contains a double death cross as both Short-term and mid-Cycle resistances are beneath the 52-day Moving Average.
ZeroHedge reports, “Global shares traded in the red, and the dollar slumped before a hike in US interest rates, while awaiting key guidance on how many more to expect for this year. S&P futures were little changed, while markets in Europe and Asia dropped; Japan’s Nikkei was closed for holiday.”
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Will Powell’s Actions Pop Stock Market Perfection / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Doug_Wakefield
March 21st will be the first FOMC release under Chairman Powell. 3-month Treasury yields have risen 80-basis points since October 1st when the Fed started reducing its balance sheet for the first time since QE 1 launched in 2009. Chairman Powell has stated future hikes are in store for the rest of 2018. Based on these patterns, we should see the 6th rate hike from the Fed since December 2015 on March 21st. Yet as markets closed on March 20th, US stock indices gave stock investors the view of “still rising, all is calm”.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Economic Moral Hazards of the International Criminal Court - and Philippines Withdrawal / Economics / Asian Economies
By: Dan_Steinbock
As the Philippines is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, ICC is blaming the Duterte government. In reality, the withdrawal is still another example of the erosion of the ICC’s credibility, its failure at judicial independence and gross bias against the emerging world. In February, the ICC said it was investigating allegations that the Philippines president had committed “crimes against humanity” by facilitating extrajudicial killings and other rights abuses in the war against drugs. These charges, which have often relied on flawed data, have been pushed by two Duterte critics. Known for his coup efforts, controversial senator Antonio Trillanes has spent much time in Washington and Europe to gain support, while the obscure Jude Sabio has gained notoriety as a hit man lawyer. What's not known is who funds the two and why leading Western media companies have bought their stories with hardly any source scrutiny.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Brick and Mortar Stores vs. Online Ssellers / Companies / Retail Sector
By: BATR
For consumers who watched the Wal-Mart store spread throughout the countryside saw local small retailers became an endangered species. Now, some may relish the payback with the dominance of online juggernaut Amazon, who has a prime objective of closing down what remains of the brick and mortar stores. Both in the shopping center era and today with the direct delivery to your doorstep, the low cost seller proves to be the winner. What has changed is that government subsidies are fueling the carriage costs.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Larry Kudlow vs. Vladimir Putin on Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Jason_Hamlin
The gold price is up just 1% year to date in 2018 and has advanced 5.5% from the December 2017 low. There are some bullish signs from the chart, including a number of higher highs and higher lows following the late 2015 bottom at $1,045. But it certainly hasn’t been the powerful breakout the gold bugs have been hoping to see.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Trump Builds Economy and War Machine / Politics / US Military
By: Richard_Mills
Si vis pacem, para bellum – From the Latin, “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
On March 1 Donald Trump announced that his Administration would implement a 25% tariff on all steel imports and a 10% duty on aluminum. President Trump initially said the tariffs would apply to all steel and aluminum exporters but a week later, facing pressure from Republican free-traders, temporarily excluded Mexico and Canada while NAFTA talks continue.
The tariffs were needed for national security reasons, argued Trump, based upon an investigation by the US Commerce Department which found in January that cheap foreign steel was indeed a threat to America:
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
This Stock Market "Illusion" Can Destroy Once-Vibrant Portfolios / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: EWI
Virtually all stock market forecasting is based on the fallacy of linear extrapolation
Those who've invested solely in the stock market during the past several years have seen the value of their portfolios increase.
As of June 30, 2017, the average 401(k) balance stood at $97,700, according to Fortune magazine. That was a 9.6% increase from a year earlier. Average IRA balances were even higher at $100,200.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Sheffield Pothole City, Atrocious Roads as City Council Fells Trees Instead of Fixing Roads / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
Sheffield's roads are in a truly atrocious state, streets littered with potholes and we are not talking about the odd one here or there but potholes that run the whole width and length of roads that are causing damaging to Sheffield's road traffic, tyres, wheels and suspension.
The Labour controlled city council signed the "Streets Ahead" PFI contract 5 years ago with Amey. And 5 years on the roads are clearly in worse overall state than before! There are even potholes appearing on newly resurfaced roads doing damage to the cities road traffic. What's worse instead of prioritising filling potholes the contractor appears to have become obsessed with the felling Sheffield's street trees, with a target recently revealed to fell HALF of Sheffield's street trees following the forced revelation of the 'secret' fellings target by the Information Commissioner.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Gold Short-term Pull Back in Progress / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: The_Gold_Report
Technical analyst Jack Chan charts recent movements in the gold and silver markets.
Our proprietary cycle indicator is down.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Bitcoin, Verge, Ethereum and Ripple - The Crypto Market Conundrum / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: Avi_Gilburt
By Ryan Wilday : In my last article I stated that we had the potential for a lasting bottom in the crypto market, starting with a low in most coins on February 6th. However, in that article I also gave the conditions for that bottom to fail.
Those conditions, unfortunately, became reality. We have since seen both Ether and Verge, highlighted in that article, slide to new lows below the February 6th low. Bitcoin and Ripple did not fall below their February 6th levels, but did confirm the unlikelihood of that low marking the beginning of an impulsive wave.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Gold Awaits Mr Powell's Introduction / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The FOMC members will gather today for a two-day meeting. It will be the most important event this week, since Powell will chair the meeting for the first time. Gold investors want to get to know him better as the uncertainty makes them a bit nervous. What should we expect from the new Fed Chair?
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Stocks Appear to be Under Pressure / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX has bounced off the 2-year trendline (not shown) yesterday. Overnight futures have only made a half-hearted rally, so we may see SPX remain under the mid-Cycle resistance at 2722.23. The 38.2% retracement level is at 2720.30. Should that be the case, the decline may resume after a brief probe to that level.
ZeroHedge reports, “After yesterday's violent selloff which was sparked by a series of negative tech stories including Facebook’s escalating data scandal and a fatal accident involving an Uber self-driving car, Tuesday trading has so far been relatively calm and muted with Europe bourses paring early gains and Asian stocks trading slightly lower...
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Here’s What Inflation Could Look Like in 2020, Based on Past Surges / Economics / Inflation
By: GoldSilver
Jeff Clark, Rising inflation has hit the headlines, sparking some attention from journalists. What most mainstream investors don’t realize, though, is that history shows inflation can quickly get out of control, and not just in some mismanaged third-world country. Surprise spikes in inflation have occurred right here in the US—and given the massive amount of currency dilution around the world over the past decade, a jump in inflation could easily kick in again.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Savings Interest Rates Rise as Providers Prepare for Cash ISA Season / Personal_Finance / ISA's
By: MoneyFacts
As we approach a brand-new tax year, savers may be perusing the latest cash ISA deals to hit the market. However, they might be surprised by a recent surge in rate rises. This month so far, 22 providers have increased or launched new deals into the ISA market. This is promising news, as over the last year the average cash ISA rate returned just 0.97%*.
Overall, interest rates across the savings market have risen for 14 consecutive months, with the number of rises continuing to outweigh cuts, as moneyfacts.co.uk recorded 126 rate rises and 46 rate cuts in February. Around a quarter of the rises were for ISAs, with 33 rate rises. This month, the ISA market has continued to improve, as we have seen 40 rises so far.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
BEAN BOOZLED CHALLENGE! Money Saving Kids Indoors Fun Activity / / Money Saving
By: Anika_Walayat
Here is a relatively cheap way to entertain the kids in doors during a cold wintry afternoon. Anika and Sami are taking on the Jelly Belly Bean Boozled Challenge, bought from a local supermarket for just £1. We've got a bunch of gourmet jelly beans, the problem is some taste good and some taste terrible. And you can't tell the difference until you put it in your mouth! Were going to try all 10 colours to see who gets BEAN BOOZLED the most! And the loser is the first to spit their jelly bean out.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Time To Eliminate Your Wall Street Tax? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Rudy_Avizius
As we get older, and hopefully wiser, we generally start to become more discerning on how we view the world and the problems we face. Many of us who seek to make the world a better place try to look at the problems, analyze them, and do what we can to correct them. However, because there are so many different problems facing us, this approach often overwhelms us and can instill a sense of hopelessness in our ability to create positive change.