Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:22:06 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/ Financial Markets Forecasting & Analysis Website en-gb http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/images/logo.gif http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/ site_admin@marketoracle.co.uk http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14751.html Nouriel Roubini, Dr Doom the academic economist who has repeatedly peddled the stocks bear market case to a captured audience of naive investors has again come out with another in a series of Doom stories to scare investors away from the market. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:22:06 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14750.html The U.S. Dollar, the currency in precious metals are priced in, is standing at a crossroad today. The possibility of breakout to the upside has grown in the past week, but the trend still remains down. So, what are the implications for the precious metals? Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:22:53 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14749.html Everyone is familiar with the chart of US debt that goes up to about 350% of GDP in 2008, this is the same slide except looked at another way [1]: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:11:52 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14748.html On November 3, 2009, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the purchase of 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for US$6.7 billion. This represents the largest one-time central bank purchase in recent history, reminiscent of the period of steady US purchases of bullion in the 1930s and 1940s. The purchase was an official off-market transaction and was executed during October 19 - 30 at market-based prices averaging US$1,045 an ounce. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:05:02 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14747.html The Dollar could fool everyone ... Just as Foreign countries are diversifying out of the Dollar ... just as the Dollar's carry trade is being overdone, the Dollar is poised to make an upside run. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:01:39 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14746.html My long time readers are familiar with Jeremy Grantham of GMO as I quote him a lot. He is one of the more brilliant and talented value managers (and I should mention very successful on behalf of his clients). He writes a quarterly letter which I regard as a must read. I have excerpted parts of his recent letter, where the chief investment strategist really takes the current financial system follies to task. Typical of his great writing and thinking is the quote from this week's Outside the Box selection: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:46:11 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14745.html This flashed on the Bloomberg news wires this morning: India Buys IMF Gold to Boost Reserves India, the world’s biggest gold consumer, bought 200 tons from the International Monetary Fund for $6.7 billion as central banks show increased interest in diversifying their holdings to protect against a slumping dollar. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:39:16 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14744.html The simplest way to make a genuine fortune – we’re talking 20 to 50 times your money here - is to buy assets no one wants and wait for them to be wanted again. In fact, we met someone who did it firsthand a few months ago. Over breakfast with Bob Quartermain, the president of Silver Standard Resources (NASDAQ:SSRI), your editor got the first-hand account of the company’s development. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:33:48 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14743.html Money is a difficult subject. There is much confusion as to what it is. There is even more confusion as to the best way to measure it. Yet, before we can measure it, we have to define it. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:23:59 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14742.html When I talk about dividend stocks here at Money and Markets, I almost always mean common shares of a company. But today I want to tell you about another class of stock that some income investors gravitate toward: “Preferred” shares. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:16:04 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14741.html - Silver Remains Very Undervalued - Why Silver is in a Bull Market & How High Could it Go? - Is Silver about returns or a hedge against    inflation & systemic risk? Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:32:56 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14740.html Ratio charts help keep things in perspective for me. Until my "great awakening" regarding long term investment cycles, I thought everyone just bought and held stocks and then woke up 40 years later with enough money to retire. BWAHAHAHAHA! The paperbugs are a little bizarre due to their religious intensity beliefs in the power of Wall Street, for-profit central bankstas and government. I used to actually care about federal reserve interest rate announcements until I learned that they don't have the power to set interest rates at all - the market does that and the fed simply follows. If you believe otherwise, you might be a paperbug yourself. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:21:15 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14739.html Rumors were China [Apr 25, 2009: China Begins Building Gold Reserves] was going to buy this stash of gold from the IMF; but it appears India "won".   This will drop the International Monetary Fund stake but still keep it at spot #3 in world's reserves, and send India screaming up the charts from 14th [Oct 13, 2009: Largest Gold Reserves by Country]  Gold fever is spreading across he globe as central banks go wild printing paper currency.... Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:34:09 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14738.html THE PRICE OF GOLD rose sharply to 7-session highs against the Dollar and new 8-month highs vs. the Euro early Tuesday after the Reserve Bank of India said it bought 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund late last month. Slated to sell 403 tonnes of gold in total, the IMF raised $6.7 billion from India's purchase, helping "put the fund's finances on a sound long-term footing," according to managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn today. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:29:34 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14737.html In our last video on the S&P 500 (10/27), we indicated that this market may have topped out for the year. Today’s action puts in place a weekly “Trade Triangle” which indicates that a temporary or a permanent top is now in place for this market. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:47:31 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14736.html Gold is continuing its strong upward run and is currently trading at $1.061.40/oz. In EUR and GBP terms, gold has risen again and is trading at €720/oz and £650/oz respectively. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:03:04 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14735.html The two charts above of the Dow Transports and The Dow Industrials indicate that there is the possibility of a Dow Trend change. The trend altered on the transports over the last three days but is unconfirmed at the moment by the Industrial 30. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:58:29 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14734.html Martin Hutchinson writes: Commodity prices have faltered in the last couple of weeks, and much of the “smart money” is saying the boom is over. Don’t believe it. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:50:04 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14733.html The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision on short term interest rate is due out tomorrow (Nov 4). The decision on where to set interest rates depends mostly on growth outlook and inflation. The primary objective of the central bank is to achieve price stability. High interest rates attract foreigners looking for the best "risk-free" return on their money, which can dramatically increases demand for the nation's currency. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:41:03 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14732.html The proverbial question is we in a V shaped recovery or a Bear Market Rally. Without predicting (One word every true trend follower hates) there are signs becoming apparent the stock market rally from March might be coming to an end. There are technical indicators which are pointing to weakness as well as recent economic figures are beginning to disappoint investors hoping for a recovery. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:39:05 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14731.html I have sided with Nadler on gold issues in the past, but his claim that gold is not in a bull market is just plain nonsense. Please consider Gold Is Not in a Bull Market Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:43:56 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14730.html Better-than-expected manufacturing data helped to restore the upward momentum in global equity markets yesterday, while at the same time putting the US dollar under renewed downward pressure against the higher yielders. The US ISM manufacturing PMI jumped from 52.6 in September to 55.7 in October – its highest since April 2006. The improvement was led by a sharp rise in the survey’s employment index, from 46.2 to 53.1, raising an upside risk for Friday’s October nonfarm payroll report (see chart). Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:37:30 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14729.html If you have ever wonderd what the IMF and the New world Order can do to a third world country, this one is for you. Life & Debt is a woven tapestry of sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and parameters of day-to-day existence are determined by the U.S. and other foreign economic agendas. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:31:59 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14728.html Crises expose the system's irrationalities and wasteful resource allocations. For example, Madoff and his many, smaller imitators reveal the tips of corruption icebergs. More important, the crisis-induced fiscal emergencies looming in most of the 50 states demonstrate several absurdities in our economic system. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:19:40 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14727.html Pouring money into the private banking system has only fixed the economy for bankers and the wealthy; it has not done much to address either the fundamental problem of unemployment or the debt trap so many Americans find themselves in. President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan has so far failed to halt the growth of unemployment: 2.7 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus plan began. California has lost 336,400 jobs. Arizona has lost 77,300. Michigan has lost 137,300. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:09:02 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14726.html This past Thursday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported 3rd Quarter GDP at up 3.5%, surprising the already ebullient consensus.  The report I’m sure put a smile on Obama and Bernanke’s faces, not to mention legions of Keynesian economists longing to say I told you so.  Hey, even the stock market seemed to like the report, as the Dow Jones Industrials exploded 200 points on the day. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:56:37 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14725.html The bears are trying. I'll give them that. After all, they've taken out the 50-day exponential moving average on the Nasdaq and have kept it below for a few days now. The S&P 500 is playing leap from the 50-day exponential moving average. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:41:06 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14724.html As time is moving rapidly toward the end of the calendar, thoughts tend to go to that which was accomplished during the year. Perhaps this year we might reflect on that which did not happen. A year ago, the outlook for the future was fairly gloomy. In the Western economies, the policies of the cental banks, and in particular the Federal Reserve, were abject failures. While the outlook for the Western economies continues fairly dismal, at least we do not seem to be falling further into an abyss without hope. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:39:53 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14723.html Mr. William C. Dudley President Federal Reserve Bank of New York 33 Liberty Street New York, NY 10045 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:12:37 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14722.html Got a lot of email when I suggested that safe deposit boxes are not safe from bank or government intrusion. In most minds the “safe deposit box” is the “holy grail.”  Our comfort will always be OK as long as our safe deposit box remains safe from others ill intent.  Noticed the last few years how the Swiss Banks are no longer confidential places for one to store anything of value?  The US government has applied pressure on Switzerland to make available Swiss bank records at any time requested by the US Government.  Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:02:56 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14721.html Making sense of U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy at this moment is difficult. Not only is it a work in progress, but the pending decisions he has to make -- on Iran, Afghanistan and Russia -- tend to obscure underlying strategy. It is easy to confuse inaction with a lack of strategy. Of course, there may well be a lack of strategic thinking, but that does not mean there is a lack of strategy. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:48:59 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14720.html Is the S&P 500 undervalued from the current level? To answer this question, one might be tempted to look at the actual P/E (Price / Earnings) and establish a comparison with its historical data. You most likely have seen this chart before: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:40:16 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14719.html That’s the game – postponing providence – putting off the inevitable until the next guy’s shift. This is the cache of our political economy, as with all other comparables before it, now maturing into rot. All dominant cultures recede this way of course, dying from within as it were. And the American Empire is no different, with its hollowed out economy, markets, and values. Despite the obvious signs of this decay, most people continue to deny and ignore the inevitable, however acceleration of collapse will continue to challenge such fancy, eventually becoming self-evident to even the less endowed. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:29:16 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14717.html There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently about senior citizens, mostly about how various healthcare reform models would help or hurt them. But there is another critical issue that has quietly devastated seniors financially over the last few decades. It concerns how the cost of living is calculated. How does the administration justify not giving a cost of living increase to Social Security recipients this year? According to the official Consumer Price Index calculation, life has gotten cheaper for the first time in decades. If the government can show statistically that the cost of living has gone down, not up, then they can make the case for not giving a cost of living increase to social security recipients. But does this match reality? Using older calculations of CPI, the cost of living has actually increased - by roughly 5%. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:14:26 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14716.html Today's very postive earnings and revenue news on Ford (NYSE: F) goosed the stock from around 7.00 to as high at 7.84 so far (+12 prior to the pullback to 7.57. Without diminishing either the report or the upside reaction, let's notice that today's upmove has NOT hurdled important resistance at the prior rally peak of 7.98 (10/21 high, at least not yet. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:59:14 -0600