Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:40:21 -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/Article15200.html In the last ten years, the financial world has experienced quite a few bubbles. Ten years ago there was the tech bubble. Then the housing bubble. And then the credit bubble. There was an Oil bubble too. With all these bubbles popping up, so to has an increase in bubble calling and contrarian thinking. As a result, sentiment analysis has become more popular. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:40:21 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15199.html The U.S. dollar is falling like a rock! And while we could always see a short-term rally, I’m growing more and more convinced that the dollar is heading much lower against other world currencies. Look at this chart below. In just the last eight months, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of major currencies, plunged more than 15 percent! This week it’s breaking down even further. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:22:58 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15198.html THE PRICE OF GOLD slipped for the second day running for Dollar investors early in London on Friday, nearing the weekend 1.7% above last week's finish as commodities fell, government bonds rose, and world stock markets dropped. Gold priced in British Pounds hit a new all-time record at the AM Gold Fix of £690.83 per ounce. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:09:11 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15197.html Figure 1 is a daily chart of the S&P500 with the amount of assets in the Rydex Money Market Fund in the lower panel. This value is now at its lowest point since the rally began in March, 2009. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:55:26 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15196.html Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen: As you all know, we are in a severe economic downturn. The official unemployment rate now exceeds 10 percent and according to many observers is actually substantially higher. Within the last year or so, our financial system has been rocked to its foundations. The collapse of the housing bubble and the numerous defaults and bankruptcies connected with it brought down major financial institutions, such as Bear-Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch. It also brought down numerous small and medium-sized banks and threatened to bring down even such banking giants as Citigroup and Bank of America. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:42:28 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15195.html The inflation redux plan from the Fed and Washington is based on zero interest rates, massive deficits and quantitative easing, which are designed to bring down the value of the U.S. dollar and create inflation. That is the truth, despite promises from Treasury Secretary Geithner that he really means it this time when he says the U.S. has a strong dollar policy--the irony being, that he says this while concurrently begging the Chinese to allow the dollar to fall vs. the Renminbi. But their hopes placed in a lower dollar are woefully misguided and all that is being accomplished is to put into place the same conditions that brought the global financial system to its knees. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:31:38 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15194.html Gold was unchanged yesterday and remained near record nominal highs as equities fell and the dollar staged a moderate rally. Gold appears to be attempting to consolidate at these higher levels and the unchanged close will encourage the bulls and support is now at $1,130/oz. Gold has moved back up to $1,144.70/oz and remains near record nominal highs in euro and sterling - €770/oz and £690/oz. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:20:59 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15192.html Martin Hutchinson writes: In a visit to Japan in the early 1990s, U.S. President George H.W. Bush threw up over the Japanese prime minister. When President Barack Obama visited Japan last weekend, he offered an effusive bow to the Emperor Akihito. Politically, U.S.-Japanese relations have improved dramatically during that two-decade stretch. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:16:22 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15193.html Since 2001 gold has been on a bull run. The gold price has had to factor in the results of the credit crunch for the past 2 years. That means for the previous 6 years gold has been rising independent of the worries of investors looking for safe havens. In that time demand has risen from investors, jewellers and industry. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:15:54 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15191.html Last week a student in my MBA-level intermediate-macro seminar raised a provocative question. We were discussing the various kinds of (price) deflation and which kinds, according to Austrians, are benign and accommodate consumer preferences, and which are malignant and conflict with consumer preferences. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:43:20 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15190.html The Technical Trader’s view: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:34:49 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15189.html Barack Obama took Hu Jintao to task this morning, scolding the dejected-looking Chinese leader at a press conference held in Beijing. Obama delivered one ferocious jab after another, claiming that China's dollar-peg has cost the US millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs while creating gigantic trade imbalances which have destabilized the global economy and thrust the world into severe economic contraction. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:09:26 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15188.html Continued From Part 1 Keynes's Political Economy In The General Theory, Keynes set forth a unique politicoeconomic sociology, dividing the population of each country into several rigidly separated economic classes, each with its own behavioral laws and characteristics, each carrying its own implicit moral evaluation. First, there is the mass of consumers: dumb, robotic, their behavior fixed and totally determined by external forces. In Keynes's assertion, the main force is a rigid proportion of their total income, namely, their determined "consumption function." Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:47:04 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15187.html John Maynard Keynes, the man – his character, his writings, and his actions throughout life – was composed of three guiding and interacting elements. The first was his overweening egotism, which assured him that he could handle all intellectual problems quickly and accurately and led him to scorn any general principles that might curb his unbridled ego. The second was his strong sense that he was born into, and destined to be a leader of, Great Britain's ruling elite. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:25:03 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15186.html A lateral range is simply that, a lateral range. It frustrates. It's annoying. The bulls want things to break out and the bears want things to break down. The bulls have had the best of it for sure and we have come oh so close many times to making that breakout move. We were on the cusp once again and once again the bears came in at the very top of those wedges and took the market down, especially the technology stocks. Those are the stocks that are most overbought and to be blunt, most frothy thus they took the biggest hit. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:18:45 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15185.html Just about everywhere you look these days in the financial media, when the topic of discussion turns to the plunging U.S. dollar, you'll hear someone saying something like, "Unless the Fed raises interest rates, the dollar's got nowhere to go but down". And then someone invariably says, "But the central bank can't raise interest rates. Not with the unemployment rate at over ten percent!" Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:46:28 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15184.html A retired friend, an academic in a field unrelated to the subject of economics or finance, recently asked me to tell him what I thought was happening in these (to him) surreal worlds. Why are some people so bearish that they were effectively anticipating the end of the world whilst others are insisting that a bull market is upon us? Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:35:01 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15183.html When I was a kid, a “double dip” was an ice cream cone with two scoops. Yummy, Today, the same expression is being used to warn us that the recession we are still struggling with could, and is supposedly posed for recovery could fall even deeper into another dip. That d word seems to be a substitute for another—a depression. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:20:42 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15182.html The newspapers are a-buzz with stories of Obama’s trip to China. The Financial Times tells us what “he should have said.” According to the FT, the American president should have told the Chinese that he wasn’t going to put the US into depression just to protect the value of China’s dollar holdings. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:54:11 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15181.html The gold market continues to steam roll ahead as it gets closer to our $1,300 target zone. As we have stated before, gold is in a fully fledged bull market and sharp pullbacks are to be expected. This is not to say the bull market is over; it is more to say that pullbacks should be looked upon as opportunities to add to or initiate new positions. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:48:03 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15180.html James Passin, co-founder and manager of Firebird Global Fund and Firebird Global Fund II, in this wide-ranging, exclusive interview with The Energy Report, discusses beryllium and its energy, military and industrial applications, as well as a burgeoning beryllium-uranium mix oxide fuel technology with the "potential to revolutionize nuclear power by creating a safer and more efficient fuel." Admittedly pro-uranium, Passin mentions two uranium miners he likes, and some exciting developments in copper in Mongolia. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:30:56 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15179.html The House of Representatives has already passed its health-care bill and now the Senate is preparing to vote on its own. Should it pass, the largest new entitlement program since the New Deal will be a reconciliation process and a President’s signature away from being enacted. This is Congress and President Obama’s proposed cure for the ills of our health-care system. But are we sure they have properly diagnosed the disease? Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:26:12 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15178.html We believe there is room for more gold price gain, near term.   A “true” gold market in which the yellow metal is being treated as an asset class in its own right is building around the uncertainties in other markets.  That is different from recent warehousing cycles when gold moved most strongly during the final up stage of a resource/economic cycle.  This time around gold is being treated as a market and currency hedge, not as a goody bag being handed out at the end of a party.  The most interesting note on that score of late is news from India that October saw a large uptick for buying gold in forms such as bars that are used to invest.  Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:22:26 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15177.html This is an extraordinary chart picture from the high in the UltraShort S&P 500 ProShares (NYSE: SDS) at 118.24 (3/06/09) into this week's low at 35.50. The most salient feature is the fact that RSI momentum hit its most oversold level on 8/04 at 45.37, and thereafter, each successive lower price low has been accompanied by a higher low in the RSI. Each one of the divergences produced a potent rally, but none of the rallies has been able to hurdle its prior peak. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:15:39 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15176.html We can see that there is still a “red sea” of negative performance in October, both for the monthly and YTD reporting. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:12:06 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15175.html It may surprise you as to which indices have had the most comeback from the lows seen in March. In today's video we take a close look at both the Dow and NASDAQ indices. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:07:07 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15174.html In my latest video I hope to answer those questions and show you what I think could happen to this market in the near-term. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:02:19 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15173.html INO invites you to enter the “Trader’s Blog Holiday Giveaway.” Enter for your chance to win one of twelve prizes, worth over $5,000.00 total to be given away. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:51:11 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15172.html The Swiss franc is counted among the top-5 reserve currencies in the world, alongside the US-dollar, the Euro, the British pound, and the Japanese yen. The Swiss franc holds this top distinction, even though the Swiss economy does not find its place among the top five economies of the world. Instead, its annual output of $488-billion of goods and services ranks as the world’s 22nd largest. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:29 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15171.html THE PRICE OF GOLD slipped early Thursday in London, losing almost 2% from yesterday's new Dollar record as global stock markets also fell despite a report from the OECD which doubled 2010 growth forecasts for the world's richest economies. The US Dollar rose sharply on the forex market, but the drop in gold outpaced the drop in non-Dollar currencies, helping the gold price in Sterling retreat 1.1% from Wednesday's 9-month highs. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:51:12 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15168.html With the gold bull market charging firmly ahead perhaps it is time to reflect upon what is actually happening from the perspective of the junior mining sector.  The first chart below is of the TSX Venture Index showing a great uptrend and looking very strong. The second chart shows us the TSX Venture Index relative to Gold. Wow, what a difference. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:44:57 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15170.html The Rydex market timers are buying the dip to an extreme degree. Figure 1 is a daily chart of the S&P500 with the amount of assets in the Rydex Money Market Fund in the lower panel. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:56:53 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15169.html The Hong Kong based guide talked about the free enterprise zones, building projects, golf courses, and roads with a chest full of pride and visible excitement. Capitalism was everywhere along the tour route, and judging from the advertisements on billboards and posters, the world was coming to China! Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:47:11 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15167.html By Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, Casey Research - “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” said Blanche DuBois, in the final words of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, don’t we all. Many citizens probably still cling to the old saw that public debt doesn’t matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” Wrong. Debt always matters. And as for whom we owe it to, it is a lot of kind (or, at least, not yet unkind) strangers. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:28:36 -0600 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article15166.html Gold reached new record nominal highs in dollars yesterday and reached $1,146/oz overnight and has since pulled back slightly. Gold is currently trading at $1,136/oz. In EUR and GBP terms it is trading at €764/oz and £680/oz respectively. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:15:48 -0600