Thursday, June 29, 2017
5 Maps That Explain The Modern Middle East / Politics / Middle East
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN AND KAMRAN BOKHARI : Nation-states are the defining feature of the modern political era. They give people a collective identity and a pride of place… even when their borders are artificially drawn, as they were in the Middle East.
However, transnational issues like religion and ethnicity often get in the way of the notion of nationalism. Those can’t be contained by a country’s borders.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
USD Intermediate Cycle Update / Currencies / US Dollar
By: SurfCity
USD Cycle Status/Outlook: Short term is a bit cloudy but my preferred count is day 10. Longer term, it is clear that the USD is still seeking out its Yearly Cycle Low (YCL). If my last ICL is correct, we are now nearing the 5 month timeframe is a normal 5-6 mont ICL timing band.
Once the YCL is found, my expectations are that future rallies will be still be corrective in nature against the longer term cycle trend which should now be down. Out of the next ICL, the next IC High should be a lower high.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
India Is Likely to Become the First Digital, Cashless Society / Currencies / War on Cash
By: John_Mauldin
BY STEPHEN MCBRIDE : The top news out of India over the past 12 months has been President Modi’s move to ban 85% of the currency in circulation. However, something much more far-reaching has happened.
It’s called India Stack.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
The Fed Is Pursuing An After-Me-The-Deluge Monetary Policy / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: John_Mauldin
I think there is a mixture of political bias and legacy-building that is driving Federal Reserve policy. The simple fact is that the Fed should have been normalizing interest rates starting in 2013.
Fifty basis points a year, and we would be at 2% now. That is not exactly a torrid rate-hike path. It cannot be seen as putting your foot on the brakes. It’s simply moving to normalize a situation that everybody realizes is abnormal.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
Is A Big Move In Oil Prices Due? / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
In options trading, a straddle is literally a sit-on-the-fence strategy. By purchasing a put and a call at the same strike (price of underlying commodity) for the same time period, an investor isn’t making a conventional directional bet; rather the investor is looking for a big move either up or down. The rub is that the big move must be greater than the sum of the two option premia or the bet goes south. But that is in the nature of the trade.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Stocks Rebounded Off Tuesday's Low, New Uptrend? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Paul_Rejczak
Our intraday outlook is bearish, and our short-term outlook is bearish. Our medium-term outlook remains neutral, following S&P 500 index breakout above last year's all-time high:
Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): bearish
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): bearish
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): neutral
Long-term outlook (next year): neutral
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Stock Market Correction May Complete Today / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX futures are mildly positive this morning. In addition, the quarter end and the Cycles Model are positive for at least another day. That suggests Wave [c] may complete near the Cycle Top today in an expanded flat correction, dominated by a very long Wave [b].
The Summer quarter end is usually positive. As mentioned earlier, early short entries are usually subject to draw-downs. The VIX and Hi-Lo have not made sell signals, yet. Thus, only partial positions have been recommended. That will change very soon.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
GBPUSD rebounded from 1.2589 / Currencies / British Pound
By: Franco_Shao
Being supported by the 20-weekly moving average on its weekly chart, the GBPUSD pair rebounded from 1.2589, suggesting that lengthier consolidation for the long term downtrend from the July 2014 high of 1.7190 is needed.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
US Minimum Wage / Economics / Wages
By: Submissions
John Dunham writes: What a difference a day makes. Just this month, a group of researchers at the University of Washington (UW) released a working paper outlining how a $13 per hour minimum wage for restaurant workers in Seattle has led to exactly the opposite effects that proponents predicted.
According to the team at UW, which was funded by the City of Seattle, a 37 percent increase in Seattle’s mandatory minimum wage for restaurant employees resulted in a decrease of working hours for these employees of about 9 percent, and an overall loss in income of $125 per month. This is significant because the minimum wage increase, which was promoted as a way to help lower-wage workers, actually cost those same workers about $1,500 per year on average.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Mainstream Media Feeding Frenzy in the Echo Chamber / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The best comment on the June 13 Jeff Sessions Senate testimony, and I’m sorry I forgot who made it, was that it looked like an episode of Seinfeld. A show about nothing. Still, an awful lot of voices tried to make it look like it was something life- and game-changing. It was not. Not anymore than Comey’s testimony was, at least not in the sense that those eager to have these testimonies take place would have liked it to be.
Comey shone more of an awkward light on himself rather than on Donald Trump, by admitting that he had leaked info on a private conversation with the president he served at the time. Not quite nothing, but very little to satisfy the anti-Trump crowd. It’s just that there’s so many in that crowd, and most in denial, that you wouldn’t know it unless you paid attention.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
The Fed Has Undermined the US Economy’s Ability to Grow / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY STEPHEN MCBRIDE : The Fed’s hope was that quantitative easing would stimulate economic growth. But a former senior economist for the Fed believes it has done the exact opposite.
Speaking at the Mauldin Economics Strategic Investment Conference, Dr. Lacy Hunt, the executive vice president of Hosington Investment Management and former senior economist for the Dallas Fed, said that quantitative easing has created “significant unintended consequences.”
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
“Secular Stagnation” Is Nonsense… Here’s the Real Reason Behind the US Downturn / Economics / Stagflation
By: John_Mauldin
My good friend Charles Gave recently wrote an instructive article titled “Tale of Two Countries.”
In the UK and France, structural growth rates have diverged since 1981. The rate has fallen by two-thirds in France, while in the UK it has risen.
Why?
Well, to begin with, in the UK, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979. She reduced the role of the bureaucracy in managing economic activity and dialed back government spending as a percentage of GDP.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Sheffield Broomhall Hanover Flats Tower Block Cladding Could Take Months to Remove! / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
The Broomhall Hanover flats twin towers were Sheffield's first tower blocks to fail urgent fire safety tests in the wake of the Grenfell Tower Fire disaster that prompted the city council to in a panic announce the removal of all cladding from Hanover Tower work on which began early morning yesterday, with two sides of the tower blocks cordoned off. Meanwhile the council reassured residents that they were 'safe', despite the panic move on behalf of the council.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Shrinkflation In UK – Real Inflation Much Higher Than Reported / Economics / Inflation
By: GoldCore
- Shrinkflation – Real inflation much higher than reported and realised
- Shrinkflation is taking hold in consumer sector
- Important consumer, financial, monetary and economic issue being largely ignored by financial analysts, financial advisers, economists, central banks and the media.
- Food becoming more expensive as consumers get less for price paid
- A form of stealth inflation, few can avoid it
- Brexit is the scapegoat for shrinkflation by the media and companies
- Consumers blame retailers rather than central banks
- Gold hedge has doubled in value since 2007
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Are the UK Elections a Forgone Conclusion? / ElectionOracle / UK General Election
By: Submissions
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Stock Market Direction Update and What I Have Been Up To... / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: David_Petch
I had a number of people email requesting what I have been up to (did I die, am I ill) so here it is...Back in April 2016, after being a part of TreasureChests for 13 years I decided to hang up my pen and pursue other things. As many know or do not know, TreasureChests is shutting the doors at the end of this month. It was a pleasure working with Captain Hook and we still keep in contact on a regular basis to discuss what is going on with the stock markets. Since I have been busy the past year with a side project that is morphing into something bigger, I miss not writing…so here is an update.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
USDCAD Broke Below Channel Support On Weekly Chart / Currencies / Forex Trading
By: Franco_Shao
USDCAD’s fall from the May 5 high of 1.3793 extended to as low as 1.3137 and broke below the bottom support trend line at 1.3230 of the price channel on its weekly chart, suggesting that the uptrend from the May 2016 low of 1.2460 had completed at 1.3793 already.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Is the Tech Stock Market Bloodbath is Finally Here? / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
By: Graham_Summers
Tech is ready to implode.
The NASDAQ ETF (QQQ) has broken its bull market trendline. Even worse, it has failed to reclaim this line despite a strong bounce. This is a MAJOR warning that the upwards momentum is gone.
The next leg down should be a doozy (the target is the red circle on the chart below).
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Is the Stock Market About to Post a Major Top? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Graham_Summers
The market has been sending “topping” signals for weeks now.
They include:
1) Fewer and fewer companies participating in the rally.
2) High yield credit, which leads stocks, rolling over.
3) Weakening momentum.
4) Dwindling volume.
5) Market leaders (the big 5 Tech) beginning to correct.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
China’s First Half of 2017: Growth amid Deleveraging / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Despite seemingly mixed messages, China’s great shift from easing to tightening has begun. While growth will continue to decelerate, it can still remain on the deceleration track, even as deleveraging has begun.
In May, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded China’s credit rating. But it took less than a day for Chinese financial markets to recover from the downgrade. Recently, index giant MSCI announced the partial inclusion of China-traded A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Market Index. After all, China is currently under-represented in global equity indices relative to its economic influence. The inclusion is predicated on a long and gradual move.
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