Saturday, October 01, 2016

Stocks, Bonds, Gold and Commodites - It’s January 2013, With a Twist / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016

By: Gary_Tanashian

The title was not meant as a play on words in reference to Operation Twist, but now that I think about it, maybe it should be.  The Post-Twist financial world is far different than it was before the genius that is Ben Bernanke’s ‘bigger than yours or mine’ brain concocted a maniacal plan that would “sanitize inflation” signals from the bond market and break the then highly elevated yield curve.*

So, why is today like early 2013 and why is there a twist to that view?  Because two indicators have come together to point to economic stability (at least) in the US, with the twist being that other indicators are pointing to a potential unchaining of inflation this time, unlike the 2013 time frame, which was in the grips of global deflation (and Goldilocks in the US).

Saturday, October 01, 2016

Why Nervous Pensioners Are Running for the Exit / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement

By: EWI

The Dallas pension system embraces risk with alternative assets

[Editor's Note: The text version of the story is below.]

Friday, September 30, 2016

I Don’t See How Germany Can Contain the Deutsche Bank Collapse / Companies / Financial Crisis 2016

By: Graham_Summers

Let’s talk about Deutsche Bank (DB).

Deutsche Bank is the 11th largest bank in the world. It has assets of $1.8 trillion and over ~$60 trillion in derivatives on its books.

From a balance sheet perspective, DB’s balance sheet is 50% the size of Germany’s GDP. By way of comparison, imagine if JP Morgan was a $9 TRILLION bank. That’s effectively DB’s status in Germany.

Friday, September 30, 2016

It’s Not Just Deutsche Bank. The Whole Financial Sector Is Dying / Companies / Financial Crisis 2016

By: John_Rubino

These are great times for financial assets — and by implication for finance companies that make and sell them, right?

Alas, no. Just the opposite. Each part of the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy is imploding as “modern” finance hits the wall.

Interest rates, for instance, have fallen for three decades…

Friday, September 30, 2016

Donald Trump Post Debate Meltdown, Betfair Betting Market Points to Collapse in Odds of Winning / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016

By: Nadeem_Walayat

According to the betting markets It appears Donald Trump's campaign is in full meltdown mode in the wake of Trumps loss to Hillary in the first debate following which instead of Trump's campaign trying to learn lessons from the defeat, instead has increasingly witnessed delusional Trump claiming victory and doubling down on by basically magnifying that which lost him the debate in the eyes of the voters as illustrated by calling into Fox and Friends that literally had the presenters grimacing in response to some of the statements that Trump was making such as being in the lead in fictitious opinion polls and then trying to defend the fat Miss Universe saga.

Friday, September 30, 2016

The Fed Is Leading Us to Economic Hell / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: John_Mauldin

The Fed argues that low rates have worked. The economy emerged from recession. Unemployment drifted back down. “Yay for us,” said the Fed.

Don't buy that statistical economic garbage. The economy recovered in spite of Fed policy, not because of it. The economy recovered because business owners, entrepreneurs, and workers rolled up their sleeves and made things happen.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Today’s Fed Makes Volcker Look Timid / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: John_Mauldin

Let’s look at the Fed’s (and other central banks’) magnitude of monetary manipulation in recent years and the very constrained maneuvering room they now have as a consequence.

Of course, it’s questionable whether they should even be trying to maneuver the economy to the degree that they are. The current problem is a direct result of mistakes made during and after the last financial crisis.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Silver Way Undervalued / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Zeal_LLC

After rocketing higher mid-year, silver has spent most of the third quarter drifting sideways to lower.  This has naturally weighed on sentiment, with investors and speculators alike growing more bearish during recent months.  Yet silver remains way undervalued relative to its primary driver gold, so silver’s young bull market is far from over.  This metal’s upside from here is still massive as it mean reverts higher with gold.

Silver has always been exceptionally volatile, which is partially a function of this market’s relatively-small size.  The world’s leading authority on global silver supply and demand is the venerable Silver Institute.  It reported total worldwide silver demand of 1170.5m ounces in 2015.  At last year’s average silver price of $15.68, that works out to an annual market value of $18.3b.  That’s practically a rounding error!

Friday, September 30, 2016

Why Krugman, Roubini, Rogoff And Buffett Dislike Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

By Jan Skoyles Edited by Mark O’Byrne : A couple of weeks ago an article appeared on Bitcoin Magazine entitled ‘Some economists really hate bitcoin’.

I read it with a sigh of nostalgia. As someone who has been writing about gold for a few years, I am used to reading similar criticisms as those bitcoin receives from mainstream economists, about gold.

Friday, September 30, 2016

After the Debate, the Deluge? / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016

By: David_Galland

Dear Debate-Watchers,

“I guess he is a buffoon after all. Too bad.”

Those words were written by a dear friend and, until the lights went out on the first presidential debate, the most ardent of Trump supporters.

For the debate, a group of us had gathered at the Social Club at La Estancia de Cafayate here in the Argentine outback.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Has Dow Theory Lost its Relevance: Stock Market Ignored it and Rallied to New Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Sol_Palha

"A stop sign is a gift for you to learn that moving in the same direction won't take you any place new." ~ Rex Steven Sikes

The transports topped out in November of 2014, and according to the Dow theory this is a big negative; the Dow industrials should have followed suit. Instead, the Dow soared higher paying no heed to this theory proving to a large degree that this theory has lost its value. After all, it is a theory and the definition of a theory is "a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained."

Friday, September 30, 2016

Deutsche Bank Hangs By A Thread On Eve Of Jubilee / Companies / Financial Crisis 2016

By: Jeff_Berwick

Nearly a year ago to the day, on September 28th, we wrote “Will Deutsche Bank Be This Cycle’s Lehman Brothers?”

In it we asked, “In 2008, the financial crisis was set-off by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.  Could this year’s crisis be caused by a collapse of Deutsche Bank?”

Friday, September 30, 2016

Stock Market Nasty Pullback Day / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Harry_Boxer

The stock market indices had a rough, volatile session and closed very weak. The day started out with some back and forth action, they pulled back midmorning, and was successful. They then rallied back to resistance, and then they plunged, acerbated by news that Emergent BioSolutions, Inc. (EBS) was having problems with withdrawals. Panic set in to take it to minus 15.44, and then they had a sharp rally acerbated to the upside when it was announced that QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) may be acquiring NXP Semiconductors NV (NXPI). The semi-conductors took off and took the market with it. Biotech’s suffered all day, though, and in the afternoon the indices did pull back and closed near support.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Green Light For Stock Markets In 2017 / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: InvestingHaven

We believe the stock market correction is running its course. The seasonally weak month of September has only produced one significant down day. Our expectation was that the retracement would take stocks between 5% and 10% lower, as explained in ALL Markets Going Down Except The US Dollar.

However, it seems that the stock market is quite resilient. Two weeks after that strong down days, we have not seen any meaningful sign of a continuation of that retracement. That does bode well for an end of year rally, and, even more important, continued strength in the stock market into 2017.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Donald Trump Failing to Recover After 1st Debate Hillary Shimmy Loss - Betfair Betting Market / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The betting markets tend to be better short-term gauge for reactions to political events such as the debates. In which respect Donald Trump is showing NO signs of recovering from Monday's debate loss, instead the Betfair market odds have continued to widen from 2.88 (Trump) / 1.57 Hillary just prior to the start of the debate at 2am BST, which following the debate at 4am had widened to 3.35 (Trump) / 1.44 Hillary) and now 3 full days later the betfair market price is 3.45 (Trump) / 1.45 Hillary. Thus Hillary is continuing to capitalise on Trumps debate loss by widening her lead further, which means whatever post debate strategy Trumps team is deploying is just not working!

Thursday, September 29, 2016

HSBC’s Chief of Technical Analysis Just Warned of a Potential 1987-Type Crash / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Crash

By: Graham_Summers

The head of HSBC’s Technical Analysis group just issued a major warning.

Unless the markets can take out its September highs, we could very well see a repeated of the 1987 Crash.

Murray Gunn is head of technical analysis for HSBC. In a recent client note, he pointed out the Head and Shoulders top pattern that presaged the 1987 Crash.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

GOLD MARKET FLASH NOTE: Ending With a Bang, Not a Whimper / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: The_Gold_Report

Rudi Fronk and Jim Anthony, co-founders of Seabridge Gold, discuss how extreme monetary policy does not stimulate growth.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Gold vs. Paper: The Only Debate That Matters / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Peter_Schiff

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Mining Stocks’ Rally Despite Gold’s Decline / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: P_Radomski_CFA

Quite a few rallies in the recent months were preceded by the mining stocks’ outperformance relative to gold and we just saw the same kind of phenomenon on Wednesday – GDX rallied while gold declined. Is the bottom in?

Let’s take a look at the miners’ chart for details - other charts don’t feature important changes from what we described previously so mining stocks are the part of the PM sector that we’ll focus on in today’s free article (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com):

Thursday, September 29, 2016

BEA Revises Q2 2016 US GDP Growth Upward to 1.42% / Economics / US Economy

By: CMI

In their third and final estimate of the US GDP for the second quarter of 2016, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the growth rate was +1.42%, up +0.33% from their previous estimate and up +0.59% from the prior quarter. Most of the improvement in the headline number came from a +0.24% upward revision in commercial fixed investment. None of the other revisions were statistically significant.