Thursday, January 21, 2016
Stock Market Short Sellers Back In The Saddle: Q&A With Bearing Asset Management / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
The improbable success of The Big Short, a scathing and hilarious tutorial on making money during a financial crisis, probably has a lot of people thinking that now might be a good time to start betting against the current bubble(s).
That’s a well-timed thought because it comes after three long years in which shorting was really, really hard. Why was it hard? Because easy money — at first — floats all boats. When interest rates are low and financing is readily available, even the crappiest companies can pay their bond interest and support their share price with debt-fueled share repurchases. The uniformity of the past few years’ bull market was so extreme that buying the most heavily-shorted stocks — on the assumption that those companies would have access to sufficient capital to support their market value, thus forcing the shorts to cover at ever-higher prices — was a successful and widely-practiced strategy.
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Thursday, January 21, 2016
Stock Market Trying To Bounce....Closed Below 1867 Or The August Low.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
These are very, very interesting times folks. The market behaving poorly for the first time on an extended basis after nearly seven years. The bulls are so used to having things go their way day after day, week after week and year after year. That ended suddenly in 2015 when the markets were overall red, but barely so. Not enough of a push lower to get anyone thinking the end of the bull run is near. Most thought it was simply a year of basing after a long move higher that would lead to yet another leg up.
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Thursday, January 21, 2016
Investors "Think About How to Mitigate Your Losses" / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016
FRA Co-Founder Gordon T. Long deliberates with Eric Sprott about the outlook for the global economy in 2016. Eric Sprott is a Canadian hedge fund manager and founder of Sprott Asset Management. He became a billionaire on paper with the initial public offering of Sprott Inc, the parent of his Sprott Asset Management firm. In August 2011, Sprott was acknowledged by Bloomberg as a 'hidden billionaire.' The publication estimated Sprott's worth at $1.3 billion, largely based on his publicly disclosed holdings in Sprott Inc. and Sprott Physical Gold Trust. Sprott started his career as an analyst at Merrill Lynch covering everything but commodities. He eventually became known as a natural-resources and energy investor.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
The Next Financial Crisis Has Begun / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016
Last year we predicted that the world had reached peak centralization and that going forward things would begin to fracture.
What is centralization?
Centralization is the process by which the world grows increasingly centralized, relying on Centralized organizations (Central Banks, sovereign governments, etc.) to determine the direction of capital and focus.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Will the Crude Oil Price Crash become even Worse in 2016? / Commodities / Crude Oil
A patient mind is the best remedy for trouble- Plaut
2015 was not a good year for speculators trying to time the oil markets. Oil kept cutting through each support level like a hot knife cutting through butter. It would give the appearance that it was ready to mount a rally, but that rally would fade, and oil prices would drift lower. We penned an article in Nov of last year, where we stated that oil would have to close above $50 on a weekly basis for it to see higher prices. However, it failed to do that and drifted lower. When it closed below $32 on a weekly basis, it neutralized any tiny bullish signals it was issuing in 2015. Is oil close to putting in a bottom or will it once again let everyone down and plunge into a series of new lows. There is a saying that the cure for low prices is lower prices and vice versa; having said, that we expect one final wave of selling before oil bottoms out and starts to trend slowly upwards. We do not expect any violent upward reversals unless the situation between Iran and Saudi heats up to the point that a new war breaks out.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
A Stock Market Bounce is Due / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
SPX hit its Ending Diagonal trendline, making a throw-under at 1812.25. A bounce that re-enters the trading band currently at 1833.69 and retests the Cycle Bottom constitutes a reversal pattern that may be traded. In the meantime, the pattern calls for an exit of short positions.
ZeroHedge writes, “History repeats, if you're just willing to listen. The "Dead-Cat-Bubble" is dead as global stocks enter a bear market (down 20% from May 2015 highs) and US equities catch down to the rest of the world.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Marc Faber Warns Invest In Gold Now As Stock Market To Crash / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Marc Faber, editor of the “Gloom, Doom & Boom Report,” has advised investors that now is a good time to invest in gold because stocks will crash over 40% and the world is on the verge of a new liquidity and debt crisis.
Faber says investors would be prudent to diversify into safe haven in gold bullion which has risen 3% this year and is currently at $1,096 an ounce.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Silver Price Hitting Major Support / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
The long term silver chart is truly spectactular. It has basically 3 time periods since it started its bull market.
Phase I started in 2003 and lasted till 2010. Phase II was a trend change, indicated with the rectangle below, between 2011 and 2013, an extremely volatile period. Phase III is the current phase, and is basically a clear downtrend.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
CIPS, Not The Petrodollar Is Key / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016
With oil prices having declined to record lows of the last several decades and financial markets having traded down dramatically, there is increased interest in identifying the next possible black swan event.
Over the last several years, there have been scores of articles forecasting a fall of the Petrodollar as the key confirming event for the long-expected decline in value of the United States dollar currency and the demise of its global hegemony. These reports are correct in that unraveling the Petrodollar will precipitate a sudden decline in global demand for the dollar, with a concomitant decline in the value of the dollar in global currency markets.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Financial Crisis in the Making that QE-4 Can’t Stop! / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016
The “Great Credit Crisis” of 2007 led to “The Great Recession”, and yet the FED still repeated the same mistakes. The FED kept the “easy money” policy in effect, and not only that, but, it also introduced “Quantitative Easing” and handed over FREE money to the large banks and corporations. Apparently, they have not learned anything from the last crisis and it looks as though they are on the path of pushing the economy into a deep recession, again. The dangerous part about this, is that they have already used up all of their ammunition, and there is now none left. In order to deal with the forthcoming “financial crisis” that we are presently facing in 2016.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Chinese Volatility Could Fuel a Lithium-Price Rocket Launch / Commodities / Lithium
When China's stock market started cratering at the beginning of the year, veteran investor and newsletter writer Chen Lin was rubbing his hands in anticipation of the opportunities that would be opening up, particularly in lithium and natural gas. In this interview with The Energy Report, the author of What is Chen Buying? What is Chen Selling? shares his insights on what pushed battery-grade lithium prices up fourfold and which companies could benefit from a continued supply-demand imbalance. As a bonus, he also lists the three companies he thinks could take advantage of high overseas natural gas prices to actually return money to investors in the energy space.
The Energy Report: The year started with a very volatile Chinese stock market. Are we in crisis mode?
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Can Stock Values Simply "Disappear"? Yes / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
And it's happened before, too -- just think back to the 2007-2099 financial crisis
On Wednesday (Jan. 13) CNBC reported that,
Read full article... Read full article..."Almost $3.2 trillion has been wiped off the value of stocks around the world since the start of 2016, according to calculations by a top market analyst. U.S. stocks are now off $1.77 trillion, while overseas stocks are down $1.4 trillion."
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Crude Oil Hit $32... But The Worst Is Yet To Come / Commodities / Crude Oil
On August 5 last year I forecast that oil would hit $32 or a bit lower by January.And it’s happened right on cue!
Along with iron ore and coal (down 70%-plus), oil has been one of the worst-performing commodities – down 80% from its 2008 top. And ultimately it’s headed lower, all the way to $10 or $20. I’ve been saying this since oil was $115, and look where we are now!
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Can Stock Market Short Term Positive Bias Develop into a Medium Term Positive? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
This day has a short term, positive bias for the Fed. A lot of Inflowing Liquidity should come in, but the question will be one of sustainability with the Institutional Investors still in net distribution.
Short term is good, but medium term rules. So the question is ... can this short term positive bias develop into a medium term positive?
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Stock Market Phase Target Met / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend - Severe correction underway.
SPX: Intermediate trend - The index is completing a downtrend phase within a longer-term decline. This should be followed by a counter-trend rally before selling resumes.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
China Fake Economic Statistics - Everybody’s Doing It / Economics / Economic Statistics
Yesterday’s post on the unreliability of China’s official numbers attracted comments that were mostly along the lines of “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” That is, where does an American get off criticizing the honesty of another government’s reporting practices? Some samples:
Read full article... Read full article...Not to put too fine a point on it but do you trust US GDP numbers? Unemployment numbers? Inflation numbers? Which country, if they posted totally true and accepted numbers, would have the larger impact on global markets? The biggest economy or the second biggest economy? Just saying….
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The International War on Cash / Personal_Finance / War on Cash
By Jeff Thomas
Back in 2008, I began warning of increasing capital controls that we would see in the future, as a component in the decline of Western economies (Western in the broad sense, including Japan, Australia, etc.)
Along the way, it occurred to me that, at some point, governments might collectively attempt to eliminate paper currency in favour of an electronic currency - transferred from party to party solely through licensed banks. Sound farfetched? Well, maybe, but what if the U.S. and EU agreed on an overall plan, then suggested it to other governments? On the face of it, this smacks of conspiracy theory, yet certainly, all governments would benefit from this control and would be likely to get on board. In fact, it might prove to be the only way out of their present economic problems.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Central Planners Freaking Out about Discussion of Gold’s Role / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Growing Support for Sound Money Rankles Fed Apologists
Sound money issues make for good politics these days. The leading Republican candidates have all suggested reforms to our monetary system. The topic is popping up in debates as well as interviews. Predictably, Fed worshippers and proponents of central planning everywhere are snickering and trotting out the usual responses.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Gold Deficits and T-Bond Fantasies / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Fantasy #1:
My name is John Q. Public. I live a good life, make lots of money (never mind how) and have debts such as a mortgage on a great house – $375,000, a Cessna – $150,000 (my air force), and a sweet little two mast sailing ship – $78,000 (my navy). Also my wife and children (my army) spend a lot of money. My total credit card debt is $97,000.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The Citadel Is Breached: Congress Taps the Fed for Infrastructure Funding / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
In a landmark infrastructure bill passed in December, Congress finally penetrated the Fed's "independence" by tapping its reserves and bank dividends for infrastructure funding.
The bill was a start. But some experts, including Congressional candidate Tim Canova, say Congress should go further and authorize funds to be issued for infrastructure directly.
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