Tuesday, November 17, 2015
CFPB - Another U.S. Government Agency Running Wild / Politics / Government Intervention
Everybody likes to get money back from the government. Now there’s a new way to cash in on Uncle Sam.But like many government programs, this one has a few issues.
If you bought a car in the last few years, you might get a check from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau(CFPB), as long as you live in the right (or I guess, the wrong) neighborhood and have a certain-sounding last name.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Is a Major Stock Market Top Forming? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
I warned in early October that stocks looked like they were setting up for another sharp crash into the height of the “crash season” in mid-October.Instead, we got rate cuts in China, rumblings of stronger QE in Europe, and a continued rally at home.
In other words – central banks delayed the inevitable. Again.
So let’s look at where the markets are today…
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
SPX Probing at the 200-day Moving Average / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
SPX ramped above the Broadening Top lower trendline in the final hour of yesterday’s session. The SPX Premarket is up about 5 points as I write, but still beneath its ultimate resistances, the daily mid-Cycle resistance at 2061.97 and the 200-day Moving Average at 2064.38.
Today and tomorrow are both Pivot days. Tomorrow is the stronger one. I had originally surmised that tomorrow would be a low with a ramp into options expiration. The timing of this retracement changes things, with potentially devastating consequences. A decline through options expiration would certainly magnify the volatility during such an event.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Is COMEX the Center of World Silver Price Discovery? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
In our recent LIVE Q&A interview with renowned silver analyst, Ted Butler, the following question came up. Below is the transcript of Butler’s response.Ted: Its a great question. COMEX is the center of the gold and silver universe.
Technically, there is trading on these other exchanges. Take the LBMA for example.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Gold Price Hovering Above Support / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Just as the Euro is hanging by a thread above its chart support zone, so too is gold hanging by a thread above a critical chart support zone. The bottom of that zone is the July low near $1070 with the zone extending upward towards $1080.
Gold drew a bit of support in today’s session ( Monday) out of safe haven buying tied to the horrific carnage in Paris but as is always the case with gold, rallies that come from geopolitical events, generally do not last long, especially when the underlying fundamentals for gold are as poor as they currently are.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
The Gig Economy Is the New Normal / Economics / Employment
An already-confusing employment environment grew even more complicated this past week. Many readers responded to my “Crime in the Jobs Report” letter with their own stories. Some confirmed what I wrote, while others disputed it. Some of the stories I read from readers who are stuck far from where they want to be in this job market were very moving. I think everyone agrees the labor outlook is uncertain. I sense a lot of nervousness, even from those who have secure jobs that pay well. In today’s letter, I’m going to respond to some of the observations and data that came in this week on employment.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Terrorism.... Weakening Economy... Stock Market Finally Bounces.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
It's old. It's boring. It's pathetic. It's inhuman. It's a lot more than all of that, but what's left to say that hasn't already been said. Terrorism is a sad reality in our world, and will likely never go away in our lifetime, or the lifetime of many generations to come. It seems to be in the DNA of humanity. We had a very sad display of terrorism late Friday night in Paris. Too many perished on suicide bombings. A terrible act toward human life, unfortunately. We're in the business of the stock market, and, of course, the initial reaction of the market was to blast lower after hours on Friday. The S&P 500 was down as many as seventeen points, with fair value included. With the market hanging on by a thread at key, 2020 support on the S&P 500, things looked really bad for the bulls. When terrorism happens a day, or so, when the market is closed, often times the futures start coming back up as the world has grown sadly used to this type of behavior.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
What Every Investor Needs to Know About the Diamond Market / Commodities / Resources Investing
Investing in diamond equities is quite different from investing in gold equities, explains Matthew O'Keefe, vice president and senior analyst with Dundee Capital Markets, one of a handful of Canadian analysts covering the diamond space. O'Keefe says diamond deposits require "an order of magnitude" greater study than gold deposits in order to properly determine grade, and says diamond prices are almost exclusively driven by consumer demand. In this interview with The Gold Report, O'Keefe sheds some light on two undervalued diamond producers, as well as three promising developers.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
The Final Gold Chapter / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
This is the final chapter of this intermediate gold Cycle, and it’s likely to get ugly. If you’ve followed the blog these past few months, you would have been prepared for most of this move as it unfolded in real-time. The first post back on October 1st was Gold Cycle Running Out of Steam and was then followed up (Nov 1st) with Don’t Trust Gold Here. In both cases, I highlighted how the Weekly Cycle had topped and how similarly past Cycles behaved . It was why I argued that this Cycle appeared to be no different to the preceding failed, bear market Cycles since 2011. This is where gold finds itself today, standing on a ledge before a significant fall. For the patient (and protected) bulls, it may well become the final chapter of this great bear market.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Bond Traders have not been this Short Since Early 2010 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015
ZeroHedge reports, “Bond traders have not been this speculatively short Treasuries since early 2010. Since The Fed turned uber hawkish at the last FOMC, and convinced the market that it will raise rates in December - despite dismally dropping data everywhere, speculators have drastically increased their short positions across the entire Treasury spectrum. The last time the world was this short Treasuries, the 10Y yield collapsed from 3.94% to 2.39% in just 3 months.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Markets Reacting to Paris Attack 'Rationally': Asness / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015
Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, joined Stephanie Ruhle, David Westin and Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>. He discussed market reaction to the Paris terror attacks and the use of long-term investing to overcome risks.
ERIK SCHATZKER: As I mentioned moments ago, Cliff Asness of AQR is here. Cliff, if we could begin with a little bit on the way investors tend to think about events like the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, Matt showed us that things haven't really moved that much. And frankly if you look at the historic record, things don't move that much over time after these horrible incidents. So, again, as the investor, as a man who sits on top of $135 billion and, granted, not all of your strategies would speak to this, why is that the case?
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Ominous Parallels: The Roman Empire, The European Union, And Mass Migration / Politics / Immigration
This weekend’s Paris attacks, occurring in the middle of one of history’s largest mass-migrations, has the feel of uncharted territory. But it’s actually an eerie echo of something that happened nearly two thousand years ago in more-or-less the same place.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Undeniable Truths about Precious Metals (Don't Forget These...) / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Clint Siegner writes: From first to worst. Gold and silver were the best assets to own during the first decade of this century. During this second decade... not so much. Precious metals bulls have endured 4 years of prices drifting lower punctuated by periodic smash-downs and the occasional false-breakout.
What really gets the goat of gold and silver investors is that, throughout this time, there have been very good fundamental reasons to own metals. Somehow those fundamentals never show up in the price. The price action in recent years is enough to make bulls question reality.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
How the Great Depression 2.0 Will Soon Unfold / Economics / Great Depression II
Those who place their faith in a sustainable economic recovery emanating through government fiat will soon be shocked. Colossal central bank counterfeiting and gargantuan government deficit spending has caused the major averages to climb back towards unchanged on the year. Zero interest rate and negative interest rate policies, along with unprecedented interest rate manipulations, have levitated global stock markets. But still, sustainable and robust GDP growth has been remarkably absent for the past 8 years.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Paris Terror Attack and What Should Be Done / Politics / War on Terror
The horrific attacks in Paris on Friday have, predictably, led to much over-reaction and demands that we do more of the exact things that radicalize people and make them want to attack us. The French military wasted no time bombing Syria in retaliation for the attacks, though it is not known where exactly the attackers were from. Thousands of ISIS fighters in Syria are not Syrian, but came to Syria to overthrow the Assad government from a number of foreign countries -- including from France and the US.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Stock Market Building Selling Pressure / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
Playing devils advocate and assuming the selling pressure is strong enough to overwhelm central bank efforts to prop markets up, I would like to see the 7 year cycle low complete its mission and at least test the 200 week average.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Gold Remains “Best Insurance For A Crisis” – Ficenec / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
- “Future is uncertain and gold is the most effective insurance against that”
– As fears grow about outlook for global economy – long term attraction of gold remains
– As “central banks race to devalue currency,” private individuals are buying record amounts of gold
– “Gold is simply the best insurance against inflation, or deflation”
Editor’s Note: The tragic events in Paris, terrorism and war throughout the world, show geopolitical risk remains high. These risks will likely impact economies and financial markets and will see continuing safe haven demand for gold.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Israel's New War on Palestine / Politics / Palestine
Israel’s war on Palestine rages into its 7th week, extrajudicial assassinations occurring virtually daily, thousands of Palestinians wounded from live fire and other military assaults, over 1,000 civilians imprisoned for political reasons, including children and women.
Sunday saw no letup. Unrestrained Israeli brutality continued. With world attention on Paris, Netanyahu’s terror war rages almost unnoticed - two Qalandiya refugee camp Palestinians the latest victims, gunned down in cold blood during a raid to demolish an alleged attacker’s home.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
Why Gold Prices Could Bounce This Week / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Since the last US employment release and comments from Yellen suggesting a December hike is likely, gold has struggled to maintain its downward momentum. Whilst we believe that the Fed will increase rates in December and gold prices will move lower over the medium term, there is a strong case for a bounce in gold prices in the short term. Technically gold is oversold and holding support at $1080. This is too low relative to market pricing for a Fed hike and should find support from weaker US data since NFP, lower stocks, lower oil as well as a safe haven bid from any escalation of issues related to ISIS and recent tragic events in Paris.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 16, 2015
BRICS? No, CRISIS / Economics / Emerging Markets
On Monday, October 23, 2015, the Iranian news agency Tasnim cited its Deputy Minister of Economic Development who announced that Iran would seek to become a participant in the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). The NDB was officially created by the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - in July of this year, with an initial capitalization of $100 billion. Iran’s participation would allow it, or any other participating country, to develop closer economic, trade and international policy ties with the BRICS nations, and utilize NDB funds for economic development.
Read full article... Read full article...