Tuesday, October 06, 2015

U.S. Economic Recovery Failure to Launch / Economics / US Economy

By: Peter_Schiff

The popular belief that the U.S. economy has been steadily recovering has endured months of disappointing data without losing much of its appeal. A deep bench of excuses, ranging from the weather to the Chinese economy, has been called on to justify why the economy hasn't built up any noticeable steam, and why the Fed has failed to move rates off zero, where they have been for seven years. But the downright dismal September jobs report that was released last Friday may prove to be the flashing red beacon that even the most skilled apologists can't explain away. The report should make it abundantly clear that we are far closer to recession than recovery. But old notions die hard and, shockingly, most economists still believe that we have hit a temporary speed bump not a brick wall. But at some point healthy hope turns into dangerous delusion. We may have just turned that corner.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Target Date Funds As Aid In Retirement Investment Portfolio Design / Portfolio / Pensions & Retirement

By: Richard_Shaw

• Investors in or near retirement should be aware of portfolio design leading fund sponsors suggest as appropriate
• Leading target date funds appear to generally have less severe worst drawdowns than a US 60/40 balanced fund
• The funds have slightly higher yields than a US 60/40 balanced fund
• Target date funds have underperformed a US 60/40 balanced fund in part due to a cash reserve component and non-US stocks
• Non-US stocks drag on historical performance could become future boost to performance.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Stocks Bear Market Apocalypse Imminent Crash Gets Nuked Again / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The last 2 months have been increasingly witnessing ever louder market calls for the beginnings of a new stocks bear market and this not just from the usual suspects, the perma bears who call every correction of the past 6+ years as marking the start of a bear market. Lately an increasing number of those who had managed to remain 'mostly' bullish in the face of a relentless stocks bull market have been increasingly coming out pronouncements of stocks now being in a bear market .

Monday, October 05, 2015

Macrocosm Revisited / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015

By: Gary_Tanashian

Here again is our representation of what a positive macro environment would look like for a bullish gold and gold mining stance. We created this theme in July for NFTRH 353.

This view comes off as repugnant to much of the gold “community”, but I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to tune out the fairy stories about missing COMEX gold (and silver), love-inspired demand from China and India, ‘rising US employment drives interest rates, incentivizes banks to lend and creates inflation, driving people into gold and gold stocks’ or any other angle out there that does not focus on declining confidence in policy making and its ability to control economies and financial markets. Every single one of these supposed fundamentals have already been proven wrong.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Nightshades Curb Your Enthusiasm / Personal_Finance / Health and Fitness

By: Submissions

John Roth writes: [Disclaimer: The following is not a medical article]

I am a male over 60 and have [or had] a serious health problem that I tried to ignore for the last three years. I tried every holistic treatment, supplement, vitamin and herb under the sun. During that period my gastrointestinal tract quit working three times. I had a lot of trouble breathing and although I had the urge nothing would come out of my body. You get the picture.

Monday, October 05, 2015

U.S. Recession Watch, High-Yield – Rising Defaults / Economics / Recession 2015

By: John_Mauldin

“Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.”– J.C. Penney

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.”– Napoleon Hill

“We’re lost, but we’re making good time.” – Yogi Berra, 1925-2015, RIP (For a most moving and memory-laden tribute to Yogi, see The Lefsetz Letter.)

The Yogi Berra quote above, which was brought to my attention this week, seems an apt description of where the markets and the economy are today. Nobody is quite sure where we are or where we’re going, but we all seem to think we’re going to get there soon.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Kunduz Afghanistan’s Hospital Bombing - Pentagon Lies Covering Up Its Latest War Crime / Politics / US Military

By: Stephen_Lendman

US warplanes deliberately and maliciously terror bombed Kunduz, Afghanistan’s hospital, the only one in the area - striking it multiple times for over an hour, despite knowing it was not involved in ongoing fighting in the city.

The death toll stands at 22, dozens more injured, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) physicians, other medical staff and patients. Those unable to be moved were immolated in their beds.

US General in charge of Pentagon operations in Afghanistan John F. Campbell lied, claiming the Kunduz hospital was “accidentally struck.”

Monday, October 05, 2015

Financial Repression – Governments Boost their Coffers and Hold Down Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / US Debt

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the government will run out of money to pay its bills sooner than previously thought around November 5, 2015.  Lacking sufficient cash, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history.

Again, another year, to increase the USA debt limit by the government. Will monetary and fiscal policy ever return to “sanity”?  Will the political leaders ever become brave enough to quit spending more of the taxpayer’s monies than they bring in without fear of losing elections? Will Americans ever elect someone who doesn’t just promise them more and more “stuff,” and who will just start acting responsibly with the nation’s treasury?

Monday, October 05, 2015

Redesigning Internet and Facebook to Explore Their Full Potentialities... / Politics / Internet

By: Dr_R_M_Mathew

... and Empower the Humanity with Knowledge for Finding Solutions for Its Problems

Internet and Social Medias have reached their saturation point under their existing framework of data sharing and communications. At the same time, they are using only less than five per cent of their actual potentialities for their over-dependence on Data. Here the causalities are of course Knowledge, Visions and Dreams.

Monday, October 05, 2015

We’re Not Nearly As Worried About The Middle East As We should Be / Politics / Middle East

By: John_Rubino

What’s the opposite of a gift that keeps on giving? A mistake that keeps metastasizing.

Which pretty much sums up the US role in the Middle East. Beginning with the CIA’s 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected president and continuing through the multiple regime changes and invasions of recent years, various American governments have behaved like they both understood that region and had the power to mold it into a docile client that pumped oil, suppressed dissent and otherwise caused no trouble.

Monday, October 05, 2015

The Social Challenge to Find Humanity in Capitalism / Politics / Social Issues

By: Bloomberg

Paul Tudor Jones, Founder of Tudor Investment Corp., joined hosts Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin for the debut of Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>. He discussed how the Federal Reserve is approaching monetary policy, his Just Capital initiative, income inequality, and the need for humanity in capitalism.

On a major macro shift in the market, Jones said: "I think for the first time since Volcker, probably, you see the Fed managing, in my mind, they're managing for the balance sheet to take out the tail risk associated, and associated with expanding debt virtually globally, and not to mention our federal debt. I think it points to a choppier market."

Monday, October 05, 2015

Fed Interest Rate Hike: "I don't care. It doesn't really make much of a difference" / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Bloomberg

Steve Schwarzman, CEO, The Blackstone Group, joined hosts Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin for the debut of Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>. Schwarzman discussed the Federal Reserve, Volkswagen in the wake of the pollution controls scandal,2016, and Ohio State Governor John Kasich.

On whether there will be a rate hike from the Federal Reserve this year, Schwarzman said: "I don't care. It doesn't really make much of a difference. Interest rate hikes of 25% that people have been talking about for 2-1/2 years, I mean really. If you haven't discounted a lot of this stuff, they've got the issue that raising interest rates is probably a good thing. However their problem is that because the US currency has appreciated against almost everyone in the world, in effect, we've had the impact of an interest rate increase already through slowing of the economy."

Monday, October 05, 2015

Gold Rose 2.2%, Silver Surged 5.4% After Poor Jobs Number On Friday / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: GoldCore

– BIS warns “unrealistic and dangerous to expect that monetary policy can cure all the global economy’s ills”

– Bank of International Settlements warns that recent turmoil is not caused by isolated incidents

– Debt levels are now so extreme they threaten the financial system

Monday, October 05, 2015

U.S. Jobs Report Moves Fed One Step Closer to QE IV / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing

By: Michael_Pento

The September Non-Farm Payroll Report came in with a net increase of just 142k jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.1% and the labor force participation rate dropped to the October 1977 low of 62.4%. Average hourly earnings fell 0.04% and the workweek slipped to 34.5 hours. There were significant downward revisions of 22k and 37k jobs for the July and August reports respectively.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Positive Stock Market Expectations Following Last Week's Rebound / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Paul_Rejczak

Briefly: In our opinion, speculative long positions are favored (with stop-loss at 1,900, and profit target at 2,020, S&P 500 index)

Our intraday outlook is bullish, and our short-term outlook is bullish:

Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): bullish
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): bullish
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): bearish
Long-term outlook (next year): bullish

Monday, October 05, 2015

No Interest in Easy Access Cash ISAs / Personal_Finance / ISA's

By: MoneyFacts

As the Government attempts to regenerate ISAs, the expectation for them to pay decent returns has grown. However, Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that not only does the ISA market remain under a gloomy cloud, but the average rate of an easy access ISA has now hit its lowest rate on record.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Ron Paul - I Wish Nobody Was Bombing Syria / Politics / Syria

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

The US regime change policy for Syria has been a catastrophe. More than 200,000 killed and an entire country reduced to rubble at least partly because President Obama decided that "Assad has lost his legitimacy." How is it that the president of a country 6,000 miles away has the authority to decide whether another leader belongs in office or not? What if Rouhani in Iran decided that Obama had lost his legitimacy for killing a number of American citizens by drone without charge or trial? Would we accept that?

Monday, October 05, 2015

Gold, Silver Precious Metals: a Critical Week Ahead / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Rambus_Chartology

Lets get right to the charts today as there is so much to cover. Starting with the daily gold chart you can see the blue triangle pattern we've been watching now for several weeks or so. Last Thursday gold closed right on the bottom rail which I knew was an inflection point where it could go either way. When I went to bed Thursday night I knew Friday was going to be either a very good day or a very bad day depending on what gold did in the morning. As you can see on the chart below gold dipped slightly below the bottom blue rail and then reversed direction to the upside. That last touch of the bottom blue rail confirmed the 4th reversal point was complete. The rally on Friday is now the beginning of the 5th reversal point which will make the blue triangle a reversal pattern instead of a consolidation pattern if it breaks out above the top blue rail.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Stock Market Correction Still in Force / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend - Bull Market?

Intermediate trend - SPX is in the midst of an intermediate correction (at least).

Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily basis with the help of hourly charts. It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discusses the course of longer market trends.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Gold Price Change in Character / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Gary_Savage

As most of you probably know the largest rallies occur during bear markets. They tend to be very aggressive and powerful. This is how one can tell the difference between a countertrend rally in a bear market and a rally in a new bull market. I’m going to suggest that the gold market is no longer acting like the typical bear market. Let me explain.

Notice how during every bear market rally over the last 3 years, the 2nd daily cycle, and sometimes the 1st daily cycle, launch higher very aggressively turning traders bullish very quickly. Once sentiment reaches 40 to 50% bulls, the rally runs out of steam and the next leg down begins. Typical bear market rally type behavior.