Thursday, August 20, 2015
The Global Economy’s Health Is Not That Complicated / Economics / Global Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The Federal Reserve Bank has printed trillions of dollars to monetize US government debt just to keep the government afloat. Any significant rise in interest rates will probably decimate US government finances, the fragile housing market and in the bond market it will cause a financial catastrophe through interest rate derivatives.
This is a solid reason why the Fed will not raise any rates in any foreseeable future.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Silver – More Evidence of a Price Bottom / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: DeviantInvestor
Silver prices hit a low of about $14.33 on July 24 after High Frequency Traders had run stops that week. It has happened before and will again. Occasionally they will run stops going up, not down. The gold to silver ratio has been hovering around 75.
That ratio has a long history of volatility. The ratio is high when silver prices are low and as silver prices push higher, the ratio drops. Note the graph of the gold to silver ratio using weekly data for ten years.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Precious Metals Microcosm Expanding / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: Gary_Tanashian
NFTRH 353 introduced the idea of a Macrocosm, a planetary representation of elements that need to come into place for a real investment stance on the gold stock sector (as opposed to the imagined elements cooked up by perma-bulls over the last few years). The Macrocosm idea came to me when the gold sector was acting firmly counter-cyclical on a day that most other markets were suffering. Then it happened again.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Inflation - Don’t Be Fooled By Our Current Price Stability / Economics / Inflation
By: Frank_Shostak
The yearly rate of growth of the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index adjusted for food and energy stood at 1.3 percent in June — the same figure as in May. Note that on average since the beginning of this year the yearly rate of growth stood at 1.3 percent. Many economists have expressed satisfaction that the yearly rate of growth has been stable so far notwithstanding that it stood below the Fed’s target of 2 percent.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Stock Market Negative Expectations Following Yesterday's Retreat / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Paul_Rejczak
Briefly: In our opinion, speculative short positions are favored (with stop-loss at 2,140, and profit target at 1,980, S&P 500 index)
Our intraday outlook is bearish, and our short-term outlook is bearish:
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): bullish
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Two Tactics for Bigger Biotech Investing Profits / Companies / BioTech
By: ...
MoneyMorning.com Ernie Tremblay writes: Over the past six months, we've seen the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index, an indicator for the entire sector, take some wild swings up and down, often by as much as 10% from week to week.
That's in stark contrast to the previous half-year, when we experienced a relatively steady upward swell.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Moving Toward a Geopolitical Marketplace / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
Jay Ogilvy writes: This column frames a question to which I do not have the answer. Or think of it as a historical agenda: How can we bring the logic of free market exchange into the domain of geopolitical conflict?
Why would we want to do such a thing? It's not simply a matter of substituting gold for guns, or nonviolent exchange for violent exchange. The question I am posing is not based on some utopian hope for perpetual peace. The distinction I want to focus on is the difference between zero-sum conflict and positive-sum exchange.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
What's Really At Stake With The Iran Nuclear Deal / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: OilPrice_Com
Recently, I wrote on these pages that a remarkable turnaround was taking place in the President's fortunes. It's an impressive display of rising from the depths of falling popularity last fall, and it is starting to be felt in many areas, with major impacts on the future of energy. At his lowest point, the U.S. President was widely regarded as a lame duck, shedding influence and power, and on a down-hill slide.
This was followed by a number of embarrassments, with one of the worst coming from Russia, when it chose to provide sanctuary to Edward Snowden who revealed that the U.S. was hacking the strategic communications of its closest allies.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Stock Market More Bearish Behavior.... 17,300 Dow Important Watch / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Jack_Steiman
Today was fascinating. Truly fascinating, and certainly not boring. The market plunged early on as the European markets fell hard. We gapped down and continued to fall hard. After getting close to oversold on the short-term sixty-minute charts we noticed a small rally ensue into the FOMC at 2 PM Eastern Time. It stated that the economy hadn't quite gotten to a level where they'd feel good about slowly raising rates. The market absolutely exploded, with a twenty handle S&P 500 move up in a matter of minutes. The market looked ready to rock up, but something funny happened along the way. The market hit gaps, and the selling exploded back in taking the market right back down.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Did China Kick-Start A New Bull Market In Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: SecularInvestor
Many have written about the devaluation of the Chinese currency last week, in particular its causes and consequences.
In mainstream media, most opinions are centered around the weakness of the Chinese economy which is now growing less than 7%. Logically, they argue, China wants to stimulate exports and stabilize the currency by ‘de-pegging’ it from a strengthening dollar.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Shanghai and DAX-30 Stock Indices Dance around 200-DMA / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Ashraf_Laidi
Overnight, China central planners saved the 200-DMA in the Shanghai Composite, with an intraday 6.7% recovery following an earlier 5% decline. This is especially crucial as the index held above its 200-DMA since Jul 23, 2014. The latest selling pressure may have resulted by three consecutive daily gains in the Chinese yuan, following media assault from the rest of the world on the day of the CNY devaluation. Coincidently, the Shanghai Composite's late Wednesday session recovery emerged on the day the CNY depreciated for the first time four days.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Will UK Interest Rate Rises Crash House Prices? / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
UK interest rates have flat lined at 0.5% for 78 straight months, that now post the general election has market attention turning towards the prospects for the first of a series of interest rates hikes as signaled by the Bank of England. Firstly, understand this fundamental fact that interest rates at 0.5% has been a PANIC measure. The Bank of England has been in a state of perpetual PANIC for over the past 6 years of which 0.5% interest rates was just the first step towards propping up Britain's bankrupt banking system, the second step was the £500 billion or so of Quantitative Easing or money printing that has been stuffed into every orifice of the bankrupt banks, and the list goes on with capital injections and the Funding for Lending Scheme which has succeeded in eroding the purchasing power of savings (stealth theft) since it was first implemented since Mid 2012, ALL to prop up the Bank of England's banking sector brethren.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Crude Oil Energy Markets and Jobs Disintegrating / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Dan_Norcini
The US Energy Information Administration released their weekly data this morning as usual. The reaction to the data from crude oil was anything but the usual. Most everyone in the industry was looking for a draw in crude oil stockpiles especially after yesterday afternoon’s API data showed a reduction in supplies.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Asia's Whirling Dervish of Devaluations Has Encircled China's Exports / Currencies / Currency War
By: Keith_Hilden
Much digital ink has been spilled to the catalyst of China's sudden thrice devaluation of the CNY, a move trumpeted to be a unilateral action by China. It makes for good headlines, but this simply is not the case: China has been responding to stealthy and not-so-stealthy devaluation of its Asian neighbors, and is responding to these actions to maintain competitiveness of its exports. Hence a whirling dervish of devaluations has started in unlikely small countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, as well as larger economies like Japan, and China has only recently taken its place in the spiraling revelry that is set to ensue. And this has effectively economically encircled China's exports-- and the balance sheets of Chinese companies show it.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Why You Should Go to Africa Instead of College / Stock-Markets / Africa
By: Casey_Research
Recently Doug Casey was a guest on the always excellent podcast, The Tom Woods Show.
Tom and Doug talked about the enormous economic potential in Africa, Doug’s efforts to build a truly free market country, and better uses of your time and money than going to college.
It’s an exciting and informative conversation.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Solution Space / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nicole_Foss
To use the word ‘solution’ is perhaps misleading, since it could be said to imply that circumstances exist which could allow us to continue business as usual, and this is not, in fact, the case. A crunch period cannot be avoided. We face an intractable predicament, and the consequences of overshoot are going to manifest no matter what we do. However, while we may not be able to prevent this from occurring, we can mitigate the impact and lay the foundation for a fundamentally different and more workable way of being in the world.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
McDonald Stock Investors too Optimistic / Companies / Corporate Earnings
By: AnyOption
There are some stocks on the market that investors just love to hate. No matter what these stocks do, it seems as if it’s never enough. And then there are the stocks that investors just can’t bring themselves to hate, regardless of all of the reasons why they probably should. McDonald’s is one of those stocks.In spite of the company experiencing an unprecedented downturn over the last two years, McDonald’s shares are actually up 5.51% over that time. Shares recently topped $101, pushing to a 13-month high with analysts expecting the company to finally start making a turnaround in terms of comp sales, where it has more than struggled recently.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
The Trigger For The Upcoming Stock Crash / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Harry_Dent
I recently explained that it’s one thing for a central bank to artificially prop up its own stock market. It’s another thing entirely to even imagine doing something similar to falling oil prices. What’ll they do – buy oil futures? Give me a break.Oil hit a six-year low this week. As I write this, it’s around $43, closer yet to the $42 target I forecast when oil bounced back to $63. After another tepid bounce, it will very likely fall to the $32 support level we saw in late 2008. John Kilduff, a leading oil analyst who will be speaking at our Irrational Economic Summit in Vancouver next month, sees this happening earlier than his original Christmas call.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Struggling To Make Ends Meet / Politics / Social Issues
By: Rodney_Johnson
I recently wrote about the cost of child care, which got me thinking of my own experience. My wife and I were in our mid-20s when we had our first child. To prep for the expenses, we sold my car. I replaced it with a 10-year old pickup painted in primer. It had an AM radio, vinyl seats, and no air conditioning. I took our son to daycare, so we commuted in the Texas summer heat with 2-by-60 air conditioning. By that, I mean rolling down both windows (by hand) and driving 60 miles per hour.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Druckenmiller Buys A Lot Of Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: GoldCore
Stan Druckenmiller is going big on gold.
Druckenmiller is one of the world’s most successful and respected traders. As a hedge fund manager from 1986 to 2010, he generated an incredible average annual return of 30%.
Druckenmiller was also George Soros’s right-hand man at Quantum, Soros’s famed hedge fund. Quantum’s now legendary 1992 trade shorting the British pound was Druckenmiller’s idea. It made Quantum about $1 billion. People say the trade “broke the Bank of England.”
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