Thursday, July 09, 2015

U.S. Economy Slouches toward Recession as Eurozone Crisis Widens / Economics / US Economy

By: MoneyMetals

Stefan Gleason writes: Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen may have missed her window of opportunity to raise interest rates. The economic data no longer paint a picture of even a tepid recovery. Since the start of the year, key indicators for the economy began pointing toward recession.

Add to that the recent Eurozone chaos surrounding the Greek default and a 30% crash in the Chinese stock market, and economic pressures are growing by the day.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Are Roth IRA Owners Likely To Be Subject To Double Taxation? / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement

By: Dan_Amerman

Roth Individual Retirement Accounts are an uncommonly attractive and powerful method of creating wealth for retirement when viewed from the usual financial perspective. What sets them apart is that contributions are made with after-tax dollars, but withdrawals are made on a tax-free basis – which is the reverse of most other retirement accounts.

This is among the reasons why Roth IRAs are enormously popular with many millions of retirement investors in the United States and why they are so widely recommended by financial planners, CPAs and many other financial professionals.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Growth of Chinese Margin Accounts Drove Bubble – Now Drives the Crash / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market

By: GoldCore

- Restrictions on borrowing to speculate were eased in 2010
- Middle class savers gradually saturated the market trading on leverage
- Market crash began as government tried to reign in leverage in overheated markets
- Leverage amplified gains on the up-leg, amplifies losses on down-leg forcing further sell offs
- Policy u-turns could not halt crash

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Budget 2015 - New 7.5% Tax on Dividends, Government Targets Small Limited Company Owners / Personal_Finance / UK Tax & Budget

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Whilst most eyes are on the deep tax credits cuts that amount to an average of £2k for 4 million households from April 2016 onwards. The Chancellor also announced changes to the taxation of dividends which will impact on small company owners who through limited companies currently are able to vastly reduced their tax bills through by a minimal salary so as to soak up the annual £10k tax free allowance and then pay the reminder of upto an additional £30k in dividends without paying any extra tax, due to the 10% dividend tax credit rule i.e. that for basic rate tax payers no additional tax is due on dividend income.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

China Crisis Stock Market Hyper-Oversold Condition Calls for Bounce - Target... / Stock-Markets / China Stocks

By: Clive_Maund

It's a shame more Chinese investors didn't get to read our timely warning of an impending mega-smash in the Chinese stockmarket - it would have been worth the cost of a subscription TO AVOID LOSING THEIR LIFE'S SAVINGS.

It was mentioned as an aside yesterday's update on the oil sector, in which we took huge profits in United States Oil Fund Puts, that the Chinese market was massively oversold and now exhibiting extreme technical compression and thus starting to look attractive for a rebound, and we will now proceed to see exactly why that is on the charts for the Shanghai Composite Index.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

China Stock Market Crash Echoes of 1929 / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com Shah Gilani writes: You've heard the stories about the 1929 stock market crash, how investors should have figured out that, when taxi drivers and shoe-shine boys hawked stock tips, the end was near.

The lesson we're supposed to have learned was that cheap margin – the debt that investors can use to finance stock purchases, when wielded by uneducated, blindly optimistic "plungers," can drive stocks up and up over a cliff into an abyss.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Why Exxon Mobil Is The Strong Oil & Gas Stock On The Market Today / Commodities / Oil Companies

By: AnyOption

The oil and gas market is a bit shaken at the moment; and understandably so. After last year's dramatic decline in oil prices and the less than appealing prices we've seen this year, companies in the sector just aren't producing profits like they once did. However, there is one company in the sector that's well worth taking a second look at. That company is Exxon Mobil. In summary, here's why I believe the value of the stock will climb exponentially over the long run...

Thursday, July 09, 2015

China Stock Market Crash - A Choice of Evils / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market

By: STRATFOR

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 6 percent on July 3, rounding out a 28 percent decline since June 12, when the country's stock markets peaked. The deterioration occurred despite intensive government efforts to stabilize prices and revive investor sentiment. Overt attempts by Beijing included cutting benchmark interest rates and reserve requirement ratios and loosening restrictions on investor access to margin loans, in addition to less overt moves, such as direct interventions to prop up the market with government-backed purchases of blue chip stocks. On Friday, in a clear bid to win investor confidence in its oversight abilities, the securities regulator announced it would investigate signs of potential market manipulation. Yet so far, Beijing's efforts have failed to achieve the desired effect of stimulating, or at least stabilizing, China's leading stock markets.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Greece Enters Its Crack-Up Boom - The War on Cash / Economics / Eurozone Debt Crisis

By: John_Rubino

The Austrian School of economics has a concept called a “crack-up boom” in which a critical mass of people conclude that their government is actively trying to devalue its currency.

Consumers respond by front-running the government, spending their paychecks immediately in order to convert their soon-to-be-less-valuable money into real things. Merchants, not happy about the sudden influx of suspect currency (and sensing the panic of their customers) hold out for ever-higher prices, causing inflation to spike. But it’s a special kind of inflation, driven not by a sudden increase in the money supply but by collapsing confidence among holders of the currency.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Gold and Silver Stocks Game Plan / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015

By: Rambus_Chartology

Tonight I would like to update you on some precious metals charts we've been following very closely to shed some light on where we're at and where we maybe heading. When investing in the markets we need to have a game plan to follow so that we know when the game changes we have to change. As long as the game plan is working you stick with it until you've reached your price objectives or the trend changes.

Believe me it's not at all easy to follow a game plan. There are things that happen to a stock or market on a daily basis, that we have no control over, that can affect our thinking. Without a game plan to follow we are at the mercy of every little wiggle a stock makes. One has to have a certain amount of confidence in whatever trading system they use to be able to ride out the wiggles that can whipsaw you to death if you act on every move a stock makes.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

NYSE Shut Down Likely Due to Power Outage / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets

By: Bloomberg

Tom Farley, NYSE Group President, spoke with Bloomberg Television's Stephanie Ruhle about the glitches that brought the NYSE trading to a halt for three and half hours.

On what led to the shutdown, Farley said: "We were getting intermittent messages of customers not seeing the exact behavior that they would otherwise expect with respect to messages. I didn't feel like we had the level of trust in our systems that is required and I made the decision, working with regulatory team and counsel's office, let's suspend trading."

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Stock Market Splat...At The Precipice...Fed Will Act Soon.. / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Jack_Steiman

I thought about different titles, but after thinking about it the word splat is the word that seemed best to explain today's action across the stock market world. China got annihilated last night to the tune of 6%, which would equal 120 S&P 500 points and 1000 Dow points. Imagine those headlines, if that occurred here in the United States. Europe followed China. We followed Europe, and the result is a market on the precipice of seeing its bull market vanish away. It hasn't happened yet, and may not happen, but the bulls are being tested here in a very large way. It's put up or shut up time for the bulls. If we lose 2040 on the S&P 500 then its lights out. Of course, it must lose it with force, then back test and fail on that back test to verify that the good old days are gone for a while to come.

I thought about different titles, but after thinking about it the word splat is the word that seemed best to explain today's action across the stock market world. China got annihilated last night to the tune of 6%, which would equal 120 S&P 500 points and 1000 Dow points. Imagine those headlines, if that occurred here in the United States. Europe followed China. We followed Europe, and the result is a market on the precipice of seeing its bull market vanish away. It hasn't happened yet, and may not happen, but the bulls are being tested here in a very large way. It's put up or shut up time for the bulls. If we lose 2040 on the S&P 500 then its lights out. Of course, it must lose it with force, then back test and fail on that back test to verify that the good old days are gone for a while to come.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Working Child Tax Credit Cuts Average £2k per Household From 2016-17 / Personal_Finance / UK Tax & Budget

By: Nadeem_Walayat

As expected the Chancellor George Osborne took a hatchet to the Labour legacy Working and Child Tax Credits system that had mushroomed from an initial budget of £2 billion a year to £30 billion today, succeeding in creating a pool of some 4 million vested interest families and acting as a huge inducement for a 15 year long mass immigration trend into Britain which remains out of control as illustrated by the most recent immigration statistics (+318k).

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Gold's Unsafe Haven and Yen's Comeback / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Ashraf_Laidi

Gold's accelerating sell-off since June 18 highlights the metal's deteriorating role as a safe haven amid Greece uncertainty as other factors take priority. Oil's 19% decline from its May highs at a time when central banks have barely begun seeing some sort of positive trend in inflation resurrects fears of deflation or prolonged disinflation.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Greece: Act One of a Global Debt Drama - Video / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis

By: EWI

Greek citizens vote "Yes" to kick the can down the road

Editor's note: You'll find the text version of the story below the video.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Stock Market Trend Forecast - PPT Intervention / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Gary_Savage

The PPT intervention today may have prematurely forced the half cycle low. If so then stocks will bounce for a few days and then roll over into the real meat of the intermediate decline.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Greece Humanitarian Appeal - Automatic Earth Fund for Athens Makes First Donation / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis

By: Raul_I_Meijer

Found myself talking to very lovely and very young Melanie from Ottawa, on a solo world tour, last evening in a bar in the Plaka district of Athens. And as I was telling her about what I do, and why, I noticed it was very hard to explain to her what exactly is happening to the Greek health care system.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Gold and Silver Spot Prices Increasingly Detached from Reality / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: MoneyMetals

Clint Siegner writes: An insolvent Greece has defaulted. On June 30th, officials missed repayment of billions in lMF loans and declared a banking holiday. Predictably, many Greek citizens responded to the crisis and bought gold coins. So did a lot of people here in the U.S. and around the world. You just wouldn’t know it by looking at spot prices.

The regular disconnect between the futures markets, where spot prices are set, and the physical markets reveals a growing problem. The link between the spot price and physical demand is thin at best. That is why the base price for gold coins in an Athens coin shop can get cheaper, but the all-in cost of buying the coins goes up as the line of buyers grows.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

China Stock Market Crash / Trading Freeze / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

China is back in the news as “Greek Hope” for a settlement with the ECB fades the crisis in Europe for the time being. However, the Markets in China are in a panic state and threaten a further breakdown as the Shanghai Index hovers just above 3600.00 after an epic overnight roller coaster ride.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Leveraged Chinese Stock Investors Learning Painful Lesson / Stock-Markets / China Stocks

By: GoldCore

- Shanghai Composite has lost over 32% of its value in less than month
- Investors selling on “panic sentiment”
- Persistent intervention by government agencies has failed to support market
- Market has doubled over past year while real economy struggles
- Chinese Market had been boosted by participation of market-illiterate savers
- May morph into wider crisis