Friday, April 30, 2021
Stock Market "Fastest Jump Since 2007": How Leveraged Investors are Courting "Doom" / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
By: EWI
"Our view is that the use of margin to buy stocks is far higher than the NYSE figures indicate"The stock market uptrend has extended for more than 11 years.
Even so, instead of displaying caution, investors have been borrowing to buy stocks like there's no such thing as a bear market.
For example, consider this chart and commentary from the March Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, a monthly publication which provides analysis of major U.S. financial markets:
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Friday, April 30, 2021
Three Reasons Why Waiting for "Cheaper Silver" Doesn't Make Cents / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: MoneyMetals
If you're still waiting to buy physical silver to start a stash, you're now playing financial Russian Roulette... with four rounds in the cylinder.
The chat rooms talk about buying silver and gold when they decline in price. "If silver goes down to 22, I'm all in!" "When these 'excessive' premiums drop a few dollars, I'm backing up the truck."
1) Emotion and Sentiment
Believe it or not, buying on a price drop goes against human nature.
It is a bit strange, because if you go to the store and find your favorite grass-fed beef on sale, you'll probably see how much you can stuff in the freezer. But back to the metals.
Friday, April 30, 2021
Want To Invest In US Real Estate Market But Don’t Have The Down Payment? / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Chris_Vermeulen
As an asset class, real estate should be a part of every balanced investment portfolio. That’s because real estate investments generally have a low correlation to stocks, can offer lower risk, and provide greater diversification.
Today about 65% of Americans own a home, but that means that tens of millions of Americans have no exposure to real estate. Making matters worse, becoming a homeowner today is harder than in previous generations, with 1 in 5 millennials believing they will never be able to afford a home. Is there a way to get exposure to the real estate market for as little as $100?
Residential real estate market trend
From the chart below, we can see that the residential real estate market continues to climb and the median price of houses sold in the US is near recent all-time highs of $347,500. Even though mortgage rates remain near all-time lows, the appreciation of prices in certain pockets of the country are making many cities and areas simply unaffordable for most. Things look much the same for industrial, commercial, agricultural, and most other specialized real estate subsectors.
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Thursday, April 29, 2021
King Zuckerberg Tech Companies to Set up their own Governments! / Politics / Tech Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Aldus Huxley's Brave New world is taking another step towards becoming reality. What's the ultimate way tech companies can only be accountable to themselves? by making ALL of the rules, and I am not talking about congressmen and senators on their payrolls but companies becoming sovereign governments!
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Thursday, April 29, 2021
Silver Price Enters Acceleration Phase / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: The_Gold_Report
Peter Krauth of Silver Stock Investor discusses silver's rise and what may lie ahead.
Spot silver is trading around $26 per ounce…but you can't buy any at that price.
Instead, you'll have to pay almost 50% more.
That's right. If you want silver right now, you'll need to pay at least $35 per ounce.
If you prefer government mint coins, and you're willing to wait a month to get them, you'll have to pay upwards of $37 per 1 oz coin.
In the past year, premiums on physical silver have tripled from normal levels. Bullion dealers have been overwhelmed. Product shortages are now commonplace, with customers waiting 3 weeks or longer for shipping.
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Thursday, April 29, 2021
Financial Stocks Sector Appears Ready To Run Higher / Stock-Markets / Banking Stocks
By: Chris_Vermeulen
As we transition into the early Summer months, we are watching how different market sectors are reacting to the continued shifting of capital over the past 60+ days. One this is very clear, certain market sectors are strengthening while others have run into resistance and are consolidating. We believe the next few weeks and months will continue this type of trend where capital continues to shift away from risks and into sectors that show tremendous strength and opportunity.
We wrote about how Precious Metals are likely starting a new bullish price trend on April 18, 2021. You can read that research article here: https://www.thetechnicaltraders.com/metals-miners-may-have-started-a-new-longer-term-bullish-trend-part-ii/.
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Thursday, April 29, 2021
Stock Market Leverage Reaches New All-Time Highs As The Excess Phase Rally Continues / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
By: Chris_Vermeulen
A recent Forbes article highlights the incredible increase in market leverage since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. There has never been a time in recent history where market leverage has reached these extreme levels. Additionally, highly leveraged market peaks are typically associated with asset bubbles.
The easy money policies and global central bank actions have prompted one of the longest easy money market rallies in history. Historically low interest rates, US Federal Reserve and global central bank asset-buying programs, and extended overnight credit support have prompted some traders and investors to move into a more highly leveraged position expecting the rally to stay endless. Although, the reality of the global market trends may be starting to cause traders and investors to become a bit unsettled. Precious Metals, Utilities, and Bonds have all started reacting to perceived fear related to this extended bullish rally trend recently.
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Thursday, April 29, 2021
Get Ready for the Fourth U.S. Central Bank / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
We all should be aware that the current Federal Reserve of the Unites States is not America’s first central bank. In fact, we’ve had a few others before this current disastrous iteration came into existence in 1913. We hope and believe it won’t be long before this latest version goes away for good.
Our first central bank was founded in 1782 and was called The Bank of North America. Soon after, in 1791, The Bank of North America became The First Bank of the United States chartered by Congress. However, in 1811 its twenty-year charter expired and was not renewed.
Five years later Congress chartered its successor called the Second Bank of the United States that lasted from 1816-1836. This Central Bank collapsed for the same reason the others did before it: they were, for the most part, filled with corruption and became progenitors of speculation and economic instability.
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Gold Mining Stock: Were Upswings Just an Exhausting Sprint? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Indicators are pointing to gold and mining ETFs running out of breath. They don’t seem to have what it takes to the move to the finish line.
Despite gold, silver and mining stocks’ recent corrective upswings, the precious metals are running out of steam. After bursting off of the lows – while failing to recognize that it’s a marathon and not a sprint – the precious metals’ late-week breather signals that their stamina isn’t what it used to be.
Moreover, with false breakouts and sanguine sentiment causing an adrenaline rush that’s likely to fade, the precious metals’ transformation from stalwart to sloth could leave investors feeling increasingly dejected.
Case in point: with the HUI Index (a proxy for gold mining stocks ) already verifying the breakdown below the neckline of its bearish H&S pattern – which didn’t occur until later in 2008 – the miners’ outlook is actually more bearish now than it was then.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
AI Tech Stocks Lead the Bull Market Charge / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
let's see if the correction materialises so I can buy more stocks after the recent March dip in tech stocks that allowed me to pick up the likes of TSMC for $110, amongst several others on my target list including AMD and Nvidia, though Facebook failed to succumb to mainstream media hysteria instead took off like a rocket to currently stand at well above $300 which whether one likes it or not is precisely what one expects good stocks to do! Even the sleeping giant IBM broke out of it's year long trading range. Whilst Intel despite releasing a pile of garbage 11th Gen rocket lake processors, performing worse than their 10th Gen CPUs! That one would have thought would have resulted in weak hands selling out of their holdings and thus giving us a dip to below $50 to buy some more for the long-run, instead Intel has had a moon shot of its own trading towards 20 year highs! Hardly price action that one would expect from what I consider to be sleeping giants! Which is indicative of what's really going on under the hood that most still fail to grasp which is the exponential nature of the AI mega-trend and of course the rampant money printing inflation mega-trend. That and perhaps there aren't many weak hands left holding IBM and Intel stock.
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Wednesday, April 28, 2021
AMD Ryzen Overclocking Guide - 5900x, 5950x, 5600x PPT, TDC, EDC, How to Best Settings Beyond PBO / Personal_Finance / Computing
By: HGR
How best to overclock your Ryzen 5000 series processors such as 5900x, 5950x and 5600x beyond PBO so as to maximise performance whilst minimising power used and temperatures produced through fine tuning PPT, TDC and EDC settings either in the Ryzen Master software or from within bios. Find out how you can boost your systems performance at a lower power consumption and temps then through use of Ryzen Precision Boost Overdrive.
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Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Stocks Bear Market / Crash Indicator / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Current Risk Remains VERY LOW at 5%, Recent highest reading was 15%.
This Indicator is one of the neural nets I am working on as my AI takes baby steps into understanding how to interpret the stock market. It's task is to state the current risk of a bear market or crash being imminent i.e. within the next couple of weeks or so. So an independant technical indicator that acts as a warning to HEDGE stock portfolios ahead of further high probability drops in the market. Where my preferred hedging tool is to go short stock index futures so as to capitalise on any drop without selling any stock holdings, and delivering fresh funds to buy more AI stocks at deep discounts just as I did during March 2020. The last time this indicator triggered a warning was late February 2020, so it is NOT a trading indicator but instead advance warning that a correction already underway could turn into something worse so I need to hedge my stocks portfolio to some degree.
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Wednesday, April 28, 2021
No Upsetting the Apple Cart in Stocks or Gold / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2021
By: Monica_Kingsley
The tax hike proposal shock is over, and S&P 500 took again on the ATHs on Friday. Buying pressure throughout the day lasted almost till the closing bell, and is likely to continue this week as well. And why shouldn‘t it – has anything changed? The artificial selling any capital gains tax hike would generate, is likely to come before year end – not now:
(…) Look still though how little has changed, as if the tax raising plans haven‘t been around since the infrastructure bill or implicitly even before. It‘s still April, and markets are pricing in not only this select reality, but broader tax increases coming. Yes, they have woken up, and the reflation paradigm is getting an unwelcome companion. This hit won‘t bring down the bull, but will slow it down – and the implications for broader economy will only hasten the pronounced advent of the commodities supercycle (well underway since the corona deflationary crash last year).
The move towards risk-on was clearly there, overpowering the USD bulls yet again as the dollar bear market has reasserted itself. It‘s not just about EUR/USD on the way to its late Feb highs, but about the USD/JPY too – the yen carry trade is facing headwinds these days, acting as a supportive factor for gold prices. While these went through a daily correction, commodities pretty much didn‘t – lumber is powering to new highs, agrifoods didn‘t have a down day in April, copper and oil scored respectable gains. The market is in a higher inflation environment already, and it will become increasingly apparent that commodity-led inflation is here to stay.
Back to stocks and bonds, the S&P 500 took well to a daily rise in Treasury yields – and that‘s the key factor overall. The turnaround was most clearly seen in tech heavyweights but defensive sectors such as consumer staples or utilities didn‘t do well (they‘re interest rate sensitive, after all), and Dow Jones Industrial Average traded closer to the optimistic side of the spectrum. The second piece of the puzzle came from value stocks and financials, which are working to put an end to their own shallow correction – just as you would expect when rates take a turn higher.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Is The Covaids Insanity Actually Getting Worse? / Politics / Coronavirus 2021
By: Jeff_Berwick
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Dogecoin to the Moon! The Signs are Everywhere, but few will Heed them / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
“Fools, as it has long been said, are indeed separated, soon or eventually, from their money. So, alas, are those who, responding to a general mood of optimism, are captured by a sense of their own financial acumen. Thus it has been for centuries; thus in the long future it will also be.” ― John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria
The signs of an epic bubble of historic proportions are everywhere. The stock market is a bubble, with valuations exceeding 2001. Margin debt is at all-time highs. The bond market is a bubble, with the Fed artificially suppressing rates and pumping trillions of QE into Wall Street. Housing is experiencing another bubble, with prices now far exceeding the 2005 peak. Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto-currencies are a bubble, being driven by the excess liquidity sloshing around the system. A joke crypto currency like Dogecoin soars into the stratosphere because money has no meaning anymore.
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Wednesday, April 28, 2021
SPX Indicators Flashing Stock Market Caution / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
By: Andre_Gratian
Current Position of the Market
SPX Long-term trend: There is some evidence that we are still in the bull market which started in 2009 and which could continue into the first half of 2021 before major cycles take over and it comes to an end.
SPX Intermediate trend: SPX has completed the next phase of its intermediate uptrend and should correct.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done daily with the help of hourly charts. They are important adjuncts to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which determine longer market trends.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Gold Prices – Don’t Get Too Excited / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Kelsey_Williams
GOOD NEWS… The rebound in gold prices from their recent low has awakened new fervor among those looking for the elusive moonshot. The ‘obvious’ signs of much higher inflation have emboldened those who are inclined to predict ever higher gold prices.
Contrastingly, the chart of GLD prices pictured below doesn’t look all that great…
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Wednesday, April 28, 2021
6 Challenges Contract Managers Face When Handling Contractual Agreements / Companies / SME
By: Submissions
No matter how small a business is, it may require entering into contractual agreements from time to time. Contracts are an inevitable business process if a company is looking to expand outreach and to adopt more growth opportunities.Contractual agreements are sensitive. As such, entrepreneurs appoint contract managers, tasking them with the responsibility of handling these agreements. Contract managers are more than the heads of company contracts. They must often collaborate with both individuals and companies to draft and negotiate agreements, control and review contract results, document key milestones, and perform a variety of other tasks.
Contract management is one of the most crucial business operations due to the impact it has on various companies. Small businesses can leverage the benefits of meaningful contracts with reputable companies. It is a critical job, but one that comes with a slew of challenges due to the complexities of managing many contracts.
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Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Corsair H150i Pro iCUE Firmware Update Says Bye Bye - H100i, H115i, Bricked Jet Engine Fans Fix / Personal_Finance / Computing
By: HGR
Corsair's iCUE software is buggy, you soon realise this when you install it on your system and see cpu usage jump as it hogs the processor. You can test this for yourself ny monitoring CPU temps by exiting the software and see the CPU temps drop a few degrees! So software that's supposed to keep your CPU cool actually results in an increase in temps! BUT, that's not the worst of it! The ICUE software alerts users of pending updates such as a firmware update for your water cooler. And as was the case for my H150i triple fan cooler. So thinking, this MUST be safe, one clicks the button to start the firmware update, fans ramp up to 100%, and that's basically where one is stuck! Having an irritating jet engine blowing at full speed makes it very irritating to work. So REBOOT, and your stuck! as corsairs software not only fails to update the firmware but BICKS the cooler! So your stuck with fans at 100% with no way of changing anything, not from iCUE not from Bios.
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Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Bude Cliff Walk and Secluded Pebble Beach Tour in VR 360 - Cornwall UK Holidays 2021 / / Travel & Holidays
By: Anika_Walayat
The virus means it's unlikely most of us will be able to travel abroad for holidays 2021, still there are plenty of beauty spots in the UK, such as CORNWALLS beaches. Here after a long 6.5 hour drive down to Bude on the North coast of Cornwall and a restful night at a local caravan park it's time to hit the beaches, starting with Bude beach just north of Bude town, a small secluded pebble beach surrounded by high cliffs. Next it's off on a 2.5 hour drive down to Lands End for a couple of hours before we stop off at Newquay on the way back to Bude to cut Eliza's birthday cake on the beach.
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