Wednesday, March 03, 2021
US Fed Grilled about Its Unsound Currency, Digital Currency Schemes / Currencies / BlockChain
By: MoneyMetals
As financial markets gyrated this week, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell touted the U.S. dollar as a form of “sound money.” More on that incredible take in a moment.
But first, let’s review this week’s market action.
Inflation fears helped drive another spike in long-term bond yields, and by Thursday that began to spook Wall Street. The Treasury market is now off to one of its roughest starts to a year on record. As a result, calls are mounting for the Fed to up its bond purchases.
A steepening yield curve is helping to depress precious metals prices. Rising real interest rates tend to be negative for the gold market.
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Wednesday, March 03, 2021
The Case Against Inflation / Economics / Inflation
By: John_Mauldin
For inflation to be a near-term threat, five things would have to happen this year:
- Vaccines and other measures bring the pandemic under control this summer in the US and other developed countries.
- Consumers use relief dollars, savings, and/or borrowing to quickly increase their spending on discretionary goods and services.
- This spending is large enough to exceed post-pandemic production capacity and spark price increases.
- The Federal Reserve lets the economy “run hot” and maintains its low interest rates and asset purchases.
- Congress and the Biden administration leave the fiscal spigots open by not raising taxes or cutting spending.
All these are possible. Are they likely?
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Wednesday, March 03, 2021
How to Start Crypto Mining Bitcoins, Ethereum with Your Desktop PC, Laptop with NiceHash / Currencies / Crypto Mining
By: HGR
How get rich crypto mining with your desktop computer or laptop. Here's my step by step guide for first time beginners crypto mining with Nicehash, lets see how easy it is to get started and start making money crypto mining, how many bitcoins can I make with my old 4790k GTX 970 desktop as I await for my 5950x, RTX 3080 to get delivered.
Step1 Download the Nicehash mining software....
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
AI Tech Stocks Investing Portfolio Buying Levels and Valuations 2021 Explained / Companies / Investing 2021
By: Nadeem_Walayat
My last look at AI stocks buying levels late November 2020 had some of the must own AI stocks trading at high valuations for instance Apple was trading on an EC of 76 against a target of 50, Nvidia on 173 against about 100! Whilst IBM was dirt cheap on -3, so I could not resist buying more where I am sure several years from now many investors will be kicking themselves for not having had the foresight to pick up IBM when it was trading so cheaply. Next I picked up some more Google as numero uno and Facebook given it's continuing VR market success despite the dying lame stream media lobbying governments to get the tech giants to share ad revenues with them. And I also sought to pick up some Amazon on trading below $3000.
As well as looking to pick up some more AMD given its moderating valuation in response to unlimited demand for it's CPU's. With Nvidia still a little pricey to prompt fresh buying despite the success of it's RTX 3000 series of GPU's that literally allows Nvidia to PRINT MONEY! Sell as many GPU processors as it can produce (most Nvidia GPU's are made by third parties using their GPU processors).
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
There’s A “Chip” Shortage: And TSMC Holds All The Cards / Companies / Tech Stocks
By: Stephen_McBride
“You drove 1,000 miles just for this game?” Christmas 1988 was a stressful time for many American parents. Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. 2 was the must-have toy that year. But copies of the hit videogame were as scarce as hen’s teeth.
ABC News ran a 20/20 special on the shortage called “Nuts for Nintendo.” They chatted to one dad who drove 1,000 miles from Indiana to NYC in the hopes of grabbing a copy.
“I’ve tried 7 stores a day for 3 weeks and still can’t find it,” he told reporters. They called it a “chip famine.”
Why was it so hard to get your hands on a video game? Longtime RiskHedge readers know computer chips, also called semiconductors, are the “brains” of electronics. There would be no iPhone, Amazon Webstore, or online messaging apps without them.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Why now might be a good time to buy gold and gold juniors / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Richard_Mills
Gold has been taking a beating in recent weeks, the sell-off prompted by rising bond yields which are taking the shine off the yellow metal. Higher interest rates diminish the argument for owning gold, which offers no yield.
On Wednesday, Feb. 24, spot gold dropped to $1,784.60 an ounce, just shy of $1,783.10 reached on Feb. 21, its lowest since July, 2020. The gold price climbed $342, or 22% last year, on pandemic fears, a low dollar and moribund bond yields, which for most of the year ran under 1%.
Gold has been pressured by higher yields on US Treasuries, most significantly the benchmark 10-year note, which is closing in on 1.4% (currently 1.37%), an increase of 44 basis points since the start of the year. The last time the 10-year was this high, was in February 2020, just before the start of the pandemic.
Kitco reported on Wednesday that a booming US housing market, fueled by low mortgage rates, is driving bond yields higher, after the Commerce Department showed new home sales rising 4.3%. The seasonally adjusted 923,000 units sold in January trounced consensus forecasts calling for 853,000 units to sell.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Silver Is Close To Something Big / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Hubert_Moolman
There is a sense that we are close to a significant move in silver. The current season since August 2020 till now, is shaping up in a similar manner to the season of August 2019 to February/March 2020.
Silver as well as the stock market peaked in February 2020, and crashed significantly into March.
Below, is a chart of silver (top) and the Dow (bottom):
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Bitcoin: Let's Put 2 Heart-Pounding Price Drops into Perspective / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: EWI
Here's what our "preferred" Elliott wave count said on Feb. 5, 2021
When financial historians discuss past manias, many of them point to the South Sea Company of the early 1700s as a classic example.
The enthusiasm to buy a piece of the action was so great that even Sir Isaac Newton became in investor.
He, along with many others, eventually lost big time when the South Sea Company Bubble burst.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Gold Stocks Spring Rally 2021 / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
By: Zeal_LLC
Following a necessary correction, the gold miners’ stocks have spent much of recent months bottoming. This healthy basing process is rebalancing sentiment, preparing the way for this sector’s next bull-market upleg. That is looking to coincide with gold stocks’ spring rally, one of their strongest times of the year seasonally. That stiff tailwind blowing behind bullish technicals and fundamentals should make for big gains.
Seasonality is the tendency for prices to exhibit recurring patterns at certain times during the calendar year. While seasonality doesn’t drive price action, it quantifies annually-repeating behavior driven by sentiment, technicals, and fundamentals. We humans are creatures of habit and herd, which naturally colors our trading decisions. The calendar year’s passage affects the timing and intensity of buying and selling.
Gold stocks exhibit strong seasonality because their price action mirrors that of their dominant primary driver, gold. Gold’s seasonality generally isn’t driven by supply fluctuations like grown commodities see, as its mined supply remains relatively steady year-round. Instead gold’s major seasonality is demand-driven, with global investment demand varying considerably depending on the time in the calendar year.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
US Housing Market Trend Forecast 2021 / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Given the US governments continuing catastrophic response to the coronavirus virus resulting in severe economic contraction then one would assume that the crowing from the rooftops perma bear deflationistas would finally be proven right with their decade long perma bear messages of a US housing market crash finally being fulfilled. So is that what happened? Were the perma bears finally proven right by chance, a black swan event courtesy of a leak from a wuhan bio lab?
We'll in economic terms the US as is the case for all western nations has come under severe economic pressures following the panic lockdown responses to an out of control pandemic with further economic pain expected during Q1 2021 in a race against time to deliver vaccines into american arms.
The recovery in US employment has started to flat line as the US heads into new lockdown's as the pandemic Wave 4 starts to materialise, thus expect US unemployment to increase though to nowhere near the extent of the first wave.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Covid-19 Vaccinations US House Prices Trend Indicator 2021 / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
In my opinion one of the primary indicators for economic recovery for the US and the rest of the world is the percentage of the the adult population that has been vaccinated, and especially the segment of the population at highest risk of hospitalisation and death from covid-19 i.e. the over 50's. In which respect US vaccinations currently stand at 6.2 million with approx 1 million americans being vaccinated per day (1st dose) or about 0.3% of the population. Which frankly is just not good enough. So unless things step up a gear perhaps after Biden takes office then under the current pace the US is not going to have vaccinated 50% of the population until late May and that is just with the first dose!
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
How blockchain technology will change the online casino / Personal_Finance / Gambling
By: Submissions
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021
How Much PC RAM Memory is Good in 2021, 16gb, 32gb or 64gb? / Personal_Finance / Computing
By: HGR
What's a good amount of RAM for your PC in 2021?
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Friday, February 26, 2021
US Housing Market House Prices Momentum Analysis / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Houston we have Lift OFF! If it were not clear from the house prices graph then it should be clear form the momentum graph that US house prices have taken off! Rising at their fastest pace since 2012! Likely to end 2020 up about 8% on the year. Furthermore the breakout above the 2018 peak suggests further strong house prices gains to come during 2021 i.e. this sort of powerful up thrust in trend usually does not turn on a dime.
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Friday, February 26, 2021
FOMC Minutes Disappoint Gold Bulls / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The recent FOMC minutes are hawkish and negative for the price of gold, but the Fed will remain generally dovish for some time.Last week, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) published minutes from its last meeting in January . They reveal that Fed officials became more optimistic about the economy than they were in December. The main reasons behind the more upbeat economic projection were the progress in vaccinations, the government’s stimulus provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021, and the expectations of an additional sizable tranche of fiscal support in the pipeline:
Most participants expected that the stimulus provided by the passage of the CAA in December, the likelihood of additional fiscal support, and anticipated continued progress in vaccinations would lead to a sizable boost in economic activity.
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Friday, February 26, 2021
Kiss of Life for Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Submissions
The narrow trading range in stocks continues, and the shallow sideways correction will eventually resolve itself with another upleg. The signs are countless, and the riskier part of the credit market spectrum agrees. As money flows from the Tresury markets, and sizable cash balances are sitting on many a balance sheet, there is plenty of fuel to power the S&P 500 advance.
With volatility in the tame low 20s and the put/call ratio again moving down, the bears‘ prospects are bleak. As I wrote last week, their time is running out, and a new stock market upleg approaches. It‘s the bond market that‘s under pressure, with both investment grade corporate bonds and long-dated Treasuries suffering in the accelerated decline.
Gold is the most affected, as the sensitivity of its reaction to the rising long-tern yields, has picked up very noticeably. How long before these draw both the Fed‘s attention and action – what will we learn from Powell‘s testimony on Tue and Wed? And when will the much awaited stimulus finally arrive, and force repricing beyond the metals markets?
Before that, gold remains on razor‘s edge, while silver leads and platinum flies for all the green hydrogen promise. The dollar has given back on Thu and Fri what it gained two days before, and remains in its bear market. Not even rising yields were able to generate much demand for the world reserve currency. Its lower prices stand to help gold thanks to the historically prevailing negative correlation, counterbalancing the Treasury yields pressure.
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Friday, February 26, 2021
Congress May Increase The Moral Hazard Building In The Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
By: Avi_Gilburt
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the moral hazard being created by the Pavlovian buy-the-dip perspective in the market. As I expect the market to top out in the next few years and enter into a prolonged bear market, the nature of the market rallies over the last 10 years have thoroughly trained investors that all you have to do is buy-the-dip, as the market always comes back.
In fact, this past week, I saw these two comments in my articles, which only reinforces my perspective:
“I love a good press on an author from a paid subscriber but I’ve been making money hand over fist by trading and pouncing on pullbacks on a few stocks I closely watch. You have to have the time and you have to know the stocks well. Making much more money this way than I ever was buying/holding/speculating.”
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Friday, February 26, 2021
The “Oil Of The Future” Is Set To Soar In 2021 / Commodities / Lithium
By: OilPrice_Com
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Thursday, February 25, 2021
The Everything Stock Market Rally Continues / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
By: Troy_Bombardia
The market’s strong uptrend remains intact despite some lingering concerns about high valuations, extreme sentiment, and other overbought signals. Investors continue to pour into all markets (stocks, commodities, crypto etc.) with ever increasing liquidity.
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Thursday, February 25, 2021
Vaccine inequality: A new beginning or another missed opportunity? / Politics / Coronavirus 2021
By: Dan_Steinbock
Last year, four major opportunities to battle COVID-19 were missed. If vaccine inequality will prevail in the coming months, that would represent the fifth missed opportunity – with prohibitive human costs and economic damage.
Recently, I was virtually at the prestigious Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue (Vienna, Austria) and had a conversation with Ambassador Irene Giner-Reichl (for the video, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUcGG22B_YA ). The focus was on the missed opportunities and the future of the global pandemic future.
Recently, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sharply criticized the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Addressing the Security Council, Guterres noted that just 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccinations. Meanwhile, 130 countries had not received a single dose.
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