Wednesday, April 08, 2020

USD Index Sheds Light on the Upcoming Gold Move / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: P_Radomski_CFA

The yellow metal and its fiat nemesis. Gold and the dollar certainly move not in a random relation to each other. The strength and direction of one taking the cue from the other changes over time, but what does it tell us about the present moment?

The key point with regard to the US currency is that it appears to have already ended its pullback and is now ready to soar well above its previous 2020 high.

How do we know that the pullback is most likely over?

Because the USD Index already rallied for (actually more than) two consecutive trading days.

Wednesday, April 08, 2020

The Post CoronaVirus New Normal / Politics / Coronavirus Depression

By: John_Mauldin

I don’t think anyone believes we will go to back to anything like January 2020 normalcy anytime soon. We have no idea, even if restaurants and everything open, what shopping patterns will look like.

Are we learning to live on less in our isolation? Seeing your 401(k) become a 201(k) may postpone a car-buying decision or two.

My daughter (see below) works for a cheerleading gymnastics company. Nationwide this is a multi-hundred-million-dollar industry. Will they just open back up and expect all the girls go back on day one? Will their parents be able to afford it? We’re talking many tens of thousands of jobs. Personal trainers? Many jobs will be under pressure.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

US Coronavirus Trend Trajectory Forecast Current State / Politics / Pandemic

By: Nadeem_Walayat

My forecast as of 22nd of March is for the US to trend towards 531,000 tested as infected by the end of April coupled with 26,550 deaths, for a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 5%, as it was hoped that valuable time would not be squandered on political bickering during this escalating national emergency, where every day counts.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Boris Johnson Fighting for his Life In Intensive Care - UK Coronavirus Crisis / Politics / Pandemic

By: N_Walayat

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is said to be fighting for his life after being moved to Intensive Care a few hours ago. After having contracted Coronavirus about 2 weeks ago, and diagnosed some 10 days ago with the symptoms rapidly worsening over the past couple of days prompting being admitted to St Thomas's hospital on Sunday having received oxygen Monday before being moved to intensive care.

At this point in time it is not clear if he has been put onto a ventilator or not, which unfortunately carries a high mortality rate of over 80% as most of those put on ventilators don't tend to make it.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Precious Metals Are About To Reset Like In 2008 – Gold Bugs, Buckle Up! / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Chris_Vermeulen

For years, many Gold Bugs (investors who’ve been advocating buying Gold and Silver at low prices as a hedge against future global economic risks) were shunned as conspiracy theorists and nuts. How could these people believe Gold and Silver were solid investments when the Global equities markets were rallying 5% a year consistently – what could go wrong?

Over the past two weeks, I have personally received multiple phone calls and emails from friends and associates asking how these people can suddenly ”buy physical metals”. In one case, this individual was purchasing Airline and Food Services stocks in late February thinking this move would be short-lived and telling me how the airlines would recover quickly after this is all over.  Now, that person wants to know my secret contacts for buying physical metals.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Crude Oil's 2020 Crash: See What Helped (Some) Traders Pivot Just in Time / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: EWI

The coronavirus wasn't the cause of oil's 70% collapse. This was

Let's start by establishing that the stock market is not driven by the news. Aggregate stock prices are driven by waves of optimism and pessimism -- which go from one extreme to another -- as reflected by the Elliott wave model. That's what makes the stock market predictable.

Hence, Elliott wave analysis is at the core of EWI's stock market forecasts.

Having said that, sentiment indicators are also valuable in providing clues about "what's next."

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Was the Fed Just Nationalized? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: Ellen_Brown

Did Congress just nationalize the Fed? No. But the door to that result has been cracked open.

Mainstream politicians have long insisted that Medicare for all, a universal basic income, student debt relief and a slew of other much-needed public programs are off the table because the federal government cannot afford them. But that was before Wall Street and the stock market were driven onto life-support by a virus. Congress has now suddenly discovered the magic money tree. It took only a few days for Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will be doling out $2.2 trillion in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with few strings attached. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve is making over $4 trillion available to banks, hedge funds and other financial entities of all stripes; it has dropped the fed funds rate (the rate at which banks borrow from each other) effectively to zero; and it has made $1.5 trillion available to the repo market.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Gold & Silver Mines Closed as Physical Silver Becomes “Most Undervalued Asset” / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: MoneyMetals

A surge in coronavirus cases, an expansion of economic lockdowns, and an explosion in unemployment claims hit markets this week.  But this deluge of bad news didn’t seem to catch investors by surprise.

Instead of crashing to new lows, the stock market held within a trading range and rallied yesterday following the release of a horrific jobs report. 

It’s been a huge week for commodity markets as oil prices posted their biggest single day percentage gain ever Thursday, popping more than 25%.  Oil prices lifted from their severely depressed $20 per barrel level after President Donald Trump met with oil executives and announced Russia and Saudi Arabia would agree to curtail production.

Tuesday, April 07, 2020

US Coronavirus Blacktop Politics / Politics / US Politics

By: Richard_Mills

Benjamin Franklin once said; “Out of adversity comes opportunity.” 

The adversity the United States now faces with the coronavirus pandemic is the worst national emergency the country has faced since World War II, more serious, far more deadly, than any natural disaster, 9/11, the War on Terrorism, the Korean War, maybe even Vietnam. 

As of this writing, there are 211,143 cases and 4,713 deaths. More coronavirus patients have now died in the United States than in China, the pandemic epicenter, where extraordinary measures were taken to successfully contain it, including locking down entire cities (pop. 50 million), and contact tracing tens of thousands of people connected to those infected, so they could self-quarantine.  

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said he believes the virus could kill 100,000 to 200,000 before it is done ravaging the US population. That “middle of the road” estimate is at least double the 58,200 American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War. 

Depending how long this goes on, the economic fallout from covid-19 could be twice as bad as the Great Recession. A record 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment insurance last week. If that keep up, one in three will be jobless by summer - more than during the Great Depression. 

Monday, April 06, 2020

Coronavirus is America's "Pearl Harbour" Moment, There Will be a Reckoning With China / Politics / China US Conflict

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Coronavirus catastrophe continues to unfold which makes a mockery of all those from the President downwards who used to peddle the line that it was not much worse than the flu. Well whilst many including the President have since changed their tune, however a significant number of people continue to not take it seriously stating that the high death rate is as a consequence of lack of testing..

However, if the coronavirus was little worse than the flu then as the US has now increased testing to over 100,000 per day then the case fatality rate should be falling. But that's not what's happening as the more the US tests then the higher the death rate climbs each day and each week.

So the problem with the not much worse than the flu assumption is that the Case Fatality Rates are INCREASING WITH MORE TESTING!

Monday, April 06, 2020

Coronavirus Crisis Exposes Consequences of Fed Policy: Americans Have No Savings / Economics / Coronavirus Depression

By: MoneyMetals

Two weeks ago, during a March 17 address to the nation in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, President Donald Trump asked that Americans work from home, postpone unnecessary travel, and limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people.

And last week, on March 27, Trump signed a stimulus package of over $2 trillion dollars to provide relief to an economy on the precipice of collapse.

The aid package includes handouts and loans to individuals, small businesses, and other distressed industries.

Monday, April 06, 2020

The Stock Market Is Not a Magic Money Machine / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: Jared_Dillian

I am writing from my home library since I’m no longer working in my office in downtown Myrtle Beach.

I’ve always resisted working from home because I don’t want to stress out in my own house. But it hasn’t been bad. I have a hot tub, a pool, cigars, and the cats.

Things are much worse for most other people. The virus and the protective measures have done untold economic damage. Some people are openly talking of a depression.

Monday, April 06, 2020

Gold Stocks Crash, V-Bounce! / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2020

By: Zeal_LLC

Gold miners’ stocks have endured epic volatility in this past month, literally crashing before blasting back higher in a violent V-bounce.  That preceding wicked capitulation flush savagely forced the weak hands out, paving the way for gold stocks’ next major upleg.  The resulting fierce rebound signals it is already underway, with plenty of speculators and investors now chasing the huge gains this sector is famous for.

Perspective is essential and exceedingly-valuable for traders.  If you don’t know where we’ve been and how we got here, you can’t figure out where we’re likely going.  Context is necessary to frame this past month’s extraordinary gold-stock action, and to successfully game where this sector should be heading.  Extreme volatility creates extreme opportunities, neither of which come around very often.  Carpe diem!

The leading and most-popular gold-stock benchmark is the GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF.  It was the first gold-stock ETF launched way back in May 2006, giving it a first-mover advantage that has grown into an insurmountable lead.  GDX’s $10.2b in net assets this week were running 34.4x larger than the next-biggest 1x-long major-gold-miners ETF!  GDX’s recent raging action reveals what just transpired.

Monday, April 06, 2020

How Can Writing Business Essay Help You In Business Analytics Skills / Personal_Finance / Education

By: Submissions

Sunday, April 05, 2020

PAYPAL WARNING - Your Stimulus Funds Are at Risk of Being Frozen for 6 Months! / ConsumerWatch / Scams

By: N_Walayat

Paypal seeing an opportunity in a crisis, one of wanting to manage the US Governments distribution of $1200 Coronavirus stimulus payments to every adult American who earns under $75,000 per year and $500 for each child and thus have started a campaign of buttering up the public and politicians in allowing PAYPAL access to YOUR STIMULUS FUNDS including sending out emails to account holders full of promises of help in this time of national crisis.

Sunday, April 05, 2020

Stocks Hanging By the Fingernails? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: P_Radomski_CFA

After Wednesday’s slide, the S&P 500 moved higher yesterday. While the move itself hadn’t surprised us as we’ve earlier called for a pause in the downswing, the question is whether we can expect some more upside shortly.

Long story short, that’s unlikely. Let’s open today’s analysis with the daily chart examination (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).

Sunday, April 05, 2020

US Federal Budget Deficits: To $30 Trillion and Beyond / Interest-Rates / US Debt

By: John_Mauldin

In my decade forecast, I projected that in the next recession that the deficit would climb to over $2 trillion. Clearly, that demonstrates I am an optimist. Here’s a chart I shared back in January.

Between reduced tax revenues and increased spending, I now expect this year’s deficit will be at least $4 trillion.

Sunday, April 05, 2020

The Lucrative Profitability Of A Move To Negative Interest Rates - Pandemic Edition / Interest-Rates / Negative Interest Rates

By: Dan_Amerman

When it comes to the recession that is being created by the pandemic lockdowns - then the U.S. government and Federal Reserve have no intention of just letting the market forces play out. Instead, the intention is to contain a potential deeper round of crisis with the most extreme interventions yet. One very real possibility is for the Fed to follow the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, and to spend trillions of dollars to buy government (and corporate) debt while creating negative interest rates.

Sunday, April 05, 2020

Visa Denials: How to avoid it and what to do if your Visa is denied? / Personal_Finance / Credit Cards & Scoring

By: Submissions

When it comes to visa stories, there are as many success stories out there as there are sob stories. It is even safe to say that the sob stories exceed the success stories these days. And they continue to grow by the day.

In fact, according to a recent survey conducted on U.S. immigration history, it has been established that the United States alone denies nearly 4 million visa applications every year for a variety of reasons. And like that wasn’t enough; under the administration of Donald Trump, the denial rate has jumped from 8.3% to 11.3 percent in the last few years, a 37% jump in rejection rate.

Saturday, April 04, 2020

WARNING PAYPAL Making a Grab for US $1200 Stimulus Payments / Personal_Finance / Scams

By: N_Walayat

Paypal seeing an opportunity in a crisis, one of wanting to manage the US Governments distribution of $1200 Coronavirus stimulus payments to every adult American who earns under $75,000 per year and $500 for each child and thus have started a campaign of buttering up the public and politicians in allowing PAYPAL access to YOUR STIMULUS FUNDS including sending out emails to account holders full of promises of help in this time of national crisis.