Thursday, June 20, 2019

Interest Rates Square Minus Zero / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: Raul_I_Meijer

I intentionally start writing this mere minutes away from Fed chair Jay Powell’s latest comments. Intentionally, because the importance ascribed to those comments only means we have gotten so far removed from what capitalism and free markets are supposed to be about, that it’s pathetic. The comments mean something for rich socialists, but nothing for the man in the street. Or, rather, they mean that the man in the street will get screwed worse for longer.

And it’s not just the Fed, all central banks have it and do it. They play around with rates and definitions and semantics until the cows can never come home again. And they have such levels of control over their respective societies and economies that the mere use of the word “markets” should result in loud and unending ridicule. There are no markets, because there is no price discovery, the Fed and ECB and BOJ got it all covered. Any downside risks, that is.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Advice for Financing a Luxury Vehicle / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans

By: Kavinesh_A

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Stock Market Final Blow Off Top Just Hit… Next Week Comes the FIREWORKS / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Graham_Summers

Well, that’s that.

The markets surged on the Fed announcement of NO rate cuts because the market now believes the Fed is GUARANTEED to make a MASSIVE cut in July.

The S&P 500 (blue line in the chart below) hit our upside target for this rally, catching up the breadth (black line in the chart below). We might finish the week around here, but going forward anyone going long is effectively “picking up pennies in front of a steamroller.”

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

US Dollar Rallies Off Support But Is This A Top Or Bottom? / Currencies / US Dollar

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The US dollar rallied nearly half a percent off recent support near $96.50.  This upside price move confirms the capital shift we have been talking about.  Foreign capital is pouring into US markets and US dollar as strength in the US economy continues to dominate.

This new upside move in the US dollar has established a new lower price channel that should continue to act as price support going forward. Fibonacci price structure dictates that a higher low and a higher high price rotation may follow. We would expect some resistance just below the $98 level and if the Fed lowers the rate the dollar will likely pullback and consolidate for a few weeks to digest the news, but investors will still see the USD as the strong currency and keep buying it longer term.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Most Income Investors Are Picking Up Nickels in Front of a Steamroller / Interest-Rates / Corporate Bonds

By: Jared_Dillian

Income investing is hard.

Let’s say you buy 20 bonds. Each of them yields 5%. Nineteen out of 20 mature at par and you get your money back, with interest.

One of them defaults. You are back where you started!

It is said that income investing is a negative art. Your goal isn’t to pick the winners—it’s to avoid the losers. You want to pick winners, invest in stocks. Have you seen a chart of Beyond Meat? Bonds generally don’t do that.

It is also said that income investing is like picking up nickels in front of a steamroller. You’re earning a 4–5% coupon, and you could get whacked pretty much any day, just like what happened at Toys “R” Us. It is a bit like selling puts.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

We’re All Socialists Now / Politics / US Politics

By: Antonius_Aquinas

Despite being probably robbed of the Democratic Party’s nomination by the Clinton political machine, the success of the Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign with his advocacy of “democratic socialism” was an ominous sign of things to come and, in some sense, more telling of the political climate than Donald Trump’s improbable victory in November, 2016.  The millions of votes garnered by Sanders in the Democratic primaries has emboldened other socialists to seek political office while socialist ideas are openly spoken of with little fear of political recriminations. 

Sanders has doubled down on his advocacy of democratic socialism in a recent speech at George Washington University, calling for the completion of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s:

Today I am proposing we complete the unfinished work of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Party by putting forth a 21st century economic bill of rights.*

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Is the Stock Market’s Volatility About to Spike? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Troy_Bombardia

By some measures, the stock market’s volatility is starting to go up with the stock market itself. Does this mean that a short term spike in volatility (and short term decline in stocks) is impending? Today’s headlines:

1. VIX and stocks
2. Volatility of volatility
3. Small caps indecision
4. Fed day
5. Oil’s plunge last week
6. Gold miners are on fire

Go here to understand our fundamentals-driven long term outlook. For reference, here’s the random probability of the U.S. stock market going up on any given day.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Facebook's Libra Crypto currency vs Bitcoin: Five Key Differences / Companies / BlockChain

By: Dan_Amerman

Facebook has just released the first description of its planned new cryptocurrency, the Libra, that has been the subject of much discussion and speculation. One of the points that Facebook is stressing, however, is that despite using the Libra for transactions on Facebook, the Libra will not belong to Facebook but to the Libra Association.

The Libra Association has many other participants, with some of the bigger names including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Ebay and Uber. They have released a white paper which describes their intentions for the rollout of Libra in the first half of 2020.

Many people have been comparing the new cryptocurrency with Bitcoin, and thinking that the Libra will have a lot in common with Bitcoin. As explored in this analysis, the Libra will be quite different from Bitcoin in at least five major ways, and will indeed be close to the direct opposite of Bitcoin in some of the areas that matter most for many cryptocurrency investors.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Fed May Trigger Wild Swing In Stock Index and Precious Metals / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019

By: Chris_Vermeulen

As our research team continues to pour over the charts and look for any signs of direction regarding tomorrow’s Fed news, we put together a couple the charts that may highlight some expectations and in at what the markets may do the rest of the week. 

The expectations that the US Federal Reserve may maintain rates at current levels or potentially drop rates by a quarter percent leaves an open interpretation as to how the global markets will digest this news. Obviously, leaving rates unchanged would be the most benign action the Fed could take. Often though, the markets interpret this as a sign of weakness. Whereas a quarter percent decrease in the US fed rates would suggest that the Fed is preparing for future economic weakness in the US and potential global economy, yet investors may consider this as a very bullish reaction to the Fed.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Let’s Gain Even More on the Sliding Euro and British Pound / Currencies / Forex Trading

By: Nadia_Simmons

Yesterday, we’ve heard the ECB President speak and tomorrow, it’s the Fed’s turn. What about the time in between? Well, the markets still move and it’s our job to be positioned accordingly so as to profit from whatever is unfolding. And what kind of opportunities we’ve managed to catch! Good news, the ride is far from over. Let’s take a look at the way things are shaping up. We’ll then sharpen our battle plans accordingly. We even have a new candidate for opening a long position to tell you about!

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

How Long Do Land Rover Discovery Sport Brake Pads Last? / ConsumerWatch / Land Rover

By: HGR

How long can you realistically expect your Land Rover Discovery sports brake pads to last? For instance many cars can go for as long as 70,000 miles before they need new brake pads. However, the Discovery Sports discs are prone to corrosion of and excessive wear of brake pads both front and rear can occur. So your not going to get anywhere near what one usually expects from such vehicles regardless of driving style as my latest Land Rover Discovery Sport video reveals of when you can expect to see the dreaded yellow Worn Break Pads warning pop up on your dash board.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Gold Golden 'Moment of Truth' Is Upon Us: $1,400-Plus or Not? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: The_Gold_Report

With the precious metals markets range-bound and driven by forces beyond his control, sector expert Michael Ballanger turns his contrarian eye to the past. With gold enjoying its best week of the year, with the Daily Sentiment Index charging northward, with the Relative Strength Index (RSI) pressing 72 for the GLD, with the RSI for GDX pushing 75, and finally, with the newsletter community all falling on top of themselves with self-laudatory backslaps, I think it is time to adopt the contrarian view and step back.

It was less than five weeks ago, with gold and the miners all coming off sharply oversold conditions (RSI in the mid-high 30s), that I wrote that "carpe diem" in reference to ownership of GLD calls and my two favorite leveraged miners, NUGT and JNUG. Sure enough, JNUG has moved from $6.50 to $9.50 and NUGT from $14.50 to $22.10, while the GLD July $120 calls rocketed from $2.20 to $7.60. (Note: I did not get "top tick" for any of them, but did bank yet another decent 40% return on the miners, and a double and a half on the GLD calls).

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Exceptional Times for Gold Warrant Special Attention / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: The_Gold_Report

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts gold and explains why he believes this is a good time to build positions.

With things shaping up so well for gold, we can certainly take any short-term correction in our stride, and more than that, we can seize upon it as an opportunity to build positions further across the sector, whether by means of ETFs, stocks or options, and of course, gold itself.

Several factors suggest that a modest short-term correction is likely before the major breakout occurs. Gold is overbought after its recent run-up and is rounding over beneath the major resistance approaching $1400, as we can see on its latest 6-month chart below. Thus, the appearance of a short-term bearish "shooting star" candlestick on its chart on Friday coupled with its latest COTs showing Commercial short and Large Spec long positions hitting rather extreme levels suggests that it is likely to react back over the next week or two to allow things to cool for a bit before the major breakout occurs. The current COT structure IS NOT regarded as bearish overall, because we would expect speculators to pile in at the start of a big move—positions can be expected to get much more extreme once the big breakout occurs, flying off the charts and staying high as the first major upleg of the new bull market unfolds.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Gold Awaits the FOMC as Economic Data Send Mixed Signals / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

Who wouldn’t know the Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? In today’s analysis, we have important pieces of economic data starring in the first two roles. Retail sales and industrial production rebounded in May, while the Empire State Index plummeted in June. How will these reports affect tomorrow’s FOMC decision and the gold market?

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Will Inflation “Save” Social Security? / Politics / Government Spending

By: MoneyMetals

Uncle Sam is going broke. That’s not exactly news – at least not to anyone who has been paying attention to the sorry state of federal finances.

Yet to most Americans, the ballooning national debt ($22.3 trillion and counting) isn’t a problem that impacts their daily lives. They won’t directly perceive the cost of another trillion dollars in borrowing in the government’s next fiscal year.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

The Stock Market Has Gone Nowhere and Volume is Low. What’s Next / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Troy_Bombardia

The stock market has been trading within a very small range since last week, and volume has been notably low. Today’s headlines:

1. Stock market’s small range
2. Stock market’s low volume
3. High stock:bond ratio
4. The S&P’s long term correlations
5. “A key manufacturing gauge just saw its biggest one month collapse in 18 years”
6. Banks underperforming

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Silver Long-Term Trend Analysis / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Nadeem_Walayat

What stands out from the long-term chart is that Silver tends to be pretty much dead for most of the time, only really coming alive towards the later stages of precious metals bull market manias when everyone begins piling in just before the bubble pops! Which is a warning not to get carried away with fantasy targets for Silver but try and keep things real by focusing on what silver has done in the past, namely the Silver price cap is $50.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

These Two Charts Virtually Scream “Buy Silver” / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Hubert_Moolman

The Amount of Dollars in Existence

Silver is currently trading around $14.84 an ounce. This is around 30% of its 1980 all-time high of $50. However, this is an incomplete representation of what silver is really trading at, relative to US dollars.

When you look at the silver price, relative to US currency (the amount of actual US dollars) in existence, then it is at its lowest value it has ever been (see chart below).

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

IBM - Watson Deep Learning - AI Stocks Investing - Video / Companies / AI

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Are you ready for the exponential machine intelligence mega-trend?

In this series of videos I present my Top 10 AI stocks to invest in to profit from the exponential machine intelligence mega-trend.

My Top 10 AI stocks are ranked in terms of risk vs reward and volatility. So I consider my Top 5 stocks as primary, then the next 3 as secondary and the last 2 as far more risky tertiary stocks. And remember that when investing in the stock market that your capital is at risk. There are NO SURE BETS!

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Investors are Confident, Bullish and Buying Stocks, but… / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The Technical Traders Ltd has identified a unique price to volatility relationship between the SP500 and VIX index.  The calculations required to compute the VIX index are composed of a number of factors. That final value of the VIX index is reported on an annualized basis. This means that VIX index as already internalized the past 12 months price volatility into the current VIX levels.

We believe this increased VIX volatility expectation could be muting future VIX spikes and trading systems focus on the VIX Index.  The fact that the VIX as likely to internalized that large October to December 2018 price rotation and will not move beyond this price range until well after April or May of 2020 creates a unique problem for VIX systems and analysts. In short, the VIX has normalized a 20% price volatility expectation, or more, and will not reduce this expectation until well after April or May of 2020.