Saturday, May 26, 2018

Climate Change Canaries and Our Changing Climate / Personal_Finance / Climate Change

By: Richard_Mills

Climate change is the buzz word of the 21st century along with its controversial cousin, “global warming,” with both cited frequently as explanations for evidence of our planet in ecological flux. This includes freak winter storms that appear to contradict the “warming” thesis, scorching summer droughts, water shortages, rising sea levels, retreating glaciers, melting permafrost, skinny polar bears, dying coral reefs and the extinction of species.

While there is disagreement over its causes – man-made versus natural – the reality of climate change is an incontrovertible fact. The planet is warming, affecting our weather, our oceans, our growing seasons, even our food, as crops fail, causing shortages and price hikes. Storms are becoming more frequent, and more intense, and droughts are lasting longer.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Three Drivers of Gold, Second Look / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

Let’s take a second look at the drivers of gold. We have already stated that the three most important factors are: the real interest rates, the U.S. dollar, and the risk aversion. Fair enough. But we have presented just the first approximation. We need to dig deeper. Why?

First, all these variables are connected together. Many analysts and investors who listen to them often make a mistake, assuming that the forces which push one driver have no effect on the other inputs into the value of gold. This is a dangerous delusion, which may expose investors to heavy losses.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Gold Junior Stocks GDXJ ETF Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: Zeal_LLC

The junior gold miners have largely been shunned over the past year or so, condemned to listlessly drift near lows.  Their stock prices have suffered serious collateral damage from stubbornly-bearish gold sentiment.  But they are faring much better under the hood than their battered visages suggest, with their latest quarterly results revealing strong fundamentals.  Juniors are ready to soar when gold sentiment turns.

Four times a year publicly-traded companies release treasure troves of valuable information in the form of quarterly reports.  Companies trading in the States are required to file 10-Qs with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by 45 calendar days after quarter-ends.  Canadian companies have similar requirements.  In other countries with half-year reporting, many companies still partially report quarterly.

Friday, May 25, 2018

What to Expect at a Critical Stock Market Point: End of a Wave 2 Rally / Stock-Markets / Elliott Wave Theory

By: EWI

"Most investors are convinced that the bull market never went away."

The great game of Wall Street -- where huge amounts of money are at stake every trading day.

Many speculators play this game by watching for events outside of the stock market that they believe will "trigger" the next big move in prices.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Merlin Passes Top Tips for Buying and Using Premium vs Standard, Theme Parks UK / Personal_Finance / Theme Parks

By: HGR

Summers 2018 has arrived and families are busy planning their summer holidays that usually include many trips to Britain's Theme parks where the king of UK attractions is Merlin with it's 32 theme parks spread out across the UK such as Alton Towers, Chessington, Legoland, Thorpe Park and the Dungeons and Sea Life centres, including a dozen clustered in and around London. So here are my top tips for buying and use of Merlin passes of whether you should buy Premium, Standard or a mix of both. Also we find out exactly what you get in a Merlin Premium Pass holders privilege pack, so find out if it's worth paying that extra £50 or not.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Trump “Victories” on Trade are Anything But / Politics / US Politics

By: Peter_Schiff

Earlier this year when President Trump began beating the drums loudly, causing fear of a trade war (and assuring us that such a conflict could be easily won), I cautioned that he had no idea the trouble he was courting. Based on his spectacular misunderstanding of the power dynamic built in to international trade, he was also in danger of bringing a knife to a gunfight.

As the year has progressed, the underbrush has gotten thornier, Trump’s progress on trade has slowed, and now it has likely stopped altogether. Despite that, in true Trumpian fashion, the President has declared resounding victory. But a quick look back reveals the opposite to be true.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Spanish Political Crisis - This is the End of the Euro / Politics / Euro-Zone

By: Raul_I_Meijer

The Spanish government is about to fall after the Ciudadanos party decided to join PSOE (socialist) and Podemos in a non-confidence vote against PM Rajoy. Hmm, what would that mean for the Catalan politicians Rajoy is persecuting? The Spanish political crisis is inextricably linked to the Italian one, not even because they are so much alike, but because both combine to create huge financial uncertainty in the eurozone.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Crude Oil: It’s Here! / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Nadia_Simmons

In the previous alerts we let you know how the situation in the crude oil was becoming increasingly bearish, but that it was not yet bearish enough to justify any action regarding the price. The risk was still too high to do so, and we explained that waiting for the confirmation was the preferable course of action. The confirmation has arrived.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Stock Market Distribution Pattern Revealed / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Good Morning!

SPX futures were positive overnight until 6:45 am, when the Commercials weighed in. I am illustrating a probable way the Commercials went from -132,091 short contracts on January 22 to -511,373 short contracts last Monday. It has been happening gradually over the past two months since the markets have been thin and getting thinner at each rally.

You may be wondering how over $8 billion went into the stock market last week, yet the entire week was a loss. It appears to be happening again this week. The reason is that, while the market isn’t performing as it had, there is still a fear of missing out (FOMO) of the next rally. Wall Street and the media are still sending out glowing reports about the next rally.

Friday, May 25, 2018

The Bond Market Just Figured Out That Central Banks CANNOT Exit / Interest-Rates / US Bonds

By: Graham_Summers

To recap yesterday’s piece concerning the recent shift in Central Bank policy, from mid-2016 onward:

1)   Central Banks engaging in emergency levels of QE at a time in which their respective economies were growing.

2)   Inflation bottoming then beginning to rise.

3)   Bond markets starting to revolt.

4)   Central Banks opting to walk back their QE programs.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Technical Analysis Confirms Stock Market SPX Support Level / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: Chris_Vermeulen

This week presented some interesting price rotation after an early upside breakout Sunday night.  The Asian markets opened up Sunday night with the ES, NQ and YM nearly 1% higher this week.  This upside breakout resulted in a clear upside trend channel breakout that our researchers believe will continue to prompt higher price legs overall. Our researchers, at Technical Traders Ltd., have issued a number of research posts over the past few weeks showing our analysis and the upside potential in the markets that should take place over the next few weeks.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Stock Market Topping - Everything Looks Rosy at the End of a Trend! / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2018

By: Enda_Glynn

Hello everyone, hope your well.

A couple of interesting stories dropped today.

And the big picture to keep in mind when viewing these stories is this;

At the end of an economic trend, GOOD NEWS IS EVERYWHERE, AND THE FUTURE ALWAYS LOOKS BRIGHT!

Heres the first one: Trump signs the biggest rollback of bank rules since the financial crisis

Friday, May 25, 2018

Trump Puts North Korea Nuclear WAR Back on Track as Plans for Nobel Peace Prize Evaporate / Politics / North Korea

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Trump cancels the summit with North Korea's Little Rocket Man for 'angry statements' that followed Trump spoke persons such as Bolton stating that they were planning a Libya model for North Korea's future i.e. regime collapse. Whilst the announcement may have come as a surprise to the mainstream press. However, as my article of 2 weeks ago illustrated that I thought that even if a meeting took place between the two that it would not amount to more than a publicity stunt for Trump's ego who feels he's due a fake Nobel peace prize like the one handed out to Obama for apparently just getting elected.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Insane EU GDPR SCAM Triggers Mass Email Spam Attacks! / Politics / European Union

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Once upon a time most spam emails tended to end up in users SPAM folders, but then along came another cunning plan out of the European Union Bureaucracy, The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR in the run up to which the world's email users have been increasingly subject to the worlds largest Spam Attack, where it has got to the point where most of the emails users are receiving are GDPR SPAM EMAILS! As companies desperate to be compliant in respect of GDPR are repeatedly asking for further consent for being on their customer mailing lists and are thus breaking OTHER EU regulations against the sending of such emails!

Thursday, May 24, 2018

June Hike Is Coming. Will Gold Survive? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

The message from the recent FOMC minutes is clear: brace yourself for the interest rate hike next month. Should gold bulls be worried? Gold’s reaction shows that not necessarily. You will find more details in our today’s analysis.

June Hike Is Virtually a Foregone Conclusion
Yesterday, the U.S. central bank published minutes from the recent FOMC meeting. What are the take-home messages from them?

Thursday, May 24, 2018

The USD Index’s Outlook / Currencies / US Dollar

By: Nadia_Simmons

While we regularly cover the individual currency pairs, in today’s alert, we’ll focus on their common denominator – the USD Index. The reason is that whatever happens to it, will have profound implications on what happens in the rest of the forex world. And it seems that quite a lot is going to happen, and it’s not going to be intuitive.

As one can see, there is a general tendency for a given market to move up until it is very overbought and then to correct or decline significantly. At the least - visibly and at the most - extremely and another way of describing the latter is to say that the market is going to become very oversold.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Stock Market Higher Again, but Still No Breakout / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: Paul_Rejczak

Stocks were gaining on Wednesday following lower opening of the trading session. Is this an upward reversal or just another move up within two-week-long consolidation? Bulls are happier today, but there are still two possible medium-term scenarios.

The U.S. stock market indexes gained 0.2-0.6% on Wednesday, as investors' sentiment reversed following a lower open. The S&P 500 index got close to its recent local highs and it currently trades 4.9% below January’s 26th record high of 2,872.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, and the technology Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6%, as it was relatively stronger than the broad stock market yesterday.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Study: Slowing Global Economic Growth IS NOT Bearish for U.S. Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: Troy_Bombardia

2017 was the year of synchronized global economic growth. Almost all major economies around the world saw an upswing in economic growth. As you probably already know, 2018 is turning out to be a different story. Global synchronized economic growth is over for now.

1. The U.S. economy continues to grow at a healthy, unabated pace.
2. Other developed and developing economies are seeing a small decrease in economic growth.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

What if This Week’s Rally in Gold is Already Over? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: P_Radomski_CFA

In yesterday’s analysis, we explained how it’s possible for the precious metals sector to move higher in very short term and at the same time still form the next local bottom close to $1,250. The key part of the analysis was that this week’s turning point may turn out to be declines’ starting, not ending. We also argued that we could see a small decline in the USD Index and that might be enough to cool down traders’ emotions. It seems that we have seen just that, and now the question is: how soon can we expect gold to decline?

Thursday, May 24, 2018

EUR/USD – Reward for Bears / Currencies / Forex Trading

By: Nadia_Simmons

During the recent days, the euro extended losses against the greenback, which took EUR/USD to December 2017 lows and one more important support. What does it mean for the sellers?