Friday, March 30, 2018

Kit Kat's Have a BREAK 'Joe the Mug' Promotion / ConsumerWatch / Freebies and Comps

By: Anika_Walayat

Kit Kat are literally giving away 50,000 'Joe the Mugs' in an easy to win promotion until the 31st of August 2018. However, some lucky customers are apparenrtlt beign sent special edition 'puzzle' Joe the Mugs. So as kit-kat would say have a break Joe the Mug!

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Location, Location and Nerve Agents - The Skripals Poisening Saga / Politics / GeoPolitics

By: Raul_I_Meijer

I am gullible. Very. I betcha I am more gullible than you. And that tells you something, because you know how gullible you are. Or so you think. Still, as bad as I got it, something physically snapped in the back of my head this morning, I could hear it snap, when I saw this Guardian headline:

Skripals Poisoned From Front Door Of Salisbury Home, Police Say

Detectives investigating the attempted murders of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal have said they believe the pair were poisoned with a nerve agent at the front door of his Salisbury home. Specialists investigating the poisoning of the the Skripals have found the highest concentration of the nerve agent on the front door at the address, police said. Counter-terrorism detectives will continue to focus their inquiries on the home address for the coming weeks, and possibly months…

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Gold’s Old Friend Comes Back / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

Remember LIBOR? The interest rate which soared during the global financial crisis? It’s on the rise again, but almost no one is paying adequate attention to it. We are – and we will analyze for you what this means for the gold market.

Hello LIBOR, My Old Friend
Simon and Garfunkel sang about darkness, the old friend. We can refer these words to LIBOR which has come to talk with us again. I bet you remember the Great Recession well. But let me briefly remind you that LIBOR soared in 2008 as banks were reluctant to lend to each other. The stress in the financial system fueled fears, increased risk premia and made LIBOR rise. Gold shined then. Just see the chart below.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Uncle Sam Issuing $300 Billion In New Debt This Week Alone / Interest-Rates / US Debt

By: GoldCore

– US needs to borrow almost $300 billion this week alone
– This is the largest debt issuance since 2008 financial crisis
– Trump threatens trade war with its biggest creditor – China
– Bond auctions have seen weak demand due to large supply and trade war concerns
– $20 trillion mark reached in early September 2017; $1 trillion added in just 6 months
– US total national debt level now exceeds $21.05 trillion and is accelerating higher
– U.S. debt and dollar crisis coming which will propel gold higher (see chart)

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Stocks End a Wild Quarter, as Bulls Scratch Their Heads / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: Paul_Rejczak

Wednesday's trading session was pretty uneventful compared to Friday's, Monday's and Tuesday's volatility. Stocks fluctuated along their Tuesday's closing prices, as investors hesitated after slightly better-than-expected Final GDP number release. Will stocks rebound today? Or is this just a consolidation before another leg lower? It seems that there are still two possible future scenarios.

The main U.S. stock market indexes were mixed between -0.9% and -0.0% on Wednesday, as investors hesitated following Tuesday's sell-off. The sentiment remained pretty bearish despite some better-than-expected economic data releases. The S&P 500 index fluctuated along the level of 2,600. It is currently 9.4%  below January 26 record high of 2,872.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost just 0.05%, and the technology Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9% on Wednesday, following its Tuesday's sell-off of 3.3%.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Sketchy Explanations For Stock Market Selling / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: WMA

Each time equity markets enter a corrective phase, the financial media has to find “the reason”. Without knowing “the reason” for selling, their articles would be too short and uninteresting. We posit that equity markets today are driven by animal spirits, with little regard to factors supposedly driving equity market moves. Even in “normal times” (which would not qualify this market), technicians would tell you that news follows the market. In other words, once a price trend is in place, subsequent news events are interpreted to support or explain what is already happening on markets.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Building The World's Largest Solar Project / Commodities / Solar Energy

By: OilPrice_Com

Saudi Arabia wants to pour $200 billion into solar to build the world's largest solar project.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund and SoftBank Group Corp. of Japan jointly announced plans to build a solar project that is staggering in size – 200 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. That would be about 100 times larger than some of the largest projects in the world right now. "It's by far the biggest solar project ever," Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank said at a news conference Tuesday in New York after signing a nonbinding agreement with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).

Thursday, March 29, 2018

ETF Investors Got Screwed Again -- When Will They Learn? / Stock-Markets / Exchange Traded Funds

By: Avi_Gilburt

As many of you know, I run a trading room with well over 3500 members, including over 450 money managers. I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly as far as what traders and investors do through the years. And, no matter how much I warn about the pitfalls in the market, many chose to ignore me, and eventually learn on their own the hard way.

To this end, this article is focused mostly upon the evils of leveraged ETF’s and those that advise their use as “buy and hold” vehicles.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Cryptocurrency: Money or Asset? / Currencies / BlockChain

By: EconMatters

Some of the hypes and speculations surrounding bitcoin and cryptocurrency is that central banks may create their own digital currencies thus replacing fiat money altogether. A G20 draft communiqué already states cryptocurrencies “lack the traits of sovereign currencies” and seeks cryptocurrency regulation recommendations by July 2018. The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) also published a report last month entitled “Money in the digital age: what role for central banks?” stating:

“… while cryptocurrencies may pretend to be currencies, they fail the basic textbook definitions. Most would agree that they do not function as a unit of account. Their volatile valuations make them unsafe to rely on as a common means of payment and a stable store of value.”

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Can You Imagine $5000 GOLD? – I can, Here’s Why / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: Enda_Glynn

My Bias: Long to a new all time high above 1827.
Wave Structure: Impulse structure to a new high.
Long term wave count: wave (3) above 1666.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Oil Prices Vs. Production: See the "Elephant" Almost Everyone Ignores / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: EWI

If production drives prices, how does oil rise 14x when production trends sideways for 10 years?

There's a widespread assumption that supply and demand drive oil prices. Almost all economists base their oil forecasts entirely on this premise, and so do many speculators.

If the oil industry ramps up production and increases supply, economists expect a drop in oil prices. If production decreases, or some other factors hint at supply constraints, they anticipate a rise in oil's price.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Outlook for Gold – Same but Different / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018

By: P_Radomski_CFA

“Some things never change. Some things do.” You might be wondering why we are quoting one of the lines from the Matrix movie. The reason is because that’s exactly what we can say about the gold market and the price patterns in it. The thing that never changes is the fact that gold will always somehow react to the fundamental news, but the way it reacts will vary over time. Moreover, this quote could describe the situation with the current analogies and price patterns in gold, silver and mining stocks. Because of the trade-war-based rally, they changed, but something didn’t. The outlook that they imply.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Doritos Meltdown as Super Markets (Tesco) Say No to Voucher Winners / ConsumerWatch / Shopping

By: N_Walayat

The Doritos instant win promotion that began Mid February and due to end Mid April has proved to have a high probability for a win that we currently estimate at 40%, i.e. 4 out of every 10 packets will be a winner! Just enter the code on the back of the Doritos packets at the website and you will instantly know if you have won cash from £5 to £500 or a print at home voucher for free packet of Doritos which is what you are most likely to win.

Unfortunately, for winners there is a fly in the ointment in that supermarkets such as Tesco are increasingly refusing to accept any more than 1 voucher per customer PER DAY (worth upto 80p) in exchange for a free packet of Doritos as has been our recent experience at Tesco, Sheffield.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Eurozone Faces Many Threats Including Trade Wars and “Eurozone Time-Bomb” In Italy / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis

By: GoldCore

– Eurozone threatened by trade wars, Italy and major political and economic instability
– Trade war holds a clear and present danger to stability and economic prospects
– Italy represents major source of potential disruption for the currency union
– Financial markets fail to reflect the “eurozone time-bomb” in Italy
– Financial volatility concerns in Brussels & warning of ‘sharp correction’ on horizon
– Euro and global currency debasement and bank bail-in risks

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Statistics of Gambling Industry, Remote Gambling and National Lottery / Companies / Gambling

By: Submissions

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Bitcoin Elliott Wave Analysis Looking for Short Term Recovery / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: ElliottWave-Forecast

Bitcoin Elliott Wave Analysis in the short term is showing an interesting corrective structure suggesting a recover to take place after it finishes the current move.

The digital instrument is correcting the cycle from 03/18 low in 3 waves as a Zigzag structure  which reached the 100% – 161.8% Fibonacci extension area $8093 – $7520 from where it’s expected to resume a new cycle to the upside or at least bounce in 3 waves as long as it remain above $7320 low.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Stock Market Elevated Risk Premia Suggests the Worst Yet to Come / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2018

By: Builderadv

Stock markets ended very weak yesterday. Any ounces of bounce is sold as we saw yesterday. The economy per se is doing just about fine.

Home Prices: Rising at its fastest
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures the price of a typical single-family home in major metropolitan areas across the country, rose 6.2% in January, down slightly from a 6.3% year-over-year increase reported in December. The 10-city index gained 6% over the year, unchanged from the prior month. The 20-city index gained 6.4%, up slightly from 6.3% the previous month.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Stock Market - 'Get Back In There And Sell, Sell, Sell' / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018

By: Avi_Gilburt

For those of you who remember the movie Trading Places, this was a famous scene that I always remember when we see emotional reactions in the market after a downdraft.

And, when I went to read articles being published over the weekend, it seems they were all pretty much in agreement with the sentiment expressed in this scene: “You idiot. Get back in there and sell, sell, sell.”

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Petroyuan and Gold - The Single Biggest Change in Capital Markets of All Time / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Michael_J_Kosares

“China’s launch on Monday of its crude futures exchange will improve the clout of the yuan in financial markets and could threaten the international primacy of the dollar, argues a new report by Hayden Briscoe, APAC head of fixed income at UBS Asset Management. ‘This is the single biggest change in capital markets, maybe of all time,’ Briscoe said in a follow-up telephone interview.” – Kate Duguid, Reuters, 3-26-2018

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

China/Asia Economic Crash Is Starting / Economics / China Economy

By: Chris_Vermeulen

In our previous article regarding the potential China/Asia Economic Implosion, we illustrated how the property market cycles in China (Beijing) are in the early stages of a potentially topping and a massive drop in value.

Today, we are going to try to expand on this analysis a bit further by illustrating how the US and other global established economies may have inadvertently setup certain emerging markets for another global crisis event.  Our research team at Technical Traders Ltd. has developed a unique set of skills in sourcing and evaluating current market events and predictive price modeling systems that allow us to attempt to determine future events with relative certainty.  Within this post, we will attempt to provide further evidence and supporting data as it relates to our belief that we are in a very late stage economic expansion cycle and about to enter a very early stage economic contraction cycle.  As we continue to disclose our research and findings within this multi-part article, we will close this research out by explaining how and why we believe smart investors will be able to create massive opportunities over the next 12 to 48 months from our research.