Saturday, August 19, 2017
Gold, Silver Consolidate On Last Weeks Gains, Palladium Surges 36% YTD To 16 Year High / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
– Gold and silver rise as stocks fall sharply after Barcelona attack
– Gold, silver 0.6% higher in week after last weeks 2%, 5% rise
– Palladium +36% ytd, breaks out & reaches 16 year high (chart)
– Gold to silver ratio falls to mid 75s after silver gains last week
– Perfect storm of financial and geopolitical tensions is driving safe haven demand and should see higher prices
– Weekly close over $1,300 could see gold quickly test $1,400
– Palladium at 16 year highs today; gold, silver in coming months?
Friday, August 18, 2017
Marc Faber: In the Age of Cyber-Terrorism, Every Investor Must Own Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
Shannara Johnson writes: Take it from “Dr. Doom”: own some physical gold and keep it out of the banking system.
Dr. Marc Faber, a legendary investor and the editor/publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, is well known for his contrarian investing style.
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Friday, August 18, 2017
The World May Soon Split in Two Trading Blocs—Here’s How to Position Your Portfolio / Politics / Global Economy
BY PATRICK WATSON : What do freight trains, oil supertankers, and the Trump administration’s trade plans have in common? Once they get going, they’re pretty much unstoppable.
Trump wants to punish nations he thinks treat US companies unfairly. And China is first on his list.
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Friday, August 18, 2017
North Korea Is Far From Being Irrational… It Has A Plan / Politics / North Korea
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : The United States has several thousand operational nuclear missiles. It has a large fleet of strategic bombers, an enormous navy, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and marines. The US could bomb, blockade, and invade North Korea if it chose to incur the cost.
Yet North Korea is threatening to fire missiles at Guam, a US island territory in the Western Pacific where a substantial portion of the American strategic forces are now stationed. The North Koreans are also insisting that they intend to complete intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike the US.
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Friday, August 18, 2017
US Civil War - FUNCTIONAL ILLITERATES TRYING TO ERASE HISTORY / Politics / US Politics
“True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels them the desire to do right is precisely the same.” ― Robert E. Lee
I consider myself a student of history. I’ve always been fascinated by the personalities who drove events throughout history. I probably would have been a history major in college if I didn’t feel the need to make enough money to support myself and my family. I chose a business major and decided studying history would be my hobby. Over the years I’ve taken a particular interest in the Civil War. You could even call me a Civil War buff.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
USDCAD Broke Above Bearish Trend Line / Currencies / Canadian $
After breaking below the May 2016 low of 1.2460 support, USDCAD rebounded strongly from 1.2413 and moved above the bearish trend line on its daily chart. However, the bounce from 1.2413 would possibly be consolidation of the downtrend from 1.3793, another fall towards 1.1500 is still possible after the consolidation.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
Bitcoin Hits New All-Time High Over $4,400 As It Catches Paypal In Total Market Cap / Currencies / Bitcoin
One year ago today, bitcoin was trading at $570 USD.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
Three Stocks Breaking Out / Companies / Company Chart Analysis
Three stocks breaking out of consolidation patterns lead our charts to watch today, while one trending lower is highlighted as a potential short.
Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated (CORT) climbed 87 cents, or 6.2%, to close at $14.87 on 1.6 million shares traded Tuesday. The stock, which had run up sharply for a week after beating estimates and raising guidance in its August 1 earnings report, had given back part of that move in a falling wedge pattern, before popping out of that wedge on Tuesday. If price clears the lateral resistance level at $15.26, next targets for the biotech company are $16.50 and $18. Short interest of 10.6 times its average volume could fuel the move as shorts cover on a rally.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
GBPUSD Is Facing Major Support Trend Line / Currencies / British Pound
GBPUSD pulled back from the August 3 high of 1.3267 and dropped sharply to 1.2845 area after failing in its attempt to break above 1.3444 resistance.
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
3 Psychological Ingredients behind Great Web Content / Companies / Internet
We live in a world flooded with information. Most of the times, we skim through it, merely glancing at the articles, videos, and images that come our way. But, sometimes, we stumble on a piece of content so amazing that we hit the share button without giving it a second thought.So, what is it that makes content good?
Surely, you are working hard on every piece of content you create, doing thorough research, optimizing it for SEO, and sharing it on all important social media channels. So, why, in spite of your consistent efforts, some articles perform better than others?
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
The War on Cash - Rogoff, Orwell and Kafka / Interest-Rates / War on Cash
Harvard professor and chess grandmaster Kenneth Rogoff has said some pretty out there stuff before, in his role as self-appointed crusader against cash, but apparently he’s not done yet. In fact, he might just be getting started. This time around he sounds like a crossover between George Orwell and Franz Kafka, with a serving of ‘theater of the absurd’ on top. Rogoff wants to give central banks total control over your lives. They must decide what you do with your money. First and foremost, they must make it impossible for you to save your money from their disastrous policies, so they are free to create more mayhem.
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Why Is Home Depot Stock Slumping After Earnings Beat? / Companies / Corporate Earnings
Home Depot (HD) beat on EPS, Revenues, and Same Store Sales when it reported on Tuesday prior to the market open. However, after initially popping 2.5% to 158.11 from Monday's 154.26 close, HD reversed sharply into negative territory at 153.00/10 in pre-market action and closed the day at 150.17, down 2.6%.
I am not sure what the selling is all about, except for a "sell-the-news" reaction, but one look at my 4-hour chart of HD, we can see that HD actually peaked back in mid-May, and since has established a series of lower-highs (including Tuesday morning's spike to another lower-high).
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Why Cryptocurrencies Will Never Be Safe Havens / Currencies / BlockChain
by Mark Spitznagel : Every further new high in the price of Bitcoin brings ever more claims that it is destined to become the preeminent safe haven investment of the modern age — the new gold.
But there’s no getting around the fact that Bitcoin is essentially a speculative investment in a new technology, specifically the blockchain. Think of the blockchain, very basically, as layers of independent electronic security that encapsulate a cryptocurrency and keep it frozen in time and space — like layers of amber around a fly. This is what makes a cryptocurrency “crypto.”
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Trump’s Path to Trade Wars / Politics / Protectionism
As the White House is about to escalate trade frictions along with nuclear risks, global economic prospects will turn more clouded and markets more volatile.
Last Friday, President Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping and told him that he is preparing to order an investigation into Chinese trade practices.
On Monday, he called for an investigation into China over U.S. intellectual property (IP) practices and technology transfers. As a result, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, a veteran Reagan administration trade hawk, opened an investigation against China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The ordering of the investigation will not immediately impose sanctions but it could lead to steep tariffs on Chinese goods.
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
The Stock Market Guns of August, Trade Set-Up & Removing your Rose Tinted Glasses / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
Today I am going to lay out the case of a major market top and how it fits into the geopolitical backdrop of today. We then profile the trade set-up to look for and finally I will forcefully remove your Rose Colored Glasses you have been wearing since January 2017.
In Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” she argues that August 1914 was when the Gilded Age died and the modern era actually began. The book opens with the famous depiction of Edward VII’s funeral in 1910 attended peacefully by all the kings of Europe. Never again would the body of world leaders be unified and cut from a similar cloth. The war ushered in a new world, not recognizable from the past. Not since that time have we witnessed such diplomatic folly as in the month of August 1914. Today we wonder are we witnessing a similar conflict between a super power and the client state of China which is an emerging super power? Could it unfold in a similar fashion?
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Stocks, Bonds, Interest Rates, and Serbia, Camp Kotok 2017 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2017
I went to Camp Kotok, an invitation-only gathering of economists, market analysts, fund managers, and a few journalists. I go every year, and I always learn more than I can manage to remember.
It’s a three-day economic thought-fest (and more rich food and wine than is good for me or anyone else at the camp). For me, that’s about as good as life gets.
Come along with me as I share some of my main takeaways and consensus forecasts from this year’s camp.
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
U.S. Stock Market: Sunrise ... Sunset / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
See what happens when speculative fever cools down
The market itself provides its own clues about its future price action. One such clue is found in higher-beta small cap stocks vs. lower-beta blue chips. Get our take.
[Editor's Note: The text version of the story is below.]
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Tuesday, August 15, 2017
UK Savings Market Recovery Weakened by Bank of England Lending Schemes / Personal_Finance / Saving Bonds
The latest data from moneyfacts.co.uk reveals that the savings market has now had seven consecutive months wherein rate rises have outweighed cuts, with July seeing 151 rises versus 45 cuts.
Fixed rate bonds are continuing to play a huge part in the recovery of the market, with 60% of the recorded rate rises last month being for fixed rate bonds. In fact, the average two-year fixed bond has grown from 1.04% to 1.32% since the start of the year, and a similar picture can be seen for longer-term bonds. The average three-year fixed bond has grown from 1.21% to 1.56%, while the average five-year fixed bond is up to 1.92% from 1.67% in January 2017.
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Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Stock Market Intermission / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
Last week’s Market Update – Showtime! – announced that the time had come for a sell-off in equities and we were not disappointed as the Dow lost over 234 points (worst week since March). Internal indicators now point to a pause in the decline. It’s now time for a short Intermission.
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Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Next Tech Crash Could Delay Your Retirement by a Decade / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
The S&P 500 Information Technology Index recently surpassed its previous peak of 988.49 set in March 2000. It took a whopping 17 years to recoup the massive losses from the implosion of the dot-com bubble.
Not even the Federal Reserve chairman at the time, Alan Greenspan, could rein in the enthusiasm of the tech disciples with his oft-quoted 1998 “Irrational Exuberance” speech about market valuation. Valuations stretched to epic proportions as companies with little revenue and no chance to make a profit rushed to join the IPO party.
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