Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Russia Ukraine Tension Blinded Gold Ignores the Real Threats: USDX and Fed / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Gold continues to benefit from the market turmoil and has apparently forgotten about medium-term problems. Meanwhile, the rising USD and a hawkish Fed await confrontation.
With financial markets whipsawing after every Russia-Ukraine headline, volatility has risen materially in recent days. With whispers of a Russian invasion on Feb. 16 (which I doubt will be realized), the game of hot potato has uplifted the precious metals market.
However, as I noted on Feb. 14, while the developments are short-term bullish, the PMs’ medium-term fundamentals continue to decelerate. For example, while the general stock market remains concerned about a Russian invasion, U.S. Treasury yields rallied on Feb. 14. With risk-off sentiment often born in the bond market, the safety trade benefiting the PMs didn’t materialize in U.S. Treasuries. As a result, bond traders aren’t demonstrating the same level of fear.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Stocks Fall as Gold and Oil Jumps Amid Tension Over Ukraine – FED / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2022
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The FED has made it very clear that it will raise its benchmark interest rate, the federal funds rate. This could have severe consequences and even lead to a financial crisis. They are too far behind the curve and will be labeled a major policy error in the future, most likely. They have put themselves in a situation where they are now their own hostage. They need more leadership to describe what a soft landing is going to look like. They have been too slow to act, and now they are going too fast. The “Powell Put” has now been put out to pasture.
We believe that the FED will make more rate hikes than they have announced. Goldman Sachs thinks there will be four 25-basis-point increases in the federal funds rate in 2022. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said, “he wouldn’t be surprised if there were even more interest rate hikes than that in 2022. There’s a pretty good chance there will be more than four. There could be six or seven. I grew up in a world where Paul Volcker raised his rates 200 basis points on a Saturday night.”
Mr. James Bullard of the St. Louis FED spoke out in an arrogant tone that aggressive action is now required. The markets translated this to mean that the FED was going to call an emergency meeting as soon as this coming week to hike interest rates by no less than 50 basis points. This sent interest rates soaring and stock prices plummeting.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Facebook, Microsoft… now Walmart? The Metaverse! / Companies / Metaverse
By: Stephen_McBride
By Justin Spittler : The world’s largest retailer has its eyes set on the metaverse.
I’m talking about Walmart (WMT), where more than 240 million shoppers visit each week. Walmart’s not the sort of business you’d expect to dive headfirst into a brand-new tech megatrend.
But it recently revealed its massive plans for the metaverse.
On December 30, Walmart filed several new trademarks indicating its intent to sell virtual toys, sporting goods, and home decorations.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Helium Prices Are Set To Soar As Supply Shortage Looms / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: OilPrice_Com
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Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Cathy Wood ARK Funds CRASH MATHS / / Investing 2022
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Just remember this, for ARK or any stock to recover from a 60% drop the stock has to go up by 150%! Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
US Price Inflation Rates Shoot Above the 1980 Peak / Economics / Inflation
By: MoneyMetals
Americans get fed a lot of BS when it comes to price inflation. Prices in the U.S. are rising faster than they were in the late 1970s when gasoline shortages triggered an economic crisis.
Today, supply chain disruptions and exploding prices are also nearing crisis levels.
Meanwhile, there has been a dramatic rise in dishonesty amongst politicians, bankers, and the corporate press on this subject. They hide the truth on inflation for a couple of reasons.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
US Treasury Bonds Not Reflecting Risks Like They Usually Do – Where’s The Beef? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Chris_Vermeulen
I’ve been paying close attention to Bonds as the global markets react to rising inflation and global central bank moves recently. The US Federal Reserve has yet to take any actions to raise rates, but we all know it will come at some point. Longer-term bonds are acting as if these risks are much more subdued than many traders/investors believe – which has me questioning if global central banks have overplayed the stimulus game?
Why would traditional safe-haven assets fail to act in a manner that reflects current market risks like they would typically do? Why have precious metals failed to reflect these risks also properly? Is there something brewing in traders’ minds that are muting or mitigating these traditional safe-haven assets?
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Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Hot New Inflation Reading Spotlights Fed Failures / Stock-Markets / Inflation
By: MoneyMetals
Another hotter than expected inflation report jolted markets this week.
On Thursday, the Labor Department released the latest Consumer Price Index report. The CPI surged 7.5% in January from a year earlier. That exceeded most forecasts and marked a new four-decade high for consumer price increases. Brian Cheung of Yahoo Finance gives his take on the situation:
Brian Cheung: Price’s (are) rising in the United States across the board by 0.6% on a month-over-month basis. If you index it over a year-over-year period, 7.5% was the growth that we had seen in the report. That is well above the Street's estimates of 7.3% and continues to ratchet up. We've seen Joe Biden talk very frequently, lately, anytime he has the podium about the impact of inflation on Americans. That's because this is becoming a huge and already is becoming a huge political issue for him. Now, of course, all eyes are not just on the White House, in Congress where they engineer fiscal policy, from the Federal Reserve as well -- where the extraordinary monetary stimulus has obviously led to some sort of demand push that is leading to inflation that is not fading as fast as Federal Reserve officials had originally hoped or messaged in the beginning of 2021. That's going to be a very interesting story as we get to that mid-March meeting where the Fed is expected to start raising rates.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
How To Profit From The Coming Helium Wars / Companies / Investing 2022
By: OilPrice_Com
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Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Russia Ukraine Invasion 2022 Could Trigger Nuclear World War 3! / Politics / WW3
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Russian INVASION of Ukraine appears IMMINENT!
Saber rattling, troop build ups, mis-information, and the clutching at peace straws clueless journalist suggesting it's probably not going to happen because Putin's best buddy in China is in the midst of an omicron spreading sporting event. Clearing away the fog - Putin The Russians look set to invade Ukraine as soon as weather permits! Why? Because Russia is a dictatorship! Dictatorships seek out that which can exaggerate their power and Ukraine in those terms is the only obvious bordering target for Putin. Russia's pinhead dictator wants the world to perceive RUSSIA in the same terms as they used to perceive and fear the USSR! Instead of a past it's sell by date super power with a midget economy that produces nothing of significance reliant wholly on exporting oil and gas for foreign currency. The unintended consequences of which would be path to World War 3!
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Monday, February 14, 2022
Russia Ukraine WAR IMMINENT - How to Profit from Russian Stock Market CRASH / Politics / Russia
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Russian INVASION of Ukraine is IMMINENT!
Saber rattling, troop build ups, mis-information, and the clutching at peace straws clueless journalist suggesting it's probably not going to happen because Putin's best buddy in China is in the midst of an omicron spreading sporting event/
Clearing away the fog - Putin The Russians, ARE going to invade Ukraine as soon as weather permits! Why? Because Russia is a dictatorship! Dictatorships seek out that which can exaggerate their power and Ukraine in those terms is the only obvious bordering target for Putin. Russia's pinhead dictator wants the world to perceive RUSSIA in the same terms as they used to perceive and fear the USSR! Instead of a past it's sell by date super power with a midget economy that produces nothing of significance reliant wholly on exporting oil and gas for foreign currency.
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Monday, February 14, 2022
What Fed Jawbones Mean for Business / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Gary_Tanashian
And the Fed is listening.
[edit] After this post was published another Hawkish jawbone came in the form of James Bullard and a call for a larger rate hike in March. CME Group Fed Futures traders quickly adjusted their expectations to a .5% March hike at the behest of the Bullard jawbone. The point of my post is intact, and this heavy dose of expectations management may indeed result in .5% in March or it could be a shock absorber for the post’s original thesis, which is that a .25% hike could come sooner. The point I made at the end of the post still holds: “If the Fed is caught this far off guard, anything is possible”.
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Monday, February 14, 2022
Conflict with China and Russia Could Accelerate De-Dollarization / Politics / US Dollar
By: MoneyMetals
Geopolitical tensions are casting a pall over the Olympics in China amid rising fears of war with Russia. As nations prepare for conflict, investors should brace for potential fallout in asset markets.
Both China and Russia play hugely important roles in the global economy. Both face economic sanctions from the United States. And both are eyeing long-term strategies for shifting the locus of global trade away from the Federal Reserve Note “dollar.”
The Biden administration announced a partial diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
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Monday, February 14, 2022
How To Play The Coming Helium Boom / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: OilPrice_Com
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Sunday, February 13, 2022
NETFLIX - You Cannot Say You Weren't Warned! / Companies / Tech Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Some six months ago in response to Patron requests for why I do not include Netflix as one of the FANGs in my list, my quick analysis painted a dire picture for the stocks future prospects that I saw as destined to trade down to between $250 and $400 for several years, and thus the price being bid up towards $600 at the time was literally a stock asking for an INVESTOR PANIC to CRASH it at least halve in price.
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Sunday, February 13, 2022
Things To Consider Before Transmitting Funds Internationally / Personal_Finance / Financial Education
By: Sumeet_Manhas
Transmitting money internationally comes with its fair share of restrictions especially if you reside outside the United States. Banks across the globe require proof of fund source while trying to make large transfers. This is increasingly becoming a reality even for small transfers. If you are planning on transferring funds internationally, then you have arrived at the right destination. Today we are going to share some tips which are going to ease out your fund transfer across geographical boundaries:
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Sunday, February 13, 2022
Boiler Winter Tip - How to Prevent Cold Snap Sudden Death Failures / Personal_Finance / Home Maintenance
By: HGR
As soon as there is a winter cold snap your boiler fails! If this sounds familiar then watch this video for an easy to implement tip that helps prevents such sudden death boiler failures.
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Sunday, February 13, 2022
Budgies Love PEK Blocks for Fun and Health - JVP Large Iodised Condition Pek Blocks Amazon Review / Personal_Finance / Animals & Pets
By: N_Walayat
Budgies LOVE the mineral PEK blocks! After having gone without our two budgies leapt into action and pecked a new PEK block to death! DOn't waste your time getting those small single PEK blocks that soon get consumed, instead go for JVP large blocks ! Where you can get a pack of 12 for just £17 from Amazon (https://amzn.to/3LoCp82). Watch the video the video to see how much fun Budgies have with PEK Blocks.
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Friday, February 11, 2022
AI Tech Stocks 2022 Correction / Companies / Tech Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
People tend to over complicate investing, looking for that which will give them the exact bottom price to buy at because they cannot cope with draw downs, even though the draw down delivers lower buying prices and thus risk missing out on the golden opportunity of accumulating into some of the best stocks one can ever dream of investing in at deep discounts to their trading highs, virtually all of which traded at least 15% lower during the week with a number such as Nvidia and AMD trading lower by more than 1.3rd of where they were trading barely a month ago!
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Friday, February 11, 2022
Gold Withstands the Storm. Will Miners Drag It off the Raft? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: P_Radomski_CFA
In line with bearish bets, miners have thrown a match. Gold, however, doesn’t want to leave the ring without a fight. How long will it stay high?
While gold remains relatively firm despite stock market turbulence, rising real yields, and bearish technical indicators, even a confluence of headwinds hasn’t been able to knock the yellow metal off its lofty perch. However, mining stocks haven’t been so lucky. With my short position in the GDXJ ETF offering a great risk-reward proposition, the junior gold miners’ underperformance has played out exactly as I expected.
Moreover, with major spikes in volume preceding predictable sell-offs (follow the vertical dashed lines below), I’ve warned on several occasions that the GDX ETF is prone to tipping its hand – we saw this volume spike in January, which was the 2022 top (as of today). In addition, with mining investors’ power drying up by the day, the medium-term looks equally unkind.