Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Epic Currency War Battle: Hedge Funds Versus China / Currencies / Currency War
George Soros’ successful bet against the British pound back in 1992 remains one of financial history’s epic tales.
The short version of the story begins with Britain linking its currency, the pound, to the German deutschmark via the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). But Britain’s inflation rate was higher than Germany’s, which created a growing mismatch between the currencies’ real value.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
GBPUSD And USDCAD Elliott Wave Analysis / Currencies / Forex Trading
GBPUSD
GBPUSD bounced nicely to the highs earlier which we thought its going to be wave 5 of C), but a quick reversal down from 1.4443 high suggests that wave 4 can still be unfolding as a triangle. That said, upside may not be done yet for cable, so be aware of 1.4500 before market turns down with new impulse. Leg down from here and daily close beneath 1.4317 will indicate that wave C) is done anyway. Generally speaking, new reversal can be in the cards soon, but latest price move suggests that we are not there yet.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Europe: Why It's Going to Get a Lot Worse Before It Gets Better / Economics / European Union
New interview with our European markets expert
Brian Whitmer, the editor of our monthly European Financial Forecast, explains what indicators helped him anticipate market volatility.
You'll also learn what he's expecting for the year ahead in European stocks.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
The Next Generational Bust Is Coming, Stock Market 70% Collapse / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
Oil can’t seem to get a break. After falling just below $27 last week, oil finally rallied back to $32 before falling back to just under $31 on Tuesday. An oversold bounce was naturally due, with perhaps a bit more to come. But the oil market’s doing exactly what I said it would – cratering!Meanwhile, in la-la land, stocks have been so focused on the decline in oil prices that they just ignored the other big trigger for a stock decline.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Rodney Johnson: Time For Retailers to Panic? / Companies / Retail Sector
By most accounts, holiday retail sales were a letdown. While retail sales climbed 3.3% over November and December, stores reported a 6.4% drop in foot traffic. So even though people might have spent a bit more, they were choosy in where they spent.When customers spend less, companies earn less, affecting the bottom line. This relationship is on display at companies like Macy’s, which warned that sales were off 4.7% in November and December. The company plans to close stores and lay off thousands of workers. The same story is unfolding at Gap.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
The Coming Stock Market Decline May be a Monster / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
Good Morning!
The SPX Premarket appears to be challenging yesterday’s low at 1920.30.
ZeroHedge reports, “It certainly does feel like groundhog day today because while last week's near record oil surge is long forgotten, and one can debate the impact the result of last night's Iowa primary which saw Trump disappoint to an ascendant Ted Cruz while Hillary and Bernie were practically tied, one thing is certain: today's continued decline in crude, which has seen Brent and WTI both tumble by over 3% has once again pushed global stocks and US equity futures lower, offsetting the euphoria from last night's earnings beat by Google which made Alphabet the largest company in the world by market cap.”
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
UK Buy-to-let Market Unfazed by Stamp Duty Changes / Housing-Market / Buy to Let
Yesterday saw the close of the Treasury’s consultation on higher rates of Stamp Duty on additional properties. However, data from Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that, despite all the talk surrounding the sector, buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage rates are continuing to drop.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
S&P 500 Has Likely Entered a New Bear Phase / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
Ken Ticehurst writes: The S&P 500 has now more than likely entered a new bear phase which could well last for most of 2017 the monthly close signalled the probability that a multi month decline is underway. Since 2008 the S & P 500 has enjoyed one of its largest and longest and rises in modern times, our long term chart below shows this Bull Run in context.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Bad GDP...Bad ISM....Bad AMZN.....Good Japan....Japan Wins.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
The market has had a lot of bad news to deal with as of late. Two of the worst are the GDP, and the awful news out of the ISM Manufacturing Report this morning. The number 48.2 is showing contraction for our economy and further contraction from the prior month. Things are going the wrong way for our economy. The market should have gotten annihilated today. It decided not to because it can. The market seemingly wants to retrace higher for reasons that make literally no sense to me. We should have stopped before this level, but the MACD's are crossed, and, thus, the market tries.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
SPX Making a Last Stand / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
SPX appears to be stalling at 1947.29, very close to a 50% Fib retracement (1946.92). That also comes out to nearly an exact 8.6 days of rally after 13.5 days of decline. If my Cycles Model is accurate, it anticipates 8.6 days of decline, suggesting a low on Thursday morning, February 11.
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Tuesday, February 02, 2016
How and Why To Move Your Assets Offshore Before the Financial Collapse / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016
[The following is by Paul Seymour, Managing Partner of TDV Offshore]
I worked for several years with Big 4 CPA firms in both the US and Saudi Arabia, and then spent many years as a multi-national corporate Controller and CFO in places like Florida, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, and Medellín. In my second, more free life, I’ve found satisfaction helping others better position themselves to avoid the onrushing financial catastrophe via variety of international strategies.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
The Davos Confetti Club / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016
The Keynesian elite gathered in Davos Switzerland this past week to pontificate on global economic issues and to strategize the engineering of The Fourth Industrial Revolution. This new so called “revolution” includes a discussion on the future of Artificial Intelligence. Judging by the comments coming from most of the list of attendees, it seems obvious the intelligence on display was indeed faux. But the most important take away from this venue was that central bankers have made it clear to the markets that the level and duration of quantitative counterfeiting knows no bounds.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
Central Bank Created Silver Price Rally / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Central banks have created a mess, unless you enjoy unemployment, crashing economies, a wave of bankruptcies, and half of the world’s assets owned by only a few people.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
Gold and Silver Bullion Up 5.3% and 3.4% In January as Stocks Fall Sharply / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Gold and silver rallied (5.3% and 3.4% respectively) in January, as stocks fell sharply.
Turmoil and sharp falls in Chinese and global stock markets, plunging oil prices, rising stress in credit markets and further signs of weak US and global growth led to a renewed bout of risk aversion in January.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
Savers Wait for a Miracle as the Savings Market Stagnates / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
The savings market has suffered considerably over the past few years thanks to lending initiatives and a low bank base rate, and the latest research from Moneyfacts.co.uk shows that savings rates have been on a clear downward trajectory as a result.
Since 2011, the average rate on a two-year fixed bond has almost halved, down from 3.20% five years ago to just 1.72% today. A similar pattern can be seen on longer-term bonds, with five-year fixed rates recording a drop from 4.01% to just 2.59% over the same period. Easy access deals have not been left unscathed from poor returns either, with a staggering 75% of the market paying 1% or less.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
The Fed Is Not Hiking Rates: Risk Assets To Perform / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
The landscape of global monetary policy is changing. In late 2015 we had the Fed hiking, signalling more to come, the ECB holding back on fresh QE and even the BOJ, which has engaged in more easing than any other central bank in history, was sitting on its hands.
That tune has changed.
The BoJ moved to negative rates this week. The Fed didn’t hike and signalled that they aren’t going to hike in the short term. The ECB is making noises about expanding its QE programs. In this article we explore direction of monetary policy going forward and its implications for financial markets.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
Ron Paul - Is U.S. Congress Declaring War on ISIS...or on You? / Politics / US Politics
Passage of Senator Mitch McConnell's authorization for war against ISIS will not only lead to perpetual US wars across the globe, it will also endanger our civil and economic liberties. The measure allows the president to place troops anywhere he determines ISIS is operating. Therefore, it could be used to justify using military force against United States citizens on US territory. It may even be used to justify imposing martial law in America.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
US Dollar and US Treasury Bonds Big Picture / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Since we covered the many different markets in detail last week I would like to focus back in on the US dollar and the TLT looking for clues for the big picture direction. The huge daily swings, in say the INDU last week, makes it very hard to keep and hold a short or long position unless you're perfect on your entry point. In a bull market it's two steps forward and one step backward and in a bear market it's two steps down and one step up. If an entry point in a bear market is not made in the first part of the two steps down sequence you'll find your self behind at some point in the trade if the entry point was made in step two. This is one reason why it's so important to know the direction of the big trend. Until something changes I believe the US stock markets are now in a bear market. There are a lot of things that can change that outlook but for today that's what the charts are suggesting.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
BOJ Negative Interest Rates Central Banking Crime Syndicate's War on Cash for Triggering Panic Consumption / Interest-Rates / War on Cash
Whilst most market commentators were fixated on the prospects for further Fed tightening, the so called unwinding of easy money quantitative easing in the United States. The Japanese arm of the central banking crime syndicate took the markets by storm Friday by effectively decreeing that inflation is just too low for the systematic stealth theft of bank deposits to continue so now it's time to ramp things up a notch with the next step which is for NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES. The FIRST instance of which will be that an interest rate of -0.1% will be applied to bank deposits (excess reserves) with the central bank, again this is just the FIRST instance with MORE or rather WORSE to follow which sends a discouraging message to all against holding Yen deposits, triggering an immediate drop of over 2% in the value of the Yen.
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Monday, February 01, 2016
Great News! This Bull Market Is About to Collapse / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
Matthew Carr writes:By now, I’m sure you’ve heard that the East Coast was hammered by a Godzilla-sized snowstorm last weekend.
Ignoring the milk, bread and toilet paper, my wife and I loaded up on liquor, cookie dough and junk food in preparation of being snowed in for a few days. We made a list of all the movies we missed in theaters that are now On Demand. We took video of our dog spazzing out in the backyard.
All things considered, it was a pretty great weekend.
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