Thursday, December 17, 2015
How Much Oil Is Needed To Power Santa's Sleigh? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Every year around the world, hundreds of millions of children wait anxiously for Santa Claus to arrive and bring presents and good cheer. But what if Santa never came? What if this year the reindeer all fall ill, perhaps due to Crazy Reindeer disease (the analog to Mad Cow) and Santa is forced to cancel Christmas? The result would be devastating.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Gold Thrives, Paper Dies / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
(From “Bobby,” a reader – posted as a comment)
Both Gold and Silver it is said
Are jeered yet feared by the Fed
For if they rise it will but show
The dollar’s worth is very low
So if they rise in upward trend
The Fed then feels it must defend
The things they do we know aren’t right
But they don’t care, they have the might
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Fed Rate Hike - Yellen Nailed It! / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Larry Fink, Chairman & CEO of BlackRock, spoke with Erik Schatzker, Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin on Bloomberg TV's "Bloomberg <GO>." He discussed the Federal Reserve rate increase, the possibility of dollar-euro trading at parity, and his economic outlook for 2016.
Fink praised Janet Yellen after the Fed raised interest rates yesterday: "I think she nailed it. It was not too hot, not too cold, right down the center. I think it was a very well scripted conference…And the most important thing, what she gave the market is clarity. I think the opportunity they missed in September, why the markets were so unsettled because we had no clarity on their actions. And in this case they really expressed exactly what they're looking for."
Thursday, December 17, 2015
History Shows that Gold Has Been In Worse Situations Before, But Still Managed to Recover / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Gold has always been seen as one of the best when it comes to investments. Unlike other forms of investments, the price of gold does not rely on certain aspects that are guaranteed to change at some point in time like company management or competition.
This is what makes the yellow metal a haven for most investors during tough economic times. On the contrary, when economies are doing well, and particularly the US economy, gold does seem to struggle a bit due to its links with the US dollar.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Marc Faber - Federal Reserve Rate Hike At ‘Precisely The Wrong Time’ / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Marc Faber, the editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, warned yesterday that the Federal Reserve has raised rates at “precisely the wrong time.”
Speaking to CNBC just before the interest rate decision, Faber warned that it’s the wrong time because “the global economy has decelerated very badly, and many countries are already in recession, or going into recession.”
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Stock Market Positive Expectations Following Interest Rate Decision / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
Briefly: In our opinion, no speculative positions are justified.
Our intraday outlook is now neutral, and our short-term outlook is neutral:
Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): neutral
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): neutral
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): bearish
Long-term outlook (next year): bullish
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Stock Market S&P 500 Rally Might Prove Short-Lived / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
To much fanfare, the Federal Open Market Committee made the decision to raise interest rates by 25 basis points for the first time since 2006 in a unanimous decision approved by all voting members. This marks the beginning of a tightening cycle that forecasts another 4 rate increases over 2016, putting rates near 1.50% by the end of 2016 should the United States economy avoid a recession. When looking at corporations and the main sources of growth over the past few years, interest rate normalization is largely a negative indication for equity valuations as it diminishes the viability of cheap borrowing to finance buybacks. Although the announcement of a hike was forecast to dent equity benchmarks, especially the S&P 500, the cash session saw a 1.45% rally in the index despite the headwinds approaching.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 17, 2015
FOMC and Oil Double Whammy - Oh Oh Canadian Dollar! / Currencies / Canadian $
FOMC and Oil. That double whammy was too much for the Cando in today's session as the currency broke down into a fresh ELEVEN YEAR LOW. Though it too did manage to bounce off the session lows as the US Dollar experienced a round of selling pressure, the Cando still ended the day lower. Currently in Asian trade, it is trading lower again.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Risk ON? Risk OFF? Find Out Where Your Money Lies / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015
Dear Investor,
I have an urgent new report to share with you today, so let's dive right in ...
Here is the opening paragraph of the just-published, subscriber-level report from our friends at Elliott Wave International, the world's largest independent financial forecasting firm.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Panelists Select 19 Small-Cap Biotech Stocks for 2016 Investing Watchlist / Companies / BioTech
In advance of the Biotech Showcase 2016, The Life Sciences Report has once again solicited top analysts to provide the names of innovative biotech companies that investors should keep an eye on in the upcoming year.
Nineteen companies have made the cut for inclusion in the 2016 Small-Cap Biotech Watchlist, now in its fourth year. The therapies under development address diverse indications, such as rare diseases, ophthalmological conditions, leg cramps, kidney disease, infections caused by catheters, and a number of cancers, with a variety of products, including traditional biologics, cell therapies and vaccines.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Gold Price Rises on Fed Interest Rate Hike, as Contrarians Predicted / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Predicting is a risky sport and predicting markets an extreme one. But understanding can be much more lucrative. After years of speculation about the negative impact a Federal Reserve rate increase could have on gold, a number of our experts took a contrarian view and based on an understanding that the hike was already priced into the gold price, they explained that it would actually benefit the gold price because it would remove the overhanging doubt. And that is exactly what happened. Within hours of the unanimous announcement on Wednesday that the Fed's benchmark short-term borrowing rate would go up a quarter point, gold was up $14/oz.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Stock Market Finally .25... Bullish Statement.... Gradual.... Bull-Bear At 8%.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
The world has waited for years it seems for that first rate hike, since the economy was supposedly improving. Month after month, and report after report, for well over a year the market couldn't decide whether Fed Yellen would finally raise rates that quarter of a percent. You would think it would be slam dunk if things were rosy, but we all knew they really weren't, so she refused to raise. ISM Manufacturing Report is in decline. Services going the wrong way as well. It's hard to raise rates when the economy can't get out of its own way. The pressure kept mounting, however, as the Yellen knew the street wanted to see some confidence, since she kept saying that things were getting better. She finally did the dirty deed this afternoon. I'm sure she feels mixed, since we are contracting on manufacturing. It's truly unheard of to raise rates, even though they were at zero, in a declining economy. The key to the whole thing was the statement after the raise.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
SPX Sports a 7-point Reversal Pattern / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
SPX has now formed a seven-point reversal, normally seen as a five-point reversal. This is typical when there exists a need for delay combined with a high degree of emotion in the market. It appears to be challenging the Intermediate-term resistance at 2073.31.
The sell signal is reaffirmed when SPX has fallen again beneath the 200-day Moving Average at 2067.31. Confirmation that the sell signal is still supportable when SPX falls beneath today’s open where the Orthodox Broadening Top trendline lies at 2045.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
U.S. Interest Rate Hike Too late, Recession Likely in Next 12 Months - Video / Interest-Rates / Recession 2016
Sam Zell, chairman at Equity Group Investments, spoke with Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin on Bloomberg TV's "Bloomberg <GO>." He discussed the expected Federal Reserve rate hike, the risk of a near-term recession, and investor flexibility provided by low-interest.
Zell said: "I think that this interest rate hike is probably 6 or 8 months too late. I think that the economy is closer to falling over than it is to going up."
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Did "Tight" Fed Interest Rates Policy Cause the Financial Crisis? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Recently Senator Ted Cruz aggressively questioned Janet Yellen on the Fed’s possible role in causing the financial crisis and subsequent recession. In particular, he claimed that “in the summer of 2008” the Fed “told markets that it was shifting to a tighter monetary policy,” and that this announcement “set off a scramble for cash, which caused the dollar to soar, asset prices to collapse, and CPI [growth — RPM] to fall below zero, which set the stage for the crisis.” Cruz asked Yellen if she agreed with Bernanke’s view from his new book, in which he says the Fed made a mistake by not cutting rates in September 2008.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Consumer Prices: A Sticky Situation / Economics / Inflation
We have noted anecdotally that there is a creeping inflation in the system. It does not show up in commodities, which are in a post-bubble (ah, the good old ‘China story’ that was so vigorously promoted to a degree that would make a gold bug promoter blush) melt down. Crashing costs like that are providing the Goldilocks-like balance to rising costs within the economy.
This morning, the highly recommended Daily Shot had among its macro graphs a look at the “sticky” consumer price index. That got me to go over to the St. Louis Fed website and pull a couple different views of it. First, here is SLF’s description of the sticky index…
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
UK Jobs: No Pay, No Play / Economics / Employment
Today's release of the UK jobs figures confirms the suspicions of the doves at the Bank of England, with earnings (pay) growth continuing to decline, joblessness pushing higher for the fourth straight month even as the unemployment rate hit a fresh 7-year low of 5.2%.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Junk Bond Market Crash Stock Market Warning! / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
We are approaching the most anticipated and crucial week of the past seven years, and the global markets have been selling off. Last week, saw crude oil, junk bonds and the stock market competing with one another, while on their way down. Is there a connection between the three, or is it just a co-incidence that all three have fallen concurrently? Is the fall of one market, signaling a warning sign to the other(s)?
If you have any interest in either market, by way of investments, or if you are planning to become a part of the market, this article is for you. The junk bond markets are flashing a red signal, therefore, you should heed the warning.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
D-Day for Fed Fiat Credit System - Video / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Transcript Excerpt - December 16 2015 Wednesday it's the day will decide to hike interest rates
that's what most people think it's almost like a done deal so in my opinion
it's the Fed trying to deflate the biggest credit bubble amber and I guess
we don't have to go into details about that we all know that debt and credit
has been the highest ever USA national debt at almost 19 trillion so far it's
more than doubled since President Obama came to power so today will be the first
rate hike since I began its zero interest rate policy or its server or
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Federal Reserve At End Of Monetary Road / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
The all important context for Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, where the Federal Reserve is widely expected to hike interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade has been examined by the insightful Grant Williams. He is very skeptical of the Fed’s ability to continue to control markets much longer … and this is a gross understatement:
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