Sunday, October 18, 2015

UK Stocks FTSE Poised for Bounce / Stock-Markets / UK Stock Market

By: Richard_Cox

For most of this year, investors have been fixated on the monthly performances seen in the S&P 500.  There is good reason for this, as most of the market is still trying to assess whether or not the index can maintain its record levels into the end of 2015.  So it is not surprising to see ETFs like the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (NYSE: SPY) getting as much attention as it has.  But when we take a step back and look for alternative trends in other areas of the market, some interesting opportunities start to become clear. 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Quantitative Easing Was a Bust; Let’s Try Higher Wages Instead / Economics / Wages

By: Mike_Whitney

Why is the economy still in the doldrums after 6 years of zero rates and three rounds of Quantitative Easing?

It’s because consumers aren’t consuming and there’s too much debt. You see, despite the Fed’s wacko theories about pumping liquidity into the financial system to make investors feel wealthier, people actually have to buy things to generate growth. And the truth is, consumers have reduced their spending because wages are flat, incomes are falling and many of them are still hanging on by the skin of their teeth.  So consumption has been unusually weak. Economist Stephen Roach made a good point in an article at Project Syndicate. He said, “In the 22 quarters since early 2008, real personal-consumption expenditure, which accounts for about 70% of US GDP, has grown at an average annual rate of just 1.1%, easily the weakest period of consumer demand in the post-World War II era.” (It’s also a) “massive slowdown from the pre-crisis pace of 3.6% annual real consumption growth from 1996 to 2007.” (“Occupy QE“, Stephen S. Roach, Project Syndicate)

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Stock Market Lots of Downside Ahead, Major Tops and Bottoms Analysis Since 1950 / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Submissions

With the recent melt down in global markets, it would be prudent to look back at historical data on the US market to see where we stand. To do this I look at major tops and bottoms in the S & P 500 obtained from weekly historical data from Yahoo Finance since 1950. The first table below shows major tops and bottoms in the S and P 500 relative to the average and standard deviation:

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Now is the Time to Short Gold and Silver / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Submissions

Tony Mermer writes: Gold's recent rally has convinced many investors and traders that the precious metals bear market is over. I disagree. Since I believe that the gold and silver bear markets are not over, the recent rally is merely a rally within this bear market. This rally is probably over, so here's why now is the time to short gold and silver.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Homo Sapiens Rationalensis Diverging From Revelation to the Apocalypse / Politics / Evolution

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This article continues from Part 1 - The First Prophet - Homo Sapiens Shrinking Brains Diverging Species, that covered the period from the emergence of Homo Sapien Religious some 75,000 years ago, their journey out of Africa and the role religious myths have played in bonding tribes of humans together, eventually settling down and farming some 10,000 years ago. However, the consequences of which has unfortunately been for the shrinkage of average human brain size by about 10% as 99% of humans along with many animals and plants were domesticated, slaves where a religious elite made all of the major decisions for them, hence reduction in the requirement for a large energy hungry brain.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

The Bulls*#* Markets / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Barry_M_Ferguson

Everybody these days is a liar and a thief. We all know about US and China propaganda. Now, look at the Germans. Car maker Volkswagen was caught cheating the emissions standards in their diesel vehicles. Their biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, was again fined for cheating and stealing as they rigged libor rates. Last quarter they were fined some $2.5 billion and now they are facing an additional fine of $6 billion. Seems they were also laundering money for the Russian gangster land. Of course, there is no problem. In today’s world run by the new world order of banksters, if the bank can’t pay the fines the central banksters of Europe will just steal the money from the ignorant sheeple and give it to the bank. How do you say ‘liar’ in German? Is it ‘lugner’? 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

The First Prophet - Homo Sapiens Shrinking Brains Diverging Species / Politics / Evolution

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Before I plunge into the main topic of this analysis, here's a quick update of where the stock market trend currently stands. We are now half way through October, which is THE month for stock market doom and gloom! The month when the stock market crash proponents are at their most vocal as its 1929, 1987 and 2008 all over again so a stock market crash is imminent. Though this time its worse than usual because even those who may have been 'mostly' bullish apparently have thrown in the towel several weeks ago to at least conclude that a stocks bear market had begun.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Are Stock Markets About to Repeat the 1929 Crash? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Graham_Summers

In the early 2000s, Alan Greenspan was worried about deflation. So he hired Ben Bernanke, the self-proclaimed expert on the Great Depression from Princeton. The idea was that with Bernanke as his right hand man, Greenspan could put off deflation from hitting the US. Indeed, one of Bernanke’s first speeches was titled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here”

The US did briefly experience a bout of deflation from late 2007 to early 2009. To combat this, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke unleashed an unprecedented amount of Fed money. Remember, Bernanke claims to be an expert on the Great Depression, and his entire focus was to insure that the US didn’t repeat the era of the ‘30s again.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Shanghai Gold Exchange Withdrawals Running at Record Pace / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Jesse

Withdrawals of gold from the Shanghai Exchange alone are at 1,958 tonnes for the year. The first chart below compares that pace to the prior years.

As I noted the other day, the mispricing of value and risk in the gold market, primarily driven by traders in London and New York, is calling a form of Gresham's Law into action.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Stock Market Primary V Continues / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Tony_Caldaro

The market started the week at SPX 2015. After a rally to SPX 2022 on Tuesday the market pulled back to 1991 by Wednesday. After that, helped by two gap openings, the market rallied Thursday/Friday to post new uptrend highs at SPX 2034. For the week the SPX/DOW gained 0.85%, the NDX/NAZ gained 1.40%, and the DJ World gained 0.50%. On the economic front reports continue to be mixed to negative. On the uptick: retail sales, consumer sentiment, plus weekly jobless claims improved. On the downtick: the CPI/PPI, NY/Philly FED, industrial production, capacity utilization, the WLEI and GDPn. Next week lots of Housing reports, Leading indicators, and the ECB meets.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Gold Price Retracement / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Gary_Savage

At 12 weeks gold has probably produced it's first right translated intermediate cycle in almost 3 years. But after 2 big up weeks in a row and a test of the 50 WMA it would mot be unusual for gold to back off and regroup for a week or two before breaking through that resistance.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

The way you treat your elderly today is how you will be treated tomorrow / Politics / Social Issues

By: Michael_T_Bucci

The fact that there will be no COLA (Cost of Living) increase in 2016 for 65 million recipients of Social Security will be acutely painful in Maine, which hosts the oldest population in the nation; and in Lincoln County, Maine, the second oldest county in Maine where public transportation is non-existent, community outreach is at best minimal and in which 25% of the population is age 65 and over. (1) Furthermore, 30% of Medicare beneficiaries — an estimated 17 million Americans — could see their Part B premium and deductible rise 52% because of provisions in the Social Security law.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Gold And Silver - Obama Is Bullish for Gold And Silver / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015

By: Michael_Noonan

Obama is ultimately bullish for gold and silver. His erratic and often incompetent decision-making can only cause both PMs to rally. Here is part of the reason why:

Russia's entry into the Syrian conflict to fight real terrorists is as much a side-show as it is a pivotal power play and game changer for Putin in the Middle East [ME]. We continue to report on this for diametrically opposed reasons. It puts a glaring focus on Obama's political inabilities, similar to watching a satirical comedy sketch, while at the same time, there is the potential for WWIII, mostly due to the instability of US policies. This is a tragicomedy unfolding before us on the world's stage.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Stock Market At The Breakout On The S&P 500... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Jack_Steiman

We need a strong push up next week to clear with force, but here we sit right at the 2030 breakout on the S&P 500. It seemed as if we'd never back test this far up where the two-hundred day exponential moving average lives. Bull market normally don't die easily. I expected this type of move over time, although we haven't cleared yet, thus shouldn't think about testing back up to the old highs. Let's not put the cart in front of the horse. We need to clear powerfully, and then the odds would increase dramatically that we'd pay a visit towards S&P 500 2134 or those old highs. The bulls are trying although some of the daily charts are seeing their stochastic's get overbought, but not the MACD's or RSI's so there's hope.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Gold and Silver Price Test Initial Resistance / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

The precious metals sector, after failing to breakdown has enjoyed a strong rally in recent weeks. Gold, Silver and junior gold miners (GDXJ) have reached their 200-day moving averages with senior miners (GDX) close behind. While this is a positive development it does not yet signal that the sector is embarking on a new bull market trend. There are a few things to keep an eye on over the days and weeks to come that can help us determine if a new bull market is taking shape.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Walmart’s Ominous Stock Market Signal / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: John_Rubino

Companies like Walmart and McDonalds’s have made their investors rich by squeezing costs and cutting prices. But it turns out that low-cost means low-wage, and as this model spread it contributed to the now-impossible-to-ignore migration of income and wealth from workers to owners of the capital and symbol manipulation skills that such a system demands.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Radical Gold Stocks Underinvestment / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015

By: Zeal_LLC

Despite gold blasting higher this month, this metal remains deeply out of favor among investors.  They have shunned it for years thanks to extreme central-bank money printing levitating stock markets.  This slayed demand for alternative investments, led by gold.  But the resulting radical underinvestment in gold today is super-bullish.  Vast capital inflows will be necessary to return gold investment to normal levels.

It’s impossible to overstate just how much gold is hated these days.  Investors’ opinions on it range from total apathy to fervently believing gold is the worst investment on Earth.  You can easily test this out in your own social circles.  The next time the markets or investing come up, ask if gold is now a good buy.  Everyone will say no, usually emphatically.  And if you advocate for gold, they’ll think you’re naive or stupid.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Silver Price Green Light / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: DeviantInvestor

Silver looks like it has bottomed and will move substantially higher.  Why?

Long Term – 25+ years:  Examine the silver to gold ratio since 1990.  The ratio is currently low and appears to have bottomed.  Silver bottoms when the ratio bottoms.  Expect a multi-year rally.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Can the Fed Really Print Money? What Would Negative Interest Rates Do? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Mike_Shedlock

Most people believe the Fed can print money. Caught on tape, former Fed chair Ben Bernanke once admitted the Fed prints money.

However, in Hoisington's Third Quarter 2015 Review, economist Lacy Hunt makes the claim the Fed cannot print money. Let's take a look, emphasis mine.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Stock Markets Rolling Over / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

SPX appears to have turned precisely at 9:34 am, 86 market hours after it reversed from its low on September 29. There was a combined PC/TC low due on October 1, so the bottom was 2 days early. It is possible that the perception that SPX could not make a new low that drove the buyers back into the market at the end of September. Once it took hold, the market took off.

Sunday is scheduled as a Primary Cycle high, so the turn is expected. Despite the aggressive nature of the call, you may wish to go 50% to as much as 100% short at this juncture. The market may linger her for the rest of this morning, but I don’t think that the retail options will do as well as the Index option fared this morning.