Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Why Expectations for Fed Tightening Are Misplaced / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Stimulus addicted markets ran into headwinds last week. Fed watchers found some hints about interest-rate tightening in the just-released FOMC’s July meeting minutes. That was all it took to rattle Wall Street.
Stocks have since recovered some of the initial losses, but it looks like history is about to repeat.
The U.S. economy is largely a mirage based on stimulus. Without artificially low interest rates, bond purchases (aka debt monetization), repo market support, and other extraordinary measures the central planners put in place, stock prices would fall.
There was a stock market correction in the fall of 2018 after which the Fed reversed course on tightening. And when COVID struck in March of 2020, the Fed quickly surrendered – cutting the funds rate all the way back to zero.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2021
T-Rex Tower Water Slide Ride Fun at Gullivers Rother Valley - UK Theme Parks 2021 / Personal_Finance / Theme Parks
It's Eliza's 7th Birthday soon and as a birthday treat we took her to the recently opened new Theme Park Gulliver's Rother Valley which is situated between Rotherham, Sheffield and Doncaster, so near three major urban areas. Gulliver's theme parks are mainly for under 10's so Eliza's teenage brothers and sisters were a bit bored but Eliza had a lot of fun. Here's what it was like to ride on the T-Rex Tower Water Slide ride. Lots of fun and one of the few rides that teenagers will enjoy.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2021
AI Neural Net Predicts Amazon, Microsoft and Apple Stock Prices Three Years Ahead / Companies / AI
Here my neural net stock price forecaster predicts where Amazon, Microsoft and Apple stock prices will be trading in 3 years time. For an expiation of the forecaster see AI Stocks Value Forecaster (ASVF) as excerpted form my recent extensive analysis -
AI Predicts AI Tech Stock Price Valuations into 2024, Time to Buy Chinese Tech Stocks?
Contents:
- AI Stocks Value Forecaster (ASVF).
- How I Use ASVF6 - Percent Upwards Pressure (PUP)
- AI Stocks Buying Levels Plus ASVF & PUP
- AI Stocks Portfolio Buying Levels
- Dow Stock Market Trend Forecasting Neural Nets
- Pattern Recognition
- Trend Analysis Preprocessing
- Crossing the Rubicon With These Three High Risk Tech Stocks
- Cheap Chinese Tech Stock 1
- Cheap Chinese Tech Stock 2
- Cheap Chinese Tech Stock 3
- CME Black Swan
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Gold Happy 50th Anniversary / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Friday the 13th of August 1971 was a very important date in U.S. history. It was the date that set the table for the beginning of the end of the USD's world reserve currency status. And, greatly expedited the road to perdition for the dollar's purchasing power.That means this past Friday was the 50-year anniversary of President Nixon's absolute termination of the dollar's ability to be redeemed for gold. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to review gold's performance since that time against some popular investments—especially since the MSFM took this same opportunity to impugn this most precious of metals—as they are always prone to do. And, to also once again explain what really drives the gold market.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2021
USDX Resurgence: Gold and Silver Don’t Let It Catch You Flat-Footed! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
With its negative correlation to the metals, the USDX rally weighed heavily on gold, silver and stocks. Stop and think: what would be if it continued?
While the overwhelming majority of investors entered 2021 with a bearish outlook for the U.S. dollar, our optimism has proved quite prescient. The USDX bottomed at the beginning of the year. With the USD Index hitting a new 2021 high last week – combined with the EUR/USD, the GDX ETF, the GDXJ ETF, and the price of silver (in terms of the closing prices) hitting new 2021 lows – the ‘pain trade’ has caught many market participants flat-footed. Even silver stocks (the SIL ETF) closed at new yearly lows.
Moreover, after the USD Index surged above the neckline of its inverse (bullish) head & shoulders pattern and confirmed the breakout above its cup and handle pattern, the combination of new daily and weekly highs is quite a bullish cocktail. Given all that, even if a short-term pullback materializes, the USDX remains poised to challenge ~97.5 - 98 over the medium term — perhaps even over the short term (next several weeks).
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Surprising Consumer Activity Suggests A Deeper Shift In The Finanical Markets / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2021
This final portion of our research article into the shifting US/global consumer spending/economic activities will help to set up forward expectations related to how assets and the stock market may react over the next 12+ months. In our opinion, the reflation trade/rally is complete, and consumers have already run the course with regards to stimulus spending, hyper-speculation of assets (cryptos, commodities, equities/stocks, and others). What happens next is we shift into the real-world future where post-reflation valuations, consumer activities, and corporate earnings will drive expectations.
There was a time, shortly after the November 2020 elections, that was very opportunistic for traders/speculators. The US Fed was prompting very easy monetary policy while multiple stimulus programs were still taking place. Additionally, the US economy was still early into the post-COVID reflation attempts. This created a real opportunity for traders and speculators to ride a hyper-speculative rally phase in late 2020 and into early 2021 as the Month-over-Month and Year-over-Year economic output data ramped up from the extreme COVID lows.
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Monday, August 23, 2021
AI Predicts Google Stock Price Three Years Ahead - WHITE CHAPEL AI Dominance! / Companies / Google
This is part 2 of my AI neural net 3 year stock price forecaster, where part 1 explained the AI Stocks Value Forecaster (ASVF) as excerpts form my recent extensive analysis -
AI Predicts AI Tech Stock Price Valuations into 2024, Time to Buy Chinese Tech Stocks?
Contents:
- AI Stocks Value Forecaster (ASVF).
- How I Use ASVF6 - Percent Upwards Pressure (PUP)
- AI Stocks Buying Levels Plus ASVF & PUP
- AI Stocks Portfolio Buying Levels
- Dow Stock Market Trend Forecasting Neural Nets
- Pattern Recognition
- Trend Analysis Preprocessing
- Crossing the Rubicon With These Three High Risk Tech Stocks
- Cheap Chinese Tech Stock 1
- Cheap Chinese Tech Stock 2
- Cheap Chinese Tech Stock 3
- CME Black Swan
The whole of which has first been made available to Patrons who support my work. So for immediate first access to ALL of my analysis and trend forecasts then do consider becoming a Patron by supporting my work for just $3 per month that is soon set to increase to $4 per month for new Patrons, so a short window of opportunity exists to lock in at $3 per month.. https://www.patreon.com/Nadeem_Walayat.
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Monday, August 23, 2021
Joe Biden’s Executive Order is Great for This “Backdoor EV” Play / Companies / Electric Cars
Did you hear Joe Biden’s big announcement?
He recently signed an executive order for half of all new car sales in America to be electric by 2030.
This is great news for electric automakers like Tesla, right?
Just as gas guzzling cars made early Ford and GM shareholders rich, the transition to electric vehicles will do the same for a new class of EV stocks.
But I don’t recommend buying Tesla, or any other automaker, today.
There’s an even more lucrative way to profit from the coming electric car boom. One that will help you make money no matter who wins the EV race.
This stock has already handed Disruption Investor members 200%+ gains. And my research shows it could triple again as electric cars go mainstream.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Stock Market U-Turn and Quite for Real / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2021
What doesn‘t go down, must go up? With a little Kaplan help, sideways S&P 500 trading well above 4,370 – 4,375 area spurted higher as the taper prospects rebalancing worked its magic. As I had been writing thoughout the week and well before, mathematics of growing deficits doesn‘t favor decreasing asset purchases. On top, the economy appears a little slowing down – while no recession this year or next is likely – we‘re midpoint in the expansion cycle as per my credit spread indicators – the slowdown looks inevitable, and the only question is the extent and seriousness of any Fed tapering.
The talking has thus far lifted the dollar, enabling the central bank to take on inflation through the back door. Combined with the decreasing margin debt (first sign that something with the M2 rate of growth is amiss), the reflation and commodity trades have suffered, and all it took was a mere 2.5% from S&P 500 ATHs to make the Fed blink as per the title of my prescient Friday article.
Treasuries though aren‘t yet convinced, having merely wavered – they‘re overestimating the odds of economic growth turning negative. The same trading action describes the dollar, and inflation expectations dipped on the day as well. As a result, expect the turn to risk on beyond stocks, to continue in fits and starts – Friday was but a first swallow revealing that the Fed is ready to step in when things start to look bleak for the „generally accepted metric of economic success“, the stock market.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Stock Market Correction Underway – How much? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
Current Position of the Market
SPX Long-term trend: There is some evidence that we are still in the bull market which started in 2009 and which could continue into 2021 until major cycles take over, and it ends. A move up to ~4500 is possible before the current bull market makes a final top and SPX corrects into its next major cycle low due in 2023.
SPX Intermediate trend: SPX correction underway.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done daily with the help of hourly charts. They are important adjuncts to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which determine longer market trends.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Can Betting Picks be a Genuine Career Path? / Personal_Finance / Gambling
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Sunday, August 22, 2021
Repo, Debt and Bond Markets in Financial Crisis 2.0, Michael "Big Short" Burry CRASH is Coming's Track Record / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2021
This is part 2 of my recent extensive analysis (Part 1) in advance of Financial Crisis 2.0 as a handful of stocks are driving the indices higher, Apple worth $2.3 trillion, Microsoft $2 trillion, Amazon $1.8 trillion, Google 1.8 trillion, Facebook $1 trillion even that over priced pile of poop Tesla came close to being valued at $1 trillion, we are definitely in a bubble, you only need to go onto youtube and watch the to the moon videos of Cathy Wood, literally everything's going to go to the moon because her barely out of puberty Quants decree it to be so. This is clearly a major warning sign of a unsustainable trend when indices are ruled by such a small clique of tech stocks where the greatest similarity is with the dot come bubble in terms of the valuation of stocks that actually produce revenues unlike the largely worthless dot com's of that time.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021
Gold Price and the ‘Taper Tantrum’ / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Gold prices are slipping as talk of a “taper tantrum” has investors thinking that the US Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program could be scaled back.
Over the last three days spot gold has dropped $18, peak to trough, on news of US jobless claims falling sharply to 348,000, and the US dollar scaling over a nine-month peak. The dollar’s rise makes gold expensive for holders of other currencies and therefore dents demand for the precious metal.
Good job news indicative of a potential taper and interest rate increase was also responsible for a gold take-down on Aug. 9, when the spot price and gold futures both settled around $1,726, the worst since Mid-April.
A few factors have taken the shine off gold, including a strong US economic recovery with lower unemployment and healthy manufacturing data (the IHS Markit US Manufacturing PMI has risen from 59 in January to 63.4 in July); a climbing US dollar index (from 89 in January to its current 93.56), and most importantly, persistent rumors that the US Federal Reserve will reduce its current $120 billion per month asset purchases designed to flood the financial system with money for lending out, and follow that up with a rise in interest rates.
Because gold does not offer a yield, any suggestion of raising rates makes it less attractive to investors looking for interest on their investments. And because gold is a hedge against inflation, winding down the Fed’s balance sheet (a tally of asset purchases) also dents gold’s appeal because there is less chance of rising inflation caused by a continuation of “quantitative easing”.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021
Apache Falls Water Splash Ride at Gulliver's Rother Valley Theme Park 2021 / Personal_Finance / Theme Parks
It's Eliza's 7th Birthday soon and as a birthday treat we took her to the recently opened new Theme Park Gulliver's Rother Valley which is situated between Rotherham, Sheffield and Doncaster, so near three major urban areas. Gulliver's theme parks are mainly for under 10's so Eliza's teenage brothers and sisters were a bit bored but Eliza had a lot of fun. Here's what it was like to ride on the Apache Falls water ride, the circular ride that you tend to have at most theme parks such as Legoland, Drayton Manor, Alton Towers etc. Lots of fun and one of the few rides that teenagers will enjoy.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021
Top Three Biggest Mistakes Made By Options Traders / Interest-Rates / Options & Warrants
I have been trading options and coaching / mentoring new options traders for years. I have seen new traders who were blindly successful and others who were so frustrated on the verge of giving up, I have seen it all. Over the years, I have seen some very common themes among all traders, especially with options. Options trading can be very rewarding but it is not as easy as buying and selling stocks. There are many more factors and variables you must take into consideration when trading options especially if you are swing trading them or holding them for an extended period of time.
There is a certain skill it requires that is a mix of technical, statistical, and fundamental analysis. These are not skills everyone has and you have to master all three if you want to be a really successful trader. I have noticed stock traders tend to have a good amount of fundamental and technical skills but usually lack in the statistical area. This can cause a problem when it comes to their success. While trading stocks, this might be a great formula that works but when switching to options it could be a losing formula. Many traders don’t know where they went wrong.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021
Stocks: What to Make of Wall Street's Sky-High Optimism / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
"I believe that the market moves in whatever direction hurts the most participants"
The U.S. stock market has been in an uptrend since March 2009 -- so, more than 12 years.
To add icing to the cake, there's this notable factoid (CNBC, August 16):
S&P 500 doubles from its pandemic bottom, marking the fastest bull market rally since WWII
So, after such a historic run, one might think that many Wall Street analysts would say that it's time to take at least some chips off the table.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021
Food Tech Startups Aim To Provide Healthy Tailor Made Meals / Companies / Retail Sector
The majority of consumers in the US and Europe want better information about food they eat, from the quality and origin of ingredients to their environmental impact according to a report from Betway. Companies are now working to increase consumer confidence in the food system by utilizing blockchain to improve transparency throughout the food chain. Its platform allows food companies to track batches and check them in real time as they move through the chain.The food tech industry is expanding rapidly with the emergence and development of verticals such as food and grocery deliveries, personal cooking boxes, on-demand meal delivery, and these verticals are becoming more popular by the day. The combination of product traceability, end-to-customer support and innovative sales models is what makes the technology possible. We believe we can create a new food culture by combining our technology with start-ups to develop new concepts in food technology.
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Saturday, August 21, 2021
The Rise And Fall Of Gold Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
The rise and fall of gold stocks is a story of hurt and disappointment. That is because most of the time gold stocks are in decline.
Below are four charts which depict the sad story. Following each chart I will make some brief comments…
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Saturday, August 21, 2021
Markets Making the Fed Blink / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2021
Sea of red in stocks, reversed shortly after the open – is the worst behind? Remembering my Tuesday‘s words bringing up again downside risk (these have been growing for quite a few days before already), I don‘t think so – I consider yesterday‘s volatility as likely not to have yet peaked, and the VIX close above 21 could be overcome perhaps as early as Tuesday.
It‘s that the shift in sentiment to risk off is everywhere to be seen – surging dollar, declining yields, value doing way worse than tech, gold outperforming silver, gold holding up very well, copper and oil striving to bottom, inflation expectations approaching the lower end of its recent range, and quite a few more signs including from select currency pairs – pretty consistent with the takeaways from yesterday‘s extensive analysis. If you hadn‘t read this taper navigation game plan already, have a look, as the feedback was very positive:
(…) This is the time to be picky about where to be exposed to risks, which asset classes are likely to ride the taper and growth storms best. I think it would be copper over oil, and gold over silver. The stock market correction appears in its opening stages indeed, and cryptos still chopping around would be a great result. It‘ll take a while for the dollar to roll over to the downside, but look for it to do so over the medium to longer term, and keep an eye on Treasuries – would be great if they confirmed my midpoint economic cycle hypothesis and didn‘t spike. Finally, I expect the Fed to come to its senses as not enough of what‘s left of the free market, would step up to the plate and finance growing „building back better“ deficits. So far, so good.
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Gold Stocks Break to New Yearly Lows! / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a breakdown! Gold stocks underperformed the yellow metal so much that they reached the lowest levels seen this year…
The HUI Index (gold stocks) broke to new 2021 lows while the USD Index broke to new 2021 highs. Just as I’ve been warning you.
Mining stocks’ extreme weakness relative to gold continued yesterday, and while it may seem like the weakness has to have a limit, this limit is likely still quite far from the markets right now.
Let’s take a look at the long-term HUI Index chart for details.