Monday, June 24, 2019
The Bad News About Record-Low Unemployment / Economics / US Economy
By: Robert_Ross
Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in 50 years.
That means most people who want to work can find a job. It also means people are making more money and buying more stuff.
All good. More people working is always positive. But a low unemployment rate is a double-edged sword.
See, the unemployment rate is cyclical. It’s always moving up or down. And at this point—3.6%—there’s almost no room for it to drop more.
That’s where the trouble starts: When the unemployment rate bottoms out, like it’s doing now, it means the economy has peaked. And a recession is probably coming…
Monday, June 24, 2019
Stock Market New High, but…! / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Andre_Gratian
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend – Finallong-term phase on the way? How much longer, is the question.
Intermediate trend – The intermediate-term correction continues to unfold.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily basis with the help of hourly charts. It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discusses the course of longer market trends.
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Monday, June 24, 2019
Formula for when the Great Stock Market Rally Ends / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: readtheticker
When valuations for the boring water company or the boring electric company is trading like your Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Netflix or Google (ie FANG) you know something is wrong.
This is when a seriously over valued market is screaming at you.
Of course the reader must understand in a world where money printing goes super nuts (Zimbabwe style) the stock market may go hyper inflationary and picking a time frame for a top is never a good idea, but we are not there yet. There is no Ben Bernanke helicopter money to the masses yet (ie MMT).
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Monday, June 24, 2019
How To Time Market Tops and Bottoms / InvestorEducation / Learn to Trade
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Following the first full weekend of Summer, we thought we would revisit our June 3, 2019 research post regarding a price pattern we love to trade – the Fibonacci Extension Bounce. This pattern sets up fairly often and the key to understanding this pattern and where these trades present real opportunity is in understanding the price dynamics behind these extensions. There are many instances where a Fibonacci price extension level will fail to promote a price bounce or rebound – and the price will just keep trending higher or lower past the extension level.
You can read our original research post here that clearly shows the bottom and our price targets.
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Monday, June 24, 2019
5 basic tips to help mitigate the vulnerability inherent in email communications / Personal_Finance / Cyber Crime
By: Travis_Bard
Email is one of the most vulnerable areas in any network infrastructure. Why? Because any time you send an email, it leaves one network and moves into another.
While on transit, a sniffer can read the email, or, one of the servers between sender and receiver can intercept and save the email.
Monday, June 24, 2019
Gold’s Century - While stocks dominated headlines, gold quietly performed / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Michael_J_Kosares
“For twelve consecutive years, gold was up every single year whether there were inflation fears, deflation fears; strong dollar, weak dollar; political stability, political instability. It didn’t matter – strong oil, weak oil. . . Gold went up for twelve years. . . When gold embarks upon its next move, I believe that you will see that long wave take gold relatively quickly, but it will be measured in years, up to a $3000 to $5000 target that I believe is fundamentally justified based on the facts we have today.” –– Thomas Kaplan, Electrum Group (Bloomberg’s Peer to Peer Conversations with David Rubinstein)
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Monday, June 24, 2019
Will Google AI Kill Us? Man vs Machine Intelligence / Politics / AI
By: N_Walayat
Every search we do feeds the Google AI with more and more data about who we really are and thus how to predict our actions under a wide variety of circumstances. Throw into the mix Google's continuing expansion into every aspect of our lives coupled with the exponential growth in processing power then we are perhaps no more than a year or so away when Google's AI will surpass that which even the smartest of humans are able to understand what it's getting up to with potentially dire consequences for mankind unless we try to keep pace with the machine intelligence by upgrading ourselves both mentally and physically which is the focus of this video.
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Monday, June 24, 2019
Trump’s Trade War Is Paralyzing Business / Economics / Protectionism
By: Patrick_Watson
Last week the Business Roundtable, an organization of large company leaders, released its quarterly CEO Economic Outlook Index.The index tracks what executives expect for sales, capital spending, and hiring over the next six months.
The good news is the index has been above its historic average for 10 consecutive quarters. The bad news is, it fell the last five of those quarters.
CEO optimism peaked in Q1 2018, following a climb that began in Q4 2016. Now in Q2 2019, much of the confidence is gone.
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Sunday, June 23, 2019
Trump Clueless On Trade Tariffs / Politics / Protectionism
By: Steve_H_Hanke
President Trump doesn’t like U.S. trade deficits. He also doesn’t like migrants flowing into the U.S. from south of the border. His tariffs and tariff threats are slowing trade and world economic growth. And this will, in turn, increase the migrant flows into the United States. After all, as foreign economic activity slows, and more foreigners are either thrown out of work or find their incomes drying up, they will be motivated to migrate. Trump remains clueless as to why tariffs fuel migration.
But, that’s not Trump’s only international trade blind spot. He and his cabinet think that U.S. trade deficits are a problem, and that they are caused by foreign countries that manipulate their currencies and engage in unfair trade practices. These ideas are wrongheaded.
These misguided ideas have plagued other administrations—even those lead by free-market presidents, like Ronald Reagan. Indeed, I spent many days, while at Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, trying to defend the President’s free-trade ideas. But, at the end of the day, the free-trader faction, which was led by the likes of Reagan himself, lost the war. The protectionists who harbored exactly the same wrongheaded ideas as Trump rolled us.
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Sunday, June 23, 2019
The Gold Market Manipulation Theory / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Rambus_Chartology
’ve always said that gold built out one of the most beautiful bull markets of all time between the 2001 low and 2011 high. From a Chartology perspective it just doesn’t get any better. During the bull market years I called this weekly bar chart, “JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL, because each consolidation pattern marked another brick in the wall.
The reason I’m posting this chart tonight is because we could be embarking on a similar bull market starting at the 2001 low. Take a minute and put yourself back at the 2001 low not knowing what lies ahead. As gold began to rally the first thing one would look for in a new bull market is a consolidation pattern which gold produced in 2002 that was the blue triangle. Once the price action broke out of that small blue triangle the next impulse began confirming the new bull market. From that point one had to believe in the Chartology that the major trend was up until a new lower low was put in place. As long as each consolidation pattern was followed by an impulse move up the bull market remained intact, rinse and repeat.
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Sunday, June 23, 2019
Why are Central Banks Buying Gold and Dumping Dollars? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Richard_Mills
The US Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, did what many expected on Wednesday, and held interest rates steady, while signaling that a rate cut is on its way.
Despite pressure from President Trump to lower interest rates, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) concluded after a two-day meeting that it will stay pat for now, meaning no change to the 2.25% to 2.5% range on the federal funds rate. Nine of 10 FOMC members voted to keep rates unchanged.
Language here is important. The Fed reportedly dropped its pledge to be “patient” on widely anticipated rate cuts, meaning it could be poised to act. Also, Reuters said, Fed Chair Jerome Powell stopped referring to below-target inflation as “transient”.
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Sunday, June 23, 2019
Financial Sector Paints A Clear Picture For Stock Market Trading Profits / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
After the incredible week we’ve seen, with the Fed leaving rates unchanged and precious metals rocketing higher above their previous five-year highs, it’s time we pay attention to what’s happening in the financial sector and the US stock market majors. Closing out this week, we heard all traders and investors pay very close attention to the US dollar, precious metals, and the US major indexes.
There are a number of major factors taking place throughout the world that will likely drive future price trends over the next 30 to 60 days. Tensions in the Middle East, debt issues in China and Europe, central bank actions throughout the world and the US, and the ultimate driver of price moves – fear and greed. We’ve mentioned to a number of associates recently that our research focuses on the transition of traders from fear into greed. Our belief is that as traders begin to fear certain events or price trends, the price action tends to become more volatile. As this volatility increases and trends accelerate, traders transition this fear into greed where they attempt to take advantage of opportunities generated by large price swings.
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Sunday, June 23, 2019
What You Should Look While Choosing Online Casino / Personal_Finance / Gambling
By: Submissions
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Saturday, June 22, 2019
INTEL (INTC) Stock Investing to Profit From AI Machine Learning Boom / Companies / AI
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Where to invest to profit from the exponential machine intelligence mega-trend. I have ranked these stocks in in terms of risk vs reward and volatility. Do remember that when investing in the stock market that your capital is at risk. There are NO SURE BETS!
If you've not already done so then watch my following video from November 2016 which illustrates why everything will start to change exponentially by 2021.
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Saturday, June 22, 2019
Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran / Politics / US Military
By: Raul_I_Meijer
As a nation, you’re certifiedly (is that a word?!) in deep trouble if and when Donald Trump is your most peaceloving man. But nevertheless, that is America today. It all harks back to the days when Trump was first -grudgingly and painstakingly- recognized as an actual presidential candidate.
He campaigned as a man who would end the costly and neverending decades-old and counting US wars far away from American shores and territory. He hasn’t lived up to those campaign goals at all, far from it, and he hired doofuses like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to show everyone that he didn’t, but in the early hours of June 21 2019 he apparently decided at the last minute that it just didn’t add up.
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Saturday, June 22, 2019
Eye on Key USD Support and Implications for Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Mike_Paulenoff
The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) is worth watching closely today, with important implications for Gold.
The DXY is pressing on key support at 96.40/50. This represents the June 7 pullback low as well as the 200 DMA, the Sep 2018-Present support line, and the major up trendline off of the Feb 2018 low at 88.25, which initiated the up-leg to the April 2019 high at 98.33.
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Saturday, June 22, 2019
Here’s Why You Should Drive a Piece of Crap Car / Personal_Finance / Auto Sector
By: Jared_Dillian
I was unhappily scrolling through Facebook the other day and saw that one of my smart friends had posted a dumb article about the excellent Toronto Raptors basketball player who, despite making nearly a hundred million dollars, still drives a 20-year-old beater SUV.
He said of the car: “It runs… and it’s paid off.”
The second part of that statement is crucial. There is nothing better than a paid-off car. There is no monthly payment, and most of the depreciation has already occurred. You are driving for free.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
How Do Stock Prices React to Fed Interest Rate Cuts? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Dimitri_Speck
The “Greatest Economy in History” Stumbles
“This is the greatest economy in the history of our country”, Donald Trump opined just a few months ago.
Alas, recently there is growing evidence of an economic slowdown.
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Friday, June 21, 2019
Gold Bull Market Breaking Out! / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Zeal_LLC
Gold finally surged to new bull-market highs this week! Several years after its last bull high, gold punched through vexing resistance after the Fed continued capitulating on ever normalizing. This huge milestone changes everything for gold and its miners’ stocks, unleashing new-high psychology fueling self-feeding buying. With speculators not yet all-in and investors wildly underdeployed, gold has room to power much higher.
Gold momentum has certainly been building for a major upside breakout. Back in mid-April with gold still near $1300, I wrote an essay describing the “Gold-Bull Breakout Potential” and why it was finally coming. Then a couple weeks ago with gold in the $1330s, I published another one analyzing “Gold Surges Near Breakout”. For several years higher lows had slowly compressed gold ever closer to surging over resistance.
Today’s gold bull was first born back in mid-December 2015 the day after the Fed’s initial rate hike in its just-abandoned tightening cycle. Gold’s maiden upleg was massive, rocketing 29.9% higher in just 6.7 months to $1365 in early July 2016! But that first high-water mark has proven impregnable over the 3.0 years since. Gold tried and failed to break out in 2017, 2018, and 2019, repelled near a $1350 Maginot Line.
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Friday, June 21, 2019
Post-FOMC Commentary: Delusions of Grandeur / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: The_Gold_Report
Sector expert Michael Ballanger reacts to today's Federal Open Market Committee meeting. To the surprise of the many and the chagrin of the few, the Fed opted to do nothing with policy today and left rates unchanged despite clarion calls for a cut. As I wrote about earlier, there was (and is) zero rationale for a rate cut, what with GDP humming along and the best employment numbers in fifty years (if you believe them). Stocks moved higher despite several attempts at profit-taking, but that was no surprise because the Fed wanted to make damn certain the response to the statement and the ensuing presser would be a positive outcome.
The victims were bond yields (lower) and the U.S. dollar (lower), but the S&P rose 8.71 (0.30%), while gold had at its highest close for 2019 at $1,364.45. The lower U.S. dollar contributed to the advance in the metals, but we are still caught in a resistance quagmire between $1,350 and $1,375, with the relative strength index (RSI) screaming "Overbought!" after an $80 advance.
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