Friday, March 23, 2018
US Trade Tariffs - Trading Barbs Down To The Wire / Politics / Protectionism
By: Brady_Willett
The opening salvos have been fired and the body count could soon start piling up. No, I am not talking about the steel and aluminum tariffs announced by Trump a couple of weeks ago (which seemed to be more of a ploy to try and encourage favorable NAFTA/trade negotiations rather than a real act of ‘war’). Rather, the sides doing battle now are the world’s two biggest economic guns – the U.S. and China!
Trump slaps China with about $60 billion in tariffs CNBC Memorandum
China responds to Trump tariffs with proposed list of 128 US products to target CNBC
Friday, March 23, 2018
Gold Junior Mining Stocks GDXJ Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2018
By: Zeal_LLC
The junior gold miners’ stocks have spent much of the past year grinding sideways near lows, sapping confidence and breeding widespread bearishness. The entire precious-metals sector has been left for dead, eclipsed by the dazzling taxphoria stock-market rally. But traders need to keep their eyes on the fundamental ball so herd sentiment doesn’t mislead them. The juniors’ recent Q4 results proved quite strong.
Four times a year publicly-traded companies release treasure troves of valuable information in the form of quarterly reports. Required by securities regulators, these quarterly results are exceedingly important for investors and speculators. They dispel all the sentimental distortions surrounding prevailing stock-price levels, revealing the underlying hard fundamental realities. That serves to re-anchor perceptions.
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Friday, March 23, 2018
Global Trade War Fears See Precious Metals Gain And Stocks Fall / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: GoldCore
– Market turmoil as trade war concerns deepen and Trump appoints war hawk Bolton
– Oil, gold and silver jump as ‘Russia China Hawk’ Bolton appointed
– Oil up 4%, gold up 2.2% and silver up 1.6% this week (see table)
– Stocks down sharply – Nikkei down 4.5%, S&P 4.3% & Nasdaq 5.5%
– Bolton scares jittery markets already shell-shocked by US’ tariffs against China
– Currency wars and trade wars tend to proceed actual wars
– Gold now outperforming stocks year to date (see table)
Friday, March 23, 2018
Stocks Recovering from a "deep dive" Overnight / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX futures challenged the Cycle Bottom support by declining overnight to 2718.50. It is now in bounce mode and may challenge the trendline today. The 38.2% retracement is almost precisely at the trendline at 2702.83 while the 50% retracement is at 2721.74. Mid-Cycle resistance at 2714.10 is a common retracement point. There is central bank intervention. The question is, how far can they retrace lost ground?
Friday, March 23, 2018
Debt Cycles and Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
There is a range of factors which drive the Kondratiev waves. Following Schumpeter, we have focused so far on technological innovations. However, debt cycles are also a key. What are they?
The debt cycles are comprised of alternate leveraging and deleveraging of debt. The former occurs when people incur debt, increasing the debt-to-income ratio, or the debt-to-assets ratio. The latter is the opposite, so it means paying back the debts, which leads to the decrease in the amount of debt relative to wages or assets.
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Friday, March 23, 2018
Blaming the Fed for Weaker Greenback US Dollar / Currencies / US Dollar
By: Nadia_Simmons
Although the Federal Reserve raised interest rates yesterday, the forecast for two more hikes this year (instead of three) disappointed market participants who turned their backs on the U.S. dollar, triggering quite sharp selloff. But did anything really change in the technical picture of the greenback?
Before we analyze our currency pairs, let’s check what changed (and what has not changed) in the short-term picture of the USD Index after yesterday’s news (chart courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
The Tertiary Bubbles Have Blown Up… Can the Fed Manage the Secondary Ones? / Stock-Markets / Liquidity Bubble
By: Graham_Summers
The big questions being tossed around Wall Street today are: why are markets such a mess? Why are we getting these wild swings?
The reality is that the markets are NOT a mess. These are actually normal healthy markets. Healthy markets move, sometimes a lot in a small span of time.
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
Watch This Group Signal Stock Market Trend Changes / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: EWI
Virtually all stock market forecasting is based on the fallacy of linear extrapolation
Many investors would welcome a "secret insight" about the stock market that someone whispers in their ear.
But you can get "tipped off" on when a financial trend is about to change from a very public source that many investors may overlook.
That source is none other than the U.S. government.
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
Gold +1.8%, Silver +2.5% As Fed Increases Rates And Trade War Looms / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: GoldCore
– Gold gained 1.8% and silver 2.5% to $1,333/oz and $16.60/oz yesterday
– Gold climbs as Fed increases interest rates by 0.25% – now 1.5% to 1.75% range
– Dovish Fed Chair Powell plans fewer than expected rate hikes in 2018
– Markets disappointed at lack of hawkish comments from new Fed Chair
– Dollar LIBOR rises to highest level since November 2008 – $200 trillion worth of dollar-denominated financial products including mortgages based off LIBOR
– Trade wars look set to escalate and Trump expected to announce tariffs on Chinese imports today
Thursday, March 22, 2018
When Is Three Better for Gold Than Four? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
His hand didn’t shake. Powell hiked interest rates at the first FOMC meeting with him as the Chair. But the key factor for the gold market is what he signaled about the future path of the federal funds rate. The crucial word is “three”, not “four”.
Another Meeting, Another Hike
In line with expectations, the FOMC acknowledged the improved economic outlook and raised interest rates again. The key paragraph of the recent monetary policy statement is as follows:
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Stocks are Gapping Beneath the Trendline Support / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX futures appear to be gapping down beneath the trendline at 2700.00. This may be yet another big down day.
ZeroHedge reports, “Yesterday, we showed that according to Wall Street, the biggest tail risk facing investors right now is a "trade war"...
... and that should trade tensions escalate, lower stock prices would be the immediate result (and that managers would sell stocks in advance).
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
Fed Action Casts Shadow on Bullish Case for Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Paul_Rejczak
Fed's interest rate hike drove stocks lower on Wednesday, as investors feared tightening monetary policy could considerably slow future growth. Will stock market indexes continue lower today? Expectations before the opening of today's trading session are very negative, but we may see more volatility. The market is still at a crossroads.
The main U.S. stock market indexes lost 0.2-0.3% on Wednesday's following relatively brief rally after the FOMC's Rate Decision release. The S&P 500 index continued to fluctuate within its short-term consolidation. It is currently around 5.2% below January 26 record high of 2,872.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2%, and the technology Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3%.
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
A Strong Economy and Weak Stock Market is Bullish for Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Troy_Bombardia
The stock market and economy move in sync over the long run. When the stock market deviates from the economy, it inevitably realigns itself with the economy’s direction within a few months.
The U.S. stock market’s correction in February 2018 was accompanied by a growing economy. This implies that the current “small correction” will not turn into a “significant correction” or bear market. Here’s the study: what happens when…
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
Fed Raises US Interest Rates 25bp – Where Are We In The Stock Market Cycle? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Chris_Vermeulen
With the news today from the US Fed and the rate hike, we should all be asking ourselves “where are we in the market cycle” so that we can prepare for and identify proper trades that may set up in our future. One thing is for sure; we are not in the perpetual easing environment of the past 7+ years. The Fed indicated they are expecting at least two more rate increases are expected this year and also hinted that a forth may be possible depending on the economic activity.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Why Spotify Will Likely Surge During Its IPO / Companies / IPOs
By: Boris_Dzhingarov
IPO’s are nothing new to the market. At the end of the day, companies go public all the time. Some of them fly out of the gates, some of them fall dramatically, and others stay relatively flat. However, when it comes to spotify in particular, this thing is likely to soar.Sure, the company is a strong company, and there’s definitely value here. However, that’s not the primary reason that the Spotify stock price is likely to rocket on the launch of the IPO. The big reason has to do with the unique aspects of the shares that will become available when the IPO goes public. Today, we’ll talk about what’s so unique about the shares that will be sold during the Spotify IPO, why this unique aspect will likely lead to a big spike in value right out of the gate, and what to watch for following the IPO launch.
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
SY Police Arrest Woman for Blowing Trumpet at Sheffield Tree Felling Protest / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
Since the thawing of the beast from the east snow, South Yorkshire police who attend each tree felling in numbers of upwards of 35 have increasingly been becoming more aggressive in the arrest of tree protestors, which now includes for just blowing a small plastic children's trumpet, as happened to this lady on Rivelin Valley Road Wednesday.
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Thursday, March 22, 2018
SY Police Arrest Elderly Sheffield Tree Protestor on Rivelin Valley Road / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
Rivelin valley Road, Wednesday 21 March. The treatment by the Police of this elderly Tree Defender illustrates what is happening on Sheffield's streets on a daily basis. Quite outrageous. The gentleman concerned was arrested under suspicion of a minor obstruction (S303 Highways Act 1980) offence.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Facebook: The Anti-Social Network Covert Data Gathering / Companies / Internet
By: Raul_I_Meijer
All of a sudden, politicians in the EU, UK, and USA all want to talk to Mark Zuckerberg. That’s a bad enough sign all by itself. It means they all either have been asleep, complicit, or they’re not very bright. The media tries to convince us the Facebook ‘scandal’ is about Trump, Russia (yawn..) and elections. It’s not. Not even close.
If Zuckerberg ever shows up for any of these meetings with ‘worried’ politicians, he’ll come with a cabal of lawyers in tow, and they’ll put the blame on anyone but Facebook and say the company was tricked by devious parties who didn’t live up to their legal agreements.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Chaos is the Only Way Out of Interest Rates Normalisation / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Michael_Pento
The prevailing fiction pervading Wall Street right now is that economic growth is picking up in a sustainable fashion and that interest rates will merely rise slowly. Then, soon level off at historically low levels. In other words, they are selling a fairytale; and a dangerous one at that.
This premise is blatantly false. The Fed’s reverse QE program, Government debt levels and Nominal Gross Domestic Product, all dictate that the 10-year Note Yield should be now swiftly on its way to at least 4.5%, from the artificial level of 1.4% found in July of 2016.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Additional Signs for Gold and Silver Amid Increasing FOMC Tension / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Are you feeling lucky? We all should. Whether you’re short or long gold (or you’re waiting on the sidelines), the additional day of signals is truly a blessing. That is if you know what to look at. The previous days and weeks provided us with multiple signs and yesterday’s price action served as the – likely final – sign before the big price move. Were you listening?
Let’s start today’s analysis with something that we didn’t feature so far this week – the short-term look at the gold stocks to gold ratio (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
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