Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Will the Last Week of December Surprise the Financial Markets? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2017
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Holiday Greetings!
I hope you and those you love are doing well over the holidays. My wife and I were happy to learn that another grandchild is on the way. SPX futures are marginally lower, but continue to find support at the upper trendline of the Broadening formation.
ZeroHedge reports, “For the second day in a row, most Asian markets - at least the ones that are open - were dragged lower by tech stocks and Apple suppliers, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index down 0.2% led by Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in response to the previously noted report that Apple will slash Q1 sales forecasts for iPhone X sales by 40% from 50 million to 30 million. Most Asian equity benchmarks fell except those in China. European stocks were mixed in a quiet session while U.S. equity futures are little changed as markets reopen after the Christmas holiday.”
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Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Gold and Silver Intermediate Cycle Update / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: SurfCity
While we are not out of the woods just yet, evidence it beginning to build, from a Price and Time perspective, that an Intermediate Cycle low has been left behind. Gold’s daily and weekly charts look constructive thus far as are the COT reports but the volume patterns are a bit concerning as volume is declining as we have moved higher and we want to see this pattern reverse as volume should start to increase as we move higher. We have confirmed that Gold has found a short term TCL / DCL, including a failed TCL which is one of the factors we look for when a longer ICL develops.
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Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Chinese Economy in 2018 and Beyond / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
In the coming years, China shall aim at high-quality development, while seeking to forestall financial and international risks.The recent Central Economic Work Conference marked a historical point in China’s economic development. After Mao’s struggle for the mainland’s sovereignty, and Deng’s economic reforms and opening-up, President Xi’s team seeks complete much of the transition to post-industrial society by the early 2020s.
What does it all mean for Chinese economy in 2018?
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Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Military/ Intelligence/ Security Industrial Complex Rules / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: BATR
When Harry Browne wrote and first published back on January 1, 1973 How to be Free in an Unfree World, few people realized just how much more difficult it would be to apply his rational lessons to a world completely gone mad in a rush to hasten Armageddon. Listening to Harry Browne back in 1980 at a monetary conference, the audience was eager to unlock the keys to attain financial security. Well, in the succeeding decades, most astute observers of the financial conditions have found a way to acquire, at least a modest degree of fiscal accomplishment.
Monday, December 25, 2017
Towards "Nuclear Winter”? / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: Dan_Steinbock
All efforts to resolve the elevated nuclear tensions in the Korean Peninsula should be subject to extreme caution, due to the potential of massive collateral damage of death, destruction, radiation and environmental collapse.Reportedly, Washington is drawing up plans for a “bloody nose” military attack on North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program. According to high-level sources, the White House has “dramatically” stepped up preparation for a military solution in recent months amid fears diplomacy is not working.
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Monday, December 25, 2017
SPX at Key Support Level / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Andre_Gratian
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend – The bull market is continuing with no sign of a major top in sight.
Intermediate trend – Possible short-term high.
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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Sunday, December 24, 2017
Magical Christmas Lights Helium Balloons at Peace Gardens, Sheffield / Politics / Holidays
By: Anika_Walayat
Here's a magical optical illusion created by use of these transparent Christmas lights helium balloons as this video from Sheffield's Peace Gardens illustrates where their two giant bauble and box present walk in light displays as if by magic reappear within the helium balloons.
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Sunday, December 24, 2017
Christmas Eve Online Sales 2017, Boxing Day High Street Sales Full List / Personal_Finance / Shopping
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britain's Christmas high street sales frenzy is about to reach maximum intensity on Boxing day whilst most major retailers such as NEXT and PC World / Curry's will start their sales online on Christmas Eve so as to maximise profits from the the army of point and click armchair shoppers. Here is a comprehensive list of sales starting today, Christmas Eve and continuing into the high streets on Boxing day as well as those already well underway. As distressed retailers who have had an horrid year as illustratated by ToysRUs which this week came within hours of going bust as illustrated by recent video.
Sunday, December 24, 2017
EURUSD Moved Sideways Between 1.1554 And 1.2092 / Currencies / Euro
By: Franco_Shao
EURUSD continued its sideways movement in a trading range between 1.1554 and 1.2092. The sideways move is likely consolidation of the uptrend from 1.0340 (Jan 3 low). As long as 1.1554 support holds, the uptrend could be expected to resume and another rise is still possible after the consolidation. Near term resistance is at 1.1961, a breakout of this level could take price to next resistance level at 1.2092. Above here could trigger further bullish movement towards 1.2500.
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Sunday, December 24, 2017
How To Put Bitcoin & Other Cryptocurrencies Into An IRA / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: Jeff_Berwick
When it comes to government, The Dollar Vigilante has been quite clear that our view is that government is an illegitimate and unnecessary evil.
And, we’ve been even more clear on our view of extortion or as the illegitimate government calls it, “taxation”, with our article, “A Letter To The IRS: Go ***** Yourselves You Bunch Of Criminals.”
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Sunday, December 24, 2017
Stock Market 2018 - Four Calling Charts.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Submissions
Chad Champion writes:
It’s a good time to look at the big picture as 2017 comes to an end.
In other words, what are the indicators telling us?
Today, I’m going to talk about four charts. The bottom line is this… Investors need to be more cautious and more selective in what they buy.
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Saturday, December 23, 2017
Black Friday Bitcoin Crypto Crash! Are All Cryptocurrencies Going To Zero? / Currencies / BlockChain
By: Jeff_Berwick
Peter Schill and the Health Ranger are finally right. They were right all along.
The cryptocurrencies have all crashed and are headed towards zero.
It was only a few days ago I commented that almost every cryptocurrency was in the green. Today was the exact opposite.
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Saturday, December 23, 2017
I Wouldn't Touch Bitcoin, Risk of Collapse Too Big / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: EWI
Bitcoin's 50% crash was not entirely unexpected
"Wild" doesn't begin to describe Bitcoin's price action. This spring, it traded as low as $1200. Last week, BTC futures topped $20,000.
Yesterday (December 21), in an article by newsmax.com, Elliott Prechter warned about Bitcoin's future:
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Saturday, December 23, 2017
5 Charts That Show Historic Value in Gold Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
Back in early 2016 as precious metals rebounded, our work showed that gold stocks were arguably the cheapest they had ever been. They had the worst 5-year and 10-year rolling performance ever, they were trading at potentially 40-year lows on a price to cash flow basis, they were the cheapest ever relative to the stock market and Gold and most notably, the Barron’s Gold Mining Index was trading at the same level as 42 years ago! The gold stocks enjoyed a massive recovery in 2016 but it was short lived as the sector corrected and then consolidated (far from the highs) for over a year. Although we have a tendency to be too conservative at times, over a month ago we noted a historical pattern that bodes extremely well for gold stocks over the next few years. That outlook is reinforced by the continued historic value in the gold stocks as exhibited by the following charts.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Internet, the Weapon of Mass Disruption / Politics / Internet
By: Richard_Mills
The ever-increasing digitalization of our world has meant advances in technology that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago when the Internet first entered the popular lexicon. Created by the U.S. Government in the 1960s to build robust communications via computer networks, “Internet” as it was then called had no means of electronic mail, telephony or file sharing, which are the building blocks of today's world-wide web.
More recent inventions like e-commerce, cloud computing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have transformed the way we do business and conduct our personal lives. We take for granted the ability to shop and bank online, have a constant cell phone connection either through broadband or wifi, stream music and videos, or talk to each other across thousands of miles through Skype and FaceTime.
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Friday, December 22, 2017
Gold Stocks Coiled Spring Ready for Massive Breakout Upleg 2018 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Zeal_LLC
The gold miners’ stocks largely ground sideways in 2017, lagging gold’s solid rally. Being trapped in this vexing consolidation has decimated sentiment, leaving a bearish wasteland bereft of hope. But contrary to perceptions, this deeply-out-of-favor sector is actually a coiled spring today. Gold stocks are ready to surge dramatically higher as psychology inevitably shifts, pointing to much higher prices coming in 2018.
The main appeal of gold-mining stocks is their underlying profits’ leverage to gold. The gold miners are much riskier than gold itself, facing many operational, geological, and geopolitical challenges that the metal doesn’t share. Thus investors and speculators alike must be compensated for these large added risks with superior returns to gold. That didn’t happen in 2017, which is why gold stocks are so widely despised.
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Friday, December 22, 2017
Fed Unwinds, Gold Market Yawns / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
In October, the Federal Reserve started the unwinding of its massive balance sheet. According to the addendum to the Policy Normalization Principles and Plans revealed in June 2017, Fed officials wanted to reduce the size of its security portfolio by $10 billion in October ($6 billion in Treasuries and $4 billion in the mortgage-backed assets). Let’s analyze whether this is really what happened, how the so-called quantitative tightening has influenced the financial markets so far, and what the Fed’s normalization would mean for the gold market.
Friday, December 22, 2017
Will Tax Bill Sink Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
This week, the U.S. Congress approved the tax bill. What does it mean for the gold market?
So it finally happened. After months of struggle, the U.S. lawmakers passed a tax reform on Wednesday. Now, Trump has to sign it into law. What’s in the final version? The bill maintains current seven tax brackets for individuals, but temporarily lowers most income levels and rates for each one. It also increases the standard deduction.
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Friday, December 22, 2017
The Main Characteristics Of Bitcoin / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: Boris_Dzhingarov
Bitcoin is a newer form of currency, the difference being it is completely digital. Nobody controls bitcoin, they are not printed in a factory, they are completely held and created electronically. They are only used to buy things electronically, and you can invest in bitcoin if you wish. The price of bitcoin changes hour by hour so it’s best to keep an eye on when is the right time to invest. If you are new to bitcoin, below are a few characteristics to help you understand bitcoin better before you invest.
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Friday, December 22, 2017
Bitcoin: Gold Rush in the Wild Wild Math Game / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: EconMatters
Bitcoin has become a buzz word in the investing community, not as an alternate currency unit replacing the fiat money, but as an asset class with a spectacular 1,600%+ return this year, valuation almost doubled just in the December month alone. Bitcoin was heading towards $20,000 before pulling back to $15,000 level on 12/21/2017. The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization rose above $600 billion for the first time on Dec. 18, 2017.