Tuesday, April 05, 2022
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: What If They Held A Recession And No One Showed Up? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2022
By: Avi_Gilburt
I have now been writing for well over a decade on Seeking Alpha. And, during that time, I have tried to enlighten readers as to how I see the market machinations take shape, especially as compared to the common views held by most market participants. So, there's large body of work I have compiled and written on this topic.
This week, I'm taking the opportunity to compile it all into a three-article series. So, please do bear with me as I'm going to be presenting you with a lot of information, most of which has been culled from my many articles and my recent keynote address at the Las Vegas MoneyShow convention. After I complete that presentation, I will provide you with my thoughts on an “impending recession.”
I want to begin by explaining that much of what you have been taught regarding the market is likely false. I know that's quite a bold statement to make, but I can back it up with examples, market research, and market history.
You see, just as many of you have done, I began my investing career on the fundamentals side of the market. For those who may not know my background, allow me to explain the qualifications with which I initially approached the markets. I graduated college with a dual major in both economics and accounting. I went on to pass all four parts of the CPA exam in one sitting, something that only 2% of those taking the exam are able to achieve. I then went on to complete law school in two and a half years, and graduated ***** laude and in the top 5% of my class. I then went on to NYU for a Master of Law in taxation. I became a partner and national director at a major national firm at a very young age, where I worked to organize very large transactions. So, when I tell you that I understand the fundamentals of economics, business, and balance sheets, you can believe me.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 05, 2022
How To Make Money As A Landlord: A Simple Guide / Housing-Market / Buy to Let
By: Steve_Barker
If it's done right, being a landlord can be a very profitable endeavor. However, it's not as simple as just buying a property and sitting back, collecting rent checks. There are lots of things to consider beforehand, and you need to know what you're doing. In this article, we'll discuss the basics of how to make money as a landlord and give you some tips on how to get started.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 04, 2022
AMD - The Chip Master / / AMD
By: Nadeem_Walayat
AMD is another stock that is firing on all cylinders paving the way to launch the next generation of Ryzen processors whilst still capitalising on 2021's Ryzen 5000 series with 3D variants putting added pressure on Intel which always seems to be one step behind AMD. There's nothing quite as sweet as buying back a stock near $100 that one had sold a month earlier north of $150, makes all the time and effort put in worth while. In terms of position I am at about about the half way mark with current exposure at 54% invested of target (2.7% of portfolio) so I will be buying more AMD.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 04, 2022
The Biggest Threat to Your Money (not inflation) / Companies / Cyber Crime
By: Stephen_McBride
As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Russian hackers infiltrated Ukraine’s internet.
On the morning of the invasion, alarms started ringing inside Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center. It detected a “wiper” attack, headed straight for Ukraine’s banks—a hack that would wipe away all of the banks’ data.
Hours later, Russian hackers crippled tens of thousands of satellite modems, knocking out internet access across Ukraine… including the websites of the country’s defense ministry and army.
It was the largest attack of its kind in Ukraine’s history. And it didn’t stop there…
Data from cybersecurity firm Check Point Software shows cyberattacks on Ukraine tripled in the first week of battle.
Cybercrime is, hands down, the most overlooked threat to your money today. We all think “it’ll never happen to me.”
But as I’ll show you, we can’t ignore this threat any longer. Today, I’ll give you an actionable tip on how to deal with it. As you'll see, it could save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 03, 2022
NVIDIA is ARMless - To Buy or Not to Buy, that is the Question / Companies / AI
By: Nadeem_Walayat
As suspected failure for the ARM deal to go through is about to become manifest and was expected to trigger a sell off buying opportunity, Though Nvidia IS firing on all cylinders, it's just that as has been the case for the whole of 2021, NVIDIA IS OVER VALUED! My exposure stands at 9.6% of target (0.5% of portfolio) which is actually down on last week as I took profits given that I do expect Nvidia to be one of the stocks to take a tumble to fresh lows. It is hard to believe that the stock can trade below it's recent low of $209, after all that WAS my target draw down for the stock! So it may yet turn out to be THE LOW, after all the bounce back from $209 was quite powerful, i.e. lots of buy the dippers stepping in. Nvidia is a tough stock to buy, because it is a FANTASTIC CORPORATION that trades at a too high a valuation. Which means no matter what price I pay for Nvidia in hindsight it will probably prove to VERY HIGH! It's one of those things where you know how good a corporation is and one is desperate to expand ones exposure to but you also know its DAMN expensive, especially when we look at where Facebook is trading right now i.e. on a valuations that's less than 1/4 that of Nvidia! Is Nvidia worth 4 TIMES as much as Facebook? Seriously? And this is why despite Nvidia's price plunge to date I see a lot more potential downside for this stock. Maybe I should just do the same as for Apple? I.e. buy to just 1% of portfolio and then hold fire for much, much lower prices IF they materialise great, if not then at some point I would have to bite the bullet and buy Nvidia for something like $265 a share!
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 03, 2022
Silver Mining Stocks Q4’21 Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Zeal_LLC
The silver miners’ stocks have rallied in recent months, but are still underperforming gold stocks. Silver lagging gold is mostly responsible, driven by big stock-market down days dampening enthusiasm for speculation. But silver will ultimately mirror and amplify gold’s bull upleg, fueling strong leveraged gains in its miners’ stocks. Their just-finishing Q4’21 earnings season reveals they are faring well fundamentally.
With the subsequent Q1’22 ended, looking at the prior quarter’s operational and financial reports seems dated. But because most companies run on calendar years, the Q4 reporting deadlines are extended. In the US companies don’t have to report full-year 10-K results until 60 days after quarter-ends, compared to 40 days for 10-Q quarterlies. In Canada, the epicenter of the silver-mining universe, year-ends extend to 90 days!
Since many of the major silver miners have primary stock listings in that Great White North, late March is about the earliest enough of them have reported to analyze their collective Q4 results. Soon after each quarterly earnings season, I dig into the latest reports from the top-15 component companies of the SIL Global X Silver Miners ETF. Despite just $1.1b in net assets, SIL remains the leading ETF in this small sector.
SIL’s lackluster performance recently reflects the ongoing apathy plaguing silver stocks. Between late January to early March, SIL rallied a solid 18.3%. But that proved poor relatively, since silver marched 17.7% higher in roughly that same span. If silver miners’ stocks can’t leverage their metal’s upside, they aren’t worth the sizable additional risks they bear compared to silver. They must double to triple silver’s gains.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 03, 2022
Gold At $2000 Or $600? No Difference / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Kelsey_Williams
GOLD AT $2000
Gold flirted briefly with the $2000 number last month. At $2043 oz., it was several dollars shy from matching its peak price eighteen months earlier at $2058 oz.
With the current gold price at $1958 oz., the $2000 number is the sweet midpoint of that range. It is a nice round number and seems to be the price most gold traders and investors are focusing on at this time.
It is probably a good idea, therefore, to see if the $2k gold price holds any special significance other than what most in the gold community are thinking about.
And it does.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 03, 2022
Germany's DAX: What You Can Learn from the 2007 Stock Market Top / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2022
By: EWI
Why investors should be aware of a divergence between stock prices and consumer confidence
Among the scores of stock market indicators, there's at least one that may be off many investors' radar screens.
And, that is the trend in consumer confidence. Specifically, a peak in consumer confidence tends to precede a peak in the stock market.
With that in mind, back on Nov. 25, the Telegraph said:
Consumer confidence has dropped sharply in Germany. ...
A few days later, the December Global Market Perspective, a monthly Elliott Wave International publication which offers coverage of 50-plus worldwide financial markets, provided a retrospective of Germany's DAX and consumer confidence with this chart and commentary:
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 03, 2022
How to Make Money during a Pandemic? / Personal_Finance / Money Making
By: Submissions
A lot of people are interested in authentic work-from-home job prospects.
Common causes comprise job loss, pay cuts, isolations, and stay-at-home orders. Your children might be home from school plus you cannot find secure and healthy baby-sitting. Even if you are still doing a job, you may wish to earn some more spending money or some money to pay down liability. Possibly you just need something to do in your free time.
Working from home gives a lot of benefits. You can save time as well as frustration by dodging everyday travel. You can work from any place in the state. You can run shops in the middle of the day.
Nonetheless, be careful of work-from-home job cheats. Under no circumstances, pay cash to get a job or to get a list of job prospects. If you have to do this, it is possibly a scam.
The previous months have been disturbing. Even if you have not experienced a heartbreaking loss of a beloved one or your business, the economy at present has still possibly impacted your finances.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 01, 2022
Still Waiting to Take a BITE out of APPLE / Companies / Apple
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Apple soared on earnings to $175, subsequent price action has hardly seen any reaction so in my opinion Apple continues to trade on thin air at near a $3 trillion valuation trading on a PE near 29 with the market awaiting release of Iphone SE with 5G on March 8th, a lower cost version of the iphone for those who don't want to pay over $1000 for an iphone. Apple is a good stock but it trades on a nuts valuation, hence my exposure is a tiny 4% of target.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 01, 2022
US Interest Rate Yield Curve 101 – Steep, Flat, Inverted – What’s The Difference? / Interest-Rates / Inverted Yield Curve
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The yield curve plots the current yield of a range of government notes and bonds in the “primary market.” The worldwide bond market – including private and government debt — currently represents about $120 trillion in outstanding obligations. The United States accounts for roughly $46 trillion (39%).
The U.S. government finances its spending by collecting taxes and issuing debt. More specifically, the U.S. Treasury funds deficit spending by issuing debt instruments with a range of maturities.
- Treasury Bills have maturities from one month to one year.
- Treasury Notes have maturities from two to ten years.
- Very long-term debt is issued as Treasury Bonds with 20- and 30-year maturities.
Friday, April 01, 2022
4 Scenarios for BIG Moves in Precious Metals Markets / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: MoneyMetals
World events are driving a volatile and potentially pivotal environment ahead for investors. Huge swings in financial markets are likely still to come.
Direction, magnitude, and timing are difficult to predict. But precious metals bulls are eying massive upside potential for gold and silver as war and inflation stoke safe-haven buying.
What follows are four major macro scenarios that could impact metals markets in a big way in the months ahead.
Friday, April 01, 2022
Can Tracking Global Money Flow Provide Clues To Stay In The Black? / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2022
By: Chris_Vermeulen
According to The Bank of International Settlements, the global foreign currency exchange (FX) daily transactional turnover averages $6.6 trillion. At Technical Traders, we track a variety of markets, asset classes, and global money flow looking for clues that will help us in our quest for ETF returns. Interestingly when foreign exchange is charted as a benchmark to the SPY (S&P 500), we can see that FX has also been in a risk-on environment for the past 2-years.
Recently we looked at volatility utilizing the CBOE Volatility Index known as VIX. But there are alternative ways or tools that we can use to analyze asset prices.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 01, 2022
Neither the FED nor US Government Can Print “Trust” / Politics / US Politics
By: Raymond_Matison
In this period of great economic, financial, monetary and geopolitical uncertainty, Borge Brende, the current president of the World Economic Forum, stated that countries need to prepare for the next crisis today. Mr. Brende more importantly stated that “We have to focus on rebuilding trust. There is a lot of lack of trust”. That is a very insightful and timely observation. Stateside and nearer to home, a recent University of Michigan survey notes that confidence in US government policies is at its lowest since 2014.
At the same time, available statistics show that 84% of the people in China trust their government, while 81% of Indonesians and 79% of the people in India trust their governments. How does one explain, that those countries which the western world criticizes for being oppressive or lacking freedom, when polled rank higher in trust of their governments than western democracies?
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 01, 2022
UK Energy Bills Catastrophe! 50% Price Cap Rise - SUBMIT Meter Readings ASAP to Avoid Extra Charges / Personal_Finance / Household Bills
By: N_Walayat
Britians' energy price cap has risen by 50% today which is what most customers will be paying given that all of the fixed rate deals charge more than even the latest price cap. If you have not already submitted a meter reading that it is still not too late to do so but the sooner you submit the better to avoid energy usage being charged at a 50% higher cost.
So having an accurate read of where customers stand WILL make a difference! Once upon a time the price cap could be ignored but not for the past 6 months as a myriad of energy firms such as Zog Energy dumped their fixed rate customers onto regulators who passed the customers onto firms such as EDF onto their variable rate tariffs that as of writing are some 60% BELOW fixed rate tariffs, so the worst thing anyone can do is to FIX their energy tariffs as even after tomorrows 50% hike, the price cap will still be lower than fixed rate deals, and likely remain so all the way into the next price price cap hike on 1st October when we could see another huge hike of as much as 30% ahead of winter 2022.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 31, 2022
WARNING - Energy Price Cap 50% Rise Tomorrow, Take and Submit Gas Electric Meter Readings ASAP! / Personal_Finance / Household Bills
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britians' energy cap is set to rise tomorrow that will probable see average standard rate tariffs hiked by over 50%! And this is no April Fools day joke! FIFTY PERCENT HIKE IN ENERGY PRICES! So having an accurate read of where customers stand WILL make a difference! Once upon a time the price cap could be ignored but not for the past 6 months as a myriad of energy firms such as Zog Energy dumped their fixed rate customers onto regulators who passed the customers onto firms such as EDF onto their variable rate tariffs that as of writing are some 60% BELOW fixed rate tariffs, so the worst thing anyone can do is to FIX their energy tariffs as even after tomorrows 50% hike, the price cap will still be lower than fixed rate deals, and likely remain so all the way into the next price price cap hike on 1st October when we could see another huge hike of as much as 30% ahead of winter 2022.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Commodities are Ripping Higher— Here’s my Top Way to Cash in / Commodities / Uranium
By: Submissions
Commodities are on fire.The price of oil has soared 43% since the start of the year.
Palladium—a metal most often used in catalytic converters—has increased 28% over the same period, while wheat has spiked 39%...
These are major moves. But I see commodity prices headed even higher this year.
Specifically, a huge opportunity is setting up in one of the most overlooked corners of the commodity market.
I’ll show you how to position yourself for this in a minute. But first, let’s look at why commodity stocks have been on such a tear lately.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
MICROSOFT Stock Short and Sharp / Companies / Microsoft
By: Nadeem_Walayat
If you blinked you missed the plunge on earnings! For most folks the best they could have got was about $277 via limit orders. I bought Microsoft in the green zone all the way down to $280, but got greedy with my big order at $274, not filled. so I remain stuck at about 18% invested of target exposure (1% of portfolio) as I still await the big buys to be triggered. Microsoft is reinforcing itself as a gaming giant by bidding $64 billion for Activision. To imagine that Microsoft is not going to have a big foot print in the meta-verse is a big mistake whilst they do have their own VR headsets however so far they are tethered to PC's apart form the augmented reality Hololens which I see as an expensive stop gap, so far behind where Facebook is.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
How the "Great Resignation" Ties in with a Financial Peak / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2022
By: EWI
Insights into "a peak in social optimism of monumental proportions"
Some people probably remember that country song by Johnny Paycheck from the late '70s -- "Take This Job and Shove It."
Many of those in the younger generations may not have heard of it given the song was released more than 40 years ago. However, many of them caught the spirit of it just the same as they quit their jobs in droves in what has been called the "Great Resignation."
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
US Military Spending to Exceed Annual Deficits / Economics / US Military
By: Richard_Mills
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.”
– President Dwight D. Eisenhower
The guns versus butter model portrays the relationship between a nation’s investment in defense and civilian goods. Because a country has finite resources, it must choose how much to spend on defense/ the military (guns), against the amount budgeted for items that are needed for non-defensive purposes (butter). Of course, it can also buy a combination of both, and most countries do.
The one nation that doesn’t have to bother with this, is the United States. Because the US holds the reserve currency, and all the exorbitant privilege that implies, it can spend on guns AND butter. Fact is, whenever the US government runs short on funds, it simply prints more money. Or borrows it, by issuing Treasury bills that are sopped up by domestic and foreign investors. The demand for Treasuries will always be resilient, so long as the dollar remains the reserve currency. This, however, may not be the case for much longer…
Read full article... Read full article...