Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Welcome to the 3-D Economy / Economics / Global Economy

By: John_Mauldin

BY PATRICK WATSON : Eight years after the Fed went bananas by setting interest rates near zero, the weirdness still hasn’t stopped. In fact, the weird part is how unsurprised we are at the bizarre economic news that comes out every day.

Just one example: Almost half the western world’s outstanding sovereign debt—$12.6 trillion worth—traded at negative yields last week, according to the Financial Times. Investors are buying a guaranteed loss with every trade. Still, they can’t get enough.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Europe Has Two Options: Revolution or Elections / Politics / European Union

By: John_Mauldin

In my recent Outside the Box (subscribe here for free), Charles Gave offered an incisive and absolutely scathing indictment of the latter-day European project.

Charles thinks that European leaders have responded to new challenges in this post-war era with old solutions. Chief among them is the forced integration of Europe into a single political and economic construct.

The elite are starting to admit that they’ve made Europe’s problems worse.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

The Lurking Disaster Germany and Saudi Arabia Have in Common / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2016

By: John_Mauldin

The global exporters’ crisis is intensifying (read my free special report on Germany’s inevitable crisis).

Germany’s largest bank said it is deeply concerned about stagnation in the United States. Separately, Saudi Arabia’s central bank gave $4 billion to the country’s banks to help them deal with liquidity issues.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Rio Olympics like the Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: DeviantInvestor

Olympic host, Rio de Janeiro, is getting a lot of coverage in the media and not all of it good.  Much of the news is very bad and yet the games go on… similar to the equity market.

Lindsay’s Three Peaks/Domed House pattern has passed point 21 (July 20) and the question becomes ‘is the Dow headed into the final top at point 23 - or is it engaged in the typical 3-5 wave correction seen most of the time at this point in the pattern?’ An example can be seen in March 2015 (lower case roman numerals in green).

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

The Preservation of Perks, Privileges, and Power: The PPPP / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016

By: DeviantInvestor

The picture is clear – The Powers-That-Be in Wall Street and Washington, the “Deep State,” military contractors, Big Pharma, Big Ag, The Federal Reserve, Mainstream Media, the DNC and RNC, and others want to maintain the transfer game … because the following will continue:

1. The transfer of wealth to the political and financial elite
2. Payoffs to the President, Congress, and lobbyists
3. Military adventures – very costly adventures – must be maintained to feed the massive military-industrial-security complex
4. Ever increasing debt
5. Power and influence over institutions and other countries

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Gold In UK Pounds Near Post-Brexit Highs As Sterling Falls 38% Year To Date / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

Gold in UK pounds neared its post-Brexit high overnight as sterling fell sharply on currency markets due to concerns about rising inflation as shown in data today and the outlook for the UK economy.

Gold is up nearly 4% in sterling terms in August and by a whopping 38% year to date.  ‘Sterling silver’ has surged by even more this year and is now 56% higher in sterling terms year to date.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Average Two-year Tracker Mortgage Breaks Below 2pc Barrier / Housing-Market / Mortgages

By: MoneyFacts

Over a week has passed since the Bank of England base rate dropped to 0.25%, its lowest level in over 300 years. This has led to a spur in activity in the tracker mortgage market. The average two-year tracker mortgage deal has just broken the 2% barrier for the first time on record, according to the latest figures released by Moneyfacts.co.uk.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Deutsche Bank Analyst Says a Stock Market Shock Is the Only Way Out / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jeff_Berwick

We don’t know if the internet is just enabling us to hear things we previously didn’t hear… of if this is the most predicted stock-market crash in history!

It seems barely a day goes by now where someone hasn’t jumped on our bandwagon and is predicting, or calling for, a major crash.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Stocks Bulls Relentless... No Thrust...Grinding Higher... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jack_Steiman

You have to hand it to the bulls. They are a relentless group that never wants to throw those bears a bone. They're getting a bit selfish aren't they? I mean, come on, every once in a while, the bears have to get some love. Don't they?! The news overseas on the economic front over the weekend wasn't good, yet, even though some foreign markets were down, our futures seem to know of only one direction. The low of the day was the open, but overall the S&P 500 traded in only a seven-point range for the entire day. When the VIX gets this low it's harder for the market to flash major-league volatility. It gets a bit boring, for sure, but that's the price you pay for increasing froth, which is clearly what's taking place here.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Don’t Expect a Return to a Gold Standard Any Time Soon / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Antonius_Aquinas

Despite trillions of paper currency units poured into the world economies since the start of the financial crisis, there has been no recovery, in fact, all legitimate indicators have shown worsening conditions except, of course, for the pocketbooks of the politically -connected financial elites.  Yet, despite the utter failure of the current money and banking paradigm to resolve the situation, the chance of a return to a commodity based monetary order is highly unlikely especially when one looks at the anti-gold bias found in typical college economics textbooks.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Gold Bull Market Correction - Not an If But When / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: The_Gold_Report

Technical analyst Jack Chan charts indicators that confirm both the gold bull market and an impending correction.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Even Hedge Funds Can’t Understand Today’s Manipulated Markets / Stock-Markets / Hedge Funds

By: John_Rubino

One of the big surprises of the past few years is the number of brand-name hedge funds reporting terrible results. Their customers are not amused:

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Stock Market S&P 500 Down 10% into Early September? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Brad_Gudgeon

The chart below shows the weekly SPX since late 2008 to the current. According to my calculations, Wave Y of a WXY “Y” of B WAVE terminated at 2168/69 on July 14.  Everything after that has been irregular and part of wave X of “Z” into November 21. Wave X is being subdivided xyz and y of that wave terminated today at 2193/94.

My down side target is near 1970 by Sept 9, with the big wave down “c”of Z from the solar/new moon eclipse top of Sept 1 to the expected ten week low of September 9. After that, a new high around October 17 near 2241 and then down into the November 21 expected low near 1638.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Learn "The 4 Best Elliott Waves to Trade -- and How to Trade Them" / InvestorEducation / Elliott Wave Theory

By: EWI

Dear Trader,

You have a free, knowledge-packed opportunity to learn how to spot high-confidence trade setups in market charts you follow every day.

On August 17-23, our partners at Elliott Wave International (EWI) are hosting a free 5-day trading event, "The 4 Best Elliott Waves to Trade -- and How to Trade Them." During this free event, each day you'll get new video lessons on topics like these:

Monday, August 15, 2016

Stock Market Bears Turning Bullish At New All Time Highs - Time to Get Worried? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The relentlessly bullish grind higher in the face of year long mantra of perma-doom, collapse, crash or worse is once more seeing stocks setting a series of new all time highs. Even today, as I write the Dow is trading AT a new all time high of 18,665! So what is it that could derail the mother of all stocks bull markets? Or at least suggest a significant correction was just around the corner?

Monday, August 15, 2016

Job Seekers Sacrificed to the Inflation Gods / Economics / Inflation

By: Michael_Pento

Our Federal Reserve is composed of labor market economists who place their faith in the theory that inflation is spawned from too many people working. They believe there is a trade-off between employment and prices, where price stability and full employment cannot exist peacefully together the same time.

Given this view, the Fed’s maximum employment and stable inflation mandates are played as a zero-sum game--the lower the unemployment rate the higher the rate of inflation. Therefore, they set about to fulfill this task of low inflation as though it were a sort of Ancient Mayan sacrificial system: ceremonially counting how many job seekers need to be sacrificed on the altar of labor slack to placate the inflation gods.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Stocks Remain Close To New Record Highs, Will They Continue Higher? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Paul_Rejczak

Briefly: In our opinion, speculative short positions are favored (with stop-loss at 2,210, and profit target at 2,050, S&P 500 index).

Our intraday outlook is bearish, and our short-term outlook is bearish. Our medium-term outlook is now neutral, following S&P 500 index breakout above last year's all-time high:

Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): bearish
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): bearish
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): neutral
Long-term outlook (next year): neutral

Monday, August 15, 2016

Globalization 2.0 Is Coming to an End / Economics / Global Economy

By: John_Mauldin

I’m not the only free trader who is having second thoughts. Stephen Roach, formerly chief economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote:

Recent trends in global trade are also flashing warning signs. According to the International Monetary Fund, annual growth in the volume of world trade has averaged just 3% over the 2009–2016 period—half the 6% rate from 1980 to 2008. This trend reflects not only the Great Recession, but also an unusually anemic recovery. With world trade shifting to a decidedly lower trajectory, political resistance to globalization has only intensified.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Why Protectionism Won’t Save Unskilled Labor / Economics / Employment

By: John_Mauldin

I just read a policy paper from the German Marshall Fund of the United States. It defends the present trade model. The authors do a good job, but in the process, they describe the problem.

Take a look at this part. (I bolded a few key points.)

The global economy is no longer about making a product in one country, and shipping and selling it somewhere else. It is about complex supply chains that weave together activities all over the globe, supported by investment, technology, and skills that know no borders.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Here’s How Millennials Can Weather the Perfect Storm / Politics / Pensions & Retirement

By: John_Mauldin

BY PATRICK COX : Millennials are struggling. We see it in the media every day. About 45% of Millennial college grads are working low-wage, dead-end jobs and have record levels of student debt. The number of young people making less than $25,000 per year is higher now than at any time in the last 25 years.

Boomers and Gen-Xers like to pile on, too. They say young people should be out on their own instead of living at home. They agree that Millennials don’t work serious jobs (if they work at all) and wonder why they put off marriage longer than any generation before them.