Saturday, November 21, 2015
UK Housing Market Affordability, House Prices Momentum and Trend Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Most academic housing market commentators focus on the various measures of housing market affordability or rather unaffordability as house prices despite the price crash of 2008-2009 never fell to anywhere near the affordability levels of the early 1990's housing bear market lows and therefore ivory tower academics have continued to cling onto expectations that a further house prices crash is inevitable so as the fit in with their theoretical models of where house prices should fall to in terms of affordability that gets liberally regurgitated in the mainstream press, and looking at the graph below it really is very easy to be seduced by something that on first glance appears obvious that house prices really did have a long way to fall to reach the affordability levels of the past.
Friday, November 20, 2015
European Borders May be Redrawn as Europe Embraces Nationalism / Politics / European Union
By: MISES
Ryan W. McMaken writes: In the wake of the Paris attacks, Europe is being pulled in two directions at once. On the one hand is the rise of localist nationalism in the form of border closings, border fences, and Euroskepticism. On the other hand is the rise of renewed militarism as the French state calls for even more aggressive foreign policy from its European allies in the name of security. In some ways, these two trends appear to be at odds, but they are really just different expressions of nationalism.
Friday, November 20, 2015
GDX Gold Miners’ Strong Q3 Results / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015
By: Zeal_LLC
The beleaguered gold-mining sector continues to be plagued by monumental universal bearishness. Nearly everyone assumes the gold miners are doomed, that they can’t survive for long in a sub-$1200-gold environment. But this belief is totally wrong, a consequence of extreme fear’s fog of war. The gold miners’ underlying earnings fundamentals remain very strong, as evidenced by their recent Q3 results.
In all the stock markets, corporate profits ultimately drive stock prices. Because a stock simply represents a fractional stake in its underlying company’s future earnings stream, all stock prices eventually revert to some reasonable multiple of those profits. These earnings are truly the only fundamental driver of stock prices. All deviations from righteous valuations based on profits are just the temporary products of herd sentiment.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
End of Schengen, Stock Market’s Technical Strength Grows / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Christopher_Quigley
EU Seeking End to Passport-Free Travel.
In an unprecedented move following the horrific attacks in Paris last Friday the 13th the European commission is reviewing its founding treaty with a view to strengthening border controls. This development goes to show the change in European conscious brought about by the sheer scale of the Parisian death and injury. The vision of the founding fathers of the EU saw the end-game being a Federal “one nation” Europe and progressive treaties over the last 70 years or so sought to bring this “binding” about. I believe that recent events have put a stop to this goal once and for all. If the European Union cannot protect its citizens (and it is obvious it cannot) then the only fallback is the individual state, ergo this state cannot be abolished in this new world of hyper-terror. It would thus now appear that David Cameron’s desire to see the EU revert back to being a common market of independent Nation States is going to come about after all. What negotiation was not achieving it would appear radical terrorism has. Who would have thought? Here is how the Associated Press reported this story:
Friday, November 20, 2015
Gold and the Reverse Goldfinger Effect / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: DeviantInvestor
In 1964 Sean Connery starred in the movie “Goldfinger” in which the villain, a wealthy Brit named Goldfinger, attempted to revalue his personal gold hoard higher by a factor of 10. His plan was to detonate an atomic bomb inside Fort Knox making the US gold radioactive for hundreds of years. With the Fort Knox gold hoard, the largest in the world at that time, effectively unavailable the global price of gold would increase at least ten times from the 1964 price of approximately $35.00 per ounce. Bond, James Bond, thwarted the dastardly plot and saved the US gold, the US dollar, and the US government.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Crude Oil Price - Where is it Headed? / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Sol_Palha
All this talk and turmoil and noise and movement and desire is outside of the veil; within the veil is silence and calm and rest. ~ Bayazid Al-Bistami
On the 19th of this month, two articles were published at the same time, one stating that oil could go to $26 and the other stating that oil is ready to trade to $80. Which one is it going to be, $26 or $80 and how is the average Joe going to be able to discern which one is a depiction of what lies ahead. This is the problem with today's mass media, in their quest to attract eyeballs, bombastic and often conflicting articles are published simultaneously. One almost feels that most of the major sites have only one agenda, quantity over quality.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Justice for All and The Curious Case of Zambia / Stock-Markets / Africa
By: John_Mauldin
By Jared Dillian
This chart is driving everything in the financial markets right now.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Paris, Sharm el-Sheikh, and the Resurrection of Old Europe / / ISIS Islamic State
By: John_Mauldin
Soon after the Paris attacks, I picked up the phone to talk over the situation with my friend George Friedman. George is one of the truly world-class thought leaders on geopolitics. We had an animated 20-minute conversation. I didn’t particularly like what I heard.
George thinks we face big difficulties in dealing realistically with the ISIS threat. The more I read—and the more I listen to people like George who have worked these issues for decades—the more I think that we, as a culture, need to face reality.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Silver Prices and The Management of Perception / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Silver prices and the management of perception economics, that's basically what MOPE stands for. I'm not sure if it was Jim Sinclair that coined that acronym. I think it was, but that's where I heard it for the first time. It's appropriate to have a subsection of propaganda for economics and finance, so this management of perception economics. It’s basically a system or an extension of generalized propaganda. You can also call it social engineering. You could call it a public relations campaign. In fact, public relations is just a PC term for propaganda. The specific type of propaganda that is associated with finance and economics is this management of perception economics.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
The End Of The Economic Recovery, In One Chart / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Rubino
One of the questions on analysts’ minds lately is whether stock prices can keep moving up when corporate sales and profits are falling. But the same can be asked about the overall economy. Why would companies hire more people if they’re selling less stuff? The answer is that they probably won’t. As the chart below — put together by good friend Michael Pollaro — illustrates, business sales and employment have tracked closely since at least the 1990s. When sales have fallen, companies have responded with less hiring and more firing.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Stock Market Nifty-Fifty Becomes Fab-Five; Return of the 'Four Horseman' / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Mike_Shedlock
Anyone recall the logic in the 1960s and 1970s that suggested there were only 50 stocks one needed to look at, and those 50 stocks could never go wrong?
That theory was labeled the "Nifty-Fifty ".
Nonetheless, the long bear market of the 1970s that lasted until 1982 caused valuations of the nifty fifty to fall to low levels along with the rest of the market, with most of the Nifty-Fifty under-performing the broader market averages.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Waiting for Goldot Again / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: Gary_Tanashian
In August of 2005 I wrote an article entitled Waiting for Goldot. It seems silly now but the mood of the time was one of frustration for many gold bugs as the S&P 500 was on a robo grind upward and gold was seemingly going nowhere. The theme of the article was to have patience, gold was just fine. Of course, that period was in the midst of a more traditional inflation, when gold and commodities out performed stocks. So any measure of patience then was a tiny thing compared to what is needed today.
Friday, November 20, 2015
A Secret New Government Tax -- Unveiled / Companies / Taxes
By: EWI
Dear Investor,
Did you know for one major financial sector the Great Recession never ended?
One look at this chart of the KBW Bank Index and the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, and you can see it for yourself:
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Consumer Choices - Why Buyers Buy / Personal_Finance / SME
By: Submissions
Veselina Dzhingarova writes: A look at the buying process and how and why consumers make the choices they do.
Most businesses, especially small businesses, don’t pay much attention to why buyers buy. According to Allen Stanley, President of Best Attorney Rankings “Many go about their business with an attitude of providing a good product with good customer service at a fair price. “ While that seems reasonable enough, a better understanding of the buying process and how and why consumers make the choices they do can be extremely beneficial for any size business.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Michael Curran Goes Down-Market Shopping for Gold Stock Winners / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015
By: The_Gold_Report
Most of the low-cost gold producers are fairly valued, says Michael Curran, managing director and mining analyst with Beacon Securities, so he's heading down-market to the advanced development opportunities and early-stage explorers that he thinks could become low-cost producers. Sure there is risk, as Curran explains in this interview with The Gold Report, but the reward could come via either a takeover bid by an established producer seeking to lower its overall costs or by supporting these companies as they transition into emerging producers.
The Gold Report: Please give us two or three key investment themes that you envisage happening in the mining equities space in 2016.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
Syrian Refugees and the Republicans’ Rhetoric of Hate and Fear / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
Fear, laced with paranoia, is driving the American response against allowing Syrian refugees into the United States.
President Obama has said he would accept 10,000 refugees, all of them subjected to intense scrutiny before being admitted to the country. France, with a population about one-fifth that of the United States, despite the worst attack on its soil since World War II, will accept 30,000 refugees.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Why Isn’t This Incredibly Bearish Bond Market Development Making the News? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Casey_Research
By E.B. Tucker
Editor’s Note: This is one of the most important essays you’ll read all year. In this special edition of the Casey Daily Dispatch, E.B. Tucker shares an urgent warning you’re unlikely to hear anywhere else.
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Thursday, November 19, 2015
SPX Appears to have Stopped its Rally / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX peaked beneath formation resistance at 2087.59 this morning. We may need an alternate structure should it go higher. At the moment, the first level to watch is Short-term support at 2077.40. A decline beneath this puts SPX back on an aggressive sell if you have moved some money to cash. The 200-day Moving Average is at 2077.40, beneath which SPX may be on a confirmed sell signal.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Japans Sinking Economy - Is Anybody Okay Out There? / Economics / Japan Economy
By: John_Rubino
In normal times, the world’s major economies are a mixed bag. Some are up, some are down, some are placid, some are in crisis. It’s only at the boom/bust extremes that everyone finds themselves in more-or-less the same boat.
This is looking like one of those times — and the boat is sinking. Japan, for instance, is back in recession…
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Thursday, November 19, 2015
The Fed induced Stock Market Farce / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: James_Quinn
The minutes from the last Fed meeting were released on Wednesday afternoon. The minutes, along with a squadron of jabbering Fed heads lying about the economy doing great, pretty much locked in the most talked about .25% interest rate increase in world history. Evidently the Wall Street titans of greed have convinced the muppets higher interest rates are great for stocks, as the market soared by 250 points. As institutional money exits the market on these rigged up days, the dumb money retail investor buys into the market with dreams of riches just like they did with Pets.com in 2000, McMansions in 2005, and Bear Stearns in 2007.