Saturday, September 19, 2015

Roman Aqueducts and Modern Potholes Point to This Multi-trillion-Dollar Investor Opportunity / Companies / Infrastructure

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com William Patalon writes: There is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9

I'm a sucker for those "impulse buy" periodicals you always see when you're standing in the checkout line at Wal-Mart, Target, or Wegmans.

No, I'm not talking about the credibility-bending "News of the World (WWII German U-Boat Surfaces in New York Harbor – Crew Believes They're Still at War)" or any of those celebrity-chasing rags ("Insert-Name-Here Enjoys Hot Night in Hot Tub While Spouse Is on Movie Location").

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Stock Market Primary IV Preparing to End / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Tony_Caldaro

Another wild FOMC week. The market started the week at SPX 1961. After a pullback to SPX 1948 on Monday, the market rallied to 2004 just before the FED announcement. After they announced no change in the ZIRP the SPX hit 2008, dropped to 1988, rallied to 2021, then dropped to 1987, all within one hour. On Friday the market was greeted with a gap down opening and the SPX ended the week at 1958. For the week the SPX/DOW were -0.20%, the NDX/NAZ were +0.05%, and the DJ World index was +0.20%. Economic reports for the week were mixed. On the uptick: retail sales, business inventories, the NAHB, building permits, leading indicators, plus weekly jobless claims improved. On the downtick: the NY/Philly FED, industrial production, capacity utilization, housing starts, and the WLEI. Next week’s reports will be highlighted by Q2 GDP, Durable goods and more reports on Housing.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Gold And Silver - Ufa. Why It Matters But Does Not / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Michael_Noonan

To almost all Americans mentioning Ufa will bring a blank response. What is Ufa? None would ask, "Where is it?" for there has been no mention of it anywhere in the mainstream media. Does Ufa matter? Yes, but in this country it does not.

Here is a primer on understanding many acronyms the average American has no clue even of their existence. First of all, Ufa is not an acronym, it is the capital and administrative center of Bashkortostan Republic, Russia. It is one of the largest Russian cities with a population over one million people. It was founded in 1574. Now you know more than 99.9% of the average American, with just two sentences.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

This Is What Needs To Happen For Crude Oil Prices To Stabilize / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: OilPrice_Com

On September 10th the EIA reported a production decline in the Lower 48 -- essentially shale production -- of 208,000 BOPD. That is a staggeringly enormous number, approximately 10 percent of the estimated global over-supply. Additionally, it was a week-over-week number which makes it all the more impressive. Yet it received little attention through the week. Rather, Goldman Sachs was grabbing all the headlines with its $20 call on oil.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

The Fed Blows It.... Dangerous Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Jack_Steiman

As the Byrd's wrote a long, long time ago. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. The Fed had been on a long-term zero-policy rant, and refused to raise rates even a quarter of a percent due to the fears of a global slow down. The stock market fell in love with the idea of zero rates, since it meant there were few other places to use your dollars with the ability to make any real other dollars.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Higher U.S. Interest Rates? Not Next Month, Not Even Next Year, In Three Charts / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: John_Rubino

Not only did the Fed vote to keep interest rates stable yesterday, it did so overwhelmingly -- with just as many members apparently favoring lower rates as higher. Now all the people who bought the "rate normalization" promise/threat are backtracking. From today's Bloomberg:

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Stock Market VIX Golden Cross Not Seen Since 2007 / Stock-Markets / Volatility

By: Ashraf_Laidi

The VIX may be 60% below the six-year highs reached last month, but the confluence of medium-trend measures shows a technical development seen only in three occasions over the last 14 years; August 2001, August 2007 and July 2002. This development is the Golden Cross via the 55-week moving average crossing above the 200-week moving average. It is happening again today.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Gold and Gold Stocks Bull Trap or Bottom in? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

As we know, Gold and gold mining stocks have been trapped in a bear market that has been severe in both price and duration. It is seemingly a "forever" bear market as rebounds and recoveries have been followed by lower prices and more devastation. The Fed-induced strength of this week is giving bulls some hope. For the bulls, this strength needs to be duplicated in the weeks ahead or it would be another false alarm. While a new bull market is inevitable, we do not see it as imminent.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Fed’s Vast Gold / Stock Market Impact / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Zeal_LLC

Yesterday’s Fed decision was one of the most anticipated ever, with much potential to really change the global financial-market dynamics going forward.  But thanks to the Fed’s incredible market distortions of recent years, Fed meetings spawning exceptional volatility is nothing new.  Fed decisions’ impacts on gold and stocks have been vast.  And this next tightening cycle should reverse their Fed-imparted directionality.

Before we get started, a big caveat is necessary.  While this essay was published the morning after that Fed decision, I had no choice but to research and write this draft before yesterday’s momentous 2pm event!  Producing one of these weekly essays takes a lot of time and effort, and even after writing 670 of them there was no possible way to start this process after the Fed and still make the publishing deadline.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Groundhog Day at the Fed / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Peter_Schiff

Every dictator knows that a continuous state of emergency is the best means to justify tyrannical policies. The trick is to keep the fictitious emergency from breeding so much paranoia that routine activities come to a halt. Many have discovered that its best to make the threat external, intangible and ultimately, unverifiable. In Orwell's 1984 the preferred mantra was "We've always been at war with Eurasia," even though everyone knew it wasn't true. In its rate decision this week the Federal Reserve, adopted a similar approach and conjured up an external threat to maintain a policy that is becoming increasingly absurd.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Three Reasons Why the U.S. Government Should Default on Its Debt Today / Interest-Rates / US Debt

By: Casey_Research

The overleveraging of the U.S. federal, state, and local governments, some corporations, and consumers is well known.

This has long been the case, and most people are bored by the topic. If debt is a problem, it has been manageable for so long that it no longer seems like a problem. U.S. government debt has become an abstraction; it has no more meaning to the average investor than the prospect of a comet smacking into the earth in the next hundred millennia.

Friday, September 18, 2015

U.S. Housing Market May be About to Implode -- Again / Housing-Market / US Housing

By: EWI

Before I get into the "why," know that the residential real estate market never fully recovered.

Annualized new home sales this past July stood at 507,000, vs. the July 2005 peak of 1.39 million. The chart and commentary from the August Elliott Wave Theorist offer:

Friday, September 18, 2015

The #1 Reason to Love a U.S. Government Shutdown – Investor Double-Digit Profits / Companies / Investing 2015

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Sigh… we stand yet again on the verge of another government shutdown. This time the bickering centers on funding related to Planned Parenthood which has been linked to the appalling sales of fetal body parts in recent months, while other legislators insist on a planned multi-billion dollar tax hike for private equity managers.

What could possibly go wrong – other than everything?!

The way I see it, wingnuts on both sides of the aisle are playing chicken with an $18 trillion economy and world markets once again.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Stock Market Testing the Flags / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

SPX is testing the inside boundaries of its Bearish Flag. I have revised the Flag minimum target to reflect yesterday’s spike high. Should SPX break below its Flag formation on heavy volume today, the probability of a flash crash within the next week becomes elevated above 50%.

Friday, September 18, 2015

How Should You Invest During Recession? / Stock-Markets / Recession 2015

By: Submissions

Nicholas Kitonyi writes: The general rule is that the best time to invest in the stock market is when stock prices are low, and sell when they are high. Ideally, stock prices trade at low prices during recession as compared to when the economy is expanding.

However, as many investors would tell you, it is not always that simple. In fact, sometimes it is much difficult to pick out the right stocks during recession because you never know where the recession would leave the company by the time it’s over.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Financial Sanctions Against Hungary, Poland, Czech, Slovakia Syrian Refugee Migrants Hypocrisy / Politics / Refugee Crisis

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It speaks volumes that those eastern european nations of Poland, Hungary, Czech and Slovakia amongst others that have over the past decade alone sent over 10 million ECONOMIC MIGRANTS westwards, demanding full equality in every respect, and receiving it despite putting nations such as the UK under immense pressure in terms of social services and housing as a consequence of an influx of 4 million Polish, Hungarian etc. economic migrants are now themselves not even wishing to entertain more than a handful of syrian refugees to seek refuge in their sparsely populated heavily depopulated regions.

Friday, September 18, 2015

U.S. Economy Future Expectations Made Six Months Ago vs. Today's Reality / Economics / US Economy

By: Mike_Shedlock

On Thursday, I noted Bloomberg's comment "Something Very Wrong" with the manufacturing sector.

More completely, Bloomberg stated "There may very well be something wrong with the manufacturing sector, at least in the Northeast where the Empire State index has been in deep negative ground for the last two months followed now by a minus 6.0 headline for the Philly Fed index."

Friday, September 18, 2015

Commodities, CRB,WTIC,Copper - After The Long Dark Night, The Sun Starts to Rise... / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Clive_Maund

Commodities and Emerging Markets have been crushed over the past 15 months by the dollar's strong rally. It therefore follows that if the dollar starts down again, they are going to rally, and this will happen regardless of the state of economies. The dollar should start down again if the Fed fails to raise interest rates tomorrow, and maybe even if they do, as the ensuing chain of interest rate rises cannot extend far because of the magnitude of debt.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Currency Wars, Battles, And Hostile Actions / Currencies / Currency War

By: Raymond_Matison

With its recent miniscule 2% devaluation of the Yuan, media pundits noted that China had now also entered into the global currency war.  What this comment implies is that other countries with the ability to issue or print their own currency, including the U.S., have been participating in a currency war by devaluing their own currency as a hoped for means to increase their country exports and thereby stimulate their economies.  As China’s currency has been pegged to the USD, it had recently grown stronger as a byproduct of dollar’s recent dramatic strength.  Accordingly, the peg that China used to tie-in to the dollar’s value had increased the Chinese yuan to a level that was hurting their exports.  The resulting devaluation was China’s attempt to correct partially this unwelcome currency appreciation.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Halloween Came Early this Year on Wall Street / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Clif_Droke

The Federal Reserve guessing game ended Thursday after the FOMC made its decision on interest rate policy. The Fed left rates unchanged in a tip of the hat to investors who felt the economy was vulnerable to overseas weakness. This was what most on Wall Street wanted, although there was a sharp intraday reversal after the announcement (apparently a case of buy the rumor, sell the news).