Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Blind Alleys and Techno-Fantasies  / Politics / Social Issues

By: Nicole_Foss

The majority of proposals made by those who acknowledge limits fail on at least one of the previous criteria, and often several, if not all of them. Solution space is smaller than we typically think. The most common approach is to insist on government policies intended to implement meaningful change by fiat. Even in the best of times, government policy is a blunt instrument which all too often achieves the opposite of its stated intention, and in contractionary times the likelihood of this increases enormously.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Silver Price Cycle Low – Now / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: DeviantInvestor

The price of silver has been crushed during the last four years.  Prices are ready to reverse.  We will know soon enough after the High-Frequency-Traders have their way with prices for paper silver and gold on the CME.  But consider:

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

UK CPI and GBPUSD vs TWI Divergence / Currencies / British Pound

By: Ashraf_Laidi

Sterling hit fresh 2-month highs as UK inflation improved in July, with headline CPI edging up to 0.1% y/y from June's 0.0%, and beating the Bank of England's 0.0%. The notable increase was in core CPI, which rose to a 5-month high of 1.2% vs expectations of 0.9% and a June reading of 0.8%.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

What Credit Markets Are Telling Us About Stocks Now / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com Michael E. Lewitt writes: Rather than trust markets to heal themselves, the world's central banks have polluted markets with flawed economic theories and trillions of dollars of debt. Rather than ignite economic growth as they had hoped, however, they have suffocated the global economy.

It began with the U.S. Federal Reserve's move to lower interest rates to zero seven years ago, followed by several bouts of quantitative easing.

This was followed by Mario Draghi's August 2012 declaration to do "whatever it takes" to defend the euro.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Global Stock Markets and Dow Jones Fire Warning Shot Across Investors Bow! / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Last week, the global equity markets were quite undecided. China’s and Japan’s equity prices have been moving higher. The Japanese Nikkei reached its highest level since 1996 on Tuesday, August 11^th, but then pulled back at the end of the week. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng made a new monthly low and the Australian Market fell to a new 6-month low.

Europe was more decisive. Traders mostly sold stocks.  The German DAX, London FTSE, and Zurich SMI all fell to monthly lows by mid-week and did not recover much by Friday August 14^th’s close. In Russia, it was much different. Moscow’s MICEX index rallied to its highest mark in 3 months.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Riding the Energy Wave to the Future / Commodities / Energy Resources

By: John_Mauldin

“Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” – J. Paul Getty

This week’s yuan devaluation was big news, but it’s really part of a much bigger saga. Events around the globe are combining to create huge economic change over the next few years. We are watching giant, multidimensional chess games played by some master players.

Energy is the chessboard that connects all the players. What happens when the board changes shape in the middle of the game? If you don’t know the new energy landscape, you’ll have a hard time playing to a draw, much less winning.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Staggering Scope of the Next Financial Crisis And How It Will Hit / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2015

By: Graham_Summers

As you know, I’ve been calling for a bond market crisis for months now. That crisis has officially begun in Greece, and will be spreading in the coming months. Currently it’s focused in countries that cannot print their own currencies (the PIIGS in Europe, particularly Greece).

However, China and Japan are also showing signs of trouble and ultimately the bond crisis will be coming to the US’s shores.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Credit Indicates a Recession Is Here… And Possibly Even a Credit Crunch / Economics / Credit Crisis 2015

By: Graham_Summers

sThose looking for accurate data regarding the US economy should look into credit card applications and credit card company earnings.

Regarding the former, consider the recent rejections of credit applications data:

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Energy Demand Collapse Followed by Supply Collapse / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Nicole_Foss

As we have noted many times, energy is the master resource, and has been the primary driver of an expansion dating back to the beginning of the industrial revolution. In fossil fuels humanity discovered the ‘holy grail’ of energy sources – highly concentrated, reasonably easy to obtain, transportable and processable into many useful forms. Without this discovery, it is unlikely that any human empire would have exceeded the scale and technological sophistication of Rome at its height, but with it we incrementally developed the capacity to reach for the stars along an exponential growth curve.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Doomsday Clock Strikes One Minute To Midnight For Global Stock Market Crash / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash

By: GoldCore

It is only a matter of time before stock markets collapse under the weight of their lofty expectations and record valuations.

China currency devaluation signals endgame leaving equity markets free to collapse under the weight of impossible expectations.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

How to Avoid Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis and Make Money on It / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2015

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com Shah Gilani writes: Puerto Rico is desperately trying to reorganize its $72 billion debt, but it faces a unique hurdle…

You see, it's an unincorporated territory, not a state. It can't actually declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

Without those legal protections, the Caribbean island is clearly sunk.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Corporate Debt - Road To Oblivion In A Stocks Bear Market / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market

By: James_Quinn

Any article that starts with a quote from Jim Grant is guaranteed to be a fact based, common sense, reasoned analysis of our warped, debt saturated, over-valued, Federal Reserve rigged financial markets. John Hussman starts his weekly letter with this quote from Jim Grant:

"The way to wealth in a bull market is debt. The way to oblivion in a bear market is also debt, and nobody rings a bell." - James Grant

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

A Street Car Named U.S. Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds

By: Michael_Pento

sIn the 1947 Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" as she is being carted off to the mental institution Blanche Dubois utters these famous words ... "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

And like Ms. Dubois, the United States has also come to depend on the kindness of strangers to fund a massive $18.3 trillion in debt.

But that kindness the US Treasury has come to depend upon may be waning. Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell in May for a second straight month. The Treasury Department reported total holdings were down 0.1% in May to $6.13 trillion. This comes after an even bigger 0.6% decline in April.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Stock Market Pause in the Downtrend / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend - Bull Market

sIntermediate trend - SPX may has started an intermediate correction

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.

Monday, August 17, 2015

The Seamless Web of Liberty / Politics / US Politics

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

Many people think the Internal Revenue Service was violating civil liberties when it harassed tea party groups. After all, the groups were targeted because they wanted to exercise their civil liberty to challenge government policies. However, the specific issue in the IRS case was the groups' application for tax-exempt status, which seems to be an aspect of economic liberty. In fact, the IRS case demonstrates that there is no meaningful distinction between civil and economic liberties. A true friend of the free society defends both civil and economic liberties.

Monday, August 17, 2015

The Psychological Driver of Deflation and the Collapse of the Trust Horizon / Economics / Deflation

By: Nicole_Foss

The collective mood shifts rapidly from optimism and greed to pessimism and fear as the bubble bursts, and as it does so, the financial system moves from expansion to contraction. Financial contraction involves the breaking of promises right left and centre, with credit instruments drastically revalued downwards in the process. As the promises that back them cease to be credible, value disappears extremely rapidly. This is deflation and the elimination of excess claims to underlying real wealth. 

Monday, August 17, 2015

Bullish Breakout of Qatar Stock Exchange Index (QE) / Stock-Markets / Emerging Markets

By: MarketsToday

The Qatar Exchange Index (QE) is now in the early stages of a bullish breakout of a descending wedge pattern as seen on the enclosed chart. This potential bullish move was first discussed in our analysis from August 9, and can be reviewed here. The breakout occurred today, Sunday, as the index rallied above the prior swing high of 11,836.8, above the top downtrend line identifying the wedge, and to a 3-week high.

Monday, August 17, 2015

The Coming Silver Price Rally Will Outperform All Previous Ones / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Hubert_Moolman

The Gold/Silver Ratio (GSR) is a key indicator in the analysis of the silver and gold markets. This ratio (or chart of the ratio) is probably one of the most difficult to analyse. One has to take a real close look at the ratio in order to find what actually drives the ratio up or down.

For example, from about after the end of the Second World War to the early 70s there was an economic boom with the Dow rallying significantly during those years. During the same period the GSR actually kept falling significantly until it actually bottomed in 1968.

Monday, August 17, 2015

USDJPY At Critical Juncture / Currencies / Japanese Yen

By: Austin_Galt

Previously, I thought the high for the USDJPY was in place and a correction was now underway. It still may be. Price is now at a critical juncture and the potential exists for one last marginal false break high. Let's examine the situation using the weekly chart.

Monday, August 17, 2015

Why has Druckenmiller Dived in Gold and Copper / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Ashraf_Laidi

Four weeks after gold tumbled to 5-year lows on revelation of far lower Chinese gold holdings than previously anticipated, gold bulls find out that one of the world's greatest hedge fund managers made gold the biggest holding in his fund in Q2. He also loaded up on 2 large miners.