Monday, August 14, 2023
BRICS, CBDCs, and Misdirection - with a Personal Perspective / Currencies / BlockChain
By: Andy_Sutton
The first portion of this piece, pertaining to personal experience with a political dissident is written entirely by Andy Sutton. The rest of the report is co-authored as is the case with much of the recent 'My Two Cents' work.As a young first-year graduate student in 1997, I was required to take a class called 'Banking and Monetary Policy'. As I registered, the course itself sounded rather interesting - my undergraduate work had been in the field of what is now called Molecular Biology. It was an introductory course, taught by a professor who was in exile from South Africa.
The professor (name withheld) had been involved with that country's central bank at a moderately high level and had spoken out rather loudly against Apartheid. Facing the very real threat of either prison or execution, the professor sought political asylum in several countries. By a mere twist of fate, I had the honor of sitting under some of the best teaching I've ever experienced thanks to these unfortunate circumstances, full stop.
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Saturday, August 12, 2023
Innovative Ways Companies Attract and Retain Customers in the Digital Age / Companies / SME
By: Sumeet_Manhas
In today's fast-paced and highly competitive digital world, companies across various sectors must continually evolve and adopt innovative strategies to attract and retain their customers. By leveraging technology, embracing new techniques, and understanding consumer behaviour, these businesses can engage diverse audiences, drive sales, and foster brand loyalty.
In this article, we will delve deeper into several unique methods employed by different industries, providing an expansive analysis of personalisation, gamification, customer support, social media marketing, content marketing, and experiential marketing, along with numerous examples demonstrating their effectiveness in real-world scenarios.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Current State of the UK Housing Market as Stocks Climb a Wall of Worry / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Dear Reader
The stock market is literally climbing a wall of worry, refusing to give any opportunity for the mass of investors sat on the sidelines to jump on board the AI gravy trains unless they buy the highs! Most AI tech stocks are now very overbought i.e. Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, KLAC, AVGO which had an insane spike last week to $933 that triggered one of my distant SELL limit orders at $899 (current $812).
Whilst many are very overbought that does not mean they cannot become more overbought! This is the problem with TA, the charts tells you that markets are over bought and ripe for a correction, and so one anticipates a fat juicy correction to accumulate into on buying opps perhaps down to below S&P 4000, but as I often state Technical Analysis on it;s own is a coin flip, and worse still is that which most focus on the S&P which is a RED HERRING! Put the two together and you can see how easy it is for most investors to be constantly wrong footed by a. focusing on the S&P and b. not realising that TA is not that reliable going forward, in hindsight its perfect, but going forward it's at best 55/45. One has to go beyond the charts and crunch the numbers and understand the fundamentals that differ for every stock.
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Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Global Copper market is entering an age of extremely large deficits / Commodities / Copper
By: Richard_Mills
Simply put, the road to reaching net zero begins and ends with copper. All infrastructure built to support renewable energy uses large amounts of copper, as the metal is a highly efficient conductor of electricity and heat.
To keep the energy transition going, millions of feet of copper wiring will be required for strengthening the world’s power grids, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes more are needed to build wind and solar farms. An offshore wind turbine, for example, contains 8 tonnes of copper per megawatt of generation capacity.
Electric vehicles, now a fast-rising source of demand, use over twice as much copper as gasoline-powered cars, which contain about 30 kg. Not to mention, there is more than 180 kg of copper in the average home, reminding us just how indispensable the metal really is.
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Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Can The Stock Market Now Head To New All-Time Highs? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2023
By: Avi_Gilburt
Last weekend, I questioned whether a crash can still set up for much later this year? And, the answer is, "of course." This week, I question the opposite - that is, can we still get to the all-time high? And, the answer is also "of course."
Now, I have probably confused most of you reading the opening paragraph. But, I will explain my point below, and I do not need to utilize Talmudic logic to provide the explanation.
But, before I provide my explanation, I want to again address a few fallacies that I read this past week.
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Will UK House Prices Crash 2023? / Housing-Market / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
First a reminder of some of the primary drivers for UK house prices (in order of importance).
1. Population Growth
2. Inflation courtesy of money printing.
3. Growing economy.
4. Insufficient new housing construction.
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Monday, July 24, 2023
AI Tech Stocks Flashing Red Lights in the Chernobyl Control Room / Companies / Tech Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
AI Stocks Flashing Red Lights in the Chernobyl Control Room (3 or more).
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Beneficiaries of US Dollar Weakness / Currencies / Forex Trading
By: Richard_Mills
On July 9 the US dollar index (DXY) slipped under 100 for the first time since April 3, 2022, with cooling US inflation data released on July 12 maintaining the trend of a weaker greenback against a basket of other trade partner currencies.
As of July 14, the dollar was down nearly 13% from last year’s two-decade high and was its lowest level in 15 months. According to Reuters, the softer-than-expected inflation print supports views that the Federal Reserve is nearing the end of its interest rate-hiking cycle.
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Monday, July 24, 2023
The Fed as Bad Bank Ultimate Irony / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Jim_Willie_CB
A historical paradigm shift is in progress. The process of de-Dollarization began with Russia in response to the Maidan coup in Kiev back in 2016. The Russian reacted in multiple ways, but the Eurasian Trade Zone grew. That was the Jackass name given, which has emerged as the BRICS Union in recent years. Numerous nations have followed the Russian lead in removing the USDollar from their trade payments and banking practices. The American observers have dismissed this trend as trivial and not enduring. They are wrong, dead wrong. In the last 18 months, the Japanese had dumped $240 billion in USTreasury Bonds over a 12-month period. They continue. They accumulate Gold in their banking reserves, thus following the BRICS theme, their operating policy. The macrocosm, by contrast, will feature 20 nations dumping USTBonds en masse, and acquiring Gold for banking reserves. The UAE will become a primary office for the conversion, their Dirham notably pegged to the USD.
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Is The Stock Market Disconnected From Reality, Or Are You? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2023
By: Avi_Gilburt
Ordinarily, I write one public article every week or so. However, after reading a number of other articles this week, and more importantly, reading the comments section, it has pushed me to consider writing an additional missive this week. And, within this article, I am going to address two topics which seem to have people looking the wrong way all too often.
“The Stock Market Is Disconnected From Reality”
One article after another and one comment after another presents us with the common perception that the stock market is not representing “reality.” And, the problem stems from the fact that all of these people view various economic factors as representing “reality,” which they then attempt to impute to the stock market price movement. And, when their factors do not match up with price action, their conclusion is that the stock market is not appropriately representative of “reality.”
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Are Silver’s Liquidity Dreams a Mirage? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2023
By: Submissions
The white metal is priced for an economic outcome that’s unlikely to materialize.
AI Optimism
With liquidity-fueled assets outperforming in 2023, they’ve decided that QT and higher interest rates are not going to spoil their party. Moreover, with silver and gold also liquidity beneficiaries, they have adopted similar attitudes. However, while the gambit can persist in the short term, a major climax should unfold over the medium term.
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Gold Stocks Technical Breakout / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2023
By: Zeal_LLC
Gold-stock technicals are dramatically improving, turning increasingly bullish. After slumping to major support zones in the summer doldrums, the gold miners’ stocks have surged sharply in the past couple weeks. That strong advance has achieved a decisive breakout above the main gold-stock benchmark’s key 50-day moving average. Similar breakouts in recent years have heralded imminent big sector rallies.
Gold-stock price action has been really interesting lately, so I’ve written several recent essays analyzing it. Between late September to mid-April, the leading GDX gold-stock ETF powered 63.9% higher in 6.5 months. That amplified gold’s underlying parallel 25.7% upleg by 2.5x, right in the middle of the major gold stocks’ usual leverage range of 2x to 3x. Then gold rolled over into a healthy pullback in early May.
GDX closed just shy of a new upleg high on May 4th, the day gold hit its own latest of $2,050. But with gold getting seriously overbought and greed growing excessive, the yellow metal reversed to work off both conditions. So over the next 1.8 months into late June, gold pulled back 6.9% to $1,908. That perfectly-normal mid-upleg selloff was right in line with February’s 7.2% pullback, and restored sentiment balance.
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Are your kids suffering from The META “mind virus?” / Politics / Social Media
By: Stephen_McBride
Have you signed up for Threads yet?
Facebook’s (META) new social media app, called the “Twitter killer,” is taking off like a rocket.
In just five days, it hit 100 million users. That’s faster than ChatGPT!
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Saturday, July 22, 2023
Stock Market S&P500 2023 Road Map Current State / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2023
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Continues to pull stocks relentlessly higher towards a target of 4,500 by late July. so any correction is likely to be minor i.e. something like a couple of hundred S&P points, 4100 at the lowest, where right now instead of FOMO-ing I am eyeing the run to sub 4000 during that deep pull back into October, so far the market has done nothing to negate this long standing expectation.
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Friday, July 21, 2023
CPI LIE, Fed Funds and Earnings and Recessions / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2023
By: Nadeem_Walayat
CP LIE Tuesday
The smoke and mirrors annual inflation indices which mask the true magnitude of inflation pain that will run for the whole of this decade will Tuesday deliver a mix bag, a sharply lower headline rate falling towards 4%, whilst a stubbornly high core rate that will remain above 5% which is what the Fed is focused upon and thus likely to send yields higher. So the CPI should be a net bearish for stocks. Remember the Fed target is 2% not 5!
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Friday, July 21, 2023
AI Tech Stocks Red Lights and Sell Triggers / Stock-Markets / AI
By: Nadeem_Walayat
FOMO IS EXTREME, and up until last week's AAII survey the only thing that was lacking was a bullish investor sentiment gauge to match the stock prices going nuts to the upside! Well we got that with a shockingly extreme jump in investor sentient reading that went from 29% bull to 44.5% bull in 1 week!. Normally I don't pay much attention to this, but that is a BIG JUMP! We have not seen readings as high as this since late 2001, the pumps are definitely being primed for a sell off.
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Sunday, July 09, 2023
The AAII Stock Market Investor Sentiment Switch Got Flipped! / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Sentiment
By: Nadeem_Walayat
FOMO IS EXTREME, and up until last week's AAII survey the only thing that was lacking was a bullish investor sentiment gauge to match the stock prices going nuts to the upside! Well we got that with a shockingly extreme jump in investor sentient reading that went from 29% bull to 44.5% bull in 1 week!. Normally I don't pay much attention to this, but that is a BIG JUMP! We have not seen readings as high as this since late 2001, the pumps are definitely being primed for a sell off.
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Sunday, July 09, 2023
Uk Inflation in 2023: The Current Situation / Economics / Inflation
By: Umer_Mahmood
The April index falls less than expected to 8.7%. And the core figure has been at its best since 1992. After the IMF's good estimates on the economy, markets see a hawkish BoE
Difficult day for the stock markets of the Continent, which has been affected by a long series of bad news. Starting with the cold shower that came from British inflation, to which are added the fears of the failed agreement on the US debt ceiling and those about the damage that the Chinese economy could suffer from the new wave of Covid together with the ban on Micron chips. But, if on the impasse in Washington there is the belief that an agreement will arrive before 'date X', the race in prices in the United Kingdom gives us a glimpse of a dark future on the interest rate front.
Tuesday, July 04, 2023
Current State of Stock Market FOMO / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2023
By: Nadeem_Walayat
We have CP LIE Tuesday and then the Fed rate meeting Wednesday in advance of which retail investors and many fund managers woke up June 1st to realise that there is a bull market underway and literally PANIC bought like a herd galloping towards the edge of the AI cliff.
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Tuesday, July 04, 2023
US Real Estate Bubble From A Technical Analysis Point Of View / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Understanding The Market Cycles
My focus usually lies with stock indexes, sectors, and commodities, but today, we venture into the real estate market. Real estate is a market that many people don’t fully comprehend. Many are excited by the robust housing market, believing it’s never been a better time to buy. But the reality is, I believe we’re in a phase that isn’t ideal for such investments.
Taking a leaf from Stan Weinstein’s book, he proposed that the market has four stages: Stage 1, where active investment capital isn’t advisable due to the choppy, flatlining market; Stage 2, the bull market phase; Stage 3, a volatile phase where struggle reigns; and Stage 4, a phase marked by a massive decline. Stages 2 & 4 are usually an easy time for investors to make money. But in Stages 1 & 3, it becomes harder to grow your capital and much easier to lose a hefty portion. This is the crucial time to preserve and protect your wealth for reinvestment when conditions improve.
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