Wednesday, March 27, 2019

March Analysis Update - UK House Prices and Machine Intelligence Stocks Investing / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Here's a quick heads up on what I am currently working on. I aim to complete two further pieces of analysis before the end of March that will first be made available to Patrons who support me work.

Firstly a continuation of my UK house prices series of analysis, with my fifth piece seeing if house building says anything different to my preceding analysis that continues to paint a bullish picture for UK house prices for many years.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The Fed Broke This Economic Cycle—and It’s a Game Changer for Investors / Economics / Economic Theory

By: John_Mauldin

Here’s a quote from my friend Peter Boockvar that has drawn an enormous amount of interest:“We no longer have business cycles, we have credit cycles.”

Let’s cut that small but meaty sound bite into pieces. What do we mean by “business cycle,” exactly? Well, it looks something like this.

A growing economy peaks, contracts to a trough (what we call “recession”), recovers to enter prosperity, and hits a higher peak. Then the process repeats.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Yield Curve Has Inverted. Will Gold Rally Now? / Interest-Rates / Inverted Yield Curve

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

The yield curve followed suit of the Fed and also inverted. Inverted yield curve is a sign of an incoming recession, they say. However, what is the background of this yield inversion and how will gold react to its emerging story?

Red alert! Or, actually, a yield alert! After months of worries, the yield curve has finally inverted. Well, maybe not the whole yield curve, but one of its segment. As one can see in the chart below, the spread between US 10-year Treasury and 3-Month Treasury dived on Friday to its lowest since 2007.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Has The Fed Finally Lost Control Of US Interest Rates? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Avi_Gilburt

Back in the 1940’s, Ralph Nelson Elliott once noted:

At best, news is the tardy recognition of forces that have already been at work for some time and is startling only to those unaware of the trend.

So, rather than be startled by the news of the past week, I have been trying to warn anyone who was willing to listen that if you want to know what the Fed is going to do, simply read the bond charts. You see, the Fed does not lead the market. Rather, the Fed follows the market. And, the market told me back in late 2018 that the Fed is about to fall behind the market.

Yet, almost every single person who reads this article will think I am crazy for saying something so ridiculous. Right? But, that is why I was prepared for the action seen in the bond market this past week, and not shocked as most participants seemed to be. In fact, one of my subscribers laughingly posted an article in our chatroom entitled "Riding the Bond Rally No One Saw Coming," while noting how our members were certainly quite prepared for this rally in the bond market.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Loyalty Still Doesn’t Pay if Savers Stay with Biggest Banks / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts

By: MoneyFacts

Savers searching for a flexible home for their hard-earned cash will still not find the best rates with the biggest banks*. Despite an increase to the Bank of England base rate in August 2018, many of the largest banks on the high street still fail to beat, or even match, its current level of 0.75%.

Indeed, the latest analysis by Moneyfacts.co.uk shows that as rates within the easy access market continue to improve, the difference in interest that savers could earn between smaller brands and high street names is widening. Now, the top rate overall pays 10 times more than the lowest big bank rate, which could equate to a difference in interest of £135 a year (based on a £10,000 minimum initial deposit)**.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

FCA to Introduce a Price Cap to be Introduced on Rent-to-own Goods / Personal_Finance / Shopping

By: Submissions

The Financial Conduct Authority will be introducing a price cap on rent-to-own goods from April 1st this year. The FCA are hoping that the price cap will save consumers in the UK around £22.7 million every year on the cost of products that are of everyday use such as fridges, cookers and televisions.
 
According to reports, in certain cases, consumers of rent-to-own goods are currently paying in total around 4 times more than the price of the good itself. The FCA hope to introduce the price cap to ensure that credit charges are unable to be more than the cost of the product itself. As well as the price cap, firms will have to benchmark their prices, such as delivery and installation, against the prices that are charged by three mainstream retailers. This benchmark will prevent firms from significantly rising their prices to get back the profits that they may lost from the cap on their prices.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Stock Market Crash Edition / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Troy_Bombardia

With the 10 year – 3 month yield curve now inverted, it is time to look at the long term bearish case for stocks.

Long Term

Only 2 factors affect the stock market’s long term outlook: valuations and fundamentals (macro).

The U.S. stock market’s valuation is high. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. The financial media, financial experts and social media have been saying “U.S. stocks are expensive!” for most of the past 10 years.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Handy Ways to Boost Your Home Income / Personal_Finance / Money Making

By: Thomas

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

US Treasury Bond Yield Inversion and Political Fed Cycles / Interest-Rates / Inverted Yield Curve

By: Chris_Vermeulen

With so much news hitting the wires regarding the Treasury Inversion level and the “potential pending recession”, we wanted to shed a little insight into this phenomenon and what we believe the most likely outcome to be going forward.  Our researchers, at Technical Traders Ltd., believe the Treasure inversion is a reactionary process to overly tight US Fed monetary policies, consumer demand factors and outside cycle forces.  There is very little correlation to inverted Treasury levels and causation factors other than the US Fed and global central banks.  We believe consumers and consumer sentiment also play a role in setting up the conditions that prompt yield inversion.  The one aspect we believe everyone fails to consider is the uncertainty that is associated with major US election cycles.

The US Fed is obviously a driving force with regards to yields and consumer expectations.  In the past, the US Fed has rotated FFR levels up and down by enormous amounts (in some cases 200 to 500%+ over very short spans of time.  Consumers, you know those people, the ones that are the actual driving force of the local and state level economies, have been the the ones having to deal with wildly rotating FFR levels and the consequences of their debt rotating from 4~7% average interest rates to 8~25%+ average interest rates over the span of just a few years.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Golan Heights Oil all about the Shekels / Politics / Israel

By: BATR

When the Zionists absorbed the Syrian Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967, most of the postmortems proclaimed that Israel was establishing a defensive barrier that would prevent future assaults. Well, guarding the territory on high may discourage artillery attacks might resonate with proponents of a Jewish state, most of the rest of the world condemns the illegal occupation. Now that President Trump has capitulated to the Neocon Israel-First State Department by recognizing the integration of the Golan Heights as part of the imperial Israeli dynasty, the dooms day clock approaches rapidly towards Armageddon.

After losing the annihilation of the Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime, the eternal Shylock motivations shift to exploit the oil and gas reserves that have been handed out to several of their supporters and loyal operatives. Do not hold your breath for objective reporting on the financial inside dealings to line the pockets by exploiting the natural resources of Syria.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Falling Yields a Catalyst for The Gold Catalyst / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

Since last spring we’ve written over and over again about a Fed rate cut being the catalyst for a bull move in gold stocks.

The history is almost bulletproof. Many lows in gold stocks over the past 60 years coincided with the end of rate hikes.

At present the Federal Reserve is in pause mode and the market is on the cusp of pricing in a rate cut. Friday, Fed funds futures showed a 56% chance of a rate cut by January 2020.

Monday, March 25, 2019

What Do Air Plane Crashes and the Precious Metals Markets Have in Common? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Raul_I_Meijer

Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration worked closely together to hustle a new passenger jet through the safety certification process. The combined efforts to save time and cost, coupled with little sense of accountability, resulted in a tragic safety flaw.

Now hundreds of passengers are dead, albeit in other countries. The public is finding the enormous trust placed in the manufacturer and the agency tasked with monitoring safety was badly misplaced.

The regulator tasked with safety appeared more interested in protecting Boeing’s monopoly and bottom line.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Can We Lock Up Rachel Maddow Now? / Politics / Mainstream Media

By: Raul_I_Meijer

Message to Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kemala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and the rest of the crew: you can stop asking for campaign donations, because you no longer stand a chance in the 2020 elections. Your own party, and the media who support you, made sure of that. Or rather, the only chance you would have is if you guys start another smear campaign against your president, and I wouldn’t recommend that.

I don’t want to start another Lock Her Up sequence, that’s too ugly for my taste. But three parties in this No Collusion disaster must be held accountable: US intelligence, the Democratic party, and the media. You can’t just let it go, too much water under the bridge. No can do. “The Democrats need to move on”, a recent ‘soft line’, is not good enough. They must be held to account.

Bill Barr can investigate the FBI and DOJ, but the obstacles there are obvious: investigating the investigators. The Democratic party would mean going after individuals, but sure, let’s see what Loretta Lynch, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Maxine Waters have to say for themselves and take it from there, before you get to Hillary. The media, though, is something else altogether.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Real US National Debt Might Be $230 Trillion / Interest-Rates / US Debt

By: John_Mauldin

Trump has promised to free the US of debt. He pledged to pay all federal debt off in eight years.

But so far, it’s been just talk. Two years into Trump’s presidency, the US national debt has grown by $2 trillion.

The official, on-the-books federal debt is now at $22.1 trillion. $22.1 trillion is the face amount of all outstanding Treasury paper, including so-called “internal” debt.

It comes to about 105% of GDP, and that’s only the federal government.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Friday's Stock Market Sell-Off - New Downtrend or Just Correction? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Paul_Rejczak

Friday's trading session was bearish, as stocks retraced their Thursday's advance and continued lower ahead of the weekend. The S&P 500 index was the highest since the early October on Thursday. So was the Friday's sell-off a medium-term downward reversal or still just a correction?

The U.S. stock market indexes lost 1.8-2.5% on Friday, as investors' sentiment worsened following some global economic data releases. The S&P 500 index retraced more of its October-December downward correction of 20.2% recently. The broad stock market's gauge traded just around 3% below September the 21st record high of 2,940.91. But then it got close to the 2,800 mark again. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.8% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.5% on Friday.

The nearest important resistance level of the S&P 500 index is now at around 2,820, marked by the recent support level. The next resistance level is at 2,850-2,860, marked by the early October local lows. On the other hand, the support level is now at 2,800, marked by the recent resistance level and the daily gap up of 2,798.32-2,799.78. The support level is also at 2,785, marked by the daily gap up of 2,784.00-2,786.73.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Mortgage Providers Encourage First-time Buyers Cutting Margins on 95% loans / Housing-Market / Mortgages

By: MoneyFacts

The latest research from Moneyfacts.co.uk shows that the margin between the average two-year fixed mortgage rate at maximum 95% and 90% loan-to-value (LTV) is at its narrowest since February 2013, with the difference between these two higher LTV rates currently standing at 0.65%, down from a high of 1.57% in October 2017. This has been driven by average rates at 95% LTV falling dramatically since then, offering hope for borrowers who can only amass a 5% deposit.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Potentially Powerful Stock Market Headwinds / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Mike_Paulenoff

For the past four Sundays, my technical work has been focused on the extent of the post-Christmas recovery rally in the S&P 500 (SPX) in relation to the Sep-Dec 2018 correction from the Sep 21 all-time high at 2940.91 to the Dec 26 low at 2346.58.

Since mid-Feb, when the SPX climbed and sustained above the 62% Fibonacci retracement zone at 2713.70 (+1% target overshoot at 2740.84), I have been refocused on the next higher 76.4% Fib resistance level at 2803.50 (+1% target overshoot at 2832). Purely from a Fibonacci perspective, the 2803.50 to 2832 zone on the SPX represented the next natural resistance zone from where the recovery rally might exhaust itself.

Monday, March 25, 2019

20 Days Left to Find Buying Opportunities In Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Our researchers have been glued to Gold, Silver and the Precious Metals sector for many months. We believe the current setup in Gold is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for skilled traders to stake positions below $1300 before a potentially incredible upside price move.  We’ve been alerting our members and follower to this opportunity since well before the October/December 2018 downside price rotation in the US markets.

October 5, 2018: Prepare for a gold and silver rally

December 9, 2018: Waiting for gold to erupt

Jan 25, 2018: Why everyone is talking about gold and silver

Monday, March 25, 2019

Will the Historic Imbalance in Gold Stocks to Gold Price Resolve ? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019

By: Rambus_Chartology

There is a ratio chart, $Gold:$XAU, we haven’t looked at in quite awhile that has helped us in the past to locate some important turning points for the PM stocks. I’m not going to get into all the details tonight but this ratio chart shows you just how undervalued the $XAU or precious metals stocks in general are to gold itself. From the mid 1980’s to the 2008 GFC crash the horizontal blue line was a good place to buy your gold and silver stocks and when the ratio fell to the red line it was a good place to sell those stocks.

Everything changed dramatically between gold and the gold stocks during that 2008 crash period. The green circle on the XAU shows where the failure occurred. Instead of the ratio dropping down to the red line like it had always done before the ratio broke out above the blue horizontal line in a way it had never done previously. At the time I labeled that initial high as the highest the ratio had ever been in history thinking the price action would decline back into the old trading range between the blue and red lines. As you can see that wasn’t the case at all. Instead of getting back to normal the ratio began to go parabolic to the upside and finally topped out in January of 2016 as shown by the small double top, yellow shaded area. That also marked the bottom for the XAU.

Monday, March 25, 2019

EasySMX Wireless Games Controllers Review / Personal_Finance / Gaming

By: Sami_Walayat

This is a review of two models of EasySMX Wireless Game Controllers that we bought from Amazon for use with PC's, PS3 and android phones.

1. With a rechargeable battery that costs £20 https://amzn.to/2YtJ8VY

2. Requires two AA rechargeable batteries that costs £18 https://amzn.to/2UU4eKV

The rechargable controller comes with a recharging cable and both come with a USB stick and work with PC's, PS3 and android phones amongst other devices. See the video for our full review and why we consider these to be good 'cheap' games controllers.