Tuesday, January 08, 2019
An Investment Lesson from Puerto Rico / Stock-Markets / Investing 2019
By: Rodney_Johnson
It takes two and a half hours to fly from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico, but the island might as well be on the other side of the planet.Even though it’s a U.S. territory and it’s a shorter flight from Miami to San Juan than to L.A. or even Washington, the place is the epitome of out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
When’s the last time you considered the tough conditions on the island?
Hurricane Maria flattened the place more than a year ago, and quickened the pace of migration from the island to Florida, leaving behind the vulnerable population.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Wall Street Drools over Fishy Jobs Report / Stock-Markets / Economic Statistics
By: MoneyMetals
The Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered a blowout jobs report on Friday. Headline chasing algorithms and investors responded by snapping up stocks. They also sold some gold and silver futures, driving prices lower on the day.
To Wall Street cheerleaders, it looked like the stock market correction might be over and precious metals would be headed out of fashion, once again.
It looked like something else to anyone who read past the headlines. What a Potemkin Village the markets have become!
Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Did Strong December Payrolls Push Gold Prices Up? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
December payrolls were strong – but gold prices rose. What happened?
Job Creation Surprises Positively
U.S. nonfarm payrolls accelerated in December, beating expectations. The economy added 312,000 jobs last month, following a rise of 176,000 in November (after an upward revision) and significantly above 182,000 forecasted by the economists. The number was the biggest increase since February 2018. On an annual basis, the pace of job creation increased slightly last month to 1.8 percent.
What is important is that the gains were widespread, but the most impressive expansion occurred in education and health services (+82,000), leisure and hospitality (+55,000) and professional and business services (+43,000).
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Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Here’s Why Trump Could Soon Turn on Europe / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: John_Mauldin
2018’s Buenos Aires G20 summit was a chance for world leaders to forge common ground on important global issues.
That’s not exactly what happened. But President Trump’s trade discussion with Chinese president Xi Jinping looked initially like a bright spot.
They agreed to stop making things worse for a few months, at least. Markets were more skeptical after digesting the news. And rightly so.
Tuesday, January 08, 2019
How to Spot A Tradable Stock Market Top? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
If you are a long-term investor, swing trader, or day trader, then you could find one or all of the charts below interesting. What I am going to briefly cover and show you could make you think twice about how you are investing and trading your money.
I will be the first to admit you should not, and cannot, always pick market tops or bottoms, but there are certain times when it’s worth betting on one.
Below I have shared three charts, each with a different time frame using daily, 30 minutes, and a 10-minute chart. Each chart also has a different technical analysis technique and strategy applied.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Why 90% of Traders Lose / InvestorEducation / Learn to Trade
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The failure rate for financial market and commodity traders has remained at a consistently high 90% for many decades, this despite all of the advances in information technology, flood of new learning materials that is churned out annually, therefore why is it that 90% of traders still end up losing?
In my opinion, a high 90% of traders are destined to lose because they are in fact listening to those 90% of failed traders who proceeded them that went on to comprise what is trading markets sales industry, perpetually churning out a never ending stream of materials, methods and signal services of how to trade, that invariably don't pan out in reality.
Then there is the commentariat, again 90% of which comprises failed traders. Who may have tried to trade but failed so have gone on to become market reporters, mostly providing rear view mirror in hindsight market commentary, or so vague in outlook that all eventualities are covered as they hope to become the next big media stars, appearing on the likes of CNBC so as to turn failure to trade into full time media careers and thus perpetuate a continuous cycle of failing traders guiding new traders towards a similar fate.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Breadth is Very Strong While Stocks are Surging. What’s Next for Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Troy_Bombardia
As the S&P 500 makes a sharp upwards reversal towards its 38.2% fibonacci retracement, the U.S. stock market’s breadth is surging and risk-off assets (USD) are falling.
This combination of extremely strong breadth and a decline in risk-off assets often leads to short term weakness before a bigger medium term rally, but sometimes was a part of V-shaped recoveries. Moral of the story: focus on the medium term instead of the short term. Although V-shaped recoveries are unlikely, there are not impossible.
Go here to understand our fundamentals-driven long term outlook.
Let’s determine the stock market’s most probable medium term direction by objectively quantifying technical analysis. For reference, here’s the random probability of the U.S. stock market going up on any given day.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Gold Hits Our $1300 Price Target – What Next? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Early trading on January 4, 2019, saw Gold reach just above $1300 per ounce – confirming our price target from our research and posts on November 24, 2018. The importance of this move cannot be under-estimated. Traders and investors need to understand the recent rally in the metals markets are attempting to alert us that FEAR is starting to re-enter the market and that 2019 could start the year off with some extended volatility.
Our research has shown that Gold will likely rotate between $1270~1315 over the next 30~60 days before attempting to begin another rally. Our next upside price target is near $1500. We will continue to post articles to help everyone understand when and how this move will happen. We expect Gold to rotate near the $1300 level for at least another 30 days before attempting another price rally.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Kendall and Hochberg: Interest Rates Win Again as Fed Follows Market / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: EWI
Most economists and financial analysts believe that central banks set interest rates.
For more than two decades, Elliott Wave International has tracked the relationship between interest rates set by the marketplace and interest rates set by the U.S. Federal Reserve and found that it's actually the other way around--the market leads, and the Fed follows.
The latest Federal Reserve rate decision on December 19 brought the usual breathless anticipation. Confusion reigned as the U.S. president as well as a former Fed board member publicly urged the U.S. central bank not to raise rates and many wondered if the Fed would "rescue" investors with a surprise decision to leave them unchanged. The Fed, however, did what it almost always does: it brought its rate in line with market rates.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Market Predictions for 2019 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019
By: Michael_Pento
Bond Yields Continue to Fall in First Half of YearThe epoch bond bubble continues to build and become a dagger over the worldwide economy and markets. Wall Street Shills are fond of claiming that global bond yields remain at historically low levels due to central bank manipulations, but this argument is no longer tenable. It was once true, but QE on a net global basis has now gone negative. And the data shows the amount of U.S. publicly traded debt relative to GDP is much greater today than it was prior to the start of the Great Recession—even after adjusted for the size of the Fed’s balance sheet--in other words, taking into account all the debt the Fed has purchased and is still rolling over.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Half of Investment-Grade Bonds Are Just One Step from Junk Status / Interest-Rates / Corporate Bonds
By: Submissions
BY ROBERT ROSS :
The S&P fell 10%. It was its worst December since 1931.When the market drops, conventional investing wisdom says buy bonds. And this is what investors did.
Many have shifted money out of stocks into bonds. Much of that money has flowed into investment-grade corporate bonds.
These bonds are seen as some of the safest bonds investors can buy. The problem is that investment grade doesn’t mean what it used to.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Stocks Rallied Again, Still Just an Upward Correction? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Paul_Rejczak
Stocks rallied on Friday following better-than-expected monthly jobs data release. Will the uptrend continue? Or is this just a quick upward correction before another leg lower?
The U.S. stock market indexes gained 3.3-4.3% on Friday, as investors reacted to better-than-expected Nonfarm Payrolls number release. The S&P 500 index extended its recent rebound off the December the 26th medium-term low of 2,346.58. It traded 20.2% below September the 21st record high of 2,940.91 on that day. Then the market rallied and retraced some of the downtrend. It got back above 2,500 mark on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3.3% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 4.3%.
The nearest important level of resistance of the S&P 500 index is now at 2,530-2,550, marked by some previous fluctuations. The resistance level is also at 2,570-2,600. On the other hand, the level of support is at 2,500, and the next support level remains at 2,450-2,475, marked by some recent local lows.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Will the Momentum in Precious Metals Continue? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
The precious metals complex has enjoyed a nice run in recent months.
GDX has gained 25% since the September lows while GDXJ has gained 22% since its November low. Gold has rallied over $100/oz since its October low and Silver has surged in recent weeks.
The Gold community is getting excited again. They think the equity market is doomed and Gold has started a real bull run. That may be true but in the interim there are questions on the sustainability of recent strength.
Below we plot GDX with its advance decline (A/D) line and its RSI indicator. We already know that the A/D line has been carrying a few negative divergences.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Gold Golden Long-Term Opportunity / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Dan_Steinbock
As global jitters are escalating with economic uncertainty and market volatility, gold looks more attractive. But there’s a big difference between its short- and longer-term prospects.Those analysts who believe that fear has made a comeback argue that gold is benefiting as equities slide and investors are increasingly concerned about the economic prospects of the U.S., China, Europe and Japan. Yet, even at $1,290, gold still remains more than 30% behind its all-time high of $1,898 in September 2011 amid the U.S. debt-limit crisis.
Although U.S. dollar has not strengthened as much as anticipated, the Fed’s rising rates have contributed to the fall in gold prices. In this view, a reversal may be unlikely because the investor assumption is that the Fed will continue to normalize, though perhaps slower than anticipated.
In the postwar era, such tightening meant a strengthening U.S. economy and a stronger dollar. But at the time, American economy was not haunted by budget and trade deficits or a debt burden. Today, it suffers from both twin deficits and a massive $22 trillion sovereign debt burden.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Natural Gas Through our $3.20 Target – What Next? / Commodities / Natural Gas
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Our research team has been nailing the markets moves with our proprietary price modeling tools. Our December 12, 2018 call that Natural Gas would collapse nearly 30% after reaching a price peak was a very bold call. Who would have thought that predictive price modeling could be so accurate and could identify a move like this – or call for what is expected to happen next?
Back when Natural Gas breached the $4.60~4.80 range, our ADL predictive modeling system was suggesting a massive price anomaly was setting up. These types of triggers are becoming more common as volatility in the general markets increases. The ADL system suggested that a massive -30% downside price move would happen before the end of February 2019.
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Monday, January 07, 2019
Olympus TG-5 Tough Camera First Look Test Review / Personal_Finance / Reviews
By: HGR
Were back from Jessops with a brand new Olympus TG-5 Tough Camera after returning a faulty TG-5 bought from Curry's that had a stuck or dead pixel. So lets find out if the TG-5 camera's are not prone to having dead / stuck pixels which should NOT happen to brand new cameras! Or if the previous camera was a one off, as we test this TG-5 for the first time.
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Sunday, January 06, 2019
The Fed IS the Ugly Truth / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Raul_I_Meijer
This Fed thing just keeps going on, and it needs to stop. There is nothing in the discussion about the Federal Reserve these days that has any value other than it provides even more proof that the Fed has killed off the most essential elements of what once made the US economy function. All markets, stocks, bonds, housing markets, all price discovery, all murdered. No heartbeat. Pining for the fjords.
And instead of addressing that, and I’m not even talking about addressing fixing what is wrong, all I see is neverending stuff about Jay Powell using, or not using, terms such as “patient” or “accommodative”. Like any of it means anything coming from him and his ilk. Other than for making ‘investors’ a quick buck. Like a quick buck could ever trump the survival of entire market systems.
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Sunday, January 06, 2019
Stock Market Counter-trend Still on Track / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Andre_Gratian
SPX: Long-term trend – Correcting within the very long-term bull market trend.
Intermediate trend – A bearish correction has started which could retrace as low as 2200 before it is complete
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.
Sunday, January 06, 2019
Market Volatility Skyrocketing, Trump & Pelosi Spar / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: MoneyMetals
Precious metals markets are off to a strong start in 2019. Gold and silver both closed Thursday at multi-month highs as the stock market reversed sharply to the downside.
Investors were disappointed by manufacturing data showing a slowdown in industrial output. They dumped economically sensitive stocks and bid the U.S. dollar lower on foreign currency exchanges. Markets now expect the Federal Reserve to pause its rate hiking campaign and possibly even begin cutting rates later this year.
The weaker dollar helped boost crude oil and precious metals prices. The energy and mining sectors are among the only gainers in the stock market. The HUI gold miners index closed at a 5-month high on Thursday.
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Sunday, January 06, 2019
Gold Stocks Upleg Breaking Out / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
By: Zeal_LLC
The gold stocks’ young upleg is really growing, on a trajectory to become major. This contrarian sector is breaking out to the upside on multiple fronts technically, which is really improving sentiment. Traders’ extreme bearishness of late summer has mostly abated, with bullish shoots taking root. Fundamentals certainly justify the mounting gold-stock buying, with earnings set to surge on higher gold prices in coming quarters.
This baby new year should prove far happier for gold stocks than 2018. This sector’s performance is measured by the share price of the flagship gold-stock investment vehicle, which is the GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF. This week it held shares worth $10.5b in 46 major and mid-tier gold and silver miners from around the world. GDX is now 60.1x larger than the next-biggest 1x-long major-gold-miners ETF!
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