Friday, March 18, 2022
Crude Oil Prices Keep Falling. Is It Time to Get Long on Black Gold? / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Submissions
Crude oil continues to decline due to lowered demand, and the petrodollar seems threatened, losing interest. What is the best strategy to take now?
Oil prices kept falling this week, driven by potential progress in Ukraine-Russia talks and a potential slowdown in the Giant Panda’s (China) economic growth due to epidemic lockdowns in some regions where a surge of Omicron was observed.
As I mentioned in my previous article, India considers getting Russian crude oil supplies and other commodities at a reduced price by settling transactions through a rupee/rouble payment system. Meanwhile, we keep getting rumors – notably reported by The Wall Street Journal – that Saudi Arabia and China are also currently discussing pricing some Saudi oil exports directly in yuan. The Chinese are actively seeking to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and this latest development suggests that the petrodollar is now under threat.
Friday, March 18, 2022
Climate Change Crisis and the Coming Global Reset / Politics / Climate Change
By: Richard_Mills
It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a world that will be more than 3C warmer by 2100.
The first thing that hits you is the air. In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy and, depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Your eyes often water. Your cough never seems to disappear. You think about some countries in Asia, where, out of consideration, sick people used to wear white masks to protect others from airborne infection. Now you often wear a mask to protect yourself from air pollution. You can no longer simply walk out your front door and breathe fresh air: there might not be any. Instead, before opening doors or windows in the morning, you check your phone to see what the air quality will be.
Melting permafrost releases ancient microbes today’s humans have never been exposed to and have no resistance to. Fewer people work outdoors and even indoors the air can taste slightly acidic, sometimes making you feel nauseated. The last coal furnaces closed 10 years ago, but that hasn’t made much difference in air quality around the world because you are still breathing dangerous exhaust fumes from millions of cars and buses everywhere. Our world is getting hotter. Over the next two decades, projections tell us that temperatures in some areas of the globe will rise even higher, an irreversible development now utterly beyond our control. Oceans, forests, plants, trees and soil had for many years absorbed half the carbon dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere. The increasing heat of the Earth is suffocating us and in five to 10 years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly inhospitable to humans. We don’t know how hospitable the arid regions of Australia, South Africa and the western United States will be by 2100. No one knows what the future holds for their children and grandchildren: tipping point after tipping point is being reached, casting doubt on the form of future civilisation. Some say that humans will be cast to the winds again, gathering in small tribes, hunkered down and living on whatever patch of land might sustain them.
— ‘The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis’ by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
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Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Is it Time to Buy Travel Stocks? / Companies / Sector Analysis
By: Stephen_McBride
Are you scared?
If so, you’re not alone. Many investors are freaking out right now.
The S&P 500 recently dropped to its lowest levels since September 2020. Many tech stocks have been cut in half over the past few months.
I regularly chat with dozens of investors. From conversations I’ve had in the past week, I sense folks haven’t been this worried since the onset of COVID-19.
But while much of the world panics, I see an opportunity to buy a specific group of stocks—a group that’s still hated after last year’s “fakeout”…
I’ll tell you all about it in a moment. First, let’s rewind the clock…
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Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Inflation Big Picture / Economics / Inflation
By: Rambus_Chartology
One of the headlines this week was, the biggest rise in inflation since 1982. To put that into context we’ll need to look at some long term charts and what the Chartology looks like back then and today.
Right now everyone is trying to blame inflation on someone, regardless of the facts that I will present to you in the charts below. It is exactly the same thing when a Republican or Democrat is elected president. If a Republican is elected to the White House the Democrats will will say they will ruin the economy and the same thing will be said by the Republicans if a Democrat wins, it never ends.
We are going to hear the same rhetoric over and over again with inflation because most people don’t understand the big cycles that move through the markets that can last many years. We are currently seeing that in the stock markets right now that have been in a secular bull market since the 2009 crash low. Since the 2009 crash low we have had one Democrat president and one Republican as president with a new Democrat president that has been in office less than a year.
Before we look at tonights charts I would like to show you a satirical look at the, HISTORY CHART FOR THE END OF THE WORLD. What this chart shows you are all the events over the last 40 years that felt like the end of the world if you were trading the markets when they happened. Many of you were members during the 2020 crash and got to feel what an end of the world event felt like that all of the other end of the world events felt like that never worked out for the bears.
If you recall on the day of the presidential election last year I made the BOLD statement that it wouldn’t make any difference who was elected president. By that I meant that the secular bull market that began in 2009 would continue unabated into the future and as you can see it has.
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Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: OMG - It's A Bear Market / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
By: Avi_Gilburt
This week, I am going to give you a two-for-one in this update. I am going to provide an update to my last TLT article, as well as a quick update to my market perspective.
But, first, I want to provide you some quotes that I have seen over the past week from just within the comment section of my last article:
“Recession fears, and stagflation fears are building”
“it looks like market has unlimited supply of sellers”
“This could be just the beginning of a 2000-2002 period (growth stock "reset"). 2200-3400 is absolutely possible. In fact, 3400 is highly probable.”
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Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Bitcoin Jumps 9%: Is This Executive Order the Reason? / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: EWI
Here's what our "wave model" suggested for Bitcoin before the rally
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies surged higher on March 9.
CNBC provided this explanation (March 9):
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were higher on [March 9] after President Joe Biden announced his highly anticipated executive order on digital assets that appeared to take a supportive stance toward the industry.
The basic message of the executive order focuses on development of the crypto market as opposed to unrealistic regulations.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Are Rising Oil Prices Sending Stocks into a Downtrend? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2022
By: EWI
See a time when the economy revived as oil prices doubled
A long-held assumption is that "oil shocks" or dramatically rising oil prices are bearish for stocks.
Look at these headlines:
- Dow slides nearly 800 points as oil hits $120 a barrel (Washington Post, March 7)
- Why soaring oil prices could soon make the stock market sputter (Marketwatch, October 2021)
As you might imagine, if observers assume that dramatically rising oil prices make the stock market decline, they also believe the reverse, namely, a drop in oil prices makes the stock market climb.
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Monday, March 14, 2022
Silver $100 – Nothing Has Changed / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Kelsey_Williams
In retrospect, nothing much has changed since I published my original article $100 Silver Has Come And Gone in October 2019.
The price is higher than it was at the time the article was written, and that is certainly positive. However, the net change since then does not alter the fundamental arguments stated in the original article. Let’s review the salient points now.
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Monday, March 14, 2022
The Avoidable Ukrainian Crisis, the unavoidable global hit / Politics / Ukraine War
By: Dan_Steinbock
To Russia and Ukraine, the crisis is an existential issue. To the US/NATO, it's an enlargement power play. To Europe, it spells a new era of uncertainty. In the world economy, it takes us all closer to an edge.
The Ukraine crisis did not come out of the blue. It was allowed to happen. How did we get here?
The dominant view is to blame everything on Russia, as international media largely does. But critics and peace advocates see other factors as well. In effect, there’s four plausible scenarios and they are not mutually exclusive.
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Monday, March 14, 2022
Washington Enters Full Scapegoat Mode for Brewing Inflation Disaster / Politics / Inflation
By: MoneyMetals
First It Was “Transitory,” Then a Sign of Recovery, Then Corporate Greed, Now It’s Vladimir Putin’s Fault!
First, they said inflation was transitory. Then when that line became untenable, they said inflation was a sign of a recovering economy. Then when polls showed most Americans believed they were losing ground financially, the White House blamed corporate greed. Now they’re saying it’s all Vladimir Putin’s fault.
Another volatile week of trading saw precious metals markets rally to new highs for the year on Tuesday before suffering a sharp drawdown on Wednesday and more selling on Friday.
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Monday, March 14, 2022
Copper and Nickel Commodity Market Updates / Commodities / Copper
By: Richard_Mills
Copper
The global copper supply crisis is getting deeper with each passing day.
Even disregarding the military crisis in Europe and the piling sanctions against Russia that have rocked the commodity markets, copper has always been in a tough spot simply because of its fast-rising demand and the critical role in the modern economy.
More than 20 million tonnes of the metal are being consumed each year across a variety of industries; these include building construction, power generation and transmission, and electronic product manufacturing.
Roskill forecasts total copper consumption will more than double and exceed 43 million tonnes by 2035, driven by population and GDP growth, urbanization and electricity demand.
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Sunday, March 13, 2022
Quantum AI Tech Stocks Portfolio Current / Companies / Quantum AI Tech Stocks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Here's a quick review of what I have been upto in terms of buying AI tech stocks over the past few weeks, 2 weeks ago my exposure was 22.7% (AI stocks + High Risk + Cash on account =100%)
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Sunday, March 13, 2022
Gold’s next bull leg in progress; but a test is due for the metal & miners / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Gary_Tanashian
“2022: The Golden Year” activates…
…as gold and the miners hit our short-term upside targets this week.
In August of 2020 we noted the danger signals for gold based on sentiment excess coming out of the acute pandemic fear phase. We also noted the need for a multi-year bullish Cup to build a proper handle after that excess. A Cup’s handle is actually a downward trending bull flag.
In December of 2021we noted that 2022 would be the “Golden Year”.
And so it is. It took 1.5 years of handle-making (see chart below) and that phase, which cast doubt on the monetary metal among the public and even some of gold’s staunchest supporters, was so healthy that words cannot describe. The angst was fueled by gold’s failure to act as an inflation hedge while cyclical commodities flew during the inflation trades of 2020-2021. And thus, an excellent handle to a bullish Cup is in the books.
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Sunday, March 13, 2022
Gold Likes Recessions - Could High Interest Rates Lead to One? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
We live in uncertain times, but one thing is (almost) certain: the Fed’s tightening cycle will be followed by an economic slowdown – if not worse.There are many regularities in nature. After winter comes spring. After night comes day. After the Fed’s tightening cycle comes a recession. This month, the Fed will probably end quantitative easing and lift the federal funds rate. Will it trigger the next economic crisis?
It’s, of course, more nuanced, but the basic mechanism remains quite simple. Cuts in interest rates, maintaining them at very low levels for a prolonged time, and asset purchases – in other words, easy monetary policy and cheap money – lead to excessive risk-taking, investors’ complacency, periods of booms, and price bubbles. On the contrary, interest rate hikes and withdrawal of liquidity from the markets – i.e., tightening of monetary policy – tend to trigger economic busts, bursts of asset bubbles, and recessions. This happens because the amount of risk, debt, and bad investments becomes simply too high.
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Sunday, March 13, 2022
Is Investing In Gold A Smart Decision For Retirement? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Steve_Barker
Whether or not you are investing in gold for retirement, it is always important to be informed. This article will help you decide if investing in gold is the right decision for your retirement.
When deciding on what to invest in, one of the most popular choices is gold. Gold has been used as a currency and an investment for thousands of years, and it continues to be a popular choice for investors today. Here are some reasons why you might want to consider investing in gold for your retirement.
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Saturday, March 12, 2022
THE 2020's INFLATION MONSTER! / Economics / Inflation
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Many investors used to buying the dip are confused as to why rallies from the dip lows keep fizzling out with stocks once more resuming a trend to fresh lows, despite many if not most stocks now trading over 50% off their highs.
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Saturday, March 12, 2022
Ukraine Mobilises Budgies to Dive Bomb Attack Russian Soldiers / Politics / Ukraine War
By: N_Walayat
Ukraine faced with the existential threat that is the Russian invasion has mobilised every able bodies person to take up arms in it's defence which includes the training and deployment of special avionic deviations, where former pets are such as Budgies are being drafted into the dive bombing of Russian troops,
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Saturday, March 12, 2022
Why Silver Is an "Oak-Solid" Investment / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: MoneyMetals
Imagine what an oak tree's underground root ball looks like, with supportive tendrils spreading out in all directions, not unlike what the limbs of this magnificent specimen are doing above-ground.
The result is an impregnable presence in all directions of the compass. "Open on strike and at depth" as a mining geologist might say.
Like Mycelium (the vegetative part of a fungus-like bacterial colony consisting of infinitely branching thread-like tendrils that can produce everything from plastics to plant-based meat), silver permeates life across all cultures and climates.
A strong case can be made that a severe and sustained shortage of silver could impede and perhaps even cause an implosion of humankind's technological-quality of life.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
The Ukraine War Is on for Two Weeks. How Does It Affect Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2022
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
With each day of the Russian invasion, gold confirms its status as the safe-haven asset. Its long-term outlook has become more bullish than before the war.Two weeks have passed since the Russian attack on Ukraine. Two weeks of the first full-scale war in Europe in the 21th century, something I still can’t believe is happening. Two weeks of completely senseless conflict between close Slavic nations, unleashed without any reasonable justification and only for the sake of Putin’s imperial dreams and his vision of Soviet Reunion. Two weeks of destruction, terror, and death that captured the souls of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children.
Just yesterday, Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital in southern Ukraine. I used to be a fan of Russian literature and classic music (who doesn’t like Tolstoy or Tchaikovsky?), but the systematic bombing of civilian areas (and the use of thermobaric missiles) makes me doubt whether the Russians really belong to the family of civilized nations.
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Saturday, March 12, 2022
Stock Market S&P 500 – Should We Buy the Dip? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2022
By: Paul_Rejczak
Stock prices remain very volatile, as the Ukraine conflict keeps dominating headlines. Will the market reverse its downtrend?
The S&P 500 index gained 2.57% on Wednesday, Mar. 9, as it retraced some of the recent decline. The broad stock market’s gauge got back to the 4,300 level after bouncing from its Tuesday’s low of 4,157.87. On Feb. 24 the index fell to the local low of 4,114.65 and it was 704 points or 14.6% below the January 4 record high of 4,818.62. There’s still a lot of uncertainty concerning the ongoing Ukraine conflict. This morning the S&P 500 index is expected to open 1.3% lower and we may see further consolidation.