Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Bitcoin Price Close to All-time High / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: Mike_McAra
The recent surge in Bitcoin is associated with the technical details of the currency and an agreement which avoids a fork for the time being. In an article on Business Insider, we read:
Bitcoin has recovered somewhat from the drop in value seen last Sunday, with the price of the cryptocurrency reaching $2,701 at the time of this writing.
The stabilization seems to be the result of Bitcoin miners reaching an agreement on the enactment of the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal.
This agreement means the avoidance of a user-activated softfork (UASF), the possibility of which caused significant unease among investors.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Last Week’s Rally in Gold Stocks Erased / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Gold, silver and the USD Index didn’t do much in yesterday’s trading, but that was not the case with mining stocks. The divergence between gold stocks and gold was particularly visible and the implications are once again particularly important.
Let’s take a look at the charts, starting with the HUI Index(gold stock chart courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Dollar, Bitcoin, Markets - Is There A New Flight To Safety? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2017
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The dollar has been taken beating on ‘false promises’ of any major fiscal reform from the Trump administration.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Central Banks ARE The Crisis / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Raul_I_Meijer
If there’s one myth -and there are many- that we should invalidate in the cross-over world of politics and economics, it‘s that central banks have saved us from a financial crisis. It’s a carefully construed myth, but it’s as false as can be. Our central banks have caused our financial crises, not saved us from them.
It really should -but doesn’t- make us cringe uncontrollably to see Bank of England governor-for-hire Mark Carney announce -straightfaced- that:
Read full article... Read full article...“A decade after the start of the global financial crisis, G20 reforms are building a safer, simpler and fairer financial system. “We have fixed the issues that caused the last crisis. They were fundamental and deep-seated, which is why it was such a major job.”
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Iran: Public Image Versus Historical Reality - Part 1: An Abridged History to the 20th Century / Politics / Iran
By: Raymond_Matison
Part I, traces historical events which have shaped Iran’s evolution and development from its great Persian empire of over two thousand years ago to those taking place in the 20th century.
Over the last several decades Iran has been labeled by the United States a terrorist state, a state that needs to be restricted or otherwise controlled. Consequently, Iran has been under frequent, broad and severe sanctions over the last several decades, whereby it was impeded from selling its oil to generate revenues, and foreclosed to use the SWIFT system of international money transfer. It is a state, according to the international community, which cannot be permitted to develop nuclear arms. President George W. Bush identified Iran as part of a global axis of evil. More recently President Trump has noted on his recent trip to the Middle East that Iran “is the biggest sponsor of terrorism, and that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon”. He called on “all nations of conscience to isolate Iran”.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Trump Fails To Understand One Critical Thing—Our Trade Partners Have Options, Too / Economics / Protectionism
By: John_Mauldin
Despite heavy opposition, Trump is more insistent than ever on imposing quotas or tariffs on steel imports.
However, it makes a big difference whether the administration decides to go with quotas on current steel imports or initiate a tariff. Quotas would be harmful, but a tariff would be far worse.
Let’s look at the numbers to see who exactly would actually be damaged.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Trump’s “America First” Trade Frictions Are About to Begin / Politics / US Politics
By: Dan_Steinbock
After the US-Sino Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, trade issues are alienating not only China and America’s NATO allies – but its NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico.As the Trump administration’s first US-Sino Comprehensive Economic Dialogue (CED) ended in Washington, it could only agree on three no’s: canceled news conferences, no joint statement and no new announcements on market access by the US to China, or by China to the US.
A simple scenario is that the CED has paved way to a major trade conflict between the US and China. Yet, despite tough political rhetoric, economic realities do not seem to support such a view, at least yet.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Students, It’s Time to Prepare Your Finances for the Years Ahead / Personal_Finance / Student Finances
By: MoneyFacts
As we approach a brand new academic year, prospective students and those ready to graduate might be considering the most cost-effective bank account that will cover their day-to-day needs. Choosing a good student bank account and finding out how to manage finances will be an essential part of life, especially for those who will be living away from home for the first time.
The latest analysis by moneyfacts.co.uk highlights some of the most essential elements when it comes to choosing the right student account and how students can prepare themselves for the years ahead.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Labour Sheffield City Council Playing Game of Thrones with Street Trees / Local / Sheffield
By: Anika_Walayat
Amey / Labour city council's objective is to kill and remove at least 6,000 of Sheffield's biggest and best tree's in support of which Amey use excuses such as that the trees are displacing curb stones. Here tree expert Jeremy Barrell for the BBC One Show takes a close look at many of Sheffield's trees marked for death, and gives his damning verdict that none of the trees he has looked at need to be felled. In stark contrast to Amey / Labour city council that is determined to kill at least 6,000 of Sheffield's street trees so as to avoid annual tree maintenance costs such as pruning and installation of solutions such as flex-paving.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
USDCNH Is Facing 6.7210 Support / Currencies / Forex Trading
By: Franco_Shao
The USDCNH pair failed to settle above 6.8450 resistance and pulled back to 6.7400 area, facing the previous low support at 6.7210. As mentioned before, the pullback would possibly be correction of the uptrend from 6.7210.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Can A Weak US Dollar Really Push The Dow Higher? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Submissions
By Mike Golembesky : After hitting the 161.8 extension up off of the April 18 lows on July 14, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has moved sideways and has traded in a very tight range of less than 1% since that July 14 top. Furthermore, the pattern both up and down off of that July 14 high has been very sloppy, not giving us very much information to work with on the smaller time frames.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Stock Market 37-Week Cycle / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Ed_Carlson
While the Advance/Decline line (among other indicators) keeps us bullish in the long-term, short-term, the environment is not so sanguine for equities. Both the Hybrid Lindsay model and a 37 week cycle point to a high last week. We can’t help but wonder if this is the top forecast by Lindsay’s 15 year interval (see Market Update 7.10.17).
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Stock Market and Gold Stocks Trend Forecast Update / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Brad_Gudgeon
When I made the charts below over the weekend, I had thought I made a mistake regarding the final top in the SPX being 7/20 and changed it to 7/24 based on the astro/cycle reading. As it turns out, it looks as though 7/20 was that top (irregular) and we are not making that rare double irregular top I used to see in the 1980’s.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
GOP Leadership Betrays Trump Voters on Obamacare & Debt / Politics / US Politics
By: MoneyMetals
The single-digit approval rating of Congress means precious few people still expect much from the politicians running Washington DC.
Expectations should now ratchet even lower as representatives once again demonstrate just how far their words are from their deeds.
We’ll start with healthcare. The U.S. Senate failed in yet another effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. The prospects for reform any time soon are approaching zero.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 24, 2017
Saving Illinois: Getting More Bang for Its Bucks / Politics / Debt Crisis 2017
By: Ellen_Brown
Illinois is insolvent, unable to pay its bills. According to Moody’s, the state has $15 billion in unpaid bills and $251 billion in unfunded liabilities. Of these, $119 billion are tied to shortfalls in the state’s pension program. On July 6, 2017, for the first time in two years, the state finally passed a budget, after lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto on raising taxes. But they used massive tax hikes to do it – a 32% increase in state income taxes and 33% increase in state corporate taxes – and still Illinois’ new budget generates only $5 billion, not nearly enough to cover its $15 billion deficit.
Monday, July 24, 2017
3 Stocks Sectors That Will Win in The Fed’s Great Balance-Sheet Unwind / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: John_Mauldin
BY STEPHEN MCBRIDE : In its June meeting, the Fed pledged to begin the unwind of its $4.47 trillion balance sheet in September.
Each month, about $50 billion in Treasury bonds on the Fed’s ledger reach maturity. Then the Fed buys new bonds to replace them.
The first step in the “great unwind” will be to let a portion of these maturing bonds roll off the balance sheet.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 24, 2017
Commercial Property Market Is Inflated and May Burst Again / Housing-Market / European Housing
By: GoldCore
by David McWilliams : Dublin property investors had better hope that Brexit happens soon.
They should also hope that it’s not just a ‘hard’ Brexit, but a granite Brexit — a Brexit that’s as hard as possible. They should be betting on the buffoonery of Boris Johnson, down on both knees praying for a massive barney between Davis and Barnier.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 24, 2017
5 Reasons to Fear the Stock Market Fall / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Michael_Pento
This powerful and protracted bull market has made Cassandras look foolish for a long time. Those who went on record predicting that massive central bank manipulation of markets would not engender viable economic growth have been proven correct. However, these same individuals failed to fully anticipate the willingness of momentum-trading algorithms to take asset prices very far above the underlying level of economic growth.
Monday, July 24, 2017
First-time Home Buyers: Wave Goodbye to Record Low Interest Rates / Housing-Market / Mortgages
By: MoneyFacts
Borrowers have been treated to record low mortgage rates, but while rates remain at their lowest for those with large deposits, research from moneyfacts.co.uk shows that for those with a small deposit the trend seems to be reversing. In fact, the average two-year fixed rate at 95% loan-to-value (LTV) has increased by 0.10% since April and a shocking 0.35% since the start of the year.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 24, 2017
S&P 500 Pushing the Envelope - Stock Market Crash 2017 / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Submissions
Rajveer Rawlin writes: Looking at the weekly close on the S and p 500 since 1950 its average close stands at 522 while the standard deviation stands at 606. One of the few markets in the world where the standard deviation exceeds the mean. This is also true with other US Indices like the Dow and the Nasdaq but is not the case with Emerging markets. This has been the case with US markets since 1998 when the FED intervened in the market to bail out the failing LTCM. Subsequent Fed intervention has caused the risk in the market to go up and not come down.
Read full article... Read full article...