Monday, June 05, 2017
Six-month Review of the UK Mortgage Landscape / Housing-Market / Mortgages
By: MoneyFacts
The first half of 2017 has seen the mortgage market ramp up its competition yet again, with providers fighting for borrowers’ attention. As a result, research from moneyfacts.co.uk shows that the average five-year fixed rate has fallen by 0.04% since January.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
EURJPY Moved Sideways between 122.55 and 125.81 / Currencies / Forex Trading
By: Franco_Shao
After breaking above the major resistance of the December 2016 high of 124.09, EURJPY formed as sideways movement in a trading range between 122.55 and 125.81. All we can do now is to wait for the breakout to occur.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
From the Era of Fed Interest Rates Easing to the Era of Tightening / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Dan_Steinbock
After half a decade of ultra-low rates in the United States, the Fed is hiking rates and moving ahead to reduce its massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet. The consequences will reverberate across the world, including Asia.Before the Trump era, the Federal Reserve hoped to tighten monetary policy more often and aggressively than markets anticipated. But since November, US economic prospects have fluctuated dramatically, from the Trump trade to new volatility.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
UK’s Weaker Brexit Hand with the EU / Politics / BrExit
By: Dan_Steinbock
Prime Minister May pushed for a snap election in June 2017 to strengthen her hand in the impending Brexit talks. In practice, she has weakened UK's bargaining power at the EU’s expense, while the latest London Bridge incident introduces new uncertainty and volatility into the EU/UK divorce proceedings.Like too many times before, British police declared a “major incident” on London Bridge after a van reportedly hit multiple pedestrians.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
Can Labour Win Nick Clegg's Sheffield Hallam Seat in Election 2017? / ElectionOracle / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
In the 2015 General Election former Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg put up a valiant battle in the face of a national Liberal Democrat wipeout. For in 2015 the opinion pollsters consistently had Labour winning the Sheffield Hallam Lib-Dem seat. Instead Nick Clegg managed to cling on in the wake of a Lib Dem bloodbath, however he did fall by a whopping 13% tumbling from 53.4% to 40% of the voter. Whilst Labour doubled their share from 16.1% to 35.8%, just 4.2% behind Nick Clegg. Whilst the Tories on just 13.6% clearly don't stand any chance of winning Sheffield Hallam in this election at least.
Monday, June 05, 2017
UK General Election 2017 Seats Final Forecast, Labour, Conservative Lib-Dem, SNP / ElectionOracle / UK General Election
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Here is my final UK election forecast conclusion on the basis of the sum of my analysis of the past 6 weeks in the run up to Theresa May's BrExit snap general election. Usually I would have aimed to have posted my final forecast conclusion at least a month before the day of the election i.e. for the US Presidential election my forecast conclusion was some 7 weeks before voting day. But that was just not possible this time as Theresa May seeing the Tories well ahead in the polls Mid April decided to ride the BrExit wave into a landslide general election victory. But that was about 6 weeks ago, now the likes of YouGov are forecasting a hung parliament resulting in a probable Labour / SNP coalition alliance.
Monday, June 05, 2017
Soaring Debt = Slow Growth = Even More Debt = Systemic Crisis / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: John_Rubino
It’s just common sense: Borrow too much money and the weight of this debt makes it hard to do things that used to be easy. This truism is now (finally!) hitting home, and blame is being apportioned. A couple of recent examples:
Read full article... Read full article...Over The Last 10 Years The U.S. Economy Has Grown At EXACTLY The Same Rate As It Did During The 1930s
(Economic Collapse Blog) – Even though I write about our ongoing long-term economic collapse every day, I didn’t realize that things were this bad. In this article, I am going to show you that the average rate of growth for the U.S. economy over the past 10 years is exactly equal to the average rate that the U.S. economy grew during the 1930s.
Monday, June 05, 2017
Is the Stock Market Correction Over? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Andre_Gratian
Current Position of the Market
SPX Long-term trend: Uptrend continues with a loss of upside momentum in weekly indicators.
SPX Intermediate trend: Correction over. May be heading for about 2500.
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 discuss longer market trends.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
Regime Change in the Trump White House? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dan_Steinbock
No U.S. postwar president has managed to reset relations with Russia. Now the Trump administration must cope with a special counsel’s investigation. In the past, US efforts at regime change targeted foreign countries; today, the White House. How will it impact Trump’s stalled policy agenda?As I argued in spring 2016 (TWFR, April 25, 2016), US election is a global risk and it would continue to be fought after the Trump election win. But recently, these political struggles moved to an entirely new phase.
First, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), reportedly only days after his request for increased resources to investigate Russia’s alleged interference in the election. Barely a week later, DOJ appointed Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI (2001-13) as special counsel overseeing the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
Last Week’s Stock Market Shallow Drop Portends Bigger Drop Ahead / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Brad_Gudgeon
Last week, I was looking for a pull back into May 31’s 8 TD low. The move down, however, was extremely shallow (wave ‘b’ 2418 down to 2403) and wave ‘c’ of Y looked to have finished on June 2 (or will finish by June 5 near 2440). The trines of June 1 (Venus trine Saturn) and June 3 (Sun trine Jupiter) are usually found near tops.On June 3, we have Venus conjunct Uranus in Aries (Mars rules Aries) and then the Sun squares Neptune in Gemini-Pisces June 4 while the Mars opposition to Saturn (May 29) orb still influences about two weeks out (through the end of next week). Mars leaves Gemini the same day and enters Cancer.
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Sunday, June 04, 2017
UK House Prices Forecast General Election 2017 Seats Result, for 2015 was 328 / ElectionOracle / UK General Election
By: Nadeem_Walayat
In 2015 the polling establishment and the mainstream media had in unison proclaimed that the 2015 general election was too close to call, one where the Labour and Conservative parties were neck and neck and where even if the Conservatives managed to pull a handful of seats ahead would still lose by default as they would not be able to form a majority even with Lib Dem support and therefore the Labour party appeared destined to win the 2015 general election, all of which was based on a year of opinion polls that consistently presented this consensus view right up until the polls closed!
Sunday, June 04, 2017
Gold Mining Stocks in 2017 Whipsaw / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017
By: Gary_Tanashian
Ever since 2012’s failure of the ‘QE 3 rally’ in the precious metals it has not been fruitful to micro manage the gold sector, because that failure jump started a savage bear market that would need time to work out the excesses both in the sector’s investor base and in its mining businesses, which had become bloated and inefficient. That’s what bear markets do; they clean out the landscape to make it inhabitable for new investors one day. Here is a weekly chart showing the bear’s kickoff. HUI’s 55 week EMA then became the ball and chain that kept its fate sealed (red arrows) until January of 2016.
Sunday, June 04, 2017
DOW Joins the Stock Market New All-time Highs Party / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
By: Tony_Caldaro
The week started at SPX 2416. After a pullback to SPX 2404 by Wednesday morning the market rallied to all-time highs on Thursday/Friday, hitting SPX 2440. For the week the SPX/DOW gained 0.80%, and the NDX/NAZ gained 1.55%. Economic reports for the week were mixed. On the downtick: consumer sentiment, the Chicago PMI, pending home sales, construction spending, monthly payrolls, the WLEI, the Q2 GDP estimate, plus weekly jobless claims and the trade deficit rose. On the uptick: personal income/spending, the CPI, Case-Shiller, the ADP, ISM manufacturing, plus the unemployment rate declined. Next week’s reports will be highlighted by ISM services and factory orders.
Sunday, June 04, 2017
London Bridge Terror Attack 5 Seats Election Boost for Conservative Party / ElectionOracle / UK General Election
By: Nadeem_Walayat
London has just been hit by another barbaric terror attack that was not even 10 days on from the horrific Manchester bombing that killed many children. The latest attack is just 5 days away from the General Election. Whilst information is very sketchy at this time barely an hour on form the London Met Police declared 2 terror related incidents at London Bridge and Borough Market. Nevertheless armed police have opened fire on at least 3 suspects, of which at least 2 are dead and 1 is being hunted. The police also announced that there are civilian causalities, though the scale of causalities is unknown at this time which hopefully will not be on the scale of Manchester.
Saturday, June 03, 2017
In Defense of Trumpian Diplomacy / Politics / US Politics
By: John_Browne
Given the media's obsession with some of the President Trump's communication challenges, it was utterly predictable that the President's declaration that his trip to Europe and the Middle East should be considered a "home run" was met almost universally with ridicule. In truth, the President actually did accomplish a series of victories overseas, or at least laid important groundwork that should help advance American interests in ways that prior Administrations have failed to do. It's a shame that these developments have been ignored among the din of partisanship.
Saturday, June 03, 2017
Gold Miners Weak but not Oversold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
If looking at Gold only in a vacuum, it looks good. Its uptrend since the start of the year remains intact and it has pushed above its 50 and 200-day moving averages. It closed the week at $1280/oz and could test $1300 next week. But looks can be deceiving. Considering the US Dollar index closed at a 7-month low today, Gold is lagging a bit. Moreover, both Silver and the gold miners have not confirmed Gold’s recent rise. In fact, the miners are lagging the metals “bigly.” At the moment the miners are not so oversold but a reversal in Gold could be the catalyst that pushes miners to oversold extremes.
Saturday, June 03, 2017
Gold Keep Calm and Carry On / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
By: The_Gold_Report
As precious metals expert Michael Ballanger ponders the current markets, he vows to "Keep Calm and Carry On." As I was walking through the shopping district of Kingston-on-Thames yesterday, I was wondering whether the locals had gotten the memo that the country remained on "High Alert" in light of the Manchester bombings. Here I was in the middle of an historic "village," walking across the Clattern Bridge (built in 1293) along with thousands of British shoppers, laughing and joking, sitting in pubs, talking about the rugby matches and generally going about their regular daily business as if nothing had happened. If I could have drawn little "thought balloons" above each and every person I observed, there would be one simple image of a raised middle finger everywhere. It was a wonderful, beautiful thing to witness.
Saturday, June 03, 2017
UK House Prices Forecast General Election 2017 Conservative Seats Result / ElectionOracle / UK General Election
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The polling establishment and the mainstream media had in unison proclaimed the 2015 general election was too close to call, one where the Labour and Conservative parties were neck and neck and where even if the Conservatives managed to pull a handful of seats ahead would still lose by default as they would not be able to form a majority even with Lib Dem support and therefore the Labour party appeared destined to win the 2015 general election, all of which was based on a year of opinion polls that consistently presented this consensus view right up until the polls closed!
Saturday, June 03, 2017
Betting Markets UK General Election 2017 Labour, Conservative Seats Forecasts / ElectionOracle / UK General Election
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Normally one would imagine that the betting markets should usually be the most accurate predictor in terms of the probable outcomes of events such as elections given that there is nothing that focuses ones mind more then putting ones own money where ones mouth is, which clearly the pollsters NEVER do given that they tend to be consistently wrong AND tend to publish polls that range all over the place so that after the fact can point to an outlier poll to imply that they got the election result right when in reality they most definitely got it very badly wrong!
Saturday, June 03, 2017
The Stock Market Crash of 2017 That Never Was But Could it Still Come to Pass? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Crash
By: Sol_Palha
I add this, that rational ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
Marcus T. CiceroFor the past few years much the angst of many experts we have consistently stated that the markets were not ready to crash. From late 2016 to early 2017, many former Bulls who predicted the direction of this market quite well, suddenly decided that the stock market was ready to crash. We, however, begged to differ, and we provided two very simple reasons for our stance.
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