Thursday, March 24, 2016

Brussels Terror Attacks, Death of the European Union, BrExit Wake up Call / Politics / European Union

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Syrian civil war is coming home to roost to a fatally flawed European Union for the fundamental fact every EU nations borders begin with the borderline third world state of Greece, which along with the rest of eastern europe should never have been allowed to join the European Union as this weeks Brussels terror attacks just represent the tip of the ice-berg of full spectrum instability that is the European Union.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Next Financial Crisis Will Be THE Crisis / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016

By: Graham_Summers

For six years, the world has operated under a complete delusion that Central Banks somehow fixed the 2008 Crisis

All of the arguments claiming this defied common sense. A 5^th grader would tell you that you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt. If the below chart was a problem BEFORE 2008… there is no way that things are better now. After all, we’ve just added another $20 trillion in debt to the US system.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The ONLY Buyer of Stocks Just Stopped Buying… Buckle Up / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Graham_Summers

The rally of the last month has many scratching their heads.

That is, until you realize:

• Most of it was driven by “short-covering.”

• The primary buyers of stocks today are corporations buying back their stock to juice EPS, not actual investors.

• Actual investors have been selling the farm.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Fed's Bullard: We Are Overshooting on Inflation / Economics / Inflation

By: Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard spoke with Michael McKee and Tom Keene on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio this morning. He discussed Fed policy, the U.S. economy global inflation, and moving toward a more normal nominal interest rate structure.

Bullard said policy makers should consider raising interest rates at their next meeting: "You get another strong jobs report, it looks like labor markets are improving, you could probably make a case for moving in April."

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Bullard Gives Stocks Bears a Boost / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

This is a close approximation of the trendlines that SPX is dealing with.  Fortunately, SPX has made a declining impulse (5 waves) to the 4.3-year trendline.  It is now in a bounce that may take it back to yesterday’s close or the shorter-term trendline, depending on how long it takes.

Confidence in the reversal rises once the retracement is complete, preferably beneath the short-term trendline. 

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Two Short-Term Forex Market Trading Strategies That Can Make You Money / Currencies / Forex Trading

By: Nicholas_Kitonyi

There is much debate amongst experts about whether a buy-and-hold strategy or active short-term trading will earn you higher returns in the long run. There are numerous stories about people successfully turning a few thousand dollars into over a million dollars, by sitting at home in front of their computers and actively trading the market every day. On the other hand, many financial experts believe that buy-and-hold is the way to go as the majority of actively managed funds do not outperform their benchmark indices.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Federal Reserve's Policy Forecasts Two Down - Two to Go / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: Peter_Schiff

The Federal Reserve's years-long campaign to sheepishly back away from its own policy forecasts continued in earnest last week when it officially reduced the four expected 2016 quarter point hikes, suggested back in December, to just two. Given the deteriorating economic outlook, I believe there can be little doubt that the Fed will soon complete the capitulation process and remove all expectations for additional hikes this year. Even before that happens, savvy observers should have already concluded that the Federal Reserve is stuck in the monetary mud just as firmly now as it has been since the dawn of the financial crisis back in 2008.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Greatest Stock Market Crash Of Your Life Is Just Ahead… – Warns Harry Dent / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Crash

By: GoldCore

Harry Dent, best-selling author and economist, has warned that the stock bubble in the U.S. today is the biggest in history and that the “greatest crash of your life is just ahead…”

Writing on his website EconomyandMarkets.com, Dent warned that

The story on Wall Street and CNBC continues to be that we’re in a correction and this is a buying opportunity. Even Warren Buffett joins the chorus of stock market cheerleaders for the skeptical public. Well, I agree with the skeptical public, not the experts here!

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Stock Market Trendlines May be Crossed Today / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Good Morning!

The SPX Premarket attempted to stay above the trendline in overnight action. However, it has lost upward momentum without making a new high and is threatening to cross beneath the short-term rally trendline.

The larger 4.3-year trendline is still the most important, so a decline below 2040.00 may indicate that the longer trendline is also being taken out.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

GBP/USD - Currency Bears in Charge / Currencies / British Pound

By: Nadia_Simmons

Earlier today, official data showed that the U.K. rate of consumer price inflation increased by 0.3% in Feb, missing analysts' forecasts. Additionally, although month-over-month consumer prices rose by 0.2% in the previous month, the data disappointed market participants, which pushed GBP/USD under 1.4300. How low could the pair go in the coming days?

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Yellen, Draghi, Kuroda: Deranged Lab Rats / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: James_Quinn

The stock market has regained all of its loses year to date as economic indicators continue to flash red, corporate profits continue to plunge, consumers continue to spend less at retailers, real wages continue to fall, and housing sales continue to decline. The entire dead cat bounce has been generated through corporate stock buybacks, Wall Street lemmings trying to make up for their terrible year to date investing performance, and central bankers who will stop at nothing to verbally manipulate markets higher - since their monetary machinations over the last seven years have been a miserable failure in reviving the real economy.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Brexit Defiance of the EU / ElectionOracle / EU_Referendum

By: BATR

The UK media is out in force to scare Brits from voting to leave the European Union. Thursday June 23: Date of the in/out referendum is set for the vote. Just the notion that an actual plebiscite will take place on such an important issue, is encouraging. Proponents of exiting the EU are natural allies in the struggle to promote national populism. The long and distinguished history of England has an opportunity to show the world that the voice of the people can register a resounding repudiation against the technocrats of an unelected European Union.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

UK House Asking Prices Break Above £300k! Housing Market Paralysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Apparently according Rightmove average UK house asking prices (for England & Wales) have now breached the £300k price level for the first time ever, currently standing at £303,190 against Februarys 299,287. And for comparison the previous bull market peak was £236k, whilst asking prices bottomed out in 2009 at £215k and where most of the surge higher has come during the past 3 years, a rise of 24%.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Subprime Auto Loans: the Next Financial Crisis Shoe to Drop? / Interest-Rates / Financial Crisis 2016

By: Mike_Whitney

Booming auto sales have more to do with low rates and easy financing than they do with the urge to buy a new vehicle.  In the last few years, car buyers have borrowed nearly $1 trillion to finance new and used autos.  Unfortunately, much of that money was lent to borrowers who have less-than-perfect credit and who might not be able to repay the debt. Recently there has been a surge in delinquencies among subprime borrowers whose loans were packaged into bonds and sold to investors. The situation is similar to the trouble that preceded the Crash of 2008 when prices on subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) suddenly collapsed sending the global financial system off a cliff.  No one expects that to happen with auto bonds, but story does help to illustrate that the regulatory problems still haven’t been fixed.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

U.S. Monetary Policy Kaleidoscopic Context / Interest-Rates / Money Supply

By: Mike_Shedlock

Dennis Lockhart, Atlanta Fed president, made a speech today trumping up the possibility rate hikes as soon as April.

In his speech, Lockhart cited "sufficient momentum evidenced by the economic data to justify a further step at one of the coming meetings, possibly as early as the meeting scheduled for end of April."

Let's dive into his speech and also put a spotlight on his claim of "sufficient momentum."

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Stock Market Drilling down to see what's going on / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Sometimes it helps to “drill down” to a smaller scale to see if we may make some sense out of where this rally may be leading us. The first thing to check is the Wave relationships. Wave A = Wave C at 2027.60. At this point, Wave C is 121% the size of A.

We drill down a little further and find that Wave [iii] is 107% the size of Wave [i]. Wave [iii] times 1.07 equals a target of 2052.18 for Wave [v]. That is why it is easy to mistake Wave b of (iv), which happened near yesterday’s close, as the probable top. It wasn’t, but now we appear to be getting closer in our calculation of the size of this rally. Let’s go a step further.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Is This The End for Crude Oil? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Sol_Palha

"The end is never as satisfying as the journey. To have achieved everything but to have done so without integrity and excitement is to have achieved nothing." ~ Anonymous

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Bitcoin Trading Alert: $400 Level Becoming More Important / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: Mike_McAra

In short: short speculative positions, target at $153, stop-loss at $515

It has been known for some time that Bitcoin transactions are not really anonymous. Now, a company focused on Blockchain surveillance has received significant venture capital funding, we read on The Telegraph website:

A British technology company that attempts to fight crime by spotting suspicious Bitcoin deals has raised $5m (£3.5m) as banks and regulators begin to take the blockchain technology that backs up the virtual currency seriously.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Brussels Attacks Tear at the Fabric of the European Union / Politics / European Union

By: STRATFOR

The March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels come as the European Union is still reeling from the November Paris attacks and scrambling to solve the migrant crisis. More important, they come as nationalist forces are challenging key principles of the Continental bloc, including the free movement of labor and the Schengen Agreement, which eliminated border controls among several member states. The atmosphere of fear and suspicion that is sure to follow will only worsen these social, political and economic crises.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Stock Market 4.3-year Trendline is at SP 2040 / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

This morning’s trendline shown on the Premarket report missed an important detail that I though should be filled it. The 4.3-year trendline is at 2040.00 as well.

It is possible that the panic decline starts beneath that level, so it follows that aggressive short positions may be taken there.