Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Has the Financial World Learned its Lesson from Madoff? / Personal_Finance / Scams

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

The idea of anything as devastating as the Madoff scandal ever happening in the financial world again is a terrifying one; the Ponzi scheme is considered one of the biggest economic crimes of recent years, affecting thousands of private and corporate investors. Many of its victims are still attempting to rebuild their lives, despite almost eight years passing since Bernie Madoff’s tearful confession to his sons one December evening in 2008. It’s therefore not difficult to see why so many are fearful of history repeating itself. Two big questions remain unanswered though; why was Madoff allowed to get away with his scheme for so long, and has the financial world really learned its lesson?

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Stock Market Quiet Day.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jack_Steiman

Theoretically, I could end the newsletter right here. Not much to say about today's action other than it was quiet with the job being to try and unwind things a bit on those overbought charts. The market has been hanging out at overbought for quite some time, but it's now dealing with another headache other than those overbought daily charts. Most of the indexes are at major trend line resistance so a pause in the action does make some sense. If the indexes hang in tough for the next few days that would be a very positive sign for the bulls as it would mean they're able to hold off the bears and their attempt to push things back down. Unwinding without too much price erosion while staying close to the breakout area is a good thing for the bulls. The bears desperately need a major gap down that runs lower all day. They are getting plenty of overseas bad news to snack on, but it seems the market doesn't care.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Epic Battle Rages Between the Bullion Banks and Gold Speculators / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: The_Gold_Report

The battle raging between the Bullion Banks and Gold Speculators is every bit as spectacular as the Ali-Frazier fights of the 1970s, says precious metals expert Michael Ballanger.

As a young man of fourteen with my older brother Donny having introduced me to Ring Magazine a few year earlier, I can't remember ever being so hyped up for a heavyweight title fight than when Cassius Clay took on Sonny Liston and "whupped" him to take the title and then repeated in the rematch. From that point onward, the hero of my youth (excluding Bobby Orr, of course) in the world of sports became Cassius Clay-turned-Muhammad Ali, who became the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time and dominated the game for over a decade, despite being banned from boxing for refusing to join the army in 1967. Ali was a big man standing over 6'4" tall but he moved with the fluidity, speed and lethal grace of a jaguar.

Monday, April 04, 2016

SPX has Ceased its Rally / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

SPX appears to have left a high of 2075.07 near the close on Friday and has ceased rising.  It still needs to break the trendlines with the 4.3-year trendline near 2050.00.  A short entry may come at the bounce off the trendline, especially if confirmed by the VIX.

Bloomberg comments, “U.S. stocks slipped from their highest levels this year, with declines in consumer and industrial shares overshadowing gains in health-care companies, as investors looked for fresh reasons to continue a rally.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Bloomberg Article Sparks Some Stock Market VIX Observations / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

VIX made a probable Master Cycle low on April 1 at 13.00.  In the case of this chart, the price label “stuck” to an earlier low.  This sometimes happens in StockCharts and other charting services. 

If my observation is correct, we may finally see it rally above its prior high at 15.28 and give us a buy signal.  Granted, the trendline is at 15.00, but a breakout does give additional confirmation. 

Monday, April 04, 2016

Vauxhall Panics over Zafira B Fire Recall Whilst Dealers Such as Pentagon Adopt a Laid Back Attitude / ConsumerWatch / Auto Sector

By: N_Walayat

This is an update on the crisis facing Vauxhall, the latest in a long list of auto manufactures forced to issue recalls for a myriad of reasons from alleged fraudulently emissions ratings for the likes of Volkswagen to Vauxhall's recall of some 220,000 Zafira B models in the UK that are apparently at a real risk of catching fire and even exploding as is the experience of countless Zafira owners over the past few years hence triggering the recall.

Monday, April 04, 2016

The European Union Is Anti-European / Politics / European Union

By: MISES

Louis Rouanet writes: What is Europe? It seems that no rigorous answer can be provided. Europe is not exactly a continent. It is not a political entity. It is not a united people. The best definition, in fact, may be that Europe is the outcome of a long historical process that engendered unique institutions and a unique vision of what men ought to be. The idea that men ought to be free from violent government interference. Europe has no founding fathers. Its birth was not orchestrated but completely spontaneous. Its development was not imposed by armies and governments but was the voluntary product of clerics, merchants, serfs, and intellectuals who were seeking to interact freely with each other. Europeans were united by their freedoms and divided by their governments. In other words, Europe was built against States and their arbitrary restrictions, not by them.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Trump to Run as Independent if Denied GOP Nomination? / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016

By: Stephen_Lendman

National polls show him way out in front, up to 20 points over Cruz. You’d think he’d be unstoppable. Not if party bosses intend blocking him. More on this below.

America’s political system is deplorable, the best democracy money can buy, insiders deciding who’ll be president and fill key congressional posts, ordinary people having no say whatever.

Monday, April 04, 2016

The Boomer Retirement Meme Is A Big Lie / Politics / Demographics

By: James_Quinn

As the labor participation rate and employment to population ratio linger near three decade lows, the mouthpieces for the establishment continue to perpetuate the Big Lie this is solely due to the retirement of Boomers. It's their storyline and they'll stick to it, no matter what the facts show to be the truth. Even CNBC lackeys, government apparatchiks, and Ivy League educated Keynesian economists should be able to admit that people between the ages of 25 and 54 should be working, unless they are home raising children.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Vietnam War at 50: Have We Learned Nothing? / Politics / US Politics

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

Last week Defense Secretary Ashton Carter laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington in commemoration of the "50th anniversary" of that war. The date is confusing, as the war started earlier and ended far later than 1966. But the Vietnam War at 50 commemoration presents a good opportunity to reflect on the war and whether we have learned anything from it.

Some 60,000 Americans were killed fighting in that war more than 8,000 miles away. More than a million Vietnamese military and civilians also lost their lives. The US government did not accept that it had pursued a bad policy in Vietnam until the bitter end. But in the end the war was lost and we went home, leaving the destruction of the war behind. For the many who survived on both sides, the war would continue to haunt them.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Silver Bullion Is Coiled Spring and Will “Explode Higher” / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

Silver bullion’s reluctant, sluggish participation in early 2016’s powerful gold rally has been glaringly obvious. Instead of amplifying the yellow metal’s big gains as in the past, silver largely failed to even keep pace. The lack of silver confirmation for gold’s big move has certainly raised concerns. But despite silver’s vexing torpidity in recent months, it is a coiled spring ready to explode higher to catch and surpass gold.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Stock Market New Short-Term Highs As Investors Await Quarterly Earnings Releases / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Paul_Rejczak

Briefly: In our opinion, no speculative positions are justified.

Our intraday outlook is neutral, and our short-term outlook is neutral. Our medium-term outlook remains bearish, as the S&P 500 index extends its lower highs, lower lows sequence:

Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): neutral
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): neutral
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): bearish
Long-term outlook (next year): neutral

Monday, April 04, 2016

Stocks & shares ISAs Deliver Weakest Performance Since 2008 Financial Crisis / Personal_Finance / ISA's

By: MoneyFacts

· The average performance of a stocks & shares ISA has fallen by 2.7% during the 2015/16 tax year so far, the worst growth since the 2008 financial crisis.

· This compares with an average cash ISA rate of 1.44% over the same period.

· The average stocks & shares ISA has failed to deliver positive growth in seven of the 17 tax years since the introduction of ISAs in 1999.

Monday, April 04, 2016

The Pitfalls Of Buying Gold And Silver Online, And How To Avoid Them / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: John_Rubino

Back in 2014, online bullion dealer Tulving shocked its many customers by suddenly failing. See Coinweek’s story: How does $40M of Gold and Silver Disappear: The Collapse of Tulving Company

Last week another one bit the dust:

Monday, April 04, 2016

Stocks Russell 2000 Index Completes Significant Stocks Bear Market Signal / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market

By: Dr_David_J_Harris

This article presents an analysis of the Russell 2000 index which is a US small-cap stock market index covering the bottom 2,000 stocks in the Russell 3000 index.

• The US Russell 2000 stock market index was commissioned in 1984 and has been in use for 32 years, along with the Russell 1000 index and the Russell 3000 index.
• Recently, at the end of Q1 2016, the Russell 2000 index completed a key bear market signal.
• Throughout the 32 years of the Russell 2000 index, this bear market signal has only been recorded once previously, and that was in early 2008 at the start of the previous major downturn often called the Great Recession.
• Price projection calculations indicate that the Russell 2000 has much further to fall, perhaps leading the major large cap US indexes down.
• There is some evidence to suggest that this downturn of the Russell 2000 may continue for a further 12 to 24 months before reaching a final bottom.

Monday, April 04, 2016

War on UK Buy to Let Property Market Sector Intensifies, Flats Particularly Perilous / Housing-Market / Buy to Let

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest bad news to hit the UK buy to let rental property investment sector was the announcement from the Bank of England to make conditions on buy to let mortgages much more stringent by going beyond the current norm of just mortgage interest being covered by the anticipated market rents, instead it has been proposed that at a minimum rent should be at 125% of mortgage interest payments, as well as taking into account all other costs incurred such as repairs, tax and voids, as part of a continuing trend to to make more properties available to first time buyers, that property investors have been busy buying up for well over a decade that has resulted in making it near impossible for first time buyers to step onto the bottom rung of the property ladder in many areas of the UK.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Sheffield Best Secondary Schools League Tables Trend Analysis 2015 / Local / Sheffield

By: Adnaan_Walayat

Whilst most parents / students look at the most recent Sheffield school league table in making their secondary school choices, however these can from time to time prove highly misleading as many of Sheffield's 37 Secondary schools / Academies for whatever reason exhibit volatility in performance from year to year therefore a currently high ranking school may not mean that the same level of performance will continue for subsequent years as it may have been subject to special intervention and circumstances, therefore a much better methodology in the rating of schools is evaluation in terms of trend and deviations against trend.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Stock Market SPX Strength is Deceptive / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX Long-term trend:  Severe correction underway

SPX Intermediate trend:  Potential rally top.

 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.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

The No Fresh Water Planet / Commodities / Water Sector

By: Richard_Mills

Our planet is 70 percent covered in ocean - 98% of the world's water is in the oceans. Which makes 98% of the world's water unfit for drinking, or irrigation.

Just 2% of the world's water is fresh. The vast majority of our fresh water, 1.64%, is in its frozen state and locked up in the polar ice caps, Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers. Once it melts its contaminated by seawater, either by melting directly into the oceans or running to the world's oceans through a stream or river.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Canadians Switch Out of Canadian Dollars Into U.S. Dollars Now!!... / Currencies / Canadian $

By: Clive_Maund

As a Brit I well understand the deep admiration the Canadians have for their powerful neighbors south of the border, even if it is not always expressed. The good news in this update is that now is the time to "put your money where your mouth is" when it comes to admiring the Yanks, by changing your Canadian dollars immediately into US dollars, the prime reason being that the Canadian looks set to drop after a big rally from mid-January, while the US dollar looks set to surprise by rallying away from the danger zone of the support around 93 on the dollar index.