Friday, February 05, 2016

U.S. Recession 2016 has Arrived; Factory Orders Decline 2.9%, Inventories Rise / Economics / Recession 2016

By: Mike_Shedlock

Even though economists see a mere 20% chance of recession in 2016, I am increasingly confident a recession began in December 2015.

It was another disastrous factory orders report this month.

Friday, February 05, 2016

How Pension Plans are Responding to Financial Repression / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement

By: Gordon_T_Long

In this 35 minute video, Chief Executive of CREATE-Research, Amin Rajan discusses investing in the age of financial repression as well as key points for risk mitigation with FRA Co-founder Gordon T. Long. CREATE-Research is a a network of prominent researchers undertaking high level advisory assignments for governments, global banks, fund managers, multinational companies and international bodies such as the EU, OECD and ILO. In 1998 Amin was awarded the Aspen Institute's Prize in leadership. It is a subject on which he has done extensive research involving some of today's outstanding business leaders. In two resulting publications, he has developed a close link between leadership and the emerging business models.

Friday, February 05, 2016

End of the Fed: It Can’t Do Any of the Things It’s Supposed to Do / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: Jeff_Berwick

[The following is by TDV’s Senior Analyst, Ed Bugos]

Janet Yellen has been in the news with her often-stated determination to create price inflation.

Why Fed officials are so scared to death of the deflation we all look for at the shopping mall each weekend is anybody’s guess. Ours is that it keeps the crony banking system and its inflated bureaucracy afloat – on a sea of green, like in a yellow submarine.

Friday, February 05, 2016

Senior Gold Producer Goldcorp Takes Large Stake in Nevada's Gold Standard Ventures / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: The_Gold_Report

When Gold Standard Ventures announced on February 1 that Goldcorp would be investing CA$16.1 million for 9.9% of the junior's shares, industry watchers took notice. In this analysis written exclusively for Streetwise Reports, Thibaut Lepouttre, editor of Caesars Report, speculates on why the major acted when and where it did, and what it might mean for the future.

Friday, February 05, 2016

Tips for Smart Oil and Natural Gas Investing 2016 / Commodities / Oil Companies

By: The_Energy_Report

In today's tough price environment where most oil and gas juniors are losing money, a strong balance sheet is the key to survival, says Brian Bagnell. Access to liquidity will also help these companies hold on until prices rise again. Bagnell, a research analyst for Macquarie Capital Markets, tells The Energy Report he expects a gradual turnaround to begin late this year, and gives his tips on identifying companies that can weather the storm.

The Energy Report: Brian, is there a production cost for North American oil and gas producers at which most juniors can no longer afford to operate?

Friday, February 05, 2016

As the Stock Market Turns... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

SPX rallied to the Broadening trendline, then began impulsing down. The wackiness may be over and the puzzle appears solved. This may actually be a point 7 (an extra zigzag) within what is normally referred to as a five point reversal. All moves within the Broadening formation are corrective, which makes the outcome confusing and uncertain…until it is over.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

South Africa Economy from Hero to Zero / Economics / Africa

By: AnyOption

On 19 November 2015, the South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to hike interest rates by 25-basis points from 6% to 6.25%. The forecast for the next interest-rate meeting on 28 January 2016 was 25-basis points, for an overall interest rate of 6.5%. The SARB surprised everyone when it hiked interest rates by 0.5% to the prevailing interest rate of 6.75%. This bold initiative is one of the more drastic steps that can be taken by the authorities when currencies are depreciating rapidly. This is a way to arrest further declines in the value of the ZAR on the international stage.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Another Corporate Giant Is Leaving the U.S. – What This Means for You / Companies / Corporate News

By: Casey_Research

By Nick Giambruno

Try getting in shape for a marathon on an all-McDonald’s diet...

You wouldn’t be surprised to come in dead last. After all, you didn’t put in much effort. Actually, you went out of your way to make yourself less competitive. So you would expect to lose.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Currency Wars and a Job Gain Recession? / Economics / Currency War

By: Mike_Shedlock

I am entertaining the notion of a "Job Gain Recession".

A chart of year-over-year nonfarm employment shows that's nearly what happened in the 1970 and 1980 recessions.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Gold Prices Rise To 3 Month High As Investors Sell Risky Assets / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

Gold prices have continued to eke out further gains today. The very poor ISM data yesterday saw the dollar fall against all major currencies and particularly gold.

Bullion is seeing safe haven flows and gains due to increased concerns about the economic outlook. The narrative that the US economy is in recovery is coming into doubt. The weaker than expected ISM data showed a sharp slowdown in the services sector in the U.S. in January.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

TPP is Economic Warfare, Trade Can Make Everyone Worse Off / Governments are Stupid / Economics / Economic Theory

By: Dylan_Waller

Professor Yoram Baumun’s comedic retake of the Principles of Economics appropriately translates “Trade can make everyone better off” to “Trade can make everyone worse off.” Moreover, he translates “Market are usually a good way to organize economic activity” to “Governments are Stupid”.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Gold and Stock Markets Inflection Points Galore / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: Rambus_Chartology

There is alot of action going on this week in all the different areas of the markets. The PM complex has been rallying, the US dollar tanking today and the stock markets trying to make up their mind which way they want to go in the short term. I have a ton of work to do on the side bar where all the trades are listed so I'm going to show you what I would like to see happen in regards to the HUI, gold and silver.

If the PM complex is bottoming in here it has to show us its hand. There is no way around it. Usually when a bottom or top is formed the first move out of the reversal pattern, after a possible backtest, should be very strong or impulsive in nature. The bigger and stronger the move is the better. Below is a weekly chart for the HUI with few annotations on it so you can see the clean picture. Most of the time you will either see some type of H&S reversal pattern or double top or bottom reversal pattern.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Putin Cries Dyadya (Uncle), Is Saudi Arabia Listening? / Commodities / Russia

By: OilPrice_Com

In recent days, signs of a possible breakthrough in the year-long stand-off between Russia and Saudi Arabia on crude production strategy have emerged. Saudi Arabia, OPEC's dominant member, has long insisted OPEC (read Saudi Arabia) would not reduce output to balance supply and demand absent corresponding cuts from non-OPEC members (read Russia), while Russia has consistently insisted harsh climactic conditions prevent Russian producers from reducing output and in any case Russia insists it could withstand low prices as well as any other country.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Gold Price Golden Bottom? Video / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Gary_Savage

In today's video I’m going to cover stocks, currencies, oil and gold. This would normally be the nightly report on the premium website, but I’m going to make it public so everyone can get a taste for what is included in the premium reports.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Look North for Value-Priced Growth in Healthcare Biotech Stocks / Companies / BioTech

By: TLSReport

Canada is a wellspring for natural resources and the industries built around them. But the country also encompasses healthcare-related businesses that are growing, generating cash flow and flourishing. Bruce Campbell of StoneCastle Investment Management has managed both U.S. and Canadian portfolios, and he knows both spheres. As a hedge fund and mutual fund manager concentrating on Canadian companies, he has made a specialty in acquisitions of cash-generating healthcare companies. In this interview with The Life Sciences Report, Campbell discusses seven small-cap growth names, all of which have reached share-price levels that do not reflect their capacity to grow. Some may offer rare opportunities to buy at risk-mitigated value prices.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

BrExit EU Referendum - Britain's FINAL Chance for Freedom From Emerging European Superstate / Politics / EU_Referendum

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron emerged on Tuesday waving a piece of paper 'Chamberlain' style of a 'draft' deal that follows several months of negotiations that had the PM running around Europe begging the likes of Donald Tusk (former Polish Prime Minister) and former eastern block nations for some return of sovereignty to Britain. A piece of paper that whilst heavy on number of pages but is light on substance of anything that comes even close to matching the Conservative Manifesto pledges of a series of supposed red lines ahead of Britain's EU In / Out referendum.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

HUI Now Confirming Gold Price Move Higher / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: Dan_Norcini

The comatose mining stocks finally came to life today and showed signs of some determined buying, something that has been missing in the recent leg higher in the gold market.

From a technical analysis perspective, the fact that they were able not only to breach that stubborn band of resistance near 125 which has kept them in check, but also managed to soar through the mid-July 2015 low near 128 is very impressive.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Stock Market Sentiment Still Showing Fear... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jack_Steiman

The bear market almost took another turn down today as the S&P 500 threatened to blow through the last gap up at 1869, but after coming within three points the bulls kicked it in to high gear and blasted the market higher. There have been quite a few tests of this last gap up on the S&P 500 that remains open, but the bulls have taken over the market once the bears get close. The move down off the top needs more unwinding upward on those MACD's, before trying lower over time allowing for an eventual test of 1812, but that will take quite a bit of time from here. The MACD's over the past two days showed no inclination to trend lower as price-dove down on those key, daily index charts. I don't know that the MACD's have to get back to zero, but they are still quite compressed lower, thus, more up time seems right, even if it's nothing on the dramatic side of the ledger. It is possible for the S&P 500 to still get to the 50-day, exponential moving average at 1970, while the Nasdaq lags, but clears the 20's, and falls short of the 50's.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

This Is Really Bad For Banks / Companies / Credit Crisis 2016

By: John_Rubino

Once upon a time, falling interest rates were great for banks. A lower cost of capital gave lenders access to cheap raw material while causing borrowers to clamber for what banks were selling. Large profits usually ensued.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Crude Oil Price Forecast 2016 As Good As It Gets / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Joseph_Russo

In observing the enormous triple digit percentage gains achieved amid Crude Oil's northward thrusts versus its debilitating double digit losses during its major spills, it becomes rather clear why market participants prefer buying low in a newly forming bull market vs. selling short at the onset of a bear market.

On a relative basis, in the not too distant future, a cyclical bottom will form and the long-term trend in Crude will reverse to the upside - providing bullish speculators with yet another rare opportunity at the chance of humongous triple digit upside returns.