Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Has Chicago Reached Debt Boiling Point? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Rodney_Johnson
In the 1890s Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun, referred to Chicago as the “Windy City.” Chicago was one of many cities competing to host the World’s Fair, and clearly the writer intended the double entendre to apply to the city’s weather as well as its mouthy politicians.When it comes to Chicago’s weather, anyone who has visited “Chi-town” (as the city is known in CB-lingo) can attest to the screaming wind off of Lake Michigan. It howls for what seems like days at 40 mph, carrying with it sub-zero temperature in the winter.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Inflation Doesn't Come From Seasonally Adjusted Employment / Economics / Inflation
By: Michael_Pento
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 151k, 000 net new jobs created in the month of January, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9%. The continuing increase in new job creation and removal of slack in the labor market is causing the Phillips-curve-obsessed Fed to maintain a tightening stance on monetary policy.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Gold Price Breaking Out or Just Another Letdown / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
By: Sol_Palha
From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.
Emile Durkheim
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Why Negative Interest Rates Will Fail / Interest-Rates / Financial Crisis 2016
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
It is now just a matter of time before the US central bank follows the central banks of Japan, the EU, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland in setting negative rates on reserve deposits.
The goal of such rates is to force banks to lend their excess reserves. The assumption is that such lending will boost aggregate demand and help struggling economies recover. Using the same central bank logic as in 2008, the solution to a debt problem is to add on more debt. Yet, there is an old adage: you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make him drink! With the world economy sinking into recession, few banks have credit-worthy customers and many banks are having difficulties collecting on existing loans.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
SPX Rolling Over / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX went on a low volume ramp over the extended weekend, topping out near 1895.00, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at midnight. Since then it has eased down near Short-term resistance at 1884.20. Today is a double Pivot Day in the Cycles Model, suggesting a strong reversal may be happening.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Euro Bond Crisis Returns As Germany Pushes Euro Sovereign Debt Bail-in Clause / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: GoldCore
European Banks holding European sovereign debt may have to take haircuts and be part of bail in plans should that same debt default, according to a plan being pursued by German government advisers. In another attempt to shelter German tax payers from the largess and excess of fellow European neighbouring countries’ national banks, the move could trigger a run on billions of euro of sovereign debt of said banks. In an article penned by the Telegraph’s Ambrose-Evans Pritchard, one of the council’s dissenting members describes the plan as the “fastest way to break up the Eurozone”.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Latest Declines Suggest Stock Market Buying Opportunities / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
By: Richard_Cox
For most of this year, stock markets around the world have been under pressure as the majority of investors are starting to take profits and prepare for the inevitable tightening cycle that is now expected for global interest rates. Of course, increases in interest rates will take some time to actually filter through the market but an ounce of expectation is worth a pound of action in the financial markets -- and this is why stock prices are currently falling through important psychological support levels.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
EU President Tells David Cameron to Get Stuffed on Migrant Benefits Reforms / Politics / EU_Referendum
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The un elected President of the European Parliament, warned David Cameron that even the heavily watered down agreement due to be announced by the end of this week would not be legally binding and subject to debate and revision by MEP members AFTER the UK votes to stay in the European Union, members who will be guided by their respective UK benefits recipient governments such as Poland, Hungary, and a dozen other eastern european UK benefits claiming states.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Steve Hanke On Hyperinflation Hype / Economics / HyperInflation
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The Great Recession of 2008-09 brought with it quantitative easing. This, in turn, spawned a cottage industry of books, articles and blog posts about hyperinflation. The burgeoning literature contains a great deal of hype, which validates the 95% Rule: 95% of what is written about economics and finance is either wrong or irrelevant.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The Phantom Free Syrian Army Moderate Rebels / Politics / Syria
By: Stephen_Lendman
So-called Free Syrian Army moderates exist only in US-led Western and media scoundrel propaganda reports - along with deliberate deception from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other regional rogue states.
No such forces exist. All anti-Syrian elements are US-created terrorist groups, including ISIS, Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and their offshoots.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Stocks Dive as Confidence in Fed Fades / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
By: Mike_Whitney
“Investors are losing confidence in central bank policies. (They) have done all they can do, and these policies may not improve economic growth or may not support financial markets.” — Anthony Valeri, investment strategist at LPL Financial
Zero rates and QE have stopped working and that has investors worried. Very worried.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Savers Brace for More Savings Interest Rate Cuts / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Data from Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that rate reductions in the savings market have now outweighed rate rises for four consecutive months, the first time this has happened since daily rate change monitoring began.*
In January, Moneyfacts recorded just 21 savings rate rises, with only one deal posting a significant increase of 0.20%. Disappointingly, rate reductions over the same period completely eclipsed this figure, with the number of rate decreases over the month standing at a staggering 138, with some deals falling by as much as 0.75%.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Creditors: What’s Behind Their Interest in Investing in Your Debt? / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
By: Boris_Dzhingarov
According to some definitions, debts are financial obligations defined by law, that must be repaid to a creditor or lender who have invested certain amount of money and have decide to take a risk by borrowing money. In other words, they were fully aware that the loan taker might not be able to pay off the debt. But, it is an interesting fact that even though there is great risk involved in this activity and there are many people who fail to repay the money, the number of lenders and creditors is growing. So, why is this happening?Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Central Banks Fool The Markets Again, But Only For A Little While / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016
By: John_Rubino
Over the weekend, the following happened: China’s exports and imports fell by 11.2% and 18.8%, respectively, numbers which, for a trading power, are nothing short of apocalyptic. Japan’s Q4 GDP shrank at an annualized rate of 1.4% which, for a country that had spent the previous three years borrowing and printing record amounts of new currency, is an extraordinary admission of failure. And US allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia appeared to be invading Syria, putting them — and by implication the US — in direct confrontation with Russia.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Three Simple Steps to Beat a 'Rigged' Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
By: DW
Alexander Green writes:
Monday, February 15, 2016
Devalue or Die; Negative Interest Rate Wars Have Begun / Interest-Rates / Currency War
By: Sol_Palha
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain
Tuhe “devale or die” currency wars are picking up steam; Japan’s central bankers are not alone when it comes to taking rates into negative territory. A host of European nations are now joining the bandwagon, and the latest victim is Sweden. We alluded to this development a long time ago and published a host of articles on this topic. Central bankers Worldwide understand that the only driving force behind the magical recovery in the U.S s hot money and that is the only weapon that can maintain that illusion. Get ready for negative rate wars; imagine having to pay the banks to keep your money; soon people will start to question the value of banks.
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Monday, February 15, 2016
Silver, Gold, the Argentina Peso, and Exponentially Increasing Prices / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
By: DeviantInvestor
The exchange rate between the Argentina Peso and the US dollar in January 1945 was 4.17 pesos to one dollar. Like the United States, Argentina created substantial price inflation – devaluation of their currency – in the 1950s – 1990s.
According to Wikipedia Argentina devalued their currency by a factor of 100 in 1970, by another 10,000 in 1983, by another 1,000 in 1985, and by another 10,000 in 1992.
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Monday, February 15, 2016
The Retracement In the Price of Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
By: Jesse
Here is a closer look at the retracement of gold we have seen as of this morning.
While the US markets are closed for Presidents' Day, the rest of the world is open for business.
As you can see from the second chart from Friday, gold had become quite overbought short term.
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Monday, February 15, 2016
Deranged Central Bankers Blowing Up The World / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: James_Quinn
It is now self-evident to any sentient being (excludes CNBC shills, Wall Street shyster economists, and Keynesian loving politicians) the mountainous level of unpayable global debt is about to crash down like an avalanche upon hundreds of millions of willfully ignorant citizens who trusted their politician leaders and the central bankers who created the debt out of thin air. McKinsey produced a report last year showing the world had added $57 trillion of debt between 2008 and the 2nd quarter of 2014, with global debt to GDP reaching 286%.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Consensus Macro Trades Stop Out: Gold Has Made A Near Term Top / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
By: Sam_Kirtley
Macro consensus trades into 2016 have not worked well, at all. This week saw a large flush out in positioning across financial markets. There are three consensus trades that we feel have been particularly squeezed and what we believe was a final clearout of these position sent other assets, such as gold, to extreme levels that present a number of trading opportunities.