Monday, January 11, 2016

Another Poor Year for UK Annuity Rates / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement

By: MoneyFacts

New research from Moneyfacts has revealed that 2015 was another poor year for annuity rates as low gilts, uncertainty created by the new pension freedoms and preparations for Solvency II took their toll.

Annuity rates have more than halved since 1994

The research found that annuity rates in 2015 fell for the second year running, and have now declined in 17 out of the 21 calendar years since Moneyfacts started surveying the annuity market in 1994. During this period the average annual income payable from a standard level without guarantee annuity has fallen by a considerable 56%.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Rigged U.S. Ttreasury Bond Market Double Barreled Hidden Q.E. To Infinity / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing

By: Jim_Willie_CB

We were just treated to a fake official rate hike, and it was cleverly executed. The recent supposed USFed rate hike was a gigantic fraud, a misdirection, a clever ploy, and an act of extreme desperation. We were told of an official 25 basis point interest rate hike. But a hike of 0.25% is nowhere to be seen. The reality is that the USFed is so strapped, so deeply under siege, so overwhelmed, that it requires urgent help from the USDept Treasury. So they have expanded QE to become Double Barreled Hidden QE to Infinity. It has an important feature now, with national security stamped on it. This is truly the end game for the USDollar. Big thanks to Rob Kirby and EuroRaj on my colleague team for leading the way and shining the spotlight. Their abilities to see through the maze, smoke, mirrors, and din is impressive.

Monday, January 11, 2016

SPX, TNX are Challenging their Cycle Bottoms / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Good Morning!

The SPX Premarket is higher but not critically so. There are five waves down from the underside of the 4.25 year trendline, but the middle wave is the shortest, suggesting a correction is underway and not the fifth wave. So we may expect a sharp, but short sub-Minute Wave (c) to resistance at the Cycle Bottom at 1954.03.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Must See Presentation: “Wealth” of “Positive Catalysts” for Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

Grant Williams gave another must see presentation at the Mines and Money Conference in London last month, laying out why he believes the gold price is languishing despite a wealth of what would ordinarily be “positive catalysts.”

Williams’ presentation is titled “Gold: The Unsurance Policy — Love It or Loathe It.” It is 28 minutes long and can be viewed here:

Monday, January 11, 2016

Stock Market Mixed Expectations Following Last Week's Sharp Decline - Reversal Or Just Pause? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Paul_Rejczak

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

Our intraday outlook is now neutral, and our short-term outlook is neutral:

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): bullish

Monday, January 11, 2016

A brand new year, but the same-old savings rates / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts

By: MoneyFacts

The start of the New Year has prompted many to resolve to put more aside more money for a rainy day. However, while savers’ intentions are in the right place, Moneyfacts.co.uk’s research shows that few may be encouraged to follow through thanks to less than enticing savings rates.

In fact, the average easy access ISA rate has fallen by 0.19% from two years ago to stand at 1.06% yearly, the lowest level Moneyfacts.co.uk has ever recorded.

Monday, January 11, 2016

What’s Up with the HUI and Gold ? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Dan_Norcini

“UP” it was, but the intermediate term chart is certainly not that impressive, given the pandemonium that has been taking place since the start of the New Year.

The index does seem to have carved out a bottom just above the 100 level but it must take out initial resistance near 140 and then again above the 50 period moving average to give chartists some reason to turn more solidly bullish. As things stand now, all it looks like the index has done is to bounce off a bottom and trek higher towards to the upper bounds of a sideways trading pattern. For a bullish breakout to occur, 150 will have to be cleared.

Monday, January 11, 2016

NEW Mathematical Model For Predicting The NEXT US Stock Market Flash Crash / InvestorEducation / Financial Crash

By: Dr_David_J_Harris

SUMMARY:

A new mathematical model has been developed that predicts future significant corrections in the US stock market, but in particular it has the potential to predict the next US stock market flash crash.

• In Q4 2015, a new mathematical model was developed with the potential to predict the next US stock market flash crash, prior to the actual event.
• Originally built to calculate strength in price movement in a stock index, the new model can be used to predict significant periods of price weakness.
• Key market corrections, including the recent stock market flash crash events of May 2010 and August 2015 are correctly identified by the model, in advance.
• In addition, key waterfall type corrections, including February 2009, August 2011 and May 2012 are successfully identified by the model, in advance.
• Predictions for 2016 are presented in this article.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Stock Market Short Term Bottom at Hand? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Brad_Gudgeon

Last week, I was looking for a nasty down week in the stock market, but up in GDX, GLD and NUGT into Jan 7th. GDX made a sudden reversal down on Jan 8th and is likely confined within a slight downward trend within an upwardly tilted bull flag until around Jan 21st. The stock market has either already bottomed or likely to do so no later than mid Monday Jan 11th.

Overall, I think we are in the early stages of a bear market that could take the SPX down to near 1000 or slightly lower by October. We are in year 8 of the commodity cycle low (last seen 2008, 2000, 1992, 1984, and 1976).

Monday, January 11, 2016

Oregon Standoff: Isolated Event or Sign of Things to Come? / Politics / US Politics

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

The nation's attention turned to Oregon this week when a group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom seized control of part of a federal wildlife refuge. The citizens were protesting the harsh sentences given to members of the Hammond ranching family. The Hammonds were accused of allowing fires set on their property to spread onto federal land.

Monday, January 11, 2016

The Shrinking Global Economy, In Three Charts / Economics / Global Economy

By: John_Rubino

Regular contributor Michael Pollaro offers three more charts which tell a story that's both disturbing and apparently misunderstood by a lot of mainstream analysts.

The US trade deficit (exports minus imports) has been getting smaller. Since a trade deficit subtracts from GDP growth, a shrinking deficit will, other things being equal, produce a bigger, faster-growing economy (that's the mainstream take).

Monday, January 11, 2016

Stock Market Crash - Last Week was The 2nd and Final Warning... / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash

By: Clive_Maund

Many were talking about the market crashing last week and the mainstream financial press were waxing hysterical, but as we will now see the crash hasn't even started yet. If the press got like that last week, imagine what they will be like when it really does crash - last week was just a "warmup", the 2nd and final warning, the 1st warning was the plunge last August.

On the 10-year chart for the S&P500 index, we can see that while the market did indeed drop hard last week, it still has not broken down from its Head-and-Shoulders top, the lower boundary of which is shown by the thin black line. When it does break down from the top area, there is an awful lot of air below it - it has a long, long way to drop, and the decline is likely to be precipitous.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Stock Market Nearing A Phase Target / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend – Still the Bull Market in jeopardy?

SPX: Intermediate trend – The index made a secondary top at the 2116 level and started another decline of intermediate duration. 

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, January 10, 2016

Does North Korea Need Nukes to Deter US Aggression? / Politics / Nuclear Weapons

By: Mike_Whitney

Here’s your U.S. foreign policy quiz for the day:

Question 1– How many governments has the United States overthrown or tried to overthrow since the Second World War?

Answer: 57  (See William Blum.)

Sunday, January 10, 2016

End Injustices Now, Not Later / Politics / US Politics

By: MISES

Gary M. Galles writes: Tim Carney recently highlighted how Iowa’s important early role in the Republican primaries has produced “a gravitational pull to pander” on the Renewable Fuel Standard. Its ethanol mandate is “an indefensible subsidy” to Iowans from others’ transportation and grocery budgets for, at best, highly questionable environmental benefits.

Carney cited examples of cognitive dissonance, such as between Chris Christie’s “I want the free enterprise system,” and “we should enforce the Renewable Fuel Standard,” and similarly between Carly Fiorina’s criticism that “government favors … the big, the powerful and the well connected,” and “I support the Renewable Fuel Standard as it currently stands.”

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Rose Parade - Journalists Blathering in Front of TV Cameras / Politics / Mainstream Media

By: Walter_Brasch

Several TV networks covered the entire Rose Parade.

ABC, NBC, RFD, the Hallmark network, and Univision had frequent interruptions to unleash commercials on us. The Home and Garden network ran the two hour parade uninterrupted—except for endless on-air self-promotion about HGTV and its programs.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Odds Favoring the Stock Market Bears This Time / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jack_Steiman

After 1,200 points down on the Dow over six trading days, it made sense for the market to try and rally hard for a few days. After all, the daily charts were oversold with a 30 RSI, a number from which the indices have typically blasted off during sell-offs in this bull market.

Plus, the market got some good news out of China, which blasted up 2 percent overnight. Then came the jobs report, which was shockingly high. S&P 500 futures were already up, and jumped another 10 points on the news, as the market appeared ready for a big day.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

This Is What Gold Does In A Currency Crisis, China Edition / Currencies / China Currency Yuan

By: John_Rubino

As China’s leaders figure out that pegging the yuan to the dollar while quintupling their debt in five years was a colossal mistake, they are, apparently, concluding that the only way out is a sudden, sharp currency devaluation. See Pressure on China central bank for bigger yuan depreciation.

Chinese citizens, meanwhile, are anxiously awaiting tomorrow’s market open while mentally repeating the same three lines:

Sunday, January 10, 2016

The Dot Plot, Treasuries and the Gold Stocks TSX.V / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: Richard_Mills

The Federal Reserve has finally raised their target for the Fed Funds rate. In a unanimous vote members decided to raise rates by 25 basis points to 0.25 - 0.50 per cent. It was the first hike since June 2006 when then Fed head Ben ‘helicopter’ Bernanke increased the benchmark rate from 5 to 5.25 percent.

How far and how fast will the Fed's rate-hike cycle go? Maybe Federal Reserve members themselves can tell us that…

Saturday, January 09, 2016

Stock Market Rally Dies....1925 The Bull/Bear Line.....Slight Close Below.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jack_Steiman

After 1,200 points down on the Dow over six trading days it made sense for the market to try and rally hard for a few days since the short- and long-term charts, or the 60 minute and daily charts, were oversold. 30 RSI on the daily index charts is where this market has blasted off from. It did hit 20 RSI on the last nasty plunge a few months back, but this bull market has laughed at the bears when it gets anywhere near 30 RSI on the daily charts except that one time. So what could be the solid catalyst for this rally was the question folks were asking.