Friday, December 04, 2015
China South Sea Martime Dispute, an Overture to World War III? / Politics / China US Conflict
By: Casey_Research
By Doug Casey
It’s always been true, as Bourne said, that “war is the health of the State.” But it’s especially true when economic times get tough. That’s because governments like to blame their problems on outsiders; even an imagined foreign threat tends to unify opinions around those of the leaders. Since economies around the world are all weakening, and political leaders are all similar in essential mindset, there’s good reason to believe the trend towards World War III is accelerating.
Many politicians and pundits in the U.S. blame “those damn Chinese” for taking “our jobs” by filling Walmart with tons of cheap goods, and the swarthy ragheads for making the price of oil too high (usually, but now too low).
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Dovish ECB Disappoints – Gold Rises, Stocks and Bonds Fall Globally, Euro Surges / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: GoldCore
‘Super Mario’, the European Central Bank’s monetary magician, disappointed markets yesterday as continuing and unprecedented monetary easing failed to prevent a sharp sell-off in stock and bond markets which has continued today.
There are sharp losses on financial markets after the ECB’s President’s – nicknamed ‘Super Mario’ and more recently ‘Magic Mario’ – latest radical measures stopped well short of market expectations and traders desperation for more cheap money and deepening ultra loose monetary policies.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Stock Market and the FOMC Meeting / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Gary_Savage
I expect the Fed is going to make a big effort to push the market back up in time for the FOMC meeting on the 16th, but the forces trying to pull stocks down right now are massive. There are times when its just best to sit on the sidelines.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Relative Strength in Gold Stocks Portends to Rebound / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
A few weeks ago we warned that the gold miners were at risk of a technical breakdown. They struggled to rebound at support while Gold was breaking to a new low. Gold continued to decline but the miners held support and stabilized. Gold traded as low as $1045 on Thursday but the miners continued to diverge in a positive fashion. The recent relative strength from the gold miners particularly in the face of new lows in Gold, coupled with the oversold condition of the metals suggests a sector rebound is developing.
Friday, December 04, 2015
Does Draghi's Coup Secure Yellen's Interest Rate Liftoff? / Interest-Rates / ECB Interest Rates
By: Ashraf_Laidi
To some, the ECB has underdelivered today by not only cutting rates by a smaller than expected 0.10 bp in the deposit rate to -0.3% from -0.2% (vs exp -0.4%) but also disappointed most market players by only extending the duration of QE to an additional 6 months and not adding to the monthly $60 bn QE. The ECB's decision to opt for QE extension rather than QE expansion reflects the broad signs of improvement in German growth business surveys. Germany's IFO and various Eurozone PMIs and confidence surveys have hit 17 to 52-month highs.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Why Is The U.S. Reluctant To Bomb ISIS Oil Fields? / Politics / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
There has been some revealing new information coming out recently regarding the strategy against ISIS. One aspect many find troubling is the apparent failure of U.S. and coalition forces to sufficiently target and destroy oil infrastructure located in ISIS territory, which accounts for a significant portion of the terror group's annual income. The argument goes, if we want to impact their operations, we should target their primary sources of income, and choke off their operational funds. So, why does ISIS oil infrastructure still stand? Is this the result of an intelligence failure? Negligence? Or, is there a more purposeful reason?Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 04, 2015
Financial Markets Had Been Obedient, Until Today / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015
By: Gary_Tanashian
Euro 50 Flips Draghi the Bird, S&P 500 Fails at a Key Parameter, Semi’s are Fundamentally Bearish and Gold Has a Sentiment Washout Within its Bear Market
Markets Had Been Obedient, Until Today
Despite Janet Yellen’s protests to the contrary, the 7 year long asset market bailout (ZIRP + QE’s 1, 2 & 3 with a side of Operation Twist) has served to further enrich formerly troubled asset holders and provide a handy wealth effect for regular 401k holders to boot.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
The “Real Stuff” Economy Is Falling Apart / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Rubino
Each month one or two high-profile government reports show the US is growing, adding jobs and generally recovering from the Great Recession. But it’s not clear how that can be, when the part of the economy that makes and moves real things keeps shrinking. Here’s a chart, published recently by Zero Hedge, showing that US manufacturing has been contracting for the past year:
Friday, December 04, 2015
U.S. Dollar and Bonds Sink as ECB Cuts Rates to -0.3%, Pledging More QE Until March 2017 / Interest-Rates / ECB Interest Rates
By: Mike_Shedlock
ECB president Mario Draghi's announcement today regarding more QE fell far short of the sky-high expectations of market participants.
Friday, December 04, 2015
Silver: We NEED it! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: DeviantInvestor
The answer to many questions often depends upon perspective, whether the questions are; should I buy silver, is the S&P 500 expensive, is huge and unpayable debt a problem, is another World War a bad idea, will eating potato chips and candy bars actually damage my health, and are Republicrats as useless and corrupt as they appear?
Many people have suggested that silver prices are hopeless and silver will never go up. This is an overly emotional perspective caused by 4.5 years of declining silver prices and negative sentiment. Consistent with this “hopeless” assessment are:
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Invest Like a Fund Manager: Tips from the Silver Summit / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: The_Gold_Report
Gold bars? ETFs? Junior miners? Royalty streams? Majors with dividends? How is an investor to determine the best way to leverage the upside of a beaten up metals market? The Gold Report hosted a standing-room-only fund manager panel at the Silver Summit in San Francisco featuring insights from three very different points of view. Axel Merk, president and CIO of Merk Investments, focuses on gold and currency investing. Robert Mullin is co-founder of Real Assets Equity Income Funds and focuses largely on producing mining companies. Greg Orrell is the president and portfolio manager of the OCM Gold Fund and invests across all sectors of the precious metals industry, including junior producers and exploration and development companies. All three see unique opportunities right now for creating a portfolio that captures a renewed focus from mining executives on shareholder interests.
Friday, December 04, 2015
How Stocks Bull Markets End / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: John_Mauldin
By Jared Dillian
Many people think that they ring a bell at the top of a bull market. Ding-a-ling-a-ling.
That is indeed often the case. The bell was rung in 2000 at the top of the dot-com bubble—I like to think it was 3Com spinning off Palm that broke its back.
But sometimes there is no bell, no catalyst, no story to tell. A bull market becomes a bear market, and it happens just like that.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Dear Mainstream Media, Stop Freaking Out About Donald Trump’s Polls / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016
By: John_Mauldin
I’m going to offer something a little different in this week’s Outside the Box. Nate Silver has consistently been one of the best political analysts of the past 12 years. I wasn’t terribly enamored of his move from the New York Times to ESPN – to go back to covering sports rather than politics – but he still covers politics over at 538.
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Market Traders and Trendlines: A Match Made in Opportunity Heaven / InvestorEducation / Learn to Trade
By: EWI
See why this simple tool helps identify high-probability trade set-ups in real world markets
It's the start of the winter holidays -- which, if your family is anything like mine, is also the beginning of a long tradition of deeply regrettable line-crossing, i.e.:
- Crossing that line into interrogating "new" dinner guests as to why they are still single
- Crossing that line into inviting your recently divorced sister-in-law to "stay as long as" she needs
- Crossing that line into a third (no, let's be honest) fourth helping of pecan pie
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Stock Market Trifecta of Sell Signals / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX has bounced from its 200-day Moving Average at 2064.97 in an impulsive decline. It made a low of 2067.49. It has retested Intermediate-term resistance at 2073.77, but may go higher.
Despite the probability of a stronger retracement, it is now on an aggressive sell signal with final confirmation of that signal beneath the 200-day Moving Average at 2065.00.
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Thursday, December 03, 2015
How to Win in Any Market: 9 Rules for Contrarian Investing / InvestorEducation / Learning to Invest
By: Sol_Palha
"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle." ~ Kahlil Gibran
When it comes to investing, the first rule thing you need to learn is effective management of your emotions. It is impossible to eliminate the impulse to act when euphoria or panic are in the air. While you cannot eliminate the emotion that pushes to you react, you can control your reaction. You can choose to run with the herd of fight panic and stand aside while the herd stampedes. The most important rule is to never let your emotions do the talking. This means not succumbing to panic or euphoria. If you fail here, then nothing can help you. All the rules in the world will fail to alter your outcome.
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Thursday, December 03, 2015
Stock Market Positive Expectations Following Yesterday's Move Down, Will Uptrend Continue? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Paul_Rejczak
Briefly: In our opinion, speculative short positions are favored (with stop-loss at 2,140 and profit target at 1,990, S&P 500 index)
Our intraday outlook is bearish, and our short-term outlook is bearish:
Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): bearish
Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): bearish
Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): bearish
Long-term outlook (next year): bullish
Thursday, December 03, 2015
David Cameron Declares Jihad on Islamic State Syria - 'Bombs Away Chaps' / Politics / ISIS Islamic State
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britain's industrial military complex smarting from having failed to profit form the four year long Syrian civil war will today be toasting after the success of much costly lobbying of MP's, who led by the Prime Minister have followed their instructions to start to empty the munitions dumps of bombs and missiles to be dropped right across Syria, joining US, French, Turkish and Russian militaries as they rain hell fire missiles down onto civilian populations, with the probable resulting carnage of many hundreds of innocents killed for every ISIS gangster killed, akin to flattening Rome to kill members of the mafia, all in the name of defending Britain from the terror threat that the likes of the CIA and MI5 amongst other secret police agencies have been busy creating and fostering so as to support the need for the exponential expansion of the surveillance state.
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Gold Price Capitulation ? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: Dan_Norcini
The technical charts on gold are suggesting the start of a fresh leg lower in price. The loss of chart support near the $1075-$1070 level, and the subsequent inability of the metal to move back above that level, has led to both long liquidation on the part of the specs as well as fresh shorting.
On the intermediate term chart ( Weekly) price appears headed for the lower line of the downtrending price channel that has contained gold since April of 2014. Currently, that targets a potential move to down near $1030-$1020.
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Thursday, December 03, 2015
Stock Market SPX Approaching its Sell Signal / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
SPX bounced from its Short-term support at 2076.36, making a low of 2077.51. Chances are good that it may slip through Short-term support and the 2-hour mid-Cycle support at 2073.90. However, there is a likely bounce due at the 200-day Moving Average at 2065.10, where it appears to complete Minute Wave [i]. This decline has a long way to go in only a week’s time or so.