Monday, November 23, 2015

The Success of Irish Economic Austerity: The Joke is on Krugman / Economics / Economic Austerity

By: Michael_Pento

During the late 1990s, Ireland's economy was booming. This was mostly due to a low corporate tax rate of just 12.5% and an international real estate bubble that boosted global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For a myriad of reasons Ireland was a magnet for foreign direct investment and the envy of Europe.

Buoyed by cheap money, the Irish government embarked on a debt-fueled property boom from 1997 to 2006, which caused the price of an average house to jump more than four-fold. Flush with tax revenue the government also went on a spending binge: investment in Ireland's health service soared by five times and pay for government workers doubled.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Dr Copper, The Economy and The Stock Market No Longer in Sync / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Sol_Palha

Doctor copper, can no longer be viewed as a leading indicator, in fact, a name change might be in order. A change of name from Dr Copper to deadbeat copper might in order, given its dismal record over the years. After the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the economy, the stock markets and copper parted ways; while the markets and the economy trended higher, copper plunged into an abyss, and it is still trying to find its footing.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Building Societies Aiming to Win Over Savers From the Banks / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts

By: MoneyFacts

It appears that the big banks have deserted savers, with multiple rate reductions causing their products to drop lower and lower in the market. However, building societies have used this to their advantage, by offering savers a local alternative to the mainstream banks.

Moneyfacts.co.uk has compared the savings offerings of building societies and banks and found that building societies are the irrefutable winners, as is highlighted in the table below.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Stock Market Negative Expectations Following Last Week's Rally - Correction or Reversal? / 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

Monday, November 23, 2015

Crude Oil Swinging For The Fences - A 20 to 1 Option Play / Commodities / Options & Warrants

By: Bob_Kirtley

Over the last year oil, and commodities in general, have been much unloved. China and emerging market woes have created demand concerns while a mountain of supply side pressure has also been in play. This has seen oil prices fall from over $100 in early 2014 to hovering just above $40 now at the end of 2015. We believe that the rapid decline and extreme pessimism in the oil market could create a trading opportunity, and that this would be best harnessed by using options.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Donald Sutherland Confirms Hunger Games is Allegory for the United States / Politics / US Politics

By: Jeff_Berwick

Here is a short clip featuring Donald Sutherland, who acted in The Hunger Games movie series, to learn in some detail what he thinks about them. He says flatly, it is an allegory pertaining to the United States, which is just what I wrote about a year ago. You can see the Sutherland video clip:

Monday, November 23, 2015

Who Should Pay For The Syrian Refugees? / Politics / US Politics

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

Last week the US House dealt a blow to President Obama's plan to resettle 10,000 Syrians fleeing their war-torn homeland. On a vote of 289-137, including 47 Democrats, the House voted to require the FBI to closely vet any applicant from Syria and to guarantee that none of them pose a threat to the US. Effectively this will shut down the program.

Monday, November 23, 2015

US Dollar, CRB, Oil, Gas, Copper and Gold - The Chartology of Deflation / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Rambus_Chartology

About a month or so ago I started posting regularly on the possible inflection point I was seeing in regards to the deflationary trend that has been on going since 2011. As you know stocks move from a reversal or consolidation pattern in an impulse move which is much different than a sideways chopping action of a reversal or consolidation pattern. Impulse moves are the stored up energy that is released once a reversal or consolidation pattern is finished doing its job. About four weeks ago it looked like the most recent consolidation phase was coming to an end which would then leave the door opened to an impulse move.

At the first writing of the possible inflection point the US dollar was still trading within the confines of its possible bullish falling wedge which I viewed as a consolidation pattern to the upside. Shortly after that first post on the possible inflection point the US dollar broke out of its bullish falling wedge and is now approaching its previous high just above 100 or so. The US dollar is the key driver for this deflationary spiral that has been in place for over four years now with no light at the end of the tunnel for the commodities complex yet.

Monday, November 23, 2015

UK Regional House Prices, Cheapest and Most Expensive Property Markets / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Average UK house prices have now risen by 30% from the 2009 bear market low to currently stand at an average price of £204,119 (Halifax NSA Oct 2015), and are currently galloping along at an annual inflation rate of 10%. However, the UK average price masks huge regional variations in trend and momentum most notable of which is that London has literally soared into the stratosphere, up over 70% on it's bear market low and by virtue of which has pulled the average UK house price indices higher as illustrated by the below graph.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Stock Market Rally Losing Momentum? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend - Bull Market

Intermediate trend - SPX has resumed its uptrend in order to complete the last phase of the bull market.

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.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Will Gold Price Drop Below $1000 Soon? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Brad_Gudgeon

First of all I would like to say that last week was our best trading profit week ever since we began trading NUGT and DUST on August 19th of this year. Using e-wave, cycles, technical indicators and astrology, we were able to catch the bottom on GDX Wednesday around $13, expecting a move to cover the gap near $14.08 by Thursday or Friday (it tagged $14.06 on Thursday and on Friday $14.07). We then shorted the miners via DUST when GDX went above $14 a share. GDX ended Friday at $13.40.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Gold and Silver Sector Big Green Light and Low Risk Entry Setup... / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Clive_Maund

• Have the problems exposed by the financial crisis of 2008 been addressed and dealt with to any extent? - no they have not, they have been papered over by creating more debt and printing money, thus making the underlying problems much worse.

• Has debt shrunk since 2008? - no, it has exploded.

• Has the money supply contracted since 2008? - no, it has expanded massively.

• Has the derivatives pyramid been reduced in magnitude since 2008? - no it has continued to compound.

• Has the global economy grown sufficiently in the years since 2008 to more than cover the extra load imposed by the growth in the factors listed above? No, it has not, all it is has done is limp along, lamed by debt.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Limits to Economic Growth - Challenge and Choices / Economics / Global Economy

By: Nicole_Foss

Nicole Foss: After more than 30 years of exponential growth, gargantuan resource demand and increasingly frenetic consumption, we have now reached, or are reaching, an array of limits to growth. During our long, debt-fuelled boom, we reached out spatially through globalisation to monetise as much global production as possible, in order to facilitate the efficient transfer of wealth from the global periphery to its economic heartland.

We also, through the profligate use of credit and debt, reached forward in time to borrow from the future in order to stage an orgy of consumption in the present. This spectacularly successful modern form of economic imperialism delivered unprecedented wealth concentration, the like of which previous imperial structures could not have dreamed of attaining.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Gold D-Wave / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Gary_Savage

The D-wave came back down to test the previous consolidation zone.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Pakistan Stands Strong During Emerging Market Uncertainty / Economics / Pakistan

By: Submissions

Dylan Waller writes: China’s currency devaluation in August created an FX turmoil for a large number of countries in Asia, and with a potential Fed rate hike coming this December, it may be befitting to turn to overlooked areas in Asia to achieve a solid portfolio return. Despite the rapid growth of Pakistan’s economy and its stock exchange, it remains a relegated destination for investment, and a country that Asia based hedge funds consider to be too risky.   The Karachi Stock Exchange has had a 1 year return of 13.95%, making it one of the best performing stock markets in Asia.  Pakistan’s currency is another bright spot for the country, as it has only had a 4.9% YTD depreciation against the USD.  With much of Asia suffering from high FX losses and less superior performing stock markets, Pakistan’s recent performance gives it a prestigious standing in Asia.  

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Redefining ‘The Human Rights’ In The Context Of The Rise Of Islamism And The Onslaught Of The Western Democracies / Politics / ISIS Islamic State

By: Dr_R_M_Mathew

ISLAMISM has emerged as the Greatest Threat to Democracy and Human Rights, besides the very existence of the Progressive Modern Societies shaped by Capitalism, Corporatism and Modern Technologies. It is  thousand times deadly than Fascism for it is taking back the Humanity to the Age of Primitive Desert Tribal Gods, Wars, Culture , Caliphates and Social Order   burying  down   Democracy, Equality, Freedom,  Principles of Human Right, Open Society and Progressive Social Order.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Long Dollar Trade and Current Copper Price Below Cost of Production / Commodities / Copper

By: EconMatters

Long Dollar Trade

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Gold a Bargain in Real Terms / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Michael_J_Kosares

For those you who like to break things down to the fundamentals, this chart should serve as an eye-opener.  Why?  Because it tells us gold’s value in real terms when adjusted to depreciation in the purchasing power of the dollar.  Secondly, it tells us where gold stands today with respect to past peaks in the price – once again in real terms – thus providing an indicator whether or not it is a good buy at current prices.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

UK Housing Market House Prices Affordability Crisis - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing market has been in a perpetual state of crisis for at least a decade in terms of the lack of affordable housing that just tends to get worse with each passing year. Therefore most housing market commentators tend to focus on the various measures of housing market affordability or rather unaffordability as house prices despite the price crash of 2008-2009 never fell to anywhere near the affordability levels of the early 1990's housing bear market lows and therefore ivory tower academics have continued to cling onto expectations that a further house prices crash is inevitable so as the fit in with their theoretical models of where house prices should fall to in terms of affordability that gets liberally regurgitated in the mainstream press, see this new video to find out what this means for future UK house prices.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

The Fed Has Set the Stage for a Stock Market Crash / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash

By: Graham_Summers

The Fed has set the stage for a stock market crash.

Ever since 2009, anytime the markets came close to a stock market crash, “someone” (read: the FED) has stepped in a propped the markets up.

In 2010, the S&P 500 staged a death cross, where its 50-DMA broke below its 126-DMA (the half year moving average). Stocks were in a perilous state with the 2008 Crash still in everyone’s short-term memory.