Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Finally, Return to Athens / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis

By: Raul_I_Meijer

That’s right, I am at last able to come back to Athens, starting today. Alas, without Nicole Foss, who was supposed to join me in the city earlier this year but is back in New Zealand now. Why that plan never materialized, and why I couldn’t return myself, is all about the illness and subsequent passing of my mother, a process I write about in Eulogy for Johanna.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Janet Yellen Responds as a Central Banker Would / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: Gary_Tanashian

Let's try to untangle the web of Fed-speak going on here. "Reality" for our purposes is defined as my opinion, obviously.

Yellen Defends Seven Years of Low Interest Rates in Letter to Nader

Fed-Speak:

Warning that "an overly aggressive increase in rates would at most benefit savers only temporarily," she argued in the letter released Monday in Washington that the Fed's seven-year era of zero rates had sheltered American savers from dramatic declines in the value of their homes and retirement accounts.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Silver Price, COT, US Dollar Updates and More / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Dan_Norcini

Silver cracked the $14 level in today's session but managed to recover prior to the close. Some of the recovery was aided by the retreat of the US Dollar away from the magical 100 level basis the USDX.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Corn Commodity Price Popping Higher / Commodities / Agricultural Commodities

By: Austin_Galt

The corn price finally looks set to pop a lot higher so let's look at the short term action with the daily chart and then refresh ourselves of the long term outlook which remains unchanged.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Hybrid Lindsay Forecast for a Stock Market High / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Ed_Carlson

The Hybrid Lindsay forecasts occasionally shared with readers in this space are a combination of the work done by the great twentieth-century technician, George Lindsay, and my own, more traditional, cycle work. In last week's commentary I questioned whether the previous Friday's low fulfilled the Hybrid forecast for a low or if it would wait until that day (Monday). We know now that it was the previous Friday. Even without the benefit of the Lindsay work we knew from other metrics that the market was oversold and primed to bounce. Now we use the Hybrid Lindsay model to forecast the next high in the Dow Jones Industrials index. It begins with Lindsay's Middle Section approach.

Monday, November 23, 2015

UK Regional House Prices Analysis - Video / 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 significantly lifted average UK house prices higher.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Trouble Is Brewing in the Paper Markets for Gold and Silver / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: MoneyMetals

Clint Siegner writes: Precious metals bulls question why metals prices keep falling in the face of what appears to be strong demand and great fundamental reasons for prices to move higher instead.

The bears have some answers of course. You can’t eat gold, it’s basically a pet rock, and modern financial systems are doing just fine without anything as antiquated as bullion gumming up the works.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Will Fed Raise the Discount Interest Rate Today? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Ashraf_Laidi

Will the Fed raise its discount rate at its previously unscheduled meeting for today? Thursday's post on the Federal Reserve's website that "an expedited, unscheduled meeting of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to review the discount rate" will be held today (Monday) at 11:30 ET (16:30 London/GMT). The discount rate, the rate at which banks borrow from the Fed's discount window is set by the Board of Governors, rarely used by the banks. This must not be confused with the fed funds rates, which is set by the Federal Open Markets Committee.

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.