Tuesday, October 06, 2015
UK Current Account Bank Fees on the Rise / Personal_Finance / Current Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Recent research by Moneyfacts.co.uk shows that there has been a rise in the cost of some high street current accounts over the past two years, with account fees and overdraft usage fees creeping up.
This upward trajectory is likely to continue into next year, as another high street bank is already making plans to more than double its account fee in early 2016, without offering any extra benefits.
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Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Silver Prices and HFT / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
This is part of an ongoing series describing silver “Electronic Price Discovery versus the Fundamental Reality”.
In this discussion, we will go a little deeper and narrow with HFT and algorithm trading, and more specifically its impact on the market.
First off, I don't think that speed, electronics or computers are necessarily a bad thing in and of themselves. Nor are the tactics employed, including “sub-millisecond trading” or “co-location of servers”, the latter meaning one can physically place servers closer to the exchanges and therefore gain a speed advantage. I don't think they're necessarily bad things in and of themselves.
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Theresa May Declares War on Immigration - Conference Speech Full Transcript / Politics / Immigration
By: Submissions
“Thank you, Arminka, Baroness Helic, for that incredible, personal story. From Bosnia to Britain, from arriving here as a refugee to serving the public in government and in the House of Lords, your story is an inspiration to us all. So, on behalf of everybody here today, thank you.
Before I begin, I’m sure I speak for everyone at Conference when I say that our thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of Police Constable David Phillips who was killed in the line of duty in the small hours of yesterday morning. PC Phillips, who served with Merseyside Police, leaves behind a loving wife, Jennifer, and two young daughters, Abigail and Sophie.
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Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Is Russia Plotting To Bring Down OPEC? / Politics / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
President Putin's recent moves in the Middle East—to shore up Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria through deployment of combat aircraft, equipment, and manpower and build-out of air-, naval-, and ground-force bases, and the agreement in the last week with Iran, Iraq, and Syria on intelligence and security cooperation—could contribute to Russian efforts to combat the myriad negative pressures on Russia's vital energy industry. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Stock Market European Surprise.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Jack_Steiman
One thing I've learned through the years is to expect the unexpected. The global-economic reports have been poor, and have been getting worse as time moves along. It doesn't matter what part of the globe we're speaking about, the news just keeps getting worse. Based on that reality, we've seen our markets struggle for quite some time now. Fundamentals are rising above fear. When you think about how intense fear is, it's pretty amazing that the bears can still win with poor fundamentals. That said, the unexpected good news hit out of nowhere, which is how it always occurs. The Euro Zone had their retail-sales report, and it came in better than expected, not only month over month, but year over year. The Euro Zone saw all of their markets rise on that news, and, in some cases, explosively so. There are so many shorts out there that it wouldn't take too much to get a decent rally.
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Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Key Chart Shows Silver Price at Critical Crossroads / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: MoneyMetals
Stefan Gleason writes: Gold and silver markets enter the week with an opportunity to build on last Friday's strong reversal. The metals had drifted lower through Thursday's close, but they got a big boost Friday after the Labor Department released disappointing jobs numbers.
Even though the official unemployment rate held steady at 5.1%, the number of jobs added in September fell short of analyst expectations. Worse, a record 94.6 million Americans of working age now aren't working. Most of these jobless Americans don't get counted as "unemployed" - making the unemployment rate a dubious statistic. It's so obviously unrepresentative of real-world realities that even mainstream financial reporters are catching on.
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Tuesday, October 06, 2015
U.S. Economic Recovery Failure to Launch / Economics / US Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
The popular belief that the U.S. economy has been steadily recovering has endured months of disappointing data without losing much of its appeal. A deep bench of excuses, ranging from the weather to the Chinese economy, has been called on to justify why the economy hasn't built up any noticeable steam, and why the Fed has failed to move rates off zero, where they have been for seven years. But the downright dismal September jobs report that was released last Friday may prove to be the flashing red beacon that even the most skilled apologists can't explain away. The report should make it abundantly clear that we are far closer to recession than recovery. But old notions die hard and, shockingly, most economists still believe that we have hit a temporary speed bump not a brick wall. But at some point healthy hope turns into dangerous delusion. We may have just turned that corner.
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Target Date Funds As Aid In Retirement Investment Portfolio Design / Portfolio / Pensions & Retirement
By: Richard_Shaw
Investors in or near retirement should be aware of portfolio design leading fund sponsors suggest as appropriate- Leading target date funds appear to generally have less severe worst drawdowns than a US 60/40 balanced fund
- The funds have slightly higher yields than a US 60/40 balanced fund
- Target date funds have underperformed a US 60/40 balanced fund in part due to a cash reserve component and non-US stocks
- Non-US stocks drag on historical performance could become future boost to performance.
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Stocks Bear Market Apocalypse Imminent Crash Gets Nuked Again / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The last 2 months have been increasingly witnessing ever louder market calls for the beginnings of a new stocks bear market and this not just from the usual suspects, the perma bears who call every correction of the past 6+ years as marking the start of a bear market. Lately an increasing number of those who had managed to remain 'mostly' bullish in the face of a relentless stocks bull market have been increasingly coming out pronouncements of stocks now being in a bear market .
Monday, October 05, 2015
Macrocosm Revisited / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015
By: Gary_Tanashian
Here again is our representation of what a positive macro environment would look like for a bullish gold and gold mining stance. We created this theme in July for NFTRH 353.
This view comes off as repugnant to much of the gold “community”, but I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to tune out the fairy stories about missing COMEX gold (and silver), love-inspired demand from China and India, ‘rising US employment drives interest rates, incentivizes banks to lend and creates inflation, driving people into gold and gold stocks’ or any other angle out there that does not focus on declining confidence in policy making and its ability to control economies and financial markets. Every single one of these supposed fundamentals have already been proven wrong.
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Monday, October 05, 2015
Nightshades Curb Your Enthusiasm / Personal_Finance / Health and Fitness
By: Submissions
John Roth writes: [Disclaimer: The following is not a medical article]
I am a male over 60 and have [or had] a serious health problem that I tried to ignore for the last three years. I tried every holistic treatment, supplement, vitamin and herb under the sun. During that period my gastrointestinal tract quit working three times. I had a lot of trouble breathing and although I had the urge nothing would come out of my body. You get the picture.
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Monday, October 05, 2015
U.S. Recession Watch, High-Yield – Rising Defaults / Economics / Recession 2015
By: John_Mauldin
“Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.”– J.C. Penney
“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.”– Napoleon Hill
“We’re lost, but we’re making good time.” – Yogi Berra, 1925-2015, RIP (For a most moving and memory-laden tribute to Yogi, see The Lefsetz Letter.)
The Yogi Berra quote above, which was brought to my attention this week, seems an apt description of where the markets and the economy are today. Nobody is quite sure where we are or where we’re going, but we all seem to think we’re going to get there soon.
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Monday, October 05, 2015
Kunduz Afghanistan’s Hospital Bombing - Pentagon Lies Covering Up Its Latest War Crime / Politics / US Military
By: Stephen_Lendman
US warplanes deliberately and maliciously terror bombed Kunduz, Afghanistan’s hospital, the only one in the area - striking it multiple times for over an hour, despite knowing it was not involved in ongoing fighting in the city.
The death toll stands at 22, dozens more injured, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) physicians, other medical staff and patients. Those unable to be moved were immolated in their beds.
US General in charge of Pentagon operations in Afghanistan John F. Campbell lied, claiming the Kunduz hospital was “accidentally struck.”
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Monday, October 05, 2015
Financial Repression – Governments Boost their Coffers and Hold Down Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the government will run out of money to pay its bills sooner than previously thought around November 5, 2015. Lacking sufficient cash, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history.
Again, another year, to increase the USA debt limit by the government. Will monetary and fiscal policy ever return to “sanity”? Will the political leaders ever become brave enough to quit spending more of the taxpayer’s monies than they bring in without fear of losing elections? Will Americans ever elect someone who doesn’t just promise them more and more “stuff,” and who will just start acting responsibly with the nation’s treasury?
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Monday, October 05, 2015
Redesigning Internet and Facebook to Explore Their Full Potentialities... / Politics / Internet
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
... and Empower the Humanity with Knowledge for Finding Solutions for Its Problems
Internet and Social Medias have reached their saturation point under their existing framework of data sharing and communications. At the same time, they are using only less than five per cent of their actual potentialities for their over-dependence on Data. Here the causalities are of course Knowledge, Visions and Dreams.
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Monday, October 05, 2015
We’re Not Nearly As Worried About The Middle East As We should Be / Politics / Middle East
By: John_Rubino
What’s the opposite of a gift that keeps on giving? A mistake that keeps metastasizing.
Which pretty much sums up the US role in the Middle East. Beginning with the CIA’s 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected president and continuing through the multiple regime changes and invasions of recent years, various American governments have behaved like they both understood that region and had the power to mold it into a docile client that pumped oil, suppressed dissent and otherwise caused no trouble.
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Monday, October 05, 2015
The Social Challenge to Find Humanity in Capitalism / Politics / Social Issues
By: Bloomberg
Paul Tudor Jones, Founder of Tudor Investment Corp., joined hosts Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin for the debut of Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>. He discussed how the Federal Reserve is approaching monetary policy, his Just Capital initiative, income inequality, and the need for humanity in capitalism.
On a major macro shift in the market, Jones said: "I think for the first time since Volcker, probably, you see the Fed managing, in my mind, they're managing for the balance sheet to take out the tail risk associated, and associated with expanding debt virtually globally, and not to mention our federal debt. I think it points to a choppier market."
Monday, October 05, 2015
Fed Interest Rate Hike: "I don't care. It doesn't really make much of a difference" / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Bloomberg
Steve Schwarzman, CEO, The Blackstone Group, joined hosts Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin for the debut of Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>. Schwarzman discussed the Federal Reserve, Volkswagen in the wake of the pollution controls scandal,2016, and Ohio State Governor John Kasich.
On whether there will be a rate hike from the Federal Reserve this year, Schwarzman said: "I don't care. It doesn't really make much of a difference. Interest rate hikes of 25% that people have been talking about for 2-1/2 years, I mean really. If you haven't discounted a lot of this stuff, they've got the issue that raising interest rates is probably a good thing. However their problem is that because the US currency has appreciated against almost everyone in the world, in effect, we've had the impact of an interest rate increase already through slowing of the economy."
Monday, October 05, 2015
Gold Rose 2.2%, Silver Surged 5.4% After Poor Jobs Number On Friday / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: GoldCore
– BIS warns “unrealistic and dangerous to expect that monetary policy can cure all the global economy’s ills”
– Bank of International Settlements warns that recent turmoil is not caused by isolated incidents
– Debt levels are now so extreme they threaten the financial system
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Monday, October 05, 2015
U.S. Jobs Report Moves Fed One Step Closer to QE IV / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Michael_Pento
The September Non-Farm Payroll Report came in with a net increase of just 142k jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.1% and the labor force participation rate dropped to the October 1977 low of 62.4%. Average hourly earnings fell 0.04% and the workweek slipped to 34.5 hours. There were significant downward revisions of 22k and 37k jobs for the July and August reports respectively.
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