Friday, September 18, 2015

U.S. Housing Market May be About to Implode -- Again / Housing-Market / US Housing

By: EWI

Before I get into the "why," know that the residential real estate market never fully recovered.

Annualized new home sales this past July stood at 507,000, vs. the July 2005 peak of 1.39 million. The chart and commentary from the August Elliott Wave Theorist offer:

Friday, September 18, 2015

The #1 Reason to Love a U.S. Government Shutdown – Investor Double-Digit Profits / Companies / Investing 2015

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Sigh… we stand yet again on the verge of another government shutdown. This time the bickering centers on funding related to Planned Parenthood which has been linked to the appalling sales of fetal body parts in recent months, while other legislators insist on a planned multi-billion dollar tax hike for private equity managers.

What could possibly go wrong – other than everything?!

The way I see it, wingnuts on both sides of the aisle are playing chicken with an $18 trillion economy and world markets once again.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Stock Market Testing the Flags / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

SPX is testing the inside boundaries of its Bearish Flag. I have revised the Flag minimum target to reflect yesterday’s spike high. Should SPX break below its Flag formation on heavy volume today, the probability of a flash crash within the next week becomes elevated above 50%.

Friday, September 18, 2015

How Should You Invest During Recession? / Stock-Markets / Recession 2015

By: Submissions

Nicholas Kitonyi writes: The general rule is that the best time to invest in the stock market is when stock prices are low, and sell when they are high. Ideally, stock prices trade at low prices during recession as compared to when the economy is expanding.

However, as many investors would tell you, it is not always that simple. In fact, sometimes it is much difficult to pick out the right stocks during recession because you never know where the recession would leave the company by the time it’s over.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Financial Sanctions Against Hungary, Poland, Czech, Slovakia Syrian Refugee Migrants Hypocrisy / Politics / Refugee Crisis

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It speaks volumes that those eastern european nations of Poland, Hungary, Czech and Slovakia amongst others that have over the past decade alone sent over 10 million ECONOMIC MIGRANTS westwards, demanding full equality in every respect, and receiving it despite putting nations such as the UK under immense pressure in terms of social services and housing as a consequence of an influx of 4 million Polish, Hungarian etc. economic migrants are now themselves not even wishing to entertain more than a handful of syrian refugees to seek refuge in their sparsely populated heavily depopulated regions.

Friday, September 18, 2015

U.S. Economy Future Expectations Made Six Months Ago vs. Today's Reality / Economics / US Economy

By: Mike_Shedlock

On Thursday, I noted Bloomberg's comment "Something Very Wrong" with the manufacturing sector.

More completely, Bloomberg stated "There may very well be something wrong with the manufacturing sector, at least in the Northeast where the Empire State index has been in deep negative ground for the last two months followed now by a minus 6.0 headline for the Philly Fed index."

Friday, September 18, 2015

Commodities, CRB,WTIC,Copper - After The Long Dark Night, The Sun Starts to Rise... / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Clive_Maund

Commodities and Emerging Markets have been crushed over the past 15 months by the dollar's strong rally. It therefore follows that if the dollar starts down again, they are going to rally, and this will happen regardless of the state of economies. The dollar should start down again if the Fed fails to raise interest rates tomorrow, and maybe even if they do, as the ensuing chain of interest rate rises cannot extend far because of the magnitude of debt.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Currency Wars, Battles, And Hostile Actions / Currencies / Currency War

By: Raymond_Matison

With its recent miniscule 2% devaluation of the Yuan, media pundits noted that China had now also entered into the global currency war.  What this comment implies is that other countries with the ability to issue or print their own currency, including the U.S., have been participating in a currency war by devaluing their own currency as a hoped for means to increase their country exports and thereby stimulate their economies.  As China’s currency has been pegged to the USD, it had recently grown stronger as a byproduct of dollar’s recent dramatic strength.  Accordingly, the peg that China used to tie-in to the dollar’s value had increased the Chinese yuan to a level that was hurting their exports.  The resulting devaluation was China’s attempt to correct partially this unwelcome currency appreciation.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Halloween Came Early this Year on Wall Street / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Clif_Droke

The Federal Reserve guessing game ended Thursday after the FOMC made its decision on interest rate policy. The Fed left rates unchanged in a tip of the hat to investors who felt the economy was vulnerable to overseas weakness. This was what most on Wall Street wanted, although there was a sharp intraday reversal after the announcement (apparently a case of buy the rumor, sell the news).

Friday, September 18, 2015

Fed Remains Paralysed by Fear, Keeps U.S. Interest Rates on Hold at 0.25% / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The FOMC once more decided to do nothing and keep US interest rates on hold at the panic low level of 0.25% with speculation now switching to whether the Fed will finally get the balls to raise interest rates at its October meeting, or will the Fed chicken out once more fearing that they may spark Financial Collapse 2.0.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Time to Invest in Gold? Consider These Four Factors First / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Investment_U

Sean Brodrick writes: The market expects gold to go lower as the Fed raises interest rates. That’s because gold pays no interest, unlike bonds. In fact, more than $2.6 billion was wiped from the value of gold exchange-traded products (ETPs) in just three weeks as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s meeting. Ouch!

And in all, since gold entered a bear market in April 2013, a whopping $54 billion in value has bled out of gold ETPs. Holdings in bullion products fell to 1,508.2 metric tons on August 11.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Crude Oil Price Rises 29% in One Week... Here's What It Means / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: DailyWealth

Friday, September 18, 2015

In Thrall to the Federal Reserve / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: MISES

Jeff Deist writes: BREAKING NEWS:

Perhaps no economic pronouncement in history has been anticipated, discussed, predicted, dissected, and reported like the Federal Reserve’s momentous decision today not to raise interest rates.

The outpouring of relief witnessed today by the financial press is nothing short of cathartic. Fear and anxiety, built up over months, is replaced by relief, even euphoria.

Friday, September 18, 2015

The Central Bankster Crucifix / Interest-Rates / Central Banks

By: Barry_M_Ferguson

The FRB, the ECB, the PBoC, and the BoJ are all central banksters. It matters not which country they infest. It matters not which form of gooberment they act as marionette. It matters not how much economic destruction they instigate. Their wicked intent is the same. Total power. Total domination. Total rule. Total control. Total enslavement.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Fed Keeps US Interest Rates Unchanged - Comparison of Sep and July Statements / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Ashraf_Laidi

The Fed kept rates unchanged with an unambiguously dovish statement, focusing on weakening inflation, rising market turbulence and a new reference to foreign developments. The dot forecasts pointed to slower growth and lower core inflation and lower fed funds projections. The only hawkish dissent to the decision was from Richmond Fed's Lacker, but this point was made moot by not only due to Lacker's well documented hawkish stance, but also by the fact that the dot plot showed one Fed member expecting negative rates, even if this member is the widely dovish Minneapolis Fed's Kocherlakota.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Trading 101: Position Sizing / InvestorEducation / Learn to Trade

By: John_Mauldin

This is going to be the last of the trading lessons for a while. I don’t want to turn this into a trading blog, and there are important macro things to talk about (especially next week).

Here’s an imaginary scenario: someone tips you that an acquisition is going to happen. Of course, that would be insider trading, which is illegal—but let’s pretend for the purpose of this exercise that insider trading were legal.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Great Financial Crisis 2nd Leg - The Chinese Emperor Has No Clothes / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market

By: Brian_Bloom

The first chart below may be signalling a very significant technical development from the perspective of global investor confidence.

The lower low in the On Balance Volume (OBV) chart is not yet significant in terms of extent; nevertheless, its significance lies in the fact that it is pointing to the “potential”  emergence of a wave of selling pressure in the equity market of a country that has clearly been cooking its economic books (see evidence below).

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Stock Market Fed Decision Day / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Good Morning!

A colleague, Gary, called me yesterday to comment that this formation might have a better fit as a Flag or Pennant formation instead of a Triangle. A glance at the two-hour chart shows an upward tilt that would agree with that assessment. The Wave Structure also fits, whether a Minor Wave 4 or an Intermediate Wave (B), which is the alternate view.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

What Today’s Fed Decision Means for Crude Oil Prices / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: ...

MoneyMorning.com Dr. Kent Moors writes: After nine years of historically low interest rates, the Fed is finally getting ready to remove the proverbial punchbowl from the easy-money party.

As it stands, Yellen & Company are only contemplating a mere 25 basis rate hike and even that now seems unlikely.

According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the Fed Funds futures contracts are pricing in a below 25% chance of a rate hike later this afternoon.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Stock Market Optimism Ahead Of Fed's Interest Rate Decision Release / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Paul_Rejczak

Briefly: In our opinion, no speculative positions are justified

Our intraday outlook is 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