Saturday, June 27, 2015
Flatline Investing and Dead End Debt Schemes / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
Next Tuesday is the end of the first half of 2015. As of today, the Dow has once again rallied up to break the magical 18,000 line, holding this level after coming within inches of this level for the first time on December 5, 2014....now 139 trading days ago.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Renewable Energy the Fastest-Growing Energy Sector of 2015 and Beyond / Commodities / Renewable Energy
David Fessler writes: I’ve been talking about renewable energy at conferences for the last eight years. Every year, I’ve said renewables will continue to be the fastest-growing energy sector.
And every year, the data proves me right.
Renewable energy sources now generate 28% of the world’s electricity, up from 25% in 2013.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Stock Market Investors Avoid the "Herd" Like the Plague / InvestorEducation / Learning to Invest
Porter Stansberry writes: If you've been following my series this week, you know we're working our way through the desert – the Rub' al Khali.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Crude Oil Price Nearing Exhaustion / Commodities / Crude Oil
For an asset like Crude, which is normally extremely volatile, the current prolonged sideways range is very much out of character. Crude has us accustomed to daily swings of 2% to 3%, and to shorter term rallies/declines that draw in traders before reversing suddenly. Crude is generally an asset that fluctuates in price, so the current “flat-line” action is rare. Since the last Daily Cycle peaked on May 6th, Crude oil has been locked in a sideways trading range. Short term traders, expecting the usual crude oil volatility, are being chopped to pieces.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Extreme Gold/Silver Shorting / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Gold and silver are languishing near major lows, trudging through the barren sentiment wasteland of the summer doldrums. The major factor behind this weakness is extreme shorting by American futures speculators. But their heavily-bearish bets are actually very bullish for both precious metals. Not only do these traders as a herd always bet wrong at price extremes, their shorts are guaranteed near-future buying.
American futures speculators’ trading has utterly dominated gold and silver price action in recent years. This single group of traders doesn’t normally wield such outsized influence. But with Western investors largely missing in action since early 2013, futures speculators have gone unchallenged. Couple this with the extreme leverage inherent in futures trading, and its stranglehold on gold and silver prices is ironclad.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Bitcoin Situation Getting Tenser / Currencies / Bitcoin
In short: no speculative positions.
Bitcoin is getting more and more attention from the banks and exchanges but it still remains relatively unknown to consumers, we read on CoinDesk:
A new survey published by Goldman Sachs has found that just over half of US millennials believe they will never use bitcoin.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
QM and XLE Energy Sector Charts Analysis / Commodities / Energy Resources
It’s starting to look more and more likely that the counter trend bounce in oil (and commodities) may be over. If so then my expectation is that oil will test $35 at some point before the 3 year cycle low is complete.
I was expecting a little more out of the bear market rally. Possibly a move to the mid 60’s before heading back down, but it’s looking more and more likely that oil is going to come up short of my original expectation and traders should probably now start looking for lower prices than hoping for one more pop higher.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
USD Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Conclusions / Currencies / US Dollar
USD has been in correction since the hysterical March top. The daily chart shows a series of lower highs and lower lows that was interrupted last week when USD failed to make a lower low, Hammered and bounced… right to the EMA and SMA 50’s.
So we remain on watch for a) a higher high or b) a lower low. It’s very simple. As it stands, the near-term is bearish until it proves bullish, not the other way around. That is because the existing trend is down (AROON, bottom Panel).
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Gold Price Target of USD 2,300 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
- “Gold remains in secular bull market”
- System is addicted to unsustainable debt
- Persistent deflationary forces threaten system
- Monetary authorities to take increasingly risky measures to engender inflation
- Debt based monetary system is crux of problem
- “All available means” deployed to prevent global government bond bubble from bursting
- Aversion to owning any gold whatsoever displays “ignorance of monetary history”
- Gold’s qualities as store of value and medium of exchange to be “rediscovered”
- Have “gold price target of USD 2,300” in three years
Friday, June 26, 2015
Stock Market - Why I am Ultra Bearish over the Long Term / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
Some interesting developments are playing out in long term charts that make me feel comprehensively bearish over the long term:
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Friday, June 26, 2015
EU Migration Crisis Solution - Settle Migrants in Depopulated Eastern Europe, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia / Politics / European Union
Over 1 million people will succeed in their attempts to migrate to the European Union this year alone (2015), where whilst first port of call is Spain, Italy, France, and Greece, who soon funnel migrants northwards to the UK, Germany, Netherlands etc.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Stocks and the Slippery Roads For the Rickshaw Economy / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
Stocks were weak Thursday on the 'better than expected' consumer spending number.
Jobs remain weak, despite the spin about The Recovery™.
There are jobs that will provide a poverty wage, and workers are increasingly insecure in an on-demand, rickshaw economy.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Gold and Silver - Another Successful Option Expiration For the Insiders / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
The Bucket Shop managed to hold gold below the 1180 level, thereby allowing most of the calls for the option expiration to go out worthless. Oh well done.
There was intraday commentary about the Greek situation which may be actually coming to some sort of resolution over the next few weeks. You may read that here.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Greece - The People Must Be Overthrown / Politics / Euro-Zone
Perhaps I should apologize for writing about Greece all the time. Thing is, not only have I just arrived in Athens last night (and been duly showered in ouzo), but Greece is the proverbial early harbinger of everything that’s wrong with the world (not to worry, I know that’s a hyperbole), and of everything that could be done about it.
That places a responsibility on the shoulders of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and his team that maybe they don’t want, and for all I know don’t deserve either. But they’re all we have, and besides, they’re all their own people have. In that sense, this is not about everything that’s wrong with the world, other than that’s the same as everything that’s wrong with Greece.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Why Buffett Bet A Billion On Solar Energy / Commodities / Solar Energy
Miles Per Acre Per YearDuring the late innings of the ICE-age (as in the Internal Combustion Engine age) it has become clear that feeding gasoline and diesel to the next billion new cars is not going to be easy, or cheap. In China alone, 500 million new vehicles can be expected to jam the roads between now and 2030.
That may sound far-fetched but considering annual sales have already made it to 25 million units per year (vs. around 17 million in the U.S. – China became the top market in 2009), it only requires a 4 percent growth rate to reach that target in fifteen years.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
How Companies Are Using PIP To Humiliate and Get Rid of Workers / Politics / Employment
In my last two posts, I talked about why hiring now takes longer and how some companies use interview to score free consult from job applicants, today I'd like to discuss the increasing popularity of PIP. This is not your forex trading pip, PIP in the corporate lingo means Performance Improvement Plan.
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
Why Banks Rob Depositors: "Because That's Where the Money Is" / Politics / Banksters
One of America's most notorious bank robbers, Willie Sutton (1901-80), is said to have remarked that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." In a strange twist, the banks themselves are now beginning literally to rob their own customers.
The theft occurs via the innovative practice of "paying" (i.e. "charging") negative interest rates on savings and checking account balances combined with account maintenance fees. Cash strapped Greece is looking to go even further – charging customers for daring to withdraw cash! So what gives here?
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
Chinese Stocks: "How to Think Like a Billionaire Investor" / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market
What's next for the high-flying Shanghai Composite?
With China's main Shanghai Composite index up almost 40% this year, and the tech-heavy Shenzhen Composite index up more than 90% YTD, are Chinese stocks in a bubble?
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
Fed Taper Talk, And The $10 Bill / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Since May 2013, Fed taper talk has fluctuated between hot and cold. When it’s hot, the markets anticipate a monetary tightening and prices become volatile.
Recently, speculation about just when the Fed will increase interest rates has reared its head, again. Since early 2013, I have said that the Fed would not act until late 2015. Well, it’s now approaching that date and I think the Fed will act, but later, rather than earlier.
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
When a Bond Is Not a Bond / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
By Jared Dillian
I don’t know anything about Greece. I actually make it a point not to.
What I’ve found over the course of my career is that the closer people get to an issue, the worse their predictive power is. The forest-for-the-trees phenomenon. Like all the economists who do nothing but watch the Fed, every piece of data, every speech. Their track record in predicting interest rate moves is worse than everyone else’s!
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