Saturday, December 14, 2019
Top 5 Ways to Add Value to Your Home / Housing-Market / Home Improvements
By: Justin_Weinger
How can you add long- and short-term value to your house? Here are what experienced real estate professionals say are the five best ways to ramp up the potential resale price of your dwelling:
Redo the Bathrooms
At the top of home-shoppers’ lists, fresh, newly redone bathrooms are a key selling point for old and new houses. It’s not the cheapest value-adding task you can opt for, but you will definitely get your money back in the selling price, and then some. If your place has more than one bathroom, try your best to budget for both to be redone. Choose a contractor based on a combination of experience and price and be clear that you want the renovated bathrooms to match.
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Friday, December 13, 2019
Beware Gold Stocks Downside / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
By: Zeal_LLC
The gold miners’ stocks have largely been consolidating high following last summer’s powerful upleg. That resilience has left sentiment relatively bullish, with traders mostly expecting this sector to soon start surging again. But the jury is still out on whether gold stocks will be lucky enough to evade a bigger correction. Major downside risks still abound, primarily in gold which dominates gold-stock price trends.
The reversal in gold-stock fortunes this year has been radical. This is readily evident in their leading benchmark, the GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF. Comprised of the world’s largest gold miners, GDX is this sector’s most-popular trading vehicle. The gold miners weren’t faring well for most of the first half of 2019, with GDX down 4.4% year-to-date in early May. Traders wanted nothing to do with gold stocks.
That sector slump reflected a lack of enthusiasm for gold, which was down 0.9% YTD. The gold stocks are effectively leveraged plays on gold, as their earnings really amplify changes in prevailing gold levels. But as May ended, some surprising news started sparking life back into the moribund gold realm. Trump threatened to impose big tariffs on Mexico until it stopped illegal immigration across the US southern border.
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Friday, December 13, 2019
Fed Says No Interest Rate Hikes In 2020. What About Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The Fed kept the interest rates unchanged in December. The statement was rather hawkish, while the dot-plot rather dovish. What does such a mix imply for the yellow metal?
Fed Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged
Yesterday, the FOMC published the monetary policy statement from its latest meeting that took place on December 10-11th. In line with expectations, the U.S. central bank left the federal funds rate unchanged at 1.50 to 1.75 percent:
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Friday, December 13, 2019
The ABC’s of Fiat Money / Currencies / Fiat Currency
By: Rob_Kirby
The machinations and bravo sierra excuses that are being “served up” attempting to explain the onset of massive Fed liquidity “adds” are fogging up my glasses. As a savant I once worked with in the institutional capital markets told me many, many years ago when I first parked my butt in a chair on a trading desk fresh out of University told me, “Kirby, what happens in here is really quite simple – we deal with money and the only things you can do with that are: buy it, sell it, borrow it or lend it. It isn’t rocket science”.When the Fed adds “liquidity” [aka fresh fiat money] they purchase debt – either on a temporary basis [repo] or a permanent basis by outright purchases [expanding their balance sheet]. Fresh fiat money is the oil that greases the wheels of our debt based money system. When the Fed purchases debt they are signalling concern that the wheels of our money system are seizing up.
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Friday, December 13, 2019
Why Jo Swinson and the Lib Dems LOST Seats General Election 2019 - Sheffiled Hallam Result / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: N_Walayat
According to the pollsters such as Yougov, the Lib Dem's were supposed to hoover up seats in REMAIN constituencies from at least Labour if not the Tories. But that's not what happened! They FAILED to win seats where they were ahead in the polls such as in the Sheffield Hallam constituency. Even Jo Swinson the Lib Deam leader lost her seat to the SNP! Resulting in the Lib Dems dropping from 20 MP's to just 11!
Find out why in this precient video posted the day BEFORE polling day for why the Lib Dem's had burned their support in many consituencies across Britain, such as in Sheffield Hallam where the polls said they were ahead by 4% i.e. 36% to 32% Labour. Instead Labour held onto the seat by 700 votes.
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Thursday, December 12, 2019
UK General Election 2019 BBC Exit Poll Forecast Accuracy Analysis / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Over 50,000 polling stations are open today across the UK to cope with the expected demand from an estimated 34 million voters out of a total of approx 49 million eligible to vote. With all eyes turned to the next big event of election night, the BBC EXIT POLL to follow within minutes of the polls closing at 10pm. Which unlike the multitudes of daily opinion polls that have been all over the place during the past month, the exit poll should provide an accurate gauge of what is the probable outcome of the general election some 5 hours before enough seats have been counted to make the actual result clear.
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Thursday, December 12, 2019
Technical Analysis Update: Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) - Saudi Arabia ETF (KSA) / Stock-Markets / Saudi Arabia
By: MarketsToday
Summary
- TASI / KSA break out of bull head & shoulders bottom trend reversal pattern.
- Indicates continuation of long-term upward sloping trend channel.
- Key Fibonacci zone targets marked on enclosed charts.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Silver Miners Pinpoint the Precious Metals’ Outlook / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Very little happened in the precious metals market both yesterday and in today’s pre-market trading – at least so far. We will take this opportunity to discuss something that we haven’t done in a while – silver stocks. To be clear, we’re not going to discuss the silver mining stock selection, as that’s something our proprietary algorithms do on a daily basis. And yes, during the recent long trade, the gain on the individual gold and silver miners was bigger than the one from the GDX ETF.
Instead, we’re going to take a look at this sector’s performance and compare it to one very similar case from the past. Yes, just one, which may not looks like an appropriate base for drawing conclusions, but the level of similarity makes it definitely relevant to the current situation. So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the SIL ETF – the proxy for silver miners.
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Thursday, December 12, 2019
How Google Has Become the Worlds Biggest Travel Company / Companies / Google
By: Stephen_McBride
For decades travel agents had a “lock” on vacations. Before the internet it was near impossible to find cheap fares yourself. And choosing the perfect hotel involved a lot of flicking through glossy brochures.
The “do it yourself” approach was a huge hassle. It was a lot easier to hire a knowledgeable travel agent. Then disruptor stocks like Booking.com (BKNG) and Expedia (EXPE) blew up the old model forever. With a few clicks, you could compare any flight or hotel in the world.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
UK Election Seats Forecasts - Tories 326, Labour 241, SNP 40, Lib Dems 17 / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Here's a quick summary of my general election seats per party forecasts ahead of the polls opening.
- Conservatives 326
- Labour 241
- SNP 40
- Lib Dems 17
Thursday, December 12, 2019
UK General Election 2019 FINAL Seats Per Political Party Forecast / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
FINAL SEATS PER POLITICAL PARTY FORECAST
This is my final seats per political party forecast based on extensive analysis published at the market MarketOracle.co.uk website over the past 3 weeks a fraction of which was posted to youtube.
The whole of this analysis was first made available to patrons who support my work that includes my final seats forecast at 12pm on the 11th of December 2019.
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Wednesday, December 11, 2019
What UK CPI, RPI INFLATION Forecasts for General Election Result 2019 / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
It's the economy stupid! The party in government tends to lose elections to the opposition on the basis of where the economy stands at the time of the general election. So whilst Boris Johnson's "Get Brexit Done" headline grabbing mantra sounds like it could deliver the Tories enough votes to win. However, if the economy is on the slide then all slogans and promises will be ignored, much as was the case for Theresa May's 2017 all about getting Brexit done election campaign.
So the focus of this analysis is where the economy in terms of Inflation stands and it's direction of travel relative to where economy stood in the run up to the June 2017 General Election as one of the 9 key election forecasting lessons learned from the outcome of the 2017 general elections.
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Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Gold ETF Holdings Surge… But Do They Actually Hold Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: MoneyMetals
Gold-linked exchange-traded products are growing in popularity with investors. Assets held by gold ETFs have grown 38% globally in 2019.
In October, according to the World Gold Council, gold ETFs attracted $1.9 billion in net inflows to reach a new record high total gold holding of 2,900 tonnes – at least on paper.
There is good reason to be skeptical of whether all these “gold” vehicles actually hold physical metal sufficient to back their market capitalizations on a 1:1 basis. Some of them very well might; others almost certainly don’t.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Gold, Silver Reversals, Lower Prices and Our Precious Profits / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Gold, silver, and mining stocks reversed practically exactly at their double triangle reversal point and the short positions that we opened along with taking profits off the table from the previous long positions, became profitable almost instantly. There’s quite a decline to catch here, and it seems that only a small part thereof had already taken place.
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Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Opinion Pollsters, YouGov MRP General Election 2019 Result Seats Forecast / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This is my final analysis of a 6 part series that aims to apply lessons learned from the 2017 general election towards a forecast that at it's core is based on my UK house prices momentum analysis that was first made available to Patrons on the 24th of November 2019.
Tory Seats projection analysis to date :
- UK House Prices 322 - UK House Prices Momentum General Election Core Forecast (24th November 2019)
- Manifestos Bribes 311 - Labour vs Tory Manifesto Voter Bribes Impact on UK General Election Forecast (30th November 2019)
- Economy 324 - What the UK Economy Predicts for General Election 2019 (4th December 2019)
- Marginal Seats 326 - UK General Election Tory and Labour Marginal Seats Analysis, Implied Forecast 2019 (7th December 2019)
- Social Mood (patrons) - Social Mood and Leaders Impact on General Election Forecast 2019 (9th December 2019)
- Final Forecast (patrons) - Opinion Polls, Betting Markets and Final Forecast Conclusion (11th December 2019)
Analysis to date averages to 3xx Tory seats which shows little deviation against my core house prices based forecast of 322 tory seats.
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Wednesday, December 11, 2019
UK General Election Tory and Labour Marginal Seats Analysis, Implied Forecast 2019 / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The 2019 December 12th general election will be won and lost in the marginal seats that is be the focus of my fourth in-depth analysis in this series that aims to fine tune my core election forecast based on UK house prices as the most accurate predictor of UK General Elections.
First a recap of my seats projections analysis to date:
- UK House Prices 322 - UK House Prices Momentum General Election Core Forecast (24th November 2019)
- Manifestos Bribes 311 - Labour vs Tory Manifesto Voter Bribes Impact on UK General Election Forecast (30th November 2019)
- Economy 324 - What the UK Economy Predicts for General Election 2019 (4th December 2019)
- Marginal Seats (patrons) (UK General Election Tory and Labour Marginal Seats Analysis, Implied Forecast 2019 (7th December 2019)
- Social Mood (patrons) (Social Mood and Leaders Impact on General Election Forecast 2019 (9th December 2019)
- Final Forecast (patrons) - Opinion Polls, Betting Markets and Final Forecast Conclusion (11th December 2019)
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
UK General Election 2019 - Tory Seats Forecast Based on GDP Growth / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
It's the economy stupid! The party in government tends to lose elections to the opposition on the basis of where the economy stands at the time of the general election. So whilst Boris Johnson's "Get Brexit Done" headline grabbing mantra sounds like it could deliver the Tories enough votes to win. However, if the economy is on the slide then all slogans and promises will be ignored, much as was the case for Theresa May's 2017 all about getting Brexit done election campaign.
So the focus of this analysis is where the economy stands and it's direction of travel relative to where economy stood in the run up to the June 2017 General Election as one of the 9 key election forecasting lessons learned from the outcome of the 2017 general elections.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019
YouGov's MRP Poll Final Tory Seats Forecast Revised Down From 359 to 338, Possibly Lower? / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
YouGov is set to update their MRP methodology based election polling seats forecast at 10pm today. Their existing forecast as of 27th November is for Boris Johnson to win a majority of 68 on 359 seats, whilst Labour drops from 242 to 211. As apparently Yougov accurately called the June 2017 General Election! We'll that's what Yougov and the mainstream press keep iterating and thus the obsession with their MRP forecast for 2019.
A quick search reveals - "As the dust of the general election settles, many commentators are still stating they didn’t see it coming. But we did." https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/06/14/how-we-correctly-called-hung-parliament , Yougov.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019
What UK Economy (Average Earnings) Predicts for General Election Results 2019 / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
It's the economy stupid! The party in government tends to lose elections to the opposition on the basis of where the economy stands at the time of the general election. So whilst Boris Johnson's "Get Brexit Done" headline grabbing mantra sounds like it could deliver the Tories enough votes to win. However, if the economy is on the slide then all slogans and promises will be ignored, much as was the case for Theresa May's 2017 all about getting Brexit done election campaign.
So the focus of this analysis is where the economy stands and it's direction of travel relative to where economy stood in the run up to the June 2017 General Election as one of the 9 key election forecasting lessons learned from the outcome of the 2017 general election.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Labour vs Tory Manifesto's UK General Election Parliamentary Seats Forecast 2019 / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This is my third video in a series that looks a the Tory and Labour Manifesto's where my first manifesto video covered the degree to which each party was going to bribe the electorate. And the second focused on the debt dynamics of whether Britain can afford to go on a debt fuelled spending spree given current Debt to GDP of 90%.
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