Tuesday, December 24, 2019
BEST Christmas EVE, BOXING Day SALES 2019 - TOP Money Saving Tips! / Personal_Finance / Shopping
By: N_Walayat
Britain's Christmas high street sales frenzy is about to reach maximum intensity on Boxing day whilst most major retailers such as NEXT and PC World / Curry's will start their sales online on Christmas Eve so as to maximise profits from the the army of point and click armchair shoppers. Here is a comprehensive list of sales starting today, Christmas Eve and continuing into the high streets on Boxing day as well as those already well underway.
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Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Fintech and its Impact on Investments / Companies / Banking Stocks
By: Submissions
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Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Gold Upswing and Lessons from Gold Tops / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: P_Radomski_CFA
What a classic day Friday was! Gold moved a bit lower, miners moved significantly lower, and silver rallied. Truly classic and outstanding performance if one enjoys seeing topping patterns that are playing out according to their usual and likely characteristics. And Monday’s early session seems to be an encore.
Let’s start with the examination of the most recent price action in gold.
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Monday, December 23, 2019
Stock Market Trend Review / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Andre_Gratian
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend – There are no signs that the bull market is over.
Intermediate trend – Most likely near an intermediate top.
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 discusses the course of longer market trends.
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Monday, December 23, 2019
Crude Oil Bulls Keep Trying But the Technical Headwinds Are Stiff / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Nadia_Simmons
Crude oil futures moved higher once again during yesterday’s session, overcoming the upper border of the rising green trend channel for the third time in a row. While the futures finished the day above this resistance, the bulls didn’t manage to hold gained ground in full.
Earlier today, the futures opened with the red gap. This bearish development means invalidation of yesterday’s breakout, which doesn’t bode well for the bulls.
The daily indicators are still very extended, also supporting the likelihood of upcoming reversal to the downside.
Should the futures extend losses from here, the initial downside target for the sellers will be the Friday’s green gap.
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Monday, December 23, 2019
The Fed Celebrates While Americans Drown in Financial Despair / Economics / Inflation
By: John_Mauldin
The Federal Reserve System is supposed to be independent. But it’s not. And as much as Donald Trump doesn’t like it, the Fed shouldn’t follow the president’s orders.
The Fed operates under a legal mandate from Congress. Its monetary policy role is “to promote maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates.”
So how is it doing?
Long-term rates are certainly moderate. Employment is historically high, though wages and job quality aren’t always great.
As for that “stable prices” part… it depends on what you are buying.
Monday, December 23, 2019
Tesco Caught Selling Slave Labour Christmas Cards, China Concentration Camps 2019 / Companies / Corporate News
By: N_Walayat
A 6 year old girl sending christmas cards to her school friends, was surprised to find one card already had a hand written message
"Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation, contact Mr Peter Humphrey"
Tesco pretending not to know they had slave labour working for them, pulled the cards from the shelves, though virtually everyone who was going to buy christmas cards would have done so by then and given that they were being sold in the reduced to clear shelves just prior to the news story breaking.
This story just illustrates that China is a rising totalitarian power. Where whilst today several millions of Ugers and other minorities find themselves in Chinese slave labour concentration camps.
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Monday, December 23, 2019
Windows 7 Last Chance to Update Before Microsoft End of Life Support 14th Jan 2020 / Personal_Finance / Microsoft
By: HGR
Microsoft will cease making updates available as of 14th January 2020 as part of it's Windows 7 end of life programme. Here we find out what to expect when one updates a Windows 7 PC that has NOT been updated for over 5 years!
So like us, if you have been putting off updating your Windows 7 system in case it introduces instabilities then it's a case of update now or never!
Find out if updating a Windows 7 system for the first time in many years survives 108 recommended updates or not, and how long the process is likely to take as we countdown to Windows 7 End of Life.
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Monday, December 23, 2019
Gold vs Cash in a Financial Crisis / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Richard_Mills
Mattress stuffers or bullion holders? Who fares better in a crisis? North American investors are divided between those who believe the decade-long stock market bull is going to keep running into the 2020s, and investors who, wary of something terrible happening, are hoarding cash and gold.
The hopeful and the fearful
The beacon hopeful investors are following is best symbolized by analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who describe current market conditions as “primed for Q1 2020 net asset melt-up”, based on continued monetary easing (central bank asset purchases, low interest rates) and a pending resolution to the trade war. A first-round trade agreement between the US and China was reached last Friday.
While roughly two in three investors polled in October said they see the global economy getting worse in 2020, in November a little more than half think the economy will improve next year.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019
Farewell Paul Volcker Hello Monetary Madness / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Michael_Pento
God bless Paul Volcker. He was truly a one of a kind central banker and we probably won't see another one like him ever again. It took his extreme bravery to crush the inflation caused by the monetary recklessness of Arthur Burns and the fiscal profligacy of Presidents Johnson & Nixon. Raising interest rates to 20% by March 1980 was wildly unpopular at the time. But in the end, it was what the nation needed and paved the way for a long period of economic stability and prosperity.Back in 1971 the world fully had developed a new monetary "technology". Governments learned that money need no longer be representative of prior efforts, or energy expended, or previous production, or have any real value whatsoever. It can be just created by a monetary magic wand; and done so without any baneful economic consequences.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019
Thanks to Netflix, the Biggest Advertising Revolution Has Begun / Companies / Tech Stocks
By: Stephen_McBride
Let me tell you a secret about the world’s most powerful stocks… ones that made early investors very, very rich.
Alphabet (GOOGL)… one of the world’s most influential tech companies… has handed investors 2,000%+ gains.
Facebook (FB)... a social media dominator and the sixth-biggest company in the world... has handed investors 400%+ gains.
Amazon (AMZN)... the king of online shopping… has handed investors 10,000%+ gains.
These three stocks all have one secret trait that drove their stock prices to the moon.
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Who Said Stock Market Traders and Investor are Emotional Right Now? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Nearing the end of 2019, our research team continues to attempt to dissect the market rally in an effort to present credible research and timely insights to skilled technical traders. We recently authored a research article discussing the potential that the US Stock market is less than 2.5% away from a major resistance level that could prompt a massive market top. You can read our research related to these Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs here.
This recent research leads us to revisit the recent blow-off rotation in recent markets. The typical market cycle moves from through these cycles Stealth Phase, the Awareness Phase, the Mania Phase and finally to the Blow-Off Phase. The Stealth Phase is where the smart money pours into the market taking advantage of undervalued assets/equities. The Awareness phase is where more traditional and retail investors pile into assets that have formed traditional bottom formation and started to rally. The Mania Phase is when enthusiasm and greed take over and when the market moves higher in a parabolic price mode – ultimately reaching a massive top. Then, we start the Blow-Off Phase which usually starts with a deep “R” type price rotation – followed by extended selling.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019
The Train-Wreck of Climate-Change Mitigation / Politics / Climate Change
By: Mark_Blair
‘We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice their economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability.’ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X19300677
Climate-change mitigation this coming decade will be a train-wreck of unparalleled proportions. Let’s look over The Players:
One: The reality of the utter present exhaustion of the global financial and political model. The elephant in the room.
Two: the climate-change-denial lobbyists, funded by the extractive industries, particularly in the U.S. and Australia, who have effectively stymied mitigation for decades.
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Morrisons Supermarket CHEAP Battery Operated String Christmas Lights 2019 Review / Personal_Finance / Money Saving
By: HGR
If you have not gotten around to getting some Christmas Lights to brighten up your home for the festive season, then take note of cheap christmas lights currently available at Morrisons that have been further reduced. These are cheap battery operated string lights and range in price from £4 to £15 for a variety of types. Check out the video for full the details of what's on sale and what to expect when you put them up.
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Friday, December 20, 2019
Gold in Indian Rupees, the USD and the Many Non-USD Currencies / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: P_Radomski_CFA
We started yesterday’s analysis with the investigation of the Euro Index and gold price in this European currency. Today, we’ll take a moment to analyze the gold market from the Indian point of view. Gold has a special place in the Indian history and culture, India is the second biggest “consumer” of gold (right after China). USA’s gold consumption is third biggest in the world, but it’s less than one fourth of the Indian gold consumption. This means that to a considerable extent, the Indian gold buyers can influence gold’s fundamental situation.
Moreover, India is the second-largest English-speaking country (US comes in first with 268 million English speakers, while about 125 million people speak English in India). Since we’re writing in English and about gold, it’s only natural to discuss the Indian side of the gold market. And by that, we mean taking a closer look at gold’s price in the Indian rupee.
In the recent years the value of the Indian currency has declined compared to the value of the U.S. dollar, and so did gold. This mean that if you live in India, you have yet another reason to be holding gold and one less reason to worry that gold is going to decline profoundly. Yet, the situation is not that simple. After all, the huge value increases in the USD Index translated into declines in gold that were even bigger. This means that from the non-USD point of view, for instance from the Indian point of view, gold price still declined. Where does that lead us to?
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Friday, December 20, 2019
Gold and Lagarde – Friends or Foes? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
A week ago, Lagarde chaired the monetary policy meeting of the Governing Council of the ECB for the first time. An insightful press conference followed in the footsteps. What will her presidency imply for the ECB’s policy and the gold market precisely?
Key Takeaways From First Lagarde Monetary Policy Meeting as ECB President
Last Thursday, the ECB held its December monetary policy meeting. The central bank maintained its stance steady, keeping the interest rates unchanged. However, the ECB has revised slightly down the outlook for real GDP growth for 2020, while the outlook for HICP inflation went slightly up.
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Friday, December 20, 2019
Gold GLD Could Be On The Verge Of a Breakout / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Avi_Gilburt
With many stocks moving higher in breakout fashion already, silver and GLD have been lagging. But, that may come to an end shortly.
You see, silver seems to be setting up in a micro i-ii structure off the recent lows, whereas GLD is still below its last week high. However, even though GLD is below its last week high, the action we have seen lately has been quite corrective. So, this makes me lean towards an imminent break out more so than an imminent break down. But, we still need to see that follow through over last week’s high to confirm that.
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Friday, December 20, 2019
Understanding Gold (and Silver) Comes from the Heart, Not the Brain / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: MoneyMetals
The title of this essay is part of a statement made by Stewart Thomson, editor of the investment letter, Graceland Updates. His full comment reads, “It takes more than viewing charts and government debt numbers to understand gold as the world’s ultimate asset. What it really takes comes from the heart, not the brain.”
For thousands of years, humankind has understood the magical draw (and sense of security) that owning precious metal can bring.
It satisfies the core requirements that make it a medium of exchange par excellence.
It's durable. It's divisible. It's consistent. It's convenient. It's intrinsically valuable.
Friday, December 20, 2019
Gold, USD and the Euro: the Signs Ahead / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Brexit has become very likely due to result of the UK vote. But so what (gold- and currency-wise)? The uncertainty dropped significantly, and markets were able to sign a breath of relief (bearish for gold), but on the other hand Brexit itself increases the geopolitical turmoil (bullish for gold). Gold didn’t react decisively in the short run overall, but the European currencies: the euro, and the pound rallied. In the first part of today’s analysis, we’ll focus on what happened in the euro and how the forex situation fits the other gold price predictions.
Let’s start with the long-term chart featuring gold price in terms of the euro.
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Friday, December 20, 2019
Don’t Buy “4½G” Stocks If You Want to Make Real Money from 5G / Companies / 5G
By: Stephen_McBride
T-Mobile (TMUS) just made 5G history. Last Friday, the cell carrier “flipped the switch” to activate America’s first widespread 5G network. T-Mobile’s new 5G network will reportedly cover more than half of all Americans.
This is a big deal. As you probably know by now, 5G is the new superfast cell network that promises to change the world. At up to 100X faster than 4G, its lightning speed will totally change how we use the internet.
Folks have been talking about 5G and hyping it up for years. It’s finally here! Only problem is, it’s not “real” 5G.