Monday, May 20, 2019
Gold, MMT, Fiat Money Inflation In France / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Kelsey_Williams
“Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic framework that says monetarily sovereign countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan and Canada are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending. In other words, such governments do not need taxes or borrowing for spending since they can print as much as they need and are the monopoly issuers of the currency.” Investopedia
Of course governments are not ‘constrained’ by revenues. They have always been able to “print as much as they need”.
Modern Monetary Theory is not ‘modern’. Far from it.
In the late eighteenth century, France was deeply in debt. A general lack of capital and confidence had taken its toll and the economy was lacking in signs of activity. Growth was stagnant.
The conditions were such that it would be reasonable to expect a return to better times without interference by government. Unfortunately, that would require patience and restraint by the politicians. Most politicians cannot resist the cries of “do something”. Even if the cries are non-existent, the government will hear them.
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Monday, May 20, 2019
Not Maxing Out Your 401(k) or IRA Contributions Is Stupid / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Jared_Dillian
Uncle Sam doesn’t give out too many freebies when it comes to tax time, except in the form of retirement plans.
Surprisingly, not many people take advantage of them. Only 41% of people contribute to a 401(k) when they have the option to do so.
A 401(k) allows annual contributions up to $19,000. If you maxed out your contributions, you could save thousands of dollars on your taxes.
Why do more people not contribute?
Monday, May 20, 2019
WAR - Us versus Them Narrative / Politics / US Military
By: James_Quinn
“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. “I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.” “I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.” “Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding out both puppets!”” – Bill Hicks
Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fakes news mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the “Us versus Them” narrative. It’s almost as if “they” are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their assigned puppets.
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Monday, May 20, 2019
Are You Being Tossed Around By The China News? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019
By: Avi_Gilburt
As I watched and traded the market action over the last several weeks, I witnessed something quite amazing. Yet, this was not the first time I have seen this.
Each time the market was set up for a smaller change of directional move, a news event or a “tweet” seemed to have come out at almost the exact time we need to see the market change direction.
While many saw the news as affecting the market direction, I saw the news as fitting into the market cycle.
I guess it is a matter of perspective, right?
Well, I am quite certain that many of you are thinking to yourself – “boy, that Avi is really foolish. It was clearer than the nose on my face that the negative China news caused the market to drop, whereas seemingly good China news caused the market to then rally.” And, if one takes a very superficial view of the market, one may come to that conclusion. However, I am attempting to open your minds to a much more mature and accurate perspective on how to view markets.
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Monday, May 20, 2019
US - Iran War Safe-haven Reasons to Own Gold / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Richard_Mills
“It’s the tail that wags the dog” is defined by Urban Dictionary as a way of persuading a large group of people. The phrase is usually employed in a situation wherein a cause that expects to elicit a certain effect, is in fact reversed.
The 1997 film ‘Wag the Dog’ is about a powerful political strategist who tries to get a fictional president on board with a PR campaign involving the US invasion of Albania, a tiny country in eastern Europe, in order to divert attention from a scandal at home just two weeks before an election.
Of course, you don’t need to watch a movie to know this. There are plenty of real-life examples of presidents who used foreign invasions, coups, wars, etc. to demonstrate strong leadership and thereby shore up faltering popularity at home.
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Monday, May 20, 2019
How long does Google have to reference a website? / Companies / Google
By: Sumeet_Manhas
How long does it take before a site is properly referenced on Google? Are you thinking about submitting websites to Google? Indexing new sites is a real challenge of patience. In fact, Google’s algorithms take into account over 200 factors when indexing a page. What’s more, many webmasters don’t know how to reference their websites on search engines. In this article, I’ll show you what you need to do to be indexed. There are lots of myths and outdated information revolving around SEO, because everyone wants to be at the top of the results. I’ll break those and tell you the truth. Hopefully, this information will even save you money.
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Sunday, May 19, 2019
Tory Leadership Contest - Will Michael Gove Stab Boris Johnson in the Back Again? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The days of Britian's worst Prime Minister in history, Theresa Mays are numbered, so there is going to be another Tory leadership contest near 3 years on from the last when David Cameron quit after losing the EU Referendum, and Boris Johnson has been quick off the mark to throw his hat into the ring. Though I hope he has learned his lesson NOT to trust fellow tories such as the likes of Michael Gove who like a character out of Game of Thrones (Little Finger) stabbed Boris in the back on the day he was supposed to announce his candidature with Gove at the helm of his campaign, instead Gove announced a few hours earlier that he, himself would be standing for Tory leader!
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Sunday, May 19, 2019
Stock Market Counter-trend Rally / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Andre_Gratian
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend – Final long-term phase on the way? How much longer, is the question.
Intermediate trend – The anticipated intermediate-term correction has started. Can’t tell yet if it’s a C-wave or something less.
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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Sunday, May 19, 2019
Will Stock Market “Sell in May, Go Away” Lead to a Correction… or a Crash? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Graham_Summers
The markets are now within spitting distance of a top.
Our target for the bounce is anywhere in the red box… stocks will likely enter that range today as Wall Street engages in its usual options expiration games. The perfect top would be a backtest of the former rally’s trendline (red line), but in investing things are rarely perfect.
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Sunday, May 19, 2019
US vs. Global Stocks Sector Rotation – What Next? Part 1 / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Our research team, at www.TheTechnicalTraders.com, have been pouring over the charts and data to identify what is likely to happen over the next 60+ days in terms of global stock market volatility vs. the US stock market expectations. Recently, we posted a research article highlighting our Adaptive Dynamic Learning (ADL) predictive modeling system on the Transportation Index (https://www.thetechnicaltraders.com/markets-rally-hard-is-the-volatility-move-over/). This research suggests we are still going to experience increased price volatility over the next 30 to 60+ days and that price rotation may become somewhat of a normal expectation throughout the rest of 2019.
We believe the key to understanding price volatility over the next 30+ days lies in understanding the potential causes of uncertainty and capital shifts that are taking place around the globe.
Next week, On May 23~26, 2019, the European Elections take place (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/european-elections-2019-uk-vote-date-results/). This voting encompasses all 26 EU nations where all 753 European Parliament seats may come into question. The biggest issues are BREXIT and continue EU leadership and economic opportunities for members. The contentious pre and post-election rancor could drive wild price swings in the global markets over the next 10+ days.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019
BrExit Party EarthQuake Could Win it 150 MP's at Next UK General Election! / ElectionOracle / BrExit
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Betrayal of voters and failure to follow through on Manifesto promises ensures that Nigel Farage's insurgent BrExit Party is set to storm the European Elections on the 23rd of May, winning more seats than UKIP's previous tally of 24 won in 2014. However, the pain for Westminster mainstream parties won't end with the EU elections for given the state of the Tory government barely clinging onto power with the help of the erratic DUP then a General Election later this year is increasingly becoming likely.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019
Dow Stock Market Trend Forecast 2019 May Update / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Nadeem_Walayat
My in-depth analysis first made avilable to patrons who support my work on the of 1st March 2019 Stock Market Trend Forecast March to September 2019 concluded in the trend forecast for the Dow to achieve at least 28,000 by Mid September 2019.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019
US Economy to Die a Traditional Death… Inflation Is Going to Move Higher / Economics / US Economy
By: MoneyMetals
Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.
Later in today’s program we’ll hear from Axel Merk of Merk Investments. Axel breaks down the trade war with China and gives us some keen insights on the likely strategy being employed by President Donald Trump there, and also tells us why he sees inflationary pressures returning in the economy and the affects it will have on gold prices. Don’t miss another wonderful interview with the highly respected Axel Merk, coming up after this week’s market update.
As markets continue to gyrate on global trade and tariff threats, precious metals are struggling to capture investor interest.
Lately, the big push in alternative assets has been in Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency has doubled in price over the past two months, though it remains well below its old high.
Gold was the sole metal to show strength amidst the recent selloff in stocks. However, its momentum petered out mid week and turned lower on Thursday. As of this Friday recording, gold prices are down 0.8% for the week to trade at $1,277 an ounce.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019
Trump’s Trade War Is Good for These 3 Dividend Stocks / Companies / Dividends
By: Robert_Ross
The US v. China trade war is heating up. Until recently, the nations appeared to be making progress.
That was until President Trump raised tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25%.
The news sent the S&P 500 down 3% in the next two trading days. But not all stocks suffered.
That’s because some stocks actually benefit from tariffs.
I’ll show you why in a moment—and share a few stable, dividend-paying stocks set to benefit as this all plays out.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019
What Does the New Fed’s Regime Imply for Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
The Fed promised that the quantitative easing would be only temporary and that it would reduce its ballooned balance sheet to the pre-crisis level. Now, as the Fed adopted an interest targeting with ample-reserves, we know that this is not going to happen. We invite you to read our today’s article about the new Fed’s regime and find out how it works and what it implies for the US monetary policy and the precious metals.
The discussion about the US monetary policy concentrates on the changes in the interest rates and Fed’s balance sheet. But what is also very important is how the US central bank implements its monetary policy, especially that in recent years the Fed has started operating in a new monetary policy implementation regime. Let’s analyze that change and its implications for the economy and the gold market.
Before the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers, life was simple. And the economic textbooks adequately described how the US central bank conducted the monetary policy. In short, the FOMC set a target for the federal funds rate and reached that target through small purchases and sales of securities in the open market. The commercial banks had to hold some reserve balances to meet the reserve requirements. Banks who lacked these reserves, borrowed them in the federal funds market from banks who had excess liquidity. As the reserves were scarce, the Fed could affect the level of the federal funds rate and move it to the target level through changes in the supply of reserves, known as open market operations. For example, when the Fed observed that the market rate is above the target, it purchased the government bonds adding reserve balances to the banking system and creating downward pressure on the market rate.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019
If You and Your Spouse Argue About Money, You Have to Read This / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement
By: Jared_Dillian
People fight about money all the time. It has been quantified. A third or more of all arguments in marriages are about money.Usually this falls into one of two categories:
- Spouse A thinks that Spouse B spends too much money.
- Spouse A thinks that Spouse B doesn’t spend enough money (i.e., is a CF).
I advocate for married couples to keep their money separate. My wife and I have always kept our money separate—for 21+ years. And it works great for us.
Friday, May 17, 2019
GDX Gold Mining Stocks Fundamentals Update / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
By: Zeal_LLC
The major gold miners’ stocks are drifting sideways with gold, their early-year momentum sapped by the recent stock-market euphoria. But they are more important than ever for prudently diversifying portfolios, a rare sector that surges when stock markets weaken. Their just-reported Q1’19 results reveal how gold miners are faring as a sector, and their current fundamentals are way better than bearish psychology implies.
The wild market action in Q4’18 again emphasized why investors shouldn’t overlook gold stocks. Every portfolio needs a 10% allocation in gold and its miners’ stocks. As the flagship S&P 500 broad-market stock index plunged 19.8% largely in that quarter to nearly enter a bear market, the leading gold-stock ETF rallied 11.4% higher in that span. That was a warning shot across the bow that these markets are changing.
Four times a year publicly-traded companies release treasure troves of valuable information in the form of quarterly reports. Required by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, these 10-Qs and 10-Ks contain the best fundamental data available to traders. They dispel all the sentiment distortions inevitably surrounding prevailing stock-price levels, revealing corporations’ underlying hard fundamental realities.
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Friday, May 17, 2019
Deflationary Assets Surge in Performance Over Inflationary Assets / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019
By: Donald_W_Dony
Deflationary assets (financials, technology, industrials, healthcare and consumer products) are outperforming inflationary assets (commodities), once again.
Deflationary sectors have been dominant over inflationary assets for most of the last seven years. Outside of the short-term surge in performance from commodities in 2016, deflationary assets have held the top performance spot for most of the period from 2012 to 2019.
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Friday, May 17, 2019
Stock Markets Rally Hard – Is The Volatility Move Over? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Many traders are watching the recent 3-day rally thinking “this is the end of the downside price move” and targeting new entry positions for the eventual upside price breakout. We’re here to warn you that our ADL predictive modeling system is suggesting we could see more volatility over the next 45+ days before a price breakout sets up.
Our Adaptive Dynamic Learning (ADL) predictive modeling system is something we like to keep away from public view for the most part. It is not something we share with the public often because it tends to show quite a bit of information about the future to skilled eyes. Today, you are going to get a glimpse of the ADL system on Weekly and Monthly TRAN charts to help you understand what to expect over the next 45+ days.
The ADL predictive modeling system is capable of learning from past price action and modeling “price DNA markers” based on a custom inference engine we created for this utility. That means it is capable of learning from any chart, any interval, any price data and any type of price activity while mapping the price data, technical data and corresponding future price activity into what we call and DNA price chain. After that mapping process is complete, we are able to ask it to show us what it has found and how current price bars align with the DNA mapping to show us what is likely for the future.
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Friday, May 17, 2019
Nasdaq De-FAANGed? / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
By: Submissions
By Zac Mannes : We generally chart the regular NASDAQ -- the NDX, QQQ, and the futures -- but when you consider that a mere five momentum names, affectionately given the acronym "FAANG," comprise nearly 40% of the weighting of the entire index, a glance at the Equal Weight version is not a bad idea. I prefer the First Trust (QQEW) to the Direxion (QQQE) as it seems to chart slightly cleaner and the "EW" is easier to remember.
Watching for nuanced differentiation in the patterns between the QQEW and NDX, it is possible to see the potential for the former to lead a bit. For example, back in August/September of 2018, QQEW marked a divergent high. More recently, the QQEW began to count more like the blue 5th wave extension of (5) of Primary Wave 3 before the NDX shifted from it's "(B)" wave.
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