Saturday, April 13, 2019
Palladium, Darling of the PGEs, Shifting into High Gear / Commodities / Palladium
By: Richard_Mills
The platinum group elements (PGEs) consist of six metallic elements found in the Periodic Table: iridium (Ir), osmium (Os), palladium (Pd), platinum (Pt), rhodium (Rh) and ruthenium (Ru). Platinum and palladium are the most well-known of the PGEs due to their industrial applications in diesel and gasoline engines. The market for palladium has become especially interesting of late, with the price of the silvery-white metal gaining 18% in 2018, an otherwise down year for metals. Scaling an uncharted $1,600 per ounce in March, palladium is up 70% from a year ago.
We’ll get into the reasons for that in this article, and much more, as we dig deep into the world of PGEs.
Characteristics
PGEs share similar physical and chemical properties, and they usually occur together in the same orebodies. The similarities include a resistance to corrosion, high melting points, and catalytic qualities, meaning they speed up chemical reactions without themselves being chemically altered.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
MMT is a spectacularly Dem idea / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Richard_Mills
Economists are good for one thing, and that is creating theories. The trouble is, those theories are often wrong. This is why economics is often called “the dismal science”. Such is the case with the latest economic soup-de-jour, Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT for short.
In this article we take a deep dive into MMT: What is it? Who’s behind it or against it, whether it could work, and what it would mean for gold.
What is MMT?
Modern Monetary Theory is a new way of approaching the US federal budget that is both unconventional and absurd. It posits that rather than obsessing about how large the debt has grown (over $2 trillion) and the ongoing annual deficits that fuel debt, we should focus on spending, specifically, how the government can target certain spending programs that will cause minimal inflation. Fiscal policy on steroids is, according to its proponents, to be the new engine of US growth and prosperity.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
The 'Silver Lines' of Opportunity / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: EWI
How to turn a simple chart into a near-term road map
On February 20, Variety Magazine's "Film News Roundup" announced a new thriller coming to theaters near you: "The Silver Bear."
Funny enough, that same day, another kind of thriller was playing out in the theater of finance; its name, the Silver Bull!
The chart below captures the action: Since the start of 2019, silver prices had been on a tear, soaring to $14, $14.50, $15, $15.50 and then $16 per ounce in late February in a white-hot winning streak that has outperformed even gold.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
Gold Stocks Bull Market Breakout Potential / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
By: Zeal_LLC
Gold has faded from interest in the past couple months, overshadowed by the monster stock-market rally. But gold has been consolidating high, quietly basing before its next challenge to major $1350 bull-market resistance. A decisive breakout above will really catch investors’ attention, greatly improving sentiment and driving major capital inflows. With gold-futures speculators not very long yet, plenty of buying power exists.
Last August gold was pummeled to a 19.3-month low near $1174 by extreme all-time-record short selling in gold futures. The speculators trading these derivatives command a wildly-disproportional influence on short-term gold price action, especially when investors aren’t buying. Gold-futures trading bullies gold’s price around considerably to majorly, which can really distort psychology surrounding the gold market.
The main reason is the incredible leverage inherent in gold futures. This week the maintenance margin required to trade a single 100-troy-ounce gold-futures contract is just $3400. That’s the minimum cash traders have to keep in their accounts. Yet at the recent $1300 gold price, each contract controls gold worth $130,000. So gold-futures speculators are legally allowed to run extreme leverage up to 38.2x!
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
INSOMNIA 64 Games Festival - Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) / Personal_Finance / Gaming
By: Sami_Walayat
The Insomnia 64 gaming festival begins on the 19th of April 2019 at the Birmingham National Exhibition centre. One of the key attractions of Insomnia is bringing your own computer and join the UK’s biggest LAN party. On site indoors camping is available for campers.
You can also even rent one on site if you don’t bring your own.
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Friday, April 12, 2019
America Has a Monopoly Problem / Economics / Economic Theory
By: John_Mauldin
Without realizing it, we’ve become a nation of monopolies. A large and growing part of our economy is “owned” by a handful of companies that face little competition.They have no incentive to deliver better products or to get more efficient. They simply rake in cash from people who have no choice but to hand it over.
This would be impossible if we had true capitalism.
Even if we admit some businesses are natural monopolies, most aren’t. Most of them found some non-capitalistic flaw to exploit.
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Friday, April 12, 2019
The Fed Created an Economy of Zombies and Unicorns / Stock-Markets / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
Central bankers have a well-worn playbook for handling recessions.
Cut interest rates, increase liquidity, and otherwise shove capital into the private sector. This helps businesses hire more workers and raise wages. Then gradually remove all the stimulus as growth recovers.
This playbook truly fell apart in 2008. The system had so much debt that adding yet more of it didn’t have the desired effect.
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Friday, April 12, 2019
Trump Calls for New Quantitative Easing to Prop Up U.S. Economy / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: MoneyMetals
As gold and silver markets continue in choppy trading this spring, bulls are hoping a dovish Fed will sink the dollar and lift the metals.
Now that the Federal Reserve is on “pause” – presumably for the rest of 2019 – perhaps investors can stop obsessing over interest rate decisions by central planners. Perhaps markets can finally trade based on actual market signals and underlying fundamentals.
Perhaps ... not.
With 2020 election campaigns already underway, interest rate policy will be a political football in the months ahead. Incumbent administrations almost always favor lower interest rates heading into their re-election bids, and this one is no exception.
Friday, April 12, 2019
INSOMNIA 64 Games Festival - Ticket Prices and Car Parking / Personal_Finance / Gaming
By: Sami_Walayat
The INSOMNIA 64 Games festival starts on Friday 19th of April. In past years its been held at the Ricoh arena this year it is being held at the Birmingham National Exhibition centre. Here's the run down of what to expect in terms of car parking and ticket prices.
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Friday, April 12, 2019
Natural Gas Continues To Offer Opportunities for Longs / Commodities / Natural Gas
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Historically, April has been a pretty consistent upside opportunity in Natural Gas for over 20 years. Over the past 24+ years, the upside opportunity in Natural Gas has been accurate over 68% of the time with the average upside potential ranging from $0.60 to $0.85. With Natural Gas sitting down near recent lows and seeing as though we are still fairly early in the month of April, our researchers believe the opportunity still exists for some quick profits in UNG with an upside move from below $23.95 to a target level of $26 to $28 (roughly +9 to +18%).
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Friday, April 12, 2019
Elliott Wave Analysis of XLRE (Real Estate Select Sector SPDR ETF) / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: WavePatternTraders
XLREThis index is one of the more cleaner markets and showing a potential impulse wave (5 wave advance) from the Dec 2018 lows, whilst many other sectors and US stock markets have lagged this index, the clarity of this particular index, actually highlights a potential setup for a reversal and an opportunity for those that want to bet on a potential decline.
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Friday, April 12, 2019
What Does the Future Hold for the High-Interest Credit Market? / Companies / Debt & Loans
By: Submissions
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
Gold and Silver Still on the Road to a Low Risk Setup / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Gary_Tanashian
From a post on gold and silver on Tuesday…
Very simply, if it’s an H&S it’s a minor one with a target to the SMA 200 or short-term lateral support. Gold has curled back up to test the underside of its SMA 50. A takeout of 1310 and then the March high could put yeller back in business. Otherwise, don’t personalize it. A test of the SMA 200 would be normal.
The H&S was not my thing. I tend not to get overly excited about short-term patterns and surely do not announce them far and wide to stir people up. It was a product of the gold community, some members of which have been flipping in head spinning fashion between bullish and bearish views. I note it again because I don’t want that stink on me. The upside and downside parameters above were my stuff.
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
The Gold Market Right After Super Wednesday / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Super Wednesday is behind us! The masters of monetary policy have revealed their cards. The Fed released the fresh minutes, the ECB held its monetary policy meeting, while the Brexit was postponed again. How will all these play out in the gold market?
Minutes Show Patience among the FOMC Members
The minutes from the pivotal FOMC meeting show that the Fed saw the first-quarter economic slowdown as transitory and that the real GDP growth would bounce back solidly in the second quarter. Although the yield curve inverted for a while, the central bankers noted that the unusually low level of term premiums in longer-term interest rates has made the yield curve a less reliable economic indicator.
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
S&P 500 at 2,900 Mark, Will Stocks Break Higher? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Paul_Rejczak
Stocks retraced some of their Tuesday’s decline yesterday, as they continued to fluctuate following the recent rally. The S&P 500 index traded slightly below the 2,900 mark. Will the uptrend continue despite some technical overbought conditions?
The U.S. stock market indexes were mixed between 0.0% and +0.7% on Wednesday, as investors hesitated following Tuesday’s decline. The S&P 500 index retraced more of its October-December downward correction of 20.2% on Monday. The broad stock market's gauge is now just 1.8% below September the 21st record high of 2,940.91. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was unchanged and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7% on Wednesday.
The nearest important resistance level of the S&P 500 index remains at 2,890-2,900, marked by some early October local highs. The next resistance level is at 2,920-2,940, marked by the mentioned record high, among others. On the other hand, the support level is at 2,860-2,865, marked by the recent local lows. The support level is also at 2,835-2,850, marked by the previous Monday’s daily gap up of 2,836.03-2,848.63.
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
5 Cannabis And CBD Stocks That Have Big Potential / Companies / Cannabis
By: Submissions
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
Sprout-less Gold now Tier 1 Capital / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Richard_Mills
Gold is often criticized by Wall Street as being kind of a useless investment.
Institutional investors tend to prefer investments that are thought to contain the potential for growth, growth = sprouts. An investment has to produce a growing revenue stream - if it doesn’t grow it doesn’t compound. Gold is rejected as an investment because it doesn’t produce sprouts, meaning the steady income and systematic growth so sought after by institutional investors just isn’t there.
But gold performs two jobs that fiat currencies, or any other financial innovation, cannot do; gold acts as a safe haven in times of turmoil. Indeed, gold’s status as store of value, as money, the only currency available when yours is worthless, has come into play with respect to the drama that has been unfolding in Venezuela over the last couple of years. Hyperinflation and shortages of basic foods and medicine have led to a political crisis.
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
What Is Making Tax Digital and Why Should Businesses Care? / Companies / Taxes
By: Submissions
Tax is an inevitable part of conducting business in the UK that all companies must comply with, for better or worse. It provides for public services that we all make use of, and if we don’t meet our obligations in a timely manner and ensure our figures our correct, we are subject to fines. In 2018, the number of individuals late for their tax returns reached 746,000, all of whom may have been subject to a fine of £100, and more if the period of lateness is over three months. Fines are also levied in the case of intentional and unintentional errors made.
But everything could be set to change with a new tax management system that the HMRC in in the process of implementing, which should ensure that greater convenience is brought to businesses in the keeping of tax records, as well as saving time and resources funded by the taxpayer.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
This Leading Indicator Looks Bullish for Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
There are more than a handful of things I can cite as leading indicators for the Gold price.
Ratios such as Gold against the stock market and Gold against foreign currencies are generally good leading indicators. The gold stocks and Silver can function as leading indicators at times.
Yhe yield curve and bonds can also be leading indicators.
But there is one thing I’ve never mentioned, nor written about. It makes sense in the current context though. That’s Platinum.
Platinum has a brief but clear history as a leading indicator for Gold.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Stock Market Intra-day Fibonacci Modeling Shows Volatility Is About To Spike / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Our research team, at Technical Traders Ltd. alerted us to a Fibonacci technical pattern that is setting up in the US stock market right now. This pattern suggests that volatility will increase dramatically over the next few days/weeks as intra-day price action suggests deeper sideways price action may continue.
One of the key benefits of our proprietary Fibonacci price modeling system is that it automatically learns and adjusts to price action on different intervals. So, by watching the results of this adaptive learning model on various intervals shows different types of setups and expectations, we can develop a consensus among the result to assist us in determining a likely outcome. These models are showing that volatility will increase by expanding out the Fibonacci Trigger Levels for Bullish and Bearish price action. As price begins to consolidate, the proprietary Fibonacci price modeling system adjusts internal computational measures to determine where and when the opportunity exists for trends to form. When these Fibonacci Trigger levels move away from price, it typically suggests bigger moves are about to happen and that volatility will increase.
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