Wednesday, March 20, 2019
A Message to the Gold Bulls: Relying on the CoT Gives You A False Sense of Security / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Gold stocks have repeated their decline once again yesterday while gold and silver soldier on. When will the miners take gold and silver down with them? Underperformance is a critical sign of weakness, there’s no denying that. Would today’s Fed policy pronouncements provide the spark? These are valid questions that we answer for our subscribers on an everyday basis. For you, dear visitor, we have explored everyone’s favorite subject: the CoT report. You won’t get a chance to get bored while waiting for the pieces of today’s puzzle to fall where they belong. While an evergreen, today from an angle you probably haven’t heard before anywhere else. Get wiser and benefit!
Having discussed the very recent developments, we would like to once again discuss the issue of the CoT reports and their predictive power. Once again, because we dedicated the very first analysis of this year to this matter. The bottom line is that CoT’s usefulness as a trading signal has decreased greatly over time and it’s not wise to read too much into it anymore. Our subscribers know the full reasoning already as we wanted to have something to link to whenever we receive more CoT-related questions and comments in order to put it all in the proper context. The thing that we will discuss today is what we recently received about the part of the CoT report – the money managers’ positions.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
The Secret to Funding a Green New Deal / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Ellen_Brown
As alarm bells sound over the advancing destruction of the environment, a variety of Green New Deal proposals have appeared in the U.S. and Europe, along with some interesting academic debates about how to fund them. Monetary policy, normally relegated to obscure academic tomes and bureaucratic meetings behind closed doors, has suddenly taken center stage.
The 14-page proposal for a Green New Deal submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., does not actually mention Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), but that is the approach currently capturing the attention of the media—and taking most of the heat. The concept is good: Abundance can be ours without worrying about taxes or debt, at least until we hit full productive capacity. But, as with most theories, the devil is in the details.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Asset Bubbles and the Economy Are Now One / Economics / Liquidity Bubble
By: Michael_Pento
After this latest round of a deflationary recession/depression consummates, global central banks and governments will engage in an epoch battle to re-inflate asset prices such as never before contemplated. Indeed, they are laying the framework for that assault right now.
Global central banks took interest rates to the zero percent range a decade ago and, for the most part, they remain there today. These confetti pushers printed $15 trillion dollars in order to push rates into history’s basement. Such an enterprise in counterfeiting has never been attempted before outside of a banana republic.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
A Tide In The Affairs Of Men / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Sometimes we find ourselves merely pondering, not so much solving big problems. Is there playing out, in the world at large, or at least the world of men, something akin to the Kondratieff cycle in economics, a larger cycle, a force, a tide, an energy, that we mostly ignore, but which drives our ‘affairs’? Dr. D. thinks there may well be. But if so, what happens to free will?
Dr. D.:
Dr. D.: I seem to have taken a dark and grumpy turn lately. Probably the winter, but as I get older, I find the present state of the world more and more frustrating.
I fear with the present madness it’s just de rigor to 1) label people as something they’re not, even the OPPOSITE of what they are, 2) furiously fight that strawman and 3) not care. I have no explanation for it, but there are times and tides in the affairs of men (as Shakespeare would say) which flood you out and cost a fortune. …Or something like that.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Vietnam, Part I: Colonialism and National Liberation / Politics / US Politics
By: Raymond_Matison
By late 1960’s America’s involvement in the Vietnam War had become the most divisive issue in the nation’s history since the Civil War of the1860s. This involvement extended over the terms of six Presidents making it America’s longest war. President Truman and his Secretary of State Dean Acheson believed that if Southeast Asia is swept up by Communism, as had China, and if Vietnam was allowed to fall, other countries in a domino fashion would follow suit.
The American people, born of anti-colonial revolution, were hostile to colonialists by tradition. President Roosevelt in his early years in public life had been a proponent of imperial control. Echoing very much the French mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission), FDR thought it justifiable and necessary for the United States to impose the blessings of her civilization on the more backward and less fortunate peoples, by force if necessary. But by the time of Pearl Harbor he had become a committed anti-colonialist. European colonialism had helped bring on both the First World War and the current one, he was convinced, and the continued existence of empires would in all likelihood result in future conflagrations. He went so far as to say that Western sway over much of Asia and Africa was no less threatening to world stability than German expansionism. Therefore, all colonies should be given their independence. FDR never retreated from his belief that the continued existence of European colonial empires undermined the peace of the world.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Will the Fed Cut its Interest Rate Forecast, Pushing Gold Higher? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Some important pieces of the US economic reports, including the latest nonfarm payrolls, have disappointed recently. May indicators (including the leading ones) have hit a soft patch it seems. Will that push the Fed to downgrade its dot-plot or fine-tune the monetary policy mix anyhow? Can gold jump in reaction to the Wednesday’s FOMC policy meeting?
February Payrolls Disappoint
U.S. nonfarm payrolls plunged in February, falling way short of expectations. The economy added just 20,000 jobs last month, following a rise of 311,000 in January (after an upward revision) and significantly below 172,000 forecasted by the economists. The number was the smallest increase since September 2017, as one can see in the chart below. On an annual basis, the pace of job creation increased slightly last month to 1.8 percent.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Dow Jones Stock Market Topping Pattern / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Our research team believes a moderately mild price rotation will unfold over the next 30 to 60 days where the US Stock Market will rotate downward. Particularly, the $INDU (Dow Jones Industrials) should move lower towards the $23,000 to 24,000 before finding support based on the longer term weekly chart. Keep in mind we are not saying the price is going to fall. We are stating price could correct in a big way if recent support levels are broken. If so, then 23,000-24,000 levels should be reviewed.
We have been warning about a specific price pattern that we believe is currently in the process of setting up in the US Stock Market. This pattern is a “Falling Wedge” pattern. We’ve seen a few of these over the past 5+ years in downward retracing price swings. They typically act as a means for the price to explore a “momentum base” setup before breaking out to the upside. You can read our previous research here.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Monetary Metals on Keynes, Inflation and Evil Itself / Economics / Inflation
By: Gary_Tanashian
Since NFTRH 543 was also known as the ‘What if… Inflation?’ report, I was attuned to the subject; and on cue here comes Keith Weiner with a knockout punch.
Keynes Was a Vicious Bastard, Report
He goes off on the evil (and I do mean evil) genius, John Maynard Keynes before moving on to his usual gold and silver supply/demand fundamental report.
Read full article... Read full article...He gave us the recipe for “overturning the existing basis of society.” All you have to do is “a continuing process of inflation,” which will “confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” This “brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires” to the “profiteers, who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat.” Finally, this process “engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Gold Stocks Outperform Gold but Not Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
In recent weeks we noted the bullish outlook for the stock market.
Friday the S&P 500 as well as ACWX (global equity ETF ex US stocks) closed above resistance and made higher highs.
Not surprisingly, as US and global equities have avoided a bear market (for the time being), precious metals have weakened. It’s not a surprise that as Gold failed to breakout both the S&P 500 and global equities (ACWX) held their 200-day moving averages and then made a higher high.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Collapse of Society Almost Complete / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
The experiences from South America provide lessons totally applicable to the United States. If you think that the bread lines in Venezuela cannot come to our country, take a look at what is happening in the rest of Latin America. While economic failures contribute to the slide in prosperity and government expansion adds to greater indebtedness, the complicity of their citizens provides the environment for even bigger demands. Daniel J. Mitchell is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute writes in Brazil, Big Government and Mitchell’s Theorem of Societal Collapse. His summary is accurate and precise.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Here’s What You’re Not Hearing About the US - China Trade War / Housing-Market / US Housing
By: Harry_Dent
China’s been playing hardball with the U.S. over trade talks. There’s good reason: they’re gunning for the title of Top Global Economic Power, above the U.S. and other players.They’re embracing the short-term pain to win the long-term fight.
But…
They have growing problems, with slowing growth and exports, and we’ve heard much about this lately from Main Street. But those are only symptoms.
Deep down, they have a demographic problem, an overinvestment-in-infrastructure problem, and a real estate problem. Today, let’s talk about that last one.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
US Overdosing on Debt / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Harry_Dent
On Friday, I talked about how the last 11 years have been no better than cumulative GDP during the Great Depression (1929-1940). I’ll talk more about that on Thursday. Today I want to point out the biggest difference between this Economic Winter Season and the one 80 years ago…That is: Central banks!
Thanks to their interference, our massive debt bubble didn’t deleverage as it should have!
Total debt peaked at $58.4 trillion, or four times GDP, in the first quarter of 2009 and just barely deleveraged in the financial and consumer sectors during the Great Recession.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Looking at the Economic Winter Season Ahead / Economics / Recession 2019
By: Harry_Dent
Last Friday I talked about how we have been in a muted Economic Winter Season. We may have had the greatest stock market bubble ever, but our economic “recovery” has been the weakest on record, despite the strongest, globally-concerted stimulus ever.Here’s a chart comparing the real GDP for the 11 years from the 1929 top through the 1940 bottom to the 11 years from 2007 to 2018.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Will the Stock Market Crash Like 1937? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Troy_Bombardia
As the stock market rallies, it never ceases to amaze me how popular crash-analogues can be. The 1937 analogue has been quite popular recently, constantly shared and reshared on social media and trading blogs.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
KitKat's "Make a Break for It" 2019 Travel Goodies Promo, Has Anyone Won Anything? / ConsumerWatch / Freebies and Comps
By: Anika_Walayat
KitKat's 2019 promotion that went live online on the 1st of Feb, promoting 10 top prizes of holidays worth £8,000 each to be instantly won by finding a golden ticket inside a Kitkat packet has just 10 days left to run. Also there were supposedly 100 getaway goodies to be won EVERY DAY just by entering the codes found on the inside of Kitkat wrappers which means this 'should' have been an easy to win promotion.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
The Economics of Happiness / Politics / Demographics
By: Harry_Dent
It always strikes me as odd that the happiest countries tend to be in cold-as-hell places like Scandinavia and Canada. It’s kind of similar stateside, too.This weekend I saw a recent study by WalletHub that shows that the happiest states in the U.S. tend to be in the upper Midwest region – you know, where the Arctic vortex comes on through! In order of happiness, we have Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.
Those in the less-frigid-but-still-cold Northeast are also generally happier. We’re also talking just south of there: Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. And of course, the west coast is largely happy, except Oregon. The Rockies also, except Wyoming. And then there is the Southwest… Well, except for New Mexico.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
The Average American Can’t Save Enough to Retire / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Mauldin
How much money do you need to retire?Answering this question is one reason a good financial advisor is worth every penny you pay them. But let’s talk about some generalities.
Say you want to stop working at 65. You’re in good health and your family tends toward long lives. You expect to reach 90, having been retired for 25 years.
Will Social Security alone be enough? Probably not.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Could a Lurch Toward Socialism Sink Democrats in 2020? / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2020
By: MoneyMetals
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama and now Mayor of Chicago, is worried about socialism. Of course, he’s a proponent of redistribution and collectivist initiatives such as socialized medicine. He just thinks it’s bad politics.
He believes too many Americans aren’t yet keen on overt socialists running for office.
According to Emanuel, Democratic candidates and operatives should distance themselves from using the word “socialism” and find other ways to describe their agenda.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Stock Market Ready for Take-Off? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
By: Mike_Paulenoff
Is the S&P 500 (SPX) on the verge of a sustained upside breakout as it pushes through multiple prior failed rally peaks just above 2800? This week should provide some answers.
Actually, a sustained climb above 2832 (on a closing basis) also will answer the question we have been asking in these weekly articles for the past four weeks: Will the powerful advance from the Dec 26 low at 2346.58 be stymied in the 2775 to 2832 resistance zone?
This zone is the area that measures 76.4% of the entire prior Sep-Dec correction -- what we're calling the "Fibonacci Recovery Price Resistance Zone" -- and in the last 20 trading days the SPX has probed but failed to hurdle the upper boundary (2832) of this zone no less than five times!
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Stock Market VIX Volaility Analysis / Stock-Markets / Volatility
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Here's my quick look at the VIX
VIX
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