Tuesday, March 27, 2018
When Two Are Fighting, Gold Wins / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Do you hear the military march? The world’s largest economies are flexing their muscles and preparing for war. Will gold win the trade conflict between the United States and China?
So It Begins
Trade war. This topic dominated the recent days. Last week, President Trump announced plans for tariffs on about $60 billion of Chinese imports. In response, Liu He, China’s vice-prime minister, told Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary, that China is ready to defend its interests. Indeed, on Friday the country announced plans to impose tariffs on about $3 billion of U.S. imports. So are we at war?
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Subdued Stocks & Shares ISA Performance Still Outshining Cash ISAs / Personal_Finance / ISA's
By: MoneyFacts
- The average stocks & shares ISA fund has grown by 4.8% during the 2017/18 tax year so far – a considerably weaker performance than the growth of 20.4% posted in the 2016/17 tax year.
- This still compares favourably with the average cash ISA rate of 0.97% over the same period.
- The average stocks & shares ISA has now delivered positive growth in 12 of the 19 tax years since the introduction of ISAs in 1999.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The World’s Biggest Stock Investors Have Lost $436 Billion In 2018 / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: OilPrice_Com
Charles Benavidez: Wall Street is shocked, but it shouldn’t be: Tariffs targeting China should have been a given, and now the market’s tanking on trade war fears as if it just crept up on everyone, but Trump’s been very clear on this.
Wall Street is known for being short-sighted, though, and allowing itself to get caught up in the euphoria of the day. And now the world’s biggest investors are losing hundreds of billions.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The Federal Reserve – Purpose And Motivation / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Kelsey_Williams
With each succeeding day, obsession with the Federal Reserve continues. And the obsession is a good indicator of just how misinformed most of us are.
This is true with respect to various policies, statements, and actions; and includes comments made by board members, either in speeches or interviews. But it is also true regarding purpose and motivation.
To a large extent, it is a matter of perception. Some, maybe most, people see the Fed as the lead driver. There is an assumed aura of authority and control. On all matters economic, we look to them for direction. But where are they taking us?
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
GOLD - GATA IS AT IT AGAIN / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Avi_Gilburt
A new phrase has been added to our lexicon of late, and that is what has become known as "fake news." This new phraseology can be aptly applied to that which is presented by our old friends at the GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action) committee.
GATA has been trying to convince all those who are willing to listen that it is not its fault that the metals market dropped from 2011 to 2015 (where silver lost 75% of its value). Rather than admitting that it was not able to foresee a standard market correction -- which I warned about before it happened -- it has been focusing on that big bad scapegoat named "manipulation." And, it takes bits and pieces of what people say in order to "prove" its point.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Physical Gold Production May Be Peaking, But There Is No Shortage In Paper Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: MoneyMetals
Gold production numbers for 2017 are still being compiled but estimates call for the first annual decline in mine output since 2008.The gold price fell dramatically in the months following the 2011 peak in prices. It has languished at, or near, the cost of production for years. Low gold prices are having a predictable effect on mine output.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Critical US Economic Indication to Watch Out For / Economics / US Economy
By: Rodney_Johnson
Millennials get a bad rap. Sure, they’re the generation that grew up with participation trophies, winning prizes for completing the arduous task of showing up. And with help from their Boomer professors, they have successfully shamed institutions of higher learning, where for centuries debate was considered a search for the truth, into echo chambers of conformity.I’ve also just learned that this generation has promoted E-sports (that would be watching other people play video games) into such a big deal that the category will get its own E-sports arena in Arlington, Texas.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Toys R Us Not the Only Major Retail Casualty / Companies / Retail Sector
By: Harry_Dent
Toys R Us just joined the unenviable list of top retail failures of the past decade: Circuit City, Linens-N-Things, A&P (the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company), Sports Authority, and Radio Shack (whose downfall we called in 2016).While there are many reasons for the loss of these once household names, and Toys R Us is citing massive debt burdens as one element in its undoing, there is a much bigger – and more predictable – underlying factor.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Staying Away from the Bitcoin Crypto Bubble / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: Harry_Dent
The crypto ship is sailing in rough seas at the moment. My advice? Stay away for now. Preserve your capital for after the major crash, and then pick winners from the bones.The bitcoin and cryptocurrency trends seem to be following the path the internet took back in the very late 1990s. That bubble came at the end of the tech bubble, and expanded by more than 8 times between late 1998 and early 2000. Then it crashed 93%.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Kit Kat Joe the Mug Easy to Win - Unboxing / Personal_Finance / Freebies and Comps
By: Anika_Walayat
Kit Kat are literally giving away 50,000 'Joe the Mugs' in an easy to win promotion until the 31st of August 2018. And find out exactly what gets delivered through your letter box in this video.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
The ABCs Of Popping A Third Asset Price Bubble / Stock-Markets / Liquidity Bubble
By: Dan_Amerman
Movies can have quite predictable plot lines that we know in advance - but we love them anyway. It could be a romance, where the girl is going to end up with the right guy through a series of improbable events, even though that looks impossible to begin with. It could be an action movie, where our tough and underestimated hero overcomes seemingly impossible odds to just barely win in the end, after all.
There are movies that play over and over again in the financial markets and the economy as well, and while the particulars change, the plots can repeat themselves.
In this analysis, we are going to take a look at a market "movie" that has played out twice in the modern era, and follow the A-B-C-D plot line that was followed in each case. We will then take a look at more recent events, see if A-B-C have been occurring, and ask if D could be coming after C for the third time in a row?
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Sheffield Tree Fellings Protest Virtual Realty VR 360 Experience / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
Sheffield's street fellings may have been suspended due to the forthcoming local elections. However here is about as realistic an experience as one can get without actually being at a Sheffield Street tree felling protest site, in virtual reality 360.
Whilst a VR headset will give you the whole immersed experience of being there, a VR capable browser such as fire fox or chrome will be able to give you a taste of what it's like to be there.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Labour Sheffield City Council Halts Tree Fellings Ahead of May Local Elections / Local / Sheffield
By: N_Walayat
The Labour controlled Sheffield City Council announced a halt to the controversial street trees felling programme today that had seen escalating protestor opposition on the streets of Sheffield against the felling of healthy trees that followed the revelation that half of Sheffield's street trees would be felled during the life time of the 25 year PFI contract with Amey..
Since the resumption of felling a month ago the streets of Sheffield have been witness to very heavy police and security presence at felling sites, with upwards of 30 police officers and 20 Hiviz security all towards enabling felling if a single tree. Which has galvanised the people of Sheffield to come out and protest in their hundreds each day against the felling of healthy street trees that tends to result in multiple arrests at each felling site on a daily basis.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Hi-Ho Silver! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Peter_Degraaf
If the latest COT report for silver gets any more bullish than the one released on March 23rd, commercial traders will have to go ‘net long!’ As it is, they reduced their ‘net short’ position to the lowest number in many years, down to just 4,000 contracts – barely 2% of the total open interest! This is bullish action! As recently as January 16th the number of ‘net short’ positions was 50,000, and the percentage of open interest was 26%. (Charts are courtesy Goldchartsrus.com unless specified).
Monday, March 26, 2018
Trade War and Silver CoT – Details and Implications / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Gold soared by the end of the week. Miners didn’t – the HUI didn’t even move above the previous March highs. Silver’s performance was rather mixed, but closer to the one of miners than the one of gold. Why did gold rally? Why didn’t miners rally? How can the silver CoT numbers help in this case?
Let’s start with the first question. Why did gold rally in the final part of the previous week? The first reason was likely the increased tension regarding interest rates and Powell’s first Fed meeting. This was likely to cause only temporary volatility and it seems that it did. Based on how mining stocks performed relative to the gold market, it certainly seems that the precious metals market wants to go down. But, there’s another fundamental development that triggered another rally in gold (to a smaller extent) – the trade war. This term is too far-fetched – it’s just a trade battle for now. Let’s focus on the practical implications for the precious metals market. In short, just like a few threats between the U.S. and North Korea, the trade tensions between the U.S. and China are a geopolitical event.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Stocks Set to Bounce Back, but Bulls' Worries Far From Over / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: Paul_Rejczak
Stocks extended their sell-off on Friday, as investors reacted to global stocks markets move down, trade war and monetary policy tightening fears. It was some kind of a perfect bearish storm that sent stock prices tumbling on Thursday, and then on Friday. As medium-term bearish case unfolds, we see indexes getting closer to their early February lows. Will they break lower?
The U.S. stock market indexes lost between 1.8% and 2.1% on Friday, as investors' sentiment remained very bearish following Thursday's sell-off. The S&P 500 index broke below the level of 2,600, as it got closer to its February 9 local low of 2,532.69. It currently trades 9.9% below January 26 record high of 2,872.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.8%, and the technology Nasdaq Composite lost 2.4% on Friday.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Minding the Trade Gap: Gold Breakout, EURUSD chaotic, USDJPY Continuation / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2018
By: Builderadv
Large tax cuts and spending increases enacted by Congress and the Trump administration are poised to push fiscal deficits above $1 trillion in coming years. Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist of JPMorgan Chase & Co., has dubbed this the “square peg and round hole of fiscal and trade policies”—it’s nearly impossible for a nation to close its trade deficit while widening its fiscal deficit and expecting consumers to keep spending. Ultimately, “fiscal policy will dominate trade policy,” Mr. Feroli said. “Tariffs and other trade restrictions will be insufficient to lean against the overwhelming force.”
Worsening the situation is the fact that U.S. tax revenue declined in February and government spending rose, as the share of wages withheld for taxes dipped as a result of the tax cut passed by Congress late last year.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
The Future Is Uncertain And The End Is Always Near / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
Spending a week driving around a western state 1,700 miles from my stomping grounds in Pennsylvania provides a different perspective on the level of economic, social and political degradation impacting the country. With a daily commute along the crumbling, crummy, gridlocked deathtrap roadways into West Philadelphia, the squalor and decomposition of our civilization is self-evident.
I live in a corrupt state with the highest gasoline taxes, highest tolls, massively underfunded government pension liability, failing government run public schools, suburban sprawl dotted with ghost malls, vacant industrial parks, and urban ghetto shitholes plagued by drugs, murder, welfare mentality, excessive taxes, and left wing politicians.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Time To Buy Gold As A 'Safe Haven' / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Avi_Gilburt
For those that follow me regularly, you will know that I have been tracking a set up for the GLD as a proxy for gold. I believe that the GLD can outperform the general equity market once we confirm a long term break out has begun, and I still think we can see it in occur in 2018. This week, I will provide an update to the GLD. While I have gone on record as to why I do not think the GLD is a wise long-term investment hold, I will still use it to track the market movements.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Gold Cycle Anomaly & USD Cycles / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: SurfCity
Gold update: While I don’t care much for Cycle anomalies (i.e. short of long cycle), I am not going to fight them. Therefore, I am very bullish on Gold given the short ICL that has been left behind but the yellow metal has disappointed before so we still need to be cautious until the next resistance between 1360-1377 is taken out. The next week or 2 are critical, IMO and Gold needs to show some bullish follow through. My first 5+ year Weekly clearly shows that Gold has been forming a 5 year Inverse Head & Shoulders pattern and should explode higher once the over head resistance I have mentioned is taken out.
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