Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Stock Market Running On Empty! / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. –Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC); Roman Statesman
It becomes harder and harder to find the truth and that certainly holds true with respect to government statistics. The investment world was pleased with the recent jobs report claiming 163,000 posts were created in July. It was a small step, but at least it was in the right direction. Or was it? When I tell you that the numbers are fudged I realize that doesn’t carry a lot of weight, but here’s what the Washington Post had to say about how the Bureau of Labor Statistics processes data:
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Credit Crunch Fifth Anniversary / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis, at least for the UK’s banking system, because it was five years ago that anxious depositors were queuing up to withdraw their money from Northern Rock, leading to its inevitable rescue by the tax-payer.
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Stock Market Bulls Still In Control, But Time Is Running Out / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
In last week's article "Three Weeks Left" I outlined a brief synopsis of what I was expecting based on how the daily cycles were unfolding. So far markets are playing out pretty much as anticipated.
This week I'm going to go a bit more in depth and tie cycle's analysis with the upcoming fundamental calendar, namely the next two FOMC and Jackson Hole meetings.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Stock Market Top Forming? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Very Long-term trend - The very-long-term cycles are down and, if they make their lows when expected (after this bull market is over) there will be another steep and prolonged decline into late 2014. It is probable, however, that the steep correction of 2007-2009 will have curtailed the full downward pressure potential of the 120-yr cycle.
SPX: Intermediate trend - SPX is in a limited intermediate uptrend which is estimated to end in the first week of August.
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Sunday, August 12, 2012
Gold, Silver, Stocks and U.S. Dollar Markets Outlook / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
This week saw consolidation in the markets as they moved within the confines of tight ranges seeking direction. The direction has not yet been confirmed, but there are some insights we may be able to see in the technical picture that will help us understand what the markets want to do. There was a sell signal in the SP500, gold and silver that was triggered on Thursday and it was the first since August 3rd, but by the time friday morning had rolled along the market reconfirmed its bullish bias by closing higher. This behavior confirms that these markets are currently in confirmed up trends and may be setting up for higher prices. Let’s take a look at the market’s behavior.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
China Ponzi Banks Duping Depositors Into Financing Busted Real Estate Projects / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
Top Chinese banks are involved in Ponzi financing of investment deals, offering interest rates over 7% to depositors, to finance real estate projects gone bust and other projects whose assets are not even disclosed.
Banks label these schemes "Wealth Management Products" (WMPs) but any individuls foolish enough to invest in them are going to lose money, perhaps all of it.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
VIX Low...News Quiet... Stock Market Lateral....Fed Still protecting.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
I have a good time listening to debates. It's always fun to hear the emotion pour out of people as they express their opinions on the stock market. I guess the prevailing view is, it's only a matter of time before this market is doomed to crash out. I wonder about that. Fundamentally I have no argument with that logic. After all, Europe stinks. Our economy is not as bad, but it stinks as well. Debt and foreclosures are everywhere. More and more folks are losing jobs. Our manufacturing sector is in contraction and pointing to recession.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
Protecting Democracy And Profits From The Globalist Threat / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
“If governments allow themselves to be entirely bound to the decisions of their parliament, without protecting their own freedom to act, a breakup of Europe would be a more probable outcome than deeper integration.”
Italy’s unelected prime minister Mario Monti, 8/6/2012
Shocking but not surprising, is that attitude of Italy’s unelected Prime Minister Mario Monti that “Governments” should not be bound by the decisions of their democratically elected parliaments and should be free to act without regard to the decisions of their citizens.
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Friday, August 10, 2012
European Bankers and Top Politicians Fear Collapse of the Euro / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Until recently, it was a sign of political correctness not even to consider the possibility of a euro collapse. Investment experts at Deutsche Bank -- Germany's largest bank -- now feel that a collapse of the common currency is "a very likely scenario." Germany's second-largest bank -- Commerzbank -- has also flagged fears of a Eurozone collapse whilst bracing for a worsening of the euro-crisis. "The greatest downside risk remains an uncertainty shock from an escalation of the sovereign debt crisis, ie, the collapse of the monetary union," Commerzbank states in its latest quarterly report released this week, adding that it thought the risk was higher now than in autumn last year.
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Friday, August 10, 2012
Stocks Bear Market Looming? / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
With the US stock markets challenging a major multi-year high, investors are feeling pretty complacent these days. But unseen below the placid surface, a serious risk is arising from the depths. With each passing day, the odds grow that a new stock bear is imminent. As these merciless beasts typically maul the markets until stock prices are cut in half, they are dangerous threats that cannot be taken lightly.
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Friday, August 10, 2012
Stock Market 3-Year Rally Doesn't Have to End This Way - Or Does It? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Is it wise to forecast financial markets based on what central bankers say?
Look no further than a chart of long-term stock market prices for the answer: No major trend change ever followed any of those announcements.
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Thursday, August 09, 2012
Stock Market Quiet Day... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
That's not bad when you look back on it as those 60-minute short-term charts are unwinding nicely for the bulls without any real move down in price. Normally, that's a good thing as price is not being confirmed by declining oscillators. If the oscillators get back to neutral, or oversold, and there wasn't much erosion in price, another move higher is likely to ensue. So far so good, but there's still a chance for lower prices, and if that occurs, we will get near ,or at oversold, on those 60-minute charts, which would offer up more buying opportunities. There hasn't been much news globally of any significance the past few days, and it seems the quieter it is the more the market likes things these days.
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Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Financial Algorithmic Trading and Knight Capital Calamity / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
Once all the rage was arbitrage trading. High frequency trading then became the catchphrase. Now the latest scheme to insert financial nanotech - rage against the machine – practices called algorithmic trading created an automated loss of historic proportions. The Knight Capital calamity gave rise to rogue mathematics gone amuck. What a surprise! Removing buy or sell decisions from human hands is the quickest way to destroy a company that took years to build. How the euphemism "TRADING" applies to the upheaval of computerized speculation, could only make sense in the weird world of Wall Street accounting.
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Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Are High Frequency Traders Rigging the Stock Market? / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
Doug Hornig, Casey Research writes: High-frequency traders (HFT) have no interest in any company whose stock they're trading.
They don't care about its earnings, what sector it's in, nor who's on the board of directors.
They neither know nor care how it fares in technical analysis, and they don't give a damn about its long-term prospects.
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Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Stock Market Sorry Folks, Still Nothing from Nothing...... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
And who knows how long it'll keep on keeping on. Day after day, week after week, and month after month, now in month number eight, the market plays see-saw and whipsaw with our emotions. So many times you'd bet hard that we're about to break down, only to see those 200-day exponential moving averages catch us, when it looks like they can't. Other times, like the past few days, breakout seems inevitable. Inevitably it doesn't. We hit Nasdaq 100 3000, the bottom of the massive gap down with the top at 3025, only to see the bulls fail as we pulled back late in the day. No energy available for the bulls to make the breakout which mirrored the bears at those 200's. Simply no energy, and thus, failure.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Why Europe Matters… And How Spain Could Wipe Out Your 401(k) / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Many people have been writing in to ask me, “why are you focusing on Europe so much? Who cares about Spain?”
The short answer is that everyone should care about Spain. Spain could potentially take down the banking system in Europe, which would mean the US facing a Financial Crisis at least on par with 2008.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Many Signs of Stock Market Intermediate Top Forming / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Current position of the market
SPX: Very Long-term trend – The very-long-term cycles are down and, if they make their lows when expected (after this bull market is over) there will be another steep and prolonged decline into late 2014. It is probable, however, that the steep correction of 2007-2009 will have curtailed the full downward pressure potential of the 120-yr cycle.
SPX: Intermediate trend – SPX is in a limited intermediate uptrend which is estimated to end in the first week of August.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Stock Market Bulls Have Three Weeks Left! / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
3 weeks, that's how long the bulls have left before stocks roll over and begin the next intermediate degree decline. That being said, the next 2-3 weeks should yield some very healthy gains in virtually all asset classes. Why is that you wonder? Well, it's because the dollar has begun moving down into an intermediate degree correction which will, in the next few weeks, fuel the 'risk-on' trade.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Could Speed-of-Light Market Trading Trigger The Next Systemic Crisis? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
Computers don't sleep, don't get tired, don't care about politics and don't go on holiday in August -- but they can wreak havoc in the global financial marketplace by amplifying moves on the up- and down-sides as we recently saw with the "Dark" Knight fiasco involving 140 stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange of which nearly 40 moved more than 10% in less than an hour. The "Knightmare on Wall Street" has cast new doubts on the automated High-Frequency Trading (HFT) systems that now totally dominate global exchange trading, despite multi-million-dollar lobby groups proclaiming from rooftops that HFT is not only safe and stabilising but beneficial to humankind. Powerful algorithms -- “algos” in industry parlance -- execute millions of orders per second and can scan dozens of public and private marketplaces simultaneously. They can not only spot trends before other investors can blink, changing orders and strategies automatically within milliseconds, they can also choreograph and co-ordinate strategies across geographies and asset classes.
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Sunday, August 05, 2012
Market Outlook for Metals, Stocks and U.S. Dollar / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
This past week saw a number of headline driven news as central banks attempt to intervene in the global economic fiasco. They have pledged to goose the monetary supply by instituting bond purchasing programs in their respective nations, but all we have is talk and the action is yet to come. So, let’s take a step back and examine the technical picture outside of any promises to act.
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