Friday, January 19, 2018
For Americans Buying Gold and Silver: Still a Big U.S. Pricing Advantage / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: MoneyMetals
David Smith: Two years ago, in this space, I penned an essay discussing how Americans - and other countries that are "dollarized" - where the local currency is either the USD or pegged to it - had a significant advantage when it came to getting the most for their money when exchanging dollars for precious metals.
Lately I looked into this issue again and the good news is - it's still a good deal. In relation to a lot of other folks, even better than before! But the bad news is that this might not be the case much longer...
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Friday, January 19, 2018
5 Maps And Charts That Predict Geopolitical Trends In 2018 / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: John_Mauldin
5 Maps And Charts That Predict Geopolitical Trends In 2018
BY JACOB SHAPIRO : Almost a year ago to the day, we wrote an article titled "The Geopolitics of 2017 in Four Maps." As it turned out, that article was one of our most popular in 2017.
We return this year with a similar concept in mind. Here are some of our best charts and maps from the past year, with an explanation of why each graphic is crucial for understanding the geopolitical forces to watch in the year ahead.
Let’s dive in.
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Friday, January 19, 2018
Will Surge in Bond Yields Smash Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Yields on U.S. Treasuries have leaped recently. It will wreck the yellow metal. Or maybe not.
Yields Reach New Heights. Breakthrough for Gold?
Last week, we wrote that concerns emerged that China could stop or slow buying the U.S. Treasuries. The U.S. bond yields reacted strongly. We noted that in theory it should sink gold, but the usual “correlation between bullion and Treasury yields broke down thanks to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, which supported the gold prices”. Due to the importance of that issue for the gold outlook, we continued to monitor the developments in the bond market to keep investors updated.
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Friday, January 19, 2018
North Korean Quagmire: Part 2. Bombing, Nuclear Threats, and Resolution / Politics / North Korea
By: Raymond_Matison
U.S. bombing crusade
After much experimentation and scientific study by Germany, Britain, and the United States, by 1943 it became clear that “a city was easier to burn down than to blow up.”
George Ball had been a member of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey team that was charged with studying the effects of bombing Germany and Japan. It found that the resolve of both the German and the Japanese population to resist the enemy had not been broken by intensive bombing. Despite this knowledge, what hardly any Americans know or remember is that we carpet-bombed North Korea for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties.
Friday, January 19, 2018
Complete Guide On Forex Trading Market / Currencies / Forex Trading
By: Kavinesh_A
Forex rate is highly interrelated with inflation and interest rates. It is a commonly seen phenomenon that countries with low inflation over a period of years see a rise in their currency value. This is the case because as the inflation is less, the purchasing power increases which in turn increases the currency value. Higher interest rates generally tend to attract more foreign capital investment thereby an increase in demand for the currency, but this positive aspect can be negated if the inflation remains high too. It is a widely known fact that a stable government with liberal attitude towards trade will attract more foreign investments which help to increase the currency value and the exchange rate. Another factor of importance is the balance between imports and exports. If a country gets paid more for exports than the payments it has to make for imports, the exchange rate of the country’s currency will be high.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Bitcoin Crash Sees Flight To Physical Gold Coins and Bars / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: GoldCore
‘Digital Gold’ Bitcoin Flight To Safe Haven Physical Gold
– Latest bitcoin, crypto crash causes gold coin and bar demand to surge
– Bitcoin down 40% from high, Ripple down 50% and Ethereum down 30%
– Ripple and ‘Digital gold’ Bitcoin fall past key psychological price levels
– $300bn wiped from cryptocurrency fortunes in just 36 hours
– New research says that there is ‘Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem’
– Savvy crypto buyers converted their short term gains into physical gold bars, coins
– Bitcoin and Ripple sellers bought gold both for delivery and storage from GoldCore
– Gold ETF holdings rise – Assets in iShares Gold soar to $10.7 b, highest in 5 years
– 95% of cryptocurrencies will go to zero …
Thursday, January 18, 2018
The Interest Rates Are What Matter In This Market / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2018
By: WMA
The “Trump rally” in U.S. stocks has gone ballistic. Even the most bullish of the bulls did not expect this. A couple weeks ago, bank strategists were forecasting a 2018 year-end target on the S&P 500 at 2850. After the first two weeks of the New Year the index is already closing in on this timid 2018 target price.
Many are saying that the equity rally is due to the tax cuts. We disagree. The tax cuts added fuel to the fire, but if markets are still efficient, the tax cut news should have been priced in last year. Deregulation may continue benefiting the financial sector in particular, but again the broad equity market should not continue to rally on known news. The only reason equity markets have jumped again in the past weeks is momentum – nothing has changed in 2018 (other than perhaps sentiment as people become believers in the unending equity rally). What does matter is the rates environment (plural) – (1) interest rates and (2) the inflation rate. We’ll be looking in this Commentary at where these rates may be headed and levels at which a change in these rates may matter for risk assets.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Crude Oil Sweat, Blood and Tears / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Nadia_Simmons
Trading position (short-term; our opinion): No positions are justified from the risk/reward perspective.
On Tuesday, crude oil hit a fresh 2018 high of $64.89, but then reversed and declined very quickly, erasing most of Friday increase. What encouraged oil bears to act and how did this decline affect the short-term picture?
Yesterday, the Energy Information Administration said that U.S. oil output is expected to continue its rise to 6.55 million barrels per day (with production from shale rising by 111,000 bpd) in the coming month, which encouraged oil bears to act. As a reminder, before the Friday market closure, they received one more reason to act – the Baker Hughes report, which showed that the oil rig count jumped by 10 to 752 (to the highest level since the beginning of September 2017). What impact did the above-mentioned circumstances have on the daily chart of crude oil?
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
UK Toys Craze of 2018 will be all things SLIME! / Personal_Finance / Shopping
By: Anika_Walayat
2018 will likely see the US slime craze of 2017 sweep through the UK resulting in young children with small packets of slime disrupting schools with their slimy and messy consequences, and likely soon become banned substances. Here's, an early glimpse of what foretells for the slime craze of 2018 as Anika 9 and Eliza 3 literally try to get a messy grip with their first batch of various slimes from the spongy sparkly pink, to the very slippery and smiley white to the in between grey.
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
Land Rover Discovery Sport - Week 3 HSE Black Test Review / ConsumerWatch / Motoring
By: N_Walayat
Here's my week 3 update of owning and driving an Land Rover Discovery Sport of what to expect if your considering buying one as it does take a few weeks before one is fully aware of the cars plus and minus points, such as the pretty feeble plastic trim that tends to surround Discovery Sports, the knocking sound that many experience again from poor quality trim. So whilst the Discovery Sport looks great and general drives well, in many respects my 11 year old Zafira was better! And what's worse of all is Land Rovers sales pitch of 53.3mpg fuel economy which you will never get anywhere near to in real world driving. So watch my most recent video of buying and owning a Land Rover Discovery Sport, where this HSE Black was bought from Hunters in Chester.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
The North Korea Quagmire: Part 1, A Contest of Colonialism and Communism / Politics / North Korea
By: Raymond_Matison
About this article
The purpose of this article (and its companion article Part 2) is to assess three questions of great importance as it relates to the relationship between North Korea and the United States of America. The first is to make an inquiry as to why America and North Korea for decades on end holds each other as steadfast enemies. The second is to evaluate whether this mutual enmity may lead to physical war in the region or beyond. Finally, what is the likelihood that any future confrontation between these two countries may destabilize our global financial markets?
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
If You Want to Invest in the Stock Market, You Need to Master This Skill / InvestorEducation / Learning to Invest
By: Chad_Champion
Let’s start with the bad news first…
There’s a finance theory called the efficient market hypothesis. One of the titans of finance, Eugene Fama, developed it back in 1965.
In short, it says that stock market prices fully reflect all current information. In other words, stocks are always trading at their fair value.
If that’s true, it means that there’s no way for investors to find undervalued investment opportunities or know when to sell when stocks are trading at overvalued prices.
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
Understand Currency Trade and Make Plenty of Money / Currencies / Forex Trading
By: Kavinesh_A
Forex trade is gaining popularity and investors are showing interest in this trade throughout the world. Trillions of money is being traded in this currency market and plenty of intermediaries involve seriously in this business. Unlike share market forex trading is simple and easy to understand. There are elements of risk involved in this business and fresher who are new to currency market should learn steadily by investing minimum units. Amateurs will learn the concepts of units, pip, charts, software and graphs when they start buying and selling currencies through forex. Hundreds of people have lost money in this trade due to poor understanding and overconfidence.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Bitcoin Price Crash Below $10,000. What's Next? We have answers… / Currencies / Bitcoin
By: EWI
Dear Reader,
"Wild" doesn't begin to describe Bitcoin's price action.
Less than 12 months ago, it traded as low as $1,200. By early December, it hit a high of $19,891 – and on the CBOE, Bitcoin futures topped $20,000.
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
How to Trade Gold During Second Half of January, Daily Cycle Prediction / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Metals are setting up for that “Rip Your Face Off Rally”. The following charts for Gold and Silver show a very interesting setup that is unfolding as the US markets continue to strengthen – that being that the Metals are showing strength in price and we can only assume this is related to some level of FEAR in the markets or expectations that the “Equities and Bitcoin Bubbles” are nearing an end.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
More U.S. States Are Knocking Down Gold & Silver Barriers / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2018
By: MoneyMetals
Here’s What Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Idaho, Etc. Are Doing...
In 2017, Arizona, Louisiana, Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina, and even Minnesota made progress on the sound money front. In 2018, other states could do so as well.
36 states have already removed sales taxes from precious metals transactions, and bills being pushed this year by sound money advocates in Alabama and Tennessee could add to that list.
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
Many Stock Market Investors Get Rich Out By Sheer Luck / InvestorEducation / Investing 2018
By: John_Mauldin
BY JARED DILLIAN : This is a story I have never told before and will never tell again.
I actually got my start in investing in a stock-picking competition in middle school. I picked Wang Laboratories…
Because…
WANG
Thirteen-year-old humor. Anyway, Wang was a flop, and I lost money on it. Talk about dating yourself—the old-timers will recall that Wang was actually an AMEX stock, the old curb exchange. I do miss the AMEX.
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
5 Economic Predictions for 2018 / Economics / Financial Markets 2018
By: John_Mauldin
Only two weeks in and 2018 is already breaking records—mostly in a good way.
But that leaves 50 potentially less enjoyable weeks to go. So rather than focus on promising current events, I think I’d better dip into my annual forecast bag and share a few highlights from my friends with you. (you can find the previous part of the 2018 forecast here)
These are the people I follow, read, and trust for their financial expertise.
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Thursday, January 18, 2018
Here’s What Historically Happens to Stocks When Bull Markets End / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
By: GoldSilver
You undoubtedly know that 2017 was a record-setting year for the broad stock markets. And while gold was up last year despite numerous headwinds, most mainstream investors aren’t paying much attention to gold since they keep seeing so much green in their stock portfolios.
Even I was taken back by some of the data from the bull market in stocks…
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Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Land Rover Discovery Sport - What You Need to Know Before Buying - Owning Week 2 / ConsumerWatch / Motoring
By: N_Walayat
Here's my week 2 update of owning a Land Rover Discovery Sport of what to expect if your considering buying one. For it takes at least a couple of weeks before one is fully aware of what one needs to know BEFORE one buys one as the various flaws only become apparent after real world use, such as the pretty feeble plastic trim that tends to surround Discovery Sports, the knocking sound that many experience again from poor quality trim for though the Discovery Sport looks great and general drives well, in many respects my 11 year old Zafira was better! And what's worse of all is Land Rovers sales pitch of 53mpg fuel economy that in no way matches the reality of real world driving experience as my latest video in this buying and owning a Land Rover series illustrates.