Monday, August 14, 2017
Deep State Conspiracy or Chaos / Politics / Deep State
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” – Alan Moore
Alan Moore, the renowned graphic novel writer, and author of the dystopian classic V for Vendetta, politically identifies as an anarchist. His view that all political states are an outgrowth of anarchy, with the biggest gang taking control and dictating how things will be run, is manifested in V for Vendetta. As an anarchist, you can understand why he is doubtful of conspiracy theories and an all-powerful entity controlling the world. He believes in a chaotic world competing gangs position themselves to gain power and control.
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Monday, August 14, 2017
From the Trans-Atlantic Axis and the Trans-Asian Axis / Politics / Asian Economies
The ASEAN faces old and new challenges, and a huge long-term opportunity. The next three decades could witness the shift of global economic momentum from the Trans-Atlantic axis to the Trans-Asian axis.Recently, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) marked its 50th anniversary in Manila with President Duterte hosting the celebrations. Despite its importance, the Summit’s international coverage remains unacceptably marginal. But times are changing.
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Monday, August 14, 2017
Stock Market Intermediate Correction Underway / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
Current Position of the Market
SPX Long-term trend: The uptrend should continue after pausing for a correction.
SPX Intermediate trend: “An ending pattern appears to be in its last stages of completion. This should be followed by an intermediate term correction into October.” The correction has started.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily-basis with the help of hourly charts. It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discuss longer market trends.
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Sunday, August 13, 2017
The Islamic State Jihadi Pivot to Asia / Politics / ISIS Islamic State
As the Islamic State is collapsing in the Middle East, it needs wins elsewhere. Southeast Asia is Jihadi terror’s new battlefront. In order to contain the terror and sustain the Asian Century, new kind of cooperation is needed between the ASEAN, the US, China, and other major powers in the region and the Middle East.
A systematic terror escalation has begun in Asia. In May, an armed conflict started in Marawi in Mindanao, where government forces were surprised by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), and homegrown Maute and Abu Sayyaf Salafi jihadists.
After a foiled plot by an ISIL-linked group last year to launch a rocket at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, several radicalized Indonesian workers have been sent back home and Bangladeshis arrested, along with a few Singaporeans.
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Potential Pivots Upcoming for Stocks and Gold / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
Prologue: This is a bearish article written by someone who covered his short (bearish) positions today (except for the euro) and has only long positions now, in precious metals and stocks, along with a heaping helping of cash. In other words, per yesterday’s snapshot, the market had dropped to levels that could see a bounce, especially since the spark to this week’s reaction was not legitimate as a substantial market input. This article is not concerned with short-term ups and downs; it is concerned with what comes in September or in Q4, after da boyz is back from da Hampins and settled in.
The war of words between the TiC (Tweeter-in-Chief) and the LiC (Lunatic-in-Chief) has little to do with the financial market’s intermediate-term fate. In the very short-term? Sure, man, machine, casino patron and Mom & Pop will fly in and out of stocks as the wind (and sentiment backdrop) blows. But before this standoff of the belligerent, the markets had set a course for changes come September or Q4 2017.
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Sunday, August 13, 2017
Stock Market VIX Explodes and XIV Puts In A Top / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
Mike Golembesky writes: The XIV fell over 13% on Thursday, August 10th and is now down over 23% from the high that was struck on July 26th. Additionally, the XIV has firmly broken through all of shorter term price support levels that I have been mentioning now for several weeks. The break of these support levels is, therefore, making it highly probable that a larger degree top has been struck in the XIV.
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
North Korean Chinese Proxy vs US Military Empire Trending Towards Nuclear War! / Politics / China US Conflict
The US continues to firmly trend towards war with China as the mainstream press media spotlight on North Korea during 2017 continues to displace the other dozen or so US/China flashpoints such as China's land grab underway in the South China Sea.
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before". - President Trump
North Korea responds “it is 'carefully examining' plans for a missile strike on the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with ‘fire and fury,’The strike plan would be put into practice at any moment once leader Kim Jong-un makes a decision, a spokesman for the Korean People's Army (KPA) said in a statement carried by the North's state-run KCNA news agency.”
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
The Top of the Wealth Effect / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017
Week two of August. Schools start back soon. Last chance for summer vacations. Football and fall return. The Dow reaches 22,000 this month, proving the “wealth effect” has worked…right?
Yet, cognitive dissonance abounds as we watch global markets and world news.
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
Gold Stocks Coiled Spring / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017
The gold miners’ stocks have largely ground sideways this year, really lagging gold’s strong rally. That lack of upside has decimated sentiment, leaving a bearish wasteland bereft of hope. But this deeply-out-of-favor sector is actually a coiled spring, ready to surge dramatically as psychology shifts. Sentiment, technicals, and fundamentals all point to much-higher gold-stock prices even at today’s prevailing gold levels.
The main appeal of gold-mining stocks is their underlying profits’ leverage to gold. The gold stocks are much riskier than gold, due to many operational, geological, and geopolitical risks the metal itself doesn’t share. So investors and speculators alike must be compensated for these big added risks with superior returns to gold. That hasn’t happened so far in 2017, which is why gold stocks are so widely despised today.
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
Neil Howe: The Amazon-Walmart Rivalry Will Determine the Future of Retail / Companies / Amazon
My good friend Neil Howe has reconsidered the escalating war between Amazon and Walmart for the future of retail. And in true Neil fashion, he has come up with some surprising insights.
One of the takeaways here is that market “duopolies” can save consumers money—so you and I had better hope the battle isn’t resolved anytime soon.
Did you know that one in five US consumers is now an Amazon Prime member? But don’t count Walmart out, Neil warns.
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
Bitcoin Pushing Higher / Currencies / Bitcoin
The mainstream media are picking up on Bitcoin’s meteoric rise. In an article on CNBC, we read:
Bitcoin will likely outperform stocks and bonds the rest of this year, according to the first major Wall Street strategist to issue a report on the digital currency.
"I think bitcoin is an underowned asset with potential for huge institutional sponsorship coming," Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee said on CNBC's "Fast Money" Wednesday.
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Will the Death of Diesel Cars Ruin Platinum? / Commodities / Platinum
The gloomy future of the diesel vehicles is commonly known. However, what does it really mean? And how could the demise of diesel technology impact the precious metals market?
The 1970s oil crisis and accelerating inflation made diesel-powered cars popular, especially in Europe where gasoline prices were always higher than in the U.S. The new technology was considered as more efficient and less polluting, as diesel cars produce less carbon dioxide than gasoline cars (thanks to better mileage). Hence, policy makers started to support diesel and the market share of diesel cars went from 14 percent in 1990 to 50 percent in 2016, as the chart below shows.
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Saturday, August 12, 2017
How to Alton Towers Half Price Discount Entry 2017 and 2018, Any Time, No Pre-Booking! / Personal_Finance / Theme Parks
We are now well into the 2017 summer holidays, and whenever we have a rain free day many UK families will be off on day trips to the UK's various theme parks, with Alton Towers definitely at the top of the list especially for 12's and over's. But Don't pay the GATE price! In fact don't pay the lower online price either! that requires pre-booking, which means your gambling on the weather.
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Friday, August 11, 2017
Is the Yellen Fed Planning to Sabotage Trump’s Presidency? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
The Federal Reserve can make or break a president.
Monetary policy influences all financial markets as well as the cycles in the economy. No president wants to have to run for re-election when the stock market and economy are turning down.
Recall that President George H.W. Bush was sitting on sky-high job approval numbers in 1991 and was expected to coast to victory in his 1992 re-election bid. But then the economy swooned toward recession, giving Bill Clinton the opening he needed.
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Friday, August 11, 2017
Gold to Silver Ratio: Turning Lower / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
Gold to Silver ratio looks to have ended cycle from 7/4/2016 low (64.38) and should turn lower at least in 3 waves to correct cycle from 7/4/2016 low. The video below explains what the expected turn lower in the ratio means to Gold and Silver:
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Friday, August 11, 2017
Tech Guru Unveils New Battery To Challenge Lithium-Ion / Companies / Lithium
By Tsvetana Paraskova : The rise of electric vehicles and the quest to find solutions to energy storage for the renewables industry have created a breeding ground for tech experts to develop battery technologies.
Last week, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy and the company he currently backs, Ionic Materials, unveiled a solid-state alkaline battery design that they claim would be cheaper and safer than the lithium-ion battery.
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Friday, August 11, 2017
Top 3 Technical Trading Tools Part 2: Relative Strength Index (RSI) / InvestorEducation / Learn to Trade
EWI's senior analyst shows you a beautiful example of how supporting indicators help identify a trade setup in Halliburton (HAL).
"There are many different forms of technical analysis. A completed Elliott wave pattern supported by additional evidence allows for more confident forecasts and higher probability trades."
- Jeffrey Kennedy
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Friday, August 11, 2017
Chicago is America’s Next Black Hole / Politics / US Politics
The Windy City is famous for a lot of things, including the biting winter breeze off Lake Michigan and blowhard politicians.Whether Chicago got its pet name from one or the other doesn’t really matter, since both fit.
But soon, the place also called the Second City will be known as something else: The municipal black hole.
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Friday, August 11, 2017
What Makes Women Better Investors / InvestorEducation / Learning to Invest
Remember that book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus? It sold more than 50 million copies in the ‘90s!It brilliantly shed light on some of the biggest differences between men and women in terms of each gender’s typical traits, thought patterns, communication styles, and behaviors.
Sure! It garnered some criticism for perpetuating stereotypes, although I’m sure the author never meant to suggest that all men are problem-solvers, for example, or that all women are good at multi-tasking.
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Friday, August 11, 2017
The Shocking Economic Truth About Russia / Economics / Russia
The Russian drama seems to intensify with each passing hour.I certainly have my opinion on the matter, as, no doubt, do you. But it’s not my opinion that I want to share with you today. Instead, I want to share two charts that may well shed new light on recent events…
Here’s the first. I warn you, it’s shocking.
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