Monday, December 12, 2016

UK Mortgage Market Competition Ramped up in 2016 / Housing-Market / Mortgages

By: MoneyFacts

Moneyfacts UK Mortgage Trends Treasury Report data, not yet published, highlights that there has been significant improvement amongst the lenders who have 80%* share of the mortgage lending.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Buying Gold Into A Fed Hike: As Dumb As It Sounds? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Bob_Kirtley

The Fed will hike rates this week. The US Dollar is strengthening. Fiscal policy is about to ignite economic growth. The ECB has reduced its rate of QE purchases. It doesn’t sound like now is the time to be buying gold, does it? And yet, the setup is remarkably similar to this time last year, before the yellow metal put in a near 30% rally. What matters most is not what will happen, but what will happen relative to expectations. It is fair to say that the market has some lofty expectations built in at present, which is why it could be a case of buying the rumour and selling the fact over coming months.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Corporations Getting In Bed With The Government / Politics / Social Issues

By: James_Quinn

The recent deal to keep Carrier jobs in the United States is not at all unusual. It only received so much press because Trump made it a campaign issue and saw an opportunity to record a big early PR victory before he even took office. Government and corporations cooperate, negotiate deals, scratch each others backs, kickback ill-gotten gains, and function as a career advancement funnel for corrupt politicians.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Tech Breakthrough Could Make This The Biggest Winner Of OPEC’s Cut / Commodities / Oil Companies

By: OilPrice_Com

As far as the markets are concerned, OPEC’s 32.5-million bpd output cut deal agreed to two weeks ago could go either way, and the uncertainty makes it anyone’s guess—but MCW Energy, the pioneer of breakthrough clean oil sands extraction in Utah, is not concerned:

If oil prices remain low, its production costs are dramatically reduced, and in any scenario, its breakthrough technology makes everything from Utah’s vast oil sands to the Permian Basin’s massive offerings easier to extract.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Gold and Gold Stocks Setup for Post-Fed Rally / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

Gold and gold mining stocks have been very oversold but have struggled to rally. The sector looked to be starting a rebound until Friday's decline which pushed Gold to a new low. However, positive divergences remain in place as gold stocks and Silver remain above their recent lows. While the Federal Reserve could say something hawkish next week, the setup continues to favor a rebound in the precious metals sector rather than an immediate decline to new lows.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Stock Market Extreme Greed Reading / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX Long-term trend: If the market strength persists, the long-term trend may need to be re-evaluated.

SPX Intermediate trend: SPX intermediate count to 2240 may turn out to only be a minimum projection. This will be determined by market action over the next couple of weeks.

Monday, December 12, 2016

War on 'Fake News' Part of a War on Free Speech / Politics / Propaganda

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

A major threat to liberty is the assault on the right to discuss political issues, seek out alternative information sources, and promote dissenting ideas and causes such as non-interventionism in foreign and domestic affairs. If this ongoing assault on free speech succeeds, then all of our liberties are endangered.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

2007 All Over Again, Stock Market Valuations Enter “Crash” Territory / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Crash

By: John_Rubino

The Trump Christmas stock market rally has taken valuations beyond a point that in the past has signaled trouble, which in turn has generated a lot of cautionary press like the following:

Market indicator hits extreme levels last seen before plunges in 1929, 2000 and 2008

Sunday, December 11, 2016

More Thoughts on Trump’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan / Politics / Infrastructure

By: Ellen_Brown

To stimulate the economy, create new jobs and generate new GDP requires an injection of new money. Borrowing from the bond markets or off-balance-sheet in public/private partnerships won’t do it. If Congress won’t issue money directly, it should borrow from banks, which create money on their books when they make loans.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

US Congress Passes Measure Opposing Speech and Media Freedoms / Politics / Censorship

By: Stephen_Lendman

First Amendment rights are America’s most precious. Without them, all others are endangered.

Post-9/11, police state laws destroyed fundamental US constitutional rights, remaining ones eroding toward elimination altogether.

Fascism operates this way. Americans are fooled by government and media propaganda, claiming compromised freedoms provide greater security, not realizing they’re losing both.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

End of the World History Stock Chart… / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks

By: Rambus_Chartology

I try to show this long term monthly chart for the $COMPQ which I call the “End of the World History Chart” at least once a year or if something interesting takes place. When you look at the 1987 crash it felt like the end of the world at the time but that ended up being the second reversal point in the green bullish rising channel. How many remember the months leading up to the first Gulf war in 1991? No one knew at the time how that conflict would play out as the US was going up against the 5th largest army in the world. On the first night of bombing it was very clear that the conflict would be over quickly and the stock markets took off the very next day which made the fourth reversal point in the green bullish rising channel.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

TESCO CRISIS - Customer Experience (E1) / Companies / Tesco

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Its now over 3 years since I first started warning that there is something seriously going wrong at Tesco, Britains supermarket giant and that stock investors should take note and sell out, at what was then a stock price trading near its all time high of £3.83, at the time I was criticised for basing my views purely on anecdotal evidence. However, as an experienced investor I WELL UNDERSTOOD that to truly know how a company is performing then one has to experience its service and products first hand as a consumer!

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Market Outlook 2017 According To Our Proprietary Indicators / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2017

By: InvestingHaven

It was quite a volatile year, with a mix of collapses and rallies across markets. Think of gold’s breathtaking rise, crude’s collapse, and copper’s rally. After the summer, gold started collapsing while crude and stocks rallied strongly. With this year’s volatility, it is quite challenging to define a market outlook for 2017. To get a sense of what 2017 will bring, we analyze our proprietary market barometer and our leading market indicator.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Trump, Reagan Economies at Polar Opposites / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016

By: Michael_J_Kosares

Market expectations could be based on false assumption

“Looking ahead, Credit Suisse argues against the view of many pundits that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s fiscal policies are likely to hurt gold. The market has factored in an expectation that a mix of U.S. tax cuts, deregulation and infrastructure spending will boost the economy, pushing up real interest rates and strengthening the U.S. dollar. ‘We counter that trade protectionism and anti-immigration policies are negative for growth and positive for inflation,' Credit Suisse said." – SMN News/Kitco

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Official Warning: Stocks Are Going to Crash / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Crash

By: Graham_Summers

Stocks are going to Crash.

This wasn’t the case a mere six weeks ago. But the Bank of Japan has committed one of the most egregious manipulations in history.

The Yen/ $USD pair has imploded by over 14% in the last six weeks. The last time the pair fell this much the BoJ expanded an already monstrous QE program by $260 BILLION.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

CIA Warns Donald Trump is Putin's Manchurian Candidate! / Politics / US Politics

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The CIA playing to their own agenda, one of concentration of power into their own hands let a political bomb off as we countdown to the inauguration of the America's CHANGE candidate Donald Trump. Change which the establishment elite that the CIA are part and parcel of want to try their hardest to limit the extent of materialising.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Gold Fools, US Dollar Bulls and The Long Term Outlook for Both Markets / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Sol_Palha

"If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble." ~ Elbert Hubbard

Many experts penned numerous articles this year proclaiming that the Gold market was ready to take off and that 2016 would be the year that the Gold bull resumed its upward trend. They spoke of our high debt, a weak economy and listed a plethora of reasons as to why Gold was ready to soar. Needlessly to say, their fear mongering proved to be fruitless for instead of taking off, Gold nose dived. Early in the year we stated that we did not expect much from Gold this year; we wrote several articles but will highlight points from one of them as it adequately sums our overall theme for 2016.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Stock Market Saeculum 1st Turning Underway / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Tony_Caldaro

The market started the week at SPX 2192. After a gap up opening on Monday the SPX rallied to 2252 by Thursday. Then the largest pullback in a week took the SPX down to 2243 late Thursday, before the market rallied and closed at a SPX 2260 all time high on Friday. For the week the SPX/DOW gained 3.10%, and the NDX/NAZ gained 3.35%. Economic reports for the week were light and leaned positive. On the downtick: consumer credit, wholesale inventories, the Q4 GDP estimate, plus the trade deficit increased. On the uptick: ISM services, factory orders, consumer sentiment, the WLEI and weekly jobless claims improved. Next week’s reports will be highlighted by the FOMC, retail sales and industrial production. Best to your week!

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Inevitable Global Ruin: Top Hedge Fund Managers Sound the Alarm / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016

By: Jeff_Berwick

When monetary control is centralized, as it is today, prosperity withers. The Wall Street Journal just surveyed top hedge fund managers and found a significant belief that full-fledged, global ruin is on its way. Tamper with freedom, monetarily or otherwise, and you end up facing catastrophe.

That’s just where we are today.

The managers pointed directly at the purposeful monetary mismanagement of central banks around the world. These central banks large and small are pumping oceans of money into financial markets as well as lowering rates until they are actually negative, which has never happened before in recorded history.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Gold and Silver, Just the Facts Man / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Rambus_Chartology

This first precious metals combo chart is one I try to show you at least twice a week so you can follow the price action as it’s unfolding in real time. Except for SLV the other indexes have now traded below their respective neckline for five weeks now. If you look at the sidebar you can see which sectors are doing the best and which ones are weakest. As you can see GLD has been by far the weakest of the four while SLV has been the strongest. To negate these H&S tops we would need to see the price action close back above the necklines. The necklines are your lines in the sand, above is bullish and below is negative.