Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Currency Wars, The Truth About Currency Devaluation, Why They Fail / Currencies / Currency War

By: Steve_H_Hanke

In 2010, Brazil’s Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, coined the phrase “currency war” when he complained about the “cheap” Chinese renminbi (RMB). Mantega claimed this gave China an unfair trade advantage. As he put it to the Financial Times, “we’re in the midst of an international currency war, a general weakening of currency. This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness.”

That was then. Now the Brazilians are conspicuously silent, because the shoe is on the other foot. The Brazilian real has lost a whopping 25% against the RMB since January 2015. The currency wars continue and are every bit as intense as they were back in 2010, when Mantega coined the phrase.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Perth Mint Silver Coins Have Second Highest Monthly Demand / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

The Perth Mint’s sales of silver coins and especially Silver Kangaroos surged again in March and saw the second highest levels of silver coin demand on record as silver buyers in the western world continue to accumulate silver at what they believe to be depressed silver prices.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Crude Oil Price One-Day Rally or Something More / 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 moved lower after the market’s open weakened by an unexpected decline in monthly U.S. gasoline demand. Despite this drop, the commodity reversed and rebounded in the following hours. As a result, light crude gained 3.10% and invalidated earlier breakdown. What does it mean for oil bulls?

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Forex Trading Alert: EUR/USD – Time for Correction? / Currencies / Forex Trading

By: Nadia_Simmons

Earlier today, official data showed that German factory orders dropped by 1.2% in Feb, which weighed negatively on investors’ sentiment and pushed the euro lower against the greenback. As a result, EUR/USD slipped under the Feb high. What does it mean for the exchange rate?

In our opinion, the following forex trading positions are justified – summary:

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Tough Day for the Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Harry_Boxer

The stock market indices had a tough session today and closed down on the day. The day started out with a big gap down, they rallied and recovered about 50% of their losses, and then rolled back down and retested those lows by midday. They managed to hold on for two occasions, first midday when they rallied back, but couldn’t get through the rally-back highs, and then they pulled back down again. The last hour wasn’t pretty as the markets gave it back and ended the day down sharply.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

SunEdison Green Power Bankruptcy Inevitability / Companies / Solar Energy

By: BATR

For all those sun baked brains that see salvation in renewable nirvana, the imminent demise of SunEdison is the latest case that creative green economics is the path to insolvency. After studying the tangled web of cross collateralization and rehypothecation of debt, the WSJ announcement is inevitable, SunEdison Said to Be Preparing to File for Bankruptcy. “Solar-energy company SunEdison Inc. plans to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks, a dramatic about-face for a company whose market value stood at nearly $10 billion in July.”

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Big Banks, Hedge Funds Key Factors in 2016 Gold Price Surge / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Michael_J_Kosares

Quietly though the advantage goes to private investors

I can remember only one other time when market factors lined up as favorably for gold as they do now and that was in the spring of 2008. There are a great many similarities to gold market dynamics between now and then, but there are also great differences. One of those differences is the huge influx of interest from institutional investors led by hedge funds and big banks. In 2008, institutional interest was light.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Iceland's Tax Dodging PM Resigns, David Cameron Next? Insidious Banking Crime Syndicate / Politics / UK Politics

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The 'Panama papers' leak of 11.5 million documents on the tax affairs of the world's elites at just one of thousands of tax dodge facilitating firms which thus represents a mere fraction of the tax dodging that goes on in the world's tax havens, many of which are British dominions. So whilst the Panama papers are making the headlines today, however virtually EVERYONE already well understands that the rich and political elite DODGE TAXES, usually paying just a token amount that tends to be a lot closer to 0% than even 1% of earnings. Whilst the gullible workers, the sheeple pay 20% or 40% of their earnings to the state, which compares against less than 1% tax paid by those who earn hundreds times more, much of which is through ill gotten gains such as by criminals and dictators and their henchmen, the likes of Czar Putin who has probably funneled $10's of billion's of the Russian peoples wealth out of the country and into a myriad of tax haven front companies, and then we have the Al brigade, thousands of Sheiks who have siphoned off the Gulfs oil wealth over many decade, with the so called communists of China not far behind.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Stock Market 21-Week Cycle High / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Ed_Carlson

An examination of all US Presidential election years shows a peak in equity markets in early April followed by a drop into early June. The June low serves as a launching pad for equities to rocket to new highs by year-end not-withstanding the typical Sept/Oct weakness. A low in June matches the Lindsay forecast.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Cash Banned, Freedom Gone / Politics / War on Cash

By: Thorsten_Polleit

Some politicians want to ban cash, arguing that cash is helping criminals. The first steps in that direction are the withdrawal of big denomination notes and the limits imposed on cash payments.

Proponents of a ban on cash claim that this will help fight criminal transactions — involved in money laundering, terrorism, and tax evasion. These promises of salvation are used to get the general public to agree to a society without cash. But there is no convincing proof for the claim that the world without cash will be a better one. Even if undesirable behavior is indeed financed by cash, you still need to answer the question: will the undesirable behavior disappear without cash? Or will those who commit the undesirable acts take to new ways and means to reach their goal?

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Fort Knox Gold Paradox / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: DeviantInvestor

Officially the Fort Knox Bullion Depository contains 147.3 million ounces of gold.  However, the last audit was performed over 60 years ago.  According to reliable sources “audits” since then have been incomplete and inadequate.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

SPX May be back in the Red for 2016 Before Long / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

The SPX decline stopped so far at 2044.92, just a point above last Friday’s low at 2043.98 and the December 31 close at 2043.94.  The bounce may challenge the trading channel trendline near 2057.00 before the next decline. 

ZeroHedge reports, “"Still No Confidence In The Rally" - that's the title of the latest weekly BofA report looking at the buying and selling by its smart money clients (institutional clients, private clients and hedge funds), which finds that not only were sales by this group of clients last week the largest since September, and the fifth-largest in our data history, but this was the 10th consecutive week of selling as absolutely nobody believed this fakest of fake "rebounds" in recent history.” 

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Why You Shouldn’t Expect to See the Stock Market Reach New Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Harry_Dent

Stocks are once again rallying after another “mini crash” at the start of the year. We’ve had three of these things since October 2014 without much to show for it. As Adam warned Boom & Bust readers earlier this week, stocks have basically gone nowhere for a year and a half.

After the first crash in late 2014, stocks were able to eke out a new high into May of last year. But since then, stocks have failed to make new highs despite strong attempts like this one.
Ten months without a new high.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

NYT Debate on Zionism (Jewish Fundamentalism): A Small Positive Step Short of a Giant Leap Needed / Politics / Israel

By: Stephen_Lendman

Most Times “Room for Debate” discussions are more one-sided advocacy than legitimate debates, establishment views drowning out alternative ones.

On April 4, it asked “(i)s anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? One has nothing to do with the other. Two of five contributors correctly equated Zionism with racism.

Two others were one-sidedly pro-Israeli. One other expressed support for “legitimate political expression.” Most important is full and accurate reporting and analysis, truth-telling alone.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

China’s Gold Intent – ICBC Bank Reclassified as an LBMA Market Maker / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

ICBC Standard Bank, China and the world’s largest bank, has been reclassified as a spot Market Making Member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) with effect from today according to a note posted on the LBMA website last night at 2100 GMT.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Don't Let the Brexit Head Fake Fool You - Video / Politics / EU_Referendum

By: Mario_Innecco

Trancript Excerpt hi it's Tuesday April 5th 2016 I'll be talking to me about something very
interesting especially for UK residents but also for anyone around the world and
it's the breaks it had failed and some fake is some of you might not head fake
usually happens and sports for example in football as Americans call it soccer
you know our players running with the ball kicking the ball and then he looks
to the last but actually passes the ball to the right instead of you know 24 the
opponent also in basketball for example you running with the ball and you look
to the left and you can you pass the ball to the right to to your teammate
then the opponent will actually focus on the left and be fought so that's a head.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Could a Three-year Fixed Rate UK Mortgage be Just Right? / Housing-Market / Mortgages

By: MoneyFacts

Uncertain times in the financial world often leave borrowers wondering how long they should fix their mortgage for. In order to meet the needs of those looking for a term that offers the perfect mix of security and a great rate – in other words, one that is ‘just right’ - Moneyfacts.co.uk has found that the number of three-year fixed rate mortgages has increased by 16% in just two years.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Fractal Analysis of US Dollar Index Suggests Massive Gold Rally Coming / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Hubert_Moolman

Below, I have done a fractal analysis of the US Dollar index (generated on tradingview.com). It shows that the US Dollar index is likely to drop over the next years; however, it appears to have started a new uptrend (read deflation – deflation is great for gold and silver), from a long-term point of view.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Weak Start to Stock Market Week / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Harry_Boxer

The stock market indices had a tough session to start the week. It was a down day, for sure. The day opened down, they pulled back, popped, couldn’t get through the highs, and sold off to the morning lows and session lows by about 11-11:15 this morning. They then rallied midday, and could not get through the highs, rolled over, retested twice, but couldn’t break down as well. Enough damage had been done to create losses for the day.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

America's Future Demands a Third Party / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016

By: BATR

At this point in the long and revolting primary fiasco, the two party monopoly plays out their orchestrated selection charade for all to see. The most amazing and pathetic attitude among a politically frustrated electorate is why another one can or will provide their consent with the final outcome. The fundamental failure in the American political system is based upon a phony two party opposition. Friends and foes alike, the first lesson in understanding our politically imposed despotism is that elections never allow for real choice. The careerist political class always prevents honest reformers from gaining real power.