Sunday, April 03, 2016

What New Economic Recovery? / Economics / US Economy

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The rise of the ‘dollar store business model’ caters to a disappearing ‘middle class’ who are incurring shrinking incomes. This has made ‘dollar stores’ prosper, in the last decade. Dollar stores, for most Americans, have carried an odd sort of stigma.  In the past, these stores were seen as shopping for the poor, only.  We are all now aware that many people who were in the once strong American ‘middle class’ were thrown off of the prosperity path and into ‘lower income’ brackets from business layoffs, downsizing, and salary reduction.  While regular product companies struggle the expanding ‘dollar stores’ have found a niche in this economic climate.  The shrinking ‘middle class’ means more customers for ‘dollar stores’.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Gold And Silver – Qrtly, Monthly Charts. No Change In Trends / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Michael_Noonan

“Nothing ever changes on Wall Street. Speculation is as old as the hills. What has happened before in the markets will happen again.” Jesse Livermore

Despite taking his life at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in 1940, at the age of 63, [he considered himself a failure], Livermore is revered by many as the consummate trader.
We often comment on the importance of rules, and our adherence to rules does not come from Livermore, but he always attributed his losses to the times when he failed to follow his rules.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Stock Markets Still Looking for Interest Rate Clues / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Richard_Cox

By nearly all accounts, stock markets have had trouble gaining momentum over the last year.  The S&P 500 is now trading just 0.6% higher for the period -- and while this might seem modestly positive it does not say much for what is essentially a multi-year bull run in the equities space.  There are a few different schools arguing for why exactly this is happening but no matter which view you take, nearly every investor is looking for new clues in what is likely to happen in global interest rate changes.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Manufacturing Improving.... Jobs Doing Well.... Stock Market Holds Well / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Jack_Steiman

The market day started with some nasty futures as the overbought, daily index charts were finally about to unwind some. That would have been great news. An hour before the market opened we got the much anticipated Jobs Report. Overall, it was in line, but it did little to nothing to help the market rally off the lows. The day started out with a gap down, and after being down as much as fifteen points on the S&P 500, we started to slowly, but surely, rally back up a bit, but remained in the red.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Wall Street is Coo-Coo for CoCo Bonds - Learn why these new bonds are such risky instruments / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market

By: EWI

The co-editor of our monthly Elliott Wave Financial Forecast newsletter tells you about the emergence of the so-called CoCo bonds, one of the hottest new derivative-backed instruments on Wall Street.

Listen as Peter explains what differentiates them from regular bonds -- and why they're so risky to own.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Cost Push Inflation is Another Keynesian Concept the Federal Reserve Believes In - They're Wrong / Economics / Inflation

By: Gordon_T_Long

FRA Co-founder Gordon T. Long is joined by Christopher P. Casey in discussing the decrease in oil price and its potential effect on the global economy.

Mr. Casey is the Managing Director of WindRock Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor and wealth management firm that subscribes to the Austrian school of economics. Mr. Casey is a frequent speaker before a number of organizations and conferences, including USA Watchdog, GoldMoney, Freedom Fest, and various bar associations and radio shows, including weekly financial and economic commentary on The Edge of Liberty (WNJC 1360, Philadelphia). His writings have appeared in a variety of publications and websites including The Ludwig von Mises Institute, Zero Hedge, Family Business, Casey Research, and Laissez Faire Books. He is a board member of the Economics Development Council with the University of Illinois, a Policy Advisor for The Heartland Institute's Center on Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate, and a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder (CFA®)

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Gold Stocks Correcting Through Time Not Price / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

Gold Stocks enjoyed a fabulous, near vertical rebound into March yet were in extreme overbought territory. We and many others called for a correction. In recent weeks those other voices have worried excessively about the alleged bearish construction of the CoT. Although Gold and Silver have essentially consolidated with a little weakness, the gold stocks have continued to hold above even initial support. Over the past month they have corrected through time rather than price. The longer gold stocks hold above initial support, the greater the chance they are building a bullish flag consolidation.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Fed Watchers April Fools in March / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank

By: Peter_Schiff

It may be almost impossible to underestimate the gullibility of professional Fed watchers. At least Lucy van Pelt needed to place an actual football on the ground to fool poor Charlie Brown. But in today's high stakes game of Federal Reserve mind reading, the Fed doesn't even have to make a halfway convincing bluff to make the markets look foolish.

Just two weeks ago, the release of the Fed's March policy statement and the subsequent press conference by Chairwoman Janet Yellen should have made it abundantly clear that the Central Bank policy had retreated substantially from the territory it had previously staked out for itself. In December it had anticipated four rate hikes in 2016, but suddenly those had been pared down to two. Based on the conclusion that the era of easy money had been extended for at least a few more innings, the dollar sold off and stocks and commodities rallied.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Silver Is Coiled Spring / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: Zeal_LLC

Silver's reluctant, sluggish participation in early 2016's powerful gold rally has been glaringly obvious. Instead of amplifying the yellow metal's big gains as in the past, silver largely failed to even keep pace. The lack of silver confirmation for gold's big move has certainly raised concerns. But despite silver's vexing torpidity in recent months, it is a coiled spring ready to explode higher to catch and surpass gold.

Silver has always been something of an investing enigma, somehow combining attributes of a highly-speculative investment, a conventional industrial commodity, and an alternative currency. Silver trades like each from time to time, stymieing attempts to classify it. Silver tends to grind sideways boringly for long periods of time, and then skyrocket higher in bulls of such magnitude that they are celebrated for years.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Bitcoin Edging Towards Declines / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: Mike_McAra

In short: short speculative positions, target at $153, stop-loss at $515.

If you have been wondering what kinds of applications there might be for Bitcoin on Wall Street, apart from settlement work, a new idea has been just highlighted. In an article on the Wall Street Journal website, we read:

Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., a firm at the center of Wall Street's trading infrastructure, is about to give the technology behind bitcoin a big test: seeing whether it can be used to bolster the $2.6 trillion repo market.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Gold Prices Rise 16% In Q1 – Best Quarter In 30 Years / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: GoldCore

– Gold prices gained 16% in Q1 – best quarterly performance since 1986
– Gains due to increasing global financial, macroeconomic and monetary risk
– Stocks come under pressure – Flat in U.S.; Falls in Europe and Asia
– Sterling fell 20% on BREXIT concerns and the euro fell 11% against gold
– Canadian dollar fell 10%, Aussie dollar fell 9% & Swiss franc fell 12% against gold
– Outlook positive as gold and silver remain undervalued
– Reasserted role as safe haven in Q1 

Friday, April 01, 2016

Stock Market Forecast for April 2016 - Bull or Bear? (Video) / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The supposed great bear market of 2016 has relentlessly trended in the WRONG direction as each hope that the bears clung to once more resolved in another ramping higher of stock prices. The latest best hope being the Fed meeting that was meant to deliver bear market apocalypse and most recently Yellen yelling that the Fed is in no hurry to raise US interest rates that keeps catching market participants by surprise. This despite near 2 months ago we saw the BoJ panic with negative interest rates, and then earlier this month the ECB also panic with negative interest rates!

Friday, April 01, 2016

Forex Trading - EUR/USD Increases – What About USD/CAD? / Currencies / Euro

By: Nadia_Simmons

Yesterday, the greenback moved sharply lower against the Canadian dollar despite bullish ADP report and declining crude oil prices as sentiment on the U.S. dollar remained weak after Janet Yellen’s speech. As a result, USD/CAD dropped under important support line. How low could the exchange rate go in the coming days?

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

Friday, April 01, 2016

A Visual Look At The Fed Decision From A Retirement Investor's Perspective / Interest-Rates / Pensions & Retirement

By: Dan_Amerman

Below is the transcript for the video. While the images are included below, the motion graphics and use of a pointer are quite helpful for conveying the information, and these can only be seen by watching the video.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Mixed to Slightly Positive Stock Market Session / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016

By: Harry_Boxer

The stock market indices had an unusual day. First they were up in the morning, by midday they reached their peak, and came down hard. By midafternoon they reached their bottom, and then rallied in the last hour, only to pull back at the close to finish down on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 31.57 at 17,685.09. The S&P 500 was down 4.21 to 2059.74. The Nasdaq 100 was down 7.22 to 4483.66.

Friday, April 01, 2016

The Gold-to-Silver Ratio: A Truly Generational PM Stocks Opportunity / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2016

By: The_Gold_Report

This week's Gong Show in the global financial markets reminds me of the early 1980s before the advent of the Internet or online trading or blogs and especially before 30-something financial "advisors" were allowed to go on the national (and international) airwaves or Internet websites and babble on for what seem like days how "The Fed has our back!" as an excuse for buying stocks at 23 times forward earnings.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Inflation is Here and the Fed Wants More / Economics / Inflation

By: Graham_Summers

The Fed failed to hike interest rates in March despite the “data” hitting levels at which the Fed said it would hike. Indeed, the Fed even lowered its expected number of rate hikes for this year from four to two!

This confirms for us that the Fed does indeed want inflation.

In the last few weeks, several Fed officials, most notably Fed Vice-Chair Stanley Fischer stated not only that inflation was appearing in the US but that this is something the Fed “would like to happen.”

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Federal Reserve Cartel's Main objectives; Manipulate Markets and The Masses / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2016

By: Sol_Palha

"If Congress has the right to issue paper money, it was given to them to be used by and not to be delegated to individuals or corporations." ~ President Andrew Jackson.

The weapon of choice is money, and central bankers utilize this weapon merciless to rain misery on the unknowing masses by purposely creating boom and bust cycles. Since Fiat was created, bankers have fed off the misery they have wrecked on humanity. How do they feed off this misery? They no longer take from Peter and give to Paul; they make sure that Peter and Paul try to rob each other and everyone else to survive. They control the game, and you are just a pawn in this game. The only day the outcome will change, is when the masses stand up and revolt. However, we would not hold our breath for that day as the masses are notorious for their delayed reactions. Many great men, former presidents included are of the same opinion.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Silver Lows – Silver Ratios / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016

By: DeviantInvestor

Silver prices as this is written (March 23) are down 60 cents on the day.  Scary …  no, probably a normal correction.

Yes, paper silver prices on the COMEX are “managed” for the benefit of traders, banks and others large enough to manipulate the prices.  It makes sense that if a bank, which owns the regulators and can “work” the prices to their advantage  …  will do so.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Beware of March Non Farm Payrolls. They Have the Worst Record than any Other Month / Economics / Employment

By: Ashraf_Laidi

The table below shows the consistency of misses (actual figure below consensus forecasts) in March NFPs over the last three years. In fact, NFP figures for the month of March have come in below forecasts in 7 out of the last 8 March reports with an average miss of -59k.

Most strikingly & recently, last year's March report showed a 126K reading, well below consensus of 245K. Interestingly, that 129K reading was revised down to 88K one month later.