Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Financial Crisis in the Making that QE-4 Can’t Stop! / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016
The “Great Credit Crisis” of 2007 led to “The Great Recession”, and yet the FED still repeated the same mistakes. The FED kept the “easy money” policy in effect, and not only that, but, it also introduced “Quantitative Easing” and handed over FREE money to the large banks and corporations. Apparently, they have not learned anything from the last crisis and it looks as though they are on the path of pushing the economy into a deep recession, again. The dangerous part about this, is that they have already used up all of their ammunition, and there is now none left. In order to deal with the forthcoming “financial crisis” that we are presently facing in 2016.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Chinese Volatility Could Fuel a Lithium-Price Rocket Launch / Commodities / Lithium
When China's stock market started cratering at the beginning of the year, veteran investor and newsletter writer Chen Lin was rubbing his hands in anticipation of the opportunities that would be opening up, particularly in lithium and natural gas. In this interview with The Energy Report, the author of What is Chen Buying? What is Chen Selling? shares his insights on what pushed battery-grade lithium prices up fourfold and which companies could benefit from a continued supply-demand imbalance. As a bonus, he also lists the three companies he thinks could take advantage of high overseas natural gas prices to actually return money to investors in the energy space.
The Energy Report: The year started with a very volatile Chinese stock market. Are we in crisis mode?
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Can Stock Values Simply "Disappear"? Yes / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
And it's happened before, too -- just think back to the 2007-2099 financial crisis
On Wednesday (Jan. 13) CNBC reported that,
Read full article... Read full article..."Almost $3.2 trillion has been wiped off the value of stocks around the world since the start of 2016, according to calculations by a top market analyst. U.S. stocks are now off $1.77 trillion, while overseas stocks are down $1.4 trillion."
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Crude Oil Hit $32... But The Worst Is Yet To Come / Commodities / Crude Oil
On August 5 last year I forecast that oil would hit $32 or a bit lower by January.And it’s happened right on cue!
Along with iron ore and coal (down 70%-plus), oil has been one of the worst-performing commodities – down 80% from its 2008 top. And ultimately it’s headed lower, all the way to $10 or $20. I’ve been saying this since oil was $115, and look where we are now!
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Can Stock Market Short Term Positive Bias Develop into a Medium Term Positive? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
This day has a short term, positive bias for the Fed. A lot of Inflowing Liquidity should come in, but the question will be one of sustainability with the Institutional Investors still in net distribution.
Short term is good, but medium term rules. So the question is ... can this short term positive bias develop into a medium term positive?
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Stock Market Phase Target Met / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend - Severe correction underway.
SPX: Intermediate trend - The index is completing a downtrend phase within a longer-term decline. This should be followed by a counter-trend rally before selling resumes.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
China Fake Economic Statistics - Everybody’s Doing It / Economics / Economic Statistics
Yesterday’s post on the unreliability of China’s official numbers attracted comments that were mostly along the lines of “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” That is, where does an American get off criticizing the honesty of another government’s reporting practices? Some samples:
Read full article... Read full article...Not to put too fine a point on it but do you trust US GDP numbers? Unemployment numbers? Inflation numbers? Which country, if they posted totally true and accepted numbers, would have the larger impact on global markets? The biggest economy or the second biggest economy? Just saying….
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The International War on Cash / Personal_Finance / War on Cash
By Jeff Thomas
Back in 2008, I began warning of increasing capital controls that we would see in the future, as a component in the decline of Western economies (Western in the broad sense, including Japan, Australia, etc.)
Along the way, it occurred to me that, at some point, governments might collectively attempt to eliminate paper currency in favour of an electronic currency - transferred from party to party solely through licensed banks. Sound farfetched? Well, maybe, but what if the U.S. and EU agreed on an overall plan, then suggested it to other governments? On the face of it, this smacks of conspiracy theory, yet certainly, all governments would benefit from this control and would be likely to get on board. In fact, it might prove to be the only way out of their present economic problems.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Central Planners Freaking Out about Discussion of Gold’s Role / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Growing Support for Sound Money Rankles Fed Apologists
Sound money issues make for good politics these days. The leading Republican candidates have all suggested reforms to our monetary system. The topic is popping up in debates as well as interviews. Predictably, Fed worshippers and proponents of central planning everywhere are snickering and trotting out the usual responses.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Gold Deficits and T-Bond Fantasies / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
Fantasy #1:
My name is John Q. Public. I live a good life, make lots of money (never mind how) and have debts such as a mortgage on a great house – $375,000, a Cessna – $150,000 (my air force), and a sweet little two mast sailing ship – $78,000 (my navy). Also my wife and children (my army) spend a lot of money. My total credit card debt is $97,000.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The Citadel Is Breached: Congress Taps the Fed for Infrastructure Funding / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
In a landmark infrastructure bill passed in December, Congress finally penetrated the Fed's "independence" by tapping its reserves and bank dividends for infrastructure funding.
The bill was a start. But some experts, including Congressional candidate Tim Canova, say Congress should go further and authorize funds to be issued for infrastructure directly.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Margin Rules Changes Force New Private Funding Of Public Debt / Interest-Rates / US Debt
The Federal Reserve and other regulators around the world (including all members of the G-20) have recently agreed to alter margin rules, which will allow them to claim new powers over lending and leverage. In the United States these developing regulatory changes will not be restricted to the Fed's legal oversight over banks alone, but will affect all financial companies.
The new margin rules will impact about $4.4 trillion in investments in the US. In combination with new rules for $2.7 trillion in money funds, the regulations are changing for about $7 trillion in investments. And the combined effect of these changes may be to drive up to $2.5 trillion out of the private investment markets and into purchasing the debts of a heavily indebted US government, thereby providing a very low cost source of funds.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Warning: Stocks Bear Market Rally Trap Ahead / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
Technical Evidence Indicates Major Price Movement Just Getting Started!
Stocks around the globe were pummeled again last week.
This is no surprise to our subscribers as our predictive trend analytics model gave us clear technical evidence that important multi-year highs had completed back in the middle of 2015.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
US Dollar Drop to Trendline Likely / Currencies / US Dollar
The dollar is "crawling" along its 60 dma. When it breaks and closes below the drop into the intermediate cycle low will begin.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
UK Opinion Pollsters Inquiry Smoke Screen for Election Forecast Failure of Polls Sales Industry / ElectionOracle / Opinion Polls & Surveys
The run up to the May 2015 general election had the the people of Britain convinced that they were going to the polls that were unanimously proclaimed by the mainstream media as being too close to call, one where the Labour and Conservative parties were virtually neck and neck and where even if the Conservatives managed to pull a a handful of seats ahead would still lose be default as they would not be able to form a majority even with Lib Dem support and therefore the Labour party was destined to win the 2015 general election, all of which was based on a year of opinion polls that consistently presented this consensus view right up to the polls closed at 10pm.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
UK Savers Have the January Blues / Stock-Markets / Savings Accounts
Data from Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that rate reductions in the savings market have now outweighed rate rises for three consecutive months, the first time this has happened since daily rate change monitoring began.*
In the month of December, Moneyfacts recorded just 30 savings rate rises, with only one deal posting a significant increase of 0.50%. Disappointingly, rate reductions over the same period completely eclipsed this figure, with the number of rate decreases over the month standing at 93, with some deals falling by as much as 0.55%.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Why Are We Still Paying Attention To Chinese Economic Numbers? / Economics / China Economy
A few years ago, economist Nouriel Roubini was explaining to a reporter why Chinese economic data couldn’t be trusted. He noted that it takes the US weeks and sometimes months to pull together and process the information necessary to produce a complex stat like GDP, and wondered how China, with its far bigger, less developed (and therefore harder to measure) population was able to do it in considerably less time. He concluded that they’re just making up their numbers.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Junk Bonds Slump - Will 2016 be The Year The Fed Fails? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
To many economists, the biggest mistake the Fed has made has been a lack of aggression in raising interest rates. After all, they reason, the U.S. job market is as strong as it has been since 2007 and the economy, even if sluggish, is at least back on an even keel. These same observers cheered the Fed's decision to raise the Fed funds rate in December by a quarter percentage point.
Yet there is even more reason to worry that the raising of the Fed funds rate last month may have been a policy blunder of major proportions. In this commentary we'll briefly examine the distinct possibility that the Fed has put the U.S. financial market on the cusp of another troublesome year ahead.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Stock Market Bottoming, but Bear Still Growling / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
Indications suggest a stock market which is currently oversold and bottoming short term, but still has a long way to go to finish this bear. In fact, I believe we could see the SPX fall as low as the 940-950 area by October of this year as we enter the final innings of the crash phase of the 8 year commodity cycle. Gold and especially the gold miners are struggling even though we are showing positive COT figures.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Oil price Slump Leads To Shale 2.0, The Great Crew Change, And COP21 / Commodities / Crude Oil
Alfidi Capital writes: The oil sector's bear attack shows no signs of abating. OPEC's Saudi-led push for huge overproduction is driving the US shale sector to the brink of collapse. The post-crash survivors can benefit from "Shale 2.0" technologies that keep their costs down. They will need every advantage they can get when the "Great Crew Change" makes finding human talent harder and the UN's COP21 protocols make hydrocarbon production less desirable.
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