Monday, December 21, 2015

Silver Price Stuck in a Grim Downtrend / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Clive_Maund

Silver has been somewhat weaker than gold in the recent past and dropped to clear new lows last Monday, as we can see on its 6-month chart below, but this should not come as a surprise as its recent COT structure has been nowhere near as positive as gold's, and at the end of a bearmarket or beginning of a bullmarket, gold outperforms silver.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Gold Price Suspected Bullish Falling Wedge Pattern / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Clive_Maund

Gold's technical picture is actually little changed from the last update posted on the 6th, apart from its having made marginal new lows late last week. What has changed is that we have since seen the Fed raise interest rates for the first time in many years, and the Junk Bond market has started to seriously fall apart.

With respect to the rise in interest rates there are two points to be made. The first is that, contrary to the general belief that gold is less attractive in an environment of rising rates because it doesn't pay interest, it actually does well, because some of the money that floods out of the stockmarket flows into gold. Second, the Fed's diminutive rate rise was a hollow face-saving measure, intended to salvage some credibility after it had been "crying wolf" for so long. It is too little and far too late.

Monday, December 21, 2015

The Recession And Bear Market Of 2016, In Two Charts / Economics / Recession 2016

By: John_Rubino

Good friend Michael Pollaro just sent a couple of charts that show the US economy heading for a brick wall. The first illustrates what happens when business sales (the green line) turn negative. In the previous two boom/bust cycles, when sales started falling the economy either tipped into recession shortly thereafter or (it was discovered in retrospect) was already well into a contraction.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Why Gold Price is going down, in Two Words: IT's NOT ! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Denali_Guide

          So as ephemeral as anything is to “prove” by math, we can observe and draw the following conclusion, that REAL METAL GOLD is priced far differently than PAPER CONTRACTS settled in Dollars.  Having not “proved” this but empirical observations to illustrate and support this enduring phenomena, we conclude that: “Currencies fluctuate, at different rates against MANDATORY DELIVERIES of METAL GOLD vs. PAYMENT in any given currency.”

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Stock Market Failed Rally / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend – Still Bull Market?

SPX: Intermediate trend – The index appears to have made a secondary top at the 2104 level and to have started another decline of intermediate duration.

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.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

U.S. Interest Rates Yield Curve Flattening Further, Why it Matters / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Dan_Norcini

I am becoming increasingly concerned over the flattening yield curve. This curve enables us to get a first hand view of sentiment towards economic growth among bond investors and other large players in the interest rate markets, some of whom are among the most sophisticated observers of the financial scene anywhere.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Fed Might Have Nailed End of Cyclical Stocks Bull Market, Beginning of Next US Recession / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market

By: Jas_Jain

On April 5, 2015 I suggested that One of the Longest Cyclical Bull Market In US Stocks May be Coming to an End with an update on August 16, 2015. Now, it seems that Janet Yellen has nailed the end of the cyclical bull market with her telegraphing the specific date for change in policy and then acting on it. Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fisher's statement, few months ago, that the Fed is data dependent and not date dependent (emphasis in his voice) was part of Fed propaganda to cover up the real reasons behind the change in policy. If the cyclical bull market were coming to an end, as Yellen has concluded, and the bear market is to begin in early 2016 the recession would follow. As one can see in Fig. 1, S&P 500 is where it was approximately 16 months ago and the market has been struggling.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

John Kerry’s Moscow Lovefest / Politics / GeoPolitics

By: Mike_Whitney

If John Kerry doesn’t win an Oscar for his performance in Moscow on Tuesday, then there’s something very wrong with the system.

From the time he touched down at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, to the time he left some 26 hours later, the Secretary of State was as cordial and conciliatory as anytime in recent memory.  There was no hectoring, no lecturing, no threats of additional sanctions and no finger-wagging condescension, just pleasant give-and-take on the main issues followed by friendly chit-chat, multiple handshakes, and plenty of smiley photo ops.   To say his hosts were surprised by Kerry’s behavior is a probably an understatement.  After nearly three years of nonstop belligerence and confrontation, the last thing Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin expected was an ingratiating Kerry oozing brotherly love and carrying on like an old buddy from college.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Natural Gas Trading Play / Commodities / Natural Gas

By: EconMatters

Bearish Sentiment

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Cheap Christmas Lights Review (B&M Stores), What to Expect - Video / ConsumerWatch / Reviews

By: Anika_Walayat

This is a review of cheap outdoor Christmas lights such as by B&M Stores (Diamond Berry and similar), these lights are made exclusively for B&M Stores comprising 80 multi-coloured LED bulbs, of what use you can expect over 2 Christmas.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Today’s Mainstream Media Often Pandering to Bias and Ignorance / Politics / Mainstream Media

By: Walter_Brasch

The Texas board of education didn’t find anything wrong with a world geography textbook that said slaves from Africa were workers, but that immigrants from northern Europe were indentured servants.

This is the same school board that five years ago demanded that textbooks emphasize that slavery was only a side issue to the cause of the civil war, and that Republican achievements be emphasized in political science and civics textbooks.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Operation Northwoods, CIA Terrorism False Flags and Media Propaganda / Politics / Conspiracy Theory

By: James_Quinn

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

“In many nations, rational people end up believing crazy things, including (false) conspiracy theories. Those crazy thoughts can lead to violence, including terrorism. Many terrorist acts have been fueled by false conspiracy theories, and there is a good argument that some such acts would not have occurred in the absence of such theories. The key point—and, in a way, the most puzzling and disturbing one—is that the crazy thoughts are often held by people who are not crazy at all.”

Cass Sunstein- White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Gold And Silver - Physical Precious Metals Are A 'Gift' At Current Levels / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Michael_Noonan

It really matters little what the charts are saying about the paper futures for gold and silver here, which we will get to shortly. The focus needs to be kept on a few facts that are inescapably true: fiat currencies throughout the history on this planet have always, always failed, without exception, 100% of the time. There are few situations for which such a statement of guaranteed [failed] performance can be made.

It is any different this time? Yes and no. No, because all fiats have failed, plain and simple. Yes, because the extent to which there is no reasonable reality in the relationship between paper and physical has never occurred to the current degree, ever.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Banking Stocks - Why Not to "Bank" on It / Companies / Banking Stocks

By: EWI

Two charts, one message

Editor's note: You'll find a text version of this story below the video.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Gold Stocks Remain in Position to Rebound / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2015

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

The Fed rate hike has come and gone while the precious metals sector has continued to whipsaw traders day after day. The initial reaction was very positive. However, that completely reversed course on Thursday with Gold threatening to move to a new low and gold miners threatening to test recent support. Friday's strength continued the whipsaw pattern. In any event, the evidence continues to argue in favor of a rebound for the miners into Q1 2016.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

U.S. Fed Mission Accomplished / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates

By: Peter_Schiff

On May 1, 2003 on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln then President George W. Bush, after becoming the first U.S. president to land on an aircraft carrier in a fixed wing aircraft (in a dashing olive drab flight suit), declared underneath an enormous "Mission Accomplished" banner that "major combat operations" in Iraq had been concluded, that regime change had been effected, and that America had prevailed in its mission to transform the Middle East. 13 years later, after years of additional combat operations in Iraq, and a Middle East that is spiraling out of control and increasingly disdainful of America's influence, we look back at the "Mission Accomplished" event as the epitome of false confidence and premature celebration.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Stock Market Flash Crash Time? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

This is getting uncomfortably close to a meltdown, despite the late hour. If it continues to decline into the close, options sellers will be caught wrong-footed and will have to continue to sell on Monday.

Flash Crash time?

Friday, December 18, 2015

Stock Market Figures Out Fed No Longer Has Its Back / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: John_Rubino

US stocks soared while the Fed was meeting to raise interest rates this week — though it’s not clear why that should be so since monetary tightening isn’t generally a good thing for stock prices.

In any event, it didn’t last. Over the past 48 hours the Dow is down more than 3%, with many, many individual stocks down far more.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Is the Stock Market "Courting Catastrophe?" / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

On the surface, it seems like a “normal” trading day in the SPX.  It is not.  The chart gives it away by showing the daily volume already at the to of its daily range and it’s not yet 1:00 pm.

Back in 2006 I had the privilege of talking with Andrew Smithers, who was part of the investigation team to determine what caused the Crash in 1987.  He had been interviewed by Barrons Magazine in a now famous article entitled, “Courting Catastrophe.” 

Friday, December 18, 2015

The Velocity of the American Consumer / Economics / US Economy

By: Raul_I_Meijer

I was reading something yesterday by my highly esteemed fellow writer Charles Hugh Smith that had me first puzzled and then thinking ‘I don’t think so’, in the same vein as Mark Twain’s recently over-quoted quote:

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

I was thinking that was the case with Charles’ article. I was sure it just ain’t so. As for Twain, I’m more partial to another quote of his these days (though it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic: