Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Terrorism.... Weakening Economy... Stock Market Finally Bounces.... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Jack_Steiman

It's old. It's boring. It's pathetic. It's inhuman. It's a lot more than all of that, but what's left to say that hasn't already been said. Terrorism is a sad reality in our world, and will likely never go away in our lifetime, or the lifetime of many generations to come. It seems to be in the DNA of humanity. We had a very sad display of terrorism late Friday night in Paris. Too many perished on suicide bombings. A terrible act toward human life, unfortunately. We're in the business of the stock market, and, of course, the initial reaction of the market was to blast lower after hours on Friday. The S&P 500 was down as many as seventeen points, with fair value included. With the market hanging on by a thread at key, 2020 support on the S&P 500, things looked really bad for the bulls. When terrorism happens a day, or so, when the market is closed, often times the futures start coming back up as the world has grown sadly used to this type of behavior.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

What Every Investor Needs to Know About the Diamond Market / Commodities / Resources Investing

By: The_Gold_Report

Investing in diamond equities is quite different from investing in gold equities, explains Matthew O'Keefe, vice president and senior analyst with Dundee Capital Markets, one of a handful of Canadian analysts covering the diamond space. O'Keefe says diamond deposits require "an order of magnitude" greater study than gold deposits in order to properly determine grade, and says diamond prices are almost exclusively driven by consumer demand. In this interview with The Gold Report, O'Keefe sheds some light on two undervalued diamond producers, as well as three promising developers.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

The Final Gold Chapter / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Bob_Loukas

This is the final chapter of this intermediate gold Cycle, and it’s likely to get ugly.  If you’ve followed the blog these past few months, you would have been prepared for most of this move as it unfolded in real-time.  The first post back on October 1st was  Gold Cycle Running Out of Steam  and was then followed up (Nov 1st) with Don’t Trust Gold Here.  In both cases, I highlighted how the Weekly Cycle had topped and how similarly past Cycles behaved .  It was why I argued that this Cycle appeared to be no different to the preceding failed, bear market Cycles since 2011.  This is where gold finds itself today, standing on a ledge before a significant fall.  For the patient (and protected) bulls, it may well become the final chapter of this great bear market.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Bond Traders have not been this Short Since Early 2010 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

ZeroHedge reports, “Bond traders have not been this speculatively short Treasuries since early 2010. Since The Fed turned uber hawkish at the last FOMC, and convinced the market that it will raise rates in December - despite dismally dropping data everywhere, speculators have drastically increased their short positions across the entire Treasury spectrum. The last time the world was this short Treasuries, the 10Y yield collapsed from 3.94% to 2.39% in just 3 months.”

Monday, November 16, 2015

Markets Reacting to Paris Attack 'Rationally': Asness / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015

By: Bloomberg

Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, joined Stephanie Ruhle, David Westin and Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>. He discussed market reaction to the Paris terror attacks and the use of long-term investing to overcome risks.

ERIK SCHATZKER: As I mentioned moments ago, Cliff Asness of AQR is here. Cliff, if we could begin with a little bit on the way investors tend to think about events like the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, Matt showed us that things haven't really moved that much. And frankly if you look at the historic record, things don't move that much over time after these horrible incidents. So, again, as the investor, as a man who sits on top of $135 billion and, granted, not all of your strategies would speak to this, why is that the case?

Monday, November 16, 2015

Ominous Parallels: The Roman Empire, The European Union, And Mass Migration / Politics / Immigration

By: John_Rubino

This weekend’s Paris attacks, occurring in the middle of one of history’s largest mass-migrations, has the feel of uncharted territory. But it’s actually an eerie echo of something that happened nearly two thousand years ago in more-or-less the same place.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Undeniable Truths about Precious Metals (Don't Forget These...) / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: MoneyMetals

Clint Siegner writes: From first to worst. Gold and silver were the best assets to own during the first decade of this century. During this second decade... not so much. Precious metals bulls have endured 4 years of prices drifting lower punctuated by periodic smash-downs and the occasional false-breakout.

What really gets the goat of gold and silver investors is that, throughout this time, there have been very good fundamental reasons to own metals. Somehow those fundamentals never show up in the price. The price action in recent years is enough to make bulls question reality.

Monday, November 16, 2015

How the Great Depression 2.0 Will Soon Unfold / Economics / Great Depression II

By: Michael_Pento

Those who place their faith in a sustainable economic recovery emanating through government fiat will soon be shocked. Colossal central bank counterfeiting and gargantuan government deficit spending has caused the major averages to climb back towards unchanged on the year. Zero interest rate and negative interest rate policies, along with unprecedented interest rate manipulations, have levitated global stock markets. But still, sustainable and robust GDP growth has been remarkably absent for the past 8 years.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Paris Terror Attack and What Should Be Done / Politics / War on Terror

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

The horrific attacks in Paris on Friday have, predictably, led to much over-reaction and demands that we do more of the exact things that radicalize people and make them want to attack us. The French military wasted no time bombing Syria in retaliation for the attacks, though it is not known where exactly the attackers were from. Thousands of ISIS fighters in Syria are not Syrian, but came to Syria to overthrow the Assad government from a number of foreign countries -- including from France and the US.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Stock Market Building Selling Pressure / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Gary_Savage

Playing devils advocate and assuming the selling pressure is strong enough to overwhelm central bank efforts to prop markets up, I would like to see the 7 year cycle low complete its mission and at least test the 200 week average.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Gold Remains “Best Insurance For A Crisis” – Ficenec / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: GoldCore

- “Future is uncertain and gold is the most effective insurance against that”
– As fears grow about outlook for global economy – long term attraction of gold remains
– As “central banks race to devalue currency,” private individuals are buying record amounts of gold
– “Gold is simply the best insurance against inflation, or deflation”

Editor’s Note: The tragic events in Paris, terrorism and war throughout the world, show geopolitical risk remains high.  These risks will likely impact economies and financial markets and will see continuing safe haven demand for gold.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Israel's New War on Palestine / Politics / Palestine

By: Stephen_Lendman

Israel’s war on Palestine rages into its 7th week, extrajudicial assassinations occurring virtually daily, thousands of Palestinians wounded from live fire and other military assaults, over 1,000 civilians imprisoned for political reasons, including children and women.

Sunday saw no letup. Unrestrained Israeli brutality continued. With world attention on Paris, Netanyahu’s terror war rages almost unnoticed - two Qalandiya refugee camp Palestinians the latest victims, gunned down in cold blood during a raid to demolish an alleged attacker’s home.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Why Gold Prices Could Bounce This Week / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: Bob_Kirtley

Since the last US employment release and comments from Yellen suggesting a December hike is likely, gold has struggled to maintain its downward momentum. Whilst we believe that the Fed will increase rates in December and gold prices will move lower over the medium term, there is a strong case for a bounce in gold prices in the short term. Technically gold is oversold and holding support at $1080.  This is too low relative to market pricing for a Fed hike and should find support from weaker US data since NFP, lower stocks, lower oil as well as a safe haven bid from any escalation of issues related to ISIS and recent tragic events in Paris. 

Monday, November 16, 2015

BRICS? No, CRISIS / Economics / Emerging Markets

By: Raymond_Matison

On Monday, October 23, 2015, the Iranian news agency Tasnim cited its Deputy Minister of Economic Development who announced that Iran would seek to become a participant in the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB).  The NDB was officially created by the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - in July of this year, with an initial capitalization of $100 billion.  Iran’s participation would allow it, or any other participating country, to develop closer economic, trade and international policy ties with the BRICS nations, and utilize NDB funds for economic development.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Is the Stock Market Ready to Rally Now? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Brad_Gudgeon

The last time I wrote, I said I was looking for a bottom in the US stock market around the 12th of November. I honestly thought we would pull back harder than we have. As of Friday November 13th, the SPX has tagged the .382 Fibonacci retracement of the September 29-November 3rd rally near 2022, less than a 5% pull back.

The chart below explains why I believe we have bottomed or are close to bottoming. The cycles suggest a rally into around November 25 from here. I don't know if this will be a failing rally or a new recovery high is on the way. After Thanksgiving we should have another pull back into early December to satisfy the 7/14 week low.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Stock Market Looking For A (Temporary?) Low / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend - Bull Market

Intermediate trend – SPX has resumed its uptrend in order to complete the last phase of the bull market.

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 discusses longer market trends.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Stock Market - Another Brutal Monday / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015

By: John_Rubino

One of the challenges of managing money is the (increasingly-frequent) need to translate non-financial tragedies into action to protect clients and, yes, profit from the broader world’s horror.

So while most people react to events in Paris with stunned sympathy and/or impotent rage, the financial community is deciding what to buy and sell. And right now it looks like “sell” is winning.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

No, the U.S. Military Has Not Withered Away Under Obama / Politics / US Military

By: MISES

Ryan McMaken writes: It is common to see articles and columns in the Conservative media claiming that President Obama is engaging in “historic defense cuts.” There are claims that not in decades has the military ever endured such budget slashing. “Romney blasts Obama over military cutbacks” one headline blares.

Upon closer examination of these claims, one notes that the authors are careful to never mention actual dollar amounts in context, or any meaningful historical context beyond single recent year-over-year comparisons. 

Sunday, November 15, 2015

A Simple myRA “Hack” to Supercharge Your Savings Interest Earnings / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts

By: Investment_U

Andrew Snyder writes: For income investors, times have rarely been harder. But Obama may have just accidentally created a lucrative solution.

We all know the problem. The Fed.

In its effort to keep the Great Recession from turning into something even worse, the country’s monetary maestros cut rates and kept them there. More than eight years after pulling rates lower, interest rates remain, in the simplest terms, dead.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Grandmaster Putin Beats Uncle Sam at His Own Game / Politics / GeoPolitics

By: Mike_Whitney

Imagine that you despised your brother-in-law and wanted to kill him. But you didn’t have the guts to do it yourself so you hired a hit-man to do the job for you.

Would you still be guilty of murder?

You’re darn right, you would be. So let’s apply this same rule to US foreign policy: Would it be just as wrong to invade a country, kill its people and topple its government with militants that you funded, armed and trained as it would be with your own US troops?