Monday, August 03, 2015
Gold Price Near Intermediate Bottom / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Let me remind everyone that intermediate cycle lows (ICL), and especially yearly cycle lows in the metals are always hard to hold onto. Even if you catch the exact bottom, they usually resist for a week or more and try to shake everyone off. The metals bottom differently than the stock market. When stocks form an ICL they rocket launch straight up. Traders get instant gratification and a market that quickly moves away from their stop. Gold on the other hand forms much more difficult bottoms. It will usually churn back and forth for a week or longer as traders try to decide whether or not a bottom is forming. It’s during this churn, and especially after a destructive bloodbath phase, that traders can rationalize any number of reasons to get knocked off the bull no matter how good the setup is. Understandably after witnessing a devastating bloodbath phase traders are nervous and skittish that the drop is going to continue.
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Monday, August 03, 2015
Stock Market Investors July Were Guests of Game of Thrones "Red Wedding" / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
MoneyMorning.com Michael E. Lewitt writes: The simultaneous blood baths in commodities and U.S. stocks continued in July but failed to penetrate the skulls of U.S. stock investors who continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed into believing that they can only make money by owning an overbought market.
The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) recovered all of its June losses, gaining 2.1% in July including 1.2% last week to close the month at 2103.92, not far off its record closing high of 2,134.72. The index is now up 2.2% (excluding dividends) for the year.
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Monday, August 03, 2015
Strong Bearish Signal Given Today on the Tadawul (Saudi Stock Exchange)! / Stock-Markets / Saudi Arabia
Bruce Powers writes: A bearish head and shoulders top formation (HS) was triggered today on the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI), with the index falling 3.20 per cent to end the day at 8,807.24. The bearishtrigger was on a move below the neckline at 9,057. Momentum picked up on the way down with the index closing in the bottom quarter of the day’s range.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
Stock Market Reluctant Primary Wave IV? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
The market started the week at SPX 2080. After a gap down opening on Monday the market hit SPX 2064. It then doubled bottomed and hit SPX 2111 by Wednesday. After a gap down opening Thursday to SPX 2095, the market then rallied to close out the week at 2104. For the week the SPX/DOW were +0.95%, the NDX/NAZ were +0.75%, and the DJ World index was +0.70%. Economic reports for the week were generally negative. On the uptick: durable goods orders, Q2 GDP and the Chicago PMI. On the downtick: consumer confidence/sentiment, pending homes sales, the WLEI, plus weekly jobless claims rose. Next week will be highlighted by monthly Payrolls, ISM and the PCE.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
It's a Wonderful Life Without the Federal Reserve Bank / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
MoneyMorning.com Shah Gilani writes: I have a dream. Well, I had a dream, but maybe it's never coming true, so I'll revel in my real dream.
And what a dream it was…
America had changed overnight. I didn't know what had happened, but everything was different the morning I woke up (while I was, unfortunately, still in my dream).
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
Power and Compassion / Politics / Social Issues
Time to tackle a topic that’s very hard to get right, and that will get me quite a few pairs of rolling eyes. I want to argue that societies need a social fabric, a social contract, and that without those they must and will fail, descend into chaos. Five months ago, I wrote the following about Europe:
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
Preparing for The Stock Market Crash - Inverse ETFs and Puts Timing... / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
In this update on the broad market S&P500 index we are going to look at no less than 5 charts for it, covering different time frames, the reason for this is that there are different points to make on each of these charts.
Before looking at the charts for the S&P500 index we are going to review first a range of charts, including the latest charts for Margin Debt and NYSE available cash. These charts provide the direst warning imaginable of impending trouble.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
Commodity Prices Slump Signals Slow Economic Growth Outlook / Commodities / Commodities Trading
In my opinion, the surest method for ascertaining what the sentiment is towards overall global economic growth prospects is the commodity sector performance.
When sentiment is upbeat towards global growth, commodities tend to be in a strong uptrend on the charts. The reverse is true when prospects turn sour; commodities have a general tendency to sell off.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
BSE Sensex Stocks Bear Market Underway / Stock-Markets / India
The Indian stock exchange, the BSE Sensex, looks to be tracing out its first steps in a new bear market so let's review the action using the monthly and weekly charts.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
Stock Market Some Day..... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2015
We are all trying to wrap our heads around this base. Arguments can be made on both sides. The bulls will tell us that sentiment is unwinding nicely as we hold the range, while the bears will say the longer this goes on without breaking out tells us the bulls have run out of steam. Actually, both are right to some degree but the truth is that we really don't understand fully why the market won't make a definitive move one way or the other. S&P 500 2134 and 2040 are rock solid in terms of resistance and support. There are other factors. Ms. Yellen is clearly dovish and wants this market higher. She's playing up how rates won't be aggressively raised, if at all this year. When she spoke Wednesday at their last meeting she said they are still data dependent, and they made no firm statement about raising rates in September, which is when everyone believes she will do the dirty deed. She seemed to almost go out of her way to let us all know that she may not raise it at that time.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
What Microsoft’s Dismal Earnings Report Really Tells You / Companies / Microsoft
MoneyMorning.com Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: The markets are quiet right now, even the typically volatile technology sector. But as the saying goes, past is prologue. Recent events surrounding Microsoft Inc. (NYSE:MSFT) presage big investment opportunities to come.
Microsoft’s latest earnings report landed with a resounding thud last week, catching millions of investors by surprise and prompting yet another round of debate about where to invest your “tech” dollars.
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Sunday, August 02, 2015
Gold And Silver Charts Are The Compelling Story. Fundamentals Do Not Apply / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Not in 2013, not in 2014, and so far, nothing positive for the price of gold and silver has developed in what looks like for the balance of 2015. Most of the highly regarded gold and silver sites and bloggers have been expecting an upside breakout, some even saying an explosive breakout. As we have been saying for the past few years, the "eyes" have it. Just by following developing price activity, in chart form, it is more than obvious that price continues to languish at recent 4 -5 year lows with NO signs of ending.
It does not matter how much gold China has bought, how many gold/silver coins have been sold to the public, even record numbers. It does not matter how low is the existing supply for silver and its excessive and growing demand. So far, it has not mattered how the miners have been suffering and are closing down operations.
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
The Fed Can't Stop the Commodity Bear Market / Commodities / Commodities Trading
Only a shift in investor psychology -- i.e. the Elliott wave pattern -- can
For many commodity investors, the last four years have felt like one long, bad dream. The kind where you're tied to a railroad track as a train heads straight for you -- in slow motion. You can't move, can't scream, can't do anything but lay there and wait for the point of impact. On July 29, that point seemed closer than ever when the S&P GSCI index, a measure of a basket of 24 commodities, plunged to its lowest level in 13 years.
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
Markets Floor Monkeys and Decentralization of Risk / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2015
As most of you know, I used to be a clerk on the floor of the old P. Coast options exchange in San Francisco. What a place. I could tell stories about that floor for weeks. The craziest things you ever heard.
But let’s keep it professional. The funny thing about a trading floor like the PCX (or the NYMEX, or the CME) is that you have winners and losers. You have big winners and big losers. You have people who blow themselves up. You have people who blow themselves up so spectacularly, they take a chunk out of their clearing firm.
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
Meet the Leader Who Turned Google Into a “Buy” / Companies / Google
MoneyMorning.com Michael A. Robinson writes: For more than a year now, I have been one of the few analysts saying Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) was set for a rally.
In several of our chats I’ve said that with this one stock you get both an ETF on the future and a company that produces great profit margins today.
To be sure, the stock lagged the overall market over the past few months. That’s largely because industry analysts thought Google’s futuristic ambitions would shred profits.
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
QE Fails In Japan: Inflation Nonexistent, Consumer Spending Drops, More Ease Coming / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
After nearly three decades of stagnation, Japan in 2013 went all-in, ordering its central bank, the Bank of Japan, to buy pretty much every bond on the market with newly-created yen. The BoJ's balance sheet -- a rough proxy for the amount of money it has created and dumped into the economy -- soared at a rate that dwarfs, in relation to GDP, the US Fed's QE programs.
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
Why Your Brokerage Account Isn’t as Safe as You Think It Is / InvestorEducation / Learning to Invest
By E.B. Tucker
Imagine logging into your brokerage account tomorrow and finding out that it’s frozen.
Not just your account… every customer account at your brokerage is frozen.
You can’t buy stocks. You can’t sell stocks. You can’t move money out of the account.
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
Mining Companies, Regulators Deathly Silent after Midnight Raid on Gold Prices / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
With gold and silver on the defensive following a dramatic midnight raid on gold prices last week, Mike Gleason reached out to Chris Powell, Secretary Treasurer at the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, also known as GATA to discuss possible gold price manipulation.
Mike Gleason: Several days ago, we had another attack on the gold market – right as it was holding above a critical price support zone. Someone sold several billions of dollars in gold futures contracts during the wee hours of the night immediately before the Chinese trading day began. It happened during a time of low liquidity like it normally does, and it took the price down over $40 in the matter of a few seconds, halting trading twice for a brief period. What are we to make of all this Chris?
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
The Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
“My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract.” — The Godfather (1972)
In the modern global banking system, all banks need a credit line with the central bank in order to be part of the payments system. Choking off that credit line was a form of blackmail the Greek government couldn’t refuse.
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Friday, July 31, 2015
Gold’s Amazing Resiliency / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Gold has certainly had a rough summer, facing withering selling pressure from record futures shorting. The resulting new secular lows have greatly exacerbated the already-extreme bearish psychology long plaguing this metal. But considering the howling headwinds gold has suffered in recent years, it has actually proved amazingly resilient. This indicates strong latent demand due to accelerate as sentiment shifts.
The consensus view on gold today is overwhelmingly bearish, with virtually everyone convinced it is doomed to spiral lower indefinitely. They argue that gold yields nothing, so therefore why bother owning it? Especially with the first Fed rate hikes in over 9 years looming! As interest rates begin inexorably mean reverting higher, rising yields will leave gold even farther behind. Keynes’ “barbarous relic” can’t compete.
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