Monday, September 20, 2021
Gold gets hammered but Copper fails to seize the moment / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
The Copper/Gold ratio remains at a key decision point
Gold has been clobbered lately but a key metallic macro indicator remains in a long-term congestion zone. If it’s going to be cyclical ‘inflation ON’ we’d expect Cu/Au to break through and do what it has not done since a major inflation trade blew out in 2006-2008, and for the 30yr Treasury yield to eventually catch on and rise at least to the EMA 100 (blue line).
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Monday, September 20, 2021
New arms race and nuclear risks could spell End to the Asian Century / Politics / GeoPolitics
Since 1945, the only successful economic modernization worldwide has occurred in Asia, with focus on economic development. After a decade of US pivot to the region, arms races and nuclear risks are rising.According to the new trilateral security pact (AUKUS) between the United States, the UK and Australia, Washington and London will “help” Canberra to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines.
The $66 billion deal effectively killed Australia’s $90 billion conventional sub deal with France, thereby causing a major ruckus with Washington’s NATO partner.
Stunningly, US and Australian officials had been in secret talks for months over the plan that was hatched more than a year ago by the far-right Trump administration. Yet, it was both embraced and accelerated by the Biden White House, which claimed to offer an “alternative” to four years of Trump devastation.
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Sunday, September 19, 2021
Stock Market FOMO Hits September Brick Wall - Dow Trend Forecast 2021 Review / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
My last analysis posted on the 1st of September proved to be a timely reminder that an historically overbought stock market on virtually every measure was entering into the seasonally worst trading month of the year that at the very least suggests to prepare for a significant correction with each passing day and there was even a possibility of market panic event, a CRASH for which there are countless indicators that I have been covering since Mid June such as what is taking place in the Reverse Repo market of a defacto brewing Financial Crisis 2.0, the magnitude of which we will only realise with the benefit of hindsight, hence why I sold out of 80% of my Top AI stocks during the summer months with the last being to exit IBM leaving my AI stocks portfolio in it's current state, devoid for the first time in many years of the likes of Microsoft Apple, Nvidia and Amazon, with holdings of Google and Facebook greatly reduced.
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Saturday, September 18, 2021
Dow Forecasting Neural Nets, Crossing the Rubicon With Three High Risk Chinese Tech Stocks / Companies / Investing 2021
Dear Reader
This is the concluding 2nd part of my recent extensive analysis (Part 1) focused on my continuing pursuit to gradually off load my stock analysis processing power onto neural nets, where part 2 looks at data preprocessing being critical in arriving at neural networks that output useful predictions as opposed to nonsense.
And then I literally crossed the rubicon in considering investing in three high risk Chinese tek giants given their relatively attractive valuations following their 2021 stock price blood bath in comparison to US tech stocks being driven to bubble mania valuation peaks.
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Saturday, September 18, 2021
If Post-1971 Monetary System Is Bad, Why Isn’t Gold Higher? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
August marked the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s abandonment of the gold standard. It caused so many problems for the economy…and gold didn’t take over?Last month marked the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s suspension of the convertibility of US dollars into gold. This move broke the last, thin link between world currencies and the yellow metal, effectively ending the ersatz of the gold standard that we still had back then (the official end came in March 1973, marking the start of an era of freely-floating fiat currencies).
I wrote about the collapse of the Bretton Woods in the last edition of the Gold Market Overview, but as it was a truly revolutionary event that paved the way for today’s monetary conditions, it’s worth mentioning the topic again.
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Saturday, September 18, 2021
Stock Market Shaking Off the Taper Blues / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
S&P 500 recovered from the selling at open, but the picture is hardly one of universal strength. Tech rose while value erased half of the intraday decline, and high yield corporate bonds closed little changed. Risk-on seems as slowly returning unless you look at the retail sales surprise boosting the odds of Sep taper. Is it though really going to happen?
I continue to think the Fed won‘t move too far, too fast, and that no real action would follow later this month. The job creation isn‘t at its strongest, and yesterday brought us a daily overreaction to positive data, which coupled with the preceding manufacturing ones reveals that the moderation in economic growth would be indeed shallow and temporary. This daily panic was nowhere better seen than in gold and silver – neither USD nor yields moved much.
Unless the 4,440 level in S&P 500 is broken to the downside, stocks appear on the verge of yet another accumulation while commodities are best positioned to rise strongly (the Fed isn‘t mopping up excess liquidity, no). Crude oil hasn‘t spoken the last word, and looks ready to continue upwards following a little consolidation around $72. Copper‘s wild ride continues, and I‘m not looking for the red metal‘s 50-day moving average to start declining.
Saturday, September 18, 2021
So... This Happened! One Crypto Goes From "Little-Known" -to- "Top 10" in 6 Weeks / Currencies / cryptocurrency
SOL surges 10x in six weeks, outshining crypto kings like Bitcoin and Ethereum. See how you could have seen the rally coming.
The world's financial authorities continue toggling back and forth between banning digital currency transactions one day, and predicting hyperbitcoinization -- i.e., bitcoin becoming fiat currency -- the other.
All the while high-profile gazillionaires like Elon Musk stir the pot with metaphorical nursing tweets about "pumping not dumping" bitcoin.
Thus, it's hard to remember bitcoin is NOT the only sheriff in town. There are hundreds of listed tokens quietly making huge waves in their much smaller pools. One such name is Solana, a lower altcoin who, between July 20 and September 9, actually outperformed the leading crypto kings.
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Saturday, September 18, 2021
Why a Financial Markets "Panic" May Be Just Around the Corner / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2021
Here's why global investors should keep a close eye on "sight deposits"
Investors look to an array of indicators in hopes of determining what is next for the financial markets in which they are interested.
Some investors may focus entirely on "technical" indicators such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI), price levels of "support" or "resistance," or say, advancing vs. declining issues, just to name a few. As you probably know, there are many more technical indicators.
Market participants also look at sentiment readings such as mutual fund cash levels, investors' use of leverage, surveys and so on.
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Thursday, September 16, 2021
An Update on the End of College… and a New Way to Profit / Politics / Education
It was one of my most popular (and controversial) essays to date…Last summer, I laid out my case for why “college is never coming back”…
Of course, it wasn’t the first time I wrote about this idea. That was back in 2019.
But last year made the idea “real” for most people…
COVID was a lightning bolt of disruption that fried the business model of college practically overnight.
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Thursday, September 16, 2021
What Kind of Support and Services Can Your Accountant Provide? Your Main Questions Answered / Personal_Finance / Financial Education
Accountants have always been essential for many large enterprises, but even if you have a small business or are self-employed, an accountant can do a lot for you as well. In fact, you may need their expertise and services even more as you grapple with such things as tax returns, finding funding, seeking proper business advice for major decisions, and more. In addition, your accountant can be your best partner for projecting the future of your business and finding out about your business' outlook because they will have the best idea of your financial standing. But precisely what kind of support and services can your accountant provide? Here are the answers to your main questions and a list of specifically what they can do.
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Thursday, September 16, 2021
Consistent performance makes waste a good place to buy stocks / Companies / Investing 2021
Stocks can turn out to be a valuable part of your investment portfolio. Owning shares in different companies can help build savings, stay ahead of inflation, getting a sense of control over your financial future. The key to investing is figuring out how much the industry will grow and affect society. Practically, you have to determine the competitive advantage of any given company and, most importantly, the durability of that advantage. These companies are closely connected to the economy, meaning that their business volume can fall abruptly during recessions. Let’s not forget that the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing the global economy into a recession.
If waste and recycling isn’t among your top picks for buying stocks, it should be. Surging commodity prices provide a significant boost for the largest publicly traded waste and recycling haulers. Trash can turn out to be the perfect place to look for opportunities. Waste management is a capital-intensive, highly regulated, necessary service. And it generates cash flow. From investors to governments and companies, just about everyone these days is concerned about the ever-growing waste problem. The waste and recycling industry is a viable and important investment option.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Dow Stock Market Trend Forecasting Neural Nets Pattern Recognition / Stock-Markets / AI
So far all attempts to predict the Dow via machine learning have failed, as mentioned above feeding nets with obvious data such as open, close, high, low and then a candle chart version does not work. In fact the neural net part is the easy part via the likes of Tensor Flow. The problem is with the data which as I explained earlier needs to be preprocessed i.e. feeding raw data into the networks as inputs ends up with noisy networks, if it did work then it would be easy to successfully train neural nets and they would be widespread instead as far as I am aware there aren't really any neural nets out there that can successfully trade stocks.
So what does preprocessing actually mean?
There are 2 ways to go about preprocessing data for stock market forecasts.
1. Pattern recognition
2. Trend Analysis preprocessing.
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Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Eurozone Impact on Gold: The ECB and the Phantom Taper / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
The ECB tapered its asset purchases. Only that it didn’t taper at all. Are you confused? Gold isn’t – it simply doesn’t care.Tapering has begun. For now, in the Eurozone. This is at least what headlines suggest, as last week, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank held its monetary policy meeting. The European central bankers decided to slow down the pace of their asset purchases:
Based on a joint assessment of financing conditions and the inflation outlook, the Governing Council judges that favourable financing conditions can be maintained with a moderately lower pace of net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) than in the previous two quarters.
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Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Fed To Taper into Weakening Economy / Economics / US Economy
Fed Chair Jerome Powell will soon announce the date for tapering its record-setting QE program, despite weakening jobs data.
The Non-farm Payroll Report for August severely disappointed Wall Street's expectations by coming in at just 235,000 net new jobs. Many on Wall Street—because they always look for a silver lining—are now trying to twist the near half-million jobs miss into something beneficial for stocks. This is because they claim the Fed's tapering of its asset purchase program will be delayed.
Nevertheless, the Fed is growing uncomfortable with the pace of stock and home price appreciation. And, doesn't think ending QE equates to a tightening of monetary policy. Of course, the Fed doesn't want to kill the economy by raising interest rates too rapidly. However, they have become very much aware that continuing to print $120 billion each month and further inflating the stock and real estate market has become absolutely dangerous. Inflating asset prices further and boosting CPI from this point would likely soon force the Fed into a regime of rapidly raising interest rates, which would kill the recovery and engender a severe recession.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Gold Miners: Last of the Summer Wine / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
Autumn is just around the corner, and while the precious metals tasted some success most recently, the medium-term is still set for a downtrend.
With Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sticking to his dovish guns and U.S. nonfarm payrolls elongating the central bank’s perceived taper timeline, gold, silver, and mining stocks were extremely happy campers. However, with event-driven rallies much more semblance than substance, I warned on Sep. 7 that the rollercoaster of emotions would likely end in tears.
I wrote:
With the 2013 analogue leading the gold miners down an ominous path, the HUI Index and the GDX ETF have rallied by roughly 8% off their recent lows. However, identical developments occurred in 2013, and neither bout of optimism invalided their bearish medium-term outlooks.
And after the GDX ETF and the GDXJ ETF (our profitable short position) plunged by 5.35% and 6.98% respectively last week, summertime sadness confronted the precious metals. Likewise, with more melancholy moves likely to materialize over the medium term, gold, silver, and mining stocks should hit lower lows during the autumn months.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
How does product development affect a company’s market value? / Companies / SME
Any company strives to serve its customers and make itself sustainable to achieve its goals and missions. By launching new products, an organization can meet the seasonal requirements of customers in the market. It’s not viable to remain within the traditional product lines and expect them to sell for years at an end. On the contrary, it’s necessary to introduce new, improved products to enhance efficiency and improve profitability. Innovation is paramount to company success, as customers are becoming more demanding and savvier. Entrepreneurs need an edge to survive and, most importantly, stand out.
If products are more attractive to customers, sales spur and lead to business growth. Product development plays a key role in the growth strategy of a firm. Not surprisingly, it influences the market value of a business. Why does market value matter, anyway? Because it eliminates ambiguity and uncertainty when it comes to determining how much the company is really worth. Market value highlights the value to investors in the marketplace, offering transparency and clarity to share buyers and sellers alike.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Types of Investment Property to Become Familiar with / Housing-Market / Buy to Let
Real estate offers the opportunity to make money through rental income, appreciation, and profits generated by business activities. Nevertheless, you have to be ready to put down a considerable amount of money to begin investing. Property can be expensive. Therefore, you should plan your acquisition carefully and take into account taxes, repairs, utilities, and other mandatory expenses. There’s more risk involved in owning an investment property as opposed to investing in the stock market. To set yourself up for success, make sure that you’re ready to take the leap. Real estate investing isn’t for the faint of heart.
There are three main types of investment property you need to know. You’ll need a team of professionals to guide you through the buying process. If something were to go wrong, you should be able to reach out to the apt contractors to help you solve the issue in a timely manner. It’s recommended to do your homework. Do some research when putting together the team. Read as many online reviews as you can and consider asking friends and family for recommendations.
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Is This the "Kiss of Death" for the Stocks Bull Market? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
Stock market prices usually decline after this occurs
Many market observers believe that the catalyst for the next bear market will be a piece of extraordinarily bad news.
However, Elliott Wave International has shown time and again that the stock market's price action is often "entirely detached from what most people assume are causal conditions."
Examples of stocks rising when the news is bad -- and falling when the news is good -- are so numerous that a library shelf of books would be inadequate to show a fair representation of them. For the most recent vivid example, just think back to March 2020, when the first wave of the pandemic hit and shuttered the entire global economy -- yet, stocks (around the world!) happily found a bottom and haven't looked back since.
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Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Where Are the Stock Market Fireworks? / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2021
Stocks and credit markets gave up promising opening gains, and it was only commodities that had a really good day. Seems like the beneficiary of inflation would be indeed real assets as I had been harping about so often, and that the S&P 500 is starting to run into headwinds. Not on account of taper expectations, which appear to have been indeed pushed to the Nov-Dec time window, but thanks to inflation. Whenever you start seeing heavyweights roll over to the downside, it‘s time to pay attention.
Yes, enter tech behemoths – worthwhile to watch. Stagflation would be a powerful environment to facilitate stock market declines – who could forget the 1974-5 slump? Real assets stand positioned to reap the rewards as the cost push inflation that I‘ve been discussing since early this year, is very much intact. Throw in some serious supply chain disruptions that won‘t be resolved this year, and all you end up with, is waiting for precious metals to catch up in the commodities appreciation – bringing in very nice profits in oil and copper… My total portfolio performance chart is at a fresh high!
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Play-To-Earn Cryptocurrency Games Gain More and Is Set to Expand / Currencies / Gambling
It’s been a dream of many people to be able to play video games and earn money for a living. This hasn’t been an impossible road to take since the start of the internet and especially when game streaming became popular. However, not really everyone who streams the games that they play could really make a living out of it.Today, however, we can already say that anybody can already start earning money by playing games and this is thanks to cryptocurrency gaming. To many, crypto gaming may just be about playing casino games on the top BTC casinos online but this isn’t just the case anymore. While playing at crypto casinos can still be a decent way to earn extra money, gaming companies are now looking into NFT-based games with the play-to-earn scheme too.
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