Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Trillion-dollar US infrastructure plan will draw in plenty of metal / Commodities / Infrastructure

By: Richard_Mills

Donald Trump appears to have torn a page from Ahead of the Herd’s manual for recharging the US economy. 

In an earlier article we said what the global economy really needs, in this low-growth, spending-stalled environment brought about by the pandemic, is a push - something big that will attract huge amounts of investment, and workers. As we have suggested, this could be a massive infrastructure spending program, on the scale of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal”.

Not coincidentally - we like to think Trump reads AOTH - the administration is said to be preparing a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure proposal – some of the dollars are geared toward 5G/ Broadband - as a way of spurring the world’s largest economy back to life. US GDP growth fell 5% in the first quarter and when second-quarter economic output figures are released, they will be far worse, likely double-digit.  

Fortune Magazine reported A preliminary version being prepared by the Department of Transportation would reserve most of the money for traditional infrastructure work, like roads and bridges, but would also set aside funds for 5G wireless infrastructure and rural broadband, the people said...

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

WARNING: The U.S. Banking System ISN’T as Strong as Advertised / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2020

By: MoneyMetals

Despite a year of tumult on Wall Street and Main Street, the banking system seems to be holding up remarkably well… for now.

Whereas previous financial crises were marked by a surge in bank failures, hardly any have gone under so far in 2020. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reports that only 1% of FDIC-insured banks are on the “problem list” for financial weakness.

"Banks are safe," according to FDIC chair Jelena McWilliams. "There are no concerns for depositors."

No concerns? We beg to differ.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

All That Glitters When the World Jitters is Probably Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The economic pressures and concerns within the global markets have not abated just because the US Fed has ramped up the printing presses. Inversely, the stock market price levels may be elevated based on a false expectation of a quick recovery and of future expectations that may be very unrealistic.

In terms of technical analysis, Gold has set up a very interesting sideways basing pattern after recently breaking above a major resistance channel near $1720.  Our research team believes the recent base in Gold, near $1720 to $1740 is setting up just like the 2005 to 2007 peak in the US stock markets – just before the Credit Crisis hit in 2008.  We believe the similarities of the current and past events, in price and in technical/fundamental data, are strangely similar.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Making Sense of Crude Oil Price Narrow Trading Range / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Nadia_Simmons

We previously wrote that while it was tempting to bet on crude oil’s prices due to their weakness, it was not a good idea from the risk to reward point of view, as black gold didn’t invalidate the breakout above the early-March high. And it was definitely a good idea not to enter a short position then either – crude oil moved higher since that time.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Elon Musk Mocks Nikola Motors as “Dumb.” Is He Right? / Companies / Auto Sector

By: John_Mauldin

Justin Spittler :  “Staggeringly dumb.”

That’s the latest insult Elon Musk threw at Nikola Motors (NKLA), which has rocketed a crazy 500%+ since April. Love him or hate him, no one denies Musk is a genius. He built Tesla (TSLA)—easily the world’s most innovative car company—from scratch. When he’s not running Tesla, he works a “side job” as a rocket scientist for his private space company, SpaceX.

So, you’d think only fools would bet against Musk. But that’s what we’ve been doing lately. No, we haven’t been “shorting” Tesla. Instead, we invested big in hydrogen energy—including Nikola Motors.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

MICROSOFT Transforming from PC Software to Cloud Services AI, Deep Learning Giant / Companies / Microsoft

By: N_Walayat

This analysis will now seek to update potential buying levels for AI stocks during Q2 of where stocks could trade down to in terms of technical support levels during the anticipated general stock market correction of about 15% that should be imminent.

Top 5 AI Stocks are all primary, the ordering of which is arbitrary for instance of the 3 Google, Amazon and Microsoft it's a toss up of which comes first. For instance If I was compiling the list today then I would likely put Amazon at No1 ahead of Google. So keep in mind that the rankings are more in terms of primary, Secondary and Tertiary rather than their number order.

3. MICROSOFT (MSFT)

I have owned microsoft stocks for over 2 decades! So a favourite of sorts. Yes it was dead for a decade but as soon as the world started waking up to AI in the Mid 2010's it started rocketing higher, literally going parabolic, a trend that continues to this day!

Monday, June 22, 2020

Stock Market Decline Resumes / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: Andre_Gratian

Current Position of the Market

SPX: Long-term trend – Having rallied well past a .618 retracement of the decline into March 2020, it is time to consider the possibility that the retracement was only an interruption of the bull market which originated in 2009.

Intermediate trend – Down into mid-July

Analysis of the short-term trend is done daily with the help of hourly charts.  It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discusses the course of longer market trends. 

Monday, June 22, 2020

Excellent Silver Seasonal Buying Opportunity Lies Directly Ahead / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Dimitri_Speck

In recent issues of Seasonal Insights, my colleague Tea Muratovic and I shared our analysis of global stock markets with you.

Today I want to put a popular precious metal under the magnifying glass for you: silver.

Silver, often referred to as the "little brother" of gold, has a particularly interesting seasonal pattern I would like to show to you.

Monday, June 22, 2020

Where is the US Dollar trend headed ? / Currencies / US Dollar

By: readtheticker

where-is-the-us-dollar-trend-headedJesse Livermore said we consider all matters concerning the market, this includes demand and supply fundamentals, general conditions and price patterns.

A high US dollar is the mighty destroyer of all, it explodes foreign debt and risk assets, and it will likely change US politics.

The chart below supports a greater supply of US dollars and a bearish dollar view.

The green line is the spread between the German 10 yr interest rate versus the US 10 yr interest rates, and it is showing bearish pressure on the US dollar. The black line is the trend of the US twin deficits and the US dollar as followed this trend over a very long time and the forecast is for deeper deficits into 2020-22.

Monday, June 22, 2020

It’s Time for Private Cryptocurrency Boards / Currencies / BlockChain

By: Steve_H_Hanke

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, currencies around the world took a deep dive. To name but a few casualties: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. Not only have the currencies in these countries plunged, but the burden of their foreign debts has soared. Exchange-rate instability is a curse.

Indeed, currency instability, banking crises, soaring inflation, sovereign-debt defaults, and economic booms and busts all have a common source: exchange-rate instability. The ills induced by exchange-rate instability bring with them calls for policy changes. Karl Schiller, the German Finance Minister from 1966 until 1972, understood this simple fact. Schiller’s mantra was clear and uncompromising: “Stability is not everything, but without stability, everything is nothing.” Well, Schiller’s mantra is my mantra.

Monday, June 22, 2020

Most Shoppers have Stopped Following Supermarket Arrows, is Coughing the New Racism? / Politics / Shopping

By: N_Walayat

Eliza's first shop in 3 months at Tesco, weekly grocery shop. Eliza may be 5 but she knows what the arrows are for, it's simple FOLLOW THE ARROWS! Though most shoppers don't! Perhaps people have got bored with following the rules so choose to ignore. Though one should not make the mistake of pointing out the arrows to others, as it's not likely to work.

However, there appears to be a new manifestation of racism, coughing at asian people as they walk past! It happened TWICE to me on this one shop! Two middle aged men this time, stand and wait for us to walk past them, then cough, cough!

Has happened before but frequency appears to be increasingly, definetly going to attempt to video such occrences with a body cam of sorts.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Why Investors Should Buy AI Tech Stocks on Stock Market Dips / Companies / AI

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The stock market is finally showing signs of heading for a significant correction after bull run that has seen AI sector stocks retrace virtually all of their corona crash, with the Dow closing sharply lower Thursday to 25,128 that looks like targeting a trend to 23,000, so apt timing for this my latest analysis that seeks to answer why the number one priority for investors should be to accumulate into AI mega-trend stocks, and why one should embrace plunges in the stock market as buying opportunities. Though the tendency to wait for corrections before climbing onboard the AI mega-trend could result in fundamental errors that investors could come to regret for decades to come which is the primary focus of this article that seeks clear away the fog of future uncertainty to map out a trend for AI stocks and to a lesser extent the general stock market indices over the next 15 years!

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Gold Sector Correction is Maturing / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Gary_Tanashian

Gold Stock Seasonal Average

The HUI Gold Bugs index has over the last 2 decades (encompassing both bull and bear markets) tended to bottom in July per stockcharts.com‘s data for the index. A seasonal average is not a directive, but it is a () guide to be factored. Last year gold stocks bottomed in May as we caught what would be a violent upswing. This year I expect the low to be in June or July.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Gold Futures Firepower Mounts / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Zeal_LLC

Gold’s powerful post-stock-panic upleg hasn’t enjoyed buying support from the gold-futures speculators.  These influential traders often drive and even dominate major gold-price trends.  But they’ve been subtly selling into gold’s sharp recent rally.  Their dogged skepticism is actually very bullish for gold in coming months.  Gold-futures speculators are amassing big gold-futures-buying firepower that will be unleashed.

The maelstrom of extreme fear spawned by mid-March’s stock panic even briefly sucked in gold.  It had surged to a 7.1-year secular high of $1675 during the initial weeks of that heavy stock-market selling.  But once that went panic-grade, which is major stock indexes plummeting 20%+ in 2 weeks or less, even gold was dumped in the frantic dash for cash.  Similar to prior panics, gold plunged 12.1% in just 8 trading days.

But that sharp emotional drop was wildly-unjustified fundamentally.  With stock markets burning and the Fed printing crazy-record sums of new money like there’s no tomorrow, gold should’ve been soaring.  So it rapidly V-bounced out of that anomalous stock-panic low, to blast much higher over the next couple months.  Between mid-March to late May, gold surged up 18.7% to a 7.5-year secular high near $1748.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Intel Vs AMD Ryzen - Best CPU Buyers Guide June 2020 - (Gaming, Workstation, Overclocking, Budget) / Personal_Finance / Technology

By: HGR

What are the best processors in terms of value money in June 2020 based on Amazon prices for budget, mid, gaming, high and extreme end desktops after the release of Intels 10th Gen comet lake processors and AMD's leaked specs on it's Zen 2 3000 XT refresh. With the prime contenders for the high end being ther 10900k vs the 3950x.

Firstly it should be noted that Intel processors are in very short supply, very hard to get most of their processors. Whilst AMD's processors are in good supply.

Friday, June 19, 2020

AMAZON (AMZN) Tech Stock for Machine Learning Mega trend Investing / Companies / Amazon

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This analysis will now seek to update potential buying levels for AI stocks during Q2 of where stocks could trade down to in terms of technical support levels during the anticipated general stock market correction of about 15% that should be imminent.

Top 5 AI Stocks are all primary, the ordering of which is arbitrary for instance of the 3 Google, Amazon and Microsoft it's a toss up of which comes first. For instance If I was compiling the list today then I would likely put Amazon at No1 ahead of Google. So keep in mind that the rankings are more in terms of primary, Secondary and Tertiary rather than their number order.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Fibonacci Price Modeling Suggests Massive Resistance Range In US Stock Markets / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The big selloff in the US markets last week (-1600 pts in the Dow Jones) on the comments from the US Fed aligns with previous Fibonacci Price Trigger levels throughout the early portion of 2020 to create a massive Support/Resistance range in the markets according to our research team.  It is very likely that the big selloff bar from last week will also establish a minor Support/Resistance range within the price range of that big selloff bar.

One of the key technical components of our Fibonacci Price Modeling system is that it acts as a trend following system, projects key target and reversal levels, and also highlights key trigger levels as price rotates up and down in different time frames.  The benefit we derive from this modeling system is that we can interpret the data into various forms of key technical factors for our friends, followers, and members.

Friday, June 19, 2020

“AI Healthcare” Stocks Will Mint the World’s First Trillionaire / Companies / Healthcare Sector

By: John_Mauldin

You won’t read about these stocks in the mainstream media. The average investor doesn’t even know they exist. But don’t let that fool you: because a small “hidden” group of companies is figuring out how to merge artificial intelligence with medical technology.

I call them “AI healthcare stocks.” In a minute, I’ll tell you why they’re hands down the #1 way to make big money in AI stocks. But first you must understand: not everyone’s excited about AI.

Some folks are even scared of it. They think AI could eventually try to wipe out the human race. They imagine human-like robots like Ava from the film Ex Machina or Skynet—the computer program that tried to wipe out the human race in the Terminator movies.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Worse than expected coronavirus contraction in ASEAN-4 Economies / Economics / Coronavirus Depression

By: Dan_Steinbock

In the coming months, success or failure to contain the global pandemic and overcome the coronavirus contraction has potential to make or break the promise of Southeast Asia in the early 21st century.

By the end of the 2nd quarter, the total number of confirmed cases may total close to 10 million, while deaths could surpass 225,000. What was an epidemic in China at the turn of January and February grew into a pandemic in the 1st quarter, due to the belated and inadequate mobilizations in the US and Europe.

In early year, the epicenter of the virus was in China and the rest of Asia. By March-April, it had moved to Europe and the United States. As I projected three months ago, global devastation would escalate by summer as the epicenter is shifting to emerging and particularly developing economies.

Friday, June 19, 2020

UK Schools Failure to Reopen Impacts Mental Health of Children Sat at Home Instead of in Classrooms / Politics / Educating Children

By: N_Walayat

Britain's schools are very badly failing children that will have consequences long after covid-19 becomes a paragraph in the history books as the continuing failure to open schools is resulting in untold damage being done to the educational and mental well being of many millions of children across Britain.

UK schools were supposed to open on the 15th of June 2020. Instead most if not ALL schools have only paid lip service towards school openings who have followed local city council dictats of self prophesied covid-19 experts, who it should not be forgotten closed schools about 3 weeks too late to start with thus contributing to the triggering of a huge wave of deaths well beyond the Governments upper estimate of 20,000. Who now with the deaths coming under control have swung in the other extreme direction by refusing to reopen schools.

So that there is no confusion, asking children to check their emails for assignments and online resources does NOT amount to reopening of schools!