Thursday, June 11, 2020

Perceiving Coronavirus as a Disruptive Technology Accelerating Quantum AI Mega-trend / Companies / AI

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The 'scientists' say that viruses are not alive. We'll for something that's 'technically' not alive it sure does behave like it is! Perhaps just as scientists will deem AI to be 'not alive' all the way until they take all of the jobs.

So lets leave the academic world behind, for their moronic obsession's has gotten us into this mess, certainties of solutions adopted by the likes of the UK and US to achieve 'herd immunity' when commonsense would have served our nations far better that of isolating and quarantining all those even suspected of being infected! Such as every flight entering the UK from virus infested China during January and February.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

A 2020 guide to Business Opp Affiliate Marketing / Companies / SME

By: Submissions

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

What Huge US Jobs Number Means For Your Market Positions / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: Chris_Vermeulen

The Huge Non-Farm Payroll number released on Friday, June 5th, shocked the market.  A massive 2.5 million jobs were created in May 2020.  If you were paying attention to the data, you’ll also understand that 1.87 million new jobless claims just last week.  In fact, over the month of May 2020, a total of 12.58 million jobless claims were filed.  Taken into consideration, the new jobs created in May represent less than 20% of the total job losses over the same span of time.

Our researchers believe the jobs number is representative of a phased reopening of many US states and correlates directly with the extended opportunity for further re-engagement of the US economy over time.  The current social unrest taking place throughout the US will likely result in a new spike in COVID-19 cases as well as extended losses for certain businesses. 

The rioting seems to be taking place in more populated states right now – which suggests some real concerns for many of these states in regards to scheduled reopening phases and the potential for a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

New Stocks Bull or Same Old One? / 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 – Up from March 23,2020.

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. 

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Inflation ‘A mirror image of the early 1980s’ / Economics / Inflation

By: Michael_J_Kosares

“To propose a return of inflation is to be inflammatory,” writes Lightman Investment Management’s Rob Burnett in an opinion piece for the Financial Times.  “Investors are committed to a deflationary thesis — and such is their fervor that many believe inflation cannot return in any circumstance. Yet if we look beyond today’s demand shock from the Covid-19 crisis, the forces driving the disinflation of the past 40 years appear to be in retreat. … [T]oday appears like a mirror image of the early 1980s. We have moved from inflation peak to deflation trough.”

Evidence is beginning to mount that the new paradigm Burnett describes – moving from disinflation to inflation – might not be too far off the mark. During the financial crisis that began in 2008, the Fed sterilized its money creation by routing money back to its coffers in the form of commercial bank excess reserves – a strategy that kept the inflation rate from running out of control. As you can see in the first chart, the current level of sterilization, at least in the short term, is greater than what occurred in the 2008-2014 period. At the same time, as you can see in the second chart, the rapid growth in the money supply this time around goes beyond anything that occurred during the prior crisis. Whether or not Burnett is correct and the growth in the money supply translates to price inflation down the road remains to be seen. (Please take note that the growth in the money supply began roughly a year ago – well before the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic.)

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Trump's Final Gamble: From Chinagate to Hybrid Wars / Politics / China US Conflict

By: Dan_Steinbock

The disastrous failure of the Trump administration to contain COVID-19 will result in catastrophic 2nd quarter data. As a result, Trump is risking his re-election on domestic unrest, fatal geopolitics and a global depression.

The cold reality is that the Trump administration learned about the virus already on January 3, when CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield informed Secretary of Health Alex Azar that China had discovered a new coronavirus. Yet no mobilization was initiated until toward late March (see my report here):

Indeed, the Trump White House missed three opportunities to contain the virus outbreak; in January (between CDC alert and WHO’s international emergency), the 1st quarter (between the WHO emergency and the pandemic alert) and the 2nd quarter (since social distancing began 6-8 weeks late and inadequately).

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Silver vs Gold Trend / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The silver price has managed to recover from the Corona crash of 2020 with the price back within it's trading range of $17 to $20. Though contrary to the Silver bugs perma expectations for the Silver price to track the Gold price higher, that's not what usually tends to happen as the below graph illustrates,, which if you have followed my previous Silver analysis articles than you would know this is the expected behaviour of Silver, Gold's volatile and unresponsive to events cheaper cousin.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Argentina, the World’s Biggest Deadbeat Economy / Economics / Argentina

By: Steve_H_Hanke

Borrow, spend, default; lather, rinse, repeat.

On May 22, Argentina failed to meet interest payments on its sovereign debt. With that, the country tipped into default on its $65 billion mountain of foreign debt. If that’s not enough, Argentina’s provinces are addicted to debt and are buried in it, too. The province of Buenos Aires is already in default, and Cordoba, La Rioja, Salta, Rio Negro, and Chubut have also indicated that they plan to restructure their debt as well.

This is not the first time that Argentina has stiffed its creditors. No, it’s the ninth time. And it’s not Argentina’s largest default, either. Indeed, Argentina set the world’s default record when it defaulted on $95 billion in external debt in 2001. The bottom line is clear: Argentina is hands down the world’s biggest deadbeat.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Central Banks Have Jumped the Shark, May Even Buy Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: MoneyMetals

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome back Michael Pento president and founder of Pento Portfolio Services. Michael is a well-known money manager, market commentator, and author of the book, The Coming Bond Market Collapse: How to Survive the Demise of the U.S. Debt Market. He's been a regular guest with us over the years, and it's always a pleasure to have him on with us.

Michael, thanks for the time again today and welcome back.

Michael Pento: Thank you so much for having me back on Mike.

Mike Gleason: Well, Michael, it's been a few months since we've had you on last and just a little bit has been going on in the world. COVID-19 has hit the states to say the least and caused major disruptions in the economy. Governors have instituted stay-home orders. Tens of millions of people have filed for unemployment. Now we're seeing major rioting and social unrest in many cities throughout the country over the police killing of a black man in Minnesota last week.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Investors Confused as Governors Spur Protests While Keeping Others Locked Down / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2020

By: MoneyMetals

A violent and chaotic week in America’s cities was met with little apparent concern on Wall Street. For the most part, the stock market continued on its merry way higher.

Precious metals markets, meanwhile, are giving back some of their recent gains.

It’s no surprise that silver encountered some resistance at $19. In fact, on May 26th we had pointed to that very level being the next important target for silver in weekly Money Metals News Alert we send out via email every Monday morning.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

US Red Shirts and the Boogaloo / Politics / US Politics

By: Richard_Mills

The race riots seen around the United States over the past few days are troubling for sure, but they are nothing new. 

If there is one thing uniting the 50 American states of the union, historically, it is divisions over race, primarily Caucasian versus African American. It is disturbing to note that 157 years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and many decades after the race riots of the 1960s ushered in an era of equal opportunity and affirmative action, the United States is still struggling with questions of justice and inequality pertaining to its large black population. 

Yet there is a marked difference between what is happening now compared to 100 years ago. During the period leading up to the 1920s, it was usually white people who instigated and participated in race riots. The purpose of these violent demonstrations was to assert white dominion rather than to express black anger and frustration. 

Monday, June 08, 2020

Gold Stocks Healthy Upleg / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2020

By: Zeal_LLC

The gold miners’ stocks just rolled over into a correction, raising concerns about the staying power of their massive post-panic upleg.  These higher prevailing gold prices have driven very-strong fundamentals at the gold miners.  But they are entering the seasonally-weak summer doldrums.  And current sentiment and technicals play major roles in governing when uplegs remain healthy or ready to give up their ghosts.

The GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF remains the leading and dominant benchmark for this small contrarian sector.  Its $14.3b in net assets this week were a colossal 33.2x bigger than those of its next-largest 1x-long major-gold-miners-ETF competitor!  GDX’s only real rival is its little-brother GDXJ mid-tier gold-miners ETF, which is only about one-third of GDX’s size.  The GDX gold stocks have sure had a wild ride.

Normally the major gold miners of GDX leverage material gold moves by 2x to 3x.  Gold stocks’ excess gains during gold uplegs are necessary to compensate traders for miners’ big additional risks on top of gold-price fluctuations.  These include operational risks at individual mines, geopolitical risks in countries hosting gold mines, financial risks from hedging and currency fluctuations, along with many other risks.

Monday, June 08, 2020

This Is the End of College as We Know It / Companies / Education

By: John_Mauldin

May was supposed to be a time of celebration. Normally, it’s when students across the country graduate from college and prepare to enter the “real world.”

This year was different. Coronavirus has shut down most colleges and universities. Last month, it was reported that 9 out of every 10 students in the world stopped going to school. That’s about 1.5 billion kids!

It’s anyone’s guess when colleges will reopen. But one thing’s for sure: the US university system will never return to its old glory.

Unlike airlines, hotels, and cruise ships, many colleges will NOT bounce back after coronavirus fades away. While they might not admit it, many colleges have already shut their doors for good because their business model never made sense in the first place.

Monday, June 08, 2020

Will Great Unlock Push Gold Prices Down? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

As Great Lockdown was positive for the gold prices, the Great Unlock will be bad, right? We invite you to read our today’s article about the Great Unlock and find out whether it really must be negative for the gold prices.

It’s all government’s fault, right? After all, the Great Lockdown was introduced by the federal and state governments introduced, wasn’t? Well, not quite.

Before I will explain why, let me clear one thing up: I’m a liberty lover and I’m skeptical about the government regulations. And the economic shutdown was obviously untenable – the only reason to shut down the economy was to buy some time to prepare the healthcare system for better handling of the epidemic. So, it’s good that the Great Lockdown is ending.

Monday, June 08, 2020

Silver/Gold Ratio Hits Target; About Those Inflation Indicators / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Gary_Tanashian

The NFTRH plan is and has been that the gold mining sector, due to the fundamentals implied by the handy graphic below, could eventually lead a world full of inflatables higher. The miners, leveraging gold’s out performance to most everything else during liquidity crises and even deflation, move first and draw in the inflationist bugs later. If the macro goes inflationary the miners will likely continue to perform well (ref. the 2003-2008 period) but would no longer be the go-to sector.

Monday, June 08, 2020

LOCKDOWN 2020: Everybody Was Kung Flu Fighting / Politics / Pandemic

By: Jeff_Berwick

Suddenly, we’re not "in this together" anymore.

Suddenly, it’s "every man for himself".

Especially when it comes to deliberately destroying old ladies’ shops in the name of Anarchy!

Larken Rose, that "angry white guy with a gun", says it best:

"One common misconception about anarchy is that it means "every man for himself" or "survival of the fittest," where everyone has to be selfish and self-sufficient, where there is no real cooperation or organization, and where people all behave like violent, selfish animals."

Monday, June 08, 2020

Think Coronavirus Caused the Stock Market Crash? These Two Charts Beg to Differ / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2020

By: EWI

Just about everyone thinks the coronavirus pandemic slammed global stock prices in February and March. Entire countries shut down; businesses closed up shop; unemployment soared. People stopped spending money beyond the essentials, so conventional wisdom would indeed expect stocks to slide as a result. Yet consider the below chart of the Shanghai Composite, China's primary stock index.

Monday, June 08, 2020

Russia: How Financial "Complacency" Morphed into "Crisis" / Stock-Markets / Russia

By: EWI

It's been a tough year for Russia financially.

Of course, there's been the big collapse in oil prices, plus -- just like many other global stock indexes -- Russian stocks are well off their highs.

That's quite in contrast to 2019, when the RTSI index, a U.S. dollar-based index of 50 Russian companies, climbed 29%.

Shortly after registering that performance, Elliott Wave International's January Global Market Perspective, a monthly publication which covers 40-plus worldwide markets, showed this chart and said:

Monday, June 08, 2020

The Effects of the Economic Shutdown on the UK Gambling Industry / Companies / Gambling

By: Submissions

Sunday, June 07, 2020

Gold, Stocks & The Pandemic: A Powerful Contracyclical Play In Action / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Dan_Amerman

While the use of gold to protect against inflation is well known, it has other investment attributes that are potentially even more valuable, and this is particularly true in times of crisis.

In this analysis, we will examine the relative performance of gold and stocks (as represented by the S&P 500) between early February and late May, as the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic shutdowns transformed global economies and markets.

The short term relationship that we will find is an almost perfect match with what fifty years of financial history shows us is perhaps gold's most valuable investment attribute over the long term, which is its contracyclical relationship with stock prices.