Wednesday, December 04, 2019

America’s “Full Employment” Hides a Dirty Secret / Economics / Employment

By: John_Mauldin

Should just being “employed” make people/workers happy?
On one level, any job is better than no job. But we also derive much of our identities and self-esteem from our work.

If you aren’t happy with it, you’re probably not happy generally.

Unhappy people can still vote and are often easy marks for shameless politicians to manipulate. Their spending patterns change, too.

So it ends up affecting everyone and everything.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Will Labour Government Plant More Tree's than Council's Like Sheffield Fell? / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019

By: N_Walayat

Labour's manifesto promise is to plant 2 billion trees by 2040 is clearly a figure plucked out of this air much like most of Labour's manifesto. Still if Labour managed to achieve even half that target that it would be an huge achievement. However there is a fly in the ointment and that is the behaviour of inept Labour councils across Britain such as Sheffield's who over the past few years have been on a TREE FELLING rampage, trees that have been felled in their thousands are typically equivalent in volume to about 200 saplings planted, many of which fail to survive.

Sheffield has seen virtually every tree lined street hit by chainsaw massacres.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

What the UK Economy GDP Growth Rate Predicts for General Election 2019 / ElectionOracle / UK Economy

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It's the economy stupid! coined by Bill Clinton's strategist James Carville in 1992. The party in government tends to lose elections to the opposition on the basis of where the economy stands at the time of the general election. So whilst Boris Johnson's "Get Brexit Done" headline grabbing mantra sounds like it could deliver the Tories enough votes to win. However, if the economy is on the slide then all slogans and promises will be ignored, much as was the case for Theresa May's 2017 all about getting Brexit done election campaign.

So the focus of this analysis is where the economy stands and it's direction of travel relative to where economy stood in the run up to the June 2017 General Election as one of the 9 key election forecasting lessons learned from the outcome of the 2017 general election.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Gold, Silver and Stock Market Big Picture: Seat Belts Tightened / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2019

By: The_Gold_Report

Sector expert Michael Ballanger offers his latest insights into the markets and his investment strategy as 2019 winds down.

"Gold is money; everything else is credit." —J.P. Morgan

Dating back to the mid-80s, and usually around the end of November, I begin to formulate strategies and portfolios looking out to the upcoming New Year, taking into account technical, fundamental and geopolitical factors in an effort to avoid career-ending draw-downs while posting a respectable degree of performance.

Being a player in both the commodity and equity arenas, it is no surprise that over the past forty years of covering precious metals and stocks, the landscape has changed in a manner that defies the term "evolution." A better term to describe the metamorphosis in the credit and equity markets, particularly since 2009, would be the use of the term "deformation," as government-sponsored intervention has thrown a toxic curve ball at the analytical batter's box. The days where charts of the Dow Jones and five-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth could be coupled with few bank-generated reports on the economy to arrive at a bullish/bearish stance are gone forever, joining the dodo bird and human traders on the list of extinct species. Whereas the two primary drivers of market volatility used to be fear and greed, the only driver left today is policy, as in central bank usage of financial markets to govern final demand.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Elephant in the Room: Why Nobody Talks About Ballooning Federal Deficits / Interest-Rates / US Debt

By: MoneyMetals

The presidential race will mesmerize Americans over the next 11 months. The country hasn’t been this polarized since the Civil War.

Voters on the left desperately want a story which undermines support for President Trump. They are also searching for a candidate who can actually win.

Many Republicans are outraged about the Deep State and corporate media campaign obsession with unseating a duly elected president – and they worry an avowed socialist could win the Democratic primary and, just possibly, the general election.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Online Presence: What You Need to Know About What Others Know About You / Personal_Finance / Gambling

By: Submissions

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

New Company Tip: How To Turn Prospects into Customers with CRM Tech / Companies / SME

By: Submissions

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

About To Relive The 2007 US Housing Market Real Estate Crash Again? / Housing-Market / US Housing

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Does history repeat itself?  Are price patterns and chart patterns reliable enough to suggest that a global Real Estate market collapse may be set up?  What would it take for another Real Estate collapse to take place in today’s global market?

First, let’s start with this simple chart highlighting the “Bear Flag” setup from 2007 and the current 2019 Bear Flag setup.  This price pattern was enough of an early warning sign for our research team to run into our offices and tell us of the exciting pattern they just identified regarding Real Estate and what they thought could happen.  We listened to them share their ideas and concepts of how we have 11 months to go before the 2020 US Presidential election takes place and how higher risk delinquencies and foreclosures are starting to spike.  They suggested the political theater of the global markets and US election cycle will likely distract from the weakening economic cycle which could present enough “smoke and mirrors” to keep investors’ attention away from this potential collapse in the housing market.

Much like a magician attempts to distract you just long enough to pull of their new trick, could the political theater, global economic news cycles and the never-ending battle in Washington DC be just enough of a distraction that skilled traders miss this critical setup?  We hope not.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

How Far Will Gold Reach Before the Upcoming Reversal? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: P_Radomski_CFA

Just when most traders thought that the previous week is going to end in the red for gold, something exceptional happened. The USD Index reversed after rallying, and gold rallied sharply in response. In the end, gold ended the week in the green by forming a clear weekly reversal.

That was actually the second weekly reversal that we saw recently. Why is this important? Because of what happened shortly after we saw the opposite of it not so long ago.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Crude Oil Price Sliding Faster Than You Can Blink / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Nadia_Simmons

Crude oil futures declined sharply on Friday. The steep slide’s result was a breakdown below the lower border of the rising green trend channel. As the prices closed the day below the formation, it’s clearly a bearish development.

Despite this setback, the bulls opened the week with a green gap, which has triggered modest improvement in the following hours. The bulls are fighting to invalidate the earlier breakdown below the green trend channel, and have reached the lower border of the blue consolidation on intraday basis. Prices have pulled back since though, and are currently trading at around $56.00.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Is The Current Stock Market Rally A True Valuation Rally or Euphoria? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Our research team has been warning that the US stock market price rally over the past few months has been more of a zombie-land price rally than a true valuation rally.  Our researchers believe the continued push higher has been more about capital seeking safety away from foreign risk and into US Dollar based assets than it has been about anything fundamental or valuation based.  Over the past few days, our researchers identified another rally like this that happened recently and wanted to highlight the eventual outcome of this type of Zombie-Rally. Before you continue, take a couple of seconds and join our free trend signals email list.

Zombie-Rallies happen in the market when there are really no other alternatives but to “keep doing what seems to have been successful over the past few months or years”.  A good example of this is the DOT COM rally that continued to push higher and higher even though investors and traders could clearly see the wheels were coming off the train and companies were not able to achieve profits to measure up to proper valuations.  This is a measure of GREED becoming a driving force behind investor sentiment.  Who’s going to go against the markets when the trend bias is continuing to push higher and the risks of shorting far outweigh the risks associated with following the herd.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Why Shale Oil Not Viable at $45WTI Anymore, OPEC Can Dictate Price Again / Commodities / Shale Oil and Gas

By: Andrew_Butter

Why Shale was once Viable at $45WTI but it’s not anymore. That’s why OPEC can dictate the price again.

• Some shale operators now say they can’t make money at $55; so they are cutting-back. But in 2017 when WTI averaged $50; output-growth was 60% higher than today. How come?
• In 2015, five-hundred frac-spreads, bought and paid for; some from profits, many at fire-sale; were idle; so day-rates plunged; and so, helped by multi-pads and cheap sand, shale re-booted.
• In June 2019 all those spreads were working.  But now, for shale to continue to grow, more are needed. Except at $55 operators can’t pay the pumpers the day-rates they need to buy new.
• CAT is crying and Halliburton is stacking; holding-out for better rates. Rig count has plunged; there’s no point drilling if you can’t find a cheap frac-spread to complete.
• Now OPEC & Co can push the price up to $75 WTI without fear of sparking a third boom. But they may make the mistake they made in 2015; trying to kill-off shale. If they do, they will fail.

Over the past year the penny that shale-oil output growth was going down, not up, finally dropped for most commentators (1-to-7). Although EIA, IEA, OPEC and Rystad Energy are all sticking with their predictions for a 900,000 bpd or so build in shale production in 2020 (8-to-10). They say the slump in growth which started in June 2018, was because of pipeline constraints in Permian (11). But those were fixed in December 2018, yet output-growth kept going down.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Lib Dem Election Dodgy Leaflets - Sheffield Hallam Battle General Election 2019 / ElectionOracle / General Election 2019

By: N_Walayat

Here's examples of dodgy Lib Dem leaflets being posted into the letter boxes of Sheffield voters. Especially those living in the Hallam constituency where there is a battle between Labour and the Lib Dems that is likely to see Labour lose their seat to the Lib Dems after the disastrous term of Jared O' Mara. That follows the disaster that is the city council and it's policy on felling thousands of Sheffield's street trees at a time of climate catastrophe.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Land Rover Discovery Sport Brake Pads Uneven Wear Dash Warning Message at 2mm Mark / ConsumerWatch / Land Rover

By: HGR

If you own a Land Rover Discovery Sport then your likely going to get a Brake Pads Worn dash warning a lot earlier than you were expecting to do because of uneven wear as this video illustrates of what to expect when you own and drive a land rover discovery sport, that here gave a Brake pads worn dash warning at less than 17,000 miles driven, which is set against many cars that can go for as long as 70,000 miles before they need new brake pads.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

The Rise and Evolution of Bitcoin / Currencies / Bitcoin

By: Steve_Marks

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Virtual games and sport, which has one related to the other / Personal_Finance / Virtual Reality

By: Submissions

Monday, December 02, 2019

The Narrative About Gold is Changing Again / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

Teaser: Let’s face it, we live in a world of radical uncertainty. Yet we’re supposed to make perfectly rational decisions – so, how do we cope with the unknown? We tell narratives, and form our decisions around them! Let’s explore the narratives in the financial markets for it reveals their importance to the gold market.

Let’s face it, we live in a world of radical uncertainty. There are not only many known unknowns in the world, but the same can’t be said of unknown unknowns. We simply do not known what we don’t know. In other words, the problem is not risk. The notion of risk implies that we can compute probability. This is what the mainstream economists assume: we know the odds, so there is a single optimizing solution to each problem. But the real issue is that we do not know the probabilities, because we even do not know how the world works. You see, the probability applies in a casino but not in a real world. You are certainly aware of substantial difference between roulette or weather forecasting, and the scope of new inventions or the prospect of war, elections or the asset prices. As Keynes wrote (at least once we agree with him), “About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know.”

Monday, December 02, 2019

Stock Market Liquidity & Volume Diminish – What Next? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019

By: Chris_Vermeulen

As the Thanksgiving holiday passes, traders should begin to understand that liquidity and volume in the US and global markets typically begin to diminish over the next 30 to 45+ days.  Typically, between mid-November and early January, trading volumes weaken dramatically as institutional and retail investors move away from the markets in preparation for year-end celebrations and tax planning.

Historically, the month of November is vastly more positive than negative in terms of overall price action.  Over the past 21 years in the NQ, a total of 15 months have resulted in an average of +122.75 pts whereas only 6 months have resulted in an average of -194.83 pts.  This suggests the downside price moves, when they happen, are nearly 40% larger than the average upside price move for November.  So far for 2019, the NQ is +320.25 pts for November 2019.

Monday, December 02, 2019

A Complete Guide To Finding The Best CFD Broker / Personal_Finance / Learn to Trade

By: Sumeet_Manhas

Monday, December 02, 2019

See You On The Dark Side Of The Moon / Politics / Social Issues

By: James_Quinn

And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

Brain Damage, Pink Floyd