Tuesday, January 01, 2019
Gold’s Leading Indicators Looking Better / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Although yours truly has yet to completely jump on the bull bandwagon (which has revved up recently), I cannot ignore the positive fundamental and technical developments for precious metals.
On the fundamental side, the market is essentially pricing in no hikes for 2019 and the start of rate cuts in 2020. For Gold, that is a huge improvement from just a few months ago.
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Monday, December 31, 2018
The Bitcoin BTC Collapse of 2018, Trend Outlook 2019 / Currencies / Bitcoin
2018 was the year the bitcoin crypto bubble burst that witnessed the bitcoin price first collapse to a floor of $6000, from which each attempted bounce failed to generate any follow through, and the longer the failure for a breakout higher continued then the greater the probability that the price would eventually break lower, below the $6000 floor. Which is what transpired during November that saw Bitcoin plunge to a new low of $3,100 by Mid December, a far cry from the fantasy of first revisiting $20k and then $50k that a naive 'manipulated' Bitcoin community had pinned their hopes and dreams on whilst immersed in an endless feedback loop of perma bull bitcoin pump mania commentary, that was the mainstay of the internet during 2018, whilst the manipulators were dumping their holdings onto the naive players. Just like what the pump and dumpers have been doing with penny stocks for over 100 years!
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Monday, December 31, 2018
Happy New Year 2019 From the Market Oracle / sitenews / Financial Markets 2019
The Market Oracle Wishing a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2019 to all our readers.
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Monday, December 31, 2018
How to Fund Trumps Border Wall While Saving Lives / Politics / US Politics
President Trump and Congressional Democrats have decided to enliven the Christmas season with a game of chicken over President Trump’s proposed “border wall.” As a result, the federal government is partly shut down until the issue is resolved.
The President wants $5 billion to start building the wall. Democrats have offered just $1.6 billion. If the problem truly is money and not that the Democrats oppose a wall under any circumstances, there is a place in the federal budget to find all the money the President wants while saving thousands of lives a year in the process.
More than 700,000 Americans are afflicted with kidney failure. Of those, almost 30 percent live with transplant kidneys with the remaining 70 percent on dialysis. Under a 1972 law, the federal government pays for kidney dialysis for every American whose private insurance does not cover treatment. In 2016, the latest year for which data are available, Medicare spent $35.4 billion on patients with kidney failure (read: end stage renal disease).
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Monday, December 31, 2018
China’s 2019 Economic Growth Outlook / Economics / China Economy
As China’s growth seems to be slowing, some observers see the country amid a “severe downturn.” As they mistake China’s secular deceleration with cyclical fluctuations, they miss the rapid increase in Chinese living standards.Amid the Christmas meltdown, the Dow Jones plunged to less than 22,000, the lowest since September 2017. Thereafter, it soared over 1,000 points; the biggest single-day point gain ever. Nevertheless, it has declined 4,000 points in two months.
It is this historical market volatility associated with the Trump administration that now overshadows world economy and China. In recent weeks, the U.S. economy has become increasingly exposed to policy mistakes and drastic market fluctuations.
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Monday, December 31, 2018
The Stock Market Plunge Protection Team, The Fed & The Investor Costs / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
The "Plunge Protection Team" is the colloquial name for the Working Group on Financial Markets (WGFM). The Working Group was established by the executive order of President Reagan in 1988, in the aftermath of the stock market plunge of October, 1987.
The group reports to the President, and the official members of the group include the Secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the SEC, and the chairman of the CFTC. In other words, the group members are the four most powerful financial officials in the United States. In practice, the committee can be composed of senior aides and officials that have been designated by those top officials.
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Monday, December 31, 2018
The Stock Market Made a Sharp Reversal Last Week. What’s Next / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
The stock market is making an oversold bounce right now, and is stuck at its fibonacci retracement (23.6%). The standard target for a bounce is 38.2% – 50%
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Monday, December 31, 2018
Ultimate Guide for ISA Stocks & Shares / Personal_Finance / ISA's
What are ISA Stocks & Shares?
Individual Savings Accounts (ISA) Stocks and Shares is an investment account that is tax efficient and allows you to invest your money into a wide range of investments including Open-ended investment companies, Investment trusts, unit trusts, corporate and government bonds. It also gives you an option to buy shares of individual companies and put them in your Individual Savings Account.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Crypto Fund / Currencies / Bitcoin
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
Cyclical Assets vs. Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Cyclical Assets vs. Gold
In January of 2018 we noted a cyclical leader (Semiconductor Fab Equipment) in trouble: Semi Canary Still Chirping, But He’s Gonna Croak in 2018.
We also ran a series of articles featuring the happy-go-lucky 3 Amigos (of the macro) in order to gauge a point when larger herds of investors would become aware of cyclical issues facing the global (including the US) economy. Each Amigo (SPX/Gold Ratio, Long-term Treasury yields and a flattening Yield Curve) would ride with the good times but signal an end to those good times when reaching destination (Amigos 1 & 2 got home but #3, the Yield Curve is still out there). Here is the latest Amigos status update from October: SPX/Gold, 30yr Yields & Yield Curve.
Today I would like to stick with a cyclical macro view, but do so through a lens filtered by the ultimate counter-cyclical asset, gold. As market participants, we are lost if we do not have road maps. That is why we (NFTRH) gauged Semi Equipment vs. Semi (and Tech), the unified messages of the macro Amigo indicators and many other breadth and cyclical indicators along the way to safely guide us to Q4 2018, which has been a challenge for many, but business as usual for those of us who were prepared.
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
Gold, Silver, Bitcoin - Looking Back, Looking Ahead / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
This year has seen a lot of volatility in the financial markets, Bitcoin, precious metals and other commodities. Frank Holmes, CEO and CIO of U.S. Global Investors, takes a look back on the lessons he has learned, and also looks ahead to what 2019 may bring.
The Gold Report: Frank, thanks for joining us today. Let's start with what lessons you've learned from the markets in the past year.
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
Will Coins and Bars Save Gold 2019? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
There is a disconnection between paper and physical gold prices and the former has to catch up with the latter eventually. Myth or fact? We invite you to read our today’s article about demand for gold coins and bars and find out whether it will save the yellow metal.
The best stories are about the conflict between good and evil, or light and dark. In the precious metals market, we also have such a narrative, or actually several variations on the theme. But one of the most popular thread is the ‘disconnection’ between paper and physical gold. The characters are clearly identified: paper market is the powerful Empire while the physical gold is Rebellion, which heroically fights a stronger and more vicious opponent.
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
UK House Prices Bank of England 30% Crash Warning vs Momentum Forecast 2019 / Housing-Market / UK Housing
This is the next analysis in this series to conclude in a new detailed multi-year trend forecast for UK house prices.
So is a NO DEAL 30% crash in UK house prices even possible let alone probable as the Bank of England forecasts? Lets see what momentum suggests is going to happen in 2019.
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
Buying a Land Rover Discovery Sport in 2019 - What You Need to Know / ConsumerWatch / Motoring
Considering buying a Land Rover Discovery Sport in 2019. We'll here is my comprehensive mega review of what's good and bad about the car after having owned and driven a HSE Black trim for over 1 year! All of your questions answered that you would need to ask before buying a Discovery Sport, after having put the car through its paces for a whole year of driving, of what to expect under real world driving conditions, all that is good and bad which includes the following and more -
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
How to Bake a Festive Happy New Year 2019 Chocolate Cake! / Personal_Finance / Educating Children
Anika aged 10 demonstrates how to have fun in the countdown to the New Year by baking an amazing, delicious festive chocolate cake. It's easy so come on kids get your parents involved and lets all get baking fresh chocolate cakes in the countdown to the New Year.
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Sunday, December 30, 2018
Beware the Young Stocks Bear Market! / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
Stock markets are forever cyclical, an endless series of alternating bulls and bears. And after one of the greatest bulls in US history, odds are a young bear is now gathering steam. It is being fueled by record Fed tightening, bubble valuations, trade wars, and mounting political turmoil. Bears are dangerous events driving catastrophic losses for buy-and-hold investors. Different strategies are necessary to thrive in them.
This major inflection shift from exceptional secular bull to likely young bear is new. By late September, the flagship US S&P 500 broad-market stock index (SPX) had soared 333.2% higher over 9.54 years in a mighty bull. That ranked as the 2nd-largest and 1st-longest in US stock-market history! At those recent all-time record highs, investors were ecstatic. They euphorically assumed that bull run would persist for years.
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Saturday, December 29, 2018
How Trump’s Trade Policies Actually Damage the Economy / Economics / Protectionism
We have a temporary truce in the trade war.No one is quite sure if it will last, especially financial markets. After a short-lived rally, they saw little to celebrate in the latest Trump-Xi meeting.
The US and China have serious disputes. And I think tariffs are the wrong tool to solve them. So I’m not optimistic this break will accomplish much either. We’ll see.
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Saturday, December 29, 2018
Universal Basic Income Is Easier Than It Looks / Politics / Benefits
Calls for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) have been increasing, most recently as part of the “Green New Deal” introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and supported in the last month by at least 40 members of Congress. A UBI is a monthly payment to all adults with no strings attached, similar to Social Security. Critics say the Green New Deal asks too much of the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it, but taxing the rich is not what the resolution proposes. It says funding would primarily come from the federal government, “using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks,” among other vehicles.
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Saturday, December 29, 2018
2019: Zombie Markets Before The Fall / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2019
I haven’t really written about finance since April of this year, and given recent fluctuations in what people persist in calling the markets, maybe it’s time. Then again, nothing has changed since that article in April entitled This Is Not A Market. I was right then, and I still am.
Read full article... Read full article...[..] markets need price discovery as much as price discovery needs markets. They are two sides of the same coin. Markets are the mechanism that makes price discovery possible, and vice versa. Functioning markets, that is. Given the interdependence between the two, we must conclude that when there is no price discovery, there are no functioning markets. And a market that doesn’t function is not a market at all.
[..] we must wonder why everyone in the financial world, and the media, is still talking about ‘the markets’ (stocks, bonds et al) as if they still existed. Is it because they think there still is price discovery? Or do they think that even without price discovery, you can still have functioning markets? Or is their idea that a market is still a market even if it doesn’t function?
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Will Japanese Yen Continue to Outperform in 2019? / Currencies / Japanese Yen
Care to guess what is the best performing major currency in 2018? Chances are you will say that it’s the US Dollar. Although US Dollar is doing pretty well this year, the best performing currency is in fact the Japanese Yen. You can see in the table below that despite the Dollar Index rallying 4.9% as of Dec 27th, the Yen has outperformed the U.S Dollar by 1.43%. We can also see the U.S. Dollar has rallied against all the other major currencies, but the Japanese Yen has rallied even at a greater percentage against the same currency. For example, EURUSD has dropped 5.08%, meaning that U.S Dollar has rallied 5.08% against European Dollar this year. However, EURJPY dropped 6.5%, which means that Japanese Yen has rallied at a greater percentage against the European dollar.
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