Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Will Pentagon Audit Lead to Missing Money? / Politics / US Military
Detailing the specifics of waste or even graft that has transpired inside the military-industrial-security complex is a task that could get an investigator killed. The biggest cash cow is wrapped in the flag and exists within a culture where mere scrutiny lays open charges of being unpatriotic. Munitions merchants maintain a special relationship with Generals and Admirals who promote, protect or facilitate the continuous development and deployment of weapon systems. The revolving door of influence rewards compromised legislatures or bureaucrats with executive payoffs when they leave government service.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2018
How Close Are We to Oil Independence? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Almost two years ago, the Saudis acknowledged they had a problem. The price of oil was too low.The oil-rich county had fought a surge in supply from American frackers by opening the taps, and the move pushed oil prices to their lowest level in decades.
Even though the Saudis and other OPEC members still held onto market share, they were bleeding cash because their government budgets were modeled on oil closer to $80 than $30.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2018
5 Reasons Why Forex Trading Is Becoming Such A Big Deal In SA / Currencies / Forex Trading
Forex trading is quite popular in many parts of the world. In South Africa, it was not such a huge deal until recently. Recent years have been marked with so much buzz in the industry and today, it is a very vibrant and promising market. There are many reasons why things have changed. The most important of all has been the spread of success stories from actual traders. Many more people have since then ventured into the business and the top 10 South African forex brokers today continue to gain more clients. Here are the 5 main reasons why forex trading is capturing the attention of the masses.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
What Does These Signs Mean for Stock s & Real Estate? / Stock-Markets / Deflation
We’ve been waiting years for our fixed income trade of a decade…Our target’s at the top of the long-term Treasury Bond Channel near 3% on current 10-year yields. And recently, we advised our Boom & Bust subscribers to buy long-term Treasurys at around 2.99% on the 10-year.
Now we’re thinking it could get better… much better.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Inverted Yield Curve: It’s Definitely Not Different This Time / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
An inverted yield curve occurs when the yield on shorter-dated securities is above that on longer-term bonds; and it has predicted all nine U.S. recessions since 1955, according to Bloomberg. Of course, now that the yield curve is the flattest since 2007—with the 2-10 spread falling to just 45 basis points, from 260bps in 2014--right on cue the carnival barkers on Wall Street have been deployed in full force claiming this key financial barometer is now broken.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Gold’s Near-term Downside Target / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
The price of gold moved considerably lower in the past several weeks, despite the pause that we saw in the final part of the previous week. The yellow metal moved below $1,300 and confirmed this move by several daily closes below it. Moreover, gold confirmed the breakdown below the rising medium-term support line that’s based on the daily closing prices of December 2016 and December 2017 lows. Consequently, gold’s likely to move lower and the question is how low can gold decline in the near term.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Is Political Decentralization the Only Hope for Western Civilization? / Politics / US Politics
A couple of recent articles have once more made the case, at least implicitly, for political decentralization as the only viable path which will begin to solve the seemingly insurmountable political, economic, and social crises which the Western world now faces.
In the last few months, over 3,000 millionaires have fled the hopelessly corrupt and bankrupt state of Illinois. When asked, 47% of Illinoisans would like to leave the state which, over the last decade, has seen over a half million of its residents flee. Naturally, this exodus has exacerbated the Land of Lincoln’s financial straits to catastrophic levels.*
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Frontier Growth, Catching Up, Falling Behind and Extremely Falling Behind / Economics / Emerging Markets
The economic growth model a country chooses to implement is very important for its economic development. This is the challenge primarily faced by countries with developing economies which place the process of increasing their level of economic development as one of their main goals in order to advance to the category of countries with developed economies.
There are different models of economic growth: frontier growth, catching up, and falling behind.Frontier growth which is characteristic to countries (for example, the United States) which create qualitatively new products and new production based on new technologies.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Free Cash on UK Mortgage Deals Intensify / Housing-Market / UK Housing
Borrowers navigating the mortgage maze could well be looking for the best possible package to suit their circumstances, and one of the many perks that can stand out is cashback.
Mortgage deals with cashback may not be a new concept, but moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that the popularity of such offers is growing: some of the newest deals to be launched onto the market recently include a cashback incentive*, with both the number of deals and average cashback amount on the rise.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Fibonacci And Elliot Wave Predict Stock Market Breakout Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
There is nothing more exciting to us than reading the price action of the charts to see what will happen in the future. It becomes even more exciting when we find something that everyone else seems to have missed. Right now, traders need to pay attention to our research because we believe we have correctly identified a breakout pattern that is setting up in the US majors – and everyone seems to have missed it.
Recently, our research team began a quest to properly identify the Elliot Wave structure of the US majors in relation to the recent price congestion after the February 2018 price collapse. You can read our earlier research post to better understand our conclusions.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Stock Market Ideal Cycle Low Near / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Long-term trend – The bull market is continuing with a top expected in the low 3000s.
Intermediate trend – The intermediate correction from 2873 is likely to continue until about early June.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily basis 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.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
5 Effects Of Currency Fluctuations On The Economy / Economics / Economic Theory
Currency fluctuations are some of the most analyzed aspects of any economy. Slight changes in the value of a currency can send reverberations across the economy. In fact, some currency fluctuations levels can have drastic effects on the health of an economy. Markets like forex and other trading sectors are heavily reliant on how strong or weak a particular currency is. The strength of a currency can also determine how a particular country handles international trade. Indeed, five of the strongest currencies in the world are so influential in the world that many aspects of the global economy are almost tied to them. There are several effects of fluctuations of currencies. Below are some of the most important.
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Monday, May 21, 2018
Financial Conditions are Still too Easy for the Stocks Bull Market to End / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
Investors and traders love to fixate on the absolute level of interest rates.
- “It’s all over when the 10 year yield reaches 3%”.
- “It’s all over when the 10 year yield reaches 3.25%”.
- “It’s all over when the 10 year yield reaches 4%”.
- “It’s all over when the 10 year yield reaches 4.5%”.
Instead, investors and traders should focus on how interest rates are impacting various aspects of the economy right now. Focus on the RELATIVE relationship.
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Sunday, May 20, 2018
US Stock Market Elliott Wave Predictions for 2018 and Beyond / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
Recently, an interesting concept was discussed among our research team – a very interesting concept about the markets. As many of you know, part of the process or research is to test conclusions that may lie outside common thinking. While we were discussing the Fibonacci and Elliot Wave structures of the US market using longer-term charts, one item kept intriguing our research team. This one item could change everything in terms of how we are thinking about the US markets and Global markets.
Almost everyone knows that Elliot Wave (EW) theory consists of Five Waves to complete a major EW Cycle. The most common form of EW price cycles is A, C & E (or 1, 3 & 5) waves advancing and B & D (or 2 & 4) waves declining for an uptrend.
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Sunday, May 20, 2018
Saudi Arabia Stock Market Technical Update: Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) / Stock-Markets / Saudi Arabia
- Larger advance stalls at the 50% retracement zone.
- Deeper short-term pullback may occur.
- Followed by advance to new highs.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Are You Still Fearful of Cryptos? / Currencies / Bitcoin
Ryan Wilday: Since leaving my job as a corporate design manager to analyze and trade cryptos (among other things), I’ve gained new attention from old colleagues. In circles of my former profession, I’m the guy that retired to trade for a living. While my departure from corporate life was something I planned for many years, cryptos certainly gave those plans a shot in the arm.
Regardless of how it came about, my early ‘retirement’ carries some lore; ‘He must have made millions on Bitcoin’ I’m sure some say.
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Sunday, May 20, 2018
US Stocks - Why I am Short-term Bearish, Medium-term Bullish / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
To be clear: the Medium-Long Term Model currently states that:
- The S&P 500 (U.S. stock market) is still in a bull market.
- This 11.8% “small correction” won’t turn into a “significant correction”. Hence the stock market’s medium term downside is limited.
The Medium-Long Term Model predicts “significant corrections” based on a set of conditions. When none of those conditions are met (i.e. right now), it is highly unlikely for a “small correction” to turn into a “significant correction”. This means that the stock market will eventually make a new high given enough time.
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Sunday, May 20, 2018
Looking for a Turn in Gold Price / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Rudi Fronk and Jim Anthony, cofounders of Seabridge Gold, reflect on market factors that are driving current fluctuations in the gold price.
For nearly four months now, gold has been pressured lower by a rising dollar; the inverse correlation has been almost exact. Gold has dropped 5.2% from its January 25, 2018 close of $1,362 to its May 16 close of $1,291.50. Meanwhile, the US dollar index has risen 5.4% from this year’s low close of 88.50 on February 15, 2018, to its close on May 16 at 93.26. In the past few days, shorts have jumped in to press their luck, judging from the increase in CME open interest while the price is falling.
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Saturday, May 19, 2018
GDX Gold Mining Stock Fundamentals 2018 / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2018
The major gold miners’ stocks are still largely grinding sideways, mired in a bearish sentiment wasteland. Traders tend to assume low stock prices must be righteous, reflecting weak fundamentals rather than poor psychology. But once a quarter earnings seasons’ bright fundamental sunlight parts the obscuring fogs of popular sentiment. The gold miners’ just-reported Q1’18 results prove they remain deeply undervalued.
Four times a year publicly-traded companies release treasure troves of valuable information in the form of quarterly reports. Companies trading in the States are required to file 10-Qs with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by 45 calendar days after quarter-ends. Canadian companies have similar requirements. In other countries with half-year reporting, many companies still partially report quarterly.
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Saturday, May 19, 2018
Semiconductor Stock Market Canaries: Chirp, Warble… Soon a Croak and Silence? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2018
In light of earnings reactions in the Semiconductor Equipment sector, it’s time for an update of a theme we have had in play since November, 2017
The canary is no longer chirping in a healthy manner and the economy’s coal mine has a toxic gas leak. While the recent Lam Research (LRCX) earnings report was pretty good and there were positive aspects to that of Applied Materials (AMAT), these highly cyclical companies that have been at the front end of the entire economic cycle that had its beginnings in 2013 are showing signs of wear.
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