The Middle Class Spending Crash Explained
With Black Friday sales plunging and Cyber Monday growth slowing, it appears the chickens of stagnant wages and debt-saturation are coming home to roost for a massacred middle-class America. However, as WSJ reports “we are buying less stuff,” because the basic costs of necessities such as healthcare, food eaten at home, rent, education, and cellphones […]
When Will The Fed Raise Rates? Voluntarily…Never.
The world’s central bankers started QE (Quantitative Easing) programs and government debt buying back in late 2008 as a “temporary” measure to provide liquidity to struggling economies. Ever since 2008 people have been debating when U.S. interest rates will be heading back up. Answering that question requires insight into politics more than it does economics. […]
Princes Of The Yen: Central Banks And The Transformation Of An Economy
While I cringed at some of the early parts of the film and the mid-century American attitudes towards the Japanese, I think this documentary provides some valuable insights into the evolution of the modern economy that is Japan. I try not to judge other periods with temporal prejudice, and I think such liberality might serve […]
Don’t Bet On $70 Oil Lasting Long
Oil platform. Source: Wikipedia You puttin’ the hurtin’ on ‘em now. – Tommy Wilkerson Dear Diary, Again, we quote our old friend. Mr. Market has been puttin’ the hurtin’ on gold bulls. Yesterday, he went after the gold shorts. Gold rose $42.60 – or 3.6%. That’s proportionally equal to a move of 640 points on the […]
Social Media Indicators Close To Warning
Our Twitter and StockTwits momentum indicators for the the S&P 500 Index (SPX) are getting close to issuing a consolidation warning. Twitter momentum has a small negative divergence as the market moves higher. Meanwhile, the StockTwits community is still confirming the uptrend with higher highs and higher lows in momentum. A break below the current […]
2 Horseman Diverge
One Horseman is riding up to new highs but is not confirmed by the other Horseman, which sees silver continuing to out perform gold in micro term. Further, Horseman #1 is loved by everyone. Here is its over bullish public opinion (Optix) status from Sentimentrader.com. Maybe this time will be different. Then again, probably not. USD, […]
“Shareholder Value Maximization”…..The World’s Dumbest Idea
A fresh perspective, checking assumptions, challenging mindsets, is the main subject of the European Investment Conference. Video Starts at : 00:02:30 Video Length: 00:44:31
Gold Forward Rates Plunge
Negative GOFO Rates Become More So The gold forward offered rate (GOFO for short) is a swap rate for a gold-dollar swap. If one owns gold and wants to borrow dollars, one can use one’s gold as collateral for a dollar loan, and GOFO is effectively the interest rate one pays for this swap. Implied […]
Has HSBC Damaged Bitcoin?
HSBC recently severed its ties with GA Advisors, the world’s first regulated Bitcoin investment fund. Supposedly, the bank was worried about a “money laundering risk” activities in the Bitcoin industry. Global Advisors’ Daniel Masters believes that the step taken by HSBC will prove to be a huge hurdle for the Bitcoin investment fund, which he […]
Construction Spending Growth Improved In October 2014?
The headlines say construction spending improved this month – Econintersect sees the data moving around to the extent it would be wrong to take this month’s data to the bank (and because last month’s data was revised up, we see a deceleration this month in growth). The weakness over the last few months continues to be attributable […]
