Simplifying the Complex Metals Complex
by Avi Gilburt
Gold Seek
We have many analysts and commenters posting many different perspectives on the metals for years. Some view them as a terrible investment and others view it as the only reasonable investment. I am not going to discuss the merits or fallacies contained in both of their perspectives, but I would like to simplify the potential in the complex for the average investor.
You see, this complex is not that complex at all. Sentiment is what controls this market, and when sentiment reaches an extreme, the market shifts in the opposite direction. That is what we are patiently awaiting at this time.
Danger: The Last Time This Happened Was Right Before the Stock Market Collapsed
from King World News
With the Dow trading near the 18,000 level, the last time this happened was right before the stock market collapsed.
From Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader: “Speculative assets have reached a 16-year high. In the Rydex family of mutual funds, traders have allocated more than $2 in assets betting on a market rally for every $1 invested in the money market or inverse funds…
Chris Martenson – Propped Up Propaganda
from Financial Survival Network
Chris Martenson says that the media has been exposed as being corrupt to its very core, and with so is everything else. Propaganda has been keeping the markets propped up. How much longer can it continue on? Probably not much longer than the election. People are wising up and know it’s time to get serious about the serious problems facing humanity.
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Jason Stevens – Time to Start Looking at Copper and Uranium
from Financial Survival Network
Jason Stevens from Sprott joined us today. With the recent large move in the Gold and Silver miners the time might be right to start looking at other beaten down parts of the resource sector, particularly Uranium and Copper. Uranium is now trading at near decade lows, but new reactors are being built at a record rate. Copper has also been hit hard but at some point will recover. Other base metals are similarly situated. Strategic investing can pay big dividends.
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American Psycho: Sex, Lies and Politics Add Up to a Terrifying Election Season
by John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
“I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don’t know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.” – Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
When it comes to sexual predators, there should be no political bright line test to determine who gets a free pass and who goes to jail based on which candidate is better suited for office.
Yet almost 20 years after Bill Clinton became the first and only sitting president to be sued for sexual harassment and impeached for lying under oath about his sexual escapades while in office, the Left and the Right are still playing politics with women’s rights.
I should know.
Rickards: Volatility Could Explode in a Matter of Weeks
by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
Volatility is waiting to explode due to unstable currency exchange rates, bank liquidity crises, geopolitical uncertainty, and a wild U.S. election cycle.
One or more of these potential sources of instability are ready to pop-up on the markets like a tightly jammed jack-in-the-box when someone unlocks the lid. The key to profits is to understand how to use volatility as a trading strategy. If you act now, you could reap huge rewards in a matter of weeks.
Most investors have some familiarity with trading specific instruments such as stocks, bonds, and gold. Investors also understand how options can be used to limit losses, and increase gains on trades involving those underlying instruments.
But, volatility is an unfamiliar trading strategy to many. How can you trade volatility? And, how is volatility poised to offer huge gains?
The Alt-Trump?
from New York Sun
The idea that Donald Trump’s campaign is borderline anti-Semitic is being hauled out this week as we hurtle toward Election Day. No one suggests Mr. Trump himself is hostile to Jews. The idea seems to be that because some of the alt-right groups are kvelling over his criticism of the big international banks and the Federal Reserve, Jews should vote for Hillary Clinton. Never mind that the Democrats have emerged as the party of appeasement in respect of, in Iran, the world’s most anti-Semitic regime.
This all burst into the headlines after Mr. Trump’s speech Thursday at Palm Beach. It was praised on a Web site called the Daily Stormer, which reported that in the speech Mr. Trump “affirmed” that the “the mass media isn’t ‘biased’ in the innocent sense, it’s the lying Jewish mouthpiece of international finance and plutocracy, seeking to protect agendas that make trillions of dollars for a small film of scum at the very top, at the expense of middle and working class Americans.”
Saudis, China Dump Treasuries; Foreign Central Banks Liquidate A Record $346 Billion In US Paper
from Zero Hedge
One month ago, when we last looked at the Fed’s update of Treasuries held in custody, we noted something troubling: the number dropped sharply, declining by over $27.5 billion in one week, the biggest weekly drop since January 2015, pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.83 trillion, the lowest since 2012. One month later, we refresh this chart and find that in the latest weekly update, foreign central banks continued their relentless liquidation of US paper held in the Fed’s custody account, which tumbled by another $22.3 billion in the past week, pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.805 trillion, another fresh post-2012 low.
Draghi’s QE History Lesson Is That Flexibility Can Backfire
by Jana Randow
Bloomberg.com
As the European Central Bank moves closer to picking a route out of quantitative easing, it might have to clarify its philosophy on how the program works.
The ECB’s commitment to buy 80 billion euros ($88 billion) a month of debt until March 2017 will add 1.7 trillion euros to its balance sheet compared with the start of the plan two years previously. Yet the central bank has also pledged to keep going if needed to revive inflation, raising the question of whether it’s relying on the flow of purchases or the stock of securities to deliver its punch.
The answer matters if policy makers are to avoid undermining their own stimulus when they choose to end it, as history has shown that investors are acutely sensitive to the slightest signals on the pace of asset purchases.
Money Illusion
by Ron Rimkus
The Economic Times
Who are today’s Drs Frankenstein? Haruhiko Kuroda at the Bank of Japan, Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank (ECB) and Janet Yellen at the US Federal Reserve. They each have a monster in their castle.
Central bankers have embraced extraordinary monetary policies to create economic growth where none would exist. How have they done this? By printing lots and lots of money and injecting it into the system through massive bond purchases. The aggregate bond market is growing, but bonds are being purchased and locked away in central bank dungeons faster than new bonds are being issued. At the present pace, central banks will soon run out of bonds to buy.
The Plot Against America
Donald Trump alights on the Compleat Conspiracy. Anti-Semites are thrilled.
by Bret Stephens
The Wall Street Journal
They meet in secret. Men of immense wealth; a woman of limitless ambition. Their passports are American but their loyalties are not. Through their control of international banks and the media they manipulate public opinion and finance political deceit. Their aim is nothing less than the annihilation of America’s political independence, and they will stop at nothing—including rigging a presidential election—to achieve it.
Call it for what it is: “A conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man.”
Astute readers will note the quotation of a speech delivered in the U.S. Senate in June 1951 by the then-junior senator from Wisconsin. We’re in historically familiar territory. Joe McCarthy inveighed against Communists in control of the State Department. For Charles Lindbergh it was “war agitators,” notably those of “the Jewish race.”
A Looming Banking Crisis – Is a Perfect Storm About to Hit?
by Pater Tenebrarum
Acting Man
Andy Duncan Interviews Claudio Grass
Andy Duncan of FinLingo.com has interviewed our friend Claudio Grass, managing director of Global Gold in Switzerland. Below is a transcript excerpting the main parts of the first section of the interview on the problems in the European banking system and what measures might be taken if push were to come to shove.
[…] Andy Duncan: How do you see the current situation in banking particularly in Europe?
Claudio Grass: One interesting indicator is that today in certain countries not bankers are making the highest average salaries any longer , they have been replaced with government servants. Overall I would say it is bad, but that was predictable. The system and the assumptions the whole sector is operating under are just not sustainable, and printing money out of thin air does not create wealth; on the contrary, it is destroying capital.
Oh, but There’s No Rigging Elections, Right?
by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
No, the media doesn’t want to talk about this.
The media is afraid of Hillary.
And now, on top of committing and inciting violence, which is now documented in their own words — that Trump’s rallies had violence that was caused by paid protesters, including those who they knew were mentally ill.
But it didn’t end with campaign violence.
“We’ve been bussing people in to deal with you ****ing *******s for 50 years and we’re not going to stop now…”
Cass Freight Index Takes Another Dive Killing August’s “False Hope”
by Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock
Mish Talk
Heading into the Christmas shopping season, the Cass Freight Index shows shipments sank 0.4% for the month and are down 3.1% from shipments a year ago.
It’s difficult to make a case for a great holiday sales season or robust third quarter GDP, based not only on shipments, but also on many other factors discussed below.
After offering a glimmer of ‘less bad’ hope in August (only down 1.1% YoY and up 0.4% sequentially), the Cass Freight Index shipments data in September disappointed, providing hindsight that August only gave us ‘false hope.’ September data is once again signaling that overall shipment volumes (and pricing) continued to be weak in most modes, with increased levels of volatility as all levels of the supply chain (manufacturing, wholesale, retail) continue to try and work down inventory levels.
Two Key Stocks Threaten to Upend Bears
by Rick Ackerman
RickAckerman.com
I’d suggest that bears give wide berth to the lunatic spirits that have held the broad averages buoyant recently, since two important stocks have been ‘bulling up’. For one, Amazon turned higher yesterday from within seven cents of an important Hidden Pivot target I’d projected earlier. The stock has now fallen $35 after topping on October 6 just 11 cents shy of a rally target I’d posted about ten days before. AMZN was trading around 800 at the time. If the recent low at 811.68 proves durable and the stock gets a strong bounce, it will power the Nasdaq Index higher as well. The other stock to watch is Apple, which looks to be chomping on the bit ahead of next Tuesday’s earnings announcement. I’d projected an $18 move up to around $130 on the news, but AAPL could easily hit that benchmark before the earnings are released.
Skyscraper Alert in China?
by Mark Thornton
Mises.org
This report provides a description of the new largest building in the world. However, it is not a tall skyscraper so it does not fit nicely with the Skyscraper Curse analysis. Otherwise, we might expect a global economic crisis on the horizon.
The building is the world’s largest as measured by square footage, which it has around 20 million square feet of floor space. That is more floor space than the equivalent of:
The U.S. Has Its Own ‘Oil Curse’
by Ellie Ismailidou
Market Watch
The term “oil curse” — coined to describe petro-rich developing countries where the “black gold” came with the heavy price of economic and political instability — is now being adapted for use in the U.S., where “petrostates” and cities are seeing shrinking tax revenues, budget deficits, negative credit ratings, rising unemployment and even outright recession as oil prices have fallen.
Alaska, North Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, which enjoyed the feast of the shale revolution, are now threatened with famine. How they weather the storm, analysts now say, could largely determine their fiscal and economic fortunes for the next decade.
The Latest Updates from Mac Slavo at SHTFPlan.com – 2016.10.18
by Mac Slavo
SHTF Plan
Leaked Emails Prove That A Shadow Gov Rules: Hillary Aims to “Make Soros Happy”
The End State: 5 Triggering Events That Would Place the U.S. Under Martial Law
Vice President Biden Makes Silent Threat Against Russia: “Sending Putin A Message”
Video: Conspiracy Confirmed In FBI Files: There Really Is A “Shadow Government”
Internet of Things (IoT): More Than Protected Plumbing
by JL Yastine
The Sovereign Investor
The man looking over the water gauges couldn’t believe what he was seeing…
Just down the road, a few miles from his little control room, the giant tank holding Robinson Township’s municipal water supply was draining down … fast.
He looked at the clock. Midnight. The thermometer registered an icy 20 degrees. Somewhere out there, among the Pittsburgh suburbs’ 15 square miles of snow-covered neighborhoods and businesses, a water main was losing more than 3,000 gallons of water a minute.
He checked his dials again and did some quick calculations. The township’s storage tank held 1 million gallons of water. At this rate, all of it would be gone before dawn.
Silver Eagle Demand Returns with a Vengeance as Political & Economic Turmoil Increases
by Steve St. Angelo
SRSRocco Report
U.S. Mint Silver Eagle sales surged in the first half of October due to increased turmoil in the political system and economic markets. Silver Eagle sales were strong in the first five months of the year, but weakened in the summer due to several factors.
One factor was the fall-off in demand by the Authorized Dealers (wholesalers) who had continued to purchase record Silver Eagles in the first part of 2016, even though retail investor demand had softened.. The other factor was a weakening of investor demand as the contagion from the U.K exit of the European Union subsided in the summer.
Regardless, U.S. Mint Silver Eagle sales came back with a vengeance in the first half of October, reaching 2,925,000 according to their most recent update today (Oct 18th). If we look at the chart below, we can see how much demand has increased compared the previous three months:
The “Greatest Threat” Almost No One Is Prepared For
by Chris Wood
Casey Research
Editor’s note: It’s been called “the greatest threat to every profession, every industry, every company in the world.”
It’s not a stock market crash, economic depression, or even a global currency crisis.
We’re talking about a “cyberattack.” A successful cyberattack could erase your identity or even empty out your bank account. In other words, it can do far more damage to your wealth than any “normal” financial disaster.
And yet, most people haven’t done anything to prepare for a cyberattack. They think “that couldn’t ever happen to me”…or that the government will have their back.
Those are very dangerous assumptions…
Seven Precious Metal Companies to Create Value for the Long Term
from The Gold Report
Tocqueville Asset Management invests in precious metals companies for the long term, looking for names that are innovative and creative in identifying properties and adding value to those properties, says Portfolio Manager and Senior Research Analyst Doug Groh. Geopolitical and financial concerns, as well as market fundamentals, favor gold over the longer term, he believes. In this interview with The Gold Report, Groh provides his analysis of the macro environment for precious metals and profiles seven companies with quality assets that he expects to create value.
The Gold Report: Doug, after the long run-up in the precious metals market for most of the year, October started off turbulently. What is your take on it?
Doug Groh: Gold has had a nice performance through the first nine months of the year, posting a 25% year-to-date appreciation. It’s not unusual for markets to correct in the fourth quarter, and we’re seeing that in gold.