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  • Finance 0

    Hurricanes Don’t Blow Away Economic Law

    The debate over the morality and efficiency of so-called “price gouging” during natural disasters and other emergencies provides a unique opportunity to explore some of the most fundamental ideas in economics. Understanding those ideas is important not just for the economics of emergencies, but for how market economies operate in more normal times and why they are superior to the alternatives. The biggest advantage of market economies is the way in which they tie together how we decide who will get to purchase and consume goods with the way in which those goods are supplied. Market prices are not only a good way of determining who should ...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    The ECB’s Decision Continues To Prop Up The Euro

    The regulator took the decision to maintain the key rate at its current level of 0.00%, as well as to maintain the volume of its asset purchasing program at its current level of 60bn EUR a month. ECB president, Mario Draghi, hinted that the bank would provide more details on its plans for the asset purchasing program at the next meeting in October. Still, he stressed that they key interest rate would remain at its current level at least until the asset purchasing program has come to an end. In my opinion, maintaining an ultra-loose monetary policy will stimulate economic growth in the Eurozone and, accordingly, provide support for the single ...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Silver Price About To Turn Bullish For 2017 And 2018

    Silver has confused bulls and bears since last summer, and that is certainly no understatement. We made a forecast last summer right after silver peaked, and we said were bearish. Our silver price forecast of $14 for 2017 got hit. The million dollar question is what’s next for the price of silver. Possibly, if silver goes just a bit higher from here, it might become bullish for the remainder of this year and even into a large part of 2018. Silver finally bullish after 6 years? We see two potential factors to could make silver bullish. Note the words “potential” and “could”. On the one hand it is silver’s price chart that shows a...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    AUD/USD Forecast Sep. 11-15

    The Australian dollar was on fire in a very busy week, reaching new highs. The upcoming week is not as busy but still, consists of the all-important employment report. Here are the highlights of the week and an updated technical analysis for AUD/USD. The RBA left the interest rates unchanged and tried to talk down the Aussie, but to no success. GDP came out at a robust 0.8%, giving a boost to the currency. On the other hand, retail sales disappointed by remaining flat and the trade balance fell short as well. AUD/USD also enjoyed the weakness of the US dollar, that suffered from the Fed’s dovishness. Updates: AUD/USD daily graph with supp...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Yuan Tumbles After Beijing Gives Speculators Green Light To Short The Currency

    And now, Trump finally has reason to be angry with China for intervening in its currency to manipulate it lower, not higher. After the biggest weekly surge in the Yuan on record, the first sign that Beijing had had enough of the relentless surge in the currency was unveiled overnight, when according to a Reuters report quoting “policy insiders” China had “begun to worry about a rallying yuan as exporters come under strain” a sign the currency’s gains might lose steam after it hit a two-year against the dollar just weeks before Beijing is set to host a crucial Communist Party gathering in the autumn. For those ...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Target Shares Dive To Lows As Blog Post Tips Price Cuts On ‘Thousands Of Items’

    Target is apparently being forced to respond to the deflationary supernova that is this guy… Because just a little over a week after Amazon made good on its promise/threat to cut prices at Whole Foods, Target says in a blog post that it’s lowering prices on thousands of items. TARGET SAYS IT’S LOWERED PRICE ON THOUSANDS OF ITEMS: BLOG POST And the reaction was immediate, with shares diving to day lows and Wal-Mart falling in sympathy: The shares will probably rebound by the end of the day, but the message here is clear. Notably, this made an already bad day for Kroger worse. The shares were already lower by some 7% after inline result...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Planes, Trains, And Hurricanes

    As if dealing with Harvey wasn’t enough, Hurricane Irma (his not so distant cousin) has already wreaked havoc along its path through the Caribbean. It now looks to do a lot more damage. Hurricane Jose, Irma’s younger brother, is also lurking. In fact, Irma is heading right to Florida, targeting President Trumps federally insured Mar a Largo beachfront estate otherwise known as White House South. Certain Republicans think the storm’s path is the result of divine intervention for Trumps treasonous deal with democrats to raise the debt ceiling for another three months. Regardless, the impact to the markets has been somewhat predictable and...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    RecessionAlert Weekly Leading Index Update – Sunday, Sept. 10

    The latest index reading came in at 17.8, down from 19.2 the previous week. The RecessionAlert Twitter Feed, @RecessionAlert2, had an interesting observation about the indicator levels in February. RecessionAlert has launched an alternative to ECRI’s Weekly Leading Index Growth indicator (WLIg). The Weekly Leading Economic Index (WLEI) uses fifty different time series from these categories: Corporate Bond Composite, Treasury Bond Composite, Stock Market Composite, Labor Market Composite, Credit Market Composite. RecessionAlert emphasizes that WLEI is a growth index and its data is no more than a week old, as is ECRI’s WLIg. ...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Forex Forecast: Pairs In Focus This Week – Sunday, Sept. 10

    The difference between success and failure in Forex trading is very likely to depend upon which currency pairs you choose to trade each week, and not on the exact trading methods you might use to determine trade entries and exits. Each week I am going to analyze fundamentals, sentiment and technical positions in order to determine which currency pairs are most likely to produce the easiest and most profitable trading opportunities over the next week. In some cases it will be trading the trend. In other cases it will be trading support and resistance levels during more ranging markets. Big Picture September 10 Last week, I saw the best possi...
    On September 10, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Will Gold Break Out Of Sideway Trading?

    Since July 11, gold has been in a short-term upward trend. The yellow metal has gained more than 8 percent since then until the end of August, mainly thanks to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, as one can see in the chart below. Chart 1: Gold prices (yellow line, left axis, London P.M. fix) and the U.S. dollar index (red line, right axis, trade weighted index against major currencies). The U.S. dollar index declined because of political turmoil in the Trump administration and the narrowing divergence between the U.S. and the Eurozone economy. Actually, the economic growth in the latter outpaced the former expansion in the first half of t...
    On September 10, 2017 / By