My fellow bloggers are seeing the same thing I’m seeing: people are just leaving the market in droves. Why? Simple. Because hardly anyone can make money consistently in this beast. Just look at the recent activity. Neither bulls nor bears are winning. If you win one day, you lose the next, and vice versa. I guess I’m semi-grateful that at least OPEX week wasn’t the bullish fiesta that I feared. But as I stand here right now, I’m outlining my first screenplay, because the boredom and insanity of this market action is really starting to get to me, and I need a creative, positive outlet. For once, I’m actually looking forward to the ...
This gold chart should have Central Banks extremely worried. Why? Because the change in physical gold and Central Bank demand since the first crash of the U.S. and global markets in 2008 is literally off the charts. I advise precious metals investors not to focus on the short-term gold price movement, rather they should concentrate on the long-term trend changes. This is where the ultimate payoff will be by investing in gold. Now, I say “INVESTING”, in gold because that is what we are doing. Many analysts such as Jim Rickards don’t believe that gold is an investment. Mr. Rickards looks at gold as money or insurance on the collapse of t...
The world’s elite silver miners just finished reporting their operating results from 2016’s first quarter, and they were impressive. This industry continued to drive its costs lower even as silver finally started mean reverting out of mid-December’s deep secular low. The silver miners are beautifully positioned to enjoy soaring operating profits as silver’s young new bull market continues gradually marching higher on balance. Silver mining is a tough business geologically and economically. Primary silver deposits, those with enough silver to generate over half their revenues when mined, are quite rare. Most of the world’s si...
On July 21, 2009, then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote an op-edpublished in the Wall Street Journal seeking to allay any fears over balance sheet expansion. This was all relatively new, and at that time the recovery seemed a good bet and appeared to be underway in many places. Bernanke’s goal was to soothe any fears that “inflation” would get out of control because of the FOMC’s actions in QE1 and other expansionary programs. But as the economy recovers, banks should find more opportunities to lend out their reserves. That would produce faster growth in broad money (for example, M1 or M2) and easier credit conditions, which could u...
One thing investors in equities know is the market has essentially traded sideways for nearly two years. During this two year period, this sideways chop has included sharp pullbacks, one in late 2014, two in 2015 and the latest in February of this year. For long term investors this can be disconcerting for sure, so what headwinds are influencing the equity markets and will they subside any time soon? For the most part no one factor contributes to the market’s ups and downs and I will not touch on all the potential influences, for example, the high level of debt being issued by the public sector, pension under-funding, the presidential e...
S&P 500 as of yesterday, formed a very nicely constructed and perfectly parallel price channel with the slightest of declines. In light of this new development on SPX, it is no wonder that the market is bouncing hard today. With that said, it is a safe bet, that this market has about another 13 points of upside before it really starts to hit some major resistance again and possibly moves lower yet again (around the 2064-67). To say that the market has had some trouble with any downward thrusts in price action is probably the understatement of the new millennium, as time and time again, the bears have had the opportunity in the p...
Existing home sales bounced in April as expected. Compared to pre-recession totals, sales look weak, but compared to the last couple years, sales are towards the top of the range. Existing home sales rose at a seasonally-adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 5.45 million vs. BloombergEconoday expectations of 5.40 million. Highlights Progress in the housing market is slow but steady. Sales of existing homes rose 1.7 percent in April to a 5.45 million annualized pace and are up a very solid 6.0 percent from April last year. Prices are also up, with the median 5.0 percent higher in the month to $232,500 for a year-on-year gain of 6.3 percent. The...
The Chart of the Day belongs to MMA Capital Management (Nasdaq:MMAC). I found the Real Estate management stock by using Barchart to sort the All Time High list first for the most frequent number of new highs in the last month, then again for technical buy signals of 80% or more. Next I used the Flipchart feature to review the charts for consistency. Since the Trend Spotter signaled a buy on 3/16 the stock gained 12.43%. MMA Capital Management, LLC is a real estate asset management company. It invests in and manages debt and equity investments collateralized primarily by multifamily housing. The Company focuses on three types of real est...
In May of 2008, there was a very similar stock market ‘rally’ as compared to today’s ‘rally’.Investors believed that the ‘turmoil’ during the latter part of 2007 and the early part of 2008 was permanently over and that we were headed towards a strong economic growth! In actuality, it merely masked the ‘declining economic collapse’.The same situation is happening, all over again, even as you are reading this article.There are numerous flashing red lights, currently while the stock markets is ‘collapsing’ once again, just as it did during the beginning of the spring of 2008! There have now been four consecutive quarters ...
Apple’s (AAPL) market capitalization now stands in the $500 billion range, although it was over $700 billion at one time. Talk of the iPhone maker becoming the world’s first $1 trillion company has faded… along with its stock price. Indeed, any hardware company faces an uphill battle, particularly at a time when more and more tech companies are adopting subscription-based strategies. Apple as a service? But what if Apple could bundle its hardware into a subscription-based offering? Bernstein analysts have an interesting suggestion and believe that such a strategy could give the iPhone maker the boost it needs to become the first $1 tri...