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    Guessing At Employment Growth – ADP Vs. BLS

      You cannot manage anything when the information one is seeing is not correct. The USA data gathering systems are only estimates and extrapolations. Can you imagine what would happen if a CEO of a company was told that the company has “about $10 million of cash available” or “we estimate 2,000 widgets were built” – and this data was given with a 15 day delay and included an estimated error factor. In the latest case – the employment re-estimate was revised well into the 20th century. Honestly, this gives one less confidence in any employment data even though the revisions were relatively small. From the B...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Legit Investment… Or A Ponzi Scheme?

    Last week, more than 20 people were arrested in China over a $7.6 billion Ponzi scheme involving a peer-to-peer (P2P) lender called Ezubao. According to a report in the Financial Times, Ezubao had 900,000 investors, utterly dwarfing Bernard Madoff’s mere 13,500. As this latest example goes to show, we need to be extremely careful when faced with enticing sales pitches for new income opportunities. Unfortunately, it’s damnably difficult to tell whether something unconventional is a Ponzi scheme. Worst of all, they may be getting more common. The Economy, Ponzified Back in 1920, when the country was still on the gold standard, Charles Po...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Crude Oil Prices And The Lingering Uncertainty

    Crude oil prices have plummeted by more than 70% over the past 20 months, to twelve-year lows. The impact on both producing companies and countries has been significant. Major oil and gas companies have seen large dips in profits. In 2015, BP suffered its largest annual loss in two decades while ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron had 50%, 80% and 76% decline in earnings respectively, for the same period. ConocoPhillips cut its dividend by about 66%. Revenues for members of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, are expected to slump to about US$400 billion from US$1.2 trillion in 2012. Azerbaijan and Nigeria ar...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Apple Stock Analysis

    Apple has a lot further to go to the downside as a stock. This stock will be putting in lower highs and lower lows for years to come.   ...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Investors Have Started To Protect Themselves: Gold And Gold Stocks Are Flying

    In our column last week we were warning you about Deutsche Bank’s problems and potential issues with its derivatives portfolio and its capital structure. The story continued to unfold in the past week and Deutsche Bank was pushed into a corner as more and more investors started to lose confidence in the bank. A plan to buy back $5.4B in debt in a desperate move to reassure the capital markets. In fact, Deutsche’s move is so desperate it will even start buying back debt that was issued less than six weeks ago. Where did we see that before? Oh, yes, of course. Lehman Brothers. When the sh** was hitting the fan, Lehman continued to buy (...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Reducing Risk As The Bear Growls 02-12-16

    The action this past week has been, to say the least, dismal. However, the major lows that have been support for the bull market since 2009 continue to hold for now, but are under attack. We continue to watch these lows closely as a failure would likely accelerate selling. This week, I am going to take a look at major sectors, asset classes, and markets to analyze the risk/reward of having money invested in any specific area. In every bear market, there are always opportunities, we just have to find them. However, before I get into that, let me discuss why I believe we have currently entered into a bear market cycle. Last week, my friend Joe...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Got Gold?

    The Commitment of Traders (CoT) report reveals surprisingly good traction on the move between $1,128 and $1,198 (last Tuesday’s reporting date). Specs went net long 33,562 contracts for the $70 lift and ended at about 61,000 net long. This great traction is what set the stage for Wednesday’s and Thursday’s fireworks. If gold Eagle coin sales so far in February are an indication, western (not just eastern) physical gold demand helped with the traction in the paper synthetic Comex “market”. If specs are now about 100,000 net long, that’s still constructive. In a bull market with a major sentiment shift, a 100,000 plus reading can go...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Forget Chocolates, Gift Your Valentine These Precious Metal ETFs

     A slowing global economy may have barred investors from splurging, but is unlikely to hold back lovers from celebrating Valentine’s Day. If you go by the recent data provided by the National Retail Federation earlier this month, we will likely end up seeing Americans spending about $19.7 billion for this Valentine’s Day, up about a billion dollars from the historic projection for 2015.   Needless to say, a big share of this spending will go to candy, teddy, flowers, wine and champagne makers. But if you are still looking for some other gift ideas, we have one for you. Our idea will help you win over your sweetheart by a tradition...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    UBS Sees Capitulation As Hedge Fund Net Leverage Gets To 2009 Lows

    “We see six signs of capitulation flows data,” begins UBS’s weekly European Flow Watch research note sent to clients yesterday. According to the bank’s analysts, the six signs of capitulation in European equity markets in European equity markets are: Banks: Investors have been net sellers of the banks the first time in five and half years. The recent risk-off move has seen the most net selling of any sector over January. Country selling: On both a 12-week and 14-week view, Italy saw the largest net outflows since 2014. However, buying of stocks in the Core Eurozone area has spiked and has only been higher once since 2010. Hedge fu...
    On February 13, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Increased Market Volatility Resulting In High Quality Stock Outperformance

    Commensurate with the increase in the market’s volatility that began late last year, high quality stock outperformance has accelerated this year. As volatility increases it is common for investors to seek the safety of higher quality equity holdings. The below chart displays the ratio of S&P’s high quality index to the low quality index.The S&P Quality Ranking System measures growth and stability of earnings and recorded dividends within a single rank. S&P Low Quality Rankings are designed for exposure to constituents of the S&P 500 identified as low quality stocks, i.e., stocks with Quality Rankings of B and bel...
    On February 13, 2016 / By