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It’s Official: Gold Is Now The Most Hated Asset Class

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum of Acting-Man blog,

Full Court Press

Not a day passes without the financial media denouncing gold as an investment option and hailing the bureaucrats heading the world's monopolist monetary central planning agencies as superheroes. It began prior to gold's recent breakdown, with widely cited bearish reports on gold published by Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, among others. Never mind that most of their arguments were easily unmasked as spurious. It should be no wonder though: gold's rise was the most conspicuous evidence of faith in central banking being slowly but surely undermined. The banking cartel relies on the fiat money system remaining intact; the legal privilege of fractional reserve banking provides it with what is an essentially fraudulent profit center unparalleled by any other in the world (fraudulent in terms of traditional legal principles, but not in terms of the current law of course). Not surprisingly, ever since the completely unrestrained fiat money system became operational in the early 1970s, the financial sector's share of corporate profits has inexorably risen and finally eclipsed all other sectors of the economy.

 

financial share of profits

The share of financial profits of total corporate profits – a direct result of the fractional reserve banking privilege and the central bank monopoly on money (via Ed Yardeni) – click to enlarge.

 

In other words, the banks have to protect a major franchise. It is a good bet that if gold had continued to rise in the face of money printing being accelerated all over the world, the inevitable loss of faith in central banks would have happened sooner rather than later. That it will eventually happen is unavoidable – the modern monetary system was fated to self-destruct the moment it was conceived. This is so because central planning and price controls cannot work in the long run, even though central banks are socialistic institutions adrift in a capitalist sea, so to speak. They can to some extent observe prices in the market, but the problem is that the market price most relevant to them – namely the ratio of future against present goods as expressed in interest rates on the credit markets – is
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What Did Obama Know About The IRS (And When)?

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Amid the sound and fury of yesterday's IRS hearing were a few small tidbits which raise significant questions about who knew what and when within the Obama administration. While getting the answer (the real honest truth) is highly unlikely, as the Wall Street Journal notes, the IRS's watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 (when Republican lawmakers were complaining publicly about alleged IRS targeting of tea-party groups) he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president's re-election campaign. The revelation nonetheless raised a fresh set of questions about who was aware of the problem within the Obama administration. However, the hearing left numerous other fundamental questions unanswered, including who ordered the targeting and why it continued so long, pointing to a protracted investigation ahead as Rep. Paul Ryan exclaimed, "how can we not conclude that you misled this committee?" As Doug Ross' full timeline below suggests, this is fascism on the part of the IRS and White House…

Via Doug Ross of Director Blue blog,

Reading this timeline, I have come to three conclusions:

  1. Steve Miller lied to Congress
  2. Lois Lerner lied to Congress
  3. Barack Obama lied to the American people

This scandal has the fingerprints of Axelrod, Jarrett and/or the Chicago Machine all over it.

This is fascism on the part of the IRS and the White House. It is fascism, straight up.

Or, as I call the IRS: Organizing for Revenue.

Via The Wall Street Journal,

The Internal Revenue Service's watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups…

The revelation nonetheless raised a fresh set of questions about who was aware of the problem within the Obama administration.

the agency had taken "absolutely inappropriate" actions in targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for often heavy-handed scrutiny.

The hearing left numerous other fundamental questions unanswered, however, including who ordered the targeting and why it continued so long, pointing to a protracted investigation ahead. Mr. Miller conceded the agency likely disciplined the wrong employee in one effort to


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The Bermuda Triangle Of Economics

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Excerpted from Jacob Steen’s Chronicle blog at Tradingfloor.com,

The mystique of the Bermuda Triangle has caught the imagination and interest of generations. In much the same way it has also caught my attention and I feel that now there is a Bermuda Triangle of economics – a space where everything tends to disappear without radar contact, a black hole in which rationality and science is replaced by hope, superstition and nonsense pundits like myself pretending to understand the real drivers of the economy.

The Bermuda Triangle in real life runs from Bermuda to Puerto Rico to Miami. The economic one runs from high stock market valuations to high unemployment to low growth/productivity. Just like the real Bermuda Triangle, in the Bermuda Triangle of economics there is plenty of scientific evidence that can explain most, if not everything, of what is going on. But that does not suit Hollywood, sorry, the US Federal Reserve.

Neither does it suit mainstream banking analysis or the media in dealing with reality and facts: the mystique simply sells better! After all, there is a reason why people leave science education for PhDs in apps and virtual reality.

There is a myth that the sunken Atlantis could be in the middle of this triangle. It has been renamed Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to make it suit the black hole’s main premise of ensuring there is a fancy name for what is essentially the same economic recipe: print and spend money, then wait and pray for better weather.

The economic Bermuda Triangle, or EBT, is getting harder and harder to justify – if for nothing else because the constant reminders of crisis keep us all defensive and non-committed to investing beyond the next quarter. We all naively think we can exit the “risk-on” trade before anyone else. A less cynical person than me could think that some things in life need to be experienced – not talked about.

Where to from here?
A long time ago, policymakers entered a one-way street where reversing is, if not illegal, then impossible. Enough though about the polices. What is more important is what is next?

If a political scientist should create a simple model for how this Bermuda Triangle works, the first action point would be to test the premise of the policy. No…
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Visualizing The Silver Squeeze

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Despite ‘crashes’ in the market, the demand for physical silver continues to rise. “Buyers are already outpacing sellers by a stunning 50-to-1 ratio. We are seeing the beginning of shortages; but this will only accelerate if Western governments continue with this raid on paper gold and silver.”

 

 

The Silver Squeeze – An infographic by the team at The Silver Squeeze Free Infographic





Guest Post: Why Bonds Aren’t Dead & The Dollar Will Get Weaker

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Submitted by Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live,


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The Quiet Triumph Of Oil And Gas In Obama’s Policies

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by testosteronepit.

Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com   www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter

It was announced Friday afternoon, when no one was supposed to pay attention: after years of controversy, heated rhetoric, intense lobbying, and stiff opposition from some unlikely bedfellows, with multinational industrial and chemical companies weighing down one side of the bed, and environmentalists tossing and turning on the other, the Obama Administration decided in favor of the US oil and gas industry. With geopolitical ramifications.

The Department of Energy “conditionally authorized” Freeport LNG Expansion LP and FLNG Liquefaction LCC (Freeport) to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas to countries with which the US does not have Free Trade Agreements (PDF, 132 pages). Already allowed are exports to the 20 countries with FTAs – most of them in the Americas, but also Australia, Korea, Singapore, Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, and Morocco. But exports to the remaining 180 or so countries have to jump through some hoops.

So Freeport’s LNG Terminal on Quintana Island, Texas, is now authorized to export 1.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of LNG for 20 years to those non-FTA countries. Freeport joins Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, with an export capacity of 2.2 Bcf/d. Freeport’s and Cheniere’s combined capacity would amount to 5.2% of US production (estimated at 69.3 Bcf/d in 2013). Other companies are cooling their heels in line at the DOE, which would, as it said, “process the applications currently pending on a case-by-case basis.” At snail’s pace. The administrations sole concession to environmentalists.

“DOE has had the remaining applications on its desk for months and should ensure that these applications are approved without any further delay,” groused Erik Milito, of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association representing over 500 oil and gas companies.

Hurdles remain. DOE approval is just another step. The plants will have to get a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and must pass an environmental review, which could be a nail-biter. And none of the plants are up and running yet.

Then there is an unknown: how will world markets react to this additional supply that competes with at least 63 LNG export terminals currently planned or under construction worldwide? US production can rise to meet that new demand, as the gas glut in recent years has…
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“Boldly They Rode And Well”, Or Why Japan Is Not America

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Submitted by Daniel Cloud

Boldly They Rode And Well

I believe that Shinzo Abe has made a very serious strategic miscalculation. I used to be confused in much the same way he now seems to be, but I was cured of my confusion by thinking about Chinese inflation.

For a long time, I was puzzled by the fact that America’s endless multi-stage QE program seemed to have no effect on measured inflation, on the CPI and the PPI. But then I realized that by only looking at the United States and their three hundred million-plus people, I was missing the big picture, missing the most important part of its aggregate impact on the Earth’s seven billion inhabitants.

QE may never have much of an effect on the inflation rate in the fifty states of the United States of America, because it is workers in the developing world, and in particular, in China, who are the marginal hires in our still-globalizing, still-offshoring world economy. There is no distinct American economy, now, there is no Chinese economy, there is only the world economy, and the Fed makes policy for large parts of it. China has the kinds of structural rigidities in its labor, goods, information, and asset markets that make inflationary psychology very probable. It already had an ongoing and stubborn problem with inflation before QE started, so the required psychology already existed. And, perhaps most importantly, much of the money the Fed is printing doesn’t actually end up in the United States. It ends up being added to the reserves, and therefore the domestic money supply, of countries like China, who want to keep their currencies pegged, or quasi-pegged, to the dollar.

Why? Simply letting their currency appreciate would do to the Chinese what it did to Japan in the late ‘80’s. But to keep the yuan from appreciating against the dollar as a result of the increased supply of dollars from QE, the government of China must buy all the dollars anyone shows up with, at the pegged exchange rate. To pay for them, China must issue yuan, and pay them out to the holders of those dollars. That makes the supply of yuan in circulation increase by the same amount – as the dollars are added to the country’s reserves, the domestic…
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Saturday Humor: The Fed Is Hiring

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Now that the Federal Reserve has hired every single pennystock trader and momentum-chasing algo in the world (or at least is enjoying Citadel’s helping hand in regards to the latter) it is time for the Fed’s human resources department to branch out and fill those really important gaping holes.

h/t @shark_wahlberg





Italy’s New Government Approval Rating Plummets From 43% To 34% In Three Weeks, Protests Return

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

It was less than a month ago that the new Italian government of the pseudo-technocrat Letta, of Bilderberg 2012 and Aspen Institute fame, was voted in by a majority of the PD and the PDL parties (the latter agreeing so Berlusconi would get an extension of his much needed political immunity from assorted prison sentences). It may not last too long. As Reuters reports, it took just 20 days for Letta’s approval rating to plunge by 25%, dropping from 43% at the start of the month to 34%, according to an SWG institute poll. It would appear the Italian people (unlike their Japanese peers who at least according to government-controlled media data could not be happier with PM Abe, supposedly because of the bubblelicious 50% rise in the Nikkei225 year to date, even though under 20% are actually invested in the stock market making one wonder just how credible polling, and all other data in Japan actually is) don’t have Mrs. Watanabe’s childish fascination wth soaring stock bubbles, sexy bonds, mini skirts and 2% inflation bras, and instead demand real economic results. Which also means the protests are once again back.

Thousands of people protested in Rome on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession.

 

“We hope that this government will finally start listening to us because we are losing our patience,” said Enzo Bernardis, who joined the sea of protesters waving red flags and calling for more workers’ rights and better contracts.

 

Less than a month in power, Letta is trying to hold together an uneasy coalition between his center-left Democratic party and the center-right People of Freedom, led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

 

Confidence in the government, cobbled together after inconclusive elections, is already falling, with one poll on Friday by the SWG institute showing its approval rating had dropped to 34 percent from 43 percent at the start of the month.

 

“We can’t wait anymore” and “We need money to live” were among slogans on banners held up by the crowds.

 

Letta promised to make jobs his top priority when he came to


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Spot The Odd Continent Out: Total Bank Assets As % Of GDP

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

There is a reason why in Europe, no matter how much some want to deny it, the Cyprus deposit confiscation “resolution” has become the norm. Quite simply “Europe’s economy struggles with too many banks, too much debt and too little growth. A long history of empire, trade, war and commerce means a long history of banking. The world’s first state-guaranteed bank was the Bank of Venice, founded in 1157, and the world’s oldest bank today is also Italian, Monte Paschi di Siena (founded 1472). In many European countries, bank assets dwarf the size of the local economy and are far in excess of other regions in the world. This is similarly reflected in the local stock exchanges: even now financials account for 42% of the Spanish stock market and 31% of the Italian stock market versus  ust 16% in the US.”

Visually, this translates as the following dramatic chart, which shows why Europe no longer has a choice in kicking the can, and what we have said from the very beginning, a Mellonesque asset liquidation of bad “assets” is the only option:

It is in Europe that the biggest debt burden lies, and it is Europe that is desperate for the biggest inflation impulse to purge away the debt in the absence of liquidation, or a spike in asset quality. However, as we showed yesterday with Europe’s €500 billion NPL timebomb, the asset quality of Europe’s banking sector is imploding at an unprecedented pace, and is correlated most tightly to the surging unemployment in the periphery, which intuitively makes much sense: without jobs, consumers can’t pay off their debt.

NPLs:

… compared to unemployment:

This means that the only resolution to a massively overlevered banking sector, where inflation just refuses to arrive and assist in the bad-asset “cleansing”, is the start of liability impairment, which will allow the long overdue process of balance sheet restructuring, instead of merely can kicking, to commence. Whether this implies deposit confiscation, well that matters in which country one is, and how many NPLs have been accumulated.

And another problem: the reason why core inflation is gone from Europe is that not only is the hot central bank money not targeting European assets (except for new Japanese Yen chasing after peripheral bonds for as…
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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly

NEW: Newsletter writers are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

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Insider Scoop

Global X to Reverse Split 3 Gold Miners ETFs, 3 Others

Courtesy of Benzinga.

Global X, the New York-based ETF sponsor known for its unique lineup of commodities and emerging markets funds, announced six of its ETFs will be reverse split, including three gold mining-related funds.

The $29.4 million Global X Gold Explorers ETF (NYSE: GLDX) will undergo a 1-for-4 reverse split while the $2.78 million Global X Junior Miners ETF (NYSE: JUNR) will see a 1-for-3 reverse split. The Global X Pure Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: ...



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Chart School

World Markets Weekend Update: The Rally Continues, Except for Hong Kong

Courtesy of Doug Short.

For the fourth consecutive week, the worldwide rally continues unabated. Seven of the eight indexes on my watchlist posted strong gains with Japan again topping the list with its 3.63% advance. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was the one index to take a breather. Amazingly enough, that Nikkei surge was three percent smaller than the previous week's 6.67%.

The Shanghai remains the only index on the watch list in bear territory -- the traditional designation for a 20% decline from an interim high. See the table inset (lower right) in the chart below. The index is down over 34% from its interim high of August 2009. At the other end of the inset -- four indexes, the ones for Germany, the UK, and J...



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Phil's Favorites

David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz on Toxic Disinformation

David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz on Toxic Disinformation

On the Billl Moyers Show

Public health historians discuss thwarted efforts to hold the lead industry accountable for toxic exposure threatening American children.

Science can be a battleground — witness the politics of climate change, the teaching of evolution, the uncharted terrain of genetic modification and stem cell research, among other contentious issues. But when industries release untested chemicals into our environment — putting profits before public health — our children are the first to suffer. Nowhere is this more troubling than in the ongoing story of lead poisoning.

Bill talks with David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, public health historians who’ve been taking on the chemical industry for years — writing about the hazards of in...



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Zero Hedge

It’s Official: Gold Is Now The Most Hated Asset Class

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum of Acting-Man blog,

Full Court Press

Not a day passes without the financial media denouncing gold as an investment option and hailing the bureaucrats heading the world's monopolist monetary central planning agencies as superheroes. It began prior to gold's recent breakdown, with widely cited bearish reports on gold published by Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, among others. Never mind that most of their arguments were easily unmasked as spurious. ...



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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

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Sabrient

Sector Detector: Investors stay focused on their Silver Linings Playbook

Courtesy of Sabrient Systems and Gradient Analytics

It seems that every Tuesday in 2013 since January 8 has been positive on the Dow. And this past Tuesday was no exception. Now that sounds like a trend to put money on -- buy the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) at the close each Monday and close out the position late on Tuesday.

The Dow and S&P 500 both hit new all-time highs once again on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq hit its highest level since November 2000. The “risk on” allocation of new investment capital into cyclicals continues, although Wednesday saw leadership from defensive sectors Consumer Staples, Utilities, and Telecom, along with Financials. Nevertheless, ConvergEx reports that the average correlation of the ten S&P business sectors to the overall index averaged 82% last month. While that is below the 86% averag...



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Option Review

Busy Day For Bristol-Myers Options As Shares Sprint Higher

Options brief will resume May 20th, 2013.

Today’s tickers: BMY, TIBX & WM

BMY - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. – Shares in drug maker, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., are ripping higher today, up 6.5% at $44.94, the highest level in more than a decade, ahead of the release of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2013 Annual Meeting abstracts tonight. The ASCO Annual Meeting begins on May 31st in Chicago. Options on BMY are far more active than usual today, with overall volume topping 64,000 contracts by 12:25 p.m. ET, versus average daily volume of around 11,400 c...



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Market Montage

SPX Reaching Historical Extremes on Weekly/Monthly Chart

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

We are starting to see some very extreme readings on our monthly and weekly index charts since there has been no correction this year.  I posted below first the monthly chart of the S&P 500 going back 15 years showing bollinger bands – rarely do we get above the upper one, and never have we been this far above.  Then below that I posted (with 4 charts of 4 years each) the weekly data and you can see we are at a rare time we are above the weekly bollinger band as well.  This non stop rally is getting very historical.

Monthly – we've never been this far a...



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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of May 13th, 2013

Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

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ETF Selector

Stock Market Gets Big News After Friday’s Close

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.

Courtesy of NASA

The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.

For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...



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Pharmboy

Give Them an Inch, They Will Take a Mile

Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi.  Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward.  So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...



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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

Virtual Portfolios Update - 11/18/2012

FAS Money

$25KPA

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AAPL Money

Peter's Strangle Portfolio

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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...

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