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Post by jeffolie on Jul 27, 2015 7:03:15 GMT -6
Crude Oil 47.40
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 27, 2015 6:43:32 GMT -6
Chinese stocks fell sharply today, leading the Shanghai Composite to record its largest one-day drop since June 2007, while bringing down European shares and U.S. futures. Weak manufacturing data revealed that profit at the country's industrial firms dropped 0.3% in June from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Chinese investors seem to have also gotten back on the bear train after classifying the government's unprecedented intervention as unsustainable. Shanghai -8.5%.
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 27, 2015 6:37:24 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 24, 2015 4:19:51 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 23, 2015 4:08:14 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 22, 2015 15:34:54 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 17, 2015 15:26:51 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 17, 2015 8:33:34 GMT -6
The volatility index VIX traded below 12 for 2 days. This often marks a short term top.
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 16, 2015 14:58:22 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 14, 2015 4:29:59 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 13, 2015 15:10:52 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 11, 2015 4:22:33 GMT -6
US investors are so bearish, it's bullish The American Association of Individual Investors' net percentage of bulls minus bears was at -12% on July 2, the second-lowest level since 2013 (the lowest being -13% on June 11). But, as Lee has pointed out before, extremes in this case usually mean the opposite: "Historically, the AAII survey is a contrarian indicator with a very good track record at the extremes," Lee wrote in a note last month. "For instance, since 1987, whenever the net bulls reading is this low, stocks have seen a subsequent six-month rally 100% of the time, with an average gain of 7%." finance.yahoo.com/news/tom-lee-see-buy-signal-161839664.html
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 10, 2015 16:38:27 GMT -6
d1w116sruyx1mf.cloudfront.net/ee-assets/channels/article_default/PriceStatsInflationGaugevsCPI.pngFor now, rising wages aren’t causing prices to rise much. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a government measure of inflation, showed a 0% inflation rate in May. But we prefer to use data from the Billion Prices Project (BPP) to measure inflation. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management created the BPP. It collects the prices of 5 million items sold by hundreds of retailers in order to estimate inflation. Right now, the BPP also says inflation is low. This chart compares the CPI to the PriceStats Inflation Gauge, an inflation index calculated using data from the BPP: According to both the CPI and BPP, prices only rose by about 0.2% from May 2014 to May 2015. When we do get meaningful inflation, it’ll likely show up in the BPP before it does in the CPI. We’ll be watching both… and we’ll tell you when we start to see inflation. www.caseyresearch.com/articles/why-todays-huge-rally-is-totally-meaningless
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 10, 2015 16:01:24 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 10, 2015 15:52:21 GMT -6
July 10, 2015 Attitudes Toward Undocumented Immigrants The 59 percent majority of Americans agrees that the United States should take stronger measures to keep undocumented immigrants out of the country. Here are the percentages by generation... U.S. should take stronger measures to exclude undocumented immigrants (% agreeing) Millennials: 48% Generation X: 62% Baby Boomers: 63% Older Americans: 75% Source: Demo Memo analysis of the 2014 General Social Survey demomemo.blogspot.com/
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 10, 2015 15:38:47 GMT -6
assets.bwbx.io/images/iJ_O4ldU8P74/v1/-1x-1.jpgShort Sales Are at Their Highest Level Since the Financial Crisis by Lu Wang July 8, 2015 a Where Does Andy Murray Put His Money? little line above headline U.S. equity bears, mired in the longest streak of losses in 25 years, are getting bolder. Unfazed by three years of money-losing bets against stocks, short sellers increased their bearish wagers in June to the highest level since the financial crisis, according to data compiled by the New York Stock Exchange. For now the move has proved well-timed as a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. index of most-shorted stocks slumped 10 percent over 10 days through Wednesday, one of the worst declines since 2009. è square before the information Source: Bloomberg It’s a rare victory for short sellers, who borrow stock with the aim of replacing it once the price falls. They’re reloading as the Greek crisis threatens the euro zone and Chinese shares collapse just as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates. “The danger in shorting a stock, or the market in general, is that it will continue to move up longer than one can stay financially viable,” said Stacey Nutt, chief investment officer who oversees about $5 billion at ClariVest Asset Management LLC in San Diego, California. Turmoil in China and Greece has “increased confidence by shorts that the market, even in the U.S., will have difficulty moving up in the face of such significant macro headwinds,” he said. Losing Strategy Betting against stocks has been a losing strategy since 2009 as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rallied more than 200 percent and all but 22 members climbed. The HFRI Short Bias Index of equity hedge funds has fallen in five of the past six years, a performance not seen in 2 1/2 decades of data. U.S. equities rose amid a global rebound today, sending the S&P 500 up 0.2 percent at 4 p.m. in New York. With stocks in China plunging more than 30 percent over four weeks and aid talks between Greece and its creditors breaking down, bears are perking up. The number of shorted shares increased 3.3 percent from a month ago to 16.2 billion in June, the most since September 2008, according to NYSE data. “What’s conspiring here is obviously the lingering worries about Greece coupled with the fact that Chinese equities continue to decline into bear market territory,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist in Philadelphia at Janney Capital Management LLC, which oversees about $68 billion. “Obviously we’re sort of captive to what is taking place way from us, which is highly unpredictable.” Slowing Momentum Turbulence from China to Greece is adding anxiety to American stocks, where momentum is slowing. The S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent from April to June, ending nine straight quarters of gains, the longest streak since 1998. As investors retreat from risky assets, stocks with the highest short interest suffered from some of the worst declines. The Goldman basket, made up of the 50 most-shorted companies on the Russell 3000 Index, slipped in all but two of the last 10 sessions. The 10 percent decline over the stretch matched the drop in October, which was the biggest since 2011. “Those companies are the worst of the bunch in terms of how they’re fundamentally doing,” said Jimmy Lee, chief executive officer at Las Vegas-based Wealth Consulting Group, which oversees about $500 million. “Investors are worried,” he said. “A lot of this may be just from people that are not taking advantage of markets going down, but hedging their long portfolios.” World Acceptance Corp., a provider of consumer loans, ranked the most hated stock in the Russell 3000 with 72 percent of its shares sold short, exchange data compiled by Bloomberg show. The stock has dropped 26 percent in the past month as FBR Capital Markets downgraded its rating. Fund Positions Sears Holdings Corp., the retailer that has posted 12 straight quarters of losses, is down 42 percent from its 2015 peak. Its short interest reached 50 percent. Rising short sales sent a gauge of hedge fund manager bullishness compiled by Evercore ISI down 1.3 percentage points over the past month, putting the measure of short and long exposure close to neutral. In futures tracking the S&P 500, bearish positions outnumber bullish ones by the most in three years. “Markets feel unsettled, a lot of momentum names rolling over,” said Brian Barish, who helps oversee about $12.5 billion at Denver-based Cambiar Investors LLC. “Personally I think we just churn around for awhile, but others may see something darker.” www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/bears-get-rare-victory-on-u-s-stocks-as-shorts-index-falls-10-
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 10, 2015 6:16:54 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 9, 2015 3:49:43 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 7, 2015 14:36:42 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 7, 2015 7:26:56 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 6, 2015 16:24:04 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 6, 2015 14:24:15 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 5, 2015 10:23:11 GMT -6
assets.bwbx.io/images/iZBRHFUoWSUU/v3/-1x-1.jpgChina Brokers Dust Off Wall Street’s Playbook From Crash of 1929 On Wall Street in 1929, it was the great banking houses of J.P. Morgan and Guaranty Trust Company. In China today, it’s names like Citic Securities Co. and Guotai Junan Securities Co. They’re separated by 86 years and 7,300 miles, but Chinese financiers are turning to the same playbook used by their American counterparts to fight a crash that’s wiping out stock-market fortunes on an unprecedented scale. Investors in China are hoping it works out a lot better this time around. When five of America’s most-powerful financiers met at the House of Morgan at 23 Wall Street on Oct. 24, 1929, the immediate impact of their plan to pool resources and prop up the market was encouraging: the panic of Black Thursday gave way to a recovery and the New York Times lauded the bankers for putting a floor under share prices. The boost to confidence didn’t last long. The rout resumed by the following Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 13 percent. The gauge would go on to drop another 34 percent over the next three weeks, as the attached chart shows. The support measures in China may also have a fleeting impact, according to Hao Hong, a strategist at Bocom International Holdings Co. in Hong Kong. A group of 21 Chinese brokerages pledged on Saturday to commit 120 billion yuan ($19.3 billion) to a large-cap stock fund, designed to stabilize shares after the biggest three-week rout in the Shanghai Composite Index since 1992. The move coincided with a flurry of other market-boosting measures, including a halt to initial public offerings and regulatory moves to discourage short sellers. Too Small With daily turnover on Chinese markets approaching 2 trillion yuan, the support fund may be too small to have a meaningful long-term impact, according to Hong. It also does little to boost confidence in small-cap stocks, some of the biggest losers during the rout. “This 120 billion yuan won’t last for an hour in this market,” Hong said by phone from Beijing Saturday. “It might benefit blue-chip stocks, as investors may see them as value, but the bursting of the bubble in small-cap/tech stocks is likely to continue.” www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-05/china-brokers-dust-off-wall-street-s-playbook-from-crash-of-1929
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 4, 2015 15:56:29 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 4, 2015 10:24:38 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 4, 2015 7:43:47 GMT -6
"...Today the entire West lacks a free press..."
This bit is over the top as well.
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 4, 2015 7:34:19 GMT -6
"The fate of all Europeans and of Americans themselves will be settled on Sunday."
Well, this bit is over the top.
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 4, 2015 7:31:36 GMT -6
A rout of China's financial markets may well result in lower oil prices as well as other commodities and/or precious metals.
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 4, 2015 7:16:23 GMT -6
Guess What Happened The Last Time The Chinese Stock Market Crashed Like This? Jul. 3, 2015 The second largest stock market in the entire world is collapsing right in front of our eyes. Since hitting a peak in June, the most important Chinese stock market index has plummeted by well over 20 percent, and more than 3 trillion dollars of "paper wealth" has been wiped out. Of course, the Shanghai Composite Index is still way above the level it was sitting at exactly one year ago, but what is so disturbing about this current crash is that it is so similar to what we witnessed just prior to the great financial crisis of 2008 in the United States. From October 2006 to October 2007, the Shanghai Composite Index more than tripled in value. It was the greatest stock market surge in Chinese history. But after hitting a peak, it began to fall dramatically. From October 2007 to October 2008, the Shanghai Composite Index absolutely crashed. In the end, more than two-thirds of all wealth in the market was completely wiped out. You can see all of this on a chart that you can find right here. What makes this so important to U.S. investors is the fact that Chinese stocks started crashing well before U.S. stocks started crashing during the last financial crisis, and now it is happening again. Is this yet another sign that a U.S. stock market crash is imminent? Over the past several months, I have been trying to hammer home the comparisons between what we are experiencing right now and the lead up to the U.S. financial crisis in the second half of 2008. Today, I want to share with you an excerpt from a New York Times article that was published in April 2008. At that time, the Chinese stock market crash was already well underway, but U.S. stocks were still in great shape… “ The Shanghai composite index has plunged 45 percent from its high, reached last October. The first quarter of this year, which ended Monday with a huge sell-off, was the worst ever for the market. Suddenly, millions of small investors who were crowding into brokerage houses, spending the entire day there playing cards, trading stocks, eating noodles and cheering on the markets with other day traders and retirees, are feeling depressed and angry. This sounds almost exactly like what is happening in China right now. First, we witnessed a ridiculous Chinese stock market bubble form, and now we are watching a nightmarish sell-off take place. This next excerpt is from a Reuters article that was just published… “ Shanghai's benchmark share index crashed below 4,000 points for the first time since April - a key support level that analysts said had been seen as a line in the sand that Beijing had to defend, below which more conservative investors would start ejecting from their leveraged positions, widening the rout. Chinese markets, which had risen as much as 110 percent from November to a peak in June, have collapsed at an incredibly rapid pace in since June 12, losing more than 20 percent in jaw-dropping volatility as money surges in and out of the market. That drop has wiped out nearly $3 trillion in market capitalization, more than the GDP of Brazil. Did you catch that last part? The amount of wealth that has been wiped out during this Chinese stock market crash is already greater than the entire yearly GDP of Brazil. To me, that is absolutely incredible. And now that the global financial system is more interconnected than ever, what goes on over in China has a greater impact on the rest of the globe than ever before. Today, China has the largest economy on the planet on a purchasing power basis, and the Chinese stock market "is the second largest in the world in terms of market capitalization"… “ Just as in 1929, flighty retail investors make up the bulk of China's stock market and, just as in 1929 in the U.S., they have heavily margined their accounts. The Financial Times puts the number of retail investors in the Chinese stock market at 80 to 90 percent of the total market. Retail investors, unlike sophisticated institutional investors, are prone to panic selling, which explains the wild intraday swings in the Shanghai Composite over the past week. Last night, the Shanghai Composite broke a key technical support level, closing below 4,000 at 3,912.77. The index is now down 24 percent since it peaked earlier this month and has wiped out more than $2.4 trillion in value. China's stock market is the second largest in the world in terms of market capitalization, with the U.S. ranking number one. Making world markets even more worried about the situation in China, its regulators are showing a similar brand of leadership as Mario Draghi. After previously pledging to trim back risky margin lending, they have now done a complete flip flop and are permitting individual brokerage firms to avoid selling out accounts that miss margin calls by setting their own guidelines on the amount of collateral needed. I know that a lot of Americans don't really care about what happens over in Asia, but when the second largest stock market in the entire world crashes, it is a very big deal. The great financial crisis of 2015 has now begun, and it is just going to get much, much worse. On Thursday, Ron Paul declared that "the day of reckoning is at hand," and I agree with him. So what comes next? The following is what Phoenix Capital Research is anticipating… “ By the time it's all over, I expect: 1) Numerous emerging market countries to default and most emerging market stocks to lose 50% of their value. 2) The Euro to break below parity before the Eurozone is broken up (eventually some new version of the Euro to be introduced and remain below parity with the US Dollar). 3) Japan to have defaulted and very likely enter hyperinflation. 4) US stocks to lose at least 50% of their value and possibly fall as far as 400 on the S&P 500. 5) Numerous "bail-ins" in which deposits are frozen and used to prop up insolvent banks. I tend to agree with most of that. I don't agree that the euro is going to go away, but I do agree that the eurozone is going to break up and be reconstituted in a new form eventually. And yes, we are going to see tremendous inflation all over the world down the road, but I wouldn't say that it is imminent in Japan or anywhere else. But overall, I think that is a pretty good list. So what do you think is coming? Please feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment below… seekingalpha.com/article/3301725-guess-what-happened-the-last-time-the-chinese-stock-market-crashed-like-this?ifp=0
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 3, 2015 12:19:24 GMT -6
Yale's Shiller: Public Faith in 'Overpriced' Stock Market At 15-Year Low By FJ McGuire | Thursday, 02 Jul 2015 The U.S. stock market is one of the most expensive in the world and may be prone to bubbles, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller warned. Measuring valuations with his cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings index (which is price divided by 10-year average earnings) the Yale University professor told CNBC that his "CAPE index ... is higher than it's been, except 1929, 2000 and 2007," ominous years for the market. "The public [also] worries that the stock market is overpriced," he said. "Their confidence in the level in the market is at its lowest since 2000." He warned that bubbles can be formed "when people think it's time to get in, even though it's overpriced." However, a MarketWatch survey of stock strategists and portfolio managers found that while no one believes stocks are cheap, too much is being made of high short-term valuations. MarketWatch reported that just because stocks are pricey doesn’t mean they can’t get more expensive. It is just a matter of how much more, said Dan Greenhaus, chief strategist at BTIG. “Further, valuations are high but given the level of interest and inflation rates, one could rationalize that level,” he told MarketWatch. Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/robert-shiller-stock-market-bubble-economy/2015/07/01/id/653115/#ixzz3eqzcNe63
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