U.S. National Debt Continues to Balloon The U.S. national debt is ballooning very quickly. This won’t end well. The higher the national debt goes, the bigger the problems are going to be. As it stands, the national debt is about $21.1 trillion. At the beginning of 2008, it was just $9.2 trillion. Simple math here: over…
The Congressional Budget Office released its latest projections for the budget and the economy for the next 10 years. This is non-partisan analysis which is why it has a lot of credibility; politicians love to cite it if the CBO’s analysis on their proposals is positive. The headline of this report is that the federal…
Today gold was at a tiny distance from breaking above its strong resistance level but…it failed. However, the current move still looks good: source: Simple Digressions The chart shows the goldollar index and gold prices. Note that this time both instruments go in tandem, which validates the current move in gold prices.
Rite Aid (RAD) is expected to report earnings Thursday before market open. The whisper number is -$0.01, one cent ahead of the analysts’ estimates and showing some confidence from the WhisperNumber community. A year ago the company reported earnings of $0.00, in-line with the whisper number. Rite Aid has a 47% positive surprise history (having…
Some good and bad in the market right now. Despite some willingness by the market to try and rally in recent days, there is still a lot of pressure weighing on the sectors across the board. The headline risk is at extreme levels, and that is keeping me from being too aggressive on the long…
from the St Louis Fed — this post authored by Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria and Brian Reinbold Economists have observed that the correlation between oil price changes and equity returns changed dramatically after 2008. Before 2008 oil and equity prices were generally uncorrelated, while after 2008 they became highly correlated. Interestingly, this change in the correlation coincides with the Federal…
The US did lose around a third of its gains in the final hour of trading Tuesday, but it still closed strong. It was that confidence that carried some of the markets in Asia forward but there were some that were not convinced. The Australian ASX, SENSEX and Nikkei looked hesitant and took time to…
With all the focus on bitcoin lately, we’ve added a new weekly update that tracks the three largest cryptocurrencies by market share: bitcoin, Ether, and Ripple. According to Wikipedia, a cryptocurrency is “a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional…
Today is inflation day, as can happen on the occasional month. The US CPI came in without signs of acceleration despite the relinquishment of the Verizon effect on the statistical bucket. Financial markets are unenthused by all this, but you might not know why. The spread between 5- and 30-year Treasury yields, as well as the gap for…
GOLD: The commodity continues to face recovery risk as it rallied strongly on Wednesday. On the downside, support comes in at the 1,320.00 level where a break will turn attention to the 1,310.00 level. Further down, a cut through here will open the door for a move lower towards the 1,300.00 level. Below here if…
