Paper assets are struggling this year. Both the S&P 500 and 10-year Treasurys are down around 3%. Meanwhile, gold prices are on the move. Shares of the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD) are up nearly 4% in 2018. And I’m forecasting another 7%-plus gain over the next two months. The once-loved precious metal was left for dead for the…
Ratings, Teachers’ Strikes, Pensions, Higher Education During the quarter, Moody’s and S&P reported that upgrades of municipal bonds continued to dominate downgrades in 2017. For S&P it was the sixth year in a row, with California leading the way in the number of upgraded issuers, followed by Florida and Texas. For Moody’s it was the…
The Bears are Back in Town The cryptocurrency market slipped even further into recession this week.With a total market cap of $258bln, it’s down 20% from the $320bln in value it carried going into this week.This is the lowest the entire market has been since November, 24th 2017. Yep, we’ve turned back the clock and dialed prices…
Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) generated an outstanding return on equity of 43.5% over the past twelve months, while the Materials sector returned 6.1%. Even though Monsanto’s performance is highly impressive relative to its peers, it’s useful to understand what’s really driving the company’s strong ROE and how it’s trending. Understanding these components may change your views…
In a few short weeks, Britain will begin negotiations with the EU on how we will trade in the years ahead; in the next three years, the return of Britain’s capacity for self-government will give us the chance to trade freely with the rest of the world once more. To grasp these opportunities will require…
With President Trump’s announcement of trade tariffs, fears of a trade war have overtaken the news cycle and added to market volatility in recent weeks. But, is this fear really justified? This time on the Financial Sense Newshour, Jim Puplava takes a look at the reality behind the recent panic to determine what threat, if…
Despite significant controversy surrounding the trade war between the US and China, which as the WSJ recently pointed out that China was the first to start, the economy will barely be affected by the recently announced tariffs. Currently, based on speculation and rhetoric, the trend appears to be towards negotiation rather than an outright trade war. Since…
A recent paper from Robeco discusses whether a liquidity premium exists in the stock market. The authors, David Blitz, Jean-Paul van Brakel, and Milan Vidojevic, conclude that “the evidence for such a premium is, at best, weak.” Less politely, these authors refer to the whole notion of a liquidity premium as having been “challenged and…
GBPUSD Elliott Wave short-term sequence from 3/01 low (1.3709) ended as a Leading Diagonal structure in Minor wave 1 at 1.4248 high in 5 waves. Down from there, the pair is correcting that cycle in Minor wave 2 pullback in 3, 7 or 11 swings before it resumes the upside. So far pair is showing 3 swings back from…
Facebook (FB) has dominated the financial news cycle over the past weeks pursuant to its relationship with Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm with ties to Steve Bannon. Cambridge did digital work for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Apparently, the firm obtained private Facebook data to target millions of its users for ads promoting Trump:…
