Archive - Oct 2014

Despite the 'sound and fury' from various Fed-Heads, the world - according to Deutsche Bank - faces 10 significant factors that will (one way or another) drive markets for the remainder of the year...

In essence, despite a zero interest rate policy that mainly helps the wealthy, struggling families with falling incomes ought to take steps to accumulate "considerable assets," as retirees take part-time jobs to make ends meet. Let them eat cake, indeed.

News about the spread of the Ebola virus has been an increasing focus for market participants in recent days. Despite rising media coverage, Ebola seems to have had little discernible effect on consumer sentiment to date. However, as Goldman Sachs notes, the "fear factor" associated with Ebola appears more significant than in past instances of pandemic concern. While expert opinion sees the likelihood of a significant outbreak of Ebola in the US as very low, it is likely any negative macroeconomic consequences are most likely to be transmitted through fear or risk-aversion channels.

Few are the market makers that make money no matter what the market does (especially since HFT firms, long since exposed for merely frontrunning big order blocks instead of providing liquidity, are now disappearing at an accelerating pace), and there are those who, rigged casino analogies notwithstanding, still want to place their money in the market betting on either more upside or downside. For their benefit a few days ago we posted "The "Crazy Ivan" Playbook: How To Time A Near-Term Market Bottom" however, we realize that most people are visual learners, so for them, here is the Investor Business Daily's compendium of the most notable market tops and bottoms in recent market history.

Welcome to the Dow-Data-Dependent^TM Fed. Because what a difference 1,100 Dow points makes!

If U.S. stocks have stabilized – granted, a big 'IF' - you can thank the fact that markets don’t believe the Federal Reserve’s outlook on interest rates. Bad news will keep the doves “Fed” (yes, a pun…  it’s Friday) and the hawks at bay. A spate of good U.S. news while the rest of the developed world slows is the worst potential outcome in this narrative.

Arlington County Fire Department and Fairfax County HAZMAT Teams are on the scene after a woman - alleged to have recently traveled from West Africa - fell ill and started vomiting in The Pentagon parking lot this morning. Arlington Public Health has activated its Emergency Operations Center to manage the incident.

WOMAN WHO VOMITED IN PENTAGON PARKING LOT VISITED LIBERIA TWO WEEKS AGO -- FOX CITING DEFENSE SOURCE

"If you like your phone secretly spied on, you can keep it," appears to be the message from the FBI. As Bloomberg reports, FBI Director James Comey said yesterday that companies like Apple and Google should be required to build surveillance capabilities into their products to help law enforcement with their probes, adding "if the challenges of real time data interception threatened to leave us in the dark, encryption threatens to lead us all to a very dark place."

This is a riot: watch the gubernatorial debate in Florida as the two candidates have a pissing match over.............a fan.

For those who doubt that America is ruled by a narrow elite: three charts.

We got it all covered here...

We believe that the “Save Our Swiss Gold” campaign has the potential to be a game changer in the gold market - both in terms of the ramifications for the current global monetary system and in terms of higher gold prices. 

There has been a lack of coverage of this important story and there is therefore a lack of awareness about the possible implications for the gold market. Thus, in the weeks prior to the referendum on November 30th, we are going to analyse the referendum, the important context to the referendum and the ramifications of a yes or a no vote.