Investment Watch Blog

By David Stockman   Total residential construction spending dropped 8.4% from a year ago, the sixth month in a row of year-over-year declines, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $507 billion, according to the Census Bureau this morning. This was down 11% from the peak in April 2018.   https://wolfstreet.com/2019/05/01/construction-spending-at-risk-housing-retail-sag/   The party’s over. Despite a reversal … Read more

by Brandon Smith When looking at the health of an economic system it is impossible to gauge growth or stability by only taking two or three indicators into account. The problem is, this is exactly what central banks and governments tend to do. In fact, governments and central banks wildly and deliberately promote certain indicators as … Read more

from Financial Survival Network Financial advisor Dee Carter returns… Forty-four percent of Americans say the political environment in Washington is the biggest threat to the U.S. economy over the next six months, according to a new Bankrate.com report. This is more than three times the amount who cite terrorism or political/economic developments overseas, the next most popular choices … Read more

by jessefelder One of the things I’ve started paying close attention to recently is the trend in risk appetites. Are investors embracing or shunning risk in the markets? Answering this question can help to understand the strength of the underlying trend. The chart below plots the S&P 500 Index (in blue) alongside a custom index … Read more

https://media.blubrry.com/silverdoctors/s/content.blubrry.com/silverdoctors/The_Monetary_Experiment_Starts_to_Unravel_SDN_.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | Stitcher | RSS It only took one word from Fed Chair Jerome Powell on inflation to send the markets reeling, and that word was “transitory.” The markets have been pricing in a Fed rate cut, and Powell’s comments suggest the Fed is not considering a cut at this point. It looks like the monetary … Read more

via silverdoctors: Oh yeah, and China, “our media would richly reward you” if you steal Trump’s tax returns… Three-ring. Circus side-show. And Hillary Clinton has the mic: Oh, yeah, and China, “Our media would richly reward you”. So to recap: The 2020 US Presidential Election. Not just Republicans versus Democrats. It’s now also Russia versus China. We … Read more

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com During Attorney General William Barr’s testimony yesterday on live TV, we witnessed Congressional Democrats obstructing justice by demanding Barr’s resignation in spite of his admitted investigation into FISA-abuse and Hillary Clinton’s dirty dossier. It’s clear the only option the Democrats have now is to discredit Barr.  Communications between Special Counsel Robert Mueller … Read more

by northmantrader Pay attention here, we just witnessed trend breaks on some index charts and these breaks are coming at a key time and could spell more trouble to come. Speaking of key time, who says twitter trolls are good for nothing. If anything, they sometime can serve as contrarian sentiment checks. I sensed markets were … Read more

by WARREN MOSLER Continues to decelerate: Highlights Jerome Powell may have cited March auto sales as an economic plus in yesterday’s FOMC press conference, but April sales couldn’t keep up the pace. Unit vehicle sales managed only a 16.4 million annual rate in April which was far below March’s 17.5 million rate and well below … Read more

More and more companies either choose not to invest in other countries or are prevented from doing so. By Don Quijones, Spain, UK, & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET. Global foreign direct investment flows plunged by another 27% in 2018 — after having already plunged 16% in 2017 — to just $1.1 trillion, the equivalent of 1.3% … Read more

via @MI_Investments: Any trade deal we reach with China/EU/NAFTA hurts them; benefits to US likely muted by blowback of world going into recession Markets now going to try to front run the China trade deal news…..insiders will get the first look at what’s included. ‘Sell the news” of the deal setting up. Behind China are tariffs … Read more

The chart here screams ”sell now if you don’t want to sell at -50% in the next 9 years” You USA, canada and UK landlords are warned   h/t luchins