Investment Watch Blog

By Chris Black   Eastern Europeans have a saying: we’ve just got out communism, after 45 years of Hell, only to discover that the West is marching (this time benevolently) into the same hellhole we’ve just managed to escape from. And this is not a joke either. The West’s essential institutions are pathologically corrupted by … Read more

Quantitative Easing (QE) and Equity and Credit Performance pic.twitter.com/bPE6kXGSiN — Alastair (@StockBoardAsset) December 5, 2017 CenBanks are the biggest risk to asset prices and the global economy. El-Erian's preview of major central banks in 2018. https://t.co/AxLEEKmMbk pic.twitter.com/2UtGcN3VH9 — Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) December 6, 2017 Why The Shift To QT Will Cause The Mother Of All … Read more

Market analyst Lynette Zang predicts in the next crash, “real estate, stocks and bonds will all crash.” When will this happen? Zang says, “Enjoy your Christmas,” but in 2018, all bets are off. Zang explains, “In 2018, I don’t think they can hold these things together. I think we will see a major market correction … Read more

by Michael Snyder At one elementary school in California, 96 percent of the students are not proficient in either English or math.  How is that even possible?  Unfortunately, the more the federal government gets involved in education, the worse it seems to get.  At one time the United States had the greatest system of public education on the … Read more

By Michael Snyder It should upset you that virtually everything stocking the shelves of our major retailers seems to have been made somewhere else.  As a nation, we are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, and that is a recipe for national economic suicide.  This week we learned that imports from China hit … Read more

by Chris Black If you’re not up to date with the politically correct lingo, you should know that the concept of protected classes was created by leftists and it’s pretty much similar with the notion of identity politics. Basically, a protected class, whether we’re talking about minorities (blacks, Hispanics, “people of color”) or women/transgenders/gays/lesbians/whatever sexual … Read more

by Anthony B Sanders Another day in the land of Central Bank bubbles. According to Bloomberg, transportation stocks have rallied more than 8 percent in a week, realigning them with industrials at new highs in a coupling that is one of the market’s oldest bullish technical indicators. According to the century-old Dow Theory, simultaneous records in … Read more

In your opinion, how can it possibly be considered that this is a good economy when the bank literally gives you money to buy a home?! Mortgage   When credit flows easily, people will take it. Payday loans. Cash Money. Cash Advance. These are successful business models because people can find a way to buy … Read more

by John Ward The media’s macro portrait of ‘everything’s alright really’ looks like the daubings of an infant when you get closer to the canvas. Nowhere is this more apparent than than in the micromadness of the US Car sector.   One of the things long-distance relocation brings to the party is just how different things … Read more

h/t David Stockman Rather than attempting to "justify" or dismiss valuations, it's better to accept that speculative pressures (we read via market internals) can allow enormous, temporary deviations from valuation norms over portions of the cycle. Just don't imagine those deviations are permanent. pic.twitter.com/cBJQ59i3Pd — John P. Hussman, Ph.D. (@hussmanjp) December 4, 2017 The Fed Is … Read more

By Michael Snyder This is what can happen when you go to a socialized healthcare system.  A lot of people out there believe that the United States has a free market healthcare system, but that is actually not true.  The percentage of the population that receives government-subsidized healthcare is rapidly approaching 50 percent, and the … Read more

by Chris Black It’s an undeniable fact that Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, also known as Mutti Merkel (Mother of Refugees), is one of the persons accountable for European Union’s (failed) open borders policies. The thing is, back in 2015, Chancellor Merkel took the decision to open-wide Germany’s borders and allowed over one million (nobody knows … Read more

by Mark Angelides Once again the story about the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple is in the ages of our newspapers. We are being asked to look at it as though the baker, Masterpiece Cakeshop, was asking for “the right to discriminate” (LA Times) and that their refusal is akin … Read more

Financial markets could be over-heating, warns central bank body Bank for International Settlements’ quarterly health check warns global economy resembles era just before financial crash Investors are ignoring warning signs that financial markets could be overheating and consumer debts are rising to unsustainable levels, the global body for central banks has warned in its quarterly … Read more

by sundance Did you know the DOJ has been investigating the FBI for 11 months…. wait, what? Hold-up on the criticism folks.  Three important statements today from the DOJ, FBI and OIG indicate there have been ongoing investigations and reviews of conduct within the upper tiers of leadership within the Department of Justice and the FBI. Given the … Read more

by Thinker There are over half a million kids missing in North America and not one agency that Americans spend trillions on to keep everything safe is doing their job, if children can disappear. Headline news reporting to Americans about a few hundred girls missing in Africa, when there are almost a million missing on … Read more

Dr. Mark Skidmore thinks the federal accounting of $21 trillion in missing money is crazy and far outside the realm of normal. So, is this a legitimate U.S. national security issue? Dr. Skidmore, who holds a PhD in Economics, says, “Yeah, and that is one of the reasons I decided to look at this. How … Read more

by SpontaneousDisorder The market has drawn these out. I think the combination of rallying to meet these lines with the tremendously overbought technical condition of the stock market makes this important. This chart shows parallel trendlines for the middle portion of this bull (wave 3) although wave 5 (within this wave 3) didn’t manage to hit … Read more

Fed is in trouble It wants to cool financial markets and the economy but can’t control financial conditions – @ Johnny Bo Jakobsen?     ECB warns of possible global market correction after excessive risk-taking The European Central Bank (ECB) warned Wednesday that despite the improved economic growth in the euro area there are concerns related to a … Read more

People fall into the same patterns in their daily lives. Habits form very easily. As habitual creatures, we look for patterns which we can align with and feel comfortable. In the stock market, investors, and algorithms, trading on investors behalf, look for these patterns which suit them, and bet on it. This just happens to … Read more

by Spencer P Morrison, NEE Bitcoin Loses Over One-Fifth Of Value In Under 24 Hours—Why is Bitcoin so Volatile? Reuters reports that Bitcoin lost over 20 percent of its value within the last 24 hours, sliding from Wednesday’s high of $11,395 down to a low of $9,000 in volatile trading on Thursday.  Prices recovered slightly towards the … Read more

by Jim Quinn On this day in 1824, Congress acts to decide a presidential election for the first time in history, giving the presidency to John Quincy Adams. A clause in the Constitution’s 12th Amendment puts the power of deciding an election in the hands of Congress if no candidate receives a majority of the … Read more

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, http://www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter But many mid-tier markets are red-hot. In San Francisco, the most expensive major rental market in the US, the median asking rent in November for one-bedroom apartments, at $3,390, is up 1.8% year-over-year, but is down 7.6% from the peak in October 2015. The median asking rent for two-bedroom apartments, at $4,380, … Read more

by Daniel Carter Trump continues to make a mistake so costly that it could relegate him to the title of worst president of all time. Let me say first, if you are a Trump supporter, I am not your enemy. I am generally indifferent toward Trump and want the United States to succeed no matter who … Read more