Investment Watch Blog

by John Rubino Times have been hard for Wall Street banks lately, what with record amounts of cash pouring in and causing all kinds of bookkeeping headaches. So — big-hearted people that we are — Americans stepped up and helped by lowering the banks’ taxes. From Today’s Wall Street Journal: The Four Biggest U.S. Banks … Read more

by James Hall For those with the practical experience of being an employer, it is well established that in order for an enterprise to survive, profitability is a primary objective. Employing labor is a function of fulfilling a needed task and matching the skills of the worker with the ability of making or running equipment in … Read more

by visualcapitalist When you think about it, the journey of each individual currency note is pretty incredible. After being printed or minted, each bill is then passed between people and businesses to facilitate transactions. If it’s a $1 or $5 bill, it changes hands on average about 110 times per year – and if it’s a … Read more

8 minute video by a good friend of mine who is absolutely sick of the chains that the bankers have put around our feet, hands, and necks. It explains the epic saga, filled with greed, murder, deceit, and betrayal which the bankers have played out on the American people since the inception of this country. … Read more

by Thinker Kratom is a tree native to Southeast Asia that is widely known as ‘nature’s vicodin’. The leaves of the tree can be chewed, made into a tea, or dried and added to capsules that cure anxiety, depression, migraines and many types of chronic pain. The plant acts as both a mild sedative when used … Read more

by Raúl Ilargi Meijer Charles Sprague Pearce Lamentations over the Death of the First-Born of Egypt 1877  In Matthew 12:22-28, Jesus tells the Pharisees:   Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. In 1858, US Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln borrows the line:   On June 16, … Read more

by Simon Black In January 1980, the price of gold hit a record high of $850 per ounce. Then it began a nearly two-decade slide. By the summer of 1999, gold hit $250 per ounce– a level not seen since the 1970s. So naturally it was at this point that the British government made the infamously … Read more

From Justin Murray at Mises Wire: Lately, when he isn’t trying to blame China on America’s competitiveness woes, President Donald Trump has become obsessed with the online retailer Amazon. While there’s speculation that Trump is using the reins of government to carry out a personal grudge because Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, also owns The Washington Post, the more recent obsession is … Read more

by Jim Rickards of Daily Reckoining Liquidity is the ultimate paradox in finance. It’s always there when you don’t need it and never there when you need it most. The reason is crowd behavior, or what mathematicians call hypersynchronicity (a fancy word for everyone doing the same thing at the same time). When markets are calm, no one … Read more

by Martin Armstrong   The Atlantic current is slowing down dramatically. A team of scientists says it is the weakest in 1600 years. Naturally, they attribute it to humans who are driving their cars and heating their homes which is melting the ice in Greenland and that is fresh water which is lighter than seawater. They are predicting, of … Read more

via Jim Leaviss As the U.S. yield curve flattened to just 45 bps (2s-10s) last week, we dug out something I wrote back in 2007, in the early days of this blog.  A chart that accompanied the blog showed that a) U.S. BBB credit spreads had hit their tightest level for nearly 3 decades and b) that … Read more

by Arkadiusz Sieron of Sunshine Profits Everyone focuses now on the chemical attack in Syria. Meanwhile, the most important turnover in the world remains mostly unnoticed. But we’re on guard. Let’s read our analysis of the key revolution of 2018 and find out the implications for the gold market. Hawks Take Over the Fed Are we going to … Read more

via Wirepoints: It’s starting to get real. There has been so much ink spilled regarding underfunded pensions and municipal bankruptcies, but outside of so much journalistic hand-wringing, it’s been pretty easy, like with the ever-escalating federal debt, to say, “So what?” None of it seems to matter. None of it seems real. Nothing seems to change … Read more

The Global Economy Is Slowinghttps://t.co/F1wuhNPhRP — Daniel Lacalle (@dlacalle_IA) April 17, 2018 Credit card defaults hit 6 year high. (S&P/Experian Default Index) Credit risk seems abundant. pic.twitter.com/3bsdGSegf1 — Mark Johnston (@CovfefeCapital) April 17, 2018 https://twitter.com/_globalmacro/status/986206993735090176 "60+ day delinquency rate of subprime auto loans has now risen to 5.8%, up from 5.2% a year ago, and … Read more

by TFittonJW Now Judicial Watch is asking q’s about whether Mr. Comey is getting special treatment from FBI to use these docs in his book. Someone has to do the heavy lifting for accountability. Judicial Watch sued again today for Comey book docs. We suspect special treatment: https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-fbi-comey-book-documents/ Here’s a background vid on our first lawsuit:

by Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC The mega-cap stocks that dominate the US markets have enjoyed an amazing bull run.  But February’s first correction in years proved things are changing.  With that unnatural low-volatility melt-up behind us, it’s more important than ever to keep leading stocks’ underlying fundamentals in focus.  They help investors understand which major American companies … Read more

via Danielle Park The Atlanta Fed is out today with its latest mark down in the US GDP growth estimate for Q1 2018: The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2018 is 1.9 percent on April 16, down from 2.0 percent on April 10. The nowcast for first-quarter … Read more