TedWeir

Originally Posted by TedWeir

It has always been a question of when as far as QE3 is concerned: "It's the economy stupid" (Bill Clinton) "It's always the economy. It always is, always has been" (Goldbggr)

What is predictable is that: It's the economy, it's us, we made it we continue to make it. So why would they let it be destroyed?

After all it is the master banking class' money too.

The story goes on.

G

Dollar falls after Bernanke speech

Dollar weakens after Bernanke says Fed can do more if economy doesn't improve

NEW YORK (AP) -- The dollar fell against most major currencies Friday, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central bank can do more to help the U.S. economy rebound.
Traders have been speculating about the odds of another round of quantitative easing from the Fed. It has already launched two rounds of bond purchases, most recently in August 2010. Those purchases

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Originally Posted by TedWeir

Proving once again the nobody ever learns from the past, and is guaranteed to repeat the worst mistakes thereof, the NYT has reported what Zero Hedge noted less than a day ago when we said that a "Eurowide short selling ban now appears imminent" with a report that "Europe Considers Ban on Short Selling." What this means is that transatlantic panic is really about to spike, and the next imminent step is a total collapse of European capital markets. European regulators should be bound and quartered for even considering this stupidity which will destroy price discovery and lead everyone to dump their holdings ahead of a resumption of the Lehman bankruptcy PTSD flashbacks. Also making short covering impossible will remove the only natural downside market buffer. Oh well, if they want to blow themselves up, so be it.

From the NYT:

A European market regulator is considering recommending a temporary ban on negative bets against stocks across the continent, in an effort

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Originally Posted by TedWeir

Market Conditions Extremely Gold-and-Silver Friendly

Until U.S. real estate turns, the U.S. economy is growing at structural stall speed. Until we see consecutive monthly rises in the Case-Schiller Home Price Index, policymakers—led by the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. Congress, the European Central Bank, the People's Bank of China and every other individual who has never met a payroll in their lives—are going to embark on policies that are extremely gold-and-silver friendly. The Fed announcement Tuesday afternoon turned markets sharply higher, thus reinforcing my comments back in May that we will see as many periods of quantitative easing as necessary until the real estate market in the U.S. (and Europe) improves.

Now—as for the gold stocks—NEVER in my 35 years in this industry have I ever seen them so incredibly disconnected from the underlying commodity that they produce. In the past 72 hours, the fundamentals for this industry group absolutely

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Originally Posted by TedWeir

Perhaps someone should staple the following latest poll from Reuters/Ipsos to the office door of the Fed chairman in the Marriner Eccles building, according to which a record number of people or 73% of all Americans, believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction. This is the highest number measured since the poll started its survey in February of 2009. Only 21% believe the US is on the right track: we assume these are the few people who actually made money in the stock market in the past few months, in other words those long various precious metals [/sarcasm]. Additionally, 47% of respondents believe the worst is yet to come for the economy, the highest since the March 2009 low when the number was 57%. Furthermore, Obama's approval rating dropped from 49% to 45% over the past month. Perhaps it is time to kill Osama for the 3rd (or is that 4th?) time. Bottom line: pessimism is now at or near fresh all time highs. And this is the environment in which the true viceroy

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Originally Posted by TedWeir

By Sheryl Nance-Nash

The stock-market roller coaster has been wild enough to make even the most stoic, stiff-necked investors queasy. After falling in 10 out of the last 11 trading sessions, the stock market plunged more than 500 points Thursday, making it the worst day for the Dow since Oct. 22, 2008, the day that marked the beginning of the global financial crisis. On Thursday, the index lost 4.3% -- erasing all the gains for the year -- to end at 11,384.

What's stoking the volatility? The U.S. dodged the default bullet, but not everybody is impressed. "The negotiated debt-ceiling settlement is being seen by world's financial markets as a smoke screen," says James DiGeorgia, publisher of the Gold and Energy Advisor newsletter. "No matter how many times my fellow Republicans repeat the mantra that Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, the truth is we cannot make a dent in the national debt unless we reduce spending and raise

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Originally Posted by TedWeir

Gold in USD terms is 2.4% higher and is higher against all currencies and trading at USD 1,760.40 , EUR 1,234.10 , GBP 1,075.70, CHF 1,306.80 per ounce and 132,719.00 JPY.
Gold’s London AM fix was USD 1,770.00, EUR 1241.75, GBP 1080.98. Gold reached new record nominal highs at $1,780.10/oz and new nominal highs in euros and sterling also this morning.

Cross Currency Rates
Asian equities were mixed with sharp falls seen on the Hang Seng but the Nikkei recovered to only finish down 1.7% and the Chinese and Australian stock markets actually managed to rise on the day.


The FTSE, DAX and CAC are down 0.7%, 1.9% and 0.2% respectively but US futures are showing tentative gains.


There were further signs of stagflation in the UK as manufacturing unexpectedly fell in June and the trade gap widened. This is further

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repost from zerohedge



One of the long-term themes on Zero Hedge over the past two years has been that beginning in 2009, following the Fed's total incursion in all capital markets, mostly in equities due to the highest delta on consumer net wealth as a function of stock price upside, any type of traditional stock picking (long-short but also virtually everything) has ceased to matter. Various hedge fund manager retirements in 2010 merely confirmed the acceleration of this trend. The complete elimination of volatility in what has become a policy weapon merely means that day traders are also leaving stocks in droves and heading for places where the Fed's complete domination has yet to manifest itself, such as commodities, bonds and FX, where vol has surged over the past two years. Today, we present Iridian Asset Management's most recent market thoughts, which confirms the observations in the Morgan Stanley report posted a few days ago on Zero Hedge ...

repost from zerohedge

And so it starts, as the first of the shipping giants decides evacuation is the better part of valor. Reuters reports that shipping conglomerate Maersk has suspended shipping activities in Egypt. But fear not. The Suez Canal is open. For now. From Reuters: "Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk has suspended its Egyptian port terminal operations and closed its shipping offices in the country rocked by turmoil, the company said on Monday." Surely this is bullish for stocks.

Read more here

reposte from zerohedge

While everyone's strategic focal point still continues to be planted firmly on the black swan even horizon, in essence making the "unexpected" negative event virtually impossible as while nobody knows what will cause the crash, everyone is certain a crash will arrive in some form or another, today John Taylor takes an inverse approach and instead of chasing Black Swans he looks at the possibility of a "White Crow" - or the opposite: a positive outlier event with outsized implications on risk assets. The two main White Crows evaluated by Taylor are i) a conversion of the stock market melt up into a rout up, and ii) a bullish outlook on the EURUSD. The latter is particularly notable as the FX titan has long been known for his extremely bearish outlook on the European currency. Is he throwing in the towel and joining Goldman in the long EURUSD trade? Overall a surprisingly optimistic short-term outlook on the market: "Although our cycles argue ...