Category:

After reports the iPhone 7 was outselling the iPhone 8 sent Apple’s stock lower on Wednesday, more troubling news about the company’s complication-plagued supply chain for the iPhone X, its special tenth anniversary model, emerged this morning courtesy of Nikkei, which is reporting the company has halved its planned shipments for the number of iPhone X’s it will sell by year’s end to 20 million.

Initial shipments of Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone X are expected

Amazon is a world dominator and has slowly transformed into a multi-industry overlord since its 1994 inception as a

used book marketplace. CEO Jeff Bezos wields his influence in many areas, and entire US states compete for his company’s

next warehouse location by offering tax credit deals. Even established industry giants fearfully anticipate his next acquisition.

Recently, the company took control of Whole Foods, and the entire retail grocery market suffered prolonged stock value declines.

Amazon is truly a force

Since the end of July, the US President has created the impression that he’s a blusterer, endangering world peace with his ill-considered declarations. In this article, Thierry Meyssan demonstrates that behind these sweeping interventions, Donald Trump has stuck to his foreign policy without making a song and dance of it. This is quite an achievement as almost every member of Congress opposes him. According to Meyssan, what you have here is what is known today

Photo: on 8 February 2016, President Sheikh Hassan Rohani decorated the Canadian-Iranian Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani for his role during the 5+1 negotiations. Today he quashes his punishment for spying: 5 years in prison. At the end of 2016, 12 personalities have been arrested in Iran for spying during international negotiations on the nuclear sector. They have just been tried and sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison. However no one has confessed to the

Want to set up a company to trade cryptocurrencies in the City of London. Forget about it.

Lloyd Blankfein tweeted about spending more time in Frankfurt, now London is shunning the fastest growing sector in finance. From the FT

British banks are shunning companies that handle cryptocurrencies, forcing many to open accounts in Gibraltar, Poland and Bulgaria and prompting some to question the UK’s ambitions to be a global hub for the fast-growing

Over the past several months, investment banks all across Europe have scrambled to put a price tag on their equity research after years of giving it way as a ‘freebie’ in return for trading commissions.

Of course, for wall street’s titans of finance, you know, the same guys who will look you straight in the eyes and tell you that they know with relative certainty the precise value of the synthetic CDO squared they’re

“I’m not a big fan of bonds right now,” may seem like an odd way for the so-called Bond King to begin, but in an audience at Vanity Fair’s Establishment Summit, DoubleLine’s Jeff Gundlach told Bethany McLean, “I haven’t been really [a fan of bonds] for the past four years, even though I manage them, and institutions have to own them for various reasons.”

Gundlach urged investors to be “light” on bonds.

As Vanity

Every quarter, the Fed’s Flow of Funds report discloses – among many other things – the total U.S. household net worth, and every quarter for the past two years this number has steadily gone up, hitting fresh all time highs with every new release, most recently $96.2 trillion, to widespread cheers from both the financial press and the public, as well as the administration. 

However, as we show every quarter, this aggregate number is

Over the past two months, General Motors’ stock has rallied nearly 30% on the notion that hurricanes in Texas and Florida solved the company’s nagging inventory problem.  But, even after two of the most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history wiped out hundreds of thousands of vehicles and GM’s preemptive elimination of some 6,000 jobs, Automotive News says the company still has a ways to go at certain plants if they want to bring system-wide inventories

Frank Holmes, CEO of US Global Investors, reported back from the LBMA/LPPM Precious Metals that took place in Barcelona last week. Holmes gave the key note address on Day 2 “Quant Investing: From Gold to Cryptocurrencies.”

According to a thrilled Holmes, his presentation was voted the best – no doubt helped by the topical subject matter – and he was the recipient of an ounce of gold. He went on to relate the views of

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Some of you may be confused as to why a U.S. citizen living in Colorado has become so completely obsessed with what’s going on in Spain. Bear with me, there’s a method to my madness.

I believe what’s currently happening in Spain represents a crucial microcosm for what we’ll see sweep across the entire planet over the next ten years.

Some of you will want to have

Presented with no comment…

Source: MichaelPRamirez.com

Via The Daily Bell

When is a commune not a commune? When it only exists because of capitalism.

But that doesn’t stop it from having just enough communist ideals to make it a very restrictive place to live.

Twin Oaks is an “intentional community” in Virginia. It is one of the oldest successful communes in America because it’s not really a commune. They manufacture hammocks that sell for up to $100 each, and make tofu

Authored by ZeroPointNow, originally published on iBankCoin

Tony Podesta and his lobbying firm the Podesta Group are under federal investigation by FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller in connection with the Russia investigation, three sources told NBC News.

The firm, co-founded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, was subpoenaed in late August along with three other public relations firms who worked with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort during a 2012-2014 lobbying effort for a pro-Ukraine think tank – the European Centre

That China is a widely accepted global outlier in the context of credit, debt and leverage, look no further than the latest Financial Stability Report from the IMF, which in no uncertain terms lays out where China can be “found” relative to its G-20 peers in the following chart:

Yet according to the IMF, China’s bleak picture is based on a relatively rosy estimate of the country’s non-financial debt to GDP at approximately “only”

Authored by Vitaliy Katsenelson via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

I was recently going through a new client’s portfolio and found it full of the likes of Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark and Campbell Soup – what I call (pseudo) bond substitutes. Each one is a stable and mature company. Your mother-in-law would be proud if you worked for any one of them. They have had a fabulous past; they’ve grown revenues and earnings for decades. They were in their glory days

Is there such a thing as too much good news?  According to Goldman Sachs, the answer is yes.

Over the weekend, we reported that per the latest Weekly Kickstart report from Goldman’s chief equity strategist, David Kostin, there was only one question on Goldman clients’ minds: when will the current rally, which is about to become the longest in history without a 3% correction, and 333 days without a 5% “drawdown”, finally end?

Don’t assume the euro will rally when the ECB makes its expected “hawkish” announcement of QE taper plans, according to Bloomberg FX commentator Vassilis Karamanis. In fact, there’s an argument for the opposite occurring. Karamanis explains why the most anticipated move in the markets on Thursday may again be a fade.

Euro Bears May Get Their Chance When Draghi Speaks: Macro View

Policy makers have done a very

The phrase “Socialism with Chinese characteristics in a new era” is hardly catchy, but wields immense power. Xi Jinping became the first incumbent leader since Mao to have his name and thought added to the Party’ guiding principles, symbolising a major elevation in his power.

Bloomberg reports “China’s ruling Communist Party approved a revised charter that enshrined President Xi Jinping’s name under its guiding principles, elevating him to a status that eluded his two immediate

More evidence revealing the ridiculousness of the centrist position on immigration – namely that refugees can be seamlessly integrated into European society without a spike in crime or terror – has emerged courtesy of the German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag which revealed Sunday that the number of terrorism-related cases investigated by German authorities has quadrupled over the past year.

Prosecutors have opened more than 900 cases so far this year, compared with just 240 throughout

Thierry Meyssan’s book, Sous nos yeux, (Right before our eyes) has just been published in Russian by AST publishers. The title of the Russian edition is “Crimes of the Deep State. From 9/11 to Donald Trump” (Преступления глубинного государства. От 11 сентября до Дональда Трампа) The Russian edition supplements the French original.

By George Friedman of Mauldin Economics

A delegation of executives from major German corporations recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Such delegations are not unusual. Sometimes it is routine, sometimes a courtesy. But occasionally, it has significance. In the case of Russia-Germany relations, such meetings are always potentially significant.

Germany’s Unsteady Relations

Two relationships are critical to Germany.

One is with the European Union, the other is with the United States. Neither relationship

Authored by John Pilger via Counterpunch.org,

On 16 October, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired an interview with Hillary Clinton: one of many to promote her score-settling book about why she was not elected President of the United States.

Wading through the Clinton book, What Happened, is an unpleasant experience, like a stomach upset. Smears and tears. Threats and enemies. “They” (voters) were brainwashed and herded against her by the odious Donald Trump in cahoots with sinister Slavs

The Baghdad government and its paramilitary forces increasingly see American troop presence as the actual foreign menace.

A prominent Iraqi militia leader with close ties to Iran has told the United States to go home while also accusing US forces of not actually being interested in fighting ISIS: “Your forces should get ready to get out of our country once the excuse of Daesh’s presence is over,” said Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, the commander of the Shiite PMU group Asaib

Bloomberg’s series on automation on Wall Street has certainly given the hundreds of thousands of highly educated individuals employed in the US financial services industry a lot to think about, like, for example, ‘will my job be here in ten years when it’s time for my oldest to head to college?’”

However, Bloomberg’s latest installment in the series was apparently meant to provide some measure of relief to the legions of analysts, traders and salespeople

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

Last week, Twitter Safety released ‘a calendar of our safety work’ in approach to make the social media platform a much safer place. Twitter’s blog indicates “far too often in the past we’ve said we’d do better and promised transparency but have fallen short in our efforts”. The timeline will include regular and real-time updates about safety changes and overall progress of the social media channel to provide transparency. The blog also

One of our preferred “off beat” economic indicators is how many workers apply at any one given moment in time for jobs that are hardly considered career-track. An example of this is the number of applicants for minimum wage line cook jobs at McDonalds, or flight attendant positions at Delta Airlines; conveniently, this is a series which we have tracked on and off for the past 7 years.

As regular readers may recall, back

Over the past several weeks, the Russia-related talking points of Democrats and their mainstream media echo chambers have shifted from constantly insisting that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election to focus on a seemingly irrelevant amount of advertising dollars that may have been spent on various social media platforms by people that “may have been connected” to the Kremlin…which, to our understanding, is defined as anyone with their browser language set to Russian.

This article by David Haggith was published on The Great Recession Blog:

While David Stockman stated early this year with resolute certainty that the debt ceiling debate would blow congress up and send the nation reeling over the financial precipice, I avoided jumping on the debt-ceiling bandwagon. While I was convinced major rifts in the economy would start to show up in the summer, I was not convinced they would have anything to do with the debt ceiling

The top US general said on Monday that the American people, including the families of the fallen soldiers in Niger, deserve answers about this month’s deadly ambush which claimed the lives of four US soldiers, including that of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, whose widow Myeshia Johnson has been involved in an escalating feud with President Trump over the contents of his controversial phone call meant to deliver condolences.

Speaking to reporters on Monday,

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Those who see governments banning ownership of bitcoin are ignoring the political power and influence of those who are snapping up most of the bitcoin.

To really understand an asset, we have to examine not just the asset itself but who owns it, and who can afford to own it. These attributes will illuminate the political and financial power wielded by the owners of the asset class.

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

US stock markets hit another all-time high on Friday.

The S&P 500 is nearing 2,600 and the Dow is over 23,300.

In fact, US stocks have only been more expensive two times since 1881.

According to Yale economist Robert Shiller’s Cyclically Adjusted Price to Earnings (CAPE) ratio – which is the market price divided by ten years’ average earnings – the S&P 500 is above 31. The last

Thomas Barrick’s Colony Capital might want to hold off on its planned purchase of “some or all” of the Weinstein Company’s major assets, because the company might need those to settle a civil probe that’s been opened by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

According to the New York Times and the New York Post, Schneiderman’s Civil Rights Bureau on Monday sent a subpoena to the Weinstein Company – which recently accepted an emergency loan

‘Price’ and ‘risk’ have decoupled in The Dow over the past 6 weeks or so, since China intervened in its FX markets…

While US equity prices have soared across the board, Dow ‘VIX’ is up dramatically while S&P ‘VIX’ is down (as one would historically expect)…

Smashing the cost of protection for The Dow to its highest level relative to the S&P in over 17 years…

What are Dow options

European shares are modestly lower as investors monitor tense events in Spain and as focus turns to Thursday’s ECB meeting; US equity futures have rebounded from yesterday’s sharp but shallow selloff and are in the green amid rising odds of U.S. tax reform and the imminent unveiling of the next Fed chair while Asian shares rise and Japan extends its winning streak to a record 16 days. The euro edged higher after data showed Europe’s

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Boris Johnson, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, has said the option of military action against North Korea “must theoretically remain on the table” in discussions about the country’s nuclear crisis. Johnson refuses to rule out a preemptive strike.

According to The Independent UK, while speaking at Chatham House, the Foreign Secretary said it was “the duty” of United States President Donald Trump to keep the possibility

The vote in the independence referendum for an Iraqi Kurdistan of 25 September 2017 was a sham – for the vote was rigged. This fact is now boomeranging back to those who initiated it: the Barzani family and the Taliban family. During the referendum campaign, the Kurdish regional government of Iraq declared that 80 countries in the world — including the United States and France — were in support of establishing a new State. This

Via GEFIRA,

Gianandrea Galiani interviewed by Daniel Moscardi

Gianandrea Gaiani is the director of the highly respected online magazine analisidifesa.it and an expert on immigration. He is a regular contributor to a number of Italian newspapers and appears frequently on numerous TV channels as an on immigration and security topics. He’s also the author (together with Giancarlo Blangiardo and Giuseppe Valditara) of the recent book (in Italian) Immigrazione, tutto quello che dovremmo sapere (Immigration. All you need

There is a potent thread winding its way through generations of human culture. From Ancient Egyptian rituals to Kurzweil’s Singularity, many paths have sprung up leading to the same elusive destination: immortality.

Today, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routely notes, the concept is as popular as it’s ever been, and technological advances are giving people hope that immortality, or at very least radical life extension, may be within reach. Is modern technology advanced enough to give people

A simmering nuclear crisis, series of devastating natural disasters and a resurgence of drug-fueled crime are inspiring more Americans than ever before to buy up “doomsday prepper” gear – everything from gas masks to fallout shelters – a trend that we’ve observed time and time again.

While most Americans will need to settle for a small backyard bunker stocked with canned goods and water filters because of cost constraints, anybody looking for something slightly more

In an delightfully ironic lesson why border protection is important for the US, an MSNBC crew was reporting on the prototypes of Trump’s proposed border wall near San Diego, when the interview was interrupted by a group of “migrants not from Mexico” hopping over the existing fence.

“What happened?” the MSNBC reporter shouts as a group of agents on horseback move in to catch border jumpers. “The people are crossing!”

“Almost on cue,

Authord by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

This week President Trump revealed his final five candidates for Federal Reserve chair. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, all five have strong ties to the financial and political establishment.

The leading candidates are former Federal Reserve governor and Morgan Stanley banker Kevin Warsh and current Fed governor, former investment banker, Carlyle Group partner, and George H.W. Bush administration official Jerome Powell.

Submitted by Charles Ortel and Ekaterina Blinova

Hillary and Bill Clinton could have been involved in “pay-to-play” schemes, while transferring money through their charity in a non-transparent manner, according to Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel who believes that the uranium deal may become the trigger for an all-out inquiry into the Clinton Foundation.

The Clintons’ “modus operandi” is first, to lie under oath, and, second, to obstruct justice from within government

Only yesterday, we commented on the launch of the world’s first A.I.-driven ETF “EquBot LLC, in partnership with ETF Managers Group (ETFMG) launched the world’s first ETF powered by artificial intelligence, the AI Powered Equity ETF (NYSE Arca: AIEQ). According to Business Wire, the new ETF uses ‘cognitive and big data processing abilities of IBM Watson™ to analyze U.S.-listed investment opportunities”.

A mere 24 hours later and JPM has joined the party as Bloomberg reports, 

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

New Zealand’s new prime minister Jacinda Ardern calls capitalism a blatant failure. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says capitalism is ‘merely’ coming to an end because it is making itself obsolete. Mathematics professor Bruce Boghosian claims that without redistribution of wealth, our market economy would not be stable, because wealth always tends to concentrate. The people at Artemis Capital Management write that the stock

Authored by Carmen Elena Dorobat via The Mises Institute,

The newest cover story in The Economist deplores the situation of cities in developed countries that are left behind in terms of economic development by the digitized, globalized economy. One such is Scranton, Pennsylvania, where, since 2007, the local government has spent over $6bn on corporate subsidies in an effort to encourage redevelopment and boost local infrastructure. Such places and their disengaged, disgruntled workers are also

Remember when Facebook first offered to pay “media partners” to create video content for its news feed? A lot sure has changed since then… and that was only six months ago. In a development that’s elicited anger among journalists and various content providers, the world’s largest social media company appears to be testing a new content-distribution model that would move it away from an organic, free-for-all to a pay-to-play environment. Predictably, news of the tests

It has now been 242 days since the US equity market dipped by 3% or more… That has never, ever, happened before…

Rick Astley said it best…“never gonna let you down… or desert you”

Ironic then that stocks had their worst day in 6 weeks.

GE schizophrenia shows the utter farce that this so-called ‘market’ has become…

Nasdaq gave up all Friday’s Budget-Resolution, tax-reform-hope gains…

NOTE they tried to

Last week we explained how junk bond managers were buying increasing amounts of equities to “juice” their portfolios and propel their funds higher in the performance rankings.

While this struck us as a relatively recent development, the tried-and-trusted method of trading more risk for more yield is going gangbusters in the CLO (Collateralized Loan Obligations) market in 2017…

In “Hunt for Yield Fuels Another Boom in Another Complex, Risky Security”, the WSJ notes:

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Down With Sex!

It’s interesting to see how, in a culture so pornified that any nine-year-old can watch sex acts on-screen all the live-long day, we discover that decorum is absent in American life. This, at the same time that the more Gnostic political Leftists want to transform human nature by erasing sexual categories in their quest to create a utopia of hermaphrodites.

Sex is bothersome, you