Financial news and stock markets.

[scarface]

I wanted to hold another conference to explain why banking stocks tumbled. Yoda, zeromido, iih or humbert may be wondering if it's a paradigm shift or a disproportionate reaction of the shareholder.
Unfortunately, I washed my keyboard and it's not working anymore, Ive got to use my phone and it's not very handy. However I'm going to sum up what I wanted to say.

A new economic cycle started in 2008, driven by 3 factors: demography, a new technological revolution, the debt burden of the states. These 3 elements involve a long period of sluggish growth and deflation, therefore the value of assets must be adjusted. The adjustment already took place on raw materials in emerging countries. It's normal that it now takes place on the financial markets.

The collapse of the banking stocks is not the sign of a new financial crisis, but rather the sign of a massive valuation adjustment. Without speculation, banks are just products distributors, and there is no reason that they are better valued than Carrefour or other distributors.
It's this adjustment that is underway, amplified by negative rates that have a destructive impact on the margins of the financial distribution groups. As for fragile countries like Greece or Portugal, a grouping or a merger of the banks with a bailout plan will probably prove necessary.

[scarface]

Last time, I talked about Rawabi and I hope that you found the conference interesting. Well, to be honest, I would not invest in real estate in Rawabi because I don’t like what is “kitsch” and while accommodation in Rawabi is certainly comfortable, I prefer living in a town which has a long history and where the buildings are not all the same. Ten years ago I visited Naples, where I was accommodated in the house of an acquaintance and I to be honest I didn’t like it. Even if there was a tennis court in front of the house, I was gripped by a kind of malaise since all the houses were identical, with an American flag. The streets were all the same too. However, that wasn’t the case in Miami.



Tonight, I’m going to hold another exceptional conference, and give you a quick insight of the situation in Salton Sea, California. Contrary to Palestine, the media have not the habit of talking about the golden state in negative terms. Because of the mass media, we tend to have manicheistic view of the current affairs, but things are more complex.
Indeed, we usually read articles about the tech firms of the silicon valley or the movie makers of Hollywood. Actually, few articles are talking about the numerous homeless persons or the ecological disaster taking place in Salton Sea. This conference is not meant to be a deterrent to those who want to settle in California, but a reminder that the most populated and richest state of the US is facing big problems due to the lack of measures tackling water consumption and irrigation.

The Salton Sea was born by chance between 1905 and 1907 when the Colorado River broke through diversion canals in the irrigation system in Imperial County, in the South East of California.
This salty lake is dying the 1970s, evaporating, its waters lead to the extinction of fauna and release toxic products. It is a programmed catastrophe that told in pictures by the photographer Torbjørn Rødland.

What is striking when you arrive at the edge of Salton Sea is a pungent smell that stings the nose and creeps into the throat. A mixture of rot and emanation of chemicals. From a distance, the lake has kept its turquoise blue background of glowing rocks and exudes a magic that has long been a postcard setting. From close up, it offers a spectacle of desolation: stunted palm trees, scorched earth salt, smelly mud, and most especially, thousands of dead fish that form a morbid ribbon all along the shore. The Show is unveiled here by Torbjørn Rødland, through his photos. This Norwegian artist has been living in Los Angeles for several years and seeks to call into question the contemporary society and its excesses. Salton Sea could not be a better place...

In 1905, the failure of a dam on the Colorado River let out tons of water that found refuge in a desert valley, a few kilometers from Palm Springs. a lake of 55 kilometers long and twenty kilometers wide formed, the largest in California. A boon for area farmers, who grew crops and plantations. In the 1950s, the place became a popular tourist destination.
The lake that formed instead of a sea that vanished thousands of years ago is two times saltier than the Pacific. Fishes were introduced and throve in this new habitat. Competitions were organized, a port was built. A town soon, Salton City, then another, Bombay Beach came out of the ground and motels sprang up like mushrooms. Water sports then expanded to attract celebrities. Frank Sinatra had his habits in Salton Sea, Jerry Lewis and the Marx Brothers as well. At its height, Salton Sea attracted a million and a half visitors a year, more than Yosemite.

But from 1970, the station became a nightmare. The water began evaporating, the salt concentration of the lake increased, accelerating evaporation. A vicious circle was soon fatal to fishes: due to the lack of depth, they died, scaring away tourists. Hotels, restaurants, bars closed one after the other. The shores of Lake take rapidly became a ghost town: abandoned houses, mobile homes carcasses, boats remains. Today, most of the inhabitants have gone, the port closed more than ten years ago. Like the Yacht Club and the shops. The golf course has not a blade of grass. Only survive migratory birds dancing around the fishes frozen in salt.

Salton Sea is cursed:  with the evaporation of water, phosphates and pesticides due to the development of agriculture that were lying in the bottom of the lake come up to the surface and contaminate the region at the mercy of storms. A study reported that rates of lung and respiratory cancer are four times higher here than in the rest of the United States. If the sea continues to dry up, the entire Coachella Valley could become uninhabitable and one and half million Americans could be forced to relocate. Many environmental protection organizations are sounding the alarm bell. Certainly the evaporation of water is inexorable, but measures can be taken to conserve wildlife and protect the environment. But Salton Sea is far from Los Angeles and San Diego, and the fate of the people who still live there, a poor population, made up of Latinos for 80%, hardly stirs the authorities.


Today these lunar landscapes only attract penniless retirees coming in caravans to enjoy the sun in winter. The stench does not seem to bother them. They spend their days playing bowls and chatting, sitting on their folding chairs.






Sonny Bono, mayor of Palm Springs from 1988 to 1992, was one of the first to denounce the ecological disaster to come.


"Make America great again": this campaign slogan has been used over the years by several politicians in the United States. The latest one: Donald Trump.

[scarface]

The market is now crumbling: the cac 40 and the dax are falling by more than 1% after rising by 3% a few hours ago...
Visibly, the decision of the ECB did not reassure the investors, who must be wondering if the central banks have not lost control of the situation. I earnt some money with my strategy today, even though I sold the double short dax a bit too early

[humbert]

I advise you to sell your stocks

Who other than you on this forum owns stock? Playing the stock market is no different than gambling in a casino, unless of course you have inside information.

[Shadow.97]

I advise you to sell your stocks

Who other than you on this forum owns stock? Playing the stock market is no different than gambling in a casino, unless of course you have inside information.

I do. Slowly but surely I'm actually getting profit.
2% increase of value from January 1'st.

[humbert]

Scarface - I certainly hope you're right about your predictions. I still believe that when it comes to playing the stock market, no matter how logical or fact-based your estimation might be, in the end you're taking a gamble. The only real way to succeed in the stock market is to have inside information.

Then again I suppose it could also be argued that nothing is life is guaranteed except death and taxes.

[scarface]

Tonight, I'm holding a conference to talk about the factors that determines the life expectancy of the poorest in the United States. We are going to see that besides the financial factor, the geographical factor is an essential parameter.

Inequality in the United States does not materialize only financially but also in terms of life expectancy depending on where you live. Thus, when one is poor, the likelihood of having a shorter life is greater if you live in Detroit (Michigan) and in Cincinnati (Ohio) rather than in New York or in Los Angeles (California). This is the conclusion of eight researchers in a study published on Monday, April 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Detroit


The study was based on a review of 1.4 billion tax documents of people aged 40 to 76 years over a period that spans from 1999 to 2014. It first shows that men among the richest 1% live fifteen years longer on average than those belonging to the category of the poorest 1% (for women the gap is reduced to ten years). Then, if we broaden the population segment to the richest 5% and the poorest 5%, the authors find that the gap in life expectancy is growing. Thus, when the former realized a gain of over two years over the considered period, the average life expectancy for the latter remained virtually unchanged. A study by the Brookings Institution published in February had already highlighted the worsening of the gap in life expectancy by income.

The current situation is such that an American of 40 years old whose incomes are in the lowest percentile has a life expectancy similar to the one in Sudan (roughly 62) and lower to the one in Pakistan (67) or Palestine (72). However when one belongs to the highest percentile, life expectancy in the US is one of the highest in the world, above the one in Greece (81).

Islamabad


Greece


Local policies in question

But the originality of the study is to demonstrate the geographical impact on life expectancy. If for the rich it is almost zero, for the poor, however, the differences are significant. Thus, life expectancy for men in the poorest quartile reached 79.5 in New York, 79 in Los Angeles years or 78.3 in Miami (Florida). But it is only 74.6 in Indianapolis (Indiana), 74.8 in Detroit and Dayton (Ohio). Basically in this category of population we live on average four to five more years older in the town of East and West coasts of the United States than in the industrial Midwest.

The economic and demographic decline of this region is not necessarily the cause of the gap in life expectancy, according to the authors. The key explanation and cause of these disparities are on the local political side to prompt the adoption of a healthier lifestyle such as smoking bans or fight against obesity programs. The study finds that it is in towns where the proportion of university graduates is the most significant that this type of action is most often adopted. New York, where proactive policies were carried out against tobacco or fats and sugar in food is quite symptomatic.

However, the study does not clearly establish a correlation between the rate of health insurance expenditures for the poor (Medicaid) or the proportion of the population benefiting from the aid and a better life expectancy of the poor. Without underestimating the importance of this type of policy, the authors of the study point out that the measures that influence behavior in terms of lifestyle are much more critical.

[scarface]

Tonight, I’m holding another conference about the financial markets. If some readers have questions or remarks, they can react and participate.


The bull market we are witnessing is almost in the order of the unreal; it is currently the second longest bull market, and could become the first shortly. The S&P500 rose on average by 10% over the past 19 months, it avoided the 20% decline that characterizes the beginning of a bear market. This increase began on the date of the inauguration of President Barack Obama on 3 January 2009 and continues today, a total of 2607 days. In term of bull market, only the period between 1949 and 1956 could compete. As for the biggest bull rally, it took place from the 1990s to the Internet and technology bubble, a period of 3452 cumulative days.



Currently, the situation that we know should warn us; because the bullish rally shows a few signs of fatigue. The US index decreased YoY, and the S&P 500 companies have announced their lowest profits for the last 6 effective years, while economists forecasters constantly revise their growth estimates downwards. The European indexes started to decline last summer, and despite a rebound after a catastrophic start to the year, the trend seems to be bearish, as we have seen this week.

7 years ago we witnessed a true fool's game. The Fed and other central banks have repeatedly shown that they were ready to inject more money into the financial system, at the first signs of turbulence in stock markets.

Jim Paulsen, an analyst at Wells Capital Management, a fund management which handles nearly 337 billion $ and is based in Minneapolis, said he does not remember having experienced a bull market after the war with such chronic or persistent fear. It's very paradoxical, because investors expect at every moment the end of the world but are dragged in reluctantly on the markets.

What characterizes this bull market is its ability to constantly evolve higher while we encounter a period of increasingly weak economic growth. In March 2009, the US GDP in the first quarter fell by 3.7%, its biggest collapse with that of 1946. Since then, the GDP rose by an average of only 0.9% per year. This difference is huge!



Even without growth this year, the profits of S&P500 stood at approximately $ 118 per share, approximately twice those recorded in 2009. Profit margins begin to decline after reaching a peak in 2014.

The other element to consider is the Price-sales ratio. The index is near its highest level reached 15 years ago.



Investors are now increasingly worried. They are concerned among other things, by the level of global debt, the budget deadlock in which the US government has strayed, the threats of a downturn of the Chinese economy, the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, the situation in Greece and the euro area.

But despite all these risks, equity valuations unexpectedly climbed, they are 30% higher than those in 2007. 2007, the year before the biggest stock market crash since 1930.

However, the fears are not confined only to valuations. Anxiety persists because of negative interest rates. These rates were introduced by central banks in Europe and Japan. Moreover, the Brexit inevitably entails a number of uncertainties. What will the British electorate decide?

[scarface]

Today, I’m going to hold an exceptional conference to give you a brief overview of what happened on the stock markets last Friday. Then I will talk about my strategy.


The stock markets fell sharply on Friday June 24 in the world, following the shock of the British vote in favor of their exit from the European Union, which caused the Sterling Pound to tumble and shook all the markets in the  world. The London Stock Exchange ended the day down 2.76%, Frankfurt fell by 6.82%, Paris by 8.04%, Madrid and Milan by 12.35% and 12.48%.


Olivier Raingeard, chief economist at Neuflize OBC, declared that "the market reaction today is proportional to the surprise of the investors who, in recent days, largely anticipated the opposite scenario." "Volatility is clearly back and should continue in the coming days and weeks," he said.

The bloodshed was general in Europe, all sectors were affected, primarily the banks, the sector index Stoxx plunging by 14.28%. Conversely, investors flocked to safe havens such as German government bonds, yen, Swiss franc and gold. The shock is such that it could force the European Central Bank (ECB) to ease monetary policy again in the coming months, and the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to abandon its rate hike plans for this year.

In London, the FTSE 100 index fell by 175.13 points. Paradoxically, the London index suffered less than its equivalent on the continent because it has some number of multinationals that have little activity in Europe.

The most affected values were the titles of real estate developers and banks. British banks have recorded 17.7% dives for Barclays, 21% for Lloyds and 18.04% for Royal Bank of Scotland. Earlier in the day, noting that financial markets were dropping, the Bank of England had expressed willingness "to inject 250 billion pounds" to turn off the fever in the markets.

The CAC 40 finished down 8.04%. The CAC 40 index lost 359.17 points at 4 106.73 points in an exceptionally high trade volume of 11.7 billion euros. In early trading, the Paris market briefly collapsed by over 10%. However, it has remained above its yearly lows around 3900 points.

The financial sector, which had risen in recent days, was particularly affected. Among banking stocks, BNP Paribas fell by 17.40% at 39.40 euros; Credit Agricole by 14.00% at 7.65 euros, and Societe Generale by 20.57% at 28.80 euros.

The DAX also ended the session with a heavy fall, the index dropping by almost 7%.
For the main index of the Frankfurt's, this is the largest decline in a session since autumn 2008, when the financial crisis took its full extent in Europe. It still remains far from the historical decline of almost 13% on October 1989, or that of 8.49% on 11 September 2001.

Among the main losers in the DAX we can also find banking stocks. Deutsche Bank, whose British boss John Cryan sees negative consequences of Brexit "from all sides", was the most affected. With a loss of 14.13% at 13.37 euros, it is the largest decline of a DAX completely repainted in red. Commerzbank dropped by 12.99% at 6.20 euros.

The Ibex, the flagship index of Madrid suffered its biggest drop in its history, 12.35% at 7 787.70 points, after the victory of the yes for Brexit. The banking sector was the most affected: Banco Santander, very present in the UK, declined by 19.89%, at 3.38 euros, Bankia by 20.78% at 0.57 euro; and Banco Sabadell, by 19.29%, at 1.21 euro.

The Athens Stock Exchange declinted by 13.42%, the index of banks suffering significant losses.The main victims of this collapse are the four major banks, already fragile due to the recession and bad debts. Alfa dropped by 29.66%; National Bank of Greece, 29.45%; Piraeus Bank, 29.6%; and Eurobank 30%.

Wall Street has not been spared from the turmoil on Friday. While the decline accelerated Friday in mid-session, the Dow finally closed at -3.39%.

The British vote "poses a huge cloud of uncertainty," said Peter Cardillo, at First Financial Standard. According to him, "the decline is not going to stop, because nobody knows what will happen", leading investors to seek safe havens.




Personally, I felt there was an opportunity on Thursday night, whatever the outcome of the vote. I was almost certain the “No for brexit” would win, but I had no position at all, except some hybrigenics stocks.

As humbert would say, it was a lottery and it turned out that forecasters were indeed wrong since a slight victory of the No was expected. At 22pm, as markets were rising by 2% on the futures (Roughly 4,550 points for the cac40), I was planning to take a contrarian position (a short tracker) but while the outcome in favor of the Yes was looming large, I practically did not sleep a wink, despite the fact that I was working the next day, to follow the results in my white armchair. Finally, When I've eeen that there was a crash at the opening (-500 points on the futures for the cac 40), I took some big positions on the markets (some were not executed) on banking shares. I bought a large amount of Credit Agricole and SocGen stocks (I was not in front of my computer at the opening because I was in the tube to go to work at 9pm and trading of banking stocks was suspended anyway.

 Finally my purchase order on Aca was executed at the opening a few minutes after 9pm, and the one on SocGen a few seconds later (I knew there would be a moment of sheer panic and I put an order at 26.2, below the forecasted opening price at 27 euros (-25%).
This strategy was risky, after all, these stocks could have collapsed completely, but the risk/reward was interesting and it really paid off. I sold these positions when I arrived at work, at 9.30pm.



Probably, the users of the forum want to know what strategy to adopt from now on.
Well, in my opinion, the markets are going to bounce back, but on the middle term I stay rather bearish for the financial markets.
My forecasts for the cac40:
On the short term: rebound towards 4200 points (3-4%)
On the middle term: 3800 points, and probably lower.
The volatility is going to stay high. By the way, the Futures for Monday on ig markets are already bright red, but it’s not necessarily representative of the opening, things can change during the week end. At the closing on Friday, I bought back 300 Societe General stocks.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_3QsacXtz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzUlQIJsQpY

[Shadow.97]

Tonight, I'm going to give you another brief overview of the stock markets.

nice read haha. Well, when you buy silver and such, how do you know if you own it.. Or is it like money on the bank. Its just there, but you cant really access it. Or can you take out 1kg silver and hold it?