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Financial news and stock markets.

Started by scarface, February 26, 2015, 08:28 PM

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scarface

#110
Quote from: Aris99 on February 08, 2017, 03:49 PM
That's an awesome analysis and I registered her just to say how grateful I am. You're very smart.
I have a few questions. How often do you read the finance news? Which resource do you trust the most?
Because I read Yahoo finance and usually read the news when I'm on the way to home on my smartphone. I find Yahoo apk very useful (take it from here theappsdepot for Android, but I'm sure that for IOS you can find it the Apple Store)

Well, aris99, There is nothing brilliant in what I said here.
Actually, the analysis is mine, but the graphics are taken from the French website “objectifeco.com”.
Besides, I’m just trying to be consistent in my approach. Currently, the stock markets are expensive, and I think that the economy is not doing particularly well, it could even slump in the next months, for a number of reasons, including the rise in oil price and the specter of growing protectionism. In the United States, more and more people are out of work, I don't think those are the sign of a recovery (the new hires do not offset the rise in the working population).

From that slant, I’m just saying that you shouldn’t invest, the risk/reward is not good. Actually, I’ve bought inverse ETF and I have losses. Once again, I know an investor (fomerly known as father baboon), who is earning some money with a fund based on Gold stocks (btw, Newmont mining and goldcorp stocks climbed today). In the current context, the price of gold is climbing again, after a poor start to the year, and this trend could continue.
In my opinion, there is a stock market bubble, it’s quite clear for certain companies listed on the nasdaq (I advise against buying amazon or Facebook, they are terribly expensive), and I’m almost certain it will explode, the question is: when?
But in the short term, It seems I'm wrong. Even if the stock markets are not climbing any more, they are not going down either. It seems they don't know where to go. If they begin to plunge (notably the US stock markets), the downside potential is significant anyway.

Aris99

Thank you, scarface! That is amazing that you make all analysis, as for me it's like a magic, to understand and predict the numbers, rates... I had a quick loo to objectifeco.com but French is not favorite language :)
You gave me an excellent advice, I'm very grateful!

P.S. It can be offtopic but you are quietly right about our situation with a labor market in our country. But my opinion that is a fault of our education system and the wrong choice of profession. We feel a lack of medical personal and highly educated blue-collar worker.

scarface

#112
Today, I'm holding an interesting conference in this topic, and I'm going justify, with various arguments, my previous analysis (the bubble on the stock markets, and why it could be about to pop). I hope Aris99, and some critics, like shadow.97, will be there to read it.

So Here are some evidence of the biggest financial bubble of all time

The "big ugly bubble" that Trump, then presidential candidate, had identified about the American markets is real. Financial bubbles have multiple facets (China, the real estate market, etc.). This list is by no means exhaustive. But here are some graphs I selected that are proving that we are in the presence of many bubbles. The larger these bubbles, the more severe the damage will be when they burst.


1. The trap of low rates:  the economist Lance Roberts explained with great clarity how interest rates and economic growth are linked. The real Fed key rate that can be seen stagnating below shows the quagmire into which the American central bank have sunk.



According to Lance Roberts' explanation: "Yellen and the Fed are once again on the hunt for the imaginary 'scarecrow' of inflation - the latter is currently weaker than during any pre-recession period since the 1970s. The tightening of monetary policy, with already weak economic growth, can once again become problematic. The biggest fear of the Federal Reserve? The Inflationary pressures which continue to depress the national economy. Despite the billions of dollars injected by the Fed, the only real objective was to prevent the economy from falling into a full recession."


2. The slaves of the debt in view of the risk of the debt ratios, something that the Americans know well. From car financing to mortgages, debt is part of their everyday lives - and keeps growing.



Wolf Richter wrote: "There are many ways to measure household debt and debt burdens. Comparing total household debt to the overall size of the economy as measured by GDP is one such measure. According to the household debt / GDP measure, Americans ranked tenth in the world with a ratio of 78.8%. One could almost speak of caution on their part compared to the peak reached just before the 2008 financial crisis.

3. Over-indebted China: Goldman Sachs revealed its estimate of the size of China's debt ... The level of public and private debt appears disproportionate to the size of the economy and growth.



These indicators were designed by Goldman Sachs research. According to the latter, the current trend "raises the question of the medium-term sustainability of the Chinese economy, given the already very high debt-to-GDP ratio in recent years. "




So the question is: where is the needle that will burst the bubble? On January 3, 2017 Bill Bonner answered one of his readers who followed his advice and stayed out of the market (missing the recent rise): "Yes ... it's true. We have been cautious for a very long time. We see that the whole financial system is distorted, fragile and dangerous. As long as prices continue to climb, an investor can earn money by taking long positions on stocks. But in our opinion, the game was not worth the effort. We prefer to wait until the bubble explodes. When will this happen? Today ? Tomorrow? In five years ? Traditionally a bull market lasts 52 months. This one has now lasted 94 months. And the stocks price is visibly at the top of its range, and not at the bottom ... the S&P500 valuation currently represents 28 times the profits adjusted for cyclical variations. This is almost twice the 16 times that are the rule usually. To return to a more normal level, the equity market should lose more than one-third of its value, or nearly $ 7 trillion. Yes, stocks can still rise. The bull market could go on. But the risks increase every day that passes and every dollar earned."




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3xFJUCSOGs

scarface

#113
One year ago, I held a conference about CGG (formerly known as CGG veritas), a leading geoscience company, and I was saying that you should avoid the stock of this company (by talking about a dire situation): http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=3226.msg20727#msg20727
It's always interesting to come back and see if I was right.



One year later, its stock is worth 9 euros, against 65 euros when I was talking about it (the day before a capital increase, hence the 50% drop on 14 January). On 24 october 2016 it was standing at 27 euros and a few months later it lost 2 third of its value, standing at 9 euros.


Well, since there is practically no more oil to be found, we can understand that this company does not make money any more. So I still advise you to forget this stock, despite the dilutive capital increase that took place on 14 january 2016 and its current price (the company still has a 2 billion dollars debt, and unless a new call on the markets, the company is heading for a bankruptcy). By the way, Portzamparc is stating that a new capital increase and a debt-to-equity swap is quite probable.

scarface

Well, tonight I’m going to talk about snapchat, which was recently introduced on the stock exchange.


Snap, the app known for automatically deleting every photo and video shared on its platform after 24 hours, went public on the New York Stock Exchange. It was valued at about US$28 billion by investors and traders after surging almost 44 percent in a single day.
But is it really worth it when it’s losing so much money ? (more than US$500 million in just 2016).
Tonight,  it seems that this bubble is bursting, as the stock is currently losing 8%.
By the way, Marc Fiorentino, a French specialist of the financial markets, recently said in his newsletter that the valuation of Snap was “ridiculous”.

To put things into perspective, this is a list of tech firms that are losing millions upon millions of dollars every year but valued to be billion-dollar companies: Snap, Box, Twitter, Zynga, Instagram, Amazon, BlackBerry, Pandora, Weibo, Zillow, Sprint, Square, JD.com, Sony...
Could this be a sign that we’re in a tech bubble?
If all these tech startups and companies are losing money, quarter after quarter, why are investors still flocking to them? It’s most probably because of their belief in “disruptive innovation” and the firms’ abilities to do it.

The focus of these tech companies and startups right now is just growth. Nothing else seems to matter and that’s probably one of the biggest reasons why Uber, for example, is losing money so fast.
Other huge tech companies include Uber, Spotify and Airbnb on the most anticipated 2017 IPO list, which are supposedly considered the hottest IPOs particularly because of their estimated valuations.
But it isn’t too comforting to know that only Airbnb among those three is making profits in the most recent reports. Even then, this is Airbnb’s first time being profitable.



Undoubtedly, no one can ever predict the exact time of the next financial crisis. It may not exactly be a tech bust, it could be Trump‘s radical policies or it could even be a war.
In an episode of a popular Youtube show where multi-millionaire entrepreneur and coach Gary Vaynerchuk invited multi-billionaire business owner, author and coach Anthony “Tony” Robbins, they talked about an impending stock market crash.
They opined that the very fact of how everyone is so bullish about the economy, despite the eight-year long bull run, scares them.
Staying in cash and waiting for the opportunity is an advice that they gave. Those who are prepared when the opportunities arise will stand to benefit the most.


scarface

Well, since my piece of advice to sell snap, it roughly lost 14% (It finally lost 12% yesterday and 10% today). I think it's not over though. In my opinion, it's not worth more than a 2 dollars, but it seems the markets is not very rational lately.

Besides, I wanted to talk about the latest events occurring in North Korea. Clearly, that does not bode well for stock markets if a war breaks out in Asia.
Indeed, North Korea has warned that US and South Korean joint military exercises could result in “actual war.”


North Korean diplomat Ju Yong Choi described the joint military exercises as “massive, unprecedented” and a “major cause of escalation of tension that might turn into actual war,” reported Reuters.
The diplomat, speaking in Geneva to a UN-sponsored conference on disarmament, said the ongoing exercises were aimed at conducting a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” against Pyongyang.
The latest comments come amid rising tensions on the peninsula, with the US deploying the first elements of its anti-missile defence system to South Korea.
In response, US Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said North Korea was "a pariah, an outlier" which violated international laws with its ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

humbert

Kim Jong Un may be crazy but he's not stupid. He knows it he starts a war it's game over for him and his regime. You can bet borrowed money his "ally" China will turn its back on him.

I often wonder if all those horrible things you hear about North Korea are actually true. The press and the government's propaganda machine are notorious for lying, or at least exaggerating the truth.

scarface

Tonight, I have good news for humbert.
Indeed, Trumpcare is probably dead even if Congress is going to vote on it anyway.

Despite hours of debate, last-minute amendments, and even an ultimatum from despot Trump, Republican lawmakers likely don’t have the votes to pass the party’s health care plan. But the White House says they’re going to hold the vote anyway.

And yet hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan visited the White House, apparently to break the news to Trump, Spicer said the vote would proceed anyway, at around 3:30 p.m.

Ryan’s visit was the latest bad omen in a day of developments that seemingly signaled defeat for the Obamacare-replacement bill, just hours before it was due up for a vote.

As a consequence, Wall Street is tumbling tonight, at least it's only a pretext since the market is terribly expensive. It's not what mnuchin thinks, he just said today he was very bullish and upbeat about the upside potential once Trump's measures are implemented (to ruin the American middle class).
Well, as for me, I'm very optimistic for the markets too (and a lot of my previous forecasts on this forum turned out to be accurate): I still believe that the dow jones and the s&p 500 are very expensive, and that there is a 40% downward potential.

humbert

I totally agree. This despot Trump and the Republican fatcats are trying to deny health care to those that can't afford it so they won't have to pay taxes to support the system. Not only do these people make astronomical amounts of money, the their health care insurance payments don't even come out of their paychecks! One of their many companies takes care of that, then they write it off as an expense on their tax declaration. Truly their greed knows no bounds. Sadly this is only a temporary victory, rest assured the profiteers will not give up. Let's see for how much longer. Hopefully the guy who predicted Trump's victory is right -- he predicts an impeachment will happen.

scarface

#119
Today, the European stock markets are crumbling on fears that Marine le Pen could be elected in France.
In this context, I sold 8% of my short positions with some capital gains. I'm still waiting for a stock market crash of the s&p 500, which is, in my opinion, one of the most overvalued markets in the world with a price earning ratio of 26.