In January, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) told us that Venezuela’s annual inflation rate would hit 720 percent by the end of the year. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook, which was published in April, stuck with the 720 percent inflation forecast. What the IMF failed to do is tell us how they arrived at the forecast. Never mind. The press has repeated the 720 percent inflation forecast ad nauseam. Since the IMF’s 720 percent forecast has been elevated to the status of a factoid, it is worth a bit of…
Read MoreMonth: May 2016
Oil Shocker: Saudi Arabia Fires Powerful Oil Minister al-Naimi In Dramatic Power Reshuffle
For years, Ali al Naimi was the most important person in the world of oil: the former CEO of Saudi Aramco ascended to the post of Saudi oil minister in 1995, and over the past 21 years had the power to send the price of oil soaring or plunging with one word. To be sure, over the past two years it was mostly plunging because as is well-known, Saudi Arabia’s policy ever since the 2014 Thanksgiving OPEC meeting in which Saudi Arabia broke off from the rest of the petroleum…
Read MoreMeanwhile, Traders Are Getting Angrier With Every Passing Day
Over the past few weeks, one recurring theme has been that experienced traders and analysts have simply given up trying to figure out the market, and no longer have an idea how to trade what for the past 7 years has been a centrally-planned policy vehicle. As a result they are getting exasperated, confused, desperate and simply angry. First it was Richard Breslow; then it was Albert Edwards who was clearly disgusted when he uttered the following appeal: I’m not really sure how much more of this I can take….
Read MoreVisualizing The Market Cycle
Is it possible to time the market cycle to capture big gains? Like many controversial topics in investing, there is no real professional consensus on market timing. Academics claim that it’s not possible, while traders and chartists swear by the idea. That said, as VisualCapitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, one thing that everyone can probably agree on is that markets are cyclical and that securities do have recurring chart patterns. They aren’t predictable all of the time, but learning the fundamentals around market cycles can only help an investor in furthering…
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