Category Archive: 7) Markets

Main Author John Henry Smith
John Henry Smith
John Henry Smith of Grail Securities specializes in the U.S. stock market and offers a unique and powerful advisory service to private investors, institutional investors, and SME asset managers, who are seeking to consistently beat the market. All our strengths are at your disposal to provide stock market research and recommendations with the only aim of growing wealth. To achieve this we develop with you a customized investment strategy in terms of your risk and return preferences.
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A Global Dearth of Liquidity

2018-12-08

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2018-12-08

Eurozone - Citi Economic Surprise Index, Jan 2016 - Nov 2018
Worldwide Liquidity Drought – Money Supply Growth Slows Everywhere This is a brief update on money supply growth trends in the most important currency areas outside the US (namely the euro area, Japan and China)  as announced in in our recent update on US money supply growth (see “Federal Punch Bowl Removal Agency” for the details).   Nobody likes a drought. This collage illustrates why.   The liquidity drought is not confined to the US – it...

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Swiss stock exchange could lose EU access in January

2018-11-30

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2018-11-30

An EU Commission document has revealed that, for now, not enough progress on the Swiss-EU framework agreement has been made to renew the ‘financial equivalency’ status of the Swiss stock exchange in Europe.

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Gold and Silver Hold Firm as Stocks and Oil Lower in to US Holiday Weekend

2018-11-26

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2018-11-26

Relative Performance
Key Gold and Precious Metals News, Commentary and Charts This Week. Gold and silver traded sideways this week as we saw stock markets take some heat and undo most of the recent recovery from the October sell off. Oil has sold off and is now at levels that we haven’t seen since 2017.

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The Intolerable Scourge of Fake Capitalism

2018-11-20

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2018-11-20

Indexes, Nov 2017 - 2018
All is now bustle and hubbub in the late months of the year. This goes for the stock market too. If you recall, on September 22nd the S&P 500 hit an all-time high of 2,940. This was nearly 100 points above the prior high of 2,847, which was notched on January 26th. For a brief moment, it appeared the stock market had resumed its near decade long upward trend.

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Pushing Past the Breaking Point

2018-11-06

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2018-11-06

Schemes and Shams. Man’s willful determination to resist the natural order are in vain.  Still, he pushes onward, always grasping for the big breakthrough. The allure of something for nothing is too enticing to pass up.

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Eastern Monetary Drought

2018-10-26

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2018-10-26

Looking back at the past decade, it would be easy to conclude that central planners have good reason to be smug. After all, the Earth is still turning. The “GFC” did not sink us, instead we were promptly gifted the biggest bubble of all time –  in everything, to boot. We like to refer to it as the GBEB (“Great Bernanke Echo Bubble”) in order to make sure its chief architect is not forgotten.

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Are Credit Spreads Still a Leading Indicator for the Stock Market?

2018-10-16

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2018-10-16

US and Euro Area Spreads Compared, Sep 2016 - 2018
Seemingly out of the blue, equities suffered a few bad hair days recently. As regular readers know, we have long argued that one should expect corrections in the form of mini-crashes to strike with very little advance warning, due to issues related to market structure and the unique post “QE” environment.

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Special Edition: Markets Under Pressure (VIDEO)

2018-10-15

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2018-10-15

What does Alhambra Investments think about the 1300 point drop in the Dow Jones Average this week? Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun has some thoughts.

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US Stocks and Bonds Get Clocked in Tandem

2018-10-08

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2018-10-08

30 Year Bond and 10 Year Note Yields, Nov 2016 - Oct 2018
At the time of writing, the stock market is recovering from a fairly steep (by recent standards) intraday sell-off. We have no idea where it will close, but we would argue that even a recovery into the close won’t alter the status of today’s action – it is a typical warning shot. Here is what makes the sell-off unique:

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Video with Michael Strobaek: Discussing economic growth and investment strategies

2018-09-30

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2018-09-30

What shape are the markets in right now? This month, Credit Suisse Global CIO Michael Strobaek discusses growth in the global and Swiss economies and explains the right investment strategies during the growth phase.

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Four trouble spots. Four pleasant surprises.

2018-09-29

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2018-09-29

Speads of high-yield securities in US dollars in percent
August looks back on positive economic and market developments. In retrospect, the first half of the year was soothed by many pleasant surprises, including much-discussed trouble spots that never flared. Read about four perceived market crises.

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Digging into Wealth and Income Inequality

2018-09-20

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2018-09-20

US Stock Market Bubble
The assets of U.S. households recently topped $100 trillion, yet another sign that everything is going swimmingly in the U.S. economy. Let's take a look at the Federal Reserve's Household Balance Sheet, which lists the assets and liabilities of all U.S. households in very big buckets (real estate: $25 trillion). (For reasons unknown, the Fed lumps non-profit assets and liabilities with households, but these modest sums are easily subtracted.)

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Anticipating How Welcome This Second Deluge Will Be

2018-08-29

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2018-08-29

US Treasuries, Jan 2018 - Aug 2018
Effective federal funds (EFF) was 1.92% again yesterday. That’s now eight in a row just 3 bps underneath the “technically adjusted” IOER. If indeed the FOMC has to make another one to this tortured tool we know already who will be blamed for it.

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The Stock Market is Stretched to Double Tech-Bubble Extremes

2018-08-10

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2018-08-10

Leuthold Group has sounded the alarm on a valuation metric that shows the S&P 500 is twice as expensive as it was at the peak of the tech bubble. This development could have large implications for stock investors of all types, particularly value traders who make their living by finding discounts in the market. With the stock market within shouting distance of an all-time high, traders are readying their Champagne bottles. Just don’t tell them about...

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Goldman: You Are Asking The Wrong $1 Trillion Question

2018-08-07

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2018-08-07

Annual US Share Buyback Activity, 2000 - 2018
After several months of heated market speculation, to Amazon's chagrin the question of which stock would be the first to reach $1 trillion in market capitalization was answered when Apple reported strong Q2 results (which included $21 billion in stock buybacks) and its stock soared 9% this week, rising above the very round number and elevating its YTD gain to 23% (Amazon, with a market cap of just under $900 billion, will most likely be second).

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Stock Market Manias of the Past vs the Echo Bubble

2018-08-06

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2018-08-06

Dollar Value of Share Repurchase Announcements, 2009 - 2018
The Big Picture. The diverging performance of major US stock market indexes which has been in place since the late January peak in DJIA and SPX has become even more extreme in recent months. In terms of duration and extent it is one of the most pronounced such divergences in history.

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Spotlight on the HUI and XAU Gold Stock Indexes

2018-08-02

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2018-08-02

NYSE Gold BUGS Index (HUI)
Probably the two best known gold mining stock indexes in the world’s financial markets are the HUI and the XAU. HUI is the ticker symbol for the NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index. XAU is the ticker symbol for the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index. Both of these monikers make an appearance on many gold related websites and many general financial market websites as well, so its worth knowing briefly what these indexes are and what they represent.

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“Stock Markets Look Ever More Like Ponzi Schemes”

2018-07-04

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2018-07-04

Record Week for Corporate buybacks
The FT has reported this morning that: Debt at UK listed companies has soared to hit a record high of £390bn as companies have scrambled to maintain dividend payouts in response to shareholder demand despite weak profitability. They added: UK plc’s net debt has surpassed pre-crisis levels to reach £390.7bn in the 2017-18 financial year, according to analysis from Link Asset Services, which assessed balance sheet data from 440 UK listed...

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Sound Money Needed Now More Than Ever

2018-06-26

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2018-06-26

National Debt 1940-2008
The sound money movement reemerged on the national political scene a decade ago. In 2008, the financial crisis brought in a fresh wave of U.S. gold and silver investors. Ron Paul and the Tea Party advocated for limiting government and ending the Federal Reserve system. Sound money advocates made real inroads in recruiting Americans to their cause based on evidence that the nation is headed for bankruptcy.

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