Trade War

Global Industrial Slump And Brexit Dance Go On

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By Arkadiusz Sieroń – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

The Brexit saga continues. Both the U.S. and China’s industrial sectors suffer from the trade war. How will the Fed react to these downside risks tomorrow? The expectation is that it’ll cut rates, but will that really happen? And how will gold take to that?

Brexit Dance Goes On

Last week, we wrote about the Brexit saga, diving into the latest battles between Johnson and Parliament. But the drama has not ended yet. As we concluded one week ago, “Brexit is far from over, and British politics may surprise us again.” Indeed, Johnson wanted to call a snap general election in December to gain more leverage in the House of Commons, but the UK parliament has rejected Johnson’s proposal. For the third time. But Boris does not like losing, so he proposed today a new bill that lowers the number of MPs requires to pass the decision to hold an early election from two thirds to simple majority.

In the meantime, the EU agreed to the Brexit extension until the end of January 2020. Importantly, the EU offered a “flextension,” which means that the UK could leave before the deadline if a deal is approved by the British Parliament. Brexit is still far from concluded and snap elections could significantly change the political landscape. But one thing is sure for now, the possibility of a non-deal Brexit has been postponed until January 31, 2020 at least. This should reduce the safe-haven demand for gold, but also support the pound and euro against the U.S. dollar, gold’s nemesis.

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When will we win? Chinese trade victory is a mirage.

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By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From The Great Recession Blog

The following is my recent argument with yet one more market analyst who can’t see straight, even when his article overall was admitting it was time to bail out of stocks. Correcting the market mantras that dominate the bullheaded is partly why I am here.

I’m not going to call this one out of the herd by name because sometimes his writing is sensible. It is the group-think herd mentality of the bulls, which he expresses, that I am challenging. His writing is in quotes and my responses to his way of thinking follow each quote.

I lay it out here because somehow it still surprises me to see how vapid the wasteland of popular thought can be even when analysts finally reach the point of giving up on stocks. I actually sometimes enjoy reading this author, but this article demonstrates the typical delirious thinking that pervades market commentary everywhere all the time in what is a virtual desert of economic analysis. So, I’m going to dissect it for you as an example of just how full of denial so much market commentary is:

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Reading the Next Recession

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Bu David Haggith – Re-Blogged From The Great Recession Blog

Here is a journey in photos and facts to compare the present Great Recession with the past Great Depression to gain perspective on where we might be headed.

Just as we had two great world wars, we might have two great depressions, the last of which we started out calling “The Great Recession” because, at the time, we didn’t know where it would end up or how long it would continue. Remember that World War I did not start off being called WWI. It was originally called “The Great War.”

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Breaking China Not as Easy as Toppling Tijuana

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By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From Great Rcession Blog

A bump from Donald Trump’s thump on Mexico’s head is causing the US stock market to swell this week. Trump tariffied the market last week because his new threat against all things Mexican seemed to say Trump might use tariffs as leverage to get anything he wants. Agent Orange apparently got what he wanted — though it remains unclear whether he got anything that wasn’t already in the offing, but he says he did — so the market’s knock on the head is healing this week.

All par for the course in a market that is smoking rope anyway. Soon enough, however, we return to the market thinking it is all about China, and China is an entirely different syndrome than a Mexican border problem that Mexico was already helping with. It’s also a different tariff war than one in which tariffs have already been implemented, negotiated and removed months ago.

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You Know Things are Falling When…

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By David Haggith – The GreatRecession Blog

…when the stock market’s decade-long bottom trend becomes its new top trend and then it can’t even make it back up to that line as a top trend.

We’re sloughing away now, and it can be a long slide to the bottom or endless side-winding of big ups and downs that go nowhere, just as the market has now gone nowhere for fifteen months.

Yes, if you bought in January, 2018, (when I said the market would fall) and held, you have made nothing (unless you did well on dividends)! If you continue to hold, the odds are you will do worse than nothing; but, hey, you did get to enjoy a heck of a roller-coaster ride. If, on the other hand, you sold in January of 2018 and put your money in cash, you made 2% a year with worry-free smooth sailing every day of the year. Here’s the proof on stocks:

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World Trade Suffers Biggest Collapse Since Financial Crisis

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By Mark O’Byrne – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

The recent collapse in world trade volume is the worst since the financial crisis and as dangerous as during the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, according to The Telegraph.

Data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis revealed that world trade volume dropped 1.8% in the three months to January compared to the preceding three months as a synchronized global downturn gained momentum.

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Trump, Juncker Forge Deal to Pull Back From US-EU Trade War

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By Bloomberg – Re-Blogged From Newsmax

President Donald Trump reached an agreement Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker aimed at averting a transatlantic trade war, easing tensions stoked by Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on car imports.

The two sides agreed to expand European imports of U.S. liquified natural gas and soybeans and lower industrial tariffs on both sides, Trump said. The U.S. and European Union will “hold off on other tariffs” while negotiations proceed, Juncker said.