Here’s Why the New York Fed Doesn’t Want You to See a Photo of Its Wall Street-Esque Trading Floor By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 20, 2020 ~ The New York Fed is so protective of its surreptitious trading relationship with Wall Street that it previously denied Wall Street On Parade a photo of… Read More

Picture Credit: Marketwatch.com || Quentin Fottrell takes your questions and answers them… we sometimes do that at Aleph Blog I sometimes read c as he answers tough reader questions at The Moneyist, a column at Marketwatch.com. In general, I agree with what he advises 90% of the time, and think he does it in an… Read More

Chinese Industrial Production accelerated further in December 2019, rising 6.9% year-over-year according to today’s estimates from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). That was a full percentage point above consensus. IP had bottomed out right in August at a record low 4.4%, and then, just as this wave of renewed optimism swept the world, it… Read More

US retail sales were disappointing in December 2019, though it depends upon your perspective for what that means. Unadjusted, total retail sales were 6.01% more last month than the same month of the prior year. It was the highest year-over-year growth rate since October 2018. The reason was entirely due to base effects. You might… Read More

Here’s How the Fake Unemployment Number Was Created to Subdue Anger Against Wall Street By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 17, 2020 ~ On February 3, 2015, Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of the iconic 85-year old polling company, Gallup, penned an article for his company in which he called the reported unemployment… Read More

Photo Credit: Free Fergerson || Old & Young — we’re all human It is often said that young people should invest more in stocks because they have more time to bounce back from bad market environments, and so they should take more risk. There is some merit to that argument. But young people don’t have… Read More

For anyone thinking the global economy is turning around, it’s not the kind of thing you want to hear. Germany has been Ground Zero for this globally synchronized downturn. That’s where it began, meaning first showed up, all the way back at the start of 2018. Ever since, the German economy has been pulling Europe… Read More

More than two years into the SOFR regime, it’s not really going all that well. Adoption remains, shall we say, questionable and uncertain even though, everyone says, LIBOR is on its way out and the Secured Overnight Financing Rate is the future. Jumbled together by the Fed’s New York branch, the latter is, we are… Read More

This article is a review of how gold has performed over the years, the gold market currently, what to expect beyond 2020 and how best to achieve your financial goals. Gold Has Performed Well Over the Years Gold had a good year in 2019, rising about 18%. Since 2000, gold has averaged 11% annually in the… Read More

Many investors do not believe all the hype regarding pot stocks and believe that the industry is overvalued. Below are the 20 most shorted cannabis stocks. By Lorimer Wilson, editor of munKNEE.com Short-selling Short-selling, is when an investor borrows shares and immediately sells them, hoping he or she can scoop them up later at a lower price,… Read More

New York Fed Considering Becoming Sugar Daddy to Hedge Funds as their Distress Grows By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 16, 2020 ~ It’s apparently not enough of a billionaire subsidy for the U.S. Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service to give a monster tax break to hedge fund titans by allowing them to pay Federal… Read More

Why is everyone so angry? How can socialism possibly be on such a rise, particularly among younger people around the world? Why are Americans suddenly dying off? According to one study, two-thirds of millennials are convinced they are doing worse when compared to their parents’ generation. Sixty-two percent say they are living paycheck to paycheck,… Read More

One of the biggest reasons why I always find the regulations explanation(s) so lacking is because of what is the biggest part of the scientific process. The excuses for problems in global liquidity and the dollar-based banking system in general have run the gamut of regulatory exercises. Who can forget, for one example, 2a7? That… Read More

JPMorgan’s Historic Earnings Confirm that Fed Loans Are Subsidizing Profits on Wall Street By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 15, 2020 ~ The New York Fed is back to subsidizing billions of dollars in profits at Wall Street’s trading houses, just as it did during the financial crisis. Yesterday, JPMorgan Chase reported that its… Read More

Call it a gift. Call it crazy. Call it whatever you want. But it’s good news. The IRS will let you put more money into your 401(k) account in 2020. The maximum contribution to a 401(k) this year is $19,500, up from $19,000 in 2019. If you are age 50 or older, you can make… Read More

Last month, a group of central bank governors from across the South Pacific region gathered in Australia to move forward the idea of a KYC utility. If you haven’t heard of KYC, or know your customer, it is a growing legal requirement that is being, and has been, imposed on banks all over the world.… Read More

I should know better than to make declarative all-or-none statements like this. I said there isn’t any data which comports with the idea of a global turnaround, this shakeup in sentiment which since early September has gone right from one extreme to the other. Recession fears predominated in summer only to be (rather easily) replaced… Read More