Category: General

Don't Let The Government Decide When You Retire

Posted on by admin

By: Amy Calistri of Street Authority

I try not to be tempted by "click-baiting" headlines on the Internet. You know what I'm talking about -- the salacious, ridiculous, or shocking headlines that you click on, only to discover mundane articles that may or may not have anything to do with the headline.

But we all have our weaknesses; mine is information about retirement planning. This explains why I clicked on the U.S. News headline, "The Perils of Retirement at Age 65."

The article didn't provide me with many new insights. For instance, I already knew that even though you are eligible to start receiving Social Security retirement benefits at age 62, most people have to be older than 65 to receive "full" benefits.

What did surprise me were the comments people posted after reading the article. They fell into two general groups.

There was a group that couldn't bear the thought of working until the age of 65 and over: Continue reading "Don't Let The Government Decide When You Retire" →

Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery

Posted on by The INO.com Team

We've asked Michael Seery of SEERYFUTURES.COM to give our INO readers a weekly recap of the Futures market. He has been Senior Analyst for close to 15 years and has extensive knowledge of all of the commodity and option markets.

Michael frequently appears on multiple business networks including Bloomberg news, Fox Business, CNBC Worldwide, CNN Business, and Bloomberg TV. He is also a guest on First Business, which is a national and internationally syndicated business show.

Gold Futures

Gold futures this Friday afternoon after the Thanksgiving holiday are sharply lower due to the fact that crude oil prices are down nearly $5 also pressuring the precious metals to the downside as gold in the February contract is currently trading down $29 at 1,167 after settling last Friday at 1,198 as I still remain neutral in this market as prices are trading above their 20 day but still below their 100 day moving average so avoid this market at the current time. In my opinion choppy markets are difficult to trade as the longer term downtrend line in gold is still intact in my opinion as a strong U.S dollar and S&P 500 continue to take money out of gold as the money flow continues to go into those 2 sectors as I still think there’s a possible retest of 1,130 in the month of December and if you remember in 2013 December was also a negative month to the downside as the stock market in my opinion will continue to climb higher throughout the rest of the year. The chart structure in gold is poor at the current time as prices have been choppy in recent weeks so look for a better market to trade and keep an eye on this and hopefully better chart structure will develop over the course of the next several weeks but I’m feeling that we will not be involved in the gold market until at least early 2015.
TREND: MIXED
CHART STRUCTURE: POOR Continue reading "Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery" →

Every Day Is Black Friday In The World Of Forex

Posted on by The INO.com Team

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By Elliott Wave International

The foreign currency exchange market, known as forex, is the most liquid financial market on the planet -- liquid to the tune of $5.3 trillion traded per day!

That basically means every single day in forex is the day after Thanksgiving -- a.k.a. "Black Friday" -- with a stampede of traders pounding at the front door come opening bell, and then frantically racing up and down the market aisles in search of opportunities.

It's madness. Market turns are lightning fast. You have to be faster. You have one single goal: Get there before they're gone.

That goal, however, is difficult to attain if you're following the blueprint of mainstream financial analysis; which tells you to look outside the market for clues as to where prices will go next. The trouble with this strategy is that when you have your eyes focused outside the markets, you often miss high-confidence trade set-ups developing on the price charts themselves.

Take, for instance, the recent near-term performance in the euro/Canadian dollar exchange rate, forex name EURCAD. On November 20, the EURCAD took a nasty fall and continued slipping to a one-month low on November 21. Mainstream analysis identified the "cause" of the move after prices had already started to reverse: Continue reading "Every Day Is Black Friday In The World Of Forex" →

Gold Is Setting Up For a Short

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By: Chris Wilkinson of Longleaftrading.com

The overall fundamental theme for gold is still bearish. With the dollar rallying and commodities being dollar denominated, all else being equal, the price of commodities should decrease. The market looks to be pricing in low inflation to come and gold is used as an inflationary hedge. This is a bearish fundamental factor.

What we saw last week was very opportunistic upward movement that is helping set up the much larger downward trend that I foresee coming. The cash injections from the ECB and China should be short lived as the market will once again see these central banking efforts will not have a large impact on global inflationary numbers. Let’s look at the charts to plan our trade.

Continue reading "Gold Is Setting Up For a Short" →

Semi Equipment Book-to-Bill Ratio Moderating

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Since we were the only ones (so far as I could see) even talking about the Semiconductor equipment industry ramp up (and positive implications on US manufacturing) back in early 2013 I think we should continue to tend the sector and finish what we started.

Last month the SOX took a massive dive down to our noted long-term support area in a giant swoosh of hype (coming from the financial media by way of one company’s outlook) and emotion by way of stampeding herds trying to get out at all costs.  It was just a setup as the SOX resides at new recovery highs this weekend.

From my days in manufacturing (most of which were spent not directly participating in this sector) I remember the Semiconductor Book-to-Bill ratio (B2B) as a pretty heavily watched indicator among industry types.  From Semi.org:

“The SEMI Book-to-Bill Report provides a first look at the book-to-bill ratio for North American Headquartered Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturers. The three-month average global bookings and billings are a strong indicator for trends in the worldwide semiconductor industry. SEMI follows the protocol established by the U.S. Department of Commerce in publishing our figures only on a three-month average basis. We do this in order to smooth out the natural volatility in bookings. This report is distributed monthly approximately three weeks after the close of each month. Categories covered include front-end (wafer processing/mask/reticle/wafer manufacturing/fab facilities) equipment and final manufacturing (assembly/packaging/test) equipment.”

On November 20 Semi.org published its most recent B2B data.  First their summary and then a table covering the May through October 2014 period. Continue reading "Semi Equipment Book-to-Bill Ratio Moderating" →