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Sell the News: Oil Falls as Mid-East Troubles Escalate

Last Thursday, news arrived that US client state Georgia had invaded the predominantly Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia, and we also learned that two more carrier groups were headed for the...

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Some historical perspective on tax rates and brackets

The income tax was established in the horrible year of 1913, the same year the US got its central bank.  (This also happens to have been the last year of peace, free trade and the international gold...

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Sound money promotes peace

Ron Paul is not just the lone voice of reason and honesty in Congress, he’s also a great writer. In the latest of his weekly essays, he spells out how sound money (gold and silver being tried and true...

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Why bailouts will not stop the depression

The market is a force of nature, like gravity. To use it is prosperity. To fight it is misery. —- By bankers, for bankers. This is a bailout of bankers. The Fed was created by bankers, and the Treasury...

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Americans love war

To everyone else in the western world, November 11 is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, a day to contemplate the lessons from and the ending of the Great War. WWI of course destroyed Europe, setting...

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Ron Paul’s amazing predictions from a 2002 speech

About the only thing he got wrong was his prediction that the financial collapse would be inflationary, but of course he called gold correctly (it was about $300 at the time).

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Chart: Secular Bear Markets Since 1900

Secular Bear Markets (red) since 1900. Source: Crestmont Research I like this chart, but I would change one thing: the bear that started in 1929 could extend clear through to 1948 due to inflation and...

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Hedge funds: Just say no

Hedge funds are almost never a good investment. As a class, they underperform and overcharge. Only 20% of funds beat their benchmarks in a given year, and of those, fewer than half outperform in two of...

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Bristlecone Pine trading

Hedge funds, mutual funds and active mangers underperform and overcharge, while a simple buy-and-hold strategy regularly sustains sharp losses and lengthy secular bear markets. So what’s an investor...

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Barrons Big Money Poll shows complacency & love for equities

It amazes me that the most successful managers could be so bullish at a time like this (way overvalued, way overbought, rising Treasury yields, stalled earnings growth), but of course stocks are most...

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What goes up must come down (coffee futures boom-to-bust).

A 9-month mania has become a relentless 2-year bear market, and prices are back where they started: From Futures.Tradingcharts.com From Indexmundi.com, here’s a longer-term view. As is typical of...

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Top developing

An overbought market that has kept the vast majority of investors and traders in the bull camp for several weeks is to be viewed with suspicion. When prices also begin to lose their upward momentum,...

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RSI declining – final warning sign

This is a very expensive and overbought market which few participants believe can decline meaningfully. That alone is dangerous, but now we see signs of technical exhaustion, such as the downtrend in...

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Daylight saving is pointless

  Daylight Saving Time doesn’t save energy. It just messes up the seasonal progression of diurnal rhythms, effectively giving us jetlag. The sun was rising a few minutes earlier each week, and now...

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One more datapoint on the equity bubble

The latest Flow of Funds Report (link to pdf) shows that equities comprise a greater share of US household assets than at any point besides the height of the internet bubble. Of course, elevated prices...

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On Flash Boys, why HFT is parasitic, and why it’s over.

  It’s my baseline assumption when looking at markets, financial or otherwise, that when something involves no fraud or physical coercion it’s beneficial or innocuous. When you find something damaging...

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Sell the News: Oil Falls as Mid-East Troubles Escalate

Last Thursday, news arrived that US client state Georgia had invaded the predominantly Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia, and we also learned that two more carrier groups were headed for the...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Some historical perspective on tax rates and brackets

The income tax was established in the horrible year of 1913, the same year the US got its central bank.  (This also happens to have been the last year of peace, free trade and the international gold...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Sound money promotes peace

Ron Paul is not just the lone voice of reason and honesty in Congress, he’s also a great writer. In the latest of his weekly essays, he spells out how sound money (gold and silver being tried and true...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Why bailouts will not stop the depression

The market is a force of nature, like gravity. To use it is prosperity. To fight it is misery. —- By bankers, for bankers. This is a bailout of bankers. The Fed was created by bankers, and the Treasury...

View Article
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