The Only Question Is When The Tech Bomb Goes Off
Wall Street is in a champagne mood. Last week, thanks to a rally in Apple, the Dow Jones surpassed 22,000 for the first time ever. Nevertheless, Fred Hickey doesn’t share the bubbly vein. The renowned contrarian cautions investors of an unpleasant surprise because central banks like the Federal Reserve are pulling back from their super easy monetary policy. “We could experience a severe market decline or even a crash”, says the outspoken editor of the widely read investment newsletter “The High-Tech Strategist”. A proven expert on the tech sector, Mr. Hickey makes out similarities to the excesses during the dotcom bubble and warns that dizzy valuations in large cap tech stocks and the boom in the ETF space are stirring up an explosive cocktail. He finds shelter in gold and gold mining stocks, which he thinks will have a bright future.
Memo To The Donald: Fire H.R.McMaster—He’s Not On Your Team
The internal battle taking place in the Trump administration, pitting the “adults” – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, General John Kelly, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster – against the “America First” nationalists, led by Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, has now spread to the media. At the center of the controversy is McMaster, whose foreign policy views are in many ways the exact opposite of Trump’s, and who – rumor has it – may be on the way out. There are indications that, despite recent expressions of support for McMaster, the President has clashed with him repeatedly: Eli Lake reports that Trump “screamed” at his National Security Advisor for calling his South Korean counterpart after Trump said Seoul would have pay for the THAAD antimissile defense system.
Just Wait a Little While
The trouble, of course, is that even after the Deep State (a.k.a. “The Swamp”) succeeds in quicksanding President Trump, America will be left with itself — adrift among the cypress stumps, drained of purpose, spirit, hope, credibility, and, worst of all, a collective grasp on reality, lost in the fog of collapse. Here’s what you need to know about what’s going on and where we’re headed.
How Trump Can End The Syrian War
Many Americans voted for Donald Trump because he vowed to end the foreign conflicts in which the US had become entangled. So far, they have been disappointed. But this week a light flashed at the end of the tunnel. President Trump, according to numerous reliable Washington sources, has decided to end US arms supplies and logistics support to Syria’s jihadist rebels that have fuelled the bloody six-year conflict. Washington, and its allies Britain and France, have persistently denied arming Syria’s jihadist rebels fighting to bring down the Russian and Iranian-backed government of President Bashar Assad.
A Bunch of Indicators are warning of a Break in the Stock Market
Alarms are going off even with the stock market at an all-time high. The obvious ones include a degree of complacency illustrated through low volatility and the overall valuation of the stock market. But there are more reasons to be concerned below the surface. Brad Lamensdorf, the portfolio manager of the short-only Ranger Equity Bear ETF, laid out some of the more hidden warning signs that may be worth looking into.
Where The Leakers Are—Deep State Central
FOX News senior judicial analyst, colleague and personal friend Judge Andrew Napolitano began his weekly column: “What if the federal government captures in real time the contents of every telephone call, email and text message and all the fiber-optic data generated by every person and entity in the United States 24/7/365? What if this mass surveillance was never authorized by any federal law?”
The Draghi Derangement Goes Critical—-ECB Could Run Out Of Bonds To Buy in 2018
With every passing month, the ECB gets closer to its (QE)D-Day: the day when it runs out of bonds to buy, which according to recent calculations could take place in just a few months unless the ECB taper its bond purchases soon. In its latest monthly purchase, the ECB revealed that, according to Bloomberg calculations, the estimated weighted average maturity of purchases of German bonds under the ECB’s PSPP in July declined once again to around 5.18 years vs 5.33 years in June, although it was modestly higher compared to the record lows of 3.99 years in May and 4.7 years in April and March.
Washington’s Imperial Folly Brings Russia and Germany Together——127 Years After The “Reinsurance Treaty” Lapsed
With an Orwellian 99% majority that would delight the Kim dynasty in North Korea, the “representative democracy” Capitol Hill has bulldozed its latest House/Senate sanctions package, aimed mostly at Russia, but also targeting Iran and North Korea. The White House’s announcement — late Friday afternoon in the middle of summer — that President Trump has approved and will sign the bill was literally buried in the news cycle amidst the proverbial 24/7 Russia-gate related hysteria…….Translation; the death knell of any possibility for the White House to reset relations with Russia. Congress in fact is just ratifying the ongoing Russia demonization campaign orchestrated by the neocon and neoliberalcon deep state/War Party establishment.
Truman, A-Bombs, and the Killing of Innocents
Today marks the 72nd anniversary of U.S. President Harry Truman’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki took place three days later in 1945. Some 90,000-166,000 individuals were killed in Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bombing killed 39,000-80,000 human beings. (It has come to my attention that the US military bombed Tokyo on Aug. 14 – after destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki and after Emperor Hirohito expressed his readiness to surrender.)
Congressional Roadblocks To Tax Cuts Are Legion
Congressional Republicans plan to use the next four weeks away from Washington making a public case for a sweeping rewrite of the tax code, an ambitious legislative undertaking they hope will heal divisions that opened when the party’s signature health-care bill collapsed. But at home in their districts, they face pressures that could make it hard to focus on taxes. Many of their constituents and party activists blame Congress, more than President Donald Trump, for the health-care stalemate and are pressing them to find a resolution. And before they can do anything, lawmakers face a load of time-sensitive fiscal business: hashing out a budget, funding the government and raising the federal debt limit.
