Earlier this week, Standard & Poor’s placed Germany, France and 13 other eurozone nations on negative credit watch, saying “continuing disagreements among European policy makers on how to tackle” the region’s debt crisis risk is damaging their financial stability.  Furthermore, S&P warned that the European Financial Stability Facility may lose its top credit rating.  “We coul Read More...

I am pulling the plug on my short position in the Euro here, selling my Euro ETF (FXE) January, 2012 $134 puts at cost. It’s not that I have suddenly fallen in love with the beer drinkers and the garlic eaters. This is an option driven decision. With market volatility falling across all asset classes, the short dated options are eroding away faster than the underlying is moving in my favor. Tim Read More...

by Karl Denninger There is probably nobody in the political/government scene that I detest more than Ben Bernanke.  But this does not mean that politicians showing the mental acuity of a 2-year old should feel free to take false shots at his policy actions and those of The Fed generally. Yet they have. Bernie Sanders, for example, has been screaming about “$16 trillion in secret loans&# Read More...

Courtesy of Bruce Krasting Full calendar year 2011 numbers are now available to calculate the results for the Social Security Trust Fund. Here’s a look at the key numbers that will be reported to Congress in four months: Payroll Tax Revenue: $669B ($642B – 2010) Benefit payments: $726B ($702B -  2010) Primary Deficit: $57B ($60B -  2010) Other cash components at SSA: Tax on benefits:  $2 Read More...

Tim Iacono From this report at Der Spiegel comes the terrifying chart below showing how dramatically ECB (European Central Bank) bond buying has increased in recent months. This comes at a time when European banks have increasingly relied on the ECB’s emergency liquidity programs and expectations are being lowered by the hour for this week’s summit. Of course, European banks tapped the Fed/ Read More...

By Elliott Wave International Lost in the clamor over the central banks’ “let there be liquidity” pronouncement, Standard & Poor’s just downgraded fifteen major U.S. and European banks. The downgrade doesn’t mean Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays, UBS, Wells Fargo and others will close shop tomorrow. But the long-term credit downgrade does rais Read More...

by The Mad Hedge Fund Trader I heard the magic words today from German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy: “treaty changes”. That will be the gist of their joint proposal at the European summit this coming Friday to deal with the sovereign debt crisis. To me, this means that the two besieged leaders are finally biting the bullet and laying the groundwork for the swe Read More...

Gold is higher by 20% this year but the large cap gold stocks (GDX) are down 6% while the junior gold stocks (ETF) are down 25%. With Gold higher by 20%, we’d normally expect the gold stocks to be up 50% and more. Needless to say 2011 has been a difficult year for gold bugs. Its been a near disaster for most junior gold stocks. That being said, there are important but often ignored reasons why t Read More...

By Eric McWhinnie Last week, gold futures for December delivery increased 3.6%, while silver futures gained 5.1%.  The catalyst for the gains came from central banks agreeing to make dollar borrowing cheaper for the euro zone.  Currently, gold and silver are holding onto gains as investors wait for another catalyst. Investor Insights: Why is Gold Finding Support At This Level? On Monday, invest Read More...

Submitted by Tyler Durden As investors proceed happily through the forest that is this week’s potentially epic fail, Nomura asks the question on every European is asking – What’s in my wallet? Investors holding EUR-denominated assets and obligations face potential redenomination of contracts into new currencies. Based on the current misalignment of the real exchange rate and fut Read More...

Last week marked the one year anniversary of my Trade Alert Service, and subscribers could not be happier with the results. The first year return came in at 42.2%, putting us in the top one tenth of one percent of all hedge fund managers. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index came in wheezing with a moribund 1.3% gain during the same time period, which is hardly worth getting out of bed for. It wa Read More...

David A Banister- www.MarketTrendForecast.com Back in August with Gold running to parabolic wave 3 sentiment induced highs, I warned of a major top and multi-month correction.  We all know that the fundamentals for the shiny metal are stronger than ever, but you must keep in mind that the market prices all that in well l in advance.  Coupled with excessively bullish sentiment that was capped of Read More...

Xcerpt from the Week Ahead Section: Stocks enjoyed a strong, bullish run this week, thanks to the efforts of the world’s central bankers. Earlier in the week, Bruce Krasting discussed the ECB’s need to engage in “shock and awe” tactics and make central bank friends. On Wednesday, immediately after Bruce published On FX intervention and the ECB/SMP, the Central Banks announced their Read More...

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds It’s Your Choice, Europe: Rebel Against the Banks or Accept Debt-Serfdom The European debt Bubble has burst, and the repricing of risk and debt cannot be put back in the bottle. It’s really this simple, Europe: either rebel against the banks or accept decades of debt-serfdom. All the millions of words published about t Read More...

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. Submitted by Tyler Durden. In the following video Chris Martenson – economic analyst at chrismartenson.com and regular guest contributor to Zero Hedge, and James Turk, Director of the GoldMoney Foundation talk about the problems facing the eurozone as well as the global economy. Chris Martenson points out that the whole world simply has too much debt. This is why he b Read More...