A big short term move in both stocks and gold is probably fairly imminent as periods of extremely low volatility like we are currently experiencing are invariably followed by periods of very high volatility that are brought about by a trigger event of some sort. There will probably be an advance warning somewhere, in a corner of the markets that perhaps isn't widely watched...[so] keep a close eye on these 12 inter-market signals.

Before gold can rally, it has to first turn the trend from down to up. We see no evidence of a change in trend. The bearish spacing is repeated, again, as a reminder that it represents a weak market within its down trend. How anyone can posit a bullish scenario from what the charts show flies in the face of known facts, as depicted in the charts.

China has decided to try and walk back from the edge of a Minsky moment and engineer a soft landing. They have made a decision to pop the bubble deliberately, allow defaults to instill market discipline and remove the moral hazard currently in place. They are moving into the modern world as fast as possible based on the enormous tasks they have embraced so we probably can expect no more booms but probably not a bust either. Let me explain.

Many mainstream economists want nothing to do with economic cycle theorists, but it should be noted that economic cycle theories have enabled some analysts to correctly predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes over the past couple of decades - and there are many economists who believe that the period from 2014 to 2020 is going to turn out to be pure hell for the United States.

When Staple sector (i.e. defensive) stocks started to reflect greater relative strength than Discretionary sector stocks back in 2000 and again in 2007, the S&P 500 began to fall dramatically in the ensuing months. That's happening again. Can a collapse of the S&P 500 be far behind?

The health of a market is best assessed along three vectors: fundamentals, technicals (price action) and sentiment and this is what each is saying about the health of the markets these days.

For today's seriously overextended and overvalued US stock markets the best-case scenario is a full-blown correction approaching 20% emerging soon while the worst case is a new cyclical bear market that ultimately leads to catastrophic 50% losses.

It doesn't matter until it matters! IF margin debt should start decreasing swiftly, history would suggest something different is taking place in the mind of aggressive investors. Will a decline in margin debt from all-time highs matter this time?

It is well known that holding uncorrelated asset classes in our investment portfolio gives diversification benefits. In the same sense, diversifying among competing or rival countries or jurisdictions helps to maximize freedom by mitigating political risk. This article discuss the merits, and ease of, diversifying in a country that virtually all have never given a second thought, let alone an initial one.

Government fiscal policy - profligate spending, leading to debt crisis, leading to currency crisis, leading to…the fall of the U.S. dollar – is the major cataclysmic endgame that is going to befall the U.S.