November Blog Archives 2018

Gold last traded at $1,275 an ounce. Silver at $16.40 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices slipped Thursday amid uncertainty ahead of the Senate tax reform vote. U.S. stocks rose to fresh highs amid growing tax reform optimism.

Dow Industrials Cross 24,000 -Wall Street Journal
"U.S. stocks rose Thursday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 24000 for the first time....The Dow has hit five thousand-point milestones this year, the latest one coming 30 trading sessions since it closed above 23,000....Government bond yields still remain incredibly low by historical standards, offering little alternative to stocks, many investors say. 'I think stock valuations can go higher, and any correction will be a sector rotation until the yield situation changes,' said Michael Thompson, managing director at S&P Global Market Intelligence."

Goldman Warns That Market Valuations Highest Since 1900 -Bloomberg
"A prolonged bull market across stocks, bonds and credit has left a measure of average valuation at the highest since 1900, a condition that at some point is going to translate into pain for investors, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. 'It has seldom been the case that equities, bonds and credit have been similarly expensive at the same time, only in the Roaring ’20s and the Golden ’50s,' Goldman Sachs International strategists including Christian Mueller-Glissman wrote in a note this week. 'All good things must come to an end' and 'there will be a bear market, eventually' they said. As central banks cut back their quantitative easing, pushing up the premiums investors demand to hold longer-dated bonds, returns are 'likely to be lower across assets' over the medium term, the analysts said. A second, less likely, scenario would involve 'fast pain.' Stock and bond valuations would both get hit, with the mix depending on whether the trigger involved a negative growth shock, or a growth shock alongside an inflation pick-up."

Coinbase ordered to report 14,355 users to the IRS -The Verge
"Coinbase suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Internal Revenue Service, nearly a year after the case was initially filed. A California federal court has ordered Coinbase to turn over identifying records for all users who have bought, sold, sent, or received more than $20,000 through their accounts in a single year between 2013 and 2015. Coinbase estimates that 14,355 users meet the government's requirements. For each account, the company has been asked to provide the IRS with the user's name, birth date, address, and taxpayer ID, along with records of all account activity and any associated account statements. The result is both a definitive link to the user's identity and a comprehensive record of everything they've done with their Coinbase account, including other accounts to which they’ve sent money....The government made no claim of suspicion against individual users, but instead argued that the order was justified based on the discrepancy between Coinbase users and US citizens reporting Bitcoin gains to the IRS. Coinbase boasts nearly 6 million customers, but according to a government filing, fewer than 1,000 US citizens have reported cryptocurrency holdings on their taxes. The ruling has already proven controversial in the Bitcoin world. 'We remain deeply unsatisfied with the lack of justification provided by the IRS,' Coin Center's Peter Van Valkenburgh told The Verge. 'Without better rationale for why these specific transactions were suspect, a similarly sweeping request could be made for customer data from any financial institution. It sets a bad precedent for financial privacy.'"

Is the privacy window about to slam shut on cybercurrencies? The privacy afforded by bitcoins has helped propel prices upward, but has also drawn attention from many governments eager to monitor citizen activities, to tax as barter bitcoin transactions. Swiss America researched Bitcoin extensively to help YOU get up to speed FAST. Call 800-289-2646 or click on the title to request a free copy of our new Special Report: BITCOIN: The Future of Money?

This Is What Could Pop the Bitcoin Bubble -Bloomberg
"Bitcoin and bubble have become virtually synonymous in the minds of many skeptics during this year's breathtaking rally. While the digital currency has defied doomsday prophesies, there's a number of ways this party could end badly for the swelling ranks of bulls. (1) Knifed by a Fork - The multiple offshoots of bitcoin could cause the world's largest digital currency by market value to cede its crown. (2) Strangled by Regulators - Given bitcoin's checkered history as the means to purchase illicit materials, a vehicle for capital flight, and a victim of theft, it's no surprise that regulators around the world have cast a watchful eye over the asset class. (3) Hacked to Pieces - Ever since the 2011 breach of the Mt. Gox exchange, bitcoin owners have had to face the possibility that this intangible asset may fall into the hands of hackers. (4) A Short Demise - The introduction of bitcoin futures could also ultimately prove detrimental to its valuation should clearing organizations come under stress amid the digital currency's wild swings. (5) Pass Away on Profit-Taking - The failure of major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase to handle traffic on the day bitcoin breached $10,000 throws into sharp focus the scalability problems that cryptocurrencies face as speculative vehicles....Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has said that 'you have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is,' calling the cryptocurrency a 'bubble.' Perhaps it could end like the dot-com bubble - with investors who have no clue how to value high-flying assets fleeing for the exit en masse."

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Gold last traded at $1,299 an ounce. Silver at $16.91 an ounce.

NEW SUMMARY: Precious metal prices eased back Wednesday on profit-taking and a flat dollar. U.S. stocks traded mixed despite upbeat GDP data amid growing valuation worries.

Federal Reserve thinking about its own digital currency -CNBC
"As the price of the cryptocurrency continues to soar, the Federal Reserve apparently is giving thought to having a product like bitcoin for its own. William Dudley, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said at a conference Wednesday that the Fed is exploring the idea of its own digital currency, according to reports from Dow Jones. That sentiment comes even though Dudley said he views bitcoin is 'more of a speculative activity' and not a stable store of value. As the central bank official spoke, bitcoin struck a new high. Just a day after hitting $10,000, it eclipsed the $11,000 mark....'The paper that's in your pocket, that we call money, only has value because we believe it has value, because we believe the government stands behind it. It's all trust issues,' Harker said, according to a Coindesk report."

Is Bitcoin trustworthy? Could Bitcoin eventually replace the U.S. Dollar? Critics say Bitcoin is just a fad which won't last, so Swiss America researched Bitcoin extensively to help YOU get up to speed FAST. Call 800-289-2646 or click on the title to request a free copy of our new Special Report: BITCOIN: The Future of Money?

Complacent investors run risk of reliving ‘parable of the boiling frog’ -Marketwatch
"In a Tuesday note, analysts at Societe General laid out their fear that investors are in danger of 'reliving the parable of the boiling frog.' That's the dusty trope that holds that a frog in a pot of water sitting on a stove will remain content as the temperature slowly rises, not realizing its soon to be boiled alive until too late. In SocGen's telling, investors are in the role of the frog, participating in markets that 'for now are unwilling or unable to perceive the gathering threats.' Meanwhile, investors content with low interest rates, abundant liquidity, stable growth and a focus on the positive aspects of U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda continue to push asset prices, volatility and leverage to historical extremes, they said, warning that a low volatility carry environment 'with rather extreme positioning' is a dangerous combo....So what's a froggy to do? The SocGen analysts say they’re not waiting around in the pot. They’ve further cut their equity exposure to 40% from 50%..."

Bio-Implantable Bitcoin Wallets Becoming a Popular -Bitcoin
"Making a bitcoin payment with a body part may not be too unusual in the future. When implanted under a person’s skin, the chip can facilitate a number of NFC financial transactions, including bitcoin payments....At a price of $99, the bio-chip comes contained in a cylindrical biocompatible glass - stored in a syringe ready for injection. Developers claim the xNT Implant is the first NFC-compliant, implantable RFID tag on the market. When a user wants to pay for an item, they scan the body part holding the device over any NFC-enabled point-of-sale application....NFC chip implants are a relatively new practice, with PBS News calling it 'do-it-your-self biology.' Yet, the idea may make it simpler to make payments or access digital identification, in addition to overall entertainment. Concepts like these may also help prevent government officials or petty thieves from stealing people’s funds."

Tax Reform: May Rest Once Again With McCain -New York Times
"Once again, it could all come down to Senator John McCain. After sinking his party's hopes of repealing the Affordable Care Act this year with a dramatic thumbs-down, the fate of a tax overhaul may now sit in the hands of the Republican from Arizona....Asked about what concerned him about the Senate tax bill this week, Mr. McCain replied tersely: 'A lot of things.'....Mr. McCain has voted against big tax cuts before, including two that passed under another Republican president: George W. Bush....Two years later, Mr. McCain voted against another round of tax cuts. In his remarks in 2003, Mr. McCain again cast doubt on the need to use 'billions of federal dollars to cut taxes for our nation’s wealthiest.'....Some supporters of the tax bill have been concerned that Mr. McCain, along with Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona, could vote against the legislation, possibly to spite President Trump, whom they have all been critical of, and criticized by."

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Gold last traded at $1,299 an ounce. Silver at $16.91 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices traded mixed Tuesday amid the Fed Chairman hearing and tax reform uncertainty. U.S. stocks hit fresh highs following strong Cyber Monday sales led by Amazon.

Bitcoin's Inconvenient Truths: The Silence Is Deafening -Investment Research Dynamics
"Gold is instantly and optically recognizable as money. You don’t have to explain it. Bitcoin and Special Drawing Rights (SDR), like a bad joke, have to be explained. Many 'cryptologitsts' from the start gave up trying to explain Bitcoin and just sell it as virtual gold, which is de facto fake gold. -Dan Popescu, investment consultant. Numerous inconvenient truths are conveniently ignored by Bitcoin/crypto-currency promoters. Not the least of which is that the fact that the original concept for cryptographic currency was envisioned by the NSA. I guess it's convenient to assume the NSA developed this concept and then put it out there for the private sector to develop. A rapid rise in price does not validate an investment concept. Dozens of dot.com stocks went from simple websites to multi-billion dollar market caps and back to zero in the late 1990’s. Until proven otherwise by the long test of time, Bitcoin could be another product of a fiat money printing bubble that is 100x the size of the money bubble that fueled the dot.com bubble. Gold and silver have withstood the test of 5,000 years. Bitcoin has less than 3,000 days of time-testing. Anything that exists in cyberspace is vulnerable to hacking....It's all wine and roses on the way up, but at what price will there be a bid for you relieve yourself of your position?"

Call 800-289-2646 or click on the title to request a free copy of our new Special Report: BITCOIN: The Future of Money?

28 Reasons to Buy Physical Gold -Bullion Star
"Throughout human history, gold has constantly emerged as an unparalleled form of savings, investment and wealth preservation....there are many and varied reasons to own physical gold in the form of investment grade gold bars and gold coins. 1. Tangible with Inherent Value, 2. No Counterparty Risk, 3. Scarcity, 4. Cannot be Debased, 5. A 6,000 Year History, 6. Store of Value, 7. Long- Term Inflation Hedge, 8. A 2,500 Year Track Record as Money, 9. Safe Haven, 10. Portable Anonymous Wealth, 11. Universal Acceptance, 12. Emergency Money, 13. Outside the Banking System, 14. No Default Risk, 15. Portfolio Diversification, 16. Currency Hedge, 17. Gold's Metallic Properties, 18. Physical gold - A tiny fraction of Paper Gold, 9. By Definition - Not an ETF, 20. Anonymous Storage, 21. Independent of Internet, 22. Real Gold is Measured by Weight, 23. Coins and Bars - Build a Collection, 24. Physical Gold Feels like Real Wealth, 25. Gold as Loan Collateral, 26. Central Banks hold Gold, 27. Gold for Gifting, 28. Gold for Inheritance."

The World's Most Powerful Bitcoin Backers -Zero Hedge
"Cryptocurrency may be one of the biggest threats to governments, security and the entire financial system that we’ve ever seen. It can help fund terrorism and its anonymity makes it almost impossible to track. Most importantly, it is poised to revolutionize global finance and banking. But our new Enemy No. 1 can't be fought; it can perhaps be controlled. Banks have figured that out and are bringing crypto currency into the fold. The superpowers - U.S., China and Russia - will have to face the new reality. They love to hate it and hate to love it. Regardless, if they don't embrace it, they won't be able to control it. An enemy you don't control is a much bigger threat. Russia is embracing it, with an eye to dominating it. China has banned it. The U.S. is struggling to figure out how to regulate it....From China and Russia to North America, virtual is the reality. It's no longer a question of whether cryptocurrency will survive. It's a question of what it will disrupt on its way to the top of the global finance chain."

Democrats cancel meeting after Trump says 'I don't see a deal' to prevent government shutdown -CNBC
"Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi canceled a scheduled meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday afternoon. The cancellation followed a tweet in which Trump said he could not envision reaching a spending deal with Democrats that would keep the federal government open. The trouble with Trump's inability to see 'a deal' is that Republicans cannot pass a federal spending bill without Democratic votes....Even if a deal is reached at the 11th hour, the prospect of a government shutdown could rattle financial markets. In the event that a shutdown were to occur, the results would likely be disastrous for Republicans heading into the 2018 midterm elections."

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Gold last traded at $1,294 an ounce. Silver at $17.02 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices pushed higher Monday on safe haven buying and dollar weakness. U.S. stocks traded mixed despite upbeat retail sales and housing data.

Chance of US stock market correction now at 70 percent: Vanguard Group -CNBC
"Don't panic, but there is now a 70 percent chance of a U.S. stock market correction, according to research conducted by fund giant Vanguard Group. There is always the risk of a correction in stocks, but the Vanguard research shows that the current probability is 30 percent higher than what has been typical over the past six decades. Vanguard, which manages roughly $5 trillion in assets and is a proponent of long-term investing, isn't sounding the alarm bells to scare investors out of the market. But according to Vanguard's chief economist Joe Davis, investors do need to be prepared for a significant downturn....In its annual economic and investing outlook published last week, Vanguard told investors to expect no better than 4 percent to 6 percent returns from stocks in the next five years, its least bullish outlook since the post-financial crisis recovery began....'Don't become overly aggressive. The next five years will be challenging, and investors need to have their eyes wide open,' said Davis."

Want to protect your stock-market gains? Consider alternatives (like gold) -Marketwatch
"If you are one of those investors worried about this high-flying stock market and are looking to protect some of your gains, you have several ways to do it. Whether cash, long-term Treasury bonds, gold or derivatives, each offers the potential to protect against the ravages of the next bear market. But none is perfect, and each has its critics....The last two bear markets on Wall Street saw the stock market fall more than 50% before it bottomed out. Neither bear market was predicted by Wall Street’s usual suspects....Holding some gold in the portfolio as a protection offers higher risks as well as rewards. Gold has often been called a 'safe haven' in times of economic or financial crises...investors argue gold may offer protection against inflation and currency devaluation."

How Nearly 4 Million Bitcoins Are "Lost" Forever -Market Slant
"Just as gold bars are lost at sea or $100 bills can burn, bitcoins can disappear from the Internet forever. When all 21 million bitcoins are mined by the year 2040, the actual amount available to trade or spend will be significantly lower. According to new research from Chainalysis, a digital forensics firm that studies the bitcoin blockchain, 3.79 million bitcoins are already gone for good based on a high estimate - and 2.78 million based on a low one. Those numbers imply 17% to 23% of existing bitcoins, which are today worth around $9,000 each, are lost....Chainalysis, whose clients include the IRS and Europol, has made a name for itself in the bitcoin world because of its abundant data and sophisticated study of blockchain wallets. Law enforcement agencies rely on the company to provide detailed insights into who owns the currency and how it moves around....Finally, there's the question of what became of the bitcoins belonging to Satoshi, the pseudonymous creator of the crypto-currency, who has not been not been heard from since 2011. Chainalysis says wallets associated with Satoshi represent about 1 million bitcoins, and that its model assumes that those coins...are gone forever. This assumption is a big one and, if it proves to be incorrect, the number of circulating bitcoins could suddenly increase significantly and deliver a shock to the market."

Bitcoin has taken speculators on the ride of a lifetime this year. But, is it too late now to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon? Swiss America has researched this new and popular form of international "money" for you so you may draw your own conclusions based on the facts. Call 800-289-2646 or click to request a free copy of BITCOIN: The Future of Money

Bitcoin feels 'speculative,' but its run to $9,600 has been 'amazing,' -CNBC
"Bitcoin may be risky, but its jump to another new high has been nothing short of 'amazing,' closely followed strategist Bob Doll told CNBC on Monday. The cryptocurrency surged to a record $9,682.10 on Monday, according to CoinDesk, breaking a mark set during Thanksgiving weekend. It later retreated to $9,615.13. It has risen more than 850 percent this year. 'With bitcoin, why do you need the stock market?' has been the saying of late,' said Doll, Nuveen Asset Management's chief equity strategist....Bitcoin has hit new records several times this year, though not everyone on Wall Street favors the cryptocurrency. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has called it a 'fraud' and said investors will ultimately 'pay the price for it.'"

Now Accepting Visa, Bitcoin and Gold -Bloomberg
"Consumers are spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing the right alternative commodity-linked currency to pay for their groceries. First we got the Bitcoin Visa card, the perfect gift for those who want an easy way spend a cryptocurrency that has gained 800 percent this year on goods whose price is up a relatively mild 3 percent. Swipe the card and your bubbly Bitcoin is instantly converted to boring sterling. Now we have the gold Mastercard, created by Glint, a start-up that wants to 'reintroduce' gold as money. You use the app to buy gold, and the card to spend it as pounds. Glint's marketing blitz is typical fintech, but the pitch is admirably old-school, setting out in detail how the gold is locked up in a secure vault in Switzerland. This will be music to the ears of gold bugs who think 3 percent inflation is a travesty of debased coinage, and who would prefer something shiny and metallic to lines of code....These commodities are being awkwardly shoehorned into payment cards that essentially concentrate all of the risk onto the cardholder - transaction fees, exchange-rate volatility, the possibility of investment losses - and leave the merchant handling pounds blissfully unaware....The sound-money crowd does deserve credit for at least trying to enrich a generation that has been hit hard by the financial crisis. Safe saving opportunities have dwindled, housing is less affordable, and real wages are falling."

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Gold last traded at $1,292 an ounce. Silver at $17.11 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Wednesday on dollar weakness ahead of Fed minutes. U.S. stocks fell on downbeat earnings and jitters ahead of Fed outlook statements.

Fed officials fear market 'imbalances,' possible effects of 'sharp reversal' in prices -CNBC
"Federal Reserve officials expressed largely optimistic views of economic growth at their most recent meeting but also started to worry that market prices are getting out of hand and posing a danger to the economy....Stocks have been on a tear throughout 2017, setting a series of record highs and adding trillions in value. That's come both on the heels of stronger corporate earnings and hopes that the tax reform plan, which would take the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, becomes a reality. Some members feared what would happen if the market suddenly took a hit. 'In light of elevated asset valuations and low financial market volatility, several participants expressed concerns about a potential buildup of financial imbalances,' the minutes stated. 'They worried that a sharp reversal in asset prices could have damaging effects on the economy.'....Markets are assigning a nearly 100 percent probability to a December rate hike, though only factoring in one or two so far for 2018."

Bitcoin: An Unknowable Bubble? -Zero Hedge
"'Whatever [Bitcoin] is, I missed it... It looks and smells like all the bubbles I have seen throughout history.' - billionaire investor Jim Rogers. On price dynamics alone, Bitcoin looks like a sure bubble - a disaster waiting to happen....Bubbles are generated by exuberant expectations of investors, not by actual parameters of price processes. Causality does not flow from dynamics to bubbles, but the other way around. So to identify a bubble, one needs to identify exuberance. In the case of Bitcoin fans, there is clearly such. No investor or serious analyst has been able to provide a fundamentals-based valuation model for Bitcoin....Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. But, taken together with the general lack of credible fundamentals-linked modelling of the crypto-currency, this means that, at this point in time, Bitcoin price can be potentially driven solely by expectations held by its enthusiasts, plus the incentives by the predominantly China-based investors to avoid extreme risks of capital controls and expropriations. If so, both drivers would make it a speculative bubble....So Bitcoin, then. A bubble or not? If you ignore the arguments that attempt to justify its valuations, it looks like one. If you listen to them, it looks that way even more, with more confidence in the arguments bogus nature. Draw your own final conclusions."

Bubble or not, Bitcoin will likely be a hot topic of discussion around Thanksgiving tables this week. Swiss America has researched this new and popular form of international "money" for you so that you may draw your own conclusions based on the facts. Call 800-289-2646 or click to request a free copy of BITCOIN: The Future of Money?

Why Wall Street’s record run may soon come to an end -New York Post
"The stock market has been in a bubble for years. I'm not the only one saying that - others, including many with loads of Wall Street experience and tons of dollars at risk, have said so, too. But I have also said that bubbles are nice while they last and that investors should enjoy this one as long as they think they can get out in time. (Don’t even give that a moment's thought because once the bubble starts popping, you won't get out in time.) The market has had a couple of down weeks in a row, so I think it’s time to discuss what the end of this bull market might feel like and what might cause the euphoria in stocks to become exhausted....Wall Street won't like it if tax reform fails, or is delayed. And it will be disappointed if it is watered down....The thing that might upset Wall Street the most is if companies are deprived of write-offs and loss carryforwards that currently exist. That would raise their expenses, lower profits and cause Wall Street to reassess its thinking about what the Trump administration is doing. There are, of course, other major issues facing investors, like:  the feud with North Korea; problems Middle East countries are having with one another; and acts of domestic terror and possible foreign terrorism in the US. Any of those could end the market's ecstasy....The higher interest rates that are coming - along with the Fed's other intention, to normalize its balance sheet by getting rid of bonds - will drain liquidity from the financial markets....There’s one other thing that could trip up the stock market, and that's the legitimacy of corporate profit reports...a lot of companies have been cooking their books. And Wall Street couldn't be more thrilled - at least until Judgment Day for the market, when everyone will repent."

Bank of America sees end of bull market coming in 2018 -CNBC
"Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees a scary good news-bad news scenario unfolding in 2018....'We believe the air in risk assets is getting thinner and thinner, but the Big Top in price is still ahead of us,' Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofAML, said in a report for clients. 'We will downgrade risk aggressively once we see excess positioning, profits and policy.'....The forecast is predicated on three core beliefs: The first is the aforementioned capitulation; the second an expectation of 'peak positioning, profits and policy' that 'will engender peak asset price returns' and a low in volatility; and, finally, an expectation that higher inflation and corporate debt along with tighter monetary policy will roil the corporate bond market, a critical prong of the risk asset rally. 'The game changer is wage inflation, which on our forecasts is likely to become more visible,' said Hartnett, who projects that salaries could rise 3.5 percent and push the consumer price index up 2.5 percent and convince the Fed that it's close to meeting its 2 percent inflation goal."

Uber Concealed Cyberattack That Exposed 57 Million People’s Data -Bloomberg
"Hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber Technologies Inc., a massive breach that the company concealed for more than a year. This week, the ride-hailing company ousted Joe Sullivan, chief security officer, and one of his deputies for their roles in keeping the hack under wraps. Compromised data from the October 2016 attack included names, email addresses and phone numbers of 50 million Uber riders around the world, the company told Bloomberg on Tuesday....Uber now says it had a legal obligation to report the hack to regulators and to drivers whose license numbers were taken. Instead, the company paid hackers $100,000 to delete the data and keep the breach quiet. Uber said it believes the information was never used but declined to disclose the identities of the attackers."

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Gold last traded at $1,281 an ounce. Silver at $16.96 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Tuesday on safe-haven buying and a flat U.S. dollar. U.S. stock indexes hit fresh highs amid bullish sentiment led by upbeat earnings in the tech sector.

'New normal' of geopolitical risk likely to boost gold prices, Citi forecasts -CNBC
"Gold prices are likely to be buoyed by the 'new normal' of elevated geopolitical tensions over the coming years, Citi analysts said Monday. The geopolitical case for gold investment has been emboldened in recent months and it seems as strong today than at any point over the last four decades, Citi analysts said. As a result, gold prices were forecast to 'push north of $1,400 per ounce for sustained periods' through to 2020....Investors tend to move into safe-haven assets such as gold, the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen in times of geopolitical turmoil as traditional assets such as stocks and bonds are often perceived as a more volatile investment....'"Event-driven bids for gold seem to be occurring more frequently and may be the new normal,' Citi said."

Stock Market Hindenburgs and Titanics -Hussman/Hussman Funds
"On Tuesday November 14, the number of NYSE stocks setting new 52-week lows surged above the number of stocks setting new highs, with both figures representing more than 3% of total issues traded. This 'leadership reversal' joins the deterioration in our own measures of market internals last week, as well as ongoing dispersion in market breadth and participation. As noted in the chart below, this couples a 'Hindenburg' with a 'Titanic,' and is actually the first time since July 2007 that we've seen this particular combination of internal deterioration. Each of the red bars below was also associated with unfavorable market internals on our own measures."

"While the names of these indicators may seem silly and overly menacing, they actually get at something very serious. They capture situations where the major indices are near new highs, yet market internals show much greater divergence. In my view, this type of market behavior is indicative of a subtle shift in the preferences of investors, away from speculation and toward risk-aversion. Coupled with the most extreme 'overvalued, overbought, overbullish' syndromes on record, the behavior of market internals warrants close attention. Credit spreads are also worth monitoring, as junk bond yields have surged in recent days."

Is Bitcoin 'digital gold'? -CNBC
"Even after a huge move already this year, investing magnate Mike Novogratz sees cryptocurrencies making another leg up before 2017 comes to a close. Bitcoin could finish the year at $10,000 while ethereum is likely to close at $500, the head of Galaxy Investment Partners former head of the Fortress Investment hedge fund, told Bloomberg television in an interview....'People are trusting it,' he said. 'Remember, this whole revolution came out of a breakdown in trust, it came out of the '08 financial crisis where people say, 'We no longer trust financial institutions, we no longer trust governments.'....Wall Street remains divided on bitcoin, as CEOs including Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase and Larry Fink at BlackRock have derided it even as professional investors see opportunity....Novogratz, though, sees bitcoin as 'digital gold' because people buy it for much the same reasons they invest in the yellow metal, and predicted it will continue to attract attention and cash."

There are more than 1,100 new Bitcoin-type startups, according to CoinMarketCap, all hoping to cash in on the fastest growing trend in world of money. Is Bitcoin set to become the next world currency? Could Bitcoin eventually replace the U.S. Dollar? For the answers to these questions and more, Swiss America has just put together a new Report, BITCOIN: The Future of Money? It's yours FREE!

Unserious Nation -Buchannan/WND
"How stands John Winthrop's 'city upon a hill' this Thanksgiving? How stands the country that was to be 'a light unto the nations'? Today's great question seems to be whether our 45th president is as serious a sexual predator as our 42nd was proven to be, and whether the confessed sins of Sen. Al Franken are as great as the alleged sins of Judge Roy Moore. On both questions, the divide is, as ever, along partisan lines....And what was the great cultural issue of summer and fall? An ideological clamor to tear down memorials and monuments to the European discoverers of America, any Founding Father who owned slaves and any and all Confederate soldiers and statesmen....Our elites assure us that America today is a far better place than we have ever known, surely better than the old America that existed before the liberating cultural revolution of the 1960s....We seemed a more serious and united nation and people then than we are today, where so much that roils our society and consumes our attention seems unserious and even trivial....Since 1962, this nation has dethroned its God and begun debates about which of the flawed but great men who created the nation should be publicly dishonored."

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Gold last traded at $1,277 an ounce. Silver at $16.89 an ounce

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices dipped Monday on profit-taking and a firmer dollar. U.S. stocks rose modestly, led by IBM, as investors awaited more details on a proposed tax overhaul.

Are we entering the age of the ‘petro-yuan’? -Marketwatch
"Most of the world's commodity trading is denominated in U.S. dollars, but the Chinese yuan, also known as renminbi, could soon be making some inroads. Reports say that Saudi Arabia - the world's largest oil exporter - might start to accept Chinese yuan as payment for its usually dollar-denominated oil exports to China, after oil companies in Russia, Iran and Venezuela have done the same, according to Sue Trinh, head of Asia FX strategy at RBC. This fuels the specter of a 'petro-yuan' taking on the dominance of the petrodollar....For the Middle Eastern kingdom, accepting yuan could be a chance to increase its footprint in Asia, as its China business has decreased over the past years. In 2017, China imported 14% of its oil from Saudi Arabia."

The Return of Morality in Politics? -Pontification Blog
"It seemed as if an ice age of frozen partisan hate-filled politics might be the end of American democracy. But, thankfully, we may be seeing the first green shoots of a springtime renewal of personal as well as social morality in our politics. At The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan writes that feminists who rushed to defend Bill Clinton in the 1990s were 'on the wrong side of history.' A chorus of other Democrats and progressives agree that this immoral ex-president and others deserve to be condemned now. Is this genuine contrition or pragmatic politics? Democrats now recognize that they cannot credibly charge sexual misbehavior against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore while refusing to condemn their own such as Bill Clinton or current Democratic Senators Bob Menendez and Al Franken....The liberal assault on Roy Moore over sexual accusations suggests that we may see a lot more of such last-minute attacks against Republicans during 2018 and 2020 Democratic efforts to regain the House, Senate, and White House....Are Democrats beginning to see the light about running moral candidates - if not campaigns? Or do they merely feel the heat of feminist Political Correctness and the need to regain political power by, as Machiavelli might say, appearing to be virtuous? Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In this Thanksgiving season, at least personal morality appears to be coming back into style, and for this we should be thankful. Full story

ECB Proposes End To Deposit Protection -Zero Hedge
"It is the 'opinion of the European Central Bank' that the deposit protection scheme is no longer necessary: 'covered deposits and claims under investor compensation schemes should be replaced by limited discretionary exemptions to be granted by the competent authority in order to retain a degree of flexibility.' To translate the legalese jargon of the ECB bureaucrats this could mean that the current €100,000 deposit level currently protected in the event of a bail-in may soon be no more. But worry not fellow savers, as the ECB is fully aware of the uproar this may cause so they have been kind enough to propose that: '...during a transitional period, depositors should have access to an appropriate amount of their covered deposits to cover the cost of living within five working days of a request.' So that's a relief, you'll only need to wait five days for some 'competent authority' to deem what is an 'appropriate amount' of your own money for you to have access to in order eat, pay bills and get to work. The above has been taken from an ECB paper published on 8 November 2017 entitled 'on revisions to the Union crisis management framework'....Savers should be looking for means in which they can keep their money within instant reach and their reach only....Gold and silver are the financial insurance against bail-ins, political mismanagement, and overreaching government bodies."

The Republican Tax Bill Is Now In Serious Trouble -Investors
"Five Republican senators - three more than enough to force a major rewrite - have now gone on the record with serious criticism of the legislation. Even worse, the changes they want have conflicting aims: Some want to make the bill more generous; others aim to reduce its cost; and one - Maine Sen. Susan Collins - wants the GOP to keep its hands off ObamaCare's individual mandate and the $318 billion pot of money that would materialize if they eliminate the unpopular mandate. Bottom line: It looks increasingly doubtful that Republicans will be able to achieve their top priority of a permanent 20% corporate tax rate, and there may be another shoe to drop. Republicans' narrow Senate majority could get even smaller, with polls suggesting scandal-hit GOP nominee Roy Moore could lose a Dec. 12 special election in deep-red Alabama. That would leave the GOP with just a single vote to spare. Among those raising concern about the bill's fiscal impact are Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona, both of whom have butted heads with President Trump and have decided not to seek reelection. 'We're looking globally at the whole thing and trying to do what we can to make it more fiscally palatable,' Corker told Politico on Thursday. Flake told Time that the bill is full of tax cuts that are made temporary to hide their true cost. 'We can do tax reform in ways that will grow the economy, but we can't just ignore the debt and deficit.'"

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Gold last traded at $1,293 an ounce. Silver at $17.18 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Friday on a weaker dollar and political angst. U.S. stocks fell amid concerns over whether the Senate will approve a sweeping GOP tax reform plan.

Senate tax reform plan comes under new attack -LA Times
"Senate GOP leaders, after making some revisions this week, are facing mounting dissent and criticism that their tax plan favors corporations and the wealthy. An analysis by Congress' bipartisan tax experts on Thursday concluded the Senate plan would raise taxes for some of the poorest Americans by 2021. House Republicans had an easier time, passing their measure by a vote of 227 to 205, though 13 Republicans voted no. Democrats were unified against the plan, and the Republican defections came from lawmakers in the Northeast and California, who were mostly concerned about the proposed elimination of deductions for state and local income taxes, and the capping of property tax deductions at $10,000. The write-offs are widely used in their high-tax districts....Concerns were only heightened by a report Thursday from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that estimated many low-income earners would end up with tax increases, not tax breaks, in the latest Senate plan....The large cut in the corporate tax rate, to 20% from 35%, would be permanent under the Republican bill."

Fed to trigger the next gold rally -Rickards/Marketwatch
"The Federal Reserve meets in December, at which point many expect the central bank will get its Grinch on and announce the first interest-rate hike in a year. Some worry investors aren't worried enough....Those in the 'worry later' camp might like our call of the day from James Rickards, attorney and finance commentator, who sees less chance of a December Fed hike. That could mean a fresh ride higher for another asset - gold. In a blog post for Daily Reckoning, Rickards says what the Fed will do hinges on one last piece of data - core PCE inflation - due before its Dec. 12-13 meeting....'If you take a long position in gold today and the Fed raises rates, nothing happens to the price because the rate hike is already priced in,' he writes Rickards has been meeting with gold dealers and refiners in places like Switzerland and China and they all talk about one thing: physical shortages. As well, he said new gold discoveries are becoming increasingly scarce. 'Investors will once again flock into gold once reality sets in. Mix in rising geopolitical tensions in Asia and the Middle East, and gold’s future looks bright,' he says."

The Biggest Wealth Transfer in History -Gold Switzerland
"The concentration of wealth in the world has now reached dangerous proportions. The three richest people in the world have a greater wealth than the bottom 50%. The top 1% have a wealth of $33 trillion whilst the bottom 1% have a debt $196 billion....Let me first put the facts right. It is not capitalism in its traditional sense which has created this enormous concentration....The current economic system could not function without complete state sponsorship and interference. This is the clever construction that a group of top bankers devised on Jekyll Island in the US, in November 1910. This was the meeting that led to the creation of the Fed in 1913....In 1913 US debt to GDP was 150%. Today, including unfunded liabilities, the figure becomes almost 1,000%. This is the burden that ordinary Americans are responsible for a burden that will break the US people and the US economy as well as the dollar. Whilst ordinary people have been landed with liabilities that they can never repay, the bankers and the 1% elite has profitably (ab)used the leverage that the debt expansion has created and thus amassed massive fortunes. That is why we are seeing this enormous inequality in wealth....The coming asset implosion will tax the rich much more than any politician could ever achieve. On average the wealthy are likely to lose up to 90% of their wealth. At the same time the debt, either personal or public, that the average person is responsible for will also implode...This will be the biggest wealth transfer in history. But it won't happen without strife. There will be social unrest and possible civil war before all this is over....What is also certain is also that gold is the best insurance against these risks, just as it has been for thousands of years."

When the Robots Take Over -Bonner/Bonner And Partners
"There are two major reactions to the future: Some people are excited… and some are alarmed....The number of robots in the workforce is expected to quadruple by 2025. By 2030, one estimate - widely circulated - is that half of all existing jobs will have disappeared. Then, smarter than we are, the robots will help us in every aspect of our lives. They’ll tell us when to brush our teeth and whom to vote for. They'll correct our grammar, diagnose problems with our cars… and suggest remedies for itchy skin, too. They will take out the trash, make stew out of tree moss… and unlock the gates of paradise....Here at the Diary, we're neither worried nor wonderstruck....In the 19th century, machines took over the routine work. People fretted and whined when the automobile put the manure handlers out of work. But the more machines were able to do, the more people wanted things that were 'handmade.' The more they made physical work unnecessary, the more people wanted personal trainers. And now, the more robots do, the more humans will want what they can't do....The problem today… as it always has been… is not that we have too little intelligence. In fact, with so much additional computing brain power coming online… we may have too much. Our hearts can't keep up. Still, our advice is to relax."

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Gold last traded at $1,278 an ounce. Silver at $17.07 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Thursday on safe haven buying and a weaker dollar. U.S. stocks rebounded on upbeat earnings from Wal-Mart and Cisco as well as renewed tax reform hopes.

Wall Street bull warns a major pullback is near -CNBC
"One of Wall Street's most vocal bulls sees trouble in the stock market. Raymond James' Jeffrey Saut is detecting a couple of red flags that could trigger a 5 to 10 percent pullback just in time for the holidays. 'One thing that nobody is talking about is the Trump rally started on November 7 of last year. And, this year the rally peaked out on November 7 of 2017 - just when people could sell the stocks they bought pre-the presidential election and make long-term capital gains,' the firm's chief investment strategist said Wednesday on CNBC's 'Trading Nation.' In that period, the S&P 500 surged 23 percent - just long enough for investors to sell their positions. Saut predicts these outflows could trigger a correction....He also cites his 'intermediate-term model,' a Saut-designed basket of economic and market indicators that includes such factors as volatility levels, as a reason to get bearish....'Twenty-nine percent of the S&P 500 stocks are actually down on the year,' he said. 'On the short-term, you can be cautious here.'"

Why Base Your Money On Gold? A Simple Answer -Lewis/Forbes
"The United States embraced the principle of a gold standard – a dollar whose value was linked to a defined quantity of gold – from 1789 to 1971, a stretch of 182 years. During this time, the U.S. was the most successful of any major country...with the broadest and wealthiest middle class the world had ever seen. If the U.S.'s gold standard policy was a mistake, as nearly all academic economists claim today, shouldn't there have been some evidence of that, after nearly two centuries? Shouldn't there have been some kind of negative consequences?....When President Richard Nixon 'closed the gold window' on August 15, 1971, he said it would be a temporary measure...The immediate result was an economic disaster – the 'stagflation' of the 1970s....A 2011 poll found that 57% of voters would favor a gold standard system if 'it would reduce the power of bankers and political leaders to steer the economy.' Only 19% opposed....As described in insight-laden detail by George Gilder in The Scandal of Money (2016), money acts as a sort of information system for the economy....The gold link produced this necessary stability. Its imperfections were minor enough that they didn’t matter very much. Nobody has found a better way. Mostly, they didn’t feel the need to look for one."

Gold represents an ultimate unit of account and serves as a universal plumb line for all financial transactions. That's why gold is known as the world's Numeraire. Watch Craig Smith explain the best gold "Double Play" opportunity of 2017 HERE.

Zimbabwe's Coup, Venezuela's Default, And The Ongoing Failure Of Socialism -Investors
"As Zimbabwe locked down following a military coup this week, Venezuela defaulted on its debt. On the surface, these events in these two countries - one African, the other South American - seem to have little in common. But, in fact, they share two very big things: Both are socialist, and both are failed states. Indeed, both nations are near collapse, suffering from hyperinflation, economic contraction and widespread hunger. In Zimbabwe's case, just 40 years ago it was the richest and most productive country in Africa. Today, it is an utter disaster....Inflation rose from roughly 59% in 2000 to a peak of 80 billion percent at the end of 2008. No that's not a misprint: 80,000,000,000%....Just like Zimbabwe, Venezuela once thrived with a large middle class and a strong, oil-based economy. But starting in 1999 under socialist military dictator Hugo Chavez, major swathes of the economy were seized and put under government control and ownership...Today, its state-run oil monopoly barely pumps any crude at all....It's defaulted on its sovereign debt, run out of money ... has widespread hunger, mass poverty, and the wreck of its medical system....Suppose there was a company that made airplanes, and every one of the airplanes it ever made, all of them, crashed and burned. Would you fly in one of that company's planes? Of course not. And that's precisely the case with socialism. Everywhere it's been tried - everywhere - it has brought economic failure, human misery, want, hunger, strife, even mass death. There are no socialist 'success stories.' None."

Bitcoin hits $13,000 on Zimbabwe exchange -CNNMoney
"Political turmoil and an apparent coup have pushed the price of Bitcoin as high as $13,000 on a digital currency exchange in Zimbabwe -- nearly twice the going rate in global markets. Demand surged on Golix, which appears to be the only local Bitcoin exchange, after military leaders put 93-year-old leader Robert Mugabe under house arrest. Bitcoin has long commanded higher prices in Zimbabwe, which scrapped its own currency in 2009 after years of hyperinflation made it worthless. But the appearance of tanks on the streets of the capital Harare have pushed the price gap even wider. Bitcoin was trading on international exchanges for roughly $7,500 on Thursday....Only 16 Bitcoin have been traded on Golix over the past 24 hours, and 160 over the previous month. Bitcoins are created through 'mining' - a process in which computers race to solve complex math problem, and winners are rewarded with chunks of the digital currency. Mining requires huge amounts of electricity, and Golix says that energy prices in the region are simply too high to make the process cost effective....Golix doesn't allow Bitcoin sellers to take their money away in cash."

The price of Bitcoin is up 600% over the past 12 months and up 1,600% in the past 24 months. At present there is a raging debate about whether these new forms of money represent the biggest bubble in history, or the biggest ground floor opportunity. Should you buy into the exciting world of cyber currencies such as Bitcoin? Get the answers in a new Swiss America Research Report, BITCOIN: The Future of Money?

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Gold last traded at $1,277 an ounce. Silver at $16.97 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices zig-zagged Wednesday amid rising volatility. U.S. stocks fell for a 5th consecutive day as investor sentiment has turned more bearish.

Gold rises after U.S. inflation data -Reuters
"Gold prices rose for a third day on Wednesday as the dollar weakened and U.S. bond yields fell despite solid U.S. economic data that reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will press ahead with increases to U.S. interest rates. The data showed an unexpected rise in U.S. retail sales in October and a pick-up in underlying inflation. However, the outlook for U.S. tax cuts that could stimulate economic growth was clouded after U.S. Senate Republicans created new political obstacles by linking the repeal of a key component of Obamacare to the tax reform plans. 'The biggest factor right now shoring up gold is the weaker dollar,' said Robin Bhar, head of metals research at Societe Generale. 'Also, there's speculation that tax cuts could be a long time coming, meaning the Fed will not have to be as aggressive as it might have been.'"

There's something weird going on that's worrying the markets -CNBC
"Markets are showing signs of nervousness, which analysts say is not necessarily the dire warning some fear. There is concern that the bond market is sending warnings about the economy, as high yield debt sells off and the Treasury yield curve flattens. The yields of longer duration bonds are getting closer to the yields of shorter duration bonds, and some see that as a forewarning about a slower economy....'People are just saying there's jitters about tax reform,' said Marc Chandler, the head of foreign exchange strategy at Brown Brothers. 'Going into the year-end people are nervous. lt's not only about taxes.' The cranky mood began in China and Asian markets overnight, after Chinese economic reports missed the mark. 'In this kind of crazy market, as we head into 2018, anything is possible. If we do sell off, it's going to get exaggerated,' he said."

Cash is king, but $100 bills are for crooks -Money and Banking
"People have been saying for years that cash will disappear. So far, they have been spectacularly wrong. Over the past decade, the face value of U.S. dollar paper currency in public hands has doubled. Today, there is nearly $1.6 trillion in banknotes outstanding, more than 80 percent of which is in $100 bills! In fact, there are thirty-nine $100 bills in circulation for each of the 326 million residents of the United States....Regardless of who holds all this currency and whether the crooks are inside or outside the country, the growth is a significant source of revenue to the U.S. Treasury. How does the government obtain this seignorage? To get the notes into circulation, the Fed issues them as liabilities and buys Treasury securities that the public would otherwise have to buy. So, in this case, the government really is printing money and spending it! The seignorage from providing these $100 bills (which cost 15½ cents to produce) is staggering. Over the past decade, revenue was a cumulative $700 billion, or 1.85% of total government expenditure since 2007....We see no feasible means to control criminality merely by limiting the official supply of anonymous means of payment. We would still need a way to stop the design and use of private digital substitutes as well. This is nearly impossible, as it would require a ban both on commercial transactions and on the provision of cryptocurrency clearing and transfer services by financial intermediaries. If either is possible, then criminals could use these alternative mechanisms to launder money. There is a clear tradeoff between people abusing the privacy afforded by cash payments and tyrannical societies exploiting the intimate knowledge of people's payments for malevolent control. Our conclusion then (and now) is that - expressly because of its anonymity - cash is a foundation for freedom: freedom from dictators and from ideological censors."

Scientists Say Earth Is Doomed Without 'Urgent' Action - Just Like They Did 25 Years Ago -Investors
"This week, thousands of scientists issued a bleak and terrifying 'second notice' to mankind about how we will destroy the planet unless we take 'urgent' action. If this warning is as reliable as the first notice these scientists issued in 1992, we have nothing to worry about. In an article published in the journal Bioscience, 15,364 scientists warned that we are 'jeopardizing our future' and that 'immediate action' is needed to 'safeguard our imperiled biosphere.' 'Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out,' the scientists say. The article is meant to be an update on a 1992 notice - ominously titled 'World Scientists' Warning to Humanity' and signed by 1,700 leading scientists - that predicted environmental catastrophes to come if humans remained on the current course. But the 1992 statement was wildly off the mark in its dire predictions....But today's doomsday scientists are making the same fundamental mistake they made 25 years ago. They are blind, apparently, to the fact that when people are emboldened by free-market capitalism they are amazingly innovative and will ceaselessly devise new technologies and new ways of doing things that are cheaper, less energy-intensive and less polluting. There's no need for the massive central planning or worldwide austerity these scientists keep demanding. Our bet is that when 2042 comes around, the terrifying 'second notice' from the world's leading scientists will look just as ridiculous as the first one does today."

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Gold last traded at $1,280 an ounce. Silver at $17.08 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices steadied Tuesday on dollar weakness and rising uncertainty. U.S. stocks fell amid unsettling political and economic news as GE stock plummeted to 5-year lows.

Will Cash Disappear? -New York Times
"There are few corners of the world where electronic transactions are not growing faster than cash...But the movement away from cash is happening in very different ways and at varying paces around the world. Scandinavian countries are already well along the road toward cashless societies. Many banks in Sweden no longer have cash on hand, and consumers can make instant transfers directly from their bank accounts....China is the most talked-about location in the battle between cash and electronic payments. PayPal-like wallets created by Chinese online giants Alibaba and Tencent have become the most popular ways to pay for things online....The benefits of moving away from cash have been trumpeted by economists like Kenneth Rogoff, who wrote 'The Curse of Cash,' about how paper money enables crime and tax evasion. But the critics of cash have been met by their own critics, who argue that electronic payments can disenfranchise poor people who lack easy access to bank accounts and the internet and can make it much easier for governments and corporations to monitor a person's every step."

"You are a casualty of the 'war against cash' if you have a bank account – and probably do not even know it," according to author and Swiss America Chairman Craig R. Smith. According to Smith, "The federal government, big banks and the tech giants all have plans to digitally end paper money ... forever!" You must hear this confidential interview between Michael Savage and Mr. Smith, which is now available on a FREE CD or mp3. Discover what steps must be taken to protect your hard-earned money from this accelerating WAR ON CASH.

Ray Dalio Goes On Gold Buying Spree -Zero Hedge
"Until last quarter, the world's biggest hedge fund had, curiously, never held a position in any of the most liquid gold ETFs...That changed in the second quarter of 2017, when Bridgewater made its first tentative purchases in the gold ETF space, buying up 577,264 GLD shares, for $68.1 million, as well as 3.1 million IAU shares worth $36.8 million. ...Ray Dalio urged investors to buy gold in case 'things go badly.'....In Q3, Ray Dalio went on a gold buying spree, increasing his GLD holdings by a whopping 575%. As a result of the surge in holdings, Bridgewater as of this moment, the 8th largest holder of paper gold, known as GLD....It wasn't only GLD, however, because Bridgewater also nearly tripled its IAU holdings, increasing its paper iShares gold holdings by 266%, from 3.1 million shares to 11.3 million. And now that Ray Dalio is rapidly buying up GLD, IAU and other gold holdings, we wonder how long before the momentum chasers send gold, both paper and physical surging."

Wall St. Overwhelmingly Sees Shine In Gold -Survey/Kitco
"In the weekly Kitco News gold survey, not a single analyst or trader called for gold to fall next week, the first time this has happened in the roughly seven years since the poll began. All said higher, with the exception of a handful of voters who were neutral. This completes a reversal in thinking for Wall Street, with the bulls clearly holding the upper hand for the first time in a month....A total of 21 market professionals took part in the Wall Street survey. Eighteen, or 86%, called for gold to rise. Three participants, or 14%, called for gold to be sideways or were neutral....Adrian Day, chairman and chief executive officer of Adrian Day Asset Management, also said higher. 'Sentiment is shifting, as the stock market - notwithstanding new highs for indices - is more uncertain, with very bad breadth and many stocks breaking down,' Day commented. Ralph Preston, principal with Heritage West Financial, said he looks for some kind of 'geopolitical pop' to the upside in gold."

Majority Of Americans Would Skip Holiday Gift-Giving, Survey Says -CBS
"For many people, giving and receiving gifts are one of the big parts of the holidays. However, a new survey shows that 69 percent of Americans would skip exchanging gifts if their family and friends agreed to it. The survey, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of SunTrust Bank, also showed that 60 percent of those surveyed said they would spend more time with friends and family if they didn’t have to worry about buying or making gifts. Which isn't to say that people just want to spend less. The survey found 25 percent said they would use that money on activities with friends and family. Conversely, 37 percent said they would pay down debt and 47 percent would choose to save that money or invest it."

Michael Savage leaps into faith with new book -Washington Times
"Talk radio kingpin Michael Savage is the first to point out that his newest book is not standard 'religious' writing, though it bears the title 'God, Faith and Reason,' and follows his 25 other books which dwelled on politics, culture wars, national security, immigration issues and science....'I wrote this odyssey over nearly a lifetime of searching - and to thank the Creator for my life,' Mr. Savage tells Inside the Beltway. 'This is very important for you to know. When I was down and out, I had to go down to the core of my being and reach out to the man upstairs, to put it colloquially. And I had to ask Him to save me. It didn’t happen like a boom went off, or lightning struck or Charlton Heston appeared in my living room with a ticket to heaven. I had to keep asking for it.'....The book, published Tuesday, is an engaging, detailed and spirited work - both conversational and soul-searching, restless and reassuring all at once."

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Gold last traded at $1,278 an ounce. Silver at $17.04 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Monday on safe-haven buying despite a firmer dollar. U.S. stocks struggled as GE and tax reform worries kept a lid on market gains.

Gold higher as global stock markets pull back -Marketwatch
"Gold futures traded modestly higher Monday as investors retreated somewhat from purchasing assets perceived as risky, like global stocks. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index which measures the buck against six rivals, edged up by 0.1% to 94.48. The index fell sharply late last week, logging its biggest decline since Oct. 10 on Thursday, according to FactSet data. That move came as the Senate's tax-cut proposal underwhelmed markets, providing a lift to commodities priced in the currency. Metals, currencies and interest-rate markets appeared to consolidate levels after a volatile week that accompanied waning confidence for economy-boosting U.S. tax reform. U.S. stocks stalled their record run Monday amid the tax uncertainty, and this risk-off positioning was mildly beneficial to haven gold. Next month's Federal Reserve interest-rate hike is 'baked in the crust as Trump's tax cuts get stuck on the Hill,' said Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault. Gold is expected to continue to largely track the dollar and Treasury yields in coming weeks and months, with weakness in both likely underpinning the yellow metal."

Will Protestors Silence Our National Anthem? -Pontification Blog
"Even facing a huge boycott by viewers on Veterans Day, the NFL league office refused to change its policy that allowed players to protest by not standing respectfully during the traditional playing of America’s national anthem. Such players who take a knee, link arms, or otherwise show disrespect, generally fall into one of two categories. Some want to make an ideological protest against what they see as American society, from police behavior to the nation as a whole....Other young players apparently see the enormous media attention Kaepernick is given in the liberal media for his protests and want such national attention and fame for themselves....Major networks, seeing their ratings and profits plummet, have experimented with no longer airing the anthem. This might remove the ego gratification and attention some players crave. But for leftist ideologues, this is victory in an age when Antifa protestors chant 'No Trump! No wall! No USA at all!' For radicals, tearing down statues of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington is only the start of writing the United States out of history and out of the hearts of Americans. By blocking the televising of the anthem, these America-haters believe they have won a huge victory. This must not stand. The California NAACP now wants to banish our anthem, 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' as racist because its rarely-sung third stanza refers to 'the hireling and slave' (which could easily be deleted)....Author Francis Scott Key, as Craig R. Smith and I document in We Have Seen The Future and It Looks Like Baltimore, was also brother-in-law to Roger Taney, who would later as U.S. Chief Justice write the notorious Dred Scott Decision. Key’s grandson, journalist Frank Key Howard, would be imprisoned by Abraham Lincoln for criticizing him; Howard would be locked up in the same Fort McHenry about whose stand against the British the anthem was written. 'The Star-Spangled Banner' today could get you arrested if at an airport you began singing its lyrics about rockets’ red glare or bombs bursting in air." Full story

We’re probably entering a bond market bubble -Miami Herald
"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently told Bloomberg that we are entering a bond market bubble in the U.S., and all signs point to yes. In fact, I would add that what was once a safe, stable and predictable investment class is about to be turned on its head, as interest rates rise and values plummet....During the tech bubble of 2000, investors mistakenly believed that tech stocks were somehow different than any other investments and that profits weren’t needed for stock prices to rise. The market eventually market realized this, leading to the historic 78 percent decline of the NASDAQ composite. All in all, the common denominator in stock, real estate and bond market bubbles is this: Everyone is rushing to the fire exit, but they cannot get out in time. Ultimately, bond investors face the same result if they do not rethink their strategies now. Interest rates are set to rise again. While holding long duration bonds has long been considered a safe investment strategy, that is no longer the case. The tried-and-true vanilla income strategy of the past is no longer smart or safe. The longer the duration of a bond portfolio, the higher the interest rate risk. Incremental rate increases could exponentially amplify the holder’s loss in purchasing power....All things considered, this is a first. Never have these factors converged at once: historically low interest rates set to rise, coupled with a population of investors holding such a large percentage of their portfolio in bonds. For portfolios that don’t diversify, we can easily guess the outcome. This is not meant to generate fear but to motivate investors to act before it is too late."

Bitcoin: The World’s Most Dramatic Bubble Ever? -Wall Street Journal
"Investment manias throughout the centuries have ranged from tulips to tech stocks to housing; is bitcoin different? First it was tulips. More recently it was tech stocks and then the housing market. Lately, it's all about bitcoin. All four share a common denominator: They suffered through financial bubbles, or bubble-like conditions. The first three ended badly. The jury is still out on what's in store for bitcoin....Bubbles are investment manias, where prices jump so high that no fundamental analysis can rightly justify the surge. The price gains, usually sharp and quick, are typically followed by busts that tend to be just as severe....Bitcoin is the 'very definition of a bubble,' Credit Suisse Group AG Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam said at a conference earlier this month. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon called bitcoin a 'fraud' that will 'blow up.'....If past bubbles are any indication, bitcoin’s spectacular rise won't last forever. And when it ends, look out below."

Investors Not Choosing Bitcoin Over Gold -State Street Investors/Kitco
"Bitcoin’s wild volatility, as prices swing within a $2,000 range, is one of the reasons why the digital currency should not be compared to gold, according to one market analyst. Bitcoin's surge to nearly $8,000 in recent weeks has led some analysts to speculate that it is taking interest and capital away from gold...However, George Milling-Stanley, head of gold investments at State Street Global Advisors, said that this theory is nothing but the latest urban myth. 'It's a myth of epic proportions on the same level as alligators in New York sewers,' he said. 'I have talked to many financial advisors and investors and no one has said that they are selling their gold to buy Bitcoin.'....Milling-Stanley said that ultimately, Bitcoin is nothing but a new speculative trend that is probably going to end badly for investors. He equated investing in cryptocurrencies to going to a casino. He added that unlike gold, bitcoin will never be a store of value. 'I don’t want something in my portfolio that is 100 times more volatile than gold,' he said."

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Gold last traded at $1,276 an ounce. Silver at $16.89 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices eased back Friday on profit-taking by short-term speculators. U.S. stocks fell for a 2nd day, snapping a 2-month winning streak on tech weakness and tax reform fears.

A Steeper Yield Curve Will Drive Gold -Market Anthropology
"Traders looking for a steeper yield curve continue to see spreads come in as confidence builds for another rate hike by the Fed next month, while weak convictions persist towards rising inflationary pressures next year. This week, the combination of expectations saw the spread between the 2 and 10-year Treasury yields at its narrowest since November 2007....When the dust settles after the next inevitable pivot, will long-term yields rise faster than the short-end of the curve - because the reach of inflation is greater than the Fed's capacity to tighten, or will the long-end steepen simply because short-term yields fall faster as rate hike expectations recede? In either case: an economy becoming too hot or an economy turning down - and even a combination of both (i.e. stagflation), gold is positioned to outperform as the benevolent conditions against which the equity markets have advanced with begin to diminish."

America's 'Retail Apocalypse' Is Really Just Beginning -Bloomberg
"The so-called retail apocalypse has become so ingrained in the U.S. that it now has the distinction of its own Wikipedia entry. The industry’s response to that kind of doomsday description has included blaming the media for hyping the troubles of a few well-known chains as proof of a systemic meltdown....Retail store chains said 6,800 would close this year. And this comes when there’s sky-high consumer confidence, unemployment is historically low and the U.S. economy keeps growing. Those are normally all ingredients for a retail boom, yet more chains are filing for bankruptcy and rated distressed than during the financial crisis. That’s caused an increase in the number of delinquent loan payments by malls and shopping centers....The root cause is that many of these long-standing chains are overloaded with debt - often from leveraged buyouts led by private equity firms....The debt coming due, along with America’s over-stored suburbs and the continued gains of online shopping, has all the makings of a disaster. The spillover will likely flow far and wide across the U.S. economy...If today is considered a retail apocalypse, then what's coming next could truly be scary....'A pall has been cast on retail,' said Charlie O'Shea, a retail analyst for Moody's. 'A day of reckoning is coming.'"

Cunning malware spreads, going after your bank account -Fox News
"Malware keeps getting smarter at ways to get your money. And a new version of Zeus Panda malware has some scary smarts. According to a blog post by Cisco-owned Talos, the Zeus Panda malware essentially 'poisons' Google search results to push fake bank-related results to the top of a key word search. Then, the unwary user, looking for quick answers to a search related to their bank, is fooled into clicking on malicious links. The malware utilizes search engine optimization (SEO) 'to make their malicious links more prevalent in the search results…[which] will enable the attacker to quickly obtain credentials, banking and credit card information,' Talos said....The ultimate goal is to trick you into going to the hacked site, then redirecting you until you reach a site offering a Microsoft Word document for download, according to Talos....'Defending against this attack requires not only vigilance by companies to make sure the sites and servers are compromised, but that consumers pay attention to what they are clicking on and not enabling macros or open unknown attachments,' according to a post at SC Media, a cybersecurity website."

A new Swiss America Research Report, AMERICA'S CYBER-HIT LIST, reveals how and why your money is more vulnerable to cyberattack right now than ever before - and what to do about it.

Bitcoin tumbles $1,000 from record after upgrade is called off -CNBC
"Bitcoin fell Friday to its lowest since Nov. 1 as traders bet on its offshoot, bitcoin cash, instead. Bitcoin cash split off from the original version of bitcoin in August as a minority group of developers decided to implement an upgrade in an effort to increase transaction speeds for the digital currency. Bitcoin hit a record high of $7,879.06 that day after the news, but quickly fell and was trading about 4.5 percent lower on the day near $6,822, according to CoinDesk....Another digital currency, ethereum traded about 4 percent lower near $307.52 Friday after hitting a nearly one-month high Thursday, according to CoinDesk."

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Gold last traded at $1,287 an ounce. Silver at $16.89 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices traded mixed Thursday on a weaker dollar and safe haven buying. U.S. stocks fell on profit-taking amid a decline in retail and tech stocks as well as tax reform worries.

Stocks Sink As Tax-Cut Hopes Fade -Zero Hedge
"Sell the news? Stocks are slumping (following Japan's overnight volatility) as traders await tax-cut legislation from the House Ways and Means Committee (and The Senate will also release its own version). High-Tax companies are underperforming...And Junk bonds just hit the lowest since March...Whether this selling due to disappointment in what is expected to be in the bill... or an expectation that it will not pass anyway - is unclear."

There's About 0% Chance Of A Permanent 20% Corporate Tax Rate -Investors
"It's looking increasingly clear that the only way the GOP will be able to make a 20% corporate tax rate permanent is with a $1 trillion-plus tax hike on individuals in the decade starting 2028. On Monday, the House GOP tax-cut bill had a gulf of more than $1.25 trillion between the cost of a 20% corporate rate and the offsetting corporate revenue-raisers in the second decade. By the end of Tuesday, that gulf had widened to about $1.5 trillion, after the House Ways and Means Committee gutted one of its biggest proposals to help pay for a corporate tax cut....The dream of a permanent 20% rate may have died when Wal-Mart and other retailers successfully killed the idea of a 20% border-adjustment tax on imports that would have raised $1 trillion in the first decade....Already, Senate Republicans are signaling that they may delay cutting the corporate tax rate for a year to direct more of the $1.5 trillion in budget space to individual tax cuts. Anything short of a permanent corporate tax cut would have to be judged a failure, at least by the standard House Speaker Paul Ryan offered in August....Both political pressures and Senate budget rules seem highly unlikely to produce a permanent 20% corporate tax rate. A number of Wall Street strategists have highlighted a 25% corporate rate as a more feasible fallback, and they may be right. However, even that won't be simple to get done."

Gold steadies near three-week highs -Reuters
"Gold held steady early on Thursday after marking a near three-week high in the previous session as the dollar firmed, while palladium remained close to an over 16-year peak touched on Wednesday....A Senate tax-cut bill, differing from one in the House of Representatives, was expected to be unveiled on Thursday, complicating a Republican push to overhaul the federal tax code....North Korea and trade will likely top the agenda when U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping sit down for formal talks on Thursday, a day after Trump warned Pyongyang of the grave danger of developing nuclear weapons. The IMF on Wednesday urged Japan to maintain its massive monetary stimulus to boost consumer prices, a view echoed by a central bank board member, reinforcing expectations policy will remain accommodative."

Deutsche Bank CEO says robots could replace half the company's 97,000 employees -CNBC
"Some very smart people say that robots are going to steal your job. Researchers at Oxford University estimate that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be replaced by robots, automated technology and automated intelligence (AI) within the next 20 years....John Cryan, the millionaire CEO of Deutsche Bank, is the latest industry leader to suggest that technology will lead to significant layoffs - and possibly sooner than we think....He isn't just speculating. In late 2015, Deutsche Bank announced that it planned to eliminate 9,000 employees as a part of a five-year restructuring plan. So far, 4,000 jobs have been cut. Technology, says Cryan, will allow for Deutsche to complete these cuts and more."

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Gold last traded at $1,287 an ounce. Silver at $17.21 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Wednesday on safe haven buying and a flat dollar. U.S. stocks traded lower, led by banking stocks, amid growing concern over the likelihood of passing tax reform in 2017.

A chilling tale of how easy it is for banks to lose your money -Crudele/New York Post
"Two years ago, I wrote a column that frightened a lot of people. Now, I'm going to scare you again - this time, maybe even more. That column explained that it had become easier for states to confiscate people's bank, money market and other financial accounts because they were 'abandoned.'....In 1999, my mother, Margaret Crudele...opened a bank account at Staten Island Savings Bank for each of her eight grandchildren. She deposited $1,000 in each account, and she wanted the kids to get the money after she died. My mother's checking and savings accounts were automatically transferred from Staten Island Savings to each successor bank and, finally, to Santander, where she became a regular customer who visited a branch at least once a week. To put it bluntly, each one of these banks knew that she isn't dead. She walked through the bank doors every week....But somehow, the eight grandchildren’s accounts went missing. Were they stolen? Misplaced? Turned over to New York because my mother hadn't actively managed them?....It turns out that the accounts went bye-bye in 2005 - all on the same day. The kids, who didn't have the paperwork, didn't withdraw the funds....So, there you are. Don't doubt that this can happen to you. Scared yet? Do you know where all your accounts are?"

Craig R. Smith comment: In our Secret War on Cash Special Report and 2014 book DON'T BANK ON IT! we warned readers that banks and/or the government could confiscate bank accounts that were 'inactive' for as little as a year - and about other bizarre events going on in today's banking system in which nothing would be off limits. In hindsight, Mr. Crudele's mother would have been much better off simply putting her grandchildren's savings into physical gold coins.

Swamp Critter Becomes New Fed Chief -Bonner/Bonner & Partners
"Washington is rigged by the Deep State insiders. Mr. Powell was born in the swamp. No kidding… he hatched in Washington, D.C. He's never really left. He even got his law degree from Georgetown Law Center. He must have been there - in the '70s - when we were there. But we have no recollection of him.We spent three long years at Georgetown. It did not appeal to us. We decided not to practice law; Powell decided otherwise. He went into the kind of 'administrative law' that Georgetown specializes in… and then began a long career, slithering around the swamp, in and out of government and finance. He worked for the regulators… then he worked for the industry he was meant to be regulating. And then, back to the regulators. All of this back and forth seems to have been good for Mr. Powell. He is reported to have a personal fortune of more than $100 million. The important thing, from our point of view, is that he can be relied upon to do exactly as expected. Like Ms. Yellen, he will be in favor of shrinking the Fed's balance sheet… and raising interesting rates… until the money supply tightens and all hell breaks loose. Then, he will move heaven and earth to protect the Deep State from bankruptcy… with an aggressive program of QE Encore. Then, most likely, we will have the financial chaos and 'crack-up boom' we wrote about last week."

Why Tax Reform Is in Trouble -National Review
"No one is willing to cut spending, and the current plan would raise taxes on many individuals. The deep challenge in getting tax reform done is that the government spends too much money, and no one - including the president - wants to tackle that. No attempt to address 'government spending' means anything without entitlement reform, a subject Trump has placed off-limits. The size of government, therefore, is not going to be addressed in any tax reform this year or next, and we basically knew that going in. But the mistake is the early decision to blend corporate-tax reform with individual-income-tax reform....Essentially, Republicans are going to have to pick between passing a bill that raises taxes on their constituents and denying the president his desperately needed legislative victory....In a perfect world, we get really good tax reform done because we led with entitlement and spending reform. That is not going to happen at this juncture in time."

Bank Stocks, Dollar Slide Hit By Fresh Tax Reform Doubts -Zero Hedge
"U.S. equity futures fell, led by sliding bank stocks and a drop in the dollar as doubts over republican tax cuts and ongoing bond curve flattening hurt sentiment and prompted fresh questions over the viability of the US expansion. Investor concerns also returned to geopolitics as Trump continued his tour of Asia with a mission of rallying the world to stand up to the North Korean threat. Calling out by name Russia and China, he said Wednesday that all responsible nations must join forces to deny Kim Jong Un’s regime any form of support....But the biggest catalyst was a renewed fear about the fate of GOP tax cuts, as fresh doubts emerged about tax reform progress after the Washington Post reported Senate Republican leaders were considering holding cuts back by a year, while they are also said to be considering repealing deductions for state and local taxes."

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Gold last traded at $1,275 an ounce. Silver at $16.94 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices eased back Tuesday on profit-taking and a firmer dollar. U.S. stocks retreated as investors digested the latest earnings and odds of tax reform.

The Black Swan In Plain Sight - Debt Out The Wazoo -David Stockman ContraCorner
"Monumental towers of rapidly rising debt loom everywhere on the planet. For the moment, the artificial cash flow from this unsustainable borrowing spree is keeping a simulacrum of growth and prosperity alive. Yet this whole outbreak of debt madness - represented by $225 trillion outstanding on a global basis - is careening toward a financial and economic dead end that will soon crush today's fiscally profligate politicians and heedless financial punters, alike, in a devastating reset of bond yields....During the weeks since the coronation of Mr. Xi occurred at China's 19th communist party Congress, its bond yields have been rising sharply to three year highs; and its yield curve has plunged into negative territory for the longest continuous period on record. We can't even imagine the carnage that will occur among China's vastly inflated financial and real estate assets when global yields commence their inexorable rise....But we are quite sure that Wall Street's current phony 'synchronized global growth' meme will vanish almost instantly when the latest short-lived China credit impulse disappears from the world trading system....At the end of the day, you can't borrow your way to prosperity. That's the oldest rule in the book of sound money and sustainable finance. And it's about ready to be learned all over again. Big time."

How cancer saved our small business from the death tax -Washington Examiner
"You read the headline right. In 2010, the gradual decline of the so-called death tax reached a full repeal for that year and that year only. That year just so happened to be the year my grandfather, the patriarch of our family's small manufacturing business, lost his long and painful battle with cancer. Had we been so fortunate to have him for another year, we would have lost everything he worked so hard to build....Some will try to discredit the impact of the death tax by saying it only affects a small number of wealthy people. First, the acceptable number of businesses our tax system should be allowed to destroy is zero. Second, defenders of the death tax are either willfully ignorant or purposefully deceitful about what kind of wealth is actually taxed....It's a perverse feeling to be grateful your father was fortunate to die in 2010 due to government greed....That's the bargain the tax code left my family: death or death by taxes. So when I hear about the death tax being thrown around like a bargaining chip by members of Congress, or minimized by someone some like Sen. Bernie Sanders (who has made his fortune dividing people in government instead of building a business) I cannot help but speak out. Congress, the death tax may be a pawn in your game, but it rivaled cancer in its destructive power to my family."

Gold 'Is A Screaming Buy' - Analyst -Kitco
"As traders are placing bets on whether gold prices will hold onto recent gains or not, this analyst says that it is a great time to buy the yellow metal. 'GLD is a screaming BUY at this juncture,' Boris Mikanikrezai, precious metals analyst at FastMarkets, wrote in a Seeking Alpha post on Monday....On Monday, gold found support from a combination of safe-haven demand and surging crude oil prices, which hit a two-year high, said Jim Wyckoff, Kitco’s senior technical analyst. 'The marketplace is just a bit unnerved to start the trading week, as a major shake-up occurred in Saudi Arabia's ruling system over the weekend. Saudi princes and businessmen were arrested to weed out corruption, according to the Saudi Kingdom. The news helped to lift gold and silver, also gave oil prices a boost,' Wyckoff said in his PM Roundup."

Khamenei to Putin: Let's Ditch the Dollar and 'Isolate the Americans' -CNS News
"Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday that their countries, both targeted by U.S. sanctions, should respond by ditching the U.S. dollar in trade transactions and use their national currencies instead....Khamenei's office, which quoted the supreme leader's words to his visitor, did not say whether Putin responded to the comment. The Kremlin's own readout of the meeting was brief, containing no details. For years critics have been calling for the U.S. dollar to be abandoned as the main global reserve currency, with Russia and China leading the charge, but support also from other countries hostile to the U.S., including Iran and Venezuela....Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed bipartisan sanctions legislation targeting Iran's ballistic missiles which also puts Russia in the crosshairs, because of its provision of advanced S-300 missile defense systems to Tehran."

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Gold last traded at $1,281 an ounce. Silver at $17.23 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Monday on a weaker dollar and geopolitical uncertainty. U.S. stocks inched higher on news of potential telecom merger.

German Investors Now World’s Largest Gold Buyers -GoldSeek
"India and China often grab the headlines as the world’s largest buyers of gold. In 2016 this was not the case. When measured on a per capita basis it is Germany that takes the impressive crown of largest gold buyer in 2016, all thanks to their investment market. Last year the country set a new personal best, plowing as much as $8 bn into gold coins, bars and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs). This is impressive considering that back in 2008 the amount of gold purchased by Germans barely registered outside of the country....What changed?....The ratio of investors buying gold bars and coins compared to those selling is around 10:1. This is despite the economy looking healthy and unemployment at its lowest since the 1990 reunification. Clearly, German confidence in the economy is not expressed through their gold investments any longer. Instead it is their confidence in gold that keeps the market strong....When the Germans sensed uncertainty following the financial crisis they did not panic about the global situation. They instead took a long hard look at their own banking system and began to diversify their savings. As a result they rediscovered their trust in gold which continues to grow year by year."

Taxing America’s Future...And Yours -Pontification Blog
"'The sweeping tax overhaul House Republicans introduced [November 2] would eliminate or scale back some of the biggest incentives for home-buying in federal law,' wrote Russell Berman in The Atlantic. This would, he said, cut in half the limit on deducting mortgage interest, cap property tax deductibility, repeal the tax deduction for moving expenses, and force more people to pay taxes on profits made from selling a home. The low-earning Millennial Generation has already postponed buying their first home, which has postponed marriages and couples starting a family, which has in turn helped spawn the lowest fertility rate in American history. Higher taxes, in other words, have unintended consequences. In this case, raising taxes on home ownership could mean far fewer children in this generation - and far fewer future workers to pay for Social Security and Medicare that are already speeding toward bankruptcy....Baby Boomers grew up thinking that what you invested in a home was a reliable haven of ever-increasing savings for the future. Government coerced the banks into giving mortgages to millions of uncreditworthy home buyers. This created an insane bubble in home prices and, in 2008-2009, a bust in prices that cost the average family 39 percent of their total net worth and left tens of millions underwater in debt. Monetary expert Craig R. Smith and I first analyzed this in Crashing the Dollar. Some see the stock market in a similar bubble today, near bursting, with millions of investors at risk in the stock casino. They were driven to gamble because their homes and bank savings accounts are no longer reliable investments, and the dollars they save are being deliberately debased by government money-printing and inflation." Full story

Bezos Calls The Top? Sells $1.1 Billion Of Amazon Stock -Zero Hedge
"Is the world's richest man starting to get a little concerned that his $90 billion fortune in Amazon stock might just be fully valued? Well, judging by his SEC disclosures from last Friday, Bezos provided investors with roughly 1.1 billion reasons why the answer to that question may be a resounding 'yes'. As Bloomberg points out, Bezos sold a total of 1 million Amazon shares over the course of three days last week netting roughly $1.1 billion in proceeds. The sale represented just 1.3% of Bezos' total stake in Amazon and leaves him with 16.4% of the company's shares outstanding....Maybe this is just 'tax planning' or 'diversification' or any of the many other excuses executives give for selling their own stock...certainly it has nothing to do with Amazon's 282x P/E ratio."

Saudi says Iran strike may be 'act of war' -Yahoo News
"Saudi Arabia and Iran traded fierce accusations over Yemen on Monday, with Riyadh saying a rebel missile attack 'may amount to an act of war' and Tehran accusing its rival of war crimes. Tensions have been rising between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and predominantly Shiite Iran, which are opposed in disputes and conflicts across the Middle East from Yemen and Syria to Qatar and Lebanon. On Monday, a Saudi-led military coalition battling Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen said it reserved the 'right to respond' to the missile attack on Riyadh at the weekend, calling it a 'blatant military aggression by the Iranian regime which may amount to an act of war'....Repeated attempts to bring about a negotiated settlement to the conflict have failed, including a series of UN-backed peace talks....The kingdom is in the midst of an unprecedented purge of its upper ranks, with dozens of senior figures arrested at the weekend, as 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidates his hold on power."

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Gold last traded at $1,269 an ounce. Silver at $16.83 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices eased back Friday on a firmer dollar after "upbeat" jobs data. U.S stocks rose to fresh highs led by tech giant Apple's better-than-expected earnings report.

The Powell Predicament -New York Sun
"President Trump's nomination of Governor Jerome Powell to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve creates a predicament for partisans of monetary reform. At the White House today, the president called Mr. Powell a consensus builder. He represents continuity from Janet Yellen, under whom the Fed created what Candidate Trump called a 'false economy.' Then again, too, we have never looked to the Fed itself to lead the cause of monetary reform. For one thing, the Fed made out fine during the Great Recession of the Obama years, racking up enormous sums in what it calls 'profits,' while Mrs. Yellen and her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, mocked the gold standard. Instead, the place to look for reform is the Congress....We share the concern of economist Judy Shelton, who regrets that the position of Fed chairman has become so important. Were we on a monetary system in which the dollar was defined in statute as a given amount of specie, our monetary policy - and the chairmen who do so much to set it - wouldn’t be so political in the first place."

If the Wall Street and political world are embracing Mr. Powell, is that good or bad news for the rest of us? Mr. Powell is a big believer in Keynesian economics, just as Bernanke and Yellen before him. But rather than being rooted in academia, Powell comes from the swamplands of law and banking. Many pundits feel this makes him perfectly suited to run the Fed and expect his confirmation without a hitch. But in the months ahead we wonder just how smoothly the Fed will run? Can the Fed outrun economic fundamentals? Or might the Powell Fed run the dollar further into the ground? Time will tell.

The Greatest Fear Today: The Lack of Fear -Rickards/Daily Reckoning
"Market crashes often happen not when everyone is worried about them, but when no one is worried about them. Complacency and overconfidence are good leading indicators of an overvalued market set for a correction or worse. Prominent magazine covers are notorious for declaring a boundless bull market right at the top just before a crash or correction....For almost a year, one of the most profitable trading strategies has been to sell volatility. That's about to change…Since the election of Donald Trump stocks have been a one-way bet. They almost always go up, and have hit record highs day after day. The strategy of selling volatility has been so profitable that promoters tout it to investors as a source of 'steady, low-risk income.' Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, sellers of volatility have made steady profits the past year. But the strategy is extremely risky and you could lose all of your profits in a single bad day. Think of this strategy as betting your life's savings on red at a roulette table. If the wheel comes up red, you double your money. But if you keep playing eventually the wheel will come up black and you'll lose everything....It has been nine years since the last financial panic so a new one tomorrow should come as no surprise. The safe havens will be the euro, cash, gold and low-debt emerging markets such as Russia. The areas to avoid are U.S. stocks, China, South Korea and heavily indebted emerging markets."

When central banks are buying gold, should we just sit & watch? -Economic Times
"Central banks are hoarding gold. China, Russia and many Asian and West Asian central banks have started accumulating gold....The Chinese central bank is trying to diversify from the US dollar on which it has become overly reliant due to massive foreign exchange reserve. China has a staggering $3.091 trillion foreign exchange reserve. It also owns $1.09 trillion worth of US Treasury bonds, notes and bills....To prop up their currencies, they have started accumulating gold to boost reserves. Germany brought back the gold reserves it had stored in French vaults. German investors have turned to gold to protect their wealth in the face of loose monetary policy and successive financial crises....Gold buying by central banks amid limited supply will tighten the gold price situation. This should appreciate gold prices but that would happen in the long term, since short-term gold prices are prone to manipulation by shorting in futures."

October Jobs: Record Waiters And Bartenders, Wages Flat -Zero Hedge
"Following last month's sharply upward revised jobs report, whose initial negative print of -33,000 was since revised to a positive 18K, there was a sharp jump in October jobs, which while failing to meet consensus estimate of a +310K print, was still a solid +261K. But which jobs contributed the most? The answer, not surprising, is that the single biggest contributor was the same job category which was devastated in the previous month. Readers will recall that last month we pointed out that workers in 'food service and drinking places' aka waiters and bartenders, suffered their biggest drop on record, plunging by a whopping 111K. Well, one month later it's payback time, and according to the BLS, 88,500 waiters and bartenders found jobs in October. Putting this number in context, the record increase in 'food service and drinking places' jobs was a whopping third (34%) of all the 261K jobs added in October....With tens of thousands of minimum wage jobs coming back, average hourly earnings tumbled to the worst monthly wage print since June 2015, as AHE actually declined by 1 cent in October."

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Gold last traded at $1,278 an ounce. Silver at $17.13 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices inched higher Thursday ahead of a formal announcement of Jerome Powell as the next Fed Chairman. U.S. stocks fell on disappointing GOP tax bill details.

Gold Investors Weigh ‘Dove’ Powell for Fed Chief -Bloomberg
"Gold held gains as investors contemplated the prospect of Jerome Powell taking the top job at the U.S. Federal Reserve. Fed Governor Powell has been supportive of current Chair Janet Yellen's strategy of gradual tightening. President Donald Trump is scheduled to announce his decision Thursday at 3 p.m. Washington time....The next Fed chair 'will be a continuation of Yellen,' Bob Haberkorn, a senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago, said in a telephone interview....Powell's appointment to the biggest job in the financial world is subject to Senate confirmation. He's been a Fed governor since 2012, and in that time has never dissented from a monetary-policy decision. The Washington native would be taking over at a tricky time, with inflation well below the bank's 2 percent target, while asset prices are at levels considered lofty by policy makers."

Get Ready for the “Crack-Up Boom” -Bonner/Bonner And Partners
"For nearly two decades, the world’s central banks have labored hard, sweating to coax more digital money out of a stony and grudging economy. More than $20 trillion did they bring forth via QE (buying stocks and bonds with newly created cash) – a mighty sum indeed. But that is past. It is what wrought a Dow at 23,000 points… Amazon shares trading for $1,000… and a $6,000 bitcoin....Stocks have been going up for the last eight years. From whence cometh so much buying pressure? Did they earn so much more money… did they save so much with rising profits and wages that the real economy produced? Nope. Instead, the money came from central banks....In China, the explosion in new credit over the last couple of years has been breathtaking. Total debt - public and private - expanded three times as fast as the economy....What is coming down the pike, therefore, is the great China Debt Retrenchment - a globally-impacting braking motion....Central banks are reversing the policy that a generation of investors, businesses, and households has taken for granted. From 'buy,' they are moving to 'sell'… from loose to tight… from 'Party Now!' to 'Party Later!' Hmmm… what will that do to the gigantic bubble they have created? We don’t know. But we have a hunch that it will send central bankers scrambling to bring out the biggest punch bowl ever."

Stock Investors Should Fear These Four Critical Words -Fortune
"The stock market has shown extraordinary momentum since the presidential election, and investors who placed bets on that irresistible force have garnered big gains. But folks should think hard about another force that’s a lot more reliable than momentum. According to history, it's the real irresistible force, and it consists of four words: Reversion to the Mean. The portfolio managers and equity strategists at America's big banks are selling equities hard. Despite what look like super-rich valuations, they keep parading familiar bullet points to assert that stocks are still a bargain....But when you consider reversion to the mean, Wall Street's slant on the stock market seems as exaggerated as a funhouse mirror that elongates a scrawny kid to the height of an NBA center....The best measure for current stock valuations is the CAPE, or cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio....Here's the danger: Since late 2010, the CAPE has done a hockey stick, hitting a sixteen-year record of 31.2 in October. If the S&P 500 were to revert to a CAPE of 20, just above its average in recent decades, stock prices would need to fall by 36%. This isn't a prediction that such a collapse is imminent, or will happen at all. It’s simply a reminder that while momentum is on the market’s side, history is not."

Tax reform plan cuts mortgage interest deduction in half -CNBC
"America's popular mortgage interest deduction is about to lose a lot of its punch. The House Republican tax plan halves the cap on the deduction of mortgage debt for newly purchased homes to $500,000. It does, however, maintain the current deduction of up to $1 million in mortgage debt for current homeowners....Homebuilder and overall housing stocks moved lower on the news and are now at their worst levels of the day....'Eliminating or nullifying the tax incentives for homeownership puts home values and middle-class homeowners at risk, and, from a cursory examination, this legislation appears to do just that,' said National Association of Realtors President William Brown in a statement."

Americans Are Officially Freaking Out -Bloomberg
"For those lying awake at night worried about health care, the economy, and an overall feeling of divide between you and your neighbors, there's at least one source of comfort: Your neighbors might very well be lying awake, too. Almost two-thirds of Americans, or 63 percent, report being stressed about the future of the nation, according to the American Psychological Association’s Eleventh Stress in America survey, conducted in August and released on Wednesday. This worry about the fate of the union tops longstanding stressors such as money (62 percent) and work (61 percent) and also cuts across political proclivities. However, a significantly larger proportion of Democrats (73 percent) reported feeling stress than independents (59 percent) and Republicans (56 percent). The 'current social divisiveness' in America was reported by 59 percent of those surveyed as a cause of their own malaise....The report also notes that many Americans are finding at least one healthy way to feel better: 53 percent reported exercising or doing other physical activity to cope. Social support is also important, Evans said. 'Third,' he says, 'I think it's really important for people to disconnect from the constant barrage of information.'"

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Gold last traded at $1,279 an ounce. Silver at $17.10 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Wednesday on safe-haven buying despite a firmer dollar ahead of Fed statement. U.S. stocks traded mixed on investor uncertainty about tax reform and the new Fed chairman pick.

The world is running out of gold -Holmes/Business Insider
"My good friend Pierre Lassonde, cofounder and chairman of Franco-Nevada, doesn’t know how we’ll replace the massive gold deposits of the past 130 years or so....Over the medium and long-term, this could lead to a supply-demand imbalance and ultimately put strong upward pressure on the price of gold...So few new large mines are being discovered today, Pierre says, mostly because companies have had to slash exploration budgets in response to lower gold prices....Have we reached peak gold? Other factors contributing to the decline include tougher regulations and higher production costs....I agree with my friend Pierre's 'absolute rule' that investors should hold between 5 and 10 percent gold in your portfolio."

Pentagon Worried about Hackers Causing Stock Market Crash -Wolf Street
"It's funny, the all-out government effort to prevent a major decline of the stock market, or of individual stocks, via manipulation or hacking. Now even the Pentagon is looking into it. What's funny is that everyone cheers when manipulation, hacking, and other shenanigans cause the market or individual stocks to soar. It's just declines they're worried about at these precarious levels. Manipulating stocks higher is a time-honored game that routinely receives kudos from all around. The Fed printed nearly $4 trillion and cut rates to zero for eight years - no matter what the damage to the real economy - for the sole purpose of manipulating up asset prices including stock prices....By extrapolation, the Pentagon is not really worried about malicious actors per se. It's only worried about those on the wrong side of the 'wealth effect.' And what makes this funny, if it weren't so serious, is that it's the Pentagon, of all places, that's doing this."

A new Swiss America Research Report, AMERICA'S CYBER-HIT LIST, reveals how and why your money is more vulnerable to cyberattack right now than ever before - and what to do about it.

The U.S. Isn't Prepared for the Next Recession -The Atlantic
"Maybe it will start with a failed initial public offering, followed by the revelation of widespread fraud in Silicon Valley. Perhaps energy prices will spike, sapping the finances of anyone who drives a car to work. Maybe a foreign crisis will cause a credit crunch, or President Trump will spark a global trade war. A recession might seem like a distant concern, with the latest data showing that the current, extraordinarily economic long expansion just keeps humming along. But one will hit eventually, for some reason or another- that's how economies work. And when it does, the country won’t be ready. The average middle-class household has largely recovered from the Great Recession, which began nearly 10 years ago, in December 2007...Yet millions of people remain in perilous financial shape, with little to buffer them in the event of a layoff....Where things get really worrisome is the potential and likely response of the government. When it comes to monetary policy, there is far less space for the Federal Reserve to maneuver than last time around. Interest rates remain near scratch....Since the last recession, numerous states have cut back on the duration and the size of benefits that recipients who pay into the system and lose their job receive....Finally, there is the question of the rest of the world. Because of the interconnectedness of the global economy, were the United States to tip into a recession, other countries would likely do so too."

The West Wants to Supply China's Surveillance State -Wall Street Journal
"U.S. tech giants and Chinese state-backed companies showed off the future of policing in this southern technology hub as they vie for a slice of the world's biggest surveillance market. Companies from across the globe packed one of the world's biggest surveillance trade shows to demonstrate the latest gizmos and algorithms powering the high-tech revolution in the industry, of which China is on the vanguard. Tools being hawked included facial-recognition cameras, iris scanners, software that can read a subject's mood and cameras that can scan license plates in the dark....China is a big buyer of surveillance technology as Beijing steps up its efforts to better monitor its 1.4 billion people. That is providing a boon for equipment makers - who are looking to export their gear abroad. But it has also sparked concern from rights activists about how the authoritarian government is using the souped-up 'Big Brother' technology....'What starts here ends up in homes, airports and businesses back in America,' said Mark Raine, managing director at CCTVdirect, a U.K.-based distributor of surveillance equipment. The integration of artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the surveillance industry. 'Now, the computer tells you when something's wrong,' he said."

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