While Bitcoin is still up 13% on the week (its 8th weekly ruse of the last 9), the dollar price of the virtual currency is collapsing again in US trading (after a big rebound during the Asian session)...
Just as with yesterday, there is no immediate news catalyst for the flush.
Meanwhile, the huge arb with South Korea bitcoin pricing remains, and as of this moment is still nearly $1000.
Today's drop is the biggest since January (for now)...
Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,
For the 19th week in a row, the number of US oil rigs rose (up 2 to 722). This is the largest number of oil rigs since April 2015 as Lower 48 crude production (much to the chagrin of OPEC) surges to its highest since August 2015.
Lagged WTI prices lead rising rig counts...NOITE - if the relationship holds then we would expect the rig count rised to stall here...
And rising rig counts lead US crude production...
And this is why it matters...
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
If you want to understand why we're fragmenting as a society, start by looking at the asymmetric burdens imposed by inflation.
In our household, we measure real-world inflation with the Burrito Index: How much has the cost of a regular burrito at our favorite taco truck gone up?
The cost of a regular burrito from our local taco truck has gone up from $2.50 in 2001 to $5 in 2010 to $6.50 in 2016.
For weeks I’ve been noting that stocks are being driven by a market rig.
By way of review, that rig is as follows:
1) Someone slams the VIX lower.
2) This forces risk-parity funds to buy stocks, usually the FANGs or large-cap Tech names (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google).
3) FANGs rally, which due to the weighting in the S&P 500, forces the overall market higher.
The last point is key.