Business

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We've been persuaded that the state-cartel Plantation Economy is "capitalist," but it isn't. It's a rentier skimming machine.

I have often discussed the manner in which the U.S. economy is a Plantation Economy, meaning it has a built-in financial hierarchy with corporations at the top dominating a vast populace of debt-serfs/ wage slaves with little functional freedom to escape the system's neofeudal bonds.

While geopolitical concerns and French election uncertainty are factors, The Wall Street Journal notes that many markets are flashing red on growth as investors begin to return to pre-election bets on the ol 'new normal' - a persistently weak economic expansion.

There are clear signs that the sugar rush of Donald Trump’s victory and global-growth hopes has faded, raising doubts among some investors about whether stocks can stay high. The sharp drop in government-bond yields is the most obvious signal that something is amiss.

RIP BAT - the Border Adjustment Tax, which was floated in November under a proposal from Paul Ryan and which met with fierce resistance, is effectively dead. According to Bloomberg, Trump’s "tremendous" tax plan to be revealed next week likely won’t include the controversial border-adjusted tax.

A quick, if familiar, observation to start the day courtesy of Bank of America which in the latest overnight note from Michael Hartnett notes that central banks (ECB & BoJ) have bought $1 trillion of financial assets just in the first four months of 2017, which amounts to $3.6 trillion annualized, "the largest CB buying on record."

As Hartnett notes, the "Liquidity Supernova is the best explanation why global stocks & bonds both annualizing double-digit gains YTD despite Trump, Le Pen, China, macro..."

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

On Tuesday, I discussed the issuance of the “weekly sell” signal and the implications for the markets over the intermediate term. However, I also stated the markets could well have a reflexive, oversold, bounce in the short-term with two potential outcomes. To wit: