Business

It's not just Halliburton ("What we are experiencing today is far beyond headwinds; it is unsustainable") and Intel (12,000 layoffs amid re-evaluation of programs) that are facing up to a new normal very different from expectations. As Avondale Asset Management notes, having poured over 100s of earnings transcripts, while most CEOs don’t see signs of an imminent downturn, the environment still feels a little fragile. It seems that almost everyone is on high alert for a macro curve-ball...

Less than two weeks ago we documented that Toronto based Urbancorp, one of Canada's largest residential developers, was having significant issues. Its attorney's had taken the highly unusual step of terminating their contract, it hadn't released 2015 financials due to the audit committee having "open issues and questions", and most intriguing, a board member quit just two weeks after being appointed specifically to provide expertise in accounting.

The credit-fueled speculative bubble in China's commodity market, as we detailed previously, exploded this week as the mainstream slowly comes to realize that the gains in industrial metals are not a "sign of strength in China's and the world's economic recovery" but merely the next rotation of fast-money slooshing from Chinese equities to Chinese corporate bonds to Chinese real estate and now to Chinese commodity futures...

By The SRSrocco Report

The financial system is sitting on the edge of a cliff and an increasing number of investors are beginning to realize it.  I hear more and more evidence from contacts in the financial and precious metal industry that the U.S. banking industry and Dollar are in serious trouble.

From the archives of Bill Bonner at Bonner & Partners (annotated by Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum),

Lost From the Get-Go

There must be some dark corner of Hell warming up for modern, mainstream economists. They helped bring on the worst bubble ever... with their theories of efficient markets and modern portfolio management. They failed to see it for what it was. Then, when trouble came, they made it worse. But instead of atoning in a dank cell, these same economists strut onto the stage to congratulate themselves.