Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
In this past weekend’s newsletter, I stated
“While my “emotions” are currently screaming to start increasing equity allocations at this juncture, there are several reasons why my discipline is keeping me from doing so currently:
Belgian PM Charles Michel said earlier that "this is the deadliest attack on Brussels ever," and as we noted in this morning's pre-open wrap:
This morning's Brussels bomb attacks have led to risk-off sentiment across European asset classes, with Bunds higher and equities firmly in the red, although if the Paris terrorist attacks of November are any indication, today's tragic events may be just the catalyst the S&P500 needs to surge back to all time highs
Submitted by Thad Beversdorf via FirstRebuttal.com,
Free trade is a great concept, as are free markets and freedom. The problem is none of these things exist in practice because they don’t provide sufficient advantages to the ruling class. The Fed and HFT systems now dominate global markets, western nations systematically overthrow any (freely elected) foreign government that doesn’t bow down to them and free trade agreements are put in place to ensure investors maximize profits no matter what the costs to society. Let’s focus on this last one.
Submitted by Boyd Roddy of the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation
Globus Medical’s Inside Job
Last February spinal orthopedic device maker Globus Medical purchased Branch Medical Group, a key supplier and contract manufacturing operation based just three miles away from its Audubon, Pa. headquarters.
The BMG deal was announced on the same day Globus released fourth quarter and 2014 earnings and little attention was paid to what looked like another instance of a high-profile, larger company merging with a small, privately-held one.
For six years, the world has operated under a complete delusion that Central Banks somehow fixed the 2008 Crisis.
All of the arguments claiming this defied common sense. A 5th grader would tell you that you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt. If the below chart was a problem BEFORE 2008… there is no way that things are better now. After all, we’ve just added another $20 trillion in debt to the US system.