“Housing in Vancouver is insane — it was insane when I left and it’s more insane now.”
That’s from 33-year-old Kevin Oke, co-founder of LlamaZoo Interactive who left Vancouver for Victoria two years ago because he couldn’t afford to buy a home in his native city even while earning a generous salary as a lead designer at a video-game company whose clients included Atari and Ubisoft Entertainment SA.
Yesterday we presented the latest note from UBS' technical analysts, Michael Riesner and Marc Muller, who said now that the S&P had hit their near-term top target of 2,050, it was time to "sell" the "most overbought market since 2009." We suggested that, based on their recent accurate track record, that it would be prudent to follow their advice instead of Gartmaning it. So far they have been correct.
Authored by John Mauldin of MauldinEconomics.com,
Dear Donald and Hillary:
In around ten months, one of you will wake up as Mr. or Mrs. President. After the fabulous fun of post-inaugural balls, you will walk into the Oval Office on Saturday, January 22 and launch into your first 90 days in office.
During these days, you will want to deliver on as many of your promises as possible. But instead of shadowboxing with hypothetical futures on a debate stage, you’re going to be up against cold, hard reality.
Having blamed the weather for the Services PMI collapse into contractionary levels in February, the very modesty rebound (from 49.7 to 51.0) is a big let down: "The lack of a strong rebound in service sector activity in March is a big disappointment, as bad weather had been blamed for part of the weakness in the first two months of the year." Indeed, confidence remains subdued and as Markit warns "The US economy is going through its worst growth spell for three and a half years...and the worst may be to come as the greatest concern is the near-stalling of new business growth."
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
If the four structural trends highlighted below don't reverse, the middle class is heading for extinction.
Everyone knows the middle class is fading fast. I've covered this issue in depth for years, for example: Honey, I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify (December 28, 2015) and What Does It Take To Be Middle Class? (December 5, 2013)