Business

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Individuals are consistently promised that investing in the financial markets is the only way to financial success. After all, it’s so easy. Financial pundits across the country state the one simply buys a basket of mutual funds and they will make 8, 10 or 12% a year.

On a nominal basis, it is true that if one bought an index and held it for 20-years, they would have made money. Unfortunately, for most, it has not worked out that way.

Well another day, another horrible piece of economic data out of Brazil.

Core retail sales in South America’s most important economy slid 2.7% M/M in December, erasing a meager gain the country eked out in November when the numbers got a boost from promotions.

Broad retail sales, meanwhile, declined 0.9% marking the eleventh decline in thirteen months. They’re now off more than 16% since peaking in August of 2012.

Submitted by Frank Hollenbeck via The Mises Institute,

It is now just a matter of time before the US central bank follows the central banks of Japan, the EU, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland in setting negative rates on reserve deposits.

We’re nearly two months into the new year and one of the defining themes for markets thus far has been the extent to which investors have seemingly woken up to the fact that central bankers are not, in fact, omnipotent.

Oil prices (and the broader financial markets) have suffered from acute bouts of volatility so far in 2016, with dramatic intraday swings the most worrying feature, and as OilPrice.com's Charles Kennedy warns, this shows no signs of letting up.

With realized volatility soaring...