Business

As we reported last month, a Wisconsin company called Three Square Market has become the first company in the US to offer microchip implants to its employees. The firm, which designs software for breakroom markets, wants employees to use microchips to help facilitate vending-machine payments. The firm wanted to use its employees as test subjects for their product. And though the program was strictly voluntary, it marks an uncomfortable beginning of a trend that could someday result in all humans being involuntarily microchipped.

How do you spot a market top? Is risk being mispriced? What is the greatest macro opportunity of the next decade? These were some of the questions Real Vision asked as part of the latest quarterly deck compilation of so-called "Killer Charts".

Contributed by Sprott Money. Click here for the original

America’s top forecasters missed the 2008 market crash, during which stock investors lost half their money. Now with stocks approaching bubble territory it looks they are again ignoring warnings signs. What gives?

The biggest red flag is the S&P 500 index, which groups 500 of America’s largest public companies and is trading near record highs. This despite a sluggish US economy driven by record government spending, borrowing and money printing.

It was two years ago, in June of 2015, when just as the Shanghai Composite was flirting with 5,000 and when literally the local banana stand guy was trading stocks, that the Chinese stock bubble burst, unleashing an unprecedented selling spree, a 40% drop in just two months, and Beijing's nationalization of the stock market, courtesy of the domestic plunge protection team, the China Securities Regulatory Commission also known as the "National Team".

In the 50 years since the first Krugerrand was minted in South Africa, the gold coins have turned out to be one of the best investments in the country.

As Bloomberg reports, the Krugerrand originally sold for 27 rand (then worth $35) back in 1967. One ounce of gold is now worth 16,840 rand ($1,273), boosted by a combination of rising global gold prices and a depreciating local currency.