Authored by George Friedman, Xander Snyder, and Ekaterina Zolotova via MauldinEconomics.com,
The US Congress has passed new sanctions targeting Russia’s energy companies. Among the other notable aspects of the sanctions is that they take some authority away from the US president (who used to be able to implement some measures but not others at his discretion) and give it to Congress.
Retail stocks have been annihilated recently, despite the economy eking out growth. The fundamentals of the retail business look horrible: Sales are stagnating and profitability is getting worse with every passing quarter.
Authored by Doug French via The Mises Institute,
Sin City’s projected 5,000 new apartment units for this year makes no noise nationally in the latest real estate craze. “In 2017, the ongoing apartment building-boom in the US will set a new record: 346,000 new rental apartments in buildings with 50+ units are expected to hit the market,” writes Wolf Richter on Wolf Street. That is three times the number of units that came on line in 2011.
This week for the first time - in the name of "transparency" - the London Bullion Market Association unveiled that as at 31 March, 2017 there were 7,449 tonnes of gold, or 596,000 gold bars, valued at $298 billion sotred in the vaults around London as well as $19 billion in silver. Only the gold hoard at Fort Knox and among Indian households said to account for more than the LBMA's inventory, which clears just over $18 billion in gold daily.
Despite the ongoing demise of Bitcoin Cash (down another 13% today) since the fork 4 days ago, cryptocurrencies are surging higher this morning with Bitcoin up 12% to a new record high at $3230.
CoinTelegraph reports that various experts and developers including Paxos principal architect Jimmy Song have noted earlier this week, Bitcoin price is likely rising due to the imminence of SegWit activation.