Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
John Rubino recently posted a graph from Bob Prechter’s Elliot Wave that points to some ominous signs. It depicts the S&P 500, combined with consumer confidence and savings rate. As the accompanying video at Elliott Wave, What “Too Confident to Save” Means for Stocks, shows, when the gap between high confidence and low savings is at its widest, a market crash -often- follows.
Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
Investors aren’t paying attention.
There is an important picture that is currently developing which, if it continues, will impact earnings and ultimately the stock market. Let’s take a look at some interesting economic numbers out this past week.
A fascinating, recent report by the Devonshire Research Group, whose recent work on Tesla was featured here one year ago, has moved beyond the micro and tackled on of the most controversial macroeconomic topic possible: what is the true rate of inflation. What it finds is that, like others before it most notably Shadowstats and Chapwood, the accepted definition of inflation, or CPI, is dramatically understated for various reasons, both political and economic.
European stocks declined for first session in five ahead of Wednesday's Dutch elections, debt ceiling expiration and the conclusion of the Fed's 2-day meeting where it is expected to raise rates by 25 bps. Tightening concerns emerged, also dragging down Asian shares and S&P futures, while the dollar continued its rise for a second day. Crude oil has ended its six-day drop. The pound tumbled 0.8% to the lowest since mid-January in a delayed reaction after Theresa May won permission to trigger the country’s departure from the EU.
While retail sales came in disappointing for the month of November with October revised downward, the Fed, which is certain to hike rates, got some help guiding its decision when moments ago PPI, or the Producer Price Index for Final Demand came in far hotter than expected, rising 0.4% in November, well above the 0.1% expected, and above last month's unchanged print. On an annual basis, PPI jumped 1.3%, the largest rise since moving up 1.3% for the 12 months ended November 2014.