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<p>UPDATE: The minutes from the Federal Reserve's April 30-May 1 FOMC meeting on monetary policy are out.</p> <p>The main headline: many on the Committee said more progress is needed before tapering back any bond purchases under the Fed's quantitative easing program.</p>

Proof That The US Housing Market Is Finally Starting To Look Normal Mamta Badkar May 22, 2013, 11:53 AMAP Photo/Ric Francis Earlier today we saw that existing home sales climbed 0.6% to a rate of 4.97 million units in April. This missed expectations but was the highest pace since November 2009. But the best news in the report was that distressed sales, which includes foreclosures and short sales, only accounted for 18% of sales. This was down from 21% in March, and 28% a year ago. Foreclosures accounted for 11% of sales and sold for an average discount of 16%...

8 Currencies That Could Tank As Commodities Collapse Joe Weisenthal May 21, 2013, 7:20 AM A big story this year has been the decline in commodities. That's bad news for countries and currencies that are closely tied to commodities. In a note, Sebastien Galy has a quick rundown of what currencies are associated with what commodities: * Aussie Dollar : aluminum, coal & wheat * Canadian Dollar : oil and wheat * South African Rand : coal & platinum * Chilean Peso : copper * Mexican Peso: oil & silver * Russian Rubel: oil, nickel, platinum, wheat * Brazilian Real:...

Home Depot Crushes Earnings On US Housing Market Recovery Matthew Boesler May 21, 2013, 7:51 AM Home improvement retailing giant Home Depot reported strong first quarter earnings this morning, citing the recovering housing market as a key driver. Earnings per share were $0.83 versus analysts' consensus prediction of $0.77. Revenues came in at $19.1 billion, topping estimates for $18.69 billion. U.S. same-store sales rose 4.8% during the quarter. "In the first quarter, we saw less favorable weather compared to last year, but we continue to see benefit from a recovering housing market that drove a stronger-than-expected start to the year...

6 Reasons Bernanke Is Wrong, And The Future Is Going To Be Bleak Rob Wile May 20, 2013, 10:10 AM Saturday morning, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told graduating Bard College students why he believes the future will be better. In theory, this is a pretty banal argument, especially in a graduation speech. But it looks a little different coming from an conscientious academic. Halfway through the speech, Bernanke presents the evidence of those who argue against this view — that actually, our best, most innovative days are way behind us. In a footnote, Bernanke discusses the folks he's really...

<p>The International Monetary Fund on Monday said the United States was getting carried away with a government austerity drive, offering some of the institution's bluntest criticism yet of Washington's rush to cut its budget deficit.</p> <p>Despite high unemployment, Washington is on track to slash its budget shortfall this year by the most in nearly a half century.</p>

U.S. Economy Getting Better; Should You Jump Into Cyclical Stocks? Companies / Investing 2013 May 20, 2013 - 08:09 PM GMT By: DailyGainsLetter Moe Zulfiqar writes: As the risks in the stock market increase, investors most often run towards defensive stocks. The main reason behind this phenomenon is that companies that are considered defensive provide investors with a stream of dividends, even when the markets, as a whole, crumble. They are generally strong players in their industry, with healthy market shares and stable earnings year-over-year. The stock market rally, which began in March 2009, was born on a significant amount...

The US Department of Homeland Security seized a payment processing account Tuesday belonging to Mt. Gox, the largest international Bitcoin trader, claiming the monetary exchange service falsified financial documents. The American government has previously made it clear that officials are watching Bitcoin, a decentralized economic currency that international regulators have not yet been able to control. Many of those who favor Bitcoin use Dwolla, an Iowa-based startup that allows customers to transfer their dollars into Bitcoins. Unfortunately for those consumers, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warrant Tuesday effectively shutting down Dwolla’s ability to process Bitcoin payments, as reported...

Over the past month there has been a statistically improbable concurrence of events that can only be explained as a conspiracy to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing (QE). Quantitative Easing is the term given to the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing 1,000 billion new dollars annually in order to finance the US budget deficit by purchasing US Treasury bonds and to keep the prices high of debt-related derivatives on the “banks too big to fail” (BTBF) balance sheets by purchasing mortgage-backed derivatives. Without QE, interest rates would be much higher, and values on the...

    As the top chart shows, gold's brief recovery now looks more and more like a "dead cat bounce." Further weakness is likely in store, as the second chart suggests. As I mentioned last month, gold appears to be re-linking to commodities.   This is a big deal, as the chart above suggests. Gold had been trouncing just about everything for 10 years or so, but now things are reversing. Equities—productive investment—are now in favor while gold—speculative investment—is out of favor.

Silver Is Just About Finished Joe Weisenthal May 20, 2013, 4:22 AM Silver is getting creamed today (to the tune of 4%). Of course, the precious metals have been in a deep bear market for awhile. Worth looking at the big picture for a moment though. With its latest decline, silver is getting very close to hitting levels before it really took off in 2010 (and went parabolic in early 2011). The great story for silver is just about totally over. Screen Shot 2013 05 20 at 4.20.10 AMFinViz

Here's The Latest Look At The 'Real' Mega Bears Joe Weisenthal May 20, 2013, 5:51 AM This is a chart that people don't much look at these days. It's updated semi-regularly by Doug Short, and it compares the great US bear market (starting in 2000) with the great Nikkei bear and the Great Depression bear. For awhile all 3 were looking very similarly, but at this point it's clear. The US has broken away from history, and with stocks hitting new highs, doesn't even vaguely resemble the past ones.Doug Short

Republicans Are Ripping The White House's Dan Pfeiffer For Saying The Legality Of IRS Targeting Is 'Irrelevant' Brett LoGiurato | May 19, 2013 Republicans are ripping White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer this morning for referring to the legality of the IRS' inappropriate targeting of conservative groups as "irrelevant." But Pfeiffer said that to reinforce the White House's assertion that the IRS' behavior is inexcusable. "I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant," Pfeiffer said on ABC's "This Week,"

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Dana in Columbus, Ohio, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: (background noise) Thank you so very much. I am calling because you mentioned earlier that no liberal would dare call and say that you're right or give any sort of credence to any conservative point of view. I want to tell you that -- as a soon-to-be-40 African-American woman who has been told my entire life to vote down the Democratic Party line -- I appreciate your point of view, and I appreciate you staying firmly behind your beliefs. Because over the past...

There are plenty of examples of structures built from recycled materials—even Buddhist temples have been made from them. In Sima Valley, California, an entire village known as Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village was constructed from reused glass. But this is no new concept—back in 1960, executives at the Heineken brewery drew up a plan for a “brick that holds beer,” a rectangular beer bottle that could also be used to build homes. Gerard Adriaan Heineken acquired the “Haystack” brewery in 1864 in Amsterdam, marking the formal beginning of the eponymous brand that is now one of the most successful international breweries....

The Fading 2008 Stock Market Doomsday Scenarios Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013 May 18, 2013 - 07:30 PM GMT By: Sy Harding Stock-Markets The gloom and doom theorists swarmed out of the woodwork during the 2008 financial meltdown in reaction to government actions taken to prevent the ‘great recession’ from morphing into the next great depression. The blame fell on both political parties. The Bush administration began the bailout efforts in March, 2008 and by the time its term ended it had provided $29 billion in loan guarantees to allow JP Morgan Chase to take over collapsing Bear Stearns, the...

MORGAN STANLEY: And Now It's Time To Worry About Deflation Again Joe Weisenthal May 19, 2013, 7:04 AMWe were just talking about how the wrongest prediction of the past 5 years was the call for "inflation" or "hyperinflation" due to aggressive monetary easing. In his latest US Macro Dashboard note, Morgan Stanley economist Vincent Reinhart points out that the real story now is the return of deflation risk. With evidence building that the Q2 soft patch is upon us, worrisome chatter about deflation is taking center stage. Our outlook for some time has been that mounting fiscal drag would show...

Breathing Emission Particles Turns HDL Cholesterol From 'Good' To 'Bad' Article Date: 18 May 2013 Academic researchers have found that breathing motor vehicle emissions triggers a change in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, altering its cardiovascular protective qualities so that it actually contributes to clogged arteries. In addition to changing HDL from "good" to "bad," the inhalation of emissions activates other components of oxidation, the early cell and tissue damage that causes inflammation, leading to hardening of the arteries, according to the research team, which included scientists from UCLA and other institutions. The findings of this early study, done in mice,...

Retiring early can make you depressed and unhealthy, as well as poor, according to a new study by the Institute of Economic Affairs, a British think tank. The IEA looked at micro-level data from 11 countries on the physical and mental health of retirees. Here were some of the report’s findings: – Retirement increases the probability of suffering from clinical depression by about 40 per cent – Retirement increases the probability of having at least one diagnosed physical condition by about 60 percent – Retirement increases the probability of taking a drug for such a condition by about 60 per...

Second Amendment Check is a great organization that enables you to support the right to bear arms with your wallet, rewarding companies who support the Second Amendment, and boycotting companies who don't. This organization deserves your support (click on the "Donate" button and email them a "thank you"). You should shop according to their evaluation of gun-friendly or gun-unfriendly businesses. Second Amendment Check "reach[es] out to companies via email and telephone" to determine which businesses support the constitutional right to bear arms. They rate those willing to participate. Note that Second Amendment Check states, "If we can't get in direct...

Suicide rates are tied to the economy. The Boston Globe reported in 2011: A new report issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that the overall suicide rate rises and falls with the state of the economy — dating all the way back to the Great Depression. The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that suicide rates increased in times of economic crisis: the Great Depression (1929-1933), the end of the New Deal (1937-1938), the Oil Crisis (1973-1975), and the Double-Dip Recession (1980-1982). Those rates tended to fall during strong economic times...

The UK Has Just Had One Lost Decade, And It's About To Enter A Second Philip Aldrick, The Daily Telegraph May 18, 2013, 3:42 PMHSBC’s chief global economist has written a compelling but dark account of the challenges facing the West. Philip Aldrick considers the chilling claims. Bleak does not begin to describe the latest tome on the economic crisis by Stephen King, the HSBC chief global economist who appropriately shares a name with the best-selling horror writer. When the Money Runs Out is the economic equivalent of post-apocalyptic fiction, charting “the end of Western affluence”, and gives the author...

A Grotesque Economic Experiment Bill BonnerMay 18, 2013The newspapers and TV channels reported the Dow 15,000 story last week as though it were just a stepping stone on the way to 16,000… or 20,000… or 30,000. Heck, the sky’s the limit! Investors have reached a new level of bullishness. They’re borrowing again to buy stocks, confident that prices go in only one direction. Advisers, too, seemed sure that this was not the end of a trend, but the beginning of one. Just what you’d expect at a market top. There’s also a swift current of economic analysis telling us that...

The Economy Continues To Send A Ton Of Bearish Signals Comstock Partners May 18, 2013, 5:59 AMFlickr / ucumari Comstock Partners is a New York-based hedge fund It has long been our underlying thesis that the huge amount of household debt accumulated during the housing boom would inhibit consumer spending and economic growth for some time to come, and this is what has been happening over the last few years. The errors recently found in the famous Rogoff-Reinhart (RR) book do not change this view. Simply put, household debt averaged 77% of disposable personal income (DPI) over the 61-year period...

The City of Philadelphia shut down a career fair for ex-offenders today after an unexpected crowd of thousands showed up, résumés in hand. There were lots of disppointed job seekers and potential employers this morning. The city was expecting about 1,000 people to show up, but about three times that number were standing in a line that wrapped around the Municipal Services Building, across from City Hall. And when someone jumped the line, order collapsed. There was no yelling, no shoving — just 3,000 people all trying to get into the job fair at once....

House prices at the national level have rising since February 2012. Here are the Case-Shiller 20 index, the Loan Performance house price index and the FNC RPI 30 index. They all point to rising house prices. Mortgage rates continue to decline (longer-trend) making housing more “affordable.” Thanks mostly to The Fed’s unorthodox monetary policy. Other economic indicators are positive as well. The University of Michigan Consumer Confidence index is at its highest level since 2007. And the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators increased this morning. The US dollar has been spiking. And the S&P 500 has been on a roll....

It’s Not The End Of OPEC…But Might As Well Be Matt InsleyMay 17, 2013If you could safely turn $8 dollars into $40, would you? What about turning $800 into $4,000? Same question, right? If you answered yes to those questions, which I’m sure you did, then you’re already onboard with half of today’s energy story. That is, most American shale oil wells are set to payout at the odds above. You see, the average shale oil well costs anywhere from $5-10 million to drill, complete and put into production – let’s call that $8 million in total upfront cost. Once...

CREDIT SUISSE: 'Gold Is Going To Get Crushed' Sam Ro May 17, 2013, 12:41 AM Bearish sentiment toward gold has prices for the yellow metal tumbling again. On Wednesday, George Soros revealed through a regulatory filing that he cut his gold exposure during the first quarter. In a new note to clients, Credit Suisse's Ric Deverall forecasted that gold would plunge to $1,100 this year and eventually to $1,000 within five years. This according to Bloomberg's Maria Kolesnikova. More from Kolesnikova: “Gold is going to get crushed,” Deverell told reporters in London today. “The need to buy gold for wealth...

Morgan Stanley Explains Why The US Dollar Is The Hottest Currency In The World Again Joe Weisenthal May 16, 2013, 8:55 PM . The US Dollar is HOT. Here's a chart of the trade-weighted dollar index. You can see it rallied in 2012, and has gone nuclear in 2013. So what gives? Dollar strength is the topic of this evening's Morgan Stanley FX Pulse. The basic gist is: It's about weakening yen, strengthening data, increasing US yields relative to the rest of the world (which makes the dollar inherently more valuable), weakening euro, and more hawkish tones from Fed folks....

Remember This Moment (The 'Black Swans' Have Had Their Necks Broken) Joshua M Brown May 16th, 2013 “There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.” - Jean-Paul Sartre It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia." -Frank Zappa I want to you stop, take a breath and consider this moment we're in. Because you will look back on it and realize how amazing it was - how amazing it is! The Black Swans we'd been guessing at have had their...

An unexpected glimmer of hope might cast a new light on the Golden State. It’s getting depressingly repetitive to keep writing about California’s problems, which are legion and seemingly intractable. But this time, I’m pleased to report on an unexpected glimmer of hope that might, just might, cast a new light on the Golden State. First, a catalog of our recent woes, which, as ever, revolve around businesses and middle- and upper-income individuals decamping for other states that don’t suffer from California’s high-tax, high-regulation infection. William Ruger and Jason Sorens of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University observe in...

Economists Continue To Get The Biggest Economic Story Of The Year Wrong Sam Ro May 16, 2013, 8:41 AM Minutes ago, we got the April reading of consumer prices. Not only did the numbers reflect a complete absence of inflation, they also showed that economists continue to overestimate inflation. Headline CPI fell by 0.4% which was more than the 0.3% decline expected. This was largely due to the drop in energy prices. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, climbed by just 0.1%, which was also more modest than the 0.2 % expected. "The big story this year is...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits climbed last week at the fastest pace in six months, a worrisome sign for the economy which has been hit by government austerity. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits jumped by 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was the biggest jump since November and confounded analysts' expectations for a more modest increase. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 5,000 more applications received than previously reported.

The price of a gallon of gasoline hit a shocking level overnight. In the Twin Cities, several chain gas stations -- mostly in the outer ring -- raised their prices to between $4.09 and $4.19 a gallon. That's about 20 cents more overnight, 60 cents in the last two weeks, and $1.20 since January. At many stations, prices rose into the $4 range yesterday afternoon, then fell overnight into the $3.90 area. What's going on here?

DEUTSCHE BANK: The New Estimates For The US Budget Are A Total Gamechanger For Fiscal And Monetary Policy Rob Wile May 15, 2013, 5:08 PM The CBO said this week that America's fiscal deficit will be much smaller than anyone thought, and that long term debt growth will slow by at least 3 points through the next decade. That's good news right? In his note today, Deutsche Bank's Joe LaVorgna says there is even more than meets the eye in the report. Specifically, the rosier CBO report means there's now less pressure on Congress to keep the Sequester, and more...

Gold And Silver Are In Liquidation Mode Again Joe Weisenthal May 15, 2013, 4:22 AM It's happening again. Gold and silver are in liquidation mode. Both of the two precious metals are back to being taken to the woodshed. Gold looks at risk of breaking below $1400/oz. again.KITCO And silver is just plain ugly.KITCO The end of the world trade (which explains a lot of gold's appeal) is looking less and less likely to play out as the precious metal bugs had anticipated. Meanwhile, improving economic fortunes makes it less appealing to have money in rocks. And big picture, now...

This is not one of those “everything is beautiful” economic news days. First, France experienced a double dip in real GDP. This is France’s second recession in four years with a 0.2 percent contraction. And France is helping to drag down the Euro-area into its sixth quarterly decline. The Shadow Economy is former Soviet-bloc countries remains high along with Greece, Cyprus and Malta. Hmm. The further away countries are from Brussels and Luxembourg, the greater the Shadow economies (I don’t think this would surprise Nigel Farage!) Second, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey General Business Conditions SA contracted -1.43%, the first...

EMPIRE FED MANUFACTURING UNEXPECTEDLY SINKS INTO CONTRACTION Matthew Boesler| May 15, 2013, 8:30 AMThe New York Fed's Empire State Manufacturing Survey for the month of May is out. The headline index fell to -1.43 from 3.05 in April, defying economists' prediction for a rise to 4.00. The new orders sub-component fell to -1.17 in May from 2.20 in April. The shipments sub-component fell to -0.02 from 0.75. Below is a summary of the data from the release: The May 2013 Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that conditions for New York manufacturers declined marginally. The general business conditions index fell four...

France Double-Dips As European Recession Is Now Longest On Record Tyler Durden 05/15/2013 07:42 -0400 Confirming that in a world in which either commercial or central banks have to be constantly be churning out debt, and in a world in which Europe is doing neither (with European commercial loan growth posting sequential declines across the board, and the ECB's balance sheet still declining although likely not for long), "growth" as defined by conventional standards, is impossible, we got today's European Q1 GDP data. Not only was it bad, but it was even worse than most had expected. And while Germany...

#1 27 Percent Unemployment/60 Percent Youth Unemployment In Greece #2 Detroit, Michigan Is Insolvent And Is Rapidly Running Out Of Cash #3 Economic Despair In France #4 7,000 Abandoned Buildings In Dayton, Ohio #5 Overwhelmed By Squatters In Spain #6 The Collapse Of Chinese Power Consumption #7 Horrible Economic Data Coming Out Of The Second Largest Economy On The Planet #8 One Out Of Every Five U.S. Households On Food Stamps #9 Child Hunger In America #10 The Tremendous Suffering Of Hundreds Of Millions Of Desperately Poor People That We Never Hear About

For folks too young or too unaware what has happened to our economy the past 30 years, here is an answer. Ronald Reagan, G.H.W. Bush and the Republican Party are responsible for what we know as "Reaganomics," an economy that continues today resulting in few "labor unions” and the resulting low wages and lack of worker benefits. Newly elected Reagan’s (1981) first attack on the middle class economy was his dismantling a labor union representing 11,000 striking air traffic controller employees, whom he “fired.” Their PATCO union was destroyed. Reagan and his rich, conservative friends (not one who needed job...

U.S. Economy Staring Into The Abyss! Only Gold Is Worth Buying Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2013May 12, 2013 - 07:38 PM GMT By: Robert M Williams "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." - Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) A number of important figures are now talking about the possibility of increasing the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing given the “decline in inflation.” In March we heard comments from Fed Presidents Eric Rosengren and Narayana Kocherlakota calling for QE well into 2014 while Chicago Fed President Richard Evens thought the Fed needed to do more. Then in April the St....

The Mini-Golf Tax. The “Iron Man” Tax. The Burning Man Tax. I’m pretty sure most Nevadans enjoy one or more of those activities, which means if Democrats in the Legislature pass their new Nevada Entertainment and Admissions Tax, every Nevadan will curse them when they try to enjoy themselves on the weekend after a long workweek. Wow, this is stupid. So, instead of imposing a corporate tax on Wal-Mart like nearly every other state in the country, you’re going to tax me when I go to the movie theater? So I’ll pay $11.88 instead of $11? I love carrying 12...

Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum International have announced plans to build a $10 billion natural gas liquefication facility in the Gulf Coast port of Sabine Pass. The announcement comes as the two companies and the rest of the natural gas industry eagerly await permission from the U.S. government to begin exporting natural gas, which is cooled and liquefied before being shipped overseas.

President Obama went to Texas on Thursday to kick off a nationwide tour pushing his economic policies, apparently unaware that Texas has thrived the past four years by doing pretty much the opposite of what Obama has prescribed. Since taking office, Obama has pushed more government as the way to get the economy moving. He dramatically boosted spending, imposed massive amounts of new regulations, ran enormous deficits, and has imposed more than $1 trillion in tax hikes. [snip] Texas, meanwhile, has pursued a far different path from the one Obama advocates.

The "Labor Hoarding" Effect Lance Roberts Thursday, May 09, 2013(Click to the site to see the charts. I could not transfer them) Just recently the April employment report was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) which showed a surprise jump in employment for the month of April of 165,000 jobs. The general consensus for the report was 153,000 jobs so the "better than expected" news was credited to the surge in the financial markets. There has been much analysis of the data since the report with views that ranged from ebullient to dismissive. However, the reality is that,...

President Obama told an audience of high school students in Texas on Thursday that the economy is "poised for progress" after clearing away the rubble of economic crisis. OBAMA: Our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in years. But now we’ve got to budget in a smarter way so it doesn’t hurt middle-class families or prevent us from making the critical investments that we need for your future. So a lot of sectors of our economy are doing better. The American auto industry is thriving. American energy is booming. American ingenuity and our tech sector continues to be the...

The Philadelphia murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortion provider accused of cutting the spinal cords of infants delivered alive during abortion procedures, has exposed not only the grisly details of his practice, but also the negligence of several Pennsylvania governmental agencies. The case is causing some to question whether abortion clinics are appropriately monitored across the country, including in Maryland, where the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) introduced new regulations for the state’s surgical abortion facilities last year. Maryland has one of the highest abortion rates in the country, according to data from the New York-based...

The Legislature’s attempt to craft an entertainment tax in 2003 read a little bit like the children’s story of the hen who couldn’t persuade her barnyard animal friends to help her gather and grow grain for the winter. Lawmakers then considered a proposal by the Nevada Taxpayers Association to tax admissions to nearly every form of entertainment and recreation. But when it came time to write the bill, a common refrain was sounded by many targeted for the tax. “Not I!” said the movie theaters. “Not I!” said the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “Not I!” said the baseball parks, bowling...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says the president is traveling to Texas tomorrow because while there’s lots of gridlock and partisan infighting in Washington, the Lone Star State is home to the kind of economic growth Obama wants to highlight. President Obama will tour a high-tech high school and a chip-machine manufacturer near Austin on Thursday. So, why Texas, where Rick Perry credits Republicans for the state’s economic success?