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As Wall Street’s ‘fear gauge’ nears all-time lows, one commonly used measure shows Asian equities near their least volatile this century. The calm that has descended on U.S. financial markets is stretching around the world. Based on one commonly used measure, Asian equities are near their least volatile this century—a byproduct of improving corporate earnings, stabilizing economic growth and the diminishing impact of geopolitical events on markets. In the U.S., Wall Street’s “fear gauge” is near all-time lows, and in Europe, volatility has also largely subsided.

"Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it." ~ Sam Rayburn One jackass (oops we mean expert) after another, has been predicting that this market is ready to crash. The problem is that these brain surgeons have been making this argument for so long it almost sounds like the definition of insanity. Insanity boils down to doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a new outcome. These predictions are so off the mark that they make a broken clock look fantastic which happens to be right once or twice...

It has been suggested that Italy leave the Eurozone until it has sorted out its own failings, but that is not likely to be an option for a country on the verge of collapse. Its people won't likely choose to take their leaky rafts out into an unstable sea alone. They would surely sink. The country's 12% unemployment rate should be a clear indication to the world that things are not alright in a country fraught with devastating economic prospects. UniCredit approved a rights issue in February to sell shares at discount. As one of Italy's largest lenders, UniCredit began...

Investors reacted positively from President Donald Trump’s Tuesday night address to Congress, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average above 21,000 points Wednesday for the first time in its history. Banks, financial institutions, companies in the energy and materials sector saw huge gains as Trump reaffirmed during his speech his plans to cut taxes and push for other business-friendly policies. The Dow jumped 242 points, or 1.2 percent, to 21,055 as of 10:07 a.m. Eastern Time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 24 points, or 1 percent, to 2,387. The Nasdaq composite index added 59 points, or 1 percent, to...

'One man alone cannot make 'America great again'. That you have to realize," warns Marc Faber, the editor of "The Gloom, Boom, & Doom Report," reminding the world that the US stock market is vulnerable to a seismic sell-off that won't be caused by any single catalyst. His argument: Stocks are very overbought and sentiment is way too bullish for the so-called Trump rally to continue. "Very simply, the market starts to go down. As it goes down, it will start triggering selling, and then it will be like an avalanche," said Faber recently on CNBC's Futures Now. "I would...

Two weeks after David Stockman warned that "the market is apparently pricing in a huge Trump stimulus. But if you just look at the real world out there, the only thing that's going to happen is a fiscal bloodbath and a White House train wreck like never before in U.S. history" and exclaimed that, when looking at markets, "what's going on today is complete insanity" he is back with another interview, this time with Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog in which he, once again warns, that a giant fiscal bloodbatch is coming soon, and urges listeners to pay especially close attention...

The billionaire investor George Soros said on Thursday that global markets will falter given the uncertainty of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump's policies. "Right now uncertainty is at the peak," Soros told Bloomberg News at his annual media dinner held at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "I don't think the markets are going to do very well." Stocks in the United States surged after Trump's Nov. 8 election victory. Trump takes office on Friday.

Only a few days after Trump’s inauguration ceremony, the U.S. National Debt will creep across the important psychological barrier of $20 trillion. It’s a problem that’s been passed down to him, but, as Visual Caitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, it certainly puts the incoming administration in a difficult place. The debt is burdensome by pretty much any metric, and the rate of borrowing has exceeded economic growth pretty much since the late 1970s. How Trump deals with this escalating constraint will be a deciding factor in whether his administration crashes and burns – or ends up re-positioning America for greatness. Donald...

Financial expert Lior Gantz says there is good news and bad news for the economy with the election of Donald Trump. Gantz explains, “If he changes the equation, it could cause a lot of inflation in the U.S. U.S. banks are so liquid and have so much excess cash because of TARP programs and QE programs that this could prompt them to start lending, and lend to the wrong people. It could prompt the government to start issuing increased food stamps, universal unemployment checks and all kinds of stuff that can create large inflation in the U.S. So, that is...

As state lawmakers propose all kinds of ways to boost economic opportunity, there's one policy that's rightly gaining momentum: right-to-work laws. Right-to-work laws do more than protect individuals from being required to join a union as a condition of employment. They are a proven catalyst for expanding jobs and opportunities throughout the states. This past weekend, Kentucky became the 27th state to pass right-to-work legislation — and it's not hard to see why. Many of Kentucky's neighboring states had already passed right-to-work and Kentuckians have seen firsthand the benefits it brought to their neighbors. Indiana, for example, saw its workforce-participation...

There has been more concern about the market topping last week than we have in quite some time. We have the 20,000 level in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 2300 in the S&P 500 just overhead, and with the Nasdaq Composite eclipsing the 5000 mark as well, it seems to make everyone looking for the market to top. But just because we are hitting round numbers in a market doesn't suggest that the market is topping. STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks with serious upside potential in the next 12-months. Learn more. As...

Small business owners' optimism soared in December to the highest level since 2004, the National Federation of Independent Business said Tuesday, as President-elect Trump unleashes "animal spirits" on Main Street, even as corporate titans such as General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) tread carefully with the president-elect. NFIB's small business optimism index shot up 7.4 points to 105.8, the best reading since December 2004. It was the biggest monthly gain in decades. A net 50% of smaller firms see business conditions improving vs. 12% in November and -7% in October. "We haven't seen numbers like this in a long time,"...

Tyler Durden November 10,2016 Who would have thought - as recently as two days ago - that a Trump presidency is the best thing for global risk? Certainly not Wall Street experts, all of whom warned of drops as big as 5% should Trump be elected. And yet, the global repricing of inflation expectations continues at a feverish pace in the aftermath of the Trump victory, leading to another surge in US equity futures, up 15 points or 0.7% to 2175 at last check, with Asian and European stock market all jumping (Nikkei was up a whopping 6.7% after losing...

Paul Krugman has already had to walk back his prediction of a global recession following Donald Trump’s presidential victory last night. His initial post on the New York Times’ website was confidently apocalyptic about the prospects of Donald Trump plunging the world into a depression: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.” He concluded by saying, “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.” Markets rebounded in...

Tyler DurdenNovember 11, 2016 This chart tells the whole story of the night: Trump - the massive underdog - appears to have pulled off precisely what he promised to do: Brexit times 10, having won virtually every key battleground state including Ohio, North Carolina and moments ago, Florida.(snip)Lots of charts, go look at them.

S&P 500 futures jumped Sunday after FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to Congress that the agency continues to believe that Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted for her handling of emails. Futures for the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq 100 rose more than 1% Sunday evening. The S&P 500 has fallen for nine straight sessions, its longest losing streak since 1980s. The Nasdaq's nine-day decline is its longest since 1984. On Oct. 28, the FBI's Comey said that he was investigating new emails related to Clinton's private email server while secretary of state. That news up-ended the...

In Part One of this article I laid out the case against the criminal establishment and how the regeneracy is being driven by the anti-establishment sentiment sweeping across the land. This atonement Fourth Turning will de-establish decade’s worth of delusional decisions. This election has destroyed the last vestiges of trust in this fraudulent system. This dysfunctional rigged presidential election reflects the tearing of the civic fabric at points of maximum susceptibility. As a country we have neglected, denied, or delayed necessary action on a plethora of vital issues threatening our long term viability as a nation. The deferral of difficult...

“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997 As we enter the final stretch of this vitriolic, deplorable, venomous, propaganda saturated, deceitful,...

WASHINGTON, DC – With the United States’ presidential election on November 8, and a series of elections and other political decisions fast approaching in Europe, now is a good time to ask whether the global economy is in good enough shape to withstand another major negative shock. The answer, unfortunately, is that growth and employment around the world look fragile. A big adverse surprise – like the election of Donald Trump in the US – would likely cause the stock market to crash and plunge the world into recession. There is always a great deal of insight in the International...

X On Friday, the non-partisan Brookings Institution released a paper which describes the expected impact of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election on the global financial markets, reports the Huffington Post. Authored by the University of Michigan's Justin Wolfers and Dartmouth College's Eric Zitzewitz, the piece notes, "...we estimate that market participants believe that a Trump victory would reduce the value of the S&P 500, the UK, and Asian stock markets by 10-15%, would reduce the oil price by $4, would lead to a 25% decline in the Mexican Peso, and would significantly increase expected future stock market...