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Index rises to +138, highest since +147 in September 2000Hike is latest in 98-point rise since February 201668% optimistic about stock market -- tied for highest percentage on record WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new surge of optimism among U.S. investors has pushed the Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index to its highest level since September 2000. The index, after rising in every quarter since the start of 2016, leveled off in the second quarter at +124 before rising to its current +138 in the third quarter. The latest boost in optimism pushes the index almost 100 points higher...

Gold prices were trading at the highest level in almost a year on Tuesday as investors flocked to the safe haven on heightened tensions between North Korea and Japan. Trading solidly above the key psychological level of $1,300 on the news of a North Korea missile launch over Japan's airspace...

(Kitco News) – News that North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan has rattled world markets. Global stock indexes are lower and safe-haven assets like gold and U.S. Treasuries are higher. U.S. stock indexes are pointed toward lower openings when the New York day session begins. Gold prices hit an 11-month high overnight, as a combination of safe-haven demand and technical buying are boosting the yellow metal.

Ron Paul's sell-off prediction just got more severe. The former Republican Congressman from Texas believes escalating dysfunction in Washington will create even more pain for Wall Street. "A 50 percent pullback is conceivable," Paul said on "Futures Now" recently. "I don't believe it's ten years off. I don't even believe it's a year off. " According to his calculations, it would cut the S&P 500 Index in half, to 1212, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average would collapse to 10,837. Paul noted that there's a lot of chaos in Washington right now, with an "unpredictable president" and those who...

The AP is reporting as of now: WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says reports that President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser is stepping down are “100 percent false.” http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gary-cohn-not-resigning The rumor is spreading that Gary Cohn, President Trump’s chief economic adviser is resigning, due to conflict concerning the Charlottesville tragedy. However, the AP says it is not true. BUT there is speculation that President Trump has floated the possibility of nominating Cohn to chair the Federal Reserve. There is even an article in VANITY FAIR that speculates that is Cohn’s goal, and it has been his Plan B from...

David Stockman, who headed the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan, in a new commentary warns: Ultimately, the hammer of fiscal crisis and a crashing stock market will break any remaining loyalty of the GOP elders as they smell the 2018 elections turning into a replay of the rout of 1974. And then the Donald will be gone, and well before August 2018, too. I told an audience in Vancouver last Friday that it could happen by February. The bottom line is that the Swamp is so undrainable that it will end up making mincemeat of Donald Trump.......

see link in post below

By now, all investors should know the research about the follies of market timing, MarketWatch reports. But similarly, all investors should admit that a quest for outperformance by stock picking and active management will never end — particularly given that 2017 shows more than half of active funds are beating their benchmarks for the first time since before the Great Recession. So it’s worth noting that a host of big-name billionaire investors are pretty concerned about current market conditions. Yes, there are tremendous benefits to passive, low-risk, long-term investing strategies. And obviously, some of the “best” investors on Wall Street...

Full Headline: There’s a 'supervolcano' waiting to erupt beneath a seemingly 'beautiful' market, according to a portfolio manager "We went back to 1994 and researched team data that said [that if we look at cyclically adjusted P/E, one out of two times] the market was down in the next 12 months, and about one out of three times it was down more than 10 percent," he said. James' observations seem to mirror a note released more than a week ago by Goldman Sachs, which found that when valuations have been this high, 10-year returns on the S&P 500 have been...

Market breadth, a measure of how many stocks are rising versus the number that are dropping, has turned “exceedingly negative,” according to Brad Lamensdorf, a portfolio manager at Ranger Alternative Management. Lamensdorf writes the Lamensdorf Market Timing Report newsletter and runs the AdvisorShares Ranger Equity Bear ETF HDGE, -0.64% an exchange-traded fund that “shorts” stocks, or bets that they will fall. “As the indexes continue to produce a series of higher highs, subsurface conditions are painting an entirely different picture,” Lamensdorf wrote in the latest edition of the newsletter. He noted that the year-to-date advance in equities — the S&P...

RUSH: The Dow Jones Industrial Average right now 21,992. It was at one point today 22,000, all-time record. And of course that number brought forth all of the negativists who are now claiming, including Greenspan, “It’s gotta burst. It can’t go on. It’s a bubble and it’s gonna blow up and we’re all gonna die. And we’re all gonna be poor, and we’re all gonna lose everything. It’s horrible.” Now, two things about this: 22,000 stock market. Who is that? Who’s getting rich? Answer, hint, clue: It ain’t the people that voted for Trump. Trump’s out there taking credit for...

For months now, many investors and Wall Street analysts have wondered how the major stock market indexes can keep climbing higher into record territory when the economy is growing at a slow 2% pace. But it's really no mystery: Profits, the fuel for rising stock prices, are growing. Make no mistake, earnings are strong right now. Quoting FactSet, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that 73% of the S&P 500 companies that had reported earnings as of last week had posted results that exceeded forecasts for both revenues and earnings. Earnings for S&P 500 companies rose 15% in the first...

Caterpillar and McDonald's posted bottom line results that topped estimates, sending its shares higher. This is the busiest week of the earnings season, with approximately 180 S&P 500 components scheduled to report. Wall Street also set its sights on the Federal Reserve, as the central bank kicked off a two-day monetary policy meeting The S&P 500 hit a record high shortly after the open, with financials and energy rising more than 1 percent to lead advancers. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 77 points, with Caterpillar and McDonald's contributing the most gains. The Nasdaq composite lagged, trading 0.1 percent lower...

If the man often hailed as the original "Dr. Doom" is right, the stock market could see another "lurch" higher — at which point investors may want to cash out quickly and run for cover. Marc Faber, the editor of "The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report' and a perennial bear, isn't backing down from his latest dire prediction that would send stocks plummeting by 40 percent or more. A drop of that size could take the S&P 500 Index down from Friday's closing price of 2,438 to 1,463. He used the meteoric rise of FANG stocks, which reflects Facebook, Apple,...

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.

NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Monday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow hitting record highs with growth sectors such as technology in favor again as investors appeared to regain confidence in the economy after upbeat comments from Federal Reserve officials. Amazon.com's Friday announcement that it would buy Whole Foods and an upbeat tone from Federal Reserve speakers seemed to help reassure investors after the U.S. central bank's rate hike last week, according to J. Bryant Evans, portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois. "It looks like a bet that interest rates, such...

Legendary investor Jim Rogers sat down with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget on this week's episode of The Bottom Line. Rogers predicts a market crash in the next few years. One that he says will rival anything he has seen in his lifetime. Following is a transcript of the video. Blodget: One of the things I’ve always admired about you as an investor is that you don’t talk about what should be. You figure out what is going to be and then, you do that. So what is going to be with respect to the stock market? What’s going to...

Full pdf of his prepared remarks is here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-060817.pdf

The Dow just crossed 21,132, vs. 21,115 in March. Jobs report is excellent---more than a quarter of a million new jobs in the month. Economic confidence higher than any time since 2001. I'm hearing that the AT Fed will revise UPWARD the 1st quarter numbers and that over 3% GDP this year a real possibility.

Earnings season has offered plenty of reasons for investors to be optimistic. Even more good news is on the way. With over 80% of S&P 500 companies having posted quarterly results, the profit engines at the biggest U.S. public companies are humming along. In an environment of elevated valuations, strong earnings growth helps justify record highs for stocks and suggests the bull market still has legs. First-quarter earnings are on pace to increase 13.5% from the same period a year earlier, according to FactSet. That would be the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth and the quickest pace since the...