Payday loans have become an increasingly popular form of funding in recent years, largely because of their accessible nature. It is now common for people who are tight on cash to secure a loan from a company like Smart Pig to tide them over until payday’s arrival. Here are some of the factors every person thinking of taking out a payday loan should consider. Do You Really Need it? The first thing anyone seeking to take out a payday loan should consider is why they are taking it out and whether it is entirely necessary. Whilst the average amount a person may take out with a payday loan may be relatively small, the amount they pay back...
In an economy in which wages for 95% of households are stagnant for structural reasons, pushing inflation higher is destabilizing. The official policy goal of the Federal Reserve and other central banks is to generate 3% inflation annually. Put another way: the central banks want to lower the purchasing power of their currencies by 33% every decade. In other words, those with fixed incomes that don’t keep pace with inflation will have lost a third of their income after a decade of central bank-engineered inflation. There is a core structural problem with engineering 3% annual inflation. Those whose income doesn’t keep pace are g...
AT40 = 44.1% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs)AT200 = 48.5% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAsVIX = 12.2 (was as high as 14.1)Short-term Trading Call: neutral CommentaryAnother North Korean nuclear power move caused more rattling in financial markets. The last time the market cared about the growing drama on the Korean peninsula was August 29th. At that time, the S&P 500 (SPY) gapped down at the open, and the volatility index (the VIX) gapped up. By the close, all was well again as buyers quickly stepped in. The S&P 500 closed flat on the day, and the VIX ended the day wit...
August 2017 was something of a mixed month for dividend-paying stocks in the U.S. stock market. On the plus side, the number of U.S. firms announcing dividend increases was up and the number of firms announcing dividend cuts were down, both month over month and year over year, both of which are positive indications of the health of the private sector of the U.S. economy. Zooming in a little closer on the dividend cut portion of the bigger picture…. What makes the picture for the dividend-paying sector of the U.S. economy a mixed one is the sharp increase in the number of firms that omitted making dividend payments in August 2017, wher...
The month of August largely passed off as a non-event with most of the markets trading flat. The US dollar continued to weaken during the month as investor sentiment continued to drop. The weakness in the greenback was spurred by both economic and political developments. North Korea stood out on the international scene as the nation first started with threats and soon followed by test firing a missile in the sea, close to Japan. Investor risk appetite briefly waned, sparking a flight to safety. The Jackson Hole symposium was a non-event as the Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s speech did not make any big references to the US monetary policy. On t...
It wasn’t that long ago that when I felt like it was a good time to buy gold (that is, real gold you could hold in your hands), I would go out and buy some. But after a while, gold wouldn’t be doing that well, and I’d sort of realize that there was really no scenario in which it would be useful to me (e.g. there would never come a day that everyone was starving since Whole Foods would ONLY accept gold, and I’d be able to feed my family due to my good planning). So I’d dump it. I thought I’d show when I bought and sold bullion, thinking it would reveal Gartman-like levels of bad timing. It turns out it wasn’t THAT bad. It was sor...
The dollar continued its decline on Wednesday morning, heading towards 4 1/2 month lows as relations with North Korea show no signs of warming. On Tuesday, a North Korean diplomat mentioned that his country was prepared to send more “gift packages” to the United States, sending traders further into the arms of safe haven assets, including the yen. The dollar was trading at 108.61 yen as of 11:28 a.m. HK/SIN, after hitting a low of 108.50 earlier in the session and flirting with lows not seen since mid-April. Also pressuring the dollar were comments from Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard on Tuesday, who noted that inflation was “wel...
After opening the day in the red, Indian share markets have continued to trade on a negative note. Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note with stocks from the realty sector and the FMCG sector witnessing maximum selling pressure. Metal sector is witnessing buying interest. The BSE Sensex is trading down 171 points (down 0.5%) and the NSE Nifty is trading down 43 points (down 0.4%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.1%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.2%. The rupee is trading at 64.21 to the US$. In the news from IPO space, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company has got Indian market re...
GBP/USD 4 hour The GBP/USD did break above the resistance trend line (dotted orange) which kick started an impulsive wave C (purple). This C wave has reached the 50% Fibonacci level of wave 2 vs 1 but could extend further to the 61.8% Fib. This Fib plus the resistance levels of a potential head and shoulders pattern on the daily chart (orange lines) could act as potential resistance. 1 hour The GBP/USD could be building a wave 4 (grey) correction within the wave C (purple). A potential bull flag pattern (orange lines) could confirm this wave 4 structure. The target zone is around 1.3075- 1.31. The bearish retracement should typically not retr...
The Eurozone economy is gaining momentum, with contributions from most of the 19 nations. However, economists and experts indicate that growth seems to have peaked and expressed concern regarding a slowdown in the near-term. Against this backdrop, let’s consider the market-moving indicators to look out for in September. September 6: US Balance of Trade (July) The US trade deficit narrowed to US$43.6 billion in June, from US$46.4 billion in May. The deficit was lower than market expectations of a US$45 billion gap, achieved mainly due to an increase in exports, and marked the lowest deficit since October 2016. September 7: Eurozone GDP Growt...