Financial topics

[John]

I didn't realize that there were hundreds of crypto-currencies around, but
there are.

https://coinmarketcap.com/

Here are the price changes for the 100 most popular in the last 24 hours:


TC Bitcoin -15.60%
TH Ethereum -15.25%
RP Ripple -24.63%
CH Bitcoin Cash -17.82%
DA Cardano -22.76%
TC Litecoin -14.91%
EM NEM -21.93%
EO NEO -12.69%
LM Stellar -23.16%
MIOTA IOTA -15.95%
EOS EOS -17.05%
DASH Dash -14.65%
XMR Monero -17.19%
TRX TRON -28.22%
BTG Bitcoin Gold -31.43%
ETC Ethereum Classic -21.18%
ICX ICON -16.43%
QTUM Qtum -22.79%
LSK Lisk -17.34%
XRB RaiBlocks -22.11%
ARDR Ardor -12.11%
OMG OmiseGO -15.88%
ZEC Zcash -16.56%
STRAT Stratis -24.54%
VEN VeChain -5.98%
PPT Populous -8.11%
USDT Tether 1.47%
BNB Binance Coin -27.32%
BCC BitConnect -23.83%
XVG Verge -27.99%
BCN Bytecoin -27.13%
SC Siacoin -32.45%
KCS KuCoin Shares 1.90%
SNT Status -23.38%
STEEM Steem -25.70%
BTS BitShares -25.81%
DOGE Dogecoin -24.44%
WAVES Waves -22.42%
REP Augur -20.19%
ZRX 0x -12.40%
ETN Electroneum -22.09%
DRGN Dragonchain -9.35%
VERI Veritaseum -19.42%
KMD Komodo -20.18%
GAS Gas -6.70%
DGB DigiByte -27.77%
SALT SALT -16.70%
QASH QASH -22.12%
GNT Golem -23.22%
DCR Decred -14.15%
DCN Dentacoin -24.29%
ARK Ark -22.29%
SMART SmartCash -27.36%
WTC Walton -8.63%
HSR Hshare -26.74%
WAX WAX -30.45%
LRC Loopring -21.51%
ETHOS Ethos 4.58%
PIVX PIVX -24.47%
GBYTE Byteball Bytes -16.27%
RHOC RChain -4.46%
BAT Basic Attenti... -22.51%
ZCL ZClassic -21.62%
KNC Kyber Network -25.77%
FCT Factom -19.49%
MONA MonaCoin -12.75%
AION Aion -24.00%
FUN FunFair -28.78%
BTM Bytom -26.17%
DENT Dent -30.44%
XP Experience Po... -21.98%
AE Aeternity -21.50%
MAID MaidSafeCoin -15.55%
POWR Power Ledger -24.77%
GXS GXShares -24.63%
SYS Syscoin -21.88%
REQ Request Network -16.05%
KIN Kin -22.17%
ENG Enigma -22.29%
RDD ReddCoin -31.86%
SUB Substratum -23.85%
NXT Nxt -24.42%
DGD DigixDAO -15.75%
GAME GameCredits -13.99%
NXS Nexus -21.46%
NAS Nebulas -17.81%
ICN Iconomi -23.06%
XZC ZCoin -16.90%
BNT Bancor -17.57%
ELF aelf -14.44%
MED MediBloc -37.23%
EMC Emercoin -9.36%
PAY TenX -23.40%
QSP Quantstamp 0.39%
PART Particl -24.36%
NEBL Neblio -5.33%
LINK ChainLink -11.64%
XPA XPlay -8.42%
CVC Civic -23.43%
GNO Gnosis -27.33%

This looks like a full-fledged crash to me.

However, I heard someone on Bloomberg claim that this is just business
as usual, and Bitcoin (currently at $12,000) will fall to $8,000
before it starts rising again to new highs.

[Higgenbotham]

Financial Nonsense News Hour Update

Interview with Higgenbotham

Financial Nonsense: Due to listener requests for a SOLBLA update, we have Higgenbotham back this evening.

Higgenbotham: Glad to be here again.

Financial Nonsense: What is SOLBLA telling us this evening? We're all fascinated with how SOLBLA pinpointed SPX 2800 and reversed off of that level near the open this morning and closed the day at 2776. Usually the market stops about 30 points shy of round numbers or carries up to about 30 points over.

Higgenbotham: Well, SOLBLA had identified something different from the norm that is actually proprietary, but it did clearly see the market stopping at the round number this morning.

Financial Nonsense: So I'm assuming you're short on the key reversal? After all, there were no indications this morning that the bubble was going to reverse. Neither the stochastics, RSI, MACD, or AD line were flashing short term sells, but now they are and we also have the key reversal on top of it.

Higgenbotham: Well, actually not. At 1:42 pm CST this afternoon SOLBLA identified a self-sealing bubble and flashed the self-sealing bubble indicator, which we have coded SSI.

Financial Nonsense: How does that work?

Higgenbotham: It works by real-time bubble simulation. We simulate the real time bubble in our laboratory with the material, gas, temperature, pressure and other key parameters that track the bubble in real time. When our electron microscope is showing that the electrons in the sp3 orbital shell of the bubble material are exhibiting a sufficient energy state for the bubble to self-seal, we get out of short positions and alert subscribers.

Financial Nonsense: Wow, that sounds even better than Dongstrong's computer!

Higgenbotham: I think Dongstrong's computer is missing a diode. But even so, a computer cannot theoretically produce a proper bubble simulation.

Financial Nonsense: That's amazing. Thanks for stopping by, Higgenbotham.

Higgenbotham: It was my pleasure once again.

Financial Nonsense: Well, there you have it. Diodes and sp3 orbital states are now the key to the market!

[Higgenbotham]

Financial Nonsense News Hour Update

Interview with Higgenbotham

Financial Nonsense: Due to more listener requests for a SOLBLA update, we have Higgenbotham back again this morning.

Higgenbotham: Glad to be here yet again.

Financial Nonsense: What is SOLBLA telling us this morning? We have so many listeners who went short on the key reversal and got caught overnight.

Higgenbotham: Well, I'm afraid I have bad news. You know our laboratory bubble prototype tracks the futures overnight. Anyway, it seems one of our technicians that we just hired from Hawaii put the wrong gas mixture in the bubble and it blew up.

Financial Nonsense: Holy shit, are you saying that all your SOBLA subscribers who paid all that money are now left hanging?

Higgenbotham: We're working feverishly to bring the bubble back but as you know this is cutting edge bubble technology and we might not be back up and running until the weekend. In the meantime we are on the line with Dongstrong and his computer to get the latest twists and turns in the market.

Financial Nonsense: I thought you said Dongstrong's computer is missing a diode?

Higgenbotham: We got that fixed so we could keep our subscription money pouring in.

Financial Nonsense: Any other projects you're working on?

Higgenbotham: Yes, we are out at Ted Turner's ranch breeding sheep that panic in the same way humans do. We hope to have that up and running as a confirmation indicator to SOLBLA.

Financial Nonsense: That's amazing, wow. When will that be operational?

Higgenbotham: Well, with all the genetic engineering involved it gets complicated but we think we will have that ready next month.

Financial Nonsense: Thanks for stopping by Higgenbotham.

Higgenbotham: Anytime, thanks for having me.

Financial Nonsense: OK, there's the latest. sp3 orbital energy states and now genetically engineered sheep are the new keys to the market.

[John]

> Higgenbotham: Well, I'm afraid I have bad news. You know our
> laboratory bubble prototype tracks the futures overnight. Anyway,
> it seems one of our technicians that we just hired from Hawaii put
> the wrong gas mixture in the bubble and it blew up.

This is all happening because of Trump's racism towards Hawaiians and
because of his dementia and near-obesity, and because the Trump
administration is purposely impoverishing voters in blue states.
These are grounds for impeachment and for Article 25 hearings. We
have to stop Trump before he completely destroys the country with his
bubbles.

[Higgenbotham]

Here's another opinion based on pattern that I got last night:

Unprecedented euphoria continues to inflate the markets to ever loftier levels. However, the technical and cyclical indicators suggest an imminent crash in stock prices. The leading scenario is that domestic stocks are in a blow-off resembling the 1980 platinum market top and the 1637 Tulip-mania peak. If the pattern repeats, then domestic stocks will reach their final top between January 22 and early February. After peaking, a monumental crash should develop – with stocks losing 50% or more of their current values in as little as two weeks.

I'm surprised nobody commented on this. The reason platinum, tulips and bitcoin could be pushed to such an astounding degree during the last days of their bubbles is because they are thinly traded markets. If 0.02% of available investment funds are in a thinly traded market, then increasing that is not a problem. There is no way stocks can be pushed in the same manner as these thinly traded bubbles unless the Fed were to counterfeit trillions and throw it into the stock market during the last days of the bubble.

A late January or early February top is possible. If so, my guess is that most of the gains for the year are in and the market will slowly bump its way higher over the next 1-2 weeks. Regarding that, it's kind of eerie this time around in that the big banks and the big Wall Street firms have all been pretty unanimous in saying 2750-2850 will top the market this year.

[Higgenbotham]

From Business Insider December 15, 2017.

http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-ma ... ok-2017-12

Now that JPMorgan has weighed in, here's a roundup of the other 2018 year-end S&P 500 targets on Wall Street, ordered from most to least bullish:

Oppenheimer — John Stoltzfus — Target: 3,000
Bank of Montreal — Brian Belski — Target: 2,950
UBS — Keith Parker — Target: 2,900
Credit Suisse — Jonathan Golub — Target: 2,875
Jefferies — Sean Darby — Target: 2,855
Deutsche Bank — Binky Chadha — Target: 2,850
Goldman Sachs — David Kostin — Target: 2,850
Bank of America — Savita Subramanian — Target: 2,800
Canaccord — Tony Dwyer — Target: 2,800
Morgan Stanley — Mike Wilson — Target: 2,750
Scotiabank — Vincent Delisle — Target, 2,750
Stifel Nicolaus — Barry Bannister — Target: 2,750
Citigroup — Tobias Levkovich — Target: 2,675
HSBC — Ben Laidler — Target: 2,650

Average 2818, standard deviation 99.

[Higgenbotham]

These excellent (in my opinion) posts from mannfm11 are from March 2009. When I was young, a friend of mine born in 1915 told me, "The reason you buy a stock is to get a dividend." I never forgot it.

I have read the decisionpoint data over the years. qqqbear at bear chat has been posting that page for a long time, quite often in response to my dividend rants. I am a dividend guy because I don't trust the PE's and having a degree in finance, I was taught that the valuation formula for stock was a formula of dividends and growth, not PE ratios. Big dividend payers are cutting their payouts every week. Last week it was GE. $10 will be an upside limit on GE for awhile due to that cut. Seems I heard another one as well. Using shillers data and a dividend formula I devised from the data, I had the SPX valued in the 370 range back in 2002-2003. The current dividend would probably have it in the 500 range. The earnings of the past few years have been inflated due to the financial bubble and can only get back there with a financial bubble so even the 10X PE/10 is in doubt in this one. The decision point data gives valuations on the SPX according to PE that get back to mid 1970's values.

That is a good post Jlak. I am a boomer, but I had an education in finance. The boast about the 1990's was we were dealing with informed investors while they were driving the dividend yield of the SPX to near 1%, the US balanced it budget and California was able to adopt spending programs that now have it bankrupt out of expected flows from stock option exercises. The point was that idiots were made into financial experts by the financial press when in fact they didnt know jack schit and people with financial educations like me were looked at as idiots when I pointed this stuff out. I interviewed with Merrill Lynch in 1995 and couldn't answer the question to which the answer was to make Merrill as much money as I could selling the shit they wanted me to sell. i had a friend tell me who to call to get the interview tell me Merrill was like that. They all are like that. I got the interview because I could destroy the preliminary test, but I didn't have it in me to peddle a Ponzi scheme.

The spread sheet has stuff more important than earnings. You can cook earnings numbers. P=d/k-g is the formula in finance for valuing stock, not P=e/k as the bulls would have you believe. Look under the tab called dividends and the tab called divisors. Notice how the divisor on the SPX has been falling since 2000. The divisor is the value of the SPX per point and the way they have manipulated it down is to have the companies spend their money buying back stock instead of paying dividends. This is a method of Wall Street giving the appearance of the market doing better than it is. The real game was "Why was anyone holding the S&P portfolio at a 1.89% dividend at the end of 2007? This is a real return of less than 3 from the way I have figured it over the years, which makes the 9% to 12% returns out of holding the SPX long term dependent on inflation in the range of 6 to 9 percent. If you want to put in 1.5% for buybacks, which I think is too high long term, it improves, but shareholders never get the buyback money unless they sell. As people are about to find out, the long term on a lot of companies isn't so long term

[Higgenbotham]

This is a summary of my view since the GD forum was started by John in September 2008.

In 2008, I believed a new Great Depression had started which would last for many decades.

In 2011, I modified this belief to a new Dark Age. The reason for this was the world's leaders failed to address the problems that became evident in 2008 and made them worse to the point that they became irreversible.

Now in 2018, I believe this is the right time to prepare for a new Dark Age. In a nutshell, that means transitioning to a post industrial age way of life. The question of timing is important mainly because before the Dark Age fully manifests, the wealth of the periphery is being drained out toward the capital cities of the hegemon. The collapse of Carillion versus the new records in the US stock indices illustrates this very starkly.

[Higgenbotham]

Higgenbotham » Wed Jan 16, 2013 4:47 pm

The way I see the dark age process, it is initiated by the internal actions of the hegemon (the US in this case) but the symptoms first show up mostly in the periphery. The Middle East (Syria), Africa (Mali), and the edges of Europe (Greece), Russia (Siberia) and the US (Detroit) have been slowly breaking down toward chaos. This will spread inward toward the capital cities of the hegemon (Washington DC and New York in this case) as the hegemon continues to suck resources out of the periphery at a more frenzied pace. We have moved into the frenzied pace stage as many parts of the world have been sucked dry and the US has abdicated them and moved on to areas that are closer to the core, including China and its own citizens. This is where things begin to get dangerous. Once the capital cities of the hegemon break down, then the dark age will have begun. While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently. Once they collapse, the periphery will be relieved of pressure and things should improve somewhat for a limited period of time.

Now the giant sucking sound is reaching the core of Europe (Carillion is headquartered in Wolverhampton, England).

[John]

I'm reminded of that old Soviet Union encyclopedia, where persons or
events could become non-persons or non-events simply by disappearing
from the Soviet Union encyclopedia without notice.

So what happened to: "Saudi Arabia is starting to come apart, and with
its unscheduled rapid disassembly, the Industrial Age will come to an
end"?