Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

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Exploiting the edge from historical market patterns

MONDAY, MARCH 06, 2017

Readings to Expand Our Trading Horizons
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That's the beauty of gathering informed perspectives from across the financial world: we gain perspective by standing apart from our own views. Here are some great readings I've recently come across:

* Investment advice from the world's greatest stock picker and what it means for the financial world. This is very relevant for the retirement money you don't trade and put at day-to-day risk in markets but yet hope to build.

* Why momentum is the premier anomaly in stock pricing and other great perspectives from Abnormal Returns.

* An eye-opening assessment of why smart-beta strategies might not be so intelligent. Note the interesting conclusion about complex market strategies.

* Top trading articles from Steve Burns, including one on the highs we get from making money in markets.

* A hard look at whether we can we trust academic research published in finance. While the world is crowing over how quantitative approaches have taken over the world, the truth is that the ones making money are the ones that are methodologically sound.

* Trading outcomes are just as much a result of cognitive skill as personality traits. A different view with big implications for identifying talented traders.



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2017
A Cognitive View of Trading Psychology
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A common view, held among traders and coaches of traders, is that emotional factors account for the difference between trading success and trading failure. Some hold that emotions should be controlled, held in check, and made secondary to the discipline of rules. Others hold that emotions should be accepted and experienced in a mindful way and, when possible, used as information. In either case, the goal is to ensure that decision making is achieved through a proper trading process and not driven by the emotional experiences and impulses of the moment.

I believe this emotive view of trading performance is incorrect and, in fact, is not plausibly asserted in any other performance domain. No one, for example, would contend that the path to reaching grandmaster status in chess is a function of successfully dealing with one's feelings. Emotional self-control, while necessary for exemplary performance, is hardly sufficient. Very often, emotional loss of control is the result of poor performance and not its primary cause.

Consider an algorithmic trading system that has been overfit, using many predictors over a lookback period to anticipate future price behavior. Such an overfit system has negative expected returns, but hardly because emotional factors have interfered with its performance. Rather, it is generalizing from improperly derived rules, assuming that the future will rigidly replicate the past.

My years of working with traders as a performance psychologist have led me to the view that success in financial markets is more a function of cognitive strengths than emotional/personality ones. Moreover, my experience has suggested that these cognitive strengths are domain specific, rather than domain general. That is, the skilled trader develops ways of thinking about markets that are unique and distinctive to financial markets and doesn't simply develop general reasoning skills that would lead to success across fields of performance.

An analogy would be the performance of a physician. The skilled physician picks up on symptoms, takes a good history and physical, decides upon tests to conduct, assembles the findings into one or more plausible diagnoses, conducts more tests to differentiate among the diagnostic possibilities if necessary, and eventually finds treatment options based upon the preferred diagnosis. All during this time, the skilled physician is maintaining a good rapport with the patient and engaging the patient in a supportive way, encouraging the patient to be as forthcoming with information as possible.

Should the physician get the diagnosis and treatment wrong, we would not immediately assume that emotional factors got in the way of a successful outcome. Rather, we would look for breakdowns in the physician's reasoning and decision-making process. This process is domain specific in that it is not used by professionals in other performance-related fields. The reasoning process of the chess grandmaster does not resemble that of the physician and neither resembles the reasoning of a successful daytrader.

(Notice in the case of the physician that more than one reasoning skill may be at work simultaneously. The judgments involved in sensitively engaging the patient and maintaining rapport are different from those used to navigate a decision tree for diagnosis. For a successful trader, the reasoning used to identify a worthy investment could be quite different from the reasoning used to determine when to make that investment. The skill needed to accurately diagnose a tumor is different from the surgical skill needed to remove it.)

When trading firms *have* shown interest in cognitive factors when recruiting traders, they often have looked for general competencies rather than ones specific to the trading domain. Thus, for example, they might have candidates perform a general reasoning test or they might look for good grades on a college transcript. When I was teaching full-time at the medical school in Syracuse, I was surprised by the fact that grades in college *did* predict medical school grades--but only in the first two years of classroom-based medical education. College grades and even grades in basic science courses in the initial years of medical school were not meaningful predictors of clinical performance with patients. Knowing how to study for tests did not correlate highly with knowing how to engage patients, navigate decision trees of diagnosis and treatment, and implement actual procedures.

The domain specificity of the cognitive processes that contribute to successful trading performance helps to explain one observation that has always struck me. Traders trained in classroom-like settings (or left to their own devices to learn trading through reading books and watching screens) rarely achieve success.


I consistently observe the highest hit rate on trader development in situations where the new trader directly observes the experienced trader and models the behavior of that more senior professional. In other words, trading is not learned through general learning mechanisms (classrooms, study), but through very specific observation and modeling.

It is not coincidence that medical education starts in the classroom to gain basic knowledge of physiology, biochemistry, and pathology but then quickly moves to the clinics and hospital floors to allow for shadowing and direct observation of practicing physicians. You learn to treat a patient by watching competent physicians treat patients and by modeling their decision-making processes and domain specific skills. No amount of reading or self-study could help a student become a successful psychiatrist or gynecological surgeon.

The domain specificity of trading skill also helps explain why very intelligent people often don't make for very successful traders. Other traders I've known who are quite successful in markets are notably weak in their performance in other areas of life (as parents and spouses, for example, or in the conduct of their own personal finances).

Several trading firms have been known to look for potential trading stars by recruiting successful poker and video game players. They are hypothesizing that the skills specific to those performance domains are generalizable to trading. That focus on domain specificity is one of the rare pieces of recognition that it takes more than emotional discipline and awareness to succeed in trading.

All of us have two eyes, but many of us have different views. It's what happens cognitively--in our information processing--that determines how perceptions become expressed as views. Traders truly interested in developing themselves as professionals need to do what aspiring chess masters and physicians do: learn from the masters.


Further Reading: Controlling Emotions is Not the Goal of Trading Psychology
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MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006
Controlling Emotions Is NOT The Goal Of Trading Psychology
Pick up a book or magazine article about trading psychology and you're likely to find prescriptions for success based on controlling emotions and increasing discipline.

Yes, emotional arousal can interfere with performance, but does that mean that elite performance is a function of dampened emotions?

When you look at some of the greatest performers in sports--and in trading--you'll find highly competitive individuals. They are quite emotional and don't take well to losing. Lance Armstrong? Michael Jordan? Tiger Woods? Muhammad Ali? All were quite intense, emotional individuals who managed to channel their emotional drive into victory.

Conversely, I've encountered many well-balanced individuals who have sought success in trading. They don't blow up, they follow rules faithfully, and they have no intense, competitive emotional flame burning within. I've never yet seen one go on to become successful.

Can anyone watch the really successful college basketball coaches--Coach K., Jim Boeheim, Bob Knight, Tom Izzo--and attribute their success to emotional restraint? Yes, there have been emotionally reserved winners--think John Wooden and Dean Smith--but one suspects their emotionality was that of a warm mentor, not that of a cold fish.

The important ingredient in success is not emotional dampening per se, but the enhancement of concentration and focus. That is what enables people to act with sustained purpose and stay rooted in their goals.

When we review the lives of great individuals across a variety of fields--the research of Dean Keith Simonton and K. Anders Ericsson stands out in this respect--what we find is that the greats have prodigious capacities for work. They are hugely productive. They sustain effort hours at a time, day after day, week after week, year after year.

Only the ability to regularly access "the zone"--that flow state of consciousness that comes from being wholly absorbed in an activity that captures our interests, skills, and talents--can account for the amazing dedication of the Olympic athlete, the great career scientist, or the chess grand master.

Indeed, such exemplary performers can use emotion to access the zone. Michael Jordan used to provoke players on opposing teams so that they would argue and fight back. That would arouse Jordan's competitive instincts and elevate his game.

When we operate outside that "zone" and lose our focus, we are no longer activating that executive center of our brains--the frontal lobes--that control planning, judgment, and reasoning. Left with a weak executive center, we become like the person with Attention Deficit Disorder: prone to wandering attention, reduced self-control, and impulsive behavior.

That makes it look as though "emotion" and "lack of discipline" cause our trading problems.

In reality, however, these are the results of the problem; not the causes.

The goal of trading psychology is to build consciousness, not reduce emotion. The goal is to create regular access to the flow state of heightened learning and focus. Talking to a trading coach, in itself, won't accomplish that; nor will well-intentioned efforts to calm oneself or take breaks from trading.

We can only build consciousness by working on consciousness. That is why I find meditation, heart rate and galvanic skin response biofeedback, self-hypnosis, and newer methods such as hemoencephalography to be valuable tools for traders and emphasized their use in my book on the psychology of trading.

These methods don't eliminate emotion; they build minds. If we can exercise for 30 min./day and build our cardiac fitness and our physiques, maybe--just maybe--a similar commitment could strengthen our abilities to operate within life's "zone". I'll be posting more re: my personal experiments with mind training in the near future.


Have a great start to the trading week!

Brett
.Posted by Brett Steenbarger, Ph.D.at 5:53 AM


About Me

Brett Steenbarger, Ph.D.
Author of The Psychology of Trading (Wiley, 2003), Enhancing Trader Performance (Wiley, 2006), The Daily Trading Coach (Wiley, 2009), and Trading Psychology 2.0 (Wiley, 2015) with an interest in using historical patterns in markets to find a trading edge. I am also interested in performance enhancement among traders, drawing upon research from expert performers in various fields. I took a leave from blogging starting May, 2010 due to my role at a global macro hedge fund. Blogging resumed in February, 2014, along with regular posting to Twitter and StockTwits (@steenbab). I teach brief therapy as Clinical Associate Professor at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, with a particular emphasis of solution-focused "therapies for the mentally well". Co-editor of The Art and Science of Brief Psychotherapies (American Psychiatric Press, 2012).

View my complete profile

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USD/JPY: Where To Target Into Fed's Hikes In March, June & September - Deutsche Bank

06 Mar 2017 10:29 EDT



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FX Strategy
Deutsche Bank
{C}{C}


The uptrend in the USD/JPY is unlikely to be smooth and should endure occasional corrections. As seen in GPIF's December settlement, Japanese investors would support the USD/JPY at around 110 by dip-buying but are unlikely to be a driving force above 115. In the near term, if the rate fails to go beyond 115 if/when the Fed raises rates this month, the currency can be corrected down in disappointment. However, we stand by our view that the USD/ JPY will rise in line with US interest rates as long as the outlook for these risk scenarios remains relatively low.


....Our US economists expect the Fed to raise rates in March, June and September this year and another four times (once per quarter) in 2018. In our thoughts, the primary determinant of the course of the USD/JPY is the US economy and interest rates.
We expect the USD/JPY to move in line with our interest rate forecasts: it should try 115 with the March rate increase, solidify at 115-118 with the June hike, and burst through 120 with the September increase with discounting some additional hikes into 2018.
Copyright 2017 DB, eFXnews

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: Well this is very interesting for me to read personally and to share with others here. It clearly appears to me that what the experts have left out is what happens to the Equity Markets especially the SPX500 and the Dow 30 if interest rates go up.

If the SPX500 go back towards Earth along with the US 30 then we have RISK OFF and funds will FLOW to the safest places. One of these places based on past performances is into the YEN and out of the US Dollar so USD/JPY will go in the opposite direction of first 115.00 in March 2017 and 115.000 to 118.000 with the POSSIBLE June hike.

How is this possible ? How can I be right and the experts from the bank be right ?

CORRELATION and Money Flow to Safe Havens is my answer. Let us see in March who is right and who is wrong.

Did Donald Trump have his phone line tapped in the months leading up to the US election?

He claims it was. And at the express orders of President Obama. As the media jumped all over the story at the weekend, I wondered: has anyone asked what Angela Merkel thinks?

On one level the story is just daft. Trumps ability to troll the media by making a wild claim and controlling the media narrative is perhaps his greatest skill. Youd think the press would have cottoned on to that by now.

But on another level, the story intersects with three key financial themes Dan and I (its Nick OConnor here, as Dan is on holiday) have been writing to you about all year. The most obvious of those is the ongoing cyber war.

The Gods seem to have bound Donald Trumps fate with the battle for global cyber supremacy. His coming to power was closely interconnected with the idea of hacks, leaks and surveillance. This story is a continuation of that.

Edward Snowden and Wikileaks (another form of cyber espionage) told us that there was an extremely likely chance the US government was spying on other heads of state. Angela Merkel was one: there was evidence to suggest her phone had been tapped too. It caused a minor diplomatic incident.

If you want my opinion, I think Trump probably was tapped. I think he probably had his emails hacked too. Im sure Hillary did as well. And not just by the US government by many security agencies or bad actors. Thats the new normal in the cyber war.

I doubt Obama personally authorised whatever happened. That claim, to me, just illustrates Trumps ability to make the narrative work for him, which no one can doubt he is extremely skilled at (look at the evidence: he won the presidency against extremely long odds).

But involving Obama in the story connects it to a second narrative Dan and I have been writing to you about: Trumps war against the Deep State. Hes the outsider who won the vote despite the machinations of shadowy government agencies operating against him. Does The Swamp have an IP address? If so, start your search there Donald!

Bringing Obama in just gives the Deep State a more coherent leadership. Theres nothing like a former leader to be corrupted by the power and money of the permanent government. Just look at Tony Blair today!

By the way, Im not necessarily saying that Obama is part of shadowy conspiracy against Trump. But thats how the narrative Trump is pushing works. And narratives are powerful.

Thats true in the markets, too. The stock market has been on a tear since Trumps election. Dan and I debated why this is last week. His argument was that its simply weight of money flowing in to the markets. Mine is that money wouldnt flow in such quantities without a good reason. To me that reason is Donald Trump. His election was the trigger that broke the stock market out of a year long range and drove it to new highs.

Ranges? Triggers? Breakouts? Is this all new to you?

If youre a subscriber to Eoin Treacys Trigger Point Trader it wont be. If youre not heres the idea in a nutshell:

Eoin believes too many traders rely solely on technical indicators to trade the markets. They want something automated, almost like a trading machine: you input a few numbers and out pops a trading recommendation. Its a seductive but incorrect idea. Eoin has spent the last decade using a different, simpler and more intuitive approach. He also travels around the world teaching it to people (private investors and institutional professionals alike).

At its core his approach relies on the fact that markets are man-made. They move based on the instinctive reactions of the crowd. That means successful trading isnt a case of understanding technical indicators: its a matter of understanding behavioural psychology.

Eoins found theres a repeating, tradable pattern in the markets, each stage of which relates to a different psychological state. Markets range (go sideways), before a compelling story for significant higher or lower prices develops and a trigger lends urgency and action to the move.

Take Donald Trump. In the year leading up to his election, US stock markets mostly ranged. They drifted sideways, bouncing between an upper and lower limit. It was a classic range. There was no compelling reason for the market to break out strongly higher or lower. Its like a stalemate between buyers and sellers. A psychological stalemate.

What the market needed was a story. An investment rationale to justify either higher or lower prices. Trump provided that. He came to represent a fiscal stimulus, reflation and looser regulation, all prime reasons for the market to move higher with the expectation of future growth. Keep in mind: it doesnt actually matter if Trump would actually succeed in reflating the market, just that the idea took hold in peoples minds.

That was the story: Trump equals reflation, growth and higher prices. What that story needed was a catalyst or trigger to lend it urgency. The election provided that. It lit a fire under the market, changed peoples expectations of future growth and smashed the market out of its range to the upside.

As Eoin told me in a note this morning, that story has played out for now. In fact that might well have implications for the FTSE 100 too. From his note:
The S&P500 has rallied by about 100 points following a breakout since November and since it has just completed the latest such rally a pause and consolidation is looking more likely than not.

The Wall Street leash effect means the FTSE-100 could also be at risk of some weakness.

Eoins theory is simple. This pattern range, story, trigger repeats itself over and over again in the markets. Understand it and you can trade it for big, short term gains. On that front, I have good news. Next week Eoin is hosting a free four part training program, designed to teach you his strategy (for free). You can learn more and reserve yourself a spot by following this link.

If youre unsure if its right for you, thats fine. It may be a case that you need more information, in which case use this link to learn more.

If youre unsure who Eoin is hes our resident trading (and technology) expert. He also provides daily market commentary to Southbank Investment Daily in the form of a three minute video. If you want to know more about Eoin and his ideas, you can find that at the end of each issue (including todays).

Or perhaps theres something else holding you back or confusing you. In which case, please let me know. I may be able to help. My email address is [email protected].

By the way, Ive also posted the agenda for next weeks training series beneath this email. Again, it might give you the information you need to decide if this is something you want to learn more about.

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Best,

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Nick OConnor
Associate Publisher, Southbank Investment Daily

P.S. Heres the agenda for next weeks training.

THE AGENDA: DAY 1 Monday, 13th March
HERDING CASH The only force capable of moving a stock price... and how to trade it...

1. The range is your friend: discover how to hone in on the most lucrative chart signal of them all (most traders HATE this)
2. Learn the human truth about financial markets that makes them much easier to read and profit from (most traders completely ignore this)
3. Revealed: the untapped profit potential of sleeper stocks... when they go, they go BIG...
4. Discover how to make big money from trading WITHOUT spread-betting, fixed odds or CFDs

Reserve my seat for this FREE online training event

THE AGENDA: DAY 2 Tuesday, 14th March
READING MINDS 3 steps to the perfect trade set-up...

1. The RANGE discover how this most hated trading signal stores profit potential like a coiled spring...
2. The STORY learn how a stocks next big move to the upside may have already been written...
3. The CATALYST revealed: how to decipher when a stock is most likely to break out of its range and rocket upwards...

Reserve my seat for this FREE online training event

THE AGENDA: DAY 3 Wednesday, 15th March
TRADING TRIGGERS Big money examples that will seem obvious to you now...

1. The system put together: learn how to trade for big gains without using ANY kind of leveraged instrument
2. Discover how a simple understanding of stories, and of human nature, can help you spot major upswings in stock prices before they happen...
3. Revealed: How to make big trading gains the intuitive way: without using any fiddly technical indicators or software programmes...

Reserve my seat for this FREE online training event

THE AGENDA: DAY 4 Thursday, 16th March
FIGHT or FLIGHT: Your chance to receive a live Trigger Point trading recommendation from Eoin Treacy...


You really are getting a lot of value for free here.

And to remind you, this is a one-time, one-off event.

The closing date for free enrolment is fast approaching.

You cant listen-in unless you register...

Dont miss out go here:

.
Southbank Investment Daily is published by Southbank Investment Research Ltd.




From time to time we may tell you about regulated products issued by Southbank Investment Research Limited. With these products your capital is at risk. You can lose some or all of your investment, so never risk more than you can afford to lose. Seek independent advice if you are unsure of the suitability of any investment. Southbank Investment Research Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA No 706697. https://register.fca.org.uk/.

2017 Southbank Investment Research Ltd. Registered in England and Wales No 9539630. VAT No GB629 7287 94. Registered Office: 8th Floor Friars Bridge Court, 41-45 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8NZ.

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: One of my Forex trading strengths is that I KNOW what I do not KNOW. The person that thinks that they KNOW it all in effect KNOWS nothing at all. We can see the parallel between Stock Trading and Forex Trading so that is the reason that I posted what I just got in my email box a few minutes ago. Since what they offer and explain is free, I will probably log in and have a listen.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing that I am trying to have Forex Traders here do and understand is what you need to do to be successful.

I hope you are understanding and see where we need to go to MAKE MONEY because that is what trading Forex should be all about.

1. Post 1,094,809
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3. Quote
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1. https://cdn-assets.forexfactory.net/...ar373397_4.gif Ata-Turkoglu
2. Joined May 2014 | Status: Full Time Trader | 3,290 Posts | Online Now

EURUSD Monthly Chart Update

Many of us could easily guess that after a bearish rally at the very end of February a phase of indecision and hesitation would follow. As you can see from the chart, price has built a doji candle so far, inside the first week of March. But of course it is too early to make a major decision just based on this. It is still developing. One thing for sure is that bears are definitely still strong on monthly.

One caviat to that bear strength is the position of price related to the huge descending flag. Normally what this would imply (from a graphically standpoint) is that the lower edge of the channel should act as rejection to push price higher. Considering that price couldn't touch the lower edge of flag channel inside the previous swing low, now we could calculate this fact in that bulls might get stronger to try a breakout from the thick red trendline first to also breakout from the following thick blue trendline (it is parallel adjusted to the big channel)

To me, the breakout levels for bulls stand clear: First they have to stay above 1.0495 and second, they have to get above 1.0795, otherwise price will continue either sideways with hesitation or if 1.0495 doesn't hold bears will continue their journey to South (most probably towards fib 78.6 area)

Stay Green
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Be a seer, not a looker!
Systematix v2 All Time Return: 349.8%

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BY CRAIG WILSON
VIDEO POSTED

MARCH 6, 2017


Stockman: Wall St is Misreading Trump - Fiscal Crisis Ahead


David Stockman joined CNBC to offer a stark warning for investors that continue to follow Wall Street on a path of misreading Trump’s policies while Washington is headed toward a fiscal bloodbath.


Stockman started out his fiscal warning saying, “I think that Wall Street is totally misreading Washington. It is pricing in a fantasy about a Trump stimulus that simply is not going to happen. There will be no big tax cut, there will be no $15 or $20 a share reduction in the corporate rate. Infrastructure stimulus [isn’t going to happen].”


The host then prompted how Stockman knew this to which he pushed, “we are heading into a debt ceiling trap that will grind the whole system to a halt by June or July. People are forgetting that we’ve been on a debt ceiling holiday. That holiday ends on March 15.”
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David Stockman is the former Budget Director under President Ronald Reagan. He also served in Congress where he was a two-term Congressman representing Michigan. Following his service in the U.S government, Stockman went on to work on Wall Street. Currently he is the bestselling author of Trumped! A Nation on the Brink… And How to Bring It Back.


The CNBC host then posed that this was not a new scenario to Donald Trump. David Stockman then took the point to task noting that, “This is totally new to Donald Trump. He tweeted last weekend that he had reduced the national debt by $12 billion. It is actually up $187 billion in the first 35 days that he has been in office. The cash on the Treasury’s balance sheet, and this is the key point, was $382 billion the day he was sworn in – as of last Friday it hit $178 billion and has bled $200 billion in cash.”


“That’s one fifth of a trillion while he didn’t even have his economic team in place. When they get to March 15 and the debt ceiling freezes at $20 trillion, they’ll have maybe $200 billion of cash. That is being run out at a rate of $3-5 billion a day. By June it will be gone. There is no pathway to a majority in the House or Senate to pass a debt ceiling increase in the trillions in order to make any of this stuff possible.”



The Art of the Deal – Myth vs Fiscal Reality
When asked about whether Trump’s negotiation tactic, The Art of the Deal, is presenting a different way of running the system than before Stockman did not hold back. He pushed, “[Trump might be doing that] But that makes it even more dangerous and reckless. This isn’t an Atlantic City Casino and the junk bond market’s of 1991. This is the big time – this is $20 trillion of debt. This is an environment with a House, Republican majority that doesn’t exist. That’s a delusion.

This is an environment of a gang of factions. They’re already beginning to splinter and fracture as a result of the Obamacare plan of “repeal and replace.”


“They won’t even get to tax reform before the debt crisis hits. We will have a government shutdown. It is totally unexpected, unpriced in, as they say by Wall Street. It will spook everybody. Trump is so reckless that this could go on for days, weeks or months in a way that we’ve never seen before. The 2011 with Obama will be a Sunday school picnic compared to what is likely coming down the pike.”


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Following the President’s speech to Congress the Dow Jones along with the S&P 500 jumped in a bullish tone following the Trump policy agenda. Stockman took the speech through an entirely different approach. He noted, “The Joint Session of Congress speech from last Tuesday night was irrelevant. It was the most fiscally irresponsible speech given by a President since LBJ talked about “guns and butter.” How can he possibly raise defense by $50 billion, more for Veterans, a trillion dollar or more for infrastructure, medical credits and all of the rest while cutting taxes by $3-5 trillion? This is complete madness.”



Trump and Rising Markets
When asked by the CNBC host about whether it was good policy for Donald Trump to continue to take credit for the rise in the stock market Stockman took the President’s mistake to task. “I think he’ll rue the day he took credit. You should never predicate what you’re trying to do for the long-run, as well as intended as he might be, for what the robo-machines are doing on Wall Street. The robo-machines can read words and when Trump speaks, they hit the “buy” key. They can’t read the “tea leaves” in Washington because it is far more complex and opaque than the stimulus the machines are used to.”



He was then asked about the 2012-2013 and the fiscal cliff worries and how they managed to raise the debt ceiling – but why a now Republican lead Congress and White House will not be able to be solve the debt dilemma? Stockman doubled down on his claim noting, “We now have a Republican president and a Republican Congress that is not about to start a bipartisan negotiation, like Obama did with former Speaker of the House Boehner. The reason that the Freedom Caucus exists today, and that the Tea Party is still half of the back bench, is because they believe they were sold out time after time. That is how they passed the debt ceiling.”


“Now Trump has declared war on the Democrats, the border, immigrants. The Democrats are not going to deliver any votes, in my view, for a debt ceiling increase unless he throws in the towel on Obamacare and border control. The politics today are three times more fragile than they were in any of the years mentioned with the fiscal cliff.”


When asked on his belief that the markets would much lower and to what extent he responded, “There is a massive fantasy built in that an economy 92 months into an expansion, almost the longest in history, can suddenly get up on its hind-legs and start growing again. Profits are still down. In the last 12 months they’re still about 10-12% below the peak in September 2014. I see nothing to reaccelerate the economy or profits and I see a huge bloodbath or a fiscal stalemate that will remove any of the stimulus that traders are expecting.”



To listen in on the full interview with David Stockman on the fiscal bloodbath he believes is headed to Washington featured on CNBC, CLICK HERE. If you want to explore David Stockman’s prescription for exactly what Trump and Washington most do to bring America back from the fiscal brink – get your FREE copy of his bestselling book TRUMPED! CLICK HERE.


Regards,
Craig Wilson, @craig_wilson7
for the Daily Reckoning

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March 6, 2017
The State of US State Exports

By George Friedman and Jacob L. Shapiro
A domestic political battle is brewing in the United States between President Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican Party over the president’s economic plans. Trump’s key economic positions during his campaign included his opposition to free trade deals, his promise not to cut Social Security and Medicare, and his support of large-scale infrastructure spending. These are all positions that have clashed with general Republican orthodoxy. They were also the reason that some Bernie Sanders supporters found themselves nodding in unexpected agreement with Trump’s proposed policies.


We can bring one key insight to this conversation as the battle lines are being drawn. It is extremely difficult to speak of the US economy as an undifferentiated whole. The US has varied economic interests at both the regional and state levels. This makes it extremely difficult to find a one-size-fits-all policy that can fix every problem.


This is not only true for the US—almost all large countries (and even some small ones) are highly regionalized. It is also not to say that national economic statistics are useless—they can be used to make important observations about the overall performance of a national economy, especially in terms of the economic power of a given country. But too often, discussion of the US economy focuses disproportionately on the national level and not enough on the regional.

What Export Patterns Tell Us
One way to illustrate how regions differ from each other is to look deeper at US exports. Readers of Geopolitical Futures’ work will be familiar with this concept: the US is the largest economy in the world by far, and yet exports account for just 12.6% of US GDP.

In absolute terms, US exports are still worth more than in most countries, totaling $2.2 trillion in 2016, according to the US Census Bureau. The only other country that comes close to or surpasses the US in terms of export value is China. The latest World Bank figures put the total value of Chinese exports at $2.4 trillion.

But on the whole, the US is a massive consumer economy that is not highly dependent on exports. This is true at the national level, but when US trade statistics are broken down by state, the situation is more complex.
http://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazona...70306_TWIG.jpg
Click to enlarge
Only 10 US states derive more than 10% of their state GDP from exports: Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. Eight of these states are located either in the Mideast or the South and voted for Trump in November’s presidential election.


Of these 10 states, four derive more than 4% of their GDP from exports to just one country. Michigan and North Dakota are highly dependent on exports to Canada. Texas is inordinately dependent on exports to Mexico, and Washington is heavily reliant on exports to China.

Views on NAFTA and China
Each state’s approach to trade agreements and negotiations will be defined by its own trading practices and economic focus. For states like Texas and Michigan, NAFTA is going to be a major economic and political issue. A large portion of these states’ economies—and a significant number of jobs—relies on trade across their southern and northern borders, respectively. These states also view the rise in China’s share of global manufacturing production as a potential threat, since they are manufacturing centers and China can produce goods at lower costs.

On the other hand, a state like Washington, located on the Pacific coast, will be less concerned with NAFTA and more concerned with policies that would open new potential trading markets in Asia. For example, stricter trade policies with China could affect Washington’s access to the Chinese market. As such, Pacific-facing states will have different priorities than Atlantic-facing states… and these regions will have different interests than the heartland.

Even states with similarly sized economies can have vastly different approaches to trade and economic policy based on their specific economic activities. Take South Carolina and Connecticut as examples. These states have similar GDP totals. However, as a percent of total US exports, South Carolina exports twice as much as Connecticut. In Connecticut, exports account for about 6% of GDP, and the state’s top trading partner is France. In South Carolina, exports account for over 15% of GDP, and the state’s top trading partner is China.

South Carolina is a manufacturing state and has been affected by globalization in a much different way than Connecticut. Ironically, a study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University ranks Connecticut dead last in terms of fiscal solvency of all US states, whereas South Carolina is ranked 18th. But such statistics observe dependencies each state develops and, therefore, speak to the individual states’ policy priorities.


A Lesson for Washington
It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a policymaker in Washington, DC to design a plan that will benefit both South Carolina’s manufacturing industry and Connecticut’s financial services and insurance industry. And these are just two of 50 states. Any federal official attempting to make plans at the national level must think in terms of 50 different states, or eight different economic regions, or a number of other divisions that reveal shared interests.
The map below indicates the vast differences between regions just in terms of GDP.
http://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazona...70306_TWIG.jpg
This is not a novel observation. The US Civil War was fought, in part, because different systems of economic production in the North and South created not just economic fissures, but also social and cultural gulfs so great that the country went to war. Earlier still in US history, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson lived in different economic universes, and the arguments between Federalists and Jeffersonian Democrats (and their views on economic policy) shaped and continue to shape the US’s development. The fault lines may have shifted, but the fundamental issue—the relationship between the federal government and the individual states—has never been settled.


The coming battle over economic policy will feature much grandstanding and sincere promises, some of which may be fulfilled. To understand what is at stake and why certain politicians advocate certain positions, it is not necessary to parse tweets or examine individual ideology. At the international level, we always argue that imperatives and constraints shape individual leaders as well as state actors. This is just as true at the subnational level, and even more so in a republic like the United States, where representatives who do not act in the interests of their constituencies can quickly find themselves out of a job.
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George Friedman
Editor, This Week in Geopolitics
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Comments From Benjaminis: This completes by thoughts for today why to understand the issues and the problems then you will not become one of those that has little grasp of reality and it will effect your ability to understand and act rather than just react after the fact.

I. Even the Fed Believes the Stock Market May Be in a Bubble
As the stock market surges higher by the day, more analysts are referring to current stock index levels as a “bubble.” I’m one of them, although I make the point that bubbles can last a long time and don’t pop just because valuations are stretched. It’s helpful to remember that Alan Greenspan called the stock market a bubble in 1996 (that was his “irrational exuberance” speech), but the bubble did not burst until 2000. This bubble won’t go on for four years, but it could go on for months before there’s a significant correction. But here’s a twist. It’s not only analysts who are calling this a bubble. This article shows the Federal Reserve has the same concern. The Fed’s focus is on market volatility as measured by the VIX, which is an options contract on the S&P 500. The problem with volatility is there isn’t any. Markets are complacent and are not expecting any sudden moves to the downside. It’s when markets are most complacent that sudden drops are most likely. August 2015 and January 2016 are good examples. Another drop could be right around the corner. The irony is the Fed may cause the drop with their planned rate increases starting March 15.



II. Not Every Government Is Anti-Gold. Here’s One That Wants You to Own It
Investors know that governments, central banks and multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund all dislike gold. The reason is easy to understand. Official institutions want to control money supply and print as much as they want whenever they want. A gold standard, or any reference to gold as a form of money, puts constraints on the unlimited printing of paper money. Governments don’t like the limits, so they don’t like gold. They disparage or denigrate gold (Ben Bernanke once said gold was nothing more than a “tradition”). But there’s at least one country in the world that understands the ability of gold to preserve wealth and act as a safe form of savings. That country is Kyrgyzstan. It’s in central Asia between China and Russia. In this article, you’ll see that the government of Kyrgyzstan is recommending that every citizen in the country hold at least 100 grams of gold. That’s about 3.2 ounces, or $4,000 worth of gold at current market rates. If the U.S. had the same policy, it would take 31,000 tons to provide every American with 3.2 ounces each. That’s more than all the official gold in the world! Of course, with than kind of demand in a tight physical market, the price of gold would skyrocket. Let’s see if Kyrgyzstan can lead the world back to sound money. Even if the world does not follow them, at least their citizens will have a time-tested form of wealth preservation.



III. Markets Got Brexit and Trump Wrong. They May Be Wrong About Le Pen Too
We all know how the pundits, polls and media failed dismally in 2016. They were certain the U.K. would vote to “Remain” in the European Union, but the people voted to “Leave.” They were certain that Hillary Clinton would win the U.S. presidential election, but Donald Trump won. (By the way, I predicted “Leave” and Trump -- and ways to profit from those predictions -- for our Intelligence Triggers readers. Here’s my new video that shows proof. Now there are new geopolitical risks on the horizon. There are major elections coming up in the Netherlands (March 15), France (April 23), Italy (probably this summer), and Germany (Sept. 24). Established parties in all of these countries are on the defensive and Trump-style nationalist candidates have a chance to win. This could mean the end of the euro and major market upheaval. For now, the mainstream media say all is well and the established parties will win in the end. What if they’re wrong again? There are a number of wild cards that are being ignored by the mainstream media. These include a nationalist first-round victory in the Netherlands, and a “leftist alliance” that could skew the odds in favor of Marine Le Pen in France. Possible terror attacks and new problems with Middle Eastern immigrant communities could also sway the voters. We’re watching this closely. It’s too soon to draw firm conclusions, but it’s also too soon to count out the nationalists. This article shows that markets are too complacent and may be in for another shock in 2017 like they were in 2016.



IV. The Art of the Deal Comes to the Currency Wars
There are two key principles to keep in mind when analyzing President Trump. The first is to take him seriously, but not literally. He says a lot of things that are not literally correct but do convey a correct understanding of important issues. The second is that everything is a negotiation. When Trump announces a position, that’s not where he expects to end up; it’s where he wants to start the bidding. Where he wants to end up can be considerably more moderate.


These traits are typical in business and personal affairs, but atypical of the blow-dried politicians and the sycophantic press who cover them. As a result, it’s hard to find useful analyses of where Trump is going in terms of economic policies. This article is a good example. Trump calls China the “grand champions” of currency manipulation. Fine. Does that mean the Treasury will make manipulation findings in April or that China won’t dare devalue? Not at all. Trump is just laying down markers and putting China on notice. In fact, it looks like Trump will use trade authority and the Commerce Department to compensate U.S. industries hurt by China’s cheap currency subsidies. This means China may get a “green light” to devalue, but they will pay the price in other ways, such as selective tariffs and subsidies to U.S. competitors. It’s all “the art of the deal.” Too bad Washington’s so-called “insiders” can’t get their minds around it.


V. Mexico Gets Ready for a Trade War With the U.S.
Ever since my book Currency Wars came out in 2011, I’ve made the point that currency wars go on for years, have no logical conclusion and lead inevitably to trade wars as the next phase. It now looks like we’re at the point. The Trump administration seems to favor a strong dollar, and the Fed is doing its part by raising rates. This means the U.S. may be temporarily out of the currency wars. But we’re now ready to pivot to trade wars. We see this in Trump’s rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his threats to tear up NAFTA and consideration being given to a border adjustment tax on imports. But trade wars are like currency wars in the sense that when one side takes action, the other side can respond in kind. It’s a race to the bottom that damages both sides. This article shows we’re now at that point, with Mexico threatening to retaliate if Trump puts tariffs on Mexican imports. Both currency wars and trade wars continue until either the international system is reformed or it collapses under the stress. Unfortunately, we should expect the latter.
All the best,
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Jim Rickards
Editor, Strategic Intelligence

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EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD: Where To Target If 10Y UST Breaks Above 2.5%? - SocGen


03 Mar 2017 12:57 EDT


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Societe Generale Cross Asset Strategy

The dollar remains in thrall to the Federal Reserve, but strong data, a runaway stock market and hawkish FOMC members are dragging the 10-year yield higher.


A break above 2.50 should revitalize the longer-tem move back to 3% and get the dollar out of its current range and back into an uptrend.


A test of Decembers highs against the yen, euro and pound (USD/JPY 118.60, EUR/USD 1.0340, GBP/USD 1.1980) should follow.
The catalyst for a break would be a repeat of the hawkish message weve been hearing from Fed Governors when Chair Yellen and Vice-Chair Fischer speak on Friday afternoon.
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COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: The KEY TO REALLY UNDERSTAND MONEY FLOW AND ROTATION IS THE BOND MARKETS !!!

I will do my best to explain it in a easy clear to the point way.

Here is a 5 Minute Chart from Finviz on US 30 (Dow 30)

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=m5

You can see the directions that it took today.

Now on to the US Dollar Index.

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=DX&p=m5

And Now the US 10 Year Bond.

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=ZN&p=m5

As the US Bonds go up in Price the Yields go down so when we see the US BONDS head down the Yields go up and OVER 2.50 causes big problems as the US Bonds sell off and the MONEY rotates to other Asset Classes including Equities and USD/JPY and USD/CHF and to Gold and Silver.

Please post any questions that you have and I will answer them.

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Home | Blog | Hayek on Fake News
Hayek on Fake News

1. https://mises.org/sites/default/file...?itok=HyGTWK7x

Tags Media and Culture

03/02/2017Peter G. Klein

"Fake news" emerged as a dominant theme of the 2016 US presidential election campaign and has been in the public eye ever since. To now-president Trump, the term refers to CNN, the New York Times, and other outlets that portray him unfavorably; to Democrats, it means politically incorrect websites, blogs, and social media accounts. In this context it's not surprising that public trust in the media, in the US and elsewhere, is at an all-time low. (Even Trump appears as more trustworthy in some polls.)


To the libertarian, this is hardly news. The mainstream media has long been part of what Rothbard called the "opinion-molding class," the group of intellectuals, academics, journalists, and public figures whose essential role is to legitimize the administrative state. Journalists don't report the news; they shape public opinion by choosing what to report and how to "spin" the story to fit a particular worldview, or "narrative." This is often deliberate, but can be subconscious, because journalists, like all of us, suffer from confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret ideas and evidence in a way that is consistent with our prior beliefs.


Rothbard, Mises, Schumpeter, and others have written about this phenomenon, but one of the most compelling treatments comes from Hayek, in his classic 1945 article, The Intellectuals and Socialism. As Joe Salerno has recently pointed out, this essay is sometimes used to justify a trickle-down model in which academics and other thinkers target their work toward journalists and other intellectuals what Hayek called the "secondhand dealers in ideas" -- who then disseminate the ideas to the general public. But this is not at all what Hayek has in mind. Rather, he offers a blistering critique of the intellectuals (by which he means journalists, teachers, clergy, and other public figures).


The intellectual, according to Hayek, is not an expert or deep thinker; "he need not possess special knowledge of anything in particular, nor need he even be particularly intelligent, to perform his role as intermediary in the spreading of ideas. What qualifies him for his job is the wide range of subjects on which he can readily talk and write, and a position or habits through which he becomes acquainted with new ideas sooner than those to whom he addresses himself" (p. 372). Such people wield enormous influence because most us learn about world events and ideas through them. "It is the intellectuals in this sense who decide what views and opinions are to reach us, which facts are important enough to be told to us, and in what form and from what angle they are to be presented" (pp. 37273).


The reports and editors who staff the major media outlets tend to have a particular view of the world, one that puts the state, its functionaries, and its sycophants front and center. Because of confirmation bias, they filter information and events to fit this view. As Hayek puts it (p. 376):

It is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the intellectual that he judges new ideas not by their specific merits but by the readiness with which they fit into his general conceptions, into the picture of the world which he regards as modern or advanced. . . . As he knows little about the particular issues, his criterion must be consistency with his other views and suitability for combining into a coherent picture of the world. Yet this selection from the multitude of new ideas presenting themselves at every moment creates the characteristic climate of opinion, the dominant Weltanschauung of a period, which will be favorable to the reception of some opinions and unfavorable to others and which will make the intellectual readily accept one conclusion and reject another without a real understanding of the issues.


Today's dominant Weltanschauung focuses on the state and state power. Indeed, with a few notable exceptions, modern journalists don't investigate, analyze, and render an informed opinion. Instead, they function more like press agents for the president or other government officials. During the buildup to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the major US and European news media simply repeated the Bush Administration's claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, the growing threat of Iraq to the world, and so on. Even after this was revealed as fake news, journalists stuck to the script; when the financial crisis hit in 2008, they simply repeated the Bush and later Obama Administration claims that without massive bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus, the entire world financial system would collapse. The media rarely if ever challenge the dominant narrative; they create, shape, and reinforce it in what they report and how they report it.

ON EDIT: During 2003 , I tried to have an influence to stop the WAR to come in Iraq so I have personal knowledge of the events of 2003 and my words then are REALITY now. Here is my letter...

Yesterday to my great sadness and I am sure to the
American soldiers who accidentally killed those women and children by
shooting at them when they didn't stop. The American soldiers thought they
were another wave of suicide Iraq combatants.

Sadly their deaths and all those who have needlessly
died for no good reason other than the immoral and bankrupt policies of
the US Government. Tony Blair and George Walker Bush bear the
responsibilities of their actions. G-D will judge them as the Pope
stated before this tragic and unnecessary war started.

All of us reading this email in our respective lots in
life, have a responsibility to act as best we can to stop the
killing of innocent women, men and children. Let us not forget that the
brave and loyal soldiers of the United States Of America and Great
Britain are also victims of this historic tragedy. They just are doing
their duty.

America for the first time in their glorious 227 years
as a great empire since they were created by the founding fathers in
1776, has now attacked another nation without justification and
pre-emptively. The first time in their long history that they have done
so.

For Canadians reading this we can discuss some issues
in public through the Canadian House Of Commons. For me I would like to
see the NDP Party of Canada ask the Canadian Government as represented
by the Liberal Party Of Canada and Prime Minister Jean Chretien,
answer a question about the chemical agent, VX, one of Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction.

From the research that I have read in the attached
files, as Dr Glen Rangwala has so clearly pointed out.You can refer to
VX for yourself by clicking on it in the Index of Dr Glen Rangwala's
research file attached in the forwarded email with hot links to the material,
I conclude that whatever VX that the Iraq Government had was produced
prior to 1991,with the assistance of the US and UK Government. The
VX produced was estimated to be about 4 tons maximum but it could have
been much less than that. Iraq never publicly disclosed how much of
the VX was used against Iran during their conflict for political
reasons. The accepted quantity of VX that may be left at present time is 1.5
tons as is often mentioned by the US and UK Governments.
In the research of Dr Glen Rangwala, he states based
on the information contained in the public records of UNSCOM, IAEA and
IISS that VX degrades. So in all likelihood even if Iraq still holds some VX, since
the best scientific minds say that after 12 years at the most, any VX
left would have lost it's potency. It is quite clear to me that since
Iraq produced it's VX prior to the first Gulf war in 1991, that 12
years and more have passed since the Iran-Iraq war, that
when the American and British Government talk to the world about the great
danger Iraq poses to the world with it's 1.5 tons of unaccounted for, VX
that they are not being truthful. Surely the CIA most also know this.

For Americans reading this, I would like to see someone ask US Senator
Jay Rockerfellow of West Virginia,to ask the FBI to also ask President
Bush and his administration, are they aware of the VX potency after 12
years issue. Since Senator Rockerfellow has already asked the FBI to
investigate why President George Walker Bush used information concerning
Iraq's nuclear capability that was obtained from Nigeria. Fortunately
the world learned through the UN inspectors report of March 7, 2003
that the information used by President Bush in his State Of The Union speech
of January 2003 was not valid in that the documents
used as background was forged. George Tenet of the CIA decided that these
documents were questionable, however President Bush still choose to
use this misinformation in his State Of The Union Address.

Maybe Helen Thomas, a great and courageous US citizen and White House
reporter might like to ask Ari Fleisher during the daily press briefing
at the White House how long does VX gas retain it's potency ?

I won't feel responsible for the next child murdered in Iraq because I
know that since March 7, 2003 at 11:52 PM when I started this research
and information project with my two good American
writer friends, that I have given my all to try to prevent the war.

Unfortunately I have failed in that task. However I am not willing to stand idly
by and watch more Iraq children and their mothers and fathers including American and
British soldiers lose their life for reasons that are only truly known
to the American and British Government of President George Walker Bush
and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

May G-D bless us all and give us added strength and
wisdom to find a way to stop this unjust and unauthorized war.

The UN failed to stop the war.

Will we also fail ? I hope not because if we do, their
will be another victim. The great nation of The United States Of
America, a friend to Canada and Canadians as Canada has been and still is
to America.

America is now in grave danger of losing their position in the
world, as holder of the world's only reserve currency, the US dollar.

The Euro is starting to take over that position as nations such as
Iraq and North Korea already use the Euro as their reserve currency.
Iran is thinking about converting to the Euro from the US dollar.

Russia in the last six months has reduced their holding of American dollars
from 70% to 50% , replacing the 20% with the Euro and putting 10% of
their reserves in gold. It should be noted that since 1971 when President Nixon untied
the US dollar to gold, for the first time in American history.

The Clinton administration had a strong US dollar policy that was directly responsible for the stock market bubble
through the assistance of the Federal Reserve led by Alan Greenspan. When President Bush took
power in January 2001, American interest rates were 6%.

They now are 1.25%. The Fed is in a jam now. If they raise interest rates now, the massive American housing debt bubble
crashes. If he lowers the rates it will exacerbate the decline of the US dollar. If the US dollar falls to 85 cents to the Euro as many
world economists have predicted, inflation will reign again as never seen before. Since gold is the only thermometer of inflation, since 1971
America has had no instrument to alert American's to the reality of inflation. If the great debt bubble of the American Government and it's
citizens collapses then there is deflation. So the US Government as stated by Fed Governor
Bernake during a November 2002 speech, "The US Government has a secret weapon, it is called a printing press" That is the
real reason that the US dollar has declined from $1.08 to the Euro in December 2000 to the point where today positions are reversed and it is now
$1.08 to the US dollar in favor of the Euro. The US dollar is in great danger of going the way of the German mark during their war when they
hyper inflated away their mark currency. The US Government needs the help of the world each
day to the tune of 1.5 Billion dollars each day to support their dollar.

If the world decides to start switching over to the Euro as it seems to be doing now, the US dollar will collapse and the
unfortunate end of the United States as a world power will begin to happen.
You may ask yourself why am I telling you all this ?

I will now answer you. The real reason for this Iraq war in my honest
opinion is not Iraq oil per say. However by getting control of Iraq's oil wells, the 2nd
largest oil reserves in the world, the US Government will be able to
lower the price of oil, reduce Opec's influence on higher oil prices. Allow the US and Japan to have cheaper oil for their
economies, Russia as a oil exporter, has a cost of oil to produce of about $18.00 dollars
a barrel. Cheap oil is bad for their economy. Also by lowering the price of oil to levels of $12.00 or so, the Opec nations
receive less revenue due to the effecttive breaking of the Opec Cartel. In conclusion this war is not about oil. It is about the dismantling of
Opec and thus lower oil costs for the American economy. It is about who controls the
world's reserve currency, The US or Europe.

It is about PNAC as stated by members of the US Government. This is public information. People such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary Of State,
Donald Rumsfeld and Mr Pearle have convinced President Bush of the correctness of the PNAC
"Pact For A New American Century"


History and G-D will be the judge of our actions.
Sincerely yours

Here is what the three of us sent to The Guardian (THEY NEVER PUBLISHED)



Subject: URGENT BRIEFING FOR MEMBER'S IMMEDIATE
ATTENTION: UK Expert's Analysis Reveals More Lies and
Distortions from US and UK
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 13:30:27 -0600
HTML Attachment [ Scan with Norton AntiVirus | Save
to my Yahoo! Briefcase | Download Without Scan ]
We are a group of volunteer internet researchers and
writers from the US, Canada and the UK, who have
uncovered an exhaustively documented and
extraordinarily authoritative research developed by a
UK expert of unimpeachable credentials. We believe
this data could help stop the march to war if gotten
into the right hands in time. We have provided the
following information to our contacts at the
Guardian-Observer newspapers as an exclusive. In the
meantime, this informationin its entirety, belongs in
the hands of anti-war MPs. This briefing paper is
provided for the Member's use in countering claims
made by senior government officials in the US and UK.


FOR IMMEDIATE USE BY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
Exclusive to Guardian-Observer Until 8 PM (GMT) 12
March 2003

For Immediate Release 9 March 2003

UK Expert's Analysis Reveals More Lies and Distortions
from US and UK
Casts Doubt on VX Gas and Other Claims
Not only has the US strong-armed, threatened and
wiretapped Security Council members in their drive to
exact support for a new UN Resolution for war with
Iraq, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have
based their argument for war on claims that have been
shown to be exaggerated, fabricated, incomplete or
clearly untruthful. Research and analysis conducted
by Dr. GlenRangwala, a respected analyst and lecturer
in politics at Newnham College, Cambridge University,
clearly indicates that many other claims made by UK
and US officials about Iraq WMD, including VX gas, are
dubious at best.

The Research and the Researcher
Dr. Rangwala is the Cambridge scholar who discovered
that the Blair dossier on Iraq was drawn largely from
a plagiarized source 10 years old. Dr. Rangwala’s
analysis is based on official sources from the US, UK,
UNSCOM, IAEA, UNMOVIC, IISS and related .
Dr. Rangwala immediately recognized Blair’s 10-year
old primary source document because of he maintains a
continually updated online analysis of Iraqi weapons,
programs and missiles proscribed under Security
Council Resolution 687. His research file may be
accessed at his Middle East Reference site
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqweapons.html ).
Dr. Rangwala's point-by-point analyses compare US, UK,
UNSCOM, IAEA, UNMOVIC, IISS and related official
sources, and include fully sourced citations with
hot-links to the original documents or scholarly
articles related to those documents.

The entire file is highly revealing. We have chosen
to focus in this briefing on Dr. Rangwala’s analysis
of Iraq’s VX gas as a pertinent example, in light of
Secretary Powell’s recent insistence that Iraq still
retains substantial quantities of VX gas, is thus in
violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and
must be attacked forthwith. From Dr. Rangwala’s file
(claims followed by his evaluation):
VX Nerve Gas

Previous US/UK claims are found at:
· UK dossier, 24 September 2002, p.16 ,
· U.S.State Department, 19 December 2002,
· White House, January 2003, p.6
Most recently, Secretary Powell, 5 February 2003: "It
took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had
produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX.
[...] UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq
had produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery.
Yet, to this day, Iraq denies it had ever weaponized
VX. And on January 27, UNMOVIC told this council that
it has information that conflicts with the Iraqi
account of its VX program."
Evaluation (Rangwala)

1998, UNSCOM found VX degradation products on missile
warheads, indicating that Iraq had stabilized VX
sufficiently and had managed to weaponize it (in
contrast to the Government of Iraq's own claims). Two
factors would indicate that the 1.5 tons of VX nerve
agent no longer exist in operational form.
Firstly, Iraq claimed that this quantity of VX was
discarded unilaterally by dumping it on the ground. VX
degrades rapidly if placed onto concrete (see this
report of 15 November 2002). In accordance with Iraq's
claim, UNSCOM tested the site at which the VX was
reportedly dumped. UNSCOM's January 1999 report states
in Appendix II, paragraph 16:
"Traces of one VX-degradation product and a chemical
known as a VX-stabilizer were found in the samples
taken from the VX dump sites."
However, from this information alone, UNSCOM was not
able to make "a quantified assessment"; that is, they
were not able to verify that all 1.5 tons of the agent
had been so destroyed.
Iraq provided further material from late February 2003
to substantiate its case, material that is currently
being assessed.

Secondly, VX, even if stabilized, degrades. The IISS
strategic dossier of September 2002 records the status
of VX produced before the Gulf War: "Any VX produced
by Iraq before 1991 is likely to have decomposed over
the past decade [...]. Any G-agent or V-agent stocks
that Iraq concealed from UNSCOM inspections are likely
to have deteriorated by now." (pp. 52 and 53).
A Defector’s Testimony
As further indication of Iraq’s compliance, see Dr.
Rangwala’s analysis of the 1995 UNSCOM/IAEA interview
(transcript here) with Gen. Hussein Kamel, the former
director of Iraq's Military Industrialization
Corporation in charge of Iraq's weapons program.
(Analysis at
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html ) Gen.
Kamel, a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, defected to
Jordan in August 1995 with his brother Col. Saddam
Kamel, at which point he turned over crates of
documents revealing past weapons programs to UNSCOM.
In the interview (pages 7-8, 12 and 13), Kamel states
categorically, "I ordered destruction of all chemical
weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile,
nuclear were destroyed" (p. 13). He insisted that
“nothing remained” of the biological program, that the
production facility was turned to other uses, that he
“made the decision to disclose everything so that Iraq
could return to normal" (p.8) and that “we gave
insturctions [sic] not to produce chemical weapons"
(p.13).

Dr. Rangwala points out:
"Despite the significance of these claims, it was not
known that Kamel made this assertion until February
2003. Kamel's claim was first carried on 24 February
2003 by Newsweek, who reported that Kamel told U.N.
inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire
stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and
banned missiles, as Iraq claims (Newsweek, 3/3/03).
Newsweek reported that the weapons were destroyed
secretly, in order to hide their existence from
inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming
production after inspections had finished. The CIA and
MI6 were told the same story, Newsweek reported."
However, these facts were "hushed up by the U.N.
inspectors" in order to "bluff Saddam into disclosing
still more,” according to Newsweek.
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow angrily denied the Newsweek
report. "It is incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue,"
Harlow told Reuters the day the report appeared
(Reuters, 24 February 2003).

The Significance of Hussein Kamel
Dr. Rangwala notes that Kamel's departure from Iraq
was the major turning point of the inspections saga.
As UNSCOM said in their final substantive report, "
the overall period of the Commission's disarmament
work must be divided into two parts, separated by the
events following the departure from Iraq, in August
1995, of Lt. General Hussein Kamal" (see 25 January
1999 letter to U.N. Security Council, Enclosure 1,
para.12).
Kamel's defection has been cited repeatedly by
President Bush and leading officials in both the UK
and US as evidence that
(1) Iraq has not disarmed;
(2) Inspections cannot disarm Iraq; and
(3) Defectors such as Kamel are the most reliable
source of information on Iraq's weapons.
Yet the US and UK continue to insist that VX is still
an issue of Iraq’s disarmament in PM Blair’s
statement to the House of Commons on 25 February 2003;
President Bush’s speech of 7 October 2002 speech; VP
Dick Cheney’s speech on 26 August 2002; and Secretary
Powell's 5 February 2003 presentation to the UN
Security Council in which he claimed, "It took years
for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four
tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of
VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons. The
admission only came out after inspectors collected
documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein
Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law."

Dr. Rangwala concludes:
The above quotes from President Bush, Prime Minister
Blair and Secretary Powell refer to material produced
by Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War. The administration
has cited various quantities of chemical and
biological weapons on many other occasions -- weapons
that Iraq produced but which remain unaccounted for.
All of these claims refer to weapons produced before
1991. According to Kamel's transcript, Iraq destroyed
all of these weapons in 1991.
[ …] If Kamel is to be taken as seriously as the UK
and US administrations have previously held him to be,
then his claim that "[a]ll weapons - biological,
chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed" should be
taken seriously.
Regarding Iraq’s cooperation prior to 1998, Dr.
Rangwala noted that “Non-cooperation was recorded in
only 5 out of 427 inspections in the round before
inspectors were withdrawn on the request of the US;
those 5 instances resulted in minor delays, not
inspection refusals,” as detailed by UNSCOM in their
reports of October 1996, April and October 1997, and
December 1998, (See Dr. Rangwala’s April 2002 paper,
"A Threat to the World?: The facts about Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction" at
http://www.arabmediawatch.com/iraq/reading/artgr6.htm
)


We are providing this information to you in the hope
that you will be able to use it to refute
unsubstantiated claims made by Messrs. Bush and Blair
regarding the presence of large quantities of VX Gas
in Iraq. We believe this material underlines the
effectiveness of the weapons inspectors in finding and
destroying weapons of mass destruction, which is the
purported reason for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq.
The research file provides similar up-to-the-minute
analysis of all element of Iraq's weapons and weapons
programs, including the most recent claims about
unmanned drones. In each instance, the claims made by
US and UK officials fail to stand up to the actual
findings of the UNSCOM, IAEA and UNMOVIC inspectors
from the close of the Gulf War to this date. Without
such expert analysis and multi-level, point-by-point
comparison as Dr. Rangwala has provided, it would be
virtually impossible for anyone outside the
arms-control community to understand that the weight
of the evidence continually falls short of the claims
of Messrs. Bush, Blair, Powell and Straw.
Dr. Rangwala's contact information is provided at
http://mediaguide.admin.cam.ac.uk/FMPro…

11 March 2003
For Further Information about this brief
Contact Information (Confidential):
Joan B. Krawitz
US Tel. 847-869-5025
Email [email protected]



Indeed, there are plenty of current examples of obvious "fake news" items that are embraced, and reinforced, by the mainstream media, other intellectuals, and academics. One is the oft-repeated claim that "97% of scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming" (AGW). This claim usually refers to a study (Cook et al., 2013) which surveyed a large sample of abstracts of scientific papers dealing with climate change. The majority of those papers expressed no opinion on AGW. Among the minority that did (33%), 97% accepted the view that human activity causes global warming. So not only does the study not survey the views of "scientists," or even climate scientists, it simply shows that about a third of papers dealing with climate change over the last 20 years made the case for AGW. (See here for other studies claiming to come up with a similar figure.)


Another claim typically treated as factual is that one out of five US female college students is a victim of sexual assault. As Robby Soave has discussed in detail, this claim is based on a largely discredited study a single study of one university by psychologist David Lisak. As Soave shows, the study shows nothing of the kind, yet the one-in-five figure is consistently reported as fact by the major media.


It would be easy to come up with more examples. The current obsession over Russian interference in the US election is a likely candidate. The point is that journalists rarely investigate and form independent judgments based on evidence, but rather collect and repeat stories, ideas, and examples that fit their world view. Is it any wonder that the public doesn't take them seriously?


https://mises.org/sites/default/file..._org_250_3.png
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/4.0/88x31.png

Comments From Benjaminis: I sincerely hope that those of you that come here for information and to learn understand what is happening now in the USA and this independent article posted and shared here makes that very clear. It really is a great crime against all of us who imagine that the Main Stream Media around the world are fair and objective. Perhaps thank to Al Gore who invented the Internet (Didn't He ? :-)) we all have a chance to find out for ourselves then decide for ourselves as to what is truth and what is fiction.

https://dailyreckoning.com/deep-stat...20Notification


https://dweaay7e22a7h.cloudfront.net...91-650x360.jpg
https://dweaay7e22a7h.cloudfront.net...idStockman.jpg
BY DAVID STOCKMAN
POSTED
MARCH 6, 2017


The Deep State Attempts to “Decapitate” Donald Trump


Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper went on NBC this weekend to do his best imitation of the answer he gave under oath in March 2013 whether the phone calls of U.S. citizen were being monitored.


He’s answer at the time was “No, sir.” Yesterday’s response to NBC’s inquiry about whether there were taps at Trump Tower was not dissimilar: “Not to my knowledge.”


Stated differently, the man should be in jail for lying under oath to the U.S. Senate and the voters, as Edward Snowden’s revelations three months later proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Instead, he was on television presumably lying to the American public yet again.


To find a possibly honest Attorney General who can actually speak publicly on the matter you have to reach all the way back to Mike Mukasey, George W. Bush’s last AG nine year ago. Although aligned with the Never Trumpers, Mukasey left little to the imagination during his appearance on ABC:
“I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general — at the Justice Department.”

As one of the architects of the Imperial City’s multi-billion, out-of-control domestic spying operation, the man should know. Even Mukasey couldn’t bring himself to deny that Donald Trump is in the gun-sights of the Deep State.


The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page today sums it up as good as any:
Democrats are trying to capitalize on anonymous leaks based on U.S. intelligence collection to destroy the Trump Presidency.


And that gets us to the raging robo-machines of Wall Street. They are betting that the stimulus baton is going to be handed off to fiscal policy; and that the U.S. economy and corporate profits will leap out of their multi-year stupor owing to massive tax cuts, infrastructure and defense spending and sweeping deregulation.


As one dim-witted asset manager said on Bloomberg this morning — the weekend wildness to the contrary notwithstanding — he is bullish because the Trump people are going for “growth.”


Yes, and if dogs could whistle, the world would be a chorus.

What’s actually happening, of course, is that the Deep State and its minions in the permanent governing class of the Imperial City are going for decapitation of the nation’s 45th president.


Accordingly, the odds that any elements of the vaunted Trump Stimulus will see the light of day are somewhere between slim and none.


The reasons are blindingly evident. The checks-and-balances ridden machinery of the nation’s government was designed by the founders to not work even under normal circumstances — based on a well warranted fear of majoritarian excesses.


Indeed, the only time that the machinery can really move with alacrity is when a President is riding extremely high in the saddle and can coax and catalyze Capitol Hill into action. That’s what FDR did during his famous 100 Days in the dark spring of 1933.


And it was also how LBJ rammed the Great Society into law during 1965 after his 1964 landslide victory. Even Ronald Reagan managed to wiggle his giant tax cut through a recalcitrant Congress by a hair owing to a momentary but massive outpouring of goodwill after being nearly fatally shot.


By contrast, when a President is on the ropes, the dead hand of James Madison rules the Washington roost. I was on hand as a bit player when Nixon became the “pitiful helpless giant” he rallied against during his better days in office.

https://ads.agorafinancial.com/www/d...&cb=3508f96ec6
Yet that’s exactly what he became after he fired John Dean and accepted the resignation of his closest aides on April 30, 1973. As it happened, Tricky Dick survived in office another 15 months, but the wheels of government stopped dead in the water.


I expect no less during the next 15 months — to pick an arbitrary period — because if the Trump Stimulus is not enacted by then, it never will be in the run-up to the 2018 elections.


Nor am I predicting that a GOP Congress will impeach the Donald or even try. What I do predict, however, is that Washington will succumb to partisan acrimony of an unprecedented scope and intensity, and that the gang of ideological factions known as the Republican Party will soon splinter into factions while attempting to grapple with the Trump agenda.


This prospect means, in turn, that there is no path to a Congressional majority to raise the debt ceiling when it freezes into law at about $20 trillion on March 15.


As it happened, I was challenged on CNBC last week on this matter by a bullish trader who recalled that the debt ceiling showdowns in 2011 and 2013 quickly passed. The implication was that Wall Street’s hired servants on Capitol Hill dare not contemplate any action that might inconvenience the gamblers and high rollers who dominate the joint.


But those crises were overcome only because Speaker John Boehner was willing on every occasion to sell-out the GOP’s minority of fiscal hawks via a “bipartisan” deal with Nancy Pelosi and Obama. So there is a reason why the words “good riddance” immediately comes to mind when I hear the former Speaker’s name.


But here’s the thing. Boehner is gone and the Democrats are going in for the kill on Trump because they absolutely do not accept the shocking result of November 8. That’s what this entire anti-Russian witch-hunt is all about — a thinly veiled cover story for re-litigating the election of a sitting president.

And that means, in turn, a running constitutional crisis, not a midnight stick save when Uncle Sam runs out of cash a few months down the road.

And if anyone believes that the GOP will patch up its differences and fall into ranks to vote a $24 trillion debt ceiling through in order to accommodate the Trump tax cuts, a huge defense increase, border walls and thousands of more armed guards, they need look no further than the Obamacare “repeal and replace” campaign.

It’s already DOA. In recent days both the Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study group have discovered what I have been saying since Ryan’s plan leaked two weeks ago. The current Speaker is on the very of doing a Boehner Special.


That is, selling out the fiscal conservatives with a phony repeal and replace plan that amounts to little more than Obamacare Lite. They have figured out that Ryan would leave the $5.5 trillion ten-year cost of Medicaid — along with the Obama expansion — largely intact.


And it would simply shuffle one new entitlement — the Obama exchange subsidies for families up to 4X the poverty line — with another age-based “refundable” tax credit, which is just a euphemism for an entitlement.


Hard upon the coming “repeal and replace” fiasco will come the debt ceiling crisis. Yet the boys and girls on Wall Street are so used to getting their stimulus snack from Janet Yellen when they want it, they cannot see the obvious denial coming down the fiscal pike.


When the robo-machines finally figure out the Gong Show raging in Washington means no jam today, they may come to an altogether different conclusion.
Regards,
David Stockman
for The Daily Reckoning




https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...-v-republican/


Blog/Corruption
Posted Mar 6, 2017 by Martin Armstrong
https://armstrongmedia.s3.amazonaws....cs-300x269.jpg
We are perhaps witnessing the political crisis of a life time. Our model has been projecting this crisis and I warned more than 20 years ago that the Democratic Party was in serious decline. Keep in mind that Trump effectively became a third party candidate within the Republican Party. So by no means is this a major victory for Republicans. We are witnessing the collapse of government from internal corruption gone wild. Both parties have sold their souls to the elite. Why would all the bankers and hedge funds donate to Hillary if she REALLY cared about the middle class? Politicians have lied constantly from both parties. This crisis of abuse of power trying to link Trump to Russia was a desperate attempt to win. There was no proof and that is the only reason Obama had to accept the vote.



Where we go from here is nothing but chaos. We are witnessing the meltdown of the European Parliament structure as well. This is the self-destruction of the West and the necessary element that will shift the financial capital of the world to China. So buckle up. This is by no means Democrat v Republican. This is game over.

The sooner we all realize that both sides are really against the people, the better off we will be in the long-run. To save something of what we have DEMANDS we stop the partisan bickering. If you see yourself as a Democrat or Republican BEFORE being an American, you are going to end up on the short-end of the stick.


Categories: Corruption, Politics
Jarrett from within White House May Have Launched a Watergate Style Attack on Trump During Election
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...k-socrates.jpg


COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: The two articles here are very important to put into your memory bank. We see what is happening from two reputable and knowledgeable sources that are trustworthy and can see the handwriting on the wall. It is important to at the least be aware of it because there will be very soon a major effect on the World Financial Markets.

If you are in the dark and the events start occurring as they surely will then you will be blindsided and miss your opportunity to take advantage of your knowledge that gives you a Trading EDGE. That is it for today and tomorrow news and events will happen and things will change once again. There are many MAJOR RISK ON EVENTS AHEAD of us so be aware and follow your Forex trading plan and be patient.

GREAT PIVOT POINT CHART from Davits on EUR/USD with Fundamental News events noted.

I share it here before signing off. EUR/USD trades now at 105.83

https://www.forexfactory.com/attachm...3&d=1488852293


Benjaminis

https://mishtalk.com/2017/03/07/gdpn...es/#more-44547



MishTalk
~ Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis



GDP Now 1st Quarter Forecast Plunges to 1.3% Following Vehicle Sales and Factory Orders Reports

07 Tuesday Mar 2017


Posted by Mish | March 7, 2017 12:15:42 | Economics



The GDPNow Model forecast for 1st quarter 2017 GDP plunged 0.5 percentage points to 1.3% following recent economic data.


Todays dismal trade data was not a factor. Advance trade data on February 28 showed the trade deficit in goods jumped 7.6% to $69.2 billion, and that data was already factored into the model.


The reason for todays plunge was light vehicle sales on March 2 and the factory orders data yesterday.
https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=350


Latest forecast: 1.3 percent March 7, 2017
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 1.3 percent on March 7, down from 1.8 percent on March 1. The forecasts for first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real nonresidential equipment investment growth fell from 2.1 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively, to 1.8 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, after Thursdays motor vehicles sales release from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to first-quarter growth fell from -0.50 percentage points to -0.72 percentage points after yesterdays manufacturing report from the U.S. Census Bureau.


GDP Release Dates
https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=280


What Happened?

1. The auto sales report took off 0.3 percentage points from the March 1 estimate.
2. The factory orders and shipments report took off another 0.2 percentage points.
3. ISM services did not affect the model, nor did todays trade report.

Meanwhile, and in a switch in roles from a month or so ago, it is the New York Fed Nowcast Model that seems wildly high.
Competing Models

1. New York Fed Nowcast (March 3): 3.1%
2. GDPNow (March 7): 1.3%
3. Markit (March 3): 2.5%

The Markit forecast was made by Chris Williamson, Markit Chief Economist. For details, please see PMI Services Lowest Reading in 5 Months; ISM Services Highest Reading Since October 2015.

Flashback February 2
First Quarter GDPNow Forecast 3.4 Percent: How Many Believe That?

Take the Under
I do not buy this enormous jump in predicted GDP for one second.

For 4th quarter of 2016, the final Nowcast was at 2.1%,. GDPNow was at 2.9% off a full percentage point.
When looking at this latest GDPNow forecast of 3.4%, I will place my typical mental bet when looking at these hugely optimistic forecasts: Take the under, way under.


Related Articles

1. February 28: Trade Deficit Unexpectedly Widens: Exports Sink, Imports Up Sharply
2. February 28: March Rate Hike Odds Surge to 80 Percent: New Standard for Surprisingly Strong Economy
3. March 1: GDPNow Forecast Plunges to 1.8% Following Personal Income and Outlays Report.
4. March 6: Factory Order Details Disappoint Again
5. March 7: Trade Deficit Steepens Led by China: Top Six Offenders

If the latest GDPNow estimate is close to the mark, it will be amusing watching the Fed hike in what they label a surprisingly strong economy.

Mike Mish Shedlock.

GREAT CHART ON USD/JPY

Have a LOOK !!!

https://www.forexfactory.com/attachm...7&d=1488894367


Comments from Benjaminis: USD/JPY will be at 112.000 when and if Dow 30 (US 30) goes below 20,000

THAT is almost a 100% Guarantee. It is all about MONEY FLOW and CORRELATION !!!

Feedback is welcome...


Benjaminis

From my POST 2282 - BRING IT ON !!!

 

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USD/JPY: Where To Target Into Fed's Hikes In March, June & September - Deutsche Bank

06 Mar 2017 10:29 EDT



https://www.efxnews.com/sites/defaul...20Bank.001.png
FX Strategy
Deutsche Bank
{C}{C}


The uptrend in the USD/JPY is unlikely to be smooth and should endure occasional corrections. As seen in GPIF's December settlement, Japanese investors would support the USD/JPY at around 110 by dip-buying but are unlikely to be a driving force above 115. In the near term, if the rate fails to go beyond 115 if/when the Fed raises rates this month, the currency can be corrected down in disappointment. However, we stand by our view that the USD/ JPY will rise in line with US interest rates as long as the outlook for these risk scenarios remains relatively low.


....Our US economists expect the Fed to raise rates in March, June and September this year and another four times (once per quarter) in 2018. In our thoughts, the primary determinant of the course of the USD/JPY is the US economy and interest rates.
We expect the USD/JPY to move in line with our interest rate forecasts: it should try 115 with the March rate increase, solidify at 115-118 with the June hike, and burst through 120 with the September increase with discounting some additional hikes into 2018.
Copyright 2017 DB, eFXnews

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: Well this is very interesting for me to read personally and to share with others here. It clearly appears to me that what the experts have left out is what happens to the Equity Markets especially the SPX500 and the Dow 30 if interest rates go up.

If the SPX500 go back towards Earth along with the US 30 then we have RISK OFF and funds will FLOW to the safest places. One of these places based on past performances is into the YEN and out of the US Dollar so USD/JPY will go in the opposite direction of first 115.00 in March 2017 and 115.000 to 118.000 with the POSSIBLE June hike.

How is this possible ? How can I be right and the experts from the bank be right ?

CORRELATION and Money Flow to Safe Havens is my answer. Let us see in March who is right and who is wrong.

When I started my Forex business during 2003 , the only currency that I traded was EUR/USD so I know that currency better than any other. I had determined that the Trend was up and I followed it up to 160.00

I made fortunes trading it and before I did my first live trade on March 9, 2006 , almost 11 years ago in 2 days after getting ready to go live during early March 2006 , I learned in close to 3 years of Demo Trading using the standard $50,000 US Funds Demo account many many things.

As a way of just focusing on EUR/USD , I will share the following already posted on these 115 pages of information and little discussion only because very few people post here. On my FXCM UK Demo Trading Platform $50,000 US Dollars to the left of me , the first three currency pairs that I see is as follows;

EUR/USD EUR/JPY USD/JPY

There is a very good reason for that and it is called CORRELATION !!! You also might call it common sense or simple logic however what it is really is how to trade Forex properly. Here first of all here is an excellent chart on EUR/USD that only tells you that is what it is and only can be. An X RAY of the EUR/USD at the moment that it was created.

https://www.forexfactory.com/attachm...0&d=1488914369

Can it tell you if it will go below 105.50 ? NO (IMPOSSIBLE) Can it tell you if it will go above 106.50 ? NO (IMPOSSIBLE)

How do I trade this currency pair ? First I do use technicals to see Support and Resistance and also I use Supply and Demand. I enjoy Davit's Pivot Points however the TECHNICALS CANNOT PREDICT ANYTHING.

Why is that ? Here is what drives the currency markets. First you have beyond a shadow of a doubt MONEY FLOW !!!

What is MONEY FLOW ? The changing of the values of all ASSET CLASSES. This includes Equities and Commodities and Bonds and Forex.

So now the North American Equity markets are open until 4 PM Eastern Standard Time. I believe the North America Commodity markets (FUTURES) close at 2:15 Eastern Standard Time and open in Asia at 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Then Asia Equity Markets open at 7 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME.

In Europe first we have Frankfurt opening at 2:00 AM Eastern Standard Time and everyone comes on board at 3:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.

THE FTSE and the CAC and the DAX are now open and MONEY FLOWS again. EVERYTHING CHANGES IN VALUE.

So I have talked about the technicals and the MONEY FLOW so now on to FUNDAMENTALS which we will see this Thursday at 7:45 AM EST when the ECB announces their decision followed by the Press Conference of Draghi startin at 8:30 AM Eastern Standard Time. On the subject of BS Fundamentals someone like Janet Yellen can move markets with ONE WORD !!!

On Friday at 8:30 AM Eastern Standard Time we get NFP of 125,000 !!! WHAT ? Are you serious ? Yes , last night my wire tap heard her tell one of her associates the number. (NO NOT TRUE) However it does make my point in that if that is the number then maybe NO RATE HIKE on March 15, 2017 ?

What do you think the markets will do at 8:30 AM Eastern Standard Time if the number is 125,000 ?

EUR/USD might just GO UP TO 1.0800 !!!

So now over to the most important part of our 100% TOOLBOX is Risk Management. And finally we come to YOU , the Forex Trader who must control their FEAR and their GREED and the hardest to do their EGO !!!

All Feedback is welcome and encouraged and also it is very boring talking to myself however I can handle anything since I have FOCUS and DISCIPLINE and a GREAT LOVE for my Forex Trading and Teaching business.


Benjamin is HAPPY !!!

Hi Benjamin & Everyone else

Here is the charts to see the money flow.

Thank you Benjamin for all of the posts the last few days. I must still catch up on some of the posts on the last page.

I like the way you post the last few days on the thread with your comments and explanations.
It really helps to understand better. Also explaining the process how you trade in post 2295 is very valuable, thank you.

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1488909531.php



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Endless Fed Deceit
By: Craig Hemke
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Why You Should Be VERY Careful With Stocks Here (the VIX Manipulation Scheme)
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Time To Give The Metals A Break
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The Chartology of the Commodities: The Inflation/ Deflation Barometer
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Sound Money Is Rising at the State Level
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Disrupt... Or Get Disrupted
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Buyers Limp to the Rescue
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Same As It Ever Was-Gold, Bitcoin, And Rapidly Changing World
By: Andrew Hoffman
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Gold and Silver Market Morning: Mar 7 2017 - Gold waiting for the rate hike!
By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold/Silver Forecaster - Global Watch

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Endless Fed Deceit


-- Published: Tuesday, 7 March 2017 |

By Craig Hemke

Of course, we all know that the benevolent and altruistic organization called The Federal Reserve is on a rate hike regimen because the US economy is "booming" and "robust". Oh, really? After just +1.6% "growth" for 2016, Mr. Donut in Atlanta today lowered his Q1 GDP projection to just +1.3%. That sure sounds robust to me!



Before we get to the current status of this booming economy, please allow me to remind you of a few things. First of all, this oldie-but-goodie from 2015...when The Fed first began jawboning about rate hikes and normalization. The entire investment world may forgotten this but, rest assured, we haven't. If you don't like the GDP numbers, just force the government beancounters to double their "seasonal adjustments": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-22/gdp-changes-coming-in...


And what did this accomplish? Well, in the words of ZeroHedge, "as of July 30, the Q1 GDP which will have seen its final print at -1% or worse, will be revised to roughly +1.8%, just to give the Fed the "credibility" to proceed with a September (2015) rate hike". See more here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-22/us-department-commerce-official...


So, now that you're reminded of the fuzziness of the Govt/Fed math, let's take a look back at 2016. Recall that Q4 was just revised lower to +1.9%. This actually brought up the average for all of 2016 and the year finished with a whopping +1.6% "growth" in the US. Be sure to note that this article describes this as "the worst economic performance since 2011": http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/28/secon...-2016-gdp.html


Fast forward to today and feast your eyes on the latest forecast from the Atlanta Fed GDPNow and our friend, Mr. Donut. Be sure to note that he began his Q1 guesswork at +2.3% and almost immediately proceeded to raise it all the way to +3.4% by early February. Well, here we are in early March and Mr. Donut has been forced to trim his forecast again today...this time by another 0.5%...and now the official GDPNow forecast is for Q1 2017 "growth" of just +1.3%.
https://www.tfmetalsreport.com/sites...0.31.32_am.png
Yes, that's right, an incredible +1.3%. And where have we seen that number before? Oh, yea...That was the goal-seeked, double seasonally-adjusted number that The Fed first mandated barely two years ago when they began to set out on their Fed Funds rate hiking scheme. And here we are again. But recall, back in the days before the "methodology changes of 2015", +1.3% would have been about -1.5%. Neat trick, huh?


So again we ask, what is The Fed really trying to accomplish here? Even with the revised methodology, the US economy is barely spitting out economic growth and there are still a record number of 94,000,000 people not in the labor force. The Fed now claims to be concerned with future price inflation but, as we wrote two weeks ago, the inflation numbers are clearly managed for goal-seeking too: https://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/...nset-inflation


And here is where the curtain is pulled back to reveal the central bankers' true intention. Their sole purpose is to promote the interest of their owners and member banks. Period. And in 2017 they've clearly decided that it is in the best interest of their shareholders to raise the Fed Funds rate more than once. The sycophant media then parrots The Fed's lies to the masses regarding a "dual mandate" and here we are...one week from the second FF rate hike in 90 days even though the moribund US economy continues to limp along in its attempt to recover from the disaster brought upon us by the very same Fed and their Banks in 2008.


Lastly, just two more reminders of just how evil and nefarious this organization has become. As you likely know, the Fed sequesters all of the FOMC meeting minutes for a minimum of five years before they're released to an amnesiac public and media. If you missed this story back in January, perhaps you should read it now. This is your compassionate FOMC on display for all to see: https://theintercept.com/2017/01/27/federal-reserve-bankers-mocked-unemp...


And maybe today would be a good day to re-watch this astounding presentation from our friend, John Titus. Five years after the onset of The Great Financial Crisis, the minutes of the FOMC meetings from back then were finally released and John intricately details the depths of the lies and deceptions that were foisted upon all of us in 2008. Be sure to note the brazen quality of this fraud and then ask yourself if anything at all has changed in the nine years since.

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: SO THE LIES AND THE FRAUD CONTINUES !!! How SAD !!! Tweet from President Trump !!! No my Tweet !!!

https://mishtalk.com/2017/03/07/bis-...ar-of-default/

BIS Blames ECB for Rising Target2 Imbalances: Fear of Default

07TuesdayMar 2017

Posted by Mish | March 7, 2017 8:30:52 | Economics

In the latest BIS Quarterly Review, the BIS points a finger at the ECB for rising Target2 imbalances.

That sounds highly accusatory, but the BIS also claims this is a “benign by-product of the decentralized implementation of the asset purchase program (APP) rather than as a sign of renewed capital flight.”


I strongly disagree that any of this is “benign” unless and until someone can tell me precisely how Italy, Spain, Greece, etc., are supposed to pay back the claims.

From the BIS (this is complicated) …
https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=406
TARGET2 (T2) balances are again on the rise. Since early 2015, the T2 balances of euro area national central banks (NCBs) have risen steadily, in some cases exceeding the levels seen during the sovereign debt crisis (Graph A, left-hand panel). However, unlike then, record T2 balances should be viewed as a benign by-product of the decentralized implementation of the asset purchase program (APP) [ECB’s QE] rather than as a sign of renewed capital flight.


Because liquidity operations in the Eurosystem are decentralised, claims or liabilities of NCBs vis-à-vis the ECB can arise. Market operations are to a large extent implemented by the Eurosystem’s NCBs rather than by the ECB. When an NCB disburses liquidity directly to commercial banks, it keeps the claims on those commercial banks on its own balance sheet. But the funds may end up in another commercial bank’s account with a different NCB. As a consequence, the liquidity-providing NCB has a liability vis-à-vis the ECB, while the NCB receiving the reserves holds a claim on the ECB.


The net of such claims and liabilities is referred to as a “TARGET2 balance” because it is recorded as such in the main payment settlement system of the euro area, the second edition of the Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer System.

In the period leading up to mid-2012, T2 balances grew strongly (Graph A, left-hand panel) due to intra-euro area capital flight. At the time, sovereign market strains spiked and redenomination risk came to the fore in parts of the euro area. Private capital fled from Ireland, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain into markets perceived to be safer, such as Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Indeed, during that period, the rise in T2 balances seemed related to concerns about sovereign risk. The blue dots in the centre panel of Graph A show the close relationship between the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads of Italy, Portugal and Spain and the evolution of their combined T2 balance from January 2008 to September 2014. Whenever the CDS spreads of those economies rose, the associated private capital outflows increased their T2 deficit. When the CDS spreads decreased after confidence in the euro area was restored in mid-2012, the capital outflows partly reversed, and T2 deficits dwindled.
In contrast, the current rise seems unrelated to concerns about the sustainability of public debt in the euro area. The red dots in the centre panel of Graph A show that, between October 2014 and December 2016, there was no relationship between the sovereign CDS spreads of Italy, Portugal and Spain and the evolution of their combined T2 balance.

The current rise in T2 imbalances seems to have a different cause: the Eurosystem’s APP, which mechanically affects the evolution of these balances. Many APP purchases are conducted by NCBs via banks located in other countries. One example is where the Bank of Italy, as part of its implementation of the APP, buys securities from a London-based bank that connects to the T2 system via a correspondent bank located in Germany. The purchase amount is credited to the account of the German correspondent bank at the Deutsche Bundesbank, thus increasing the T2 surplus of the Bundesbank. Similarly, the Bank of Italy’s T2 deficit widens.


Thus, T2 imbalances will increase whenever any T2-debtor NCB conducts an asset purchase with a counterparty that has a correspondent bank located in a T2-creditor NCB. This is very frequently the case. For example, whereas the Bundesbank itself purchases less than a quarter of the total APP purchases, 60% of all Eurosystem purchases under the APP are conducted via banks that connect to the T2 system via the Bundesbank.icon

As the European interbank market is still fragmented, the liquidity does not circulate in the euro area and T2 imbalances grow as the total holdings under the APP accumulate. Indeed, the overall increase in T2 imbalances can be linked closely to the total purchases under the APP (Graph A, right-hand panel). A recent study, which takes into account the precise geography of the correspondent banks of each and every APP security purchase, shows that APP transactions can almost fully account for the re-emergence of T2 imbalances.icon

This mechanical impact of the APP on T2 imbalances is also confirmed by the evolution of T2 balances vis-à-vis Greece. The country’s sovereign bonds are not eligible for the APP, and consequently the Greek T2 deficit has actually been more or less stable during recent months (Graph A, left-hand panel).

2012 Conclusion
In 2012, the BIS had a different Target2 Conclusion.
The debate over the appropriate interpretation of the TARGET2 balances has involved the analytic question of whether such balances are best associated with ongoing current account balances or whether they reflect a capital account reversal that is motivated by credit concerns. We recognize both but our analysis of the first half of 2012 data emphasises the importance of positioning against redenomination risk. The European Economic Advisory Group (2012, p 62) states, “In the past interest rates diverged due to the fear of depreciation; now they do so because of the fear of default.” Our identification of capital flows as motivated by redenomination risk implies that interest rates diverged into 2012 on fears of depreciation, or hopes of appreciation. Flows of funds suggest that 2012’s last leg up in TARGET2 balances reflected something more akin to a currency attack than current account financing or credit reversal.


Fear of Default
Nothing has changed, except the transfer mechanism. The ECB is now aiding and abetting capital flight.

Here is a simple test question: What would happen to Italian bond yields if Draghi halted QE asset purchases?

If bonds yields would rise, then the ECB is acting to prevent either interest rate risk or default risk. But what is interest rate risk if ultimately not default risk?

German debt has a lower yield than Greek debt and Italian debt for one reason only: default risk.

Italy is on ECB life support. Should Draghi halt QE asset purchases, demand for Italian bonds will plunge.

For discussion, please see Draghi’s Dilemma: Eurozone Inflation Hits 2% with Italy on Bond Life Support.

Stealth Bailout
Zerohedge reported BIS Admits TARGET2 Is A Stealth Bailout Of Europe’s Periphery.

That headline isn’t accurate but the idea is sound. The ECB is bailing out peripheral countries via indirect means.

But whether or not capital flight is direct or indirect, the ECB’s mask does not change reality.

I emailed the ECB a couple of questions on Target2 and found their answers unsatisfactory.

For details, please see Fuse is Lit! Target2 Imbalances Hit Crisis Levels: An Email Exchange With the ECB Over Target2.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...ops+to+zero%29

China Imports Spike As Lunar New Year Skew Creates Biggest Trade Deficit In 3 Years
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
by Tyler Durden
Mar 7, 2017 11:06 PM

When the headline prints hit tonight on China's trade data, offshore Yuan dipped and ripped...
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...307_def2_0.jpg

As China faced its first trade deficit in 3 years (-$60bn vs +172.5bn exp)...
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...307_def3_0.jpg

Obviously there is some major seaonality...
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...0307_def_0.jpg
With imports exploding 44.7% YoY (and exports missing expectations dramatically +4.2% vs +14.6% exp). But it appears the economists forgot about this year's lunar new year holiday falling in January (vs Feb last year).
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...307_def1_0.jpg

As Bloomberg points out, the results were skewed because the week-long Lunar New Year holidays that shutter factories and ports across the nation occurred in February 2016 versus late January in 2017, distorting base year comparisons.


Even though the specific data point is entirely worthless, we note that Imports from U.S. rose 41% to 163.5b yuan in Jan.-Feb., General Administration of Customs says in statement.

For now it appears Bitcoin is suffering the most post-data (but this could be renewed selling pressure from this morning ahead of this weekend's ETF decision)
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...307_def4_0.jpg

1. China
2. Trade Deficit
3. Yuan

Morning Thoughts - Daily

 

1. https://cdn-assets.forexfactory.net/...ar359964_2.gif Ocean Orca
2. | Commercial Member | Joined Jan 2014 | 243 Posts

USD/JPY Completes ABC Zigzag at 50% Fibonacci

https://admiralmarkets.com/analytics...t-50-fibonacci - Your capital is at risk

USD/JPY
4 hour
https://fxmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/art...03-2017uj4.png
The USD/JPY seems to be retracing within a wave 2 (brown) back to the Fibonacci levels which could act as support. The wave 1-2 (brown) structure is invalidated once price breaks below the bottom (blue).
1 hour
https://fxmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/art...03-2017uj1.png
The USD/JPY is building an ABC (orange) within wave 2 (brown) and could retrace back to the Fibonacci levels of wave 2 vs 1 (brown).


Comments from Benjaminis: The above information is from a sophisticated Forex organization and what it does is program them and others to have a bias on where USD/JPY is going.

What we wait for now is the ADP at 8:15 AM Eastern Standard Time as that number whatever it is will change PERCEPTIONS.

PERCEPTIONS are NEVER ACCURATE because only HARD FACTS will tell the TRUTH or as I call it REALITY.

The MARKETS ARE ALWAYS RIGHT and the present PERCEPTION. Is that clear to you ?

Once NEW PERCEPTIONS FORM then Forex Money will start to FLOW and Futures will change and in our case since US 30 and SPX500 is part of our Trade Plan and for myself I have been more DISCIPLINED than I ever have. As KeepCalmfx will recall I recently opened a new $50,000 FXCM UK Demo Account and traded with STOP LOSS of $1000 US Dollars that I would NOT MOVE or change No Matter what.

I will post my Forex Trades and when I do you will see my first three Forex Trades were all losses of around $1000 US Dollars however I now have 4 Open Positions of (2) US 30 and (2) SPX500.

All of my LIMIT OUT ARE SET AT PROFITS OF $2200 US Dollars. Once I reach that target then my Forex Demo Trading Account will show a balance of around $55,000 US Dollars or 10% ROI.

Please post any questions that you have.


Benjaminis