The S&P 500's 12% gain to start the year gave the index its best first quarter since 1998, and if history is a guide, that may point to a continuing advance for the rest of the 2012 -- provided traders believe the Federal Reserve will keep the money spigot on and the economic data don't signal a collapse.
A billion dollars in unwanted American dollar coins sits in specially-made vaults the size of soccer fields in Texas and Baltimore and other undisclosed locations.
The Federal Reserve is committed not to the health and wealth of citizens, but to that of the international banking system. New information on lending programs reveals the depth to which this is true.
Welcome to another week of stock trading my friends! Last week I noted the possibility of a breakdown in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (please see it here). Well, guess what. The broader S&P 500 appears to confirm where the Dow and the US economy are heading. As you can see from the $SPX’s weekly chart, the index has been forming a head and shoulders pattern.
Currency, like all forms of abstract value, is based on trust. And trust itself is based - except among the most naïve - on experience, and the repetitive demonstration of fidelity, whether positive or negative. At present, the US dollar, which had experienced a gradual rise during the 20th Century to the position gained well into the Cold War of being the trading world’s reserve currency.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Lehman bankruptcy. The media struggles to say something meaningful about it. Here at The Daily Reckoning we will not even attempt meaningfulness. We’ll be satisfied with a few snide remarks.
What is most remarkable about the world a year after Lehman fell it is that so little seems to have changed. Even the papers have noticed.
We are entering a period of record deficits and debt. And there are other more potent forces that have the potential to murk the future of US economy and unless the government policies do not firmly and intelligently address these issues, we are in for a long dark period of economic blight.
