Swen Lorenz

Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen testified before Congress for the first time since replacing Ben Bernanke at the beginning of the month. Her testimony confirmed what many of us suspected, that interventionist Keynesian policies at the Federal Reserve are well-entrenched and far from over. Mrs. Yellen practically bent over backwards to reassure Wall Street that…

Asian stocks advanced overnight whilst Japanese equities were weighed down by a strengthening Yen. After yesterday’s reports which showed China’s central bank started to drain funds from the money market, investors remained anxious in case the tightening goes too far and hurts economic growth.  Sterling remained rang bound overnight as investors wait for UK jobless…

Nasdaq 2000 vs. Nikkei 1989/90 vs. Dow 2013/14 The dot.com boom peak in 2000 occurred on a monthly sunspot spike at the ~11 year solar maximum, with the familiar topping process pattern of primary distribution – shake out – second chance – waterfall declines. The major declines and flash crash occurred in March/April, with associations of…

Risers:  John Wood Group +3.92% John Wood Group has today posted a 14% increase in full-year pretax profit to $412.8m, up from $361.4m a year earlier. A 3% increase in revenue was also reported to $7.06bn, a rise from $6.83bn. The oil company did however warn of a potential 15% drop in profits in its…

China has experienced such huge growth during the last 25 years as the “People’s” (!) Government has been completely committed to boosting the Chinese economy and in the process creating a fascinating hybrid of Communism and Capitalism. In fact, within the next 5-10 years it will become the world’s largest and most important economy as…

By John Hussman The following chart is reprinted from our November 11, 2013 weekly comment A Textbook Pre-Crash Bubble.  What is important, in my view, is not simply the log-periodic structure, but the broad array of additional classic speculative features that emerged as the market approached its recent highs. A few months ago, Bill Hester examined…

Our newly coronated Fed Chair”person” Janet Yellen it seems is feeling optimistic about the future of the American economy. During her first public speech after taking over from the infamous print and be damned “Mr Helicopter Ben Shalom Bernanke” she recently opined that “the economic recovery gained greater traction in the second half of last…

Zak Mir Press release – “I am pleased to relay that with immediate effect I shall be working exclusively for Burnbrae Media and related entities and additionally, I will no longer be speaking at the UK Investor Show.” Zak Mir. SBM’s take – What with both our contributors John Walsh and Dominic Picarda also no longer…