Financial Sense Blog

Having a large army of financial advisors is one of the most profitable lines of business for Wall Street firms. But is working with a Financial Advisor from a Bank or Brokerage the best choice for clients? When the average person thinks about financial advisors, it’s difficult to distinguish them from stockbrokers – because their business model is the same. They sell stocks, mutual funds and other securities.

Treasury 30-year bonds rose before the acquisition of as much as $2.5 billion of the debt by the Federal Reserve as part of its plan to accelerate economic growth and avoid deflation. Thirty-year bonds outperformed 10-year securities for the second week as the Fed gets set to acquire debt maturing from August 2028 to November 2040, the first purchases of longer- dated Treasuries in the round of quantitative easing launched Nov. 12.

Could the market have topped out two weeks ago? Here's what analysts are watching!

Status of the secular trend.

Every precious metals investor should be concerned about China raising its rates and rising yields. Rising rates in one of the fastest growing economies will affect precious metals investors. Changes in the rates affect stock prices. China is leading the world and we can see the fears are profound as sell offs this week were much stronger that any of the relief rallies. If China’s market corrects then the commodity market which was fueling the equity market could experience a severe correction. It is a domino effect.

The latest financial headlines may seem arcane, with a vocabulary that is difficult to grasp, but the bottom line is unavoidable – the United States government and the Federal Reserve, in a belated defense of the fundamentals of the US economy, have effectively declared their intention to destroy the life savings of older Americans and devastate their future standard of living.

One day, it’s QE2 that will be the financial market catalyst of all catalysts. The next day a Euro member bank is melting down. Commodities are flying higher on the back of QE2 perceptions the next day and then a few days later they crumble based on the need and near term actions of China to quell internal inflation by raising rates...

The first time this latest bit of nonsense came to my attention was in a TED presentation in which a social scientist presented his data, “proving” that any correlation between human happiness and annual income ended at $65,000. In other words, if you make less than $65,000 annually, you’ll generally be more happy if you make more money. But once you make $65,000, there is no noticeable improvement in your happiness if you make more… say, $75,000 or $100,000.

The best measure of the money stock in the economy can’t be found on some federal reserve or other government agencies website, for they publish various money stock figures that either include items that aren’t money, leave items out that are or have nothing to do with the money altogether. This money stock measure is known as the TMS or True Money Supply. This measure is superior because it represents the amount of money in the economy that is available for immediate use in exchange.

Our fundamental concerns primarily center on the possibility Portugal will become the market’s next target soon after some bailout is finalized in Ireland. Eventually, market participants will come after both Portugal and Spain.