According to an executive at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, gold could soar above $2,000 an ounce in the not-too-distant future. Greg Jensen, the firm’s co-chief investment officer, cites a range of factors: geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, especially between the U.S. and Iran; the U.S.-China trade war; the prospect of inflation returning; a U.S. stock market...
APARTMENT BUILDING BOOM TARGETS AFFLUENT TENANTS
U.S. builders are expected to add 371,000 apartments to the nation’s housing stock this year, a 50-percent increase over last year and more units than in any of the last 30 years. Available units could double or more in high-demand markets such as Houston and Los Angeles. But as many as 80 percent of these new flats are targeted to...
RICH INVESTORS MORE BULLISH THAN EVER
With U.S. stocks hitting six new-record highs in 2020’s first 12 trading days, investors holding $1 million or more in stocks are more confident in the market than a month ago. In 2019’s fourth quarter, many investors feared a market drop or recession; now a survey by E-Trade Financial found that 76 percent of these investors rate the U.S. stock...
DOLLAR POISED TO WEAKEN?
Many banks expect the dollar to weaken against other currencies this year. A weaker dollar would make U.S. goods cheaper in other countries, boost commodity prices at home, and buoy the stock price of mining, oil, and other companies that produce commodities. The weakness would stem from the Fed’s continuing low interest rates, which make dollars a less attractive investment....
FED PROPS UP THE REPO MARKET – AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN…
Last Tuesday, the Fed opened another $82 billion in short-term liquidity to the repo markets. This followed $60.7 billion in aid on Monday. According to the Fed’s calculations, it has offered $4.2 trillion in props to markets as of 9 January. On 15 January, $229.5 billion of the short-term loans were outstanding. The Fed also continues to buy Treasury bills...
U.S.-CHINA TRADE TREATY TAKES SMALL STEPS
The new pact gives each side some, but not a lot, of what it wants. China has agreed to buy about $200 billion a year in U.S. goods, stiffen protections for intellectual property, and open its markets wider to American firms, especially in financial services. The deal leaves in place about $370 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods. China agreed...
U.S. MEDIA CENSORSHIP
The following quote is from “Censorship 2019,” one of our Top Trends from last year: “Freedom of speech? Freedom of Expression? Forget about it! From the United States to China, from New Zealand to Nepal, Censorship is a megatrend. For well over a year, social media giants and governments have been silencing voices that challenge establishment agendas.” Our “Censorship” Top...
NEW WAY TO CLEAN UP OCEAN PLASTIC
About 16 billion pounds of plastic flows into the world’s oceans each year. In 2021, the Finnish research center VTT will test a way to start taking it out. Scientists there have sorted through the realm of bacteria to choose several strains that can digest various forms of plastic and turn them back into raw chemical feedstocks for industry. The...
WATER-RELATED VIOLENCE INCREASING
Physical confrontations over water have more than doubled over the past ten years, according to the nonprofit Pacific Institute, who are focused on protecting the world’s fresh water. Water became a weapon in Syria’s civil war as government forces damaged a water pipeline into the city of Aleppo, leaving millions of people desperately short of water. The government also bombed...
VACCINE AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S
In a test, a vaccine has cleared the brain protein tangles and build-ups that characterize Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at the University of California and the Institute for Molecular Medicine genetically engineered mice to develop the tau protein tangles and amyloid protein build-ups that accumulate among brain cells that mark the illness. Previous vaccines had targeted one protein or the other....