PJ Media: Identifying Drive is Critical to Job Retraining Initiatives

By SIMON CONSTABLE

When it comes to retraining displaced workers, President Trump hit the bull's-eye on a target at which few politicians take aim.

“Let's invest in workforce development and let's invest in job training, which we need so badly,” he said January’s State of the Union address.

Retraining is needed badly, which will become increasingly evident as technology displaces jobs in field after field. The need to constantly upgrade skills has become a reality among professionals as well as factory workers.

Can we teach old dogs new tricks? Yes, we can. Read more here.

Forbes: Venezuela's New Cryptocurrency Is An Even Worse Investment Than Bitcoin

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Just when you thought the cryptocurrency craze couldn't get stranger, up pops its most absurd proposition yet: the Petro.

It is Venezuela's version of bitcoin, which is perhaps the best-known cryptocurrency. The Petro's "presale" launched February 20 and is expected to run through March 19. The goal is to raise up to $2 billion according to a recent report from geopolitical consulting firm Eurasia Group. Read more here.

Forbes: Why Is The Gig Economy Portrayed So Badly?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Why is the press coverage of the gig economy so negative when the people living the gig-life overwhelmingly seem to love it?

It's a strange phenomenon because the two things just don't seem to fit. Read more here.

WSJ: Doctors Turn to Poetry to Relieve Stress

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What is a good gift for a freshly minted physician? In Scotland, it is a book of poetry.

Each year, the 900 or so graduating medical students in Scotland receive a free copy of a poetry book titled “Tools of the Trade: Poems for New Doctors.” It’s a pocket-size book with fewer than 100 pages, so doctors can easily carry it while on duty. Read more here.

NewsMax TV: Are We In A Bubble

By SIMON CONSTABLE


Watch here.

Barron's: Venezuelan Free Fall Would Give Oil a Pop

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors in the oil market should keep a keen eye on Venezuela. an upcoming election and the prospect of U.S. sanctions will likely send the country’s wounded energy sector into a tailspin, at least temporarily. It could happen before the summer. And when it does, expect oil prices to jump by up to $10 a barrel.

“Venezuela is headed down, falling off a cliff,” says Victor Sperandeo, chief executive and general partner EAM Partners, a commodity trading advisory firm. “The place will go into chaos and won’t be able to pump oil.”

Such a move could push prices for Brent crude to as much as $75 a barrel from roughly $65 a barrel. Read more here.

Photo by David Thielen on Unsplash

Barron's: Milk Prices Could Head Higher

By SIMON CONSTABLE

After years of decline, milk prices look ready to rally. More frigid winters, lower production in some parts of the world, and more Chinese demand will lead to higher prices.

“People are starting to see that milk isn’t as available as they thought it would be,” says Shawn Hackett, of Hackett Financial Advisors. He sees prices soaring as high as $20 per hundredweight within a year, up from Friday’s closing price of $14.34 for May-dated Class III milk contracts on the CME. Some of this increase is likely to show up in higher milk prices at your neighborhood grocery store. (A hundredweight of milk, depending on whether it’s whole or reduced-fat or skim, is roughly equal to 11.5 gallons.) Read more here.

Photo by Mehrshad Rajabi on Unsplash

John Batchelor Show: The Exotic Risk Parity Trade Inside the Market Turbulence

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Forbes: How Trillions In Risk-Parity/Volatility Trades Could Sink The Market

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There's a problem lurking in the stock market known as the "risk-parity" trade.

The strategy, which involves investors switching between different assets based on changes in market volatility, has now grown so big that it threatens to sink the market.

How big? Some estimates peg the amount of money pursuing this type of strategy at as high as half a trillion dollars. Trades designed to profit from changes in volatility, which are inextricably linked to risk-parity, add as much as a further $2 trillion.

The issue is not the strategy itself, it is when investors decide that it is no longer useful and decide to exit their positions. In other words, when all at once they dump their positions the market will likely tank.

Here's what you need to know.

PJ Media: Roller Coaster Reflects Change in How Investors are Viewing Stock Market

By SIMON CONSTABLE

One day the stock market is up, the next day it is down.

It’s as if investors just can’t make up their minds. There's good reason for that. There are almost too many variables for Wall Street to absorb quickly.

The stock market has been like a roller coaster all week, a far cry from the solid gain-after-gain in the market we have seen for much of the past few months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced by almost 18 percent in the year through Thursday, an exceptional rally by most standards. Read more here.

Forbes: Five VIX Fund Questions That Need To Be Answered

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Some people may have some 'splaining to do.

The matter at hand concerns two exchange-traded securities that were designed to profit from falls in the VIX, or volatility index, which roughly tracks the volatility of the S&P 500. Read more here.

PJ Media: The EU's Banking Ruse to Create a United States of Europe

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Is the EU trying to pull a ‘fast one’ on its citizens? Maybe so.

Some recent efforts aimed at saving Europe’s banks from another financial crisis may be a Trojan horse aimed at abolishing the nation states of the European Union.

Of course, the EU isn't portraying its efforts that way. Instead, eurocrats (a.k.a. European bureaucrats) are disguising their work as an effort to save the public from a repeat of the 2008-09 taxpayer-funded banking bailouts. Read more here.

Joe Piscopo Show: Talking Markets

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Forbes: Bitcoin Trips at Its First Major Test

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It looks like Bitcoin didn't do that well in its first major test as a substitute for gold.

While the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted Monday, so did the price of bitcoin, which is the best known of all the so-called Crypto-currencies. Gold prices remained remarkably steady. Read more here.

John Batchelor Show: The missing volatility is back.

By SIMON CONSTABLE

WSJ: The Benefits of Buying Both the Best- and Worst-Performing Funds

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Should you invest in last year’s underperformers or continue with last year’s winners? The answer is yes, according to a recent analysis. Read more here.

WSJ: What Is Hot Money?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors in some emerging markets may hear warnings about hot money. So, what is it and why does it matter? Read more here.

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

P.J. Media: The Government’s Inflation Data Caught 'Percentile Dysfunction'

By SIMON CONSTABLE

As if we didn’t already know something was wrong with the government’s inflation data, now up pops what looks like a confession. It’s part of a broader issue with government metrics that one economist dubs “percentile dysfunction.”

New research shows there’s a problem in how the prescription drug portion of the consumer price index gets calculated. Another, perhaps more realistic, index of drug prices far outgrew the CPI's drug metric over a recent five-year sample period, with one part of the alternative metric increasing 59 percent more. Read more here.

P.J. Media: Bad Monetary Move-- A Weak Dollar Is an America-Last Policy

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A weak dollar is not an America-first dollar. It is an America-last strategy.

Of course, it isn’t at all clear whether pushing the value of the greenback down is the goal of the administration.  Wall Street seems divided on the matter.

For instance, a recent report from Brown Brothers Harriman states the following: “Did U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin signal a change in the U.S. dollar policy?  Probably not.” The reason, BBH says, is partly because of the Treasury’s urgent need to sell a lot of debt securities, possibly more than a trillion dollars. “It beggars belief that Mnuchin was talking the dollar down, introducing new currency risk, ahead of the quarterly refunding and a significant increase in the supply of Treasuries in the months ahead,” BBH continues. Read more here.