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It appeared the US dollar was bottoming in the first half of October.  We had noted the possibility of head and shoulders reversal patterns in sterling and the Swiss franc.   These proved for naught, and yet, it still appears the dollar is carving out a bottom. The technical tone for the greenback has improved in recent days.  

 

There has also been a  shift in the fundamental focus toward somewhat better news from the US and somewhat poorer news from Europe. There is mounting speculation that the European Central Bank will have to have some sort of policy response to the continued decline in private lending, weak growth in money supply, and near record low inflation. 

 

The Dollar Index, which despite the fact that it is not reflective of US trade flows (two of the US 4 largest trading partners, China and Mexico, are not included, and it is heavily weighted toward the euro and currencies that move in the euro’s orbit), many participants see it a rough-and-ready proxy for the US dollar in general.  The key technical development is that it finished last week above the downtrend line drawn off this year’s highs in early July and the bounce in early September.   

 

If that down move is being retraced, the next target for the Dollar Index is the 81.20 area and then the 81.75-90 area, which corresponds to a 61.8% retracement and the 200-day moving average.   We note that the RSI and MACDs suggest additional gains and the 5-day moving average has crossed above the 20-day average.  A move now much below 80.00 would cast doubt on this constructive outlook.  

 

For its part, the euro has not violated a similar trend line, drawn off the early July and Sept lows. On Monday it comes in near $1.3425.  That area also corresponds to a retracement objective.  By the end of the week it is closer to $1.3460.  The 5-day average has not cross below the 20-day average, but it most likely will on Monday.  The RSI and MACDs are moving lower. Assuming the trend line is convincingly violated, the next target would be in the $1.3300-35 area, which represents the next retracement objective and the 100-day moving average.  The 200-day moving average comes in closer to $1.3270.  Given the magnitude of the decline in recent days, it probably requires a move back above the $1.3600-50 area to negate this bearish technical view. 

 

The dollar has also not violated its similar downtrend against the Swiss franc.  That trend line comes in near CHF0.9180 at the start of the new week, which corresponds to last month’s high, and finishes the week near CHF0.9150. The 5- and 20-day moving averages have not crossed, but they are poised to on Monday.   Once the trend line goes, the immediate objective is near CHF0.9220.  It will ultimately take a break of the CHF0.9420-50 area to raise confidence that a low of some import is in place.  

 

The dollar posted an outside up-day against the yen and the premium the US pays over Japan (on 10-year government paper) widened back above 200 bp for the first time since mid-October.   The technical tone is constructive, but within the context of the broad trading range conditions that have prevailed for five months now.   The dollar has been making lower highs and higher lows against the yen since the middle of Q2.  Last month’s high was near JPY99.00 and this represents the next target.  However, even a move a bit higher, even a little of JPY100, wouldn’t violate 5-month only trading range.  A move above September high near JPY100.60, though would suggest something more important is taking place technically.   The weekly technical readings warn of the upside risks to the dollar against the yen.  

 

Sterling appears to have carved out a double top (reversal pattern) in October, with gains in early and late in the month, stalling out near $1.6260.  It depends on how one draws the neck line, but it can be found in the $1.5890-$1.5915 area.  The pre-weekend low was near $1.5910.   A convincing break of the neck line, perhaps encouraged by accumulating evidence that the data is no longer surprising the market on the upside, would suggest potential toward the mid-$1.5500 area, which also roughly corresponds to a 50% retracement of the rally from the July lows near $1.4800. The 5-day moving average crossed below the 20-day before the weekend and the technical indicators are weak.   Resistance now is pegged in the $1.6040-70 area. 

 

The Australian dollar posted a key downside reversal on October 23, after poking through the 50% retracement of this year’s decline, and has not looked back since. The 5- and 20-day moving averages crossed in the second half of last week.  MACDs are have turned lower, but the RSI is not generating a strong signal.  A break of the $0.9430 area would target the $0.9325 area, though the real technical test may not come until closer to $0.9225.  If this correction in the Aussie is indeed over, the $0.9480-$0.9520 area should hold back stronger gains.  

 

The Canadian dollar is the only major currency to have gained against the US dollar last week (~0.25%).   Yet the Canadian dollar is not very inspiring.  It has been in a broad range for several months.  The US dollar has found demand near CAD1.02 and supply near CAD1.06.  The technical indicators are not generating strong signals.  Look for narrow CAD1.0350-CAD1.0450 range to dominate until toward the end of the week.  Both countries report Oct employment data on Nov 8.  

 

The US dollar is likely to push higher against the Mexican peso.  The 5- and 20-day moving averages are set to cross on Monday and, while the RSI is neutral, the MACDs are turning higher. A downtrend line drawn off the early Sept and early Oct highs comes in near MXN13.20 and this is a reasonable near-term objective.   If this near-term view is valid, the greenback should spend little if any time below MXN12.96.

 

 

Observations from the speculative positioning in the CME currency futures:

 

1.  There were mostly minor position adjustments in the most recent reporting week that ended October 29.   Of the 14 gross positions we track, 12 changed by less than 6k contracts, and of those, a third were less than 1k contracts.  Two gross positions were adjusted by more than 10k contracts:  long euros were added to while long yen positions were cut.  

 

2.  The gross long euro position came with spitting distance of the record high set in April 2007. Many observers focus on the net position, which will fail to reveal how large of a speculative long position has been accumulated.  The cut in the gross long yen position, almost in half from the previous week, is the smallest since March 2012.  

 

3.  In the week ending Oct 29, the gross long currency positions generally grew, with the yen and sterling being the exceptions.  There was a less of a pattern among the currency shorts, except to note the position adjustments were minor.  

 

4.  The net long sterling and Swiss franc positions are the largest since the start of the year, but were little changed from the previous period.  The net short Australian dollar position is the smallest since May.  

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What is the common element between Liborgate, the Fed manipulating capital markets, China hoarding gold, and the recent ubiquotous NSA spying revelations? At one point, before they became fact, they were all “conspiracy theories” as were the Freemasons, the Illuminati, McCarthy’s witch hunts, 9/11, and so many more. The same theories, which – don’t laugh – are now part of a Cambridge University study titled Conspiracy and Democracy,  which looks at the prevalence of conspiracy theories and what they tell us about trust in democratic societies, about the differences between cultures and societies, and why conspiracy theories (ostensibly before they become fact) appear at particular moments in history. But, at its core, whether conspiracy theories will, as the BBC summarizes, it, eventually destroy democracy.

Because, supposedly, it is not the corruption at the top echelons of government, the ultimate usurpation of power by assorted globalist money groups “never letting a crisis go to waste”, that plunder wealth from what is left of the middle class and hands it over, via latent inflation, asset bubbles and capital appreciation to the 1% peak of society’s wealth pyramid (in the US), or kleptofascist, unelected bureaucratic groups seeking the “greater good” despite the complete tear of the social fabric (in Europe) that is a threat to democracy.

No – you see it is evil conspiracy theories and the theorists that spin them that are the biggest threat to the “democratic” way of life.

The BBC has more on this amusing, if potentially troubling, avenue:

“The reason we have conspiracy theories is that sometimes governments and organisations do conspire,” says Observer columnist and academic John Naughton. It would be wrong to write off all conspiracy theorists as “swivel-eyed loons,” with “poor personal hygiene and halitosis,” he told a Cambridge University Festival of Ideas debate. They are not all “crazy”. The difficult part, for those of us trying to make sense of a complex world, is working out which parts of the conspiracy theory to keep and which to throw away.

 

Mr Naughton is one of three lead investigators in a major new Cambridge University project to investigate the impact of conspiracy theories on democracy.

 

The internet is generally assumed to be the main driving force behind the growth in conspiracy theories but, says Mr Naughton, there has been little research into whether that is really the case. He plans to compare internet theories on 9/11 with pre-internet theories about John F Kennedy’s assassination.

 

Like the other researchers, he is wary, or perhaps that should be weary, of delving into the darker recesses of the conspiracy world.

 

“The minute you get into the JFK stuff, and the minute you sniff at the 9/11 stuff, you begin to lose the will to live,” he told the audience in Cambridge.

 

Like Sir Richard Evans, who heads the five-year Conspiracy and Democracy project, he is at pains to stress that the aim is not to prove or disprove particular theories, simply to study their impact on culture and society.

Impact on culture and society… and then judge: because if heaven forbid the fabled institution of higher learning that is Cambridge – the progenitor of many a statist thinkers – finds that conspiracy theories are a danger to fine, upstanding, democratic society… then what?

Why are we so fascinated by them? Are they undermining trust in democratic institutions?

No, but a far better question is do conspiracy “theories”, at least until confirmed, simply provide the beholder with a far more skeptical view of a world than the one spoon fed by a complicit media, whose sole purpose is to perpetuate and multiply – hence enrich – the advertising dollars of the status quo? And is the long overdue questioning of everything that emanates from institutions of power a bad thing, or were people simply too lazy to think for themselves and let the government do it, at least until said “cognitive outsourcing” led to the second great depression of 2008?

David Runciman, professor of politics at Cambridge University, the third principal investigator, is keen to explode the idea that most conspiracies are actually “cock-ups”.

 

“The line between cock-up, conspiracy and conspiracy theory are much more blurred than the conventional view that you have got to choose between them,” he told the Festival of Ideas.

 

“There’s a conventional view that you get these conspirators, who are these kind of sinister, malign people who know what they are doing, and the conspiracy theorists, who occasionally stumble upon the truth but who are on the whole paranoid and crazy. “Actually the conspirators are often the paranoid and crazy conspiracy theorists, because in their attempt to cover up the cock-up they get drawn into a web in which their self-justification posits some giant conspiracy trying to expose their conspiracy.

“And I think that’s consistently true through a lot of political scandals, Watergate included.”

Such a “complex” and profoundly introspective theory – truly something only a Cambridge professor could come up with.

[Runciman] is also examining whether the push for greater openness and transparency in public life will fuel, rather than kill off, conspiracy theories.

 

“It may be that one of the things conspiracy theories feed on as well as silence, is a surfeit of information. And when there is a mass of information out there, it becomes easier for people to find their way through to come to the conclusion they want to come to.

 

“Plus, you don’t have to be an especial cynic to believe that, in the age of open government, governments will be even more careful to keep secret the things they want to keep secret. “The demand for openness always produces, as well as more openness, more secrecy.”

You mean… like the NSA spying on everyone to be abreast of just what everyone knows?

Or does that mean that the Fed’s faux transparency affair is nothing but a red herring designed to redirect attention from the Fed’s true intentions somewhere else?

Unpossible.

That said, having been accused of a conspiratorial bent on a few occasions, we kinda, sorta see where this is going, and will go so far as to venture that in a few years, the Cambridge study’s conclusions (which certainly will cast all paranoid and crazy conspirators in a culpable light and worth of “social isolation”), will be escalated to enforce that anyone found of harboring “conspiratorial” thoughts will be bound and shackled in whatever WIFI-free dungeon the local host Big Brother government has created precisely for this ulterior subclass of humans.

But for now – conspire away… and upon exposing the deep lies beneath the surface of “democracy” – since the mainstream media simply refuses to be painted in the same paranoid and crazy brush – remember to promptly depart for the “evil undemocratic empire” that is Russia…

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Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg

Top U.S. Hospitals Are Opting Out Of Obamacare

In the off chance you are actually able to access the website and successfully sign up for the epic disaster that is Obamacare, you might be a bit surprised about your options when you actually encounter a medical issue. Every American that is even considering signing up for this nightmare needs to be aware of the disturbing fact that many of the top hospitals in the nation will not be accepting Obamacare related insurance plans. Even worse, in many cases it is virtually impossible to find out which doctors and hospitals are on your plan.

One of the most egregious examples of failure is the following:

Seattle Children’s Hospital ranks No. 11 on the U.S. News & World Report best pediatric hospital list. When Obamacare rolled out, the hospital found itself with just two out of seven insurance companies on Washington’s exchange.

Seattle Children’s is the only pediatric hospital in King County, and offers keys services, such as cancer care, which are not available anywhere else in the region. So if you sign up for Obamacare, good luck surviving. Fortunately, that represents only about six people at the moment.

More from U.S. News:

Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.

Watchdog.org looked at the top 18 hospitals nationwide as ranked by U.S. News and World Report for 2013-2014. We contacted each hospital to determine their contracts and talked to several insurance companies, as well.

The result of our investigation: Many top hospitals are simply opting out of Obamacare.

Chances are the individual plan you purchased outside Obamacare would allow you to go to these facilities. For example, fourth-ranked Cleveland Clinic accepts dozens of insurance plans if you buy one on your own. But go through Obamacare and you have just one choice: Medical Mutual of Ohio.

Consumers, too, will struggle with the new system. Many exchanges don’t even list the insurance companies on their web sites. Some that do, like California, don’t provide names of doctors or hospitals.

Continue reading ?

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