A conversation with Nassim Nicholas Taleb about his book The Black Swan.

Watch

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News

“…you should know that I rarely (if ever) talk about the news. My view as a trader for 38 years is that market moves create the news, not that the news creates market moves. Therefore, to say that this news event caused the market to do thus and so - is absurd. No one knows why the markets do anything (although many traders with great hubris think they know), but it is a claim that cannot be epistemologically defended in my view. I have made immense trading profits for my clients and myself precisely because I do not listen to the news or any outside influences. I follow a 100% non-emotional and highly disciplined mechanical trading strategy. And finally, to make money trading, we need only to know that markets move- not why they move. All of my trading methods are primarily based on price because price is reality. Trends in motion will stay in motion until they reverse.”

Michael Covel: News & Info.

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Ashraf Laidi : Implications of Gold's Rise Relative to Oil

2008.09.18 by Ashraf LaidiIn the September issue of Futures I predicted that the gold/oil ratio would continue to recover from its July record lows as oil begins to underperform gold. The latter would recover as the dollar drops on deteriorating macroeconomic fundamentals and further erosion in financial markets, all triggering re-emerging expectations of Fed cuts.

Ashraf Laidi : Implications of Gold's Rise Relative to Oil

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Become Your Own Trading Coach: Contributors to The Daily Trading Coach

My greatest thanks goes out to the 18 trading professionals who will be contributing their perspectives on self-coaching in Chapter Nine of the new book. They offer dynamite advice to developing and experienced traders; they also offer quality insights through their websites, which I've linked below:

Henry Carstens
Chris Czirnich
Trevor Harnett
Mike Seneadza
Brian Shannon
Rennie Yang
Charles Kirk
Jason Goepfert
Dave Mabe
Chris Perruna
Rob Hanna
Jeff Miller
Ray Barros
John Forman
Mike Bellafiore
Larry Fisher
Corey Rosenbloom
David Adler

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Gold, SPX

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Week Ahead in U.S. Financial Markets (September 15 - September 19 2008)

The week of September 15-19 will see a solid week of US macro data. The major market moving releases of the week will be the FOMC statement on Tuesday and the publication of the consumer price index on Wednesday. Other data for the week will feature estimates of manufacturing activity in September, with the Empire Manufacturing survey released on Monday and the Philadelphia Fed estimate published on Thursday. The August industrial production estimate will be released on Tuesday. The final data for the week will be released Thursday morning when the jobless claims for the week of September 13 are published and the leading economic indicators for September are released

Safe Haven | Merk Economic Calendar: Week Ahead in U.S. Financial Markets (September 15 - September 19 2008)

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Housing: Are We Near the Bottom?

Wachovia and Washington Mutual were big sellers of Alt-A loans, and had $122 billion and $53 billion, respectively, on their books at the end of the second quarter. Is it any wonder their stocks are under pressure? That is why it is so hard to quantify how many more write-offs there will be. You don't write down a mortgage until it starts to develop problems. These problems may not show up for a few years. I continue to stress I do not want to own a financial stock that has exposure to mortgage paper. Write-downs are going to continue to come for a long time.

Safe Haven | Housing: Are We Near the Bottom?

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Gold Will Recover

One has to be realistic here with regard the US Dollar. The US Dollar rally may be just about over. We couldn't help notice that while we witnessed a huge inflow into the US over the past couple of months in looking at the money flows from foreign official and international accounts overall we see a net inflow in but it came out of agency bonds - Freddie and Fannie and into US Treasuries. In the latest numbers this week we saw an outflow out of some $8.5 billion. This is the second week in a row that it has fallen. It primarily came out of agency paper with some flow into US Treasuries. Result we believe the US Dollar is about to reverse to the downside and that in turn will turn gold and silver up.

Safe Haven | Gold Will Recover

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Shanghai Index

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Week Ahead in U.S. Financial Markets (September 8 - September 12 2008)

The week of September 8-12 will see a heavy week of US macro data. Inflation will be at the forefront with import prices and producer prices released on Thursday and Friday, while the advance retail sales estimate for August to close out the week figures to be the primary market moving release of the week. The week will kick off with the Tuesday publication of the July pending home sales release. The majority of the data for the week will be published on Thursday, which will also see the release of the July trade balance, weekly jobless claims and US monthly budget statement. Friday will also see the publication of the University of Michigan's preliminary estimate of consumer sentiment for September.

Safe Haven | Merk Economic Calendar: Week Ahead in U.S. Financial Markets (September 8 - September 12 2008)

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