Investors fear a "black swan" catastrophic event in the financial markets right now more than ever before. At least according to the CBOE Skew Index, which measures the prices of far out-of-the-money options on the S&P 500. Its goal is to determine the benchmark's...
Gold Hits 3-Month High as Traders Bet on U.S. Rate Hike Delay
Gold rose to its highest level since early July on Monday as expectations that the Federal Reserve will postpone an expected U.S. interest rate hike beyond the end of the year pressured the dollar to three-week lows against a currency basket. The dollar index was down...
Debt Ceiling Fail by Congress Could Get Really Ugly
Last week's scare over a possible government shutdown may have been just the warmup act for a much bigger threat to force the Treasury to default on trillions of dollars of debt. The shutdown was narrowly averted by a last minute deal in Congress that angered its most...
IMF Chief Christine Lagarde Calls for Urgent Economic Overhauls Amid Slowdown
The head of the International Monetary Fund on Saturday called for the world’s largest economies to urgently move ahead with economic overhauls as the global growth outlook sours and market turmoil rocks emerging markets. “Downside risks to the outlook have increased,...
Gold Prices Jump after Weak U.S. Jobs Data
Gold prices jumped Friday after U.S. jobs data came in far lower than expected, signaling continued sluggish economic growth and easing expectations of an interest-rate increase this year—adding up to a bullish backdrop for safe-haven assets such as precious metals....
Adrian Day: Long-Term Rallies Have Followed Last Five Major Gold Market Declines
While investing in gold and the overall mining sector is difficult, one precious metals investor says that the sector is on the verge of entering another bull market. Sunday, to kick off the 2015 Denver Gold Forum, Adrian Day, president of Adrian Day Asset Management,...
OECD Lowers Global Economic Forecast
The outlook for the global economy has weakened slightly and become less certain in recent months as ripples from China outweigh an improvement in the U.S., the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday. In the latest update to its economic...
World Bank Chief Economist Warns Fed to Delay Rate Rise
The US Federal Reserve risks triggering “panic and turmoil” in emerging markets if it opts to raise rates at its September meeting and should hold fire until the global economy is on a surer footing, the World Bank’s chief economist has warned. Rising uncertainty over...
The Many Uses of Gold
Gold’s many qualities make it one of the most coveted metals in the world. Not only can it be beautifully shaped and sculpted, the yellow metal also conducts electricity, doesn’t tarnish and is biocompatible (meaning it’s not harmful to our tissue). These qualities...
IMF Says China Slowdown, Other Risks Threaten Global Outlook
China’s slowdown and a host of other downside risks threaten to push the global economy into much deeper trouble without concerted action by the world’s largest economies, the International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday. “Risks are tilted to the downside, and a...
Investors Dump Stocks at Record Pace
The word of the week for investors was "sell." Mom and pop investors are dumping their investments and moving to cash at levels not seen since the financial crisis of 2008. It's an "investor revolt," is how Credit Suisse characterized it. Normally when investors panic...
The Little-Used NYSE Rule That Can Tame a Wild Market
The New York Stock Exchange invoked the little-used Rule 48 to pre-empt panic trading at the stock market open for the third day in a row on Wednesday. In a historic move, the exchange used the rule before Monday's open following a dramatic drop in pre-market open...












