Bon-Ton Stores (NASDAQ: BONT) Stock Could Plummet Another 50% in Next 90 Days

U.S. retailers continue to show signs of improvement across the board. According to the National Retail Federation, 2013 ended with a 3.7% increase in sales, and 2014 is predicted to continue the trend with 4.1% sales growth. However, consumer confidence is weakening, with the Conference Board's index falling more than forecast in February.

This dynamic is interesting. It seems that the improved retail environment is a direct beneficiary of lending institutions loosening their requirements, thus simply lending more money to bored consumers to spend. To put it bluntly, I don't expect the positive retail numbers to continue for much longer.  (more)

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Rick Rule: Why the Resource Supercycle Is Still Intact

by Rick Rule, Chairman and Founder, Sprott Global Resource Investments Ltd.
Casey Research
Natural-resource-based industries are very capital intensive, and hence extremely cyclical. It is not unreasonable to say that as a natural-resource investor, you are either contrarian or you will be a victim. These markets are risky and volatile!
Why cyclicality?
Let’s talk about cyclicality first. Some of the cyclicality of these industries is a function of their being extraordinarily capital intensive. This lengthens the companies’ response times to market cycles. Strengthening copper prices, for example, do not immediately result in increased copper production in many market cycles, because the production cycle requires new deposits to be discovered, financed, and constructed—a process that can consume a decade.
Continue Reading at CaseyResearch.com…
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Sensata Technologies Holding N.V. (NYSE: ST)

Sensata Technologies Holding N.V, through its subsidiaries, engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of sensors and controls primarily in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, and Europe. The company operates in two segments, Sensors and Controls. The company offers its products primarily under the Sensata, Klixon, Airpax, and Dimensions brand names. It serves original equipment manufacturers and suppliers in the automotive, industrial, and commercial end-markets; and industrial and commercial manufacturers and suppliers in the climate control, appliance, semiconductor, datacomm, telecommunications, and aerospace industries, as well as motor and compressor suppliers.
Please take a look at the 1-year chart of ST (Sensata Technologies Holding N.V.) below with my added notations:

For the most part, ST has been trading sideways for the last (7) months. The two most common price levels on this stock during that period of time have been $37 and $39. Each of those prices has been support and/or resistances multiple times. In addition, $41 has been hit as resistance on (2) different occasions and would be a 52-week high if ST could break above it.

The Tale of the Tape: ST is currently trading between $39 and $41. A long trade could be made on a pullback to $39 or on a break above $41. A short trade could be made on a break below $39.
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With Gold And Gas Rebounding, Is It Time To Buy These 3 Commodities? : CORN, Uranium, Silver

When it comes to commodities, investors typically make a classic mistake: They shun them when they are out of favor, and they load up on them when prices are surging.
The contrarian view is so much more profitable.
For example, I noted a few months ago that an extended period of oversupply had pushed coffee prices down to multi-year lows, but added that "signs are emerging that current coffee prices are causing too much distress among coffee growers. Yearlong protests in Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, has led the government to take action to prop up prices. The iPath Pure Beta ETN (Nasdaq: CAFE), which had lost more than 30% of its value at that point in 2013, has rebounded 50% since then. Coffee prices are simply responding to the first rule of economics: Falling prices lead to falling supply, which eventually moves below levels of demand, providing a boost to prices. In the case of coffee, a change in growing conditions also affected those factors.  (more)
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Here Is The FT’s Gold Price Manipulation Article That Was Removed

from ZeroHedge:
Two days ago the FT released a clear, informative and fact-based article, titled simply enough “Gold price rigging fears put investors on alert” in which author Madison Marriage, citing a report by the Fideres consultancy, revealed that global gold prices may have been manipulated on 50 per cent of occasions between January 2010 and December 2013.
To those who hve been following the price action of gold in the past four years, gold manipulation is not only not surprising, but accepted and widely appreciated (because like the Chinese those who buy gold would rather do so at artificially low rather than artificially high fiat prices) and at this point, after every other product has been exposed to be blatantly and maliciously manipulated by the banking estate, it is taken for granted that the central banks’ primary fiat alternative, and biggest threat to the monetary status quo, has not avoided a comparable fate.
Read More @ ZeroHedge.com

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Agricultural ETF Rises Sharply

Above is a chart of the DBA — the agricultural ETF. Since late January, it has risen from a low of 24.4 to ~26.6 — an increase of about 9%. The primary reason is the driest growing season in Brazil in the last 60 years, which has effect both softs (coffee) and grains (soy beans).

The weekly chart places the move in a more historical context. Prices have been bottoming for most of 2013, Falling from a price spike in 2010-2011. Over the last few weeks, the weekly chart has printed some very strong price bars, moving prices through the 10, 20 and 50 day EMA. Also notice that the MACD and CMF are in a position to become far more bullish in their overall measurements.
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