U.S. Home Price Gains Slow … or Reverse

Standard & Poor’s reported(.pdf) that U.S. home price gains have slowed dramatically in recent months and, on a seasonally adjusted basis, home prices have now declined for the first time in two-and-a-half years as shown below.

As the the non-seasonally adjusted data and the year-over-year data in this report traditionally receive more attention than the adjusted data, few news headlines are indicating (gasp!) U.S. home price declines, but that may soon change.

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Louise Yamada: Market Still Climbing a Wall of Worry – Backed by the Fed’s Continued Easing

Also, Ryan Puplava, Erik Townsend and Rob Bernard

TECHNICIAN07/26/2014
Jim welcomes back Louise Yamada CMT, Managing Director of Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors. Louise notes that the market has continued to shrug off bad news, which is a characteristic of structural bull markets. She also notes that the market will likely continue to climb its wall of worry as…
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Will Crashing Commodities Crash The Stock Market?

There are some analysts out there who maintain that the precipitous decline in commodity prices this year bodes ill for the stock market. Witness for example the dramatic drop in the price of corn. Above is a chart of the Teucrium Corn Fund (CORN), a proxy for corn futures. As you can see, corn prices are at multi-year lows right now. This is ironic given that the mainstream media assured us earlier this year that higher ag commodity prices were on the way.
[...] The price of wheat on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) doesn’t present a rosy picture, either. Here you can see an equally conspicuous plunge in the wheat price to multi-year lows.
Continue Reading at GoldSeek.com…

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Quanta Services Inc (NYSE: PWR)

Quanta Services, Inc. provides specialty contracting services to the electric power, and oil and gas industries in North America and internationally. The company’s Electric Power Infrastructure Services segment provides network solutions comprising design, installation, upgrade, repair, and maintenance of electric power transmission and distribution infrastructure, and substation facilities. The company’s Oil and Gas Infrastructure Services segment provides network solutions to customers involved in the development and transportation of natural gas, oil, and other pipeline products. The company’s Fiber Optic Licensing and Other segment designs, procures, constructs, maintains, and owns fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure, as well as licenses the right to use these point-to-point fiber optic telecommunications facilities to its customers.
Take a look at the 1-year chart of Quanta (NYSE: PWR) with the added notations:

Over the last year PWR has consistently moved higher. Since October the stock has formed a trendline of support (blue) that it has been bouncing on top of. Always remember that any (2) points can start a trendline, but it’s the 3rd test and beyond that confirm its importance. PWR’s trendline seems to be very important now that it has been tested multiple times.

The Tale of the Tape: PWR has created a trendline of support over the last year. A long position could be entered on a pullback to that trend line, which is currently sitting right around $34-35, with a stop placed below that level. A short position could be entered if PWR were to break the trend line support.
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How To Profit From The Coming Propane Crisis

You may not realize this, but propane is about a lot more than just firing up the family grill.
In a very real sense, it’s the lifeblood of the entire rural lifestyle.
In the countryside, propane heats more than six million homes, fuels equipment and vehicle fleets, and is instrumental on farms for drying grain for storage and keeping livestock-filled barns warm in the winter.
But like any fuel, it’s susceptible to shortages that cause unwanted strain on entire rural communities, and decisively raises prices in supermarkets across the country. (more)

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NYSE Margin Debt Storms Back To All Time Highs

A month ago we explained why ordinary margin debt (such as that tracked by the NYSE) is largely irrelevant as it completely ignores the leverage of the largest investor class (aside from the Primary Dealers who use Fed reserves as collateral against which to purchase equity index futures), namely hedge funds and whose leverage blows out ordinary retail investors out of the water. Nonetheless, NYSE margin debt is still useful as an indicator of prevailing retail and less than sophisticated investor leverage, and thus euphoria, in the market.
It is from this perspective that we observe how after dropping modestly from all time highs hit in February, NYSE margin debt has recouped virtually all its losses and is now essentially back to all time highs. And as a parallel to that, investor net worth, defined as total Free Credit Cash and Credit Balances in Margin accounts less Margin Debt, has once again dropped to all time lows.

And while it may represent a mere subset of overall market leverage, it is perhaps worth rereading Deutsche Bank's warning on the topic from a year ago, in which the German bank, embroiled in the latest financial reporting credibility scandal, hopes that "not all margin calls come at one in case of a sell-off."
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Andrew Maguire: Hundreds Of Tons Of Gold Bought By East In 14 Days

from King World News

London metals trader Andrew Maguire told King World news that hundreds of tons of physical gold was bought by Eastern nations in just the last 14 days. Below is what London metals trader Andrew Maguire had to say in Part II of a series of interviews that has now been released on KWN.
Eric King: “Andrew, I know there were large sovereign bidders in this market near the $1,300 level. By taking gold through that level, how much gold was lost to the cartel (of Western central banks)?”
Maguire: “When you look at the billions of dollars of instantaneous sales, you see a $2.5 billion sale, you see a billion dollar sale. You are talking hundreds of tons of paper gold being sold….
Continue Reading at KingWorldNews.com…

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