First a heads up, this post is allowing the reader to do their own research, make their own mind up. We at readtheticker.com do not hold a biblical view on the markets, but each of your is free to do as they wish.

NOTE: With this subject it is nearly impossible to get agreement between biblical scholars.

What is the biblical Shemitah Cycle:

1. Biblical reference, Hebrew calendar.
2. 7 year cycle
3. The 7th year is a year of rest (or drop of activity)
4. A more serious 7th year of rest is the 7th year at the end of seven 7 years cycle (ie the 49 year).
5. The year of rest (ie 7th year) maybe a minor, medium or major adjustment. No one knows!
6. 2015 is the 7th year of a Shemitah cycle, and also the end of 7 previous Shemitah cycles (ie the last year of 49 years or 7 Shemitah cycles inclusive). Some call this a Jubilee year.

Below is the most recent 7 year cycle. Not showing the full 7×7. But you get the idea!

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Below we have 200 years of Dow Jones Industrials (monthly line chart). Also below we have from wikipedia a list of  economic crisis from 1800s. Match the crisis up with the chart and research 200 years of 7 year cycles. You will see that some dips are minor, some are medium and some a major. What the next dip will be is any one guess??

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List of economic crises (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

19th century

• Danish state bankruptcy of 1813
• Post-Napoleonic depression (post 1815)
• Panic of 1819, a U.S. recession with bank failures; culmination of U.S.’s first boom-to-bust economic cycle
• Panic of 1825, a pervasive British recession in which many banks failed, nearly including the Bank of England
• Panic of 1837, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 5-year depression
• Panic of 1847, started as a collapse of British financial markets associated with the end of the 1840s railway industry boom
• Panic of 1857, a U.S. recession with bank failures
• Panic of 1866, was an international financial downturn that accompanied the failure of Overend, Gurney and Company in London
• Long Depression (1873-1896)
• Panic of 1873, a US recession with bank failures, followed by a four-year depression
• Panic of 1884
• Panic of 1890
• Panic of 1893, a US recession with bank failures
• Australian banking crisis of 1893
• Panic of 1896

20th century

• Panic of 1901, a U.S. economic recession that started a fight for financial control of the Northern Pacific Railway
• Panic of 1907, a U.S. economic recession with bank failures
• Wall Street Crash of 1929 and Great Depression (1929-1939) the worst depression of modern history
• OPEC oil price shock (1973)
• Secondary banking crisis of 1973-1975 in the UK
• Japanese asset price bubble (1986-2003)
• Bank stock crisis (Israel 1983)
• Black Monday (1987)
• Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S.
• 1991 India economic crisis
• Finnish banking crisis (1990s)
• Swedish banking crisis (1990s)
• 1994 economic crisis in Mexico
• 1997 Asian financial crisis
• 1998 Russian financial crisis
• Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002)

21st century

• Early 2000s recession
• Dot-com bubble
• Late-2000s Financial Crisis or the Late-2000s recession, including:
• 2000s energy crisis
• Subprime mortgage crisis
• United States housing bubble and United States housing market correction
• 2008-2012 Icelandic financial crisis
• 2008-2010 Irish banking crisis
• Russian financial crisis of 2008-2009
• Automotive industry crisis of 2008-2010
• European sovereign debt crisis
• 2014 Russian financial crisis

Plenty to review. Spooky yes, will 2015 to 2016 be a crisis of Central Banker QE does not work any more!

Roll up, place your bets!

Investing Quote…

“Anyone who buys or sells a stock, a bond or a commodity for profit is speculating if he employs intelligent foresight. If he does not, he is gambling.” ~ Richard D Wyckoff

“It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong” ~ George Soros

We have talked a lot in recent months about the panorama of technology innovation, but in our lifetimes there have been very few truly revolutionary technology developments.

The standard is high. One of the first great technology innovations for mankind was the wheel. Beat that, Apple! The harnessing of fire was another big one.

The invention of sailing ships was huge, the cotton gin, the internal-combustion engine, the light bulb, the telephone, the automobile, the train and the jet airplane — all major steps in the development of civilization and commerce.

In the past 50 years, the list narrows quite a bit. Certainly the eradication of certain serious diseases such as polio and smallpox via vaccines has to be listed among the great technologies.

And you will get a debate on this subject, but I would put the development of the Internet — or the networking of computers — among the great innovations of the past 50 years. The Internet has revolutionized the way we learn, communicate, entertain, shop and govern. Add mobility from the development of cellular networks, and the value of fast information dissemination rises dramatically.

Yet to be fair, most of the major developments of the Internet and networking were accomplished in the 1960s and 1970s, and then only refined in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. A modern laptop computer is light years faster and can store far more than the original IBM PC that was introduced in 1980, but those are evolutionary, not revolutionary, developments. If you were to transport an office worker from 1982 and put them in front of a modern Dell desktop computer they would be delighted by the speed, color monitor and graphic interface, but they would know their way around.

This begs the question of what all those Silicon Alley engineers have been doing the past two decades. From the standpoint of the timeline of science, it seems like a complete waste to put all those Stanford and MIT computer engineers to work coming up with better online advertising algorithms, or new ways of displaying videos in Facebook, or writing code that prevents hackers from breaking into an electronic vault of medical records.

Where’s a breakthrough on the order of the cotton gin or internal combustion engine today? I want to see some truly amazing, not just an iPhone 6 that has a screen that’s a smidge bigger than its predecessors and sports an improved voice command module that can make lunch reservations.

Looking out on the horizon, the most dynamic new technology developments that I see coming are in power and transportation: First, cheap, accessible, grid-level solar energy coming down to a price that is more than competitive with fossil and nuclear fuels; and second, a move toward “autonomous” vehicles for personal and commercial travel — i.e. drone cars in neighborhoods, at the docks and on freeways.

Both of these developments are coming much faster than the public realizes. I sense there may virtually be a “phase change,” in the words of one researcher, which describes a moment when everything transforms quickly rather than slowly. An example would be if you were to apply a match to an ice cube. The molecules undergo a phase change from solid to vapor without stopping first at the intervening state of liquid.

In our recent lifetimes we have seen real but less significant changes in our habits by fast-moving technology. Three years ago you might have spent $300 on the latest Blu-Ray DVD player for movie watching. Now that player sits on its shelf unused as the shift to streaming everything — movies, TV shows and music — has progressed at what feels like lightning speed. You might also have a laptop gathering dust somewhere that you have abandoned in favor of a tablet, such as an iPad. Or indeed you may have an iPad gathering dust now that your smartphone has a comfortably viewable, bright, fast 5.5-inch screen.

All of these developments will be absolutely pale compared to changes coming down the road, so to speak, in the electrical grid and autonomous cars. Big energy companies not too long from now are likely to be looking at their thousands of drilling rigs much like you look at that Blu-Ray player.

Only thousands of times worse. If solar energy becomes as price-competitive at the grid level as soon as I suspect, then not just those rigs but trillions of dollars’ worth of “stranded” oil and gas assets will have to be written down by all the energy companies.

That will cause a major dislocation in markets as investors absorb the losses, but it will be temporary as it will give way to an era of plentiful solar energy that is not just much cleaner but also much cheaper. The money that manufacturers, governments and consumers will save on fossil fuels will be put to new and potentially much better uses, fueling a new boom.

And likewise, as you can learn about in Martin’s column yesterday, autonomous cars, trucks and ships are no longer science fiction. They are rolling down the track at incredible speed, as companies as diverse as Uber, Apple, Audi, General Motors and Tesla are already running neck and neck in attempting to create and lock up as much intellectual property as possible.

I will have much more for you on this subject as 2015 unfolds. Stay tuned.

Best wishes,

Jon Markman

As the world continues to digest breaking news out of Greece and Ukraine, the Godfather of newsletter writers, 90-year old Richard Russell, warned that a new world currency is on the way but he also spoke about what will be the biggest surprise about this new currency.  Russell also spoke about how this will impact the entire world, including major markets.

Richard Russell:  “On Friday the Dow closed at a new record high. But today it appeared that the market was consolidating its gains. There are two ways to operate in a bull market. When we’re early in a bull market, dividends are higher and stocks are relatively cheap, we can take a large position on the thesis that losses are limited. 

Proceed With Caution

…..continue reading HERE

This infographic details the ins and outs of 3D printing and its effect on the business world.

Due to factors such as the technology becoming more user friendly and a decrease in the price of acquisition, 3D printing is making a splash in many industries such as medicine, automotive and electronics. Currently, the largest revenue generator in the industry is consumer electronics, followed closely by the automotive industry. Also, the largest end user customer base is located in the USA, with a whopping 38% market share.

Advantages of 3D printing include: the convenience of designing and producing goods in house, on your own schedule; reduced need to store inventory, as it can be made just in time for use; cost reduction of manufacturing without the added expense of creating molds, and much more.

Moving forward, investors must consider the high barriers to entry, vertical acquisitions and potential demand growth from the manufacturing and software industries.