Richard CowanWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress, facing yet another government shutdown deadline at midnight on Friday, will try this week to approve a massive spending bill that would end lawmakers’ nettlesome budget infighting, at least through Sept. 30.Republican leaders in the House of Representatives hope to unveil soon the product of long negotiations over a $1 trillion spending...Read More

The gold miners' stocks remain deeply out of favor, trading at prices seen when gold was half or even a quarter of current levels. So many traders assume this small contrarian sector must be really struggling fundamentally. But nothing could be farther from the truth! The major gold miners' recently-released Q4'17 results prove they are thriving. Their languishing stock prices are the result o...Read More

BERLIN (Reuters) - North Korean rockets can now be fitted with nuclear weapons and could reach Germany and central Europe, a top official with Germany’s foreign intelligence agency told lawmakers this week, according to a report in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.BND Deputy Director Ole Diehl told lawmakers during a closed-door meeting that the assessment was “certain,” the newspap...Read More

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking died Tuesday at the age of 76, and before he departed this world, he left us with warnings that Earth is headed for a "catastrophic ending" in the near future. This doom will not come from a fiery asteroid or even global warming, but from rising inequality fueled by increasingly smart robots, Hawking said. "Intelligent future AI will probably develop a drive to sur...Read More

Vladimir Soldatkin, Gleb StolyarovKEMEROVO, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin won a landslide re-election victory on Sunday, extending his rule over the world’s largest country for another six years at a time when his ties with the West are on a hostile trajectory.Putin’s thumping victory will extend his total time in office to nearly a quarter of a century, until 202...Read More

When you buy stocks in sectors and sub-sectors of the market, keep your goals in mind. If you're a conservative, income-seeking investor, focus on utilities, financial stocks and consumer stocks. If you're aggressive, buy more manufacturing stocks and resource stocks.As a general rule, we advise you to keep at least 10 per cent-but no more than 30 per cent-in each of the five main economic sectors...Read More

(Adds CEO comments, background)March 19 (Reuters) - Newcrest Mining Ltd on Monday cut capital cost and operating cost estimates for its Wafi-Golpu joint venture in Papua New Guinea.The new estimates are based on an updated feasibility study that expects sustaining capital, which is the capital incurred after the start of commercial production, to be A$2.56 billion ($1.97 billion), less than its pr...Read More

Contrarians, who weren't surprised by gold's weakness in recent sessions, believe bullion will continue to suffer. That's because there still isn't the widespread despair and pessimism that typically precede tradable gold rallies. That despite gold's GCJ8, -0.11% disappointing performance during the stock market's recent correction; bullion is down 4% since its late January high - including anoth...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.1/ FED A-HEADThe U.S. Federal Reserve’s first meeting with new head Jerome Powell at the helm takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday and an interest rate rise - this year’s first - is seen as a done deal.Against the backdrop of b...Read More

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has selected American-trained economist Yi Gang to become the country’s new central bank governor, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday, citing unnamed people with knowledge of the matter.The WSJ said the nomination of Yi, who is currently deputy to incumbent central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan was reviewed by the nearly 3,000 delegates attending the N...Read More

Huw JonesLONDON (Reuters) - The global watchdog that drove through a welter of banking and market reforms after the financial crisis said it will pivot more toward reviewing existing rules and away from designing new ones.The Financial Stability Board (FSB), which coordinates financial regulation for the Group of 20 Economies, also resisted calls from some G20 members to regulate cryptocurrencies...Read More

Yuna Park, Joseph CampbellSEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - A senior North Korean diplomat left for Finland on Sunday for talks with former U.S. and South Korean officials, Yonhap News Agency reported, amid a series of diplomatic encounters ahead of a possible U.S.-North Korean summit.North Korea is pursuing its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions and has made no se...Read More

MOSCOW (Reuters) - An exit poll showed Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential election held on Sunday with 73.9 percent of the vote.The voting projection, by pollster VTsIOM, put Communist party challenger Pavel Grudinin in second place with 11.2 percent.Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, was on 6.7 pct, and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak had 2.5 percent...Read More

Tommy Wilkes, Saikat ChatterjeeLONDON (Reuters) - Foreign exchange markets appear convinced that a global trade war is unlikely to break out anytime soon, although with long bets on some currencies at record highs, investors fear complacency may be setting in.While the Trump administration’s threat to slap tariffs on Chinese imports has heightened fears of retaliation from Beijing, it has on...Read More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he expects President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement in May.“The Iran deal will be another issue that’s coming up in May, and right now it doesn’t feel like it’s gonna be extended,” Corker told CBS’ “Face the Nation&rdq...Read More

Francesco CanepaBUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Germany and Argentina want to uphold a pledge to keep international trade free at a summit of the world’s 20 largest economies in Buenos Aires this week, the countries’ finance ministers said on Sunday.A multi-decade-old international consensus over trade has come under threat from U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist stance, which...Read More

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - European Central Bank policymaker Klaas Knot has “a high degree of confidence” inflation in the euro zone will hit the ECB’s target of just under 2 percent “at some point” after several quarters of steady price forecasts, he said on Sunday.“Inflation has been fairly stable so that provides me with a high degree confidence that actually i...Read More

Show HighlightsGerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute, returns to the show with new commentary on the geopolitical arena and financial markets. Our guest is concerned that the US US could be drawn into a military conflict in the Middle East or with NK with potentially dire consequences. US equities indexes have benefited from artificial and unsustainable stock buybacks.Gerald C...Read More

Click Here to Listen to the InterviewWith the yuan-denominated crude oil contract ready to begin trading on March 26, we thought we'd check in today with an expert on the significance of this, our pal Alasdair Macleod of GoldMoney.For this call, I simply asked Alasdair to lay out the short-term and long-term significance of pricing crude oil in something other than U.S. dollars. This new contract...Read More

"Peter Cook is the author of the 'Is That True?' series of articles, which help explain the many statements and theories circulating in the mainstream financial media often presented as "truths." The motives and psychology of market participants, which drives the difference between truth and partial-truth, are explored."Most people are aware that GDP growth has been lower than expected in the a...Read More