Get the answer to your question from Coach John G. Agno. What we all want is interaction with others to clarify our thoughts before taking action and to allow our perceptions to evolve over time.
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Some governments, central banks and mega-banks are waging a secret war on cash. They are even talking about outlawing the use of physical currency. This new reality might be closer than you think.
Consider these headlines (all from April 2015):
Large U.S. bank bans wire transfers, limits cash withdrawals (TheCrux)
JPMorgan Chase Bans Storage of Cash in its Safety Deposit Boxes (InfoWars)
Citi Economist Says It Might Be Time to Abolish Cash (Bloomberg)
Sweden moving towards cashless economy (CBSNews)
Are you ready to have your bank take money from you for the privilege of having it on deposit? It's called a "negative interest rate." If cash is banned, you will be stuck with it.
Do not be caught off guard by this disturbing new trend -- read this free report now to get up to speed and learn how to protect your cash savings from government seizure.
P.S. This report comprises several months of research from our friends over at Elliott Wave International, the world's largest, independent financial forecasting firm. The research originally appeared in EWI's latest issues of its U.S.-focused Financial Forecast Service. Subscribers pay $59 every month for access to their top-notch service (Click this-link if you're interested in subscribing risk-free and saving 45%.), but we have arranged for a limited-time to provide access to their brand-new report, The War on Cash, 100% on the house!
In 2009 and 2014, a simple chart pattern enabled us to turn bullish the dollar, just in time for HUGE rallies. Learn to use this pattern now.
By Elliott Wave International
Imagine you're on an airplane, mid-air, when the intercom from the cockpit accidentally turns on. You and the entire cabin crew overhear the pilot say this to his copilot:
"I know we're heading northeast at 430 mph. But... I have no idea when or where I'm supposed to land."
That's when you cough up your bag of peanuts!
Dramatic? Sure. Imaginary? Yes. But it also highlights the real limits of mainstream financial analysis, which has no trouble identifying the current trend in a financial market -- but has little idea as to when or where that trend will end.
This is where the Wave Principle really can help you. Elliott wave analysis recognizes about a dozen distinct price patterns in financial markets. Each pattern conforms to clear, objective rules and guidelines that help you -- the investor or trader -- determine,
Exact price levels where each wave should end
Fibonacci price levels to help you further fine-tune price targets
Support and resistance price levels -- to manage your risk
And, ultimately, where the entire pattern will end -- and the next opportunity will begin
One Elliott wave pattern above all else signals the trend will soon end: the aptly named, Ending Diagonal. It only forms in the final position of a wave sequence -- i.e., wave 5 of a 5-wave impulse, or wave C of a correction, just as the trend is about to turn.
Most importantly, when this pattern ends, it's followed by a swift and powerful reversal that retraces the entire length of the diagonal. Here's an idealized depiction, in bull and bear markets:
To fully appreciate the wonder of ending diagonals you have to see them in a real-world market -- like the U.S. dollar, where this pattern precipitated not one, but two of the most dramatic turning points in the buck's recent history.
First, 2009, the year the music of the world's main monetary unit was supposed to die:
The U.S. dollar circles the drain of a 15-month low
Global central banks accumulate the lowest proportion of new U.S. dollar reserves on record (Nov. 6, 2009 Time Magazine)
And, the UN calls for a "new global currency to replace the dollar, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since World War II." (Sept. 8, 2009 Telegraph.co.uk)
Lo and behold, all the mainstream "pilots" could see was the dollar's descent continuing into total oblivion:
"Dollar Slump Persisting As Top Analysts See No Bottom... As long as the Fed maintains interest rates at historical lows, the EUR-USD should return on a bullish trend." (Nov. 23, 2009 Reuters)
Of course, you know that the Fed has kept interest rates at the same low levels, near zero, since 2009, for 6 long years -- yet EURUSD did the opposite of what the mainstream pundits expected.
On the other hand, thanks to the ending diagonal Elliott wave pattern, you knew of the coming bullish reversal in the dollar/ bearish reversal in the EURUSD ahead of time. Elliott Wave International's October 21, 2009Short Term Update wrote:
"The [U.S. Dollar Index] still has not 'spiked beneath 74.92, the lower trendline of the fifth-wave ending diagonal that we've been discussing. Absent this price behavior, a rally above 77.48 would be another signal that a significant low is in place. Until then, we patiently wait for the current wave structure to complete."
Reinforcing the bullish outlook was Elliott Wave International's October 2009 Elliott Wave Theorist (notice the ending diagonal on the dollar's price chart):
"The dollar sentiment remains bleak as night... and the wave count once again appears terminal. The coming advance in the dollar should be exceptionally powerful."
Result: As the ending diagonal pattern suggested, soon after the U.S. dollar index took off in a powerful rally to a one-year high against the euro.
Now, flash ahead to May 2014: Once again, U.S. dollar "doom talk" is back. Against the euro, the dollar stands at a 2.5 year low, near $1.40.
This time, Elliott Wave International's June 2014 European Financial Forecast saw a bearish ending diagonal on the EURUSD price chart, suggesting another greenback comeback ahead:
"The wave labels on the chart denote the pertinent legs of the rally...Wave C of (4) traced out an ending diagonal to complete the advance. Last month, prices broke below the diagonals lower boundary, confirming the end of the large degree rally. The decline should be the first of many down waves that carry the euro lower over the remainder of 2014."
Result: From that May 2014, the U.S. dollar soared (and the euro slid) in the fastest rise in 40 years, ascending to a 12-year high against its European foil by March 2015.
This is why ending diagonals are one of the most high-confidence Elliott wave patterns. But it's just one of many. Imagine how much knowing other patterns could help you with your markets.
This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Why 2 of U.S. Dollar's Recent Bottoms Have 1 Thing In Common. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.
Editor's note: This article is from Elliott Wave International's brand-new investment report, "U.S. Investors Face a Giant, Historic Bubble." It originally appeared in the April issue of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, published March 27, 2015. For a limited-time, EWI has agreed to give our readers exclusive free access to the full report. Please click here to read it now.
In March, we covered the return to a popular fascination with technology.
The striking resemblance to 2000's technology mania is not going unnoticed. How can it?
With the NASDAQ's much heralded return to 5000 and magazine covers proclaiming "Google Wants You To Live Forever," concern about an "asset bubble" is being raised. But this is actually another throwback to early March 2000, when the NASDAQ reached its all-time high and the Financial Forecast remarked on a "public ambivalence toward warnings of any kind."
The March issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist explains that while people may remember some of the details, they "forget their prior mood and rationalize present extremes into normality."
This March 7 headline from a major financial paper offers a perfect example of how this "normalization" works: "Forget 2000. It's a Different Investing Ballgame." Really? Yeah, really. "It really is different this time," says another. "The crazy valuations seen at the turn of the millennium -- when silly concepts, such as collecting eyeballs, attracted billions of dollars from breathless speculators wanting to get in on the new, new thing -- are absent."
There's just one problem with this assessment, it's not accurate. Here's the reality, or should we say surreality, as depicted in Bloomberg on March 17:
The Fuzzy, Insane Math That's Creating So Many Billion-Dollar Tech Companies
The article discloses how companies are shooting to "astronomical valuations," mostly with Internet ideas that capture people's bullish imaginations and, as in 2000, cause them to look beyond mundane things such as cash flow and profits. Once again, such stone-age metrics are less important than "the number of people using the product" and "whether they pay for it. Investors salivate over what's called 'hockey-stick' growth curves, indicating massive uptake. Costs, especially operations costs, are largely ignored."
As in 2000, the fever has been spreading fast. According to Bloomberg, start-ups with billion-dollar valuations were once dubbed "unicorns" because of their rarity. Now, Bloomberg counts more than 50 of them. Many have expanded ten-fold, so a new buzzword, "decacorn," now applies to those with capitalizations of more than "$10 billion, which includes Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, Snapchat and Uber."
Of course, the driving force behind many of these investments is the same--a fear of missing out (FOMO).
"A severe case of FOMO can cause some to do crazy things to get into the hottest deals," says Bloomberg. This is exactly what the Financial Forecast said in March 2000, when we explained why people fail to heed ample warnings in the final throes of a mania: "Acting on such an opinion might mean missing something on the upside. 'The average person must ride it out,' says [a] Nobel Prize winner. Quotes such as these will deserve preservation in bronze when the bear market is mature." Clearly, that time still lies ahead.
For compelling Elliott wave evidence of a culmination of the Mania Era, see the five-wave advance in the share price of the current technology leader, Apple Inc., on page 3 of the March Elliott Wave Theorist. As the Theorist notes, after rising more than 14,500% over the past 12 years, S&P Dow Jones Indices added the stock to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on March 19.
This is one more remarkable parallel to the prior technology mania, as Microsoft was added to the Dow Industrials just prior to its January 2000 top. Here's how EWFF interpreted its addition in November 1999:
The ultimate concession to technology is due November 2, when Microsoft will be inducted into the Dow Jones Industrial Average. For most of the bull market, the world's most dominant stock was excluded from the world's premier blue-chip average. But just as RCA was added to the Dow in October 1928 (and removed in 1932), Microsoft has assumed its rightful place at the head of the pack, in time to lead the way down.
Apple has just been acknowledged in the same way and for the same reason. The pressure to pile onto the technology bandwagon has proved irresistible to the Dow's purveyors. This has generally happened when the most important stock market reversals were at hand.
Editor's note: This article is from Elliott Wave International's brand-new investment report, "U.S. Investors Face a Giant, Historic Bubble." It originally appeared in the April issue of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, published March 27, 2015. For a limited-time, EWI has agreed to give our readers exclusive free access to the full report. Please click here to read it now.
The "art" of marketing can be very mysterious to engineers, accountants, computer specialists, and other technically-oriented people. This is especially true when it comes to the commercialization of a new product or process or the startup of a technically-driven business venture.
Many technically-oriented people think that the key to marketing success is to learn the secret marketing "formulas." They take all the marketing courses at their local business school. They read all the books on marketing. But it still doesn't happen. The "formulas" aren't there.
In fact, they aren't anywhere. Marketing is much more an "art" than a science. It's simply a mistake to look for scientific formulas in a field of "art."
Successful commercialization combines the "science" of formulating a winning physical product/process with the "art" of marketing strategy and implementation. In a way, this combination of product science and marketing art emulates the craftsmen of yesteryear who applied crude tools with a system of methods and principles into a skillful performance that could not be learned solely by study.
In today's high-tech world, most technically-oriented product developers would be well advised to seek out a marketing artist to work with — rather than trying to become the all-in-one craftsman.
The development of xerography is a good example of the combination of product science and marketing art. Chester Carlson, a physicist and patent attorney, obtained a patent on xerography and searched for a way to commercialize it. He happened to be an attorney for a client of Battelle (a research organization in Columbus, OH), and sent a copy of the patent to them for review.
Battelle was interested. For 55% of the patent rights, Battelle agreed to invest in the technology, with Battelle research making three technical improvements. However, it was the little Haloid Company (a market-oriented 100-employee company in Rochester, NY) that figured out how to commercialize this expensive and very-service-intensive machine ($15,000 cost). As a result, in 1963 the Xerox 914 was born.
Joe Wilson, Haloid Company's president, is given the credit for the marketing "art" that led to the success of xerography — Lease the Xerox 914 copier for only $100 a month, but pay an additional penny per copy made on the machine.
It was Haloid's addition of marketing "art" to Battelle's solid product "science" that created a winning product. The marketing-oriented Haloid Company changed its name to Xerox Corporation, and the technically-oriented Battelle received $350 million of Xerox stock.
Don't underestimate the need for marketing "art" in your own product or business development activities. Find a good marketing "artist" to work with — and do so as early as possible.
The "art" of marketing can be very mysterious to engineers, accountants, computer specialists, and other technically-oriented people. This is especially true when it comes to the commercialization of a new product or process or the startup of a technically-driven business venture.
Many technically-oriented people think that the key to marketing success is to learn the secret marketing "formulas." They take all the marketing courses at their local business school. They read all the books on marketing. But it still doesn't happen. The "formulas" aren't there.
In fact, they aren't anywhere. Marketing is much more an "art" than a science. It's simply a mistake to look for scientific formulas in a field of "art."
Successful commercialization combines the "science" of formulating a winning physical product/process with the "art" of marketing strategy and implementation. In a way, this combination of product science and marketing art emulates the craftsmen of yesteryear who applied crude tools with a system of methods and principles into a skillful performance that could not be learned solely by study.
In today's high-tech world, most technically-oriented product developers would be well advised to seek out a marketing artist to work with — rather than trying to become the all-in-one craftsman.
The development of xerography is a good example of the combination of product science and marketing art. Chester Carlson, a physicist and patent attorney, obtained a patent on xerography and searched for a way to commercialize it. He happened to be an attorney for a client of Battelle (a research organization in Columbus, OH), and sent a copy of the patent to them for review.
Battelle was interested. For 55% of the patent rights, Battelle agreed to invest in the technology, with Battelle research making three technical improvements. However, it was the little Haloid Company (a market-oriented 100-employee company in Rochester, NY) that figured out how to commercialize this expensive and very-service-intensive machine ($15,000 cost). As a result, in 1963 the Xerox 914 was born.
Joe Wilson, Haloid Company's president, is given the credit for the marketing "art" that led to the success of xerography — Lease the Xerox 914 copier for only $100 a month, but pay an additional penny per copy made on the machine.
It was Haloid's addition of marketing "art" to Battelle's solid product "science" that created a winning product. The marketing-oriented Haloid Company changed its name to Xerox Corporation, and the technically-oriented Battelle received $350 million of Xerox stock.
Don't underestimate the need for marketing "art" in your own product or business development activities. Find a good marketing "artist" to work with — and do so as early as possible.
Q: I just returned from vacation where I had a chance to think about how I want to live my life differently. I know that I want do something else in my career but I am not sure what. Do you have any advice on what I can do about this discontent that I am feeling?
A: Every year, we gain a clearer understanding that without positive change, decline is inevitable. Still it's easy to lose hope: barriers to change seem to be everywhere. We work in organizations that aren't much fun. We fail to gain work/life balance that is so important to us but so difficult to sustain. Looking ahead, the challenge is to recognize that what we are now tolerating can be reinvented.
Most people returning to work from a relaxing vacation, where they took stock of their life, question if they are on the right career path but don’t do anything about it. "I'll be happy when...." is the way many people think they are living their lives. A fortunate few decide not to languish in their present job and begin the process of engineering a mid-career correction. Here is how these very few do it.
They recognize that happiness is not something that happens to you. Happiness is inside you now. You are motivated from within as you discovered while on vacation. You only have to allow happiness to continue to surface after the vacation in your work and personal lives.
The formula for happiness is to know yourself, discover what you do best and understand that you get what you tolerate. In medicine, you look at how "well tolerated" a drug will be related to its side effects. At work and at home, many people evaluate new opportunities related to what can be well tolerated. Yet after life, most people don't want their tombstone to read, "She tolerated stuff for other people because they paid her." Especially, when we realize that we can make more money and have more fun doing work that engages our passions. Life is too short for doing work you don't enjoy.
That said, I don’t recommend that you immediately leave your job but do begin the career transition process to visualize where you want to be. The first step is to change the way you think about yourself. Since what we think, we become, it is important to convince ourselves that we can change, so we do change. Believing comes first, then change, not the other way around.This rethinking who we are helps us to begin to consciously separate ourselves from our current job and life.
As you become clearer on where you want to be, you begin to modify your career path to be more in line with who you have become. Clarity happens as you get to know more about who you are by engaging in self-learning exercises. You also speed up the career transformation process through taking some self-assessments to match your strengths, interests and personality with potential work choices.
Everyone should know the important things in their life---your family, your partner, your health and well-being, your children---anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, you would be devastated.
After you know what’s important to you, engage in selective reading and take a few personality and career self assessments to get to know you better.Here are some self-assessments in books that you can buy at your local or online bookseller:
Tom Rath: StrengthsFinder 2.0
Marcus Buckingham: StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution
Kevin W. McCarthy: The On-Purpose Business: Doing More of What You Do Best More Profitably
The results of practicing the new discoveries and habits you learn over time are that they become part of your new real self.
Often, with changes in your habits, come changes in your aspirations and dreams. Going through the discovery of uncovering an ideal vision of yourself motivates you to develop new abilities to create and sustain the new habits. That is, you see the person you want to be---living with the new habit. This becomes the source of the energy required to work at the difficult and often frustrating process of change.
Before Indiana in 1976, only North Carolina, San Francisco and UCLA ever won the NCAA tournament as undefeated teams.
There hasn't been an unbeaten team at a Final Four since 1991, when Duke upset UNLV in a national semifinal, handing the Runnin' Rebels their first loss of the season.
In the December 1, 1975 edition of Sports Illustrated, College Basketball Issue, the Hoosiers were No. 1. Behind Coach Bob Knight's security blanket, the Hoosiers were assembling an all-around game that surpassed their last season's rugged combination of offense and defense. Coach Knight admitted, "There's great senior leadership. These players are as aware of how hard they should be working as any I've had."
Back then, Marquette Coach Al McGuire said, "Indiana has the best team with the best players and the best coach."
There had been no ill effects from Indiana's last year, when the team swept to a 31-0 record before suffering a 92-90 loss to Kentucky in the NCAA Mideast Regional.
Now there is so much conspiring against an undefeated season that few basketball coaches can relate to Kentucky's Coach John Calipari at this point.
But there was a Division III men's basketball team that went undefeated in 1998. That team was Wisconsin-Platteville. Its coach was Bo Ryan. Now at Wisconsin. His next game is Saturday against Kentucky.
