Archive - Jan 24, 2011

Jack H Barnes's picture

Famine the other F word !





Global Wheat, China's drought and Historical Famine's

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Government To Pretend It Will Prosecute Wall Street





In what is merely the latest act in the neverending play of fraud and corruption, the bipartisan panel appointed by Congress to investigate the financial crisis has concluded that several financial industry figures appear to have broken the law and has referred multiple cases to state or federal authorities for potential prosecution reports the Huffington Post. "The sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, declined to identify the people implicated or the names of their institutions. But they characterized the panel's decision to make referrals to prosecutors as a significant escalation in the government's response to the financial crisis." Well, it would be so easy to believe that this is not merely the latest political attempt at cowardly subterfuge before their Wall Street overlords by the corrupt Congressional puppets if this same ploy had worked out a little better the last time, oh, precisely zero bankers were thrown in jail. That said, the semi-informed public who sees massive fraud and endless lies now on a daily basis will get more disclosure on Thursday when the "final report" is expected to be released. Said semi-informed people will be shortly disappointed when nothing at all comes out of this. As for the 99% of the less than semi-informed US population, well, they couldn't care less.

 

Bruce Krasting's picture

Fed Speak & the WSJ





Let's see what Ben says on this Wednesday.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: The Opposite Of Apocalypse





November 2008: the situation was dire. But was it ever really an apocalypse? We were all conditioned to think that without government intervention a waking hellscape of crappiness awaited. And it continues. Over and over, we are told of being just a step away from US government default if someone dares fiscal sensibility. Or some variation of bank implosion catastrophe, or everyone going into foreclosure immediately, or something else equally horrible. These outcomes are debatable, and they deserve to be debated. Everything that happens in the future is debatable. What is not debatable is that we continue to be threatened with imminent doom if politicos don’t get what they want. I’m not a believer in global conspiracy theories, much less a perpetual ruling class, but I am a believer that democracies are absolutely awash with propaganda, veiled threats, and fear-mongering. Why? Fear is where the power is.

 

Leo Kolivakis's picture

Insider Probe Impact Felt by Pension Funds?





Insider probe might impact some pension funds, but most are still pumping billions into hedge funds and that's one reason why risk assets are being bid up....

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Russia Imposes Inflation-Driven Price Controls: Will Use Price Caps On "Socially Important" Commodities





Russia has just announced it would proceed with price caps on a variety of foodstuffs, from buckwheat, to potatoes, assorted fruits and vegetables and all other commodities it deems "socially important" accoding to Russian newspaper gazeta.ru. And so the big margin crunch goes up several orders of magnitude, as companies, desperate to pass through surging input costs, but prohibited from raising selling prices, are forced to eliminate any and all overhead, most certainly including such trivialities as labor, in order to stay in business. More importantly, experts now predict that full year inflation in Russia will hit double digits. Just in the first 17 days of January, inflation hit 1.4%, or 9% annualized (according to gazeta... our calculation indicates a notably higher number but readers get the idea). Luckily, Russia does realize just how futile this task of price controls is: "as soon as we introduce price controls, once a deficit, the product disappears from the market, followed by an even higher rise in prices on the shadow, not covered by official supervision, market." And so a vicious circle in which high prices beget even higher prices begins. But don't worry - this could never happen in the US: see Americans only eat gold and their iPods. There is therefore massive slack in the food vertical, and, furthermore, as Steve Liesman explains so well today, a 100% rise in the price of wheat would only translate to a 10% hike in the price of bread. What happens to the other 90% (which incidentally annihilates the producer's margin but Steve didn't get to page two in that particular Inflation for Dummies book), is apparently unclear to the CNBC head economist.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Scotia-Mocatta Sells Out Of 1 Kilo Silver Bars





It seems that not a day passes by without some major dealer running out of a precious metal in inventory. Last Thursday when we presented the most recent inventory at Scotia Mocatta (alongside the ongoing firesale at the US Mint where incidentally total silver sales in January are now at a fresh all time record 4,724,000 ounces), one of the ten market-making members of the London Bullion Market Association and one of only 5 banks to participate in the London gold fixing, we indicated that of all silver bar related products, the bank only had the 1kg Valcambi silver bar, that was listed 3 weeks ago, in stock. As of today, this object is no longer in inventory even at the unit price of CAD$980.11. Reader S. presents the two logical alternative for what is happening: "This can only conclude two things: 1. They purchased a limited amount (due to low supplies) and was sold off quickly. 2. They purchased a large amount and was sold off due to major purchases." Alternatively, the bank now has the 100 oz silver bar back in stock. We will keep tabs on how long before this also becomes "sold out." Our question is whether the ongoing shortage at most dealers, despite the so-called drubbing in PM prices, is nothing but definitive evidence that just like in stocks, precious metal investors are merely using every drop in prices as nothing more than a chance to "buy the fucking (fisical) dip"?

 

Phoenix Capital Research's picture

Graham Summers’ Free Weekly Market Forecast (Gold and Silver: Buy With Both Hands Edition)





One of the oddest things about investment psychology is that people only want to load up on an asset class when it’s soaring. Rarely do they view a collapse as a good thing. In some cases, this mentality is beneficial (buying Tech stocks in 2001 when they began to collapse after soaring would have been a HORRENDOUS move). However, in the case of Gold and Silver today, a collapse right now would be absolutely FANTASTIC for investors.

 

ilene's picture

PSW's Stock World Weekly Newsletter





Here's the latest edition of PSW's Stock World Weekly.

 

asiablues's picture

Euro's Reversal of Fortune & Outlook





I, among many, was thinking the Euro would test the 125 level, but things have turned. Here is how the reversal of foturn came about and the outlook ahead.

 

ilene's picture

Monday Market Movement – Do or Dive!





The key driver for the markets continues to be the dollar, which is making more sense now as it saved the Dow and the S&P last week (50% of revenues come from overseas) but not the Russell (10% of revs from overseas) or the Nasdaq (30%).

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Insurance Companies Sue Bank Of America Over "Massive Mortgage Fraud", Find 91% Of Securitized Loans Are Misrepresented





The benchmark for documented mortgage originators' lies is getting higher and higher. First it was the Allstate lawsuit, finding massive fraud in most Countrywide/Bank of America loans, then it was quantified at 70% after Wells Fargo sued JPM's EMC division, now it is all the way up to 91% after a just released lawsuit by the bulk of the world's biggest insurance companies has been made public, in a fresh lawsuit again Bank of America/Countrywide over "Massive mortgage fraud.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Goldman Goes Gaga Over Cyclical Commodities, Says Gold Run Is Ending As QE2 Comes To A Close (Full Commodity Update)





The key catalyst for Goldman's suddenly cautious view on gold (which still has a $1,690 price target): the end of QE2 in June 2011. So, presumably, when QE 3 is announced in May in order to allow the continued monetization of $4 trillion in debt issuance over the next 2 years, that should be very bullish for gold, yes? Irrelevant: Goldman has become just one more glorified Jim Cramer: pumping anything that is green, and dumping anything in which there is even a modest (CME margin hike driven) correction.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Presenting The Survivalist's Dream Desktop





Little commentary needed here, although why anyone would be on Yahoo is beyond us. If one can afford anti-aircraft artillery one would assume that at least a Bloomberg terminal should be up and running... which is probably the same reason why the Fed's POMO desk is also Bloomberg-less.

 

RANSquawk Video's picture

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 24/01/11





RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 24/01/11

 
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