India

The U.S. middle class is being systematically ripped to shreds, and most Americans are showing very little alarm about this. How much damage has to be done before people will finally start waking up?

What’s the connection between the G7 summit in Germany, President Putin’s visit to Italy, the Bilderberg club meeting in Austria, and the TTIP – the US-EU free trade deal – negotiations in Washington?

The similarities between today and the 1929 era suggest a massive crash could be appraoching.

The question is whether this is due to quite poor sentiment in the gold market or are banks that have been found rigging most markets, manipulating the gold market?   

The first four months of 2015 saw India import possibly as much as 3,000 tonnes of silver bullion. If the momentum is maintained India is on track to import a staggering 9,000 tonnes over the course of 2015. According to srsroccoreport.com, who compiled the data, it is Indian citizens who are the driving force behind the record demand for silver in India. We would speculate that India’s commitment to solar power may also be a factor.

As China builds its own multilateral institutions, Beijing has been keen to dispel the notion that it seeks to supplant the Bretton Woods order with its own brand of Eastern hegemony and although one can certainly question the degree to which China’s aims are rooted purely in an inclination to be benevolent towards nations in need of fixed asset investment, Beijing is making an effort to distance itself from the way the US governs the institutions under its control.

"Today, Europe is not independent… The US is drawing us [the EU] into a crusade against Russia, which contradicts the interests of Europe,” said the former French Prime Minister Fillon while the chief economist at Bremer Landesbank adds that as a result of US policies "unmeasurable damage lies in an elevated geopolitical risk situation for the people in the EU.”

The financial pundits gushing over "The China Story" - that the Middle Kingdom's industrialization is a permanent boon to the global economy and China's poor - never calculate the human cost of that runaway industrialization and the vast inequalities it has unleashed. The human cost is staggering...

It all started when Scotland Yard arrived in a house in Hounslow, on the western fringes of London, where Nav Sarao was arrested on one late April morning. Wait, this wasn't some dramatic perp walk out of a glass tower in Canary Wharf? No, for one simple reason: Sarao lived his parents. He also didn't know how to drive. And so begins one of the most fascinating profiles of a modern day financial mastermind: instead of tailored Saville Row suits, thundering parties, booming Bugattis and the occasional jaunt to the Riviera, Nav was the antithesis of a Wall Street. He was, in the words of Bloomberg which has created a fascinating profile of the young trading guru, "pathologically frugal" in fact "Sarao was so frugal it was almost an eccentricity."

While there were key macroeconomic data out of Asia earlier in the session, with Japan revising its Q1 GDP up from 2.4% to 3.9% (due to an upward revision to capex) making some wonder if it simply didn't snow in Japan this winter, as well as Chinese trade data that was once again disappointing with the third consecutive drop in exports coupled with an 18.1% collapse in imports hinting that nothing is going well in China's economy (which once again sent stocks soaring this time up another 2.2% on certainty another PBOC rate cut is imminent, pushing the PBOC to a fresh 7-year high of 5,132), it was actually a leaked Obama comment on the strong USD that moved markets.

If you think the corporate-fascist state is overbearing and oppressive now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Anyone remotely following the gold market, knows that the East is deeply connected with metals. They rightly believe that they are a safe store of value and have a deep affinity that has lasted throughout the ages.

Blockchain.com, which claims to be the maker of the most popular Bitcoin wallet, suffered at the weekend what the Guardian describes as a "total crypto breakdown", highlighting once again the vulnerability of electronic and digital currencies to human and technological errors and hacking.

It's Q and A Time!

• China stocks fall, led by ChiNext, on margin tightening; Hong Kong down too (Reuters)
• Bond market sell-off rumbles on, stocks feel the pinch (Reuters)
• Bond Rout Wipes Out 2015 Gains as Traders Stay Glued to Screens (BBG)
• Greek Groundhog Day Continues With Talks Failing to Break Impasse (BBG)
• Greece and Its Creditors Agree on Some Measures in Bailout Talks (WSJ)
• 'Bellingcat Report Doesn't Prove Anything': Expert Criticizes Allegations of Russian MH17 Manipulation (Spiegel)
• GE Said to Hire Banks to Start Sale on $20 Billion Assets (BBG)
• Alibaba Pictures plans $1.6bn share sale (FT)
• How Companies Justify Big Pay Raises for CEOs (BBG)