Filed under: Major Movement , Competitive Strategy , Barrick Gold (ABX) , Commodities , Federal Reserve Back in the late 1970s, the Hunt brothers from Texas tried to corner the silver market . That drove prices to $48 an ounce. Now, 31 years later, silver is shooting higher again. The March silver futures contract closed at $32.296 per ounce , up 72 cents. Since gold is expensive, investors are turning to silver to hedge against inflation. Many fear that the Federal Reserve will not be able to control the spike in commodity prices. The Fed is buying $600 billion of treasuries and keeping interest rates near zero. Continue reading Silver Near a 31-Year High Silver Near a 31-Year High originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments
Archive for March, 2010
Delisting is Not a Sirius Concern : Sirius XM
Echoing the seemingly unheard sentiments of the knowledgeable investors in Sirius XM (SIRI) and to the dismay of the shorts who are currently in control, SIRI will not be delisted. Recently, I have received a significant amount of questions in regards to the delisting so I wanted to briefly explain why I am adding to
Obama Agrees to Sell Half of Hawaiian Islands to Canada For Cash
Canada’s multi-year efforts to buy the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean as a sunny and warm winter destination for it residents during its long cold winters have been abandoned in favour of its recent agreement to purchase half of the Hawaiian Islands and all the U.S. Virgin Islands from the cash-strapped United States. Words: 436
PPACA and “What If?†Scenarios

Or, if we have Excel, why can’t journalists and bloggers add and subtract, and do sensitivity analysis? From Dobridge, Hooper, Slok, “Overview of the 2010 Health Reform Bill,” Deutsche Bank Global Economic Perspectives March 31, 2010. [not online] In our view, there are reasons to question whether the costsavings cited in the bill will actually come to fruition. The biggest cost savings in the bill are projected to come from reducing Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payment rates ($196 billion in savings), and reducing Medicare Advantage payment rates ($136 billion in savings).8 Many of the fee-for service payment reductions assume that scheduled “market basket” payment increases to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and others will be reduced each year by the rate of multi-factor productivity growth (which has recently been averaging about 1 percent a year). Over time, however, this will open up a considerable gap between the costs of providing care and the reimbursement rates, which will lead to pressure to increase payments. There is precedence for scheduled payment reductions not actually going into effect. Medicare payments to physicians have been scheduled to be cut each year since 2002, but these cuts have only been implemented once. Since 2003, Congress has taken action each year to prevent the cuts from going into effect and Medicare physician payments were scheduled to be cut by 21 percent starting April 1. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, however, have delayed the cuts by about two weeks in order to give Congress time to reconvene and act. With this precedence, we question whether these new fee-forservice cuts (and the Medicare Advantage cuts) will go into effect entirely as scheduled. The bill also did not implement a fix for the issue of scheduled Medicare physician payment cuts — CBO estimates that raising payment rates 1.2 percent and restructuring the formula for payment cuts will cost $208 billion over the next 10 years. Including this fix, the bill would have increased the deficit. An additional cost issue, but a longer-term one, is that the income cut-offs for the bill’s tax increases are not indexed to inflation. The 0.9 percentage point Medicare tax rate increase and the 3.8 percentage point increase on unearned income applies to individuals making $200,000 a year, or couples making $250,000 a year. As those cut-offs are not indexed to inflation, they will cover a growing share of the population over time—similar to the Alternative Minimum Tax. If, like for the AMT, Congress passes “patches” to prevent to tax increases from reaching more families, the bill will not raise as much revenue as scheduled. While this is not an issue for the 10-year budget window, it could be important for the budget after that point. Point number one is the famous “doc fix”. My observation — this cost would have been incurred even in the absence of PPACA being proposed. So it’s kinda wierd to bring it up as a defect of the bill. The second, “patch”, issue, which the CBO scoring mentions on page 13-14, is where we will have to wait and see. Perhaps the political scientists can forecast what will happen here. But let’s start off the debate by assuming not a single dollar’s worth of revenue enhancement is collected , from “Medicare and Other Medicaid and CHIP Provisions Reductions in Annual Updates to Medicare FFS…
Rino Intl (RINO) Reports Strong Results, But Misses Estimates
Rino International (RINO), one of the top China water and remediation plays, reported earnings after the bell today. Growth was excellent, but it didn’t quite meet Wall St estimates. The company reported an adjusted EPS of .53/share which was a big jump from the year ago quarter (.28/share), but missed by a penny and was
Federal Judge Finds N.S.A. Wiretapping Program Illegal
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency ’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush .
Japanese Bonds May Drop on Optimism Tankan to Signal Recovery
Japan’s bonds may drop for thefifth time in six days on speculation the Bank of Japan’sTankan survey today will show business confidence is at thehighest since September 2008. Ten-year yields are likely to reach a new four-month highas economists sa Japanese Bonds May Drop on Optimism Tankan to Signal Recovery
American Idol road to fame ends for Didi Benami
By Chris Michaud NEW YORK, March 31 – R&B soul week spelled the downfall of Didi Benami on Wednesday, after ‘American Idol’ fans and judges found no comfort in her rendition of ‘What Becomes of the Brokenhearted’ and voted her off the hit singing American Idol road to fame ends for Didi Benami
Ivanhoe Mines quarterly results
March 31 – Ivanhoe Mines Ltd: * Ivanhoe Mines announces 2009 financial results and review of operations * Qtrly revenue $9.9 million * Qtrly earnings per share from continuing operations $0.03 ivanhoe mines ltd Ivanhoe Mines quarterly results
Reliance not seen renewing Iran crude deal-sources
DUBAI/NEW DELHI, April 1 – India’s top privately run refiner Reliance Industries will not renew a contract to import crude oil from Iran for financial year 2010, two sources familiar with the supply deal said on Thursday. The company did not purch Reliance not seen renewing Iran crude deal-sources
Liberal media death spiral intensifies
CNN, the liberal cable news network which reported “at least dozens” of people attended the Tea Party Express rally in Searchlight, NV last week, may soon be measuring its audience in similar quantities. Bill Carter of the New York Times reports: CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year. The problems in prime time, the most lucrative part of the broadcast day, are catastrophic in scope: Mr. [Larry] King's audience dropped 43 percent for the quarter… Original Article: Forum: News/Activism