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
Yen
Gold, oil & 44 Bars per Minute
“Girls love to spin.” — Wayne, Dance Instructor, Howard County Parks and Rec. I’m taking dance classes at the local Parks & Rec. with a stunning brunette, which is why I’m shuffling my feet around on Sunday nights at eight. The crowd is mixed; twenty-something hipster couples and old guys who have difficulty with their gig lines. The instructor is a cross between Wayne Newton and Telly Savalas: a black silk shirt, shaved head, and a nose like an organic potato. He sucks his microphone like a lollipop and spits out a steady stream of advice: “One, two, hook the toe, slide back, twirl…” Chick magnet The chicks love him, of course. And heck, I was even having a good time�— right up until Wayne Savalas swished over during the break. My H1 was in the parking lot. It’s shiny, yellow, and chews diesel like a Mongolian wrestler at a yak roast. Wayne obviously saw me pull up and feels he should enlighten me about his new Chevy Volt getting 60 miles per gallon… And why would I drive something that sucks up so much gas and destroys the environment? I told him that I was fully invested in oil explorers. And with the trouble in the Middle East launching my shares, I could drive a Semi for life… Brent Crude ETF (BNO) Yes, he said, but is this more of a trade on the Arab revolutions, or does it have more to do with the destruction of the dollar? Wayne pointed out that the dollar/euro has hit a four-month low and seems to be heading lower. Down she goes What is most concerning is that during this particular period of global uncertainty, the
Bambuser blocked in Egypt (Live video site)
The Swedish live video streaming site Bambuser says its service has been blocked in Egypt. The site, which provides live video from mobile phones and webcams, says the interruption began Tuesday, shortly after the start of unprecedented nationwide demonstratons against the 30 year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. MÃ¥ns Adler, who founded the site in 2007, tells AFP he is convinced the Egyptian government is behind the blockage. “The Internet provider is probably the one that can deny access to different websites and services,” he says, “but in this case we believe that the Egyptian government has asked the Internet providers to shut down a range of services.” The Swedish website is reportedly very popular in Egypt, where Egyptians use it to stream videos directly from their country. During the general elections there late last year, some 10,000 videos filmed in the country were posted on Bambuser It was earlier reported that the micro-blogging site Twitter has been blocked in Egypt. Social media were instrumental in the recent wave of protests in Tunisia.
Just a Correction
We view the current sell off in a number of commodities as merely a correction not an end to the decade old bull market. The chart was ugly but I did think we would see $94/95 in Crude before this correction…I stand corrected. The fact that we closed below the 20 day MA we should see a probe at the 50 day MA; in February at $87.20. The trend line that has held for several months comes in at $85 so at worst we could see an additional $4-5 from today’s close…only my opinion. We will likely be looking at scaling into longs in March and April contracts on a trade $3 lower from here. On a 25-30 cent pullback in natural gas we would once again look at scaling into futures and purchasing 50 cent call spreads for clients. A sell off in early dealings was erased as the indices are slightly positive as of this post. We have positioned our more aggressive clients in bearish option positions in the ES thinking we are overdue for a correction; target in March futures is 1215-1225. We hinted at a few plays in forex yesterday (shorts in the Yen, Swissie and Loonie) which were all hit today. Much of the move came overnight especially in the Swissie so we opted to get short the Loonie. Some clients purchased put options with a target of .9800. Lean hogs and live cattle should continue trading lower. We welcome a break of the 20 day MA’s in coming sessions. About 1.5-2.0% lower in live cattle and we would look for an exit door on shorts. At a crossroads as tomorrow action will be critical in both gold and silver. Gold was hit 3% today closing at the 50 day MA. We expect there to be more downside, next target $1335. Silver lost 4.13% and was down over 5% intra-day. The low of the day tested the trend line that has held for
Top Picks 2011: ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS)
Filed under: International Markets , Newsletters , ETF Investing , Japan , Currency , Best Stocks for 2011 This post is one in a series in which more than 60 newsletter advisors share their Top Stock Picks for 2011 . This special report is courtesy of TheStockAdvisors.com . “Bloomberg recently reported that China has recorded two straight months of reducing its holdings of Japanese debt; t.his suggests that the Japanese yen has reached the point where it’s become too ‘strong’ for its own good — or at least for China’s taste,” says global stock specialist Keith Fitz-Gerald . The editor of The New China Trader explains, “Considering China has become the world’s de facto financier, we’d be wise to pay attention. Continue reading Top Picks 2011: ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS) Top Picks 2011: ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments
Japan: The World’s Cheapest Market?
Filed under: International Markets , Newsletters , ETF Investing , Japan , Stocks to Buy “Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index is the worst-performing index this year among the world’s 40 largest stock markets; however, Japan may now be the world’s cheapest stock market. ,” notes Dr. Steve Sjuggerud . The editor of Daily Wealth adds, “Indeed, I consider it a low-risk speculation with significant upside potential.” The strength in the yen — which recently hit a 15-year high — has made stocks in Japan ridiculously cheap. With the exception of the late 2008/early 2009 stock market bust, Japanese stocks are cheaper than they’ve ever been on a price-to-book basis, going back decades. Continue reading Japan: The World’s Cheapest Market? Japan: The World’s Cheapest Market? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments
Obama to California: Drop Dead
“ Give me regulation, a cup of coffee, and a direct line to my lawyer… and I’ll be making money in an hour.�  Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Author of The Black Swan I was lucky enough to spend the first two days of this week listening to some of the smartest people in finance tell me their views on a range of issues at the Buttonwood Gathering in New York City. Speakers included Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury; Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner; Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup; Henrique de Campos Meirelles, Governor of the Central Bank of Brazil; Robert Shiller of the Case/Shiller Housing Index; Stephen Roach, a deity of research at Morgan Stanley; Joshua Bolten, former White House Chief of Staff; and Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, among the many accomplished luminaries. I was easily the dumbest guy in the room. Certainly the least powerful. These are people that have and will continue to shape global economic policy. They have bailed out banks, countries, and industries for decades. They have propped up profits and consistently sold moral hazard cheap. Advertisement World’s Industrial Supermetal A metal with a name you probably can ‘ t even pronounce… is absolutely essential to a $987 billion-a-year global industry. And today — thanks in part to a massive Chinese campaign to monopolize this most crucial of elements — we’re at the brink of a global deficit. Learn how one microcap mining outfit can make you 2682% as it taps into one of the world’s last major deposits. I took away many things from the Buttonwood Gathering  not the least of which is that bureaucrats and policy makers almost by definition play it safe. If given a choice between saddling future generations with debt, as opposed to seeing the fallout of letting the chips fall today, they will sell out their children every time. Well, not their children… Their children are at a boarding school in Gstaad. The simple fact is that you don’t get to be a leader of government  be it a general or a Fed Chief  without being a politician. Here are some of the many things I gleamed from the conference… Taxes are coming Almost every speaker stated the need to cut services and raise taxes. Some even had comprehensive plans that would keep the Keynesian effects of low taxes for two years, and raise them in 2013 to reduce the debt and deficit. It has become clear that you can’t cut defense without cutting troop levels. The defense budget makes up 24% of U.S. spending, and the vast majority goes to troops and their benefits  not fancy new, high-cost weapons systems. Most of our future debt and liabilities come from Medicare/Medicaid. The myth is that you can cut government waste. The truth is that only 12 percent of the budget is discretionary. There …
Weekend: Profit from the Foreclosure Fraud
Welcome to the Wealth Daily Weekend Edition — our insights from the week in investing and links to our most-read Wealth Daily and sister publication articles. “All is well,” the White House once told us. We’re in a continued recovery that just “won’t feel terrific,” Bernanke explained. And now they tell us that foreclosure fraud shows no risk of systemic fallout. The Obama Administration can say they haven’t found fault with loans, but examples beg to differ. USA Today reported the story of a Wells Fargo employee from South Carolina who said she signed 300 to 500 foreclosure documents in a single day… That her only other responsibility “was to make sure her name and title were written correctly… Shown a foreclosure affidavit that she had signed in 2009, she said she did not know if the information was accurate. ‘My knowledge of this affidavit is very minimal,’ she said in the deposition.” Advertisement Most Important 500 Square Miles on Earth Becomes Private Property It was a stretch of barren landscape just a couple hundred miles away from the North Pole… But locked within it sat a 50-year supply of the most important class of industrial metals known to man. Earlier this year — for the first time ever — a single company took hold of this land… And altered the course of the world’s high-tech market forever. Learn more here. And there’s overwhelming “spin” that these are merely paperwork problems. The funny thing is that those claiming it’ll “work itself out” have no clue regarding the liabilities associated with this stuff. A Washington Post article explained: “If the basic principles of property law have been violated here… it may be extremely difficult to fix,” said a source involved in government oversight of financial institutions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the uncertainties involved. “There is a chain of questions that no one seems to know the answer to.” Even the Financial Times tell us: This scandal is a mirror image of the lax and often improper lending practices that grew up in the years before the 2008 …
I Think I’m Turning Japanese
There is no subtler, surer means of overturning society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction and does it in a way that not one man in a million is able to diagnose. — John Maynard Keynes A fall from grace At one point in the late 1980s, there was a square block of real estate in downtown Tokyo, near the Imperial Palace, that was worth more than all of California. The country was booming… The Japanese led the world in electronics. Every teenager had to own a Sony Walkman. The Toyota Supra and four wheel drive pickup were the two bests car of the decade. Japanese investors bought up American icons like Rockefeller Center, Columbia Pictures, and the Pebble Beach Golf Course. Along the way, Japan also created the 100-year mortgage and had an unassailable cadre of elites that ran the banks, the government, and the corporations. The country was run by one political party — the Liberal Democratic Party — from 1955 to 2009. Stimulating death This political party’s main platform was “spend money and create growth.” It tried stimulus after stimulus… They’ve built bridges in mountainous villages where few people live… They’ve forced banks to take on massive debt, and shuffled other debt to different banks. And after twenty years of spending, Japan has $9.7 trillion in public debt — twice its GDP in 2009. They still have no growth. A few months ago, in the thick of the Greece debt crisis, the Prime Minister warned the Japanese Parliament, “It is difficult to sustain a policy that relies too heavily on issuing debt. As we have seen with the financial confusion in the European Community stemming from Greece, our finances could collapse if trust in national bonds is lost and growing national debt is left alone.” Death spiral Japan has been in a deflationary spiral for 20 years. The nation’s housing bust has still not hit bottom. People hold onto money because they know what they want to buy will be cheaper later. Core consumer prices fell 1.0 percent in August, marking 18 consecutive months of decline. And to top it off, they just aren’t making any more Japanese. Check out the population pyramid: As you can see during the “Economic Miracle” period from 1950 to 1990, Japan was youthful, ambitious, and…
Forex: Speculators trim Euro, Yen, Aussie long positions in Currency Futures
By CountingPips.com The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, showed that futures speculators slightly pared their bets in favor of the euro and the other major currencies against the US dollar. Non-commercial futures positions, those taken by hedge funds and large speculators,were overall net short the US dollar by $29 billion against the other major currencies, down from a total short position of $30.5 billion on October 5th, according to data published by Reuters . Currency speculators were net long the euro against the U.S. dollar by 41,511 contracts as of October 12th. This is a decline of nearly 7,000 contracts following net long positions of 48,243 contracts on October 5th and breaks a string of five straight weeks of improving positions for the euro. The COT report is published every Friday by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and shows futures positions as of the previous Tuesday. It can be a useful tool for traders to gauge investor sentiment and to look for potential changes in the direction of a currency or commodity. Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, where as a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar. Open interest is the number of open contracts that have not been closed by a transaction or by delivery. The British pound sterling had been the last major currency on the short side against the dollar in the CME futures market but in early October the British currency positions …
Asiatic Adventurism, Part III
For a quick overview of issues, consider that China has understood the art of war since Sun Tzu, back when the rest of us didn’t have fireworks or chopsticks. The Chinese do not like losing face. Shooting wars have been known to start over tariffs. China is already using gunboat diplomacy and playing a deep game. They know that a trade war is still a war while Congress was grandstanding to the voters — and Japan cowers. China has many counters to the latest puff ball protectionist gambit, an obvious one being a stiff little note from their Ambassador regretting that due to lost revenue from increased U.S. tariffs his country feels obliged to sell Treasuries according to the enclosed schedule until trading relations are stabilized at the current level…or even one more favorable to China. Start with $100 bn the first month, $200 bn the second month, and schedule $300 bn the next month, anticipating the U.S. would fold after the first sale, if not sooner. Robert Mugabe stymied DeBeers by selling diamonds at a discount, so why not discount T-bills if political and other economic advantages make that course feasible? If I were Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, I would hold ostentatious talks with the Japanese (who are scared stiff of me) about selling U.S. paper jointly in order to protect my …
