game is rigged
player b: Anyone looking for a high-maintenance girlfriend, as in the type who would want a $2-million-dollar bra?
nydailynews.com
player tj: These days I think much about women's lingerie. That diamond bra was over the top. We shall be releasing a patented geewhizbangohwhoawee lingerie set soon, as a concept to license and technology to tack on, and in the mean time it is a good conversation topic to talk over with girls.
The wives n girlfriends of those involved hate the project, and uniformly note, "only bad girls would want one".
Woman! That is the entire sordid point!
The girls who respond well when shown on iPad is easily tagged as bad-to-the-bone. Like it.
player h: Latest from Dylan Grice
Dylan Grice: [attached] Popular Delusions - Are emerging markets a bubble? Wheelbarrows, idiots and positive tails (4p)
What happens when you have a compelling investment case and too much liquidity? You get rampant asset price inflation. If central banks know anything, it's how to blow bubbles; and emerging market valuations could go much further before they could be considered seriously stretched. For EM sceptics, such a scenario presents a positive tail risk. Options pricing currently suggests such a risk is relatively cheap to hedge.
player c: Attached Hugh Hendry fund report on ags... <CF Eclectica Agriculture Fund - Performance Attribution Report - September 2010.pdf>
player r: CTFC judge-<snip>
"As George H. Painter was preparing to retire recently as one of two administrative law judges presiding over investor complaints at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, he issued an extraordinary request:
Please don't assign my pending cases to the other judge.In a notice recently released by the CFTC, Painter said Judge Bruce Levine, his longtime colleague, had a secret agreement with a former Republican chairwoman of the agency to stand in the way of investors filing complaints with the agency.
"On Judge Levine's first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant's favor," Painter wrote. "A review of his rulings will confirm that he fulfilled his vow," Painter wrote."
washingtonpost.com
player h: Painter continued: "Judge Levine, in the cynical guise of enforcing the rules, forces pro se complainants to run a hostile procedural gauntlet until they lose hope, and either withdraw their complaint or settle for a pittance, regardless of the merits of the case."
The CFTC oversees trading of the nation's most important commodities, including oil, gold and cotton. The agency's administrative law judges handle cases in which investors allege that trading professionals or financial firms violated the rules.
Asked to address Painter's notice, a CFTC spokesman declined to comment because, he said, the issue was a personnel matter.
An attorney adviser to Levine, Thaddeus Glotfelty, said that the official position of the CFTC press office was to decline comment and that "Judge Levine has determined to go along with that."
this is an example of how now and then, the curtain is briefly pulled back, and you get to see the full extent of the corruption permeating the system.
player r: Speculators polish up the price of silver
By Jack Farchy in London
Published: October 20 2010 17:37
Silver is one of the best-performing commodities this year and the interest in coins is driving prices higher
“Almost anything is better than paper money ... any fool can run a printing press.”
These are not the words of a modern-day gold bug, but attributed to Nelson Bunker Hunt, the billionaire oil baron who went long on silver in the 1970s. So long, in fact, that he and his brother cornered the market, were sanctioned by the regulator for market manipulation and went bankrupt in the process.
After their move, the price of silver hit a peak of $50 an ounce in 1980 before dropping to $10 the following year.
In the past month silver has bounced back to prices not seen since the Hunt brothers’ day. No single investor is cornering the market but, just as in the 1970s, the price is being driven by surging speculative demand as investors sweep up supplies of the grey precious metal whose primary use is industrial.
Investors in silver, also known as “poor man’s gold”, are persuaded by many of the same arguments that have driven the gold price higher: the prospect of a global “currency war” in which central banks race to devalue their currencies to support domestic growth and the belief that a second round of emergency monetary easing by the Federal Reserve could eventually lead to a sharp jump in inflation.
Gold has captured the headlines, ticking off one new record high after another, but volatility in bullion is near a five-year low, which for some investors makes it a less exciting prospect. Returns on silver, they say, could be greater.
Indeed, there are symptoms of spreading silver fever. Sales of silver coins are set to hit a record high this year, while investors have snapped up more than 1,500 tonnes of silver through exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the past two months alone. That is more than 5 per cent of total annual silver supplies.
Michael Kramer, president at Manfra, Tordella & Brookes, a large US coin dealership, says: “Silver coins are doing very well.”
David Madge, director of bullion sales at the Royal Canadian Mint, says it has already sold in excess of 30 per cent more of its popular silver Maple Leaf coin than last year’s record 10m ounces. The US Mint has sold 27.5m ounces of silver American Eagles so far this year – already within reach of last year’s record 28.8m ounces with the busy Christmas period still to come.
The interest in ETFs, coins and futures has helped to drive prices higher. Silver is one of the best-performing commodities this year. In the past two months it has rallied 31 per cent – to $23.72 an ounce on Wednesday – more than three times gold’s 8.9 per cent rise.
The price rises, in turn have prompted a response from the main silver mints. The US Mint this month raised the premium above the value of the metal content that it charges dealers buying silver American Eagles. The Canadian mint has run out of 2010-dated silver Maple Leaf coins, although Mr Madge says it would produce more if needed.
Analysts and investors, though, are divided on the outlook for the metal. Some see silver as having brighter prospects than bullion. The reason for this is that, unlike gold, for which investment is now the biggest single source of demand, silver consumption is still largely accounted for by its traditional end-uses in the production of jewellery and in the electronics industry and photography. In theory, this should mean that, as the world economy recovers, silver will benefit from an extra shot in the arm and outperform gold, says Daniel Brebner, commodities analyst at Deutsche Bank in London.
Matthew Turner, analyst at Mitsubishi, the Japanese trading house, says: “There are two drivers for silver: industrial demand and gold. The two drivers are both positive at the moment.”
Traders and refiners have reported a strong rebound in industrial demand for silver. Solar power, which uses silver-containing chemicals to convert sunlight into electricity, is a source of new demand. Traditional consumers in the electronics industry are also bouncing back strongly, refiners say.
Scott Morrison, chief executive of Metalor, one of the world’s top precious metals refiners, says: “Industrial demand for silver is very strong – back to 2008 levels or even better.”
Nonetheless, silver prices are likely to remain driven by the investment community in the short term. Hedge funds that are bullish about gold have begun taking positions in the silver market, aiming to profit from its higher volatility, bankers say.
That could lead to sizeable price swings in the short term. As the silver market is a good deal smaller than that for gold, a large investment can have a bigger impact on prices. Some senior traders are looking for silver to hit $30 an ounce in the next year, a 25 per cent increase on current prices. But analysts, bankers and industry executives alike are wary of the higher volatility that hedge funds and other investors are bringing to the silver market – especially as mine production of silver, unlike some other metals, is relatively plentiful.
“Investment demand is critical in a market where growing fabrication demand is not sufficient to propel prices,” says Suki Cooper, precious metals analyst at Barclays Capital. “If investors stop accumulating fresh metal to position against market uncertainties, prices could correct sharply before finding fundamental support.”
No one is trying to corner the market, at least not yet, but the risk-averse should probably tread warily.
player h: thankfully he recommend to 'tread warily'.
player tj: the adage in art circles is that we should buy art that we like, never mind the investment merit. i agree.
i buy metals i like, because i just like them.
:0)
player r: more ft bull....
Remember 1980: all that glisters is not gold
By John Authers
Published: October 22 2010 20:01 | Last updated: October 22 2010 20:01
I never enjoy writing about gold. It is not that I have anything against the metal; its importance to the financial system is undeniable. Over the past few years, gold has performed fantastically well, much reducing the pain for those who have taken losses on stocks, property and credit. All of this is true.
The problem is that gold – more than anything else in the world of investments – defies rationality. Its intrinsic value is in the eye of the beholder. And the case for and against gold tends to get mixed up with both ideology and emotion.
Suggest that readers should sell a certain company’s stock, and you annoy the CEO. Gold has its own “believers”. Attack it, and they are mortally offended. E-mail traffic shoots up.
For true believers, gold is the ultimate store of value, a constant in a world laid waste by irresponsible central banks, politicians and financial engineers.
But it is equally possible to argue that gold is the ultimate speculation.
Under the usual definition, “investment” turns into “speculation” when investors no longer look at the underlying value of an investment but rely on the price to rise so that they can sell it to someone else. By this definition, gold is always a speculation.
There is no income stream to be derived from gold, in the way that dividends come from stocks, rents from properties and coupons from bonds.
Demand for it is not driven by economic forces, so it is not like oil, agricultural commodities or industrial metals. If you do not happen to want gold jewellery, your only reason to hold it is a belief that its price will go up.
Further, the market for gold can behave as irrationally as any other. After the Great Crash of 1929, the world went half-a-century before succumbing to another bubble. When that bubble arrived, it was in gold. It was unleashed by Richard Nixon’s decision to remove the peg that held the gold price at $35 per ounce – a move that made it much easier to indulge in inflationary economic policies.
By the time the gold price peaked at about $850 per ounce in early 1980, it had risen 24 times the peg price.
At that point, there was utter panic – in the light of the stagnation of the 1970s – that stagflation was here to stay. But gold then went into a slump that saw it lose 82 per cent of its value in real terms. This slump lasted more than two decades. It has still not regained its high in real terms.
There may be a meaningful way to describe gold as insurance; it cannot meaningfully be described as a low-risk asset.
Having made all those caveats, gold has been a mighty fine investment during the past 10 years. Since the beginning of 2001, it has risen more than 400 per cent, while successive crashes have devastated equities.
Treating gold as a currency and viewing the world in gold terms is also an interesting exercise. The huge rise in the gold price in dollar and sterling terms shows that many have lost confidence in those currencies.
And as the chart shows, the stock market since 1970 looks different if we compare the S&P 500 index’s performance to gold. Rather than the various booms and busts we have stagnation in the 1970s, then two decades of a stunning bull market as stocks left gold in the dust, and then a decade of unremitting decline for stocks.
Since the S&P peaked during the internet boom, it has lost 84 per cent of its value in gold terms.
Does this mean you should buy gold now?
There are similarities with the bubble of 1980, but they are limited. There was despair at that point, but there was also terrible inflation.
This latest gold boom has come with little actual inflation in the real economy. Central banks have even reached the point (in the case of the Federal Reserve) of fretting that inflation is too low. They are now trying to raise it, as their greatest fear is deflation.
Perversely, therefore, buying gold now is the optimistic thing to do. To succeed, governments and central banks have to be prepared to overshoot. If they even momentarily cause the kind of inflationary panic that we saw in early 1980, then gold could get back to its peak in real terms. That would mean rising 40 per cent from here to $1,875 – so another true gold bubble is a real possibility. But anyone making this bet needs to remember what happened to gold after 1980.
If central banks are half-hearted in their attempts to stoke inflation, deflation is more likely. In such a situation, money retains its value. Any investment that can keep producing cash (like a bond or a profitable company) looks attractive, while gold does not.
Gold could indeed be insurance against runaway inflation, but even its truest believers should also guard against the risk of deflation.
player tj: message to john authers, (i) tell us something everyone do not already know, (ii) bet you do not own and never touched any gold, (iii) too bad.
player h: LOL - " Its intrinsic value is in the eye of the beholder. " - there is no such thing as 'intrinsic value' - with the sole exception of an option that has gone into the money (the degree to which it has gone itm can be described as its intrinsic value, and even that is a stretch, actually). all value judgments are ALWAYS 'in the eye of the beholder' - this is known since Turgot's time at the latest. value judgments are strictly subjective - NOTHING possesses 'intrinsic value'. the concept simply does not exist.
anyway, this is excellent news. we want the FT to be fully beared up. opens the way to a quick jaunt to 1600-1700. :)
player r: Agreed!-and on a possibly related topic, looks like USD index futures took a nosedive post market
a strange spike but take a look:
theice.com |
