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Whether or not one believes the Fed will taper (then almost instantly un-taper based on the market’s reaction) or not in the coming months, Bernanke’s “tease” in the early summer this year should give most pause for thought as to just how dependent ‘everything’ is on the Fed’s money printing. As the following chart from Bloomberg’s Michael McDonough shows, things changed when big Ben dropped the hint that the punchbowl will not be here forever. There is one region, however, that for now has improved its outlook for 2014 GDP growth since the taper-tease…

 

 

The largest decline occurred in Latin America, where the 2014 GDP growth consensus diminished to 3.21 percent from 3.99 percent on Jan. 1. and EMEA (the most dependent on abundant, cheap foreign capital to fuel their economic growth). Western Europe, which experienced the largest improvement, is forecasted to grow 1.39 percent in 2014, compared to 1.33 percent at the start of the year. Global growth is anticipated to total 2.85 percent in 2014.

The U.S. 2014 growth forecast has fallen modestly to 2.6 percent from 2.8 percent at the start of the year.

Though  U.S. GDP growth is forecasted to accelerate to 3.0 percent quarter-on-quarter SAAR by the fourth quarter of next year.

 

Hope – it’s always just around the corner…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/fqAAS8mCTpg/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Whether or not one believes the Fed will taper (then almost instantly un-taper based on the market’s reaction) or not in the coming months, Bernanke’s “tease” in the early summer this year should give most pause for thought as to just how dependent ‘everything’ is on the Fed’s money printing. As the following chart from Bloomberg’s Michael McDonough shows, things changed when big Ben dropped the hint that the punchbowl will not be here forever. There is one region, however, that for now has improved its outlook for 2014 GDP growth since the taper-tease…

 

 

The largest decline occurred in Latin America, where the 2014 GDP growth consensus diminished to 3.21 percent from 3.99 percent on Jan. 1. and EMEA (the most dependent on abundant, cheap foreign capital to fuel their economic growth). Western Europe, which experienced the largest improvement, is forecasted to grow 1.39 percent in 2014, compared to 1.33 percent at the start of the year. Global growth is anticipated to total 2.85 percent in 2014.

The U.S. 2014 growth forecast has fallen modestly to 2.6 percent from 2.8 percent at the start of the year.

Though  U.S. GDP growth is forecasted to accelerate to 3.0 percent quarter-on-quarter SAAR by the fourth quarter of next year.

 

Hope – it’s always just around the corner…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/fqAAS8mCTpg/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,281.00, EUR 956.90 and GBP 807.03 per ounce.   
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,283.75, EUR 957.81 and GBP 801.54 per ounce.

Gold fell $3.90 or 0.3% yesterday, closing at $1,283.50/oz. Silver slipped $0.09 or 0.42% closing at $21.36. Platinum inched down $9.51 or 0.7% to $1,428.99/oz, while palladium fell $4.47 or 0.6% to $751.50/oz.

Gold dipped again in London on fears that a stronger U.S. economy will entice the U.S. Fed to taper its stimulus program and on positive economic data from China. Silver bullion slid to its lowest in four weeks, while gold is hovering at three week lows. In South Africa, the National Union of Mineworkers at Northam Platinum Ltd. continue their strike  that started on November 4th.

Gold in British Pounds, 10 Year – (Bloomberg)

SIPPs or Self-Invested Personal Pensions were launched by the UK government in 2006 in order to enable UK citizens to gain more control over their pension investment portfolio. The UK government also launched the Small Self-Administered Scheme known as a SSAS, an occupational pension scheme which is designed for up to 12 members.

From the perspective of the gold bullion industry this was welcome news, as the newly launched SIPP and SSAS permitted individuals or groups to invest in a range of approved types of gold bullion as part of their pension provision. To protect SIPPs and SSASs from inferior product, all gold must come in the form of ‘good delivery bars’ as per the London Bullion Market Association who maintains a list of approved bar manufactures such as the Perth Mint of Western Australia.

Gold bullion and pensions are a powerful combination. Pensions are extremely tax efficient investment structures that have been ignored by the general public for too long despite being very easy to set up. Gold is a form of financial insurance and essential diversification that empowers investors to hedge and therefore reduce the long term risks involved in all investment strategies.

Contributions into SIPPs and SSASs qualify for income tax relief up to the highest rate. Important to note that once invested in your SIPP or SSAS, all investments grow capital gains tax free and there is no further liability to income tax.

In times gone by it was common to stay in the one job with the same company for one’s entire working career. Today’s working environment is dramatically different and it is not uncommon for professionals to have more than one pension scheme which reflects their career to date; having worked in a variety of different positions with different companies, all who have different pension schemes.

The SIPP affords you the opportunity to consolidate your pension schemes into one scheme. As we have long advocated here at GoldCore, when taking advice on your financial affairs, particularly your pension, seek the advice of a fee based financial advisor.

Click here for our guide to Putting Gold In Your Pension Plan in the UK.

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/5Epi9ZV6pr0/story01.htm GoldCore

It’s official – goodbye Gary Gensler, we hardly knew you… as a commodities regulator that is, although Bart Chilton (who is finally also stepping down due to being too burdened by lack of funding to actually do anything) was kind enough to provide much needed perspective on how the CFTC truly works. In place of the former Goldmanite, today Obama will announce that going forward America’s top derivative regulator and CFTC head will be Timothy Massad, the Treasury Department official responsible for overseeing the U.S. rescue of banks and automakers after the credit crisis.

Who is Timothy Massad? Bloomberg has the details:

A former partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York, Massad was a legal adviser to a congressional panel that oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which loaned billions of dollars in banks and auto companies to help stabilize the economy during the 2008 crisis. The program, which he then was confirmed to manage at Treasury, spurred a political backlash that drove congressional supporters from office in the 2010 election and fed criticism of Wall Street.

 

“Nobody ever wants to see TARP repeated. But the fact is, TARP is a program that did its job,” Massad said Sept. 30 at the Brookings Institution. “It has worked faster, better, and cheaper than most people ever thought possible.”

 

Massad would take over an agency that has put into place more than 60 rules mandated by Dodd-Frank to help reduce risk and increase transparency in the swaps market after largely unregulated trades helped fuel the crisis. The rules have yet to all take effect as the agency battles budget challenges as a result of failed efforts to increase funding from Congress.

 

The commission, which is designed to have five members, may instead have only one Democrat and one Republican early next year if Obama and the Senate cannot overcome political hurdles to confirm new commissioners.

So the man who was responsible for bailing out the banks at any cost, will now make sure these same banks don’t do anything bad again. And he will also, somehow, “supervise” America’s $234 trillion in derivatives and make sure nothing bad ever happens there too?

Somehow, we are a little skeptical. Sure enough: “The party-line split on the commission would probably delay votes on contentious Dodd-Frank regulations.” In other words more of the same “nothing must change” hard line stance the CFTC has so sternly pursued since the crisis, and before.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/6bv-ltnQ76U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

It’s official – goodbye Gary Gensler, we hardly knew you… as a commodities regulator that is, although Bart Chilton (who is finally also stepping down due to being too burdened by lack of funding to actually do anything) was kind enough to provide much needed perspective on how the CFTC truly works. In place of the former Goldmanite, today Obama will announce that going forward America’s top derivative regulator and CFTC head will be Timothy Massad, the Treasury Department official responsible for overseeing the U.S. rescue of banks and automakers after the credit crisis.

Who is Timothy Massad? Bloomberg has the details:

A former partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York, Massad was a legal adviser to a congressional panel that oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which loaned billions of dollars in banks and auto companies to help stabilize the economy during the 2008 crisis. The program, which he then was confirmed to manage at Treasury, spurred a political backlash that drove congressional supporters from office in the 2010 election and fed criticism of Wall Street.

 

“Nobody ever wants to see TARP repeated. But the fact is, TARP is a program that did its job,” Massad said Sept. 30 at the Brookings Institution. “It has worked faster, better, and cheaper than most people ever thought possible.”

 

Massad would take over an agency that has put into place more than 60 rules mandated by Dodd-Frank to help reduce risk and increase transparency in the swaps market after largely unregulated trades helped fuel the crisis. The rules have yet to all take effect as the agency battles budget challenges as a result of failed efforts to increase funding from Congress.

 

The commission, which is designed to have five members, may instead have only one Democrat and one Republican early next year if Obama and the Senate cannot overcome political hurdles to confirm new commissioners.

So the man who was responsible for bailing out the banks at any cost, will now make sure these same banks don’t do anything bad again. And he will also, somehow, “supervise” America’s $234 trillion in derivatives and make sure nothing bad ever happens there too?

Somehow, we are a little skeptical. Sure enough: “The party-line split on the commission would probably delay votes on contentious Dodd-Frank regulations.” In other words more of the same “nothing must change” hard line stance the CFTC has so sternly pursued since the crisis, and before.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/6bv-ltnQ76U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Despite ongoing optimism that the housing recovery can withstand fire, brimstone, rising rates, and collapsing confidence (in spite of the fact that indications from most top-down data are to the contrary), investors in US homebuilders may need to adjust this morning. If DR Horton is any indication of a broad trend (and empirical comparisons with its peers show that it is) then the firm’s huge miss in its cancellation rate (31.0% vs an expectation of 25.5%) in Q3 should be food for thought. The surge in cancellation was the largest MoM since mid-2008 and jumped to its highest since December 2008.

 

 

Does make one wonder if the lagged response to the surge in rates and collapse in applications is now catching up…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/7_EF1AAYYqo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Despite ongoing optimism that the housing recovery can withstand fire, brimstone, rising rates, and collapsing confidence (in spite of the fact that indications from most top-down data are to the contrary), investors in US homebuilders may need to adjust this morning. If DR Horton is any indication of a broad trend (and empirical comparisons with its peers show that it is) then the firm’s huge miss in its cancellation rate (31.0% vs an expectation of 25.5%) in Q3 should be food for thought. The surge in cancellation was the largest MoM since mid-2008 and jumped to its highest since December 2008.

 

 

Does make one wonder if the lagged response to the surge in rates and collapse in applications is now catching up…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/7_EF1AAYYqo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

When it comes to Twitter, there seems to be a discrepancy in the publicly available user data. Recall that according to the company’s S-1 filing, Twitter’s US monthly user base has risen from 10 million in 2010 to just shy of 50 million.

And yet, according to a just released Pew Research poll, a whopping 84% of the US adults were not Twitter users, and perhaps more importantly, of the 16% of adult users, half admitted to using Twitter for news.

Narrowing this down even further, close to half, or 45%, of Twitter news consumers were under 30, which implies that roughly 4% of American adults use Twitter as something more than just a place to vent occasionally, and actually have a productive use for the service.

In attempting to reconcile the two vastly differing sets of numbers, one from the company and one from Pew, one wonders: is Twitter merely the latest platform for “socializing” teens who unfortunately for Twitter’s advertisers (who between Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Yahoo and so on, seem to have infinite advertising budgets) don’t have access to a credit card? And what happens when, just like FaceBook, Twitter’s coolness factor disappears and only the hardcore, and quite paltry, news users remain?

Indeed, Pew confirms that Twitter is largely focused on younger, more educated Americans, even compared to FaceBook:

Twitter news consumers stand out for being younger and more educated than both the population overall and Facebook news consumers

 

Close to half, 45%, of Twitter news consumers are 18-29 years old. That is more than twice that of the population overall (21%) and also outpaces young adults’ representation among Facebook news consumers, where 34% are 18-29 years old. Further, just 2% of Twitter news consumers are 65 or older, compared with 18% of the total population and 7% of Facebook news consumers..

The fact that Twitter users, by virtue of being less, are more educated than FaceBook users, should not come as a surprise:

Twitter news consumers also tend to be more educated than the general population and than Facebook news consumers. Four-in-ten (40%) Twitter news consumers have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 29% of the total population and 30% of Facebook news consumers.Close to half, 45%, of Twitter news consumers are 18-29 years old. That is more than twice that of the population overall (21%) and also outpaces young adults’ representation among Facebook news consumers, where 34% are 18-29 years old. Further, just 2% of Twitter news consumers are 65 or older, compared with 18% of the total population and 7% of Facebook news consumers.

More from Pew:

Nearly one-in-ten U.S. adults (8%) get news through Twitter, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center, in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Compared with the 30% of Americans who get news on Facebook, Twitter news consumers stand out as younger, more mobile and more educated.

 

In addition, a separate Pew Research analysis of conversations on Twitter around major news events reveals three common characteristics: much of what gets posted centers on passing along breaking news; sentiments shift considerably over time; and however passionate, the conversations do not necessarily track with public opinion.

 

This two-part report is based first on a survey of more than 5,000 U.S. adults (including 736 Twitter users and 3,268 Facebook users) and, second, on an analysis of Twitter conversations surrounding major news events which spanned nearly three years. Twitter posts were analyzed for the information shared, sentiments expressed and ebb and flow of interest.

 

According to the survey, 16% of U.S. adults use Twitter. Among those, roughly half (52%) “ever” get news there — with news defined as “information about events and issues that involve more than just your friends or family.”

So just how does Twitter serve as a source of information distribution:

Separately, Pew Research Center tracked and analyzed the Twitter conversations surrounding 10 major news events that occurred between May 2011 and October 2013. The events ranged from the opening night of the summer Olympics to the Newtown Conn. school shootings to the Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage. Using computer software developed by Crimson Hexagon, researchers examined which elements of the news events were discussed, the tone of the tweets and the ebb and flow of Twitter engagement. From that research, three central themes emerge:

 

A core function of Twitter is passing along pieces of information as the story develops. Even with the outpouring of emotion after the July 13, 2013, acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of teenager Trayvon Martin, the largest component of the Twitter conversation (39% of all expressed sentiments in tweets about the event) shared news of that verdict without offering an opinion. Straight news accounts also led the Twitter conversations about the Oct. 1 rollout of the Affordable Care Act (42%) and the concurrent federal government shutdown (35%) — two events that stirred political passions.

 

The Twitter conversation about big news events can shift and evolve, both in terms of sentiment and topic. In the two weeks after the March 2013 Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage, Twitter sentiment was far more opposed to the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage (55%) than in favor (32%). Yet in the month after that, support for same-sex marriage (43%) easily trumped opposition (26%). A study of the aftermath of the Newtown shooting reveals how quickly the focus of the Twitter conversation can change. On Dec. 14, 2012, expressions of sympathy for the victims made up nearly one-third of the conversation; by Dec. 17, it was down to 13%. In the same period, attention to President Obama, the shooter and mental health issues more than doubled — from 11% to 24% of the conversation.

 

Although sentiment on Twitter can sometimes match that of the general population, it is not a reliable proxy for public opinion. During the 2012 presidential race, Republican candidate Ron Paul easily won the Twitter primary — 55% of the conversation about him was positive, with only 15% negative. Voters rendered a very different verdict. After the Newtown tragedy, 64% of the Twitter conversation supported stricter gun controls, while 21% opposed them. A Pew Research Center survey in the same period produced a far more mixed verdict, with 49% saying it is more important to control gun ownership and 42% saying it is more important to protect gun rights.

So what is the take home? Is the spin here that there is a vast, untapped audience Twitter can reach and expand to? Perhaps, however, it appears that intelligence is a gating factor on just who uses the 140 character-limited service. If so, considering the distribution curve of US IQ, Twitter’s best expansion days may be behind it, with only the lowest common denominator left: the tag ends of FaceBook users who migrate to the “cooler” social platform, with zero ad spending intent or capacity.

Or perhaps there is an optimistic case, and more Americans will ditch existing news outlets, and move aggressively to Twitter. One can hope. However, what is certainly unknown is just how the company’s aggressive push into monetization impacts those who provide free content on Twitter, and whether in an attempt to monetize this “free content”, Twitter will follow legacy media and start imposing paywalls and gates. If so, then just like Facebook, Twitter will merely be a brief stepping stone on the path to the next bigger, better and cooler social media platform which works great…. until it too has to start monetizing itself. Because if there is one thing that has become clear, is that in a world in which information always find a way to be exchanged instantly, and freely, anyone attempting to monetize such infromation flow always has an uphill climb.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/mO7m1SERRmk/story01.htm Tyler Durden