another site
While careful to explain that valuations overall are below dot-com bubble levels, KPCB’s Mary Meeker warns that there are “certainly some valuation excesses” in the tech arena currently as she unveils her latest 164-page epic chartapalooza on Internet Trends… With internet adoption rates slowing, the question is – which are the names that are in a bubble?
The contents…
Full presentation below:
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One week ago we reported that while Russia was dumping a record amount of Treasurys it was buying gold, or some 900,000 ounces to be precise. Today we learn that as Russia continues to purchase gold, and is likely taking advantage of the recent rout in gold prices, it certainly won’t be storing its physical metal with any of the western Central Banks. According to Reuters, shortly after Russia and China announced their historic gas deal, Vladimit Putin said at the recent International Economic Forum, that Russia need to ensure its gold and currency reserves are secure. And not just Russia: China too. Because apparently when it comes to speaking for “hard” monetary policy, Putin is now authorized to speak for both nations.
From Reuters:
“For us (Russia and China) it is important to deposit those (gold and currency reserves) in a rational and secure way,” he said. “And we together need to think of how to do that keeping in mind the uneasy situation in the global economy.”
Putin also said China and Russia will consider further steps to shift to use of national currencies in bilateral transactions.
And while we are confident the entire world is enjoying the now 5 year long foreplay, the time may have come for the PBOC to finally reveal what its updated gold reserves are. Maybe it can use Putin for that too.
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Are dodgy diagnoses being used to
save the military money on mental health care? That’s the charge
from some legislators and activists, who say U.S. service members
with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are being
diagnosed with and discharged for “adjustment disorders”
instead, and that this is especially true for those who report
being sexually assaulted.
What’s to gain from the latter diagnosis? The question is
probably better phrased, “What’s to lose?” For the U.S. military
and government, adjustment disorder diagnoses provide a way to lose
benefit obligations.
Because adjustment (and personality and mood) disorders are
considered preexisting conditions, the Department of Veteran’s
Affairs (VA) isn’t required to cover veterans’ treatment for these
conditions as it would be for veterans’ discharged with PTSD. Under
a law enacted in 2008, veterans with PTSD get an honorable
discharge and medical care.
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) introduced a provision to the
annual defense authorization bill—passed
by the House May 22—that would have given service members
discharged with mental illness an opportunity to appeal the
military’s diagnosis.
“As a Marine Corps combat veteran, I cannot accept the fact that
combat veterans have been discharged who were clearly suffering
from PTSD,” Coffman said in a statement. “They were not only denied
treatment before being discharged, but because of the type of
discharge they received, did not have access to mental health care
after they left the military.”
But Coffman’s provision was one of 136 defense bill amendments
that were rejected by the Rules Committee, including several sexual
assault and mental health-related provisions from Rep.
Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). One would have required the
inspector general of the Department of Defense (DOD) to review all
personality and adjustment disorder designations given to service
members who report sexual assaults.
“The personality disorder designation often is used as a tool to
retaliate against survivors for coming forward,”
Speier’s amendment said. She also says that the adjustment
disorder diagnosis is used in the same way.
It’s impossible for you or me to determine whether the bulk of
adjustment disorder diagnoses are justified. But there’s no doubt
they’re increasing. From
The Washington Times:
According to a Vietnam Veterans of America study, the military
discharged 31,000 service members because of a personality disorder
from 2001 to 2010.But after lawmakers and the press reported on the high rate of
such disorder diagnoses tied to sexual assault cases, the number
dropped—and the number of adjustment diagnoses began to rise.In the Air Force, for example, personality disorder discharges
went from more than 1,200 in fiscal 2007 down to just over 100 two
years later in fiscal 2009, according to a Yale Law report.
Adjustment disorder discharges in the Air Force spiked over that
same period, increasing sevenfold.
General mental health care trends could be at play, but the
extent of this shift doesn’t seem to belie totally good-faith
diagnostic efforts. More believable to me than a coordinated plot
to discredit rape victims, however, is that this could be a
ploy to save the VA and other federal agencies money. (I don’t
doubt that discrediting or shushing up assault complaintants is
sometimes a welcome side effect.)
Regardless of why adjustment disorder diagnoses are rising, the
diagnosis is a strange one for soldiers who report sexual assault.
Being sexually assaulted can obviously produce lingering
psychological trauma, and surely this is severe enough in some
cases to warrant military discharge. But severe, negative,
post-assault responses would seem to be a very classic
form of PTSD.
“It’s likely that if the person doesn’t have symptoms when they
enter the military and then is exposed to traumatic stress—the two
classic ones in the military are combat and sex assault—it’s most
likely PTSD,” psychologist David L. Kupfer told
The Washington Times.
“When you look at the numbers, it does seem like there is some
financial incentive affecting the diagnosis of people who are
showing symptoms after exposure to trauma.”
Adjustment disorder is also
a type of stress-related mental illness, with symptoms
including anxiety, depression, crying spells, anger, feeling
overwhelmed, and trouble sleeping, according to the Mayo Clinic.
But it’s triggered not by discrete, traumatic events but relatively
commonplace life changes, such as moving, starting at a new school
or job, ending a relationship, etc.
It’s a diagnosis for people who have a high degree of trouble
coping with new circumstances—the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (“psychiatry’s bible”) describes it
as “marked distress that is in excess of what would be expected
from exposure to the stressor.” Are military psychiatrists
suggesting that sexual assault is a standard part of military life,
one which some people just have a pathologically hard time
adjusting to? It sure seems that way.
To be clear, the adjustment disorder diagnoses aren’t only going
to those who report being sexual assault victims. For example:
During a deployment to Iraq in 2008, former Army Pfc. Michael Nahas
survived two roadside bomb explosions and one rocket-propelled
grenade attack. He began feeling “anxious and guilty about people
he believed had died needlessly,”
according to Veterans Today, and eventually attempted
suicide. He was diagnosed with PTSD at the hospital, went back to
his unit, and was given an administrative discharge for adjustment
disorder.
And in November 2013, the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at
Yale Law School filed a federal
lawsuit on behalf of William Cowles. The suit claims
Cowles, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard, was
erroneously diagnosed with an adjustment disorder instead of PTSD,
barring him from collecting military retirement benefits.
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The First Amendment to the Constitution provides:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The powers-that-be argue that freedom of the press only applies to large, well-heeled corporate media. For example, the Nation noted last year:
When the Department of Justice rolled out new policies intended to “strengthen protections for members of the news media” this summer, it wasn’t clear who belonged to the “news media.” Other DOJ documents suggest a narrow application to professional, traditional journalists. (The DOJ did not return a request to clarify the agency’s definition of “news media.”) The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide excludes bloggers from the news media, along with “persons and entities that simply make information available,” like Wikileaks. These policies are guidelines, not directives, but as the Freedom of the Press Foundation points out, they are “part of a broader legislative effort in Washington to simultaneously offer protection for the press while narrowing the scope of who is afforded it.”
Senator Dianne Feinstein argued for an amendment that would have restricted the shield to salaried journalists. “Should this privilege apply to anyone, to a seventeen year-old who drops out of high school, buys a website for five dollars and starts a blog? Or should it apply to journalists, to reporters, who have bona fide credentials?”
(This is a silly distinction, given that many of the world’s top experts have their own blogs. And as the non-partisan First Amendment Center notes: “Traditional reporters now blog daily, and prominent bloggers show up in traditional media.”)
But the Free Speech and Free Press Clauses of the First Amendment don’t distinguish between media businesses and nonprofessional speakers (see this, this, this and this).
And the courts have ruled that the freedom of the press applies to everyone who disseminates information … not just giant corporate media companies who can afford to pay “salaries”.
For example, the United States Supreme Court has consistently refused to accord greater First Amendment protection to the institutional media than to other speakers:
Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a blogger is entitled to the same free speech protections as a traditional journalist and cannot be liable for defamation unless the blogger acted negligently. The Court held:
The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist.
And the First Circuit agrees. As Gigaom reported in 2011:
One recent appeals court decision specifically referred to the fact that the ability to take photos, video and audio recordings with mobile devices has effectively made everyone a journalist — in practice, if not in name — and therefore deserving of protection.
In the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, released just a few weeks ago, the judges pointed out that the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of the press “encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information,” and that citizens have the right to investigate government affairs and share what they learn with others. Judge Kermit Lipez also specifically noted that these protections don’t just apply to professional journalists. He said in his decision:
[C]hanges in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders [and] and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.
The First Amendment Center correctly notes:
The purpose of the free press clause of the First Amendment was to keep an eye on people in power and maintain a check on corruption.
Supreme Court justices Black and Douglas explained in their concurring opinion in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971):
In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.
Indeed, the Founding Fathers made this clear even before the Revolutionary war started. Specifically, the Continental Congress – the legislative body of the Founding Fathers – wrote in 1774:
The last right we shall mention regards the freedom of the press. The importance of this consists, besides the advancement of truth, science, morality, and arts in general, in its diffusion of liberal sentiments on the administration of Government, its ready communication of thoughts between subjects, and its consequential promotion of union among them, whereby oppressive officers are shamed or intimidated into more honourable and just modes of conducting affairs.
These are the invaluable rights that form a considerable part of our mild system of government; that, sending its equitable energy through all ranks and classes of men, defends the poor from the rich, the weak from the powerful, the industrious from the rapacious, the peaceable from the violent, the tenants from the lords, and all from their superiors.
These are the rights without which a people cannot be free and happy, and under the protecting and encouraging influence of which these colonies have hitherto so amazingly flourished and increased. These are the rights a profligate Ministry are now striving by force of arms to ravish from us, and which we are with one mind resolved never to resign but with our lives.
In other words, the Founding Fathers understood that people who stand up to “oppressive” government officials are to be zealously protected … because “shaming” corrupt, powerful people “into more honourable and just modes of conducting affairs” is the only way to preserve liberty, justice and prosperity, and to remain “free and happy”.
Indeed, the Freedom of the Press which the Founding Fathers enshrined in the First Amendment was the opposite of prosecution of reporters critical of government and protection of the big lapdog press which is subservient to government.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/SQgETv George Washington
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum of Acting Man blog,
Computer Science Enrollments Explode
Techcrunch had an interesting article about the explosion of freshmen deciding to study computer science. There can be no doubt that this type of knowledge is currently in great demand – however, we do believe that there are some signs that the boom is so to speak 'getting out of hand' and is beginning to reflect the effects of the technology echo bubble on Wall Street.
The give-away is the size of the demand for computer science studies relative to other fields of study. Even if computer technology and everything connected to it is steadily increasing in importance, this looks like 'bubble behavior' to us. Let us not forget, vast increases in the money supply and the concomitant suppression of the natural interest rate are mainly reflected in the higher order stages of the economy's production structure, and investment in 'human capital' is definitely a very 'high order' stage (meaning: it takes a very long time before the investment actually bears fruit and produces an income).
New enrollments in computer science vs. other studies – click to enlarge.
People may be inclined to instinctively judge that it can only be good if so many young people decide to study something 'useful' as opposed to, say, art history or literature. However, as Mish has recently pointed out, the widespread yammering about a 'skills shortage' is actually misguided (he provides a few additional links to recent press reports on the topic that are well worth checking out as well). There is in reality no shortage of workers skilled in science and engineering.
We happen to believe that jumping on a popular bandwagon is almost always a mistake. By the time these freshmen finish with their studies, they may well find out that a shortage has developed in an entirely different field and that their chosen profession is suddenly crowded with job seekers.
Bubble or Not?
One needs to keep in mind here that the last time enrollment in computer science peaked was in the year 2000 – concurrently with the technology mania. This is obviously no coincidence. What is slightly disconcerting is that the current peak in enrollments towers vastly above that previous bubble peak. This can be gleaned from the data published by individual colleges. Here is e.g. Carnegie-Mellon University as a pertinent example:
Carnegie-Mellon University's computer sciences enrollments. The current peak dwarfs the year 2000 peak – click to enlarge.
The researchers quoted by Techcrunch assert that it is 'not a bubble this time' based on what we believe is spurious reasoning:
“Now, when the word “bubble” gets thrown around, many tech industry leaders like to point out that public market activity is nowhere near the irrational exuberance seen during the first tech boom. But in academia, enthusiasm for learning to code is at all time highs, with CS enrollment at some schools far surpassing the numbers that were seen during the late 1990s.”
Our reply to this is that not every bubble is accompanied by the kind of public frenzy seen in 1929 or 2000. After suffering through two major bear markets and a real estate collapse, the still overleveraged public is no longer as enthused about the stock market's get rich quick promise as it once was, that is certainly true. However, that only means that the bubble is driven by 'professionals' nowadays – with the main difference that they are probably even more reckless, as they play with other people's money. In other words, they get all the reward, while incurring very little risk. In fact, the biggest career risk investment professionals as a rule face is being out of the market while it goes up. If they get caught fully invested in a bear market, they have little to fear because they will have plenty of company and even more excuses (of the 'no-one could have seen it coming' type).
Hence it could well be argued that the current echo bubble is in some ways even more worrisome than the frenzy seen in the late 1990s. It has definitely invited a great deal more leverage already:
Investor margin debt balances have ballooned to a far greater extent than at the year 2000 peak – never before have negative credit balances been at such an extreme level – click to enlarge.
Lastly, in order to determine whether or not one is in a bubble era, opinions and observations about the mass-psychological backdrop are one thing, but the data are more important. The most important datum of them all is money supply growth, and with regard to that, the current period definitely stands out. Since 2008, the broad US money supply TMS-2 has increased by about 93% (from $5.3 trn. to $10.2 trn.). Since 2000, the increase in the broad US true money supply amounts to an even more staggering 245%. So there is now almost twice as much money in the economy than in 2008, and nearly three and half times as much as in 2000. This is the datum most relevant to determining if we are in a bubble era or not, and it clearly tells us that we are. It matters little if it 'feels' like we are in a bubble to 'tech industry leaders' (one of whom let us not forget has just spent $19 billion for an 'app', buying profitless 'eyeballs'). What matters in this case is the evidence.
US money supply TMS-2 (without memorandum items) since the 1990s – click to enlarge.
As to the effect of this monetary expansion on asset prices, below is a chart of the Nasdaq Internet Power Shares ETF documenting it quite nicely. As an aside to all this, we are not saying anything regarding the timing of the bubble's eventual demise. The question is only 'is it a bubble?' We say it is one, and it can be shown that this is the case.
The huge increase in computer science enrollment is therefore most likely an example of malinvestment in human capital. Students would do well to take the time to carefully ponder their choices in this respect.
PNQI – one of the market sectors displaying the exponential growth typical of bubbles – click to enlarge.
Lastly, here is a slightly dated chart we have shown before, namely the percentage of money-losing IPOs, which has recently reached the year 2000 peak again:
Share of IPOs with negative earnings – most of them are in the technology sector – click to enlarge.
Conclusion:
Res ipsa loquitur.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1py3u8v Tyler Durden
Given that the University of California—Santa Barbara killer
cited his inability to get laid in college as a motivation for his
massacre, should Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Zac Efron apologize
for making movies that glorify the sex and excess inherent to
college life?
Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday thinks so. In
a recent article about the horrific weekend attack that left seven
dead in Isla Vista, California, she
implicitly blamed Neighbors, a new film that casts
Rogen and Efron as residents of a fictional fraternity row:
How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like
“Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of
college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How
many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which
the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that
those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not
fair”?
The killer, Elliot Rodger, was a wealthy social outcast with a
father in the film business. According to his 141-page manifesto,
Rodger was rejected by fellow students at the UCSB campus and came
to hate all women for refusing to have sex with
him. Clearly, the version of campus hookup culture
glorified in movies like Neighbors did indeed spurn
Rodger.
But is that what made him a murderer? Hornaday
roped in male privilege and violence in media to
complete her argument:
If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and
macho swagger — thanks to male studio executives who green-light
projects according to their own pathetic predilections — no one
should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form
in the culture at large.
Part of what makes cinema so potent is the way even its
most outlandish characters and narratives burrow into and fuse with
our own stories and identities. When the dominant medium of our age
— both as art form and industrial practice — is in the hands of one
gender, what may start out as harmless escapist fantasies can,
through repetition and amplification, become distortions and
dangerous lies.
Rogen took to Twitter to dispute Hornaday, branding
her “horribly insulting and misinformed,”
according to The Huffington Post.
“How dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a
lunatic to go on a rampage,” wrote Rogen in a Tweet.
Apatow had nothing to do with Neighbors, but has worked
on similar bro-friendly comedies with Rogen. He did not take kindly
to Hornaday’s insinuation, either. He tweeted that it
was absurd to blame movies rather than mental illness.
The angry reactions from Rogen and Apatow garnered significant
media attention, and eventually
drew a video response from Hornaday.
“In singling out Neighbors and Judd Apatow I by no means meant
to cast blame on those movies or Judd Apatow’s work for this
heinous action, obviously not,” she said in the video.
But she did defend her view that certain movies—those made by
white males, in praise of wish fulfillment and vigilantism—are
unhealthy for the culture.
In times of tragedy, violent entertainment often plays the role
of convenient scapegoat. Nevertheless, there is good reason to be
skeptical of such claims,
especially in the immediate aftermath.
Expect to hear more media figures blaming movies, video games,
mental health care deficiencies and lack
of gun control in the coming days.
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First it was JPM, then it was, surprisingly, none other than NY Fed chief Bill Dudley – the head of the trading desk that proudly boasts trader extraordinaire Kevin Henry, then it was Citi yesterday, and now joining the chorus of banks and Fed presidents blaming all that is wrong in the banking system on near record low volatility resulting in a collapse in trading is none other than Goldman Sachs, whose president Gary Cohn spoke at a Sanford Bernstein conference earlier today, said that fixed income volumes – the bread and butter of Goldman’s juggernaut FICC division – are under significant pressure, and blamed low interest rates and, drumroll, the Fed’s QE on the drop in volatility, summarizing the current trading environment as “Abnormal.” It appears increasingly more are voicing their displeasure with the New Centrally-Planned Abnormal… but only after their balance sheets are full to the brim with some $2.8 trillion in fungible reserves.
Some other soundbites from Cohn:
Translated: the bond market has realized what is happening to the economy, which means stocks not so much.
Translated: the last crash was caused by the Fed; therefore everyone knows who will be the reason for the next crash.
Translated: at some point QE will end and all hell will break loose (yes, the Lehman deflationary collapse “recenecy” is still there, and everyone remembers who the biggest winners were from the Lehman and AIG collapse). We will be sure to profit again.
Translated: it worked for Amazon for 5 years, why shouldn’t it work for us too?
Translated: It’s not just who are getting tired of the Fed’s endless manipulation of every asset class.
Translated: he may be right, he may be wrong. One thing is certain: M&A pickup with be followed by a pinkslip, pardon synergy, pickup.
And the main slides from Cohn’s presentation. Note the absolute collapse in FX volumes as regulators have finally clamped down on foreign exchange market manipulators and all that’s left are the robots.
Source: Goldman
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The days when countries vied with each other for the national
(dis)honor of spending themselves into the poorhouse in order to host the Olympics — or at least the
Winter Olympics — might be fast disappearing. Why any sane city
would ever want to
host the Olympics is a mystery given that these games
never paid for themselves — although they did give politicians
lots of opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse. (Actually,
scratch that, the answer is clear: Most cities are not sane.) But
after Russia’s recent Sochi debacle bumped the price tag of this
sports socialism to a jaw-dropping $51 billion, the outer bounds of
insanity might have been reached. It is no longer possible to
pretend that the promises
of spillover effects and Keynesian multipliers are anything other
than total nonsense.
The deadline for awarding the 2022 Winter Olympics is barely a
year away and potential bidders are dropping out like Indian
athletes in a luge contest.
Reports Deadspin:
Yesterday, Krakow, Poland, officially withdrew its bid for the
games, a day after a citywide referendum where 70 percent of
voters came out against hosting the Olympics. “Krakow is closing
its efforts to be the host of the 2022 Winter Games due to the low
support for the idea among the residents,” said mayor Jacek
Majchrowski.In January, another of the six original finalists pulled out,
when Stockholm, Sweden’s ruling political party declined to fund
the games. They cited the pointlessness of paying hundreds of
millions for facilities that would be used for two weeks and then
rarely again, a story common to almost all
Olympic hosts. “Arranging a Winter Olympics would mean a big
investment in new sports facilities, for example for the bobsleigh
and luge,”
the Moderate party said in a statement. “There isn’t any need
for that type of that kind of facility after an Olympics.”In November, voters in Munich, Germany,
rejected a proposed Olympic bid. “The vote is not a signal
against the sport,” said one lawmaker, “but against the
non-transparency and the greed for profit of the IOC.”Last March, a joint bid from Davos/St. Moritz, Switzerland, fell
apart after
being rejected by a public referendum.Of the four remaining finalists, two are in rough shape. The
Oslo, Norway, bid is falling apart. It was supported by a
razor-thin margin in a September referendum, but public opposition
has only grown since then. And on Sunday, the junior member of the
government coalition
voted against funding any Olympics. For them to go on, it would
require an unprecedented alliance between the ruling Conservatives
and the opposition Labour party.The Lviv, Ukraine, bid seems dead in the water with the turmoil
and war in the country. “Currently our dream is on hold,” said the
bid’s chief.
Who’s still standing? Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Beijing, China.
The first is an oppressive oil state and the second just an
oppressive state.
It has taken nearly a century for these white elephants to go
out of fashion in the free world. Can the unfree world be far behind? (The answer is “yes.” And
for proof, observe the 1980s mushroom cut that North Korean
strongman Kim Jong-un still apparently regards as high
fashion.)
My piece about the obscenity of poor countries like India
hosting the Commomwealth Games is
here.
H/T: Prateik
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Today’s AM fix was USD 1,265.25, EUR 928.83 and GBP 754.52 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,283.00, EUR 940.48 and GBP 762.87 per ounce.
Gold fell 2% yesterday to $1,264.76/oz. Silver fell 1.8% to $19.06/oz.
Gold in U.S. Dollars, Daily, 1 Year – (Thomson Reuters)
Gold broke below support at $1,284/oz yesterday and quickly fell to nearly $1,265/oz. Overnight, gold in Singapore fell to nearly $1,260/oz prior to a slight bounce back to $1,266/oz.
Better than expected U.S. economic data and slightly lower official Chinese demand were cited as reasons for the move lower but it appeared more computer and technical driven as the price falls came before the U.S. economic data and Chinese demand figures were released.
Technically, gold is vulnerable to a further fall to the double bottom between $1,180/oz and $1,200/oz.
The 14-day relative-strength index fell to 32.9 yesterday, the lowest since December, and near the level of 30 that suggests a potential rebound to technical analysts. Gold has rebounded 5.2% this year even after yesterday’s 2% price fall and remains one of the best performing assets so far in 2014.
Gold premiums in China remain under pressure overnight at just $2 over London spot. The lacklustre trade and slowing demand in recent weeks has led to falling premiums on popular bullion coins and bars globally. We and many bullion dealers internationally have responded by reducing gold bullion premiums on a number of the most popular coins and bars. One kilo bars have been reduced to a 1.6% premium from a 3.5% premium.
The price weakness came despite continuing bullish developments for the gold market. Yesterday came news of China launching a new physical Global Gold Exchange and President Putin of Russia again affirmed how Russia values its gold reserves.
Chinese President Jinping Raises Toast (In Vodka?) With Russian President Putin
Russia and China need to ensure their gold and currency reserves are secure, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told journalists at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum according to Reuters.
“For us (Russia and China) it is important to deposit those (gold and currency reserves) in a rational and secure way,” Putin said. “And we together need to think of how to do that keeping in mind the uneasy situation in the global economy.”
Putin also said China and Russia will consider further steps in order to use national currencies in bilateral transactions.
For more information about falling premiums and current premiums on bullion coins and bars, please click here
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The plunge in yields continues and even unflappable stocks are starting to crack a little… 7Y Treasuriy yields just cracked below 2% for the first time since Nov 2013. What is perhaps most worrying for the exuberant equity market is the dramatic flattening in 2s30s today (2Y +2.5bps, 30Y -9bps on the week). Wondering why bonds keep rallying… see below…
Yields are tumbling across the complex (except the short-end)
Leaving the 7Y back under 2%
With 2s30s at one year lows…
And this is why… Treasury shorts actually added into the rally of the last few weeks…
Charts: Bloomberg
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oJW7uP Tyler Durden