Tag: finance

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,317.00, EUR 975.05 and GBP 817.66 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,311.25, EUR 971.30 and GBP 817.08 per ounce.

Gold fell $3.40 or 0.26% yesterday, closing at $1,310.80/oz. Silver climbed $0.06 or 0.28% closing at $21.68. Platinum dropped $4.74 or 0.3% to $1,445.00/oz, while palladium rose $0.50 or 0.1% to $747/oz.

Gold gained ground today and is up 0.6% as it tries to shake its longest losing streak in six months and the lowest prices seen in almost three weeks. Gold is range bound between $1,250/oz and $1,450/oz. The fundamentals including the current macroeconomic, systemic, geo-political and monetary conditions are favourable and suggest higher gold prices are likely in the coming months.

Gold in US Dollars, 30 Day – (Bloomberg)

However in the short term, gold looks poor technically and a breakout above $1,360/oz and $1,450/oz will be needed to encourage more nervous buyers.

Gold sales from Australia’s Perth Mint, which refines most of the gold bullion from the world’s second largest producer, rose in October as a drop in prices to a three month low led to increased demand and the mint filled a backlog of orders according to Bloomberg.

Sales of coins and minted Perth Mint gold bars climbed 13% to 77,255 ounces last month from 68,488 ounces in September, according to data from the mint.While demand in October more than doubled from 30,430 ounces in August, sales were 31% lower than this year’s record in April.

“There’d be people buying while the price is low,” said Ron Currie, the Perth Mint’s sales and marketing director.

“We’re getting a lot more product out the door because of previous orders that we hadn’t been able to supply because of capacity,” Currie said.

Gold in USD, 5 Year – (Bloomberg)

The U.S. Mint sold 755,500 ounces of American Eagle coins as of November 1st, compared with 753,000 ounces in all of 2012, according to data on the mint’s website. The mint sold 48,500 ounces in October from 13,000 in September and 11,500 in August.. Coin sales last month were still 77% lower than in April, when they surged to a 40 month high of 209,500 ounces. The Perth Mint sold 112,575 ounces of gold in April.

As bar and coins sales increased, demand waned for ETPs. Holdings tumbled 29% this year to 1,875.04 metric tons on November 4th, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Assets have shrunk every month this year, the worst run on record.

The Perth Mint, which began operations in 1899, is owned by the Western Australian government and refines between 300 tons and 400 tons each year, including mined and scrap gold. Perth Mint gold bars are rapidly becoming some of the most popular one ounce gold formats in the world.

Australia is the world’s biggest gold producer after China.

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/og6FlKafIss/story01.htm GoldCore

Having been “on fire” for most of the year – managing a simply remarkable (Venezuela stock market-like) 472% gain from the start of the year to September highs; it appears the momentum stock of the year is ‘running out of gas’. Now down over 22% from its highs, Elon Musk’s experiment in exuberance has entered a bear market. Indices most levred to the momo mayhem are struggling this morning also with NASDAQ leading the ‘charge’ lower. At 3-month lows, TSLA is now up ‘only’ 335% YTD…

 

 

maybe – as @ECantoni noted, replacing ORCL with TSLA in the NASDAQ 100 in July was not such a great idea after all…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/4UA2nCTzveo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Having been “on fire” for most of the year – managing a simply remarkable (Venezuela stock market-like) 472% gain from the start of the year to September highs; it appears the momentum stock of the year is ‘running out of gas’. Now down over 22% from its highs, Elon Musk’s experiment in exuberance has entered a bear market. Indices most levred to the momo mayhem are struggling this morning also with NASDAQ leading the ‘charge’ lower. At 3-month lows, TSLA is now up ‘only’ 335% YTD…

 

 

maybe – as @ECantoni noted, replacing ORCL with TSLA in the NASDAQ 100 in July was not such a great idea after all…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/4UA2nCTzveo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/D1MWvdofqVQ/story01.htm williambanzai7

HHS Secretary Sebelius faces up to the self-described “debacle” that is Obamacare in fron the The Senate Finance Committee this morning. We should expect much “mid-November”-ing as the new replacement for “plead da fif.”

 

Live Stream via Bloomberg:

 

Stream via CSPAN, (click image)

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Because those record offshore (tax-haven) corporate cash balances will not grow themselves, obviously.

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Even though a meager 3 of 70 economists actually expected Mario Draghi to announce some sort of rate cut at tomorrow’s ECB press conference, moments ago MarketNews reported that according to “sources” a rate change tomorrow is unlikely even amid a dip in Europe’s inflation.

ECB SOURCES: RATE CHANGE THURSDAY UNLIKELY EVEN AMID INFLATION DIP

— MNI Eurozone (@MNIEurozone) November 6, 2013

Bloomberg adds:

• MarketNews report cites senior Eurosystem source as saying ECB will want to avoid over-reacting to fast-changing economic signals and avoid Fed Taper error.
• Report cites senior Eurosystem source as saying ECB will want to avoid over-reacting to fast-changing economic signals.
• ECB does not make “hasty moves or take decisions with  short-term value,” report cites source as saying; said Fed announced plan to start tapering QE “too early”

The flashing red headline, as this non-news was picked up by the algos, was enough to send the EUR, and naturally the all important EURJPY spiking by another 40 pips, and taking the correlated US equity markets, right along with it pushing the Dow Jones to a fresh record high.

And that concludes your “fundamental trading” lesson for the day.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/kOTvwwuF3_4/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Even though a meager 3 of 70 economists actually expected Mario Draghi to announce some sort of rate cut at tomorrow’s ECB press conference, moments ago MarketNews reported that according to “sources” a rate change tomorrow is unlikely even amid a dip in Europe’s inflation.

ECB SOURCES: RATE CHANGE THURSDAY UNLIKELY EVEN AMID INFLATION DIP

— MNI Eurozone (@MNIEurozone) November 6, 2013

Bloomberg adds:

• MarketNews report cites senior Eurosystem source as saying ECB will want to avoid over-reacting to fast-changing economic signals and avoid Fed Taper error.
• Report cites senior Eurosystem source as saying ECB will want to avoid over-reacting to fast-changing economic signals.
• ECB does not make “hasty moves or take decisions with  short-term value,” report cites source as saying; said Fed announced plan to start tapering QE “too early”

The flashing red headline, as this non-news was picked up by the algos, was enough to send the EUR, and naturally the all important EURJPY spiking by another 40 pips, and taking the correlated US equity markets, right along with it pushing the Dow Jones to a fresh record high.

And that concludes your “fundamental trading” lesson for the day.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/kOTvwwuF3_4/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Still living with the misguided idea that the bulk of government spending goes to defense? Wrong. As the just released Treasury refunding presentation shows, for yet another year in a row, the bulk of government outlays was for Medicare and Medicaid, as well as Social Security, both amounting to just shy of $900 billion in 2013, a sizable increase compared to the prior year. Defense spending? It declined once again to just over $600 billion, as did Interest outlays, which net of the Fed’s remittances on interest payments, declined from under $500 billion to just about $400 billion in the past year.

The other tiems were largely in line, and far less material to the US government’s spending addiction.

So how did the government fund these outlays? Well in addition to net debt issuance of just over $1 trillion in the 2013 fiscal year, the other more traditional sources of funding – tax receipts – were the following:

Notably, while monthly individual income taxes rose on an LTM basis to a record $110 billion as a result of changes to the tax code in early 2013, corporations continue to see their overall income taxes decline as more seek offshore tax shelters, and avoid paying US taxes while building up record cash hoards.

This is also visible on the following chart of Y/Y percentage changes in tax receipts, showing that for the first time in years, corporate taxes are about to decline compared to the previous year.

Ironically, corporations may be people as per the SCOTUS, but people are increasingly corporations, at least for IRS purposes.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ByDN8p5l8Sw/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by F.F.Wiley of Cyniconomics blog,

 

Bit by bit, we’re learning more about President Obama’s broken promise that you can keep your health insurance if you like it, which was repeated at least two dozen times in recent years.

As reported last week by NBC’s Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye, the administration knew to expect the current wave of policy cancellations for “at least three years.” NBC cited estimates of about 7 to 11 million cancellations:

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law.

 

One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration.

Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal added the news that Obama’s pledge was actively debated by his advisory team. Some advisers objected to the pledge, knowing it wasn’t accurate, only to be overruled by “political aides.”

All of this raises the question: What should we call such a deliberate deception?

Did Obama merely misspeak, as claimed by The New York Times editorial board?

Or, is he guilty of an out-and-out lie?

The WSJ’s James Taranto stopped short of the “L” word in his “Best of the Web” column yesterday, but otherwise hit the nail on the head:

To misspeak means to express oneself imperfectly or incorrectly. It implies either a careless choice of words or an unintended candor (as in a “Freudian slip”). Obama did not misspeak. As The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, the slogan was the result of careful deliberation.

 

…

 

Suppose the deliberations the Journal describes had taken place in a corporate suite rather than a government one and had concerned a commercial rather than a political advertising slogan. In that case, we’d be talking about a criminal conspiracy to defraud consumers.

In other words, Obama’s pledge was no different to, say, JPMorgan’s misrepresentations about the toxic mortgages it sold to unwitting investors. Fraudulent mortgage claims were surely discussed within JPM, just as Obama’s team debated the health insurance promise. Moreover, any internal concerns about the mortgage fraud were certainly squashed, just like the reservations expressed by Obama’s more truthful advisers.

But the consequences of Obama’s false advertisements are worse than those of private institutions such as JPM. In an economy that’s awash in misinformation – which is basically any economy – we can at least protect our interests against those of other private entities. We can walk away from claims that don’t pass the sniff test. If we learn we’ve been fooled, we can take our business elsewhere. Finally, we can turn to the courts for compensation.

None of these options are realistic, though, when the transgressor happens to hold the title, President of the United States. Under our new, more socialistic approach to health care, our only choice is to play by Obama’s rules. We also have to accept that information about those rules is tightly controlled by his team. Which means it’s crafted to protect his popularity and legacy above other considerations including the truth.

Just as Taranto didn’t go so far as to use the “L” word in his column yesterday, neither did any of the other mainstream media reports we reviewed. There were plenty of carefully worded euphemisms, but presumably it’s not polite to say the president told a lie.

We’ll show no such restraint:  Obama told a blatant lie, which he then continued to repeat.  It’s not the first time he’s lied, but this was an absolute whopper.

And while Taranto was right to compare his deceit to corporate fraud, we’ll add that we have no recourse against the president’s lies, unlike in the private sector. Therefore, Obama’s actions are more demoralizing and destructive than those of corporate fraudsters.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/VZFyKbjTg3E/story01.htm Tyler Durden