Tag: news

We are now less than a year away from the day when Robert Zemeckis and Michael J. Fox inspired an entire generation to expect nothing less from 2015 than flying cars. Sadly, as a result of the past 6 years of human “progress” being redirected to finding creative ways of preserving crony capitalism, the failed way of Keynesian life and masking insolvent banks as lipsticked pigs, the only automotive question we have of 2015 is whether there are any GM cars that haven’t been recalled; cars which one hopes will never be airborne. And yet, there is one aspect of 2015 that the Back to the Future trilogy may have gotten correct: that “other” thing which every 80’s kid wants to have more than anything: hoverboards.

As a recent Kickstarter campaign by Los Gatos, CA company Hendo claims, a campaign which has already raised well over $100,000 more than its goal of $250,000, the company is preparing to introduce “the world’s first REAL hoverboard and hover developer kit.”

Are hoverboards really just around the corner? This is what the funding-strapped company claims:

So where does the HENDO hoverboard stand today? Well, about 1 inch off the ground. As you can see from the video above, the prototype is real and it works! But to see it hover in person, and better yet, to defy gravity by riding it, is something you need to experience as well.

 

With the support of the Kickstarter community, we all can. We need your help to put the finishing touches on the Hendo Hoverboard, to help us produce them, and to create places to ride them.

 

Our engineering team has been amazing, rapidly iterating on design after design. In fact, this our 18th prototype, and we continue to make advances week after week.

 

The magic behind the hoverboard lies in its four disc-shaped hover
engines. These create a special magnetic field which literally pushes
against itself, generating the lift which levitates our board off the
ground.

While our hoverboard is primarily intended to be self-propelled, the actions which stabilize it can also be used to drive it forward by altering the projected force on the surface below.

Currently, this surface needs to be a non-ferromagnetic conductor.  Right now we use commonly available metals in simple sheets, but we are working on new compounds and new configurations to maximize our technology and minimize costs. 

While one day we expect to have hoverboards that can effortlessly
float over any medium (even water!), our current technology requires
special types of surfaces. 

Therefore, we need a hoverpark to go
with our boards, and we have been busy designing a park befitting the
awesomeness of our technology.

Levitation using magnets seems simple – just put one magnet over
another, same poles facing, and the top one will float. Voila, right?
 Sadly, as we all find out (usually as heartbroken little kids) this
never works. Due to something called Earnshaw’s Theorem, a stable static
equilibrium between two magnets is impossible. There have been a number
of ways around this, but none have proven feasible enough for everyday
applications. Until now.

 

Lenz’s law explains how eddy currents are
created when magnets are moved relative to a conductive material.
 These eddy currents in turn create an opposing magnetic field in the
conductor.  Our core technology, which we call Magnetic Field
Architecture (MFA™), focuses this field more efficiently. 

You can
go ahead and google both of these scientific principles, but to sum it
up in regards to levitation: Lenz = Easy, Earnshaw = Hard.

 

The Hendo Hoverboard is a first-step product, a precursor to the
broader implementation of the world-changing technology of MFA.  It
enables a new generation of lift and motion technology that will change
the way we view transportation. Additional applications for MFA
technology are virtually limitless – from business, to industry, to
healthcare, and beyond.

 

Unlike magnetic levitation systems
employed today, our hover systems are comparably inexpensive and
completely sustainable. Hovering modes of transportation are now
possible and practical. Lifting a wide range of loads – whether it’s a
person riding a hoverboard (what we were all expecting) or a building
riding out an earthquake (what we never imagined could be possible) – is
all within reach.

For the skeptics, Wired did a summary of the underlying technology and came away with the following conclusion: “Ok, so the physics for this type of hoverboard seems possible. Looking at other sites talking about this online, I am fairly certain it’s real.  One last physics note: I’m really not sure if a hoverboard powered by electromagnetic repulsion would be frictionless.  I suspect there would be some type of electromagnetic drag as the coil moved over the metal surface – but I could be wrong.”

But it can’t go everywhere (at least not yet), one would complain. And one would be, of course, right. But neither can one (or rather should) drive their car off the road. In principle, it wouldn’t take much to coat every road surface with whatever magnetic alloy is required to convert all existining cars into the hovering vehicles first seen in Star Wars.

The company’s take on the practical appliances of its technology:

We have a number of applications in mind, with industries that range from warehouse operations, to building foundation improvements, to novel methods of electromechanical fluid separation.

 

But what really excites us are the possibilities of applications we have no idea even exist – from new ways to harness energy, to replacing specific pieces of equipment in manufacturing processes; from the ordinary, to the exotic.

Surely there is much more, especially if and when the big corporations come sniffing. And sadly, once said corporations come knocking, the “magic” will immediately disappear because this technology, should it prove feasible, will be disruptive enough to threaten the existence of various, and numerous, trillion-dollar markets.

Usual cynicism aside, one can hope with less than 365 days until October 21, 2015, that for only the second time in the recent past a futuristic vision revealed several decades ago will actually coincide with reality. When was the first time? Why George Orwell’s “1984” of course…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1z8BUpW Tyler Durden

While the analogy of Vladimir Putin playing geopolitical chess (while the rest of the world plays checkers) has been a popular one, the French ambassador Gerard Araud has a different – somewhat stunningly honest  – persepctive: Putin “is more a poker player really, putting all the money on the table; saying, ‘Do the same’ and of course we blink. We don’t do the same.” As Bloomberg reports, Araud goes on to express entirely un-Juncker-like, how Putin has outmaneuvered his opponents and humiliated Ukraine. Simply put, he adds, the Russian president “has won because we were not ready to die for Ukraine, while apparently he was,” leaving the ominous question, “when is Putin going to stop? Whatever we decide is a disaster for us.”

As Bloomberg reports,

Vladimir Putin has outmaneuvered his opponents and humiliated Ukraine by continuing to back pro-Russian separatists and flouting a cease-fire, making it crucial that sanctions on Russia remain firm, France’s ambassador to the U.S. said.

 

The Russian president “has won because we were not ready to die for Ukraine, while apparently he was,” Ambassador Gerard Araud said yesterday at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington… Echoing the view of other European envoys in Washington, Araud expressed concern that the Ukraine conflict has hit an impasse, leaving Putin the winner by default.

 

Poroshenko is “kneeling in front of Putin with the cord around his neck and saying, ‘You know, you have won,’” and Putin is still not backing down, Araud said.

 

While many observers have called Putin a geopolitical chess player, he said, the Russian leader is more a “poker player really, putting all the money on the table, saying, ‘Do the same,’ and of course we blink. We don’t do the same.”

 

…

 

The economic sanctions against Russia must stay in place to prevent Putin from going further, said Araud, who moved to Washington in September after serving as the French ambassador to the United Nations.

 

…

 

“Whatever we decide is a disaster for us,” Araud said, again expressing his personal view. On one side, he said, lies France’s credibility as an arms supplier who delivers on contracts, and on the other, the difficulty of delivering a weapons system to Putin, who might use it against Ukraine or a European ally.

Araud concludes – rather ominously – and far too honestly for a paid-up member of the European elite:

“The question is there on the table: When is Putin going to stop?” Araud said. “That’s the reason that we need to keep the sanctions” because, “let’s be frank, it’s more or less the only weapon that we have. We are not going to send our soldiers in Ukraine. It does not make sense to send weapons to the Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians would be defeated real easily, so it will only prolong the war” and lead to a “still bigger Russian victory.”

*  *  *

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1t2Z4ZK Tyler Durden

Submitted by Erico Tavares of Sinclair & Co.

California – A Food Powerhouse In Peril

Now in its third year, the drought in California has forced local farmers to switch their water use from rivers and reservoirs, which are at historic low levels, to underground sources. This has mitigated substantial production losses, but given that underground reservoirs take a long time to replenish, if the drought continues the food situation in California might get much more dicey.

Food export data provided by the US Department of Agriculture for 2012, that is, before the current drought started to bite, can provide a sense of what is at stake. [Note: while a State’s actual agricultural export value cannot be measured directly, the USDA provides estimates per major food variety based on farm cash-receipts data]. The following table shows the crops where California was ranked either #1 or #2 based on 2012 export values:

Source: USDA.

(1) Includes live animals, other meats, animal parts, eggs, wine, beer, other beverages, coffee, cocoa, hops, nursery crops, inedible materials and prepared foods.

Last July, a study on the effects of the drought on California’s food production by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences highlighted that “consumer food prices will be largely unaffected. Higher prices at the grocery store of high-value California crops like nuts, wine grapes and dairy foods are driven more by market demand than by the drought.”

However, looking at the table above, future production losses could extend to a wider variety of staples: California represents almost one-fifth of all US States’ milk exports, a third of all vegetable and rice exports, almost half of all fruit exports and over 90% tree nut exports. What is equally striking is how distant the #2 States are in some cases in terms of production volumes.

So if the drought continues into the foreseeable future (and this is a real possibility), here’s a really interesting question: who will make up for any shortfall in California’s gigantic contribution to US food production?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nF2x1w Tyler Durden

18 months ago we first brought the world’s attention to the end of what has now been exposed as among the largest ponzi schemes in history – the Chinese Commodity Financing Deals (CCFDs) – pointing out how this meant commodities like copper were likely to come under pressure as firms liquidate what minimal holdings they had (and sell out futures hedges) to manage the risk of unwinds in these quasi-collateralized deals. Since then, copper prices have indeed plunged, as has global growth expectations and global bond yields as a realization that ‘demand’ implied by previous prices was entirely artificial. Now, as Goldman notes, the real world is catching up (or down) to the reality of mal-investment and how copper is set to drop notably further…

As Goldman Sach’s Max Layton,

Metals and mining commodities – including the base and bulk commodities, steel and cement – are highly exposed to a slowdown in the Chinese property, with over 40% of Chinese demand for cement and copper in particular consumed in the construction sector. The recent slowdown in Chinese property sales, prices and early-cycle new starts has most impacted physical demand for (and sentiment towards) commodities exposed to the earlier stages of China’s construction cycle – steel and iron ore – which have underperformed commodities more exposed to latter stages of the construction cycle, such as copper. However, as the recent slowdown in new starts flows through to late-cycle, copper-intensive construction completions, we expect copper to come under further pressure.

Understanding the construction cycle and commodity demand

The property development timeline for a typical Chinese building (such as an apartment building) from new start to property completion takes around 18 to 24 months. An “early-cycle” construction phase can be characterized as a period with strong new starts, relatively weak completions, and falling inventories (associated with higher sales). Conversely, “late-cycle” construction phases are typically associated with weak new starts, relatively strong completions, and rising/and or high property inventories (associated with weak sales). The intensity of basic material consumption varies significantly across these phases: consumption of steel and steel-making raw material (such as iron ore and coking coal) tends to be strongest in the earlier stages, while copper tends to be consumed in the later stages.

Specifically, as much as c.61% of Chinese and c.25% of global copper consumption is related to Chinese housing and property activity. Of the c.61% of Chinese consumption that may be related to property, up to c.45-50% is directly associated with project completion (plumbing, wiring for lighting, local power infrastructure, telecom, etc.), and c.12% is associated with the actual property sale, when the property is fitted with copper-intensive consumer appliances and/or tiling intensive in mineral sands. The strong link between completions and copper demand owes to the fact that internal and external copper wiring (for connection to the grid) tends to be installed around project completion. There is strong empirical evidence for the relationship between completions strength and copper prices: using completions as the primary indicator of China’s copper demand, together with ex-China demand data, explains the vast bulk of variation in copper prices over the past decade.

Bad news for copper

In 2012/2013, the Chinese construction sector transitioned from an early-cycle construction phase to a late-cycle one, as completions surged following a wave of new stimulus-related construction post the Global Financial Crisis. Since then, the cycles have been relatively muted, with both new starts and completions growing sub-trend, for the most part. More specifically, the observed weak growth in new starts over the past two years has bearish medium-term implications for late-cycle copper-intensive construction completions. In our view, this weakness has not been priced in, as it has not flowed through to the physical market via higher inventories, and therefore supports our bearish copper view over the next year ($6,600/t and $6,200/t at 6- and 12-month horizons).

Double whammy (at the margin): commodity financing deals

In the past three years, China has increasingly employed complex commodity financing deals to import relatively low-cost US dollar funding, which in some cases has likely been used to fund property development. While the profitability of these financing deals has already fallen owing to lower Chinese interest rates, higher rates outside of China, and – in the case of copper – persistent LME backwardation, we expect a further gradual unwind in such deals over the course of 2015 as China opens up its capital account gradually over time. This broader reduction in financing deals, combined with an expected rise in US interest rates, could result in higher costs of funding for Chinese property developers, potentially further slowing property starts and property-related commodity consumption. At the same time, a further reduction in deals would reduce demand for copper imports into bonded warehouses in China (a key component of the financing transactions), potentially raising inventory visibility outside of China. This scenario would be a double whammy for copper, which is both highly exposed to the property sector and supported by low visible exchange stocks.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1tTJWBA Tyler Durden

Authored by Pam Martens and Russ Martens via Wall Street on Parade blog,

What the New York Fed attempted to pull off this past Monday with its full-day conference for the execs of wayward Wall Street banks was a public relations stunt to switch the national debate from its culture to Wall Street’s culture. Styled as a “Workshop on Reforming Culture and Behavior in the Financial Services Industry,” the event came less than a month after ProPublica and public radio’s “This American Life” released internal tape recordings made by a former New York Fed bank examiner, Carmen Segarra, revealing a regulator with no bark or bite.

ProPublica’s Jake Bernstein wrote that the tapes and a confidential report by an outside consultant demonstrated the New York Fed’s “history of deference to banks.”

But there is far more to this story. Wall Street banking executives, who elect two-thirds of the Board of Directors of the New York Fed and have frequently served on its Board, have structured the institution to be its sycophant. Consider the fact that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, sat on the Board of the New York Fed from 2007 through 2012 as the regulator failed to follow through on three separate staff recommendations that JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office undergo a thorough investigation, as reported this week by the Federal Reserve System’s Inspector General.

JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office in 2012 finally owned up to losing $6.2 billion of bank depositors’ money in wild bets on exotic derivatives in London.

A Wall Street regulator, like the New York Fed, which has staff positions called “relationship managers” that are considered senior to, and can bully and intimidate, their bank examiner colleagues, is in no position to be lecturing Wall Street on its culture. Indeed, the culture on Wall Street of “it’s legal if you can get away with it,” grew out of its cozy, crony relationships with its regulators like the New York Fed, an enshrined revolving door at the SEC, self-regulatory bodies delivering hand slaps and its own private justice system to keep its secrets shielded from the public’s view.

To suggest that a one-day conference and a few speeches are going to make a dent in a structure intentionally created to deliver heads we win, tails you lose on behalf of Wall Street interests is deeply insulting – especially coming from the New York Fed, the target of future Senate hearings on its own culture.

The seriousness with which disciplinary lectures by the New York Fed are taken by the big Wall Street players is evidenced by those who snubbed Monday’s conference – namely, the CEOs of the serial miscreants. Not in attendance, according to the participant list released by the New York Fed were: JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon; Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat; and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

William Dudley, President of the New York Fed, whose wife receives $190,000 a year in deferred compensation from JPMorgan where she was previously employed as a Vice President, sized up the loathsome regard that Wall Street now holds in the public mind as follows:

“Since 2008, fines imposed on the nation’s largest banks have far exceeded $100 billion. The pattern of bad behavior did not end with the financial crisis, but continued despite the considerable public sector intervention that was necessary to stabilize the financial system. As a consequence, the financial industry has largely lost the public trust. To illustrate, a 2012 Harris poll found that 42 percent of people responded either ‘somewhat’ or ‘a lot’ to the statement that Wall Street ‘harms the country’; furthermore, 68 percent disagreed with the statement: ‘In general, people on Wall Street are as honest and moral as other people.’ ”

Further cementing that public distrust, the media was barred from attending Monday’s conference at the New York Fed. Press members who nonetheless reported on the event evoked a recurring theme of violent acts to deal with incorrigible actors.

Aaron Elstein at Crain’s New York used an analogy comparing the Fed to the 15^th century Vatican which dealt with a problem it was having by calling a big conference and burning alive the outlier and casting his remains into the Rhine.

This thought about the conference constituted the first paragraph of Bartlett Naylor’s reporting at Huffington Post: “The Roman army responded to desertion by randomly executing a tenth of those soldiers remaining. They called it decimation, derived from the word ‘tenth.’ This discipline, of course, prompted all soldiers to police against desertion so as to save their own skins.”

Jon Hilsenrath at the Wall Street Journal was thinking along similar lines. Hilsenrath reflected on the book, Manias, Panics, and Crashes, which carries a chapter by University of Chicago Professor Robert Aliber in its revised sixth edition. Hilsenrath quotes as follows from the book: “At the time of the South Sea Bubble, (Lord) Molesworth, then a member of the (British) House of Commons, suggested that parliament should declare the directors of the South Sea Company guilty of parricide and subject them to the ancient Roman punishment of that transgression – to be sewn into sacks, each with a monkey and a snake, and drowned.”

Business media is not the only source pondering violence against Wall Street scoundrels. This summer, venture capitalist, Nick Hanauer, worried aloud to his fellow plutocrats in Politico Magazine about when public anger might spill over into pitchforks. Hanauer writes:

“What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.”

There are currently a stunning 8,477 comments under the article. The following two, listed together, capture the current divide between Main Street and Wall Street:

Betsarama: “Thank you! Exactly. My father had a saying with regard to how much he charged and what his company earned, and that was ‘Enough.’ People loved him for his intelligence, simplicity and hard work. That’s American. Being filthy stinking rich — what is there to admire?”

Crapulous Mass responds: “One of the beauties to being filthy stinking rich is really not having to care what others think of you.”

This might well explain why Dimon, Corbat and Blankfein snubbed the lectures on Monday.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1xo3hIl Tyler Durden

The US dollar gained on most of the major foreign currencies last week, but the overall tone, leaving aside the yen, was largely consolidative in nature.  The greenback was soft in the first half of the week but recovered in the second half.  

The Australian and Canadian dollars were the only major currencies that managed to hold onto some of their gains (0.55% and 0.40% respectively).  The yen was the weakest of the majors, losing 1.2%, as the panic from the week before died down.  Equity markets were mostly higher, with the Nikkei’s 5.2% rise, leading the major markets.  US 10-year Treasury yields rose 8 bp. Core bonds generally traded heavier, but European peripheral bonds were firmer, in line with the calmer conditions.   

We were never persuaded that last week’s turmoil would prevent the Fed from completing its tapering operation, and see that in the market, cooler heads are prevailing.  Talk of “tapering the tapering” has diminished, and no one is taking too seriously the prospects of QE4.  Nevertheless, we note that both the December 2015 Fed funds and Eurodollar futures contracts were unchanged on the week at 46 bp and  77 bp respectively.  

Perhaps offsetting the diminished interest rate support for the dollar has been speculation that more action from the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan could be imminent. Reports suggested that the ECB may consider adding corporate bonds to its asset purchase program.  There were also report suggesting that the BOJ sees risk that inflation may fall, and this could prompt an extension of the already aggressive Qualitative and Quantitative Easing.  We are skeptical that either will materialize in the coming weeks.  The BOJ meets next week and the ECB the following week.    

Technically, the euro looks poised to continue to consolidate.  Most of last week’s price action took place within the $1.2625-$1.2886 range set on October 15.  In recent session, the euro flirted with the lower end and slipped to about $1.2615.  The euro spending the second half of the week below the 20-day moving average, which comes in near $1.2690. This is the nearby cap.  Of note, the nearly four-cent bounce in the euro has not been accompanied by a sharp change in euro positioning  The confidence of the euro bears is palpable and quite widespread.  

The bearishness toward the yen was more evident in the price action than in the euro.  We had identified the yen’s gains as among the most exaggerated in last week’s technical note.  The dollar’s recovery last week recouped 61.8% of its slide from the push marginally above JPY110 on October 1.  It closed above its 20-day moving average in the two sessions before the weekend for the first time since early this month.  The RSI has been recovering, and the MACDs have now crossed higher. The risk is that the speculation of more action by the BOJ is getting ahead of itself.  This may help cap the dollar, where a trendline drawn off the early October highs comes in around JPY108.70-80 next week.  

From a technical perspective, sterling continues to look constructive.  Bullish divergence continue to be evident in the daily RSI and MACD.  It could be important that the $1.60 area largely held in the second half of last week.  It appears that sterling may be carving out a head and shoulder   near $0.8650.  Before the weekend, the Aussie tested both sides of the pattern.  It closed firm, in an outside day, though off its high and just below the previous day’s high.  This is still impressive because of increased speculation that the central bank is considering cutting interest rates.  This chart pattern is notorious for false breaks, and the technical indicators do not appear to be generating strong signals. 

The US dollar pulled back against the Canadian dollar to challenge the past month’s uptrend. It is found near the 20-day moving average, just above CAD1.1210.  The US dollar could not get back above CAD1.13 in the first half of the week and came down to test CAD1.1180-CAD1.1200 in the second half of the week.  It has been unable to close below the 20-day average for a month.  The MACDs are turning lower, though the RSI is in neutral.   

The US dollar has also been riding the 20-day moving average higher against the Mexican peso. It comes in now near MXN13.48.  The greenback has lost some momentum in recent day but has not pulled back from the highs very much.  There is no compelling technical evidence to conclude a dollar top is in place.  

Last week we anticipated that the S&P 500 could recover toward 1940, and it finished jut above there on the week.  It retraced more than 61.8% of the drop from the record highs.  To keep the bullish momentum intact, the 1920 area should remain intact. On the upside, there is previous congestion in the 1980-1995 area.  There was an interesting gap that was created last week that is found between 1905.03 and 1909.28. This is Monday’s high (October 20) and Tuesday’s low.  That it has not been filled suggests it is unlikely to be a “normal” gap.  The “measuring gap” takes places in the middle of a move.  That would also project the S&P 500 toward 1990.  

US 10-year yields trended higher last week but remained unable to return to its former range. On the top side, yields look capped in the 2.30%-2.40% area.  On the downside, the new range may extend to 2.10%-2.15%.  The MACDs are consistent with higher yields, while the RSI is soft.    

The CRB Index has been hugging the 270 area since October 15.  It represents two-year lows. Although technical readings are stretched, especially MACDs, there is still no sign of a convincing low.  The 2012 low, which itself was a two-year low, was near 267. The 2010 low was just above 247.  The December crude oil futures contract lost $1 last week and recorded lower highs for the last three sessions.  Bids around the $80 level are being absorbed without much consternation.  The market still feels heavy.  The $83 level may be the top of the near-term range.  A break of $80 could see a push toward $76.  

Observations from the speculative positioning in the futures market:

1.  Despite the large swings in the spot market, position adjustments in the currency futures were limited.  There was only one gross position adjustment larger than 10k contracts.  Gross short yen positions were culled by 25.6k contracts to 98.4k.  This was the largest short-covering since March.  

2.  Speculators responded to the large price swings by reducing positions.  Of the 14 gross positions we track, nine were reduced.   Gross long positions were cut except in the Japanese yen, where they grew by less than 4k contracts.  Gross euro long euro positions were flat, but at 60.2k contracts, it remains the largest gross long position among the currency futures.   Short positions were also generally reduced but did edge higher in the euro, Australian dollar and Mexican peso.

3.  The net short euro position has grown for three consecutive weeks.   Speculators are accumulating a large short position in the dollar-bloc currencies and the Mexican peso. The net short Canadian dollar position of 21.5k contracts is the largest since late-May. The 31.5k net short Australian dollar contracts are the largest net short position since March.  Speculators are net short 21.1k peso contracts, which is the largest since late-February.  

4.  The net short 10-year US Treasury speculative futures position was reduced to 90k contracts from 123k.  Speculators piled into the longs, growing the gross position by almost 37k contracts to 456.7k.  The short added a slight 3.6k contracts to 546.7k.  

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1xo3dYU Marc To Market