Martes 29/09/15 Comercio internaciona, indice precios casas

[Fenix]

Wholesale Money Markets Are Broken: Ignore "Perverted" Swap Spreads At Your Own Peril
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/27/2015 - 18:45

At the height of the financial crisis, the unprecedented decline in swap rates below Treasury yields was seen as an anomaly. The phenomenon is now widespread, as Bloomberg notes, what Fabozzi's bible of swap-pricing calls a "perversion" is now the rule all the way from 30Y to 2Y maturities. As one analyst notes, historical interpretations of this have been destroyed and if the flip to negative spreads persists, it would signal that its roots are in a combination of regulators’ efforts to head off another financial crisis, China selling pressure (and its impact on repo markets) and "broken" wholesale money-markets.


Did The PBOC Covertly Buy 1,747 Tonnes Of Gold In London?
09/27/2015 17:15 -0400
Submitted by Koos Jansen
The London Float And PBOC Gold Purchases

This BullionStar blogpost is part of a chronological storyline. Please make sure you’ve read The Mechanics Of The Chinese Domestic Gold Market, PBOC Gold Purchases: Separating Facts from Speculation and The London Bullion Market And International Gold Trade, or it will be difficult to understand the finesses.

This week I listened to an interview with a Swiss refiner which promptly reminded me of an interview I conducted with Alex Stanczyk (currently Managing Director of Physical Gold Fund SP) on 9 September 2013 about what he was hearing from industry insiders on Chinese gold demand. Back then we knew very little about the Chinese gold market and how physical gold across the globe was flowing towards China. This started to change on 18 September 2013 when I published my first analysis on the structure of the Chinese gold market with the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) at its core; a topic that since then has been discussed by researchers at investment banks, in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. The Western gold space has learned a great deal about the Chinese gold market and global gold flows, though we’re always left with loose ends. For example, the issue regarding PBOC gold purchases; how much gold do they truly have and where was it bought? Does the PBOC buy 400-ounce Good Delivery (GD) bars in London and covertly transports these gold bars to its gold vaults in China mainland, or are the Good Delivery gold bars shipped to Switzerland, refined into 1 Kg 9999 gold bars, sent forward to the Chinese mainland where they’re required to be sold through the SGE gold exchange and from where they can be bought (in clear sight) by the PBOC. The latter would imply that the full gold flow would be visible for anyone with an Internet connection.

Yesterday I re-read my interview with Alex from September 2013 in which he shared information from industry insiders. From Alex (September 2013):

One of our partners had lunch in the recent past with the head of the largest global operations company in security transport. He said there is a lot of gold that they’re moving into China that’s not going through exchanges. If the gold is for the government they don’t have to declare where it’s going. They don’t have to declare where it’s going in, or where it’s heading. If you look at the way the Chinese do things, why would they tell?

With the knowledge we have now, this quote from 2013 is even more interesting, as it describes what has come together in the past years through several analysis. Consider the following:

* Good Delivery gold bars can be monetized – in countries like the UK, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Singapore – from where they can be shipped into China while circumventing global trade statistics. This is because monetary Good Delivery gold bars are exempt from global trade statistics (UN, IMTS 2010). Needless to say monetary imports into China are conducted by the PBOC.
* Non-monetary Good Delivery gold bars (declared at international customs departments) imported into the Chinese domestic gold market are required to be sold through the SGE. However, trading volume at the SGE in GD bars has been a mere 3 tonnes in all of history.

We can thus conclude that if any Good Delivery gold bars have entered China these did not go through the SGE system where Chinese citizens, banks and institutions buy gold. Instead, it’s likely that the Good Delivery gold bars that crossed the Chinese border went directly to the PBOC vaults.

More from Alex (September 2013):

…We talked to the head of the largest refinery in Switzerland and he told us directly that all that metal that’s coming out of London is being refined into kilo bars and sent to China, as well as metal that’s coming in from other areas in the world, that’s all going to China. It’s way more than is being reported or moved through the exchanges. All the kilo bars go to the Chinese people but the PBOC is likely only buying good delivery [GD].

There you have it. More clues the PBOC does not buy gold through the SGE (where only gold bars smaller than GD are traded). But there is more.

Although, it’s virtually impossible to track monetary gold flows, the least we can do is try. In recent weeks Ronan Manly, Bron Suchecki, Nick Laird and I conducted a small investigation with respect to how much monetary and non-monetary gold is left in the UK. Luckily for us, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has published a few estimates in recent years about the total amount of physical gold in London (monetary and non-monetary). In 2011, it was 9,000 tonnes. In 2015, it had dropped to 6,256 tonnes – likely all in GD bars. These estimates from the LBMA combined with our investigation have resulted in the next charts (conceived by Nick Laird, Sharelynx):

LBMAHoldingsAU01

LBMAHoldingsAU05

For a better understanding of physical gold located in London you can read this post by Ronan, this post by Nick or have a look at the next diagram conceived by Jesse (Cafe Americain):



LondonGold11

According to gold trade data from HMRC, the UK saw a net (non-monetary) gold outflow from 1 January 2011 to 30 June 2015 of 997 tonnes. Have a look at the chart below. The UK net exported 1,425 tonnes in 2013. In 2014 net export fell to 448 tonnes. Add to that the UK net imported 904 tonnes in 2012.

UK Gold Trade 2011 - June 2015

We don’t know exactly when in 2011 the LBMA measured there were 9,000 tonnes of gold in London, but it doesn’t really matter. In the chart above we can see that the most significant movements since 2011 have taken place in 2012 and 2013. If we measure the flow of gold from the UK between 2012 and 2014, the net outflow is 970 tonnes. So it’s not that important when in 2011 the 9,000 tonnes were counted by the LBMA. What is important is that since 2011 not more than 997 tonnes of non-monetary gold has left the UK, according to official trade statistics.

Nick Laird and I noticed that although the total amount of physical gold in London fell roughly 2,744 tonnes (9,000 – 6,256) over four years (graph 1), only 997 tonnes were net exported as non-monetary gold (graph 4). This makes me wonder where the residual 1,747 tonnes (2,744 – 997) went. Possibly, this gold has been monetized in the UK and covertly shipped to a central bank in Asia, for example China. I don’t have rock hard evidence, but it fits right into the wider analyses.

Furthermore, from 2006 to 2011, the UK was a net importer every year. If the 9,000 tonnes estimate by the LBMA was hopelessly outdated, say, it was from 2008, this would increase the “missing gold” even more (as net export over the years would have been smaller than 997 tonnes).

What stands out for now is, (i) the LBMA has stated there were 9,000 tonnes of physical gold in London in 2011 and (ii) gold trade provided by HMRC reflects all physical movement of non-monetary gold in and out of the UK. Both these handles have nothing to do with complicated rules on changes in ownership of gold in London (that I’m aware of). Therefor we must conclude 2,744 tonnes left the UK since 2011, but only 997 tonnes was seen leaving as non-monetary gold. Where did the residual 1,747 tonnes go?

This investigation is far from finished, next I will research historic UK gold tarde – as far back as possible. Hopefully we can find another piece of the puzzle.

[Fenix]

QE Infinity Calls Continue: "QE4 Will Be Their Next Move"
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/27/2015 - 15:01

"What we have had is a jobless recovery in the US and so the Fed could not afford to cause another depression by raising interest rates. QE4 will be their next move, which is now much more likely than a rate hike."


George Soros Demands EU Accept 1 Million Refugees (Costing €15 Billion) Per Year For Foreseeable Future
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/27/2015 - 14:15

The exodus from war-torn Syria should never have become a crisis, according to billionaire George Soros; it was long in the making, easy to foresee, and eminently manageable by Europe and the international community. While some leaders, like Hungary's Orban, have suggested plans, these subordinate the human rights of asylum-seekers and migrants and threaten to divide and destroy the EU by renouncing the values on which it was built and violating the laws that are supposed to govern it. Soros demands that The EU respond with a genuinely European asylum policy that will put an end to the panic and the unnecessary human suffering.



Dear Janet Yellen, Here Is All You Need To Know About The US Economy: True Unemployment Is Over 12%
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/27/2015 - 13:30

Dear Fed Chairwoman Yellen: if you are still confused why there is so much slack and so little wage growth in the US economy despite the 5.1% "reported" unemployment rate, here is the answer: instead of a 5.1% unemployment rate in August, the true unemployment rate in the "land of the free" has been rising ever since the financial crisis, and is above 12% for the past three years.



The Bull/Bear 'High Stakes Poker' Game Is Down To The Final Table
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/27/2015 - 12:45

High stakes poker, winner takes all. Traders better have their trade plans ready: The next 3 weeks will likely determine whether we enter a lengthy bear market or whether bulls can use coming positive seasonality to avert a major market break one more time. As the following charts show, by the end of October we shall have confirmation one way or the other...


Paul Craig Roberts Warns "The Entire World May Go Down The Tubes Together"
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/26/2015 - 23:20

Neoliberal economics is blind to reality and serves to justify the destruction of the economic prospects of the Western World. It remains to be seen if Russia and China can develop a different economics or whether these rising superpowers will fall victim to the “junk economics” that has destroyed the West. With so many Chinese and Russian economists educated in the US tradition, the prospects of Russia and China might not be any better than ours. The entire world could go down the tubes together.

[Fenix]

Jim Grant Explains How To Hedge Against The Coming Money Paradrop
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/26/2015 22:03 -0400


Submitted by Christopher Gisiger

James Grant, Wall Street expert and editor of the investment journal Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, warns of ever more extreme central bank policies and bets on the comeback of gold.

The global financial markets are under severe stress. The postponed interest rate hike in the United States, the fast cooldown of the Chinese economy and the crash in the commodity complex are causing a great amount of unease among investors. Fear is growing that the world slips into recession. "Central bank policy is intended to paper over the cracks in the systems. Seven years after the outbreak of the financial crisis we’re paying for this with a lack of growth", says James Grant. The sharp thinking editor of the iconic Wall Street newsletter Grant’s Interest Rate Observer draws worrisome parallels between the command based central planning of the Chinese economy and the economic policies in the West. He also doubts that Fed Chair Janet Yellen is the right fit for the top job at the world’s most powerful central bank. Looking for protection he points to gold and shares of gold miners.

* * *

Jim, since the fall of Lehman Brothers seven years have passed now. In what kind of world are investors living in today?

It seems longer ago, doesn’t it? Certain things have not changed. The first of those permanent things is the nature of human beings who operate in markets and their tendency to buy high and sell low. That is just as it was the day before Lehman failed and it’s just as it will be forever. What’s new and different is the larger than life presence of government in our markets, both with respect to regulation and with respect to the management and the production and the manipulation of money.

Are you referring to super low interest rates?
There is nothing so terribly new about very low interest rates. In the 19th century interest rates fell for most of the area from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the turn of the 20th century. But something new under the sun might be very well the hyperactivity of our central banks.

But without their interventions we might be even worse off today.
We are living in the age of magical thinking. Governments through central banks have muscled down money market interest rates to zero and in some cases below zero. Not content with that, they have implemented what economists chose to call "the portfolio balance channel". That’s a very fancy phrase meaning higher stock prices in the interest of rising aggregate demand. That was the theory of the Bernanke Fed and it certainly was the theory of the Chinese communists who sponsored the fly away levitation of the Shanghai A-shares. So the world over – and this goes for Europe as well – central bankers have taken it upon themselves to sponsor great bull markets in the hopes of making people spend more because they will feel richer. That was the theory. But they neglected to think through the full consequences of these policies.

The slowdown in China is putting the financial markets under a lot of stress. How bad is the situation?
If I were a member of the ruling elite of the Chinese communist party I would say to myself: "Wait a second, we were just doing what the capitalist West was doing for the sake of economic recovery: Manipulating interest rates, administering asset prices through QE and inducing people through broad winks and nudges to taking risks and thereby seeding bull markets. When things went to smash in 2008 they didn’t arrest short sellers but they did threaten them as well. So what are we doing that’s different?" What China is doing different is that they’re doing it more ham handed. But aren’t there rather obvious analogies between old fashioned marxist central planning of the entire economy and our style of western central banking in which they seek to impose certain outcomes through the manipulation of prices?

Is China set for a hard landing?
I think China is very worrying. The macroeconomic data are largely made up and their methods are almost predestined to fail as the methods of command and control and suppression of the price mechanism are always predestined to fail. And then, on top of that, what’s scary is the reaction of the West: Instead of questioning those principles we talk about that the Chinese are just not as proficient in these techniques.

China was a main concern for the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates at their recent meeting. Was this the right decision?
I was hoping that they would choose to act if only as a mercy to change the subject. I mean can we talk about something more interesting like the weather? Of course, it’s not just about one quarter of one percent of scarcely discernable monetary tightening. It’s about the idea of something in the way of a normal structure of interest rates in the time to come. But here it is again: Seven years after the fall of Lehman the biggest and supposedly most dynamic, most resilient economy in the world is still not strong enough to absorb that. That is the message from the Fed. So no wonder the markets are worried.

Usually stocks rally when the Fed stays easy. Not this time. Is Fed Chair Janet Yellen still on top of things?
Here is a a very revealing fact: According to the Wall Street Journal when Janet Yellen goes to the airport to catch a flight she arrives hours early. Now, what does that tell you about her personality type? She’s really, really anxious. I think this is a personality type that perhaps is better suited not for high command. If a difficult decision needs to be taken a person who’s so anxious or so much of an impulsive risk minimizer is perhaps not the best qualified to take sometimes a leap into the dark. But that’s what investing and the management of money is everything about: At one point you have to take a leap in the dark because you can’t know the future. So this says a lot about a person who manages the world’s reserve currency without thinking of making too much of it.

So far there are few signs of inflation however. If anything, economists are concerned about deflation.
We see no inflation in the supermarket but we have already seen a great deal of it on Wall Street. Also, what exactly is wrong with low inflation? Many accredited economists and central bankers want us to think that unless the rate of debasement of money is 2% or higher we’re all in danger of some catastrophic economic event. Says who? This is one of these moments in which I feel utterly isolated from mainstream financial and monetary thinking. I ask myself: Are we at Grant’s crazy or are they? I guess we’ll know more in twenty years.

So what’s next for the global financial markets?
The mispricing of biotech stocks or corn and soybeans is of no great consequence to financial markets at large. Interest rates are another matter. They are universal prices: They discount future cash flows, calibrate risks and define investment hurdle rates. So interest rates are the traffic signals of a market based economy. Ordinarily, some are amber, some are red and some are green. But since 2008 they have mainly been green.

You’re saying there’s an accident waiting to happen?
The central banks lifted off the stock market so that aggregate demand is going to rise. But they forgot to consider that aggregate supply is likely also to rise: Oil drillers will have it easier to find financing with which to drill the marginal well and to produce the marginal barrel of oil. This will weight on the market causing lower oil prices which will lead the central bankers in return to print still more money to save us from what they call "the risk of deflation." So it’s seemingly a never ending, circular process of so called stimulus leading to still more stimulus and unconventional ideas leading to radical ideas. I dare to say that we have not yet seen the most radical brainwaves of the mandarins running our central banks.

What do you think this will look like?
They don’t keep those things as a secret. They talk quite openly about "direct monetary funding" which is what Milton Friedman had in mind when he coined the phrase “helicopter money”. So the next idea is just bypassing the banking system altogether and mailing out checks to the citizens.

Would something like that even work?
All this monetary stimulus does two things in a reciprocal way: It pushes failure into the future and brings consumption into the present. Providing marginal businesses with very cheap credit is inviting companies that have passed their useful days of their commercial lives to pretending some kind of an afterlife thanks to the subsidies from the central banks. But capitalism is inherently a dynamic system based on entrepreneurship and to new inventions. It’s a little bit like the forest for the trees: You need life but you also need death. Without death there is no room for a new generation and what you get is Japan: Standing timbers of ancient age, none of them too healthy. Quantitative easing and artificially low interest rates reduce the dynamics, the growth and the vibrancy of economic life.

Now the fear of corporate failures is growing. You can see that in the widening spreads in the junk bond market.
The junk bond market has been characterized by very loose protections to the creditors. Those protections have been mainly eviscerated or weakened during this cycle of very aggressive lending and borrowing. That’s why I think the recovery rates on junk bonds in default will be lower and the final permanent losses to capital will be higher this cycle. But this should not be confused with the apocalypse. This is how finance works. This is the cycle of psychology of bull markets and bear markets, of boom and bust: There is euphoria and that mellows to complacency and at length it ripens to apprehension and then to fear and finally to abject terror – and that’s when you buy!

So where do you see opportunities for investors right now? Emerging markets for instance have crashed already pretty hard.
We see the beginnings of opportunity in some of the emerging markets. Still, I don’t think this is the moment to get involved broadly. But at least some securities have been marked down to levels at which you can say: "Ok, that’s at least interesting". One of them is Sberbank. It’s a very good bank and it happens to be in Russia, a rather forbidding place at the moment. But Sberbank came through the 2008/09 experience with shining colors, its management is first rate and it has terrific scale. So altogether it’s a first rate bank now greatly under strain owned to the difficulties in Russia. But I think it will survive and do well. Another interesting stock is the Moscow Stock Exchange. Like Sberbank it’s well managed, cheap and a good business. There are also Avianca, an airline in Colombia and Grupo Nutresa, a midcap food distributor and processor which is called the Nestlé of Columbia.

Where else do you see opportunities?
This is a monetary moment. I think we are looking at the beginning of the world’s reappraisal of the words and deeds of central bankers like Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi. What we’re waiting for is a sufficient recognition of the monetary disorder. You see monetary disorder manifested in super low interest rates, in the mispricing of credit broadly and you see it in the escalation of radical monetary nastrums that are floating out of the various central banks and established temples of thought: Negative real rates, negative nominal rates and the idea of helicopter money. So you need some hedge against things not going according to the script and that makes gold and gold mining equities terrifically interesting now.

Are there any gold mining stocks you would recommend specifically?
Anything that the Canadian mining entrepreneur Pierre Lassonde is involved with, is interesting. He is a very unusual mining entrepreneur because he is a businessman first and and geologist second. He wants a return on investment rather than just digging a hole in the ground out of which comes gold. He is involved especially with Euro-Nevada and with a very low priced speculative mining company called Newgold. Barrick Gold is another stock that is an attractive speculation because it is highly encumbered and in the not so distant future it faces a debt drama. But the shares are priced for that and if gold goes higher they have huge potential.

[Fenix]

As A Very "Grim" Earnings Season Unfolds, All Eyes Will Be On This Company
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/26/2015 19:03 -0400

Earlier this week we said that with the third quarter just days away from the history books, Wall Street is preparing for the worst earnings season since 2009, with Factset further noting that "if the index reports a decline in earnings for Q3, it will mark the first back-to-back quarters of earnings declines since 2009."

We presented the following table from ISI which showed that not only is the US now officially in a revenue recession, with every single quarter in 2015 set to post a decline from the previous year, with even the overly optimistic consensus case of a 4% increase in Q1 2016 revenues unable to regain sales last seen in Q3 2014, but S&P500 expected earnings in Q1 2016 of 119, a 6% increase from the previous year, will barely put the market back to levels seen in Q3 2014.

But before we get there we have to get through Q3: a quarter when not only revenues are set to tumble another 5%, but this time not even hundreds of billions in buybacks will prevent the EPS from sliding, and according to Factset, Q3 EPS are set to tumble 4.5%.

In other words, while the revenue recession continues, the S&P 500 is about to enter its first earnings recession in six years.

Earlier today the mainstream media caught up noting that "Wall Street is bracing for a grim earnings season, with little improvement expected anytime soon" and added some facts of its own: expectations for future quarters are falling as well. A rolling 12-month forward earnings per share forecast now stands near negative 2 percent, the lowest since late 2009, when it was down 10.1 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data.

"The 3.9 percent estimated decline in third-quarter profits - down sharply from a July 1 forecast for a 0.4 percent dip - would be the first quarterly profit decline for the S&P 500 since the third quarter of 2009."

"Earnings recessions aren't good things. I don't care what the state of the economy is or anything else," said Michael Mullaney, chief investment officer at Fiduciary Trust Co in Boston. Michael is clearly paid the "big bucks" for a reason.

Another investor paid big bucks is Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company in Atlanta, Geo-rgia, who cited earnings growth as one of the drivers of the market: "How can we drive the market higher when all of these signals aren't showing a lot of prosperity?"

How indeed.

And while in the past attention has traditionally fallen on AAPL as the marginal source of growth, this time not even AAPL can save the market-leading tech sector. As we showed two weeks ago, even with AAPL, Q3 Info-Tech EPS are set to record their first annual drop since Q2 2013. Should AAPL stumble if as some suggest iPhone 6S sales are far weaker than expected, and watch the bottom fall out from under the market.



But it isn't AAPL that everyone will be looking at this quarter - the company that will make or break the Q3 earnings season is not even a tech company at all, but a financial: it's Bank of America.

The reason, as Factset points out, is that thanks to a base effect from a very weak Q3 in 2014, Bank of America is not only projected to be the largest contributor to year-over-year earnings growth for the Financials sector, but it is also projected to be the largest positive contributor to year-over-year earnings for the entire S&P 500!

The positive contribution from Bank of America to the earnings for the Financials sector and the S&P 500 index as a whole can mainly be attributed to an easy comparison to a year-ago loss. The mean EPS estimate for Bank of America for Q3 2015 is $0.36, compared to year-ago EPS of -$0.01. In the year-ago quarter, the company reported a charge for a settlement with the Department of Justice, which reduced EPS by $0.43. Bank of America has only reported a loss in two (Q1 2014 and Q3 2014) of the previous ten quarters.

This is how big BofA's contribution to Q3 earnings season will be: if Bank of America is excluded from the index, the estimated earnings growth rate for the Financials sectors would fall to 0.7% from 8.2%, while the estimated earnings decline for the S&P 500 would increase to -5.9% from -4.5%.

In other words, if BofA has some major and unexpected litigation provision or some "rogue" loss as a result of marking its deeply underwater bond portfolio to market as Jefferies did last week pushing its fixed income revenue (not profit) negative, the drop in the S&P will increase by a whopping 30%, and all due to just one company.

Finally, if the market which has been priced to perfection for years finally cracks - and by most accounts it will be on the back of bank earnings which have not been revised lower to reflect a reality in which the long awaited recovery was just pushed back to the 8th half of 2012, and where trading revenues are again set to disappoint - then the recently bearish David Tepper will once again have the final laugh because not only will the new direction in corporate revenues and earnings by confirmed, but a very violent readjustment in the earnings multiple would be imminent. As a reminder, Tepper hinted that the new fair multiple of the S&P 500 would drop from 18x to 16x. Applying a Q3 EPS of 114 and, well, readers can do their own math...

[Fenix]

The UN Unveils Plan Pushing For Worldwide Internet Censorship
09/26/2015 18:33 -0400
Submitted by Mike Krieger

The United Nations has disgraced itself immeasurably over the past month or so.

In case you missed the following stories, I suggest catching up now:

The UN’s “Sustainable Development Agenda” is Basically a Giant Corporatist Fraud

Not a Joke – Saudi Arabia Chosen to Head UN Human Rights Panel

Fresh off the scene from those two epic embarrassments, the UN now wants to tell governments of the world how to censor the internet. I wish I was kidding.

From the Washington Post:

On Thursday, the organization’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development released a damning “world-wide wake-up call” on what it calls “cyber VAWG,” or violence against women and girls. The report concludes that online harassment is “a problem of pandemic proportion” — which, nbd, we’ve all heard before.



But the United Nations then goes on to propose radical, proactive policy changes for both governments and social networks, effectively projecting a whole new vision for how the Internet could work.



Under U.S. law — the law that, not coincidentally, governs most of the world’s largest online platforms — intermediaries such as Twitter and Facebook generally can’t be held responsible for what people do on them. But the United Nations proposes both that social networks proactively police every profile and post, and that government agencies only “license” those who agree to do so.

People are being harassed online, and the solution is to censor everything and license speech? Remarkable.

How that would actually work, we don’t know; the report is light on concrete, actionable policy. But it repeatedly suggests both that social networks need to opt-in to stronger anti-harassment regimes and that governments need to enforce them proactively.



At one point toward the end of the paper, the U.N. panel concludes that “political and governmental bodies need to use their licensing prerogative” to better protect human and women’s rights, only granting licenses to “those Telecoms and search engines” that “supervise content and its dissemination.”

So we’re supposed to be lectured about human rights from an organization that named Saudi Arabia head of its human rights panel? Got it.

Regardless of whether you think those are worthwhile ends, the implications are huge: It’s an attempt to transform the Web from a libertarian free-for-all to some kind of enforced social commons.



This U.N. report gets us no closer, alas: all but its most modest proposals are unfeasible. We can educate people about gender violence or teach “digital citizenship” in schools, but persuading social networks to police everything their users post is next to impossible. And even if it weren’t, there are serious implications for innovation and speech: According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, CDA 230 — the law that exempts online intermediaries from this kind of policing — is basically what allowed modern social networks (and blogs, and comments, and forums, etc.) to come into being.

If we’re lucky, perhaps the Saudi religious police chief (yes, they have one) who went on a rampage against Twitter a couple of years ago, will be available to head up the project.

What a joke.



Goldman Strikes Again: Did A Probe Into "Global Warming" Fraud Cost A Prime Minister's Job
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/26/2015 - 16:26

Did Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott just lose his job because of fears that a probe and audit of the "data" and "statistics" behind global warming could threaten to destroy Goldman Sachs' best laid cap-and-trade, emissions trading scheme and carbon tax plans?

Fed Refuses To Comment On Yellen's Health
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/26/2015 - 10:55

There was a very troubling 100 second interval at the end of Yellen's 50 minute, 5,000+ word speech in Amhert on Thursday, in which the 69-year old Yellen suddenly seemed unable to read the words on the page, was rereading the same phrase over and over, paused for long stretches at a time, and then had a violent reaction that forced her to end her speech prematurely. Watch it again below. But more disturbing was the Fed's reaction. As the WSJ reports, a Federal Reserve spokeswoman declined Friday to say if Chairwoman Janet Yellen resumed a normal work schedule or sought follow-up medical attention a day after she appeared ill near the end of a long speech in Amherst, Mass. Ms. Yellen returned to Washington on Friday.

[Fenix]

Three Strategies To Make Your Life Easier As Times Get Harder
09/26/2015 14:30 -0400
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith
No risk, no gain. But risk can deliver staggering, crushing losses if it isn't limited or hedged.

Times are going to get harder going forward, for all the reasons that are already visible in today's headlines. So what can we do to make our own lives easier as times get tougher? Here are three suggested strategies:

1. Don't get enmeshed with dysfunctional people, families or businesses. When we're young, we're adept at making excuses for people in dysfunctional families and enterprises. We expect them to work their way out of their dysfunctions. We think we can help in this process.

Alas, we can't. People usually can't rid themselves of dysfunction without an extraordinary effort. Getting enmeshed with a dysfunctional person/family/business can only drag you down. The only way to avoid the mess is to avoid the dysfunctional person/family/business in the first place. Wish them well and get out.

2. Be fanatical about reducing fixed costs. This sounds so obvious, but it's really the key to surviving hard times and building productive wealth, i.e. the kind that yields income, rain or shine.

Remarkably, people may acknowledge this in an abstract fashion but few actually live by it. The vast majority let their fixed costs rise with their income. Businesses move to pricier digs once they start feeling flush, and people move up to costlier vehicles, homes, clothing, vacations, etc.

The ideal business has been stripped of fixed costs. For example: rent on home office: zero. Labor overhead: zero, if you hire only other free-lancers-contractors.

Management guru Peter Drucker made the point about reducing fixed costs another way. He famously noted that "businesses don't have profits, all they have is costs." (a paraphrase)

In other words, there's no guarantee of additional revenues/sales or profits; all we know for sure is our fixed costs, i.e. what we have to pay monthly even if our revenues are zero.

Some fixed costs rise despite our fanatic focus. Healthcare costs rise until we qualify for Medicare. That's a given. Our only way to reduce healthcare costs is be fanatical about being healthy.

Servicing debt is a fixed cost. You have to service the debt whether you're making money or not. So eliminating debt is one critical way to reduce fixed costs.

Frugality is exceedingly useful, but frugality is not quite the same as being fanatical about reducing fixed costs. Understanding the difference is an important part of this strategy.

3. Learn how to calculate and manage risk. Risk is the ultimate yin/yang. If you don't take any risks, you're limited to a salary: the employer takes the risk and rewards, you get the salary and no upside.

But if you take a risk, you can lose the gamble: the investment, the job, the house, the enterprise.

You want to score a ten-bagger (ten-fold increase) in the stock market? Well, belly up to the blacklisted_site wheel, because most of the bets that pay off that big are extraordinarily risky.

There is no way to eliminate risk. Life is risk. Doing great things requires taking risks. The "safe way" offloads risk and reward to others. You want the big reward, you have to take the big risk.

When the tide is raising all boats, it's remarkably easy to rank yourself as a genius who manages risk effortlessly. Rising tides are not a good test. Its the ebb tide, when every investment is crashing in value, that tests risk management.

It boils dowm to this: understand the risks you're taking (especially when your mutual fund manager assures you everything in your fund is low-risk) and set limits on the risks you're taking on.

No risk, no gain. But risk can deliver staggering, crushing losses if it isn't limited or hedged (and hedges have limits, too). Anything else is illusion. This will become evident to all within the next decade as all the "sure things" melt into thin air.



Obama Promised Healthcare Premiums Would Fall $2,500 Per Family; They Have Climbed $4,865
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/25/2015 - 21:10

[Fenix]

Sep 30 - Fed's Mester: US Can Handle Rate Hike This Year
Submitted by Pivotfarm on 09/29/2015 18:52 -0400


EMOTION MOVING MARKETS NOW: 12/100 EXTREME FEAR

PREVIOUS CLOSE: 12/100 EXTREME FEAR

ONE WEEK AGO: 31/100 FEAR

ONE MONTH AGO: 14/100 EXTREME FEAR

ONE YEAR AGO: 15/100 EXTREME FEAR

Put and Call Options: EXTREME FEAR During the last five trading days, volume in put options has lagged volume in call options by 13.19% as investors make bullish bets in their portfolios. However, this is still among the highest levels of put buying seen during the last two years, indicating extreme fear on the part of investors.

Market Volatility: NEUTRAL The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is at 26.83. This is a neutral reading and indicates that market risks appear low.

Stock Price Strength: FEAR The number of stocks hitting 52-week lows exceeds the number hitting highs and is at the lower end of its range, indicating fear.



PIVOT POINTS

EURUSD | GBPUSD | USDJPY | USDCAD | AUDUSD | EURJPY | EURCHF | EURGBP| GBPJPY | NZDUSD | USDCHF | EURAUD | AUDJPY


S&P 500 (ES) | NASDAQ 100 (NQ) | DOW 30 (YM) | RUSSELL 2000 (TF) | Euro (6E) |Pound (6B)

EUROSTOXX 50 (FESX) | DAX 30 (FDAX) | BOBL (FGBM) | SCHATZ (FGBS) | BUND (FGBL)

CRUDE OIL (CL) | GOLD (GC) | 10 YR T NOTE | 2 YR T NOTE | 5 YR T NOTE | 30 YR TREASURY BOND| SOYBEANS | CORN



MEME OF THE DAY – BEIJING AFTER VOLKSWAGEN



UNUSUAL ACTIVITY

APPS Director purchase 127K @ 1.57

JOY Director purchase 12,200 A $ 14.77 , 4,346 A $ 14.8 , 2,854 A $ 14.81 , 2,265 A $ 14.82 , 2,435 A $ 14.83

Z NOV 30 Puts @ 4.70 on the offer 1600 contracts

MU Jan 5 Put Activity @ 0.18 on the offer

BDSI NOV 6 Calls on the offer @ 0.80 1800+

More Unusual Activity…

HEADLINES



Fed's Mester: US can handle rate hike this year

Moody's: Govt shutdown doesn't directly affect creditworthiness of US

ECB's Weidmann: Deflation Concerns Have Dissipated

Villeroy Cleared to Become Next Governor of Bank of France

Wells Fargo cuts S&P 500's year-end target to 2,025-2,125

InBev Said to Line Up BofA, Santander on SABMiller Financing

Glencore says it is 'operationally and financially robust'

Bank of America to Lay Off Employees in Banking, Markets

Twitter is getting ready to drop its 140-character limit

Ukraine group agrees on plan to pull back tanks and weapons



GOVERNMENTS/CENTRAL BANKS

Fed's Mester: US can handle rate hike this year - Nikkei

Moody's: Govt. shutdown doesn't directly affect creditworthiness of US government - Rtrs

ECB's Weidmann: Deflation Concerns Have Dissipated - NASDAQ

ECB's Makuch: Would Be Speculative To Consider Adjustments To QE - ForexLive

ECB's Nowotny: Risk Overstretching Mandate Without Monetary Union - FXStreet

Villeroy Cleared to Become Next Governor of Bank of France - BBG

Bank of France Nominee Villeroy: Mario Draghi's current MonPol is the right one - Rtrs

Japanese PM Abe: Japan has successfully shrugged off the 'deflation mindset' - BBG

Abe adviser calls for extra stimulus in Japan - FT

RBA under pressure to cut rates - AFR

FIXED INCOME

Treasury yields fall to lowest level in a month - MktWatch

European Yields Reflect Slow Inflation Adding to Pressure on ECB - BBG

Market liquidity warning from IMF - FT

FX

USD: Dollar slips as commodity currencies steady - Rtrs

CAD: Canadian dollar hit fresh 11-year lows before rebounding - CBC

EUR: US Dollar Pares Gains, Euro Off Daily Lows - WBP

ECB: Forex Reserves Rise To EUR 264.7bln, Up EUR 400mln

ENERGY/COMMODITIES

Crude futures jump nearly 2%, ahead of weekly API Supply Report - Investing.com

Gold ends lower for third straight session - MktWatch

Copper Ends Longest Slump in a Month as Demand Concerns Subside - BBG

EQUITIES

Wall Street mixed in choppy trade - Courier Mail

Europe closes lower as Glencore soars 16.9%, oil up 2% - CNBC

FTSE 100 falls, with Wolseley hit by weaker revenue outlook - BBC

Wells Fargo cuts S&P 500's year-end target to 2,025-2,125 range - MktWatch

M&A: InBev Said to Line Up BofA, Santander on SABMiller Financing - BBG

M&A: Axel Springer to Purchase Majority Stake in Business Insider for $344.1mln - WSJ

MINERS: Glencore says it is 'operationally and financially robust' - BBC

AUTOS: VW chief Matthias Mueller pledges fix for emissions faults - FT

AUTOS: Porsche board to name new CEO on Wednesday - source on Rtrs

FINANCIALS: Bank of America to Lay Off Employees in Banking, Markets - WSJ

FINANCIALS: Societe Generale considers closing a fifth of retail branches - FT

FINANCIALS: RBS CEO: Could Buy Back Shares To Speed Up Govt. Exit - Rtrs

FINANCIALS: GE And MS Said To Delay Deadline On Commercial Assets Bid - AFR

TOBACCO: Reynolds American to sell some assets to Japan Tobacco for $5bln - MktWatch

INDUSTRIALS: Boeing to Start Delivering Military Helicopters to India in 2018 - WSJ

TECH: Twitter is getting ready to drop its 140-character limit - Re/Code

TECH: Google unveils two Nexus phones, 5X and 6P - CNBC

EMERGING MARKETS

India's Central Bank Cuts Key Interest Rate More Than Expected - WSJ



Ukraine group agrees on plan to pull back tanks and weapons - IFX

[admin]

Exportaciones entre países de América Latina se tambalean por débil crecimiento y efecto cambiario

Por Silvio Cascione

BRASILIA (Reuters) - El comercio entre los países de América Latina se ha debilitado este año por efecto de una desaceleración de sus economías y de la fuerte depreciación de sus monedas, un escenario que refleja el malestar general que sufren los mercados emergentes en el mundo.

El comercio entre Brasil, México, Argentina, Colombia, Chile y Perú -que juntos representan cerca del 87 por ciento de la producción económica de Latinoamérica- cayó un 15 por ciento interanual en el primer semestre del 2015 respecto a un año atrás, a 34.900 millones de dólares.

El retroceso de las monedas locales contra el dólar y la baja de los precios de muchas de las materias primas que las naciones latinoamericanas exportan son los principales factores tras el declive.

Los volúmenes de comercio entre Brasil -una potencia comercial en la región- y el resto de América Latina, que crecieron un 9 por ciento en el 2014, han bajado este año un 1 por ciento hasta agosto, en la comparación anualizada.

Los envíos también se han hundido en Argentina y en otros países sudamericanos, de acuerdo a datos de oficinas de estadísticas compilados por Reuters.

La debilidad del comercio no es una circunstancia exclusiva de Latinoamérica. Los volúmenes comerciales globales cayeron por dos trimestres consecutivos en el primer semestre del 2015, la peor racha de este tipo desde la crisis financiera del 2008, de acuerdo a la oficina en Holanda para Análisis de Políticas Económicas, que monitoriza los envíos mundiales.

Algunos economistas, como Willem Buiter de Citi, consideran que la baja actividad comercial podría ser presagio de una recesión global el próximo año, especialmente ante el lento crecimiento de la economía de China.

En el caso de América Latina, los datos indican una floja demanda de sus productos, lo que limita el potencial efecto positivo de una fortaleza del dólar para los productores.


FALLAS EN INTEGRACIÓN

Las exportaciones de América Latina al resto del mundo cedieron un 9,1 por ciento en el primer trimestre en cifras en dólares, según datos del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID). Los envíos de México declinaron un 0,4 por ciento, mientras que las ventas de Brasil y Argentina se hundieron en cifras porcentuales de doble dígito.

"Latinoamérica ha sido la más afectada (por China) en comparación con cualquier otra región en el mundo", dijo Paolo Giordano, economista jefe de integración y comercio en el BID. "Esto también revela que Latinoamérica no se ha integrado tanto como debería", aseveró.

Giordano destacó que el descenso de las exportaciones latinoamericanas se produce luego de dos años de estancamiento, lo que da paso al peor periodo para el comercio regional desde la crisis del 2008.

Existen dos grandes bloques comerciales en la región: el Mercosur, una unión aduanera conformada por Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay y Venezuela; y la Alianza del Pacífico, que une a México, Colombia, Perú y Chile.

Los países de la Alianza del Pacífico han tomado medidas para reducir las tarifas arancelarias entre sus miembros desde que el bloque se formó en el 2011, pero los gobiernos más proteccionistas del Mercosur han avanzado con lentitud en este punto, lo que genera incentivos para que las naciones compren productos básicos a Estados Unidos u otros países.

Las expectativas de crecimiento económico han caído en toda la región. Sólo Perú y Colombia podrían expandirse más del 3 por ciento en el 2015, a tasas que de todas formas se ubican por debajo de su potencial estimado.

"El crecimiento en América Latina no retornará a las tasas vistas en los últimos 10 años. Se estabilizará en niveles más bajos", dijo Joao Pedro Resende, economista de Unibanco Holding SA, el mayor banco privado de la región.

El comercio entre Brasil y Argentina -considerados con creces como los dos mayores socios comerciales de la región- bajó un 17 por ciento en los primeros ocho meses del 2015 respecto al mismo periodo del año pasado, dado que la economía brasileña se encuentra sumida en su peor recesión en una generación.

El declive de la actividad comercial ha lastrado particularmente a la industria de autos de Argentina, costándole más de 5.000 empleos.

(Un gráfico sobre el tema puede verse en la siguiente dirección: link.reuters.com/xez65w).

(Reporte adicional de Hugh Bronstein en Buenos Aires. Editado en español por Marion Giraldo)

[admin]

Producción industrial de Japón cae inesperadamente, crecen riesgos de recesión

Por Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKIO (Reuters) - La producción industrial de Japón cayó inesperadamente por segundo mes consecutivo en agosto, lo que generó temores de que una baja prolongada pueda disipar una recuperación económica vacilante y aumentó las expectativas de nuevas medidas de estímulo del Banco de Japón para reactivar el crecimiento.

Las ventas minoristas crecieron por quinto mes consecutivo en el año a agosto, pero el ritmo de las ganancias anuales se desaceleró con fuerza, subrayando la fragilidad del gasto del consumidor.

La producción industrial cayó un 0,5 por ciento según una base de comparación mensual, mostraron el miércoles datos del Ministerio de Economía, Comercio e Industria, por debajo del aumento de un 1,0 por ciento previsto por economistas consultados en un sondeo de Reuters.

Los débiles indicadores sugieren que la tercera mayor economía mundial sigue teniendo problemas para ganar impulso después de que se contrajo un 1,2 por ciento interanual en el segundo trimestre, manteniendo a los funcionarios bajo presión para que ofrezcan nuevas medidas de estímulo para fomentar el crecimiento.

Analistas proyectan una modesta recuperación del crecimiento en el actual trimestre, pero algunos dicen que el riesgo de una recesión está aumentado debido a que la economía de China se sigue desacelerando.

"Las exportaciones fueron débiles en agosto y eso presionó a la producción industrial y a los envíos. Es probable que la producción industrial caiga por segundo trimestre consecutivo entre julio y septiembre", dijo un funcionario del Ministerio de Comercio en una conferencia de prensa.

Los manufactureros consultados por el ministerio esperan que la producción crezca un 0,1 por ciento en septiembre y se expanda un 4,4 por ciento en octubre.

El ministerio rebajó su evaluación de la producción industrial, diciendo que se está debilitando.

En tanto, otros datos del ministerio mostraron que las ventas minoristas crecieron un 0,8 por ciento en agosto frente al mismo mes del año previo, lo que se compara con un aumento de un 1,1 por ciento previsto por economistas.

La cifra representa el quinto mes consecutivo de avances, pero fue inferior a la expansión de un 1,8 por ciento de julio.

Los débiles datos se conocen en un momento delicado para el banco central.

El Banco de Japón analizará una serie de cifras -incluidos el sondeo Tankan que se divulgará el jueves y el dato de gasto familiar que se informará el viernes- en la revisión de su política monetaria la próxima semana.

Las especulaciones sobre si el BOJ podría flexibilizar más su política monetaria para lograr su meta de inflación aún persisten.

El banco central sostiene que el índice de precios al consumidor alcanzará su meta de un 2 por ciento antes de septiembre del 2016.

Pocos inversores esperan que la meta se cumpla, debido a que una nueva caída de los precios del petróleo hizo caer al IPC por primera vez desde que el BOJ inició su enorme programa de compra de activos.

[admin]

Perú despliega militares para controlar protesta minera que deja al menos cuatro muertos

Por Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) - El presidente de Perú, Ollanta Humala, envió el martes soldados para controlar una protesta en los Andes contra el mayor proyecto de cobre del país, que ha desencadenado la muerte de al menos cuatro manifestantes tras choques con la policía.

Los pobladores que viven cerca de Las Bambas, un proyecto de 7.400 millones de dólares controlado por capitales chinos que empezaría a producir a mediados del 2016, protestan por un cambio de planes en la instalación de una planta procesadora que acarrearía daños al medioambiente y reclaman empleos en la mina, según autoridades de la zona.

Desde que la protesta comenzó el viernes, el Gobierno envió unos 1.450 policías para tratar de calmar los ánimos. Pero la situación subió el lunes de temperatura, al punto que la policía reprimió a los pobladores asegurando que manifestantes radicales entraron con violencia a una zona reservada de la mina.

Humala decretó el martes el estado de emergencia por 30 días en seis provincias de las regiones Apurímac y Cusco; y facultó a los militares a apoyar a la policía nacional en el control interno de esas zonas de influencia del proyecto ubicadas en el sureste del país, el tercer mayor productor de cobre del mundo.

El primer ministro, Pedro Cateriano, invocó al diálogo para evitar una violencia "injustifica" en torno a Las Bambas.

"Es el plan minero mas importante en la historia del Perú. Implicará para el próximo año un incremento del PBI del 1,4 por ciento para el país", dijo Cateriano a periodistas.

Las Bambas, de la firma MMG Ltd, filial de la china Minmetals, producirá hasta 400.000 toneladas anuales de cobre desde el 2017, según la empresa.

El subdirector de la dirección de Salud de Cusco, Edwin Luna Campana, dijo a la radio RPP que la cifra de fallecidos aumentó a cuatro. Una persona murió durante el choque con los policías y las otras tres en el hospital por diversas heridas, afirmó.

El gobernador de la región Apurímac, Wilber Venegas, dijo que el choque dejó además 18 heridos de bala, de perdigones o contusiones y que 22 manifestantes fueron detenidos.

Los pobladores aseguran que protestaban de forma pacífica en las inmediaciones de la mina.

Helicópteros con militares aterrizaron el martes en las instalaciones de Las Bambas, dijo a Reuters el regidor Uriel Condori del distrito de Challhuahuacho, cercano el proyecto.

La minera Las Bambas lamentó el lunes en la noche en un comunicado las víctimas y acusó a grupos violentos de realizar actos delictivos e invadir sus instalaciones.

(Editado por Pablo Garibian)

[Comodoro]

Los gráficos del día,
.

.

.

.

.

.