EURUSD 1.1851 |
USDJPY 111.52 |
GBPUSD 1.3772 |
AUDUSD 0.7485 |
USDCAD 1.2406 |
GBPJPY 153.59 |
EURJPY 132.15 |
AUDJPY 83.48 |
CADJPY 89.86 |
Silver 26.23 |
Friday's $2431 high in gold consisted of a 21% rise from the Feb 14th low. Such percentage extensions from key lows or/and technical levels such as the 200-DMA, could flag crucial opportunities for partial/full profit-taking. Watch here.
Bitcoin versus Miners Performance
As many of you know 2023 was kind to members of our WhatsApp Broadcast Group who snapped up shares in bitcoin miners, while 2024 has so far been more superior to Bitcoin than most of the miners...
View Hot-Chart..
Economics is Hard. Dont Let Bloggers Tell You Otherwise
In this essay, I argue that neither non-economist bloggers, nor economists who portray economics especially macroeconomic policy as a simple enterprise with clear conclusions, are likely to contibute any insight to discussion of economics and, as a result, should be ignored by an open-minded lay public.
Writers who have not taken a year of PhD coursework in a decent economics department (and passed their PhD qualifying exams), cannot meaningfully advance the discussion on economic policy.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33655771/Economics-is-Hard
An international group of finance experts including the boss of the UK's main chartered accountancy body, have criticised plans for bank taxes put forward by governments and the International Monetary Fund in favour of reviving the idea of a "Tobin tax" on foreign exchange trades.
The global tax could raise $33bn (21.5bn) to fund development projects and bring nations together in a single effort to combat poverty rather than create divisions through competing bank taxes, the report said.
The report by the Leading Group, commissioned by 12 governments including the previous Labour administration, follows calls by Lord Turner for a tax on bank currency transactions to "throw sand in the wheels" of the banking system to discourage "socially useless" trading activities.
It said a tax on foreign exchange deals, which would cost an extra 0.005% on each trade, was simple and mimicked existing arrangements. About 95% of foreign exchange transactions between banks are already processed via a single computer system (CLS Bank), which collects a transaction fee of 22 cents per $1m traded. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/18/tobin-tax-financial-transactions
Euroland's authorities are inflicting a triple shock of fiscal, monetary, and currency tightening on a broken economy. They are doing so in a region where industrial output is still 14pc below its peak, where growth barely scraped above zero over the winter "recovery", and where youth unemployment is at 40pc in Spain, 35pc in Slovakia, 29pc in Italy, and 26pc in Ireland.
They seem unaware that China is slowing and the US is tipping into a second leg of the Long Slump. Last week's collapse in America's ECRI leading indicator to -9.8 marks the end of the V-shaped rebound. If this means what it normally means - recession within three months - Europe must take immediate action to prevent being drawn into a deflationary vortex. Spiralling public debt precludes further Keynesian spending, so this must come from central bank stimulus. Tight fiscal policy offset by ultra-loose money is the only option for Europe, the US, and Japan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7897304/Stress-testing-Europes-banks-wont-stave-off-a-deflationary-vortex.html
The World Development Movement (WDM) will issue a damning report today on the growing role of hedge funds and banks in the commodities markets in recent years, during which time cocoa prices have more than doubled, energy prices have soared and coffee has fluctuated dramatically.
The charity's demands for the British financial watchdog to follow the US in cracking down on such speculation comes against a backdrop of cocoa prices jumping to a 33-year high as it emerged that a London hedge fund had snapped up a large part of the world's stock of beans. On Friday, traders say, Armajaro took delivery of 240,100 tonnes of cocoa the biggest from London's Liffe exchange in 14 years and equal to about 7% of annual global production, according to the Financial Times.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/19/speculators-commodities-food-price-rises