Baltic Dry Index. 2452 +06
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $3,000.
“What me worry?”
Mad Magazine.
With the US Congress starting to get tough with China, and the next Congress likely to be far more conservative and likely to be tougher still, China’s Prime Minister Wen Jaibao is off an a European charm offensive. With ally Russia already onside with China via the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, China seems to want to consolidate a Eur-Asian block within the G-20. Below, China’s new char offensive in Europe. We’ll help the ECB with their bailout for Greece. Something surely getting noticed this morning in the bunkers in Berlin. Premier Wen moves on next to shower goodies on Belgium, Italy and Turkey. With 2.5 trillion of reserves burning a hole in his pocket, and more still pouring in at about 200 billion a year, China is well placed to buy the friendship of just about any country on earth except Uncle Sam’s.
"All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1933
China Needs to Boost Domestic Demand, Wen Says
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- China will address “structural problems” and stabilize its economy by increasing domestic demand, Premier Wen Jiabao said.
Wen, in an interview with CNN, said he’d argued before the global recession that China’s economic development “lacks balance, coordination and sustainability.” The financial crisis “reinforced my view on this point,” he said on the “Fareed Zakaria GPS” program taped Sept. 23 in New York and broadcast yesterday.
“We can rely on stimulating domestic demand to stabilize and further grow the Chinese economy,” Wen, 64, said. The premier also said he’s concerned China’s stability may be threatened by inflation and corruption and that he remains committed to pressing for changes in China’s political system.
China’s economy has expanded more than 90-fold in the past three decades, fueled by exports to countries such as the U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and U.S. lawmakers have urged the country’s leaders to look more to domestic markets for growth. They have also pushed China to allow faster appreciation of its currency, arguing that an undervalued yuan gives Chinese manufacturers an unfair advantage in export markets.
More.
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601089&sid=aPS1nwLaZhYM
China's Wen offers to buy Greek debt
Sat Oct 2, 2010 3:30pm EDT
ATHENS, Oct 2 (Reuters) - China offered on Saturday to buy Greek government bonds when Athens resumes issuing, in a show of support for the country whose debt burden pushed the euro zone into crisis and required an international bailout.
Premier Wen Jiabao made the offer at the start of a two-day visit to Greece, his first stop on a tour of Europe, and also said he wanted to boost shipping and trade ties with Athens, underscoring Beijing's use of economic strength to win friends.
"With its foreign exchange reserve, China has already bought and is holding Greek bonds and will keep a positive stance in participating and buying bonds that Greece will issue," Wen said, speaking through an interpreter.
"China will undertake a great effort to support euro zone countries and Greece to overcome the crisis."
Wen and his Greek counterpart George Papandreou said in a statement the world's nations need to coordinate their economic policies for global recovery to find a sure footing.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE69100N20101002
Still after just watching in horror how China nuked Japan’s rare metals imports in a spat over some disputed islands and a rash Chinese sea captain who decided to ram some of Japan’s navy, the rest of the world will likely be “bought” but not stay bought, for very long. By a single rash action, China undid two decades of effort. More during the week, as other news from Premier Wen’s walkabout comes in.
Below, Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz thinks the Euro might not survive. Germany might leave it to devalue, he posits. That might make Mr. Wen very angry, I suspect.
"The great merit of gold is precisely that it is scarce; that its quantity is limited by nature; that it is costly to discover, to mine, and to process; and that it cannot be created by political fiat or caprice."
Henry Hazlitt
Joseph Stiglitz: the euro may not survive
Joseph Stiglitz, one of the world's leading economists, has warned that the future of the euro is "looking bleak" and the fragile European economic recovery could be irreparably damaged by a "wave of austerity" sweeping the continent.
By Kamal Ahmed Published: 10:01PM BST 02 Oct 2010
The former chief economist of the World Bank and a Nobel prize winner also predicted that short-term speculators in the market could soon start putting pressure on Spain, which is struggling with a large deficit and high unemployment. Last week, Moody's cut the country's credit rating from AAA to Aa1.
The former adviser to President Bill Clinton also says that the banking sector has gone back to "business as usual" too quickly and that there are still risks of another financial crisis despite some improvements in regulation.
Mr Stiglitz, now a professor at Columbia Business School, makes the arguments in an updated edition of his book, Freefall, on the credit crunch. In the new material, exclusively extracted in today's Sunday Telegraph, he reveals fears that governments around the world will attempt to cut their deficits too quickly and risk a double dip recession.
---- "The worry is that there is a wave of austerity building throughout Europe and even hitting America's shores," Mr Stiglitz said. "As so many countries cut back on spending prematurely, global aggregate demand will be lowered and growth will slow – even perhaps leading to a double-dip recession.
"America may have caused the global recession but Europe is now responding in kind."
Mr Stiglitz warned that Spain, similarly to Greece, was now in the speculators' sights.
----- Turning to the euro, Mr Stiglitz said that the different needs of countries with high trade surpluses, particularly Germany, and those running deficits such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece, meant that the single currency was under intense pressure and may not survive. He suggests that one way to save the euro would be for Germany to leave the eurozone, so allowing the currency to devalue and help struggling countries with exports.
We end for the day with a bad news forecast for Britain’s coming winter. Buy snow shovels and tickets for the Costa del Sol. If this was a forecast from Britain’s global warming alarmists, the barbecue summer gang at the Met Office, we’d be inclined to think that they were likely to be 100% wrong. Sadly the forecast comes from an outfit with some credibility, still even they can get it wrong we can only hope. Time to lay up a half cord of wood.
Whether the weather be hot,
or whether the weather be not,
we'll weather the weather, whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!
Britain 'in for another big freeze winter'
Britain is in for another bitterly-cold winter, with widespread snow and Siberian temperatures, according to a forecaster who claims to have accurately predicted last year's big freeze
By Stephen Adams Published: 10:00PM BST 03 Oct 2010
Jonathan Powell of Positive Weather Solutions said the country should prepare itself for "back-to-back" harsh winters.
Last winter was the coldest for 31 years, with the average UK-wide temperature from 1 December to 24 February being only 34.7F (1.5C), compared to the long-term average of 38.6F (3.7C).
The mercury plunged as low as -8.1F (-22.3C) in Altnaharra, Scotland, while Benson, Oxon, recorded 10.8F (-11.8C).
The Met Office had predicted there was only a one-in-seven chance of a cold winter, which was caused by strong anti-cyclonic activity bringing persistent icy winds off the continent, and keeping milder Atlantic breezes at bay.
That statement came after an overly-optimistic forecast for summer 2009, which rather rashly predicted that Britain was "odds-on for a barbecue summer".
While it was slightly warmer than average it turned out to be another damp affair and the Met Office was roundly criticised.
The combination of the two predictions led it to drop public announcements of its seasonal forecasting service, which it has relegated to its research department.
However, Positive Weather Solutions, which claims to have correctly forecast the 2009 washout summer and last winter's plunging temperatures, has continued to offer long-range forecasts.
Mr Powell said: "It is very unusual to have two very harsh winters back-to-back, so most people would have expected a tamer and milder winter this year.
"But this winter will be similar to last winter, although not quite as harsh. We could well see temperatures as cold as last winter, albeit on a less-sustained level.
"We expect periods of disruptive snowfall similar to the snow we saw last winter, although periods of harsh weather will be broken up by milder conditions.
---- According to its website, PWS bases its forecasts on "a central computer program which searches a partitioned slice of historical data, looking for patterns and trends within it".
They are not always right. In mid-July, PWS predicted: "August for all of the UK will be dry and warm." The month turned out to be dull, wet and the coolest since 1993.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8039977/Britain-in-for-another-big-freeze-winter.html
"Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state."
William F. Rickenbacker
At the Comex silver depositories Friday, final figures were: Registered 52.27 Moz, Eligible 58.81 Moz, Total 111.08 Moz.
+++++
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today the results of the inquiry into the cause of last May’s flash crash of the USA’s casino stock exchanges. It was all the fault of a flawed “selling algorithm” at Waddell & Reed Financial according to the report. And if you believe that have I got a bridge to sell you.
The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.
Warren Buffett.
Single trade helped spark May's flash crash
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A computer-driven sale worth $4.1 billion by a single trader helped trigger the May flash crash, setting off liquidity shocks that ricocheted between U.S. futures and stock markets, regulators concluded in a report.
The report by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission did not name the trader. Reuters, citing internal documents prepared by exchange operator CME Group Inc, in May identified the trader as money manager Waddell & Reed Financial Inc
-----The "flash crash" sent the Dow Jones industrial average plunging some 700 points in minutes on May 6, exposing flaws in the electronic marketplace dominated by high-speed trading. The Dow was down nearly 1,000 points at its lowest point on that day.
Although the report did not make any recommendations, it lays the foundation for a special commission to propose new rules to avoid a repetition. At least one lawmaker threatened congressional action if regulators did not address the disparity in the markets.
Trading was turbulent that afternoon because of concerns over the European debt crisis. Against that backdrop, a "large fundamental trader" initiated a sell program to sell 75,000 E-Mini contracts as a hedge to an existing equity position, according to the 104-page report.
-----Waddell's selling algorithm had "no regard to price or time," the report said. That, coupled with the "aggressive" reaction by high-frequency traders hedging their positions, led to two separate "liquidity crises" -- one in the E-minis, the other among individual stocks.
Waddell's algo "responded to the increased volume by increasing the rate at which it was feeding the orders into the market, even though orders that it already had sent to the market were arguably not yet fully absorbed by fundamental buyers or cross-market arbitrageurs," the report said.
These arbitrageurs transferred the selling pressure to the stock market, sparking a "hot-potato" effect among high-frequency traders that rapidly passed the same positions back and forth.
The stock market, the report continued, began plunging as trading pauses kicked in at individual firms, as high-frequency traders became net sellers, and as market makers began routing "most, if not all," retail orders to the public markets -- a flood of unusual selling pressure that sucked up more dwindling liquidity.
-----The unprecedented flash crash called into question many of the regulatory and technological changes over the last decade, which ushered in an era of lightning-quick trading on dozens of mostly electronic exchanges and alternative venues.
Data to the beginning of this month show that funds have exited mutual funds in every week since early May. Meanwhile, the 20-day moving average of the S&P 500's daily volume shows a slow decline since late May, according to Reuters data.
"I do not expect today's report to restore the confidence that was lost as a result of the flash crash," said David Joy, Minneapolis-based chief market strategist at Columbia Management, a large money manager.
"Most individual investors do not fully understand how high-frequency trading works, only that it can create volatility and seems to put them at a disadvantage. Only time, and higher stock prices, will restore that lost confidence."
The SEC, under enormous political and public pressure to act, in the last few months adopted new trading curbs known as circuit breakers and proposed establishing a consolidated audit trail of all stock trading.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101002/bs_nm/us_flash
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Spencer Churchill.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September:
DJIA: +227 Down. NASDAQ: +321 Down. SP500: +221 Down.
The bull market (or bear market rally) that commenced on Nasdaq on 30/4/09 at 1717 has ended. (30/5/09 SP 500 at 919, 30/5/09 DJIA 8500.) While the indicators can flip flop at market turns, this action is rare on the slow monthly indicators. September is the fourth down month in a row.
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