The "up-to-the-minute Market Data" thread

The Euro is under pressure amid fears about emerging political instability that may undermine the single currency bloc’s crisis-fighting efforts. First in Italy, a new Ipsos poll showed that gap between controversial former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani narrowed to 2.1 percentage points, a print within the margin of error. The spread between Italian and benchmark German 10-year bond yields widened as traders worried that critical reforms pushed forward by the outgoing administration of Mario Monti will be undermined if Berlusconi returns to power.

Has another thread taken up where this one stopped?

Geeze Louise with the big Sequester coming up March 1, 2013 I was thinking it would be bein discussed in this thread.

Please do something, I don't want to start another crappy thread that will fall flat due to no maintance from me, who would be the OP. HA A thread maker I am not.

Maybe that will get you good folks talking again.

This may be a very big deal people.
I can see no joy and happy dance come out of what's coming down the line and eventually landing in our laps.

Bah,.. the so called sequestor will not happen.

That would be political self-administered genocide for the republicans.

They will push something through on around midnight of the deadline, so they wont loose any sleep about any upcoming re-elections.

US Dollar Index Forecast: I have been a dollar bull since the Spring of 2011....The dollar has made a fair recovery and is strong again after a correction down in late 2012. My original call was for a retest of the 89 area (a Fibonacci #, btw) and then (after another pull back to consolidate) a run to the 92.00~ area (+/- .50). Trade well.

Originally posted by smirkley
Bah,.. the so called sequestor will not happen.

That would be political self-administered genocide for the republicans.

They will push something through on around midnight of the deadline, so they wont loose any sleep about any upcoming re-elections.

Well looks like I sure missed that call.

reply to post by dizziedame


Stocks Resume Slide on Cyprus Fears, Dragged by Banks; Vix Spikes
www.cnbc.com...

Dow closing in the red as Cyprus banks closed till Thursday - live
www.guardian.co.uk...

Cyprus banks will stay closed until Thursday
www.bbc.co.uk...

Q. Is the IMF clinging to a sinking ship by going all out to save the Euro?..

Protecting the eurozone at all costs is undermining IMF’s validity

...What’s finally flummoxed the IMF is the eurozone, a crisis within the wider crisis which the IMF is basically too compromised to be able properly to address, though this hasn’t stopped it from trying. In becoming part of the hated “troika” which imposes apparently counter-productive austerity on weaker members of the euro, the IMF has badly discredited itself and by doing so is steadily undermining its validity on the wider international stage.
The IMF’s starting point is that the euro is too systemically important to be allowed to break up. Like the larger banks, it has become too big to fail, and must therefore be propped up for fear of the wider economic damage if it went down in flames...

...Alongside the austerity and the supply side reform, the IMF will normally demand a substantial devaluation to give a short-term boost to competitiveness. Monetary activism can also be used, within reason, to ease the pain of the austerity.

These palliatives are denied to members of the eurozone, where to boot, programmes seem to be set more to satisfy the demands of German voters than the wider cause of economic stability and prosperity.
The IMF therefore finds itself ever more associated with the narrow self interest of German electioneering, an extraordinarily dangerous position for an international organisation to get itself into. It’s lucky that the sums involved in the Cypriot “rescue” are basically too small to matter, for this was a truly shameful bail-out that everyone knows from the outset won’t succeed in setting Cyprus back on its feet. The intention was more to punish than to redeem...

...Yet the IMF is in it up to its neck. Saving the euro at any cost seems to have become the IMF’s touchstone. What Asia and Latin America can make of an organisation which has become as beholden to the European elites as this one is anyone’s guess...

...Haircutting depositors among periphery country banks is therefore no longer seen as a sufficient degree of burden sharing. Rich depositors can escape such sanctions simply by shifting their euros into more solvent northern banks. So Germany’s Council of Economic Experts has suggested that some way of haircutting property wealth might be found too, even though this will induce further capital flight, trapping the periphery in even deeper depression. Is the IMF sheepishly to go along with this insanity as well? The way things are going, the euro will end up poisoning the IMF as comprehensively as its member states.

Source article

What a cutting analysis! If the Euro goes down, the IMF goes with it. (And everywhere you look leaks are gushing out.)

When even the plumber is in danger of being flooded it kind of undermines confidence a little...

reply to post by pause4thought


And we all know that if the IMF goes so the US economy and the Federal Reserve, because let face the IMF is the Federal Reserve.

reply to post by marg6043


There's so much 'Show Time' to this that it is truly sobering. You could pretty much say the IMF is the last port of call, as you've recognised.

Anyone else see where this leaves 'the system'?

(If anything could bring Hx out of the woods, this could... )

reply to post by pause4thought


And so the only real currency war is being won.

the week old Slamming of Gold & Silver has driven the major gold producers to a re-analysis of their business model of mining operations


here to stay is the additional costs of a Permanent 'Premium-above-spot' which the leaned down, and size of mine specific profile will further specialize different PM mining producers...

look for a major series of mergers.acquisitions and spin-offs of lesser developed mine operations by big miners like Barrick, Newmont (among others) so that each operations Return-on-investment goes 30% higher and the company stock prices surge. ...(finally, after 12 years of rather putrid growth compared to bullion spot)


i still need to rebuy 150 more shares of the 300 i redeemed at a good profit last years end... while gold/silver miners are smacked down to metal prices that is very near equal to the cost of production right now...
It seems only the large silver & gold coin/bar providers are making any money on the slammed-down spot prices on PMs.... the Premiums i see have risen from $2 per coin/bar to around $9.03 in one provider i have dealt with.


the restructuring of Gold-Silver producers and Major Miners is long overdue...
look for the underevalued miners to emphasize the Return on capital, to gain a % of the built-in Premium as a physical bullion holder in partnerships with both governments and PM dealers, bullion banks that spring up in Asia-Orient in direct replacement of the London-NYC former PM cartel that lost favor/trust with the world community



read & heed...or deny & cry

It looks like the era of cheap loans may well be over (short video):


Louise Cooper on mortgages, bond markets and base rates

An "era of cheap mortgages is slowly coming to an end" and so is the "cheap money" enjoyed in recent years in the UK, the US and the eurozone, said financial commentator Louise Cooper.

She was explaining the significance of the changes in the bond market as 10-year UK bond yields have reached 2.56% - which is up by a third in a month...

(Check out Max Kaiser's prediction linked at the end of the vid, put out back in January...)

reply to post by pause4thought


Cheap loans for whom? because if the Fed do not stop the QEs they are doing nothing but burdening the tax payer and imposing higher rates to show that the economy is improving in the work of fake finances (wall street).

With monies being pulled out of Bonds at a tremendous rate this month by the tens of billions, and gold down 25%+ since april,..one has to wonder,.... will the pile of excess cash flow and corporate reserves ready yet to go into equities?

I am betting on it.

Fed may be trying to engineer a sell off, the way they manage their fed speak is key to their intentions. If they dont shatter markets inclination to think first bond reduction"taper" will be followed by succession of steps leading to QE end, then there will be quick "repricing of stocks and bonds" when first bond reduction begins

This will put the blame more on politicians for economic trouble and less on the fed

reply to post by cpdaman

Fed may be trying to engineer a sell off, the way they manage their fed speak is key to their intentions.

So many small investors have made plans to exit the market on higher interest rates that you would think the big investment houses would be prepared?

Will it happen like the old days when Edward Henry Harriman was running the show?

Today when the fomc minutes were released the fed made some changes in fed speak that imo can confidently predict they were backing away from taperin in late july. Market DID respond bullish to this BUT at 245 goldman sachs step'd in w their own memo on goldman sachs take on fomc minutes. "Fed still likely to taper" well w that goldman MISLED markets and used their influence to drop markets to get Better entry points for scooping up assets. They misled markets bc fomc minutes in cloaked fed speak were backing away from a taper and discussed lower unemployment thresholds for monetary policy action and noted how inflation was too low and how growth expectations were paltry.basically a trifecta for stepping away from taper. The fed even discusses limitations of unemployment and looking at temp workers and lower labor participation rate lowering unemployment (falsely).

well... thats 3 days with gold getting lower

i stiill have a semi-firm price of my gold funds NAV to begin investing more into it... and the $44.80 drop today sure tempted me to try & grab more shares on the Syria crisis window-of-opportunity


but i let the big fall go by ... mostly because i have a sneaky feeling that most if-not-all mutual funds will soon be tapped by a seizure that haircuts some +30% of the value one has built up over the years (or decade or more) and let the derivative bankers steal that IRA or ROTH or 401K money to cover their positions so the TBTF Banks wont be Bankrupt and unable to legally function


but on-the-other-hand... from the reading I do on this subject---- the 'Bail-Ins' aren't expected till 2015-2016


But should i risk a excape in a 30-60-90 day window to redeem my holdings? Or Not ?


technicall i still need to buy-back 100 shares of earlier redeemed shares (at a handsome profit of more than a $2,500. even at the present NAV price to make whole last years redemption price on those 100+ shares)

Gawd i love playing the shrewd trader fantasy role... imagine me as a Donald Trump player !


so i am holding off any transactions until October as i planned mush earlier... well after the April collapse when i replaced some 200+ shares for that profit i mentioned earlier


have a nice day ATSers

The biggest driver of stock and currency markets this week was the historic deal on curtailing Iran’s nuclear program, a major geopolitical event by any standards.

Iran’s agreement with six world powers to freeze key elements of its nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions on the country will mean, among other things, the release of $4.2 billion of Iranian funds.

Investors initially took the view that the deal would trigger a sudden flood of fresh crude supplies in the market – but it emerged that the embargo against Iranian oil will remain in place during the six-month period covered by the deal.

However, the deal was a huge boost for risk-on investments and we saw an immediate reaction in the currency markets, where the traditional safe-haven currencies, such as the U.S. dollar (USD), the Swiss franc (CHF) and the Japanese yen (JPY), all depreciated against risk-on currencies.

And, as a consequence, the euro rallied against both the USD and JPY. At last glance, a euro bought $1.3588 and 138.44 Japanese yen.