via (Titel unbekannt) am 27.10.11
With gold and silver on the move along with stocks, today King World News interviewed legendary James Dines, author of The Dines Letter. Over five years ago James Dines said to me in an interview that before this cycle ends all fiat currencies would go to worthlessness. This was an amazing call on his part because within months of that interview we began to see competitive currency devaluations erupt. When asked about the collapsing purchasing power of currencies, Dines stated, “It started with Japan.  They pushed the Yen down against the US dollar so they could compete more aggressively.  I said this would be a game of competing currency devaluations because other countries say if we make our currency less valuable that means we can sell more stuff overseas.”

via Trader Dan's Market Views von noreply@blogger.com (Trader Dan) am 27.10.11
Each week the Federal Reserve provides an updated number for its Custodial Accounts. A very crude way of understanding these is to consider them as a type of savings account for Foreign Central Banks that are held at the New York Branch of the Federal Reserve.

When the US buys goods from a foreign country and pays for those goods with US Dollars, oftentimes it ends up running a trade deficit with that particular nation. The result is that the foreign country ends up with a large amount of Dollars that it needs to "sterilize" in order to prevent an inflationary outbreak. What generally happens with a good portion of these surplus Dollars is that the country in question will purchase US Treasury obligations. That way it gains interest on its trade surplus of US Dollars which constitute part of its overall reserves.

For the sake of simplicity and convenience, the Treasuries are not actually shipped over to that country but are instead held "in custody" for that nation with the New York Branch of the Federal Reserve. Selling the Treasuries in question becomes very easy for the foreign Central Bank as it simply phones or wires  in its instructions and the deal is done.



Note the nearly exponential growth in the number of Treasuries held in these custodial accounts. As you can clearly see, beginning with the credit meltdown here in the US in the summer of 2008, the line has gone parabolic. This is a picture of the amount of indebtedness generated by the US as it took the path of enormous deficit spending to keep the liquidity flowing into the markets.

What strikes me about this chart is that for the last 3 years, the growth in the size of these custodial accounts has been steadily upward with only a few brief periods during which it was interrupted. Even at that, the line on the chart really never dipped all that much moving more or less sideways for a brief interval before resuming its upward path.

However something noteworthy now appears to have been underway since September of this year. The amount of Treasuries held in custody for these foreign Central Banks now appears to be slowly, but steadily declining. It reached a peak of $2.752 trillion the first week of September this year and has now declined to $2.67 trillion as of this week. That is a drop of $82.5 billion.

I do not know the exact composition of these custodial accounts in terms of the duration of the bulk of these Treasuries but I am fairly confident that there is a pretty good mix of both shorter dated and longer dated securities. The Federal Reserve's Operation Twist is designed to purchase $400 billion of longer dated Treasuries as it sells the same amount of shorter dated Treasuries.

I wonder if we are seeing foreign Central Banks using this Operation Twist to unload some of their longer dated Treasuries into the hands of the Fed. The Fed is basically buying, no questions asked. If you plan on getting rid of some of them, why not take advantage of the program?

It might be a bit too early to say with certainty, but if this is the beginning of a trend, it will signify that we are headed for a period of rising interest rates as it is doubtful that the Fed alone could soak up the Treasuries that foreign Central Banks might choose to unload if they begin getting nervous about the prospects of the US Dollar in the months and years ahead.

Stay tuned.

via The Big Picture von Barry Ritholtz am 27.10.11

via Trader Dan's Market Views von noreply@blogger.com (Trader Dan) am 24.10.11
Take a look at the following TWO charts and see if you can notice how similar the two of them are.


You can tell that both charts, while not identical, are eerily similar in the manner in which they depict the overall price action.





The top chart is the S&P 500. The lower chart is Crude Oil.

They both tend to move up at the same time, mover lower at the same time and grind sideways at the same time.

What these charts tell us is that there is no longer any SERIOUS INVESTMENT "STRATEGY" in today's financial markets. All that they are doing is reflecting either the willingness of the HEDGE FUNDS to take on RISK TRADES or to FLEE from RISK.

On any given day, if the risk trades are on, these nitwit hedge fund managers buy everything in site except for US TREASURIES or the US DOLLAR. If the following day brings in risk aversion trades, they throw away everything purchased the previous day and do the exact opposite.

Truth be told this sort of thing has nothing to do with INVESTING. It has everything to do with MONEY FLOWS generated by computer algorithms. This sad state of affairs is what Central Bank interventions and constant interference into the financial markets has reduced our markets to.

Traders have to put aside their personal disgust at this madness and trade accordingly if they wish to profit. Still, in this trader's opinion, this is one more symptom of the decline of the West. No longer is the stock of various companies bought because of long term prospects for solid profits based on solid research and good analysis. Instead it goes up based on whether or not the Central Banks will spit more liquidity into the marketplace.

Heaven help us all.

via (Titel unbekannt) von Tyler Durden am 26.10.11

So just what is Angie talking about?

h/t Wes

via Umfrage Online Blog von Lionel Marbot am 06.06.11

Sie haben die Möglichkeit, in Ihrem Fragebogen Schlüsselwörter zu integrieren, die dann bei der Teilnahme durch beliebigen Text dynamisch ersetzt werden.

Eine Möglichkeit bspw. ist die Begrüssung des Teilnehmers mit Vor- und Nachnamen, oder aber auch die zufällige Ausgabe eines Gutscheincodes am Schluss der Umfrage.

Wie richte ich dynamische Inhalte ein?

In den Einstellungen Ihrer Umfrage finden Sie den Reiter “Dynamischer Inhalt”. Nachdem Sie diese Option aktiviert haben, können Sie mit dem Erfassen von Inhalten beginnen.

Die Inhalte können nur als Excel 97 – 2003 (.xls) und/oder CSV-Datei (Trennzeichen-getrennt) hochgeladen werden. Als Trennzeichen für CSV-Dateien muss zwingend “;” (Strich-Punkt) verwendet werden. Die 1. Zeile der Datei stellt jeweils die Schlüsselwörter dar (welche im Fragebogen später dynamisch ersetzt werden) und die Zeilen 2 bis n die Datensätze. Beachten Sie bitte zudem, dass jedes Schlüsselwort (1. Zeile) eindeutig und nur einmal vorkommen darf.

Nun hat man die Möglichkeit, pro Spalte bzw. Schlüsselwort, zu definieren, wie die Datensätze ausgegeben werden sollen:

- zufälliger Datensatz, gleicher Datensatz kann bei verschiedenen Teilnehmern vorkommen

- zufälliger Datensatz, gleicher Datensatz darf nur einmal gezogen werden (für alle Teilnehmer)

Personalisierte Ausgabe von Datensätzen

Hinweis: Alternativ zum manuellen Bestimmen der Teilnehmer-IDs können Sie die dynamischen Inhalte auch automatisch, in Verbindung mit dem direkten Versand über UmfrageOnline.com, einbinden lassen. Lesen Sie dazu bitte diesen Artikel: Automatisches Versenden von Umfrageneinladungen in Kombination mit dynamischen Inhalten

Weiter kann man optional eine Spalte als “Teilnehmer-ID” definieren, die als individuelle Links verwendet werden (siehe Anleitung zu personalisierten Links). Verwendet man also für seine Umfrage individuelle Umfragelinks und definiert eine solche Spalte in den dynamischen Inhalten, so erkennt das System automatisch, dass Teilnehmer mit ID “XY” die Datensätze aus der Zeile mit gleicher ID “XY” ausgegeben erhalten muss.

Dem Teilnehmer mit dem Umfragelink http://www.umfrageonline.com/live.php?code=123456&id=5f34a02 wird demnach anstelle von [Nachname] Marbot ausgegeben, und anstelle von [Vorname] Lionel.

Somit wird aus folgender Vorlage…

…für den Teilnehmenden mit ID 5f34a02 folgende Ausgabe angezeigt:

 

Zufällige Ausgabe von Datensätzen

Möchten Sie beispielsweise pro Teilnehmer einen zufälligen Gutscheincode ausgeben, so können sie einfach eine weitere Datei hochladen (in einer eigenen Liste), die nur Gutscheine enthält. Auch hier muss die erste Zeile dem gewünschten Schlüsselwort entsprechen:

 

In den Einstellungen dieser neuen Liste können Sie definieren, dass jeder Code nur einmal ausgegeben werden darf:

Da in dieser Liste keine Spalte mit einer Teilnehmer-ID verbunden ist, wird im Fragebogen beim Vorkommen des Schlüsselworts [Gutscheincode] ein beliebiger Datensatz (Gutschein) ausgegeben und für die weitere Ausgabe gesperrt.

Alle bereits ausgegebene und gesperrte Datensätze werden in der Übersicht dann grau und kursiv angezeigt:

via (Titel unbekannt) am 25.10.11
With gold and silver exploding to the upside, today King World News interviewed John Embry, Chief Investment Strategist of the $10 billion strong Sprott Asset Management. KWN mentioned to Embry that we could potentially add 30% more bulls to gold and 35% more bulls to silver before this rally ends.  When asked about the tremendous pessimism regarding gold and silver, Embry replied, “The sentiment in the gold and silver markets is terrible.  This is a combination of two things.  First you have had bad price action prior to today and second you have amazingly negative press in the mainstream media, which is typical.”

via The Big Picture von Barry Ritholtz am 26.10.11

A tribute to Ridley Scott and Vangelis, whose work on Blade Runner has been a huge source of inspiration in my shooting time lapses. As always please watch in HD with sound on! Shot over a year in Tokyo with a Canon 5dmk2, mainly in the Shinjuku area.

android dreams from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.

Music: “Main Titles” and “Blush Response” from the Blade Runner soundtrack.

android dreams from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.

More information on the process here

Selected sequences available for licensing here: gettyimages.com/​Search/​Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-US&assetType=film&p=cockedey&src=standard

via (Titel unbekannt) am 25.10.11
With gold and silver blasting higher, along with the mining shares, as the Dow plunged over 200, today King World News interviewed four decade veteran, John Hathaway, the prolific manager of the Tocqueville Gold Fund. When asked about the tremendous action in both gold and silver, Hathaway replied, “Get used to it, we are going to see $50 and $100 days both ways.  To me we have had our correction, shook out a lot of people and now there is sellers remorse.  Now those people are not able to get back in except by paying a higher price, so this is classic bull market action.”