Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday 29 July 2013

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Articles posted on Monday, 29 July 2013
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Now, About That Switch in Gold Offered Rates

Bullion Vault Article of the Week
Written by Adrian Ash, Bullion Vault
Dead for almost a decade, gold offered rates are suddenly headline news...
The markets in physical gold and silver can look very odd places at first glance. The price drop this year has been so aggressive, it's only making them odder.
Take the market for gold lending, for instance. Few people understand the difference between leasing and forward swaps. Nor should they care, not as a rule. Even if you really haven't got anything better to worry about, the two forms of gold lending look very similar net-net.



Dollar Steady as Stocks Close Down

Market Close 29 June 2013
Market closing summary is presented by our syndication partner Investing.com.
U.S. stocks closed down fractionally pretty much across the board, as did European markets, while Asia/Pacific markets were mixed. The dollar was steady, although down narrowly againt the yen and the euro:



What We Read Today 29 July 2013

Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.

The top of today's reading list is a guide to debt, deficits and austerity ........ and the last article discusses how Australia is following the U.S. path to debt deflation.



Prometheus: Stock Market Investment Risk Rises to Another Notable Extreme

They are the four most dangerous words in the vocabulary of an investor: 'This time is different.' This view was embraced by mainstream thinking during the stock market bubbles of 2007, 2000 and 1929. It has also been embraced today, during the stock market bubble of 2013. These four time periods also have the dubious [...]



June 2013 Texas Manufacturing Survey Growth Slips Moderately

All Federal Reserve districts which have released their July surveys - four are forecasting growth and one is forecasting contraction. A complete summary follows.



China Debt

CNN talks to Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist with Nomura about China's debt audit.



June 2013 Pending Home Sales Index Declines

Written by Steven Hansen
The June 2013 pending home sales index was released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) today, and our analysis suggests:
  • The current trends (using 3 month rolling averages) continues to show a moderate acceleration in pending home sales. This is due to a significant growth jump 3 months ago - but the last two months growth has been decelerating.
Read more >>



A Word from This Newsletter's Sponsor

The Death of the PC

The days of paying for costly software upgrades are numbered. The PC will soon be obsolete. And BusinessWeek reports 70% of Americans are already using the technology that will replace it. Merrill Lynch calls it "a $160 billion tsunami." Computing giants including IBM, Yahoo!, and Amazon are racing to be the first to cash in on this PC-killing revolution.
Yet, a small group of little-known companies have a huge head start. Get the full details on these companies, and the technology that is destroying the PC, in a free video from The Motley Fool.




Week Opens 29 July 2013 Mixed

Gary is off for the next two days - and Econintersect is therefore providing the market open from our syndication partner Investing.com:
European stocks were higher on Monday, as the previous week's upbeat data from the euro zone continued to support sentiment, while investors eyed upcoming policy statements from the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.
During European morning trade, the EURO STOXX 50 climbed 0.51%, France's CAC 40 rose 0.58%, while Germany's DAX 30 advanced 0.81%.



Infographics of the Day: A Who's Who of the Minions

There has never been a definite guide to the names of the Minions in the original Despicable Me movie until today. Follow us on this journey as we unravel the identities of the minions together! Disclaimer: All information is found after countless hours of rewatching the movie and researching the available toy lines on the Internet.



Insider Trading 26 July 2013: Apple Insiders Selling

by Asif Suria
Insider buying decreased with insiders purchasing $30.91 million of their stock last week compared to $124.18 million in the week prior. Selling on the other hand increased sharply with insiders selling $2.02 billion of stock last week compared to $1.25 billion in the week prior. A large part of the increase in insider selling was driven by hedge fund manager Dan Loeb selling $1.2 billion worth of Yahoo (YHOO) stock, a majority of which was purchased by Yahoo.



Associated Press: 4 out of 5 in U.S. Face Near-Poverty, No Work

The Current Employment Crisis Has Deep Roots, Going Back Half a Century
Econintersect: The Associated Press (AP) has reported survey data indicating that approximately 80% of U.S. adults face severe economic struggles. The results show the hardship is rising particularly rapidly among whites. The poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications, a division of GfK Custom Research North America and was sponsored by the AP.
Click on photo for larger image.
homeless



When Is the Time for Austerity?

by Alan Taylor This was posted at Voxeu.org on 20 July 2013
Recent austerity policies have been guided by ideology rather than research. This column discusses research that reconciles disparate estimates of fiscal multipliers in the literature. It finds that common identification assumptions are problematic. Matching methods based on propensity scores show how contractionary austerity really is, especially in economies operating below potential. Read more >>



Chinese Growth Set for Lower Lows

Written by Mark A. DeWeaver
China is slowing fast. Since hitting a post-financial crisis high of 11.9% in the first quarter of 2010, Chinese quarterly GDP growth has risen in just two of the subsequent thirteen quarters. The latest figure of 7.5%, for the second quarter of this year, is down from 7.7% in the first quarter and 7.9% in the last quarter of 2012.
This downtrend is set to continue into the second-half. Beijing has just launched a new campaign to rid the Party of 'formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance.' This will stifle both consumption and investment for at least the next two quarters.



Euro Crisis News Stories for a Sunday Evening

Econintersect: There was a lot of good economic news in Europe last week. There were improvements in one GDP number (UK) and several less bad PMI (Purchasing Manage Index) reports with the Eurozone composite PMI actually nosing back above the 50 level. Some of the news stories we have tracked reflect these glimmers of optimism.
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Amazon Remains Focused on Long-Term Growth

by Felix Richter, Statista.com
statistalogo
Amazon reported a $7 million loss for the second quarter of 2013, as the company continues to sacrifice short-terms profits in favour of long-term growth.

In the past three months, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant invested heavily into warehouses, digital content and its Kindle business and subsequently reported a minor loss despite healthy revenue growth. The company posted net revenue of $15.7 billion, a 22 percent increase over last year's second quarter.

The results were just below what analysts had expected, but the stock price gave in only slightly following the release.