Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Mon 02.04.2008
The coming gold surge Gold has enjoyed a great run over the past few years, but it hasn't been a straight path. There have been enough dips and outright plunges to make gold traders feel like they're riding the devil's own roller coaster. But one strategy has worked time and time again: Buy the dips. It takes courage to buy when everyone else is selling. But if you do your research, you can act with confidence that even if gold dips lower than you're buying it, the upside potential is huge. My preliminary price objective for gold is $1,065 per ounce, and it could go a lot higher than that. Let's look at some forces driving precious metals higher. Global gold production fell to a 10-year low of 2,444 metric tonnes in 2007, according to Gold Fields Mineral Service.
Gulf defense of dollar pegs rings hollow as Fed cuts Gulf Arab central banks are struggling to persuade financial markets that they won't tinker with their dollar pegs, as their currency policies are increasingly costly to defend and may have become unsustainable. After a flurry of public disagreements over currency reform last year, Gulf central bankers are trying to close ranks, talking up the pegs as a source of stability and playing down the dollar's weakness as a temporary phenomenon. But markets are still betting on the chances that Gulf currencies will be revalued, or that governments may even scrap their long-standing system of fixed exchange rates altogether.
Fed’s rate cuts may kill US dollar soon By cutting interest rates the US Fed expects to stimulate consumption, crucially lower mortgage payments, and in the process trigger a recovery in the US economy. Be that as it may, top economists -- including Noble Laureate Joseph Stiglitz -- point out to the futility of this exercise saying that this cut in interest rates will have little impact on the overall scenario. According to them, it is a case of too little and too late -- akin to applying pain balm when chemotherapy was the need of the hour. Even as the interest rate cuts are carried out experts believe that US Fed chairman Ben Bernanke may be open to the charge of creating 'moral hazard.' After all, in sum and substance, the act of the Fed is rewarding all those who were party to reckless borrowings and lending.
South African, Australian Coal Climb to Records on Supply Curbs Coal jumped to records at South Africa's Richards Bay and Australia's Newcastle port as production was curbed by power cuts and flooding, while snowstorms disrupted mining and transportation in China. Coal at Richards Bay rose $12.20, or 12 percent, to $111.30 a metric ton, according to McCloskey Group Ltd. figures. Power- plant coal prices at the New South Wales port in Australia climbed $23.09, or 25 percent, to $116.44 a ton in the week ended Feb. 1, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. ``It is another indicator of tightness'' in supply of the fuel, Andrew Wells, an assistant editor at the Petersfield, England-based McCloskey, said by phone today. The rising prices helped drive up coal producers' shares.
ICBC Deposes Citigroup as Chinese Banks Rule in New World Order There's a new world order for banks, and the Chinese, for the first time, are the biggest, with a market capitalization that has made perennial No. 1 Citigroup Inc. a distant also-ran behind Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of China Ltd. ``The tables have been completely turned,'' said Daniel Yergin, the Washington, D.C.-based chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates Inc. during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The reversal of fortunes is the clearest sign yet that shareholders are betting on banks in the emerging markets rather than the U.S. institutions that dominated the financial landscape for most of the past century. As recently as 2003, there were 13 American banks ranked in the top 20 and not a single Asian rival, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Layoff announcements jump 69% in January A fresh surge in financial-sector layoffs contributed to a 69% increase in corporate job-cut announcements in January, according to the latest tally compiled by outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas released Monday. U.S. corporations announced 74,986 job reductions last month, up from December's 44,416 and 19% higher compared with the previous January, Challenger Gray reported. The financial sector cut 15,789 positions, accounting for more than a fifth of the documented job cuts for January. Job cuts remain below levels seen in the 2001 recession, noted John Challenger, CEO of the firm that bears his name.
Mad Money Even at matinee prices, going to the movies requires plenty of mad money. The two tickets were fifteen depreciating dollars, and a tub of popcorn, a bottle of water and a package of licorice came to another fifteen. But for a movie about money: well, it’s only money. Bernanke hitting the panic button and lowering rates by 1.25% in less than a week’s time and the M-3 money supply growing at 15 percent, the timing of Mad Money couldn’t have been more perfect. Even CNBC’s manic nut case Jim Cramer, host of a daily TV show of the same name makes an appearance, albeit a strange one – are movie goers actually to believe that two black kids in a Kansas City ghetto are watching Cramer ranting on the Mad Money TV show about some white-collar crime?
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