Washington should be taking note. Investors are worried more about Italian risk than risk in Namibia in South West Africa! How do I know? They’ve bid Italian debt up to 6.6%. In the meantime, Namibia’s first Eurobond issue offered bonds carrying a 5.5% coupon rate.
The British-based global bank, Barclay’s, sold some hedges this past quarter it had previously taken out to protect itself against adverse moves in interest rates. Barclay’s made an “extra” 559m pounds from the sale.
As stocks strengthened and hope for a strong all-encompassing European solution rose, hedge funds raised their risk profile and big commodities higher. Sugar rose 11% in just one week and soybeans also staged an impressive rally.
In the past decade commodity prices from corn to copper went crazy.
Was it China’s ravenous needs? The rise of resource nationalism in developing countries? That’s part of it. But the new “X” factor was something else entirely
Who is the radical economist claiming that “financial speculation played a significant role in the oil price increase between 2004 and 2008, and its subsequent collapse?”
Europe is killing us, our economy and our market. The markets are fearful. And they have damn good reasons. The S&P 500 fell 14.3% in the third quarter. And there’s very little light visible at the end of the tunnel. But the historical data for the last quarter of the year is very positive. Try this…
The legend of gold as your ultimate “insurance policy if all hell breaks loose” lives on. However, it is simply that…a legend. Not a fact. Gold is as capable of tremendous runs down the chart as it is of making impressive climbs up the chart.
Gold’s price continues to be controlled by bank and hedge fund speculators who drive the price of gold up and down using leveraged funds and never having to take ownership of the physical metal.
