“I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created.” – Romano Prodi, EU Commission president, December 2001 Prodi and the other leaders who forged the […]

Stocks in the US continued to slide, in sympathy with China and a generally poor outlook for the world of real productivity and wealth. And in large part this is the rinse cycle of a wash-rinse stock market operation conducted by insiders that took US equity prices up to unsustainable levels in the first place.  […]

Hedge Funds’ net long position in WTI Crude collapsed 27% (the biggest single ‘dump’ in over 3 years) ahead of the big plunge last week (and is now down almost 60% in the last month – the most since 2010). Part of a broader deflationary collapse in commodities, as Bloomberg reports, long positions dropped to a two-year […]

Nearly 1,800 stocks, over 60% of issues traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges fell by the daily limit of 10% and were halted according to a Financial Times report. When contacted by the Financial Times, the China Securities Regulatory Commission refused to answer any questions.  The amusing comment of the day comes from Zhu Ning, […]

With ongoing volatility expected in the gold space, mostly owing to global economic weakness, investors should focus on quality gold names with three key attributes to weather the current metal price environment, explains Joseph Fazzini, vice president and senior analyst with Toronto-based Dundee Capital Markets. Fazzini says those attributes are low-cost, long-life assets; defensive balance […]