There has been a huge outpouring of support for Senators John McCain and Elizabeth Warren’s idea to reinstate some form of the Glass-Steagall Act, which drew a clear separation between investment banking and commercial banking.
On Monday, gold enjoyed its biggest one day jump in more than a year. It hit a four-week high as the precious metal staged a rebound. Gold finally broke through the $1,300 an ounce technical resistance level and finished above $1,335 an ounce.
“Education is a bubble in a classic sense. To call something a bubble, it must be overpriced and there must be an intense belief in it. Housing was a classic bubble, as were tech stocks in the ’90s, because they were both very overvalued, but there was an incredibly widespread belief that almost could not be questioned – you had to own a house in 2005, and you had to be in an equity-market index fund in 1999.” ~ Peter Thiel on higher education for NRO.
It’s just another game for Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) – a “warehouse shuffle” that moves aluminum around while the big bank collects rent on the metal.
Although the rent on the stored aluminum – Goldman isn’t allowed to actually own the commodity – is just pennies a day, the vast amount of the metal it has stored in its 27 Detroit warehouses and the “warehouse shuffle” strategy that enables it to extend the rental period for months on end adds up.
Through the Metro International Trade Services subsidiary it bought in 2010, Goldman has accumulated 1.4 million tons of aluminum, which it stores at about 48 cents per ton per day. That’s about $672,000 per day of revenue – nearly half a billion a year.
Experts say the warehouse shuffle game ultimately raises the price of aluminum to manufacturers – everything from beer and soda companies to automakers. That extra cost, about $5 billion over the past three years, is passed on to consumers – you and me.
One of the most closely watched earnings reports comes after the close Wednesday when Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) earnings for the second quarter are released.
Wall Street analysts expect the company to post earnings of $0.14 per share on revenue of $1.62 billion, up from $0.12 per share on $1.18 billion in revenue from the same quarter a year ago.
After scouring the numbers, the key question will be how well the company is monetizing its massive mobile user base.
The all-out effort by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to print money, stir up inflation, devalue the yen, blow asset bubbles, and pile on even more government debt – a newfangled religion called Abenomics – is bearing fruit. But the prim…
Tyler Cowen thinks that we are entering an age of debates over wealth taxes. If only. It’s true, as Cowen notes, that national debt everywhere is a relatively small fraction of national wealth and that, therefore, “fiscal … Continue reading →
US manufacturing rebounded in July, as it follows the pattern repeated over the past four years.Source: MarkitMarkit’s report however emphasized caution:Chris Williamson, Chief Economist, Markit: – The U.S. manufacturing sector picked up momentum ag…
If you’re looking to profit from a long-term investment, you’re probably not considering adding gold mining stocks to your portfolio.
I’m announcing that the 32-year bull market in bonds is officially dead. Be prepared for the consequences from rising interest rates in 2014. They could be catastrophic for bond market investors.
