For The Professional Investor
The ban on speculative trading that regulators have been crafting lets market-making operations unchanged allowing Wall Street banks to exhale a sigh of relief as the much feared Volcker rule is evaded. The practise of market-making, or principle trading as it is also called, uses firm capital to purchase and sell securities with clients, generating […]
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After the slump seen in October that kept crude down all through last month as well, demand is once again up in the world’s largest oil consumers giving a boost to West Texas Intermediate that brought it to its highest price in six weeks as Chinese imports rebounded and U.S. unemployment figures fell. The commodity’s […]
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Recent drops in commodities have extended the reach of their effects well beyond traders and it is banker who will the heat today. Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) is pulling away about 200 commodities positions, joining other large financial institutions who have reduced their workforce to the lowest numbers since 2009 as the prices of commodities […]
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Precious metals have been pushed down in the markets again on the prospect that the Federal Reserve will reduce economic stimulus as more reports indicate growth in the U.S. economy, with both gold and silver hitting their lowest points since the summer. The Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index, which measure the currency’s strength against 10 of […]
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The metal rally that has kept the mining industry into expansion mode over the last decade seems to have been losing steam, as mining companies themselves appear to be putting measures in place to conserve money to counteract anticipated losses. The second-biggest mining company in the world, the Rio Tinto Group (RIO), will only be […]
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A daily private meeting between bankers representing five institutions conducted over the phone with conversations lasting anywhere between minutes to hours. The purpose? To determine the going price of gold for the day. Sounds too “private” and unregulated to be happening anywhere outside a movie? Think again, because that’s how gold prices are set up […]
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Rubber rose nearly to its highest level in a week when demand for yen based futures increase as the yen devalued against the dollar to the lowest point in four months due to the prospect of added stimulus by the Bank of Japan. Rubber to be delivered in April climbed 0.7 percent on the Tokyo […]
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Companies planning to unearth the $8-billion worth of coal reserves sitting beneath our feet are being targeted by an ever-increasing group of investors protesting the greenhouse gases that the burning of the coal will produce. Peabody Energy Corp. (BUT), the biggest U.S. coal producer, was only one of 24 coal and oil-sands companies to be […]
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Tin seems to be the way to the future-at least as far as wise investing for 2014-with global demand far exceeding the supply levels of diminishing inventories and China ramping up its role as net importer, according to Morgan Stanley. China, metal economists note, can no longer sufficiently fulfil its own needs in neither refined- […]
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Overall international demand for gold dropped 21 percent in the third quarters as both investors and central banks show reluctance in buying the metal, according to the World Gold Council. The council announced in a report today that demand around the globe plunged to 868.5 metric tons, compared to 1,101.4 ton last year. Investors purchased […]
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