Business

Among the big drivers behind the recent move higher in the price of bitcoin - in addition to the traditional "capital outflow" demand out of China - has been widespread hope that the SEC will approve the first bitcoin ETF. And contrary to our report from January that such a decision, and ETF, will be delayed substantially, today Coindesk writes that according to its sources, the ETF decision is expected, either affirming or denying, is expected by Friday.

Via Kevin Muir of The Macro Tourist blog,

Although the market is convinced the Federal Reserve will get aggressive with their rate hikes, I am not sure market participants have thought this through. Let’s not forget the Federal Reserve is sitting on the largest balance sheet in history.

This portfolio is the result of years of Quantitative Easing. It was made riskier with the Fed’s “Operation Twist” that extended the duration of their balance sheet by buying long dated securities while selling shorter ones.

There is a new powerhouse dominating the U.S. futures market for raw sugar contracts and it's creating a bit of confusion among the the more established trading houses of the world's most volatile commodity markets.  The firm is Wilmar International, a Singapore-based agribusiness whose major shareholders include the family of Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok and Chicago-based Archer Daniels Midland.  Founded 26 years ago, Wilmar is one of the world's largest palm-oil producers but was essentially non-existent in the sugar market until just a couple of years ago.

The last time we presented the work of noted housing expert, and skeptic, Mark Hanson, we laid out why a mere 1% increase in mortgage rates "would change everything."

His December report piggybacked on a prior analysis, which showed that for all talk of housing affordability, the reality is that in the current environment, "houses have never been more expensive to buyers who need a mortgage."

By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at

I chatted with Mahdi Kazemzadeh who was recently introduced to me by a mutual friend.

Mahdi is the founder and managing director of Afraz Advisers, a firm providing analytical tools and data services on the Iranian oil and gas industry. Their clients are international companies navigating the Iranian oil and gas industry as well as institutional and private investment funds.