Business

It was some time back in 2009 when we first predicted that in a world in which central banks have taken away the "fun" from fundamental analysis (having effectively nationalized capital "markets"), that in the not too distant future quants - or "traders" whose only value added is to react rapidly after the news and/or be the fastest to chase any given momentum wave - would be paid far better than plain-vanilla fundamental analysts - those who use conventional financial analysis to make price forecasts, and whose work has traditionally highly prized by hedge funds yet are o

Gold is up 5 days in a row and is surging above $1150 today as someone decided to buy $3.5 billion notional of the precious metal into the European close.

It appears the rotational year-end flows are rebalancing back into bullion as well as bonds... Over 30,000 contracts ripped through futures in the last few minutes before Europe's close - around $3.5 billion notional. 

This is gold's best day since 11/2.

Silver is bid too...

Bitcoin is leaking after breaking $1000 equivalent in Yuan...

The biggest issue in the financial system… the issue that CNBC is completely avoiding… and 99% of professionals are ignoring is the US DOLLAR.

The US Dollar has ripped to 103.

This is a truly MASSIVE problem.

The Chinese Yuan is linked to the US Dollar. With the US Dollar at these levels China has rapidly entered a financial crisis.

In the last month, China has:

1)   Burned through over $70 billion defending the Yuan.

2)   Had to halt trading in its multi-TRILLION dollar bond market.

By EconMatters

Oil prices were back to unchanged ahead of DOE data, after falling on last night's surprise API inventory build. Prices jumped higher however as DOE reported a much smaller build than API (+614k vs +4.2mm), though admittedly a build (expectations were for a draw). Cushing built for the 4th week of the last 5 but gasoline and distillates saw significant draws. Production dipped very modestly.

API