Business

Russian combat equipment used in Syria did have many drawbacks but the successful mission by the Russian Aerospace Troops has helped increase arms exports. During an annual televised Q&A session president Vladimir Putin vowed to examine the many drawbacks that had surfaced in the operation of Russian combat equipment in Syria. “I shall be honest, there are many of them. Everything is now carefully being examined by experts.“ Putin mentioned that demand for Russian weapons have increased worldwide forcing the opening of new manufacturing plants, putting Russia second behind the U.S.

Authored by Danielle DiMartino Booth, former adviser to Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke and Yellen.

Which one does not belong? Logic dictates that Volcker should have been odd man out. After all, there is no legendary “Volcker Put.”

Gold and Silver Are Manipulated

Deutsche Bank admitted today that it participated with other big banks in manipulating gold and silver prices.

In 2014, Switzerland’s financial regulator (FINMA) found “serious misconduct” and a “clear attempt to manipulate precious metals benchmarks” by UBS employees in precious metals trading, particularly with silver. Reuters reported:

Just over four years ago, on March 23, 2012, every HFT's favorite exchange (because it specifically affords them a look at incoming order flow as described by Michael Lewis in Flash Boys), BATS Global Markets, IPOed at a price of $16/share (the low end of the range), valuing the company at around $760 million. However, it was not the pricing that was memorable, but what happened later that day when the stock tried to break for trading. As we reported back then, after its first print at $15.75, the stock proceeded to collapse to just above $0 in about 900 milliseconds.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Retail-Less

Despite all of the cheering by the mainstream media that the economy is “doing great” and “no recession” in sight, a look at small business sales trends and retail sales certainly suggest a very different story.