Business

Earlier this week we reported that as part of the stunning, unexpected collapse of South African retail giant Steinhoff, which also owns France-based Conforama furniture chain, Mattress Firm in the U.S. and Poundland in the U.K., none other than the ECB was unveiled as owning an unknown amount of its recently issued €800 million in 2025 bonds, which plunged from 85 to as little as 41 cents on Wednesday when the news hit...

Via Dana Lyons' Tumblr,

The percentage of households’  financial assets currently invested in stocks has jumped to levels exceeded only by the 2000 bubble.

Submitted by Wolf Richter of Wolf Street

The Fed’s balance sheet for the week ending December 6, completes the second month of the QE-unwind. Total assets initially zigzagged within a tight range to end October where it started, at $4,456 billion. But in November, holdings drifted lower, and by December 6 were at $4,437 billion, the lowest since September 17, 2014:

“Balance sheet normalization?” Well, in baby steps. But the devil is in the details.

By the SRSrocco Report,

There is a Disinformation War taking place in the silver market as certain industry analysis is confusing individuals by purposely disregarding the tremendous impact of rising investment demand.  Not only do I find this troubling, but I am also quite surprised how much the silver industry pays attention to this faulty analysis.  So, it's time once again to set the record straight.

If Jay Gould were alive today, he would've traded bitcoin.

Perhaps the most blatant hypocrisy perpetrated by bitcoin evangelists is their insistence that bitcoin and other digital currencies represent a return to a truly democratic financial system beyond the control of banks and other special interests, where players small and large can earn enormous profits simply by HODLing.