Since the ECB launched its sovereign debt QE, initially known as PSPP, in March 2015 and later expanded to include corporate debt, or CSPP, in June 2016, the world's biggest hedge fund central bank has created enough money out of thin air to purchase bonds with no consideration for price to grow its balance sheet, i.e. investment portfolio, by €1.89 trillion.
By the SRSrocco Report,
The world's largest oil companies are in serious trouble as their balance sheets deteriorate from higher costs, falling profits and skyrocketing debt. The glory days of the highly profitable global oil companies have come to an end. All that remains now is a mere shadow of the once mighty oil industry that will be forced to continue cannibalizing itself to produce the last bit of valuable oil.
In a story that seems to have gone largely unnoticed by the western press, the China Daily reported that the PBoC has successfully designed a prototype that can regulate its future supply of digital fiat currency.
In a report, “PBoC inches closer to digital currency”, the newspaper stated that China’s central bank “has completed trial runs on the algorithms needed for digital currency supply, taking it a step closer to addressing the technological challenges associated with digital currencies, according to a top official associated with the project.”
Authored by Christoff Gisiger via Finanz und Wirthschaft,
Pierre Lassonde, chairman of Franco-Nevada, expects production in the gold mining sector to decline significantly and foresees a price push for the yellow metal.
Last week we wrote about how some former HSBC FX traders, led by Mark Johnson, orchestrated a carefully crafted plan to front-run a massive buy order for British Pounds using the code phrase "my watch is off."
Now, courtesy of court filings in a British case to extradite one of the participants, Stuart Scott, we learn exactly how much each HSBC trader made for his trading book in the illicit scheme that netted a total of $8 million in profits. Per Bloomberg: