United States

Submitted by JC Collins via PhilosophyOfMetrics.com,

For the first time in a long time I feel concerned and worried about the prospect of war.  The reaction of Saudi Arabia to the Russian intervention in Syria has always been the wild card in the shifting geopolitical power base in the Middle East.  Turkey and Israel, along with Saudi Arabia are the three countries with the most to lose because of a strong alliance between Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia.

Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares via Sinclair & Co.,

William R. White is the chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the OECD in Paris. Prior to that, Dr. White held a number of senior positions with the Bank for International Settlements (“BIS”), including Head of the Monetary and Economic Department, where he had overall responsibility for the department's output of research, data and information services, and was a member of the Executive Committee which manages the BIS. He retired from the BIS on 30 June 2008.

With US markets failing to hold on to today's "Deutsche Bank" euphoric gains today despite, or rather due to Janet Yellen's Congressional testimony, traders in mainland China remains locked out due to the Lunar New Year holiday, while Japan is mercifully taking a break - mercifully, because otherwise the Nikkei would be crashing. However, one market is back online as Hong Kong traders return to their desks to see carnage around the globe, and most importantly, are unable to hedge arbed exposure between China, Japan and the US.

When Barack Obama swept into the White House in 2008, the American electorate was hoping for “change.”

A “change” in the way Republicans and Democrats interacted with one another, a “change” in how the US is perceived by the rest of the world, and a “change” in Washington’s notoriously poor foreign policy in the Mid-East.

Submitted by Christoph Gisiger via Finanz Und Wirtschaft,

Fred Hickey, editor of the widely read investment newsletter «The High-Tech Strategist», warns of more trouble to come for stocks and spots bright investment opportunities in the gold sector.