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12/10/2005

Cell Phone Tracks Your Position on the Ground :.

Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know, within about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the phone's position as it travels.


12/9/2005

Myth of the Machine: Trader Error to Cost Firm at Least $225 Million :.

This is the most encouraging story that I have read in a VERY long time. As horrific and deranged as this system has become, it's very fragile:

Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan's second-biggest bank, said a typing error at its brokerage arm that triggered $3.5 billion of trades will cost the company at least 27 billion yen ($225 million).

The losses may mount as Mizuho Securities Co. tries to buy stock in J-Com Co. to meet commitments after it mistakenly tried to sell 610,000 shares in the $93 million telecommunications company. The Tokyo Stock Exchange failed to cancel the trade after four requests from Mizuho, the brokerage's President Makoto Fukuda said at a Tokyo press conference today.

The initial loss is equivalent to 4 percent of the bank's forecast profit for the year ending March.



GOLD $531.40

There's the gap I've been looking for. Classic price explosion on building momentum. One would think that profit taking is going to pound it down for a bit; rattle new longs out of their positions.


12/8/2005

GOLD NEARS $524 :.

The train has left the station:

Gold futures climbed near $524 an ounce Thursday to trade at their highest level since 1981 and were set to extend a winning streak to six sessions on the heels of strong physical demand for the metal and ongoing worries about inflation.

Gold for February delivery traded as high as $523.90 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures prices haven't traded at a level that high since April 1981, according to monthly charts.


12/7/2005

Fund Managers Sell Stocks, Bonds; Buy Gold :.

Fasten your seatbelt, place your head between your knees and grab your ankles:

Gold prices in New York rose to a 24- year high, climbing for the seventh time in eight sessions, as fund managers seek to diversify from currencies, stocks and bonds.



Housing Bubble Bursts in the Market for U.S. Mortgage Bonds :.

Some of the idiot financial press is wondering why gold is gapping up to new highs... Geee, I wonder:

In the U.S. bond market, the housing bubble has burst.

Bonds backed by home loans to the riskiest borrowers, the fastest growing part of the $7.6 trillion mortgage market, have lost about 2.5 percent since September on concern an 18-month rise in interest rates may force more than 150,000 consumers to default.

"We've been hearing about risks of a house price bubble, easy credit and loans to borrowers that really don't qualify, and now in the last couple of months we're starting to see things turn for the worse," said Joseph Auth, a bond fund manager who helps oversee $135 billion at Standish Mellon Asset Management in Boston.



GOLD $517.30 :.

"The market is still looking very bullish," said a bullion dealer with a major investment bank in Singapore. "Still unresolved buying out of Japan is pushing it higher."

The Japanese seemed to believe that markets like equities and bonds were peaking, and gold was a safer investment to maintain steady rather than huge gains, he said.


12/6/2005

GOLD $513

It just keeps going.



DUKE CUNNINGHAM BRIBE FIGURE AND IRAN CONTRA DRUG TRAFFICKING :.

Imagine my shock:

San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes, a key figure in the Randy "Duke" Cunningham bribery scandal---as well as the Justice Department investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff---worked in Honduras during the 1980's for a company accused by federal prosecutors of deep involvement in cocaine trafficking.


12/4/2005

Tamiflu is 'Useless' for Avian Flu :.

A Vietnamese doctor with experience in treating avian flu says Tamiflu, the drug being stockpiled for treatment of avian flue is useless against the virus.

Dr. Nguyen Tuong Van of the Centre for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi has treated 41 victims of H5N1, following World Health Organization guidelines and administering Tamiflu to her patients. She told the Sunday Times of London the medicine had no effect.




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