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September 30th, 2011Thank you.
CB2 $75
DL £30
PM $50
Morgan Stanley Seen as Risky as Italian Banks
September 30th, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
Morgan Stanley (MS), which owns the world’s largest retail brokerage, is being priced in the credit- default swaps market as less creditworthy than most U.S., U.K. and French banks and as risky as Italy’s biggest lenders.
The cost of buying the swaps, or CDS, which offer protection against a default of New York-based Morgan Stanley’s debt for five years, has surged to 456 basis points, or $456,000, for every $10 million of debt insured, from 305 basis points on Sept. 15, according to prices provided by London-based CMA. Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP) has CDS trading at 405 basis points, and UniCredit SpA (UCG) at 424, the data show. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percent.
Rare Earth Elements: ‘Demand Destruction’
September 30th, 2011This is a pretty good article that goes into several reasons for the price declines; speculators selling, companies finding alternative materials, companies re-designing products, recycling and others.
Via: Bloomberg:
Rare-earth prices are set to extend their decline from records this year as buyers including Toyota Motor Corp. and General Electric Co. scale back using the materials in their cars and windmills.
Prices for cerium and lanthanum, the most abundant rare- earth elements, will drop by 50 percent in 12 months, Christopher Ecclestone, an analyst at Hallgarten & Co. in New York, has forecast. Neodymium and praseodymium, metals used in permanent rare-earth magnets, may fall as much as 15 percent, he said.
Makers of electric cars, wind turbines and oil-refining catalysts have sought to reduce use of the metals after China, which supplies more than 90 percent of the market, said in July 2010 that it would cut exports and clamp down on the industry. That boosted prices, encouraging mining companies to develop new prospects and buyers to find alternatives.
“If you think you can keep raising the prices for those materials and still keep your customers, you’re crazy,” Jack Lifton, co-founder of Technology Metals Research, said in a telephone interview. “The principal customer for rare-earth metals is a global automotive industry using rare-earth permanent magnets. That industry will engineer this stuff out.”
A Japanese Response to Nuclear Disaster: The Smartphone that Measures Radiation
September 30th, 2011Via: Telegraph:
A mobile phone that doubles as a radiation detector? If there is one country that can pull off (and sell) such a device, it’s Japan. A leading Japanese telecommunications company will unveil a smartphone next week that also acts as a radiation dosimeter to help users detect potential contamination.
In Japan, it’s a timely invention – and a reflection of just how seriously businesses are taking the anti-nuclear mood sweeping the country as the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl rumbles on. More than six months may have passed since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but the nation’s concerns surrounding potential radiation contamination are now reaching fever pitch.
Navigating NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
September 29th, 2011Very, very cool.
Via: SF Signal:
Over the summer, NPR solicited the input of its listeners to rank the top science fiction and fantasy books of all time. Over 60,000 people voted for the top picks which were then compiled into a list by their panel of experts. The result? This list of 100 books with a wide range of styles, little context, and absolutely no pithy commentary to help readers actually choose something to read from it.
We at SF Signal have, once again, come to the rescue. This flowchart is designed to help you follow your tastes, provide context, and fulfill (indeed exceed!) any need for pithy commentary you might harbor.
U.S. Considers Fencing Along Canadian Border
September 29th, 2011Yeah, keep criminals out. That’s the ticket. *wink*
Via: CTV:
Building fences along the Canadian border is one of the options the U.S. government is considering as it mulls how to handle “trouble spots” and keep out criminals and other threats.
In a new draft report, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency includes among its proposals “fencing and other barriers” at the Canadian border to get a handle on “trouble spots where passage of cross-border violators is difficult to control.”
Research Credit: ms
New Zealand Credit Rating Downgraded
September 29th, 2011Via: New Zealand Herald:
Fitch ratings agency has lowered New Zealand’s credit rating by one notch to “AA” and expressed concern over its high external debt.
“New Zealand’s high level of net external debt is an outlier among rated peers – a key vulnerability that is likely to persist as the current account deficit is projected to widen again,” Andrew Colquhoun, Fitch’s head of Asia-Pacific sovereigns said overnight.
The country’s net external debt hit 70 per cent of annual gross domestic product (GDP) in June.
Fitch said New Zealand’s current account deficit, which reflects a structural imbalance between savings and investment, is set to climb to 4.9 per cent of GDP next year and 5.5 per cent in 2013.
Fitch also downgraded by one notch New Zealand’s local currency rating from the top “AAA” rating to “AA+”.
It noted that New Zealand had one of the highest levels of household indebtedness among developed countries at 150 per cent of disposable revenue, which hasn’t declined significantly since 2008.
“Nonetheless, New Zealand remains well placed among the world’s highly rated sovereign credits, with its creditworthiness supported by moderate public indebtedness, fiscal prudence, and strong public institutions,” said Fitch.
Former Member of Bush Economic Team Thinks Germany Will Bring Back Deutsche Mark: ‘They Have Already Ordered the New Currency and Asked that the Printers Hurry Up’
September 29th, 2011Bio: Philippa Malmgren:
Dr. Philippa Malmgren is the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management, a financial firm based in London. In short, she helps fund managers better understand how politics, policy and geopolitics will impact the financial markets. Investors use her insights to manage their portfolios more profitably. Her clients include many investment banks, fund managers and hedge funds as well as Sovereign Wealth Funds, pension funds and corporations. She founded the Canonbury Symposia, which brings together high level experts on strategic security, defense and intelligence matters to meet with experts from the financial markets.
…
She served as financial market advisor in the White House and on the National Economic Council from 2001-2002, where she was responsible for financial market issues. She founded Malmgren and Company, in London, England on 2000 and was previously the Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS and the Chief Currency Strategist for Bankers Trust. She headed the Global Investment Management business for Bankers Trust in Asia. She has a B.A. from Mount Vernon College and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. She completed the Harvard Program on National Security. The World Economic Forum named Dr. Malmgren a Global Leader for Tomorrow in 2000. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Economic Club of New York and the Institute for International Strategic Security.
Via: pippamalmgren.com:
News to expect in the coming days and weeks:
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The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up.
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The markets are very likely to have to contend with the re-introduction of Deutsche Marks in the near future. This is bound to mean a collapse in the value of the Euro for those countries that will remain in it (devaluation for the rest of Europe). This step may seem unthinkable but, I believe that the German government is telling us in multiple ways that there is no other solution from their point of view.
FBI Leaves Cleared Names On Terrorist Watch List
September 29th, 2011Via: New York Times:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is permitted to include people on the government’s terrorist watch list even if they have been acquitted of terrorism-related offenses or the charges are dropped, according to newly released documents.
The files, released by the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act, disclose how the police are instructed to react if they encounter a person on the list. They lay out, for the first time in public view, the legal standard that national security officials must meet in order to add a name to the list. And they shed new light on how names are vetted for possible removal from the list.
Inclusion on the watch list can keep terrorism suspects off planes, block noncitizens from entering the country and subject people to delays and greater scrutiny at airports, border crossings and traffic stops.
The database now has about 420,000 names, including about 8,000 Americans, according to the statistics released in connection with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. About 16,000 people, including about 500 Americans, are barred from flying.
Timothy J. Healy, the director of the F.B.I.’s Terrorist Screening Center, which vets requests to add or remove names from the list, said the documents showed that the government was balancing civil liberties with a careful, multilayered process for vetting who goes on it — and for making sure that names that no longer need to be on it came off.
South Korea: Businesses Offer Late Night Cramming Sessions for Students; Government Raids Them For Keeping Students Up Past 10pm
September 29th, 2011Via: Time:
On a wet Wednesday evening in Seoul, six government employees gather at the office to prepare for a late-night patrol. The mission is as simple as it is counterintuitive: to find children who are studying after 10 p.m. And stop them.
In South Korea, it has come to this. To reduce the country’s addiction to private, after-hours tutoring academies (called hagwons), the authorities have begun enforcing a curfew — even paying citizens bounties to turn in violators.
