Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Hedge Fund Manager Loses 99.8% In 9 Months, Tells Investors He Is "Sorry" For "Overzealousness"


Day after day, mainstream media proclaimed December the month to be in stocks: seasonals, Santa Claus rally, and performance-chasing funds would 'guarantee' upside. For Owen Li, former Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group trader, and the clients of his Canarsie Capital hedge fund, December 2014 will never be forgotten. According to CNBC, from around $100 million in AUM in March 2014, Li told investors in a letter, the fund had lost all but $200,000 and he was "truly sorry," for "acting overzealously" in the last 3 weeks.


"If You Question Authority, You Are Mentally Ill", Report Finds

The psychopathologizing of anti-authoritarian behavior is yet another step on what looks like an increasingly slippery slope and it strikes us as especially harmful. The American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM for short) defined a new mental illness, the so-called “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD. As TheMindUnleashed.org informs us, the definition of this new mental illness essentially amounts to declaring any non-conformity and questioning of authority as a form of insanity. In short, as Natural News put it: According to US psychiatrists, only the sheeple are sane.


The Newest Dominoes to Fall from the Swiss Franc Revaluation

from The Wealth Watchman:
The “Body Count” is Piling Up
My friends, it hasn’t even been a week since the Swiss National Bank(SNB) dropped their monetary nuke on Europe, and already, we’ve seen multiple casualties across the board.  Of course, the first ones we heard of, were the smallest and most obvious: the large banks and FX brokerages, who were almost all short the Swiss Franc.
Read More…



This Is How The US Government Convinces A Newspaper To Kill A Story

The timidness with which mainstream media in the U.S. approaches news has been well documented. In fact, the inability of traditional media to do a reasonable job of holding powerful interests accountable has been one of the primary drivers behind the ascendency of alternative news. Despite this reality, one thing we know less about is specifically how the power structure goes about suppressing news it doesn’t want reaching the plebs. Until now...

Gold’s New Friend: The Swiss Franc! — Stewart Thomson

from Silver Doctors:
A new force that is bullish for gold has unexpectedly appeared, which is the Swiss franc’s mauling of the US dollar.
The franc has a stellar track record of being a hard currency, and a key lead indicator for the price of gold.
Please view the monthly chart of the dollar versus the franc below. The dollar has essentially imploded.
Entire brokerages and funds have been destroyed, as the dollar has gone into “meltdown mode” against the franc.
As painful as it’s been for these dollar bugs, I think there’s much more pain to come.
Here’s why:
Read More @ SilverDoctors.com




Europe Probing HFTs For Providing "Fake Liquidity"

The EU’s financial watchdog, the European Securities and Markets Authority, will look at whether automated trading adds fake, or ghost, liquidity to markets, said Steven Maijoor, the regulator’s chairman. “There has been a suggestion that the liquidity they are providing is not real liquidity because once you would like to go into the trade and accept an order the offer disappears,” Maijoor said in an interview in Hong Kong on Jan. 20. “We are looking now into the specific issue of what is called ghost liquidity.”
 




The White House Goes Full JPMorgan: Unleashes #AskTheWH On Twitter

Remember how well JPMorgan's innovative social media experiment #AskJPM went? Well, taking a lesson from the Einsteinian insanity instruction manual, John Kerry and The White House have unleased #AskTheWH ... enjoy...

“D” Weapons Use Appliances to Spy on Homes, Internet as Cyber Battleground: “World War III is a Guerrilla Information War”

by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan:

Though it has remained officially unsaid, the powers that be have all-but-officially designated the American people as their enemy in a foggy battleground that has become global, nebulous, highly technological and extremely paranoid.
Homeland Security and FBI protocol have set the stage for profiling Americans as potential threats, while the rising police state have often cracked down with a heavy hand and perhaps a SWAT raid. The War on Terror, global jihad, cyber attacks and a new Cold War have all contributed the necessary pretexts for an atmosphere of control and preemptive suspicion that seemingly justifies total surveillance of the population.
Read More @ SHTFPlan.com



Asset Ownership And Our System Of Deepening Debt-Serfdom

Debt-serfs who make the difficult and risky transition to small-scale business owners find they have simply moved to another class of serfdom. The net result is a system in which the vast majority of productive assets are owned by the few who then have the means to exploit the many.




Chart Of The Day: The Impossible Is Possible Edition

Swiss interest rates were already the lowest in the world before The Swiss National Bank de-pegged from the Euro last week but in the ensuing few days, investor demand for the 'safety' of Switzerland has collapsed the yield curve to levels thought impossible just weeks ago...

Russia criticises American exceptionalism speech of Obama

from The BRICS Post:
A day after US President Barack Obama’s state of the union address, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed Washington for embarking on a path of confrontation with Moscow.
“Following the United States’ actions, a mood of confrontation has prevailed in the North Atlantic alliance. It has made an absolutely politicized decision on suspending cooperation on military and civilian matters. Effectively, all the projects have been frozen,” Lavrov said in an annual press conference in Moscow on Wednesday.
“This is not Russia’s choice and Moscow does not want and would not allow a new Cold War,” the minister stressed.
Read More @ TheBRICSPost.com




America's Ultra Luxury Housing Bubble Has Burst: "Deals Have Slowed To A Trickle"

As we further showed, the bulk of foreign demand for New York's most expensive properties, originated in China, Russia and various other oligarch-controlled nations, where the impetus to launder illegally obtained hot money meant an impulse to buy US real estate sight unseen and virtually at any price. And all of it, of course, all cash. No mortgages.  That onslaught of foreign oligarch demand is ending, and with it so is the bubble that luxurious New York real estate found itself in on the back of some $12 trillion in central bank liquidity created out of thin air in the past 6 years. Business Week cites Manhattan real estate agent Lisa Gustin who listed a four-bedroom Tribeca loft for $7.45 million in October, expecting a quick sale. Instead, she cut the price this month by $550,000. “I thought for sure a foreign buyer would come in"... They didn't.

It’s All Coming To A Disastrous End And The World Faces A Very Dark Future

from KingWorldNews:
Herbert Stein became one of the most renowned macroeconomists during his lifetime. Stein received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1958. Known as a “pragmatic conservative”, Stein served as Chairman of The Council Of Economic Advisers which advised both Presidents Ford and Nixon. He is the father of Ben Stein, a well-known actor and author. He is also remembered for promulgating “Herbert Stein’s Law” which simply stated that “if something cannot go on forever, it will stop”….
With the surprising Swiss announcement last week that they would sever the connection to the Euro, there have been several theories offered as to the reason and the behind the scenes events leading up to the announcement. Upon reflecting about these topics, it seemed to us that the simple answer comes from Stein’s Law.
Robert Fitzwilson Continues @ KingWorldNews.com



Kansas Officials Admit "Strong Correlation" Between Quakes & Fracking

“If the government and the Kansas Corporation Commission care about the people of Kansas and the damages, they will order a moratorium,” exclaims Joe Spease, chairman of the Kansas Sierra Club's fracking committee following a report from Kansas officials, who have been reluctant to link the mysterious earthquakes in south central Kansas to fracking, admitted last week that "we can say there is a strong correlation between the disposal of saltwater and the earthquakes." As LJWorld reports, it's the first time state officials have so clearly stated the likely cause of the earthquakes, which are afflicting a region where fracking is widely used.



Greece's Bailout Programs Are Not Working

Greece's bailout program is not working. After receiving hundreds of billions of Euros in new loans to stave off a sovereign default, Greeks are on the verge of electing a new government that may throw Eurozone politics into turmoil. How things will play out in Greece and abroad is anybody’s guess. But it is important to consider the factors which have contributed to the current state of affairs.



Russia Slams US/NATO Attempts To Draw It Into Military Conflict With Ukraine

NATO's Jens Stoltenberg unleashed the latest tirade against Russia this morning proclaiming - though offering no proof - that there are Russian forces and heavy equipment in Ukraine and a high number of Russian forces on the border which "doesn't contribute to a peaceful solution." Apparently pre-empting this outburst, Pravda reports Anatoly Tsyganok, director of the Military Forecasting Centre, exclaims, "Ukraine reiterates that Russia is in the war, but it's not true," adding that in fact "the USA and the NATO have artificial satellites continuously circulating above this territory and control the situation," concluding with a jab at The US & NATO that "Russia has never participated in the military conflict. And no attempt to involve Russia in the conflict will be crowned with success." The propaganda battle continues...



Are Central Bankers Losing The Plot: "The SNB Move Signals A Spectacular Loss Of Nerve"

As we have reiterated very frequently over recent years, the biggest vulnerability in the post crisis environment was that central banks start to make policy errors, by taking activist and precipitous decisions. Thus following on from last year's error by Norges Bank (and noting that we would not call last week's SNB decision a mistake, despite the shockwaves that it caused), the Bank of Canada joins that policy error club.
 



S&P Surges As ECB's QE Leaked: Board Proposes €50 Billion In Bond Monetization Per Month

And so with less than 24 hours to go, the ECB has decided to leak its deliberations not only to Merkel and Hollande, but Dow Jones. To wit:
DJ: ECB EXEC BOARD'S QE PROPOSAL CALLS FOR ROUGHLY EUR50B IN BOND BUYS A MONTH -  SOURCES
ECB SAID TO PROPOSE QE OF 50 BILLION EUROS A MONTH THROUGH 2016
More as we see it, but if indeed this will be a program without risk-mutualization and conditional and limited burden-sharing, where the hope was that Draghi would "shock and awe" the world with the size of the bond purchasing program instead, €600 billion per year looks decidedly on the low side of any "surprise" announcement where the whisper number was for €1 trillion per year, and if indeed this is the final formulation may result in a substantial disappointment for stocks after the initial kneejerk reaction.
 



Fact-Checking Obama's State Of The Union Speech

We already did our post-mortem of last night's teleprompted annual evangelizing of Barack Obama's "straight to folks" propaganda that would make both Goebbels and Dzerzhinsky blush. So instead of repeating ourselves, here is AP with its own fact check of what can only be dubbed lie after lie, courtesy of the president of the "free world" and the head of the "most transparent administration ever."
 



All Liquidity Disappears From Euro FX Market Day Ahead Of ECB Announcement

In what is likely an effort to comprehend whether the market is satiated with a mere EUR 50 billion per month in printed money, this morning's leaked ECB QE announcement (due tomorrow) sparked total chaos in FX markets and, as Nanex notes, sending market liquidity to near record lows. This is a problem. With the 'real' volatility event not arriving until tomorrow, everyone has pulled out of the market already... setting the scene for a gappy Swissnado replay tomorrow morning.

How the UN Is Confiscating American Homes and Controlling All Food and Energy

by Dave Hodges, The Common Sense Show:
In times of crises, the government has proven, time and time again, that it cannot be counted on to adequately protect the American people. As the American people have not prepared for the coming dark days, they will be vulnerable to starvation, dehydration, cholera, pandemics and attacks from resource-deficient looters. Will the government be there to save them? History has already answered this question in the negative. Events such as Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, L.A. riots and the Ferguson riots have repeatedly demonstrated that when trouble comes, the American people will be on their own.
When disaster strikes, it will take less than 24 hours until grocery stores are empty, the utilities are down and neighbors begin to prey upon neighbors.
Read More @ Thecommonsenseshow.com

The First 10 Things Every New Prepper Should Do (Some of Them Are Free!)

by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper:
Over the past couple of years, here in America….
Contaminated water caused a complete loss of municipal services in both Ohio and West Virginia, resulting in almost a million people vying for the stock in local stores.
A freak confluence of storms caused a “Superstorm” that took out power to much of the Eastern Seaboard, including New York City and the coastal parts of New Jersey. Nearly a year later, some families were still without electricity to their homes.
Read More @ TheOrganicPrepper.com



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