Saturday, May 25, 2013

Banking insider: Deutsche Bank in danger zone and will go belly up

On May 14, a financial analyst and former head trader at the Royal Bank of Scotland spoke on the Hagmann and Hagmann Report regarding the current state of the global economy. Known in the public sphere under the pseudonym of 'V', and labeling himself the Guerrilla Economist, this high level insider stated that not only is the entire economic system hanging on the precipice, much worse than in 2007, but that one of the largest banks in the Euro Zone, Deutsche Bank, is far gone into the danger zone and will very soon go belly up.
V: Deutsche Bank. Big bank. Biggest bank in Germany, and one of the biggest banks in the Euro Zone... they're going to go belly up. Watch it. Watch it, I said it, it's going to happen.
They are in such a danger zone, they don't know what to do. Deutsche Bank's derivative debt is greater than the global economy. That is one bank. $72 trillion in derivative exposure. The entire global economy, all the countries in the world is only $66 trillion GDP. - V, Hagmann and Hagmann Report, May 14
This high level financial insider, who works closely with alternative media personality Steve Quayle, has a growing track record of accurate predictions and assessments going back to 2012. In January of this year, V reported that Japan would begin the primary currency war now taking place around the world, that would eventually be the lynchpin to the global financial collapse to come. Additionally, the Guerrilla Economist months in advance predicted the Dow would climb to over 15000, and that precious metals like gold and silver would be forced down to help push the dollar to be the primary and final safe haven for global investors. (more)

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Here's What Warren Buffett Has Been Buying and Selling

Every quarter, many money managers have to disclose what they've bought and sold, via "13F" filings. Their latest moves can shine a bright light on smart stock picks.

Today, let's look at investing giant Warren Buffett. His Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B  ) company has increased its per-share book value by an annual average of 19.7% between 1965 and 2012, leaving the S&P 500 in the dust with its 9.4%. Clearly, the guy knows a thing or two about investing. With that in mind, let's take a look at his company's recent investment activity, noting that he heads a large corporation, and not a hedge fund or mutual fund. While he owns many businesses in their entirety, from Dairy Queen to GEICO to Fruit of the Loom, he also has tens of billions of dollars invested in the stock of other companies.

The company's reportable stock portfolio totaled $85 billion in value as of March 31, 2013.  (more)

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Forget Prayer, It’s Lamb Slaughter Time: A Rational Man’s Response To All Time High Gold Shorts

from Zero Hedge:
Two days ago we suggested that “they better pray there is no short squeeze.” Today, following the just released latest CFTC Commitment of Traders data which showed that the Comex gold short position grew once again to a new all time high of 79,416 shorts, all prayers are now off. If we may be so bold as to we suggest, the time has come to upgrade to the sacrificial slaughtering of at least a lamb on the altar of Saint Ben, because even the tiniest hint of a forced cover will now result in the biggest rip your face off levered short squeeze seen in the history of the yellow metal. Maybe throw in an ink cartridge or two for good measure…
Read More @ ZeroHedge.com
 
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ServiceNow Inc (NYSE: NOW)

ServiceNow, Inc. provides cloud-based services to automate enterprise information technology (IT) operations worldwide. Its services include a suite of applications built on its proprietary platform that automates workflow and integrates related business processes. The company's IT infrastructure library applications include Incident Management for restoring a failed service to an operational state; Problem Management for resolving service outages or issues affecting various users; Change Management that manages the proposal and approval process for changes to be made to the IT infrastructure; Release Management, which assigns, manages, and monitors the various tasks; Configuration Management Database, an inventory repository; Service Catalog; Knowledge Management for storing and displaying knowledge articles or documents; Service Portfolio Management; and Service Level Agreement Management to monitor and manage the progress by IT staff on assigned tasks. Its IT applications also include Project and Portfolio Management for tracking and managing projects; IT Cost Management to track staff work time, project-related expenses, and labor costs; IT Asset Management to track financial elements; IT Governance Risk and Compliance; Software Development Lifecycle Management; Discovery, which discovers and maps operational dependencies; and Runbook Automation to execute routine and repeatable projects.
To review ServiceNow's stock, please take a look at the 1-year chart of NOW (ServiceNow, Inc.) below with my added notations:
1-year chart of NOW (ServiceNow, Inc.) NOW has rallied from a bottom of $25 in January to a new 52-week high of $44 in April. Along the way, the stock has formed a nice trendline of support (blue). Always remember that any (2) points can start a trendline, but it's the 3rd test and beyond that confirm its importance. Obviously NOW's trendline is important to the stock since it has been tested on multiple occasions.
The Tale of the Tape: NOW has created a nice trendline of support over the last (5) months. A long position could be entered on a pullback to that trendline, which is approaching $38, with a stop placed below that level. A short position could be entered if NOW were to break the trend line support.
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Doug Casey’s Primer on Internationalization

As many of you may know, International Man has its roots in the book of the same name. It was first published in 1978 by best-selling author, speculator, and renowned world-traveler Doug Casey.



The original intent of that book was to give readers a general sense of the exciting and opportunity-rich world that lay outside of their national borders, with a review of over 100 countries, valuable "opportunity intelligence," and the resources that anyone could follow to realize these opportunities.

Even though the book is now clearly out of date, the need for information on internalization is more relevant than ever, as governments the world over become more desperate. The purpose of this website is to preserve the mission of that book and be the premier location for up-to-date, highly actionable, and practical information on the topic.

So why is internationalization prudent?

Doug Casey has said over and over that spreading your political risk beyond one single jurisdiction is the single most important thing he can recommend today.

Political risk is minimized when you don't depend absolutely on any one particular country. Having all your eggs in one basket only makes it easier for someone to grab them all. Being internationalized makes it much harder for any particular government to control you.

We will no doubt see the major underlying trend of increasing political risk (especially for Westerners) get worse as governments sink deeper into fiscal and moral bankruptcy.

It is only prudent and logical to assume that you will, somehow and someway, continue to be squeezed harder in the pocketbook and subjected to escalating arbitrary and burdensome regulations and restrictions. In short, expect more government and less freedom all around.

The window to protect yourself from these risks by diversifying internationally gets verifiably smaller with each passing week. There are many ways to internationalize that do not require you to leave your home country. It is not necessary (at least, at the moment) that you immediately leave and become an expat.

However, it is necessary that you develop the options to internationalize before the government closes the window of opportunity to do so. If history is any guide, it won't be open forever.
In that sense, it is much better to have developed and implemented many parts of your internationalization game plan a year early rather than a minute late.

There are four broad areas of internationalization:
  1. Savings: This covers how to setup offshore bank, brokerage, and financial accounts, foreign real estate and "bolt-holes" in case of trouble, moving and owning gold overseas, and structures like foreign trusts that help to legally reduce taxes. Placing your savings outside the immediate reach of your local government ensures that they cannot be trapped in the case of capital controls or outright seized at the drop of a hat, such as what happened when the government became sufficiently desperate in Cyprus.
  1. Yourself: Obtaining a second passport from another country and establishing legal residency in foreign countries.
  1. Income: The structuring of your cash flows to reduce dependence on any one source in any one jurisdiction. Establishing additional sources of revenue, international investment opportunities and trends, and setting up an offshore company.
  1. Digital Presence: This commonly includes your IP address (which can often pinpoint you to a precise physical address), email account, online file storage, and the components of personal/business websites.
Last, I will leave you with a primer on internationalization with Doug Casey.
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Why a Uranium Renaissance Looks Inevitable

from Casey Research

Casey Research’s Chief Energy Investment Strategist, Marin Katusa, whose portfolio profited nicely the last time the uranium bull broke loose a decade ago, recently interviewed a group of world-renowned energy experts to discuss the prospects for the sector that some considered doomed by the Fukushima disaster. Anti-nuclear power sentiment has by no means evaporated, but Katusa sees clear signals that the bulls are ready to run, not least of which is the recent attack on the Somair uranium mine in Niger.
Why? First, the 20-year Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Program agreement between the U.S. and Russia, aka “Megatons to Megawatts,” expires this year.
Second, the end of that program will allow Russia to sell its coveted uranium, which currently powers one of every 10 homes in the U.S., to the highest bidder. With 200 nuclear power plants under construction or on the drawing boards, China is likely to be first in line, with India and even oil-rich Saudi Arabia on its heels.
Continue Reading at CaseyResearch.com…

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Investment Education 101: Housing: Short sale basics



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How Supply in the Bond Market Is Inflating Stocks

Investors are stuck between a rock and a hard place. At the same time that bonds are offering historically low yields, stocks are trading for a healthy premium over their 60-year average. According to the most widely cited estimate, the current premium on the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC  ) is upwards of 24%.

Given the sluggish economic recovery, what's causing asset prices to inflate?

The obvious, though incomplete, answer is that there's been an increase in demand for debt securities from the Federal Reserve. Since the fourth quarter of last year, the central bank has purchased $85 billion each month in long-term treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities. The effect has been to hold long-term interest rates at their current low levels -- indeed, had you told someone 10 years ago that the yield on the 10-year treasury would go below 2%, they would have called you crazy.

The Fed's actions are also a proximate cause for the recent ascent in equity prices. The connection here was discussed by Warren Buffett in a famous speech he gave at the height of the dot-com bubble (if you've never read it, I strongly encourage you to do so).  (more)

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Doomsday investors betting on market crash

Stocks have had a stellar year so far. In fact, the rally has gotten so heated that some investors are making bets on a big crash.

Universa Investments, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year buying crash protection, has attracted a record amount of money into its fund this quarter.

"People are starting to recognize that these market moves are unnatural and distorted," said Universa president and chief investment officer Mark Spitznagel, who declined to say how much is spent on crash protection, citing SEC rules.

Universa's view that a crash is coming is not widely held, making crash protection cheap, he said. Universa buys this protection in the form of options that generate huge returns when the stock market falls by more than 20%. Universa's adviser, economist and former derivative trader Nassim Taleb calls it 'black swan' hedging.  (more)

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