Gold, Baby
From Reuters as the gold frenzy (literally) hits new highs, this high-gloss take on the precious metal’s recent history:
Twitter Digest: 2011-08-08
- "Waiting for a Landslide" is almost a good Ross Douthat column. What the hell is wrong with the world? http://nyti.ms/pIA4rI ->
- .@epc Yeah, the ASX miracle index. See attached in all its day-glo wonder. http://twitpic.com/639qaa in reply to epc ->
- Laughed out loud a moment ago as Bloomberg terminal ran screaming red headline that an equity index somewhere was actually up. ->
- Favorite metaphorically apropos thing I saw today http://lockerz.com/s/127944873 ->
- Ken "This Time is Different" Rogoff is predicting/suggesting we get a QE3 announcement from Bernanke & Co. tomorrow. ->
- Bloomberg article tonight saying can acquire Yahoo for < value of its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. I'll get right on that. ->
Sorry, No More Fear For Us, We’re Canadian
Canada’s fear index blew up today on too much fear:
TMX Group, Canada’s main stock market operator, along with the Standard and Poor’s launched the S&P/TSX 60 VIX index last October, promising it would offer investors a “powerful” tool to gauge investor sentiment. But on a day when jitters were acute, the so-called fear index couldn’t be calculated because the necessary pricing information wasn’t available. In effect the market was to [sic.] volatile for the volatility index.
via Live Blog: The U.S. Ratings Downgrade, Reaction and More – MarketBeat – WSJ.
We Heart GLD
Eye-popping stuff: August GLD in-flows already approach full-month July totals.
Flows into GLD this month now total $2.5 billion, just shy of the $2.68 billion that flowed into GLD in July, an official at Boston-based State Street Global Advisors said in a telephone interview.
A Study in Central Banks
As I’m over-fond of pointing out, the ECB hasn’t expanded its balance sheet materially since 2009, and every time it tries to lighten now it causes a crisis in Europe. First Greece, then Italy, etc. With that in mind, the following graphic compares the balance sheets at the ECB (EBBS) and Federal Reserve banks (FARBAST) over the past year. Whatever your belief about what central banks should be doing right now, a study in contrasts of how a dynamic system responds to external forces.
Made in the U.S. of China
Eye-opening numbers on U.S. component of “Made in China” products:
Thus, on average, of every dollar spent on an item labeled “Made in China,” 55 cents go for services produced in the United States. In other words, the U.S. content of “Made in China” is about 55%.
via FRBSF Economic Letter: The U.S. Content of “Made in China” (2011-25, 8/8/2011).
