Jim Rogers breaks down commodities from an old interview.
Jim Rogers : Missing out on Commodities?
Matthew Bradbard’s daily commodity round up:
Brace for the Fed as we expect it to be a market mover. Indecision in the oil market as prices close virtually unchanged today. If we fail to make a new contract high in the next few sessions we should resume the set back we’ve been forecasting, in June that would be a trade over $114.05. A settlement below the 20 day MA should confirm a move lower but before either scenario happens we’re just guessing, that level is $108.90 in June WTI. We suggest the sidelines in natural gas willing to be a seller on a spike higher. We cut losses for clients that still held bear put spreads in the June ES; it resulted in a loss of approximately $400/per position including fees.
America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we’re broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year’s retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.
Most Americans know about that budget. What they don’t know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the “official” budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.
Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the “other” budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. “Our jaws are literally dropping as we’re reading this,” says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “Every one of these transactions is outrageous.”
Fidel Castro confirmed he had resigned from the top leadership of the Cuba Communist Party in an article published Tuesday, after the party approved a raft of economic reforms.
“Raul knew that I would not accept a formal role in the party today,” Mr Castro said in an article on the Cubadebate.cu portal, referring to his brother Raul and his own absence from the party’s new Central Committee, elected on Monday.
Mr Castro, 84, had served as first secretary in the Central Committee of the party – which underpins the country’s communist government – since the party’s creation in 1965.
He said he had handed over the functions of the party head to Raul when he ceded power to his brother because of his own declining health in 2006, though he retained the first secretary title.
You’re quite the traveler! What made you want to start traveling? How many countries have you been to?
I’ve been to 58 countries now, including Antarctica and a few self-proclaimed republics. It all started on my trip to Antarctica when I was 18. It was the best experience of my life. In was then I found my vocation – to vacation. Since I was a little kid I always dreamed about being an explorer. The trip rekindled that passion. Now I refuse to accept an alternative destiny, at least in the medium term.
What was the most interesting country you’ve traveled to and why?
Ethiopia. I could talk all day about it… the women, the culture, the history, the vibe… Let’s just say it’s a very special place for me. I’ll have to dedicate a whole post to it; I couldn’t do it justice in this space. Second place would have to be the Philippines – it’s a sexual playground.
Jim Rogers, Custom Suits, Wynn Las Vegas, Drug Wars, Jesse Ventura, Online Gambling and Steve Wynn Again
Undisclosed Location, South America –
Jim Rogers says:
Q. Given that kind of outlook, where are you investing in China?
Jim Rogers. The only thing I’m buying in China is the RMB. I can’t just pick up the phone and buy millions of RMB as you know, but when I can buy more RMB, I do so legally. I’m not buying Chinese shares. I would like to buy Chinese shares when they collapse. I don’t know when the next collapse will come, but there’s always a collapse in every country, so I would buy more. My view toward China is different from any other investment. I buy these shares, and I plan to hold onto them for my grandchildren – my children, anyway. I hope they own them for their grandchildren, because I’m convinced that China will be the great country of the 21st century.
As dining rooms fill with T-shirt- and Converse-clad social networkers, is dressing up the new way to stand out?
Over the past several years, the dress codes abided and enforced at those ceremonies of formality and occasion, at everywhere from fine-dining restaurants to evening soirées, have become mostly unspoken, unwritten or loosened like so many Hermès ties. And just as these rules—that for so many years were out of favor—disappear, a new generation of formality-loving dandies is choosing (not being told) to dress up.
Some say the casual-Friday-everyday mandate came from the top: the White House. When President Obama took office in 2009, he quickly declared the end of George W. Bush’s jacket-and-tie requirement for staffers and the policy of no jeans, sneakers, miniskirts, tank tops or flip-flops for visitors.
Now, from Manhattan to L.A., the majority of the iconic old-school restaurants that once mandated jackets and ties for men have replaced “required” with “requested.” At the iconic Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel—a second home to Hollywood’s elite since 1912—the once strictly enforced dress code is now “no tank-tops after 10 p.m.” “A few years ago, we had a ‘no-baseball-caps’ policy after 7 p.m.,” said a Polo Lounge manager, “but after Steven Spielberg was turned away for wearing one, we dropped the policy, like, the next day.” Other proper-attire outposts such as Houston’s Da Marco and Baltimore’s The Prime Rib have also recently replaced their jacket-and-tie requirements, with “business casual” encouraged. Some mainstays are simply opening their doors entirely to the sportswear-favoring public.
These establishments tip their fedoras to many of the old haunts that have now eased their rules—and to some that have not. At the 105-year-old New Orleans restaurant Galatoire’s, a weathered plaque on the edifice reads: “Proper Attire Required: Jackets after 5 p.m. and All Day Sunday; Long Pants for Lunch Tues.-Sun.” And that’s the way it will stay, according to John Georges, the principal owner of the French Creole cuisine stronghold. “New Orleans is a town of traditions, with deep respect for them,” he said. “We’re not going to change because of the needs of out-of-towners, or because of the dressing trends of the day,” Mr. Georges said. “If you stick to your principles it pays off—in whatever economy.” In other words, some things never go out of style. A point that will certainly hit home as a new generation of wing-tipped Taleses and Wolfes hit the town, showing everyone how it’s done, again.
Revenue on the Las Vegas strip declined for the fourth straight month in February, the Gaming Control Board reported on Friday. On a year-over-year basis, revenue fell 9.6% in the month, against a 33% gain the previous year. Because the comp was so difficult, analysts didn’t think the result was awful, but they considered some numbers troubling.
The biggest culprit? Analysts are blaming baccarat, which more than doubled (in terms of revenue) last year as Chinese New Year fell in mid-February. Baccarat revenues fell 31% on the strip this February, when the Chinese New Year fell early in the month, the gaming board said. Revenue from table games excluding baccarat actually rose 2.7%.
“Today’s numbers are disappointing,” wrote Hudson Securities analyst Robert LaFleur. “During 4Q10 earnings season we heard commentary that Chinese New Year was very strong. While, drop was basically flat and the comp was tough the strong growth in baccarat that had been sustaining the Strip through much of the downturn appears to be evaporating.”
Organised crime is moving south from Mexico into a bunch of small countries far too weak to deal with it
FOR most of the 20th century, the small countries of Central America were a backwater, a tropical playground for dictators and adventurers. In the 1970s and 1980s they turned briefly into a violent cockpit of the cold war as Marxist-inspired guerrillas battled US-backed tyrants. Places like El Salvador and Nicaragua generated daily headlines around the world and bitter partisan battles in Washington. When the cold war ended, peace and democracy prevailed and Central America slipped back into oblivion. But its underlying problems—which include poverty, torpid economies, weak states, youth gangs, corruption and natural disasters—never went away.
Now violence is escalating once more in Central America, for a new reason. Two decades ago the United States Coast Guard shut down the Caribbean cocaine route, so the trade shifted to Mexico. Mexico has started to fight back; and its continuing offensive against the drugs mafias has pushed them down into Central America.
Whatever the weaknesses of the Mexican state, it is a Leviathan compared with the likes of Guatemala or Honduras. Large areas of Guatemala—including some of its prisons—are out of the government’s control; and, despite the efforts of its president, the government is infiltrated by the mafia. The countries of Central America’s northern triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) are now among the most violent places on earth, deadlier even than most conventional war zones (see article). So weak are their judicial systems that in Guatemala, for example, only one murder in 20 is punished.
U.S. Government Moves To Shut Down World’s Biggest Online Poker Companies
Federal prosecutors today unsealed a sweeping indictment against Isai Scheinberg and Raymond Bitar, founders of the world’s biggest online poker companies, and moved to try to shut down their businesses.
The indictment filed by Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, charges Scheinberg, the founder of PokerStars, and Bitar, the founder of Full Tilt Poker, as well as nine other individuals, accusing them of operating illegal gambling businesses. Federal prosecutors also filed a civil lawsuit seeking $3 billion in civil money laundering penalties, alleging the online poker companies disguised money they received from U.S. poker players as payments to online merchants selling jewelry and golf balls.
The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan moved to try to shut down the online poker business in America by seizing five Internet domain names, including pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com, used by the three main companies facilitating online poker games in the U.S. In addition, a federal judge issued a restraining order against 76 bank accounts in 14 countries utilized by those online poker firms.
Billionaire Steve Wynn Makes Big Online Poker Bet With PokerStars
In a dramatic move that will forever change the online poker landscape, billionaire Steve Wynn has announced he is joining up with PokerStars, the world’s biggest online gaming company, to establish a strategic relationship that aims to regulate online poker in the U.S.
“We are convinced that the lack of regulation of Internet gaming within the US must change,” said Wynn, chief executive of Las Vegas casino company Wynn Resorts, in a statement. “We must recognize that this activity is occurring and that law enforcement does not have the tools to stop it.”
And
How Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Went All In On Online Poker and PokerStars
Nearly two years ago billionaire Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn met Isai Scheinberg, the founder of PokerStars, the world’s biggest online gaming firm, for the first time. Scheinberg generally avoids traveling to the U.S., but the meeting took place on Wynn’s boat while it was anchored in the Mediterranean Sea. Over a three-hour lunch, Scheinberg tried to convince Wynn that the two of them should work together to regulate online poker in the U.S. with an eye toward setting up a joint venture.
It was a tough sell. Wynn had for years opposed online gaming. He was not a big user of technology. When Wynn needed information from the Internet he would just ask his secretary to find it. He also thought it would be tough to regulate online poker. “If the Internet people got in trouble it would bring the wrath of the government down on us in the live gaming community out here in Las Vegas,” Wynn recalls thinking prior to the meeting. “I didn’t see the business opportunity, I just saw problems.”
During their lunch Wynn found Scheinberg to be quiet and reserved, carefully precise with his language and paying close attention to detail. Still, Wynn didn’t take the meeting too seriously. He did, however, take up Scheinberg’s offer to learn more in the ensuing months about how PokerStars conducted business. Wynn says what he learned shocked him, especially the company’s ability to identify any abnormal activity on its web site and stop it. “I only had misconceptions, I had no idea on a number of issues,” says Wynn. “They are highly regulated [in Europe] and I found out they had 1,300 employees and the average salary is $110,000 because they are so intellectual in the design of the programs. One of my concerns was about young people playing. It turns out they have more control about young people playing than we do.”
0:20 It’s a one-sided directive in Europe. The ECB’s only job is to control inflation.
0:55 The big question is whether the U.S. dollar should be the reserve currency; it no longer is, it shares that role with the euro, other currencies, and commodities. But it’s not just gold being used as a substitute, but oil too, which is putting upward pressure on the market.
1:55 The euro is under “some cloud.” It is “quite inappropriate” for the ECB to raise rates right now.
2:30 China, and its inflation problem, is a serious concern. It stimulated its economy, but is now trying to reign in its rate of growth. It is putting restraints on the banking system, but now a shadow banking system is rising. Big banks may not be willing to lend, but the shadow banking system is growing out of control. Real risk of wage and price inflation. Real estate price spike has led to a wage price spike. The Chinese government should have let its currency inflate, but because they didn’t, they now face wage inflation.
4:40 China was the main beneficiary of globalization, and the big winner in the financial crisis.
6:00 State capitalism may have worked better in China lately, but it’s a mistake for others, like Brazil, to follow suit now.
“Two different directives govern the European Central bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve. In the case of Europe, it’s a one-sided directive. Their only job is to prevent inflation, and in the case of the U.S., it is more balanced, to maintain employment and financial stability.”
On whether the U.S. dollar is still a safe asset:
“There’s a big question whether the U.S. dollar should be the main reserve currency and in fact it no longer is because it maybe accounts for two-thirds of the monetary reserves. The euro is an alternative and there’s a lot of diversification into other currencies and even more into commodities. Not only gold, but actually oil is now an asset class for investors. That has put some upward pressure on the commodities.”
On whether the sovereign debt crisis has diminished euro’s chances of becoming a reserve currency:
“The euro is under a cloud, but that is exactly because there are some inflationary pressures from the price of commodities, particularly now oil and also food prices have risen. That is what has induced the European Central Bank to raise interest rates at a time which is, in my opinion, quite inappropriate…It is not appropriate in current circumstances when you have a number of countries that are suffering from too much debt and high interest rates that they have to pay.”
On China’s economy:
“China has really stimulated its economy full force very successfully and now it is trying to rein in the rate of growth, and is exercising very strong constraints on the banking system. But because of that constraint, and because of the big demand for money, a shadow banking system has arisen and is growing very rapidly. So while the big banks under direct central control are in fact refusing to lend, there is a shadow banking system that is growing out of control. There is a real danger there of wage price inflation because prices have gone up, particularly real estate prices have gone up because there was a real estate boom.”
“Therefore, wage demands have risen, and we now have 20%, 30% wage increases. The Chinese government has made a mistake not allowing its currency to appreciate, which would have controlled the price of inflation. Instead of that, we now have this wage pressure, which is a little bit out of their control.”
Violence continues as former president refuses to concede defeat
What began as the week when Laurent Gbagbo would finally concede defeat ended with the Ivory Coast strongman defying the world from his bunker in Abidjan. After watching his area of control shrink to only a few pockets of the lagoon city, his forces pushed back dramatically overnight on Friday with an assault on the French ambassador’s residence.
AFP reported yesterday that Abidjan’s Golf Hotel, headquarters of the internationally recognised President-elect, Alassane Ouattara, had come under attack. The UN evacuated 17 British citizens from the high commissioner’s residence, which is close to the Gbagbo compound.
The heavy weapons that had supposedly been destroyed in joint UN and French air strikes re-emerged as Gbagbo loyalists retook some ground. Arrayed against the 65-year-old loser of November’s election are the combined might of the French Operation Licorne (Unicorn) force, UN peacekeepers and Mr Ouattara’s ragtag army.
The violent standoff has created its own tale of two cities: each day the commercial capital seems poised to return to normal but at night the shooting starts and everything becomes uncertain.
It is not a war with a single frontline. The complications of Abidjan’s lagoon is matched by the complex of alliances that rule its neighbourhoods. In the south of the city, the long queues for food outside the only working supermarket show the struggle to return to normality.
I had a feeling Laurent Gbagbo wasn’t going to roll over.
Gbagbo forces advance again in Ivory Coast
And as if silver bulls needed some more good news, here is a report from the Morgan Stanley metals desk…
I was told on Wednesday that big buying went thru on Tuesday in may atm silver calls which should make the market short gamma.
A short gamma position will become shorter as the price of the underlying asset increases. As the market rallies, you are effectively selling more and more of the underlying asset as the delta becomes more negative.
So what that means is that the SELLER of the calls, probably bought Physical to delta hedge themselves neutral. As this market jumps just about 1-2% daily (this week alone +6.5%) they would need to now re hedge to bring themselves back to neutral by BUYING more Physical as SILVER goes higher, essentially driving the market Higher still and so the chase goes theoretically moving the market higher causing them to buy more to hedge and moving the market higher, thus buying into rallies.
Now they could BUY puts also to create positive Gamma as well to offset some of that pain they are not bound to the Physical for their hedge. Lots of what if’s but that’s the idea.
On the other side if Silver were to gap lower, this would not help either as they would need to SELL Physical into a falling market to re-hedge themselves.
Great in a slow steady market, nightmare in a volatile
“How I see it
Anything you wanna be you can be it
If your mind can preceive it
And your heart really believe it
Then you half way there and all you got to do is do it
And if you give it all you got there ain’t really
Nothing to it” – Dead Prez
Many people out there hate on the “Act as If”/”Manifesto Destiny” method of living one’s life. I guess people just don’t like when you try to better yourself and people don’t like change.
“Everybody look at you strange say you changed
Like you work that hard to stay the same “ – Jay-Z
Well, I am here to say that “Act as If” works. Here are three examples:
Hollywood Agent
Back when I was in college, I took a younger kid under my wing and showed him the ropes. He was a cool kid, and reminded me of myself, so I kind of made him my “little brother”, of sorts. He was really into Hollywood and moved up there right after he graduated.
He got a job in the entertainment industry in talent. He always acted like he was going to be a big shot in HWood. I remember when he first started doing it, people used to hate on him.
Later I heard he became the youngest Agent ever at one of the Majors.
Where is he today?
He now represents one of the actors that I respect the most in the world (and I have respect for very few of them) and is the heir-apparent to run Hollywood. I don’t even have to mention the quality of girls he swoops today.
(Interesting Side Note: Over the last few years, we have been hanging out again here and there. Since he is now the man in Hollywood, he sometimes tries to flow me attitude. I have to slap him down real quick every time. After all, I showed him the ropes when we were young proto-type G’s on the rise. He might be the Prince of Hollywood, but when we are in the same room together, he is still #2.)
CEO
I knew another kid in college who was always a little more serious than the rest of us, who were mostly into partying, drugs, traveling and surfing. He got dissed a lot for studying and being organized; things like that. He was a pretty good surfer also, but not near the best.
Where is he today?
I recently re-connected with him. He is now CEO of a major Surf Company (everyone knows what it is). He made it happen.
“If you follow your dreams you can accomplish anything
If you always do your best then your destiny is king
Of the world” – Dead Prez
Want another example of “Act as If” working?
I would be a prime example (and I don’t mean Prime 112 in Miami Beach either).
For as far back as I can remember, I have always acted like an International Playboy. Even when I was a teenage two-bit Bean flipper.
I would talk about Custom Suits even before I had them. I would talk about Big Bankrolls even before I knew what one was. I would talk about swooping models, even back when I was swooping models. (That last one is a bad example).
International Playboy to the fullest, Oh my Brothers.
Act as If.
“And what you get is what you see
In your mind visually
And manifest physically
If you stick to it shit’ll work out terrificly”
Life is like twistin’ a blunt, it’s how you roll with it
Just figure out what you want and go and get it
anybody tryin’ to stop you
For tryin to do for you That’s your enemy dun
The sun be right up in your crew” – Dead Prez
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
