MF Global foreign branches to return funds

MF Global customers abroad may see their frozen funds at least partially returned in the near future, according to several reports this weekend. In the UK, clients subject to the asset freeze may submit claims in two weeks, while in Canada, a court has ordered MF Global’s trustee to begin making cash payments.

KPMG, the firm now responsible for MF Global’s UK branch, says that customers may submit claims beginning December 8. “This helps to create certainty around the number and size of claims with the intention of allowing a return of a proportion of client funds before March 30 2012,” explained Richard Heis, joint special administrator of MF Global UK. The amount clients can expect to recover will depend in turn on what KPMG receives from banks, exchanges, and other institutions. Approved claims will be paid within 14 days. This announcement comes on the heels of a US court order granting American trustees access to company funds. While MF Global’s American operations have been plagued by reports of missing millions (if not billions), these shortfalls are not expected to affect clients in the UK.

http://www.cftclaw.com/2011/11/mf-global-international-branches-return-funds/

Europeans prepare for Euro breakup, riots

REPORT: FRANCE, GERMANY PREPARE TO TAKE DRASTIC MEASURES...

Banks brace for breakup of euro...

RIOTS WARNED...

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns

British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.

EES Hardware Development Survey

EES is developing a trading hardware appliance for traders and would like your feedback:

http://eesfx.com/portal/ees-fx/surveys?survey=1

Understanding RAM Timings

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Understanding-RAM-Timings/26

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_timings

Memory timings (or RAM timings) refer collectively to a set of four numerical parameters called CL, tRCD, tRP, and tRAS, commonly represented as a series of four numbers separated with dashes, in that respective order (e.g. 5-5-5-15). However, it is not unusual for tRAS to be omitted, or for a fifth value, the Command rate, to be added on. It also remains a common practice to advertise only CL. These parameters define, in clock cycles, the various forms of latency (responsiveness to random requests) that affect fundamental performance metrics of random access memory. Lower numbers indicate fewer clock cycles are needed, implying faster performance.

Moody's cuts Hungary to junk HUF down 1.8%

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/11/25/idINIndia-60726220111125

(Reuters) - Credit rating agency Moody's cut Hungary's debt to "junk" grade late on Thursday, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Viktor Orban's unorthodox economic policies and prompting his government to denounce the move as a "financial attack".

Moody's lowered Hungary's sovereign rating by one notch to Ba1, just below investment-grade, with a negative outlook, only hours after rival Standard & Poor's held fire on a flagged downgrade after Budapest said it would seek international aid.

Germany, Euro on death watch

Investors began to fear the worst for the euro after unusually weak demand at an auction for bonds from Germany, the region’s largest economy. One analyst went so far as to put the currency on a “death watch.”

AP

Germany sold just 60 percent of the 6 billion euros in 10-year bunds it brought to auction, about the weakest demand seen for the country’s debt in the currency’s 16-year history, economists said. The rejection of debt from Europe’s safe harbor marks a new stage for the crisis.

“No bunds wanted equals no Euros wanted equals the Euro death watch,” wrote Mark Steele, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets. “We have seen many poor German auctions. This is not the issue. The issue is how badly the euro is doing after the weak auction.”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45418399/print/1/displaymode/1098/ 

"Disastrous" bond sale shakes confidence in Germany

(Reuters) - A "disastrous" German bond sale on Wednesday sparked fears that Europe's debt crisis was even starting to threaten Berlin, with the leaders of the euro zone's two biggest economies still firmly at odds over a longer-term structural solution.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/23/us-eurozone-idUSTRE7AM0VR20111123

Soil is the hot commodity

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/us-farmland-idUSTRE7AK0EA20111121

(Reuters) - It took just 31 minutes for Donald Ellingson's family to end an agrarian tradition that had survived more than a half-century, by auctioning off 153 acres of rich Iowa farmland.

Five years after their father's death, Ellingson's three children had grown weary of the demands of running a farm. Their tenant farmer had retired, and finding a new one was tough. The youngest of them was 60 -- too old, they agreed, to return to a life of risky finances and long work days.

EES Partner - ADVFN Free financial news & data services

GERMANS TRY TO KILL OFF POUND

BRITAIN will soon be forced to scrap the pound and join the euro, one of Germany’s most senior figures said yesterday.

In a chilling threat to UK sovereignty, German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble predicted that all Europe would one day use the single currency. “It will happen perhaps faster than some in the British Isles currently believe,” he said. 

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/284656/Germans-try-to-kill-off-pound

Stamford and the World's Largest Trading Floor

Washington Boulevard at Interstate 95 is Connecticut’s version of Wall Street at Broad.

This is where UBS, aka the Union Bank of Switzerland, sits on one side of the street, a short walk from the Stamford train station into Manhattan. On the other side is RBS, aka the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The trading capital of Connecticut is now all up in arms, it seems, because UBS is talking about moving out.

UBS' 103,000-square-foot trading floor in Stamford.

Denizens are warning that the city will “become a ghost town,” if the Swiss bank moves its operations – including its 103,000-square-foot trading floor – into New York City.

Merkel’s CDU Votes to Allow Exits From Euro Area

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party voted to offer euro states a“voluntary” means of leaving the currency area.

CDU delegates meeting in the eastern German city of Leipzig for their annual party congress today backed a motion on the euro that included a clause permitting euro exits without exclusion from the European Union. They rejected an amendment that would have sought to change voting at the European Central Bank so that it is weighted according to economic size.    

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-14/merkel-s-cdu-votes-to-allow-exits-from-euro-area.html

CIA following tweets

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day.

At the agency's Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the "vengeful librarians" also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-cia-following-twitter-facebook-081055316.html

Oakland rally turns violent

CHAOS IN CALI...

'Occupy' Rallies Turn Violent...

Police Tear Gas Oakland Protesters...

Mob Runs Wild in City Streets...

Shut Down Port, Attack WHOLE FOODS, ATMs...

Cops, Protesters Clash in Seattle...

FBI interested in regulatory probe of MF Global

(Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interested in the investigation of MF Global Holdings Ltd, a person briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

The person declined to give details. Regulators said on Monday that the company reported possible "deficiencies" in customer futures segregated accounts.

MF Global, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, is the biggest U.S. casualty of Europe's debt crisis, and the seventh-largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/02/us-mfglobal-fbi-idUSTRE7A076720111102