Bankers among the least trusted, says Which?

Mis-selling scandals and the financial crisis means bankers are now less trusted than estate agents, according to consumer group Which?.

But the group's survey suggested that bankers remained more trusted than journalists and politicians.
Which? said that recent banking scandals meant there was an urgent need for a "fundamental change" in banking culture and practice.
An industry body said that there was a commitment for change among banks.
Which? conducted a survey of 2,060 people, asking how much they trusted various professions. Nurses, doctors and teachers were the most trusted, with bankers, journalists and politicians in the bottom three.
The consumer group said that bankers should comply with a code of conduct or be struck off. They should also be punished for mis-selling, with bonuses clawed back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19639795?print=true

System Expectations

I found myself outside today looking for an excuse to make a video. It's 80°F / 27°C, sunny skies and a soft breeze in Dallas. The last place anyone wants to be is in front of the computer when the weather is this nice.

No doubt that some active daytraders or people that hate their jobs are thinking the same thing. I suspect that the motivation for most people making automated expert advisors is the dream of making money without doing anything. Turn on the software and wait for the trading profits to roll in. That was certainly the case with the company Forex Made Sleazy... I mean, Forex Made Easy several years ago.

We do have a handful of customers that trade profitably, but even then, it takes a long time for an automated system to get to the point where it's largely hands off. The best conceived ideas, which I would define as plausibly worthy of my own investment funds, takes a bare minimum of several months to execute from start to finish. This also presumes the unlikely notion that the idea has genuine potential to start with.

Even the most simple, valid concepts encounter substantial setbacks before the system can truly run hands-free. It's usually not some kind of epic programming disaster where the client wants black and the programmer makes white. Don't get me wrong; communication is critical. The smoothest projects are always the ones where both parties understand one another readily.

Nonetheless, even the most well-oiled team experiences countless hiccups in the process of morphing from idea to reality. Simple ideas often fall the most vulnerable to real world problems. Trade execution stands out as the most common obstacle. If anything goes remotely unexpected, a potentially profitable scenario may lead to unexpected losses.

I worked with one client that came up with a simple idea that mathematically showed a heavy positive expectation. Yet when we launched the idea in the real world, the prices that the system absolutely required in order to function never came through. Slippage occurred precisely when it was the most damaging.

We had to go back to the drawing board looking for ways to re-engineer the expert advisor where the importance of execution declined. That setback alone took several months to overcome in any meaningful sense.

The take away here is that it's totally unreasonable to expect to hire a forex programmer and expect a dramatic shift in profits and life style. The best ideas take several months before they are worthy of running their full account balance. Unfortunately, most of the ideas out there are not good to begin with. That's why making an EA that is profitable over the long run is so incredibly difficult.

Deutche Bank: Gold is Money

Deutsche Bank analysts Daniel Brebner and Xiao Fu  have just released a new report saying that gold is money (via Business Insider):
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-19/deutsche-bank-gold-money

Financial Times reported in 2010:

Intercontinental Exchange, the US futures exchange group, has followed rival CME Group by allowing its European clearing house to accept gold bullion as collateral for transactions.

JP Morgan accepts gold bullion as collateral.

So does Donald Trump.

China is paying for oil with gold.  India is probably doing so as well.

And central banks are considering allowing banks to hold gold as a risk-free, tier 1 asset.

Caveats:  Be careful with unallocated accounts, accounts held by big banks,  paper forms of gold and tungsten (see this,this, this and this).

Finally, note that FDR was not the only leader to confiscate gold.  Gary North alleges:

When World War I broke out in 1914.  The banks suspended redemption of gold for paper money.  This broke their contracts, but the governments all ratified this action.  Then the governments had their central banks confiscate the gold that had been stored in the vaults of the commercial banks.

Hitler, Mao and Stalin also allegedly confiscated gold.

Coin mintage collapsed the Roman Empire. Is history repeating itself?

In the third century AD, the Roman Empire went through a hard period, know as the “military crisis”. This period is characterized by political problems, such as the violent death of the emperors and their family, caused by revolts, plots and military uprisings, military problems caused by the invasion of the empire by the barbarian populations such as the Goths and economic problems such as the lack of production, the decrease of the population, famine in some cases and inflation.

http://www.coins-auctioned.com/docs/coin-articles/coin-mintage-collapsed-the-roman-empire-is-history-repeating-itself

EES: QE3 to start new US Dollar Carry Trade

With the new QE3 announcement, and the Fed stating it will not raise interest rates before 2015, it's likely that the US Dollar will be the new carry trade. The idea is to borrow cheaply in US Dollars and invest anywhere outside of the USD. This will be most felt in emerging markets, which rallied after the Fed announcement.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/872541-qe3-to-start-new-u-s-dollar-carry-trade 

EES: Competitive Devaluation of Currencies via QE3

The Fed's recent announcement of QE3 has undoubted effects on financial markets; but what does it mean for Forex?

The initial reaction would be that it's bad for the US Dollar (UUP) (UDN) which was reflected in Friday's move of EURUSD (FXE) to above 1.31 against the US Dollar. But just last week, traders were expecting a collapse of the EURUSD as the European financial crisis deepens.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/870971-competitive-devaluation-of-currencies-what-qe3-means-for-forex

Swiss banks seek new model as secrecy gone

With their long-cherished secrecy practices increasingly under attack, Swiss banks are scrambling for a new way to attract wealthy foreign clients.

"Banking secrecy is no longer there. That's gone. It is over," international wealth management consultant Osmond Plummer told a gathering of Swiss bankers in Geneva last week.

And once the secrecy ends, he stressed, Swiss financial institutions will have to come up with a new magnet if they want to remain attractive for large foreign placements.

"Something has to change in Switzerland," he told the seminar, focused on wealth management and banking secrecy.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/CNG---64c9d82eeec0f159687294d96a88241d---691

Japan Hints at Possible Yen Intervention

The yen tumbled as Japan looked increasingly likely to intervene to weaken its currency, which had soared to a seven-month high against the dollar earlier this week.

Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi strongly hinted Friday that market intervention to tackle the strong yen may be imminent and urged the Bank of Japan to act, as the currency's strength increasingly threatens to worsen the country's economic slowdown.

The dollar traded ¥78.36 Friday afternoon in New York, up from ¥77.49 late Thursday, its strongest close since Feb. 8, and the seven-month low of ¥77.13 earlier that day. Traders with Citigroup said the dollar began to rise and the yen to fall Thursday after the Bank of Japan inquired with market participants about trading activity in the yen, a move known in the market as a rate check and which can serve as a final warning before an intervention. Japan last intervened in the market in October, when the dollar traded as low as ¥75.31.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444709004577650632272233176.html

TOKYO—A Japanese ruling-party heavyweight said the government must intervene in the currency markets if the yen's rise accelerates sharply, adding to the level of jawboning aimed at controlling the currency's moves and its impact on the economy.

"It will be imperative for [the government] to take steps such as intervention," if the yen surges to threaten Japan's export-reliant economy, Hirohisa Fujii, a former finance minister and current tax policy chief of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said in an interview Wednesday.

"I believe that the yen's current high levels are out of line with the real economy," he said

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303879604577407743768560590.html

US cannot continue the endless sugar rush

America’s central bank is to launch a third round of “quantitative easing”, Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, announced, while extending the length of its pledge to keep interest rates at rock-bottom. On cue, global equities surged, as confidence grew that the world’s leading central banks have “finally taken decisive action” to buttress both the US and European economies.

Bernanke’s move, of course, followed news in early September that the European Central Bank is to engage in “unlimited” buying of the sovereign bonds of “peripheral” eurozone members. This encouraged the belief that monetary union is less likely to crumble, which cheered up global equity markets just before last weekend.

Many traders are celebrating this weekend too, following Bernanke’s words on Thursday, which caused the S&P 500 to extend a rise that has now pushed the index to its highest level since 2007. European shares also reached highs not seen for over a year.

Specifically, Bernanke said that rather than buying US Treasuries, this round of QE will focus on mortgage-backed securities (MBS) – financial instruments linked to bundles of loans previously extended to home-buyers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/9545441/US-cannot-continue-the-endless-sugar-rush.html

US Credit rating cut to AA - as Fed increases QE

Ratings firm Egan-Jones cut its credit rating on the U.S. government to "AA-" from "AA," citing its opinion that quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve would hurt the U.S. economy and the country's credit quality.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49037337

Perma-QE: Lessons from Bernanke's Latest Splurge

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article36525.html

The Fed’s launch of QE3 looks more than a tad desperate. If you believe the central premise of the Fed’s action, that propping up asset price gains would have enough effect on consumptions to lift the economy out of stall speed, it would seem logical to sit back a bit and let the recent stock market rally and the (supposed) housing market recovery do their trick. But the Fed has finally taken note of the worsening state of the job creation in an already lousy employment market and has decided it needed to Do Something More.
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/the-feds-qe3-no-exit.html#Gv1iHbCxHdDBXjPh.99

Global stock markets have risen after the US Federal Reserve moved to kick-start recovery by pumping more money into the economy.

It followed the Fed's decision on Thursday to inject $40bn (£25bn) a month into the US economy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19596238

Marc Faber: The Fed will destroy the world

Complex Systems Theorists predict global riots in one year

What's the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many - poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc - but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It's hunger, plain and simple. If there's a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it's food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense. 

In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest. 

The MIT Technology Review explains how CSI's model works: "The evidence comes from two sources. The first is data gathered by the United Nations that plots the price of food against time, the so-called food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause." Plot the data, and it looks like this: 

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/251073-We-Are-Now-One-Year-Away-From-Global-Riots-Complex-Systems-Theorists-Say

Germany Can Ratify ESM Fund With Conditions, Court Rules

Germany’s top constitutional court rejected efforts to block a permanent euro-area rescue fund, handing a victory to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who championed the 500 billion-euro ($645 billion) bailout.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-12/germany-can-ratify-esm-bailout-fund-with-conditions-court-rules.html

EES: Short-Term Euro To Breakout Higher, Then Its Time To Short

Based on the financial crisis in Europe, we wrote an article about a euro shorting opportunity, "Sell the euro on spikes." On Friday, the euro (FXE) reached recent highs above $1.28. This is clearly a spike. However, the euro may be in for a short-term rally, so traders should wait until the momentum subsides before shorting. It seems the spike is not over.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/854961-short-term-euro-to-breakout-higher-then-its-time-to-short

Jim Rogers on the EU, the U S election, and the next big investment opportunity