Currency Spikes at 4 P.M. in London Provide Rigging Clues

In the space of 20 minutes on the last Friday in June, the value of the U.S. dollar jumped 0.57 percent against its Canadian counterpart, the biggest move in a month. Within an hour, two-thirds of that gain had melted away.

The same pattern -- a sudden surge minutes before 4 p.m. in Londonon the last trading day of the month, followed by a quick reversal -- occurred 31 percent of the time across 14 currency pairs over two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. For the most frequently traded pairs, such as euro-dollar, it happened about half the time, the data show.

The recurring spikes take place at the same time financial benchmarks known as the WM/Reuters (TRI) rates are set based on those trades. Now fund managers and scholars say the patterns look like an attempt by currency dealers to manipulate the rates, distorting the value of trillions of dollars of investments in funds that track global indexes. Bloomberg News reported in June that dealers shared information and used client orders to move the rates to boost trading profit. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is reviewing the allegations, a spokesman said.

“We see enormous spikes,” said Michael DuCharme, head of foreign exchange at Seattle-based Russell Investments, which traded $420 billion of foreign currency last year for its own funds and institutional investors. “Then, shortly after 4 p.m., it just reverts back to what seems to have been the market rate. It adds to the suspicion that things aren’t right.”

Global Probes

Authorities around the world are investigating the abuse of financial benchmarks by large banks that play a central role in setting them.

Barclays Plc (BARC), Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc andUBS AG (UBSN) were fined a combined $2.5 billion for rigging the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, used to price $300 trillion of securities from student loans to mortgages. More than a dozen banks have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegations traders worked with brokers atICAP Plc (IAP) to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark used in interest-rate derivatives. ICAP Chief Executive Officer Michael Spencersaid in May that an internal probe found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Investors and consultants interviewed by Bloomberg News say dealers at banks, which dominate the $4.7 trillion-a-day currency market, may be executing a large number of trades over a short period to move the rate to their advantage, a practice known as banging the close. Because the 4 p.m. benchmark determines how much profit dealers make on the positions they’ve taken in the preceding hour, there’s an incentive to influence the rate, DuCharme said. Dealers say they have to trade during the window to meet client demand and minimize their own risk.

Currency Patterns

“There are some patterns in currencies that are very similar to what I have seen in other markets, such as the way the price-fixings’ effects disappear so often by the following day,” said Rosa Abrantes-Metz, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, whose August 2008 paper, “Libor Manipulation?,” helped trigger the probe into the rigging of benchmark interest rates. “You also see large price moves at a time of day when volume of trading is high and hence the market is very liquid. If I were a regulator, it’s certainly something I would consider taking a look at.”

WM/Reuters rates, which determine what many pension funds and money managers pay for their foreign exchange, are published hourly for 160 currencies and half-hourly for the 21 most-traded. The benchmarks are the median of all trades in a minute-long period starting 30 seconds before the beginning of each half-hour. Rates for less-widely traded currencies are based on quotes during a two-minute window.

London Close

Benchmark providers such as FTSE Group and MSCI Inc. base daily valuations of indexes spanning different currencies on the 4 p.m. WM/Reuters rates, known as the London close. Index funds, which track global indexes such as the MSCI World Index, also trade at the rates to reduce tracking error, or the drag on funds’ performance relative to the securities they follow caused by currency fluctuations.

The data are collected and distributed by World Markets Co., a unit of Boston-based State Street Corp. (STT), and Thomson Reuters Corp. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters and ICAP in providing news and information as well as currency-trading systems.

Reuters and World Markets referred requests for comment to State Street. Noreen Shah, a spokeswoman for the custody bank in London, said in an e-mail that the rates are derived from actual trades and the benchmark is calculated anonymously, with multiple review processes to monitor the quality of the data.

“WM supports efforts by the industry to determine and address any alleged disruptive behavior by market participants and we welcome further discussions on these issues and what preventative measures can be adopted,” Shah said.

Opaque Market

The foreign-exchange market is one of the least regulated and most opaque in the financial system. It’s also concentrated, with four banks accounting for more than half of all trading, according to a May survey by Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc. Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) is No. 1 with a 15 percent share, followed byCitigroup Inc. (C) with almost 15 percent and London-based Barclays and Switzerland’s UBS, which both have 10 percent. All four banks declined to comment.

Because they receive clients’ orders in advance of the close, and some traders discuss orders with counterparts at other firms, banks have an insight into the future direction of rates, five dealers interviewed in June said. That allows them to maximize profits on their clients’ orders and sometimes make their own additional bets, according to the dealers, who asked not to be identified because the practice is controversial.

‘Incredibly Large’

Even small distortions in foreign-exchange rates can cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars a year, eating into returns for savers and retirees, said James Cochrane, director of analytics at New York-based Investment Technology Group Inc., which advises companies and investors on executing trades.

“What started out as a simple benchmarking tool has become something incredibly large, and there’s no regulatory body looking after it,” said Cochrane, a former foreign-exchange salesman at Deutsche Bank who has worked at Thomson Reuters. “Every basis point is worth a tremendous amount of money.”

An investor seeking to change 1 billion Canadian dollars ($950 million) into U.S. currency on June 28 would have received $5.4 million less had the trade been made at the WM/Reuters rate instead of the spot rate 20 minutes before the 4 p.m. window.

“Funds that consistently trade using the WM/Reuters fix are basically trading against themselves, and their portfolio is taking a hit,” Cochrane said.

FCA Complaint

One of Europe’s largest money managers, who invests on behalf of pension holders and savers, has complained to the FCA, alleging the rate is being manipulated, said a person with knowledge of the matter who asked that neither he nor the firm be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

The regulator sent requests for information to four banks, including Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank and New York-based Citigroup, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chris Hamilton, a spokesman for the FCA, declined to comment, as did spokesmen for Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.

Bloomberg News counted how many times spikes of at least 0.2 percent occurred in the 30 minutes before 4 p.m. for 14 currency pairs on the last working day of each month from July 2011 through June 2013. To qualify, the move had to be one of the three biggest of the day and have reversed by at least half within four hours, to exclude any longer-lasting movements.

The sample was made up of currency pairs ranging from the most liquid, such as euro-dollar, to less-widely traded ones such as the euro to the Polish zloty.

Pounds, Kronor

End-of-month spikes of at least 0.2 percent were more prevalent for some pairs, the data show. They occurred about half the time in the exchange rates for U.S. dollars and British pounds and for euros and Swedish kronor. In other pairs, including dollar-Brazilian real and euro-Swiss franc, the moves occurred about twice a year on average.

Such spikes should be expected at the end of the month because of a correlation between equities and foreign exchange, said two foreign-exchange traders who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on behalf of their firms. A large proportion of trading at that time is generated by index funds, which buy and sell stocks or bonds to match an underlying basket of securities, the traders said.

Banks that have agreed to make transactions for funds at the 4 p.m. WM/Reuters close need to push through the bulk of their trades during the window where possible to minimize losses from market movements, the traders said. That leads to a surge in trading volume, which can intensify any moves.

Index Funds

For 10 major currency pairs, the minutes surrounding the 4 p.m. London close are the busiest for trading at the end of the month, quarter and year, according to Michael Melvin and John Prins at BlackRock Inc. who examined trading data from the Reuters and Electronic Broking Services trading platforms from May 2, 2005, to March 12, 2010.

Reuters and ICAP, which owns EBS, declined to provide data on intraday trading volumes for this article.

Index funds, which manage $3.6 trillion according to Morningstar Inc., typically place the bulk of their orders with banks on the last day of the month as they adjust rolling currency hedges to reflect relative movements between equity indexes in different countries and invest inflows from customers over the previous 30 days. Most requests are placed in the hour preceding the 4 p.m. London window, and banks agree to trade at the benchmark rate, regardless of later price moves.

Opposite Effect

“Since the major fix-market-making banks know their fixing orders in advance of 4 p.m., they can ‘pre-position’ or take positions for themselves prior to the attempt to move prices in their favor,” Melvin and Prins wrote in “Equity Hedging and Exchange Rates at the London 4 P.M. Fix,” an update of a report for a 2011 Munich conference. “The large market-makers are adept at trading in advance of the fix to push prices in their favor so that the fixing trades are profitable on average.”

Recurring price spikes, particularly during busy times such as the end of the month, can indicate market manipulation and possibly collusion, according to Abrantes-Metz.

“If the volume of trading is high, each trade has less importance in the overall market and is less likely to impact the final price,” said Abrantes-Metz, who’s also a principal at Chicago-based Global Economics Group Inc. and a World Bank consultant. “That’s exactly the opposite of what we’re seeing here. That could be a signal of a problem in this market.”

‘Massive Trades’

U.S. regulators have sanctioned firms for banging the close in other markets. The CFTC fined hedge-fund firm Moore Capital Management LP $25 million in April 2010 for attempting to manipulate the settlement price of platinum and palladium futures. The regulator ordered Dutch trading firm Optiver BV to pay $14 million in April 2012 for trying to move oil prices by executing a large number of trades at the end of the day.

Melvin, head of currency and fixed-income research at BlackRock’s global markets strategies group in San Francisco, and Prins, a vice president in the group, said that because banks could lose money if the market moves against them, their profit may be viewed as compensation for the risk they assume. Both declined to comment beyond their report.

“Part of the problem is it’s all concentrated over a 60-second window, which gives such an opportunity to bang through massive trades,” said Mark Taylor, dean of the Warwick Business School in Coventry, England, and a former managing director at New York-based BlackRock.

World Markets, the administrator of the benchmark, could extend the periods during which the rates are set to 10 minutes or use randomly selected 60-second windows each day, said Taylor, who began his career as a currency trader in London.

‘Fiduciary Duty’

Trading at the highly volatile 4 p.m. close instead of at a daily weighted average could erase 5 percentage points of performance annually for a fund tracking the MSCI World Index, according to a May 2010 report by Paul Aston, then an analyst at Morgan Stanley. (MS) For an asset manager trading $10 billion of currencies, that equates to $500 million that would otherwise be in the hands of investors. Aston, now at TD Securities Inc. in New York, declined to comment.

Fund managers rarely complain about getting a bad deal because they’re assessed on their ability to track an index rather than minimize trading costs, according to consultants hired by companies and investors to help execute trades efficiently.

“Where possible, I would always advise clients not to trade at the fix -- but minimizing tracking error is so important to them,” said Russell’s DuCharme. “That doesn’t seem to be the right attitude to take when you have a fiduciary duty to seek the best execution for pension holders.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-27/currency-spikes-at-4-p-m-in-london-provide-rigging-clues.html

NFA's Board approves prohibition of credit cards to fund retail forex accounts

June 23, Chicago — National Futures Association (NFA) announced that its Board approved a ban on the use of credit cards to fund retail forex and futures accounts. This prohibition is subject to approval by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Although NFA's proposed rule prohibits the use of credit cards to fund both futures and retail forex accounts, NFA determined through its study that futures commission merchants currently don't permit this practice.

"Since our inception, NFA has been committed to protecting investors," says NFA President and CEO Dan Roth. "Forex and futures markets are both high-risk and volatile, and individuals who wish to participate should use only risk capital to fund their accounts. Allowing customers to fund accounts with credit cards encourages them to trade with borrowed money."

This prohibition is a direct result of an extensive study by NFA of forex dealer members' business practices. NFA looked at more than 15,000 retail forex accounts and noted that an overwhelming amount of these accounts were funded by small retail customers using a credit card or borrowed funds, and a majority of these accounts were unprofitable.

"Over the last decade, NFA has made significant strides in its regulation of the retail forex markets," Roth says. "From the increase in capital requirements to mandating content requirements so that all customers could receive comprehensive and accurate account information, this proposal is just another very important step to fulfill our mission to protect customers."

http://www.nfa.futures.org/news/newsRel.asp?ArticleID=4432

"End The Fed" Rallies Are Exploding Throughout Germany

This is a fascinating development and one that I had no idea was happening until today. It seems that rallies are spreading throughout Germany protesting the corrupt and dying global status quo. One of the key targets of these groups is the U.S. Federal Reserve system, which as I and many others have maintained, is the core cancer infecting the entire planet.

According to the organizer of these rallies, they have now spread to up to 100 cities and have a combined attendee base of around 20,000.What is also interesting, is that the mainstream media in Germany is calling them Nazis. In Germany, if you don’t support Central Banking, this apparently means you are a Nazi. What a joke. Just more proof mainstream media everywhere is complete and total propaganda. It is also a good sign, since it shows the desperate lengths to which the power structure will go to keep their criminal ponzi alive.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-21/end-fed-rallies-are-exploding-throughout-germany

http://www.infowars.com/video-of-the-day-end-the-fed-rallies-are-exploding-throughout-germany/ 

Prime XM and CNS in latency network battle over 1.5 ms

PrimeXM is a company providing FOREX brokers with an aggregation engine and access to liquidity  providers.   Some broker’s MT4 servers are located at PrimeXM. 

As you know, CNS provides hosted virtual desktops for FOREX traders.  PrimeXM has been directly connected to our network in NYC and UK, which we call “ON NET” for some time now.  Through these connections, CNS traders utilizing brokers hosted with PrimeX M have been enjoying ultra-low latency and high redundancy connectivity to their FOREX brokers.  This is no doubt a mutual benefit to all parties involved, including the brokers (PrimeXM customers) and the end-traders.

Additionally, the CNS network will soon directly connect to nearly 5000 ISP’s and corporate networks and PrimeXM, thru their ON NET connectivity, stood only to gain from their free connection to the CNS network.  This type of connectivity would normally cost thousands of dollars each month.

Typically the cost of connecting each network in a mutually beneficial peering arrangement is split down the middle  (the datacenter charges a  fee).  However, Instead of splitting the monthly cost for the PrimeXM  x-connects in NYC and UK,  CNS has been paying the full fee as a courtesy from the start.

Late yesterday we were notified by PrimeXM that they intend to charge a flat monthly fee to all external hosting providers that utilize  PrimeXM's network as of July 1st.  This does not include the cross connect fee.

We believe any fee to PrimeXM is unreasonable given the great mutual benefits the ON NET connectivity provides.  CNS is bringing traders closer to the brokers, who are PrimeXM customers.  Some of these brokers include:

ADS Securities
Armada Markets
Bank Direct FX
Benchmark Group
Blackwell
DCFX
Divisa Capital
Ethos
FinFX
Finotec
ForexFS
FXCM Mena
Forex.com (UK)
GoMarkets
LMAX
Sensus Captial markets
Synergy FX
Traders Trust

Unless PrimeXM changes their position, ON NET connectivity to these brokers will be terminated on August 1st.   Traders utilizing these brokers will still be able to connect to their broker, however latency is expected to increase to somewhere between 1-1.5ms.

We should extend some caution:  PrimeXM has threatened to cut the x-connects this coming weekend, but are now setting the date as August 1.  We will update you again if anything changes.

If you disagree with this decision by PrimeXM then please contact your broker right now and let them know.  The brokers are PrimeXM customers and are in the best position to make PrimeXM understand the errors in their decision.

We are now reaching out to individual brokers.  We will post updates to this developing situation on our Helpdesk News Page.

Sincerely,

Barry Bahrami
CEO

CNS Responds to PrimeXM Statement

I'm not sure how PrimeXM could possibly be subsidizing any VPS company.  In our case, the opposite is true.  We have been providing PrimeXM with free ON NET access to thousands of CNS traders for some time - at our own expense.  This has made PrimeXM more attractive to end brokers - PrimeXM customers - who have mutual subscribers with CNS.  Certainly there are many traders who would not be with any PrimeXM broker if it was not for CNS.  If Mr. Diethelm can't understand that then maybe his brokers will help him grasp it.  At the end of the day, he is degrading their quality of service too while giving a competitive advantage to our other connected brokers at the same time.

If you look at the Comcast/Netflix dispute, it was the ISP  connecting all the end-users to the content provider that demanded - and received - a fee from the content provider.  In this case, I believe Mr. Diethelm got it backwards.  It is CNS who is bringing thousands of  traders to PrimeXM, not the other way around.

Mr. Diethelm has told me that their hosting end has made losses and they need to break even.  While I can understand that, I don't believe he fully understands his own business and how this technology works.  We do not charge brokers to connect to ON NET because it makes good business sense – but it is very costly.

He also does not understand that in his business, hosting may be a loss leader.  That is, they would not have the back-end – from which they are likely making hundreds of thousands of dollars each month for a decent sized broker - if it were not for the hosting.  Instead, Mr. Diethelm wants to split it and somehow make the hosting side pay for itself.  If real world business could only be so easy….  It would be like KFC charging for napkins.

Instead of saving money during a cash crunch, Mr. Diethelm seems determined to waste it.  By cutting the free connection PrimeXM is receiving from CNS, IP traffic will simply route around to their  paid Internet interfaces - increasing  their Internet transit costs.  On the other hand, our network will directly connect to nearly 5000 ISP's and corporate networks by end of this month and so all he is really doing is saving CNS money on x-connect fees and shooting himself in the foot at the same time.  If there is a complaint to be levied regarding networking costs, it should be coming from us.   The cost of operating our network likely dwarfs what PrimeXM pays to operate theirs.

Mr. Diethelm has the real-world model all backwards and I don't believe any VPS hosting provider will agree to pay these fees.  Certainly any new fees will need to be covered by the end-traders and I'm not willing to do that.  It would be wrong.  At this point, CNS will dispute a new fee from PrimeXM to any currently connected VPS provider.  It would set a very bad precedent  in which the only possible outcome is higher fees to end-traders.  We  are just not willing to go down that road.

Barry Bahrami
CEO

UPDATE:

I just read Mr. Swann's response in its entirety. Our previous response only addressed the points in the article. I should address a couple points:

Despite their claims, I don't believe any VPS provider has agreed to their fee.  We also do not pay fees for any of our other x-connects to other providers.  They obviously appreciate the mutual business we bring each other.

When Mr. Diethelm contacted me that morning, he informed me that they would be cutting the x-connects this coming weekend. Clearly - we have an obligation to inform our subscribers and partner brokers, most especially after his reckless reply of a "disconnect this weekend". It demonstrates some concerning and unpredictable behavior. And so I believe informing our subscribers and partner brokers was the proper course of action. (1-1.5ms is a lot to some traders.)

I can post the entire transcript of our email conversation if it becomes necessary. I prefer they rescind the decision so we can all get on with more productive business.

Finally - as it relates to support: Really the only time CNS Support needs to contact PrimeXM is due to a technical issue on their side. It's usually initiated by a trader with one of their brokers. They should be happy to resolve their issues. The fact is our connections save PrimeXM money and bring in traffic that generates revenue for them. Trades start at the traders terminal, not PrimeXM. PrimeXM should welcome the connectivity we provide.

Click here to order a VPS at CNS

Russia Halts Gas Supplies To Ukraine

After weeks of worthless foreplay whose outcome was known from the beginning despite just as worthless EU middleman Oettinger assuring everyone a deal was imminent any second now, overnight we got the long-anticipated mutual defection outcome and - as we warned - negotiations between Gazprom and Ukraine/EU fell apart with the Russian energy giant halting supplies to Ukraine unless Kiev prepays any and all gas deliveries from now on. Gazprom said it hadn't received payment for a debt it put at $4.458 billion by the Monday deadline it had set. "Ukraine will receive gas only in the amounts it has paid for," Gazprom said.

The reason for the collapse in talks: Kiev wants to pay $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas - the price it had been offered when Yanukovich was in power - but, in a compromise last week, said it would agree to pay $326 for an interim period until a lasting deal was reached. Moscow had sought to keep the price at the 2009 contract level of $485 per 1,000 cubic meters, but had offered to waive an export duty, bringing down prices by about one-fifth to $385, which brings it broadly into line with what Russia charges other European countries.

In other words, the delta was less than $60, and certainly a "fair" offer to Ukraine considering it is what Europe pays. However, it wasn't low enough for Kiev, which certainly is out of money once again having to spend the bulk of its IMF/EU aid to keep its military armed, and the only logical outcome - one in which the country would no longer receive something for nothing - transpired.

This hardly will be surprising to anyone: moments ago Gazprom CEO Miller added that Ukraine is unable to pay for its gas obligations in arrears, something the Ukraine side had confirmed previously when Miller added Kiev had been pumping Russian gas in its underground storage facilities at a blistering pace preparing for just this eventuality.

End result, a few hours ago, Gazprom made the following announcement: "Today, from 10:00 a.m. Moscow time, Gazprom, according to the existing contract, moved Naftogaz to prepayment for gas supplies ... Starting today, the Ukrainian company will only get the Russian gas it has paid for."

Gazprom also warned EU on "possible gas transit risks", meaning since all the gas sent to Europe transits Ukraine, it was quite possible Kiev would simply continue to siphon off Russian gas without paying for it. The problem there, however, is that the parties impacted would be Ukraine's BFFs: Germany, central Europe, and, of course, the UK. And what better way to sow discord among otherwise bosom friends than have them start fighting for Russia's energy scraps...

And now the question: how long before Ukraine's alleged 14 BCM in gas held in storage runs out and Kremlin once again has all the leverage. According to simple estimates, a few months at most, and certainly just in time for Ukraine's winter.

Reuters has more:

Gazprom said on Monday it had filed a lawsuit at the Stockholm arbitration court to try to recover the debt, while Ukraine's Naftogaz said it was filing a suit at the same court to recover $6 billion in what it said were overpayments.

A source at Gazprom said supplies to Ukraine had been reduced as soon as the deadline passed. EU data suggested that volumes were broadly stable as of 0630 GMT (7.30 a.m. BST), but it could take hours for data on Russian gas flows via Ukraine to reflect any reduction in supply in Slovakia or elsewhere.

Any reduction of supply could hit EU consumers, which get about a third of their gas needs from Russia, around half of it through pipelines that cross Ukraine. Earlier price disputes led to the 'gas wars' in 2006 and 2009 and Russian accusations that Ukraine stole gas destined for the rest of Europe.

"The gas for European consumers is being delivered at full volume and Naftogaz Ukraine is required to transit it," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters.

Ukraine's Naftogaz declined to comment, saying it would issue a statement later in the day, but its pipeline operator Ukrtransgaz said it was operating normally.

The "market" was quick to react and "punish" Gazprom:

Russian shares fell on the talks' collapse, which will increase tensions between Moscow and the West and could make it harder to arrange a truce in east Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops are fighting rebels who want the region to be absorbed by Russia.

At 0740 GMT, the dollar-denominated RTS index was down 2.2 percent at 1344 points, while the rouble-based MICEX slid 1.7 percent to 1,476 points, with investors fearful of growing tensions after the failure of talks.

Western countries see the talks as a gauge of Putin's willingness to compromise and had been looking for signs that he was trying to avert the threat of more Western sanctions.

Tensions were already high following Russia's annexation of Crimea after Moscow-leaning president Viktor Yanukovich was ousted and pro-Western leaders took over power in Kiev.

And now that Russia has not only cut off Ukraine but is allegedly once again piling up troops at the border following this weekend's bloodiest escalation yet, it is surely time to BTFD and BTFATH at the same time, because very soon it will surely be time for "Mr Chairman/woman to get to work" and inject gobs more liquidity to give the impression that all is still well.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-16/russia-halts-gas-supplies-ukraine

Even US corporations are fleeing the dollar Titanic

The U.S. dollar is being increasingly dropped as the currency for settling international trade. But perhaps the latest trend provides the most startling evidence yet that the dollar is doomed as the world reserve currency. 

The Financial Times reported today that U.S. corporations are using the Chinese renminbi to buy imports over three times more than they had the previous year:

China's renminbi is rapidly displacing the US dollar as a trading currency not only in Asia and Europe but now also in the US home market.

The value of renminbi payments between the US and the rest of the world rose by 327 per cent in April this year from the same month a year ago (see chart) as more US corporations switched to using the Chinese currency to pay for imports from China, according to data from SWIFT, the international currency settlement firm.

First, US importers can slash the cost of imports from China by agreeing to trade in renminbi rather than US dollars, Lodge said. Second, a recent surge in the popularity of a host of renminbi-denominated financial market instruments are making it easier for US corporates both to hedge currency risk and to earn an investment return from the renminbi they hold.

U.S. corporations are just following the global trend where the largest economies in the world are jumping from the dollar Titanic. Last April, the world's 12th-ranked economy, Australia, joined a growing list of nations that have agreed to bypass the dollar in bilateral trade with China. China, ranked 2nd behind the U.S., also has similar agreements with Japan (3rd), Brazil (6th), India (9th), and Russia (10th). 

Further, the BRICS nations appear ready to shake up the 'world order' with the deployment of their own development bank as reported today byAl Jazeera:

After more than six decades of dictating development policy in much of the emerging world, the Western-led International Monetary Fund and World Bank may soon have some competition.

The BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are reportedly close to finalizing their long-awaited development bank and currency reserve, each valued at $100 billion, in what has been billed as a historic challenge by the world's emerging economies to a global financial architecture that has been dominated by the U.S. and Western Europe since its post - World War II inception.

The IMF and World Bank also appear to be pushing for a global economic "reset". "We need to push the reset button. The world is still much too much caught in a crisis-management mode," said Klaus Schwab founder of the World Economic Forum earlier this year. 

A sentiment echoed by IMF head Christine Lagarde during the same event: 

It's only been on year since China formally called for a new global currency citing similar concerns, as reported by the Associated Press:

China is calling for a global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week's London summit on the financial crisis.

The surprise proposal by Beijing's central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea.

The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan

Additionally, in the midst of this global currency shakeup former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker has hinted at a new Bretton Woods to prevent "destructive financial crisis." 

Volcker said in his Bretton Woods speech this past May:

Was the exorbitant privilege of the dollar as a reserve currency also a dangerous temptation to procrastinate - an impediment to timely policy adjustments, risking eventual breakdown?....

A new Bretton Woods conference? We are long ways from that. But surely events have raised, whether we want to admit it or not, some fundamental questions that have been ignored for decades.

Maybe the reset is happening right in front of us. If U.S. companies choose to abandon dollars for imports, the dollar is in very big trouble, and China may get their wish of a new global currency after all - the renminbi.

http://www.sott.net/article/280341-Even-US-corporations-are-fleeing-the-dollar-Titanic

Venezuela Hookers Now Make More As FX Traders

"The dollar is king these days, but having them comes at a price," notes one working girl as Venezuelan prostitutes can more than double their earnings by moonlighting as currency traders, "yes, we got dollars to afford the things our families need, but we have to sell our bodies for it." The dollar shortage is turning Venezuela into a two-tier society similar to the Soviet Union and Cuba, said Steve Hanke; as Bloomberg notes, those with access to dollars such as prostitutes, tour agents, airport taxi drivers and expatriates are able to shield themselves from inflation by trading their greenbacks at ever higher rates. Those who can’t are seeing their living standards decline. Socialism at work...

As Bloomberg reports,

The bolivar has fallen to 71 to the dollar from 23 on the black market since President Nicolas Maduro succeeded his mentor Hugo Chavez in April 2013. The government tightened currency handouts to stem the outflow of foreign reserves, which are near a decade low. The official exchange rate, reserved for imports of food and medicine, is 6.3 bolivars per dollar.

The dollar shortage is turning Venezuela into a two-tier society similar to the Soviet Union and Cuba, said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Those with access to dollars such as prostitutes, tour agents, airport taxi drivers and expatriates are able to shield themselves from inflation by trading their greenbacks at ever higher rates. Those who can’t are seeing their living standards decline.

In a country where prostitution is legal, it is the black market in dollars that Maduro has called “perverse,” saying it was designed by the bourgeoisie to destroy his Socialist government.

And so, as one prostitute explains, "greenbacks are king"...

The arrival of a Liberian-flagged freighter with Ukrainian, Arab and Filipino sailors spells one thing for Elena -- dollars.

Within hours of hearing of the ship’s imminent arrival, she has packed her bags and is heading to the crumbling city of Puerto Cabello. It is a 450-kilometer (280-mile) journey from her home in the Western state of Zulia that Elena finds herself doing more often now as Venezuela’s economy contracts, the bolivar slumps and prices soar.

Prostitutes more than double their earnings by moonlighting as currency traders in Puerto Cabello. They are the foreign exchange counter for sailors in a country where buying and selling dollars in the streets is a crime -- and prostitution isn’t. Greenbacks in the black market are worth 11 times more than the official rate as dollars become more scarce in an economy that imports 70 percent of the goods it consumes.

“The dollar is king these days, but having them comes at a price,” Elena, who uses an alias to protect her identity, said late last month in a room she rents in a Puerto Cabello brothel. “Yes, we got dollars to afford the things our families need, but we have to sell our bodies for it.”

The benefits of the trade are stacked around Elena’s room in the Blue House brothel -- bags of rice, flour, sugar and cooking oil -- products that other Venezuelans have to line up for hours to buy at regulated prices in shops, if they can find them at all.

FX traders have been jailed and businesses demanding too high a profit margin shut down but prostitution thrives...

Officials have tried jailing traders, shutting down brokerages and setting up four parallel exchange systems to stem the rise of the unofficial rate in the 11 years since Chavez began controlling the bolivar’s price.

Prostitution has become the only boom industry in Venezuela’s biggest port.

Officials have tried jailing traders, shutting down brokerages and setting up four parallel exchange systems to stem the rise of the unofficial rate in the 11 years since Chavez began controlling the bolivar’s price.

“We can make more in two hours here than working in a shop in a month,” said a prostitute who calls herself Giselle, as she sipped a 12-year-old whiskey in Club 440 striptease joint.

And it's unlikely to end soon...

The percentage of households living below the poverty line rose six percentage points to 27.3 percent in the second half of last year, the first increase since 2010

For women like Giselle, Elena and Paola, prostitution for dollars has become a lifeline keeping them from poverty.

“We haven’t studied, we have no education. What would we do now if we stopped?” said Giselle. “Work for a minimum wage that doesn’t even pay for food? If we wouldn’t be here working the scene, we would be living on the streets.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-09/venezuela-hookers-now-make-more-fx-traders

EES: Euro goes negative on deposit rate

For some, today a surprise move from the ECB making the Euro the first major currency with a negative deposit rate.  Mario Draghi reduced the deposit rate to -.10 pc from zero - meaning that instead of receiving interest for depositing Euros you pay - and slowly your account is drained to nothing (although at this rate it would take 1000 years, not considering compounding.

From Bloomberg:

The European Central Bank cut its deposit rate below zero and said it would announce further measures later today as policy makers try to counter the prospect of deflation in the world’s second-largest economy.
ECB President Mario Draghi reduced the deposit rate to minus 0.10 percent from zero, making the institution the world’s first major central bank to use a negative rate. Policy makers also lowered the benchmark rate to 0.15 percent from 0.25 percent. Draghi will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. in Frankfurt.

According to the above EUR/USD daily chart, traders reacted mildly considering the EUR/USD recent drop from 1.40 highs.  The bigger question, if this downtrend will hold 1.34/1.35 support here, defining a range as appears in the chart.

Open a Forex Account and Trade the Euro by clicking here

Draghi Disappointment Fears Spike: FX Volatility Surges To 30-Month Highs

While US equity implied volatility has been flat to slightly higher in the last week (as stocks have soared), FX volatility has remained near record lows... until today. Ahead of Draghi's big day tomorrow, EURUSD implied volatility has spiked from around 5 to over 17 - its highest since Dec 2011 - as investor anxiety over Draghi disappointing mixes with a record high short position in EUR FX Futures... it seems more than a few are concerned that Draghi's promise is more hope than reality.

Open a Live individual Forex trading account with EES

China Scrambling After "Discovering" Thousands Of Tons Of Rehypothecated Copper, Aluminum Missing

"Banks are worried about their exposure," warns one warehousing source, "there is a scramble for people to head down there at the minute and make sure that their metal that they think is covered by a warehouse receipt actually exists."

The rehypothecated catastrophe that we discussed in great detail here (copper financing), here (all commodities), and here (global contagion) appears to be gathering speed as the China's northeastern port of Qingdao has halted shipments of aluminum and copper due to an investigation by authorities after they found "there is a discrepancy in metal that should be there and metal that is actually there."

Copper prices are tumbling already (despite Gartman's most recent prognostication on Dr. Copper's China recovery meme) as the world's 7th largest port disallows any shipments until the probe is complete.

"It's such a massive port I would think virtually everybody has exposure," warned one analyst, adding that this will be bearish for metals as "a lot of Western banks will try to offload material and try not to deal with Chinese merchants."

Reuters reports,

China's northeastern port of Qingdao has halted shipments of aluminium and copper due to an investigation by authorities, causing concern among bankers and trade houses financing the metals, trading and warehousing sources said on Monday. Port authorities could not immediately be reached for comment. China has a public holiday on Monday.

"We were told we can't ship any material out while they do this investigation," a source at a trading house said. The port of Qingdao is China's third-largest foreign trade port and the world's seventh-largest port, trading with 700 ports in more than 180 countries, according to its website (www.qdport.com/).

"Banks are worried about their exposure," one warehousing source in Singapore said.

"There is a scramble for people to head down there at the minute and make sure that their metal that they think is covered by a warehouse receipt actually exists," he said.

Metal imports have been partly driven in China as a means to raise finance, where traders can pledge metal as collateral to obtain better terms. In some cases the same shipment can be pledged to more than one bank, fuelling hot money inflows and spurring a clampdown by Chinese authorities.

"It appears there is a discrepancy in metal that should be there and metal that is actually there," said another source at a warehouse company with operations at the port.

"We hear the discrepancy is 80,000 tonnes of aluminium and 20,000 tonnes of copper, but we hear that the volumes will actually be higher. It's either missing or it was never there - there have been triple issuing of documentation," he said.

Beijing last year set new rules to curb currency speculation amid signs that hot money inflows helped push the yuan to a series of record highs. The rules required banks to tighten the management of their foreign exchange lending and types of clients that are able to access those loans.

"It's such a massive port I would think virtually everybody has exposure," the trading source said.

"Once the investigation is over, it could be bearish for metals. I think that a lot of Western banks will try to offload material and try not to deal with Chinese merchants," the trading source added.

Critically - this is a major problem for any shadow-banking credit creation process as if the rehypothecated commodity-backed CCFDs are ultimately unwound, 1) someone will not get their collateral (payment problems - bailouts?), 2) less real collateral means less real credit expansion (which banks can;t fill because the firms that use this method of financing are anything but creditworthy), and 3) liquidation of any assets will proceed rapidly...

Goldman concludes that "an unwind of Chinese commodity financing deals would likely result in an increase in availability of physical inventory (physical selling), and an increase in futures buying (buying back the hedge) – thereby resulting in a lower physical price than futures price, as well as resulting in a lower overall price curve (or full carry)." In other words, it would send the price of the underlying commodity lower.

Finally, as we showed before when it comes to commodity financing deals, in terms of total notional value, both copper and aluminum pale by comparison to the one metal most used (by value) in China as a funding substitute: gold

As we commented previously:

When we previously contemplated what the end of funding deals (which the PBOC and the China Politburo seems rather set on) may mean for the price of other commodities, we agreed with Goldman that it would be certainly negative. And yet in the case of gold, it just may be that even if China were to dump its physical to some willing 3rd party buyer, its inevitable cover of futures "hedges", i.e. buying gold in the paper market, may not only offset the physical selling, but send the price of gold back to levels seen at the end of 2012 when gold CCFDs really took off in earnest.

In other words, from a purely mechanistical standpoint, the unwind of China's shadow banking system, while negative for all non-precious metals-based commodities, may be just the gift that all those patient gold (and silver) investors have been waiting for.  This of course, excludes the impact of what the bursting of the Chinese credit bubble would do to faith in the globalized, debt-driven status quo. Add that into the picture, and into the future demand for gold, and suddenly things get really exciting.

So if tens of thousands of tons of copper and aluminum are suddenly "missing", one can assuredly say: "at least the gold is still there." Right?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-04/china-scrambling-after-discovering-thousands-tons-rehypothecated-copper-aluminum-mis