| Dollar Rallies on Strong Empire State and Hawkish FOMC Minutes
The Bank of Japan is expected to leave interest rates unchanged tonight at 0.25 percent. No surprises are expected from Fukui who only recently confirmed his hawkish stance. The BoJ will also be releasing their monthly report. It will be interesting to see if the central bank has any comments on the Q3 GDP release. For the time being, short yen carry trades are still working, but policymakers are increasingly concerned. The Japanese government is specifically afraid that a massive carry trade unwind would send the yen skyrocketing, which in turn would cause a big blow to their export sector. Commodity Currencies (CAD, AUD, NZD) - The Commodity Currencies were all down for the day on the back of weaker economic data. Australian wages rose by a less than expected 0.8 percent in the third quarter while house price growth slowed from 3.5 percent to 2.2 percent.
Traders cry foul over NBoT demutualisation
MUMBAI: A bitter wrangle has broken out over the demutualisation of the commodity exchange National Board of Trade (NBoT) with soyabean processors alleging irregularities in the demutualisation process under its chairman Kailash Shahra. Mr Shahra is also chairman of Ruchi Group of Industries.
NBoT executive director Raveesh Bafna, however, denied all allegations stating that all eligible trading members were given the option to become shareholders but none of them opted for it and continued to remain trading members.
Demanding a probe SOPA spokesperson Rajesh Agrawal said: “A delegation led by SOPA has asked the FMC chairman BC Khatua to take necessary disciplinary action against Mr Shahra and dissolve the present board of directors of NBoT."
He also alleged that following demutualisation, shareholding of the exchange was allotted to seven companies directly or indirectly controlled by Mr Shahra.
S.J. County shares in celebration of the potato
Perhaps you haven't heard, but 2008 is the International Year of the Potato. No, really. The United Nations formally launched the observance in October in conjunction with World Food Day. According to the official Web site - www.potato2008.org - "The celebration of the International Year of the Potato (IYP) will raise awareness of the importance of the potato - and of agriculture in general - in addressing issues of global concern, including hunger, poverty and threats to the environment." .
Road to Ruin
The swing could create real pain for investors, since in recent years numerous firms have created trading strategies which have loaded large debt levels onto these 'safe' securities, precisely because they assumed these instruments would never fluctuate in price. 'The last week has seen some of the worst falls in the ABX market this year, especially higher up the capital structure [with highly rated debt],' said Jim Reid, head of fundamental credit strategy at Deutsche Bank." November 2 - Bloomberg (Shannon D. Harrington): "The risk of owning the debt of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc. rose to the highest in at least five years on speculation that losses from the mortgage-market collapse will worsen." November 1 - Bloomberg (Shannon D. Harrington and Hamish Risk): "The risk of owning corporate debt reached the highest in seven weeks as credit-default swap traders bet that companies, including Citigroup Inc., will further reduce the value of securities tied to subprime mortgages.
Japan posts highest trade deficit in two years
Japan ran a deficit of 79.34 billion yen ($801 million) in January, much higher than a year-earlier deficit of 3.49 billion yen and market forecasts for a deficit of 5.6 billion yen. Japan often has a trade deficit in January due to the New Year holidays, but even so analysts said the figures were a worry. "Exports maintained double-digit growth for more than two years from late 2005 but they are now losing steam,'' Naoki Murakami, senior economist at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a note to clients. Imports grew 9.0 per cent from a year earlier to 6.49 trillion yen, the highest figure for the month of January, with imports of crude oil surging 41.0 per cent, the finance ministry said. Exports rose 7.7 per cent to 6.41 trillion yen on a continued fall in shipments to the United States and slower growth in exports to China.
Illinois' new law on guns came too late
There was a huge traffic accident in Michigan a few weeks ago where six people were killed and another dozen were injured. I never hear people calling for banning all cars after those tragedies. Anyway, I guess I better order that Glock and that AR15 I've had my eye on before I can't buy them anymore. " .
The petroleum economy in Texas rose again in 2007 as worldwide demand ...
The Energy Information Agency forecasts that we will be using 60 percent more hydrocarbons in 2030 than we are today. With the demand for worldwide energy rising at a rate 2.5 percent per annum, the rapid growth of economies in India and China, and the anticipated population increases in the undeveloped nations, the predicted 9 billion people on the planet will need all that can be produced from all sources. Precisely for those reasons, it is important that we not be alarmist but prudently plan and deal with our energy opportunities. In the meantime, the Texas oil and gas industry continues to work at full capacity to meet the continued and increased demand. According to recently finalized 2007 statistics of the Texas PetroIndex, 48 percent of the 1,800 rigs drilling in the U.S.
Petron to cut LPG prices by P1/kg
Major oil player Petron Corp. will slash prices of its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) products by P1/kg Saturday midnight.
Petron said the price cut on Gasul products reflect the lower LPG international contract prices.
It has been the third LPG price rollback in February.
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