Sprott: The Greatest Trade Of All Time

White Paper from Sprott Asset Management

You Still Have Time To Play The Silver Rush

Investment is a game.  The key is knowing how to play it.  Many tout buying the physical.  Just like the last run up last time, its happening again and its not too late, especially if you play the options.  The key is to make sure that IF you choose to play the contracts and not buy physical (say from a dealer within 50 miles of you) that you delegate a percentage toward physical in case the run up can't be manipulated back down and silver finally reaches its fair value, which should be in the range of $130 at the historical ratio. 

$10 Bid/Ask Spread On $14 Stock...HFT Liquidity

There are daily lies by the HFT defenders that all little innocuous HFT does is provide substantial liquidity for capital markets. Then there is reality. Courtesy of this latest catch by Nanex, we have now witnessed a $10 bid/ask spread (!) on a $14 stock. And with that we can cross out the assumption that HFT is i) beneficial for stocks and ii) tightens bid/ask spreads.

The Out-of-Control Explosion of Equity Quote Rates Peak One-Second Equity Quote Rates for each minute from 2007 through Aug 16, 2011

From Nanex.net: 

Lately, readers have sent us links to a few research papers extolling the virtues of HFT, namely, that they provide liquidity, reduce spreads, and probably cure cancer. At first, it appeared that some of these papers were written based on data from another planet, but, upon closer inspection, we realized that they were simply based on very old data. You see, as HFT races towards zero, the data it generates decays just as fast. In other words, any research paper written just 6 months ago, or one that does not take into account recent data, might as well have been written for people on another planet, because it won't accurately describe what is going on in the market today.

There Is A Reason Intelligent People Read Blogs Over TV News

Media manipulation We've all seen it (here, here, here, and here)  .  I'll bet that's why you read blogs and read your news online instead of watching it on TV, you're probably sick of the shit too.  Here are some video's that document the BS that the media has become. 

Prepare For AmeriKa's Lost DecAID

We all know the US is next in line after Europe completely burns to the ground.  Its about time.  As Bank of America forecloses on their customers, essentially treating them with the same respect as Goldman would, the US moves closer to its lost decade (decaid) as the population that depends on the gov't for sustenance and existence swells continuously.  Tonight we'll examine the empirical evidence as published through the Federal Reserve and its member banks in all 12 districts.  The story it tells isn't pretty and when one analyzes Bernanke's paper from on the 1929 depression (linked at the end), the expectation of what he'll do based on that research, will help you better understand how Goldman has gold pegged at $2500 with a AAAA^nth power rating for credit safety.

What I present is an on-going analysis done by Calibrated Confidence of the 10 year Constant Maturity Treasury against the Y/Y change in CPI-U.  Once the data was organized I ordered the CPI-U as "CPI < 0", "0 < CPI < 2", "2 < CPI < 5", "5 < CPI < 10", "CPI > 10".  The behavior of real rates of return (Fisher's equation) against the nominal rate on the 10 Year CMT varies in a statistically significant way under various inflation expectations.  Something to note: Yields on bonds can take as long as 28 months to reflect the changes in CPI.

Jon Stewart On Ron Paul's Media Blackout

Why does the media continue to ignore Ron Paul (on both the left and right)?  The conspiracy is deep and is out in the open. 

Starbucks CEO Calls For CEO's To Boycott Political Donations

From ZeroHedge:

In today's most underreported news of the day, which could potentially have the biggest impact on the future of America, none other than America's CEOs, or at least one of them: Starbucks' Howard Schultz, has mass blasted an email to fellow CEOs asking for a consensual boycott on donating to political campaigns in order to encourage the nation's muppets, elsewhere idiotically called "leaders", to solve America's budget and debt impasse. Bloomberg quotes from the CEO's e-mail to business leaders:"I am asking that all of us forego political contributions until the Congress and the President return to Washington and deliver a fiscally disciplined long-term debt and deficit plan to the American people." Cue panic, terror, homicidal and suicidal screeching, and overall sheer existential angst in D.C., whose critters suddenly face the nightmare scenario of having no corporate bribes, period, until they get to do their job.

Apple's Cracks

From Hanselman.com

So Apple is America's most valuable company. They are, like everyone else, betting the company on the cloud. You may be familiar with the cloud, as it's where all your valuable stuff is. The stuff that you may lose access to at any moment.  The most valuable companies have your valuable data in the cloud. We may think the cloud is decentralized, but it's not. It's totally centralized. All the valuable data is now in one place with one password that's connected to your one bank account. We've centralized and simplified fraud and the public pays for it.

Future US Skill Shortage

From VOXeu.org:

The impending retirement of the baby-boom cohort represents the first time in the history of the US that such a large and well-educated group of workers will exit the labour force. Despite the gloomy outlook of recent research, this column suggests there is little likelihood of large-scale skill shortages emerging by the end of this decade.

Ageing workforces pose challenges to governments around the world. While fiscal issues surrounding pension and social security have been very much in the news, a less well-known issue concerns skills.