Pressure Put On Massive Governmental Debts By Fed
Pressure Put On Massive Governmental Debts By Fed
An excerpt from Bob Chapman's weekly publication.
January 4 2012: Iowa vote tally anticipates occupy protesters, Japan shores up the dollar with Yen, need to know who is segregating client funds, Fed to be a litle more accountable, Trillions and trillions of debt held by governments around the world.
The Iowa Republican party is moving its caucus night vote counting operation to an undisclosed location because of planned "Occupy Iowa Caucus" protests.
State GOP chair Matt Strawn was critical of the protests and said it's ironic that the Occupy movement is focusing on the Iowa caucuses.
"There's really no more grassroots process in American politics than the Iowa caucuses," Strawn said in an interview. "So it's a little puzzling why they'd choose to disrupt that process."
Strawn said the party is coordinating with local law enforcement to ensure smooth operations next Tuesday at the 1,774 precincts around the state.
"We're taking additional safeguards when it comes to the counting and tabulating and reporting of the caucus night results to make sure they're done in a timely and accurate fashion," he said.
In past years the counting took place at Republican Party headquarters, Strawn said. On Tuesday, it will happen at a secret location that will be known to the campaigns, which will have representatives on hand to view the vote count.
Strawn wasn't specific about caucus night concerns, but a handful of protesters were arrested on Wednesday trying to enter the Des Moines campaign headquarters of Mitt Romney.
Occupy activists from around the country have convened in Iowa to join local activists in an effort to draw attention to economic and political inequities.
Arthur Sanders, professor of politics at Drake University in Des Moines, said they area already succeeding by that measure.
"They see an opportunity to draw attention to what they think is important, which is a very different agenda than the Republican candidates have," he said. "They'll get the attention they want."
Gold Radio Cafe: The Gold and Silver Financial Review With Bob Chapman http://blogtalk.vo.llnwd.net/o23/show/2/646/show_2646411.mp3
Interview 441 – Bob Chapman http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-441-bob-chapman/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campai gn=Feed%3A+CorbettReportRSS+%28The+Corbett+Report% 29
Last week the Dow fell 0.6%, S&P 0.6%, the Russell 2000 1.0% and the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.4%. Cyclicals were unchanged, transports fell .07%; consumers fell 0.4%; utilities rose 0.4%; banks fell 1.4%; broker/dealers fell 1.8%; high tech fell 10.7%; semis fell 1.1%; Internets fell 0.8% and biotechs rose 1.5%. Gold bullion fell $43.00; the HUI gold index fell 2.6% and the USDX rose 0.2%.
The 2-year US T-bill fell 4 bps to 0.23%. The 10-year T-note fell 15 bps to 1.88% and the 10-year German bund fell 13 bps 1.82%.
Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed rate mortgages were up 4 bps to 3.95%. The 15’s were up 3 bps to 3.24%; one-year ARM’s rose 1 bps to 2.78 and the 30-year fixed rate jumbo fell 1 bps to 4.67%.
Fed credit surged $35.4 billion to a record $2.920 trillion. Fed foreign holders of Treasuries and Agency bonds fell $20.3 billion to $3.420 trillion. Custody holdings of foreign central banks rose 2.1% ytd, or by $69.9 billion.
M2 narrow, money supply fell $6.4 billion to $9.666 trillion. That is up 9.6% ytd.
Total money fund assets rose $2.6 billion to $2.695 trillion.
Total commercial paper out fell $27.2 billion to $959 billion.
The drop in foreign holdings would be far more pronounced had Japan not intervened to buy dollars and sell yen during August and October. The proceeds of dollar purchases, seen in the vicinity of $100 billion in October, went mainly into the Treasury market…Late on Friday the New York Fed announced that the central bank plans to purchase approximately $45 billion and sell approximately $44 billion in Treasury securities under Operation Twist over the month of January.
The City regulator is under growing pressure to launch a review into its handling of MF Global's UK administration amid accusations it neglected clients of the failed broker.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection in New York in October after making disastrous bets on the bonds of Europe's most indebted countries.
Despite this, UK clients of the company have complained that hundreds of millions of funds held in segregated customer accounts entirely separate from the broker continue to be held by administrators weeks after its collapse.
The KPMG-led administration is the first under the Financial Services Authority's (FSA) new "Special Administration Regime" (SAR) designed to speed up the return of assets to creditors and improve cross-border co-operation between authorities.
Paul Gleeson, of Arcanum Asset Management, said: "Since the end of October, I have made numerous attempts to talk to someone at the FSA who can explain to me why cash held in segregated accounts cannot be distributed. I have written twice to Hector Sants [FSA chief executive] without reply.
"Those questions have huge implications for the broking industry. How do we know which firm is actually segregating client funds? Hector Sants has got to be accountable. Each inquiry I made to the FSA I was told to contact KPMG."
Last month KPMG said it had located all of MF Global UK's money and had so far collected 82pc of clients' segregated-fund assets. However, clients will not receive their money until later this year.
Since then, James W Giddens, the trustee liquidating MF Global's US business, said he is seeking the return of more than $600m (£383m) from the broker's UK business, sparking fears of a cross–border fight over customer funds.
Mr Giddens said he had identified up to $700m in US customer funds at MF Global UK. That money, he said, was held for clients who traded on foreign exchanges.
A spokesman for the FSA said: "Under the SAR extensive work has been carried out by KPMG and the FSA to ensure the swift return of client money and assets. In what has been an extremely complex process to get to a position whereby KPMG have announced an interim distribution as soon as practicable represents considerable progress."
The Federal Reserve will start updating the public four times a year on how long it plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows, according to minutes from its December policy meeting.
The change marks a significant shift in the Fed'scommunication strategy. It could help assure investors, companies and consumers that rates won't rise before a specific time. This might help lower long-term yields further in effect providing a kind of stimulus.
The Fed has previously said that it plans to keep its key short-term rate near zero until at least mid-2013, unless the economy improves.
The Fed has left rates near zero for the past three years.
After its Dec. 13 meeting, the Fed issued a policy statement that portrayed the U.S. economy as improving slightly. But the central bank declined to take any additional steps to boost growth.
The minutes also suggest the Fed could be poised to launch some new step to invigorate the economy. Some members favored bolder action but said they wanted to wait until the more explicit communication policy was in place.
"The potential for increased transparency is a positive," said Michael Murphy, managing partner and CEO of Rosecliff Capital. "It will give the markets more access to the thought process of the FOMC. It could definitely wreak havoc if they are not clear on what they are trying to accomplish."
In January, the Fed will release an interest rate forecast for the fourth quarter of 2012 and for the next few calendar years. It will update that forecast four times a year.
A Margin for Error in Hedge-Fund Filings [This does NOT include mark to fantasy positions.]
For years, finance experts have put together statistical analyses that suggest something fishy is going on with some of the reported returns in a large universe of hedge funds. New analysis conducted by Gjergji Cici of the College of William and Mary, and Alexander Kempf and Alexander Puetz of the University of Cologne adds to the questions.
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