Ronald Stoeferle: “Last Week We Were Really Close To A Default of The 130-to-1 Paper Gold Market”

Ronald Stoeferle of Erste Bank discusses the recent moves in the gold price with Tekoa Da Silva. Listen to the interview here

Jim Grant - Gold is the Alternative to Central Banks

RBA to buy Yuan demoninated Debt

Now if only the boffins at the RBA would buy some gold whilst it is on sale, but that would be too radical, much better to buy some pretty paper instead.

From smh.com.au

The Reserve Bank has underlined its confidence in the Chinese yuan's future role as a reserve currency for the Asian region, saying it will invest $1.6 billion in Chinese government debt.

As part of a push to deepen financial ties with Australia's biggest trading partner, the central bank will put 5 per cent of its $32.4 billion in net foreign exchange reserves into Chinese sovereign bonds, it said on Wednesday.

After China this month allowed direct trade between the Australian dollar and the yuan, or renminbi (RMB), the move is another attempt to spur on the gradual opening up of China's financial system.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/rbas-16b-investment-points-to-future-in-yuan-20130424-2if1q.html#ixzz2ROV3k1en

Lest we forget

Today Australia and New Zealand commemorates ANAZC Day. On this day we recognize the ultimate sacrifices that Aussies and Kiwis paid fighting shoulder to shoulder in thousands of pointless campaigns, where "our" men fought "their" men for the enrichment of the same elite. The wars may have been pointless but their sacrifices for each other were not. Lest we forget.

Ron Paul concerned about the US Dollar not Gold

CNBC on the AP Flash Crash Tweet

Finally someone mentions autonomous trading software.

Goldman Revises Bet on Gold

Jeremy Scahill: The Secret Story Behind Obama's Assassination of Two Americans in Yemen

From democracynow

Hacking Twitter for Fun and Profit

Yesterday US time the twitter account of The Associated Press (AP) was hacked and the following false breaking news tweet was sent out:

Instantly markets spiked lower, the most notable being the SP500 index free falling by 1% before recovering 3 minutes later. If you are wondering how traders could keep up with the "news", analyze the effect and place relevant trades instantly well the sad truth is they don't. Most trading firms use computer trading software to read trusted news and market participant's:  tweets, newspapers, websites, etc. The software then analyzes that data and based on weighted outcomes of that news places trades without reference to human traders. So this is how one tweet, from a trusted source, can be read, analyzed and a trading strategy formed and executed in the space of a second if not less. Note the best of these programs can execute individual trades measured in picoseconds ( 10⁻¹² of a second).

One has to wonder if the hackers had just out of the money puts on the SP500 index waiting to capture the drop?

According to zerohedge 26,000 SP 500 e-mini contracts traded in 3 mins, see chart below:

For an amazing 3D animated chart of this event from Nanex click here

From RTAmerica

From smh.com.au

Gold mining becomes unprofitable

From smh.com.au

Newcrest Mining is reviewing the future of some of its mines, as the recent plunge in the gold price continues to take a toll on the nation's fourth-biggest mineral export industry.

Newcrest was one of several ASX-listed goldminers to reveal March-quarter results on Tuesday, and the publication of production costs revealed that numerous mines across Australasia are unprofitable at current gold prices.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/newcrest-weighs-up-future-of-mines-20130423-2icva.html#ixzz2RKCUaQzB