I've been asking IB about the CME-Bovespa integration "IB is in the process of opening up access to the Brazilian markets with hopefully a 6 to 8 week time horizon."
I know you're looking at ways to profit from the oil spill. Here's another take on some companies in the background that have taken a hit that may offer decent value ... http://streetcapitalist.com/2010/06/03/from-oil-spills-to-opportunities/
Nice! Do you know what products they are going to offer? Will be nice to have futures on a BRIC market.
Interesting. I've been long ESV before, I'm considering playing it again. Need to see how global they are
As far as I know it will be everything avaliable on the BMFBovespa. Interesting that the CME integration has been avaliable since late 2008 and IB didnt know about it, only when I gave a CME contact to them to reach, is that they found out
Clarium up 4% in May, which isn't that interesting. However, I found Keving Harrington's comments for the article fairly insightful ... http://www.marketwatch.com/story/story/print?guid=F4FC93AE-37E0-4A56-8548-1364A4E6FE30 Clarium gains 4% in May as deflation trade returns By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Clarium Capital, a hedge fund firm run by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, had a good month in May as deflation concerns crept back into the market. Clarium's hedge fund, which oversees roughly $1 billion, gained about 4% in May, according to a recent update sent to investors. That beat most hedge funds, which suffered as the Standard & Poor's 500 index slumped 8% on sovereign debt fears. See story about the industry's performance last month. Clarium's fund is now down roughly 6% for the first five months of 2010. Clarium has suffered losses because the firm's bets on deflation have been out of favor for more than a year. In February 2009, Clarium was avoiding stocks, while betting on gains in the U.S. dollar, which the firm's Chief Economist Kevin Harrington called "implicitly a deflationary trade." See MarketWatch special report on deflation. Dow below 10,000 as stocks slump A weak jobs report and fresh worries about the euro-zone's economy sparks selling in stocks; and solid gains in Treasurys and the dollar. Stock markets surged soon after and the U.S. dollar lost ground against most major currencies. Clarium had a particularly tough time in September 2009. See full story. Clarium continued to lose money early in 2010 as the global economy picked up steam. But Europe's debt crisis, along with monetary tightening in China and a halt to mortgage buying by the Federal Reserve, have increased concern that the rebound might stall. That pushed investors out of riskier investments and into more liquid assets, favoring the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury bonds in May. "The market stopped discounting inflation and started discounting deflation again," John Burbank, head of global macro hedge fund firm Passport Capital, said this week. "So there's a deflationary environment pending other moves by governments that we may hear about." Clarium's Harrington reckons large fiscal deficits run by developed nations like the U.S. and the U.K. could lead to a period of deflation similar to that suffered by Japan. The U.S. and the U.K. "run very large fiscal deficits, but their central banks aren't monetizing the deficits with aggressive quantitative easing measures," he wrote in an email to MarketWatch in early May. "In that case, the deficits just crowd out private borrowing, and one gets a Japan-like state in which bond markets are choked with sovereign paper." The private sector finds it difficult to borrow at attractive interest rates in such an environment. Later, when governments are forced to stop borrowing so much, the private sector is hit by higher taxes, he added. "That scenario produces some deflation at first, and a lot of deflation later," Harrington wrote.
A must read on the stock market and economic performance http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=4837
" A stock swing of 10% would increase or decrease GDP growth by 0.14%âwhich is significant when you consider that's $58 billion in output that could rise or fall." The last year really created a around 1% of GDP growth, multiplied by 6(thats the historical multiple of gdp growth to earnings growth coming out of recessions, on the national income accounts), thats 6% of earnings growth that the stock market created by being optimistic. A self-fulling prophecy
Another must read http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-sovereign-debt-2010-5#-1 It contains a check list of government measures when debt is large It includes 'Restrict overseas investments by citizens and residents'. At some point most of the smart money is going to have to wire out all their IB money in order not to get screwed by the government
Laffer raises an interesting hypothesis http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...13748386610.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion And he backs with data instead of political pandering He makes a comment on the retirement and tax-free accounts, I'm not a US citizen so I dont have this but it seems pretty darn likely those types of accounts will be taxed in the future to close the deficit, when I have no idea but you can always count on the government to do such things, they said they would never tax SS, but they did. Once a crisis hits watch out for things like 'withdraw fee' 'change in withdraw schedule + early penalty fee' 'tax on high income earners', etc