Consumer Research

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Little about the Uyghurs

In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a very least populated province whereas it covers close to a sixth from the nation's area. Getting resisted while in generations the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Turkistan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.

Muslim most importantly, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identity which, in specific, allowed them to preserve a strong difference towards the Chinese enemy. Definitely, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their own history, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.

Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken on, the Uyghurs taken successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.

The entrance of Islam was a great modification because it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.

If their own writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their aspect, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek origins of these men and these women.

For a few years, China has integrated the proper identity of these remote people, though they represent only eight million inhabitants - a little for this kind of great country. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.

This law allows these people a few privileges in a country exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized as the second official language in Xinjiang.

The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, seems very illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with countries recognized as sensitive, strongly motivated the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater responsibility job opportunities.

In reaction to this true will to assimilate the Uyghurs into the Chinese culture, an independent party like East Turkistan Islamic Movement(ETIM) was born in the early 1990.

Saying more flexibility, but mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area Xinjiang.

The situations of September 11, 2001, were the perfect occasion for the Chinese government to justify true reprisals: they declared the "Uyghur freedom fighters" as dangerous terrorists linked to Al Quaida because of their Muslim origins and their proximity with Pakistan and Afghanistan... However, the terrible repression which followed did not calm down the anger. The Uyghur peoples population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identification and their culture , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.

To get more information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com

ation|Web optimization|Website seo|Seo optimization|Seo optimisation} Expert Advice - Getting Ahead Using SEO

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Making Easy Money

That said, for the non-exact nature of figuring this out, if you don't want to wait for your fortune it probably comes as no surprise that technology is your best bet and is tied for the lowest average billionaire age (thanks, Facebook billionaires) with metal and mining. So if it's young money you're after, pick up a mine or two while you wait for your social network or search engine to catch on. You'll be making the other billionaires feel like slackers in no time.

That's not where the biggest money is though. Perhaps surprising to some is that fashion and retail (which includes grocery stores), is the category that accounts for the most cumulative wealth. More than investments, more than finance and more than technology. Selling actual, physical stuff to consumers is still your best bet of making money. Oh, and for those who noticed Sinaloa Cartel drug trafficking leader Joaquin Guzman Loera on the big list (he falls under "logistics")? {Forbes} Stick to the legal, actual, physical stuff like fashion or food. Not only is the life expectancy better, in the long run so are the profits. You never know though, maybe Loera's already diversified by blinging out weapons.

Now what if it's easy (relatively speaking) wealth you're after? Gaming has relatively few billionaires, and on average they're kind of old. The amount of competition is comparatively small, most will be retiring in general or retiring to that great casino in the sky, so this is a prime market to go after. How to go after it? Well, that's up to you and probably a bit of genetic fortune. If you missed out on being born into a dynasty, your next best bet is to marry into one. If that still doesn't work, there's always the do-it-yourself model. We'll give you a few pointers on that once we appear on the list rather than doing the grunt work of analyzing it. Off to the single billionaires list it is then.

How to Make the Forbes Billionaire List: Young, Big & Easy Billions by YM Ousley originally appeared on Signature9

When Pocketgear changed course recently and announced it was going to be a white-label app store provider for other companies called Appia, I said we should be prepared for an app store onslaught. Well, it appear it may be starting now with Opera opening the Mobile App, a web storefront where 100 million Opera browser users will be able to buy apps.

Opera said the store will be a Speed Dial link in the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers and will offer apps for Android, Symbian, BlackBerry and Java. The number of apps available will vary according to the end device, with the store only presenting apps that work on that phone. Users will get a tailored store experience that includes local language and currency support, too. By leveraging Appia, Opera will have the ability to offer some 140,000 Appia apps on various platforms and will be able to boast its own store with minimal effort.

As I said earlier, the app market is booming with some projecting off-deck app markets eclipsing native app stores in revenue by next year. Forrester Research recently turned heads by predicting the mobile app market will be worth $38 billion by 2015. That’s a staggering sum, considering Apple’s App Store has generated a little less than $3 billion since it opened in July of 2008, with developers taking $2 billion so far. But it shows there’s a lot of optimism in app stores.

Opera is clearly angling to get a piece of the pie by extending beyond simply providing a mobile browser to being a purveyor of content. It’s hoping to leverage its existing reach in 200 countries, which gives it a leg up in competing for eyeballs. Opera said a pre-launch of the Opera Mobile Store in February attracted more than 15 million users, who racked up more than 700,000 downloads per day.

With everyone rushing to create app stores, I don’t know if anyone but a handful will get the kind of traffic needed to be really successful. The ones that simply resell and don’t create much value for developers or consumers may not see much success. Opera is trying to build relationships with developers through the Opera Publisher Portal, which is meant to make it easy for developers to upload their apps. But unless developers see a lot of money-making opportunities to warrant supporting additional stores, many will concentrate on the destinations that command attention and are willing to promote and market their apps, not just try to make some money off of them. And unless consumers of these stores get exclusive apps, better security, improved discovery or cheaper pricing, I’m not sure many will spend a lot of time in these markets. It’s not proving easy to make a store. The challenge now is ensuring its equipped to compete.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d):

Why RIM’s Future (Unfortunately) Hinges on BlackBerry OS 6

Why Google Launched App Inventor

Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?

BenchCraft, LLC announced that it can debut its Concert Series, a fresh line of recliners with an integrated sound model, at Large Point Market on October 17-22, 2009. Concert Sequence recliners function two built-in stereo speakers as well as a subwoofer designed specially to produce a complete variety of sound. It's got tactile motors which may either vibrate with all the sound or be made use of independently as a massage program, and separate controls that permit for individual adjustments to get made towards the volume, bass/treble, plus the tactile/massage element. The program, that will possess a starting up total price position of $699, will even include a mini audio jack so customers can connect to their a variety of audio resources (i.e. iPods, MP3 gamers, cell phones, and so forth.). To that finish, Sinning mentioned that Berkline may also be introducing in decide upon motion
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Monday, March 14, 2011

foreclosure victims

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/> [style="text-decoration: underline;">Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here, writing from a lounge on a short layover at LAX. Robert and I just returned to the US this morning from another exhausting China trip (8+ meetings per day makes for early rises and late evenings), something we repeat about every other month. No surprise, but all indications on the ground, from meetings with various corporate / cap markets partners at top law firms in HK / China, we are still planted solidly in an economic and deal flow boom there.

We have been averaging about 2 US associate or counsel placements per week in Asia so far this year, a blistering pace that can’t continue quite frankly, but is an indicator of how hot the market is right now (see recent Asia Chronicles ATL posts for more details on this hiring boom or do a search at theasiachronicles.com for such info).

Just the fact that Robert and I can set up meetings on short notice with the leading corporate partners of top US and UK firms in HK / China (especially in a boom market where time is at a premium for such persons running multiple big deals on understaffed teams) is a major difference between Kinney and other recruiting firms trying to break into the increasingly hot US associate biglaw lateral hiring market in HK / China. Remember that just about every US and UK firm in HK / China are hiring US corporate associates at this time, so you should not settle for a recruiter / agent who simply is aware of openings and can provide a list of firms and can name a few partners there.id="more-61267">

Here are just a few glaring differences between Kinney and other recruiting firms offering services in HK / China markets:

-100+ references of US associates we have placed in HK / China recently, within a few years.

-Our top recruiters don’t only represent partners.

-We provide a long-term agent relationship, lasting years instead of weeks or months.

-Kinney Asia recruiters all split time in both Asia and US markets, thus are able to meet with US based associate candidate clients, meet with top US firm management regarding their Asia strategy, and of course meet with law firm partners and associate candidates in Asia.

We can provide over 100 references of US associates we have placed in HK / China in the past few years. Other recruiting firms can provide no more than a fraction of this number. No other recruiting firm has placed even one third of this number of US associates in HK / China in the past few years.

When a recruiter calls you about China opportunities, I suggest that you ask him / her exactly how many US associates they have placed in HK / China recently? And don’t just take their word for it, ask for references of these alleged placements and speak to (or at least email) at least 10 such persons before you give the recruiter your resume. Why is this important? Well, it is not possible to be fully informed and connected in a market if you are not making large numbers of placements there. Further, while it is always possible for a recruiter to make a few placements and have those persons think highly of them (who knows if higher numbers would be a very negative reference), 100+ references of US associates placed within a few years in a market is fail proof.

Why would you want to put your job search in the hands of a recruiter with just a few or even zero US associate placements in HK / China, verses a recruiter with dozens and more than 30 in the past year?

Our best recruiters work with associates and partner candidates, not just partners. Robert Kinney and I have had success in placing partners and groups in HK / China, but we still work directly with associate candidates, along with our other Asia team recruiters, Alexis Lamb, Yuliya Vinokurova, Danielle Cyr and Peter Guttensohn. I mention this because at most recruiting firms, the best recruiters focus on partners and pass on associate candidates to less experienced and less successful recruiters. Sure, partner placements are much more lucrative, but Robert and I thoroughly enjoy working with and acting as long-term advisors for US associates in Asia and we will not stop doing so. For example, I have made on average about 30 US associate placements per year in Asia, even though I am moving partners as well.

We provide a long-term agent relationship with our associate client candidates, not simply a quick job search and resume distribution service. At Kinney, our Asia focused team starts working with a number of our associate candidate clients months and even years before they are ready for an Asia job search, in some cases those relationships go all the way back to the candidate’s law school years (when we offer advice on which 2L summer spot to take, regarding China practices at particular firms). Of course we also place plenty of US associates who start job searches in Asia immediately upon being referred to us, but many are already long-term relationships when a job search starts. We have also placed numerous US associates a second time in Asia, whether in-house or another law firm after a few years at their first firm in Asia.

Keep in mind that even if you are ready to start an Asia job search right away, even in this hot lateral market it can be a long process for some very qualified candidates. You can’t afford to entrust your job search and representation at various firms to a recruiter who simply emails your resume and hopes for the best. Robert and I, along with our other Asia recruiters, are personally involved in advocating for our candidates over the long-term, if need be. We are close with the relevant partners and can bring up your candidacy in person or by phone whenever it is appropriate to do so. It is not simply a case of emailing a resume and hoping for the best, with only being able to provide administrative services of coordinating interviews. It is quite shocking but that is all you are going to get from the vast majority of recruiters out there, despite what their 10 to 20 minute sales pitch may be upon meeting you.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that once you are submitted to a firm by a recruiter that recruiter unfortunately “owns” your candidacy at such firm for 6 months or more, causing most recruiters to focus on simply being able to make the submission, rather than provide a service.

Our Asia recruiters are on the ground in Asia and US, and all of our Asia team spends time in our New York and Hong Kong offices. It is not uncommon for a NYC based associate to call Kinney to start a job search and within a week both meet a Kinney Asia recruiter in NYC and for that same Kinney recruiter to be advocating for them on the ground in Asia, meeting in person with relevant partners in Asia on their behalf. No other recruiting firm can offer this because quite simply, we travel more than others do and happen to have offices in both US and Asia. We make it a point, for example, to have at least one recruiter on the ground in Hong Kong, 365 days a year.

The Kinney difference is more than just what has been briefly outlined above. Feel free to reach out to us any time at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com for more info.

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Friday, March 11, 2011

Making Money Through

Founded in 2009 by Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth is known as a regular e-mail newsletter that features details on monetary literacy and funds management skewed towards a female audience. DailyWorth’s subjects assortment from the right way to organize your finances to tax tips to conserving counsel. And DailyWorth has an extraordinary editorial employees to produce information. MP Dunleavey, previously a particular finance columnist with the New york Times and presently a contributor with Moolah magazine, is foremost DailyWorth’s editorial team.

Even with unions’ lengthy hatred of Scott Walker, the new governor is shifting to deal with both the signs for the sickness in addition to the ailment itself-the public-sector union scheme which has molested Wisconsin’s taxpayers and their small children by gaming the method. Unions like Wisconsin’s teachers’ union [WEAC] (which was Wisconsin’s biggest-spending lobby in 2009) have been extraordinarily adept at fixing the process by using spending millions to elect politicians who, in turn, reward the unions on the expense from the taxpayers.

the Wisconsin fight, when in comparison to private-sector negotiations is about: 1) the Scope of Bargaining, two) Union “Income” Security [Right-to-Work vs. Forced Dues], 3) no matter whether Wisconsin really should be the unions’ dues collection company [payroll deduction of dues], and four) regardless of whether public-sector unions really should be ‘recertified’ by keeping elections every single 12 months.

set the pictures web based to exhibit our assignments staff at msnbc.com, and photographer Jim Seida mentioned, why really do not we just publish it as being a slide present? I was skeptical initially - would that crimp the writing? - but within the stop I was advocating executing it by doing this once the photograph group was skeptical. I assumed much more individuals would examine due to it by doing this, and it could be truly worth an experiment.”

commercial fishing boats based mostly in Crescent Town place to sea very last night once the tsunami alert was primary broadcast. It's simplier and easier to experience out major waves at sea than on the dock. Now many of these boats are running minimal on fuel, however they are unable to return to port whilst the surges keep on, stated Chris Renner, operator of C. Renner Petroleum Co. in Crescent City, which serves the fleet

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Making Money With Options

On Monday evening, I watched my to start with, The Previous Phrase host Lawrence O’Donnell.
Even when O’Donnell laudably experimented with to focus the audience’s focus onand hopefully last, Charlie Sheen trainwreck interview, courtesy of the tragic undertow that threatens to pull Sheen below for wonderful, I was overtaken, not by the pulling on the thread, and then the voracious audience he serves. It did not make me depressing, it crafted me angry.

On the subject of celebrities, we could be considered a heartless region, basking in their misfortunes like nude sunbathers at Schadenfreude Seashore. The impulse is understandable, to some degree. It could possibly be grating to listen to complaints from consumers who have fun with privileges that most of us can not even think of. If you happen to cannot muster up some compassion for Charlie Sheen, who would make extra moolah for a day’s effort than most of us will make within a decade’s time, I guess I can not blame you.

Along with the rapid pace of activities on the internet and then the knowledge revolution sparked through the The web, it’s quite very easy for that solutions market place to imagine it is completely unique: constantly breaking new ground and performing stuff that no person has ever before done before.

But there can be other types of business which have previously undergone some of the same radical shifts, and also have just as terrific a stake while in the potential.

Consider healthcare, for example.

We typically believe that of it as being a significant, lumbering beast, but in fact, medication has undergone a series of revolutions during the past 200 many years which are a minimum of equal to individuals we see in technology and advice.

Significantly less understandable, but nonetheless inside the norms of human nature, will be the impulse to rubberneck, to slow down and consider the carnage of Charlie spectacle of Sheen’s unraveling, but for the blithe interviewer Sheen’s life as we pass it while in the correct lane of our everyday lives. To get truthful, it could be tough for people today to discern the distinction between a run-of-the-mill attention whore, and an honest-to-goodness, circling the drain tragedy-to-be. On its individual merits, a quote like “I Am On the Drug. It’s Described as Charlie Sheen” is sheer genius, and we cannot all be expected to consider the complete measure of someone’s everyday living every last time we hear something funny.

Rapidly forward to 2011 and I am endeavoring to take a look at signifies of being a bit more business-like about my hobbies (largely music). Through the end of January I had manned up and started to promote my blogs. I had produced plenty of diverse blogs, which had been contributed to by friends and colleagues. I promoted these activities because of Facebook and Twitter.

2nd: the small abomination the Gang of 5 on the Supream Court gave us a yr or so back (Citizens Inebriated) actually comprises a bit bouncing betty of its individual that could especially nicely go off with the faces of Govs Wanker, Sacitch, Krysty, and J.O. Daniels. Since this ruling extended the principle of “personhood” to the two corporations and unions, to look at to deny them any best to run within the legal framework that they had been organized below deprives these “persons” from the freedoms of speech, association and motion. Which implies (when once more, quoting law school educated loved ones) that both the courts really need to uphold these rights for that unions (as individual “persons” as assured by the Federal (and most state) constitutions, or they've to declare that these attempts at stripping or limiting union rights have to apply to main businesses, also.

One of the prime topics of conversation during NBA All Star Weekend is the league’s labor agreement or lack thereof.

The league is enjoying an unprecedented level of popularity and its future is bright. Midway through the 2010-11 season, the league's talent level is deeper than ever and many of the those talented players are just beginning their careers. The NBA’s marketing machine is world class and interest in the league is at an all-time high.

However its road to success is approaching a giant pothole – otherwise known as its next labor agreement — and to me we’re entering a fascinating point in league history.

Forbes Magazine has reported that 12 of the 30 NBA teams lost money last season. And NBA Commissioner David Stern, several weeks back, claimed that league owners were projecting a cumulative loss this season of approximately 350 million dollars.

Stern has declared that the current labor situation is untenable because the players are being paid too much guaranteed money. The players for their part are digging in and this labor dispute shows few if any signs of getting resolved anytime soon.

There is also one glaring problem that I personally feel the NBA needs to fix because, if you ask me, it’s the one negative the league has faced for as long as Stern has been commissioner. Each season, too many teams have zero chance of making the playoffs.

Let’s face it, if you’re a fan of the Timberwolves, Wizards, Nets and a bunch of other teams, you’re basically watching games to see the opposing team because your team’s best chance to improve is to lose as many games as possible, get a high lottery draft pick and then have the ping pong balls fall the right way on lottery night. Luck plays too big a role in who’s good and who’s not.

Continued on the next page

Now that silver continues hitting nominal high after high (except of course for the record price hit during the Hunt Bros period), and there is a very distinct possibility we may see an unprecedented melt up in the price of silver to over triple digits for a variety of previously discussed factors, here is a post we produced a year earlier, courtesy of a "deep insider" which dissects with exquisite detail the nuances of silver market manipulation, which in retrospect may have been just a little early. Considering that every single trope mentioned is now in play (even the unmasking of Buffett's unbelievable PM bashing hypocrisy when he himself was one of the people who utilized blatant silver market manipulation for his own purposes when it suited him back in 1997 to send silver soaring), we believe readers should re-read this post in its entirety as it presents a walk-thru for the mechanics, and strategy, of the ongoing unprecedented move higher in the shiny metal.

From A Deep Insider's Walkthru To Silver Market Manipulation, posted originally in April 2010, when silver was lower.... way lower.

As the topic of physical delivery has gained prominent attention
recently, it is crucial to complete the circle and show how this
weakest link in the PM market is (ab)used by the big boys: Phibro and
Warren Buffet. Pay particular attention to the analogues between the
methods employed in the 90's commodity market and how the PM (and
equity) market is being gamed currently. And to think that each new
generation of traders believes it has discovered something new... (All emphasis below is ours)

Background

As
a market maker in silver options from 1989 to 2000 I was present during
both the 1994 and 1997 silver events. They were seminal in my education
of gamesmanship in trading and how probabilities can come up short.
Prior
to going out on my own, I traded at a small market making firm. When a
trader finished training there, he had top-tier options knowledge but
was not educated in whom the players were, the fundamentals of the
markets, and how probabilities were useless when information was
asymmetric. That wasn’t their business, they taught option’s theory.
Since I had drunk the kool-aid, I thought fundamentals and gamesmanship
were useless in the face of the almighty Standard Deviation model. That
was a mistake.

Phibro Early Exercise

In
April 1994, the Thursday before Easter, the trading day ended with a
rather unusual run up of 15 cents near the close to finish at 435ish
around noon. Options expired that day at 4pm but we weren’t anywhere
near the closest strikes (425 and 450) so most of us left. It was a 4
day weekend in the U.S. but silver traded globally, albeit il-liquidly
in Asia. Comex wouldn’t open until next Tuesday. My education in
gamesmanship started that afternoon at JFK airport as I was waiting for a
flight, my first vacation in 5 years.
My backer paged me at the
airport to inform me that someone was exercising the K 450 calls. I
scoffed thinking it was a retail sap that was talked into exercising
some 5 lot piece by an overzealous broker. “Great I said, let them, the
options are out of the money.” And I hung up
10 minutes later
he had me paged again. “You don’t understand, it’s Phibro exercising.”
Again I naively said, “So what, they are energy guys.” But I was
curious, “How many? “ I asked. “All of them, five thousand, he replied.
Now I was really curious, but still woefully ignorant that it was I who
was the sap at the table. “Why would they do that?” and he explained it
to me. I nearly shit myself and bent over in the cab vomiting on the
ride back.
Cancelling my trip, I headed back to the office to
assess the reality of what would happen, probabilities were no longer
important. Survival was important. I had no money and was trading on a
$25k note lent to me by my backer.
We covered by buying futures
on my entire short open Interest equivalent of EXPIRED OUT OF THE MONEY
OPTIONS in Singapore with a dealing firm. We did this prior to even
actually knowing if I was exercised, probabilities be damned. How did I
know they exercised? The price covered at was $462; that is how. The
450s were already in the money by 12 cents.
Phibro exercised all
5k lots. I had a fraction of that but big enough to be carried out on a
stretcher had the rest of my position not bailed me out/ performed on
Tuesday next week.
The weird part was, the market stabilized
that Tuesday and did not run to “infinity” as it could easily have. We
found out later it was because Phibro’s exercise was a no-no and Warren
Buffet ordered them to shut the trade down as it was too big of a
potential scandal. Especially in light of his coming to Solly’s rescue
and lending his good name to fix their most recent Treasury scandal. A
couple head’s rolled there if I remember correctly.
My guess was
that the client was a Buffet or Soros type. Someone that would only go
to Phibro, as these guys were the best at preventing information
leakage, and always aligned themselves with client interests, where as
if IB had an order and acted in dual capacity as a dealer, he would
potentially front-run the order or stop it out poorly on an exit. Phibro
didn’t take other side of their client’s orders. They ran with them,
and took care of the clients first.
Phibro got a big order for a
client to buy silver, one that had to be handled expertly, and filled
over time, no information leakage would be tolerated. These guys were a
prop desk that took orders as brokers once in a while.
They accumulated options for their own account (K 450C) to piggyback but not front-run the client.
They must have bought futures for themselves as well as the client with his permission.
They beat the VWAP by gunning the market on light volumes 1 hour before a 4 day US holiday. [TD: compare and contrast with the daily patterns seen every single day in the endless move up in the S&P]
They
exercised the 450 Calls that day and then lifted the offers of the 1 or
2 OTC metals dealers left open during Singapore hours, running them
over during illiquid markets.

Never Again!

I became infatuated with Phibro gamesmanship and made it a point to understand that particular type of player.
Libertarian
Darwinist that I was I did not blame them. At the time It was a
buyer-beware market for big businesses and they did nothing wrong. They
took risk and they aren’t bigger than the market. I wanted to play with
the big boys, and that was the price.
For me it was about
learning how to read the signs and not be on the wrong side of one of
those events again, even if I was not privy to their meetings.

Here is some of what I learned:

In
metals (and energy and anything else with an OTC market) the IB firms
have dealing desks along GS, MS, Republic, JPMorgan, Scotia Mocatta, all
were essentially broker dealers in precious metals. All had clients:
miners who hedged production and hedge funds who speculated OTC. They
provided liquidity by taking the other side of their client’s trade and
“back-to-backing” them in the futures markets or held onto them in their
prop books as counterparty because of something else they saw.
Their
client left resting orders with them in the IB’s Central Limit Order
Book (CLOB) which served as good information to trade around for the IB.
Sometimes they front-ran the client, other times they go for stops to force the client to puke. Sometimes they’d just make markets, depending on many things. It was poker to them.
Phibro
was different. These were smart guys but they weren’t a dealing bank.
They exploited imbalances in markets and took positions. They had
ideas. They also took orders for heavyweights who needed absolute
discretion. They did not make it their business to fleece their own
clients and instead aligned their interests. And they made the banks
look like pikers when a client came to them with an order.
For
the next 4 Years I paid attention to how those dealing banks and phibro
played the markets. It was all about gamesmanship, Bayesian probability,
and knowing your counterparty’s motivation with these guys. Information
and misinformation.

Some methods:

How
I.B firms would use a thinly traded floor to print the price that would
trigger a massive stop loss in the OTC markets and bury their own
clients. Or how they would buy for their own accounts in front of
resting limit orders for clients and simply use their clients to stop
themselves out if the market printed thru their buy levels. Or how they
would use dual representation to show loudly they were buyers on one
side of the ring, while they were selling quietly upstairs to other OTC
dealers. Trading with themselves in multiple entities, etc.
An
IB with a Commodity Index was in heaven. Prop trading, captive client
flow from IB deals and OTC dealing and Brokerage. The good ones knew how
to integrate and hedge macro risks, whether to front run their own
index clients or get out off their way. “Chinese walls” did not exist
in Commods.
Commods were mostly self regulated and that lead to predatory yet mostly legal behaviour.
Some
of these were necessary to protect their interests with such a small
number of players. Some were possibly unethical, but most were legal.
Their clients were all big boys who left resting orders with the IBs at
their own risk. Clients themselves had to resort to some of the same
tricks to keep the IB desks honest, like Coming in backwards,
“spoofing”, leaving buy stops to get sell orders filled. The alternative
for these clients was to put massive orders in the floor where
liquidity was subjective, non continuous and information leakage was
massive.

1997- Warren Buffet.

I got my chance to not get run over in 1997, when Warren Buffet gave an order to Phibro to buy silver.
Short version. Here is what went down.
Buffet gives Phibro the order- fact
Phibro
begins filling it as a broker using various OTC dealers as
counterparties, and letting the I.B dealers sweat getting out of the
risk. - fact
Phibro buys options for their own account (no exercise game this time tho)- fact
Phibro buys futures for their own account. – not confirmed.
One
by one the IB dealers start to catch on that this is no ordinary order
Phibro is handling. They back away and liquidity gets harder to find.-
fact
Other bigger hedge funds in the small circle of professionals, and other smart firms start getting long.- fact
Silver
starts getting delivered from the Comex vaults. Some of it actually
removed. Some of it just “covered with a sheet” for removal. But ounces
begin to be removed from the warehouse. Phibro was rumored to be taking
delivery and beginning to telegraph fear in the markets to start
spoofing the VWAP. Rumor was they had a warehouse in Red Hook where they
stored it. Never confirmed.
Point here is, the saps for the
last part of this play were the producers and refiners who were
complacently net short and dependent on above ground silver to satisfy
delivery requests.
Producers had been over-hedging for years in
this market, as silver was cheap and they had business cash flow issues.
It was their habit to sell forward production not yet available to
them. And if forced to, they would lease already above ground silver and
make delivery, collateralizing it with silver yet to be mined. Their
positions were habitually synthetically long the contango as they rolled
their deliverable production further and further out the curve in an
attempt to squeeze much needed cash (cost of carry)for their businesses.
The net effect was that sometimes they had to borrow silver for prompt
delivery while they rolled their production hedge back further. – my
interpretation of what I learned. May not be accurate to the “T”, am not
a physical guy.
Example: in 1995 a miner has silver due above
ground in 1997. He hedges it in Z-1997 contract. Z 1997 comes and if he
doesn’t have that silver available for some other reason; he covers the
short and rolls it back. How much he needs to do this is a function of
his obligations, cash flows, and his greed for carry. If leases are
cheap, he will seek to capture all the contango and lease it until he
gets the silver available.
If lease rates go up, it is not
unlike a miner strike. Silver is needed for delivery now, and term risk
becomes the issue. Contango collapses and market goes backwardated. He
will be forced to sell the contango to get that prompt silver short back
if he cannot make delivery. He has to defer delivery.
These guys were dependent on the specs NOT taking delivery for years. Specs didn’t have balance sheets to take and store physical metal. Specs usually were the weak hands at futures expiry.
But then…..Entities
that stored silver in bank vaults (like the Republic vault) begin to
remove silver from the available pool for leasing. This made the “easy
money” portion of production financing no longer easy. Think: smart
money getting the word that a squeeze was on and playing along with it.
Phibro
(and others) start selling the contango in the futures market to
prepare to take delivery of even more contracts. Or at least put
pressure on the producers who had front month shorts they would have to
make a decision on delivering. Phibro KNEW that the producers had to
sell the spreads to get their shorts back. But they couldn’t lift their
shorts altogether as part of their financing deals with their bankers.
Their own positions were now breaking down in every way except flat
price. The market really didn’t move much. This let them stay in denial.
Buffet announces he is long and intends to take delivery of silver. Contango collapses. Market spikes to 7.40.
Rumor
is gov’t intercedes and asks Buffet to not do this, it would break the
industry. (Kind of like how the exchange begged the gov’t to help it
shut down the Hunt Bros.) He says ok, and agrees to lend then their
silver back to them. Essentially charging them 40% interest to delay
delivery for a year.

What to look for:

Find the overleveraged/ extended party- and you will find the weak hand at the table. (Producers in 1997)
Tail
wags dog: if the pricing venue trades smaller volume than the OTC, then
manipulate price with small volumes to execute trades with big volumes
favorably. (OTC vs Comex floor)
Divide and conquer- if
counterparties are undercapitalized and/ or fragmented, then it will be
easier to get them to move like a herd. (happens in options ALL THE
TIME at expiration)
Manipulate data- take delivery of metal, take risk off books, manipulate MTM data.
Create
an exit strategy- a good catalyst like Easter weekend, an announcement
by an investor etc. or develop a market and grow your own bigger fool.
ie – retail.

Comments - So many points to make here:

How
derivative markets can create a problem thru too much liquidity that
cannot easily be reconciled by bringing physical production on line fast
enough.
How this works both ways, and that dealing banks have
been playing the gold/silver carry game for easy funding of other trades
for years.
How, even though I personally think that what the
OTC does is their own business, but the increasing securitization of
commodities leaves regulatory arbitrage and OTC games to affect a new
generation of ETF buyers, either thru incremental banking or thru
contango cancer. That Wall Street salesmen and players with
access to both markets retail and professional can exploit the captive
audience created with ETFs and other fund type instruments to shear and
in some cases skin the sheep.
That much of this happens
because the gov’t is too stupid to see the inherent conflict of
interest in what a broker-dealer does. Regulation will not stop gaming
the law. Ethics do, and not everybody has ethics. So best you
can do is prevent situations of conflict of interest, like the existence
of Broker-dealer type entities. Either you trade for yourself, or you
trade for others. Period.
Fact is, if there were retail
public in this game back then, the IB firms would have somehow sold
them on the idea to BUY contango, or short silver. But the
financialization of commodities wasn’t there yet. And the “bigger fool”
game stopped at the producers. If it happened again, with ETFs, cross
regulatory semi fungible products, asymmetric access to venues and other
factors in a global market, the public would be killed, short squeeze
or long puke (like in UNG now) take your pick.
You can never
know intentions, and no one is bigger than the market, but the
consequences of a lack of transparency and the free reign in which banks
can tell half-truths to investors is a big factor in enabling strong
hands to fleece weak hands with little market risk. It’s all a con game.
And when the IBs figured out how to change the rules, then they
were free to use their killer techniques to exploit a million little
fish instead of the 10 big fish they usually competed with.
Phibro
was a ballsy cowboy trading firm. The banks at the employee level are
as well, but corporately, they first seek to make money and secondly
provide a service. When they should be providing a service that makes
money.
Everything that was done I’ve seen done the other
way, keeping prices low, shaking out weaker players. Rarely does it
happen in such a dramatic way. It is usually a series of “short cons” as
opposed to Phibro’s home run. It’s all Darwinism. But when civilians
are involved as they are now, then it is no longer caveat emptor.
Instead of taking a million dollars from a hedge fund, these guys take a dollar from a million people now.

Source: http://removeripoffreports.net/ corporate Reputation Management

The best in online reputation management

Saturday, March 5, 2011

foreclosure homes

"No TKO's will be accepted"

Check out this letter sent from "Foreclosure Stoppage" Attorney George Babcock to opposing counsel Mark Harmon...

Dear Mr. Harmon,

Please
be advised that I have been retained by Mr. Conley regarding the
notice of illegal foreclosure you mailed to him on February 4, 2011.
The chain of title to this properly and the note is like a walk down
the yellow brick road. Is Harmon Law the Wizard of Title? You
display extreme indifference to the law by noticing a foreclosure on
this property. As you know, I take great pride in defending my
clients against the evil forces that guide your actions. Mr. Conley
is a personal friend. It is my intention to be even more pugilistic in
this matter. It is disgusting and I will make sure that whoever
violates his property rights is knocked out of the ring. No TKO's will
be accepted. A full fledged, right cross to the chin of the beast.

I
look forward to a response although I am quite certain you will not
engage me as is your habit. Send your minions that I may lay waste
to them before me.

I hope that this letter is circulated as
has been your habit in the past. I like my enemy to know that I am at
its doorstep.

Very truly yours,

George E. Babcock, Esquire

Actual letter below...

But first, some background on Mark Harman...

AG investigating Newton law firm's foreclosure work

Harmon
Law Offices, a Newton firm that specializes in foreclosures, is being
investigated by the state attorney general's office for allegedly
unlawfully evicting residents from bank-owned properties.

State
officials want to determine whether Harmon Law failed to comply with a
new Massachusetts law that protects tenants living in foreclosed homes
from eviction, a spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley said
today. more here...

Plantation foreclosure company's director quits amid investigation ...

Mark
P. Harmon has resigned as a director at the Plantation foreclosure
processing company with ties to David J. Stern's law practice, as the
Massachusetts Attorney General said it is investigating whether
Harmon's firm illegally evicted tenants from repossessed homes in that
state.

Harmon's resignation, announced by DJSP Enterprises Inc.
on Monday, comes as the beleagured company said it is laying off
another 198 employees, bringing the total to 300 within the past two
weeks. more here...

For more on "Foreclosure Stoppage" attorney George Babcock click here...

4closureFraud.org

Foreclosure Fight Club Lawyer Letter

This article by Michael is filled with despair and presents evidence that the recovery in the stock market is more like the price of bread in Zimbabwe than a real recovery. - Ilene

18 Sobering Facts Which Prove That The Middle Class Is Not Being Included In This “Economic Recovery”

Courtesy of Michael Snyder, Economic Collapse

Have you heard the news? The stock market is absolutely soaring and according to the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve we are in the beginning stages of a robust economic recovery. Yippee! The S&P 500 is up 6.8 percent so far in 2011, and the stock market recently hit a two and a half year high. So shouldn't we all be celebrating? Well, if stock market performance was an accurate measure of economic health, then Zimbabwe would have had one of the healthiest economies on the entire globe during the last decade.

But just like Zimbabwe's stock market was artificially pumped up with "funny money" that was rapidly being devalued, so is ours. All of the "quantitative easing" that the Federal Reserve has been doing is pumping plenty of money into the financial markets and is helping to inflate a false stock market bubble, but it is doing very little to alleviate the suffering of the U.S. middle class. In fact, when you take a closer look at the numbers you quickly find out that the suffering of the middle class is getting even worse.

According to Gallup, the unemployment rate is now over 10%. The number of Americans that have given up looking for work recently set a new all-time record. The number of mortgages in foreclosure tied a record high during the fourth quarter of 2010. Gas and food prices are rising rapidly. The number of Americans on food stamps continues to increase every single month.

Yes, right now the economic situation is not in free fall like it was a couple years ago. We should be thankful for that. Periods of relative stability such as we are enjoying now will be few and far between in the years ahead. This "bubble" of economic calm is a great opportunity that we should all be taking advantage of.

However, those that are hoping that this is an economic "turning point" and that things will soon be back to "normal" are going to be greatly disappointed. This is about as "normal" as things are going to be ever again.

Even during this time of relative economic stability, the U.S. middle class is still being ripped to shreds. If there are those among your family and friends that are somehow convinced that the U.S. economy is recovering nicely, you might want want to show them the following 18 very sobering facts....

#1 According to Gallup, the U.S. unemployment rate is currently 10.3 percent. When you add in part-time American workers that want full-time employment, that number rises to 20.2 percent.

#2 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job openings in the United States declined for a second straight month during December.

#3 There are currently more than 4 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than a year.

#4 The number of Americans that have become so discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now stands at an all-time high.

#5 Gasoline prices in the United States recently hit a 28-month high.

#6 During the 4th quarter of 2010, 4.63 percent of all U.S. home loans were in foreclosure. That matched the all-time high, and it was up significantly from 4.39 percent in the 3rd quarter.

#7 It is estimated that there are about 5 million homeowners in the United States that are at least two months behind on their mortgages, and it is being projected that over a million American families will be booted out of their homes this year alone.

#8 Almost 14 percent of all credit card accounts in the United States are currently 90 days or more delinquent.

#9 The average credit card rate in the United States had increased to a whopping 13.44 percent at the end of 2010.

#10 Americans now owe more than $890 billion on student loans, which is even more than they owe on credit cards.

#11 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income.

#12 U.S. life expectancy at birth is now three years less than Canada and four years less than Japan.

#13 New home sales in the state of California were at the lowest level ever recorded in the month of January.

#14 43 percent of all mortgages in south Florida are currently underwater.

#15 Prior to the most recent economic downturn, there were usuallysomewhere around four to five million job openings in America. Today there are about 3 million.

#16 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.

#17 One out of every seven Americans is now on food stamps.

#18 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.

You know things are bad when articles start popping up in the mainstream news instructing us how to interact socially with the hordes of unemployed Americans that are out there today. A recent USA Today article entitled "What not to say to someone who is unemployed" listed some of the things that you should not say to someone that does not have a job. The following are some of their suggestions on what NOT to say....

"Hey, have you found anything yet?"

"How's the search going?"

"You just have to pound the pavement."

"Something will turn up."

"It's tough out there."

"Other people are going through the same thing."

"Maybe you're asking for too much money."

"Maybe you should go back to school."

"There are plenty of jobs out there."

I am sure most of us have heard things like this at one time or another. It can be a soul-crushing thing to have others look at you in pity because you don't have a job and you can't pay the mortgage and feed your family.

Most unemployed Americans are not lazy. The vast majority of them desperately want jobs. But the U.S. economy is not producing nearly enough jobs today. As noted above, the U.S. economy currently has about 3 million job openings, but approximately 20 percent of the workforce wants to find a full-time job. The demand for jobs is far, far, far greater than the supply.

Unfortunately, this is the legacy of decades of bad economic decision-making. The U.S. economy should be able to provide work for every single person that wants it, but because of the choices that have been made that will never be the case again.

The middle class in America is being ripped to shreds right in front of our eyes and very little is being done to stop it. Desperation is rising across the nation. More Americans slip into poverty every single day. It is almost as if a cloud of gloom and despair has descended upon the U.S. economy and every single month the situation only seems to get darker.

So what about you? How has this economy affected you and your family? Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below....

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