InformedTrades

Taken together, our analysis suggests that QE3 is unlikely to be a panacea for growth. Nonetheless, our estimates suggests that $1trn of asset purchases-or an equivalent increase in the duration of the Fed's balance sheet-might increase GDP growth by up to 0.5 percentage point in the first year after any announcement of QE3.

On August 25, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a wild new concept relating to privacy glasses. While the new specs will be applauded by both professionals and multi-player-gamers alike - gamers may get the added thrill of tapping into the specs' 3D capabilities. While we covered Apple's initial patent regarding privacy-mode viewing in May of this year, it appears as though this project has taken on dramatic new twists. As computer users shift more towards using mobile devices like iPads and MacBooks as their primary devices, and use them more and more in public spaces, privacy-viewing is going to be an essential feature for all future mobile devices. Apple is out to be first and more importantly, the best in delivering this essential new feature and/or accessory. 

Japanese bonds are the most expensive relative to local shares since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. amid growing doubts that companies' earnings will meet analysts' forecasts.

Stocks retreated as panic selling pushed Germany's DAX Index (DAX) down 4 percent in 15 minutes amid speculation that Germany's public finances are deteriorating and that regulators may impose restrictions on the market. The dollar and Treasuries advanced, while oil fell and Bank of America Corp. shares surged.

Once more our strategy to buy gold implied volatility when it fell below 16 has worked as expected (and as it has in the past few years since we have started recommending it). We buy the volatility to hedge our long position. What is interesting, and one of the big reason we have been doing this in the past and insisted on the concept in our quarterly reports and updates is that the implied volatility of gold has a strong tendency to rise before gold starts to decline. The steeper the rise of gold the steeper the rise in implied volatility. A hedge which rises with the price of the asset you want to hedge is a dream.

Apple's Board of Directors today announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board has named Tim Cook, previously Apple's Chief Operating Officer, as the company's new CEO. Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately.

For the second time this month, the CME Group Inc., the parent company of the main metals and energy exchanges in the U.S., announced late Wednesday an increase in margin requirements to trade gold. It raised the amount of money needed to trade gold contracts by 27% to $9,450 per 100-ounce contract. The move comes on the heels of a $104-an-ounce drop in gold futures prices, which some analysts had blamed partly on speculation that the CME would raise margin requirement again.

Who says hedge funds are ambivalent about the current market? As of last week, they have not been more bearish on the S&P since before Lehman. From SocGen: "Hedge funds have opened the biggest net short positions since early 2008, concentrated on the most liquid segment of the market, i.e. the S&P 500. Meanwhile, positioning on small caps hardly moved (slight increase in net shorts on the Russell 2000). Surprisingly, they actually stuck to their net long positions on Technology (Nasdaq)."

China's yuan advanced toward a 17- year high after the central bank set the currency's daily fixing at the strongest level since July 2005, fueling speculation it will tolerate further gains to curb inflation. The reference rate was set at 6.3896 per dollar, 0.14 percent stronger than yesterday. The yuan is allowed to trade up to 0.5 percent either side of the fixing, which is now 0.9 percent higher than at the end of last month. China's consumer- price situation in the second half is "not optimistic," according to a front-page commentary piece today in the official People's Daily. Inflation reached 6.5 percent in July, the highest since June 2008, government data show.

* Some 10 bln euros in new measures expected for 2012 * Government to target super-rich, tax breaks, incentives * Cuts needed to meet "sacrosanct" deficit targets

The Shanghai Gold Exchange will raise margin requirements for its gold forward contracts for the second time this month to 12 percent starting on Friday, in a move aimed at curbing excessive risk-taking following the rapid rally in gold prices. China's main precious metals exchange will also widen daily trading limits for those gold contracts to 9 percent, up from 7 percent, the SGE said on its website on Tuesday.

Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded its rating on Japan's debt. The agency said it lowered the rating because of Japan's large budget deficits and growing government debt. Moody's cut Japan's government bond rating to Aa3 from Aa2. The new rating is three notches below Moody's top Aaa rating. It said the outlook for the rating is stable.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted Sunday that eurozone-wide government bonds wouldn't solve the current debt crisis, and said she sees no sign of a new recession in her own country -- Europe's biggest economy. Financially solid Germany's government has led opposition to "eurobonds," viewed by some as a logical solution to the debt crisis that has pushed up troubled countries' borrowing costs.

"He's called up the Bank of England and he's asked the Bank of England to ship the gold back to Venezuela and he's built new vaults in Venezuela to hold his gold.  Taking that altogether, what does it all mean?  Well, the reserve part of it, moving the dollars out of BIS and moving it into Russian and Chinese banks tells me that he's worried about a freeze.  He's worried about some kind of confrontation with the United States number one, but he's probably worried the dollar itself.  Meaning, once he gets the dollars into Russian banks, he can then tell the Russian banks, his new custodians, 'I want you to sell the dollars, buy the euro, buy more gold, buy Chinese yuan.  But it's a way for him to diversify in ways that are not very easy to track.

The BBC Persian TV channel has at last acknowledged the role of the BBC Persian radio in the toppling of the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1953 coup. The coup overthrew the government of the then Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh leading to the restoration of absolute monarchy under dictator Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi who was later toppled in the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

President Obama and other world leaders ramped up pressure Thursday on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, but the authoritarian regime responded by accusing the West of inciting more violence.

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that 37 community banks have received a total of $418 million in funds under a program designed to encourage local banks with less than $10 billion in assets to increase their lending to small businesses. The $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund, established under the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, so far has provided about $1 billion to 80 community banks, including the latest funding, the Treasury Department said.

A former senior analyst at Moody's has gone public with his story of how one of the country's most important rating agencies is corrupted to the core. The analyst, William J. Harrington, worked for Moody's for 11 years, from 1999 until his resignation last year.

Japan called on Group of Seven nations to work closely to counter market turmoil and Asian officials sought to calm investors as stocks slumped on concern the U.S. recovery is faltering. The G-7 needs "very close cooperation in coming weeks," Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in Tokyo, where the Topix index fell to a two-year low. Hong Kong financial official K.C. Chan urged investors to "stay calm" and not be "spooked by the market," as the Hang Seng Index slumped 3.1 percent. In Beijing, Vice President Xi Jinping said his nation will avoid an economic hard landing.