Free Republic

At least 40 major U.S. companies have substantial exposure to Venezuela’s deepening economic crisis, and could collectively be forced to take billions of dollars of write downs, a Reuters analysis shows. The companies, all members of the S&P 500, and including some of the biggest names in Corporate America such as autos giant General Motors (GM.N) and drug maker Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N), together carry at least $11 billion of monetary assets in the Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, on their books. The official rate is at 6.3 bolivars to the dollar and there are two other rates in the...

Human Events’ readers, in an online poll, recently voted billionaire financier George Soros “the single most destructive leftist demagogue in the country.” Here are the Top 10 Reasons George Soros Is Dangerous1. Gives billions to left-wing causes: Soros started the Open Society Institute in 1993 as a way to spread his wealth to progressive causes. Using Open Society as a conduit, Soros has given more than $7 billion to a who’s who of left-wing groups. This partial list of recipients of Soros’ money says it all: ACORN, Apollo Alliance, National Council of La Raza, Tides Foundation, Huffington Post, Southern Poverty...

My breakfast companion looked gloomy. He’d flown into Washington from Vienna the day before. When he deplaned, he found a shocking email waiting for him: a demand from his banker for immediate payment of €12,000. Although a resident of Austria, he had taken a home mortgage in Swiss francs, which carried a lower interest rate than mortgages in euros. But 48 hours before he had arrived in the United States, the Swiss franc had surged by 20 percent against the euro. That currency appreciation had wiped out his equity in the house. His frightened banker wanted a new infusion of...

The United States is gradually, but unrelentingly, destroying part of itself. The facts to support this are well-documented, told in many ways from past to present. The most egregious example of Americide is our country's treatment of African-Americans. Almost everyone agrees about the evils of slavery, once dismissed simply as a Peculiar Institution. But a debate goes on about reparations, with passionate arguments on both sides, ranging from a demand for a Reparations Superfund for jobs and education, to a claim that blacks actually benefited from slavery because of the years of 'reparations' received through poverty programs. Reparations opponents insist...

Rip up your euro forecasts. A day after the European Central Bank unveiled its bond-buying program, the single currency still was in free fall, blowing past analysts’ expectations for how low the euro can go. Some investors now say the euro could fall to the point where it is on equal footing with the U.S. dollar for the first time since it climbed above the buck in late 2002. “If you would have asked me a few months ago, I would’ve said that parity could be in the cards in the years ahead. Now, we can’t rule it out anymore...

Tyler Durden 01/23/2015 Submitted by John Rubino via Dollar Collapse blog Yesterday the European Central Bank acknowledged that the currency it manages is being sucked into a deflationary vortex. It responded in the usual way with, in effect, a massive devaluation. Eurozone citizens have also responded predictably, by converting their unbacked, make-believe, soon-to-be-worth-a-lot-less paper money into something tangible. They’re bidding gold up dramatically.(snip)

The "Deflationary Vortex": Global Dollar Economy Suffers Biggest Plunge Since Lehman, Down $4 Trillion One of the macroeconomic observations that has gotten absolutely no mention in recent months is the curious fact that while global economic growth has not imploded in recent quarters, it is because GDP has been represented, as is customary, in local currency terms. Of course, this comes as a time when local currencies (at least those which are not the USD) have been plunging against the greenback on the back of the expectations that the Fed will hike rates some time in the summer or later...

Over the coming months, I believe we could see an economic meltdown at least six times the size of the 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown... The next financial collapse, already on our radar screen, will not come from hedge funds or home mortgages. It will come from junk bonds, especially energy-related and emerging-market corporate debt. The Financial Times recently estimated that the total amount of energy-related corporate debt issued from 2009-2014 for exploration and development is over $5 trillion. Meanwhile, the Bank for International Settlements recently estimated that the total amount of emerging-market dollar-denominated corporate debt is over $9 trillion. Energy-sector...

Yesterday, when we got the first news of huge P&L losses at various publicly-traded banks not to mention the collapse of several retail brokers culminating with the bailout of FXCM by Jefferies, we reminded that seconds after the SNB shocker, we tweeted what was quite obvious to anyone who realized that speculators were most short the CHF since the summer of 2013. We also added that "We have yet to find out just which hedge funds were blown up yesterday", for the simple reason that unlike public banks who have an obligation to reveal news, especially bad, to their shareholders,...

The Swiss central bank plans to charge depositors a 'negative' interest rate of -0.25 per cent to discourage spooked investors from using it to shelter their cash. Money has flooded into Switzerland as market turbulence caused by the Russian rouble collapse and oil price slide has prompted a desperate search for safe havens in recent days. The Swiss National Bank said it would slash its interest rate on balances of over 10million Swiss francs from January 22 - effectively imposing a charge on depositors wanting to hold francs in a bid to keep its currency artificially weak against the euro.

One day, it’s gold. The next, it’s equities. Most days, it’s crude. On Wednesday, it was copper. On Thursday it was the Swiss franc and Swiss stocks. And the move in those two makes those others look like minor-league hiccups. While you were sleeping, all hell broke loose in Switzerland, as the central bank ditched its currency cap against the euro after four years and slashed interest rates to negative 0.75%. The Swiss franc is rallying wildly, while the Swiss stock market is cratering and U.S. stock futures are mostly on the losing side as investors figure out this latest...

Europe is deflating….The Swiss banking established, normally always a pillar of private property and free capital movement have decided to stop pegging their currency which has been an affront against free markets. Hedge Funds piggy banking off government manipulation and mostly short the currency were taken out to the woodshed and shot as the currency shot up 30% in minutes.

"As if millions of macro hedge funds suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced" Over two decades ago, George Soros took on the Bank of England, and won. Just before lunch local time, the Swiss National Bank took on virtually every single macro hedge fund, the vast majority of which were short the Swiss Franc and crushed them, when it announced, first, that it would go further into NIRP, pushing its interest rate on deposit balances even more negative from -0.25% to -0.75%, a move which in itself would have been unprecedented and, second, announcing that the 1.20...

Global markets were thrown into turmoil on Thursday as a shock move by Switzerland to abandon its more than three-year-old cap on the franc sent the currency soaring and Europe's shares and bond yields tumbling. The franc jumped by almost 30 percent in a chaotic few minutes after the 1.20 per euro cap in place since late 2011 was lifted, surging past parity to trade as high as 0.8052 francs per euro. It was trading at 1.02600 at just after 1200 GMT. The move reversed an earlier rebound in risk appetite following an overnight recovery in commodity prices. Over 100...

Sam Ro January 6, 2015Over the past few days, we've seen stocks plummet and oil prices crash. But the most interesting moves have been occurring in the global bond markets where government bond yields have been plunging to historic lows. "2015 starts off with the average of G3 10 year government yields below 1%," wrote Steven Englander, Citi's global head of G10 FX Strategy. The G3 currency group consists of the US dollar, the euro, and the yen. On Tuesday, the US 10-year yield got as low as 1.959% and Japan's 10-year yield fell to as low as 0.288%. In...

President Obama still has two years left as president, but that’s not stopping some of his biggest fans from thinking about his legacy. Here’s Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic: 10 years world will long for "pragmatic" Obama. 25 years--will be considered one of America's "greatest presidents." 50 yrs on the $20 bill.

The dramatic fall in Russia's ruble slowed on Wednesday, with the government selling foreign currency to prop it up after a 50 percent fall against the dollar this year. Losses were partly contained by exporters selling dollars in preparation for paying their monthly tax bills but the slide was less precipitous than in the past two days when it fell about 20 percent against the dollar. At 0508 ET, the ruble was down around 1.6 percent against the dollar at 68.58 rubles per dollar and was 0.3 percent weaker versus the euro at 85.40.

Russian customers waiting for Apple's iPhone 6 will have to wait longer. The Cupertino, Calif., electronics giant on Tuesday temporarily shuttered its online store in the Eastern European country because of the instability of Russia's currency. Apple doesn't operate physical stores in the country, and the company declined to say when it would resume online sales there. "Due to extreme fluctuations in the value of the ruble, our online store in Russia is currently unavailable while we review pricing. We apologize to customers for any inconvenience," Apple said in a statement. The ruble has been dropping sharply in recent days...

Earlier, we reported that various currency brokers such as FXCM and FxPro, would - as a result of the soaring liquidity in the USDRUB pair - suspend trading in the Russian Ruble (while other merely hiked margins to ridiculous levels). It appears things have escalated again, and as FXCM just reported, instead of just politely advising clients not to open new USDRUB position tomorrow, it has advised anyone long, or short, the USDRUB that their positions will be forcibly shut in moments. So for those curious why there appears to be a collapse in Ruble volatility in the past...

(Reuters) - The ruble plunged more than 10 percent for the second day on Tuesday and recorded its worst fall since the Russian financial crisis in 1998 as confidence in the central bank evaporated after an ineffectual overnight rate hike. The rouble opened around 10 percent stronger against the dollar following the overnight 650-basis-point rate hike, but it reversed gains in early trade and fell to record lows, pushing losses this year against the dollar to over 50 percent. At 0637 ET, the rouble was down over 11 percent against the dollar at 73.00 after dipping past 74 rubles per...