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The obligation to tape record oral communications is imposed on all oral discussions whether they are conducted by telephone, voicemail, mobile device, or other digital/electronic media for a period of at least one year. Conversations must be captured and recorded by registrants whether they occur over company owned equipment or staff owned equipment (ie personal mobile phones, tablets, computers, etc.). These recordings are then also required to be cataloged, maintained, and archived in a form and manner that is both identifiable and searchable by transaction. In person, face to face meetings are excluded from the tape recording obligation.

If you’re like many of us, you may be wondering when people are going to stop uttering the phrase “In this economy, … ”. Since the world’s financial system took a turn for the worst in 2007, this saying has been used time and time again by countless people. In fact, it is the underlying sentiment that contributed to U.S. regulators drafting the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010 (“Dodd Frank” or “Act”). Dodd Frank, for those of you who don’t know, is a massive financial legislation intended to prevent a future financial Armageddon. In drafting the Act,...

On March 17th of 2010 the self regulatory organization for commodities trading and retail foreign currency transactions in the United States, National Futures Association (“NFA”), announced a major change to the way Hedge, Commodity, and Forex funds operate. The change, titled “Compliance Rule 2-46” is NFA’s latest effort to work towards detecting and eliminating Madoff Style investment frauds within the industries they regulate. In order to comply with any set of new regulatory standards one has to first understand the intentions and implications of the adjusted policy. So what then does this adjustment mean for the commodity and forex industries?...

On January 13th, 2010 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) issued a press release regarding its highly anticipated rule proposal for the regulation of retail forex transactions. The proposal seeks to adopt a new regulatory scheme to implement the CFTC Reauthorization Act of 2008. The following is a summary listing of the major provisions included in the CFTC’s proposal. While reading through these items please note that they are not the only changes to the law which have been proposed. Rather, these items represent what will be the most significant changes to the industry through the eyes of a former...

Thursday saw the US Treasury report a record October deficit, the 13th monthly shortfall in a row. The Federal Reserve last week vowed to hold its key interest at next-to-zero for an "extended period". The Bank of England here in London has now created £200 billion of new money since March, using it primarily to buy government bonds as Whitehall's deficit hits a peace-time record equal above 14% of GDP. China's central bank reported record gold reserves this spring of 1054 tonnes. The Reserve Bank of India bought 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund at the start...

A fierce war of words has erupted in recent weeks between the two major camps in monetary circles. The first camp - the gold bulls/dollar bears - have been loudly voicing their twin belief that the gold price is poised to skyrocket while the dollar price is perched for a collapse. The other side - the gold bears/dollar bulls - are making the counter claim the gold price is setting up for a crash. There is another train of thought espoused by some that a slow, steady decline of the dollar's exchange value, rather than being a catastrophic event, is...

or over more than 18 months we have watched the gold price churn below $1,000 and in the process forming three tops, before breaking out to above $1,050 in early October 2009. Why will it not fall back to well below $1,000 and possibly as far as $850 this time? We say this because the moves occurred at a time when many facets of the gold market were absent from the gold market, such as investment demand, low jewelry demand and central bank demand. Traders held sway over the gold price and it is they that decided that the moves...

Most of us are gathered at the station, watching for the Inflation Express to come rumbling in. But we've been waiting for a while now. Just when should we expect the big locomotive to arrive and start pushing the prices of most things uphill? We'd all like to know the exact date, of course, but no one can know for sure. Not even a careful reading of the Mayan calendar will help. What we can do is estimate a time range for price inflation to show up, and that alone should have some important implications for investment decisions. Why It's...

Around 2005, I wrote an article that predicted that when the US housing bubble broke, there would be a stock/financial crash - and this: "When markets collapse, the US Fed and other central banks will end up having to buy up the markets, and basically monetize them...in the $trillions" I don't remember the exact quote but that is what I said. Well, here we are. The Fed has spent $3-4 trillion directly, and another roughly $19 trillion buying/guaranteeing bad assets and giving mortgage bonds and such support. The ECB also did roughly $4-6 trillion of market bailouts/backstopping. Japan and other...

Stocks now pay way less than bonds once again, but neither pay much... BLINK and you missed it. US equities offered a greater yield on investment than did US Treasury bonds for less than five months... And from the day this oddity struck, 18 Nov. 2008, the S&P still had another one-fifth to fall. "When this inversion occurred, my two older partners assured me it was an anomaly," wrote the late Peter Bernstein in Nov. 2008. The inversion Bernstein referred to had occurred five decades earlier...back when the dividend yield offered by US equities slipped below the yield offered by...

The Agri-Food investment story has been unfolding for more than three years, and has another ten or so years to go. For that reason, investors still have plenty of time to uncover the opportunities for profits in a world soon to be far more hungry. Agri-Food cannot be produced in factories with lower marginal costs for new production. Unlike consumer electronics, marginal production will have a higher cost. For centuries mankind has sought to satisfy hunger. Only in the second half of the 19th century did food become more plentiful with improved availability. Yet even after that period food was...

China, Russia, Japan & France are working with oil producers in the Middle East to permit currencies other than the U.S. $ to be used to pay for oil. This basket of currencies will include the Japanese Yen, the Chinese Yuan, and the €. It is reported in leading U.K. newspapers that this payment may be in a ‘new' currency that is made up of these currencies. It is also reported that a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar would form part of this ‘basket' While we...

"A dollar is worth only 70¢ now," my Dad jabbered as we worked in the backyard. "And they say it'll only be worth 50¢ in a few years." It was the mid-‘70s. I was helping my Dad build a dirt road to our barn and he wasn't happy. Not about the hard work or humidity, but from what was happening to the dollar. Inflation was starting to kick into high gear, grabbing headlines that even a girl-chasing teenager could understand. I remember being appalled by the thought of going to the store and having the clerk demand $1.30 for an...

The G-20 meeting last week was hoped to be a watershed for the global economy. It was hoped that accepted that there has to be a global solution to the financial crisis that triggered the credit crunch and the worldwide recession. Those solutions had to include the full cooperation of other key governments, including China, before we could hope for a sound recovery of the global economy. If we have more superficial statements with no real action, expect yet another crisis as confidence is lost, not only in currencies, but in global money systems. You all know the old adage,...

Now that the credit/bank crisis is two years old, and the Dow around 10,000, gold is at highs over $1000. One would think that with $3 trillion of direct US Fed bailout cash, plus $17 trillion of various guarantees and singlehanded support for the US mortgage/financial markets would do something. After the ‘Cash for Clunkers' stimulus, and all the other money thrown into the banking system since the collapse of Lehman a year ago, one would expect some kind of economic rebound. The financial pundits are all making a big deal out of the Dow rally to 10,000. Will it...

It's not only the energy markets that threaten the 'low inflation' data now encouraging bondholders to keep buying... THE PUBLISHED INFLATION DATA are surprisingly unsophisticated in so far as they compare current prices with a snapshot a year earlier. Just over a year ago, oil was every hedge fund manager's favorite speculation. In summer 2008 a barrel got to well over $140, before falling sharply back. You may remember the food riots of early 2008, and how they seem to have disappeared. Well, that occurred after a small dip in world grain production in 2007. Fortunately, by its end, 2008...

This without question is one of the most thought provoking articles I've ever read. After reading it I got the full article which is 17 pages in .pdf format and even more profound. (For the record I am in no way affiliated with Casey, David Galland, or Neil Howe). If you want to know whats happening with our country and how Obummer is able to manipulate, control, decieve, and cheat the American people this is for you. Here's an excerpt: A Casey Research interview with Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning The Fourth Turning is an amazingly prescient book...

Having risen approximately 300% since the start of its bull run in 2001, Gold has far outpaced the investment gains in virtually every other investment class, including stocks, bonds, real estate and cash. Gold bugs feel certain that this time will be the ‘big one,' and that the precious metal will likely hit $2,000 - $3,000 an ounce, if not higher. Commodity experts like Jim Rogers also believe that Gold will continue to surge higher, right along with most energy, food and base metal commodities; in fact, some believe that the bull run in commodities still has another 5 -10...

Those people who have saved for the future could soon form our own generation of bankrupted, Babushka pensioners... TWENTY-FIVE years ago, the Russians found themselves in a hole. They had an official price for petrol (gasoline) of 1 rouble. But the cost of providing it, for example by buying it on world markets, was 8 roubles. In so far as the state could supply any petrol to anyone at all, it was definitely going to be at a big loss. Yet they obstinately refused to accept that their price was wrong. How we laughed at this dogmatic denial of the...

So it was just announced Chicago didn't win the Olympics... (YES!) This is what happened shortly after: So this begs the question what has Obummer actually accomplished as President? Healthcare - No, Iraq - No, Guantanamo - No, Economy - No, Olympics - No. Massive Spending - Yes, Over Promising and Underdelivering On Everything Else - Yes, Yes, Yes. I think when the President runs for re-election in three years he should keep his slogan "Yes We Can" and simply add an asterisks to the end of it which reads "like Barry Bonds." If Democrats do it that way new...