Monthly Archives: July 2013

Metal detector knows how much cash is in your wallet

"It has long been an urban legend that the security strips found in US banknotes let shadowy government agencies use metal detectors to track how much cash you are carrying. Now it seems the conspiracy theory may have been half right: it is possible to both detect and count concealed banknotes printed with magnetic inks. Physicists Christopher Fuller and Antao Chen at the University of Washington in Seattle realised that large bundles of notes would contain enough magnetic material to be detected at a distance, potentially allowing police to catch people attempting to smuggle cash over the border." Continue reading →

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Third-Largest US Futures Broker Newedge Fined for Lax Oversight of Manipulative Trades

"The brokerage allowed potentially manipulative trading such as 'spoofing,' in which firms place orders designed to trick other firms into buying or selling stocks. Finra said clients also engaged in multiple 'wash trades,' in which a firm acts as buyer and seller in the same trade, creating the illusion of heavy trading volume that lures firms that are tracking for such activity. Finra last August implemented a sophisticated market-surveillance system that already has sparked nearly 300 investigations. The SEC is using a new market-monitoring system called Midas to track trading across stock exchanges." Continue reading →

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Bitfinex: Bitcoin Margin Trading

"The idea behind margin trading is simple. If you have an account at a traditional Bitcoin exchange like BitStamp of MtGox, you have two balances: a BTC balance and a USD balance. Apart from depositing and withdrawing, the only operation available to you is trading one currency for another. If you are participating in the exchange as a trader, your goal is to convert to BTC before the exchange rate goes up, and convert to USD before the exchange rate goes down, slowly increasing the net worth of your account over time. Margin trading services add only one feature to this model: the ability to have one of your balances go negative." Continue reading →

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Not All Insurers Game for State Exchanges: The Consumer Impact

"As more insurers decide to pack up and leave certain states as health exchanges start to take form, experts say consumers are going to be left feeling the pain. Over the last few weeks, several departure announcements have sent a ripple through the health insurance industry, as companies weigh whether or not they want to play ball under Obamacare. So far, California has experienced the biggest migration with Aetna (AET), UnitedHealthcare (UNH) and Cigna (CI) leaving the state’s exchange, Covered California. Fifteen states and D.C. are in the process of creating their insurance exchanges before the 2014 deadline; when individuals must purchase insurance or face a fine." Continue reading →

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Small Utah ISP firm stands up to ‘surveillance state’ as corporations cower

"Xmission, an independent company based out of one office in Salt Lake City, Utah, has spent nearly two decades protecting its customers’ privacy as the National Security Agency, Department of Justice, and prosecutors have ramped up pressure on internet service providers (ISPs). Owner Pete Ashdown told RT that every data collection request stops at his desk, since he is the sole proprietor of Xmission. At a larger company, a panel of stockholders would bow to government pressure, he added. 'It’s pretty basic for me. Most of their requests are not constitutional. They’re not proper warrants so I turn them back,' he said." Continue reading →

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Plain Old Money Has Gotten Buggy

"Just today I passed a sign at a local check cashing shop, proudly proclaiming 'Send up to $50 for only $5!' Only a 10% minimum fee for transmitting funds? What a bargain. Credit cards don’t work person to person, checks don’t work at pretty much any retail establishment, cash doesn’t work if the bill’s too big, PayPal shuts down if you look at it funny, and you can just lie about how much gold you have (a thing you pointedly cannot do with cryptographic currencies). Bitcoin isn’t perfect. But it’s certainly not competing with perfection. What if money worked as reliably as the Internet?" Continue reading →

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Germany’s Bitcoin.de and Fidor Bank AG form partnership

"German bitcoin marketplace bitcoin.de and Fidor Bank AG have formed a large-scale partnership, with the online bank agreeing to provide a ‘liability umbrella’ to the marketplace operator Bitcoin Deutschland GmbH. This means the marketplace can prove it is officially following financial market regulations, such as anti-money laundering legislation. bitcoin.de hopes to lead the way as an EU-regulated trading platform with an EU deposit guarantee (up to 100,000 EUR per customer)." Continue reading →

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DEF CON hacker conference tells Feds not to attend

"One of the world’s largest hacker conferences, Def Con, requested that government employees do not attend this year’s annual conference, citing discomfort with federal officials in the wake of National Security Administration revelations. Traditionally, there has been a general acknowledgement that not all federal government employees who attend the Def Con conference do so openly, and a jovial 'Spot the Fed' competition has become commonplace at the Def Con conference. General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, spoke at last year’s Def Con conference and denied that the government had vast files of information, calling it 'absolute nonsense.'" Continue reading →

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Rising Lease Rates Show Demand For Physical Gold Remains Strong

"Although the price of gold remains weak, retail investors and industries continue to pay a premium to buy the physical metal now. What appears to be occurring is gold is moving from weak hands, ETF holders and etc, to strong holders, that is physical holders. On Tuesday, one-month lease rates for gold hit a four-year high and rose to 0.3%. The lease rate is important because it in an indication of industry demand. Jewelry stores will borrow gold, which is backed by the future sales of their products. Mining companies will also borrow gold at the lease rate and then pay back the loan with future production." Continue reading →

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JP Morgan is Taking Delivery of Silver. Why?

"The commodity futures market allows speculators to bet against each other on where the prices of commodities are headed. Participants make money by out-guessing their competitors. Only about 3% of the contracts ever result in delivery of the physical commodity. The speculators don’t want the commodities. They just want the price action. All of a sudden, without warning, JP Morgan is demanding delivery of silver — not money. This is never done. Well, almost never. Bunker Hunt tried that in 1979, and the COMEX changed the rules. He was trying to squeeze the silver market. The COMEX opted out. Hunt lost billions of dollars." Continue reading →

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