CLibertyC

Central bank decree now runs Vietnam Gold sector

"Vietnam central bank has warned that gold businesses cannot launch programs to accept gold deposits from customers without permission from the central bank. The central bank said these illegal businesses can be inspected and penalized. It also ordered that commercial banks must now have SBV permission to run storage services. There is a very important clause in the decree, which stipulates that all activities other than trading gold by the businesses should be licensed by the central bank and the government, in order not to negatively affect the market." Continue reading →

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Nepal police seize smuggled gold bound for India

"Nepal police seized 35 kilograms of gold on Wednesday, smuggled over the border from China and bound for India, where demand for the precious metal was soaring, officers said. The shipment, worth two million dollars on the black market, was the biggest ever seized by police in Nepal in what is an increasingly lucrative cross-border smuggling racket, the officers said. The gold was discovered in a truck in the capital Kathmandu after police trailed the vehicle following a tip off, superintendent Uttam Kumar Karkee told AFP. He said that smugglers have been using land routes after authorities stepped up customs inspections at airports." Continue reading →

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Smuggled Gold worth $5 billion to hit India this year

"India's efforts to curb gold imports are backfiring as the country already started to suffer from illegal gold transactions. Reports said old style gold smuggling is back in the country as series of restrictions by the government makes it difficult for the importers to buy from abroad while smugglers are offering much lower prices. Analysts said smuggling became a lucrative affair after the rise in customs duty on gold imports and people risking their necks to smuggle in gold. They added that smugglers got an opportunity after being sidelined for nearly 15 years due to liberalized policies of the government on gold imports." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSmuggled Gold worth $5 billion to hit India this year

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 →

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

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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