text:
Gold and Silver Backwardation
I am not backing down from this and it is OK for otherwise agreeable people to disagree. No one has all the answers, regardless of their level of expertise and experience, and differing opinions are what make a market.
And I'm expecting a bottom here, too. The charts are looking better...which, admittedly when compared to last week, isn't saying much.
Let's start by revisiting DrC, crude and Sylvia. Ten days ago, they gave us clues that a period of "general commodity weakness" was coming. What are they saying now? Well, all three look poised for a rebound. Will they? And again, why is this important? Because buying interest in these 3 will almost always spark some spillover interest in the PMs, regardless of that day's Bullion Bank intentions or POSX movements.
Let's start with crude. Recall that I urged traders and even those with UCO to consider taking profits at $98. I expected a drop to $93 and we got it. So, now what? It would appear that the $95 level holds the key. Above there and the possibility exists for a jump back to the $98-100 level and a possible breakout. Below $95 and you have to guard against a drop toward $90, maybe even $88.
And what about copper? On the drop last week, it seemed everyone and their brother was mentioning how we all need to keep an eye on "DrC". That is, of course, true but I'm not here to sound any alarm bells...at least not yet. As you can see, after failing to hold the breakout that we were closely monitoring two weeks ago, copper has simply fallen back into the pennant which has contained it for over a year. Until and unless a sustained breakout occurs, it remains rangebound and, within the range, subject to support and a bounce right near these current levels.
And then there's Sylvia. How many times did we discuss that old dame 2-3 weeks ago, closely watching the $1735 level for a breakout? In the end, it's hardly a surprise that it didn't break out and what you see now is what always happens when a breakout fails. Namely, everyone attempts to head for the exits at once! The result is a sharp drop. But look what has happened. Successive attempts to press it even lower and under $1600 failed late last week and now she's likely primed for a sharp, short-covering, snapback rally.
So, in this context, what can we expect this week from the metals? First of all, anything is possible. You should know that by now. However, both charts are clearly oversold in the short-term and look poised for a rebound. We may even be able to generate some momentum and then create a virtuous cycle of short-squeezing. We'll see about that but, at a minimum, I am confident that the lows of last week are going to hold.
Of course, we may not get much today because of the expiration of the March13 silver options. We also need to keep in mind that Thursday will be First Notice Day so expect a lot of volatility. Again, though, I think we've found an end to this latest downdraft and I firmly believe that March is going to be very interesting and very fun. (Ides+7)
OK, now onto this backwardation stuff. As mentioned above, this will be a hot topic around here this week as I plan to record a podcast with our pal, Andy, either tomorrow or Wednesday. (It just kind of depends on how busy things are in the markets.) I also hope to visit with the ultimate expert in this topic, Sandeep Jaitly of The Gold Basis Service newsletter. My goal is to give you plenty of information so that you can make your own decision as to the significance of the data. Again, no one has all the answers and we must always be willing to study and learn.
So, what are we looking at when measuring for backwardation in gold and silver? (Particularly gold, which is NOT a commodity, it is a currency. Don't think so? Ask the Turks or the Iranians or the Chinese what they think.) For this purpose, we measure what are called the BASIS and the C0-BASIS. Well, what are those?
BASIS = Front delivery month Comex future bid vs the SPOT ask/offer.
Co-BASIS = SPOT bid vs Front delivery month Comex future ask/offer.
Let's put that in numbers. Let's say that SPOT is currently bid at 1579 and offered at 1580 and that the April13 contract is bid at 1580 and offered at 1581. This gives us a BASIS of 0 and a Co-BASIS of 2. This is fine and this is normal "contango". But when we speak of current backwardation, that's not what we have. When we see backwardation, it begins when the BASIS turns negative and the Co-BASIS moves toward zero. So, now another example:
SPOT is still at 1579 by 1580 but the future is also 1579 by 1580. Now the BASIS is -1 and the Co-BASIS is 1. This is mild backwardation. Nothing crazy and it could simply be caused by front month liquidation as we head toward contract expiration and First Notice Day...kind of like where we are now in March13 silver.
Alarm bells begin to ring when BOTH the BASIS and Co-BASIS move into negative territory. Again, for example, when SPOT is 1579 by 1580 yet the nearby future is 1578 by 1579. This creates measurable and actionable backwardation as the BASIS is now -2 and the Co-BASIS is now zero. Again, this could be just a temporary situation caused by overdone, waterfall declines and other, assorted Cartel shenanigans.
The key word, though, is TEMPORARY. When the Co-BASIS reaches into negative territory, arbitrage should almost immediately turn it back positive. WHY? Because at a negative C0-BASIS, you should be able to sell your physical on the spot market and then immediately purchase, with the intent of taking delivery, a front month futures contract. By doing so, you are locking in a RISK-FREE PROFIT. Again, you might be asking why and how?
Look at the numbers in the backwardation scenario above. You can sell 100 ounces of physical at $1579. You can then guarantee the return purchase of your physical in 2-6 weeks by buying a futures contract for $1578. You just made $100. Do that with 100 contracts and you make $10,000. Do that with 1000 contracts and you make $100,000. Do it every day for a week and you make $500,000. Because people are willing and able to do that, the backwardation closes and the market flips back into contango.
But here's the deal...April13 gold, which will expire in about 5 weeks, is now consistently in backwardation, not just on the BASIS but on the Co-BASIS, too. WHY??? Why aren't the arbitrageurs jumping at the free money? THAT is the question.
Later this week, when I speak with Andy, we'll attempt to definitively answer this question and provide a further explanation as to what this signals for future price. For now, though, I'm going to leave this right here for your discussion. If you want to do some of your own homework on this subject, I strongly suggest you start with this excellent piece from Dr. Antal Fekete. It's worth your time and very informative.
Have a great day. I look forward to a very interesting and exciting week.
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273 Comments
I think.......
We are about to see the Baltic Dry Index plumb new lows. As the economies of the world stagnation deepens. Coming trade wars will appear different this time.
wasnt me
"Meanwhile, Jon Corzine steals $1.6 billion dollars of (allegedly) sacrosanct customer segregated funds, and remains a free man today."
Fix is six
I'm slipping.
Thank You Turd
for all you do!
Without this wonderful Blog, I would be lost when it comes to PM's.
And Thank You! regular posters. Your wealth of information adds to my life greatly!
Jim Willie (Hat Trick
Jim Willie (Hat Trick Letter)
Eric Sprott reports that the massive plunge in gold scrap recycling might be removing as much as a staggering 850 tons of gold from world supplies each year. Sprott also anticipates in the not too distant future, a default will come to the COMEX, since it has almost no Gold and Silver in inventory. It is constantly shuffling supply, even raiding the GLD & SLV inventory. Information from refiners indicates that the secondary market (scrap) business is down almost 50% year over year, with the previous year in decline also. The only precious metal supply comes from the miners, and they increasingly avoid COMEX as destination for sale. Data on recycled gold is woefully lacking. In general, the supply has essentially dried up. So recycling is down 50%, which normally adds about 1700 tons to the gold supply above mining output. Hence, it would imply a reduction of a substantial 850 tons of gold supply. Conclude that people are holding their heirlooms, or else already sold them a few years ago (with regret). The big picture indicates fast growing Gold demand on a sustainable basis. The Chinese imports in December at 114 tons was again huge. The world only produces 200 tons per month of gold excluding China, which buys all its own output. Given extremely strong coin sales, it is hard to see where the Gold supply is to come from. Lastly, Kyle Bass, Ray Dalio, and Bill Gross at PIMCO all suggest they should be investing in Gold.
Sprott commented on the official German request for a portion of their Gold account. He regards the eight-year plan for its return a bit of a joke. The Gold market is therefore extremely tight, with investment demand, coin demand, and official accounts to be returned. The central banks are dealing with chaos at all times, solutions not working, new money being printed in huge volume, and big banks going bust. The monetary inflation remedy and heavy doses of inflation have caused nasty threats. Clearly the Gold & Silver prices are being controlled with force and corrupt actions. With growing demand, yet no price movement, the signature is obvious that prices are under control and Western central banks are supplying the physical quantities in demand. The staggering monetary expansion by the central banks in unison, against a background of bond crisis, bank crisis, and political stalemate, has not resulted in any typical economic response. The system is out of control. Sprott firmly believes that someday a default will occur. It could be a default on the COMEX, or some industrial user announces a production shutdown, like because of no Silver in supply. A time of euphoria is near for the precious metals. It is hard to predict when a default event would occur, but it could be the next 12 to 24 months in his view. When it happens, a substantial move in the price of Gold & Silver will arrive, making up for these last two years in no time. See the King World News article (CLICK HERE).
Sprott believes the USFed campaign to print money with abandon, to grow its balance sheet, to redeem toxic bonds, to manage the switcharoo on long-term versus short-term bonds, to jar the door open for big banks in USTBond carry trade, and to maintain the zero bound on interest rates, HAS ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING. USGovt liabilities continue to explode. The labor market is deteriorating, hardly the slow recovery we are told. Food Stamp usage is at record levels. Income inequality for wealthy versus poor is widening. He regards the amplified USFed activity to be nothing more than subtle USGovt financing of deficits, with absent USTBond buyers. While Sprott notices the surplus in the labor force, which cuts down on risk of wage inflation, he does not appear to give adequate stress to the rising cost structure that has resulted from the USFed monetary inflation and zero bound rate offering. He concludes no inflation risk, when the bigger factor is a cost structure that threatens all working capital in the USEconomy. He implies the reduced inflation risk permits the USFed a green light to continue its destruction. See the Zero Hedge article (CLICK HERE).
The news story is simple, but the meaning is enormously significant. The Gold holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, with trading symbol GLD, remains the biggest Exchange Traded Fund backed by bullion in the world. It is also the most corrupt, whose custodians designed it for easy gold bar inventory raids by the big US banks. The GLD gold bar inventory decreased 3.02 metric tons to 1323 tons as of February 14th, the lowest level since early October. The mainstream news story stops short of asking the natural follow-up question of where the physical gold bars are going, and who is the buyer might be. No buyer is involved. It is a basic high volume raid. The big US banks short the GLD shares and arrive to pick up the three tons of physical gold bars in armored trucks. The dopey sheep nitwits who invest in the GLD fund have their gold leased and borrowed like stock certificates right under their ignorant noses. Someday the ETFund will be drained dry of gold, its investors dumbfounded. My hope is soon a GLD discount to spot Gold price is posted. The big raid of gold bars, easily enabled, makes possible the defense of the Gold price. The massive rise in investment demand is met by massive raids of the corrupted GLD gold fund, in balance. In the process, the gold price looks tame, calm, and unaltered. The financial news talking heads and supposed expert guests talk about Gold being the trade on fear. What utter nonsense! Gold is the trade against monetary inflation gone out of control, the plethora of toxic sovereign AAA bonds, the broken insolvent banks, and the economies subjected to fierce attack on capital.
Despite two production shutdowns in January, the USMint sold a record breaking 7.13 million Silver Eagles in only ten business days in January, shattering the previous monthly record set in 2011. As a result, the USMint has resumed rationed Silver Eagle sales. The prized coins can be obtained from allocation and rationing. In the following few days, the mint sold another 300 thousand coins, to make a 7.42 million count for the partial January month. The public has bought almost half a $billion in Gold & Silver coins in January. Their distrust of money is patently clear. See the Silver Doctor article (CLICK HERE and HERE).
Proof that the true Silver price is higher than the posted paper price on COMEX comes straight from the USMint itself. They raised the premium over spot for the 2013 American Silver Eagle. One week ago, the coin cost was $39.95 (for 1 to 4 coins) and $38.45 (for over 20 coins) with a limit of 40 coins. Availability is not until February 5th. The clear implication is that the actual Silver price is much higher. In nasty sarcasm, conclude that the USMint must be the most profitable branch of USGovt except for the USFed, which just prints profits willy nilly but is a private syndicate firm anyway. Witness a huge spread over the spot price. It would be interesting to see a Profit-Loss statement from the mint operations, if it were available. See the Gov. Mint news release (CLICK HERE).
Subscribe to the Hat Trick Letter for the full article.
todays close
I think it'll be a telling thing if they don't make any real attempt at all to bang the metals lower around 1:15.
A token feeble attempt might happen with no real short term significance (or chart painting) but I'm kind of thinking they'll leave it alone at this point.
Surprisingly it appears the UK/BOE downgrade was of little impact after Fridays close. Seems a little odd to me and it suggests that last weeks sell off in part had to due with it leaking out first. No surprise there.
Kudos to anyone who bought MGN on Friday. It crossed my mind and is one of the small stocks I follow that ranges significantly from a % standpoint that serves as one of my small weathervanes which way miner sentiment is headed.
I've been out of the miners for awhile except for those SLW calls I mentioned on Friday. But if I were all in like I've been at times I normally had 2-3K shares of MGN when I felt sentiment was turning.
MGN is a small indicator to me but it seems consistent.
One good day doesn't make a trend at all but fwiw I think we left the gate slowly around 12:45 on Friday.
Agreed.Most ignore the fact
Most ignore the fact that both Gold and Silver are traded in the FX market. No one can argue they are not currencies. I don't know of any other "commodity" traded as FX pairs.
Look forward to these interviews as although I understand the concept of backwardation I only have basic understanding of it and have never learnt about it in depth.
Rock on.
I also feel a bottom is in but I do expect a notable drop to complete wave D. I expect it to form the right shoulder of an IHS that will appear in the charts by then. Then the big up to September time... pull back.. Then rocket to Q1 next year when I see major peak and troughs occurring in all markets. Expecting Turbulence.
in Gold I still want my two down days and one more down month (after this one?) to confirm new cycle
Hold Your Horse! Not So Fast.
A very old saying goes;
Don't count your chickens until they're hatched.
Just when everything looks 'rosyest' for a rebound, the bottom drops out.
Gold for the past 6 months has been range bound, marked by a low at 1530 and resistance at 1800, with a low of 1554 this past week. The 10-week RSI is oversold below 30 for the first time since August of 2008.
Crunch time approaches. This is where things REALLY start to get interesting. One CAVEAT that I would warn about; Even though, the last time the RSI fell below 30 in August of 2008, gold did not bottom until 2 months later in October of 2008 and 100 points lower.
I smell a rat on the loose. The EE are setting up a major false bottom here. Don't get sucked in on the long side if trading here. A majority will fall for this play at this low level and the EE will give the sheep herd one more REALLY good shearing! Just IMHO.
Why aren't the arbitrageurs jumping at the free money?
Why aren't the arbitrageurs jumping at the free money?
I'll take Counter party Risk for $500 Alex.
always makes me get a visual of moon walking...
I didn't have a chance to weigh in,
After this weekend's discussion on the COT report, despite its obvious bullishness,
I am still quite pessimistic, and still believe that if they were to do anything as obvious as it appears, it's a trap.
As far as this morning's deep discussion on a potential silver shortage,
I enjoyed both sides of the discussion, but I firmly believe there is a serious and increasing shortage of supply.
And still, I do not believe this will be reflected in the price in any significant manner untill current supplies are exhausted.
Keep stacking, it shouldn't be much longer.
Also, the upcoming crisis that we have come to known as the sequester, may be used to create a crisis that does not really exist.
Only because what can not be sustained won't be, at some point our beloved government is going to have to change course in a major way, either through currency devaluations, or additional printing, but it still looks like they are on a trajectory since going over the cliff, to have a very public splatter on the canyon floor.
And there's your cup of cheer for your Monday afternoon.
We have yet to wade through the manufactured sequester, and the shenanigans possible. As well FED SPEEK soon.
Bottom line still remains.......the PRINT SHOW will go on.
If trading I would think a well defined, certain turn would be best. If volatile market trade is your forte, trade away.
Reposted from the last thread.
Two points.
1. The silver shortage is about perspective to me. With a billion or so above ground ounces(That is a common theory of current above ground supply), and seven billion or so people, that is 1/7 of an ounce of Ag per person.
For the conspiracy minded to ponder: It is 2 whole ounces per person when there are only 500 million of us left after the purge! In either scenario, that is a shortage if you ask me.
2. The talk about QE ending has got me to thinking. If I understand correctly, were QE to end, interest rates would skyrocket. The result of that being the collapse of the economy and the end of the US dollar. The debasement of the world's currencies has transitioned from a marathon to a sprint.
Here is my question: What if this is the plan? Stay with me, please.
There are an unprecedented number of longs that have been building, rumors of QE ending from the FMOC, every country in the world trying to kill their currency without panicking the population, and domestic infringement of liberty, the likes of which have not been seen in centuries. All of which are happening with the consent of our government. What if all of the pieces are now set?
Please feel free to punch this full of holes. It is looking dark, and I would love to have a little light shine in.
Edit: Thanks AncientMoney, I saw your reply!
The devil is in the details...
Not to make too big a deal of this, but our good friend Turd has signaled now at least twice (that I've seen) that he believes there is something noteworthy about the date March 22- once in this post, once in a reply to ReachWest a few weeks ago. Methinks there is more significance to this date than just celebrating the birthday of William Shatner. Just throwing it out there...
Actually, I think you laid all the pieces out fairly well.
No need to punch holes in your theory, it is all about to unravel as planned.
Sorry I couldn't be more cheerful.
They may be fools but they're not idiots
TPTB have some kind of plan for when TSHTF and of that I'm certain. They will not simply let the system collapse so what happens when they can no longer sustain what is going on and has been for a long, long time? When the bond market at all durations has no bid but the fed or the primary dealers? Beats me but I have no doubt at all that what seems obvious to us is equally obvious to them and they will not simply continue down the current path. So what will the new path be? Is the Amero real? There just has to be something coming our way that is not a gold standard as that would be the ultimate poison pill for the vampires who run things. No, it will be something extremely unpleasant, dishonest, probably steeped in fraud and otherwise unpalatable. But it is on the menu written in invisible ink. Interesting times indeed.
"To boldly go....
where no man has gone before."
great job turd...
do you know if andy is planning to run his introductory $100 for the first month of following him on trading the yellla relic again? thanks and may god bless turdvillle ....................
Pining- more deviltry
Significance of 3/17/2013?
Coincidence that poster on fridge behind Cueball is for St Pat"s Day and what about that pot of gold, huh Turd?
From Cueball and Thunderlips vid, no one else seemed to notice, but it stood out for me.
@10 of Swords
"every country in the world trying to kill their currency without panicking the population, and domestic infringement of liberty, the likes of which have not been seen in centuries"
Actually, didn't we see exactly this a little less than a century ago?
it does get weirder all the time DPH.
But lets mark 2/20 as the start of a rebirth of freedom.
Submitted on February 17, 2013
now lets see O.O
Fundamentals in place? Check
Apparent washout .... Check
Been Accumulating in the low 30s? ..... Check
Raging PM Bears galore? .... Check
Star Aligning again .... Check
Long Consolidation Pattern? .... Check
Been nearly 2 years for silver in the making, with many many typical bull-chit head fakes, buckin many a young and old off the hunt, but you stacking bullion coins, RIGHT? You bet you did, as we all have. sitting tight, accumulating in the low 30s,
The really-big-shoe Starts Wednesday
2/20/13 ..... ;)
From Silver Doctors
No, the crisis dates way back before the last century, and the United States neither inspired nor led the moves against monetary metals—the British get that credit, and the Americans, though militarily stronger, are junior partners financially. Will this correction to Fekete be posted by all the sites that linked his article? Absolutely not; ask them why! Fekete says after the dollar and paper currencies fail, China will run the world. Not a bad thesis; however, I believe the Anglo-Americans are conspiring to draw China and Russia into head on conflict over Middle East petro and other resources including the entire Caspian Sea region, after which the New World Order of the Anglo-Americans could again leap forward. Maneuvring nations to fight each other has been a hallmark of international finance since the Rothschilds perfected it centuries past; but don't kid yourself, they aren't the only major private financial power and are in league with the others via The Pilgrims Society!
I present you here with 50+ references to back up my case, not including links to any of my original work nor to those of one brief similar issue to this; Fekete supplied no references. What kind of learned professor is he? Here's one I won't include on the scoreboard but it's of interest http://www.silverinstitute.org/site/supply-demand/silver-production/ in 2011 China was the world's third largest silver producer at 103.9 million ounces. Are they exporting most silver mined on their territory anymore? Not a chance! Any miners sending concentrate or dore to China for smelting into three niner could abruptly find their metal has been seized if wartime returns. Meantime some business is as usual, from June 21, 2012, we find "Rothschilds and Rockefellers team up, target rich Chinese at http://www.morningwhistle.com/html/2012
Is China actually the "big silver short?" I dearly doubt it; more likely, it's The Pilgrims Society and the banking entities it operates. How nice for our megabankers if blame could be shifted elsewhere! And as with the flow of silver to China over a multi-century span, the camarilla of Anglo American power plans to recoup gold and silver that has shifted to China and Russia in recent years. I worry much less about Brazil, Russia, India and China ("BRIC" countries) than our own leadership who, with the British, remain the main threat to our metals ownership, to our sovereign individual liberties as expressed in the Bill of Rights, and are the world's leading warmongers. They have to warmonger; for you see, this is intimately connected to synthetic money creation. But with the Internet's many uncensored sites, risk to the Anglo American bankers is revving up! They marched all over silver for centuries like General Sherman marching through Georgia; now the General is ready to march all over them!
5-minute gap chart update
@ Irene
You may be right, but with the technological wonder that is the internet, I believe that it has never been out there for domestic consumption at these levels. Not that the masses can see past the punch and judy show. Something about leading a horse to water...
(not you Steven B :D)
Ides +7
H'mmm.... I'm guessing that's Santa's B-Day and he knows something.
He's pretty much put himself on a ledge with his confident tone regarding golds short term direction.


text:
Making of an Astronaut
classrooms, realistic simulators and virtual reality environments,
International Space Station crewmembers prepare for long-duration
most exciting day for anyone who wants to travel into space is the
day he or she is selected to be an astronaut candidate. Then the
real work begins. It can take up to two years of training to become
a fully qualified astronaut. You must learn the basics of the space
shuttle and the International Space Station, as well as how to be
part of a team by flying the NASA T-38 training jets.
After you finish
your initial training period as an astronaut candidate, you will
be given a technical assignment. In that job, you will support astronauts
who are already in space and those who are training to go. There
you will wait, sometimes for years, for the next most exciting day
of your life -- the day you are assigned to a space flight. If you
did well in your initial training and worked hard at your technical
assignment, one day the chief of the Astronaut Office will ask you
if you'd still like to go to space. Most people don't take too long
to answer that question!
to Live and Work Aboard the Space Station
If you are
assigned to fly aboard the space station as an Expedition crewmember,
you will need about 18 months of training. It may take longer than
18 months, though, if you haven't received any specific training
on the space station systems you'll be using during your mission,
or if you don't have the required language skills. It helps to have
trained as a backup to another expedition crewmember and to have
learned to speak Russian. Astronauts must be able to understand
Russian so they can talk with the Russian Mission Control Center
and to understand their Russian instructors. If you're going to
live and work on the International Space Station, you'll need to
speak at least two languages. Knowing more than two languages is
even better!
During your 18 months of training, you will make many trips between
the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and the Gagarin
Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, just outside Moscow.
There are usually eight or nine such training trips to each country.
You might also go to Canada to train on the Space Station's robotic
arm. In the future, station crewmembers will also train in Europe
and Japan when the modules from the European Space Agency and Japanese
Space Agency are added to the space station.
Curator: Kim
Dismukes | Responsible NASA Official: John Ira Petty | Updated: 08/23/2004Web Accessibility and
Policy Notices

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Alphabetical Listing
Bank Failure: Evidence from the Colombian Financial Crisis
by Jose E. Gomez-Gonzalez and Nicholas M. Kiefer
Bank-specific determinants of bank failure during the financial crisis in Colombia are identified and studied using duration analysis. The process of failure of banks and related financial institutions during that period can be explained by differences in financial health and prudence across institutions. The capitalization ratio is the most significant indicator explaining bank failure. Increases in this ratio lead to a reduction in the hazard rate of failure at any given moment in time. This ratio exhibits a non-linear component. At lower levels of capitalization small differences in capitalization are associated with larger differences in failure rates. Our results thus provide empirical support for existing regulatory practice. Other important variables explaining bank failure dynamics are the bank's size and profitability.
Any whole or partial reproduction of material in this paper should include the following citation: Jose E. Gomez-Gonzalez and Nicholas M. Kiefer "Bank failure: Evidence from the Colombian financial crisis," Cornell University; Banco de la República, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Working Paper 2007-2, March 15, 2007
This Economics Working Paper (PDF) is available for viewing in Adobe's PDF format. The PDF viewer is available for download free from Adobe in versions for different platforms.


text:
The $639 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market begins the largest transformation in its 30- year history Monday with rules intended to contain another financial crisis, trimming profits for Wall Street banks.
Companies from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to BlackRock Inc. are now required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to have most of their privately negotiated swaps trades backed by a clearinghouse that�s capitalized by the world�s largest banks. That means dealers and their customers have to post upfront collateral to absorb losses if a firm defaults and settle daily losses.
Regulators are overhauling a market that complicated efforts to untangle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by obscuring how interconnected and vulnerable banks had become to each other. Executives from at least three dealers are concerned they may not be ready for a surge in cleared trades, while Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said the rules may cut pre-tax margins at bank trading units by a third. Swaps helped produce a combined $30 billion in annual profits at the biggest dealers, consulting firm Oliver Wyman estimates.
�The shift to central clearing will transform the economics of OTC derivatives,� said Bernstein�s Brad Hintz, ranked by Institutional Investor magazine as the second-best analyst covering brokerage firms and exchanges. �Trade volumes should increase, but that increase is not going to offset the margin decline. Wall Street�s derivative clients will be the winners.�
The rules may cost New York-based JPMorgan $1 billion to $2 billion in revenue, the biggest U.S. derivatives dealer said in a Feb. 26 presentation. The bank will seek to reduce the loss with fees it can charge customers to help them trade, clear and collateralize swaps, a business JPMorgan said may produce revenue of $300 million to $500 million by 2015.
The mandate this week also will be the biggest test of trading and processing systems that banks have been building during the past several years to comply with Dodd-Frank rules.
Executives who help oversee derivatives clearing at three of Wall Street�s largest banks said they were worried that the systems they�ve connected to clients and clearinghouses aren�t ready to handle the trades. The executives spoke on the condition neither they nor their firms be identified so as not to upset clients.
Two of the executives said they aren�t traveling to Boca Raton, Fla., this week for the Futures Industry Association annual conference so they can be in New York in case problems occur.
Officials at two other major dealers said that while they aren�t worried about Monday�s deadline, they are concerned their systems will be stressed in June when a larger number of firms, including banks, insurance companies and smaller hedge funds, are required to clear their swaps trades.
For the first time, banks also will be required to post initial margin for their swap trades. In the private market, lenders didn�t set aside the collateral, meant to cover the cost to exit positions if the firm fails, because no major dealer had collapsed prior to Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008.
As much as $6.7 trillion in additional collateral may be needed to satisfy new bank capital rules and swaps-clearing mandates, securities-industry consultant Finadium LLC said in December. Global bank regulations are compelling lenders to keep more cash and easy-to-liquidate investments on hand to protect against losses. That may boost demand for high-grade assets by $2 trillion to $4 trillion, according to an April 2012 report from the International Monetary Fund.
Money managers such as New York-based BlackRock, the world�s largest asset manager, and Citadel LLC, the Chicago-based hedge-fund and securities firm run by Kenneth Griffin, have been voluntarily clearing swaps trades before Monday�s deadline at LCH.Clearnet Group Ltd., Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and CME Group Inc., which run the three largest clearinghouses for the derivatives.
In all, clearinghouses since 2009 have processed $24 trillion in notional value of trades between banks and their customers, according to the companies. Notional values don�t represent the actual money that has changed hands and are used to determine payment flows under swap contracts.
LCH.Clearnet, the world�s largest interest-rate swap clearinghouse, accounts for more than $22 trillion of that total, the London-based company said last week. Intercontinental has processed $160 billion in cleared customer credit-default swaps, according to Brookly McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based exchange.
Chicago-based CME Group, which doesn�t break out trades between a bank and its customer, lumping them in with contracts between two dealers, has processed $2 trillion, said spokeswoman Laurie Bischel.
Wall Street�s largest banks and money managers failed to fulfill commitments made in 2010 to enable swaps customers to use clearinghouses to back trades, New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley said in 2011.
While the New York Fed prodded JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other dealers into clearing more than 90 percent of eligible inter-bank trades by the end of 2009, their clients resisted on concern that the potential added costs would outweigh benefits.
�What�s new here is clients are getting on board,� Niamh Alexander, an exchange analyst with KBW Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview. She noted that dealers have been clearing interest-rate swap trades among themselves at LCH.Clearnet since 1999 and credit swaps at Intercontinental Exchange since 2009.
Credit-default swaps, used by investors to hedge against or speculate on the ability of companies and governments to repay their debt, played a role in the financial crisis when they were used to mimic mortgage-backed securities that plunged in value, spreading losses from the U.S. housing collapse across the globe.
The unregulated market, in which former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2006 complained trades were often recorded on scraps of paper, ballooned almost 100-fold within seven years to top $62 trillion of contracts by the end of 2007, according to estimates from the International Swaps & Derivatives Association.
That number has shrunk to about $24 trillion Monday, according to data from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., which began publishing information from its central swaps repository after the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The mandate taking effect Monday is the first in a series of government decisions on the types of swaps that must be settled at clearinghouses. The five-member Commodity Futures Trading Commission voted unanimously in November to require some interest-rate and credit swaps to be the first trades under the requirement.
Rate swaps in four currencies � U.S. dollars, euros, British pounds and Japanese yen � must be cleared, as well as contracts on benchmark credit-swaps indexes in North America. The CFTC on Feb. 25 delayed the start of mandatory clearing for Markit iTraxx indexes tied to European companies.
�To move the largest number of swaps to required clearing in its initial determinations, the commission believes that it is prudent to focus on those swaps that have the highest market shares, and, accordingly, the biggest market impact,� the agency said in its final determination.
JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are among more than 70 registered swap dealers, the first type of trading company that must meet the requirement. Other financial entities will face a June 10 deadline, while pensions and accounts managed by other asset managers will have to start clearing trades Sept. 9. Commercial and manufacturing companies, so-called end-users of swaps, are exempt from the requirements under Dodd-Frank and CFTC regulations.
The agency expects this year to consider a clearing mandate for some commodity and energy swaps, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said in testimony at a Feb. 14 Senate Banking Committee hearing.
Hedge funds and money managers that were trading swaps directly with a number of banks prior to the clearing mandate should see a reduction in their margin costs, said Peter Borish, the former chief executive officer of commodities hedge fund Touradji Capital Management LP. While individual banks could lower margin requirements for its customers if positions offset each other, investors typically spread their swap trading among several dealers, he said.
With a clearinghouse, all positions are in one place, leading to an investor�s entire portfolio being eligible for margin offsets, he said.
�I see that as a tremendous benefit,� said Borish, who was also a former head of research at hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp.
Elsewhere in credit markets, Chesapeake Energy Corp.�s bonds fell by the most in almost eight months after the oil and natural gas producer sued trustee Bank of New York Mellon Corp. to redeem $1.3 billion of debt early and avoid new interest. Viacom Inc., owner of the Paramount film studios and cable networks Nickelodeon and MTV, plans to issue $500 million of bonds in two parts.
The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade Index, a credit-default swaps benchmark, held at the lowest level since February 2011, declining 0.4 basis point to a mid-price of 80.2 basis points as of 11:13 a.m. in New York, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg.
In London, the Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings increased 1.1 to 104.8.
The indexes typically fall as investor confidence improves and rise as it deteriorates. Credit swaps pay the buyer face value if a borrower fails to meet its obligations, less the value of the defaulted debt. A basis point equals $1,000 annually on a swap protecting $10 million of debt.
Bonds of JPMorgan are the most actively traded dollar- denominated corporate securities by dealers Monday, accounting for 6.7 percent of the volume of trades of $1 million or more, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Chesapeake�s $1.3 billion of 6.775 percent notes due March 15, 2019, dropped 1.25 cents to 104 cents on the dollar to yield 5.97 percent at 10:58 a.m. in New York, Trace data show. The securities fell 2.5 cents July 16.
The company, which sued the trustee in Manhattan federal court on March 8, is asking a judge to confirm that a notice issued on or before March 15 will allow it to redeem those notes at par, or 100 cents, the Oklahoma City-based company said in a statement.
Viacom may sell 10- and 30-year debt as soon as Monday, according to a person with knowledge of the offering. The securities may be rated Baa1 by Moody�s Investors Service, three levels above speculative grade, and an equivalent BBB+ by Standard & Poor�s, said the person, who asked not to be identified because terms aren�t set.


text:
this is a discussion within the Saints Community Forum; Earlier this season, ESPN pro football analyst Sean Salisbury predicted the Saints would play the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl. At least half of that prediction won't come to pass. Salisbury ripped the Saints this week after the team ...
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The Dark Overlord
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: dirty south
Posts: 3,450
ESPN analyst vents on Saints' collapse
Earlier this season, ESPN pro football analyst Sean Salisbury predicted the Saints would play the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl.
At least half of that prediction won't come to pass.
Salisbury ripped the Saints this week after the team went from a 6-1 start to a 9-7 finish and did not make the playoffs.
Salisbury said the Saints are "the most disappointing team in football."
"They should have made the playoffs," he said.
The fact that they didn't still puzzles Salisbury.
"With a good football coach and with all of that talent, I cannot believe that we're sitting here talking about them losing to three teams (Minnesota, Cincinnati and Carolina) who were 15-33 that they should have beat," he said.
Salisbury said he didn't understand what happened to the Saints at the end of the season. "You know what, I wish I could bottle that up, and if I knew I'd sell it for a lot of money and wouldn't have to work any more. I say that kiddingly."
Salisbury said he doesn't attribute the fade to injuries "because everybody has them."
"I'm a (Saints coach Jim) Haslett fan," he said. "Mike Riley was my coach. I know Rick Venturi. It's a combination of a lot of things."
Salisbury said he doesn't know if the Saints had enough "killer instinct."
He also said Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks, who injured his right shoulder in a game against Tampa Bay on Dec. 1, was not the same player at the end of the season.
"I think (Brooks) has got the prettiest and best throwing motion in football," Salisbury said. "When I watch him play he's got some weaknesses like every quarterback does . . . but the last few weeks that ball didn't come over the top like Aaron Brooks is used to. It didn't have the velocity. He throws a beautiful ball, and it was just different."
Yet Salisbury is not sure the team should have played backup quarterback Jake Delhomme.
"I wouldn't have pulled Aaron if he was playing and throwing some incompletions just because of his performance, because you play your best player, and Aaron is a better player," Salisbury said. "But if the injury was letting him play at 75 or 80 percent, you bet you've got to play somebody else."
Still, Salisbury said he's confident that the Saints can correct their problems and have a strong season next year.
News and notes
-- Last Sunday's Carolina Panthers-Saints game on WVUE had a local 35.3 rating and a 60 share.
-- "Two things that might be a little overrated when we talk about the playoffs: emotion and home-field advantage." -- CBS analyst Phil Simms.
Instant replay
-- Best line No. 1: "If you came from the moon and hadn't seen the Saints go 6-1, you would think they were the Cincinnati Bengals." -- Buddy Diliberto on WWL Radio last Sunday.
-- Best line No. 2: "If they (the Saints) were a horse and they had a stretch run like this they would probably be tabbed for the glue factory." -- Joe Trahan on Fox 8 Sports Sunday last week
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Emirati journalist and prominent blogger has announced a 1 million Egyptian pound ($143,000) bounty for information leading to the capture of Muslim Brotherhood leaders sought by Egyptian authorities.
Hamad Al Mazroui posted the bounty on his twitter account late Monday, seeking help from anyone "regardless of nationality or religion" who had information regarding the whereabouts of Essam el-Erian, Safwat Hegazy, and Mohammed el-Beltagy.
The three are wanted by Egyptian authorities for allegedly inciting violence during an attack on the Brotherhood's political party headquarters in Cairo on June 30. The group's top leader, Mohammed Badie, and hundreds of other leaders and supporters have been arrested in a crackdown this past week.
Al Mazroui also said on his twitter feed that the reward would be coordinated with the Egyptian Interior Ministry.


text:
West, Towson look to run past EaglesSportsDirect Inc.
December 20. 2013 12:02AM
Towson running back Terrance West's record-setting season reached new heights last week with 354 yards rushing and five touchdowns in a 49-39 win over Eastern Illinois. The Football Championship Subdivision rushing and scoring leader gets another chance to impress Saturday in the FCS semifinals at No. 3 seed Eastern Washington.
The winner advances to the national championship game on Jan. 4, in Frisco, Texas, to face either New Hampshire or North Dakota State.
Seventh-seeded Towson has won 11 straight on the road, while Eastern Washington is 24-3 all-time on the red turf at Roos Field. Quarterback Vernon Adams has recorded 4,600 yards and 53 touchdowns this season for the Eagles, who are making their third FCS semifinal appearance in the last four years. The Eagles will be tested by the Tigers' 12th-ranked run defense and defensive end Ryan Delaire, who has a team-high 11.5 sacks.
The 5-11, 220-pound West, a three-time All-CAA first team selection, is 32 yards short of breaking the FCS single-season record of 2,326 set by Jamal Branch of Colgate in 2003. "After watching (West), he's as good as any running back I've ever seen in my career here," said Eastern Washington coach Beau Baldwin. The Tigers (12-2, 6-2 Colonial Athletic Association) will need a strong performance from senior quarterback Peter Athens (17 touchdowns, 12 interceptions) to keep pace with the explosive Eagles.
Eastern Washington (12-2, 8-0 Big Sky) set Big Sky single-season records for scoring (561) and passing yards (4,853) in last week's 35-24 victory over Jacksonville State. Eastern Washington, which ranks fourth in FCS in total offense (530.1 yards per game) and sixth in scoring (40.1), boasts a solid run game led by Quincy Forte (1,131 yards). Wide receiver Cooper Kupp has 85 catches for 1,567 yards and 21 touchdowns and received the Jerry Rice Award as the top FCS freshman.


text:
April 25, 2013
Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of mortality in the U.S. It is thus, almost by definition, a major topic of concern for the HIV-infected people we count among our patients and clients -- many of whom are intimately associated with traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as cigarette smoking, low physical fitness, hyperlipidemia and hypertension.
Yet when it comes to the incorporation of cardiovascular risk management into HIV care, we haven't seen much in the way of consistent or comprehensive guidance. As we accumulate more data regarding the intersection of HIV and cardiovascular disease, a clearer picture of the issue is developing. But that picture has yet to be properly framed for many of the health care professionals who actively treat people infected with HIV in the U.S.
For this episode of HIV Management Today, we called in an expert to paint -- and frame -- that picture for us. David Alain Wohl, M.D., is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina (UNC), the site leader of the UNC AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Chapel Hill, and the director of the North Carolina AIDS Education and Training Center. He is a widely respected clinician-researcher who has extensively spoken and conducted research on cardiovascular complications in HIV-infected populations.
Table of Contents
Dr. Wohl, how has our knowledge regarding the relationship between HIV and cardiovascular risk deepened over the past several years?
I think our understanding has evolved, and the ways that we've come to understand things have been informed by more and more data.
There are a lot of disease states where they have these large cohorts of people. If you're talking about diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer: You can look at these large cohorts of people who get these diseases because they're fairly prevalent. For a long time, we didn't have that with HIV. But we've got more and more of that.
On the other side, in addition to these relatively large cohort studies that we now can enjoy within the context of HIV, we have more and more pathogenesis studies -- studies that look at what is going on at the level of the blood vessel, and what the connection is between humeral markers, inflammation markers, traditional risk factors and novel, putative risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
What we've come to understand is: It's not as simple as we may have thought, where you take drug X for your HIV, that raises your lipids, and thus your risk for heart disease is higher. It's much more complicated: There may be some action of that drug on your cardiovascular risk, but what about the virus itself? What about the underlying immune activation that occurs in anyone who is HIV infected, to some extent -- some people more than others? How do you tease that apart from this higher prevalence of traditional risk factors that we see among people living with HIV -- where, instead of 20 percent of people smoking, 60 percent of HIV-infected people smoke? And hard living: What about cocaine? There are a lot of these hard-to-measure confounders.
I think our understanding has now encompassed an appreciation that this is pretty complicated and multifactorial, and that there's not a single line that you could connect from risk factor to risk in the HIV-infected person.
It feels like you just opened seven or eight different cans of worms. As disgusting as it is to explore worms, it would be really nice to examine those more closely. Let's start by focusing specifically on what we're talking about when we say "cardiovascular risk": What particular risks, and clinical manifestations of those risks, are we talking about when we talk about people living with HIV?
For some, it can be a composite between having a heart attack and a stroke; having to have some intervention to open up a blocked artery, such as angioplasty; or, even some definitions include peripheral vascular disease, peripheral artery disease. There are different ways to slice it.
In the purest sense -- maybe in the most absolute -- it's whether or not there's a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. Because you either have one or you don't have one.
What is our current knowledge regarding the relative risk of MI in HIV-infected people compared with the population as a whole?
Looking at heart attack and cardiovascular disease, in general, we see that people with HIV tend to have more than you would expect, even when you account for a higher prevalence of traditional risk factors. When you try to get rid of the confounding of more smoking, age and gender, things like that --
Obesity, too.
Some do correct for that, and some don't. I think that's an important point that I'd like to get back to, because I think that it is hard to account for every single confounder. That's sort of this lingering question.
But you do see multiple studies coming from multiple places, done in multiple ways, that are pretty much coming out with a fairly consistent picture of a somewhat higher risk [of MI among HIV-infected people].
The good news is -- you can look at this as the glass being half full or half empty -- but the good news is, this is not like a huge, amazing, oh-my-God-everyone's-going-to-get-a-heart-attack kind of increase in risk. It is almost like HIV is another risk factor.
There's a lot of other risks that exist, and quantifying this risk depends upon which study you look at. Some of the more recent studies are showing that the risk is there, but it's not whopping: There's a slight to a moderate risk increase among people living with HIV for this to happen, but it still is a fairly rare or unusual event in people living with HIV, especially the middle-age range.
When you get older, all of us have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease; and it becomes much more prevalent. This is where we start to see the difference. We see younger people with HIV not really having as much risk. After about age 40-plus is where you start to see more of this excess risk. I think that's intriguing, as well.
Are those parallel curves? If you're comparing HIV-infected to HIV-uninfected populations and you're watching the MI risk or cardiovascular disease risk as people age, do they increase at the same rate? Or does the rate of, let's say, MI among HIV-infected people increase at a faster rate as people age?
Some of the trend data that we saw most recently are from the D:A:D cohort, the large European cohort. That includes only people living with HIV. And when they compared coronary heart disease from age 40 onward to other cohort data, you can see that there may be an increased excess, but it's fairly parallel to most of the data from other cohorts.
So, you do have this higher relative risk. But, over time, it doesn't seem like there is an accumulation of even greater piling on of excess risk over time, such that they splay divergently.
I think what we are seeing is this increased excess risk during the early part of middle age that may be increasing because it started where there was really no excess risk, but hit some sort of a plateau, where you start to get higher rates but they don't seem to be wildly accelerating.
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English: 80s-era North Country public education proves sufficientBy CARL PERREAULT
November 11. 2013 10:46PM
"Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another."
— Capt. Benjamin L. Willard, "Apocalypse Now"
Out of the newsroom for a day with a sore foot, I returned to work last Wednesday to find myself nominated in absentia to take the 11th-grade English proficiency sample test and ruminate what New Hampshire students are in for under Common Core standardized testing.
Before I get into it, you need to understand a little bit about what Common Core is. To a childless cynic such as I, Common Core is about teaching kids what will be on the test and then testing them on it, which I suppose is one way to catch up to Finland. If Mr. Hirsch at Berlin High School had done likewise back in '82, I'd surely have banked better than a B in English my junior year. So as a disclaimer, not having had the indoctrination of a Common Core-based curriculum, the sample test I took can in no way measure the effectiveness of this new approach to teaching.
The sample test is composed of 37 questions; 30 are multiple choice, with most worth a point each; seven are of the short-answer or essay variety and worth two points.
Better than half the test involves reading or listening to an essay and then answering questions about it. These were surprisingly political in nature — the health benefits of meditation, sustainable fashion, international cooperation in a new era of space exploration, contributions of African-American architect Paul Revere Williams to affordable housing, and Democrats wanting to let anyone who pleases vote in a New Hampshire election. OK, maybe I'm paraphrasing that last one a bit.
Unable to save the test, I had to correct it myself and so earned an easy 14 points acing the essay questions in a triumph of the willfully subjective. But that's fair; whoever grades these is either going to take the time to judge a stack of disparate arguments, or they're going to make it home for dinner on time. Not both.
On the more objective multiple-choice questions, I scored 29 out of 30, and I'll put an asterisk on the one the key claims I whiffed. That question's author and I will just have to agree to disagree whether the point of the long essay on sustainable fashion was keeping penguins alive or children out of Third World sweatshops. I figure the world will run out of penguins long before it runs out of poor parents assenting to their kid manning an industrial steam press, so I must lack a Common Core understanding of what "sustainable" means.
Don't let my faux score fool you, the test is not easy. I took it off the clock and scratched my head on a few questions, going against my own redneck sensibilities with answers predicated on a mental picture of my interlocutor — say someone who trades a perfectly fine Volvo for a spankin' new Prius to help save the planet. Does that make me literate or just politically savvy?
I do think kids with ADD are going to have a hard time with this test. I took it in the late afternoon when low blood sugar leaves me with the patience of a Saint Bernard at supper time. Reading the essays in full was a slog.
I can't tell you whether the test is a fair measure of how effectively teachers and schools educate, I'm not qualified. My only real conclusion is I'm glad adult life requires more answers to multiple choice questions than to essays.
If you'd like to find out whether you're smarter than an 11th-grader, take the practice test yourself. You can find it here: unionleader.com/test
Carl Perreault is director of unionleader.com, newhampshire.com, the nh365.org events calendar network, and nhangle.com, the most comprehensive aggregation of links to Granite State information.
Education New Hampshire Common Core Column Special Report Top Section Stories


text:
ADAMS, Minn.—A 16-year-old girl has died of injuries suffered when her car collided with a school bus in southern Minnesota.
A passenger in the car was severely injured in the crash Wednesday afternoon near Adams in Mower County.
Sheriff's officials identify the girl as Tess Landherr. Authorities say the car she was driving spun out of control on an icy road and hit the school bus.
A Southland school district administrator says the school children and bus driver weren't seriously hurt, although some may have minor injuries.
The Austin Daily Herald ( http://bit.ly/ZDePXL) says Landherr and the passenger were taken by ambulance to a Rochester hospital. Landherr did not survive.
Officials of Southland Public Schools did not know how many students were on the bus or the extent of their injuries.
Information from: Austin Daily Herald, http://www.austindailyherald.com


text:
Did ancient Egyptians prize meteorites so much that they turned them into jewelry? A new study of a 5,000-year-old iron bead hints that the rocky fragments that fell from the sky may have held a special place in the ancient civilization.
The findings published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science center around one of the small, tube-shaped beads pulled from tombs in the Gerzeh cemetery on the Nile's western bank, dating from 3600 BC to 3350 BC.
Researchers have long wondered whether the metal in the iron beads had alien origins. Some studies seemed to indicate that the beads were rich enough in nickel to indicate they came from meteorites; later studies contested that claim.
"The celestial or terrestrial origin of ancient Egyptian iron, and when its usage became common are contentious issues, which are subject to debate," the authors wrote. "Evidence is drawn from many areas, including architecture, language, and belief."
To tackle the question with high-tech tools, British scientists took a 1.8-centimeter-long bead from Gerzeh tomb 67, then used scanning electron microscopy and an X-ray CT scan to study its structure.
They found that the distribution of fragmented metal and oxide compounds, along with the chemical makeup, closely resembled a well-known pattern of weathered iron meteorite.
This same pattern, the authors noted, has been found in Native American iron beads from the
The researchers hinted that meteoric iron may have played an important role in Egyptian culture. About 2,000 years after their studied bead was beaten into shape, a term known as "iron from the sky" began to gain traction, they said.
"Reasons for the creation of this new word at this particular point in time are unknown," they wrote, "but it is possibly a literal description resulting from the observance of a major event by the Egyptian population."
The authors pointed out that the tomb of Tutankhamen -- King Tut -- held several nickel-rich items that could potentially be of meteoric origin: A dagger blade, 16 miniature blades and a miniature head rest.
But finding out if that possibility is true would take a similar in-depth analysis, they said.


text:
In the inset of
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we show that the area of the first group of cells A T1 (green line) is only a small fraction of the total blade area A (blue line). On average, the ratio is A T1 / A = 15.3%. Despite this, we show in Small Leather Goods Pouches Diane Von F cY682FVX
that the measured contribution of the first group projected onto the PD axis (blue line) accounts for a significant amount of shear due to correlation effects D xx (magenta line).
Here, we define the wing blade anisotropy
plotted in
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. To this end, we first define a matrix
Here, A denotes the total area of the wing blade and denotes its area center:
Note that the matrix M is symmetric. Now, the wing blade anisotropy Q t is uniquely defined by the following relation:
Here, det
denotes the determinant of
and the exponential of a matrix is defined by the Taylor series of the exponential function. The unique tensor
that fulfills
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has to be symmetric and traceless (compare Womens Tacoma L/S Dress GStar HwLpTkDL7A
and [ Womens Dress Mama Licious t5ZSYczbE
; Merkel et al., in preparation]). Put differently, it is a nematic tensor like the total shear rate or the average cell elongation Q .
Note that in general, the change of wing blade anisotropy Q t can not directly be computed from the total tissue shear rate . However, for the special case where shear occurs homogeneously over the entire wing area and where the axes of the shear rate tensor and of wing blade anisotropy Q t are either parallel or perpendicular to each other, one obtains for the tensor component along the x axis:
The numbers of moderate or severe sore throats in the first year of the trial were as follows:
We must assume that the data for the surgical groups cannot include the immediate postoperative period as one episode of sore throat (because if they did, the mean in the surgical group would have to be > 1). Therefore, the number of episodes of moderate to severe sore throat should be 1.1 (SD 0.27) in the surgery group.
Data on the number of sore throat days in the surgical and control groups are only available for 31 and 33 children respectively (72% and 69% of those enrolled) (see
Smart Brogues In Tan Black Redtape bJl8XdQ
, Table 5). Here sore throat days immediately after surgery are included and "the number of days for each subject for each follow-up year was standardised on the basis of 365 days". Data on the mean number of sore throat days are as follows:
The number of days with sore throat postoperatively varies considerably. In the
Paradise 1984
trial a mean figure of 4.9 days is reported. In the later studies there is a mean of 6.3 days with a wide range from 0 to 21 days (
Paradise 2002a
Bryan trousers Green Dondup 0FBOH
). Furthermore, it is interesting to note that despite the fact that the trial included only children who were severely affected by throat infections, following enrolment in the trial many of those in the control (non-operated) group had few episodes of infection and these few were usually mild. Of the 48 children in the original control group, seven (15%) had elected to have surgery before the end of the first year and were excluded from analysis. Another six children were excluded because of loss to follow-up (n = 4) or not completing the whole 12-month period (n = 2). Of the 35 remaining children, however, 26 (74% of that group; 54% of the whole control group) had either a single episode of moderate or severe sore throat or none at all.
Of the 95 children treated with surgery (children of the randomised and non-randomised studies combined), 13 (14%) had surgery-related complications and six of them (46% of the children that suffered from surgery-related complications; 6% of the children treated with surgery) required one or more extra days in the hospital. The primary and secondary haemorrhage rates were both 2%, of which none required transfusion.
In the
Paradise 2002a
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trials, the authors present their results in a slightly different way. Data are presented for the number of episodes in the first 12 months ( Paradise 2002a ; Paradise 2002b , Table 2). However, the mean number of episodes and the range is given, along with the 95% confidence interval for the mean. For the purposes of this review, the standard deviation of the mean has had to be imputed, by dividing the confidence interval by four and multiplying by the √(N-1), where N is the number of subjects in the relevant group.
Number and severity of episodes of tonsillitis or sore throat
Number of days with sore throat
Morbidity and mortality of surgery (measures of morbidity include complications of surgery and number of days with postoperative pain)
Consumption of antibiotics
Consumption of analgesics
Absence or time off work or school
Quality of life
We sought data on the assessment of outcomes at three months, six months and 12 months, and in the second and subsequent years after randomisation.
In the 2014 update, we added quality of life as an outcome not only because of the availability of data in two included studies, but also to acknowledge the importance of this outcome.
We conducted systematic searches for RCTs. We placed no restrictions on language, publication year or publication status. The date of the last search was 30 June 2014, following previous update searches and original searches in 1999.
We searched the following databases from their inception for published, unpublished and ongoing trials: the Cochrane Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders Group Trials Register; the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL 2014, Issue 6); PubMed; EMBASE; CINAHL; LILACS; KoreaMed; IndMed; PakMediNet; CAB Abstracts; Web of Science; ISRCTN; ClinicalTrials.gov; ICTRP; Google and Google Scholar. In searches prior to 2013, we also searched BIOSIS Previews 1926 to 2012.
We modelled subject strategies for databases on the search strategy designed for CENTRAL. Where appropriate, we combined subject strategies with adaptations of the highly sensitive search strategy designed by The Cochrane Collaboration for identifying randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials (as described in the
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
Version 5.1.0, Box 6.4.b. (
Handbook 2011
)). We revised the subject search strategies for the 2014 update of this review. The new search strategies for the major databases are provided in
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and have been used in all subsequent update searches. The previous version of the search strategy is provided in Appendix 2 .
We scanned the reference lists of identified publications for additional trials and contacted trial authors where necessary. In addition, we searched PubMed, TRIP database and Google to retrieve existing systematic reviews relevant to this systematic review, so that we could scan their reference lists for additional trials. We searched for conference abstracts using the Cochrane Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders Group Trials Register.
At least two review authors independently screened titles and abstracts obtained from the database searches at different stages of the original review and subsequent updates. Similarly, at least two of the three review authors independently reviewed the full text of the potentially relevant titles and abstracts against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We resolved differences by discussion.
An interaction with benzodiazepines and clozapine has been reported, producing (sometimes fatal) respiratory depression and marked sedation, excessive sialorrhea, and ataxia, but this combination has been used successfully by a number of practitioners. Paradoxical reactions to benzodiazepines, as exhibited by hostility or violence, have been an area of concern, but the evidence is not convincing. Disinhibition with benzodiazepines is, in any event, uncommon and even more unlikely to occur when benzodiazepines are administered within the context of single or limited doses in a crisis situation.
In current clinical practice, benzodiazepines are not widely used long term to control violence because of practical and ethical problems with tolerance and dependence. However, lorazepam is an excellent tool for short-term, quick reduction of violent behavior. The possibility of alcohol or sedative withdrawal as a cause of agitation is another point in favor of using lorazepam. The use of a neuroleptic in this instance is suboptimal and may lower the seizure threshold. If delirium tremens is present, full supportive medical care must be available; when medical complications arise, the mortality rate has been reported to be as high as 20%.
First-generation antipsychotics are discussed below.
Neuroleptics universally cause sedation when administered at a high enough dose. Haloperidol , a butyrophenone, has been used frequently as an intramuscular medication as needed for agitation and aggressive behavior, including in an emergency department setting, for a wide variety of patients. The advantage of haloperidol over the low-potency neuroleptics (eg, chlorpromazine ) is that it causes less hypotension, has fewer anticholinergic adverse effects, and causes less of a decrease in the seizure threshold.
Despite the advantages of haloperidol over chlorpromazine, clinicians may desire a more sedating agent, so the low-potency neuroleptics continue to be used. In addition to this nonspecific sedation, another benefit is its antipsychotic effect, but this becomes evident only after the acute episode of agitation has subsided. Although once popular, rapid tranquilization with injectable haloperidol does not lead to a more extensive or rapid alleviation of psychotic symptoms, as was observed in a group of patients who are mainly schizophrenic.
Neuroleptics may have a longer-lasting effect on the reduction of agitation by treating the underlying psychosis. On the other hand, high doses of neuroleptics may lead to more adverse effects, including akathisia. Akathisia increases irritability and has been reported to be associated with violence in several cases. High-dose haloperidol treatment of chronic schizophrenia (60 mg/d) has been associated with violence; akathisia might have been the mediating variable. For patients who are resistant to typical neuroleptics, no benefits exist beyond the acute sedative effect.
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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partners. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Spine and Back Health
Fused vertibrae
Are there any procedures that can unfuse vertibrae? I have a fused L4-L5 from birth. I`ve always had a limited range of motion and my back does not bend as much as it should.
Hello, thank you for your question. No, there really isn't any way to "unfuse" a vertebra. I'm not sure how much you think your back "should" bend, but I don't think there's much you can do about it other than do your best to stretch and improve your overall flexibility. If it is a pain issue there might be treatments available to you, but that's about it. Good luck.
David J Hart, MD
Associate Professor of Neurosurgery
School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University


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With the summer driver season fast approaching, motorists are being cautioned to fill up now before prices skyrocket as refineries switch to a more expensive, more eco-friendly blend of fuel.
While many motorists have enjoyed relief at the pump during the winter - the average price per gallon nationally is $2.39; $2.48 in New York as of last week - prices are expected to rise as much as 70 cents per gallon, peaking after the busy Memorial Day weekend, according to AAA.
AAA New York Spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr. said that as refineries begin making the switch toward the end of March and beginning of April, motorists will continue to see prices rise at the pump. Nationally, the average price per gallon has gone up approximately eight cents in the past week, and prices in New York are up nearly 30 cents from a year ago.
"The more complicated formulas for gas used during the summer and distribution involved in different markets makes it more expensive, and we've definitely seen prices go up. Those prices are firmly taking hold as we make the switch, and this is only the beginning," he added. "Come Memorial Day, when people start taking their summer driving vacations, demands will once again cause the price to go up."
According to the Clean Air Act of 1990, refineries must use cleaner burning blends during the summer, because the heat creates problems involving volatile organic compounds in the gasoline. The summer blend of fuel has many heavy metals removed, detergents added and has a lower vapor pressure.
"All of these extra things that refineries have to do (during the summer) make it more complicated to refine, and it becomes more complicated to distribute," Sinclair said. "As the demand continues to rise, so too will prices."
Sinclair noted that national and international politics have had a minimal impact on the average price per gallon, but said that after the missile strike on Syria last week, crude oil prices saw a tick of an increase in price.
"There was a bump in crude oil by about 50 or 60 cents per barrel, because there was no real impact on production or transportation," he said. "It was just the fear that something could happen and things could escalate or lead to a disruption to supply in the region that makes the price go up."
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Rating: 3.5/5 (Total votes: 2)
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NTT DoCoMo has shelved plans for a March launch of a smartphone featuring a new operating system called Tizen, dealing a blow to one of the platform's key backers - Samsung
Japan's largest mobile carrier said Friday that the Japanese smartphone market wasn't growing fast enough for it to support a third mobile operating system, a reference to Apple's iOS operating system and Google's Android, which powers the majority of Samsung's devices. In explaining its decision, DoCoMo cited research by IDC Japan showing the country's smartphone market in the April-to-September period grew only 2.2% from a year earlier.
"The market is not big enough to support three operating systems at this time," DoCoMo spokesman So Hiroki said Friday.
The victims of war.


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Monday, November 21, 2011
By Julian Lazalde
In the past two weeks a single issue has generated more emails and phone calls to elected officials than any other in the history of the Catholics Confront Global Poverty campaign – a joint advocacy initiative of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). What is the issue that has generated such an enthusiastic response from Catholics across the country? Poverty-focused development and humanitarian assistance.
What is poverty-focused development and humanitarian assistance? It is the International Disaster Assistance account, which provides lifesaving services to people in dire need after disasters such as the recent floods in Central America or the drought in East Africa. It is the Emergency Refugee and Migration account, which is helping people who fled the famine in Somalia to survive. And much more.
It is hard to believe that such life saving work is funded with 0.6% of our federal budget, and not the 25% or 10% as is typically perceived. It is even harder to believe that some in Congress have advocated for significant cuts to these accounts.
Instead of viewing the current economic situation as a reason to drastically cut foreign assistance to the poorest people in the poorest places on earth, we should view it as an opportunity to reassess our responsibility to others as the wealthiest country on earth. In a letter sent to all 100 US Senators on November 2nd Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany and Ken Hackett, President of CRS reminded our elected officials, "The budget is a moral document that should give priority to those that are poor and vulnerable at home and abroad".
Our Catholic tradition calls us to care for our sisters and brothers who are hungry, thirsty, and seeking refuge from war and famine. The Catholic Social Teaching principles of sacredness and dignity of the human person, the common good, option for the poor and solidarity come immediately to mind when reflecting on why this tiny sliver of our federal budget is of such vital importance.
By now I hope you are asking yourself, "What can I do to stand with my sisters and brothers overseas?" The USCCB and CRS urge you to email your Senators or call 1.866.596.7030 to express support for maintaining the levels of life-saving poverty-focused international assistance for FY 2012.
As we prepare to give thanks this week for the many blessings we have received, let's continue to declare as Catholics that it is morally unacceptable for our nation to balance its budget on the backs of poor people at home and abroad.


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A Place of Learning for All Religions
Dr Verburg, in a recent press conference, the Diocese of Osnabrück informed the public about its Educational Foundation project in which a primary school in Osnabrück is to be structured in such a way that children of the three Abrahamic religions can "learn and live" together. Where did the idea come from?
Winfried Verburg: We had the idea several years ago. First of all, we realise that society and also our diocese – to which Bremen, Emden and Osnabrück belong – is clearly no longer home to Christians alone, but rather that our region embraces a multi-faith community. We must and want to respond to this. As a diocese, we and the state are jointly responsible for Catholic religious education in schools here and we naturally want religious instruction to be a priority in the school system.
With whom will you co-operate to realize this project?
Verburg: We are in dialogue with Osnabrück's Jewish community, which comprises approximately 1,000 members and is now larger than it was before World War II, as well as with "Schura Niedersachsen", the umbrella organisation for the majority of Muslim organizations and associations in Lower Saxony.
Which organizations will be responsible for Islamic religious education?
Verburg: We have been discussing Islamic religious instruction with the chair of the department of Islamic Religious Education Studies at the University of Osnabrück, Professor Bülent Ucar. We have worked together successfully on the secondary school project "Islamic Religious Education in Papenburg", which was the first attempt to introduce Islamic religious education in Lower Saxony at secondary school level. There had previously only been one other attempt at primary school level.
In close co-operation with Professor Ucar, we want to provide Islamic religious education. The first of his students at the university are about to qualify as religious teachers of Islam.
How will the school be structured? And what will the make up of pupils from each of the religious communities be like?
Verburg: We can't say yet, exactly. We are offering a service. No one is obliged to attend the school. Nor is there a catchment area for enrolment, which would normally allow us to establish how many Jewish families with however many children as well as Muslim families and Christian families are in residence.
We are simply offering a service to any parents who may be interested. So we cannot say in advance that there will be so-and-so many Muslim, Jewish or Christian children attending. It will also depend on how the parents react to our offer.
In preliminary discussions with representatives of the religious communities we have, of course, made a point of saying: "We depend on you to tell your communities that this is something positive and that is why you are sending your children to school here."
Who will draw up the curricula for the religious education classes?
Verburg: Regarding Catholic and Protestant religious instruction, there are already syllabuses that have been agreed between the state of Lower Saxony and the respective Churches. These will of course apply at the school.
The same holds true for the Jewish religious education classes, which are currently being held in rooms provided by the Jewish community. For the Islamic education courses there is a syllabus, which I believe is being tested in 37 schools across Germany. We can most certainly use that as a starting point, although we will take a closer look at it with Professor Ucar and work on it before we present it to parents.
We face the same problem that Germany's individual states are facing in that we don't have one official contact person who is authorized to speak for the entire Muslim community.
In Papenburg we managed to get around this problem by presenting the parents with a syllabus that was created here by Professor Ucar and his department for Islamic Religious Education. The parents said "Yes, this is what we want from religious education class in this school." In this way, you could say that we acted in lieu of an official representative, knowing full well it is not appropriate for all public schools in the country.
Can this school project serve as a model for the rest of Germany?
Verburg: I hesitate to use the word model. It is a place of learning. I prefer that term. It is a place of learning not only for children, but also for their teachers and the parents, the families for whom it is important. It will also be a place of learning for the three religious communities.
Will we succeed at living together? There are many issues that need to be addressed – religious symbols, to name just one. We aren't intending to leave our walls bare; but rather – in the spirit of tolerance – that the various faiths learn to accept each others' symbols and customs. We will practise this even when we eat together, respecting the various rules governing food.
Are you considering other offers or activities to broaden the scope of this place of learning?
Verburg: There will be one religious education course respectively. Approximately once every 6 months, a comparable topic will be covered in all three religion courses which will then end in a Project Day on which the pupils show each other their results. In this way they'll learn to talk to each other about each others' differing religious beliefs, rituals and customs. Our goal is to help them be capable of dialoguing with one another.
Is it to be an all-day school?
Verburg: We've made a very determined decision that this project will be run as an obligatory all-day school – in other words, we're not just offering care in the afternoons to those who want to stay on afterwards. In the first place, this ambitious project anticipates that children of differing religions and in some cases, differing cultures, will need time to learn to live with one another. Class time is simply too short for that. These children are to be given the time outside of the classroom to learn to live with one another.
The second reason for the obligatory all-day school structure is that we are convinced that a school like this will be able to minimise some of the disadvantages that children from so-called 'uneducated households', face.
We hope that we will be able to integrate other courses into the curriculum such as sport, music and art – courses that aren't components of our religious education – so that those children whose parents can't take them to music school for example, also get the chance to develop their talents in these areas.
There's a third reason too: an obligatory all-day school – especially at primary school level – has the advantage of being able to adjust to children's ability to learn – their learning biorhythm of relaxation and activity – and isn't bound by the strict 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. format where children have to learn during that time period and are then released to go do other things.
Is it clear yet when the school will officially open its doors?
Verburg: The earliest possible date we would be able to start is 1 August 2011 as children have already enrolled for the upcoming school year, which begins 1 August 2010, so that the children can receive extra language tuition.
Interview: Eren Güvercin
© Qantara.de 2009
Islamic Religion and Studies at German Schools
Many Obstacles to Overcome
Trial lessons are being held in many of Germany's Länder. But "Islamic Religion" is still not being provided as a standard part of the curriculum in Germany. By Lamya Kaddor
An Islamic Elementary School in Berlin
"Like Any Other Confessional School"
More and more Muslim parents would like their children to receive religious instruction. An Islamic elementary school in Berlin now offers this. Lennart Lehmann visited the school.
College Training for Muslim Imams in Germany
A Laborious Process
One German state is hoping to improve the integration of its Muslim community by offering imam training programs at university. Michael Hollenbach reports