Personal Feud Closes $1.5B Hedge Fund

Personal Feud Closes $1.5B Hedge Fund

A question of intelligence - life - 26 March 2012 - New Scientist

A question of intelligence - life - 26 March 2012 - New Scientist

AlvitoC

AlvitoC

US: A Good Question

Opinion

A Good Question

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: February 25, 2012

Something in the inbox recently reopened the debate over who is responsible for higher oil prices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/friedman-a-good-question.html

11 good years for gold in usd

2011: Another positive year for gold
After a tumultuous year in financial markets around the world, gold was one of few asset classes to deliver positive returns. During 2011, the US dollar price of gold rose by 9% ending the year at US$1,531/oz based on the London PM fix, marking the 11th consecutive year of price increases. During the first part of January 2012, the price of goldcontinued its upward trend above the US$1,600/oz level.

http://www.gold.org/investment/statistics/investment_statistics/

cancer: tratamento infravermelho?

URL:  http://www.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,luz-infraverme...

Para testar a combinação, os cientistas implantaram tumores nas costas de camundongos. Eles receberam a droga e foram expostos a raios infravermelhos.



"O volume do tumor foi reduzido significativamente... em comparação com os camundongos não tratados e a sobrevivência foi prolongada", dizem os cientistas.

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1h40k

Lobster never age

http://clubs.calvin.edu/chimes/article.php?id=6006

In humans, cells that surpass the Hayflick Limit tend to become cancerous

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1coqn

WIRED: JPMorgan Uses Lego Minifigs to Explain the Euro Debt Crisis

URL:  http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/09/jpmorgan/?utm_sour...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1cjqr

Gold China and Wikileaks : FNArena

http://www.fnarena.com/index2.cfm?type=dsp_newsitem&n=3723B97A...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1chmg

Galaxy Tab 7.7: um avião androide

URL:  http://www.gizmodo.com.br/conteudo/samsung-anuncia-tabl...

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1ca2r

Convenience Yield

Among the most important concepts of the “Theory of Storage” (see last week’s Weekly Commodities) is the “convenience yield”.

Kaldor (1939) and Working (1948,1949) define the notion of convenience yield as a benefit that “accrues to the owner of the physical commodity but not to the holder of a forward contract.” Note that in the same spirit, the dividend yield is paid to the owner of a stock but not the holder of a derivative contract written on the stock. Brennan (1958) and Telser (1958) view the convenience yield as an “embedded timing option attached to the commodity” since inventory (e.g., a sugar storage facility) allows us to put the commodity on the on the commodity on the market when prices are high and hold it when prices are low. It also avoids the cost of
manufacturing disruption or the nuisance of revisions of the production schedule.

A substantial amount of recent research on commodities has chosen to model the convenience yield as a random quantity, allowing explanation of the various shapes of forward curves observed over time. Some authors (e.g., Gibson and Schwartz, 1990) view the convenience yield as an exogenous random variable. In contrast, Routledge et al. (2000) propose an equilibrium model for storable commodities in which the convenience yield appears as an inventory-dependent endogenous variable and allows one to make predictions about the volatilities of forward prices at different horizons.

Given the importance of the inventory levels to determine the “convenience yield”, in the future we will analyse the relationship of inventory and commodity spot price volatility.


Spot Forward Relationship for a storable commodity
f T (t) = S(t)e(r− y)(T −t )
Spot Forward Relationship for a dividend-paying stock
FT (t) = S(t)e(r−g )(T −t )
where:
f T (t) = Commodity Forward price;
FT (t) = Stock Forward Price;
S(t) = Commodity Spot Price / Stock Price;
r = Interest Rate;
g = Dividend Yield;
y = Convenience Yield;
r = Maturity;
t = Today;

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000041364

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000041364

Global Macro: Chile Codelco sees high copper prices for 2 years

SANTIAGO, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Chile's state copper giant Codelco [CODEL.UL]
sees copper prices holding around current high levels for the next two
years, with some volatility, CFO Thomas Keller said on Tuesday.
Keller said global financial turmoil had not impacted the investment plans
of the world's top copper producer.


Copper is a real good proxy for development...

Club de l'Expansion: Alain Minc et la vision francaise

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ALUMINUM RISES TO $2,645 A TON, HIGHEST SINCE SEPT.15, 2008

From: NLRT ALERT (BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEXIN)

*ALUMINUM RISES TO $2,645 A TON, HIGHEST SINCE SEPT. 15, 2008

 STORY TO FOLLOW. --CLAUDIA CARPENTER -0- Mar/24/2011 08:17 GMT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 BN (BLOOMBERG News).

(BN) Qaddafi Cracks Down on Tripoli as Sarkozy Calls for Departure

Qaddafi Cracks Down on Tripoli as Sarkozy Calls for Departure
2011-02-25 15:24:02.756 GMT


    (See EXTRA for more news on the regional turmoil.)

By Zainab Fattah, Gregory Viscusi and Benjamin Harvey
    Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Muammar Qaddafi tried to tighten his
grip on Tripoli as French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on
him to resign amid reports that worshippers were being shot as
they left mosques after Friday prayers.
    Several people were killed in the capital when security
forces loyal to Qaddafi fired on protesters after worship, Al
Arabiya television said, citing at least three eyewitnesses.
With governments struggling to get their citizens out of the
city, the U.K. said the route to Tripoli airport is no longer
safe. U.S. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman called on
the Obama administration to back the rebels with weapons.
    "France's position is clear, Mr. Qaddafi must go," Sarkozy
said at a news conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in
Ankara today. Sarkozy, the first leader of a major power to call
openly for Qaddafi's resignation, said intervention was not a
good option.
    The prospect of civil war in North Africa's biggest oil
producer has pushed crude prices to a 2 1/2-year high, and led
to calls for intervention to stop the worst violence yet seen in
two months of spreading unrest across the Middle East and North
Africa. France and the U.K. will submit a plan for an arms
embargo and other sanctions against Libya at a meeting of the
United Nations Security Council today.
    Qaddafi's regime is showing no signs of backing down.
Forces loyal to him today targeted people in Tripoli's Friday
market and in its Fashloom and Janzour areas, Al Arabiya said.

                        'Live and Die'

    "We have Plan A, Plan B and Plan C," Saif al-Islam
Qaddafi, the leader's son, told CNN-Turk television in an
interview from Tripoli. "Plan A is to live and die in Libya.
Plan B is to live and die in Libya. Plan C is to live and die in
Libya."
    The eastern coastline stayed under the control of Qaddafi
opponents, who include defecting army units.
    Oil headed for its biggest weekly gain in two years on
concern the turmoil that has cut Libya's output may spread to
other parts of the region. Crude for April delivery gained as
much as $1.92 to $99.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the
New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $96.60 a barrel at 1:42
p.m. London time. As many as 1 million barrels of the country's
daily output may have been stopped, according to a Feb. 23
estimate from Barclays Capital.
    The production cuts were the first instance of crude
supplies being reduced by civil unrest in the region, where the
Egyptian and Tunisian presidents have been toppled.

                       Central Squares

    Protesters surged into central squares across the Arab
world today to demand more rights two weeks after the ouster of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Demonstrations took place in
Yemen, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt and Iraq, with protesters in each
nation demanding more freedoms and more accountable governments.
    Foreign leaders are trying to get their citizens out of
Tripoli as Qaddafi digs in. The security situation at Tripoli
airport was "deteriorating" and the journey there was
"becoming more precarious," the U.K. Foreign Office said in a
statement.
    A U.S.-chartered ship left Tripoli for Malta today with
more than 300 passengers, more than half of them Americans, the
State Department said. The departure had been delayed by storms.
    The U.K. reported evacuating 350 British nationals and
citizens of 25 other countries yesterday aboard planes and a
British frigate. Turkey has sent passenger ferries and a
military ship, and China chartered four passenger ships from
Greece and Malta and 100 buses from Egypt to move 4,600 of an
estimated 30,000 nationals in Libya.

                        Asset Seizures

    "Britain, through the United Nations, is pressing for
asset seizures, for travel bans, for sanctions, for all of those
things we can do to hold those people to account, including
investigating for potential crimes against humanity," Prime
Minister David Cameron told reporters in London today.
    French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, speaking in
an interview on France Info radio, said the sanctions proposal
doesn't mention a no-fly zone over Libya, though "it's not
ruled out in the future." The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization was due to discuss the conflict in a meeting of
ambassadors at NATO headquarters in Brussels today.
    There's "little chance" of military action by the
countries that would be capable of it, including the U.S., said
Jan Techau, an analyst at the NATO Defense College in Rome, in a
phone interview.  "Once you intervene, you own the place. Who
do you back? Who are the warring factions? And how do you get
out? The fog of war is extremely dangerous."

                         'A Massacre'

    McCain and Lieberman, speaking at a press conference in
Jerusalem today, urged NATO countries to impose a no-fly zone on
Libyan airbases to prevent air attacks on the anti-Qaddafi
forces. Lieberman said they should get "military support to
complete the change of leadership."
    Switzerland yesterday froze the assets of Qaddafi and his
entourage for three years. U.K. officials have identified
billions of pounds in assets held by Qaddafi in British banks
and are planning to freeze them, the Daily Telegraph reported,
citing an unidentified official with knowledge of the matter.
    Qaddafi told state television yesterday that "drugged
kids" were responsible for the uprising, under incitement by
foreigners including al-Qaeda. Ambassadors and senior officials
from the judiciary have abandoned the regime, and one of the
leader's cousins and confidantes, Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, defected
to Egypt.
    Libya, with a population of about 6.3 million, normally
pumps 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, selling most of it to
Europe, according to Bloomberg estimates. That's about 1.8
percent of world supply.

For Related News and Information:
For news and data related to the regional crisis: MET <GO>
Top Middle East news: TOP MIDEAST <GO>
Top African news: TOP AFR <GO>

--With assistance from Alaa Shahine, Mariam Fam and Ola Galal in
Cairo, Eddie Buckle in London, Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome,
Gregory Viscusi in Paris, Calev Ben-David and Gwen Ackerman in
Jerusalem, Leigh Baldwin in Zurich and John Simpson in Toronto.
Editors: Heather Langan, John Fraher.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul at +90-312-438-8990 or
bharvey11@bloomberg.net;
Zainab Fattah in Dubai at +971-4-364-1027 or
zfattah@bloomberg.net;
Maram Mazen in Cairo at +20-22-7330-7849 or
mmazen@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Andrew J. Barden at +1-613-667-4804 or
barden@bloomberg.net

Crude oil 5 month fwd average is rallying right now above 100 usd

Crude oil 5 month fwd average 100 usd__________

(BN) Oil May Surge to $220 If Libya, Algeria Halt, Nomura

Oil May Surge to $220 If Libya, Algeria Halt, Nomura Says (1)
2011-02-23 14:18:55.782 GMT


    (Updates with Nomura comments from third paragraph)

By Grant Smith
    Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Oil prices may surge to $220 a
barrel if political unrest in North Africa halts exports from
Libya and Algeria, Nomura Holdings Inc. said.
    Crude futures rose to their highest in more than two years
in New York today as Libya's violent uprising threatened to
disrupt shipments from Africa's third-biggest supplier. The
commodity surged to $96.39 a barrel in New York, and to $108.42
in London. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi vowed to fight a
growing rebellion until his "last drop of blood."
    "If Libya and Algeria were to halt oil production
together, prices could peak above $220 a barrel and OPEC spare
capacity will be reduced to 2.1 million barrels a day, similar
to levels seen during the Gulf war and when prices hit $147 in
2008," the Tokyo-based bank said in a note today.
    The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has spare
production capacity of about 5 million barrels a day, according
to the International Energy Agency. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister
Ali al-Naimi said yesterday that the organization will boost
output if there is a shortage.
    "The closest comparison is the 1990-1991 Gulf War,"
during which OPEC's spare capacity dropped to 1.8 million
barrels a day and prices surged 130 percent in seven months,
Nomura analysts led by Michael Lo in Hong Kong wrote.
    Nomura said the $220 prediction may be an underestimate,
as speculative investors trading oil who were not active in the
early 1990s may amplify the price gain in the event of an
export halt.
    Algeria produced 1.25 million barrels a day last month,
while Libya pumped 1.59 million a day, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg.



--Editors: Raj Rajendran, Grant Smith

To contact the reporter on this story:
Grant Smith in London at +44-20-7330-7353 or
gsmith52@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephen Voss on +44-20-7073-3520 or sev@bloomberg.net

(BN) Buffett Says Pricing Power More Important Than Good Management

Buffett Says Pricing Power More Important Than Good Management
2011-02-18 05:00:03.3 GMT


By Andrew Frye and Dakin Campbell
    Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett, the billionaire
chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said he
rates businesses on their ability to raise prices and sometimes
doesn't even consider the people in charge.
    "The single most important decision in evaluating a
business is pricing power," Buffett told the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission in an interview released by the panel last
week. "If you've got the power to raise prices without losing
business to a competitor, you've got a very good business. And
if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by
10 percent, then you've got a terrible business."
    Buffett, 80, accumulated the world's third-largest personal
fortune through a career of stock picks and takeovers. He has
bought companies such as railroads and electricity producers,
whose pricing power stems from a dearth of competitive options
available to clients. Buffett has also built stakes in firms
like Coca-Cola Co. and Kraft Foods Inc., which rely on the
appeal of their brands to attract and keep customers.
    "The extraordinary business does not require good
management," Buffett said in the interview, which was conducted
on May 26 in Omaha, Nebraska.
    The FCIC investigators focused on Buffett's investment in
Moody's Corp., the bond-ratings firm blamed by lawmakers for
handing out inflated credit grades during the housing boom.
Buffett said he held stock in Moody's because the company's
leading market share, along with that of rival Standard &
Poor's, a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill Cos., gave the two firms
flexibility in setting prices.

                         Pricing Power

    "I knew nothing about the management of Moody's," said
Buffett. "If you own the only newspaper in town, up until the
last five years or so, you had pricing power and you didn't have
to go to the office."
    A dominant position can't prevent a bad manager from
destroying a company over time, said Benjamin E. Hermalin, a
professor of economics at the University of California,
Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
    "If you have a really dominant position you can survive
for quite a long time with bad management but eventually it will
catch up to you," said Hermalin. "In the short run I would
agree with Buffett but in the longer-run perspective there is
something to be said for having a good manager."
    Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the railroad Buffett bought
last year for $26.5 billion, owns more than 30,000 miles of
track across the U.S. West connecting producers and distributors
of coal, grain and consumer goods. Omaha-based Berkshire's power
company, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., sells electricity to
homes in the Great Plains and transports natural gas from
Wyoming to California.

                     Praise From Buffett

    Buffett routinely singles out and praises managers from
Berkshire's more than 70 operating companies. MidAmerican
Chairman David Sokol and Gregory Abel, the unit's CEO, are "two
terrific managers," Buffett said last year in his letter to
shareholders. The acquisition of Burlington Northern had the
"additional virtue" of bringing the railroad's CEO, Matthew
Rose, to Berkshire, Buffett said.
    Buffett criticized Kraft Chief Executive Officer Irene
Rosenfeld last year for her takeover of Cadbury Plc and the sale
of the foodmaker's pizza brands. "Both deals were dumb,"
Buffett told Berkshire investors in May. Berkshire is the
biggest shareholder of Kraft with a stake valued at $3.3 billion
at the end of December.
    "In the short run, good management can make a stock pop
but I follow what Warren's saying, especially because his point
of view looks at the fundamentals," said Terry Connelly, dean
of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San
Francisco, and a former managing director at Salomon Brothers.
"Good management can't do anything with a bad case."

For Related News and Information:
Government rescue programs: RESQ <GO>
Berkshire's equity holdings: BRK/A US <Equity> PHDC5 <GO>
Buffett-related audio & video: BRK/A US <Equity> TCNI AV <GO>
More on Buffett: BIO WARREN BUFFETT <GO>

--With assistance from April Lee and Noah Buhayar in New York.
Editors: Dan Reichl, Andreea Papuc.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Andrew Frye in New York at +1-212-617-1869 or
afrye@bloomberg.net;
Dakin Campbell in San Francisco at +1-415-617-7174 or
dcampbell27@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Kraut at +1-212-617-2432 or dkraut2@bloomberg.net
Rick Green at +1-212-617-5804 or
rgreen18@bloomberg.net

SILVER RISES 2% TO $31.265 AN OUNCE, HIGHEST SINCE MARCH 1980