At the annual London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Bullion Market Forum held for the first time in Singapore today, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, announced a new exchange-traded Singapore Kilobar Gold Contract. This is the first wholesale 25 kilobar gold contract to be offered globally.

Expected to go ‘live’ as early as September 2014, the Contract will introduce centralised trading and clearing of a physically-delivered gold contract in Singapore.
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The Contract is the result of a successful collaboration between International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, Singapore Bullion Market Association (SBMA), Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the World Gold Council. Representing the SBMA in this collaboration are four bullion banks, namely J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Merchant Bank (Asia) Limited and The Bank of Nova Scotia.
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Asia’s strong demand for physical gold is the key driver for the implementation of the Contract. The World Gold Council reports that, while global consumer demand for gold has increased nearly 50% over the last decade or so, demand for gold in South East Asia has increased by over 250% during the same period. The Contract is another significant development for Singapore following its exemption of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on investment precious metals (IPM) in October 2012. 

Metalor Technologies Singapore Pte Ltd (Metalor Technologies) is also officially opening its world class bullion manufacturing and refining facility in Singapore tomorrow, 26 June 2014. 

These initiatives are key building blocks in the country’s drive to become a regional precious metals trading hub.

Ng Cheng Thye, President, SBMA, added, “This Contract will help to develop the gold market in South East Asia by creating greater liquidity and opportunities for growth. With a stock and flow of bars guaranteed by the major bullion banks, as well as an exchange open to the key buy-side participants, we believe this will encourage further products to be developed in South East Asia, which are based on this kilobar contract model.”

Source: Commodities Now

As LeapRate reports here, Switzerland accepts Bitcoin with open arms as SBEX, an acronym for Swiss Bitcoin Exchange, is launched. 

Nationwide ATMs will follow, and the crypto-currency is set to become a mainstay of the Swiss financial sector.
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Alexis Roussel, founder and CEO of SBEX, stated last week that the approval of SBEX by Switzerland’s financial regulator “opens up fantastic opportunities for crypto-currencies in Switzerland, creating a clearly regulated environment in this area.”
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One of the most advantageous and potentially market-changing factors relating to FINRA’s ruling is that Bitcoin has now become recognized as a means of payment in Switzerland.

“The two key points in this authorization from FINMA are that Bitcoin is now treated as a means of payment in Switzerland, and a deposit in Bitcoins is considered a bank deposit, “said Alexis Roussel.
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In addition to the web platform, it will be possible to exchange Bitcoin currency everywhere in Switzerland via ATM terminals. In order to facilitate this, SBEX has partnered with Canadian firm BitAccess, a prominent Bitcoin ATM provider to deploy an extensive ATM network throughout Switzerland. 

Its machines are used to exchange instant cash against an electronic wallet containing the equivalent in Bitcoins, or perform the reverse operation to convert Bitcoins into local tender. 

Less than 2 months ago we highlighted the effervescence of Dubai's equity markets when a "shell" of a company with no actual operations (but big plans) was 36x oversubscribed. 

We asked at the time if investors would ever learn ... and it seems just weeks later, that a few are getting the joke. Dubai's General Financial Market Index is down 20.3% - a bear market - since just after that exuberant IPO hit the market.

With almost metronomic regularity, Japan will gush forth a headline proclaiming the ever-closer time when all the nation's retirees savings will be greatly rotated to the stock market and away from the nation's largest bond market in the world. 

This week was no exception; however, as Nikkei Asian Review reports, it appears the "all-talk" has turned to action...The Government Pension Investment Fund and other public pensions sold about 1.8 trillion yen ($17.4 billion) more in Japanese government bonds than they bought in the first three months of the year, fueling speculation that the GPIF may be rebalancing it's portfolio sooner than expected. 

It seems rotating away from government bonds (which the GPIF has been worried about since 2011) into junk bonds and junk stocks is a far better use of 'wealth' - we can only imagine the GPIF risk models just got switch to '11'. 

As we explained last year, Japan's Plan B is not only not a panacea, but it is a House of (Bonds) Cards that would not survive an even modest gust of wind, and an even more modest contemplation into its true internal dynamics. 

Source: Zero Hedge

As summarized by VoR, in his article, published by Argumenty Nedeli, Putin's economic aide and the mastermind behind the Eurasian Economic Union, argues that Washington is trying to provoke a Russian military intervention in Ukraine, using the junta in Kiev as bait. If fulfilled, the plan will give Washington a number of important benefits. Firstly, it will allow the US to introduce new sanctions against Russia, writing off Moscow's portfolio of US Treasury bills. More important is that a new wave of sanctions will create a situation in which Russian companies won't be able to service their debts to European banks.

According to Glazyev, the so-called "third phase" of sanctions against Russia will be a tremendous cost for the European Union. The total estimated losses will be higher than 1 trillion euros. Such losses will severely hurt the European economy, making the US the sole "safe haven" in the world. Harsh sanctions against Russia will also displace Gazprom from the European energy market, leaving it wide open for the much more expensive LNG from the US.

Co-opting European countries in a new arms race and military operations against Russia will increase American political influence in Europe and will help the US force the European Union to accept the American version of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a trade agreement that will basically transform the EU into a big economic colony of the US. Glazyev believes that igniting a new war in Europe will only bring benefits for America and only problems for the European Union. Washington has repeatedly used global and regional wars for the benefit of  the American economy and now the White House is trying to use the civil war in Ukraine as a pretext to repeat the old trick.

Glazyev's set of countermeasures specifically targets the core strength of the US war machine, i.e. the Fed's printing press. Putin's advisor proposes the creation of a "broad anti-dollar alliance" of countries willing and able to drop the dollar from their international trade. Members of the alliance would also refrain from keeping the currency reserves in dollar-denominated instruments. Glazyev advocates treating positions in dollar-denominated instruments like holdings of junk securities and believes that regulators should require full collateralization of such holdings. An anti-dollar coalition would be the first step for the creation of an anti-war coalition that can help stop the US' aggression.

Unsurprisingly, Sergey Glazyev believes that the main role in the creation of such a political coalition is to be played by the European business community because America's attempts to ignite a war in Europe and a cold war against Russia are threatening the interests of big European business. Judging by the recent efforts to stop the sanctions against Russia, made by the German, French, Italian and Austrian business leaders, Putin's aide is right in his assessment. Somewhat surprisingly for Washington, the war for Ukraine may soon become the war for Europe's independence from the US and a war against the dollar.

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It's official - everyone's involved! According to the 21st Century Business Herald, at least 17 financial institutions involved in copper, aluminum and other nonferrous metals financing business face losses of almost 15 billion Yuan (not including the contagious rehypothecated collateral chains involved) due to the over-invoicing of the Qingdao port. Crucially, it appears that the evaporation of collateral (i.e. multiple loans secured by the same collateral) has been confirmed officially and banks such as Standard Chartered have already ceased any new business via this supposedly secured channel.

Source: Zero Hedge

A concise & clear summary by the Visual Capitalist