Diamond News Archives
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Doctor, doctor, here is the news. We have a bad case of affordable housing blues in the US.[1]
According to S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller, home prices grew at 6.6% YoY in April (too bad its near the end of June!). Unfortunately, wage growth is only 2.8% YoY. Home price growth as the weakest April Since 2011.[2]
(Bloomberg) – By Shobhana Chandra – Home prices in 20 U.S. cities continued to advance at a solid, albeit a touch slower, pace in April, reflecting lingering inventory shortages, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data released Tuesday.
Highlights of Home Prices (April)
20-city property values index increased 6.6% y/y (est. 6.8%), after rising 6.7% y/y (prev. 6.8%)
National home-price gauge advanced 6.4% y/y after 6.5%
Seasonally adjusted 20-city index rose 0.2% m/m (est 0.4%), the smallest gain since July
Key Takeaways
The report indicates a respite in the steady acceleration in property values since the end of 2014. Seattle, San Francisco and Las Vegas led the gain among cities posting a year-over-year advance in April.
And Chicago replaces Washington DC as the slowest growing metro area in terms of home prices.
Price gains in this recovery have been supported by healthy demand amid a strong labor market and improving consumer finances. At the same time, there’s a persistent shortage of available and affordable listings, and borrowing costs have risen this year. Property-price appreciation that’s outpacing wage growth also is a headwind for younger or first-time buyers, though a positive for homeowners’ equity.
Did someone mention April?
...
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BEIJING, June 26 (Reuters) - China’s central bank issued draft guidelines on gold asset management products on Tuesday, in a bid to strengthen gold market supervision.
Financial institutions are required to register with central bank if they want to sell gold asset management products, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) its on its website. (Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)...
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(IDEX Online) – De Beers sold rough diamonds with a provisional value of $575 million in the fifth sales cycle (Global Sightholder Sales and Auction Sales) of 2018.
The miner reported confirmed sales of $554 million in the fourth cycle.
Bruce Cleaver, CEO, De Beers Group, said: "Sentiment in the diamond industry’s midstream is positive following the JCK Las Vegas trade show at the start of the month, and we continued to see good demand for our rough diamonds across the product range.”
De Beers' sales in the fifth sale of 2017 were $541 million....
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In case you’re unfamiliar with the 1966 movie The Russians Are Coming![1], it’s a fun romp about a Russian submarine that accidentally runs aground off the New England coast during the Cold War and the local residents who panic and think they’re being invaded. I remember laughing a lot as a kid at some of the antics.
But it’s no laughing matter what Russia is doing to the US today. Most gold investors know that Russia has been accumulating gold at a rapid pace since the financial crisis in 2008. But now they’re suddenly dumping US Treasuries, too. In other words, they’ve ratcheted up their efforts to reduce their exposure to American fiat currency while simultaneously continuing their relentless accumulation of real money.
Here’s what this one-two punch looks like, and what it could mean…
Deep-Sixing US Bonds
The reason Russia’s sale of US dollar-denominated bonds is suddenly front-page financial news is because of their extreme action in April, the most recent month reported. Their central bank dumped $47 billion-worth of US securities (bonds, notes, and bills). Russia sold half of their total Treasury holdings in one month!
Here’s what that looks like:
This most recent liquidation conforms to a larger trend initiated by the Russian central bank seven years ago. Since 2011, Treasury holdings have been slashed by over two-thirds, from over $150 billion to less than $50 billion. It’s clear that Russia wants to get rid of US Treasury securities.
Part of the reason is certainly due to the numerous rounds of sanctions imposed against Moscow by Washington. But it’s unlikely Russia’s response is solely due to sanctions, because other countries are following the same course of action. Consider:...
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 21:15:03 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive Set-Cookie: __cfduid=df6d818b8d03cc1a565416ac47ee748301529961303; expires=Tue, 25-Jun-19 21:15:03 GMT; path=/; domain=.bonnerandpartners.com; HttpOnly Cache-control: no-cache="set-cookie" Link: ; rel="https://api.w.org/" Link: ; rel=shortlink Set-Cookie: AWSELB=FF9583C11E99524E416D9C0693769B58C8F2AD470597F783E2543A83C5874AAE56D766D942265FEF4B71501395D13CF2B72792428C7CCB5D7C65D5092B195B0CE050D6308E;PATH=/ Vary: Accept-Encoding Expect-CT: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct" Server: cloudflare CF-RAY: 430a72837da33fcb-YUL The Final Assault in the War on Cash ...