Bits Bucket for October 6, 2014
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Alexandria, VA Sale Prices Collapse 19% YoY; Price Slashing Accelerates
http://www.zillow.com/alexandria-va-22305/home-values/
NoVa = crater. MD = crater. DC = district of crater. They should just bulldoze the whole thing back into the worthless patch of swamp it was in the 18th century.
And the thieving realtors don’t have much to say.
Silver Spring, MD Sale Prices Crater 7% YoY On Skyrocketing Excess Inventory
http://www.zillow.com/silver-spring-md-20904/home-values/
Falls Church, VA Sale Prices Crash 12% YoY; Demand Craters
http://www.zillow.com/falls-church-va-22043/home-values/
* Select median sale price from drop down field at top chart then click show data from lower right corner of same chart
Let’s review some MSM news from January 2014
“The Mortgage Market Just Cratered”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/mortgage-rates-housing_n_4596218.html
And it’s been cratering since. Will it reverse? nnnnnnnnnope. Not until these grossly inflated prices of housing roll back to the long term trend which happens to be 70% lower.
Homeless man rode in the same ambulance after the Dallas Ebola patient:
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/homeless-man-contact-ebola-patient-found-article-1.1964061
http://www.infowars.com/ebola-may-spread-in-dallas-homeless-community/
Looks like everything Ohbewanna touches today turns to poop.
And we have over 2 years left and do you really want Biden to take over..
Real journalists report Thomas Duncan allegedly fighting for his life:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/us/ebola.html
reference site for the hbb:
http://www.fema.gov/regional-operations
this is a drudge report link, no comment from rick santorum in the article:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/219754-boehner-rakes-in-cash-for-openly-gay-republican
rising jobless rates are a southern mystery?
http://m.wsj.com/articles/rising-jobless-rates-are-a-southern-mystery-1412542422?ref=/home-page
that’s unpossible, 2brony told us that the south is an economic utopia
We have some employment problems…Unemployed, underemployed and wage suppression due to a combination of factors…However, we are the cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry…There are two other dirty/clean shirts…China & Germany….China is teetering…And now Germany…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2F2014-10-06%2Fgerman-factory-orders-slump-most-since-2009-as-euro-area-falters.html&ei=UKAyVIn-J8XeOPSqgaAG&usg=AFQjCNHtZ48WsHsfGtFsFW4cPZoV_bWYIg&sig2=f81D4TuOyNdzdEBMNo0OQg&bvm=bv.76802529,d.ZWU
Now think, in the face of this, will the FED put the brakes on with higher interest rates ?? I don’t think so…Not any time soon…Party on Wayne…Party on Garth….
Meanwhile back in the US of A - Jacob Lew posts yet another lie on the jobless situation…..
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/treasury-secretary-jacob-lew-u-s-economy-moving-strongly-in-the-right-direction-after-6-years-slow-wage-growth/
posts yet another lie on the jobless situation ??
Yeah…”Moving strongly in the right direction”…What the hell does that mean ?? We have been muddling through for a long time with better improvements in a very few regions…
We need to get people back to work in productive enterprises…I think this will be “the issue” in the 2016 election with specifics on how…IMO, It will include major tax reform…
dave my prediction might come true
Everybody on the dole must learn how to read, write and speak English or no EBT card or unemployment. Functional illiteracy must be wiped out and companies will have a good supply of educated workers outside their front door so no real need to move to a low tax state.
We cannot have this many people doing nothing. Ill bet 90% of the rioters in Ferguson have nothing to do, yet get money for it.
It’s not a lie. It’s an opinion.
“It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Misrepresenting the data is lying.
Labor force participation rate at 35 year lows isn’t a clean shirt my friend.
Treasury bond yields continue to linger in the basement in the wake of Friday’s strong jobs report.
And meanwhile, all asset prices except oil are looking very green this morning. Is the September swoon over, with clear sailing ahead for risk assets from here on out?
Bond Report
Treasurys edge higher as investors bet on slow Fed
Published: Oct 6, 2014 9:37 a.m. ET
The 30-year bond rose half a basis point while the 5-year note, slid 1.5 basis points
By Ben Eisen
Reporter
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices rose on Monday as buyers speculated that the Federal Reserve will move deliberately in raising its key interest rates.
The 10-year Treasury note (10_YEAR, +0.53%) yield, which falls as prices rise, was down a basis point on the day at 2.443%. Treasury yields had risen in the previous session after a nonfarm payrolls report showed more jobs were created in September than economists had expected.
But even as economic data improves, market participants believe the Fed will keep rates lower than the historical norm for a considerable period of time. That has made U.S. Treasury yields look attractive, especially compared to even lower yields in other developed countries.
“Any sell-offs are shallow as global demand for fixed income remains strong,” said Tom Tucci, managing director at CIBC World Markets, in a note to clients.
…
Jim Willie: Saudis to Kill Petrodollar. Germany to Scuttle the EU And Wall Street.
Posted on September 8, 2014 by horse237
The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) at their summit in Brazil said they would give the United States until the end of 2014 to reform the world monetary system including the IMF and the World Bank. The Obama administration has since decided to up the ante and pass more toothless sanctions against Russia. The US had fined BNP Paribas $9 billion for daring to trade with Russia and Iran.
The facts left out of the above in most media accounts are that the Rothschilds own BNP Paribas. and that their Parisian bank is technically bankrupt. In American parlance we are at the point where the rubber meets the road. Do the economic experts running the United States actually know what they are doing?
Dr Willie outlined from his sources a chain of events that could unfold over the next few months. It is difficult to put a date certain when the Dollar Dies but we are on an Express Train headed for a Brick Wall. And America has passengers from other nations on board looking for a safe exit because they know the men in charge in Washington and New York are stark raving mad.
vidrebel.wordpress.com/…/ - 93k -
Joe Biden Grovels Before Qatari Prince for Daring to Speak Half Truth About ISIS
U.S., Israel, Britain, Gulf Emirates, Jordan and Turkey responsible for ISIS
by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com | October 6, 2014
On Sunday Vice President Joe Biden called Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and apologized for telling the truth.
The previous day he called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and did the same.
Last week during a speech delivered at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University Biden told the audience the Persian Gulf Wahhabist regimes and Turkey are responsible for supporting ISIS and al-Nusra.
Biden said in response to a question that the
Saudis, the Emiratis, etc… were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad except that the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. Now you think I’m exaggerating – take a look. Where did all of this go? So now what’s happening? All of a sudden everybody’s awakened because this outfit called ISIL which was Al Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space in territory in eastern Syria, work with Al Nusra who we declared a terrorist group early on and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them.
This is only part of the story. In fact, the United States, Britain and Israel have played a key role in arming and training ISIS, now the Islamic State. Direct evidence of this support emerged during congressional hearings on Benghazi when the CIA’s “rat line” arms shipment to “moderate rebels” in Syria was exposed.
As Infowars.com noted last year, ambassador Stevens, who was killed in Benghazi, was instrumental not only in facilitating weapon transfers to Syria from Libya, but also served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya.
Moreover, the effort by the U.S., Turkey and the Gulf Emirates to support and arm radical Wahhabist factions in Syria – who are the only effective fighters in the proxy war to unseat al-Assad – has been widely documented in the European press while generally ignored in the United States.
Back in 2007, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh sketched out the rationale for the collaboration between the U.S., Britain, Israel, Turkey, and the Gulf Emirates:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
This plan began in the 1980s with a policy paper written by Israeli scholar Oded Yinon – A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties – and was updated in 1996 by the establishment’s neocon faction in A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.
“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions,” the document states.
Joe Biden, notorious for his foot-in-the-mouth commentary, inflicted minor albeit temporary damage on the effort to portray ISIS as an arch enemy instead of what it really is – a key component in the effort to take down al-Assad and confront Iran.
Despite Biden’s embarrassing admission the larger agenda – removing Bashar al-Assad and his Shia government – remains paramount. This will be accomplished by supposedly attacking the Islamic State mercenary army, said to number around 30,000 fighters. This relatively small army allegedly controls 25 percent of Syrian territory and a third of Iraq.
Despite air strikes and hyperbolic speeches by Obama and British PM David Cameron, ISIS recently took control of Abu Ghraib and key cities in the Anbar province. It is now reportedly a mile outside Baghdad.
The U.S., Israel, Britain, the Gulf Emirates, Jordan and Turkey share an overriding agenda – to exacerbate the Sunni-Shia conflict and balkanize the region along ethnic and religious lines. This will continue and criticism of the effort will be deflected on the Saudis and Qataris who are impervious and in a position to force an American vice president to grovel at their feet.
Daring to Speak Half Truth About ISIS
The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.
“As Infowars.com noted last year, ambassador Stevens, who was killed in Benghazi, was instrumental not only in facilitating weapon transfers to Syria from Libya, but also served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya.”
He got his. Big time.
Millennials are broke @ss loosers
Article highlight:
“The proportion of men ages 25 to 29 able to support a family of four at the poverty line dropped from 78 percent in 1970 to 47 percent in 2012″
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-06/in-seinfeld-nation-millennials-delay-marriage-for-selfie.html
This really says it all. Are you happy now, boomers? You’ve taken just about everything.
“Even the high median cost of weddings — about $18,000 — can be a reason to wait, said Wilcox of the National Marriage Project.”
“The San Francisco couple, Wood and Bushman, and their families spent about $25,000 on the wedding, which included renting a San Francisco restaurant patio for an evening dinner reception, Wood said.”
+1 Little wonder they’re “broke as* losers.”
The wedding industry is one of the biggest scams around. Why the eff would you start out with your (hopefully) life partner by wasting five figures on a ceremony?
Here’s an article for the warmist warmers, happy Monday
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-05/economists-are-blind-to-the-limits-of-growth
Still waiting for an explanation of how infinite growth is possible in a finite ecosystem…
You aren’t looking forward to living on Trantor/Coruscant?
Drill baby drill!
Still waiting for an explanation of how infinite growth is possible in a finite ecosystem…
Still waiting for an explanation of how infinite growth can occur in a finite time period.
The banksters have figured out how to continue building ghost cities with zero demand for them. A 2/3rds human die off from Ebola would right size the population.
If the POG stays around $1200 the next 3 months that will mean the price of gold is $100 above it’s 5 year low. A gain of just over 8%. The S&P 500 is way above its 5 year low. Tell me someone, which has a greater chance of falling 40% over the next two years, the S&P 500 index or gold?
Just ordered last night from Apmex a half-ounce gold eagle as a gift for someone. So, lol, expect POG to drop. Yeah, but today I am thinking, this gold is a business. NFW they let the price get too low for too long. It is like oil. Keep the USD in churn. I am liking silver more with lower its prices. Not liking stocks lately.
We must be stupid like the Chinese, Indians, and the Central banks for buying precious metals. We must be stupid for realizing the 5,000 year history of precious metals and that all fiat currencies collapse. ALL.
Was looking at my old Ebay e-mails the other day. Saw an e-mail for one of my Ebay purchases in July 2009. It was for an American Silver Eagle coin. Total price, including shipping was $15.59. People were sour on silver five years ago. Comparatively, gold was about $950 July 2009. Volatile stuff. Don’t really care if they drop the price. They are slitting their own throats in some ways thus. Letting the plebes get PMs cheaper is against the man. Or the woman.
$1200 gold I’ll buy. $1000 gold I’ll buy. I very much doubt it will go below $1100 again though. But I keep buying. The point is the stacking.
And you know like I said, 2015 is when I throw PGMs into the mix of my regular buying. But the next few days is all gold purchasing for me.
https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/buying-gold-0820141
Central banks firmly buying gold in 2014. From August 2014 article
10/3/2014: Moyers interviews Bill Black: Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail
Thanks for posting this, I was just about to do so myself.
One of the most interesting aspects of the interview was the information about Jamie Dimon acting as king-maker for Barack Ebola. I knew Dimon was involved, but I didn’t realize the extent, and coming in like a white (lol) knight just as Ebola was getting buried by Hillary. Totally makes sense why the Ebola administration did zip on bankster prosecutions. Quid pro quo to the max.
Wonder how Dimon’s throat cancer is progressing? Wow, that is some karmic payback right there. Hope it was all worth it. A president is a terrible thing to waste.
D-FW new home sales hit highest level in six years
New homebuyers won’t find a lot of ready product to choose from. At the end of September, only 3,169 finished, vacant houses were available in the D-FW area. That’s less than a 2-monthy supply.
http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/d-fw-new-home-sales-hit-highest-level-in-six-years.html/
‘New home construction in the area rose 11.4 percent from a year ago to 6,511 starts – the highest third quarter start level since 2007.’
Pedal to the metal. Better hope it doesn’t end.
How many used houses are sitting unsold in Dallas? 10k? 20k?
So they’re finally trashing out the foreclosure across the street. Big red pick up truck with a large utility trailer. So far, three trips. That place was mess inside. Mostly junk, but it kills me that there are few good items in there that will end up in the landfill. Then again, maybe the trash out people clipped a little for themselves, if they even know what some of the stuff is.
Mortgage age hits a record high on tight credit, interest rates
October 6, 2014, 1:14 PM ET
Mortgages are getting old, a sign that some families are still struggling to get a new loan, while others have already refinanced and are enjoying their cheap monthly payments, according to a report released Monday.
The average mortgage age hit a record-high of 54-plus months in August, up from an average of about 50 months in the year-earlier period, according to Black Knight Financial Services, a mortgage technology and information services firm based in Jacksonville, Fla. That age statistic shows how long a borrower has a loan before paying it off, typically through a home sale or refinancing, or before the loan was closed due to a foreclosure.
“The more newer loans you have, the lower the loan age,” said Kostya Gradushy, Black Knight’s research and analytics manager.
Part of the increase in loan age can be traced back to the plunge in refinancing seen since mortgage rates started rising. Borrowers who nabbed ultra-low mortgage rates have no interest in refinancing now that loans are pricier.
The more troubling portion of rising loan age is the chunk that’s due to borrowers with credit and financial problems who can’t get a new loan, whether it’s to buy a home or refinance. About one-in-10 mortgaged U.S. properties were underwater in the second quarter — owners owed more on a mortgage than a property was worth — so they are both struggling with current payments and will have trouble getting a new loan.
“The equity on their homes is not at the point that selling their house would be reasonable,” Gradushy said.
As seen in the chart, the average loan duration for those with lower credit scores is relatively high — the lower the score, the higher the average mortgage age.
Average mortgage age could decline as home purchasing, rather than refinancing, drives the mortgage market and credit conditions loosen from the strict standards erected in the wake the meltdown, said Ken Fears, an economist with the National Association of Realtors. Officials and lenders may start to pare back some mortgage fees, he said.
“If we see a net decline in the cost [of loans] to consumers, we could see a lot more volume,” Fears said.
…
average mortgage age is 54 months?
americans typically move an average of every 7 years, but don’t any of these donkeys ever pay off their loanz?
a nation of broke @ss loosers
With no refinancing, the average age should be about 84 months with an average of 7 years between moves.
Those without mortgages aren’t counted (ie. they can’t count the average age of something that doesn’t exist).
Here I was under the impression most U.S. homeowners bought with 30-year mortgages. Who knew that 54 month mortgages were the norm, and this at the all-time record mortgage age?
So, here is the link to the PDF:
http://www.bkfs.com/CorporateInformation/NewsRoom/MortgageMonitor/201408/MortgageMonitorAugust2014.pdf
They are referring to page 8.
I think their “all time high” only has data going back to January 2005.
If refinancing wasn’t “a thing”, and people moved every 7 years on average, then the average home loan should be approximately 7 years, or 84 months.
The closer we get to that average, the less people are refinancing to lower rates, and the less people are pulling money out of their house via refinance.
The chart totally skews reality given the start date being mid-bubble (housing ATMs in full swing).
I wonder what the average was in 1998? 2002? 1986?
First-time homebuyers getting more help in California
SACRAMENTO
October 6, 2014 11:22am
Comment Print Email
• CalHFA offers additional down payment assistance
• “A valuable resource for those families who are ready to buy a home”
The California Housing Finance Agency says it will begin providing an additional $6,500 in down payment assistance through its “CalPlus Conventional” program to make home purchasing more accessible for first-time homebuyers.
“CalHFA is pleased to extend this additional assistance to first-time homebuyers,” says CalHFA Executive Director Tia Boatman Patterson. “This is a valuable resource for those families who are ready to buy a home and have the means for their monthly mortgage payment, but haven’t been able to save enough money for a down payment.”
The program will include an additional $6,500 on top of the 3 percent down payment it currently offers as part of its CalPlus Conventional with zero interest program, which provides 3 percent of the loan amount at zero percent interest on a fixed-rate, 30-year conventional mortgage. The additional $6,500 will also be provided at zero percent interest.
An added benefit is that a CalPlus Conventional loan can also be combined with CalHFA’s other assistance programs, such as:
• The California Homebuyer’s Down Payment Assistance program
• The Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase program
• The Mortgage Credit Certificate Tax Credit program
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=26868
Jaguars: Mascot Jaxson de Ville’s ill-timed Ebola joke ‘an extremely poor decision’
Posted: October 6, 2014 - 5:53am
By The Times-Union
During Sunday’s game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Pittsburgh Steelers at EverBank Field, the Jaguars team mascot, Jaxson de Ville, made a joke about Ebola.
It didn’t go over well.
Jaxson de Ville carried a Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Terrible Towel” in one had while holding a sign with the words “Towels Carry Ebola” in an attempt to poke fun at Pittsburgh fans.
jacksonville.com/…jaguars-mascot-jaxson-de-ville-makes-ill-timed-ebola-joke-during - 104k -
LOL
Those 2 teachers fixer posted about last week would probably be willing to test them.
Lab-grown penises developed by scientists and now ‘ready for human tests’
Scientists have developed technology to help patients who have congenital abnormalities or suffered a traumatic injury
by Helen Lock | The Independent | October 6, 2014
Scientists have developed lab-grown penises to help men who have congenital abnormalities or suffered a traumatic injuries, the Observer has reported.
The engineered penises were developed by researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, USA, and are currently awaiting approval to be tested on humans.
The work is funded by the US Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which hopes to use the technology to help soldiers with battlefield injuries. Professor Anthony Atala, director of the institute, told the Observer the target is to get the organs into patients with injuries or congenital abnormalities. The penises would be grown using a patient’s own cells to avoid the risk of immunological rejection after organ transplantation.
Atala previously led a successful project engineering penises for rabbits in 2008. The previous work on rabbits showed that once the tissue was there the body recognises it as its own.
Friend desperately needs a loan to get his wife to sign papers. Goes to bank. He wants to re-fi for 10K over what he paid for the converted trailer he calls home. Bank offers 5K over. He balks at the deal. Bank “gets a waiver”and comes back with almost double what he paid for the place originally and he jumps all over it. Gonna buy a new Ford!
125k on a home built around a 1972 mobile home. They’ll give him more if he pays for the interior appraisal. Keep those standards high, boys!
Bank “gets a waiver”and comes back with almost double what he paid for the place originally and he jumps all over it.
SOLD to the bank!
American banks are loading up on U.S. government debt, a sign they remain cautious on the economy even with the jobless rate at a six-year low and corporations at their healthiest in a generation.
Commercial lenders increased their holdings of Treasuries (BUSY) and debt from federal agencies in September by $54 billion to an unprecedented $1.99 trillion, data from the Federal Reserve show. Banks have now been net buyers for 12 straight months.
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Citigroup Inc. (C) are among the lenders adding government bonds this year as loan growth fails to keep up with record deposits and banks prepare for rules that take effect in January requiring them to hold more high-quality assets. While companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index are earning more than ever and carrying the lowest debt burdens in at least 24 years, the buying suggests that loan officers are less sanguine over the outlook for the U.S. economy.
Albuquerque real estate company offering concealed carry class to brokers
A paradox isn’t it? Shouldn’t the targets/suckers be armed instead?
Pop goes a Jim Cramer-touted bubble stock. First of many.
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/10/06/wall-street-hope-hype-and-hoopla-exacts-its-pound-of-flesh-gt-advanced-tech-soars-crashes-and-burns/
War! What Is It Good For? (Hint: These 4 Companies)
Tyler Durden’s picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/05/2014
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-05/war-what-it-good-hint-these-4-companies
How are your bitcoin holdings holding up these days?
The bitcoin outlook will morph from partly cloudy to tornado warning when the Fed eventually hikes rates.
Watch What Happens When Someone Dumps Tens Of Thousands Of Bitcoin At Below-Market Rates
Posted 8 hours ago by Alex Wilhelm (@alex)
Recently, an individual or group put an estimated 30,000 bitcoin onto the market at a price of $300 per coin. It isn’t clear who was behind the sale, or what their motives were, but the sale meant millions of dollars in revenue for whomever pulled the trigger. Given the number of coins that were made available at the $300 mark, then below the market price, it took quite some time for purchasers to chew through them.
The sale didn’t flood the market and collapse it, as the coins were offered for a specific price and at a floating rate — $300 or go away, essentially. Following the sale, the price of bitcoin rose. It currently trades for more than $340 per coin.
Why, then, dump the massive pile at $300? Liquidity and price stability. If the person or persons behind the sale had tried to sell them in chunks at market rates, they could have disturbed the price balance and pushed the value of a bitcoin below the $300 mark if they were aggressive enough.
Instead, they made their own market with what appears to have been limit sale at a discount — the market was willing to bear the sale because they were buying at cheaper-than-normal rates, the sales person or group got to cash out, and presumably everyone walked away happy.
Anyone who bought in the sale made a quick 10 percent or greater profit directly following.
An accounting source of mine, after reviewing the charts and images, called it “blatant market manipulation.” Well then.
Why sell tens of thousands of coins at all? If you had an immediate financial need, it might make sense. Or you simply lost faith in the currency and wanted out. That or you might have a total of, say 100,000 coins, and wanted to protect your downside. Now, no matter what, you have millions in cash to live on, the price of bitcoin be damned.
…
Money
Bitcoin’s Price Plummeted Over the Weekend
Jacob Davidson @JakeD
11:22 AM ET
A woman buys bitcoins at one of Southern California’s first two bitcoin-to-cash ATMs. Lucy Nicholson—Reuters
The price of Bitcoin dropped almost 20% over the weekend, hitting a low of $290 before rebounding.
Bitcoin enthusiasts had a scare this weekend, as the price of the currency plummeted from $356 on Saturday to a low of $290 on Sunday—a drop of more than 18%, percent according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. The virtual currency has since rebounded to a price of roughly $330 at press time Monday, down about 13% over the last seven days.
Despite the price drop, Reddit’s r/Bitcoin, a popular gathering place for the currency’s supporters, was largely optimistic. “Who else is enjoying the firesale? Who else is picking up tons of cheap bitcoin?” asked one poster. But not everyone was confident that the price would recover. The New York Times quoted one worried user asking fellow Bitcoin fans for support. “As the price is going down, some of us are under immense psychological stress,” the post read. “Please share how you cope with it.”
Sunday’s crash was hardly Bitcoin’s first price panic, or even its most significant drop. In 2013, the currency lost almost 40% of its value between December 4 and December 7, when the price dropped from its all-time high of $1,147 to $694 in less than a week. After partially regaining those losses, Bitcoin fell 40% again from December 15 to 18, going from $879 to $522. Since the beginning of this year, Bitcoin’s price has been relatively more stable, but the descent has continued. From January through October 6 of this year, the currency has lost more than 40% of its value.
Exactly why the price cratered is subject to debate. Some have cited upcoming regulations, such as those proposed by New York’s Department of Financial Services, that will curtail the free-wheeling nature of the currency. Others have suggested that Bitcoin’s recent increase in popularity among retailers may have actually hurt its value. Paul Vigna at the Wall Street Journal theorized that because more merchants are using a service that instantly converts Bitcoin payments into dollars, all those Bitcoin sales may be driving down the price. However, as Vigna notes, such a long-term trend can’t directly explain this weekend’s sudden crash.
Bitcoin detractors have used this latest price fluctuation as a chance to take something of a victory lap. On Sunday, Paul Krugman, a longtime cryptocurrency critic, likened Bitcoin to a number of get-rich-quick schemes, from Glenn Beck’s “buy gold” ads to direct mail scams. “Bitcoin may be sold as a technical marvel, and it does indeed solve an interesting information problem,” acknowledged Krugman, but “it’s not at all clear whether solving that problem has any economic value.”
…
“Bitcoin enthusiasts”
Are these the same as Beanie Baby collectors?
Different bubble, same morons.
The Switch
Bitcoin prices have dropped nearly 50% in three months
By Andrea Peterson
October 6 at 11:58 AM
Over the past three months, the price of the cryptocurrency bitcoin has fallen nearly 50 percent — going from $630 per bitcoin to $320 per bitcoin, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, which averages the prices on major exchanges.
…
Bye-bye, bitcoin? The crypto-currency’s price agonies intensify
Michael Hiltzik
Los Angeles Times
michael.hiltzik@latimes.com
- This is not an appropriate topic for levity
- Bitcoin vending machine in Lisbon
- Just in time for the price crash: inauguration of the first Bitcoin ATM machine in Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday. (ANTONIO COTRIM / EPA)
- Does bitcoin’s price collapse herald its end?
- What’s causing bitcoin’s price plunge? Experts don’t know–and that’s a problem
- Remember bitcoins?
The digital currency swam into the average person’s attention last December, when the price of a single bitcoin reached about $1,150. The Winklevoss twins, who gained fame from their connection with the founding of Facebook, announced plans for a bitcoin investment fund. The airwaves and news columns loaded up with declarations about how bitcoins were the biggest threat to the banking system since bankers were invented. The bitcoin creed was about defeating evil central bankers with freedom and libertarianism.
Since then thousands of businesses announced they would accept bitcoins for goods and services. That level of interest should have kept the price of bitcoins stable, because theoretically their value is tied to their acceptance.
What’s happened instead is that the price of bitcoins has plummeted, especially over this past weekend. The coins were quoted late Monday at $333.88 by CoinDesk, a bitcoin information service, up a bit after bottoming out at about $290. Many of the bitcoin faithful are in paroxysms of grief over the price collapse.
The main problem is that no one in the bitcoin community can adequate explain the price action. Accordingly, rumors and speculation abound. Some think it’s the advent of new regulations on “virtual currencies” coming from New York State banking regulators.
Another theory is that Chinese computer programmers have sharply stepped up their “mining” of bitcoins. (The bitcoin supply can be increased only when programmers solve an increasingly complex algorithm, which requires ever-more-powerful computers.) Some even think that bitcoin’s success in the marketplace is its own enemy, on the theory that merchants accepting bitcoins rapidly convert them to dollars or other hard currencies, which drives down the price. And then there are bitcoin believers who dismiss the plunge as merely an artifact of bitcoins’ natural volatility.
What’s hard to dispute is that the long-term price decline underscores the dangers of bitcoins as an investment. As we observed last year, bitcoin fans can be divided roughly into two categories: investment enthusiasts and transactional users.
Investment enthusiasts see bitcoins as the next best thing to gold–a currency/commodity that will retain intrinsic value, or even gain value, as the world goes to hell. Just as gold never loses its glitter, the argument is that bitcoins are immune from manipulation from the gnomes of international finance in central banks and central governments.
For those who bought into this argument and collected bitcoins as the price rose to $1,000 and beyond, the decline is nauseating. One investor’s post on reddit.com’s r/bitcoin forum was headlined “Desperate: How long to hold out / What would you do in my situation.” The poster said he or she already had lost more than $100,000 this year, on an investment at an average cost of $623 per coin. “So far I am down a lot.” (No kidding.)
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LMAO @ the speculators going down in flames, whining on Reddit.
What if the ‘increasingly complex algorithm’ turns out to be a ginormous hoax? I’ll bet the bitcoin enthusiasts didn’t consider that possibility.
Homeowners should take heed of what is happening to bitcoin prices, as what happens to one category of speculative investment (bitcoin) can easily happen to another (housing).
Note the argument in the article I am about to post applies equally well to gold and bitcoin.
Why You Can’t Invest in Bitcoin
By Adam Levine-Weinberg | More Articles
October 5, 2014
Here’s a fact you might not be aware of: You can’t invest in bitcoin. Undoubtedly, some people will be very upset about this. After all, bitcoins are currently selling for $350-$400 each: up from around $10 just two years ago — although down from more than $1000 late last year.
The reason why you can’t invest in bitcoin isn’t because a bitcoin exchange has been hacked: though that has happened. It isn’t because the government is cracking down on bitcoin, either: although that has happened, too.
The problem is much more fundamental. You can’t invest in bitcoin because bitcoin is not an investment. Many people seem to think there’s no real difference between speculation (buying bitcoin) and investing (buying a stock). However, that opinion is based on a misunderstanding of what investing is all about — and how investing can lead to long-term wealth.
Betting on bitcoin
As people began to notice bitcoin’s rapid ascent — from less than $1 in early 2011 and less than $10 in mid-2012 to more than $1000 in December 2013 — many individuals became interested in the concept of investing in bitcoin.
In the last 10 months, the price of bitcoins has plummeted by about two-thirds. However, that hasn’t really quashed investor interest in bitcoin. Indeed, many people have concluded that it’s a great time to buy bitcoin because the price is sure to skyrocket again at some point in the future.
Rising interest in bitcoin has driven the rise of a cottage industry in bitcoin investment advice. There are a mass of articles online treating bitcoin as just another “asset class,” there are bitcoin money managers, and a bitcoin exchange-traded fund backed by the Winkelvoss twins (of Facebook fame) is in the works.
All of these activities are convincing more and more people that bitcoin is just another kind of investment. In reality, you’d be just as well off taking your money to Vegas as “investing” in bitcoin. To invest in bitcoin is ultimately to bet that people will be willing to pay more for bitcoin at some point in the future than they are willing to pay today.
Investing is not the same as speculation
Investor interest in bitcoin is a symptom of a broader problem. A lot of individual investors don’t truly understand what investing is all about. This is summed up by the overused phrase: “Buy low, sell high.”
If investing were really just about buying low and selling high, there would be no reason not to invest in bitcoin. Many people have successfully bought bitcoin at a low price and sold it for a higher — sometimes astronomically higher — price. Over any short period of time, your odds of successfully “buying low and selling high” are probably similar regardless of whether you are trading bitcoin or trading stocks.
By contrast, the key to successful investing is recognizing that buying a stock means buying part of a business. Great businesses can create an extraordinary amount of value over time, and long-term investors get to tap into this value creation.
To put this a different way: A single share of stock in a great company is still one share after 10 years. However, if the company is successful, it’s one share of a much more profitable — and thus more valuable — business. That share entitles its owner to a bigger stream of future earnings from the business (often paid out in the form of dividends).
On the other hand, a bitcoin (gold coin) today will still be a bitcoin (gold coin) no matter how long you hold onto it. Investing is all about participating in value creation. You can’t invest in bitcoin (gold coin) because a bitcoin (gold coin) isn’t creating any value during the time that you are holding it.
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Some of these bitcoin buyers are very bad at math. Bitcoin price is ~ $330 each. Some buyers, just not sure what they are expecting:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-1-Bitcoin-0-1-BTC-Directly-Into-Your-Bitcoin-Wallet-FAST-Transfer-/181549480217?pt=US_Virtual_Currency&hash=item2a45313919
Tomorrows links to data are in the very locations you don’t expect. Kickoff is bright and early. See you then!