FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - ZEW sentiment survey showed a very large decline in the EMU and Germany in June: -20.1 (from -2.4) and -16.9 (from 10.8). A very negative economic sentiment as the euro area is deep in a tough financial and political crisis, with highlights in Greece and Spain.
Meanwhile, Spain raised €3.04B in the 12 and 18 month Treasury bill auction with higher yields as expected. The independent bank-audit report scheduled to be revealed on July 31 was delayed till September. A Spanish newspaper believes the final report will conclude there's a need of €150B for bank recapitalization, which would be much higher than the agreed €100B bailout.
After reaching as low as 1.2568, the EUR/USD was able to regain the 1.2600 level and is now hovering 1.2610/20. "On the upside, only regain of strong barrier at 1.2665 would turn focus higher", wrote Windsor Brokers analyst Slobodan Drvenica.
Is Ron Paul's campaign better with money than Mitt Romney's? - The Christian Science Monitor
Ron Paul had a pretty good May, money-wise. According to his just-filed Federal Election Commission financial disclosure form he raised $1.78 million during the month, despite the fact that Mitt Romney is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. And Mr. Paul entered June with no listed debt and $3.28 million in the bank. That’s $800,000 more in cash on hand than he had at the end of April.
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Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.
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So the Texas libertarian is in decent financial shape as he heads into the summer. He’s certainly better off than, say, Newt Gingrich, whose defunct campaign still owed over $4.7 million to various vendors last time we looked.
But what’s Paul’s spending pattern? As it happens, we think where his money goes is as interesting as how much he has, if not more so. Compare Paul’s balance sheet with Mr. Romney’s, and one might come to this conclusion: Paul’s campaign is more efficiently run.
You don’t see this just flipping through the line items in the latest report. (Although we would like to know who in the Paul campaign is spending all that money at Whole Foods. WalMart has groceries, and they’re cheaper.)
In May, Paul’s biggest expenditure was $297,852 in credit card payments. Next was $116,338 in airfare. His campaign spent $104,795 on hotels, then $81,750 on political consultants.
The picture becomes clearer when these payments are grouped into larger categories. The experts at the Center for Responsive Politics have done this for the whole 2012 cycle. (For the record, they haven’t yet patched Paul’s May report into their findings.) What they found is that overall 26.7 percent of Paul’s expenditures have gone to campaign administration. The comparable figure for the Romney campaign is a bit better, at 23.8 percent. Twenty-nine percent of Paul’s spending has gone to media – ad production, airtime, and such. That’s almost the same as Romney’s comparable 30 percent.
But what really jumps out is the cost of soliciting all that cash to begin with. Six percent of Ron Paul’s spending goes to fundraising. Romney devotes almost a quarter of his entire budget – 23 percent – to the same thing.
The reason for this is obvious. Romney raises money the old-fashioned way, a meal-based fundraiser at a time. Paul runs online “money bombs” and gets contributions in small contributions via the Web. That’s cheaper and takes much less of the candidate’s time.
Perhaps due to this, Paul is able to devote a significantly larger share of his budget, 37 percent, to campaign expenses. Romney’s comparable figure is 21 percent. Yes, Romney is dealing in bigger sums – through April he raised just under three times as much as Paul. But who is running on their business acumen here – the Bain Capital honcho, or the lawmaker/physician?
Forex Trading Experts Offer an Alternative Online Trading Tool - Int'l Business Times
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Forex Flash: 'JPY to weaken to 83 for Q4 2012' - Scotiabank - FXStreet.com
How to Tweet Money to Your Favorite Politician - Businessweek
Campaigns that were just getting excited at the prospect of vacuuming up cash through text messaging, which the Federal Elections Commission green-lighted on June 11, may have yet another way to collect donations with a couple taps of the keyboard. Up to 140 taps, that is. Chirpify, a social-commerce startup based in Portland, Ore., has rolled out a site called Tweetlection at which donors can send money to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney via Twitter.
The process seems simple. All you need do is create an account with Chirpify, link it to your PayPal (EBAY) and Twitter accounts, and you could donate up to $200 instantly, just by tweeting “Donate $200 to @MittRomney for POTUS.” You log into Chirpify only once for the account setup, and then use Twitter, TweetDeck, or any other tweeting app as you normally would. ”There’s no shopping cart or checkout process,” says Chris Teso, Chirpify’s chief executive officer. “We’re calling it conversational commerce.”
The startup processes donations through PayPal. For the presidential candidates to collect the money, though, there’s a catch: Teso says they’ll have to create their own, free Chirpify accounts to cash in. If they don’t, your credit card won’t be charged. (Neither campaign has responded to a request as to whether they’ll participate.)
Teso says neither Romney nor Obama has signed on to a bigger deal with Chirpify that would let their campaigns collect more money in exchange for Chirpify’s 4 percent fee per contribution. That’s obviously the company’s hope. At least two dozen Republican senators and members of Congress will announce in the coming weeks that they’ll use Chirpify to solicit donations by tweet, Teso says. (He won’t name them.) Under those deals, campaigns can collect as much money as they want per tweet and Chirpify will supply them with information required by the FEC (i.e., donors’ full names, addresses, and occupations). The service could end up being a lot less costly than fundraising via text message, which the mobile payment aggregator known as m-Cube plans to roll out this summer at fees of up to 50 percent per donation.
Chirpify went live four months ago and is primarily used by individuals paying off IOUs. (As in: You didn’t have enough cash for your beer tab last night and need to pay back a friend today.) Teso says the company is also processing donations for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and running promotions for companies including Nestle (NESN:VX) , Power Bar, Pawngo, Sir Richard’s Condom Co., and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Those brands can advertise products to their Twitter followers, who can then place an order for a product by tweeting the word “buy;” Chirpify then coordinates with PayPal and the vending company to get the product paid for and shipped out.
Teso says the startup has tens of thousands of members and that “over 50 percent … have transacted in one form or another. That could be purchasing, donating, or paying you for dinner last night.” That’s nothing compared with Barack Obama’s 16.7 million followers, or even Romney’s 563,000. So far, though, their Twitter brigades aren’t exactly flooding Tweetlection. The site rolled out Tuesday; by noon Romney had $150 in pledges—and Obama just $132.
New money brightens London auction picture - The Independent
Forex Bureaux Face Imminent Shutdown - Modern Ghana
The Bank of Ghana is putting the activities of forex bureau operators in its monitoring radar for possible sanctions and license withdrawal. Suleiman Mustapha asks why
The Bank of Ghana has threatened to impose severe sanctions including license withdrawal of forex bureau operators who accept deposits and do large foreign exchange transactions.
Central Bank Governor and Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of Ghana, Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has on the sidelines of an MPC news conference in Accra hinted some forex bureau operators are now accepting deposits and doing large foreign exchange transactions.
The bank is therefore setting out measures to monitor the activities of forex bureau operators in a bid to stem the rising spate of dollarization of the national economy.
“Yes we are worried that some of the forex bureau operators now accept deposits like the normal banks and transact large volumes of foreign exchange business”.
“They are part of the problem and we will soon be rolling out tough measures to stem their illegal activities”, the Governor said.
The Bank of Ghana is even more worried of the growing trend of dollarization, which he partly blamed on the activities of forex bureau operators.
According to the Governor, the central bank will continuously be reviewing the books and constantly monitor the activities of forex bureau operators for possible sanction in breach of the country’s foreign exchange rules.
“It is our view that this will contribute to restoring confidence in the cedi” he said, adding that “the Bank will issue the necessary notices to this effect in due course”.
“They are supposed to do spot transaction of the small foreign currency, which does not require having to go to the commercial banks to exchange”.
“But what we have observed is that some of them are accepting deposits and moving large volumes of foreign exchange around”, he added.
The Bank of Ghana has mopped up GH¢1.2 billion in excess liquidity from the system in a bid to stem the exchange rate pressure and reduce demand for dollars.
In a move to halt the growing trend of ‘dollarization’ and stabilize the cedi, the Central Bank is also reviewing the currency composition of the reserve requirements of commercial banks.
Dollarization is characterized by a tendency for businesses to sell their goods and services in foreign currencies, particularly, dollars.
The service providers quote exchange rates that are significantly off-market. The fringe exchange rates trickle down into the market and become benchmark rates, unduly influencing market rates.
The situation has fuelled price increases in the country and led the Bank of Ghana to tighten monetary policy, alter bank reserve requirements and reintroduce several bonds.
“The committee notes that the measures have begun to take effect. Increase in the policy rate have led to upward adjustments in rates of money markets instruments and improve the attractiveness of cedi assets compared to foreign currency assets”, Mr Amissah-Arthur said.
According to the Governor, though the Bank of Ghana was not considering abolishing the operation of foreign exchange accounts by citizens, it would move to restore the pre-eminence of the cedi in domestic transactions, which required strict adherence to the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Act 2006 (Act 723) and the accompanying regulations.
The Governor was worried about the large dollar deposits in commercial bank accounts, which he said had significantly contributed to the exchange rate pressure.
At the moment, the share of foreign currency deposits to total deposits in the banking system has increased from 27.9 per cent in April 2010 to 28.2 per cent in April 2011 and further to 31.8 per cent in April this year.
This means that some commercial banks have more foreign currency deposits than domestic currency in their total deposit.
The Bank of Ghana feared that those banks could be importing large volumes of foreign currency to service the needs of their clients.
During the first five months of the year, the cedi depreciated cumulatively by 15.1 per cent against the US dollar, compared to 1.9 per cent depreciation in the same period of 2011.
In recent weeks however, the pace of depreciation of the cedi has moderated as a result of the measures introduced to restore stability.
The real effective exchange rate depreciated by 6.8 per cent in January – April 2012, compared with a real appreciation of 5.9 per cent in the same period of 2011.
But Governor Amissah-Arthur assured Ghanaians that the end of the cedi fall was in sight
FOREX-Euro rises on Greek news; dollar down ahead of Fed - Reuters
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