Metal Financing Fraud

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From Reuters:

"News of a investigation into a metal financing fraud at Qingdao Port, where a third-party company is suspected of using single cargoes of metal multiple times to obtain financing, has rattled banks and trading houses and unsettled markets."
...
"Pledging commodities to a bank, often using a warehouse receipt as proof of ownership, has become a popular way of raising finance in China, often to skirt restrictions on raising credit and helping drive up stockpiles at some ports."

Not all warehouse receipts are created equal.

From UBS:

And then there's aluminum. Their estimate seems low. It's an old scam, right?  How many separate banks can you get on the hook and string along?

"In March, the bank [Goldman Sachs] estimated commodity finance deals in China were worth as much as $160 billion, or about 31 percent of the country's total short-term foreign exchange loans."

Citic Resources now says they're missing 123,446 metric tons of aluminum at the Qingdao Port:

Makes you wonder how much everyone else who stored metals there will be "unable to sequester."  You have to love the euphemism.

From the Qingdao Port prospectus:

Gratuitous Yowza

Added on by C. Maoxian.

On the old blog I had a feature called the Gratuitous Cute Chick Pic, which proved to drive more traffic than any of my brilliant stock picks.  Her name is Adrianne Ho.  She's Sandrine Holt's little sister; Sandrine caught my eye while playing Gillian Cole in House of Cards.

Bron S01 E09

Added on by C. Maoxian.

August, Martin's oldest boy. Yet another Millennial layabout.

Messaging App Usage in East Asia

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I don't have a smartphone and still send text messages, which the youngsters think is quaint.  Would be nice to do an end-run on my telco and use an app to text people "for free."  You can see each market has one dominant player.  Not sure why WeChat's numbers are so low for Hong Kong?