"Pink Star" diamond up for grabs

The world’s largest pink diamond will soon be up for grabs. The precious rock, with its pure pink color, weighs in at almost 60 carats, and is estimated to fetch over 60 million US dollars at auction. Some valuable contemporary paintings will also go under the hammer later this month.

Putting the big in bling, this massive pink diamond is waiting for its new owner. Reportedly discovered in Africa in 1999, it has never before been up for public sale.

According to David Bennett, the Chairman of Sotheby’s International Jewelery division, the pink color is not an imperfection.

David Bennett, Chairman of Sotheby's Int'l Jewelry Division, said, "The reason the diamond is pink is probably by an accident when it was being formed. The cause of the pink is not precisely known. What we do know is it is not an impurity."

Bennett says the reason diamonds are so exciting is that they are formed very deep within the earth’s crust, and are mined differently than other precious stones.

"The only reason we have them is when they have been associated with volcanoes when they have been brought up by chance to the surface." David said.

The flawless 59.6-carat Pink Star will be auctioned off in Geneva on Nov. 13th.

Source: CCTV

Heavy Haze continues to rise in Beiging

It’s another day of heavy haze in the Chinese capital. Beijing’s meteorological station issued a yellow alert early Saturday morning, the second highest on the four-tier warning system. This is the third haze alert this week.

The level of PM 2.5 in Beijing has risen sharply to 300, which means heavy pollution. Visibility is also reduced to less than 100 meters in the worst affected parts of the city.

In the past month, northern and eastern China were plagued by continuous haze. Cities like Beijing and Tianjin were blanketed for more than 15 days, the worst since 1961.

Beijing’s weather authority forecasts that winds will hit the capital, which could clear the air from early Sunday. But two more bouts of hazy weather will make a comeback next week in some parts of northern and eastern China.

Mobile Tech : Be-Bound app provides mobile internet access without 3G or Wi-Fi

Be-Bound is a new mobile app for Android that uses text messaging as the means by which to provide internet access at very low bandwidths to mobile devices when there is little or no data connectivity available through a Wi-Fi or 3G connection.

“We started with a simple observation," says Albert Szulman, CEO of Be-Bound. "Everybody has faced connection issues, even in covered areas like the train, the subway, indoor or any other areas with low connectivity."

To overcome this, Be-Bound is designed to provide users with internet access wherever they may be through 2G networks. The Be-Bound app is free to download from Google Play with users paying for the service by topping-up with pre-paid credits called "Be-Miles."

According to Be-Bound, using the app is much cheaper than standard roaming costs and so is ideal for use when traveling abroad. It features built-in email, weather, news and Twitter functionality with the company claiming that it can even help users to save money on their existing mobile tariffs.

When connectivity isn’t an issue, Be-Bound can still be used when on Wi-Fi or 3G networks, with the company claiming it provides a faster means of accessing the internet than traditional smartphone apps while also reducing data usage.

Sources: Be-Bound; Gizmag

          

Macroecomic View vs Value Investor.

"Economics is extremely important to understanding the world in which we live, but the linear application of it can be deadly with actual money on the line. Thinking that low GDP growth would mean low stock returns would have sat you out of one of the best bull markets in history these past few years. It also would have made you miss the bottom of the European stock market and led you to have guessed that China, with its world-beating growth numbers, would outperform (it's actually had the fastest economic growth and the poorest stock market returns).
A study from theLondon School of Economics concluded that choosing where to invest based on favorable economic factors is actually a recipe for underperformance. Researchers Dimson, Marsh and Staunton said "take the records of 83 countries from 1972 to 2009 (the most comprehensive set available) and rank them by GDP growth over the previous five years. Investing each year in the countries with the highest economic growth over the preceding five years earned an annual return of 18.4%, but investing in the lowest-growth countries returned 25.1%." Another study by BNY Mellon looked at the S&P 500 versus US economic growth from 1970-2012 and concluded that there is no link whatsoever between the two.

Greek stocks, once shunned by investors concerned that a default would force the nation out of the euro, are beating almost every market in the world as a six-year recession eases and new investors consider purchases.

Since June 5, 2012, two weeks before MSCI Inc. gave notice it may reclassify Greece as an emerging market, the country’s ASE Index has surged 146 percent, trimming the decline from its 2007 peak to 79 percent. The gains topped all 94 national benchmarks globally in the period, except Venezuela, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Yields on Greece’s 10-year government bonds have dropped to 8.31 percent from a peak of 33.7 percent in March 2012.

The country is unable to borrow without the assistance of its Northern European benefactors backstopping and haircutting and bailing-out and inspecting. Debt-to-GDP will peak out in the next year at some 176% - a disastrous number for any country, especially for a country that does not have the ability to use currency deflation to make it more manageable. In the meantime, over the last five years, Greece has seen a full 25% of its economic output literally disappear - vaporized. This while unemployment has shown almost no sign of abating, the current rate of joblessness today stands at an unfathomable 27%.

But the stock market is not the economy.

We explained this to clients with our European overweights this past spring (You're overweighting Europe?!?!?) and are currently doing the same with our investments into the much-hated materials sector.

Stocks trade based on three things: sentiment, valuation and trend. Yes, economic data feeds into these things, but it is up to the trader or investor to determine their combined favorability, an economist does not do that sort of work. The Greek stock market was the most hated in the world (sentiment), one of the very cheapest on valuation(four times earnings at the bottom!) and the trend had only one direction to go (the Greek stock market, called the ASE, had hit a 22-year low in June of 2012 and was down 90% from the 2007 high)".

Source: thereformedbroker  Joshua Brown

Facebook's ad warning sounds a note of caution for Twitter

Facebook Inc's investors and other proponents of the social network like to say that it captures one of the greatest concentrations of human attention on the planet and thus offers a boundless opportunity for advertisers.

But Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman on Wednesday cast doubt on those assertions by suggesting that there may be a limit on how many ads Facebook can show users before they get turned off.

Ebersman's warning carries far-reaching implications for not only Facebook but also other social media companies including Twitter Inc, which is in the middle of a roadshow to promote its initial public offering to investors.

Twitter has yet to turn a profit but it is pitching an advertising business model similar to Facebook's.

Seven-year old Twitter faces an additional challenge: its active user base, now at 230 million, has expanded much more slowly compared to Facebook, due in part to its struggle to retain newcomers. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found 36 percent of Twitter users do not use the online messaging service.

Twitter is trying to expand its ad business in other ways. This week it closed a $350 million deal to acquire MoPub, an ad network that serves ads within mobile apps.

Source: Reuters

Pakistan Taliban secretly bury leader, vow bombs in revenge

Pakistani Taliban fighters secretly buried their leader early on Saturday after he was killed by a U.S. drone aircraft and quickly moved to replace him while vowing a wave of suicide bombs in revenge.

The Pakistani government denounced the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud as a U.S. bid to derail planned peace talks and some politicians demanded that U.S. military supply lines into Afghanistan be blocked in response.

Mehsud, who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, and three others were killed on Friday in the militant stronghold of Miranshah in northwest Pakistan, Pakistani security officials and militants said.

Mehsud's vehicle was hit after he attended a meeting of Taliban leaders, a Pakistani Taliban fighter said, adding Mehsud's body was "damaged but recognisable". His bodyguard and driver were also killed.

He was secretly buried under cover of darkness in the early hours by a few companions amid fears that his funeral might be attacked by U.S. drones, militants and Pakistani security sources said.

Source: Reuters