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Bond market may signal US financial crisis to come – Bill Fleckenstein I am becoming more convinced that the various elements of a funding crisis will be picking up the pace and intensity sooner, rather than later, and they may well be the most important factors to consider with regard to investment decisions in 2011. … Read more

EARLY LOOK: Mandelbrot Math (Hedgeye Blog) Altogether, if you take the beginning and end of 2010, you can draw plenty of conclusions that are now crystal clear. From my global macro model’s vantage point, the deep simplicity of all of these global macro factors and what they mean prospectively to the global markets remains as … Read more

China Pledges Support For Solar Development Beijing will create 13 industry zones and pay up to half the price of equipment for solar power projects, the Finance Ministry said. It said other costs will be covered by a subsidy of 4 to 6 yuan (60 to 90 U.S. cents) per watt of generating capacity. (tags: … Read more

Gold Imports by China Soar Almost Fivefold as Inflation Spurs Investment – Bloomberg China’s gold imports jumped almost fivefold in the first 10 months from the entire amount shipped in last year as concern about rising inflation increased its appeal as a store of value, said the Shanghai Gold Exchange. (tags: gold inflation China)

PV Module Industry: Volume is Vanity, Profit is Sanity warns IMS Research | Solar Feeds News Network Despite shipments of PV modules set to grow in 2011, rapid price erosion may see a decline in market revenues next year according to the latest analysis from IMS Research. A detailed analysis of key industry metrics revealed … Read more

A Chemist Explains Why Gold Beat Out Lithium, Osmium, Einsteinium …: Planet Money : NPR The periodic table lists 118 different chemical elements. And yet, for thousands of years, humans have really, really liked one of them in particular: gold. Gold has been used as money for millennia, and its price has been going through … Read more

Germany's unspoken plan: A smaller euro zone – The Globe and Mail If Germany insists that investors in sovereign euro zone bonds share the pain in the future, why would these investors buy such risky bonds? Why lend to Greece, Ireland or Portugal when those sovereigns come back to the market in 2013, begging for … Read more

U.S. dollar once again at an all-time low (as measured by the Real Broad Dollar Index) – Calafia Beach Pundit This chart is arguably the best measure of the dollar's value relative to other currencies. It compares the dollar to a large basket of trade-weighted currencies, and it is adjusted for relative inflation differentials. This … Read more

German Finance Minister attacks Fed move again : report | Reuters German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble renewed his criticism of the U.S. Federal Reserve's move to buy $600 billion worth of government bonds, saying it undermined U.S. credibility and created uncertainty, according to a German magazine. (tags: monetary_policy Germany Federal_Reserve quantiative_easing)

Ben S. Bernanke – What the Fed did and why: supporting the recovery and sustaining price stability While they have been used successfully in the United States and elsewhere, purchases of longer-term securities are a less familiar monetary policy tool than cutting short-term interest rates. That is one reason the FOMC has been cautious, balancing … Read more