Soros doubles a bearish bet on the S&P 500, to the tune of $1.3 billion

Soros Fund Management has doubled up a bet that the S&P 500SPX  is headed for a fall.

Within Friday’s 13F filings news was the revelation that the firm, founded by legendary investor George Soros, increased a put position on the S&P 500 ETF   SPY -0.13% by a whopping 154% in the fourth quarter, compared with the third. (A put or short position basically gives the owner the right to sell a security at a set price for a limited time, and in making such a bet, an investor generally believes the security is going to decline.)

The value of that holding, the biggest position in the fund, has risen to $1.3 billion from around $470 million. It now makes up a 11.13% chunk of all reported holdings. It had been cut to 5.14% in the third quarter, from 13.54% in the second quarter, which itself marked another dramatic lift on the bearish call.  The numbers can be found at Whalewisdom.com, which makes them slightly easier to digest than the actual SEC filing.

Writing on the Bullion Baron blog, Joseph has been quick to alert readers to the hedge fund’s bets on the S&P 500, offering up a summary of changes to that call from mid-2011 onward. For the four quarters of 2013, that short has followed a pattern of big highs and big lows.

Bullionbaron.com

Of course, Joseph said, the bearish S&P call could be a hedge and, as it’s six weeks into the next reporting period, it may have already been reduced or increased. But he said it could also be indicative of jitters: In  January, Soros highlighted risks coming out of China and drew a comparison with the lead-up to the crash of 2008.

“It’s possible that the SPY puts are just a hedge, weighed against other long positions he holds in specific stocks. However, the views he expressed in this article lead me to believe he thinks another crisis is brewing (led by China on this occasion) and the SPY put position could be an attempt profit from it,” says Joseph.

The second- and third-biggest positions in the 13F were a fresh put on the Energy Select Sector SPDR fund    and a big jump in holds of Israeli pharmaceutical maker Teva  TEVA .  Read about more changes in Soros’s quarterly holdings here.

Soros and his hedge fund aren’t alone if they’re feeling unease at the bull run for markets. It’s been roughly 28 months since a substantial correction for the S&P 500, which is down 0.5% for the year after having endured a pullback earlier this month, triggered in part by jitters over emerging markets. Strategists have beendebating about when and how the correction is going to happen.

As for whether investors should ape the 13F followings of others, MarketWatch’sBill Watts pointed out last week that the 45-day lag in the holdings is particularly tricky when it comes to calls like a huge bearish bet on the S&P 500. And he found that while hedge funds outperform on the upside, they do far worse on the downside.

It was Soros himself who famously once said: “I rely a great deal on animal instincts.” And as we all know, George’s made some big, crazy, winning bets in the past.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/02/17/soros-doubles-a-bearish-bet-on-the-sp-500-to-the-tune-of-1-3-billion/

AT LEAST 20 BANKERS NOW DEAD!

The sudden rash of bankers expiring in mysterious ways has been well documented at SD.  Jim Willie revealed to SD readers that we are seeing bankers removed who are on the verge of revealing big data details on FOREX bank fraud. 
News of the latest JPM banker to be found dead(Ryan Crane, the Executive Director of JPM’s Global Equities Group) went viral after European banking source V claimed that Crane & the JPM London banker who fell from the top of JPM’s London HQ last week “knew each other & had uncovered something“.
If the bombshell news the investigative journalists at Infowars have just released is accurate, it appears that the number of bankers found dead in the past several weeks has now swelled to over 20, and includes a slew of mid-level bankers as well as the top level execs that have been chronicalized on SD. 
Gerald Celente & Alex Jones discuss the news that the number of dead bankers has now reached 20 below: 

http://www.silverdoctors.com/alert-at-least-20-bankers-now-dead/

Ukraine crisis: Police storm main Kiev 'Maidan' protest camp

Police are storming the main protest camp in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, which has been occupied since November.

Explosions are taking place, fireworks are being thrown and large fires have broken out in Independence Square.

On Tuesday at least 18 people were killed, including seven policemen, in the worst violence seen in weeks.

President Viktor Yanukovych blamed the violence on opposition leaders, but said it was still "not too late to stop the conflict".

He was speaking after a late-night meeting with opposition figures Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Mr Klitschko, who leads the Udar (Punch) party, told Ukraine's Hromadske TV that the president had given the protesters only one option, leave the Maidan and go home.

'Island of freedom'

Security forces had given protesters a deadline of 18:00 local time (16:00 GMT) to leave Independence Square, the scene of a mostly peaceful protest camp since November.

The city's metro service was completely shut down, and there were reports that cars were being prevented from coming in to the capital.

Then shortly before 18:00 GMT, police announced over loudspeakers that they were about to begin "an anti-terror operation".

They advanced with an armoured vehicle, dismantling barricades and firing stun grenades and water cannon.

Protesters threw fireworks and petrol bombs, and lit fires to block off police. Many tents have been burned but it was unclear whether there had been casualties.

Large fires are burning in the square, including around these statues of Kiev's founders

Protesters have remained in the square, some setting off fireworks

Protesters have insisted they will not leave the Maidan

Late on Tuesday, the police tried to break through a barricade from the Evropeyska Square, but the attack was repelled.

In a renewed assault shortly after 04:00 local time on Wednesday (02:00 GMT), the police tried to move on the protesters' tents near the main monument on the square.

A number of tents were set ablaze, and the police reportedly again began using water cannon.

In speeches from the main stage, protest leaders urged people already on the Maidan to stand firm, and called on Ukrainians elsewhere to come to the square.

"This is an island of freedom and we will defend it," said Mr Klitschko.

Mr Yatsenyuk, who heads the Fatherland party, appealed to President Yanukovych to "stop the bloodshed and call a truce".

Former deputy prime minister and activist Oleg Rybachuk: "The people are surrounded"

Meanwhile, there are reports of unrest breaking out elsewhere in Ukraine, including the western cities of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk.

Debate 'blocked'

The BBC's David Stern in Kiev says this is a key moment for the country and that many people are scared of further escalation. Although this does not necessarily mean a civil war - as some have previously suggested - Ukraine remains dangerously divided, our correspondent says.

Ukraine's unrest began in November, when President Yanukovych rejected a trade deal with the EU in favour of closer ties with Russia.

Protesters were earlier blocked by police as they tried to march on parliament

Pro-EU protesters demanded his resignation and snap elections.

After weeks of unrest, the mood had calmed in recent days, but people remained on the streets.

Read More

Chase Imposes New Capital Controls on Cash Deposits

Customers have to show ID, can no longer deposit cash into another person’s account

Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

February 17, 2014

JPMorgan Chase has irked its customers by imposing new capital controls that mandate identification for cash deposits and ban cash being deposited into another person’s account.

 Air Force veteran Kristen Meghan received a letter from Chase informing her of “changes in how we accept cash deposits.”

“When making a cash deposit please; be ready to show a valid ID – deposit only into accounts that list your name,” states the letter.

The move is another example of how banks are becoming increasingly invasive and restrictive with how they treat their customers, while crypto-currency alternatives like Bitcoin offer total anonymity.

According to Meghan, when she asked a Chase bank teller why cash deposits couldn’t be made into another person’s account, she was told that the new regulation was imposed by government request.

 According to Fox Business, Chase is “the first big bank to enact such a change.” Customers are already being asked for ID as of February 1, while cash deposits into accounts bearing someone else’s name will be banned from March 3 onwards.

Chase claims it is imposing the changes to prevent money laundering, although the policy is likely to cause massive inconvenience for families, such as parents who wish to deposit cash in accounts belonging to children who are away at college.

Representatives from Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo did not respond to questions on whether they would also be looking to impose the same rules.

Some analysts have speculated that such measures are a sign that banks are preparing for economic turmoil and potential bank runs. Last year it was reported that two of the biggest banks in America were stuffing their ATMs with 20-30 per cent more cash than usual in order to head off a potential bank run if the U.S. defaults on its debt.

This is by no means the first example of Chase imposing capital controls on their customers’ accounts.

In October last year, we reported on how Chase instituted policy changes which banned international wire transfers while restricting cash activity for business customers (both deposits and withdrawals) to a $50,000 limit per statement cycle.

The bank’s reputation was already under scrutiny after an incident last year when Chase Bank customers across the country attempted to withdraw cash from ATMs only to see that their account balance had been reduced to zero. The problem, which Chase attributed to a technical glitch, lasted for hours before it was fixed, prompting panic from some customers.

Other banks have also imposed capital controls in recent months, including HSBC, which is preventing customers from withdrawing larger amounts of money without written documentation proving how it is to be used.

Russian lender ‘My Bank’ also temporarily banned all cash withdrawals last month.

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*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

This article was posted: Monday, February 17, 2014 at 10:15 am

Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.

US Government want to track your DNA like a license plate

The federal government doesn’t just want the ability to track down your car; it wants to be able to track down your body as well.

Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals.

The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”

According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”

Documents WND located through routine database research reveal the ability to follow people by detecting “certain characteristics of operational interest” is designed for U.S. military and intelligence-gathering superiority.

It remains unknown when such capabilities might transition to the realm of domestic counterterrorism or law enforcement operations; however, the feds – through the Air Force Research Lab, or AFRL – are recruiting private-sector assistance in order to make this “biosignature” spying a reality.

Existing ISR systems are “ideal for identifying and tracking entities such as aircraft and vehicles, but are less capable of identifying and tracking the human,” the lab says in a planning document known as a Broad Agency Announcement, or BAA.

The Human-Centered ISR Leveraged Science & Technology Program will seek to develop, with outside help, technologies that the government can use “to identify, locate and track humans of interest within the operational environment,” according to solicitation No. BAA-HPW-RHX-2014-0001.

Research specific to fusing and analyzing sensor data has undergone consistent growth, but such efforts have been “system-centric” and fail to “adequately address the human element.”

This new research scheme seeks to strengthen the ability of intelligence analysts by placing the human component at the forefront of their efforts.

AFRL’s research could have implications for a variety of domains, such as air, space and cyberspace, it says. The program’s outcome also will broadly apply to other U.S. Department of Defense organizations and the intelligence community.

A second component of the AFRL initiative is the Human Trust and Interaction Program, which will conduct research into human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions.

This program segment entails several sub-areas, including Trust and Suspicion, which will focus on “the recognition of suspicious activities in the cyberspace realm.”

This segment will examine open-source data such as social media. It also will continue to leverage “more traditional intelligence sources.”

AFRL says it anticipates awarding three or four initial contracts for the overall initiative, which has an estimated program value of about $50 million.

The goal of this and other AFLR programs typically start out as largely theoretical, similar to the approach taken by the more widely known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which created ARPANET, the defense-system predecessor to the Internet.

The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, merely has to solicit bids from industry for a National License Plate Recognition, or NLPR, database system.

While DHS is soliciting this service specifically for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, functions, the breadth of this NLPR service encompasses the gathering of transportation-movement data from major metropolitan areas nationwide.

This database, which would be fed with information gleaned from multiple sources, would “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system,” according to the program solicitation.

The vehicle tracking-data then would be “uploaded to share with law enforcement.”

The database will be compatible with smart phone technology, enabling law enforcement offices to download thousands of listings – as well as close-up photos – of vehicle license plates.

Once DHS secures this service, the contractor must retain and make available data from previous months, as well as update the system with “new and unique” data monthly.

DHS anticipates awarding a one-year contract with four one-year options by May 14. It did not disclose the estimated cost.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/feds-want-to-track-your-dna-like-a-license-plate/#CVzVTH4vqQlIKbtJ.99

If America Continues To Go Down The Same Path As Europe, This Is What Life Will Be Like…

Becoming more like Europe is not a good thing.  But that is the path that we are currently on.  For the most part, Europeans live in a socialist “Big Brother” system in which the government completely dominates your life from the cradle to the grave.  Of course there are differences from country to country, but generally speaking the lives of most Europeans are very tightly regulated.  You see, the truth is that high levels of individual liberty and freedom are considered to be “dangerous” by the European elite.  They believe that if we are all allowed to just do whatever we want that it would result in utter chaos.  They are convinced that life is better when those that are smarter (them) control the lives of everyone else.  In essence, Europe is like a giant religious cult in many ways (minus the religion).  With each passing year, the number of rules and regulations governing the daily lives of Europeans steadily grows, as does the level of control.  If you try to live outside of that control, you could very well find yourself in a direct confrontation with the authorities very rapidly.

Just consider what is happening in Germany.  Authorities there have stated repeatedly that they do not believe in having any “parallel societies”, and therefore everyone must participate in the system that the government has established.

That includes all children.  In Germany today, almost all forms of homeschooling are illegal.  In fact, one judge shockingly ruled that one set of parents could not have custody of their children because they might move them to another country and homeschool them there…

A judge has issued a stunning verdict in a homeschooling case in Germany, ordering that the parents cannot have custody of their children because the family might move to another country and homeschool, posing a “concrete endangerment” to the children.

Dirk and Petra Wunderlich’s case made international headlines in August when 20 armed police arrived with a battering ram and forcibly took their four children from their home in Darmstadt, Germany, and enrolled them in public school.

As WND reported at the time, the children, ages 7 to 14, were taken into police custody. They were allowed to return home three weeks later when their father and mother, given no choice by the federal bureaucracy in Germany, agreed to allow their kids to attend public schools despite their objection to the social and religious instruction there.

Are you starting to see what I meant when I compared Europe to a cult?

In Europe, government is god, and everyone and everything belongs to the government.

Apparently, that even includes the life savings of their own citizens.  The following is from a Reuters article that was just posted this week…

The savings of the European Union’s 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost theeconomy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.

Did you catch that?  The EU apparently believes that they could use the private savings of their own citizens “to fund long-term investments” any time that they want.

But what if you don’t want your life savings to be invested in that way?

Too bad for you.

In fact, according to that Reuters article the EU wants to find ways to “mobilize more personal pension savings” so that there will be a larger pool with which to potentially fund long-term projects…

The Commission will ask the bloc’s insurance watchdog in the second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law “tomobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing”, the document said.

In Europe, they also tend to love any “Big Brother” technologies that will allow them to watch, track, monitor and record the activities of their citizens.

For example, it has been reported that in the UK there are 1.85 million video cameras watching the population, and London has been called “the most watched city in the world“.

The control freaks in the UK are so paranoid that it is even illegal to carry a knife in public, but despite all of their crazy laws the rate of violent crime in the UK is still far higher than it is in the United States.

Now, the UK has decided that all of the medical records for the entire population will be gathered into a single database.  The following is from a recent TechDirt article…

The UK government is currently building a database called care.data that will contain all of England’s medical records. It’s being promoted as providing valuable information for healthcare management and medical researchers that will lead to improved treatment.

But this database will not be private.  In fact, it is being reported that information from this database will be sold to drug companies and insurance companies…

Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients – including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits – once a single English database of medical data has been created.

Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in one place.

How would you feel if that was being done to your private medical information?

Not that the U.S. is a bastion of freedom and liberty these days either.

For example, Infowars is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security plans to launch a “national license plate tracking system”…

The Department of Homeland Security is set to activate a national license plate tracking system that will be shared with law enforcement, allowing DHS officers to take photos of any license plate using their smartphone and upload it to a database which will include a “hot list” of “target vehicles”.

The details are included in a PDF attachment uploaded yesterday to the Federal Business Opportunities website under a solicitation entitled “National License Plate Recognition Database.”

The system will “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) and uploaded to share with law enforcement” in order to help locate “criminal aliens and absconders.”

And for many more ways that the U.S. is becoming a “Big Brother society”, please see my previous article entitled “32 Privacy Destroying Technologies That Are Systematically Transforming America Into A Giant Prison“.

Another way that America is becoming more like Europe is in the area of religious behavior.

At one time, Europe was a hotbed for religious faith.  Of course those days are long gone.  And the United States is now heading down the exact same path, although Europe is still way ahead of us.  The following is from a Pew Research survey conducted a few years ago…

Half of Americans deem religion very important in their lives; fewer than a quarter in Spain (22%), Germany (21%), Britain (17%) and France (13%) share this view.

So why has religion become so unimportant?

Well, it is because that is what the government system tells them to believe from the time that they are little children.

As I mentioned earlier, the government dominates your life from the beginning to the end in Europe.  This even includes decisions about ending your life.

In fact, in Belgium they actually want to extend the euthanasia law to children…

Making the argument that everybody has the right to die, Karine Lalieux, a Socialist member of the Belgian House, is pushing legislation that would extend the country’s 2002 euthanasia law to minors under 18.

“Our responsibility is to allow everybody to live, but also to die, in dignity,’’ said Lalieux.

And in the Netherlands they actually have mobile euthanasia teams that go door to door helping elderly people end their lives in the comfort of their own homes.

Europe is not a model for the rest of us to follow.

Instead, Europe should serve as a stark warning to the rest of the world about what can happen when you let the control freaks get too much control.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/if-america-continues-to-go-down-the-same-path-as-europe-this-is-what-life-will-be-like