Alice in Christmas Wonderland – a Cautionary Tale
Alice has seen some amazing things as she’s moved around in Wonderland. How could she forget that tea-party where she met those...
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geoffreysambrook
Dec 11, 2013
Who'd be a Forecaster……
During the summer, I enjoy sailing my boat around the Solent and western Channel, so I have a natural interest in weather forecasts....
geoffreysambrook
Dec 4, 2013
Even Refs Apologise Sometimes
A week or so ago, Premiership Football referees’ Chief, Mike Riley, apologised for a poor decision in the match between West Bromwich...
geoffreysambrook
Nov 27, 2013
Value
With all the monetary instability we are facing on a global scale at the present time, should we continue to trust the role of central...
geoffreysambrook
Nov 21, 2013
Politics and Mining – a Grubby Mixture
For those who revel in a juicy courtroom drama, there’s a fascinating tale unfolding in the High Court in London at the moment. It’s a...
geoffreysambrook
Nov 14, 2013
Benchmark Blues
The Libor rate rigging scandal has followed a familiar pattern. The banks agree to pay large fines. Emails are produced as evidence of...
geoffreysambrook
Nov 7, 2013
Price Fixings….
If you were designing a price discovery mechanism which would be used as the reference for trillions of dollars (or pounds, or euros) of...
geoffreysambrook
Nov 1, 2013
Of New Contracts and Commitment of Traders
Amongst all the he dissatisfaction with the LME’s aluminium market expressed by some of the big beasts of the aluminium world there have...
geoffreysambrook
Oct 21, 2013
Dagong Downgrade – Sometimes Little Ripples Become Big Waves
Amongst all the debate, analysis and comment surrounding the tortured attempts of US executive and legislators to agree how to reconcile...
geoffreysambrook
Oct 15, 2013
LME Dinner 2013 – Reading the Runes
Well, there’s another LME Dinner out of the way. The (quasi-)competitive ‘it’s my 30th’, ‘my 35th’, ‘my 29th’and so on amongst my...
geoffreysambrook
Oct 3, 2013
High-Frequency Trading – Cost or benefit
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about glitches in computer trading (see Lord Copper 3rd September 2013 “Fat Fingers and...
geoffreysambrook
Sep 26, 2013
Gold – An Inconvenient Truth
“Bad money drives out good” – Gresham’s Law was named after Sir Thomas Gresham, a sixteenth-century financial agent of the English Crown...
geoffreysambrook
Sep 19, 2013
The Trouble with Addiction
The problem with addictive substances is that while they may be pleasant, they are also addictive. Global monetary policy setters are...
geoffreysambrook
Sep 12, 2013
When is a Contract not a Contract
When is a contract not a contract? Most of us – particularly those from an LME background – assume that once a deal is agreed, then it...
geoffreysambrook
Sep 6, 2013
Summer Pause in Aluminium Squabbles
It almost feels like a pause, perhaps a period of phoney war in the aluminium world, presumably brought about by summer vacations –...
geoffreysambrook
Sep 3, 2013
Fat Fingers and Responsibility
The summer holidays are always a good time to catch up with some reading, and I brought ‘The Fear Index’ by Robert Harris with me to...
geoffreysambrook
Aug 22, 2013
What Data Vendors can Learn from Apple
Today’s article is by James van Bregt. The dissemination of information – data, statistics, news – is a vital part of the market. In this...
geoffreysambrook
Aug 20, 2013
Winners and Losers in the Aluminium Stakes
Since LME aluminium warehousing hit the headlines and the lawsuits started to be flung around, premiums have begun to soften across major...
geoffreysambrook
Aug 14, 2013
Stalling Sun, Rising Dragon?
I’ve just been reading a book called ‘Rising Sun’, by Michael Crichton (he of Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park and ER fame). It was...
geoffreysambrook
Aug 8, 2013
New Aluminium Wars
“Aluminium Wars” is a phrase familiar to those of us who were around and dealing in Russia during the first part of the 1990s; if we...
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