Currency

Sotheby’s will accept bitcoin or ether for $15 million diamond sale

Posted by Bérengère Sim, Market Watch

on Thursday, 8 July 2021 6:37

Recently minted cryptocurrency millionaires, unsure of what to do with their newfound wealth, can now bid for a $15 million 100-carat diamond at Sotheby’s auction — a first for a gem that valuable.

Sotheby’s 9 July auction comes as the art world and cryptocurrencies become more interlinked, with non-fungible tokens, which are smart contracts built on blockchain networks, selling for millions.

Those interested in buying the pear-shaped diamond can pay with either ether ETHUSD, -9.02% or bitcoin BTCUSD, -5.55%, and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Commerce will facilitate the payment.

“The most ancient and emblematic denominator of value can now, for the first time, be purchased using humanity’s newest universal currency,” said Wenhao Yu, deputy chair of Sotheby’s jewellery in Asia, in a statement.

“Never was there a better moment to bring a world-class diamond such as this to the market.”...read more.

Vancouver Home Prices See 5-Figure Monthly Drop, As Resistance Suddenly Appears

Posted by betterdwelling.com

on Wednesday, 7 July 2021 6:31

Greater Vancouver real estate prices have been on a tear, but that may be coming to an end. Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) data shows prices generally climbed in June. Broken down by region though, the trend isn’t quite as positive. In parts of the City of Vancouver, home prices have seen 5-figure drops in just one month.

Home Prices In The City Are Weaker Than The Suburbs
The price of a typical home advanced last month, but it was a much smaller increase than seen in months prior. The composite benchmark hit $1,175,100 in June, up 0.2% ($2,346) from a month before. That made home prices 14.5% ($148,812) higher compared to the same month a year ago. Though most of these gains were made further from the city center.

In the City of Vancouver, the composite price was a little more mixed. In Vancouver East, the benchmark hit $1,207,500 in June, actually falling 0.2% ($2,420) from the month before. In Vancouver West, the typical home reached $1,373,000, up 0.2% ($2,741) over the same period. The latter sounds impressive, but those prices are still lower than they were three years ago.

Vancouver Detached Prices Are Falling In Half The City, But Soaring In The Suburbs

Breaking it down by segment, most of the weakness is observed in the detached homes. The detached benchmark price was $1,801,100 in June, flat from a month before, which is odd… but what happened. Prices are still 22% ($324,789) higher than last year, but only 13.3% higher over the past 3 years according to the board. That works out to ~4.25% compound annual growth (CAGR), which doesn’t have the same wow-impact, does it?

Detached prices in the City of Vancouver were a little more mixed once again. In Vancouver East, the detached benchmark hit $1,696,500 in June, down 0.8% ($13,681) from a month before…read more.

US Oil Prices Soar To 6-Year High In OPEC Standoff

Posted by Tsvetana Paraskova, oilprice.com

on Tuesday, 6 July 2021 7:29

The U.S. benchmark oil price WTI Crude hit its highest level since November 2014 early on Tuesday, after OPEC+ on Monday called off its third attempt to reach an agreement over oil policy management for the coming months.

In Asian trade earlier in the day, WTI Crude touched $76.50 a barrel, narrowing the WTI/Brent Crude spread significantly.

After intense talks late last week and attempts at mediation during the weekend, the standoff between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia over the Emirati baseline production level wasn’t resolved and OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said in a concise statement on Monday that the OPEC+ meeting was called off. The date of the next meeting has not been decided yet.

The oil market immediately jumped on the news, as participants weighed the notion that no-deal about how to proceed with oil supply management would mean no additional supply from the OPEC+ alliance for August at a time when global oil demand is bouncing back with summer travel and re-opening of economies.

Most analysts expect oil prices to continue rising until OPEC+ meets again, which, according to reports and analyst estimates, could come at some point over the next one to three weeks. There is already talk about whether this will lead to another break-up in the OPEC+ union, after the collapse in March last year. Currently, a complete collapse of the deal is considered more of a fringe scenario of extremes, rather than a distinct possibility…read more.

Semiconductor Shortage Slams Auto Sales in June

on Monday, 5 July 2021 7:01

Toyota, after hoarding chips, blows away GM for first time ever.

Ford Motor was the last major automaker to report US sales for June on Friday. Most others reported US sales on Thursday. GM and FCA don’t report monthly sales; they only report quarterly, so Q2 sales. Tesla doesn’t report US sales at all; it only reports quarterly global sales, and the industry guesses its US sales. The semiconductor shortage and supply-chain fiasco were written all over auto sales in June.

June sales for the industry overall fell to 1.30 million vehicles, down 14.2% from June 2019, after a strong March, April, and May (data by Bureau of Economic Analysis). In terms of the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of sales, which takes the number of selling days and other seasonal factors into account and then annualizes the result, vehicle sales came out this way:
• June: 15.4 million SAAR, -9.5% from June 2019; except for the collapse last spring, it was the lowest for any month since January 2014.
• May: 17.0 million SAAR, -1.0% from May 2019.
• April: 18.6 million SAAR, highest total for any month in 16 years, +7.4% from April 2019.
• March: 17.9 million SAAR, +7.9% from March 2019.

Automakers have shifted production to their highest profit-margin units; and they’ve cut incentives, and dealers are charging record prices, over sticker in many cases. As a result, the average transaction price and average per-unit gross profits have spiked to records in June, as consumers have adopted a new attitude that I have never seen on dealer lots before.

Rather than haggle till they get the price down, or go on buyers’ strike as they had done for a couple of years during the Great Recession, consumers are paying whatever it takes to get a new or used vehicle as their whole mindset about inflation has changed.

But Ford’s total sales in June plunged 26.9% year-over-year to 115,789 vehicles, with retail sales down 32.5%. These are deliveries by dealers to their customers, or by Ford to large fleet customers, such as rental car companies.

Ford has given up on cars. The only “car” it still manufactures is the Mustang. It killed all its other car lines. And that sales volume just went to Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, etc. And total car sales, after having collapsed every year for years, collapsed by another 82% in June year-over-year, to just 2,868 Mustangs and a handful of leftover Fusions that were still sitting on dealer lots.

F-150 sales plunged 30% year-over-year in June to 45,673 trucks. In terms of SUVs, Escape sales plunged 40% to 8,871 units, Explorer sales plunged 38% to 9,445 units, and Expedition sales plunged 43% to 7,453 units. These are all popular models with plenty of demand…read more.

Mike’s Comment – July 3rd

Posted by Michael Campbell

on Saturday, 3 July 2021 10:20

A Thomas Sowell quote earlier this week got a massive reaction because it gets to the heart of what’s wrong with government.