Wall Street Unmoved By Trade Deal Setback & More

Trade Deal’s Setback Left Wall Street Unmoved. Why?

Yet when the surprise vote failed, not only did the stock market as a whole barely react, but the stock prices of large American pharmaceutical companies — the most obvious beneficiaries of these proposals — also remained largely unchanged.

Greek Talks Seek Agreement as Germany Warns of Euro Exit 

Representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Stability Mechanism are waiting in the wings to join the negotiations if progress is made between Greece’s envoy and Juncker’s chief of staff. The aim is to reach a deal before markets open on Monday, the EU official said.

US egg prices took their highest monthly jump ever in May 

Iowa and Minnesota have taken some of the biggest hits from avian flu, but the outbreak has spread far beyond those two major egg-producing states, all the way to California, Oregon and Washington on the West Coast. It has yet to hit the East Coast, but in North Carolina—which has an $18 billion poultry industry—officials are already taking precautionary measures, including banning all poultry shows and public sales scheduled for mid-August to mid-January, ABC reported.

Writing's On The Wall: Texas Pulls $1 Billion In Gold From NY Fed, Makes It "Non-Confiscatable" 

“We are not talking Fort Knox. But when I first announced this, I got so many emails and phone calls from people literally all over the world who said they want to store their gold … in a Texas depository. People have this image of Texas as big and powerful … so for a lot of people, this is exactly where they would want to go with their gold.”

But isn’t New York, where most of the world’s gold is stored, also big and powerful? Why does the state of Texas want to go through the trouble of building its own storage facility?

Sprott Fund Managers: Sticky Contrarian Investors Wanted

First, it takes a lot of patience to be contrarian. You also need to have a lot of discipline. Probably more important than anything else, you need sticky investors. That's the hardest thing to get on the planet right now, an investor willing to stick it out.

Contrarian investors have to have the stomach to buy when the market is in the midst of a violent selloff, and they have to have the wherewithal to ride the volatility of the storm.

 Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

The Extinction Debate

Trade Sanctions Spur Global Crash

Mutual economic sanctions could drive world economy to financial crash

The Voice of  Russia

As most of the economies and financial markets are so much interconnected today, the economic pain from the sanctions the West is threatening Russia with, could very well be inflicted to the European Union, in the first place.

Currently, the EU imports one third of its gas from Russia. Russia is also Europe’s biggest customer. The EU accounts for around half of all Russian exports and imports. The overall trade between the two partners stands at around 360 billion euros per year now. Russia’s total exports to the EU stands at around 230 billion euros, while its imports amount to around 130 billion euros. The EU accounts for 75% of all foreign investments in Russia, which makes it the largest investor in the Russian economy.

In its latest press-release, Fitch Ratings agency stated that though it sees a considerable impact on Russia’s economic growth and investment if sanctions are materialized, it’s not clear whether the EU is ready “to risk the potential disruption” to its own economy. For now, the agency sees low growth and low investment for Russia till the current uncertainty over Ukraine is resolved, and given Russia’s robust sovereign credit profile, so far the events do not have implications for the country's 'BBB' rating.

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Could it affect Russia?