Walker88

No, not only stop loss. Risk management also means understanding where the weak points are. That is why I noted that because these are ISDA and private positions, no little retail trader is going to have a clue how much leverage there is in the market. The little guy is prisoner to the worst instincts of large traders. I traded professionally for a living as a hedge fund manager. I know how opaque markets like this are. There are so many factors about which a retail investor has zero knowledge, and there are a good many factors about which even a major player has quite limited knowledge, that risk management is more an art form than a science. Even major firms have risk management algos that are forced to make assumptions about volatility and the size of possible fat tails. We had position limits and VAR factors that I knew were bogus. I had to tweak things additionally so I could sleep soundly. Too many firms used the same algo, and it did not properly reflect the size of fat tails. Hence, 2008 happened. I know 100% that none of the crypto fanboys here have the slightest idea how much of their position is at risk. If they can afford to lose all of it and not have it impact their lifestyle, then okay, but otherwise, they would be well advised to cut back to a size where there is no impact. Maybe that is what you meant by your use of risk management. I use the term as we used it on the street.

Comments like that guy .com make are patently silly. It evidences either a total lack of understanding of how governments work and what they know, or it's just clickbait drivel. Markets and the economy dwarf govt. NOBODY in govt can possibly be on top of what's going on in private industry, and even if they were aware, they lack both the knowledge and tools to affect much of anything. There is always this meme of 'THEM': some cabal of manipulative, all-knowing, all-powerful leaders who work secretly behind the scenes, or in places/organizations like Bilderberg/Davos/Bohemian Grove/CFR/Trilateralists/Skull&Bones/etc. It's all pulp fiction and Hollywood B-fare, though it appeals to the unsophisticated, gullible and naive. Here's a secret: everybody at the top hates somebody else at the top, whether the 'top' means business or politics. They not only do not cooperate, they live for the schadenfreude of watching those they hate crash and burn. The world is far too complex with far too many players and variables for anyone to have any sort of control. I've had two primary careers that had me working with both govt leaders and business leaders. One thing you learn being in those circles is that it is all a crapshoot. There's no guiding hand. There is some expertise, but also lots of incompetence. In one way it is almost scary how out of control everything is. The greatest bit of control I ever witnessed was what Obama did in 2009. I don't even know how he pulled it off, but I will be forever grateful. Granted a good deal of it was dumb luck. No way 45 could have handled it. The entire financial system of the world was on the brink of total collapse. Lots of sleepless nights. Obama got the US banks to recapitalize and de-lever. He saved the insurance industry (had insurance collapsed, as it almost did because of AIG, planes would have been grounded, trains halted, trucks taken off the highways, food deliveries stopped), saved the Money Market, saved the auto companies, and rebuilt confidence in the banks. CONFIDENCE is all that separates the world's financial system from a world where we slaughter each other to get a meal. Think Hobbes or Cormac McCarthy. I doubt we could get so lucky again, so let's hope we suffer only a mild Recession. The US banking system is still pretty sound, but the rest of the world---EU and Asia---is a house of cards that could collapse at any time. (If anyone understands the very different ways the EU and Asia patched up from 2008, vs what the US did, then you understand why I would say House of Cards).

How is some little retail guy going to do proper risk management? (I use that term to define anybody holding less than $1-2 million of a position.) Michael Saylor pledged a good portion of his firm's btc holdings as collateral for loans to speculate in other ethereal dreamcoins. That is known. What is not known is how much of the rest of the btc float is pledged as collateral for loans for other large holders to speculate in other dreamcoins? Also, are there any Knockout options in the market? Since these would be private ISDA positions, nobody knows. If it turns out a large % of btc is pledged, and things begin to break, the market will gap lower, so somebody who thinks the have a stop at, say $27,000, might see the first print at $15,000, never having traded at $27K. Just because someone has a stop, if bids evaporate, the stop is meaningless and is executed at best bid.

No clearer example of the absurdity of the 'crypto revolution' than the demise of Luna. What a silly algo that was! Because of the manner in which Luna was pegged to it's 'unstablecoin' sibling, the algo created 6.9 trillion Luna coins last week. Rare they are not. That's about enough to give every human on the planet 1000 Lunas. Put another way, stand on Pattaya beach in front of the Hilton, and then look toward Bali Hai Pier. All of the grains of sand from Hilton to Bali Hai represent a Luna created last week. A bucket of beach sand has better long term value. But fiat is the scam, right? Yes, btc doesn't have the same sort of algo that Luna-crypt had, but btc has been pledged as collateral by funds borrowing to leverage positions in other coins whose value is tumbling. Since all of those collateral postings are private, holders of btc have no idea how exposed they are to the decline of any of the other 20,000 cryptos in existence. Maybe it's only a few million coins. Maybe it's like Synthetic CDO Squareds with CDS Yield Boosters like in 2008, where leverage was somewhere between 20:1 and 50:1. If it's the latter, btc might make Luna look like a value play. I don't know, and neither do any of the btc fanboys. MBSs and CDOs initially weren't too bad, as they had actual assets behind them (physical homes), with a middleman being the borrower. Then they began to get ugly as the borrower of choice became subprime, then subprime with an ARM. Still, a home owned by a subprime borrower with a miserable FICO score is still a physical entity whose value is above zero. Then it got worse when CDO Squareds entered the picture (aggregated portions of low-rated MBSs, which somehow got prime ratings). The killer was when synthetic entered the picture, which was leverage. Cryptos, best exemplified by 'guru billionaire Michael Saylor', used btc to leverage positions in other coins. In other words, he jumped the shark to the worst of 2008's mistakes. What makes his play potentially a lot worse is that there isn't even a poorly constructed house behind his asset; all it is is air, or the Greater Fool. He is pledging a dream as collateral for a fantasy. Welcome to the world of virtual wealth! Maybe it all ends well. Maybe not.

No, it's not a Ponzi. I don't think you know what a Ponzi is. The last 12 months of btc, where 55% of holders are new arrivals, is the definition of Ponzi: late arrivals funds are dispersed to early movers. In any event, even if a dollar has fallen by 72% in a period of 42 years (wages and most dollar-based assets have risen, so much is relative), that's a better track record than something that fell 60% in half a year, as btc has done.

No, fiat is civilization's way of making sure we have a widely available, accepted means of exchange so that we don't have to slaughter each other to get something to eat. Nixon, who took the US off the Gold Standard, realized the fact that fiat is backed by the taxing authority of the sovereign govt that issues it, which means a function of the ambition, drive and brilliance of the individuals who make up the economy. The US has the advantage of being a massive market, with fabulous liquidity, a decent rule of law that protects capital, and is a bit of a safehaven in times of global turmoil. Crypto is a system relying solely on the Greater Fool Theory. Because there is zero barrier to entry, coins are collectively even more infinite than fiat, but without the means of reducing supply via taxation or Fed actions. Each individual crypto, while perhaps being finite, is a flavor of the month. btc went up because it went up. It has stopped going up, and since 55% of it holders entered in the last year, the majority of holders are now losing. That will diminish the draw, and this new retail element, if it still has funds, will seek out the next big thing. All those waiting for 'recovery' can offer no logical explanation for why btc should rise again. Personally, I would wonder how it could be flat after a year, despite 55% new entrants, unless I accept that the originators are using, and have used, the hype to liquidate back into fiat. That should give pause. The last few times btc has tumbled, the large holders have come in when the market is thin on the offer side, and ramped it up to rebuild the hype. When the bid side filled in again, they hammered it and liquidated more. It is textbook pump and dump, and I tip my hat to their skill. They must have been penny stock dealers in their non-anonymous, pre-Satoshi days. How many more times will they do this? When will they decide they've cashed out enough, and just let it go on its own? If it doesn't rise, who are the weak hands that will begin to unload first, and could this result in a rout, since there really is nothing but air or hopeful sentiment behind it? In the BTS yesterday, I saw a major ad that ran along several trains. It said "Make Every Day Payday". It was an ad for something crypto related. That isn't reality, and reeks of a top, when traincar ads are used to excite retail. We'll see. I kind of expect another ramp up, but since I don't know who most of the major holders are, and they aren't about to tell me when they are going to pull the plug, I'll steer clear. Good luck to those who try. And if it goes to the moon, congrats to all the new gazillionaires. I also expect a good many horror stories of losses or of corruption or fraud or hacking to hit the wires over the next few weeks.

That's kind of a poor try at Whataboutism. Much of what you mention have actual uses in society. Everything is cost/benefit. btc has a massive cost in terms of energy use, but offers almost nothing to society. Even a single btc transaction---supposedly the cutting edge of modern finance---uses more energy than a typical US home uses in 28 days. As has been noted many times, btc mining uses more energy than the combined energy used by the companies Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple and Netflix. Those companies, however, provide goods and services that much more of society values than what extremely limited use btc has. (okay, I don't like nor do Facebook, but it is part of the example.) In a way it's ironic that rising energy prices, which contribute to inflation, helped knock the stuffing out of the Cryptoponzi. It does seem fair, however, as the three main drivers of fossil fuel price increases are 1) recovery from Covid, 2) the russian invasion of Ukraine, and 3) crypto mining. Energy prices are set on the margin, and when a massive marginal player enters the arena (crypto mining), it juices prices. And no, I don't envy those who bought cryptos at birth and made gazillions anymore than I envy a guy who bought a winning lottery ticket. I do rather enjoy how many day trading geniuses have suddenly appeared, and enjoy even more their rationalizations for watching a position fall 60%, but say "I'm still ahead". Had I left that much money on the table of any trade I did in my career, I would have fired myself. I never became a Crypto Cultist, and sadly, unlike those claiming bazillions gained in crypto, I'm just a poor run-of-the-mill multi-millionaire who retired before 40. That kind of B Team status, rather than Gazillionaire status, is good enough.

No, you left almost $40,000 per coin on the table, then watched as it fell 60%, holding on to the belief it must rise again. Why? It went up because it went up. In the last year it is flat to lower. The hype and dreams that lured in retail are fading quickly, so who is going to come in now? If you cannot instantly come up with a logical reason why it should rise again, then you are just hoping. 55% of all btc holders entered in the last year. Does that not tell you something? All those new 'investors' (sic), yet it is flat Y-o-Y. Maybe, just maybe, the originators are dumping into retail? I applaud the pump and dumpers. They have masterfully liquidated billions from there creation. Mr. Ponzi would tip his fedora to them. You know what traders call people who held a position that tumbled 60%? "Long term investors". It's not a compliment. There is 'smart money',' 'lucky money', and 'dumb money'. Smart money created the thing, or got in <$100. Lucky money came in somewhere in the thousands. Dumb money either came in in the last year, or else was originally lucky money that turned into dumb money by holding throughout a 60% drop. I readily admit to being 'lucky money', as I was a hedge fund manager who was able to retire in my late 30s. Maybe I was just disciplined, and would never have sat idle watching a position tumble 60%, then rationalize that with, "Well, I'm still ahead". Also, I would never marry a trade. Still, I'll admit to luck and enjoy my winnings. ANYTHING can go to ZERO. Nobody has perfect information, so that demands a trader/investor be ready to dump something that 'seemed' right, but market movements are now saying 'wrong'. I also know exactly whose fault it was if I let a position tumble so much. Of course btc could play Lazarus. Before I took a position, however, I would want to come up with a rationale for 'why'. I cannot think of one. Being 'finite' in a entity class with zero barrier to entry is meaningless. I would be particularly concerned about an entity with 55% new holders that is flat. Similarly, I would be concerned that something that rose simply because it rose, but has now traded flat for a year, might have had its Beanie Baby day.

Amateur hour. The guys who originally conjured these things love the retail attitude. Where one bought means nothing, except to the taxman. If someone holds a position that tumbles 60% from a high it experienced while one owned it, then that person is neither a trader nor investor, but just a dreamer. Barking about purchase price or how one 'still is ahead'---despite watching it tumble 60% while owning it---is 100% about ego. Move the stops, if one is lucky enough to make a profit. Maybe give it a little extra owing to the extreme volatility, but MOVE THE STOP. Nothing clears the head and allows one to be both rational and disciplined than exiting a position and taking a fresh look. Watching a 60% crash SHOULD prompt one to go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and tell that guy "You were wrong". Good traders do exactly that; dreamers find excuses, or bark about purchase price being 'so much lower'. Dreamers always think the market owes them and plan to wait until it rises again. Of course, rising again could take decades, or even never. From the Nikkei to Pets.com, there are always those 'waiting'. 33 years and counting, or never, is a lot of waiting. What is the rationale for why it must go up again? There is none. It's merely hope. Lots of people in markets lose everything to hope. "yes, but I know a guy who bought at $20 and made bazillions!". Did he liquidate? If not, he left a large fortune on the table. It might sound like a tautology, but btc went up because it went up. 55% of its holders entered in the last year, which is to say after the train left the station. At best they are even, but more likely they are losing. Now that btc isn't a rocketship to the moon, what is going to pull in new money? What's the draw? If all those folks entered in the last year, yet btc is flat, it 'kind of' suggests the originators and early movers are liquidating into retail. A massive holder cannot liquidate all at a top, but will maximize moving a large position by judicious selling, then ramp up buying if the market is thin to hype the thing, then more selling as the bid side fills in. That is the way 'whales' unwind. Again---what is anyone's rationale for why btc has to rise again? It isn't 'earnings', and since all the gurus have been proven dead wrong, it isn't going to be some hype from yesterday's hero cathie woods. So what is the reason? Maybe it's just hope. In the meantime, 'mining' and transactions continue to pressure fossil fuel price and are one of many key contributors to worldwide inflation.

Curious...'until the market recovers'....why should it recover? btc is going to show great 'earnings'? Curious what one's rationale is for why an entity conjured from thin air, with nothing backing it but the hope someone else catches the bug and becomes a cultist, should 'recover'? I ran a couple of trading desks on Wall Street. I would not have kept any staff member who held a position from $69,000 all the way down to Thursday's $26,000. If he tried to rationalize and say, "But I bought it at $1", I would have had Security escort him and his belongings from the building. Where one bought is of interest only to the taxman. If the trader thinks it matters, then that is ego, not trading nor investment. Markets love to crush ego. One should ALWAYS move stops in a winning trade. Because btc is volatile, maybe one could have moved a stop to $60,000 (pretty wide). Getting out of a position allows one to reassess without any emotionality. These cryptos were great for the mostly anonymous creators. They conjured something, got people like cathie woods or matt damon to hype them, then when retail became enamored of the latest get-rich-quick sure thing, the bid side filled in and the creators have been able to dump their holdings onto the masses. When a coin tumbles, the large holders then ramp it up again, rebuild the hype and dreams, and when the bid side fills in again with retail, hammer it yet again. Rinse and repeat. (one can forget for a minute the massive waste of energy 'mining' and transactions involve, though the planet and the price at the gas pump say this should NOT be forgotten) The draw of these things was the history and the rapid price movement higher. Now that a billion percent returns are not happening, the draw will fade. Retail will begin to look for the next Beanie Baby. If interest fades too much, the creators---who somehow are trusted as honorable even though no one knows who most are---will try to get whatever else they can from their holdings and butcher the thing....kind of like what is now the proverbial example of a pump and dump: Luna. "No matter how long it takes" I hope you are very young. Market peaks sometimes last for decades. In 1989 the Nikkei hit 38,915.87 on 28 Dec. 33 years later it isn't even in the 30Ks. When the Dow peaked in 1929, it wasn't until 1954 that it hit the same level again (nominal), and even that was a bit bogus, as companies in the index that went bust were replaced by new names. Silver and gold peaked in April 1980, and did not hit new highs for 31 years, despite their hyped "5000 year record of demand". Pets.com NEVER recovered, nor did Enron. Nor did Lehman Brothers. Not sure what the 'fundamentals' of btc are that could justify a 'recovery' to $69K. Good luck.

If we didn't have Stone Age myth and superstition, how empty our lives---and maybe even our museums and art galleries---would be! Heck, we'd barely get any holidays. Maybe we'd celebrate James Clerk Maxwell's birthday, but that pales in comparison to the really big holidays. So much damage has been done to deities by science, or rather, science spoils all the fun and is continually removing powers from gods, leaving them with little more than a couple of cheap parlor tricks. Then again, if one chooses willful ignorance, deities can take back center stage. No insult intended to other belief systems, but I think the Hindus have done it best. With around 3-4 million recognized deities, odds are at least 10,000 of them are celebrating a birthday on any given day, so finding a ceremony or party anytime is pretty easy. Take THAT, science!

Let's not forget that it wasn't the left who promoted the silliness that "Bill Gates is using the Covid vaccines to inject a microchip into you to control you". An entire truck-driving segment of a former POTUS' cultbase drove to Wash., DC to bark about something/anything, but by the time they got there the only gripe they had remaining was Bill Gates' microchips. That POTUS himself, a prime example of Dunning-Kruger if there ever was one ("I'm a really stable genius") said, "Maybe if we inject a little disinfectant....", then added, "All of these medical people are surprised by how well I understand this thing". Ah.....no, they were surprised at how dumb he was, and they were reminded in the worst way possible that there is an entire left side of the mean on the IQ Bell Curve, and those people can vote. Reagan (1980, so in line with the OP post) wasn't the brightest light in the sky, but he was Nobel-worthy compared to 45, who was---according to one of his profs at UPenn, 'the dumbest student I ever taught'. Obviously there is a reason 45 blocked every attempt to release his college transcripts. If there is a Pied Piper leading the forlorn into this New Age of Willful Ignorance, it is that bloated clown.

Didn't know you were a scientist. /sarc I'm smelling a bad case of Dunning-Kruger. You have proven my point of 'willful ignorance'.

You mean like accepting election defeats? QAnon silliness? Climate change a hoax? All right wing silliness. How about the talibangicals and bible thumpers who claim virgin births, skydaddies, Earth only 6000 years old, dinosaurs and people living together? In the US, the former POTUS is the epitome of willful ignorance, and he leads a cult that embraces stupidity, lies, and absurdities. The left embraces Frances Bacon's Scientific Method, and has been the guiding force to invention and discovery for generations.

I don't find it satisfying. That's the wrong word. Puzzling is more like it. I don't understand the collective suspension of logic and reality, believing something conjured by an anonymous person from thin air should, for reasons unknown, keep rising. Yes, each is created to be finite, but there is zero barrier to entry in the field, so in essence crypto is infinite. It is back only by the number of Greater Fools who exist and have spare cash. Fiat, for all its faults, has the advantage of being backed by the taxing authority of the sovereign govt that prints it. That means a fiat is backed by the collective brilliance and ambition of the people who make up a society, start and manage its businesses, etc. In the US, it is also backed by extremely liquid capital markets, rule of law, and a pretty powerful military. Cryptos are absurdly energy wasteful, and 'mining' has played as much a part in the rise of oil as the russian aggression. Ecologically and environmentally friendly cryptos are not. One cannot, absent pure hypocrisy, be a fan of something like btc, but worried about climate change. Finally, how does someone watch their position tumble from almost $69K to $26K? Where one bought is meaningless, except to the taxman, or for the buyer's ego. Move the stops! Clearly, those who sat hoping, as it tumbled, are neither traders nor investors; they're dreamers who married a position and let their egos control their financial decisions. That generally leads to failure, even if one has a profit for a while. It's a habit that eventually takes a bite, perhaps in a future trade not entered so lowly. There may be room for a crypto or two, but probably not anymore than that. Its uses are limited, and the current universe of players are there because they saw something rising. Once disabused of the 'rocketship to the moon' fantasy, they will go back to beanie babies or whatever the next fad is. What coins survive will likely be late entries, as they will have learned of the inadequacies of early movers, then conjured a better mousetrap. It's kind of like MySpace. It beat Facebook to market, but Facebook built something better. Also, Lycos came to market long before Google, but it got dwarfed and was gone. Don't know who the eventual winner will be, but I suspect it is neither btc nor eth.

If the very large holders of ethereal entities like btc and eth still have a lot of their portfolio, expect them to come in and do a major ramp back up into the 30Ks. They need the bid side to fill in with dreamers so they can hammer it and liquidate more of their stuff. They have been doing this quite successfully for the last few years. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times or more, call me 'retail'.

No. Crypto is not too big to fail. Crypto offers no value to society, but has a massive cost in terms of wasted energy. Better for fossil fuel prices and the environment if it evaporates back into the thin air from which it was conjured. Those who will lose tend to be recently made paper rich. Very few major entities like banks or corporations---which DO add value to society in terms of products, services and jobs---are heavily exposed to crypto. A few might get hurt, but they will serve as a lesson to like-minded foolish CEOs. I would say the odds of any sort of bailout for crypto losers is slightly less than the odds I will be playing slot receiver on the Tampa Bay Bucs come September. I'd like to, but I admit to having lost a step or two since university.

I think you are a bit confused about the nature of banks. The rates banks pay is a function of general market rates. Banks tend to depend on an upward sloping yield curve, as most of their funding is short term, so they borrow cheaply (relative) and loan long. If market rates---say 10Y USTs---are 8%, as they were for much of the time until the first dot-com crash, then banks might pay 5-6% on your savings. Banks tend to need a spread of 200+ pips to cover all of their costs, both fixed and variable. In case you didn't notice, 10Y rates have been averaging about 1.6% for the last few years (mostly since the 2008 Financial Crisis). The 10Y is generally used to price mortgages, which is why mortgage rates have been so low for so long. Now factor in a bank's need for a spread, and the fact most of their funding is short term, and you can easily see why their rates are so low on call items like savings for depositors. It isn't corporate greed, it's 'how do we remain an ongoing concern?'. Now that the 10Y has moved up, and the Fed has raised short term rates, banks will soon offer you a better return. Best you don't wish for a return to the historical average, however, because the worldwide debt bubble will burst if rates returned to the mean. Just consider the US and its debt of $28T. Each 1% upward shift in the Yield Curve adds about $280 billion to the YEARLY deficit (depending on the tenor of the outstanding US debt and maturity schedule). A return to the historical average of 8% on the 10Y, which generally would have 30 day TBill rates around 6%, and the US would suffer an additional trillion plus in yearly deficits just from debt service. Now credit cards charging 29% are a different story, but that is a combination of greed and deadbeat borrowers who max out their cards.

Never has so much of the body of human knowledge been at people's fingertips, and never have people shunned knowledge to the extent they are today. It's as if everyone---especially right wing politicians---is demanding a new Dark Ages. I think their demands will be met. Humanity takes three steps forward, then two steps back. We're going backwards now. I'm glad I don't have, nor ever will have, kids (unless there's a lapse of judgement). The world they would be inheriting is one of willful ignorance.

I'm going to guess the guy's handle on YouTube was BTC 555. From what RafPinto posted about the guy, BTC 666 would have been more appropriate.

And all these conjured from nothing things, created by unknown people with an unknown intent, should go back up because why? Because it used to be at a higher price? Because you used to have a higher paper net worth? It certainly isn't because any of these entities will have 'good earnings'. Retail came late to the party, and the founders used retail's enthusiasm and naivete to unload much of what they had created. Usually they pump these things back up, but there will come a time when they've cashed out enough and passed on the pie-in-the-sky dream to the Greater Fools. Maybe that is now, maybe not. A guy I once worked with, when he began trading, used to keep a sign above his trading desk that said "Losers Average Losers". I used that in my own career as a hedge fund manager. It was wisdom I was happy to steal. Another bit of wisdom I stole was to continually move up my stops in a winning position. Neither I nor the market gives a flying f where I put the position on. Only the taxman cares. Obviously lots of folks in crypto failed to do that and are now living on hope. Incidentally, the guy is now worth $7 billion and is on the Forbes List of Billionaires.

Saw this question from the IQ test: Q: You're the cashier in a shop. A customer buys something for 80 baht and hands you a 100 baht note. You? a) Do the math in your head to make correct change b) Grab a calculator and subtract 80 from 100 c) Grab a calculator and subtract 100 from 80 d) Tell the customer you cannot sell between 2PM and 5PM whatever he is trying to buy e) Just grab some change and give it to him, as he won't know how much he is owed either

Schools closed = at home IQ tests Hmmmmmm............the honor system

Just a guess, but I think they used a Fahrenheit kind of scale to get the results....you know...like 40 degrees C isn't as hot as 104 degrees F. One might expect, if the 10.4% above 130 was real, that the country would have produced one or two Nobel winners, or even added something---anything---to the body of human knowledge, but alas...ZIP.

"One of the fastest growing economies" I was curious so took a look at both GDP numbers and debt levels going back to 2010. Conclusion: there was little to no organic growth in Thailand for a decade. What growth there was---and it wasn't that much---was debt fueled. The rise in corporate bond issuance was about +11% per year. Household debt is at an all time high. Thailand theoretically has lots of FX reserves, but these are not in a box somewhere. They are already committed to something. The govt recently announced another huge sovereign debt offering, so flush with cash they are not. The banking sector is a black hole, owing to shinanigans allowed during Covid. First, there were several periods of debt moratorium, which masks NPLs. Second, accounting rules allowed for imputed interest, meaning that a bank could run interest payments received through the income statement, even if the borrower wasn't repaying. Third, recent rule changes now allow banks to buy asset management companies that engage in debt workouts. Of course, the rules regarding consolidation on the parent's balance sheet are hazy, so it seems this was done to allow banks to shift NPLs to a self-owned debt workout company, then be allowed to not consolidate. In other words, the NPLs become hidden. None of this bodes well for RE prices, so.....even a falling gold price looks better than what is an increasingly opaque RE and banking sector.