And every time I see it, I can’t help thinking of this artsy, black-and-white, slow-motion ad for Springfield’s second-most-successful snowplow business:

#!/bin/bash
export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY={path to your AWS private key} 
export EC2_CERT={path to your AWS certificate} 
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jre
export EC2_HOME=/opt/aws/apitools/ec2

VOLUME_ID=`/opt/aws/bin/ec2-describe-volume-status | cut -f 2 | grep -e “vol-[[:xdigit:]]\{8\}”`
echo Volume ID is $VOLUME_ID

SNAPSHOT_ID=`/opt/aws/bin/ec2-describe-snapshots –filter volume-id=$VOLUME_ID –filter description=”Weekly backup” | sort -r -k 5 | sed 1,2d | cut -f 2`
echo Snapshot ID to delete is $SNAPSHOT_ID

/opt/aws/bin/ec2-delete-snapshot $SNAPSHOT_ID
echo Snapshot deleted

This finds and deletes the oldest snapshot with a description “Weekly backup” (you’ll need to change that if your automated backup script generates a different description), while always keeping the two newest snapshots. If you want to keep more snapshots, change the sed command: changing it from sed 1,2d to sed 1,5d will keep the five most recent snapshots instead of the two most recent.

European elections? What European elections? Never heard of ‘em. 

It says volumes, I think, that a dodgy Chinese midcap can defy the SGX’s market regulatory authority without any repercussions beyond a sternly worded (but weirdly petulant) letter from the exchange:

The Exchange reiterates that it will continue to communicate directly with any officer of any listed company. The Exchange will not allow any issuer to dictate how it regulates listed companies.

The Exchange reprimands the Company, and each and every one of the directors of the Board […] for their flagrant disregard of the Directive and for their non-compliance with the Directive in breach of Listing Rule 704(14).

Update: if ever there was a case that deserves to fail the laugh test, it’s this one: an ex-director of China Sky has sued the SGX to overturn the exchange’s reprimand.

Meanwhile, another director has had his assets frozen after spiriting at least $10 million  - and himself – back to China.

Update 2: as of yesterday, Deloittes have resigned as China Sky’s auditors, citing “a lack of independent directors”. What do you reckon that’s code for? 

On May 5, 2010, [Wilson Phillips] performed to an audience of 350 people at the 79th General Meeting of the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors in San Antonio, Texas.

Just a year-and-a-half after the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) started probing Profitable Plots for allegedly not paying investors, BT understands that it is on the trail of another land-banking firm – Canada-based Edgeworth Properties Inc.

The Canadian company has obtained court protection to restructure its operations which includes closing its Asian offices – putting more than 2,000 investors in Singapore in a bind over their land investments in the province of Alberta.

Apparently, they are part of a group of 4,000 Asian investors from countries including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand who had invested some C$70 million (S$88 million) in 12 parcels in Alberta between 2007 and 2011 but received land titles to only three of the properties.

Sources say that Singapore investors accounted for more than half of the C$70 million investment.

Edgeworth appears to have been double-dipping on its properties as well, allegedly taking investors’ money for the properties, then keeping the title and mortgaging the properties anyway. 

And another $50 million of small investors’ money goes down the drain. This is not the first huge retail-killing scam, not even the biggest, and it won’t be the last…

There’s a good reason for that: Cignarella’s piece nails the current sentiment in FX markets. 

Part of the problem is the (relatively) low levels of volatility we’ve seen over the last few months. Traders in any asset class make more money when the markets are more volatile (except credit, am I right?); after four years of record-breaking volatility, FX vol is pretty much back to where it was in 2002-2004, so there’s less money to be made. 

But the other, bigger part of the problem is that the structure of the FX market is changing in ways that can’t be reversed.

The rise of competing electronic bank platforms and five-figure pricing mean that spreads are collapsing: sub-1-pip spreads in EURUSD are now the norm. Volumes are increasing by 10-20% a year, but margins are being compressed even faster; the net result is lower trading income (as Deutsche reported yesterday). This isn’t limited to spot FX, either – spreads in forwards and options have collapsed as well.

And the job of liquidity provision itself has been spread thin. The launch of EBS Prime a few years ago gave hedge funds and algo shops access to Icap’s EBS platform – the world’s biggest interbank FX market, sorry Reuters – and allowed them to become liquidity providers instead of liquidity takers. Meanwhile, banks are cutting back on risk-taking; your average bailed-out Volcker-ruled bank no longer has as much appetite to warehouse its customers’ risk or take outright prop risk, which gives bank traders less opportunity to make money.

So there’s less spread to go around; what spread there is is being distributed between more price-makers; and the rangebound markets have made directional trades less lucrative. 

All of which means that Vincent’s piece has pretty much hit the nail on the head. Welcome to the brave new world of FX. 

I always thought it was the one-dimensional weather. And the smog. And the Toyota Camrys that cost as much as a 911 Turbo.

Someone at Toby’s Estate has been spending too much time on the internets.

Your editor is an FX options trader, exiled in sunny Singapore. JRE is finance, politics, economics, and a little bit of travel photography on the side.

The new “About JRE” page text: 

Your editor is a former FX options trader, now working in a San Francisco software firm. JRE is finance, politics, economics, and a little bit of travel photography on the side. 

Yes, this does mean I’m leaving trading; but it doesn’t mean an end to the financial side of JRE. 

My new job starts in July. In the meantime: stick around, it’ll be fun. 

(And if you’re in the Bay Area and want to catch up, shoot me an email at the address in the sidebar.)

Supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & explorer James Cameron; [...] and Ross Perot, Jr., the company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources’.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait has more:

Well now, what could that mean? What natural resources are there in space? Solar energy might count, but I have a strong suspicion what they’re really talking about is asteroid mining.

[…] The engineering behind it would be fearsome. We’re a ways out from being able to do this, but if we had a big rocket — say SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy (though I don’t see any SpaceX folks listed in the release) — then getting an operation to a near-Earth asteroid is feasible. Even a rocky asteroid would have metals in it, and we can pick in advance one that has a higher abundance of metals. And like I said in my TED talk, we can move asteroids around if we’re patient.

If I were being optimistic, I might say something like this could get off the ground in 20 years or so, depending on several variables, and maybe sooner. Let me be frank: I don’t think this is a crazy idea.

In other news, Aussie iron-ore billionaire and uninhibited thinker Clive Palmer was arrested last night for public intoxication, after he was found wandering down the streets of Brisbane screaming “bring it on you bastard, I’ll strip-mine you I swear to god” at the stupid moon.