Facebook will let some of its users see if they interacted with Russian propaganda www.businessinsider.com

Facebook said on Wednesday that it would let some of its users see whether they liked or followed pages belonging to Russia-linked operatives that sought to sow political divisiveness around the 2016 US presidential election.

Tesla Leads Surge in U.S. Asset-Backed Securities www.bloombergtv.mn

Led by Tesla Inc., the U.S. solar asset-backed securities market has had a banner year, more than quadrupling from 2016.

Britain sets aside $4 billion for Brexit www3.nhk.or.jp

The British finance minister says the UK is setting aside 3 billion pounds, or about 4 billion dollars, over the next 2 years in preparation for its exit from the European Union.

Oil Sets Itself Up for Fall If OPEC Can't Deliver Cuts Extension www.bloomberg.com

Oil traders and analysts almost unanimously expect OPEC and Russia to prolong their production cuts next week. However, behind the scenes Saudi Arabia and Russia are still debating what course to follow.

These high expectations, coupled with a recent surge in bullish bets on crude, amplify the risk to prices if the group can’t convince a hesitant Russia that it’s necessary to agree an extension right away.

“Anything but an extension supported by Russia would have a significant impact on the price,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S. “Not least due to the near record-long oil bet, which has left little room for error in terms of the communication from the OPEC ministers.”

Oil climbed to a two-year high in New York on Wednesday in anticipation that the reduction in oil shipments from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies would further diminish the glut that’s weighed on prices for three years. The cuts are a success, but the job isn’t done. To prevent the stockpile surplus expanding again, International Energy Agency forecasts indicate OPEC needs to maintain the cuts beyond their March expiry.

That’s what almost everyone expects to happen. All of the 36 analysts and traders surveyed by Bloomberg expected an extension, with another nine months of cuts the most popular prediction.

It’s also what OPEC’s largest and most powerful member wants. Last week, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told Bloomberg television the group should announce an extension of the curbs in Vienna because surplus inventories won’t be eliminated by March.

Russian Reservations

Yet the dominant non-OPEC participant in the deal has reservations. Russia believes it’s too early to announce anything this month, two people with knowledge of matter said last week. Another issue was the duration of the extension, with options including an additional three months of cuts being considered, they said.

Kuwait, the fifth largest OPEC producer and a member of the committee that oversees the accord, also believes the decision to extend should be taken closer to expiry, said people familiar with the matter. Ministers from both nations set out that position publicly at their last meeting in Vienna in September.

Saudi Arabia has had “extensive” consultations with Russia and feels “fully convinced” that country will be “fully on board,” Al-Falih said last week. Most seasoned OPEC observers tend to agree that the group’s most powerful member will prevail.

“Despite the signs that the Russians may be having second thoughts, I think in the end they are going to agree on an extension,” but it’s not a slam dunk, said Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale SA in New York. The Saudis may not get the extra nine months of cuts they’re pushing for and “if they don’t do anything it will be a severe disappointment to the market.”

These doomsday preppers are starting to switch from gold to bitcoin www.mining.com

(Bloomberg) — Wendy McElroy is ready for most doomsday scenarios: a one-year supply of nonperishable food is stacked in a cellar at her farm in rural Ontario. Her blueprint for survival also depends upon working internet: part of her money, assuming she needs some after civilization collapses, is in bitcoin.

Across the North American countryside, preppers like McElroy are storing more and more of their wealth in invisible wallets in cyberspace instead of stockpiling gold bars and coins in their bunkers and basement safes.

They won’t be able to access their virtual cash the moment a catastrophe knocks out the power grid or the web, but that hasn’t dissuaded them. Even staunch survivalists are convinced bitcoin will endure economic collapse, global pandemic, climate change catastrophes and nuclear war.

“I consider bitcoin to be a currency on the same level as gold,” McElroy, who lives on the farm with her husband, said by email. “It allows individuals to become self-bankers. When I fully understood the concepts and their significance, bitcoin became a fascination.”

At first glance, it seems counter-intuitive that some of bitcoin’s most ardent proponents are people motivated by the belief that public infrastructure will collapse in times of social and political distress. Bitcoin isn’t yet widely accepted as a method of payment and steep transaction costs make it inconvenient to use at vendors that do take it.

Preppers, as it happens, have a different perspective on what they see as the money of the future, which has surged 10-fold in the past 12 months as supporters lauded it as a digital alternative to rival the dollar, euro or yen.

Used to send and receive payments online, bitcoin is similar to payment networks like PayPal or Mastercard, the difference being that it runs on a decentralized network—blockchain—that’s beyond the control of central banks and regulators. It was born out of an anti-establishment vision of a government-free society, a key attraction for those seeking unhindered access to their capital in case a massive shock shuts down the banking system.

“Not too long ago, people in the prepper community were actively warning against crypto, and now they’re all investing in it,” said Tom Martin, a truck driver from Washington who runs a social-media website for people interested in learning skills to survive disaster. “As long as the grid stays up, people will keep using bitcoin.”

In addition to gold, silver and stocks, Martin invests in bitcoin and peers litecoin and steem because they’re easier to travel with, harder to steal and offer better protection in the event of the kind of societal breakdown that would unfold if a fiat currency like the dollar collapsed.

He’s among those confident that bitcoin can withstand even a complete blackout through the strength of the underlying blockchain, the anonymous public bookkeeping technology that records every single bitcoin transaction.

Discussions on the pros and cons of investing in crypto have popped up on survivalist forums like mysurvivalforum.com and survivalistboards.com this year as bitcoin rallied above $7,000. “Buy bitcoin” is now a more popular search phrase than “buy gold” on Google.

The buzz is starting to impinge on gold’s role as a store of value especially since, like the precious metal, there’s a finite supply of bitcoin, which proponents say gives it anti-inflationary qualities. Sales of gold coins from the U.S. Mint slid to a decade low in the first three quarters months of 2017.

“It’s definitely had some impact on the market,” Philip Newman, who does research on precious-metal coin sales and is one of the founders of research firm Metals Focus, said by phone from Washington. “People see bitcoin prices going to the moon. No one thinks gold is going to the moon.”

To attract investors who traditionally buy gold, several digital assets, like Royal Mint Gold and Anthem Gold, have been developed that are backed by physical gold stored in vaults.

Still, it’s hard to envision people walking around spending digital coins to buy Spam, canned beans or bottled water at a local supermarket when they don’t have electricity at home to charge their smart phones, let alone a working internet connection to access their digital wallets.

“I doubt bitcoin is a safe haven from an extreme-risk environment. In that sense, bitcoin isn’t gold,” said Charlie Morris, the London-based chief investment officer at Newscape Capital Advisors Ltd., which invests in cryptocurrencies and is building a price-discovery platform for them.

Bitcoin has also not reached the critical mass to be considered a viable currency to invest in, UBS Group AG’s Mark Haefele said in an interview. The total sum of all cryptocurrencies is “not even the size of some of the smaller currencies’’ that UBS would allocate to, he said.

Preppers, though, stock enough food and supplies to sustain them for months, if not years, and they expect whatever governing structure emerges post-calamity will prioritize getting the web back up and running.

“It may be difficult, if not impossible to access for a while, but once things start returning to some level of normality, then the blockchain will return as it was before the disaster,” said Rob Harvey, a bitcoin investor who prepares for natural and nuclear catastrophes by learning and teaching survival skills, like making a fire. “The blockchain does not need a specific place or a specific person to survive—that’s a strong survival tactic.”

“It is a people’s currency”
Interest in cryptocurrencies has started permeating the mainstream. When Morris surveyed hundreds of executives attending the London Bullion Market Association’s annual conference last month, one in 10 said they’d rather own bitcoin than gold following a nuclear war.

Along the fringe, the 20,000 libertarians expected to converge on New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project are also switching from precious metals. They like bitcoin because it isn’t created by a government, unlike conventional currency.

“You can use bitcoin for economic transactions in a way that gold was never designed to do because it’s a physical thing—it’s heavy,” Matt Philips, the project’s president, said by phone. “A lot of people don’t know what the heck to do with gold if you give it to them in exchange for a cup of coffee.”

Whatever doom-and-gloom scenario unfolds, McElroy, from Canada, has faith in bitcoin. She’s writing a book called Satoshi Revolution, inspired by the pseudonym of the person or people who created bitcoin in 2009 as an answer to the financial turmoil wrought by the global financial crisis.

She says the digital currency breaks society’s dependence on a state that uses its monopoly over the issuance of money to dominate the economy, making it a natural hedge against disaster.

“It is a people’s currency,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Bitcoins move seamlessly through a world without states or borders, obeying only the command of individuals who choose to deal with each other. Immune to currency manipulation and inflation, they do not serve the powerful elites at the expense of average people.”

Mongolia attends ASEM foreign ministers' meeting www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs D.Davaasuren led the Mongolian delegation to the 13th ASEM Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held on November 20-21 in Nay Pyu Taw, Myanmar.

November 22, 2017 trading report www.mse.mn

On November 22, 2017, 1,973,698 shares of 26 firms listed as Tier I, II, and III were traded. 13 firms’ shares increased in price, 8 decreased and 5 remained unchanged. Khunnu Management JSC /HBZ/ was the top performer, increasing 15.00 percent, whereas Tsagaantolgoi JSC /TSA/ was the worst performer, decreasing 9.09 percent.

ADB to provide a $50 million loan to help Mongolia sustain education quality and access www.akipress.com

AKIPRESS.COM - The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Board of Directors has approved a $50 million loan to help sustain access to and quality of pre-primary, primary, and secondary education in Mongolia, as continued economic difficulties pose challenges to the provision of quality education services in the country.

“Significant cuts in the education budget for 2017 and beyond constrain the government’s capacity to mitigate further deterioration of education services,” said Asako Maruyama, Education Specialist at ADB’s East Asia Department. “This would result in lost opportunities for pre-primary, primary, and secondary education, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, unless some mitigating measures are implemented.”

With declining foreign direct investment and falling commodity prices, Mongolia’s economic growth has slowed, from 17.3% in 2011 to 1.0% in 2016. The slowdown has led to large revenue shortfalls and cuts in government investment, requiring the government to adopt the Economic Recovery Plan supported by the International Monetary Fund and reduce public spending further. The education budget has been cut to a minimum, only enough to keep schools and kindergartens operating.

Meanwhile, seats in schools and kindergartens have increasingly become unavailable due to the growth in the school and kindergarten-aged population, which has been outpacing the construction and expansion of schools and kindergartens. During 2009-2015, enrollments in pre-primary education doubled, while the number of kindergartens increased only 1.5 times. Likewise, enrollments in primary and secondary education rose by 7.8% during 2012-2015, but only 13 schools were built. The gap in enrollment capacity has been widening particularly in Ulaanbaatar because of disproportionate population growth caused by internal migration. Of the 33 schools operating in three shifts in the country, 30 are in Ulaanbaatar.

The quality of education also suffers. The curriculum reform, which started in school year 2013 from primary education, remains incomplete without new curriculum for senior secondary education and reliable student learning assessment system. Adequate teaching and learning materials accompanying the new curriculum have not been developed or distributed to schools on time. Moreover, teachers, school managers, and local education administrators have received little training on the new curriculum.

The project aims to minimize these negative effects during this difficult economic period by narrowing the gap in the enrollment capacity of schools and kindergartens, and supporting the curriculum and associated assessment system reforms, provision of teaching and learning materials, and training of teachers, school managers, and local education administrators. It will also strengthen systems for planning and managing education services. The project will directly benefit about 15,000 children enrolled in 35 newly constructed or expanded schools and kindergartens.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, ADB is celebrating 50 years of development partnership in the region. It is owned by 67 members—48 from the region. In 2016, ADB assistance totaled $31.7 billion, including $14 billion in cofinancing.

Dollar dumped, bonds boosted on Fed inflation caution www.reuters.com

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares edged ahead on Thursday as speculation the Federal Reserve might not tighten U.S. policy as aggressively as first thought slugged the dollar and boosted bonds globally.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.15 percent to scale a fresh 10-year peak. Activity was light with Japanese markets closed for a holiday and the United States off for Thanksgiving.

The dollar was nursing losses after suffering its worst one-day fall in five months on Wednesday, while hitting a three-month trough against the Japanese yen.

The rout came after minutes of the Fed’s last meeting showed “many participants” were concerned inflation would stay below the bank’s 2 percent target for longer than expected.

That echoed comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen that she was uncertain about the outlook for inflation and led markets to pare back pricing for more hikes next year.

While a move in December to between 1.25 and 1.5 percent is still almost fully priced in, Fed fund futures <0#FF:> rallied to show rates at just 1.75 percent by the end of next year.

“The US dollar was already staggering into Thanksgiving when the FOMC minutes gave it another shove,” said Sean Callow, a senior currency analyst at Westpac. “The FOMC seems to be increasingly uneasy about ”ongoing softness“ in inflation.”

“Investors can be forgiven for wondering why they should buy more U.S. dollars if we are heading into a ”Powell pause“ in the first half of 2018,” he added, referring to newly appointed Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

BONDS GET REPRIEVE

Against a basket of currencies, the dollar was huddled at 93.277 .DXY, having shed 0.75 percent overnight.

The euro was enjoying the view at $1.1817 EUR= after climbing from $1.1731 on Wednesday. The dollar also crumbled to 111.23 yen JPY=, its lowest since Sept. 20. That was the largest single-day fall against the yen since May.

The Fed’s dovish turn helped break the inexorable sell off in short-term U.S. Treasuries, with yields on the two-year note US2YT=TWEB falling almost five basis points to 1.727 percent. That was the sharpest daily drop since early September.

Wall Street was an oasis of calm in comparison with the Dow .DJI off 0.27 percent, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.08 percent and the Nasdaq .IXIC added 0.07 percent.

Verizon (VZ.N) and AT&T (T.N) rose 2.0 percent and 1.6 percent respectively on bets they will benefit from the U.S. government’s plan to rescind net neutrality rules put in place by the Obama administration.

Commodities were buoyed by the dive in the dollar, with gold up at $1,290.56 an ounce XAU= having added 0.9 percent overnight.

Oil prices hit their highest in more than two years after the shutdown of one of the largest crude pipelines from Canada cut supply to the United States.

U.S. crude futures CLc1 were hovering at $58.00 a barrel after jumping 2 percent on Wednesday to ground last trod in mid- 2015. Brent crude LCOc1 was firm at $63.29 a barrel.

You can buy almost anything online in China, even a jumbo jet www.rt.com

Online shopping in China is reaching a new level after two Boeing 747 planes were sold on Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Taobao. This is the first time airliners have been purchased via an online auction.

The jets were bought by Chinese cargo airline SF Airlines for more than 320 million yuan ($48 million) from the Intermediate People’s Court in the city of Shenzhen, southeastern China, Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post reported. The court seized the Boeings after Jade Cargo International went bankrupt in 2013.